Visitors to the actual site of the blog will note that I have changed the visual theme of the site again and I think I have found a theme that I am pleased with. This theme is called iTheme2 and I think it looks good and represents my Mac tendencies very well.
I have also added a couple of widgets to the side (even if I’m a little late on my Happy Pride Month! widget this year). Feel free to browse around.
The first time I pumped gas at a self-serve station was at the Hess on the corner of Henry Clay Blvd. and Buckley Rd. in the town of Salina, outside of Syracuse. This station sits in a more industrial part of town. I was riding with Grandma City in the Ford Granada she had just purchased. It was a used car from Canada. She advised me that she was only doing 60% of what the speedometer said because the gauges were in metric. 60% of very slow is still very slow. Grandma City had a tendency to drive slow. We were going to a warehouse sale at Fays Drugs on Henry Clay Blvd. There must have been a discount on African Violets or something.
I have probably pumped gas a couple of thousand times since that first time at the Hess station on Henry Clay Blvd. We have a Hess station relatively close by, but there’s a Fastrac station about a mile from the house so we go there. I just filled up the Jeep in preparation for my commute to work in the morning. I don’t like starting out the day with the need of gas. I like to be prepared.
The gas at all of the local stations is 10 to 15 cents higher per gallon than it is in nearby Syracuse or Albany. I once asked a very important person at Fastrac why this was the case and they told me it was because our area doesn’t have any terminals near by and therefore the gas has to be brought in by truck. I thought all gas was brought in by truck. I didn’t mention the fact that River Road, the same road that the Fastrac is on, is lined with huge gas tanks that are marked with signs that indicate it’s a terminal. Today I paid $3.589 a gallon, which is marked down from $3.659 because I have a gimmick card from Fastrac. I’m not a big fan of the gimmick card, but every few cents per gallon helps the budget. When you commute as much as I do, you watch your fuel budget and hope that heaven doesn’t require you to be completely green. My carbon footprint should be getting smaller soon.
I think gas might have been $1.099 that first time I pumped it myself on Henry Clay Blvd. Far from the $0.299 that Goober pumped in Mayberry but even farther from the $3.589 price tag I pumped today. When I was graduating from high school there was some quick reduction of gas prices for a little while during some sort of event in the Middle East. I once paid $0.799 a gallon to fill my 1976 Pontiac Astre. People called it “the Disastre” because it was a Vega in a fancy suit. It got me from point A to point B so I didn’t care so much. It was a really weird green color. When I wore my red snowsuit while driving it I looked like an olive with me in the starring role as the pimento.
Today is the first day of my weekend. Tomorrow isn’t the second day of my weekend though, that title goes to next Tuesday. I have a four day work week that starts tomorrow. I need to drive to work for three of those days. Tomorrow is not one of those days.
Usually when I have a day off during the week I go on a road trip and explore the back roads of the Empire State, but I decided earlier in the week that I would approach today different and stay local. Ever since starting my latest job over two years ago and commuting a total of 2 1/2 hours a day, I have felt a little disconnected from home life and really disconnected from the neighborhood. Most find reasons to complain about this area of New York (it’s not the most prosperous area of the Northeast by any stretch of the imagination), today I tried to find a reason to boast about it.
The “main street” of Utica is actually not called Main Street (though we do have one of those), it’s called Genesee Street. Today I drove the length of Genesee Street and admired the houses south of Oneida Square. Many have been turned into law or medical offices, but down towards South Utica the houses are still houses and look quite nice. I didn’t want to be labeled a stalker so I didn’t take photos of any houses, but I did take a photo while driving up Genesee Street and it looked a little bit like this.
If you look close you can see a tiny reflection of me in the windshield.
Today was my “take care of me” day, and since someone at work commented that I needed a haircut (I haven’t shaved my head in a couple of weeks), I decided to go to the barbershop in Union Station, the train and bus station that sits just north of downtown on what is really called Main Street.
Near the tracks in the Farmer’s Market area.
This building houses many county offices, including the Department of Motor Vehicles, which is right in the main lobby of the train station. The building also hosts a Farmer’s Market every Saturday morning and has a couple of little eateries and a barbershop. The barbershop is one of only three left in the country that are in a train station and has been in continuous operation since the 1910s. It’s currently owned by a father and son. I met the father today. His name is Leo and he buzzed my hair back down to a shadow. I also took the opportunity to enjoy a hot lather, straight razor shave. During the shave he mentioned that he had never shaved around such a large mustache before but it’s what barbers must have done in the late 1800s. He tamed it a bit with some wax while chatting away. I like Leo, he did a good job, I didn’t feel the razor at all (and I have experienced some heavy handed barber in my time) and I will be visiting him more often. It’s good to support the businesses that are trying to keep the local culture alive.
