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???

NEW TOYS!!!

Well, one new toy anyway!!! I picked myself up a little MP3 playa today after work. It was on sale for only $49.99, and had the one function that was pretty high on my list, the ability to record. It's only 512mb, but 512 is cool with me!!! It's tiny, just a little bigger than a bic lighter, and has a bunch of cool stuff it does. If you have a .lrc file to go with your MP3 or WMA file, it'll display the lyrics to the song as it plays. You can store any type of file on it as a flash drive. You can make phone number and address lists to display on it (in case you lose all the info in your cell phone, I guess). Took me a while to figure it out, because the one forward-backward slider it has also doubles as a push button. I'm very pleased with it, now that I've got it figured out tho. Main reason I'd wanted to get a recorder of some sort is because of the Counting Crows and Hollywood Bowl Orchestra concert I've got tickets for near the end of this month. I also picked up a network card there too, because they were only 99 cents, and you can never have too many network cards. Well, actually, I guess you could. In fact, I'd only need about 2 or 3 more to have too many!!!

They had a guy come in and work on my CNC last Friday, and he replaced the inverter bleed element that had heated up the one time the power had gone out, and declared everything to be fine. I turned it on when I got a chance this morning, and the screen still came out blasted with pixels. Seems like the guy had it running, he got the table all centered up and everything. I kept messing with it, but had no luck. The other CNC operator went in and moved things around inside later and got it going. He says to just not shut it down, just turn off the video and activate the emergency stop button. Seems like the wrong way to deal with it to me, but we'll see.

Oh Yea

I forgot in my post (as if it wasn't long enough) I did my typical weekend thing and updated my Wallpaper page this morning, and I know I always say this, but you GOTTA check it out this week!!! It's an AWESOME picture!!! I found it while I was looking for some clouds to use as a background for the flying page I was making for Sammy, and found it. It was taken by Steven Pinker from Harvard's Department of psychology. He's got a bunch of pictures posted there, and tell you what, that boy has some mad photog skillz!!! I highly recommend you check the rest out, if you are a photographer or enjoy great pictures!!!

The Latest and The Greatest

It's been an eventful few days, and boy have I missed my blog!!! LOL!!! Thursday I went back to work and tried my machine, still busted. I ended up cutting the final cut with a manual mill, it came out OK (which reminds me, I took a couple pics... now I'm gonna have to post 'em so you all can see) Installed it on the machine it's going on, and it went on like it was made for it!!! LOL!!!

Anyway, I was feeling pretty good about it, the parts fit in nicely and stuff. Then I started fixing the machine up (it was missing the wheels off the trays) and cleaning them up some (the whole thing was filthy) and put the sealing jigs on. Well, surprise!!! With the wheels on it, they're too tall to fit the parts under the head!!! Actually, they'd make it under BARELY but then they'd get stuck in the clearance holes!!! So I'm looking at it, and the maintenance guy is fixing the timer (the head would go down and not go back up) and decide to make a spacer under the cylinder to boost it up a little. Trying to take it apart, I see that it's got a sleeve that threads up into the cylinder, so I start screwing it up in there to shorten it up. It doesn't work, I don't know why. The customer they'd told he could pick it up at noon. I kept saying in response, "that's interesting" LOL!!! He showed up and saw what was happening and says he'll go for lunch and come back in a couple hours. Oh yea, the day before the owner had given me a drawing that he needed modified, he wanted by afternoon the next day. My bud Rafael found me at some point in there and says the owner had been looking for me about the drawing. I told him to tell him so sorry, its gonna be Monday. About 10 minutes later the owner and the sales guy come over and starts going on (nicely) about how he really needs to get this drawing to the customer. I (grubby up to my damned elbows) tell him, OK, you take over here!!! He gets a look at the situation and sends me away to draw. About 10 minutes later the salesman comes over and asks me to go take a look at what the owner's doing, cuz he didn't think he was doing it right!!! LOL!!! I was very amused!!! Anyway, I got back to the machine a while later, and end up deciding we need to extend and boost the whole top end up, and make up these adapter plates and bolt 'em on. The customer comes back, and he's helping out, too. He was just about the nicest guy, and he needs to get it back to their plant in Mexico so they can pack out 4000 pieces for in the morning. O yea, I learned a new word in Spanish, "Chiconada", which is doing something improperly but so it works, I think it's a similar connotation as "nigger rigging". I was taking off these springs and ended up launching the wrench about five feet in the air!!! We were trying to slide the jig trays under the head at one point to put things back together and activated the cylinder and kinda smashed the side of one of my fingers, and got the middle finger of the customer bad enough to bust his fingernail. Anyway, ended up not getting out of there until after 9 at night, missed class. But I did manage to get the machine going right!!!

The next day was Sammy's birthday, and as I said here before, I took him flying with my nephew. He declared it his best birthday ever, so I guess you'd call that a success!!! I got him some memory for his comp and installed it, he's now officially a 512'er!!! I took a bunch of pics, and put them on his computer, then re-sized some of them and uploaded him to his newly opened geocities site, and tried to put together a page for him, but the MS Frontpage it comes with is nothing like the one I'm used to. I could have done better just text coding it!!! I took and made a page this morning and mailed it to him with explicit instructions on how to upload it, but so far he hasn't. So, I uploaded it to mine because you all gotta see it, you can check it here. I wrote it from his perspective, but I think it's pretty accurate. After that, we went, along with his brother, to the go-cart place we'd gone to for my birthday. But, when we were signing in the desk guy asks Sammy if he's been drinking (guess the smell tipped him off) and he answered honestly, so the guy sent us packing. We went bowling instead, three games. We played for 5 cents a pin, and I ended up taking the first game, think I got 119. That's close to my best score!!! I shall not go into detail of the next two games, but suffice to say my game went downhill. It was a really fun day!!! Sammy kept going back and looking at the pictures, he was just beside himself. He wants to get his license now!!!

Granny, you gotta check out my response to Lilly's Saturday post, I'm sure you'll be amused!!! You have such trouble with your colors!!! Don't take it so hard!!!

What a Day!!!

Indeed, what a day!!! I'm so glad to finally be home!!! I got to work today and started in on machining a head for a sealing machine. I wrote a program for it yesterday, but it was too big to fit in my CNC's meager memory. I tried to DNC (I think that stands for direct numerical control) feed it the program, but it wasn't working right. First attempt I've made to do that. Well, this morning I wrote two new programs for it, only cutting half at a time. They came out small enough to work, around 1,300 lines each, which isn't really that big of a program. By way of contrast, this very page probably takes up more kilobytes than the simple text program I'd written. Cut the first half, and it came out smashingly!!! I was pleased. Then, with the help of the other (guess you'd call him the senior) CNC programmer-operator, tried DNC'ing the second half. Didn't work. I loaded it in the memory and started cutting it, and it came out good, too. Oh yea, it still does the
INVERTER FAULT
INVERTER FAULT
INVERTER FAULT
INVERTER FAULT
INVERTER FAULT
INVERTER FAULT
INVERTER FAULT
INVERTER FAULT
INVERTER FAULT
thing if you don't shut down and re-start the machine in between. Wrote two more programs to do final clean-up cuts on both cavities with smaller cutters. Other CNC guy remembers something else on DNC'ing and we tried that, once again it doesn't work. I cut the first one normal, then try to do the second one. The tool changer goes to change to the appropriate cutter, and it sticks in the changing position!!! Keyboard and everything freezes up. I re-start it again, and now my video screen doesn't come on right, its all blasted with pixels. Shut down and pull the video cards and re-seat 'em, and it works, tool changer retracts, all seems well.
Except
It thinks that it has tool 1 in the spindle, when I can clearly see it's got tool 2 in there!!! I pop tool 2 out, and give it the command to change to tool 2, and the changer crashes the spindle into the side of tool 1 that's really still hanging in the changer!!! GRRRRRR!!! Eventually I got it straightened out, after I took a break and ate some lunch, and let everything cool down. Cut the final cut and was happy once more. Flipped the plate over to cut a little groove in the back, the final finishing touch, and once again the video won't work right!!! Messed with it for a while, then left it cooling once more and came back around an hour later. Still didn't work. Fuck it, that's enough for the day.

Left just a bit after 7, and I swear traffic was worse tonight than last night when I left at 5:30!!! Bunch of assholes out on the road, of course, too. Had 2, almost 3 cars change lanes as if I wasn't even there!!! Maybe a white car is just too invisible. I'll keep you posted.

Got another hit on Where's George when I checked my E-mail. Always cool when that happens. This one was from Nacogdoches, Texas, one year and 79 days after I'd entered it. That makes 347 total hits!!! Lucky number 347!!!

SAMMY'S BACK!!!

Actually, he never left, but you all gotta see this!!! He's been feeling flu-ish for a few days, so his mom applied this ancient Asian remedy, you may have heard of the stuff (I had), Tiger Balm. If you haven't heard of it, its similar to Vicks vapo-rub. The part I hadn't heard of is this method of application. Apparently, you take a coin (or they sell a coin-on-a-stick implement for this) and vigorously rub it into the skin, and it helps to open the pores and draw out toxins and stuff. He showed me this morning and I was amazed!!!

WOW!!! He also had some on his chest, you can check that here. Guess it worked, he said he was feeling 100% better this morning. Purely psychosomatic, I'm sure.

