Weekend Preview

Weekend Preview
I think the Weekend Preview is going to be the bulk of my posting tonight. I think that speaks volumes the dull and boring life that I lead.

Saturday is going to be a busy day for me.

I start off with some laundry and cleaning about the house. It needs to be done and there is no one else to do the tasks. It is times like this that the idea of marriage creeps back into my consciousness. I wonder whether it is better for me to be single and have to do everything around the house or to be married and share the tasks with someone else.

Marriage would make my life more exciting and perhaps even interesting.

It is getting close to the final day for filing my taxes so I need to start working on them this weekend. I know that I will owe some money; I just do not know how much I will end up having to pay out this year.

Doug and I are going to get together on Saturday to exchange his laptop for my digital camera. After that, we will go to the Original Tommy’s Hamburgers for lunch. I had thought about Albertacos but Doug will be there tomorrow with his friend Mark for lunch and a screenwriting conference. After Tommy’s, we may visit DVD Planet.com to pick up some new DVDs.

My final event for Saturday is a trip to the local theater to see a performance of something called, “Swing.” I assume it will be a musical and be set in the 1940s or 1950s. I hope it will be an enjoyable play.

Sunday is my targeted writing day.

I am going to finish off Chapter One of my dissertation this weekend. I plan to turn it in early next week to my committee chairman. I suspect he will hate it and want it totally rewritten. Rejection tends to place life in its proper place and build one’s character.

To make things just wonderful, I learned on the weather forecast that I can expect rain off and on over the weekend. I am thankful that I did not get the Prelude washed this week as I had considered doing at one time.


There you have it gentle readers, today’s blog posting.

Be well and stay happy.

Blah, blah, blah

Blah, blah, blah
Today is Wednesday and I am so bored. I really did not want to write a blog posting today. I actually felt more like taking a nap or reading or even bundling up and going outside to smoke a cigar.

But, you came here today, expecting to see a new blog posting.

So, I will stick around and write something for your reading enjoyment. My day was dull and routine and so there is not too much to say.

Sunny Daze
It was a sunny day today. The rain storm passed in the early evening last night. While it was sunny, it was also windy.

The smokers were out in the courtyard in droves today. I guess they were making up for lost smoking opportunities from yesterday. I did feel marginally sorry for them because the wind was blowing out their cigarettes.

Milestone
Yesterday, the blog recorded its 3,000th visitor. That was a nice milestone to achieve and I thank whoever that visitor was.

Yesterday was also one of the blog’s largest number of daily visitors. We had 18 or 19 visitors yesterday. I am not sure why there was a large turnout. I know that I got no referrals from Skeet on Mischa or Skeet on Wilma since the Big Guy was in Arizona and had no internet access.

More Observations
I was driving into work this morning. I do that every day. I was stopped for a traffic light so I looked around to kill time.

There was a group of workers on the sidewalk on the other side of the road. They had their trucks parked up on the sidewalk, with their truck roof top emergency flashers blinking in the bright sunlight.

I wondered if they were afraid some pedestrian might not see this big yellow truck on the sidewalk and walk into it. A blind person walking on the sidewalk with a cane or a guide dog would have been easily able to miss the truck so why did the sighted people need an extra warning. Maybe the sighted people are slow and believe the truck is a mirage.

The workers were standing around, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, while one worker was digging up part of the grass area. All of the workers had on their warning vests and hard hats.

Why?

Maybe they were concerned that some seagull might fly over and drop off something on them.

The sidewalk was a nice, flat, concrete surface so there was no danger of tripping or falling into a trench. Admittedly, there was a minor trench that could not have been more than five inches deep that the one active worker was digging. Of course, he was standing in the trench so falling in would have required extra effort.

Moving along.

Women’s business fashion fascinates me sometimes; probably because I see a large number of business women walking in and out of the building.

It is easy to distinguish between a clerical woman and a management level woman. The clerical women sometime look like they just crawled out of bed and tossed on whatever was handy and trotted off to the office.

Let me describe a young clerical woman that I noticed on last Friday to explain my beliefs. Friday was a warm and sunny day here in Los Angeles at the beach.

The young woman looked like she was going to a party as soon as work was over and did not want to waste anytime going home to change. For the record, I have nothing against seeing young women dressed for a party. I just like to see that in the appropriate time and place.

The young woman was wearing black, knee high boots, nothing wrong here. They were made in a cow girl style so they probably would have worked much better in Dallas or Houston than in Los Angeles.

No points off so far.

Then, I noticed that she was wearing dress Bermuda shorts. I know they were dress shorts because they were black with a white chalk stripe pattern. The shorts also had a large cuff. I do not have any shorts with a cuff and I am a conservative dresser.

Do you have any shorts with a cuff?

I think we have to take some points away now.

Lastly, she had on low cut, white, knit tank top that fitted rather closely. It was a perfect party outfit that could stop any young man in his tracks. If I was a young man at a party and I saw her, I would definitely stop and speak to her. Hopefully, she would be interesting to chat with and be able to carry her side of a conversation. She had to be careful though when she moved around to keep from exposing more of her chest than is normally acceptable in a work environment.

I think we need to take away a few more points here.

Perfect for the party, two thumbs down for the office.

Most of the managerial women, on the other hand, that I have noticed the last few months do dress professionally and much sharper than some of the men. I was wondering when I saw one of the female managers from her company talking to the cow girl why didn’t the manager explain how to dress for work. The manager was turned out for a board room presentation; well pressed black pant suit, black heels, and white long sleeved blouse with a red scarf.

The manager was perfect and the other young woman could have been perfect if she had tried just a little.

Of course, they both are smokers so that would cause me to lose interest quickly and want to move on in search of a non-smoker.


That was my day so far gentle readers. I seriously doubt anything exciting will happen to me between now and bedtime.

Be well and stay happy.

Attention skeet shooters

Attention skeet shooters
I got a call from your humble scribe yesterday.

He is on vacation with his mother. They went to the Grand Canyon. I guess they wanted to miss the heat of Summer. Doug said that he was roughing it in Arizona. He had no cell phone coverage so there were no text messages to reply to. His laptop was still in the shop for repairs when he left so he has no Internet.

He did say they had color television so everything wasn’t completely primitive. He will be back this weekend so you can look for some more skeet shooting columns soon.

Rain
It is raining now. It has been raining off and on for most of the day. Naturally, since it is still almost Winter, it is cold [for Southern California] and damp. Not nice weather to be out it.

Of course, the rain made it hard on the building smokers. Only the very hardiest of the smokers were out in the breaks in the rain today and even those were huddled against the building overhang. I suppose the lack of smoke will do them some good.

Ice Cream
I forgot to mention that I had an ice cream cone while I was waiting for my flight to Atlanta on Friday. There is a Haagen Daze [or however you spell it] ice cream counter at the far end of the Delta Airlines terminal.

I used to go there all of the time when I would pick up the Princess when she flew into town. Of course, this was back in the pre-9/11 days when people could roam about the terminals as they pleased. I was thinking about the last time I had an ice cream cone there and I figured that it must have been either the Spring 2001 or Christmas 2000.

I do love that ice cream. I had a cone with what I thought was a large scoop of coffee flavor ice cream and one scoop of chocolate chunk ice cream, chocolate ice cream with chunks of chocolate in it. It did taste wonderful; I figure that I have blown my low sweets diet for the rest of the year almost.

But, at $5.21, that was a bit outrageous for two scoops of ice cream, even if it did include sales tax. For $5.21, the scoops should have been gianormous.


That was my soggy day gentle readers.

Be well and stay happy.

Atlanta and the Princess' Birthday

Weekend Update and Atlanta Trip
I had a wonderful but long weekend. Mostly, it was a lack of really good restful sleep that made the trip to Atlanta long. Still, it was well worth the time involved.

I flew out to Atlanta on a Delta Airlines Boeing 777. It was my first time on a 777. I was using my frequent flyer miles on Delta so I didn’t mind flying in the front of the plane. For my money, the 777 is a really nice aircraft; well first class is.

They have large, high back, leather seats that have motorized controls on them. I think there are ten different buttons to play with. I picked the master button that was labeled SLEEP. One long push, it rolls out to almost flat.

Then, I tossed and turned for the flight to Atlanta. We arrived early mostly because we had a 100 mile /160 kilometer an hour tailwind. We arrived so early that we had to wait for about five minutes while they rounded up the ground crew so the plane could be towed into the gate.

I had to hike through Hartsfield Jackson Airport in Atlanta. You never ever land a terminal that is close in. As I was hiking through terminals, thinking about Sherman’s march through Georgia in 1864 when Atlanta burned, I saw this young kid with bright blue hair. For the life of me, I could not understand what possessed him to dye his hair bright blue. Seeing him did lift my spirits and make me feel much better knowing that the Big Guy turned out much better.

