Friday is when the world says "Enough!"

Hey folks, sorry I haven't written this week. It's like the old saying, "when it rains it pours" It's been so bad I'm not even getting to the Pub on time for my daily "Vitamin G" infusion! But as I look across our virtually empty office, check and see if my watch is still ticking, and realize there is still another three hours in the workday, ...but there is no one here to work! I guess my whole office is having a "bad week". But I'm the "old trooper" who stays on the job until quittin' time.
No applause please!!
So what's up for the weekend? Well tomorrow I guess I'll try my newest hobby, (sleeping in til 7am) since I don't have to go to work. Then a leisurely breakfast (eight or ten cups of coffee), perhaps go "shopping" with the wife,....but then again,...well we'll see on that one. Cruise the book store and see what's new, maybe "piddle around" on my computer and try and figure out how to "secure" my new wireless access point thing, pop by the pub for a pint, maybe get a movie, relax and go to bed.
Then again maybe I'll go rent a Harley, cut the sleeves off my shirt, get a tatoo and go for a ride. (NOT!!!) A friend of mine offered to sell me thier Harley, it's a 2004 Sportster with virtually no miles on it, for $7,500. (I'm thinking about it!)
Or maybe I'll go down to the docks, see if I can get a slot on one of the sport fishing party boats and go out in the Gulf of Mexico and see what I can catch for dinner. ($150 for a slot, three hours out, three hours back, if it's really rough seas it's puking all the way, about two hours "on-spot",... naw, it's a lot easier to go to the fish store and get some, and a lot cheaper too!
Or maybe I'll just go tourist and drive around town taking left turns with my right turn signal on, hit the restaurants all day and steal sugar and salt and pepper packets, complain about the food and get even more off to keep me from making an "old fart" scene, hit the clothing store and look for a flaw of any kind or a loose buttin and then demand a 40% discount for "shoddy" products. Then I can go to a local sports bar scream and yell and swear for some college football team, scoff a few free beers from fans who think I'm with them. "Man they are killing us, we need to kick some serious butt here,....oh man look at that, that's aggrevated assualt, not a tackle, ...call it ref, call it,.. you blind mo****-f****r" Shit I lost my wallet, anyone spot me a beer til I can go out to the car?"
Or maybe go and "lurk" at Starbucks. Man, whoever had the balls to charge those prices for a cup of coffee, now there's a dude with steel balls! It's only coffee, get over it!!!
Speaking of get over it, someone just came through the office to tell us that for $25 you can go down to the local drug store and get a flu shot, while they last! Now you say something like that and it's the senior set's feeding frenzy. "I was in line before you and I'm sicker than you." Listne you old battle axe you want to see sick look at the size of my joints from the arthritis. I'd slug you but my osteoperosis would cause all the bones in my hand to shatter!"
Oh boy, the sleeping in and going shopping with my wife is looking better and better. (As long as she doesn't get into the shoe department! I swear I could put shoes on half the women in China with just what's in her closet! (Ok, by now you've figured it out that she doesn't know my "blog" name, and Annonymous (a/k/a my daughter) if you tell her you are no longer in my will and I'll become a Rastufarian!
God, I've only killed a half hour here in my cubicle! Maybe I'll re-arrange my cubicle,...naw theat would make the guy in the next one happy. He hates that I LOVE the "handsfree mode" on my phone. this way I can continue working, occasionally mutter a "Yup, I know exactly what you're saying", or be able to give my callers a two handed "bird" knowing they can't see me. Ooops! Just noticed my "message waiting" light is on, ...hang on I'll be right back.
Just as client's secretary wanting me to tell her how to get an extra cable tv hookup done for her boss. (real answer? Get off your ass and call around and find out yourself. Don't ask some poor thing you barely pay enough to pay her bills and eat to find out how you can get something for you oceanfront "weekend place" while she has to sit home and sweat with not even air-conditioning! Sorry, I tend to rant at this type of shit!
got to go,
-30-

God, I love these toys!!!!

Just a quick blast, I decided toi try wireless and have successfully installed a wireless "access point" on my four station hardwired network. Only five hours last night and two tonight, not bad for a "technologically challenged" old fart.
Now I can take my laptop down to my recliner, sip a delicate bordeaux, watch the old Law & Order re-runs and blog til I fall asleep.
Ready for the first blog tomorrow night?

Oh for you younger folks. Raising our three kids (now ages 39,37, and 30 ) it was heel on wheels. We strongly suspect the youngest found the drug scene, but he's still alive, cleaned up his act and just got married, so there's hope. But my wife got a call from our daughter today and our barely 14 (September 18 birthday) just got expelled from school for getting busted in a Marijuana buy at school!!
Life was supposwed to get better. I really wanted to be the soft, cuddly , fun "Grandpa", but looks like I'm going to have to go back to the kick ass drill sargent and find out what the hell is up with this shit.
Am I opposed to Mary J, not at all, but at least give the rest of your life as a child (i.e. up to and including your college, or University years) a complete run through, then as a quasi adult try what you want.
But 14? That's pure bullshit any way you cut it!!
Chat with you tomorrow.
-30-

"Just when you think you're out,...they drag you back in...."

( Quote from Michael Corleone, Godfather III)
I hate to share this with you, it fucks up my faith in mankind,...and scares the shit out of me!!!
I've blogged about my mate "Mikie", and his tragic death a week ago. I've shared my memories and my thoughts as well as my comments on "Mikie" telling me he's ok. But what I say now is beyond my comprehension, beyond my understanding of human nature, and beyond my sense of human dignity!
As I related to you, last Saturday I had asked Mikie to go to the Florida State/Boston College football game with me, and took my wife and spent the day remembering Mikie, and the last two seconds of "success" from an "arm that came out of the pile" and secured the Boston College victory.
While I was at the game remembering Mikie more than watching the "game" , several 'friends' were going through his belongings, supposedly "looking for informnation" which we could use to trace Mikie's background and next of kin. Supposedly they found nothing except his birth certificate.
Yesterday his old roommate ( a woman who had been beaten by her boyfriend, that Mikie took in for ten months) called me to tell me they were "cleaning out his stuff".
His most prized possession, his computer, was removed by a person I know Mikie would not even walk across the street for, amd in fact had called a "scumbag". And today find out the same person took all of his tools out of his vehicle to "sort them out and clean them up". BULLSHIT!!!!!
I guess as a human being I'm schocked that another human being could not wait the two or three weeks it takes for "no next of kin" to be declared to "pick the bones". I am totally disgusted!!!!
I had offered that individual the "jobs" that Mikie had open to comlete through the end of the year!!
Guess what? Tomorrow all bets are off! I'll get someone else to finish up "Mikies" jobs, to complete them with a sense of "honor" (look it up, it's something that meant something to those of us who knew it's meaning!).
Mikie, I'm sorry death is more painfuthan life, but you were dead on right,....the same folks you never trusted when you were alive, are those who you would never trust when you're dead!
I'm doing my best man, and those who know you know it!
(Thanks for the big play last week at the FSU/BC game,...I know it was you. Rest in peace. We damn well will make sure you go out with dignity, ..trust me on this!
-30-

Life in the fast lane,....sort of!

Well another weekend is winding down, it's Sunday afternoon, I'm just popping off a blog before I go to the pub and watch a bit of football with my mates.
Here I am 62 years old and I'm becoming a "clothes whore"! I think I've spent more on clothes this year than in the last twenty combined!! All of a sudden, (and don't tell my wife or I'll have to kill you!), I decided I wanted to look better,...at 62,..for what, to wow the government clerk when I go apply for social security next year?
You're talking to a "basic dude"here. By that I mean the ultimate in male simplicity in terms of dress. I don't like jeans, Levi's, Wranglers, or anyone elses name, sewn across my butt. I'm your basic "tan pants" kind of guy. Call them Khaki's, Dockers, I don't care, just light tan slacks. They work in every circumstance (ok, not in "formal", but you would not want to invite me to one of those things anyhow, I'd be the guy asking for the Guinness, not the "perky little Chardonnay"). Now given the fact that I have at least ten pair of tan pants, oops my mind is beating the inside of my head to say something "pithy", I can't hold it back,...it's forcing it's power into my arms, down my fingers to the ,...agrrr....,
(ATTENTION: Deep philosophical questions here: Why do they refer to pants as a "pair", and it ain't because it has two legs, and then why are they called "slacks"? Twelve "kudo's" to anyone with a good answer. Later we'll deal with the "Why" when men and women can both wear "slacks", but men can only wear "pants" while women call them "Capri's", "Toreadors", and a number of other things besides "pants"!)
OK, I re-gained control from that little wise-ass. Now moving on to the rest of the wardrobe. Fifty "kudo's" for anyone that can name a single above the waist garment that will not go with tan pants! Male or female everything goes with Tan pants! A formal tuxedo shirt, a ratty old tee, a designer golf or polo shirt, an old football uniform jersey, even the old "wife-beater" shirts work! So there you have it. Tan pants and whatever has the least amount of wrinkles on top, "voila", and a guy is "good to go".
Ok, at the risk of offending women, besides a ratty old set of (tennis, running, walking, etc) shoes, a pair of loafers, and some "Birkies" why would there be a need for anything else on my feet?
And to top off the "ensemble de jour" of course a baseball cap, but not necessarily of a baseball nature. A lot of guys (yup me too!) have vast collections of them. Everytime I go somewhere I gotta buy a souvenier hat to take home. I may never ever wear it again in my life, but I gotta buy it for that day, in that place, at that time. (I think there is a clause in the United States Constitution about the "inalienable right for guys to have favorite hats", or maybe it was the Bill of Rights or the Magna Carta,...hmmm, I'l have to look that up.)
OK now for Mr. Guinness's pet peeves in life, (relative to clothing that is, we'll deal with my other "peeves" another time!)
#! Girls, "birds", women, or any other term you want to use, look absolutely marvelous in anything they wear. (Alright, it's a very broad, (no pun intended), even collossal generalization, but more generally truer than falser) ANYTHING that is EXCEPT "ball caps". In my entire 62 years on this earth I can only recall about four women who actually looked good in a ball cap. (Sorry Ladies, but the truth shall set you free!) I don't know if it's the "way" you wear them, the way you adjust them, or if you were all just were born with wierd heads!! Now as I said I really appreciate the female of our species, but so far as ball caps are concerned don't do it ladies, we know how dorky they are on women! Don't believe me, then ask a few of your male acquaintances to be brutally honest with you and tell you if you look good in a "ball cap". If they move their lips, they are lying! If they say something like "Honey, I'd love to see you in just a ball cap." Slap them alongside the head and go out and ask a stranger. If they say you look great in one then tell them you're entering a contest for best looking female in a ball cap, and I'll bet they try and talk you out of it (that's true love!). And if they say they "really would rather not comment" either marry them, or send them to Lucy for they are the proverbial honest man!
(IF YOU CHOOSE TO PROVE ME WRONG SEND A PIX (with the Ballcap in place) IN YOUR "COMMENTS" AND I"LL LET THE READERS MAKE THAT DECISION.

