586

586

As of 6 PM on Saturday April 28th, I had 586 page views today on my blog. That's about ten times my normal. They started trickling in around six this morning and became a somewhat steady stream. All day. They appeared to come from just the United States. But multiple web browsers.

At one point I noticed they were reading my blog consistently stepping backwards. The oldest entry was finaLLy read. But then there continued to be more page hits at about the same rate, only no named pages, it was just blog reading activity addressing the main page.

Surprisingly there were NO comments! How do you read back through what appears to be 500 plus reads without leaving a comment?

I have had a few days where I have had a hundred page views, but never two, three, or four hundred, certainly not 586 in one day. And any heavy volume days saw readers from over a huge number of countries. This seems very bizarre.

Update: 2012.04.29 05:40

The total for the previous 24 hours reached close to 900 then fell sharply back to normal at around midnight. This means that CindereLLa could be the cause.

If this is just some computer programming nonsense, why? Who has nothing better to do than pretend to read me?

Nanokelvin

I learned a new word today while studying physics.

Nanokelvin

Kelvin is the absolute temperature scale where the size of the degree is the same as Centigrade.

Absolute zero is the coldest temperature, eXpressed as 0 degrees Kelvin. That is approximately 273.15 degrees Centigrade below the freezing point of water.

Nano is the prefix meaning "one billionth" - and the scientists were doing a physics eXperiment at 170 nanokelvin.

A thousand nano's equals a millionth, so less than a millionth of a degree. 17 percent of one millionth of a degree.

Wow.

I think as a number it would be 0.00000017 degrees above absolute zero. In exponential notation that is 1.7×10⁻⁷ K.

I think it is interesting that they can create something that cold, can do science at such a cold state but more impressive that they think that they can know the value of the temperature in such smaLL quantities.

Reference: Bose–Einstein Condensate

iPad Aero Losers: Who Are These People?

I rarely misplace my iPad for a variety of reasons. It is almost always with me and if it isn't, it is hooked to a charger, and it recently became my Skype phone. I spend several hours a day on it and the device cost more than 700 dollars. That doesn't include the cost of the music, e-books, and WSJ magazine subscription that are loosely tied to the iPad.

As soon as the iPad learns to hover in mid-air, and has a decent weapon system we wiLL almost be living in author Iain M Banks future world.

I realize that because iPad "things" are stored on the iCloud, that losing the iPad doesn't mean I would lose that content just by losing the physical device.

But what I found disturbing today in the Wall Street Journal was an article about people leaving iPads on airline flights, and then they go unclaimed. Unclaimed iPads?!?!? How does that happen? My iPad has slowly crawled up the evolutionary love scale to be held in the same regard as my dog, my children and my wife. Yes! I know you find it hard to believe on the same level as my Cooper!

I would not run into a burning building to get my iPad. That's what iCloud is for. I might rescue my beloved pineapple plants, though, as they are right by the back door.

I know intellectuaLLy that the iPad could be replaced easily and the iCloud recovery has worked once when I had to totaLLy reset the device when Notes stopped working. It was a bit of an Alzheimer computer moment.

But leaving it behind on an airplane? You crawl into a big shiny metal tube with only just so many carry-on things, then you are zO^OOOmed somewhere and how can you not remember the last place (big metal tube with wings) you last iHad your iPad? Do these iPad losers not have other people to help them remember where they last had their iPads?

There are serial numbers. There is device registration. Warranty coverage? Device tracking is actuaLLy built into the device. As I was slowly driving away and out of the mess that was the Dallas-Fort Worth Texas highway system last December there was a colored dot on the iPad screen showing me where I was constantly located. The dot with shadow slowly moved across the glowing map sending a soft warm light into the truck cabin. Now months later I suddenly realize it was teLLing me where IT was, not necessarily where I was, subtle distinction.

Perhaps these people are so wealthy that a sub one thousand dollar item is just a disposable, like a toothbrush. "Oh, i'LL have my servant pick up another iPad when they go to the market." I shuddered just now with the thought that the super wealthy may have spare iPads just laying around. Imagine a harem of iPads and Kindles, and Nooks and Fires, with an old PC laptop in the corner running an aquarium screensaver complete with sound. I suddenly remember I left a pre-iPad days Android tablet in my large welding toolbox, now unused for several months. That's its punishment for crashing aLL the time.

I would like to know their Lost iPad iStories. But i doubt i ever will.

A Bunt Cake of Bubbles

While doing a -few- of the dishes this morning I left the water running in a sink of hot water with dish soap. There was nothing else in the sink, nothing to disturb the mound of bubbles that slowly built a tiny volcano looking mound of bubbles, so I let the sink fill up. It created a bunt cake type mound, about five inches tall, so I carefuLLy slid a plate underneath it. I set the bubble mound on the stove to photograph it. As soon as I get to a PC there wiLL be a picture here.

[photo here in the future]

For now you can have thoughts about my thought bubble of bubbles.

Now I am not sure that my little bracket statement is a thought bubble, so my confidence in whether this blog post is funny or entertaining is plummeting. Perhaps I should just pretend it is an educational blog post(?) for aLL those people who ever wanted a bunt cake sized shape of bubbles. I am sure their number worldwide must be in the thousands, maybe tens of thousands. I do what I can to help.

My wife is stiLL asleep so I have not got her response yet. I have no idea how long the bubbles last. I wiLL update a little later today ...

Pi Helper

I have lotza hobbies.

Growing pineapples, language and culture study, air conditioning, poetry, a vineyard and a dog are but a few.

One of my favorites is math and numbers.

I like to memorize the populations of aLL the nearby cities and I know a few license tags. This came in handy yesterday when I saw my best friend's car behind me in traffic. So I stopped to say hi, only it was one of her daughters driving with friends. So her friends were probably surprised by my behavior, although she wasn't. She knows I am wonderfuLLy siLLy.

I also like pi. I try to memorize it out to several places.

Today I was able to come to the rescue when a cartoonist accidentaLLy misused pi. He had stated that the number of seconds in a year is close to pi times ten raised to the seventh power, which is correct, but then followed it up with the number 3141592, which is pi truncated times ten raised to the sixth power. I believe the number he wanted is 31415926. The number of seconds in a years with 365.25 days is 31,557,600.

It is late. I hope I am doing my math calculations correctly.

His cartoon displayed several math approximations, very cool stuff for nerds and geeks.

Link to cartoon xkcd #1047

Us pi people have to stick together and help each other in times of trouble!

Worst Sell

I needed a refrigerator because my big old cold box died and assumed a room temperature pose.

I found a replacement frig at Best Buy, but when I tried to use my B.B. card for a time delayed purchase with no interest, it no longer worked. It seems that the card I had for probably a dozen years was no longer functional because B.B. had changed banks. So I applied for a new card at their new bank, but I discovered there was no semi-instant way to make a purchase, plus shipping fees, or spend 50 dollars on fuel to get it myself.

So we scraped our money together from a variety of other places and purchased from a local appliance dealer and got it the same day. I already told my water flood story of the instaLLation in an earlier post.

But I noticed that the new B.B. MasterCard would be able to be used anywhere, so I thought that was cool.

BUT ... when I got the card I discovered that it was semi-useless with a credit limit of only $300 - not even close enough to buy my frig!

BUT ... it gets worse: the new card has an annual fee of $59 !!!!!

Why would anyone want a credit card with such a low limit and a high fee?

I don't activate the card.

BUT ... a few days later they send me a monthly statement and they have already charged me the annual fee long long long before an annual has taken place AND now my available balance is $241.

$241 might buy a very tiny refrigerator.

I spend several minutes with their customer service to get it aLL canceLLed. HopefuLLy.

I can begin to understand why Best Buy is in trouble.

Update: 2012.04.24 21:00

The day after I s'pposedly have the entire account canceLLed, I get another statement in the mail saying I owe the $59 fee. I realize that the statement, which seems to be eXactly the same as the first one, was most likely already in the mail system before I initiated the cancel request. But it stiLL seemed strange and funny to me.

