Fun and Games Dept

So when I walked about of the building at work for lunch time the sky was ominously black. It was kind of awesome. Perfect for perking up my Monday.

By the time I driven the three miles to Dunkin’ Donuts, I had seen a half dozen relatively close lightning strikes. The wind picked up a little bit. As I walked into Dunkin’ Donuts, there was a bright flash and a really impressive clap of thunder within one second of the flash. No tingly feeling though.

The rain didn’t start until I was back in the Jeep and installed in my normal parking spot. I made a 20 second video so you could hear the rain. I find it soothing and grounding.

It was just a little thunderstorm but it was fun. It’s going to be those rumbly afternoons that I enjoy.

For the first time in over two years of doing this commute/hide at lunch time thing, I am not holed up in the Jeep in the far reaches of a parking lot. Today I am sitting in the alternate Dunkin’ Donuts (the one that is five miles from work). I am sitting a table in the corner with my iPad and a bluetooth keyboard in place. Normally I would be doing this sort of thing in the Jeep, but it’s 94ºF outside and subsequently a little toasty in the Jeep right now. I could run the air conditioner while parked, but I don’t think that’s a very responsible thing to do. Why generate my own air conditioning, and in the process add to the pollution, when I can sit and enjoy Dunkin’ Donuts air conditioning? It helps keep the carbon footprint in check.

There’s a decided difference between the folks at the two Dunkin’ Donuts. This one has many more blue collar people. Not a bad thing at all, it’s just a change in scenery. Some look at me with this iPad and wonder if it’s a remote control for the UFO I have parallel parked out back, but I’m used to getting stared at so it doesn’t bother me. Toothless grins in my direction are still pleasant.

As I look out this window I can see the first range of mountains of the Adirondacks. They’re only a mile away from here. I guess they mean it in these parts when they say this is the foothills of the Adirondacks. Folks from the Rockies would probably call them big hills but they’re real mountains. It’s funny that I haven’t ever noticed the mountains being right there before. Usually I notice that sort of thing. Perhaps I should open my eyes more while I’m driving.

So today during my day off I decided to go up to the old stomping grounds of my hometown. I put a solar lamp on my father’s grave site because I thought he would enjoy the simplicity of not having a lit up stone, but just something tastefully simple nearby. I think it looks good. I didn’t take a photo.

After that I headed to the “Port City”, or the City of Oswego, which is on the shores of Lake Ontario.

Downtown Oswego straddles the Oswego River. Unlike many cities, Oswego’s numbered streets don’t meet each other. For example, West First Street does not become East First Street. West First Street is on the west side of the river and East First Street is on the east side of the river. The numbered street increment in the appropriate direction away from the river. Some find this confusing. I find it delightful.

The downtown area of Oswego has seen its hard times, like many cities in the neck of the woods, but it still has quite a few homegrown shops to keep it interesting. After parking the Jeep I decided to walk around and explore a little bit. My first stop was a place called Oswego Bagelry and Sandwich Shop, which looked like it was a hole in the wall but the staff was super friendly and the homemade sandwich was wicked good. Plus, I got a whole pile of pickles!

After I had my fill of lunch, I spotted a barbershop called “Downtown Barber and Shave Company”. Since I hadn’t shaved in a couple of days and because I’m starting to become a barbershop shave aficionado again (after years of having a beard), I decided to give them a try. I waited an hour and enjoyed some of the liveliest conversation I’ve heard in a barbershop in a while (and I think I was the oldest one in the place) but it was well worth it and I came out smooth faced (except for the complimented mustache) and unscathed. Appropriately aged customers are offered an adult beverage from the fridge. All walks of life were in the place and it was the way a barbershop should be. It’s a shame that it’s 75 miles from the house.

I have always preferred Oswego over nearby Fulton (though they are somewhat close to being the same sized cities). After I was cleaned up and I realized it was getting a little later in the afternoon, I hit Route 481 and headed down towards Syracuse so I could make my way home. I took an obligatory powerlines photo of these two circuits that make their way across the county because I found the “bentwood” cross arms to be interesting.

Before making the journey home I realized that I needed to stop at Best Buy to pick up a few things for the home office. And next to Best Buy was …

Luckily Earl had left me a short “honey-do” shopping list before heading to Buffalo this morning, so I went into Wegmans and picked up some needed staples for the house. Even though this particular store was one of the smaller ones in the area, shopping was still a delight because of the selection, the layout of the store and the general vibe of the place.