Ok, stop seething and wanting to pull my tonsils out through your computer moniter, guys also PISS ME OFF when they don't "work the bill"(Brim) of a ball cap. Have you ever seen anything more dumb than a ball cap with a perfectly flat "brim"? It looks like you just got popped off the latest assembly line for a Plutonian impression of a "humanoid". Roll them brims guys, it's your trademark!
I was going to stop here and go watch the game and have a couple pints, but the "backwards thing" on ball caps just clicked on in my head, and I can't stop, I gotta throw my two cents worth in. The ONLY human beings on this earth who have a God given right to wear ball caps backwards are farmers and field hands, (or "rednecks", a now derogatory term relative to the crude, rude, neanderthal, primary number of braincells collectively held by the family, folks of this world. BUT, it didn't used to be that way! "Redneck was a good term used for those hard-working people who worked in the fields every day and the "sunburn" on the back of thier neck. DUH!, I guess that's why there are no "rednecks" in the big cities, or other bastions of "highly evolved social behavior and grace". Or are they simply better educated and politically correct?) And of course there is the group who must be "different" and rather than 180 degrees turned, opt for the 30 to 45 degree angle. Now how dumb is that?
How did I get here? Damn, I must be ranting!
Anyone got a drop dead, killer, beef stew recipe? Let me know. And have a great week, back at you mid-week for sure!
-30-

Sometimes I wanna' go home

This should be a good blog, I'm sitting here with a glass of my favorite Shiraz/Merlot blend, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake pumped up on my speakers, in my "comfies"and ready to talk to you, my real friends! I say that because you are there for me, not the mortal "capsule" my spirit is enclosed within, not for an "erudite" prose or comment, but because I tell you who I am from the heart, whenever this damn keyboard gets in the way of my fingers.
No morose comments tonight. No flashbacks to the past week. But let's look ahead!
The sun comes up each day, and it shines with brilliance. What the hell more could one ask for!
Ahh! But I've thought of something!
I wish there was a web site that we could all share that after, and I stress after, only 100 "blogs", you could click into and see "who your friends are".
The past week has been tough, but the past several months have been great!
How so you ask!
Easy, I've connected with human beings all over this planet. My mind boggles at the thought of being able to "hit a few keys" and chat with "Lucy", and Jezzy" in Australia, "Suvvy" in Nebraska, "Allie" about ten miles away from me in Florida. Do you realize how connected we are?????
(Rant coming on, please tune out if you are that offended!)
As a kid (I know, before automobiles, planes, tv, and ipods) it never dawned on me how big our world was! Sure I studied geography, and all that stuff, but that was "book-learning". I never knew a girl in Australia, actually two of them, would touch me as deeply just pounding on these keys.
I never even concieved of even knowing someone in Nebraska, USA, let alone someone ten miles away ready to put her life on the line for a way of life!
So what am I "rambling about"? It's about you , me, and the whole damn world! Are we really that different? Sure some of us (sorry Lucy!) may talk funny, some of us (Jezzy, I apologize!) are looking to the sky's and wondering "why me?", and some of us,(Sorry Suvvy!) just look at the world and say" imprefect is a norm, but I'll live with it!".
And then there are the places I "lurk". I won't list them, but they are indeed "life".
So I guess I'll tag everyone who stumbles on this blog and reads it.


As the who said, "WHO are you?, WHOOO, are you?, Who , who , who!"
Why do you write? Why do you care? Do you think we make a difference, or are we all "spinning our wheels"?
Do I care about United States policy, or the reality of this world, or that there are poor people and rich people, and kind people and cruel people. Do I care that as I write this how many people are dying because they have no food to eat, no food for thier children? Do I care if Lucy, Suvvy, Miss Devilish, Jezzy, GBE, or anyone else live thier live's and make a difference? Couldone of them find the cure for Cancer, diabetes, or any other factor of this world? Or could any one of them bring into this world the child that will? OK, maybe I'm off target, but these are my friends, and I know they care. Sure we each ahve our own life to be concerned about, but in these folks I sense a difference. May the force of life be with us!
-30-

"One step over the line sweet Jesus, one foot over the line"

"....waitin' on the train to go home sweet Jesus, one foot over the line."

Many, many thanks to all of you who write, called, or otherwise expressed your thoughts on Mikie. We still have more to do before we can finally lay him to rest, (actually scatter his ashes over the Gulf of Mexico). Being in this legal world we all live in let me tell youit's a pain in the butt!!. I've finally tracked down the attorney who handled Mikie's brother's estate about four years ago, and he is looking through the old files to get Mikie's sister's telephone number for me. She is legally the next of kin.
Mikie's roommate and three of our friends went through his "stuff" Sunday, and even in death Mikie get's the last laugh. He has succeeded in leaving no papertrail whatsoever amongst his "stuff". No bank account, no actual address (always used a post office box), if it wasn't a check it got trashed. We did find a birth certificate. He did know before they could bury you the dumb bureaucracy will indeed make absolutely sure you were born, ergo a birth certificate. Thanks Mikie.
Tracking his sister down has been an experiment in patience, and an enlightening experiance in knowing you can run, but you can't hide, on the Internet! But depite all the "bullshit" privacy rules and all that legal crap it's nice to know human beings still have compassion. And boy did I get good at working that today!
From the Police department 500 miles away that insisted they couldn't tell me anything, as the clerk sat in front of the computer screen with the complete police report on it about Mikie's brothers tragic death (Hit the back end of a parked bus at 60 mph.), back in 2003. BUT if I would send them a cashiers check for fifty cents they would be glad to mail me a copy, but they could not give out any information over the phone!
With an Academy Award performance of a whimpering fuss I was able to ply the full name of his brother from here and promised to get the check out today.
Next I went to the Registry of Records and found three documents for his brother, a death certificate, a homestead form, and a transfer deed. (Mikies brother was a special forces "he did'nt exist" dude so paperwork was also non existant. When Mikie went down to bury him in '03 and get a military burial he found his military service file and the majority of it was "blacked out" with security blocks on it. Mikie was proud of him, no matter where he had been or what he had done!) Back to the chase. As I sought each one I was confronted with a block indicating that the information was governed by the privacy act and could not be viewed on line, but that a written inquiry could be made. So again go find the humans and try and do the John Barrymore performance for them.
After a twelve button "automated menu" I got a human being. I explained my dilemma to the deaf ears of another County employee.
"Look mam, I don't want any of the information in the documents, trust me it's perfectly safe, I promise. All I want is the name of the attorney who filed them, and in advance I'm not going to sue him, simply ask him for my friends sister's telephone number."
"Well if you send us a cashiers check for one dollar and twenty-five cents we will be glad to send you a copy of the documents, sir."
"Mam, please let me explain this to you very slowly, and simply so you can understand my situation. Would you please allow me to do that, and I guarantee you it will take less than one minute of your time, in fact you can hang up on me if I'm lieing. May I?"
From the other end of the phne I heard a, "hmmph", so i continued.
"Mam, by buddy died, we didn't find him until two days after he died, the state required an autopsy to be performed, and they won;t release his body to anyone who is not next of kin. I'm trying to find his sister to let her know and if I can't get to her and let her know the probability is that his body will be thrown into "potter's field" and that's the end of it. We are his friends and we don't want that to happen, but if we can't find the attorney who has her name and number that's exactly what's oing to happen! How alone can you die, particularly when you have friends that want to take care of you, but legally have thier hands tied! Can you help?"
Another long pause and then, "The attorney who file these documents was "--------- and his telephone number is --------, I hope that helps you, it;s the best i can do."
"Thank you mam, you've been a big help,...and thank you very much from all Mikie's firends."
From there it got a little easier and after talking to the attorneys office they are now looking up the info and will get back to me tomorrow.
Now I've got to figure out how to deal with the sister and then take care of Mikie as well. I guess it's time to get an attorney involved.
Boy life was simpler in the old days!!
-30-

To all,... a humble thanks, ...from Mikie

The other night when I sat down to write a "journal of the day", and again when I wrote about Mikie, it was for me. Being a "tough ass Irish guy", whom emotions are not a "public side" of, I was sitting in my "pit", just me , the keyboard, and my memories. My intent and indeed my deep desire was to write to Mikie,...not you. To tell him what he meant to me, personally, and to open my own feelings to an "ether-world", not to write to you.
But a strange thing happened, a number of you read my entry, and wrote me very kind notes on it. And I must say I am so pleased I can not tell you. I used to mention my "blog" to Mikie, who gave me shit about it all the time. He used to tease me about it, and shoot a zippy one-liner every time he had a chance. He used to say things like, "Yeah, like you're a Hemingway, shit probably only perv's and whacko's do that shit!", and "Who really gives a shit what you think?". Occasionally he would give me crap about using the blog for "internet sex", and I'd tell him he was nuts,...a really dumb shit if he thought I was that "kind of person". He really knew how to push my buttons in terms of getting "my Irish" up. But by the same token he really knew me and knew that was not the fact, and every once in a while he'd ask, "You still writing that stupid 'blog" shit?"
When I e-mailed our buddy "Security Guard Mike" about Mikies passing I mentioned the blog so he could read the details for himself. My wife married him and his wife a couple years ago, Mikie was thier "adopted son". I can't count the times he and "Security Guard Mike" wrestled and played like brothers, and the number of times Mikie slept on thier couch becasue he couldn't move any further. But that was Mikie.
I guess my ramblings have come down to this. Mikie is gone. We all know it. We are all trying to get all the "shit" done so we can take care of him. I've had at least twenty-five people call or write and tell me they will take a "piece of the action" for whatever it takes to give Mikie a send-off even he'd blush and be "Irish" about (self deprecating, humble, and totally overwhelmed). So here's the plan.
I talked to Vince, his roomy, today, and Mikie, true to being Mikie, left no history, no papers, not follow-up "stuff". He left this world just like he came in, quiet, and alone. So I've set the deadlines, (NO PUN INTENDED) , if I can not find his sister and talk to her by Wednesday, I'm going to have a buddy, who is an attorney, to whatever the shit has to be done to make me his "next of kin". I've already contacted the National Cremation Society and for a price, they will pick up his remains, take them and have them cremated, return the death certificate and Mikie's ashes to us (i.e. me as legally responsible for him). I will set a date in the next two weeks and ask everyone who loved him to join us at "The Whales Tail", and we will all spend a moment in silence, and then I'll ask each person to silently scatter some of Mikie's ashes into the surf, along the beach , or into the air. (The Whales Tale is a beach bar, right on the Gulf of Mexico where Mikie spent untolled hours just relaxing, talking with locals, tourists, and anyone else who happened by.) I would then ask everyone to have a shot of Samboucca and salute our friend who is now amongst the stars. End of service, end of ceremony. Go home, take your memories of Mikie, and miss him the way we all will.

