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May 31, 2007
My Day at Work
Sorry to bore you with this but:
The phone rang at 6:30 this morning. It was the land line and I let it ring as I had no idea where either of the handsets were and I really wasn't too worried about who might be calling. I had an idea.
When the cell phone rang, and it was laying next to me in bed, I knew I was right. It was work.
The NetWare server was kicking up "sys volume out of space" errors and placing said warning on every computer in the building. I logged in from home and started deleting some files. I combined this activity with watching the drive refill itself with temp files. This same friggin' thing had happened about a year ago.
It was my recollection that if the sys volume filled up that NetWare would crash. That's a memory from NetWare 3.12 and I wasn't sure if it was still true or, maybe, even just a bad memory. I know the server hadn't crashed, it had just become very annoying.
Still, I changed that memory to "NetWare won't boot if the sys volume is full." Which is what kept me from, an hour later, having a buddy of mine reboot the server. I wanted to be on-site for that process and that couldn't happen until I got the kids off to school.
Which I did.
I was at work just before 8:30.
I have a 1/2 gig database file that I could have easily deleted had it not been locked as "in use." The 1/2 gig of temp files that seemed to be coming out of nowhere were also "in use" and undeletedable.
I had a 400-meg directory that was created during a service pack install two or three years ago and that was deletable so I zapped it. As I watched the sys volume refill itself I issued the "down bitch" command at the server console (we use a "street" version of NetWare 6.x) and then did a reboot. I figured I'd take a look at the temp files that were problematic following the reboot. The problem is, they all disappeared. Whatever was impolite enough write temp files to my sys volume (and this is obviously something I need to reconfigure) was sweet enough to clean up after itself.
Just as this had been taken care of a coworker came in and reported a "Windows Protection Error" on his system. I asked him to reboot and told him I'd be out in a minute. He had a Windows 98 machine and following his reboot it came back to the error again. It did the same for me. Twice.
I took the PC to my office and it booted fine. This is not as uncommon an occurrence as you might think. Still, I removed some things that would otherwise run at startup. I booted the PC a couple more times. I took it out to the user and, of course, I got the error. I tried booting without the programming peripheral plugged in, without the mouse, I changed the keyboard, I unplugged the network cable. I took the case off and remade all the connections in the case. I still got the error. I took it back to my office.
It booted just fine. But it booted to a really, really high resolution. I'd noticed this the first time but didn't want to piddle with the user's settings, even though I wondered how he worked with icons that small. I tried to reset the resolution, but each time I tried to tweak the display settings I got an error. So, I booted in Safe Mode, made the changes there, booted in regular mode and set things to 800 x 600. The PC continued to work for the user, away from the Field of IT Magic that encompasses my office. Due to the way Safe Mode handles the display I was never able to find out what the resolution had been set to.
Then I had a meeting for two hours.
Back from the meeting I went to get a quote for a new PC. This is when I found out our Internet service was down. I checked the few things in the building there is to check. I looked out front for a backhoe (the item that caused our last outage). I called Time Warner.
The tech had me do a couple of things (things I'd already tried but sometimes they work better when a tech tells you to do them) that didn't help. He said he'd bump me up to level two support and gave me a case number. As I waited on hold I continued to click the refresh button on my browser.
After about five minutes of being on hold and clicking refresh Google popped up. After about five minutes and one second the phone picked up, "Tech support, how can I help you."
He ran some tests anyway.
(I did some other things, but those were the highlights. Jeez. I should read that before I go to bed … it's a real snoozer.)
Posted by delmer at 9:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 30, 2007
Gold Star Chili Sex
One of my buddies has read that title and has likely had a "Good for you, Del" thought as I used to make jokes about Gold Star Chili Sex every once in a while.
Primarily due to this:
Or at least the thoughts conjured up by that.
I can't imagine a chili joint signing people up for a honest-to-god three-way, although I can think of several Costanzaesque-ways in which chili might be worked into bedroom activities. Sour creme alone is reason enough to keep a mini fridge as a nightstand in the bedroom.
You know, this reminds me of an add I saw in the Columbus Dispatch a couple of years ago. One of the furniture stores was selling a three-way bed and I remember thinking how swell it was that a furniture maker was out there addressing the needs of the sexually liberated, the kinky and the Mormons.
None of this has anything to do with where I thought this post would go when I woke up this morning. And, of course, waking up should be a big tip off to you.
Last night, at some point between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m., I had a dream … well, you can imagine.
Featured in the dream was a short dark-haired girl from college and her roommate. The roommate is a woman I just made up. However, the dark-haired girl is a woman I actually knew, that I've dreamed about before (apparently May 17 of last year), and who wasn't particularly fond of me. I don't think she hated me or anything, I just think she thought I was a big goofball … and really, she was dead-on there. And she was a little, how can I explain it, a little uptight in that she didn't care to hang around goofy guys (although, she was around often enough). Her sister was the opposite of uptight and I'd really like to figure out how to work her into a dream or two.
Anyway.
The dream was pretty vivid.
In a rare move for me, I won't go into details.
Posted by delmer at 7:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 29, 2007
We're gonna have fried chicken ... wait, no we're not
Let's start today with a little bit of TMI.
I rode the bike in to work today (in bike shorts and a jersey) and I forgot to pack underwear. That's a problem I'll fix at lunch, but until then I'm flying commando.
Now that we're beyond that I'd like to take a moment to invite everyone to the Kentucky Fried Chicken just up the road from me. The KFC in question has a great staff and they work together like a well oiled machine. A well oiled machine that is now free of trans fats.
This KFC also happen to attract some of the stupidest customers on the planet and if you're in the mood for a good time, and not really interested in getting any food, it makes for quite the people-watching experience.
Yesterday morning Samson asked me what my favorite food was. When I answered fried chicken Samson said the thought it would be a fine dinner treat. And so it was going to be.
At dinner time Sammo and I made the drive to The Colonel's and found ourselves in line behind four people who were obviously together. Four people who, it seemed, had never been in a KFC. Four people who had given no thought to what they might want to eat, aside from something chickeny (probably, and that's up for debate).
Four people who had coupons that may have just coincidentally been for KFC. I say "coincidentally" as nothing they did or said suggested they had actually read the coupons before dragging them out of their pockets.
I cannot tell you how painful they made the ordering process. I felt sorry for the KFC employees. I felt sorry for me. The pain was so excruciating that I felt sorry for the people of Pompeii and they've been dead since well before the time Harland Sanders put together his secret mix of herbs and spices.
Each time it looked like the ordering process was almost over — which was often signaled by an employee asking, "Is that all," and a dumbass saying "Yes," something else would come up.
I know what you're thinking. How can they not know if they've ordered drinks. All I can say is that it was taking a really long time, and I'm surprised they weren't forgetting each other's names.
After a person would order he or she would move to the part of the line where the food came out. This is where the Where are We Going to Sit in this Empty-Except-For-Us Restaurant comedy started to play out.
Sammo and I almost left a couple of times but were always tricked into staying by a carefully choreographed, "Is that all" / "Yes" combination.
Finally, the last customer took a step toward the group performing the second act and I thought, "Aha. This is it."
The customer then threw me a head fake and made her move back to the counter.
I herded Sammo out of the restaurant and we went to Kroger where we picked up baked chicken.
And what was I going to get at KFC? A bucket of chicken. The 16 or 20 piece, whatever it is … it doesn't matter. I knew it was a bucket with no sides, despite the fact I haven't been into a KFC in a while, and I knew all I'd have to do it glance up at the menu as I approached the order-here line and I'd be set.
And when did I know what I was going to order? About two seconds after Samson had said, "We should have KFC for dinner" that morning.
Posted by delmer at 5:08 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 28, 2007
The Trip Out West Part XXII: We're finally back at the Tent
If you are just coming in to the story, and you want to read all the good stuff about my stint in jail, you should really start at The Beginning.
When we last left off, it was my birthday and the woman I'd met up with in Boulder had met up with me, again, at Caesar's in Las Vegas. We'd gambled a bit and then decided to head back to the tent Tom and I had pitched at the KOA Kampground.
Stacy and I were both in our 20s, unattached, and we knew we fit together well as we'd already played connect-the-dots when we were in Boulder.
And there we were in a tent, alone, in Vegas.
And no matter what we did, we were going to be dry and comfortable.
And, exactly what you think happened, happened. Especially if you were thinking that I had a lot of trouble staying awake. Stacy actually had to wake me up at one point. Maybe two points.
