Friday, December 30, 2005

Happy New Year

Happy New Year
Things to Do in 2006...

Leave the past behind.
Unload excess baggage.
Start with a clean slate.
Sharpen your pencils.
Get excited.
Have a great attitude.
Dwell on the positive.
Know what you want.
Be in the right place.
Dress up for success.
Get outside support.
Give it to get it.
Live in the moment.
Persist till you get it.
Share your bounties.
Have a sense of humor.
Keep your childlike wonder.
Treat your body as a temple.
Feed your mind.
Believe in magic.

Wishing you all the best in 2006!

Have a Very Happy New Year and a big thank’s to my great friend Christy for giving me the idea for the last posting of the Year.

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Emerald Bowl Victory


Emerald Bowl Victory
Our, the Princess and me, underdog University of Utah Utes badly beat the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco this afternoon. The final score was Utah 38, Georgia Tech 10.

Epic victory.

Glorious victory.

For the record for my foreign readers, this was an American football college match. The Emerald Bowl has nothing to do with Ireland as far as I can tell. The game was sponsored by the Emerald Nuts company; they produce a variety of shelled nut products liked salted peanuts and cashews. Their salted peanuts are a perfect companion for a frosty cold beer or three.

The Princess promised me that she would be a graceful winner. She enjoys winning a whole lot. She did say she has one [male] friend who went to Georgia Tech. He wanted to place a modest wager on the outcome of the game. His school, Georgia Tech, was favored by nine points; the Princess got him to up the points to ten before the game. I think the final score is even more impressive since Georgia Tech has one of the best defensive teams in the country.

I am finished with my post season college football viewing now. But, I will watch the national championship game on next Wednesday. The Princess has one more game when her University of South Carolina Gamecocks play the University of Missouri in the Independence Bowl.

Live well and play hard; celebrate a Utah victory.

Monday, December 26, 2005

Wrapping paper and ribbons and other things

Wrapping paper and ribbon and other things
Hello gentle readers. I hope you all had a rewarding and wondrous Christmas. I did.

Happy Boxing Day and Happy Kwanzaa and Happy Hanukkah, Part 2.

I’m not sure how long this blog posting will be when I get finished with it. I have a lot to cover for the weekend plus I still have some trailing stuff from last week that never made it into a blog. Most of the stuff from last week will hopefully end up in the “other things” section.

I was up early on Christmas Day. I had a turkey to prepare and then cook for our eventual dinner that late afternoon – early evening. Actually, I started cooking on Thursday when I fixed the candied yams. They turned out very nice.

On Friday night, I cooked the two pies for dessert; one was a pumpkin pie and one was a mince pie. The mince pie was for me; no one else likes it. The mince pie is a hold over from when I was a kid. Growing up, we always had a mince pie at Christmas. The pie will end up lasting me for several days.

Back to Christmas.

As usual, the Princess, the Big Guy and their Mother showed up right on time. I knew they would since the Princess was driving and she is never ever late to an event where she will be receiving something. Christmas morning is the one morning that she does not sleep late.

I had told the Princess that I was planning a theme for her Christmas gifts. I had chosen a “life style” theme. This naturally confused her and her friends Emily and Maggie.

Dad liked to have one winner for a change.

The key gift was a Coach purse that is worn over the shoulder like a bandolier; the purse portion should hang or rest nicely on her hip. This would leave her hands free for when she is out in the sports pub/bar during March Madness for example.

If she wants to go for a Stat Trek type of them, she can pretend that it is a girls’ only tricorder that is used to detect intelligent male life forms in the bar or other venue. Granted the Star Trek idea is a bit much, it is a very functional purse since it is black and cloth and not likely to get lost or misplaced in the crush of people.

I also got her some camouflage colored ear plugs in the event the Princess runs into Mr. Boring instead of Mr. Perfect. I have tested the ear plugs at the air show at the United States Marine Corps Air Station Miramar Air Show earlier this year. They did an excellent job of blocking out jet fighter noise.

The Princess bought me some books because she knows I love to read. Her roommate Emily gave me three cigars to smoke, well yes obviously to smoke. Duoh, Dad. I smoke only outside to the balcony and I like to read while I smoke.

Unfortunately, the weather is not cooperating with my smoking needs. It is cool and damp and misty and breezy. This is the sort of nasty weather that allows the cold to creep into your bones and joints. I used to be able to read in weather like that when I was much younger. Now, I will have to wait until this coming weekend and hope the weather improves by then.

The Big Guy got his Christmas gift last week when I told him he could install Sirius satellite radio in his car. That was his big reward and he was very happy. He was offering free rides in his car so you could hear Sirius radio. I may have to take him up on the offer someday soon.

The Princess and the Big Guy got their father a six DVD collection called the LONE WOLF AND CUB. It was probably one of the most researched DVD purchases ever for the two of them. The Big Guy had seen one of the six DVDs before and liked it. He checked the box set out with his friends and samurai film genre lovers, Coulter and Mark. They gave the box set two enthusiastic swords and two buckets of fake blood up.

What’s not to like about 507 minutes of subtitled samurai graphic violence and occasional nudity? That sounds like a near perfect weekend of DVD viewing to me. Now all I need to do is find a younger woman who shares my fondness for samurai genre films.

Coulter is also the director of the zombie film FACILITY 4 which you should see if it plays nears you sometime soon.

My Younger Brother sent us a family photo from my niece’s wedding in Seattle. It was one of the two or three weekends in Seattle when it does not rain so it was a perfect wedding. We all agreed that we looked very nice in the photos.

My former wife Marilyn gave me a copy of the 1933 classic KING KONG. I’m not sure if the DVD was a commentary on our marriage or the fact that it was the most recent release of an AFI 100 Greatest Films list film. I’ll go with the AFI release list factor.

My friend Sharon gave me a Barnes & Noble gift certificate because she said I was hard to buy for. If she has asked the Princess or the Big Guy, I’ll bet that they could have come up with a dozen or more good ideas; of course they could, they had a list to work from after all plus Doug knows what type of DVDs I like and has a pretty good idea what I have in my collection.

Sharon
Sharon has not been well lately. Now, she has this nasty sort of cold that has an ugly sounding cough to accompany it. I talked to Sharon on Thursday night and made arrangement to go by her house on Saturday morning and drop off her gifts from the three of us. She said it was too far to drive and I merely replied that she was worth the drive. It was hard to argue with that sort of warped logic.

I took my time driving out to her house on Saturday. There was no need to rush and burn gasoline needlessly I thought. I arrived about five minutes late.

Sharon said, “What happened, you’re never late.”

So much for taking my time. We didn’t hang around for any real time. Sharon was still coughing but not as bad plus she had to go to market and the drug store for her mother who now had a bad cold and cough. I did not want to catch what she had.

I called Sharon on Christmas Day but she was out and about with her cellphone turned off.

Finally, I caught up with Sharon this morning. She was in the market picking up some food for her mother.

When she picked up the cellphone, I wished her, “Happy Boxing Day and Happy Kwanzaa, Beautiful.” She laughed and giggled. We talked briefly because she was about to go through the cashier station and had to pay for the food. Talking to me would complicate things for her.

We will probably talk during the week.

Picking Up the Princess
I told you all that I was picking up the Princess at Los Angeles International Airport on Thursday.

Her flight was early and the Delta Airlines information boards were broken, great combination of technology and customer service. I phoned Doug to make sure the arrival was still on the ahead of time schedule. It was.

I had about forty minutes to kill before her flight arrived. I tried phoning Sharon because she is always good for a long phone call unless she is sick and can barely talk like she was on Thursday.

I just hung out and watched people in the terminal and marveled that their collective stupidity and thoughtlessness.

There is only one escalator that comes from the arrival terminal to baggage claim. Most of the people stand back and let their friends and relatives walk to join them. But the jerks, mostly Asians, seem to bring the entire family to the airport to meet someone who is flying in from somewhere. As soon as the traveler gets to the bottom of the ramp, they all want to crowd around and block everyone else‘s exit. Then, they get upset when others push into them as they try to get off the escalator.

