Best Of

January

Hi, I’m Zeke And I’ll Be Taking Care Of You

Sunday the 10th

After a pleasant afternoon geocaching we decided to eat out for dinner. Because a couple of our favorite haunts are not open on Sunday we settled for a third tier option, Chilis. They have that 2 for $20 thing going on which we had enjoyed at one in Statesboro, GA on our way back from Florida at Thanksgiving. This dining experience wasn’t as good as that one, but that is a whole ‘nother post.

While waiting for Zeke to bring our drinks, Donna spotted an application booklet on the table to join their E-mail Club. They ask for your birthday, so we figured maybe you get a free margarita or something on your special day. Trouble was we didn’t have anything to right write with, so we asked Zeke if he’d lend us a pen. We both filled one out and handed them and the pen back when Zeke brought our appetizer.

As we finished our desert Zeke asked if we wanted anything else, when we replied in the negative, he dropped off our check and disappeared. Trouble was, he didn’t leave us a pen. I eyeballed the receipt and noticed that it was that thin glossy stuff, almost like old time fax paper, and thought, I bet this is pressure sensitive. I grabbed the salad fork, which I hadn’t used, turned it backwards and test wrote the total on the *guest copy*, with the handle. It worked, it was a little light, kind of like I signed it in pencil, but fully legible.

Zeke returned a few seconds after I had finished filling out the charge slip and said, “Did I forget to leave you a pen?” “Yep,” I replied, “But not to worry, I signed it with the fork.” He was so stunned than he forgot to say thanks for dining with us or hurry back or whatever the corporate mandated server’s last line is.

February

A Case of Attention Deficit Disorder

Monday the 15th

I haven’t blogged much about the actual reason we are in the hospital for several reasons, Donna isn’t as excited to share the intimate details as I would be, the spotty internet connection and the lack of free time allotted the assistant lay nurse of a sick person. But I will share my favorite story of the past week. Treatment for her type of colitis is the steroid solu-cortef. The steroid amps you up and in Donna’s case on the second day kind of turned her into a 5-year old kid with a case ADD. To counter act this, the doctor proscribed Xanax, an anti-anxiety medicine, and it has calmed her some, but not entirely.

While on the clear liquid diet she was drinking all sorts of fluids, but she always kept her favorite three at hand on the bed table, water, cranberry juice and diet ginger ale. Each fluid had its own little styrofoam cup which she would have me write the fluids name in three or four places along the top edge of the cup. She would line them up in a straight line formation. Directly behind the cup marked water was the large hospital supplied plastic mug which the staff kept full of ice and water, directly behind the ginger ale was the small 8oz can of soda and lastly right behind the cranberry juice glass were stacked the 4oz plastic containers of juice. Each cup had its own separate straw. After each drink from the cups, sometimes one right after the other, she carefully arranges them back in straight lines.

This morning after we got all the cups arranged and filled with the appropriate combination of fluid and ice she looked down at the row of drinks and frowned. When she looked up at me I asked, “What’s wrong?” She looked at me and said, “My straws don’t match.” Sure enough, there were two yellow straws and one white one. I went over to her neatly arranged bed stand picked out a matching yellow straw.

March

With This Ring I Thee Wed

Wednesday the 31st

Back when Donna was in the hospital and they were aggressively working at healing her ailing colon she was being given 40mg of Prednisone a day and she was very hyper with signs of ADD. Her favorite pastime was to cut up paper and magazines to make bows and ribbons. She loved to tape things to other things with the hospital supplied clear dressing tape. Thirdly she hated clutter and was forever rearranging and cleaning up. She used a food tray to keep all her supplies on and it moved with her from bed to chair and sometimes the floor as she worked on her “projects.” As a consequence of the medicine and the zero humidity air of the hospital her hands were always dry and chapped. This led to a lot of applying of hand cream.

Early in her stay she removed her wedding ring and the birthstone “engagement” ring we bought for her after the glass chip feel out of the real one early on in our marriage. I kept them on my key ring to return to her when she got out. As the hospital stay lengthened she asked for them back. You know where this is leading right?

Somewhere around Day 8 the rings went missing. We weren’t even sure when they actually disappeared because time was very fluid for someone taking that much steroid. Best guess is one of the times she took them off that day to put on hand cream; they were laid on the craft tray and somehow got thrown away during a cleaning up of scrap paper. The staff was very upset and helped tear apart the room looking for the rings, even looking in the cleaning person’s trash collection, but they were nowhere to be found.

We were not that upset, things happen and even though there is that line in the vows, neither one of us felt that losing the ring had any significance in the overall scheme of our marriage. We have been meaning to look into buying a nicer set of rings, maybe even do a major upgrade in quality from the set we could afford when we first started out, but as time passed we came to the conclusion that there was not much sense in that. Donna has started to feel funny without any rings on, so we have been keeping our eyes out for something that would quasi-match my ring whenever we went in a store. Last night as we were poking around in Dillard’s looking for a pink sweater for Donna we came across a table with some jewelry on it, including some rings. Hey look, here’s something that’ll fit the bill, its gold and has a bunch of shiny little bits around the circumference. The size 6 was too small, but the 7 fit just right. And at twenty bucks the price was right. Wait a minute, here is a size 9, I wonder if that will fit my skinny finger. Yep, sure did, we have matching rings again. As a bonus the rings came in sets of two, so we have a backup in case one of us misplaces one. Behold, the Tivoli CZ Eternity Band Set.

