Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Technological Dinosaur Living In Technology Hell
An Old Friend Dies...
So I hate to report that late yesterday afternoon I stumbled into my neglected Home Office for the first time in a couple of days, intent on printing out an AutoCAD file I had e-mailed myself from my company laptop sitting out on the coffee table in the living room.
But upon arrival I learned some bad news...
Earlier I had noticed that the slightly more than 4 year old machine had been rebooting itself for some reason almost every day or so in the past weeks and I just assumed that stupid Windows Vista was doing automatic updates, BUT...
not this time...apparently...
Either the computer has some sort of Alzheimer's type disease else the primary hard drive has crapped out.
Dang it...
But any way...
I'm supposed to have a couple of versions of back up files on a 400 gig external drive and a newer Terabyte drive, along with "recovery disks" and possibly a "recovery partition" available somewhere in the building but you know what?
Bottom line is that I don't have time to worry about this old friend of a computer which has served our household very well since November 2007 when we were living in bliss down on the Georgia Coast on St.Simons Island.
I have things to do and people to meet and talk to and a new hard drive and the associated installation and cursing will just have to wait until sometime in 2012.
Regards's Y'all...
So I hate to report that late yesterday afternoon I stumbled into my neglected Home Office for the first time in a couple of days, intent on printing out an AutoCAD file I had e-mailed myself from my company laptop sitting out on the coffee table in the living room.
But upon arrival I learned some bad news...
Earlier I had noticed that the slightly more than 4 year old machine had been rebooting itself for some reason almost every day or so in the past weeks and I just assumed that stupid Windows Vista was doing automatic updates, BUT...
not this time...apparently...
Either the computer has some sort of Alzheimer's type disease else the primary hard drive has crapped out.
Dang it...
But any way...
I'm supposed to have a couple of versions of back up files on a 400 gig external drive and a newer Terabyte drive, along with "recovery disks" and possibly a "recovery partition" available somewhere in the building but you know what?
Bottom line is that I don't have time to worry about this old friend of a computer which has served our household very well since November 2007 when we were living in bliss down on the Georgia Coast on St.Simons Island.
I have things to do and people to meet and talk to and a new hard drive and the associated installation and cursing will just have to wait until sometime in 2012.
Regards's Y'all...
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
A Technological Dinosaur Moves Into The 21st Century
In the Words of My TV Idol...Jim Nabors..."ShaZammmmm"....
You know, thinking back afew thousand years a couple of two or three decades, there was a time sometime beginning in the late 1970's and ending in the early to mid 1990's when I seriously considered myself to be on top of all things relating to personal computers and home technology goodies.
For cost reasons I couldn't actually OWN all of the stuff I was reading about and salivating over, but I did manage to get my hands on a couple of pretty good early computers in their day, but still...
Not so much any more these days.
I don't know what happened in the past 20 or so years, but I just sort of lost interest in keeping up with everything and decided to let all of the younger people out there worry about the hectic process.
I let myprescription subscription to Byte Magazine and PC World expire, and between WebCams and Facebook and Twitter and God knows what else that's come along other than Blogging....
and I've had a cell phone since 1990...waaaaYYYYYY before most people had them....
Today I just don't seem to have the time and energy to worry about the stuff I used to worry about any more.
That said, Pat wanted a Amazon Kindle for Christmas this year.
At the last minute I wandered out and found one of the new Kindle "Fire" boxes at the local Staples office supply store and I brought it home and until tonight/this morning I've basically just let her charge the battery and figure out how to use it.
Then after she went to bed tonight I was fiddling around in the living room doing some paper work and decided to pick the thing up and read the owners manual.
After a couple of hours downloading some free Apps and getting used to the Android interface I have to emphatically state that...
THE KINDLE FIRE IS PRETTY DANG COOL FOR THE PRICE OF ONLY $199.
I spent 15 minutes fumbling around and managed to download the Netflix App and now I can watch Video on the darn thing in COLOR...using our wireless internet connection.
ShazammmmmMMM...
My Father would absolutely go nuts these days looking at the stuff we all take for granted in our modern culture/society. He was a TV/VCR movie junkie in his day and grew up living beside the guy that did all of the TV repair in his home town of Prenter, WV back in the 1940's
Our house was always full of portable TV's and oddball Tube based Radios and even early Transistor Radios (and Crystal sets) way before the average household had even Two TV's in the building.
Now my Mom has two flat screen TV's down in Alabama at the Farm and I'm buying another 55" set for the living room this weekend if I can find a good deal and Dad never saw a LED/LCD/Plasma TV since he passed away in 1996 and missed the revolution in video technology.
The hardest thing about getting older and living beyond a half century on the calendar is keeping things in perspective I think.
We tend to see everything in one or two year slices of time and I belive it is nice to stop and reflect at the end of each year and consider the details which are often overlooked in the rush to move from late December into January 1st and the new year of 2012.
I guess I'll go now and fiddle around with the Kindle some more now...
Regards Y'all...
You know, thinking back a
For cost reasons I couldn't actually OWN all of the stuff I was reading about and salivating over, but I did manage to get my hands on a couple of pretty good early computers in their day, but still...
Not so much any more these days.
I don't know what happened in the past 20 or so years, but I just sort of lost interest in keeping up with everything and decided to let all of the younger people out there worry about the hectic process.
I let my
and I've had a cell phone since 1990...waaaaYYYYYY before most people had them....
Today I just don't seem to have the time and energy to worry about the stuff I used to worry about any more.
That said, Pat wanted a Amazon Kindle for Christmas this year.
At the last minute I wandered out and found one of the new Kindle "Fire" boxes at the local Staples office supply store and I brought it home and until tonight/this morning I've basically just let her charge the battery and figure out how to use it.
Then after she went to bed tonight I was fiddling around in the living room doing some paper work and decided to pick the thing up and read the owners manual.
After a couple of hours downloading some free Apps and getting used to the Android interface I have to emphatically state that...
THE KINDLE FIRE IS PRETTY DANG COOL FOR THE PRICE OF ONLY $199.
I spent 15 minutes fumbling around and managed to download the Netflix App and now I can watch Video on the darn thing in COLOR...using our wireless internet connection.
ShazammmmmMMM...
My Father would absolutely go nuts these days looking at the stuff we all take for granted in our modern culture/society. He was a TV/VCR movie junkie in his day and grew up living beside the guy that did all of the TV repair in his home town of Prenter, WV back in the 1940's
Our house was always full of portable TV's and oddball Tube based Radios and even early Transistor Radios (and Crystal sets) way before the average household had even Two TV's in the building.
Now my Mom has two flat screen TV's down in Alabama at the Farm and I'm buying another 55" set for the living room this weekend if I can find a good deal and Dad never saw a LED/LCD/Plasma TV since he passed away in 1996 and missed the revolution in video technology.
The hardest thing about getting older and living beyond a half century on the calendar is keeping things in perspective I think.
We tend to see everything in one or two year slices of time and I belive it is nice to stop and reflect at the end of each year and consider the details which are often overlooked in the rush to move from late December into January 1st and the new year of 2012.
I guess I'll go now and fiddle around with the Kindle some more now...
Regards Y'all...
Monday, December 26, 2011
I Was Going To Write Something Original This Evening
Then I Came Across THIS from HERE
In the queue at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."
The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment."
He was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.
We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.
Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then.
Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.
But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?
In the queue at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."
The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment."
He was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.
We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.
Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then.
Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.
But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?
In the queue at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."
The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment."
He was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.
We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.
Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then.
Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.
But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?
The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment."
He was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.
We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.
Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then.
Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.
But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Christmas Insanity
Spending Mo Ho Ho Ho Money...
Oh where to start this morning?
Been busy as heck out here in Tulsa these days. This working 8 to 10 hours a day in an office and then trying to come home and eat dinner and get stuff finished up around the new house is HARD.
Needless to say my blogging has been suffering as seen here by the light posting.
Maybe things will settle down here a little with the passage of Christmas and I can get back to ranting again.
Untill then...
Regards y'all...
Oh where to start this morning?
Been busy as heck out here in Tulsa these days. This working 8 to 10 hours a day in an office and then trying to come home and eat dinner and get stuff finished up around the new house is HARD.
Needless to say my blogging has been suffering as seen here by the light posting.
Maybe things will settle down here a little with the passage of Christmas and I can get back to ranting again.
Untill then...
Regards y'all...
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Saturday Morning Cogitations....
USA Running Out Of Yet Another Country With Our Tail Between Our Legs...
So this morning I wake up with a good head ache after doing the company Christmas party thing last night lerning that the United By God Freaking United States Of 'Merica has all of our troops out of Iraq...
and officially we have the World Wide Patent and Trademark rights on the business model of conducting crap assed wars and spending ass loads of money and getting ass loads (4474) of young men (and now young women thanks to the women's "liberation movement") killed doing virtually nothing but spending $800 billion wasting time over a nine year period kabitzing and debating with outselves.
I say that we should have bombed the crap out of the entire middle eastern region in 1992, saved 4473 of the 4474 lives officially lost in this latest adventure, and in the words of European 11th century soldier and religious leader Arnaud_Amalric...
"Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius (Kill them all. For the Lord knoweth them that are His.)
OR...in Redneck terms..."Kill them all...and let GOD sort them out."
And "That's the way it IS (In my mind) ...December 18th, 2011..."
So this morning I wake up with a good head ache after doing the company Christmas party thing last night lerning that the United By God Freaking United States Of 'Merica has all of our troops out of Iraq...
and officially we have the World Wide Patent and Trademark rights on the business model of conducting crap assed wars and spending ass loads of money and getting ass loads (4474) of young men (and now young women thanks to the women's "liberation movement") killed doing virtually nothing but spending $800 billion wasting time over a nine year period kabitzing and debating with outselves.
I say that we should have bombed the crap out of the entire middle eastern region in 1992, saved 4473 of the 4474 lives officially lost in this latest adventure, and in the words of European 11th century soldier and religious leader Arnaud_Amalric...
"Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius (Kill them all. For the Lord knoweth them that are His.)
OR...in Redneck terms..."Kill them all...and let GOD sort them out."
And "That's the way it IS (In my mind) ...December 18th, 2011..."
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Christmas Shopping & Other Holiday Stuff
Last Minute Bargains Anyone?
Usually by this time on the calendar in recent years I've already gotten my Christmas Cards mailed and most if not all of my Christmas gifts on the way to their recipients.
Not so this year...for a variety of reasons including myopia and dyslexia and laziness and sloveness and by and large CASH FLOW because we've spent a TON of money getting relocated out here to the Okla-By-God-Dang-Homa and even when I had the CASH I didn't have the time and we refuse to put Christmas presents on a Credit Card.
But the bottom line this morning is that we personally already have our Christmas presents for our household because we absolutely LOVE the Broken Arrow/Eastern Tulsa geographic area and I LOVE my new job and Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup and I LOVE our new house and new neighborhood.
Regarding everyone else...
...we're going shopping on line now in the next couple of days and in some of the local "brick and mortar stores" this weekend and hopefully by Monday morning everything will be on the way to our friends and family.
Honestly we've had some interesting Christmas holidays together over the past ten years living in Atlanta and Florida and on an Island on the Georgia Coast and visiting the Farm in Alabama.
But...
This one is partially by design and partially by circumstance going to be spent "stranded" alone in the middle of the mid-west.
My new company has a nice Christmas party this weekend in a fancy hotel with an open bar and dinner and we've got a room there in the building for Saturday night after the celebration.
And I've got some other ideas for entertaining Pat and the Turbo Pup for Christmas Eve and Christmas day.
So while the family and friends we're missing are residing dozens of hours away by car we're going to get along just fine out here in Oklahoma.
Hope everyone has been a Good Girl or Boy and your Christmas stocking has something other than a lump of coal in it.
Later Y'all...
Usually by this time on the calendar in recent years I've already gotten my Christmas Cards mailed and most if not all of my Christmas gifts on the way to their recipients.
Not so this year...for a variety of reasons including myopia and dyslexia and laziness and sloveness and by and large CASH FLOW because we've spent a TON of money getting relocated out here to the Okla-By-God-Dang-Homa and even when I had the CASH I didn't have the time and we refuse to put Christmas presents on a Credit Card.
But the bottom line this morning is that we personally already have our Christmas presents for our household because we absolutely LOVE the Broken Arrow/Eastern Tulsa geographic area and I LOVE my new job and Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup and I LOVE our new house and new neighborhood.
Regarding everyone else...
...we're going shopping on line now in the next couple of days and in some of the local "brick and mortar stores" this weekend and hopefully by Monday morning everything will be on the way to our friends and family.
Honestly we've had some interesting Christmas holidays together over the past ten years living in Atlanta and Florida and on an Island on the Georgia Coast and visiting the Farm in Alabama.
But...
This one is partially by design and partially by circumstance going to be spent "stranded" alone in the middle of the mid-west.
My new company has a nice Christmas party this weekend in a fancy hotel with an open bar and dinner and we've got a room there in the building for Saturday night after the celebration.
And I've got some other ideas for entertaining Pat and the Turbo Pup for Christmas Eve and Christmas day.
So while the family and friends we're missing are residing dozens of hours away by car we're going to get along just fine out here in Oklahoma.
Hope everyone has been a Good Girl or Boy and your Christmas stocking has something other than a lump of coal in it.
Later Y'all...
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Writing Malaise
Unfinished Works...
Sorry for the light posting over the past half week.
It isn't for lack of writing because I've probably pounded out five or six pages on two or three subjects...
...but before I got to the point of hitting the "Publish" button on Blogger I ran out of steam on the topic or else just thought that my work wasn't up to my usual standards and didn't have the time to go back though and fix it.
I'm really in a strange mental state these days being sort of overloaded with the new job and finishing up some personal details relating to moving cross country.
And now it's time to get back to studying my software manuals to support a new project I've just started working on.
Regards Y'all (I'll try to work up a good head of steam and issue a good rant when something comes up in the news...)
Sorry for the light posting over the past half week.
It isn't for lack of writing because I've probably pounded out five or six pages on two or three subjects...
...but before I got to the point of hitting the "Publish" button on Blogger I ran out of steam on the topic or else just thought that my work wasn't up to my usual standards and didn't have the time to go back though and fix it.
I'm really in a strange mental state these days being sort of overloaded with the new job and finishing up some personal details relating to moving cross country.
And now it's time to get back to studying my software manuals to support a new project I've just started working on.
Regards Y'all (I'll try to work up a good head of steam and issue a good rant when something comes up in the news...)
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Five Day Fire
Livin' The Old Fashoned Way...
Back 100 Years Ago Back in the 1960's at my Grandfather's house in Southern Alabama the fireplace and associated hearths were the center of social interaction sometimes summer and winter.
You see, by the time I came along my Pa Rushing's home had electricity after WWII, but the water and sewer and what we today call heating and "air conditioning" was an optional feature supplied by the homeowner...in our case that being our family.
Water?
At first we had a hand dug well and a windmill to pump the water we didn't lift by bucket.
Sometime in the 1960's we had a deeper well drilled and an fancy modern electric pump and rubber bladder tank installed to provide showers for all of us grandkids and extra water for cooking and the dogs and chickens and cows.