I went to the Florida State/Boston College football game yesterday and I took the other love of my life, my wife Barbara. Mikie was supposed to go with me.
We watched the game, and the final play of the game where a Boston College player reached up into the air, amidst a sea of other players and snagged the ball, with one hand, and tucked it in as the play clock hit "zero". One arm out of about twenty in that pile of players. The first win for Boston College, Mikies own home town, over Florida State University, bragging rights for the "guys from New England" for the next year!
If I were a supersticious dude, I'd really wonder if Mikie did not have a "hand" in it,....telling us he's ok, he's gone beyond, he misses us as we him, but the world goes on, even without him.
Thanks Mikie, we appreciate the win, we appreciate the "final word" from the other side".
God bless you , and love you, ... for he sure knows we did!
-30-

And life goes on,....

Ok I've accepted Mikie is gone, now let's clean it up! (The following can be somewhat graphic, but frankly at my age, it's mere reality, and I HAVE to accept it!)
As I told you yesterday, I think, the forensic investigator told us the entire bedroom in which Mikie was found needed to be "mitigated" by a crime scene clean-up team. He was kind enough top give me a few names and numbers.
REALITY FACT #1 - It ain't like the movies folks! Regardless of what you see on TV, when you die your muscles ALL relax. "Bodily fluids" abound! Enough said.
The fact that Mikie had been dead for two days compounded the problem. The "mitigation" people came out this morning (we were warned to simply close off the room he was in when he died, turn the Air Conditioning down to 60 degrees, and wait for the mitigation people.) At $170 dollars an hour, and four hours later, the "scene" was declared "inhabitable". Both Vince , his "roomy" and I have no desire to even enter the room until at least Sunday. The "mitigation specialist" threw out half his computer system, (keyboard, printer, connecting cables, etc.) the table and chairs it sat on, and ripped out the carpet in the room and threw it as well.
REALITY FACT # 2 - Legality is pure SHIT! I called the ME (Medicaol Examiner's) Office and asked if they could tell me anything, like what would happen top Mikie's body, was the autopsy complete, what was the cause of death, all the usual. The answers, "Yes the autopsy is complete (my stomach is queasy), but NO we can not tell you what the cause of death was unless you are next of kin. "Shit lady, he was my buddy for eight years we had beers at least three times a week, we worked together on jobs and helped each other, I hired him and gave him work for three years, if that's not "kin" what is?"
"I'm sorry sir, only a blood relative is "kin" as you say it."
REALITY FACT #3 - Friends are friends,....forever, and then some! Vince, his "roomy" fouind an uncashed check for work he had done for a friend, I found a check he hadn't picked up yet at my company, and we "conspired". The big check Vince found was from a buddy who Mikie worked for. We called him and we burned that check at the Pub this afternoon. He in turn wrote a check for the "Bio-hazard Mitigation", in full, and threww a few hundred more into "the fund".
I'll probably forge Mikie's name and cash the check from my form and it too will go into "the fund".
The "inner circle", Mikie's real friends met agian this afternoon, and we've committed to do what ever we have to to gain legal control of Mikie's remains, we've rounded up more than $1,300 to have him cremated, and we will organize, orchestrate, and have a full service for Mikie.
The plans are now to set a date, tell all his friends far and wide to come, go down to the Gulf of Mexico on the white sands Mikie loved and hung out on, say absolutely nothing, but think of the Mikie we each knew and loved so much, and then set his ashes free in the breeze to swim in the emerald waters, lounge on the sands and watch the "eye candy" (gorgeous young women in bikini's), or just become "one with the air that supports us" , it's Mikie's call.
I'm going to the Florida State/Boston College football game tomorrow, and I'm taking my wife instead of Mikie. Why? Because I can't think of anyone I love more than Mikie, than Barbara. To go anywhere with someone you love is always more better than anything else.
She misses Mikie as well. We used to invite him over for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and any other time we could. He loved her cooking, flattered her to a fare thee well everytime he was here, and never left empty-handed. I will set aplace for him this season, what else are friends for?
-30-

I don't want to write this,...but I have too!

If you can't stand reality, click out now. You have been warned!!

This morning Thursday October 19th, was like every other morning for me, I got up, showered, shaved. got dressed and headed out to one of my accounts where we were beginning a $500,000 renovation project. I drove the thirty two miles to the site thinking about my other accounts and other business. My mind drifted a bit, and I thought about the Florida State University football game against my favorite team Boston College this coming Saturday, and the fun I was going to have. I had invited my friend and "buddy" Mikie Riordan to go with me. We'd have to leave at 8 a.m. to get there by game time and be in the stands. I'd scored two tickets at mid-field halfway up, the best seats in the stadium of 100,000 from a business contact. FSU is really bad this year and B.C. is good. I was relishing the two guys from "Bean town" swaggering out at the end of the game knowing how good Boston College was, and being glad our team won. Mikie and I are both from Boston, and when I scored the tickets I couldn't think of anyone who I'd enjoy going to the game more with, and who would enjoy "bragging rights"...and then my cell phone rang.
"Tom here, who's this?"
"Tom, it's Vince (My friend Mikie's room-mate). Mikie's dead."
" Hey Vince, you're shitting me, right?"
" No,...I hadn't heard from in two days and it bothered me, so I knocked on his door and he did'nt answer, so I went in and he was slumped over his computer. I shook him but he didn't respond and he was as cold as a rock,...so I just called the Sheriff. Can you come over?"
"I'm about a half an hour away Vince, but I'm on my way."
About thirty minutes later I go there, and was painfully aware o fht etwo ploice cruisers and the obviously unmarked police car pulled up in front of Mikie's apartment.
"Oh Shit, this can't be happening!" I remember thinking, as Mikie and I were sharing beers at our local Pub, Buster's on Sunday afternoon.
I had tried to call him Monday and thought he might be doing some work for a mutual friend about forty miles away in an area where cell phone contact was "scetchy". I had given his cell phone number to another tradesman to call on Tuesday to see about some work Mikie had been willing to show him about. I tried to call him yesterday to see if they had "hooked up", but again no answer.
For those of you who have followed my blog I've introduced you to Mikie. The last of the original "hippies" from the 60's. My "bud", or mate, a guy who would go anywhere and do anything for you even if you never asked.
As I got out of my car Mikie's old room mate Janey ran over to me, sobbing her eyes out and threw her arms around me, sobbing. I knew at that moment, Mikie was not "of this earth" anymore.
Everything moved to second place at that instant,...Mikie became number one!

The Sheriff's department investigator came out and saw me holding and comforting Janey and asked if I knew "the deceased". I answered "Yeah, he's my buddy,...is it true?"
He nodded his head, and said, "I'm sorry."

I won't fill the next umty-ump pages with memories and such, ...but suffice it to say it was a BITCH of a day from there on out.
Everyone looked to me as "the strong one", and I guess I am. I talked to the Sheriff's investigators, the Medical examiner, the Sheriff's deputy assigned, I consoled the girl's who lived next door and knew Mikie, I hugged his "roomy", I gathered info, and I "hung in there".
Mikie loved hanging out at our local Pub, Buster's, as did I. My cell phone started ringing as word got around, "What can we do?, What happened? Is it true?" All for "my buddy",...I'm in schock!
A voice "popped" into my mind, and I begin telling everyone, "Look, It's still unfolding, and I'm doing what I can, but I'll be at Buster's this afternoon at four p.m. and I'll share whatever we know with any of you, thanks for calling.
The day wore on, Mikie was slumped over his computer, his bottle of nitroglygerin two inches from his hand and untouched, no sign of struggle, extreme pain, etc. According to the investigator, "he went quick and painless". For that I'm thankful.
I stayed until the Medical Examiner came and pronounced him dead, and then the van came and they took his body away in a plastic bag to the coroner's office.
The 'investigator" told me he appeared to have passed away at least two days ago. And under Florida law an unattended death would require an autopsy.
Time blurs!!! Sure I've seen CSI, Grey's Anatomy, House, etc., but this was Mikie, my buddy, my friend, my alter-ego in life! DEAD!

At four o'clock I went to the pub, ordered a Guinness, and sat, thinking of Mikie. By 4:10 there were over forty people there. All friends of Mikie!! We talked, we drank, we hugged, we shared stories of Mikie. We laughed, we teared up, and we remembered.

Mikie we miss you, and we all loved you, and we will take care of you.
I'm trying to find your sister from the internet as I write. We love you, and we miss you, but I will vow that you will be remembered by all of us, and we will see that you end up at "The Whale's Tail" to watch all the eye candy on the beach.

Miss you already!

-30-

Feets don't fail me now!!

It's Monday evening, on the one hand my last night of "freedom" (Miss Barbara, truly my better half, is coming home tomorrow after almost two weeks away on business!). I went to the Pub, had three pints, ran into an old friend from Nashville who wrote "Tequila makes your clothes fall off!", had a good time, called our friend Doug in North Carolina and told him this guy came all the way here to see him, and he had the "cajones" to move to North Carolina and this guy was strangling me!! (All in good fun!)
Anyhow, came home finished the Chinese from Saturday night, killed the last glass of Shiraz in the bottle ("Would you care for another bottle sir?" Twenty seconds of thoughtful meditation, and "Does a bear shit in the woods?")
Checked my favorite blogs, all my "blogger buddies"are in good shape, wrote a couple of quick replies, and now it's my turn to comment.
Questions for the "blog world":
Is there really a God?
For being faithful to my true love for forty years, will I be happy when I have to "check out"?
How can I ever explain the magnitude of true love to anyone?

