Happy New Year!!!

Well, here it is New year's eve, and I'm well enough to send new year's greetings to all my blog friends. Not all the way well yet, I'm still coughing my head off and snotting. I hope I'm through with it soon, this has been enough. I haven't seen a doctor about it because I've just figured they'd tell me it wasn't nothing but a cold, and there isn't much they can do for it anyway. I've got Monday off, my last day off, and if it doesn't seem better then I may see if my doc is available.

I picked up a bottle of rum and a bottle of Champaign and a bottle of extra strength tussy at the store tonight. Old habits die hard, I can't remember the last time I've actually been out for new years. Last one that sticks out in my mind was the night I got 86'ed from a bar in Tijuana. My stomach was broken the whole next day. I would have liked to go over to Sammy's tonight for the festivities, but with the coughing I don't really feel up to it.

I did get to hang for a little bit with my East side buds, Lilly, Granny and Bob. It was only 9 for me, but it was new years for them. That was cool. Skimmed through everybody's blogs just now, and saw where Steve made mention of me on Susan's: "aye gets whumpy with his shirt off, keep it cyber." I have no idea what whumpy is, but that sure made me want to take my shirt off!!! I do keep it cyber, don't I???

Happy new year, one and all!!!

That's What I'm Doing Next Year

I hope this is readable when it posts. It looks so small here!!! If you can't read it, you can click on it and it will enlarge I've learned. But I know exactly what he means, I've got a lot more money in Runescape, as well as the ability to make some very cool armor and jewelry. Who wouldn't like a full mithiril set of armor, complete with your choice of weapon and shield??? Or, I could make a sapphire, emerald, ruby or even diamond ring. Oh, here's a good one, I could make a nice sapphire amulet and cast an enchantment on it to improve your magical abilities!!! Heck, I could even just make you something nice to eat, like a lobster dinner, or a chocolate cake.

My parents took my oldest son and his cousin on a road trip the last couple days. They're staying at Camp Pendleton Marine Base, and making a trip to Legoland. There was susposed to be rain coming in from up north, but so far it hasn't even made it so far south as the L.A. area, so I think they've stayed pretty dry. Good deal.

We made homemade pizza tonight. That was something my parents gave us for Christmas, a nice pizza pan and cutter, a box full of ingredients, and a thick little pizza recipe book. The crust and sauce were from a Chef Boy Ardee kit. The crust was good enough (and easy to make), but the sauce... well, I'd never heard of vanilla flavored pizza sauce before!!! I bammed it up with some spices and garlic, and it came around. All in all, it made for some very good pizza!!!

100!!!

Welcome to what is my 100th post here on Blogger. I can tell you've all been waiting for this momentous and special occasion.

I had wanted to send out special Christmas wishes to all my 'net buds, but I came down with a debilitating cold. After getting home Thursday evening, I mostly stayed in bed until Christmas day morning!!! I tell you, I haven't been this sick in AGES!!! I'm feeling a lot better, but I'm still coughing and snotting. I know what happened, I jinxed myself. A few weeks ago when Sammy and his family were sick, I told him, "don't worry about me, I've got a kick-ass immune system". He told me right then to knock on wood, I just jinxed myself, and damned if he didn't call it!!!

Anyway, apologies for that lapse. Hope you all had a good one!!! Thanks to Lilly and Susan for the merry Christmas wishes. Poor Granny, seems like some of the darkness within has hit her kind of hard, as is understandable during this season. My heart goes out to her.

My boys enjoyed the Christmas festivities, and the living room here still looks a bit like a catastrophic north pole industrial accident. We had originally planned on having Christmas at my parents house on the 24th, but that didn't happen, so they came up here on Christmas day instead. They brought all the gifts, as well as a lot of the food that had been left over from the day before. It was the first food I'd eaten since Thursday, and although I had little appetite and swallowing anything was very painful, it was certainly welcome. My mother and I both got near identical gifts for each other, sudoku puzzle books!!! My dad was thrilled with the custom milled aluminum license plate frame that I made for his Studebaker.

I took Nyquil for the first time that evening. I slept fairly well until about 3:30 the next morning, when I awoke with visions of unsolved sudoku puzzles in my head, and lines from David Gray's "Aint No Love";
'I feel the dampness as it creeps
I hear you coughing in your sleep
beneath a broken window pane....'

California Christmas

Credit: Genaro Molina

Too funny!!! The sign between 'em says "Don't touch aliens". I suppose a probing is out of the question???

I Dream of Michelangelo

Credit: Genaro Molina

The Boss Man

Here's another picture from Friday's Christmas party. As it was winding down and people were trickling out, Sammy dared me to get the owner to put the yule time hat on. It wasn't a thing to me, I just walked right up to him and asked him to put it on for a picture, and he did without a moment's hesitation!!! It actually came out as a really good picture of him and his wife, I think. Sammy had brought the hat and said we were going to rock-paper-scissors to see who had to wear it to the party. I won, then I asked him "This means I get to wear the hat, right???" LMAO!!!
Here he is with the hat on, as you can see it had no negative effect on his play!!! Don't they look cute together???

Interestingly enough, when it came time to fly the plane later on, we rock-paper-scissored again, and I won again... I don't know if Sammy noticed, but we both did the exact same pattern BOTH TIMES!!! I was stunned that it worked twice!!!

.... & THAT'S how I ended up a tree at 1:30 in the morning

Well, actually there's a lot more to the story, but yea, I was way up a tree at 1:30 this morning. Last night was the company Christmas party. Since I had to go all the way down into the south bay area to attend, I went in and worked for a while today. Sammy came over before the party started, and we rolled from there together. It was actually a pretty decent party. The food there wasn't that great, and the banquet room reminded me more of a storage room, with bud boxes stacked up in the corner and industrial freezers along one wall. It was interesting, for the most part all the night shift workers were at one table, the day shift workers at another, and the office people at a third. I took a bunch of pictures. Most of the ladies looked really good compared to how they usually look at work. There was one who I couldn't even connect in my mind with someone who works with me.

Sammy went outside to have a smoke with the night supervisor, Lady G, and I came out a bit later and took some rather cozy pictures of the two of them together. He was telling me later that he had been feeling up her ass while they were out there, and that he was thinking that this would have been the perfect evening to hook up with her, being as her husband knew that she was going to be at the party... Now its Sammy's turn to sing perfect situation!!!

We left out of there, and he asked me if I wanted to go to his place, have a couple shots, hang out for a while. That sounded good enough to me, so we headed off that way (we were about 1/3 of the way there from work) and got within a block of his house when he remembered that his truck was still at the shop!!! D'oh!!! Turn around, go back...

Finally we got to his place and after a while he was showing me some of the stuff he'd bought for his Godson for Christmas. One of the things is a remote controlled airplane. Well, as you may have guessed, he got it cuz he wants to play with it!!! We took it out and put it together. I suggest that we take it to the college parking lot to fly, where there's more open space. We got there and flew it a few times. It worked OK, but it has no vertical control, so it crashes fairly regularly. I got to looking around, and there's this 6-level parking structure just a ways over from there. Brilliant idea for more hang time, launch it from the roof of that!!! Sammy stayed on the ground and I sprinted up the steps to the top. I had to piss by the time I got up there, so I got a chance to pee down 6 stories, that was pretty cool. Does that count for wild, impulsive, and possibly illegal??? Or is it just juvenile and disgusting??? Either way, it was pretty cool to shoot an arc out several feet!!! After that I launched the plane, and it flew GREAT from there!!! Sammy was running back and forth trying to stay under it, but eventually it landed in the top of a rather tall bottle brush tree. As I was working my way down the steps a police unit rolled through, but luckily they didn't stop. Sammy helped boost me up into the tree and I was able to free the plane. While I was up there another police cruiser rolled by, but also didn't stop. I guess they didn't pick up on the peeing off the roof part!!! I tell you, I saw no less than 10 police units tonight!!! in spite of that, it was a really fun evening!!!

Contrasts in Burgers

Two of my favorite burger places: Tommy's Burgers and In N Out. Don't ask me which one is better, because I love them both. You poor people east of the Rockies have no idea what you're missing, unless you've ever been out here and tried 'em. The picture is of a couple of Tommy's Burgers, the sloppiest, greasiest, messiest, and tastiest chili burgers you've ever seen!!! The chili absolutely makes these burgers. I always get an order of chili cheese fries with onions whenever I go there, too.

In N Out, on the other hand, has just plain ol' burgers. Their claim to fame is that they use the freshest ingredients, and their slogan is "quality you can taste", and I'm here to tell you, you can taste the quality!!! I don't know what it is about them, but they are some of the best burgers anywhere, bar none. Hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fries and shakes are all they make there, but believe me, that's enough. I can't think of a time that I have ever been to one that there hasn't been a line. I remember going to one before they were open once, I'm thinking at 9:45 in the morning or something, and there were already 2 cars in the drive through waiting for them to open!!! Whenever I go there, I order mine "animal style" (with grilled onions).