You see, by the time I came along my Pa Rushing's home had electricity after WWII, but the water and sewer and what we today call heating and "air conditioning" was an optional feature supplied by the homeowner...in our case that being our family.
Water?
At first we had a hand dug well and a windmill to pump the water we didn't lift by bucket.
Sometime in the 1960's we had a deeper well drilled and an fancy modern electric pump and rubber bladder tank installed to provide showers for all of us grandkids and extra water for cooking and the dogs and chickens and cows.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
I Can't Get There From Here?
Modern Airline Insanity...
So one of my regular readers...my Buddy Ed... commented and reminded me that I should be in Knoxtown this weekend taking care of our rental house.
That would be a true statement Ed because I made plans a month ago to be there this weekend.
But my chosen airline...freaking UNITED AIRLINES...decided to delay the departure of my 6:20 PM flight last Friday night to a time so late that I was going to end up missing my connecting flight from Chicago on to Knoxville.
But then being the savvy traveler which I am, and understanding from looking at the UNITED AIRLINES WEBSITE and learning that my original Chicago-Knoxville flight was the last one on their airline on Friday night, I managed to force them to admit that they were willing to let me LEAVE TULSA and then STRAND ME in Chicago about 10 PM and make me argue with them about paying for a hotel.
So fortunately after speaking with some lovely woman in a "customer service" center in India or Malaysia or possibly Belize, and living on hold for most of 30 minutes while I argued about canceling the outbound leg of the flight and keeping the inbound leg Monday evening...
United/Continental Airlines, in their infinite wisdom said...
They couldn't do it...
They simply wanted me to leave Tulsa at 6:20 PM and miss my flight to Knoxville, then spending the night in or near O'Hare airport (and possibly at my expense if I needed a room), and then not leaving Chicago until 2:40 PM Saturday afternoon finally arriving in Knoxville about 6 PM.
A two day trip.
Now understand this fact ladies and gentlemen...
I can drive to Knoxville in 14 hours for less than $250 in gas, and these idiots want me to do the same trip in 12 hours for the price of an airplane ticket and a motel room?
The original idea was to be in Knoxville before midnight Friday and have all day Saturday and Sunday and most of the day on Monday to get some stuff done that I need to do.
You Know?
This wasn't intended to be a pleasure trip to Knoxville to buy University of Tennessee T-shirts or eat ribs at Calhouns' restaurant.
After the dust settled I checked the airline web sites and Kayak.com and according to the websites my only alternative was to spend a couple of hundred dollars more than I originally paid United Freaking Airlines over A MONTH AGO in order to pull this thing off after recycling the schedule from Friday PM to Saturday AM.
So doing the math and looking at the other things going on around here, and considering that the idiot Real Estate company in Knoxtown which I have contracted with to lease our house refused to respond on a timely manner,
I was finally forced to make an executive decision and do something very complicated (OK...not).
I stayed home with Pat and little Missy the Turbo Pup and worked on my Garage and Office.
I'm happy and my girls are tickled pink as my delayed anger grows directed toward my so-call "leasing agent" in Knoxtown.
Looking forward past the holiday season where airline ticket prices are impossibly high, it looks like prices to fly come daown a good deal and there is a good possibility that there will be some thunder and lightening in Knoxville on the rental real estate management busienss front the week of January 9th, 2012.
Stay tuned to this channel for more details...
So one of my regular readers...my Buddy Ed... commented and reminded me that I should be in Knoxtown this weekend taking care of our rental house.
That would be a true statement Ed because I made plans a month ago to be there this weekend.
But my chosen airline...freaking UNITED AIRLINES...decided to delay the departure of my 6:20 PM flight last Friday night to a time so late that I was going to end up missing my connecting flight from Chicago on to Knoxville.
But then being the savvy traveler which I am, and understanding from looking at the UNITED AIRLINES WEBSITE and learning that my original Chicago-Knoxville flight was the last one on their airline on Friday night, I managed to force them to admit that they were willing to let me LEAVE TULSA and then STRAND ME in Chicago about 10 PM and make me argue with them about paying for a hotel.
So fortunately after speaking with some lovely woman in a "customer service" center in India or Malaysia or possibly Belize, and living on hold for most of 30 minutes while I argued about canceling the outbound leg of the flight and keeping the inbound leg Monday evening...
United/Continental Airlines, in their infinite wisdom said...
They couldn't do it...
They simply wanted me to leave Tulsa at 6:20 PM and miss my flight to Knoxville, then spending the night in or near O'Hare airport (and possibly at my expense if I needed a room), and then not leaving Chicago until 2:40 PM Saturday afternoon finally arriving in Knoxville about 6 PM.
A two day trip.
Now understand this fact ladies and gentlemen...
I can drive to Knoxville in 14 hours for less than $250 in gas, and these idiots want me to do the same trip in 12 hours for the price of an airplane ticket and a motel room?
The original idea was to be in Knoxville before midnight Friday and have all day Saturday and Sunday and most of the day on Monday to get some stuff done that I need to do.
You Know?
This wasn't intended to be a pleasure trip to Knoxville to buy University of Tennessee T-shirts or eat ribs at Calhouns' restaurant.
After the dust settled I checked the airline web sites and Kayak.com and according to the websites my only alternative was to spend a couple of hundred dollars more than I originally paid United Freaking Airlines over A MONTH AGO in order to pull this thing off after recycling the schedule from Friday PM to Saturday AM.
So doing the math and looking at the other things going on around here, and considering that the idiot Real Estate company in Knoxtown which I have contracted with to lease our house refused to respond on a timely manner,
I was finally forced to make an executive decision and do something very complicated (OK...not).
I stayed home with Pat and little Missy the Turbo Pup and worked on my Garage and Office.
I'm happy and my girls are tickled pink as my delayed anger grows directed toward my so-call "leasing agent" in Knoxtown.
Looking forward past the holiday season where airline ticket prices are impossibly high, it looks like prices to fly come daown a good deal and there is a good possibility that there will be some thunder and lightening in Knoxville on the rental real estate management busienss front the week of January 9th, 2012.
Stay tuned to this channel for more details...
I Can't Get There From Here?
This morning one of my regular readers commented with a question about my whereabouts this weekend. I had already planned on commenting on my personal pre-holiday travel situation...once I calmed down a little from the trama...by doing a blog posting...so here it is.
Yes Ed, I was supposed to be flying back in Knoxville this weekend to take care of some business relating to the house we own there, but the Airlines, in their infinite wisdom (or lack thereof), changed my plans an hour and one half before I was supposed to depart our "Tulsa International Airport" yesterday evening.
But since you know me, I can't answer a question directly, and thus I take this opportunity to digress and talk about my history of flying while ending up telling the story of why I ended up spending this weekend cleaning out my garage and organizing my office in Tulsa, Oklahoma (airport code TUL) rather than beating the crap out of a guy that calls himself a "Realtor" and hiring a new contractor to do some work at our empty, unrented house in Knoxtown, Tennessee (airport code TYS)
Here goes...
First you have to understand that I spent the first 17 years of my life with my only contact with aircraft being looking at them in magazines, watching them on TV, and building them in the form of plastic and balsa wood models and flying them around our front yard and on over at the local elementary school ballfield.
Don't get me wrong.
I was absolutely CRAZY about everything having to do with airplanes, but I just didn't do much flying since my family elected to drive on vacation like most other families did in the 1960's and 1970's.
Wait..my dad--the Army Test Pilot--drove me out to our local airfield and took me up in a Cessna 172 with another pilot for an hour flight around our little town of Ozark, Alabama including flying over our house and "wagging our wings" to our neighbors.
But then things changed drastically at the age of 18 when I joined the Navy Reserve through the NROTC program at Georgia Tech and the summer after my Freshman year President Jimmy Carter sent me off on my first "Summer Cruise."
It was a "Cruise" all right, but not a "Carnival Cruise Line Cocktail In Both Hands" type of cruise, and the process of getting to the
To put this adventure in context, you have to understand that other than the aforementioned birthday flight in 1968 I had never been in an airplane actually flying in the air for more than a single hour.
Now fast forward our story to August 1978 and I find myself standing at the Delta Airlines ticket counter with my Mother and Father presenting a government issued voucher to the ticket agent allowing me to board a flight from Dothan, Alabama and heading to the old (and now torn down) Hartsfield Terminal Building in Atlanta, Georgia.
Wait...come to think of it that wasn't actually my first visit to Hartsfield Airport...because my Dad took us over to the Terminal Building on one of our driving trips up to West Virginia to visit his parents back in the late 1960's and we went up on the "observation deck" to watch the Douglas DC-3's and Lockheed Tristars take off and land.
Better entertainment than going to a Circus or the County Fair to me.
So any way, with much pomp and circumstance and a few tears from my Mother, I boarded my first commercial airline flight heading ultimately to of all places...
SUBIC BAY, PHILLIPINES.
Now don't get me wrong here ladies and gentlemen, I was a quite well traveled youth having been driven to New Jersey and ridden a train from there into New York City when I was in Kindergarten.
I'd ridden in a car with my family not once but TWICE from Alabama to Pasadina, California before I was High school aged.
We took another trip to Salt Lake City, Utah and numerous other eastern regional trips to places like Washington DC and Manassas, Virginia in our Motorhome.
"I'd been around"...
I thought.
But...
This "flying half way around the planet" stuff was something quite different.
Picture Jim Nabors character Gomer Pyle.
"Shazam" was an understatement when considering my situation, in my considered Redneck opinion.
Speeding this story up, Delta loaded up my luggage and my silly 18 year old butt on a DC-9 in Dothan, hauled me to Atlanta, managed to not allow me to get lost in the process and put me on a giant Lockheed L-1011 and dumped me back on the ground in San Francisco, California...
all in less than about eight hours as I recall.
Then the non-stop adventure continued.
After stumbling around the airport there in San Fran I managed to find some guy in a Government Issued uniform who proceeded to direct me to an "area" where a bunch of other bewildered "Midshipmen"--also mostly on their first flights--were sequestered awaiting the next segment of our journey to begin.
I guess the first thing I learned while being on active duty in the Navy was the art of "hurry up and waiting."
There in that room with those rows of attractive upolstered yet impossibly hard seats we waited until the very last person on the very last plane ever arriving that day in California came into the room. Or at least that is what it seemed like.
Next they hearded us into some olive drab Military issue busses, and proceeded to drive us across the mountains to a place called Travis Air Force Base.
Then, after some more waiting...serveral hours worth--something they call "Mustering" in the Military-- we finally got to see and get on the giant airplane which would haul us on the next leg of our journey...Alaska.
This time Lockheed was also the manufacturer, but the airframe was a lumbering C-141 "Starlifter"...
outfitted not with passenger accommodations but with "jump seats."
In having "jump seats" what it really means was the plane was set up for short duration missions "in theater" where the troups would have combat gear and parachutes and not required to make the SIX HOUR flight we faced.
Instead of rows and rows of seats facing forward like you would find in a bus or commercial airliner, this monster sized plane had a row of seats made out of nylon webbing running down the sides of each wall and then two similarly constructed rows of seats running down the middle facing back to back.
The short duration design apparently didn't matter to the Air Force because they were just hauling Navy Midshipmen...
But hey, they did have the handy "kitchen module" so they could serve a hot metal pan of food in flight and there was the "pooper module" up in front of that contained things and conditions even I refuse to describe here on this blog relating to bathroom sanitation.
So they literally threw our duffle bags and extra suitcases into the back of the plane, strapped everything down with cargo nets, hearded us all on board and off we flew into "the wild blue yonder."
All tongue in cheek humor and sarcastic commentary aside, being young and strong and healthy at that time I found that leg of that 27 hour trip to be the best part of the sojurn.
They gave each of us the chance to come up into the cockpit and spend ten or fifteen minutes sitting in a little seat between the three man flight crew just looking out at the horizon and around the instrument panels.
Since we were flying to the north west we were basically chasing the sunset, and it was a clear day with various layers of thin clouds hanging here and there and during my visit to the cockpit I remember seeing the sun just hanging on the horizon casting an orange and yellow glow on everything as we flew over the mountains of Washington state.
Hours later, Alaska is and was a blur in my memory because it was night when we got there and it was still night when we left after refueling the Jet and laying around on the floor in the under capacity "departure lounge" waiting on whatever it is that the military "logistics" people have to have happen before you do whatever it is that you could probably have done a couple of hours earlier if it wasn't for waiting on the "Paperwork."
We blasted off on that plane finally, now heading on the next leg of our adventure...
Yokota Air Base...
JAPAN.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Losing My Religion
"Missing My Grocery Stores"
Does anybody but people living in Oklahoma know what the store with the name "Reasors" hanging on the front canopy sells?
OK...I'll end the suspense and tell you that out here in the Midwest they are the best dang Grocery store in the state...
but still...
While living in the "Atlanta Metropolitan Area" I was pretty much a Kroger man...with the occasional visit to Winn Dixie when I was looking for Beef or even Publix when the straits were dire.
Then on St. Simons Island, GA we continued our subsistence on Winn Dixie Beef (Winn Dixie being based less than 100 miles south out of Jacksonville, Florida) and the chain Harris Teeter which catered to the upper crust consumers driving past our Condo and house going out to Sea Island.
In retrospect, I went to Harris Teeter almost every day when I was spending most of my time lounging around sitting by the pool...
Since those glorious semi-unemployed days and now before moving across country, while in Knoxtown we again became firm Kroger consumers with three "regular" Kroger stores within five miles and one "Super Kroger" (with a second under construction as I write) within a similar distance from my back door.
But now today our grocery needs are met by Reasor's with their weird Isle layout with everything running perpendicular to the front door rather than parallel to the sides of the store.
Seriously, I feel like I'm in a drunken stupor just walking into their store layout looking for a half gallon of Orange Juice and some Hunt's "Petite Diced" Tomatoes.
Ok...this dissertation is getting a little obtuse even for me...but you get my drift.
When you regularly cook like I do and when you walk into your grocery store you are not "shopping" i.e. wandering aimlessly down each and EVERY FREAKING isle looking for corn starch or capers...
Most of the time I come into my local grocery store...a which I expect and demand to be a veritable purveyor of gastronomic ecstasy...and conduct the next 15.375 minutes like I'm a Navy Seal.
Strike...
Take Prisoners...
Get Out...
You know?
Feel free to consider the above admissions and contemplations and get back with me if you feel I'm in error.
Otherwise...That will be all...for now...
Does anybody but people living in Oklahoma know what the store with the name "Reasors" hanging on the front canopy sells?
OK...I'll end the suspense and tell you that out here in the Midwest they are the best dang Grocery store in the state...
but still...
While living in the "Atlanta Metropolitan Area" I was pretty much a Kroger man...with the occasional visit to Winn Dixie when I was looking for Beef or even Publix when the straits were dire.
Then on St. Simons Island, GA we continued our subsistence on Winn Dixie Beef (Winn Dixie being based less than 100 miles south out of Jacksonville, Florida) and the chain Harris Teeter which catered to the upper crust consumers driving past our Condo and house going out to Sea Island.
In retrospect, I went to Harris Teeter almost every day when I was spending most of my time lounging around sitting by the pool...