The car rental company called me yesterday. They wanted their Hyundai back. That was really a nice car!!! I especially enjoyed the sunroof, I had it open most of the time I was driving it!!! Now I've got a Malibu, I'll give my full report on it later, but so far it seems pretty good. The engine is snarlier, and has more torque I can tell, and it has a couple of other nice touches the Hyundai didn't. One I especially like is the radio continues playing until you exit the car, very cool!!! The timing was pretty good too, I was preparing to send a certified letter to Infinity insurance asshole adjustors' supervisor, now I've got another receipt to send along. Next stop after that will be the courthouse, I think.

Seems like there was something else I wanted to blog about, but damned if I can remember it!!! Oh well!!!

Home Again

Back already from my camping!!! It was good. Could have stayed another night, but I had to get back to my blog!!! I want to camp some more, fortunate I bought the annual wilderness pass so I'm good to go. Bonehead move, I forgot to bring flashlights and coat hangers for marshmellows!!! Fortunately my dad and nephew came up, late but not too late, and they had extra flashlights and marshmellow forks. We hiked up to the falls today, then up a fire road.

A really good weekend so far!!! And I got to come back and shower off the camping yuck feel, and catch up with my loved ones online!!!
Life is good!!!

Hey everybody!!! I gotta get going but I had something exciting happen this morning!!! My youngest took his first dump in the toilet!!!

There he goes!!! OK, see if my HTML junk works OK in here or what, I've noticed mistakes before and have yet to figure out how to edit stuff on here.

I also updated my wallpaper page this morning. Pretty cool picture from the L.A. Times, I used yellow text to go with their yellow journalisim!!! Last night at class I set Highway None, a previous selection, as my wallpaper and the teacher came to help me with printer problems and was tripping on it.

Damnit Lilly I wanna play wit you and Granny while you're all 12-packed up!!! I'd head back tomorrow night early enough to catch yalls, but sounds like you'll be at a kid's party. Oh well, I'll have fun with you later on, and I'll have some fun of my own anyhow!!!

Let the Weekend Begin!!!

Today was a pretty good day. Woke up kinda late, but still managed to get in my 40 hours this week, even leaving kinda short today to get to school. I kept busy enough at work, but not too busy, but not to where I'll be getting behind. I wrote a little simple program for a collet holder tool, not even a hundred lines, and cut it out. Basically a big hole cut all the way thru a block of aluminum, with an even larger hole stepped out halfway through, and a couple of slots cut in either side. I came out great!!! The owner is going to call a guy to come out and give my baby some love, hopefully fix the inverter problem its having, so that's good news.

Class went well tonight, except we were having a lecture to start out with tonight, and I was having trouble staying awake for that!!! Funny how I'm having no such trouble now. Sammy was going around all tired all day today, and didn't come tonight. I think he's flaking out, but hey, that's his prerogative.

taking my firstborn up camping for sure tomorrow. My dad is going to pick up my nephew and bring him up, too. Not sure if we'll just stay overnight then hike to the falls the next day and come home, or if it'll be two nights. We'll see how it goes.

No Cure For Blog Addiction

Well my ladies Lilly and Granny are getting their MySpace pages all done up nice now!!! I hadn't even realized Lilly's tiger is named "Pisspot" until later!!! Maybe if I'd noticed that before I wouldn't have poked him in the butt with my cursor so much!!! Very cool that I was able to finally check out Granny's stuff. Interesting tho, that the comment she posted for me to check it out was attached to a blog post I did back on August 31st!!! Just maybe she hasn't gotten EVERYTHING quite figured out...

I got in touch with my nephew yesterday and scheduled for us to go flying around for a while on Sammy's birthday, a week from this Friday. I gotta get him something else too tho, after how he did it up for my birthday. Ironic that the very day after I get that set up there's a Jet Blue flight that has a landing gear malfunction and has to make an emergency landing. At LAX, no less, an airport that they don't even fly out of!!! One thing I hadn't thought of, all the seats on Jet Blue have DirectTV screens on them!!! You could watch your flight going down in flames!!! Fortunately, the pilot did an excellent job sticking the landing, didn't even buckle the front gear as most commentators thought would likely happen!!! Good job!!! I like Jet Blue a lot, I think its the best airline I've ever flown on. I just wish they had more routes and flight times.

Another interesting thing in the news about the Harbor City gator Reggie, they had a guy who'd been displaced out of the swamps of Louisiana here who said he could get him. They sent him packing tho, due to his not having liability insurance. Ummmm, isn't a gator in your lake something of a liability already??? Anyway, he called the boat that the other gator wranglers from Florida had "retarded" LMAO!!! That was yesterday. Today in the paper the wranglers from Florida were reported to be heading home. Apparently they took offense to their boat being called retarded!!! No lie, that was the gist of the article!!!

I can't believe I forgot...

Yesterday was talk like a pirate day, and I didn't once use the catch-all pirate phrase "AYE!!!"

I had a hard time getting out of work tonight, some asshole had parked in front of the driveway. Took three different numbers before I finally got in touch with parking enforcement. They said they were sending someone out, but 20 minutes later they hadn't gotten there. Shortly after that asshole took off, so all's well that ended well. I wouldn't have been so pissed if I'd still been on the clock :Þ Next time that shit happens I'm breaking out the forklift!!!

I tried to see Granny's page and see if she had any new stuff on her page or blog, but it said it was undergoing maintenance. WHAAAAAA!!!

Is there such a thing as blog addiction???

Avast, Me Mateys!!!

Yarrrrr!!! I heard on a couple of the radio stations today that today is 'talk like a pirate day'!!! I thought that was so appropriate on the day after I added the "what kind of pirate am I?" quiz on my MySpace site!!! Unfortunately, there are not enough responses to find out yet. Shiver me timbers!!!

It was a stupid day at work. I finished the tool I've been working on since two Fridays ago this morning, and I'm quite pleased with the results. I was even able to plot out the die line for Sammy to cut. OK, hold on, this is where things get stupid!!! We don't have the material in stock to run it!!! We'll have it towards the end of the day, OK, no biggie. The pressure box we have isn't the right length. More of a biggie. The trim station top is too wide to cut against.... not a huge problem, but one more thing that must be done. The bottom trim station doesn't have the proper size legs. Fairly major problem. This job has been in the works ten days that I know of, I'm positive at least one more than that, and it takes until NOW to take a look at these minor details???

When I got home from work tonight there was a Sunday New York Times in my driveway. I had to wonder why anyone would get the New York Times in L.A.??? Less yellow journalism and media bias??? Not likely.

I just went outside and turned the sprinklers off, and wouldn't you know it, its RAINING!!!

My oldest's comp has gremlins. On Thursday I found out he's got some kind of boot sector failure. I put in a different hard drive (couldn't find the one he used to have in there that may or may not have had a workable operating system on it) and ghosted a clean operating system onto it. I updated it on the microsoft site, and now the damned internet explorer doesn't work right. And it spontaneously reboots, although I've gotten that problem largely reduced. Major pain in the ass, now I know why people hate microsoft!!!

I'm glad to see Granny is figuring out how to do stuff on MySpace. I see she has a video and a kitty on there now. Way to go, girl!!!

New Theme Music For ÃÝË!!!

Well, if you read my last post here and were wondering, no, I did not end up going camping today. After therapy I had to go and get a wilderness pass (I paid $30.00 for the one year pass, I intend to camp at least one other time this year) and then to Fry's Electronics cuz they had McAffe virus scan plus firewall for free after rebates, and by the time I made it home it was 6:00 and starting to get dark. We'll go next weekend, right after school gets out instead. My virus scan has been reminding me for the last 6 months or so that it's expired. Don't know why I buy it, I use the free online scanners at Trend Micro and Panda, as well as using Ad Aware and they all seem to catch and clean stuff as well as or better than McAffe's does. Guess it's because it's been pretty much free to update it ever since I got my first comp in '99.

Hey, if you looked at my profile on MySpace, I figured out how to do cool stuff with it!!! If you noticed, its sinister now!!! (Sinister being from the Latin meaning "left handed", just something I learned from watching The Simpsons. Educational as well as entertaining!!!) I found this Site that easily generates the HTML to change your shit around. All I was really looking for was WHERE to insert the tag for the background color (you know, grey is my favorite color) and I found it. Apparently all you have to do is put your HTML tags in the "about me" place on your profile edit. But, that site you can change alot of stuff up, so I did!!! Another thing I found is a site that hosts a bunch of music videos to paste into your music area. If you noticed, I've got "Mr. Brightside" in there now. Love that tune!!! My new theme song, huh??? That one and "Sugar We're Going Down" by Fallout Boy, but they didn't have a video for that. Mmmmmm, going down..... "Wishing to be the friction in your jeans" YEAH!!! Rock on, Fallout Boy!!!

I finished up cutting the tool I was making at work. It came out great, but my machine is indeed fucked up, most likely from our power outage. The owner filed a claim with the LA DWP over it, but probably they won't do anything. I was able to manually edit my program and cut the time it took to cut in half!!! I'm really getting the hang of it now!!! Anyway, the fuckup of which I spoke is the inverter that I mentioned in my last post. I have to shut down the machine (manually with a big knife switch, seems so wrong to shut down a comp, albeit a rudimentary one, like that!!!) after every spindle shut down. $6000.00 for a replacement inverter. My poor baby needs some LOVIN'!!! We'll see if our guy can handle fixing it up first. MAINTENANCE!!!

Since we didn't get to camping tonight, I made up a little camp fire in my old barbecue and we all toasted marshmallows over it. It's a really good night out, not too cold, clear, and a full moon!!! It was my youngest's first time even seeing a camp fire, and having toasted marshmallows, and he really enjoyed it.