Update: 2012.05.29 11:00

NOW I get another statement in the mail. It seems that their human failed to cancel my account. They have tacked on a $25 Past Due Amount Fee, AND wonder-fooly added $1.20 for interest. I talked to another human today and they told me it would be handled.

Bill Is In Town

Former United States President William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is going to be 80 miles away from me today.

He is speaking at my old school.

The admission price is free.

Seating is on a first come basis, so if you show up early enough you'll get a seat.

The headline of a gossip magazine at the groc store the other day said Bill Clinton was dying and his daughter was trying to make him a grandchild desparately, I think that was the word in the headline, "desparately".

My wife pointed out the headline to me.

I told her that we are aLL dying. Slowly. A little bit at a time. At that moment I didn't know that Bill was 65.

I told my wife that he probably only has 15 to 20 years to live.

But I traveled in the opposite direction yesterday about twice as much and fixed a roof, so I am not feeling up to a second trip so soon. Ergonomic strain. It would also involve fiLLing my diesel tank with 4 dollar fuel. Economic drain. I think my puppy needs me to stay home and play.

Old president, old school, listen to Bill fill a room with words? I think my old tired body wiLL stay home with my old wife and my old dog. Besides, it is s'ppose to have record heat today and the grapes and pineapples don't water themselves.

Coffee is ready to start my day.

I almost forgot to mention this, George Bush The Younger is coming to the same Texas city later this week to go on a bike ride in Palo Duro Canyon. I haven't heard that he is speaking anywhere.

Complete.

My life is now complete.

How?

I received an update info e-mail today from Pandora Internet Radio to let me know they have stand-up comedians. Oh, sorry, I should have ended that sentence with an eXclamation mark.

I received an update info e-mail today from Pandora Internet Radio to let me know they have stand-up comedians!

Well, I am going to go back to giggling now ... I deserve it after my previous Thursday. Thursday was so terrible after receiving two phone caLLs from very close friends who live far away. They each had a terrible thing happen to them that I can not talk about. I even wrote a blog post about my day, but I was too devastated to publish it. Then the neXt day I found out that my very best friend had a double disaster. At least she is close enough that I can give her a hug. So I am slowly coming out of Double Trouble Disaster Days.

On Friday I told my wife that I was going to the bar to drown my sorrows. She then had a strange eXpression on her face because I don't typicaLLy do that sort of thing with alcohol. I told her that I am going to drown my sorrows in a griLLed chicken sandwich and Dr Pepper. My diner seLLs far more alcohol than griLLed chicken sandwiches.

Later that day while groc shopping together I got a loaf of rye bread and a fresh container of grape jeLLy. We rarely buy bread any more, much less rye. I told her I planned to drown my sorrows in toast with jeLLy. This was after the griLLed chicken sandwich confusion, so I didn't have to eXplain myself.

My loaf of rye is now two days later over half way finished, but I have plenty of jeLLy.

What Is Wrong With The Presidential Race? No Me

I noticed that the Republican presidential nomination was progressively leaning toward one person long before I get a chance to vote. The states of Texas, California, and New York are among the leading states by population, yet none of them have voted yet, and the "winner" Romney appears to have been picked.

Delegates
TX - 155
CA - 172
NY - 95
Group:422

National Total: 2286

I wonder how the states that have already voted in the primary would like it IF the final national election was an equaLLy long drawn out mess AND the order the states voted in was reversed from the primary process.

Tiny Cannibals Screaming In My Corner

There are people yeLLing and screaming in my bedroom.

I go in there but there are no people.

Just a box.

Sometimes there is music.

Sometimes there are gun shots.

In the night the box glows.

The box wants me to buy things, many things for $19.95 plus shipping and handling.

A man is semi-yeLLing at me in Spanish to "come buy a car from him", at a place where "there is no problem".

I like no problemas.

I know what he is saying in Spanish simply because he does the same yeLLing in English at other times.

I like no problemas but I like my current truck and he is just a tiny yeLLing bilingual flat man. I have touched the box while he is yeLLing and he feels flat and glassy. When I put my fingers on the screen to try to touch him he does not appear to be able to feel me. Why would I want to buy a car from a tiny yeLLing bilingual man who appears to be so insensitive?

I have noticed there is another larger shaped glowing box in here in the livingroom that has the same tiny little yeLLing bilingual insensitive car selling man sometimes in the middle of the night. But when the tiny man is inside that box he is bigger! Thats right, he has grown about 50 percent larger! Amazing. And scary.

Why would I want to buy a car from a tiny yeLLing bilingual insensitive man who can't control his size? He has grown fifty percent just in the distance of going the twenty feet between the bedroom and the livingroom. How large would he be 70 miles from here? What if I finaLLy give in to his demands and buy a car from him and when I go to where he lives in a giant box somewhere far away and he is reaLLy gigantic and he is hungry and then he eats me? Because who can trust a giant hungry yeLLing cannibalistic car salesmen, they are the worst kind.

Besides, I slept wrong last night and the left side of my neck is sore. My dog is hungry and there is no mesquite smoke flavored deli sliced turkey breast or sliced American cheese, his favorite things. So I should reaLLy go buy groceries before the dog eats me, instead of buying a car from a cannibal.

Ouch! I just tried to move again and the pain is severe. So it is just a race of pain between my current pain or the possible pain of being eaten alive by a dog. Decisions, decisions. I wonder if I taste like turkey and or cheese? My guess is someone would say, "chicken".

Oh, the horror! There is now a man on the box singing Johnny Cash's 'Folsom Prison Blues' very poorly at about 70 percent speed. That is more than enough incentive to escape this house, neck pain or no neck pain, to get the dog's food. Time to go to the groc store where their non-Johnny cash register glowing boxes only want money in eXchange for turkey and cheese, and where there usuaLLy is no problema.

Hail-zard

How is your spring?

Mine has been fairly nice, but at the moment I can barely move, body totaLLy eXhausted, sore. I know eXactly how a marathoner feels at mile 27, but a marathon is only 26.2 miles long.

Air conditioners don't fix themselves, well, at least not usuaLLy. Death comes in the form of shorts and longs. Pain is multi-dimensional.

But weather, the weather in my burg has been nice, a rainy spring, so much unlike last year. And the winter was mild, no blizzards, no long periods of freezing weather. Only the smaLLest of snowmen were constructed, certainly no personal backyard glaciers, my favorite.

On Wednesday I took a trip for critical supplies about hour west and south. At least four vehicles appeared to have slid off the road, judging by tire tracks and the positions of the abandoned vehicles. I had briefly heard the storm was bad in this area but this is April. Sliding off the road?

Bold Discovery: there were bergs near our burg

Also, as a side issue the number of emperor penguins appears to be much larger than previously known. Source: WSJ

During the evening news I learned that about 50 miles west of our town they received four feet of hail. No, that's not a typo! Not four inches of hail but four feet! When I was watching the news, the yesterday's local weather was the main news story. There was a picture of a man standing beside hail that came up to his chest. And I know that photos can be doctored, but then they showed video footage of the same man in the same location. They had several pieces of heavy equipment out clearing the hail off the roads. Four feet is 48 inches, and I have eXerienced at least one rain several years ago that dumped 8 inches in an hour's time period, but that is SIX times as much water! Our typical average ANNUAL preciption total is close to 20 inches, that's 20 inches in 365 days. Big difference.

So maybe it is time to clean out our storm shelter soon. Monsoon season is here. All of last year's missing rain showed up in one day as an ice cube. I don't need more ice, my new frig dispenses it right in the door, crushed or cubed.

My Crack Wife

So I am laying in bed trying to go to sleep.

Its late. No, oopz, early.

I have a short early journey tomorrow.

Something is broken.

I must fix it.

Suddenly out of the dark dark (one mo' time:dark) blue, my wife says, "One of my children must have stepped on a crack and broke their mother's back" - and giggles.

I crack up laughing.

She says, "What's the matter, haven't chu ever heard that before? Its when kids are playing and they step on a crack in the sidewalk ..."

I interrupt and say, "Yes, I have heard the original version, but I've just never heard a mother use it to justify her sore back."

