Weekend Update

Weekend Update
Well, gentle readers, here it is, the end of the week and the end of the month, a third of the year is gone. And what do I have to show for it?

That’s one of those rhetorical questions that no one is supposed to answer.

Anyway, moving along to some of the odds and ends of the blog site.

We had about 225 visitors to the site during April. This is not a great volume but it is up from a year ago and that, in itself, is rewarding. For any of you that are fascinated with obscure data, you can always click on the site meter button at the bottom of the blog page and see where your fellow visitors are located and other irrelevant information.

Our foreign site visitors this week, in no particular order, came from the Kuwait, the United Kingdom [two from old England], and Saudi Arabia.

I’m guessing the visitor from Saudi Arabia was lost in the ether. He or she wandered in here from Skeet on Mischa so you can make a conclusion that the visitor was seeing what the outside world was like or hopelessly confused or both. Or, possibly that the visitor was an American stationed in the Kingdom of Saud.

Lastly, we had one visitor spend an incredible 24 minutes and 25 seconds on the site, reading the blogs. I wonder what I said that was so fascinating to that person. One would think that after spending that much time here, the visitor could have left a comment or two.

Local Weather Forecast
I live at the beach as most of you know. Technically, I do not live right on the beach sand; that would be too expensive and too crowded in the Summer. I live about a 15 minute walk to the beach from my place. It is a 25 minute walk back because you are going uphill all of the way except when you cross a busy road, then it is level.

We have a local weather phenomenon of low clouds and early morning fog along the coast. Some days, it is so thick that it never burns off and we have over cast all day long. We call this “May – June Gloom,” wonderful name for it.

The seasonal gloom began early on Friday and shows no signs of letting up any time soon. I heard the morning weather forecast on one of our local television stations. It called for gloom all week long in the mornings and some days even into the afternoons.

The gloom sometimes gets into my blogs so if I sound gloomy, you can blame the weather.

Styrofoam Drinking Cups
I have an 18 ounce / 530 milliliter cup of decaffeinated coffee every day at the office. I don’t drink it down in a quick gulp or swallow; it is very hot coffee after all. I tend to take an hour or so to finish it off. This is the only coffee I drink during the day so I want to enjoy it.

Have you ever noticed how sometimes the liquids inside of one of these styrofoam cups seems to leak through, like the cup was sweating the liquid out?

I have noticed this over the last couple of days. This sweating got me to thinking as I was driving home the other day while I waited for the traffic signal to change. Should I be concerned about the sweating? Should I move some of the papers on my desk to higher ground? Should I worry about a massive leak and desk top flood? Should I drink my coffee faster? Should I transfer the coffee to my ceramic coffee cup that I have in my desk?

Am I making more out of this than is truly necessary?

Yes.

EASY RIDER Term Paper
I finished reviewing version 4.0 on Thursday night. It was a much, much better paper than version 3.0. Doug had followed some of my suggestions and the paper reflected a tighter focus and direction. It also flowed better. I made a handful of minor changes to it and sent it back to him.

Doug called me on Friday to talk about changes. I said the only other changes that he might want to consider would be to break up some of his page long paragraphs into shorter ones. He could also break up some of his three line sentences into shorter ones. I felt these changes would enhance the overall readability and strength of the paper.

Doug said that he would take a look at those ideas and see what happens. He said he may add a sentence or three on his section where he talks about the film’s music. This was an idea I had put forth earlier.

Doug said his last term paper was on SOUTH PARK THE MOVIE. This should be an interesting read for me.

Baby Shower
I went to the baby shower at the old office on Friday afternoon.

It was nice to see the people again. The office has a very nice practice of inviting former employees and co-workers back when they have a major celebratory event like a baby shower. I was very happy that they included me in the group.

I found out that I had spoiled the office with my donut Fridays. I used to pick up donut favorites for the women in the office; Lisa a cinnamon roll, LaTonya anything glazed, Evelyn an apple fritter, and Vivian a chocolate covered custard creme filled donut. All of those choices were calorie bombs.

One of the men sent out an email saying that he was bringing in donuts because he had achieved a milestone in one of his projects. Then, everyone sent him a reply saying what type of donut they would like.

He said he felt overwhelmed with the donut requests. He blamed me for this situation. I shrugged and looked for the jelly filled donut.

The baby shower was like most all baby showers.

There was plenty of food, probably too much food. There were some silly games to play and silly name tags to wear; mine was Rattle. I did not win anything. I did try to play the game but I got wrong answers to my questions in the guess whose name is on your back game. The names were all entertainment mothers. I had Julia Roberts.

Lisa wanted me to meet a former co-worker of hers who is a single female and close in age to me. I think she had visions of playing matchmaker. Unfortunately, there was no connection or spark. Maybe we were both too old for this sort of thing.

I think the gifts provided a good boost to what all the soon to be parents will need. Of course, you never have enough tee shirts and things like that because babies tend to be messy at times.

Count Basie Orchestra
I went to the concert last night by myself, Ms Flaky having excused herself on Monday.

I had expected that the concert would last about an hour and a half or so with an intermission around the fifty minute mark. To my surprise, the orchestra only played for seventy minutes and that was it for the night. I was on my way home buy 9:15 PM and back home by 10:00.

For some reason, the orchestra was honoring Duke Ellington last night and featuring a number of his songs in the performance and I am not that big of a fan of Ellington. This was a disappointment to me but when the program is just starting and you are sitting in the middle of the fourth row, it is difficult to get up and leave.

The band members were all very competent, professional musicians. They gave a fine performance. I just would have preferred a slightly more focused musical selection last night.

On balance, I did enjoy myself. I would have preferred a different arrangement but one can’t control too much when you buy your tickets well in advance of the performance and there is no opportunity to read a review since they were here only for the weekend.

Programming Note
I will finish the Weekend Update on Monday with the doctoral mixer at school this afternoon and an early Chuckay Event at Albertacos after the mixer for dinner tonight.

That was my weekend so far gentle readers. I hope you had a wonderful and productive weekend.


Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Preview

Weekend Preview
It was a slow day at work today for me. Everyone is over their sugar highs from the Fairy Tale Brownies on Wednesday. This will be a short posting. I will make up for tonight’s short posting with a longer one on Sunday.

Baby Shower at the Old Office
Tomorrow is baby shower day at the old office. Since I found out late [Tuesday afternoon] about the shower, I did not have time to think about an appropriate gift for twin boys let alone but it. I ended up going to Babies R Us and picking up a gift certificate. True, it is a wimp out and easy way to get a gift but it is also practical and the parents avoid getting three diaper bags.

I spoke with one of my old co-workers this afternoon. From what she said, it sounds like it will be a very nice time. There will be food and games and good friends. I think I will pass on the games part.

Sharon
Sharon did not call me today. Of course, I did not expect a call from her either.

Jazz Concert on Saturday
I am still going to hear the Count Basie Orchestra. I was going to go with Ms Flaky until she developed a very sudden case of out of town house guests earlier this week. My seats are in the fifth row and almost dead center. I should have no trouble seeing or hearing the orchestra perform.

I just hope it is not too loud and injures my ears. I will pack some ear plugs just to be on the safe side. Some of you may know that I lost part of my hearing when I was in the United States Navy. Prolonged, loud noise is just not a safe or smart thing for me to do.

Sunday Events
I only have two events for Sunday.

One is a doctoral student mixer at school. I am uncertain why the school is holding a mixer for group of business and technology students and group of educators and school administrators. It is not the best group with the most common interests. I can see each group on opposite sides of the room. I will go and put in an appearance; I sort of need to since the business school dean is my Committee Chair.

I told the Big Guy [Doug] that I was going because there might be a hot, single, female student there and I could exchange phone numbers with her. I do need to find a replacement for Ms Flaky. At least if I met a woman there, we might have something minimally in common and that would be that we were both in a doctoral degree program.

The other event is tangentially related to the school event. I suggested to Doug that since I am already going to be in the South O.C. that I continue on down the freeway and connect up with him for dinner at Albertacos. There are no bad times for Albertacos; Doug’s words, not mine.

Doug was a little sketchy on the idea since he has some term papers yet to finish up this weekend. I pointed out that he can probably afford to spend 90 minutes for dinner plus a break would be good for him anyway. He said he would think about it and let me know.

That is my weekend preview gentle readers. It is far from being active and exciting but it is my weekend so I will make the most of it.