Blackout Revisited

I didn't make mention here of the famous L.A. blackout on Monday. It didn't affect me a whole lot, or so it seemed.... The power at work was only off for less than I minute I'd guess (as opposed to by my home, where it must have been out for 15 minutes or more. My youngest boy is potty training, and he enjoyed sitting in the bathroom with a candle going, I hear) I had my CNC on, but not running when the juice cut out, and just a bit after it came back on Tom (Sammy's dad) notices there's smoke coming out of the top of it!!! I bust ass over there and cut the power, and get a look at where its coming from. On the top of the back panel there's a punched metal enclosure, and it looks like a rod like a heating element in there. Its glowing red, and there's even a little fire burning on one end. After it burns itself out I look inside the panel, and there's only two wires going up there, and the closer I look the more it looks like a heating element!!! I was leery of turning it back on, so I called tech support and asked 'em what the heating element on the top of the thing is. Turns out its some kind of thing to dissipate the charge in the power inverter that does the speed control for the motor. They said to go ahead and turn it back on, and if it doesn't work I'm gonna need a new inverter. I turn it on, and everything seemed fine. I finished writing the proggie I was working on, and ended up running it yesterday (typical stupid shit at my work, this is a priority job, yet I didn't end up getting the metal to cut it into, ready since Monday morning, until after 4:00 yesterday!!! Don't come bitching to me....) Anyway, yesterday night I ended up cutting nearly half of the tool, the first actual milling that I've done on CNC, a big thrill for me!!! I was very pleased with the results. Got in today and finished the half I was working on today, moved my fixturing around and roughed the other half. I'd been thinking of a way to clean up the program and speed things up, so I stopped at this point and modified it. Afterwards I went to run it, but I ended up getting an error message:

INVERTER ERROR
INVERTER ERROR
INVERTER ERROR
INVERTER ERROR
INVERTER ERROR
INVERTER ERROR
INVERTER ERROR
INVERTER ERROR
INVERTER ERROR
INVERTER ERROR
INVERTER ERROR
INVERTER ERROR

Damit!!! Strange that would happen after working fine for more than a day...

I went over to my parent's house after work today to get sleeping bags. I'm planning on taking my firstborn camping this weekend. The street in front of their house has been tore up for a few weeks, because there was a low spot in front of their house that was always wet, and usually green and scummy. Perfect place for west nile mosquitos!!! Anyway, they're putting in all new curb and gutters. My dad had the driveway widened some time ago from 2 cars to 3 cars, but he didn't have the ramp widened, having to go through permits. Well, he kept asking them about it, and they ended up making it 3 feet wider each way!!! I tell you, that's a good looking driveway ramp!!!

Last of the Mohegans

Got into work today, and Sammy told me that they'd fired Gab's ass. He was the last of five other employees who came to work at this dump when our company was bought out by them in 2000. He was always saying to me "we're the last of the Mohegans!!!!" He came in later, and I heard a quite different story from him, but oh well. He had been getting quite lackadaisical with his work, think it was time. I'm surprised he stayed on that long, he lives way the hell out there, I think around 60 miles or so.

I did as I'd wanted and got those tickets that I desired over the weekend. I've just been feeling ecstatic pretty much ever since!!! I'm SO looking forward to this!!!

It's late. I must play runescape for a bit and go to sleep.

Hey, where's my day off???

I ended up going into work today again. I miss my 3-day weekends when I do that, but it seemed like a pretty good day today anyhow. I went in and wrote a program for this tray tooling that I'll probably be making next week. Only thing is, the coolant in my Fadal needed cleaned out. Its been in there for something like 3 years or more, and it was pretty rancid. That's how I spent the later part of my day. The stuff was pretty nasty, it had a layer of oil on the top, then under that it had what looked like the skin that grows on old pudding, only slightly less appetizing. Gotta do just a little more clean up on Monday morning, then fill it up and I should be good to go.

Picked teams for he regular football season pool the other day. I stayed with my pick from last year, the Steelers. Pennsylvania has been good to me. I don't follow it that close, but I have a general idea who's got a decent team. They already beat the Patriots in pre season play, and I like their schedule for regular season play. If Ben Roethlisberger has a year like last year, I should do well. I hope. Is 2 years in a row asking too much???

Went to school last night, and I'm learning well. Sammy and I didn't want to carpool this time, because he didn't want to end up waiting if he finished earlier. Oh well, it makes for a little quicker trip going home, not that I mind getting home a little later. He's wondering why he's going, I don't think he can picture himself programming or running the CNC. He's doing well in class so far, but I think he's wanting to punk out. I tell him its always good to have extra stuff like that in your resume, even if you don't use it.

They caught "little Reggie", the second gator of which I spoke in my last post. Didn't need the "gator rustlers" that have been trying and failing to capture the big one, just the animal control people put out a net, and then as he worked free from that the fire department snared him with a net off their big ladder. One down, one to go!!!

The Counting Crows are doing a concert with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra at Walt Disney Concert Hall near the end of October. I'm considering checking out ticket prices, I'm sure it will be a great show. I can definitely picture a lot of their songs done to orchestral accompaniment!!! I made mention to my firstborn, and he expressed interest in going, too. Only thing, its on a Tuesday night, starting at 8:00. Why do they always do that??? I swear, every time I see them its on a week night!!!

There Goes The Neighborhood!!!

I heard news about the Harbor City gator today for the first time in a couple weeks. As I figured, the wiley gator is still at large (its a good sized lake) but the news is another one has been spotted in a river that feeds into the lake!!! It would appear that we have an infestation!!! Of course, it makes you wonder now, are they breeding in there or what??? As it's often said, must be something in the water!!!

I had not made mention here yet, but I made chili on Monday in my new birthday crock pot. First time I've used it. I opened up the box and checked it out when I first got it, because the box was pretty beat up, but I didn't take it out of the plastic wraps or styrofoam. I was just making sure the lid and pot weren't broken. Well, getting a better look at it, it's all dented up on the outside!!! One of the stamped feet is a little collapsed, pushing up the inside, and the sides are wrinkled on the back. But the stoneware still fits down inside fine, and it works fine. I tell ya, every time I make it it comes out better!!! This is the best chili I've ever made, and I said the same thing last time, too!!! This time was better!!! I think it has a lot to do with cooking it with Heineken Dark beer, it has a great flavor when you drink it, and I think that translates well into the cooking too. I think it's my new favorite beer, I just wish it didn't cost so much. Well, I guess you get what you pay for!!!

Holy Guacamole!!!

I discovered something very cool today. I was out doing some of the constantly required yardwork, and my youngest comes up to me with this dried up seed pod looking thing and asks me what it is. I tell him its a seed pod of some kind. Just a bit after that I found another one, only it was split open, and I could see the seed. Turns out to be an avocado!!! I've known that I had an avocado tree since I moved in, but I thought it needed a fertile branch grafted in so it would produce. This is the first time in the 10 years I've had this house that it's ever produced fruit!!! I picked 9 more. I'm going to have to top and shape it some now, I think. Well, maybe after this season is completely over. It had been cut down in the past, and it's grown a new tree out of the stump of the old one, so maybe it was just still getting over the trauma of having been cut down. My wife had just been saying how she wished we had an avocado tree that produced, and I was saying I think ours needs fertilized. Anyway, I see guacamole in my future!!!

Speaking of yardwork, I found the receipt for that piece of shit Toro weed eater last week. (if your not familiar, you can click here to read about it) I didn't think I had saved it. Just for kicks, I took it back to home depot to get my money back, already thinking I'd be wasting my time. After standing in line for too long I got my turn. I put it on the counter, and I swear, the bubblehead chick running the return desk looks at the 4 or 5 pieces and then at me, and asks me, "what's wrong with it???" I was nearly speechless!!! She had to call a rep from the garden area, who wouldn't OK the return, so I had to talk to a manager, who also wouldn't OK a return. It would have been OK with them if I'd exchanged it for the same one.... ummm, I don't think I'd take one of those pieces of shit if you gave it to me free!!! Of course, I might could get that and return it in a couple weeks.... I do have intentions of making a pain in the ass of myself over it, at my convince, of course. I knew I had to share all that with you when it happened!!!

Has Anyone Else Made This Connection???

All the talk and images about Hurricane Katrina keeps triggering one of those thought-association thingys with me. Does anyone else remember the one-hit wonder "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves???

The hurricane has spawned an amazing amount of people saying idiotic things along with all the misery and destruction. One of the most off the wall comments was one I heard from a pastor at one of the AME churches, where they were having a rally about the "police brutality" suffered by Tony Muhammad of the nation of islam. I wish I knew who said it so it could be properly credited here. The pastor was asking if anyone had made the connection that the hurricane had a sista's name, and it occurred 50 years after the lynching of Emmett Till in Mississippi. He pretty much said that it was the spirits of all the mothers of slain black youth come to wreak vengeance. Yea, sure, that's it!!! That's why it only caused death and destruction of whitey and his property, huh???

Another prime example was by New Orleans Mayor Ray C Nagin, who, during an otherwise very lucid speech on CNN, was talking about the looting and lawlessness. He claimed that it was being committed by "a very small majority". Point taken, but hey, Mr. Mayor, contradiction in terms!!!

OK, now that I've shared some stupidity for your entertainment, CLICK HERE TO DONATE!!!

What Part of "Crush" Don't You Understand???

