Ten Years After

Today was the observance of my son's 10th birthday. It was incredibly noisy and chaotic. In other words, a smashing success!!!
He was elated by the gifts we got for him, a couple of Lego Viking sets.

His cousin was able to make it, too, which he was glad for.

Perhaps in the next few days I'll update my cake page and have a picture of his cake. He wanted his Runescape character on it, and it came out pretty good.

He's Back!!!

Didja miss me??? I didn't think so :Þ

What an ordeal the last few days has been!!! I'm in the process of switching my ISP, because the one year introduction price has finished up, and they were wanting more than double!!! Of course, I could get the same rate I had been getting ($14.99) by signing up for an additional $12 worth of services!!! The company I'm changing to is offering the same service for $12.99. On their site, they advertised easy change over, cancel with your current ISP the day after theirs becomes active, and there should be no break in service. Of course, as you may have gathered, that didn't happen. Every day its been the same thing, call tech support, wait on hold for far too long, they say it will be working within the hour... call back when it doesn't, and they say "by the end of the day... at midnight it should be working." Of course, it doesn't. "Oh, its the phone company's fault, they haven't cleared the line". Call them up, and of course they say there is no problem, ect, ect. Now they are saying its probably a physical problem with the line, can they authorize the phone company to send out a technician??? Its a $60 fee to dispatch them, plus $35 per half hour for fixing any problem on the inside lines ifthat'ss where the problem is. I hooked a line to the box on the outside of the house and tried it like that, and guess what??? Doesn't work there, either. Come on, we've had two different providers on these same lines with no problem, now all a sudden there's a problem??? STFU.

Good news and bad news has been the theme of the day. I don't think 512 day should be so. Bad news is its going to be until next Wednesday before a tech comes out and verifies that there is nothing wrong with the lines (or claims there is.... if he does that, OK run a line from the outside box to the modem and show me connection, THEN we'll talk), good news is they gave me a free dial up to get me through until then. In case you don't know or remember, dial up sucks. Like two tin cans and a string, says Aye. I had to dig out my old hub (Netgear, coolest looking piece of networking hardware I've ever owned) and set up a network like that. Oh yea, now my original ISP says they have a plan at the same rate, I just needed to cancel and re order. Thanks a lot.

Bad news, my car developed a hole in the radiator. Pulled that sucker out this morning and took it to the radiator shop. They declared it unfixable. Low quality workmanship, only 32 years and its already falling apart!!! I ordered a replacement, but it won't be in until Monday. Between the new radiator and the new front tires and lifetime alignment I got for it last Friday, I'm within about $100 of my original purchase price!!! Oh yea, the good news, the radiator shop threw in a free radiator cap. Whoooo hoooo.

Bad news, my VCR quit again. I swear, no one makes a reliable VCR anymore!!! I've had almost half a dozen such incidents since I started buying 'em in January of last year. I did get a two year warranty, but when I took it back this time, they said they couldn't fix it. The purchase price was applied to the replacement I was forced to buy. They had a Panasonic for close to what I'd paid, but I've had such negative experience with them and Sony that I'd never buy their products again. Ended up spending another $25 and getting a combination VCR-DVD. So, what was the good news there??? Oh yea, I got a new unit, and didn't have to wait the 6 weeks it usually takes to get service.

Seeing Stars

We only walked a couple blocks down Hollywood Boulevard, and saw several names we knew. What a great reminder of the history of entertainment.
Everybody’s a dreamer and everybody’s a star,
And everybody’s in movies, it doesn’t matter who you are.

There are stars in every city,
In every house and on every street,
And if you walk down Hollywood Boulevard
Their names are written in concrete!

Don’t step on Greta Garbo as you walk down the boulevard,
She looks so weak and fragile that’s why she tried to be so hard

But they turned her into a princess
And they sat her on a throne,
But she turned her back on stardom,
Because she "Vanted to be alone".

You can see all the stars as you walk down hollywood boulevard,
Some that you recognise, some that you’ve hardly even heard of,

People who worked and suffered and struggled for fame,
Some who succeeded and some who suffered in vain.

Rudolph Valentino, looks very much alive,
And he looks up ladies’ dresses as they sadly pass him by.

Avoid stepping on Bela Lugosi
’cos he’s liable to turn and bite,
But stand close by Bette Davis
Because hers was such a lonely life.

If you covered him with garbage,
George Sanders would still have style,
And if you stamped on Mickey Rooney
He would still turn round and smile,

But please don’t tread on dearest Marilyn
’cos she’s not very tough,
She should have been made of iron or steel,
But she was only made of flesh and blood.

Everybody’s a dreamer and everybody’s a star
And everybody’s in show biz, it doesn’t matter who you are.

