Planning Proceeds Apace

This is actually kinda scary... everything seems to be going according to plan where the move is concerned.  Well, sorta.  I've yet to hear back from the moving company about my preferred move date, so we shall see how that shakes out.  Bekins will be executing the move, which contradicts earlier information I put out on the street.  Lemmee say this about that... DIL Erma ran into issues around cheap plane tickets and we both agreed that the Law Of Diminishing Returns comes into play here.  Neither she nor I were willing to pay full-freight for her ticket so she's not coming to assist, after all.  Cheap fares are good, when they exist... but full-freight from one small market to another is cost-prohibitive.

That said... we've arranged for satellite teevee to be installed on Wednesday (good-bye Comcast, and don't let the door bang ya in the ass on yer way out), my furniture will be delivered and set up on Monday, and all utilities have been contracted for.  I'll spend the coming days preparing for the move in small increments (like purging the contents of El Casa Móvil de Pennington of unwanted and unneeded items for to hold costs down, doing some preliminary packing, sorting, and what-not, etc., etc, etc.), which will prolly result in a crescendo of frantic activity this coming weekend... coz yanno there's always sumthin'.

The excitement mounts...

Delusionary Medico Tourette's Syndrome

The medical term for the condition that afflicts hordes of women and men on our teevees...

If Women's Medication Ads Gained Self-Awareness -- powered by Cracked.com

I knew DMT existed, I just didn't know it had a name.  I can rest easier now, knowing these poor souls are just sick and can't help themselves.

H/T:  Blog-Bud Morgan.

Remember

From the Usual Source.

Update, 1020 hrs:  Lex, strangely enough, uses the exact same one-word title on his 9/11 post... wherein he re-tells his "where were you?" 9/11 tale.  I strongly suspect the comments to his post will have many, many such tales before this day is done.  Here's mine, very briefly:

I came up out of the Montgomery Street BART station just a couple o’ few minutes after 0600 hrs, on my way to work at a web services firm where I was the Director of Site Operations. There was a gaggle of people watching a teevee in the darkened window of the Fidelity office on the corner of Market and Montgomery; I passed them by without looking. Someone burst into Starbucks as I was standing in line and shouted at no one in particular “The bastards flew planes into the World Trade Center!” There were maybe six of us in line and we all looked at each other and rolled our eyes… just another crazy person (there were LOTS of ‘em in SFO’s Financial District). The shouting guy saw our reaction and said “No! I swear! I just saw it on TV!”

I got my coffee and hurried upstairs to work, where I had my night-shift switch our large-screen network monitor display to CNN. It was around 0615 hrs…

We all stared at the TV incredulously for about three minutes and NO ONE spoke… we just watched. Then reality hit and we began to launch our disaster recovery plan, preparing to relocate our emergency operations cadre to an alternate location. The rest of the day was a blur…

Well, it was and it wasn't.  My boss, the Operations VP, hit the door to the Site Operations Center sometime just after 0615 hrs.  We had our alternate SOC turned up and working before 1000 hrs; in the interim we had implemented our emergency telephone tree and called everyone in the company, advising them not to come in to work.  Those few who did come in before our calls went out were sent home.  We also called all our clients and advised them we'd gone to emergency operations.  My boss, myself, and one other person remained in our main SOC to take what calls might come in for the rest of the day... mainly because there's always someone who doesn't "get the word."  Things got really, really quiet from a business perspective around 1100 hrs.  We didn't take a single business call all day.

You might wonder why an IT company went to emergency operations on 9/11, Gentle Reader.  The simple fact: we were located in a high-rise building in the heart of SFO's Financial District (that's a pic of my building, above).  No one in those early hours knew if the WTC and Pentagon were the only shots fired or if there would be more to follow.  We viewed ourselves... and our general location... as a prime target.  Thus: emergency ops.