Ok, so I miss my wife. But when I called her this morning on the cell, she answered "Hi Honey, I love you to pieces!" instead of "Hello?"
Men are as strange as women, we just get all "macho" about it. Now twenty years ago I never would have even admitted I missed her. I would have been one of the guys in the pub saying, "Did you check out the rack on the one that just came in?", or "Oh baby, come to Daddy."
So what's different now, albeit thirty years later?

First of all if a "10" approached me, flashed me, groped me, and other wise "encouraged me" to move to "the next level",....I'd probably be on a respirator with umpty-ump cc's of epheneferine being pumped into me! Would a fantastic F*** with a 10+ be a "once in a life time" experiance, not to mention a HUGE thrill? Of course it would,...but the rest of my life I would have to live with it! Trading a 10+ night of great sex, every way I could imagine and some I could never even dream of, for God only knows how many nights of knowing I , no not you, but "I" betrayed my vows to you! Even I can't rationalize that!!
Ok, so I'm an old fart, but by God the woman I love is the woman I love,....forever!
I personally like the simplicity of one man, one woman...til death do you part.
Now that's just me. Could I fantasize about me and Cindy Crawford (sorry kid's,... look her up in google, she was definately a "hottie" in my time.), or me and Racquel Welch? Sure I can, but it's not the fantasy, it's the reality that makes the difference. Would I trade my love and faithfulness for it,...NEVER. And I would be sure that my "wife" would not trade "Fabio" or some such "tight butt, great pec's. rock ab's "dude" for fifteen minutes of the big "O" for cuddling up with me at three a.m., monday thru sunday, and the depth of knowing what love is all about.
As you can tell from this, there will be NO blog tomorrow evening, as I will be "otherwise occupied" until at least Thursday!
Sorry if this is "soupy" , but I'm really comfortable being "me" and loving "her"(24/7). My wish for the world would be that every single one of you could find and know the love I have for "my friend", ...my wife.
-30-

Ready for the weekend!

Fall is coming to Florida. I was actually a little chilly this morning for a meeting I had to attend for my job. Infact the first thing I did when I went into the room was go straight to the thermostat and turn the temerature up to 72 degrees(F.)
I'm home now,(Duh!! Where else would you be if you're blogging stupid!) It's about 1 iin the afternoon and I'm fighting the temptation to go to the Pub and watch a football game (it's not a question of if I go, but when!) I've got another short meeting around three or four o'clock and I'd rather do that meeting and then go to the pub. Tomorrow is "Crash Program Day" you know, whip the house into line for the wife's homecoming tuesday, sand blast the dishes in the sink, time the washer, dryer, and vacuuming so everything gets completed at once. Drag a wastebasket into the living room and sort out the mail, oh yeah, water the plants so they will stand up again and stop floppy all over the floor around the pot. (I never notice them until it's almost too late)
I started thinking about food just now, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do for supper, in fact I don't really have much of an appetitte right now anyway, so why was I thinking about food in the first place? Maybe I'll take a ride to the mall and poke around a bit and see what's new.
OH, ok , I just remembered what I was going to write about (another example of the dreaded new disease affecting our senior population,...CRS syndrome. It is a real hard thing getting old and having your spouse see the early signs of CRS forming, and even trying to discuss it with you,...but CRS can be very dibilitating, to the point of not even wanting to talk about it.
Jezzy, don't bother with the books, and forget the medical journals, and no you didn't miss that in school. Got your attention now? My wife discovered this ailment and actually named it. The layman's translation is Can't Remember Shit,.....gotcha!
Back to a lucid moment.
On my desk when she left for Boston, my wife laid a couple of pictures off the internet of ring settings with a little "baggie" withher engagement ring in it and a note on it saying "T. Don't lose the ring! B." Being smarter than the average bear it only took a couple of days for me to figure out she wanted her ring reset into something like in the pictures. (And she's like trusting ME to pick out the setting and all! ...now that is real trust!)
So off I go one morning this week when work reached the "escape valve needed" level, to the local jewelers. I explain my plight and he proceeds to dig out about a zillion catalogues of ring settings! It was at that point I did the honorable, manly thing.
"Look Mr. Jeweler, don't waste your time, or mine with these, because my taste has been surgically re-attached to my foot. You got the pictures, just get me close!"
" Well sir there are so many variations, and the size and clarity of the stone, and the need to potentially balace the setting with bagettes. (Ah, I know this one, roughly translated it means "I'm going to bagette you for another couple of hundred bucks by implying the microscopic size of the diamond you are resetting needs to be enhanced so you don't look like a cheap wanker").
Fortunately my Blackberry alerted me to an incoming e-mail, so I turned to him and said, "Look get a couple of setting things close to these pictures, I have to deal with this incoming"
I politely walked to the other end of his shop, stared intently at my Blackberry like this was a real serious thing (actually an offer for a shitty little piece of software for $19.99, as a "valued customer") after a few minutes I noticed he finally started to mark a couple of pages in one of the catalogues, so I went back over and said, "What do have?"
"Well I came across three that might do the trick so far."
"Listen that e-mail I recieved I'm really pressed for time so three is as good as it's going to get,...show me please."
"Well sir the first one is a little 'bolder' and I really...."
"That's good let's do it, here's my credit card, when can I pick it up?"
"But the other two sir,.."
"No need, I believe you go with your first instinct, and besides if you are any good in sales you are giving me your best shot, then going to show me a bunch more and be sure to comment negatively on everyone of them to circle us back around to this one, so let's just do it and be done, OK?"
"Are you sure sir, I mean perhaps your wife could come in and look at the settings to see if she..."
"No way, I'm sure you'd start her out at least $500 higher and load up on the bagettes. Nope, I'll take that one."

Two minutes later I'm back in the car tooling up the road with his promise to call me when it is ready, but being sure to let me know he had to order the setting, and then perhaps re-size it to fit her, and maybe have to make a few other adjustments, etc.etc.etc.
Guess what, the next day, less than 24 hours even, RING, RING.
"Your ring is ready sir"
(So where is all the ordering nonsense, and the "adjustments"?)
Made him wait another day and then dropped in to pick it up. Of course the entire staff , all three of them, had been briefed to be sure and oooh, and aaah as the jeweler showed me his handiwork, and then the obligatory comments of "Oh that is so pretty sir" and the "my wife would just love that, it's so exquisite"
Do I sound a little cynical? Naw, but guess what? My Christmas shopping is done, it's the regular usual stuff from here on out. I don't have to agonize over that "special" Christmas presentfor her.
Off to the races.
-30-

Whoa!!! I'm doing this technical shit again!!

trying to "crossover" to the new beta blogspot so I can play with pix's, (at the same time uploading the new Microsoft Office '07 (beta) on my laptop, petting my cat (who feels particularly in need of love today), making up my list of "stuff" from the Office Supply store a little later, getting ready to shut everything down and watch my New England Patriots game at the Pub, and otherwise "relaxxing"!
Maybe I'll write again this evening.
Mr. G.

What a hurricane does!

 

 

This has to be immoral, illegal, or fattening!!!

Friday night, the missus is about 1500 miles away in Boston (yeah, the tea party town!) on business for two weeks. My diet for the past two days has been 1 absolutely drop dead, to kill for, chocolate donut with chocolate frosting, a "fried egg sandwich" (it's a Southern U.S. thing, a fried egg (hard yolk), a slice or two of spicy breakfast sausage. a slab of cheese (above and below), two slices of regular, un-healthy white bread (grilled like a grilled cheese), you take it, tear it apart, put VERY generous slathers of Mayonaisse on it, and ....VOILA!, a breakfast meal to jump start you entire body! Listen to those artieries closing, the sound of the cholesterol cranking up there with every bite, and GOD, when you liberally apply salt to both sides of the bread before consuming,.....this is what an oral orgasm is all about!!
(Sorry, I got carried away. :( )
This afternoon I had a meeting with a client until noon, she suggested lunch at a fantastic sort of Parisean Cafe place called the "Smiling Fish". Grilled Yellowfin Tuna, an herbal mayo, with the "don't eat them or you'll die!" french fries, and then another meeting, and then my "crew" and a couple pints of Guinness at Buster's. (Ain't life grand!!)
Now I'm home, re-heated a culinary "piece d'resistance"from the other nights left-overs ,... fried spam, white American cheese, plain old white bread, God life is good!!
(Sorry again, if you are not hanging over the "porcelien god" wretching from my all to "shitty" descriptions, then you are a "soul-brother" of flat out "comfort food".
OK, so a bit over the top, but now I'm here at my keyboard,(you can tell from the mispellings) with my second "goblet" of a delicate Shiraz from "down under" called Jacob's Creek Reserve, sharing my inner soul with you!
Sure I'm going on 62, sure I've got a "Guinness prothesis" that announces my arrival and lost me the role of Fabio's "body double", but all that's in my "drug drawer" is Vitamin C, Vitamin B complex, a 200mg Milkthistle tablet(take good care of your liver, you only have 1), and a "baby aspirin" (81 mg.). Like I'm preaching to everyone, "Guinness is the second coming of penacillin"!
Ok, serious aside. Ready?
Mr. Guinness's philosophy on health and longevity:
God is definately no "Idiot", look around you, he did it all in a few days!
God is no "bad guy", what point would be in that ?
God KNEW we, the humanoids, would work extra hard to fuck up what he put out there for all of us.
God put a solution out there for everything, we just have to find it.
And on the afternoon of the seventh day God said, "Who's got the Guinness?"
(No disrespect intended, but dump the freakin' "perscription" solutions, forget the "over the counter" cures, put a stop payment on the last check fro you're personal "psychic", and go have a few pints of God's nectar, Vitamin "G", the "ultimate solution" for health,....have a pint of Guinness. (Don't believe me? A good friend saw an interview with Brooke Sheilds, and she was extolling the merits of Guinness for thier newborn child!)

Am I too far over the top?
Screw it!!!

Hope you enjoy a "happy rant".

Mr. G. (Alec to my friends, thank you Lucy!)

"Hump day" (or Wednesday for the wealty!)

