Yes, I ActuaLLy Was Glad To Get This For My Birthday

My mother gave me a present for my birthday while we were both at Darrouzett the other day for her party. She told me to wait til I got home to open it. Just as soon as I saw the size of the plastic bag that it was in, I started hoping that it was a certain item that I thought one of my brothers had stolen from me. It turns out that my mother had merely misplaced it, I guess. Or she may have forced my brother to give it back, I'm not exactly sure. 

Anyway, I guessed correctly:

An 11 inch tall ceramic turtle made by Hazel Thompson of Rapid City SD, possibly 40-50 years ago.

This turtle is special because it involves a combination of a nightmare about driving a combine harvestor while I was around seventeen years old while listening to Elton John's 'Mad Man Across The Water' album on an eight-track tape player while wearing headphones.

I fell asleep in the dark listening to my new album with headphones on. In my dream I lose the headlights to my combine harvestor and the front part of the machine starts digging into the dirt of field. (In actual life I was just learning to use this piece of equipment.)

In the commotion of my dream I somehow ripped the headphone plug out of its jack, causing the audio to go out the regular speaker system.

My parents bedroom is just a few feet away.

My father wakes up to Elton John music blasting out the speakers and someone (me) cussing up a storm about his combine in the neXt room.

He goes in the hallway and switches on the light. What he sees next totally cracks him up laughing.

I am sitting on the floor with the headphones still on and talking (!!!) combine gibberish loudly AND the ceramic turtle is between my hands as a steering wheel.

I am not sure which song was playing.

I am glad my turtle is finally safely at my house. I noticed there is writing on the bottom of the turtle where my mother had stated that this turtle was given (?) to me in the year 1997 at Thanksgiving.

I just remember asking for it a few years ago.

Just To Prove That I Am The Best Child

Just to prove that I am the best child, I called my mother yesterday (the Saturday before) to wish her Happy Mother's Day. I checked the time in Australia and it was two minutes after midnight in Sydney, so it was already Sunday there. We laughed and talked in Aussie accents and made up goofy lines like, "Good day, mate! Happy Mate-er's Day!

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When I discover that people are or want to be like me, I teLL them, "Ah, its a CURSE." And when they ask for more details, I say, "see, yoU aRe aS E." where E is Ernest.

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I am busy writing lyrics for "Where Are You Rainstorm?" to the tune "Where Are You Christmas?" from the movie 'How The Grinch Stole Christmas'. But my screenplay is titled 'How The Grinch Stole Spring'.

Meanwhile, about a fourth of Fritch TX burns down from a wildfire about a dozen miles west of me.

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Silliness reigns.

I get a call from my wife.

"Can you come and get me?"

(Me): "Where are you at?" (Confused)

"At work."

"I am at work, too." (Same building, well, almost the same building)

"Oh!"

Laughter on her end of the communication channel.

Oh, the semi-elderly.

I hang up and start singing our friend Angela's song, "Gonna Make Me Lose My Mind"

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I post this in Facebook: I think I am getting new socks today. Yea!

After posting this status two of my young female friends who work at our building argue in the comments about which one of them gets to deliver the package to my office. Several interesting comments comparing their beauty and intelligence. They are sisters. In the end I let each of them deliver the package while the other one isn't there.

It greatly delays me actually getting to wear the socks, but I have plenty of toe socks for my Vibrams.

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Your refrigerator can appear magical at 3:40 AM.

I open the door and when I look down there appears to be a yogurt container floating in mid-air.

Then I realize it is on a clear glass plate that is really a lid for a casserole dish upside down.

The lid is sticking way out over the shelf front more than halfway. It is being held in place cantilevered by a container of uncooked hashbrown potatoes.

At this point I stop investigating The Magic Phenomenon and close the door and I supress the thought of wondering how aLL those things got in those positions.

All this was possible because I open a disturbing e-mail at 2:00 AM letting me know how incompetent the Epson people are at handling shipments, now multiple instances of "overnight" deliveries taking a week or not even arriving at aLL, and now my story with Epson warranty service gets longer and stranger. I am thinking my next printer will be a Canon, but a "cannon" would be nice about now, too.

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I want an IGNORE ALL GAME INVITATIONS option in Facebook.

A Dead Russian Spy Stuck On My телевидение

There is a dead woman stuck on my teleBision.

I woke up at 1 AM on Thursday in my livingroom after watching TV. I had been watching Fargo for the third time (its a Tuesday show repeated) after seeing The Americans twice (Wednesday's show) but then I noticed that The Americans was playing for the third time (natural sequence of events on FX). But it was strange waking up to a TV screen that wasn't moving. The woman had left her bathroom after being suspicious and got her hidden 45 pistol from between the towels and was being sneaky in the hallway. She will be killed soon.

Only now its 5 hours later at 6 AM and she is in the same position. I am wondering, "Is there nobody working at FX to make sure their broadcast is functioning? Is their player just stuck on Pause?"

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I think our greatest threat to national security is understanding why that piece of breakfast burrito mysteriously fell (jumped???) off my fork and onto the floor. When too much food starts fleeing, the terrorists have won. My current thought is dynamic remotely initiated center of gravity shifting of the food particle once it has begun the on-my-fork transport phase incorporating a proper time delay.

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The new digital cable box is like having a TiVo without the ability to record anything.

The Up and Down buttons for the channel change do not have the ability to handle scrolling through the channels if you hold down on the button. I think practically aLL teleBision remotes have done that for a long time.

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I figured out a new way to annoy my wife using my dog without even trying or knowing.

I let my dog Cooper outside in our backyard while I went next door to check on the neighbor's dog.

While I was gone Tamie let Cooper back inside. Cooper has a sense of humor and knows that sometimes I play Hide 'N Seek when she lets him back inside. He is looking aLL over the house for me and making whining complaints while Tamie is trying to teLL him that I am not here, that I am neXt door. But he doesn't believe her. Would you?

A Roland Failure

I have CorelDRAW X6 running on a Windows 8 PC and a Roland GX-24 cutting machine. It is supposed to be easy to move files from CorelDRAW to Roland's cutting software CutStudio with a simple software plug-in. But my attempts at installing it have failed.