Be well and stay happy.

Rainy Day Bright

Rainy Day Bright
The local weather forecast was calling for a chance of rain today. I decided that I was feeling lucky today so I left my raincoat at home. I was lucky and it was sunny but breezy and cool at times today.

Sharon
Sharon called again last night after I posted the blog for the day. Sharon calling two days in a row is way out of character for her, especially since I did not initiate any calls to her.

She called to thank me for sending her another job idea from Monster.com. She said that she wasn’t that comfortable with the job duties so she passed it on to a friend who has experience in the field.

Sharon also said that she still has not applied for the really good job idea I sent her a week and a half ago. I nagged her some more about getting her resume in because if she waits any longer she may miss out because the company may stop accepting and processing resumes for the job. Sharon promised me that she would get the resume out today.

Knowing Sharon, she will complain that she didn’t even get a phone call from the company after sending her resume in and then it is my fault.

Life happens.

Nesting Update
The birds seem to have settled into their nest very nicely. I am guessing that they have eggs in the nest by now. I did notice that the level of bird droppings in the courtyard was up. Either the birds have been eating some bad insects or the maintenance workers are slacking off. I would put my money on slacking maintenance workers.

Blog Visitors
The blog had three more visitors that came from kolabora.com yesterday. I have no idea why or how the site is sending me traffic.

The Skeet Shooters are considered like next door neighbors since those sites are run by my favorite and only son Doug. The Skeet Shooters, and you know who you are, are the largest single group of visitors.

Dissertation
I asked my Committee Chair if there were any specific protocols for submitting a chapter for the Committee to review.

He wrote back and said that to make certain it was completely edited and in perfect style according to the style manual. If there were any errors, it would be returned to me. I had asked another post doctoral student to read and edit the work. I think I have corrected all of the style errors. I will go back over the chapter this evening just to make certain I have not forgotten anything.

In spite of all of my work and my friend's work, I am highly confident that he will find something wrong with what I have written. It is the nature of things in the academic world.

Japanese Managers
I think I have mentioned before that there is a Japanese airline that has offices in the same building where I work currently. If I haven’t mentioned that before, I work in the same building as a Japanese airline company.

Today, during the mid-morning smoke break, there were a half dozen male managers, all in a circle, smoking away, happy as could be. They were bowing so often to each other that it looked like a bunch of chickens pecking for corn in the barnyard.

I thought it was fascinating to watch.

EASY RIDER
Doug asked me to proof read his paper on EASY RIDER. I had the second draft to look at last night. It was not his best work. I did what I could with what I had to work with and that was not very much.

I called him today and we talked about the paper. He agreed with me that it did need some work, especially in the beginning. I suggested that he move a paragraph from the last part of the paper to be the introductory paragraph since it contained two really good quotes that would help set up the entire paper, especially considering where he wanted to go with the paper.

I also suggested that he could toss in two moderate sized paragraphs about the use of music in the film. I felt that this could help distinguish his paper. He will probably ignore my suggestion.

Doug
When I was talking to him this morning, he said he had to go to an alumni luncheon at school. He got invited because he made the Dean’s List. The luncheon was not his idea of fun. I pointed out that this could be an excellent opportunity to build network contacts in the film industry because he was being showcased as a top student in his program. Doug did allow that this was true and that he would make an effort to be personable and search out useful contacts.

Administrative Professionals Day
I brought in the box of Fairy Tale Brownies today since it was Administrative Professionals Day. The women loved the brownies as I knew they would and thought I was extremely considerate for doing so.

I think I could have heard more nice comments but it was difficult for them to talk with their mouths full of brownies.


All in all, today was a much better day for me.

Be well and stay happy.

New Day Dawned Bright

New Day Dawned Bright
The new day, that would be today, dawned bright and shinning for me except for the low clouds and fog from last night and the storm that is approaching my hometown this afternoon. Since I live at the beach, I have to expect late night and early morning low clouds and patchy fog along the coast. This is often referred to as May – June gloom.

Sharon
Sharon called me last night after I put the blog posting up for you. I was on my way to bed when she called so I decided to forego another posting in the blog. Sleep, after all, is its own reward. We had not spoken in two weeks so her call was a surprise to me.

I am not certain if a surprise phone call from a younger woman is a good thing or not. If she was calling to say, “I’m pregnant and you’re the father,” I would say that was not a very good surprise phone call. If on the other hand, she is calling to say, “I’ve got some tickets to the Angels game this Saturday. Do you and Doug want to join me?” then that would be a very good surprise for us.

Sharon wanted to talk to me about a couple of small business venture ideas that she had. One was a business that sold desserts to diabetics. Since I have a mild form of the disease, I felt that was an excellent idea. There was no likelihood of the product demand going away any time soon. Diabetics, like normal people, tend to love desserts. It is a low technology, non-trendy, non-seasonal business. Well, you could have red and green decorations on the cookies at the holiday season I suppose.

The other business was an Internet based dating – introduction service where a group of people would meet for a dinner; pay a fixed price for the meal; and then socialize in the hopes of finding Mr. Right or Ms Right. I pointed out that this idea is being down already to a degree by someone else. It is trendy and thus subject to changing demands of the target market, young people.

I said I liked the dessert business best since it dealt with basic ingredients and provided a value added service that was not trendy, seasonal, or have any significant changes in the potential demand for the product.

Sharon will probably ignore my recommendation.

I also nagged Sharon about not replying to a job lead that I had sent her a week and a half ago. The job was a good one and one that she could excel at.

Baby Shower at the Old Office
I got a phone call from one of the happy merry workers at my old office this morning.

In between bites of her brownies, she wanted to thank me for thinking of her and the rest of the women who worked in the office with the brownies for Office Professionals Day.

Evelyn also wanted to invite me to a baby shower at the office on Friday. One of the vice president’s wives is having twins soon. She is a small woman so I can imagine how difficult it must be for her to carry them. On the plus side, you get everything over with one longer term; one set of babies that can’t sleep through the night, one set of babies that are teething, and one set of babies that are in potty training.

I think twins are an easy way out if you are the father.

I suppose that it would make going to work almost a joy and the much lower noise level of the office would be pleasant after an evening with the twins.

Evelyn was going to send me some information on where they are registered. I didn’t know that one registered for babies these days. Weddings, of course, you register for those events. In any event, I can always go to Babies R Us and be able to find a bunch of things that babies will need.

A case of diapers is always needed but that is hard to wrap plus some of the women in the office would get upset with me for being thoughtless and having a limited imagination. I like to think of that as being practical actually. I know I used to go out after dinner to pick up a case of diapers when the Princess and Doug were babies.

More Bad Tats
I know I have not been out on my bad tats soap box lately. This is probably because I have lacked inspiration.

Today, I found some inspiration. It was coz class again so that always brings out the human canvases.

I saw one young woman walk into the building this morning. I was working so I only caught a glimpse of her as she entered the building. She had a picture based tattoo on her back. It went from her spine around to her side and on around towards her stomach. She also had a small tat on her foot, which, by itself, was not objectionable by my standards.

The young woman came out for a smoke break later on in the day. When she stood facing my office and when she was moving about, I could see that the drawing tat looked as if it went from the middle of her back around to across her stomach and ended up on the opposite hip. It was either that or a whole new tat that started somewhere and ended up on her other hip. I suppose since this was a drawing and not extensive design and coloration that it might have been marginally acceptable.

I was willing to give her a pass today until I saw that she had a large ring pierced in the middle of her lower lip.

The lip ring lost it for me; all I could think of was how her boy friend would ever kiss her, assuming that was what he wanted to do. I gave up and went home.


Be well and stay happy gentle readers.

New Young Lady

New Young Lady
The New Young Lady phoned me this morning.

I thought this was a nice way to start the work week. I was wrong again.

The New Young Lady was calling to say she will not be able to go to the jazz concert this Saturday night. This was the second time the New Young Lady has stiffed me for an evening out. She said she had relatives coming into town this weekend and had family obligations.

Ms Flaky said she was going to call me last night and tell me but she changed her mind because she did not want to spoil my weekend. I was tempted to tell her that at 8:00 PM local time on Sunday, my weekend was about over. She said she didn’t want me to think she was flaky or being unreliable at all.

Why would I think that?

Maybe a lot of experience with her and keeping appointments.

