Possibly Profitable Shopping Trip

or Why Donna Could Never Be A Politician

Donna had to pick up a prescription at Kroger’s today and while she was there she also opted to pick up literally a couple other items, some bananas and some watermelon. You can pay for other stuff at the Pharmacy counter, but not anything that is sold by the pound – no scale. So after paying there she headed over to the self-checkout. The two purchases came to a whopping $2.75, so instead of check or debit card, cash was called for. She slipped a ten dollar bill into the slot and instead of the expected seven and a quarter, she got $22.25!

Donna called the attendant over and pointed out the error and told him maybe they should shut the machine down and check it out. He took her offered $20 bill and gave her a five back. She was raised right.

Me, I’d have slipped all the change in my pocket and walked slowly out the door, whistling softly to myself. Which makes me a perfect candidate to fill one of the 39 out of 46 top science posts in the Trump administration. I was in the Navy, maybe I could get one of those 48 of a possible 53 Pentagon openings. How about one of those 56 open Ambassadorships? But seriously, with that kind of shady ethics I think I’d be best suited for a job on the board of the Eric Trump Foundation.

Another Mileage Chart

At the beginning of the year I made a quick spreadsheet of the CTBNL’s thousand mile points and created a nifty little chart. Trouble was I neglected to save the file, so I couldn’t just add on to it a month ago when we hit 53,000 mile mark. Instead of just recreating it, maybe I could make it better.

If some data is good, more is better right?! When we bought the silver car I said that it felt like going back in time 10 years, this made me wonder how the mileage we were putting on this car compared to how many we drove The Emperor 10 years ago (August 2006 to May 2007.) As you can see, in 2006 we started a thousand less, but by 8 months later we were 4,000 higher. It is not really a fair comparison though because in 2006-7 we only had the one car while now we have 2 to chose from any time we go for a drive.

Maybe I should chart the Purple Whale’s miles for the same stretch of time, from say 5 years ago, and add that on top of the CTBNL’s mileage to even out the playing field.

Bicycle Sunday


Because on Friday’s we are now riding our single bikes instead of the the tandem, on Sunday we have started riding the double instead of the old usual single bikes. The photo above was taken to answer a question I’ve gotten several times at work in the last couple months since Donna retired. Both by the people who thought I still rode it to work on my own and by those who are just plain curious.

Question: “How hard is it to ride that bike with no one on the back?”
Answer: “Not that hard at all.”

It really didn’t feel that much different than my single bike. It weighs a couple pounds more, so up and down hills would be different and pulling a u-turn takes just a bit more room.

Is There A Doctor In The House?

A couple of months ago I complained of a stuffy head to my PCP. Leaning over to tie my shoes made my head hurt and coughing hurt worse. He said it is probably seasonal allergies and wrote a script for the generic of Singular, said his wife swears by it. I’ve never had an allergy problem before, but there is always a first time for everything. The medicine notes said it might take 3 to 14 days to reach full effect, so I settled in for the long haul. One week, two weeks, three weeks – nothing – I finished the bottle and didn’t refill it.

Another month goes by and I got no better, but I got no worse either. Then, last week about Tuesday I noticed a different sound sensation on the drive home, the wind noise with the top down had a rumble to it. On Wednesday the low frequencies of music were muddy. My stuffy head had migrated to my left ear. I figured it was time to do something about my problem. And I wanted to elevate the issue and just go ahead and get an appointment with an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor. See as I hadn’t yet ever seen an ENT doc, I had my choice, stay local and try one of the two docs in a practice here in Aiken or try and get in and see the same guy as Donna used out of a larger practice in Augusta.

I started with the Aiken ENT. I called their number about 9:30 on Thursday. A very official sounding voice mail system picked up after 2 rings giving the impression that you are dealing with very large, finely-tuned operation instead of a small medical office. I wait thru “call 911 if this is an emergency” instructions and the “your call is very important to us”, then I get “if this is a doctor’s office press 0” followed by “for appointments press 1”, so I do. Now I get the “this call may be recorded, blah, blah, blah, the next available representative will be with you shortly.” Followed by hold music…do, do, do doo, do, do doo. Not long later the phone starts ringing, so I know I’m close, but after 8 rings it is still ringing! I hang up.