The strangest thing that happened to me on 9/11/2001?  The Second Mrs. Pennington called me early in the afternoon that day, just to talk.  That was the first and only time that has ever happened.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack: Re-Run

We're still in the process of labeling posts albeit in a MUCH less anal-retentive fashion, which is to say we're doin' a few at a time... a process that's likely to take a year or more at the current rate.  But, all THAT said, we came across this lil gem this afternoon whilst labeling posts, drinkin' beer, and smokin' cigars...

Thievery. Again. Still.

So, I thought long and hard about posting this... for all of about three minutes... because someone is sure to get the wrong ideer about why I did so.  Or perhaps the right one.  It's funny, nonetheless.  Explicit, too.  <=== a half-assed warning.

So Phlegmmy has this theory about scorched-earth types, which is how she describes the woman in this vid.  On the one hand she's prolly correct in her thinking; OTOH she discounts the obvious pleasures derived from thinking up amusing and/or appropriate retribution scenarios.  And this vid has some great ones.  Not that I would know anything about that -- I've just heard stories, yanno?

Heh.  I take particular pleasure in the line about how she comes in and finds him "fuckin' your sister."  Well, I substitute "best friend" for sister, coz that's what fits... and we're ALL about truth in retributive fantasy.  Speakin' o' which... the comments on the original post are pretty funny.

Broadening Our Horizons XXXII

I'm pretty sure I've never had a Shiner Oktoberfest and I'm semi-amazed at the oversight, mainly coz we loves us some beer from that lil ol' brewery in Spoetzl, Tejas.  Ain't it loverly?

My go-to guys for beer give Oktoberfest a B- and I think that's pretty harsh.  I'd give the brew a B+ if not an A-.  This beer is eminently drinkable.  Oktoberfest tastes superb... which is to say clean, slightly hoppy, with a very interesting and complex combination of flavors... and it goes down easy, almost too easy.  I'll have to be careful this afternoon.

―:☺:―

I don't have much else to report.  The weather continues to be most pleasing, which is to say today will be our fourth consecutive day where our windows remain wide-open and the AC is off.   We got a lil rain last evening, too, but only enough to make The Green Hornet look like The Green Leopard.  Spots, Gentle Reader... LOTS o' spots.

I did a lil shopping this morning at the Super Save, the IGA market that's within walking distance of the new abode.  DIL Erma told me that Wally-World would soon be a thing in my past as far as grocery shopping is concerned, once I move.  I think she's right.  I've stopped in to the Super Save occasionally in the past to pick up an item or two but I've never done serious shopping there.  We got serious today and there's a lot to like about the place... the produce seems to be fresher and there's a much larger variety o' same; the employees are friendlier, and the prices are generally on-par with Wally-World, if not better.

And this might be a one-time-good-deal sorta thang, but there was this red-headed, 50-ish woman who kept smiling at me the whole time I was doin' my shopping.  We seemed to be in the same aisles at the same time throughout my shopping foray and she kept giving me these BIG smiles.  I looked around behind me the first time she smiled, mainly because I'm a member of that Over 40 White Male demographic and generally invisible to ALL women, regardless of age.  But... no.  No one behind me, or even near me.  Then again... it might have been my shirt:  

The message on the shirt has been known to make people smile.  But Hey!  It was nice, whatever the reason.

We Have a Date...

... a move-in date.  I was by the future Casa de Pennington earlier this afternoon and wandered about inside for a while before setting off on the rest of my errands.  While I was inside I took a few more really bad phone-camera shots which I feel I must inflict upon you, Gentle Reader.  So...

Notice I have a built-in industrial-strength nuker above where the stove will sit.  And the BEST thing of all: a dishwasher (never mind that GREEN color)!  Which will lead me to resume one of my favorite old habits: livin' out of the dishwasher.  You know... run a load of dirty dishes and then use them, transferring the used dishes to the sink until such time as the dishwasher is empty, then rinse, repeat.  Oh... YES!  And then there's the counter space, which should lead to a few cookin' orgies until such time as I tire of that sorta thang.  OTOH, I may never tire of bein' able to really cook again.  Let us pray...