I know I didn't fall asleep right away and I know this for a fact as I remember Stacy making the comment that the amount of noise she was making might alarm some of the other campers. (I wish I could say the amount of noise she was making was due to the fact that even then I was a big stud but, honestly, I think some women just make more noise than others. I really don't know — more work will need to be done in this area before I can come to any sort of hard and fast statistical conclusion; I'm currently applying for government grants to fund my research.)
I remember a fair bit more, but I'm afraid that typing about it might cause something to happen that would end up putting me to sleep before I'm able to post this.
(You know, I wish I could type that "even then I was a big stud" without laughing at myself.)
Stacy eventually had to leave, not because my sleepiness drove her off, but because she had a girlfriend travelling with her who was expecting her 'home' at a decent hour.
Posted by delmer at 12:01 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
May 27, 2007
Jogging Pays Off
For the last couple of months we've had very busy weeks and weekends with baseball, track and soccer. They all ended last week and while I was aware of that I was still taken off guard by the fact that 1 o'clock had rolled around today and we hadn't really done much.
Not only had we not done much I really couldn't figure out why. What was missing? Whatever it was, I knew it wouldn't do — the boys and I needed to introduce some exercise to our day.
So I grilled some burgers and hot dogs and we had lunch.
Then I loaded everybody up into the van (Yea, we could have walked, but they are boys, you never know who may push the other, and we have to cross intersections if we walk. Driving is safer.) and we drove off to the track where I instructed everybody that they were to walk for half an hour.
Haydn and I walked next to each other for a warm-up lap. About 1/4 of the way into the first lap I noticed something laying on the freshly cut grass of the football field; it would have been about 15 feet from the track. It was a $20.00 bill.
I picked it up.
The only other people on the track were a couple of women that were heading toward Haydn and me. They looked about the right age to be a mother and her college-aged daughter. I waited for them to get close and gave them a shout, asking if they'd lost any money.
They hadn't but thanked me for asking.
Sweet.
The boys all walked over a mile. Sam cranked out over two on his bike. I jogged a mile and a half (and it was so much harder than it was when I ran every night, back in my 20s) and then walked a bit more.
We celebrated our new-found wealth and health by going to McDonald's and having Fruit & Yogurt Parfaits.
Posted by delmer at 9:13 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 26, 2007
Jack makes a crack
When I go to the store, the mall, the movie theater, basically anywhere, I'll park in one of the first spots I find. I never cruise around looking for the best spot and I'm typically in the store before anybody I've noticed driving up and down the rows looking for something close.
Today, at Target, I parked two aisles back from the heavy congregation of cars that is always close to the door even though I could see closer spots. It was one of those spots that let me pull all the way through so I could pull out without having to back up. The boys and I had to walk a few more steps but the overall parking experience is less of a hassle.
And I figure the walk does us good.
On the way out, as we passed a lot of empty spaces, Samson asked why it was I always parked so far from the store.
"Well," I said, "The walk doesn't hurt us." And as I finished that sentence Samson tripped and hit the ground.
Jack spun around and said, "It looks like the walk does hurt us."
Samson was fine. There was no blood and no tears.
And I was glad to see that Jack was at the top of his humor game.
Posted by delmer at 8:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 25, 2007
Travellers
Two of my friends have gone on mini-vacations out of the countries they live in. One has gone from England to Holland and the other from Ohio to Missouri.
I know what you're thinking, Missouri isn't really a country, it's more of a state (and, The Show Me State at that). However, and as you know, I have a special relationship with Missouri and, for the sake of this entry, am elevating it to Country status. Yes, I know, it's very exciting; I'll bet you can't wait until I confer Continental Status on Rhode Island next week.
By the way, it is 424 miles, by auto, from Columbus, Ohio to St. Louis, Missouri. It's about 331 miles, au voiture, from London to Amsterdam and you have to pass through France and Belgium to complete the trip.
This time of year the trip from Columbus to Missouri makes for a very sweaty drive brought on by the high humidity that plagues the Midwest. It may be humid in England, France, Belgium and Holland as well, but much of Europe is clothing optional so it isn't a big deal … unless, of course, you are sitting on leather or vinyl seats in which case ass-surface sticking might be a problem.
Europe is small and very tidy. It would look very good in a snow globe.
The US is all spread out and when shopping for clothes has to buy stretch pants from the big and tall shop.
And none of this is where I was going with this entry.
I speak to both friends fairly often — one, pretty much daily, and the other pretty much weekly, and I imagine they will miss, horribly, our conversations while they are in Holland and St. Louis, so I'm providing this blog entry for them to refer to as needed.
UK-to-Holland Traveler: I hope the flight went well and that your children are having fun and not worrying you too much. I've given some more thought to our last conversation and think that, if it is at all possible, I would like a wide-angle shot of a beach. As I explained earlier, the media here always shows European beaches as being full of old, fat guys in Speedos … I also decided that asking you to send me a picture of an old, fat guy in a Speedo was unfair to you and sort of creepy. Simply send the wide-angle shot and I'll do the old-fat-guy-in-a-Speedo looking myself. For what it's worth, European bitches are often shown hanging on the arms of old, fat, guys in Speedos. Europe must be an old-fat-guys-in-Speedos paradise.
It's been about 30 C here the last couple of days and muggy as hell. I pumped $65.00 of gasoline (petrol) into the minivan the other day. It was just over $3.50 a gallon. Yes, I know, gasoline has cost a small fortune in England forever; I've also explained that I don't care about that. It wasn't that long ago that gas was a $1.20 here, and not much longer ago than that that it was under a buck.
Be sure to use sunscreen. Have a safe trip home.
Columbus-to-St. Louis Traveler: I hope the flight went well and you were able to get through security without too much trouble and only minimal disrobing. I was able to get my 10 miles in today and, thus, met what passes for a goal in my life. Sammo was sent home with pink eye and I picked him up from school about 10; we chilled at home and I was able to work from the recliner. About one we went out for ice cream cones (small vanilla for me and a small twisty cone for Samson).
I ordered the cards we talked about but had trouble figuring out which one was creme colored, so I went with blue. Guys don't really see 'creme' or 'stony creek' or 'pewter'. We see green, red, brown, white, blue … and really, as a liberal, I don't even see brown, white, black, yellow or red. Anyway, I did the best I could do, considering, you know, that I'm a guy. (Your favorite friend of mine may be able to see cremes, pewters, eggshells, etc.)
I put $65.00 worth of gas in the minivan the other day. What a bitch.
Oh! … I found those pretzels you told me about. The Kroger twisty brand with buttery flavor. They were right at the end of the aisle.
Stay out of Sedalia. Have a safe trip home.
Posted by delmer at 3:41 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
May 24, 2007
Fifty-two miles round-trip
Saturday I put 52 miles on The Mighty Schwinn. (For those of you scoring at home, if I can get in 10 miles tomorrow, I'll have done over 200 miles in seven days.)
It was my intention to take photos of all the cemeteries I passed. Just because. And I was pretty sure I passed four or five — most of them sort of small in nature.
As it happens, I pass one.
Here are some photos from the ride.
So … who do I look like when I have a stick up my ass …?
Posted by delmer at 11:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 23, 2007
Master of the Semi-Obscure Reference
Haydn, the 13-year old, and I were having a disagreement over something. Let's say I was trying to get him to go to bed on time and he wanted to stay up a bit later.
"I promise I'll get right out of bed tomorrow without complaining," he said.
I countered with, "I wish I could believe you, but your track record isn't that good." Which meant, of course, that he'd made similar promises in the past and that he'd failed to keep them. That is, he got out of bed in a grumpy fashion.
"I was off by less than a foot," he replied quickly, leaving me to wonder what the hell he meant.
I changed the topic to picking crap up off the floor for a bit before tucking people in.
A minute later, as Haydn pulled the blankets up under his chin he said, "You didn't get it? Did you?"
"Get what?" I wondered aloud.
"When I said I was off by less than a foot."
"No. What did it mean?"
"In track … I needed to put the shot 26 feet and I made 25 feet 5 inches."
The boy gets 10s all the way across:
Posted by delmer at 11:26 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 22, 2007
If only all of my SPAM were this funny
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Man ... you had me at "flesh loss."
Posted by delmer at 10:09 PM | Comments (0)
May 21, 2007
The Trip Out West Part XXI: I'm still turning 24
If you are just coming in to the story, and you want to read all the good stuff about my stint in jail, you should really start at The Beginning.
