Happy Thanksgiving!

Tuesday I had resigned myself that it had to be the day I would cut up my wood at work. I was mentally prepared for it. I wasn't looking forward to it though--Mainly because our rain just hasn't really let up at all, and I didn't feel like having to deal with wet wood or tarps. But as I said, I was mentally prepared for it.

I got off work and picked Sarah up as usual, expecting to do 4 things during the course of the evening: Go shopping here in town (specifically to the market that has the good meat deals), go shopping at Winco Foods (the big behemoth store with the great loss leaders), buy a Seattle Times paper (I wanted to make sure I stayed abreast of any ads coming up the day after Thanksgiving), and cut all my pallets into firewood.

What I ended up doing was having a couple of beer and some Cheetos while I caught up on the day's events online. I got up to go to my favorite meat store, and grabbed a movie to take back to the library. On the way I decided to stop by Sarah's house with my previous day's paper (she needed some headline clippings for school) and to see if she had anything to go to the library. Well it turns out that she didn't, but I did get something better: My divorce settlement check! It turns out that I've been officially divorced for some time now (a couple months?) and never really knew it. Anyway, I told them I was going to Winco after a little while and they were welcome to go with me. About an hour later I swung back by. Teresa said that Sarah didn't want to go, so I told her that if she wanted, I'd take her. Funny isn't it? We ended up going grocery shopping together on the day I get my divorce money. The only odd thing was that we kept our groceries in separate halves in the trunk. One thing I should have done differently while I was shopping was to keep track of how much I was spending that night. They had turkeys for 22 cents a pound if you spent $50. Well, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to spend that much, and really didn't go there for the turkey anyway. It turns out that I spent $46. Can you say stupid?

After dropping Teresa off and going home and unloading my groceries, I switched over to my truck and went to work. I got there at about 8pm. I worked my ass off cutting my pallets up, me and everything around me totally covered with sawdust. I was raining cats and dogs so I brought my tarp, but then it occurred to me that all I had to do was stack it on a pallet and wrap it good with that stretch wrap that we use to wrap pallets to be shipped. Then I just fork lifted it into my truck. I ended up with a solid block of cut wood that was 40" x 48" x 24" high. I ended up getting out of there at 5 minutes before midnight. That basically means that I got to sleep at 12:30 and got up at 4am. I left the wrapped pallet in the back of my truck. I never did get anything more to eat than those two beers and the Cheetos...

When I stopped at the bank yesterday after work to deposit my paycheck, I also opened a money market savings account with the 37 thousand Teresa gave me. It's only 4.63% but it's better than nothing. Now I have 37k that I didn't have before and don't know what to do with it.

I ended up getting into the wood in my truck last night. I didn't want to unload it all (still raining) but I was watching a movie with a pizza and I wanted some of that quality hard oak. It made for a nice fire for sure.

I got up this morning, built a big fire, and started my coffee pot. Then I threw some dirty clothes on and jetted out for a newspaper. Wow, that 50 cents sure bought one helluva thick paper this morning! It was very cool to open up my door when I came back home, and be greeted by a roaring fire and the smell of coffee.

Sarah and I are going over to my parents house at about noon, then later on she and her mom will have dinner with her dad and his girlfriend. I sure hope I can get rid of this headache that I woke up with.

Thanksgiving has sure changed...

'Twas a Busy Day

Although I was going pretty much nonstop yesterday, I didn't seem frazzled or rushed at all. I guess that means that everything fell into place well.

After I got up yesterday morning and had my usual coffee time, I hopped in the truck and jetted out to Tacoma to look at a freezer for sale for $50 on Craigslist. It was a beautiful dry, sunny morning. We had prearranged that I would get there at 9am, but evidently she wasn't quite on track because she answered the door in a towel (which is always a good thing!) She's selling things she owns to bail her boyfriend out of jail, which in most people's opinion (mine included) is a no-win situation. But hey, love is blind, right? Anyway, the freezer hasn't been used much recently, and has spent it's life on a covered back porch. It was pretty dirty, but in basically sound condition and still had both of its baskets inside. When I talked to her the night before on the phone, I had her plug it in so it would be cold the next morning when I picked it up, which it was. In retrospect, I probably should have brought a thermometer with me just to see how cold it really was, but it was freezing as a freezer should be at least. It's only a 5.0 cubic foot model chest freezer, which is just about 3 feet tall and 2 feet square. That's just the right size for my needs and doesn't take up much room. My little above-fridge freezer just doesn't cut it for me. I like buying things on sale, and it's hard to even fit a couple extra pieces of meat in there, let alone more bulky things like loaves of bread.

The place I picked it up from was right near the Goodwill store in Tacoma, so I stopped in and wandered for a while, eventually buying nothing. Across the street was a Ross Dress for Less store, so I stopped in there and bought myself a comforter. It's just your basic white comforter, and unless you buy expensive, this one is like most: 95% feathers and 5% down. Still, it was only 30 bucks and is pretty well made.

I also made a stop at Costco on the way home to buy printer cartridges for my printer. I may not have made the best decision on that though. I thought about it long and hard, and decided to gamble though. The problem is that it's not that great of a printer to begin with, and add to that you never know how long they're going to last you anyway. Mine uses separate cartridges for each color, and they are $13 for each color (3 of them) and $25 for each black one. Costco price was for double packs: $33 for two blacks and $53 for 2 sets of colored ones. All in all it was a spendy thing, but over time (assuming I don't smoke the printer) I saved $42. Sometimes it's painful to buy "long" on an item, but it makes the most sense. Oh, I also bought a giant Costco sized bag of Hoody's peanuts as a treat to me.

After I went home and unloaded the freezer (it is light, so I did it easily myself) I had to move a few things out of the way in the garage so I could roll it (yes, it's on wheels) towards the back where it will live it's life. After I did that, I opted to cut up a whole bunch of 2x4's that Teresa had given me a few weeks back as firewood. When that was finished that and I cleaned up my mess, I eyed the Harley sitting out in the cold sun. It eyed me back. Then it winked at me. I wasted no time downing the rest of my beer and getting my leathers on, and away I went. It was actually a really nice winter day for riding--Not too cold. It was nearing the end of the afternoon though, so I didn't ride too long. I did make one stop at Lowe's for some hardware though. I got a nice smile from a lady shopper in there too, who evidently doesn't see too many men walking around in there wearing leather chaps and such. I ended up buying a bunch of little things I need--One of which was the ends I needed to make a custom-length extension cord to power the freezer with.

After I went home and got a good fire going, I got hungry. I suddenly had a desire for Skipper's fish for some reason. I called Sarah's house to see if she wanted to go, but nobody answered, so I sent her a text message. After about an hour and a half went by, I decided to just go, so I stoked the fire and left, opting to walk the three blocks to Skippers. I just sat down and started eating and the phone rang. It was Sarah and I told her that I just sat down and if she could get her mom to bring her down I'd buy her dinner. After a couple minutes the phone rings again. "Are you still there? Oh, did you walk down?" She was calling me from Teresa's car in the parking lot, obviously wondering why my car wasn't there. She came in and we had a good (well... Okay, mediocre) dinner and walked back to my nice warm house. We finished up by watching Date Movie. It's a pretty good spoof and we laughed a few times.

And here it is... Sunday morning. By the way, the comforter works great! I took out the acrylic cheapo crappy one I had on the bed under the top blanket and put the new one in so I could actually compare, and I'm impressed with the difference. It was money well spent.

Now, back to the coffee...

Oh, and I just HAD to post this...

Hope you like it. Just my strange sense of humor showing through again...

Catching Up

That's what this post is... Time to catch up. Throughout the week, so few interesting things have happened that I evidently waited for them to accumulate into a worthwhile blob of blog. I guess my (or your) wait is over.

This is the time of year when things are at a reasonably slow and steady pace at work, and that means that things are more predictable. Sometimes it's good to have the factor of unpredictability thrown in, but not all the time. I like to take it easy on occasion just like most people do. The good thing at work is that they got rid of the guy in tooling a few weeks ago, and ever since that happened things have been going very well. Our tooling department is very important to an industry like this. That goes double for a high-speed press like I run. The slightest little imperfection in the grind of little portion of the die (I know... Blue-collar talk) and it's practically impossible to get things to operate right. It's kind of the trickle-down effect: One little thing can end up affecting many other things downward from it. At any rate, our tooling work is being done by a very proficient guy that they have on contract. He owns his own shop and we bring him in to work whenever we need it. He's been a lifesaver lately and we all breathe so much easier.

I'm getting low on firewood. I have a big stack of my special pallets at work all ready to be cut up, but nobody is working there this weekend. I guess I'll go back to work after dinner on Monday evening and take care of them. We have a shift that works until 1am so that time of evening won't be a problem. I'm pretty sure I have enough to get me through this weekend.