So.  We then proceeded out to Cannon Airplane Patch to pick up this month's supply of meds, with the usual customary and quite reasonable stop at the Class VI store for still more beer.  On the way home I whipped into the property management company to see if 9/15 was still a realistic occupancy date and was assured I can take possession NO later than 9/16.  Huzzah, and all that!

So, Part II.  I've been severely beaten about the head and shoulders for the past week for not taking advantage of family when it comes time to move, what with me planning to engage professional movers to do the deed.  But, that said, last night I relented and allowed as how it would be OK if DIL Erma journeyed down to P-Ville from the Wilds O' Kansas for the express purpose of relocating me and my stuff from El Casa Móvil de Pennington to the non-Móvil Casa.

We discussed a 9/20 move date last evening... all that's left is to confirm same, buy Erma a plane ticket, and try not to chew off my fingernails while waiting for this thang to go down.

There is light at the end of the tunnel.  I think I'm gonna crack a beer or two to celebrate. 

I Feel Like This

Lifted from the Shoebox blog.  I plan to leave my teevee off this entire weekend, except for Saturday's football games.  That's really not an unusual occurrence, it usually stays off on the weekends.  This weekend, tho?  It's an imperative. 

Heh

From the Usual Source.

Tonight's ADWH Soundtrack

A one-hit wonder and the BEST of that particular genre, at that:

Oh, you don't know me, but you make me so happy
I tried to call you before, but I lost my nerve
I tried my imagination, but I was disturbed

I don't think I ever called a number written on a wall, any wall, but I sure as hell danced my ass off to this tune in the wayback.  There's quite a back-story to the tune, in case you haven't heard it.  I hadn't heard this tune in years upon years before tonite... and hearing it this evening made me smile.  A lot.

―:☺:―

In other news... I lied.  I said I wasn't gonna watch Barry's speech this evening but I did... watch it.  With my teevee muted, which is to say I watched but didn't listen.  The exercise was pretty instructive, in that a lot of my suspicions were confirmed.  

Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque

First and foremost among those suspicions was the speech was gonna be mostly a campaign speech; that suspicion was confirmed by the number of standing-O's the president received... from the Democrats.  The correct side of the aisle... the Republicans... remained seated, for the most part.  That told me nearly everything I needed to know.

Second: The Deity At Hand hates Democrats.  Why else would she make the great majority of 'em so damned ugly?  The camera panned into the audience periodically and we got to see Mrs. Pelosi (omigawd-ugly), Maxine Waters (jeezus!), Hillary (ecch!), Biden (heh), Sheila Jackson-Lee (yow), Charlie Rangel (nice suit, Charlie)... and on and on.  THAT was almost enough to make me turn the whole thang off, but I hung in there.  Why?  Because...

Third:  Boehner.  He may cry at the drop of a hat but his poker face while The One was going on and on... and on... was just fan-fuckin'-tastic.  I watched intently for eye-rolls but saw nary a one.  BIG props to the Speaker for that feat; I couldn't have pulled it off.

I still haven't read any post-speech reax, mainly coz I had other priorities... like After Dinner Whiskey Hour.  Never let it be said I don't have my head screwed on properly.

Miscellanea

We're right in the middle o' Happy Hour and took a break to come inside and put up yet another post, this time to celebrate the third consecutive day o' NO AC here at El Casa Móvil de Pennington , mainly coz there's no need for artificial cooling.  Witness:

We have all our windows and door (one each) open to capture as many of the soft breezes as we can, for it is GORGEOUS.

―:☺:―

And then there's this: Incentive...

I only wish ABQ wasn't a four-hour drive from ECMdP coz this is powerful incentive to make the trip.  And then there's this from the link in the screen cap above:

Red Chile Fields: Secrets for growing the best chile from Salsa Twins on Vimeo.

"Holy Cow!" sez the guy in the video and I agree... them's a LOT o' chiles!  Tasty, too.  You can order New Mexico's best chile here; but lucky me:  I can buy it at Wally-World here in P-Ville.

