J.A.F.O.

"Geek"-end

2009-11-12T15:07:00.002-05:00

A well-known theorem:

"You don't have to own a truck, just have friends who own trucks."

Eric's corollary #1:

"You don't have to be a handyman, just have friends who are handymen."

And Eric's corollary #2:

"You don't have to own a mountain cabin, just have friends who own mountain cabins."

Which allows us to therefore conclude;

"If you own a truck and/or are a handyman, and have a friend who owns a mountain cabin, you should barter your resources in exchange for theirs."

Which is exactly what I have on tap for this weekend! B's birthday is next week. We haven't had a weekend off to ourselves in quite a number of months. And my friend L and I have been talking about some upcoming projects that she needs done up at her mountain cabin. L is always very generous about letting friends use the cabin, so B wondered if it would be possible to plan a birthday weekend. A few emails back and forth with L, and it was all set! The weather is supposed to be "chamber of commerce" perfect - high around 70 and clear during the day (perfect for strolling the shops in town or hiking the trails) and low around 40 at night (perfect for a fire in the fireplace).

I have been quite fortunate over the years to have friends with mountain cabins all over North Georgia. And while all of them have always been generous about letting me stay there without expecting anything in return, I've always believed in earning my keep where I can. I had one friend, R, who had a cabin up near Helen. He told me I could go up there anytime I wanted. He even went so far as to give me my own set of keys to the place! Of course, the cabin was in dire need of attention and TLC, and he made it clear that I shouldn't expect the Ritz. Truthfully, it wasn't even close to the Ramada. But the price was right, and the beds were clean and dry. Just for kicks, the first time I went up there I took my tools and set about fixing this and tightening that and replacing the other. Poor R was so embarrassed when I told him what I did! He felt like he should have done those things before I ever got there, but I assured him that I didn't mind, and even enjoyed doing stuff like that. I made a few more trips to that cabin after that, always with tools in hand and a list of things I wanted to work on. R has since sold that cabin to his nephew, and is building what will eventually become his full-time retirement home just down the road.

But thankfully L has what amounts to a nicer cabin, easier to get to, and in much better condition. Over the past couple of years, I've changed out light fixtures, replaced light switches, and done a few other small projects - enough to warrant a weekend at the cabin once or twice. I've also helped her with things around her "regular" house (which I think also helps me earn credits for the cabin). We're talking now about rebuilding the outside landscape steps at the cabin, along with replacing the garden lights.

Of course, if B takes a liking to our weekend, I might need to plan for more projects so I can earn more credits!

Hope *you* have a great weekend, too!

Updates

2009-10-30T10:28:00.002-04:00

Yeah, yeah... I've been slack in posting to my blog. To say that I've been busy would be a GROSS understatement!

I usually tell folks, "I'm busy, but it's all good." Truth is, it hasn't been ALL good. Dealing with the poor health of a loved one can be very taxing. Realizing that you have over-committed yourself to a worthy cause can be downright exhausting. Trying to deal with natural disasters and your own personal procrastination can be nerve racking. Doing it all while working 50+ hours a week is next to impossible. But having a supportive and loving significant other, a strong network of friends, and a great family can help pull you through.

Last week, I had my quarterly visit to my doctor to check on my health conditions. Because I'm an engineer (left-brained and all that), I have - from day 1 - kept all of my records in Excel, and give my doctor nice, colorful graphs of my daily measurements since the last visit. It was interesting to look at the results from the past quarter and see that the really bad measurements completely coincided with external influences. I've already made some changes to my schedule and commitments, so hopefully things will improve.

In the mean time, I hope to get back into blogging. Maybe I can do better!

Ahhhh

2009-06-14T14:40:00.000-04:00

After the chaos and craziness of the past few weeks, it's nice to just
sit and relax. We're on the deck if the cabin at Cedar Creek,
listening to the birds chirp and the water rush over the rocks.

Day Trip

2009-06-14T13:15:00.000-04:00

Before we start the DC tourist adventure, we're heading into the
Shenandoah Valley for a day at my sister's mountain cabin at Cedar
Creek. We stopped for lunch at a rustic inn called Wayside Inn. GREAT
lunch buffet!

East-bound...

2009-06-13T11:04:00.001-04:00

Brevard and I are headed to DC for a week of vacation. Thought I would
try out the new in-flight wifi on Delta.

I'm still around!

2009-04-03T16:27:00.003-04:00

Yeah, I know. I've been blagging lately. And it's not for lack of stuff going on - believe me! It's more like a lack of free time. See, I'm guilty of usually writing my blog entries from work (guilty! Check the time stamps!), and for the past 4 or 5 weeks, I've been knee-deep in a couple of projects that have had some pretty hard deadlines and loads of work to be done. So my work-day mind has been very-well occupied, not leaving much time for blog posts 'n stuff.

I'm sure all of you are anxious to hear all the details about my new girlfriend. Probably won't happen here. And not because I don't want to share, but because I would rather you meet her in person and learn all about her for yourself. And if I'm going to write anything gushy and mushy about her, it's going to be in a private note just for her, not for eleventy-billion people to see.

So, fair reader, don't fret. I have lots of Observations (as opposed to "Just A Few...) that need to be documented, and in due time I will be back to slacking at my desk and filling your screen.

Have a GREAT weekend!

It's Not As Bad As I Thought

2009-02-03T13:43:00.003-05:00

Whew! I took this all-important, all-knowing survey, and only scored 10 points. Which puts me in line with the likes of James Dean (yeah, right).

http://i.gizmodo.com/5142331/gsat-the-geek-social-aptitude-test

Although, I might should have scored double-points for the question about using your phone in restaurants (reference my last blog entry below, and multiple photos on Dianne's flickr page showing me doing just that).

Hope your week is going well...

Geeeeeek

2009-01-26T20:22:00.001-05:00

I'm sitting at Chick-fil-a on Howell Mill Road eating dinner. There's
a big group of Tech students here. Listening to their conversations, I
have to ask myself, "Dear God, was I *this* much of a geek???"

Hrmmm... I'm sending an e-mail to my blog from my iPhone. Guess I just
answered that question.

Reality check can be painful....

Sent from my iPhone

Something's Not Quite Right

2009-01-26T09:24:00.002-05:00

On the drive into work this morning, I heard a commercial for the "obnoxious" appliance/electronics retailer that is fairly new to Atlanta. They started in Miami, so I have been detesting them for many, many years.

I basically tuned out the commercial, except for the tagline about some indoor smoker device that lets you create "great SMELLING food"!

Shouldn't it be great TASTING food?

End of Week One

2008-12-27T14:20:00.002-05:00

Well, I have a few minutes here in Ft. Lauderdale before I board my flight back to Atlanta, so I thought I would do a quick post.

This has been a really good week. Last weekend, I got to meet Bogart, the 3-legged Boxer rescue in foster care. Such a sweet and active guy, you'd never know he only had 3 legs (he lost one after being hit by a car. It was my privilege to transport him from one of our Director's homes to one of our newest Foster homes. And within a few days, news came that our Foster was so in love with him that they have put in their application to adopt him permanently. Aren't they the lucky ones? I rounded out the weekend with Cheryl's Christmas party, surrounded by great friends, and some chores and packing for my trip down to Ft. Lauderdale.

I arrived mid-morning on Monday, and Dad and I grabbed some breakfast before heading to their house. A few errands in the afternoon with Mom and Dad, then off to the Seminole Hard Rock for dinner with Stacie, Angie, and Mauricio - friends I hadn't seen in AT LEAST 25 years! We had a great time catching back up with each other, sharing stories from the past few decades, and just generally reconnecting. I can't wait until our next "reunion".

Tuesday started with a diner breakfast with Dad, my cousin Wayne, and our friend Bud. Then we headed south to Miami MetroZoo for a photography day. And a full day it was! Over 6 hours and over 450 pictures! The best of the best are posted on a gallery on my website. Finished the day with Mom and Dad at a new Chinese restaurant called "Stir Crazy" where you serve yourself from a salad bar and the chefs wok your selection into your own custom meal. It was very tasty!

Wednesday and Thursday were mainly holiday stuff. Spent time with more family, including aunts and uncles, and of course my sister, niece, and nephew. The days were chronicled in pictures of my nephew enjoying his first Christmas, also on the website. Though the gift-giving was light this year, my folks were gracious in a gift to me, which I plan to use for some new small appliances for the kitchen.

The rest of the week was more family time. An afternoon with the parents and my aunt and uncle as we tried our luck with the local casinos. Throughout the afternoon, I only lightened my wallet by $3 total, so I consider it a good day! Leftover Christmas feast for dinner with Robin and my niece and nephew. And a leisure pace this morning packing and getting ready to head back.

Lots of good things on tap for week #2 of my holiday vacation, including some time with my friends and catching up on some more Boxer Rescue work. And maybe a trip to a car dealer....

Hope all is well on your end. Time for me to power down and get ready to board my flight.

Have a great week!

Christmas Feast!

2008-12-25T18:01:00.001-05:00

Nothing like home-cooked goodness. Roast beef, pork loin, and turkey.
Yum! Hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas!

Getting My Rating

2008-12-24T07:16:00.000-05:00

Well, since everyone else was doing it...

Movie Reviews

Last Exhibit of The Day

2008-12-23T15:47:00.000-05:00

Six hours - and about 450 pictures - later and it's time to head to
the house.

Today's Adventure

2008-12-23T09:34:00.000-05:00

Update!

2008-12-22T09:31:00.001-05:00

It's a wonderful 65 degrees here in Ft. Lauderdale!

Sent from my iPhone

Vacation Begins

2008-12-22T07:03:00.001-05:00

So here's the conditions as I board my flight. In Ft. Lauderdale, my
destination, the temperature is over 40 degrees warmer. Not exactly
Christmas weather, but welcome none the less.

Dinner with friends from elementary school tonight, photography
expedition to Miami Metrozoo on Tuesday, and Christmas holidays with
the family are all on tap.

Hope you have a great week!

The Grand Dame

2008-11-14T15:14:00.000-05:00

Although the weather was less than perfect, the view was still pretty
dang awesome!

Times Square

2008-11-14T14:30:00.000-05:00

Took this while standing next to "The Naked Cowboy"

Ground Zero

2008-11-14T08:37:00.000-05:00

On my way to the ferry to the Statue of Liberty.

Deep Thought

2008-11-05T19:39:00.002-05:00

Though this won't come as a surprise to you, I love food. The default channel on my television is Food Network. And one of my favorite categories of shows is the "behind the scenes" kinds of shows. A lot of these show how food is manufactured, but a lot of them also show the history or the uniqueness of different foods.

Among the favorite subjects is the regional uniqueness of different kinds of food. These different kinds of foods include pizza, barbecue, beverages, hot dogs, and chili. The amazing thing about these foods is that some people have VERY distinct preferences for their specific regional style of each of the foods. I'm pretty sure battles have been fought over which is better - New York thin crust or Chicago deep dish. "Memphis in May" aims to settle the barbecue dispute. And, of course, most all of us are veterans of the Cola Wars of the 80's.

And me? Well, I find myself in a unique and interesting position in the battles: generally speaking, I like it all! Go figure! Some of the best pizza I've ever had was walking down the street from Joe and Beth's house in New York to get a pie from the walk-up window. It was different, but equally as good as a killer deep-dish pizza from Giordano's in Chicago. And as long as it's lean, I've yet to meet a plate of barbecue - ANY barbecue - that I didn't like. Pulled pork, sliced pork, brisket, hot links, turkey, and more! Yum! Vinegar sauce, tomato sauce, sauce on the side, meat cooked in sauce, sauce added afterwards, mustard sauce. It's all good. And although my preference is Coke (I DO live in Atlanta, after all), I won't change my order if the waiter tells me, "No Coke, only Pepsi."

But I think I found my sticking point - chili. Just like the other foods, there are very distinct differences among the regions. My personal favorite, and the style I like to cook, is Texas chili. Texas chili actually does not have beans in it, and is often cooked with chunks of beef instead of ground beef. I make a variation of Texas chili that includes whole corn instead of beans. It's my favorite. That being said, I've generally eaten the other variations I've tried over the years, and have enjoyed them as well (although I wouldn't make those styles if I had a choice).

Then, last week, I was in Cincinnati for a business meeting. It was time for lunch, and it was suggested that we go across the street to the local chili diner - a Cincinnati landmark chain and about as famous as anything else from Ohio. I report that this was my first - and last - time consuming "Cincinnati Chili." It was pretty darn revolting. The fact that it was served over spaghetti was a plus, actually, and the cheese and onions were quite desirable. But the brown (not red) sauce had an acrid tang that was incomparable to anything else I've ever tasted. It was horrible. And the aftertaste, which lasted all the way back to Atlanta, couldn't be cured with gum, Coke, or antacid.

Yuck! I've met my match...

Highs and Lows

2008-10-09T15:14:00.002-04:00

It has certainly been a roller coaster of a week. Just about every good has come with at least one bad, which makes for some really nasty times.

Let's think about some of the good

The 2009 Atlanta Dogwood Festival will return to Piedmont Park! Yay! There has been so much hard work trying to convince the City that this is the only real solution, and they finally agreed. The collective sigh of relief was almost deafening, but the real work begins now - we have 6 months to plan and execute the 74th annual Festival, with a goal of making it a "model" for how festivals should be to sustain the environment in which they are hosted.

Work continues to go well. Things have been a little on the slow side this week, which has been nice, but there still seems to be plenty to do. So far, the economic crisis hasn't hit us yet, although there might be some signs of a slowdown coming. I have to keep my fingers crossed that we pull through it.

I am thoroughly amazed at the friendships I have. D and I have been discussing this at length lately, especially in light of several situations we have each encountered where we realize how nice it is to have friends who can be "there" for you when needed. The latest event was an unfortunate waterfall coming from the light fixture in her living room ceiling! It came at the wrong time and proved to be quite frustrating. Fortunately, I was able to lend a hand. And, luckily, it seems to be a rather simple repair to the shower upstairs which was able to be completed by her, me, and her Dad. Whew!

Last night, I got together with some of the rest of the "Blog Family" for some dinner at my new favorite Cuban restaurant in Atlanta, Mojito's. We had a great time laughing and sharing stories. And it's amazing how we've gotten to know each other well enough that we know when someone says something that is a trigger for someone else, we know how to react. Of course, telling you these things out of context - like mushrooms, lines, boots, nailing, "hurts when I do this", and more - won't mean much to you. Literally, you had to be there! By the way, we're pretty close to deciding that our retirement commune will be in Asheville, in case you were wondering.

Looks like the gas crisis in Atlanta has finally subsided. Gas seems to be readily available now, and the price is even starting to drop. That's a welcome sign, especially given how much of my life is spent behind the wheel all over Atlanta.

I had a really good conversation over the weekend with a professional photographer with over 30 years of experience, much of it in the Marines as a photojournalist. He is a "people" shooter for the most part, meaning that most of his subjects are human (or Boxer dog) and he does a lot of portraits and action/sports photography. Since most of my photography is "not people", we actually have a lot of areas where we can swap stories. We shoot with almost the same equipment, which is a nice bonus, too. I'm hoping the opportunity to learn from an accomplished photographer such as him will present itself.

And I should mention that I spent Saturday night at the police station. But it was a good thing! I don't get many chances to be involved with the police volunteer group because of my other commitments, especially to the Dogwood Festival (the monthly meetings are on the same night), but Saturday was the rare exception. We did a big cook-out for a couple of the shifts at one of the precincts. It's always fun to support these men and women, hear stories of the latest "perp" to get busted, and enjoy a good meal. As an added bonus, we got a fly-by from the police helicopter, who I'm sure thought the infra-red camera was malfunctioning when it saw our grills going!

Now that I've gotten the good out of the way, I've decided not to bore you with the details of the bad. Suffice it to say, it's been rough. I am having to deal with personalities that I thought were one way, and now seem to be another. I've been publicly mis-accused of things, realized that things I have said have been misunderstood, and am having to come to terms with ineffectiveness in my leadership skills. At the same time, I have my own boat-load of frustrating events that seem to capitalize on one another, and the knowledge that things aren't going to be fixed overnight. I have an overwhelming sense of dread for an upcoming meeting, for fear that I'm going to say or do something that is going to be taken out of context or misunderstood.

There are lots more good things coming on the horizon - I just have to muddle through the bad to get to them. Fortunately, my friends and family are "there" for me, and I know that no matter how bad things get, they're on my six watching out for me. And for that, I extend a HUGE "Thank You"!

Catching Up - and a new meme

2008-10-02T09:22:00.003-04:00

I realized as I was driving home last night that it's been a while since my last entry. Suffice it to say, I've had a lot going on. In a nutshell: (2) from-scratch conceptual designs for new customers, BoxerStock, 501(c)(3) approval for Atlanta Boxer Rescue, working with the rest of the Board to find a home for Atlanta Dogwood Festival, (3) Fall festivals, the gas crisis, Dragon*Con, going to a new church (and "relearning" how to go to church at 11am on Sunday), personal (and personnel) issues, and lots more.

Yeah, I've had a full plate lately. I can tell this not by the gray hairs (those that remain, anyway) on my head nor the acid reflux nor the stress-induced intestinal rumblings. But rather, I can tell by the condition of the floor in my living room, which is indicative of the state of disorder in the rest of my house. You see, the unfortunate side-effect of hectic times is this nasty habit I have of walking in, dropping everything I have into a pile, and then leaving again. When I have time, or when I make time, the piles get redistributed into their respective homes and the house has some semblance of order. But with a lack of time, the piles grow, and multiply! Needless to say, I won't be having anyone over anytime soon. My house is a certified wreck!

It's all good, though. As crazy as things get sometimes, I really do enjoy all that I'm doing. Between my for-profit and non-profit roles, I've got a really nice balance of creative challenges and organizational challenges, which keeps it all interesting. I find that, despite the stress that some of these challenges have given me, I am really growing my skills and experiences in a positive way.

About a dozen years ago, I came to the realization that life for me was much better if I threw away some fictional "grand plan" and simply lived more for the moment. That's not to say that I don't plan ahead and think about the future - I just don't have some vision for what I think my future life is supposed to be like. I'm not planning to be the CEO of the company I work for, nor envision myself as some sort of "super engineer." Rather, I take what I've got and see what direction it presents for me. So, having all of these experiences and challenges presented to me in my current roles gives me excitement about what I might do in the future when my interest in designing store fixtures and displays wanes.

