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December 31, 2006

Brothers and Second Cousins

I do not pretend to have any sort of great plan when it comes to blog entries series. Some things naturally go together, like the Jell-O Bath grouping and, of course, any story involving law enforcement that would be too long for a single entry and leads to a mini-theme that carries on for a period of days.

A longer running sort-of theme has me working the good people of Australia, the United Kingdom, and, like "y", sometimes Canada, into the blog on a regular-enough basis that I'm worried that they might think I'm picking on them.

I don't always present these places in their modern-day forms.

I'd like to point out that I'm fully aware of the fact that Australia is probably nothing like Quigly, Down Under these days. Nor it is a post-apocalyptic hell on Earth in which people tool around in really cool, weapons-tricked-out, vehicles. I imagine it is very nice. It is also almost as big as the 48 contiguous United States. Spiders and snakes are probably only a problem if you go looking for them (or, if your name is Mary Lou.)

The United Kingdom is comprised of England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. I got that far without having to turn to Google; once there I found out I'd left out Wales. Northern Ireland sits just north of The Republic of Ireland (much like our North and South Carolina, and, I've got to say I think I favor Northern Carolina and The Republic of Carolina). Northern Ireland does not touch England so the trouble making that goes on between the two requires some travel.

Scotland bumps right up into England, up toward the northern part.

Wales, I think, is to the UK as Canada is to North America. Sort of quiet. Never causing any problems. Sometimes overlooked when the dessert cart comes around. I say this only because I'd forgotten about it and then had trouble finding it on the map. For all I know the residents of Wales are troublemakers and true hellraisers. Which would make them sort of French Canadian.

There are also a bunch of territories that the British keep control over through, to paraphrase Eddie Izzard, the clever use of flags.

It is my belief that the United Kingdom is fairly nice. [It is also my belief that there are two types of British male. You've got the very proper Brit like Mr. French, John Steed, and James Bond and then you've got the whack-job ass-kicker like Vinne Jones, the cops from Life on Mars, and the guys from The Sweeney; there seems to be no middle ground when it comes to being British and a guy. The women are all very proper and, save the Queen, wear a lot of leather straight out of Emma Peel's closet. (And, dammit, I mean Diana Rigg here)]

I'm not sure if the sun ever sets on the British Empire these days or not. I believe the sun sets in Wales about 6 p.m. local time.

Canada is where all the cold weather comes from. Anytime it's cold as hell here the weatherman will show a map in which the jet stream is shown jetting and streaming out of Canada and into Ohio. We get even by sending Acid Rain up north to them. I'm pretty sure Stargate is put together in Vancouver and, as much as I like to apply to a country whatever it is I know about them from TV, I really doubt the Canadians have wormhole technology just yet.

Canada is nice. I've been there. Fifteen years ago the Canadian Railroad had signs discouraging you from flushing the train's toilets while you were still in the station. The signs may still be there; however, for all I know their toilets flush straight down a wormhole these days.

So, there you have it.

Why do the Aussies and Brits get mentioned more than anyone else? We all come from the same gene pool. Or, it started out like that anyway. Those of us here, in the US, at one time got tired of the religious persecution we felt in England and set sail for the New World where we got busy putting in place the mechanism that would allow us to much more effectively persecute one another for our religious differences for the next several hundred years. We're so good at this now that I expect we'll soon be burning people alive at the stake ... you know, after the coming attractions but before the movie starts. Popcorn sales will skyrocket!

The Aussies, on the other hand, started out as troublemakers that something had to be done about. So the Brits put them on a ship -- it may have been a decommissioned Carnival Cruise Line boat -- and sent them on their "jolly" way. The ship sat ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle ... with Gilligan ... the skipper too ...

These former Brits picked up some tools and built an Opera House and one helluva long fence. They turned the phrase "rooting around" into something I don't think you'd say in front of your grandmother; the British, I think, have done the same with "tooling around."

See. The British, the Aussies, and Americans are all brothers. The men are anyway. The men-and-women relationship is more of a second-cousin thing ... you know, the cousins you can date. (I know, I know, I know. British Royalty pioneered that whole marrying within the immediate family thing, but I believe they've given up on that, mostly. There may still be some of this going on in The Republic of Carolina, however.)

Why do the Canadians make it here so often? Well, they deserve a mention once in a while due solely to Rush; Limelight is one of my favorite songs. And, they're sort of British. I try to overlook Tom Green.

Generally speaking, though, why this group of countries? Because, if I mess up and say something that I think is funny that ends up being offensive, well, I've said it about The UK, Australia, and Canada.

They can take a joke. They have a sense of humor. They see things for what they are. They, and the US, are like straight, white men -- the last group of people you can pick on without getting into too much Political-Correctness trouble.

Sure, there are other countries that round out this ticket, but many of them use punctuation I'm unfamiliar with and may or may not say things that translate well. For example, the Brits might say, "I laid her across the table and gave her a good Rogering," to express, well, "laid her" would cover it in the States and the British expression would imply with added vigor.

The Germans should say, "I laid her across the table and gave her a good Hitlering," as that would describe a screwing like nothing else -- with incredible vigor. But I'm not sure they do. And that's a problem.

I'm not sure 'Rogering' is capitalized either. It may have nothing at all to do with a proper name.

I am certain this has gone on a lot longer than I'd hoped.

Like the Bush presidency.

[(I laid her across the table and gave her a good Delmering ... A Delmering she'll never forget ... I think it's got legs, people. Don't be afraid to use it when you're out with your buddies, peeps, mates, pals. Female readers, of course, will want to say He gave me a Delmering that left me barely able to walk ... or left me with a warm glow all day ... or left me unable to appreciate fried foods. (I really have no idea what women talk about when they're together.)]

Posted by delmer at 6:20 PM | Comments (4)

December 30, 2006

Another blond ... another SUV

I took the Mighty Schwinn out for a ride today. It was beautiful, sunny, and roughly 48 F (8.8 C).

I wanted to get in about 15 miles and chose a route that would take me by Staples, a large office supply store. I needed rubber bands.

Staples is off Trueman Blvd. which is two lanes going each way. I was going to make a left from Trueman onto the access road that would take me to the Staples parking lot. I got into the left turn lane.

As I approached my turn point the SUV that had been behind me for just a moment decided to go around me on my right and then turn left in front of me. It wasn't a close call. It was just barely rude.

I noticed, as the SUV went past, that a blond woman was at the wheel. As she made her left I made, quite by accident, eye contact with her in her side mirror.

She turned onto the access road with me on her bumper. And then into Staples with me on her bumper. It seemed she wanted to pass me, but not pull away from me.

She parked in the lot. I parked in front and to the side of the entryway.

As I took my helmet and gloves off I was aware that she was not getting out of the SUV. I was aware of this as the reason I'd made eye contact with her is that I was checking her out as she passed and I was hoping to get a better look at her when she got out of her vehicle.

I don't know why guys are like this. We are. I've asked my male friends about it.

And then I thought that maybe she thought I made eye contact with her because I was upset because I thought she made her turn a little close. But she could have only thought I felt that way if she felt that way a bit herself. Maybe she was embarrassed or something.

Maybe she was simply checking her shopping list.

And then I started keeping track of time. I was in Staples three minutes before she came in -- and then it was only after I, in my high visibility bicycle jacket, had disappeared into the bathroom.

I never did get a good look at her.

But I did get rubber bands.

Posted by delmer at 11:42 PM | Comments (0)

December 29, 2006

Perspex

Just a moment ago I was trying to sort out what Perspex might be. I saw the word used in the manner of something being "placed into a Perspex box."

It was capitalized, much as you used to always see "the Internet," so I had the feeling it was a brand or product name sort of like Formica. My Googling took me to this blog entry which provides an explanation for the reason the British don't buy that David Blaine walks on water. The title of the entry is "On the Weirdo in the Perspex Box," which is sort of a clue; I recall that Blaine locked himself in a big plastic box of some kind ... which came before he froze himself in a block of ice ... which was followed by his best trick ever -- taking Enzyte and actually showing some natural male enhancement.

Oh. This quote comes from the above blog entry:

"The British don't have a "healthy disrespect" for celebrity and if you've been told that, then you've basically been lied to by a professional Englishman-abroad or by some weird kind of Dick Van Dyke cod-Anglo-faker."

Which, I'm pretty sure, is a crack about the British accent Dick Van Dyke used in Mary Poppins. One of the Brits at work does a pretty good impression of Dick Van Dyke butchering the Queen's English Accent and marvels at how DVD ever got away speaking the way he did. (I felt a little older than usual the other night when, after seeing Night at the Museum I had to explain to my children who Dick Van Dyke and Mickey Rooney were. I had a moment of color-blind happiness when Sammo asked, "Who was the guard with the darker skin?" (Bill Cobbs))

More Googling brought up Perspex Cases from the United Kingdom Geologist Equipment, Limited. Here I learned that Perspex has a plastic look, may be like Acrylic, and that the UKGE is "Probably Europe's Largest and Most Highly Respected Earth Science Provider."

When I read that I fell in love with the company. Probably ... likely ... could be ... we've got people looking into it ... we have a genuinely strong feeling about it ...

Even after I discovered I'd read it wrong and found that most doesn't appear in their tag line I loved the company. (Which I discovered after way too much typing had already been done.)

I wish I had some sort of Geologist Equipment need, these guys (blokes) would be my guys (mates, the non-breeding-with-me kind.)

You don't get a lot of "probably" here in the United States. You get a lot of: We're the best ... we're number one ... not only can we kick your ass but we'll do it in the best way ever ... we have the best pizza ... home of the best cup of coffee in town ... she has the best boob job I've ever seen ...

No probablys. No shyness. We're bold! We're so bold that if you were to put an imaginary mutherf*cker! at the end of anything we say you still wouldn't catch all of our boldness (mutherf*cker!)

Via the magic of cable TV within hours of each other I can see:

World's Wildest Police Videos
World's Craziest Police Videos
Worlds Scariest Police Chases
World's Fastest Police Chases

In all honesty I'm not sure that one of these features British drivers, but I know I've seen one that does. And, despite the fact "World" appears in each title, these may all be local to the US. (Don't worry ... we know you're there. We're just avoiding you a bit as we're pretty sure we owe you some money and the exchange rate currently favors you more than us.)

