Where's my sleeping pills?

I’m exhausted…not just tired, but completely utterly and absolutely exhausted. The fact of the matter is, I don’t sleep well and have struggled with insomnia my entire life. Normally three hours a night is the limit of nocturnal slumber and usually catch a couple hours on Saturday mornings, albeit not last Saturday because of our safari to the great outdoors.

Considering my sleeping condition, it’s no wonder that I read so much, with such a great deal of time on my hands I have the opportunity to read considerably more than I would if I could convince my body to keep normal hours. I don’t consider myself so much a book connoisseur as a book carnivore; I’m ravenous in the amounts that I read and it only increases up during the winter when outdoor activities are limited. The wife on several occasions has tried to put per trip spending caps on my bi-monthly trips to the bookstore, but to no avail. I spend hours perusing the aisles in search of the next great midnight novel. I’ve run across some excellent books and others that I found it a chore just to complete.

Although I don’t associate myself with any particular author, Hemingway has proven himself to be one of the more enjoyable novelists. While working for Command Training Wing 6 at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, I had the opportunity to accompany the flight officers on detachment to Key West, Florida. While there, I had the good fortune to visit the house Hemingway owned on the island. A couple of interesting facts; his house had the first swimming pool on the island, and there are still numerous 6-toed cats living on the premises, direct decedents of a 6-toed cat given to him by a sea captain.

Charles Dickens and John Steinbeck are masters of characterization and have won places on my shelf right next to the macabre Edgar Allen Poe, creator of the detective novel. Poe is buried in a Baltimore cemetery and while the grave is believed to be his, there has been some question as to which plot actually contains his remains. Every year, a man of mystery (doubtful that it’s 007) leaves fresh roses on the spot believed to be his resting place.

I could bloviate on literature for hours and still come to the same conclusion; after another trip to the bookstore tomorrow night, I’ll be adding more books to the growing pile I have yet to read. With that…I’ll bid you good night, I’m off to finish another book.

I apologize for the boring, meandering post, have I mentioned I’m tired?

For Mel

I couldn't believe that Mellow Lee had never seen Courage the Cowardly Dog, so this is for her.








Here's some more Courage the Cowardly Dog

JACC started it.

My compliments

There was no hope of me missing the alarm this morning. No chance of employment truancy, forcing me to weave a fantastic, yet believable account to explain my absence from the morning’s meetings. No, not this morning, today my departure from the slumber was greeted by the monotonous hum and clanking of large equipment in front of my house.

“About time,” I thought, “finally tearing up that annoying asphalt and loading it into a truck.” My hope of time reversal was being addressed and I was confident the horse and buggy would be delivered to my abode at the city’s earliest convenience.

I knew this to be the case, because I no longer had running water, a further indication that we had reached the pinnacle of human society and the conclusion was made that it wasn’t so great after all (I was however, still confused at their use of heavy equipment for the street removal, but who was I to question such a great decision). I didn’t even mind my inability to exit my house due to the large trench cut across the end of my driveway…after all in our new old world, I wouldn’t need the truck.

In all the excitement, I was barely conscious of the paper cut I received while digging for my outhouse plans.

I almost brought all the workers that were lounging around in my front yard a beer until I realized that they would probably frown upon the means by which the beer was kept cold and would definitely turn me down in disgust, so I merely watched their progress. I wondered if the city would send out a collection truck for the refrigerator.

You can imagine my disappointment towards the end of the day when the trench was filled, new asphalt was laid and I was accosted by the dawning realization this was merely an elaborate hoax concocted by one of my arch nemesi for revenge (I assume nemesi is plural for nemesis). I’m beginning to think it was my wife that perpetrated this ruse, after all, she was absent for the day…work indeed, how convenient.

Even with the crushing defeat I had at the hands of these jokesters, I have to admit that if I couldn’t have a reversal of time; I was satisfied at the craters left in the street by the heavy equipment and the debris left in the overgrown lot across from my house. After all, if you can’t have rutted dirt roads, streets with potholes will just have to do.

I really must write the Prince William County Service Authority a thank you letter for such a fine job. I’m such a glass is half-full type of guy.

Demented Ed Grimly...

Was cleared of all charges after they drug him back from overseas. He's still a sicko and will be facing child pornography charges.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14553130/?GT1=8404

I think I'll go watch Jurassic Park or something.

Back from camping

Good afternoon! Well the camping trip when off without a hitch since we weren’t pulling a trailer. Here’s the Short Attention Span Theater list of events.