That's where I went tonight after school tonight, In N Out. My stomach was growling during the finals. Almost 11 when I left out of there, and there was still a considerable line at the counter and at the drive through. I think I did quite well on the final tonight, and the instructor was pretty understanding about my missing items. I don't think I'll get quite as high a score as I did last semester, but I think I'll do well anyhow.

Late Nights

Two nights in a row I've ended up getting home kind of late. Yesterday was understandable, I had an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon that morning, so it was after 10 by the time I got there. Today I had a LONG program to run on my machine. I'd thought the 8000 line ones were sizeable!!! The one I ran today was 310,000 lines!!! I started it just about the first thing when I got there today, and it didn't finish up until after 10 PM.

Tomorrow is the last day of class. Finals. I'm rather unprepared. I was getting my stuff prepped yesterday on my jumpdrive to take into work and print out my projects for the notebook I have to turn in tomorrow. Well, the power went out, and it completely erased all my homework from this semester. Showed my drive as unformatted. I've got all but a couple of the projects already printed, so I'll just explain to the instructor. Or maybe I'll fake 'em at work tomorrow.

I'd wanted to get on here and see what's been going on with my friends' blogs. Doesn't look like I've missed much, except some posts have gone missing. Hope you're all doing well!!!

Nice Shot

I was out doing some yardwork this afternoon as the sun began setting, early as it does this time of year. Even earlier when you're living back in a canyon!!! The sunset was coming out rather nice, so I went upstairs and got my camera to attempt to capture the moment. Several of them came out pretty good, which worked out well for me. I hadn't updated my wallpaper page this week, so I got a nice one to use for that. It would be nice if there weren't so many power lines criss-crossing the view, but what are you going to do???

Moon Eyes

My dad and I went to the Moon Equipment car show today. Its really an enjoyable show, there's a lot of cars there that don't have the high dollar look to them, but rather a down and dirty look and LOTS of innovation!!! Wish I'd thought to bring my camera along. One thing I've noticed in the last five years or so, there seem to be a lot more ladies getting into the car scene than when I was younger. A lot of Rockabilly hoochies with tattoos in eye-catching locations!!! I even managed to get the phone number of one little cute brunette!!! OK, truth be told, she had a falcon just like mine that she'd stripped the side trim off from, and was offering it for sale. I know I'm missing a couple of pieces, so I'm going to have to take an inventory and see if she can help me out.

Constent Meyhem

Who says it was just "back then"???

"What did you steal???"

That was the question being posed to listeners on a radio program one morning this week. People were calling in with various thefts, and everything that made it past the screeners was fairly amusing!!! The among various things stolen were a Ronald McDonald statue, an 800 pound bell, the rims off a deadbeat friends' car, and a illegal immigrant crossing sign like this!!! I thought back to another perfect crime committed by myself and my good friend Sean back when I was probably 16 or 17. We, along with some other friends, had gone to a party at a gated condominium complex right across Pacific Coast Highway from the ocean. Even in the 80's those places were probably going for more than a million. It was incredibly boring and lame, we probably didn't stay more than a couple of hours all told. For some reason, we'd left at one point and returned later, I have no idea why. On one of the walks back out to the car, we noticed a sign on the block wall: "Warning: These premises patrolled by armed security patrol" We took that as a challenge I guess, and decided we must have it for our own. It took a little bit of doing to get it unfastened, and then we had to get it out to the car across a busy parking lot shared with a shopping and restaurant complex. It was sizeable. We laid it flat, covered it with our jackets, and carried it out to the car, feigning that it was incredibly heavy. We caught a lot of slick eye, and one person crossing our path said "looks like you've got a live one there!" LMAO!!! He had it hanging in his room for years after that, and then in his car hole.

Now I feel like doing something wild, impulsive, and possibly illegal. I have no idea what, but I'm feeling up for it. I'll keep you posted.

Until such time as that happens, please share your crime and theft stories here, and I shall live vicariously through them!!!

We Shall Never Forget

A date which will live in infamy. One of those days that prompts people to say "we shall never forget". I don't know how many people actually remembered that today was Pearl Harbor day. I usually hear something on the radio or television making mention of it, but I didn't hear anything about it today. It was mid-day before I wrote down the date, and I remembered at that point. How many days that we shall never forget are lost in the sands of time???

One of my most vivid memories (being as I was born more than a quarter century later) was a few years back. One of the guys I worked with, Fred, an old, grizzled, crazy looking guy didn't come in that day. His excuse was that he was feeling nostalgic about it being Pearl Harbor day. He was something like 2 or 3 when it had happened.

At least he remembered.

512!!!

Must have been a lucky day!!!

Bob's Art

Here's a couple of pictures that Bob the not-often blogger and the crew's unoffical scetch artist did on Friday evening. They needed to be shared, I think he caught our essences quite well!!!

Perfect Situation

My doctor's appointment went quite well. I got a couple of new prescriptions for my back pain, and I like my new doctor well enough. He's in Glendale, so of course most everyone working there is Armenian. Main thing is he actually is there on Fridays, so I don't need to miss work to see him!!! He wanted to have my blood worked up since its been a few years since I've had that done, and he asked me if I had eaten anything yet that day. I had woken up that morning and showered and got on here and blogged until it was time for me to go, without having had a chance to eat, so there was perfect situation number one!!!

His office is a couple of blocks from the hospital and the surrounding medical buildings. It costs $1 an hour to park in the parking garage there, but the parking at the doctors office is free. I just hoofed it over to the lab by the hospital and saved myself the parking fee, as well as the aggravation of parking there. Perfect situation number two!!! It didn't even rain on me either way, which it did off and on most of Friday.

I got to the lab a little before they took lunch. The guy behind the counter had the same first name as I did, that was interesting. It didn't take them long to get me in there and draw out my blood, which was good because I was very hungry and was needing to pee. After they took my blood, they gave me a cup to go get them a urine sample, I didn't know they were going to want that!!! Perfect situation number three!!!

After doing the shopping and banking and picking up my new prescriptions I came home and was able to chat with Lilly, Granny, and Bob, as well as briefly with an old friend I hadn't seen in a while. The messenger service was messing up at first, but it got better, and we all got stupid and silly. A fun time was had by all

Here's to good
friends!!!

I ended up falling asleep on the couch after I ate some, probably around 11:30 or so. I awoke around 2:30 or 3, and I had all these pics I needed to save before I'd be able to shut down my comp and go to bed. I didn't feel much like it, but I made myself, and by the time I was done I wasn't sleepy anymore. I played some runescape, then noticed Granny was on and chatted her up some. My wife got up at some point to pee and was sure to come out and give me some shit about not having come to bed and being on the comp too much and bla bla bla. Then just hovered over my shoulder for too damned long. Funny how I was just posting yesterday morning how she doesn't like to be touched while she's sleeping and I enjoy the spooning. Doesn't like to be touched, but gives me shit for not being in there next to her, go figure!!!

I got to read the paper and listen to Handel on the Law in peace. Speaking of peace, William Wolf Handel, Esq. has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize!!! That is actually very amusing if you ever listen to his show, he's anything but. They got him nominated just to illustrate how easy it is to do that, in light of the Tookie Williams activists. Long story. I turned Granny onto his show, too.

I updated my Wallpaper page with a great pic I found a while ago with an Aussie kind of theme to it, in honor of our antics last night. WEEEEEEEE OOOOOOOOOO!!!

Later on in the day, I set up a Festivus pole in the front yard. I strung lights around, in breaking with Festivus tradition, but it looks good to me!!! I didn't end up taking a nap as I thought I might end up doing, but I'm about out of steam as I type this. We went to Wally World and got some essentials, as well as taking care of a couple of Christmas presents and a birthday present.

I got home late, but in time to take a couple of pics of the new yard decoration and then catch the crew before they all went off to bed. Lilly and Granny were ripped!!! No one had their cams going, but that may have been a good thing, apparently Granny was nekked and had a bucket in case she needed to piss!!! Lilly was going on about how she had shaved up some, a first for her I believe. It was amusing, but I wish I'd been with 'em longer, as they both went off to bed not long after that.

Oh yes, the title to this post actually refers to the song by Weezer of the same name. I just got that song the other day, and Foo Fighters DOA and wanted to make myself a CD with those on it. I made it, but I spaced out on putting Perfect Situation on it!!! A perfect situation, but not such a perfect disc!!!

How Could It NOT Be Good???

What a good day I had yesterday!!! I've always said any day I get to weld is a good day!!! I actually got up close to "on time" for a change, mostly from having to piss. Naturally I woke up with a pee hard-on. I briefly tried rubbing it up against my wife's ass, but she didn't appreciate that much. Truth be told, she doesn't much like being touched while she's sleeping at all, bad for me because I like nothing better than to spoon. Oh well, you take what ya got, huh??? Too much information??? Well, that's my life!!!

I got to work only a couple minutes after the "official" start time and fired up my CNC. The day before I'd been roughing out a prototype for a frisbee, and something funky had happened to my Z axis. Fixed that up and re-did that (fortunately, it was to the plus side instead of the minus!!!) and then generated a finishing tool path. Poor little small-brain HP about choked trying to do that. 72,000+ lines of code!!! Somewhere in there, Rosa, the other CNC guy's helper (I'm going to need a helper one of these days...) came over and asked if I could do a little welding for her.