Now here's an interesting twist: I started this blog entry today because I really wanted to copy a meme that I found from a new blog I started reading called Cockpit Conversation. The meme is all about life experiences that you've had. I had no intention of really tying it in to the rest of the entry. But as the words started appearing on the screen and I got down to this point, I realized just how relevant it is. Anyway, enjoy!

The Challenge
* Post 3 things you've done that you believe nobody else reading has done.
* If anybody responds with "I've done that," add another thing.
* Encourage your friends to paste this into their own journal to list the unique things they've done.

Here's my list:
* Had an all-access security credential to the '96 Olympics
* Bottle-fed a full-grown Bengal Tiger
* Watched the Indy 500 from the #2 pit box

Feel free to post your list in my comments here, or make your own blog entry.

Where were you?

2008-09-11T12:39:00.003-04:00

Today is a solemn occasion in the United State, a day we remember the thousands of lives lost when terrorists seized control of our aircraft and turned them against us. As a person who has grown up around public safety, I am especially bothered by the high number of police and firefighters who lost their lives simply doing their job.

One of the things that always comes up with major tragedy such as this is the question, "where were you?" These major event always seem to put a bookmark in our brains. I'm sure you might relate to the Kennedy assassination, the moon landing, and the Challenger explosion. Ted and I were chatting last night about just this subject, spurned by some familiarity I had with the ValuJet crash in the Everglades (I happened to be on the same flight the day before).

Interestingly, I remember where I was on the mornings of both September 10th and September 11th. On September 10th, I was in New York, getting on a plane to head back to Atlanta after a great weekend with my friends, Joe and Beth.

On the morning of September 11th, I heard the first bits of news while I was on the entrance ramp to I-20 east bound from Moreland Avenue in Atlanta. I had just been at a construction site for my employer at the time. I was planning to be back in the office for an 11:00 meeting when I got a call from the office administrator "reminding" me that the meeting was scheduled for 10:00! In a frantic rush, I left the job site and headed back to the office. I had gotten my nerves settled down enough from the phone call that I thought I could turn the radio back on. I was listening to the "Morning X" back then with Barnes, Leslie, and Jimmy. As I got on the highway, I heard Barnes describing the scene he was watching - something about a plane hitting one of the World Trade Center towers. I thought maybe it was one of their radio bits, so I switched over to the news channel.

At that point, I heard the announcement that the FAA was grounding all flights. I remember calling my mom, only to get her voicemail. So I left a message like, "Hey, not sure if you've heard the news, but the FAA has grounded all flights. I know you do a lot of travel arrangements for your boss, so you might want to check into this." Little did I know the extent of what was happening at the time. My mom was not at her desk because everyone in the office was in the conference room following the news, while at the same time trying to call their satellite office in the second WTC tower.

I was in the car long enough to hear the second plane hit the second tower. I was just in shock. I remember running into the office, grabbing my stuff for the meeting, and heading up to the Division President's office (where my meeting was, which was why I was so worried about getting back in time). Everyone was just sitting in there watching the TV play the video over and over, along with all the other news coming in. The President was on the phone with the other divisions, the corporate office, the local HR/media folks, and his family. We decided maybe we could meet later in the week, and I headed back down to my desk.

The rest of the day was spent in the conference room watching the news, at least until the boss came in and sent us home. I got home and dug out my American flag, and spent a few minutes hanging a bracket on the front of the house so I could hang up my flag.

A year later, I took this picture.

So, where were you on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001?

A Dollop of Daisy

2008-09-06T19:44:00.002-04:00

Cara and I ventured out to the annual "Yellow Daisy" Festival at Stone Mountain Park today. Yellow Daisy (YD) has been around for many years, and has become one of the largest arts-and-crafts festivals in the south. I think they have something like 500 booths. And it's free with admission into the park.

Unlike the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, of which I am VERY familiar (being a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee has a tendency to do that to you), YD is not a fine-arts festival. In fact, most of the stuff offered for sale is more likely to have been created in someone's garage, not studio. That's not to say that the stuff is not of good quality, but you are much more likely to hear something like, "Momma 'n 'dem wood like 'dis" as you walk the paths from booth to booth.

Cara and I have very similar opinions about things, and we share a very twisted sense of humor, so hanging around with her turns into a fun event as we make "keen observations" about the things going on around us. About a third of the way into the festival, we heard Country music playing. That in and of itself is not a problem. But.... Country music also often signals the possibility of something VERY scary: c-l-o-g-g-i-n-g! And, sure enough, we round the corner to find just that! Oh no! But wait, what's scarier than cloggers? Cloggers dressed in matching outfits that look like bad Star Trek uniforms! But wait, what's scarier than cloggers in Star Trek uniforms? Hearing, "And now, we'd like to do something for you that we call 'Flashdance Remixed'"! Arghh!!! I WISH I was making this up! Of course, I can't tell you what it actually was like, because the only thought Cara and I had was "RUN AWAY!"

Another observation: we stopped to watch a woman create an impressive piece of art using scratchboard. If you're not familiar with this, it is a white board covered with a very thin layer of (usually) black wax. You use sharp tools to scratch away the wax to create your image. Now, I'm not really a fan of this technique, but I really can appreciate the skill and workmanship that goes into creating these pieces. And watching her create a scratchboard piece of a tiger freehand from a photo was pretty impressive. But I was shocked at the number of folks that, while we were standing there, made comments like "honey, here's the scratchboard" and "oh, here's the scratchboard" and "don't ya' want to stop and look at the scratchboard?" I never realized scratchboard was a destination attraction.

Another big difference between YD and the Dogwood Festival is the number of food "crafts" for sale. Things like pickles, beef jerky, stone-ground meal, honey, fudge, nuts, and all kinds of soup and dip mixes. Mind you, these are above and beyond the regular carnival food vendors. These are thing you can take home and put in the cupboard. I give them credit - a lot of the stuff is pretty tasty. One vendor, selling drink and instant coffee mixes, has a line of sugar-free mixes made with Splenda, and paid attention to his target audience. I was impressed that he had the marketing savvy to post a "zero Weight Watchers points" sign on his booth. Remember, a large portion of the visitors to this festival think nothing of putting a pink pig made from a propane tank on the front porch of their trailer (and, sadly, you can buy such a thing here). Often, these folks are, shall we say, "big boned?' Needless to say, they were quite drawn by the marketing sign.

To be fair, there were a decent number of genuine artists and craftsman there, and the whole thing gives you plenty of things to look at. I bought a few things at the food booths, and an item that might end up as a gift for a friend. And considering that the park admission of $10 per car was split in two, it was a pretty inexpensive way to have a lot of fun.

I still think the beaded palm tree yard art would be perfect for Cara, but she disagrees....

Uggh...

2008-08-28T12:48:00.002-04:00

One of the things I really struggle with in my professional worlds is dealing with people's personalities and emotions. I tend to think that I can handle most other aspects of business fairly well. I've got good logic and organizational skills, and I do well at prioritizing tasks. But, perhaps it is the engineer in me that makes it hard for me to understand and fathom at times how emotions and personalities play into it.

The one that gets me the most is "it's not fair!" In my "for-profit" world, I have a unique skill set that I bring to the table. Among them is a good sense of working with customers directly, in a courteous and professional manner (something rare among engineers). Add in a lot of experience in my industry from both customer and manufacturer points of view, willingness to travel and work odd hours, and I think I am a valuable asset to my company. Senior management thinks so, too. But several of the other engineers in the company just don't understand. They think that since I am not sitting at the drafting board at 7:00 in the evening, that I'm not pulling my fair share of the load. Of course, these are some of the same folks who complain about everything and refuse to do anything to better themselves - but that's another topic for another day. I'm sorry, but life is not fair. There are plenty of folks that have different job responsibilities and perks than I do. Instead of complaining that I am not getting treated the same as them, I make sure that I am meeting my responsibilities and make the best of my own situation. So far, it's worked pretty darn well on my end. But the other engineers are increasingly making their sour-grapes voices heard, which makes me feel like I'm earning a bad repuation through no fault of my own. And I just don't know how to deal with it effectively.

The other thing that I can not deal with is stubborness. You know what I am talking about: you tell the same person the same thing day after day, week after week, and they refuse to "get it." I have a particular situation where, in this position, I have a view of the "big picture" of everything that is going on. This big picture, as it turns out (like most things), is comprised of a whole lot of smaller, unique parts. Each part has its own unique function, and together these parts make a well-oiled, successful machine. But one of these parts thinks they should be able to do what some of the other parts are doing, and that seriously upsets the apple cart. And, no matter how many times you tell this "part" what the goals and assignments are, this part continues to do its own thing and that of the others. And I just don't know how to deal with it effectively.

Maybe this is why I'm losing my hair...

This Isn't Good...

2008-08-19T20:29:00.002-04:00

It's happened again. I've managed to misplace some important paperwork, and now I can't find it.

This time around, I misplaced the notes I took at the last Atlanta Boxer Rescue Board meeting. I took notes back on the 7th. I placed them in my briefcase, and managed to see them all last week. I had every intention of writing up the meeting minutes this weekend, but that never came to be (too much other stuff going on). This morning, when it looked like I might have a free moment during the day to write the minutes, I dig into my briefcase only to find that the notes aren't there. So when I got home this evening, I looked in my ABR files. Nope - not there either. The notes from the ABR Fundraising meeting are there, but not the Board notes. I looked through every possible pile and place in the house I could remember possibly being in the past few days, and nothing.

Relatively speaking, this isn't the worst thing I've lost this year. That would be my brand-new passport. I got it in February and, like the minutes, put it in my briefcase. Then, I switched briefcases. A month or so later - no passport. I seem to recall in the back of my mind thinking something like, "I should put this someplace safe besides my briefcase," but I am yet to find what that "safer" place might have been. I actually fear that I placed the passport on a stack of newspapers, and then threw out the whole stack with the trash. So now I have to go and report that original passport missing and apply for a new one.

I can't believe I would have made the same mistake with the meeting notes.

All of this frustrates me to no end. I like to think I'm a pretty organized person (though my house is a disaster zone, I usually have a pretty good feel of what is in each pile). At work, I am ultra organized, almost to the point of being OCD/anal about everything. And I honestly can't remember losing things like this in past, especially so frequently. Of course, if I can't remember where I put the papers from a week ago, I probably can't remember much.

I sure hope this isn't a sign of things to come...

Saturday Afternoon

2008-08-16T17:17:00.000-04:00

After a very busy and hectic 2 weeks, it's nice to pause for a little
while. And what better way to do that than some barbecue pork and
Bluegrass? This is the scene at the Decatur BBQ & Bluegrass Festival.

Truckin' Answer

2008-08-10T15:38:00.002-04:00

Holy cow - not only did new blogger SuperDave answer my question correctly, he did it in less than 18 minutes! Welcome, SuperDave to the JAFO party, and thanks for commenting. I hope you'll find my entries interesting enough to stay reading. Just to recap, this strange object is called a Nacelle, and it is the housing for the generator and other equipment in a wind turbine. The large, round opening is where the bearings to support the propeller are mounted. Thanks to all of you who responded, too!

On The Border

2008-08-07T13:19:00.000-04:00

Stopped for a moment on the drive back from Montreal to Vermont.

Truckin' Trivia

2008-08-02T18:18:00.005-04:00

Over the years of driving around Atlanta, I have often encountered flat-bed tractor-trailers driving around Atlanta's I-285 Perimeter Highway carrying an interesting cargo. These pictures don't do it total justice:
At first, I thought they were shells for motor homes or RV's - complete with a roof hatch and A/C unit. But they are really oversized, about 12' wide. And the round opening on the end is like nothing I had ever seen on an RV. Usually, there are 2-3 of these units being transported, and they always come from the west side of town, across the top-end of the city, and north on I-85. They're always the same gray color. One other thought I had was that this was some sort of storage tank, laying on the trailer on its side. Nope. The A/C unit wouldn't make sense for that, and I finally got behind one and saw inside - there are shop lights mounted to the inside.

So - what is it? Anybody have any ideas?

I finally got my answer about a year ago, watching a show on Discovery Channel called "Really Big Things." Here's a hint - they are made for a product sold by General Electric (GE).

I'll give y'all some time to think it over and comment, and then I'll post the answer after I get back from my trip to Montreal this week.

Milestones

2008-07-22T13:15:00.004-04:00

So in the adventure of posting snippets from my trip to North Carolina last week, I surpassed the "100" mark in blog entries. Specifically, this entry is #103. Wow! I have certainly learned a lot about myself, my friends, and my world by keeping "blog entry" in the back of my mind. Of course, I probably "should" have hit 100 months ago, but, like everyone else, I've hit dry spots along the way. One thing I can certainly be thankful for with this blog is the "blog family" that it is / I am a part of. For those of you outside this circle, the BF is a group of us that are all linked to each other through our blogs here in Atlanta. Some of my closest friends started out as hyperlinks from someone else's blog. In fact, I'm in the habit these days of almost dropping the "blog" from the "blog family" and simply referring to them as my "Atlanta" family. Funny how life turns like that.

Another life turn started a few weeks ago, took a sharp left on Sunday, and is currently quite muddled in its resolution.

I have been a member of my church for almost 8 years. I started out working with some friends on their Habitat project, and eventually decided that I felt comfortable and called to become a member of this particular congregation. Over the years, a great portion of my life has been shaped by events at this church. I became a Youth advisor, which led to being a chaperon on their annual trips, which led to my large-group cooking adventures. I served as an elder, committee chair, and committee member. I was part of the search committee for a new Youth Pastor. Several times, I considered myself to be part of the inner church leadership. I met many great people, found great friends, and found out just how small my world is.

During the reign of "The Evil Empire", I fell away from my church. The Ex-Girlfriend was terrified that my friendships with people at my church might take my focus away from her. And she had other issues...with my church, too. Anyway, for about 8 months I was absent in all form from anything related to my church. One of the most fulfilling events after the breakup was returning to the congregation. I quickly (I thought) jumped back into my old role, even taking on a new role as part of a planning team for an evening contemporary worship service.

Here's where the turns started. A few weeks ago, I began to realize that I no longer have a peer group at my church. The few folks that are close to my age are married with kids, and focused on their families. Everyone else that had been part of that group has long since moved away or found other congregations to be a part of. And the age gap between me and the Youth has finally reached a point where I don't have a connection with them (heck, I'm the same age as some of their fathers!). On top of it all, I can not think of a single person in the congregation with whom I have any sort of friendship or connection outside of the church. All of this led me to start thinking about my role at this church, and whether or not I should think about moving to another church.

We've had some turmoil in the church staff lately which has not helped my thoughts and opinions. Unfortunately, some of the turmoil became personal with some of the folks, and they felt it necessary to, instead of exiting quietly, drag the remaining staff and leadership through the mud on their way out. It hasn't made thing easy. Especially since our Senior Pastor has been on sabbatical since May and not due back until mid-August.

While in NC last week, I came to the point that I would let things ride until the Pastor returned in August, following which I would plan to sit down with him and lay out what I just did above, hoping he might offer me some guidance or insight.

And then Sunday came. About 2:00 in the afternoon, I received my copy of a mass e-mail to the congregation from the Pastor. At first, I thought it might be a letter of healing to address the recent turmoil and ensure that we were still moving forward. Nope. This e-mail was instead his letter of resignation, announcing his intent to step down two weeks after he returns from sabbatical in order to answer a call at another church outside the metro area.

Wham!

Sunday evening, I went to a "board game" party with some friends. The host of the party is actually the Minister of Education (and unofficial Associate Pastor) at another church. A church where a majority of my friends and acquaintances are members. He and I started talking - he wanted to tap my brain about my experiences with the contemporary service and how it might help them as they think about starting their own contemporary service. Hrrmmm. Maybe this is the "sign" from above? Maybe it truly is time to move to another congregation, and this new contemporary service might just be the perfect platform for me to switch to a new church - one that I already have connections with - and jump right into service and leadership. It certainly does offer another element to my thoughts and opinions.

Just to be sure, I've sent off notes to my current Senior Pastor and the Youth Director expressing my concerns. I also plan to visit this new church in the next few weeks. Hopefully, between the anticipated replies from my current church, and the reaction at this new church, I might be able to discern a direction for my faith.

Strollin'

2008-07-15T22:06:00.001-04:00

I took some time this afternoon to wander through the main part of
Black Mountain. I grabbed some munchies at the bakery, visited a pet-
supply store (to get some neat Boxer stuff) and an antique store, and
wandered the aisles of an authentic general/hardware store.

Of course, the "small town" bliss only lasted a few hours, then it was
back to the house to cook dinner. So far this week, we've had burgers
and hot dogs, roasted chicken, and a "build your own" burrito bar. And
I just finished prepping 20 pounds of pork roast to become pulled-pork
barbecue tomorrow night. Thursday is spaghetti, and Friday is
leftovers. Yum!

Hope all is well on your end!

Load 'em Up!

2008-07-15T15:03:00.000-04:00

So do you wonder what it takes to feed 30 teenagers and 5 adults for a
week? How about $1000 worth of groceries from Sam's? Enough to fill an
Xterra!

But it works out to only $2.20 per person per meal - not bad!

Cheers!

View From The Top

2008-07-14T07:27:00.001-04:00

So here's what my first morning in Black Mountain, NC looks like. We had a lot of rain on Sunday, hence the fog and low clouds. But the forecast is for nice weather for the rest of the week, and the morning is certainly shaping up to be that way.

Hope you have a great week!

Random Thoughts

2008-06-22T21:03:00.003-04:00

All along the way this weekend, I collected some random quotes and had some random thoughts. There is no order to these, and the quotes have NOTHING to do with the thoughts. And for what it’s worth, remember that these quotes are totally out of context, so let your imagination run wild.

"I'd switch"

Today is my birthday. Although I didn’t do anything special today, I did manage to fill my weekend with some great time spent with amazing friends. I got off work a little early on Friday (after working very late Thursday night), and got together with several folks for dinner at Joe’s on Juniper, followed by a “concerts in the garden” performance at Atlanta Botanical Gardens featuring Shawn Colvin. Saturday, the TNT group got together at Don and Comella’s (Dianne’s parents) house on Lake Arrowhead for a great day together. In addition to boat rides, kayaking, swimming in the lake, playing Rock Band and Apples-to-Apples, laughing, chatting, and having a great time together, we also feasted on Don’s amazing smoked pork, Brunswick stew, spinach-and-artichoke dip, baked beans, and cauliflower salad for lunch, and grilled chicken, roasted veggies, green beans, and a salsa/salad for dinner. And dessert was a tower of cupcakes, topped of with a candle for my birthday. Awesome!

"....and it only has THREE bedrooms!"