Where that term came from I don't know. But I suspect it originated from a war situation, in that you are "over the hump" and on the downside of a situation. (Yeah, I'll buy that!)
Anyway this will be short, it's 7:30PM my time and my wife has a 6:30 flight tomorrow morning from and airport 65 miles away! Shit , one of those 4 a.m. mornings to drive to the airport and by the time I get back it's already time to be at work! (Shit!!)
Anyway, I'll miss her a whole bunch!! (Forty years of marriage and I'm still a whimpering wuss when she has to go away on business!) One of my mates has a different theory which involves being the "party guy" for a couple weeks! Shit, I'd be worn out, dead, and in a definate state of rigor mortis if I followed his advice!
Frankly, not much will change, I'll still pop into Buster's, have my three or four "pints", head home, "nuke" something to eat, watch the tube for a couple hours,(or blog "under the influence" after a few "goblets" of merlot or cabernet) head into the bed room and cuddle up with my cat "Mr. Hiss" and drift off til morn'.
OK so I am a wuss, ok so I miss the shit out of her! I guess i'm one of those dudes who are born to be with my "soul-mate" (and frankly hope I die first because as "The Highlander" said, "There can be only one!". I guess that makes me a romantic, or a part of a very small majority.
I take my marriage seriously! I swore an oath! If the woman I loved in 1966 was good enough to love then, then what the hell has changed today?
I know the net, and "blogs" are primarily for the "younger set", tell me where I screwed up. I met my wife because a buddy threw a firewcracker at her. We were in drum & bugle corps and the man running our Corps found out about it and insisted my buddy drive the fifty mile to her house and apologize personally, as a matter of personal honor!
If he had not done that I never would have met her!!
(Sorry guys if this is to "whimpy" for you!)
I do not have a single regret for 40 years of marriage (this coming June 10th). But I must say from being "super wealthy" to "bankrupt", from eating "filet mignon and escargot" to "franks and beans" she's been at my side.
It's definately not a "physical" thing, as we are both over the "sex" as the meaning of our "love" for each other. (That's definately not saying we are "dead in the bed" as my favorite folk signer Christie Moore says!) But what it does say is that true love transends the physical. As she left for the two weeks she gave me her engagement ring as told me she would love to have it set into a nicer setting beofre Christmas. Is that an "outrageous request" after nearly 40 years?
I'll call her every day, or she'll call me, but 24 hours will never pass without "talking" to each other, unless one of us has gone for a "dirt nap" (dead, for my Aussie friends).
My local buds all wonder "How can you love someone so much, all the time, everyday?"
It's easy, "I DO", and I'm damn proud of it!
One of my Aussie friends "Jezzie" her husband has, or had cancer. Ask her how deep her love goes, ask her what's really important in her life, ask her what really matters.
Life is not about US, it's about those we love,...at all levels , and at all times,...until we no longer are there to "be there" for them!
(Sorry for reality and truth, blogs are great for being what's really inside you and who you are, and I thank all of you who share your self with all of us, and hope I am up to sharing the same for you.)
-30-

Silly, silly,silly,...and hanging out with friends!

Friday evening is our "usual time" to all gather at the pub and get silly together. This past Friday was no different. (Side note: my cat,Mr. Hiss, loves sitting on my desk calendar and watching my fingers typing. Man if I could get that fascinated by something so simple!)
Anyway I'll start at the end of the evening after several pints of Guinness. I had to write this joke down it had gotten so convoluted. Here's the joke:
"Did you hear about the Agnostic,dysflexic,insomniac? He stayed up all noght wondering if there really was a dog!"
It can be used as a sobriety test as well for if you can remember it and say it without a slur or a missed sylable you can have another. And if you tell it and everyone around you looks at you with a blank look or a quizzical one then they are shut off, (and conversely you may assume that perhaps you are not keeping up with your share of "adult beverages" for the evening.)
That was the final result of a number of group attempts to come up with an original joke. So on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being WOW! How would you rate it?
It all starts with Mikie, every Friday evening. Now this particular night he's talking to one of our freinds Debbie, and being (or trying to be) very serious, Unfortunately if he were to ever have his arms amputated he would become a mute! He's one of those folks who MUST have all the appendages below his shoulder in animation in order to express himself, including all ten fingers! Anyway there was a lull in the overall conversations,except Mikie to Debbie, and we all sort of glanced over at him as he was oblivious to the rest of us at that moment.
Now Mikie is pushing 65, thin, single, and just the salt of the earth as a buddy. But this night he was wearing one of those Hawaiian Flower shirts,bright one at that, had his hair all pushed back (sort of that wind tunnel look) and both hands were going and his facial expression was so serious. Well, I couldn't help it, something struck me so I leaned over to "Loda" (real name Janice, but Loda was her NTN Trivia handle before the Pub went cheap and pulled out the game) and said, "Look at Mikie, doesn't he remind you of a retired Mafia hit man putting out the order for a hit?" That cracked her up and she passed it on and a few minutes later everyone was in fits, ...except Mikie, who finally looks around at everyone looking in his direction in fits of laughter. "What,...did I say something funny? What are you (expeltive deleted) 's laughing at?"
Someone told him he had to be there and that started everyone laughing even harder. From there we went downhill to the Agnostic, Dysflexic, Insomniac...you know?
Well thought I'd share that, but now I have to pop out for a second or two and find out what time my New England Patriots game is on today . Be Right back!
Nope, on second though I have a heavy week so I better get my planner up to date or I'll be coming when I should be going and saying, "Whoops! Wrong meeting!"
-30-
Thanks Lucy, as usual I love your humor, forget your friends and I'll come back to haunt you for them. :)

Rain drops on roses,...

Oh melancholy, I love it!
Thursday night, one day of work left,oops,...make it two, I've an Annual Meeting for one of my associations Saturday morning. Oh well, ... I chose this living, thank God it's only a once a year thing!
Congrats to my Aussie blog friend Lucy,...sounds like a great job you jumped into, give it your best and soon I'll have friends in highplaces should I ever venture outside my postal zip code and end up in Australia. You earned a good shot, give it your best!
And to my ol' buddy Doug, time for step two in computer fun. Look at the column on the right hand side of this blog and the list that begins with "Antilogy". It's a list of my favorite "blogs" and trust me they are all good people with great minds and perhaps the best cross-section of human beings I've found yet! Now put the mouse on one,(I suggest "Antilogy" first and double click,...enjoy, and say Hi from Mr. Guinness! (Click the "back" button and poof you're back to my blog! it's sort of like Alice in Wonderland without the drugs!)
Speaking of Alice, one of my all time favorite tunes is the "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane, the symbolism, the double entendreau, and the beat, now that was a tune to zone out with!!! It kind of makes me wonder whatI would have been today if I did drop some acid and zoned back then. And Grace Slick, whoaaaa!, What a voice! Trust me you had to live through the 60's to know the REAL power of music. Then there was Bob-o (Dylan of course!) I actually used my son, age 11 at the time and of course it was his idea, to go to a Dylan concert. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakes were the "opener" for him. Great poet!
And then (ok, settle back and get ready for a belly laugh, and yes even a "snort") I've seen Joan Baez, Peter,Paul and Mary, and virtually every "folk" signer from the sixties, and our age of "rockers", a/k/a Chicago, Earth Wind and Fire, the Moody blues, of course the Beatles, and this young bunch of "upstarts" called "The Rolling Stones"! Ok I'm an old fart, but the tunes were great!
For those of you that read my blog, "When last we met,..."I was extolling my victory, (and cost) in finding out how to "burn" my own CD's of my own favorites. Round ! was a huge success! I've been staying under the speed limit on the roads, smiling at other assholes cutting me off, waving to old folks (80+, remember at 62 I'm still akid!), slapping the steering wheel on the "heavy beat", and otherwise singing my lungs out everytime I get behind the wheel! Thanks to my new homemade "Best of Mr. Guinness, a lifetime of top best music and life yet!", I am in my third childhood! Woo, woo, woo!!!!!
For those of you who know me, yes it's me writing this, or is it my alter-ego "Tommy-Cool", ....hmmm, let me get back to you on that one.
Jezzy, this is all being done with naturally organic product, Australian Shiraz and deep breathes!! (My Coozar, 50mg is the only un-natural substance I put in my body, aside from,well, No...Guinness was given to us by God, or was it Arthur P. Guinness. No matter, it's natural for sure!)
Well I'm having far too much fun tonight, (If you're Catholic and that happens you automatically feel like you should go to confession, as soon as possible!).
By the way I scored two free tickets to the Florida State University versus Boston College Football game on October 21st today. I asked my buddy Woody and he's tied up with a tennis tournament that day (He's a real live member of the National Tennis Hall of Fame, and I own a piece of a trotter horse with him.), so tomorrow I'll ask my buddy Mikie if he wants to go.
Check to morrrow's blog and I'll fill you in on the "college football thing" in America. I swear when I moved here I thought they were all nuts,but now.....ok sop I'm willing to drive three hours, to a strange city, go to a stadium seating almost 100,000 people, 98% of whom are Florida fans and root for Boston College! (Either a death wish or a committed dude, wouldn't you say?)
Get to go, talk at you tomorrw. Enjoy!
-30-