I had a choice to ask the Princess to pick me up at the airport or ride the MARTA subway to my hotel. Knowing that the Princess is not an early morning person, I wisely opted for the relative quiet of the subway which was quiet except the rolling along the rails and conductor announcements of the stations. The $1.75 fare seemed reasonable as well.

The MARTA airport station is just outside of baggage claim. I rode the airport train into baggage claim from Terminal E. The walk in from Terminal E would have been a mile or two.

I was very glad that I put the liner in my raincoat before I left the beach because it was 34F / 0C while I was standing on the station, waiting for the train.

My hotel was only a block and a half walk from the MARTA station and only two blocks from where we would have dinner on Saturday night. It made everything very convenient for me.

I had breakfast before I tried to doze off and sleep. It was a very nice buffet so I helped myself to scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, melon, fried potatoes, blueberries, and a croissant roll. I had some decaffeinated coffee and tomato juice to drink. At least, I was not going to be hungry until dinner time and that was eleven hours away.

My sleeping was not the best in the world. I think I picked up made three hours of good dozing and no sound, restful, sleep at all. After my dozing was over, I phoned the Princess and Doug to let them know I had safely arrived in Atlanta.

I used my time for the rest of the day to go over the financial reports of a credit union that I am going to have a telephone interview with on Thursday. The credit union got into some trouble over a lending program. Actually, the credit union got into a lot of trouble of the lending program. The situation is a lot like the “tar baby” from Joel Chandler Harris. The more you handle it, the bigger the mess becomes. The credit union did not fully understand the risks associated with the program. In situations like this, when you do not understand things, the worst happens.

I can see some solutions that will help make some of the problems go away. But other problems will hang around for another two or three years. That is no fun. On the other hand, if this were an easy task then anyone could turn the credit union around.

Dinner at Morton’s was perfect.

Technically, it was not perfect because my favorite server, Amy, was not there to serve us. The one we had, Patricia, was very good. It did take her some time to warm up to the fact that we were there to have fun and that she could be part of our fun.

We had a very good table and could see most of the restaurant from where we sat. This was how the Princess’ roommate spotted the table of four software geeks.

Now, being a father, I thought they looked on the young side and not really worthy of chatting with the Princess. Dads can be that way. Her roommate concluded that they were not eating at Morton’s on an expense account because they would never be able to explain the meal to the bean counters with sleeve garters and green eyeshades so the, therefore, were earning a decent wage to go to Morton’s.

I observed that they looked on the young side and probably would have to be thrown back into the dating pool; like when you land a fish and then discover it is undersized and has to be tossed back into the lake or river. In the end, the Princess and her friends decided to pass on the young software geeks.

Dad was happy.

The Princess liked her gifts. But, then, I knew she would. I got her a gift certificate to her favorite department store in Atlanta. My friend Sharon got her one to the same store so she will have more fun shopping there next weekend. I also got the Princess a red wool or nylon Utah beanie. She must have liked it because she let me take a photo of her in it and photos are usually act of God event.

I wished that I had my Utah beanie when I was standing on the MARTA platform in the breezy morning.

The Princess agreed with me that this year I had achieved the best lifestyle and personality themed birthday cards in a very, very long time. I think it was the best birthday ever since she has moved away from home.

The Princess drove me the two blocks to my hotel so I did not have to walk in the cold. I could have walked the two blocks. Of course, I would have been cold but I was dressed properly for the walk except for no hat.

Not surprisingly, I slept reasonably well on Saturday night. I think I picked up my first real sleep since waking up the day before. I think I got about six hours of good sleep from Friday morning when I woke until Sunday evening when I went to bed.

I went out to the airport early to see if I could catch an earlier flight. It was my lucky day. I was able to get on a flight that left two and a half hours earlier than my original flight. This was important to me because I had to drive out to the South O. C. to let Doug borrow my digital camera. In fact, it made the trip out and back to Orange County and was back at my house at the time I would have originally landed.

Saving time is always an excellent endeavor or endeavour, for those you who learned non-American English.

After a simple dinner and checking my email inbox, I crawled into and immediately dropped off into a deep and restful sleep.

Utah Women’s Basketball
The Utes made to the regional finals with a game tonight. They seem to be playing a solid and consistent game. They have picked scoring from others on the team when the primary players have had off nights.

Unfortunately, Utah lost to Maryland tonight in overtime. It was a very close game with the lead changing teams regularly. I think one of the key factors was an injury to one of Utah’s leading scorers Shona Thornburg. Thornburg only had 10 points in the game when she is usually scoring around 15 to 20 points a game. She also missed the lasts five minutes of the first half.

I think the Utes might have been able to pull off the victory in regulation play had Thornburg been healthy for the entire game. Of course, this is the stuff that Winter long conversations are made of.

In the end, the Utes made it to The Elite Eight and in doing so raised the level of their play and recognition nationally. The television exposure may help with recruiting for the next years’ teams.

Other Odd Observations
I drive past the Los Angeles Air Force Station on my way to work everyday.

The Air Force Station is unlike any other base. It has no runway. It has no planes. The primary mission of the station is to manage procurement contracts for the design and manufacture of satellites and long range missiles. It is a sort of technical base with a lot of very smart people on it.

For some reason, the base staffers have taken to wearing cammies [camouflage /combat uniforms]. I used to wear cammies when I was in the Marine Corps Reserves. Marines always look proper wearing their green combat utilities. I just find it so hard to imagine these Air Force officers in a combat situation, having to fire a rifle or pistol. For Marines, it was and still is second nature.

Back to my observation, I think these Air Force officers are playing at being a warrior. They try to dress for the part but lack the look. It is hard to look like a warrior when the hair on the back of your neck is touching the collar on the cammies.

Marine Corps officers, even part time reserve officers, have their hair shaved so that it is long only on the top of your head. Marines do look the part of warriors.

Foreign Visitors and Long Time Visitors
We had some long time blog readers this past week. One visitor read for about 16 minutes and another read for an astounding 27 minutes. I had absolutely no idea that I was that much of an interesting or compelling reader.

I decided to not count anyone from Canada as a foreign visitor. There are a couple of regular visitors from Canada. We did have a visitor from Nigeria and one from Mauritius. I am just going to guess that those readers got lost and stumbled into the blog.


That was my weekend gentle readers. I hope you had as much fun as I did with mine.

Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Preview

Weekend Preview and Programming Notice
I’m going to Atlanta to see the Princess for her birthday. If my flight is on time and I make the traffic lights, I will be home in the early evening on Sunday. That means there won’t be any Weekend Update until Monday.

I expect to be tired and worn out from an out and back flight. I should have a ton of junk and garbage in my email inbox to wade through. I might even have some people who want to chat with me, demanding my attention on Sunday evening.

As you can guess, the only item in my plans that won’t be upset or delayed is crawling into bed on Sunday.

Homeowners Association Annual Meeting
I went to my homeowner’ association annual meeting on Tuesday night. I live in a condominium and the association manages the building for the property owners. It is an annual event and one I wish I could avoid. Unfortunately, the fine for missing the meeting is $50 so I will show up and suffer through the meeting.

I consider myself extremely fortunate to have avoided being dragooned into serving on the board of directors. Some of my fellow residents believe that serving is a wonderful event.

In that case, let me step out your way. Go ahead and serve in my place; I will gladly sit on the sidelines and show up once a year. I’m happy with that.

Aside from being held in an unheated area of the building in what passes for our Winter, the annual meeting is open season on hearing your own voice in an assembly. Some of my neighbors like to hear themselves talk because they couldn’t shut up. It was out season on speeches; like many political speeches that will pollute the Fall air, these speeches said little and added even less to the general discussion or understanding.

The only nice and modestly compelling aspect of the whole evening was that Denise the Hot Chick Cop was sitting next to me. I just wished it had been July so Denise would not have had to bundle up like she was going out in the snow.

I so very glad that it was over in an hour. We have had much longer meetings over such incredibly trivial things like what color paint to use on the balcony railings. It sometimes seems to stagger the mind.

Nesting
The nest appears to be complete now. I could see both of the birds flying to and from the nest this morning.

If I were guessing, I would anticipate that the female will lay her eggs in the next week or so. The birds could be born in another month or so. All of the birds should be gone by the end of June or early July.

Job Searching and Interviewing
I had my phone interview today for the compliance position. Overall, it went poorly in my mind. I told the interviewer that this was not going to work and that I was not the person they needed.
The recruiter did a poor job of selecting me for the position. The recruiter did not understand what his client wanted and needed. I consider myself as being capable of filling the job but I would have needed some time to bring myself up to the level the client needed.

On the plus side, I got a return phone call from the recruiter who emailed me on Tuesday. She had an interesting banking job in downtown Los Angeles. We talked briefly and she said she was going to forward my resume to her client either today or tomorrow. That was an uplifting conversation for me. I will see how things develop here.