Since those glorious semi-unemployed days and now before moving across country, while in Knoxtown we again became firm Kroger consumers with three "regular" Kroger stores within five miles and one "Super Kroger" (with a second under construction as I write) within a similar distance from my back door.
But now today our grocery needs are met by Reasor's with their weird Isle layout with everything running perpendicular to the front door rather than parallel to the sides of the store.
Seriously, I feel like I'm in a drunken stupor just walking into their store layout looking for a half gallon of Orange Juice and some Hunt's "Petite Diced" Tomatoes.
Ok...this dissertation is getting a little obtuse even for me...but you get my drift.
When you regularly cook like I do and when you walk into your grocery store you are not "shopping" i.e. wandering aimlessly down each and EVERY FREAKING isle looking for corn starch or capers...
Most of the time I come into my local grocery store...a which I expect and demand to be a veritable purveyor of gastronomic ecstasy...and conduct the next 15.375 minutes like I'm a Navy Seal.
Strike...
Take Prisoners...
Get Out...
You know?
Feel free to consider the above admissions and contemplations and get back with me if you feel I'm in error.
Otherwise...That will be all...for now...
Livin' In An Electronics Store Tulsa Town At Christmas
My Electronics Equipment OWNS My Butt...
So here's my problem here out in Tulsa, Oklahoma this morning...Ladies and Gentlemen.
Try to commiserate with me...if you will.
It's like this...
In about the past 60 days I've acquired intentionally or in some cases, (like a progression of THREE new company cellphones ending with the current Blackberry), un-intentionally more new devices containing computer chips and being delivered into my life with owners manuals and requiring my daily attention than I can possibly deal with at my age.
I've already mentioned the new used car...our Audi Q7 "crossover" SUV...that basically drives itself and if I'm not careful each weekday morning instead of going to work I find myself heading to Jamaica because this thing can basically read my mind and it does things based on the environment around it and where it is at any given moment without my input.
Thus far I've managed to hold on to the steering wheel and poke a few extra buttons and watch the two GPS screens and make it back home each afternoon.
Then once I arrive back to the new house each day I have to deal with THIS GREAT NEW BUILDING which it turns out since we moved in is also intelligent.
In the process of wandering around looking at stuff I've learned that there's some kind of "multi-zone" heating and cooling system which I've yet to have the time to sit down and read the manual and understand...
Out in the Garage there's a control panel with the "Rain Bird" logo on it which controls our in ground "multi-zone" sprinkler system. I stacked a pile of boxes in front of it a couple of days after we moved in because our lawn is currently dormant in the Tulsa winter conditions and frankly...
I didn't feel like reading another operating manual for free when I'm up to my ass in alligators at work learning how to model giant steel structures in my new RISA structural design software.
And then we have this "Security System" which has a keypad beside the Garage Door and the Front Door and yet ANOTHER ONE in the master panel in our bedroom and while I appreciate the idea of being able to cause it to dial 911 and make a fuss with alarms and shoot lasers and machine guns in my absence...
I just wish someone would tell me how to turn the volume down on the annoying BEEEEEPPP it makes each and every time I open my door in the middle of the night to walk outside for a minute to pick up some more firewood.
Speaking of firewood...
We bought a giant pile of seasoned wood last weekend, and since then Missy the Turbo Pup has learned to hang around the Hearth most nights basking in the warmth and glow of a good fire. I think that she remembers her younger days when we lived on St. Simons Island and had a Tabby mortar fireplace we used a few dozen nights each year when the weather dipped down close to freezing.
Our house in Knoxtown was fireplaceless and that was one of the few things we didn't love about the place.
Meanwhile, back to discussions about combustion...
I started one (a fire) last night about 6:30 PM and it's been roaring now for over ten hours.
I intend to try to keep it going non-stop all the way through the weekend until I have to head back to work Monday because other than a little shopping later this morning I personally don't intend to move much further than 75 feet away.
After all...I'm pretty darn accomplished at doing absolutely nothing, and this weekend other than a little homeowner stuff that is ALL I will be working on.
Hope you all have a LOVELY pre-Christmas weekend and try not to spend more than you can pay back on the old credit cards...
So here's my problem here out in Tulsa, Oklahoma this morning...Ladies and Gentlemen.
Try to commiserate with me...if you will.
It's like this...
In about the past 60 days I've acquired intentionally or in some cases, (like a progression of THREE new company cellphones ending with the current Blackberry), un-intentionally more new devices containing computer chips and being delivered into my life with owners manuals and requiring my daily attention than I can possibly deal with at my age.
I've already mentioned the new used car...our Audi Q7 "crossover" SUV...that basically drives itself and if I'm not careful each weekday morning instead of going to work I find myself heading to Jamaica because this thing can basically read my mind and it does things based on the environment around it and where it is at any given moment without my input.
Thus far I've managed to hold on to the steering wheel and poke a few extra buttons and watch the two GPS screens and make it back home each afternoon.
Then once I arrive back to the new house each day I have to deal with THIS GREAT NEW BUILDING which it turns out since we moved in is also intelligent.
In the process of wandering around looking at stuff I've learned that there's some kind of "multi-zone" heating and cooling system which I've yet to have the time to sit down and read the manual and understand...
Out in the Garage there's a control panel with the "Rain Bird" logo on it which controls our in ground "multi-zone" sprinkler system. I stacked a pile of boxes in front of it a couple of days after we moved in because our lawn is currently dormant in the Tulsa winter conditions and frankly...
I didn't feel like reading another operating manual for free when I'm up to my ass in alligators at work learning how to model giant steel structures in my new RISA structural design software.
And then we have this "Security System" which has a keypad beside the Garage Door and the Front Door and yet ANOTHER ONE in the master panel in our bedroom and while I appreciate the idea of being able to cause it to dial 911 and make a fuss with alarms and shoot lasers and machine guns in my absence...
I just wish someone would tell me how to turn the volume down on the annoying BEEEEEPPP it makes each and every time I open my door in the middle of the night to walk outside for a minute to pick up some more firewood.
Speaking of firewood...
We bought a giant pile of seasoned wood last weekend, and since then Missy the Turbo Pup has learned to hang around the Hearth most nights basking in the warmth and glow of a good fire. I think that she remembers her younger days when we lived on St. Simons Island and had a Tabby mortar fireplace we used a few dozen nights each year when the weather dipped down close to freezing.
Our house in Knoxtown was fireplaceless and that was one of the few things we didn't love about the place.
Meanwhile, back to discussions about combustion...
I started one (a fire) last night about 6:30 PM and it's been roaring now for over ten hours.
I intend to try to keep it going non-stop all the way through the weekend until I have to head back to work Monday because other than a little shopping later this morning I personally don't intend to move much further than 75 feet away.
After all...I'm pretty darn accomplished at doing absolutely nothing, and this weekend other than a little homeowner stuff that is ALL I will be working on.
Hope you all have a LOVELY pre-Christmas weekend and try not to spend more than you can pay back on the old credit cards...
Friday, December 09, 2011
I'm Headin' Back To Knoxtown
Sort Of Excited...Sort Of Sad...
So we were doing the math tonight in the process of getting my luggage packed in anticipation of my weekend trip to Knoxville to get the final details cleaned up with the rental house, and in the process I realized that as of this recent re-location to Oklahoma...
I have changed residences SEVEN TIMES since 2001.
Seven moves in 10 years...between four cities and three states?
That after moving only 8 times including college dorm relocations over 27 years spent in the "Atlanta Metropolitan Area."
Let me say THIS about THAT statistic...
I'm getting too old for this CRAP.
Further, I own too much CRAP to continue to have to load it all into boxes (or supervise the process) and get it loaded onto a truck and then follow it down the road to a new house/city/state.
So any way, today after work I'm getting onto yet another commercial airliner and heading east across almost half of the Continental United States.
In the process once I arrive back in my former home town I intend to spend three days and two nights cleaning up some details and meeting with a contractor
So we were doing the math tonight in the process of getting my luggage packed in anticipation of my weekend trip to Knoxville to get the final details cleaned up with the rental house, and in the process I realized that as of this recent re-location to Oklahoma...
I have changed residences SEVEN TIMES since 2001.
Seven moves in 10 years...between four cities and three states?
That after moving only 8 times including college dorm relocations over 27 years spent in the "Atlanta Metropolitan Area."
Let me say THIS about THAT statistic...
I'm getting too old for this CRAP.
Further, I own too much CRAP to continue to have to load it all into boxes (or supervise the process) and get it loaded onto a truck and then follow it down the road to a new house/city/state.
So any way, today after work I'm getting onto yet another commercial airliner and heading east across almost half of the Continental United States.
In the process once I arrive back in my former home town I intend to spend three days and two nights cleaning up some details and meeting with a contractor
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Colonel Potter's Gone
My Heart Is M*A*S*H*E*D
I just learned that yesterday Harry Bratsberg A.K.A. Henry Morgan A.K.A Harry Morgan AKA Bill Gannon (Dragnet) AKA Colonel Harry Potter has passed away.
I feel older and older every day, and every day it seems that I know and/or admire more dead people than live people.
RIP Colonel Potter....
I just learned that yesterday Harry Bratsberg A.K.A. Henry Morgan A.K.A Harry Morgan AKA Bill Gannon (Dragnet) AKA Colonel Harry Potter has passed away.
I feel older and older every day, and every day it seems that I know and/or admire more dead people than live people.
RIP Colonel Potter....
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
December 7, 1941
"A Date Which Will Live In Infamy..."
I wasn't around on this day in 1941 when Japan executed their attack on the US Pacific Naval outpost of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii...
69 years ago (oops...make that SEVENTY YEARS AGO.)
But I've heard the stories about that day my entire life (since I was born shortly less than 18 years later) and lived outside a military base for the following 18 years after that period and had family members which served in the world war which ensued.
I saw the pride and fire and pain in their eyes when the topic came up.
Funny thing...
most of the men and women I knew really wouldn't talk in detail about their service but did have a strong opinion about our country's ultimate participation in what has come to be known as World War II...the sequel to World War I..."The War to end all Wars."
I guess that some people would say that it is easy for me to sit here at my age and compromised health in the floor in front of a computer in my living room and filibuster about the need for our country to continue to take the lead on the world stage in enforcing the rule of law and defend humanity as we have over the past 235 years.
But if something like the attack on Pearl Harbor happened again this morning and if the US military called me I'd get off my butt and go...even if it was only to do things like issue uniforms or run a computer or paint sidewalk stripes on Navy bases.
So this morning...in an out of character moment...instead of offering political commentary, I'll just offer my thanks for the service and sacrifices made by those patriots which served both before we officially declared war on Germany and Japan and after President Roosevelt's famous speech...the closing passages which I offer here:
"Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.
With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph -- so help us God.
I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire."
All you have to do today is change the date in that speech to September 11, 2001 and substitute the words "Radical Muslims" for "Japanese Empire" and you have a pretty good starting point for solving things around here for the next 69 years....
but our politicians don't have the backbone and spleen to do it in convincing manner like we did in the 1940's.
In closing, on this anniversary of the loss of thousands of lives in Hawaii in a cowardly act of war, I offer my own hearty "God Bless America."
Yet I also observe that it is critical that we in this next election in 2012 somehow manage to overcome the forces which are working from within to make us a country which could not today and would not in 1941 have been able to muster the manpower and industrial might to succeed in winning a war forced upon us.
I wasn't around on this day in 1941 when Japan executed their attack on the US Pacific Naval outpost of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii...
69 years ago (oops...make that SEVENTY YEARS AGO.)
But I've heard the stories about that day my entire life (since I was born shortly less than 18 years later) and lived outside a military base for the following 18 years after that period and had family members which served in the world war which ensued.
I saw the pride and fire and pain in their eyes when the topic came up.
Funny thing...
most of the men and women I knew really wouldn't talk in detail about their service but did have a strong opinion about our country's ultimate participation in what has come to be known as World War II...the sequel to World War I..."The War to end all Wars."
I guess that some people would say that it is easy for me to sit here at my age and compromised health in the floor in front of a computer in my living room and filibuster about the need for our country to continue to take the lead on the world stage in enforcing the rule of law and defend humanity as we have over the past 235 years.
But if something like the attack on Pearl Harbor happened again this morning and if the US military called me I'd get off my butt and go...even if it was only to do things like issue uniforms or run a computer or paint sidewalk stripes on Navy bases.
So this morning...in an out of character moment...instead of offering political commentary, I'll just offer my thanks for the service and sacrifices made by those patriots which served both before we officially declared war on Germany and Japan and after President Roosevelt's famous speech...the closing passages which I offer here:
"Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.
With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph -- so help us God.
I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire."
All you have to do today is change the date in that speech to September 11, 2001 and substitute the words "Radical Muslims" for "Japanese Empire" and you have a pretty good starting point for solving things around here for the next 69 years....
but our politicians don't have the backbone and spleen to do it in convincing manner like we did in the 1940's.
In closing, on this anniversary of the loss of thousands of lives in Hawaii in a cowardly act of war, I offer my own hearty "God Bless America."
Yet I also observe that it is critical that we in this next election in 2012 somehow manage to overcome the forces which are working from within to make us a country which could not today and would not in 1941 have been able to muster the manpower and industrial might to succeed in winning a war forced upon us.
Monday, December 05, 2011
70 Channels And Nothing On TV...
GOD Save Us All...
Just in case you haven't been paying attention, I'm pretty cranky these days because I'm a little tired from finishing the details of moving over the last six weeks and a lot tired from doing my new job about 50 hours a week in the process.
My internal Internet and cable TV is still a work in progress here at the new house--the surround sound system for the living room is still un-installed sitting in a cabinet under the space awaiting the new living room TV...
but meanwhile I'm finishing some work here in the early morning hours of Monday, December 5th, 2011 and I just poked the button on the remote control enough times to scan the entire channel spectrum and it is truly disgusting the bullshit which is on the Cable TV system at this time of the night.
What I want to know but am almost afraid to ask is this...
Who is their target market and do these people watching this stuff actually VOTE?
Just wondering...
Just in case you haven't been paying attention, I'm pretty cranky these days because I'm a little tired from finishing the details of moving over the last six weeks and a lot tired from doing my new job about 50 hours a week in the process.
My internal Internet and cable TV is still a work in progress here at the new house--the surround sound system for the living room is still un-installed sitting in a cabinet under the space awaiting the new living room TV...
but meanwhile I'm finishing some work here in the early morning hours of Monday, December 5th, 2011 and I just poked the button on the remote control enough times to scan the entire channel spectrum and it is truly disgusting the bullshit which is on the Cable TV system at this time of the night.
What I want to know but am almost afraid to ask is this...
Who is their target market and do these people watching this stuff actually VOTE?
Just wondering...
Thursday, December 01, 2011
What "Be Wrong" With Modern Black Culture???
It's CULTURAL...Not RACIAL...
Doesn't anyone but me have a problem with people like this?
A product of your TAX DOLLARS producing future so-called citizens that will
VOTE
Doesn't anyone but me have a problem with people like this?
A product of your TAX DOLLARS producing future so-called citizens that will
VOTE
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
My Physical Image In Another 25 years???
Hey...I Already Have The Eyebrows...