I finally got a human tech support person from Roland to log into my computer with remote access but he was also unsuccessful.

If there is anyone out there who has had a similar problem and has a solution, I would appreciate some help.

For The Whole Trailer Park

It is bad enough that I was too busy lately to get by digital convertor box before the signal went dead on my cable TV, but I when I show up at the cable office I am only the third person in line at a company that can be slower than the DMV.

I think, maybe I won't starve to death before I get my boxes. Wrong.

The first person is taking a really long time talking about his TiVo box problems and he finally gets a different remote.

I think, ah, soon.

BUT I discover that the lady in front of me is there to get digital convertors for an ENTIRE trailer park. YES! I kid you not, the ENTIRE trailer park. But she isn't the owner. She becomes agitated because things start to go south for her when another rep suddenly appears and lets her know that the 37 devices are going to be sent to the owner and it appears she has driven from Pampa (30 minutes away) for nothing, not even "her" devices.

She begins to make a claim that she didn't realize she was going to lose her service if she didn't get her boxes. I am thinking, No, I think the cable company has been terribly clear they were going to cut us off on the 29th, and I say so. I think this got me points with the cable teleBision lady behind the counter and I was getting my boxes veRy soon after.

Fargo should be crystal clear tonight.

I Am Off To Slaughter A Wooly Mammoth

Pure happiness is discovering you had a gallon jug of SunnyD Orange Strawberry that you didn't know about. If the 6.75 oz, 11.3 oz and the 16 oz are known as their "Go Sizes", then a gallon must be their "Stop".

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Immediately after waking up and seeing the word 'catastrophically' I just realized that the word catastrophy has "cat as trophy" but then realized that catastrophy is reaLLy speLLed catastrophe. Somedays are just like that and you just have to ask yourself, "Y?".

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I saw that it was the 20th anniversary of Nixon's death, so I read his wikipedia article, quite fascinating. You tend to forget about aLL the wonderful things he gave us like OSHA and the EPA.

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I should invent the clothes dryer that will start itself. "Hmmm, let's see, the human put wet clothes in me, closed the door, AND I detect he/she also started my sudsling Mr Washer just now, so I should just go ahead and 'push' Start for him/her". General Electric? Slave Electric.

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I rarely watch teleBision. It is on as I walk through the livingroom but the sound is muted and closed captioning displays, "Jaws theme intensifies" and of course there is no Jaws movie playing. I told myself, "I rarely see those three words together in that order with nothing else." I wiLL have to bring them up in conversation more often, especiaLLy in response to Brandon's "Terry Bradshaw" monologues. If none of this makes sense then I have succeeded.

The only person I know in Delaware asks me if I am getting Cooper a treat for Easter.

I respond:  I am going to go back in time, slaughter a wooly mammoth, bury it in permafrost, come back to the present (time), and then go dig up the WooMam as a present (gift) to Cooper. I know it sounds like alot of trouble, but I am already here in northern Alaska digging. This is actuaLLy a good thing (as Martha S would say) because Tamie just came home from Wal-Mart without getting him a new chew bone. Tamie asked me just now, "Did you tell him I was getting him one? (a chew bone)" and I said no. She said he was bothering her wanting something, and I spelled out "n-i-n-e" and she realized it was almost cheese time. WeLL, I had better finish digging this mammoth out of the permafrost in order to get to the diner on time, it is Saturday evening and people are expecting me. Oh, I must also find the remote.

A Far Isms

Here are some of my modifications of some common aphorisms.

Beauty is only skin deep.

Beauty is only as deep as the first few layers of skin cells, and they are dead.

Beauty is dead

Or maybe:

Beauty is depth.

Or:

Beauty is dead depth.

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Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

If you are an atheist and didn't believe that The Devil existed, omitting him would yield concisely:

Better you know than you don't.

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Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

Build a better door and all the mice in the world will be unable to get in. It won't stop them from accumulating on your path, though.

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Cast your bread upon the water, and it will be returned a hundred-fold.

Cast your bread upon the water, and it will be food for a hundred fish, depending on how much bread it was, and how well the fish take turns and share.

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Don't burn the candle at both ends.

AND

Don't burn your bridges behind you.

Install proper lighting on bridges, probably by not using candles.

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Don't speak ill of the dead.

Don't speak of the dead to the ill. Sick people don't need to be reminded that it could get worse for them soon.

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Eat to live, don't live to eat.

AND

Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

So I created:
Don't forget to eat, drink and be merry, to really live it up, for tomorrow we diet.

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Faith will move mountains.

Bulldozers can also move mountains, so bulldozer = faith. I wonder if this means that religious people should buy stock in Caterpillar Inc, symbol CAT on the NYSE and component of the DJIA.

Cat worship?

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Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Even a broken clock is right four times a day if it is facing a mirror and there are just simple common symbols to indicate each hour to yield a symmetrical scheme through an axis of rotation.

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For want of a nail, a kingdom was lost.

This would be reaLLy true if you owned a whole bunch of beauty salons that specialized in manicures and pedicures, and then suddenly everyone decided to stop caring for their nails and you went bankrupt.

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Give him an inch and he'll take a mile.

Now, at first this sounds terrible, but it is not quite as bad as it first appears. You have already made arrangements to give 1 inch but then someone takes (12x5280) 63,360 inches. You thought you were losing 63,360 inches, but it is reaLLy only an eXtra 63,359 inches.

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If wishes were fishes then no man would starve.

AND

If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.

Combined: If wishes were sea horses, then hungry beggars could have neat aquariums.

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Ignoriance of the law is no excuse for breaking it.

You are really ignoriant if you spell ignoriance with two i's.

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It'll all come out in the wash.

This not completely true. My clothes washing machine may remove dirt and grime, but the clothes dryer is the device that collects the lint.

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Lightning never strikes twice in the same place.

This means that lightning will eventuaLLy stop happening once it has struck everywhere.

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Many hands make light work.

An electrician makes lights work.

There is a high probabilty that light bulbs are made by robots, not hands.

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You can't fit a round peg in a square hole.

It doesn't take much imagination to see that this is wrong. The diameter of the peg just has to be equal to or less than the side of the square hole.