When I got home, I had another email from another recruiter who was looking for a Vice President of Lending and wanted me to call her if I was interested. Of course I was interested so I called her right away. We talked for a few minutes doing the prequalifications and I seemed to pass with flying colors.

The recruiter went on to tell where the position was located; close to my home, always a major plus. Then, the recruiter told who her client was and I said, “No thank you.” The CEO, and likely direct report, has a well earned reputation of being difficult to work for. The credit union goes through managers regularly and has trouble hanging on to good ones.

I am too old and too experienced to want to beat my head against a wall again. I will save that task for the young who have stronger heads.

Doug’s iBook laptop
I got a call from the Apple repair company with a diagnosis of the computer. It had a fried hard drive.

A new hard drive will be about $250 including installation and program loading. The new hard drive will be a 40 gigabyte device. While I was not thrilled at that cost, it seemed reasonable to me. At least, I would not have to reload the new hard drive and burn a couple of hours at that assignment.

Then, the technician told me that they could recover some of the files on the hard drive. The cost would be $90 an hour of work and, with a 30 gigabyte hard drive; I was looking at five hours of work. OUCH. The technician said it would be less if they only recovered selected and therefore important files. I told the technician that I would call him in the morning and let him know which files Doug wanted.

I called Doug and asked him if he knew which files were really important to him. At first, he couldn’t think which files but we finally got around to figuring out which ones were the ones he would like to have saved. I will call the technician and see what can be done tomorrow.


That was my day gentle readers; have a great weekend and I will see you when I get back home.

Be well and stay happy.

Take No Prisoners Tour

Take No Prisoners Tour – 2006
I found out why I was unable to talk to the Princess over the weekend this morning when I popped open my email inbox.

I had an email from the Princess. She said that her best friend Kim and her friend Sara from graduate school were in Atlanta this weekend to help her celebrate her birthday and they did not head back to the Coast until yesterday afternoon. The Coast is California for those of you who are not familiar with the term.

Apparently, they were very busy and active over the St. Patrick’s Day weekend. Now there is a perfect time to have a birthday blow out. Why does that not surprise me?

It is wonderful to have friends who will travel across the country and party with you when you turn thirty.

My thirtieth birthday was a quiet affair with just my now ex-wife and me. I was in law school at the time and I was studying for my first year law student’s examination. My wife got me a bottle of Geritol [energy supplement for older people] and some men’s hair coloring stuff.

Utah Women’s Basketball March Madness
The Utah women’s basketball team advanced to the Sweet 16 Round yesterday with a victory 86 – 65 win over Arizona State. The Utes beat Middle Tennessee in a close game of 75 – 71 in the first round.

The Utes victory was even sweeter because BYU lost and is going home to Provo.

Utah will play the winner of today’s Ohio State – Boston College game. That should be a good game.

Local Weather Report
It was clear and sunny today. It is also warming up a bit too. If my luck holds, I ought to be able to hop out on the balcony on Friday afternoon and smoke a cigar while I read. That will be an excellent way to relax before my flight to Atlanta on Friday evening.

Fashion Comments
As you know, I am older and therefore dress more conservatively than most of the men who work in the building where I am working now.

Today, though, I dressed down with my blue blazer, grey wool pants, black shoes, and blue dress shirt. Instead of my usual tie, I wore a burgundy paisley bow tie that I tied myself. I thought I looked nice. Tomorrow, I will be back to a medium grey suit, white shirt and dark blue tie with white stripes.

Anyway.

I was looking out of the window this morning while I was waiting for a 45 page document to print. Even on a laser printer, 45 pages still takes time, especially if it is already printing another job.

I saw a young man in a suit out in the courtyard smoking. That, in and of itself, is not unusual or otherwise remarkable by any measure; an event like that happens all of the time. I did not really pay much attention to him until he walked out from behind the courtyard fountain.
That was when I saw his white patent leather shoes.

I thought white patent leather shoes for men went out with the disco era and bell bottom polyester suits for men in the 1970s. I was amazed that shoes like that were still being made. He certainly made a statement although I am unclear of his intent.

It just did not make any sense to me.

Job Searching and Interviewing
The troubled credit union that needs a president contacted me this morning. They want to set up a phone interview with the selection committee and your author. I think the call will take place next week sometime. I think it will last between 30 and 45 minutes.

If I do well on the phone interview, I suspect they will invite me in for a meeting with the full Board of Directors. But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves now.

I got another email from a recruiter this afternoon asking if I was still looking for a permanent position. I called her back to say that I was looking. Unfortunately, the recruiter was out of her office so I left her a voice message. Maybe she will have a position that is perfect for me.


Not a very exciting Tuesday for me.

Be well and stay happy.

Happy Vernal Equinox

Happy Vernal Equinox
I want to wish all of you a very Happy Vernal Equinox. The Vernal Equinox is when the sun moves north of the equator. In the northern hemisphere of the planet, this is the first day of Spring.

I hope you enjoyed it gentle readers.

It was a wintry first day of Spring where I live and, from what I have seen on the television weather reports, it looked like it was Winter still in most of North America. For most of the day, it was rather windy and therefore cool here. The forecast calls for the possibility of rain tonight and into early tomorrow morning. Since I am in for the night, it can rain for all that I care.

Almost Car Service
I thought I was headed for an expensive trip to the car dealer’s service bays today. I heard a thumping sound on Saturday morning when I went to go to see V FOR VENDETTA. It went away when I left the cinema so I was not too concerned about that. The noise was back on Sunday and now I was concerned and I planned to take it into the dealership today to have the car checked before things got worse.

Oh yes, I also had a warning light come that indicated my brake lights were not functioning properly. I checked the lights as I backed up in the building parking structure and they glowed red when they were supposed to glow. I was thinking there was a failure in the sensor.

I got to the dealership and explained my problems. The service advisor said my tires developed a flat spot from sitting overnight. The spot goes away when the tire gets warm. He said I won’t have the problem in the Summer because the tires will not get cold enough to make a flat spot. I can see how the tires would get cold since it is hitting around 50F/10C at night now.

The brake sensor was working fine; I had a burnt out light bulb. I bought a new one for $1.68, including sales tax and installed it myself. That was the least expensive trip to the dealership that I can recall.

Everything works fine now.

Nesting
It looks like the birds have finished their nest construction project over the weekend. I did not see any more of the birds bringing building materials to the nest today. Of course, I could have missed seeing that when I was at work or on the telephone.

Maybe I should bring my binoculars into the office for a better view.

Minor Programming Notice
I will not be tossing up a blog posting tomorrow night. I have a meeting after dinner so I will have to pass on another posting. I will be back on Wednesday with another regular posting.


Today was one of those days that passes quickly and, for the most part, without much of an entry or excitement. Maybe tomorrow will bring some excitement for me.

Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update

Dieting and other good things
I have been watching what I eat since I am a marginal diabetic now. My last blood sugar test came in very well.

I essentially stopped eating candy and sweets sometime last year. I rarely have dessert anymore unless I am at Morton’s. Then, I will have dessert. For example, I bought a box of Girl Scout cookies last Saturday; thin mints, my personal favorites. Normally, the box would have been gone by the end of the weekend. I still have almost third of the box left now, a week later.

Carbohydrates are a challenge for me. I have been reducing them as well. I actually look at the nutritional serving information on food packages now when I never even gave them a passing glance. I used to enjoy bagels in the morning until I read that the brand I liked contained almost 60 grams of carbohydrates in one bagel and that did not include cream cheese, even light cream cheese.

I switched to English muffins with peanut butter; 28 grams of carbohydrates instead and just as filling. Of course, I have had to give up the banana that I used to have with the muffin.

Another new variation with my diet has been to increase my greens consumption. I usually have a salad for lunch now and do not altogether miss the sandwiches and hamburgers and French fried potatoes.

I also have taken to adding chili powder and salsa to the salads I make at home. I read somewhere that eating spicy foods was good for you and that this was a simple way to add spice to your diet. Surprisingly, this all tastes rather good. I will admit that it does take some time to get used to though.

The net result of my eating better has been a slow and steady weight loss. So far, I think I have lost close to 20 pounds/9 kilograms so far. I am very close to the top end of my target weight range and I figure I can be in the target range in another couple of months.

I did not set the target range. The range, based on my height and age, came from my doctor and the United States Marine Corps. One supplied each end of the range.

Anyway; I have been losing weight and fell good about it. But, with all good things comes the dark side of life, my suits are not fitting as well as they did when they were made for me. Of course, I was heavier than and the loose fitting is to be expected. If I continue along the path of healthy eating, I will either paying for a lot of alterations or may be buying a bunch of new suits.

That is a very nice corundum to face.

Job Searching and Interviewing
Things seemed to improve on the job front for me at the end of the week.

I had sent a resume off to a credit union that was in some trouble with its lending programs. I have cleaned up other credit messes before and this one looked fairly manageable.

