Piercings

A few weeks ago at lunch, the new girl noticed that one of the other guys with us has a tongue piercing. I don't remember what conversation ensued, but ensue it did. I said something to the effect of "Don't make me show you mine!!!" Now, I really don't have much cause to show it off at work (or very many other places, for that matter), so not many people there know I have it. I was sitting across from another of my favorite lesbians, and she was on about it. "Come on, lets see!!!" Duh, OK boss... I pulled my shirt open between a couple of the buttons and proudly displayed my nipple ring. She was a bit surprised, she thought I was putting them on. I asked her why she thought that another of our workmates often calls me "Wild Thang"??? He started calling me that after he found out about it.

The one who it seems to really have made an impression on, though, was the new girl. She's brought it up several times since then. She plays like it traumatized her.



Today this was in the paper, and with a couple of little modifications, it fits pretty nicely. I'll give it to her tomorrow, I think she'll be amused.

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine

This was a strange thing. At work, they are doing additions to the bin structure where I work. They already lengthened them on the first level, and now are lengthening the remaining levels, as well as adding a third level to the red bins. Previously, working on the second level red bins was a bit like driving a convertible, having nothing immediately over your head. Yesterday I was in the second level red bins for a bit, and they had put in the bracing for the third level. that alone was a strange feeling, having something up there. Today, I was there again, and they'd added a floor for the third level, or a roof for the second level depending on how you look at it.



They had strung incandescent lights along the length of it. Very strange, as everywhere else has florescent lighting. There was something somewhat familiar about the look, and what came to mind was how the lighting in a mine or a submarine would be. Someone came over, and thought it reminded them of a garden party. All that was missing was their lawn chair. One of the other guys said it was like the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. That seemed like the closest match, after I heard that.

GET LOST!!!

This was quite cool. When I got home last night, my younger boy was quite emphatic that he wanted to go to the 99 Cent store. He wanted to get some candy from there, and after a little bit I agreed to go. I usually enjoy going there, and find a few things I can't pass up. This time was no exception, and I was very glad that I'd gone. My favorite energy drink is Lost, but it seems very hard to find anymore. They used to sell it at the new (not really so new anymore) grocery store, but not anymore. I used to get it from the liquor store by my old work, but that's not exactly convenient anymore. About the only place I can find it is at this one gas station near my parents' house. There it was, at the 99 cent store!!! Not only is the price much better than the $2.50 that it usually costs, but these were BIG GUN cans (which I'd never seen before, 24 ounces versus the usual 16)!!! Nice!!! I bought nine of them, nearly all of their stock.

In the front of the picture, you may notice a little bowling ball. The inspiration for the photo. He also got a cheap little bowling game, which ties in with bowling night with my work. Not as many people showed up this time, but it was still a lot of fun. I did pretty well on the first game, bowled 103. My game went downhill from there, but it was fun. The fear factor contest, all they had was people facing off against each other and competing to see who could eat things faster. Four of the five were baby food, and the fifth was bread, which was the hardest for anyone to get down, and the most fun to watch.

Perks Month

"A real job is about the fringe benefits. That's where the power is."
~Mr. Sharpton, from Stephen King's "Everything's Eventual"

This seems to be the month for it, by some coincidence. Many, many of the goodies about my work are happening this month. To start the month off, my first check had the overtime bonus for the past year on it. I had all but forgotten that happens, but there it was, a little more gravy for your enjoyment.

Another grouping of pluses that is happening is lunch and learns. Every once in a while they have them for something or another. A few months back they had one on biofuels, where I learned almost nothing new about biodiesel brewing, and considerably more about ethanol production. I wondered why anyone would bother making ethanol afterwards, it seems quite energy intensive to make. Last month they had one about the artwork at our branch, which was really quite good (hosted by a delightful lady by the name of Xillary Twill... I have a suspicion that wasn't her birth name, but who knows). I didn't know that some of the Warholian prints that we've got are, in actuality, Warhols.

Anyway, last Thursday our department hosted a lunch and learn about what was learned by some of our crew's visit to the Chicago branch (which was a paid "working" trip for three fillers and two supervisors. I had put my name in running for the trip, but wasn't selected). Most of these I've attended have seemed to be not long enough, and this was no exception. On the 21st, there is another one about our job benefits, and then at the end of the month there's one about our company's connections with many movie productions.