When we last left our story Tom and I were in Vegas. We'd met a girl at a local mall and she was going to meet us at Caesar's that night with a friend. Stacy, the gal I'd met in Boulder was supposed to try to catch up with me as well.
I honestly didn't think Stacy was going to make it and didn't have a lot of guilt working on me. Then, again, I really didn't think the girl from the Mall would make it.
Tom and I probably hit Caesar's around 7 p.m. Since it was my birthday the casino gave me $10.00 in birthday chips and I boldly mixed those in with ten or twenty dollars of additional chips.
Birthday chips are a different color than the regular chips so they are easy to identify. I was playing Blackjack, probably, and betting birthday chips or regular chips without giving it any real thought. The dealer, a woman, was kind enough to point out that I should bet birthday chips first; since I wouldn't be able to turn them in for cash, I should try to lose them first. (Or use them as the building blocks of the vast fortune I was on the brink of accumulating. You know, whatever came first.)
As I've pointed out countless times before this was all a long time ago and I don't remember every detail. I remember that Tom and I went to Caesar's. I remember the friendly gambling tip. I remember knowing the girl from the Mall and her friend were going to page us. And I remember Stacy was going to page me.
And I remember, I think, being in an upstairs area when the page came in. (It seems we were away from the gaming area. Maybe we were just in an isolated aread downstairs. Isn't the upstairs mostly rooms?)
Tom and I had split up and it was while we were separated that I was paged over the intercom. I picked up a courtesy phone and found Stacy at the other end; she'd made it to Vegas on schedule and was in the casino. I met up with her.
As Stacy and I turned I saw Tom down the floor a bit. The girl from the Mall and her friend had just come in and were talking with him. Tom turned, saw me and gave me "the girls are here look." He then took a couple of steps toward me, noticed Stacy and gave a nod toward the courtesy phones. A moment later I heard a page come in for me; it was Tom.
"Your's is beautiful," he said, which was the sense I'd gotten from the glimpse I'd had of her from across the casino floor. She was a brunette with hair down past her shoulders.
Tom and I talked about our plans for the evening and I told him Stacy and I would head off to another casino — to keep from running into the other girls — and I'd meet him at the tent later.
I'm not sure how long Stacy and I gambled, if at all. She had an older girlfriend — one who would disapprove of her darting off to meed a guy — waiting for her back at the hotel and she couldn't stay out all night. As it happens, the Vegas stop wasn't part of her original traveling plan; she'd added it at the last minute so she could stop and visit me.
Anyway, at the end of the gambling evening, I was down about $20 in addition to the ten free dollars I'd been given. I know this seems like an odd thing to bring up, especially as the story seemed to be on its way back to the tent with a cute blonde, BUT, as you may recall prior to the first gambling outing I'd "won" more than a dollar from the KOA Kampground pay phone and had taken more than $50 additional dollars from the casinos … the morning of this gambling outing I'd lost money in the pay phone and then dropped an additional twenty at the casinos. Proof positive that if you can beat the phone company you can beat anybody. (You throw in a Burgess Meredith, Telly Savalas, or William Shatner and you've got a damn fine Twilight Zone on your hands.)
So, Stacy and I decided we'd go back to the tent.
Posted by delmer at 3:13 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
May 20, 2007
Activation
So, I stumbled across this sentence in something I was reading the other day:
In men, light rubbing should be performed up the legs, through the hips, and then up to the area of the pelvis. If possible, use essential oils on the testicles. This has an activating effect ...
All of that is way more than is necessary. Just reading that blurb has an activating effect.
Activating?
I'm fairly certain that if a man finds himself in a situation in which essential oils … heck, anything just shy of battery acid … may be rubbed on his testicles that activation is already in full swing.
Maybe that should read, full schwing. (Read that again and give schwing a Wayne's World punch.)
Posted by delmer at 10:24 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 19, 2007
Noisemaking
This morning I got up bright and early, for a Saturday anyway, and did a bit of cleaning.
Before I go any further, I should point out that I was roused out of bed this morning by a female. I should further point out that she roused me via telephone. And the whole point to telling you about this rousing is so I could make the point that she'd gotten up at 6:30 a.m.; because she's just a little bit insane. She was kind enough to put off rousing me until about 8:30 and I was kind enough to pretend that I was already awake and stripping beds.
I was already awake, but I was at the part of being awake where I was still in bed, scratching, and planning my day. And I thought my day would look like this:
Following the call I decided I'd have to shower before going to Mel's and figured I may as well clean the bathrooms prior to breakfast. So, armed with a bottle of spray cleanser and some rags and dressed only in my underwear, I got busy.
Then I showered and shot off to Mel's.
Which brings us to the whole point of this post.
I sat behind a couple with an infant and his grandparents. The infant was in a high chair and not yet speaking. But he was certainly a noisemaker.
I was sitting reading and listening to the boy coo and scream and make those excited noises infants make that mean something to them but are indecipherable to adults, and I started missing it a little bit; even when he briefly cried. And then I got worried that the parents and grandparents would worry that the child was being disruptive while I was reading. I didn't say anything because I didn't want them to think any polite conversation I made would be my way of saying, "reign that child in."
I just sat there and read and enjoyed the noise.
And when I got home I enjoyed the fact that I have the day to myself and that my diaper-changing days are behind me.
(You know, had someone been speaking on a cell phone behind me I never would have been able to concentrate on my book. A child raising three kinds of hell, however, was not a problem.)
Posted by delmer at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2007
Goals
Michael tagged me with The Goals Meme.
The goal of the meme (aren't I clever?) it to list five goals and then tag five other people. Nothing was said about listing the goals of the person who tagged you, but I thought Michael had a good set of goals and I thought I'd share them with you.
Michael's Goals
My Goals
I get the feeling that the world is tired of Americans bossing them around. With that in mind, I will refrain from tagging anybody. (I feel like more of a follower today than a leader. It may have something to do with the fact that with every breath I take I do something that hoses WADLL.)
Posted by delmer at 8:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I'm beat, people
I am very very tired. It has little to do with all the laundry I did this evening. Very little to do with being swamped at work this week. Just a bit to do with getting a call from work this morning at 6:30 to fix something. Less to do with a similar call yesterday (that was supposed to have been left as a message but I'd forwarded my work phone to my cell, stupidly, so it rang at home, in bed). More to do with being unable, generally, to sleep well this week (and that is a true rarity).
It has a lot to do with my smoke alarm having gone off around 2 a.m.. The one outside the upstairs bedroom talks when it goes off — it says fire or carbon monoxide in that voice that the computer on the Enterprise used to use when the self-destruct was counting down. And when it goes off it has an odd effect on a person. You go from What the hell is that to I know there's not a fire to Dammit, I forgot to replace that batteries when the time changed in fairly short order.
Still, you have to check the house and, in my case, the cellar. And I mean cellar like in the Wizard of Oz. I had to go outside (in a light rain), yank up the door, trudge down the stairs, and take a look in the cellar to make sure the furnace hadn't burst into flames. If you are wondering, I only stepped through one spider web.
When I got back to bed I had trouble falling to sleep. And then, of course, I got an early call.
I just noticed that WADLL is down. I won't go into all the details but this means it has been down most of the day but only to the outside world. I was able to get to it today when I was running tests for something work-related, but the fact it wasn't working fully sort of screws my test results.
Anyway, today we'll share some photos. Some you've seen before, some are new.
Of course, that is the Ringlestone Pub. I think it's pretty close to the Henge I'm in line to inherit in England.
Oh, and I replaced the batteries in the smoke alarm today (For those concerned the alarms are connected and wired to house current. The batteries are for backup.) I also got some extra house keys; I managed to lock myself out of the house twice last week.
Posted by delmer at 12:30 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
May 17, 2007
I resemble that remark
Lady Penelope recently had this to say in response to a post I made about women comparing men they are with to men they were with in the past. Much younger men they were with before:
Don't worry your male readers Delmer, we're not all comparing them to previous encounters - we're all wishing they were George Clooney - we're terribly realistic that way!
Inasmuch as Lady Penelope is British I'll assume that she speaks for all European women.
Not long after Lady Pen left her comment I re-found My Heritage and reran some pictures of me through it.
| http://www.myheritage.com |
Imagine my surprise to find I was a match to George Clooney. Sure, it was a mere 55% match but, based on that, I can safely assume that I'd please 55% of the women in Europe. Which is really a step up for me, I used to have a terrible time trying to please one woman 55% of the time. (Which sounds like a crack about my ex-wife, but I've rewritten that several times and there's no way to not make it sound like that. And that isn't what I mean at all.)