• HOT! 95 degrees with around 85% humidity
  
• Great new North Face 2 man tent sets up easily
  
• Yellow jackets and bees everywhere (got stung twice)
  
• Don’t put citronella candles too close to the fire, they curdle
  
• Coleman electric start propane lantern doesn’t work well, still used matches to start
  
• Brats will role off the grill into the campfire when they cook
  
• Ate tons of grilled brats…no beans, forgot can opener
  
• Tent fans are awesome, wish we had 4 more
  
• Self-inflating air mattresses…where were you when I was younger
  
• Midnight walk to old civil war graveyard, kids don’t like being in graveyards after dark
  
• Woke up at 5:30am as coyotes ran through camp howling like frat boys at a panty raid, fortunately all food was locked in the truck so they were just passing through (great feeling knowing coyotes are just outside your nylon tent, park ranger later confirmed there are also bobcats in the area). Kids slept through entire thing
  
• First campfire coffee of the morning sucks
  
• Somehow all the equipment took up more space after we broke down camp than before
  

Well, I’m back and found out that apparently I have a leak coming from somewhere…guess I’ll be cutting drywall this weekend.

Camping this weekend

Sorry I didn't respond to anyone this evening, taking the boy camping tomorrow and had to get the tent and sleeping bags aired out, make sure there was propane for the lanterns and organize everything for the trip.

Y'all have a great weekend!!!

*Edit - tried to make the rounds before I left and it seems like blogger is throwing temper tantrums (page not found when I try to post a reply) y'all have a great weekend.*

Now for something completely different

I snapped this picture when I lived in Pensacola FL. The placement of this sign coming off I-10 in Pensacola Florida always cracked me up. There is a lamppost directly in front of the sign and as you exit onto Cervantes street, the angle can lead to interesting implications. Without the obstruction, the sign says "Shuckin' to Please". Enjoy.

But are there chearleaders...

There really is no motivation for me to go to college. Reasonably successful in my career, I’ve never found the lack of a degree hindering my progress towards my professional goals and it doesn’t appear this will change anytime soon.

Unlike many of my classmates out of high school, I chose to join the military during Desert Storm, thus relinquishing my right to party with scantily clad coeds, giving up beer bongs and wet t-shirts for rifles and mortar fire, and I never really regretted my decision, except where wet t-shirts and scantily clad females were concerned.

Tying up loose ends at work this afternoon, I received a call from the student counselor at the University of Phoenix. She was contacting all students who had attended the University, but had not completed their degree and was curious as to my reasons for leaving the program. I informed her that I had been deceived when I began matriculating and was originally advised that it would take approximately a year to finish my bachelor’s degree. That “approximately” subsequently changed to two years after I had completed several classes.

“Two years isn’t bad, you actually only have 51 credit hours left until you receive a degree.” She said.

I proceeded to explain my predicament. I was planning to join the military as an officer, a bachelors degree is required of all officers and the cut off age for becoming a commissioned officer is 34…I’m 33. That was the original reason I went with your college, I would have been able to apply for the military as an officer if the original agreement had been upheld. “Oh.” She replied.

After further discussions related to my graduation I began to wonder, perhaps I should finish the degree as a matter of course for my own edification. With regular coursework, some waived courses and CLEP test I would be able to complete my degree in just over a year.

Now I’m faced with the conundrum, do I go ahead and finish the degree despite the fact it will not achieve my intended goal or do I forget about it and move on. Copious amount of time will be used to complete the degree…time taken away from family (and don’t forget money) and I wonder if the benefits will be worth it.

The last time I attended was last December; if I had stuck with it then…I’d be graduating this upcoming February.

When it rains

Well, as you saw in my piggy post (Nursery rhyme impossible), there is a lot of animosity between our groups at work and things kind of came to a head today. During our meeting, my close friend of 10 years (who is also my boss) was asking a question and was interrupted to clarify. My friend continued with the question (which would have clarified the original question) and was interrupted by his boss. My friend asked, “Please let me finish…” to which his boss replied, “No, I need to clarify.”

My friend then excused himself from the teleconference and hung up.

He called me after our teleconference and stated how pissed he was and I proceeded to tell him that I thought he acted like a boob and if he intended to win any battles against the other group this wasn’t the way to go about it. I informed him that now, instead of the piggy in the straw house looking like spastic unprofessional pig that he is, whenever my friend goes to challenge his position, my friend’s opinion will be discounted for throwing his temper tantrum (oh, there goes the pig in the stone house again).

In his defense, I understand where he’s coming from and can sympathize with his situation. This has been going on for 6 months with no relief in sight, and we have proven multiple times that the pig in the straw house does not know how to complete the project; we cannot seem to make any headway in doing the right thing.

After I told my friend my thoughts on the situation, he told me he would call me back later and hung up. I know what I said upset him, but I couldn’t lie could I?