Next week, for the second time since I've been there, we're having a bowling night. Cool, I'm there. They've got notices posted for sign ups for "Fear Factor" on that night. I glanced at the sign up sheet the other day, and only a couple of the slots were filled, probably because it's so unknown what they've got in mind. I might just throw my name on the list...

Sometime next week I've got to turn in my picks for the Spring ticket giveaway. My first choice is always for the NASCAR at California Speedway, but those are hard to come by. Many Dodger games available, even a few against the Cubs this time (last time there were no Cubs games listed). Angels tickets in there, too, but I'd far rather go a couple miles to Dodger Stadium versus to another county to Angel Stadium. There are tickets to concerts and shows at the Greek Theatre and Hollywood Bowl, but they are mostly to be announced or of little interest to me. Oh yea, there's a few tickets for LA Galaxy soccer games, X games, Xtreme sports. Something new is membership certificates for a year at Children's Museum of La Habra. Once again, La Habra isn't too close, and I can't imagine going to one museum more than a couple of times in a year. One I'll probably put in my choices is the Circus tickets, a plus to those being that it's for four instead of two.



Last night I enjoyed the tickets I'd won in the Fall ticket giveaway, Lakers versus Clippers. It was the first live pro basketball game I've ever been to. Pretty decent seats, too bad the game wasn't very evenly matched. The Clippers kept it within 10 points for most of the first half, but lost it completely in the second half, culminating in a 119-82 slaughter. One of the things I found interesting was, at the end, they brought in the other Coby, Coby Karl. He sunk a couple of three pointers, which the crowd responded to with more enthusiasm than almost any other part of the game.

Life is good.

Universal Appeal

Over the weekend, in observance of the younger boy's birthday, we went to Universal Studios. It was the first time for both of the boys, and probably the first time I've been there in about 15 years.

As theme parks go, its interesting and fun, but not so many rides. More about the shows and attractions. My original thoughts had been to take to Gold Line out to Universal again, but the price for a day pass has gone from $3 to $5, and, of course, it ends up taking more than an hour to make the trip. At $12 for the family, it would be almost cheaper than the parking, but at $20 it was hardly worth it. Of course, this was before we got out of there and the 101 freeway was completely stopped.

There's the 74 Dodge Monaco Bluesmobile from The Blues Brothers.

One of the cool things that was new to me was the Terminator show. A cool mix of live action and 3-D film. Also new is a Shrek 4-D film with articulating seats and moisture effects.

Jaws. I had my little video camera with me, and the older boy and I attempted to do the lines from Jaws (Monkey cage? Shark cage), but I blew my lines.

They took out the Back to the Future ride that they used to have, but I'd never seen this "Doc Brown's Chicken" before. Didn't have any, but good theming. Also, when we went on the back lot tram tour, they do have the entry statues for Lyon Estates from that series of movies.

Ah yes, the back lot tram tour. One of the better things this park has going for it. Many street facades, many sound stages (which look like nothing but warehouses from the outside) and some interesting movie memorabilia and sets. New to me on the tram ride is video screens on the tram. Strange thing, several of the trees were wrapped up in white paper. The tour guide said they had been filming a car commercial there the other day, and that's why that was. As if that explained anything.

I didn't know it was filmed there, but Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives is at Universal. They said that they were filming while we were there, and asked us all to be silent while we rolled by. I didn't see anything other than the security guard. Lets see, what else happens on the tram??? Well, you go through one sound stage where King Kong attacks the tram, another one where you are involved in a Frisco earthquake. Nice for people visiting California. There is also the parting of the lake, which now has a little model of the ship approaching Skull Island from King Kong, and the Jaws Attack, and a flash flood.

Here's something surreal: The houses from the Grinch who Stole Christmas movie are located right behind the Bates Motel and the Psycho house.

Last picture is from the Water World stunt show. I'm not sure, but I think the show might actually be better than the movie was. Did I mention that the weather was somewhat inclement??? Not real bad, but it was overcast and cool all day, whereas every day leading up to this day and every day since has been beautiful, clear and warm. I only make mention because most every seat for this show is in a splash zone, and several are in soak zones. Worked out nicely, though, because there weren't too many people there, short lines.