April

Little Boy Blue

Thursday the 1st

The Folks in the MMC don’t know it yet, but tonight is Donna and my last Club meeting. Regular readers will remember that a couple months ago I was virtual car shopping, well we have decided on a car. It was not on the original list in either category because it fell outside the theoretical budget limit, and if recent events have taught us anything it is you only live once, so you might as well enjoy yourself while you can.

The local dealer didn’t have what we wanted, but a quick search turned up almost a perfect match, satellite radio instead of the Ip Odd interface, in Charleston, SC. We will be able to pick it up on Friday at Taylor BMW in Augusta. With trading in the Emperor, $2k additional down, we ended up financing $28,000 @ 3.95% or $475 a month for the next 6 years…

Meet Little Boy Blue: a BMW 128i Convertible.

(this was an April Fools joke aimed at my readers from the Masters Miata Club)

May

Iron Man 2

Sunday the 16th

My rants about this movie the other week turned out not to be as big an issue as I imagined. The intro to the Stark Expo was still a little long, but taken in context not all that bad. The race scene/suitcase suit grip disappeared because Whiplash didn’t just wait for it watching, he was pinned to the side wall by Happy driving a Rolls Royce. Mickey Rouke makes an awesome villain. I don’t understand why they change the opening bit from the trailer where Tony jumps out of the plane unless they thought it might spoil the ending bit. I thought it would have been a perfect way to tie that together…

Scarlett Johansson looks good in black hair and her chemistry with RDJ leads me to believe she would have made a good Pepper Potts had not Gwyneth Paltrow already had a lock on that role. But the whole Black Widow bit seemed tossed in as an intro to the character and for the sex appeal of the suit (not that there is anything wrong with that.) But if rumors are correct and the Black Widow gets her own movie, I think I feel a repeat of Cat Woman or Elektra coming on.

There is more action in this one, some dangerously close to being too much (and/or too long), but all and all very satisfying. Man I need one of those suits…

Two important lessons can be learned from this movie, 1) do not ever let a Russian near your computer, both the males and females seem to be trained hackers that can break any encryption thrown at them and 2) (this one I already knew) a convertible is as good as a pickup truck on a sunny day.

Brian gives it 2 thumbs up and Donna says I owe her a Julia Roberts movie.

June

Frustration

Tuesday the 1st

While returning from Hendersonville on Saturday afternoon I witnessed the true definition
of frustration.

We were zipping along south on I-26 somewhere south of Spartanburg with Donna at the wheel and me watching the world go by at 70 MPH. Up ahead I could see three turkey buzzards right on the edge of the shoulder moving back and forth towards the road. One would take a couple steps towards the right lane and then quickly hop back. Then another would do the same thing. When we got right next to them I could see what was going on. There was a small piece of road kill about 2 feet into the right lane and after a car passed, one bird would take a few steps towards what it considers food, he would get about 5 feet from a tasty morsel, then another car would approach making it hop back to safety. Trouble was, traffic was fairly light and there were single cars in the right lane spaced evenly about 200-300 feet apart, so there was never enough time to get a nibble safely.

July

Morning Bobby

Tuesday the 13th

Several years ago it seemed like there was an abundance of people by the name of Robert who worked at The Valve Storeâ„¢ and as a joke, myself and another coworker would always say, “Morning Bobby”, when we’d pass each other for the first time each day. His name is Joey and mine is, well duh, Brian, but we got a kick out of it.

Over the years the number of Roberts waned, Jims took over the top spot, yet we still kept up the ‘Morning Bobby’ routine. The number of folks named Jim hasn’t diminished any, but Bobs have made big advances again recently. My immediate supervisor is named Bob and his boss is named, yep, you guessed it, Bob. To differentiate between them they are sometimes referred to as Little Bob and Big Bob respectively. Our latest Industrial Engineer is also a Robert and usually went by Bob, but I think as a condition of employment, he had to willing to be known as Rob to avoid further confusion.

With them ceasing manufacturing at the home office in Florham Park, NJ we have had a few folks from up there make the transition to working here in South Carolina. The last two to join us are both named Bob.

Joey and I will may just start saying, “Morning Bobby”, whenever we pass anybody, because we will have a real good chance of being right.

August

OW!

Sunday the 8th

Sometimes I don’t even heed my own advice.

Nearly 2 years ago I posted here that one shouldn’t use a string trimmer without wearing long pants. That time I came away with a speckled leg from the dirt and tiny stones kicked up by fishing line rotating at several thousand RPM. This time it is much worse.

Today when I cleaned off the front porch using the leaf blower I noticed a few strands of ivy creeping their way towards the house. I went and got the trimmer which was freshly loaded with some of that heavy duty red string stuff. As I made mince meat of the ivy I could feel a few things ricochet off my legs, but then suddenly I forgot all about my lower extremities because something grabbed me by the right ear and lifted me off the ground. OW! I must have pissed off a wasp and it stung me on the back of the ear.

It is 4 hours later and my ear still hurts worse than that time in second grade when Bobby Mitchell punched me in the head because I stuck my tongue out at him during recess.

September

I Can’t Believe I’m Still Listening

Saturday the 4th

I must be a real fan. As of this morning, depending on which version you believe, the FRS playoff chances stood at 3, 4 or 5%. That was before the Yankees won their game today and the Sox lost the first game, postponed by Earl from last night and will likely lost tonight’s regularly scheduled game (they are losing 3-1 in the 7th.)