I do not know how this applies to Winnipeg, Manitoba,  Canada. I have never been there although I have been within a few hundred miles and farther north in Canada.

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When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

This would be more interesting as:

When in Rome, do as the Romans did.

Because then you could start conquering other countries and forming an empire.

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Revenge is a dish best served cold.

I think it should be a little more visual. I like:

Revenge is a dish best served with ketchup.

(That way it simulates blood - additional scary element - plus most of the time ketchup is served cold)

Heartbleed: Did Obama Know?

Because my wife and I share the same account info for iCloud and probably things I don't understand about iPhones, our phones automagically stay sync'd with notes and directories.

So instead of iPhones we have wePhones.

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Saturday afternoon at 5 PM: Wow, in the 90's right now and it is s'pposed to SNOW on Monday! In TEXAS in APRIL ....mid April ...

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So ... the NSA knew about Heartbleed for two years and used it to their advantage. What bizarre selfish behavior. This is something that needed to be fixed as soon as it was discovered for the better good of all society. I think the NSA has forgotten who they ultimately work for.

Now I am interested in knowing how far up the chain of command that people knew about this at the NSA. Did Obama know?!?!?

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I went to the notes on my iPhone to order my supper meal at the diner, and I noticed that the most recent note said cryptically, "Fix any problem [at the original salon address]" and I was puzzled by what had I wrote, then realized that iOS had auto corrected "ant" to "any", and of course it did it again as I was typing this. It is okay to have computer bugs but obviously not ants. Oh, it now appears that ants is okay BUT ant is not unless you have recently corrected iOS. Okay, enough, I am going to sleep in 10 minutes.

My lawyer friend asked if my orders for meals are really that complex. I told her that it is easy for me just pull up Diner Meal 1, 2 or 3 and just hand my iPhone to the waitress and they take my iMenu back to the kitchen.

They stiLL manage to put butter on my "dry lightly toasted wheat bread" about half the time AND it isn't always wheat but white. But I stiLL adore them greatly.

Three For The Road

For part of today there was a strange brief three minute period on Interstate 40 for three things I had never observed before.

I was driving the speed limit going west in eastern Amarillo but still managed to slowly pass a small demi-dented damaged car in the middle lane. It had no rear glass yet there were several things piled across the flat area behind the headrest where the window would have could have should have been. They looked like possibly groceries, the one closest to me looked like a bag of potato chips defying the laws of physics and aerodynamics.

I thought that might be the wildest thing I saw all day.

Nope.

A little ways farther down the road on the north side was a billboard in a foreign language but not Spanish, and I laughed and thought, "Dang! I must have taken the wrong exit and took the road to Da Nang!" - I am not fluent in Vietnamese but I can pick out a few words on a menu, but not eXpecting to see a Vietnamese billboard. I will have to check how many Vietnamese live in Amarillo. [Answer: 3.1 percent Asian, so roughly 6 thousand would be about the maximum for 2010 census data.]

I thought well that might finally be the wildest thing I saw all day. I will have to get the message of the billboard translated to see what is being advertised on probably relatively expensive ad space. Perhaps it is meant to attract out of town Vietnamese passing through, as I-40 is a busy transnational passage.


Wildest thing of the day ... ?
Nope, not yet.

When I got to the intersection of I-40 and Ross-Osage on the access road there was a cattle truck, 18 wheeler, in front of me, my lane, that appeared to be fixing to make a U-turn under the overpass. I thought, hmm, this going to be interesting, one of those square peg round hole maybe scenarios.

I think semi trailer rigs are about 13 ft 6 inches tall and there should be plenty of room to go under a 14 ft 4 in passageway, BUT, ... in this case it was interesting because right in front of me I saw the left rear tires go up onto the curb that had to have raised the left side at least 6 more inches and stay there as rig started under the bridge. I never heard any thing scrape or pieces go flying but I was cringing a bit hoping no cattle were scared in the cock-eyed cow container, a group form of cow tipping.

The rest of my day has been rather boring since.

A Few Miles West

After watching part of the movie In Cold Blood and starting a study of Truman Capote yesterday, I just now discovered that the scene of the Clutter family November 1959 quadruple murder is just a little ways west of a piece of highway 83 that I have drove on many times in my life north and south.

I only watched part of the movie because I fell asleep in the early morning. But now I am veRy confused because I thought I had watched it on Netflix but now it is not there or maybe never was ... hmm ... so maybe I was watching teleBision but it just seems I was watching it on my iPad but in my confusion it could be that I am getting this mixed up with my online studying of the movie, book and Capote while I was watching the movie. But I haven't been able to find the movie playing on any teleBision channels.

I did not know that Truman was childhood friends with author Harper Lee of 'To Kill A Mockingbird', and that she had assisted Truman during his journey to Kansas with the Clutter case. They each appear as a character in a book that the other one wrote about childhood. Truman was Dill in TKaM and Harper Lee was Idabel Thompkins in Capote's 'Other Voices, Other Rooms'.

I wiLL get a photograph of the Clutter home on my neXt trip to South Dakota.

Obama's Cry Me of Passion

At 4:12 AM I am asking my wife, "Would you run to Taco Bell for me?"

She immediately responds, "They are not open!"

I laugh.

She smiles.

Slight pause

She asks me what I am doing.

I reply, "Bothering you."

I laugh.

She smiles and shakes head.

I think she may have wanted coffee but I left the room before she had a chance to formulate her needs, desires, and then eXpress them. But now I have a desire to have cup of coffee but that would require me making two cups of coffee plus getting my left ear cold. But my throat is saying, "I'm dry."

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Crimea plus Sevastopol have a population of around 3 million people. The entire world's population is in eXcess of 7 BILLion people. This means that the current political hot potato that President Obama is spending so much time and energy involving himself half way around the world where he has no legal jurisdiction, no one votes for him, contains less than half of one tenth of one percent of the world's population. I think he has his priorities askew.

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I was going to try to be at work at 11 AM but now I think I wiLL need to adjust for the wind 'still' factor, and to a smaLLer degree the relative humidity, visibility, and just plain ole 'do I have to?'-ness.

Oh Siblings, Are We Irish? Are We Poets?

While studying poet-writer Samuel Beckett, I noticed that he was a Saoi.