It had been a month since I sent the resume in and there had been no response. I figured that I was out of the running for the position. Then, I came home on Friday and found an email from the credit union’s human resources person that said they would like to schedule a preliminary telephone interview with me this coming week.

The telephone interview makes a lot of sense since they are a drive from the beach. The credit union, while still in Los Angeles County, is about 112 miles/180 kilometers from home, according to the driving direction from MSN.com. It doesn’t make much sense to drive all that distance unless there is a strong interest in me as the candidate.

That was very nice.

Then, on Friday morning, I got a call from the compliance job recruiter. His client wants to set up preliminary telephone interview for sometime next week. Gentle readers, you may recall that this is the recruiter who called me in less than five minutes of sending him my resume.

Telephone interviews are always a challenge because it is difficult to convey enthusiasm and interest in the job when you only have your voice to work with.

Annual Physical
I am healthy.

That was the Cliff Notes – executive summary version of the examination results. My cholesterol is well under control and I am below the desired levels. So, that means I can have my steak at Morton’s this weekend when I celebrate the Princess’ birthday in Atlanta.

My blood sugar is under control but I think I can do better with time and drive the level lower. I have only recently been paying attention to my diet and the carbohydrate levels.

I do have to go in for a colonoscopy examination in the next few months. I am not looking forward to that at all.

PC Video Camera
I hooked up my video camera to the laptop over the weekend. Some of the people I chat with online want to see what I look like in a semi-live version. I have no idea why they would want to see me live. I have exchanged photos with them.

Perhaps, they do not realize that when you get as old as I am that you do not change very much from year to year. I mean, grey hair is not going to suddenly, and naturally, turn dark brown over night now. Sure, I could go get some of the hair plugs and star to re-grow some of my hair. But, I am not willing to spend the money.

I figure that if women can not accept me with an almost full head of grey hair; then, I do not need to worry about them and their make-up they put on with a trowel.

The Navigator or L. A. J. or Jay
Doug called me last night, needing some Los Angeles driving directions.

He used to call me all of the time when he and Robin would be coming up to Los Angeles to see a show or go to a basketball game at the Staples Center. Now that he has a navigation computer in his car, the Marisa Couper [the name is a long story and I won’t bore you with here], he can find his way around on his own.

Last night, he was the passenger and, I suppose, the navigator.

He was looking for a particular street and asked me if I could help out. I don’t know every street in Los Angeles, just the major ones and how to go from one area to another area easily.

I had to pull out my Los Angeles Street Guide to find the street. As things turned out, they were only a block short of the street they were looking for. I told him they could get out of the car and walk to the destination since they found a parking spot. Parking in West Hollywood is usually bad most of the time and generally terrible on the weekends.

Doug was happy and surprised that they were there.

I told him that he could call me if he needed driving directions back to behind the Orange Curtain and his home. Doug said that if he called it would be very late and that he didn’t want to wake me. I said that if he called, he would not be the first child to call me, late at night, looking for driving directions.

Doug said thank you and that he thought he had everything figured out about how to get home. Since I did not receive a phone call, I assume that he made it home eventually.

I did follow-up with the Big Guy this morning. He did make it home in one piece; I didn’t ask how late it was. He and his friend had gone to hear a performance at the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and had stopped at a store in West Hollywood to pick up a shirt that his friend had ordered during the week.

Doug said his friend had gotten some driving directions from MapQuest.com and that they were not very good. He said he regularly uses Google maps. I prefer the tried and true of paper maps; I have spent too much time with paper maps and charts to give them up so easily.

For the record, I actually served as my ship's navigator when I was a youngster. This was in 1969 on the good ship USS Lucid, an ocean going minesweeper.

Balcony Smoking
No balcony smoking for me this weekend. It was sunny and clear but it was also cool at my house, even with the sun. The temperature never got above 62F/17C. Plus, it was breezy as well; a damp wind chill can be very biting.

It is no fun to have to bundle up just to enjoy a cigar and read a good book.

Barnes & Noble Booksellers
On the subject of good books, I did go by my local Barnes & Noble on Friday afternoon on my way home from work. I wanted to pick up a book to read on the plane ride home from Atlanta next Sunday. I am planning on the movie on the plane being bad or badly cut for general viewing.

I am first class flying on Delta Airlines to burn up my frequent flyer miles. This will kill about 75,000 miles on the scorecard. I don’t want Delta to go down the drain in bankruptcy court and leave me holding several hundred thousand useless frequent flyer miles.

That would be a real shame for me.

I was able to buy three books from a series that I started reading the first of the year. With the three books I purchased, added to the four that I have, I am now just over half way through the series. There are only twelve books in the series.

I figure that one book will be more than enough to hold me for the flight, especially when you figure in a meal of some sorts and, of course, the free drinks.

Courtyard Smokers
It was an interesting day out in the courtyard on Friday.

Almost all were bundled up because of the winds that were blowing in the aftermath of a rainstorm that passed through on Thursday night and early Friday morning. It was a nice, wintry day.

One of the smokers caught my eye. This time it was a male smoker and I was shocked, surprised, baffled, dazed, and confused by what he was wearing.

I asked the female manager who is across the hall from me to give me her opinion on his dress. Her first reaction was, “Oh, my god.” That sort of summed everything up in three simple words.

The man was wearing some aqua colored jeans or denim pants. The color alone would have been enough to cause comment. The pants had a highly unusual pattern on them. I would call the design either a floral print or a tribal design. After thinking about the design for a while, I am more inclined to go with the tribal design more than anything else. The pattern reminded of me of photos that I had seen of Aboriginal rock drawings in Australia or other cave drawings.

It made no sense to me whatsoever. For the record, I have absolutely no plans to go out and buy a pair of pants like that now or in the future.

Cinema
I did finally get out to the cinema this weekend.

I only saw one film over the weekend. This is a far cry from the six films Doug and I saw in one weekend.

I saw V FOR VENDETTA. I really liked the film. It seemed to play true to its graphic novel roots. The visual impact was close to that feel. The cast was well selected.

Natalie Portman does a fine job in her role. I think she is trying to reduce the Queen Amidala/Padme character now with a more challenging character, dressing up as prostitute in a school girl’s dress was certainly going against her past characters. I was wondering why Portman went around for a third of the film with no bra on; I guessed she wanted to remind us that, with her head shaved, she was still very much a female.

John Hurt played the bad guy in the film. He did a good job in his limited appearances. Still, I kept thinking about how much better job Sir Ian McKellen could have done a much better job. I was continually reminded of McKellen’s updated version of Richard III as I watched the scenes in the film that showed the totalitarian state’s regime.

I can highly recommend the film. I will also purchase the DVD when it is available in about five months, wide screen version of course.

I don’t think it is a date film unless you have found a partner that likes action, adventure, and stylized and well choreographed violence. But, it is an excellent film to go see after sitting through something like EIGHT BELOW or THE PINK PANTHER.

Foreign Visitors to the Blog
Last week was a good week for foreign visitors to the blog. We had visitors from:

United Kingdom
Canada but is Canada a foreign country since they are like us except for Quebec
Taiwan
Singapore
Australia
New Zealand


That was my weekend gentle readers. I hope your weekend was enjoyable for you; mine was.

Be well and stay happy.

No March Madness for me

March Madness
March Madness started today and I must be one of three Americans that are not in at least three basketball pools, legal and otherwise. This is just fine with me; I avoided having to make decisions on various teams and my Utah men’s team did not make the tournament but the women’s team did. I know next to nothing about women’s basketball so I wouldn’t know which teams to pick anyway.

Take No Prisoners Tour – 2006
I learned today that the Take No Prisoners Tour for 2006 kicks off this weekend.

I called the Princess to wish her a happy birthday. I know I was a couple of days late but I figured that I would let the excitement calm down first. I asked her how the celebration went.

She said it starts tomorrow on St. Patrick’s Day.

The Princess has the day off; she will be joined by her roommate who is taking a day off and their best friend. The roommate and best friend have some activities planned and I am willing to bet they will be in a bar before the day is over.

I pointed out that she is part Irish, on her mother’s side so celebrating St. Patrick would be in keeping with her ethnic heritage. I’m uncertain how her brief fling with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints [the Mormons] all fits into the matrix; but, I am highly confident that there is a valid linkage and explanation somewhere. I just can’t see it as yet.

I am looking forward to the multiple versions of the Take No Prisoners Tour when I see the Princess and her friends for dinner on the 25th. The Princess said that her friend Sara from the University of South Carolina MBA School might be in Atlanta on the 25th. If Sara is in town, then she will join us for dinner. Sara is one of my favorites of the Princess' friends.

The Take No Prisoners Tour was coined by dear old Dad last year after listening to the Princess describe how she, her roommate, her best friend Kim, Sara, and one other girl played around in Las Vegas for a long weekend. They readily accepted food and drink for men who were well intoxicated and therefore unable to defend themselves. They allowed the men to run up large bar and food tabs and then they left to go do other fun things.