My coming weekend went down the drain when she said she had to cancel. It made no difference when she told me. The weekend results were still the same. If this had been a simple go to the movies event, I would not have been as upset as I am with a ticketed event.

Anyway, life is too short for warm beer and cheap cigars. I am over it now and have moved on beyond Ms Flaky who is now considered to be Ms Gone.


My day was a downer for me. I don’t feel like writing much more tonight; may be tomorrow will be better for me.

Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update

Visitors; Foreign and Otherwise
This past week was a good one for finding lost soles who wandered into the blog from the cold ether of the Internet. We had visitors from, in order of visit, South Korea, United Kingdom, India, Norway, Singapore, Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas and Italy.

I’ll beat most of you did know there was a Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas or where to find it on the globe. Being a former navigator from when I served in the United States Navy, I can find the Commonwealth.

We also had four visitors pop-in from http://www.kolabora.com, a web site that I have never talked about even visited.

I wondered what drove them to the blog; maybe it was some of the Duke’s drovers from THE COWBOYS.

The overall blog traffic is ahead of last year’s visitor traffic. The traffic volume should equal or come close to March’s volume when we had over thirty visitors in one day. It is always pleasing to your duty scribe to the visitor volume creep up; it means that I am doing something right. I would guess that you would either leave or send me pointed emails that clearly identified any shortcomings.

Fairy Tale Brownies
The Fairy Tale Brownies from http://www.brownies.com arrived in good order on Thursday.

I know they arrived safely because The Princess called me and said they arrived and were waiting at her front door when she got home from work. Well, I think that was what she said; it was difficult to tell since she was tearing the box open and then sampling one of the large 3 ½ ounces / 100 grams of rich Belgian chocolate brownies.

I think I heard her say something like, “Tanks Daddy, dis ish just yummy.” Then, I think the next sound I heard was a licking of the fingers.

Happy Merry Worker Vivian, from my old office, sent me an email saying the brownies had arrived. Vivian, like The Princess, has a sweet tooth and loves chocolate. She said one of the women was out and they were going to wait until she returned before they opened the box and I thought they were exercising remarkable restraint by doing that. I know they went through a feeding frenzy when I got the brownies last year for Administrative Professionals Day.

Vivian said the men in the office were unhappy because the women, and recipients of the box, wanted to wait until they were all there so they could all enjoy the brownies. She said some of the men said they were being greedy but I know that is not the case at all.

The Princess says you can never go wrong with Fairy Tale Brownies.

Vivian said that she was thinking of me earlier last week when she ordered a box of the brownies for her mother for Mother’s Day.

Fish Net Style Nylons
I am not a critic of women’s fashions per se. I don’t think any man could reasonably understand why a woman would want to intentionally wear shoes that will end up hurting her feet.

On the other hand, I do have a well developed sense of what looks right and sound on a woman.

Today was a good example of what I mean.

It was mid-morning, maybe no more than 10:30 AM when I saw a young woman, probably going to a cosmetics class enter the building. It was bright and sunny and breezy; a generally excellent day to window gaze at young women.

The young woman was wearing fish net nylons and boots. Her top and short skirt were black of course. I have two objections to this style of dress.

First, it was too early in the day for fish net nylons. They seem to belong to the time when it starts getting dark and later. They seem to connote a party atmosphere or destination and not something one would wear in the middle of a day to your employer’s offices.

Second, the fish net looked as if it was a heavy duty model; like maybe they could have been used to trap the Great White Whale. The gaps in the netting looked like they were on one inch / two or three centimeters squares. Of course, the fish net could have looked distended because the young lady may have had full sized legs. But, still the look was poor, she looked like she was wearing one of those mesh bags fruit growers use to bag oranges and grapefruit.

I will also admit that I do not dress very fashionably. The Princess says that I dress really dull and boring and that maybe this is why I haven’t met any really good women yet. She has a very valid point; yesterday I wore a blue grey wool suit, white shirt with a blue tie with white dots on it, and highly polished black shoes.

In my defense, I would point out that most people with money like to see their banker dress and look the part. They want to see someone who looks conservative and doesn’t drive above the speed limit. It helps them feel safe and good about leaving their money in my bank.

Weather
There was some degree of rain overnight. It must not have been much because I slept through it. I suppose some got wet from it.

Dissertation
I had asked a friend to review my first chapter. For the most part, my chapter was in good shape. I made some changes and corrections. I went back over it and ended up adding four more pages so now it is 31 pages long.

Chapter 2 is just getting started. I only have about seven pages in it. This will be the biggest chapter and will probably have around 60 or more pages in it.

Now, I just need my Committee Chair to like what I have written.


See, I told you it would be a dull weekend for me.

Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Preview

Dullsville
This weekend promises to be dull if nothing else.

My big events for Saturday are, in no particular order of importance, doing cleaning and laundry, writing and researching for the dissertation, and watching a new Japanese language show on cable.

You have to admit that is dull.

Sunday does not get much better. I think Sunday is assigned to the dissertation and the new Japanese language comedy serial on cable. I should point out the Japanese shows do come with reasonably creditable English subtitles.

In the event that I get a lot done on one of the days, I still have four DVDs that are sitting on the player, waiting to be seen.

Laptop
I decided to put off buying a new laptop for now. Prices are dropping and Intel announced that they will be coming out with new microprocessors chips towards the end of the year. The new chips should result in an inventory clearance plus Microsoft Vista’s eventual introduction will stimulate demand for new machines that will be fancier than what I need.

Dissertation
I have finished my first chapter. I think it is in good shape. Just to be certain, I sent it off to an old classmate who has earned his Doctor of Business Administration degree for his comments and suggestions. It is 26 pages long; my friend’s first chapter was nine pages long.

Maybe I am simply on the wordy side.

The second chapter is the longest chapter in the dissertation. I hope to be able to write up to ten pages over the weekend. This would be an excellent start since I believe the chapter will probably end up at 50 to 60 pages long. Of course, the pages are double spaced and I am using the required Courier font which sucks up even more space.

Work
The building fire alarm went off again today. It was either a test or a false or minor alarm. I remembered to take my cell phones with me when I evacuated the building as required by the fire marshal. I tried calling Doug but he was unavailable.

We spent about fifteen minutes milling around. Fortunately, it was warm and sunny so being outside was a good thing. I don’t think that everyone evacuated the building because the crowd outside looked really thin. Either some folks blew off the alarm or a lot of people were not at work in the middle of the day. We were doubly fortunate in that the alarm did not happen during lunch.


There you have it gentle readers.

Be well and stay happy.

Another Sunny Day

Another Sunny Day
It was another sunny day in Southern California today. I took advantage of the nice weather by going out on my balcony and reading. I also enjoyed a cigar while I was reading.

This was a very nice way to spend part of my afternoon.

The Laptop
I talked with the IT guys this morning about the Lenovo laptop I had researched yesterday. They think it is a good machine and only suggested that I spend an extra $20 for an additional year on the warranty service.

One of the IT guys asked why I wasn’t getting any software with the laptop.

I said that my current version of Office would be fine for a bunch of years to come. My Office XP edition has Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Access. I also have Project 2003 and Publisher 2003. There are not going to be any breakthroughs in any of these programs in the intermediate term so there is no need to spend any money on software for now.

Coz Classes and Tats, again
I learned something new today about the cosmetics classes that go on in the building. One of the women in the office said the ones in the lab coats probably worked for Clinque and the other probably worked for Estee Lauder.

That just goes to show how I know about women’s cosmetics. The explanation does make sense so I will accept it.

Today was an Estee Lauder day I think.

This would explain why I saw one young woman, who looked otherwise very attractive, with a ghastly green, red, and blue tattoo covering her arm from her shoulder to her wrist; a lab coat would have concealed the tat. The tat was one of those New Age designs that are supposed to mean something or another.

I also saw another woman with an arm tat while I was driving in the client’s office today. This tat only was on her forearm. Still, it was there in all of its vibrant color and glory for all of the world to see.

I wish I knew why tats are so popular with young women.

Of course, I could just be seeing an exceptional concentration of tats because the cosmetics industry is more concerned about looking and being trendy and, right now, tats are trendy or so it would seem.

Tats, after all, are for the most part rather permanent. Yes, I do know that they can be removed in most cases with several laser treatments. The removals or the ones I have seen are effective to a point but they have left a discoloration on the skin that resembles a scar.

