I Am The Luckiest Person On The Planet

My ice cream container is almost a cylinder shape, eXcept the top circle is slightly larger than the bottom.

But the most important dimension concerning the design of the container is the lid's height. For some reason they designed the lip of the lid to be about 3/4 of an inch, and this came in handy.

My most recent container of ice cream had an eXtra 1/2 inch of ice cream on one side, so the top wasn't level.

I was completely overjoyed.

I wiLL do the math later to let you know the percentage eXtra. I would say a rough guess of maybe 4.1625 percent for now.

4.1625 PERCENT FREE ICE CREAM !!!

My other ice story is my dog's water bowl. Since I have an ice cube, water and crushed ice dispenser in the door of my recently new refrigerator, my dog regularly gets about 1/4 ice in his water bowl. He seems to like it very much. I use the crushed ice rather than the cubed.

Oh, I almost forgot about the picture I took today of a local convenience store sign, also an ice story:

 

As I drove by the store about two weeks ago I read the sign as "Fresh Tea", with the letter T missing, but my mind figured out what the most logical missing letter should be. But then a few seconds later I told myself, say, Isn't the most important letter in the WORD tea the LETTER "T" ?

The reaLLy sad part about that story is that NO ONE has fixed this sign in about two weeks since I first noticed it. This is the very busiest section of roadway in the entire city of Borger Texas, so it has been read at least one hundred thousand times...

Weekends Are For Those with Weak Ends and Weak Middles

I heard an elderly lady say this today:

"I think its crazy that they have the 4th of July in the middle of the week, they should move it to the weekend."

I just didn't have a response to this.

Update: I just eXperienced a veRy shocking episode in my life thay almost caused me to faint and faLL out of my kitchen chair. I was almost finished eating my home-made chicken gumbo and suddenly a spoon came from above on the opposite side of the bar to take a test bite. It was my wife. Now, you have to understand the ridicule and second class citizenship I have suffered, YES, suffered, from this woman who has complained almost every time about the smeLL of my gumbo. Everytime I have suggested she try gumbo, at home or in a restaurant, she vehemently answered, "NO-NEVER!!!", so folks, I am now living in Never Never Land. She took a second bite. I intensified my fake fainting. She spiLLed a few drops on her blouse, but that didn't even begin to slow her down. She was eating dangerously now, allowing the spoon to travel mid-air over a calculator. So I moved the pan over the bar closer to her. Yes, I was eating directly out of the pan. I took out my camera and shot a picture for blackmail and ridicule purposes. I can not wait to show the children. I came in the living room to write this up and she yeLLed (mildly), "I finished it aLL!!!" After she came in the living room I gave her eXact recipe instructions verbaLLy. Now, I reaLLy wiLL faint if I catch her actuaLLy cooking gumbo.

The Daze of The Weak

I have decided that I wiLL begin teaching Cooper the days of the week.

It isn't so much a teaching eXercise as it just means I wiLL begin including it, naturaLLy, in our conversations.

He is seven now so he should be able to handle the concept.

I had to be away earlier today, so I eXplained my absence because I am almost always home on early SATURDAY mornings.

Update: Saturday evening is a semi-duplicate of Friday evening. Same restaurant, slightly different meal, but the same movie 'Iron Man'. My wife asked me to restart the movie where she feLL asleep last night, so I tried. But now she has faLLen asleep again, only a little ways farther before sn00zing.

My waiter was the same guy from last night. He gave me a very strange smiley face on the back of my ticket. So I put it on the front of my refrigerator with a magnet.

Three Percent Nothing

While studying the chemical element boron, I came across this sentence in Wikipedia:

Borosilicate glass, which is typically 12–15% B₂O₃, 80% SiO₂, and 2% Al₂O₃, has a low coefficient of thermal expansion giving it a good resistance to thermal shock.

I noticed that the best you can get to with 15+80+2=97 percent.

So the only reasonable eXplanation is that it is 3 percent Nothing.

So the neXt time your chemistry lab partner makes a remark like, "Gee, your beakers are reaLLy shiny." - just say, "That's because they're at least 3 percent nothing! ... maybe as high as 6 percent nothing!"

Interesting Headlines from the WSJ

From the Wall Street Journal:

   Iranians Squawk At Chicken Prices

   Costa Rica Addresses Its Lack of Street Names

   Flood Insurance Premiums May Rise

   Best Buy's Founder Weighs Buyout

   Yogurt Boom Leaves Farmers Behind

   Cajun Towns Feud About Sausage With Links To The Past

   Coca-Cola Pours Into India

Google, That's Not What I Asked For ...

I typed 'physics' in a Google search, and this was the first page of results. I reaLLy enjoyed seeing what NON-physics thing showed up in the very first entry.

Happy Birthday Paul !!!!!!!!

Yesterday ... A Beatle turned seventy.