Sometimes, you just gotta let some stuff go.

And the world goes on

We see the world through our children’s eyes and see the freshness of it all, the surprises around every corner and the endless possibilities. My son declared that he wants to be a dentist, and I’m sure before he’s 10 it will change as frequently as a politician’s campaign promises on Election Day; that’s the benefit of youth.

When does that freshness wear off, when do our goals change from saving the world to getting a cup of coffee before a morning shower? I don’t remember a single glaring point in time that my dreams were reduced to wishing someone else would mow the grass, it just happened.

At 17, I was content to climb into my piece of crap car (by then it was almost 20 years old) and head anywhere that the country road led me, now I have a destination in mind with a 12 page checklist of items that I may need along the way; A/C working, oil changed and cell phone in the center console to call AAA in case I break down. Check the weather and wonder if I should have gotten GPS, but it’s ok.

I have directions from MapQuest.

So do the days of our lives

Today was almost an identical repeat of yesterday. I didn’t get off work until 8pm and so I have little time to post (not to mention, I’m exhausted). I’ll leave you with a painting of Shenandoah River in fall.

Highlands Ranch CO

After moving back to Colorado from Boston Mass, winter hit and just like James said, it was bleak to say the least. Fortunately, I did have one bit of enjoyment over a Colorado winter, my son who was mainly raised in the south and on the east coast had never seen real snowfall (the two winters up in Boston were amazingly mild, the year we moved they were hit by record blizzards). Here's my son next to a snowman we made.

Nursery rhyme impossible

As I predicted last week, the constant river of political pawning, whining and other distasteful activities has filled the day and promises to provide a long running mini-series in the foreseeable future.

I’ll attempt to outline the days events without being so descript that a simple web search would bring my activities on this site to the attention of my employer…or if this place were to be discovered, my ex-employer.

Three distinctly different organizations are involved in this corporate ménage à trios, the piggy whose house is built of straw, the other of wood, and finally mine, built of stone.

This weekend some critical business functionality was incorporated into the business logic that determines how the business will be run and executive decisions made based on this logic. To make things simple, facts were omitted which caused some discrepancies to appear. When the omission was questioned, the piggy that lived in the house of straw indicated that it was my little piece of the world that was flawed, and he was he was sure I was going to blame him. The piggy in the house of straw continued, that he would look into it and get back with my landlord (the owner of the piggy in the house of stone).

Well fortunately, the big bad (or not so bad) wolf also lives in the house made of straw, and minutes after the accusations were made (the accusations unbeknownst to the wolf), an email was sent out stating that the omissions were in fact caused by the wolf and the house made of straw imploded while my stone house still stood.

The piggies in the house of wood laughed and had a jolly good time at the expense of the piggy in the house of straw.

Well, that was my day and the analogy, while tough to follow, should allow me to keep my current employment for at least another week.

This little piggy took a sleeping pill and went wee wee wee all the way to bed.

Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream

My only regret is that I bought an electric ice cream maker instead of the type we had when I was a kid. There’s something sweeter about ice cream when the indentured servitude of childhood forces you to add sweat equity into the creamy brew by cranking a handle until your arms were rubbery lengths of play dough better suited to your malleable action figure...it builds character.

Regardless, my son and I enjoy making ice cream and since fall is creeping up on us in the typical fashion, I decided to make Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream. This is my recipe, so if you don’t like it…blame me, or not…it’s your fault you listened to my direction.

Zombie Ice Cream Pumpkin Pie

The main ingredient in this pumpkin pie is pumpkin ice cream.

• 1 3/4 cups canned or cooked mashed pumpkin *I prefer mashed pumpkin but it takes longer


• 1 cup brown sugar


• 1 cup milk


• 2 cups heavy cream


• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon


• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg


• 1/4 teaspoon ginger


• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 1 baked pie crust, 9-inch

Mix ingredients cool and poor into ice cream maker. Once mixture is frozen, spoon into pie crust and smooth. Top with whipped cream.

An alternate ending to this ice cream fiasco is to crumble up the pie crust and half-way through the freezing process, open the lid and toss the pie pieces directly into the ice cream.

Enjoy.

Pensacola Beach

Before we moved back up to D.C., we lived in Pensacola Florida, this picture was taken shortly before Hurricane Ivan hit Pensacola. This is my son walking along Pensacola Beach, he 5 years old here.

Where does time go.

Passing of thyme

Fall is just around the corner, and pardon me if I’m just a bit giddy about it. Fall has for the longest time been my favorite season, not that spring, summer and winter don’t offer their own enticements, but fall has a certain allure that I look forward to.

