More Thoughts on Ghosts

In my previous post I alluded to ghosts in the title, and Lilly picked up on some presence lingering in her comment. I don't know if that is the case, I've never seen anything to make me think so. But, my mom did have a younger brother who died as a child. I'm pretty sure it wasn't in the house, but could be something to it... My wife has seen some things, but, you know, she's insane. She says she's not anymore, but I've never seen a certificate of sanity with her name on it. Anyway, I detect no malevolent spirits.

Actually, I take that back about not having seen anything to hint at a lingering presence... Now that I think about it, there was an unusual series of dreams and events one night. Let me preface this by saying I rarely remember any of my dreams.

I was in bed dreaming that someone had broken in and stolen my TV and left the front door hanging open. I awoke around 11:30 PM after that, woken up by some kind of noise and headed out to the front room. A couple of teens were running down the street, knocking over trash cans. OK, a little out of the ordinary but by no means supernatural. Back to bed. A few hours later I awoke again, and that dream was still in my head. I came out to the front room again, and this time the TV was turned on, but there was nothing but static on it. Reminded me of that scene from Poltergeist where the TV people come!!! Now that was weird!!!

Lingering Ghosts

Now this tripped me out. Recently my youngest child has begun calling his big brother "pink head". I have no idea where he came up with this or what it's supposed to mean, but it really infuriates him!!! Probably the main reason he continues to call him that.

Today we were visiting with my parents, and for some reason this came up. My mom (who was raised in the house where we now live) was somewhat surprised, and told us "I used to call my big sister the same thing!!!" Wild, huh???

Death Around the Corner

Here's another story from my past, along a similar line as my story of my memories of 2002. Like that story, its not something that I normally go around telling people about, but its in there...

Twelve years ago today was when it happened. It was a Friday, and I was looking forward to the weekend, as well as a leisurely work day. I rolled into work probably 10 minutes or so before starting time. They were running an early shift for production starting at 5 AM, so the machines were already up and running. I sat down at the table in the break area to wait until the starting bell rang. I slid back in my chair, and relaxed until it was time to start.

Unlike where I'm working now, this place has relatively few employees, and I was good friends with several of them. Scott and Shelley I had first met when Shelley was pregnant with their son when I started working there in 1998. They weren't married, but might as well have been. Common law married. I had been to many of their son's birthdays and barbecues at their residences. They ended up living in a hotel for a while for standing up to a slum lord apartment manager. Scott was a Viet Nam veteran who had joined up to be in the airborne division, jumping out of planes. Unfortunately, he never got to do that, just as he got out of boot camp we began pulling out, and he was on that detail instead. I could go on about some of the antics we had gotten into, and perhaps at some point I will.

They got out of the hotel and were renting a nice house when Shelley's aids infected brother and his lover lost their place and ended up moving in with them. Their place was nice for a single family with one or two children, but it got crowded with them along. There was some tension brought on by that situation, and Shelley kicked Scott's ass out. He ended up moving in with his father, another good friend of mine who also worked with us. Scott often had lunch with a small group of four of five of us, and always had colorful observations or stories to share. The topic that was most often discussed that week was how he was going to begin courting Shelley anew, starting that evening when he had plans to take her out for a nice dinner. He had gotten his hair cut, much shorter than usual, and it looked a little strange seeing him like that.

Scott came in with his dad that morning, and went to his area and sat back in his chair and pulled his hat down over his eyes to rest a bit until the bell rang. Shelley had some errand that she was off doing that morning, so she wasn't there. Sal, another of the workers there showed up. I wasn't as close with him, even though we did partake in some of our filthy habits together on occasion, along with another of my friends, Pokes. Sal was a wannabe gangsta, always with a bandana pulled low on his forehead. He got there just a couple of minutes before the bell rang.