Think about it. I have better than an even chance of scoring with one of the ABBA chicks.
(I think I have Clint Eastwood eyes in that photo. Probably because I'm looking into the sun. Punk.)
Big Fat Delmer looked like that guy from Alias, Eric Clapton and some people I don't know.
| http://www.myheritage.com |
The first time I ran the face recognition against this photo, Danny Kaye came up as one of the celebrities I looked like. When I found out My Heritage would make a collage for me I ran the photo again, though a larger version of the photo, and came up with more hits though none of them were Danny Kaye.
Ninja Del turned up an Asian Gal as the person I look most like, which I thought was pretty interesting.
I was very excited about looking like Prince Harry of Wales. Wales … Wells. I don't think it's a coincidence and think that I might be in line to inherit a small portion of the United Kingdom. I want that part that has the rock formation. I've always wanted to own a Henge.
Looking the smallest bit like Ringo was even cooler.
When all is said and done, I don't think I look like any of these folks.
Maybe a wee bit like Isabelle Adjani.
Posted by delmer at 12:31 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 16, 2007
Satan Installs an Express Lane
If a Grand Dragon in the Ku Klux Klan passed on would it be getting the kind of press Jerr-o is?
That's not a good example. Sure, Jerry, and many of your Grand Dragons, are self-rightous hate mongers — in Jerry's case were (which assumes hate dies with the hater … unfortunately, it doesn't always), but Jerry was somewhat of a celebrity.
There are pleny of places you can go to find Jer's opinions on minorities, segregation, feminists, gays, etc., so you won't find them here.
Pat Robertson, beween sets of leg presses, had this to say about Jerry's passing: ""Jerry's courage and strength of convictions will be sadly missed in this time of increasing moral relativism."
And that sort of surprised me, given what Robertson has said about Katrina, I expected him to say about Falwell, "Well, it looks like Jerry pissed the Lord off and Jesus felt it was time to smite him."
Maybe God doesn't have the time to kill people in onsies and twosies.
For the record, I don't believe Falwell has gone to Hell.
Simply because I don't believe Hell exists.
Update: Joe.My.God has a funnier bit on this. (For the record I swiped my photo from another source.)
Posted by delmer at 7:04 AM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2007
More Dreams
Two dreams from early this morning:
Bob Barker was flying a big kite. It was square and he had a controller for it in each hand. It was one of those stunt-kite things you sometimes see guys on the beach with. As I watched him, and I was with someone or some people, probably a child or two, he waved his hands around in a big flourish and landed the kite.
On the ground I could see that the kite was made of a rather large frame of big tubes with a sheet of cardboard over them. Bob explained that the frame came in two styles — something (and I may have knows it was PVC pipe) and the type he had: chrome.
When I say the frame was large, I meant the tubing was about as big as a dune buggy roll bar.
Analysis
Bob Barker: There is going to be a special on soon celebrating Bob's 50 years in television and I saw a commercial for it last night.
The Kite: Samson has soccer at the fairgrounds on Sunday. Each time we've been there for the last month or so some guys have been flying radio-controlled gliders. As a matter of fact, in the dream there were gliders because I remembered them flying them around and one of the pilots saying that he was almost out of forward momentum and I thought that was an odd thing to say as the gliders relied on air currents and not the force with which they were launched.
Chrome: Samson and I were watching some car show the other day and one of the guys was showing valve covers for Mustangs. There were two types, something-something-maybe-titanium and chrome. The chrome valve cover was $350.00
Shortly after that dream I got a call from work and it woke me up. It was about 6:30 a.m. and didn't require immediate attention and I drifted back off to sleep to dream yet again.
In this dream one of the Jackson girls, and I think it was Janet, was talking and Michael was mentioned. At that point she stuck her face in a bag and when she brought it out she'd put on sideburns and had a paper mache donkey body — from the part just behind the front legs to the tail — stuck to her face. She was holding the donkey onto her face and moving her head back and forth while making machine gun sounds. Somehow, and she may have been saying this or it could have been someone else, someone was saying "Say hello to my little friend."
Analysis
Jacksons: Who knows? It was a freaky dream. They've got some family freakiness going on.
"Say hello to my little friend": I'd seen a commercial for The Godfather a day or two ago. Yes, the line is from Scarface, but when I woke up my first thought was "Why was I dreaming about The Godfather."
Michael Jackson: In my dream he'd had the Al Pacino part in Scarface.
The Donkey: When the dark-haired girl and I were riding last week she pointed out a donkey standing next to a barn. Or, in On The Road, the boys are currently in Mexico and burros seem to be a common Mexican thematic element. Also, a burro was mentioned in George Lopez a week or two ago. Yes, I think Pacino was playing a Cuban (maybe not), but, one of the characters in George Lopez is Cuban.
It's hard to tell. Maybe I was scared by a donkey when I was little.
Why have weird dreams at all? Just last night, before I went to bed, I'd thought that it had been a while since I'd had any odd dreams. That seems to have brought them on.
For the record, it's been a while since Courtney Thorne-Smith has appeared in a dream of mine.
Posted by delmer at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)
I'll be moving to Youngstown
It's like living a Dire Straits song …
Posted by delmer at 12:03 AM | Comments (4)
May 14, 2007
The Trip Out West Part XX: I Turn 24
If you are just coming in to the story, and you want to read all the good stuff about my stint in jail, you should really start at The Beginning.
Tom and I awoke early the morning of August 23, 1984. We had to. As soon as the sun hit the tent it was too hot and too bright to do any sleeping.
We were camping in a two-man tent that we'd pitched near some other tents and there was a German couple over and behind us a bit. I, for the life of me, don't remember how we knew they were German. I'm not even sure they were a couple, but I have a vague memory of thinking Tom said they'd had sex in their tent the night before. (Which, I know doesn't prove Germanness or coupleness, necessarily).
As I pointed out last time, Tom spoke some German and may have heard, "Yes … yes … yes! Give me the Hitlering I deserve," when I'd heard, and ignored, "Ja … ja … ja! Blah blah blah Hitlering blah."
Anyway, I think Tom had gotten up a minute or two before I had. I remember him asking me if I'd gotten a look at the German girl that morning. I hadn't, and Tom told me about something she'd done that was sort of interesting. She may have changed her shirt outside of the tent. I know that whatever it was she did would have been uncommon for an American woman to do and I'm pretty sure it involved breasts. [And breasts from a whole other country, which makes them even more special when you're in your early 20's and from Ohio. (Who knew what kind of noise German breasts made then they bounced together? I didn't then and I may never know now. If a pair of German breasts walked in today, bouncing off one another, who would translate for me? Tom lives in Maine now. Hmmm … they are German-engineered … maybe they wouldn't make any noise at all.)]
We showered and I tried to make a call home; not only did I lose my money in the phone, but my call didn't go through. We probably had breakfast in a casino again; if we did we didn't hang around too long.
We went to the mall instead.
And we may have gone to meet girls. Which would not have been my idea, but, that's what happened anyway. Well, we met a girl, and she was going to meet us at Caesar's that night with a friend.
This had the potential for some sitcom type problems as I was already supposed to meet a girl at Caesar's that night. The gal from Colorado, and from this point forward we'll call her Stacy — it isn't like you know her or are going to meet her (although if you run across a Stacy whose breasts have a subtle Irish thing working for them when they rub together, you might ask her if she's ever been to Boulder and Vegas). Stacy and I had agreed to try to meet up at Caesar's on my birthday (the top of the Empire State building was too cliché and a couple thousand miles too far to the east). She was moving to San Diego (what a good idea … I've been there and it is awesome) to do graphic design and her trip was going to take her through Vegas the same time Tom and I were there. The fact it was my birthday was coincidence.
After the mall Tom and I went to one of the smaller casinos. The places we'd been at the day before had a $2.00 minimum at the craps tables and we thought we'd try something cheaper to minimize our potential losses. We found a place with a fifty-cent table.
There were three of us playing at the fifty-cent table: Tom, me, and some other guy. During one of his throws one of Tom's dice took a bad hop and bounced off the table and onto the floor.
"Ehhh," began the the other guy, and I can't possibly do justice to the nasalness, condescendingness, or bitchiness of the tone, "Try to keep the dice on table … blah blah blah," and he bitched some more about what an amateur Tom was.
Tom and I laughed about it later and joked that we'd been at the fifty-cent table with Diamond Jim Brady.
The 50-cent table!