I don’t intend to advance the already hurried clip of time, but the crisp bite to the air, the smell of pumpkin pie and cinnamon baked apples, and hikes along trails with the constant crunch of fallen leaves underfoot are pleasures that don’t come often enough and pass by too swiftly in my judgment.

Growing up in Colorado, fall was often cut short by falling snows hailing hard winters which would last, many times, into summer. I often joke with people that Colorado has two seasons; summer and winter, and it wasn’t until I moved out east that I understood the transitions between heat and cold and the subtleties that celebrate the changing of the seasons.

This year, as always, I’ll take the family to the pumpkin patch to pick their own pumpkins (last year we brought back way too many pumpkins), we’ll take long hikes, and we’ll carve jack o’lanterns, watch Legend of Sleepy Hollow on TV and head to the Creepy Hollow Haunted Hayride in Richmond. We’ll sit on the swing in the yard bundled up in sweaters while a fire crackles in the outdoor fireplace, telling ghost stories and watching the season pass into winter.

These are the things playing in mind while the echo of a lawnmower outside informs that I’m a bit premature, and I just might have time to get one last BBQ in before it’s too late.

Go Denver Broncos!

Work and play

Well, I’ve been neglectful of this blog other than posting old artwork and such. This week has been hell and yesterday Jim stopped by with his daughter. So after work we sat outside drinking beer and shooting the breeze until around 11:00pm. I was in no condition to compile any kind of legible post so I lie down and read. I ended up going to sleep at around 4am.

I got a call from Jim this morning and apparently some things went awry at work this morning. After things had calmed down he called to see if the boy and I would like to do something. I told him I couldn’t, I have a honey do list as long as my arm and I’ve been neglecting that as well. I suggested that they visit Great Falls on the Potomac. Great place to spend the day (the picture to the left is part of the Great Falls area).

I’m hoping this week will be much quieter, but I’m not holding out hope…in fact it appears that it will be even more hectic. Things are afoot at work.

Where’s Sherlock when you really need him.

Fishing

One of Just a Cool Cat's post reminded me of something I haven't done in a long time. My grandfather and my father loved fishing. Growing up out in Colorado, we used to travel all over the west (usually in Colorado or Montana) throwing our lines in. Some of the best memories I have of my grandfather were doing nothing more than hanging out with our rods proped up on rocks.

I did this pastel on rough board close to a year ago.

Insert witty title here...

This has ended up turning into one hellaciously busy week. I haven’t had time to collect my thoughts let alone try to make any sense of them. On a brighter note…umm…so anyway I’ve been extremely busy and it appears that my weekend may be screwed to.

What was it that Mark Twain said, “Nobody will say on their deathbed: 'I wish I had spent more time in the office'”?

Random thought; I think I would have made a damn fine pirate, but probably would have ended up with a really stupid name…like Stubbles or something equally ridiculous.

Common oxymoron

There’s no other way to say it, no beating around the bush wasting time on eloquent prose or excuses; my parents screwed up. There, I said it…no apologies, no regrets. Not in a traditional multifaceted culture of abnormal norms sort of fashion, but in a very unconventional manner. Not a day goes by that I don’t curse them for their oversight in raising such an abomination to society such as myself.

Heaven forgive them for instilling…I shudder to even mention it…uncommon courtesy, and now I’m a twisted wreck of a man beyond common recognition.

I’m ashamed to mention that I voice my appreciation with a “Thank you” when someone takes the time to hold open a door for me. I hang my head every time I wave to a person that slows down to let me enter their lane on the freeway. My conscience weeps every time hold an elevator instead of repeatedly mashing the button to shut the doors.

Will I ever learn?

A man walking ahead of a woman reaches a door, pulls it open and steps aside for the woman to enter. The woman glances at him curtly and says, “You don’t need to hold the door open because I’m a lady.”

The man replies, “I didn’t, I held it open because I’m a gentleman.”

Lime in the coconut

Hope you get to feeling better Slaygirl.

Facades and the unappreciated

In the annals of history, no truer words were spoken than, “Ah y’am what Ah y’am and that’s all that Ah y’am.” Perhaps I’ll acquiesce that Popeye is probably not the first pop culture icon you’d think of when it comes to personal inspiration, but the words hold true.

I fairly epitomize those words, what you see is what you get and I am the same person regardless of location (of course you can’t take me anywhere…but that’s a whole other story). I’m not a big advocate of facades, but I do find myself a slightly different person around people I don’t know. Not so much different, but slightly modified…you see, I have a rather acidic sense of humor (always intended to be in jest) that either utterly endears people to me (I’ve told people that I’ll grow on them…like a fungus) or causes them to completely loathe my very existence and slaughter small animals out of spite.

