All's well with my buddy whose wife donated a kidney to his son. In fact they did the operation on Friday and she was home on Saturday! His son is doing fine as well, the kidney readings are all back within normal parameters and he and his wife (my hero!) will be down to our sunny little piece of paradise for a few months rest, recuperation, and sucking pints together.
Look forward to see you guys, and remind me to tell you about the blonde and blowwin' in my ear,.....or not!
-30-
Monday, January 21, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Oh Lucy,....where are you?
Was it something I said? My paranoia made me say that!!! So wherer are you?
Mr. Guinness
Mr. Guinness
Thursday, January 17, 2008
OK, step up or "whatever"!
Some of you read my blog and never leave a comment, and that's ok. But I'd like to ask you all to take and "kick it up a notch", and check out my dear friend "Lucy". She's halfway around the world, one of the most "up front and honest" people I've ever met, and she is REAL!
In my "sidebar" you wil see a blog I follow called "the Antilogy", click on it and I will guarantee you you will be pleased. "Lucy", (not her real name), is excellant at expressing herself, "dead on" honest, and a "real" human being.
Check her out and follow her blog,.....I do!
In my "sidebar" you wil see a blog I follow called "the Antilogy", click on it and I will guarantee you you will be pleased. "Lucy", (not her real name), is excellant at expressing herself, "dead on" honest, and a "real" human being.
Check her out and follow her blog,.....I do!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Selfless acts,...there still are some out there.
My friend who is in his 70's physically, but mid 40's mentally (like all of us whose "power train" is becoming a "high mileage" obstacle to our desire to break land speed records) has a son who needs a Kidney.
Ok we all will sumise that his family all steps forward and a magic "donor" is found, but I guess that didn't work. So somehow my friends wife steps up and says "try me!" and it is a workable solution. So she is donating one of her kidneys sometime in the next week or so!
Didn't have to! Probably wasn't expected to! And I would imagine nothing would ever have been said if she did'nt,.....but she did! That is selfless, and besides the respect I had for the lady before,...well, she's moved WAY UP THE LADDER of people I really respect in this world. Thank you is not enough, but life is strange sometimes.
On other fronts it is cold here (50's and low 60's) , no bathing suits for locals! You can tell the locals we wear sweaters, jackets and shiver. The tourists from Minnesota and other God forsaken northern regions that vacation here,...well they are the ones in the shorts and bathing suits!
Time marches on and another year is in the books, next month I move into the 63rd year of being here. A number of other "significant" things happen in the next couple months as well, but more on them later on next month, don't want to risk a "jinx".
Well gotta get up and go before my get up and go got up and went!
Be kind to each other and remember, like the e-mail my brother in law sent the other day,...men have two emotions,..hunger, and horny!
-30-
Ok we all will sumise that his family all steps forward and a magic "donor" is found, but I guess that didn't work. So somehow my friends wife steps up and says "try me!" and it is a workable solution. So she is donating one of her kidneys sometime in the next week or so!
Didn't have to! Probably wasn't expected to! And I would imagine nothing would ever have been said if she did'nt,.....but she did! That is selfless, and besides the respect I had for the lady before,...well, she's moved WAY UP THE LADDER of people I really respect in this world. Thank you is not enough, but life is strange sometimes.
On other fronts it is cold here (50's and low 60's) , no bathing suits for locals! You can tell the locals we wear sweaters, jackets and shiver. The tourists from Minnesota and other God forsaken northern regions that vacation here,...well they are the ones in the shorts and bathing suits!
Time marches on and another year is in the books, next month I move into the 63rd year of being here. A number of other "significant" things happen in the next couple months as well, but more on them later on next month, don't want to risk a "jinx".
Well gotta get up and go before my get up and go got up and went!
Be kind to each other and remember, like the e-mail my brother in law sent the other day,...men have two emotions,..hunger, and horny!
-30-
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Speed is good,...especially on a computer!