And those who are successful,
Be always on your guard,
Success walks hand in hand with failure
Along Hollywood Boulevard.

I wish my life was a non-stop hollywood movie show,
A fantasy world of celluloid villains and heroes,

Because celluloid heroes never feel any pain
And celluloid heroes never really die.

Lyrics by The Kinks

Riding the Rods

Got to do everything pretty much as I had planned in my previous post!!!
Only part I didn't get in was the stop off in Chinatown, but I did get this shot from the train...


This scale at Philippe's was the actual one that was used in a Norman Rockwell painting.

Feel it!!!

The Best Laid Plans

(Image stolen from Here, which is actually a very cool site)

Ah, plans for the day.... Woke up early, not hung over badly, just a little headache. Goody powder fixed that in a hurry. Momma is still in bed, who knows how she's doing. She got up to go pee and ask what I was doing up so early. I didn't have a good answer other than "I was done sleeping". There's about 3/4 of a margarita left in the blender from our Cinco de Mayo fiesta. Maybe I'll drink it in a bit, they were quite good and it seems a shame to waste it. Lots of ideas for today. We bought all the ingredients for some chicken chili yesterday. This will be an experiment, usually I like to use Heineken dark in it, but the store I used to get it from closed and I haven't been able to find it since!!! Guinness stout is going in this time, we'll see how that does. There's about two shots of tequila left too, that will go towards flambe'ing the chicken. After that gets going, I'm planning on taking the family on a rail excursion. I'm taking my camera along this time!!! I plan on going to Philippe's for lunch. I'm sure I've been there before, a LONG time ago, but not since I've become a fan of the sandwich that originated at that particular restaurant, the French dip!!! Something I did not know until I visited their site, the origin of the name is nebulous. It could either be because of the owner's heritage, the French roll that it was served on, or because the first person ever served one was named French. Interesting. I would like to make a stop in Chinatown, along the Walk of Fame, and at Universal Citywalk. We'll just see how much of that actually happens!!! Now, I'm off to get to cutting up chili ingredients so the whole house will smell good when we get home!!! And, possibly a little bit of margarita...

Cinco De Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo, Y'all!!! The irony of it is, all the Mexicans at my work who took Monday off to boycott have to work today!!! To start off the celebrations, my youngest and I had quesidillas for breakfast. Picked up a bottle of tequila and some limes and some carne asada. I have a funny reaction to the tequila, I get goose bumps like crazy just smelling it, and when I took a shot I got 'em down to my toes!!! It has to do with the time I broke my stomach pounding tequila in Tijuana. I've had a few. Happy cinco de Mayo!!!

A Day Without Mexicans

I was curious what it was going to be like yesterday. The illegal immigrants were desecrating Lilly's birthday by having their boycott and demonstrations. Last time they had one, I had jumped off the freeway in downtown to avoid the jammed freeway, and they had shut down the street that I usually take as my short cut, in Chinatown of all places!!! I took my camera along this time in case there was anything to see.

Turns out there wasn't. The day turned out to be a pleasant surprise for a lot of people. It took twenty minutes less on the freeway going to and coming from work. My place of employment had put out a notice that anyone who didn't want to come to work that day could take the day off, and make up their hours on Friday, so when I got there it was me and the one other senior machinist. Joe showed up around 9. I thought about setting up my camera and getting a picture of the three of us, but didn't. The plant manager came in for a while... he's an immigrant, I don't know why he wasn't boycotting... of course, he's legal and from Canada!!!

And the mexicans??? I asked around today. Not a one of them that I spoke to went to any rallies or anything. Mostly just stayed home. They talked to one protester on the radio yesterday who showed his ignorance by saying that you could see the economic impact of the boycott by the fact that the Dow Jones and NASDAQ were both down!!! Here's an idea, a one day boycott isn't going to work. If you didn't buy it yesterday, you'll be buying it today. How about a month or six months or something meaningful??? Show your economic strength!!! The crowd at the first rally was estimated at 250,000, and the second, church of child molesters sanctioned rally was estimated at 400,000, although several of those were probably carried over from the first one. In their press conference today they claimed two million, based on their own estimates.

I did see a van pulled over on the side of the freeway by several police cars, and the Latino woman and child being escorted back towards the cruisers, while the man was still up by the van with the officers. I have no idea what was going on there. Other than that and wide open freeways, I saw almost nothing firsthand. That was one of the main things that people were talking about, the open roads. That yellow journalism rag that I subscribe to, the Los Angeles Times, buried that story on the 16th page. If that is what its like when the illeagals aren't out on the freeways, then once again, I'm encouraging a month or longer boycott!!!