I was at work until 9:30 last night getting a job ready to go. Two of the items on the run were new ones, that have an opening cut into the tops of them, for a distributor who our salesman calls "the Mister Magoo of packaging" LOL!!! Anyway, I'd told 'em from the beginning that we don't do that type of thing on this type of run, and the response I kept getting was "just run it, we'll "crush cut" the opening into it. I (and Sammy and Rafael) both keep contending its going to look like shit if you try that.
Anyway, when I finally got in to work this morning (8:20 instead of six, anyway) the first thing I hear is the plant manager saying they couldn't run the job because its crushing the parts, and it looks like shit!!! ROLLEN' MY FUCKIN' EYES!!! Actually, when he started I was telling him "let me guess, its looks like shit?" Long story short, we end up blowing more than half the day messing around with it and getting the machine going. Glad I get paid by the hour!!! Oh yea, I talked to the salesman who was the one who said to crush cut it to begin with, and he acted like he'd never heard of the project!!! UNBELIEVABLE!!! Actually, unfortunately, all too believable.

I'd just typed a big old paragraph on how my sister (middle child, myself being youngest) is now officially homeless, and the damned spellcheck just kinda ate it!!! Damned thing. Anyway, here's the short version cuz I aint typing all that again. My parents bought her a mobile home and she got evicted from the place it was on for hanging around the wrong people or some damned thing. My mom gave her $2000 to find a new place and she and her boyfriend pissed it away. My mom has been trying to help her for about as long as I can remember, and I think she's about at the end. At what point does it stop being helping and become enabling??? Its got to be hard being a parent in a situation like that. My heart goes out to the both of them.

And Home Again!!!

Back from San Diego!!! Vacations are nice, but its also nice to be back home when they're over. It was a good little weekend. The drive down there was kinda rough, but we made it there OK. After getting our stuff moved in we went to Silver Strand State Beach. It was already pretty far on in the afternoon, but it was cool. Nice beach, very fine sand and no rocks, and very flat going out into the water. The surf was very light, but there were still guys out there with their surf and boogie boards!!! The older went out pretty far several times, while the younger played in the sand with me quite a bit.

The next day we went to Sea World after breakfast, and stayed there all day!!! Me and the older went on the Atlantis water coaster, a smallish coaster, but fairly innovative. It has an elevator that the boats go up in at one point, very unexpected. They have a great penguin exhibit. Got to see the dolphin show, and get right down in the front row for the Shamu show. Not the best for viewing, but we did manage to get soaked, which was the main purpose behind sitting there. That brings me to another point I wanted to make mention of, on both the Atlantis coaster and the Shamu show, there was a group of black people, and they put on ponchos before!!! I don't get it, why would you sit in the "splash zone" and do something like that??? To me, its like taking an umbrella into the shower!!! Anyway, we stayed until 10:00 when they did the firework show. The poor younger one was so tired he would hardly stop crying the whole time we were going out into the parking lot. He had such a fun time though!!! I'm glad we got to go.

The main reason I didn't go down there on Friday and come back Monday was I had a physical therapy session scheduled that afternoon, but then I went and completely forgot about it!!! I did the same thing last Friday too!!! Guess I can't have an appointment in the afternoon and expect to make it!!!

On Saturday morning before we left, I went ahead and shaved my head down to skin. I've been wanting to do that for a while. It doesn't feel exactly like I thought it was going to. I think I've gotten that out of my system now, it took a lot of work to do, and it'll be a lot to maintain. Just had to try it, though!!! I think it would look pretty good, if my scalp were to get tanned so it matched everything else up there!!!

Back to School

Today was my first day back at school, Fullerton College. There were hardly any people in the beginning class, and a good amount in the advanced class. I wasn't sure how it was going to go for me, because I haven't been able to log in online. Primarily because I forgot my password, and every time I attempted to do a recovery it was not sent, even though they said it was. I went to admissions, and they had a bank of computers there to register on. Amazement of amazements, I finally remembered my password!!! Got signed up and turned in my application. Back in the classroom, I checked my E-mail and had the confirmation there. OK, great, now to sign up for my class. Went to log on to do that, and it can use either your student ID number (from last year) or your SSN, and use your birthdate as the password. I tried both, and neither would work. Tried using my old password, and that didn't work either. After three tries, I wouldn't let me try again. Grrrrrr..... The instructor gave us our first project, and I got the main part drawn, but I wasn't able to save it because I wasn't logged on. Oh well.

Got home and played a little RuneScape, finished off the dragon slayer quest. I've been working on it for the last three nights. Now I've only got one free play quest left... with my primary character anyway. I'm getting a membership for my firstborn, and may end up getting one for myself, too.

Saturday we're leaving for a little road trip vacation down to San Diego. I put in a request for a vacation day Monday a couple weeks ago, and haven't heard a thing about it. I hope they haven't forgotten, but I have a feeling that they probably have. Typical of my work. Anyway, I'm looking forward to it!!!

The News at 10

Well, here it is Wednesday night and I haven't blogged since Sunday... Here's some of the high points of my last few days:

Monday I managed to get two jobs programmed and ran on my Fadal CNC machine. I feel confident enough to claim it as my own now!!!

Yesterday I had an appointment with my doctor after therapy on my finger. I waited three freakin' hours for the doctor to see me!!! I think that's the last straw, I'm firing her ass. I need to get a doctor who works Fridays so I don't have to be missing work to go there. I hadn't eaten all day, so when I got out of there I went straight home and had some lunch, and it was 2:45 by the time I was done. I shined on going into work, I aint going to be there until 2 A.M. and have to come in the next day at 6, no no!!! Because of that, I did have time to watch a video I'd rented over the weekend and hadn't watched yet. "How to Kill Your Neigbor's Dog" it's called, and it was in the comedy section. I didn't find it that funny. Not enough dog killing for my tastes I suppose.

My eldest son got the results from his standardized tests in the mail the other day. Either the test sets its sights really low, or he's quite sharp. Four 100%'s, and the lowest he had was 80% on statistics, data analysis and probability.

While I was at the doctors yesterday, a guy was next door cutting overgrowth back, and he asked my wife if she wanted him to cut back some of ours too. Of course she said yes, and he did quite a bit!!! I said, "he did all that and you didn't offer him a drink or some pussy or anything???" LOL!!!

Sounds bad, butt its true...

Something I failed to mention in my previous post, its going to sound bad after going out for a "boys night out", but MY ASS IS SORE!!! LMAO!!! Those go-carts have no padding on the seat areas. Talked to Sammy today, and he said he feels like he's got an indian burn on the top of his ass crack!!! And I'm bruised on the middle of my spine, both my shoulder blades, upper arm and the inside of my knee!!! But mostly my upper ass crack.

Went down to my parent's house today, they bought my whole family lunch at this burger joint, Paul's Place. It has a large covered patio with lots of plants for a dining area, and they serve very generous portions. I had a carne asada taco salad, and could only eat about half of it. Got back to their house and skinned my boys and my own head again, probably for the last time this summer. Then we went swimming. Oh yea, I also shaved off my mustache this morning. (how you like that, Lilly??? Look a bit less satanic??? LOL) Check my new look out here!!! Actually looks alot like my nephew did last time I saw him, I think. Wonder if he still looks the same, I haven't seen him in too long.

Speed, Heavy Balls and Live Music

As promised, my good friend Sammy took me out last night for a boys night out. We started out by going to a go-cart track in Carson near the Goodyear blimp airport that I've seen forever but had never been to. It was fairly awesome, we had a lot of fun. The carts could have been more powerful, and in better repair, but it was great. There's an oval slick track, a turbo track, bumper carts, and a big track (super track, I think they called it). We got 90 minute wristbands, but they let us go on one after they'd expired. We ended up going on 7 different races, and kept it pretty even. Going into the last one we were 3 and 3, and I won the last one, but it wasn't really a clean win so I didn't want to claim it. Kept us even too!!! After that we went back to his house, and I was hearing live music being played, and it sounded pretty good. We discussed going and finding where it was coming from, but we wanted to hit a bowling alley too, and it was getting late. (The go-carting was planned, but the bowling was spontaneous, even tho we'd discussed going bowling sometime) We went and bowled 2 games, which I took him both games, which kind of surprised me. Neither of the games was real high scoring for me, but he was showing me technique, so I wasn't playing my usual game. Of course, we'd both had some to drink. I don't even remember the scores, but I was at 99 going into the 10th frame where I spared, then got 6 or 7 more. What does that make, 115 or something??? They were closing soon, but we stopped in the bar and listened to part of one karoke song. Sammy had told me about how it was all black people in there when he'd gotten beers for us and was saying I should go in and sing something. I said, "yea, but what would I sing??? I know, I'll do Lou Reed's "Take a Walk on the Wild Side"!!! You know, I'd be singing, "and the colored girls go...." LMAO!!! Got back to his place again, around 1:30 or 2 maybe, and the live music is still going on, so we decided to go check it out. It was coming from the church across the street. I said, "its gotta be Methodists, because Baptists don't swing like that!!!" I figured it was going to be a youth dance or something. There were 4 guys at a table outside and we asked if we could go in. They said sure, and we went in. Turns out it was just the 5 guys in the band playing up on the stage in a little gymnasium. We listened for a while, then Sammy was saying that the electric guitarist wasn't that tight with the rest of them, I should go up and tell them I'm an agent from North Hollywood and I have a guy with a Les Paul who they should try out, etc. I could not do it with a straight face. We went up and talked to them some, and Sammy was critiquing them and giving 'em pointers and stuff. There was no one running their board, so I went up into the loft and was tweaking the settings, Sammy was directing me by waving his arms around and such. They improved significantly. Sammy has a much better ear for such things than me. He got up there and played on the drums a little, and the electric guitar some. It was pretty amusing, we did tell them we were with Star Enterprise records. Ended up not getting home until around 3:30, which threw off my day and explains why I'm blogging at 2 in the morning!!!