I find it incredibly satisfying whenever I realize that I’ve helped create an environment where others around me are so comfortable that they feel like they can do or say whatever they want. For example, one of my cats, Itchy, has discovered what every good dog knows: NOTHING in this world beats a good tummy rub. “Big deal,” you say. But remember that cats are very, very skittish, and their stomachs are where they feel most vulnerable. So for him to roll over and let me rub his belly means he trusts me unconditionally. I’ve found the same thing when I’m around my friends. They are comfortable enough to “be themselves” around me, without fear of judgement or recourse.

"Eric's a big, burly guy."

I’m finding it harder and harder to let go and clear my mind. In the middle of the concert, my mind is racing a thousand miles an hour. What do I need to do in the morning? What is on the schedule for next week? How cool is that sculpture? How could I make one of those myself? How do we get more funding for Atlanta Boxer Rescue? Why does the City of Atlanta so badly want the Dogwood Festival out of Piedmont Park? When do I have time to come back and take pictures? Do I have enough money in my savings account to buy a new camera lens? And so on... I think a “brain purge” is on order soon.

"Talk to the fan"

My company is about to issue a policy prohibiting the use of cell phones and electronic devices while driving on company time, unless a hands-free unit is used. Hooray! Since I got my iPhone, I’ve been using a hands-free headset as often as I can. And I feel so much more comfortable with it. I really wish more companies would follow suit (and maybe a few state governments...). Have you noticed that just about anytime you see somebody interrupting the “flow” of traffic - either by driving too slow, cutting in at the last moment, making a wrong turn, etc. - that they are almost always talking on a cell phone? The situation is getting out of control!

"As a matter of fact, I'm having root canal that night."

I can’t believe the year is already half-way over. Seems like we just had winter and the beginning of the year. Whew. I had a mental “to do” list for some things I wanted to accomplish this year. I don’t think I’ve completed a single thing on that list. I’ve had some fantastic experiences, mind you, and I wouldn’t do it any differently if I had to do it over. I’m just amazed at how quick things have been moving lately.

"This weather certainly brings out the skimpy dresses"

I can’t begin to tell you how blessed I feel to have the friends around me that I do. There was a time, not too long ago, that I was really in the pits and in a bad situation. Among the casualties was the long-standing friendships that I had built up over the years. Thankfully, over the past year or so, I have been able to rebuild some of those old friendships and, more importantly, create some new friendships. Some of the new friendships are stronger and deeper than any that I had before, and I am eternally grateful for that. As much as I love my family and am thankful for them, geography keeps me from spending as much time with them as I want to. Thankfully, my friendships create a second family for me. Thank you!

"Isn't this how those horror movies always start out?"

Friday was one of those rare days where my old career came together with my current career. My old company, where I was a Senior Facility Engineer, is a customer of my new company, where I am a Senior Design Engineer. We have been working lately to grow our business within our existing customers, including my old company. Since I have a lot of experience and knowledge of this company, it made sense for me to be part of the team that was working on growing this business. On Friday, we had the chance to make a sales presentation to that company on one particular product line, and it was successful. Hopefully, that success will translate into sales.

"Chillax"

Atlanta Boxer Rescue is getting out of the starting blocks. On Friday, we began our insurance coverage, and on Saturday, we rescued our first Boxer! We have had some very generous folks make donations over the past week, including some of my friends and family (thank you!!!!). We still need more support, so if you feel so inclined, please go here to help. And thanks for listening to my public service announcement...

"This is along the lines of your 'chunky underwear'"

I hope all is well on your side of the screen. I know I haven’t been as diligent about posting and commenting as I have been in the past. I aim to get caught up here as soon as I can.

Ahhhh!

2008-06-18T14:37:00.002-04:00

Hey folks!

Sorry I haven't posted lately. In a gross understatement, let's just say I've been busy. The changes at work that I mentioned a few months ago have resulted (at my own personal direction) in me being much busier than before. That's a good thing, and I've managed to continue to steer my job description in a direction that I want. I don't know too many other people that can say that. And I've even gotten a few "work-from-home" days scattered in there, too. Throw in some travel to Boston and Pittsburgh to with all of that.

Of course, all of you that read this regularly have probably heard by now that Atlanta Boxer Rescue is now officially launched. We have had a good fundraising effort so far, but we need to continue to push. Unfortunately, we can not begin to rescue dogs until our insurance is in place, and we can't get insurance until we have some coins to pay for it. Any chance you can help?

Part of not posting to my blog also means I haven't commented on your blog, either. I'm sorry! Believe me, I have saved all of your new blog entries in my RSS feed, and at some point in the very near future, I'll read and comment on all of them.

Thanks for putting up with me. Talk to you soon!

Backstory: Heroes

2008-05-26T10:13:00.004-04:00

Today is Memorial Day, a day set aside to honor those folks who have given their lives for the protection of our country. I thought it would be an appropriate day then to give you the backstory of one of my favorite images:
My friends, Joe and Beth, live in Montgomery, New York. It's a small town up in the Hudson Valley, about an hour north of Manhattan. Every year, on the weekend after Labor Day, the town hosts 'General Montgomery Day' (GMD) to honor their founder. It's a great celebration full of all kinds of small-town events: soapbox derby, carnival rides, arts and crafts, and one of the best parades you could imagine! You see, in the Northeast, the public safety tradition runs strong and deep - generations of fathers and son (and daughters, too!) choose to serve their community as firefighters and police officers. And the parade is the perfect time to put on the Class A uniforms and show their stuff. Almost every firehouse has some sort of antique fire apparatus, and they polish it up and bring it out to the parade.

My first GMD parade was in 2001 - September 8th to be exact. I spent the weekend with Joe and Beth. Thoroughly enjoying myself, it was time to head back to Atlanta. So on September 10th, 2001, I boarded a flight from New York and returned to Atlanta. Of course, we all know where we were the next day. For the guys in the picture, they were quietly hanging out in their firehouse in one of the small towns around the Hudson Valley when the call came in to head to Manhattan and help their firefighter brothers and sisters. When it was all said and done, 343 brave souls lost their lives in the line of duty - many of whom came from the small-town departments.

Fast-forward one year, to September 9th, 2002. It's time again for another GMD parade. The mood is obviously more somber, though much more patriotic. Virtually every firehouse gets a standing ovation worthy of the honor. I tried in vain to capture as many images as I could with my digital camera. After getting back to Atlanta that year, I took some time to review what I captured. And I found these two guys. Dressed in the same call-out gear they wore into the Twin Towers, in scorching end-of-Summer heat, they proudly marched with their flag about 3 paces ahead of their firehouse. You see, they were the survivors of their house - everyone else was new with less than a year of service.

There's no doubt that the men and women of our Armed Forces deserve Memorial Day for all their sacrifice. The men and women of our domestic public safety - firefighters and police - deserve the day, too. So the next time you see a cop or a firefighter, thank them for all they do.

Happy Memorial Day.

Two NEW Words...

2008-05-26T10:12:00.001-04:00

1) Friends
2) Rock!

Two Words...

2008-05-21T07:07:00.001-04:00

1) Dating
2) sucks

Backstory: Eye of the Tiger

2008-05-08T15:36:00.007-04:00

When I started getting into all of the various social networks, such as Facebook, Meetup, Myspace, and so forth, I decided that my profile picture should be something unique. You might be familiar with the image I chose:

Although I have shared the story of this picture with some of you, lately I have had a couple more questions about it. So here is the story behind the picture.

Between 1998 and 2001, in addition to my full-time engineering job, I served as Resident Caretaker for Autrey Mill Nature Preserve in what is now John’s Creek, Georgia. I provided maintenance and handyman services for the facility, as well as security at night. I also helped out with logistics and set-up for special events.

One event in 1999, in particular, was called Wild Weekend. It was a national program aimed at showcasing nature preserves and animal reserves. One of the folks the helped organize Wild Weekend was also very active at Autrey Mill, and arranged for Autrey Mill to become the focal point of the Wild Weekend program. With that, we began preparing for a festival that would ultimately include presentations of numerous small wild animals. The presenter would be none other than Jim Fowler, of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom fame. He would show off animals such as snakes, bobcats, raccoons, and others provided by Chestatee Wildlife Sanctuary in Dawsonville, Georgia.

In preparation for the show on Saturday, I took Friday off to help with set-up. Just before lunch, we received a phone call from the trainer at Chestatee. He had been in the city that morning with his animals, helping Jim with some media appearances, and wanted to know if he could come by on Friday and drop his trailer for the night. Shortly after that, we got a second call letting us know that Jim and some of his associates would also come by to take a look at our set-up and begin preparing for Saturday’s show. About an hour later, the coordinator showed up with his trailer. He expressed concern that he needed to clean the compartment where the lion cubs were, and he inquired if we had a place we could secure the cubs. I suggested our Star Pond courtyard, which was fenced in. He turned the cubs loose, and we soon stopped our set-up work to watch the cubs play. They appeared to be hungry, so the coordinator put together some food for them. But instead of he taking the time to feed them (since he had to clean the trailer), he handed me the bottle and pushed me into the courtyard! I was a little worried at first, but he told me not to panic – the cubs were used to being around people and being bottle-fed. They knew what to do. The panic turned to joy and excitement:

After a while, Jim Fowler arrived with a couple of his press and media guys, as well as his son and daughter. They toured our facility, being impressed with what we were doing on such a limited budget. After some strategizing and planning for the Saturday show, Jim made a comment to the Chestatee coordinator about this being the perfect time to get the publicity shots done. The coordinator agreed, and they proceeded to lead out this HUGE Bengal tiger from the trailer! Not being one to pass up a prime “Kodak moment”, I raced inside and grabbed my camera. I was going to get my own “Jim Fowler publicity shot” even if they did not Jim and his folks took turns posing with the tiger while the media guy took their pictures. I stood off to the side, taking my own pictures. All of a sudden, the media guy turns around, grabs my camera, and tells me “it’s your turn!” And before I knew it, I had this tiger climbing all over me! What a total thrill! I ended up with two good shots that day, the second of which is:

And in addition to the tiger, we also posed with a full-size black bear. I can’t find that image at the moment, but I’ll look for it. This bear, when standing on his hind legs, was at least a foot taller than me!

It was truly a memorable experience. That night, the cubs, tiger, and bear stayed in the trailer, while the snakes found comfort in my living room (they were secured). And Saturday’s show went off without a hitch. Of course, when they brought out that Bengal tiger, all the folks there jumped back in fear at the sight of such a beast. If only they knew that just 24 hours prior, he was nothing more than a cuddly kitty-cat looking for a bottle!

P.S. As a side note, when I meet people at Meetup events and they want to know my contact information, I simply tell them that I’m the guy feeding the tiger – and they all instantly know who I am!

P.P.S. Look for more "Backstory" posts in the future. If it is a slow "news week" I'll write some more posts giving the history and background of some of my favorite pictures.

'cue Indulgence

2008-05-06T10:53:00.003-04:00

A few years ago, I found myself being a "regular" over at Williamson Brothers Barbecue. I had gotten to the point where I no longer ordered main platters or sandwiches, but rather made a meal from several appetizers. One of my favorites was 'Barbecue Nachos'. They took a bed of tortilla chips; covered them with sauce, pulled pork, and cheese; and baked the whole thing until it was gooey and bubbly. Yum! One time, I ordered a dish called 'Barbecue Bean Cheese Fries', which was their thick-cut steak fries covered with baked beans, barbecue sauce, and cheese. It was pretty forgettable. EXCEPT that it spawned a creative idea: could they put the pork and sauce and cheese from the nachos on top of the steak fries instead of chips??? Why, yes, they could! Woo AND hoo!!!

And so it became that, for the rest of the time I was a regular, I would order "off the menu" and get pork nachos on fries instead of chips. It was bliss...
One evening, at home with a mess of homemade barbecue, I thought I might recreate that personal dish for myself. Except that I didn't want to go shopping and all I had in the freezer was a bag of tater tots. Wait a minute - could this be higher bliss??? I baked off the 'tots according to the package, piled on the barbecue, drizzled some sauce, and covered the whole thing with cheese. Oh. My. Gawd! Such a simple concept, but, yet, such a wonderful result.
And so Monday evening rolls around, and I again find myself with a mess of homemade barbecue (leftover from the Blog Family birthday party on Saturday night). A quick run through the local mega-mart yields a bag of 'tots, and in a short time, I find myself with this:

It might look like something straight out of the White Trash cookbook, but I assure you that it is a taste sensation! And there are plenty of leftovers for another meal this week. Yay!

Thanks for the Meme-ories

2008-05-05T15:02:00.002-04:00

I’ve been tagged for a meme by Blogicalinks (and Sheeple, and Dianne,...). A meme consists of any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. You've no doubt gotten e-mails where you fill in lists of information about yourself. That's one example.

Here are the rules for this one:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

Since I'm doing this at work while taking a break, you unfortunately get subjected to one of my Engineering reference books. I will tell you that the first book I picked up (the closest to me), is titled Architectural Graphic Standards, but it didn't have enough sentences around page 123 to work. So my second book was Human Factors in Engineering and Design, and here's what it has to say:

When symbol displays might be used in various circumstances by the same people, the displays should be standardized with a given symbol always being associated with the same referent. One example of such standardization is the system of international road signs. A few examples are shown in Figure 4-19. The National Park Service also has a standardized set of symbols to represent various services and concepts such as picnic areas, bicycle trails, and playgrounds.

Are you sufficiently dazzled now? Regardless, if you've read this now, consider yourself tagged!

I Need Monday to Relax!

2008-04-27T21:55:00.003-04:00

What a great weekend!

After a roller-coaster ride of a week, I finished up with a very good workday on Friday. So on the way home, I treated myself to a pizza and some garlic rolls. Yum! Then I headed to the grocery store to buy some stuff for barbecue. A couple of my friends have birthdays coming up in May, and we decided to the Blog Family together for dinner. I offered up that I would cook some of my barbecue if someone else would host. Now, the party is not until next weekend, but Saturday was proving to be the best day to devote to the smoker. So I swung by the store Friday night and picked up a 6-pound pork loin and 10 pounds of chicken. Got home, and put a dry rub on the pork loin and made a wet marinade for the chicken.

I managed to get a good night's sleep Friday night, and got up bright and early. The pork went into the oven for an initial roasting, and I headed out to the cable company. I returned with a brand-new HD DVR for my cable system. If you aren't sure what a DVR is, think "TiVo." I can't wait to put it through its paces! Anyway, I got it connected just in time to fire up the smoker. A nice bed of coals and a mix of hickory and mesquite created the perfect home for the pork and chicken to spend 5 hours bathing in smoky goodness. While the smoker did its magic (with a lot of my personal attention), I worked on cleaning the kitchen, playing on the computer, cleaning out the inside of my car, and a few other chores. Once the smoker was done, it was time to do a little pullin'! The resulting mounds of pulled pork and pulled chicken were vacuum-packed and put in the freezer - to be enjoyed by my friends on Saturday!

Following another great night's sleep, I got up early for another adventure. I picked up my friends Donna and Karen and the three of us headed down to Vidalia (pronounced "vye-dale-yuh) Georgia for the annual Vidalia Onion Festival. Why in the heck would the 3 of us drive 3 hours to an Onion Festival??? Because the highlight of the festival is their air show, capped off every year by an aerial demonstration by the absolute best flight team in the world - the United States Navy Blue Angels! Of course, there was lots to see before the Angels took to the air. In fact, I managed to shoot 566 pictures throughout the day! Wow - a new personal record! Keep in mind, though, that I was using the motor drive on my camera and snapping away dozens of pictures as the planes flew by each time. So I have a lot to sort through to weed those 566 images down to the "best of the best." But to give you some idea of how the day was for us, I leave you with one of my best formation shots of the Angels on a fly-by:

I am SOOOOO loving my new lens!

Have a great week!

Pardon the Interruption

2008-04-22T17:30:00.003-04:00

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled blog programming, already in progress:
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...and there you have it - all of my secrets to easy, award-winning barbecue. I hope you give it a try!

Have a great week!

Better

2008-04-21T21:08:00.002-04:00

Today certainly turned out a lot differently than I expected when I woke up this morning. I don't get emotional challenges like this very often, so I think they tend to hit me like a ton of bricks. And as possibly incoherent as I think my ramblings were, writing the blog entry earlier today gave me direction to think. And I came to realize that it's not just one particular situation that has me frustrated. On several fronts, I have found that I have created these "fantasy" worlds in my mind of how I would like things to be - work, hobbies, DIY projects, relationships, etc. And the moment something doesn't fit into one of these fantasy molds, I get the hee-bee-gee-bees. Today, most of those things came together in a perfect storm. Situations at work, an instance with a friend, financial issues, and a few other things all wreaked havoc with me. Somehow, I've got to separate fantasy from reality, and be more realistic in my approach to the situations in front of me.

The biggest challenge for me right now is the lack of a romantic relationship. I have some amazing friendships that I am truly blessed with, but even these strong, loving friendships do not provide all the same elements as a romantic relationship. I don't know the right way to find that romantic relationship, but I'm confident it will come at some point.

I definitely have a better perspective on things this evening than I did this morning, so I guess that's good. Thanks for your thoughts and support.

Outside Looking In?

2008-04-21T13:57:00.002-04:00

You might recall a blog entry I had back in December in which I talked about the diversity in my life, and how I found myself typically the only person in the crowd of a specific type or character. Generally speaking, I embrace and celebrate this variety.
But that world sort of came crashing in on me today. Without getting into all the specifics, I became aware of a situation in which I was pretty much TOTALLY ignorant. And when I tried to "process the facts" as best as I knew how to, all I got was further and further confused (and isolated). And like a snowball so emphatically does in cartoon land, the emotions grew and grew and grew until I felt like I was standing in the middle of the desert, shouting "Hello? Hello? Anyone there?"
I started to take inventory of things going on around me, and it became increasingly apparent just how much I don't know, and how much goes on around me (by things and people who I have direct contact with) that seem to be isolated from me.
I've been bouncing through a HUGE range of emotions over the past few weeks. Situations with friends, work, health, and volunteer stuff have run the gamut from exciting to nervous to stressed to envious to longing to painful to confusing to hopeful to angered to disappointed to calm and collected to scared to frustrated.
Frustrated. That says a lot to me. I have in my mind an image of something very desirable. Something that seems so impossibly close to achieving, but yet in reality is probably as far away as anything else I can imagine. And I find myself totally confused as to how to deal with this 'thing.' When I do think about dealing with it, all those same emotions seem to come swarming back again.
So maybe that's it. Maybe my frustration manifested itself when I tried to process my ignorance. Maybe I read WAYYYY to much into everything surrounding the situation, and my mind raced forward with some illusion, dragging all of my emotions along for the torture.
And then it seemed to become evident that, despite the 'army' of friends, family, coworkers, and associates, I'm missing that "significant other" to share something with and to be needed by and to have on the "inside."
Who knows. I know that I should be thankful for all the bounty I've been blessed with. And I should be thankful for all that surrounds me. And I should accept present life for what it is and realize that it's very-most-likely not going to become what I think it will. And then either live with that acceptance, or move forward to change things. Easier said than done?
I don't know. What I do know is that this is probably a serious rambling of thoughts that probably doesn't make sense. And if I tried to give you all of the background that got me to this point, I'd probably get the award for the longest post in blog history - and alienate a few people along the way. So I'm just going to settle for this being a "don't worry about commenting" post that serves only as a way to vent some thoughts before I explode.