―:☺:―

About tonite's "Big Event"...

The great danger facing Mr. Obama tonight is that the public simply tunes him out, viewing his pronouncements as either irrelevant or annoying. 

It's been a dramatic fall for a man who was, his supporters assured us in 2008, America's best orator since Abraham Lincoln. Now he's reduced to a warm-up act for a football game.

That would be Karl Rove, writing in today's WSJ.  Mr. Rove is correct, at least as far as YrHmblScrb is concerned: I tuned the president out quite some time ago.  No surprise, eh?

Over the Top

From the USAF Usual Source:

First Over the Top: An aircrew with the 69th Bomb Squadron at Minot AFB, N.D., became the first to fly a B-52H bomber over the North Pole. "The flight was actually quite unusual because no one has ever done it before," said Maj. Patrick Small of Minot's 5th Operations Support Squadron. "The jet was designed for this type of flight, but [it] was never practiced. It took a lot of mission planning and coordination to make this happen." The airmen made the trip last month en route to Russia to participate in the 2011 Moscow International Air and Space Aviation Salon as part of a US contingent of aircraft and personnel. The B-52 did not require in-flight refueling to reach Moscow since the polar route is a lot shorter in distance than flying more traditional routes to Europe, said Minot officials. (Minot report by A1C Jessica McConnell)

The fact that no one ever flew a BUFF over the North Pole before surprised me but I suppose it shouldn't have.  The Rooshians are quite sensitive about their ADIZ, having shot down civilian airliners crossing the line, not to mention the many USAF and USN reconnaissance aircraft shot down during the Cold War.  About which, this:

That's the plaque at the Strategic Air and Space Museum honoring reconnaissance airmen who gave their lives during the Cold War.

It Feels Downright Chilly

Here's what we look like at the moment...

I'm thinkin' I might have to break out the flannel for this afternoon's Happy Hour unless it warms up right quick like.  I kinda doubt we'll make the forecast high o' 77 at the rate we're going.

I had to get up at oh-dark-thirty again this morning, what with The Green Hornet having yet another crack o' dawn car doctor's appointment over in The Big(ger) City™.  So... up at 0600, shower, shave, toss down a couple o' cups so as to be caffeinated enough to safely pilot a four-wheeled conveyance on the public thoroughfares without endangering the civilian populace, and out the door at 0730 hrs.  And back by 0900, having spent all of 20 minutes at Rembrandt's Auto Body getting TGH's top latch replaced and then moseyin' over to the car wash to get her cleaned up a bit.  She was REALLY looking quite shabby, what with not bein' washed for at least two weeks... on account o' because it just ain't smart to drive a convertible with a leaky top through the car wash.  Like this:

Would you believe that video has been viewed 812 times?  S'true, Gentle Reader.  I think it's coz of my wonderful harmonizing with Keef on rhythm gee-tar.

Sunny: Tolerate Intolerance

Damn.  I LOVE this woman.

Thievery

I saw this over at Lex's place last evening and had to re-post it...

What an amazing story.

Broadening Our Horizons XXXI

I mentioned in the post immediately below that I picked up more beer at Wally-World and it was this:

About which... we decided to give Santa Fe a third chance.  I really liked that Porter, sooo... we popped for a sixer of Santa Fe's Nut Brown Ale.  The folks at Beer Advocate give the brew a B- and I'm thinkin' that's about right.  Santa Fe won't be taking away any of Newcastle's bid'niz, but the beer is worthy.  It's cheaper than Newcastle, too, which prolly has sumthin' to do with transportation and duty costs.  But anyhoo... two out outta three ain't bad, according to Mr. Loaf (that means Yes on the Porter, Yes on the Nut Brown, and Fuck NO! on the Hefeweizen).  I'm thinkin' we'll try more of Santa Fe's output as time goes on.

Lastly... we obviously made that decision we alluded to below.

Busy Busy Busy

It's just noon and we've already been oot and aboot... and accomplished quite a bit while we were at it, too.  I established water and electric accounts for the new place, got an installation date for my fiber connection from Yucca Telecom, and ran by the post office to pick up change of address cards.  Let me say this about that...