Surprisingly in the time it took me to type this plus get the dog a piece of cheese, she has fallen asleep and I'm now the one wide awake with a severe headache that just happened, bizarre.

Fade To White

We have a variety of products and services in our business.

One of them is a tanning salon. It is a small portion of everything we do, as we only have one tanning bed.

So we went through all the state mandated application last year and finaLLy receive their blessing after waiting several weeks after we have paid all the fees.

One of the many requirements is to post warning signs regarding the practice of tanning. We purchased the signs from the state of Texas. I posted one in the front window to meet the visibility requirements.

Today I was passing that part of the window and wondered why there was a blank piece of poster board in the window. It was the warning sign. I had completely forgot about the warning sign because it was no longer functional - the sun eXposure had faded the ink on the sign so the words were just barely visible at close distance. It hasn't even been a full year since we posted the sign!

Sir Mick

I saw something on a google search that indicated the Mick Jagger was possibly dead, and I thought, what, I hadn't heard about that, even though I'm not a fan. So I went to his wikipedia article and it indicated that he was still alive. But then I read a little ways into the article and discovered that he had been knighted back in 2003.

Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger

Hmmm. Knight? I realize that rock stars tend to be rather nocturnal beings, so I could believe 'nighted' without a k, that makes sense. But knight?

I would like to go back in time 500 or so years and have a talk with a few English knights, real ones, and ask them about this nonsense, what it means to become a knight, the process, to be a knight on a daily basis, saving dragons in distress and slaying damsels.

So I tell a real knight that 500 years in the future you can become a knight by singing in a rock band, [I have to eXplain rock music (twice, he didn't get it the first time)], writing songs, partying, having lots of women, drinking and doing a bunch of mind altering drugs. The confused real knight looks at me and says, "That's not a knight, that's a jester"

After making it back to the present I wonder, does Mick even have a suit of armor?

Today Is Thor's Day?

I am not sure how it happened.

But I thought today was Thursday.

I am surrounded by all sorts of ancient low and modern high technology that could have told me it was Wednesday.

But I must been in ignore mode.

Perhaps it was too many days of too little to no sleep in a row.

I am often awake at 3 AM.

Could it have been the sudden brief cold weather and rain and tiny hail storm?

I didn't discover my wrongedness until 7 PM when the teleBision didn't have my favorite gang of four funny physicists show.

Do you like my word 'wrongedness'? It is pronounced with three syllables with -ed- in the middle, with the accent on the wrong part.

Maybe it was the refrigerator dying.

Possibly it was because I was forced to run at eXtremely high velocity for a brief and a half time yesterday when the appliance deliveryman severed the waterline to the ice maker and the shut-off valve hadn't worked and (oops, sorry about that) I went triage scrambling to get the main supply turned off before my kitchen flooded. I had been in mid thought with my mouth wanting to say the words, "say, lets undo that line at the end with a wrench ..." but I was too late as he had pulled a tubing cutter from his pocket and the gush of water happened before I could say the preventive thing. 

The second thing the delivery man said was, "Do you have a towel?" .. while water is coming out at a rate of AT LEAST 2 gallons a minute .. at least a garden hose was right outside the backdoor and I was able to get it positioned quickly to capture part of the disaster while I scrambled for the main valve for the entire house...

(I thought it was appropriate to change the font color to blue in the previous paragraph since so much water was involved.)

Hours later I couldn't eXplain eXactly why there were three then four sore small bumps on my right forehead possibly from the mad dash, as weLL as I almost lost three batteries when I yanked a toolbox lid off too fast sending them rolling down the driveway out of my truck during my frantic tool hunt, and the abrasion I found much much later on my right forearm was most likely from the water meter housing. Abrasion is the word my wife used for my wound. It sounds like a CSI word.

Maybe I like Thursdays more than wet mess days, I mean Wednesdays.

Perhaps I am confused by aLL these people blogging A to Z. I wonder if anyone ever does it Z to A?

Maybe its a tumor. No, its not a two more.

ActuaLLy I just realized it is two more hours until it reaLLy is the real Thursday.

At least the four physicists are on in syndication on another channel, bye, I gotta go!

Update: In the middle of a Toyota commercial I heard them use the word 'Tudor styled house'. I asked my wife, "Would you like a Tudor style house?"

Her answer, "No"

Then I asked her, "Do you know what a Tudor style house is?"

Her answer, "No"

Dream Induced Abdominal Pain

I wake up today (more than once) with severe abdominal pain.

Why?

Because I am having very stupid vivid dreams, recurring ones.

In my dreams I am going to the local used car lot and trying to squeeze between automobiles and objects they are parked very close to, such as a tree.

A tree? Someone would park a car neXt to a tree in a used car lot ... hold it, they don't put alot of trees in car lots.

In my dreams I am known for doing this. The last time I have to get my cell phone out to call to get myself rescued because I am stuck. Yes, stuck between a car and a tree. I wake up with a very sore stomach. In real life I don't even have a cell phone!

I think, "This is the stupidest dream of all time"

I go running into the living room to tell my wife. She is absolutely no comfort, not that I reaLLy eXpected to find any in her.

She laughs, "That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard." She claims she has never had that kind of dream.

I don't know who or what to blame. Perhaps it was the very last news article I heard on teleBision last night about Mitt Romney building a house in San Diego that has an elevator for his cars. Yes, that's a true story. Perhaps it has something to do with shopping for new shorts yesterday, trying to squeeze into the smallest size possible? Perhaps it was pushing my human powered lawn mower. Yes, I was mowing in the dark. That was the very last thing I did before I came to bed, besides playing my brain training straining new video game.

All I know for sure is that I am in pain, and the source is stupidity. The main conclusion I can come to is don't vote for Mitt Romney, my body can't take much more of this.


Update 2012.03.30: I wake up this morning with no remembrance of any dream, stupid or otherwise but more importantly, NO pain!

So I wander into the living room for coffee. I begin to work on my Japanese lessons. After I finish my coffee I get a light blanket and pillow to lay on the couch while I continue my studies. I work on several kanji characters, the last one being the character for "friend" 友

But then I wake up from a dream! At least this one has no pain.

Dream: I have three friends who have no names in this dream, so they will just be persons A, B, and C. I convince my alphabet friends that we need to bother someone, person D, who has been bothering us.

So here is my plan: We go to the house of D and stand on his porch. Then we wait there long enough until he feels our "presence". In my dream I believe that we can make our presence known to other people who are nearby out of sight through the use of psychic energy. So we get to the house of D and there is an enclosed porch, and I have friend A stand directly facing the front door. Friends B & C simply sit by the door to the porch and proceed to go to sleep. 

There is a huge gap at the bottom of the door and you can see reflections and shadows of something or someone moving inside the house. But my plan that person D sensing our presence doesn't appear to be working, so I start making scraping noises, running my shoe across the floor. After several minutes of this shoe noise person D finaLLy senses our presence and the front door bursts open.

Person D of my dream is the actor Jeffrey Jones that played the character Dean of Students Edward Rooney in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Upon seeing the four of us on his porch, he lurchs past friend A and points his finger at my face and yells, "I should have known it was you!" but then he turns around and drags friend A into the house by his jacket collar mumbling something in disgust. I follow them into the house thinking that I will be able to save the day with my wrestling skills. Friends B & C have had time to wake up, and they arrive inside as well. The Alphabet Gang and I just stand there staring at Mr Rooney, who has aged considerably since the Ferris B movie, and we stare at him with eXtremely huge tight forced clown face type grins, complete with teeth showing. Rooney looks at all of us suspiciously, he starts to say something backing away, and then I wake up.

My PC Is Only Half Dumb

I unplugged the audio feed cable from my PC to my teleBision, so that I could play the music from my iPad to the teleBision, to fill the entire house with music.

When I performed this action, the PC video was still there and announced visuaLLy that I had unplugged the audio cable. I thought: that's smart.

But a couple hours later when I reconnected the SAME cable back into the SAME jack, it flashed up a screen wanting to know what I had plugged into. I had to answer questions. Umm, that's not smart.


