Ponderings and Musings

Since Earl and I worked late tonight, we decided that tonight would be our night out on the town. Knowing this all day long, my mouth was watering for a steak and blue cheese salad wedge entree at a local restaurant, Carmella’s in neighboring New Hartford. I believe there are a couple of Carmella’s in Central New York. The other one close to us is called Babe’s.

Earl and I were seated in the farthest corner in a booth near the waitress congregation area. Menus were placed on our designated table and a non-committal hostess flung some fingers in the general direction of the corner. I sat facing the corner, Earl faced the dining room.

After about three minutes we set our menus down and were ready for someone to stop by the table to welcome us to Carmella’s and to take our order.

A few more minutes passed.

Earl observed servers coming and going from the Church of the Poison Mind server congregating area, and while they appeared to be quite engaged with one another, they didn’t seem like they wanted to really mingle with the customers.

As Earl observed this, I listened to the woman in the booth behind me bellow out something about boxed wine and asking her mother how she got home from her 17th birthday party years ago because she was so wasted she didn’t remember. Ah, the good ol’ days.

At T+12 minutes Earl looked at as I gazed back at him and we both said it at the same time: “Do you want to get out of here”? Now, years ago when we said that, we bee-lined back to a hotel room and did the nasty, but it’s been several years and we’ve been married a long time so instead we went to another restaurant.

We settled on the local Olive Garden, which had its grand opening last month. As we walked through the front doors, all expectations of Olive Garden familiarity dissipated as we realized this wasn’t your grandma’s Olive Garden. The “curvy” feel of the room layouts and the bar and passageways to the dining areas that flank the breezeway were absent, our local restaurant has four square dining rooms chocked full of tables and booths. Not only could you barely move in the place, it was loud. Very loud. Like, high school lunch room table in the far corner loud.

A very nice server named Amanda greeted us, and despite her creepy inclinations of coming up behind Earl and asking him questions over his shoulder, she was pleasant and knew what she was doing.

To our side was a table of eight that were celebrating someone’s birthday with all you can eat salad. They must have had four bowls of salad and breadsticks, bring more breadsticks. It went on and on. The four sitting along the wall (next to me) all smoked; they exited and reappeared frequently and at random intervals. At first I thought the birthday celebration might involve a game of duck-duck-goose, but no, they were just going out front to smoke.

Off of Earl’s left shoulder was a young couple with four boys that appeared to be ages 0, 1 and 2. They had a couple of strollers and a car seat flung about. Mom was breast feeding one of her children. I believe it was the youngest one.

Earl and I focused on each other with concentrated eyes and ears to weed out the sights and sounds surrounding us. Again, years ago, this would have invoked the nasty, but we were hungry.

Earl’s entree came out, I believe it was a steak gorgonzola over fettuccine. The gorgonzola was plopped into the center of the fettuccine and apparently had qualms about being over the steak. I ordered a gumbo thing that was on their healthy menu which was fairly good except it was wicked salty to the point that if someone licked me right now they would find me Satisfrying.

When Earl was asked about his meal by the pleasant Amanda, he let her know his disappointment with the gorgonzola plop. She was taken aback and spoke to the manager about it. Apparently the proof is in the plop and it’s actually suppose to come that way, but since he was disappointed the manager took it off the bill and offered us free dessert.

When my pumpkin cheesecake arrived, one of the smokey eight asked me what I was eating and then the smokey mother next to him started proclaiming loudly, “Oh my god, it’s so big! That’s a huge piece of cheesecake! It’s a meal in itself! My god, he’s going to eat it all! All of it! He’s eating it!”

It’s a good thing I’m not a shrinking wallflower.

After we ate the whole thing and left Amanda a generous tip for “handling our disappointment gracefully” (she should kiss us, should we see her again), we headed over to the mall to do laps.

Now Jamie’s iPhone 4S is in rough shape. It has had a good run, but honestly, one of the buttons is broke, it won’t hold a charge and he’s constantly running out of storage space since it’s the 16GB model. He’s due for an upgrade, so after some debating, we ordered him a new iPhone 5c, which we will take with us to Chicago when we visit him next month.