Today a number of people including myself in parts of the some of the world--mainly the western hemisphere--will be remembering and celebrating the 176th birthday of one of my personal Idols...
That Man would be the famous American writer and humorist...
Samuel Clemens a.k.a. "Mark Twain."
The first fictional novels I read as a child were my copies of "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn" my Mom and Dad gave me before I was ten years old.
I currently own vintage hard bound copies of each book which are editions published in the 1880's.
Today many people including so called "professional educators" have lost track of the ideas behind these writings and Mr. Clemons' intent when he wrote the texts. Thus they fuss and fume and call them terms like "narrow minded" and "racisit" and as a result clammor to exclude them from school libraries and discourage parents from including them in their children's reading repartee.
I say that every boy would benefit from reading both books more than once before the age of 12 (as I did and did again in the past year) because they are just both funny and good reading for real non-metrosexual men.
You girls can come along and read them also if you want to I guess.
I have to go now and get ready to begin whitewashing the fence behind my house now...
Regards Y'all...
Today a number of people including myself in parts of the some of the world--mainly the western hemisphere--will be remembering and celebrating the 176th birthday of one of my personal Idols...
That Man would be the famous American writer and humorist...
Samuel Clemens a.k.a. "Mark Twain."
The first fictional novels I read as a child were my copies of "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn" my Mom and Dad gave me before I was ten years old.
I currently own vintage hard bound copies of each book which are editions published in the 1880's.
Today many people including so called "professional educators" have lost track of the ideas behind these writings and Mr. Clemons' intent when he wrote the texts. Thus they fuss and fume and call them terms like "narrow minded" and "racisit" and as a result clammor to exclude them from school libraries and discourage parents from including them in their children's reading repartee.
I say that every boy would benefit from reading both books more than once before the age of 12 (as I did and did again in the past year) because they are just both funny and good reading for real non-metrosexual men.
You girls can come along and read them also if you want to I guess.
I have to go now and get ready to begin whitewashing the fence behind my house now...
Regards Y'all...
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Love Note From Your's Truely
Just A Little Something Something To Let Them Know I Really Care
Dear Technical Service Department,
Just in case you have been busy digesting turkey scraps and still recovering from the Thanksgiving holiday, be advised that your cable and internet service is dropping out out here for most of the past week every three to ten minutes in Trinity Creek Phase II and ABSOLUTELY KILLING US because we telecommute with our companies and cannot afford to be off line 50% of the time and running around resetting routers and cable modems a hundred times a day.
Also, your sales rep sold me the "Super Duper Double Damn Good" high speed internet service though the end of this year to try out for free and if the upload download speeds we've been seeing are representive of your upgraded services you are going to lose our business to another internet supplier.
I better see a half dozen trucks and technicians out here today or there is going to be a letter written to someone over your head at COX.
Fix my freaking Cable and Internet Service...DAMMIT...
Heh...That Aught to get some action going out here...
Dear Technical Service Department,
Just in case you have been busy digesting turkey scraps and still recovering from the Thanksgiving holiday, be advised that your cable and internet service is dropping out out here for most of the past week every three to ten minutes in Trinity Creek Phase II and ABSOLUTELY KILLING US because we telecommute with our companies and cannot afford to be off line 50% of the time and running around resetting routers and cable modems a hundred times a day.
Also, your sales rep sold me the "Super Duper Double Damn Good" high speed internet service though the end of this year to try out for free and if the upload download speeds we've been seeing are representive of your upgraded services you are going to lose our business to another internet supplier.
I better see a half dozen trucks and technicians out here today or there is going to be a letter written to someone over your head at COX.
Fix my freaking Cable and Internet Service...DAMMIT...
Heh...That Aught to get some action going out here...
Missing In Action
Critical Tools Found Abandonded In Knoxtown...
There has been a mystery unfolding here in the eastern suburbs of Tulsa, Oklahoma over the past month...Ladies and Gentlemen...
and I'm quite pleased...
...actually I'm tickled PINK...
...to report to you of it's resolution late yesterday.
You see, in the process of loading all of our worldly possessions into boxes and onto a truck in our old home there in Eastern Tennessee, somehow certain items very near and dear to my heart as a cook, and critical to my efforts in advancing my skills in the cullinary arts, went missing.
As of last Sunday afternoon we have been searching and waiting with pregnant anticipation as each and every box larger than 18" square had the tape removed and its contents removed in hopes of finding our stainless steel boilers and two pizza stones I've enjoyed using over the past decade.
Sunday evening it was with a heavy heart that I broke the last box down, folded it flat, and admitted defeat.
It would appear that our beloved pots were lost (the lids made the journey somehow) and one eight quart boiler, two six quart boilers, two four quart boilers, our collandars and miscellaneous throw away oven pans had disappeared in the moving process never to be heard from again.
Then Pat had an idea I agreed with.
Perhaps in the insanity of packing up all of our stuff and loading it into a giant moving truck, our movers had somehow missed the single lower kitchen cabinet in Knoxtown which contained the missing items?
Incredible coincidence, but possible none the less, you know?
So I sent an e-mail to our next door neighbors who have been looking after the place and GUESS WHAT?
...ALL OF OUR POTS AND PIZZA STONES ARE STILL SITTING THERE LONELY IN KNOXTOWN!!!!!
I was so excited I literally almost ran out of the door and drove to the airport upon hearing the news last evening, but since I already have a plane ticket to return the weekend of December 9th to finish up some business in town I thought better of the impulse and decided to wait and just pack everything up and ship it back here FedEX while I'm in town next month.
You have to understand, with the importance of cooking around here...especially with the nice new gourmet kitchen with gas stove and marble counter tops...of all the things which could have been lost the pizza stones and pots were some of the worst things to lose.
I'd almost rather have lost my old Chevy Surburban or a hip or knee on my right leg than our stainless pots and well seasoned stones.
So any way, life is busy but good here in Eastern Oklahoma these days...the weather starting to turn toward winter...and from Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup and I...I offer a hearty...
Regards Y'all...
There has been a mystery unfolding here in the eastern suburbs of Tulsa, Oklahoma over the past month...Ladies and Gentlemen...
and I'm quite pleased...
...actually I'm tickled PINK...
...to report to you of it's resolution late yesterday.
You see, in the process of loading all of our worldly possessions into boxes and onto a truck in our old home there in Eastern Tennessee, somehow certain items very near and dear to my heart as a cook, and critical to my efforts in advancing my skills in the cullinary arts, went missing.
As of last Sunday afternoon we have been searching and waiting with pregnant anticipation as each and every box larger than 18" square had the tape removed and its contents removed in hopes of finding our stainless steel boilers and two pizza stones I've enjoyed using over the past decade.
Sunday evening it was with a heavy heart that I broke the last box down, folded it flat, and admitted defeat.
It would appear that our beloved pots were lost (the lids made the journey somehow) and one eight quart boiler, two six quart boilers, two four quart boilers, our collandars and miscellaneous throw away oven pans had disappeared in the moving process never to be heard from again.
Then Pat had an idea I agreed with.
Perhaps in the insanity of packing up all of our stuff and loading it into a giant moving truck, our movers had somehow missed the single lower kitchen cabinet in Knoxtown which contained the missing items?
Incredible coincidence, but possible none the less, you know?
So I sent an e-mail to our next door neighbors who have been looking after the place and GUESS WHAT?
...ALL OF OUR POTS AND PIZZA STONES ARE STILL SITTING THERE LONELY IN KNOXTOWN!!!!!
I was so excited I literally almost ran out of the door and drove to the airport upon hearing the news last evening, but since I already have a plane ticket to return the weekend of December 9th to finish up some business in town I thought better of the impulse and decided to wait and just pack everything up and ship it back here FedEX while I'm in town next month.
You have to understand, with the importance of cooking around here...especially with the nice new gourmet kitchen with gas stove and marble counter tops...of all the things which could have been lost the pizza stones and pots were some of the worst things to lose.
I'd almost rather have lost my old Chevy Surburban or a hip or knee on my right leg than our stainless pots and well seasoned stones.
So any way, life is busy but good here in Eastern Oklahoma these days...the weather starting to turn toward winter...and from Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup and I...I offer a hearty...
Regards Y'all...
Sunday, November 27, 2011
What I Am "Sonny" Is About 50 Pound Heavier And A Hell Of A Lot Meaner...
...And I Don't Think I Like You...
Friday, November 25, 2011
"Black Friday" Isn't A Racist Slur?
Shopping Today Means Nothing To Me...
So just in case you are interested, let me emphatically state that the LAST place you will find me today is standing in line waiting to get in a WalMart at midnight or enduring a rush through the TV/electronics department looking for deals, or otherwise participating in this so-called "Holiday" retail marketing event which has come to be known as...
...BLACK FRIDAY.
Why not call this much talked about consumer based day one of these terms:
"Stupid Dumbasses With Credit Cards in Hand Signing Away Most of Next Year's Salary FRIDAY"?
Or perhaps...
"People which don't understand stores are open every day and most of the so called "deals" were already available online last week without standing in the lines in the brick and mortar stores FRIDAY?"
You know?
Then of course there are the limited number of people out there (mainly women) which really can afford to shop and buy almost anything they want at any time...
and just enjoy events like "Black Friday" and last minute Christmas shopping at Macy's in New York City?
And to them I offer a hearty "KNOCK YOURSELF OUT TODAY" because I most definitely will not be there competing for the "limited quantities" of sales items and getting in your way at the cash register.
All ranting and raving aside...my wallet and I are happily staying home here today doing mundane things like opening the final unpacked boxes in our offices and garage areas and re-arranging the giant stacks of previously opened boxes we have sorted and piled out in the garage awaiting resale or disposal.
Hope everyone had a LOVELY Turkey Day and has a good balance of the Thanksgiving Holiday...
Regards Y'all...
So just in case you are interested, let me emphatically state that the LAST place you will find me today is standing in line waiting to get in a WalMart at midnight or enduring a rush through the TV/electronics department looking for deals, or otherwise participating in this so-called "Holiday" retail marketing event which has come to be known as...
...BLACK FRIDAY.
Why not call this much talked about consumer based day one of these terms:
"Stupid Dumbasses With Credit Cards in Hand Signing Away Most of Next Year's Salary FRIDAY"?
Or perhaps...
"People which don't understand stores are open every day and most of the so called "deals" were already available online last week without standing in the lines in the brick and mortar stores FRIDAY?"
You know?
Then of course there are the limited number of people out there (mainly women) which really can afford to shop and buy almost anything they want at any time...
and just enjoy events like "Black Friday" and last minute Christmas shopping at Macy's in New York City?
And to them I offer a hearty "KNOCK YOURSELF OUT TODAY" because I most definitely will not be there competing for the "limited quantities" of sales items and getting in your way at the cash register.
All ranting and raving aside...my wallet and I are happily staying home here today doing mundane things like opening the final unpacked boxes in our offices and garage areas and re-arranging the giant stacks of previously opened boxes we have sorted and piled out in the garage awaiting resale or disposal.
Hope everyone had a LOVELY Turkey Day and has a good balance of the Thanksgiving Holiday...
Regards Y'all...
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Thanks For Thanksgiving Holiday
A "Working Vacation" Or Is It Really "Vacation Working"?
First of all, let me start out this Holiday Season by saying/writing this...
I recognise that we have truly been BLESSED both individually and as a Family here in the Year of Our Lord, 2011.
I would be remiss in not thanking God for his bounty and our individual close Friends and Families for their prayers and support over the past decade (plus nearly an extra year since as of April 3rd, 2012 we will be 11 years together) that Pat and I have been living as a committed couple...
and of course we've benefited from little Missy the Turbo Pup's efforts providing love and support and security in doing her self assumed job as the Family Clown and in her capacity of delivering a "good barking" to anyone/everyone/every circumstance which in fact needed a "good barking."
While the task at hand as we move together through the end of this year and look ahead into 2012 both personally and professionally sometimes appears daunting, we continue forward with the knowledge and belief that our success is the result of an age old equation I've sometimes been guilty of ignoring in parts of my adult life.
That would be this axiom attributed to Sir William Shakespeare:
"There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures."
I'm humbled by the opportunities I face in the new year living here in the US of A...the greatest country in the history of the planet...and I am resolute to stand up to the challenges with which I am presented.
Wish me luck...If you will.
Regards Y'all...
First of all, let me start out this Holiday Season by saying/writing this...
I recognise that we have truly been BLESSED both individually and as a Family here in the Year of Our Lord, 2011.
I would be remiss in not thanking God for his bounty and our individual close Friends and Families for their prayers and support over the past decade (plus nearly an extra year since as of April 3rd, 2012 we will be 11 years together) that Pat and I have been living as a committed couple...
and of course we've benefited from little Missy the Turbo Pup's efforts providing love and support and security in doing her self assumed job as the Family Clown and in her capacity of delivering a "good barking" to anyone/everyone/every circumstance which in fact needed a "good barking."
While the task at hand as we move together through the end of this year and look ahead into 2012 both personally and professionally sometimes appears daunting, we continue forward with the knowledge and belief that our success is the result of an age old equation I've sometimes been guilty of ignoring in parts of my adult life.
That would be this axiom attributed to Sir William Shakespeare:
"There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures."
I'm humbled by the opportunities I face in the new year living here in the US of A...the greatest country in the history of the planet...and I am resolute to stand up to the challenges with which I am presented.
Wish me luck...If you will.
Regards Y'all...
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Training Day
Teaching Old Tricks To A New Dog...
OK Ladies and Gentlemen, if anybody needs me, later this morning you can find me sitting in yet another classroom here in the eastern Tulsa suburbs about 7:30 AM taking another class/seminar.
This one is on S A F E T Y.
Specifically, C O N S T R U C T I ON S A F E T Y.
My bellybutton has been puckering and un-puckering for most of the past week in anticipation, and if I can avoid falling down getting out of my car in the parking lot or tripping over the course registration table you'll hear from me again sometime later today or early tomorrow morning.
Now it's time to go cut open some more cardboard boxes looking for my Pizza stones...
Regards Y'all...
OK Ladies and Gentlemen, if anybody needs me, later this morning you can find me sitting in yet another classroom here in the eastern Tulsa suburbs about 7:30 AM taking another class/seminar.
This one is on S A F E T Y.
Specifically, C O N S T R U C T I ON S A F E T Y.
My bellybutton has been puckering and un-puckering for most of the past week in anticipation, and if I can avoid falling down getting out of my car in the parking lot or tripping over the course registration table you'll hear from me again sometime later today or early tomorrow morning.
Now it's time to go cut open some more cardboard boxes looking for my Pizza stones...
Regards Y'all...
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Life In The Fast Lane
Doing Oklahoma At High Speed...
Well, we sort of took the day off yesterday after expending a whirlwind of energy over the past couple of weeks settling into a new town, a new job, and a new house full of boxes needing unpacking.
Speaking of boxes...I can make you a DEAL on used packing boxes if you need any...half price...but I digress.
So any way... we lounged around all Saturday morning basically doing nothing, and then we spent the afternoon driving our good friend "Ski" back over to Oklahoma City in order for her to be able to catch her noon flight today heading across almost half of the country back over to our little Island of St. Simons on the Georgia Coast.