Saoi (Irish pronunciation: [sˠiː]) (pl. saoithe; lit. "wise one"; hist. head of poetic school; master) is the highest honour that members of Aosdána, an association of people in Ireland who have achieved distinction in the arts, can bestow upon a fellow member. No more than seven living members can be so honoured at one time.

The title of Saoi is conferred by the President of Ireland (following election from among the membership of Aosdána) and held for life. A torc (a twist/spiral of gold, worn around the neck) is presented to each Saoi by the President and/or Administrator.

I realized that because there can be 7 Saoi at any one time then it is theoretically just possible (but eXremely unlikely) that all 7 of the siblings in my family could be Saoi at the same time. Then we could be known as a Saoi been family instead of a Boston Baked Bean family.

Hahahahahaha

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U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met Friday in Kiev with acting President Oleksandr Turchynov, then told reporters he was "very deeply concerned" by the tensions in parts of Ukraine and between Kiev and Moscow. "These are some of the most traumatic and difficult times in the history of Ukraine," he said.

After I read this I thought, " 'most traumatic ... difficult' (?) Ummm, no, I would just bet World War II was worse."

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I am eXtremely tired and I suddenly remembered that earlier this evening, or maybe today, I caLLed my wife (Breaking Bad reference to Aaron Paul's character) 'Jessica Pinkwoman', but now I have forgot the details for why. I think we might have been in a kitchen but not the one in our house, the other one. (We have an insane number of refrigerators AND clothes washer-dryer combos due to our kind of businesses and locations. Oh, and sinks, I just now realized we have a huge number of sinks.)

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I think that it is sad that Fred Phelps Sr. of the Westboro Baptist Church, Topeka Kansas, the activist who was in charge of picketing military funerals, has died just recently at age 91. I was hoping that he would have died a long time ago ....

Putin On The Blitz Krieg

I saw this paragraph at CNN:

The Pentagon plans to keep an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean longer than planned as a military presence to reassure NATO allies following Russia’s intervention in Crimea, CNN has learned.

I was wondering what good that does to the situation. I have thought of a few things I am going to do myself. First, I am going to move a pillow from my bed to my livingroom couch. Second, I am going to rearrange the knives, forks, and spoons in my kitchen drawer so the sharp edges are facing towards Russia. Third, I am moving my jug of milk from the right to the left side of my refrigerator.

That wiLL teach Putin to mess with Crimea.

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ActuaLLy I am returning to work today after being sick & trapped at my house for about five days. Even if I would have wanted to leave the house yesterday and wind was so bad and so much dirt was being moved through the air that I am not even sure I am stiLL in Texas, there was no way I was getting out in that mess. The weather service even issued warnings to seek shelter and against driving in it.

But I am eXcited to get back to the printing business as I have alot of things to produce, and plus I got a brand new broom and mop combination tool for doing my janitorial work. Yes - they are both on the same pad, you flip it over to switch between sweeping and mopping. I tried it briefly before I got sick and it seems to work nicely for my business environment (cosmetology shop). Anything that speeds up the cleaning process is welcome as long as my renters are happy.

Link: Flip Mop

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Please check out the drawings of my fellow blogger Rob Z Tobor at The Drawings of Rob Z Tobor

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I wonder who writes teleBision commercials. I see one for Atlantis resorts where they first say "Atlantis, where its always summer", and then it starts talking about their Spring special that's good through March 17th, but then I realize that means its still Winter time, technicaLLy, and Spring starts about 4 days after their special ends.

Then a few days after I first noticed this they changed their date to March 31st.

Accidentally Mashed Potatoes

I can teLL I have not had enough coffee yet. I was fiLLing out a form online for some information and in the first box for email address I mindlessly wrote, "email", then laughed at myself. There is something seriously wrong upstairs ....

That first paragraph was my Facebook status early Sunday morning.

I went to copy the text of that (Facebook) status in order to copy it over to this blog and noticed that my iPad gave me the choice of either copying it to the clipboard OR speaking the text. So I let a robotic female voice speak my words to me. I think I sound better than that, but I am not sure. If you try this feature and find out the Apple robot sounds better than me, please do not teLL me, it can be your little secret. So just lie to me and say, "Yes, Ernie, you sound better than a female Apple robot."

I took the eXperience one step farther by having the robot speak the second status that I wrote about her speaking. She pronounces "teLL" funny.

I would prefer a robotic voice that sounded like a young Shirley Temple.

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I was reminded today that we have less than 8,000 years before we need to switch to 5 digit years. Y10K programmers get busy ...

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Someone has sinned greatly in our home. There is no worcestershire sauce. My wife blames me.

- - - - -

Our printing business is suddenly getting much busier, so that is nice, with larger individual orders. That wiLL keep the wife in a happier mood, knowing that I am slaving away. But more importantly it means more money to help pay for medical insurance.

- - - - -

I walk in the kitchen to a meal that I wasn't scheduled to be part of because I routinely go to the diner on Saturday evenings. I look down at a large bowl and the only thing in the bowl is a stick of margarine. After 30 years of eXperience in this household I immediately knew that my wife was making mashed potatoes.

I look over on the stove and the left rear burner has what appears to be a finished pot of cooked potatoes.

But I look at the kitchen bar where my wife and son are eating and it appears they are finished with their meals and just chatting.

I ask, "Are you making mashed potatoes?"

My wife responds, "Well, I wasn't planning on making mashed potatoes, but I got busy making supper and accidentally started them."

My son and I crack up laughing, thinking, how can you go through the process of accidentally peeling a pot of potatoes, washing them, putting in the water, put them on the stove, get out the mixing bowl, put in the margarine ....

She actually posed for a picture holding up the bowl with just the margarine, but I didn't have a camera.

The potatoes were discarded the neXt day, a tiny piece of Idaho wasted.

My Son Is Singing "something something something"

So on the way home from the vet in Spearman an 18 wheeler starts to go off the road while he is just at that exact distance and time frame where I have no time to react and he begins to OVERcorrect and starts to get in my lane. That was about as close to a head on collision as I have had in quite awhile. I laughed because the first thought that went through my brain was, "that sure would have been a waste of $209.18 for a veterinarian services we just completed a few minutes ago."