Get Off My Lawn!

Why?  Those handy, dandy change of address cards don't exist any longer.  USPS is SO 21st century now, in that you have to go to USPS.com and file your change of address there.  I'll bet THAT works really well... but I must admit I haven't tried it yet.  Still and even, this IS the post office we're talking about, innit?  You'd think those post cards worked well enough... but NO.  To say I'm apprehensive is understating the case.

I'll be without inner-nets for about ten days or so after I move, too.  Yucca gave me an installation appointment of 9/26 and my projected move date is on or about 9/15.  I don't really expect to move on the 15th, having already been advised by the property management company that that particular date will prolly slip.  But I'd BETTER be moved by the 26th, nu?

So.  We also went to Wally-World and bought food (and more beer), seein' as how the commissary was closed for Labor Day when I was out at the base yesterday.  Now I'm debating whether to kick off Happy Hour early or take a nap.  Decisions, decisions...

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

White Boys (and Girl) play da blooze...

This isn't the version we heard during Happy Hour, but it's close enough.  This is what we heard...

... which is a collaboration of magnificent proportions.  I SO wanna know a woman (in the Biblical sense, as well as all the others) who can play the blues... as opposed to makin' me sing the blues... just once before I die.

So we're just in from Happy Hour, which was spent in the company of our neighbor Gilbert, wherein we fixed most of what ails the world.   It's now time for a quick nap before dinner, where we'll be caressed by sweet soft breezes that are wafting in our windows, as we speak.  It don't get a whole helluva lot better than this.

Before and After

We... that would be Buck, Erma, and YrHmblScrb... did significant damage to the beer supply here at El Casa Móvil de Pennington this weekend.  Almost to the point o' exhaustion, a rather rare occurrence.  Witness:

THAT was easily and pleasurably rectified by an 80-mph, top down, Stones blaring, blast out to the Cannon Airplane Patch Class VI Store (coz it's SUCH a nice day, see the top o' my sidebar for proof), where we also replenished the likker locker (not pictured) with yet another bottle o' tasty single-malt.  Witness, again:

That should hold me for a couple o' days... beginning right now.  Beer me!

Labor Day

What's become my traditional Labor Day post... a re-run from two years ago:

Labor Day

Today is the day we celebrate "Labor Day" which, in times past, was a true celebration of American Labor.  And by that I mean the people who manipulate the "means of production"… the guys and gals who go out and get their hands dirty making this country work, day in and day out.  But "Labor" as both term and concept has become perverted over the past few years.  Actually… Labor has become politicized and has only a shadow of the meaning it used to carry, back in the day.  Who among us doesn't think of unions when one says or hears the word "Labor" today?  Not many of us, I would wager.

I will resist the temptation to turn this post into an anti-union screed, and said temptation is strong indeed, Gentle Reader.  But let me just say this about that… I'm of the opinion that labor unions are the root of all most evil in our post-industrial society.  I'll grant you labor unions have a glorious history and were responsible for righting numerous wrongs in the early 20^th century (you can begin reading here if you're not up on the good unions accomplished during that time).  But like the buggy whip, their time has passed.  What we get from our unions today are things like "card check" —a decidedly UN-American renunciation of free elections in the workplace— and outright political intimidation (can you spell S-E-I-U?  Sure you can…).  I'm not seeing much good in that… and neither are most other Americans, as Ed Morrissey notes in this Hot Air post.  But let us not digress further; I'm sure you get my point.

I'm thinking an appropriate manner in which to observe Labor Day would be to spend a few hours watching re-runs of Mike Rowe's "Dirty Jobs."  About which... the Discovery Channel is running an all-day marathon of "Dirty Jobs" episodes... or you could watch the DVDs.  If you don't have access to either the Discovery Channel or the "Dirty Jobs" DVDs, you might want to watch his (Rowe's) 20-minute lecture on"Dirty Jobs" at TED.com.  Mr. Rowe celebrates "labor" as it used to be… manual labor as an honorable pursuit infused with dignity.  As it should be.  And that's what I'm on about here, Gentle Reader. 