Just had my "techie" over last night. I sensed something might be awry with my computer. (Tromp up to the pit, turn on the moniter, turn on the desktop, wait a minute or so, select my icon, .....and leave. Go downstairs, get a cup of coffee, go shave, shower, and get dressed, refill the coffee cup, and go back up to the pit. Still several little icons in the lower right corner to come up! Finish second cup of coffee, .....aaaaaah now we're ready to go!)
I guess I've got the dreaded "start-up fetish". I've heard about it, but now I have to face the fact that I have it. (There must be a 12 step program for it!) All these absolutely, can live without them, need them right at my fingertips, great little thingies just sitting there waiting for me to call on them,.....alas, no more. They are all gone, well almost all.
My techie knows me well enough that as we poured the second full glass of the Australian Shiraz he stopped asking me, "What about this one?" His fingers moved deftly around the keyboard, he never missed a beat, and an hour later my 'puter was going from completely shut down and off to ready to go in under 1 minute and 30 seconds.
"Man do you know how much memory you have?" (Now that's a question us "oldsters" really fear! Is he talking me or the machine? I'll guess machine, just to be safe.
"No, I know I loaded it when I bought it three years ago."
"You got 512 man, ...no wonder this thing crawls."
"So what should I get?"
Whiz, whiz, click, clack, enter, enter, enter.
"That's what you really need , a gig. You pull one of the 256 modules and put in a gig and bam you got a gig and a quarter and she'll just run all over the room for you!"
"Could you flag that page and I'll order it later?"
So after he left, thirty three seconds of contemplation, a third glass of Shiraz, and poof! Dell tells me the gig is on the way! And only 93.75 to my door. This puppy better sing and dance as it's running around the room, I'll tell you that!
Well I better head out for work. The "techie" we use there is an idiot of the mangnitude of Fred Flintstone. My computer was fine yesterday when I went in, the bookeeper's computer was not able to get on the internet, old Ricky Retardo shows up, runs into the server room tweeks this, swaps a couple patch cables around, comes out and closes the door to the "server room" a/k/a cleaning supplies closet, with this really smug look on his face and says, "Ok you're all set, try it now., as he heads for the door without even breaking stride. As his foot goes over the threashold to the outside the bookeeper say's "great, thank you" and with a blaze of light, and a hearty "Hi-Ho CPU!!!" the Lone Techie disappears.
I finish working on the spreadsheet I was working on ten minutes later, do the appropriate key strokes to have it print to our super slick "I do everything but bring you hot women and cold beer" state of the art printer, and NOTHING happens.
I reenter all the appropriate key strokes, still nothing. I call to the bookeeper, "Hey can you print?" She hits a few keys and responds in bookeeperese, (A language of single sylable words, grunts, and groans, of which I can comprehend "NO."
I save my spreadsheet and figure I'll worry about that later. I've got a couple of contracts I need to finish and I've been waiting since Friday for the final ok's from the Board of Directors, so I'll just dash onto my e-mail and check the incomings. (Old fart note: "Incoming" was not a good word to use between 1964 and 2003. Folks, particularly men of veterans ages from the Viet Nam "conflict", would "duck, roll and cover", so just be careful when you use that term around us!)
No internet access!! Well I try again later, let me go on the server and pull down the final version of the contracts from where I put them Friday. SHIT, I can't get onto the server either. Give me a gun! I want techie blood,.....NOW!
Long story short he can't get out til this morning. (It amazes me how they can sense the fact that a warm, 6x8 room with no view, shitty food and lights out at ten for the rest of your natural life REALLY doesn't seem such a big price to pay when your computer goes down right after "Super Techie" announced to the world all was right on heaven and earth and with "the system" and evaporates from the building!)
I want to be there when he shows and torment him into tweaking my machine and PROVING to me it really is fixed and every component of the system will continue to work flawlessly after he does his evaporation trick this time.
-30-
I guess I've got the dreaded "start-up fetish". I've heard about it, but now I have to face the fact that I have it. (There must be a 12 step program for it!) All these absolutely, can live without them, need them right at my fingertips, great little thingies just sitting there waiting for me to call on them,.....alas, no more. They are all gone, well almost all.