Sarah was over for dinner with me on Wednesday night. It was great to have her. She ended up staying late after school for a club she's in and by the time she called me to pick her up I already had the house all cozy warm (fire of course!) and dinner mostly ready to eat. She had a bunch of homework and started doing that on the couch. I could tell that she enjoyed being here because she was comfortably warm, had good light, lots of room to work (she likes the whole couch and coffee table) and had a nice, big TV to provide the necessary ambient noise. We had a good dinner and she and I both enjoyed ourselves. Teresa was at her brother's house for a birthday party for one of his daughters. I could go on and on about how miserly he has become of late, but I think I've addressed that enough in other posts. When Teresa stopped by to pick Sarah up, I asked her, "So, did you get fed Top Ramen with only half of a seasoning packet like he feeds his girls?" She laughed and said no. This time it was the thing that her family uses for special occasions: Papa Murphy's take & bake pizza (it's good but cheap--A very important factor to them). I told her too bad... We ate better.

I'm a little frustrated with my car, but I have no one to blame but myself. I've had signs that the heater core was letting go since way back when in early summer, but did I put a new one in? No. So now that I really need it I guess I'll have to finally get off my ass and do it. I put it off because it's a very labor-intensive job on a Plymouth Neon. The whole dashboard has to come out. That means an awful lot of cussing and skinned knuckles. I need to feel just right to tackle a job like that. I may actually get into it this weekend, who knows. I know I would surely love to feel HOT air and NO MOISTURE coming out of my heater and defroster. I remember the days when that car had such a killer heater... I could have warm air coming out in less than 6 blocks back then.

Thanksgiving is almost here, and for me that means something a little different this year. I used to be kind of indifferent about the big shopping day on the Friday following, but I have to admit-- I really love a great deal. Almost every store has "loss-leaders" to entice the crowds in at an ungodly early hour. It's not that hard for me though, because I always get up early anyway. I live in an area where I can do a lot of shopping very quickly. The stores are close by and I know all the traffic patterns and back roads for easy access. Add to that the fact that I have one less person to shop for this year, and I think I'll do well. I'll be able to concentrate on myself and Sarah for the most part. The trouble is that I'm not subscribed to any newspapers like I was at this time last year, so I won't know exactly what's in the ads unless I buy them. The trouble is, not all the ads appear on the same day. It looks like I'll have to buy a paper each day this coming week, starting with Sunday the day after tomorrow. I don't want to miss out!

Today was my coworker Elaine's birthday. I bought her one of those BIG Hershey's Special Dark candy bars as a gift. Like most people (ladies especially I think), she loves chocolate, and her favorite is the semi-sweet kind. I know part of the reason she likes it so much is that it is the fact that it's high in anti-oxidants. Anyway, I wrapped in a big pile of packing paper and put it into a box. After taping it with package tape, I added that special "Rick" touch--Steel strapping. Say what? We have a steel banding system that we use on heavy crates and to attach items to pallets and the like. I put one around her present in each direction just like ribbon, only instead of scissors, she needed tin snips to get it open. It was great. She told me that up to that point it was the high point of her day. What that means is that her husband didn't do to well in the early morning hours of "birthday acknowledgment". I hope for his sake that he does it all well this evening.

I received a book at work today that I ordered on Ebay, called the Field Guide to Meat. I like to have things shipped to work so I don't have to worry about insensitive delivery people leaving my package in a bad place at home. Anyway, this thing was advertised as used, but it looks absolutely brand new. It was cheap too. It's a very small book--Much the size of a thick paperback book, but it has a huge amount of information in it.

Well, I think I'll stop there for now. This post is already way too long.

And I'll leave you with this thought: Remember, if you can't be good--Don't get caught being bad...

Multitasking

Today, I was sort of like that old commercial: "I'm cleaning my oven!" You know--They're somewhere else, doing something else, and they'd look into the camera and say, "I'm cleaning my oven!"

Okay, I wasn't cleaning my oven.

It's just that it occurred to me at work today that I was sort of doing the same thing because I had two things going on at home while I was at work:

• I had my computer downloading movies (The DaVinci Code among others)
• I had my dinner cooking away in a crock pot.

I haven't used the crock pot in a while, and I felt the need for a mildly interesting smell to greet my nose when I got home from work. I had a small 2-lb. roast in the fridge and it was the perfect way to cook it. To make it happen, I did all the prep last night, cutting up potatoes, carrots, onions, and celery. I put everything except the meat and the spices into the removable crock filled with water and into the fridge. This morning before I left, I just drained the water, put it all together, and and refilled it with the right amount of water. The key to making it work though, is in my timer.

I have a heavy duty mechanical timer that's made for appliances like that. Here's a picture of it:

You just set the little buttons around the dial to the times you want it to start and stop, and plug it in. Unlike most timers like this, it has a 3-prong plug in it, so it's made for heavy-use items. I learned a very important thing the very first time I used that timer with my crock pot: Make sure to turn the crock pot ON. Yep, I went to work one day right after I moved here... Expecting to come home to a nice smell in the house and enjoy a nice dinner. It was stone cold. The timer was functioning perfectly, but the crock pot switch was off. I was both pissed and amused, and it firmly embedded itself into my mind: It will never happen again.

At any rate, tonight's dinner was great, and the movies all came in just fine too.

Good Friends Make Good Times

How many people do you know that show up at your door with thick, marinaded New York steaks and all the fixings? Well that's what Rhon did! Having the fortune of being off work on Friday, she showed up here about an hour after I got home from work. I expected her of course, and looked forward to her visit all day at work on Friday. It's always good to give a bachelor a good warning you know--We almost always have some sort of thing that needs to be cleaned or hidden...

A few days earlier I scored a hot deal on a small Weber charcoal grill. It's the same as their full size kettle, but it's only 18" diameter instead of 22.5". This one is like new, and it came with a cover and an assortment of grill utensils... All for only $5. That's right--Five bucks. To top it off, it was only over in the next town, so I was there and back in just over a half hour. I hoped to use it to cook the steaks I knew Rhon was bringing, so I got charcoal, but the weather screwed us over on that deal. We ended up doing the indoor method on the George Foreman grill (everybody should have one).

We spent the whole weekend doing fun, lazy things. After all--The weather outside was totally bad. It rained buckets for most of the weekend. We really enjoyed the warmth of the wood stove. That, coupled with my assortment of movies made for a great weekend. Oh, and alcohol too... Had to have that! We did go out to a couple stores too, so it's not like we just stayed shut in and just enjoyed each other's company.

I'm getting low enough on wood now that it's almost time for me to cut another pile of my "special" pallet boards up at work. I have them all stacked and ready for me.

I got my electric bill today, and because I've done nothing but burn the wood stove, my power bill is only 51 dollars. Not too bad at all. I remember last winter when I moved in here I paid about $175. Hey, I like comfort, and even if all I have is baseboard heat, I'm still going to be comfortable. That's life.

Today was a good day at work. Everything went smoothly and quickly. I took the whole bag of my Halloween candy to work with me this morning. Elaine has a candy dish that she has in her work area, and I put the whole bag on her desk for her to find when she came in. That was over 100 mini candy bars, so that should keep her from having to buy anything for the dish for quite a while. I'm just happy I got em out of here...

I was pretty pissed this morning when I got up. I slept fantastic, so it wasn't that--It was the fact that the wind was blowing like hell, and it was garbage day. This is also the bi-weekly day for them to pick up my recyclables as well. There was no way I was going to put my bin out there in that weather though. By the time I would have gotten home from work it would have been nowhere to be seen. I have lots of garbage space because I have a large sized can (I don't always put it out every week anyway), but it means that I will have to wait another two weeks before I can get my recycling bin emptied, and it fills up quickly.

After I picked Sarah up at school today, we went to the library and to a grocery store. When we got back to her house, I disassembled a desk thing that was in the computer room. It originally had my old server computer on it, but that hadn't been used since right after I moved out, so I threw it in the car trunk. Teresa wasn't home, but they had be rearranging the computer room this weekend and she wanted the desk out of there. It's butt-ugly, so I'm not sure what she's going to do with it, so I put it out on the covered deck out back. I would bet that it will still be there in spring.

Well, I guess I'll wander downstairs for something to eat.

A Busy Evening

I never really got to sit still very long last night.

I picked Sarah up from school, dropped her off, and went right home to change clothes. It was time for the parent/teacher conferences. I'm not sure why I go to those things all the time. She's a good student and brings home good grades. I guess part of me wants reassurance that things are going okay, and part of me wants (or doesn't want) to know if there's a problem that may not show up in the grades.

