Max and Ralph

Two very elderly friends, Max and Ralph met in the park every day to feed the pigeons, watch the squirrels and discuss world problems. One day Ralph didn’t show up. Max didn’t think much about it, figuring maybe he had a cold or something.

But after Ralph hadn’t shown up for a week or so, Max really got worried. However, the only time they ever got together anymore was at the park, and Max could not remember where Ralph lived so he was unable to find out what had happened to him.

A month passed and Max figured old Ralph had gone to his heavenly reward. But one day Max went to the park and, lo and behold, there sat Ralph. Max was very excited and happy to see him and told him so. Then he said, “For crying out loud Ralph, what happened to you???”

Ralph replied, “I have been in jail.”

Jail???,” cried max! “What in the world for???”

“Well,” Ralph said, “you know Sue, that cute little blonde waitress at the coffee shop where we get coffee sometimes?”

“Yeah,” said Max, “I remember her. What about her?”

“Well, one day last month she got mad at me and to get even, she charged me with rape. I was so proud of what everyone would think an old fart like me could still do, that when I got into court, I pled ‘guilty’.”

“The judge then took a good look at me and gave me 30 days for perjury.”

Easing Back Into It

Today at work wasn’t too bad, managed to get one thing off my desk that popped up hot. Tomorrow I’ll see if any others showed like it in the week I was gone and if not, it’ll be reaching in to the pile and picking something.

Washington's "Falsie"Catching up on our household chores tonight and by Wednesday it will probably be like we never left. But I have about 4 or 5 little vacation stories to tell over the next few days. Then there is the weeding out of the 132 photos I took last week into at least one gallery page of 24. It may be more but not by much. There are 17 BMW Ultimate Drive photos that will come out of that 132 for sorting and thinning to be added to that gallery. This one won’t make the cut in either gallery.

I always have one of those “one day at a time” desk calendars at work as a conversation starter. Last year it was a Jeopardy! and this year it is Spot the Big Fat Lie. You are giving two different statements and it is your job to pick the false one. I’m usually pretty good at it, but today’s was easy because I knew the true one right off: One of P.T. Barnum’s famous “oddities” on display was the Fiji Mermaid, which was really the top half of a monkey sewn to the bottom half of a fish.

And how did I know? Episode 20 of Season 2: Humbug.

MULDER: Mister Helm, I wanted to ask you about this menu illustration. I recognized most of the historical portraits you’ve drawn here, but what’s this here?

(Scully rolls her eyes at the words “historical portraits.”)

HEPCAT HELM: It’s the Fiji Mermaid.

(He walks back to his desk carrying the menu.)

HAMILTON: Is that what that thing is?

SCULLY: What’s the Fiji Mermaid?

HEPCAT HELM: The Fiji Mermaid. It’s, it’s the Fiji Mermaid!

HAMILTON: It’s a bit of, uh… humbug Barnum pulled in the last century.

HEPCAT HELM: Barnum billed it as a real live mermaid but when people went into see it, all they saw was a real dead monkey sewn on the tail of a fish.

Who said watching the X-Files wasn’t educational.

The lie: P.T. Barnum owned more than 200 famous pairs of dentures, including the falsies worn by George Washington, Marie Antoinette and Robespierre.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 118

Just Flew In From Washington DC

Terminal C at DullesAnd boy are my arms tired. Bada-boom.

Good to be home. On the 60 mile drive home from the airport this evening we saw maybe a couple dozen cars, in the northeast if you go 6 miles you see a couple thousand cars.

Just realized that last Sunday I forgot to change the the top count, I didn’t leave the top down all week while the car was at the airport, it actually went up before last Sunday’s drive to Columbia. Tonight when we landed back in South Carolina it was just about as cold as it was when we left Jersey this morning, so although we wanted to ride home with the top down, we didn’t want to that bad. It stayed up.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 117

Good Morning Sunshine

SunriseThis is the sun coming up over Manhattan as seen from the 8th floor of the Newark Airport Marriot was pretty much the bright spot of the day (if you don’t count the fact that the guest laundry is free.)

The church service for Donna’s Aunt Mary was today, but the interment had to be canceled. Cousin Laurie (the one in SC that we visit) was bringing the ashes, but her husband had some medical issues and had to be rushed to the hospital in Harrisburg, PA. The repast still went on, just with two empty chairs.

I would love to write some more, but this internet connection keeps dropping and it is very frustrating. The only way to restart it is to crawl under the desk and “reboot” the modem/router by unplugging it, counting backwards from 100 by sixteens and replugging it back in.

