Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

We called Happy Hour early today, mainly because (a) we CAN and (b) it's gonna be hot today on The High Plains o' New Mexico, as in the mid-90s, with thunderstorms.  So we decided to get while the gettin' is good.

Yesterday we were in a Baroque mood, today it's all-Strauss, all the time, including this gem:



(Sigh)  Is that not beautiful?  What a venue!

Every time I hear this piece o' music... which I think is among the most beautiful (light) classical music pieces ever penned... I'm reminded of an item on my Punch List that I'll prolly never check off.  We've posted about this before and recently, too.  To wit:

There's this, to begin with:

February 13, 1867: Johann Strauss's Blue Danube waltz premiered in Vienna.

It shouldn't take too much effort to guess what we'll be listening to come Happy Hour.  I've mentioned this to several people over the years: there's just so much excellent classical music out there that it's hard to choose favorites.  That said, I have a very large warm spot in my heart for the Strauss family.  One of my better memories of the way-back was a New Year's concert The Second Mrs. Pennington and I attended when we lived in London.  The London Symphony Orchestra used to do an all-Strauss performance for New Years in times past (they might still do so) and we went.  Wonderful, in a word, and we saw them in their then-new home at the Barbican Center, which has a very nice bar that we patronized at the interval.  I'd still like to be in Vienna for New Years at some point, but my dreams is fading down the railway line.  (That's an obscure reference to an old Stones tune.  Which IS my favorite song of theirs.)  (Yet another parenthetical: you get a LOT of hits if you search for "Blue Danube" by the Vienna Philharmonic.)

A couple o' things I didn't mention in that post, above.  First: TSMP and I were seriously under-dressed for the event... she in a nice dress (but not formal, in any sense o' the word) and me in a sport coat, slacks, white shirt, and a tie (whereas the other male patrons were in tuxes and the like).  The second thing is the fact that one left their drink orders at the bar (while pre-paying) on the way into the concert and when the interval came all ya had to do is walk into the bar and... Walla!... there were your drinks, already poured for you.  That was a nice touch.

I'm wonderin' if the Vienna Philharmonic has the same sorta set-up, but it's sumthin' I'll likely never know.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Fuckin' Blogger... this isn't the first time I've been flagged as a spammer ON MY OWN BLOG.  But, Hey!  It's free, right?

Saturday: Water Baby!

How cool is that?  I remember when DIL Alisa and granddaughters Anastasia and Amanda came to visit with The Second Mrs. Pennington and I in Dee-troit while Dad was under the Atlantic for 90 days at a time.  Alisa and TSMP enrolled the girls in swim classes one summer, Anastasia was about three and Amanda wasn't much older... if she was older at all... than the water baby in that video.  Both girls have kids of their own now.  My, how time does fly!

Anastasia & Puppies, c.1987

Amanda & Anastasia, Summer 2000

Watching the Riots

It hurt me to look at this photo, given my acrophobia.  I can't imagine climbing down from there... let alone climbing up.

From a tweet by Earth Pics. 

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

We're in a Baroque mood today... I dunno exactly WHY, but it is what it is.  So, without further ado, here's a lil piece from G.F. Handel, which is about a day late but NOT a dollar short:



That's a pretty good fireworks display in the video, almost as good as P-Ville's, as a s'matter o' fact.  (insert smiley-faced thingie here)

We're listenin' to the Handel station on Pandora as it's much too hot to open up all the windows and door and listen to my very own copy o' "The Royal Fireworks," backed up with "Water Music."  More's the pity, and all that.

We'll make do.

Coffee Break's Over... Back On Yer Heads

The punch line from a joke that's ALMOST as old as me, but it applies to this:

We had a brief respite from triple digit heat this week, which ended yesterday when our high was a rather balmy-feeling 84 degrees.  No more, and it ain't a DRY heat, neither.  I was just outdoors and it sure feels like the humidity is higher than specified above.  I know, I KNOW... some people would kill for 33% humidity.  

Go on... you can say it: "Poor Baby."