Epidemic - UPDATE

2008-04-18T22:11:00.002-04:00

I have mentioned before, if not specifically in a blog post but in e-mail and conversations, about things I come across in my RSS reader. For those of you not familiar with this, RSS is a system that allows you to subscribe to the regular updates that are posted to a particular website. These regular updates are called RSS feeds, and the most efficient way to read these feeds is with a reader, such as Google Reader. This allows me to categorize the feeds by topic (friend's blogs, news, gadgets, etc.) and read them at my convenience.

Anyway, in catching up on the headlines today, I noticed an image that just ABSOLUTELY ties into my "epidemic" post a few weeks ago about the strollers and lazy moms.

Now, I'm the first one to really want a Segway, though I haven't tried one yet. I'm convinced that my work at the Atlanta Dogwood Festival would be orders of magnitude better on a Segway...but that's just me. But this woman has GONE. TOO. FAR!

I imagine the next thing we'll see is a remote-controlled stroller so you can wheel the rugrat from point A to point B without getting off your lazy butt.

Hrmm....patent idea?

Failure to Communicate

2008-04-14T09:44:00.003-04:00

I heard about this on the radio this morning, and found the clip on YouTube. Unbelievable! Grown adults - elected officials - "model" citizens - acting like babies!

Good to see politics at work....

FYI - this is my first video embed, so I hope it works!

My Aching Back

2008-04-13T12:20:00.002-04:00

Ouch. That's the best word I can figure to describe the pain I've got. On Wednesday morning, as I was getting ready for work, I somehow twisted myself around and either pulled a muscle or pinched a nerve in my back. The pain is mostly focused on the outside of my left shoulder and in a straight line across my shoulder blade to my spine/neck.
It hurts the most whenever I lie down, which makes sleep next to nearly impossible. I can't seem to find a position where I don't have a throbbing pain. I'm running less than 4 hours of sleep per night since then. Grrr.... That made for a very unproductive weekend, as I tried to catch up on my sleep when I can (and when the Aleve kicks in). And I had to back out of a Habitat workday and a church committee meeting.
I've tried stretches, ice packs, Ben-Gay, pressure-point massage, and more. And they all seem to work for all of about 5 minutes. Then the pain comes pouring back. Crud.
Dianne put me in touch with her chiropractor, and I have an appointment with him on Monday afternoon. I sure hope he can pop me back into place. I don't know that I can take much more of this.

Let the Festival begin!

2008-04-04T11:43:00.000-04:00

After a lot of scramble and lots of setup, the 72nd Atlanta Dogwood
Festival is underway. Now, let's just hope the weather cooperates!

Yikes! Um... Hrmm... Oh!

2008-03-25T21:10:00.002-04:00

Today turned into an "interesting" day at work. Around 2:30 this afternoon, the Director of Manufacturing came around and asked all of the engineers to join him in the conference room. Once assembled, the President of the company announced that our boss's position (we'll call him SK) had been eliminated, and that we would now report to the Director of Manufacturing. Additionally, the President wants to see the role of Engineering grow and become more engaged in the product development process. After another 30 minutes of discussion, the meeting was over. Needless to say, not a whole lot of work got done the rest of the afternoon. I fielded at least 2 phone calls and one Facebook conversation from folks at the other plant locations to discuss their concerns and listen to my opinions.
Personally, this didn't really surprise me. Historically, the role of Engineering Director has not been a very secure position at this company. In the last 14 years, I'm not aware of any Engineering Director that made it much past 2 years. The latest "victim"? - 26 months. But it does give quite a bit to think about.

Point: SK was a good supervisor to work for. He gave freedom to those that earned it, kept track of what everyone worked on, went to battle for issues that affected his engineers, and was a very good buffer. I worked hard to establish my reputation with SK, and it was rewarded. Now I have to start all over again with a new supervisor.
Counterpoint: Luckily, SK was not the only senior staff member that I had interaction with. My reputation for solid work ethic and quality results carries across the board. So other than establishing a personal one-on-one relationship with my new supervisor, I should be okay.

Point: The President of the company is keen on redeveloping and redefining the role of Engineering to include more customer interaction and direct contact with customers on new product development. He also wants to see a greater leadership role among Engineering as these new products work their way through the company process.
Counterpoint: I'm 99% sure that the model he has in mind for how he wants all of Engineering to function is loosely based on the work I've done myself over the past 2 years. I have personally evolved my position into one that is strong on customer interaction and product development, and strong on carrying the product from "napkin sketch" through to production.

Point: The biggest thing that I fear in all of this is that my current role will be set aside and I'll be pushed back into the role of production engineer, responsible for detail drawings and meaningless drafting work.
Counterpoint: I've already expressed this fear to the President, and he assures me that my work is well respected and appreciated, and that I will continue in my Product Development role as I've created it. In fact, his desire is that I expand and grow that role to become even stronger. Works for me! Without sounding like a pompous a**, I think I perform this Sales Engineer / Product Development Manager function better than any other engineer in my company, especially since none of the others has as much customer interaction as I do.

There is one sticking point that might prove troublesome, though. Years ago, there was a huge chasm between Sales and Engineering. Sales went out and told the customer that we could do anything they wanted. Then they came back to Engineering, who told them that they had just lied to the customer - we couldn't design what they just sold, making them look like the bad guys. But, over the years the skill level of Engineering - as well as the education of Sales - greatly increased to the point that Sales and Engineering mesh very well together. Now, the problem lies between Engineering and Manufacturing. Manufacturing now goes back to Engineering and tells us that they can't produce what we've drawn - making us look like the bad guys. So I wonder what's going to happen now that Engineering and Manufacturing are under one roof...a roof that's supported by the Director of Manufacturing. Might be battles we can't win.

I'll just hold on tight and see what happens in the next few days and weeks. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will end up for the good, at least for me anyway.

So how was your day?

An Epidemic?

2008-03-24T21:47:00.004-04:00

Tonight was a night that I haven't experienced much lately - I headed straight home from work without a meeting, activity, or dinner plans on the calendar. I guess it's nice to get a little break once in a while. Anyway, I decided to stop and grab some dinner at one of those "buffet and grill" chain restaurants. I like this particular one because I can always get loads of tasty vegetables, including Brussels sprouts (one of my favorites). Anyway, as I'm finishing up my meal, I notice some commotion in the aisle. I look up, and I see nothing short of a mechanical monstrosity. It looked very much like this beast pictured here:

And, of course, the woman pushing this beast was barely bigger than the stroller itself. I'm pretty sure my chin dropped. And I'm pretty sure this stroller cost as much (if not more) than my first car! About as quickly as I had the thought, "Why on earth would anyone spend so much money for a freakin' stroller?", I also had the thought, "Why on earth did they need a stroller to go from the parking lot to their table?" Come on - it's not that far! Could the woman (or her husband) not handle carrying the kid in the car seat/carrier a whopping 50 or 100 feet? And this thing was huge - so big, in fact, that the woman knocked over at least 2 chairs as she tried to turn this thing down the aisle to get to a table. And, yes, they had to find a table that was 'just so' in the restaurant where they dock this behemoth. For what it's worth, the restaurant has some very nice, sturdy high-chairs that hold the carriers perfectly. I know this, because the woman sitting at the table next to mine was doing just that.

All of this brought back quick memories to my day at Zoo Atlanta last week. As Cara and I wandered the grounds taking pictures, we were bombarded with the stroller patrols. Lots of Debbie Dunwoodys and Buckhead Buffys pushing these $1,000+ gizmos all over the park. I swear I've seen cars smaller than some of these double-wide, all-terrain contraptions. And wouldn't you know it, more times than not the seats of these things were empty (or, worse, loaded with packs and snacks, not kids). At one point, I had to literally jump out of the way of a double-wide trike coming right at me because Little Miss Mommy was too busy chatting with her gal-pal and not paying any attention to where she was walking or pushing. I wonder if she even knew where her kids were (because they weren't in their seats). But before the day was over, most of the rugrats did in fact end up in the seats.

So the kids get lazy and ride instead of walking. And Mom's too lazy to carry her baby into the restaurant, opting for the rolling beast instead. And we wonder why our nation has an issue with obesity and laziness?

Arggh!

2008-03-22T06:28:00.003-04:00

Sorry to have to do this folks, but after getting my 4th spam comment (and 3rd just on the last blog entry alone), I had to make a minor change. For the immediate future, you'll have to complete a word verification in order to enter a comment. You know, those annoying squiggly windows that show a combination of letters that probably look perfectly normal if you're tripping on acid!

As much a I hate the verification, it seems like the best step to keep the comments flowing. I like seeing the comments posted immediately, so I'd rather not do comment moderation. And I don't want to restrict access to the blog (for the reasons mentioned in the last blog entry).

So let's see how this goes. And if anyone knows how to report spammers to Blogger, please let me know!

Blog Power

2008-03-12T14:57:00.002-04:00

Regular JAFO readers might remember by post, "Heaven Has A New Police Chief" and the surprise result it had when one of Paul's granddaughters found the blog during a search for something - anything - about her grandfather. I was nothing short of amazed at the power of the blog community. Not just for the relief and comfort it can bring to folks, but also the depths to which search engines like Google go to put blog entries out there for research.
One of the interesting ways in which I see this happen is through a utility called Google Analytics. I have it set on this blog so I can see traffic and page hits (not for any other primary reason other than it's cool). One of the ways in which you can view reports is to see how your blog was found using Google search terms. I am amazed at how my blog can show up in some very unlikely combinations of search terms. For example, somebody searching "Laura Huckabee YouTube" would find my blog - not because I have a YouTube video of Laura Huckabee, but because I have a couple of entries on the same page. These entries detail me meeting Laura Huckabee at the 2007 Atlanta Dogwood Festival, and watching a YouTube video of some other performer. Interesting.
Another example of the blog power came to me this morning. As I logged on to my e-mail, I noticed a message in my Facebook inbox. I click over to find it, from someone I had never met before. This particular person was trying to track down my friend, Phil, in Little Rock. Seems she knew lots of things about him, but not his last name. Her Google search led her to my page, specifically this entry, and from there she found a link to my Facebook profile, where she sent me a message.
So...something to think about when you make your own blog entries - you never know how your words will be seen, and how they might be helpful to someone. Of course, the next person to search "Laura Huckabee watches a YouTube video of Phil on Facebook" is going to land smack-dab on this entry. Well, "howdy" to you!

"Exciting" Pittsburgh

2008-03-11T10:18:00.000-04:00

This is about as thrilling and scenic as the trip as been so far. My
flight up was an hour late, so dinner last night was at the Atlanta
airport. The hotel was nice, but I couldn't sleep very well. Oh well,
it's been productive, work-wise, and I guess that's what really matters.
BTW, this is the Fort Pitt tunnel, which leads into the city from the
suburbs.
Have a great day!

Oh They Have Gone TOO Far!

2008-03-03T14:02:00.002-05:00

What's next, the Preparation-H logo tattooed on your butt?

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/02/29/tongue-piercing-sponsored-by-coke-zero/

I Know What I'm Eating for Dinner

2008-03-01T13:11:00.001-05:00

Gotta love pork and pork products - The Other White Meat!

http://www.seriouseats.com/required_eating/2008/03/happy-national-pig-day-2008.html

I'm Still Here!

2008-03-01T08:27:00.002-05:00

I know it's been two weeks since my last blog post. Sorry about that. Things have been pretty hectic (good....but hectic). Last night (Friday) was the first time in over a week that I actually drove straight home from work. Of course, it being a Friday night, traffic was awful so it took me almost two hours (!!!!!) to get home. Gotta love suburban Atlanta.

Work has been good, but it's been coming in waves. I had a lot to do last week as we decided to do some "value engineering" to my checklane design for Big Orange. Value Engineering means the customer was shocked by our price, and if we want to have any hopes of ever selling another piece of metal to them, we better figure out how to lower our cost. So I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which pieces of metal were not necessary, and how we could redesign it to be built with less parts. That's all well and good, until you realize that our cars, airplanes, and skyscrapers go through the same process. Yikes. This week, I was busy for most of the week with a project for a convenience store chain. Again, they were concerned with the cost of the Avonite (think "Corian") countertops we make for them. So I and another Engineer redesigned the whole top system in an effort to make it more cost-effective, at the direction of senior management. But we had some concerns about the structural integrity. Those big fountain-drink machines where you get 70-gazillion choices of how to fill your super-mega-keg-bladder-buster-gulp cup are technically called "Post Mix" machines, and they weigh about 1,000 pounds a piece. This particular store had two of them sitting across two of our cabinets. Anyway, late on Thursday the decision was made that maybe we shouldn't test a new design out in the field before we test it in-house. So the three days of design work that we had was tossed in the can (literally). Joy.

Outside of work, the fun is gearing up for the 2008 Atlanta Dogwood Festival. The event is April 4-6 at Lenox Mall. I encourage all of you to come to the Festival - it proves to be one of the best ever. So drive up here from Davie; fly in from Arlington, Montgomery, and everywhere else; and have a good time! We had the media kick-off party last week, a board meeting this week, and a logistics planning meeting this week, too. Looks like I'll be busy during the Festival with a whole lot of little things, like helping out with security and cash management, logistical issues, and general problems. I'll essentially be the Executive Director's go-to guy when issues come up. Should be fun.

If that weren't enough, the past two weeks has also seen work at my Church, a bike ride, work with the new non-profit group I'm helping with, an antiques auction, dinner with friends, visiting a friend in the hospital (who is home now - yay!), climbing, working late, and a birthday party for friends. Whew! And this weekend continues with more non-profit work, taxes (hopefully), and a full day at Church on Sunday.

By the way...the pain in my leg turned out to be an inflamed lateral muscle that was putting pressure on my sciatic nerve. During my doctor visit earlier this month, he gave me some therapy stuff to do, and the problem has just about completely gone away. He also changed around my diabetes medication, and my blood-sugar numbers are almost all back to normal. Still have some issues in the morning, but daytime numbers are nearly perfect. Wooo! AND Hooo!

Have a great weekend!

Only the water falls (not me)

2008-02-16T10:48:00.000-05:00

Since I'm not skiing, I'm finding other things to do. Here's a nice
waterfall that required a little "bouldering" to get to.

I Don't Get It!

2008-02-13T15:18:00.002-05:00

I have become quite the fan of Google Reader for keeping up with RSS feeds of various website (like all of my friends' blogs, flickr pages, and so forth). A few weeks ago, I went on to the website of our local birdcage lining, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and added a bunch of RSS feeds to my reader so I could keep up with the headlines and breaking news all in one convenient spot.

This morning, I came across this article about Gary Hilton, the idiot who abducted a hiker in the North Georgia mountains, did who-knows-what to her, then bludgeoned her to death. She had a dog with her. Initially, Hilton put her dog in her car, but when he realized that the dog was scared, he took the dog with them. Hilton also had his own dog. In the course of reading the article, I come to find out this this piece-of-trash took great pains to insure that his dog (and her dog, for the time he had it) got excellent food and care. And in his plea agreement, he wanted to be sure that his dog would find a good, suitable new home.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am very pleased to know that one of God's 4-legged creatures is getting the care that they ALL deserve. Over the past few weeks, I have gotten involved in working with some friends to start an dog rescue organization here in Atlanta. I've been lucky enough over the years to have been involved with a number of non-profit, charitable organizations, so I am using that experience to help them get organized and get started. I can't go into all the details here, because there are some "sticky" points that still need to be resolved, but I'm sure that when the time comes, you'll hear all about it.

Anyway, back to the Hilton story. It just floors me. It looks very much like he's going to be responsible for several other hiker murders around the Southeast. How can someone have so much care and concern for one living being, but so little regard for others? Of course, the same could be said for Michael Vick and his dog-fighting circus, and countless others who adopt a dog and leave it chained up outside 24 hours a day or adopt a cat and let it run wild outside. I'll bet any of these other folks would never even think about laying a hand on another human! Again - so much concern for one living being and so little regard for another.

In my opinion, pets are members of the family and deserve every amenity that any other member of the family might get. Luckily, I seem to be surrounded by friends and family that believe this, too.

I'll step down off the soap box, now....

Getting Wild!

2008-02-11T09:29:00.000-05:00

Okay...before your mind gets TOO far into the gutter, this post has nothing to do with my personality or personal life - despite what the title might lead you to think!

This past Saturday was a somewhat rare weekend day with nothing on the schedule. Sure, I had work to do and errands to run, but nothing in the way of scheduled activities. I decided that this would be the ideal day to give my old bicycle a much-needed tune up in anticipation of starting to do some riding in the coming weeks and months. I decided to go out to the shed and get my bike and carry it around to the shop to start working on it. I opened the sliding-glass door and stepped outside, and immediately heard something jumping around in the leaves in the wooded part of my backyard. I figured it was a stray cat (unfortunately, they tend to hang around the yard because of my bird feeders). Nope - it wasn't a cat -this thing had wings! I focused in on the action and realized I had a big 'ol hawk on the ground in my yard. And as soon as I realized that, he took off and headed for a tree branch. I ran inside to grab my camera, and managed to get these shots:

What a beautiful animal! I am fascinated by birds of prey, and we thankfully have a good variety of them in Georgia. Everything about him - the beak, his eyes - is powerful and amazing. I tried to get a little closer, but he flew into the neighbor's yard. And I didn't dare venture over to where he had been on the ground. I just have no need to see what he had been feeding on (or what remained of it, anyway!).

I have had birdfeeders in my yard since I moved into the house. And I have always done stuff to try and establish a decent habitat for birds and other animals in my yard (despite the stray cats). It's very satisfying to see even these amazing creatures can find something here, too. Right in the middle of the suburbs, no less.

