Weekend Update - November 19th

Weekend Update & Weekend Preview that was missing
I was going to make my usual Thursday Weekend Preview just like always until I ran into a horrible software loading event. It was the worst software loading in event in my life.

I purchased a copy of Norton Confidential to increase my laptop’s security. I run Norton Anti-Virus and Norton Firewall and keep those programs updated every year.

So far so good.

Norton Confidential won’t work with any Norton program prior to a 2005 version. That meant I had to get new version of Norton System Works. My nicely working and effective 2004 version of System Works prevented me from loading Confidential.

The GoBack program is 218 MB in size and is part of the System Works program. That is so large and takes so long to load that the only way I would ever consider loading it again was if I was starting over from scratch with a new laptop. For now, I’ll make do with the System Restore function that is built into my IBM laptop.

In the end, it took me just over five hours to load both of the new programs.

The new System Works installation crashed three times during loading. Actually, it didn’t crash, it just stopped and hung up or it self aborted. I ended up having to do a hard crash and reboot twice. Unplugging your laptop is not the best way to resolve a problem. But, it is incredibly effective at times.

It’s like my Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps Reserve once told me about leading young Marines. Sometimes sir, you just have to hit them between the eyes with a 2 x 4 to get their attention to so you can teach them.

That was when I had one of my epiphany moments and decided that I didn’t need to know any more.

It was around 9:00 PM when I was finished with the program loading. I was also finished as well. I crawled off to bed and had a great night’s sleep.

This is why there wasn’t a Weekend Preview. I know this is a crummy excuse but it is my explanation.

I was more frustrated than you were, believe me I was.

Woman of the Moment – Part I
Since I didn’t post on Thursday, I make things up to by a double Woman of the Moment today. The other section will be somewhere in here; you’ll just have to look for it.



Visitors
This was another interesting week for visitors. I think I’m going to add a new category of visitors. We have lookers who visit a lot of pages in a short time. For example, there was one visitor who managed to view an incredible 23 pages in just over two minutes. I think that visitor was looking at the photos, perhaps the Woman of the Moment.

We had visitors from Canada [7], Taiwan [3], Brazil, Malaysia [2], Australia [3], Singapore, Italy, Poland [2], Japan [9], Romania, Ireland, Mexico, Belgium, Korea [2], Hong Kong [2], Indonesia, and Turkey.

We also had some curious visitors. A curious visitor is one who stays for more than ten minutes in a single visit. There were three curious visitors; one for eleven minutes, one for fourteen minutes, and one for fifteen minutes.

One of my Internet acquaintances told me in a chat this weekend the she had visited the blog and learned so much about me. I thought that was fascinating.

I do appreciate everyone’s visits to the blog.

El Gringo – Part I
I went to El Gringo on Wednesday night because I didn’t want to have frozen food again. I also thought seeing Valerie the Server would be a good idea.

It was a great idea.

Valerie remembered me from the week before.

That was great; then we got into a discussion over what I had to eat. For the record, I had a Pollo Negro Salad because it is healthy for me. I think I had a Chicken Burrito the week before.

Valerie said I should have another Chicken Burrito.

I pointed out that El Gringo is not In n Out Hamburgers that only serves one basic food product with the only variation being the number of beef patties in the meal. I said that I came to El Gringo because I could have variety with my meals.

I thought saying that I came to El Gringo because of you Valerie would be a bit on the tacky side.

I wonder if Valerie will argue with me about my meal choice this coming Wednesday?

Next weekend will be interesting since it is Thanksgiving Weekend. Going to El Gringo on Wednesday is fine. I wonder about next Sunday because I may still have some turkey leftovers that I should eat up and not waste.

I guess you’ll have to tune in for next week’s Weekend Update and see what happens.

Vivian’s Man of the Moment
Vivian didn’t send me her nomination for this week’s Man of the Moment.

I decided to substitute in George Clooney who seemed like a good choice to me. People magazine thought he was a creditable sexy man. I had thought about asking the Princess for her suggestion but I wasn’t able to reach her.




The good University of Utah Utes football team showed up in Colorado Springs to play the Air Force Academy in a cold night game on Saturday. The temperature at kickoff was 36F – 2C and probably got colder by the time the game was over just after 8:30 PM.

It was not a typical Mountain West Conference game that usually features massive amounts of scoring and not much defensive play. The Utes won the game as time ran out on a 37 yard field goal. Air Force called two time outs before the kick to upset the Utes kicker. The final score was 17 – 14. These scores are a good quarter’s scores in some Conference games.

Air Force always plays at a size disadvantage. Their players must be able to fit in the cockpit of a military aircraft. That sort of precludes having a 300 pound / 136 kilogram player on the team; Utah has no size limitations and this can be a factor in a close game. All of the service academies have the same problem with player sizes. The need to be able to function well in combat is the overriding requirement.

Utah scored in the first quarter and then there was no more scoring until the fourth quarter of the game.

