Thursday, September 27, 2007

Looking a Free Lunch in the Mouth

For the last few weeks, I've managed to eat free at my work for one day each week. As I've said before, they take care of us there!!! Three weeks ago there was a lunch and learn on biofuels, that I had made mention of earlier. While it was interesting, I really learned more about our marketing department than about biofuels. Of course, I already knew quite a bit about that. This week they've had a series of them on finances, of which I attended the Tuesday one on wealth accumulation. Very educational. However, the one I'm going to focus on is the one from last week.




One of the supervisors from my area is leaving to another department. Towards the beginning of the week they came around telling everyone in the department that they didn't need to bring or buy a lunch on Thursday, because they were going to provide a lunch to thank us all for our hard work, and to say bye to the departing. Cool!!!

A little side note: Just a few days before this, I was telling my oldest boy that third shift is the best when it comes to eating. If you want some kind of breakfast food, just show up a little early and eat before you start. A lot of people do. First break for us is at 11:15, and at that time they are getting ready for lunch. There are usually a little bit of breakfast foods left there if you're in the mood for that, but my personal favorite is the pizza, fresh out of the oven. Best possible break schedule to me!!!

Thursday rolls around. At break time, they've got the food being laid out for our lunch feast in the quad. There's a couple of three foot sandwiches, and a few huge pizzas. Yum!!! Since it was already there, I grabbed a couple of slices of pizza for break. It was great. The cafeteria worker who was overseeing it told us that there was more in the kitchen, and they would be bringing more out at each break. Good deal, we were all a bit concerned about there being any left when our lunch time rolled around.

As the first and second shift guys come back from lunch, they're raving about how good the food is. Lunch time rolls around. We head out there, and there are no sandwiches left, and no drinks. There's still pizza, but its luke warm. The cafeteria worker brought out some more sodas and waters and iced teas, but not a lot. Strangely enough, some people started complaining. One of the supervisors stuck his head out and asked how things were. The girl next to me rolled her eyes at him. He didn't stay much longer. The supervisor who is leaving came out a bit later. One of the guys told him he felt like a red headed step child. Another guy gave up on the leftover pizza and went to the cafeteria and got a tuna fish sandwich. I told him he had to cut it up in tiny pieces and share with everyone. He was asking if anyone wanted any more soda, and was pouring it into the cap of the bottle to pass around. Most everyone ate some pizza. It was a lot better when it was warm, but it was still OK. I was amazed how much complaining was going on over a free lunch!!!

Friday, September 21, 2007

San Pedro Revisited

Yea, Blogger now automatically saves your drafts my ass!!! Just a second of the power flickering off and and half an hour of composition is gone. Know what, don't even put that up if it doesn't really work. And don't get me started on this bill of goods APC UPS backup that I bought. Would have done better wiping my ass with a $50 bill.

Well, my third time going to court didn't work out as I would have liked, but it could be worse. I'm fairly confident that I'll still get paid. The driver of the other vehicle actually had the decency to show up, and the judge granted the motion to vacate judgement. However, the actual owner wasn't there, and the judge continued the case until yet another later date so they could also appear. Sheesh, enough is enough, already!!!

However, it was a gorgeous day out today, and I took my camera with me. It was supposed to be storming today, but as usual the weathermen don't know.



It was the first time in quite a while that I've actually gotten out with my camera, and it was a lot of fun!!!



I wandered around Port of Call for about an hour. It was near deserted at that hour of the morning, with most all of the businesses closed still.



After that I headed down to the end of the land to Angel's Gate Park, where the Point Fermin lighthouse is located.



As I wandered through there, I met a couple of interesting people. One lady had retired from the movie business, where she was the on-site account person. Fascinating tales.



After that, I walked down a ways, and met a couple who told me that there was a large bird perched at the top of a tree. I took several shots, I think it was an osprey. Heading back from that I met another lady who told me that there were blue whales between where we were and Catalina island. She pointed them out to me, and let me use her high powered binoculars. I stayed there for probably more than an hour, watching them surface, breach, and dive. Amazing. She told me that she is a whale census taker for the state. Fascinating. She had great long range vision.


I got a couple of shots of the whales spouting, but none that are that great. We both agreed, we will be getting ourselves digital SLR cameras with big lenses for Christmas!!!

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Third Time is a Charm

I am without excuse. Well, maybe I have some excuses, but it has been a while since I've made a post here. I've got the final vacation post to do (well, maybe two more), and there was an amusing incident at lunch today that would make a good post, so it's certainly not for lack of material. Last Saturday I fell asleep on the couch in the middle of the day, even though I didn't feel particularly tired before I fell asleep, not like I'd done a lot that day, so it's not from lack of time. I have gotten back into playing Runescape a lot more these days, and that is a fabulous time waster, so you could credit that. OK, there's my lack of excuses, HA!!!