Water, People, and dumbness

One of my clients was grousing about high costs of water and sewerage hookups a few weeks ago. Since it is that time of the year when I have to prepare annual budgets for all of them I began the process, and indeed noted that they were already 300% over the annual budget with three more months in the year! (Bare in mind I only took over this account in June and haven't had time for a real indepth look yet. In fact out of my eleven clients I've only been able to go in depth on three so far in four months! ) Anyway I never even see the water bills as they are deemed "mundane and repetitive" so they are just entered by the accountants. I went to the particular accountant who handled this account and asked about the crazy spikes in water usage, and if she could run me a three year history to look at. She did, scanned it quickly and handed it to me with a comment to the effect that "it's not my fault, I just put the shit in the computer". When I looked at the history it was obvious that the bill had risen from a mere$450 a month to over $3,000 a month in less than 30 months! A quick ananlysis of business confirmed that if anything the bill should have declined! The next day I got a call from the client telling me that the landscaper found a "little leak" in one of the flower beds near one of the palm trees, and it wasn't irrigation water. (Down here most irrigation water is pumped from wells on prpoerty and the high sulfer content of well water,...well let's just say unless you stuff huge bannanas up your nose you can tell right away what is well water,..or rotton eggs in your pocket)
I went over and took a look. A little puddle about eight inches in diameter formed in the bed and it was "roiling" sort of the old cookbook "bring to a gentle simmer". (More local commentary: we live on a bloody sandbar, ergo anything wet is completely absorbed instantly and "percolates" through the soil almost faster than you can see!) The only time you see something "simmering" like this puddle is when the local ground has become super saturated and the water is having a harder time "percolating down, therefor it percolates to the path of least resistance,UP. Shit, a leak!
The water company came immediately when I called, they looked at it and confirmed it, "Yup, you got a pretty good leak here" and then proceeded to inform me it was on my side of the water meter, and not thier problem!! The water guy was helpful, nice, and even laid down and stuck his whole arm into the puddle and told me he did'nt feel a pipe but couldn't reach anr further because the roos of the palm tree were everywhere, and in fact the pipe might just be in the roots and that's what caused the leak. I went to the water company and appealed to them, asking if there was not some "flag" in thier computer that told them our useage went up over 600% in twenty four months and after two major hurricanes which chopped buiness ergo tourists by twenty percent and they didn't notice anything amiss? To no avail, very supportive, sent the water guy back to double check it was city water "Yup, that's our water." Three more water guys stopped out and looked it all over and all agreed. Meanwhile I call the plumber, he get's there in 30 minutes looks at it and also confirms a leak. (By this time I'm looking for a little newer information than "Yup it's a leak"! ) Plumber tells me he might be able to get to it tomorrow afternoon, and he'll call me later to confirm it. What the hell, it's been leaking for almost two and a half years now, what's another 24 hours.
"You better call them guys out to mark the utilities so I know where not to dig." Good idea, so I call this "800" hot line, get the third degree and answered about 60 questions, give them my cell phone number and am told "OK we'll let the utilities know and they'll get in touch. Man I'm impressed with these guys. Within 30 minutes every utility in the western hemisphere called to verify the location, get a description of the problem and tell me they were on the way to msrk thier particuler utility. Within twenty minutes they started whizzing into the parking lot. They'd all jump out grab a thing that looked like a caulking gun with a flouresent paint can in it, a little meter sort of device attached to a plastic "wand" and start roaming around until thier little meter thing began to buzz. Then they would walk around following the little beeping and buzzing noises, hit the ground with a blob of paint, and move on further. Each utility had a different color and pattern. The cable TV and Telephone guys used orange, and a solid line of paint, the gas guys use bright yellow, and since we didn't have any gas lines on the property wrote an eighteen inch big "OK" in flouresent yellow on the little bush in the flower bed! The electric guy uses red dots, three dots paralell to indicate it's three phase electric ergo three different lines. And the water guy says "No sense spraying the bushes, the water lines below the big puddle that's bubbling." (God I love solid logic and impeccable reasoning!) Within threee hours all done and thier gone and I'm standing there eating a cold Taco Bell Burrito waiting for the plumber to call back.
He finally calls and conforms the "big dig" for tomorrow afternoon. I ask him to call me when he's heading over and I'll meet him there. Home to bed, another day of fun tomorrow!

Sure enough he calls around 1 pm. So I head over. (Now I've already let everyone know the water to the entire building will be shut off from noon to five while we solve the problem) Stomach growling again, swing through Taco Bell and grab a Burrito again for lunch on the drive over. By the time I get there he's got the back hoe out and ready, two other plumbers with him, and he's surveying the area. "Sort of dumb putting the electric line only six inched away from the water line, reckon I'll have to watch that pretty good, don't want to hook no electric line while I sitting in this rig in a puddle of water." So he climbs up and begins. Three scoops later he hooks the irrigation line, jumps down cuts it and mutters "I'll fix that son-a-bitch later" jumps back up and starts chomping away on his chewing tobacco and running the back hoe. Whe he gets down about four feet he tells the other plumber, "Guess we're pretty close, ease that water back on so I can see where it's coming from" Sure enough a few minutes later water starts bubbling up. He climbs down in the hole sticks his are down in the growing puddle, looks up with a goofy grin and say's "Got her!" He starts feeling around in the hole and in a minute or so the grin turns to a BIG frown. "Shit there's a damn tee right there, this'll be trickier than I thought"
Fifteen minutes of hand digging later the offfending pipe is fully exposed, and it's right at the junction of the tee that the big open crack is staring at me. The plumber walks over to his truck drags out a big box of PVC couplings, joints, pieces of pipe and the can of "goop"(a clear goo that you just slap on the ends of the PVC then you just shove them in the joint and in fifteen seconds an atomic bomb is needed to seperate them again ever. It takes him all of ten minutes to chop out the entiure offending section and two foot either side of it, take his little box of lego parts and "goop" and fix it, and another five minutes dumping the dirt back in the hole. Oh I forgot the test part. "Go open a faucet down the other end of the building and leave her wide open for about ten minutes", he tells me, "Bobby Joe, you go slap that water back on to the buildin', start her slow and count to ten then open her up,....time to see if like Daddy use to say,'I done good'"
Guess he did, cause there weren't no leaks and the water was plumb pouring out the faucet on the other end of the buildin'! (Oh shit I'm even begininng to sound like the plumber! Time to shut off the faucet, go get a pint of guinness, and go home and watch My Fair Lady again to learn to speak properly before going back to work tomorrw.
Just another day in paradise!
-30-

Me,"Tex", and world problems solved

This will be brief because I overslept this morning and don't have my usual hour of blog time.
Yesterday i was talking with a guy called "Tex" from guess where? Right, Texas! And we solved the immigration problem once and for all.
Let everyone come to anywhere they want, but if you do then YOUR government has to pay for you. We'll design little "cities" of inflatable buildings, parks, stores, restaurants, even a little "city council" of your fellow (fill in the blank). We will let the Latinos live and join together in their cultures, the Asians in thiers, the Eastern Europeans in thiers, etc., etc. What we will do is simply send Mexico, China, Estonia, and Moscow the bill for the entire city operation!
How much more simple could it be? All the corporations that need workers could offer jobs at the local City Center. We take a Walmart and partner with them and have a 24/7 Job Mart within the store so you can find a job you want and be interviewed in your own community for it and not by others.
If each country were to be treated like a Company, and had to support it's "employees" as well as it's own objectives this thing might just work. If a country does not support it's people coming into our country to work then we just pull the plug on thier inflatable city and everyone gets deported back home.
Sure folks have a right to better thier existence, I'm all for that, but if you leave your own country to find that better existence in mine then I'm all for your government paying for it. There are some really strange feelings on this whole immigration thing. We love the Canadians coming here because they bring money and spend it, while Mexicans bring "sweat equity". Both valuable commodities, but why are we pleased and tolerable of one, and railing about the other?
I could throw out some more comments, but time for work, and paying the bills.
-30-

Oh the age we live in,...it's GREAT!!!!

My wife always reminds me that sometimes simple things are the most pleasant and memorable,...and once again she's right!
I have discovered the musical download, and the "upgrade" advantage of the one that came with my 'puter. ("Summer in the City" blasting out now!!!!) Not to rant about being an old fart, but I have sort of been "Yeah, ok, good for you"-ing the folks with the little ear buds and ipods dangling around thier neck, but now it's starting to make a little more sense to me. But let me slow down my enthusiastic rant and back up to the beginning. I probably should have named this blog "You CAN teach an old dog new tricks!"
I was settling in today, Sunday, to just do some old fashion reading from a new book I picked up this morning at Barnes and Noble (local national chain book purveyor), and then I remembered I wanted to cancel an auto-payment I had set up in my computer, so I went up do do it. (That was four hours ago! sigh!) I wanted to listen to some music so I stuck a Mozart CD in and turned it on. While I was waiting for the "parade of icons" to finish and the "scanning" crap I decided I really wasn't in the mood for Mozart today. What I really wanted was some ass-kicking 60's acid flashback Woodstock stuff. I am feeling my late teens and twenties today!
I started fooling around with a few of the buttons and hit a "music store" one to then be confronted by all these album covers(oop's showing my age,.."CS" covers),... but I didn't have a clue who the hell they were! (Why would you call your group "smashing pumpkins"? Beats the shit out of me!) I clicked on a couple and found out I could get "samples" of the tunes. (Okay so I was wincing and writhing in pain and confusion trying to figure out what they were saying and, I use this next word lightly, "playing". Then a few of my synapses must have hit as a lightbulb over my desk flickered and a voice said, "Hmmmm! You think they have any of the "good old music"?" A few more buttons and I was in Nirvana (not the rock group, the place, or state of mind.) And there before me was a varitable smorgasboard of musical history from the 60's!!! The Troggs, the Birds, The Monkeys, The REAL Jefferson Airplane, The Doobie Brothers, The Mama's and the Papa's, The Moody Blues, Van Morrison, and MY 60's!
I learned to a) download a tune, b) put it in a playlist, and most cool of all c) "burn" my own CD for the car!! Now I can blow down the road with "China Grove" blasting, the Eric Burdons "House of the Rising Sun" , and "Nights in White Satin",...man I can't wait for my little property tour this afternoon. (Got to out go by and just check on my properties and make sure they are still standing, didn't burn down or get torn up too bad by the tourists to try and head off the Monday morning,"Do you know what happened over here over the weekend?" e-mails and calls. The ones I manage I mean! I left "wealthy" back at the starting gate of life. Maybe I'm a little too "zen" to really give a shit about amassing wealth,...besides I'm 62 it's basically too late unless I decide to start knocking over banks. And after watching a couple episodes of CSI I know damn well I'd be caught, convicted and with my luck get to play "house" with some Bubba for the next 15 to 20 years! Naw, I guess I'll just stay sort of straight and narrow in that respect.
Back on track (sorry!) But I'm thrilled with my new find and my own "personalized" CD's,...hmmm, I wonder how those little iPod things work and if they are that easy, and what they cost? (I suppose I could ask my granddaughter who I know is home becasue she's "grounded" this week, but won't tell my wife (her grandmother) why she's grounded. Frankly as much as we love her I really believe there are some things I really don't need to know!
Well I better head out and check my stuff and see if this CD is as good in the car with the volume turned up as it is here in "the pit"
Happy Monday everyone, only five days of insuffereable pain, managment maddness, co-worker ineptitude, and client attitude until we get to kick back, order a pint, and "get over it"

-30-

Whizzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!