Utah’s Eric Weddle is an interesting player since he plays both offense and defense. This is unusual for schools like Utah who tend to have a player specialize so he can best develop his skills. Weddle was the leading rusher in the game for Utah and he was second leading tackler on defense for Utah.

That is very impressive.

Utah is now 7 – 4 for the year and 5 – 2 in the Conference. The Utes will play Brigham Young University in Salt Lake this Saturday.

If the Utes can beat BYU on Saturday, they should get a nice middle level post season bowl invitation. That would be the fourth consecutive post season bowl appearance for our Utes.

Woman of the Moment – Part II
These photos and the earlier ones came from the Speed Options photo feature of Joyce Lex.



Morton’s
Doug and his friend and I went to Morton’s last night.

It was a perfect meal.

We had our favorite server Amy. Doug and I have been asking for Amy to be our server for the last two years. I think it’s amazing that she can put up with us for that long. We do tend to be good customers; we don’t fuss a lot about having the food prepared a special way; we don’t make a big deal about the fact that we are enjoying ourselves; and we genuinely want to have fun with our meal.

We are also well behaved and don’t through food at anyone.

It was a good thing we went to Morton’s when we did because Amy is taking her annual trip to visit her relatives at the end of the year. We would have been upset if we missed seeing her before the Holidays.

I took a bunch of photos of our dinner, seventeen in all. There were some duplicates. I think I will save the meal photos until Monday when I know it will be a slow blog day.

I did send our friend Sharon an email with a bunch of the photos from the dinner.

That was not a nice thing for me to do since she probably had a so-so dinner at her boy friend’s charity event. Life happens and we all move on. I will take Sharon out for lunch on Friday so that sort of makes up for missing the dinner. Sharon will have to tell me where I should meet her because Riverside is a big area.

The Fog and Winter
Not the John Carpenter film.

It was really foggy at the beach yesterday so I guess it is Winter time now. We don’t have snow at the beach and rain is sometimes problematic. I live close to Los Angeles International Airport. Over 75 flights were delayed or cancelled yesterday because of the fog.

I was driving with my fog lights on in the Prelude. It was kind of nice driving.

When I came home from dinner at Morton’s, the visibility around my house was around a quarter mile / 400 meters. That’s a rough guess based on how far I could see street lamps ahead of the Prelude.

Of course, it might not be Winter just yet because I was buzzing around in shorts today. Maybe Winter will come for sure in December.

Doug
We talked about his Film Studies paper at dinner last night.

Doug said that he appreciated the rewrite I made that added some linear structure to the paper. He rewrote it yesterday so I guess I was helpful for him.

In the final analysis, his professor is the only one who needs to like the paper and its structure and content. Doug turned the paper in at class today so I guess we will know what sort of a grade he got on it in two weeks. I don’t think he will have class over the Thanksgiving Weekend.

The Princess
The Princess called me on Friday to tell me she has a new job at the Atlanta Speech School. The School is for hearing impaired children.

She was very happy to be free of her soon to be former employer.

The Princess had a question about what should be her last day at the old job.

This was a simple one for Dad to answer. I said that the decision boiled down to considering two complementary requirements; what is good for the Princess and what is good for the School. I said November 30th was a good day to leave the old job.

She was concerned that she hadn’t worked a full two weeks before she left.

I explained to her that the old job had done nothing to warrant her loyalty so why stay any longer than is convenient for her and the new job. I also pointed out that December 1st was an excellent day to start at the new job because it was the first of the month and that would make matters simple for payroll and everyone else at the School.

Then, there was what to do about the Thanksgiving Holiday?

I said holidays happen and you should enjoy them.

The Princess was much happier now and looking forward to her new job. I expect that I will learn more about the new job when she comes home at Christmas.

El Gringo – Part II
I went to El Gringo for my combination lunch and dinner today.

Whitney the server was there but she was tired so we didn’t talk all that much. I did learn that El Gringo will be closed on Thanksgiving Day. No trouble for me because I will be too tired from cooking all day to want to go out for a meal.

I can always go to Fatburger for a meal if I get hungry on Thursday.

Whitney wasn’t sure if she was going to be working next Sunday. I guess she will be going home for the long weekend and the drive back to Redondo Beach may be problematical depending on the other drivers out on the road who are all rushing home on Sunday. I’m not driving anywhere on Sunday except to El Gringo and maybe I’ll play server roulette and see if the server is one that I recognize.

I think I had a modestly healthy meal today.

I had two blackened grilled mahi mahi tacos with rice and beans. The fish as spicy but that was to be expected. I am looking forward to getting back to eating normal meals this coming week.

Programming Note
Since Thursday is a holiday here in the States and I will be cooking or serving or cleaning up in the kitchen from early in the morning until very late in the afternoon, I won’t be posting a blog on Thursday. I will try to put up a couple of Weekend Bonus Features for you instead.


That was my weekend gentle readers. I hope you had a great weekend as well.

Be well and stay happy.