Fireworks and the Lack o' Same

I miss livin' in Beautiful La Hacienda Trailer Park once a year, and ONLY once a year... that time bein' the Fourth o' July.  That's mainly because I had a ringside seat for the P-Ville municipal fireworks show, what with El Casa Móvil De Pennington only bein' about 500 yards from Ground Zero, or where the fireworks are shot off.  I'd set up my camp chairs on my car hauler (for elevation, dontcha know), set the camera up on the tripod, pour myself three or four fingers o' Scotland's finest, light a cigar, and marvel.  The results looked a lot like this:

Monday, July 04, 2011

Fireworks

We sat outside in the backyard (or what passes for a backyard, anyhoo) earlier this evening and watched the P-Ville municipal fireworks show, which happens on the grounds of ENMU's athletic fields... about 500 yards behind Beautiful La Hacienda Trailer Park.  So we have a ringside seat, as it were.  We took pictures, of course, and feel compelled to burden you with them.  Without further ado...

I need a wider angle lens for this sorta stuff.  All of these were shot with my Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens, locked down at 28mm, focus set to infinity, f-stops varying between f-11 and f-8, and various exposure times set between one and eight seconds.  Timing is everything when shooting fireworks and these eight shots are the best of the 140 photos I took tonight (I got a lot of black screen pics, due to bein' late on the draw).  Ergo, my success ratio is less than impressive.  All shots are as they came out of the camera, except for being re-sized (all) and cropped (in some cases).

Tonight?  The athletic fields are about a mile away from where I live now and the horizon is obscured by trees... hardly worth the effort.  I watched about the first ten minutes or so and then went back in the house to catch Charlie Rose, which was a lot more entertaining. 

(Sigh) 

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

In honor o' the day...





I stepped out smartly... in formation... to The Washington Post March and The Stars and Stripes Forever more than a few times back in the day and those tunes by Sousa NEVER fail to raise the hair on my arms, even to this day.  So, we're listenin' to the John Philip Sousa station on Pandora today and enjoying these... and other... patriotic tunes.  Yeah, I'm crazy like that.

Independence Day

From last year:

Wednesday, July 04, 2012

Happy Independence Day!

John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence is a 12-by-18-foot oil-on-canvas painting in the United States Capitol Rotunda that depicts the presentation of the draft of the Declaration of Independence to Congress.  (From The Wiki)

It's been my habit in recent years to publish the Declaration of Independence every Fourth of July, but I'm gonna do sumthin' different this year.  I found this old post from 2007 and it's on topic and on-point for today...

We’re not all of us language-people. But…for those who just might be such a person, I offer “The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence.”

The Declaration of Independence is perhaps the most masterfully written state paper of Western civilization. As Moses Coit Tyler noted almost a century ago, no assessment of it can be complete without taking into account its extraordinary merits as a work of political prose style. Although many scholars have recognized those merits, there are surprisingly few sustained studies of the stylistic artistry of the Declaration.(1) This essay seeks to illuminate that artistry by probing the discourse microscopically--at the level of the sentence, phrase, word, and syllable. By approaching the Declaration in this way, we can shed light both on its literary qualities and on its rhetorical power as a work designed to convince a "candid world" that the American colonies were justified in seeking to establish themselves as an independent nation.(2)

[…]

Like the introduction, the next section of the Declaration--usually referred to as the preamble--is universal in tone and scope. It contains no explicit reference to the British- American conflict, but outlines a general philosophy of government that makes revolution justifiable, even meritorious:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Like the rest of the Declaration, the preamble is "brief, free of verbiage, a model of clear, concise, simple statement."(11) It capsulizes in five sentences--202--words what it took John Locke thousands of words to explain in his Second Treatise of Government. Each word is chosen and placed to achieve maximum impact. Each clause is indispensable to the progression of thought. Each sentence is carefully constructed internally and in relation to what precedes and follows. In its ability to compress complex ideas into a brief, clear statement, the preamble is a paradigm of eighteenth-century Enlightenment prose style, in which purity, simplicity, directness, precision, and, above all, perspicuity were the highest rhetorical and literary virtues. One word follows another with complete inevitability of sound and meaning. Not one word can be moved or replaced without disrupting the balance and harmony of the entire preamble.