So the removal process is not perfected which brought me to my next thought point. I was thinking because I was stopped for a traffic signal and wasn’t going anywhere until the signal changed.

What happens if tats suddenly become very unfashionable? Some in medical profession will see a surge in their out-patient tat removal business practice.

It made me shudder frankly.


Be well and stay happy.

Monday Visitors

Internet Service Provider – Part II
I talked to the IT guys at work today about my idea of dumping Earthlink and going with the local phone company for internet services. The head of IT said I may not want to do that since the trouble seems to be with the copper wire that runs from the local phone company central office to my place.

The IT guy said it doesn’t matter what label is on the broadband service. The copper wire is still the same, regardless of what the phone company sales people will try to tell you.

It looks like I will be staying with Earthlink for the time being. There is no benefit in changing providers now. Staying also means I do not have to go through the email address change process; that is a major plus for me.

New Laptop
My Handspring Visor’s calendar function shows that I ought to be buying a new laptop about now. The existing ThinkPad is closing in on five years old. The IT guy and I were talking about brands and what is out there. He liked Dell, IBM, and Toshiba. I have always been an IBM guy since my very first personal computer, the IBM PCjr.

He said I should wait until August so or since he believes prices will drop then. He also estimated the cost of the machine that I want to buy at around $1,500. That made sense and I believed that I could easily wait four months for August to roll around.

Then, I got home and read the newspaper.

I saw an advertisement from Lenovo for IBM ThinkPads. These computers were attractively prices and naturally all were well under the $1,500 mark. I was intrigued and interested.

I spent close to an hour exploring the Lenovo web site and playing with various machine configurations. I found one that I liked and is not that much over the IT guy’s price estimate.

I configured the machine to run on Windows Vista if I want to make a change from Windows XP Professional that I have been running since I got this machine. XP works fine and I don’t see any real need to upgrade to Vista yet. The machine would have 2 GB of RAM and a 60 GB hard drive. I have no idea what I will use all of that storage space for. I know Vista is a RAM hog so I ought to be set.

In the event I stay with XP, I feel safe with that decision since Microsoft only now is dropping support on Windows ME and 2000. Microsoft should continue to support XP until I need to buy a new laptop.

Tomorrow, I will talk with the IT guy and see if I missed any useful optional equipment or features.

Now, my potential next challenge will be what to do with the soon to be replaced laptop and the other old laptop that I still have. I suppose charitable donations are the simplest solutions after I wipe the hard rives clean first.

Wrist Watch
I am one of those old fashioned people that still wears a wrist watch. My watch is on the old fashioned side. It only tells time with moving hands and Roman numerals.

I don’t think one can get much simpler than that. Well, one could be like Doug and not wear a watch at all. He relies on his cellphone for the time and calendar.

Anyway and more to the point, I had to take my watch band in a notch. This means that I am losing weight on my arms. I had not expected this to happen so this is a pleasant surprise for me. I am also losing weight all over so that my jeans now will slide down further than ever before.

This is a nice problem to have.

Monday Visitors
The blog had 18 visitors on Monday. I wonder what was it that I wrote that was so compelling for these visitors to read the bog. If I knew what caught their interest, I would probably focus on those topics more.

Oh well, life goes on and so will the blog.


Be well and stay happy.

Planning Things

Planning Things
I was busy today with making plans for myself.

Doug and I talked over the weekend about his treatment for his children’s television class. Just to let you know that we talk about many other things, we also talked about the upcoming Chuckay events.

We correctly concluded that we should include a meal at Albertacos and a meal at the Original Tommy’s Hamburgers in addition to the traditional trip to Morton’s. It looks like Morton’s will be just Doug and me and maybe Doug’s friend Evelyn if she accepts the invitation to go to dinner with us. The new young lady has a business event on Saturday that should run into the early evening so she is out of the picture; for this event only so far.

Then, I have some events at school to go. Since I am writing my dissertation, I do not have any on-campus classes to go to. I write my paper and then email it to the Committee Chair for his review.

On April 30th, I am going to an afternoon reception/mixer for the Doctor of Business Administration majors and the Doctor of Education and Organizational Leadership majors. I am wondering if the free and probably light food will be worth the gasoline and my time for the drive out to school and back. I am also wondering how much I have in common with school administrators that take the Education doctorate and who have never had to worry about making a budget or covering a payroll.

Then on May 7th, there is an installation for the honor society chapter at school. Somehow, I made the honor society. I had no idea my grades were that good until I got a notice from the school saying I was eligible to become a member. Of course, I had to pay my membership fee and I would get a membership certificate, suitable for framing, in exchange.

Both of these events are on a Sunday so that means I will have to get cleaned to go the events. I suppose that I should not object because one never knows who one will meet at an event like this. I think we could safely assume that any blonde woman at the honor society event has some smarts and was probably very intelligent.

The honor society event is in the morning and should end around Noon or so. I could swing past the new young lady’s house since it is on my way home, more or less, and we could go out for Sunday brunch. That would be a nice way to end the weekend. This, of course, assumes that I have a generally good time when we go to the theater for the Count Basie Orchestra. If things do not go as well as I would like at the Count Basie event, then I can always roll into the nearby Hooters for Sunday brunch or make that a simple burger and fries and lunch.

Administrative Office Professionals Day is coming next week. We used to call it Secretary’s Day. I guess Administrative Office Professional sounds better.

I ordered a box of Fairy Tale brownies for my old office. I know the office professionals there just love the brownies. Last year, when the box arrived, it was like a feeding frenzy in the shark tank of the aquarium after it was opened. I know that I did not have to do that; I just did it and it feels like the right thing for me to do. I also got a box for my current work location. I know they will like them as well.

Since I am Nice Guy Chuck and occasional Favorite Dad , I also sent the Princess and her roommate and their best friend a box as well. Hopefully, they will all share the single box gently and in a lady-like manner of Southern gentlewomen.

Proof Reading
Doug called me today to ask me to look over a PowerPoint that he had put together for the children’s television class. The presentation is about the Lizzie McGuire show that is now off the air.

He was having trouble with it and needed me to fix some slides and generally clean and tidy the PowerPoint up a bit. I said I would get to it as soon as I got home from the office. The PowerPoint was in good shape. I only added two slides so I could spread some of the text out and I was finished.

We talked about the presentation this evening. He was not supposed to have this assignment in the group. But, since they will give it next Monday, he felt he had to step up to the plate since the designated hitter [PowerPoint creator designee] was a gross loser. The designated hitter is so lame and pathetic that she doesn’t use email and she is a senior in college. Actually, she has an email account; she just never opens it.

How can you have a group that doesn’t meet live if you don’t have online collaboration?

Oh yes, I ought to point the loser is also the group leader. I would not follow that leader’s directions to the men’s room even if I standing in front of the men’s room door.

Internet Service Provider
I decided to not make the change of internet service providers until after I talked to the IT guys at work. What, for example, if the problem is with the phone company central office and not with Earthlink? Then, I have merely changed vendors and the problem still exists.

One more day will not kill me.

Hair Extensions
Personally, I do not use hair extensions. I have enough gray hair to nicely cover my head. True, I would like to have more of it but I am not complaining at all.

I noticed one of the young female smokers who work for the airline early this morning. She had hair extensions for the first time today. It was easy for me to notice a change. She has been sitting outside of my office window two or three times a day, smoking a cigarette or two, for the last one hundred days.

Her hair is short and has been short. It is just below her ears. Today, she had, with the extensions, hair down to the middle of her back. The extension was a very good color match and I thought the look worked very well for her.

I think she was unhappy with it because, by mid-morning, she had it is a pony tail. That just did not look right at all. Personally, I think she looks perfect with her hair short.


Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update

Tats – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
One of the good things about Winter is that people with tats, like most of the rest of us, dress warmly and cover up. That’s a very positive aspect of the cold, you know.

Before I get up on my soap box, I should qualify my views on tats. I can accept the small, sort of out of the way tats; you know the happy face or a flower or something along those lines. They do not upset my stomach or offend my sensibilities as much as the larger scale ones that cover entire body parts like an arm, leg, or chest.

Not liking a tattoo has nothing to do with whether or not I like the person whose body has been used for a large doodling pad. I can like the person and not like the tats.

I am not the only one who finds tattoos to be less than attractive.