As much as I enjoy the coffee (and the coffee cake muffin) from Dunkin’ Donuts I fear they may have lost our business forever this morning. We should have taken the hint. On our way into the place this morning we passed a car with a fellow in the driver’s seat talking very loudly to himself, or rhetorically to his passenger inside the store, saying, “How long does it take to get a double coffee?!?” There were three employees with only three customers, so it shouldn’t have taken too long, but somehow it did.

One associate, because of the headset, must have been the drive-up person, who’s job description read, “Do not leave the window for any reason, even if there are no cars in line. And when you are not busy please feel free to carry on a personal conversation with your fellow employees to aid in the disruption their productivity.” Employee number 2 was the main counter person and was either very new at the job or only used to dealing with humans via texting or stoned and having a hard type completing a complex order that consisted of three coffees. To be fair, this person was dealing with someone who had either never been in a Dunkin’ Donuts before or never ordered coffee or was hungover. The third person dressed in a pink polo shirt with DD embroidered in brown on their right breast was probably the “cook” and tried to help out the second person in line (whose partner was outside with steam escaping his ears and possible thinking of driving his 15 year old purple Dodge Neon through the front window), but was stymied by the request for iced coffee and the unexpected return of customer number 1 to ask where they kept the “to go” sugar. We took this opportunity to leave the store.

We headed back across town at a small family restaurant called Autens that we had been meaning to try for some time. We ended up spending a bit more money there and the coffee was nothing special, there were three really nice surprises. First was they offered a salmon cake as a meat side, which Donna ordered, and I sampled, which was very good. The second was instead of having “home fries” as the alternative to grits they offered something called potato scramble, which turns out to be, I’m guessing, last night’s mashed potatoes with some butter mixed in and fried on the grill into a sort of pancake. Thirdly, our waitress was Evangeline Lilly who was possibly doing research for her next movie. She is a little younger looking than she seemed on TDTVS and her freckles were covered by makeup, but it was her alright.

October

Sorry I Doubted You James

Monday the 4th

Oh, about a month or so ago, we had visitors and one of those visitors was a 3 year-old nephew named James (Hi James.) One of the things we had to amuse said 3 year-old was a book about airplanes. It wasn’t just any ol’ static book about airplanes; it came with little cardboard replicas of planes that needed to be put together and had the advantage of being capable of flight. Not real aerodynamic flight mind you, but by brute force. Each plane replica had a small notch on the bottom of the “fuselage” that you hooked the rubber band of the included primitive slingshot thingie into and then pulled back as far as your mighty 3 year-old arms would go before letting loose launching the plane into the wild blue yonder.

James and uncle Brian spent a few enjoyable hours over the course of a couple of evenings “flying” planes in the back yard. One evening James launched the B-2 bomber with a mighty tug and it soared off in the direction of our mimosa tree and I didn’t see it come back down. He said it was stuck in the tree. I couldn’t see it, so I figured it had come down in the neighbor’s yard. James insisted that he could see it and wanted me to go up and get it. I just knew it wasn’t there, so told him I would get it, but I couldn’t; because I didn’t have a tall enough ladder.

Tonight as I walked underneath the mimosa tree on the way to the shed to get out the lawn mower and leaf blower so Donna and I could do a little lawn maintenance, I looked down on the ground and this is what I saw:

November

Obituary For A Printer

Tuesday the 16th

Friends,

It is with much sadness that I inform you of a beloved co-worker’s passing yesterday.

PRVLAK_DFT_H4V_01 succumbed to a “50 Service” error. PRVLAK_DFT_H4V_01 or as his friends called him, LaserJet 4V, was 16 years old and for the first 15 years of his life he was a robust and reliable fellow who printed each and every one of the over a quarter million pages with glee. Last year age finally caught up with him requiring a tricky fuser transplant. Shortly after his full recovery from that ordeal, his 11 x 17 paper tray needed to be amputated because of wear. Three weeks ago with his rare life blood toner running low, it was discovered that supplies of this precious commodity were no longer available through normal channels. Unfortunately the non-FDA approved toner from South America did not arrive in time to save his life.

PRVLAK_DFT_H4V_01 is survived by his big brother PRVLAK_DFT_HDJ800 and his cousin PRVLAK_ENG_HP4650. Funeral services are being handled by Safety Clean and will be private. In lieu of flowers please send Staples gifts cards.

Brian Bogardus
Arts & Crafts Engineer
ASCO Valve Manufacturing
a facility of ASCONUMATICS
part of the Industrial Automation Division of Emerson Electric Corporation
located in beautiful Aiken, SC, USA

December

Worst BBQ Ever

Saturday the 4th

We went geocaching today in Crawfordville, GA and A.H. Stephens State Park. We took along a coworker and because the Miata does not seat 3 comfortably we took her
car. Crawfordville is where Hollywood comes calling when it needs to film in a quintessential small southern town. There have been about a dozen films that have used this town as a bit player in them and there are 8 caches here with names that are the titles of those movies. We looked for 4 and found 2. The two we missed I don’t count as DNFs because they were in locations that made us very nervous searching which was only heightened by the fact that we were driving a car with New Jersey plates. There were 6 caches in the state park that you can get to by land and we found 5 of them.

Probably the most recognizable movie that was filmed in town was “Sweet Home Alabama” and for lunch we decided to eat at the BBQ place that was used in the bar scenes (Stella’s Roadhouse) of the movie. We were talked into getting the Plate by the almost surly woman behind the counter at Heavy’s as it included meat, brunswick stew and coleslaw. We opted for a rib plate and a chicken plate to split between the three of us. The coleslaw was too vinegary and had way too much pickle taste. The “stew” was run through a food processor for too long as it was kind of a sickly looking brown mush. The only thing remotely edible was the meat and that was overpowered by the amount of BBQ sauce it was covered in. Interesting place to visit, but you don’t want to eat there.