I don’t know just how many times I’ve read the Declaration of Independence, but it’s been more than a few. One cannot read the document without a sense of wonder at the magnificence of the words and the way they’re put together. That said, I’ve never read an analysis of the style, thought, and historical/political precedents that went into the composition of the document. This “Stylistic Artistry” essay is one of those rare things one finds on the ‘net: A Keeper. Duly saved in my “Important Stuff” directory.

What I said back then: the essay is a keeper.  Much more at the link.

Have a safe and happy Fourth!

I can't improve on that.

Well, I Feel Like a Right Idiot

Desktop with two perfectly
good external drives.

Our new external hard drive arrived about 20 minutes ago and we plugged it in.  Nothing; Windows doesn't "see" the new drive.  We scratched our head for a minute, silently mouthing "WTF!" epithets as we struggled to figger out what's wrong with this picture.

We rebooted the box.  Nothing.

So we then tried another USB port, the desktop having four o' said ports... two USB 3.0 ports on the top o' the computer and two USB 2.0 ports in another location.  Guess what?  The box sees the new device when it's plugged into a USB 2.0 port.  The box also sees my old, "failed" external drive when it's plugged into one of those other ports, to add insult to injury.

So we have us a new, spiffy 1.0 TB drive we can use as a back-up to our back-up (and we're running a back-up to the new drive, as we speak).  Which is a good thang, I suppose... if one ignores the fact I'm a blithering fucking idiot, not to mention the equivalent o' about a month and half worth o' beer, which is the approximate cost o' the new drive.

Computers are much harder than they have to be.  Now I gotta figger out why those USB 3.0 ports died.

Oh, This Is SO Freakin' TRUE

My Buddy Ed In Florida sends along the following...

MALE LOGIC 101 .

Woman:
Do you drink beer?
Man: Yes

Woman:
How many beers a day?

Man:
Usually about 3

Woman:
How much do you pay per beer?

Man: $5.00 which includes a tip

(This is where it gets scary !)

Woman:
And how long have you been drinking?

Man:
About 20 years, I suppose

Woman:
So a beer costs $5 and you have 3 beers a day which puts your spending each month at $450. In one year, it would be approximately $5400 …correct?

Man:
Correct

Woman:
If in 1 year you spend $5400, not accounting for inflation, the past 20 years puts your spending at $108,000, correct?

Man:
Correct

Woman:
Do you know that if you didn’t drink so much beer, that money could have been put in a step-up interest savings account and after accounting for compound interest for the past 20 years, you could have now bought a Ferrari?

Man:
Do you drink beer?

Woman:
No

Man:
Where’s your Ferrari?

Heh.  And yer mansion, too.

Potpourri

I missed the crack o' dawn this morning by 14 minutes.  The sun rose at 0546 hrs this morning according to WeatherUnderground; I arose at precisely 0600 hrs.  I know this because the very first thing I do when my eyes open is check my phone to see what time it is... it's a game I play with myself.  My sense o' time is... or was... extraordinarily accurate; I estimate the time when I awake and check my phone to see how close I am.  I'm usually within ten or 15 minutes of the actual time; this morning's estimate: 0615.

It was another night on the couch.  I fell asleep watching the teevee... a documentary about building the world's largest cruise ship (at the time), the Freedom of the Seas.  It WAS interesting, don't get me wrong, but it also put me to sleep within a half hour.  I awoke sometime after midnight but said "Screw it" (a more common variation of that phrase, actually), turned off the teevee, rolled over, and went back to sleep.  So... we woke up at 0600 hrs, fully rested and ready to begin our day.

This sorta thing happens whenever I forgo my afternoon nap, which we did yesterday.  I think I see a nap in my future today, though.

―:☺:―

So, with the demise o' Google Reader I picked up Feedly on Loosy-Anna Andy's recommendation.  I don't like it.  It's OK, it works as designed, and it imported all my Google Reader feeds seamlessly.  So why don't I like it?  Just this: Feedly's not nearly as handy or as user-friendly as the Google Reader widget I had integrated into my iGoogle page.  Which only reenforces just HOW much I'm gonna miss iGoogle when it goes away.  "Don't be evil," HA!