For the sake of the story we'll say we hit Caesar's at about 7 p.m. and that the girls were supposed to meet us at 8 or 9.
For the sake of dragging this out for as long as possible we'll stop here.
Posted by delmer at 12:39 AM | Comments (1)
May 13, 2007
Thoughts This Weekend
The boys and I went to see Spider-Man yesterday. The theater was very, mostly empty. Last week when I went to see Hot Fuzz the ticket line was longer than I'd seen it in quite a while all due to Spider-Man. I don't know if it was coincidence or if word has spread that there is a lot of story this time interspersed with some action. There were parts of the story I liked a lot and that were touching in a nice way. There was far too much of some other parts. I think that when a woman in the theater is reduced to sobbing, something has gone wrong in a Spider-Man flick.
I pulled the pictures from last week's bike ride off the camera. I don't often post photos of current friends who are women. Really, I guess, very few pictures of women that I actually know. There's the red-haired girl from 20 years ago, and the girls from the group of Thugs … again from 20 years ago. You know, now that I think about it, I could post pictures of almost every single woman I currently know outside of work and it wouldn't make this blog entry any longer. Then again, maybe I'm around a lot of single women all the time outside of work; I really don't know how to tell.
To get back on topic, I don't normally post current photos as I want to provide some anonymity for people I know (based on some of the things I post, would you want your picture here?). However, I thought I'd post this photo as I think the blue jersey really brings out my eyes. And if you look closely, you can see the varicose vein is gone.
Haydn and I are baking a cake for school tonight. It's as if I knew you were coming. Baking a cake is simple; there are instructions on the box.
I bought a special pan to bake the cake in so I wouldn't have to worry about getting it back. I know, and this is something I remember from chemistry class in 1978, that baking a cake involves a chemical and physical change (If I've said that right. Baking a cake involves a chemical process and you can see the physical change as it goes from goo to cake. What I'm not sure about is whether or not Physical and Chemical were the two things we were comparing in class that day. I do remember that, even back then, the from goo to cake process was referred to the Pamela Anderson — I think it was because that, even then, the world had a sense that she'd one day be a fan of big spatulas.)
What I'd forgotten about cakes is that they rise. When we dumped the batter into the pan and it filled it to about halfway, we beat another cake mix up and dumped it in too. Twenty-eight to 33 minutes later I stuck a fork in the middle of the cake. I figured icing would hide the fork hole and hadn't tried to find a toothpick. As it happens the middle of the cake was still in such a fluid state that it flowed to fill in the fork hole. The same thing happened fifteen minutes later after that.
Thirty minutes later, and having found a toothpick, we had cake. And what a cake we had! It was waaaaaay up and out of the pan. I'm sure it will be awesome when it's cut open.
Finally:
Why is Stranglehold playing during the new Altima commercial? Wouldn't you expect to hear Ted during a Ford or Chevy spot?
And …
Why are people dancing during the new Dirt Devil commercial? Geez … those folks need to get a life. Of course, maybe, they all have blogs with picture after picture of members of the opposite sex.
Posted by delmer at 9:13 PM | Comments (2)
May 12, 2007
Finishing On the Road
Observations from On the Road (I'm, finally, almost done):
In one of their adventures Sal, Dean and Marylou are stopped by the local police. Sal (Jack) comments that the officers were trying to get a Mann Act charge against Dean (who was, in fact, married to Marylou.)
I remember reading about the Mann Act in high school civics class (1978) and I think it has something to do with taking a minor across state lines and having sex with the minor. Jack's reference would seem to bear that out. In the almost-30 years that have passed since high school I've only heard the Mann Act come up a handful of times in various settings; probably fewer than five times.
It isn't important, it's just one of those things I remember that has very little use.
Another time, Sal sees a deer somewhere and gets sad for the old days, before his time, when deer would have been all over the place. He's someplace out west and the time is the mid-40's. When I read this it hit me funny as I, for all intents and purposes, live in a city and see deer often enough. I see more deer now than I did when I lived in the country. Just last summer one ran in front of me as I was taking a walk down the road I work on and not long after that one strolled across the front lawn in front of our building. I saw a lot of deer in New Jersey as well (in the city).
One of the characters the guys meet complains that in the good old days, the 1910's things were so much better because … and then he lists a bunch of things I hear people (and myself) say about the 70's and 80's. It seems we're never happy living in the present.
One of the characters has the same last name as a woman who worked at the Kroger in London, Ohio. She went out of her way to be a rude bitch to me many years ago and I didn't shop in a Kroger for the next five years. Finally, one night, I needed diapers and while both Kroger and Big Bear closed at midnight, I found the Big Bear closed (at five before by my watch … which, as an IT guy, was synced to the atomic clock) and the Kroger opened (at several minutes past due to the stop at Big Bear). Since Kroger saved my butt that time (and the tender butt of one of the kids) I started shopping there again.
I started thinking about this blog entry yesterday. It seems there were two more things I wanted to say and both of them begin with "m."
This is not one of the two. There seems to be a lot of hooking up with women in the book, which I'll bet made it kind of racy at the time. I'm sort of blind, probably, to the amount of sex that goes on around me today (it seems everybody, except for the blog-writing and blog-reading communities, are having sex all the time) and to think that people were romping around freely in the 40's caught me off guard. (For the record, I don't care how much sex people have. I don't think the couple has to be married or even in love. I don't think the couple has to be of different genders, though I think same species is important. There are just a few rules — respect your vows (not because God will strike you dead — I can't imagine he cares — but because it is only polite) or any other promises you've made to anyone. And any accessories that are brought to bed with you need to be UL Listed (CE in Europe. The point of this little diatribe is to point out that I'm not a prude, just sort of naive.)
Finally, and this is not one of the two either:
Brian Jones, one of the original Rolling Stones, had to drop out of school after impregnating "several" young women in his hometown. This info comes courtesy of Pop-up Video on VH1 Classics. I saw this same video, Start Me Up, a week or so ago on Pop-up Video. And this is one of the things I attributed to the character Dean in On The Road. One might think I maligned him unfairly; one might consider that, at this point in the book, he has four children by at least a couple of different women and he isn't around for any of them. As a matter of fact he's currently on his way to Mexico for a quickie divorce.
Posted by delmer at 11:07 PM | Comments (2)
May 11, 2007
The Trip Out West Part XIX: Gimme a V for Vegas
If you are just coming in to the story, and you want to read all the good stuff about my stint in jail, you should really start at The Beginning.
Tom and I rolled into Vegas in the early morning and made our way to the KOA Kampground.
I know it's been more than 20 years since I've been at that KOA, but I think I would have remembered a roller coaster had it been there then. Other things seem to have changed as well; it doesn't look like they have tent camping there anymore.
Tom and I pitched out tent and hit the showers which was a very short walk from our tent. I remember the air being so dry that my hair had dried completely before we got too far from the shower; had it been Ohio we'd have actually gotten wetter on the way back to the tent.
We passed a couple of German guys about our age and Tom felt compelled to take some time talking German with them. Looking back over the three or four years following college in which Tom and I were around each other a lot I'm amazed at how often we ran into Germans. I hurried Tom along by throwing some "komen ze here" 's, "schnell" 's and a "now bitch!" at him.
And you know that's not true. In the late 80's the only men calling other men bitches were the Rolling Stones.
Tom thought we should go to a casino for the breakfast buffet. Meals in Vegas, the buffets anyway, were pretty reasonably priced.
I wanted to call home, to let the parents know I was okay, and made a stop at the pay phone. I thought it was pretty cool that calls from a Vegas pay phone were still a dime while they seemed to be about a quarter everywhere else. I put my dime in the slot … the phone paid out over $1.00. Not bad, I wasn't even aware I'd placed a bet.
I got the operator on the phone and told her what happened. She told me I could put the money back into the phone but when I tried I found that it couldn't be done and that the coin slot jammed after just one or two dimes. The operator helped me place my call and then Tom and I then took off for the strip in the Firebird.
During our time in Vegas I know we were in the Circus Circus (I remember the trapeze guys) and we were in the place they played Jai Lai, and Caesars. Maybe a couple of more, I really don't remember. I do remember passing the McDonald's on the strip … it was spectacular! Lights, lights and more lights.
I'm not sure which buffet we went to but I know I had chocolate ice cream as part of my meal. I never eat chocolate ice cream now, I don't know why I had it then. Maybe the fact that I dripped some on my shirt that day turned me against it.
Before heading back to the tent Tom wanted to take some time to play craps. "That way," he said, "when we come back tonight you'll know what to do."