Come on people, the traveler is going to be here for a while; you can wait until later to the hugging and kissing. Think of others for a change.

I was wearing my University of South Carolina Gamecocks sweatshirt so it would be easy for the Princess to recognize me in the crowd. She should recognize it; she gave it to me.

Anyway, her bag arrived and we left the terminal before she was originally scheduled to arrive. The traffic to leave the airport was bad primarily because people could not
(a) read the directional signs;
(b) hang up their cell phones and drive;
or (c) both of the above.

If you answered “C,” you are a winner.

The Princess said the flight out was one of the worst she has ever had. She said she heard the flight attendants talking and they were saying it was a rough flight. The Princess does not like to fly and this was not the kind of happy talk she was hoping for from the flight crew.

Anyway, she was there and so was her bag. I dropped myself off and she drove off to her mother’s house behind the Orange Curtain in South Orange County.

Other Things
This is the grab bag of comments I should or could have made earlier this week.

Movies
I had planned to see some films over the long holiday weekend. I had considered seeing KING KONG, SYRIANA, CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, or MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA. In the end, I saw none.

Doug had said he fell asleep in the first hour of KING KONG and thought that was not a good sign at all. One of his Skeet Shooters posted a comment that he or she flew asleep also. Clearly, that was not a good review. I was not surprised when he said that he did not like on Christmas.

Work in slow now so I could bail out an hour early and get to the theaters for a late cheap matinee showing this week and still leave a film or two to see over the weekend.

Skeet Shooters
I do appreciate your occasional visitation to the blog. The attendance on the 15th gave me my one day high record of 61 visitors. I know my blog is not as fascinating as my son’s. But, I do use spell check so you don’t have to guess what the word is when you read it.

I noticed that one of the Skeet Shooters who visited on the 15th also read 11 other pages of my blog.

Fascinating.

Tattoos
I think you all know how much I like [NOT] tattoos, especially on young or old women. As I was driving out to Sharon’s house on Saturday, I noticed the Body Art Expo will be held on January 6th, 7th, and 8th at the Los Angeles County Fair Grounds.

I actually thought for a moment about spending some time out there. Then, I quickly came to my senses and decided this would be too much of a very bad, bad idea. Watching LONE WOLF AND CUB will probably be a better way to spend my time weekend after next.

Lawyers
Why would a law firm employee log into my blog for 45 minutes?

I hope that wasn’t logged as billable time. I don’t believe that I have offended anyone to point of hiring a lawyer to sue me. Besides, most all of the names are only first names so it is hard to identify anyone with a specific set of comments.

One of the first law firms was unknown to me. The most recent law firm to log on to a sizeable viewing was a big old line San Francisco law firm that has been around for years.

Did I say something unkind about the City by the Bay perhaps? Oh well, not to worry now.

Jump Boots
When I was in the Marine Corps Reserves, I had to wear jump boots and green utilities. Back then, in the early 1970s, no one really cared much for those of us who served our country. I’m over that period now.

But, I can’t get over how those who protested the loudest against the military have now co-opted and seem to wear only cast military issue clothing like field jackets and camouflage utilities. I wear civilian clothes because I am a civilian now.

You can imagine my surprise the other day as I drove to work when I saw a young lady walking to school, I guess, and who was wearing jump boots that almost reached her knees. I was under the impression that the Goth look was long over and faded out.

I was wrong. She was wearing torn black nylons with fish nets over them. They went very nicely with her short plaid skirt and green field jacket. I was stopped for a traffic light when I saw her. I would say she was marching along in what we used to call a “route step march.” She was taking a good 30 inch / 750 millimeter stride at a good 120 steps per minute pace.

I think my old Gunnery Sergeant would have been pleased with her pace and style of marching. The poorly shined jump boots would have made the Gunny very sad; he was big on highly shined boots.

SETI@home
I have been a long time supporter of the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence web site and project.

They recently change operating systems and I had to re-establish my account to continue doing work for them. It was a struggle to log in so I gave up for now. I plan to spend some of next weekend getting logged into SETI again.

In the mean time, I signed up for the Einstein project that maps gravitational signals from pulsars. I think this is a useful application for my laptop’s spare time.

There are a total of seven other shared computer projects that are managed by the University of California at Berkley. You can check the projects out at http://boinc.berkeley.edu. I would encourage you to sign up and support a project that appeals to you.

Nice Dad
The Princess has to fly back to Atlanta on the red eye tonight. That sucks and then she has to go to work when she arrives in Atlanta.

We all know that airline food is a serious oxymoron. I think that even MRE’s [Meals, Ready to Eat] taste better than what passes for food on an airplane these days. If you are flying in the back of the plane like the Princess, food is either not there or for sale at scandalous prices.

Nice Dad, that would be me, makes up a flight food baggie for the Princess. I know she will not be hungry when she arrives in Atlanta.

Remembering how she did not like the flight out, I found her, what I call her Russian buddskies, four small airline size bottles of top quality vodka like Ketel One and Stolichnaya to help her relax and rest on the flight. I just hope the flight attendants will give her a glass with a lot of ice in it and not hassle her about bringing her own drinks on board.

I also stopped by my favorite deli to get a submarine sandwich for her. It is her favorite one.

Then, there is the salty snack of dry roasted cashews. There is a sweet snack of Hershey’s Dark Chocolate. There is a protein energy bar I guess for the morning. I even include a liter of water from Fiji to wash everything down.

If all goes well, I will have to her to the airport in plenty of time to check and find her way to her gate.

Programming Notes
I may not be posting every day this coming week. It is a slow time and there is not likely too much for me to write about. Besides, I am fairly confident that you are off with other things to do than read my blogs.

Live well and play hard; it is the holiday / party season.

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to All
I want to wish all of the readers of Balancing Checkbooks a very Merry Christmas and my deep hope that you and your family and friends will enjoy the full blessings of the season now and in the coming year. I hope that each of you will be able to spend Christmas with family and friends.

In a short time, I will head off to Los Angeles International Airport to pick up the Princess. She will be home for Christmas and, for that, I am very thankful. I will celebrate Christmas with the Princess and the Big Guy and their mother on Sunday.

I have appreciated your regular attendance here and trust my musings and babblings have provided you with some minimal form of enjoyment and brought a smile or two to your face at the end of the day or whenever you read this web log.

I will be posting my usual Weekend Update post on Monday instead of Sunday because of Christmas. Then, my posts for the balance of next week are going to be sort of hit or miss. I think I will take a few days off and relax. We should all take some time off to smell life as it passes by with us.

Happy Hanukkah and Happy Kwanza
I want to wish you all a very Happy Hanukkah and a very Happy Kwanza. I understand and respect your beliefs and traditions.


Peace of Earth, Good will towards Men.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Short Day

Pathfinder service
The Pathfinder is all fixed now, except that it needs to be washed.

All it needed was a new battery. The old battery was about 74 months old. I got a partial rebate on the old battery warranty so I saved about 25% on the cost of a new battery. Saving money is always a cool event, even for me.

I phoned the Princess to let her know the Pathfinder was fixed. I figured she would be concerned about it since she drives it when she is in town. She was out so I left her a message.

I burned about two hours this morning between waiting for the Automobile Club emergency services driver to show up and jumpstart the vehicle and the time at Sears for them to put in a new battery.

Plus, I had to reset my clock and the radio because of the power outage when the battery was replaced.

Job Searching and Interviewing
Today was another good day for me.

I spoke to the recruiter who emailed me yesterday. She was looking to find someone who could develop training programs for a large regional bank. She needed someone who understands commercial loan and commercial real estate underwriting [I do], teaching [I do], and managing others [I do]. I think I surprised the recruiter when I had all of the experience and training she was looking for.

She asked me to send her my resume so she can push it forward up the decision tree at the bank. I emailed it to her so it will be on her desk tomorrow morning. She seems anxious to move this along so she can finish it before she goes on vacation on Friday afternoon.

I will see what happens here.

I had an email in my inbox from another recruiter asking if I was interested in talking with them about a banking job in Los Angeles. I replied and said I was interested in talking with them. I also attached my resume.