My techie knows me well enough that as we poured the second full glass of the Australian Shiraz he stopped asking me, "What about this one?" His fingers moved deftly around the keyboard, he never missed a beat, and an hour later my 'puter was going from completely shut down and off to ready to go in under 1 minute and 30 seconds.
"Man do you know how much memory you have?" (Now that's a question us "oldsters" really fear! Is he talking me or the machine? I'll guess machine, just to be safe.
"No, I know I loaded it when I bought it three years ago."
"You got 512 man, ...no wonder this thing crawls."
"So what should I get?"
Whiz, whiz, click, clack, enter, enter, enter.
"That's what you really need , a gig. You pull one of the 256 modules and put in a gig and bam you got a gig and a quarter and she'll just run all over the room for you!"
"Could you flag that page and I'll order it later?"
So after he left, thirty three seconds of contemplation, a third glass of Shiraz, and poof! Dell tells me the gig is on the way! And only 93.75 to my door. This puppy better sing and dance as it's running around the room, I'll tell you that!
Well I better head out for work. The "techie" we use there is an idiot of the mangnitude of Fred Flintstone. My computer was fine yesterday when I went in, the bookeeper's computer was not able to get on the internet, old Ricky Retardo shows up, runs into the server room tweeks this, swaps a couple patch cables around, comes out and closes the door to the "server room" a/k/a cleaning supplies closet, with this really smug look on his face and says, "Ok you're all set, try it now., as he heads for the door without even breaking stride. As his foot goes over the threashold to the outside the bookeeper say's "great, thank you" and with a blaze of light, and a hearty "Hi-Ho CPU!!!" the Lone Techie disappears.
I finish working on the spreadsheet I was working on ten minutes later, do the appropriate key strokes to have it print to our super slick "I do everything but bring you hot women and cold beer" state of the art printer, and NOTHING happens.
I reenter all the appropriate key strokes, still nothing. I call to the bookeeper, "Hey can you print?" She hits a few keys and responds in bookeeperese, (A language of single sylable words, grunts, and groans, of which I can comprehend "NO."
I save my spreadsheet and figure I'll worry about that later. I've got a couple of contracts I need to finish and I've been waiting since Friday for the final ok's from the Board of Directors, so I'll just dash onto my e-mail and check the incomings. (Old fart note: "Incoming" was not a good word to use between 1964 and 2003. Folks, particularly men of veterans ages from the Viet Nam "conflict", would "duck, roll and cover", so just be careful when you use that term around us!)
No internet access!! Well I try again later, let me go on the server and pull down the final version of the contracts from where I put them Friday. SHIT, I can't get onto the server either. Give me a gun! I want techie blood,.....NOW!
Long story short he can't get out til this morning. (It amazes me how they can sense the fact that a warm, 6x8 room with no view, shitty food and lights out at ten for the rest of your natural life REALLY doesn't seem such a big price to pay when your computer goes down right after "Super Techie" announced to the world all was right on heaven and earth and with "the system" and evaporates from the building!)
I want to be there when he shows and torment him into tweaking my machine and PROVING to me it really is fixed and every component of the system will continue to work flawlessly after he does his evaporation trick this time.
-30-
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Life is heating up!
Well buckeroos, since we last talked I've managed to get my self sued by a former employer for a dumb non-compete contract that is unenforceable by it's very terms ("Employer hereby agrees to continue to employ Employee"....In case you dickheads didn't noticed you fired me, ergo you the employer is not continuing "to employ the Employee" to wit me!!
I've turned my daughter the pit bull of para-legals, loose on someone who ownes me about $75,000 since 1993 and hasn't even paid the 8% simple interest the contract calls for or the $1,000 a month since 1993 either. Go get'em kid, you WILL get a nice piece of the action. (My policy is try not to hire a lawyer,...just sire one!)
Oh yeah and I'm back on the Board of Directors of our Homeowners Association and put more IED's on the table at the Board meeting this past Wednesday that all the terrorists in Iraq last month! (So what part of when I left the Board about 16 mothes ago there were literally thousands of dollars in our "prior years earnings",...now the new financial statements I got just before the meeting tell me there is only $0.84 !!!! EIGHTY-FOUR freakin' cents!! Oh Lucy,(not the good princess from Sydney)...someone got some esplainin' to do!"