That was time, God it just flys by like a rocket!
I don't have enough time for a full blog (OK, I heard that "Thank God!"), but I wanted to dash off a few lines.
A few blogs ago I wrote about "the pit", a/k/a my computer room. Well I finally got it cleaned up,...sort of. Still got to move a couple bookcases, change the location of a file cabinet, etc., but I did make a marvelous discovery that the "desk tops" actually were not made of piled up papers,.. it just seemed like it.
Men like to "celebrate" what we consider "major accomplishments". (OK, so any excuse to buy a new "guy toy"!) In honor of cleaning up the pit, I decided that the size and weights of some of my computer components were just huge and bulky, and (using male logic again here so bear with me) if I were to reduce the physical size and weight,well... then the pit would forever stay neat and organized!! (What? You have a hard time with logic?)
So after my second glass (or as the wife calls my "special wine glass", "the Bucket", I remember passing over a Dell catalogue, so I began to thumb through it and look for ways to make my computer room more "effiecient".
"HHHmmmmm!, if I got rid of the huge albatross TV moniters, and replaced them with the light efficient and super flat panel screens,....yes, ...now where is that toll free telephone number for Dell.
Yep, I found it, dialed it, and why is it no matter what you want, and no matter how damned disciplined you try and be about the whole thing,...does ONLY the item you ask about seem to be the "Oh wait a minute here,..I see we are having a super special, clearance discount, preferred buyers only , "thank you offer",.. would you like me to tell you about it? ( Sort of like the old, "Would you mind if I slipped into something a little more comfortable,...like skin?") You know it's already over so how much and when will it be delivered!
Now as a happily married dude for almost forty years the first thing that happens is you have a flashback to a role reversal shot of an old "I love Lucy" episode, where for whatever reason Ricky Ricardo comes home and in his Cuban accent says, "Luceee, you got some 'splainin' to do!"
(Oh yeah, the wife will be at home when the delivery guy comes this week. Good news, I'll be at the office. She'll get a bit cranked up, probably call me with a "What is this thing from Dell, do you really think you need another 'TOY'?" (Becasue we don't have camera phones yet she won't see the wicked smirk on my face as I say "What thing from Dell?" folled by a very pregnant pause and then an "Oh yeah, my old moniter is blinking in and out and so I thought it might be a good time to,...oh so it came today?" (Male logic again, always end with a question, regardless of the discussion, it lies waiting to be answered, there in is the trap. If she begins to rant you simply re-direct the conversation back to your question, "So what time did they deliver it?" , again trying to control the situation, or as they say in corporate circles, "applying damage control, and spinning it a bit". If all else fails and you (as the male) reach the dreaded conclusion that you might be a little "over the top" in terms of containment and "acceptable spin", and perhaps it will be a very chilly evening when you get home, then you MUST pull out the Ace in the hole, the trump card, and at great personal risk, then interrupt whatever she is saying to insert the ultimate female rage and anger mode neutralizer,..."Listen, I got a little bonus and I thought I'd surprise you by taking you out to (insert name of expensive restaurant with HUGE, chocolate drowned desserts and low lighting and romatic ambience),...I already made the reservation,...I told them seven, is that ok with you?"
If there is a cool pause, you are halfway there. Wait a few seconds and then do the "Oh shit, I've got a call on the other line, I'll call you back in ten minutes, then let me know if seven is ok,...love you, bye."
IMPORTANT FOLLOW UP POINT: If you do not call back you will be in mega-deep shit, so don't even think about going home because now you have bought "needless" toys, promised chocolate, romance, and ambiance,...and bailed, and just about added enough fuel to things to assure your butt is the main ingrediant for a bar-b-que!
Got to go, work calls and I'm ranting a bit more than I have time to today!

-30-

Here comes the "annual stress crunch"

Ready for an all-new first here it is, this will be the first blog ever written about touching the keyboard whatsoever, and so how cool is that! Being one of the new techie kind people I recently updated a program that I'd bought about a year ago called Dragon speaking naturally to a newer version, and I just had time to install it this afternoon. I'm still training the program to recognize my speech accent and speech patterns and then converted into something that looks like English on the written screen but it's coming along it's not a slow learner as I thought it would be all I have to do is remember to turn on the microphone and headset on and then just sit here and talk to the screen I used to do that after couple beers.
Anyway I bought this program and in the hopes I can sit down and do some writing without having to be thinking about where I'm putting my stupid little fingers of the words come out correctly on the screen as one of the biggest pains in the but when you try to stop and think about which are actually wanting to put down the paper and then where the keys are that you have to hit to make that happen. So far this little jewel is working pretty well in fact I'm really quite pleased with it, well on to what's going on today in my little world

the wife is working to six clock and then we have to go to a potluck dinner at the local church where she sings in the choir because they just finished a successful concert this past week. Usually the food at these things is pretty good but the recipes are never around so you have to whittle the next one to get good stuff again. This afternoon I'm sitting here my computer looking at all these disks and CDs that are lying all over the place and wondering which ones have what on them and what they go to. Since I bought two new Dell computers in the last year or so I've got multiple copies of the Dell restoration software all of the place and I'm not sure which one is which, plus all the programs and junk have been putting on the system are scattered about with manuals installation instructions and all kinds of other stuff. So I'm going to straighten them out make a make sense file amid the little organized piles in places where I can get at them if I need them. In a way it's so depressing because I really like to think I'm organized but have them retentions span of ant when it comes to doing this kind of stuff. Okay now to see if I can fake out in this computer wreck voice recognition software this would be the sound of a cough(pretty cool it didn't do anything!) Later on this evening after have a couple beers all see if it recognizes a belch and what it prints out, I guess I'm pretty pleased with this thing.

And

the college football season is in full swing here in the US and particularly the South East. Being a Northerner I'm more into the professional football than college, but if you live here in the South the better get into college or you got nothing to talk about. So yesterday afternoon after I learned that my favorite college team, Boston College, and won its third straight game and was undefeated I had to sit and endure an Auburn LSU game. Even sitting in my favorite pub with a piney Guinness and a couple of intelligent friends the Auburn guys were so loud obnoxious and just plain being stupid it took all the fun out of sitting around watching the game. On the other screen and we will watching Michigan play Notre Dame and crushing them. Today being Sunday the professional games are on another down in about an hour or so and catch part of the ballgames and and chat with some more my friends. However, this being Sunday afternoon in the United States the number one fan attendance and "sport" for three out of four Sundays a year is NASCAR!! (We had a big argument one day about automobile racing and whether or not these guys driving were really athletes. The bartender, a good friend of mine Glen made the comment "how hard is it to keep your foot on the gas and turn left for four hours? You think that's athletic!" Of course some of the local NASCAR affection (ha ha I caught the machine I told it to put in affectionados and it put in affection not a house) and some of these folks here in the South take this NASCAR very very seriously, but I can asssure you I'm not one of them. Sure I play the pool every week put in my five dollars and draw are a driver but that's simply little bet not a passionate love of the sport(can I say sport?)

Well so much for my little tule I'm not getting anything done them not putting away any of the disks and jewel cases that I have hanging around so I guess I should probably and this blog go back cleaning up (sigh!) Well is fun and I may do this again from time to time but for right now I'm not totally convinced that the blogging this is the best way to do it so with that I hang up my microphone and turn it back over to the keyboard have a great week I've got a super busy week coming up so I probably won't beginning on the blog too much this week. Oh, and I'm mulling over the temptation to join the national chess Federation again I like to play chess unfortunately there aren't too many people it do we know how to play these days under my age my buddy security guard Mike (we call him that when in fact he's one of those independent contractors that you read about in the world currently he's in Bosnia and this is like his fifth time over there when he is home he and I usually trying get together a couple days a week and play a few games of chess)

-30-

God, does time fly!!!!!

It just seems like yesterday I published a blog!! But in fact it was almost a week ago! So what's been happening since I last wrote?
My "Administrative Assistant" (a/k/a/ secretary), quit, (not because of me, but the fact that selling "would you like fries with that?", paid more! (Not my call! I'd haver paid her triple to stay! She was like a wife, "Tom, are you going to ge that done today, the statutes stay it has to be done by mail out time?" "Yes Mindy, I got it covered!" (mental aside...."shit, she's right it has to be post marked by tonight,...damn, gotta get it done!!).
We as men are such "SHITS" , I am a man, but in fact I realize the "system" makes us "better", but the fact is Mindy was my "partner", NOT my "administrative assistant"!!!
God I miss her!!
Men are a funny species! We love to be the "hunter" when in fact we look forward more to the "God, what a great supper this will make!" from our mates. (Sorry guys, five Guinness's and a relaxing evening spell "THE TRUTH"!!
I NEED an alter-ego, a detail person who knows where the commas should be, the strength of the coffee for the meeting, and has the GUTS to signal me to "shut up" when I'm on a rant!!
I am a guy who not just appreciates my "support people", but knows they are the folks that either make me look like "the second coming of Christ", or "the lunatic asylum escapee". God love the support staff,...I do, they make me or break me!!
Anyhow, Mindy was perhaps the most organized and on top of things people I've ever had the priviledge of working with, (no lie, just oure truth!) For a twenty-five year old she had it all together, knew how to "ring my bell" when it needed to be rung,"Hey Tom, aren't we supposed to have that notice posted today, by law??", God I miss her!!!
That's one of the problems today in business, We are not the "guru's" we think we are, it's our "support team" that makes us HERO'S!!! Mindy, Thank you for being you, supporting me, and having the "guts" to look for a better future for you and your "guy"!!
Love you and miss you!!
Alec

(Every once in a while the heart goes above the "mind", it's been a "bad" week and it never was when Mindy was in charge!! What else can I say?)