Oh, and for what it's worth, the bike got new tubes and tires, grease and oil where it needed it, adjustments to the gears and brakes, and a test ride. And my new hitch-mount bike carrier also got assembled and tested - it makes a fantastic rack to hold the bike up in the air for service and repairs!

Hope your life gets a little "wild" this week, too!

Chillin' With Chili

2008-02-04T16:33:00.000-05:00

Things are a little slow on the work front (for today – busy day tomorrow, though!), so I thought I would share a little bit about my dinner Saturday night.

One day last week, Dianne mentioned something about eating chili for dinner, and I realized that I had yet to cook up a batch this winter. And all of a sudden I was hungry for chili. Later in the week, while surfing through the cable offerings, I was watching an episode of “Tyler’s Ultimate” on Food Network, and he was making (guess…guess…guess!) chili. But his take on it was a little different. First off, he was making true Texas-style chili, which has no beans in it, only meat. And since I am confident enough to call myself a picky eater and don’t care to put beans in anything I’m cooking (my momma raised me right, so I’ll eat beans if I’m served them at someone else’s house), this is what I typically make anyway. Of course, over the years I have evolved my chili recipe to include whole corn as a replacement for the beans, and it’s a style that I have really grown to love. Secondly, Tyler was using a big hunk ‘o beef instead of ground beef, and cooked it long enough that it started to shred like barbecue. Wow! It looked quite tasty!

I decided to venture into this corner of the chili arena and make a few changes to my old standard. I started with a beautiful 3-pound beef roast that required only minimal trimming. Saturday morning, I rubbed the roast with some cracked black pepper and just a little bit of chili powder than put the roast in my small Crock-pot along with 4 cups of beef broth. I set the thing on “low” and headed out to the High Museum with Dianne, her parents, and Donna to take in a photography exhibit and a burger at The Vortex. When I got home (to a wonderfully-smelling house, I might add), the roast had been in for 8 hours. I took it out and used 2 pairs of tongs to shred the meat into tasty strands. I also skimmed off any of the fat that had risen to the top of the broth in the pot, and removed 2 cups of the broth. Then, into the remaining broth I threw in the spice packets from 2 packages of Carroll Shelby’s Chili Kit, 2 15-ounce cans of tomato sauce, and a large diced onion. I mixed all of it well, then returned the meat to the mix. I gave everything a stir to insure that it was mixed well, then added in 1 of the Carroll Shelby salt packages, a little more chili powder, a little more cumin, and 1 of the Carroll Shelby packages of cayenne pepper. Then the requisite frozen package of corn kernels went in. The Crock-pot went to “high” for a couple of hours. At the 2-hour point, I took one of the masa-flour packages from one of the Carroll Shelby kits and mixed it with some cold water, then stirred that into the pot to thicken the sauce up. Then I turned the heat back down to “low” and let it simmer for another 2 hours.

The resulting concoction looked like typical shredded-beef barbecue, but the taste was anything but that! It had all the same spice flavor as my normal chili, but the shredded beef gave a much “beefier” flavor to the dish, and it was heartier than ever before. And the 3-pound roast gave me enough for 7-10 servings, more if I decide to serve it over a bowl of rice or something like that. Tonight, I’ll portion up the leftovers into Food Saver bags to put up in the freezer (which is already pretty full with chicken barbecue, pork barbecue, Sabrett’s hot dogs, and mojo pork).

It’s hard to beat using ground beef in terms of quickly preparing a tasty chili dish, but if time permits, this version will definitely be part of my cooking “arsenal.” Yum!

Hope your week is a tasty one!

A Hammer to Cure a Headache

2008-01-28T13:14:00.000-05:00

Whenever I encounter someone with a headache, I jokingly suggest that I can go and get a hammer out of my car to cure their headache. When they question my method, I tell them that I’ll use the hammer to hit their foot, and the pain in their foot will take their attention away from the headache. This morning, I unintentionally put that theory to the test.

If you’ve been following the blog entries lately, you know that I’ve had some pain in my right leg, near the top of the hamstring. I think it is sciatica, and it seems to be getting slowly worse. I have a doctor’s appointment in 10 days, so I’ve been hoping that I can wait it out until then and he can point me towards healing the pain.

Now for the hammer theory in practice.

I woke up this morning, as usual, with the intent to give the critters their morning treats, check my blood sugar, eat breakfast, check e-mail, and all that. I headed towards the stairs, got one foot planted, and went to the #2 step. For whatever reason (possibly because I’ve been favoring my right leg because of the pain), I did not get my right foot planted properly. What followed was a harrowing wild ride down the stairs! I fell onto my right side and bounced down, with my right leg (at the EXACT spot where I’ve been feeling the sciatica pain) hitting the edge of every step – resulting in not only a nasty throbbing bruise, but also a wonderfully-pink rug burn. My right arm went up over me, I guess trying to break my fall, and I stretch out the arm at the shoulder. I apparently also tried to grab the ground to stop myself, because I managed to cut the palm of my hand in about 3 or 4 places. I think, from the feel of it, my arm hit every step, too.

I ended my ride at the bottom of the stairway, totally destroying a door stop as my foot came to a rest against the baseboard. Once I got over the shock of what had happened, I realized that nothing was broken and nothing was too severe. The cats, by the way, were nowhere to be found! I later discovered that they were scared by the sight and sound of my fall, and quickly retreated to the safety of the beds. Itchy came crawling out after about 10 minutes with a little coaxing, but it took Scratchy almost an hour before she came out to see what had happened.
When I got into the shower, I had almost forgotten the incident – at least until the water from the shower hit the “road rash” on my leg. I’m pretty sure that my scream sent the cats scrambling once again!

So here I am now. I feel like I’ve been hit by a Mack truck. My leg throbs, and I can feel every spot on the right side of my body that hit the stairs – arm, hand, torso, and ankle. Every time I go to grip something, the cuts in my hand hurt. I just took some Ibuprofen, so hopefully that will kick in soon. I can only imagine how I’ll feel in the morning.

But, hey, I can’t feel the sciatica pain in my leg now! Woo AND hoo! Hahaha!

Hope your week gets off to a better start.

On My Way Back!

2008-01-24T10:22:00.000-05:00

Ahhhh.... A welcome sign: my boarding pass to get me back to reality.
It's been an interesting trip, and the installation of our equipment
was uneventful. I really enjoyed my Mustang rental car - I bet the GT
version is a sweet ride. But I miss my friends, my critters, and home.
If all goes well (and I certainly hope it does), I'll be back on
Georgia soil (would that be "Tara" firma???) by 4:00pm - plenty of
time to get to Curry Curry for dinner with friends. Yeah!

See y'all soon!

A Pier and A Promenade

2008-01-23T23:56:00.000-05:00

Today was measurably better than Tuesday. Starting with the installation last night, which went smooth, at least for the portion that I'm responsible for. The guys doing the data connection for the registers were having a seriously hard time, apparently because the data wiring in the store is not standard. But the cabinetry went together well, without incident. And the store manager gives it very high marks, which I was happy to hear.

I got in about 3:00 this morning and went to sleep. I got up around 9:00 and headed out around 10:00. The forecast for today was supposed to be rain all day, but it was simply overcast, so I thought I would continue my sightseeing. I had heard that the pier at Santa Monica was worth seeing, and I wanted to at least see the Pacific once while I was here, so I headed that way. On to the interstate and, guess what, traffic! Yuck! I am totally amazed at the volume of traffic in this city. And the road conditions here are awful, too. Pot holes and cracks abound. The roadways need some serious TLC! Aside from the volume and the lousy roads, I will say that moving around the city is pretty easy: there are lots of roads and interstates, and things seem to be easy to figure out (a connected iPhone with Google Maps helps, too!).

So the information I had said that the pier was in Santa Monica, which was on the coast. I figured that Santa Monica Boulevard would take me there, which it did. I had a nice cruise down Santa Monica Boulevard to the end, which was at the aptly named Ocean Boulevard (duh!). And just one block away from Santa Monica and Ocean was the pier. I found a parking garage and headed out on foot. You can see an iPhone picture of the pier in my previous post. There was not a lot going on due to the inclement weather (and being the middle of the week), but I was glad I made the trip. I hopefully got some good pictures, too.

After walking the length of the pier and back, I ventured over to an area called the 3rd Street Promenade. They have closed off about 4 or 5 blocks of 3rd Street to create an open-air pedestrian area of shops and restaurants. There are fountains and gardens in the middle, and the roadway has been replaced with a nice cobblestone path. There are similar areas like this in South Beach (Lincoln Road) and a few other areas. I stopped in to the Apple Store there on the Promenade and browsed a little, though I didn't buy anything. Then, about halfway through the walk, I came across a Farmer's Market that they had set up. Wow! What a great selection of amazing fruits and vegetables! I wanted to load my suitcase up right there and then. So much stuff was organic and fresh from the local farms, sold by the folks that grew it. There were artichokes the size of grapefruit and Brussels sprouts that were as big as limes. And then I found something called 'Romanesco Cauliflower' that was really cool looking! I wonder what it tastes like?

I ate lunch on the Promenade, too. I decided that I should get some fish tacos, which are somewhat of a California specialty. I found a place called Baja Bud's, and ordered up. I got a plate of 3 tacos, 2 of which were fish and the 3rd a chicken taco. The meats were grilled and then broken into chunks, topped with fresh cilantro and diced onion. They were quite tasty. Not too spicy, though the salsa verde added some good depth to the flavor. After lunch, I made a few more stops, including REI and Blick Art Supplies, then got back in the car. And wouldn't you know - as I pulled out of the parking garage, the rain started. Perfect timing.

Came back to the hotel and quickly found the bed. A nice nap brought me to dinner time, so I headed out to one of the suburbs, Northridge, to a restaurant that I had seen while driving around last night - Claim Jumper. It's similar to Longhorn's, but with a western gold rush theme (hence the name). I had a dish called Goldrush Chicken, which was a grilled chicken breast covered with a mushroom cream sauce, roasted vegetables, and mashed red potatoes. It was a very tasty meal!

Now I'm back at the hotel, getting ready to head out for night #3. This will be a short night for me, because I need to get up early tomorrow to head to the airport. I have no idea how traffic is going to be in the morning, so I'm giving myself plenty of time to get to the airport in time for my 10:30 flight.

It'll be nice to be back in Atlanta!

Something To Do

2008-01-23T13:58:00.000-05:00

The rain is holding for now, so I thought I'd check out the fun on the
pier.

b_LA_h

2008-01-22T22:38:00.000-05:00

It's Tuesday evening, about 7:45 local time (10:45 Atlanta time) and I'm sitting in my hotel room in Los Angeles. I'm out here on a work trip to assist with a pilot installation of a new checklane for Home Depot (the last of 5, which started in Acworth, GA and included Kansas City in the middle). So far, the trip has been, well, "blah."

The trip started Monday morning. On the way to the airport, Dianne called me to chat. For some reason, my phone didn't seem to connect. I eventually tried using the speakerphone, and that seemed to work. Hrmm. The flight went well, though anytime you have to spend 4.5 hours in a coach seat, it's not great. I had used a Best Buy gift card from my parents to buy a pair of noise-canceling headphones, which I was thankful to have with me. Once I got to L.A. and got my luggage, it was off to the rental car lot. Things looked up a little when I found out that the only mid-size cars they had available were convertible Mustangs. Nice. Left the lot, found my interstate, and began my trek north to my hotel in Van Nuys. And then I found wonderful LA traffic. Yuck! I got to my hotel and decided to call the parents. Phone was STILL acting up! Crud. How am I going to use a phone that always has to be on speakerphone? And by now (4.5 hours in flight, 1 hour driving), that hamstring that I mentioned a couple of posts prior has really started to scream. After talking with the parents, I decide that part of my Tuesday will be spent at an Apple store - maybe they can figure out what's wrong.

After dinner, I head to the job site. Met the guy who owns the company that has contracted to do the installations. Nice guy - we talk about some possible mutual opportunities for both companies in the future. The installation for the first night goes well (at least, my part of it), very similar to the progress made in Kansas City. I get back to the hotel around 3:00am, though my body says it's 6:00am and I've been up for 24 hours. Sack time.

Tuesday, I awake to find that my phone is working fine. Huh? Well, I guess I don't have to go to Northridge to the Apple store, so maybe I'll do a little sightseeing. I really want a picture of the "Hollywood" sign, so I do a little research and find out that one of the good places to get such is the corner of Hollywood and Highland. Okay, off we go! And right into more of that freakin' LA traffic! Yuck! I decide to get off the freeway and hit the city streets. My iPhone gives me a map that shows that Coldwater Canyon Drive will take me from where I am through the mountains and smack into the middle of Beverly Hills. Cool. Despite the traffic, it was a nice ride. The homes in Beverly Hills make some of the places in Buckhead look like row houses. But, still, I have this overwhelming feeling that I'm way out of place.

I hit Santa Monica Boulevard (and Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do" rings through my head) and head west towards Hollywood. Fun drive. I ate lunch on Melrose Avenue at a place called Baja Fresh (think Moe's Burritos gone California). As I turned on to Highland Avenue, I saw a camera shop and decided I should go in and browse. But to get there, I had to go around the block. It was neat - the back neighborhoods around this area are all of the small studios and production companies and support companies. I saw places that rent the trucks that hold the cameras during filming, places that rent catering trucks, places that rent production equipment, and a bunch of ancillary stuff. At the camera shop, the only that jumped out at me was a travel charger for my batteries.

Off to my picture. I found Hollywood Boulevard, and the crowd that goes with it! Cool! There were people all over the place. The corner of Hollywood and Highland is dominated by this shopping complex that houses, among other things, the Kodak Theater (think Academy Awards) and Grauman's Chinese Theater. And Grauman's (which is famous for the hand- and footprints in concrete of celebrities) is the start for the Walk of Fame. I got my sign picture, then headed out to walk the street for a few blocks. There were some street performers, but they were disappointing. One guy played the drums on 5-gallon buckets. But he was pure junk compared to the guy that Dianne and I saw at the Atlanta Arts Festival this past Fall. This guy here in Hollywood played 1 drum and hardly talked to the crowd. And all around the street were these guys dressed in costumes, like Spider Man, Flash, and Chewbacca. They would pose for pictures with folks, in exchange for tips. Thing of it is, their costumes look like something you might buy at Toys R Us for Halloween! These guys need to take a few lessons from DragonCon. I mean, the folks at DragonCon do it for fun, and these guys are trying to make a living out of it - you'd think they'd put a little effort into their costumes. Needless to say, I think the DragonCon folks could pull in some serious cash.

I took the same route back to the hotel. It was uneventful, which I guess is good. Lots of traffic, though. Back at the hotel, I got to watch a "famous" high-speed chase live on TV. I slept for a little, then headed out for some dinner and back here.

I'll head to the job site in about an hour, for another round. If the weather holds, maybe I'll do some more sightseeing on Wednesday.

See y'all soon!

The Bucket List (from Donna)

2008-01-18T09:28:00.000-05:00

Donna had this link on her blog, so I thought I would join in, too.