Last week, a friend sent me an email with a collection of quotations that were attributed to the comedian George Carlin. I found the one on tattoos on women to be particularly on point.

Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters in it doesn't make you spiritual. It's right above the crack of your ass. And it translates to "beef with broccoli." The last time you did anything spiritual, you were praying to God you weren't pregnant. You're not spiritual. You're just high.

Carlin had another one that I liked as well, even better actually.

There's no such thing as flavored water. There's a whole aisle of this crap at the supermarket, water, but without that watery taste. Sorry, but flavored water is called a soft drink. You want flavored water? Pour some scotch over ice and let it melt. That's your flavored water.

That has always worked for me rather nicely, preferably with a single malt scotch whisky.

Thursday’s Dinner
My dinner on Thursday with the new young lady went very well.

We went to one of my favorite local restaurants, L. A. Food Show. It is also one of the Princess’s favorite places in Los Angeles. I have been going there for almost three years now and no one has ever had a bad meal there.

I suppose that some of you would like to have that brief summary analysis fleshed out just a tiny bit more. I think that is reasonable; we spent just under three hours at dinner. No, the service from James was attentive and efficient.

Obviously, we did talk a lot.

The new young lady had a strong and compelling need for an emotional dump based on a crummy job and poor leadership at work. I think she had been having a bad week at her job. I am a good listener. I can grunt and acknowledgement with the best of the world’s great listeners. I can certainly understand the need to release and then move on.

We talked all through our dinners. This was a nice way to slow the meal’s pace.

I suggested that we share an appetizer of an avocado and turkey stuffed egg roll. It does not sound all that interesting to start with. It was an excellent suggestion. We both consumed our portions is semi-silence.

I wished I had ordered another serving instead of the egg roll instead of having a small caesar salad. The new young lady had seafood bisque that was excellent. I slurped a tasting while she excused herself to the ladies’ room. James supplied a spare soup spoon for me.

The new young lady had grilled halibut for her dinner. She said it was excellent; I could tell by her empty plate that this was not idle chit chat to make me feel good about the dinner venue selection.

I had grilled Ahi tuna. I was going to consider the halibut but since I had that fish a week ago when the Brother was in town I felt I needed something else that was healthy.

We washed our meals down with a Sterling Vineyard 2004 Chardonnay. This is a light, crisp, white wine that did not overpower the food. I would definitely order this chardonnay again.

We blew away all thoughts for a healthy meal with our desserts. The new young lady is a chocolate lover sort of like your humble scribe. I am a part time chocolate ex-lover because of my diabetes. She had a chocolate bread pudding with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream and lots of chocolate sauce.

I had my usual hot fudge sundae; it comes with three scoops of vanilla ice cream and hot fudge. I had them add caramel sauce to the sundae. It was absolutely yummy.

Time Breakers
Time Breakers is the name of a children’s television show that is the basis for one of Doug’s term papers this semester. He is taking a class in children’s television.

Doug has to create and develop a children’s television show. The paper had an initial limit of three to five pages. I knew that he would blow past that limit; he tends to write in greater detail than many students and that takes more paper to complete the assignment.

My role in the term paper project is that of proof reader. I usually catch the sentence fragments and run-on sentences. I tend to clean things up a bit and provide better transitions as an editor. Sometimes, I will suggest minor changes to make the story better. Time Breakers involved time travel so I suggested that he include a destination location along with the date that his characters are going to visit. Without a destination, the time machine would remain stationary. He accepted my suggestion.

I think the paper exceeds what the professor was looking for and I feel that he should do well in the class. Doug expects the animation majors to do particularly well in the class since children are their primary audience.

Job Searching and Interviewing
I heard from the credit union that interviewed me over the telephone for their open president’s job. This was the one where I had to submit a personal action plan for the first ninety days. The intermediary said the board was reviewing the submissions and would make a decision shortly about who they want to interview in person. It was nice to know that I am still being considered.

On Friday, I received an email from one of the recruiters who found my resume on one of the job search engines. He wanted to know if I would be interested in a COO position in Orange County. I said that I would be; it would be a shorter drive and I would not have to relocate to work there.

All of this interest in me got me to thinking over the weekend; actually, it was Saturday while I was out on the balcony reading and smoking.

What happens if I get a job offer from one company while another and more interesting company is still considering me?

Do I take the job offer on hand and not worry about what might happen to me? Or, do I take the offered job with the shaded thought of bailing out if the more interesting job offer comes to pass?

My best instinct tells me that I should take what comes along. It also tells me that I should act honorably and not leave the first company in the lurch. Besides, one does not want to create a negative image.

Negative images are generally harsh on a career unless you are a photographer.

Backups
I have become very consistent about backing up my hard drive now. I am now backing up the complete drive on a monthly basis. I am backing up the critical material on an as created basis so that I backup my dissertation every time I work on it.

When I made the April backup, I was able to shed around 300 MB worth of unread and unnecessary files from the hard drive. This will modestly improve performance I think.

Microsoft Calculator Plus
This is one Microsoft program that I can honestly say that I love. It is a small, simple to use, free, always a compelling price, program. I use the program when I chat with people who live outside of the United States.

The United States has not yet joined the metric world. We still use the old English Imperial measurements even though we passed a law decades ago that said we would convert to the metric system.

I guess this is one of the benefits of being a superpower.

As many of you know, I have a number of chat partners who live in China. The program makes it easy for me to convert my measurements, like temperature and distance, into something that is meaningful for them.

The Dissertation
I finished Chapter One yesterday.

The term “finished” needs to be qualified just a bit.

I finished my writing of the chapter. I plan to have someone else proof read the chapter; this should lead to some changes in the text. Then, my Committee Chair will read and require a whole lot more changes. After I make all of his changes, he will then submit it to the other members for their comments and changes.

Once all of the changes are made, it will be considered an acceptable chapter. I am making progress and I feel very good about that.

Reading and Smoking
This was an excellent weekend for reading and smoking for me. It was warmish [65F / 17C] out on the balcony. There was very little in the way of a breeze. That was just about perfect reading conditions.

It was also prefect for smoking too.

I am still plodding along with my biography of Thomas Jackson. It was written in the later 1800s so the grammar and sentence structure is labored. It is a slow read compared to most modern works.

I think in another week or so it will be time to break out the shorts and short sleeved shirts and enjoy Summer.

As U Lyk It
I saw an updated version of the Shakespeare classic last night.

I had read the play before but in the original version so this was a sometimes bizarre version for me and confusing at times. My difficulty was compounded by the play’s flip flop of grammar; some lines were the original version and some were more modern day English. For the most part, the play did seem to follow the original fairly closely. The cast was energetic and very capable.

There seemed to be a change in the direction the play took. There was an increased emphasis on what some would call alternative life styles and same sex relationships. I don’t recall this as being part of the Bard’s original play concept. I believe this emphasis probably resulted in bad word of mouth and poor ticket sales. I think about half of the regular theater goers stayed home last night.

The play was in its world premiere presentation. I will let others decide if it was a good idea or not.

That is not a way to make money at the box office.

I sort of question the decision to stage the play in a conservative local community theater. It is not likely to engender high renewal sales for the next season. I saw this happen once before at another venue. The theater took three or four years to recover the lost season ticket sales.

On the plus side, I did see some substantial seat location improvement so I may be benefiting next year, assuming that I renew the tickets.

In the end, I think I enjoyed myself. I am not certain if I would want to see the play performed again anytime soon.

Internet Service Provider
I use Earthlink as my internet service provider and have since I went online in 1995.

Lately, I have been running into trouble with the service. I am getting more dropped connections and otherwise poor service. I can connect to the internet and receive my email and chat but I have trouble surfing the web. It is extremely frustrating to have to power cycle the modem, restart the connection, and reboot the laptop several times just be able to achieve a reasonable, high speed download capacity.

Earthlink is a high cost service provider also.

I had some time to think about the service while I was out on the balcony smoking this afternoon. It seems to me that I can drop back on Earthlink to a dial-up connection speed and sign up for DSL service with the local phone company and have more money left over at the end of the month.

I figure that I would need close to a year to convert everyone I email and those that send me material to a new email address. That doesn’t seem like a very long period and I could probably do it faster with a minimal degree of effort on my part. I will contact the phone company tomorrow and see what the cost is and how soon I can get connected.


That was my weekend gentle readers. I hope you spent your weekend well. I also want to wish all of the readers a joyful Easter or Passover.