This email left me wondering how a recruiting company in Louisiana could land a job search for a Southern California bank. I guess I can ask when they call me tomorrow hopefully.

Some blog posts are shorter than others. Today was one of those days.

Live well and play hard.

Monday, December 19, 2005

Mondays are so overrated

I so did not want to get out of bed this morning.
Crud.

I just did not feel like getting out of bed this morning and I don’t know why I felt that way. I did have a good night’s sleep or what passes for a good night’s sleep for me. I would have been home alone and that would not be too much fun.

Anyway, I pulled my butt out of bed and dragged myself into work. I put in a full day’s work.

Do you ever read signs in buildings?
Well, do you ever read signs in buildings?

From time to time, I do read the signs and sometimes wonder what message they are trying to convey.

The sandwich shop in our building with the evil ice cream freezer chest has a sign up saying they proudly serve and pour their house blend of coffee. Fair enough, that seems pretty reasonable. They also have a sign that says they serve Starbuck brand of coffee.

So which is it, the house blend or Starbucks coffee that I am drinking every morning?

Based on the price, I’m guessing it is not Starbucks unless it is the Starbucks that got swept up off of the grinding room floor. At $1.75 for a large cup that I guess is close to 24 ounces / 700 milliliters, I think it is house blend. That would be a very cheap cup of Starbucks coffee.

Of course, I could be wrong.

Driving to Work.
I knew it was holiday time and schools were out for their vacations and breaks because my drive to work was quicker than usual and there was less traffic. Too bad it can’t always be like this.

Coming home was just as nice for a change.

I expect next week it will be even better as some of the large employers in the area shut down for the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

Job Searching and Interviewing.
I had a nice email in my in-box when I got home tonight. A recruiter at a company wants me to contact them about a position in their organization.

I will give the recruiter a call tomorrow while I kill time when the Pathfinder is being serviced. I just know that I will have time to kill and this would be one wait to occupy it.

Sweet Eating.
This is Sweet Eating time at the company where I am working now. I hope I do not over indulge and make a glutton of myself. One of the managers made a rum cake over the weekend and she sent over some slices for the location where I am working.

My slice tasted so good with my morning coffee. It certainly was a very nice start to the day.
Towards mid-day, one of the company vendors came by with a large box of chocolate for the President. He shared it with the rest of us.

I consider it a real feat of courage and self restraint that I only had four pieces of candy between lunch time and going home time, five hours later. There was at least half of the box left so there will some candy hopefully left by the time I arrive at work tomorrow.

Doug and Jury Duty.
The Big Guy called to say that he got excused from jury duty without having to serve as a juror. Now, he is off the list for a couple of years.

Doug said he was called as part of the pool of eighteen potential jurors that was called to form the jury panel in a hit and run traffic case where there was only property damage. The lawyers filled the required panel without having to call him.

Since there was only one case that required a jury today, all of the potential jurors were sent home and excused from jury duty until the next call.

That was our day today.

Live well and play hard.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Ohmygod, you guys showed up!

Ohmygod, you guys showed up!
“Ohmygod, you guys showed up! I was beginning to think that I wouldn’t see you before I left.” That was how Amy greeted Doug and me on Saturday night at Morton’s.

“I’m so glad you came to dinner tonight. When it got so late in the month, I was afraid that you weren’t coming.”

It is nice to feel wanted, especially at this time of the year.

As Doug said, “We had some things come up. But, here we are.”

Then, Amy gave us both a big hug and an air kiss on the cheek. This was just for showing up. Nice way to start a wonderful dinner. Of course, other diners were probably confused or surprised at what was going on at our table.

Next, it was give some gifts to Amy time. But first, we made Amy promise that you wouldn’t get mad if any of her clothes no longer fit as a result of the chocolate we had for her. We also made her promise that we were not responsible for any ill-fitting clothes following the consumption of any super-rich, premium chocolate.

One of the other servers, a blonde, I think was jealous that Amy was getting some nice things. The chocolate came in a very fancy seasonal box that opened like a book. Amy said she was going to open it later with her mother.

“But wait Amy, there’s more for you,” I said.

“Ohmygod, more? You guys are so sweet to me.”

“That’s why we are sometimes called Nice Guy Doug and Nice Guy Chuck,” I said as I handed Amy the small Coach bag with the red box in it.

Amy opened the box and the bag that her initial “A” was in. She giggled as she pulled it out of the box. She said it was so thoughtful and sweet of us to remember her at this time of the year.

The Dinner
The meal was excellent as usual. I think I may have overdone my time with the hot fresh bread. But, the bread was steaming hot when I cut it open and butter melted so quickly that it was hard to stop at only one bread roll for our dinner.

I had originally planned to have a large steak, the Chicago style rib eye steak [about 22 ounces / 625 grams] with a baked potato and sour cream and bacon in the potato. This would have left me with enough to take home for a meal on Sunday.

Then, Doug discovered that Morton’s is now serving a West Australian lobster tail at dinner. This was an excellent discovery because I changed my meal plans in mid-stream.

I ended up with a small steak and a lobster tail with the baked potato. Along with a salad and the bread, I was filled up when it came time for dessert. I went light on dessert and just had some vanilla ice cream. I am highly confident that I got more ice cream than Morton’s usually serves for dessert.

One of the benefits of knowing the server I guess.

Doug had his usual beef steak [very large size] tomato salad and the lobster tail and the Chicago style rib eye steak. He had his usual Godiva cake for dessert.

Burp.

Being Nice Guys, we ordered a prime rib dinner with a baked potato to go for his mother. Amy thinks we are so sweet for including his mother/my ex-wife in the meal.

Another Amy story
I told Amy the story about possibly having to wait for her the last time we were at Morton’s.

When I got there and gave my name to the hostess and specifically asked for one of Amy’s tables, the hostess said that she might not have one of Amy’s tables available. This was not what I wanted to hear.

“We’ll wait for one of Amy’s table then.”

“Really, you’d be willing to wait for one of her tables?”

“Yes, Amy is well worth the wait,” was my reply. Fortunately for us, the hostess had one of Amy’s tables readily available for us so we didn’t have to wait. Judging from her reaction, Amy was very pleased with our loyalty and commitment.

Douguary
Towards the end of the meal, Amy wanted to know when we would be back at Morton’s.

I said January was sort of sketchy right now since she was going to be going out of the country for a couple of weeks in January. I think Amy accepted this.

Then, I mentioned that we would be back for sure and certain in February for the traditional Douguary celebration. For those of you that are not familiar with the celebration, it is a month long festival that celebrates all things Doug.

I told Amy the traditional Douguary dinner at Morton’s is held on the last Saturday of the month with a group of six to eight celebrants, who will be named later. The celebrants will include the usual suspects from Doug’s life besides his father. Then, Doug and I got into a brief discussion of who we should invite and we came to a reasonable conclusion to discuss the list some more at a later time. I suspect the discussion will be during a meal of Mega-Combos at the Original Tommy’s Burgers in January.

New Year’s Eve
Amy wanted to know what we were going to be doing on New Year’s Eve.

Doug said he was not one for going out drinking and partying on New Year’s. He said he would probably be at home, writing something.

I said that I was between girl friends right now so I had no one to be with, assuming I wanted to go out on New Year’s for the moment. I said I, too, would be home, probably writing as well.

School
I made my final presentation on Friday night. It went very well as I knew it would since I had gone over it with the professor before class.

The woman in my class that I have tried to help seems determined to make her dissertation as difficult as she possibly can. She is intent on making it difficult from a simple data gathering point of view.

Her original plan called for her to interview managers in the Philippines as the principle research methodology. I tried to point out how difficult this would be in addition to the obvious that she was in the United States. If she goes ahead with her plans, she will end up with a qualitative based dissertation and that will be significantly harder to complete.

In the end, I felt good about my comments and suggestions. I tried to help her fashion a more manageable project.

Jury Duty Part 2
Doug has to show up at the local courthouse on Monday for jury duty. We talked about jury duty at dinner on Saturday.