January

Metal

Friday the 2nd

On our bicycling route to work there is one house we pass that has a small screened-in porch. On that porch are two large dogs, I haven’t seen them because of the way the porch is situated, but they sound large and I’m glad they are kept inside. Definitely on the way to work and most times on the way home, we are the only traffic on the road this house is on, but we can not get within 25 yards of it before the dogs start barking. They bark continuously until we are probably 25 yards down the road past them. We are not usually talking at this point in the ride, it is flat so we aren’t doing any gear shifting, we are just pedaling along with the only sound being the whir of the chain and invariably those two dogs start raising a ruckus long before we get anywhere near them.

I think James Cameron must have been a bicyclist and had similar experiences with dogs hearing him coming a long way off because he includes a bit in the Terminator movies about humans using dogs to detect the cyborgs (AKA Metal.) If dogs can hear a component of the high pitched bicycle chain noise from a ways off it stands to reason that they also can pick up the sound of a motor moving a metal joint encased in a layer of human flesh.

February

Red Shirt

Monday the 2nd

Although originating in Star Trek, the term “redshirt” has been used in commentary on other action adventure stories, particularly serialized television. As a plot device, redshirts are most commonly used on shows which focus on characters who are prominent members of a larger group. In terms of plot function, redshirts serve to highlight the danger of a situation without forcing writers to sacrifice lead characters.

February is National Heart Month and this coming Friday is Wear Red Day 2009 to support the fight against heart disease in women.

For whatever convoluted reason our company nurse decided to pass around a memo last week to try and get everyone to wear red today, Monday, February 2nd and in spite of what happened to Frogurt while wearing a red shirt in last week’s episode of TDTVS…

…I took my life into my hands and wore a red sweater to work today. Obviously because I am home sitting on the couch in a yellow shirt, nothing bad happened to me on today’s “away mission.”

March

Nice One

Tuesday the 3rd

Way back in January I converted the PAL DVDs of all three series of William & Mary I had bought from across the pond to NTSC for watching here. Donna and I had already seen the first two series via Netflix, so we just watched Series 3 and put the box away.

Last week I asked my manager at work, who is actually from Jolly O’l England, if he was interested in seeing the show. He said yeah, he already had it in his Netflix queue, but why wait. I brought him the boxed set. Sunday was a cold and rainy day so he and his wife, lit a fire in the fireplace and settled in on the couch to watch the show. He popped in Disc 1 that contained the first three episodes and nothing happened, the DVD player just sat there. To say they were a bit disappointed was an understatement.

He brought me the discs back on Monday and told be it wouldn’t play. I said I was sorry, I reminded him I told him it might not work because I couldn’t get past the intro stuff on my Sony DVD player before it stopped and told me it was the wrong Region Code for that player. He said his was a Daewoo and that it would do anything.

I brought the discs home and tried the first in my DVD players, the JVC, the Sony, the PC, the laptop, nothing. The PCs didn’t say no disc, but didn’t show any VOB files or any files for that matter. I tried the second disc and it worked as expected in all four places.

Can you guess what the problem was? Yup, that’s right I had labeled the DVD,but neglected to actually burn the files to it. DOH!

April

New Napkin Holder

Monday the 6th

I took the caliper bracket that had the frozen slider pin in to work. An engineer there just knew it would be simple to fix. He toyed with it for awhile without success before giving it to the tool room for them to try. They turned a torch to it while hammering madly. It got so violent their supervisor told them to stop. A day later the engineer went back, put the bracket in a vice, clamped down on the hex head with a 12? monkey wrench and twisted, the pin loosened and was removed. I tossed out the slider pin, but couldn’t bring myself to throw out the bracket for two reasons; 1) that sucker was expensive and 2) turns out it is ambidextrous – fits both driver & passenger sides. Bead blasting made it clean & shiny and I have found a new use for it.

May

Kamakazie Kricket

Friday the 15th

I was just out in the garage giving the Emperor a little sponge bath in preparation for tomorrow’s MMC event when I spotted a cricket watching me. I’m not even positive crickets have eyes, but this one sure seemed like it was giving me the once over. There were several large splats on the nose of the car that I was Quick Detailing off and maybe this cricket felt I was being disrespectful of a dead relative or something.

It was no ordinary cricket either, it was big one, about the size my friend Mark might use as bait while fishing for kayak sized catfish. Well, all that staring kind of unnerved me a little, so I slipped off my sneaker and moved slowly that direction to flatten Jiminy out.

In some places it is believed if you kill a cricket it is bad luck, but with the way my luck is running recently, who would notice. I’ve also heard that if kill a cricket it’ll rain, but with the weather we’ve had, and are predicted to have, who would notice.

As I swung my Nike with deadly intent at our giant cricket, it leaped out of the way at the last minute. Did he jump away from me, no, he jumped AT me!

I am proud to say that I didn’t squeal like a little girl as it bounced off my arm, then my chest and then who knows where. I did however flail my arms and upper body around in a pathetic attempt to get away like an uncoordinated spaz who just stepped on a banana peel.

June

When The Going Gets Tough

Friday the 19th

…the tough go shopping.