Be well and stay happy.

early Weekend Preview and Programming Note

Early Weekend Preview and Programming Note
I know that I am early with the Weekend Preview edition of the blog. I think it is better to be early than to be late. Besides, as I mentioned earlier I am going out to dinner on Thursday night. I am thinking I will not be home early enough to toss out of blog posting. It would be really foolish of me to rush home from dinner to post a blog when I will be dining with the younger woman who will go to the Count Basie Orchestra performance at the end of the month. This posting will have to make do for today and tomorrow.

Furthermore, if we have a good time at dinner, she may end up with an invitation to the Chuckay Dinner at Morton’s in May. No need to create conflict or ill will with the young lady.

Chuckay
Typing about Chuckay and food got me to thinking that Doug and I ought to visit our usual fast food haunts during Chuckay as well. There is always room for a trip to Albertacos, Fatburger, and the Original Tommy’s Hamburgers at Rampart and Beverly in downtown Los Angeles.

If we visit for Chuckay, then our next likely time to visit these places will be towards the end of Summer and that is a long, long way away.

Job Searching and Interviewing
The company that emailed me phoned me today. They want to set up a telephone interview first. That makes sense although I was a little disappointed with the long lead time of scheduling the phone interview for the afternoon of May 2nd.

Nothing like planning ahead I guess.

I suppose that they would call me in for a live interview if I do well on the phone interview.

The company where I am working had their CEO announce his retirement yesterday evening – early this morning. He had been talking about retirement recently but he has always been talking about retirement. This retirement will obviously have a potential adverse affect on my consulting work for the company since he was the one who brought me into the company.

Some of the employees asked me if I was going to apply for the job. I was surprised that they considered me a candidate for the job. I said that I had not thought about it all that much.

After some reflection, the job is something to consider. It is only seven miles / eleven kilometers from my home. The close location would certainly result in some substantial gasoline cost savings to say nothing of the wear and tear on the car or my physical adn mental conditions. Plus, if you are the CEO, you don’t have normal work hours that everyone else has so I would not have to show up precisely at 8:00 AM nor leave after 5:00 PM every day.

I do have an advantage over many potential candidates since I know the organization and the staff better than they would know it. I know most all of the directors and they are acquainted with me and my ability. There would be a very short learning curve for both the company and its board of directors and me.

I will talk with the CEO first before I make my mind up about this job opening.

Dissertation
My phone call to my Committee Chair went better than I had hoped for. I was able to get my confusion clarified quickly so that I will be able to pound out the first chapter this weekend.

I now understand what I need to put into the section. This section should add another page or two to the chapter and that is better than being short.

Weekend Preview
My weekend has about four or five activities set up so far. On top of the list is finishing Chapter 1 of my dissertation. That is the most important event for me.

I plan to go to the theater and see As U Lik It, an updated, set in Southern California, version of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. I am looking forward to the performance. Since I will be going by myself, I do not have to get as dressed up as I normally would do.

Besides, there is rain in the forecast for Saturday so why get dressed up only to get rained on.

I have to do some laundry and that will be Saturday morning while I read the newspaper and do the sudoko puzzle.

I had not planned to go to Barnes & Noble but they sent me a fat email discount coupon that expires on Sunday. I hate to pass up on a fat discount. I am currently wading, almost literally, through a reprint of a biography of Thomas J. Jackson who is better known by his Civil War nickname of Stonewall. The book was written after the Civil War by a retired British army colonel. His grammar style is on the ponderous and complicated side. I had made a mental promise not too buy another book until I finish this one.

It is not a very filling or exciting weekend by any measure. But, it is my weekend.


Be well and stay happy and I will see on Sunday with the usual Weekend Update.

First Bikini of the Season

First Bikini of the Summer Season
I saw my first bikini of the Summer Season yesterday when I was at the post office mailing the Princess’ photo cds.

The first of anything is not necessarily the best vision or version; just look at Microsquash’s approach to product releases and updates.

I think the real problem with first of the season bikini sightings is that the wearer has been inside and covered up all Winter and for most of the Fall as well. Tans are lost and fade away. There is the latent tendency for body whiteness, in some women, that approaches blinding. This, of course, is a self correcting problem as the season wears or burns onward.

The young ladies in question were attractive in a blindingly white sort of way.

Now don’t get me wrong, the vision was tasteful and pleasing. I just would have preferred a bit more color in the image or maybe less paleness.

SPAM
I was thinking that my internet company had spam under control. My inbox was less cluttered than before recently. For the last few weeks. I have been receiving a dozen or so emails overnight and less on the weekends. About half were ones that I was expecting so the spam volume was way down.

Until this morning.

The inbox was groaning under a load of 43 emails when I opened it. Most of these emails were spam with ideas for penny stock investments, medicines from Canada, a warning or two that this was my last chance to take advantage of a great mortgage deal, and a Nigerian scam letter.

One spammer even threatened me that I would receive no more emails unless I responded immediately. I was shocked, shocked at the thought, that some spammer would actually stop sending me email. You can be assured that email was the first one that I deleted.

Gentle readers, I want you to know that I will survive, rather nicely actually, if I am cut of from all spam email.

Job Searching and Interviewing
I got an email yesterday evening [someone was working late] from a company that I applied at a couple of weeks ago. They wanted some more information from me.

I thought that was a promising email. The company would not have asked for more information unless they thought I was a worthwhile prospect for the position. The job is one that I would enjoy and have fun doing. I know having fun at work sounds odd but it sometimes happens.

The job is located about 75 miles / 120 kilometers away from the place near the ocean. That sounds like a long distance but the drive should not be all together terrible. Most of the way, I would be going against the normal traffic flow at a nice high speed but not exceeding the posted speed limits. The Prelude does get around 28 miles to the gallon / 12 kilometers to the liter or thereabouts so the drive won’t be too costly.

I would not have to relocate for the job and that would save me a whole bunch of money.

This afternoon I received a phone call from a recruiter. I had sent his company my resume and he was getting back to me. The online job was on the vague side; it did not identify a specific client. We had a good conversation and it may develop into a solid job referral.

We will just have to wait and see what develops from these contacts.


Be well and stay happy.

Didn't rain on me today

Didn’t rain on me today
The local weather forecast called for a chance of rain today. I toyed with the idea of leaving my raincoat at home and taking my chances with the rain gods. I decided I would be warmer and drier today and carried my raincoat to work with me.

As things turned out, I did not need the raincoat to stay dry or stay warm. I almost felt sheepish for carrying the raincoat from my car to the office and then back to the car at the end of the day.

It is far better to be warm and dry and perhaps a wee bit sheepish than to be cold and damp any day.

Telephone Surveys
Do you get telephone calls from survey firms?

I seem to have offended someone because I am now getting these annoying calls on a near regular basis. I am getting one or more a week. Mine usually come after my dinner.

I always ask how long the survey will take to complete. I don’t want to be spending more than a few minutes on some stupid survey. The survey people always lie about how long the survey will take. Then, for some unknown reason, they get upset when I say, “Good night,” and hang up after their allotted time and the survey is incomplete. I have even had one call me back to rag on me.

Hello survey people, I only agreed to answer questions for a specific period of time. It certainly isn’t my fault that you lied about the time or are inefficient about asking questions.

Try being honest for a change; it might do wonders for your group’s consumer image.

I had a rash of bad luck last week with telephone surveys. I had one survey company call me on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights. I kept telling them that I did not want to participate and they still called back. That survey company is now on my do not speak to for any reason except to say, “No thank you,” list.

I should also point out that I do not scream, swear, or otherwise verbally abused the survey callers. I am Nice Guy Chuck after all.

Voice Mail
I finally got a voice mail/messaging setup at the client’s office where I have been working for the last 100 business days. I only had seven messages in the system to listen to; fortunately, none were crucial or urgent. They were all answered in a timely manner long before I heard what was said.

Princess’ Birthday Dinner Photos
I sent the Princess some of her birthday dinner photos by email this morning. I picked out three or four good ones plus one of Dad in his new University of Utah beanie.

The Princess liked the photos and said they were much better than the ones from last year. The last year photos went straight to the “don’t ever show these photos because none are very good” pile. Last year’s photos will not see the light of day until the next Ice Age.

