Community day

Here's another "Looking Back" post I've been meaning to do. Back in April they were having a community day meetup for Pokemon GO in the local area!!!

Spark from Team Instinct was there. Don't know if he was just a cosplay superfan or if he is with Niantic (I think the latter) but he had the best costume there!!!

I had Tyranitar as my buddy at the time, so of course I got a few pictures of him there, too.

Of course, there were a lot of other costumes and Pokemon shirts and stuff there, too.

Another shot of Spark. The meet up was at Grand Park in downtown, and this shot has one of the fountains in the background that I'd shot on one of my jury duty trips.

Being in downtown was one of the harder parts, there's no place to park!!! We ended up doing the same as when I do jury duty, too, and parked at the Disney Concert Hall.

It was during Stufful day, and we did catch a lot of Stuffuls. Got two shinies, but I wasn't able to get even one 3 star. I've gotten a couple since.

More costumes, this time a Squirtle on a dog!!!

Since it was a sponsered community day you'd think they would have some sort of give aways or something. By the time we got parked and there, there wasn't.

But just before we left, someone did give us the flyer for Captain Doty!!!

8 Weeks

It's been a while since I've done any updates about work. The last time I'd mentioned anything, I was the only person doing sourcing for information for our CAD builds. That wasn't a lot different than what they do for photography for the catalog, so they added me to the photography & art direction team for doing that kind of thing, too!!! Towards the end of last year, they started discussing returning to the office. The plan was to have various teams come in for a few days each month on a rotating schedule. The only thing is, the rest of my team is located back east. I don't mind, I'll head back a few times a year!!! Instead of doing that, though, they decided to transfer me to a department that is represented locally. They trained me for a customer service position, dealing with e-mail and text contacts. Since the beginning of the year I trained in that department, and then was working doing that. April was my first rotation coming into the office for three days of the week. The second day, they called me in, and told me that they've been struggling in my old department, and asked if I could, on a temporary basis, come back and help out.

This is one of the first of my old friends that I saw when I came back. He's the one that I'd gone to see Brian Fallon with a few years back, and he wanted to get a selfie with me to send to his girlfriend, who occasionally asks after me!!!

The opinion of several of my co-workers was that I would probably be there longer than the time they had specified, the 8 weeks mentioned in the title. They took a couple of days an re antiquated me with the process and show me the changes. After that, I was able to get back into my old role fairly easy. I told my co-workers it was like getting back on the world's worst bicycle!!! All the old aches and pains came back to me, too!!! Since I wasn't working from home, I wasn't seeing the cat, and one day on break I spotted this shaggy fellow out in the quad, so I got a picture of it!!!

I don't know if I've ever made mention, but one of the break rooms features a cool curved glass block wall. It used to have a couch, but they took it out on account of the Wuhan. One day I went in and both the chairs were taken, and I asked if I was going to have to sit on the floor. One of the girls I work with said they would lay back with their legs up the wall, and it would give them a good stretch on your back and legs. That sounded good, so I tried it, and after that, almost every day I'd do that on my afternoon break!!!

Of course, I was finally getting my steps in every day, so I would get my Pokemon GO buddy out. One day, I tried getting my buddy out while reclined against the glass block wall, and this is what a mamoswine looks like from underneath!!!

And the same mamoswine down one of the asiles.

The second week I had a vacation scheduled, which I have yet to post anything about. My wife is having another surgery this coming week, so I recently asked how they were doing on getting things staffed. I could tell that things have been better than they had been at the start. I told them that since the recovery is an uncertain process, it would be great if I could return to the customer service position and go back to working from home, and they arranged to get that taken care of, so I held them to the eight weeks that they said to begin with!!! It was honestly a nice change, other than commuting during the worst gas prices ever, but I don't mind being back to working from home!!!

The Mushroom Curse

A few weeks ago the younger boy and I returned to the Renaissance Faire. Turned out that it was their 'free play' week, where all types of costumes are encouraged, including time travellers. I don't know if that was the draw, or if it's just that things are opening again and people are antsy to get out and about, but it seemed like it was more crowded than we've ever seen it!!!

As we wandered towards the back, we were hailed by a wizard looking fellow. He asked if we would like to play a free game, with only either of our dignity on the line. If we failed the challenge, we would have to cluck like a chicken, but if we prevailed, the wizard would have to cluck. He laid out a loop of chain in a circle pattern with a figure eight on the inside. He demonstrated that if you pick one end, it would snare your finger. I tried first, and failed, so I did the chicken cluck.

The boy did it next, and he also failed, and he did a better chicken than I did!!!

Well, that was fun!!! We noticed that he had a large tome on the end of his table, so the boy asked about it. Wizard unlocks it and starts leafing through it. He comes across a scrap of parchment. He asks, "Do you have a friend who likes mushrooms?" He says he does.

He hands him the parchment and tells him, "Slip this into the bag of your friend, and they will never find the mushrooms they seek!"

Roadwork

It's been a while, again. Here's a post I've been meaning to put together.

Back at the end of January, they started in on working on our street. The foreman for the project stopped by and told me what was going to happen.

They were putting in new natural gas lines for our street. They mapped out where they planned on cutting up the street, came back with a concrete saw and cut the outline, and then peeled up the concrete.

They started out great, taking care to cover the trench with steel plate, and even going so far as to weld the plates together!!! The next day, they came back and pulled up the plates, then put them back at the end of the day. They only did that two days.