* Attend at least one major sporting event: the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the U.S. Open. - I’ve been to the ’96 Olympics (with an all-access credential), the Daytona 500, and the Indy 500. I’ve also been to several college football Bowl games (Orange, Sugar, Peach, and Citrus)
* Throw a huge party and invite every one of your friends. - For my 29th birthday, I invited all of my friends to a party where they bought me dinner and I in turn treated them to game night at Dave & Buster’s. It was a blast.
* Swim with a dolphin. - ½ credit: when I lived in Florida, we would encounter dolphins while we were boating. I’ve also swam with sharks and barracudas while diving.
* Skydive. - Not interested
* Have your portrait painted.
* Learn to speak a foreign language and make sure you use it.
* Go skinny-dipping at midnight in the South of France.
* Watch the launch of the space shuttle. - Did this when I was a kid. But I’d do it again.
* Spend a whole day eating junk food without feeling guilty. - This is a typical weekend day for me…
* Be an extra in a film.
* Tell someone the story of your life, sparing no details. – Anybody got an extra 30 seconds?
* Make love on a forest floor.
* Make love on a train. - I haven’t even been on a train… :(
* Learn to rollerblade. - I tried. Had about as much success as I did on ice skates.
* Own a room with a view. – Well, I’ve rented a room with a view…
* Brew your own beer. - Count this among the college experiences…
* Learn how to take a compliment. - I _think_ I can do this reasonably well.
* Buy a round-the-world air ticket and a rucksack, and run away.
* Grow a beard and leave it for at least a month. - Count this among ANOTHER college experience. There was at least one picture, though I think it’s long gone.
* Give your mother a dozen red roses and tell her you love her. - For a few years, this was a typical Mother’s Day gift.
* Be a member of the audience in a TV show.
* Put your name down to be a passenger on the first tourist shuttle to the moon.
* Send a message in a bottle.
* Ride a camel into the desert.
* Get to know your neighbors. - At an apartment in Vinings, I got to know one neighbor in particular pretty well, at least until she introduced me to her boyfriend!
* Plant a tree. - Did this several times at the Nature Preserve and for Habitat
* Learn not to say yes when you really mean no. - Getting burned-out on volunteer work will teach you this!
* Write a fan letter to your all-time favorite hero or heroine.
* Visit the Senate and the House of Representatives to see how Congress really works.
* Learn to ballroom dance properly. - Me, dance? Hah!
* Eat jellied eels from a stall in London.
* Be the boss. - Done that. I think it’s over-rated.
* Fall deeply in love -- helplessly and unconditionally.
* Ride the Trans-Siberian Express across Asia.
* Sit on a jury.
* Write the novel you know you have inside you.
* Go to Walden Pond and read Thoreau while drifting in a canoe.
* Stay out all night dancing and go to work the next day without having gone home.
* Drink beer at Oktoberfest in Munich.
* Be someone's mentor. - This is a great thing to do. I’ve been an advisor for the youth at my church.
* Shower in a waterfall.
* Ask for a raise. - Believe it or not, I’ve never felt the need to. Though I have counter-offered a salary on a job offer (twice, in fact).
* Learn to play a musical instrument with some degree of skill. – My 4th-grade teacher insisted on teaching all of us how to play the flute. I learned, but never followed-up after that.
* Teach someone illiterate to read. - Did this as a project in high school.
* Be one of the first to take a flight on the new Airbus A380. – Keeping it “American”, I’ve flown on the Boeing 777.
* Spend a night in a haunted house -- by yourself. - Well, considering the ghost stories about the buildings at the Nature Preserve, maybe this is half-credit?
* Write down your personal mission statement, follow it, and revise it from time to time.
* See a lunar eclipse.
* Spend New Year's in an exotic location.
* Get passionate about a cause and spend time helping it, instead of just thinking about it. - I was passionate about Habitat for Humanity for a number of years, but I got overloaded. Maybe I’ll get back into it someday.
* Experience weightlessness. – I’ve been neutrally buoyant when Scuba-diving, which is just about the same thing. And then, there is this hill in Jasper that if you hit it just right at just the right speed…
* Sing a great song in front of an audience.
* Ask someone you've only just met to go on a date. - Done that, but not with much success (it says, "ask" - not, "succeed")
* Drive across America from coast to coast.
* Make a complete and utter fool of yourself. - I did this once. It was called ‘dancing’. See also “asking someone out on a date”, “rollerblading” and “ice skating”.
* Own one very expensive but absolutely wonderful business suit. - I just finally bought a pair of expensive shoes!
* Write your will. - On my ‘To Do’ list
* Sleep under the stars. - Done this a couple of times.
* Take a ride on the highest roller coaster in the country.
* Learn how to complain effectively -- and do it!
* Go wild in Rio during Carnival.
* Spend a whole day reading a great novel.
* Forgive your parents. - I don’t have any reasons to hold anything against my parents to begin with, so forgiving them is easy!
* Learn to juggle with three balls.
* Drive the Autobahn.
* Find a job you love.
* Spend Christmas on the beach drinking pina coladas. - How about Christmas Eve on the beach, taking pictures? See my 2006 Christmas gallery on my Smugmug website.
* Overcome your fear of failure. - I was going to do this, but then I thought I might not do it right? That would be bad… I don’t want to do bad…. Wait a minute…
* Raft through the Grand Canyon. - This was an option for my college graduation gift, but I opted for a week of skiing in Utah.
* Donate money and put your name on something: a college scholarship, a bench in the park. - I didn’t donate money, but my name is on a plaque at Georgia Tech – I was Co-op Student of the Year in 1995
* Buy your own house and then spend time making it into exactly what you want. - ½ credit. I own my house, but it is far from being what I want.
* Grow a garden. - One of the few good adventures with T.E.G (though, she made that difficult, too)
* Spend three months getting your body into optimum shape. - “Round” is a shape, right?
* Drive a convertible with the top down and music blaring.
* Accept yourself for who you are. - I think I’m pretty close to getting this one – after all, I admit when I make a complete and utter fool of myself, right?
* Learn to use a microphone and give a speech in public. - I have done this many times. As long as I know the subject, I’m pretty good at this.
* Scuba dive off Australia's Great Barrier Reef. - I’ve only Scuba-dived off the coast of Florida
* Go up in a hot-air balloon. - Not interested, though I love taking pictures of the balloons getting ready to fly!
* Attend one really huge rock concert. - “The Rolling Stones” is about as big as I’ve been to.
* Kiss someone you've just met on a blind date.
* Be able to handle: your tax forms, Jehovah's Witnesses, your banker, telephone solicitors. - Here’s an idea: Have the Jehovah’s Witness talk to the phone solicitor while the banker does your tax forms!
* Give to a charity -- anonymously.
* Lose more money than you can afford at roulette in Vegas.
* Let someone feed you peeled, seedless grapes.
* Kiss the Blarney stone and develop the gift of gab.
* Fart in a crowded space.
* Make love on the kitchen floor.
* Go deep sea fishing and eat your catch. - The boat was called the “New Popeye” – we figured it was because the old Popeye sank!
* Create your own web site. - Go to aforementioned Smugmug website. Granted, it’s a template, but it’s mine.
* Visit the Holy Land.
* Make yourself spend a half-day at a concentration camp and swear never to forget.
* Run to the top of the Statue of Liberty.
* Create your Family Tree.
* Catch a ball in the stands of a major league baseball stadium.
* Make a hole-in-one.
* Ski a double-black diamond run. - I destroyed my collar bone on a basic blue, so I don’t think a double-black diamond is in order.
* Learn to bartend. - You’d think that all of the drinking in college would have taught me this, but alas, it didn’t.
* Run a marathon. - How about walk a marathon? Or bike it? Or watch it (which I did, during the Olympics)?
* Look into your child's eyes, see yourself, and smile. - This requires a child…
* Reflect on your greatest weakness, and realize how it is your greatest strength.

Being Sick Stinks

2008-01-17T10:35:00.000-05:00

Today is Thursday, and I’m at work. You might be thinking, “Wow, that’s amazing! I’M at work, TOO!” But before you get too far down that road, let me point out that I spent the previous two days flat knocked out. Seems that, at some point this past weekend, I managed to wrangle myself my very own copy of a stomach virus. Blech! I had not felt like this since back in the college-drinking days (which was one of the biggest motivations for giving up on binge drinking, anyway).

I’m sure you can relate. You get that feeling that you’re going to explode. Then your head starts spinning. Then you realize that the only possible remedy to all of this pain and suffering is to vomit/wretch/blow chunks/blow cookies/unswallow/toss your cookies/yawn in Technicolor/spew/barf/yank/cough up a furball/upchuck/etc. You know that you will feel so much better once that happens, but there’s no way to make it come any quicker. You just have to go with the flow and let the nausea get worse and worse.

That started about 1:30am on Monday night (Tuesday morning). I knew things were bad, so I headed to the bathroom, hoping the inevitable would happen quickly. Of course, it did not. That began about 90 minutes of “driving the porcelain bus” – wherein, it is easier and safer to just crash on the bathroom floor rather than heading back to bed and risk not getting to the bathroom in time. Because, and I’m sure you’ll agree, the only thing worse than nausea is having to go back and clean it up! Sure enough, once the ‘episode’ occurred, I felt quite a bit better, relatively speaking. But I was still bad, and spent the rest of the day Tuesday alternating between sleeping and responding to my body’s cries to get rid of absolutely anything solid or liquid that might still be contained within the stomach or digestive tract. Holy cow.

Wednesday was marginally better. I still needed a lot of sleep – mainly because I didn’t sleep a whole lot during the night, and because I was pretty weak for not eating much of anything. I did discover that lying on my left side seemed to induce a nauseous feeling, but lying on my right side made it go away. Interesting. The worst part of Wednesday was the fear that if I tried to eat anything, I was going to have a repeat of Tuesday. Dianne convinced me (she’s quite forceful on the phone! J) that I needed to eat something, and I found some brown rice to cook. That seemed to go down alright, without any reaction. I had a ZonePerfect bar for dinner, hoping to get at least a little nutrition back in me. Again, no negative reaction. That was good!

So, today, I’m back at work. I did my normal routine this morning, and seem to be back to normal. My back aches, but I think that’s because I’ve been a couch potato for the past two days and haven’t been up and walking around as much as I should have been. I also have a new pair of shoes on, which might be wreaking a little havoc on things. As a side note, I have been having some weird hamstring pains. I switched to the premium mattress in the guest room, and that helped a little. Then I thought that my $25 Wal-Mart shoes might be the culprit, so, for the first time in my life, I laid down some serious coin for a nice pair of premium Rockport shoes. I’m hoping they’ll give me some good support.

In light of a busy weekend coming up, as well as a work trip out to California next week, I guess I should be thankful that the illness came at the time it did. Things are slow at work, so I’m not behind, and I only missed one non-work function. Regardless, I think you’ll agree with me, being sick stinks!

Graveyard Shift, Night #2

2008-01-08T23:32:00.000-05:00

Here's the finished product, complete with all of the electronics
installed. The crew has just about finished the demolition for the
final 3 lanes, and is starting to set up the first lane.
I'm staying until 2am - the store is under lockdown from 2am to 4am,
and I have to be at the airport in the morning. Back in Atlanta by mid-
afternoon, then another similar trip like this, but to California in 2
weeks.

Graveyard Shift

2008-01-08T00:31:00.000-05:00

Here's a progress picture of the new Home Depot checklanes being
installed in Kansas City. What you see here are the front (scanner)
halves of two double lanes. The back (register) halves still need to
be set. We'll do the two doubles tonight, then a double and two
singles Tuesday night.

Decent progress so far for 12:30 in the morning.

Dianne's Blog Game

2008-01-07T06:02:00.000-05:00

Dianne’s Blog Game

The items in BOLD apply to me (my comments and thoughts are in parentheses)

Take a step forward:
If your father went to college before you started
If your father finished college before you started
If your mother went to college before you started
If your mother finished college before you start
If you have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor. (nope...a Chief of Police, but none of the 3)
If your family was the same or higher class than your high school teachers. (I don’t get this one, either.)
If you had a computer at home when you were growing up (actually, we had 3!)
If you had more than 50 books at home when you were growing up.
If you had more than 500 books at home when you were growing up. (the challenge, of course, was where to put all of them!)
If were read children’s books by a parent when you were growing up.
If you ever had lessons of any kind as a child or a teen. (I can't remember any)
If you had more than two kinds of lessons as a child or a teen.
If the people in the media who dress and talk like you were portrayed positively. (I'm not sure how this works...I've seen other versions of this game where it asks about people in your profession, and I doubt Engineers are typically portrayed positively)
If you had a credit card with your name on it before college. (Unfortunately, I wish I hadn't had one until AFTER college)
If you had or will have less than $5000 in student loans when you graduate. (See above comment about credit card)
If you had or will have no student loans when you graduate.
If you went to a private high school.
If you went to summer camp. (Boy Scout camp, 1 week/summer)
If you had a private tutor (what if you WERE the private tutor?)
If you have been to Europe more than once as a child or teen (I haven't been to Europe, period)
If your family vacations involved staying at hotels rather than KOA or at relatives homes.
If all of your clothing has been new. (Older male cousins = hand-me-down clothes)
If your parents gave you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them.
If there was original art in your house as a child or teen. (Yes, and it was created by the family)
If you had a phone in your room. (for said computer)
If your parent owned their own house when you were a child or teen.
If you had your own room as a child or teen.
If you participated in an SAT/ACT prep course.
If you had your own cell phone in High School. (no, but I did have one in college, well before everyone else did)
If you had your own TV as a child or teen. (I bought my own from a neighbor)
If you opened a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
If you ever flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16. (yes, though it wasn't a jet back then)
If you ever went on a cruise with your family.
If your parents took you to museums and art galleries as a child or teen. (science museums)
If you were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.

To participate in this blog game, copy and paste the above list into your blog (and erase my comments), and bold the items that are true for you.

World's Coolest iPod Dock!

2008-01-06T12:38:00.000-05:00

One of my new-found interests is going to antique/estate auctions. I had always thought about going, especially with my renewed interest in antique tools. But since I didn't know how the auctions worked, I hesitated going alone. That changed back at Thanksgiving. Since I stayed in town, Laura invited me to head up to her cabin for the weekend. Randy mentioned something about the auction, and my interest was piqued! I told Laura that I'd be interested in going to see what it was all about, and she happily obliged. Of course, I had no intention of buying anything, but I ended up buying 2 pieces. The first was a small slant-top desk, which is the perfect size for my Mac (and at which I am sitting at right now as I type this). The other piece I saw was this old Silvertone console radio. I didn't know anything about it, but it looked cool. And for a whopping $45, it was all mine! Here's what it looks like:
My intention for buying this piece was to create what I affectionately call the "World's Coolest iPod Dock." I had no interest in trying to salvage the radio, but the cabinet (which is in surprisingly good condition) would make a great place to house some modern electronics for an iPod. This particular Silvertone model had a pull-out phonograph, which I thought would make the perfect place for the iPod to sit.

So on the way home from work Friday night, I stopped at Fry's Electronics and made a couple of purchases. I bought a DLO Home Dock with Remote and a set of Logitech amplified speakers with subwoofer. Saturday morning, I proceeded to begin the transformation. The first thing I realized as I took apart the back panel is that I was not the first person to have this idea about this cabinet! Seems the previous owner, probably 20 or 25 years ago, gutted the original radio parts (leaving just the dial face visible on the outside) and installed a Sony receiver, some speakers, and a new turntable. That meant all I had to do was remove the 'modern' stuff, clean up the inside, and install my new electronics. Along the way, I discovered that the original radio was a Silvertone 6105A, manufactured in 1946.

To begin, I cut a piece of plexiglass to cover the hole in the phonograph drawer, then installed some shelf liner over that. I also built a shelf in the bottom of the cabinet inside to hold the new speakers. The existing shelf inside where the original radio had been installed was the perfect place to mount the subwoofer. I invested in a remote electrical switch and some other electrical components and wired them all together so a single switch turns the whole thing on and off, and added a power cord for the cabinet. I placed the DLO dock on the phonograph drawer shelf. Here's what the finished unit looks like:
And here is a close-up of the DLO dock with the iPod installed:
The white thing on the left is the power switch for the system. The DLO dock is nice because it features a wireless remote control with its own LED display. This allows me to open up the cabinet to turn on the power and get the remote, then close it back up and have total iPod control (including volume) using just the little remote.

Needless to say, I'm very pleased with the result! This morning, while reading the news and doing some computer work, I turned on my 'Jazz and Big Band' playlist, which fit the scene perfectly. Might be 30 years since that kind of music played from this cabinet? And who else can say they have a 61-year-old iPod stereo?

In my haste to finish the project, I didn't take any pictures of the inside before I closed the back of the cabinet up. But I've decided that what would really dress this unit up nicely would be to add some sort of lighting effect that would come on when the system was powered on. I'm not sure what or how, but when I do, I'll take a picture of the inside and post that as well.

Can't wait for my next auction find!

Brrrrrr....

2008-01-02T09:31:00.000-05:00

Here's a quick picture of the readout in my car this morning when I
got to work. If you look past the mirror through the windshield, you
can see a little dusting of snow on the ground. Hope you're staying
warm!

Unique.....Just Like Everyone Else!

2007-12-30T11:48:00.000-05:00

As I thought about the subject matter for this post, the original title going through my mind was going to be something like "Alone in a Crowd" or "Party of One". But I was afraid that it might come across as some sort of "lonely desperation" or cry for help, which is the furthest thing from the truth. So put on a happy face, and join me for Just Another Freakin' Observation:

I manage to keep myself very busy these days, between work and personal life. Whether it is meetings with customers, managing a team of engineers through detail design, attending a Board of Directors meeting for the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, vacation time with the family, rock climbing, holiday parties, volunteer work at church, or just hanging around with friends, my time is full, fun, and busy. I am always surrounded by fantastic people with a common goal for the moment. But, interestingly, about a month ago, I started noticing just how often I end up being "the only _____" in the crowd. Fill in the blank with:

male, single person, person without kids, heterosexual, person from Georgia
Tech, person NOT from University of Georgia, person without a dog, person with
cats, person NOT living in Florida, person NOT born in Georgia, person who
doesn't go home for lunch, college graduate, oldest, youngest, engineer, most
creative, least creative, cook, person not on the 'social calendar',
photographer, and more.

I am NOT complaining! I have always been around a diverse mix of people, and I am pleased that I have been blessed with the ability to associate with folks from all walks of life. I think I would be bored stiff if I was locked in a room with a bunch of single, mid-30's, straight, male, Georgia Tech engineers who only put down their cameras for enough time to cook up some barbecue to share with their cats. Yuck! B-O-R-I-N-G!!!!! But, at the same time, I don't think that I conscientiously seek out groups of diverse people - it just happens through the normal course of life.

Dianne and I talked about this a few weeks ago over dinner. And yesterday, Laura and I had a very similar conversation with some new friends. One thing we realized was how powerful the Internet has been in helping to cultivate these kinds of diverse groups.

Some folks are intimidated by this diversity. TEG was quite threatened by the friendships and working relationships I had, particularly (or especially) with women. She thrived in a homogeneous environment where everyone thought like she did, and she insisted that I give up the diversity of my life for her. She liked to use guilt as a tool against me, to try to convince me that the variety of my friendships was somehow damaging to me as a person. Oh how wrong she was! Without the diversity of people around me, I died - and I turned into someone that none of my friends, family, coworkers, or even I alone, knew!

So, while I catch myself taking inventory every once in a while, I step back and cherish the huge variety of great people in my life. In fact, one of my favorite prayers is to thank God for "putting good people in my life, and occasionally allowing me to be a good person for other people." And all of these good people bring so many things to the table - it's what keeps life interesting and worth getting up for every morning.

It makes me think that variety is not just the 'spice' of life, it's one of the main ingredients! And perhaps it's the most important. I am thankful for the diversity of people around me, because it allows me to grow, and I challenge you to be thankful for all that makes you unique... just like everyone else!

Heading Back to ATL

2007-12-27T16:02:00.000-05:00

It's been a great 5 days in Ft Lauderdale spending Christmas with my
family. Now, it's time to pack it up and head on home. My holiday
vacation will continue with my friends, but I will miss being around
my family. Luckily, I've got some more great memories to file away.
So, now, as the song says: "On my way...on my way...on my way back to
Georgia."

Photo Tripping

2007-12-26T17:51:00.000-05:00

Here's a little taste of what I saw during my photo trip today. My
cousin, Wayne, and our friend, Bud, went to Green Cay Nature Center
and Wakodahatchee Wetlands Center. Both facilities are projects of the
Palm Beach Water Authority, and are wetlands restoration projects.
Lots of birds! Look for the pictures on my Smugmug site in the next
few weeks.

Christmas Bounty

2007-12-25T11:03:00.000-05:00

Mom enjoys her scratch-off lottery tickets, Uncle Art looks at his
gift card, Dad picks up wrapping paper, and Aunt Connie finishes
opening her gifts this morning.

Me? Looks like I've got trips to Best Buy, Circuit City, Sam's, and
REI to use gift cards!

All of this after enjoying a great breakfast strata that Mom made, and
lending a hand to make a couple of pumpkin pies (to go with the
cheesecake).

Have a Merry Christmas and enjoy your day!

Right on Target

2007-12-24T19:37:00.000-05:00

Mom and I always love to bake a special cheesecake for dessert after Christmas
dinner - because the pumpkin and apple pies aren't enough!. In the past, we've had fancy chocolate or pumpkin (anything besides plain). This year, Mom found a recipe for a bull's eye cheesecake, with alternating vanilla and mocha 'rings'. The recipe looked impossible to do even though the article says it will work, but so far, so good! It's going to be a great ending to a meal of turkey, beef roast, leg of lamb, carrot soufflé, roasted vegetables, and more!

Yum! Wish you were here to join us!

UPDATE: We are about to take the cheesecake out of the oven. It's cooked up to almost twice its original height, and the rings seem to have disappeared on top. Of course, it still has to cool. Just in case, we have enough stuff to coat the top of the cake with a chocolate ganache. Regardless of how it looks, I think it will taste great!

