Monday, February 13, 2006
Well I haven't been bloging for quite some time.... haven't been busy, haven't been doing anywhere near the things I should have been doing ... just in that twilight zone of figuring what I should be doing ...which is still "I don't know." There are some neat opportunities looming on the horizon... maybe soon. Now lets see, I was last here over 6 months ago and spending a lot of time up in Portland Maine doing consulting with a travel company. I think that came to a decent mutual ending with the door still open on both of our ends. The job really needed a full time hands on person and not "every other week." A note of caution, be careful about working with friends and family. Anyway there were a lot of laughs and a lot of interesting sories. New subject; for almost a year the ceiling light in my home office has been bothering me because the light was leaning ... I went through a number of remedies, adding weights, switching globes, even bending the lamp arms to shift the center of gravity ... all to no avail ... well this afternoon while thinking about the meaning of life it dawned on me to rotate the globe arms ..... and as someone famous, who I can't remember, uttered ... "Eureka" Talk about a feeling of euphoria. So with that thought in mind I think I decided to get busy with the things I need to do. or if I don't do get down to not doing them :-) Had a snow storm yesterday and the snow thrower belt belt .. got a replacement from the friendly snow thrower place and after a few trips back realized that none of the belts they had were the right belts... I did manage to make one of the belts work amidst the burning smell of rubber.. fortunately I cleared enough snow to use the driveway and left the rest for another day...like in August. Been trying to clear out stuff ..."stuff" ... agh ... I have a lot of stuff I need to get rid of.. for a few year I had 3 boxes of telephone circuit cards which I began suspecting was obsolete ... so I posted them on ebay .. the high bidder was $10.00 which was $15.00 less than having them hauled away ... I figured if the "high bidder" wanted telephone equipment maybe they would be interested in 40 additional boxes I had in storage .. the short version was that the buyer got a shipping company to pick up all of the equipment which was 1350 pounds and cost close to $900 to transport to Nebraska ... ugh .. I hope he makes out in this deal... I was just happy to get rid of the "stuff." Time to watch "law and order" and as we all know .... In the criminal justice system,there are two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.”
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
so I'm back in portland..... I like staying at the hilton garden, the hotel exit is about 200 feet from the office so I get a lot of exercise. There's highspeed internet with hard wire, not wireless so I don't have to get a new computer..... there's a great japanese restaurant where no one speaks english so I don't have to talk to anyone and there's great room service. I arrived here monday after an uneventful drive up from manchester, I don't mind driving up from manchester, flying into portland would save a few hours however the drive is good for mental review on the way up and decompression on the way back. I'm glad they like me at the hotel and appreciate my loyalty especially after monday evening, well actually tuesday morning...... I started the shower and for some reason only turned on the hot water.... the phone rang and I closed the bathroom door before answering...after the call I went back to the hardwire highspeed internet completely forgetting the shower.... eventually I decided to shower, opened the door only to be greeted by a wall of steam, which wouldn't have been a bad thing except for setting off the smoke detector which started to "beep" and set off the hotel fire alarm which alerted the portland fire department..... fortunately I had the presence of mind to call the front desk who cancelled the hotel alarm and cancelled the fire department..... the night maintenance came up to check and we both fanned the detector ...all the while the alarm continued beeping, and the maintenance man said the alarm company doesn't come out after midnight.....so I suggested taking the detector head off, which he didn't know how to do (fortunately I had a "q-tip") and removed the head... the guest that began to loiter around my room, even though it was going on 2am, were relieved and expressed their appreciation ( I don't think they were sincere)... the maintence man stared at me for several minutes.... maybe it wasn't several minutes, but it was long enough that I became uncomfortable...... and suggested that we put the detector back.... since he didn't know how it came off he asked me to replace it... which in the spirt of cooperation I complied....only to set the alarm off again and repeating the precess all over again...
the evening ended with my removing the detector.
early the next morning....or I should say a few hours later the chief maintenace man woke me because the entire hotel fire system was offline .... he was trying to be friendly but I could tell he was annoyed...and he asked me to replace the detector head since he wasn't he didn't want to climb on my bed...which I did...only to have the alarm system go off again,,, when I got home last night there wasn't any chocolate in my room.
the evening ended with my removing the detector.
early the next morning....or I should say a few hours later the chief maintenace man woke me because the entire hotel fire system was offline .... he was trying to be friendly but I could tell he was annoyed...and he asked me to replace the detector head since he wasn't he didn't want to climb on my bed...which I did...only to have the alarm system go off again,,, when I got home last night there wasn't any chocolate in my room.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
July 8th,2005
Well the 4th of July was as much fun as I thought it would be..there was a lot of activity for most of the weekend. It was nice to see the return of so many familiar faces both before and after "powerhour"...... I played powerhour last year with vodka and failed miserably but I was determined to make a better showing. I quickly discovered that powerhour is a combination of both physical and mental dexterity and a challenge not to be met by those weak in character.
Special mention goes to Alexis who's eyes lit up at the commencement "the game".... For those weak of heart, beware of powerhour and "catch phrase," a deadly combination.
There is a certain amount of honesty and judgment that goes along .... but when amongst friends whom would not be honest?
There was a lot of eating, the ba's egg & cheese on Saturday along with pancakes on sunday...not to be out done by the bar-b-que saturday evening. From my small corner of the world the highlight of the entertainment weekend was the karaoke performances .... I was amazed at the talent...special mention to jared for his m/s abilities...I was concerned that the microphone
was going to become a permanent fixture in his hand.