In the British show you hear James Mason calmly explaining the scene unfolding before you on the screen. The scene is typically a group of kids speeding away from the police while tossing stolen televisions and flaming Christmas Puddings out of the hatchback. James is very serene ... the fleeing hoodlums are very serene in a fleeing-hoodlum sort of way ... even the police siren has a serene thing working for it ... the police car has a single, flashing blue light. The chases typically end with the hoodlums being apprehended and James calmly announcing that "The driver received two penalty points on his licence." (You can almost hear James pronounce the 'c' in 'licence.')

In the American Version you get a lot of pumped-up adrenalinized action. As you watch the show you just KNOW that the writers use computers in which caps lock is in a permanent state of on-ness. The videos show police cruisers with so many lights on them they look like video games roaring down the road (and I wouldn't have it any other way). The siren sounds like something Ted Nugent might have thrown together. The 80's version of Bobcat Goldthwait is typically doing the play-by-play.

I'm not saying one version of the police-chase-type show is better than the other. I'm sure the British think theirs is probably better. We're certain our is best.

In all fairness, in the shows where World means United States the hoodlums are a lot more likely to be shooting guns than in the British version of the show. I think this might set the adrenaline flowing.

WHAT A BLOG ENTRY! IT STARTS OFF WITH PERSPEX BOX AND ENDS WITH AN IN-DEPTH DISECTION OF BRITISH AND AMERICAN TELEVISION.

ISN'T THIS THE BEST BLOG EVER (MUTHERF*CKER!)

Posted by delmer at 12:58 AM | Comments (4)

December 28, 2006

Ricky Bobby

"Dear tiny infant Jesus."

"Dad, you made that grace your bitch."

"Chip, I'm gonna come at you like a spider monkey."

You probably recognize those quotes from the meal scene in "The Best Movie Ever Made." (At least that's what it says on the DVD.)

Talladega Nights.

This movie has left me with some questions:

1. Do NASCAR announcers have to stand while they announce? I don't believe they were ever shown sitting in the movie. Are they in better shape than football announcers? Do they have varicose veins?

2. Is there always an extra gear to shift into? Many times during the movie Ricky Bobby or Cal will decide to make a move and announce something like, "Here I come," then they'd shift, accelerate and start moving past cars like they were sitting still. So, you've got a bunch of cars ripping around the track at 180 miles per hour, Cal says, "Tell Ricky I'm on my way," he shifts (up? down? sideways? I don't know ... I'm not a car guy), hits the gas a little harder, and starts passing people who, just moments before, he was happy enough to be sitting behind.

3. Why isn't NASCAR bigger in Europe? Based on some of the stories I've heard about roundabouts (traffic circles, rotaries) all you'd need is two or three guys standing around doing play-by-play in order to have an honest-to-god NASCAR-sanctioned event. They've certainly got no shortage of hooligans, what we'd call NASCAR fans here, over there. I'm sure the car-to-pit radio chatter would be very proper.

4. Why isn't NASCAR bigger in Australia? Australia is huge -- almost as big as Texas by some accounts. Bigger than Texas by others; for example, those accounts given by non-Texans. Meanwhile the population is just double that of Ohio. Think of the tracks that could be built in all that wide open space. Think of the straightaways. The only problem I can see is that, being south of the equator (For all you NASCAR fans that would be the big imaginary line that goes around the fattest part of the globe, like a belt -- making, Africa (if you're familiar with it) sort of like the belt buckle ... though small by NASCAR-fan standards) ... anyway, being south of the equator the cars would have to travel clockwise which might affect beer sales at the tracks and would certainly exclude any American drivers from participating.

5. Why didn't I make the NASCAR-Fan / Ancestors-as-a-slave-owner crack? Some things are too easy. Martin Luther King day is just around the corner.

By the way, I loved Talladega Nights. I saw it at the theater. I own the DVD and I've watched it twice in two days. (Yea, I know. Who am I to make fun of NASCAR fans.)

Posted by delmer at 12:01 AM | Comments (2)

December 27, 2006

Burgers and Music

This entry started with a disclaimer that I felt gave too much away. The disclaimer will appear at the end of the story.

This morning I woke up and found, what I guess, was two pounds of ground beef laying on the floor next to the bed. It was unwrapped. Now, as you know I have three boys and things like this are a lot more common than you might expect. I'm pretty tolerant of this stuff as I console myself with the fact that some point the boys will be dragging 18 and 20-year old girls home with them, and you know, that's something to look forward to. As you reflect on what I said about Hooters you'll understand when I say that I hope that, at least one of these girls, has the desire to impress a boy's father by cooking once in a while and maybe, more frequently, by bringing over some oatmeal raisin cookies.

Let's see. The hamburger thing never happened.

A guy I work with was once in Chicago at some sort of engineering or sales conference. One night, after all the incredibly exciting engineering or sales presentations, one of the guys decided they should all go out and hear some music and have a few drinks. Everybody was up for it and three cabs were hailed.

They all piled in.

My friend was in the lead cab with the ringleader.

"Bob's Bar and Music Venue," said the ringleader.

"You sure?" asked the cabbie.

"Yea, let's go."

"Alright said the cabbie." He drove up half a block, made a turn and drove another half block. "Here you are. That'll be $5.00"

The other cabs pulled in behind them.

Now, the disclaimer:

I'm fuzzy on the details. There may have been four cabs. It may cost more than five dollars just to sit your ass down in a cab. So, the whole 1/2 block by 1/2 block trip may have cost more than $20.00. Further, I can't remember the name of the club; Bob's is sort of made up.

Posted by delmer at 9:58 AM | Comments (0)

December 26, 2006

The Missing Coat

I recently purchased two light coats. I more recently lost one.

I remember knowing the coat was gone and not being terribly worried about it as I knew it was in the minivan. And I wasn't terribly worried about the fact I didn't see it whenever I climbed into the van since I'd sort of cleaned it and thrown things around a bit.

Even after I informally searched the van a couple of times and couldn't find the coat I didn't get worried. But I did start checking other places I could have left it. Which is really a simple process; I don't go all that many places.

I checked all the closets at home and the downstairs coat closet more than once.

I checked the lost & found at Mel's Diner.

I checked the storage area next to my office.

I called the woman I'm doing computer work for and asked if it might be there.

I checked the closet of woman I used to be married to. I couldn't imagine it would be there, but I was running out of places.

I drove my McDonald's yesterday morning with the intention of looking in their McLost & McFound. I knew it wouldn't be there but, again, I was running out of places. McDonald's was closed for the holiday.

After yesterday's Christmas-gift-opening festival I drove by the local car wash and gave the minivan a good going over. No coat.

Later in the day Samson and I ran and errand. I had to go to work to pick up something. While there I checked the cafeteria and the adjoining coat area. No luck.

I checked the front closet at work, for the third time.

I checked the area the servers are kept in. The coat shouldn't be there, and it wasn't.

I grabbed the glasses I went in for off my desk and while leaving the office decided to move the gym trunks that were hanging off the exterior door knob to the interior side of the door ... you know, that way I could start the new year not having to look at gym trunks as I approached my office.

I had a bit of trouble getting the trunks on the interior door knob ... until I took the coat off it.

Posted by delmer at 12:01 AM | Comments (1)

December 25, 2006

Christmas across the Years

Christmas in Ohio -- 2004

Christmas in Ohio -- 2006

OK. You've had your break.

Now get back to the kids and the egg nog.

And, hey, the Oatmeal Raisin Cookies I know you've sent haven't arrived yet. You might want to get online and track the package.

Merry Christmas.

Posted by delmer at 1:18 PM | Comments (0)

December 24, 2006

A bicycle update

As you know, I had the bottom bracket on The Mighty Schwinn replaced on Friday. So now, rather than metal rubbing on metal as I pedal (boom chuck-a-lucka) I actually have some ball-bearing action working.

I'm sure that pedaling is smoother, there's less friction, blah blah blah, and that for the same amount of effort I was exerting a week ago, I'm getting more return in the way of speed today. Of course, I have no way to measure this, and I don't know that the extra oomph I'm getting now is so much that it's even measurable.

It does seem that during these last two days that my average speed is higher. But, that could be the wind, the lack of wind, the fact I do squats and have more leg strength, Christmas magic, the line of coke I snorted pre-ride, the variables are just too many. Or, I could be wrong.

All in all things seem $35 better. Which is what I paid for parts and labor.

I am not one to stand up on the pedals as I crank up a hill. I prefer to stay seated as I'm not sure I have the coordination to pedal standing up. I also have a bit of fear associated with the chain jumping and causing me to groin bash whatever that part of the bike is called running between the handlebars and seat. It might be called the neuterer.

Yesterday, as I pedaled up one of the few hills I encounter, the chain slipped. And then it slipped again. After a few more slips I decided the bike was trying to shift from the smallest sprocket to the next smaller sprocket. I figured I'd live with it until I got home.

A mile or two later I decided I'd hop off the bike and look at things more closely. I figured that the new bottom bracket (remember, it's a different model than the old assembly) changed the front-sprocket / rear-dérailleur geometry and that an adjustment of some sort was in order.

I figured it would be wisest to wait until I got home, read up on what to do at Sheldon Brown's website, and proceed from there. After all, I could always get by without the smallest sprocket. At least until I got home.

But, then again, I had a couple of screwdrivers. How hard could this be? There were only a couple of screws, and I'd done stuff like this all the time when I was a kid.

Back before index shifting.

The way index shifting works is that as you move the shifting lever it clicks, indicating when the bike should shift into a new gear. If you want, you can quit pedaling, shift to a click, and when you resume the bike will find the next gear without any further shift-lever piddling.

After 15 minutes I'd made enough adjustments that the chain would actually shift entirely off the front sprocket, and I'd reduced the rear sprocket assembly from 6 usable gears to 5; I'd lost the smallest sprocket.

At the end of the ride I got some more tools out and decided I was actually going to have to release the cable going to the rear dérailleur and reset it. Naturally, my socket set didn't have a socket in it that was small enough which meant I was going to have to do some digging.

You do remember the picture from my workbench from last week? Don't you?

I knew the socket I needed was smaller than 10 mm. What I didn't know was if what I needed was going to be ASE or metric. The bike is about 20 years old and since the metric system was invented about 20 years ago I figured it could go either way.

I eventually found what I needed, released the cable and reset it, turned some more screws (trying to undo what I'd done as I probably shouldn't have touched the screws I'd messed with -- resetting the cable and piddling with a knob I could've tweaked with my fingers would have probably been enough).

Today, all was well.

(Now, as I think about it, I can't imagine how changing the bottom bracket could goof up the rear dérailleur. I think I've got some bad science working above. Still, if nothing is wrong with part A, and Part B is changed, and then Part A gets funky, you have to wonder if the fix to Part B didn't tweak Part A a bit.