―:☺:―

I was out to Cannon Airplane Patch yesterday doin' the usual first o' the month errands, i.e., pick up meds from the pharmacy and do a lil light shopping at the Class VI store.  I was kinda disappointed in the beer selection at the Class VI in that I didn't see anything new or noteworthy, read as "something I'd like to try."  Oh, well.  The Usual Suspects... in this case a sixer o' Shiner Ruby Red and a sixer o' Franizkaner... serve me well. 

On another note... concerning Cannon's gate guards.  Lately the gate has been manned with active duty Security Police, before that the gates were manned with rent-a-cops, i.e., civilian security officers.  Sometimes we get Army MPs... reservists... manning the gates, but only rarely.  I'm wonderin' if the current budget woes have anything to do with this.

The USAF SPs and the rent-a-cops always address me as "Mr. Pennington" when they hand my ID card back to me, as in "Have a nice day, Mr. Pennington."  The Army guys, on the other hand would always, without fail, hand me my ID card back and say "Thank you, Master Sergeant.  Have a nice day."  I prefer the latter of the two forms of address.  Don't ask me why, I just do.

Back to yesterday.  So I pull up to the gate, hand my ID card to the young two-striper standing guard, who scans it, hands it back to me and sez "Just out of curiosity, sir, what kind o' car is this?"  I tell him and he replies "This is a BEAUTIFUL car, Mr. Pennington.  Have a nice day."  "Why, thank you," sez I, "and you have a nice day, too, Airman."

That made me feel pretty good.

Our Latest Project

We've embarked on growing a "regimental" mustache, otherwise known as a "handlebar" (or we're tryin' to do so, at least).  We've done this once in our past lives and it came out lookin' sumthin' like this:

That's back in 1999 and that attempt wasn't all that bad, if I may be so bold as to say so, but we never took the project to any sort o' conclusion beyond what you see above.

Here's where we stand today...

Macro

Micro

Current progress could be described as an embryonic Skip-stache, if that (I got that link from here... in his sidebar).  These things take time and the next step is to find that tube o' mustache wax we know we still have... somewhere.  We shall keep ya posted on our progress.  I'll bet you're REALLY excited.

It's Always Sumthin'

My backup hard drive died this morning and I'm feelin' rather snake-bit where electronics are concerned.  Last week it was my frickin' phone, today it's my external drive.  We'll have a new one tomorrow, thanks to Amazon Prime and their cheap one-day shipping (which I pay for with that annual Prime subscription fee, but I think it's worth it).

In the mean time we're feelin' quite nekkid, what with NO back-up available should my desktop crash.  I REALLY hate it when this happens.

What's next, one wonders?  Oh, well... ya can't worry about thangs that are outta yer control, so it's out to the verandah to enjoy the WX and a couple o' beers.

Parental Guidance

Occasional Reader, Constant Correspondent, and Good Friend Lin sends this along...

A woman and her 10 year old son were riding in a taxi in New York.  It was raining and all the prostitutes were standing under the awnings.

"Mom " said the boy, "what are all these women doing?"

"They're waiting for their husbands to get off work" she replies.

The taxi driver turns around and says "Geez, lady, why don't you tell him the truth? They're hookers, kid! They have sex with men for money."

The little boy's eyes get wide and he says, "Is that true, mom?"   His mother, glaring hard at the driver, answers in the affirmative.

After a few minutes, the kid asks, "Mom, what happens to the babies those women have?"

"Most of them become taxi drivers." she said.

Heh.

Happy Birthday, Corvette!

America's only sports car turned 60 yesterday and she's still America's (automotive) sweetheart.  I remember her, and oh-so-fondly, too.

The Second Mrs. Pennington and HER car, the first weekend after we bought it.

Same location as above, on Lake Huron north of Dee-troit

In Letchworth State Park, near Rochester NY

SN3 LOVED to play in the Vette.  I did, too.