Another ride we went on was the Jurassic Park ride. The younger boy had no interest in riding it, but each of us parents went with the older boy once each. Pretty good ride, with the potential to get wet.

The best ride there, in my opinion, was the Mummy coaster. Not a great coaster, but it has great themeing, as well as an awesome power launch. It goes through the whole track (mostly in the dark), then reverses and does the whole thing backwards!!! Rather unique!!! I rode it twice and the boy rode it three times.

Oh, and the deal that sealed it for me: The park lets you come back for the rest of 2008 (black out dates excluded), so there will be more of this!!! In Spring they are opening a Simpsons ride. More to follow...

Feed My Frankenstein

Subtitle: The Great Linux Experiment




As you may recall, my oldest boy got many computer upgrades for Christmas. This resulted in a rather large pile of old parts. A couple of weekends ago,I decided to apply some trickle down (or, if you prefer, trickle up) technology upgrades. The younger's comp is rather sluggish, so I decided to upgrade it's hardware. One of the old memory modules bumped it up to the coveted 512 range. The old video card also gave way to better things. I did both of these at the same time, and was rewarded with no video signal. After much trial and error, things worked right, with one exception: Windows decided that the changes were significant enough that it could be a whole new system, and demanded re-activation. OH yea, as an added bonus, in the course of these changes, it lost the network card and sound card drivers. Long story short, (or short upgrade long) it took several hours to do a relatively simple upgrade.

After all that, you'd think I'd have had enough. Not so, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I decided that there was more fun to be had with leftovers. I think it may have been the fact that it was a rainy afternoon. Still having a perfectly viable motherboard and processor as well as extra video cards and smallish hard drives without number, I ventured into the basement storage area. From the dank depths, I retrieved a computer I had trash picked a few years back. Primarily I had got it for the case itself, as well as the A drive, which I never seem to have enough of, even though they are almost never used. Having acquired it from out of the rain and never done a thing with it, I first connected it and fired it up. Worked just fine, although it was an interesting history lesson. It was running Windows 95, which I have no experience with, and featured ISA type cards, as well as a passive heat sink on the processor. After a bit of snooping to see what was contained therein, I unceremoniously yanked out its innards, and was shocked at how well the motherboard fit in its place.

For an operating system, I selected a free downloaded Linux version called Ubuntu. You download it and burn it to a CD, insert it into a CD drive before the operating system has started on any computer, and it runs "live" without being fully installed on the hard drive from the CD. I've been wanting to try this for a while, and here was the perfect opportunity. It takes some time to start up, but it was an impressive and quite different experience from Windows. Upon starting, it immediately recognized the video and network cards. The sound card, I know worked at least once, but not having any media on this computer didn't have much chance to explore. Many idiosyncrasies that I have yet to completely work out, such as not seeming to be able to access the A drive to save or retrieve pictures (Or any other) files from, and the pop-up blocker that came on when I attempted to add a picture to this post. Also, Java and Flash would need to be installed. Since I'm running it from a CD, there is no point in attempting this right now. A lot of the things that it comes with work remarkably well, such as the spell checker, which tells me every time I misspell a word.



Running from a CD causes some delay in running. I have attempted several times to install it on the hard drive. It acts as though it installs fine, but every time afterward, it gives a message of boot drive failure. Don't know why. I'll try the users forum and see if anyone has an answer. After I see if this will post from Linux.

Who You Callin' Chicken, Boy???

While I was out yesterday with my camera to survey the damage that had woken me up, I saw a glorious thing. Chicken Boy!!! I've heard tales of him for years, but I had no idea that he had returned, and so close to my home!!! Good to see you, Chicken boy!!!

Rude Awakening

What a way to wake up!!! Choppity choppity.... I thought I was back in old Saigon!!!


