So Dubya is speaking about the importance of banning gay marriage at a federal level by way of a constitutional amendment. This would be the first constitutional amendment that would deny rights of U.S. citizens instead of granting them. It has little chance of passing the proper channels to become an amendment. But he’s going to go ahead and talk about it and what not, to prove to the religious right that he’s still on board with their crusade.
What a bunch of heartless ghouls.
Summertime means grilling time, especially when it’s cold, cloudy and rainy here in lovely Upstate New York. The weather really has nothing to do with it, since you can grill just as easily in a blizzard, but there’s something about the rumor of some extra sunlight that stirs the urge in men all across the area.
That urge, of course, is to stand in front of a grill and cook something using lots of flame and stuff to baste with.
So Earl and I (mostly Earl) came up with these skewered seafood delights. There’s shrimp and scampi and bacon and pineapple in there, along with my favorite, grilled eggplant with various seasonings and asparagus.
Yummy!
We had my Mom, sister and friend Debbie over for dinner today and everyone seemed to enjoy our latest grilling offering. I’m thinking of concoting a BBQ marinade with beer and other assorted fun for the next time.
The very nice Adelphia technician came and fixed our internet connection today. Oh yes she most certainly did. She replaced a filter out on the pole and now it is flyin’. _Flyin’_ I tell ya. Apparently the filter keeps us from getting cable television (we have DirecTV) and it looked pretty fried. I didn’t want to disagree with her in anyway, because though she was a very, very nice person, she looked like she could beat the crap out of anyone she wanted to.
I shouldn’t let material things like this sway my mood but this has just made my day. We can actually talk on the phone now (over VoIP) without it s ndin l ke th s.
Now I can finally get rid of my cell phone.
So we have this fancy new beard trimmer in our household. It has a built in vacuum attachment and nine different settings.
I set out to give it a whirl and discovered that the guard is a little more flexible than I’m used to. Of course, I discovered this after I took a huge stripe out of my mustache and goatee area.
I’m now clean shaven for the first time in a long time.
Time to start the beard from scratch.
You know it kind of sucks when it rains on the weekend. I’ve been making the best of it though by working on my roadgeek website and whatnot, but it’s just not the same as getting out there and enjoying some fun in the sun.
Oh well, tomorrow is another day.
There are people in the world that believe cats and dogs are “just animals”. They have no personality, they have no free will, they’re here to be the pet of a human being. In fact, years ago a woman once chimed in on a newspaper commentary call-in column that animals don’t have a soul. I personally looked that woman up in the local phone book and called her, just to tell her that she’s a cold, cold woman, but that’s another story.
Boy, are those people wrong.
I can say without a trace of doubt in my voice that our cherished feline and canine friends certainly do have a personality. Some of them even have a sense of humor. For example, our cat Tom found a new way to terrorize me in the early hours of the morning today. He now jumps on the weather station control station display in the bedroom, causing it to emit various beeps and bonks as it’s confused about the commands it’s receiving. While I was having a wonderful dream that had something to do with “Charmed”, I was interrupted by Tom’s new game. Stumbling over to the weather station to shoo him off, I was intrigued that he apparently prefers metric, as he had converted the temperature display to celsius and the wind speed to clicks (kmh). I haven’t the foggiest idea on how to do that, or change it back for that matter, so now I have to do math when it comes to determining whether I should wear a parka or board shorts to the office.
A little kitty cat humor.
You’d think that being an older cat he’d be settled in his bag of tricks, but no, he’s blessing us with new things on a weekly basis. Last week, the gentle tap-tap-tap on my chin while I’m sleeping was replaced with a claws-extended push, push, scratch. At least my beard covers any scars that may accumulate through this phase of his. A couple of months ago, he discovered the piano and that walking across the ivories made music. I’m afraid that his next trick will involve sending an e-mail to my family or something. “FOOD SUCKS. SEND SOMETHING TASTY FOR A CHANGE.”
Does this all make me crazy? Not really. Would I change it in any way? Not on your life.
So to those people that don’t see any personality in their cat or dog, I say you’re nuts. Stop treating them as “just a pet” and just let them be. Even if they make things go ‘bonk’ in the night.
Our Jeep Tour took us through Texas last month. We missed this awesome event. “Missed it by this much.” Oh well, there’s always the next Jeep tour.
The daytime speed limit in west Texas along Interstates 10 and 20 is now 80 MPH
Today I had lunch with my friends Susan and Jeff. I used to work at the radio station with them both; Susan still works for the same company and Jeff has moved on to another position in a different industry. I had seen Susan a couple of weeks before the Jeep tour, but I hadn’t seen Jeff in a year or so. It was wonderful to get together with both of them at the swanky restaurant across from my office building. We laughed, shared stories and basically caught each other up with the various states of our existence. It was wonderful.
However, not coming home at lunch time threw my timing all off.
Now, I’m not at the point where I’m going to be going “Time for Wapner, Time for Wapner”, somewhere in the rural midwest. That would just be silly. I don’t think that Judge Wapner is even still alive. But I have a schedule that I like to follow. While I like to live spontaneously as much as possible, I do try to have it all mapped out. I enjoying writing my blog entries as I’m munching down my lunch and playing the “in and out game” with the cat. It keeps me grounded a little bit. Throw me off schedule a little bit and I get all crazy at work and then I actually start thinking about what I’m doing instead of just milling through the day like it’s just another day in paradise. Why, I even used a paper towel AND 409 to clean the schmutz off my desk today, and my elbow wasn’t even stuck down or anything! Today was kind of an odd day at work anyways, as it was the first day of the new experience: taking two different technical support centers and officially uniting them into one unified force to be reckoned with. We’ve been in the same area since the beginning of the year, but now we have to actually interact with one another and work on the same projects as one team. It’s not unpleasant in any way, though there is a learning curve that sometimes I feel is more like a curveball. I think it’s going to go o.k., but today had an odd “first day at the new job” feel to it that was amplified by having lunch with old co-workers.
Tomorrow I’m back on my schedule and taking my lunch hour at home. Maybe I’ll be spontaneous and do it naked or something.
I have a song stuck in my head this morning. Do you think I’m doing a little bit of daydreaming at my desk?
“Summertime, Summertime”, Nocera, 1987.
Take me, take me to the water
Summertime, Summertime
Maybe, we can fall in love
In Summertime, Summertime
“We’ll feed you pizza and wings” is what the e-mail basically said. It was an e-mail from my aunt, who was asking her favorite nephew and computer geek to visit one night this week to help out with some computer woes. I take a certain pride in maintaining the various computers in my family and I’m always eager to help out. Plus, Earl is out of town on business tonight so I would have been a little lonely around the house.
So I headed west on the New York State Thruway.
More importantly, the 50 minute drive gave me the opportunity to listen to the latest album I’ve downloaded to my iPod: “The Very Best of Stars On 45”. I never cease to be amazed by the Stars On 45 medleys from the early 1980s; there’s a different version of each medley for each country it was released in, due to musical clearance issues, and there’s a ton of variations of the “Stars On 45 Theme” and the “Stars On 45 Jingle”.
So tonight was a geeky good night after all: good music, IT superpowers used to spread good will and great conversation and laughs with my aunt, uncle, cousin and my mom.
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!