I don't think I made mention, but on my court case the defendant entered a motion to vacate judgement almost immediately after it was sent. Funny how they could not be bothered to show up not once but twice, but THAT got put right in!!! I'm kind of curious if it might be their suck ass insurance company telling them to do these things. Grrrr, but anyway, the hearing on that is tomorrow, and if the motion is granted, a new trial will follow immediately. I cannot see the outcome being any different, but I'm always a bundle of nerves just having to be there. Now we shall see if three is a charm!!!

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Drift Away

A little something to try, now that Blogger has an add video function!!! We'll just see how this goes...

As promised, here is the video I shot of security guard Dave at EPCOT singing "Drift Away"

Just a side note, today is my one year anniversary of being at my job. I still like it quite a bit, and just yesterday my supervisor informed me that I'm getting a 5.9% raise in effect on the check I'll be getting this week. Strange, they give you a six month review, then every year from that date you get another review. Your raises, however, come annually from your hire date, so in effect your raises are six months from your review. My supervisor found it strange, too.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Water Park Pics


Here's something kinda cool. At the Disney parks, there are staff photographers wandering the park, taking pictures and handing out the number to find your picture online. This was especially helpful for me at the water parks, because I wasn't going to take my camera in the wave pool!!! Funny seeing them wading in the splash down pools with these REALLY NICE digital cameras, completely wrapped in plastic bags except the lens.

The other day I found the two little bracelets I'd gotten from the photographers at the water parks. Just in time, it would seem, it said that the pictures would only be available online for 30 days. I thought I might be too late already, but I wasn't. Of course, their deal is to try and sell you prints, a 5x7 for about $13 if I remember correctly. They have it so you can't just get the digital picture, but we have our ways, oh yes.

The top picture is on the end of the The Crushin' Gusher at Typhoon Lagoon, and the bottom one is on Team Boat Springs at Blizzard Beach. I don't believe I had made mention of this slide, but each water park had a variation of this slide, a giant tube raft for up to six riders at a time on a huge slide. Typhoon Lagoon has Mayday Falls, and Blizzard Beach has Team Boat Springs. Of the two, the latter is the best. It has a much longer slide, and it has a conveyor to haul the rafts to the top. On Mayday Falls, you have to lug your own raft.

Saturday, September 08, 2007

Score and PK'ed!!!


For a while I've had the ability to mine runeite ore on Runescape. I'm currently at mining level 86, and you only need to be at level 84 (with a Dwarvian stout) to mine runeite ore. So, last night I ventured up to level 46 wildy to take a swing at at the runeite ore. I tried three worlds before I managed to find any available, and was able to mine a couple without much problem. This it where I made a mistake, I had another window up to research on mining runeite, and while I was looking at that, waiting for the rocks to re spawn, here comes a player killer, Demon Slay82. He was level 110 versus my level 86. The result was pretty predictable, even though I'd gone up there with full prayer. I never activated that, nor drank a bit of my strength potion, nor tried to fight back, I just ran. Last thing I heard before I died was Demon Slay82 asking "Seriously, wdf?"

Haha, everything I'd taken up there with me was stuff I made myself, except the pick. The ore and the pick were the things I kept when I was killed. Enjoy your spoils, Demon Slay82!!! And, thanks for the quick trip back to Lumbridge!!!

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Sleep Deprivation Part 3

Day five!!! This is actually the day we went to Hurricane Harbor for their early extra hours. It's all a blur now, but I'm sure of this in retrospect. Take everything I said about that on the Something Completely Different post and put it here. Don't know what we did in the morning of the fourth day, maybe we just played in the pool at the resort??? I know we did a lot of that.

This was the last day we were going to have the rental car, I was scheduled to turn it in at noon that day. We left early enough from there that we could make it back and go out for a last meal with the rental before we were back to having to take the Disney shuttle buses. After dining and leaving the restaurant, my oldest boy starts looking around for the admission card and room key card that he'd had in a Ziploc bag in his swim trunks. He can't find it anywhere, and we head back to the restaurant, because his mom is sure he had it there. Yea, like it's still gonna be there half an hour later. Damit. Ends up being so late I know I won't get the rental back, so I call them up and tell them to add one day. Had to go to the concierge desk at the resort to get them replaced.


After that, it was off to Epcot Center!!! This was the night that it had the extra evening hours, which was a good thing, since it was mid afternoon before we made it there. My wife had been especially looking forward to this, because the guy she had sat next to on the flight out had told her that they have wines from all over the world there. I think she had pictured in her mind something like vats with coffee urn spigots on them where you can drink all you like for free or something.