There is a printer at work that was jamming when print jobs of several pages were sent to it. I changed two rollers -- it isn't rocket science, they snap in and out -- and now the printer jams before even one sheet prints out. I've talked with a tech on the phone about it, a guy I've known for 10 years and is familiar with my skill level, and he can't imagine I did anything to make it worse ... neither can I. Still, it worked somewhat, I stuck my hands in it, it doesn't work at all now.

It could be coincidence.

Both things.)

Posted by delmer at 4:39 PM | Comments (1)

December 23, 2006

Hey Joe

Women were all over me today. Well, just two. But they did come to me and I didn't have to search them out.

Right up to my front door they came. They were my mother's age.

Four minutes and five dollars later I had two copies of Watchtower Magazine. I haven't been able to read through both magazines yet -- I blame this on too much cheese and not enough fiber recently -- but in just the little bit I've looked at I've noticed surprisingly little in the way of stories about Jimi Hendrix, which is surprising as I'm pretty sure one of the mags has a picture of him from the Monterey Pop Festival on the cover.

The gals didn't demand money for their magazines, though they did hint that with a $10 donation I could get a glow-in-the-dark one-hitter. I just thought greasing their palms might be the best way to make them feel good enough about our visit to get them to move along.

They asked me a question. Several really. One was "Are you familiar with Watchtower Magazine?" to which I replied, "Yes." I'd purchased a copy from a door-to-door traveling Hendrix fan back in 1987. I left that one in the freezer of the apartment I lived in on Wanalancit Street in Lowell, Massachusetts. I was moving and thought my roommates might enjoy a little Jimi lovin' after I was gone. (Would you believe it took them weeks to notice a copy of Watchtower in their freezer?)

The second question involved something about Jesus while the third was had I ever considered "that." The that being the question they'd just asked about Jesus.

I hadn't ever considered that but was afraid telling them as much might somehow delay their departure and I didn't want to keep them from the other Hilliard Hendrix Fans. (I wasn't paying close attention, but I don't remember the question having a Purple Haze Jesus Saves cadence.)

I considered, just briefly, telling them that I was Catholic or that I was atheist, however, I couldn't decide which would cause them the most trouble. Instead, to distract them, I asked if there was a charge for the magazines -- there isn't.

Unless of course you want the one-hitter.

As they went down my walk I could almost hear them singing, "Joe, where ya goin' with that gun in your hand ..."

(A mother/20-year-old-daughter team of door-to-door traveling Hendrix fans visited an older friend of mine a while back. He told the team, time and again, that he really wasn't interested in visiting with them but they insisted on asking him question after question. My friend finally said something like, "I've tried to be polite, but unless the two of you are interested in coming in for a three-way, I've got better things to do."

They did not seem interested.)

Posted by delmer at 8:18 PM | Comments (3)

December 22, 2006

1984 Rebel Yell

The Mighty Schwinn went in for service yesterday just before noon. I took him to Strader's Northwest Schwinn on Riverside Drive. It isn't far from work, they always do a good job, and I've always been treated well there.

I had considered doing the work I thought I needed myself. And the work I though I'd need was replacing the crank bearings -- or what I called the crank bearings. I think that when I was younger we called the pedal assembly the crank. Maybe the terminology has changed over the years ... sometimes things like that happen. I used to call the mother of my children my wife, now I call her my ex-wife. Maybe real bike nerds have always called the crank assembly a bottom bracket. In any case I'll bet there were no lawyers involved in the crank/bottom bracket bicycle-nomenclature shift.

As an aside, I know it was Ted Nugent who said: You can yank me, and you crank me, but don't ya wake up, and don't ya thank me. (It makes more sense with a little bit of guitar filling your ear and a little bit of beer filling your belly. Wang dang sweet poontang, on the other hand makes perfect sense regardless of your blood alcohol content, though I defy you to read that line without hearing the guitar riff that follows or your parents screaming "Turn that crap off!" (Which is how I approach rap with my kids.)

As a further aside, while I was taking the bike to the shop a song came on the radio. Is that Strutter? By KISS?, I wondered. I had never heard Strutter on the radio -- I'm certain I hadn't heard it at all in 15 or more years ... and there it was, on the radio, mid-day, in Columbus, Ohio. Or at least it was up until Paul Stanly sang, "She'll adore you, and then floor you," and then it was Firehouse. I suspected it wasn't Strutter at the woo hoo yea 's, but I wasn't sure. Anyway, the same applies -- I hadn't hear it forever.

One more thing -- the Burger King in Dublin, Ohio may have the best canned music for people my age. Among some of the songs I heard -- all of them favorites -- was Heart's Even It Up (which has a guitar part I find hard to follow with my ears beered or beerless).

Ahem ...

I told the guy at the bike shop that I thought the bearing in my crank needed replaced and described the noises I'd heard on the last ride.

"Like David Lee Roth singing with his balls in a vice?" he asked.

"Yes!" I said, more at ease about what I said in an earlier blog entry, "I thought it was just me hearing things."

"Well, you may have made it just in time. Had it reached the point of Billy Idol with his pecker in a blender we may have had to scrap the whole frame."

The guy told me he'd take a look at things. It was going to run $15.00 labor plus parts. (As I said, I'd considered doing the work myself, but the $15.00 labor quote I'd been given on the phone had been too good to pass up.)

Before I left we weighed my bike. I thought it was something like 23 to 26 pounds (roughly 10.5 kg); it came in right at 35 pounds (11.33 kg). Which explains why it felt like a heavy 23 to 26 pounds (roughly 1 stone 15 shillings).

Mid afternoon I received a call from the shop -- the Mighty Schwinn was ready for the road.

When I picked it up the tech told me he'd replaced the bottom bracket. My old bottom bracket looked sort of like this model.

The pedal arms attach to either side of the rod which is held in the center of the crank housing -- bottom bracket housing? -- by the bearings ... it's the mechanism that allows you to pedal smoothly.

My bearings should have looked like this.

And there was certainly some similarity, but several of the balls had come free of the race which, itself, was having trouble maintaining a round shape.

"What did that do to the inside of the housing?" I asked the tech, figuring that pedaling around with malformed and ball-less bearings might do some harm.

"It scored it pretty badly. But, we replaced the bottom bracket with a sealed unit. and you shouldn't have any trouble."

I pushed the bike out the door and toward the car. I could tell it rolled better even without any cranking action ... just as I can tell the minivan rolls better following an oil change (it's a synergy all mechanical things have).

It should be warm again tomorrow. Unless it rains I'll hit the road and see how The Might Schwinn fares.

Posted by delmer at 7:47 AM | Comments (0)

December 21, 2006

Gifts

This entry is all about gifts and giving.

First, as a gift to my mother, this entry will contain no veiled references to my manly parts. No sir-ee. (Which reminds me, Mom, how are the Christmas cookies coming. The boys and I should be down some time next week.)

Second, I have a gift idea for you as many of you have not yet finished your Christmas shopping. Sure, you may think otherwise, and if you do I invite you to ask yourself, "What was it again that I got Delmer?" If you can't recall, or worse, if you've answered "Nothing," well, depending on where you live you've got about three shopping days left.

Should you need to buy a gift for a non-Delmer I have the following suggestion. As you probably know, you can spend about $100 and buy a an expandable bike stand. This baby is spring loaded and resembles a lamp we had back in 1967. Two boys were able to hang off the lamp for about 10 seconds. This bike rack will support two bikes much longer.

For a good deal less than $100.00 you can build the following item. Actually, with the appropriate brother-in-law and the inability to ever throw anything away, you can build it for less than $10.00.

If you look closely you can almost make out two bikes hanging on hooks from a rod that runs floor to ceiling. If you look really close you can see my Jamie Lee Curtis doll.

Back to the do-it-yourself bicycle rack. I went to Lowes and bought an adjustable closet rod; it was just about $8.00. While this was my only expense you may find yours are greater:

1. Without the appropriate-level (greatness-wise) brother-in-law.

and

2. If you have ever believed yourself when you've heard yourself say "I'll never need that, I may as well throw it away," and then you've actually tossed something.

Anyway, the closet rod is attached to a chunk of 2x4 at the bottom (that was left over from a previous project). I drilled a hole in the bottom half of the rod and ran a small bolt through it from one side to the other. An almost useless spring was laid atop the bolt and then the upper rod was inserted into the bottom rod. Due to the almost-uselessness of the spring I had to reposition the bolt/spring assembly a couple of times to get the rod just the right fully-extended height. A screw at the top of the rod helps secure it in place to the ceiling.

The arms that hold the bikes up are 2x4s cut to the length I needed. These, again, were pieces I'd been holding onto just in case. A couple of U-bolts (that I've had for at least a decade) hold the 2x4s to the pole; they were run through each 2x4 so that when the 2x4 is mounted to the pole the U-bolt hits the pole at an angle so there are friction points on the left and right side of the pole. That is, the U-bolt / 2x4 assembly doesn't slide up and down like a ring on a finger, the angle sort of creates a bind to help hold everything up; this keeps you from having to tighten the nuts so much that the pole gets bent (not a veiled reference). A hose clamp (again, at least 10-years old) has been attached beneath the upper arm to help hold things up.

The hooks are like those that you might buy to hang a bicycle from the ceiling. My brother-in-law found a bunch of these on sale at Home Depot or Lowes and bought a boat load (he's very good about buying enough of sale items for the whole family).

There you have it. A tidier garage for a mere eight or nine dollars. (Can you imagine how much worse things would look with two more bikes on the floor?)

The whole thing has been up in my garage for about two months now, so I've decided to call it the Priapism Dual Bicycle Rack (primarily to see how long it will take before I start getting search-engine hits on priapism.)

Third, my gift to you.

Knowing that the workbench in your garage (yea, like I really do any work there) doesn't look like this has got to make your Christmas (Hanukkah, Kwanzaa) a little brighter.

By the way, that first picture is probably not spring loaded. I believe that is a tension rod more like a door frame chin-up bar. I couldn't find the picture I needed and used that one instead.

Jamie Lee Curtis in in the second picture, just above the door. It's the Kelly Foster action figure from the movie Virus. I don't know why I have it.

Posted by delmer at 9:52 PM | Comments (0)

December 20, 2006

Madame Butterfly

Last night I took the Schwinn out for a 12-mile ride. It was about 37 degrees F (2.7 C), and it was dark.

The last time I rode in the cold (it was 32 F or 0 C) my hands got cold as did the shiny part of my toy box.