I suggested that the cases that will be handled at his courthouse are likely to be simple civil actions like a dog bite or a minor criminal case like driving under the influence or serious speeding. I felt it was unlikely they would have any major criminal trials there because the courthouse lacks the physical security arrangements for housing inmates.

Doug wanted to know if he could bring an i-Pod with him to the courthouse. I said that he probably could but that he would have to turn it off when he gets sent to a courtroom as part of a potential jury panel. He asked if I thought he could take a back pack with him. I said yes but pointed out that it would be subject to a search by the sheriff’s deputies when he got to the courthouse.

I think Doug is not at the point where he has accepted the idea of jury duty and will do just fine if he gets called to serve on a panel. Of course, there is always the good chance that he will not get called and he will earn his $5.00 while he reads and writes in his journal.

Early Christmas
I told Doug that I was going to get him Sirius satellite radio for his car when we were at dinner. I said that he could go out and get it installed now and not have to wait until next week.

Doug was very happy and pleased to know he was going to get Sirius so he can continue to listen to the Howard Stern Show. As a side bar, Doug was up at 6:00 AM on Friday so he could hear the final terrestrial radio broadcast of the Howard Stern Show.

The Pathfinder
I was planning to take the Pathfinder out for a washing today. It would be clean for when the Princess comes home later on this week. For some reason, the battery was dead when I went to start it. It ran fine a couple of weeks ago.

I am now planning to take it into the dealership and have it checked. I think the battery may have died from old age and that it’s dead was brought on by cold, for California, weather. I know it is not really cold but we think a low at night of 48F / 9C is really cold. Alternatively, the alternator could have failed on the car and the dealership would have the proper parts in stock to fix the Pathfinder.

I will swing by the local dealership on Tuesday morning and wait while they fix it. I will miss a few hours of work but no one is likely to notice me gone since Tuesday is the end of the year Board of Directors meeting and there are still some elements that were not final when I left the office on Friday to go to school.

Fortunately for me, I have three or four magazines here to read so I will have something to do while I wait for the Pathfinder.

That was my weekend in a nutshell gentle readers.

Live well and play hard, it’s the party season now.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Welcome Skeet Shooters

Welcome Skeet Shooters
And thank you for visiting the original Skeet Shooter’s Dad’s blog. We actually talked about more things on the jury duty phone call. I think Doug will be able to get off the panel if he plays the proper film based quotes like, “I thought GOODFELLOWS was a great film,” or “I always wanted to be on a jury and see if I could play the Henry Fonda role from TWELVE ANGRY MEN.”

Where was Chuck last night?
Where was I last night? You all know that I wasn’t here.

The office building where I am working had a holiday party yesterday afternoon. I can’t stay away from free food so I held off until after the initial charge at the tables.
I was going to get something to drink but the line was long and almost everyone was giving cuts; you know, a co-worker comes and stands next to you and pretends to be your best friend until they got their cappuccino. Then, they leave you like a bad dream.

I was tempted to say something but most of the cutters were Asian females and they may not have understood the rules about standing in line like a good American. That bothered me plus I almost ran into one because she was on the really short side and I barely saw her step in front of me.

And people wonder why we have road rage on the freeways. I think people drive like they walk; very badly in some cases.

So skipped the coffee bar on the first pass at the refreshments and headed for the table with the brownies and cookies. Now, I was in my element. I played some football in high school so I felt right at home as I cut off an Asian female as she tried to make an end run around me to get to the brownies ahead of me. I stopped her dead in her tracks by blocking the access to the table with a nifty trap block.

Being a bigger American has its advantages from time to time.

The brownies were absolutely yummy and I went back for thirds. It was easy to do since we are on the ground floor and the food was just a few steps from the office front door.

I think I picked up an espresso on my second trip to the refreshments. That was a big mistake for me.

When you add in all of caffeine from the brownies and then the espresso, I was buzzing last night. It took me maybe an hour to fall asleep when I can usually drift off in a few minutes or so, unless of course Sharon phones me when she gets home late at night.

The rich food distracted me from my afternoon work. When I reviewed it this morning, I was really off my mark with my writing. I am going to be better today for sure.

The distraction carried over into the evening and I sort of have a blank at what I did after my dinner. I know I forgot to take my medicine after dinner. I guess I was watching some unimportant television show on the cable.

Denise the Hot Chick Cop
I think I have written about Denise the Hot Chick Cop who lives in my building before. Denise was in the building lobby last night when I was emptying my mailbox of junk and stuff.

I had wanted to ask her what the recommended procedure was when you are driving along on one of our local freeways and a high speed pursuit overtakes you. This was just not covered when I took my driver’s education course in high school. This actually happened to me as I was on the way to a meeting in San Diego in May. I was on the cell phone with Doug when the California Highway Patrol cars roared past me like a poorly organized cavalry charge.

Denise said that you can try to get out of the way if you can do that safely. She said that is what the law says you should do. Denise said that it was probably wiser just to maintain your position and speed and left the officers go around you. She said, “the officers, after all are trained in that sort of driving and it is less risky for them to go around you.”

That made me feel good knowing that I did what Denise suggested as the safest course of action.

Days
Obviously, yesterday, there was no need for ice cream. I was still a little calorie hung over from yesterday to consider ice cream today. That made it 23 and 24.

I’m depressed
I did a very stupid think at work today. I had some time to kill before a project progress review meeting. I had the time because the project meeting would determine what I will do next.

The meeting ahead of mine ran long, really long. I decided to go to the Kelly Blue Book web site [http://www.kbb.com] to see how much my 1989 Honda Prelude was worth.

This was so depressing. My Prelude, as a trade in on a new MINI Cooper, won’t even cover half of the sales tax on a new Cooper. It is only worth about $800 or so. That was so sad for me.

Oh well, I am over it now and have started to figure out how much longer I need to keep the Prelude until I can get a Cooper. I want to get a convertible because you can drive around with the top down for a long time in Southern California.

Life is good in Southern California; drivin’ in the sun with the top down.

The Prelude will click over 330,000 miles / 531,000 kilometers tomorrow on my drive to school. If I wait until the Prelude hits 400,000 miles, I should have finished putting Doug through college and the mortgage will be paid for on the old condo. I will have the chance to stash away a nice piece of change to go towards the purchase of the Cooper.

Office Holiday Party
I got invited to the office holiday party. The company is paying for food at lunch next week and I won’t turn down a free meal. Excellent.

Even better, instead of a gift exchange where I draw the name of person I hardly know, I can get off by bringing an unwrapped toy for the local firefighters Christmas toy drive. That is so easy. I drive bye a Mattel toy company outlet store on my drive on my way to and from work. Any toy that I pick out is perfect and meets the requirements. I think I will probably buy a doll and maybe a Hot Wheels. I don’t think either one would be a bad choice.

Job Searching and Interviewing
My original contract where I am working now ended yesterday. I figured the client would want to extend the term. This afternoon, the CEO was talking about another sixty days and I said let’s go for another thirty plus days through the end of January.

January will be a good month with no school on Fridays to conflict with billable time.

The CEO wants me to take on a project that is probably seven or eight years overdue. It is one of those projects that just needs to get done and I can easily do the job plus it will solve some other problems and get the Board of Directors out of management’s hair. There are a few more great benefits from having me complete the project besides nearly a month of billable time for me.

Doug and College
The Big Guy called to check in after his last final examination this morning. Apparently, as Doug described it, the exam consisted of showing up for class by Noon and turning in some assignments. Even with this simple requirement, he said that there were a few students who couldn’t get to the classroom on time.

Wowie kazowie; examinations have sure changed since I was in college.

And so, gentle readers and Skeet Shooters, I hope y’alls have a great weekend and I will be back on Sunday with another weekend update.

Be well and stay happy.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Jury Duty for Doug

Jury Duty and Doug
Doug and I had a long talk about jury duty the other day.

Most of the conversation was on how to avoid serving on a jury. I did my part to encourage his civic duty.

At first, he was concerned about being stuck on a long trial. I told him that the long trials are likely to be held at the main county courthouse and not the branch where he is going to spend sometime. I said that he would probably see only low level crimes like driving under the influence or marijuana possession or maybe civil matter like a slip and fall injury or a contract suit.