After nine years as my faithful pet, (rescued from being a ferral kitten) my cat finally wants to climb up on my lap every time I sit down and be petted, or just plunk down between me and my 'puter screen! And even my wife said there was no hope! See, I am a kind and generous "Daddy".
I just saved a client over $48,000 on a single contract and get a silly e-mail that thinks we should "cap any increases for the next 3 to 5 years before deciding"!!
Am I the only old fart who heard the term, "take the money and run" it's a bloody contract! We got 'em for at least a year at this reduced price!
And to make matters worse I have a nasty habit, as I get older, of hurting myself while I sleep!! Last night I apparently slept on my shoulder, cutting off the circulation, apparently bruising the muscle, and my right arm feel like a three hundred puond piece of dead weight! (Another hour I head for the Pub,...I'm sure they have some medicine there which will ease my pain!)
Oh, and after carefully planning my career education so as to have taken every course I need to get the equivalent of a Phd. in my field by the end of this year, I just get an e-mail from a friend that they may have to cancel one critical course because all the hotels are booked for spring break! (Again, If it's tourist season just tell me how many I can "bag" before I hit my limit? Is that such a difficult thing to answer?)
Good news, my New England Patriots Football team won thier 17th straight game. One more and I get to wear my "worn only once (3 years ago) Tom Brady (the quarterback) game shirt", my Patriots ball cap, consume vast quantities of Guinness during the Super Bowl, declare the Monday after a "National Holiday" (to recover). Life has some little rewards! ("Game shirt $65, embroidered Ball cap $40,...no objections from the wife for consuming vast quantities of Guinness,...priceless!!)
My computer Guru is coming over tomorrow evening to "clean" my computer. I have an Intel Pentium 4, 3 gig processor, a hard drive that is 70% free space, operating on XP Pro, but it takes almost twenty minutes to start up!! I'm a packrat for desk top icons and funky little programs and shortcut shit! (Ok so I don't know shit about this instant messaging crap, but the Yahoo instant messenger and the other one are both in my start up "stuff",....you know, just in case I need them.
Speaking of computer crap! My Blackberry is giving me fits and starts. It's been so bloody annoying I have talked to every tech at the B'berry call center at least twice! They are so used to my calls that when my name comes up on thier end they just say "Hey Tom, what's the problem?" and don't even ask me for my bloody "Account pin" or "First pets name" or Mother's maiden name! (Well isn't that speshul!)
I think maybe I am losing patience and may accelerate the Sunday afternoon Pub visit. Afterall I blame the TV networks! (This ought be a damn good one! "So why is it the TV networks fault you have to go to the Pub earlier than usual?" )
It's simple, they figure the folks on the East Coast got more money to buy bigger TV's or stuff they see on the commercials, so they pander to them and have the games on at "Eastern Standard Time" or an hour earlier than the time zone I'm in, "Central Standard Time". So the "1 pm eastern time" playoff game is noon time, my time zone. I'm lovin' Guinness, but noon on Sunday is a real stretch! (Two things to know here. First, I guess that's why I'm really rested on MOnday becasue I'm going to bed early Sunday night, and Second, If I lived in California I'd be drinkin' at 9 in the morning!!! Not a good thing!
-30-
I've turned my daughter the pit bull of para-legals, loose on someone who ownes me about $75,000 since 1993 and hasn't even paid the 8% simple interest the contract calls for or the $1,000 a month since 1993 either. Go get'em kid, you WILL get a nice piece of the action. (My policy is try not to hire a lawyer,...just sire one!)
Oh yeah and I'm back on the Board of Directors of our Homeowners Association and put more IED's on the table at the Board meeting this past Wednesday that all the terrorists in Iraq last month! (So what part of when I left the Board about 16 mothes ago there were literally thousands of dollars in our "prior years earnings",...now the new financial statements I got just before the meeting tell me there is only $0.84 !!!! EIGHTY-FOUR freakin' cents!! Oh Lucy,(not the good princess from Sydney)...someone got some esplainin' to do!"