Wired-for-Business

Why is it that you can stay at the $75 a night Quality Inn off the interstate and you get free wireless high speed internet, but spend the night in the $250 a night Newark Airport Marriott and it costs you $9.95 (plus applicable taxes) a day?

The previous two nights were spent in a New Britain, CT extended stay hotel that caters to business folks and it cost me $4.95 a day for high speed web access. Yet the local Motel 8 was giving it away.

Not only is is fast and free at the national chain places, I have never had an issue hooking up. Tonight at the Marriott I successfully managed to log in, agree to the conditions, check yes to the fee and get to view one page of the Weather Channel web site for losing connectivity. I rebooted, I swapped out for my cat5 cable and rebooted again with no luck. I ended up having to call the 1-800 number to get a help desk person. A five minute wait and we did a couple of things, including disabling the wireless (remind me to turn that back on later huh) and disabling the wired NIC and re-enabling it so I could get back on line.

That time I managed to stay connected for about 2 minutes before being dumped off. Back to the 1-800 number. This time we ran over a few other things and the CSR tried a couple of resets on her end. I am automatically getting an IP address, but I’m not getting a DNS address. The CSR said she would report this up the food chain and see if they could figure out what the problem is, but for now we left it alone as I’m back online. I just don’t have a high confidence that I’ll stay connected.

Egg Wiggle

Table Full of CousinsIt is great when families get together to talk and compare notes from the past. We gathered around the kitchen table at Donna’s cousin Mary’s (3rd from the left.) Her other cousin Susie, is 2nd from the left. Susan’s husband Alex is, well, the only guy in the photo. Mary’s daughter is next to her, stage right and the other three girls belong to Susie and Alex. Mary’s husband Jim is off stage left and their son was on the couch in the background just a second ago. Donna is under the camera and I’m behind it to complete the cast.

One thing that surfaced was a strange food concoction called Egg Wiggle from the cousins’ past. An internet search was of no help, but the best I could gather from them was that it was sliced hard boiled eggs and canned peas in a cream sauce served over toast. I wonder if Rachel Ray would have a recipe?

Donna and I are staying at the Newark Airport Marriott courtesy of her brother’s reward points. Thanks Jimmy! Jim is coming in for the service as well, and Donna bartered the room stay for the Deluxe Bogardus Limo Service. He is coming in from California on the red-eye and will catch a few hours of snoozing before we chauffeur him to the memorial service for Aunt Mary in Rutherford. After the service we will then hightail it south to the grave site in New Brunswick. After that ceremony there it is a dinner planned about half way back up in the town of Summit. After dinner we will return to the Marriott where we spend a second night. Sunday Jim flies back to California and Donna & I drive to DC to fly back to SC.

Brrrrrrr!

Ice PossibleEven though it was supposed to be cold, rainy, and maybe sleety (if that is a word), Donna and I decided to get out and see the sights. I Googled for “Central CT Attractions” and the 6th link on the 2nd linked page was a list of covered bridges. Connecticut has a whopping 5 of them and there were three that were located no too far from each other in the northwest corner of the state. A plan was hatched. We stopped in and asked my mom if she wanted to go, fully expecting her to say no, but she was up for the ride, so the three of us piled in the rental car.

Today’s high was a low 40s, but that was this morning before the precipitation started, and it went downhill all day. Our helpful little Pontiac G6 reminded us, every time I started it up, that the road might be icy. There were several times that the thermometer read 32 degrees, but it was always rain coming down. Maybe it was sleet those couple of times that the sound of what splattered on the windshield deepened or maybe not, but we did see a thin coating of ice on some of the trees at the higher elevations.

Of the three bridges, two were built in the middle 1800s and still in operation, you could drive right over them. The third was built in the middle 1970s in Kent Falls State Park and was erected as a point of interest for the park. The falls looked interesting, but because of the weather we will save them for a different day.

We had pizza for lunch in the town of Kent at a place called Paisans, it was good, but I won’t recommend you go out of your way to eat there, unlike yesterday morning’s breakfast spot.

If you ever find yourself in Port Jervis, NY seek out Cafe Roxanna. We had breakfast, but from looking at the menu their lunch would be worth the stop as well. Eclectic food served on funky dinnerware, photographic art from locals hanging on the walls and laid back jazz on the sound system, the only thing missing was the word Moon in the restaurants name.

Tomorrow we shift the show to the Garden State…