Best of 2003

Jan­u­ary

Naught Plus Naught Equals Dou­ble Naught

Wednes­day the 1st

Bonus rant today. Just as I was fin­ish­ing up my last post, my wife told me we had to go to the store, seems we were plum out of plas­tic sand­wich bags. As we were check­ing out, our cashier was so busy flirt­ing with the bag boy that see didn’t notice my wife had writ­ten the check over so we would have a bit of cash. When Donna said I wrote it for $20, the cashier re-opened the draw and took out a 20. Nope, she cor­rected, the total check was for 20, so I should get the change. Our cashier tries to use the cash reg­is­ter to fig­ure out how much change we should get back, but it would do that because the order was closed.

Now per­plexed, our cashier calls for back-up. The new girl shows up and real­izes what needs to be done, she gets her pen out and writes 20.00 on the top of the receipt and then puts 14.30 under it and pro­ceeds to sub­tract — her answer 6.30!?! At this point I say we should get 5.70. Our orig­i­nal cashier says, “Really?” Yes, really. At this point the bag boy pipes in with, “Yeah, 30 plus 70 equals a dol­lar.” Thanks Ein­stein. These folks must have stud­ied under the emi­nent math­e­mati­cian, Jethro Bod­ine of Bev­erly Hills, CA.

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Feb­ru­ary

Hol­i­day Inn III

Fri­day the 7th

When we check in, the clerk gives us room 231 and some vague direc­tions on how to get there. Off we drove to the back of the com­plex, notic­ing that the place is nearly empty. When we get to our room it is right at the top of the stairs. If you walk straight ahead after the last stringer you would bump right into the door of the room. There are 2 room loca­tions in a motel you should never stay in; 1) next to or across from an ice machine and B) at he the top or bot­tom of the stairs. Both spots are noto­ri­ously noisy because of the peo­ple traf­fic (they wouldn’t be so bad if peo­ple were still con­sid­er­ate of oth­ers, but that is a whole ‘nother blog post.) We headed back to the front desk and ask for a room 2 or 3 doors away from this one. The clerk, after mak­ing a big show of check­ing for empty rooms, gives us a key to room 233. When we get back to our new room it is not 2 doors away, but merely one. Not only is it not far from 231, it is an adjoin­ing room! The doors are lit­er­ally 6″ apart. See­ing as the place was empty we decided not to try for room #3, know­ing that if we did he would put us next to the weight room or guest laun­dry next…

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March

If I Only Had A Brain

Fri­day the 14th

At work they have this bul­letin board where they post all kinds a things for pub­lic con­sump­tion, a list of Activ­i­ties Com­mit­tee events, birth­days that month, etc. On the list of heath related items for March are sev­eral things, includ­ing that this is National Brain Aware­ness Week (10th — 16th.) Huh? We need to be reminded of that. Well, now that I think of it, I know quite a few peo­ple that need con­stant reminders to use their head for some­thing besides a hat rack.

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April

Unde­ter­mined Fibers

Sun­day the 13th

On a whim we decided to replace the area rug in the din­ing room. Off we went to our favorite rug store, Lowes. We have hard wood floors and they really need refin­ish­ing, but we just cover them up with cheap $100 8 x 10 rugs. All the oth­ers are just plain tan/beige things, but this time we went with a pat­tern that has most of all the col­ors in the wall­pa­per and cur­tains. For­tu­nately today was sunny so we could get this rolled up rug home in the fam­ily pick-up truck, the Miata. On the way home we had to stop in a mini-mart for a quick item. Donna ran in and left me in the car guard­ing the rug (like any­one would steal a 9′ long, 12? diam­e­ter roll.) While lolling around wait­ing I noticed the tag on the rug, under­neath the plas­tic wrap­per, it said, “Con­tents: 100% unde­ter­mined fibers.” Soda bot­tles? Tires? Mat­tress stuff­ing? Bar­ber­shop floor clip­pings? I think I’ll keep my socks on.

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May

Every Man Has His Price

Tues­day the 6th

Rainy day. Tonight after work was a busy one, first it is our every 4 week hair­cut appoint­ment and then we had just time enough to get a bite to eat before going to 2 hour class on the basics of under­stand­ing stocks. It was put on by a local Edward Jones Invest­ment Advi­sor and was intended as an inter­me­di­ate course in eval­u­at­ing stocks. I wasn’t inter­ested in going, but Donna said she’d pay me $25 to go with her, so I did. Every man has his price and for­tu­nately for her, mine is really low.

