It's the end of the week for me

Well, gentle readers; it is the end of the week for me. I am taking tomorrow off as a vacation day. I won’t actually be loafing around at home. I have lots of things to do and places to go.

I will allow myself the luxury of sleeping in until maybe 6:30 AM. That sounds so slothful that it seems like the right thing to do.

First, I have to go see my doctor for a routine blood test so he can renew my cholesterol prescription. I am also asking him to drain a ganglion cyst on the top of my wrist. The cyst looks ugly and does not cause me any discomfort. I figured now would be a good time to get it taken care of.

After that, I have go fill the gas tank on my Pathfinder truck so the Princess can drive it when she is home this coming week on her vacation. She also wants me to have it washed so it will look nice when she drives it.

Sometimes I feel like a car rental agency.

I don’t see why it needs to be washed since she plans on driving to Las Vegas, across the desert with its dust and dirt as part of her vacation. I think she and her best girl friend from high school are going to meet up in Las Vegas with another friend from graduate school.

I feel sorry for any men that they happen to meet. I don’t think that they take any prisoners or, if they do, they do not follow the rules of the Geneva Convention.

The Princess is due to arrive in Los Angeles around noon, local time, tomorrow. She said that I could take her to lunch when I pick her up in the clean truck with the full gas tank at the airport. If I am lucky and nice, I may get to take her shopping. The Princess loves to shop with someone else’s money.

Last night while I was writing my blog posting, I was chatting with a young Chinese woman from Guangzhou. She is becoming more Westernized and assertive since we first started chatting nearly two years ago.

Ling and I first started chatting when she was a student in Hubei. I have made an effort to exchange IM conversations with non-English speaking students so they can improve their grasp of the English language. I think it is important since it helps to break down barriers between different people. I also helped one of her friends with an essay that was part of an application to a U.S. graduate school.

The Big Guy and I were talking yesterday about a Summer project that he and his writing friend from community college want to pursue. I am not certain if the Top Secret Project is supposed to be a comedy or a drama or a dramedy [dramatic comedy] or an action-adventure film. I think the concept has legs and it makes sense.

Of course, as the Big Guy says, I am probably one of the few adults around who understands the main concept. I guess that must come from going to the movies with him so often.

Here’s a thought for the day. It’s not my idea; it comes from comedian George Carlin.

Right now in Iraq, they are trying to get their shit together and write a constitution. I don’t think they are capable of doing that because no one there understands democracy very well.

I think we should let them copy our Constitution.

Just think about it for a moment.

Our Constitution was written by a bunch of really smart men, a major selling point in a Muslim country. They don’t have to use all of the Amendments; they can stop after the first ten Amendments. It has worked for over 200 years. And, lastly, we aren’t using it all that much these days so we can spare it.

When the Big Guy and I went to the cinema on Sunday to see LAND OF THE DEAD, I saw a number of young women wearing these sheepskin boots [Uug brand boots] in the middle of Summer. What’s wrong with this picture? Hello people. It’s Southern California, it’s Summer; girls wear sandals and not sheepskin lined boots.

The Big Guy said that it was a fashion statement thing for the women. Then, he shrugged in a “whatever” manner and moved on to the next topic which was how much longer until his sister would arrive home. He wanted to know how long he could delay cleaning up her room that he uses to write in. When I told him five days, he seemed relieved.

We had a going away party at work today for one of the film finance guys. I enjoyed working with him and I hope he will be happy in his new position. It was a pot luck lunch. I brought the salad I described yesterday; it was very popular and I received a lot of positive comments about it. I stayed around through the lunch portion and then I went back to work, or I tried to go back to work.

My office is next door to the main conference room where the party was staged. It was noisy with the karaoke machine and the crowd. Dancing on the table top can be distracting sometimes. It was a struggle for me to keep my mind on my work. I managed to polish off a couple of minor, but important to one of my big bosses, tasks this afternoon.

I made sure he knew I was working and not goofing off at the party. I am pretty certain he knew there was going to be long going away party. The event lasted almost three hours. A couple of former co-workers even dropped in to say good bye.

It was a very good farewell party in my mind.

On this happy note, I think I will pack in it for the weekend.

Here is a programming reminder for you. The Weekend Update will not appear until Monday sometime because of the Independence Day holiday weekend.

If you enjoy your freedom, thank a veteran.

Be well and stay happy.

Tired tonight

I am tired tonight gentle readers.

But first, let me explain why you had no new blog to read and digest last night. I went to an old co-worker’s retirement party. I had been away from the company for five years. One of the party planners called me to invite me to the event since I had been the retiree’s senior manager for a number of years.

The party was at a local restaurant that I frequent. It specializes in fresh sea food. Yummy grilled salmon last night. Anyway. I had a wonderful time at the party, seeing acquaintances that I had not seen in ten years in some cases.

I got home just before 9:00 PM and I clicked on the ABC television mini-series Empire, about the rise of the Roman Empire. I got hooked on it and the next thing I knew it was 11:00 PM. There was just no way I was going to start a blog that late;not when I get up at 5:00 AM.

As it was, 5:00 AM came awfully early today.

The Big Guy called me after he got his latest grade in his writing class. It was another 3.5. It looks like he will end up with a 3.5 out of a possible 4.0 for the class. It is a fine mark but he felt he deserved a 4.0 grade. We talked about the grade and he is over it by now and ready to move on the next class. He has made a mental note to never take a class from this professor again.

We also talked about what to see in the cinema this weekend. Neither one of us is interested in WAR OF THE WORLDS. I have an interest in seeing Miyazawa’s new film, HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE. I will probably see it over the long weekend.

I had a lot more that I planned to write about but I left my suggested topics and comments notes in the office. I had to go to another office for a meeting in the afternoon and then I went home from that location.

I had to phone Vivian the office assistant to ask her to close my office door for the night. Vivian also reminded me to bring my food in for the office farewell lunch tomorrow.

I am bringing in a Greek style Caesar salad that I prepare with kalamata olives instead of anchovies, feta cheese instead of parmesan cheese, and red onions. I also add in some cut up cherry tomatoes and sliced red and yellow peppers. The peppers are mostly there for color.

I spent the better part of an hour at the chopping board, cutting the ingredients up and putting them in little plastic bags. I can take everything to work in the bags and then toss bag contents all into the salad bowl, pour on the dressing, mix everything up, and let the group serve themselves.

Perfectomundo.

If nothing else, it is healthy and it should be tasty. One of the women is bringing in a spicy Indian dish that is made with curry. I hope my stomach survives that food group. I normally do not do well with really spicy foods.

I will try to write a better blog tomorrow when I remember to take my reminder notes home with me.

Be well and stay happy.

Monday was a dull day

Monday was a dull day at work, gentle readers. It was a dull day all around. I will try to have something worth while to read for you all tomorrow. Some days just generate no really good themes or ideas.

Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update

Some many events; so many activities.

My weekend started out nicely on Friday. Friday, at work, is business casual dress. I wore one of my birthday Tommy Bahama floral print shirts. It has a black background and I wore a black tee shirt to go with it. One of the men in the office gave me a “great shirt” shout-out in the morning.
I felt very good about that. Always nice to have others agree with your choices and selections.

I think it is going to be a long hot summer in some respects.