Happy Belated Birthday, Madonna!!!

I had forgotten that Madonna has her birthday on the same day as mine, although she's ten years older. I heard this morning about her horse accident yesterday. First thing I thought when I heard about it: I wonder if it was a "horse accident" of the sort that Catherine the Great supposedly died from??? Ah, why do I always go to the lowest common denominator???

Happy Birthday to ME!!!

I had a pretty good birthday today... Considering I had an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon this morning and ended up being at work until 8:45 to make up my hours. What made it good, really, was that all the people who are important in my life remembered and acknowleged it, for a change!!! Not that its a huge deal to me if its forgotten, but its always nice, ya know. The plus side to having to go to the doctor this morning, I was able to make it to Fry's Electronics before it, and pick up a 6-quart crock pot they had on sale for $15.99. My 4-quart one got broken a while ago, so now its replaced. Happy Birthday to me!!!

A few interesting things in the news I've noticed the last couple days. In the park I go by about a half mile from my work, there's what they thought was a cayman in the lake. Now they're saying its a gator. They're not usually indigenous to these parts. People had been feeding it tortillas and french bread. Another story on the front page yesterday was how the abortion pill has caused five deaths. My thought when I read it: Isn't that what its susposed to do??? Irony at its finest. The third thing I saw in the paper today, not a story but a print ad. The headline was something to the effect of "if you don't watch it, your T.V. will suck" referring to cable or whatever costing you money. My thought: If you do watch it, it will likely suck anyway!!!

Back on the right foot

I had a pretty bad day yesterday. Should have known not to go into work on Friday, one of my normal days off, it started my whole weekend off on the wrong foot!!! Tried to go to the bank, and they were just barely closed when I got there. Drove to the AAA to renew my tags (already late!!!) and they were closed. Took my wife to the beauty supply to get her some hair dye, and they didn't have her color. I'd parked in the lot across from the beauty supply store, and the rent-a-cop was on my case about not parking there (even though the lot was half empty at that end) and I'm going to have to move my car. I sent my wife across the street to the store and got in the car and began circling the aisle that I'd been parked on. I think that pissed the piece of shit guard off, he starting saying into his walkie talkie to call the police, loudly, every time I was circling by, and one of his asshole co-workers came over on the other end and was watching me going around and around. That part was actually pretty enjoyable, messing with the scary rent-a-cops!!! Anyway, after a pretty much bust of a trip out I came home and started cutting the lawn. Got about 3/4 of the way through, and the mower started bogging down, then quit altogether. I took it apart, and one of the brushes was out of place, and the magnet had a little piece broken off. I fixed it up, but one of the contacts to the windings was completely gone, and, while it worked, it was shooting off large sparks and no doubt knocking the remains of the brushes to pieces. Fortunately, I was able to finish off with my weed eater.

Today I found an ad in the paper for a camera phone at a decent price. Showed it to my wife, and she elected to get it for me for my birthday in two days!!! I'm looking forward to that, but I'm going to miss the flashlight that's built into my current phone. I used that a lot more than I would have thought. Took my firstborn to my parents house, they're taking him to family camp this week. Then we went over to my good friend Sammy's place. He'd bought a DVD burner, and it wasn't working exactly right (well, actually not at all). I checked it out, and apparently it was just a couple of the pins on the main plug got bent funny. Straightened them out and it worked fine. He grilled up some steaks (HUGE steaks) and green tomato salad and onions and mushrooms. Mmmmmmmmm!!! Then we played video games for a while. A much better day today!!! Hope this trend continues the rest of the week!!!

Not Another Blog!!!

I signed up last night for MySpace. I haven't done much to it yet, but saw it had a blog spot on it, too!!! Just what I needed, another page to update!!! I was thinking I could just put the same thing on both of 'em, cuz I have neither the time or inclination to maintain two separate blogs!!! If you're checking this on MySpace, you can check my other one here at Blogspot. OK, now I'm linked :Þ

Updated my Wallpaper page this morning.There's another for me to maintain!!!

I ended up going into work yesterday, unusual for me. Thursday evening I modified my first CNC program and started in on machining some castings, and finished 'em up yesterday morning. I tried to write a program do drill a bunch of holes, but something didn't work out the way I'd planned, so I had a day of frustration. Guess that's to be expected when you're trying to learn something new. Had therapy on my hand in the afternoon, or I probably would have been there all day trying to get it right.

Still Here

Its been a long time since I've posted (for me, anyway). I wrote my first CNC program on the machine last Tuesday!!! It came out good. I modified the program today, cleaned it up some.

Last weekend I went camping with my dad, firstborn, and my nephew (the ADHD poster chile, I swear!!!) at Lake O'Neill on the Camp Pendleton Marine base. It was pretty cool. Friday we went to the theatre on the base and saw Herbie Fully Loaded. It was predictable. Lindsay Lohan was about the best thing in there, although I don't think you ever saw her face and her skateboard moving in the same frame. Saturday we went to Legoland ALL DAY!!! I always enjoy that place. They have a new dinosaur coaster and a ride called the Knight's Tournament, that basically is a robotic arm like they make cars with with a seat on the end. Its cool, you can choose your intensity. Sunday we went out on the lake and went mini golfing.

So that's what's new with me!!!

Korean Cars First Impressions Part Two

I haven't made mention here, but suck-ass Infinity Insurance of Arkansas is still dragging their asses on getting me any sort of settlement, so until last Thursday I was still driving around in that suckey Kia. Its really not such a bad car, gets great mileage and has a nice ride and supersonic good stereo. Its just ugly and gutless. Anyway, the rental company called me on Wedenesday and said they wanted it back to close out the account and do maintenance on it, which I figured would happen. I just so happened to have a doctor's appointment the next day for my back pain, which has been fairly constant since the accident. Afterwards, I went to the rental place to exchange for another car. Apparently they did not have any comparable cars, so they comp'ed me up to a Hyundai Sonota. I knew that Hyundais have really come up in quality since their first days of turning out junky little cars that didn't last, must have to offer 10 year warranties. I'll say this, I'm impressed!!! Probably helps that this is a nicely optioned car, with the V-6 and lots of power goodies. It has a sunroof, which is great for me, because I usually have the windows cranked down instead of running the A/C. This thing, for its prodigious size, has some BALLS!!! I was punching it on the way home, going "YEAH!!!" The Kia, I'd have to drop it down into 1st gear to climb up the hill to my home (approximately 1/4 of a mile on a 10% grade, I'd say) to keep it from upshifting and not having enough torque to sustain speed, having to floor it to get it to downshift, having it shift back up after its to speed, etc, etc... I went to climb it in the Hyundai, and it squeaked the front tires a bit, then climbed that sucker like a mountain goat!!! I had it up to 40, and it was pulling for more like it has a bottomless well of torque and loves nothing more than to show off!!! It's not quite up to the level of the Camaro or Falcon, but it pulls!!! Now I've been looking on eBay for Hyundais. They seem to all be in Texas, for some reason. The thing has a plush interior, too, nice seats, plastic burled wood... I feel just like a Korean pimp!!!

I never cease to be amused

My work has sent me to CNC training this week. The manufacturer of the extra machine we have at work offers free training on their equipment as long as you own it, for as many operators as you have (or would like to have) running it. Its been working out quite well for me, its only from 8 AM until 2 PM, but its Monday till Friday, so I won't get my Friday off this week. Everything that they've been teaching me is fairly simple and basic, but near impossible if you don't know what your doing, so this is great for me. My classmates include three Guardsmen from Missouri and a young black kid of only 17, among others. The kid (funny how you get to thinking of teenagers as kids at some point there) is quite vocal and has a lot of questions and comments, and he is so green!!! He can't picture life outside of Cali I don't think, and his interactions with the guys from Missouri have been most amusing. They've been to Iraq and Kuwait, so they have a lot to tell about. They keep trying to convince him that he should join the Guard, and of course he's having none of it. I wish I could remember some of the exchanges between them to relate here, but of course I can't. The Guardsmen wanted to go see the world-famous West Coast Choppers down in Long Beach, so I gave them directions on how to get there the other day. They went down there yesterday, and then on to Boyd Coddington's shop, who let them into the machine shop to check out what he has in the works. Good that they were able to get that in on their visit out here. They've got a Chrysler 300 for their rental car, which reminds me, I saw one of those on the road the other day that had been stretched into a limo. And I thought they looked massively slab-sided before!!!

Triple Strike!!!

This has been a good weekend. Last night I picked up a bootleg of Star Wars episode 3. It was good enough quality, although it was letterboxed in such a way that it cut off some heads. Went to Quizno's for lunch today (because Subways no longer has seafood and crab, they just lost my business!!! Not that I'm a huge fan, but its about the only one my firstborn eats), then swimming at my parents house for a while. I had gotten an E-mail invite from my cell phone company, Virgin Mobile, for a bowling and karoke night they were having, RSVP for the first 300 responders, and that was tonight. Momma decided she didn't want to go at the last minute, so just myself and Joey the elder boy went. I don't think there were over 150 or so people at the most. It was a really trashy little bowling alley only a couple miles from my home that I didn't even know existed. They were giving out T-shirts for strikes and spares, but after I rolled 3 strikes and one spare in my second of two games (117 points total), they were either out or ignoring me. Oh well, I don't really need any more. Two free games of bowling, some video games and dinner with my boy was good enough for me!!! Thanks for a great night, Virgin Mobile!!!