-30-

"Saturday, ...in the park..you'd think it was the 4th of July"

Just a rampant thought whizzing through the brain as I waited for the blog screen to come up. (The title that is).
This is the first Saturday in perhaps ten years where I don't have to go anywhere, be anywhere, or do anything! I'm FREE!!! Down to just one job again(Monday thru Friday) , things seem to be cooking along smoothly and all. So let's review class.
The "Pit" is almost too messy for me at this point. Every time i come up here to write, play, etc. that little voice in my head says "Yo, why don't you clean it up a bit?", and occassionally my wife will stick her head in and perhaps with a little moreforcefulness say something like "Aren't you ever going to clean this shit hole up and throw some of this junk in the trash?" But how can I do that? It's all valuable "stuff". (A slight aside, ever listen to George Carlin's monologue on "Stuff"? It's a classic, give it a shot)
Ok, since I have time I'll give you the tour of the "Pit" with the relative commentary. "Please keep both hands inside the bus as some of the objects out there can be dangerous. And do not throw anything out the window as it will further confuse me as to it's "keeper" value".
First , as we approach the entry to the "Pit" you'll notice the brown cardboard box on the floor, that's the "computer stuff" box. Anything I have that I don't have a clue what it is, but it's a device, a cable, a non-music CD, a manual, or a cord is there. (Ever need anything help yourself I don't know what's in there until I really need it, but I know it's there!) Moving beyond the archway and into the, ok for lack of a better word "room" you'll find the love seat. Define please? It may be called a setee or something like that. kind of a mini-couch, only big enough for two people to sit on, not even big enough for one to lay down on, and who ever dreamed up the name "love seat"? You'd probably break your back or your partners back in six places if you tried to make "love" on it! However it's a great "place" (oh, definition again: space utilized to be full of stuff of some sort. Let's see whats there, oh, black and white pictures I took years ago of woods and trees in winter. (Look's like location shots for the "Blair Witch Project") , oh, theres the magazines I was looking for last spring (should have move this stuff around then!) and there is a place I can actually sit down and read quietly with my stereo in the background.
What's a ballot box doing here? Oh, yeah when I had to do that meeting last year and they were electing officers. Well I don't need it now so I should throw it out,...oh, look, thta's where my boxed set of Jimmy buffet CD's are, under the file folders with the rubber band on them. (Wonder what's in these folders? "DON"T DO IT, YOU'LL GET SIDETRACKED, JUST KEEP THROWING THE JUNK IN THE TRASH BOXES" wafts an encouraging comment from my wife as she recognized the decrease of "work noise"from her office in the next room. "But I might need these, you know?" "YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY ARE, THROW THEM OUT!"
(That's part of living with the same woman for almost forty years, they can see through walls better than Superman, damn...ok out they go but if I ever need them again it's her fault if we don't have them! Alright so I don't have a clue what they are or what's in them, but they could be something I need!)
Aaaah, another old friend, my CD and cassette storage shelves,...oh, there's the "Cat's" Cd, and my new age meditation tapes, hmmm , maybe I should try using them again, that was a very peaceful time when I was trying to learn meditation, "I'll just set these aside for later", oh and all my Irish music tapes and CD's, man that's memories! I really loved owning that little pub, "The Emerald Rose", maybe do it again? No, not worth the heartache nor the hangover, (free advise to the world: never open a pub unless you want to spend your entire life 24/7 there, because if you don't even the most honest of employees will steal you blind and pretty soon you're looking at the numbers and saying "how come we're loseing money?" (sigh! but it was a lot of fun anyway!)
And now we are approaching the "bag corner" an eclectic collection of briefcases, small carboard boxes, and plastic store bags of all sizes from every purchase made that's in this room. (Oh look the original Palm Pilot I box from 1996!, And isn't that,...yup, it's the box of envelopes they were throwning out four years ago that I thought I might be able to use, hmmm they are all glues together, ok I'll pitch them out. See I'm trying to clean it up!)
Ooops, tripped over the old Apple pile. That is the CPU, moniter, keyboard, one button mouse and the zip drive. (Hmmm, I have room on the computer desk, and there is another port left in the router I can use, and the HP laser printer says it supports Apple as well..... Ok I'll set it up tomorrow afternoon and see if it still works. (slight aside, the little batttery in an Apple that keeps the ROM active, when it wears down the date on the screen will automatically default to June 16, 1956. Now there's some trivia for you! Rumor has it that was either Steve Jobs or Wozniak's birthday.)
Ok folks we are going to be stopping here for a while for breakfast, please watch your step exiting the bus, and remember smoking is allowed only outside the building. Please do not leave the path and go straight to the table in the kitchen. If you should hear any stiffled screams or anguished crys than you'll kn ow why it's critical you stay on the path. Just like you they all signed the hold harmless waiver for the tour, and who knows maybe I will get this cleaned up to the degree that we may find a few of them, still alive.
Don't forget to stop at the gift shop on the way out, we rteally do expect a gift from each of you for this informative and valuable tour. See you all back at the bus after breakfast!

What drugs?

After I posted my last entry to this blog I went and read it. "DUH!!!" I don't do drugs (NO beer is not a drug, it is simply an attitude adjustment elixer of all natural ingredients given to the world by the wizened old sages of virtually every society know by mankind. Don't even go there or I'll have to kill you!)
I'm in an exceptionally good mood this afternoon and all I've had is three Iced teas so far! So maybe I do a "tag" thing.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but GBE has led me to believe (see I learn from "lurking") that a "tag" is when you challenge others to respond or act in a manner rather spontaneously to a question, or series of requests that you have already responded too. (Did I get that right GBE?)
Well whether I did or not let me throw a few out and see!
1. Name your favorite tune that reflects a specific referance to a city?
For me, it's got to be a tune called "Dirty Water" from the sixties that refers to
Boston Massachusetts in the USA (my own old hometown)
2. If you had to be a "drink" what would you be and why?
For me a Guinness (gee surprised?) because aside from being almost a "health food"
it's a piece of history, history of my ancestors, my heritage, and a hard working
peoples who indeed work for a living!
3. How many pair of shoes is necessary for the human being to go through a week?
For me, 3, good loafers for work, sneakers (sorry younger generation, old term for
running shoes), and Birkenstocks for the rest of the times over the next twenty
years.
4. What are you having for supper tonight?
Steak, baked potato, veggies (thinly sliced zucchini, summersquash, onions, and
Italian seasoning, sauteed), a glass of Shiraz (possibly two, ok maybe even three if
it's good!)
5. Do you have a favorite cup or glass you always drink out of? Describe it.
A HUGE coffee mug that says "BlabTV" on it. In the morning when I get up to go to
my 'puter and play and wake up, I want a HUGE cup of coffee that will stay hot,
that I can wrap my hand around, and just reeks of "this will kick your sorry butt
into wide awake, drink up"
6. Ever hear of Christy Moore?

Well enough for now. It's about three PM Sunday afternoon, the wife is heading off to chior practice, I have to swing by my office and pick up some stuff I need for a Board meeting tomorrow morning, drop off a hedge trimmer to a buddy, and skull a few pints at the pub.
See you later.

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PLEASE help me out here!

One of the blogs I read regularly has a really neat thing on it, what's called a "Guest map". My little mouse thing "light up" when I went over it, sooooo...I clicked on it. Lo and behold an entire map of the world popped up, with various "buttons" on the top, ..."slowly I clicked on them,..", only to find out I could "plant a little flag" (or little cartoon dude) anywhere on the map, and write a brief comment i.e. "Hey this is cooool!"
Anyway I found out it's a free little thing you or anyone can put on thier blogsite and people visiting you can put little cartoon dudes, or flags on it as well. (Note: As far as I am aware there is no way to "trace" anybody back to anything and this is just a "fun thing") So I put it on my blogsite, in the side bar (little icon of a globe on a stand that says "see Guest map" or something to that effect.
I've been waiting patiently for over a month and no one has even hit on it,sooooo I am asking for a little help here. If you read my blog, please click on the "see guest map" globe on the right hand side and please leave a flag or cartoon dude. PLEASE!!!
Why? Because I am in awe of the entire internet thing, not to mention the "blog" thing. The mere fact that I can sit here, type whatever I want, hit a button, and BAM! it's out there for the entire world to see!! Both civilized world as well as un-civilized world (that would be very barren, cold, snowy, icey "shit holes" you would never find ME living in!)
So help me out here and plant a flag, tell your friends to plant a flag(and read the blog as well), and enjoy life to it's fullest!
See, no rant, no rave, no emotions, no scholarly dissertations, no dirty jokes, and minimal profanity.
"It's true Igor, I am changing! Quick get Doctor Frankenstein the drugs are wearing off,.....and while you're at it bring another six pak."
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A Blog about a blog

Redundancy, mais non! A few months ago I started reading a blog called antilogy, it's on my side bar of other blogs read, or www.theantilogy.blogspot.com. It's written by a pretty smart young lady who writes well, has a super personality, and poses interesting things to think about.
Recently she posed the question of the boys hitting on the girls versus the girls hitting on the boys, and boy did the blog world jump on it. If I figure out how to "link" it to this I most certainly will so you can enjoy it as well.
But her point is not unique to the "twenty-something generation", but extends to us "oldsters" as well. Many evenings my mates and I would sit at our favorite Pub and particularly during the summer (beach community, 100 degree temps, 100% humidity, etc.) the quantity of clothing is at best minimal, and that includes going out for a beer, or a bite to eat! This provided obvious "eye candy". Now not in the spirit of the proverbial "dirty old man" (because many of the women local"mates" spend just as much time checking out pec's and biceps, and for some reason after a few pints, a guys butt, and I don't hear them called "dirty old women"!) But I diverse.
On many occasions we've chatted about this entire thing as sixty year olds, and here's a few comments for you.
Bob E. (63 divorced, retired, serious golfer)- "I'm trying to uncomplicate my life, not complicate it again! I just want someone I can talk to, be myself, go have dinner with, chat and take back to her house at the end of the night and say good night. Not a "committment", not a sex thing, not a "when will I see you again" thing,...just a "Hey, why don't we go have dinner Friday night,..on me."
Mark R. (64, single, handyman, "gamer")- "I'm getting way to old (64)for these mind game things. It used to be simple. If I had an itch I'd go scratch it, now it's a scary thought and it's easier to not even go there, and put up with the itch".
Bob G. - (62, married, workaholic,"aka Mr. G.) - "I don't know if I'd even want to think about jumping back into the pot again. I don't know what's expected any more, or from whom. I've been married so long I've never really thought about it seriously."
Kiddingly I've said that if anything ever really happened to my wife, aside from being totally lost for a bunch of time afterwards, I'd just up and sell everything, buy a 45' Catamaran, hire a crew of three female blonde nympho-maniancs and head for the Islands. Sort of a Viking funeral thing.
I even asked some of my co-workers. Some neat replies there. The twenty-somethings all look at me screw up thier faces and go "eeeeuuwwww". (It's the old thing about reaching a certain age that young people(anyone under 30) thinks some aging hormone in the human body completely obliterates the entire concept of sex along with all it's trappings. (NEWS FLASH- "Old people enjoy relationships and sex too! In fact CNN did a piece recently on a retirement community here in Florida where the re-emergence of STD (sexually transmitted diseases) is rapidly on the increase. I guess they remember how to use it, but missed the "preventive maintenance procedures") My daughter used to, and even to this day, and she's 37, stick her fingers in her ears and start humming if my wife or I even mentioned the word sex within hearing range of her.
Well maybe more later, but got to get ready for another Friday push.
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