I was still reclined at the table, and was half dozing when I heard a sharp bang, sounded like someone had flat-dropped a pallet, and that's what I thought it was. I was startled awake by the racket and shot a nasty look towards the production area, then turned back to the table and was starting to relax again. Just then I heard Sal begin to shout to call 911, Scott had been shot. I ran into the office and called, not knowing any details. Unlike the time I ended up calling them in 2002, they picked up fairly quickly, and I told them to send out the paramedics, someone has been shot. Naturally, they began asking all kinds of questions that I didn't know the answers to. Who shot him? On such short notice the only thing I could think was that he must have been despondent about how things were going with Shelley and had shot himself, so I told them that I thought it was self inflicted. The operator couldn't understand what I was trying to tell her, so I told her I thought it was a suicide. The owner was in there, and her son had put a .357 to his head just a few years before, and when she heard me say that, she groaned "oh no!!!" Next question, where is the gun??? I don't know!!! How is he doing??? Is he conscious??? I don't know!!! Hold on, its out in the plant, let me run out there and take a look. I got out there, and the plant manager is there with him. Scott's eyes are wide open and unblinking. I can't see any blood or bullet hole or anything. I asked him how he is doing. He said not good, he had closed his eyes, but he opened them back up. No pulse, no breathing. I ran back to the office and told the 911 operator. Just then the paramedics rolled in. They removed his shirt and administered CPR. The police showed up just after the paramedics, and the next thing I know they have Sal in the back of one of the cars. He kept miming to us for a cigarette, but no one gave him one. I had no idea why they had him in there. The paramedics rolled him out on a gurney, and I asked one of them how he was. He answered, "he's going to be OK, but he's going to be sore"

Turns out he wasn't. The little .22 had gotten him right in the heart, and he had died almost instantly, probably without even knowing what had happened. Shelley showed up a bit later and naturally was sobbing uncontrollably when they told her what had happened. Apparently Sal had brought in a cheap little saturday night special in his jacket pocket, and when he took it off and laid it down to get ready to work, it had gone off. I don't think he was ever charged with anything. He never came back to work at the shop, tho. Probably a good thing, I have a feeling he wouldn't have been very welcome.

No more work was done that day. Everybody left early. When my wife got home from work and asked me why I was home so early, I poured out the whole story to her. At the end of my telling, she said to me "well, I'm glad you're OK", to which I replied, "I'm not."

Going to Chicago

I'm going to Chicago!!! I'm going to Chicago!!! WHOOOOOO HOOOOOO!!!

Sammy and I have been talking about doing a road trip to Chicago for a while now. He goes on about the great food dealt in his hometown, the deep dish pizza, the rib joints, the hot dog places... I get hungry every time he starts going on about it!!! Finally we inked it!!! He made mention that he was supposed to go there this weekend, but he couldn't. He had purchased a ticket for his uncle to come out at Christmas, but he wasn't able to make it either. Long story short, now he has an airline voucher to use up at some point. I said we oughtta go, and asked when a good time of year to go would be. He recommended spring time. That got me to thinking, and I asked him when opening day for the Cubs was. He got real excited about that idea!!! Anyway, its ON!!! We're going to Chicago!!! He came up to me today and told me he was walking by a radio that was playing Led Zeppelin's "when the levee breaks" just at the end part when it's going "Goin' to Chicago...." LOL!!!

Anyway, its still a couple months off, but we're both all jazzed about it!!! Going to see the Cubs at historic Wrigley Field!!! Gonna ride the El!!! Gonna eat all kinds of great food!!!

My Weekend

Saturday I went to my parents house to help my dad put the engine back in his Studebaker. He just had the vintage 327 Chevy mill rebuilt for his Christmas present. It went rather easily, even though we weren't focused on getting it all hooked up and running at this point. Basically all we did was swung it in, attached the transmission and flexplate, and bolted in the motor mounts. He had his car club meeting to go to that afternoon, so he left a little early. I tried to help my mom set up her E-mail account with outlook express, but something wasn't working quite right there. Yes, Kabila's Help Desk makes house calls, and the motto still applies: Kabila's Help Desk, where we're not really that much help!!!