I feel older now.

I haven't quite made it to when I'm sixty-four.

At The Same Laugh-i-tude

So I am in Dreamscape.

I am inventing martial art fighting techniques.

I developed this reaLLy cool movement where I am doing, then perfecting, the timing of a galloping approach to an imaginary opponent whereby I am moving faster than normal, but the sound of my bare feet landing simultaneously on the grass appears to be slower than a normal pace, to confuse the opponent. I am a blended combination of Bruce Lee, Henry Rollins and me.

Everything is fairly quiet.

I am alone.

Suddenly my friend comes out of what is s'pposed to be a house but it is located in the town I finished high school and the building is the drug store on Main Street that is reaLLy a restaurant/cafe now, and stiLL caLLed The Drug Store.

I am in the street to the northeast of the house/drug store/cafe and he is yeLLing at me. "Why were you not inside watching me sleep? I need you to watch me sleep so that you wiLL know how to sleep and learn to sleep better! Why weren't you watching me?"

I respond, "I know how to sleep"

He continues yeLLing, never reaLLy slowing down so you thought it looked like that because you thought he asked a question and then paused for me to give an answer but there never was a pause only two voices, "... You need to watch me very closely ... No, you don't know how to sleep, I know, but you don't know, you just think you know."

His yeLLing noise goes on for a long time. He yeLLs the same thing four different ways repeatedly, ad noise-ium.

In Realscape it is Father's Day 2012 and there is no yeLLing or martial arts. There was pizza. The dog was eXtra grumbly, a very mild form of canine yeLLing, because the pizza was delivered slightly late. But of course it needed to be delivered late because you have to aLLow them eXtra time to OVERcook your pizza, which of course I did not desire OR ask for .... ... .. .

One son is far away but strangely he is almost slightly closer than normal by being at the same latitude as me for several weeks. He normaLLy lives much farther north. He is forced to be telephoneless by his employer for several days while camping. It sounds strange but he has a strange job, even stranger employer who I hate. I hate The Isolation. I am pretty sure I wiLL not get a phone caLL from him today. A few days ago I discovered the same-latitude thing about my son, and I asked my wife if that was any comfort to her knowing that her son was straight west of us. A strange look of semi-confusion developed on her face. Her answer was no.

As a math project I might calculate how many miles closer he is than normal.

This is my first year to have my step-father gone on Father's Day. I caLLed my mother today. We had a better chat, happier than yesterday's chat. I told her that the state of Texas didn't mangle my name on my new driver's license like they did seven years ago when I legaLLy added my fourth name. Then we talked about several things before she accidentaLLy caLLed me by my step-father's name as we were trying to say goodbye, and then sadly flustered with a laugh, she next mistakenly caLLed me by my brother's name who lives close to her, and then she reaLLy laughed, and I laughed. But then she suddenly remembered something.

She told me that my brother greets her on the telePhone at the beginning of conversations with almost the eXact same phrasing that I do, taken from the title of a children's book, "Are You My Mother?", and then she very carefuLLy slowly said goodbye using aLL four of my legal names.

Dessert Boy Gets An Extra Helping of Scam-nesia

There are several things wrong.

I wiLL teLL you about three wr0ng things in reverse order, the order that I discovered them.

The latest fashion trend (?) that I saw on teleBision is caLLed Trendy Top. It is like a giant tight cloth tube that women can wear over the top of the pants and covering their middle section, so that their body doesn't show when they bend over. I applaud the inventors, but it reaLLy has the wrong name. It is located on the MIDDLE of the person, so it should be caLLed the Trendy Middle, not Trendy Top.

The second thing that is wr0ng is this news story about the Forest Boy of Germany. I just found out about him AFTER they discovered he was a hoax. That was strange. But I am making preparations to now do the same thing. WeLL, not eXactly the same thing. I have grown tired of my current life and so I am running away. All this blogging, seLLing shoes, and re-tired-ment has gotten to me. We don't get much rain here, we make up for it with wind, so those two multiplied together mean No Forest Near Here, so I can't be a Forest Boy. So I am thinking I could probably wander off to New Mexico and become 'Desert Boy'. So sometime neXt year you can eXpect me to show up in Albuquerque, but I'm not sure eXactly what fake story I wiLL claim.

The third thing that is wr0ng is that I didn't know Oklahoma City had a professional basketbaLL team, the ones who used to be in Seattle. I wonder how I missed this? What is even worse, for those who know my meat favorites, the team has a mascot of a BUFFALO. And everyone knows how crazy I am about everything that is Bison bison. I even have multiple friends in Seattle who probably mentioned the Supersonics leaving their city! (The Supersonics became the OKC Thunder) But I reaLLy pay no attention to sports, I have absolutely no idea who has won any Super Bowl in the last ten years. I stopped watching basketbaLL when Michael quit. Soccer? Hah.(Just in case you need clarification, I meant Michael Jordan)

So maybe when I show up neXt year in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I wiLL try to mix a little scam-nesia with buffalo-ness wearing a Trendy Top under my buffalo robe speaking only very bad Portuguese that authorities wiLL mistake for Spanish and maybe try to deport me "back" to old Mexico. Dessert Boy. All the other hobos wiLL be jealous of my ESL lessons and food stamps. If I spout off enough nuclear physics nonsense maybe they'll think I am an escapee from a lab in nearby Los Alamos?