Sometime soon I plan to get an Apple TV device, then I will be able to send my content from my iPad to the HD teleBision wirelessly.

If Danger Was My Middle Name, It Would Eventually Split into Dan & Ger

I realized I have been living rather dangerously lately. I have been wandering the house too often without my eyeglasses with corrective lenses. I prefer to read without them. And I have a dog, Cooper, who leaves small sometimes sharp objects everywhere, dangerous for my feet. At his altitude he has no problem seeing The Tiny Sharpies.

My wife has invaded my kitchen and began cooking heavily and is on a strange mission (for her) of finding new recipes. She has also performed most of the groc shopping in the last four weeks or so since the invasion became noticeable (to me).

She has also put Cooper on a diet, saying there is going to be a reduction of cheese in his diet. I am thinking, hmmm, that's what he lives for: Cheese

He could be the mascot for the state of Wisconsin

I told her that I had already been feeding him slightly less. Plus he will be outside more that it is Spring, and chase yard invaders, those arrogant cats, squirrels, and birds who don't know their place in the semi wild kingdom of Cooper D. D. Boston. Yes, my dog has two middle names, and believe it or not, I did not give them to him, the wifey did a long time ago.

The wife had mentioned one day maybe three years ago how our two grown children were jealous that Cooper commanded so much of my attention now that I was in a semi-retired state. She noticed that I was playing with my (then new) Mitsubishi gel pens, practicing writing every ones full name. So she gave Cooper each of their "D" middle names, saying, "Hah! That should [irritate] them reaLLy good!"

Back to the present ... I did have my set of spices in alphabetical order along the left side of the stove, in proper ergonomic position, but now she has flooded the narrow shelf with three times as many spices. Here is my previous blog post: CDO for Spaces & Spices

I know! Who could have seen this coming! Certainly not me.

But I have devised a sneaky plan to at least gain some order to my spice world without having to deal with this flood of refugee flavorings. I have decided to reposition my original subset of spices back into their own region, and then leave the random horde quietly milling around.

Except salt.

Salt? Why salt?

The Salt Wars

For the last two months or so The Wifey has absconded with every salt shaker in the house, all of them eventuaLLy making a pilgrimage, and then held hostage at The Lampstand of The Wife. Yes, and they are always tens steps away when I need it for cooking. I know! I know! Such inconsideration.

The Secret Salt Hideout

I finaLLy realized that MY salt shaker would just need to be hidden, so I chose the cabinet directly above the stove that my wife never uses. I didn't know why, but then I just now noticed that the depth of the stove makes the reach to use the cabinets, which are 12 inches higher than the other kitchen cabinets with handles another six inches higher than the other cabinet doors, and there I think I found my answer in her shortitude. So far MY secret Masada of salt shakers has never gone roamin'. And it is so ergonomicaLLy at just the right sweet spot, which means, "I can find it within one second of time!"

Well, I am going to try to get better about my eyeglasses. Not so much wearing them, but at least keeping track of them. I may start keeping them high in The Secret Salt Sanctuary.

Closing Thought: I just realized that I am on my iPad probably at least an average of FIVE hours per day! So that means during a time period of nearly eighteen months, that is a big number! So looking at an hourly cost, that is probably around 25 cents per hour for the hardware. Even if my guesstimate is off by some huge degree, it is still far less than a dollar per hour. And it ...might... just be the other direction of more hours per day than five, so even cheaper per hour. Apple incorporated is cyborging me.

I leave you with today's incredibly dumb joke, another Apple one. Notice that it has no discernable punchline. If you imagine a psychiatrist asking a patient this question, then I have given you a virtual single frame cartoon.

Question: When you look at iClouds, what anImal shapes do you see?

The D Word

I just saw a teleBision ad for the university I attended many years ago. I felt their latest recruiting slogan is rather poor.

"You Won't Be Disappointed"

Disappointed?

NO! You shouldn't use the word disappointed for a positive slogan, and it should especially NOT be the final word. There are subtle subliminal forces at work here trying to reach that target audience of young people heading off to college, leaving home. There are four words in that slogan, and two of them are negative!


Another Use of A Negative ... In NYCNY

There is a mansion for sale in New York City on sale for at least $25 million, but will probably go higher. It is only 25 feet wide, but sits at address 815 Fifth Avenue. It is old, maybe around 140 years or so. Style? Here is a line from the Wall Street Journal:

A landsmark report listed the original style of the building as Italianate and the current style as "none".


Un-disappointment:

How do I know I am a relatively simple person?

Seeing a fresh head of cauliflower on the bar in the kitchen just now gave me more joy than you could possibly imagine.

Perhaps I am just too tired and sore from the week's activities. Mmmm ... Fresh raw cauliflower, and red bell pepper, too. Broccoli? "Yes", she said. And cheese. And purple onion.

Yes, simple joys.

Won Thirty One

My wife up woke.

Oops, I mean, my wife woke up and walked down the hall.

Its a very short hallway.

I did not wake up because I have not been asleep.

I mean, I have not been to sleep in many many hours, not many many years.

She asked me, "Whattimeisit?"

I said, "Its 1:30" Hint: AM

She asks me, "Didyousay1:30?"

I say, "Yes, thats what I said"

She asks me, "Isitreally1:30?"

I say, "Well, it was but now its 1:31" Hint: Its still AM, we don't talk and wait to respond THAT long for it to possibly be PM.

She says, "Ha, ha"

ReaLLy, that is eXactly what she said, she didn't reaLLy laugh, even though I am pretending that she found it to be riotously hilarious, but she chose to supprreess her true feelings and simply gave me a smart-aleck response of ha then ha with a distinct staccato presentation. At this very second I am totaLLy confused on how to spell suppress, so I just put in a few eXtra letters. Just ignore the ones you don't need.


Here is a better story (?)

We are driving near a bank on Saturday.

No, "we" aren't driving, sorry, my son was in complete control of the automobile. I was just a passenger.

I tell my son, "Bads Near Stop"

He looks at me and asks what that means.

I point at the sign and say, "Its the opposite of Wells Fargo"

Its now 1:57 AM, I don't remember his reaction. He was wearing sunglasses so it was hard to tell at the time what his reaction was.

I reaLLy think there is laundry I could be doing. Or a few dirty dishes from suppa'. But no, I wanna type.

I should reaLLy go to sleep now before I accidentaLLy push the orange Publish Post button.


Update: A little while later she tells me, "Ithoughtitwasmorning"

I say, "Technically, it is morning. And, Spring is approximately one day old, too"

I am just a regular old almanac. Emphasis on the all and man.


Update: She asks me, "Whattimeisitnow?"

I think I have become merely a clock, is that all I am good for in life?

I say, "It is 7:32" and I don't round to the nearest 5 minute mark as is my custom.

She says, "Really,itrainedallnight"

I wonder why she suddenly has this 'Really' word response to my time announcements. Why would I be untruthful? I s'ppose I could buy a set of glow in the dark atomic clock syncronized time pieces for every room in the house with giant numbers, then she could always know eXactly what time it was. But I bet it would be difficult for her to break her habit asking me for the time, knowing I live with an iPad glued to my eyeballs and fingertips. I also s'ppose I could respond to her time requests with a standardized answer, "Its not quite twelve".

My Long Lost Bubbly Girl

Saturday March 17th

I met someone at the bookstore over a year ago, an employee who had a wonderful smile and something different about the way she talked. I noticed that she had a very bubbly personality and that she had a bit of a laugh, a tiny laugh, with almost every sentence, usually right at the end.

We chatted several times, but then we got disconnected. For several months she was never at the bookstore at the same time that I was shopping. I just knew her first name, and the other employees told me she still worked there, and so I just left an informal "well, tell her hi for me" message. I eventually stopped asking.

I would drive by the bookstore several times but usually at the wrong time of day because I typically grocery shop very late, or I had frozen food and had to get home.

So I was slightly saddened that this friendship had appeared to have disappeared, lost over time. She seemed to be a good match for a friendship. Hmmm, bummer. I thought, well, that happens sometimes. Move on.