Such things as this should not happen on a weekend morning. Shocking that the rest of the family was sleeping through it. Oh well, since I wasn't getting any more rest, figured I'd step outside and see if I could see what all was up there. Only one chopper, and instead of the regular circling, it was hovering, being blown up a ways, and returning to where it started. Strange. I could hear emergency vehicles' sirens approaching. Two thoughts of what could have happened, one being that the constant drizzle had destabilized the hillside and a house or two had slid down. The other thought was that someone had attempted to race a Gold Line train at one of the crossings. Since I was up (and none of the local news broadcasts were showing a thing about it) I decided I'd throw on some clothes, grab my camera and see if I could find the source and get some shots in.

By the time I did this, though, Tooth boy woke up. I told him what I was thinking of doing, and before I took off I flipped through the broadcast news again, and there it was.

The third option turned out to be what had happened, though. One of the world famous 110 Freeway exit had claimed another victim. (Image of the car being lifted out courtesy of Fox 11's website)

I stopped by later in the day to survey the damage. Hard to tell exactly what happened, but I think that someone tried to exit without heeding the 5 MPH sign, overshot the exit and fell the thirty or so feet into the Arroyo Seco.

Every so often that happens.

While I was there taking pictures, I heard the brakes of another car locking up, and I was able to get a couple of shots, Ala Mad Max.

He was able to keep from going all the way over, but he was very lucky that there was no one heading onto the freeway!!!

The Tooth Fairy Cometh

Friday was a momentous day. They youngest lost his first tooth!!! He was wiggling it and it came right out!!! It hadn't been loose for that long, either.

Snow Day!!!

I'm still not over this!!! We are in the midst of a storm system here in the southland, unusual that we've actually got weather happening. Funny thing, the talking heads have been saying that it was going to start on Monday, then Tuesday, but it was actually Wednesday before it actually got here. Cut off low, weatherman's woe, I think it was the immortal Dr. George Fischbeck used to say that.



Anyway, I got up a little early this morning on account of all the people who can't drive with a little wetness. It wasn't even raining when I exited the house, the sun was even out. On the way out of the house, I saw this white on the front grass. My first thought, dang, there's a busted drain pipe somewhere and now there's some detergent suds in my yard!!! I took a closer look, and my second thought it was frost. I've seen frost before, I can wrap my mind around frost, and certainly it's cold enough for frost. Still, it didn't look right for that. A closer look, its actually SNOW!!! In L.A.!!! Ha!!! Not a lot of it, but still, the real deal!!! Good thing I was a little ahead of schedule, I ran back in the house, grabbed my camera and told the youngest to get his shoes on, he's gotta see this!!! He scooped some up, and declared, "It's freezing cold!!!" The second picture is after I hit him with a snowball, as you can see it stuck on his shoulder.



Even the car still had some remaining on it, along the wipers and cowl area, and on the back wing.

An interesting footnote: My home is my grandfathers' former home, we bought it from his estate when he passed. My mother grew up here, and back in the 50's it had also snowed here, and she has some old 8mm home movies of them playing in the snow from back then.

The Junkyard Gang

Went to the junkyard's half price day over the weekend. I didn't find anything to make the Benz shift right, in fact didn't see but one car that was even similar to mine there. The one that was there was a 240D, and about the most stripped Mercedes I've ever seen. It was manual transmission, no air conditioning, cruise control or power windows. I did, however, find a console with all the window switches in good condition in another (gas powered) Benz. I had not only given up on ever finding one of those, but had even purchased a GM switch panel to put in place of the factory piece.

In the non-automotive category, I found these guys!!! Most of the cast of The Cat in the Hat, minus Thing 1 and Sally. Interesting, the boy from the story is never named, only spoken in the first person. I've always liked those Things. Funny that SpongeBob was in with these guys. For the wife, I found a really cute denim halter top with a zipper up the front. Once again, everything I brought home got a thorough de-lousing.

Geezers

Last week one of the girls I work with invited me to a get together to celebrate her birthday on Friday. It was going to be at a place near work that I've seen many times but have never been to. Its called Geezers. Perfect place to celebrate a birthday, huh???


There's the Birthday girl!!! Of course, I was on the third shift, and most everyone else who was there were on the first or second shift. Many of them had already come and gone by the time I got there, but there were still a dozen or so. I got to meet a guy I hadn't met before, from the packing department. He recognized me as "the guy with the cool lunch box". Ha!!!