Today was a day of running around. Yesterday before I left one of my son's lady friends from school called up and asked if he wanted to come to her birthday party. At noon. Of course, we didn't get a chance to get her anything, so we ended up heading out first thing this morning to get her a gift card, then over to her house to drop him off. It was the first time I had ever been to her house, which is on the far side of the freeway from ours. We got there and the girl's mom and the dad of his other lady friend who lives behind us are in the front room jamming Creedance on acoustic guitars, while another lady was accompanying them on a saw!!! It was pretty wild. We were planning to drop him off and be on our way, but we ended up staying there instead. They have a great little place, older construction as a lot of the places around here are, but with a nice plot of hillside land around it and a great view. You can see the Hollywood sign from their place.

After we left from there, all of us were hungry. I had birthday cake for breakfast. Sammy and I had been talking about pastrami last week before we got to talking about eating breakfast, and I still had the thought in my mind. I had gone to In the Skin on Friday on got my new nipple ring installed, and just down the street from there is a restaurant call The Hat (the site wasn't up when I posted this, probably not worth clicking on that link), known for their world famous pastrami. Rather high priced, but usually pretty busy. I took the family there for lunch. While we were in Pasadena I stopped by Beverages and More again and picked up a couple of sodas and a six pack of Stargazer India Pale Ale. With a name like that I had to try it (same goes for the pictured "fuckola cola", although I'm a little skurred to know what goes in that!!!) Pretty tasty, you can really taste the hops in it.

I got home and read Granny's comment that she wished she knew how to do the film strip trick that I do in Paint Shop Pro, and that got me to thinking about putting together a Kabila's Help Desk page, so I started searching for an appropriate image to use for it. As so often happens when I go searching for something, I find some other shiny object that distracts me. This particular one was a site that has some artwork, mostly done with pens and pencils and various image programs. The art is interesting and somewhat to my liking, although not at all in my style, and a couple of the titles caught my interest. One is titled Aye Dog, the other one is called Lilly SWATT. The one that linked me to it, Help Desk, I found compelling. Gotta love an artist who lists under mediums used to create their images xanax and lithium!!! I haven't updated my wallpaper page this weekend, if I do perhaps it will be one of this guy's images...

Why We Blog

Be Sure To Order This

Yesterday Sammy gave me a call in the afternoon. He had been working on a job the night before and was at the shop until after 10:00, so he hadn't come in in the morning, and was planning on skipping the whole day. Well, the plant manager called him up to see if he'd come in and take care of a couple more panic jobs. He reluctantly agreed. Anyway, he called me up and told me not to eat, we'd go and get something to eat.

We were talking about food when it was about that time, and the topic of breakfast food came up. He was saying how he loves having breakfast for lunch or dinner better than first thing in the morning. We decided that going out for breakfast was in order. We went to the Denny's just up the street. We ordered our food, and I hadn't gotten a beverage when the waitress first came around. When I ordered the food, I asked for a glass of milk when the food comes, which is usually the way I order it when I dine out. You would think its not a terribly difficult task, but you would be surprised how often it doesn't arrive. Well, when the food came, not only did she not bring my milk, but there was no flatware or napkins on our table either. Sammy and I sat there for probably about 10 seconds, then I asked him, "are you thinking what I'm thinking???" He replies, "what, that we're going to be noshing with our faces down in our plates???" Our waitress was nowhere to be seen, so we flagged down the first one that happened by and had her get us some. After she had done that, she, rather loudly, told our waitress about her mistake, and she was trying to shift the blame by telling the other girl that she had distracted her after she had cleaned the table off but before she had a chance to put the flatware out. She came over and apologized to us. I had at this point forgotten about the milk, so I made no mention. About 3/4 of the way through the meal I remembered, but at that time, what's the point??? Of course when the check came, it was charged on there. I pointed it out to Sammy, and he goes, "you never got that, did you??? When she comes back I dare you to ask her if she's new!!!" Of course, I did. She answered no, a tad defensively. I pointed out that I'd been charged for milk and hadn't gotten it. Once again she apologized, and naturally said "of course" when I told her that it was coming off the tab. To me, two major screw ups like that merit a little something, either a further reduction on the bill or some dessert, or at least having the manager come over and say that he's gonna abuse the waitress once you leave or something. I got no satisfaction of that sort, and I still left what I felt to be a fairly generous (considering the terrible service) 10% tip.

