Ready For Random???

Ready or not, here it comes!!! I've gone through a few of my old pictures and found a few that need shared. A couple from our Hawaii vacation, and a few from way back on the 4th of July!!! Maybe one or two others thrown in, too.



One of the guys I work with sometimes buys a tortilla from the cafeteria to go with his lunch. He's Asian. They charge him $.75 for a tortilla. One of the other guys, who is Mexican, they only charge $.25 for a tortilla. I would totally bust them if they tried that on me!!!



I don't think I made mention, but when we last went to Magic Mountain, they had the Sky Tower open!!! The first time it's been open since we've been going. A low key ride, but it has a great view.

Had a bit of a spooky day a couple weeks back. When I got my schedule, it had me listed as at a meeting for an hour in the morning, and ended the day with me as an extra. And, it was on a Thursday, the day that is their traditional day to let people go. Turned out OK though.



They've made a bunch of shift changes at work. Most have not affected me. They started by eliminating the middle, 8:30 shift, and moved the 7:30 shift lunch break later to 12:45, and the afternoon break to later, too. Most of the middle shift people went to the late shift, but a few went to the early shift. The reasoning is that more of our work is coming in late in the day, what with the interwebs, and we've been much busier in the evenings. Starting this week, they moved the early shift from 7:30 to 8:00. This has made for the first change that's affected me, they've moved afternoon break time from 4:00 to 4:30.



I notice diesel fuel has jumped in price. On Monday I topped Janice off, and where diesel had been running $.25 to $.30 less a gallon than gasoline, it was only six cents less this time. I decided that at that price difference I'd be better off driving Baby. Filled her up this morning, and now diesel is four cents more than gasoline!!! I suspect market manipulation.


Remember the story of Ronald the ray gun??? They didn't work out, for some reason. Haven't had those for seven or eight months now. Now they've got a set of all new ones, that have a screen on the back side and do a lot more. So far, they don't work, either.



I was watching live when Letterman cracked his joke about A-Rod knocking up Sarah Palin's daughter. I got it, and LOL'ed right off. I liked Sarah Palin OK during the campaign, but, come on!!! Take a joke!!!

Two hours and 45 minutes between lunch and break makes it so I have to piss badly by the time I get to break. Provided I don't have to sneak away early to do so.



My wife messed up her knee a couple weeks back. It had rained, and she needed to sweep the water out where the roof had leaked at her work. Right after that, she needed to go into the walk in freezer, in her still moist shoes. One of her shoes froze to the floor, and she yanked on it to try and pop it loose. Unfortunately it was her knee, not her shoe that popped.



At the very south end of the bins at work, there's a large piece of equipment. Behind a glass panel, it has a digital display that almost always reads "512". A few feet past this is a large water standpipe, marked with "P.T. 42". Both pretty cool.


One of my co-workers was trial testing one of the new ray guns. A stock keeper saw it and said, "What's that, a Wii controller???" Made me LOL. The least popular Wii game, Wii bin filling!!!



They asked me to come in for the 8:00 shift today. The sunrise on the way in almost made it worth it having gotten up earlier than I like to. Strangely enough, right as I was getting into work, there was a thick fog bank over the whole area.



That's a nice thing about having the selection of cars I have. If one type of fuel gets more expensive, I can just drive the other one!!!

I see no reason that oil should be over $70 per barrel, much less the $80 that it now is. We've got low demand, surplus supplies, and refineries are running well short of capacity. In the 50's is where it should be.



I suspect that they wanted to eliminate the 7:30 shift, but that because that is the most popular shift, they eliminate the 8:30, then move the 7:30 later and later!!!

Red Flag Day

Another busy weekend!!! Saturday I took the family to Magic Mountain again. Last time I went was just the older boy and I. We rode Colossus several times that day, wait time versus good drops, it's probably the best coaster there. We also rode Scream several times, another short wait to maximum inversions coaster. X2 and Tatsu are better coasters, but the wait is always fairly long. Also rode the new Terminator Salvation coaster that time. It has some of the best queue theming in the whole park, but I was less than impressed with the ride itself. But I digress, when the older and I had been there that time, I told him how they used to have one of the tracks on Colossus running backwards. Well, they've brought that back for their Halloween festivities!!! We rode it. Meh. I had the funny thought that I should have brought my camera, taken a picture of the back of the headrest ahead of me, and passed it off as my on-ride photo. Anyway, that was a fun time. Bought my older boy his Johnny Rocket's milkshake in collector cup, and when night was falling and they fired up the fog machines, he was filling up the cup with the fog. Looked like a Wizard's Mind Bomb!!!