(hahaha - I just saw I had a great typo, I caLLed myself Dessert Boy instead of Desert Boy. You should just be glad I speLLed 'Albuquerque' correctly.)

I like my new word: scam-nesia

My Song Is Exactly 16 Times Better Than Toby Keith's Song

The title of my song is Red Solo Gallon.

ActuaLLy the song was wrote by some-four else. I tried to use the word someone, but there were four people instead of one. A pair of Beavers' and a pair of Warren's.

Second ActuaLLy: At this moment I only have a song title, very few lyric fragments. I wiLL most likely rewrite their complete song, and possibly use Elmer Fudd's voice to sing it, like my other smash internationaLLy renowned hit, "You Waise Me Up (So I Can Hunt Duh Wabbits)"

Link to You Waise Me Up (So I Can Hunt Duh Wabbits)

Th Wal Stre Journ in Slo Mo & No

I have an oops on my iPad.

For some reason the app for viewing The Wall Street Journal is broken. It appears for a few seconds and then crashes. It reveals no error message.

I have tried to contact the WSJ about this, but so far they have been unresponsive.

AND they charge me $18.43 a month for this service.

At least I can read about 6 seconds at a time, before the screen disappears. But ONLY the very first screen of the issue, which is not even close to being the fuLL front page of a paper issue. And considering that it takes about 12 seconds just to load the screen before you can read, it means I am getting to read maybe one fourth of one percent of the entire newspaper at one third speed, for fuLL price.

I am not sure how to do the math for figuring how eXpensive it is adjusting for one fourth of one percent, because that is just an approximate guess. Not every story seems to be new every day in every issue when it is working normaLLy.

But let's try this: 18.43 x 100 percent x 4 = 7,372 dollars a month.

I am sure I am missing some cool stuff a-happenin' in the world as weLL.

Meanwhile it is thundering outside keeping me awake at 4 something AM.

I hope it is just thunder. Cooper is complaining because I think he is afraid of the noise. Or maybe he just wants me to go to bed and turn off the kitchen light.

UPDATE: 2012.06.12 23:45

Semi-triumph: I figured out how to read the front page easier. Just as soon as the page loads, I can take a snap-shot of the screen by hitting the buttons on the opposite sides of the iPad. Then I can just 'read' the picture.

So ... I went to see the WSJ picture and when the Photo system showed the most recent photos, I accidentaLLy took another photo of aLL the photos on the page, 33 of them. I cracked up laughing, because THEN I opened that photo and took another photo, this time of the zoomed-zoomed WSJ. I hope this makes sense, be-ca-use it just barely does to me, yawn, Sleepy-Boy wanna go night-night beddy-bye.

Sweet dreams to me. HopefuLLy better than last night's dreams that involved cars traveling down veRy muddy roads, doing veRy dangerous things. Nobody was getting stuck. Zooooom

UPDATE: 2012.06.13 11:30

I finaLLy got it fixed. I had to delete the app from my iPad, then reinstaLL. The WSJ technical folks finaLLy started responding several times with suggestions by e-mail. It even reloaded the previous week's worth of issues into my iPad, so now I can get caught back up on aLL there is to know that's worth knowing, and thinking veto-ishly, aLL there is to no that's worth no-ing.

I have to deliver a dryer that I repaired, then its GCSwB Time!

He Disappeared!!!

When I was at the diner the other day, yesterday I believe (?), I found out that Jesus was gone!

I heard he moved to Plano.

So I was sad that I didn't get to say good-bye.

He was one of my favorite people to talk to at the diner. He is a very good waiter.

Jesus: Hope you get a great job in Plano!

If you read this Jesus, please remember to let me know when you are coming back to Borger.

I heard you were in recently town for a wedding.

Oh, one other thing I almost forgot to teLL you: I no longer drink Dr Pepper, I have switched to very weak tea.

I've Looked For Clouds On Both Sides Now

Strange morning.

It is raining ever so slightly by my house.

On the west side, yes. The ground is wet and muddy.

On the east side, no, not reaLLy very much at aLL. The pavement is dry.

It is almost 8 oh clock.

We should be ate-ing, but someone is a laZy bum this morning, sleeping her little life away.

I asked Cooper to go get her out of bed when he complained about food, but he didn't seem to want to venture away from me in the living room.