So anyway, that's my advice for the day. Order milk when your food comes, and base your gratuity on it actually showing up!!! It was actually a pretty fun and amusing dining experience. Towards the end of it I said, in a loud voice, "and THAT'S why I NEVER eat at Denny's!!!" Sammy wants to go back, only bring along our own beverages and flatware next time. I though of what I should have told the waitress after we left: "This is SO going on my blog!!!"

Party Boat

When I got home the other night, my firstborn was playing with this lego boat he'd made
Do you see on the far side of it there??? It has a tray on the side with all kinds of wine glasses and cylinders that I have to imagine are cans of beer... PARTY BOAT!!! I want to go along on it!!! Lake Havasu, here we come!!!

Certifiable

I got one thing in the mail yesterday: my certificate of being a licensed Surfcam course-completer. Cool, now I need to get a frame for it.

Today is the 12 year anniversary of the Northridge quake. I remember it, it woke me up.... I had no trouble getting up that morning. I was living in the South Bay area at the time, and while it was shocking, it wasn't especially bad there, the '87 Whittier Narrows quake was much worse to me, but I was living on the third floor of a pre-WWII wood frame apartment for that one. It just rocked and rolled all over the place!!! I do remember heading out the door to go to work that morning, and my next door neighbor was in her yard on the phone, ascared to go back inside the house. She looked at me and asked "you're not going into work, are you???" I said yea, there's NO damage here or on the roads going there, and maybe there'll be something to clean there. She wasn't going, but then again, she worked for the city, and probably got paid anyway.

I did a little looking around about the quake, and one site had it listed as the costliest U.S. disaster, at $44 billion, topping hurricane Andrew. I figure that must me out of date, I'm thinking September 11 must have ended up costing more. Hurricane Katrina could top the cost on that, too, I'm thinking. I haven't made mention here, but my dad went down to New Orleans to help with the clean up last week with a group of volunteers. He says a lot of the place looks as though nothing has been done at all. What he ended up doing down there is demolishing the insides of houses. Apparently they think the outside walls will be alright, just have to make all new interiors for them. Fascinating. He took a lot of pictures, I'll have to check them out.

Regular Weekend for Some, Long Weekend for Others

My weekend is drawing to a close. Some of my friends as well as my son get tomorrow off. I could go for another day off, but having just come off the long break I had for Christmas, it would be a little soon. I don't think I've got a paid day off until Memorial day. Not like I don't usually have three day weekends most of the time anyway. The plant manager had asked if I could come in on Friday and do a layout for the next tool. I told him no, I've got therapy, how about Saturday??? He gave me his cell number and told me to give him a call. I did, but he never picked up or replied to my messages. Out of my hands.

It was a nice weekend, very relaxing. I had the therapy on Friday, and I had made an appointment with my doctor because this virus or whatever it is was still hanging on. It seemed like it was abating a couple weeks ago, but then it came back. He prescribed me some antibiotics, as well as the Tussinex that Lilly recommended. He was going to prescribe a codeine-based syrup, but changed to that when I mentioned it. Ironically, now that I've got all that I seem to have all but kicked this.

The last two evenings I've gotten to listen in on some of the aforementioned fun with the phone. Last night I took my MP3 player and was sticking it between my headphone and my ear to record some of the completely fabricated conversations. The audio on them wasn't that great, (especially after my boys got home from the birthday party they were at and turned on the TV) but you can understand what's going on. If this remains one of those things we do, I may have enough to make a CD of these!!! One thing that tripped me out a little was when Lilly came up with a number to call that was one digit off from mine, only in the 512 area code!!!

It was a cold and drizzly day yesterday, perfect for staying in and making a crock pot of split pea and ham soup. It came out quite good, even though the honey ham that I picked up last weekend that looked like a solid chunk turned out to be sliced. I updated my wallpaper page with a picture I took just for the occasion. A lot of the plants in my yard have been blooming, and I took a picture of a bird of paradise flower. The geraniums and one of the naked ladies are blooming, and all the lilies by the driveway are coming up. They should flower right around Easter, they usually do.