Apparently the motor on one of the band saws has been replaced with one that has a smaller drive shaft, and the big wheel had a sleeve welded into the middle to make it fit. Only tacked in four places, though, and it finally gave out. First thing I tried to do was change the tungsten on the welder to the type for welding aluminum. I looked all over and could not find the right parts (collet) to make it work. About the time I was going to give up I saw Sloppy Joe going by and asked him if he'd seen it, and he said no, but he had some brand new ones!!! Good deal!!! Then, since it had been probably close to a year since I'd welded aluminum, I had to try and remember the correct settings. I didn't at first, but finally got it. I had to lay an arc to the thing for the longest time before it would bead up nice, a large aluminum piece like that will soak up the heat thru the whole thing like a sponge!!! When it finally got hot enough, the weld fairly well flowed around the whole edge, making a beautiful weld!!! There's nothing like the feeling of having that little sun of superheated plasma, sheathed in a ball of argon gas, at your fingertips!!! A comment that I've remembered from my high school welding class days, one of the students saying TIG welding is so clean you could weld in a tuxedo. True statement. One of these days I'll have to try that!!!

The L.A. Times had an article on blogging in L.A. that caught my interest. I'd tell more about it, but I have a doctors appointment I must be off to. However, there was one that caught my interest for the words they quoted in the article, Heathervecent. Also caught my interest because she lives in my 'hood. Check out her links on the left side to the cover pictue from the article, now there's some great Hotoggin'!!! I didn't realize that it was her on the picture until I checked her blog. I was considering cropping the picture and using it as my weekly Wallpaper image, but its kind of small. I could dig it out of the trash can and scan it, I guess, I'm still deciding on that. Scanned newspaper sometimes doesn't come out so good.

Happy Hump Day

I had a good day today. I learned how to do 3-D contouring on my CNC, as well as figuring out (once again, I think I'll remember it this time) how to control my machine directly from the PC. Now I'll be able to cut the tool for that double dildo!!! Guess you could say I've got that dildo licked now!!! LOL!!! Now, if our company would just pay up with our supplier so I can get some metal to cut it in....

I was making up a prototype this evening for a frisbee, since I'm now able to do this kind of thing. I'd written a program last Wednesday for the SHAPE of the thing, but didn't have the skills to make a cut-path until today. It makes for a sizeable program, I think something like 20,000 lines.

While I was cutting it, around 5:30, a ball of tape came flying in from behind me. I knew right then: Sammy's back!!! He'd come back in to work on a die, the guy who does some stuff at night who was going to do it called in sick. We talked a while while it was cutting, then I asked him if he was interested getting some dinner chow. He was up for it, so we went to our favorite place, El Tarasco. They've been fixing up the place, painting it, new windows, new block walls in the parking lot, new sign out front, and new menus. They're doing murals on all the interior walls, and its really shaping up. It used to be a weird little hole in the wall place, but its looking nice now. Used to be the place was mostly deserted in the evenings when we'd go there, but it was probably close to 3/4 full tonight. I don't know if that's all attributed to the new decor, but good for them!!! Good for us, too, our usual table was available when we got there!!!

Boring!!!

First day of the week back at work, and damn, it was BORING!!! I had a couple things to do, but not near enough to keep me going for a full ten hours. I was considering taking off and telling them to pay me one of my vacation days (they didn't pay me for the last couple of vacation days I took, after all their paperwork and everything... I didn't say a thing, I didn't need the money and I'll just keep the extra days!!!) One across on the crossword puzzle today: BORING!!!

Around the middle of the day something interesting happened. They brought me out an 18" double dildo vibrator with dual controls in a nice shade of purple!!! They want me to make a tool for it. I'm not completely convinced I'm "up to it", so to speak, but I'll give it a try. I talked to the other CNC operator and asked him how to go about doing it, and he gave me some guidance. I spent the rest of the day design programming the tool, then attempting to generate tool paths for it. The comp I use at my CNC to generate my tool paths with is a weak old HP running what could possibly be the worst operating system ever foisted upon an unsuspecting public, Windows ME. I got it do one end somewhat, but after that it kept crashing the CAD program. I'd try to recover, and it would freeze. I did a couple of re-starts, and eventually the CAD program wouldn't even start. That was the point I said enough is enough, I'm giving it a rest until tomorrow. Ended up shorting myself by ten minutes, but oh well.

I rolled out at 5:12 and was home by 6:15. Not too bad for rush hour. I was actually able to get some chat time in with the balance of my East Side crew, so it was a much better evening than it was a day!!!

Over the weekend, I managed to advance my smithing skill on runescape. I'm now able to smith adamant bars and make them into daggers without first pounding a dwarvian stout (a dark, thick, strong ale). If I do have a dwarvian stout I can make them into axes. I can then sell them for (guess how much!!!) 512 gold pieces!!!

Ends Too Soon

The wonderful four day weekend is drawing to a close. I would rather it not, but that's the way it goes. I really didn't do much of anything, but it was a good nothing!!! I didn't end up going down to my parent's house yesterday, they came back here and picked up my nephew. And hung around here for a LONG time!!! I had about enough of the racket and was getting ready to split to do the grocery shopping, but my wife was saying she wanted to go, too. Then everyone decided they had to eat. Blew most of yesterday with that. Finally got out to shopping, and it was very windy and a little chilly out. Winter has come to Cali!!! I read Serenity's blog, and I can't even imagine living like that.

I feel like I haven't blogged in a while, even though I did manage to get a wordy post yesterday morning. Lilly, don't you worry about saying anything coherent, just the occasional weeeeeeeee ooooooooo to let me know you're there will do fine!!! LOL!!! Seriously, I appreciate any feedback I get from anyone. I always seem to think of things that I want to mention here, but forget when I'm at the keys.

One of those things I had wanted to make mention of here is I discovered how to thwart some anti-piracy measures on a CD. I'd recently gotten a disc that, when inserted into a comp, wants to install some damned software for it to play. The disc is made by BMG, so naturally I was thinking it was one of these Sony-BMG ones with the hidden file installer wherein trojans and viruses can lurk. I went to the Sony site to find out about getting it replaced, and found it wasn't on the list, so I took a closer look. Turns out it was a different software, and all you have to do to get around it is to hold down the shift key to prevent it from auto-playing when you insert it, and you can rip all the tracks flawlessly!!! Wery cool!!!

I was able to get a chance to chat some the last couple nights. Granny was absent both nights. I wonder if she's still adjusting to her new meds??? Lilly had her friend Pearlie there all this weekend, and I think that was just about long enough for her!!! She pointed her cam over towards her bed where she was sleeping, and I snapped a pic, but you really can't see anything, so I'm not going to post it here. Lilly had a new top on that was pretty cool, if I were to post a pic of anything here related to chat it would have been that. Oh yea, she modeled Chat Suit #3 for Bob and I, but once again, I don't think that's one I'd put a pic of here. She also dragged in a new friend she's found who's located between her and Granny (THERE'S a thought to keep ya up at night!!!), and he seemed to fit right in.

I miss blogging

I miss blogging. I miss chatting. Seems like I've had very little free time to either this long weekend. With the notable exception of on Thanksgiving day itself, when I got to chat with Granny, who I taught how to take pics of people's webcams, one of my favorite pastimes!!! So, Kabila's help desk got some action, so to speak. By the way, she's got a new home at Blogger, if you hadn't noticed. Time to do a little more upgrading on my faves page!!!

Thanksgiving was pretty good. We had free range turkey at my sis's house. Not much fat on a free range turkey. We played balderdash for quite a while after that, until it was time to go. If you're not familiar, it has a bunch of cards with bizarre words on one side, and the definitions on the other side. You read the word aloud, then everyone does a secret ballot with a definition on it. They all are read aloud, along with the true definition, and then everyone votes on what they think the true meaning is. You learn a lot of words this way, but after all the different definitions, you're lucky to remember what the real meaning was!!! A few that I remember:

Flapdragon = a game of plucking flaming raisins out of flaming brandy and eating them (at the risk of being burned). Its played around Christmas time, so now you have a fun, pyromaniac activity to try out!!!

Mecock = A henpecked husband. Sounds like it, huh???

Zarp = A South African Policeman. This was one of mine, and I zerped everyone with it!!! It was funny, because everyone on the previous two rounds had been putting in African this and that's, and I read the real definition and no one was buying it!!! My nephew came up with my favorite definition for this one: Slang word used by welders to refer to an arc. Sounds just like it, huh??? Also, reminded me of zerp!!!

Mundungus: Second rate tobacco. I like the sound of that word. You smokers commit that one to memory!!!

My sister also had pumpkin cheesecake for dessert, that was greatly enjoyed by all!!!

Every night except last night this weekend I've fallen asleep uncharacteristically early, and woken up fairly early too. Unusual for me.

