Blog Days of Summer

It looks like the old "blog" days of summer have set in for all of the bloggers out there. You know, that time in late July and August when it gets really nice outside and you just don't feel like blogging. It's also when us bloggers actually have a tiny bit of a life and don't feel as compulsive about documenting that life because we're too busy living it.

Or, could it be that blogging was a fad, and now that I've jumped on the bandwagon it's scaring everybody off? Actually, I think I'm pushing them off and underneath the tires......and that'll be enough silliness for today, OK?

Crossing Improvement

We have a lovely drawbridge here in town (actually, we have two), and as I was sitting in my car today waiting for the drawbridge to go down, I thought of a great bridge crossing process improvement. The city should install a sign on either side of the bridge that tells drivers what kind of drawbridge event is currently going on. If it's going to be a "quickie" where the bridge just goes up and then down to let a few large sailboats through, they could display something like "No need to panic, this will be only a short delay". But, if the big freighter is coming in and the bridge is going to be up for half an hour while it squuuueeeeeeezes through the drawbridge, then they could say "Wait will be long - us the other bridge, doofus". I think you get the picture. Wouldn't that be so much better? And today, they could have told me "Medium delay - a couple medium sized ships coming through". That way I could have read the sign ahead of time and made an educated turn before I got hemmed in at the stoplight right before the bridge.

Speaking of the drawbridges, it is about the only valid excuse you could use to be late to an early morning or after-lunch meeting here. The "caught in traffic" excuse just doesn't fly for some reason. I'm not sure, but I think to use that excuse the town actually has to have some of that traffic stuff. The other excuse that could maybe work is "I got stuck at the railroad tracks" because of the train that went through, but that one is risky because the train goes right by (and I mean RIGHT by) the building where I work, so if your boss is observant......you may be out of luck there. Unfortunately, I can't use either excuse in the morning since my house and work are both on the same side of the drawbridge AND the train tracks. Now after lunch...........of course I don't use the excuses then either. Come on people, what do I look like, a slacker?

Nothing to See Here (Again)

What to say, what to say. I suppose I could recap my weekend, but I don't really feel like it, and I haven't downloaded the pictures from it either. Hmmm....I got nothing, people. There's nothing to see here. It's just the start of another work week and another nice summer day gone. I didn't have any meetings at work today, and I don't have any scheduled for tomorrow either, so some REAL work is getting done. I guess I'll just say "Hi" to the rest of my family who's having fun "Spending the day(s) in Medora". And, belated Happy Birthday to my older sister. You know who you are. Move along folks, move along.

Sweet Suite

Yep, I installed these babies myself (with some help from some friends at work who helped deliver them and manhandle them into the basement). I'm not sure if those guys are still my friends or not. ;-) They're the Whirlpool Duet Sport laundry pair. They're the slightly smaller version of the original Duets, but no less powerful of course.


Installing these got me to thinking, "Why do we almost always put the washer on the left and the dryer on the right?" I figure by now it's pretty much industry standard and makes construction, plumbing, electrical wiring, appliance manufacturing (default door swing), etc. easier and cheaper, but who decided that would be the industry standard? Is it because we read from left to right, so people figure they should also do laundry left to right? Does that mean the ancient Chinese did their laundry from right to left? In Europe, they must be confused about which way to go because the majority of people there don't even have a dryer. Maybe they install their clothesline to the right of the washer?

Murphy's Fifth Law

Why is it that you see the most spectacular sunsets whenever you don't have a camera, but when you make sure you take your camera with you, then you usually see mediocre sunsets and scenery?

Murphy's Fourth Law states that whenever you want to shut down your computer quickly at work, Microsoft Windows always decides to "save your settings" for five minutes before it shuts down that day.

Attempt at an Engineer Fairy Tale

A few days ago in a land underground, there was a group of people working on some cooling machines who called themselves engineers. Above-ground dwellers have been known to call these people enginerds. Comments like "You can't spell geek without a double 'E' " have been made on occasion, and sometimes a snide and/or uneducated comment about trains comes into the picture.

Anyway, I digress. These engineers were looking to make their team more cohesive, to get a day away from the underground world of work, and to give a proper send-off to one of their own who would be returning to the land of Marco Polo's spices shortly. They had heard rumors of an above-ground city called Chi-town, so they decided to go there to accomplish the afore-mentioned goals. Plans were made, and the date was set.

The engineers arrived in Chi-town mid-morning, as illustrated. Obviously, the engineers had not fully learned the etiquette of the above-ground dwellers and how to correctly enter the city. After struggling a bit with getting their bearings and finding out how many engineers it takes to read a map, they were on with their adventure for the day.




The first stop was lunch (engineers will always eat), but the scenic route was taken en route. The engineers managed to find the right buses, travel down the Magnificent Mile, and after a little bit of walking arrived at the restaurant of the owls, where many wings of chickens were eaten. Unlike the chickens shown here, these chickens had been cooked and were sans feet and heads.