The place was a lot bigger than I had pictured from driving by it. Looked real nice, but it wasn't very crowded at all. Probably they do a lot of lunch business, the area is mostly businesses. I took my camera, but only got three pictures. Good times!!!

Technology Meltdown

This is the tale of my New Years Eve. First thing you should know is that I had to work New Years Eve. There wasn't a lot of work going on, but I had to be there. I made a mistake the previous Friday, but it worked out OK. It was slow on Friday, too, and the supervisors came around asking people if they would like to go home early that day or Monday. I immediately said Monday, my logic being that I would prefer to get a little earlier home on New Year's Eve. Just a little after I'd told them that, I got to having second thoughts. Firstly, I was on the later shift on Monday, and being on the road an hour earlier would mean potentially being more in the midst of traffic. My second thought was that, while it was slow on Friday, it was likely to be even slower on Monday, so they might still send people home early that day, even if they'd left early on Friday too. As I said, it worked out, just a bit after I'd articulated this thinking to one of my co-workers, a supervisor came up to me and told me I was leaving an hour early that day, Friday. OK, all's well that ends well.

When I got home quite early that evening, I put my older boy's computer system upgrades in. For all practical purposes, it's a brand new machine, the only things remaining are the case and the CD and floppy drives. I have to say, it was the easiest computer I've ever built.

As I has predicted, it was even slower on Monday. That worked out as I had hoped it would, too. Actually, even better than I'd planned. A bit after morning break, one of the supervisors told me that I only had to work until the start of my lunch break, something they were doing for all the people with good attendance stats. Whoo hooo!!!

I had been planning on scouring junkyards over the weekend. The Benz is running great, except that the transmission doesn't want to shift right. Since the engine is different than the chassis, I'm looking for what is called a "change over valve" that is proper to the year of the chassis. Since I was done at 1, I called up my dad to see if he wanted to go. We did, to two different yards, but had no luck finding the valve.

When I got home is when the title alluded technology meltdown happened. As I was attempting to get some dinner together, my older boy starts calling out, asking what to do when his screen goes upside down!!! I go out and take a look, and sure enough, his screen is displaying upside down!!! Huh. Flip your monitor over, boy. I have no idea how he did it. I remembered some years ago seeing a little joke program you could send your friends that would do just this when activated, but I couldn't find anything like that. I messed with it for quite a while, then gave up on it for a bit.

My younger boy tells me that his new keyboard "does numbers when you do letters". Huh??? I type a few letters. No problem. He types a few farther to the right, and sure enough, it does numbers. Huh??? I'm thinking that his new keyboard has some crossed wires from the factory, and grab the box out of the trash before it goes any farther. I can't figure it out at this time, and finally sit down to eat.

While I'm eating, I happen to look at the digital photo frame that I gave my wife for Christmas. The front of it looks like it's been scribbled on!!! I'm a little upset by this and ask a bit loudly what happened. My younger boy says, "I'm sorry!" Once again, I ask what he did to it, and he repeats "I'm sorry!" Two or three more times we go through this, and I finally have to explain, "Yea, I got that you're sorry, now WHAT DID YOU DO TO IT???" He tells me that he was drawing on it with his finger. Fortunately, it cleaned off with no negative effects.

On my older boy's machine, my wife had the brilliant idea that, since he's now using XP instead of 2000, he could use the system restore. One day back, and everything is fine. I discovered a bit later that his display driver has a built in rotate function. If I'd known sooner...

Sin City came on at 10:00, and it is one of those movies I'd always kind of wanted to see. I turned it on and laid back on the couch. Twenty minutes later, I was out.

Happy New Year!!!

White Christmas, Part Two

It was a white Christmas on Runescape, too!!! Here I am dressed in my beanie and scarf giveaway from a couple of years ago, making a snow man. Not only did I get to do the Christmas event three times for my various characters, my oldest boy asked me to do it for his!!!



Here is what I bought myself for Christmas, gold trimmed rune armor. It cost me 1.2 million gold, but what else am I going to do with all my gold??? I think it better to wear my gold all showing, don't I look like the Runescape Pimp??? Several other players have complimented me on it.

Dreaming of a White Christmas

Dang, it's been a long time since I've made a post!!! Hope everyone had a great Christmas and will have a happy new year!!!