Doug suggested that he go to the courthouse with a copy of The Economist under his arm. He felt that it was a liberal publication and that might get him off of the jury. I pointed out the magazine is an international business publication and that, by reading it, he might end on a complex civil trial over non-performance of a contract.

Not a good idea.

We talked about driving under the influence [DUI] cases. I suggested that he say that he rarely drinks and doesn’t drink and drive and that he thinks people who drink and drive are stupid and deserve to be punished. I said that is likely to get him off of that jury.

Doug said he was going to pull the “I’m a student and I still have work to turn in before January 1st” trick. I said it wouldn’t work because the judge was a student once and knows all of the tricks. I said the judge was likely to say that he could work on his projects at night.

Yes, I know that would interfere with his Winter break movie viewing plans.

I also suggested that if he is being considered for a robbery case that he say his father is a retired credit union president and that he believes robbers are dangerous and should be locked up in prison for a very long time. I have never ever been fond of people who rob others. Bank robbers are the worst and the most stupid because the arrest and conviction rate is around 97% and you get to do time in a Federal prison where there is no time off for good behavior. Bank robbery is a Federal crime.

Actually, I don’t think he realizes how good he has it. He only has to show up on one day and if he is never called, he is off the hook for awhile. My first jury duty was in Beverly Hills and I had to go there for a solid week and sit on rock hard benches with no television and no cell phone and no i-Pod. W only had two year old magazines and anything we brought with ourselves.

Job Searching and Interviewing
I came up with a name for Michelle the recruiter on my way into work this morning. She was very happy that I came up with a name for her. She was even happier since my candidate had a lot of the qualifications she was looking for. I also think it will be an easy sale for Michelle since my candidate is not making the entry level pay of $120,000.

Michelle is probably thinking of a nice fat commission check from this placement. And, what perfect timing for it to come at year-end.

I checked the potential employer’s website. I was no where near close to what they were looking for. I would have loved to work there since the job site is only three miles from my house. It is a Chinese American bank so there would be a high likelihood that some of the staff would be Chinese American females and that would all good for me. But, I lacked the accounting background.

Some things just don’t add up for me.

DVD searching
The Big Guy called me today. I think he was out thinking about a Christmas gift for dear old Dad. Doug wanted to know if I had SIN CITY, the unrated version, [no, but I would like it] and KUNG FU HUSTLE [no, and no interest in having it].

I think I helped him out a bit with my answers.

There are so many other good choices out there for a DVD. You have 2046, the original KING KONG, THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, UGETSU, and POLAR EXPRESS.

I have my list of DVDs to get after Christmas. I will enjoy going to DVD Planet.com; I will probably go on a Saturday and drag Doug along so we can go gorge ourselves at the Original Tommy’s Burgers.

That was most of my day. It was slow in the courtyard today for a change.

Be well and stay happy.

Monday, December 12, 2005

Back to Work Day

Back to Work Day
Yes, like most of you gentle readers, I went back to work today. I would have preferred to spend the bulk of the day at home in my warm and comfy bed. But, like many of you, work pays the bills and maintains my Internet connection.

Anyway.

Job Searching and Interviewing
I had a phone call from a recruiter on my drive home tonight. That is always the best time to discuss a potential job and how my skills would fit what the client needs.

Not.

I asked the recruiter to call me in fifteen minutes when I would be home.

She called me a half hour later. So much for promptness and follow through.

I broke the recruiter’s hopes that I would be a good fit for the job. I broke my heart at turning it down since she said it paid up to $150,000 annually. Unfortunately, I lack the accounting background to be a controller at a community bank. I think I could have done the job but I would not have been happy working with numbers all day long for years at a stretch.

I did send out some resumes towards the end of the week for jobs that I think I could excel at. One was a credit union president at a troubled credit union. It had lost money so it would be a challenge to turn it around. I have done that before and swore that I would never do another turn around again.

Being out of work changes your pre-set ideas sometimes.

Monday Bits and Pieces
I finished up my Christmas cards last night after tossing up or out my weekend update blog posting. I ended up with a few leftovers that I can carry forward to next year or cover the ones I forgot to think about for this year.

The company where I am working now is going to have a Holiday lunch next week. I found out about the lunch when one of the administrative assistants asked if I was going to be working there next week. I told her that as far as I knew I would be there for the lunch.

After all, what’s not to like about a free lunch. Burp.

My morning was brightened by the CEO’s assistant who stuck her head in my office today. She wanted to know if I thought she was weird.

Women, take note, if you ask a question like that you probably are weird or fat or the dress doesn’t fit well. Remember; never ever ask a man a question that you don’t want to hear the answer to. Save those questions for your girl friends.

I told her that she was sometimes weird but, for the most part, she seemed normal to me. I guess this was a backhanded compliment and I think it confused her because she did not speak to me for the balance of the day.

Enjoy your day and be well and stay happy.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Weekend Update

Weekend Update
This was a slow weekend for me. My schedule just did not work out as I had planned. Life is like that sometimes.

Old Office Christmas [Holiday] Party
I went to my old office’s Christmas party on Friday. It was a very nice way to end to end the week except for the almost two hour drive home. Still, you have to set aside these minor inconveniences and remember why you are celebrating in the first place.

The staff had brought in enough food to feed a small army. Well, maybe feeding a small army is a bit of an exaggeration but there was a lot of food and champagne on the table.

We even had some Italian beer. I have never thought of Italy and beer as being in the same sentence. The beer was Peroni and it did taste good. It was a good beer but not what I would call a great beer like Heineken’s, Guinness, and San Miguel.

The office has a gift exchange. They do things differently here. You get to pick your own gift from the wrapped selection or you can pick someone else’s gift. A gift can be taken only three times before it is off limits. If your gift get take, then you can pick a new one or take one from another. It pays to have a high number in the drawing because you have the wider selection to select from.

After the dust settled, I ended up with two DVDs which somehow seems so logical since it is the entertainment finance part of the old bank. I ended up with FOREST GUMP [I have it already] and MISS CONGENIALITY [not in my collection and not a first, second, or third choice for me].

If I get invited back next year, I know what I will give as my gift. Yes, the two DVDs.

The best part about the party was getting to see the staffers. When the bank laid me off, I was gone before they came into work so there was no closure for any of us. The party gave us all a nice closure.

Even the parking lot valets remembered me and let me park for free. I think the cost saving was around $20 and that is always swell, anytime of the year.

Days
It was Day 20 on Friday. I knew there would be plenty of desserts at the Christmas party so I had no desire for ice cream.

For those of you who have been long time readers of the blog, you will no doubt be pleased to know that the long delayed building next door deconstruction had started up again.

I had a chance to observe the work when I was at the Christmas party. I couldn’t see too much progress with the work. Of course, work could have only started a day or so ago.

That filled up my activity card for Friday.

Kindly Dr. Drill N. Fill on Saturday
Saturday was dominated by my semi-annual visit to my dentist. Actually, my dentist is very, very good. I have never had any troubles from any of his procedures over the last twenty years. I came away from the appointment with cleaner teeth and no reported problems.

Big smile.

Why do dentists want to carry on a conversation while they have their fingers and instrument in your mouth? I know I can’t talk very well. I even have trouble hearing what is going on besides.

But, still having a visit to the dentist in the middle of the day, it does block out everything else.

After the dentist visit
I spent the balance of the day running errands and finishing up my Christmas shopping.

I only have one more gift to buy and that will be a certificate. I know I do not have to rush out and buy that one. I know the stores will always have certificates on hand for late shoppers like me. Besides, certificates fit so nicely inside of a humorous Christmas card. Nothing to wrap with a certificate.

I went bye the local computer products company to buy a new Norton Personal Firewall. My subscription is about to run out and it has been two years since I last bought the CD version of the program. I like to have a recent copy of all of the programs on my personal computer is case I have to reload the hard drive after a crash.

It must have been my lucky day because I ended up with $50 worth of rebates for buying two programs that I would have purchased anyway. A $50 rebate is not as good as free. It is still very nice all the same.