I said that it sounded like, “you were taking no prisoners on the tour.” The Princess giggled and laughed and said that was about the whole story.

Now, you know where the Take No Prisoners Tour came from.

I have only one comment in passing for the young men of Atlanta. You have been warned; be alert; be careful or you may find yourself with a larger bill than you anticipated and a bigger headache in the morning.

Weekend Preview
This is another writing weekend for me. I want to finish Chapter 1 of my dissertation this weekend. I need about another eight to ten pages and I will feel comfortable about that.

I have some laundry to wash and some food to buy at the market.

I also need to visit the bookstore and pickup a couple of simple novels to read on the flights to Atlanta and back. I know the movie on the plane will suck so some nice science fiction or historical pulp fiction would be perfect.

I would also like to see some warmer weather on Sunday so I can go outside and smoke a cigar while I sip some of Lisa’s fine port. But, I am not counting on being able to do this activity because there is a forecast for rain.

Even if it does not rain on Sunday, the temperature out on the balcony is probably going to be around 58F/14C and be breezy and cloudy on Sunday. That is certainly not smoking outside weather for me.

I know that I could bundle up but where is the fun in that?


I hope you all have fun weekends and that you behave responsibly. If you can’t behave responsibly, then do not embarrass yourself and friends.

Be well and stay happy.

Blundering Along

Blundering Along
I went blundering along today; merrily on my way to here and there.

It was a great day to be out in the Prelude with the sunroof open. I did have the heater on at a moderate level and blowing the warm air in on my feet and then out the opening. We had lots of blue sky today and that is always nice.

I drove out to my old office for lunch with a former co-worker. The drive was good going there and then turned evil, wicked, and miserable on the way home.

Largely, it is a function of the lesser life forms that manage to screw up life as we know it for the rest of us. The 405 Freeway, which Doug will tell is the main road you to drive when you go to hell, is undergoing a construction phase. Construction has been going on for over a year so it is not new. For that matter, construction on a Southern California freeway is as normal as the sun rising in the east every day anywhere else in the known world.

Having noted that modest factoid, I am amazed and surprised that some drivers are so incapable of driving like with some minimal degree of common sense. It seems like it takes an act of God to allow someone to merge into your traffic lane; allowing some one to merger in will not delay you on your journey home. It may even allow you to arrive home sooner because traffic will flow freer.

Oh well, I can’t change their minds. I just sit in my traffic lane and watch people jump from lane to lane and make no real progress towards wherever they are going.

Nesting
Some of staffers came into my office this morning to look at the nest construction project. I think it is complete but I am not 100% certain that it is. One of the staffers asked if I was going to bring my binoculars into the office so she could have a better view of the nest and the birds.

I thought that was a bit presumptuous buy choose not to say anything.

Coz Classes or More Bad Tats
I thought I had dodged the bad tattoo exhibition this week with the cosmetics class students.

But, I was wrong; so way far, dead out, wrong.

I saw a youngish woman, maybe in her late twenties, today. She was not hard to miss seeing. First of all, she was on the large side. So, black was probably the best color choice for her to pick out.

She stood out in a major sort of way.

Anyway, she was wearing those tight Capri style pants that stop about mid-calf or so that seem to be popular for some reason. Doug and I have no idea way that style is popular. She had large and what I thought were really bad tats on the outside of both calves. They were both large graphic based tats. The tats started just above her ankle and probably ended up at her knee, maybe even higher. Neither one matched the other.

But, I have absolutely no interest in finding out how much further they went up her legs.

The youngish woman, in my mind, compounded the bad tats issue by wearing a low cut blouse which exposed a nice butterfly tat on her breast. Well, I think it was a butterfly tat. I did not stay to cast more than a very furtive glance because I was afraid that she was going to pop out of her top in front of everyone in the courtyard. I feared that some of the male smokers would choke on their cigarettes and maybe inhale them whole even.

Lunch with Lisa
I had lunch today with former co-worker Lisa. It was a partial Christmas and birthday celebration. I had been looking forward to have lunch and seeing Lisa for a while now.

Yes, I know that our timing could be improved but we are busy people with conflicting schedules.

It was a nice lunch for me. I got to see a bunch of the old co-workers. We exchanged “hellos” and “what’s new with you’s.” It was nice way to start lunch.

Office Assistant Vivian looked absolutely stunning beautiful today.

The last time I saw her was in December. She had worn her hair long, down to the middle of her back, for almost all of the time that I worked in the office. Vivian had what I would call a really, really, full head of hair.

Now, Vivian has it cut short so that it just below her ears and it is styled now. I suppose that if I paid more attention to the coz classes and coz girls I would be better able to describe the style. I thought she looked like a young Connie Chung, from when she used to be a newsreader in Los Angeles and roller skated in a tube top and short shorts at the start of a weekend news program.

That was a long time ago in a galaxy not too far away.

Lunch was at the local place next door. It was convenient and the food is good and you get a full meal. I had a healthy lunch of a chef’s salad and iced tea. I only had one slice of bread so I felt very good about watching my eating.

Our server was, how shall I put it tastefully, on the aggressive side. Lisa said that the server has always been that way. She had a pleasant disposition so that sort of balanced out the aggressiveness.

One of the big topics at lunch was the bank chairman’s new contract that came to be approved after he admitted that he falsified his educational resume and the bank had to write out a check for $900,000 to settle a gender discrimination lawsuit. We were amazed to see the bank give him a housing allowance and a car allowance when he was being paid almost $600,000 a year.

I would like to think that I could get by on $600,000 a year and not need any more money.

We exchanged our gifts before we ate. Lisa gave me two backscratchers because I used to scratch the middle of my back by rubbing against the door frames.

I tried one out when I got home and it felt so very good. I could reach all over my back. That backscratcher is going into the office with me tomorrow. No more door frames for me.

Lisa also gave me a bottle of Port wine. I enjoy port; but, I haven’t had any in a while. It will be good to take with me when I go out on the balcony to read and smoke. I’ll do that as soon as the weather improves.

With rain in the forecast for the weekend, I do not see any cigar smoking and port drinking weather around the corner anytime soon.

I got Lisa a Coach business card case. She got a nice promotion last year and the more upscale business card case seemed appropriate. She thought it was beautiful.

I thought it was very functional and utilitarian and practical. I am that way a lot of the time.

I also picked up a Coach initial “L” purse tag or clip for her. This was more of a personal gift. I knew I was on safe ground with the purse clip.

Actually, I was on very safe ground with both of the gifts. I had consulted with my women’s gift expert, the Princess. The Princess said that they were perfect and that Lisa would like them. It is always nice to have expert opinion to support your ideas.


And that, gentle readers, was my day.

Be well and stay happy.

More Sunshine

More Sunshine
There was more sunshine again today.

Granted, it was cool again and there was a modest breeze blowing outside. But, it was still very nice. The smokers were out in force in the courtyard this morning. They were bundled up for the most part. The forecast is calling for rain maybe by the weekend with rain beginning on Friday.

Rain on Friday would be evil since I have my annual physical examination then. I will be getting to the office after everyone else so that may mean I will have to park on one of the top floors of the building parking structure.

Coz Classes
The cosmetics companies were holding classes again today. There was a new crowd of tattooed young women dressed in black parading across the courtyard this morning. I was wondering what are the requirements to be able to sell cosmetics in a store. But, since I do not use cosmetics, I will not become too concerned with that.

I think one of the cosmetics companies was having a photography session today. I saw a female photographer lugging her screens and reflectors and pulling a cart with equipment into the building. She very purposefully walked right past the button to activate the handicap access – automatic door opener function and then struggled to get the building door open.

The Princess would have said something like, “Well, what do you want or expect from a blond Daddy? A brunette would have handled easily.” The Princess has never been one to turn down a good blond joke.

Nesting
The birds are making steady progress on the nest. Some of the smokers were commenting on the nest this morning.

How do I know they were talking about the nest? A couple of the smokers were pointing at the nest this morning. That was my obvious clue.

Doug’s Laptop
I am taking Doug’s iBook in for service tomorrow. It seems to have failed him; but, that would only serve to state the obvious now.

According to him, the iBook starts to power up and load but then hangs up somewhere in the boot cycle. The extended warranty has expired by now so this will run up the expense meter a bit.

I suppose the problem is either with the software and then that could be an easy task or there may be a hardware problem and that may not be an easy task. I suppose hardware is an easier solution of just replacing the damaged component with a good one. If the problem is the hard drive, then that would be sad because there are a couple of files that Doug would like to have saved.

On the plus side of going to the computer store, it is on my way to have lunch with a former co-worker from the old bank. We are meeting to celebrate Christmas and her birthday.

Sharon
I spoke to Sharon today; actually, I mostly listened to Sharon today.

I called her to remind her that I had sent her another job lead for a position that she would be very well suited for. She did not like the job because it would mean a drive and it might not pay as much as she was making and, and, and.