Or perhaps today might be spent reading a book like "Shopcraft as Soulcraft."  The NYT published a review of this book earlier this year, which starts out pretty well but descends rapidly into a typical NYT snarky book review (on subjects of this nature, of course.  Not all of their book reviews are worthless, just some.  Or most… depending on your POV.).  Here's the best part of the review:

It’s especially appealing when you add that Mr. Crawford has a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Chicago and was a postdoctoral fellow — he had an office next to the novelist J. M. Coetzee’s — on the school’s Committee on Social Thought. Mr. Crawford is an intellectual who can probably take you in a bar fight.

Many of the ideas in “Shop Class as Soulcraft” are deeply resonant. Mr. Crawford mourns that shop classes were largely eliminated from American high schools in the 1990s because they are expensive to run, and sometimes dangerous. He takes this as a symptom of a larger problem: We have, as a people, lost our fundamental manual competence. We can no longer fix our own stuff, and we are increasingly steering our kids “toward the most ghostly kinds of work.”

His book, he writes, “advances a nestled set of arguments on behalf of work that is meaningful because it is genuinely useful. It also explores what we might call the ethics of maintenance and repair.”

Mr. Crawford builds his framework by walking us through the soul-killing nature of too much white-collar work; he surveys the “rising sea of clerkdom” that surrounds us. He considers the work of Marx, Heidegger and Iris Murdoch, among other philosophers. He points out, accurately enough, that “when things get really hairy, you want an experienced human being in control.” He connects the current mortgage crisis to the depersonalization of white-collar work.

This is not “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” Part 2. Mr. Crawford isn’t particularly interested in the nonrational mind. “I want to avoid the kind of mysticism that gets attached to ‘craftsmanship,’ ” he writes, “while doing justice to the very real satisfactions it offers.”

You would be forgiven, Gentle Reader, if you didn't chase the link and read the rest of the piece, which is in the end dismissive at best or borders on character assassination, at worst.  I'd rather you spent that time watching the little piece below (from last Friday's "News Hour with Jim Lehrer"), where Mr. Crawford speaks his mind on what we're on about here.  It's great good stuff.





Seven minutes ain't that much time to waste, is it?

And… Happy Labor Day… Drink beer, barbeque, and have a great time!

I added this subject-appropriate tune last year and it ain't a bad ideer to do this year, too:

I've known that girl.  Loved her, too.

Return With Us Now to Those Thrilling Days o' Yesteryear

I'm still mucking about in the archives, labeling posts and such.  In so doing I came across this lil gem from January o' 2008, when we were still deep in the presidential campaign...

Heh.  As I said before, Bowie would be PROUD.  That said, the change we wanted doesn't quite measure up to the change we got, does it?

Added, somewhat later:  Further to the archives, this bit...

Click to embiggen

It’s WAR! Normally I’m a live-and-let-live kinda guy, and my tolerance extends to creatures great and small. Included in the “small” community are various bugs, with the exception of flies and mosquitoes, which are terminated immediately with extreme prejudice…always. Take spiders, for example. Spiders are generally good, as they eat other small critters and generally stay out of my way. And I enjoy their webs, which are both small-scale engineering feats and supremely artistic, as well…as anyone who’s seen an early morning web covered in sparkling dew will attest.

My tolerance ends, though, when spiders begin to overwhelm my personal space and get presumptuous about territory and such, thinking it’s theirs for the taking. While I love and appreciate outdoor webs I don’t like to see the things hanging off my table lamp, or worse, have a small spider drop down on a gossamer filament right in front of my face while I’m surfing the other web (heh). And that’s just in the front of the house. Things get worse, much worse, as you move to the rear of El Casa Móvil De Pennington. Lately I’ve been involved in a daily ritual that involves wiping away webs that have been spun overnight in both the bathroom and the kitchen, and the spiders have become so numerous that they’re scurrying around in plain sight. It’s time for a new strategy: we’re gonna surge.