My son and I were going out of town for several hours together, but first we were going to have breakfast with his wife. So the three of us were traveling to particular restaurant "A", when suddenly my son the driver switched lanes and pulled into a local diner "B", where I rarely go. He said, "I am making an executive decision, we are going to eat here instead"

I was okay with the decision, knowing that their food was usually pretty good, but I rarely eat breakfast at restaurants in my own town, and I didn't like diner "B"'s French Fries. My son's wife said, "He has been getting better at making executive decisions lately."

So we are seated by the restaurant greeter, but someone else was going to be our waitress.

Suddenly in my peripheral vision is my Bubbly Girl from the bookstore, and she is going to be our waitress and I say, "Its you!" and she cracks up laughing and points at me, and we have a wonderful reunion moment, comparing notes of our disconnection.

She had almost left town to move far away, but had switched jobs and several other positive things were going on in her life, so I am very happy for her. I have lost too many friendships in the last few years for usually unknown or bizarre reasons, and it was nice that this one did not. Now I'll just have to see if diner "B" can make a grilled chicken sandwich!

A Silly Onion

Here is a silly comment that I tormented my friend Friko with this morning:


I once had an uncanny can of onions that weighed only an ounce.

No way, you say. Yes way, I say.

For it originally weighed four but three were eaten by me.

So me plus three equals one onion ounce uneaten by me.

I could go on and on but that might put you off.

Did I mention that my onion I own has ions?

Yes, its true! If you split the miniscule onion molecule in two, its on & ion too!

Okay, I'm finally through.

Onion, I know, I know! (<- if you look reaLLy close you'LL see its a virtual palindrome)


But I then I found someone else to bother when Lee had a blog post about comments, so I left him this comment:

I think the blog posts that generate the most comments are the ones that have comments as their primary topic. They may not be good comments, such as this comment itself I would classify as slightly below average, even though it has eXactly the average number of words found in a comment of a blog, yet it has a slightly greater than average number of total letters. And most blog comments are filled with questionable content such as this one that claims to have accurate information about comment statistics, hah! And don't get me started about which comments generate even more comments!

By Remote Control

(This is a continuation of the news story about the prosecution and conviction of the local drug lord. See my first story at: Two-Day's Short Thoughts, Some Scary )

Friday was a busy day. A wet day, but highly localized moisture inside our building as the hot water heater malfunctioned but we caught it just in time. Drip, drip, drip.

As I was getting a few parts in one of many trips to several stores, including other liquid supplies such as coffee, I noticed a teleBision news cameraman on the sidewalk on our property. He was obviously more interested in something besides my faulty leaky hot water heater, as he had his camera pointing at the carpet & flooring store across the street. The store is owned by the recently convicted drug lord of the city. Well, I should say, was owned. The cameraman told me that in a few minutes at 12:30 PM the ownership of the building was changing and he was there to interview the new owners. I had not heard that particular news just yet about their building being sold. I knew that the drug lord got about 100 months in prison and lost a lot of property, money and several very eXpensive vehicles, a Maserati and a Bentley were just a few of the many.

So several minutes later I was wandering back down the sidewalk for a few more repair parts, as the hardware store is on the same block as our building, same side of the street. The cameraman is still there and I chat with him again. He told me that the people at the carpet store were NOT happy that he was filming their store. He told me that someone at the carpet store had flipped his camera off.

So my little humorous brain heard the words "flipped off" and mixed in the long distance of "across the street", and with a straight face I asked the cameraman in a confused naive Steven Wright voice, "WOW!, that's incredible that they were able to turn your camera off by remote control all the way from across the street".

The confused cameraman looked at me for just a split second, and said, "No, they didn't turn my camera off, they gave me the ..." and he continued on showing me the hand-finger gesture and then I smiled slightly and I told him that I reaLLy knew what he meant the first time, and then he saw my play on the words "flipped off" and cracked up laughing. He told me it was pretty funny. I agreed. I gave him my blog address, and told him that I write all kinds of siLLy things, with special emphasis on my stories about my alter ego of a mentally challenged space alien trapped on earth.

We eventually got our hot water heater replaced, functionally flowing, but I haven't met the new neighbors yet. Luckily we got our flooring job finished for the pedicure room at our business just a few weeks ago, so come on by and get your toes prettied up & painted, especially if you are going on a trip, business, family vacation or maybe headed down south to federal prison.

Don't worry, I don't do nails. I leave that to trained certified professionals.

The Masterd And The Pupild

I started working with two Japanese language apps on my iPad recently. The newer one focuses on phrases. I checked my status, and it gave these eXact spellings:


  You haven't any masterd phrases this week.

  You haven't any masterd phrases today.

  You haven't any masterd phrases.

  You haven't any familiar phrases.

  Total Learning Time:
  0 Hours 26 Minutes


Actually, I have spent far more time than that working with the app, passing some tests, but the app crashes every once in awhile and I think it completely forgets any work in lost sessions. It actually crashes at a higher frequency than the Safari web browser, which I think crashes at least 6 times a day with fairly constant use.

At least I had already mastered the correct spelling of mastered before starting this app.

DOG BONUS: I like other people's dogs almost as much as my own. Here is some reaLLy cool photography of Maddie The Coonhound, some very amazing shots of a quite talented dog & physics.

Bill of Tire-d Sales at the Fork in the Road

I pull up to a stop at the intersection of Bell and 45th. The name of the business across the intersection at 10 o'clock has the big bold name of most likely the business owner of a tire place. The name is Bill Williams.

I think, "Bill? Isn't that short for William?"

My neXt think is the combo "William Williams", who would want to be called that? Who would name their child that?

Then I smile aNd add a middle name, "William William Williams", I wonder if anyone has that name?

My neXt think is the artificial in my head at this moment conversation:

Questioner: "What is your name?"

WiWiWi: "Well, my last name is Williams, and my first and middle are William's, too"

Questioner: "What?!?!? You have two names and they both Williams?"

WiWiWi: "No, it's William William Williams"


The light turns green and I drive east.

My neXt think is a prompted because of the previous duplicate triplicate WiWiWi names causes a Sirhan B Sirhan to pop into my brain, and I have a fleeting RFK-sadness nostalgic moment to my age very young, a remembrance of death. The clouds that appeared wanting to rain all day around me finally let loose their drops after going a few blocks.

I slowly become unsad, focusing on driving in heavier traffic than before, plus the sky's tears lightly, while my windshield wiper gently wipes.

One and a half miles later I see a restaurant sign declaring itself the Mexican Food Embassey underneath its name. Its name in huge letters, the embassey claim in smaller. It is the most luxurious Mexican food restaurant in town, grandfatherly, not the newest, but possibly the grandest, my opinion. I wonder how you become qualified to call yourself an Embassey of something? What roles would you perform as the Mexican Food Ambassador? Would that include settling tequila trade disputes? Then I realize I have been spelling embassy wrong. Then I am minorly mystified why ambassador is an A word and embassy is an E word.

I drive slower than normal in the rush hour traffic and a white, (car is it?), gets behind me very close, too close, no wait, is that a hearse behind me?, a dead person tailgating maybe right behind me possibly in this traffic?

I go around a broad circular shaped section of the street after a semi-nervous minute, only to discover by the mirror with a now better angle view that it is just a pickup truck with a very strange camper top. So probably no dead people have been with me in traffic at the moment, well, hopefully no dead people with me on the go.

The sky clears a mile later and I eventually find the place to guide my wife towards in her vehicle, overcoming terrible cell phone and internet service provider sporadic outages.

Things I Expect To Find In The Parking Lot of a Transmission Repair Shop:
A) Icky exotically colored pools and streaks of most likely poisonous fluids from vehicles
B) Circular ring shaped metal discards from shattered transmissions
C) Absolutely no vegetation in the dirt parking lot due to constant traffic and chemicals

Thing I Didn't Expect To Find In The Parking Lot of a Transmission Repair Shop:
A) A metal kitchen fork

I wondered if the fork would still be there when I returned in the future to get our repaired vehicle.

Answer: Yes, the fork was still in the same spot about a week later, and No, I didn't take a picture of it.