Yesterday I tried to participate a little in the black Friday festivities. Staples had a 200 gig hard drive for $29.99 after rebates. I went there after I woke up on my own, ended up being around 9 when I got there. They were already sold out by then. I had to exchange the rental car, too. Got the exact same kind of car again, only silver this time.

Did quite a bit of yard work yesterday, then my parents came up with my niece and nephew, children of my sometimes homeless sister. She was absent at Thanksgiving dinner, first time I remember that ever having happened. She's been on rants with my parents fairly constantly these days, calling them up COLLECT and yelling and screaming at them, making death threats and stuff. My dad wants to update their will to include a Menendez clause, not a bad idea. No telling when that will happen, so I made a voice recording of him stating that this is his intention.

We took all the kids to see the DWP's Light Festival in Griffith Park, an annual tradition for us, but my parents and niece and nephew had never been. We had my nephew spent the night last night, he's always wanted to do that. I hope it was everything he hoped for. I've got to take him back later on today. I'm hoping I can stop by and visit with my good friend Sammy a little while I'm down there. We hardly ever get to hang out any more. This morning I updated my wallpaper page, and now here I am updating my blog. Hopefully I'll be able to chat some tonight!!!

Amazing Gourd!

Since the trend of late seems to be "theatre of the absurd", figured I'd post this picture I took over the weekend. My aunt grew this wild gourd, and gave it to my mother. Why is it that gourds just put you in the mood for Thanksgiving???

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends!!!

Enough Said

I have no idea...
What do you think?

The Snowball Effect

Well, I got the flapper to fix up my toilet downstairs today anyway. Put it in, and all was good... except the water was flowing VERY slow into the tank.... nothing unusual, but I figured while I was there I'd see if I could do anything about that too. Bad idea. I went to see if I could crank the valve for it open some more, and twisted the pipe right out of the damned wall!!! Way inside the wall. Of course, I couldn't find a proper wrench to shut the water off in a hurry. I ended up with a very moist floor down there once again.

Not having the tools or inclination to attempt the repair myself, I called Nate the plumber. He was on his way to another call, but said he'd come over as soon as he was done, probably around 4. At 5 I called him again, and he was on his way. Within 30 seconds, he showed up. He busted the wall open, and everything wasn't too corroded in there, so he was able to get it fixed fairly easily. Well, easy for him!!!

After that, I came back in and turned this on and discovered that Granny had been attempting add hyperlinks on her blog. Shout outs for Kabila's help desk!!! At first it was kinda messed up. We messed with it for a while, and got her code all cleaned up. I don't know why it gave her such a hard time, but it wouldn't let her post it once it was corrected. Something about not having a properly closed hyperlink. After much messing around I finally sent her a copy of Frontpage Express to do her linkin' in that instead. She was going "what, I could have done it like that from the beginning???" I replied, "well, if you didn't HAVE Frontpage Express, no!!!"

Happy Saturday!!!

Happy Saturday!!! Once again, I had an amusing time with Lilly and Granny, as well as Pearlie and Bob and Joey last night in chat!!! Lilly was getting a lot of shit about how her webcam had a lot of glare because she's so, well, lilly white!!! She came up with a way to take some of the glare off with a bit of heavy make-up. Daps (her baby boy kitty) was just a little leery of her with that on her face. He usually lets her kiss him right on the nose, but he wouldn't let her with all that on her face!!! See the picture where he's pushing her away??? That cat has such a personality!!! While we were chatting, Lilly got a phone call from Suzanne from Cat Shit Mountain, VA. That is always entertaining!!! While Granny was taking a piss, Bob made up a sketch of her nether regions!!! I swear, we're such a bunch of crazy asses!!! Granny is on a whole bunch of new meds, so she was a little out of it, much quieter than normal. As long as it works for her, that's good. As you can tell, I was clicking away with the old print screen key!!! The only thing that was kind of a bummer was that everyone went off to bed kind of early. And I'd gotten my drink on already!!!

Its really nice weather here. Quite dry, so it dries out your lips and sinuses, but very pleasant. I don't have a lot of plans for the day, but I think I'll do a little yard work, as well as picking up a new flapper for the basement toilet. My wife wants to go out to get some meat at a restaurant today, she's doing that Atkins diet. She was doing the Sacred Heart diet with some results, but then she changed to this one. She goes on about how much she's losing, but I notice that when I get on the scale, it weighs me about 20 pounds lighter than what I weigh at the doctor's office and the freight scale at work!!! Oh well, as long as she's losing, its all good. There's a party for one of the guys at work tonight, but I don't feel much like going really. I'd rather hang out with my crazy ass 'net buds!!!

I've already done some of my normal weekend stuff. I updated my weekly Wallpaper page, did the sudoku puzzle in the paper, and am listening to Handel on the Law on the radio. And, of course, I'm making a post (mostly about nothing) on my blog!!!

On My Own Time

I got to thinking today about how my attitudes about time have changed. My work always runs two shifts, from 6 AM to 4 PM, then 4 PM to 2 AM. Four days a week, Monday thru Thursday, although it often is more than that. I've gotten into the bad habit of hitting that damned snooze bar too many times (usually after staying up too late blogging or some damned thing) and by the time I hit the road, the freeways are pretty clogged and I end up even later getting in. However, I haven't had much of any negative feedback about it, they don't seem to care so long as I get my hours in. Usually I end up with around two hours of overtime most weeks.

Just about a year ago I broke the middle finger of my left hand. Its still not back to its full strength and flexibility, but its healing. While my hand was in a splint I couldn't wear a watch. Up until that time, I'd worn a watch most every day since I was in school. Suddenly, I found I was having to look around for clocks. Of course, my phone has a clock built in, so I can usually fall back on that if I care. Thing is, I don't!!!

After years of having to be somewhere at sometime, I've largely began running on my own schedule. I have very few obligations that absolutely NEED to be at a specific time for. I eat when I'm hungry. I go to bed when I'm tired. I wake up when I'm tired of listening to the damned snooze alarm. I find this to be very liberating, and has reduced the stress that I've felt in the past where I've felt like I'm rushing all the time.

My body rhythms seem to run towards the nocturnal. I could probably get them to let me work something like noon until 10 PM, but I'm not sure I'd like that too much either.

I realize that I'm fortunate to be able to live my life like this. While I look forward to getting a better paying job in the future, I dread having to go back on a regimented schedule, as well as having to work five days a week.

There are some of my recent thoughts. Here's another picture of my baby. She's a goodurn!!!

Getting as Serious as I Get, Part 2

Know how I made mention here about how if I was going to get serious about photogging I'd have to get a tripod??? Well, I didn't do THAT, but I did remember I had a fairly versatile base I'd made up for my dad that he didn't end up using that he gave back to me. It has a spherical part about the size of a handball, on a square base. It has a knob on the side that you can loosen and rotate a shaft on the top, or rotate, or tilt up to 90 degrees. I had mounted it to a larger wooden base, with a rubber pad on the bottom. I took that and my camera into work today, because last night there was a pretty nice sunset and I'd wanted to take a pic. I snapped several on the drive in, some of which came out semi presentable. Well, when it got to be sunset time, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and therefore no dramatic sunset. I guess its the old watched pot syndrome. Later on I went out, and the near full moon has a thin wisp of a cloud looped lazily around it!!! I took a ton of pictures, messing with all the settings with it set on the roof of my car. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but you get the idea I think. The stand or whatever you call it worked quite well. Likely a conventional camera would have been able to get better results. I remember last month when the moon was at this stage... Ah, memories!!!

Made decent progress on the second tool today. All the metal I'd ordered yesterday was going to be ready first thing this morning. I told our crack shipping department yesterday, and he said no problem. He was also going to pick up a board we'd had made in a rush last Thursday, which was ready that afternoon. Big rush, and they can't get someone out there to pick it up!!! Anyway, long story short, I didn't have material to start in on the latter part of the tooling until after 4:00. I only have a little more to do on my part tomorrow, and the other guy still has ALL of his part to do!!! Better him than me!!!

Of course, the machine they're putting in to run this job still isn't quite ready to go. I'm guessing most of tomorrow to go still.

I took a few pics of my machine running, too. I like this one of the control panel!!!

Surprise!!!

Ever notice how when you go to leave a message on someone's phone your IQ seems to drop to about half the normal level??? I wonder if that's because when you're actually talking to someone they reply before you can get too stupid??? There's my random rave for the day...

I had a couple surprises today at work. Remember how I kept going on about the tool I made last week not having a machine big enough to fit it??? Well, when I got in today, there was a different machine in the place of the first one!!! It looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Of course, it was nowhere near ready to start making product on yet. A bit later, I was talking to one of the machine operators (I think the only one still there from when my old company was bought by these jokers 5 years ago) and he asked "isn't that the machine you guys used to have at the old place???" Yes, that was it!!! The owner of the old place had picked it up (probably for next to nothing, she is a very shrewd businesswoman) and it was sitting in our plant for probably 4 or 5 years, never got hooked up or anything. Only thing it got used for was when one of our lines would break down it would get parts stolen off it. I spoke briefly to Sloppy Joe AKA Messy Marvin and made mention of that to him, and he said yea, it was missing a lot of parts. Ironically, they yanked a bunch of them off the line that they took out.