With a vengeance

It feels like summer has finally come, and with a vengeance. Very warm, and it doesn't cool off much overnight so you wake up feeling all sticky. Wery pleasant. The news keeps going on about how there's going to be thunderstorms and rain and such, but, as usual, they're full of shit. I tend to think its because they've shifted their focus from being in L.A. proper and the true southland basin to all these outlying desert areas that have been graded and developed into houses in the past dozen or so years. I think that has a lot to do with the "power crises" we keep having, too. Everyone out there running their air conditioners. You know, back when I was growing up, I don't think I even knew anyone who had an air conditioner!!! Now they go on and on about schools not even being air conditioned, how can the chillun learn anything without air conditioning??? I did OK, and I didn't have air conditioning at my school growing up!!! How did I learn anything under those deplorable conditions???

OK, there's my geezer rant for the day...

I went down to my parents house yesterday and did some paint stripping on my Falcon. I left it down there back when I broke my finger, because my dad was taking body shop class again and was going to be taking it in and doing some paint prep on it. I hadn't been driving it too much because back when I got in a wreck in it it threw off the alignment and has subsequently worn out the front tires. I didn't want to get the alignment done because I wanted to drop the front end a little (which I did, but of course broke my finger in the process) and fabricate a brace between the lower A arms and a monte carlo bar, to beef it up and hopefully help it hold alignments better. Probably improve the handling too. I know there's a trick where you can re-locate the holes for the upper A arms it improve handling (an old Shelby trick), but I don't know if I'd go that far. Anyway, I did make up a template for the cross brace I want to make, too. Time to get that thing to where I feel more comfortable taking it on the road!!! Kind of sucks paying insurance on it and not driving it.

"Laughter is the smile of the world"

I took the family to the library yesterday. As part of the summer reading program they're doing special events every Friday, and yesterday they were doing balloon hats for the kids. I pictured something totally lame, along the lines of someone making 'em up and going "here's your damned hat kid, now scram!!!" It was actually pretty cool, they had the balloon guy there, and he had movies and slide shows and stuff. He's been all over the world (except for Australia and Antartica) and, well, makes balloon hats. To be educational he discussed world, national and local geography. Who would have thought you could finance your world travels doing balloon hats??? Wonder if the government if paying him somehow for that??? Anyway, they had a segment where they asked indigenous people that he had made hats for, what is laughter??? One of them was a young zen Buddhist monk (I think it was) and his answer was "Laughter is the smile of the world". I liked that, and made a note so I could pass it on to yall!!!

I'm making chicken chili today. For the first time I actually didn't make too much stuff to fit in the crock pot!!! Usually I make it in my 4 quart pot, but have too much and end up making close to a full pot in my 2 1/2 quart one. Good thing I didn't make too much, because my wife broke my 4 quart one a few months back. I got up this morning and started prepping the stuff and putting it in. Of course, when I'm dumping it in and adding some beer I had to take a couple sips. It tasted so good I had to open another one to wash it down!!! I usually don't drink this early in the morning, but today I made an exception!!! I tried this beer back last time I was making chicken with a beer can shoved up its ass (thanks for the recipe Sammy, I'd never even heard of such a thing, but it makes for a great visual effect and a tasty chicken!!!) because you want something with a lot of flavor to cook with, and I think I have a new favorite!!! Heineken dark lager, if you haven't had it, you should try it!!!

I updated my wallpaper page this morning. I did some stupid-shit-at-work editorializing on there that I decided would do as well on here, since I already had it all typed out. If you've checked it out already you can ignore the rest of this paragraph except the last line. I made mention on my blog last week of having to work late hours. One of the projects I was working on had been a package for a DVD burner. The customer (well, not the real customer but the damned middleman who was no doubt jacking up the price and generally fucking things up) took the measurements for a cardboard insert and made it up while we were making the tool. He also had the drawing it was based on. Well, the dumb motherfucker did nothing to account for the corner radii, and couldn't be bothered to pick up a sample between the Wednesday I made it and the end of Tuesday, the day before the day he wanted production. Naturally, he gets there and sees it and declares it will not work, and he will not re-make the inserts, so I have to make mostly completely new tooling, naturally at no cost to the customer, wasting a bit more than a full day of my time. I was reminded of a sign that I'd gotten at the place I worked at before it was bought out by these no-business-sense clowns. I have it prominently displayed in my area, but after this I decided I needed more, so I made this up in Paint Shop Pro and set it as wallpaper on my work comp. Not that anyone ever pays attention, lack of planning on other peoples parts always makes for an emergency on my part, justified or not. I'm sure several of you can relate. If you're reading this after I have changed it, you can see the image here or just know it says "The lack of planning ON YOUR PART does not justify an emergency ON MY PART".

Come Forth, Creatures of the Night!!!

Its been a while since I've posted here. At least, for me it has been. This last week I've been working until pretty late. On Tuesday, I had a Dr. appointment for my broken finger (it finally seems to be healing, thanks for asking, guess the EBI bone growth stimulator works), and it ended up being almost 11 by the time I got in. While I was on my way in, my wife called saying she wanted to go to the emergency room when I got home. She had twisted her ankle over the weekend and it was bothering her alot. I told her it was going to be around 9:30 when I got home, are you sure you want to do that??? Why don't you call our doctor and see if they can get you in tomorrow??? Well, she did and they could, right at 11:00, right in the middle of my work day!!! She didn't want to drive because she was worried they'd put a cast on it and she wouldn't be able to drive home. Anyway, took her to that, it was noon before they even got her in the back, and way longer than that before they saw her. They sent her to radiology across the street, didn't even wrap it up or anything!!! I've never heard of a doctor looking at a potential sprain and not at least putting an ace bandage around it!!! Radiology took a long time, too, and it ended up being 3:30 by the time I got in, so consequently it was after 1 A.M. by the time I left. Traffic was nice, for a change!!! Naturally, the next day I wasn't up that early either, ended up getting there at 1 P.M., planned on leaving at 11 P.M., but then there was a mess on one of the tools they were trying to set up. I repaired it, but I was there until almost 2 A.M. For those of you who don't know, I normally have Fridays off, 4 10 hour days, but I ended up coming in on Friday too. Only 12:30 till 5, so not so bad.

My good buddy Sammy called me up while I was there and said he'd like to come up this weekend and grill and hang. He's an EXCELLENT chef. We picked up some salmon steaks and shrimp, hit Wal Mart for some of the weekly essentials, and had some chow at Mustards Chicago style hot dogs in Los Altos. He's from Chicago and is always going on about how great the dogs there are, and I've been telling him forever that he's gotta try Mustards. He gave them the thumbs up, even tho the ones we got were grilled instead of boiled and were a little lean on the relish. Got to my house later, went on a beer run, then decided that we were hungry. We ended up grilling up 2 of the 6 salmon steaks and several shrimp at 2 in the morning!!!

The next day I took Sammy up to In the Skin in Pasadena where I'd gotten my Piercing done some time before. He wanted to get both of his nipples pierced too, and was also considering a tattoo of the Chicago Cubs emblem. The guy who does the piercings was at a memorial service when we got there, and they told us he'd be back in a couple hours. We came back, picked up a couple more things we needed for the rice and fish and prepped a little, then we went back, but we rode the gold line up there this time. That was pretty cool. He got his piercings, but decided to wait on the tattoo. The price went up some on the piercing since I got mine done. I took some pics with his phone. Oh, and he called me today and was telling me that his mom was all pissed off at him for doing it!!! Calling him white trash and stuff (which is pretty funny, he's an Asian boy, but in reality is probably "whiter" than I am). In all, it was a very enjoyable weekend.

Now, off to bed with me so I don't have another week like the last one!!!

Sounds like a plan, dude!!!

Did not make mention here of the scare I had last week. I think it was Monday evening I was watching TV and my son and I both had our computers running. The power went off for just a split second. My son's comp came right back on, but mine wasn't doing anything, completely dead when you hit the power switch. Needless to say, this put me in a foul mood to say the least. Fortunately, I was eventually able to get it going again by yanking it out and clearing the BIOS. Anyway, I was waiting for the Sunday specials in the paper today, and I went out and bought a UPS. Only $29.99 after rebate, not bad, and well worth it if it keeps me from having to go through that again!!!

I've gotten quite a few hits on Wheres George this weekend. My favorite so far this weekend was one from Connecticut where the guy commented "it's a bit beat up... and now im going to go spend it on a blunt to smoke drugs!" Sounds like a plan, dude!!!

Likening Idi Amin to Luther Vandros

There was a news teaser on the TV tonight that made mention of the death of Luther Vandros. My wife draws in a gasp and goes "Luther Vandros died!!!" Knowing that she doesn't really know much of Vandros, I asked her to name a single one of his songs. She says no, but I've heard of him for a long time!!! I reply, "oh, like Idi Amin." She replies "what does she sing???" LMAO, thank you for that!!!

Who's Responsible for this BULLSHIT???