When I was young things were different in some ways (okay, lots of ways). For one thing, class sizes were smaller, and it afforded a teacher the opportunity to pay a little more attention to things, and notice when kid was having trouble. A good example would be a teacher noticing a student needed glasses. Given today's hectic teaching methods and curriculum, how long would a kid flounder before something was noticed and done about it?

I guess that's the main reason I go to the conferences. Another reason is also the fact that I'm the "removed" parent. If I didn't go, I would eventually be considered an uncaring parent. I guess that's probably the reason Teresa didn't go last night--She already was "hands-on" and knew what Sarah was and was not doing. I dropped by their house afterward and gave them all the papers I got from the conference.

After doing a stop at home and starting a fire in the wood stove, I sped down to Puyallup and did a surprise visit with Steve in the hospital. I got there at about 7:30, and his wife Maria and her oldest daughter were both there visiting as well. He was pretty groggy. Basically, they took his gall bladder. From everything they said, it was pretty bad off. Everybody hopes that his attacks of pain will be over now. After telling him I was only there to see if I could have all his "stuff" if he didn't make it, we all made smalltalk for a half hour or so and I sped off.

By the time I ended up sitting back down at the computer last night, I was getting droopy-eyed and ready to drop.

I Used to Like Voting...

...But not any more.

The government has screwed me. I moved--Everyone knows that, but I still live very close to my old house where Sarah and Teresa still reside. I called the county voter's office a few months back and talked to a very nice lady, and got my address change all done nicely. She told me that I probably wouldn't get my new voter's card before the primary, and I assured her it was okay because I essentially just live down the street from my previous address anyway.

Today I picked Sarah up from school and we went directly from there to the place that I used to vote at. I say "used to" because I still haven't received my new voter's card in the mail. I wanted to take Sarah with me to show her the new electronic voting option they have. I went in there expecting the unexpected, and I walked up to the lady at the desk of my previous district. Hmm, she doesn't have me on the list. She checks the master list for the whole polling place.

Nothing.

Okay, I sort of expected that. I looked on the wall as we were leaving to see all the available polling places for our town, and went to my next choice based on location. I went through the same thing. Nothing. Nobody on their list by my name either. This time, however, the lady set me up with the phone number to find out my pertinent information. After calling it and drilling down through a couple of voice menus, I find out my new polling place.

It's way farther away. To put it in perspective, there are three polling places closer to my home than this one is. Okay, no biggie... At least I know where I'm going now. We go in and go through the voting process, and then another thing hits me: One of the crucial races I wanted to vote on isn't even on my ballot! WTF?

To put the address thing in perspective, my parents live closer to my "new" polling place than I do and they still go to the place I used to go to. All I can think of is that they (the powers that be) must have something in my address wrong. That might also explain why I didn't get my voter's registration card. This is just too weird.

On a brighter note, my dad just left here after bringing me a six pack of Corona, and (get this) he even brought a lime! I couldn't believe it. He was feeling so warm and fuzzy after my taking him the Cars movie the other day he was just beside himself.

Weird shit happens some days...

Deals and Downloads

A few days ago I went to renew my prescription, expecting to get hit with the usual $20 copay for only one month's worth of drugs. As my readers may or may not recall, I got away with a 3 month supply last time do to a snafu on their part, and I was feeling good about that. Well, I didn't get that this time. I did, however, get a little bit of a reprieve: Now they're allowing people in my insurance plan to get a 30-count bottle of 1000 milligram pills instead of the usual 500 milligram pills, and are also furnishing us (we poor nameless insured masses) with a free pill cutter. The trouble was that my pills were so big they didn't fit into it and I had to modify it. But I have to say, after I "adjusted" it, it made short and easy work of cutting 30 pills in half. Whatever... 60 days for the price of 30 is fine by me.

Yesterday I was out and about with my loss-leader shopping list, and ended up at Fred Meyer. They had a store brand of blank DVDs on sale at $12.99 for a 50-pack, and were 30% off that for clearance. $9 for a 50-pack of blank DVDs is pretty good. I bought 3 of em. I probably should have bought more, but they might still be there in a week or two. They've been there quite a while up to this point.

That actually leads directly into this next part of my blog entry. Yesterday morning I re-enabled my newsgroup subscription. I know none of you know what newsgroups are, but think of it like an electronic bulletin board, only instead of just notes and text, people can actually post whole files such as programs, music, and movies, and if you have the right software you can snag em for free. Although Comcast does give its subscribers newsgroup access, they limit us to only 2 gigs per month. To put it into perspective, one DVD movie download is over 4 gigs, so as you can see, the "included" Comcast service is only good for little things. The service I have (13 bucks a month) allows for unlimited and anonymous downloads. I used to have it over at the other house, but let it lapse at the beginning of summer because I was spending so much time outdoors. Since I started the service yesterday morning, I've already downloaded six movies and a program. My dad was plenty surprised today when I took him a copy of Cars and he told me it isn't even out yet until this Tuesday. He was pretty happy to say the least. I think I'll be able to pretty much stop my library copying now... There are so many movies to pick from online it's ridiculous. It's a good thing for winter months too.

I was just out doing a little shopping at Walmart and Fred Meyer. I went to Walmart for a couple lampshades, but I also ended up buying 4 screw-in black light bulbs. They were on Halloween clearance for only 50 cents each. I might play with them every now and then. They might make a pretty cool porch light! I ended up buying a nice little hunk o' roast beef for the crock pot at Fred Meyer. I'll use my timer and have the crock pot do the work for me one of these days while I'm at work. I love coming home to the smell of dinner cooking.

Well, I guess I'll go and put a potato in the oven. I'm hungry and can't wait for dinner. I'm going to put a chicken breast into the good ol' George Foreman grill, seasoned liberally of course. Yum.

Friday Morning

Sometimes you can tell when a person like myself has a pretty good week--Not many blog entries. It seems to almost be a gauge of how things are going, as much as what is going on.

Rhon has been smacked with a killer bout of the flu this week, so I gave her a call last night. Right away I was both glad and sorry that I called. Glad because I could tell that my call meant a lot to her, but sorry because it was a struggle to talk without coughing. I could feel the pain she was experiencing in her coughs. I know that no kind of sickness is ever any good, but the flu can be real trying. There's always the feeling of freezing to death when you have a fever, but then there are all those other crappy symptoms that may or may not be present in varying degrees that really take the wind out of your sails. I'm sorry you're feeling so bad Rhonda... I hope your couple days of rest will put you back to feeling good again.

Sunday I was thinking about buying something online when it occurred to me that I should wait. See, like most people I've had a Visa card for quite a while. I use a debit card for my day-to-day purchases, but never online. For those purchases, I use a Visa card. Anyway, my Visa is a joint card with my name and Teresa's on it. She no longer has a card, but for liability reasons I've been meaning to get her cleared off of it. To do that, all they can do is close your account and reopen a new one for you. I just wanted to wait for a zero balance to take place first. I have my Visa card on autopay so it is never late, but I have some things set up to use it (like my long distance phone carrier) automatically every month. Really, it's just a matter of timing. I need a new account to change all my existing users to, then one by one I change their payment information to the new card, then close that old account. To make a long story short (whoops, too late for that!) I reapplied on Sunday, so my new one is on its way. That's good... I want to buy some things.

This week started out with nighttime temps in the upper 20's, but fortunately it has changed to the usual rainy crap that we all pretend we're used to. I hate rain, but I also hate scraping windows in the morning. I'm not as lucky as some people are--My cars are parked outside. I do still miss not having my car in a garage, but I think if my big garage is all I miss from my married life, I'm WAY ahead.

This is the slow time of year at work, so I've been busying myself with cleaning and organizing projects. I seem to have a knack for that sort of thing, and I get results. I've been working hard the last couple days in one particular area of the shop that's "out of sight/out of mind" and I'm almost finished. It was one of those enclosed areas where there bins of hardware, supplies, tools, and many other shop-related things. It used to be called the Maintenance Area, but I always called it the Hardware Store. For the last year or so, it was practically impossible to even walk into it. But that was before Rick hit... Things are different now.

We finally got our truck back at work the other day. I'm talking about the big truck that one of my cohorts crashed several weeks ago. We've had a rental truck ever since that happened, and it was a nice new one. One of the owners and myself went out on Wednesday and turned it in and picked ours up from the repair shop. Back to the old plain no-frills truck again.

The Fright Fest that Fizzled

Yep, fizzled, failed, flopped... There are lots of F-words I can think of to describe last night's Halloween (or lack thereof).