I was driving to see BATMAN BEGINS [more later about the film] this afternoon. I took the semi-scenic route through the beach communities of Hermosa, Manhattan, and Redondo Beaches. I was visually assaulted by young women that were dressed so wrongly. It was almost a crime against humanity, well male humanity anyway. I saw groups of young women wearing low cut jeans and belly shirts.

Normally, I do not care what someone chooses to wear. I don’t pay any attention to women’s styles since they change regularly anyway.

I have never thought that having a beer belly was particularly attractive on a man. You can understand my shock and surprise when these young women seemed to think it is just fine to walk about, sporting less than pretty beer-like bellies.

I don’t get it. Where is the attractiveness of a white roll of skin hanging over the top of a pair of jeans? Maybe I am too old for this. Maybe my ideas are out of touch with current society.

When you add in the recurring bad tats and body piercings, it just seems like it will be a long hot summer of unattractive women.

I could tell from watching MR. & MRS. SMITH that Angelina Jolie had some of her tats airbrushed out of the film. You can do this on the big screen but you can’t do that as easily on a body in real life in real time.

Oh well, wisdom is sometimes lost on the youth.

I saw a killer quote from Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, this weekend. I wished I had written it down. It went like this, “making money is one of the major objectives of a business. Government’s major objective is to take as much of it as it can.”

Insightful and true. Excessive taxation can kill the golden goose just as easily as over production of golden eggs. Enough of my pro-business rant.

I saw BATMAN BEGINS Saturday afternoon on an IMAX screen.

EPIC!

The film just took my breath away. The visual impact of the crisp, extremely sharp 70mm print created the best visual experience in a cinema for me in a very, very long time; possibly the best visual experience in my life.

The Big Guy was dead solid right on when he told me to see it in the IMAX format. If you are going to see the film, then see it in the IMAX format if you have the opportunity to do so. It was more than well worth the extra ticket price.

The extra ticket price probably kept most all of the small children away. I think I only saw a handful of children in the large cinema. That’s another BIG plus in my mind.

I don’t care if you think I am a grumpy old man; maybe I am. I just want to enjoy the film I paid good money to see. I prefer not to be bothered by small children that may need attention during the showing of the film.

The IMAX sound system pounds out 12,000 watts of power. Even in the large, tall venue with that much power, the sound can get too loud for me. My ears were throbbing when I left the screening. The film sound volume could have toned a bit without losing anything in terms of overall enjoyment.

Now, I thought the fight scenes went on longer than necessary. I think they could have been cut a bit here and there and still produce a fine film. Doug, on the other hand, thought the fight scenes were the perfect length and would have been happier with a few more seconds in each one.

Everyone has his or her own views.

Doug sent me his mini-treatment and step outline to review on Saturday afternoon after I got home from the film. He had asked me to review his work so he could avoid making any grammatical mistakes that down grade his paper. I went over it and made maybe a dozen changes, splitting up a compound sentences or changing a verb tense, clearly nothing major in a 25 page long paper.

Today, I went to see LAND OF THE DEAD with the Big Guy. We both love zombie films.

But, first a minor digression.

I needed some cash so I went to the ATM at my credit union to pull out some money. I stopped at the traffic signal just before the credit union. I was stopped next to a convertible with three young people in it.

I guessed they were lost or confused because I could see the driver looking and folding and unfolding a map.

I knew they were lost when they followed my car across the intersection; they had been parked in a turn only lane and they did not turn.

I went ahead with the ATM withdrawal. They were stopped in the street, trying to figure out where they were and what they had to do to get there. I pulled up next to their car and rolled my window down.

I asked, “Excuse me, but are y’all lost by chance?”

The blond, female driver said, “Yes. We’re trying to get to the Health South Training Center. I should be right here.” They were off by about two blocks; but, with one way streets that can be a longer distance.

“I can give you directions on how to get there if you like.”

“We would be grateful if you could.” I gave them some simple directions, mostly all driving one or two blocks and making right turns. My directions were far from simple because, as the driver said, “I’m French and I am not understanding your directions. My English is not that good.”

Time for the cavalry to come to rescue of the lost travelers.

In my best Southern gentleman, I said to the French, “Y’all follow me, I will lead you there.” The driver’s face broke out in a big smile; the other two passengers seemed relieved to know they were going to find their way of their confusion.

I could see in my rear view mirror that the driver was less than certain that her decision was the best for her group. As we swung around what is a very large block, I could tell her confidence in following me was failing.

When we made our final turn, she was looking disparate until we turned into the training center parking lot. I stopped my car in the parking lot as she pulled up along side. It was the first time I had seen all of them smiling at the same time.

This was when I noticed the brunette in the back seat, she was grinning from ear to ear. I suppose she had come up with good directions that the driver ignored. It was pay back time for her maybe.

Anyway, I had places to go and things to do yet. “Y’all on your own now; enjoy the training center.”

The driver waved back and said, “Merci, thank you so very much.”

I turned my car around and headed off the O. C. to pick up the Big Guy and go see our zombie film. As I was rolling down the 405 Freeway, I wondered where these three young French people would remember an older American with a faded University of Utah baseball hat who went out of his way to help them when they were lost.

Who knows for sure? The Princess, who has never really liked the French, would have said, “No, daddy, they won’t remember you.”

Oh well, life goes on.

LAND OF THE DEAD is one of the best zombie films that I have seen in a very long time. The Big Guy said it had a large budget of $20 to $25 million. I don’t think too much went to the talent since most of them are B-listsers or unknowns. I do know they sunk a bunch of money into special effects, the blood, make-up, and bloody body parts were excellent.

This is not a film for those with weak constitutions or weak stomachs. It is a film for those of us who love the zombie genre. Today was the Big Guy’s third viewing of the film that opened on Thursday night at midnight. It was my first viewing. I will see it again, probably over the long 4th of July Independence Day Weekend.

The Big Guy and I had a prolonged discussion of the film afterwards. He pointed out several key cameos that I had missed. He also went into a discussion of the symbolism and some of the interpretations of George Romero’s work with the zombie film genre.

We also took time to go to Fatburger for lunch, always and excellent choice. We each had a Kingburger with everything, fries, and a medium drink. Fatburgers and a zombie film, what a perfect way to end the weekend.

And so gentle readers; be sure to go see LAND OF THE DEAD when it opens in your home town. We need to support the zombie film genre. I hope you had as much fun as I did this weekend.

Be well and stay happy.

Almost the weekend

Hi there bloggers.

I know I managed to disappoint some of you out there that were expecting some more pithy prose from me last night. I had to work on a project from the office with time critical deadlines. Time critical deadlines are always bad and sometimes they can be deadly to one’s career.

The task was relatively simple or so I thought; all I needed to do was access MS Publisher to make some changes in a document. I have a valid copy of MS Publisher that I received when I purchased an Office Upgrade edition. I thought it would only be a case of tossing in a CD and loading the program.

Boy, was I ever wrong.

Since it is an Upgrade edition, it will look for the program that it upgraded. I am not really sure what program I upgraded from since I have gone beyond the Office 2000 Upgrade and am now running Office XP. It now looks like I will have to unwind a huge chunk of my hard drive and reload the old software.

This, of course, assumes that I still have the old software. I used to have an IBM Pentium tower machine. I gave that machine away along with a bunch of software. If I gave away the software, then I am out of luck.