At the security check going in, the security guard Dave was singing "Drift Away". When we got closer, I broke out my video camera and asked him to sing it again. Probably I'll post that at some point. Pretty amusing.

First stop was the Mission: Space ride. Outside of it, they have a very cool model of the moon, with marks everywhere something has been landed. Red for the first landing, blue for the subsequent manned landings, and white for unmanned probes. There are two different intensities to the ride, so we got our tickets fast passed to come back later that day. However, the line for the less intense version was really quite short, so the older and I rode it. It featured Gary Sinise in the video leading up to it. It was hard for me to recognize him out of the Detective Mac Taylor or Lieutenant Dan roles. Pretty cool ride, but the less intense ride wasn't very intense.

After that we went on the GM Test Track ride. These are the two thrill rides at Epcot Center. This one wasn't much of a thrill, either, but it does go pretty fast and has some nice, high banked curves.

One of the coolest things there was this soda pops of the world pavilion. They have all these different sodas on tap from several countries. Amazing what some people will drink, guess it depends on what you're used to. We attempted to go on the iconic Spaceship Earth ride (the giant golf ball), but discovered that it is closed for renovation. It has apparently had several of these in the course of it's life. Last time I saw it, it didn't have all those stars on the top of it. The structure next to it I had taken to be a crane, but it turns out it used to be a magic wand with Mickey's hand holding it.

We were making our way around the World Pavilion, where they have different countries represented in the buildings, food and attractions. The workers in the various lands are from the represented countries, I understand that they are housed by Disney and are college students. How cool would that be??? That was one of the things I had wanted to do was have some food that I had never tried before. We got to the France land and were on the search for some wine for my wife. The wine shop there had a sampler package of three different wines for $15, so I went to buy one for both of us. Hahahaha, my wife forgot to bring her ID!!! It took a little bit of doing, but finally the clerk let her have her wine.

There was a movie of the French countryside that we watched. It was pretty cool, the screen is a full 180° and we were in the front row, so it was all around us. Did you know that Walt Disney's original concept for Epcot was to have a dome over the whole place and have it air conditioned??? That would have been real nice, that was a lot of the reason we went into the theatre, to sit in the air conditioned building for a while.

Around this time, it was getting towards the time that our fast passes were in effect for the Mission: Space ride. Went back and rode the intense version, first mom and the older, then myself and the older. WOW, what a difference from the less intense one!!! You can actually feel it pulling your face back when it does the launch sequence!!! I had thought it was a standard motion simulator type thing before I had rode it, but after the second trip I figured out that it uses centrifuge effect for the G-forces. Very cool. I was back from our vacation before I found out that there have been a few deaths from this ride!!!

Starved after that, so we ended up going the other way around the World Showcase (we'd only gone about halfway around when we had to head back for the fast passes) and ended up in the China land. I've had Chinese food a lot before, but I wasn't seeing much that looked any better, and they had a real nice sit down restaurant, Nine Dragons. We got a bottle of a strange plum wine to drink with dinner. We were some of the last people to get a seat, as they were closing down for the evening. I believe that it was after the time when the park was closed to all but resort guests. After that we went to the Norway area to attempt to go on a ride called Maelstrom that is a viking boat ride. It was closed. OK, we headed back to a ride called Soaring, which is very similar to the one at California Adventure called Soaring over California. It was closed, too. I was noticing a trend. The Seas with Nemo & Friends ride was still open, so we rode that. It goes through one of the world's largest salt water aquariums, riding in a clam mobile. Nice, but not too exciting. That is the general consensus of most visitors to Epcot altogether, I think, nice, but not too exciting.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

One Year Later Random

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is time for a little randomness and a departure from my chronicling of me vacation travels!!! I've been enjoying doing that, nice way to preserve the memories, but randomness will not be withheld!!!


It was approximately one year ago that I was unceremoniously axed. In hindsight, it was one of the better things to have happened to me!!! This morning, one of the girls at work was axed. That reminded me. I hope it turns out to be one of the best things to have happened for her, too. Right before a three day weekend, and she had her vacation time scheduled for next week, too. Bad mojo for the ones who fired her, I say, even though I'm sure she will be treated much better by these guys than I was.

Have you seen that show, "Who Wants to Be a Superhero"??? I like it quite a lot, as do my boys. I think the integration of Esurance into the series is the best product placement I've ever seen. I also like the way the pink haired girl is drawn.


Did you hear about those fires that were burning in Greece??? You know, it's not safe to use water on a fire like that, but either smother it with baking soda or put a pan lid over it. A safety tip from your friends at Aye's Random Ravings.