After leaving the restaurant of owls, the next planned stop was Fancy-Plates-City, where there was known to be more restaurants. On the way to fancy-plate land, some other sights were seen, and some practices noticed that weren't completely understood.


It is still unknown what eyebrow threading is because the engineers were too afraid to discover what it was. They also tried to stop and get some honey from the giant honeycomb, but for some reason the above-ground cars were occupying the honey spaces, so they moved along.


One engineer was almost lost when he suddenly grew a strong attachment to a statue. The other engineers laughed and pointed at first, but eventually went to his aid and freed him.






















They made it to the town of fancy plates, but not before missing the bus stop for it and having to ask the bus driver to turn around and take them back. There were many things to see here besides fancy plates, including LOTS of teas, and if desired, a light snack of dried anchovies. A search was also started for "dragon eyes", but apparently they weren't quite in season as the only thing close to it that was found was lee-chee (don't know the Chinese symbol for that).



Eventually they made their way to a restaurant, where they tried some new and interesting dishes like you would find in the land of fancy plates. They tried things like duck, kabob lamb, spicy fish soup, chicken (cold, hot, and deep fried), spicy cabbage, and noodle (singular, never plural). The only thing they didn't try was the rabbit stew because there were just so many options, they couldn't try everything.







After that meal, it was time to head back home to their underground world. That process involved taking the bus, walking, hopping on a train, and taking a car drive after that. The train ride was fairly uneventful except for the above-grounder who was crowding one of the engineers and threatening him with her weapon. From the picture, he didn't seem to mind too much.





And they all went back to work the next day very tired. And yes, they were still GOOFY!

The End

July 4th Summary

Here's my 4th of July happenings summary. You can determine your level of familiarity with my personal history by how many names and nicknames you recognize.

• Tuesday: I spent the day traveling to MN either on a train or waiting for a train to leave.

• Tuesday/Wednesday: Finally, I arrived at my destination at O-dark-thirty as expected, and Megan and Dana were nice enough to pick me up.

• Wednesday: We did a lot of biking, eating, pontooning, and ray catching. Thanks Curtis for the tube rides behind the pontoon.
  

• Thursday: I took my nieces on a walk and to the playground in the morning, and then in the afternoon I hung out with Megs, Dan, and my friend Avis. Oh yeah, and I also stopped by to see Stender-time on the way to the 'rents' home base that evening.

• Friday and Saturday: We spent the days scanning a fraction of Grandpa's pictures into the computer and eating delicious fruits and veggies courtesy of Walt and Pearl's garden/orchard. It almost inspired me to plant a garden next year. There were several of us working on the picture project, including Mom, Betharoni (Bethro), and Mowla.
  

• Sunday: This time I got UP at O-dark-thirty to catch the train that was running VERY behind, and finally the train arrived in Chicago, much too late to catch my connecting train. So, Amtrak put me up for the night at a hotel in Chicago. Surprisingly, it was a really nice hotel.
  

• Monday: I did a little bit of work, and finally made it home from Chicago earlier than expected thanks to my cube-mate.

Here's a brief summary in pictures:

Adriana and I chilling out on the pontoon.

What are you looking at, Willis?

Rochelle taking her first tube ride without her Mom or Dad being with her in the tube.


















My niece, or as I like to call her, "Fruit Monster". Pretty much the whole weekend she wandered around, looking at everybody's plate, and taking some of whatever fruit they had.

The site of the scanning project.

Overall, it was a good trip. I saw quite a few people, did lots of stuff, and had fun. Lesson learned:
The train is a nice way to travel if you want to see some scenery and aren't in a huge hurry.

Survey Says....

I'm not as boring (on the internet anyway) as watching paint dry. However, since I only had nine voters, I think my sample size may have been too small. I can't remember much from my statistics class, but I think they say you need at least 13 samples to get any meaningful results. It may not have been too wise to try to do a survey over the 4th of July holiday.

I noticed a couple people don't like the colors, but you'll just have to live with them until I get tired of them. I'm worried about those of you who check my blog hourly. You may want to see the doctor about your OCD. If you don't think you're quite at that stage, then I recommend that you start cutting your pills in half. ;-) Likely the red sweater will reappear again once it cools down, and as for the bathroom observations.....well, we'll just have to wait and see.

You Know You're Cool When.....

you ride up to the local pizza place/train depot on your bike (not a motorcycle, a bicycle) wearing your fairly dressy work clothes, tennis shoes, a bike helmet, and you have a backpack on your back that contains your laptop and other electronic gadgets. Your work shoes are dangling off the handlebars. The pizza place is packed, and they have outdoor seating so everyone can watch you. The only thing that could make you cooler would be if you had peed your pants (which I did not do, just to clarify).

You know you're getting old, set in your ways, and possibly beyond hope when.......you don't care that all the people at the restaurant stared. Or, maybe it just means you're a nerd. No, wait - I think it means you need to move to Oregon or Colorado where you could live like that and not stand out so much.