Parents' Christmas Gift

2007-12-24T09:03:00.000-05:00

Christmas came a day early for my parents. My gift to them is a new
light fixture for their recently-remodeled kitchen, and I decided to
install it this morning so we would have nice light for cooking and
for when the family comes over.

As Laura would say, this was "easy peasy." I think it took all of 30
minutes and no trips to the hardware store.

The picture doesn't do it justice to how nice it fits the new decor.

Hope your gifts fit as well!

Comida es muy bueno

2007-12-23T20:21:00.000-05:00

South Florida is rich with diverse cultures. Robin's (my sister)
boyfriend, Rick, is Cuban and decided he wanted to be in charge of
dinner tonight. He headed down to Little Havana and picked up a NICE
pork roast, then came back to the house and cooked up a batch of
congri (red beans and rice). Robin made some pasta salad and we had
some good mojo ("moe-hoe") sauce for the pork. Add some carmel cake
for dessert, and this turned into a serious home-cooked meal! Yum-mo!

So far, aside from a bad sinus headache earlier this afternoon, the
visit is off to a great start!

Hope your holidays are going well, too!

Heading to Florida

2007-12-23T06:21:00.000-05:00

Well, about an hour to go before departure. I got to the airport early
and sailed through security. I had checked in last night, and my
boarding pass said gate T7. As I walked past the flight boards in the
T terminal, I happened to catch that my flight was listed as E5. So I
got on the tram and headed to the E terminal a mile away. When I got
to E, I was greeted with a flight board showing my flight was going
out of T3! So back on the tram for a mile to the T terminal. I went to
T3, only to find official notice that there was a gate change - you
guessed it - E5! So back once again. Good thing I got here early....

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Blog Test #1.1

2007-12-10T14:19:00.000-05:00

So... my iPhone has a camera (though not all that great), and Blogger
is set up to receive posts by e-mail. I thought I would put the two
together and see what happens.

This is a picture of my desk at work. You can see I'm hard at work
managing my personal e-mail inbox! And, yes, that IS a wheelchair
brochure on my desk. I'm working on a new product that can be used by
someone in a chair, and I need some dimensions (thanks, Nancy!). You
can also see that I keep some of my favorite photographs around me to
help "take me away" when things get out of hand!

So, if this post works, I hope to post some "look what I'm doing at
this very moment" blog entries and share some of my adventure with you.

Have a great week!

Beware of a Test

2007-12-09T22:50:00.000-05:00

A subtle warning to my friends: I have an itch to try something a little different here on the blog in the next few days, but I have no idea how it will come out. So if your RSS reader shows a new entry, but it's gone by the time you get around to reading the blog, that might be because my test has gone horribly wrong and I've quickly deleted the results.
As for the test itself, suffice it to say that I'm thinking of a "here's where I am at this very moment" blog entry. Which, if it works, might turn into a regular feature. Anything to get my posting frequency increased...

Stay tuned....

Life Lesson #621

2007-11-23T11:04:00.000-05:00

For Thanksgiving this year, I chose not to fight the road rush to drive to Florida, and instead was given the privilege to share Thanksgiving with my Atlanta "family." The original plan was to go with Dianne to her parents' house up at Lake Arrowhead. By the time the weekend rolled around, the plan changed to having dinner at Dianne's, with her parents, as well as Louis and Bedford, Donna, and Valerie. Dianne and I agreed to share the task of preparing the main part of the meal, with everyone else bringing something else along. My main task to do before Thursday was to bake a couple of pies.

I got home early on Wednesday to take care of a few chores before setting about to pie time. I turned on the oven to preheat, then began the task of measuring out the ingredients and mixing the filling for the first of two pies. Just before filling one of the pies, I thought I should check the position of the rack in the oven to make sure it was right. So I opened the oven door, only to find this:
And herein is life lesson #621: "BEFORE turning on the oven, check to make sure you do not have anything plastic stored in said oven."

Egad. Yikes. OMG. WTF? Holy cow. You name it, it went through my mind. I had a couple of cafeteria-style plastic trays that didn't fit in the cabinets, so I had stashed them in the oven. And now, I've ruined my oven, and I'll have to scramble to get pies made for Thursday. I quickly called Dianne to see if we could rearrange things going into her oven in the morning so I could bake the pies at her house. She agreed. Panic was starting to subside, if only a little.

As I started to think about packing up all of the baking stuff to truck it over to Dianne's (and while the exhaust fan was running full blast and the doors wide open to evacuate all of the smoke, I noticed that the molten mess on the bottom of the oven was cooling. I grabbed a screwdriver and tried picking at the mess. It turned into this:
Amazingly, the majority of the mess picked off in a few blobs. There was still the matter of the plastic that had made it's way past the bottom pan in the oven and down to the burner. So I quickly learned how to remove the bottom pan, which gave me access to the lower portion of the oven to remove the remaining plastic mess. It also gave me a chance to clean the bottom pan. And I then turned my attention to trying to recover the oven rack that was currently enrobed with plastic cafeteria tray. That came off cleanly, too, leaving me with something out of an alien movie:
Egad. Regardless, it was time to get back to the task at hand. I called Dianne to let her know that the smoke had cleared (literally and figuratively) and I was back to pie time. After a little more measuring and mixing and time in the oven, the result was:
On the left is a chocolate-chip pecan pie and on the right is a pumpkin pecan pie. Yum! And, luckily, I got rave reviews from all the folks at dinner.

By the way, dinner included turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato souffle, rolls, green beans, homemade gravy, cranberry sauce, and fruit salad. The gravy was one of my first attempts ever, and it was quite tasty. The green beans were a collaborative effort between Dianne and I, and they were great, too. Of course, just about anything will be tasty with a pound of bacon and a medium onion!

So I learned a valuable lesson, got to share my cooking with great friends, and had a completely satisfying day. Truly stuff to be thankful for!

One Year Ago

2007-11-20T16:44:00.001-05:00

I'm a day late on the actual 1-year anniversary of the event, but there is significance none-the-less. On November 19, 2006, I finally had enough and made the decision to end my relationship with The Ex Girlfriend (TEG). A lot of the experience since that date has been documented here in the blog, and through many conversations with my family and friends. As I mentioned in my "Wonderful Life" entry, the past year has been nothing short of phenomenal.
I knew back in June, 2006 that she was not the right person for me. We had an argument because I had to stop at the bank to make a deposit. The way in which she interrogated me was unbelievable, and I thought to myself at that point that, if I couldn't even make a simple bank deposit without getting the 5th degree, how was I going to "sneak off" to buy an engagement ring? And then it hit me like a ton of bricks - DO NOT BUY HER AN ENGAGEMENT RING! That was my "a-ha!" moment. Unfortunately, it took me another 5 months to finally realize that I wasn't going to change, and she CERTAINLY wasn't going to change. But by November, not only had I had enough, I also was realizing that the holidays were quickly coming up, and I couldn't subject my family to her ill - I had to put a stop to it.
On November 20, 2006, I told my family what I did and arrange a flight down to Ft. Lauderdale to spend Thanksgiving with them. I also sent out an "I'm Back!" e-mail to all of my old friends. What followed was nothing short of a total emotional roller coaster. Thanksgiving weekend was one of the best times with my family that I can remember, and the responses I got from my friends was so reassuring. But at the same time, I had to deal with the evil one and all of her issues. It took over a month before I was rid of her and all of the ties back to her.
I have had a lot of good people in my life these 365+ days that have helped me "recover" from the experience. The expression "Every cloud has a silver lining" certainly rings true to me, particularly when I think about the great people in my life these days and how they got here. Thank you!
I can't say what the future holds. I do know that, at the moment, life is pretty darn good. When I was fresh out of college, my friend Nathan would ask me how things were going. My standard answer was always "I'm one-and-a-half thumbs up!" thinking about the old Siskel and Ebert "two thumbs up" movie ratings. Life wasn't quite perfect for two whole thumbs, but it was pretty darn close. Well, when I think about the past year and all that I've had to deal with, my answer today would be (get ready for it):

"I'm Two Thumbs Up!"

Have a great Thanksgiving!

I Might Have to Try This!

2007-11-13T23:31:00.001-05:00

I am convinced that if it was possible to have a food "addiction", mine would be ice cream. I find myself sneaking into dark alleys looking for that 'pusher' - you might know him as the Good Humor man! They tease you with that free sample ("go on, try it...everyone else is") and convince you that you won't get hooked. But then you wake up in the middle of the night, in a cold sweat, and realize the only way to combat those DT's is to roll a cone of Cookies and Cream.
Anyhow...the real key to a good blend is to grow your own. And this might just be the solution.
Funny, even with my awful attempt at mixed metaphors and all that, it still comes down to having a baggie for your goods. Hrmmm...maybe ice cream really is an addiction?
Have a great day, man!

A Thought For Today

2007-11-12T10:25:00.001-05:00

For the past few weeks, my church has been doing their annual stewardship drive to get the congregation to make their pledges for the 2008 budget. In an effort to make the pill go down a little easier, the pastor has called the stewardship drive "It's a Wonderful Life" and has been using excerpts of the movie throughout his sermons.

Amazingly, I have never seen this movie, though I'm pretty familiar with the story line. But I have really enjoyed the short clips we've seen over the past few weeks, and I look forward to watching the whole movie soon. I guess, since I had not seen it before, perhaps it's a little more meaningful to me now, especially when I reflect over the past year in my life.

For those of you who have seen it, you'll recognize this quote:

"Remember, no man is a failure who has friends."

These are the words of Clarence, a guardian angel for George Bailey, the lead character in the movie. And what completely ties into this quote is the notion that George comes to realize that he's the "richest man in town." Not because of his financial success, but because of the friends and family that he is blessed with.

Today marks the 1-year anniversary of perhaps one of the lowest points in my life so far. I found myself alienated from my family and virtually devoid of any friends. I felt hopeless and trapped in a damaging relationship. I was physically ill and mentally injured. In George Bailey's terms, I was perhaps the poorest man in town, and bordering on being a failure. What followed from that point one year ago was a very agonizing and difficult week of preparing to "get out" of the relationship and try to rebuild my life again. That rebuilding started on November 19^th, 2006 when I ended that corruption and began life anew.

The past year has been nothing short of miraculous. I hope my own guardian angel earned his wings for all that he has taught me and all that he has blessed me with. EVERY SINGLE DAY of this past year has been filled with some combination of a loving family, truly amazing friends, a supportive church community, and an enjoyable career. Throw in a few doses of good health, fun and rewarding volunteer time, relaxing hobbies, and a couple of furry critters named Itchy and Scratchy, and I have to say it's a pretty decent life.

Actually….. it's a wonderful life!

Words To Live By

2007-11-06T10:12:00.001-05:00

Today's blog post is a public service (of sorts) to all of you other blog writers. One of the challenges I face in writing my blog is trying to convey emotions or sounds to you. Hopefully, I've done a decent job so far. But I got a curious bug up my (beep) and I decided to do a little web searching. The term "Onomatopoeia" refers to words that describe sounds. I thought I might put together a little reference of these words, as well as other terms of expression, for your enjoyment. May your writing be further glorified! Bwah-ha-ha-ha! -- and feel free to add your own to this list by way of comments to this post.

Aaaah

abra-kadabra

achoo

agghhhhhh

ahem

argh

aww (shucks)

baa

babble

bah

bam

bang

banged

banging

bash

bashed

bashing

bawl

bawled

bawling

beep

beep beeeeeeeeeep

Beep Beep Beep

beep-beep beep-beep

beeped

beeping

belch

belched

belching

blab

blabbed

blabbing

blag

blah,blah,blah,blah

blare

blared

blaring

blast

blippity-blop-blop-ver-slotch

blurt

blurted

blurting

boing

boink

bong

bonk

bonked

bonking

boo

boo-hoo

boom

boom-chicka-wah-wah

bow-wow

bring-bring

bubble

bum-bum-bum-bummmm

bump

bumped

bumping

burp

buzz

buzzed

buzzing

Bwaah?

bwah-ha-ha-ha

carambah

chatter

chick chick

chirp

chit-chat

choo-choo

chug

clang

clanged

clanging

clank

clanked

clanking

clap

clapped

clapping

clash

clatter

clattered

clattering

click

clink

clop

clout

cluck

cocka-doodle-doo!

cough

crackle

crash

creak

creaking

crisp

crumple

crunch

crunching

cuckoo

din

ding

D'oh!

doink

dong

drip

drum

drumming

duh

echo

eek

eew

fizz

flash

flick

flicker

flip

flop

flush

flutter

gallop

gargle

gasp

giggle

gloop

gong

grind

groan

growl

grrr

grumble

grunt

gulp

gurgle

gurgled

gurgling

hack

hah

haha

haw-haw

hiccup

hiss

hmm

hmph

hohoho

holler

honk

Hrmm

hrmph

hubbub

huh?

hum

humming

hurrah

hush

icky

itch

jangle

jingle

kaboom!

ker blang

kerplunk

klank

knock

laughing

meow

miew

mmm (yummy)

moan

moo

mumble

munch

murmur

neigh

oink

okily-dokily

oooooh

ooze

ouch

ow (or ouch)

patter

peeyew

peow peow peow

phew

pi-kink

ping

Ping pong

pitter

pitter-patter

plok

plop

plunk

pong

poof

pop

popped

popping

pow

quack

ratchet

rattle

regurgitate

ring

ring ring

ring-ring ring-ring

roar

roared

roaring

rrrinngg

rumble

rustle

rustled

rustling

schwing

scream

screech

screeched

screeching

sheesh

shines

shling

shoooooo

shoosh

shuffle

shulk

shush

sizzle

sizzled

sizzling

slam

slap

slash

slirsh

slop

slurp

slurping

smack

snap

snick

sniff

snip

snort

spark

splash

squelch

squish

static

stomp

sweep

swhelp

swish

swoosh

ta-da!

throb

throbbing

thud

thump

thumped

thumpin

thunk

thwap

tic-toc

tinkle

tiptoe

toink

tong

tsk-tsk

twang

ugh

vroom vroom

vroom-vroom

wa wa waaa

waahhh

whack

whallop

wham

whee

whimper

whine

whiney

whip

whipped

whir

whisper

whispered

whispering

whizz

whoa

whomp

Whoo-hoo!

whoop

whooped

whoosh

whop

woof

yada-yada-yada

yap

yarrr

yell

yelped

yikes

yoink

yoo-hoo

yuck

zap

zigzag

zip

zoom

zzzz…(or z's)

BWAHHHHH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!!!

2007-10-31T08:29:00.001-04:00

More proof that the solution to the world's problems is a simple 3-word phrase: "GET A MAC!"

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136649-page,3-c,notebooks/article.html

Have a great day!

More Graffiti

2007-10-31T05:30:00.000-04:00

Don't know why this kind of thing fascinates me, but here is some more "outside the box" graffiti:

http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/10/24/urban-moss-graffiti-by-edina-tokodi/

I'll get another regular post up here soon. I've got another "design challenge"-type of post brewing in my head. Until then, have a great day!

If Only All Graffiti Was Like This

2007-10-26T09:35:00.000-04:00

Found this while surfing this morning:

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2007/10/dirty-trick-cau.html

Too bad not everyone thinks this way!

Wednesday Rocks! Rev 2.0

2007-10-25T09:23:00.001-04:00

Just thought I would give you an quick update on my rock climbing adventure. Last night was my second attempt, and I managed to achieve all of the goals I had set forth.

I had a total of four climbs. Although I only got part of the way on one climb, I did succeed in getting to the top on the other three! Of course, the last climb required A LOT of insistence and motivation from Dianne and Joanne, but I made it to the top none-the-less. I also had a climb where I stayed purely on one color of hold the whole way up. That's tough! To give you some understanding, each climbing station has a collection of holds and grips. This collection is made up of three different sets of holds and grips, each distinguished by their color. The intent is to climb the station using only one set of holds. The easier route is to "climb the rainbow" and just reach for the next available hold, regardless of color. But the proper (and much more challenging) thing to do is stick to a single set. I was amazed at how much more challenging this is. Needless to say, though, the challenge comes with a price. I'm convinced my arms are two inches longer this morning! It certainly feels like they've been stretched, anyway!

The other major achievement for the night was becoming certified to belay. As I mentioned last week, belaying is the "spotting" portion of climbing – the person on the ground who pulls up the slack of your climbing rope and catches the rope if you slip and fall. Dianne taught me what I needed to know to belay, and the staff at Atlanta Rocks then tested me. Derek was my test climber, and among the things I had to do in the test was to brake the rope when he fell. That was a little bit of a challenge, especially when he did his unannounced falls from the top. I passed (thanks to good teaching!). This means I can now equally partner with someone to climb/belay, without feeling like I'm imposing on anyone. Think of the whole process as a give/take arrangement – the climber takes and the belayer gives. I can now "give" and "take" fairly.

I decided to go ahead and buy a multi-visit punch card for Atlanta Rocks. I have four more visits already paid for. I figure that will give me motivation to continue over the next few weeks, as well as give me a clear insight once the punch card is used up as to which direction I want to go. If I'm still excited at the end of the fourth visit (which I anticipate will be the case!), then I can think seriously about buying a long-term membership, as well as buying my own gear.

We finished the night with a great dinner at Figo Pasta. And like last week's restaurant, the food was excellent, but unlike last week, they got all of our orders correct!

A Design Challenge

2007-10-23T09:42:00.001-04:00

Our challenge at work this week is to take the conceptual ideas that I have been developing with my customer and turn them into an actual hands-on, ready-to-use prototype. This sounds like a simple task, except that my conceptual ideas, in order to rapidly refine the ideas after each round of customer feedback, amount to nothing more useful than a pretty picture. Granted, it's a drawn-to-scale pretty picture, but we can't make parts from it. So I have a team of Design Engineers working on all of the individual pieces and parts that will make up this prototype. And as the Project Manager, it's my role to answer their questions as they work through the detail design process.

This morning, the question I received was regarding a "cubby hole" feature that we want to create for the customer's hand-held barcode scanner. Because of the geometry of the cabinet that this unit is going in to, it is not possible to fit the welding tools into the tight space, meaning we can't just weld the parts together before painting. The Design Engineer wanted to know if we could put screws on the face of the cabinet to hold the cubby hole in place. My first reaction was no, because this cabinet face is something the shopper is going to see right away, and I wanted to have a nice clean look. Well, we spent about 30 minutes trying to come up with a good solution. In the end, I suggested that we add a stainless-steel trim ring around the opening of the cubby hole, and use the screws to attach the trim ring, at the same time attaching the cubby hole to the cabinet face. This look, of stainless-steel and screws, is consistent with some other trim we have around the product, and will look a whole lot better than just some random screw heads showing. All of this prompted us to remember a good rule of thumb for product design:

"If you can't fix it, feature it!"