Today was the opposite of yesterday, it was bright and clear, but a little chilly and windy. My wife had the idea to go to In The Skin and have them install the new nipple ring she got me for Christmas. The one I have now is a hoop with a bead on the bottom end, I think it is torsion ring. When she bought it they told her they would change it no charge. The new one is a bent barbell design with screw-on ends. Got there, and the piercer wasn't there. He'd taken the afternoon off to watch the game. So, we went out to lunch at Del Taco. After that, we stopped by Staples to get some dry erase pens (did I make mention here of the dry erase sudoku boards I made up??? I can't remember) My firstborn son wanted to look at the PC games to see what they have. There was a Harry Potter game for only $19.99 and one called midtown madness for $9.99, so he spent the bulk of the money he got for recycling there. I happened on an Atari collection of 80 arcade and 2600 games for $9.99, and my wife found a Dora the Explorer game that we got for the younger's upcoming birthday. Ended up spending a lot more than I had intended there, but the bulk of it was my son spending his recycling money. Next door to there is a Beverages and More store that I've always wondered about, so we ducked in there to look around. A lot of wines and specialty beers, and a lot of strange sodas. I picked up a Boylan Cane Cola, made with cane sugar instead of the normal high fructose corn syrup. I'd read not long ago about the Coca Cola from Mexico having a different, better flavor because of that, so I wanted to try it. It was very good, a different kind of sweetness to it.

Ever Notice...

Have you ever noticed how if you tell someone that someone else was under your refrigerator for three and a half hours, they don't even bother to question it???

Fun With The Phone

Always finding new ways to amuse themselves and others, you could defiantly say that about Lilly and Granny!!! When I joined them tonight, they were already saying I should have been there sooner. They were taking advantage of the free nights on their cell phones to call places in each others' locales, with the speaker phone function turned on. First call I was able to listen to, Granny called the Wal Mart out here on the west coast. She got the toy department and had a conversation regarding the funny teeth, to replace her broken ones for a hot date tomorrow. I had a screen shot from probably a couple years ago, back when I was still on dial up, that had an incoming call phone number on Callwave (a neat little widget if you have dial up), and Lilly called it up to ask what they wanted. They did not seem to remember calling my number (I get a LOT of wrong numbers, must be all the 2's and 7's in my number). Granny tried calling them next, but it didn't pick up. Very quickly after that someone's cousin (Suzy's, I had her ask if it was little Suzy or big Suzy) wanting to know what she was calling for. We were all rolling on the floor laughing!!! Granny does a great job playing it straight, and isn't skurred of calling anyone!!! She called up the Disneyland hotel and was trying to get room service to bring her up some chili fries. Lilly called the Bostonian hotel (I think) at Bob's suggestion, because they claim to have a baby sitting service there. The guy who picked up was unaware of that, and had to go get a second opinion. No, no babysitters there, guess its BYOB!!! OK, how about room service, I'll fill this kid up and maybe he'll go to sleep. Chili fries again, that was a recurring theme of the room service calls. I told her to tell them the kid eats the fuck outta chili fries, and she lost it and had to hang up. ROTFLMAO!!! I got the number of the Spearmint Rhino and had Granny give them a call. Of course, she had to ask them what it was, and when they said its a gentleman's club, she asked if they would let women in. Oh yea, the guy who answered was named Junior, which I had her ask him if it referred to his penis size!!! She was interested in getting a job there after she found out that she gets $15 for a lap dance, and gets to keep it all!!! Later on she called the adult bookstore that I pass by on the way to my physical therapy and was asking if they had an 8 or 9 inch dildo. The girl who answered had to go check, and she came back reporting that they have a 12 incher. Of course, had to ask if it was white or black... it was white, which prompted the comment that that is rather large for a white one!!! I think everyone's face and guts were hurting after all that laughing!!!

More Memories of 2002

I've been wanting to make some kind of post here, but I really had no idea what I'd write about. Thanks to Granny and Lilly for an idea for some blog fodder!!! I remember that Thanksgiving weekend almost like it was yesterday. I took so many pictures and we all laughed so much.