Now, what have I been doing in the interim??? Many things. My niece had her birthday. My company had their Christmas party, which was pretty cool. We tried out the mojito bar they had there and drank nothing else all evening after that. My wife and I stayed overnight, not at the hotel that it was held at but at a nice place up the road. Less than half the price, so even with cab rides both ways it still would have been less, and they had a complementary breakfast there.



Goody day was awesome. My trifle didn't come out exactly as planned, I accidentally (well, inadvertently, I didn't read the directions well) used water instead of milk in the pudding part, and it didn't seem to gel up quite right. I mixed a second pudding and put it on top of that, but still it wasn't right. Anyway, I think people were scared of it, only a few people tried it. I'd made two, so there would be some left by the time the third shift got around to eating. That was not necessary.

Got my gravy the Friday before Christmas. Once again, right around where I'd figured it to be, and once again, the man did take his chunk, albeit temporarily.



Christmas weekend... A lot going on!!! Saturday we went down to my parent's house for the family get-together. I took my spare trifle, but it was forgotten until it was too late. Not that there was any shortage of food!!! My parents got my oldest son several varieties of army men, and wrapped them in an authentic looking military duffel bag.



Before we went there, I stopped in at my bank and deposited my cash profit sharing check. I also asked about a fee on one of my accounts, and decided that I needed to change my account. The girl that sets those up was busy for about half an hour,so I made an appointment for Monday.



Sunday we went to Oinkster for a celebratory feast. Good times. Monday morning I went to the bank and set up my new accounts. I got a 9 month certificate of deposit with a fairly favorable rate, and a money market account for the remainder. I also moved the youngest's money from a standard custodial account into an actual mutual fund account. Naturally, there's no telling where the rates will go with that, but it's likely going to do better than even my certificate of deposit will do. Now the youngest member of the family has the most aggressive portfolio.



After that, I took the family to the movies. Across the Universe was playing at a theatre not far from my work, but the published times were wrong. We ended up getting there about 25 minutes into the movie. I was ready to bail, but the attendant said she'd give us two passes to come back some other time and catch it all. Way to sweeten the pot!!! Of course, we spent about twice as much on snacks as on admission, so way to turn a profit!!! My older boy and I both enjoyed it quite a bit, but neither my youngest or wife liked it as much.



Christmas was great fun. The boys liked all their swag. I got the oldest, among other things, new components for his computer to give it a makeover. It wouldn't run XP for some reason before, so I got him a new motherboard with PCI-E slots and a dual core processor, as well as a 160 gig hard drive and a gig of memory, and a copy of XP. A cool thing that I found for him is a new mouse that looks like a pistol, good for use with those first person shooter games he usually plays. Both boys got new, compact keyboards (desk space is at a premium), as well as Lego sets and many Hot Wheels cars. My wife got me some cool, toasty Dr. Pepper pajamas. For my wife, I wrapped up a cigar and a $100 bill for her with instructions to light the former with the latter. She didn't. I had requested the Counting Crows' re-release of August and Everything After with bonus tracks and second live disc. My parents got me the right disc, but not the re-release. My wife was shopping without the list she had insisted I make her, and found the greatest hits "Films About Ghosts" CD instead. Ummm, I've already got every song on that disc, kind of no point to that. Ah well, it's the thought that counts. And the exchange credit.



After a morning of wrapping shredding, we headed up to Mount Baldy to frolic in the snow. The youngest has never been to the snow before. I had no idea what the conditions were going to be up there, but I figured that Christmas day might be less crowded than usual. In the crowds respect, it wasn't bad. In the snow respect, it wasn't good. The snow was patchy, and what was there had melted and re-frozen into icy surfaces. Good for sliding down, though, just watch out for those rocks!!! It didn't matter much to the boys, they had a great time. They slid a few times, and then collected icy snow chunks for a snowball fight. I took some video which I may post in the future. My favorite is of the older sliding down a slope and bowling over a little girl. Unfortunately, I turned off the camera before they both started getting up laughing. Good times!!!

You Want Gravy With That???