I will swing past CompUSA on my way home from the office tomorrow and check out the price of a new version of MS Publisher. There may be a positive cost – benefits reward from going with a new product instead of trying to use an older upgrade version.

If you will recall from this time last week, I was remarking on the flowers the Girl Friend sent me for Father’s Day. The flowers still look wonderful. Vivian, one of the office assistants, said teh arrangement looked better today than it did on Monday. I think the flowers will finally meet their maker over the weekend. I will do my part tomorrow by watering them well. I just think that a week is about the outside time line for most common flowers.

Don’t ask me what kind of flowers they are; I don’t know except that some are daisies.

Last Friday, I took some photos of the flowers in the replica of the Ford pick-up truck. I dropped the film off at my local store where I have been dropping film for may be twenty years. The store has no record of my film envelop in its online records.

I will be so pissed off if they lost the film because it had some photos of my trip to Atlanta to see the Princess as well as some of the Chuckay Celebration [you need to review the May archive to understand Chuckay] photos.

I had a long phone call with the Big Guy today. He was in a poor mood because he received a mark of 3.5 out of a possible 4.0 on his mini-treatment. We talked about the project and I felt the grade was not that bad. The professor did have some valid comments that I agreed with. The professor also said the mini-treatment had the best character biographies he had read, that was a big plus.

The Big Guy just needs to punch up the final scenes so that they reach a more emotional conclusion. He also needs to expand the biography of one character. He can add three or four scenes at the end and a couple of flashback scenes and he is there for the emotional conclusion. I think he can handle the character issue with six or seven sentences in two small paragraphs.

All parents want to help their children to well in school. I am no different. I asked one of the film finance guys in the office if he would read over the mini-treatment and toss out whatever comments he had to offer.

The finance guy said he would be happy to do that. He even offered to ask one of our clients, a major production company, to have one of their development staffers take a look at the mini-treatment. I said thank you but I don’t think the Big Guy is ready for that sort of review just yet.

The Big Guy was surprised that I could ask an entertainment industry professional to review the project. He was also glad that I passed on the client’s review.

On the subject of the Big Guy, he and I will go see George Romero’s LAND OF THE DEAD on Sunday afternoon. He plans to see it tonight at midnight. The Big Guy also would encourage all of you to go see the film as well.

I am going to go see BATMAN BEGINS on an IMAX screen on Saturday. The Big Guy said this was the only way to see the film.

I hope you have a great weekend and I will see you next on Sunday.

Be well and stay happy.

Working

Hello gentle readers. It looks like there will be no blog tonight.

I brought some work home from the office to do tonight. I knew I had the program at home that I would need. I thought it would be a simple question of finding the proper software and then loading it on to my laptop.

Unfortunately, the program I needed is on an MS Office 2000 upgrade program disk. Even though I am running MS Office XP, I can’t find the qualifying program I need to open the file from 2000.

It looks like I will be at this a while. I really don't want to rebuild my hard drive from Windows XP.

Be well and stay happy.

I'm tired tonight.

I’m tired tonight gentle readers.

I so did not want to get out of bed this morning. I could have bagged it and stayed in bed all day. It will be a short posting tonight.

But, I had work to do and no one else was going to do my work for me. Sometimes, being the only one in your work group can really suck. Some day soon, I will be able to hire some people to work with me in my group.

I was thinking about my posting as I drove home tonight. I had several topic possibilities. One was a replay of the romance in the supermarket aisles from a couple of weeks ago.

The romance in the supermarket aisles did not play at all tonight. I did go to the market on my way home; but nothing happened. There were a lot of tall men in the market tonight, ready to help the short female shopper.

I thought about the email I received from a co-worker in reply to one I sent out. I had asked why a good customer had closed out a profitable loan account with us. The co-worker said that my email was news to him. I could have pointed out that the transaction took place in the branch office that the co-worker manages. That would have been untidy and not very tasteful on my part.

By default, I decided to blog about people who return phone calls in an untimely manner. This afternoon was a classic example of what I mean.

A manger in another department called me and asked if I could help her customer with a loan. Her area was unable to help for a variety of policy reasons. She called and left her voice mail message while I was getting my afternoon cup of green tea.

I promptly returned her call and left her a message of “Tag, you’re it. This is Chuck, returning your call. I will be in the office until about 4:45 PM and then I will go home. I will be back in the office around 7:00 AM tomorrow. Please call me when it is convenient for you.”

She called back at exactly 4:43 PM. I was on my way out the door, the attached case was packed, my glasses were off and in my suit coat pocket, my suit coat was on, the lights were off, and everything was locked up for the night when the phone rang.

She thought it was funny that I was there when she called. She went into an explanation of why she called when she did. I wanted to yank the phone right out of the wall. I think she thought it was funny about calling just before I was going to leave.

I was borderline furious.

I did control myself and listened to what she had to say. I made her feel good by saying, in the end and just before I bailed out for the day, that I thought I could help her customer. I asked her to email me some information so I could get started when I came in tomorrow around 7:00 AM, a time I know she is nowhere near her desk.

Actually, I got two loan referrals today and it looks like I ought to be able to fund both of the deals. Of course, my belief that I can close the two deals is based on the referring co-worker’s assessment of the underlying credit quality and other financial factors that go into a commercial loan decision.

I am now off to slumber land and my faithful bed. I will catch you all on the flipside.

Be well and stay happy and sleep well and dream better.

This and that.

I don’t have a big theme for tonight’s blog posting gentle readers. You will just have to deal with the “this and that” of my life today.

I am not a very happy camper tonight blogistas.

The flowers the Girl Friend sent me for Father’s Day held up very well over the weekend in the office. Actually, I think they look better today than when they arrived last week. Some of the flowers that were closed upon arrival are now open. At the rate the arrangement is staying together, I think it may last until mid-week or possibly later. That would be really cool.

I know it is the start of Summer or soon will be at the beach. Summer, in Southern California, is supposed to be warm or almost hot. So why is there still snow on top of some of the local mountains?

This is just so wrong for Southern California. Sure, places like the Alps can have snow in June because they are supposed to be snow covered. But not here.

Oh well, having made my snowman semi-rant, it’s time to move along before everything melts.

As you know or may recall, I work on the 10th floor of a 22 story office building. The whole place has been a construction zone for about four months now and there is no end to the construction in sight. The building next to us is being gutted and its parking lot is full of dusty construction debris. You get the idea that this is a really messy place for now.

The building management had our windows cleaned over the weekend. I guess the crews worked on the weekend when the wind blown dust would be at a more minimal level. So, now, we have clean windows but I wonder for how much longer. I think things will be looking bad again in a couple of weeks. That seems like such a waste of money. Of course, the building management could have signed a long term contract that required so many cleanings over the life of the contract and it could have been a pay regardless whether we clean the windows or not feature. If that is or was the case, then clean away.

I went to see Michelle the Hair Stylist on my way home from work tonight. My hair was getting really long, almost shaggy to a point. I grew it longer than I usually would so Michelle would be able to over cut and ignore my styling requests. I was planning on having her ignore me as usual; I was thinking that I had grown a margin of error so the end result would be close to what I wanted.

I was wrong; so very wrong.

Michelle seems to not understand the phrases “light hair cut, "light trim,” and “I only want about a ¼ inch of hair cut off,” although she speaks fluent English. I was so disappointed with the outcome tonight. I feel that she just didn’t care tonight and I ended up suffering and will continue to suffer for several more weeks until the hair grows out again.