I remember feeling a little foolish, what with having a chocolate ice cream stain on the collar of my white shirt (and I'll bet it was my Lottie Moon's shirt) but figured a little bit of gambling couldn't hurt. Early in the day seemed like a good time to gamble as there were no crowds.
We took a position at a craps table and Tom loaned me five bucks (I'd left everything except breakfast money back in the tent). I placed a bet and immediately turned the five into eight. I turned and gave it all to Tom and he said, "Just give me the five, you won the three."
Tom and I had a sense that the croupier didn't like us. I don't know if it was because he thought we were newbies, low rollers, or what. It may have been the ice cream stain. He just didn't seem warm toward us.
This really wasn't a problem as the cocktail waitress seemed to take to us well enough. As she'd get near us she'd change from saying "cocktails … cocktails …" to "drinks … drinks …" as we'd suggested to her that that made more sense to us. Drinks, as you may or may not know, are (or at least, were) free in Vegas. Tom and I were drinking Heineken and were sure to tip our friend each time she brought us something.
I don't know what time we started playing craps — it had to be before noon — but at 9 o'clock I was too intoxicated to gamble and told Tom I was going to go out to the car to get some sleep. He'd moved on to blackjack by this time, was down almost $100.00, and asked me to lend him $20.00.
He came out to the car at 3 a.m. He'd recovered from his loss and was a couple dollars to the good.
I'd gambled at least nine hours and Tom at least fifteen; and this was just from a breakfast run.
At the end of my nine hours I was up a hair over $50.00; I'd started with zero. Do you realize what you have to multiply zero by to arrive at 50? Imagine what I'd have come out with if I'd have started with just a dollar.
And the $50 was after tipping our waitress a buck or so for each of the free drinks. (And doesn't include my winnings from the Phone Company.)
Posted by delmer at 10:59 PM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2007
The Trip Out West Part XVIII: We Get the Hell out of Colorado
If you are just coming in to the story, and you want to read all the good stuff about my stint in jail, you should really start at The Beginning.
A Panama moon was shining the night Tom and I left Gunnison.
And I just said that to make people from lands far far away wonder just what "Panama moon" means to we Yanks. So many of the terms we've coined over here mean, "we're invading" in one way or another.
Anyway, some closing thoughts on Colorado
It rained every day. Or it seemed like it did. I know it rained every day while we were in Gunnison. The rain never lasted too long, and I mean it was something like a couple of minutes at a time. AND if it wasn't raining on you all you had to do was look around and you'd see that it was raining someplace else.
In Ohio, when it rains, it isn't uncommon for the sky to be gray for as far as the eye can see and you just know it's going to rain all day. Right up until it stops and the sky clears up in what seems like just a minute or two. (When I was little it seemed like it rained every Sunday. All day. And this was back before Cartoon Network.)
This next thing almost had to happen in Colorado. We were in a hilly/mountainy area and traffic was moderately heavy. There was a motorcycle coming up behind us and passing cars as the opportunity presented and he eventually ended up in front of us. As we were approaching the crest of a hill he went to swing around a truck in front of us and about half way around a motor home popped over the hill coming right at him. Honest to God, I was surprised that the guy didn't get hit and thrown back to splatter all over our windshield. There just wasn't enough room for him to get around the truck and not get hit … but he did. I'll bet he splattered his leathers a bit. (You know, that may have happened in California as we drove from LA to San Francisco. All I remember for sure, except for the motorcycle, truck and motor home, is that it was daylight and we were coming up over a hill.)
It's about 631 miles from Gunnison to Las Vegas and Google puts it at a 9.5 hour drive.
Tom and knew there was a rattlesnake speedway in the Utah desert and we thought it would be best to drive through it at night to keep the heat off us. We left Gunnison in the early evening, probably.
I wish my familiarity with Utah was a little stronger. I'd like to say that the stuff we saw blowing across the highway was salt — I'm pretty sure that's what Tom and I thought it was, for a while anyway. We may have finally decided it was sand. What can I say? It was dark, traffic was light, and all we had to see buy was our headlights. There could have been cacti and Mormons all over the side of the road; I didn't see anything.
Tom kept seeing jack rabbits. I thought he might be seeing things.
I eventually took a nap. How do I know for sure that I took a nap? I remember distinctly Tom waking me up when we got a flat. When the car lost the front tire it threw the alignment off considerably which was caused uneven tire wear and an eventual flat.
Naturally we didn't get a flat while we were ripping through the desert. And it certainly wasn't in Waynesboro County (there doesn't seem to be one — what was Bruce thinking?)
We got our flat in the mountains, just around a sharp bend that created a blind spot for traffic coming up behind us. Fortunately, there was very little and we got the tire changed without incident.
When did we roll into Vegas? It must have been early morning as I don't remember pitching the tent at night and I sort of remember pulling into the KOA in daylight.
I know it was August 22, 1984.
We'll continue later.
Posted by delmer at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)
May 9, 2007
I'll be flashing you
About a year ago the Air Bag light on my dashboard came on. A day or two after that I noticed my Cruise Control wasn't working. A day or two later I noticed my horn didn't work.
Over the course of the year I've made some half-assed attempts to fix the problem. I banged on the dash a little bit. I banged on the horn some. I'd piddle with the Cruise Control buttons … just in case.
I asked for opinions from some of the motorheads at work. (Motorheads aren't always in the know when it comes to minivans and one of the ones I have access to told me that one of his great pleasures in life is that none of his relatives own Dodges so he never has to work on one.)
I asked for opinions at the auto parts store once but came up empty.
Something told me that there was probably a twisted and broken wire under the horn somewhere and that that was the problem. A long time ago I had an '84 Olds Cutlass with the cruise control and wiper functions on the turn signal arm; twisting the arm to actuate the wipers eventually broke the wire that made the cruise work.
The steering wheel spins, you know, so I thought maybe something in that assembly had gotten twisted. And even as I thought that I was a little put off that they (the auto companies) hadn't figured out a way to make something like this work without having things break.
At times, over the course of the year, I thought about Googling on the problem to see what turned up. Naturally, I was never at a computer when that thought hit me. (I was normally in the Van.)
Other times I'd think about taking a screwdriver to the van and looking for the twisted and broken wire.
A couple of days ago that thought hit me while I actually had a screwdriver in my hand and I got busy.
I won't bore you with all the details but I was able to successfully remove and reinstall the cowling behind the steering wheel and then the horn-button/air bag assembly without setting the air bag off in my face. When everything was back together I considered that a smarter man might have disconnected the battery before getting near the air bag.
Anyway. The whole thing took about 15 minutes. There were no broken wires hanging loose. This, of course, didn't keep me from unplugging and replugging any of the connectors I could get to. (They were there. They were begging to be touched.)
The next day I drove the kids to school. On the way I noticed my turn signals didn't work.
That was kind of a bummer.
That was also the day I Googled "Caravan +'Air bag' +cruise." The Google blurb for one of the top hits read something like, "My horn doesn't work, my air bag light is on, and my cruise control isn't working ..."
It's a known problem. It's covered by a recall at no cost to the vehicle owner (I have an appointment to get my van serviced tomorrow.)
The problem? An item called the Clock Spring. I think this is the magic piece that lets the steering wheel turn without tearing loose the wires that allow cruise and horn to work.
If only I hadn't busted my turn signals. What could have happened? If I were to apply the same logic the computer users used at a place I used to work (not the place I work now) I would have been truly puzzled. Once in a while someone at that place would spill a Mountain Dew (I hope) into their keyboard and call me for assistance with absolutely no idea as to why their keyboard quit working … or, at my request they'd turn off their screen saver to see if maybe their computer would quit locking up daily and then after 5 weeks of problem-free computing they'd tell me the computer froze again that day and when I'd say "Rats, I thought turning off your screen saver might have fixed the problem" they'd say, "Well I turned it on again this morning," and then I'd say "Do you think you could turn it off again," and then they'd say, "I don't see how that will help anything," and then I'd beat them to death with a keyboard all the while slinging Mountain Dew (I hope) all over their coworkers.
But I was not truly puzzled. I was able to recognize the following set of circumstances for what they were:
It was probably something I did.
But I hadn't done anything! I'd unplugged something and then plugged it back in! Of course, I hadn't disconnected the battery — maybe I blew a fuse or did to a relay whatever it is you do to a relay that causes it to quit working.
And, I had pulled a couple of relays out of the fuse panel when I was working on the van. Just because.