Knowing me, you are probably wondering why I didn't take a picture of the fork on either occasion.

Answer: I knew that when I would eventually write up these events that you would have eXpected me to take that picture, but then I decided to surprise you by not taking it. I know, it was a very difficult process to not take the picture, or save the fork, but I managed to do it. It was eXtremely difficult, especially the part about not saving The Lost Fork.

Two Mules for Sister Siri

I have something irritating me concerning a business situation. My wife and I are talking about it before and during the transport. She is my cargo at the moment. While I am taking my wife to work on my mule while her mountain goat is at the vet having an operation, I tell my wife that I am going to the bar (its also a grill) to drown my sorrows in a grilled chicken sandwich, and I leave out the Dr Pepper beverage part on purpose, and of course I never drink alcohol at that time of day, and never at this bar, at least in the last decade or so. I paint that picture for eXactness that there reaLLy is only a sandwich involved plus the unspoken Dr Pepper, implied.

The wife cracks up laughing at the concept of drowning my sorrows in chicken, grilled.

I smile, I wrote that one well, at least above average if she laughed. I just didn't eXpect a good laugh from her.

Sorrow sad sopping wet chicken. Wet with cooking juiced greases. Served with some mayo. Completed sauce from a tomato based BBQ flavor, Mmmmmm.

No fries, I am cutting out those calories.

I wind up having an eXtemely long lunchtime because I didn't see my HVAC mentor, at first. He saw my mule in the parking lot but didn't see me making a phone call before entering, because my mule is so huge. So he sat in a deeper part of the diner with his back to the front door, plus a minor partition obscuring things slightly. And of course I looked for his mule when I first arrived, as always, while still on my mule but before I made my phone call, so his mule was not there to be seen. His mule is almost eXactly the same as mine eXcept his is white and I feed mine oats and his gets grass. My mule is mainly maroon with bigger hooves.

So when I entered the dire den of brazed BBQ bird on a bun, I sat near the front by the owner and consumed the calories, not realizing my mentor, a giant among humans, was just a few feet away.

Another friend female from my previous place of work arrived and said hello, patting my back, and so I joined her table while she waited on her daughter to arrive. That is when I discovered the hidden huge him of HVAC. So we were both perplexed at how we missed seeing each other, but then spent the neXt full hour talking half nonsense. We did have a good time. Half nonsense plus technical wizardry and physics is our domain. I showed him my new iPad app for learning the Japanese language. He thought it was cool. He wrote his own joke in Japanese!

I spent most of the rest of the day buying the wife the promised Apple. And I discovered that a long lost friend misplaced from My MySpace days was going to be my Apple vendor for the day! Hoo-ray for finding lost friends, and then an eXtra "Hoo-ray!" for getting to help them make money!

Money! Friends! Apples! Chicken! Bacon!

Even having too much wind with flying soil wasn't going to spoil this day.

Money! Friends! Apples! Chicken! Bacon!

So here is my dumb joke of the yesterday of yesterday:

I am sitting at the Verizon store after lunch starting the process of getting an Apple iPhone 4S. I am in luck because the freight has just arrived, and there are three, and I just need one for The Wifey.

The thing I am looking forward to on this particular model is the Siri feature. Siri is an artificial intelligence software program that you interact with verbally. And Siri has a soft feminine voice. You speak questions to Siri, and the voice recognition software converts your request into Google requests, and other web searches, to find things like restaurants and businesses. Or more important things like, "how far is it between the earth and the moon?"

So ... Here, FINALLY is my dumb joke, an Apple joke. What do you call Siri when she gets schizophrenic with multiple personalities, each giving different answers? Siri-us

Update: Good News! It appears The Vet has fixed my wife's mountain goat. It is not a mule. It is black with tiny but very able hooves. The fix was only $500 and so far I highly recommend this new vet. The name of his business is Turbo Exchange and he is on Farmer Avenue just east of Washington. Just ask for Buddy.

I'm Just That "Kind" of Son

Time: Fifteen Minutes Before Midnight

Place: My Couch


The teleBision set is turned down while focusing on my iPad game, when I hear an advertisement for a well known music superstar that is going to be playing in the neighboring state soon, near where my mother lives.

Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr., or you probably know him as Snoop Dogg, is going to be performing at an Indian casino in Oklahoma.

I suddenly get an idea and crack up laughing.

My Wonderful Idea: I am such a good son, so I must immediately tell my mommy that a music superstar is going to be in town (well, close by, I think its just a few miles from her, wouldn't want to miss it, who needs sleep?)

Wikipedia confirms that its very close to my mother.

I call mommy. No answer.

I try a different number just to be sure, nope, I was right the first time.

Suddenly my iPad lights up with an incoming phone call from her.

She gives me a drowsy initial question, "Is anything wrong?", and I respond with an eXcited rapid fire voice announcing the soon arrival of the one, and hopefully ever only, Snoop Dogg playing nearby. I try reaLLy hard not to laugh, and she starts to try to give a reply of "what are you talking about?", while I start to interrupt with a briefer Snoop Dogg eXplanation, when suddenly she catches on and cracks up laughing followed by my equal vocal eruption.

She tells me the story that my step-father liked to tease her about Willie Nelson. When he would see the giant billboard on the interstate highway announcing the arrival of Willie playing at the same casino, my step-father would always tell her, "Your boyfriend is back in town."

The phone call only lasts for a minute and a half, and we spend half of that minute and a half ha-ha-ing. But she needs her sleep and I think (?) she thanks me for calling. Ah, such a nice way to end a Saturday, to end a week. Good night, Momma.

Update: 2012.03.03 14:00

I just checked Willie's schedule and he is currently just south of me in Lubbock TX performing this evening, and then in April will be at the previously mentioned casino near my mother, just in time for Easter! BUT ... there is a price difference. The minimum amount for a ticket in Lubbock today is $45 and the future show near mom is $250, plus fees. You do get lotza eXtra goodies for the $250 package, and I s'ppose if he is your boyfriend it would be okay, but then I thought, if he is reaLLy my mom's boyfriend she should get in free. Perhaps I should call their "Help" telephone number to see if that would be possible. Then maybe if they started dating, Willie could be my new daddie. I checked, and Willie and my mom are pretty close in age, so thats a plus. Wikipedia says he has been married four times and currently married, but that hasn't appeared to prevent him from dating in the past. I am not sure what his current policies are, or how mean his current wife is, which would be a deciding factor. Plus my mother is currently married, I forgot to mention that.

Extras in the Casino Package Deal

Premium Package Includes:
   1 great ticket to the show
   1 exclusive Willie Nelson T-shirt
   1 exclusive Willie Nelson Professional 8x10 Photograph
   1 keepsake VIP laminate
   1 year Willie Nelson Club Luck* fan club membership
   1 digital download of the live show


Update: 2012.03.03 17:00

My mother and I know how to have a good time. I call her on the phone to chat quite often, but not often enough. A long time ago when I only had three real names instead of four, my initials were EBB, but I was a huge Elton John music fan and somehow in my early college years I informally had Elton as a nickname. I knew that even Elton Hercules John was reaLLy Reginald Kenneth Dwight. Some people didn't even know my real first name. One day two of my friends at the science building were arguing over whether Ernie or Elton was my real first name, which of course, its neither, the real first name is Ernest. So in college I would practice writing creatively wonderful bizarre letters home to my mother which were signed:

    Love,
    Elton Ernest [my B middle name] Boston
    The First, The Worst, and Probably The Last

So now you finally know what the word 'blog' stands for:

    Bizarre
    Legends
    Of
    Geeks

I Was Able To Predict The Future for Tom Selleck - Can I Help You?

My psychic abilities are limited.

But I was able to predict what Tom Selleck was going to do much later in yesterday's episode of Blue Bloods. But I am having considerable trouble hitting the T key, instead I am going to the right doing Y too often.

In a scene in his office as police commissioner Tom hands a notepad to a woman so she can write a private note. Tom doesn't see the note. But the cameras spent too much time on the notepad AND he put the notepad back in his desk drawer.

