Ponderings and Musings

I did something for the first time today. I ventured a little bit out of the area while I was on-call. Usually I stick within a few minutes of home the entire week for fear of some technological catastrophe happening, but today the weather was good and we had a family reunion going on in Syracuse, so I decided to venture out of the little realm of safety and go to the shindig.

It wasn’t a bad experience at all. Thank goodness the weather cooperated and I was able to handle my work responsibilities with my cell phone, two notebooks of data and a pad of paper out in the Jeep. Earl and I were able to enjoy the picnic relatively stress free.

This might make my work experience more enjoyable. It’s like a whole new realm of possibilities.

Tonight is my 20 year high school reunion. Instead of having it around graduation day in tandem with the annual high school Alumni Banquet, my graduating class decided to have the reunion around the town field days (village fair). At least we’re doing something for 20 years I suppose, because to my knowledge there hasn’t been a reunion since our fifth year, unless of course I wasn’t invited or something.

I’ve only seen a very few members of my class since graduating high school. I haven’t seen my best friend from high school, Jeff, in about six years. I ran into a good friend who is a really talented piano player a couple of years ago and we’ve kept in touch on and off over e-mail since. Other than a passing glance here and there when I’ve been in town, I’ve had little contact with my classmates.

I must admit that I’m intrigued about the whole shindig tonight. I’m a little curious as to see how my other classmates did in this quest called life. I’m also a little bit nervous in a junior high sort of way because of the whole gay thing. It was pretty much a given that I was gay (hell, I knew since second grade), especially the last half of my senior year of high school, but it wasn’t something that was talked about outside of a joking or taunting way. Looking back, I don’t think I was really picked on that much for being who I am aside from a few remarks here and there and a scathing “character analysis” study we did in an Ethics class in which we all discussed what was wrong with each other. An undoubtedly now rabid republican went to town on my homosexuality basically insinuating that I would have to sell myself on the street to survive since that’s what “they” did because they couldn’t be employed in “normal society”. Looking back on that experience I smile a little bit, because I learned a lot about myself and about people in general that day. And to think I’ve only had to sell myself once or twice to make ends meet.

Calm down, I’m kidding. (Mom, you can pick yourself up off the floor).

So tonight Earl and I will make the trek up north to take a trip down memory lane with a few pictures taken along the way. I think it’ll be a good evening.

Last night was one of my busiest on-call nights ever. I was able to only clock in 1 1/2 hours of sleep before having to get up and get my day started. It hasn’t slowed down at work today but at least it feels like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, so I’m managing.

I had hoped to sneak a catnap during my lunch break. I thought if I caught 20 minutes of sleep I would be able to chase away this headache that’s lurking about and I would just be able to deal with the rest of the day.

The nap didn’t happen.

When I drove into the driveway, I noticed that the lawn service was here doing their weekly thing. There’s three of them this week, all younger than 25, all quite buff, all quite tan and well, all very hot.

Three men doing lawn work shirtless will perk me up more than any nap, so I guess I’ll just go with Plan B and watch the guys work.

As I type this blog entry it’s lightning and thundering like crazy. The noise is non-stop. There’s no wind, there’s no rain, just a lot of rumbling goin’ on. I’m waiting for the power to go out again. Storms seem to be the theme of the summer.

I’m hoping these storms blow through before the end of the workday so that I don’t have to deal with all sorts of work related outages tonight. On one hand, the overtime would be sweet but on the other hand, I really would like to play around with the video camera again.

Crazy neighbor lady is flapping her cowbell in attempts to call her cat. She’s standing out on her back deck dinging her bell, shrieking at the top of her lungs and clapping her hands. All she’s missing is a metal pole in her hand. I bet the Universe didn’t think anyone could beat thunder when it comes to decibels, but I have living proof right here with crazy neighbor lady.

I think I’m ready for some cool weather. Maybe that’s what the thunderstorms are bringing along. Whoops, here come the winds. Here we go again.

I’m resisting the urge to stand on the back deck and yell “Go North! Go North!” at the storm, hoping to steer it away from our customer service area. I’m afraid crazy neighbor lady will just flap her bell at me.

The temperature is suppose to hit 100 degrees in Upstate New York today with the heat index tipping 110. It’s friggin’ hot.

While I do enjoy the air conditioned comfort of my quarter of a cubicle at work (I only have one wall), I do hate being dressed in work clothes. No one sees me. I work in a technical center. I would feel much more comfortable in shorts. No, we need to look professional.

I can’t wait until I get home tonight so I can schuck these clothes and get into something a little more comfortable. No clothes would be best and with Earl out of town tonight, there’s no one to complain (he says, smirking, as he waves to the neighbors).

I think I’ll resist following Tom’s lead by lying belly up towards the fan. At least while the webcam is on.

It is a hot, sticky night here in Upstate New York. The mercury is pushing 80 degrees at 11:00 p.m. Where’s the justice in that?

Earl and I just went for a ride to enjoy the air-conditioning of the Acura. We complimented the trip with a pass through Wendy’s drive-thru for a couple of iced teas with lemon. It was refreshing, especially since it was a whole lot of water, with a wedge of lemon and just a hint of tea to give it flavor.

