Be Careful

This one’s a warning to my readers who live in the Charlotte area.  BE CAREFUL DRIVING AROUND THE BALLANTYNE OFFICE PARK.

I say this because I’ve nearly been hit 3 times in the past 3 weeks.  Two of those were by women flapping their gums on cellphones coming out of the Ballantyne Village onto Ballantyne Commons.  They didn’t even bother to look for oncoming traffic.  The other was by some moron who clearly had no clue about who has the right of way at an intersection (hint:  The person without a stop sign, stop light, or yield sign generally has priority over those who do).

I’m telling you, my horn has gotten quite a workout after having to either swerve out of the way (when traffic allowed) or slam on the brakes.  This is when I’m glad I don’t have a Honda (cheesy horn).  My buddy Greg drove a Honda in high school and college, and I swear he’d have been better off rolling down his window and yelling at someone.  The horn was that weak.

Anyway, I’ve got clothes to get out of the dryer.  Just needed to vent a little frustration there.  And if you’re driving in the Ballantyne area when you hear a horn, it might be mine.  You can avoid it by not driving like an idiot.

New Dat

This was too good not to share.  I adopted a new dat today.  It has no ears.  So I named him What?.  Assuming I can keep him alive, anyone at TNG who reads this and wants to see him can ask about it.

Happenings In Charlotte

Greetings once again.  Just thought I’d share a few tidbits of info from happenings here, and elsewhere.

1. As usual, I did my normal Saturday morning shopping.  This went off without incident, but did find me shopping for coloring books.  No, not for me.  My coloring is fine, thank you.  This is for Corin, who has a birthday coming up.  And just for the record, Ann, she’s getting some stickers, too.  However, not quite the number Emma got a couple years ago.


2. I think I saw the world’s dumbest bee in the backyard this morning.  It kept flying headfirst into the house.  It would then fly about 8 feet away so that it could make another run.  It wasn’t even hitting the window (for the most part, though it did a couple of times).  It kept flying into the siding.  I figure if I go look outside again in a couple hours, it will probably be lying on the patio from too many self-inflicted concussions.


3. Speaking of dumb, earlier this week, I saw a comment from a University of Kentucky spokesperson that kind of blew me away:  “Fans are not allowed to interact with recruitable student athletes,” Kentucky athletics spokesman Scott Stricklin said Wednesday. “We had to report that to the NCAA.”  First off, isn’t any high school athlete considered a recruitable athlete?  Secondly, is Scott saying that high school athletes cannot have contact with fans or friends?  If so, shouldn’t high schools be playing in empty gyms?  You can click on the quote to link to the story.  So in other words, if I want to mess up some school’s reporting of a kid, I should try to interact with them, but tell them I’m a Duke fan.  Then Duke will need to report that to the NCAA as a possible recruiting violation.  This could get fun.


4. Earlier today, Floyd Landis pretty much wrapped up winning the Tour de France.  While there is still technically 1 more stage tomorrow, historically, this is a formality with no actual “racing” taking place.  For those of you who didn’t see Floyd’s comeback on Thursday, you missed one hell of an impressive comeback by a guy who looked dead in the water (or on the road) the day before.  I think I’ve even got Casey hooked on watching it now.


5. I got to spend a good part of the week checking statements at work.  This is about my least favorite thing to do at TNG.  There’s got to be a better way for this process to work.  


6. Papa John’s has been running a Buy One, Get One Free promotion lately.  Needless to say, I’ve been stocking up.  Sure, pizza isn’t the healthiest thing in the world for you, but when you can get 8 meals for $13.01 (assuming you pick it up yourself), how can you let that go?


7. Good news!  It’s not supposed to hit 90 today.  I think my air conditioner finally got a bit of a break after running for the better part of the last 8 days.

That’s it for this time.  I’m off to play a Boston-Cleveland game in my ’75 replay.  It’s the first game I’ll have played in about 2 months.  And remember:  BOSTON SUCKS!!

The Trip--Day 7 (part 1)

For those of you who’ve been waiting on the edge of your seats to hear how my return to Charlotte from Michigan went, you’re waiting is now over.  Let me tell you.

In all honesty, I don’t really remember what time I woke up on Thursday morning.  Then again, you probably don’t really care.  Regardless of when that was, I did get up, showered, dressed, and headed downstairs for breakfast.  After that, I brushed my teeth, and got the car packed.  I said my goodbyes to the parents and shortly before 9:00, I was on the road headed for Dayton to see my cousin Jen & her crew.

I picked this time for a couple of reasons.  First, I had planned to meet up with her around lunch, and I figured it would take me about 4 hours from the parents house.  Second, by waiting until 9:00, I was able to drive through Detroit without traffic problems, or that’s what I was hoping, anyway.  Turns out I was right.  I flew through Detroit and the rest of Michigan.

My time estimate was also pretty good.  I made it to Jen’s place a little before 1:00.  I will also say that the directions and maps from Google were very helpful here.  I drove by the house only because I wanted to turn around so I could park on the correct side of the road.

Upon my arrival, her two kids, Corin & Daniel, were in the middle of lunch.  Daniel was working on some grapes while Corin was starting on some yogurt (I think).  They seemed to take my arrival in stride, which was probably all I could ask for.  After allowing me to use the facilities (I had been driving for 4 hours after all), Jen was nice enough to make a sandwich for me.  Let me tell you, when you’ve been making your own sandwiches for 20 years (I was making my own lunches in high school), it’s kind of weird when someone else does it.  Don’t get me wrong, she did a great job.  It’s just strange for me not to make my own lunch if I’m not in a restaurant.