As it was warmer today and as I hadn't had time to buy a new pair of gloves and as I was afraid my hands might still get numbingly cold, I decided to layer gloves. I put on a cheap, light pair and then the thicker gloves I purchased from Nashbar. It still wasn't enough and I had to stop to do some hand warming about 3/4 of the way through the ride.

To keep the more forward portion of the tools from getting cold I decided to wear underwear beneath the tights so there'd be some layering there. I also tucked the shiny part down as low as I could so the padding in the tights might provide an extra bit of a wind break. This worked very well especially since I was cautious and didn't tuck things so low that the pedaling was interfered with.

On the back of the bike I put one of those red flashing lights you may have seen on the bikes in your neighborhood. It looked like it would be plenty bright enough and it came with a clip that allowed it to easily attach to my bag (not the one mentioned above -- though that might be a nice holiday look). Unfortunately the clip also made it easy for the light to come unclipped and it eventually dropped off and fell into the street. I heard the light hit the ground and figured it would be OK until I got back to it due to the fact most people don't normally want to get too close to flashing red lights in the road; they often mark a hazard of some sort.

I reattached the light to the bag and ran it through a piece of elastic to help keep it in place.

On the front of the bike I mounted a Cateye EL 350. The light would turn out to be bright enough to be seen by autos, and OK for seeing obstacles as long as I didn't go too fast (I don't know how slow I had to go as any time I had to reduce speed due to poor street lighting, it was too dark to see the speedometer).

All in all the ride went well enough. I still need new gloves and heavier tights would be nice. And a bacalava.

My biggest concern with the ride came about a mile from home. Even before the ride I knew that I might have a problem with the crank. During the last outing a clanking noise had started up and I'd almost used it as an excuse to not ride ... and then I felt sort of like a slug and decided I'd head out.

When I started out there was a little bit of noise coming from the crank but nothing that I thought would be trouble. I mean, I knew I was going to have to take the crank off and look at it eventually -- probably before the next ride -- but I thought I'd be OK for this ride.

A little further than a mile from home the clanking came on strong and supplemented itself with a bit of grinding and an additional noise I never in a thousand years would have thought could come from a crank. Think David Lee Roth singing with his balls in vice. It wasn't like that, but you've got to admit it was an interesting thought.

The noise was enough that I was concerned that the crank might lose its ability to turn, it would seize up, and flames would engulf my pedals. That never happened.

Hey, here's an observation. During day rides some cars give me a really wide berth when they pass. At night, with the flashing light, most cars give me most of the lane I'm in.

Posted by delmer at 2:48 PM | Comments (3)

December 19, 2006

Underwear faux pas

The other day I needed to get something from outside. My mother was visiting and as I made my move to the door she said, "You can't go outside in your underwear."

"This isn't underwear, " I said, "They're boxer shorts and I have underwear on beneath them which makes these outerwear. Like gym trunks." (White gym trunks with big purple polka dots on them.)

"If you step out like that and anyone sees you, you could get arrested for indecent exposure."

That's a mother for you. Regardless of how old you might be they're always full of confidence on your behalf.

I tossed on some real gym trunks before heading into the great outdoors.

Today I started thinking about the other underwear missteps that would be avoided if I could rent my mother out to the stars. The one that immediately comes to mind involves Britney Spears. In all fairness, I don't know the whole story, but I think she stepped outside underwearless and was somehow photographed. I don't believe she was arrested for indecent exposure.

This is how the conversation between Britney and my mother played out in my mind.

"Britney," said my mother, "You can't go out like that. You're not wearing any underwear."

"Oh, nobody will notice. My skirt comes down to almost 10 inches above my knee," Britney replied.

"I don't care what you think ... put some panties on right now, young lady."

Through my mother's sheer force of will Britney was made to comply.

"OK. I'm wearing panties," Britney said, "Is that better?"

"Better yes. But not perfect. They're pulled too snug. I can see your camel nose."

"You mean, 'camel toe' ..." objected the pop superstar.

"Have you taken a look at yours in the mirror?" said the superstar mother.

Posted by delmer at 9:35 AM | Comments (4)

December 18, 2006

This Nextel Entry Has Been Renamed

[Edit: This post originally had a less-flattering title. I've renamed it as I've come to appreciate that Nextel has some of the better tech support I've encountered recently.]

I am really a pleasant person. I know this because I tell myself this over and over ... and I always tell the truth.

That is neither here nor there.

Thursday morning I awoke with the felling that I had a doctor's appointment coming up. I checked my wallet for the appointment card and looked in my PDA for anything pressing over the next couple of weeks. There was nothing.

Nothing except a nagging feeling that I had an appointment.

I called the doc's office and left a message asking that someone call me back to let me know when they next expected to see me.

Sunday afternoon I heard the voice-mail-waiting beep come from my phone. The display indicated that I had three new voice messages. I dialed the retrieval number and after punching in my code was greeted with the female voice telling me:

You have three messages waiting. Message one. Friday. 8 a.m.

That message started: Delmer, this is Mike. I'm at work ...

I deleted Mike's message, I'd already talked with him in person.

My voice mail continued: Message two. Friday. 9:44 a.m.

And that message began: Delmer, this is Doctor Smith's office. You have an appointment later today at ...

Sweet.

Now, a couple of years ago I forgot about one of my appointments with Dr. Smith, so I know that when an appointment is missed it costs $80.00 (41 British Pounds, $92 Canadian, $102 Australian, 61 Euros, 401 French Francs ... are French Francs obsolete now?).

That's 80 bucks people! 80 greenbacks, four Hamiltons, eight sawbucks ... you get the picture. (I invite the What's a Delmer Look Like international readers to apply whatever slang terms you use to describe your much more colorful bills)

Getting messages days late is, unfortunately, not a new Sprint / Nextel feature. This has been going on far too long. Sprint / Nextel seems to know about it as they periodically send me a survey in which the questions ask things like:

The answers: Yes, Yes, Yes, No.

I've even had their people call me -- not as the result of a complaint I've filed, they are just being proactive -- to see how my service is. The time or two I've mentioned delayed voice messages I was assured someone would get right on it.

Anyway.

Today I called Nextel. Their answering message reminded me of just how proud they are to be part of the Sprint family. It eventually told me to press 5 to speak to a real person.

The real person I spoke with had an American name and accent. This was a good sign. Not once did she end a sentence with an 'eh' so I think she was an honest-to-God American (though, Canadian would have been good too; not French Canadian, however.

Anybody with English as a first language would have been fine in all honesty. As I've said before, I love all people, I just didn't need a language barrier to get between me and a solution to my problem. Now that I think about it, American or Canadian would have been the best ... and a male better. A female, speaking English with an exotic accent (anything non-midwestern actually ... a Minnesotan might have been enough to sway me today and a female Aussie, Brit, Irish person, or Scot would have sent me right to "what are you wearing" and I'd have called back often enough to make up for the $80 ... so about 20-minutes worth) ... um, that's a long parenthetical phrase, so we'll start over: A female, speaking English with an exotic accent may have led me to give up and just eat the $80 without a skirmish (unless she was into that whole what-are-you-wearing thing).

So, Carol picked up after I pressed 5, asked for my phone number (which I had punched in just moments before) and then asked how she could help.

I explained my problem: That an appointment confirmation came in from my doctor three days late. I missed the appointment and was out $80.

I told Carol that I knew this wasn't her fault, but I wondered if she could help me. She asked what I hoped Nextel might do and told me she was wearing a leather skirt and a bustier.

I thanked her for the excellent service Nextel was providing and then caught myself. "Wait wait wait," I stuttered, "before we go any further, when does my contract expire?"

"March."

I told Carol that I'd like Nextel to make up a portion of the $80. That this was not the first time this has happened, and now it was costing me money. She said it was against Nextel policy but she'd see what she could do.

Now ... I want to take a second here to tell you what I thought Nextel might do. That is: Apologize ... nothing else.

A new woman came on the line and asked to hear my problem. She sounded like an American as well. By the tone of her voice I could tell she was wearing stiletto heals and fishnet stockings.

I explained the problem, told her that I knew it wasn't her fault and spit out a little blurb about how awesome cell phones were -- the fact that we can get calls anywhere is amazing ... and I told her I'd just seen a cell phone on a 10-year old television show that was as big as a WWII radio handset (which was an exaggeration) and that the small phones we have today are spectacular -- but despite this, the fact I was not getting messages in a timely fashion was really inconvenient, and costing me money.

I suggested that Nextel / Sprint might want to pay for a portion of my missed doctor's visit.

She suggested they wouldn't. But they would be happy to reimburse me for the time my voice mail service was unavailable. I calculated this to be $1.50 a day (do your own conversions) or $4.50. (I'll bet they would have calculated it to something less.)

"So, my choice is $4.50 or nothing?"

"Yes."

"Well, don't bother."

"And if I cancel my service now, before the contract ends, I receive a fine."

"If you cancel before March 16th there is a $200 penalty."

* * * * *

If I back over the phone in my mini van and don't use it until the contract expiries, it will cost me $150.00.

Don't you think that if not delivering voice mail in a timely fashion -- or even having the phone ring when a call comes in -- was costing Nextel / Sprint a bit of money when it happened that they'd honestly try a bit harder to get the bugs worked out?

Geez. Throw me a bone. I never said I wanted Nextel to pay the whole $80 (and it could be $85, I don't remember [Edit: It was $85.00]). I would have been happy with a month's free service. I don't need free minutes -- I don't use what I have.

Which brings me to something else. I pay about $50.00 a month (whatever you decided the $4.50 equaled in your home currency, multiply by 10 ... it'll be close enough) or $600 a year. I've had two two-year contracts and was between contracts for at least a year once, so I've been a subscriber for at least five years. What are we up to, something like $3000 I've spent with these guys?

I'm 46. I've gotta believe I fall into the class of unlikely to change phone service category of customers. I don't know that any other providers are better. Lately I've been losing calls, reception is bad, etc., but I wasn't necessarily looking to change service; again, everybody might suck.

I think that, in March, I'm likely to move away from cell service altogether and just get residential service. I keep getting notices from AT&T that home service is damn near free these days (some additional charges, not mentioned in the mailing, apply) and I get so few calls that being accessible 24-hours a day is really unnecessary.

Posted by delmer at 2:39 PM | Comments (4)

December 17, 2006

December in Hilliard

As you know it is mid-December.