I woke up on time this morning for a change. I've been late getting up and subsequently to work all this week until now. Would have made it right on time today except for some freeway bullshit. It was moving right along until after the ramp to the 5, where there was a sign off to the side that the Hill Street exit is closed for a police funeral. Fine, that should effect me in no way, but still I wondered what the hell they're doing that necessitates them having that ramp closed at freakin' 5:30 in the morning!!! WTF, did he want to be buried on the Hill exit??? At 5:30 AM??? Anyway, I detected the faint aroma of bullshit at that point. A bit further and there's flares closing the left lane (Hill is one of those rare, fucked up left lane exits), taking it down to only 2 lanes. Traffic starts backing up (which usually never happens at that ungodly hour). Just a bit further and there are two CalTrans trucks, one in the left lane and one in the middle lane with a giant amber arrow pointing to the right going along at maybe 5 MPH. INCREDIBLE bullshit!!! Naturally, with only one lane, traffic is close to a standstill. After getting around them, everyone is getting to the left and somewhat accelerating, but it was already slowed to fuck through downtown. When I was almost to work I heard a traffic report saying that a 3-car pile-up had been cleared through that area.... Umm, I didn't see any pile-up there, nor any debris, and I know if there was one between the time I drove and the time I got to work it sure shit wouldn't have been cleaned up by then. TOTAL BULLSHIT!!! You know, sorry you're dead and all, but thanks for messing up the commute for hundreds, nay more likely thousands!!!

Rock and roll A to Z continues on KLOS. Yesterday they were doing the E's. With the exception of Van Halen's "Everybody Wants Some", the E's mostly sucked from what I heard. They're on to F's when I resumed listening this morning, much better songs starting with F. Elton John's "Funeral for a Friend", followed by James Gang's "Funk 49". Then on to G, The Beatles "Get Back", The Doors nasty, raw, kick-ass version of "Gloria" (a welcome change after the white-bread wonder years version by Van Morrison that preceded it!!!) Now that's more like it!!!

He Scores!!!

I went to my parents house yesterday for dinner. My oldest boy had been invited to a birthday party at the Aquarium of the Pacific, so the rest of the family ended up going down there for that. My mom had invited us all over for chow, as it's a lot closer to their house than back to ours for all of us, especially during rush hour. As I pulled up I noticed the house across the street (former home of my childhood friend) had a huge pile of stuff out on the curb. I languidly wondered if they were moving or if it was a mountain of trash. I went in and said talked to my mom for a while (my dad is working at a camp for foster kids this week), helped her e-mail some pics, tried to track down my wife who we both expected to have been there by then.... Then she made mention of the people across the street throwing out a bunch of stuff, and there's a nice dresser in good condition over there.didn'tdnt really need one, but since it was all being tossed I decided to go over and check it out. There was a newer looking Hoover vacuum, a recumbent exercise bike, a twin bed.... No dresser, someone had already glommed that. Mostly stuff I had no use for, but there was one gem in there, a 33" TV set. We asked the lady of the house if it worked, and she said yes, only it makes a low hum when the volume is all the way down that no one else even hears, but it bugs her so they'd gotten a new one (probably a nice flat screen). I yanked that right out and took it on home, yea you bet!!! Haven't hooked it up to a source yet, but I plugged it in and messed with, and I hear no hum at all. I think that was an excellent score!!!

Because I haven't done any of the bitching about the stupid stuff at work yet, thought I'd get some of that in today. Here's one for you, the time on the phone system has been off ever since I started here in 2001, and it keeps getting farther and farther. Currently its exactly half an hour slow, so its pretty easy to calculate the time when you've gotten a message, or see what time it is when you use the clock on the phone, but how hard could it be to correct it??? OK, that's only marginally stupid, but there's more, better stuff.

My partner at work told me yesterday that he was checking out my WebPage over the weekend. A friend of his was looking at it and told him he should check it out. Apparently he's got it bookmarked and takes a look occasionally, likes the eclecticness of it, so at long last I have some validation that someone out there actually looks at stuff I post!!! Thanks for that!!! Note to any of you reading this, go ahead and leave some kind of comment or feedback for my further validation, LOL!!! So far my only commenters have been Lilly, One Eyeball, and Anonymous (who wrote "i cant make a comment". Come on Anonymous, you can if you believe you can!!! Thanks for that Anonymous, you are special from the others!!!)

KLOS, one of the stations I listen to, is doing rock and roll A to Z. I enjoy when they do that, you hear a lot of stuff you normally don't. I keep thinking I should put some bands on my profile, but I don't know if its unlimited space on there, I like a lot!!! Today they played Deep Purple’s “Burn”, Blue Oyster Cult’s “Burning for You”, and Bad Company’s “Burning Sky” all in a row, naturally. Also got to hear Springsteen’s “Cadillac Ranch” and The Kink’s “Celluloid Heroes”. Love it!!!

Politically Incorrect Little Xenophobe

Yesterday there was picture in the paper that caught my eye. It was in the sports section, which I usually don’t pay much attention to. One of the guys from the Pistons was in the background, and the cameraman caught him with a most interesting expression on his face. I was so impressed that I saved that section and scanned the picture for use on Yahoo messenger, etc. My younger son saw the picture and first said he was scared of it, then began calling the guy a monkey!!! You try and raise ‘em right and everything, and look what happens!!! He’s only three, so perhaps there’s still hope for him. I have no idea where the little monkey boy gets it from.

There was another thing in the paper today, an official got killed by a shot put. Sorry to hear it, but hey, look out for those shot puts!!!

Happy First Day of Summer!!!

Here it is, the first day of summer!!! I celebrated by running the A/C in that little Kia I'm renting (cuts the power by about 1/4), washing the Maverick, and grilling some sausages for dinner!!! Way to start summer, huh???

I got a lot of interesting E-mails today. I enjoyed one called A Letter of Apology from Lieutenant General Chuck Pitman, US Marine Corps, (Retired). I don't know if was legit, the jury is still out on it at Snopes urban legend reference page, but I liked the sentiment. Another one worth a look is a link to some idiot in this video, for once the anchors really giving a guy a way to go. It reminded me of back in high school I had a really good teacher in my Civics class, Mr. Ciriello, who used to call his underdeveloped leftist students "fuzzy liberals". I honestly didn't understand that phrase until more recently in my life. The guy in this video is a textbook case!!!

I could blog more, get onto some of the stupid shit that goes on at work as I said I may in my very first posting, but never have, but the hour grows late. I promise more to come.

Submitted for your approval

Well, as promised, here's links to both The Crash of the Studebaker and The Crash of the Scirocco!!! I did both these this morning as well as updating the wallpaper page with a tribute to Zeppelin. Those were my major accomplishments this morning, most of the rest of it I spent playing runescape. I just enjoy that game too much!!! I've met a lot of dads who got started the same way I did, their kids playing it and getting them hooked on it.

Talking of things coming in threes...

Yesterday we had yet another earthquake. I was at work when it happened, not everyone felt it but I did. A bit disquieting when they start because your wondering if its going to increase. I went to the USGS site and put my comments on the "did you feel it?" page. That makes 3 this week, the middle one being up north and offshore, so I didn't feel that one, but it did trigger a tsunami warning.

Hey 1Eyeball, (love that name, BTW, and I'm glad there's a few people who are reading this) saw your comment. No, dad's car isn't a total loss, it actually looks to me like it fared some better than the Scirocco in some ways. Namely, it doesn't seem to have any frame bending like the Scirocco does, and there seems to be a larger supply of replacement parts available for it. Also, I think it'll have a value higher than mine. It is pretty bad, but I think there's no question it will be rebuilt. There's even a chance it could have fiberglass fenders and hood, lightening up the front some and making the body mods... Different, I don't know if they'd be easier, but they'd be a different process. I came up with the idea that what I'd like to do when I get settled with the insurance, is I'd like to find a '74 with clean quarter panels and swap the doors and fenders and hatch and anything else needed (i.e. fuel injected motor) into it. The primary motivation is to get something I don't have to get smog checked every two years. Who knows, I may even locate a 16-valve motor in the future, or one of those sixes or who knows what, but that'd be in the distant future.

I took my VCR back again today. Don't know if I've made mention here, but don't buy Sony VCR's either. I bought this one at the end of January, and it lasted maybe a month, got it repaired (2 year service plan, I aint no fool, NOBODY makes decent VCR's anymore, with the possible exception of maybe Toshiba or Magnavox), it broke again a few weeks later, got it repaired again, it broke again a few weeks later.... Got the manager to authorize an exchange that time. A week and a day later, that one breaks!!! Apparently, Sony cannot make VCR's anymore. This time I got them to OK exchanging it for a different brand. The only other brands there were Panasonic (which I have had bad luck with in the past, 2 VCR's in 2 months) and Magnavox. So, I'll let you know how it does. It was $20 less than the piece of shit Sony, so I ended up getting a bit of store credit :)

I went down to the Red Cross today and donated blood today. I get such a good feeling from eating their cookies and drinking their juice :Þ

The Canning is Untimey

One week and one day after my car gets wrecked, my dad gets in an accident. He was driving along and a car pulled out in front of him. In his full custom ’62 Studebaker Golden Hawk, which he just finished re-doing the hood and door on. Bummer. Oh, and the lady who pulled out in front of him was French, so there’s another thing he hates about those stinkin’ French. He was OK, but he's got some back pain now. I found out about it because he left me a message asking if I was going to make a web page of the wreck like I did for the Camaro. Now that I've got mine and his, I just may do that. I'll link it here if I do.
Ironically, when I got my first traffic ticket, my dad got a ticket within 24 hours.

They say these things come in threes, so….
I aint superstitious tho.

SO, did everybody have a good Flag Day??? I always wonder why government and banks aren't shut down for Flag Day, they shut down for just about everything else. Something to ponder!!!