I sent the photo cds to the Princess this afternoon on my way home from work. I also sent along some copies for her roommate and their best friend, they are almost like the usual suspects. They should arrive in a couple of days.

More of Nice Guy Chuck or Nice Guy Dad.

Saturday Theater
My plans for the theater for Saturday took a turn for the worse this morning.

The young lady that I had asked to join me had to cancel on me. For the record, a young lady is any woman who is younger than me.

This cancellation was an obvious disappointment for me. But, her excuse was commendable. She is celebrating one of her best friend’s one year anniversary of being sober. The celebration will be at the treatment hospital. I can understand why she had to cancel since she promised her friend that she would be there to join in her sobriety celebration. She only found out about the celebration on Sunday.

We are still planning to go out for dinner on Thursday so all is not lost.

I decided to see if she was interested in me by asking her out to another theater event this month.

I happen to like classic or traditional jazz; this is something I picked up from my father. I used to listen to his records; yes, vinyl records, no cds or cassette tapes.

The Count Basie Orchestra is going to be performing a concert at one of the theaters that I go to on the 29th. I invited her to join me for this performance and she readily accepted.

Cynics would also point out that she readily accepted on the earlier invitation to see the updated version of As You Like It.

I am not at any loss since one set of tickets are complimentary; actually, I have a life time seat arrangement with the theater company. I won’t go into the details because they are rather boring and dull.

I bought the other seats without anyone in mind to take to the performance. I guess you could view the Count Basie Orchestra performance as a sunk cost for my search for a female companion.

Programming Note
Since I may be at dinner on Thursday and home late, I may not get a Weekend Preview posted as I usually try to do for you gentle readers.


Be well and stay happy.

Slo' Times for me

Slo' Times for Me
This was a period of slow times for me.

I did work on my dissertation as I had planned to do. I got about as far as I could. I need to speak with the Committee Chair to clarify two sections of the chapter. The chapter is now about 23 or 24 pages long and I am reasonably pleased with what I have written so far.

I know the Chair will find serious fault with my work; that is, after all, his job in this process.

With his clarification, I ought to be to finish the chapter by next weekend. Then, I will ask an outside party to proof read it for me and then I will submit it to the Committee for their collective approval.

DVD Planet.com
I had to go back to DVD Planet.com on Saturday to return a couple of duplicate purchases.

While I had no definite plans to purchase any DVDs, I did want to look at a Marlene Dietrich collection and a Mae West collection that were just released. These collections, while interesting, did not catch my attention.

The Mouse [Walt Disney Company] was sponsoring an inventory clearance of their old DVDs. There were a good number of Miramax titles on sale for $6.00 each. That was a real bargain so I picked up nine more DVDs including FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, GROSSE POINT BLANK, and INTERNAL AFFAIRS. After factoring in my return credits, my net cost was only about $10.

I watched INTERNAL AFFAIRS and TRIUMPH OF THE WILL yesterday afternoon. They soaked up all of the afternoon. I think it was time well spent.

DVDs Sitting on the Player
I now have four DVDs sitting on my player; SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS and Krzysztof Kieslowski’s trilogy RED, WHITE, and BLUE. I have some time this weekend I think so I ought to be able to knock off one or two these films.

Bad Sleeping
I did not sleep well at all on Thursday night – Friday morning. I think it was one of my worst nights’ sleep in may be six months or more.

I did not eat anything that would have upset my stomach for lunch or dinner Thursday.

The only unusual event for me was that I asked a new lady out to go to the theater with me. Her reaction was, “I would love to go to the theater with you.” That was more than I had anticipated.

Frankly, I was unprepared for her reaction so I forgot to tell her what we will see. I spoke with her again and asked if she wanted to know what was playing.

She said something like, “does it matter?”

I said probably not but we are going to see an updated, set in Southern California version of Shakespeare’s comedy, As You Like It. She thought that it sounded like fun and was looking forward to the play.

Little surprises like this can be really nice.

I did recover the lost hours of peaceful sleep by logging ten solid hours on Friday night and eight more hours on Saturday night.

Chuckay Plans
I spoke with Doug about the preliminary plans for Chuckay, the month long celebration of all things Chuck. They are beginning to firm up nicely now.

Our Morton’s dinner is set and we are likely to miss all of the Mothers’ day crowds. I have been avoiding eating anything remotely rich or chocolaty so I can indulge at dinner. We are both hoping that our favorite server Amy will be working when we go to the dinner.

I may try to work in a trip to the outlet mall to pick up some ties before it get too hot in the desert.

Cigar Smoking
I finally got out on the balcony this afternoon for a cigar. It is still too early for shorts and shirt sleeved shirts.

This was my first cigar in a couple of months. I did enjoy it and I am looking forward to more opportunities as the weather continues to warm up and as we get closer to Summer.

Foreign Visitors and Long Time Readers
This was an interesting week for foreign visitors. We had the usual ones from Canada and the United Kingdom.

The unusual and perhaps lost in the ether visitors came from Taiwan, Oman, Estonia, and Israel. You must admit that those are unusual home countries for the old blog.

There were no long time readers this week. I define, for now anyway, long time as being more than fifteen minutes on the blog or reading more than three pages.


That was the weekend gentle readers.

Be well and stay happy.

Nothing Happened

Nothing Happened
Strange as it seems, nothing much happened to me today.

I went to work. I made a bunch of phone calls as part of a project to help the client find a new vendor for a new program. During the calls, I learned that the weather really is better in Southern California. But, you and I both knew that fact already now, didn’t we.

I do have some holdover stuff from earlier blog postings that fell on the cutting room floor.

On Monday and Tuesday when it was raining, the smokers would all scurry out of the building as soon as the sun came out. They reminded me of cockroaches that only come out in the dark and then run for cover as soon as the light is turned on. Cockroach is perhaps too harsh a term for the smokers I think. Calling them that seems to demonize them even more.

Oh well, I was not out there smoking so I guess I have a slight moral edge here.

I have a couple of DVDs from last Saturday’s stop at DVD Planet.com to view. I picked up nine DVDs and only two were ones that I had not seen before.

Doug picked out a Preston Sturges film, SULLIVAN’s TRAVELS. He said that he had seen the film in one of his film classes and that it was one of Sturges’ best films. Sturges was a comedic genius so I am looking forward to watching the film over the weekend.

The other film is Leni Riefenstahl’s TRIUMPH OF THE WILL. This is a historically significant film that covers Adolph Hitler and the 1934 Nuremberg Nazi party rally. As you might imagine, it is one of the most controversial films of all time. I picked the film up because of its significance.

I do have a contrast of films of watch this weekend for certain.

The building management is having the building windows washed now. I wondered why the windows were being washed now; the rainy season still has a few more weeks left to run or pour or drip.

Maybe the contractor was less expensive if they came early in April than later in the year.

Weekend Preview
Slim pickings for this weekend’s activities for your humble scribe. I will be writing and working on the dissertation and that is about it. If the weather stays nice, I may go smoke a cigar on the balcony.


Be well and stay happy.

Odd-ball Day

Odd-ball Day
It was one of those odd-ball days that happen every once in a while. You are never prepared for the event or events. When it happens, you are struck with how to react or how you should have reacted and then you ponder your decisions and actions for the rest of the day.

My Wednesday morning was one of those days.

I was coming back from the sandwich shop with my morning coffee. Now, the office has coffee but since I am the only decaffeinated coffee drinker, I buy a cup because it is better tasting coffee than what the office has to sip on and I don't want to waste a whole pot of coffee.

I was smiling because I was alive and that is always a good thing at any age and at my age in particular. That, plus the week was about half over and we all know how much I enjoy the weekend.

I passed two women in the hall outside of the office. The shorter one smiled back at me and said, "Good morning," to me. I think they worked at a cosmetics company in the building. She was attractive in a cosmetics sort of way; her hair was about as short as mine and all moussed up. She had it standing up in a spiky kind of pattern. It was a style that was not mean to have some guy run his fingers through her hair.

Had I been more alert, I would or should have something like, “Hello, how are you,” or some other glib, trite greeting. But, I was not alert so I missed an opportunity to meet a young lady.

Who knows, I might have been able to score some really good stuff for men for covering gray hair.

Oh well, I will be more alert tomorrow and in the coming days. Maybe I will see her again and perhaps I will have the presence of mind to start a conversation with her.