The next surprise came a while later on. The plant manager came up to me while I was taking my break and tells me they want to make another tool, exactly like the one I made last week!!! I thought he was joking at first, they aren't even running the one I made!!! No, they're actually going to have another company start to form the parts too!!! It amazes me that we can actually pay someone else to run our jobs and still make money. Even more amazing is that the customer we're selling it to is doing a little processing on it, then selling it to the actual customer, and from there it goes to retail!!! A lot of fingers in that pot, tell you what.

Interestingly, I had a dream this morning where my wife had gone into business selling frozen foods, and that's pretty much how she was doing it, buying from a supplier and selling to a retailer. I was asking her how could she possibly be making much doing that, and she was showing me the figures. Guess I've been around that kind of thing long enough to see plenty of people doing just that. All you need is a phone, a warehouse and a calculator with a markup key!!!

Got another hit on Wheres George, putting my numbers at an interesting place. I have 333 bills that have been hit, and, with multiple hits on bills, a total of 369 hits. I thought that was pretty wild.

The Handy Man

Its been a busy day for Aye!!! No, not really busy, but I did get alot done.... I installed sound cards on three computers today and now the place is full of sound!!! The one I put in mine is a Creative Media Sound Blaster 512 that I picked up on Ebay for just a little more than that!!! None of them seem any different than the other, but with that number I had to have it in my computer!!! After that I went down to the basement to work on some backed up plumbing down there. It was the strangest thing, the only thing that would cause it to leak was running water in the kitchen sink. That would cause it to back up through this broken T that used to be for a sink in the bathroom down there. Its in a bitch of a spot or I would have the wall torn out there and replaced it by now. I tried the shower stall down there, and it was draining real slow too, so I figured it was blocked around there. I used this amazingly effective little tool made by GT Waters, called the drain king. You screw it onto the end of a garden hose and shove it down the drain pipe a ways. It blows up like a balloon and lodges in there, then it does a bunch of high powered pulses of water down the pipe. It opened up the shower drain in no time, but the kitchen sink still backed up the pipe and overflowed at the break. I had to go in through the clean out plug outside and shove about 8 feet of hose down it. Turned on the juice and the drain king did its thing. Problem fixed!!! Only thing is the hose and the drain king were filthy with black greasy slime when I pulled them out, I had to spend a while cleaning it off. After all that I got out my pruners and bypass shears and trimmed back growth by the street. My oldest helped cutting stuff back by the driveway. We mostly filled up both of the greenery trash cans.

Back to my computer, and I had offline messages from Granny, calling out for Kabila's Help Desk!!! Apparently Lilly, who's been house and cat sitting for her sister must have had too much fun with us all last night on her sis's comp, cuz when she went to start it up today it went into one of these continuous re-boot loops, and it'd run but the video comes on but wouldn't stay on and all kinds of stuff. It wouldn't boot in safe mode, wouldn't come on in BIOS setup modes, nothing!!! I've seen this kind of thing before, most recently with my son's comp. I also at one point saw the same problem with Granny's comp. I strongly suspect a fucked up boot sector, and of course its not booting far enough that it'll even hit the CD drive so you can attempt to re-install. My suggestion was to format a hard drive (I'm pretty sure Lilly has at least one extra viable hard drive around she could do that with, but naturally it was back at her place) and do a clean install on it. After that, put the original back in as a slave and copy off all the illegal music and movie downloads you've got on it, as well as all your porn. If it works. I give it a 68% chance of working. Kabila's Help Desk, where we're not really that much help!!! If that doesn't work, probably a new motherboard and processor are in order. Of course, at that point its probably a toss up between doing that and just springing for a new comp to replace a four year old one. Likely more money, but a lot less headache!!!
That was Granny last night!!! LMAO!!! We had a time, so we did!!! I also got to reunite with an old friend from back in the Pow Wow days!!! That was very cool. East side was up until 2, and I blogged a bit after that and played some Runescape until I was up after 2 myself!!! Granny was falling asleep on us at the end, I buzzed her and she woke up looking around, "huh??? What what???" It was a lot of fun. I discovered something pretty cool, I can connect my MP3 player to my comp speakers and use it to DJ while I've got my headphones plugged in. The headphones plug in to the USB port, and while they're plugged it it defaults all the sound through them. I did that to play a song or two, and it just kept rolling the hits!!! Oh, and poor Lilly had gone out with her friend to go to a club, and they wouldn't let her in because she was wearing tennis shoes!!! It was good that she had fun with us when she came back from that anyway. Then she has the troubles with her sis's comp and can't even play with us tonight... Hope your weekend had some other bright points that I just haven't heard, girl!!!

Get out and take your damned Sacajawea dollars witch ya

I failed to mention, I bought gas after school last night because the station by the college has it fairly consistently for about eight cents less than everyplace else. I'd bought a little a couple days before cuz I was getting low, so it was still half full and didn't take that much. When I went in for my change, the guy gave me two fives and two Sacajawea dollars. Not that I'm opposed to Sacajawea dollars, but you can't enter 'em on Where's George, one of those things I do (I've entered more than $25,000 there since I started in April 2003, and had 368 hits so far; 9.25% rate in case you wondered) Oh well, not a big deal to me, but the mere fact of getting those Sacajawea dollars reminded me of a Simpsons episode. Homer and Comic Book Guy are going into Moe's, and Homer is telling him that if he wants to make friends, Moe's is the friendliest place in the rum district. Immediately following that, they enter and Moe has a shotgun pointed at a customer.

Cue Moe: "Get out and take your damned Sacajawea dollars witch ya. I'll give you till three" (he cocks the shotgun as the guy starts to run). "One." (he pulls the trigger)

LMAO, the things I remember!!!


In other interesting developments, after my post I did two ago "What do you do? " I read this as my horoscope for the day:

Study your setbacks, as embarrassing as they may seem. Everyone has made mistakes - at least yours were made out of the goodness of your great, big, trusting, naive heart.

I just kind of tripped when I read that!!! I've yet to have a chance to beg forgiveness again on that, the time I tried it was not well received, as you may have gathered from reading that blogstrosity. Granny, it wasn't exactly that a case of 'I'm Sorry' just doesn't seem to be enough for some people so much as it wasn't well received, as though there was doubt to my sincerity. Thats why the wording of that particular part of that post. I appreciate both of ya's words of encouragement regarding that, by the way, thanks.

Oh yea, sorry about the word verification bullshit, but I've about had it with the blogspam comments some ppl put up there. I'd grant you an exemption if that were doable. Please don't let that discourage you from commenting.

I am, however, enjoying modifying words with blog!!! Blogfoolery, blogstrosity, blogspam..... could you call Haunted Beauty's blog a fuckblog??? Feel free to if you like, but I don't think so exactly, but its got some of that in there. I do like her style!!! Come on, you know me, thought I wouldn't???

Up A Foot!!!

Upon my arrival at work this morning my good friend Sammy greets me and asks "how's it hanging???" Now, what is an appropriate response to such a question??? Without missing a beat, I responded "up a foot!!!" You do the math. It had the desired effect, Sammy looked at me as if I'd lost my mind and had no idea how to respond, much less what I was even talking about!!! I went into the office right after that to make a copy, and one of the office girls says, "good morning, how are you doing???" I was THIS CLOSE to using the same response on her!!! Decided that that would be completely inappropriate!!!

I had a pretty decent today, I think I might be feeling a little better after my last posting. Therapeutic, in a way. I just hope my apologies are accepted, you know what I mean if you've read it.

I had worked 13 hours yesterday finishing off the tool I've been making all week, and it almost came out good... I had it flipped over drilling vacuum holes, and on the last one of 147 something went awry... I have no idea exactly what happened, but it broke the drill bit, drove it out the other side of the tool, and the drill chuck kept coming down until it was embedded about 1/4 inch into the tool and the motor had overloaded. Well, that's what epoxy is for I guess, but that kind of bummed me out.

Now, on to more blogfoolery!!! There's my contribution to the English language, and once again, if you've read some of the stuff out there I'm sure you know what I mean!!!

I was cleaning up the tool and drilling the rest of the vacuum holes on it today and I thought of a pretty lame joke that only a machinist type would get: What did the machinist name his daughter??? Colette!!! OK, dialing 1-800-WHY-THATS-FUNNY for all you non-machinists, on mills the part that holds the cutter is called a collet... OK, that's pretty bad.... OK, what did the machinist name his son??? Chuck!!! OK, if you didn't get that, re-read the last part of 2 paragraphs up... I told Sammy both of those, with an interval of a couple minutes in between, and it elicited a rollen of the eyes!!! Mission Accomplished!!!

Lilly, I didn't have a comment at the time you did you Australia post, but now I have a down under connection to throw out for ya!!! Steve Irwin was in town the other day I hear (after the fact, of course!!!) discussing that he will make an attempt at snagging Reggie the 'gator from Machado Lake this spring. I know its very close to where I work and I should have made it by there to rubberneck some, but so far I haven't. Well, if Steve Irwin is going to be out there, just let me know when the media circus is in town!!! Also, I had gotten to thinking I should grab my parents photo album of their Australia trip and scan some of the pics. My father is quite the photog, too.