The Vette didn't have a name... she was known simply as "The Vette," which seems personal enough.  That car was a keeper and I'd prolly still own her if I hadn't have run away from home.

Added, somewhat later:  I have a couple o' few stories about that car.  First of all... The Vette really was TSMP's car and it was her daily driver in the Spring, summer, and Fall.  We had a series of knock-down, drag-out... ummm... disagreements when we ordered the car.  I wanted a six-speed manual transmission, she INSISTED on an automatic.  I countered with the "heresy" argument; it's a freakin' SPORTS car, not a damned appliance.  No matter, said she, countering that she refused to be stuck in rush hour traffic having to put the clutch in and release it every 300 feet or so.  Her commute was rather lengthy, too, like this:


View Larger Map

That's 20 miles on I-696, which had a habit of turning into a parking lot during rush hour like any major arterial in any American city.  So: she won.  It then came to pass we had a four-door family sedan with a five-speed manual (a SAAB 9000) and a freakin' VETTE with a gotdamned automatic.  Sumthin' was seriously wrong with THAT picture.  At least I got to choose the Vette's color as my consolation prize.

Second story... TSMP was working as a Japanese-to-English translator at Nissan's Dee-troit tech center when we bought the Vette.  We toyed with the ideer of getting a vanity plate for the car which would have read...

PD4W/YEN

Geddit?  But we didn't.

Lastly:  I inherited the Vette when our marriage died.  A famous quote from the divorce debacle:  "What are you so upset about?  You're getting the Vette!"

And so I did.  I/we had that car for seven years and we had some great good times in it.  A classic, to be sure.

Jes a Couple o' Thangs, i.e., Small Stuff

I thought this to be a rather clever play on words...

Heh.  The REST of us ain't bein' served too well, either.

In other news... How do you spell "relief?"

That's about a 40-degree drop in temperature from last week, which works for ME.

The Afterlife

I had a weird thought while sitting on the verandah last evening, enjoying a couple o' few fingers o' Bulleit Rye, a Partagas Spanish Rosado, the rain falling in the vertical (as opposed to the normal slashing, horizontal sort we usually get) and the coolness that came with said rain.  Altogether a rather marvelous experience, heightened by our soundtrack, which was the Glenn Miller station on Pandora.  My thoughts turned to my parents, Mom in particular, and my thoughts ALWAYS turn to my parents when I hear Big Band music.  So then it occurred to me that I might not be too far removed from seein' them again, assuming there's an afterlife.  Our mind began to wander on that topic... the afterlife... and we wondered about Heaven, Paradise, and other possible destinations, not the least of which was "how do we get there?"  And what's there, there?  Is Heaven one big place where all souls congregate?  Consider this, from The Wiki:

The CIA's World Factbook gives the world population as 7,021,836,029 (July 2012 est.) and the distribution of religions as Christian 33.39% (of which Roman Catholic 18.85%, Protestant 8.15%, Orthodox 4.96%, Anglican 1.26%), Muslim 22.74%, Hindu 10.8%, Buddhist 6.77%, Sikh 0.35%, Jewish 0.22%, Baha'i 0.11%, other religions 10.95%, non-religious 9.66%, atheists 2.01%. (2010 est.)

I KNOW some of those religions have a theology that excludes non-believers (we won't name names), so one kinda has to think there are several different neighborhoods in Heaven, including gated communities and a ghetto or two.  There's also the problem of atheists, and I assume those sorts simply go to ground and stay there.  We Buddhists, OTOH, know we have to come back and do it over until we get it right.  While we're on that subject, I'm thinking Nirvana is prolly a VERY small space, inhabited by the Buddha and a few of his minions; that's coz most of us will NEVER get it right.  I'm hoping that I got enough of it right this time around to come back as a woman, specifically as that "hooker with a heart o' gold."  (We've gone on about that before, but I can't find the link)

Devotions at El Casa Inmóvil de Pennington

I had more thoughts on this subject, particularly about the trip's beginning, wherein The Deity At  Hand (or one of her staff) announces... 