After nine years as my faithful pet, (rescued from being a ferral kitten) my cat finally wants to climb up on my lap every time I sit down and be petted, or just plunk down between me and my 'puter screen! And even my wife said there was no hope! See, I am a kind and generous "Daddy".
I just saved a client over $48,000 on a single contract and get a silly e-mail that thinks we should "cap any increases for the next 3 to 5 years before deciding"!!
Am I the only old fart who heard the term, "take the money and run" it's a bloody contract! We got 'em for at least a year at this reduced price!
And to make matters worse I have a nasty habit, as I get older, of hurting myself while I sleep!! Last night I apparently slept on my shoulder, cutting off the circulation, apparently bruising the muscle, and my right arm feel like a three hundred puond piece of dead weight! (Another hour I head for the Pub,...I'm sure they have some medicine there which will ease my pain!)
Oh, and after carefully planning my career education so as to have taken every course I need to get the equivalent of a Phd. in my field by the end of this year, I just get an e-mail from a friend that they may have to cancel one critical course because all the hotels are booked for spring break! (Again, If it's tourist season just tell me how many I can "bag" before I hit my limit? Is that such a difficult thing to answer?)
Good news, my New England Patriots Football team won thier 17th straight game. One more and I get to wear my "worn only once (3 years ago) Tom Brady (the quarterback) game shirt", my Patriots ball cap, consume vast quantities of Guinness during the Super Bowl, declare the Monday after a "National Holiday" (to recover). Life has some little rewards! ("Game shirt $65, embroidered Ball cap $40,...no objections from the wife for consuming vast quantities of Guinness,...priceless!!)
My computer Guru is coming over tomorrow evening to "clean" my computer. I have an Intel Pentium 4, 3 gig processor, a hard drive that is 70% free space, operating on XP Pro, but it takes almost twenty minutes to start up!! I'm a packrat for desk top icons and funky little programs and shortcut shit! (Ok so I don't know shit about this instant messaging crap, but the Yahoo instant messenger and the other one are both in my start up "stuff",....you know, just in case I need them.
Speaking of computer crap! My Blackberry is giving me fits and starts. It's been so bloody annoying I have talked to every tech at the B'berry call center at least twice! They are so used to my calls that when my name comes up on thier end they just say "Hey Tom, what's the problem?" and don't even ask me for my bloody "Account pin" or "First pets name" or Mother's maiden name! (Well isn't that speshul!)
I think maybe I am losing patience and may accelerate the Sunday afternoon Pub visit. Afterall I blame the TV networks! (This ought be a damn good one! "So why is it the TV networks fault you have to go to the Pub earlier than usual?" )
It's simple, they figure the folks on the East Coast got more money to buy bigger TV's or stuff they see on the commercials, so they pander to them and have the games on at "Eastern Standard Time" or an hour earlier than the time zone I'm in, "Central Standard Time". So the "1 pm eastern time" playoff game is noon time, my time zone. I'm lovin' Guinness, but noon on Sunday is a real stretch! (Two things to know here. First, I guess that's why I'm really rested on MOnday becasue I'm going to bed early Sunday night, and Second, If I lived in California I'd be drinkin' at 9 in the morning!!! Not a good thing!
-30-
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Help!!! I'm scared to death!
Ask a simple question today, and you WILL get a simple answer, which by the way 9 times out of 10 is,..."I dunno!".
Where are the brains today?
Case in point as most of you know by now I manage property, like condominium Associations and Homeowners Associations. One of the real "hot buttons" is who owes us how much. When the economy tightens, we go into a mild "recession", or worse, people tend to become what are called "slow pays", or in other words are holding onto what's left of thier money for dear life or just don't have any more to pay bills with. Part of my job is to "shake the tree" and make sure all my client's membership are up to date on thier payments. If not I get to slap the "lien" on them, threaten the foreclosure, and indeed actually go ahead and do it on some. Do I like it? Hell no, ...but it's got to get done.
