Have a great weekend

See everyone on Monday, I'm off to ride North Carolina.

Illo Friday - Sail

Once again, because life has gotten in the way of things that I used to enjoy and as I try to get centered again, I decided to give Illustration Friday a shot.

This week’s topic is, “Sail”. The illustration has little meaning other than the overtly obvious. While I usually work with traditional media, I decided to give the Mac a shot at this one.

Nickels for Fare Back

Definitely a busy weekend, if not overly interesting. Awoke early yesterday to make sure that I got my bike to the indy shop to prepare for the upcoming trip down to South Carolina. Returning around 2pm and 160 miles later, the bike had new tires and a tune up and she felt good, so good I really had to take the long way home through the twisty roads and inevitably received a mild sunburn for my escapades.

Arriving home, we headed out to the optometrist to get fitted for new glasses and while my choice of frames was truly spectacular, the fitting left something to be desire and I’m currently wearing my old glasses until I can have them refitted.

Ultimately the entire day was just fodder for what I considered the epoch of the day, and I daresay perhaps the week. I’ve been toying with the idea for several years of purchasing a digital SLR camera and after drooling over Mel’s new camera I decided to make the leap and bought the Sony DSLR-350. While the instruction manual is more complex than my college text books in macroeconomics, it’s still relatively easy to use and I couldn’t be happier.

The batteries charged, I headed down the street and into town where the strangest things have been happening. I’m not sure what to make of it, but the county has been purchasing buildings, lots and businesses along the main thoroughfare and tearing them down. The most recent victim, the Greyhound bus terminal down and across the street from my house, and many other business stand vacant to receive a similar fate, each with what is becoming a familiar white sign posted out front, “Property of Prince William County; No Trespassing”.

I believe they’re planning on creating a “historic” district that is pedestrian friendly which shops and café’s. This at least is my hope as they’ve held several town hall meetings to discuss zoning and creating what they are calling pocket communities (which my house is in the center of). I had not heard of the outcome, but I’m excited to see what comes of it.

Now I get to go mow the grass.

Opinions

I’ve always told people that I’m unoffendable; the way I’ve always looked at things is, if it’s the truth, then how can you argue the fact, and if it’s a lie then what’s the point other than argue the difference, but at what point would you be offended. Take for example I told you that your mother wore combat boots…if she does, then how can you be offended, it’s a fact, and if she doesn’t then what does it matter other than to say, “B.S., you don’t even know my mother.” See? Unoffendable!

Now, with that said, that doesn’t mean that I don’t get pissed, angry or irate; quite the contrary, if you mess with my department, do not expect me to quietly lay down and allow it to happen just because you’ve never had anyone that was willing to confront you before, especially when the issue is customer facing and in fact you’re the one that dropped the ball.

This was the beginning of a rant that I wrestled with posting and inevitably decided not to (I even had the entire thing typed out). While I didn’t name names or companies I wondered if it might be in poor taste to post goings on within my organization even though the individual I was ranting about apparently had no qualms with doing the same, except she did name names.

Opinions?

Where have all the good times gone

Tonight was my turn to pick up the little critters; I watch them playing and the excitement of my daughter to show me new things that she's learned how to do that are seemingly too mundane for me to mention. Tossing a balloon into the air and catching it and doing jumping jacks yelling, “Shikawawa weehoo!” while my son announces happily a new episode of “Speed Racer Next Generation” is on and I have to wonder when I lost the excitement for things.

I'm not talking about the excitement of a new car, or seeing the kids after a long day of work, but a genuine elation at just about everything in life. Now I think I need to mention I'm not one of these moody type of folks that looks at the world through nuclear explosion tainted glasses, quite the contrary, I'm generally in a great mood, but I've definitely lost that excitement of waking to a new dawn, grabbing some sugary cereal and catching a new episode of my favorite cartoon.

It seems I'm not the only one. Is the fun of being a kid simply the innocence that's lost as we age or is it like that coffee we enjoyed so thoroughly at the beginning of the day that becomes common and ordinary and loses its impact because it's no longer special.

We're ordering pepperoni pizza tonight

Nighttime meanderings

The meat…um, meek shall inherit the earth and between Tanya, Dale and myself it seems that the insidious plot of the meat…er, meek to wipe out the human population is medium well underway. The trend is rather apparent…the signs are there; with all the intelligence gathering agencies currently in employed by the gooberment, how are we completely blind to the revenge of the rodents, the bombardment by Bambi and the conspiracy of the cows?

My answer; contrary to what Disney would have us believe, animals can’t talk. Clever that way aren’t they.

To illustrate my point, a couple weekends ago, the heat of the day gave way to an evening temperate enough to open the windows and catch the night breeze.