I turned to my wife and told her, "You see that thing he did with the notepad? A little later in the show Tom is going to do that trick where you rub a pencil sideways over the next sheet of paper on the stack to reveal the message in inverse." So rather than using high tech wizardry, Tom went old school, probably Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys, but I doubt Scooby Doo, in order to save the day. Maybe it was something he picked up from his Magnum P.I. days?

My wife was highly impressed when my prediction came true.

I just wanted to brag about my super-human capabilities, well, not so much brag, as to be helpful. So if you are having trouble predicting the future, just let me know, and I will give you an answer. If you ask me the right kind of question, I can be 100% correct!

How? You ask.

Well, I will just imagine your scenario question-dilemma, and then I will play an episodic answer in my little brain. It will be up to you to read my mind, and then act accordingly on this visual-neural information. Oh, and to make it easier than that I will publish Questions and Answers as well. If the only visual information that I have for you is a cartoonish Blogger icon, then be sure to look in the animated drawings section of my brain. If I have no idea what you look like, then I'll just use The Simpsons by default, just look for your Blogger ID on the opening screen shot. AND if you want something reaLLy special you can specify a particular teleBision show in your request, even do something with live people, like Gilligan's Island or The Munsters.

Instructions: Send me a G-Rated comment with your question about your future, and optionally a teleBision show or actor-actress or even some other famous person, that will appear in my version of your future.

Ooh, I feel special, kinda like a Genie! And by Genie I am referring to the garage door opener.

5 Outta 8 Ain't Bad

Julie gave me a writing eXercise. Use five out of eight of the following words in a poem or story. Here goes.

    blackberry
      mother
       needle
        cloud
        voice
         whir
         cliff
          lick      



Neanderthal Dreams

10,000 BC - sometime in the month of May

While observing the whir of needle shaped clouds with my mother on a cliff, she said, "why don't you hang your body over the side of the cliff, I'll hold your ankles, and you can pick me some fruit of that blackberry plant, like we do every summertime. Be sure not to lick them before they are washed, you don't want to get lick sick." But I thought about how much I had grown in the last year, plus how much weaker my mother was getting since her ax accident, plus her dropping me 350 feet last year, and

" NO!!! "

said my voice, "I don't care if it is Mother's Day and your birthday and the anniversary of the time my sister went "missing" while hunting and gathering."

How To Destroy A Small Texas Town

There is a small town in Texas with a large name. A long time ago it had a high school and kept that school going for several decades until there were just not enough students to keep it going. In Texas the number of students you have equates to how much money you get from the state coffers.

But for some reason when the school system decided to close the high school, they kept the grades K through 6th in operation. This took place around 20 years ago.

But then times changed. A little.

The population of the town didn't really change positive. It fell during the year 1990, 2000 and 2010 census by about 40 percent. There were some new jobs with hog houses, and oil production. But certainly not enough local kids to justify a high school.

But they decided to open a junior high then a little while later a high school again.

They pumped about 5 million dollars into infrastructure, financed by bond issues.

How did they find more kids? Bussing.

They bussed kids in from several miles away. Supposedly they had plans to bring in "above average" students, but soon they dropped this idea. So then suddenly several of the students who lived IN the small town chose to go to a neighboring town to get away from the outsiders who had invaded "their" school.

190

It is my understanding that you need a minimum of 190 students to break even in a school system, and the number of students in this school system is only at about 2/3 that amount. So the state of Texas will probably shut down the entire school system after May of this year. Plus the town has been split in two in an uncivil war of words. Property values have collapsed. You can rent, but it is now difficult to finance a property sale there.

All the details in this blog post are from conversations that I have had with people inside the situation, so any and all of this information should be considered suspect.

What interesting thing did I learn today: From a goverment census website, I learned that Texas is the only state to enter the United States by treaty as opposed to territorial annexation.  This allows the Texas flag to fly at the same height as the US flag.

Will Not Work For What?

So the CNN headline today reads that North Korea will stop nuclear testing activities in eXchange for food. Brilliant. Have we heard this before?

What I reaLLy want to see though is a homeless person put that message on a cardboard sign, and there are several homeless people who beg for money just a few miles down the road from the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, the final assembly point for all nuclear weapons in the USofA, about forty miles south of my house.

"Will Stop Testing Nuclear Weapons for Food/$$$"

Then I just remembered that I had nothing else better to do this afternoon than take a nap.

Hmmm, sounds interesting.

Deaf I Sit, Spending

So I spend 20 minutes looking for my stamps that are always kept in an eXact spot.

If my time is worth 70 dollars an hour, then lets say that was $23.33 wasted.

In the middle of searching for maybe 4 to 6 dollars worth of stamps I accidentally knock half of a container of premium paper towels off the table because I moved them onto an unstable hill of laundry which them fell onto the floor. If I lived in California where mudslides happen I might have known better. But I have obviously not spent enough time in the Golden State. The paper towels were still in their container so they would have still been sanitary if they would have landed in any other 99.25% of the house, but no, they had to land on top of and then capsize the dog's water bowl. Big size dog, big size bowl, recently filled, big size mess.

I love my dog.

Dog water goes everywhere just enough so that all five and half dollars worth of paper towels are contaminated. The dog bowl is completely upside down. So is my mood. The dog retreats to the other side of the house. I sweet-talk the dog, he comes back. I clean up the water. I refill his bowl.

So I decide to go to my vehicle to use my phone which I had left out there because I had come home to make a quick dash in for a certain bill to mail and the all important stamp. I call the wife. Yes, my stamps are in her purse!

I mailed my letter using money at the postage store. Then I drowned my sorrows in a Grilled Chicken Sandwich, Baked Potato, and semi-flat Dr. Pepper. At least it was cold and wet to help me try to make it through the rest of the dust bowl dry day we are having. Um, didn't it rain yesterday?!?!? I remember writing an unpublished blog story that had rain in it.

I was just kidding about my time being worth 70 dollars an hour. Its probably only 67 and change. Deflation, I'm now a bargain!

Ooo Ooo Ooo, there's a new Gweenbrick! I must go ....

How To Make Coffee The Fork Way & Spin Babies

When I first saw my wife's new Keurig coffee maker a year ago, and how easy it worked, I was pleased. BUT when I went to buy replacement refills of coffee containers I was shocked at how eXpensive they were per cup. About the best deal I can find is the largest volume size of 80 cups for a little more than 30 dollars. And I don't even like strong coffee or the taste of any coffee yet in any prepackaged Keurig container. I don't like using their reusable device that allows you to use your own brand of coffee. It leaks too much, and its too messy for just one cup of coffee.

For awhile I was reusing my wife's Keurig containers, passing a second blast of hot water through them. But I still longed for the taste of Folger's Classic Roast. AND spending less money on coffee.

So about 2 months ago I figured out how to make coffee without using a coffee maker. I put a small amount of coffee grounds in the middle of a pair of coffee filters, and then bunch the filter top together held in place by the middle tines of a fork to encapsulate the coffee grounds properly. Meanwhile I have already heated up a cup of water in the microwave oven that already has my sugar in it. Then I put my "coffee bag" in the near boiling water and swish it around until it has the right strength. When it gets a little strong on coffee flavor toward the final part of the cup, I pull out the coffee bag and reheat more water and sugar, then put the coffee bag back in the second round of hot water. 

I have also learned to very slowly rotate the moist coffee bag while standing by the microwave oven waiting for the second cup of water to heat up. If you hold the coffee bag still or don't rotate it fast enough, then it drips. I usually rotate it over the trash can just to avoid any mess, holding in all that precious coffee goodness for my second cup. I also realized there may be other soggy things that wouldn't leak as easily if they are gently rotated. The first thing that came to mind was an infant with a wet diaper. I am not recommending this! It was just the first thing that popped into my siLLy liTTle brain.

I did see a small nearly 3 year old boy last night at the restaurant who is absolutely adorable. I asked him if he got his cute backpack at Gander Mountain (it was camouflage) and he told that it came from "nowhere". I have known his family for a very long time, and I just now remembered that when I was getting married the 3 year old's father attended my wedding. Of course, he was on the inside of his mother at that time. His older sister and I figured that out at work one day when we were calculating that she had been an infant at my wedding.