AND then as I was getting back to Borger a highway patrolman passes me way above the speed limit right before the circle at Lorene's, and proceeds to drive 55 mph south down Cedar Street in a 40 zone, no lights flashing to indicate any special need. He stops at the light at 10th street where I catch up to him then its more zooming on south out of town switching lanes as he/she passes people doing the speed limit. License tag 04960.

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I get earthquake reports for the state of Oklahoma automaticaLLy. A recent report listed an earthquake 0 miles east of Stillwater. So I laughed and thought, um, "Doesn't that just mean 'Stillwater'?"

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I started watching Mad Men on Feb 23rd. I am in season 4 now. I think season 7 starts in a few weeks. But now I am suddenly bored by it ...

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At a restaurant on the road I mentioned that I reaLLy like the wheat toast at Cracker Barrel. My wife responds, "It's probably the bread."

An A Maze Zing Day badly dimly darkly

Sunday, a sin day for some people.

It was not an amazing day, but a terrible maze mess of a day. We had to let someone go (a renter) who was discovered to be stealing from our business. The person telephoned to ask for money but my wife told the person that we couldn't help them today because we had to use all our funds to pay a tax bill tomorrow and that we would help her just as soon as we got some money in on Tuesday, the neXt day. My son heard the telephone conversation and immediately told his mother that he was not comfortable with the situation at the store and he turned off the burners to the food he was cooking at our house and immediately went to our business, five minutes away. He had been downtown studying all morning and had just returned to cook our lunch. So he surprised the renter who was in our cash register and had a wad of bills in her hand. She started making up eXcuses and lies and crying. Up to this point I knew absolutely nothing had gone on until I heard my wife screaming madly at someone unknown to me (the renter) at that moment over the telephone from the other end of the house.

So ... it has been a difficult day. The person would never admit they were stealing even though they were caught red handed. We live in a relatively small town of about 14,000 people where practically all the cosmetologists know one another so I have no idea how she thinks she will be able to work in this town anymore. And we have poured hundreds of hours of training time and money into this person because they essentially can't seem to get people educated locally at the junior college cosmetology department. So it is just a grand disappointment in trust shattered and time wasted.

I don't think I have ever "fired" anyone before. It wasn't a good feeling at the moment by any stretch of the imagination but I had no hesitations, just a clear cut agenda, boom. On the way home I laughed because of the sheer utter stupidity of the person to do such a stupid thing as this to us after this entire year of development. She was getting good at her craft finally, people enjoyed her. Later in the day we got a message on the answering machine that a piece of glass of hers in a picture frame had been broken that either my son or wife had packed and delivered to her house, accusing us of breaking it on purpose. 

WHAT?!?!? She calls about a two-bit piece of glass which we most assuredly did not break on purpose or for that matter, how could you even prove something like that, anyway, such a trivial matter.

Later in the afternoon we pieced together the timeline of events and calls and figured out that she was most likely casing our business in the morning waiting for our son to leave before entering, not expecting him to have returned so suddenly.

So I am looking forward to hearing the rumor mill in the coming days. 

It is a good thing I enjoy mopping, and my other cosmetology renters would rather have me doing it anyway instead of her. I think I will get a new larger mop.

(I am not a cosmetologist, just a business owner with a wife who is a cosmetologist. I am originally a chemist and computer scientist, but now spend my time mainly in the printing business.)

My Wife Discovers Me Sleeping With An Elephant And I Hadn't Even Noticed

Actually it was two elephants but it was dark and she didn't have her eyeglasses.

A few weeks ago before Thanksgiving I noticed that my wife's bedroom dresser was dustier than normal so I wiped it down while also vacuuming. I don't normally dust in my house but we have been terribly busy at our business so she has been doing less around the house.

I decided that I would make it my secondary minor main mission in life to always keep her dresser dust-free but never let her know about it, and see if she ever noticed. Then I would conjure up something to eXplain it.

About a week later she smiled at me asked if I had dusted her dresser. I insisted that I had not. I told her that I had warned the dust while I was vacuuming that they were neXt, but when I came back they had mysteriously left. She looked puzzled and I repeated my story adding a few more details but then she finally caught on and laughed while shaking her head.

So I dusted again yesterday.

I woke early this morning to noises in my bedroom of my wife leaving the room at 3 AM. I decided to have a cup of coffee and I asked my wife how she was doing on my way to the kitchen.

She asked me, "Why is the elephant in the bed?"

Of course I think that maybe she is asleep talking, insane or both.

I asked her what she meant, giggling.

She said she found the elephant figurine (which normally lives on the top side middle of the dresser) in the bed near my feet.

Not wishing to tell her that I had dusted yesterday, I responded, "The dust must have carried the elephants over there when they left yesterday." Now I have a mental picture of the dust as Hannibal's army crossing the Alps with their military elephants with the dresser as Carthage and my bed as Rome and the carpet as the Mediterranean Sea. Then I realize that would be backwards north and south.

She now thinks I am the one who is insane but I repeat my story leaving out the whole interesting Hannibalian military dust adventure but only make it about halfway when I tell her that, yes, I moved the elephants while dusting. But she is still groggy and doesn't understand this either or maybe I confused her with the elephants plural, so I have to repeat myself.

The second elephant is a baby about 40 percent as tall blended into and under the larger elephant. So luckily it didn't get broke during the dust exodus-t.

-----

I just wrote this holiday joke:

Santa Claus and The Easter Bunny were talking one day. The Easter Bunny said, "Does it ever bother you that most people get to have a middle name but we don't?"

Santa looks confused and tells him, "I thought 'Easter' was your middle name, The."

Misplaced Moose Ears, McRib Poem and More

I am printing some moose art for someone. The ears don't quite look right,  so I googled "moose head" and noticed several ears drawn improperly.

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If you are too chilly, just remember:

Its almost summer!

(In Chile)

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My wife was not amused by my answers to her question, "What should I wear to jury duty?"

I immediately responded with, "A tuxedo."

After negative feedback, my second try was a pair of overalls with suspenders, straw hat, and a corncob pipe, oh, yes, and sandals."

More negative feedback.