By the way, those Georgetown girls certainly know how to dance...the boys for that matter too.
After everyone left the house seemed really empty however the organization and cleanliness
provided some solace.... notwithstanding decorations from 2 years ago still adorning the walls.
I suspect the patriotic adornments will still be in place when the next planned get together occurs.
However, everyone deserves a "notable mention" ...it was great having everyone!
Coming home I was met with the usual challenges, cat litter, trash, mail....I receive 4 letters that must have been delivered to a neighbor and two late notices which makes the 3rd in 3 weeks... all of which has check writted and posted!!!!! We have a new letter carrier and I'm beginning to suspect that he's not as diligent as his predecessor, with both picking up and delivering mail.
I'm heading up to portland this next week, that should be a real fun trip. The company was on the block, the sale was finalized...financing in place...and a very generous profit sharing program had employees looking at boats, hummers, houses, homes, retirement, vacations, you name it...it was in the works.... and a few hours before the deal was to be "inked" the investment bankers backed out.... "oh well" .......... who really needs to retire?
Well the 4th of July was as much fun as I thought it would be..there was a lot of activity for most of the weekend. It was nice to see the return of so many familiar faces both before and after "powerhour"...... I played powerhour last year with vodka and failed miserably but I was determined to make a better showing. I quickly discovered that powerhour is a combination of both physical and mental dexterity and a challenge not to be met by those weak in character.
Special mention goes to Alexis who's eyes lit up at the commencement "the game".... For those weak of heart, beware of powerhour and "catch phrase," a deadly combination.
There is a certain amount of honesty and judgment that goes along .... but when amongst friends whom would not be honest?
There was a lot of eating, the ba's egg & cheese on Saturday along with pancakes on sunday...not to be out done by the bar-b-que saturday evening. From my small corner of the world the highlight of the entertainment weekend was the karaoke performances .... I was amazed at the talent...special mention to jared for his m/s abilities...I was concerned that the microphone
was going to become a permanent fixture in his hand.
By the way, those Georgetown girls certainly know how to dance...the boys for that matter too.
After everyone left the house seemed really empty however the organization and cleanliness
provided some solace.... notwithstanding decorations from 2 years ago still adorning the walls.
I suspect the patriotic adornments will still be in place when the next planned get together occurs.
However, everyone deserves a "notable mention" ...it was great having everyone!
Coming home I was met with the usual challenges, cat litter, trash, mail....I receive 4 letters that must have been delivered to a neighbor and two late notices which makes the 3rd in 3 weeks... all of which has check writted and posted!!!!! We have a new letter carrier and I'm beginning to suspect that he's not as diligent as his predecessor, with both picking up and delivering mail.
I'm heading up to portland this next week, that should be a real fun trip. The company was on the block, the sale was finalized...financing in place...and a very generous profit sharing program had employees looking at boats, hummers, houses, homes, retirement, vacations, you name it...it was in the works.... and a few hours before the deal was to be "inked" the investment bankers backed out.... "oh well" .......... who really needs to retire?
Saturday, July 02, 2005
July 1st, 2005
On my way to Longport I stopped to get gas and use the mens room along the northsouth freeway. My adventerous side encouraged me to push onto Somers Point and fill up at the friendly Indian service station right off the exit toll however after years of instructing my children to view "1/2" as being empty, hypocrisy lost out to common sense. While refueling I darted into the "quick-mart" where I found the rest facility with the asistance of the cashier. Entering I noticed two things, there was not a lock on the door and both stalls were empty. Entering stall #1, I locked the stall door and went about my business of recycleing the morning coffee. During my relief time someone entered and took advantage of stall #2. someone who appeared to be on the more feminine side, footware wise. Wanting to display "muchoism" I directed the stream to the center of the toilet bowl, for maxium sound effect. Upon leaving the stall I was greeted by a young lady with a look of surprise on her face. My initial reactions were annoyance and embarrasement, annoyance at the loss of male privacy and embarrasement at knowing the young lady had just heard my sound show. This was further amplified by my of having togo back in order to lower the toilet seat. There was a small crowd gathering at the cashier's but that didn't deter me from yelling over and saying "you need to put locks on those doors, there's a lady in the bathroom" to which she replied, "you were in the ladies room."
On my way to Longport I stopped to get gas and use the mens room along the northsouth freeway. My adventerous side encouraged me to push onto Somers Point and fill up at the friendly Indian service station right off the exit toll however after years of instructing my children to view "1/2" as being empty, hypocrisy lost out to common sense. While refueling I darted into the "quick-mart" where I found the rest facility with the asistance of the cashier. Entering I noticed two things, there was not a lock on the door and both stalls were empty. Entering stall #1, I locked the stall door and went about my business of recycleing the morning coffee. During my relief time someone entered and took advantage of stall #2. someone who appeared to be on the more feminine side, footware wise. Wanting to display "muchoism" I directed the stream to the center of the toilet bowl, for maxium sound effect. Upon leaving the stall I was greeted by a young lady with a look of surprise on her face. My initial reactions were annoyance and embarrasement, annoyance at the loss of male privacy and embarrasement at knowing the young lady had just heard my sound show. This was further amplified by my of having togo back in order to lower the toilet seat. There was a small crowd gathering at the cashier's but that didn't deter me from yelling over and saying "you need to put locks on those doors, there's a lady in the bathroom" to which she replied, "you were in the ladies room."