Makes sense, right? If you can't make something disappear, then design it so it looks intentional and consistent with the rest of the design. Those of you that do other types of design can really appreciate this, I'm sure.

This made me think of another "rule of thumb" for designing equipment and store fixtures: if your product looks like someone can hang/sit/stand/climb on, then you either need to be 100% certain that someone can hang/sit/stand/climb on it, or change the design so it does not look like someone can hang/sit/stand/climb on it. Otherwise, you will be learning a new word: lawsuit!

I'd love to hear some of your "rules of thumb" if you have them. Regardless, have a great week!

Wednesday Rocks!

2007-10-18T10:03:00.001-04:00

You have, no doubt, probably heard or read the "XX things to do before you die" articles. While I don't maintain a formal, written list, there are a number of things that I've always wanted to try. Among them was climbing – specifically the indoor type of climbing with the gray walls and various colors of grips and holds. I always hesitated, though. For one, I have a strong fear of falling! I can go EXACTLY 9.5 feet up a ladder, and that's it. For another, I can't do a pull-up to save my life, so I always figured I didn't have the strength to take part in climbing. And, frankly, I just didn't no where to begin.

Dianne climbs. So does Ted, and Derrick, and Andreas – every Wednesday night. Dianne always asked me to come out and give it a try. I always declined, for the aforementioned reasons. Well, yesterday I decided I might tag along, just to see what it was all about. I still wasn't sure, but Dianne assured me that the hardware was absolutely safe (lots of double- and triple-redundancy in the safety lines). And she insisted that it was more about leg strength than arm strength. That's good, I thought, since I can push a car down the street and roundhouse-kick a door in with my legs (what can I say – I may be 'soft' around the middle, but my legs are tree trunks!).

When we got to Atlanta Rocks!, I took a quick glance around. Whew – those walls are tall! But there's a nice layer of rubber chips on the floor to make things soft and bouncy. Yep, the ropes are running through double hooks at the top. And lots of steel beams and girders around to hold everything up. Steel is good. And a staff that's all about safety. This is good.

I got all set up with climbing shoes and a harness. The harness wraps around your waist and has loops for each leg. Not the most flattering thing to wear, but it sure feels safe. This is good. Ted agreed to belay me. "Belay" describes the process of spotting and assisting. To begin, you securely tie a rope to your harness. That rope is pre-hung through the hooks at the top of the wall. The belayer loops the other end of the rope through some hardware on his harness. As you climb, he pulls the slack tight, so that if you slip, he catches you with the rope and keeps you from falling. This is good. Dianne would have belayed me, but we decided that, given my weight compared to hers, if I fell from any decent height, I'd probably sling-shot launch her across the gym. This would not be good.

We found an easy course to begin. Dianne and Ted gave me some pointers, and I began to climb. Yep – I was nervous at first. But it seemed to come pretty naturally. I got half-way up the first time before I had to come down. Coming down was its own challenge – Ted wanted me to lean back and push off. Un-uhhh….no way! I was holding tight! After a little rest (and to give Ted and Dianne a chance to climb while belaying each other), I gave it a second shot. This time, I got to within about 6-8 feet from the top. Woo-hoo! And when I decided to come down, I cautiously leaned back (at Ted's insistence), and let him slowly lower me down with the rope, although I did keep my feet touching the wall. A little while later, I tried a third run, getting up to about the same height as the second run. But by then, my arms and fingers were screaming at me.

We finished the evening over at Westside Pizza. We each ordered a small pizza, and they managed to get every order wrong in some way. Ted ordered a pizza with a whole wheat crust. He got regular crust. Dianne ordered a pizza with meatballs and artichoke hearts. She got that, plus diced ham. I ordered a Greek pizza, hold the tomatoes. Yep, the pizza came out loaded with chunks of tomato. They remade it for me, and it was very tasty.

So it was quite an exciting evening. I tried something new that I had always wanted to do – and I liked it! And I got to spend time with my friends. And eat some good food. And I'm excited about doing it all over again, maybe even next Wednesday!

This… is good!

Update on Phil

2007-10-15T22:21:00.001-04:00

I was finally able to get through to Phil on his cell phone. When he answered, his voice was very low, hoarse, and monotone. He was glad to hear my voice, and thankful that my pastor had let me know what had happened. He said I was on his list to call, but I could tell that, even if I was first on the list, it was going to be a while before he dialed anyone's number. He asked if I had told our other mutual friends, which I had, and thanked me for that. I asked how his daughter was doing, and with a big sigh, he told me he had just told her about 10 minutes before I called. Wow. It took him almost 6 hours to collect himself and prepare himself for delivering probably the worst news Sara Beth will ever hear. I could hear her in the background ask who was on the phone, and, as much as I could tell, it did seem like she was composed and not crying. Phil then told me that all of this was a totally unexpected shock to him. Libby had actually been showing small signs of improvement up until this morning. In fact, he had been composing in his mind the next e-mail update to send out to everyone. I made a little more small talk with him, then he said he really needed to get back to Sara Beth, and promised to be in touch with me soon. Maybe I'll just make a point to call him again Tuesday or Wednesday.

Thanks to all of your for your kind comments. For most of you, we have Phil to thank for our friendship! He's the one that introduced me to Shallowford and got me going to church there. It was there that I met Beth, and through her met Dianne. And of course, Dianne is the hub that brought all of us 'spokes' together! I'm really blessed to have Phil and all of you as my friends. Thanks.

Death comes again...

2007-10-15T15:16:00.001-04:00

While trading e-mail with my pastor, he informed me that Libby, the wife of my friend Phil, passed away during surgery this morning.

Phil was my boss at Hill-Rom (1997-2000), during which time he got me interested in working on Habitat projects. After I left Hill-Rom, Phil let me know about a week-night service that his church, Shallowford Presbyterian, was starting. So once a week, we (usually just he and I, but sometimes Libby, too) would meet for dinner and catch up and happenings in our lives, then go to the service. Once I joined Shallowford, Phil and I worked on a couple of committees. A few years ago, Phil and Libby, and their daughter, moved to Little Rock to be closer to Phil's family.

Libby had a long history of illnesses. Recently, she had been battling depression, and a few weeks ago became ill to the point of being paralyzed in her lower body. Surgery was performed to remove a tumor growth from her spine, but she remained in great pain and in the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital. However, the prognosis was that she would eventually be moved from the ICU to a rehab unit, and eventually be back at home.

Apparently, during a follow-up surgery this morning, she passed away.

Phil has been in a difficult point in his life lately. He co-owns a business with his brother, and the workflow has been very unsteady, leading to a lot of stress in managing the right number of employees to have on board. Phil's daughter has some physical and mental developmental issues, and, at 15, is facing puberty and "teenager" years. Combined with Libby's illnesses, it's been a rough time. I'm sure this doesn't make anything easier.

I wish I knew what to do for Phil.

Meet The Parents

2007-10-10T16:22:00.000-04:00

Today (October 10) is my parents’ 39th anniversary. In honor of that occasion, and inspired by posts that Beth and Dianne have done in the past, I thought I would give you a little introduction.

My Dad is Edward G. Kaplan. He was born in Watertown, MA and moved to Miami Beach when he was 16. Although he has had a variety of business experiences over the years, I’ve always know him as either a small-business owner or a purchasing agent. In fact, after a lot of work, he was registered as a Certified Purchasing Manager. Dad retired from the Department of Homeland Security in 2006, after working as a purchasing agent for the Krome Avenue Detention Center in Miami. Dad likes to watch movies and football. Boy, does he like football! He likes it more than I like racing. Of course, his favorite teams are the Miami teams – the Hurricanes of the University of Miami and the Dolphins of the NFL. But beyond that, one of Dad’s great skills is the ability to turn on a game – any game – and within 30 seconds pick a team to pull for. Needless to say, this is a very good time of year. There will be some stress this weekend, though, because his second-favorite college team is my Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, and GT plays UM this weekend. I have a hunch he’ll be rooting for the ‘canes, though…

Although we do not agree on certain things (like politics), I have always admired my Dad. He generally has a good, positive outlook on life. I remember a time when he had an unfortunate string of bad luck in the job world. But he (outwardly, anyway) never got down. The next morning he was at the library doing research, working on updating his resume, and hitting the bricks to find his next job. And Dad (Mom, too) has always been interested in technology. We had several computers in our house back at a time when only a few folks even had one. To this day, there are two desktops, a laptop, a scanner, a couple of printers, and a wireless network in their house. Plus the assortment of digital devices like a PalmPilot and digital camera. Sure, he has troubles with them sometimes, but that’s more a fault of Windoze than of him. Dad’s the accountant in the family, too. He keeps track of all of the finances, bills, and investments. And he does it all while running around on two artificial hips!

Dad also is the source of my “great words of inspiration”. When we moved to Davie (suburb of Ft. Lauderdale), I still had a few months to finish out the school year in Miami. I would take the bus to my aunt’s house, then ride home with Dad when he was done at work. We had great conversations on the ride home. One evening, we were talking about donating money to various causes. As we walked up the front sidewalk, Dad paused at the door, turned to me, and said, “we may not have money to give, be we have time.” Aaah-hah! There’s the words that explain my family. I grew up with parents who always found time to volunteer in a wide variety of organizations and events, and they fostered that spirit in me. Dad likes the Fraternal Order of Police Associates (something similar to the Citizen’s Police Academy Alumni Association that I belong to), and he’s a Guardian Ad Litem, which means in his spare time he stands in front of a court of law and represents kids who need a “voice” in the legal system. Oh, and if you’re ever in an accident in South Florida, you just might get a pint of Dad’s blood in you! Dad has “universal donor” type blood, and he regularly goes and donates blood or platelets. He’s donated so much over the years that they measure his contribution in gallons, not pints!

My Mom, Carol F. Kaplan, is a volunteer as well. Her passion has been the Women’s Club for many, many years, starting with the Club in North Miami and now with the Club in Western Broward. Plus she’s involved at the State level as well, usually taking on some sort of monumental task like organizing their annual convention and predicting to a plate how many dinners should be prepared! And she does it without a hitch! Those organizing skills come in handy, too, when it’s time for her high school reunion. Beyond those activities, Mom has served on the county Grand Jury, and been appointed to the Planning and Zoning Board for Davie. She’s one of those folks that could show up at a huge event, and end up being the one sitting on the curb with the mayor and her grandkids, chatting like they were old friends (not bad in a “town” that’s one of the largest suburbs of Ft. Lauderdale). Some of her other volunteer time has been spent at the administration desk at one of the local hospitals, serving as that beacon of stability in the midst of emergency-room chaos, or creating butterfly gardens at parks or shelters.

Mom retired in 2005 after spending a number of years as the Executive Assistant to the President of an electronics manufacturing company in South Florida. It was one of those situations where the company name changed every couple of years, but her desk never moved. She was always one of those points of stability in a company that was ever-changing. Since then, she’s kept busy with her own butterfly garden, the aforementioned volunteer work, and moving the furniture! I’m sure it embarrasses her for me to mention this, but I have to. The house in Davie was designed with a combination living room/dining room, and a combination kitchen/family room. This layout has always been a thorn in Mom’s side. She’s not thrilled about the TV being so close to the kitchen. So over the years, she has experimented with almost every combination of the 4 spaces. They finally put sliders on the couches so it would be easier to move them! But she likes to joke about it, so I think she takes it all in stride. Honestly, it’s kind of fun to see what the arrangement will be whenever I visit, and to see how creative she can be.

Mom is the source of my interest in cooking, and my skill in fending for myself. When I was in Boy Scouts, I made a comment about needing to have a clean uniform. No problem, Mom taught me how to do laundry. Mom also never shied away from having me in the kitchen. I have fond memories of baking Christmas cookies with her, and we continue to share an interest in cooking to this day. In fact, these days we usually tag-team the Christmas dinner, from planning the menu to shopping for the food to doing the cooking and baking. A few years ago, Mom fell ill and couldn’t taste the pumpkin pie seasoning to see if it was right. Thus started the adventure that yielded my personal cookbook, as I decided then to document our family recipes and add in my own collection.

Mom and Dad do a lot together, too. Just this past weekend, they were telling me about planting a garden around a memorial to a town resident killed oversees. They’re always heading to a party or a benefit, or just off to an art or jazz festival, or getting together with friends to visit an exhibit in town. And I have fond memories of lots of these activities as a family. Even when money or vacation time was tight, we still managed a weekend trip to the beach for Memorial Day, or a trip to Jacksonville to see the family, or the family trip to New Orleans for the 1984 Sugar Bowl. We even made the front page of the paper as tourists!

I know I’ve only touched the very tip of the iceberg that is Ed and Carol Kaplan. Know that all the good you see in me is directly attributable to each of them, and I always strive to make them proud of the good they’ve done in raising me. As I continue to grow as an adult, I am constantly reminded of all that my folks have done and sacrificed for me, and I’m proud to call them my parents.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad – may you have many more to come! I love you both very much!!

Heaven Has a New Police Chief

2007-10-08T11:50:00.001-04:00

I had a fantastic adventure this past weekend, at least until about 6:00 Sunday evening. I had been talking to my parents when their call-waiting signal beeped. Dad insisted that whoever it was that was calling would call back later. Sure enough, they did. It was my Aunt Marilyn, wanting to tell my Mom some news. Mom immediately called me back.

You might recall that the previous Sunday (September 30^th), I went up to Hiawassee to spend the day. My Aunt Connie and Uncle Art have some very close friends from Florida that own a summer house in Hiawassee – Paul and Diana Reble. Every year, Connie and Art try to come up to Hiawassee to spend some time with Paul and Diana, and they invite me to come up for a day. This particular time, Connie and Art wanted to celebrate Paul's 63^rd birthday by taking the whole group to brunch at the Brasstown Valley Resort, which we did. After that, we went back to the Reble house and socialized for a while, mostly talking about the iPhone and all the latest technology stuff.

The news this Sunday was that Paul had been killed in an accident earlier in the afternoon. Seems he'd gone out for a ride on his motorcycle through the mountains around Hiawassee, and there had been an accident. Diana got a call that he was seriously injured, and as she was walking out the door to get in her car, she was met in the driveway by the sheriff, to bring the news that Paul had died on the scene.

Paul and Art had become friends while each was a Chief of Police in Florida. They were members of the Florida Association of Chiefs of Police, and had served on various committees together. They were very active retired members of the Association, something the Association was quite proud of. And the friendship extended to include Connie and Diana. Outside of the police involvement, the four of them traveled together extensively and shared many, many stories. Paul and Art had very similar experiences (they were both in the Navy before starting their law enforcement careers) and very similar career paths. Maybe that's why they were such close friends.

Through their friendship with Connie and Art, Paul and Diana had become an "extended" aunt and uncle in some ways. They knew about whichever job I was currently at, knew the ups and downs of the relationship with T.E.G. (they had the 'unfortunate' experience of meeting her), and knew my hobbies and interests. It may have been a year between visits, but we always caught up within the first few minutes.

For whatever reason, the news of the accident hit me hard. Perhaps it was because I had just seen Paul the week before. Perhaps it was his closeness to Art. After my father, Art is probably the biggest male influence in my life, and certainly among those that I respect and look to as role models. Paul's similarity to Art, and the ease at which we had always gotten along and conversed, makes it feel somewhat like I've lost a family member.

I can easily remember our last conversation, as I was leaving to head back to Atlanta. There were the usual "drive safe" and "thanks for coming to see us" and "we look forward to seeing you next time," but I remember Paul's comment specifically. I had talked a lot that day about T.E.G. and how I was so much better now than last year. As I walked out the door, Paul said, "I hope your next girlfriend is better than the last." Of course, I replied, "Oh, don't worry, she WILL be!"

Of course, there is another aspect to this. For years and years, I thought it would be a great experience to get a motorcycle and go cruising through the mountains on days just like yesterday. No crotch-rocket or go-fast, just a nice cruiser. The air is crisp and cool, and the sky cloudless. No worries about the dangers of city traffic – just me, the bike, and the open road. I always reasoned that as long as I got out of the city, I would be safe. Sure, there were accidents, but nobody I knew. Until now. Until a family friend, with years upon years of motorcycle experience, driving a Harley Road King, for some unidentified reason, ran off the road and began his journey into Heaven.

Rest in peace, Paul. And may God bless and heal your family.

The Braves are done, but I'm still hitting homeruns

2007-10-03T20:56:00.000-04:00

Those of you who are on Facebook might recall that my status on several occasions has made some sort of reference to hitting a homerun. Now, I'm no athlete, so you might wonder what I mean.

My years of experience in being a construction project manager have taught me to be very organized and to document everything I do or say (at least as it relates to work). In the construction world these days, a verbal note can result in something not being done the way it should, or a bill that needs to unexpectedly be paid. I have developed some nice work-ethic habits. And now as I've returned to the design engineering world, I have found that these habits are almost an order of magnitude above what similar engineers typically do. So I'm here doing what comes naturally to me, and it is so much more than anyone else has done or expects to do.

Hence the homerun reference. I envision myself as Hank Aaron (the true homerun champion, but that's another post) standing at the plate, and the pitcher has thrown a nice straight, slow ball right over the plate. I step into it, swing, and "crack" send the stitching over the outfield wall!

In the past two weeks, I have been frantically working on a project for my number one customer. We built them a prototype which they have been reviewing without much progress. Then a week ago, Monday, I got this e-mail and phone call with all of these changes they wanted, essentially putting us almost back to square one. And they wanted conceptual drawings for two versions of the next revision. And they wanted them quickly. And I was already planning to be out of town for two days last week on an installation for this same customer. Needless to say, practically every moment in the office was spent in front of the computer designing a new concept and drawing the solid-model parts, then putting together a set of presentation drawings. If that wasn't enough, they also wanted to see another concept in a different direction. And all the while, they were asking questions, looking for information, and inquiring about other projects that I'm working on for them.

Perhaps the pitcher was warming up in the bullpen?

Yep! Today I came into work to find this in my inbox (click to see a larger image):

KEEEEERRACKKK! Off the end of the bat and over the left-field fence!

Those of you who deal with customers and clients can no doubt relate to how it feels to get a note like this. There are few better ways to feel like you're doing things right and feel a sense of accomplishment.

Now, if we can just get them past the prototype phase and on to issuing us some purchase orders!