It appears that GHQ Arachnid is located in the bathroom. Yesterday I took extreme measures on the HQ… emptying both bathroom cabinets, thoroughly cleaning out the spaces, and finishing off by liberally spraying the interiors of both cabinets and the surrounding baseboards with Raid. Result: no webs in the bathroom this morning. The kitchen will be a little more problematic because I don’t want to engage in unrestricted chemical warfare in that operational area. The risk of collateral damage (to YrHmblScrb, hisownself) is just too high. So we’ll just content ourselves with applying forceful thumb pressure on the little terrorists as they transit from nook to cranny. And waging chemical warfare along the baseboards and other spaces in the kitchen where the risk of collateral damage is low.

We have evidence the surge is working, as noted above. There will be NO political settlement and we’ll take no prisoners. All I’m asking is a return to the status quo ante or, in other words, if the spiders stay in their space, I’ll stay in mine.

Peace in our time.

The pic is unrelated to the bit above; it's from another, later post that also featured chemical warfare upon intruding arachnids.  That one was scary, Gentle Reader.

Further, and unrelated... I'm simply amazed at all the Tube O' You vids that have gone missing over the years.  Some have disappeared due to copyright violations, some for account deletions/closure, and some for no reason at all except perhaps for the fact they just got old.  Which contradicts the assumption that "the inner-net is forever," coz it AIN'T, when it comes to videos.

The Weekend Continues...

We continue to bask in the glow of a truly móvil El Casa Móvil de Pennington this morning.  You can't possibly believe just how much of a relief this is, Gentle Reader.

Other than that?  It's a low and slow weekend, occupied primarily by enjoying the company of SN1 and family.  Buck, DIL Erma, and I went out to dinner last evening, had a few beers, and just generally enjoyed ourselves.  

The First Mrs. Pennington is in town as well, having flown into Lubbock yesterday evening for to visit with her grandbabies and such.  So... we were sitting in my place last evening havin' an after-dinner beer when Buck and Erma had to go on account o' duty and obligation: TFMP had just arrived (literally) and wasn't pleased that B&E weren't home to greet her, she taking the trouble to announce her regret via text message.  Erma then suggested I accompany Buck and her back to Granddaughter Felicity's house where we could continue as we'd begun, i.e., visit and drink beer, adding, in passing "...and you might hook up.  You know, for Old Time's sake."  Which statement resulted in a combination eye-roll and patented over-the-top-of-my-reading-glasses Get Off My Lawn look.  Buck almost choked on his beer (but managed to maintain his cool) and then we all had a good laugh.

They left; I turned on the second half of LSU-Oregon, which was the ONLY football I saw all day, other than highlights on College Football Final.  Blog-Bud Andy is prolly pretty happy today; I thought the game was less than satisfying.  I was also displeased to see ND dropped their opener, at home.  Turnovers killed both losing teams.  This looks like another long year for long-suffering Irish fans.  (sigh)

We've had a major turn in the weather, what with a massive cold front descending on The High Plains o' New Mexico.  It's only 62 degrees out as we speak and feels a LOT like Fall.  No complaints here, Gentle Reader, as our recent run of temps in the high 90s was beginning to get a bit bothersome.  Bring it ON.

And now it's off to make the rounds and finish what's left o' the coffee.

Big Doin's...

... at El 'Muerto en el Agua' Casa Móvil de Pennington today.  SN1 will be on the scene in about a half-hour or so and we shall attempt to remove the 'Muerto en el Agua' from ECMdP and make her truly Móvil once again.

Later on today we shall look a lot like this, regardless of the outcome:

It's nice to have company for Happy Hour and it's even nicer if one has an occasion to celebrate.  Wish us luck.