Windy Day
The rain storm left town for the moment. It will return on Sunday or Monday so my break is limited but it means that I will have sun for most of the weekend. It may even get warm enough to go out on the balcony for a cigar.

Instead of rain, it was windy today. I can handle wind or rain for that matter. Wind only messes up my hair.

Messed hair is a very good thing. It means that you have hair on your head and not some
sad ring of hair around the ears.

I went to the market because I was out of food, a perfect reason for food shopping. I was walking across the parking lot to go into the market when I saw a man about my age or maybe a little older. He was struggling with his comb over hair style that was about to come undone.

Sure enough, it came undone and blew away. It looked very sad and pathetic actually.

I guess he was just too vain to deal with his lack of hair. A comb over hair style is popular in Southern California. The man is bald on top and so, to compensate for the baldness, he combs his hair over from the side where it grows to the top bald spot. The bulk of his hair maybe only an inch or so long / couple of centimeters long. The comb over portion is probably six or seven inches long / fifteen to eighteen centimeters long. Most men use a bunch of hair spray, like glue, to make sure it stays in place.

Sad really.

Dinner
I had a healthy dinner tonight.

I picked up two salmon steaks at the market and planned on one for tonight and the other for tomorrow night. I sautéed them both tonight in lemon juice and parsley, basil, and cilantro.

Tasty.

Then, I cooked a potato and had half of the potato with a salmon steak tonight. I had a sliced tomato with some chopped onions and an oil and vinegar salad dressing. I did put some, but not very much, low fat sour cream on the baked potato.

Yummy and I had no dessert.


That was my day gentle readers; good in many respects but it could have been much better for me. I wonder what tomorrow will bring for me.

Be well and stay happy.

Dinner with the Brother

Odd and Ends and Bits and Pieces
For those of you who stopped by yesterday to what wondrous writings I had tossed out in the blog, I am sorry that you made the trip only to read Sunday’s posting.

It rained off and on yesterday. It rained off and on again today only much harder and longer. I am expecting more rain tomorrow and then a couple of cloudy but dry days and then more rain in time for the weekend.

Thankfully, I have no plans for the weekend yet so I can stay inside and remain dry.

Daylight Savings Time
Sunday was the change over date for Daylight Savings Time. I counted up the clocks and I think I have to change seven or eight clocks; fortunately, the computer changes the clock by itself. I don’t like to change the time because it always takes a couple of days to get everything synchronized again. I suppose I could just keep everything on Greenwich Mean Time but that would be sort of dull plus it would confuse the daylights out of anyone else who saw one of my clocks

Visitors
Last week was a good week for foreign visitors to the blog; we had visits from the United Kingdom, Singapore, France, Denmark, Taiwan, and Saudi Arabia. I’m guessing that Saudi Arabia was a visit by mistake.

We had one visitor who stayed long enough to clock 30 minutes reading a number of my prior postings.

For the month, Balancing Checkbooks had about 235 visitors. This volume is up slightly from a year ago when it benefited from some men’s college basketball linkage. This was not the case this year.

Dinner with the Brother
I was out having dinner with my brother. He was in town on business for a couple of days and then will head back to his home in San Francisco. We ended up at what is rapidly becoming our usual dinning place, Kincaid’s Fish, Chop, & Steak House on the Redondo Beach Pier.

Surprise, surprise, Kincaid’s specializes in fresh seafood. We both ended up with grilled Alaskan halibut that was served with steamed spinach and coarsely mashed potatos. He had their French onion soup that he really enjoys. I had some tomato basil soup with chicken, broccoli, and black beans in it. It was an excellent meal.

I pigged out shamelessly over dessert. I had their Chocolate Decadence Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream and Chocolate syrup. I think it had enough calories to melt steel. I am done with desserts until next month for sure and certain.

We talked about the usual family type of things, what the kids and relatives are doing. Nothing very exciting; we even gave up a chance to go to a sports bar and watch the NCAA basketball final game for the 2005 – 2006 season. Since neither one of our old school teams were playing, we had little interest in the outcome.

Tonight, I will have a Healthy Choice frozen dinner that I will pop into the microwave oven and then eat. No dessert tonight and no delicious olive oil-garlic bread like we had at Kincaid’s

Hair cutting
It was see Michelle the Stylist yesterday because my hair was getting on the ratty and out of control side. I also had to see Michelle because my $2.00 coupon expired today and I would hate to walk away from a nice discount like that

It was very easy to see Michelle since she is about four month pregnant. She is starting to show or blimp out now.

I exercised restrain yesterday. I didn’t tip Michelle with the usual cigar that she loves; she is pregnant after all. I got her a small box of Ethel M chocolates instead. The chocolates are all natural ingredients so that makes them semi-healthy and Michelle promised me that she would only have one chocolate a day.

I also pointed out that it could be her Easter candy.

My hair is shorter now but I am not certain that it is better. Granted, it is not as ratty looking as it was before I saw Michelle. It looks a little better but I wish it was not cut as short as she likes to cut it.

I know I could go to another stylist and then I would have to put up with his or her interpretation of how my hair should be cut. On the plus side, being able to complain and grouse about how my hair looks means I have a full head of hair while other men just have a ring of hair around their ears instead.

Job Searching and Interviewing
Yesterday when I came home, I had an email from recruiter at a large local bank. He was interested in my background and wanted to consider me a project management position.

I thanked him for considering me in my email reply and I said my background was not in software projects and I had no experience with some of the key software program involved with the project.

He wrote back and said the bank could train me and asked me to send in my resume. Either I am really good on paper or he is really desperate to fill the position. It is very nice to have others think you have abilities to do jobs that you think you are not qualified for.


So there you have Monday and Tuesday for me gentle readers.

Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update

Original Tommy’s Burgers
The Doug and I went to the Original Tommy’s Burger for lunch on Saturday. We had talked about the lunch venue on Friday and concluded that we needed to go to Tommy’s since Doug was going to be at Albertacos on Friday.

I had a light breakfast knowing that I would be at Tommy’s. That was a smart idea.

I thought about getting a Number 1 combination which is a double chili cheeseburger, fries, and a medium drink as I was driving out to pick up Doug. That seemed like a reasonable meal to me.

When we standing in line to place our orders at Tommy's, I said to Doug that I was thinking about ordering a Mega Combo meal. He said that he was thinking about doing the same. So, we both had Mega Combos and they were epic. The chili just rolled off of the burgers. The cheese on the chili cheese fries had melted so nicely.

I needed the large drink for my meal.

Perfect.

While we were at Tommy’s, we talked about school for Doug. He made the Dean’s List for the second consecutive quarter which made Dad happy. Summer quarter does not count for or against the Dean’s List. He showed me the letter from the school. It was addressed, Dear Dean’s List Student. Doug thinks he will get a personalized letter from his Dean in a couple of weeks or so.

Theater
I went to the theater on Saturday night and saw a musical called SWING. It is a collection of songs from the 1940s and 1950s and dancing from that period. It is perfect for someone who likes that type of music or the big band sound.

The eight piece orchestra was talented and loud. Some of the songs were indifferently performed. I almost did not recognize some of the song; I had to check the program to make sure I was not missing a song that I liked.

The dancers were all good but the better ones were far superior to the rest of the dancers. Some dance routines looked unbalanced with the talent.

The singing was the most disappointing aspect of the play. As some of you know, I have a permanent partial hearing loss in both of my ears, a result of part of my misspent youth in the United States Navy. Some of the female singers were over amplified and the sound volume was just painful for me. I ended up leaving at intermission because my ears were sore and hurting.

I drove home in silence with the car radio turned off. That was a wise decision.

Taxes
I did my taxes today. What a depressing exercise for me. I will have to pay over above what was withheld from my income. But, as my father used to say, “Don’t complain, you’re paying taxes with money that you didn’t have before,” easy for him to say since he has passed on to his final reward. Still as much as I hate taxes, I figure it is the cost of living in this great free nation of ours.

Dissertation
I wrote about 10 pages this weekend. I would have written more but I got involved with tossing out a bunch of pages that I had written before and now I did not like what I wrote. I did make some progress and believe I can finish the chapter by the end of the week.

The next chapter will take long but it will be easier to write for me. The next chapter is a large organization challenge because I need to get all of my reference material in order and then review the basic ideas from each article.


That was my weekend, not very exciting was it? I hope your weekend was more exciting than mine gentle readers.

Be well and stay happy.