After four hours of eating on Friday, I was not in the mood to do any cooking for dinner. I was still on the full side. I ended going to my favorite delicatessen to get a sandwich for my dinner. I am somewhat of a regular there; most of the longer serving employees know me by my name. It is harder to learn the new counter girls’ names; they change regularly as they graduate from high school. Some of the counter girls have asked how long I have been coming to the deli; I tell them that I have been coming off and on since 1978.

One of the counter girls said that was before she was borne. I said it was probably before she was even a gleam in her father’s eye. But, that does sort of make you feel older in a way.

I was looking over the site meter reports on Saturday night because there was not much worth watching on television.

I noticed that one visitor to the blog, gentle readers, was from a law firm. This person must have had a lot of free time on his or her hands because the visitor spent almost 45 minutes reading the blog.

I wonder if I should be concerned or not.

Sunday
I had planned to go to the movies on Sunday. My plans did not turn out as I had thought they would end up.

The theater had its ticket selling computer system crash just before the opening. We were offered a chance to buy a ticket with our ATM or credit cards. I was not in the mood to pay an extra fee to use my ATM card to buy a ticket. I had planned to see either the CHRONICLES OF NARNIA or SYRIANA or both.

As I drove home, I figured out that I could go see the films after work during the week. This would not normally be my fist choice since I wear a suit to work. On the other hand, it is convenient and effective.

Plus, it will give me more time to do things on next Saturday when Doug and I go out for dinner.

Giving up on the theater and its technology, I came home and had my lunch.

After lunch, I worked on my Christmas cards. I managed to finish half of the list. I think I can finish the rest by the middle of the week. The ones that are waiting to be addressed are all local ones so that mailing them on Tuesday or Wednesday is not going to delay the delivery very much.

That was my weekend.

Be well and stay happy.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Weekend Preview

Weekend Preview
The weekend is upon us gentle readers. I plan to be very busy this weekend, what with the holidays and all. I still have some last minute shopping left to do but I know where to go and I don’t think it will be hard for me to finish up on Saturday.

Days
It was Day 19 and it was cold in Southern California [cool for the rest of you out there] so the thought of ice cream did not seem very appetizing to me. It was easy to pass on the ice cream.

Ice cream parlay
As you regular readers know, the Princess is coming home for Christmas. She is flying of Delta because they have the most flights between Atlanta and Los Angeles. The Delta terminal at Los Angeles International Airport has a Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream stand in it.

I’m thinking the Princess could swing past the ice cream place and pick up a big cone for Daddy on her way to meet me at baggage claim. I can suck the ice cream cone down while I wait for her bag to appear.

That seems like a reasonable reward since I am meeting her flight that comes in at 9:30 PM, if it is on time. I have to go to work in the morning and she has to drive out to her mother’s house and crash until it is time to go clubbing with the girls for 2005’s last event on the Take No Prisoners Tour.

The Princess
The Princess called me today to talk about her job interview. It seems to have gone well and she does have the qualifications for the job. I do hope she gets the job because she will give her boss two weeks notice and miss out on the busiest time of the year for her old job.

I figure she can sleep late and crash the post Christmas sales in the malls before she starts her new job. As I recall, she has always maintained that she has never met a sale that she didn’t like.

I also told the Princess to pick a weekend out for me to come visit her in March for her birthday. I plan to cash in some of my Delta Airlines frequent flyer miles for the ticket, assuming they are still in business and sleep at a Marriott with my frequent sleeper points.

Courtyard Observations
As I said earlier, it was cold in Southern California today. That meant a return to the long coats, sweaters, and scarves on the ladies in the courtyard during their smoke breaks. I suppose that this is a seasonal challenge to gazing in the courtyard.

I did happen to notice one young Asian woman today. She stood out for two reasons. First, she was dressed sort of trashy. She looked like she just got out of bed and grabbed whatever was clean from the floor and wore those clothes to work. She did not seem to make any effort over her appearance unlike many of her contemporaries.

Maybe she doesn’t like men. Oh well.

The other reason why I noticed her is that she kept tossing her cigarettes on the ground even though she was either standing or sitting next to a cigarette urn. It would take no effort to toss the cigarettes into the proper container instead of tossing them on the ground.

I guess Ms Trashy has no manners or no respect for the environment or for the fact the building management tries to maintain an attractive and clean building. I wonder how she would feel if we came to her home and tossed our trash on the floor of her room.

Doug
The Big Guy called today to check in after his Film Production class. He said he got his dailies for his final film project and had already half finished the editing work.

I had thought he was working with a group to create the film. It turned out that he did it on his own and used his best friend The R as the actor. Doug said the film was all properly exposed and in focus; those are the two major requirements for the project.

Doug said he needed to cut the film down so that it matches the playing time of a song he wants to use in the background. Obviously, it is a song that I have never heard of. But, then, most of the songs that he listens to are like that.

Earnin’ the Paycheck
I earned my paycheck today. We had a conference call with a proposed new vendor. I had a bunch of questions, five pages worth actually, about the company and their program. In the interest of ending the meeting today, I cut my questions down to about five keys ones.

The sales people from the proposed new vendor went through their song and dance and smoke and mirrors act trying to present a rosy view of their company and their product.

I had read the contract and it just didn’t seem all that rosy. So I asked some pointed questions about the costs of the proposed service, something the sales people glossed over. It turned out that the company had screwed up badly with their initial presentation to my employer. I felt very good about catching them with their facts down.

I also caught my employer’s other consultant falling down on the job. It was like the other consultants were gun decking their report. Gun decking is an old Navy phrase; ask me about it and I’ll tell you what it means and where the phrase came from.

Be well and stay happy and remember that life is too short for warm beer and cheap cigars.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Pearl Harbor Day

Pearl Harbor Day
Did you stop and pause and remember our honored dead who lie at the bottom of Pearl Harbor in the USS Arizona today?

I did.

Remember, if you can read this blog, thank your teacher. If you like your freedom, thank a veteran.

The Old Job
I got a phone call from one of the managers where I used to work until the bank laid me off. Lisa was calling to invite to the office holiday party. I thought that was nice of the staff in the office. Then, she reminded to bring a wrapped gift for the gift exchange. I picked up a party basket from my favorite delicatessen on the way from work tonight.

We also talked about getting together for lunch outside of the holiday party before the end of the year. Since Lisa is going on vacation for last two weeks at the end of the year, we ended up picking a day in December before the holidays. I will drive into my old office and meet her there for lunch. Lisa will figure out where we will end up for lunch.

Hopefully, it will not be raining that day.

I was going to write some more blog tonight gentle readers but I am getting really sleepy now and I am going to pad off to bed. I will get up caught up my Sunday night.

Be well and stay happy.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Amy's Candy

Amy’s Candy
Amy’s candy arrived today. This was about a week and a half early than the shipping estimation from Ethel M. While I was glad to have the candy in hand early, I was even happier when I saw how large the box was.

I have to send some stuff to the Princess in Atlanta and this box seems about perfect for the job. It is even better because it doesn’t have a lot of Ethel M company printing on the outside. All I need to do is create a new label and that will be easy. Then, I have to go to the post office and stand in line for a while after work to mail it.

Nice Guy Chuck again
I was Nice Guy Chuck again today. I made some phone calls to people I know to see if they knew about a marketing position that my friend Sharon could fill. They didn’t happen to know about an open position but said they would ask around among their larger circle of contacts.

I think I am doing more work for Sharon’s job search than I am on my own job search.

Job Searching and Interviewing
I got a phone call from a recruiting company. The caller wanted to know if I was interested in a temporary consulting job in Glendale [about 35 miles / 56 kilometers] away.

I told the caller that I was booked with another job that was going to run all month long. He didn’t sound very happy when I turned him down. Life is like that some days.

Courtyard Observations
It has been warm and sunny the last few days. Short skirts have returned to the courtyard for a brief encore.

Ms Lionel [you remember her, the young Asian woman with a lot of tats including one on her bicep] was prancing around in a short skirt that reminded me of the high school uniform skirts in BATTLE ROYALE, one of Doug’s favorite films. That was nice, especially since I was on the phone with one of my contacts when she came down for a smoke break so I had to force myself to look out of the window while I talked on the phone.