The heck with that, I’ll show them, I’ll call Augusta. The drive to the downtown place wasn’t bad and I’ll ask to see Dr. Barfield, he was cool. So I look up their number and call them. IT IS THE SAME EXACT VOICEMAIL SYSTEM (different voice, but same script) AND THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPENS (I hang up after 8 rings.)

About 20 minutes later I tried the Aiken number again. As soon as the voice mail system picks up I hit the number 1, wait through the automated voice until I get the ringing. This time I count to 12 rings before hanging up.

I email home to Donna to say I give up, nobody is answering the phone at either place. She emails back, “You want me to try?” “Go ahead,” I tell her. Not long later my desk phone rings. It is Donna telling me that someone picked up right away when she called. She got me an appointment with her guy, but it wasn’t going to be until the 13th because he was going on vacation the next day…

Bicycle Friday

The bike riding to work on Fridays continues even if only one of us actually rides all the way to the Valve Store. In the morning Donna rides to the halfway point and turns around and heads home on a different route and I continue on pedaling our old standard route to ASCO. At the end of my work day I saddle up and Donna meets me right across the street from the plant having ridden the standard route to within the last tenth of a mile. There is really no reason for her to cross the busiest road on the route only to have cross back 10 minutes later.

People are so used to us riding the tandem in together that you might be surprised to learn how many people wonder how the whole thing works now when I tell them she rides halfway in with me in the morning. “Does she have to walk back home?” “What’s it like to ride that bike with no one on the back seat?” “Ohhh, you have other bikes…”

This morning when a cubicle1 neighbor said, “I didn’t think you were here.”

“It’s Friday,” I reply, “I bike rode in.”

“Oh, I didn’t notice the bike.”

“That’s because it is half as long as the tandem,” I tell him eliciting a chuckle.

This got us talking about cycling and as it turns out he was into mountain biking about the same time as we were back in the middle 1990s. I wonder if we ever crossed paths as we talked of riding some of the same local trails and we both even had ridden the Tsali Trail up in western North Carolina. But I don’t think we were at the same places at the same time because even though it was 20 years ago Donna and I would have been hard to forget. Among all the usual pick up trucks, jeeps, SUVs and big cars, it was hard to miss a Miata with 2 mountain bikes mounted on the trunk at trail head parking areas.

Lick Fork Lake Trailhead

68,000 Excuses Not To Blog


or I Fell Into An Orphan Black Hole.

I haven’t blogged in about 2 weeks and I’m going to do better in June and post every day. Promise. Or your money back.

I am going to place the blame of that post hole on actually buying (at the exorbitant cost of $1.99) that silly little Orphan Black game. Before I bought it I thought there were only six levels, AKA worlds, to complete because that was how many walk-thrus someone had posted on the internet. But the game itself actually has 10 worlds consisting of either 8 or 9 rooms to navigate successfully to advance on to the next.

And even though the game gives you plenty of decent hints if you ask, I still used the walk-thrus to help me finish up those first 6 levels. Worlds 7 through 10 were all on hints and trial and error and I was really happy to finally wrap up Room 9 of World 10 the other night.

But I was gifted with 4 extra rooms along with some sort of flying demon, that in room two I just can’t seem to get by using the hints and trial and error. I’m going to have to go ‘old school’ and print out the level map and start counting squares or something.

Somewhere during Donna’s errands on Tuesday the Sonata passed the 68,000 mile mark.

Arts & Crafts Engineer



Last Friday: Hey Brian can you make me a banner for my Relay for Life Event…tonight?
Monday: If I email you the pictures and bring over the words what I want on it, can you make me up a Lost Dog flyer?
Tuesday: Not enough people have returned their Safety Survey. Can you design something and print out five of them on 18 x 24 paper?
Wednesday: I print out my usual Service Level chart to hang outside the cafeteria.
Thursday: I need a banner for my Dad’s 75 birthday can you fix me up?
Friday: If I send you a picture with something circled could you erase it somehow?2