I will try whoever else is cutting hair the next time I go in and that should be in about four weeks. I figure that I can not be any worse off than I am now. I am unhappy with the results; I have to see the results every time I wash my hands.

The Girl Friend was saying how much she liked having my hair longer than it was before. Great, now she will be less than thrilled with the new hair cut.

I think I will go sulk for a while and then go to bed.

Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update - More Earthquakes

“Hole lotta shaking goin’ on.”

Well gentle readers; it is time again for another Weekend Update. It was a very good weekend for me and I hope your weekend was fun for you.

After looking at my home state, California or Kalifornia, as the Governator likes to call it, the best I can say about it is “hole lotta shaking goin’ on” this week. As I write this blog, our state has experienced five earthquakes that registered over 4.0 on the Richter Scale. That is what we normally receive in a full year so we are way ahead of ourselves.

I’m not sure if that is good or not.

As you know, I live at the beach. I was naturally concerned about the possibility of a tsunami hitting my home. I learned that there is a low likelihood of a tsunami since our local ocean faults are slip faults which means the land moves laterally and the sea floor does not change significantly. Slip faults do not produce tsunamis.

Excellent.

I also learned that I lived higher than I thought I did. I had forgotten that there is a fifty foot or so cliff where the land portion of the town goes back from the beach. I think this moves me up to being close 300 feet about the ocean. The nearest land with the highest danger is maybe ten or more miles away.

I was driving into work on Friday when I noticed the car next to me when I was stopped at a traffic light. It was an older Toyota Corolla sedan, very unremarkable except for the fact that it had “spinner wheels.” And, it was being driven by an older woman, probably older than me. [If you don’t know what a spinner wheel is, just ask me in the comment.]

I was surprised and almost shocked that a frumpy older sedan with faded paint would have fancier wheels than my sporty Honda Prelude. I asked the Big Guy about this when we had lunch on Sunday. He said it is very common for older women to be driving cars with spinners; granted, they maybe low value wheels but still they are spinners. He offered no explanation why this happens.

The Girl Friend and I went to see MR. & MRS. SMITH on Saturday. We really enjoyed it. I felt it was an action – comedy film more than anything else. You did need to pay attention to their dialogue in the film. There are some very funny double entendre comments and you will miss them if you are not focused on the film.

I will agree with the Big Guy that some of the action scenes were not put together as well as the rest of the film. The car chase went on a little longer than necessary and it was on the routine side.

After the film was over, the Girl Friend took me out to dinner for Father’s Day. We went to one of our favorite casual restaurants and had a good meal. I overly indulged with dessert and had a triple chocolate cheesecake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce. She had a chocolate sundae for her dessert.

I know the chocolate was not that best of all dessert choices. I can indulge myself on the weekends and Father’s Day only comes once a year.

If you will recall from last week, the Big Guy was bummed out about getting a “B+” on his paper for his Summer School class. He could have done better if he had proof read it more. I offered to proof read his mid-term.

I read one section on Friday morning of the mid-term and sent it back to him. He pounded out the rest of the mid-term in the afternoon. I finished up with the paper around 10:00 PM or so on Friday night and sent it back to him. He stays up later than I do so he finished the paper then.

The Princess called me this morning to wish me a happy Father’s Day. That was very nice of her; we will do a formal Father's Day celebration in July when she is home on vacation. I was rolling down the freeway to meet the Big Guy for our Father’s Day when she called me. We were going to go buy a new desk chair because the old one finally died on Thursday. Things wear out.

While we were on our way to the furniture store, we talked about the trouble we had with the mid-term. He was having trouble opening the stuff I sent back to him. I think his version of Word for Macs was too old and could not open documents that I created in Office XP. I asked why don’t we get a new version of Word since the Apple Store is in the mall next to Albertacos, our lunch destination.

On the way there, I decided to pick up a new Apple G5 machine. I had agreed to get him a newer Apple Mac so he can use it for editing work that will come from his film school classes. It made sense to do it today since I had my truck and, therefore, room to carry it to his house. I was only pushing the purchase up by a month or so.

It also made a lot of sense to me to do it now. Apple is going to start producing Macs with Intel chips for sale in 2006. I figured that there could be a run on the dual processor G5s. They might be gone by the time we got around to getting one.

Anyway, he was really surprised and obviously happy with the early purchase decision.

His mother did not understand why we bought the G5 today. She could have been in a poor mood because she was watching a baseball game on television when we got back to the Big Guy’s home. Her team was loosing badly.

The Big Guy gets to spend most of July transferring data from his older G4 to the new machine. This will keep him busy for a while.

Speaking if busy, it is time for me to busy myself off to bed.

Be well and stay happy.

Shake, Rattle, and Roll

We had another earthquake in Southern California this afternoon; the second quake in four days gentle readers.

It happened around 1:40 PM. The original magnitude estimate was set at 5.2 on the Richter Scale. This was lowered later to 4.9, still enough of shaker to be felt over 100 miles away.

I was at work. My building swayed laterally at first and then shook slightly. There was some movement but nothing that is upsetting unless it happens to be your first earthquake in a tall building.

Anyway, I was over it quickly and went back to work.

Usually, the Big Guy calls me when something like an earthquake happens. He passed on a phone call because he used the litmus test for earthquake size. His dog did not freak out so it was a mild quake and therefore, no phone call was needed the Dad.

I got some feedback from the attendees about my presentation yesterday. Two of the attendees sent me an email thanking me for the training session; one apologized for being late. I have never had a student, even in a work related program, apologize for being late. Granted, we have so many built in excellent excuses like “there was a crash on the freeway” or “I got stuck in a high speed pursuit” or “my car pool rider didn’t show up today so I had to drive with everyone else and that took much longer than I planned.”

You can add your own traffic related excuses to test your creativity.

As many of you know, this Sunday is Fathers’ Day. I will celebrate Fathers Day in July when the Princess is home on vacation. It is only a couple of weeks more and I can wait that long.

The Big Guy and I will go visit Albertacos on Sunday for lunch. I am pretty certain what we will get; a Number 8 [two soft carne asada tacos, rice and beans], a soft carne asada taco, and a medium drink.

It is an epic meal. It will also be my dinner since it is so filling and since it takes so long to digest. But, it is so well worth the drive and time to get there.

Plus, it is excellent father – son bonding time.

Burp.

The Girl Friend and I are going to the movies and then she is taking me out to dinner on Saturday. We will go see MR AND MRS SMITH this weekend and probably go see BATMAN BEGINS on the IMAX screen next weekend. You have to read the Big Guy’s blog posting about Batman on the IMAX at http://skeetonmischa.blogspot.com .

After dinner, we are going to come back to my house and watch my Korean historical drama. It is now up to Episode 68. I figure it will run out around Episode 100. I wonder what will follow this series.

The Girl Friend sent me some flowers today. The arrangement came in a toy truck that was modeled after a 1937 Ford pickup truck. It was an unusual arrangement but it worked very nicely. A couple of the guys in the office asked me what I was going to do with the truck after the flowers passed on the compost heap. I think they were hoping I would say you can have it.

I said that I planned on keeping it. It would look nice on the top shelf of my office bookcase, next to the blue M&Ms saxophone playing character. It certainly doesn’t look like banking but it will look nice just the same.