You know what? It pays to do your homework before assuming something without facts or data. Take last night's Halloween for example. I now live in a townhouse with many townhouses on either side of me, and directly across the street is a huge apartment complex--And not the best apartment complex either. I'm pretty sure it doesn't cost an arm and leg to live there. Those are the kind of places where kids usually take advantage of something like Halloween. Free goodies for free--Goodies that they might not normally get at home for whatever reason. Anyway, I assumed that I would have a lot of trick-or-treaters. To further fuel that stupid assumption, I bought two (yes, 2) big bags of candy.

I had six. Yes, six total trick-or-treaters. That translates to 3 times someone was at the door.

I was actually pissed off about it last night. I felt like such a fool. I usually don't pull anything so blatantly assumptive, especially by the amount of excess that I piled on. I should consider myself lucky I guess, because I didn't go nuts on any decorations or anything. I guess it being my first Halloween in my own place, I blindly overlooked common sense and logic in favor of hope and expectation. It was like another milestone that I was reaching in this year of lifestyle change.

Now I've got candy. Lots of candy. I'm damn sure not going to eat it all. Don't get me wrong--I like candy as much as the next guy, but I don't need to go overboard on candy. After all, I'm trying to get myself into a little better physical shape. I'll end up taking the bulk of it to work I'm sure.

When I dropped Sarah off at her house yesterday after school, I went in for a while. One thing let to another and I ended up helping her carve her Halloween pumpkin. That was probably the high point the day for both of us. She didn't go out trick-or-treating this year for the first time, and didn't quite know what to do with herself. She called later and we talked for a while and we laughed about my candy excess. They had over 40 people at their house, which is down from the usual 75-ish they usually have every year. It couldn't have been the weather, because it was clear and cold and beautiful for it. It had to have been the fact that it was on a Tuesday night.

(sigh) Anyone want some candy?

Halloween

Okay, it's only Halloween morning. The real Halloween will start in about 12 hours.

Sarah and I walked over to the place across the street that's all Halloween yesterday. I think it's part of Party City because they were the previous tenant. At any rate, it was pretty crappy. I'm sure that has a lot to do with the fact that it was the day before Halloween and everything that was any good is already gone. We also walked over to Fred Meyer to look at what Halloween stuff they had left, but it was pretty stripped too. We didn't need anything--We were just looking.

The family event on Sunday went pretty well. It was just a small function though, so there wasn't much to go wrong anyway. We all just hung around and roasted hot dogs, and ate potato salad, baked beans, and s'mores. Al seemed to have a pretty good time, and everybody got some pictures. Sarah didn't get to go though... When I went to pick her up she was knee-deep in a homework project for her marine biology class. If there's one thing she really gets into, it's putting presentations together. It's kind of a scrap booking thing. Anyway, about the time everyone started leaving she checked in to see how much longer I was going to be there. I told her it was pretty much over at that time. Yesterday she told me that she ended up working on it until 2am. I hope Al had a good visit to our area here. I think he's leaving to go back to Florida today.

This is the time of year that I dread at work. Every Monday morning when we go in, the plant feels like it's about 35 degrees inside. By midweek it's okay, but then it repeats itself again after the next weekend shutdown. It was definitely cold yesterday morning. My car is letting me know that it doesn't like it one bit. This is the time of year when you find out just how good your battery really is. It turned a bit slow yesterday. Luckily it's a fast-starting car. We'll see how today goes. Yesterday was the first day of the year for window scraping, and it was thick. Even leaving the house 5 minutes early put me slightly late.

Well, back to work I go... To the cold, cold shop. It makes me appreciate the wood stove when I get home from work.

A Strange Sort of Fear

Hi, my name is Rick, and I can't buy meat. (clap, clap) "Welcome, Rick."

As weird as it sounds, it seems to be true. I wander into a grocery store with good intentions, lovingly picking out all the best deals on stuff. Sometimes I go blasting in with a short list of items and blast back out again, but sometimes I go in and carefully wander each aisle, looking for the elusive loss-leaders. Although I usually shop from a list, I find it's also beneficial to go up and down each aisle just for that occasional "Oh yeah, I forgot about that" visual reminder. Everything goes well until I turn the corner to the meat section.

Then I freeze up.

I look at the meats all lined up... Keeping my distance... Noting the array color shades. Beef, pork, chicken, and "mystery meat" (sausages and other strange things). I might stand there for a minute, hoping that a price sign might catch my eye, and with a deep sigh, advance for a closer look. At what? I have no idea. I see the meats lying there in their nice, clean plastic-covered packages and that's as far as I get. I look at the cuts of meat and have no idea if they're any good, and if they should be cooked a certain way or best used for a certain thing. After pondering things like that for a few minutes, I look at the prices of the packages. With a sigh of resignation, I shuffle off.

Meat: 1 - Rick: 0

I see the price of a package of meat, and I'm faced with two scenarios of uncertainty:

1. Not knowing what to do with it, figure I'll probably just fuck it up anyway.
2. If I do cook it, I'll probably end up eating way too much of it and defeat the purpose of the "I should be able to get 2 or 3 meals out of that" assumption.

Either way, I usually move on and buy nothing.

Don't they have classes for people like me? I was taught a lot of things about cooking and baking over the years and I can hold my own very well. I guess I must have been stoned during the meat chapter. Maybe part of the problem is the fact that my parents didn't barbecue. My mom was a resourceful mother with 5 hungry rug rats to feed, and usually ended up buying ground beef because of it's ability to take on so many forms and flavors. My dad wasn't the dad you see on TV out in the back yard with the apron and the tongs, lovingly basting his smoking gourmet feast on the grill. He was the guy sitting in his easy chair wondering what time dinner was.

I can pan fry, bake, and use a crock pot, but I don't own a grill. I know there are cuts of meat that are tough and best used for crock pot, and there are cuts of meat that it would be sacrilegious to put in a crock pot. But I don't know which is what. If I do learn them, I would need to carry a tip sheet to the store with me to remember them anyway. Hey, maybe that's what I need--A guidebook to carry with me.

"The Idiot's Guide to your meat"

The Weekend is Here!

I have had a good week, but still... I like the weekends regardless. Who wouldn't?

There's something about stripping off the work clothes on a Friday evening that feels different. I guess it's the same phenomenon I notice when it's bedtime on Friday night and I don't have to set the alarm. They're both the same, and they translate into a good feeling.

Friday is also payday every week for me, but because I don't live paycheck to paycheck like so many Americans do, it's not as big of a thing for me. I don't hold my breath all week, hoping to skate by on a bill or two without it going delinquent. Honestly, I can't imagine living that way, but many people do. I would very much prefer to have my paycheck directly deposited in my bank, but they don't do that where I work. Although I don't like to go to the bank, I always go in and never go to the window. I bank at a very personable smallish bank, and really enjoy getting the short opportunity to spread a little cheer to the ladies inside. Most folks go to the drive up windows these days. Not me. It only takes a couple extra minutes to go inside and put a smile on them face-to-face.

This week at work as been a low-key good time. I've spent time between the normal duties and other, more fun things. Take today for example--I spent all day adapting a part from a derelict press to fit and be used on an often-used piece of equipment that definitely needed the upgrade. It involved lathe work and drilling and machining to make the "wrong" parts work on the other machine. When all was completed (conveniently at quitting time) it was a well done project, and one that should have been done many months ago. Because it sometimes directly affects me I'm glad it was done, and more importantly, done right. I hate it when something is done just to "get by."

I picked up Sarah from school and after taking her home, I asked her if she'd like to go over to my folks' place and visit my great uncle Al who's in town visiting, so we went over there and hung out for an hour or so. I hadn't seen him for over 25 years, and I must say he's looking very good. Having spent most of his life in New Jersey, he's been retired and living in Florida for a number of years now. As usual, my dad rode his emotional roller coaster while I was there. I swear, it takes nothing to offend him these days, and because there is no rhyme or reason to what it's going to be, you just can't worry about it. I feel kinda sorry for Al though, because my dad's idea of eating out at a nice place is going to the Country Buffet. I'm dead serious. We'll both go back over on Sunday for the family get-together. It should be fun.

As soon as I got home I fired up the wood stove. I'm getting into it. I like free heat! While it's not exactly cold out right now, I know it will be more comfortable in the house as the evening wears on, so I figured I'd just get a jump on it.

Switching Seasons

It's getting cold out... No doubt about it. Here are a few signs I've noticed recently:

• This morning I went to the closet and traded my sexy lightweight flannel summer robe for my sexy heavyweight terry robe. Ahhh.
• A few mornings ago I started wearing my slippers to keep my toes from freezing.
• Now as soon as I get home from work, the first thing I do is build a fire in the wood stove. The first thing I used to do was go to the fridge for a beer. Kind of a "skewing" of priorities.
• I put ice scrapers in both of my vehicles. You just never know.
• I'm seldom nude around the house any more. (Crowd gasps in amazement)
• It's getting dark so much earlier. I have trouble knowing when it's bedtime any more. Oh yeah, I could use the clocks, but I prefer to just crash when I tired, and that's not always a good idea.
• Women seldom catch my eye when they walk by now because of the absence of bare skin.
  