Update, 1345 hrs:  Well, that was easy.  We were done in an hour and a half, max.  "Done" simply means replacing the battery and adding five gallons of new gas (and a quarter bottle of gas line cleaner) to the nearly empty tank.  We checked all the fluid levels and other such stuff, turned the key and ECMdP fired right up.  And I mean RIGHT up... there was zero hesitation, no screeching noises, no drama at all... just the sound of a smoothly running V-10.  It was like I started her about an hour ago, not four years.

I will never, ever speak poorly of Ford products again.  Not once, not even.  I mean... ECMdP (which is on a Ford E-450 Super Duty chassis) sat for four years without ever being turned over and then she just fired right up.  I AM impressed, not to mention relieved.

So.  SN1 and I cleaned up a bit, popped a couple o' beers, and smoked cigars in celebration.  All is right with the world. 

OCD, Part II

I got up about 20 minutes ago and am just now enjoying my first cup... which isn't bad considerin' I was up until past 0600 hrs this morning... labeling frickin' posts!  I took these screen shots before I went to bed:

You mebbe thought I was kidding about the OCD thang?

In Today's Mail

The restocking of the humidor... two Drew Estate samplers, described thusly:

Staying true to the Drew Estate mantra, this sampler is anything but conservative. Whether you're an infused cigar junkie or you're just looking to switch up your normal routine, this sampler aims to please.

Three Six each (ed: coz I bought two) of Natural Limited Edition Irish Hops, Natural Big Dirt Torpedo, ACID Kuba Kuba, and the highly acclaimed Tabak Especial Limited Edition Red Eye. Expect sweet flavors ranging from coffee infusion to unique mixes of herbs and botanicals.

Only one of the cigars included in the sampler is new to me, and that would be the Irish Hops stick.  I'm a big fan of the others and buy them by the box quite regularly.  So... we just sparked up a Big Dirt Torpedo, poured us a State Pen Porter... a perfectly poured Porter as it were, even if the head receded somewhat before I got the camera out... and Happy Hour is under way, as we speak!

I'd Be SERIOUSLY Remiss...

...if I didn't mention this (from the Usual USAF Source):

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus reviews troops at his retirement ceremony and official farewell on Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Va., Aug. 31, 2011. DOD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley 

Petraeus Retires: Army Gen. David Petraeus, one of the most well known faces of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, retired Wednesday after 37 years of uniformed service. "You've run the race well, swifter and surer than the rest, and you now stand among the giants, not just in our time, but of all time, joining the likes of Grant and Pershing and Marshall and Eisenhower as one of the great battle captains of American history," said Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, during the retirement ceremony at Fort Myer, Va. The Army four-star was instrumental in developing the US counterinsurgency strategy that turned the tide of the war in Iraq. He led the Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq, Multinational Forces-Iraq, US Central Command, and NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Now a civilian, Petraeus will be taking over at the CIA, having received the Senate's nod in June to lead the intelligence organization. (AFPS release by Jim Garamone)

Well, Gen. Petraeus retired from the Army, so we won't go into the Happy Trails bits.  He begins his new gig as DCI next week... and I think The Agency will be in the best of hands.

Apropos o' not much, the general most certainly wins the award for most ribbons, medals, badges, braid, gold leaf, and assorted other gewgaws on the uniform.  At some point in time the US military will quit taking its uniform cues from tinpot dictators of all stripes, most notably South American.  I hope.

OCD

One of these days I'm going to beat my tendency to be seriously obsessive-compulsive.  But it looks like that won't happen any time soon.  The astute among you Gentle Readers... and that would be all of ya, right?... may have noticed I have a new widget in my sidebar: a tag cloud showing labels I've assigned to posts.  I have NO ideer what came over me but I decided to begin labeling posts and started by asking Blogger to display all posts about Obama (which Blogger does by searching for the word "Obama").  About eight hours and 227 posts later... and that's just scratching the surface... I finished labeling those posts. It doesn't help matters that I sometimes (more often than not) combine three or more discrete topics in a single post... which means I have to actually read the drivel in order to label it properly.  Obsessive.  Compulsive.

I only have about 3,800 posts to go.  Aiiieee.