-----

We have a strange house activity. NCIS can be playing nearly aLL day, sometimes on both teleBisions, sometimes both muted, and I reaLLy don't watch it much any more. I wake to gunfire too often.

-----

A Yummy Sandwich:

Cold Turkey

Cold Oyster Dressing

Sauer Kraut

Freshly Sauteéd Onions Chopped

American Cheese

on Mrs Baird's Honey Wheat Bread with Miracle Whip and Mustard

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I just looked in a trash can 

And there see our eyes be?

An empty food container

Imprinted M-c-R-i-b

The drought is over ....

-----

While shopping on Black Friday:

"Ernie, I just saved 214 dollars!"

"That's okay, as long as it ends up in my pocket."

-----

The Otter Box (brand) protective cover for my iPhone is starting to deteriorate. I guess I should get an Outer Box for my Otter Box.

-----

I am talking to my wife about our Epson 4900 printer and she remarks, "That is the smartest thing you ever did was get that." I told her, "I thought the smartest decision I ever made to get something was to get you (?)" - she laughed, and said, "Yeah, that too!"

-----

The strange thing that happened to me on November 19th: Someone drove to my house, parked illegally in front of it, the driver got out and while looking straight at me, he threw his lit cigarette onto my winter brown dry lawn and proceeded to stomp twist extinguish it with his foot. I found this to be rather rude behavior.

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I tell Tamie that I hurt reaLLy bad, entire body, ache.

She asks me, "Have you taken some ibuprofen?"

I say, "I need heroine"

"You aren't taking heroin!"

(Notice my speLLing)

Dec Line Decline

If you would like to try a new form of relaxation, try drawing parallel lines free-hand. I enjoy it veRy much. I use an ordinary ball point ink pen. 

I use ordinary 8 1/2 x 11 copy machine paper.

I am working on duplicating the bar code from a bag of sugar. I wiLL let you know if it scans properly.

Try several pen-to-hand orientations and stroke direction, distance, pressure, and speed to see what works best for drawing your straightest lines.

Update: Try connecting sections together and measure the sections to try for a uniform spacing, repeatibility from design to design. Sometimes I make the ties between segments be a 2-to-1 ratio to give a sense of depth.

Update: Try Circles!!!

Update: Find your favorite gap! Mine appears to be close to 1/16 of an inch. I measured this eXample with 6.5 gaps per 3/8 of an inch which comes to 17 1/3 gaps per inch.

I also started working left handed. Not quite as pretty but it's coming along nicely.

So I think I wiLL work on trying to be repeatable at 1/16th of an inch

The Recent E

My wife's assistant asked me what sounded good for lunch. 

I replied, "Tiger with Mushroom Sauce?"

Her reply was, "I don't do mushrooms."

I laughed for ten minutes ... 

My assistant laughed harder but more brief than me. 

(I am not sure if she knows that she is my assistant)

-----

I walk in the door at MY place of business just as the UPS delivery lady is trying to squeeze through the same front door as me. My wife's assistant tells me, "Pops, she is here to take you away (they aLL giggle)" and without saying a word I turn around leaving the store as my wife semi-yells out, "Get your butt back in here!!!"

I tell the UPS lady what they told me and the UPS lady gives me her reply and grins. I walk back into the store 8 seconds later with my head down and fake eXtreme sadness. They ask me, "What, - they didn't want you? (more giggles)"

I reply, "No, worse, she said I was over her weight limit" - even more giggles - "I am going back to my office to commit suicide." - louder giggles mixed with groans.

-----

Someone commented about me wearing shorts on this cool Novembrrr day. I replied, "But these are my longer shorts."

(Well, they are a half inch longer than the shorter shorts. At least they protect my kneecaps.)

-----

I am driving home after a veRy long day and I crack up laughing.

Why? ... Chicken

I just realized that my wife told me she was going home to make a fried chicken dinner AND I realize this is going to be my fourth meal in this long day AND every meal was/is chicken based.

I wasn't sure if this has ever happened to me before. Deli chicken sandwich, chicken noodle soup, grilled chicken salad at Shannon's, and now fried chicken.

Luckily pork chops prevailed and The Wife had changed her mind before I got home.

-----

Is it appropriate to teLL your jar of sauer kraut, "I love you" ? (I whispered it so Cooper or Tamie would not be jealous.)

My typical sandwich:

Deli Turkey, Mesquite Smoked

Mrs Baird Honey Wheat Bread with Miracle Whip

Sauer Kraut

Sliced Tomatoes

Pepper Jack Cheese

Boar's Head Brand Smoked Gouda Cheese

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The title of this post was s'pposed to be 'The Recent Me' -  but my reäl keyboard ied and the on-screen eybord is unrliable. 

Repaired:
The title of this post was s'pposed to be 'The Recent Me' -  but my real keyboard died and the on-screen keybord is unreliable.

My Timing Is Forty Percent Off

I go to the groc store to buy one primary thing: a buffalo steak for a soup

I get there and find none. NormaLLy there is a bin of ten.

I ask the meat market professional about the steaks. He said, "Well, they were starting to get old so I marked them 40% off and they all sold yesterday. We'll have more back in stock probably on Monday."

Of course they wiLL be regular price. If they would sell them at a reasonable price they would never get old. They are vacuum pack sealed and last a long time.

When I got back to my truck I did find a surprise in the parking lot. Someone had lost their pair of pliers. They are still functional. So the morning was not a total loss.

Ethiopian Reader, Who Are You?

I noticed today that I got 20 blog hits from Ethiopia. I rarely get African readers. Who are you? Share your eXperience of The Ernest. 

 I am veRy frustrated because iOS version 7 on Apple iPad seems to have giant flaws. I keep having to teLL the bank that I have a private connection. Popup blocking seems to work BACKWARDS. I dare not let my battery run down OR it seems impossible to get my display locked back in landscape mode. AND ... You would think that the folks (I wanted to say IDIOTs) at Apple would have figured out by now how to save something as simple as ScREEN OrIeNtATIOn between power recharging, but No! The idiots in Cupertino are just big giant idiots, too bad some of them work at Apple. And you have totaLLy screwed up something so I can't edit my blog from my iPad, screen cursor repositioning is a TOTAL failure. What is up MORONS!!! I live on my iPad as do 113 bazillion other iPad-inoids, how dare you screw up my daily life, you idoit damn morons!