The crickets chirped and the frogs croaked and a cool draft carried the distinct smell of bay through the windows, it wasn’t long before I was gone and hoping a rendezvous with a supermodel wasn’t out of the question (they have restraining orders in my dreams). That was until around 2:30 in the morning when voices woke me from my slumber.

Tense and ready to strike at any threat, I listen for the nocturnal conversation that awoke me when I hear the rustling of weeds outside my bedroom window. Putting on my glasses and parting the curtains, I search for movement, but its overcast and way too dark to see. I can still hear them moving through the weeds.

Now perhaps I’m wrong, but my thoughts are anyone wandering around my house at 2:30 in the morning, talking to their companion…partner in crime, is probably up to no good, and with that knowledge I throw on a pair of jeans and crawl out of bed to investigate.

Got my can of whoop-ass, 6-D cell mag light and some other things; out the front door I go as to not let them know I’m coming, I circle around back, careful not to step on anything that would give away my position.

They’re still there, I hear them moving through the weeds, pausing occasionally then moving again. “They’re lookin for a way into my house,” I thought to myself, “well, they picked the wrong damn house”.

Ready for a confrontation, I click on the flashlight, aim it in the direction I heard the movement and shout, “Don’t even think about moving.” Yes…I’m that verbose even when not typing.

Deer…five by my count, and no sooner had I shouted my orders when they took off like a politician to a photo op.

I watch the deer, tails raised, beat a retreat when something slams into my legs from behind. Down I go, head smashing into the wall as something pummels me from the rear. Fighting, I roll over to fend off my attacker, but as soon as the onslaught began, it’s over and it's gone.

I failed to realize I had my back turned to a sixth deer munching the weeds under my bedroom window…and I had completely blocked her escape route. With no way to go around me, she went through me. A 40 pound deer completely and soundly kicked my ass.

Dirty, beat up and bruised I head back into the house. I dust myself off and get ready to climb back into bed when I hear the voice again; the voice that woke me up to begin with…kind of muffled…I’ve heard that voice before. I head to my daughter’s room and sure enough, my wife had put my daughter’s favorite talking doll in her crib. “I love you,” it said again as my daughter rolled over on top of it.

The plot is afoot or ahand…whatever. It’s a conspiracy.

Joined the Dark Side

I guess I have to caveat this with I'm in no way shape or a form a Star Wars fan; in fact I pretty much reject the entire series, but that's another story. No, what I'm referring to is the return to my youth and the purchase of a Macbook Pro (ok, well...I didn't have a Mac as a youth, but had the Apple IIe Plus). It was actually a relatively painless decision given the alternative of Windows Vista....oooh, I gotta get me some of that. The fact that Mac was running a deal for students with $200 off the laptop and a free IPod only sweetened the deal.

So here I am, completely hip with my Mac and my IPod...worship me.

Yea, so maybe that was a stretch...maybe I do have Plato's “The Republic” audio book on the IPod, but I'm still hip right? Right?!?

Help me out here.

This ain't the Shining

I've returned, kind of like the Rolling Stones minus the talent, money, adoring fans and well, you get the point. I've come back nonetheless. I guess that makes me the proverbial blogger phoenix, rising from the ashes of broken bits and electrons, seizing broadband and cooking hot dogs.

Difficult as it is to believe, it's been nearly two years since my last post; my absence however, has not been uneventful and to the contrary, in retrospect, it seems during that period I've lived a lifetime.

I'll do my best to summarize the events of the past two years; in January of 07 I was involved in a serious car accident. Typical to the stories, I was commuting home late at night on a deserted (obviously not deserted enough) country road when a SUV crossed the center line in a corner and plowed into the driver's side of my truck. Unfortunately for the campfire story crowd, for the most part I came out of the incident unscathed, allowing for some shoulder issues that plague me today and the air bag burn scars. The unbelievable part was that it was decided my truck should be repaired, which $26,000 spent and two years later sits in my driveway. They actually did spend $26,000 to repair a $23,000 truck (the original estimate was $5,000 to fix) and two years (off and on) to fix it. Yes, the claims adjustor still works for them.

I quit my job, went back to college, had to have a root canal, missed having money and took a position as CTO with a shipping company.

Had a mishap with my motorcycle when a tractor trailer rig threw a retread and a four foot section of road gator (tire) almost took me out; limped home with a bent frame. Bought a new bike and repairing the old.

Took two motorcycle trips to the Smokys in Tennessee and rode a highway known as Deal's Gap, or Tail of the Dragon...one time at night.

I've aged and my children have grown and it seems that I'm not the only one that life has happened to. JACC, congratulations Dad. Slaygirl, what happened to her and Mellow...what are you doing spending all your time on FaceBook?

I'm about to head to bed, but wanted to finish my weekend with a quick howdy and share a bit of past two years…condensed into two minutes.













My son and his Principals Honor Roll for the Year Award (only 3 kids got this). My daughter at last year's pumpkin festival.