All in all it was a good day. I feel very relaxed and I’m ready to tackle what remains of the work week. After all, tomorrow is Wednesday and it’s my Wednesday too.

It’s good to be back in sync.

So today is Monday and the energy level on the street indicates this fact. I must seem hyper around others because today is my Friday, so I’m all happy and I have a smile on my face and I’m thinking about my plans for tomorrow, even though it’s an abbreviated ‘weekend’ for me.

Sitting in this shopping center parking lot during my lunch hour on a somewhat daily basis gives me the opportunity to make some observations:

1. Most people eat at the Chinese buffet on Thursdays.
2. Not very many people eat at the Italian restaurant on Mondays.
3. A lot of people eat Italian on Fridays.
4. Dunkin’ Donuts is almost always empty when I go in on Tuesday.
5. The food delivery trucks almost always arrive during lunch hour (which must piss off their customers).
6. The bank is never busy.

These are random things I notice and I can’t really tell you why I notice these things, I just do.

I hope everyone is enjoy their Monday as much as I’m enjoying mine. I’m going to sip some iced tea now. It was prepared and waiting for me when I entered the Dunkin’ Donuts a little while ago. They just magically pulled it out from behind the cookie case when I walked in. Mary told me she was expecting me.

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.

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.

So I’m driving home from work this evening and I decided to tune into “Stand Up With Pete Dominick” on Sirius/XM’s POTUS 124. I don’t always agree with host Pete Dominick’s views but there are times when we think alike and he has interesting guests so I listen to him when I’m in the mood for a little political discussion. Today’s topic for the last half hour of his show was about the government’s mandated use of CFLs, or Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs. Because I was in the midst of my commute, I briefly pulled over to the side of the road and sent this tweet to Pete:

As Pete was fielding calls, mostly from callers that did not believe the government should be mandating the use of CFLs, he mentioned the aforementioned tweet. And then he blew up, focusing on my points of “they’re junk” and “they slowly light up.” Apparently I’m selfish.

Okay, here’s the thing. First of all, it’s nearly impossible to get a full point across in 140 characters, and hence the reason for this blog entry. First of all, I don’t believe that the government should be mandating the use of technology that isn’t all the way there yet. That was my point with “they slowly light up.” A couple of years ago I replaced the majority of lightbulbs in the house with CFLs. It was an expensive venture but I thought it would be best for the government so I went ahead and did it. The damn things are awful. We have replaced more CFLs than regular light bulbs since making the switch (initially we replaced about 75% of the lights in the house). They don’t work with dimmers, so when we use them on the home automation system (which turns on lights only when we need them), they blink erratically when the home automation system turns them off (which I think is actually achieved by dimming them down all the way). When you turn the lights on in the morning, you can’t see anything for the first five minutes of use because they’re warming up and you’re left in this weird, seemingly drug induced haze. Because of this, you end up turning the light on EARLIER than you intended to so you can see what the heck you’re doing when the light finally ramps up to full brightness, resulting in the light being on longer and using MORE electricity. Pete suggested that folks put in more lights during his rant in which he mentioned my Twitter handle on several occasions. Putting in more lights defeats the purpose of using CFLs in the first place.

I fully believe that we should be doing everything we can to live as green as possible by conserving energy, not using fossil resources whenever possible and consciously making an effort to reduce are carbon footprint. I believe that it is the responsibility of every individual to do their part. But like so many other well-intended laws, regulations and the like, the government is going to go at it half-baked at best and ultimately make the situation worse. CFL technology is not at 100%. To compensate, when forced to use this technology, people are going to end up using more of what we are trying to save. That’s not the right approach. It’s like emission standards that reduce gas mileage. Yes, we are putting less crap from our exhaust pipe in the atmosphere, but we are burning more oil to achieve less emissions.

I don’t have an answer to this growing problem. I think lifestyle changes, such as the voluntary disuse of air conditioning when it’s only 55F outside, will make a greater impact on trying to get us on a greener path. Education, not edicts, is what the government should be doing until the technology is where we need it to be and people have a TRUE incentive to use greener technologies instead of just demanding it be so.