Random Part Two

There was a lot I was going to go on about on my previous post but did not make it to. I looked at the clock sometime in there, and it was already 1:00 AM!!! Good thing I had therapy today and didn't need to get out of bed particularly early. On the minus side, it does make for a long day. I usually don't get out of there until after 10, then its near to 11 by the time I get to work. By the time I've gotten my hours in its 9:00!!! Then the drive home (usually traffic isn't bad by then at least) and then if I want to eat anything...

Its red flag day two here. If you're not familiar, when there are ideal wild fire conditions (Santa Ana winds, low humidity, and usually warm) they declare it a red flag day. There is a fire going on down south of here in Orange County. No structures or life lost, so that's good. I had thought there was one going on Monday out north of me in the valley, and when it was raining ash on me yesterday I thought that was where it was from. I was apparently mistaken. Starting this January they put up no parking on red flag days signs in several hilly areas, and mine is included. Cars will be towed. I can understand the reasoning behind it, the streets are narrow and difficult to navigate curves and turns on in large trucks if there are parked cars (I'm always resisting the urge to go watch moving trucks when I see them lumbering up my hill, see how they do with the corners) but its really not an issue on the straight areas. A lot of people don't have any driveway, or not enough driveway hold all their cars, so its a concern. I didn't see any decrease in the number of cars last night when I got home. I have a feeling it isn't going to be strictly enforced unless there is a nearby fire.

I FINALLY gave Sammy his Christmas present today. He was floored by it, mostly the Chicago Cubs license plate frame I made for him. He liked the rest of it, too, though. I had taken a screwdriver up with me when I gave it to him in parking lot because I knew he was going to want to put it on his truck right away. He was putting it on, and he twisted one of the screw heads right off!!! Damned things are made out of plastic!!! Naturally, there were only two of them holding it on. We searched all over the plant and finally located a few more. Bastard size (for us anyway), 1/4-28 thread. I ordered a set of stainless button head allen screws to replace the hex bolt he's using for now.

Jiminy, Lilly has a great dream book, you should ask her nice and see if she'll give you an interpretation of that dream of yours!!! Wild dream, considering your position (not your position in the dream, you didn't really get into all that, LOL), thanks for having the boldness to share that. To bring you up to speed on the word verification game, the rules stipulate that you use the characters that you are required to type in order to post a comment. That's why a lot of them don't make a lot of sense. I sometimes take a challenging one as, well, a challenge and leave a comment that I may have vacillated about giving just so I could play the word verification game!!! Granny, especially liked the one you came up with UYEVC = Use Your Exciting Vessel Cleverly!!! Now THAT'S showing the love!!! MCHWEYWAKYUAN= MY cricket Homies will enter your window and keep you up all night.... Now THAT reminds me of a story that must be shared at some point!!!

Lilly, that sex on the beach isn't all you may have dreamed the sand tends to get everywhere, take it from L.A. guy... Be sure you at least bring a blanket lest you end up like the cavewoman who was dragged by her feet instead of her hair!!! Its going to take you that long to get the ingredients together??? You'll go thirsty!!! Or are you expecting an early spring??? Yea, it does sound like a warm weather drink, though.

Muslims!!! Crazy, stupid ass muslims!!! Not all of them, mind you, but you know the ones I'm talking about. They get all worked up over a cartoon depicting Muhammad as a terrorist, so what do they do??? They riot, burn and chant to bomb Denmark!!! You know how if you level an accusation at a person, and they're like whatever, there is usually no basis. But, if they get all defensive you begin to think they doth protest too much??? Way to prove the cartoonists point, yo!!! Now today I hear where one of them is saying the cartoons are in reaction to the never-to-be-confused-with-a-terrorist-organization Hamas having won the election... HELLO, these cartoons came out last September!!! Now I hear that there is one of them likening Muhammad to a pig that appears to be a fabrication, not even from the Denmark papers!!! Funny, they don't really go into a lot of those details in the mainstream media, so far as I've heard. I tried to do an image search for them last night but couldn't find anything. Id like to see what has them all worked up. Hmmmmm.... Perhaps Ill contract with Bob to have something REALLY offensive made up!!!

There is a convention going on this week that our salesman was going to be at, manning a booth. Several months ago he brought in an older, but not ancient, popcorn machine like they have at movie theatres. He had picked it up from someone cleaning out a garage, but it wasn't working. He had the maintenance guys here go through the wiring and replace the thermostat and heating element, along with some wiring. Then he bought some of this really tasty Pop Weaver popcorn that was already seasoned and came with its own pouch of cooking oil. He bought a whole case of these. We made a couple of batches here, and it worked flawlessly, filling the plant with the aroma of fresh popped corn. He had the brilliant idea to take it to these conventions and give away popcorn. Well, he took it and set it up and got it going there. Before the convention even opened, it caught on fire!!! They put it out with fire extinguishers. Then it caught fire again!!! He said the whole convention center was filled up with smoke. D'oh!!!

I had yet to make mention here of one other thing I did over the weekend. My dad got his engine all put in, and wanted another set of eyes there for the crucial break in period. I went down there before the game on Sunday, and we did the final preparation, filled it with vital fluids and started it up. It was leaking oil around the hoses to the remote filter adapter, so we shut it down. Apparently he had overlooked tightening those down. That fixed, we started it up again. Everything seemed fine, and he was running it around 2500 RPM. I kept looking, and after a bit I noticed a small drip of oil coming from the back of the engine. Looking around a bit it looked like its coming out of the back of the manifold gasket. Not a lot, but something that needs to be seen to. The oil from our hands that was all over the exhaust system was burning off, and I was getting a fan out of the garage to blow the smoke away, when I heard my dad shut the engine down and start yelling for a fire extinguisher. I grabbed the one off the wall, and he got the one from inside the car. The garage one was DOA, but the car one worked fine. Just a little fire from the oil dripping down the back and getting on the pipes, but that was enough for the day. The oil was pretty far down from the filter adapter and the leak, so we decided to follow up at a later date.

This has ended up being a lot about fire, hasn't it???

I also have a story I'd like to tell about a most interesting phone conversation I had with Sammy tonight, but once again, it's 1:00 AM...