At one rather large corporation that I worked at, the CEO of the company was visiting the various organizations that comprised the company. When our group was called, we filed into the boardroom, took our seats and the CEO made his “getting to know me” speech, after which the floor was open for each of us to introduce ourselves in turn. After many boastful and ape-like chest beating presentations given by coworkers and managers, the time had arrived for me to introduce myself. “I’m zombie [name changed to protect…bah, who am I kidding, I just like saying zombie] and I’m the site janitor.”

Silence…

“Site janitor?” He asked cocking his head to the side.

“Site janitor,” I said nodding.

“I don’t get it.”

“Well, I’m always cleaning up everyone else’s shit.” I said.

After a moment the CEO exploded with laughter followed by the sounds of unsure chuckles. I braved a glance at my supervisor.

He went home and offed a couple of innocent hamsters, gangland style I’m sure.

Aging

The subject for this was aging. I wondered about the history of this military truck sitting neglected in the weeds and wanted to give it a foggy memory feeling (actually I grew bored and never added the detail...but the foggy memory excuse is the one I'm sticking with). Enjoy.

Does it get any better...

Usually my cynical nature precludes me from having too much fun at the expense of my sanity, but Jim talked me into going out for a ride yesterday. Well, talked isn’t exactly the way it happened, he called me from East Coast Harley (literally 5 minutes away) and told me he was on his way. I hadn’t even showered by that time…man, I’m a lazy, so I set up the sprinkler and ran through it. In typical Jim fashion, he didn’t show up for another 20 minutes (still trying to do the math on that one, I could walk there in 10 minutes).

When he did arrive he complained of a headache. After he sucked up some aspirin I found out he hadn’t had any coffee that day, call me doctor zombie, but knowing the way this guy huffs coffee, I told him that it was a caffeine headache. Whipped up some extra strong instant (Juan Valdez is rolling his grave) and about an hour later, he was right as rain…if that’s possible with him.

The weather was perfect for a ride and we headed out towards one of the state parks. Even the deer that jumped out in front of us didn’t bother me (even though it did cause me to lock up the brakes and increase the pucker factor). It was one of those riding days that make you rethink your existence and the reason you work at all. Fortunately these days don’t come around that often, if they did I’d probably have to opt for some surly vagabond existence that included robbing trains ala Butch Cassidy and end up in jail. I’m sure Bubba would be kind enough to lend me his soap on a rope.

Wish life offered some type of rewind option…I’d still be in yesterday.

Weekend time

Weekend time always seems to pass so much more quickly than weekday time and between chores and taking care of the family, I find I have little time for much else. With that said, here's another piece. This one took a few days, Conch shell in watercolor. Hope you enjoy!

Start of the day...

Figured I'd start the day out with some of my old artwork. The subject of this was "Tranquil" and was created haphazardly in one evening. Hope y'all enjoy.

(Click on the picture to enlarge it)

My “muse” is nocturnal

That was tough to write, almost like describing how your pituitary glands are secreting some kind of noxious liquid through your neck…not exactly party conversation.

Now that I had the design of the blog completed, I was faced with content (I'm about as interesting as cracker pie...no offense to cracker pie). Most of the writing I’ve done previously was, the facts and only the facts, technical articles and books, and I’ve rarely (e.g. read never) sat down and wrote anything of an opinionated nature. My friends will laugh considering how opinionated I can be.

Wrestling with insomnia and contemplating what in the world I had to say that anyone, but me, would be concerned with, my muse woke up and started whispering the most intriguing topics in my ear. I listened intently, my interest peaking and me almost leaping out of bed to get to the computer (ok, a bit of an exaggeration). Well, knowing that I still had to work this morning, I forced myself to lie there, taking careful note of the topics.

Now that I’m awake, and my nighttime objects of fascination all but vapor, my “muse” is nowhere to be found (damn I hate saying “muse”… too artsy for my taste) and I wonder, once again, what the hell am I going to write about.

I think my muse is a stripper.

Finally finished with this damn thing…for now

Well, returned from Chicago (what a blast that was, read in sarcasm here…O’Hare invariably gives me trouble whenever I fly out) and went right to work on blog in my copious amounts of free-time.

The design, of what was to be named “that damn thing” by friends and family, has been completed, albeit some minor tweaking, and I’m fairly happy with it. I say that now, but invariably become disappointed with my design within hours of posting it.

Here’s to hoping that it sticks around and I can stick to blogging, I’m notorious for skipping things that require dedicated effort.

Creating this damn thing

Well, I suppose I'll have to wait till I get back from Chicago to get this thing up and running.