I could fill the back of the pickup truck with wrapped Hershey’s candies and use it as a candy dish. But, unfortunately, that would not be the healthiest solution for me. I think it would be better it stayed empty for now.

I had a brief talk with my boss today about the possibility of relocating my office to another location in Southern California. I suggested two alternative locations that were logical and plausibly deniable. We came to no conclusions and will probably have to wait and see.

Speaking of waiting, I think I will go off and do something of questionable value. I will catch up with you on the Weekend Update.

Be well and stay happy.

Wednesday Night After Work

Hello gentle readers.

I missed you last night.

I was too tired and got home too late to toss out a blog posting. As I had figured out beforehand, I didn’t get home until 10:00 PM. When I get up at 5:00 AM, then 10:00 is time to head for bed.

I noticed tonight that my Search for Extraterrestrials has crossed over the 800 searches level. I don’t receive any prize for that. It is nice to know that my laptop’s spare time is being used productively. I have not found any signs of extraterrestrial life in any of my searches. Still, I think it is a good thing to do and would encourage any of you with a personal computer and idel computing capacity to participate in the search analysis.

My dinner last night was good. We went to an Italian restaurant. I consider myself to have been a successful eater since I did not end up with any marinara sauce on my shirt or tie.

Excellent

We had a brief tsunami scare last night from an earthquake in Northern California. I don’t think I would have been affected if there had been one. I live in on a hill so the wave would have to be close to 150 to 200 feet high to affect. If it had been that tall, there would have been a wide area of destruction that would have kept me from reaching my home. I was still having dinner when it could have hit. I was in the San Fernando Valley behind the 3,000 foot tall Santa Monica Mountains. I was not in any danger for the most part.

I’m glad there was no tsunami last night.

My class today went well. I think I hit all of the correct points and I finished up about thirty minutes early. That is always excellent. I was the only speaker for the all day long session. My voice was fairly shot by the end of the day since I am not used to doing too much talking during the day.

One of the outcomes from today’s class was that I learned where my office may be relocated to later this year. There is a possibility that I might be relocated from where I am now in Century City to Beverly Hills. I think the new location is no more than a mile of two beyond where I am now. That would still be an easy commute for me. And, there are a number of really good business reasons to make that move.

I will wait and see what happens.

The Big Guy called me today after he saw BATMAN BEGINS. It is definitely a great film by his standards. He said he plans to see it again. That sort of says it all for me.

The Big Guy saw the film in an IMAX theater on what he thought was a 70mm print. He said he had never seen a better film image before. It looks like I will be going to the IMAX theater to see the film on the really, really big screen.

I know this is a short blog tonight. I still have 105 emails to take a look at in my in-box. I suspect that most, if not, all of the emails will end up in the electronic trash can.

Be well and stay happy until tomorrow night.

Thin Posting Tonight

Hello bloggers. It’s that time again.

I don’t have too much to write about tonight. I spent most of my day in deep legal draftsmanship. In the morning, I read some existing loan documents and then in the afternoon, I worked on rewriting them to work with the new programs I have developed.

Unless you are a lawyer or have gone to law school, as I have, this is absolutely boring. Watching paint dry is better.

I forgot to mention in the Weekend Update that I happened to see Denise the Hot Chick Policewoman who lives in my building over the weekend. How could I have forgotten this event?

I was heading out in the Prelude to run some errands on Saturday. I was about to leave the building car park when Denise came down the front building steps. She was wearing a tight fitting white tank top and short, short, short, red running shorts. I waited for her to jog on by and I drove off on my errands, feeling happy to be an American and living in a free country where burkas are good to use as dip stick rags and paint drop cloths only.

Ain’t life grand?

The Big Guy called me after his class ended today. His peer review of his paper went very well. He had to do a peer review of another student’s paper that could only be described charitably as a train wreck. I think the Big Guy is coming around to accept the idea that he is smart and that he knows his film stuff dead, solid cold.

If I were a betting man, I would not bet on finding a new posting on Tuesday evening.

I have a dinner meeting after work on Tuesday. Dinner will probably last until 9:00 PM or so. I need to go because two of my big bosses will be there [smart career move]. By the time I will get home, it should be around 10:00 PM. I will have just enough time to change my clothes and then go to bed. I will be back on Wednesday night with a posting of some sort.

That’s about it for now gentle readers.

Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update - Earthhquake

Hello gentle readers.

When I signed off on Thursday, I was wondering what I would title the Update. My first inclination was to go with a weather related theme of “Gloomy Jumey” because it has been overcast at the beach. Like today for example, the sun finally came out at my house around 4:30 PM and that is too late to really enjoy much of it.

Then, I thought about titling the blog “Food Fight” because we were eating up a storm on Friday at work. We had two film loans close on Thursday and, by tradition, the loan officers buy food for the office the next day.

Tasty.

I was almost knocked over by one of the ladies who were scurrying to the staff room to load up on the chocolate pound cake [yummy] and bagels. Last Friday, I bought donuts for Donut Friday.

Finally, I decided to go with a geologic and movie theme of “Earthquake.” Southern California had an intermediate size earthquake that hit at 8:41 AM. It was centered about 140 miles [225 kilometers] east of my house. I felt the quake at 8:42AM.

I was awake, lying in bed, when my building shook for about 10 seconds. There was no damage to my building that I can see. Damage near the epicenter has been limited to articles being knocked of shelves. Workers in markets hate earthquake because so much stuff is knocked into the aisles.

The earthquake registered a 5.6 on the Richter Scale. There have been several hundred aftershocks but these have been too small to feel unless you were standing right over the aftershock.

Friday, in addition to being a major eating event, was also Casual Friday. I wore one of my new Tommy Bahama shirts that the Girl Friend bought me. I picked it out and she slipped the clerk the plastic to close the deal. I had several very positive comments about how nice the shirt looked on me and how well the colors went with my complexion.

Always nice to be noticed; especially in a positive manner.

My Saturday did not start off with a happy moment.

I had my regular six month visit to my dentist for the semi-annual scrap and nag session. He cleans my teeth and then nags me about some of my evil habits like not flossing regularly and smoking cigars periodically. On the plus side, I am good to go for another six months and there were no apparent troubles for me to be concerned about.

My dentist mentioned that one of his sons had just spent four years in college in a liberal arts major and now wants to be a doctor. His son will need two solid years more of college science courses just to get to the point of being able to apply to medical school. Then, there is medical school and internship and residency and that should be close to 12 years or more of school.

This made me glad when I figured the Big Guy ought to finish up in June 2007. I can handle two more years.

The Big Guy called me as I was driving out to pick up the Girl Friend to go to the theater. He was in one of his writing frustration moods. He was bummed about having to use terms he was uncomfortable with for a class paper. We talked about having to play the game to complete the course and get a good grade. Our chat lasted about 20 minutes which is long for us.

I think the chat was successful. He was at the four page mark in a paper that needed to be between three and five pages long. I noticed in his blog [ http://skeetonmischa.blogspot.com ] today that the final paper was eight pages long.

Excellent chat coaching Dad.

The play we went to see was a musical. Actually, it was more like an oldies radio station having a live broadcast. It was about two hours of music from the 1950s and 1960s.

What’s not too like about that?