Speaking of photogging, I took some shots tonight. It was supposed to rain all day yesterday, but it only did a little. Then, it was supposed to rain hard and heavy all day today and tomorrow (later today???) but it was actually a beautiful day most of the day. By the time I got out of class, the rain had started to fall. (There was a crew out in the parking lot running a backhoe in the rain. You know what a backhoe is??? A ho that take it in the back doe', LMAO!!! Blogfoolery) I didn't rain in any serious fashion, and by the time I got home the moon was shining through the clouds, and it was looking good!!! I broke out my cam and took several shots. Never thought I'd be saying this about my point and shoot digital camera, but I think I need to get a tripod if I'm going to keep doing this kind of thing.


Speaking of taking pictures, that reminds me of the first time I saw Niblet. After reading Lilly's recent post and Granny's comment, I remembered my first impressions and confusion, and I can say that I don't really understand much more!!! Pretty funny, though, and quite amusing!!! My initial impression of Niblet (link removed per Lilly's request) was something like this: " I've never gotten the whole story straight on 'em, but apparently he's Lilly's bastard child , and Granny has been raising him, this being the actual first time Lilly has actually seen him since his birth. Granny left him there for Lilly to raise now. Did I get that right, ladies??? Having only fragments of the whole story is SOOO confusing!!!" You're not really missing much, they weren't exactly great pictures of Niblet... had some fairly decent ones of Lilly and Granny, though.

What do you do?

What do you do... when you do something for someone with the best of intentions, from the heart, no ulterior motives... but without actually using your head and thinking things through and realizing that it really wasn't the best idea???

Apologize, beg forgiveness. Yea. Talk is cheap. Even if you mean it, it may not SOUND convincing to them, and maybe even not to yourself.

Feel remorse. Of course, if you've thought things through after the fact it probably led to your remorse. And if you've apologized, and mean the apology, it probably stemmed from your remorse.

Ponder the error of your ways. Dwell, obsess, whatever you call it. I try not to do this one so much, because it is largely a futile exercise. But usually you are powerless to completely avoid it.

Try to come up with a way to make up for it. Great idea, doesn't always work tho. Not truly effective either, because it does nothing to undo events that have transpired.

Go onward wiser, and learn from your mistake.

If, ever in the future the planets align in such a way that you are in the same situation again, use your head for a change and do the right thing this time.


OK, Y'all take a picture, this is about as serious as I ever get on here yo

My Abbreviated Weekend

Take a look at that plant!!! Isn't that wild??? Have you ever seen a plant with square leaves like that before??? Looks like something Dr. Seuss would come up with or something!!! What possible advantage could there be to having square leaves like that??? We've had the plant for maybe 4 months or so now, and it just recently sprouted the flowers on the ends of the stalks. I really like that plant cuz its so weird, and it does well with very little care. I was out doing yardwork today and decided I needed to share some pictures of it here, so you can all love my crazy square plant!!!

Work went well enough for having to work on my day off yesterday. 5 1/2 hours of overtime. The owner came up and asked me if I could work today or tomorrow, too. I politely declined. He's stressing about the job that we have no machine tooling to mount it to. I made mention of that to him. I finished off the top half of the tool I was working on. The results were completely satisfactory. Now all I have to do is flip it over and have my baby drill 216 holes in the bottom, then machine a simple vacuum manifold into it. Already have the programs written. Did I make mention that I generated the programs for the next tool while I was at school the other night, using Surfcam!!! Looks like the code came out clean and tight compared to the bullshit that Bobcad comes up with.

Got up this morning and was wanting to do a post on here, but it didn't seem to be working. Updated my Wallpaper page instead, a little tie in with Lilly's first reading post that she had a week or so ago, which if you didn't catch, you've missed. Then, while I had my HTML editor open, I messed around with re-doing my home page. I have a little HTML page of my favorites links stored on my hard drive that I've got set as my home page. Needed to update it because I've got all these blogs that I have bookmarked that I needed to add to it!!! My old home page had a kind of bright background with pale polka dots, and I changed it to a darker, lightly gridded background with some purple squiggles. Fancied up the text colors on it some, too. I'm pleased with the results.

I'm amazed at how well my youngest has done with his potty training!!! It doesn't seem like its been that long since we started with him, and he's really almost got it completely perfect!!! The part that really amazes me, though, is that he is staying dry all night now!!! We weren't even working on that with him, but he seems to have picked it up anyway. My oldest is just barely getting to that point himself. I blame genetics, I was a bed wetter until I was much older myself. Still have an accident occasionally, come on, who doesn't??? LOL, no, not really.

Meet Marvin

We have a new maintenance guy at work. His name is Joe, he's an older guy and seems at least semi-competent. Only thing is, he leaves crap all over the place, wherever he's been working, which is mostly the whole plant!!! Just about everyone has noticed this and commented on it. While I was working the other day, I was thinking about him and remembering that old commercial that had the kid 'Messy Marvin'. Later on that night Sammy came in to do a little change over on a job, and we went out for some tacos at our normal place (there's a funny story I'll have to share about the first time we went there sometime). I told him how I was thinking about that, and that Joe's new nickname could be Marvin. He was amused by the idea. The next day I was looking for Joe and I asked Sammy if he'd seen Marvin. He knew exactly what I meant. Today Sammy came up to me and tells me "We've been overlooking the obvious, we don't need to call him Marvin. 'Sloppy Joe' is perfectly fitting!!!"

Sammy went for his first flying lesson last Friday. He did quite well, and was pretty buzzed about it all the way through until at least Monday. That's pretty cool.

I was cutting my next tool on my CNC today. Using the Bobcad software I've got on my machine tends to make a somewhat fucked up tool path. Oh well, gets the job done, and I'm learning a lot more of actual editing of the code this way. The owner came by and was watching it go. I asked him what he thought, and he replied that it beat doing it manually. I agree. Then I asked if he didn't think that I was deserving of a raise since I'm now a CNC programmer, set up guy, and operator. He said "we'll see". It's been a while since I've gotten anything, so I suspect that I will be seeing something anyway. Probably less than I'd really like, but half of something is better than all of nothing. At any rate, I just am glad that I'm doing this type of work now. I'll just get some time of experience in then take my mad CNC skillz elsewhere, hopefully with a less hellish commute, if I'm not reasonably compensated. He asked if I could come in tomorrow, he's stressing a bit about a couple of jobs in the works. One of which we have none of the necessary equipment for the machines to actually produce parts off. Not my concern!!! Not especially looking forward to going in, but it should be an easy day *knock on wood* as I've got the whole job already programmed. All I have to do is feed the program in and baby sit it while it does the hard work. I'll carry my phone with me and play games and text people while I'm sitting. Not that I ever get replies to my texts, but oh well. No love for Aye. Double-Ott slugs, no love, straight thugs.


Got a different rental car again this week. There was some sort of safety recall going on with the Maliboomer, so they wanted it back. Now I'm rollin in a Kia again. A lot nicer than that first piece of tin shit they rented me at first. It's an Optima with a V-6, I think the same powerplant as the Hyundai had, but the whole car seems a bit smaller all around. It has 4 wheel discs and a few power doodads. No remote entry, no power antenna, no driving lights, no sunroof.... but those are the only things that seem to be missing. It has a great color, a deep cobalt blue. So far I like it. I've got to get some legal going on this, it's taking far too long.

No Rockstar for me tonight. Being as I have to work tomorrow, I got a different drink tonight. Its called Fuse, and it has all kinds of vitamins and minerals in it, but not all the caffeine and amphetamines that Rockstar has. Fairly tasty, I could drink it again. I still feel fairly awake, but I know I must get my ass to bed.

NOW I'm a PIMP!!!

I went to my parents house after work today to take the boys trick-or-treating. Around our house isn't good for doing that, because its a lot of steep grades and almost no sidewalks. I don't think anyone gives out candy around here. Anyway, I got there and my mom had a surprise for me, a purple pimp hat with leopard skin print band and brim edging!!! I love it!!! I wasn't going to do much dressing up, I had a glittery wig I was going to put on, but that was it. Well, with this bitchen' hat I had to do a little more. She had a wild print shirt, and of course some gold!!! I would have liked to have some proper shades to go with it, but the ones that I had there were too dark for going around at night in. Last year I had a gold tooth cap that I wore around all day, but I don't even know where it's at now. Oh well, I was just thrilled to pieces to have the hat!!!

The kids made quite a haul!!! A lot of people were giving out full sized candy bars. Someone had gummy eyeballs, and something I'd never heard of before, inside out reeses cups!!! A lot of the places went all out with the scary decorations, too.

Happy Halloween!!!