The FRS were on TV tonight because they were playing the Braves and if you live in the south every Braves game is on TV. The Red Sox had their 13 Trillion Yen Man (Daisuke Matsuzaka) pitching and there was much excitement in the Land of the Rising Sun because he was facing off against the Brave’s Japanese starter Kenshin Kawakami. Both guys have had rough starts to the season, but tonight’s rough start award went to Boston’s Dice-K as his first pitch of the game was belted into the bullpen for a home run. Then it went downhill from there. By the end of the 5th inning the Sox were down 6-0, so we went out to do our weekly grocery shopping.

For the second time in seven days we have left a store leaving our selected purchases behind.

I got in a checkout line behind what I thought was a woman who was nearly finished as she had a full cart and about a dozen items left on the belt. After unloading 2/3rds of the cart onto the nearly empty belt I realized it hadn’t moved and there were now two cashiers fiddling around at the scanner. I think they were trying to take an item off the woman’s order, they’d swipe something and the machine would boop and they’d both look up at the screen in unison, shake the heads, repeat. After the forth time I think it worked because one cashier left and the remaining one scanned another item and then immediately starting asking for the first cashier to come back. It was now becoming clear that she didn’t know what she was doing. And it also became clear that the shopper was separating the final 10 items into 2 separate orders and she had a paycheck to cash or maybe a substance check and that we were going to standing here awhile. There was one other check out line open, but there was no way that I was off loading the belt to put it in my cart to move over two slots. We looked at each other, shrugged and headed for the door.

We drove a mile down the street to another store, probably spent $25 more dollars than we would have at the first store, but we were in and out and on the way home like we should have been at Store #1.

The game was mercifully over by the time we got back, both teams each scored 2 uneventful runs, so they FRS lost by a score of 8-2. They play each other twice more over the weekend, so it is not too late to save face.

July

Insect Food

Tuesday the 7th

About two weeks ago I got two insect bites on both sides of my right leg just above the knee. They itched, swelled and oozed clear stuff, staying that way for about three days until a scab formed. I’ve never reacted to mosquito bites that way, so I guessed they were from a spider, but whatever they were from they were unpleasant.

Then a week ago I got bit 4 times. Back of the right side of my neck, about four inches further down on my back, near the waist on the left side and on my left ankle. I don’t feel the initial bite, but then I’ll notice something itching and scratch a bump.

Those four had just about cleared up when on Monday morning I had an itchy bump on my left forearm. Then later that morning I noticed an itch under my left arm and then one further down the back on the same side.

It is just me, Donna hasn’t been bothered a bit. They could only be coming from a couple places, my dresser or I’m getting bit each time we venture into Hitchcock Woods. My plan of attack to combat this issue was to wait until I had had been bitten enough that my body developed an immunity to what ever was feeding on my, but it didn’t seem to be working. So last night my wife saiid let’s take everything out of my dresser and wash it. Then in the morning you can spray the drawers and everything down with some bug spray.

Washed, sprayed, replaced, we’ll see how it works out.

August

I Know It When I See It

Wednesday the 5th

Let’s talk porn, in honor of my two recent posts on the subject thanks to io9, the scifi (not syfy) site I read every day. They are part of network of sites that cover various subjects, one of which is about the biggest money maker on the net, porn. So every time there is anything remotely about science fiction over on Fleshbot it gets cross posted on io9.

At my age pornography has lost a lot of its luster. Notice I didn’t say all of it, I’m not above checking out some of the posts on Fleshbot when io9 links them, but I don’t have the site bookmarked or anything. There is nothing like that first thrill of finding your dad’s Playboy at 12 or several years later a friend discovers some black and white 8mm stag films in his basement. When I was in the Navy there was a co-worker who knew where you could get XXX on VHS. On Saturdays I would carry my VCR over to his house and we would both make a copy a movie. He was trying to amass a collection, I was just using the same tape and copying over last weeks movie.

It was the last six months in the Navy that removed most of the luster off of porn for me. My final duty station was aboard the U.S.S. Iwo Jima as an E6, or Petty Officer First Class. We had a 1st Class Mess, which was basically a small room on the Mess Deck, where we could eat our meals, take a coffee/smoke break or just spend our downtime reading or playing Acey Duecy. There was a TV mounted high up in one corner of the room, so we could watch Armed Forces TV. The TV also had a VCR attached so we could watch movies. There was a selection of current releases if you were interested, but by far the largest collection of tapes were of the XXX variety.

Who ever the guy was that was in charge of movies really liked the hard core stuff. Every, and any, time you went into the mess that corner of the room was filled with incessant moaning and close ups of genitalia. Try to eat eggs over easy and sausage links at 5 AM or hot dogs at lunch with that going on in the background, it sort of takes the pleasure out of both activities…

September

Food For Thought

Thursday the 24th

Venture capital needed for a new company that Mark, Jim and I are forming to make food fun and easy. Jim’s first request is help in making a PB&J sandwich without ruining your nice fresh, soft white bread. Peanut butter and jelly formed into slices and individually wrapped, ala Kraft Singles. I thought that once that product takes off our next release should be a Fluff ‘n’ Nutter variation.

After our new company is making money hand over fist we will be getting into genetically engineering fruit. Mark likes apples, but hates the skin, so our first venture in that direction be be to create an apple that will peel like a banana. I thought why stop there, we should make it so that alternating sections are either dense intertwined fuzz or little bitty hook things so that when reeled down and pushed together below the apple they become a stick like handle.