Sunday I had tickets through my work for the Pepsi 500!!! I had invited Sammy, and he was excited about it, but he's been having back problems and being there all day he was worried about it bothering it. Hard to take just one of the boys, the other would want to come too. However, one of my other friends from work had won the other pair, and he has two boys, too. Since that was how I got my boys both there last year, I thought it a good payback to pass my other ticket off to him so he could take both of his sons.



Last time I was there, they were announcing after the race the shuttle to the Metro Link station. The exiting of the parking lots there is hellish, and I thought that sounded like it might be a better way to go. I'd never had experience with the Metro Link system before, so I researched it a bit beforehand. Turns out they have a station right around the back side of the track, which they only operate on race days. Sounds good to me!!! Trying to get a schedule for the local Metro Rail to Union Station to Metro Link Fontana proved to be near impossible. Metro has some of the worst planning software on their site!!! I decided that since the race starts at noon, I'd head out at ten and hopefully be there close to on time.



Made it to Union Station in short order, and got my pass for the Metro Link train. However, it would be 11:35 before it departs. Oh well, guess I'd miss some of the beginning of the race, no big deal. Boarded the train, and it is very nice. Rode there in comfort, and had a chance to read more of the Sunday paper than I usually do. The train nears Fontana, and at the race track, it slows down... then proceeds right on past!!! No explanation. The next station is about four miles later, and I exit there. It's a bus depot center there. I look at the route maps, and decide on one that heads near. The driver of that bus explains to me and a few other race fans that the track station is "locked down", but didn't say how or why. He also told us how to get to the track from the closest stop, as well as the stop to return. Close to a mile is all we'd have to walk. Each way. I was not amused. I do not believe that I will take the train out there again. I did, however, stop at Jack in the Box for lunch and payed probably about 1/3 of what I'd have paid at the track.



Got to the track not quite halfway through the race. They were under yellow flag when I got there, and re started not long after. Fairly uneventful for several laps after that, which is fairly typical of California Speedway. This is a wide, long track, and thus the races tend to be a real snore a lot of the time. Jimmy Johnson was leading the race for most of this time, almost a whole 1/3 track away from the #2 car. Then, another yellow is called for debris on the track. After that, I don't think they came out of yellow without an event!!!



Coming out of that yellow, a couple of cars got together just after the green, sending Hamlin's #11 down the grass on the front stretch. Would have been fine, except he caught the concrete pit barrier right at the end, messing up his front sheet metal. He came back several laps later with the whole front stripped off, but it wasn't working for him.



I got a lot of pictures of the incidents, and some video of a couple of the crashes. I tried to upload the shorter clip, but Blogger is being stupid about that tonight. Six laps from the finish, once again coming off a yellow, there was a sizable crash taking out four cars and calling the only red flag I've ever seen at this track. 22 minutes they spent cleaning up from that.



Jimmy Johnson managed to take the checkered flag. I was fortunate to have made it for the better half of the race!!! Worth walking almost two miles for??? Almost...

Bad Robot!!!

I did this a week or so ago. It's been in the vault since then. I had a brief portion of my day spent throwing totes, and in that area they have sticker labels with bar codes for different segments of the conveyor. I used two to fabricate a 5-12 bar code. Across the bottom of the labels it has a series of 9's. I later added in a robot, his voice box malfunctioning to the nines and his binary shot!!! A couple of children passing their judgement on him complete the picture!!!

My Eventful Weekend

As I've tweeted, October is shaping up to be a fairly eventful month!!! Starting last Friday, when I had a pair of tickets to Loggins & Messina at the Greek Theater. It was the only show that sounded like anything I was interested in on the list, and I managed to be the lucky one. A funny story about this season's drawing, a lot of people had put in for Lakers tickets, but ended up getting Clippers tickets!!! No one was signing up for them, so they're giving 'em away!!! Well, I guess they're giving 'em away no matter what, but now they're giving them away to people who didn't really want them.

Anyway, the concert was pretty good. I do like that venue, but I detest the parking there. I know he had a string of hits in the early 80's, but besides "Footloose" I couldn't think of another. Turned out not to matter, he didn't do ANY of those, "Footloose" included!!! Of the whole set, I only knew four songs, and two of those were covers. He opened the show by covering a Lynn Anderson tune that my wife used to go around singing all the time, which I think got him in her good graces. A rockin' good time, even though I wasn't as familiar with all the works. Oh, and the weather is feeling like autumn in Cali, and it was a nice, crisp night to be out under the stars.