Life was even better then.

Christmas Dinner
The Princess and Doug decided to invite their mother to join them and me for Christmas dinner at my house. It should be a very nice holiday dinner for the family even though we aren’t married to each other any more.

All I have to do is cook the meal and then clean up afterwards. I don’t mind this since it is only twice a year and I can handle that easily.

Days
Day 17 came and went in a blur today. I didn’t even feel interested in the ice cream bars. I think I may breakdown and but one on December 30th which will be the last working day of the year.

Be well and stay happy gentle readers.

Monday, December 05, 2005

Nice Guy Chuck

Days
It was Day 16 and the Haagen Daze ice cream held no interest for me again today. I will admit that around 4:15 PM this afternoon the thought of an ice cream sandwich did enter my mind. Unfortunately for me, the sandwich shop was closed for the day.

Nice Guy Chuck
I was Nice Guy Chuck again today. I found two jobs that my friend Sharon could handle including one that was only a few minutes drive from her home. I spent some of my billable time doing a job search for her. I hope Sharon appreciates my looking around for her.

Morton’s
I think you all know how much Doug and I enjoy going to Morton’s for dinner. The only trouble for me is that I have to drive an hour or more to get there and that makes for a long, long dinner.

I found out today that Morton’s is going to open a restaurant about five minutes drive from my house. I could walk there if I wanted to have dinner. Notice that I said that I could walk there. I don’t think I will be waking there unless gasoline goes to $10.00 a gallon.

The only bad part is the restaurant is under construction and it will probably not be finished until this time next year. Still, it is something to look forward to.

I told Doug about the new Morton’s and his reaction was, “I guess you’ll be going to Morton’s more often Dad.” Doug has that correct.

Parking Card
I finally received the parking structure access card this afternoon. This was only a day and a half late. First, it had been promised for Friday morning. Then, it was going to be delivered on Monday morning. It finally arrived Monday afternoon.

The parking structure card lady, the one with the orange hair and pink coat, must have no sense of time at all.

Moving along, the parking card did work when I went to leave work tonight so was not a complete loss.

Amy’s Candy
Ethel M sent me an email saying they had shipped Amy’s candy. Since it is coming second day air shipment from Las Vegas, it ought to arrive by Friday in plenty of time for our dinner on the 17th at Morton’s in Costa Mesa. Doug and I are highly confident that Amy, our favorite server, will love the candy. The Princess loves Ethel M.

Be well and stay happy.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Weekend Update

Weather
The forecasted rain for Friday never really showed up.

All we received was some heavy mist that sort of made a mess of how the Prelude looks. It was more of an annoyance than anything else.

The plus side of the no rain was the courtyard was busy with smokers who were all covered up in long coats, thick sweaters, and long scarves.

Days
Friday was Day 15. There was no way that I could even consider ice cream on a damp, chilly day.

Courtyard Observations
Not too much to report for Friday, what with all the covering up in anticipation of rain and more foul weather. Obviously, Friday was not a day for good or bad tat viewings.

The most of the regular smokers were all out on Friday at one time or another or lots of times.

One woman was down five times between 8:30 AM when I arrived and 3:00 PM when I left to go to school. I guess she was not having a wonderful day. Maybe her supervisor was in a bad mood or just plain mean to her.

Donut Friday
Friday was Donut Friday at work.

I bring in donuts for the office on the first Friday of the month. I have been doing this since 1988. You can say it is habit forming.

I really enjoy a good fresh donut and would look like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man if I didn’t restrict my donut eating. Those of you needing a quick review of the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man should rent and view the film GHOSTBUSTERS. He is in the final scenes, large and trying to be in charge.

Everyone enjoyed themselves. I felt sorry for those who were out ill on Friday since the donuts will not keep over the weekend. Well, technically, they will keep if you refrigerate them. They just tend to taste crummy even when they are reheated in the microwave oven in the staff room.

For the record, I had a chocolate covered twist bar. It was yummmmmmie.

Parking structure access cards
The company I am working for ordered me a parking structure access card since that is less expensive than validating my parking ticket every day. This is a nice gesture on their part.

The CEO’s assistant had been calling the parking card person for three days before she got any acknowledgement. Not very nice to ignore a reasonable and timely request.

The parking card lady showed in our offices on Thursday around 4:00 PM or close to that. She said she would bring my card over to me in the morning; that would be Friday morning. That struck me as being reasonable.

When the parking card lady had not shown up by 2:30 PM, I became concerned because I was leaving work in a half hour to go to school to meet with my professor. I ended up leaving without the car because I needed to get to school.

I suppose I should not criticize the parking card lady. She probably has lots to do and has a lot of things on her mind. When I met her on Thursday, she seemed like she was not paying full attention to my need for a parking card.

But, on the other hand, maybe I was expecting way too much from a woman who dyes her hair a sort of orange color and wears pick coats that are way too tight on her figure. It is not a good visual sight by any measure.

Job Searching and Interviewing
The recruiter called me this morning and explained my difficulty. The bank liked my background and experience. But, always the but, the bank felt I would not be happy in a position they was too low in the food chain for me. I have heard that comment before so I am not that bummed out by hearing it again.

The recruiter said she thinks the bank will call me sometime next year. They are growing and expanding. She thinks they will want to talk to me when they have a higher level position available. Naturally, there is no stated when this opportunity might occur.

I wonder if I will be available when the bank decides they need my skills.

On a different note, the recruiter said that she had another client in Long Beach that might want to talk to me. I said sure, go ahead and toss my resume into the ring and let’s see what develops. So much for recruiter loyalty to one client.

School
My meeting with my professor went very well on Friday. We had allotted an hour for the meeting and were finished in thirty minutes.

My prospectus presentation was approved although I have to make a final live presentation in two weeks. The professor wants the rest of the class to see what a good presentation looks like. I can do that for him since he helped me tighten up my dissertation topic and point out several short cuts that I could take in my research that will save me about four or five solid weekends of typing.

I somehow got involved with helping another student in the class. I think she is so far over her head that she can not see the surface of the water. The professor spent an hour with her and made little in the way of progress. I don’t think I was much help to her.

The problem, as I see it, is she doesn’t have a solid dissertation topic yet. She has an idea that she thinks is good but seems marginal at best. She seems bent on making her dissertation as hard as it possibly could be. Instead of conducting research on American companies, she wants to conduct the research on foreign companies.

The other big trouble is that she refuses to listen to others that have good suggestions including our professor.

She went on and on for about twenty minutes before class taking about her research plans. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that her research plans were fatally flawed and would not work. You create your research device only after you have written the first three chapters of your dissertation. She has almost finished her survey form or so she told me.

I guess the one good thing for me is that I won’t be any more classes with her since I will be only doing writing work and dealing with my dissertation committee.

Friday Dinner
Doug and I went to Albertacos for dinner on Friday after school.

Oddly enough, Albertacos was almost overrun with high schoolers. Fortunately for us, Doug and I live in California where it is illegal to smoke in a public building. All of the under smokers were outside in the cool and mist, trying to act old, sophisticated, and mature. They failed badly on three counts.

Doug and I agreed upon the next Morton’s Dinner as December 17th. We plan to give Amy the server the Ethel M candy. I should point out that Ethel M chocolates are the Princess’ favorite brand.

I also got Amy something from Coach. It is colorful leather “A” and it comes with a clip so she could clip on her purse or backpack. The Princess has seen the Coach alphabet letters and thinks they are cute; that is encouraging for us. Doug and I decided to be low key because we don’t want to come across as being creepy or weird.

We talked about whether we should invite my friend Sharon or his friend Evelynn or both of them or none of them. We decided to just go by ourselves. I pointed out that we could invite Sharon and Evelynn to Morton’s for Douguary which is only two months away.

Anyway, getting back to dinner.

We had out usual, two No. 8’s with a medium drink. I had an extra carne asada taco because it was late and I had an early light lunch of only a salad. It was so good and filling. This is a stick to the ribs kind of meal that is perfect for Southern California winter-like weather.