October

The Emperor Takes A Drink

Monday the 19th

Because we burnt nearly the whole tank of gas on Saturday, the low fuel light came on on the way to work this morning. After dinner we headed over to Kroger to fill up do a little shopping. As we pulled in, the gas station was jammed, every pump had a car at it and every aisle had at least one car waiting. I suggested we go inside and buy the couple items we needed, then maybe the lines would die down. They didn’t.

I voted we just get in line and wait. She countered with, “Just go to the Shell on Price Ave. and pay the extra.” I don’t usually shop for price, but Kroger is usually 15-20 cents cheaper than the Shell station and I just hate to pay that much more. I actually hate waiting in line more than paying two bucks more for a tank of gas, so off to Price we go.

As the the gallon total flew past the 11 mark, simultaneously to my thinking to myself, man it was really empty, the sound of splashing and the smell of gas keyed me to reach down and manually shut off the pump. Perfect, not only am I paying 20¢ extra, I’m pouring it on the ground. The only possible thing that could make this worse would be if I have to go inside to get the receipt…

Bingo!

November

Sex, TV & Spam

Tuesday the 3rd

There were 89 spam messages caught by my spam filter at work this morning and quite a few dealt with trying to sell magic pills to improve my sex life. I am amazed at the creative titles and thought that they could be broken down into which Cable TV channel they would be shown on if they were the titles of infomercials instead of the subject lines of spam.

Release your inside beast! on Animal Planet
African temper in amour on BET
Your prescription for success on Discovery Health
Become arousal athlete! on ESPN
Pumper for pant muscle on Fit TV
Recipe for hot nights on FOOD
Invest in your wang! on CNBC
Be her volcano on National Geographic
Just be a male! on Spike
Right spell for your ‘magic wand’ on SyFy
No sad accidents in bed on Tru TV
Be furious in bed on Versus

I’m not sure what channel these last three belong on, maybe you have some channels I don’t get, let me know what you think:
Be good at humping!
Become a lech instantly
Flaccidity is not for you

December

Got Me There

Sunday the 27th

We went shopping in Staples this afternoon, we needed a new shredder and some other stuff, chief among them, paper. It was time to buy our bi-annual ream of it. We walked into the store and I immediately headed off to the right side where the paper-like office supplies were. I looked along the wall and up and down every aisle (even though paper was not on the sign telling me what was down them.)

My wife suggested that I ask a kid in the red shirt where it was, but just like a man, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. On my second pass down the last aisle a woman who was arranging items on a shelf looked at me and asked, “Can I help you find something?” I can’t ask for directions, but I can’t lie and say no to someone offering help, so I said, “Where is the paper?” She looked at me with a twinkle in her eye and replied, “I hate to sound condescending, but (pointing to the wall on the other side of the store) do you see that big sign over there that says paper?” (the lettering was only about 4 foot high…) “Man,” I said, “It always used to be over on this side of the store, why did it get moved?” “Don’t tell me, I know. The paper is over there for the same reason all stores move stuff around, to keep the customer in the store longer while he searches for something, hoping for an impulse buy.”

About this time Donna walked up, so I said to the lady, “Or maybe it is like my wife who moves stuff around in the kitchen every six months just to make me feel inadequate. She’ll ask me to get her something, I’ll look in the spot I think it used to be, it won’t be there, and I have to ask her, so she gets to sigh that sigh that means, ‘Men are so helpless’.”

Without missing a beat, Donna says, “I never move anything, You don’t know where anything is at because you only come there to help me once every six months.”

Ouch.

January

Yeah, Go Baby!

Thursday the 26th

The local High School is only about a mile from my house and because ours is a nice quiet neighborhood the track team uses it as part of their training runs a couple times a week. Tonight I passed several groups of runners in both directions on my rollerblading excursion.

On the way to the Odell Weeks track for my middle mile loop, I passed from behind, a small group of guys who I smiled at as if to say, “I may be old, but I’m faster than you.” This is easy if you are on eight wheels instead of two sneakers.

On the way back from my loop I came across a group of a half dozen girls. We were traveling in opposite directions on the same side of the street, so I looked up as we approached so as to not bump into anyone. A cute brunette near the back made eye contact and shouted, “Yeah, Go Baby!” I smiled to myself and thought, I still got it, 50 years-old and the chicks still swoon.

It was then that I remembered I was wearing a blue sweatshirt with large bright yellow letters that I bought at the gift shop on Annapolis a few years ago. She was saying. “Yeah, Go NAVY!”

February

Non Conforming Material Report

Friday the 3rd

Donna and I work in a manufacturing plant and our Quality Assurance department uses what they call an NCMR to flag parts that are bad. NCMR stands for Non Conforming Material Report which is the politically correct term for crap parts. Like the parts that aren’t up to spec would have its feelings hurt if we called them scrap or something.

Today at work the Activities Committee had a bake sale to raise money for projects they do during the year (and perhaps to help defray the cost of psychiatric help for the fragile egos of non conforming parts.) Donna volunteered to bake some of her renowned chocolate chip cookies for them to sell. Last night we made around 10 dozen cookies. As always there are a few that get baked a little too long or crack and break when they are removed from the cookie sheet. Wanting to put only her best cookies on sale we took a paper plate full of the rejects to work to give away on my side of the plant.

To be cute I placed a little sign over the cookies that read:
Non Conforming Cookie Report.
Failed inspection for the following reasons:
1) Heat treated to long
2) Rough edges
3) General workmanship

Within a half an hour the cookies were all gone, but someone had placed a sign over the top of mine:
Second sample of 24 required to make final determination. Submit to Engineering Department. Day shift only.