• I long for full service so I wouldn't have to get out and pump my own gas.
• The air smells a lot different outside. Lots of the smells of musty decaying leaves. I like it.
• I find myself getting very defensive if someone eyes my special stack of pallet boards at work. Those are my heat source buddy...
  
• I had to add a blanket to my bed a few days ago. The comforter alone wasn't cutting it any more.
• Casseroles and soups interest me much more than sandwiches and salads did a couple months ago.
• The stores are full of Christmas displays already, and have been for a month!
• My hands are cold while I'm typing this.

Stuff

As I was standing there at the sink doing dishes, it occurred to me why I suddenly felt the urge to own some jammie bottoms. The wood stove. Huh? For some reason, it seems totally right be in lounge wear while I have a toasty fire in the wood stove.

Maybe I've read too many books.

I'm started to get the hang of this wood stove thing though. Little by little, I'll get to where I can fire that thing up and "dial it in" in no time. Tonight I ran it from 4 to 7, feeding it only one piece of wood at a time after getting it roaring initially. Now there are just dull red coals in the bottom and the whole house is toasty warm.

You know another good thing about doing dishes? It makes if awfully easy to trim fingernails when you're done. I used to use yellow gloves when washing dishes, but I haven't in a while now.

Yesterday I started the day by doing a bunch of laundry and going to get a haircut. Woo... Fun stuff. Afterwards, I blew the dust off the Harley and took it for a much-needed ride. I didn't go far--Only to Puyallup to Steve's house. I hadn't visited with him since our big ride to Anacortes a few weeks ago. Turns out he's been having medical trouble since then. Anyway, some people were there looking at it his Scion that he's selling, and while Steve was showing it, I was over talking with Maria, his wife. It turns out that he got carted off to the hospital in an ambulance one day a couple weeks back. She said she was scared shitless. He had all the signs of a heart attack: Pain, white face, sweating profusely--You name it. After testing, testing, and more testing, they finally found something. It turns out that he had a hernia in the middle of his ribcage and it's pushing on his internals there. They're thinking they may be able to take care of it with a camera-type minimally invasive procedure, but if not, they'll have to open him up. He'd better stay healthy dammit... The world can't afford to lose one of the funniest guys I have ever known. And he's "this" close to retiring from Boeing too.

Saturday Evening

Boy, I never knew there was such a learning curve to heating a house with wood! As I sit here in the nude with a fan on me, I'm reminded that there is a time lag between fire and heat. By the time I noticed it was getting a bit warm, it was too late--It continued to get warmer and warmer. There is not the slightest bit of doubt in my mind that I will be able to save a lot of money this winter by not using my electric baseboards very often.

The question though, is will I ever learn how to do it right?

I need to go out tomorrow and buy myself a couple of thermometers I guess. I need to know how warm it's getting at the different levels of my house.

I spent the earlier part of the day running all over hell, getting back home at about 2pm. I hit about every grocery store around, shopping for all the loss-leaders I had written down on my list. I was everywhere it seems. I even hit a local Bartell Drug store just to get a hot deal on a bottle of olive oil. I also bought two BIG bags of Halloween candy. They're a Hershey assortment with 105 in each one. I predict a lot of kids here due to surrounding apartments and such. I hope I don't have any leftover... I don't want the temptation. But just in case, I'll start with the crap that I like least and get rid of them first. In this case it would be the Whoppers malt balls. I hate those damn things. I'll save the Almond Joys for last. :-)

I even ended up buying (gasp!) pajama bottoms! Okay, not really pajama bottoms... More like lounge pants. Yeah, if they have pockets, they must be lounge pants, right? I certainly didn't buy them to sleep in. They are the usual relatively thin flannel, and have a "token" drawstring to supplement the elastic waistband. They also have the usual "open" fly with one button in the middle, and it has a fairly deep overlap so nothing should escape... I'm going to have to probably hem em up a bit though, which is weird--Usually things I buy like that are barely long enough for me.

I called my folks to RSVP an event they're having at their house next Sunday. A relative from New Jersey is flying into town for a few days. I think he'll be here on Wednesday. He is very possibly the last member of my dad's original clan from the over that way. Except for his daughter, I think he's the last. I met him way back when in about 1977 or so when I stopped in for a visit on the way to Europe in the Air Force. Back then there were a lot more relatives. Times change. I think I'll take my laptop over too, just in case I want to grill him on genealogy.

Well, it feels like it might be around 80 again, so it's getting cooler in here. It's still pretty warm on the stairs though. Probably because I have the little window in my bathroom open all the time and it's creating a chimney effect.

I could definitely host a nude gathering in the dead of winter here if I wanted to. It's a good stove.

Creeping Toward Isolation

Americans are slowly but surely crawling under rocks and shutting out the rest of the world.

It's true. I don't know if I can aim that just at Americans, but the fact remains: We are doing everything we can to isolate ourselves from any human contact we don't absolutely need.

I don't know about you, but the only time I interact with a human at a gas station is when I get the "See Attendant" message on the pump or when my receipt won't print. I seriously can't think of 5 times when I have actually paid for gas with cash and talked to a human in the last 10 years.

It's the computer age that propelled it all into reality, but it's our constant quest for labor-savings that led us that direction. We as Americans are always looking for an easier way to get something done. Even better would be something that is fully automatic. We love that stuff.

Thanks to our personal computers and the Internet, we no longer have to go shopping at a store and deal with stupid salespeople, parking lot snarls, or bad weather. We can just click the mouse and wait for it to show up in the mail. What? Your online order is taking too long? No problem--Just log on and "track" your order instead of calling someone up and interacting with them. We can now do all our grocery shopping online if we want to. Gone is the chance of meeting that special someone in the produce department at your local grocery store and tossing that clever double-entendre' about a cucumber. We now bank online, renew driver's licenses online, start services online, even pay our bills online.

The computers have also given us the ability to meet people online. No longer do we have to suffer all that social awkwardness and stumbling over what to say in person. We can email, fax, web cam, and instant message someone from the safety of our own personal space.

Don't forget our little metal air-conditioned personal transportation/isolation cubicles. Without a doubt, the worst offender of societal isolation we have at our disposal. Yes, I'm talking about our cars. By owning a car, we have effectively given ourselves the ability to shut out the rest of the world. We close the doors and lock them, roll up the windows, turn on the air conditioning or heater. What, you can hear something outside of your personal isolation cubicle? You forgot to turn up your music for maximum isolation. Back in the day of horse and buggies, people would pass each other at a reasonable pace, fully exposed to everything around them. In the time it took for two people to pass each other, they could actually have a full dialogue between them, and as they neared the limit of their hearing, could still shout a 'good day 'as they continued onward. It's not so bad in the warmer climates where people have windows down--They have a little more possibility of human interaction. When someone cuts us off while driving and necessitates our desire to 'interact' with the offender, we can always roll up our window and hit the gas when we've interacted too much and compromised our safety.

The one that really makes me jealous is telecommuting. That is the final straw between finally cutting yourself off from the rest of the world. Wearing pajamas (if even that) all day and calling it work. Ha.

Sigh. I guess it's time to go interact at the workplace.

The Nice Guy

When I was married, there was a little thing that would sometimes get me into minor trouble: Helping people.

No, not the act of helping people in general, it was the fact that I could seldom say no. It was almost always at the expense of my own life or workload. For example, someone might ask me to help them with something, and at home I would hear, "How come you have time to help them but you don't fix the stuff around here that needs fixing?" or something similar.

That's just me.

So it should come as no surprise that I still help Teresa on occasion. Like yesterday for example: I changed the oil in her car for her. No biggie to me, and it only took about 15 minutes, so why not?

I still crack up when I remember what my buddy Steve said to me when he and I were talking one day. Talk got around to what I had been doing lately, and I told him I had washed her car the day before:

"You didn't read the divorce handbook did you?"

Freebies and Birthdays

I was at Rhonda's house way back when and she turned me onto a nice little free magazine put out by the Kraft Foods company, called Food & Family. Like all company sponsored recipe and idea magazines, it always references one of their own products in as many ingredients as they can, but that really doesn't matter much. It's a slick magazine and has lots of good stuff in it. Especially for free. Right after I signed up I started getting regular emailed newsletters, but yesterday was my first actual hard copy. Am I trying to coerce my readers into signing up? Nah, just telling you it's worth a look.