The air is murky tonight. The moon is surrounded by haze. The air is still. The mood is quiet.

I’m chatting online with my blog friend Karl and basically just endlessly surfing the ‘net, inquisitive about any random subject that pops into my brain. To compliment the evening, I’m playing a little bit of Abba softly in the background. Gosh, I miss Abba. I wish they’d do one reunion concert.

The dryer buzzes it’s end of cycle signal. I can officially go to bed now. Let’s hope the Universe cooperates and doesn’t ring my on call pager.

I’m back on call this week. This week on, week off, week on thing is for the birds, especially when there are things to do, places to go and people to see. Oh well, it’ll all have to wait until next week. I’m desperately trying not to be cranky about the whole thing and I think the happy side of me is winning, so let’s hope it stays that way for the duration.

I did want to smack a woman driving a big honkin’ SUV today. The interstate is undergoing construction and there’s three lanes being jimmied down to one with a major on-ramp feeding into the mess to keep things chaotic. I was on the on-ramp which has a stop sign at the end. Cars were backed up on both the main road and the on-ramp, so drivers were alternating back and forth with right of way, contrary to the stop sign, but in a friendly, howdy neighbor driver thing. It was heartwarming.

I pulled up to the stop sign and looked at this big massive red thing (it turned out to be her hair) in a big, massive SUV, hoping she’d let me out like the 30 cars or so her had done.

Nope. She’s important. She _shook her head_ and barreled through the work zone, almost hitting one of the workers that apparently she felt was working too close to her lane.

I hope her car goes up in flames. While that sounds quite mean I don’t want her to be hurt, I just want her to be scared enough of SUVs that her next vehicle is an old, beat-up Le Car.

At the very least I hope her gas card gets rejected at the pump and she has to mortgage her house to pay for the tank of gas.

My, I guess I’m not as happy as I thought I was!

Earl is going to be out of town for part of the week so I’m going to be sitting home twiddling my thumbs. Maybe I’ll get crazy and clean the pool or something. Maybe I’ll plan an “end of the summer” party for late August. Planning a party does get one motivated to clean the house and get things in order.

As I readied myself for lunch today, Earl dropped me an e-mail to let me know that he would not be able to make our lunch appointment. Apparently the plant outside of Cleveland had flooded last night and he had to be on a conference call. The situation was eerily similar to that of about a month ago, when the same thing happened in the southern part of the state.

Big hurricanes. Lots of rain. Flooding where it hasn’t flooded in a really long time. Lots of heat. Volcanoes erupting and earthquakes in the ocean. I get the feeling that someone is trying to say something.

So I ended up heading home for lunch. I looked outside and noticed that it was raining like crazy. The street was flooding and it was just coming down in buckets. Did that make me stay at the office for lunch? Of course not. I borrowed my co-workers emergency umbrella, saddled up the car with a pair of water skiis and surfed home.

Surf’s up dude.

Oil companies are reporting record quarterly profits for the 2nd quarter of this year. Shell is up 40% from the same time last year.

Kind of makes you really hate that “$3.129” that appeared on the gas station price board this morning, doesn’t it?

Instead of going on and on about how consumers are basically being screwed by big business when we try to fill our tanks (note the interesting visual that comes to mind when you really read that phrase), I believe that oil companies should embrace the New American Way by changing the public perception of gas prices in lieu of addressing the fact that they’re getting rich while we consumers are mortgaging houses to afford the fuel needed to commute.

This is the perfect opportunity to go metric.

Just imagine how much better you would feel this very moment if you drove down Main St. USA and saw that gas was $0.829 today. By the way, why do they charge to the 9/10 of a cent? What part of Lincoln’s head are they chopping off that penny anyway – the top of his head or his neck? Anyway, motorists wouldn’t be nearly as manic if they thought they were paying less than a dollar for gas. All we need to do is switch from gallons to liters and presto, perceived instant savings.

Makes cents to me.

I’ve always been a metric sort of guy. On the radio I would give the temperature in fahrenheit and celcius. I design road signs in millimeters for my road geek web site. When I was single, I was asked how “big” I was to which I replied “14.65”, not that I measured or anything.

If the U.S. would join the rest of the word and go metric, we’d all be a little bit happier. No more trying to convert quarts to acres. No wondering how many bushels to peck.

And lots of cheap gas!

Sometimes it only takes one little thing to make the day seem brighter and better. This morning I woke up not feeling quite on my game. There were a variety of reasons; it’s been very sticky and hot sleeping the past couple of nights, several of my dreams have been apocalyptic in nature this week and my stomach is feeling a little bit off this morning, undoubtedly because of the nachos and beer I had for supper last night. No regrets though, it was good.

Anyway, Earl and I eat these healthy Special K breakfast bars for breakfast and Earl has a sort of unspoken rule that we don’t open the next box of them until the current box is empty. We’ve been eating strawberry and blueberry bars since we discovered these little goodies, but last week Earl brought home another flavor: Chocolatey Drizzle.

This morning I was finally able to open the Chocolatey Drizzle box. I haven’t had my first bar yet, as it’s sitting to the left of the PowerBook with the promise of breakfasty goodness. But the prospect of eating this little delight has made the morning not so bad.

It’s like a little bar of sunshine.