To me, the job sounded near perfect. It was something she has been very successful at in the past; she is capable of doing a great job; her boss would be a man and Sharon works best with male bosses; and most important, it was away from the Devils Island where she is working now.

Some days you win one and some days you do not win at all.


That was my Tuesday. I hope your Tuesday was productive and positive.

Be well and say happy.

Power Failure Last Night

Power Failure Last Night
The power went out at my house last night. I don’t think the power was out for very long. I think that the power lines touched and created a temporary outage around 11:45 PM or thereabouts.

Since I was asleep, the power outage went unnoticed by me until I woke up at 4:40 AM. I looked at the flashing red lights on the clock and then rolled over and went back to sleep.

Weather Report
It was sunny and warmer and less windy today. Naturally, the weather improved as we went back to work. There was the usual crowd of smokers out in the courtyard this morning so that made it nice for viewing when I reached a mental block during my writing this morning. Tomorrow, we are supposed to have some rain come in during the morning hours. That will adversely affect the courtyard smokers again.

Nesting
The birds are still building their nest. Tomorrow may bring them some nice muddy conditions that will be perfect to build with.

I saw one of the birds this morning. It was on the bench outside of my office. It is a medium grey colored bird with a white chest. I think it is smaller than a common sparrow but I could be wrong on this count. I am guessing that this bird was the male of the pair since it was the one that was gathering building materials.

It will be interesting to see how things turn out with the birds.

Job Searching & Interviewing
I saw an interesting job posting today and responded to it.

The job is in banking compliance. Compliance, for those of you who do not work in regulated businesses, is the thankless task of making sure the institution follows all of the various Federal and State laws and regulations. It is dull and sometimes boring. It is making certain everyone does what they are supposed to do.

I suppose one could think of being the head of compliance as like being the chief of police in the town.

The nice part about this job is that is one that is required by law so that once you get in the position it is hard to force the compliance person out. Forcing a compliance person out makes the regulators nervous and unhappy so you tend to be relatively secure.

You have to accept slower pay increases because you are not generating any revenue. I could point out that you are preventing the bank from being fined $500,000 for not following the regulations. $500,000 is real money to me.

You don’t have to worry about a teller who is dreadfully out of balance on a Friday night. Compliance questions never come up that late in the day so you can always be certain of being able to head for home at 5:00 PM every day.

Getting back to the story line, five minutes after I sent my email in to the recruiter, the recruiter was on the phone to me, talking about the job. It turns out that I know something about the bank. They gave me a wall calendar a couple of years ago; ten of the twelve months had advertising regulation violations on them. I can see why they need a sharp compliance person. The recruiter and I spoke for about twenty minutes. He is going to try to set up an interview for me either this week or next.

That was a nice way to end the week.


That was my short day.

Be well and stay happy.

No March Madness

No March Madness
There will be no March Madness for the Utah men’s basketball team this year. Last year, they surprised a lot of people and went to the Big Tournament. They did well but were playing over their collective heads.

This year’s team did not have Andrew Bogut at center to build a team around. I think of 2005-2006 as a rebuilding year. Hopefully, next year will be better. On the plus side, I won’t have to watch them on television.

The Utes got to the semi-finals of the conference championship. They had played well up to then. They lost to Wyoming 47 to 60. The score did not reflect the way the game turned out. Utah only shot 26% from the floor and Wyoming hit almost 57%. It is very difficult to win with that sort of shooting.

The Utes did end the season well by beating the traditional rival BYU in the conference tournament in Denver this past week. Beating BYU is always a good way to the end the season.

The Utah women’s basketball team is going to the Big Dance in March.

I will have some Utes to root for although I can’t remember when the last time I rooted for a women’s team from Utah except for my freshman year when I went out with a downhill racer on the women’s ski team. My freshman year was a long time ago and in a galaxy far, far away.

I wonder whatever happened to her.

The women’s basketball team ended up ranked Number 19 in the country. The team won the conference championship and they beat BYU in winning the championship. That was sort of like a triple play except I can’t think of the third element but it should be there somewhere.

Last year, the blog’s visitor traffic was boosted by my comments on the Utah basketball team and their opponents. That resulted in some linking and some additional visitor feeds. I don’t think that will happen this year.

Dissertation Committee Meeting
My committee chair meeting went very well last Thursday. The chair is also the dean of the school of business so I have to do a great job. I am confident that I will do well and meet his expectations.

I also had a chance to meet informally with the other two committee members. I had a lengthy discussion with one member about the concept and my ideas. He seemed supportive and that is always nice.

DVD Planet.com
I stopped at DVD Planet.com on my way home from the Committee meeting to pick up some DVDs since it was only slightly out of my way. Besides, I already was in the area so I wanted to avoid wasting the gasoline.

I hit the jackpot at DVD Planet. I was able to pick up three Miyazaki animes including HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE and MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO. I had been looking for TOTORO for a couple of years now and it is finally out in Region I. I also picked up my copy of HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE.

No Thursday Posting
I was going to try to put up Thursday night when I got home. As I thought, I go home late and when I added in making my dinner and then cleaning up afterwards and that I had a very poor night’s sleep on Wednesday, I decided to crawl in bed and catch up on my much needed rest.

I must have been really tired. I went to bed a little before 9:00 PM and I did not move much for six solid hours. That was wonderful for me as I felt great on Friday morning.

Friday at the Office
Friday was an unusual day at work.

There was rain for most of the morning so that meant the smokers were out of luck. They had to stay inside. One of the managers in the office is a smoker. She does not have a window in her office so she was sticking her head in my office about every twenty or thirty minutes to see if the rain had stopped so she could go out a light up.

The building fire alarm went off twice during lunch. I had a salad so I was not too inconvenienced by the required building evacuation. The second alarm went off as I was leaving for the day so I just kept on going. I waved to my co-workers as they stood in the cool, breezy, evacuation meeting spot.

I sort of felt sorry for them, being out in the cold and all.

Nesting
I think the bird’s nest is about complete. It looks like a half of a large cup that has been glued to the side of the building. I was going to go out and look at it closer but it was raining and I had no desire to get wet and cold.

The main reason for my belief the nest is complete is there was a splash of bird poop on one of the building windows next to the nest. It looked like the birds had moved in and were setting up house keeping.

I hope the building management allows the birds to complete their egg cycle. It would be a shame for them to order the nest to be torn down.


Job Searching and Interviewing
I don’t have too much to report here today.

Last week, three insurance companies picked up my resume from one of the online job search engines. They all wanted to talk with me about becoming an agent with them. I thought about it for a while and decided in the end to not pursue their interest in me. It takes some time to build a book of business as an insurance agent and I do not have that much time to spend on that effort.

I did find a cool job for Sharon and I emailed it to her home email address on Friday. Of course, when I called her on Saturday morning, she was out food shopping and she was staying with her mother and didn’t have access to the email account and would have to drive all the way to her house to learn about the job and then have to drive all of the way back to her mother’s house and it was cold and it was raining.

Sometimes, I think I should just stay in bed.

The Princess
I finished up the birthday shopping for the Princess on Friday. It is easy when you are buying gift certificates. You don’t have to worry about the return receipt since who would want to return a gift certificate to a store that you love to shop at. All I have left to do is put them in their birthday card envelops and write a witty comment on the cards and deliver them when I go to Atlanta in two weeks for her birthday dinner.


I don’t have too much more to say because I didn’t very much this weekend. It was raining off and on all weekend long and it was cool for us. Tonight, the temperature will be down to 37F/4C and that, my friends, is right cold.

Be well and stay happy.

Half way to Friday

Half way to Friday
Today marks the half way spot to Friday. But, then, you all knew that. Still, it is a nice way to end the day and reflect upon for the weekend ahead.

My weekend ahead does not look very promising. The weather forecast that I saw this morning before I headed on out to work was calling for high temperatures in the low 50s/10 to 12C and rain all weekend long starting on Friday.

It looks like I will be spending the weekend snuggly tucked away with my laptop and school work.

Programming Note
Just so I don’t forget; I may not put a Weekend Preview posting up tomorrow night. I have a meeting with my dissertation committee chair out in South Orange County that will probably run from 4:00 to 5:00 PM so I can start driving home in heavy commute period traffic.

Fun and joy for me.

I will get home late because I am going to stop at DVD Planet.com and pick up copy of HARRY POTTER & THE GOBLET OF FIRE. I will probably pick up some additional DVDs since I am in the store. DVD Planet is only slightly out of way on the way home

Then you add on time to make and eat dinner and dinner clean up and I am looking at almost 9:00 PM and close to bed time.

DRFT GRL
That was the license plate on a middle 1990s Nissan 240SX coupe. It was hard not to notice the car in hte parking structure; it was painted a bright, hot pink and a gianormous spoiler. That would be very appropriate for a female driver – owner.