I fondled the HTC One and Moto X, both Android phones. Mike at this Verizon Wireless¹ was very friendly and it turns out that he’s the nephew of a friend of ours and he remembered us as “J.P. and Earl that drive the Jeep” (told you we were famous) so he let me play around with the Android phones.

I was going to buy it.

I’ll do another lap around the mall.

I’m thinking about it.

Let me do another lap.

“What phone do you use”? He carries a Nokia 720 something Windows phone. It’s OK.

Let me do another lap.

“I’ll take the Moto X.”

He says, “here, play around with this while I get you set up in the computer.”

I play around with the phone. I like it. I can’t test some of the cooler features because it has to be programmed with my voice and only my voice. Something just doesn’t feel right. It’s smooth but it doesn’t feel premium. It’s good. It’s great. But it doesn’t knock my socks off.

Swipe. Swipe. I flick my wrist to activate the camera. Swipe some more. Something is not right. I feel like a disturbance is brewing in the force, or worse yet, the transporter beam is orange instead of white.

All of a sudden I start sweating. I yell “Stop!!!!!”

He looks at me.

“I’m not ready to make the switch.”

He packs up his toys and continues to smile, giving us his phone number. If we have any questions we can text him.

Earl is visibly relieved.

Still shaken, I caress my familiar iPhone 5. “I still love you, baby.” I’m talking to the phone, not Earl.

Jamie’s new phone arrives next week and I’ve decided to keep my iPhone 5. To celebrate, we stop at Burger King for a diet pop and nothing more. Feeling outgoing, I ask the counter person about the Satisfries. She says they’re delicious. She didn’t offer a sample and I didn’t ask.

I’ll pass until another time.

¹ Mike at Verizon Wireless in Sangertown Square is a really good guy and will work with you to get the best bang for your buck. If you see him, tell him “J.P. and Earl in the Jeep” sent you.

I should never weigh myself in the morning. But if you don’t weigh yourself in the morning, after your shower but before breakfast, how are you going to score the lowest number possible in the day? That’s my philosophy.

I have been trying to lose just a few more pounds to hit the goal I set for myself a year ago. Just a few more pounds. But I’ve been at the same weight now for a couple of weeks. I eat a little. I exercise a lot. I eat a lot. I exercise a little. It doesn’t make a difference. My body is apparently comfortable at this weight and I should just be happy with the number I spin up on the scale. It’s better than spitting up on the scale, I suppose.

But then again, it’s just a number, right? Why do I let these things affect my life? I’m not dropping dead. I can ride my bike 100 miles if I want to. There’s not a lot of people my age in the United States that can ride their bike 100 miles in a day. Most probably don’t want to. Why do I worry about these things?

So a few moments ago I decided that I was going to stop worrying about my weight. I will continue to remain vigilant and I will certainly hope to reach that goal I set for myself a year ago (I guess 30 out of 35 pounds isn’t really that bad) but I’m going to stop stressing about it. Why stress?

To celebrate, I went out on our front porch and decided to just enjoy the moment. I embraced the sunshine on my face and then whisper of the gentle breeze and the warmth of the day. Life is way too short to stress about stuff. And I need to remember that more often.

I’m not going to sweat the small stuff. Heck, I’m not even going to sweat the big stuff. I just going to enjoy the moment.

And this moment is glorious.

There has been a decree from our budgeting department that the 16th of September is entirely too early in the season to turn on the heat.

Someone needs to tell Miss Mother Nature because it’s damn chilly today. We had a freeze warning last night and while it didn’t freeze, it did get down to 34ºF in our neck of the woods.

Someone needs to take a gander at the calendar and remember that it is still summer for a couple of days.

Lack of heat in the house aside, I’m starting to feel good about autumn, which is my favorite season of the year. The crispness of the air, the lack of oppressive heat and humidity, the crunchiness and colors of the leaves and the mystical vibe the world seems to have at this time of year are all wonderful things.