I even made a pot of coffee like she had asked, but that was almost too long ago now to be considered *fresh* coffee.

Ah, there is no orange juice in the house either, but I know there is some V-8.

Cooper and I inspected the grape vines, they are looking better. I believe I was under watering them, but I have increased the irrigation rate over about the last ten days. I had to go beyond just stored rain water.

My indoors praying mantis of the year is missing. I may have to try to find another one. I even have one tiny little okra plant for it to wander on besides the orchid. I should probably start a new purple onion. I have not grown one of those in about a year. They are eXtremely easy. They make flowers.

I need to take the pineapple plants outside, I am five days later than normal. They live outdoors June through August.

I am not growing any tomatoes this year.

My major number one goal of the day is to get a letter sent off to my friend in prison. It is already in my computer, I just need to get it wrote into a greeting card.

Here was yesterday's blessing: I am sitting in the diner that my prison friend owns having my usual grilled chicken sandwich. Her mother is at the cash register talking to someone. Suddenly I "hear" my friend in prison's voice, only it isn't reaLLy her. I don't know the lady talking, but I approach and asked the mother of my prison friend, and I find out it is another daughter of hers that I have never met.

I told the other daughter that she sounded just eXactly like her sister, and that reaLLy made me happy to hear "her". She thought it was truly wonderful, and hugged my shoulder.

I believe my prison friend is getting out much earlier than originaLLy planned, I had heard October instead of December, so that makes me happy.

It is a sad time here. My step-father passed away recently. He was very wonderful for my mother for about twenty years. He wiLL be missed greatly. They had been friends since high school.

Okay, it is now 8 oh clock completely so Cooper and I just need to make enough disturbing noises to get our breakfast maker going this morning.

Link: My little friend, Polly The Staying Praying Mantis

Update Later:

Yes, I got my letter finished and in the mail to my friend. I wrote it while I was in her diner, and so when I got ready to seal the envelope, I used a small amount of water condensate from the side of my glass of iced tea in order to wet the glue to seal it. So a few molecules of water from her diner wiLL visit her from afar.

I am ending today listening to the Queen's musical celebration. With London being about six hours ahead of me, I am pretty sure this is recorded.

ActuaLLy I may end the day with coffee.

Here is something sadly strange that I saw today. Someone sold a house to a possible future client of mine. It appears that the former owner cut out aLL the wires on the inside of the air conditioning unit. Bizarre! ... So I have a puzzle to diagnose.

Exce$$ Po$tage

The company that I used to work for sent me a long letter a few weeks ago about the status of their retirement program, an annual report of sorts. Now, I say "their" program because I am no longer technically part of their organization and they have no more legally defined obligations to me through their retirement program. I thought to myself when I saw the letter, "This is strange, I wonder why I am getting this, I shouldn't even be on their mailing list. What a waste of paper and postage."

Today I got ANOTHER letter from the same organization. They mailed a letter of apology, as their records indicate that I shouldn't have received the first letter.

I am thinking about sending them a 'Tha_nk Y⁰u' note for their concern. I wonder if I can send it 'Postage Due' ? Or, here is an even better idea: They could just give me my old job back, then it would be okay for them to put me back on their mailing list.

Invisible Man Gets Metal of Freedom

Barak H Obama gave out Medal of Freedom Awards to distinguished people this week. This photo shows him giving one to The Invisible Man. 

The answer to your question is "No" - I didn't put a typo in my blog title. I meant for it to be Metal with a t. I figured there was probably some metal in the medal.

Now it wiLL be easy to spot The Invisible Man, just look for the Medal of Freedom that appears to be floating in mid-air.

A Very Large A-Weigh

I was studying radio astronomy and came across the picture of the Very Large Array of radio telescopes in Socorro New Mexico USA, when it dawned on me that I could use multiple tiny accurate balances to measure larger things. I would just need to find flat bottomed objects or a lightweight flat bottomed carrier to hold non-flat objects.

From Wikipedia: Very Large Arrays of radio telescopes are used to act as a single larger telescope. The antennas can be physically relocated to a number of prepared positions, allowing aperture synthesis interferometry with a maximum baseline of 36 km (22 miles): in essence, the array acts as a single antenna with that diameter.

Very Large Array:

Very Large A-Weigh

Each balance can weigh up to 100 grams to an accuracy of 1/100th of a gram, or one place in 10,000. I think 4 balances would be able to weigh up to 400 grams with an accuracy of +/-0.04 grams. Each balance has a cost of $11.80, so four would cost a little less than fifty dollars to weigh almost a pound.

Link: Previous Blog Post about my Scale "Lotza Fun in Tiny Weighs"

The Very Large Array photo from Wikipedia is used under the GNU Free Documentation License

Lotza Fun In Tiny Weighs

I just got a new toy so that I can accuRately weigh the catalysts for chemical Reactions. But of course I wiLL use it to weigh a vaRiety of things. Soon I wiLL know appRoximately how many gRams common household objects weigh.