My coffee expense has been drastically reduced, and I am back to my favorite flavor of coffee. The world is a better place, and I may possibly have enough money to retire on now.

There  were  no  infants  harmed  in  the  making  of  this  blog  post  (honest).

What Am I Doing Right Now?

Right now I am watching the movie "Next" starring Nicolas Cage. Well, at this eXact moment there is a commercial, but the movie will return shortly, according to a micro burst interruption in the commercials. It is a bit science fictiony, and then I checked its creator and discovered it was by Philip K. Dick, oooh, he is good. He died almost thirty years ago on March 2nd.

So what siLLy thing am I reaLLy doing? I am sitting here trying to guess what the next line of dialogue is going to be, one of my favorite things to do, while watching a movie about a guy who can see into the future, but only two minutes. But part of the problem with the presentation of the movie on my teleBision is that every once in a while during the commercials it shows very brief pieces of video of future events of the movie, SO I already know the main character gets captured .... (?) .... Why did they do that?!?!?

Oh, here is something ironic in the movie: Part of the plot involves a nuclear weapon terrorist act and there is a s'pposedly randomly picked movie playing in the background on the teleBision, "Dr. Srangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb" in one of the scenes.

Oh, this is cool: The movie is now just over and the credits are scrolling in the opposite direction.

Oh, sorry I began three paragraphs in a row with the word "Oh" including this one. That was uncalled for and I didn't see it coming.

That was a fun movie.

So .... What's next? The movie 'The Help' on Blu-Ray.

YEA!!! Something Exciting Enough To Wake Up My Wife In The Middle Of The Night

I let the Cooper outside at 11 PM at the back door.

I just happened to look down inside my nearest pineapple plant, and instead of more leaves, there is a pineapple growing! Actually, I think it is a bloom at this point. This will be the f1rst time that I have had a plant try to produce a fruit, so far they have just been giving me leaves.

So I rushed to the bedroom and woke up my wife so she could also come to see it. Pineapple Plant Party Time!!! She was only about 10% as e_Xcited as me. She asked me, "how can it grow a pineapple in just that little bucket of dirt?" It is currently growing in a Folger's Coffee plastic coffee container, the 33.9 oz size, and that is only 2/3's filled with soil.

In all my eXcitement trying to take a photograph I completely forgot about the dog being outside! I think Tamie must have let him back inside, yeppa, he is in the other room. I managed to damage only two orchid blooms while trying to shoot this pineapple plant, going through three different lens on my Sony Alpha 350 before I found the right one to work properly in the dark with the camera flash. I will try to get another picture in the morning with natural light and a tripod.

Link to Wikipedia Article for Pineapple

Update 2012.03.02: Photograph

Update: 2012.03.08 - Approx 2 weeks - Pineapple is now about an inch across and high.
Photo by iPhone 4 S

Pineapple at 5 weeks and 4 inches tall

Does Baskin Robbins Have Pectinariidae Flavor?

Today I just learned (15 minutes ago) that there is a worm called the "Ice Cream Cone Worm".

From Wikipedia: Pectinariidae

Pectinariidae, or the trumpet worms or ice cream cone worms, are a family of marine polychaete worms that build sand tubes roughly resembling ice cream cones up to two inches long.

Pectinaria koreni (with and without tube)

Head is on the right side

© Hans Hillewaert / CC-BY-SA-3.0

To think that someone invented the ice cream cone without a proper name several years ago and then later a committee was sitting around thinking, what should we call this new dessert treat container? Then one of them with a biology background said, "I know, there is a worm called the ice cream cone worm, the Pectinariidae, that builds a sand tube that resembles our new cold food invention." And that is how the ice cream cone was not named.

The more you no.

Update: Someone told me that I was a "terrible and disgusting person for showing this picture. Now I have to wait several months before I have a cone." I thought about their comment for quite awhile and came to the conclusion that the picture is straight from wikipedia. Its just a worm that is part of the many things that live in the ocean. I didn't create the name for the animal, someone else did that. All I did was write a silly piece of humor where I twisted the order of events, a "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" story punchline. But, "terrible and disgusting person" ? I am not sure about that one. I think I read and see far far worse material than this on other blogs on an almost daily basis.

It is never my intent to be terrible and disgusting. Dear Reader: I hope you recover in several weeks instead of several months.

I think I just created a diet. I think the sand tube looks more like a deep fried burrito or pie. There, maybe that makes me more terrible and disgusting, (???), not sure. That picture kind of reminds of sushi, but I never eat sushi, so I am not an eXpert. The second part of the picture also looks like several things you might see during a stroll down the meat market at my grocery store, lotza strange bizarre things there.

This reminds me of the latest advertising slogan of the Red Lobster Restaurant, "I See Food Differently".

I Just Improved V-8 Juice !!!

I started drinking a severely humongous amount of V-8 Hot & Spicy Juice several weeks ago. But then I realized that the bottles of regular V-8 juice are much cheaper in my store, so I bought them instead and I have eXperimented with varying amounts of Tabasco Sauce. Then I added Worcestershire Sauce as well, and that had been my standard for quite awhile. Today's new discovery is a small amount of sugar !!!

Mmm ... Wonderful, y-e-s!!!

I am home from a day trip, shot a few photos. One is a great "Wash Your Hands" photo, and then another is a series of panoramics that I will try to blend together. I used a circular light pole for my 'try'-pod. I put the flat part of my camera on the light pole then repositioned slightly counter-clockwise, pausing to take several photos about every 15 degrees of rotation. I am going to try to also take all of the automobiles out of the finished photo by carefully selected where the overlaps begin-end. Sneaky! It is an important part of a former trip's storyline, which I will eventually publish as a separate blog post.

Link to "Wash Your Hands" photo

Ernest Shepherd

I have learned several things about my dog.

He likes me to be where HE wants me to be.

I tried reading in the kitchen at the bar with my coffee while waiting for some dishes to soak. He positioned himself on the carpet at the edge of the living room soft carpet, staring at me, smiling, indicating "want", but not begging, not asking for food, just staring at me trying to make and maintain eye contact.

"Yes? You want something?"

He just sits there on the soft floor warmed by himself, not wishing to venture onto my cold hard floor.

"Do you want me to come into the living room to read so you can chew on a rawhide bone?"

Bigger smile now and tail begins to wag but he doesn't move the rest of his body until I begin to move towards the living room.

Dishes can wait.

I get on the couch to write this and read my friends blogs. He gets on the soft carpeting at my feet and begins working a rawhide bone. But then he stops and stares at the teleBision that is playing music on cable channel 62.818 - Adult Alternative music: Jack Johnson, My Morning Jacket, The Fray, Good Old War, The Hold Steady ....

He is quiet.

Suddenly after fifteen minutes of music he has enough of this and positions himself in the hallway towards the bedroom. At first he doesn't say anything, he just stares. Finally I make eye contact. Then he makes "subtle request noises".

I tell him that I don't want to go back to bed.

He becomes progressively louder.

I stand my ground and don't move.

He gets much closer and louder with his complaining.

I tell him no, repeating my previous words.

He quiets and lays on the floor, although not quite as close as before.

I realize I have to be ready to go downtown to meet plumbers to have them fix something in about an hour.

No, let me rephrase that in the language Plumber Nonsense-ese. I have to wait all day for their phone call so that I can go to the other place for them to work when they get ready. 8 AM just happens to be the earliest that they could possibly call. I s'ppose I should check to make sure my phone is charged and get cleaned up for the day. The dishes can wait and soak a little longer. I need to soak me for awhile. I need more coffee, "two".

Time to find a new music channel on the teleBision as well.

I hear strange noises and turn down the teleBision music.

Cooper is now snoring.

Then a second disturbing animal noise.

I hear a cat suddenly scream right outside my window.

Sleeping dog doesn't move.

I don't investigate the neighbor's cat.

Someday soon I will tell/show you how I make coffee. No coffee pot required, just a microwave oven and a fork. That's right: A Fork