March

It Can’t Come Soon Enough

Sunday the 26th

While I read on one end of the couch, Donna was on the other watching TV. Mostly the reruns of yesterday’s World Ice Skating Championships, but during commercials and lapses in excitement she would surf the channels. At one point she nudged me to remove my headphones. CNN was doing an interview with someone involved with a new IMAX movie called “Wired to Win: Surviving the Tour de France.” Looks interesting, but it is not playing at any IMAX theater within 600 miles of us. Sigh.

After the movie segment we hopped to the other CNN where they were into something about the increasing number of major hurricanes. Seems it might be because since the 70’s the surface temperature of the oceans has risen 1 degree Celsius. Last winter was the warmest on record. Glaciers melting! Global Warming! The reporter pinned down one scientist to say that it is because of human actions that this happening. We are ruining the very environment we need to survive.

From there she jumped to Bravo where “Real Housewives of Orange County” was on. After watching a couple of minutes of this very weird show I came to the conclusion that if this is what life is all about, causing our own extinction via global warming can’t come soon enough.

April

Buying Beer For The Neighborhood Kids

Thursday the 27th

Every morning when I get to work I fire up the PC and wander into our “cafeteria” to fill my mug full of ice and water while the computer boots up. Donna and I start work at 7:30 and the production and assembly folks start at 7:00, so the place is usually deserted.

This morning as I approached the ice machine I hear, “Psst. Bri-yan.” Over by the water fountain, just inside the door, is one of the women who work on the assembly line motioning me over. She hands me 50¢ and asks, “Can you go buy me a large cappuccino?” So I put my mug on top of the ice machine and get her a hot cappuccino out of the coffee machine. As I bring her cup, another woman shows up and asks if I could do the same for her. I say, “Sure.” So she hands me 2 quarters and I head back to the coffee machine. After they have both poured their paper cups of steaming cappuccino into their approved, covered mugs, they thank me profusely and go back out to their respective assembly lines.

I’m guessing that they are allowed into the cafeteria as far as the fountain so they can get water, but can’t go anywhere near the snack or drink machines unless it is during breaks or lunch. It felt just a little like going into the package store to buy a six-pack for some high schoolers…

May

Hope She Thinks They’re From Me

Tuesday the 9th

Sub-Titled: That’s The Last Time Donna’ll Let Me Do That Unsupervised
It’s coming up on Mother’s Day, so if you’ve got one, better start planning a gift. It is time for us to pick out some flowers or a plant to be delivered to my Mom in Connecticut. We always used to do flowers, but somewhere along the way Mom mentioned she hated to throw away the flowers after they got all ooey. She suggested we get her a plant, something that could be transplanted and enjoyed for more than a week or so.

For the last couple of years we have been buying and sending the Mother’s Day plant using the internet. Usually we do this together, because being a guy, I can’t always be relied upon to pick out the best gift. This year Donna let me try on my own, after all it is for my Mom. Not being much of a shopper when it comes to these sorts of things, I usually pick whoever has an ad running on the front page of Yahoo. This year’s lucky recipient of our business was proflowers.com. I picked out a nice large 6″ potted Ventricosa Heather plant in a decorative tin basket for $30 (+ $10 for delivery.) When I showed Donna what I had bought she was pleased. Then she asked me what I put on the card I told her, “Happy Mother’s Day, what did you think?” She then replied, “Did you put ‘Love Brian & Donna’ on it?”

Oooops.

June

Now We’re Even

Friday the 23rd

A few weeks back Donna sent me out for a small Wendy’s Frosty. They cost 99 cents and with our local 6% sales tax my total was a buck five. I went through the drive up and I didn’t have the nickel, so I gave the cashier a dollar bill and a quarter. She handed me my Frosty and then gave me my 15 cents change. By the time I realized I had been cheated out of a nickel; it wasn’t worth going back to get it.

Tonight she wanted another Frosty. Back to the drive up I go. Cost was the same as before, $1.05, so I gave the cashier a dollar and then rummaged around in the center console looking for the 5 cents. After watching me struggle for a bit, she finally said, “I’ve a got a nickel, just go ahead.”

Now we’re even.

July

Brian Buys .06 Gallons Of Gas

Saturday the 15th

We wanted to do our weekly grocery shopping late tonight to avoid the heat, so we left the house at 10PM mainly because that is when the Trading Spaces Donna was watching ended. We shop at Kroger because it is convenient and they sell gas too. Because we have a customer loyalty card I get to save an extra dime off the per gallon cost of their gas. This is usually a good deal as most times their price per gallon is a nickel or so less than the surrounding stations to begin with.

I dropped Donna in front of the store, so she could start shopping while I went and filled up the tank. When I got around the side of the store where the gas is it looked kind of dark. The overhead lights of the gas station were off, but the pump lights were on bright, so I went over. As I pulled in there was an attendant in the booth, so I stopped and opened the gas cap. I scanned my loyalty card and then inserted my debit card. When it told me to lift the nozzle and select a grade, I did just that. I started pumping and it was coming out really slow and then stopped at 17 cents. Hmmm. maybe they are out of premium. I walked over to the window and asked the attendant if they were out of gas or something, when she told me they were closed and that must have been all that was left in the hose.

I went back to the pump replaced the nozzle and closed my gas cap. The little LCD window on the pump asked if I wanted a receipt and I replied yes, to which it told me to see the cashier. Back to the window I go. The attendant said that she couldn’t get me a receipt because she had already closed the register. Sigh.