The sneaky thing about this pRoduct is its name. The name of the company is AmeRican Weigh Scales, Inc, but the scale is made in China. I suppose it is possible to get the letteRs C-H-I-N-A from the woRds AmeRICaN weigH.

I neveR dReamed that you could buy a poRtable electRonic scale capable of weighing objects up to 100 gRams out to an accuRacy of one hundRedth of a gRam, all for less than 20 dollaRs. That includes the pRice for a 100 gRam calibRation weight. Wow. 100 gRams is almost a 1/4 of a pound.

Chemists must always have new toys, and a scale is essential.

One of the eXpeRiments I have planned is to measuRe the lifting poweR of a helium balloon. I plan to tie a balloon onto eitheR the fifty or hundRed gRam calibRation weight, and then see how much less it weighs on the scale. Then I will be able to accuRately know how many balloons to buy in oRdeR to Re-enact the scene from the PixaR movie "Up" wheRe the old man floats his house away to South AmeRica. I have been needing to get back to BRazil for quite awhile. Recife here I come!

Update: Rob Z Tobor asked me if it was possible to get the scales to weigh themselves. I thought about it for a few seconds, and realized there was a load cell involved, so I turned the scale upside down on a tall pill bottle of vitamins, and the scale pressed down on itself.

The answer is 76.7 grams

No Longer

I walk into a hotel to spend the night far from home.

Back again after being gone eXactly 2,121 days.

Suddenly as the secure keyed entrance door behind me closes I remember that the last time I was here, in this building, there was a big party for friends and family. There was one friend who I felt was as close to me as family, someone that I thought was going to be my adopted-adapted daughter forever. But in less than a year later we became estranged. And I don't know why. It seemed a one sided departure.

So now I can't sleep with this recurring unanswered question gnawing again restless in my brain.

I laugh quietly when I think about how much I am paying for this rented pillow of no comfort, no sleep, while I type away, inserting this sentence back down much later into the middle of this stream of thoughts. This rented pillow hurts my ear with a stiffness and each little move makes a popping noise, dull popping, almost cracking muffled, in my left ear.

Now as I continue to type this I also realize that I danced at that party in the room nearly above me with a different woman, a relative, that I no longer care for. Why? I feel very strongly since that party she killed her husband, a man very important to me. But Oklahoma doesn't seem to agree with me on the cause of death.

So now I can't sleep with this recurring unanswered question gnawing again restless in my brain.

I can no longer lay here awake in slight ear pain, pillow induced, dry mouth, so its time to eXchange dry rectangular pieces of paper for a very cold Dr Pepper in a vending machine and retrieve the pillow that I remember is in the wife's vehicle.

Then I started thinking about my own death if it happened suddenly. No one knows my password to get into blogger. Comments are unpostable without review. So how would anyone out there in [just] blogland know that I was no longer alive? I guess my closest blog friends wouldn't get replies from e-mails either, if they tried. Hmmm. Interesting question. So "hear" is kind of an answer. You probably noticed that I write at least once a month, so if you don't see a blog post after a 30 day gap, most likely I am in a coma or dead. So with that out of the way, I am off to get that Dr Pepper, finaLLy no longer typing after eXactly 59 minutes ... ... ...

Update: After being gone a mere 21 minutes I am back to add a new twist. My left fingers are managing my beverage control while the right fingers are no longer completely their natural color, but have taken on an orange glow of Doritos while the right thumb types this entire paragraph to minimize the amount of nacho cheese makes it onto the touch screen of my iPad. Yes! I am just that talented!

Here is the real twist: When I got out of bed, after writing the "59 minutes ... ... ..." two paragraphs ago there was an info-mmercial playing on teleBision. We generaLLy have a muted teleBision for a night light in our bedroom. We are used to having a mine field of doggie treats and toys to avoid with our toes. So what was the product they were seLLing at 1 AM? PiLLows! I had never heard of MyPillow.com before. So I went out to our vehicle to get a piLLow, and the Dr Pepper & Nacho Doritos on the return trip. Thank you to the inventor of the vending machine.

Now, if you want to know my level of UN-talent, right after I finished typing the end of that paragraph "just that talented!", I decided to finish off the final crumbs in the Doritos mini vending pouch of goodness by pouring them directly into my gaping open mouth.

Think hippos feeding in the dark.

DON'T try this at home, boys and girls, and burros!

Just as I was rotating my body to get those last few orange corn crumbs, the final two or three fluid ounces of a somewhat cold yet fuLLy wet Dr Pepper came flying out landing on my left ear, head, shoulder, and sadly, most sadly of aLL, the piLLow that I had just brought in from the vehicle.