What a weekend!!! I swear, I need another one just to rest up from this one!!! Spent most of the weekend pretty much as I thought I would. Took the youngest up hiking on Friday, rebuilt my comp and my son's on Saturday, and took my mom out for her birthday today. I got some pretty good pictures on the hike, one of which I used on my wallpaper page. I didn't get a chance to do that until this evening, so my halloween themed wallpaper page only gets one actual day. I had planned to do pumpkin carving on Friday night, but that didn't happen. I don't even remember what I ended up doing, but that didn't get done then.

First thing I did on Saturday was to tear into my comp project. The hardware part went fairly quick and easy, but my old operating system didn't like the new motherboard slipped under it!!! It would do a reboot every time it got about halfway started. That's kind of OK, it had a couple things broken on it anyway. I used the hard drive I got from Granny when I had rebuilt her comp so I could pull stuff I wanted to save off my "real" hard drive afterwards. It took a while, but I got it handled. The only part that didn't work right was the onboard audio. I swear, I have more problems with that than almost anything else!!! Solved that by throwing in an old PCI sound card I'd picked up a couple weeks ago and disabling the onboard sounds. A lot of good it does having six channel audio when it can't even get one to work!!!

While the operating system was installing I did some work on my son's. Once again, it went fairly easily, except for operating system problems!!! I had a copy of Windows 2000 I'd wanted to put on there anyway, but it didn't want to install the way it was for some reason. Ended up having to re-install 98, then put 2000 over that!!! Oh yea, it was able to work all the drivers for everything on his, except for the onboard sound!!! Wish I'd been able to pick up a couple more of those PCI sound cards!!! I imagine they're not too expensive. I originally had picked that up for my youngest's computer, his sound won't get straight either!!!

Took my mom to Polly's Pies for lunch, that was some good chow!!! Got home tonight and carved our pumpkins. And that was my weekend.

I Love Thursdays!!!

One of the main perks of my job is that I do 4 ten hour days (although they're never only ten hours!!!) then get Fridays off!!! So, my Thursday is my Friday!!! Of course, by the time I've gotten through three ten-plus hour days, I'm pretty beat, and I do have school on Thursday nights. However, by the time I get home from that, and knowing I don't have to get up early the next day, I can usually go for quite a while after that, its a good feeling!!! Tonight I got myself a Rockstar energy drink before class so I wouldn't fall asleep in class. It worked rather well!!!

I'm taking my youngest up to Millard Campground tomorrow while the older is in school. He keeps wanting to go camping with me now. He's kind of young for it still, but I think we'll do an overnight in spring when the temperatures aren't getting down into the freezing 5o's overnight!!! Gonna hike up to the waterfall, I think he'll have just enough of it by the time we're done. Its been cloudy and feeling like it could rain at any time, but weather.com says its going to be clear most of the day. We'll see. Don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows revisited!!! Which reminds me, that looks like an amusing movie, maybe I'll check it out sometime. Or buy a bootleg DVD of it in a week or so. I've been wanting to take the boys to see the Wallace and Grommit movie, maybe that'll happen this weekend. Stream of consciousness brought to you by Rockstar... I could go all day and night and then some!!!

I got a new motherboard and processor the other day. AMD 64, baby!!! I'll be rebuilding my PC this weekend. Hadn't made mention here, but last weekend I had an incident with my PC, the video cut out, and I couldn't get it to come back for a while. I tried all kinds of things, swapped hard drives, stole my son's video card, finally swapped my hard drive into his box and tried that. Kind of worked, then I touched the heat sink on the CPU of mine and realized that it was burning up after being off for around 45 minutes!!! I'm thinking the fan on it is going out, it has been making some funny noises. Still haven't gotten my son's working right, I'm not sure wherein the problem there lies, but I'm fairly confident that swapping in my old motherboard and memory will fix it just fine!!! My new motherboard supports 8x AGP video, which should help my performance. I currently have an 8x video card, but the motherboard only supports 4x. Still works OK, but they say doing it like this can inhibit performance. It also uses PC3200 DDR memory, so I've picked up a 512mb module to go with it. All together, it cost $125. They had a full computer in the same ad for $269 with a DVD burner and Windows XP operating system. I had been thinking for the difference in price I should just get that, but then got to thinking it doesn't have an AGP slot, only onboard graphics, so it'd never do for all the games my son plays. That, and it only comes with 128mb of memory, its gotta be a dog!!! I can't even imagine trying to burn a DVD with only that, bet it would about choke!!!

I have dreamed of a black car that shimmers and drives

I have dreamed of a black car that shimmers and drives
Down the length of the evening to the carnival side
In a house where regret is a carousel ride
We are spinning and spinning and spinning...

That was one of the songs Counting Crows did last night, entitled St. Robinson and his Cadillac Dream. Interesting choice, and cool that they did it, that song has been stuck in my head for the past couple weeks!!! Here's the set list they did:

1 Round Here
2 Recovering the Satellites
3 Amy Hit the Atmosphere
4 Mr Jones
5 August and Everything After
6 Children in Bloom
7 Ghost Train
8 New Frontier
9 Black and Blue
10 Goodnight Elizabeth
11 St Robinson and his Cadillac Dream
12 Rain King
13 Chelsea

I've heard August and Everything After before, its something of a rarity, but I managed to download a recording of it, quite possibly from the very show I saw them perform it at when I first heard it. It was done with quite a bit of drum this time, different that what I'd heard before. Almost like a march is how it sounded.

Another point of interest is in "Rain King" they inserted portions of "Someone to Watch Over Me". They often put other songs in there, second time I saw 'em they put "Oh Susannah" in there, it was pretty amusing.

On the whole, most of the songs were changed, at least subtlety, from the album versions. A lot of the songs were, in my opinion, a little too much on the band and not enough orchestra. Not complaining, tho, I really enjoyed it!!!

I've got to go on a bit about the venue, too!!! This was my first time going to the Disney Concert Hall, excepting the trip I made down there to pick up the tickets. It's an impressive structure from the outside, and its even better inside!!! The walls and seats climb steeply, and it looks like most of the seats are good. The acoustics are excellent, as would be expected. The seats I had, I was concerned that wouldn't be that great. They are called "orchestra view" seats, meaning that they are behind the orchestra. Mine were on the very end of the fifth row. Doesn't sound too promising, does it??? Well, the conductor was positioned off to the left side of the stage and a bit back, and Adam was in the middle. He spent most of the show turned around facing the conductor to watch his cues, so he was facing right towards us!!! The crowd (I heard someone saying the place only holds 2,000 people) was a bit loud for the first couple of songs, but Adam told everyone that they just needed to chill and let the conductor be able to hear what was happening, and for the most part everyone did.

Oh yea, as I said in my previous post, I did manage to record the whole thing. Even the part at the beginning where they do an announcement that recording at this venue is prohibited!!! Still haven't figured out what to do about those pesky codecs but I have an idea of another way to deal with that problem. Its not the best recording, but its all there, and my latest version of Nero has some mixing and clean-up utilities I'm gonna try on it. Of course, it came out to be something like 87 minutes, so it can't all fit on one CD. I can probably edit a lot of the talking between songs out and get it shortened down enough to do that with.

Awesome Show!!!

Just got back from seeing the Counting Crows playing a concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra!!! This is the fifth time I've seen them live now, and it defenetly ranks in the top five!!! Really, though, it was a great show!!! I may put more detail about it here later, but its late. I recorded most all of the show on my new MP3 player and was mostly wanting to get the tracks out of there and into my comp, and hopefully onto a disc. Looks like the disc thing isnt going to happen, at least right away. Neither my Nero nor the Windows Media Player will support burning them for reasons of unrecognized codecs. Come on now, they're just WAV files, what's the problem here??? If anyone has a clue about codecs, please pass it along.

The High Cost of Ink

I don't know what the catalyst for it was, but today my wife declared that she wanted to get another tattoo. A butterfly for her other ankle, only with its wings open on this one instead of a side profile. We were already going to be out doing some shopping today, and one of the shops was going to take us right by In The Skin where both my good friend Sammy and I had gotten out nipples pierced. I suggested we stop in and check what they have and how much. Turns out it costs $125 and they could do it fairly quickly, so she went for it. I think it came out great, and I really like the colors!!!

We did go to the wax museum yesterday, it was pretty cool. Everything it the gift shops was 50% off, and we ended up spending more there than we had on admission!!! There were a lot of people there, I imagine if it was like that on a consistent basis they never would have needed to close down!!!

This needed to be shared!!!

I was watching the news this evening when I got home, and I saw a story that just needed to be shared. Apparently a new lingerie shop has opened up, and the display in the front window has a mannequin lounging on her side. It is wearing a short kimono or wrap or some damned thing, and a see-through thong below that, and is facing ass-out towards the window!!! This apparently is causing an uproar among some people who are offended by plastic mannequin ass!!! Someone even called the mayor about it, and they had him on the news saying there really wasn't anything they can do about a mannequin!!! So there you go, now you know....

Happy Thursday!!!

Well, it's Thursday anyway, don't know how happy it really is. I'm currently in class, and decided to blog some since I can't get the next part of my project to work right. Besides, I must since I complained in my last post that no one was blogging!!!