Just a reminder, this is earthquake country

A report from right in the heart of it. No damage. No real sign at all to speak of, actually. I think I was the only one in my household who even felt it. It felt like there was a little shift in the house, maybe just a little creak.... I stood still to see if I was feeling what I though I was feeling, and was trying to see if it looked like anything was moving and listening for any other creaks, but there was too much racket and motion going on with other people moving around in the rest of the house. I forgot about it and went on about my morning. Didn't even think of it until I talked with my mother later in the day, and she made mention of it. Guess they felt it a little more down in Long Beach. I'm not sure if it has to do with the composition of the earth here or what, but usually you cant even feel when the earth moves up on my little hill here. Hope it remains that way forever!!!

Went down to Long Beach today, my parents took us all out to Red Lobster to celebrate my wife's birthday. It was the first time either of us had been there, and we were not disappointed. I've got until Tuesday to get anything for her. She had wanted a new comp chair, but then she changed her mind and said she wants to get a perm instead. Either one would have been fine with me, but I wont have to go out and shop this way, so that's cool. Did end up stopping in at Big 5 sporting goods to buy myself some new shoes (the old ones were getting a hole in the side) and ended up getting a pair of the same kind for her, so she can take that, too.

We visited her grandmother afterwards. First time since she's moved into this assisted living community. She's got the alzheimers, and although she's usually pretty lucid, a lot of times she'll answer questions with "I don't know". She seemed to like her apartment there just fine, and was glad to see us. If you've ever been in a suite in a real nice hotel and have thought to yourself, "I could live here", you've got a pretty good idea what her place is like, only slightly larger quarters. Wonder if they have a minimum age requirement to get a place there???

Ugly-ass gutless worthless econoboxes

Making some progress... I think. I went to the doctor's on Thursday to get my back pain checked out. Had to leave work early to do that. Got the Scirocco checked out at a body shop for my insurance (which I really don't understand, they're not paying a thing on it, but whatever). When I was getting ready to take it to the body shop, came out and found it had a flat tire. Just one more thing. I suspect the drywall screw sticking about an inch out of the tire. Finally got to talk to the adjustor from the person at faults insurance, on Thursday too. Got to tell them that my car is unsafe to drive due to the fuel leak and ask them if they have a rental company that they work with. They referred me to Hertz. Got over there yesterday and got a rental going. Naturally, they want to put me in a comparable car, which they think is any old compact econobox. Almost got stuck in an ugly-ass Pontiac Vibe, but they changed it to a Kia instead. What a gutless wonder!!! The last half of the throttle travel seems to be worthless, it doesn't go any faster when you get into that area. I wonder if it would do better with a manual transmission, but I kind of doubt it. It has power steering and power brakes. I'm thinking maybe they should have put that power in the motor instead. I think its just too much fat for that little sewing machine motor to haul around. On the plus side, I haven't seen the gas gauge move. My wife's quote: "I never thought we'd have to drive a Kia". At least the seats are comfortable and the stereo sounds good. I wonder if the Vibe would have had more power.

I wonder how long until the adjustor looks at it and they make me a ridiculously low offer for the value. Then we'll be going around and around about the value.

I'll probably update my wallpaper page and do yardwork today. Can't think of anything else to write and rave about now, so check back later.

Taking a minus and turning it into a plus

What a way to start the week!!! I was driving in this morning, stopped at a light in a long row of cars at a light, when all of a sudden I hear brakes screeching.... BAM!!! I ended up the 3rd car in a 4-car sandwich!!! Fortunately, unlike in the case of the Camaro, everyone involved had insurance. The car behind me got the worst (but the front of the SUV that did the hitting didn't look that good, either!!!) but I didn't fare much better. I think the insurance company is likely going to total my poor car, and try to screw me on the value. It bent the back bumper and taillight panel, wrinkled the passenger side quarter panel, shoved my front bumper under the car in front of me, and the bumper guards got the front edge of my hood, kinking it up just a little in the middle. It still drives OK, but I had an intermittent gas leak afterwards. I jacked it up to see if I could see where it was coming from, and it was around the rubber junction between the fill pipe and the tank. I loosened up and re-tightened them, and it wasn't leaking anymore after that. Later in the day, tho, I came back out and it was dripping again. I took it to the place on the corner (Ping's Automotive, that just makes you want to take your car there, huh??? Believe me now, NO!!!) because I really didn't have the time to deal with it and I didn't want it to burn up or anything. Well, they had it for three hours and all they did was call dealers to see if they had the part!!! Um, listen IDIOT, its a piece of HOSE!!! Really doesn't need to be OEM, just something that fits!!! Unless, of course, it turns out to be the tank itself, but it seems to me that a piece of 27 year old rubber is going to be the first thing to break.

Anyway, I'm kinda bummed about that. Of course, I was driving the gas miser Scirocco, the best looking of my three cars, paint and body wise. I would have felt worse if I'd been driving my Falcon, and I would have been some upset if it had happened to my Maverick, but I don't think it would have done near the damage, either. The front car was a big olds, with good old chrome bumpers, and it sustained no damage to speak of.

So, now I am gonna have some cash coming in *trying to look on the positive* I'm still undecided on what to do. I have been thinking for quite a while of trying to find a VW diesel, probably one of those caddy pickups, and starting to brew my own biodiesel, as well as fitting an electric motor to the rear axle and a bank of deep cycle batteries to move it around at low speeds (crazy ideas I come up with while I'm stuck working that clutch in downtown traffic!!!) I'm always hearing stories of the VW diesels getting 40 and 50 mpg, and with the price of gas being so unstable.... I heard Drudge saying that oil prices jumped up to over $55 a barrel just because it was the first day of hurricane season!!! Who knows what I'll end up doing. Lord knows I don't really need another project.

When I finally made it home and checked my mail, I've gotten 3 hits on some of my bills on Wheres George, that's the most I've gotten in a long time in one day. One of the bills has been hit 5 times now, I think that's the best I have so far. The guy who hit that one wrote this for his comment: "i got this bill as a tip from souplantation restraunt. northridge, ca. i will be using this bill to buy food at el polloco to buy a taco. im going to actually miss this dollar. its special from the others". I have to agree. Thanks for that, pal, you made my day!!! That and the blog's spellcheck trying to change 'kinking' to 'kinkiness'. LOL!!!

I took a minus and now the hard times are behind us.
Turned into a plus, now they stuck livin blinded.
Hennessey got me feelin bad. Time to stop drinkin.
Rollin in my drop top Jag. What's that cops thinkin?
Sittin in my car watch the stars and smoke.
I came a long way but still I got so far to go.

I reject your reality and substitute my own!!!

And yet another weekend comes. Time to do some updating of my many pages!!! I finally completed a page I started a few months back, describing how I came up with the name Aye and the subsequent emergence of Kabila, as well as updating my wallpaper page.

Went to my good friend Sammy's house last night for a barbecue. He just bought a new gas grille, which he named Gwen. Gwen is an acronym for "Good When Eatin's Necessary", he decided later on after the naming. We were there last weekend, but we used a coal grille that time. My wife got very drunk and obnoxious, as usual, but we still had a good time.

Today I woke up around 7:30, pretty early for me. I did that last weekend too, but even earlier. I rather enjoy when I do that, I get to update my shit and listen to Handel on the Law, a very amusing and educational legal show that comes on Saturday mornings. You can tune in and listen on the site, I think.

The day is slipping away, as will happen. On my list today is to hit the 99 cent store, and do a lot of yardwork. Maybe some car washing will come into play, too, they could use it, but I don't know if there will be enough hours to do that. There was a fire over on the other side of the hill yesterday, and that made me think of the overgrowth all about the house and grounds. I don't know how big it was, but I could smell the smoke, and hear the chopper buzzing around.

A little note to my favorite commenter, Lilly: Thanks for reading my ravings and leaving your feedback!!! Enjoy What You Have. Hope For What You Want. In Bed. How am I supposed to take that??? Always do enjoy what I have when I'm doing the enjoying. Am I supposed to hope for more length, or more in some kind of kinky variety??? I feel that I've got all the length I need that's what your talking about. Feel my length!!! LOL!!! I'm intrigued by what you mean by that, girl, although I like the sentiment!!! You need to type out some more on your blog, girl, I keep checking to see if there's any new. Hope your getting what your hoping for or something!!!

Enjoy What You Have. Hope For What You Want.

Enjoy What You Have. Hope For What You Want. That little nugget of fortune cookie wisdom was brought my way by... *drumroll* a fortune cookie. I went to the Dodgers-vs-Cubs game tonight with my oldest son and a bunch of friends and co-workers. For his dinner there my son wanted that traditional ballpark fare, Chinese food!!! I had a Dodger Dog, and of course, peanuts (alas, I had no cracker jacks). Got two fortune cookies, and that was my fortune. My son got 'The Next Full Moon Will Bring You Luck'. I noticed it did not specify whether it would be good or bad luck, so I think I prefer 'Enjoy What You Have. Hope For What You Want.' Always a good philosophy, and I think I follow it without any conscious effort.

The game was enjoyable, although suffice it to say it was a shame. There were several Cubs fans in attendance (that's actually the reason we were all at the game, my good friend Sammy is from Chicago and LOVES his Cubs. I'm glad he got to see 'em whup up on the Dodgers). Thing I wonder is, if Chicago is so great, what are all these Chicogans doing in Los Angeles??? Must be easier to love it from afar??? Dunno. I'd love to visit there sometime, I hear its a culinary plethora. I've only been through O'Hare, running from one end to the other to make a transfer. Sammy and I have discussed taking a little vacation out there to see the sights and taste the tastes. I've had Mustard's Chicago style hot dogs (vienna beef) and a deep dish pizza from a place called Chicago Pizza Works, and they've both been very tasty, but also both in SoCal, so I'd like to try 'em on native soil. Now there's something to hope for!!!