I am no longer sleeping on my piLLow.

Hold it, did I say 'sleeping'? ...um.. what sleep?

Position Is Important

My wife sitting in her living room chair.

I am standing a few feet away.

Cooper The Dog is almost between us, to her right.

Position is important in the teLLing of this story.

I teLL my wife, "If you would like to see how weLL the dog knows spoken words, I am going to teLL Cooper something without using my usual finger pointing" - and then I turn to Cooper and ask him, "Would you like for Ernie to doctor your ears?" without doing my usual pointing at my own ears.

The dog immediately runs a few feet away to the left side of Tamie's chair to get away from me, seeking possible protection through her and hiding behind part of the chair, but continuing to stare at me over her arm. Then he puts his chin on the arm of her chair and does a combo moan-whine-complain looking up at Tamie.

Tamie cracks up laughing, and turns to Cooper and asks him, "Don't you want Ernie to doctor your ears and make them feel better ..." but he has already given up hope from her and bolts at about the time the word 'ears' comes out of her mouth, taking off behind her chair headed away from both of us.

Later after much growling on both my part and Cooper's, we get his ears doctored.

From the bedroom Tamie hollers out, "It sure sounds like you two are having fun in there!"

NATO Invades Chicago

I just read an article about the upcoming NATO conference in Chicago, and how much of a big deal it is to beef up security. I had read earlier how certain tourist attractions are even closed to the general public during this time period. Today's story also mentioned all the protesters getting organized. Tens of thousands of ordinary people are getting their lives and daily routine upset, millions of dollars eXpended, ... and for what? So some "important" people can chat?

Then I thought, why can't they just send e-mails and have video conferences like the rest of us already do? Skype? Text messaging? Tin cans and string?

And then I read farther into the article and saw that the Secret Service was handling the security at the venue. I laughed when I thought, "Let's see, wasn't there another recent news story involving the Secret Service and an international conference somewhere, um, let's see, South America maybe? Why, what else could possibly go wrong with the Secret Service in charge?"

Do Not Bend Means Nothing To Certain People

Friday May 11th, 2012

I thought I was receiving a diploma by FedEx or UPS for the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, & Air Conditioning) college diploma course that I recently finished, but instead I got a $10 multimeter. Model M830B Digital Multimeter by Tekton. Nice. It even came with a 9-V battery! It works. That was about a week ago.

So I thought, hmm, I was hoping for another college diploma. I already had a multimeter.

But today I got a big package delivered by the wrong people, the United States Postal Service. The big package clearly says "DO NO BEND" in uppercase letters near the bottom front side. But they bent it anyway to force it into my mail box.

I can probably stick it in a frame and it will probably flatten out just fine, I don't see any harsh wrinkles.

So on to the third college tale. When I got finished with the HVAC diploma I decided to get pricing and availability for other courses. I asked about two, and only two, that interested me. Electricity and Basic Electronics. Those are two separate diploma courses. The person at the college was desperately trying to sign me up to get started by paying on the installment plan, but that route is terribly more eXpensive. I plan to pay some time in the near future in one lump sum, the cheapest way to go. But there are still calls now on my phone every few days from them pestering me to get started.

The information packets that arrived today for the s'pposedly separate courses were filled with useless propaganda about how great the college was and no detailed info about either of the Electricity or Basic Electronics courses. BOTH brochures were identical, labeled "Computer Technician" at the top.

In My Change PLUS: Flabbergasting A Chicken In The United Kingdom

Yesterday I received something fairly rare in the change the clerk gave me for my bottle of Dr Pepper purchase.

It was a sculpture of Abraham Lincoln.

But not just any penny.

It was made in 1919, so it is 93 years old. I guess Abe would have said "Four score and thirteen years ago" instead of the words "ninety three", or he might have gone with a more complex "Five score minus seven years ago", since he was fond of the number seven with his scores. Abe was rather unpredictable, a loose cannon in a day when cannon were more common and people knew how to keep score. I have never received a coin that old before as just change from a business transaction.

Update: 2012.05.13  Rob Z Tobor posted a picture of his chicken sitting in front of a web page with my coin!

You can visit his website at ...The Slightly Eccentric Diary of Rob Z Tobor...

Update: 2nd Photo

That should reaLLy make Rob's chicken wonder what is going on ....

The Stupid Way To Fight The War On Terrorism

I just got finished reading maybe one third of the news article about the foiled airliner bombing attempt that reaLLy was a covert operation involving a double agent who had sucessfuLLy infiltrated the enemy.

To me, this once again shows what is wrong with the war on terrorism. The "winning" side in this particular battle told me and the ENTIRE rest of the universe by way of the Wall Street Journal several details that I reaLLy didn't need to know, and, um, which, let's see, how should I remind the winners, oh, here goes: that ENTIRE rest of the universe happens to include their ENEMY.