I picked up Sarah after school yesterday and brought her to my place. She did homework while we waited until it was time to go to my sister's house in Burien. It was my nephew Jesse's 20th birthday, and we were invited up for barbecued beer brats. We stopped off and bought a couple birthday cards on the way, as well as a gift card to Fred Meyer. Why two cards? This is one month with a three rapid-fire birthdays in short succession. My sister's husband Mike had a birthday on Saturday, and his brother (whom I haven't seen in quite a while) had his birthday the day before that. Then of course Jesse's was yesterday. Because I was out of town on Saturday, I took Mike his card yesterday.

Funny thing about those two brothers--They both married sisters! Isn't that wild? My sister Jackie was originally married to Dennis, who was the older brother. He's a great guy and I miss seeing him all the time, but as often happens, he and Jackie had their differences and parted ways many years ago. During their marriage though, Jackie introduced my other sister, Denise, to his brother Mike. After a while they got married and had two great kids. She is the only one of my family of siblings that is still married to her first spouse. Way to go Denise... You must have gotten it right. I need to go out in visit Dennis one of these days and see how he's doing. He remarried right after his divorce and has been living out in the sticks near the Cascades ever since. He's a big guy, and we always called him "Big Dennis" and my brother "Little Denis." Although they have different spellings, they sound the same and it eliminated confusion.

Well, back to work...

Moving and Helping

It was an excellent drive home from Aberdeen today. The traffic was light, and the music was great on practically every station I tuned to. Oh, and no cops. An excellent finish to one ass-kickin' weekend of hard work.

As I predicted, the drive down on Friday after work was slow and tedious in many areas. As much as I tried to mentally prepare for it, it was a challenge. I had driven home from work on Friday afternoon as quickly as I could and immediately backed the truck up to the garage and loaded up Rhonda's television in behind her washer and dryer that were already there. After throwing a hand truck in and tying everything down, I went inside, grabbed all my stuff and took a quick shower. As luck would have it, my friend Greg rang the doorbell just as I was getting out of the shower. I hated to turn him away as it was plain that he was prepared to hang out for a while (he brought beer!), but he understood. After a few minutes of talk, away I went.

I got down to Rhon's house at about 6:30, and we immediately took the load I had over to her new house. With the help of a coworker named Chris, we had them all unloaded in minutes. She was so happy to have a washer and dryer of her own! She treated us to a nice burger dinner right afterwards... No doubt to suck us in to her web of impending moving hell the next day.

In addition to Chris, she had employed two of her students to help out as well, and everyone showed up at about 9:00 the next morning. Let me tell you, we all worked. I mean, we worked. No, I mean really--We WORKED. Her place had a hell of a lot of steps, and there was a lot of stuff to carry down all those steps. I guess I should consider myself lucky that I'm in pretty good shape, because I had no aches or pains the next day. I definitely knew I worked though, because by Saturday night, I was dead tired. We got everything moved with the exception of just a few minor little items and the stuff in the refrigerator. We had to cut the two teenagers loose at about 1:00pm, but by then we had moved almost all the of the big and heavy stuff down. Rhon's daughter Jocelyn showed up around that time carrying her baby boy, Corbin. He is grandma Rhonda's pride and joy for sure. Anyway, after sending Corbin home with his grandpa, Jocelyn stayed and helped for a few hours as well. After we were all moved and everyone else went home, Rhon and I still worked until pretty late last night, doing such things as hooking up the washer & dryer. She immediately had clothes churning away in them as soon as we hooked em up.

Today I spent all day today hooking up stuff. Her giant TV had to be hooked up to its cable box, the DVD player hooked up, the stereo hooked up, the computer put back together, and many other things. The computer hookup was complicated further by a lack of 3-prong outlets, so we had to make a store run for a few little things like that. We also put up a few plant hooks in the ceiling and installed her new doorbell. By the time I left it was about 5pm or so.

All in all, it was a very good weekend--Hard work or not. And I'd like to say we couldn't have done it without the help of the two boys or Jocelyn, but especially Chris. He is an amazingly hard worker. I could tell he was not used to work like that. It was obvious that it was kicking his ass. But did he complain? No, not one bit. He just kept on going. That's what I call a worker... And a helluva nice guy.

Rhon now has herself a real nice place with NO stairs (thank you thank you thank you) and all the comforts she was missing in that drafty old building she had inhabited for years. When I left today and hugged her goodbye, she was one happy lady!

Happy Friday the 13th!

I've been gearing up for what will be quite the eventful weekend in Aberdeen. Rhon's move from the attic apartment of Munster's Mansion to a normal floor-level 2 bedroom duplex with a garage (and an opener!) is underway as we speak.

I've had her "new" 36-inch television in my garage for some time now, and I've had her "new" washer and dryer set in the back of my truck under a tarp since last weekend. She will be as glad to have them as I will be to get rid of them. It's not that they're in my way (they are, but only a little), it's just the responsibility of having them. I just don't want anything to happen to them.

From what I've gathered being at this end, she is a mover's dream. She has everything already packed in boxes, labeled with contents and destination, and they are all stacked at the bottom of her stairs. I have helped a lot of people move in my day, and I can't count the number of times I've showed up and watched as people just started packing right before my eyes. Way to go, Rhon.

I spent some time last night trying to get all my stuff ready to go so all I have to do is change clothes, load the TV into the truck, hit the gas station and be gone. I'm sure I'll hit some heavy, heavy traffic though, and I'm not looking forward to that. I have made up a tool bag to take along too, for removing and installing things that need doing between the two places. If nothing else, I need to switch the shower heads from place to place, and install her washer and dryer. I'm also prepared in case we need to drill any holes for whatever reason.

Yesterday at work was tool changeover time. That means that the smooth week of trouble free operation of the press will likely come to a screeching halt. I'm not being pessimistic here--Just realistic. The tool that makes the other product is just a problematic 100% "hands-on" kind of thing. It requires constant monitoring and tweaking to keep it going within specifications.

It has been such a beautiful week here lately! October has been like our usual September: Cool nights and warm to hot days. I can't usually ride the Harley to work either, because I pick Sarah up from school on the way home. Yesterday I just got to work and parked next to a beautiful Harley that a new guy owns when it occurred to me that I could have rode mine to work because Sarah had an after school event for an hour. Damn. Actually, I could ride it today too because she has no school, but because of all the stuff I've got going with my weekend preparation, I'd rather not in case I need to stop off for something on the way home. I haven't ridden it at all since the Anacortes run a few weeks ago, and I'm getting kind of antsy for a ride.

You know, in the past I've had some good Friday the 13th's, and I hope this is one of them. I've actually had some where I found money on the ground and stuff like that. Isn't that weird? It's like I'm on the "wrong side" of things. I wonder if it has anything to do with my lack of feeling for religion? Nah. I'm totally not superstitious at all... It's just fun to speculate.

Well, off to work I go.

A Lightbulb Moment?

I had an idea today.

Many, many years ago, I had an idea to put water in cans in pop machines. There were many times that a nice, cold container of water that I could take with me sounded good instead of soda. Plus, it would be easier than going to the water fountain all the time. Everyone laughed at me. "Who the hell is going to pay money for water?" Well, it was true--Back then water was free everywhere. So was air for your car tires. Remember those days? Well, I had it right... I only missed on the container type, but that's only because they never had machines that would dispense plastic bottles back then. (Sigh) My brush with greatness.

So what about today's idea? Okay, I know you're all going to laugh, but here it is: A nose tampon. Say what?! Yep... Imagine you have a cold and your nose just won't stop running. You practically wear the poor thing out wiping it all day. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to put something in there that would absorb everything?

Naturally it would have to have some sort of a plastic tubular opening in the middle so you could still breathe or swallow without creating a vacuum.
Also, it would have to have an age minimum to use it. You can't trust kids to do the right thing when it comes to orifices you know. Come to think of it, you can't really trust adults either. But that's another story.
Of course it would have to have The String. It wouldn't be right without it. You wouldn't want to dig around in there when it was time to change it any more than... Well, you know.

Who knows? It could be my brush with greatness. Just remember: If Johnson & Johnson ever comes out with one, you heard it here first.

The Return of the Poet

Yes, I was in the rhyming zone again today (the crowd groans). Sorry... Sometimes I guess I'm just inspired by stuff.

Summer's End

Cold and damp, the evening air, as October's end draws near;
The lazy warmth of the evening sun is gone until next year.

The leaves of many of the trees are turning red and gold
from the lack of the sunlight and from the night time cold.

Wood stove smoke hangs heavy in the cool, moist night time air,
and in the mornings fog and dew are not exactly rare.

Gone are the musical ice cream trucks, with their irritating tunes,
Replaced by quiet, empty darkness, and hazy orange full moons.