Yvonne made the comment "Laughter has such healing powers". Indeed it does. The day that Granny flew in I was at work, enjoying a somewhat leisurely day, thinking that I'd like to get in touch and see if she'd arrived, and had some little project in mind that I was wanting to make. The perfect pre-holiday day. Just a little after I had eaten my lunch I was at my table when all of a sudden I heard someone let out a very loud yell, then another one. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew it wasn't good. My first thought was that someone had been electrocuted, and I could see the girls reacting in terror. The color drained from their faces, they backed away, and their hands went to their faces. I picked up the phone and dialed 911, not knowing what I was going to tell them. Ironically, I was put on hold and was able to get enough information to tell them by the time they picked up.

One of my friends, a machine operator, had gone to clear out some debris from under the trim die on one of the machines. Picture a single edge razor blade set on edge. Now picture it about twice as thick and two inches tall, but just as sharp. He thought the die was turned off... guess you know what happened next. The blade cut his hand on a diagonal from between his middle and ring fingers to below his thumb. While I was holding, I was told he cut a couple fingers off. After I had given the operator what little information I had and the address, they asked if I could put his fingers in a plastic bag. I happened to have some small (about finger sized) ziplock bags in my desk, so I grabbed a couple and ran over to the machine. I got over there and realized that it wasn't just finger tips, but half his damned hand!!! A bigger bag was required.

The cut was very clean, and it did a lot of damage. They did a lot of surgeries, but they were not able to get his hand put back together. The plant closed earlier than planned that day, and they didn't run a second shift that night.

Just having that happen to a friend of yours in close proximity to you is very traumatic. When I got home and regained some of my composure, I got online with Lilly and Granny. It was a good thing, it really took my mind off the events of the day, and I was very glad for it. I needed something like their crazy asses at that time. Memories to last for years to come. I was glad for them having me along, and glad to be a part of it!!!

Remembering La Conchita

One year ago the hillside above La Conchita slid, killing 10. It should have been no surprise, the same hillside slid 10 years before, and several times before that. How many times in our lives do we stay in a place of eminent peril when we know we should get out??? This picture was in the paper today, and I found it haunting.

Photo by: Al Seib

HEADLIGHTS!!!

I did not think I'd be devoting this much space to just one of the vehichles at the auto show, but what can you do??? Granny, for your benifit, here's a close up of the headlight assembly. Which one do you think the high beam is??? And look in front of the headlights, see where the gas filler is??? *getting ready to create another post* LOL!!!

From The Other Side

This is for Lilly , a shot of that VW trike from the front end. The picture on the previous post was from your preferred vantage point on cars (and possibly other things, we've never gone there tho, so I don't know about that LOL) See a little better how you'd drive it now??? If you were looking at the last picture and thinking that was the front, yea that would be a bitch to drive!!! Interesting how it has different sized headlights huh??? I like the way it has the turn signals built into the front fenders!!!

And yet another beautiful day in L.A.

That pretty much describes it. Not too much blogworthy happened today, just the minutiae of daily life, but it was an exceptional day, weather-wise, for January. I hear the surf has been insanely huge of late, perhaps I shall make my way to the ocean at some point to get a look at it. However, even though there wasn't much blogworthy, blog I must... its like an itch I must scratch!!!

I got up this morning and updated my wallpaper page. I used the aforementioned picture I took yesterday of the sun setting on the opposite side of the freeway. The more I looked at the picture, the better I decided I liked it. Geocities was acting up, fucking up the picture I'd uploaded. I made mention of it there, and my conspiracy theory about their sinister ploy.

One of my elder son's friends called him up this morning and was wondering if he wanted to come over and play for a while. My wife suggested that his younger brother and my youngest should get together for a play date sometime, and his mom pretty much said "no time like the present", so it was a lot quieter than usual around here this morning. Quite relaxing.

When they came back, I made the elder load the recycling in the trunk, and we took it over to the recycling center. He got $40.00 for the haul!!! Most of it was from aluminum cans that my parents had given him. I was fairly impressed with his haul!!!