Secrecy and advanced technology are your best advantages in this kind of war. You need both in order to win.

If you want to win the war, stop talking about your battles, stop babbling about your victories. Stop using your positive PR announcements to try to get re-elected. Stop taking the game to 90 percent, go aLL the way.

A Medic Call A Point Meant

I have absolutely no idea how I forgot to teLL you this story.

A customer of my wife was standing in her yard doing yard things.

Suddenly she had an arrow in her neck.

She is not an archer, nor was she necessarily an intended target. It seems that a child shot an arrow over two houses and it lodged in her neck.

Yes, that's right, two houses.

Luckily there were a couple good things that happened neXt.

Good?!?!?

Yes good.

She was rushed to the emergency by helicopter where they removed the arrow that went right between two major blood vessels. So that was a good thing, she didn't die.

Plus she got a helicopter ride.

The second good thing happened when they performed an x-ray. They discovered a brain tumor that is at the stage where it was starting to cause problems but appears to be operable. The operation is scheduled for neXt week. So I wiLL give you an update as to how things go.

In the mean time my wife is getting her a head scarf for after the neXt operation.

May 5th: I Sink Into Mayonnaise, (Oops, I Meant Malaise)

I am sore.

I had hoped that today would turn into a nice long nap. But my eyes aren't closing. Yesterday's cleaning job required standing for a long time on a short ladder in a closet scrubbing the crud out of an air conditioner. My body is slowly getting back into shape to do HVAC work. I actually do very little H or V, its mainly AC. Although I frequently have to work in extreme H (Heating) where there is inadequate V (Ventilaion).

At least the customer's system now works. I was able to take the situation to root cause as to why it didn't work (plugged evaporator coil) and more importantly discovered why it got so dirty in less than a year (improper filter installation).

After the customer saw with his own eyes that the filter was totally misaligned, he said, "Wow, I caused the problem!" - I told him that I had just been reading in the last chapter of my textbook that you were supposed to usually agree with the customer, and he cracked up laughing.

So the customer was very happy with me. I was far far far cheaper than the guy who installed the coil last year. He offered to seLL the customer an entirely new system. Later I found out that the customer had even spent $300 for a warranty that didn't get honored.

When the customer asked the previous installer if he would be able to at least reuse the one year old coil, the installer said no, it would be too hard to get the old oil out of the inside of the coil. The customer then reminded the installer that the installer had told him last year that he would be able to reuse the new coil in an upgrade if needed.

The main number one thing I have learned about the air conditioning business in slightly less than one year: It is chock full of lying greedy thieves

I hope to try to make a dent in the dishonesty.

I just finished my college diploma for HVAC yesterday, so, YEA!!!

My bottle of acetylene was refilled yesterday, so I should go burn or melt something to celebrate.

InterestinKg

Things That I Think Are Interestinkg:

- The digital camera in my wife's iPhone makes the same noise as the mechanical shutter of an obsolete film camera.

- Several cows accidentaLLy froze to death in a federal government cabin high up in the mountains of Colorado. They had got lost. The forest rangers are going to chop them up and feed them to the local predators. Bear breakfast. One rejected idea for dealing with the cabina de carne de vaca con fria was to blow it up. My Question: Is there ice cream on the inside of the frozen cows? They actuaLLy stated in the news article that just leaving cows to rot in the cabin would have endangered the local water supply to a weLL known skinny dipping site.

(I just now imagined John Denver writing a song about these frozen cows.)

- Barak Obama campaign pledged to get us out of Afghanistan before becoming president. Shortly after becoming president he "won" a Nobel Peace Prize after doing essentiaLLy nothing to earn it. Once in office as commander-in-chief he increased the military forces in the Middle East. Now that he is on the brink of being kicked out of office (maybe) he has made commitments for the US to continue helping Afghanistan even AFTER our military eventuaLLy leaves. At that point we can rename the place "AfterGoneIStay".

- The leaves on my grape vines are doing wonderful this year, BUT a worm showed up a couple months earlier than normal. I am just hoping the plants produce leaves faster than the worms can eat, as I raise organic pesticide-free grapes.

- There seem to be an awful lot of mistakes in the textbook for my HVAC college course. There are even a bunch of consistently wrong page number references on an answer sheet, like they are pointed at possibly a different version of the textbook. BUT the most interesting attempt in the teacher's notes in the separate workbook at trying to fix a drawing mistake, the very final one in the textbook: He makes TWO more mistakes in the correction notice itself. The chapter number is 31 instead of 32 and the page number reference is off by 24. I spent a half hour trying to figure out what I was supposed to be correcting. Previous attempts at letting the college know something was wrong with their textbook have been rewarded with silence. I am just glad I have my own private local HVAC mentor and the Internet.