Interestingly enough, affording expediting our local travels we've found that the state of Oklahoma has very liberal speed limit laws on the Interstate Highways. For instance, in yesterday's venture to the west along I-44...a toll road running between Tulsa and Oklahoma City...the speed limit was set at 75 MPH in rural areas and even 60 or 65 MPH here in the Tulsa city limits.
In the end, Miss Ski managed to knock our socks off with her decorating efforts in the main areas of the house (and pushing the vacuum cleaner around about every 15 minutes it seemed), and so when the dust settled so to speak all I have left to do is basically the office and garage areas of the building to straighten out and organize whatever is left in the brown boxes stacked along the walls and in the corners of the rooms.
Today would be a success if :
A. I could get a new refrigerator for the kitchen on order to be delivered this week since we've been living out of coolers stocked with bags of ice thus far...and
B. I could go out and buy a new 56" TV which will fit in the new living room entertainment center cabinet my girls (Pat and Ski and Missy the Turbo Pup) went out and bought for me on Friday and had delivered as a surprise.
Other than that, we're living life LARGE out here in and on the southern plains of the US mid-west, and now it's time to get back to looking at some drawings I did last week getting them ready to turn in Monday morning as I start my third project and get down to doing the business I was hired to do.
Y'all have a LOVELY Sunday...If you will...
Well, we sort of took the day off yesterday after expending a whirlwind of energy over the past couple of weeks settling into a new town, a new job, and a new house full of boxes needing unpacking.
Speaking of boxes...I can make you a DEAL on used packing boxes if you need any...half price...but I digress.
So any way... we lounged around all Saturday morning basically doing nothing, and then we spent the afternoon driving our good friend "Ski" back over to Oklahoma City in order for her to be able to catch her noon flight today heading across almost half of the country back over to our little Island of St. Simons on the Georgia Coast.
Interestingly enough, affording expediting our local travels we've found that the state of Oklahoma has very liberal speed limit laws on the Interstate Highways. For instance, in yesterday's venture to the west along I-44...a toll road running between Tulsa and Oklahoma City...the speed limit was set at 75 MPH in rural areas and even 60 or 65 MPH here in the Tulsa city limits.
In the end, Miss Ski managed to knock our socks off with her decorating efforts in the main areas of the house (and pushing the vacuum cleaner around about every 15 minutes it seemed), and so when the dust settled so to speak all I have left to do is basically the office and garage areas of the building to straighten out and organize whatever is left in the brown boxes stacked along the walls and in the corners of the rooms.
Today would be a success if :
A. I could get a new refrigerator for the kitchen on order to be delivered this week since we've been living out of coolers stocked with bags of ice thus far...and
B. I could go out and buy a new 56" TV which will fit in the new living room entertainment center cabinet my girls (Pat and Ski and Missy the Turbo Pup) went out and bought for me on Friday and had delivered as a surprise.
Other than that, we're living life LARGE out here in and on the southern plains of the US mid-west, and now it's time to get back to looking at some drawings I did last week getting them ready to turn in Monday morning as I start my third project and get down to doing the business I was hired to do.
Y'all have a LOVELY Sunday...If you will...
Friday, November 18, 2011
Flame Proof Clothes
I Need A Nomex Jumpsuit?
I'm pleased to report that I managed to sleep my way out of the grip of the creeping crud which was attempting to take over my lungs earlier this week and managed to get back to work yesterday and put in a full day with a reasonable level of concentration and clarity.
When I first arrived in Tulsa about a month ago I really hadn't considered certain issues relating to the dangers of working in and around equipment in oil refineries.
Oh sure, I've spent most of my professional career working around hot dangerous stuff like steam boilers in paper mills, power plants, chemical plants, and other industrial facilities, but virtually ZERO time around places containing high pressure hot fluids which are FLAMMABLE.
Thus the realization of the realities of working in a refinery.
At work yesterday we wandered over to the warehouse in our complex where they stored the "safety gear" and when I left the building I had in my possession a hard hat, two kinds of safety glasses, gloves, and finally...
a Nomex jump suit...
...made out of the same material NASCAR drivers and Air Force Fighter Pilots wear when doing their jobs.
A fire proof suit of clothes.
When I told my buddy Rusty about the new clothes he quipped that I could have probably used such attire several times before in my life.
Episodes dealing with an ex-wife and a former business partner come to mind come to think.
So any way...the beginning of my second month (first full time month) of employment as "Lead Structural Engineer" finds me busy with training and processing a light work load as I settle into the position, and on that note it's time to get back to some productive work looking at fun things like National Engineering Design Code issues I'm dealing with this week.
Regards Y'all...
I'm pleased to report that I managed to sleep my way out of the grip of the creeping crud which was attempting to take over my lungs earlier this week and managed to get back to work yesterday and put in a full day with a reasonable level of concentration and clarity.
When I first arrived in Tulsa about a month ago I really hadn't considered certain issues relating to the dangers of working in and around equipment in oil refineries.
Oh sure, I've spent most of my professional career working around hot dangerous stuff like steam boilers in paper mills, power plants, chemical plants, and other industrial facilities, but virtually ZERO time around places containing high pressure hot fluids which are FLAMMABLE.
Thus the realization of the realities of working in a refinery.
At work yesterday we wandered over to the warehouse in our complex where they stored the "safety gear" and when I left the building I had in my possession a hard hat, two kinds of safety glasses, gloves, and finally...
a Nomex jump suit...
...made out of the same material NASCAR drivers and Air Force Fighter Pilots wear when doing their jobs.
A fire proof suit of clothes.
When I told my buddy Rusty about the new clothes he quipped that I could have probably used such attire several times before in my life.
Episodes dealing with an ex-wife and a former business partner come to mind come to think.
So any way...the beginning of my second month (first full time month) of employment as "Lead Structural Engineer" finds me busy with training and processing a light work load as I settle into the position, and on that note it's time to get back to some productive work looking at fun things like National Engineering Design Code issues I'm dealing with this week.
Regards Y'all...
Thursday, November 17, 2011
New Frames
Finishing Year's Old Products
I'm in the process of coming back up to speed after spending part of a week recovering from the results of what I call the effects of "burning the candle at both ends."
This moving stuff has taken it's toll on me...getting everything into boxes and back out of boxes...and then some sort of malady grabbed me on the airplane or somewhere in Houston and I'm just now able to stay awake long enough to get something done.
Late yesterday the girls convinced me come out of the house...getting out of my PJ's and putting on clothes and shoes and wandering over to Hobby Lobby to look at some stuff they needed for decorating, and in the process I took some original pen and ink drawings and some watercolors I had done a few years ago and in the end I found myself committing to buying a bunch of frames and matts for about a half dozen things to hang on the wall here in the new house.
I think that it's really cool to have art work hanging on the wall which originated in my mind and was produced by my hand.
I guess I'll go now and get ready to head back to work and try to catch up with everyone and get some drawings out the door.
Regards Y'all...
I'm in the process of coming back up to speed after spending part of a week recovering from the results of what I call the effects of "burning the candle at both ends."
This moving stuff has taken it's toll on me...getting everything into boxes and back out of boxes...and then some sort of malady grabbed me on the airplane or somewhere in Houston and I'm just now able to stay awake long enough to get something done.
Late yesterday the girls convinced me come out of the house...getting out of my PJ's and putting on clothes and shoes and wandering over to Hobby Lobby to look at some stuff they needed for decorating, and in the process I took some original pen and ink drawings and some watercolors I had done a few years ago and in the end I found myself committing to buying a bunch of frames and matts for about a half dozen things to hang on the wall here in the new house.
I think that it's really cool to have art work hanging on the wall which originated in my mind and was produced by my hand.
I guess I'll go now and get ready to head back to work and try to catch up with everyone and get some drawings out the door.
Regards Y'all...
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Public Appearences Yield Fun Maladies
Creeping Crud Won't Come Or Go Completely...
One thing I know I'm going to miss about living and working at home most of the time in the recent past was the lack of contact I managed to have with the "General Public."
Sure, I went out to the stores and to bars and restaurants a number of times a week and we traveled a little--usually compressed into a few weeks at a time several times each year--but now my new current lifestyle and work situation requires I get up every day and go to an office, and spending at least eight hours of my time outside my primary residence five days a week has apparently already taken it's toll to a degree.
When I came back from Houston last Thursday night I felt fine after sitting in a classroom and on an airplane with several people that were noticeably hacking and coughing a bit.
Saturday and Sunday I dutifully continued my month long push through the process of moving and getting things into and out of boxes, and then finally Monday morning I had to admit I had something going on in my chest and if I didn't slow down and rest a little I was going to end up at the doctor's office...something I haven't had the time to find one of yet here in Tulsa.
I finally ran home from the office mid morning yesterday after another false start after going in to my desk to check e-mail and gather up my computer and some job files, and then I proceeded to come home and sleep most of the day under the influence of Robitussin, get up in time to go to dinner, and then I slept from 8 PM to 5 AM last night...
...another NINE HOURS.
Since I usually can't sleep more than four to six hours in a row since I turned the age of about 40, I actually wish I could distill whatever is in being sick into a formula I could take which would allow me to sleep just a precious 8 hours each and every night.
Fortunately my work load is rather low right now since I'm still in training mode, and everyone but me is out of the office this week in meetings and sales calls, so I'm not on the critical path for ANYTHING and I can lounge around here in my pajamas consuming a few medical leave days and get back up to full speed before things get moving again.
All of that said, it's time to collect my thoughts, take another dose ofsleeping syrup Robitussin and lay back down for a while.
If you don't hear from me within 24 hours...someone please call 911...
One thing I know I'm going to miss about living and working at home most of the time in the recent past was the lack of contact I managed to have with the "General Public."
Sure, I went out to the stores and to bars and restaurants a number of times a week and we traveled a little--usually compressed into a few weeks at a time several times each year--but now my new current lifestyle and work situation requires I get up every day and go to an office, and spending at least eight hours of my time outside my primary residence five days a week has apparently already taken it's toll to a degree.
When I came back from Houston last Thursday night I felt fine after sitting in a classroom and on an airplane with several people that were noticeably hacking and coughing a bit.
Saturday and Sunday I dutifully continued my month long push through the process of moving and getting things into and out of boxes, and then finally Monday morning I had to admit I had something going on in my chest and if I didn't slow down and rest a little I was going to end up at the doctor's office...something I haven't had the time to find one of yet here in Tulsa.
I finally ran home from the office mid morning yesterday after another false start after going in to my desk to check e-mail and gather up my computer and some job files, and then I proceeded to come home and sleep most of the day under the influence of Robitussin, get up in time to go to dinner, and then I slept from 8 PM to 5 AM last night...
...another NINE HOURS.
Since I usually can't sleep more than four to six hours in a row since I turned the age of about 40, I actually wish I could distill whatever is in being sick into a formula I could take which would allow me to sleep just a precious 8 hours each and every night.
Fortunately my work load is rather low right now since I'm still in training mode, and everyone but me is out of the office this week in meetings and sales calls, so I'm not on the critical path for ANYTHING and I can lounge around here in my pajamas consuming a few medical leave days and get back up to full speed before things get moving again.
All of that said, it's time to collect my thoughts, take another dose of
If you don't hear from me within 24 hours...someone please call 911...
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Off To A Bumpy Start With Our ISP
Please Tell Me Cox Communications Isn't Just Like Comcast...
So most of my long time blog readers will probably remember I had a love/hate relationship with Comcast Cable over the past ten years or so beginning in Atlanta, then later on St. Simons Island and finally ending this month in Knoxville when we turned off the signal and headed west.
When we arrived here with our stuff almost the very first thing I did was crawl around in the floor while the movers were unpacking the truck connecting up a Television and the cable modem to make sure we had a good working signal.
We did.
But then we slowly noticed that the Internet speed here more or less totally SUCKS, and what is really weird is that I let the Cox Communications sales guy talk me into getting the "super duper warp speed" Internet because it was free until the end of the year and if I wanted to I could step back to standard cable January 1st if I wanted.
Right now if it gets any slower and I stepped back I'd be going to two Dixie cups and a length of string I guess.
Any way, we drove downtown on Sunday to turn over the keys to my temporary condo housing and when we left about 2:30 PM we had Internet and Cable, and we came back about 4 PM guess what?
No Cable...
And NO INTERNET!
Out friend Ski said that she noticed a Cox Communications truck outside on the street, and after doing a little calling we discovered that-after over a week of service--THAT THE IDIOTS HAD COME BY AND DISCONNECTED OUR SERVICE BECAUSE THEY HAD AN OPEN WORK ORDER TELLING THEM TO TURN IT OFF FROM THE PREVIOUS TENANT.
On Sunday afternoon.
And then guess what?
Since it was LATE on Sunday afternoon, they couldn't get back around to turn our service back ON...
the service which had been working just for 8 days...
UNTIL MONDAY MORNING.
Fortunately they were here a little after 8 AM so I was the only one suffering withdrawal symptoms from the lack of information.
Any way, that's my excuse for the silence here on the blog...that and being busy as heck unpacking and now fighting off a little bit of a cold or other form of creeping crud.
Time to get some reading and other stuff done...Regards Y'all...
So most of my long time blog readers will probably remember I had a love/hate relationship with Comcast Cable over the past ten years or so beginning in Atlanta, then later on St. Simons Island and finally ending this month in Knoxville when we turned off the signal and headed west.
When we arrived here with our stuff almost the very first thing I did was crawl around in the floor while the movers were unpacking the truck connecting up a Television and the cable modem to make sure we had a good working signal.
We did.
But then we slowly noticed that the Internet speed here more or less totally SUCKS, and what is really weird is that I let the Cox Communications sales guy talk me into getting the "super duper warp speed" Internet because it was free until the end of the year and if I wanted to I could step back to standard cable January 1st if I wanted.
Right now if it gets any slower and I stepped back I'd be going to two Dixie cups and a length of string I guess.
Any way, we drove downtown on Sunday to turn over the keys to my temporary condo housing and when we left about 2:30 PM we had Internet and Cable, and we came back about 4 PM guess what?
No Cable...
And NO INTERNET!
Out friend Ski said that she noticed a Cox Communications truck outside on the street, and after doing a little calling we discovered that-after over a week of service--THAT THE IDIOTS HAD COME BY AND DISCONNECTED OUR SERVICE BECAUSE THEY HAD AN OPEN WORK ORDER TELLING THEM TO TURN IT OFF FROM THE PREVIOUS TENANT.
On Sunday afternoon.
And then guess what?
Since it was LATE on Sunday afternoon, they couldn't get back around to turn our service back ON...
the service which had been working just for 8 days...
UNTIL MONDAY MORNING.
Fortunately they were here a little after 8 AM so I was the only one suffering withdrawal symptoms from the lack of information.
Any way, that's my excuse for the silence here on the blog...that and being busy as heck unpacking and now fighting off a little bit of a cold or other form of creeping crud.
Time to get some reading and other stuff done...Regards Y'all...
Sunday, November 13, 2011
My Day Off On A Ladder
Putting In Brighter Bulbs...
A couple of things finally hit me yesterday--a Saturday--when many if not MOST working people were taking a day off from their jobs.