The play is called “Smokey Joe’s Café.” It is based on the songs of Lieber and Stoller. You may not have heard of them but they wrote twenty songs for Elvis Presley including Hound Dog, Jailhouse Rock, and Love Me Tender.

The post play session with the Girl Friend was not much fun for me. We got off into a political discussion. I should have remembered what I learned when I was a young Navy officer; you never ever discuss religion, politics, or women.

This discussion was like Joel Chandler Harris’ “Tar Baby.” [Check out the Disney film SONG OF THE SOUTH for more on the tar baby and the rest of Chandler’s characters.] The more you handled it the more you became involved in the mess.

We share almost completely opposite political views. I see myself as being from the old liberal conservative tradition who favors strong protection for social and civil liberties and small government. She is more closely associated with the conservative Christian right in American politics. I am somewhat troubled by her points of view that include government censorship of public television may be fine and that separation of church and state does not apply to the Christian faith.

Oh well, life and relationships are usually a never ending series of compromises. I think we would cancel each other out at the polling place.

I saw a film that the Big Guy was keen on today. HIGH TENSION [new convention: all film titles will be capitalized] is a French made, revenge – rescue genre film. It has more than the acceptable minimum ten gallons [40 liters] of fake blood. It is sprayed everywhere, sometimes badly overdone.

It is partially subtitled and partially dubbed. The Big Guy explained the dubbing was the result of having the film sitting on the shelf for two years before being released in the States. The distributors thought it would get a better domestic reception with the dubbing. I found it to be slightly annoying.

The Big Guy was disappointed with the film. It takes a weird plot zigzag towards the end and this left him cold. He said the film should have followed the usual genre conventions. I felt the change was nice and that it added something to the overall enjoyment.

I did feel that it was lacking in building up to the scary plot points. It was not a Jason or Freddy Krueger like film in that respect.

HIGH TENSION was cut back from an NC-17 rating to be shown with an R rating. That sort of warns you what to expect. If you like slasher films then this one might be right for you.

This was my weekend and I enjoyed myself. I hope you had a great weekend as well.

Be well and stay happy.

Romance in the Supermarket Aisles

Hello gentle readers.

It is Thursday evening here in Southern California and the weather looks good for the weekend.

Last night, I stopped at the local market to pick up some essential eats and things. Without the stop, I would have been hungry last night and tonight. That would be so wrong to miss dinner. Of course, I could have gone to the take home route but that seemed unfulfilling to me.

Anyway.

I changed markets after the first of the year. The old one had gotten a little shabby and the stock was not as well presented as it used to be. The new market is in much better physical condition.

It is also larger and I am still learning where everything is. I tend to wander while I shop.

Wandering is good if you want to look at women. I believe the market is an ideal location to check out women. Firstly, I can always be looking for some product and ask an interesting woman where the product is located. I make it a point to ask about something she already has in her cart of stuff.

Women like to aid helpless men and a man asking for directions is a near jackpot for them.

In my wanderings last night, I had noticed a young South Asian woman. It was extremely difficult to not notice her. She was wearing a bright red belly shirt and way too tight jeans that barely covered what needed to be covered. As many of you know, I am partial to Asian women.

Besides that, there was too much of a good thing to not look at her. I was also highly confident that she dressed the way she did with the specific intent of attracting attention from men. In that respect, she was extremely successful.

Our shopping carts nearly hit in one aisle. I was putting some cans of soup into my cart when she almost hit the cart. She was not paying attention to what she was doing at the time. I was in a good mood and smiling. She smiled back at me.

While I am happy with the Girl Friend, I just think it makes sense to have a backup plan for romance. This woman could play a key role in my romance backup plan, just like every good basketball coach has a starting five, he also has some good players on the bench, just in case.

When she smiled at me, I quickly checked out the third finger of her left hand. No ring and no sun tan lines either. Always an excellent sign that she may be single. All I needed now was an opportunity to chat up with her.

My chat opportunity developed two aisles later. Being an apparent South Asian, she was untall and was struggling to get a box of cereal off of the top shelf.

I offered to pick the box for her and she said thank you in a very melodic manner.

Perfecto.

As I handed the box to her, I watched her put it in her cart.

Then, I discovered the horror and humanity of it all.

Behind a pile of strictly feminine products, next to where the cereal box went, was a huge collection of Gerber baby food jars. There must have three dozen of them, including strained beets and peas. I know what a Gerber baby food jar looks like; I have handled lots when the Princess and the Big Guy were little and I feed them.

Could she be a single mother and therefore to be avoided at all costs? Or was she just shopping for her mother [and thus making her too young for me]?

Thanks to my excellent training as an officer in the Navy to handle emergency situtations, I reacted instinctively. I made no move towards starting a conversation. If I didn’t speak with her, I could avoid the single motherhood possibilities. She started to do some talking with me and I quickly looked for a polite way out.

I faked a cell phone call from the Big Guy. She stuck around until I was finished with the call. I decided to go for the final resolution. I said, “That was my son. He was just checking in with me.”

She thought that was good for him.

We chatted for a bit more until she asked how old my son was. I smiled some more and said, “You are probably old enough to be one of his friends. He’s 25.” I think that ended any chance I had with her because she excused herself and walked off in another direction.

I was glad because I dodged the possible evil bullet.

Full and fair disclosure: I have nothing against babies. The Princess and the Big Guy were babies once and I changed them and feed them and did all of the other things a good father is supposed to do. Having once done that, I have no desire to do that again. After all, once you change diapers on a baby with lower digestive tract distress, it doesn’t get any better the second time around. The only small children that I want in my life are usually called grandchildren and they can be handed back to their parents when they start to leak or get cranky.

So gentle readers, I am off to check my email. I will see you next on Sunday with the Weekend Update.

Be well and stay happy.

Short Post Tonight

[Yawn.]

It has been a long day for me gentle readers. I went to be last night at a reasonable hour for someone who is getting up at 5:00 AM. I slept well until around 2:40 AM when I woke up and then flopped around until the alarm went off.

That just sucked.

I got some things completed in the office today. All I have left to do to prepare for my day long training session is punching holes in some handouts and making up two complete binders for my big boss.

Normally, I would punch the holes on casual Friday. I will punch the holes on Thursday because that is the day of the week when the cleaning crew vacuums the offices and the rugs. If I punch holes tomorrow, then any drops will get swept away.

I suppose you have heard about how Tom Cruise has been acting over Katie Holmes. It is very hard to avoid not hearing or reading about their antics unless you are a hermit. If you are/were a hermit, then you would not be reading this blog.

Actually, I think it is a good idea.

Cruise is helping making it acceptable for older men, like me, to go out with much younger women. Using his age scale, I could broaden my dating horizon down into the mid-30s instead of limiting myself to the late-40s and older. That is a nifty horizon shift now.

I noticed in the most recent photos of the loony couple, she is wearing the same black – dark brown leather dress.

Full and fair disclosure: I do not intentionally tune in Entertainment Tonight or the Insider. Those shows just follow the CBS Evening News that I watch while I am having my dinner

I would have thought she could afford something new with the money she must have made making Batman Begins. Tom could have sprung for a quick run to Wal-Mart, K-Mart or Penney's for new threads as well; he is not in poverty by any means.

I took my blood pressure tonight as I do almost every night. I had a Diet Snapple Iced Tea to drink for lunch today instead of a can of Coke or Diet Coke. My pressure dropped about 20 points so it looks like I will become a Diet Snapple drinker from now on out or until we get decaf Coke or some root beer back in the office.