Plus, the budgeting department came home and doubled up as the nutrition department and started a soup for supper. Said soup involves red wine and it’s cooking in the dutch oven. Whenever the dutch oven is involved you know it’s going to be good.

Plus, I can use the simmering pot as a heat source.

Taking a look at the forecast it looks like it’s going to warm back up into the mid 70s starting tomorrow, so maybe the budgeting department is correct in having us skip the whole “Wheel of Fortune” spin of the thermostats.

Yay for saving money!

When I wrote this blog post nearly 12 years ago, I don’t think I fully comprehended how much our lives would change as the result of the attacks on September 11, 2001. I knew that there would be fighting, I knew more lives would be lost, but I don’t think I realized how much the United States would change as a result of what we had all just experienced. The 21st century, which represented a new age to many of us, was off to a rocky start and everything that we had hoped and dreamed it would be was apparently still off in the distant future.

But I don’t want to focus on that. I want to focus on the courage.

* The courage of those that refused to be scared

* The courage of the airline passengers that fought back on United Flight 93 and curtailed the terrorists from completing their mission

* The courage of those that ran through the flames, down the stairs, wherever through the chaos to safety

* The courage of the emergency responders that went running in the opposite direction of everyone else and went head first into chaos that we had never seen before

* The courage of the families that lost loved ones on 9/11 and in everything that has happened as a result of 9/11

* The courage of those that have volunteered for battle and have helped fight wars ever since that day

* The courage of the men and women who made the choice to leap from a place in those two towers of which there was no means of escape

* The courage of those who fought back against the flames and the destruction until their very last breath

* The courage of those who remember what the United States of America is really about and work everyday to defend her ideals

Courage is the foundation of the building of a hero. And in my book, you’re all heroes.

Thank you.

So today Earl and I made the trek to my hometown in a pickup truck. Today was the first day I had step foot into my Dad’s house since the beginning of 2012. The reasons for the long stretch of not visiting the house is not really important.
Per my Dad’s wishes outlined in his will, the estate is getting ready to list the house for sale. This involves cleaning out the contents, making sure things are in order, etc. My aunt and uncle have been handling most of this and quite frankly I am very appreciative of their efforts.

Since it was most likely the last time I would be in the house that I grew up in, I took a few moments to reflect and remember the good memories I have of living in that house. We had moved into the house the night before my first day of fourth grade. Dad had been building the house for two or three years prior to our moving in; the house wasn’t completed that first night we slept there. I remember Mom not having a stove at the time (it was on back order), so she was making everything in an electric skillet.

This room was my bedroom. The carpet is original to the house, the walls are lighter than the matching green paint that was chosen for me shortly before we moved in. The ceiling fan was added long after I had moved out on my own.

So many memories in that room. My Yorx stereo with recordable 8-track deck, messing around with my first computer, looking at a magazine that I didn’t dare let anyone in my family know that I had (it wasn’t porn, it was actually Army recruitment literature. There, I said it.) I didn’t really get too emotional when I walked into the room and saw it in the state that it was currently in. I appreciated the moment for what it was.

Earl and I loaded a couple of things into the pickup truck we had borrowed from his work for the occasion. We have two small pieces of furniture that match our house in a very natural way.

I walked the property, visiting the barn that my father had built in the 90s. The barn still smells new. It’s where he finished building the plane that he ultimately flew for his very last flight. I didn’t know a lot about that plane but I know that he was excited to build it.

Going through some of the stuff in the garage I did find the checklist that he used for the 1940 J-5A that he had restored in the early 1980s. The checklist was my contribution. It was typed by me on a manual Smith-Corona typewriter. I remember typing two identical copies up for him as if it were yesterday.

After gathering the few things we wanted from the house, I decided to walk the front half of the back eight acres. The property is actually 10 acres, with the front two being the site of the house and the lawn. The remaining eight is bisected by railroad tracks that aren’t nearly as busy as they used to be.