One way to avoid the angst is to constantly stay on top of who owes you what and in a lot of cases if you do stay on top they will pay up without to much pressure. (Jez,...do I sound like some cut-throat nasty son of a bitch!)
Anyway, the Board of Directors for whom I work always want to know "What's our accounts recievable balance?" Or how much we owed? One of the accounting programs favored because of it's low cost and simplicity of operation is called "Quickbooks Pro". By and large it does a good job, but boy does the old IT adage GIGO or "garbage in, garbage out" apply!
It simply adds up the account balances and "nets" them into a total,...and poof, that's it. Let's say you owe me six months at $100 a month, or a total of $600,...and let's say Bob has already "prepaid" for the next six months or so, to me. Well, the total of the Accounts Recievable is going to net to ZERO! NOTHING, NADA. So when an "accountant" hands me such a report and I in turn hand it to "The Board" everyone seems happy,...but they shouldn't be! As each month goes by the number gets bigger and bigger, because what you pre-paid me is getting smaller and smaller. Then finally one day the Board says to me, "This person hasn't paid a dime in six monthes,what have you done about it?"
Unless someone can take the fourteen page, single spaced pile of numbers and reduce it to something "eatable" I don't have the time to do it! And there is my problem. I have to depend on an Accountant, and the accountant hasn't a clue. They just put the square peg in the round hole, day after day after day, and until someone tells them "hey dummy, square peg, square hole, round peg round hole.
For example I have an account whose report says they are owned $27,000. When you take out all the "pre-paid" people, and the little "aggravation I ain't never gonna pay late fees and interest, it's like day and night difference, or over $40,000 owed! That's a BIG difference in my mind.
Got to go for now, but have a great new year!
-30-
Where are the brains today?
Case in point as most of you know by now I manage property, like condominium Associations and Homeowners Associations. One of the real "hot buttons" is who owes us how much. When the economy tightens, we go into a mild "recession", or worse, people tend to become what are called "slow pays", or in other words are holding onto what's left of thier money for dear life or just don't have any more to pay bills with. Part of my job is to "shake the tree" and make sure all my client's membership are up to date on thier payments. If not I get to slap the "lien" on them, threaten the foreclosure, and indeed actually go ahead and do it on some. Do I like it? Hell no, ...but it's got to get done.
One way to avoid the angst is to constantly stay on top of who owes you what and in a lot of cases if you do stay on top they will pay up without to much pressure. (Jez,...do I sound like some cut-throat nasty son of a bitch!)
Anyway, the Board of Directors for whom I work always want to know "What's our accounts recievable balance?" Or how much we owed? One of the accounting programs favored because of it's low cost and simplicity of operation is called "Quickbooks Pro". By and large it does a good job, but boy does the old IT adage GIGO or "garbage in, garbage out" apply!
It simply adds up the account balances and "nets" them into a total,...and poof, that's it. Let's say you owe me six months at $100 a month, or a total of $600,...and let's say Bob has already "prepaid" for the next six months or so, to me. Well, the total of the Accounts Recievable is going to net to ZERO! NOTHING, NADA. So when an "accountant" hands me such a report and I in turn hand it to "The Board" everyone seems happy,...but they shouldn't be! As each month goes by the number gets bigger and bigger, because what you pre-paid me is getting smaller and smaller. Then finally one day the Board says to me, "This person hasn't paid a dime in six monthes,what have you done about it?"
Unless someone can take the fourteen page, single spaced pile of numbers and reduce it to something "eatable" I don't have the time to do it! And there is my problem. I have to depend on an Accountant, and the accountant hasn't a clue. They just put the square peg in the round hole, day after day after day, and until someone tells them "hey dummy, square peg, square hole, round peg round hole.
For example I have an account whose report says they are owned $27,000. When you take out all the "pre-paid" people, and the little "aggravation I ain't never gonna pay late fees and interest, it's like day and night difference, or over $40,000 owed! That's a BIG difference in my mind.
Got to go for now, but have a great new year!
-30-
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