Look, I am feeling tired and want to crawl into bed now. I will be back tomorrow night with a longer, more normal length posting with some more observational humor from my stop at the market on my way home from the office today.

Be well and stay happy and sleep well and dream better.

Stupid is as stupid does, again

Hello gentle readers.

I have some more observational humor for you. The Big Guy thinks I am getting good with my observational humor efforts.

I was watching the CBS Evening News the other night. They were running a report on a new treatment to prevent smoking. I paid attention because my mother was a smoker and died of lung cancer and other smoking related diseases. It also means that I was exposed to second hand smoke for twenty years or so.

Not the best future; but, what I am going to do? I will go on and live my life as best I can.

The new treatment is based on preventing the nicotine addiction by breaking up the connections in the brain that respond to nicotine. I thought that was really cool since it overcomes the shortfalls of the patch and gum and hypnosis and probably acupuncture as well.

I figured the pill would have a cost but it would be much less expensive than the treatment for lung cancer. Medical insurance companies would endorse its use because of the long term health benefits and lower patient care costs. Insurance companies have never been known for their warm hearts.

So what’s not to like about this new medicine?

Apparently, packers do not think it is such a great idea. By the way, packers are not true fans of Vince Lombardi and Bret Favre. Packers smoke a pack of cigarettes a day.

CBS interviewed a packer as part of their report. This packer felt there were unknown, potential, long term, side affects from the pill.

Hmmmm. Maybe the packer was concerned about nausea, diarrhea, or maybe some loss of sleep.

Gee, those don’t sound too bad when compared to the long term affects of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for decades. From what I can gather from a quick glance at the Surgeon General’s warning notices, the long term affects of smoking seem to be a slow painful death from lung cancer and its related diseases.

Slow painful death versus nausea.

It’s not rocket surgery here that we’re talking about. This is a no-brainer, period. Well, maybe expect for the interviewee who is a blonde female and that may explain her answer and logic completely.

Moving along.

When I got to my office this morning, I was taking off my suit coat so I could place it on a hanger on the back of my door. As usual, I put my hands in both pockets. I found $18 in one pocket. That was both a surprise and a treat for me. It has been almost two weeks since I last wore that suit. I have no recollection of where the money came from but I will enjoy spending it just the same.

I got a lot done today for a change. I spent close to four hours reading sample promissory note and loan agreement forms. I was trying to find ones that would work in the new credit programs I have developed.

I found almost all of the forms I need. These can be adopted with minimal modification. The last one will require extensive modification. I think I can make the changes and get the lawyers to approve them.

All in all, not a bad day for me and I hope you had a great day as well.

Be well and stay happy.

Big Shout Out to the Big Guy

Firstly, gentle readers, I need to give a big shout out to the Big Guy who seems to enjoy my observational humor of late. I received a big step up in visitors over the weekend, normally a slow time of the week for me, from his links.

My office building, like most every other office building in the country, has handicapped access bathroom facilities. I think I have only used the handicapped stall once in over a year because the others were in uses and I had a really pressing need to go.

Anyway.

I was washing my hands this morning after a nasty battle with the new toner cartridge for my laser printer. The toner only got as far as my hands so that was minor inconvenience for me.

Laser toner, for those of you who have never had the joys of changing a cartridge, takes forever to wash off when you use regular rest room liquid soap. Strong bar soap is what you really need.

So there I was, hands all soapy, when a guy from the other tenant on the floor comes in with a gym bag over his shoulder and heads immediately to the handicapped stall. Obviously, he doesn't fit the usual parameters of being handicapped. I know; I have seen him play tennis, not very well mind you, the parking structure roof top court that my office overlooks. I was drying my hands when he came out, still in his normal office clothes.

I'm thinking; what does he do with the extra space? Why does he need the extra space?
I know there is extra space but the size of the fixture is still the same regardless of your motor ability. There is sufficient room in the regular stall as far as I can tell. I have gotten into the regular stall when I was carrying a raincoat, the computer case, and an attache case and still was able to do my business.

It can't be the extra leg room unless you want to spread your legs a whole bunch and that just sounds so very wrong for a guy.

I know these handicapped stalls have a nifty metal arm rest but it is so close to the wall that it can not function well as an arm rest. OK, maybe it can function for one arm but what do you do with the arm?

Scratch maybe?

I know there is not much of a need for the handicapped access on my floor right now. I haven't seen any men in wheel chairs or using crutches in over a year. We did have a guy who hobbled around for a couple of months with the broken foot but he never used the handicapped facility to my knowledge.

Maybe the guy with the gym bag thought he could avoid those nasty whiffs that are always drifting around places like this by using the bigger space.

Newsflash, there is no powered ventilation in the restrooms.

Ventilation is sort of hit or miss mostly so you can't avoid the nasty whiffs. They seep over and around the stall walls regardless of what tactics you may try to employ.

It's a lot like the fog in John Carpenter's The Fog. It is always present.

Moving right along now.

I called the Girl Friend today. She had missed me. It had been over a week since she spent time with me.

I told her about an Internet survey I had taken during lunch today. The survey was about men's attitudes towards erectile dysfunction. She laughed louder and louder as I went into some of the survey questions. The Girl Friend offered her own answers to some of the questions, most of which I don't want to reprint here. She made me stop because she was getting red and her employees were starting to stare at her.

All of her employees know we have a relationship and that I seem to make her very happy. One of the employees, who answered the phone when I called, asked why I didn't see her over the past weekend. I asked what made you think I didn't see her. The employee said the Girl Friend was in a crappy mood this morning.

Busted.

I said it was a Chuck only weekend. I needed some Chuck-time after spending four of the prior five weekends with the Girl Friend. I dont think the employee could possible see my point of view whatsoever here.

Life happens and I moved on which brings me to here tonight. I'm off to do other useful and productive things now.

Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update

Hello gentle readers.

This will be a short weekend update posting for a change. Now some of you out there are wondering why this will be a short posting. The answer is simple, I didn’t do very much that was note worthy.

Saturday was spent writing and working on my dissertation. I came to a major breakthrough and completely rethought my research component. I have changed the scope from surveying around 1,800 respondents to surveying around 600 respondents. I believe the results will still be valid but my statistical work will be substantially less.

I watched my Korean historical drama after a dinner of a baked potato with sour cream and chives, parsley, and basil, a bar-be-qued steak, and a salad.

The Big Guy called me because he thought he had serious car trouble. Since it was late and any likely repair place was closed, I told him I would be out to see what I could in the morning.

Then, I went to bed and slept very soundly. I don’t think the Big Guy slept well at all.

The drive out to South Orange County was nice but not as nice as it was last weekend for the holiday. I could not use the cruise control today.

I took a look at the front end of the car when I arrived. There were no visual signs of any problems like leaking fluids. The Big Guy started the car and the engine was fine. Then, he put it in gear and it made a dreadful metal on metal grinding sound.

He stopped the car and got out so I could drive to the repair place which ended up at Sears Auto Center. I drove the car and experienced the same metal on metal sounds for the first part of the trip. By the time I had driven a half mile or so, the sounds stopped.

I explained what had happened to the service people at Sears. They agreed to check the car out while we grabbed lunch.

Lunch was at Fatburger.