As I understand drifting, it is driving your car fast and pushing it into a barely controlled slide where one scores points for style and, I suppose, the amount of burning rubber and smoke that the slide generates. I have more than a small bit of difficulty with why anyone would want to push the physical limits and risk something nasty happening as an outcome.

Still, it might be interesting to meet the driver. She probably goes to the Import Car Tuner events. I don’t think I would want to go as a ride along; maybe separate cars could work.

Bad Hair Day
It was windy and sunny today. Nice weather for another day. I suppose I can expect clouds to start moving in tomorrow night.

Windy days create bad hair days for me. My hair gets blown all over my head and it takes some time to get it back into a near normal shape. I do not object to bad hair days caused by windy weather.

Having a wind blown, bad hair day means I have hair on my head. That is more than many men my age or even some who are young can say about their ring of hair around their ears.

Not too much of a posting tonight but then it was not very much of a day for me either.


Be well and stay happy.

I felt very partiotic today

I felt very patriotic today
Yes, I did feel very patriotic today and I suppose that you are wondering why since it is not a national holiday in the United States. I am highly confident that it is a national holiday somewhere in the world; just not in the good old U.S. of A.

It was also sunny and warmer today and that helped make me patriotic.

One of the young Asian American women who work in the building has one of those old style bald eagles tattooed across the top of her butt. She was wearing low cut pants so the eagle was already peaking out over the top of her pants. She sat down on the bench outside of my office and was leaning forward as she smoked and chatted with her co-workers. When she leaned forward, she exposed the bald eagle almost completely.

It is good to see the symbol of our country displayed in this manner.

It is days like these that make you feel good to be living in a free country where women are not afraid to expose some of their skin. It was a good day to be an American.

It was also a good day for my heart.

I read one of those emailed reports about how good it was for a man’s heart if he looked at women during the day. I did my fair share of looking at the bundled up young women who were out smoking in the courtyard today.

Nesting
I checked out the nest and it looks like the birds made some more progress yesterday. I didn’t see any activity at the nest today. Of course, that could have been because I was working or I was checking out the bald eagle.

If I had to guess, I would say the birds are maybe 25% complete. I don’t think they need a large nest since they are small. Time will tell I suppose.

Oscars
I spoke with Doug today.

He was returning my call from yesterday. We talked about the Oscars and how he felt that CRASH should not have won the Best Picture award. I would tend to agree.

We came to the conclusion that there were several other, more important films in 2005 like CAPOTE, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, and GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK. Doug thinks these films will be remembered long after CRASH fades to black. I would tend to agree with him.

The following films were not Best Picture winners but perhaps should have been; KING KONG [1932], CITIZEN KANE, WIZARD OF OZ, SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, SUNSET BOULEVARD, HIGH NOON, REAR WINDOW, PSYCHO [1960], NETWORK, BRAZIL, FARGO, and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.

I left out some personal favorites of mine that did not win because they are not Academy favorite genres like RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, THE SEACHERS, STAR WARS, and PULP FICTION.

Can you remember last year’s Best Picture?

Chuckay Event
Doug and I also talked about whether we ought to do Douguary Dinner Part II or not. He said that he was not ready for Morton’s so soon and I can understand that concern. I came around to accepting his point of view. Mid-March is too soon to go to Morton’s again especially for me since I will be eating at Morton’s in Atlanta in about two and a half weeks.

More Birds
No, not the film, I mean live birds.

There is a large planter – bowl outside of my office. The plants are flowering now. I have no idea what types of plants are in the bowl. The flowers are a bright red color and are cylindrical in shape.

I noticed a hummingbird floating in and out of the flowers this morning while I waited for Spell Check to run on a document that I was working on. I enjoyed watching it flit from flower to flower in search of nectar.

Market
I went to the market on the way home from work. It was time to fill up the larder with provisions.

Since I came from the office, I sort of looked better than the other men in the market; I was the only one in a suit. I was wearing my grey pinstripe suit with a white shirt and a red paisley tie. I looked like a corporate executive – banker for sure and certain.

Several of the women in the market smiled at me when our carts passed. I was going to strike up a conversation with one particularly interest woman until I saw her toss a couple dozen baby food jars in her cart. That was an almost certain sign that she had a baby at home and that was a place in did not want to visit.

Maybe there is some benefit from changing out of work clothes for me before going to the market.


That was my day gentle readers. I hope you all had an excellent day as well. The 2005 Best Picture was MILLION DOLLAR BABY.

Be well and stay happy.

Nesting

Slow Monday
It was a slow Monday gentle readers. There is not too much to report. I went to work and did some stuff and that was about it.

We had rain this morning and afternoon as forecast. That kept the smokers out of the courtyard today.

Nesting
Last week, I noticed what I thought was some dirt on one of the building walls. Since it was high up, almost to the second floor of the building, I guessed that some vandals had tossed some dirt at the building.

On a closer look today, it seems like there are two small brownish birds that are building a nest out of mud and dirt in a corner of the building. I think the birds are maybe English wrens but I am not that much of a bird person to know one species from another.

At the rate the nest construction is going forward, I think it will be finished by this time next week. I will let you all know how construction goes on this project.

Chuckay Event
As some of you know, Chuckay is the month long celebration of all things Chuck. It happens between the end of April and the beginning of June and includes my birthday. This is my version of Douguary.

I was checking my cigar supply this morning. I took one out of the box this morning for Michelle the Stylist as part of her tip since it was time for my haircut. I am down to eight cigars now and that should last until Chuckay.

Since the cigars are made in San Diego, I have to go there to pick them up. Actually, I could simply phone order the cigars but where is the fun with that solution.

I was thinking this could be an excellent Chuckay Event. I pick up Doug on the way to San Diego; I pick up my cigars; and we have lunch at Hooter’s which is right around the corner from the Cuban Cigar Factory. Is that a near perfect event or what?

The only potential flaw is the service at Hooters when Doug and I were there last year really sucked. Unless you were drinking large amounts of beer or were the servers’ boy friends, you had a better chance of starvation than getting your order taken and the food served hot. Maybe there was the usual server turnover and the staff is completely different now and does provide good table service.

This was also the Hooters where our server helped herself to the chance from my $20 instead of giving it to me. She shorted herself on her tip because all she got was the loose change and I kept the dollars I would have left for her.

Serves her right.

Michelle the Stylist
This was my regularly scheduled week for a haircut. I phoned the place to see when Michelle was cutting hair into the evening. Monday was her day to work until closing. This was odd since she usually cuts late on Tuesdays.

I went to the hair place on my way home from work. The drive in the rain was borderline ugly and stressful. I made it in one piece and with no damage to the car. It was not the best way to end the day.

Michelle is a popular stylist and so I had to wait for about forty minutes until she could cut my hair. This is about the normal wait; I wished I had brought along something to read while I was waiting. The in-store reading selection is really really bad. Because I was planning on a Tuesday visit with Michelle, I had not brought reading material with me today to the office.

Michelle told me that she is pregnant and is due to deliver on or about September 9th. I congratulated her and told her that she looked very motherly. It also explained why her stomach looked larger than it usually does.

Michelle said she liked being pregnant because it made her boobies bigger.

I noticed that as well but made no mention of it.

This news threw my hair cutting plans into a mess. I now know that Michelle will probably be off work from early August through to the end of October. Since she stands as she cuts hair, I suspect that this will have to change. The change will probably be a shorter time on her feet and less time cutting hair and a longer time away from work.

I am looking at three months of crummy haircuts. Crud.

We spent most of our time talking about baby’s names. I was not thrilled with some of her choices like Madison and Morgan. Those just don’t sound like girls’ names to me. Oh well, it is not my concern.

I suppose now that Michelle is pregnant I will have to stop giving her cigars as tips. Michelle says she doesn’t inhale the smoke and that is good. I think I will shift to Ethel M candy because the Princess says it is the best candy ever.

Eating superb candy when you are pregnant is the best time if it results in a few added pounds. After all, it was the baby’s fault that Michelle would gain any weight. That weight gain explanation has a strong sense of plausible deniability about it.

Job Searching & Interviewing
I had a recruiter call me tonight to see if I was interested in a short term consulting project. I would have been a maternity replacement for a woman in bank. It would have lasted about three months.

I was marginally interested since there was a possibility that the woman would change her mind and stay home with her new baby. That could lead the way to a full time job.

The recruiter told me what I would be doing and I had to turn him down. While I could do the work, I was not experienced in the field and said so. I said it would be a mistake to place me there.

The recruiter was surprised at my candor and honesty. He also appreciated it as well.

Why not be honest? There was no sense wasting his time and my time on a job that I did not want to do nor was I really qualified for.

I hope he finds someone for the job.


Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update

Smoking on the balcony
I was out smoking on the balcony this afternoon. Today was one of the first nice days that I have experienced so far this week.