I personally didn't have the opportunity to enjoy any such luxury because I still have about half of my possessions sitting in boxes in my office and garage, and there's a nearly infinite number of other things needing doing around here as we settle into our new home in Oklahoma and they (the things needing doing) are not going to get done all by themselves.
My first realization was this:
WE HAVE FOUR TOILETS IN THIS HOUSE.
Seriously, I had been confused for a while because the real estate ad said "three bathrooms"...but when the dust settled and I walked around and counted toilets...each of the three bedrooms had dedicated bathrooms, and then there's a half bath off of the kitchen in the hallway leading to the garage so the actual total is FOUR toilets.
FOUR TOILETS.
After living for five years in a house with only a full bath and one half, it's sort of interesting being able to just turn around, take a few steps, and take care of business without having to plan the event and have a map and make a trip across the property to accommodate my physical needs.
And Pat's already begun the process of buying a new assortment of lovely decorative toilet brushes with integral holding containers...
...so each toilet has it's owntoothbrush brush residing nearby for cleaning purposes.
The next revelation came in regard to the CEILING HEIGHT in this house...or more specifically... the realities of accessing the ceilings most 9' and some 10' and 12' high in different spaces and...
all having things like ceiling fans and recessed can lights which will need maintenance in the coming weeks and months.
The project at hand yesterday was to replace all of the 65 watt bulbs in the ceiling can lights in the living room, kitchen, and master bathroom with higher wattage bulbs and install dimmer switches.
Problem was, I had a 20' extension ladder only good for leaning up against stuff while climbing, and then I had a little 5' A-frame step ladder which was just asking me to climb it to it's top so I could fall off and break my neck or leg.
So of course a trip to Home Depot was in order, and then after returning home I had to haul my butt up and down my new 8' step ladder about fifteen or twenty times, and then I got to wander out to the breaker panel out in the garage and find out that things were actually pretty well labeled so I could turn off the electrical power to various circuits in order to install dimmers...
and at the end of the day I was tired but had avoided electrocution.
All and all a good productive day I'd say...and now it's time to plan the next Home Depot trip for Sunday, and try to spend the day with my feet on the ground instead of up on a ladder rung if possible.
Hope you all have a LOVELY SUNDAY...Y'all...
A couple of things finally hit me yesterday--a Saturday--when many if not MOST working people were taking a day off from their jobs.
I personally didn't have the opportunity to enjoy any such luxury because I still have about half of my possessions sitting in boxes in my office and garage, and there's a nearly infinite number of other things needing doing around here as we settle into our new home in Oklahoma and they (the things needing doing) are not going to get done all by themselves.
My first realization was this:
WE HAVE FOUR TOILETS IN THIS HOUSE.
Seriously, I had been confused for a while because the real estate ad said "three bathrooms"...but when the dust settled and I walked around and counted toilets...each of the three bedrooms had dedicated bathrooms, and then there's a half bath off of the kitchen in the hallway leading to the garage so the actual total is FOUR toilets.
FOUR TOILETS.
After living for five years in a house with only a full bath and one half, it's sort of interesting being able to just turn around, take a few steps, and take care of business without having to plan the event and have a map and make a trip across the property to accommodate my physical needs.
And Pat's already begun the process of buying a new assortment of lovely decorative toilet brushes with integral holding containers...
...so each toilet has it's own
The next revelation came in regard to the CEILING HEIGHT in this house...or more specifically... the realities of accessing the ceilings most 9' and some 10' and 12' high in different spaces and...
all having things like ceiling fans and recessed can lights which will need maintenance in the coming weeks and months.
The project at hand yesterday was to replace all of the 65 watt bulbs in the ceiling can lights in the living room, kitchen, and master bathroom with higher wattage bulbs and install dimmer switches.
Problem was, I had a 20' extension ladder only good for leaning up against stuff while climbing, and then I had a little 5' A-frame step ladder which was just asking me to climb it to it's top so I could fall off and break my neck or leg.
So of course a trip to Home Depot was in order, and then after returning home I had to haul my butt up and down my new 8' step ladder about fifteen or twenty times, and then I got to wander out to the breaker panel out in the garage and find out that things were actually pretty well labeled so I could turn off the electrical power to various circuits in order to install dimmers...
and at the end of the day I was tired but had avoided electrocution.
All and all a good productive day I'd say...and now it's time to plan the next Home Depot trip for Sunday, and try to spend the day with my feet on the ground instead of up on a ladder rung if possible.
Hope you all have a LOVELY SUNDAY...Y'all...
Friday, November 11, 2011
Why Do Two Hunded Fifty Dollar A Night Hotels...
Insist On Charging An Extra $15 A Day Each For Parking And Internet Service?
I'M HOME FROM HOUSTON, TEXAS!!!
I'm also not that really interested in going back again any time soon if I didn't have to...
...but I'll probably HAVE TO since a number of our Customers and our Corporate Offices are in Houston.
Regardless, I'm home tonight to my girls and I rapidly running out of steam after about 30 hours of classroom time and travel since Tuesday morning, so I guess I'll go now and reserve the rest of my pontifications and travel horror stories for later.
Regards Y'all...
I'M HOME FROM HOUSTON, TEXAS!!!
I'm also not that really interested in going back again any time soon if I didn't have to...
...but I'll probably HAVE TO since a number of our Customers and our Corporate Offices are in Houston.
Regardless, I'm home tonight to my girls and I rapidly running out of steam after about 30 hours of classroom time and travel since Tuesday morning, so I guess I'll go now and reserve the rest of my pontifications and travel horror stories for later.
Regards Y'all...
Thursday, November 10, 2011
You Couldn't PAY Me...
...To Live In Houston, Texas
For those of you who have been living somewhere under a rock or otherwise not paying attention, Houston holds the position of FOURTH largest city in the United States.
That statistic in and of itself was probably intriguing to me when I was stumbling around our lovely planet at the age of 21, but today at the age of 52 it just doesn't do a dang thing for me except make me want to run away screaming.
I didn't have to rent a car on this trip because I'm staying at a hotel ($150 per night) across the interstate from the Galleria Marriott ($300 per night) where my training class is being held, but on the shuttle ride from Bush International Airport Tuesday night and the subsequent Taxi rides since I'm determined that the impossible has happened since I was last in this City about ten years ago.
THESE FREAKING PEOPLE HAVE BECOME EVEN MORE ARROGANT AND RUDE IN THEIR DRIVING STYLE!
Walking on the sidewalk--even those adjacent to side streets and the Interstate Access Roads--is something akin to strolling along on the grass by the entrance to "Pit Road" at a NASCAR track.
That said, it's time to get ready to head over to the conference room for day two of the RISA training class, then drag my luggage on back to the airport in time to catch a flight back to Tulsa.
Feel free to meet me at the new house for a night cap about 10 PM if you're in the area.
Regards Y'all...
For those of you who have been living somewhere under a rock or otherwise not paying attention, Houston holds the position of FOURTH largest city in the United States.
That statistic in and of itself was probably intriguing to me when I was stumbling around our lovely planet at the age of 21, but today at the age of 52 it just doesn't do a dang thing for me except make me want to run away screaming.
I didn't have to rent a car on this trip because I'm staying at a hotel ($150 per night) across the interstate from the Galleria Marriott ($300 per night) where my training class is being held, but on the shuttle ride from Bush International Airport Tuesday night and the subsequent Taxi rides since I'm determined that the impossible has happened since I was last in this City about ten years ago.
THESE FREAKING PEOPLE HAVE BECOME EVEN MORE ARROGANT AND RUDE IN THEIR DRIVING STYLE!
Walking on the sidewalk--even those adjacent to side streets and the Interstate Access Roads--is something akin to strolling along on the grass by the entrance to "Pit Road" at a NASCAR track.
That said, it's time to get ready to head over to the conference room for day two of the RISA training class, then drag my luggage on back to the airport in time to catch a flight back to Tulsa.
Feel free to meet me at the new house for a night cap about 10 PM if you're in the area.
Regards Y'all...
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
Houston
Back In School...
I just flew to the Texas Gulf Coast last night (boy are my arms tired) to attend a two day class on some Finite Element software I'm using these days in the new job.
The result was a seventeen hour day yesterday, so you'll have to excuse the light blogging for the moment.
Class starts this morning at 7:30, so I guess I'll go now and get ready for class.
Regards Y'all...
I just flew to the Texas Gulf Coast last night (boy are my arms tired) to attend a two day class on some Finite Element software I'm using these days in the new job.
The result was a seventeen hour day yesterday, so you'll have to excuse the light blogging for the moment.
Class starts this morning at 7:30, so I guess I'll go now and get ready for class.
Regards Y'all...
Monday, November 07, 2011
More Shakin'...Rattlin'...and Rolling...
Whaaaaaaattttttt??????
Well, we slept through another 4.0 earthquake between 3 and 4 AM this morning, then about 8:45 tonight we were sitting here digesting our Pizza Dinner and we had another one preliminarily reading 4.7 on the Richter Scale.
The 4.7 was noticeably less powerful than the earlier 5.6 because each increment on the Richter Scale is logarithmic and thus an increase of 1.0 offers an amplitude ten times larger and releases 31.6 (the square root of 1000) times as much energy in the process.
That said, we've had a 4.6 on Saturday morning, a 5.6 on Saturday night, a 4.0 on Monday morning, and now for good measure a 4.7 tonight...
ADDING IT ALL UP, THAT'S A GRAND TOTAL OF 28.9!
OK, maybe it really doesn't work like that, but the executive summary is that we've apparently had 4 of the top five earthquakes in modern recorded Oklahoma history since I've been here over the past FOUR DAYS.
And now I have to go batten down the hatches because we have a line of severe thunderstorms moving this way out of the southwest from Oklahoma City.
Oh, and I have to pack to fly after work tomorrow to Houston, TX for a two day class returning Thursday night.
I hope my girls and house is still here when I get back.
Looks like it's going to be an interesting time here in the Midwest.
Regards Y'all...
Well, we slept through another 4.0 earthquake between 3 and 4 AM this morning, then about 8:45 tonight we were sitting here digesting our Pizza Dinner and we had another one preliminarily reading 4.7 on the Richter Scale.
The 4.7 was noticeably less powerful than the earlier 5.6 because each increment on the Richter Scale is logarithmic and thus an increase of 1.0 offers an amplitude ten times larger and releases 31.6 (the square root of 1000) times as much energy in the process.
That said, we've had a 4.6 on Saturday morning, a 5.6 on Saturday night, a 4.0 on Monday morning, and now for good measure a 4.7 tonight...
ADDING IT ALL UP, THAT'S A GRAND TOTAL OF 28.9!
OK, maybe it really doesn't work like that, but the executive summary is that we've apparently had 4 of the top five earthquakes in modern recorded Oklahoma history since I've been here over the past FOUR DAYS.
And now I have to go batten down the hatches because we have a line of severe thunderstorms moving this way out of the southwest from Oklahoma City.
Oh, and I have to pack to fly after work tomorrow to Houston, TX for a two day class returning Thursday night.
I hope my girls and house is still here when I get back.
Looks like it's going to be an interesting time here in the Midwest.
Regards Y'all...
Living In Internet Hell...
Either Cox Communications' Internet Sucks Else There I Something Wrong On My End Of This Equation...
So I let the lovely "sales representative" talk me into a cable system upgrade (which I can't use right now because I can't find most of my cables and TV associated crap) and also some silly version of their "super dooper pooper ultra freaking high speed" Internet services which is "totally free between now and January 1, 2012.
After that I'll have to either cut back on the services or stop eating because I'll have to stop buying toilet paper because I can't afford either, but I digress.
So this morning my "super dooper pooper ultra freaking high speed" Internet Service is running at...
You ready?
If not get ready...
T H E SPEED OF ....
S M E L L.
The speed of SMELL
Got it?
I've unplugged and rebooted the Cable modem and the wireless router has been completely out of the equation pretty much the whole time because as I said before I either can't find my computer equipment else I'm too busy and distracted to set any of the system up...
but DAMMIT...
this "sooper dooper ultra high speed" Internet stuff pretty much SUCKS right now because I have things to do and people to meet and talk to and I'm not sitting here at 4 AM screwing around and improving my health.
Is it just ME?
So I let the lovely "sales representative" talk me into a cable system upgrade (which I can't use right now because I can't find most of my cables and TV associated crap) and also some silly version of their "super dooper pooper ultra freaking high speed" Internet services which is "totally free between now and January 1, 2012.
After that I'll have to either cut back on the services or stop eating because I'll have to stop buying toilet paper because I can't afford either, but I digress.
So this morning my "super dooper pooper ultra freaking high speed" Internet Service is running at...
You ready?
If not get ready...
T H E SPEED OF ....
S M E L L.
The speed of SMELL
Got it?
I've unplugged and rebooted the Cable modem and the wireless router has been completely out of the equation pretty much the whole time because as I said before I either can't find my computer equipment else I'm too busy and distracted to set any of the system up...
but DAMMIT...
this "sooper dooper ultra high speed" Internet stuff pretty much SUCKS right now because I have things to do and people to meet and talk to and I'm not sitting here at 4 AM screwing around and improving my health.
Is it just ME?
Hanging Out With My "Old Ladies"
I'm Swimming In A Sea Of Estrogen...
OK...now I've REALLY gone and done it out here, Ladies and Gentlemen.
As if it wasn't enough that I live on a daily basis as the single male in my household with a very strong minded woman about a decade my senior and my little miniature female long haired Dachshund--Missy the Turbo Pup--who truth be known really runs things everywhere I am...
Nooooo Sir Eeeeeee....
Before we even loaded the truck in Knoxtown I went out and bought a ticket on an airplane thereby paying to FLY YET ANOTHER EVEN OLDER (YET BEAUTIFUL) WOMAN INTO THE STATE from the Georgia Coast last week to come help Pat unpack and decorate our new house...
and she finally arrived from her Daughter's house in Oklahoma City where she'd been visiting since last Wednesday to our place here in Tulsa yesterday morning.
Since then I've pretty much just been in charge of things like "shucking and jiving" and "toteing and fetching" and handling breaking down boxes and putting giant wads of packing paper and bubble wrap and peanuts into giant black trash bags and hauling them out into the garage.
Right now there is no room for the new Audi Q7 in my garage...A THREE CAR GARAGE for goodness sake!!!
Meanwhile, and continuing thinking and speaking of things not fitting into my garage right now...I have not ONE but TWO GPS systems...one built into the dash of the 2007 Q7 and another Garmon C330 vintage about that same time period and they both refuse to acknowledge that my house and street in my neighborhood exist on the planet.
Can't get there from here...no matter where "here" is on any given journey and where "there" is...AKA HOME.
With that issue at hand, and since the old Chevy Suburban is still sitting in Knoxtown waiting for the auto transport company to come by and pick it up...
I'm afraid after Pat and Ski and Missy the Turbo Pup deliver me back to the real world at work later this morning that there is a good chance that I'll never see any of my girls again because that will be somewhere in Texas or Kansas or Arkansas looking for "Home" because my FREAKING GPS'S CAN'T FIND MY HOUSE.
Then again I could go online and update the portable Garmon unit with a new map by paying for a download...