I exercised restraint at lunch, having only a Fat-cheeseburger, fries, and a small drink [root beer]. The Big Guy opted for a Kingburger [twice as large], fries, and a medium drink. We took our time with lunch, making a couple of cellphone calls. We ate outside so we had the opportunity to gaze at the women that walked by. Always an extremely good use of one’s time.

After lunch, we went to the Barnes & Noble Book Store to check things out. The Big Guy picked up a book. I couldn’t find anything that caught my fancy. We headed back to Sears.

As we were driving back to Sears, the service people called to say the car was ready. They could not find anything wrong and believed the trouble was caused by condensation on the brake rotors. This would tend to explain why the noise went away as I drove the car. My braking dried out the rotors. The Big Guy drove his car back to his house with no troubles.

I came home and read before dinner. Dinner was a sandwich tonight because I was still full from lunch.

And that, gentle readers, was my weekend. Next weekend will be more interesting as I will be seeing the Girl Friend.

Be well and stay happy.

Arnie Morton 1922 - 2005

Arnie Morton passed away this week in Chicago at the age of 83. The Big Guy and I will always remember him as the founder of Morton's the Steakhouse, our favorite all-time place to go for food. He created a feeling that everyone was an honored guest and important.

Morton was a consummate restauranteur. In addition to the steakhouse chain that bears his name, he also worked with a local fellow, Hugh Heffner, to help develop what became the Playboy Clubs.

What a perfect combination, great food and beautiful women. It doesn't get much better than that.

When the Big Guy and I went to Morton's for the first for his 13th birthday, the Big Guy said this was the best meal ever because he was not treated like a little kid. We have made a trip to Morton's a regular part of our birthday celebrations ever since. We will continue to do so for the foreseeable future; we may end up leaving our significant others behind if they do not have a taste for beef.

Be well and stay happy.

More Observations and Bad Tats

Hello gentle readers.

I need to give a big shout out to the Big Guy for being the first reader ever to post a comment to any of my blogs. You really need to live in Southern California to appreciate the full subtlety of the comment.

Moving on to more pressing items and observations.

I think this blog is a continuation of last night’s efforts at observations. You will recall that I was momentarily petrified by Blondie the 30ish woman who was wearing the too tight jeans that she had to pull up to cover her butt crack from last night.

As I reflect on what I have just written, I am called to ponder what happened to Blondie's thong or was she not wearing one yesterday. The Big Guy and I almost discussed this point earlier today but he quickly steered our conversation in a different direction.

I had a similar experience again tonight. I had to stop at the market on my way home because I had run out of something that I needed for my dinner tonight. I was wandering through the market aisles looking for my product when I came across this young, I think woman, who apparently believes big is really beautiful.

If nothing else, she made Blondie look hot, super hot, even if Blondie drives a dusty Honda mini-van.

It was just not right and normal I tell you.

Moby Jane, the woman in the market aisle, was wearing a belly shirt that could never ever have covered what needed to covered up. Her snow white skin suffered from the English tire disease, it dun-lopped over the top of her jeans that were tight, way too tight. The jeans looked like faded and worn blue sausage casings actually. Even Captain Ahab would have turned away in shock and panic.

It gets worse gentle readers. You may want to have any small children leave the room now.

Moby Jane had tats all over her back. They were bad tats on top of that. When she walked – waddled down the aisle, the tats looked like they came alive and were dancing against a snowy white background.

I just forgot about buying what I needed for dinner and left immediately. I drove to my favorite Italian deli and picked up a sandwich. The submarine sandwich was a much better solution than taking a chance I might run into Moby Jane again.

All of which brings me to my observation – question of the evening. It is evening in Los Angeles as I type this blog; actually it is 8:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time.

Why do young women seem to wear more and more tats and most of these tats are really bad?

I can accept the usual girlie tat of a flower or happy face or heart that ends up on her ankle or similar location. What I have real trouble with is young women with tats all over their visible bodies.

Moby Jane was wearing snake tats and, like Indiana Jones, I don’t really care much for snakes. Or, put differently, I never met a dead snake that I didn’t like. They moved when she did. I thought the cobra one was about to leap off of her mound of flesh that once passed for a hip a long time ago.

Then, on Monday when the Big Guy and I pigged out on Tommy’s Mega-Combos, there was a young woman there with Asian looking, red and green snake tats all around on both arms from her shoulders down to her wrists. She was thoughtfully wearing a tank top so she could show off her arm art. This was not a pleasant sight I tell you gentle readers.

I shuddered at the thought of what she might have in the way of tats that were covered and I was extremely thankful that she was covered up.

Surprisingly enough, the guy this woman was with had no visible tats. All of this raises too, too many questions that I care to ponder in this lifetime. Like why?

I think I go need to sip some of my single malt Scotch whisky that I use as my daily drink. My doctor says this is an encouraged medical practice now. I think I will have a few more shots of Scotch tonight. They will help me sleep better tonight.

Be well and stay happy and watch out for tattooed women.

Observations and Michelle

Hello gentle readers.

I was on my way home from work tonight and headed to see Michelle the Hair Stylist [lady barber] for a nice trim around the ears when I stopped at my local convenience store to buy some lottery tickets, I mean invest in education.

It was the usual degree of confusion at the convenience store. Some clown with a Prince Valiant style of haircut, circa 1955, was arguing with one of the clerks. It was no contest; the clerk would win hands down without even trying, even on a really bad day with a splitting headache. Prince Valiant is another reason for selective breeding and human gene pool filtration and chlorination from time to time.

I got in my car after buying the lottery ticket and was getting ready to go drive off to see Michelle when this Honda mini-van pulls in next to my car. The mini-van was driven by what appeared a blonde 30ish-something. I decided to wait a minute to see what she looked like. Since she was parked next to my car and I had clean windows, I knew I would have an excellent view.

Blondie was wearing a pair of really too tight, low cut jeans. When she turned around after getting out of the Honda, she had to give her jeans a couple of hefty tugs upwards to cover her butt crack. Believe me, it was not a pleasant sight at all.

It was almost enough to make celibacy seem like a really nifty idea about then.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she could never ever look hot getting out of a Honda mini-van. I don’t think even Paris Hilton could look hot getting out of a Honda mini-van either.

Michelle was in a surly mood tonight. It wasn’t my fault that she was having an off-day. I don’t think I improved on her condition much.

Michelle has this annoying habit of not listening to me when I tell her how I would like my hair cut. After all, it is my hair and, while I may not always be right and Preppie will tell you that I have been wrong lots of times, I am always the customer. She likes to have my hair shorter than I want.

To overcome her inability to listen, I have taken to just having a trim around my ears and across the back of my neck. My hair is growing out to the length that I want now. In another three weeks, it will be just a bit too long and perfect for her to cut.

Michelle will cut off hair more than I will ask her to cut. I know this will happen. In the end, my hair length will be what I want it to be. I will be happy.

I think Michelle is also jealous of the Girl Friend because the Girl Friend has given me a very clear sign of approval for longer hair. Michelle is married to someone else and not to me. The Girl Friend is the only female in my life outside of the Princess and Preppie. I think Michelle needs to get a really good grip on life and things.

This is going to be a short posting tonight so I can go watch the television news reports of a major landslide here in Southern California that has destroyed 17 homes so far.

Be well and stay happy.