"Welcome to The Celestial Paradise Port.  Christians report to Concourse A, where you'll find your gate listed by denomination on the monitors.  Muslims report to Concourse B... Sunnis to the left and Shi'as to the right, please.  Hindus go to Concourse C.  You Buddhists aren't going anywhere just yet, and a few of you will become bugs running around Concourse B.  All other Buddhists should check in at the Wheel of Life for gate assignments.  Thank you for your attention and have a nice afterlife."

Or sumthin' like that.

In other theological news...  I had a conversation with SN1 the other night and he mentioned he forgot to tell me he picked up some pretty good incense, which he burns in his office.  He also mentioned DIL Erma stuck her head in the office while he was burnin' some of that stuff and said sumthin' to the effect of "It smells like your father's house in here."

Well.  I suppose that's preferable to a house that smells like stale beer and cigar smoke, eh?  Erma's right, though.  We do burn a bit o' incense, which is a part o' our daily devotions.  We have to keep the protocols if we hope not to come back as a bug in Concourse B.

Update, 1430 hrs:  Great Good Friend Lin sends this along with the suggestion that I update this post with same.



Heh.  Oh, that's GOOD.

Broadening Our Horizons (X4), Episode LXIX

We made a trip down to our local likker locker day before yesterday for to replenish the barley pop section of our Fridge O' Many Charms and were greeted in the parking lot by big-ass signs advertising O'Dell's Summer Sampler.  "Well, cool," sez I, "I think I'll pick one of those up."  And we did.  Here's what's in that 12-pack:

A couple o' days have passed and I've sampled all four of the beers... Loose Leaf (a session or saison beer), 90 Shilling Ale (an amber ale), St. Lupulin (a very hoppy pale ale), and their IPA (which is about par for the course for that genre) (there are great lil videos about the beers at a couple o' those links, btw)... which I've listed in order of my preference, the latter two bein' tied for dead last.  I'm not an IPA fan in that I don't like hoppy bitterness to overpower the malt flavor in my beer.  It goes without sayin' that your mileage may vary, the corollary bein' taste is ALL in our mouths.

So, that said... I really like the Loose Leaf and the 90 Shilling but I won't be buyin' another of these 12-packs... mainly coz I don't care for half of the contents.  I'm hopin' against hope my likker locker will stock the 90 Shilling but when the Loose Leaf is gone... it's gone, seein' as how it's an experimental brew and is only available in the summer 12-packs.  I hate it when that happens, mainly coz Loose Leaf is a damned near perfect summer brew (I'm drinkin' one right now, as we speak).

Oh, well.  It's always sumthin'.

Saturday: In Which We Bring Teh Cute

Cute overload, actually.  The Usual Source sez Adweek has already named this ad "Cutest Ad o' the Year," which MIGHT be a lil premature.  Mebbe not... there aren't many things in this life that are cuter than bunnies.  Well, except for all o' these. 

With All Due Consideration For Those Who Work For a Living...

C'MON, MONDAY!

Same Ol', Same Ol'

It's a regularly recurring thing here at  El Casa Imóvil De Pennington.  Some examples:

(Sigh)  I have a classic case o' The Blahs today and don't feel like doin' much o' anythang, which includes writing a new and riveting blog post.  Or even goin' shopping, which is sumthin' I MUST do later on today, assuming the Motivation Fairy flits in and dusts me with the appropriate stuff.  Or hits me with her wand, or however that works.  There are mysteries in life and this is one of 'em.  (08-12-2012)

Yes, We Have No Bananas...

... for we are decidedly short on motivation and our left arm is throbbing.  In re: the left arm... we got our flu shot today, nuff said about THAT, I suppose, except this year's vaccine stung a lot goin' in and hurts like hell several hours later.  I'm such a wimp...  (10-12-2011)

Where's My MOTIVATION?