Of course, they dug up our yard, too, to add in the pipe. The place where the gas line entered is about 10 feet below where the meter is, so they proposed moving the meter to the other side of the house, so it's only around 4 feet. It's not a big deal to me, so I let them go ahead and do it.

Here's where things got interesting. I believe it was early March when this happened. They had ran pipe across the front of the house to where the meter was, and had the supply pipe run to the other side of the house. On a Friday, they let us know the gas would be off for a while, while they connected everything.

They disconnected the meter, and it was late in the day and they hadn't re connected it. The pipe crossing over wasn't quite ready. I called the foreman, and he told me the gas company was going to put the meter back on where it was. They didn't. The technician said his work order was to install it to the new location, and that wasn't ready.

We got in touch, and the next morning they sent another tech out to put the meter back where it started. He then went to light the pilot light on the heater, and broke the control knob!!! Naturally, the week that followed was about the coldest weather of the year!!! It was Thursday before they got another tech out to replace it. Bonus, I've finally got a control with a thermostat connection. At that time, they also discovered that the valve at the water heater was leaking, so they had capped that line off until they could replace that valve. It made for an unpleasant week.

It was weeks after that before they came back and cemented the street back together as well as the four places they'd sawed the walkway by my house. The cement crew was slow and messy compared to the plumbing crew. One of the steel plates was sliding out of place down the street. One day while they were cementing the street across the street, they hadn't blocked off the street, and a couple of cars came down then had to back up the street, rolling through the wet cement.

And, when they wrapped up, the boy and I both went over and did a little vandalisim!!!

The boy did his character, CatNip, and I, once again, put the mark of the 512!!!

Looking Back: Completely Surrounded by Dolphins

Man, it's been a while since I've posted!!! This is from towards the end of last year.

For our anniversary weekend we stayed in a place in Laguna Hills in Orange County. The first night we were there, we went to a place that's been mentioned on The Woody Show, Sargent Pepperoini's.

You may have figured out from thier name, it's a Beatles themed pizza place. Beatles and Beatles-adjacent music, artwork, and a Beatles pinball machine, which of course I played several times.

One thing that is often mentioned on The Woody Show when discussing the place is the pin wheels. They are smallish sized little pizzas, without much sauce. Had to try them, and they are good!!!

Of course, we had to have a pizza, too. Also good, but I think I'd fill up on the pin wheels!!! After we ate, we went to a nearby theater and watched Dune, which gives you an idea about when this took place!!!

Didn't have much planned for our time, but on the second day, we went down to Dana Point Harbor and went on a whale watching boat.

It was gray and overcast, and the ocean was fairly flat.

Something they didn't tell us when we were signing up, there haven't been a lot of whale sightings this year. The reason hypothesized by the boats' marine biologist is that we have a huge backlog of freighters offshore waiting their turn to get unloaded, and if they are going to have any power onboard, they have to have the engine going.

So, all the cargo ships are making all this racket, and she thought that the whales are probably heading farther away from shore to avoid it. Makes sense.

So we didn't see whale one, but the captain spotted a pod of dolphins feeding.

And what a pod it was!!! The marine biologist estimated it was probably 700+ dolphins!!!

We were in the midst of the pod for probably close to an hour, and got to see a lot of dolphins!!!

We also saw a sun fish, and of course there were sea lions on the bouys on the way back.

Afterwards we went to a Mexican restaurant for a big lunch, which was pretty much the last we ate that day.

Headed home the next day, but I was looking for something to do on the way. Looking at the map of the shoreline, I came across a listing for "pirate tower".

Well, I'm something of a pirate myself!!! I've gotta go check it out!!! Sure enough, there's a tower right next to the cliff. Apparently it was made as a beach access stairway back in the 20's or 30's. It's closed off now, but it's a great visual!!!

It was a great little getaway!!!

Range Day

A month ago, a friend of mine asked if my son and I would like to go to the gun range with a bunch of the guys. It's been years since I've gone shooting, and my younger has never fired a gun, so I said yes.

It was on a Monday, and I've got more than a month of time off per year now, and with the stupid restrictions it's not really a great time to be using them. Thus, I have a good amount of days I'm able to take off, and in my current position it's easier to get days. Just recently they've changed procedures to where you can carry over up to a week of vacation days. I had carried over most of a week last year, and was planning on doing so again this year, so one day less doesn't bother me at all!!!

The range is up in they canyons. It had also been years since I've driven up this one, and I don't think the boy ever had been that way. On the way up, there's a dam and reservoir. Looks like it's running a little low!!!

The range is a really nice place!!! It's actually the most structured firing range I've ever been to, and the range masters take things serious, as they should.

One of the guys had a couple of AR-15's, as did another guy.

Another guy had a .308 and a Mossberg 12 gauge. At the range, shot shells aren't allowed, so it was packing slugs.

This was at the first area we went to at the range, all long guns. One of the guys had a .22 rifle, and the ladies who came with us liked that one the best!!!

They rent the target stands there. We didn't get the deposit on this one back!!!

After a while there, we headed over to another area for pistols. I don't remember what all pistols were there, but I know one was a 9mm.

And, another stand we aren't getting the deposit back on!!! I think I'll make some of my own next time.

Since it wasn't too far after Halloween, there was a pumpkin down range. It was pretty Swiss cheesed!!!

It was fairly fresh, still had firmness to the meat of it, but with all those holes, it was pretty jiggly!!!

Being as the targets are set up a ways down, it isn't always easy to tell where you're hitting, but I know that hole was my shot!!!