Update about the Mistakes in Textbook: Another interesting mistake in the Workbook for my HVAC course are the words at the beginning of every Vocabulary Builder section. All 19 lessons have these words: "To improve your Floral Design literacy, take time to complete this exercise." Um, no, I am pretty sure I am studying air conditioning, not flowers.

- My wife and I have synchronized pain. We both have a left foot that hurts, and neither one of us knows why.

- I have been a bad boy. My favorite shovel has been left out in the weather too many times and the wooden handle has become rather rough. I had never hurt my hands with the shovel yet because of the rough condition of the wood. Today I apply some sandpaper to smooth it out. BUT in the process of sanding with just a piece of the sand paper a rough spot on the handle snares the paper and my hand gets an almost splinter. Twice. BUT ... after I finaLLy learn the correct way to perform the task, and its getting pretty smooth, I make a discovery. I looked down at the business end of the shovel and realized that I had been working on my least favorite shovel, the one with the poorly angled blade. I blame this mistake on my use of sunglasses and having a dark garage. So I wound up sanding two shovel handles instead of one.

- I got a "new" phone number from Skype a few months ago and now I get phone caLLs from biLL coLLectors for other people. Oh, I typed that wrong, -several- other people. It is now approaching the number of telemarketers that used to caLL my old ceLL phone. Another plus to using Skype is that my name doesn't show properly on caLLer ID, so my mother hadn't always answered my caLLs.

- A blind Chinese man outsmarted the people holding him captive and escaped to the sanctuary of the US embassy. I am not so sure that leaving our embassy to return to China was his best move. The Chinese government doesn't have a very good track record of being nice to people who make noises against them.

- Before I got my new refrigerator I was very diligent about eating my cauliflower. I have wasted very little of it in the last four months. But now I have forgot two of them in a row. At least they aren't lost frozen Colorado cows errors.

I Like Your Shoes

There is a picture of the two leaders of the countries of Afghanistan and the United States of America on the front of the Wall Street Journal this morning. It looks solemn. But it reaLLy isn't.

In the picture the two men are standing side by side, looking down, you can't see their eyes.

But here is the secret conversation between Barak Obama and Hamid Karzai


- I like your shoes

- I like your shoes, too

- Are those real shoe strings?

- No, its an amazing hidden Velcro subsystem

- Cool

- I like your necktie

- MicheLLe chose a pink one but I changed to this maroon at the last minute

- WeLL, you do look good in pink. Its my favorite color, but my wife never lets me wear it, at least in public

- How long are we suppose to stay in this pose looking down at our feet. We rarely do this in my country

- Yes, we do it aLL the time here. We take lots of mini naps. We could have a fun time with these photographers

- How?

- Do you want to hold hands?

- No, and none of that kissy face stuff either

- [frowns]

- Have you been watching 'Smash' on NBC?

- Yes and no, I stopped after the third episode

- I made it to episode four

- What about 'Two And A Half Men'?

- Oh, that Chuck Lorre, he is a genius, bringing Charlie back from the dead by using a cigar smoking Kathy Bates in Alan's medicaLLy induced dream state

- [giggles]

- [giggles]

- Yes, genius

- I'm hungry

- Me, too

- Do you want to know a reaLLy cool trick?

- Whats that?

- If you stare at the red and white stripes of the American flag for a long time and then look at a white waLL, your brain wiLL play an optical iLLusion on you and you'LL momentarily see black and green stripes just like the robe you have on

- Yes, I knew about that and that's why I wore this today. It works the other direction too

- Oh, so, if I stare at your robe a reaLLy long time I'LL see red and white stripes?

- Yes, pretty cool, huh?

- Cool

- But I'm stiLL hungry

- Me, too

- You touched my hand

- Sorry


Update: 2012.05.02 09:00

I discovered that I made it all the way to spot 10 in a Google search for "Obama and Karzai Lorre"

I took a screen shot of the Google search, but getting the photo into Blogger this morning is proving to be an impossible task. I took the screen shot on my iPad, then e-mailed the photo to myself at Yahoo, then uploaded the photo to my PC, then Yahoo made me save it out of a compressed file directory, then I renamed the file to a decent name, and noticed they have changed something so now they are using PNG files instead of jpg type, so who knows how weLL that will improve things. Then I tried to edit the blog post to add the picture ...and... nothing. The program just freezes at Blogger when I try to add the photo directly from my PC. So I try to add the photo to my Blogger album first to see if that works, but no, that method also fails. Maybe later, I have had this happen before ....

Yea! I finaLLy got the picture to upload ... I had to go to the "Edit HTML" feature of the WYSIWYG editor in order to make it happen ...

Update: 2012.05.02 09:25

I just did the Google search again to show my wife, and now I am at spots number one AND two!

My wife said, "I hope you aren't doing something that wiLL get us death threats."

Meanwhile she returns to cooking breakfast.

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"