Today the temperature was at least 61 F (16 C)

(For the unfamiliar, to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, you simply transpose the numbers. Thus, 61 F becomes 16 C ... 28 C becomes 82 F. This doesn't hold true across the board, but on moderate days and fairly warm days you can always fall back on 16/61 and 28/82. When making other conversions you will want to avoid repeating digits no matter what -- 11/11, 22/22 etc. If asked the temperature for anything warmer than 28/82 you can probably get away with warm enough we should be at the beach; for temperatures cooler than 16/61 cold enough that I can cut glass with my nipples should work for you. I don't know that I'd use these answers in academic situations. And I'm well aware that, aside from the extremely sensitive, 16/61 is not cool enough to bring a nipple anywhere near glass-cutting density. Cold enough to cut butter lacks any oomph, so you'll just have to hope the nipple comment is distracting enough that you can avoid any further weather-related grilling.)

I started out my day by making personalized Christmas ornaments for a local retirement home. I buy blown glass balls (bollocks) from a local artisan and etch a Christmas scene in them -- you know, a snowman, a Christmas tree, maybe a reindeer or two -- using my nipples, but only when the temperature is just right.

Nah. I started out at Mel's Diner. As I did yesterday I ordered the ham platter with English muffin, potatoes, and three scrambled eggs. Yesterday I was concerned about the amount of potatoes I received (way too many) and almost asked for fruit today. In the end I went with the potatoes; today's serving was much more human-sized.

I finished the meal with ice cream, like I did yesterday.

I went to work for a bit and then I tooled around the city on the Schwinn. That makes two days in a row.

During yesterday's ride I was dressed as I am in the first photo except I had tights on. For the tights effect try to imagine my legs spray painted gray. Today I went out as shown, well, with gloves, a helmet, and a pair of my youngest's clear-lens sunglasses. I think I could have gotten by without the high-visibility jacket as I got a little warm.

My brother sent me the jersey I'm wearing beneath the jacket. It commemorates Williamsburg, Virginia's 300th anniversary and is the coolest jersey I own. It is also very comfortable and does a good job of keeping me dry ... I could jog naked in a snowstorm and still sweat.

Give me a big shield and a mask and I'd look a little bit like Captain America.

It isn't often we have a day this mild this late in December, though I'm sure they come along every so often. I remember December of '85 (I think, I had my Suzuki 750, and I think that's the time frame) being mild.

The following January was a true bitch.

Posted by delmer at 10:53 PM | Comments (3)

December 16, 2006

Shopping on Saturday

I wish I could tell you, in detail, what I did today. However, it is close to Christmas and what I did involves shopping and I wouldn't want to give too much away.

I will say that I picked up a gift for one of the boys.

I won't go into too much detail about ending up in a store in which I saw a bong for the first time in what, 25 years? (I did not buy anything for my kids in this store.)

Elsewhere, I bought a new weight bench for the garage. Right now I've got two Olympic benches sitting next to each other and this eats up a lot of floor space. One of the benches has the bench configured as a seat all the time so I'd really be able to get by with something a lot narrower. Today I bought that something.

Buying it was harder than it sounds. I started out at Dick's Sporting Goods as they were running an ad for a bench and some light dumbbells. I don't really need the dumbbells, but the price for the bench was pretty good. I really didn't care for the way it adjusted -- the strip of metal that held the seat up was probably more than adequate, it just hit my eye funny.

So I shot off to The Sports Authority. They had a bench, without the dumbbells and with a different label, that was very similar to the first bench I didn't like 100%. It was $20.00 more and had the same adjustment mechanism.

They had another bench that I almost liked a lot. So I sat and agonized over what to do ... which is pretty much how I shop. (I sooo wish I could tell you about my experience in the bong store, the agonizing I did there, and the conversation I had with the very helpful sales gal.)

Anyway, as I agonized a sales dude asked if he could help me and I made an instant decision.

I got the bench (bee-onch, in the hood) I almost liked a lot.

Hey ... it was 50 degrees out today. I rode the Schwinn for an hour.

Posted by delmer at 6:48 PM | Comments (2)

More Blood Work and Surgery Update

Alright, if you are new here:

I have a couple of pituitary tumors that have caused hormone problems: high prolactin which led to low testosterone. My blood work history is available in this blog as is a rather long summary of my experience the last four years. All the hormone entries can be found by clicking here.

Blood Work:
I had blood drawn this past Tuesday, which would have been December 12. I've been taking the generic form of Dostinex (Cabergoline) for almost 4 months. I normally have blood taken on a Thursday morning before I take the Thursday dose of medicine. As I take the meds Sundays and Thursdays this give me a reading when I have the lowest level of cabergoline in my system.

The Tuesday draw came about as I wasn't paying attention when I made the appointment.

In any case, my prolactin level came in at 6.9 (with a reference range of 2.1 to 17.7 being normal), which is the best it has been since I've been tracking it. My testosterone doesn't get tested at each draw anymore as it is always good now -- it should certainly higher than it's been the past four years.

Oh, that reminds me. It was four years ago this month that I started taking Dostinex.

Surgery Update
(For some background on this, the hormone problem led to gynocomastia that needed to be surgically treated. When I started taking Dostinex I started losing weight that I'd been trying to lose, unsuccessful, for a long time -- over the past four years I've dropped almost 150 pounds ... thus, the tummy tuck. I've read that low T and/or high prolactin can cause weight gain and make it hard to lose; my experience supports this.)

I had gyno surgery and, for fun, a tummy tuck, this past November 6th. So, it was about 6 weeks ago. The gyno surgery (and there were baseball-sized bits of tissue removed from behind each nipple) never really hurt much. Or maybe the pain was made unnoticeable by the uncomfortableness of the tummy tuck. Who knows? I took a week off work to heal up some.

Anyway, I'm healing up nicely. My belly aches just the tiniest bit if I sneeze really hard.

Posted by delmer at 5:40 PM | Comments (0)

December 15, 2006

Lottery

The boys and I went to McDonald's today for breakfast, as we do every Friday.

Haydn, as he always does, picked up a couple of those free, little one-page papers that the local businesses sometimes have laying around. The papers have oddball facts and stories in them and provide something pleasant to read for people who have forgotten to bring anything with them.

One of the stories in the paper started:

New South Wales struck me as odd when I saw it. It isn't out of the question that there might be a little burg in Ohio by that name -- we have a Paris, Dublin, London, Malaga, and even a Bethlehem, Ohio (which seems to be a speck outside of Shelby) -- it's just that New South Wales seems to lack the bigness or religious significance of the other international cities (or in the case of Vatican City, Ohio ... countries) we borrow names from.

As New South Wales bounced around between my ears my eyes fell across Australia's lottery and I couldn't help but wonder why a story about Australia's Lottery was in the freebie paper at Micky D's. Ohio doesn't even participate in Powerball ... am I supposed to believe we've got some sort of joint-lottery thing going on with Australia? As a group Ohioans may not know much about geography, but we're fully aware of those things that might turn us into instant millionaires: genies, the Ohio Lottery, and spilling McDonald's coffee on our crotches.

Powerball is not among them. The Ohistralian lottery is unlikely to be one of them either. (Austral-hio lottery?)

(Genies aren't likely to make many of us rich. The odds of winning the Ohio Lottery are something like one in ten million. So, my weekly breakfast at Micky D's with the kids might be my best chance of making it big.)

Seeing $100,000 Australian was puzzling on two levels. First the Why. Why is a story in the freebie paper giving me Australian dollars? The target audience for the paper has got to be Americans and we are not known in international circles as knowing too much about anything, well, not American. Hey, the average American doesn't even know enough about America to come up with a clever ending to this sentence.

Second, the How Much. How much is $100,000 Australian? Knowing that it's $86,500 Canadian is not a tremendous help. And it takes us back to another Why; unfortunately I'm not feeling any more clever now than I was a line or two ago.

Most Americans know that Canada is north of the majority of us. Aside from that we don't really give Canada too much thought and we probably won't until vast oil reserves are discovered there and we invade to free the people from their oppressive government and nationalized health care.

I had the feeling that $86,500 CAN was about $75,000 USD despite the fact I often type things like $25.99 ($135.00 Canadian). However, I'm never really in the mood to do monetary conversions over breakfast and prefer not to do any of my hard thinking until I get to work where I have broadband and am able to check my hunches via the web. (Thus, we learned today that $75,000 USD is 86,786.25 CAN (not too bad for early-morning thinking) and Abe Vigoda is still alive (again, not bad)).

Posted by delmer at 11:17 AM | Comments (3)

December 14, 2006

Mail Woes

I have screwed up my e-mail. The blog's contact form was busted sometime during the last week or so. As I attempted to fix it yesterday, I seemingly did more harm that good ... and I just noticed it.

If you leave a comment and receive notification that you need to verify your address, don't worry about it. If you send me a mail and receive the same, you can ignore that as well. I believe I'll eventually get everything.

If you send me a mail, expect a response, and I don't send you one, then, there's a chance your mail got gobbled up by a computer somewhere.

If you are a Nigerian Prince, well, the check's in the mail.

Posted by delmer at 12:20 PM | Comments (3)

Foul!

Today we'll talk a bit more about accents.

No. Wait. Today, to bring some balance to the blog we'll talk about basketball. This is to offset the Rules of Dating, stuff that I posted last week in which I indicated that, once in a while, a woman would ask me out.

I remember being in High School -- a junior -- and knowing that nobody was drinking, doing drugs or having sex. When I was a senior I found out that everybody (well, almost everybody), was drinking, doing drugs and having sex except me and the thugs I ran with.

(I'd like to point out that a guy I guy I knew, from the town next to us, had put out a survey for his school paper. The survey was to determine how many kids in the high school were partaking of drugs and alcohol. The school was for the survey 100% until the results came in. The administration (the man) was pretty sure that drug and alcohol use would be low ... the survey revealed otherwise and the administration (the man) tried to bury the survey. Somehow, it was leaked to the city paper. Heads rolled. And I don't mean drug users. (And that's a pretty ambiguous reference ... do you follow what I mean? Schools, in the Central Ohio 70's had Jocks, Band Members, Cheerleaders, Heads, etc.)

The amount of misbehaving among high school users didn't change over the course of a year, just my awareness of what was going on.

My buddies and I, and in all honesty we weren't wallflowers, spent most of our time in more innocent pursuits. A big Friday night was renting a gym at a local high school and playing basketball for two hours. We sort of carried this over into our college lives.

I've sort of drifted from where I'd meant to go, but now we'll get on track.