I then stopped at Bagg’s Square Café Express (link goes to the full café which is a couple of blocks away on Broad Street), which is also in the main lobby of the train station and features Starbucks products. We don’t have Starbucks in this area, only folks that sell Starbucks products. I picked up a Venti Unsweetened Green Iced Tea and it was delicious. The cool thing about that experience was that I was able to pay using the Square app on my iPhone. My photo appeared on their screen, I told them who I was and they charged it to the credit card linked to my Square account. I could have added a tip if I wanted to but I opted to drop some cash into their tip jar instead. No credit card, no numbers exchanged, just my photo and that’s it. That is wicked cool to me and I wish more businesses would adopt the same approach in this area.
Earl and I enjoyed a nice lunch together and then I spent the afternoon cleaning my home office, joining a conference call at work (sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do) and then visiting my chiropractor to get my neck and back back on track.
My mind, body and soul are soaring today. And I owe it all to my home turf. Sometimes it’s good to stop and see what’s close to home instead of venturing off into faraway lands.
So I just made an appointment with my friendly neighborhood chiropractor. I haven’t been able to visit the chiropractor since starting my current job over two years ago; with a 1 1/4 hour commute in each direction, there isn’t really time to squeeze in a chiropractor appointment without using PTO (benefit) time. I have missed going to the chiropractor because I firmly believe that it did me good when I was going there regularly, and now that I have a little more flexibility in my work schedule I’m anxious to start going first thing in the morning before starting my work day. I get to go tomorrow because it’s my on-call week, so today is my Friday, tomorrow is my Saturday and Friday is my Tuesday. Yes, it’s one of those weeks.
We have a friend that’s a very good chiropractor but he’s too far away to visit him, so I settled on Dr. Tim a few years ago. When I first started seeing Dr. Tim I had quite a few headaches and after a few sessions with him the headaches went away. I continued to visit him for maintenance/wellness purposes and I felt much more grounded then than I do now. I really do believe that going to the chiropractor made me feel better and not going lately has been a little bit of a deficit in my life. I’m not a big fan of deficits.
I know some people get nervous about the cracking, snapping and popping sounds that might happen during an adjustment, but like the freak I am, I find it all quite fascinating. The second time I had a neck adjustment I got a little dizzy afterwards but it was kind of cool and I felt a VAST improvement. A “better balance” is the best way that I can describe it. These days I don’t have the headaches that I had before my first visit to Dr. Tim, but I do feel a certain amount of tightness in my shoulders and neck area. I’m hoping that after a few visits with Dr. Tim that tightness will go away and I’ll be able to spin my head like an owl again. I’ll even hoot once in a while.
When I was a kid I remember asking my mom what a chiropractor was and she was kind of vague on the subject, stating that they moved bones. I remember finding this rather startling, because I liked my bones right where they were. It was only after gaining interest in holistic and natural healing methods in my early 20s that I really knew what chiropractors did. My bones stay where they are, they just get some routine maintenance now and it certainly helps me feel better. Anything that helps keep the results of stress at bay is a good thing as far as I’m concerned. I know that there are many that don’t believe in chiropractic adjustments but I know what works for me and that’s what’s important. If loosening up my neck and shoulders helps reunite my mind, body and spirit, then I figure I’m doing a good thing, and that’s what matters.
So last night I had the house to myself and I had plans on getting a lot of sleep. The thing is, I didn’t get a lot of sleep. I didn’t even get as much sleep as I usually do because I kept waking up thinking the house felt awfully empty. Plus, I had today’s work schedule on my mind; I had a meeting this morning about a change to some of my responsibilities at work and I was pondering that. The meeting went really well and I am wholeheartedly pleased, so it wasn’t really something to lose sleep over but I still did.
Today I decided that I had gotten bored with my routine at the local Dunkin’ Donuts, even with all the chaos that occurred there yesterday (I love it when people feel the need to entertain me). So instead I drove to the alternate Dunkin’ Donuts which is a six minute drive from work. I will have to figure in the extra three minutes to get back to my office. Math is hard. I think the restlessness with DD can be attributed to the fact that I’m tired today.
Let’s see where I end up tomorrow. For the time being, I’m going to take a nap.
I must say that I thoroughly enjoy life when a blog entry practically writes itself when a little episode unfolds right in front of me. It’s these little things that make me smile.