Aiiieee.  We are becalmed in the worst blogging doldrums I've experienced in quite a long while.  Mebbe I'm experiencing some sorta post-headshot let-down, or some other semi-obscure form of ennui.  It's pretty serious, whatevah it is, as I can't seem to draw any sort of inspiration from anywhere.  (05-04-2011)

Calling In Well

Towards the end of my working life there was a point in time I took to calling in well whenever "things" got a bit too much.  Which is to say something like this hypothetical phone call:

Boss: Hello? Me:  Hey.  It's Buck.  I won't be in today. Boss: Are you OK? Me:  Oh yeah.  I'm great.  As a s'matter of fact I feel too damned good to come in. Boss: (short pause, followed by laughter)  OK... see ya tomorrow!

That was about the way it went the first time I pulled that stunt.  I didn't do it all that often, mind you, mebbe once or twice a year and NEVER when there was "stuff" going on that required my presence.  I usually did it after some sorta death march was completed, which is to say the kind of activity that required an endless procession of 12 to 14 hour days.  It was my own personal form of R&R, in other words.  I never once pulled that trick in the Air Force, needless to say.  The military, even the AF, tend to take a rather dim view of that sort of attitude.  There's that "duty" thang, yanno?  But it isn't so in the civilian world, given you have the right sort of leadership.  And I did.

We're calling in well today here at EIP.  While I feel REALLY good I also have zero motivation my inner eight year old pulling his usual stunt.  Even My Buddy Ed In Florida seems to be on hiatus at the moment, having failed to send me any of his drollery.  Mebbe everyone is kinda-sorta calling in well today.  (09-30-2010)

So... we were sitting here wondering where the Hell our Muse has traipsed off to, given as how she apparently decamped sometime over the long weekend. It's sufficient to say our blogging motivation levels have dropped off considerably over the last 48 hours or so... we've just been going through the motions for the last couple of days. (02-18-2009)

And you know there may be more, but I got tired o' scrolling down through old blog posts that say the same thing: we are NOT motivated.  I absolutely HAVE to go shopping today unless I wanna call up my good friends at Domino's when it's time for dinner.  It's hot outside, too.

Sigh.  First-world problems... we has 'em.

He'll Be Missed

I've posted a lot o' Mr. Asay's work here at EIP.  I'm gonna miss him.

Happy (Second) Retirement, Chuck!

It's Always SUMTHIN'

So... we made TWO trips to The Big(ger) City^TM today.  There I was... out on the verandah, beer close at hand, settling into my favorite chair with a lit cigar idling in the ashtray, and I go to open Pandora on my phone.  We shall now make a long story MUCH shorter: my phone died.

So it's into the house to put the beer in the fridge, the cigar in the ashtray, collect my keys and motor BACK to Clovis.  Sprint is my cellular provider, but there are no technicians at the Clovis store.  The girl that waited on me said I could drive to Lubbock or Amarillo and see if they could fix my phone, if'n I wanted.  "OTOH, you're eligible for an upgrade!" sez she, smiling sweetly.  So: new phone.  Like this:

Yes.  Yes, I did.  I went over to The Dark Side.  I can't believe I did that.  

OTOH, I'll be able to amuse myself by asking Siri dumb-ass questions.  My first: "Can you kill someone for me, Siri?"  Her answer:  "I don't know what you mean.  Would you like to search the web?"  "Nah," sez I... "I'll just do it myself."

In Which We Use Our Head For Sumthin' Other Than a Hat Rack

For once.  By that I mean we were up at what passes for oh-dark-thirty at this point in life... 0630 hrs, actually... so we could (a) get semi-caffeinated, (b) head on over to The Big(ger) City^TM for to get The Tart serviced and (c) do all that before the heat of the day is upon us... which will be substantial (the forecast bein' 108, or so).  

So, out the door at 0730, a quick stop at the local coffee house to pick up a big-ass cappuccino for the road, and then we headed on over to Clovis, arriving at Bender GM at 0815 hrs where we were first in line, which was a decided improvement over our last experience.  We were back on the road to P-Ville at 0925 hrs with eight quarts of fresh oil in the crankcase, a full-spectrum check-up, and rotated tires... all at no charge, thanks to four years of included maintenance that came with The Dowager.  I like that.

I feel like I deserve a beer after doin' all that, so I think I'll go out to the verandah and shock the neighbors before it gets too bloody hot.