Anyway, I checked all the fuses under the dash and under the hood. I removed the relays I'd removed before and made sure they were reseated. I checked the numbers on the relays, to make sure they had the same part number, and swapped their slots.
Later that day I checked the fuses under the dash again.
The next day I checked all the fuses once more. And moved the relays again.
Today, after work, I turned on my emergency flashers (I knew they were still working). I figured it had to be a bad flasher relay and I assumed the emergency flashers and the turn signals used different relays. I thought maybe I'd swap one for the other.
With the emergency flashers on I laid a finger on one of the relays I'd played with. It was vibrating as the flashers flashed. So was the other relay. And, naturally, the whole fuse panel, inasmuch everything was connected. I noticed that as my finger went from the relays and up the panel, more toward the top, the vibrating seemed to get stronger. I stuck my head up under the dash and found another relay … a larger relay (and I had thought the two relays I'd been working with were kind of small, but the last time I'd goofed around with a flasher relay was like 1979) … a manly relay … a relay that was kind of hanging loose from the panel almost as if it had been bumped when I had my hands under the dash tracing a wiring harness.
I pushed it back in.
My air bag deployed.
Wouldn't that have been an awesome ending to the story? What really happened is that my turn signals started working.
I'm so excited. You can bet I'll be taking the long way to work tomorrow!
Posted by delmer at 8:48 PM | Comments (3)
May 8, 2007
The Perfect Storm
A friend of mine sent me an e-mail the other day. I can't get into any if the details because then I think of all the details and it depresses me and I'm afraid it might depress you.
And believe me, when you leave What's a Delmer Look Like depressed, I want it to be because you can't believe you've wasted another hour here (I'm assuming you read with an active eye toward the blog, absorbing the sweet nuances and subtle imagery that are so often evident here; that would take about an hour, I think) and not because I've delivered depressing news.
Anyway, her mail reminded me of one of the concerns men have with sex as they get older. Especially when they have sex with someone new for the first time.
If I could address the men for a moment: You know how we compare our most recent sexual encounters with every sexual encounter we've ever had before and we rate it a 10 on a scale of 1-to-10 regardless of how fast we fell asleep? Remember how great all the women were, mostly for just showing up?
(If your remembering requires that you step away from the computer for a moment or so I'll understand, if today, you spend only 56 or 57 minutes reading.)
Remember how you walked into your house the other day, made note of just how clean it was and how everything was in it's place. Remember how a woman walked in a minute behind you and started cleaning? And even though you couldn't see that anything needed cleaning the place actually looked a lot better when she was done. And when it was done, you'd have been hard pressed to name one thing she picked up or wiped off?
Women apply that same eye to sex.
As long as nobody falls out of the bed, out of the car, over the back of the couch, slips in the shower, drops off the trapeze, crushes the parakeet, or spills fondue on the sheets, we think things are good and that the woman we're with is the best ever. And she is.
Women aren't like that. They remember all the details of all the encounters of the two guys they claim they were with before they met you.
But they aren't comparing you to both of those guys. Or, and their girlfriends know this, either guy. They're comparing you to the third or fourth guy.
Face it, with guy one — they were both young, it ended too fast, and this was back when too fast was not good. Back before they had pay-per-view. Back when expectations were high. Promises had been made that weren't kept and this was during a time in her sexual career that she believed they would be.
Guy two was probably a lot better. Maybe he had a car with a bigger back seat. Still not the best, though.
Guys three or four … he was probably in his early 20's. Everybody's skin was tight and firm. All night meant all night. It was incredible. He was so good that had he screamed his own name she would not have cared — even if the guy was the biggest asshole in the world who had to get up early the next morning for a meeting so he really had to get home now.
That's the guy you are being compared to. For the rest of your life, any woman you are with will be comparing your performance to that of an 18 or 20 or 22-year old. Not every 18 or 20 or 22-year old. But the one who really rang her bell … ticked her tock … lubed her drive train.
And! And! And! … not every time she was with that particular guy. Just the one time when everything was perfect. If the guy made a habit of pinning her hair to the pillow with his elbows 99% of the time … if he gave her crabs during 50% of the encounters … if he called her by the wrong name fully 3/4 of the time … she'll forget all those times so long as he turned in: One. Stellar Performance.
Something she can tell the girls about. Something she can think of on cold, lonely nights. Something she can think about when … she's with you.
I know it sounds bad and a bit depressing even though it was not my attention to depress.
You can't compete with that guy. You aren't in your late teens or even early 20's anymore. (And if you are, and you are reading this blog, you really need to get out more.)
But before you click away, there's good news.
At some point in your life you have been at the top of your sexual game (Yea, yea, I know. Every goddamn time. Let's be serious for a moment.). You were the machine you actually think you are. (And there's nothing wrong with thinking you're a machine each and every time. It's how we're wired.) You were an unselfish lover. You said all the right things. You hadn't had baked beans in over a week. You were the Energizer Bunny (just up to the point it would have been uncomfortable and then you were Mount Vesuvius). Everything came together, including the two of you. It was the Perfect Storm of sexual encounters.
Maybe you were a little drunk.
So, somewhere, someplace, YOU are the guy that woman compares all other men to. She talks about you whenever she and her girlfriends are out for margaritas. She's named the dog her husband never wanted after you.
So, it's not all bad.
Now get off to the bedroom you big stud and send your woman down memory lane.
Posted by delmer at 11:10 PM | Comments (4)
May 7, 2007
The Wind in My Face
Yesterday the Mighty Schwinn and I hit the road for a 22-mile cruise over the flatlands of central Ohio. And this, I know, is nothing really new.
What is new, however, is that we were accompanied by a woman friend — the dark-haired girl. And while she is technically a 'woman,' she's at that age where she's secure enough in her own womanness that being called a 'girl' really doesn't put her off. I should probably point out that she looks much younger than her chronological age.
And she reads the blog.
The dark-haired girl met me at my house as I live pretty close to the bike path. As I helped her unload her bicycle I couldn't help but admire her equipment. (And I'm not going to explain every off-color joke to you this time folks, you're going to have to do some of the work yourselves.)
"Would you like me to lube your drive train before the ride?" I asked as we got things ready.
"Do you think we have time?" she replied.
"Sure. It'll only take a minute."
"I like to think it will take longer than that."
"Okay, " I said, hesitantly, I'll take extra care. Let me get some lubricant." And I reached for my bike bag.
"I don't think that'll be necessary," she said as she stepped toward my back door. And then she paused. "Wait. Are you talking about my bike?"
We took off for the bike path and stayed on it for about two miles before heading out into the country.
I let the dark-haired girl lead the way for strategic-viewing purposes; I have a mirror and was better able to keep an eye open for approaching cars. I'm also about twice as big as she is and I'm pretty sure that not only would I be easier to see but the view I present as an auto approaches from behind is not as distracting as the view she presents.
The wind was full in our faces on the way back.
Before we go any further though, let's run over the checklist of things I wanted to include that I put together during my 15-mile bonus ride last night after dinner.
Everything I'd thought about putting in is in and I edited out some stuff even worse than that above. Unfortunately, if I tell you what it was then it will end up in the entry and not edited out at all. And then, of course, the terrorists win.
As far as things that pass for humor is concerned at WADLL, I scored 100%.
Now, let's score it using an Interpersonal-Relationship Scale applied to TDHG:
Two minuses and three pluses. When you adjust for the fact that I'm a male and that, therefore, about half the things I think a woman will find flattering are actually insulting to her we end up with 3.5 minuses and 1.5 pluses. Or a 30%.
Is it any wonder I do so much pedaling solo?
And when I say pedaling, I'm talking about being on a bike.
Posted by delmer at 4:37 PM | Comments (5)
May 6, 2007
The Trip Out West: Part XVII: The Raft
If you are just coming in to the story, and you want to read all the good stuff about my stint in jail, you should really start at The Beginning.
In the last installment, Tom and I had made it to Gunnison, Colorado.
I may have told that story a bit too soon. The problem I'm having is that I recall that Marty went rafting with us and I was pretty sure we'd first met him in Gunnison. I also remember that Joey (a.k.a., Fatness) dropped us off when we went rafting and I'm positive he didn't go to Gunnison. So, we must have met up with Marty in Boulder.
Anyway, we decided we'd go rafting.
Kent had a 6- or 8-man raft that had Aqua Trojan printed across the front in nice, bold magic marker. I think Kent had gotten the raft as a parting gift when he'd done some work at a camp.