Granny, on the left hand side of your blog there's a box towards the bottom that says "who gives kudos" and how many from whom. Hate hearing that you're suffering, but good to hear that you got your musicmatch working right for a change. One of these days I'm gonna make up a page to show ya how to make up an audio CD. Watch out for impending hurricanes down there girl!!!

Lilly, sorry to hear you had a rough day. Get yourself to bed early tonight and have a better one tomorrow!!! *Sending you good thoughts...*

Work today was largely uneventful. I got a chance to run my CNC today, but all I was doing was drilling holes. Actually that was pretty cool, I made up a fixture and was able to just undo two clamps and slap in fresh plates. Did ten of 'em like that. Oh yea, I worked on a program for a really cool project I've been wanting to make. My first G-job on a CNC!!!

No major plans for the weekend. There's a half price day going on at the junkyard, but don't really need anything there. My dad is going I think, maybe I'll go just to hang with him, but I doubt it. The wax museum is closing down at the end of the month, and I haven't been there for probably 25 or more years, so I'd like to do that before it closes. The admission is reduced to $5 I hear. I've got that TV I trash picked a while back that works fine, except the RCA inputs for the DVD don't seem to be contacting right. Maybe I'll open that up and see what I can see. Guess I've got a copy of Windows 2000 to try installing on my firstborn's computer, too. Damn, this sounds like it could be a very busy weekend!!!

I sure wish I was back on my vacation, I had SUCH a great time!!! Oh well, I'll just have to look forward to the next one!!!

Where Have All The Bloggers Gone???

Gee, I leave for a few days and I don't see any new postings when I'm back!!! Come on, what have you all been doing???

I had a great extra long weekend, with a bit of rain falling excepted. Damit, it wasn't supposed to rain this weekend!!! Oh well, I didn't get too terribly wet, except a couple of evenings in there. I'd love to do it again soon!!!

More Fun With Big Balls

I was going to get to bed at a decent hour tonight, but I had to share this, it's too funny!!! We have a customer in Arkansas who produces nail products. One we did recently was a kit that had a cuticle pen, a bottle of some sort of nail conditioner, and a couple of nail fizz balls. The girl from the company calls me up today and says she needs to discuss this package, and we're going to have to make some changes. She tells me that I'm going to laugh when I hear the problem, and proceeds to tell me that their balls are getting bigger!!! I was laughing, and I told her I can see why she said that I'd laugh!!! She proceeds telling me their problem is that when they're packing them out, their balls are getting busted!!! I'm silently laffin' my ass off and taking it all in, picturing the production guy who had to come in and bring it to her attention, etc. Had to share that with you, I was very amused!!!

I Just Can't Look!!!

I worked a 13 hour day today, and on the way home I caught a little of the Steelers game on the radio. At the time, they were up 7 to 0. Good start!!! Just before I went to get in the shower I checked again, and they were down 21 to 22 with only seconds of play left!!! I couldn't watch!!! (I had to get into the shower LOL) Checked it out after I got out, and they'd gotten in a field goal to take it!!! Whoo hooo, way to go!!! Then there was the game everyone was watching, the Angels taking out the Yankees... I don't have any especial loyalty there, but they are something of a home team, and there is that rally monkey, so I was pleased by that too!!! For a guy who doesn't really follow sports, it was a good night in sports!!!

Kabila's Help Desk

Just read and replied to Granny's comments to my last post and realized I typed about as much for a reply as I normally do for a post!!! And I don't know, but kind of don't think, that when you reply to a comment it doesn't tell the commenter that there's been a reply to the comment!!! Soooo, thought I'd make a little post here and when Granny reads it, then she'll know for sure!!! How's that for chopped liver??? Oh yea, and now I have a slogan:

"Kabila's Help Desk, where we're not really much help at all!!!"

Or maybe I'll change it to:

"Kabila's Help Desk, where if we can't help you, you could be beyond help."???

I don't know, I'll put it up for suggestions!!! Love to hear your suggestions!!!

Good Day, Lazy Day

Now this is what a weekend day is supposed to be like!!! Woke up pretty late, and made a crock pot full of chicken chili!!! Sammy didn't make it up here, so that was kind of a bummer, but oh well. I got most of my stuff together for next weekend because usually I don't have any time during the week, so got that taken care of. Set my tent up in the yard and swept it out. Sprayed it down with fabreeze too, it was smelling a little ripe last time I used it. Did just enough yard work to not feel completely useless!!!

This evening was even better, got to chat with my ladies Granny and Lilly (or should I refer to Lilly as my GIRL??? LOL you had to be there) as well as Bob for quite a while, always fun. After they all went off to bed I tried my chili, it came out very good, but more soupy than the last couple times. The chicken meat came out REALLY good!!! Strangely enough, I wasn't too terribly hungry, but it still tasted like more!!! After that I updated my Wallpaper page, a decent one, but not one of my most inspired picks. At least I did something there to keep it fresh. I was tempted to use one of Steven Pinker's images, but I want to pace myself on using his stuff!!! Do just a little blogging and looking around (looked at ~DoOmEd To WaLk EaRtH AlOnE's~ page and blog for the first time in a while, Lilly, good restraint shown by saying nothing about her opinion of her father!!! LOL, not that I think you are of the same opinion or anything) I'm looking forward to more of the same tomorrow!!!

Oh yea, I heard today that my homeless sister is pregnant again... I don't even know what to say...

Don't Need A Weatherman To Know Which Way The Wind Blows

Been trippy weather the last couple weeks here. It usually happens like this towards the end of September where we get a little "Indian Summer" where it gets quite pleasant after having cooled down some. Towards the end of last week, tho, it heated up viciously, largely due to Santa Ana wind conditions (I don't remember their being a lot of those so far this year). Contributed to the many fires we've had out here. I could tell even before the weathermen said a thing about it because it messed up my sinuses. The first day I had some sneezing and a runny nose, but the next two days I woke up with terrible sinus headaches. Got better for a few days, then came back for the end of this week, too. The instructor of my class had taken an antihistamine and it had made him really sleepy. Better today though. Hope decent weather holds for a while, I'm taking a few days at the beginning of the week after this one and getting outta town!!! Gotta get my money's worth out of my wilderness pass. I'm really looking forward to it!!! Wonder if they're going to remember at my work that I've put in for vacation those days???

Lilly, thanks for sharing your "serious" blog with me!!! I think you're doing a good job with it so far, and I'll keep checking it out. I checked your ID number from that on Cool Numbers and it came out with a Universal Coolness Index of 96%, pretty good!!! Not that will come as too much of a surprise to you though, huh???

David Gray was on Letterman last night, and I recorded his performance of The One I Love. It was pretty cool, but my recording isn't the best, has a lot of static noises in the background.

I'm going to make more chili in the crock pot tomorrow. Got chicken this time for it, should be good. Sammy was talking about coming up tomorrow, that would be cool. He was talking about showing me how its done with the chili, guess we'll just see about that!!!

Must Be Sick

Yea, I must be sick. I woke up this morning at 4:10 and was done sleeping!!! This almost never happens to me, I'm usually dragging my ass into work late, and consider "morning people" to be sick in the head!!!

They're having me make that 4-up tool that was the first one I made again. They want to make the whole thing about 1/8" deeper, so I'm able to just make some mods to my programs and re-do the whole thing. I'm also cutting it in a 3/8" thick plate instead of 1/2" this time, and I finished all the cutting today. I'd taken my new mP3 player in yesterday to show it to Sammy and Rafi, and ended up listening to it while the CNC was doing the hard work. I was glad I had it with me!!! Brought it again today. Gotta get some new 'phones for it, it came with these little plastic discs about the diameter of a dime and slightly less comfortable!!! Interesting, I cut 4 cavities 10" square by 3/16" deep, plus all the detail and vacuum channeling on the back.... I took a bit more than half the metal out of it!!! It's amazingly light now!!!

Reggie the reptile in the Harbor City lake is in the news again, they just did a story that T-bone the gator wrangler from Louisiana said he's getting him TONIGHT!!! We'll see. Guess he finally got that liability insurance squared away. He had a group of Cajun musicians doing a song for him, it was pretty entertaining. There was an article in the weekly Outdoors section in that yellow rag I get, the L.A. Times about how if he wasn't caught soon, and didn't eat anyone's chilluns or beloved family pets, it would actually be good for the lake. Thin the ranks of non-native species in the lake and the overpopulation of ducks.

Lilly, don't worry too much about not being able to get your other blog working, ain't too much going on there. I keep posting there, exact mirror of the MySpace one, and it doesn't get the attention there. I get comments there, but they all seem to have links to other sites built in. Here's one of my favorites:
"I definitely don't have all the answers, but I know that as long as people keep sharing ideas like this, the truth will eventually reveal itself and maybe it can make a difference somewhere.
I think this blog rocks! Keep up the good work, I've bookmarked it and will definitely swing by again soon.
Feel free to pay a visit to my Canada immigration site. (linked, I didn't link it find it your damned self if you're that interested) It might not be your "cup of tea", but it covers Canada immigration related topics."
OK, I'll keep that in mind in my search for the truth and make a diffrence while on my life quest to immigrate to Canada, eh???