On the bright side of things I am thinking about buying a laser ...............

Barking Bad

My wife was feeling bad in moderate pain talking to herself about herself. She was not enjoying the process. Then she noticed that Cooper was standing at the doorway to the room imitatingly repeating fairly much the same vocal patterns that she was making. Of course I miss aLL of this performance of empathy pain pet performance but I can clearly imagine it.

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I got our second silk screen printing press assembled so now we wiLL start experimenting with CMYK designs on darker fabrics. The inkjet photoprinter arrived yesterday and is monstrous in size to me, up to 17 inch wide material by sheet or roll, so I am getting that thing figured out. The day before that we made our final decision on an industrial embroidery machine, so that process is beginning. I have a sneaking suspicion that it is going to be my main toy to manage and tinker with for quite awhile. And just how am I going to sneak in a vacation to southeastern Oklahoma anytime soon at this rate?!?!?

----- 

Looks like I made it back from South Dakota with good timing. Several parts where I was traveling recently now have a couple feet of snow. I think my F-350 would have done okay but I might have needed chains on the tires.

Blogger Failing Again In Several Ways

I am eXperiencing problems with Blogger again with logins. I am being forced to login way too often. Add this to the other recent development that their editor doesn't work with the latest version of iOS 7 for repositioning the cursor or performing the 'select' functionality. It also messed up the publishing date on a recent post.

Breaking Bad Mistake 5-13 & 5-14

I noticed something wrong in the gun battle between the end of episode 5-13 "To'hajiilee" and the continuation in episode 5-14 "Ozymandias".

Walt is in handcuffs in the backseat of Hank's vehicle when the gun battle starts and in the process of falling out of the seat into the floor board his eyeglasses come off. When the shooting stops in episode 5-14 Walt has his glasses back on, but no one could have helped him. His hands were handcuffed behind his back.

Let The Corruption Begin Early and Often

I found out that one of my best friends may run for election to fill a lower level judge job. I told her, "Great! I should start committing crimes and bribing you, what sort of kick back wiLL you need to throw out my charges?"

She replied that the position handled misdemeanors and laughed.

- - - - -

Elsewhere in faux news, aLL of the locations in the state of Colorado for the company "Pottery Barn" are being renovated to take advantage of recent legal changes. They wiLL be rebranded as "Pot Tree Barn" stores.

- - - - -

I was wondering where my iPad was located and then found it under the pillow that was under my head. I couldn't believe that I had left it at work three nights in a row. That just teLLs you how busy I have been if I left my beloved iPad somewhere. But three days is ridiculous. Luckily my wife had brought it home. 

iOS 7 Breaking Things Badly

It appears that operating system upgrade version 7 to iOS on my iPad has messed up editing in Blogger. The cursor is veRy difficult to impossible to reposition while in HTML mode, and the WYSIWYG version has never worked properly so I guess I should try that neXt .... Nope, that stiLL doesn't work. I saw a report yesterday that Apple is not allowing downgrades from version 7 back to 6, and even forcing some devices to upgrade to 7.

-----

On the brighter side of things I am learning Spanish this morning from the bilingual instructions from the side of my Folgers Instant Coffee. I learned my former boss' name sounds like the word for crystal. He was a gem, a veRy brilliant man, so that fits weLL.

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There is a Breaking Bad marathon going from Wednesday evening until Sunday evening culminating with the series finale. All 62 episodes in a row, with some chunks of time to allow people to sleep. So it isn't quite a complete marathon in the way, imagining that runners in the New York Marathon stop for a little naps, hah. ActuaLLy it is faster to watch episodes on Netflix where the first 4 1/2 seasons are available without commercials. 

I don't plan to watch the marathon because I have already seen the entire series at least 4 times completely in a row. But I do plan on having at least one of my teleBisions tuned to the AMC channel for the entire time just for the heck of it. Ouch! Something just stung me in the side, right side about at the appendix level. The great outdoors is attacking me today.

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I am getting a nice printer to do fine photography prints, just not sure which model yet. Probably get an Epson.

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I just heard Steven Colbert say that he has never written fiction. Among a constant stream of things that come out of his mouth, that is probably the most inaccurate thing he has ever spouted. 

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I forgot the thing that I was going to put right here. If and when I think of it, I wiLL come back and put it in place.

Ahhhh! Now I remember! I have a new hobby. I saw a teleBision commercial for Dyson vacuum cleaners, and heard the voice of Mr Dyson, and decided to work on mimicing his sound. Not aLL the time, of course, just when I have vacuum thoughts.

-----

I just noticed that the AMC channel has a count-down timer in the lower right side of the screen to let you know how many days, hours, minutes, and seconds until the final episode of Breaking Bad.

I found the choices of teleBision ads interesting for Breaking Bad. I just saw an ad for electronic cigarettes called Blu. Then there was a beer in a blue bottle. These tie in nicely with the color of Walt's product. Being an organic chemist I am interested in such things as why his product would be blue considering an eXtremely pure version of methamphetamine is clear. This is ironic as I just watched pieces of my favorite episode about the fly getting in the lab and Walt going crazy during his grand battle with The Insect. 

Other commercials: Ford has a car ad with a vehicle that is similar to Walt's big black car.

My favorite commercial? The Dentyne ICE chewing gum - yes, its blue too, of course. Ice is a street name for methamphetamine.

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I had recently purchased matching coffee cups for my wife and myself. They slowly migrated from the house to the business downtown. I veRy carefuLLy put my cup in a special spot by my desk thinking, incorrectly, it wiLL be nice and safe there in my own office.

But no, someone, not the wife, decides to help me clean my office and grabs the cup with a couple old Dr Pepper cans and a styrofoam coffee cup, and most likely threw them aLL away. I had paid about $4 each for those cups. They were eXtra large, slightly imperfectly irregular, and just the right, almost my favorite, color. Sad. Perfect for coffee. Gone, I think. I have searched quite eXtensively, with no luck.

I wiLL have to check to see if the groc store has more and buy more so that we can always have our "two" cups and replace lost ones from my secret stash one at a time.

Ah, romance.