After that we hit the grocery store, since that didn't happen yesterday, and the 99 cent store. Got home and did a little yard work while the sun was still up, and took down the festivus pole. Then we made up a big pot of pasta salad, because we like the pasta salad alot!!! One of those things that we don't make a lot, but always enjoy when there is some to be had. Speaking of things I enjoy but don't have alot, I'm going to be making a crock pot of split pea and ham soup in the not too distant future. I noticed a bag of the peas in the back of the cupboard just a while ago, and there was some honey ham at the 99 cent store. I'm set!!!


Here's a picture of that trike that VW had at the auto show. Figured I might as well post some of the other pics I took here!!!

The L.A. Auto Show

When my parents were over for Christmas, my dad made mention of having a complementary set of passes to the The L.A. Auto Show, and asked if I would be interested in going. I vaguely remember saying that I would, but with the delirium of my illness and the excitement of going back to work this week I forgot.

I had my second session of the latest round of physical therapy for my finger today. Its been something like three months since I've had therapy, due to lack of approval from the insurance assholes. I go twice a week for 8 weeks, Tuesday mornings and Fridays. The first half of my sessions on Fridays is at 2:00, and the second half is at 11:00. However, in my feeble dyslexic mind I transposed the times and showed up at 11:00. My therapist was a little surprised to see me, but was good enough to work me in at that time instead. While I was hooked up to thousands of volts of electrical muscle stimulation my dad called me up and asked what time we should head off to the show. I told him around 1:30 to 2:00 would be good.

Upon leaving the therapist's office, I checked the Frys ad in the newspaper, just to see what they have on special. They had a 160 gig hard drive for $39.99 after rebates. I've been looking for one since my last computer escapade, the motherboard upgrade I did a couple months back. Right now I've got Granny's old 40 gig that she let me have in exchange for rebuilding her computer a couple years ago, and it's about 95% full already. Since I was about halfway there already, and had enough cash in my money clip, I decided to go ahead and pick that up. Now I have another project to get to...

Finally, my dad and I made it to the Auto Show. We both had our cameras, but it seemed to take quite a while before either of us were inclined to remove our lens caps. There are a lot of just plain old production cars there, and they're mostly boring. There were a few mildly customized cars there, and some interesting concept cars. Mercedes had a Rolling Stones bigger bang station wagon there, mostly just a fancy paint job and amplifiers and subwoofers in the back. Keith Richards must be rolling over in his grave. Chrysler had some nicely painted and dubbed chargers there. Then there were exotics, Ferarris and Lotus, and a brand I'd never heard of before, Spyker. VW had an interesting concept car there, a tricycle with one rear wheel. I found it interesting that the rear wheel was the driven wheel, while most of their lineup is front driven. Seems like it would be much easier to keep that kind of configuration. Over in the aftermarket and accessories hall, there was a natural gas powered tricycle, and the Zap electric cars. Off in the corner there was a guy with this unique engine he was showing. It reminded me somewhat of a rotary engine, but quite a bit different. It has a series of opposing flat discs traveling in a round torus housing. No valves, just two intake and exhaust ports, and two plugs. Very compact, very simple, and looks potentially very powerful. I tried to nail the guy down on price, but he wasn't giving.

As we were leaving I took some pictures of the downtown skyline. The sun was setting behind us, and it created a nice shade to the buildings. I took a couple of the sunset, too, but it was shooting across the freeway so they came marginal.

The Return of the Red Bucket

Got a chance to hang out last night with everybody. Granny made a post on here that expressed some releif at me not having posted anything here yet, so I guess I have to put something here!!! We all had a great time, and got to see the infamous red bucket in action!!! I had my yule hat on, Bob had on his usual backwards ball cap, and that inspired Granny to put on this hat that she has with a ponytail attached to it. She just had too much fun with it, turning it this way and that, having the hair come thru her glasses and stuff... Lilly got a hat that looked a little like a rain hat, kind of floppy, as well as her shades and South Park jammie bottoms. Bob had a photo showing myself and Lilly in a compromising position... I don't think I'll be posting that picture here, no one needs to see that!!! Will was there, too, off and on, but I have no page to link to for him. My son came over before he went to bed (and before the infamous red bucket incident, did I mention that Granny's cam seemed to take exception to that display and ceased to function???) to be seen on cam, and we all ended up throwin' up the sign!!!