Saturday Sammy and his brother were celebrating their birthdays at his parents house. As always, the food is amazing there. Got to meet his wife's brother and his high school friend, and two of his cousins, who are true delights. Boccie and Karaoke for all who would partake. My older boy sang a few, and Sammy told me he admired his taste in music. Sammy's brother told me it's an unfortunate time for him to be singing, in a Peter Brady kinda way. True and true.

Starting today I've been on call for jury duty. I had fun two years back when I went to serve, and thought it worked out pretty good. They've added in WiFi connectivity in the jury pool room, so I'd manage to keep well occupied the whole time. Unfortunately, I haven't been required to come in yet, so I've been having to go to work instead. I'll bet they call me in on Thursday, the day I've got an appointment for my flu shot at work.

But the part I really wanted to share about happened on Sunday. I'd taken the family out for some fast food lunch, and on the way back pulled into the grocery store to pick up a few things. I ask my wife if she's coming in or waiting, and her and my younger boy both elect to wait in the car. The older and I shop, and on the way out, here comes my wife and younger, walking towards me rather briskly. "Thank goodness you're here!!!", she tells me. I figure she urgently needs to use the restroom, so I'm taking the boy's hand, and I ask her if that's the case. "No!!!", she replies, "Some guy selling bootleg DVD's just molested me!!!" Huh??? This changes things, I'm getting a good head of pissed off going... She quickly tells me a bit of what'd happened, "There he is!!!", she says. It's on.





He sees me coming, with my wife, and he starts in trying to sell me some of his wares. Oh yea, this is going to go well for you, beotch. I roll up on him, asking WTF and who knows what all else (apparently quite loudly) cock back and take one swing, which he sees coming and gets his head moved sufficiently to the side to where it glances off, but I caught him square on the next shots. Next thing I've got him pushed over backwards on the trunk of Janice with my arm on his neck. Interestingly, he's lost the ability to speak English at this point. I pull back a little at this point, as I'm attracting witnesses. Don't know why that should have bothered me, I should have.... well, a lot of things I should have done differently, but I'll get to that later. Suffice it to say, I was concerned that the crowd was going to turn on me as the aggressor, and I was attempting to control that situation. I'm trying to explain to the crowd what'd happened, and get someone to call the law (not that I'd have been perfectly content to deal with him myself...)

The guy isn't really struggling much, so I finally pull out my own phone to call 911. I tell the dispatcher what's happened and where I'm at, and they transfer me to the actual police. At this point, scumbag starts wiggling while I'm trying to restrain him left-handed. I've got a grip on his shirt, and he manages to shuck it off and takes off running, leaving his bag of contraband DVD's. No one tries to stop him. They do, however, come up and start grabbing up all his DVD's. Anyway, he lost his shirt, I busted his sunglasses, he lost his stash of discs, and a tallboy of beer. Not the outcome I would have liked, but a small victory. And, I did get in a couple of good shots.

Five minutes or so later, three of the store employees and the manager come out to see if everything is OK. Um, no, not really, but a little late now!!! The manager asks if there's anything they can do, and I opine that a little more vigilance prior to would be a nice thing. He says they have a security guard, but he doesn't get there until 4:00. Makes sense, usually more problems when it starts getting later. I'm thinking a call to corporate asking what they're going to do to make this right may be in order. Half an hour later the police finally show up and take an incident report. That will probably be the last of this. Unless, of course, I see that guy again.

Now, what would I have done different??? Don't know why, but I think I have an ingrained "fight clean" ethic within me. First shot, I should have bagged him in the nuts. Hard. Repeatedly. That will take all the fight and a lot of the flight out of most anyone. Plenty of time to bust up his face after you incapacitate 'em. I'd love to have done some of that. Second thing, don't leave him upright. ON THE GROUND, AND STOP YOUR RESISTING!!! Third thing, hand off my phone to my wife or son to make the call, I've got other things to deal with. Next thing, if he tries to take off, go after 'em!!!

Oh, and wife seems to be doing fine. I know it's one of those incidents where you'll be replaying it over and over for days. I called her up today to see how she was doing, and she tells me she keeps seeing me pounding his face. I think that's a good thing.