Fatness was going to drive us to a drop off point and we — Kent, Marty, Tom, and I — were going to raft down the river in the Aqua Trojan ending up at a predetermined point where Fatness would be waiting.
We loaded a cooler with beer and cold cuts, rounded up Kent's dog and headed out.
This was back in 1984. Joey had a big old beast of a car, a Chevy, Pontiac, Ford or other early-70's American job. We ran rope through the windows of the car and then up and over the roof to hold the raft in place there. As an extra precaution the four of us rode with arms out the windows and hands on the raft to help hold it down. I don't know what was doing the most work in holding the raft in place — our hands or the rope — but I remember feeling we were always on the verge of losing the raft and was surprised it made the whole journey without getting blown off.
But we made it.
We loaded the cooler and Kent's dog, Sputex, into the raft, climbed aboard, and set off.
"Sputex," you might be thinking is an odd name for a dog. That was not the dog's real name and I've no idea what it was. I know Kent referred to the animal as "Sputex, the disposable doggy." And that made some kind so sense at the time. "Sputex" was a play on words of some sort. Was Tampax ever described as "The disposable tampon?" That's what comes to mind, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Aren't all tampons disposable?
Kent told us Sputex was part wolf. I'm pretty sure she was a husky or malamute.
Marty had brought a fishing pole with him which I thought was an odd choice. We were in a rubber raft. Fishing requires hooks. We all knew, well, everybody except Marty, that he wasn't going to catch anything. And yet, there he was, casting behind the raft as we were carried downstream. Naturally … he caught a fish.
Fairly early in the trip we put ashore to eat and have a beer or two. I'm not sure exactly how long we ate and maybe you can help me figure it out. How long would lunch have to last for a raft to lose an alarming amount of air if it had a slow leak? That's how long we ate.
When we got back in the raft we noticed it was droopy.
We were able to get some more air into the Aqua Trojan, and we were never terribly alarmed, but we were all in our early 20's and not terribly in tune, yet, with the fact we weren't invincible.
I don't remember being light on air turning into a critical problem.
Sputex became an issue at one point making bringing fishing gear on a raft look like rocket science when compared to bringing a dog on a raft. We ran into an big area where the water was shallow enough that we were dragging bottom even though it was still swift enough to carry us along. Sputex didn't care for the feel of rocks and wot-not banging into the pads of her feet through the raft bottom and tried to make an escape over the side a couple of times.
I believe the entire adventure was about 15 miles in length.
When it was over Joey was right where he said he'd be.
Posted by delmer at 12:37 AM | Comments (1)
May 5, 2007
Hot Fuzz
I went to see Hot Fuzz today and read a bit of On the Road while I was in the snack line. I ran across the following bit:
Dean had a sweater wrapped around his ears to keep warm. He said we were a band of Arabs coming in to blow up New York.
I just thought it was interesting.
Hot Fuzz was pretty good. It's a minute over two hours and it didn't feel anywhere near that long.
Unfortunately, about 10-minutes into the movie a couple of women came in and sat behind me. We were in one of the smaller theaters and I usually sit in the very back row when I'm in one of those; there's more leg room. Today when I walked in to the theater there was just one other person seated and he was in the back row. He'd been sort of talkative in the ticket line and I was afraid he'd misunderstand my going to the movie by myself to mean that I wanted to talk to strangers before the previews started when, in fact, I wanted to read. So I moved forward a row.
Which is how I wound up with two women sitting behind me 10 minutes into the movie.
Of course, they didn't come in and sit right down. The came in, took a position behind my right ear, and talked for about a minute about where they'd sit among the six people who were already seated. They decided sitting in the very back would be best … probably because they brought their own snacks in and they figured they'd be more likely to go undetected if they sat in the very back.
And they might have gone undetected had they not had a bunch of squeaky toys in the bag with the snacks. Each time one of them reached into the bag one of these toys would squeak. For an hour.
And of course, I'm lying. They didn't have a bunch of squeaky toys. But they were eating out of a bag that made an incredibly loud rustling sound. For an hour.
I know what you're thinking. This story sounds familiar. Did you steal this story from Dave? Are you really so uncreative that you have to steal from others?
Well, yes. But, no.
Dave's story involves three rude bitches and a crinkly bag of Doritos whereas my story involves two rude bitches and a rustling bag of some unknown food substance.
I did do the following math though. If it is roughly 2500 miles to Seattle and Dave had trouble with movie wenches about three months ago they would have had to travel 833 miles each month in order to make it to Columbus to eat snacks in my ear in time for Hot Fuzz.
Had they seen the previews for Hot Fuzz before Pan's Labyrinth? How many movies did they see on the way? What happened to the third wench?
Fortunately the snacks were gone by 6 p.m. How do I know? The rustling had stopped about 10 minutes prior to the 6 o'clock alarm on the watch one of the women had received as a gift went off. How do I know it was a gift? She had no idea how to turn it off.
She should get a Timex. I have one and any one of the five buttons around the dial will turn the alarm off when it sounds.
Anyway, I was looking forward to Hot Fuzz since I first saw the previews a while back. It's getting pretty good reviews and I can only guess that attendance was low today due to the fact that Spider-Man 3 was showing on several screens and everybody and their brother were going to see it.
Posted by delmer at 10:18 PM | Comments (2)
May 4, 2007
All aboard for boredom
I've done some more reading of On The Road. It tuns out that the guy that was cruising chicks at the high school is the same guy who was cheating on his wife-to-be with his ex-wife. (I know all that stuff was stricken through in yesterday's entry, but I felt better knowing there was only one dog in the story and I thought I'd share.)
In new news, today was a big day.
I had some dental work done — a filling was replaced. The best thing about the trip to the dentist is that the tooth that gets a pain sometimes has had a root canal. I was a bit concerned as it also has a crown on it and I was afraid we were going to end up drilling through a crown to do a root canal and then, of course, we'd have to replace the crown. While we were trying to figure out what was causing the tooth to ache some X-rays were taken and the bad filling, with a cavity beneath, was discovered.
Actually, my dentist knows why the tooth with the root canal sometimes has a pain and he shared that info with me. I quit actively listening when I determined I wouldn't be paying for a new crown. For what it's worth the tooth never ached in a traditional, tooth achy, way. Sometimes it would get a little electrical-shock feeling like when you touch a fork to a filling.
I also installed a new mail server today. That job isn't really done yet; I need to move the old mail to the new server so that nothing gets lost.
The new server jumps higher and runs faster than the old server. It also makes julienne fries.
Finally, I replaced a tape drive in our NetWare server. The old drive was a DLT8000 which would backup 80 gigs of data (compressed). The new drive is a DLT VS160 which will backup 160 gigs of data (compressed.) It is a very zippy drive.
Could I be any more boring?
Posted by delmer at 10:35 PM | Comments (4)
May 3, 2007
On The Road: The bit that troubles me
As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I'm reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac.
I also mention in that link why it has taken me so long to read the book and what I thought it was going to be about, so I won't bore you with those items here. I also said that there was something in the book that bothered me a and then I droned on quite a bit and never got around to saying what it was.
What was it?
My concern involved the way I felt women were being portrayed and by the fact it seemed that a lot of Jack's travels found him ending up with buddies who had set him up with women or he was someplace sniffing around for gals.
Looking for women is not a bad thing, and I'm not suggesting that it is. It's just that I don't pick up books wanting to read about someone's sexual escapades. Let's face it, if a sex story doesn't start out, "Dear Penthouse ... I never thought this would happen to me ..." then it probably isn't worth reading.
And I'm making more of this than it is.
I know I've mentioned in some of my blog entries a few of my sexual encounters, but I believe I've told those in a way that expresses my genuine surprise at my good fortune at the time. And the reason I mention them at all is to remind me of those times as I've sort of misplaced that list.
I certainly don't head out on The Mighty Schwinn for three and four hours at a time hoping to score chicks.
And, again, I'm drifting.
I would have sworn that one of the characters in On the Road was described as having had to leave school or town due to the fact he'd impregnated several of the local lasses. I've read that somewhere recently and On the Road is the only book I'm currently reading. However, I just gave a quick look through the first several chapters and that part didn't jump out at me, so maybe it was someplace else. Although Dean, one of the primary characters, is described as hanging around one of the local schools where he'll pick up gals, drive
The book is called On the Road, not Chicks I Met Traveling West, which is how the book sort of started out.
There's also a reference to a buddy of his that
Blah blah blah blah blah.
Let me start over.
As I mentioned a couple of