The woods were my domain when I was a teenager and I was always outside on some sort of personal adventure whenever the weather permitted. Being the road geek that I am, I had a “road map” of the woods laid out in my head and I even marked these imaginary roads with paper road signs. My geekiness hasn’t died off as I’ve grown older. I loved those woods, and I thought it was appropriate to go for one more walk.

Dad built this bridge over a swampy area around 10 years ago. While starting to show its age, I think the bridge is still holding up well. The path leading up to either end is barely discernible, but I was able to find my way. I guess the road map in my head still lives on. Dad’s paths followed my trampled down paths from years earlier.

Facing east on the railroad tracks. The tracks are actually a north-south line that runs from Syracuse to Watertown, however, a short section runs from east to west. When I was younger trains seemed to pass by every hour or two. Before my day there was a second set of tracks (as seen by the roadway on the right).

I always used this marker, which indicates that Syracuse is 41 miles away, as a guide to know where I was when I would come out of the woods and end up on the tracks. It’s about a 1/3 of the mile west of my Dad’s property but it was a good orientation beacon when I was a kid. I surprisingly jogged the distance from the far side of Dad’s property to this marker to snap this photo. I guess being in the woods helped me find my youthful energy again.

After we said our goodbyes, I told Earl that we had to make a run into town before heading home. We stopped at the Byrne Dairy in the center of town where we both enjoyed a chocolate milk.

All in all it was a good day today. I have been going through old yearbooks that I inherited from my Dad’s estate this evening. I never knew that my grandmother had collected yearbooks for many years and they are in pristine condition. Kinda cool.

So beginning on the first of this month I decided to take the 30 days of September to build a new habit. I was inspired by Matt Cutts from Google and his TED talk on trying something new for 30 days.

I am trying to say something nice to a complete stranger at least once a day for 30 days. It could be a friendly smile, wave and greeting as we pass by in the mall, I could compliment a waiter or waitress on their demeanor or I might tell someone in an elevator that they look quite nice today. I am doing this for 30 days for a couple of reasons: 1. I need to break out of my comfort zone a little bit, 2. I want to send a positive vibe by sharing positive conversations with others, with the hope that the recipient will pay it forward and 3. believe it or not, I’m a little shy when it comes to talking with strangers. I’m not comfortable talking on the phone and while I am good at filling “dead air” with random chatter, I’m not really that good at making small talk.

Five days into this challenge and I’m feeling I’m making progress. Just a few moments ago I waved to a man getting into his car simply because he had a SU jersey on. He waved back. I said “Go SU!”. I refrained from jumping up and doing a split in the parking lot because I didn’t want to ruin my work slacks. I’m not that much of a cheerleader anyways.

I’m thinking I like the idea of this 30 day challenge and I’m already thinking of what my challenge could be in October. I’m finding this challenge to inspiring.

And inspiration is always good.

I am in a bit of a mood today. It’s not the best of mood that I am in and I kind of feel bad about that. I’m not feeling like my usually feisty/angry/frustrated self when I’m batting around this kind of mood, but rather I’m feeling pensive. Analytical. Disappointed.

For the past 20 minutes I’ve been trying to write a blog entry about my mood and I just can’t do it. I guess what I’m feeling today is better suited for my personal diary and meditative efforts.

So here are some things to smile about:

1. It is a gorgeous day in Central New York. Autumn is quickly approaching and the leaves are changing color to dress themselves for the season. I’m looking forward to some crisp cool weather for cycling this weekend.

2. My husband always makes me smile and today he brought home lunch so we could enjoy our lunch hour together. Jamie always makes us smile and he phoned during lunch to make sure we were having a good day.

3. Earl and I have little in the way of plans this weekend outside of cleaning up the house and reorganizing our existence a little bit. The whirlwind of travel over the past month has slightly scattered things and quite frankly I’m looking forward to home time this weekend.

4. For one that could theoretically claim that he is halfway through his life, I’m feeling good physically. My prime might not meet the charted ideals, but I’m feeling good, comfortable in my own skin and overall just feeling “prime”.

The glum feeling that plagued the beginning of this blog entry is lifting. Maybe I just needed to think about the good things for a few moments.

