Saturday, April 17, 2010

Friday, April 16, 2010

Traveling In Internet Hell

Thus The Reason For No Recent Posting...


More later...



...It's later now, and I'm a little under the weather suddenly and I've had a long couple of days traveling and visiting with people I've known for somewhere between 29 years (an old Architect employer/friend) and some others I went to grade school thru High School back in Alabama starting about 45 years ago.

The place we're staying here in the Bent Tree Resort in the North Georgia mountains had four deer standing virtually in our front yard as we entered the driveway and we had to wait for them to wander out of the roadway in broad daylight so we could enter the driveway.

We're here to attend my first "Mancamp" (actually the fourth annual for most of the rest of the group) and they made an exception to allow me to bring Pat and little Missy the Turbo Pup as long as they had separate accommodations for the three day/two night event.

I just rented our own house for the weekend, which was no problem because the house that one of my classmates owns nearby has seven guys sleeping in a three bedroom house (read that there's people sleeping on the floor and on the sofa...etc.)

Meanwhile I have two bedrooms and three beds and two sofas for two adults and one Turbo Pup. I offered to let someone come over and use the extra bedroom but they all wanted to hang around and drink and tell lies all night...so go figure.

The vistas and views are absolutely stunning from our back deck...there's mountains and a blue colored lake. I'll take some photos and post them tomorrow after the sun rises.

I have the official Mancamp title of "Chief Creek Watcher" because during this visit I'm designing a repair support system for an existing concrete patio extending out over a beautiful mountain Stream/Creek along the back property line. The support footings have been eroded and the concrete is sagging and I'm planning on putting in a giant wooden beam and "jacking that sucker back up.

So any way, it's time for me to get a little sleep because I'm cooking a Brunch consisting of pancakes and eggs and sasausage for seven hungry men and Pat and the Turbo Pup about 10:30 tomorrow, and I'm doing two of my soon to be fameous Rogers' signature Pizzas tomorrow night.

Yall have a LOVELY weekend...

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

More Crap What Pisses Me Off

Charging Extra For WiFi?


I'm sorry, but I don't think that there's hardly a day that goes by these days when I somehow have to subdue the inner urge to rip the arm off of someone I meet in public and proceed to beat them to death with it...

Why?

Because they're so obsequious purple and clairvoyant annoying or just basically STUPID...judging from the behavior I've been forced to endure in the fifteen minutes or half day proceeding the removal of their limb and fatal bludgeoning.

I guess that you can just attribute it to the process of me getting old.

Which is better than the alternative I guess...

Some out there would suggest it's a textbook case of being a Mean Old White Male Caucasian Asshole (or MOWMCA...for short.)

Whatever...I didn't aspire to the condition, but I suffer from a severe case of it none the less.

Believe me, I try to be patient...

But..,

These days it seems that the only certified solution that doesn't involve legal or medical professionals is for me to just stay home most of the time and then when I have to go out to carefully plan where I go and when I get there.

Thus travel on major holidays like Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day are permanently on my personal "no fly list" and if it weren't for family considerations Thanksgiving and Christmas would be spent in my basement pounding on the laptop and/or watching reruns of Mike Rowe's "Dirty Jobs."

Take this week's trip to Atlanta, for instance...

I don't want to directly offend anyone with this posting, but just let me say that I've seen more stupid behavior in the process of going down there and back in the past 72 hours--mainly from people of other races than my own--than I've seen in the past TWO YEARS.

And what scares me most it that some of these people VOTE.

Let's just leave that at that...

But then again what really got me pissed off was when I arrived at my Hotel...the brand of which is part of the HILTON--as in Paris Hilton--Chain...and found out the their Internet teaser rate did not include Internet.

Isn't selling room and boarding on the Internet without including Internet access a major Oxymoron?

Want Internet?

That costs an extra $9.95 per day?

WTF?

Answer me this...

What hotel, in the middle of a major metropolitan area, in the year 2010, doesn't include "free" WiFi Internet service in their pricing?

Just like when they leave out the price of taxes and surcharges and service fees on your cell phone pricing...why not just "cut to the chase" and tell me what I'm going to PAY IN TOTAL rather than teasing me with prices I will never spend a single night paying.

Don't force the desk clerk to look me in the eye and tell me while I'm standing there with a 25 pound bag full of cameras and 17" HP 250 GB hard drive computer that they're going to make me jack around once I get to my room "logging in" and authorizing extra charges to my credit card while their stupid system locks up and reboots and re-hashes and re-regurgitates and generally just makes me crazy.

Seriously...the building was full of BUSINESS TRAVELERS.

People with two and three cell phones and I gauran-damn-tee you every single one of them had a computer attached to their hip or their forehead or their thigh and the whole concept of charging EXTRA...instead of just putting Internet service in the basic room fee, was in my considered Redneck opinion...

S T U P I D

and unethical because they charged by the day and I would have stayed at another hotel if they told me that up front, even though the law firm/insurance company that hired me is paying the bill.

It's just the "principle" I'm objecting to, something that school "Principals" apparently stopped teaching about thirty years ago

And there you have it Ladies and Gentlemen, my agreement with the theory that more money is stolen by people wearing a suit and tie than are taken each day by the ones employing crow bar and wearing a ski mask.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

On The Road Again

Get Me Out Of Here....


OK...I proved I could do it again.

What, you might ask?

Spending three days and two nights in Atlanta.

I'll be back home to the Turbo Pup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River by dinner time tonight.

I'm ready to see my girls...

Monday, April 12, 2010

Live From Atlanta

Dead Actually...


As announced, I'm in Atlanta doing Forensic Injuneering Today--thus the lack of posting due to travel Sunday, a dinner meeting Sunday night, and the morning spent standing around with a hard hat and safety glasses looking at wierd stuff with pipes and wires hooked to it.

I'm tired, having missed my nap, so I think I'll go now and take one.

More later

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Sophomore Machine Design Class Lecture At Georgia Tech

After The Fraternity Party EVERYTHING Sounded Like This...





(I forgot to mention that I'm still working on the "Rogers Turbosonic Pulse Doppler Laser Nippleometer"...a device which can measure the ambient temperature by reflecting a highly columated beam of high intensity light off of random women's breasts...)


Heh...



Thanks Rodge