I guess that you will have to excuse me while I get out my wallet and credit cards and do just that so I can get a ride back home this afternoon.
Regards Y'all...
OK...now I've REALLY gone and done it out here, Ladies and Gentlemen.
As if it wasn't enough that I live on a daily basis as the single male in my household with a very strong minded woman about a decade my senior and my little miniature female long haired Dachshund--Missy the Turbo Pup--who truth be known really runs things everywhere I am...
Nooooo Sir Eeeeeee....
Before we even loaded the truck in Knoxtown I went out and bought a ticket on an airplane thereby paying to FLY YET ANOTHER EVEN OLDER (YET BEAUTIFUL) WOMAN INTO THE STATE from the Georgia Coast last week to come help Pat unpack and decorate our new house...
and she finally arrived from her Daughter's house in Oklahoma City where she'd been visiting since last Wednesday to our place here in Tulsa yesterday morning.
Since then I've pretty much just been in charge of things like "shucking and jiving" and "toteing and fetching" and handling breaking down boxes and putting giant wads of packing paper and bubble wrap and peanuts into giant black trash bags and hauling them out into the garage.
Right now there is no room for the new Audi Q7 in my garage...A THREE CAR GARAGE for goodness sake!!!
Meanwhile, and continuing thinking and speaking of things not fitting into my garage right now...I have not ONE but TWO GPS systems...one built into the dash of the 2007 Q7 and another Garmon C330 vintage about that same time period and they both refuse to acknowledge that my house and street in my neighborhood exist on the planet.
Can't get there from here...no matter where "here" is on any given journey and where "there" is...AKA HOME.
With that issue at hand, and since the old Chevy Suburban is still sitting in Knoxtown waiting for the auto transport company to come by and pick it up...
I'm afraid after Pat and Ski and Missy the Turbo Pup deliver me back to the real world at work later this morning that there is a good chance that I'll never see any of my girls again because that will be somewhere in Texas or Kansas or Arkansas looking for "Home" because my FREAKING GPS'S CAN'T FIND MY HOUSE.
Then again I could go online and update the portable Garmon unit with a new map by paying for a download...
I guess that you will have to excuse me while I get out my wallet and credit cards and do just that so I can get a ride back home this afternoon.
Regards Y'all...
Sunday, November 06, 2011
Spring Forward...Fall Off Back
There's A Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On...
As most of the people that know me in real life know, as a rule I generally try to stay off of the TV News and out of mention in the Newspapers--local and national--because I'm not good enough at anything in particular to warrant glowing, positive mention on video or in writing.
This means if you see a photo or video of me on the 6 PM TV news or I am written about by the press, generally something bad has happened.
That said, although I personally didn't make the news or the news papers in the past couple of days, since we relocated cross country this week the area here in and around TULSA, OKLAHOMA certainly did get the Headlines by having a 4.7 earthquake (third strongest on record) at around 2 AM Saturday morning...
...followed more than 70 aftershocks afterwards...
and then...
as a grand finale...
at a little after 11 PM last night while I was soaking in my new giant bathtub after a day spent opening boxes and looking for my computer stuff...
WE HAD A RECORD, NUMBER ONE OF RECORDED HISTORY, 5.6 EARTHQUAKE WHICH ALMOST SLOSHED THE WATER OUT OF MY BATH TUB.
The good news is that the way the quake moved there was little or no damage except at the epicenter about 70 miles to our southwest (and possibly some new cracks in the corners of our sheetrock walls), but the bad news is that little Missy the Turbo Pup and Pat are looking at me wondering what the heckI have gotten them into.
I did a little digging around in the online scientific literature on quakes and found that the state of Oklahoma is actually very seismically active--averaging about 500 minor quakes a year--but the geological structure is very different from places like California and the New Madrid fault line in Illinois.
The quakes we have here are compression/extension and slip fault line quakes which happen more frequently but possess much less energy that the ones which occur in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
So I guess that in the end we'll go back to worrying about getting blown away and having our roof torn off by tornadoes rather than having our roof fall in on us from a quake.
Time to get back to unloading boxes I guess.
Regards Y'all...
As most of the people that know me in real life know, as a rule I generally try to stay off of the TV News and out of mention in the Newspapers--local and national--because I'm not good enough at anything in particular to warrant glowing, positive mention on video or in writing.
This means if you see a photo or video of me on the 6 PM TV news or I am written about by the press, generally something bad has happened.
That said, although I personally didn't make the news or the news papers in the past couple of days, since we relocated cross country this week the area here in and around TULSA, OKLAHOMA certainly did get the Headlines by having a 4.7 earthquake (third strongest on record) at around 2 AM Saturday morning...
...followed more than 70 aftershocks afterwards...
and then...
as a grand finale...
at a little after 11 PM last night while I was soaking in my new giant bathtub after a day spent opening boxes and looking for my computer stuff...
WE HAD A RECORD, NUMBER ONE OF RECORDED HISTORY, 5.6 EARTHQUAKE WHICH ALMOST SLOSHED THE WATER OUT OF MY BATH TUB.
The good news is that the way the quake moved there was little or no damage except at the epicenter about 70 miles to our southwest (and possibly some new cracks in the corners of our sheetrock walls), but the bad news is that little Missy the Turbo Pup and Pat are looking at me wondering what the heckI have gotten them into.
I did a little digging around in the online scientific literature on quakes and found that the state of Oklahoma is actually very seismically active--averaging about 500 minor quakes a year--but the geological structure is very different from places like California and the New Madrid fault line in Illinois.
The quakes we have here are compression/extension and slip fault line quakes which happen more frequently but possess much less energy that the ones which occur in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
So I guess that in the end we'll go back to worrying about getting blown away and having our roof torn off by tornadoes rather than having our roof fall in on us from a quake.
Time to get back to unloading boxes I guess.
Regards Y'all...
Saturday, November 05, 2011
Date With Reba Last Night
And The Ground's Shaking Here In Tulsa
The good news this morning is that the movers managed to show up a little after 9 AM yesterday and off load all of our stuff into the appropriate rooms in the new house by about 2 PM.
By 5 PM we realized how we had been basically running on adrenalin for the past week and were ready to collapse on the bed or sofa, but we couldn't because I had earlier bought second row center stage tickets at the BOK Center (Bank of Oklahoma Center) located a few blocks from my downtown temp condo to see Reba McEntire.
I'm really not a modern country music fan...being more of a Hank Williams Sr./Johnny Cash sort of old school guy, but let me tell you...
Reba is one CLASS ACT and she puts on one HECK of a show.
When the music finally stopped a little before 11 PM we wandered back over to The Cellar Dweller Bar for a nightcap, and came home to the condo and just DIED.
In fact, we slept so hard that we missed the 2:12 AM earthquake measuring 4.7 which occurred between Tulsa and Oklahoma City...with FIVE additional 3.0+ aftershocks which have occurred since.
Talk about getting an interesting greeting to our new city...
So any way, now it's time to head back over to the new house and face unpacking all of our "stuff" still sitting in boxes.
If you are near Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, feel free to stop by and lend us a hand.
Regards Y'all...
The good news this morning is that the movers managed to show up a little after 9 AM yesterday and off load all of our stuff into the appropriate rooms in the new house by about 2 PM.
By 5 PM we realized how we had been basically running on adrenalin for the past week and were ready to collapse on the bed or sofa, but we couldn't because I had earlier bought second row center stage tickets at the BOK Center (Bank of Oklahoma Center) located a few blocks from my downtown temp condo to see Reba McEntire.
I'm really not a modern country music fan...being more of a Hank Williams Sr./Johnny Cash sort of old school guy, but let me tell you...
Reba is one CLASS ACT and she puts on one HECK of a show.
When the music finally stopped a little before 11 PM we wandered back over to The Cellar Dweller Bar for a nightcap, and came home to the condo and just DIED.
In fact, we slept so hard that we missed the 2:12 AM earthquake measuring 4.7 which occurred between Tulsa and Oklahoma City...with FIVE additional 3.0+ aftershocks which have occurred since.
Talk about getting an interesting greeting to our new city...
So any way, now it's time to head back over to the new house and face unpacking all of our "stuff" still sitting in boxes.
If you are near Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, feel free to stop by and lend us a hand.
Regards Y'all...
Friday, November 04, 2011
We Made It!!!
I Just Hope All Of Our Stuff Does...
Yesterday at about 2:30 PM we arrived at our new home here in the eastern suburbs of Tulsa.
It's considered Broken Arrow as far as the school system is concerned (which is a good thing), but technically it's outside the Broken Arrow city limits as well as the Tulsa city limits but for some reason the US Postmaster assigned our neighborhood "Tulsa" when the dust settled.
So any way, Pat and little Missy the Turbo Pup got to see where they were going to be living for the first time and I got to finally spend a couple of extra hours in the building and I have to tell you we REALLY have a nice home in a nice neighborhood.
The best part of the deal for me is that we will live only 15 minutes from my office and about 20 minutes from the Tulsa airport so my life will be low stress and continue on the path of maximizing my pleasure and limiting the crap like traffic I put up with in Atlanta for 27 years.
Of course Pat will continue to telecommute from her new home office using the Internet so she will be working in her pajamas every day if she wants to, and the Turbo Pup will be in charge of giving everyone a good barking when needed to get things under control in the new neighborhood.
(As an interesting side note, our lot backs up onto a giant undeveloped piece of property and while looking over the fence yesterday I noticed what appeared to be giant hoof prints in the mud and several artifacts which appeared to be "Cow Pies" laying around on the ground. If in fact we have livestock living on the other side of our rear fence it's going to be interesting to see how our little 12 pound Turbo Pup reacts when she sees an animal weighing 1000 pounds.)
The "moving crew" is supposed to show up about 9:00 AM, so I guess I better finish doing my news reading and get some more shut eye.
Y'all have a LOVELY Friday, and wish us luck dragging everything off of the Tractor Trailer...
Yesterday at about 2:30 PM we arrived at our new home here in the eastern suburbs of Tulsa.
It's considered Broken Arrow as far as the school system is concerned (which is a good thing), but technically it's outside the Broken Arrow city limits as well as the Tulsa city limits but for some reason the US Postmaster assigned our neighborhood "Tulsa" when the dust settled.
So any way, Pat and little Missy the Turbo Pup got to see where they were going to be living for the first time and I got to finally spend a couple of extra hours in the building and I have to tell you we REALLY have a nice home in a nice neighborhood.
The best part of the deal for me is that we will live only 15 minutes from my office and about 20 minutes from the Tulsa airport so my life will be low stress and continue on the path of maximizing my pleasure and limiting the crap like traffic I put up with in Atlanta for 27 years.
Of course Pat will continue to telecommute from her new home office using the Internet so she will be working in her pajamas every day if she wants to, and the Turbo Pup will be in charge of giving everyone a good barking when needed to get things under control in the new neighborhood.
(As an interesting side note, our lot backs up onto a giant undeveloped piece of property and while looking over the fence yesterday I noticed what appeared to be giant hoof prints in the mud and several artifacts which appeared to be "Cow Pies" laying around on the ground. If in fact we have livestock living on the other side of our rear fence it's going to be interesting to see how our little 12 pound Turbo Pup reacts when she sees an animal weighing 1000 pounds.)
The "moving crew" is supposed to show up about 9:00 AM, so I guess I better finish doing my news reading and get some more shut eye.
Y'all have a LOVELY Friday, and wish us luck dragging everything off of the Tractor Trailer...
Thursday, November 03, 2011
On Beal Street In Memphis
Good Ribs For Dinner...
So we tossed most everything left over in the form of possessions into the Q7 by late morning yesterday and made it across the state of Tennessee by dark.
Then we called a taxi and wandered downtown to Beal street and had a Bar-B-Q dinner at Charles Vergos' The Rendezvous restaurant, followed by listening to a few a short sessions of live music in a couple of night clubs in the area.
Time now to gather up the luggage and the Turbo Puppy and heading onward west toward Tulsa.
Regards Y'all...
So we tossed most everything left over in the form of possessions into the Q7 by late morning yesterday and made it across the state of Tennessee by dark.
Then we called a taxi and wandered downtown to Beal street and had a Bar-B-Q dinner at Charles Vergos' The Rendezvous restaurant, followed by listening to a few a short sessions of live music in a couple of night clubs in the area.
Time now to gather up the luggage and the Turbo Puppy and heading onward west toward Tulsa.
Regards Y'all...
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Moving... Day Two
Most Of My "Stuff" Is On The Truck
Well, we had another long day yesterday with my "moving crew" forcing all of the stuff sitting around on the main level of the house out the door and into the tractor/trailer we had shoe-horned into the driveway.
Then about 3 PM they realized how much crap I had laying around in the basement and everyone shifted gears into "OVERDRIVE" and they managed to get it all into boxes and out the door so as of about 6 PM the truck was headed to the local transport yard and we were headed to dinner and back to the hotel.
For some insane reason I'm going back over there this morning and slapping some paint on the wall behind the bar and cleaning up a few other details before putting the last stuff in our new/used Audi Q7 Quattro (I forgot to mention we replaced the old Chrysler 300 with a newer used SUV on Sunday) and heading west on Interstate 40 toward Memphis.
My head is SPINNING...ladies and gentlemen, but all for good reasons as Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup and I head west toward Tulsa, Oklahoma...ending a wonderful four and one half year existence here on the banks of the mighty Tennessee River.
Life is full of surprises until you stop living I guess...We're completely amazed at the curve balls being thrown at us every day.
Wish us luck...if you will...and have at least half as much fun as we're having...Y'all...
Well, we had another long day yesterday with my "moving crew" forcing all of the stuff sitting around on the main level of the house out the door and into the tractor/trailer we had shoe-horned into the driveway.
Then about 3 PM they realized how much crap I had laying around in the basement and everyone shifted gears into "OVERDRIVE" and they managed to get it all into boxes and out the door so as of about 6 PM the truck was headed to the local transport yard and we were headed to dinner and back to the hotel.
For some insane reason I'm going back over there this morning and slapping some paint on the wall behind the bar and cleaning up a few other details before putting the last stuff in our new/used Audi Q7 Quattro (I forgot to mention we replaced the old Chrysler 300 with a newer used SUV on Sunday) and heading west on Interstate 40 toward Memphis.
My head is SPINNING...ladies and gentlemen, but all for good reasons as Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup and I head west toward Tulsa, Oklahoma...ending a wonderful four and one half year existence here on the banks of the mighty Tennessee River.
Life is full of surprises until you stop living I guess...We're completely amazed at the curve balls being thrown at us every day.
Wish us luck...if you will...and have at least half as much fun as we're having...Y'all...
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
The Giagantic Tulsa Move-Day One Report
We're Running Like A Herd Of Turtles...
OK...Let's get a couple of things straight here.
First of all, let me state that I'm OLD...i.e. I'm not as young as I used to be...
Therefore, I am also SLOW...because of my age...
Thus anything happening FAST around here is either being shown on the TV else it is being conducted by someone other than myself and Pat.
Little Missy the Turbo Pup does some stuff at a rapid pace every now and then, but still...
That said, my "moving crew" is able to keep up with me because it turns out...
THEY ARE SLOW ALSO.