UPDATE: I found my coffee cup in the dumpster in the alley behind our business.

-----

Something bothers me about the final season of Breaking Bad. It's the raw material methyl amine. They go to elaborate plots and schemes and story conflicts about securing a source for their raw material.

But if Walt is such a great chemist, why didn't he just make his own methyl amine? It's a relatively small organic chemical. The Chinese are making it in bulk in the show and shipping it by simple drums and rail car. 

I'm Sorry (But Only In A Virtual Manner)

I had a dream last night that I stole my number 3 sister's car for a few minutes. A very old mint condition Chevrolet Corvette. I took it for a ride, then returned it to its garage.

In reality this sister doesn't own a Corvette nor has she ever.

So today I caLLed her to teLL her about the dream and to apologize for stealing her car. Her response was pure laughter.

But in reality she never answered the phone caLL nor did she caLL me back, so our conversation, my apology, the pure laughter, was solely contained in my brain while driving south alone at 75 mph in the middle of Nowhere Texas. But it was her voice, my memory of her laughter, that responded to my story, my dream, in my head.

Unless she reads this and figures out that she was the sister, she wiLL never know about this or what color her Corvette was.

Blue, a light shade.

UPDATE: I tried a few days later - stiLL no response. So I caLLed sister number 2 and asked her to pass along my apology to sister number 3. She laughed and said she would teLL her my dream and apology.

Only Sixty Cents

"What time is it?"

"3:36" (unspoken AM)

Pause

"I was thinking of getting rid of you. A guy came through town and offered me $37.40, but I said I have too much money tied up in you, I reaLLy need $38. But he wouldn't budge off his price, got back on his horse and rode away."

Sarcastic "ha-ha" with weLL voiced hyphen response.

"I'm firsty"

"Me too, my cup is sitting right there"

I made us both decaf coffee, Folgers coffee bags, green.

You use firsty when your throat is too parched to say thirsty.

Cooper got a bowl fiLLed with ice then topped off with cold water.

I couldn't believe how cloudy it got yesterday without a drop of rain faLLing. The morning sky is dark and clear and cool, the piece of moon tiny long sliver long gone, just stars, no sound, no insects.

I love September in Texas.

- - - - -

I get two bags of grapes at the store. The store signs say they are white grapes and red grapes, but their packages have nothing and black for their labels but in my kitchen light they are definitely a pale green and a dark purple.

I eat my grapes in a 50:50 ratio, a pair of dark and light, same order throughout the eating process.

I freeze them for a few minutes right before eating, MmMmMmMmMm...

- - - - -

The Navajo Nation (Navajo: Naabeehó Bináhásdzo) is a semi-autonomous Native American-governed territory covering 27,425 square miles (71,000 km2), occupying portions of northeastern Arizona, southeastern Utah, and northwestern New Mexico. It is the largest land area assigned primarily to a Native American jurisdiction within the United States.

That means its larger than the ten smallest states individually. And, it is about the size of the five smallest states New Hampshire, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, and Rhode Island combined.

I wondered why the sales tax on my meal was so high in Shiprock New Mexico. I was told the Navaho had started collecting some of the sales tax. With sales tax and casino earnings it shouldn't take them too long to buy back the entire country, from the Chinese.

New South Wyoming

I have recently started watching a teleBision program caLLed "Longmire". It is about a sheriff in Wyoming based on a character and series of books by author Craig Johnson.

I probably have a stronger than normal interest in the show because I have spent some time in Wyoming but never lived there. I lived several years in the neighboring South Dakota just a few miles away from the Wyoming line.

After watching the show for several weeks I sudenly discover that Longmire is actuaLLy filmed in New Mexico, not Wyoming! The state of New Mexico looks veRy similar to Wyoming. New Mexico also has a growing film and teleBision production infrastructure. 

I am not sure if it helps that Wyoming and New Mexico are both rectangularly shaped, Wyoming nearly perfect, while New Mexico has several minor misshape mistakes. Wyoming was supposed to be perfectly rectangular along lines of latitude and longitude, but the surveyors got off a bit in the rugged landscape in the northwest part.

So imagine my surprise when I see an advertisement on the A&E Channel for winning a trip to Longmire Country - and I wonder - which one? Old Wyoming or New Wyomexingico?

I went online to the Longmire website and the trip is to the real Wyoming, the Goosewing Ranch in Jackson Hole Wyoming.  Link: Longmire Best of The West Sweepstakes 

The first season of Longmire is currently available on Netflix.

Right now my body hurts from TOO much carpentry work and I plan to be on vacation sometime soon with the real Wyoming as part of my destination. I have already been to the state of South Wyoming, oops, I mean New Mexico, earlier this year for my "Breaking Bad" vacation. I took a few photos of Walter White's house in Albuquerque, but I messed up my schedule and didn't make it to Jesse Pinkman's house. The best part of Albuquerque is two restaurants: Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen and Fuddruckers

Fuddruckers has the best buffalo burger on the planet - I had TWO in the same day, a day I won't forget until mental illness erases it in 40 some years.

Pappadeaux's has a wonderful thing caLLed étouffée, and I get a mixture of shrimp and crawfish. You have to ask for the dual meat mix, I don't believe it is officially on the menu.

My June journey to and throughout Albuquerque was the first time I used a turn-by-turn voice based computer navigation system. I used mapping on my iPhone. There were veRy few mistakes from the system and it would constantly try to reroute me when I made a wrong turn, how cool. 

As I am sitting in Pappadeaux's getting ready to eat I make the grand decision: The neXt time I move the city must have a Pappadeaux Restaurant. 

So I ask my hand held wonder Apple device for the location of all Pappadeaux restaurants ...AND... it teLLs me there are NO Pappadeaux restaurants near my location WHILE I am actuaLLy sitting INSIDE a Pappadeaux restaurant. This makes me laugh a bunch. I love it when technology screws up so gloriously funny (and no one dies). Remember that the Apple device has already just led me to this current Pappadeaux. Having expensive wonderful food nearby that someone else is buying for my birthday meal helps, too. I don't know how, it just does. It's a Wyoming seafood mystery birthday miracle. 

That reminds me, I must look for buffalo to eat while wandering soon through real Wyoming.