Pumpkin fields, awash in orange, are everywhere you look
and cornfields cut to mazes, like puzzles from a book.

Soon it will be Halloween and children of all sizes,
will be busy ringing doorbells in search of sweet surprises.

Witches, ghosts, and monsters are what they used to be
but now they're cartoon characters, and heroes from TV.

The favorite sport will also change, from one game to another,
instead of swinging baseball bats, they'll be tackling each other.

Bodies once totally bare to the hot, dry summer sun
are now covered completely, with no button left undone.

So put away your swimsuits and beach towels for a bit,
and dig out all your winter clothes to see if they still fit.

The sheets of satin ought to go as well, use flannel ones instead,
and spread the quilt that grandma made out over the bed.

With holidays just ahead, and everyone baking treats,
the diets will go out the window as everyone overeats.

Whether it's due to boredom or what, no one really knows,
But as least our overeating will be hidden by our clothes.

So if you end up feeling down, and melancholy too...
Just think ahead to summer, and you will make it through!

Ricky

I Feel a Little Like Complaining Today

But really... What good would that do? Oh hell, I'll do it anyway.

I'm one of those people that are "in tune" enough with their bodies that I can recognize teeny little signs of impending problems before they hit. It's a useless skill really. When you're going to get a cold, all that lets you do is say, "I'll have a cold tomorrow... I can tell." Sure enough. The night before last, right before bedtime, I had a teeny, tiny "feeling" in one side of my throat way in the back. Sure enough again, I awoke yesterday morning with a little more of it and some sniffles. Last night I felt wrung out and went to bed at 8pm instead of my usual 10pm. This morning I don't feel any better though, because even though I went to bed 2 hours early I only got the usual amount of sleep. Lots of waking and tossing and turning.

I don't know if it's the fact that I'm in very good health overall and take vitamins every day or what, but when I get sick, I never get hit hard with it. It always builds slowly and tapers off slowly. I'd actually rather get slammed with it and get it over sooner if I had the choice. The only advantage (or is it?) to the slow building sicknesses is that I don't ever seem to miss work. Sometimes I think I would like to miss work though. I just never have a good enough justification to myself to do so. I think I've missed one day of work in the last 5 years.

I've never had anyone pamper me, so that's not an issue either. I suppose it would be nice. Really though, the only time I really wish someone would pamper me are those few times in your life when you get totally slammed by a fever. When you're shaking cold and every part of your body aches. Those are a little tougher. Thinking back though, I don't know if I've ever been pampered when I was sick... Married or not. Maybe I'm just not enough of a whiner. Guys like to pretend we're tough, but we're really babies you know (don't tell any guys I said that).

It's cold in here this morning. Sure, I could turn the heat up, but by the time it's more comfortable in here it will be time to leave for work. ( <--- Whining ) It's baseboard heat you know. If it was forced air I would have already turned it on. This is an awkward time of year for heating around here. It seems like it's usually much colder than it has been. Lately it's been cold at night, but by the time I come home from work the sun is out and the house is warmed from it--Almost too warm. I'd kinda like to come home cold and build a fire and stare mesmerized into the flames while time passed all around me.

I guess that's all I have to complain about for now. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

Some Things are just Wrong

I flipped open a website that I use all the time today, and was somewhat taken aback.

You know the kind of websites like Google news, or Yahoo news, or something like that where they have all the latest headlines from all over the world? I use Excite.com all the time for my weather and stuff, and it also has important news headlines on it. At least it did. This one struck me as odd. With ALL the news in ALL the world, the headline that they decided was most important was this:

Pitt, Jolie Give Son a Ride in Rickshaw

Now isn't that just odd? I had no idea that it was more important than war... More important than elections, More important than economic news. I shouldn't be surprised I guess--After all, the real editor is probably off work on Sundays right? They probably have a janitor making the editorial decisions today. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone responsible at Excite.com for making sure I didn't miss that one! Now I'll be able to sleep tonight.

You know what? I'll bet that's what has been bugging me lately. Something in the back of mind that I haven't been able to put my finger on. Yeah, that's got to be it:

I've never ridden in a rickshaw.

Saturday Evening... Whew

It feels good to sit down.

I know you're going to read this Rhon... You owe me $75. I've been chasing washers and dryers all day it seems like. I went up to look at a set in Seattle near Swedish Hospital, but they were completely devoid of any features. The washer had a switch that said Cold/Warm/Hot and the timer knob and that was it. The dryer needed a timer, and was equally bare bones. The reason it needed a timer is because although the dryer worked fine (it was on when I showed up) the timer didn't count down, so you had to set a kitchen timer or something to keep from burning your clothes up. Thanks but no thanks, man. They looked like they were on their last legs.

That deal proved the old garage sale rule that I came up with a few years ago: The better the advertising, the worse the sale or product is. I've proved it time and time again. That ad had lots of information and great pictures. Too great. The pictures looked WAY better than the set did. On the other hand, the set that I did buy had a teeny ad with NO pictures or info to speak of. And they're a lot newer and match and everything. With all the hoses. I went over to Fred Meyer and bought a tarp to wrap them up nicely with. I'll leave them in the back of my truck until it's time to deliver them. I didn't really have room for them in the garage, nor did I feel like unloading them and reloading them all by myself (I've done it before... I know!).

Also during he course of the day, I got the data cable in the mail that I ordered earlier in the week. That's the one that lets you connect your cell phone to the computer to upload wallpapers and ringtones. Anyway, they sent the wrong one. Dumbasses.

In between washer and dryer jaunts, I also found myself at Walmart, and bought myself more bachelor stuff. This time I bought an iron and an ironing board. I have a ton of nice, shortsleeved cotton button-down shirts that I can't wear because they look like I found them wadded up in a couch cushion. It's about time I addressed that shortcoming. 'Course, just because I have them doesn't mean I'll use them... ;-)

I received such a pleasant surprise last night when I got a chat invite from my son Mark! He saw me online and buzzed me, and that totally made my day. We chatted for a long time... I'm sure it was over a half hour, but who's counting? The point is, he's back. There were a lot of issues for him to grapple over concerning his "extended" family up here. Things like who should know, how much should they know, was he ready or even able to deal with all of it... etc, etc, etc. I totally understand what he was going through as far as all the uncertainty and the fact that it was all so overwhelming to him. I totally accept that he was ducking me while he sorted it all out. Most of us probably would have done exactly the same thing. Fortunately for all involved, he had an epiphany of sorts, and he's in with both feet. I'm so glad!

Welcome aboard, Mark, Dana, and Emma... I've missed you all. A lot.

My Mind Was Wandering At Work Again Today

I just couldn't help it.

It didn't wander off in a usual direction this time though... It wandered and rhymed. What? You didn't know I could do poetry? Okay, some may call it garbage, but I don't care. I have these moments from time to time.

Read on, dear friends...

People often wonder what's right and what is wrong
We wonder what our purpose is and where we all belong.

We wake and rise each morning, and ready for the day
some may go to school or work, and others might just play.

Some people have a purpose, and others have no clue
of why it is that they're put here, and what they are to do.

Many people need to think that "someone" put them here
while others are content to have no god to praise or fear.

To some my way of thinking is called "outside the box"
but I don't care that they may think my head is full of rocks.

For I believe that this is hell, and not what's after death.
All the things that happen now, before our final breath.

Pain and sorrow are no fun, on that we all agree,
they can be our private hell, and feel like an eternity.

Me? I don't need a greater reason to live upon this earth
than to eat and drink, and maybe sex, and share a little mirth.

Who knows how long that we may last or how long we'll be here
so eat and laugh and love... And drink another beer.

Sometimes my thoughts can be quite strange and border on bizarre,
But that's what makes me who I am, instead of who YOU are.

Ricky

And Speaking of Craigslist...

Sorry, but this just fits wiyh my odd sense of humor. Bizarro is one of my favorite comics.

Enjoy (if you can)

As the Week Rolls to a Close...

It's funny how fast some weeks go and others seem to drag on forever, isn't it? Although, I shouldn't speak too soon--I've still got to get through today's workday yet. This week at work went by very strangely--Almost robotic at times. I had no hiccups, no burps, no problems with the press of any kind. Underneath and behind the press there is a slow-moving conveyor that carries scrap bits away from the press and deposits them into a big scrap bin. I sometimes find myself standing there staring at it... Staring... Zoning off... Thinking about things... Maybe I'm somewhat mesmerized by the slow moving belt and the rhythmic thumping of the press both. It is possible to get into a "zone" back there in the back of the building with nobody bothering you.