A neighbor family and friend of my son took a vacation to Holland. She brought back some boxes of chocolate sprinkles that are one of the delicacies of the land of windmills. They serve it on buttered toast, of all things!!! Crazy ass Dutch!!!

That black and white looking picture there??? That's how it would look if you were behind your keyboard looking out.

I purchased a collection of the first six Harry Potter books in paperback, so I can get up to speed now that they are all out. I'm reading the first one, and they have the Christmas holiday celebrated at Hogwarts. I thought that strange, wizards celebrating Christmas. Like Christian children celebrating Halloween.



I had been thinking of going to Johns Incredible Pizza for my birthday. It didn't happen... yet, anyway. Maybe I'll take Sammy there for his birthday. Bet he's never had spicy peanut butter pizza before!!! Sounds strange, and the one time I had it I wasn't that impressed, but now I occasionally crave it.

A couple of the lesbians at work were discussing how hot they find Keira Knightley at break time a bit ago. Just recently my wife has become a huge fan of the show "The Closer", and I think she's got a girl crush on Kyra Sedgwick. She says, "She's so CUTE!!!" Not the adjective I think of, but I kinda like her glasses. Anyway, I'm thinking it's a Keira-Kyra thang.



I happened on that picture of all that cheese this evening. I wasn't looking for it, but there it is!!! It had a caption something to the effect of "There shall be cheese for all!!!"

I had wanted to do this post last night, but I got caught up watching Bullett. Great movie, but it's amazing the way the world has changed. Of course, they were all using phones with dials, and, when out in the field, pay phones. Bullett would get to a place and call into the station and tell them where he was at in case they needed to get in touch with him. Didn't even have walkie talkies!!!

I was doing some small talk with one of my friends at work yesterday, asking how things were going. We both agreed it was going great, one more day until a three day weekend AND payday, could it get any better??? Then we ran that past one of the girls on the other side of the conveyor, and she was taking today as a vacation day. Guess it could get better!!!

You know, I think those Dutch are onto something with that chocolate sprinkles on buttered toast, it tasted great!!!



There was cake in the break room at second break yesterday. Most of us in attendance had some, but very few fillers were in that area for second break. Today at lunch we were telling those who were absent about the cake. They had been at the couch and chairs right by the bin structure. I wouldn't take my break there, there is almost no chance of cake showing up there.

Why is it that our body temperature is around 98° Fahrenheit, yet it has to be a LOT cooler than that for it to not feel "hot" to us??? Seems like anything a bit less than that should feel cool to us.



Did you see where they played a funny trick on Karl Rove, wrapping his car up with plastic wrap??? Those wacky Republicans!!!

Speaking of politics, if there were truth in advertising laws for politicians, Fabian Núñez would have to change his identification from California Democrat to Mexican Socialist.

Of course, if there were truth in advertising laws for politicians, I don't think there would be any left.

I was quite hungry at morning break yesterday. Figured if there were any decent looking pizza available, I would buy a slice. There was, it had pepperoni, sausage, ham, olives and mushrooms. One of the slices was inordinately huge, and I decided I should make it mine. I took it as a gift and a challenge, see if I could down it in the time I had. I did.

They are having a lunch and learn conference at my work in a couple of weeks on bio fuels. Very cool, I shall be in attendance. Hopefully personnel will be representing, and I can inquire if using or brewing biodiesel could be considered for incentives like they have for ridesharing and public transportation.



That last picture, it's one of the merchandise racks at the Disney resort. See how the adjustment slots are Mickey heads??? I thought that was a very cool detail, and a great show of force of the buying power of the mouse. How many companies can have their logo made into something as mundane as an adjustment slot???

At lunch today one of the girls asked me if I wanted her extra dill pickle slices. I love dill pickle, so of course I thanked her and partook. Of course, I have something of a reputation as the guy who will not turn down much of anything food related, so she was saying, "Of course you will take 'em, like I had to even ask!!!" Another girl had a container of sour cream for her food, and I said I'd been eyeing that too, "Ya gonna finish that???" Mostly in jest, because I didn't have much that would go with sour cream on it. However, she took what she was going to use and gave the rest to me anyway!!! I tried one of the honey wheat pretzel sticks from my lunch dipped in it, and it was GOOD!!! Later, she offered me her last tortilla. A plain tortilla wasn't too appealing, and I was already loaded up on pickles and sour cream. Everyone was shocked when I declined. I joked that I should hold onto it for break time in case there was cake again, I could make a cake burrito. They were laughing and expounding on that idea as I was chewing the last of my pretzel and sour cream when it hit me. Not a cake burrito, but a cakeadilla!!! I had a laughing fit in mid-chew and shared after I had swallowed. Everyone loved the name.

I know cakeadilla will never make it past blogger's spell checker.