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June

Now That’s Italian

Fri­day the 27th

On our way up north to meet sis and hubby in North Car­olina. The most inter­est­ing thing of the whole drive occurred just out­side of down­town Aiken on Lau­rens Street. Just as we were pass­ing the post office a small gray object fell rapidly from the sky above us and hit the road a few inches in front of the nose of the car with a splat. As I looked in the rearview mir­ror I could see the squir­rel dash towards the side of the road. I guess he missed a branch. Just imag­ine if I was 2 secs ear­lier leav­ing home or a light changed on a dif­fer­ent sched­ule or the squir­rel paused a beat longer think­ing about the gap between those branches? I won­der what kind of havoc a squir­rel land­ing in the cock­pit of a mov­ing con­vert­ible might cause? Would not be pretty!

In our increas­ingly harder to accom­plish task of find­ing a dif­fer­ent way north we crossed into Geor­gia for a bit of our trip. As luck would have it we were in the small burg of Clarksville, GA around lunchtime. We stopped in the cen­ter square and walked around look­ing for like can­di­dates for a nice meal. We ended up going into the Zanzo Side Door Deli. It was on one side of a build­ing and the reg­u­lar Ital­ian restau­rant was on the other. Donna had a chicken salad plate on some greens with fruit on the side and I opted for the lunch por­tion of baked ziti. Man it was good. Almost worth the 100 mile drive it would take just to go back. This food was so Ital­ian good and we were so in the mid­dle of nowhere, back­woods Geor­gia that the folks run­ning the place had to be wit­ness pro­tec­tion relo­ca­tees.

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July

James Brown Announces Breakup Of Marriage

Thurs­day the 24th

You may have not noticed this unless you live in LA (Los Ange­les) or LA (Lower Augusta) but in today?s news­pa­per there appeared this blurb in the peo­ple in the news sec­tion of page 2:

The “God­fa­ther of Soul,” James Brown, has announced his breakup from his wife, Tomi Rea Brown, with a full-page ad in the show-business trade news­pa­per Variety.

In the July 21–27 weekly edi­tion of the paper, the ad fea­tures a photo of the cou­ple and their 2 year-old son, James Joseph Brown II, smil­ing at Walt Dis­ney World while pos­ing with the cos­tumed char­ac­ter Goofy.

Above the photo, a state­ment said that because of their “heavy, demand­ing tour sched­ule, they have decided to go their sep­a­rate ways. There are no hard feel­ings, just a mutual show busi­ness deci­sion made by both par­ties.”
Mrs. Brown is one of Mr. Brown’s back­ground singers.

The pair is tour­ing together in Europe, the news­pa­per added, and may con­tinue work­ing together despite the breakup.

They are split­ting up because of the heavy tour­ing sched­ule? They’re together! I could under­stand it is she was home while James toured the world.

They are going their sep­a­rate ways? Yet she is one of his backup singers and may con­tinue to work together!

I glad to see I wasn’t the only one to find humor in this announce­ment, why else would have the copy per­son who culled this from the Vari­ety ad have made room for the part about the whole fam­ily pos­ing with Goofy.

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August

Praise The Lord, But Get The Hell Out Of My Way

Mon­day the 11th

For the last cou­ple of months my wife and I have been meet­ing a few of our fel­low Aiken Bicy­cle Club mem­bers for an early morn­ing ride on Sun­days. We have been rid­ing more or less 25 miles by pick­ing a loop from the Club’s inven­tory of past and present Spring Cen­tury rides. It is a small group of 4 to 6 rid­ers of around the same abil­i­ties and incli­na­tions so no one is dropped and for­got­ten about, nor is any­one rid­ing at half speed so as not to get too far ahead. The ride is always fun and a nice work out, plus we are home early enough, around 9:30, so as to still have the whole day left for other things.

Start time is at 7:30 for a cou­ple of rea­sons. One, it is sum­mer in South Car­olina and the heat and humid­ity make later in the day rides unpleas­ant at best. And two, traf­fic is very light at the time of day on week­ends. The routes take us on a vari­ety of roads in the lighter pop­u­lated areas of the county, but in the last 1/2 hour of the ride no mat­ter where we are, car traf­fic picks up. And these are usu­ally the most rude and impa­tient dri­vers. They pass us on two lane roads when there is oncom­ing traf­fic and/or as close as pos­si­ble to us.

The strange thing about these folks is they are all dressed very nicely, obvi­ously on their way to church. I’m a non-attendee of church, so I don’t know why they would endan­ger our lives, their lives and those of the poor unsus­pect­ing occu­pants in the other car just to ensure they get a good pew. My rec­ol­lec­tion of Chris­t­ian beliefs is not so hazy that I wouldn’t have remem­bered that being late for church was a sin.

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Sep­tem­ber

Dys­func­tional Park­ing Is To The Left

Fri­day the 26th

While enjoy­ing our ice cream at Brusters this evening we amused our­selves by mak­ing fun of the peo­ple already there and the new ones as they pulled up. All in good fun really.