The high schoolers added to the time it normally takes to get our food with their one drink or one taco orders. Most of the time, we are the only ones in Albertacos ordering around 9:00 PM. This meant that we finished dinner later than we usually do.

My drive home was sort of slow because of the weather. It is not safe to drive very fast on rain slick highways at night. It is all too easy to go out of control at high speed. That could be deadly. I ended up getting home a little after 11:00 PM.

Sharon
Sharon called me and left a message for me to call her on Friday.

I thought about calling her. But, I decided to wait until the morning. I know that Sharon is not a happy, fun to be with person when she is woken from a sound sleep. I figured she had been in bed and asleep for maybe an hour or more.

I also know that when Sharon calls me she usually wants to talk about something that affects her life and not necessarily me. I am a sounding board and advice giver. I like to think I am useful and helpful for Sharon but these phone calls can last an hour or more.

I didn’t feel all that helpful that late at night.

Sharon phoned on Saturday morning and we talked or rather I listened to her talk for almost an hour about how terrible things were for her at her job. She has an evil boss who makes the Wicked Witch of West look like a Sunday school teacher.

I have been doing my part by offering words of encouragement and forwarding her interesting jobs that she is well qualified for. Hopefully, Sharon will soon land a new job in a much nicer place.

The office is just this side of a slave galley because they let the workers go home while the slaves were chained to their oars. It sometimes resembles Fort Zinderneuf only without the Riffs, Sergeant Markov, the Vikings, and the dog [rent the film BEAU GESTE, the Gary Cooper version for an explanation].

Saturday Stuff
The phone call from Sharon was unexpected and threw me off my schedule of things to do on Saturday.

I had planned to do some shopping in the morning and get to the stores before the crowds showed up and sucked up all of the parking spots, even the bad ones far away from the mall building.

You can imagine how surprised I was when I pulled into the parking lot and found it less crowded than a normal Saturday morning. I was able to park close the building. Inside, I was able to scoot around and find everything I wanted to purchase in a matter of minutes. I even had a salesperson offer to walk me across the store to the department that I needed to go for my last purchase.

That is unheard of most of the time let alone on December 3rd.

I went to cash register anticipating a monstrous, spirit killing line of unhappy shoppers. But, boy was I ever surprised again. I walked through the cue ropes and was the first person in line and only had to wait a minute or so before I was in check out and on my way to the next stop.

My next stop was at my eyeglass store. One of the screws fell out of my favorite pair of glasses so I desperately needed to have them fixed so I could wear at work. I had a couple of minutes in a comfortable chair before the clerk fixed my glasses and realigned the frames for me.

On the road again, I was off to the next destination.

It was a great Southern California day to be out driving. It was a warm 73F/22C, cloudless day. Even the traffic was cooperating, the traffic moved along at freeway speeds with the only slowing coming at the exit.

The next store was less crowded than on a regular Saturday morning. I was in and out in almost a blink of your eye.

The last few stops were easy ones as well. There were no other cars at the drive through ATM so I had cash for the rest of the weekend and next week.

I dropped off a bunch of shirts at the cleaners. They will be finished on Monday and that is perfect timing for me as I only have three clean dress shirts left in the closet.

My last stop of the day was at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to pick up fresh tea leaves for the Princess and some coffee for her roommate. Then, it was home for lunch and some sports on television.

Army – Navy Football Game
Saturday was a very big day for college football [American football]. The only game that I wanted to see was the game between the Army and Navy service academies. I was an officer in the Navy so I think you can guess which service academy I was rooting for.
Saturday was the 106th Army – Navy football. I missed the first half but that was fine because the half time television replayed the highlights. It was a wonderful win for Navy. It was the fourth Navy victory in a row and that made it that much better for me.

This was almost end of the near perfect football season for me. Utah beat BYU again. Navy beat Army again and won the Commander in Chief’s trophy for the best service academy football team. Navy and Utah are both going to post season bowl games.

Life was good on Saturday for me.

Sunday Stuff
I did some laundry this morning and read the Sunday newspaper. That was not very exciting but something that needed to get done.

I managed to make it to the cinema today. I had planned to see two films, THE ICE HARVEST and AEON FLUX but they were not playing at the same cinemas. Oh well, bad luck with the scheduling I guess.

I ended up watching AEON FLUX. It reminded me a lot of THE ISLAND and GATACA. Although neither of those films had Charlize Theron prancing about in a skintight costume and that was time that was very well spent for me.

Doug said the film was based on a MTV cartoon series and that the film had been toned down somewhat to get the PG-rating instead of an R rating.

I think the film is a dull, plodding attempt at a science fiction action film. The action scenes looked sort of predictable and not that interesting to me. I think THE ISLAND did a better job. The fight scenes looked like they were edited by a group of high school video production students. I don’t know if this was the result of the rating requirement or a director who was in over her head with the complexities of CGI and blue screen work.

I was very happy that I only paid the senior citizen price and not the full fare. There are some valuable benefits to being older it seems and this was one of them. I wouldn’t recommend the film unless you see it at a cheaply priced matinee or better wait and catch it on a DVD where you can pause it from time to time so you, if you are a male like me, can enjoy the good parts.

Then, there is another sidebar to AEON FLUX. It was not made available to reviewers before it opened and that is almost a sure sign of a poor film. The initial weekend box office was just over $13 million; that means it has a long way to go cover the $60 million cost.

That was my weekend. I hope you week will be happy and productive.

Be well and stay happy.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Weekend Preview

Weekend Preview
This is the Weekend Preview blog. I won’t be posting tomorrow night because I have school and it is unlikely that I will get home much before 11:00 PM. That is too late for a blog posting for me.

Days
Today was Day 14. Since it was cool, cloudy, and windy, it was easy to pass on the ice cream freezer chest.

Courtyard Observations
Winter is definitely arrived in the courtyard. Long scarves are everywhere and so are long coats.

It was overcast almost all day long today. I didn’t have to draw the blinds in the morning to keep from being roasted by the sun. I could see out easier but then long coats are not very exciting to look at unless you happen to be a coat maker I guess.

Tomorrow will be a more off day for the smoking crowd. The weather forecast is calling for rain showers off and on for the day. I learned a long time ago when I was in the Navy that it is close to impossible to smoke in the rain. I think the smokers will be cutting back tomorrow.

Job Searching and Interviewing
The Princess called me to ask some questions about a reference from her mentor. She was worried because she is interviewing for a job outside of her company.

I said that if her mentor was an ethical and honest person, then it would probably be fine to use the mentor for the reference. The mentor was aware of the Princess getting passed over twice this year for job transfers within the company so the mentor should not be surprised if the Princess was looking elsewhere.

I followed up with a recruiter that I had spoken to last week about a banking job in Orange County. I had not heard from her and I thought I was due a phone call one way or the other.

The recruiter said she had already sent an email off to the bank for a status update. She said she would follow up again with them today. I gave her some days next week when I would be able to take an interview and expressed my preference for a morning interview.

Maybe tomorrow will bring me some news about the job.

School
I have an appointment with my professor to go over my presentation tomorrow before class. I think I have just about got it finished. The meeting will just be a polishing effort so I can make the final presentation so the other students in the class can see what a finished and good presentation looks like.

I am pleased that it has only taken me two presentations plus one more to complete the task. One of my friends took five shots at his presentation before he got it right.

If all goes well, I expect to start writing the dissertation in January. Writing the dissertation is very important to me and very time consuming so that may mean I will be cutting back on my blog postings for a couple of months, maybe longer.

I checked in with Doug this afternoon to see how his class went and, more importantly, where we would go for dinner after class on Friday. Surprise, surprise, we will go to Albertacos. We went to the Original Tommy’s Burgers two weeks ago. I am a little burned out of Fatburger and Doug is burned out of In n Out Burgers.

November Visitors
I want to thank all of you who stopped by the blog in November. I do appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedules to consider my ramblings. November had 250 total visitors.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

Be well and stay happy and I will be back on Sunday with a Weekend Update.