Friday was rain all morning long. Not good at all. Of course, the Prelude looks even worse now that it has been rained on twice since I had it washed. It will get rained on again on Monday when the forecast calls for more rain. The rain might even continue on into Tuesday and that would be really depressing.

I know that to many of you rain is not much of an inconvenience. You are probably correct. But, I would point out that you do not live in Southern California where we live for the sun and its warm and radiance.

I was reading a Star Trek novel while I was out on the balcony. There was no sense in straining my mind. It was cold or maybe it was cool outside. I was well bundled up and I did not get too cold although my fingers took a while to warm up when I came inside.

Non-Douguary Event
I dropped off Doug’s and his mother’s income tax returns on Saturday. Then, he and I went to In n Out Burgers for lunch. This was a non-Douguary Event because In n Out is not high on his list of favorite places to eat right not.

Doug indulged me with the lunch venue. Anyway, I had a 3x3 protein style, a medium drink and fries. Doug had a 4x4 protein style and water. Protein style, for those of you who do not live in Southern California and frequent In n Out, substitutes lettuce leaves for the traditional hamburger buns.

It is much lower in carbohydrates and higher in fiber. I will admit that protein style takes a few meals to get used to the feel of the hamburger in your hands. The sacrifices I make to eat healthy. I also drank root beer with no caffeine, even better for me.

A 3x3 or 4x4 for that matter is three patties of beef and three slices of cheese with tomato and pickles. A 4x4 is just one of each.

I had a light breakfast of only an English muffin and a banana. Doug had not had any breakfast so out stomachs were empty.

Douguary Events Photo CD
I burned the Douguary Events Photo CD yesterday. It turned out to be just under 32mb. I was pleased with my first effort at creating the CD by taking the images from the Sony digital camera.

I am getting better with it each time I use it. The Morton’s Dinner photos were not the huge image files so they were able to be emailed. The Morton’s photos were around 140kb while the Original Tommy’s and others were around 1.45mb in size.

Laptop Maintenance
I did some more cleaning on the laptop this weekend. In the last month or so, I must have dumped over 1.5 GB of files from my hard drive.

I also blew the cobwebs out of my email address book yesterday. I think this was the first cleaning in over a year. It is amazing how much stuff accumulates in the address book without even thinking about it. Now, I have about twenty fewer names than I had before I started this cleaning project.

Naturally, since I run Windows XP Professional, I saw no improvement in the laptop’s performance. Those of us who work in the Wintel world know that you can never improve performance by removing stuff from the hard drive. Other programs seem to rise to the occasion and just bloat up.

Still, removing all of those files should make the daily anti-virus program sweep modestly more efficient.

Academy Awards
The Academy Awards are tonight and I am unsure if I am going to watch the show. It is one of those few programs that are broadcast live on the West Coast. Most of the time, we get a taped broadcast that is shown and sometimes edited for our time zone.

I think my next DVD collection effort will be the Academy Awards Best Film winners. My American Film Institute 100 Best Films list is missing only seven films and two are not available on DVD currently.

The Academy Award Best Films list will be easier to collect since this is only the 78th awards ceremony. Also, many of the Best Film winners were on the AFI list like Gone with the Wind. I am guessing that I probably have maybe half of the winners already. This will be a shorter collection effort I think.

Foreign Visitors to the Blog
This last week was a thin week for foreign visitors to the blog. We had one come in from Chile and one from the Netherlands.

There was one visit from someone who worked at a law firm. That should count as a foreign visitor I think.


I know this is a short Weekend Update. Some weekends are going to be like this. Blog happen.

Be well and stay happy.

I felt like a pin cushion this morning

I felt like a pin cushion this morning
It was really nasty for this morning. I felt like a pin cushion.

Today was the day for the laboratory work in advance of my annual physical examination in about a week and a half. The big test was drawing blood. I always suggest the laboratory staffers draw the blood from my left arm. I have three veins that are close to the skin surface and are very easy to hit with a needle.

Once the vein is hit, I do pump out the blood. I may not know a lot but I do know this fact for sure and certain. You can not give 10 gallons / 38 liters of blood over the years without noticing which arm is easier for the nurses to work with.

Anyway, the lab staffer missed on the first two tries. He put a needle into two different veins and did not strike blood. This was not what I wanted to see happen; besides, the process is painful.

He called the other lab staffer over to try her luck on my arm. She hit the third vein and struck blood. She said, “What would you men do without us women?”

“Since I am between girl friends right now, I could do quite a lot and be happy about it.” This was not the reply she was fishing for. The male lab staffer laughed out loud and I was extremely glad she had taken the needle out of my arm by now. I could just see her wanting to put it back in with the dull end first.

I was taken aback a bit by the male staffer. He had tats on his arms and that made me nervous. I kept thinking, were those tats made with clean needles and done properly.

Lookin’ Good
I wore my dark blue, three piece suit with a white shirt and red stripped tie to work today. It is my banker outfit or IBM computer salesman’s outfit. I looked like Mr. Conservative Businessman with the highly polished black dress shoes.

One of the women in the office said that I looked handsome.

I thanked her. I felt good about myself and how I looked when I left home this morning. Since I live alone, it is difficult to get any feedback on appearance so that was a nice way to start my work day after playing pin cushion.

Coz Classes
It looks like the cosmetics class cycle is starting up again.

I saw a bunch of new faces, all dressed in black, going into the building this morning. Some of the women had tats. I was willing to overlook the tats on their ankles because those seem to be minor in comparison to the other tats.

I don’t understand why a young woman would allow herself to be tattooed on her arms and breasts. It seems like it is an attempt to destroy what is considered by many to be their natural beauty. For some, they have succeeded beyond their expectations.

I know the Big Guy and I will have a very limited conversation if he were to bring a heavily tatted young lady to Morton’s for dinner. The very thought of it makes me shudder.

Why me?
Right now, as I am writing the blog, I am chatting in ICQ with an eleven year old girl. I have no idea why she picked me out from all of the other millions of ICQ members. Maybe I have a kindly smile in the cheesy photo I posted.

This will not be good for anyone. Now, that I have chatted with her, she will probably look me up every time she comes online.

[Note to self: be more circumspect about engaging in new IM or ICQ conversations.]

Weekend Preview
This is a slow weekend for me.

The big event for me is a trip out to the Big Guy’s house to drop of his tax returns and to drop off his mother’s tax returns. Then, we will go grab a bit to eat for lunch.

The rest of the time, I plan to work on my dissertation. Clean up around the house. Maybe do a little reading and mail some packages to friends and one to my brother.

That was my day gentle readers.

Be well and stay happy and enjoy your weekend. I will be back with a Weekend Update on Sunday the 5th.

Why I blew off a Tuesday blog post

Why I blew off a Tuesday blog post
Why did I blow off tossing out a post last night?

I can think of a lot of perfectly good reasons. First, I was having some trouble with the laptop. My mouse pointer was not visible in some applications. That made it hard to navigate around and get programs and features to function properly. I finally ended up rebooting the laptop and that seemed to clear everything up.

Then, I had a gianormous amount of middle aged women from Russia, Thailand, China, and a bunch of other third world countries adding me to their ICQ contact lists. It seems it is open season on single older American men.

Oh yes, I forgot to add, for these women, that the season started six weeks ago and there is no limit.

I guess I must be prime flesh for these women since I live at the beach near Los Angeles. Let’s face it; any place warm and sunny, when it is -10F/-17C outside your door, has to be about next best place to live.

I went to the market on the way home from work last night. I was running low on food. My local market seems to be getting really shabby and seedy. The selection and quality seems to be declining. I guess it is time to look for a new market. Those reasons and the fact that the checkers seems to have forgotten how to smile or at least fake being pleasant to the customers have made me feel unwelcome. I can remember when the market had really friendly checkers who made going there worthwhile.

Lastly, I was tired. For some reason, I just exhausted even though I had not done any physical work aside from refill the water cooler. The mental work was limited. Then too, I was a little bummed because the management of the company has not signed the contract for a new program that everyone seems to want. Nothing is going to happen unless someone steps up to the plate and signs a contract. I really should not worry because I am not responsible for the project’s completion.

Missed Phone Calls
I made some phone calls today.

One call was to my dissertation committee chair. I wanted to make an appointment to go see him and discuss how he wanted to proceed with the project. The School has a dissertation guide but every chair has his or her own way of interpreting the guide and how to write an excellent dissertation.

All I want to do is finish the damn thing and get on with my life. I have already mentally agreed to forgo most female companionship until I finish the project. That is clearly no fun at all.

The other call was a follow-up on the recruiter interview from last Thursday that lasted for what seemed like forever. I wanted to follow up and see if one of the company’s clients had any interest in me. Since I haven’t received a phone call yet, I am assuming there is no interest in me and that is acceptable. I was going to say that was fine but I want to find a full time job with someone so it is not fine for me.

No one returned any of my calls.

Life happens and people get bored. Things and the blog will be better next week.

Be well and stay happy.