My hopes for lunch time tranquility have been somewhat interrupted by a new distraction in my lunch time routine, that being the presence of a minivan populated with one adult and two children.

The ever present seagulls are delighted by the fact that the parent has opted to feed the children Whoppers and French Fries today. For some unknown reason, the parent has opted to dine in the minivan instead of going inside the restaurant. I believe a the state’s non-smoking law is involved.

One of the children in the backseat has noticed the prissy seagull that is she him- or herself today. The child is making “wooooo”, “yoo-hoo” and other assorted shrieking sounds in an attempt to attract the attention of Mr. or Miss Priss. The seagull is making like a cat and sharing an air of disinterest. However, when the girl waved a french fry around, the seagull took notice and snatched it right from the loud child’s hand.

I laughed at the site of this. There was no harm done. No one was harmed in the process and it brought and end to the shrieking noises. In fact, Mr. or Miss Priss made such an impression that many seagulls started to descend upon the van.

The minivan has now departed. Tranquility restored.

New York State, like a handful of other states in the United States, has a container law which requires the inclusion of a bottle deposit on drink bottles. Originally limited to beer and soda pop bottles when the legislation was introduced in 1984, the law now applies to many different kinds of beverage bottles (water bottles, etc). The mechanics are simple: you pay an extra $.05 for each bottle you purchase (for example, an extra $.30 when you purchase six pack of something) and when you return the bottle you get your nickel back.

Pretty simple, right?

The idea behind the effort is that it is suppose to curb littering and encourage recycling. I can speak to the former: I believe it has helped with littering efforts but I don’t know if littering is down because of the bottle law or because of general societal trends. I can’t speaking to the recycling effort: I don’t know what happens when a bottle is returned these days, we plunk it in a machine and the machine makes belching noises and adds $.05 to an accumulative credit slip. Don’t forget to press “Finished” when you’re done!

Earl and I lived in our previous house for six years. When it was time to move we had six years worth of returnable bottles bagged up and shoved in a dark corner of one of the barns. Too lazy to return the bottles, we donated the effort to a local civic organization (I think it was a high school band or something) and we were happy that they got to keep the proceeds of bottle return money. While I’m assuming returning bottles is making the environment a better place, we are lazy when it comes to returning the bottles. The vast majority of markets/packies/beverage places that take bottles for return have automated the process with machines must like the one pictured above, but it’s just a pain in the butt to actually return the bottles. Since New York State is famous for taxing its citizens to death, we just figure the $.30 on a six pack of whatever is just another New York tax and I’m sure the government enjoys that line of thinking. We don’t return bottles now until they start overflowing all over the garage floor. In the past we’ve convinced others (mainly Jamie) that they can keep the money if they return the bottles, but the lure of a little pocket cash isn’t as strong as it used to be.

Maybe we should start saving them up again for another civic effort and we’ll donate them if we decide to move someday.

I guess we’ll start building a barn.

It is a gorgeous day in this neck of the woods today and it’s just what the doctor ordered. I was originally scheduled to go into the office today, but I’ve been working on a big project that launches tomorrow and since I just found out about in the mid-part of last week and it involved lots of code creation, I ended up working late last night.

Today I’m tidying up odds and ends on the new code and fixing the few lingering bugs, so I decided to work from home today.

We are slowly moving towards my favorite time of the year. If you look closely at the photo above, you’ll see that the maple trees in the back are starting to change over to autumn mode already. After living here for 10 years I no longer get concerned when I see the leaves changing at a seemingly early time; it’s just what they do around here. That one tree likes to be the first on the block to show off colors other than green. Everyone and everything has their moment.

While there’s a fairly good breeze blowing, the air still has a marked calmness about it. Other than the wind chimes singing a song and the sounds of trucks in the distance on the Thruway, things feel very calm. It could be just my perception, as I’ve been feeling rather calm since returning back from vacation and then the travel for work last week. I mentioned to a friend online last night that I feel the most solid I’ve felt in a while.

Solid is good.