My buddies and I played a lot of intramural basketball in college and as a team we were pretty good. I'm not going to oversell my skills here, I was best at being tall and not really caring too much if I got beat on beneath the basket; I was a fair rebounder and did a decent job in blocking shots. I led the league in fouls and, as they go hand-in-hand, foul outs.

One night we were playing against a pretty good team and it was likely to be a close game. We were about a 1/4 of the way through and I hadn't fouled anybody yet.

Jeff K, now an attorney and a genuinely nice guy, came up to me and pointed out that Chris M, (from Carlisle) was killing us driving up the middle. He suggested, as I didn't have a foul yet, that I knock him on his butt.

I didn't have to wait long for the opportunity as a few minutes later Chris made a move up the middle. I stepped in front of him and when he went up for the shot I extended my arm and got my hand all over the ball -- I then drove it back into Chris and that, along with a little bit of body, I'm sure, put Chris on his tail.

As this was happening I looked up and noticed both officials had their eyes on the play. The whistle never blew.

Chris stood up, and noticing the lack of a foul said, "What!? Well if this is the way we're going to play, I'm out." And he left the game never to return. Which was more than we'd hoped for.

It was awesome!

(After the game one of the refs came to me and said that he and his buddy had seen the play, but from their angles they couldn't tell if Chris had charged me or if I'd fouled him.)

By the way, it looks like some of the thugs and I will be getting together over the holidays to do some bowling. Do we still know how to party or what?! (I'm ready to drop a ball on Chris' foot if Jeff thinks it's necessary.)

Posted by delmer at 9:06 AM | Comments (1)

December 13, 2006

We are filthy beasts

"When I poop I can see cashews in it," said Samson as we sat at the dinner table. "When I look I see tan pieces."

Which is good information to have. Had he noticed a big bloody mass of some sort, I'd want to know, so it's only fair that I hear about the more benign items he spots in his stool.

And why is he looking? If you've been reading here more than a week or so do you really have to ask? We're a house full of guys.

Most of the time being a house full of guys is as cool as it sounds. However, the other day I got a little tired of the freewheeling manner in which the boys were breaking wind and laid down the law. From that point forward wind breaking would only be permitted in the bathrooms and the mud room, which we renamed "The Fart-a-torium." (You have to have some fun with it.)

Loud burping would be tolerated only in those rooms as well.

And no farting or burping in front of women. We're not savages.

FWIW, Sammo isn't the only person to look at his poo. I, for the life of me, don't remember how I know this, but a couple of my male friends check their droppings when they let one loose, as do I. Why? Because you've got to know what's in there. If there's blood it might be an indication that something is wrong ... maybe too much cheese ... not enough fiber ... too much fiberglass in the diet ... something worse.

I don't think Sam was looking for any of those reasons. He was just curious about what might be in there. In his case it was cashews. And why not; it is the holidays. I imagine he sees fewer cashews and more corn in the summer.

Freud had something to say about poop. I'm pretty sure it wasn't "pick up after your dog." It was probably something thought provoking, though less useful.

Almost a year ago I had a physical -- I'm due for one next month. At that time I was given a stool-collection-kit. I was supposed to make a poo and smear some on a card which I'd mail in. Had I been given a box and a pair of tongs I'd a been all over it ... hell, I'd have even printed off my own Bio-Hazard stickers and paid extra postage ... but a card ... and not even a post card, this thing went in an envelope. I sort of lost interest.

Actually, someone suggested it may not be as simple as making a poo and sending some in. Some diet restrictions may have been needed, like no red meat for three days. Now, I go weeks without red meat, so it isn't a problem. But, it isn't anything I track, it just happens and I didn't want to have to monitor just how much red meat I was or wasn't eating. I, apparently, would much rather end up with cancer of the colon or whatever blood in the stool suggests.

Which reminds me of something else I can't recall how I know. A friend of mine recommends "wiping until you see blood" as the appropriate manner for taking care of the post-BM activity. I'll bet her stool-collection cards are something to see.

A couple of year ago, after a year or more of not having corresponded with this friend, I sent the following e-mail: "I've forgotten. Is it wipe until you bleed? Or almost bleed."

The one line reply: "Until you bleed."

I know that even though I haven't seen or talked to the friend in years I could count on her to give me sound bathroom advice even today.

Your old friends are always there for you.

Sometimes they bring the TP.

Sometimes I misrepresent their gender.

Posted by delmer at 10:04 PM | Comments (5)

December 12, 2006

Phones and Power

The new phone system started getting installed today and installation and programming will continue through tomorrow. In addition, there's all the other stuff that goes on and takes up a person's time. Things are a bit hectic.

(As I typed this the house just went dark. A quick check outside showed that the entire neighborhood is without electricity. I need to make a note to reboot my PVR when the power comes back on.)

One of the phone guys came down today and asked what we might use for a UPS for the new phone system. The current phone system shares closet space with the network switches and gets backup power from a bank of batteries connected to one of the products our company makes.

As we needed that item for the phone system -- and this is an item I set up -- I didn't want to tap into it for anything else and told the phone guy I'd bring a UPS down from my office.

The new phone system will sit in a rack next to where the old system was.

Do you see the problem here? The old phone system has reserve power supplied by a bank of batteries. I didn't want to tax this system, and cut into the potential uptime of the phone system, by putting anything else in service using those batteries. So, I suggested using a UPS for the new phone system until we came up with a better solution.

We were not going to be running dual phone systems. The old system is going out of service and out the door tomorrow or the next day.

It took too long for what I said to sink in.

(Thirty-eight minutes later the power is back on. The PVR is up and running.)

Posted by delmer at 10:10 PM | Comments (3)

December 11, 2006

Phones and Golf

The company is getting a new phone system. It has more to do with the computer system than you might guess and it kept me at work late Monday and had me back in early Tuesday (when I posted this, despite the date that shown).

Sammo and I hit some golf balls Monday night. The weather was cool, but nice, so we shot off to Avery Road Golf Whatever-it's-called. Driving Range? If you live in the area you know what I'm talking about ... if you don't, it's unlikely you'll make the trip.

Sam did a nice job. He's a lefty so it makes giving instruction a bit harder I think. Maybe not. I'm not the best golfer and suspect my instruction may be lacking. And all that doesn't matter at this point -- what does is that we had a very good time. Sammo hit some balls well enough to send them flying; I hit some poorly enough to send them crashing into the big sheet of safety plywood next to us ... this was good for some really good noise making.

Posted by delmer at 11:45 PM | Comments (3)

December 10, 2006

December Search Results

For whatever reason, and when I think of it, toward the beginning of the month I take a look at the stats page to see what search terms are used when people happen across What's a Delmer Look Like.

Historically, Granny Gallery is always #1 as dirty old men seek out dirty old women. This Holiday Season Granny Gallery is not only #1 but is #1 by a greater margin. This, I can only assume, is because before shopping for their moms at Victoria's Secret a lot of guys want to get an idea what crotchless panties might look like on an older woman. My site must be a disappointment to them.

Britteny Spears is in the number two slot. I've misspelled her name and in doing so have drawn new readers to What's a Delmer Look Like. I don't mean to be cruel, but I'm pretty sure Brittney Spears fans don't swim in the deep end of the intelligence pool; and I'm drawing the fans that can's spell her name. (I can be excused as I'm no fan. FWIW, I've never misspelled Bruce Springsteen's name.)

I get Freddy Kruger hits every month. Also the dual action cleanse stuff.

Bad tushy brings you hot bruised behinds is new.

Wet boys comes up too much and disturbs me just a bit.

Are there so few sites on the Internet that talk about blond bitchs that I'm drawing hits? Should that be blonde bitch?

I'm always happy to see hits about prolactin, and low testosterone. It makes me feel like a helper.

And there you have it. Your a-couple-of-Sundays-before-Christmas post. Sort of a throw-a-way item.

Posted by delmer at 10:11 AM | Comments (5)

December 9, 2006

Winter Bike Wear

Last Tuesday I left work early so that I could get out in the sun and put a few miles on The Mighty Schwinn. I'd recently purchased some tights, gloves, a jacket, and some sort of special wicking-moisture-away-from me long-sleeved shirt and was eager to see how well they would work in keeping me warm while out in the cold.

When I unpacked the tights I noticed they were gray and not the black I'd meant to order. Black, in addition to looking more Darth Vader-ish, is also more slimming and I thought it might make me look faster, more sleek, and, you know, sort of like Darth Vader might look if he were to tool around the Death Star on a 20-year old Schwinn. (Really, I just thought they looked better.)

The tights came with butt and crotch padding and I threw them on underwearless so as not to interfere with the moisture-wicking-way-from-me-ness of the magic fabric they're made from (Lycra, I think.) I also put on the special long-sleeve shirt, the jersey my brother had sent, and then the jacket; so I had three layers on my torso.

I'd purchased some sort of tube-like thing that went over my head, around my neck and tucked down in my jacket and that, along with a band-type ear-muff thing was going to take the place of a balaclava; my helmet is too tight to allow for the extra fabric of anything that would cover the top of my head.

Finally, the gloves.

When I left home it was 32 degrees F outside (0 degrees C). By the end of the trip it had dropped to 30 degrees F (minus 26 degrees C ... or maybe just a hair under 0 degrees C; sometimes my conversion skills aren't the best.). So the temperature had fallen just a bit.

I hadn't gotten too far down the road before I realized the tights might be a little too light for the temperature but I was also certain it wasn't going to be a problem for me. The gloves were going to be lacking as well, though I wasn't too sure how much of a problem they'd be. I hoped not much.

I knew right away that I'd need to buy a balaclava and a new helmet. With the neck warmer pulled up just under my nose I couldn't strap my helmet, so I had to push the neck warmer down some. Overall, this wasn't a problem as my face was warm enough, but a balaclava would still be a good thing to have.

My torso was never cold and I was amazed at how well the magic shirt and inexpensive and light jacket worked.

The gloves, as I feared, were not good enough. About a 1/4 of the way through I started to get a pins-and-needles thing in my fingers and by half way they were really uncomfortable.

Fortunately, due to the configuration of the padding in the tights, I was catching quite a bit of wind in the groin area and the handle of the tackle box was becoming uncomfortably cool. This had happened once, about 20 years ago, when I was running so I had an idea of just how uncomfortable it might become. Back then I was young, foolish, and invincible ... today I'm 46 and not convinced that it might become cold enough to snap off; and, as this is what men use to think with, I'd be screwed. (Luckily the tights were holding everything pretty much in place.)

The last 6.5 miles were ridden with me alternating hands between my legs. This kept the fingers warm and served to keep the tackle box from getting any colder than it already was.