It's that time of year again. Yesterday they announced the cash profit sharing percentage for this year. Last year was 350%, a stunning amount to me. This year its 400%!!! Of course, I'm still under two years of service there, so I don't get all of that, just 4% per month, but still!!! For the people who've been there past two years, that's the equivalent of getting 16 months of pay crammed into 12 months. Of course, some days you go home feeling like you've done just that.

On the same day, I went to the deferred profit sharing meeting. Things just keep getting better, I tell you!!! This money gets put into a trust. It takes six years before you are fully vested, but check out what you get. 25% of your earnings for the year go into this trust. 25% of your base hourly pay. 25% of your overtime pay. 25% of that 400% cash profit sharing I just spoke of. Here's one I was not aware of. The company has a college assistance program for employees children attending full time. They pay up to $13,000 per year per child in school. Get this, on top of all the other 25% earnings you get deposited in this trust, you get 25% of the money they're paying towards your children's college!!! I'm considering adopting a few college bound teenagers!!! All the deposits into the trust, of course, are compounding interest.

It's all gravy to me, but one can never have too much gravy!!! And speaking of gravy, they're rolling out new paperwork tomorrow, so they had everyone do a half hour of overtime today, and an hour tomorrow and Monday. They were asking for volunteers for Saturday, but I've already got plans.

I know it's been a while, but have I mentioned that I really like this job???

The End of the Rainbow

Almost there...

(A semi-random post, my food random was going to be called "the random (mostly) food post". I've got more random in me still)

I worked on Janice again today. Last weekend I didn't because it was supposed to have been raining (it didn't), and I had a blood donation appointment. The weekend before, of course, I was in Vegas. I don't believe I've posted about all that since my early November post on this. The car has been in "running" condition since three weekends ago, when I fired it up for the first time. Fired up easier than any other swap I've done to date, I think. However, it ran so well that it wouldn't shut off when I turned the key off and took it out!!! That's the thing about a diesel, as long as fuel keeps flowin', it'll keep goin'!!! The fuel shut off is a vacuum line going to the fuel distribution block. The other little problem was that the drain plug for the radiator broke, so I was testing it with no coolant. This was a bit of a concern when the engine didn't want to shut off!!!

(Now, prepare for a random thing...) Have you seen the trailers for "I Am Legend"??? First time I saw it my reaction was "It's been done before, and I don't think you're gonna top Charlton Heston!!!" Since that time, every time I've seen that commercial, I've made the comment to whoever is present (usually my wife of children, who I think are growing weary of it), "I Am Legend is a poor man's Omega Man!!!"

Back to the benz, I got a new drain plug (special order and took almost a week to get) and messed with the vacuum lines, it now mostly holds it's coolant and turns off. The only problem that seems remaining is the transmission. Seems to be the same thing as I made mention of in the first post regarding this engine swap, a vacuum modulator problem. Only thing is, this time my vacuum system is kinda wacked out, because I've got a different engine vacuum system and chassis vacuum system. Ah, complications!!! I tried several things, but couldn't get it to behave.

Imagine my chagrin when I did a little bit of research and found out that Charlton Heston was reprising a role that Vincent Price had originally done in 1964, and the movie was based on a book from 1954, entitled (drum roll....) I Am Legend!!!

Today while I was working on the car, it began to rain on me. The sun was shining at a low angle, and I was looking around for a rainbow because I suspected prime meteorological conditions, but it wasn't to be found at the time. A short time later, I was test driving it for the first time, and as I came back, there was the rainbow, big and quite bright at the end of the street I was coming up. Cool!!! I brought the boys out to see it when I got back. Wish I'd had my camera with me.

Speaking of cameras, I've been eyeballing the ads for DSLR cameras, most notably the Canon D40. My dad went out today and bought his Christmas present, a point-and-shoot Olympus with 18x optical zoom. We discussed the DSLR options out there, and he started explaining about the zooms. Most of the DSLR's, if they come with any second lens, are usually only to 150mm or 200mm. He was saying that even with a 300mm lens, the zoom still isn't as good as an 18x optical zoom. I made the point that the D40 is only 6 mega pixels versus his 8.1 mega pixel rig, so you could even crop out a portion for more zoom and still have a better picture. Then, there's doubler's and such... I think I'll try his out some before I make my final decision.