One thing I try to never do is to go to work and say to someone, "Only 2 more days 'til Friday" or something similar. Why? The way I figure it, the end of my life will arrive soon enough as it is, and I'll look at myself and wonder what the hell I did with it, and wonder why it went so quickly. Nope... Even the shitty days count for something. No matter how bad a day is, something good happened during the course of it. The hard part is noticing that "something" and appreciating it. It could be something as insignificant as a smile from a coworker or a good song on the radio, but it's there.

Rhon received good news yesterday: The apartment (duplex actually) she found for rent a couple weeks ago has been granted to her! That's very cool. Now she won't have to climb the seemingly endless steps that lead from her porch to her apartment in the Munster's mansion. It's not that big of a deal except for those times when someones cell phone sets off your doorbell, or someones kid rings your doorbell... And you wander all the way down there just to find out it was a false alarm. (Easy there Rhon--Take your hands off her neck...) Her new place is about an equal distance from her job (only about 8 blocks) but is the other direction, so she won't even have to alter her drive times to work. Now she will have a garage (with a washer and dryer hookup!) and no steps to deal with. Maybe I'll keep an eye out for a stair stepper for her at a garage sale... heh heh. Although it will be a lot of work helping her move her stuff down all those stairs, it will be exciting. She is totally pumped, and rightly so. The change will be a good thing. It's getting pretty old practically living in the attic of a drafty old house and having to go literally all the way to a dirt floor basement to wash your clothes. She has put up with it for a long time, but its low rent saw her through her through the difficult transition she made from being a broke divorcee to independent single woman. She said she will miss the views from up there, but it seems like mostly rooftops to me...

There's a big automotive swap meet happening in Monroe this weekend on both days, but I don't think I feel like going. I want to get out and pick up some free used cedar roof shingles I found on Craigslist, and I'd like to get out and about and try to find a deal on a washer and dryer for Rhon, also using Craigslist. Hey, what are friends for, right?

No News is Good News?

Lately I just haven't had anything to write about.

It's not that there's nothing going on--There's always something going on. No, it's just that the creative juices that usually lead to my writing just aren't flowing. Sometimes it doesn't bother me and I just write the boring, mundane stuff that looks like a minute-by-minute account of how much of a yawner my day was. Other times I just think it's a waste of my time to do so. Besides, who wants to read stuff like, "I woke up... Scratched my ass... Then I walked downstairs and turned on the coffee pot... Then I... yada, yada, yada..." Am I right?

I finally took the "Geek" stuff off my website. Times have changed and I was way behind. I had stuff on there about sharing your Internet connection in your house among multiple computers. How archaic! Nowadays you can buy a router that will do the same thing right out of the box. Add the fact that more and more people are going wireless, and it just solidifies the fact that those pages on my website were long, long obsolete.

I've been running the press at work lately, and unlike earlier last week, it's going very smoothly. Translation: I have had time for my mind to wander. It's times like these when I do some of my deep thinking about things. I have to watch out though, because it's also times like that when a problem in the parts I'm making could develop and I might not see it soon enough and end up making a bunch of scrap.

So what have I been thinking about? I've mostly been thinking about my relationship (or lack thereof) with my son Mark and his family. So with such a good subject to write about, why don't I write about that instead? I probably will, but I haven't decided exactly on my next course of action. I'm considering a long, careful letter to them with my thoughts. I feel like I want to send it to his wife Dana as the primary recipient though. Women are so much better at delving into matters of the heart, and she probably has considerable insight as to what's going on anyway. I think I will follow my usual M.O. when drafting an important letter: Write in it over a course of a few days, constantly reading and re-reading it and making adjustments and changes. That way an emotion that may have been dominant one particular day won't overwhelm the whole thing.

One thing I'm not sure of though, and I would like my readers to give me your input in my comments section: I would like to give his wife the link to this blog so she can monitor my activities. Should I? I don't think I have anything to hide, and I think it may be good. I doubt if Mark would be interested in such things, but you never know. At the risk of stereotyping, women just seem to like to follow things like this more than men do.

You know, now that I think about it, I do have a lot to write about.

Meeting the Teachers

I went to Sarah's school open house last night. You know what that reminds me of? One time I saw a thing on TV about "speed dating." They sit and talk until the buzzer goes off then change tables and do it again over and over. It almost has a lab rat quality to it when you think about it. The bell would ring, and intercom would come on, "Thanks for playing our silly little game. We don't care if you were done talking to your child's teachers or not... It's time for you to move, now MOVE!"

Every year there is always (so far there seems to been anyway) one stand-out teacher that shows an almost inordinate amount of passion for their subject. I think last year it was her ceramics teacher. This year seems to be her AP History teacher. He's clearly almost obsessed with history, and also struck me as a pretty entertaining guy to learn from as well.

Teresa was already in the first class when I got there, and we ended up going from class to class together just like old times. As usual I saw a bunch of people I know as well, and they probably thought to themselves, "Hey, I thought they were divorced?"

She told me she wasn't too keen on how Sarah has been doing homework-wise. It's pretty much always the same thing every year. Neither Teresa nor I ever saw a lot of homework being done, but yet it always got done. She always got A's (or at least high B's). I don't see a problem at this time, but she wondered if maybe I shouldn't be taking her to my house every day after picking her up to see that she gets her homework done. Like me, Sarah likes her "connectivity." She likes her email, her chat, her cell phone, etc. Add to that the fact that she's interested in boys and it makes for a pretty full plate. Maybe she should start coming home with me for study time. Teresa has been working every day for a while now, so nobody is home when Sarah gets home. She probably could use a little extra direction.

I stopped by the pharmacy to renew my prescription after getting home from work, and wasn't sure quite what to expect. For the last year, my insurance has only allowed a 30-day supply at a time on prescriptions, and that means a $20 copay every month. It used to be I could get a 90-day supply at one time, effectively saving me $60. Last time I went in, someone got their signals crossed and gave me a 60-day supply and on the bottle was a note saying, "We owe you 30". I didn't see it until I got home and was pretty happy about it. The next day or two days later Teresa got a call from them asking for me. "He doesn't live here any more." I figured they were trying to collect from me so I never followed up on it. Yesterday when I went in, the gal sees me and says, "There you are, I've been trying to get hold of you!" I held up my empty bottle and pointed to the note on it. "Does it have anything to do with this?" I asked? Well it turns out that all they wanted to do was give me the 30 pills they "thought" they shorted me. Even now I may get away with a 90-day supply next time I go in as well. After all, the bottle says 90 days on it. Before it only said 30. You know how it is--With the computer age, once something gets started it usually automatically continues whether it's good or bad.

Monday Morning

It was a good weekend. I was prepared to just fart around and do nothing in particular, but instead had the pleasure of Rhon's company both days.

I popped onto my Yahoo chat on Friday night at about 8pm and she was there. It seems that she was having a personal crisis and was having very tough time holding her sanity together. After all, getting cancer news concerning two relatives in one day can be a recipe for a total mental overload. She made a comment that it's too bad we lived so far apart and that she could really use a hug. To make a long story short, she was badly enough in need of solace that she hopped in her truck and drove up right then. That drive is nothing to sneeze about either, and she didn't get here until 10:30 that night. We had a great weekend of hanging out and watching movies, shopping, eating, and just being close. She bought us brunch on Saturday morning, and we ended up eating at a new place in Kent called The Ram Restaurant and Brewery. The food, the beer (we each had a different one of their own brands), and the restaurant itself was totally excellent. I will definitely go there again. She also got to finally experience IKEA that day as well. Even if you don't like anything they sell, you have to admit that it is quite the store. I don't think there is anything quite like it anywhere else in the retail world.

Rhon, had you not come over then, I probably would've been at your house the next day... You just are more impulsive than I am. Good for you--I need that on occasion to stir me out of my "nah, it's too late" or "I don't know, it's a lot of trouble..." mentality. We were good for each other this weekend.

I guess Teresa and all the other helpers got some major work done at the neighbor's house. I rode the Harley to work on Friday (there was no school that day so I didn't have to pick Sarah up) and stopped by there right after work. The whole house was basically empty and they were about to start cleanup mode. I guess Sarah and Teresa were there until 1:30 in the morning after I left the previous night. All I have to say is that those people were damn lucky to have so many friends.

I finally got my cell phone all programmed and set up with all my numbers yesterday. I also ordered a data cable off Ebay that will enable me (hopefully anyway...) to be able to transfer my own pictures to mine and Sarah's phones whenever we want. I could care less about ring tones, and she doesn't care that much about them either, but background pictures would be cool to be able to swap out any time you like. If nothing else, just to have a color background with something like Happy Halloween or something would be cool. Even if it doesn't work out, it only cost me $7.50 so what the hell.

Time to get the garbage can out to the curb and go to work.