When I got home my fingers hurt enough that I spent a good five minutes wiggling them to get the blood flowing. I then spent enough money on a sex hot-line, to get blood flowing elsewhere, that I could have easily bought another pair of warmer tights.

I'm not sure, but I think there might be a way to bring the finger wiggling and sex-hotline thing together in a way that, if nothing else, would take my mind off any numbness I might be feeling just about anywhere. (Certainly the numbness would be gone by the time I woke up.)

Posted by delmer at 12:37 AM | Comments (3)

December 8, 2006

DARE Graduation and Pasta

I've known Kevin for at least six years, probably closer to seven. We've gone to scouting events together, I used to see him in church, we smuggled three kilos of hash out of Columbia in the mid-80s.

Still, I wasn't surprised the other night when he walked right by me without saying anything. We've had an agreement, ever since a brush with the federales at the Mexican border, that we wouldn't acknowledge each in public.

Actually, we were at DARE graduation -- which is about the exact opposite of smuggling drugs -- Wednesday night watching our kids get their certificates. He walked by, almost bumping me, as I stood looking for my son. I was pretty sure he didn't recognize me and as I, in all my weirdness, don't necessarily seek out the you-look-so-different conversations ... didn't say anything as he passed.

I turned to pick some stuff up off my seat and saw that Kevin had stopped at the seat in front of mine to collect his coat. We made eye contact and I gave him a neighborly, "Hey."

"Kevin Jones," he said, introducing himself.

"I know," I replied.

He gave me a surprised look and said, "Delmer! I didn't know it was you."

It had been about a year, 40 pounds, and a beard since he'd last seen me. And a total of roughly 150 pounds since we'd met initially.

Jump forward one day. (To yesterday. A week from tomorrow for those of you south of the equator).

I decided to go to Salvi's for lunch. It's about six miles from where I live and work, though we're talking about two different sets of six here.

As I stood at the welcome-so-Salvi's podium I looked around the dining area and noticed a familiar-looking guy sitting at a table. Just as I completed the could-that-be-Dave-from-Blogography thought the guy waved. I walked over.

"Dave?" I said.

"Delmer ..." he said back.

What are the odds! I run into someone from the Pacific Northwest that I know only from his blog and he knows it's me while people that I interact with see on a more-regular basis have trouble recognizing me.

Again, I say ... what are the odds?

Well, pretty good I guess considering we'd talked, briefly by phone, just a few minutes before and I'd known he was going to be in the neighborhood for a week or so.

Dave said that I'd made Hilliard, Ohio sound so appealing the past couple of years that he just had to stop by. Or maybe it was the Pasta Salvi he was after. Yea, it was the Pasta Salvi.

He certainly shows dedication to a food item. (Technically, Salvi's is in Columbus. I don't want to mislead anybody.)

Dave had two orders of the Pasta Salvi which is fried pasta in the shape of a loaf with some sort of creamy, probably cheese, stuff helping to hold it together. I'm sure the menu has a better description of the item but I'm not so concerned about accuracy as I am calorie content. Pasta Salvi seems like it should be one of those high-calorie dishes. Dave had two servings, and based on some of the other things he's mentioned eating a lot of in his blog, I couldn't help but admire his metabolism.

I had a Grilled Chicken Salad as (and I felt it would be wrong to point this out to Dave during the meal, but I'll tell you all about it here) I was trying to offset a small chunk of cheese I'd had the night before; I had an order of Pasta Salvi as well (more cheese ... probably).

Following lunch Dave said he was planning on going to The Columbus Museum of Art, The Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum and, I think The Book Loft. I was going back to work.

I used to have lunch at the Columbus Museum of Art (Maybe breakfast too? I seem to recall having eggs there at least once.) back when I worked downtown, but that's been almost 20 years ago. My youngest son and I have been to the Motorcycle Museum a couple of times. As for The Book Loft, I'd never heard of it though a woman friend of mine has suggested it might be a fun place to go (You are really old when a 'fun date' is a trip to the bookstore, and you're not going because they have the best Kama Sutra section in the nation.) Overall, I don't think I take advantage of the many things Columbus has to offer and I have a little bit of guilt over not seeing those things, or seeing them more often, that people from out of town think would be interesting.

[(Looking over his blog, Dave may not have made it to the bookstore (he may be a bit younger than I am so this may have dropped outside his definition of fun and may have been replaced by his trip to see Casino Royale.)].

During our brief visit Dave reminded me of just about any one of the thugs I used to run with. Which would be a compliment if, you know, guys complimented each other.

One more thing. Dave sounded like a Central-Ohioan to me. I don't know what I expected. I know a woman from Chicago via Missouri Missouri via Chicago and she has an accent that is certainly not ours. People from Cleveland over pronounce everything, and they're a mere two hours away. Like I said, I don't know what I expected, and I'm not saying I didn't sound like a big old hillbilly to Dave, but he could have passed for a local.

I imagine he'd have a pretty good dating life in New England.

[Oh, above, that's a link to Dave's description of the US, which puts mine to shame. In an earlier post I'd neglected to mention the Plains States, the Mid-Atlantic States and several other groupings that I suspect are run by Organized Crime. For accuracy, you'll want Dave's description; for simplicity, you'll want mine]

[Ah, and a thing on compliments. The other night my friend Natalie and her husband were going to a black tie affair and I ran into them as they were leaving. I couldn't help but think that Natalie looked really good ... but I couldn't say anything as then I'd have to compliment John and, well, he looked like a guy.]

Posted by delmer at 5:16 PM | Comments (5)

December 7, 2006

The Rules of Dating: Part IX

Rules six and seven are:

6. Don't date your buddies' exes.

and

7. Don't date Britteny Spears.

Don't date your buddies' exes

I believe I suggested that you shouldn't date your buddies' exes as it could lead to problems between you and your buddy. The Fonz may have said, "Steady girls are here today ... steady friends are here to stay," but that's sort of bullshit and, unless you are Richie Cunningham with a team of writers behind you to smooth things over, your friend is likely to resent you.

And face it. She dumped your buddy. Your friend is your friend for a reason. You share interests. You have similar thoughts and ideals. You like the same beer. You have all those things in common that lead to the type of male bonding typically reserved for soft-core gay porn novels.

That's not what I really mean, but after I saw that last sentence on the screen I couldn't bring myself to delete it.

What I do mean is that you and your buddy are likely very much alike. She dumped your buddy because, well, face it ... she's a psycho bitch. You and your buddy have already talked about and agreed to this.

Wait. That's not what I meant either.

She dumped your buddy because there was something about him she didn't like. As you are like your buddy in many ways she's bound to dump you too. Psycho bitches are like that. I've seen happen on Cinemax time and time again.

In the end you'll have lost the girl. And your buddy.

And, in cases where the buddy has cooler toys, or is the big bat on the softball team, or has a good outside shot on the basketball court, or has season tickets to OSU football, well, you've lost a good deal more.

And while they seem to have different reasons, Glamour Magazine agrees with me.

Don't date Britteny Spears

Though it is perfectly acceptable to date women who point out that you've misspelled Britney.

(FWIW, 35 people have stumbled across What's a Delmer Look Like by butchering Britney's name.)

Posted by delmer at 7:41 AM | Comments (4)

December 6, 2006

The Rules of Dating: Part VIII

Alright.

I was at the Mall of New Hampshire, quite possibly in Manchester, working at a kiosk. I was 25 (roughly), pleasant and exuding Midwesterness and a general politeness that seemed to be rare enough in New England that it crept up right to the edge of irresistibleness.

I had an accent uncommon to the area which, I think, made me seem cuter in New England that I was in Ohio, and quite possibly Iowa. I was also 'new' (that is, not a known boy, you know, someone everybody knew since birth). I had not yet started growing ear hair.

One or more of these things drew Carol (not her real name) to the kiosk one day.

Carol had stopped by before. She was a student at U. Mass, Amherst, home for the holidays and helping her parents sell whatever it is they sold in the mall. She was cute, pleasant (by New England standards: a far cry from a Midwest farmer's daughter), she'd just turned 19 (or 20) and she had that New England accent that is pretty nice once you get used to the 'r's being dropped from where they belong and added in places they have no place being (A typical New England sentence is: "Could I get the rest of this hot dog wrapped up. I'm going to take it home for my dorg." )

So Carol came by to visit. She seemed a little nervous and said something similar to, "There's a, uh, ... party, um ... on Friday ... um ... down at ... uh ..."

As I said, she seemed sort of nervous, which made her additionally cute as I realized she may be asking me out. I mean, there's always the chance that she was going out and, as I'm from the Midwest and obviously skilled in animal husbandry, certainly a good candidate when it came to looking for folks to take care of her dog. But, I thought she might be asking me out -- and that would have been cool and different.

"... um ... would you like to go?"

"I'd love to," I said.

And she seemed genuinely happy.

We went to the party, had a pretty good time, and rubbed noses at the end of the evening. We enjoyed each other's company enough that we decided to go out again before she went back to school; she lived at least 30-minutes away, but under an hour. No. It had to be further than that -- I spent the night on her couch (her parents were home and upstairs.)

Anyway, the second date was even more fun. I don't recall what we did, but we did wrestle a bit that evening -- you know, as much as you can when the parents are upstairs ... and hillbilly accent or not I was still a boy, so you know they were using their super hearing powers -- and we spent the next day together. I know we went to see a movie. Oh and we talked about having me visit here at school.

This is where things took an ugly turn.

I just Googled the distance from Lowell, Mass. (where I lived) to Amherst, Mass. (where she went to school) and it comes up at 100 miles and 1 hour 51 minutes. I remember the drive being closer to 3 hours -- so it was probably over two.

Whatever ... it was a clear violation of the dating rule.

AND geez I can't imagine being in a more stressful dating situation. The mood was tense when I showed up. I can't remember what we did, but it was tense. Tense! tense! tense! (please reread that using your best Jan Brady voice).

I couldn't take it, "What's wrong," I asked as we drove back to her dorm, "This is the most tense date I've ever been on!"

(And I apologize to you for using the word tense so much.)

"It's just that you're so boring," she said.

"What?" I exclaimed. I'd been called a lot of things over the years, ass hole comes to mind. I'd been arrested. And let's not forget the Jell-O bath idea. Boring did not jibe with how I saw myself (a sometime dumbass, yes). "I've never been called boring in my life."

"Maybe not boring. It's just that your all there. You're all black and white. You don't play games. There's no mystery."