I walked into the local Dunkin’ Donuts for my daily lunch-time iced tea. A good share of the time my iced tea will already be poured and waiting for me. People know who I am and therefore respond accordingly. This pleases me. With it being Monday, I wasn’t overly surprised when my iced tea was not waiting for me. Like most folks on Monday, the staff seem to be slightly off-kilter on the first day of the work week.
I stood at the register for a few minutes when one of the more important ladies behind the counter peaked around from the drive thru shoot and said, “we’ll be right with you, hun.” They always call me ‘hun’ at this particular Dunkin’ Donuts. I don’t know why they do this, but I’m thankful that they at least acknowledge my presence, because at the Dunkin’ Donuts closest to home we are happy if the change isn’t airborne when we get it.
There were three people working the store. One in drive thru, one assisting drive thru (who apparently was also working the counter) and one in food assembly. The manager was wandering around with two six foot fluorescent lightbulbs. I kind of thought of him to be like Fred Mertz carrying the plant across the stage repeatedly while Ethel sang for her hometown in New Mexico. He’d walk by with the fluorescent bulbs, then he’d walk the other way with the bulbs. I felt like I should be singing “Short’nin Bread.”
As people began stacking up behind me (well, not literally stacking up, that’d be silly and rather intimate for Dunkin’ Donuts), the girl with assistive drive thru skills zoomed over to the counter, gave me a wild-eyed look and said “We are brewing more iced tea!” Apparently they had blown through the day’s worth of iced tea by noon and this was creating chaos. I said, “no worries” (because after all, I am Australian[?]) and she rang me up, successfully swiped my DD card on the third try after completely missing the register the first two times and then told me it’d be right up. The drive thru girl screamed, “I’m making it!!” and the manager walked by with the fluorescent bulbs.
I sat in a booth closest to the Food Receiving Window and waited patiently. The woman that had been behind me at the counter placed her order after asking, “Why don’t you tell me about today’s specials?”
Honestly, I didn’t find this surprising because it was then that I noticed that the woman had her wig on backwards. The poor wig looked like it had been run through a Frigidaire Wash ‘n Wear cycle (that old washing machine with the bouncing agitator) and flung onto her head like the mop it might have really been. The part/swirly part was up near her forehead. The flipping bangs caressed her neck. It was rather disconcerting.
The girl didn’t call her hun but told her about a lovely ham sandwich made on a croissant.
It was at this moment that the manager walked by with the two fluorescent bulbs and then the drive thru girl flung the brewing iced tea into the Official Iced Tea Machine. She then banged some keys on the register closest to the drive thru window. The Food Assembly Person looked at the screen and started assembling a sandwich. I could tell that it was a roast beef sandwich because she took out the meat wrapped in plastic that was marked with larger, helvetica letters: “ROAST BEEF”.
Chaos was occurring at the counter where the woman with the flipped wig was asking about the freshness of the donuts. She wasn’t being called “hun”. She was being glared at.
The manager walked by with two fluorescent tubes.
It was then that the drive thru came tearing out of her nook and made a honking noise at the Food Assembly Person. “The roast beef sandwich is tuna!” This pissed off the Food Assembly Person because she had discarded the ROAST BEEF lettered roast beef and had assembled the sandwich. The drive thru girl grabbed a bag and went shooting back into her nook, where the Food Assembly Person yelled, “don’t give it to them it’s not tuna!”
The manager walked by with THREE fluorescent tubes.
The girl that no longer used “hun” got the woman with the backwards wig all settled in with a regular coffee and came racing across the kitchen area to straighten out the Great Tuna-Roast Beef Debacle of 2012 where Drive Thru Assembly girl screamed “YOU WANT LEMON!” I figured out that she was directing that declaration at me, so I bellowed “YES!” as loudly as I could, which made the woman with the wig on backwards flinch a little bit but it got my point across.
The manager walked by with one fluorescent tube.
The girl that was no longer using hun came racing over to the Food Receiving Window with my freshly brewed iced tea.
I put a straw in it and left.
I didn’t get a DJ gig I was vying for. It was a one-time gig at a special event. I must be getting old. Gotta admit I’m a little bummed about it. I’ll just go back to sitting on my porch, spinning tales of my radio days and making sure the kids stay off my lawn.
The true key to happiness is to dare to dream from a stable platform. The balance of maintaining stability while allowing myself to dream is the nirvana that I search for. I’ve dreamed a lot during my life and I have achieved much of what I have dreamed about, but I’ve only dabbled with stability in the process. I think I need to find the balance to keep it all in perspective.
And I have no idea why I am writing like a Fortune Cookie today.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
Weird? Eccentric!