We spent most of the day yesterday in a combined effort trying to arrange things in boxes ready for packing on a truck...and the good news is that we got most of the upstairs packed after my so-called "moving crew" showed up sometime after 9 AM.
By 5 PM the "moving crew" was ready to go home, and we were ready for a drink and to move over to our hotel room for the evening.
So in the end it looks like today will be spent getting the balance of the stuff in boxes and loading things on a truck. and the actual arrival in the Tulsa metropolitian area will be delayed until Thursday or Friday.
If I have any say over the matter my next move will be to the Cemetery, because this crap is killing me...
OK...Let's get a couple of things straight here.
First of all, let me state that I'm OLD...i.e. I'm not as young as I used to be...
Therefore, I am also SLOW...because of my age...
Thus anything happening FAST around here is either being shown on the TV else it is being conducted by someone other than myself and Pat.
Little Missy the Turbo Pup does some stuff at a rapid pace every now and then, but still...
That said, my "moving crew" is able to keep up with me because it turns out...
THEY ARE SLOW ALSO.
We spent most of the day yesterday in a combined effort trying to arrange things in boxes ready for packing on a truck...and the good news is that we got most of the upstairs packed after my so-called "moving crew" showed up sometime after 9 AM.
By 5 PM the "moving crew" was ready to go home, and we were ready for a drink and to move over to our hotel room for the evening.
So in the end it looks like today will be spent getting the balance of the stuff in boxes and loading things on a truck. and the actual arrival in the Tulsa metropolitian area will be delayed until Thursday or Friday.
If I have any say over the matter my next move will be to the Cemetery, because this crap is killing me...
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Trumpets Versus Trombones and Violins
A Rocket Scientist Faces Uncertainty...
I 'm sitting here this morning trying to decide what to sell and how much to ask if I sell any given item in my upcoming "Carport Sale" of semi-unwanted "Stuff" we don't want to pay to move.
Any Ideas?
I have a bunch of realy weird musical crap...specifically a old Holton trumpet, a Chinese Flugelhorn, and a box full of Horner and Lee Oscar Harmonicas and finally a real Austrailia Didgeridoo made from an Eucalyptus tree which has been naturally hollowed out by termites.
Historically I like musical instruments where you hit a string between frets (the guitar) or push a piston (the trumpet) or blow in a hole (the Harmonica) instead of those weird things like the viola and violin or even the Trombone with it's slide where you have to somehow memorize and hit the place on the dang thing in orde to get a note which is in tune EACH AND EVERY TIME.
I'm definitely going to keep the Harmonicas, but the Trumpet and Flugelhorn are up for bids along with my antique Remington Noiseless Portable Typewriter.
Then there is the carpet shampoo machine and almost the entire living room except for my framed photos and drawings and now at 8 AM I guess we will have a bunch of strangers wandering around looking at our "STUFF."
Just for your assurance, I'll try to avoid killing any members of the "GENERAL PUBLIC" and continue on with our progression to Tulsa.
I 'm sitting here this morning trying to decide what to sell and how much to ask if I sell any given item in my upcoming "Carport Sale" of semi-unwanted "Stuff" we don't want to pay to move.
Any Ideas?
I have a bunch of realy weird musical crap...specifically a old Holton trumpet, a Chinese Flugelhorn, and a box full of Horner and Lee Oscar Harmonicas and finally a real Austrailia Didgeridoo made from an Eucalyptus tree which has been naturally hollowed out by termites.
Historically I like musical instruments where you hit a string between frets (the guitar) or push a piston (the trumpet) or blow in a hole (the Harmonica) instead of those weird things like the viola and violin or even the Trombone with it's slide where you have to somehow memorize and hit the place on the dang thing in orde to get a note which is in tune EACH AND EVERY TIME.
I'm definitely going to keep the Harmonicas, but the Trumpet and Flugelhorn are up for bids along with my antique Remington Noiseless Portable Typewriter.
Then there is the carpet shampoo machine and almost the entire living room except for my framed photos and drawings and now at 8 AM I guess we will have a bunch of strangers wandering around looking at our "STUFF."
Just for your assurance, I'll try to avoid killing any members of the "GENERAL PUBLIC" and continue on with our progression to Tulsa.
We're Having A Carport Sale...
As If I Already Didn't Have Enough Stuff To Do...
So last night we took the neighbors--Danny and Sheila--out to dinner to thank them for their good company in the past 4-1/2 years and for the stuff they are going to do for us in the future like keeping the homeless "occupy Knoxville" crowd from moving into our vacant house before we can rent the place later this winter.
Earlier I drove around West Knox picking up some last minute things at Lowe's and Home Depot before cutting the FINAL BOARDS and hanging the NEW DART BOARD down in the Wee Pub.
That's right Ladies and Gentlemen...all that's left to do in my basement besides moving everything onto a truck on it's way to Tulsa, Oklahoma is a little paint and stain.
It's really sort of sad because I put so much attention and effort into the design and details and I'll hardly have more than a couple of nights to enjoy the finished room before I leave the state pretty much forever.
Now I have to go back down in the basement and crack open some paint cans and swab some paint on a few things, and push some stuff around toward the Carport door in anticipation of having a "yard sale" in my carport from 8 AM to 2 PM today. We have a whole bunch of stuff we don't want to pay to move again, and it's either going to sell on Saturday else go to Goodwill/Habitat for Humanity on Monday.
That said...Regards Y'all...hope you have a LOVELY weekend..
I probably won't but I'll try my best any way.
So last night we took the neighbors--Danny and Sheila--out to dinner to thank them for their good company in the past 4-1/2 years and for the stuff they are going to do for us in the future like keeping the homeless "occupy Knoxville" crowd from moving into our vacant house before we can rent the place later this winter.
Earlier I drove around West Knox picking up some last minute things at Lowe's and Home Depot before cutting the FINAL BOARDS and hanging the NEW DART BOARD down in the Wee Pub.
That's right Ladies and Gentlemen...all that's left to do in my basement besides moving everything onto a truck on it's way to Tulsa, Oklahoma is a little paint and stain.
It's really sort of sad because I put so much attention and effort into the design and details and I'll hardly have more than a couple of nights to enjoy the finished room before I leave the state pretty much forever.
Now I have to go back down in the basement and crack open some paint cans and swab some paint on a few things, and push some stuff around toward the Carport door in anticipation of having a "yard sale" in my carport from 8 AM to 2 PM today. We have a whole bunch of stuff we don't want to pay to move again, and it's either going to sell on Saturday else go to Goodwill/Habitat for Humanity on Monday.
That said...Regards Y'all...hope you have a LOVELY weekend..
I probably won't but I'll try my best any way.
Friday, October 28, 2011
The "Wee Pub"
A Big Giant Room In A Little Package
Well, 2 AM this morning finds me back in my soon to be former basement making sawdust and slapping paint on everything that doesn't already have paint or stain on it's surface.
In an uncharacteristic moment I actually got Kilz primer on the front of my t-shirt...something I rarely do...but working at the pace I'm having to work at accidents will happen I guess.
I'm closing off the area under the new staircase with a plain blank wall, abandoning the idea of building a cozy little booth for two people in that area with a private flat screen TV.
Things will definitely be wrapped up by Sunday in time to put away the tools and construction debris in anticipation of the packing crew coming in Monday morning.
I just hope I get time to have a drink and toss a few darts at least once in my creation before heading back to Tulsa.
Regards Y'all...
Well, 2 AM this morning finds me back in my soon to be former basement making sawdust and slapping paint on everything that doesn't already have paint or stain on it's surface.
In an uncharacteristic moment I actually got Kilz primer on the front of my t-shirt...something I rarely do...but working at the pace I'm having to work at accidents will happen I guess.
I'm closing off the area under the new staircase with a plain blank wall, abandoning the idea of building a cozy little booth for two people in that area with a private flat screen TV.
Things will definitely be wrapped up by Sunday in time to put away the tools and construction debris in anticipation of the packing crew coming in Monday morning.
I just hope I get time to have a drink and toss a few darts at least once in my creation before heading back to Tulsa.
Regards Y'all...
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Changing Home Utility Services
Lord...Give Me The Strength To Not Get In The Car And Go Kill A "Customer Service" Idiot
I've spent a couple of hours over the past few days fiddling around on various monopoly utility service websites trying to get the power and gas and cable TV turned on out in Tulsa next week.
I finally gave up and resorted to getting on the telephone today, since I had to call the City of Tulsa any way for trash and water service. Only the government would have a website telling you what they can do for you but making you call them to sign up.
The other feckless utilities are all having some problem because the previous resident of our house--the builder and developer of the sub division--just moved out and their computers haven't caught up with the process.
So any way...I just got off of the phone with Cox Communications for the third time in five minutes and I'm not feeling any better about them than I do about Comcast for Cable and Internet service.
Either I can't speak clearly else the "customer service" representative can't hear and understand my Alabama/Georgia/Florida/Tennessee Southern Redneck Accent--or AGFTSR Accent for short...
So now it's time to call the Electric company and the Gas Company and finally the Government, so you will excuse me while my eyeballs roll further back into their sockets and my ever greying, ever balding head starts spinning at a speed approaching orbital rotational velocity.
AhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHH...
I've spent a couple of hours over the past few days fiddling around on various monopoly utility service websites trying to get the power and gas and cable TV turned on out in Tulsa next week.
I finally gave up and resorted to getting on the telephone today, since I had to call the City of Tulsa any way for trash and water service. Only the government would have a website telling you what they can do for you but making you call them to sign up.
The other feckless utilities are all having some problem because the previous resident of our house--the builder and developer of the sub division--just moved out and their computers haven't caught up with the process.
So any way...I just got off of the phone with Cox Communications for the third time in five minutes and I'm not feeling any better about them than I do about Comcast for Cable and Internet service.
Either I can't speak clearly else the "customer service" representative can't hear and understand my Alabama/Georgia/Florida/Tennessee Southern Redneck Accent--or AGFTSR Accent for short...
So now it's time to call the Electric company and the Gas Company and finally the Government, so you will excuse me while my eyeballs roll further back into their sockets and my ever greying, ever balding head starts spinning at a speed approaching orbital rotational velocity.
AhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHH...
Finally Back In Knoxtown
Up To My Eyeballs In Things Needing Done...
Well, I finally made it back to the Turbo Pup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River about 10:30 last night...and hour and one half later than scheduled.
I have to confess that if I hadn't REALLY needed to get my butt home in order to maximize today's efforts I would possibly have asked to step off of that particular airliner when the pilot told all of us sitting in the back what was going on.
It seems that APU (auxiliary power unit...basically a little jet engine hooked to a generator located in the tail of the fuselage which they use on the ground for basic electrical power) was not working after they landed LATE and as a result they had to keep one of the main engines running to supply electricity on the ground.
So then when they refueled the planes tanks for our flight they failed to consider the jet fuel quantity needed to idle the one main engine on the ground for thirty or forty five minutes while we boarded and fumbled around getting into our seats.
(The airlines have stopped flying around with full fuel tanks in order to save money in fuel economy hauling around unnecessary weight...they calculate the actual fuel required and a reasonable reserve quantity and that's all they load on board.)
So THEN guess what?
They had to call the fuel truck back (apparently from the other side of the Tulsa metropolitan area) to "top off the tanks" after we had boarded the hot airplane (because the Air Conditioner also didn't work without the APU.)
Then the comedy continued.
You see, in the refueling process they had to shut down the one running main engine as a safety precaution, and then because of the dead APU they also had to call over a "compressor cart" which is basically a truck with a giant air compressor and a tank which they use to spin up the gas turbine engines to starting speed in absence of electricity on board...again the aforementioned APU being the culprit.
That exercise caused another ten or fifteen minute delay in our departure.
After an hour and fifteen minute delay, you can understand my trepidation over continuing my journey on a multi-million dollar device designed to fly through the air at 400 miles per hour, 25,000 feet above the surface of our planet, when it was having so much trouble just doing it's job SITTING AT ZERO MILES PER HOUR ON THE GROUND.
But I stayed on board, managed to avoid the wrath of the TSA officials and getting my picture on TV and published on the Drudge Report, and here I sit this morning in the disarray of my partially packed office in my home of which the contents are supposed to be residing in Tulsa, Oklahoma next week.
Time to update my "to do" list and get busy back in the Wee Pub.
Y'all have a LOVELY day...if you will.
(I just want to get through the next seven days without losing my mind...)
Well, I finally made it back to the Turbo Pup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River about 10:30 last night...and hour and one half later than scheduled.
I have to confess that if I hadn't REALLY needed to get my butt home in order to maximize today's efforts I would possibly have asked to step off of that particular airliner when the pilot told all of us sitting in the back what was going on.
It seems that APU (auxiliary power unit...basically a little jet engine hooked to a generator located in the tail of the fuselage which they use on the ground for basic electrical power) was not working after they landed LATE and as a result they had to keep one of the main engines running to supply electricity on the ground.
So then when they refueled the planes tanks for our flight they failed to consider the jet fuel quantity needed to idle the one main engine on the ground for thirty or forty five minutes while we boarded and fumbled around getting into our seats.
(The airlines have stopped flying around with full fuel tanks in order to save money in fuel economy hauling around unnecessary weight...they calculate the actual fuel required and a reasonable reserve quantity and that's all they load on board.)
So THEN guess what?
They had to call the fuel truck back (apparently from the other side of the Tulsa metropolitan area) to "top off the tanks" after we had boarded the hot airplane (because the Air Conditioner also didn't work without the APU.)
Then the comedy continued.
You see, in the refueling process they had to shut down the one running main engine as a safety precaution, and then because of the dead APU they also had to call over a "compressor cart" which is basically a truck with a giant air compressor and a tank which they use to spin up the gas turbine engines to starting speed in absence of electricity on board...again the aforementioned APU being the culprit.
That exercise caused another ten or fifteen minute delay in our departure.
After an hour and fifteen minute delay, you can understand my trepidation over continuing my journey on a multi-million dollar device designed to fly through the air at 400 miles per hour, 25,000 feet above the surface of our planet, when it was having so much trouble just doing it's job SITTING AT ZERO MILES PER HOUR ON THE GROUND.
But I stayed on board, managed to avoid the wrath of the TSA officials and getting my picture on TV and published on the Drudge Report, and here I sit this morning in the disarray of my partially packed office in my home of which the contents are supposed to be residing in Tulsa, Oklahoma next week.
Time to update my "to do" list and get busy back in the Wee Pub.
Y'all have a LOVELY day...if you will.
(I just want to get through the next seven days without losing my mind...)
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
What The Heck Happened To Me?
The Reflection In The Mirror Is A Total Stranger
First I cut off my pony tail and buzzed the rest of my head down to 1/8" hair, and now I'm showing up in an office building in of all places TULSA, OKLAHOMA at 7:45 five days a week working my butt off on the computer.
All I want to know IS...
"who's idea was all of this insanity any way?"
(Let me know if you have any clues...)
First I cut off my pony tail and buzzed the rest of my head down to 1/8" hair, and now I'm showing up in an office building in of all places TULSA, OKLAHOMA at 7:45 five days a week working my butt off on the computer.
All I want to know IS...
"who's idea was all of this insanity any way?"
(Let me know if you have any clues...)