The most fun is watch­ing folks pull in and park, scary. A full size Ford pick up truck pulled into the lot and it looked like he didn’t even try to get in between the lines. Parked at a 60 degree angle to the end of the spots he parked across. The lot wasn’t crowded, so it is not like he was depriv­ing any one of a place to put the car, but what kind of state­ment was he mak­ing? Early to mid 20s cou­ple get out and saunter over to get in line. (Don’t even get me started on the line and the ser­vice we received.)

Next in was a Nis­san Max­ima. Pulled into the side of the lot in front of us and paused. Started to back up and I thought it was to get more cen­tered in the spot. This is like a 5-foot wide car and it was “in” a 10′ wide spot. In is in quotes because the left tires were mostly on the line with the out­side of them in the other park­ing spot. Instead of straight­en­ing out, this car backs up across the aisle, where the canted pickup truck is, and stops in the mid­dle of two park­ing spots. At least she is per­pen­dic­u­lar to the lines. Two youngish (late teens?) cou­ples get out and walk across to get some ice-cream.

Brusters in same lot as a Pub­lix gro­cery store where Donna and I walk over to after eat­ing dessert. We need dish soap as all our sil­ver­ware is dirty and even though I offered to eat break­fast with my fin­gers, Donna insisted on buy­ing some Sun­light. It is 9:30 on a Fri­day night and the store lot is nearly empty. So as not to tire them­selves out by hav­ing to walk the extra 20 feet to the door another young cou­ple pull right up front of the store, park and get out. At least he was per­fectly par­al­lel to the curb (could have been a lit­tle closer though.) The guy must have been raised by his mommy and hasn’t got car guy friends, because if he did, they would cer­tainly have told him by now that the loud squeal­ing com­ing from his brakes, that goes away when they are applied, is telling him he needs new pads.

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Octo­ber

Naughty Hol­i­days

Fri­day the 24th

We went out this evening and got a scoop of ice cream and took a stroll around down­town Aiken. We past by a small women’s cloth­ing bou­tique and there in the win­dow were some bright red and green bra/panty sets next to a sign that pro­claimed Hol­i­day Lin­gerie. The red ones were crotch­less! Santa has been a very good boy this year.

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Novem­ber

Parts Is Parts

Sun­day the 16

Blew out a turn sig­nal bulb yes­ter­day. We were on our way to a Miata event at our spon­sor­ing dealer, so when the first parts store I stopped in didn’t have what I needed I fig­ured I could get it at their parts counter. The bulb is a pretty stan­dard auto­mo­tive bulb, an 1157NA. 1157 is the type, 12 volts, two fil­a­ments, one brighter than the other and the NA means it is amber. The parts store had plain 1157s, but because the Miatas turn sig­nals are mounted in a clear lens I needed the yel­low bulb.

When I asked the parts counter guy for two 1157NAs he didn’t move, he just looked at me like he was wait­ing for more infor­ma­tion. None was needed, but he asked any­way, “What kind of car is it for?” I sighed inter­nally and said out loud, a Mazda Miata. Off he went to the bulb draw. He rum­maged around for a few min­utes and came back with two bulbs. When he put them on the counter they were clear. I said, “I wanted NAs, I need them to be amber.” Back to the drawer he went. More rum­mag­ing, lots more. Finally after what seemed like 5 min­utes he returns with two yel­low bulbs. I checked the part num­ber just to be sure. As I’m walk­ing away I heard him say to him­self, “I always won­dered what NA meant.”

I guess basic auto­mo­tive knowl­edge isn’t a pre­req­ui­site of work­ing at a part depart­ment in a car deal­er­ship. To be some­what fair, this deal­er­ship sells both Mercedes-Benz’s and Mazda’s so maybe he needed to know how much to charge me. I paid $2.87 for the pair, I won­der if a Benz owner would have had to fork over $8.59 for his?

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Decem­ber

Toi­let Stall Entertainment

Mon­day the 29th

This morn­ing while sit­ting in a stall at work (I always go at work. Why do it at home when you can get paid for it?) I noticed a fin­ger­nail clip­ping lay­ing near my shoe. At first, I was some­what repulsed, but then mar­veled at the nicely sym­met­ri­cal nature of the clip­ping. It was kind of large, so it must have been a thumb….crap! Did it just move? Naw, I must be hal­lu­ci­nat­ing. No wait, there it goes again. WTF? It is then I notice that there is a tiny lit­tle ant under one end. He is valiantly try­ing to get that sucker back to all his bud­dies back in Antville. First he swings it one way, then back another. He is strug­gling might­ily. I watch trans­fixed for a cou­ple of min­utes while he makes very lit­tle orga­nized progress, he keeps at it, so there must be some good food stuck to the nail. My busi­ness is fin­ished, so I leave the ant to his. That was much more enter­tain­ing than the occa­sional folded up sports page…

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