Another foodie random, the cookies that Eyeball had at Thanksgiving sure made me thirsty!!!

I finally got Internet Explorer 7. I've used it some before, but now it's on my machine. I don't like the way it doesn't want to let me highlight text as I want to. Damn you, IE7!!!

I know there's more random within me, but I can't remember it. I should revert to making little notes throughout the day.

I thought that it was cool that I saw a rainbow while I was driving the car for the first time in a while. And hey, the car is painted gold!!!

A Noob's Ransom

Runescape has added a new feature, the Grand Exchange. Non members can put up to two different types of items up for sale, or offer to buy up to two types of items, or one buy and one sell. Basically, it's Ebay for Runescape!!! Of course, there are a few parameters. Somehow, they set what the "market price" is, and you can only go 5% over or under. The downside to all this is that the regular store prices are now tied to prevailing market rates, so the days of being able to find coal or nature runes in a store for a bargain price are now over.

But, hey, makes for trading your wares for gold much easier and more profitable. Provided, of course, you have something that anyone would want to buy. My first thing I put up was the Runeite ore I've been holding in my bank for the proper offer. $12,000, just like that!!! While working on getting my smithing levels up, I've made a lot of items. I put the 372 adamantite maces I've made up for sale, and the next time I logged in I'd sold 73, making almost $100,000!!! This was the first days that they had rolled out the exchange, and sales on that particular item have fallen off drastically. I had a buy offer for a pickax handle for quite a while to go with the rune pickax head I found, but no one is bothering to sell those off. I changed that to an offer to buy 100 dwarvian stouts at $2 gold each, and the next time I logged in I had them all. They are easily gotten for only $1 each, but it takes a LONG time to do that, and I've got the gold to not have to deal with all that. After that purchase, I put up the 1100 adamantite medium helmets I've made. These seem to be a hot item, I'm up to almost $1,000,000 gold for what I've sold of those so far. Several adamantite swords are in my bank still, the results of my quest to up my smithing level. Tonight I finally made it to level 74, with the help of all those dwarvian stouts I bought. Whoo hooo, I can now make adamantite scimitars!!! Only 1,128 bars to make and smith until level 75... Those scimitars should be a hot item at the grand exchange. However, I think I will make several other players very happy for my annual Christmas eve give away!!!

The Food Random Post

I didn't make mention before, but see that picture??? My sister made sourdough balls that looked like pumpkins for Thanksgiving. Very cool.

When we first went to the buffet at Circus Circus it was Thanksgiving. They had, in addition to other things, traditional Thanksgiving fare, turkey, ham, stuffing. The next night they had some quite plausible tamales. I wonder if that's because it was into the Christmas season???

By the way, check out the first picture on the Thanksgiving post. That is a pile of apple pie on the boy's plate.

See this??? They have Elvis banana cream Reese's peanut butter cups. I haven't tried it yet, I shall update in the comments.

The weekend after this one will be quite eventful. The company Christmas party (no one calls it by its given name, the "Holiday" party) is on Saturday. The entree choices were filet mignon, grilled mahi mahi, chicken breast, or some damn vegetable thing. I don't think anyone is opting for the last one. I chose the mahi mahi.

My boys' school is doing their Christmas program on Friday night. Dinner will be served at that, too. Hope there are tamales!!!

And, following that weekend, Tuesday is Goodie Day!!!

There shall be cheese for all!!!

Mahi mahi... The fish so nice they named it twice!!!

I'm considering taking a vacation trip to Gilroy for the Garlic Festival this coming year. There is nary a food that isn't improved by adding garlic.

I'm considering trying my hand at making trifle for goodie day...

I was considering going into the cafeteria at my work and asking for a plate with a couple of slices of each kind of cheese the other day. Cheese is the perfect food!!!

See this??? My oldest boy was putting frosting on his (non-banana creme) Reese's cup!!!

I was in the store a few weeks back, and was looking to get some more microwave kettle corn popcorn, when I spotted Orville Redenbacher's latest creation, garlic popcorn. I actually said aloud, "Orville Redenbacher, you magnificent bastard!!!" I had to buy a box, and popcorn is in that category of foods improved by garlic.

That cheese picture was originally titled "Table with cheese for web". It sure is!!!