August

My World Is Empty Without You Babe

Wednesday the 23rd

I had been sharing my cubicle/workspace with college kid/summer help, Adam, since May, but he is gone now and the silence has been deafening. Now it is echoing.

A few days before Adam left ASCO’s employ, the Department Manager and the IT guy showed up and asked, “Your last day is Friday the 11th, right?” Adam assumed that they were coming to say nice working with you, you’ve been a big help, come back next time, etc. His bubble was popped when the IT guy said, “That PC should work.” The manager said, “I’ll get Maintenance to move the desk on Saturday.”

Seems the new departmental Industrial Engineer was starting on Monday and they needed some stuff so the new guy wouldn’t come in to an empty cubicle. Turns out the new IE doesn’t start until this Monday, so the PC got moved last Friday and Maintenance didn’t come to get the desk until today. For good measure those guys also grabbed the side table and the trash can. They left behind only a chair and lots of dust.

September

The Lost Weekend

Friday the 8th

Starring Brian Bogardus as Don Birnam and introducing Donna Bogardus as Helen St. James.

We went to the video store this evening and spent $25 renting all 7 DVDs of the TV show LOST. Twice.

The first time we went into the store and found the TV section where they had the Lost discs all lined up. I grabbed the first three thinking that would be enough to keep us busy for a while. Donna said, “No get all of them.” Checked out all seven and came home. Donna took a quick nap and about 5:30 we thought we would start our marathon. Each disc has 4 episodes and each episode lasts about 42 minutes, so we figured we would watch one disc tonight leaving 3 for Saturday and 3 for Sunday. When I opened up the case for disc one, I realized it was a Season One disc. WTF? All of them were Season One…

We didn’t pay attention in the store, we just figured that the second season’s stuff would right up front because it just came out on Tuesday. Nope. Donna called the store up and asked if they had Season Two in stock. They did. She asked them to put the whole set aside for and we would be in later to get them.

As we were checking out we asked for the “Stupid Renters Discount” and explained what we had done. The manager was there and had the clerk call up our account. She could see we had picked out 7 DVDs just two hours before and took pity on us. She did a swap thing and we didn’t have to pay for them the second time. Nice.

October

Mother Would Be So Proud

Wednesday the18th

Daily, I am emailed a PowerPoint presentation with a chart on it that shows how as a plant we are doing towards our goal of shipping out product. Weekly, I get another PowerPoint presentation with 3 lines on it, manufacturing, assembly and total, tracking our service levels (on time delivery.) The reason I get these presentations is not because I need to be keeping abreast of this sort of stuff, but in my capacity as the Arts & Crafts Engineer at ASCO.

I print these charts out on in full technicolor on an 18 x 24 piece of paper and post them outside the cafeteria. These are placed there in the hopes that my fellow associates will be inspired to work harder towards our common goals, but mostly they are ignored by the troops as they file in and out during breaks and lunch.

For the first year or so I sprayed some artists adhesive to the backs of the charts and stuck them to a larger piece of cardboard supported by an easel. About six months ago management decide that the cardboard thing just wasn’t professional enough, so they commissioned a very nice set of wooden frames. The frames even have a, hinged at the top, second frame with a piece of Plexiglas in the middle to protect the charts from outside damage and keep them looking nice. These were hung on the same wall that the easel used to sit in front of with the tops of the frames about 6′ off the ground. Inside the frames I have some miracle of modern science mounting system, it is made of a sort of rubbery sheet that has the same low tack long lasting stickum that is on post-it notes.

My daily routine is to print out my chart and go out to the frame and lift the hinged cover and prop it open on top of my head while I peel the old chart off the sticky mount and carefully smooth out the new chart while balancing the lid up with my head. Because I do this usually at mid morning break for a lot of people, I get some weird looks and comments from folks on their way to the cafeteria for break. Every chance I get I tell them that my mother would be so proud because she was always saying to me, “I wish you would use your head for something besides a hat rack.”

November

The Democratic Process

Monday the 6th

Tomorrow is Election Day and while I just love the bumper sticker, “I don’t vote, it just encourages them” I usually do just the opposite, I vote to encourage them. In my own little protest against mainstream politicians, I typically vote for the Libertarian, the Green Party guy or some other third party candidates.

This election my voting will be guided by another bumper sticker I saw just the other day, “It’s broke, so let’s fix it. Vote Democratic.”

I mean what have I been thinking all these years, voting that way. The Democratic Party is the way to go, always was, I mean they don’t call voting “The Republican Process” do they?

December

Getting the Carpet to Match the Drapes

Tuesday the 19th

For those of you who are not regular readers, Donna and I get our haircut every 4 weeks from a friend, Sheri, who owns her own salon. Today was haircut day an on our way out tonight of the shop I spotted something on display that made me do a double take.

Remember in the movie M*A*S*H where everyone gathers around the woman’s shower tent and they are taking bets as to whether or not Major Hot Lips O’Houlihan is a natural blonde? Let’s just say that with modern technology she would have no worries about the truth now.

Introducing Betty Beauty – The first safe color specially formulated for the hair down there. Colors naturally, covers gray, and enhances to match your glorious locks above. Whether you’re blonde (be a true blonde now!), radiant auburn, brunette, or black, our easy-to-use, no-drip formula gives you the perfect finishing touch. From now on, when you highlight or color your hair, don’t forget your betty color for the hair down there.

Or as Sheri said, “Now you can get the carpet to match the drapes.”