Geezers

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


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

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

Technology Meltdown

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy New Year!!!

White Christmas, Part Two

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



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

Dreaming of a White Christmas

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



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



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

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



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



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



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



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



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



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

You Want Gravy With That???

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

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

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

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

The End of the Rainbow

Almost there...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Noob's Ransom

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

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

The Food Random Post

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There shall be cheese for all!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Donut or No Donut

As you travel through life,
Sister or brother,
Whatever be your goal,
Keep your eye on the donut,
And not upon the hole!!!


Here's something that I came across, a blast from the past.

First let me preface the story with a bit of background. While my wife was making the rounds today, the Maverick started running rough. As she was picking the boys up from school, it got bad to where it wouldn't even idle. Any number of things that could be, but the two that came to mind were either a loose or broken vacuum line or an ignition system problem. She got a ride home and left the car there. After I got home from work, I went to the basement to gather my tools, as well as a spare coil and ignition module I had knocking around down there. While searching for the ignition parts, I came across a small box. I opened it and found three things: A #4 birthday candle, a clamshell with a couple of used screws in it, and this piece of paper.

When my older boy was a year or so younger that the younger one is now (or around 4, if you will) when we'd take him places and trying to get him to behave, we would bribe him with a trip to the donut shop if he'd behave. These are scans of the two sides of a paper I drew for him once when we were doing this. In case you're wondering about the specks on the donut, those are sprinkles. Used to be his first choice for type of donut to get. He called the sprinkles "Frostos".

Ah, memories!!!

My $$$ Ran Away and Joined the Circus

As I mentioned in my last post, most everyone in my extended family had other plans on the actual Thanksgiving day. I took my family out to Las Vegas for a little trip. It was pretty fun, but not so much gambling. Last time we went to Vegas was 14 years ago. This first picture is of the world's largest thermometer in Baker.



On the way we stopped in Primm, the first area right across the border into Nevada. There are a few casinos there, but the main reason I stopped was that they have a huge roller coaster. I've never even stopped there, so I finally did and we rode what is billed as one of the tallest, steepest coasters in the world. Well worth the stop!!!


There's the boy jumping over the swimming pool in Primm. It's shaped like a buffalo, of all things. The hotel and casino used to be called Buffalo Bill's, but now it's called Terrible's. Why would anyone call someplace you want people to come to terrible??? Makes no sense to me.



Cruising up The Strip. Billboard with ass on it. This is what Vegas is about!!!



New York, New York hotel and casino. It looks pretty cool, but we never made a stop there. I would have liked to, but there's only so much time.



The first evening we were there we went to the Stratosphere, another one of those never-been-there-but-always-wanted-to stops. The tallest observation tower in the United States. There used to be a roller coaster that went around the outside of the top, but it has been since removed for a couple of other rides. Just as well, it didn't look like much of a coaster, but indeed there are constraints on what you could do there. It used to have two of the tallest thrill rides in the world, but now it has three. The tallest is the Big Shot, a vertical launch and free fall tower coming from the top. Also it has Insanity the ride, which dangles you over the edge and spins you out near flat. It was already cool and breezy up there, but when they spin you at 40 MPH, it really chills you!!! I had purchased tickets for myself and the oldest to ride one ride each, but his vertigo got the best of him and he ceded his ticket to me so I got to ride both of these.



I took several pictures from up there, with varied degrees of success. Afterwards we went to the buffet at Circus Circus for Thanksgiving dinner.



The next day we went back to Circus Circus. Went to the midway games and played, we all won something. Wifey won a stuffed spider, the younger won a stuffed sting ray (which he lost and was very upset about, but his hero older brother was able to find), the older won a stuffed hamburger (PERFECT for him, and rather amusing I thought. He named it Mac), and I won (for my woman) a stuffed bee that looks freakishly like Jerry Seinfeld (of course, named Jerry).



They have a rides area under the world's largest free standing glass dome. Wild place in there, and it has the world's largest indoor roller coaster. Bought unlimited passes for both the boys, and one ticket each for the coaster for the wife and I. Nice coaster, great inversions (double loops and double corkscrews) but lacking any great drops. After a while of accompanying the boys on separate rides with a parent each, we consolidated both kids with one parent and took turns hitting the casino. This was the first time we'd actually gotten to play anything!!! High roller me, I put $20 into the progressive nickel slot and played it until it was all gone. I was up to $24 or so for a bit, and got a couple of $6 wins, but that was about it. But hey, I was playing for a cool $730!!! Also got a chance to get a drink and say "Thanks, sweetheart" to the cute chunky cocktail waitress, and had the got to think to myself that drinking, gambling and that kind of thing were what Vegas is all about!!!


Since we were still at Circus Circus, we hit their buffet again for dinner. That place got the bulk of my money spent there this time!!! Fun, though!!!

Giving Thanks

Apparently most everyone in the family is planning on doing something else for the four day weekend, so my sister organized the Thanksgiving feast for Saturday. The food was great, and it's always fun seeing the extended family.



There's Eyeball and his girl. In case you were waiting for an update on that scene, May 18. 2008. Mark it down!!!



Have you heard the saying "If you don't have what you want, be thankful for some of the things you don't have"??? One of my sister's friends (and a distant friend of mine, we were actually in a class together in high school) was there, but without her husband or kids. One of the other guests (there were 40 people invited) was asking if we were husband and wife, and she replied, "No, but he's got a hairdo just like my husband's". I had no idea, but she filled me in. He was diagnosed with cancer, just after the last time we saw them. That was at my niece's graduation party. A very short time, but he's had chemotherapy, and the prognosis is good.



Then, there's my sister's boyfriend's daughter. This is the first time I've actually seen her, but I heard of her before. I don't remember what her affliction is, but she has poor motor control skills, and can hardly speak. However, she seemed to have such a cheerful disposition!!!



And look at this kitten!!! Doesn't it have pretty markings??? I don't think it's eyes are really two different colors in real life, just the way the flash caught them.

The Westin Bonaventure

There's many a taller building and many a flashier building in downtown, but my all time favorite will always be the Westin Bonaventure.



Four cylinders surrounding a central cylinder



with cool glass elevators down in the groove where they meet.



I think the window washer saw me taking his picture!!!

And He Said To Me....

"What??? I was cold!!!"

My oldest boy's reply when I gave him the look for wearing a suit coat with his pajamas.

The Return of a November Traditon

Ladies and gentleman, here it is yet again, videos of the destruction of the jack-O-lanterns!!!



For a little explanation, check this out!!! Last year's videos here... (Scroll down)

Progress, Yet Slow

Last weekend I started the undertaking of swapping the motor in the Benz. Many things to disconnect, many things to label. One thing that has complicated things is the air conditioner lines. I'm not sure if the system has a charge or not, but its a bit expensive to recharge it if it loses a charge, so all the hoses and the pump must remain intact. One hose runs over the top front edge of the engine, the other one goes under the bottom of the front. Not convenient for trying to do this, not to mention the compressor is quite heavy. Anyway, last weekend we got most everything disconnected and ready to pull the old hulk out of there. Today we did just that, and then jockeyed the new one back in place. It went fairly well and not too difficult. Now, everything needs hooked back up. Maybe one more day, maybe a little more. I bought new filters and fluids for it today, a little more than fifty dollars worth. Progress, yet slow.

I think this is the greasiest, dirtiest engine we've ever swapped. Seems that diesel grease has a whole other element to it, for some reason.

My father was counting up all the engines we've pulled and swapped since he purchased the crane. 11, I think he came up with. Well worth the money.