I remember thinking, you want some mystery, how about I put you out of the car here and you see if you can find your way back home. Instead I used my internal female-to-male dictionary and decided she meant 'normal.'

After that the tenseness broke. As she was getting out of the car I looked over and said, "I'm not calling you tomorrow." We both laughed.

There was no nose rubbing.

I drove off.

And I hated myself so much for the next 1 hour and 51 minutes that it seemed closer to 180 minutes. Not because the evening went badly, but because I broke one of the rules AND I'D BEEN RIGHT! It had been a good rule!

Posted by delmer at 4:45 PM | Comments (3)

December 5, 2006

The Rules of Dating: Part VII

We've worked our way up to:

Don't date your buddies' sisters.

Which I don't think I've ever broken. I have dated my sister's friends, though I don't really have anything bad to say about that experience.

I was out with one of my sister's friends one night and all evening she kept calling me Punkin -- my nickname since birth. It's sort of hard to explain, but when your date is calling you Punkin all night you just sort of get the feeling things are not going to go too far. Not that that was necessarily the goal, but even when you know you're not going to end up naked and wrestling -- you know it for sure, without a doubt -- there's that little bit of hormone-driven mind that's thinking, maybe ... maybe ... maybe ... if a comet strikes and we're the last two people left on earth we'll have to get busy tonight repopulating the planet ... for the good of mankind. Having your date call you Punkin all night erases even that tiny bit of irrational hope.

And this brings us to:

Don't date anybody who lives more than one hour away from you. Because, if something goes wrong you'll have that long drive home to hate yourself.

A long time ago -- the winter of 1986 -- a buddy and I were running a calligraphy kiosk for an acquaintance. The kiosk was at the Mall of New Hampshire ... which I think is in Manchester, NH. We both had day jobs and we were doing this over the Christmas Holiday as, well, the money was good.

I know I've mentioned, several times, that new readers should take some time to read the entire blog and make note of my insecurities. If you were to just read the last week or so you might get the impression that I think women have been chasing me all my life and that I'm some sort of egomaniac. For the record, I've never had the feeling that women were chasing me and, believe me, I have a lot more stories about playing basketball with my buddies on Fridays and weekends -- but do you really want to read story after story about things like the time I stayed off Kevin S. far enough that I hoped he'd draw the pass and when he did I charged toward the ball to cut if off and missed the fact that he'd moved forward as well which resulted in a collision spectacular enough to knock the wind out of both of us and draw a mean stare from Kevin? Or how about the time Jeff K. told me to knock Chris M. on his butt to keep him from driving up the middle ... actually, that should be a blog entry.

Anyway ... this is what I looked like when I lived in New England. Sort of harmless,

And I had whatever accent it is I have that is not the accent they have in New England, and that sort of makes a person cuter and explains why it is I think Sue Ellicot, a guest on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is terribly desirable even though I don't know what she looks like or how old she is. (Have I mentioned the summer one of the Brits here had his daughter working as our receptionist? Every time she paged me she made my name sound like poetry ... it got to the point I was calling in and asking for myself just so I could hear he call for me over the intercom. I want you to think Emma Thompson, Emma Peel, or that blond chick from the new Dr. Who and say to yourself "Telephone call for Delmer Wells." Pretty hot, eh? (If you, yourself, are British, the effect may be lost on you.))

Okay ... I had a harmless look about me and the non-New-England accent.

Ah. I just remembered. There was an older lady (by my 26-year-old standards) working a kiosk next to me. She was retired -- I wish I could remember what she was selling and what her name was. She was a good person to be set up next to. During our conversations it became clear that she had strong opinions and she was quick to come to the point. Still, I was caught a bit off guard the day she said:

Which was a new one on me. When I asked her what she meant she commented on the number of young girls that stopped by the kiosk to visit with me. She went on to point out that most of them were too young for me.

I was fully aware that the girls that had stopped by were too young for me (mostly 16 and 17 I guessed then) and hadn't really even given them or any other gals any thought. I asked my kiosk neighbor for further clarification and indicated that I hadn't noticed all that many more girls stopping by my kiosk than anywhere else.

I wish I could remember the conversation in more detail as it was sit-comy in nature as she eventually said something like, "You're doing a lot better than Mr. Pretzel is over there." (Which is saying something ... Mr. Pretzel smelled like salt and dough which, in and of itself, screams 'babe magnet' (Mmmmm ... salt and dough.)

One of the young ladies that stopped by had just had a birthday, turning 19 or 20.

She, I had noticed.

And we'll type about her tomorrow.

Posted by delmer at 7:40 AM | Comments (5)

December 4, 2006

The Rules of Dating: Part VI

As we continue with The Rules of Dating we find that we've made our way to:

Don't date women you work with. The reason being, that if something goes wrong things will be uncomfortable at work.

Business has been aware of this problem for years and sometimes have policies in place to keep employees from dating each other. I don't remember the actual terminology used to refer to these policies, but you'll often hear them simplified by your human resources department as one of the following:

You don't hear the last one so much following the women's suffrage movement, but it was big in the early 20's. Suge Knight may still use it.

Despite these policies, I remember reading, years ago, that people who meet at work and get married often have the most successful marriages.

Lacking anything in the way of a transitional element, let me say that I met my wife at work. And, honestly, things seemed to be going fairly well right up until she Felix Ungered me. She might say things were dicey for a while prior to that but if I were to say that I'd been aware of that I wouldn't be able to play the clueless-guy angle -- and, that's what What's a Delmer Look Like is all about (but I knew ... I'm the one who suggested we go to counseling).

It may be worth noting that my wife asked me out (again, please take a moment to read through the entire blog making note of my many insecurities). And it may be worth noting this for the simple reason that it may provide us with another rule ... one that we'll cover after number five (Don't date anybody who lives more than one hour away from you). The new rule will be: Don't date anybody who asks you out or maybe, who seems the least bit interested in you.

Dammit! Last night as I was watching Rockford Files reruns I had a couple other things I wanted to add that I thought were kind of funny. Now, they're gone. Could it be that James Garner is my Muse?

Anyway, this is another of the rules I broke. I dated someone I worked with, which led to marriage then separation and divorce, and the most-recent sucking-the-life-from-me experience.

Posted by delmer at 7:38 AM | Comments (0)

December 3, 2006

1651

Yesterday afternoon we had a bright, sunny, and not-too-cold stretch. A friend and I took a stroll that wound around through some interesting-looking homes, into a wooded area I never would have guessed existed, past a converted convent, along some railroad tracks, and eventually to a restaurant that serves the best Pale Ale I've ever had.

After leaving the restaurant we continued the stroll and ended up walking down Elmwood Avenue. As we walked the friend mentioned that she used to live "up here on the right."

"I used to live up here on the corner," I said. As it happens the two buildings were about 1/2 block from each other.

She pointed out the living room window as we passed her old building ... I pointed out the back door of my old place as we neared it.

I lived in that building about 16 years ago and had long ago forgotten the address. Had you threatened to skin me alive yesterday morning unless I were able to give you the street number, well, right now you'd be tanning a big Delmer hide and I'd be saying things like, "Don't touch me ... don't touch me ..."

Anyway, as we started to turn away from the building, "1651" came out of nowhere. I said, "Wait, I think the address was 1651 King Ave. We need to take a look."

We did. And it was.

I just think it's funny how the mind works.

Maybe you don't and maybe you don't find that interesting. Maybe this next thing won't be interesting either but ...

The other night I dreamed Gordon Clap, of NYPD Blue fame, was selling Eukanuba Dog Food out of his home. The cost was $29.00 for a 50 pound bag and Gordon lived down a dirt lane in a new housing development.

I don't know where the dog food came from but Gordon appeared in my dream courtesy of something I saw on TV several days ago. One of those behind-the-scenes things was on an a tidbit came up about how Clap was one of the few male NYPD cast members who had never bared his butt. As it happens, a story had been written to expose his boot-ay, but it had been nixed (as I recall ... maybe it aired.)

Posted by delmer at 12:12 PM | Comments (1)

December 2, 2006

Wiring

I spent four hours today running networking cable. I ran four drops that would have cost, last time I checked, about $500 to have run by someone else.

It isn't a hard task, but it is the least favorite part of my job. I'm not a big fan of having ceiling tile dandruff fall into my eyes nor do I care to touch insulation too terribly much. And, there's a lot more going on above drop ceilings than you'd imagine so the job is never as easy as it could be.

The job was made a bit harder today as I was running lines to our production area and the ceiling there is, I don't know, twenty or twenty-five feet, and I had to cross several conveyor lines, blah blah blah ... a pain in the ass.

I ran the lines as a group of four and things were going pretty well until I split one line off and dropped it through a wall. As I stood on a ladder forming the "I can't believe I'm going to be so lucky as to be able to pull these lines directly from point A to point B without too much hassle" thought the line snagged.

I got down from the ladder and tracked down the snag. The line I'd separated was twisted around the remaining three just enough that it was catching and forming a knot as the other three lines were drawn through a wall. Had I had a buddy with me he could have kept the knot from forming and things would have gone a bit faster.

As it was, I was buddyless and had to make a couple of extra trips down off the ladder. All in all it wasn't a lot of extra trips, due to the nature of the job there was a lot of up and down anyway, but it was additional aggravation I didn't need -- especially as it was the how-could-I-be-so-stupid type.

Tomorrow I'll go back and snap ends on the cables.

Posted by delmer at 10:11 PM | Comments (1)

December 1, 2006

The Printer

I called Dad. The phone rang and rang eventually kicking over into his robotic voice mail message. I've heard the robotic message so many times that I quit listening to it long ago.

"Hey Big D," I started, "I just got your message. Mom will be leaving my place sometime this morning, I'm not sure when. I just left home and I know she still had some things to do before heading out the door. I expect that she'll be down your way about noon, maybe a little before. I wouldn't start worrying about her until after that. Talk to you soon. Love you. Bye."

And then I went to work.

A short while later I got a call from Mike. I'd called Mike first thing in the morning and left a message to let him know we were going to delay the purchase of the new, high-speed printer.

"Mike," I said, "I was just getting ready to call you again. There was another meeting this morning while I was out of the building and the powers that be have decided to order the new printer now."

"Good," said Mike. "Hey, did you try to call someone after you called me to let them know your Mom would be home soon ...?

"Yea, I called my dad."

"You might want to call him back. You left the message for him on my voice mail."

"Ah. Really. Well, you know that part at the end, when I said, 'I love you' ... I didn't mean it."

Posted by delmer at