After lunch, Corin gave me a tour of the house, which was obviously highlighted by her room, which has plenty of room for just about anything a 4-year old would want to do.  This was followed by jumping in the car for a ride out to Wright-Patterson AFB, where Jen’s husband Rick flies out of.  Daniel fell asleep on the way out.  I wish I still had that ability to fall asleep while strapped into a moving vehicle.  Then again, since I drive almost everywhere I go, maybe it’s better that I don’t do that.

We met up with Rick, who arranged to let me (and the rest of the troop) climb into a C-5 transport plane.  If you’ve never seen one of these things up close, let me tell you, they’re pretty freaking massive.  To look at one, you’d wonder how the thing even gets off the ground when it’s empty, let alone when it’s packed with equipment and vehicles.

Getting in wasn’t the easiest thing, either.  Every ladder (into the plane, as well as one to each level) is pretty steep.  So much so, that the kids got carried up.  And yes, I carried one.  Daniel & I got to be good buds.  I’ll admit I was pretty nervous the first time, as most of you know, I just don’t handle kids much (if at all), but Daniel was great.  I got hold of him with one arm, keeping the other hand free for the handrails.  I was worried he’d start wiggling and I’d start to loose my grip, which isn’t a good thing to do with anyone’s offspring, let alone a relative’s.  But Daniel was a trooper.  He kept still when I was going up the stairs.  I tried to keep an eye on him to make sure he didn’t go wandering too far away or out of sight.  I managed to get him up or down about another 4 or 5 sets of stairs before finally getting back to ground level.

Before heading back, Rick needed to stop in the museum to see a couple people, so while Rick & Jen talked to a few people, I tried to keep an eye on the two little ones.  Once that was finished, we got everyone back in the car to head back to the house.  Jen had another appointment to get to, so Rick, Corin, Daniel, and I made it back.  Daniel wasn’t feeling so great on the ride back (probably because Uncle Derek jostled the little guy a bit more than he’s used to), which left Rick with a bit of a mess to clean up.  While he did that, Corin kept me entertained by showing me her stuffed animal collection, which I must say is pretty impressive.

Once everyone and everything got cleaned up, I jumped back in my car (around 4:45) to head toward the north side of Cincinnati.  I’ll fill you in on that part of the trip next time.

As much as I hate to say it, I had a lot of fun hanging out with Corin & Daniel.  I’m sure it helps that while both were pretty energetic (when not napping), they’re very well behaved and obedient kids.  I found out a little later that Daniel isn’t a big fan of strangers picking him up, but he seemed just fine with me.  So out of the whole thing, it seems I made a couple of new friends.  I’m actually looking forward to seeing the crew again at Chad’s wedding.

That’s it for tonight.  I’m off to clean the shower.

90,000

One other thing: The Avenger rolled 90,000 miles yesterday (July 4th) on my way home from work. In looking back, I rolled:

50,000 in November ‘01
60,000 in October ‘02
70,000 in February ‘04
75,000 in July ‘04
80,000 in March ‘05
90,000 in July ‘06

Yep, you’re looking at that right. It took me 8 months to drive 5000 miles, and that included a road trip to Austin, TX in September of 2004 for CM IT training. I’m now taking aim at 100,000 miles. I don’t know if an Avenger has ever gone that far before, and if it did, it certainly did it quicker than the 11+ years it will take me. I’m going to drive this thing until there’s no more drive left in it. Then I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’d get a good bike if it weren’t for the fact that the roads are a little dangerous for bikes around here, despite the bike lanes they keep putting in.

On the Fourth

Hope everyone enjoyed their holiday weekend. I even managed about a ½ day off. Unlike Ann and her crew, I did not go to any stinking parades. It was 95 degrees down here, and the idea of standing around watching a group of people too dumb to find some air conditioning (participants and spectators included) wasn’t my idea of a good time. I started off by watching Stage 3 of the Tour de France while eating lunch. After that ended, I read for a little while. Then at 3:00, I watched Germany & Italy in the first World Cup semi-final. That one ended horribly (in my mind) when Germany gave up 2 goals right at the end of the 2nd overtime to lose 2-0. Based on who’s left, I no longer care who wins this thing. I can’t pull for Italy, Portugal, or France (though Zidane and Henry are fun to watch). That’s OK though, as it allows me to focus on the Tour.

During dinner, I watched the first couple innings of the Yankees-Indians game, which almost made dinner come back. Shawn Chacon looked terrible. New York ended up losing 19-1, and I didn’t watch anything after the 4th inning. It was that bad.

The good news here is that this gave me time to continue reorganizing/cleaning the house. You see, after 6+ years in the same place, I felt like I was running out of room to put things. This was only partially true, as some of that space was used for empty boxes. I got rid of a lot of those (along with the Styrofoam packaging inside them) over the last couple weeks, and I can now see all the walls of all my closets. I also discovered that I have 4 boxes full of old Sports Illustrated issues and 2 boxes of old Newsweeks. Those are now gathered and labeled so that I can find them (if needed).

You’ll be happy to know that the parents seem to be coexisting pretty well now that they are both retired. Mom has yet to really feel the motivation to clean her office, but so far Dad is demonstrating some patience about that. We are currently unsure how long that patience will last. My guess is that she’ll need to make some good progress by September or Dad will be getting rather anxious and irritated.

I know I still need to post about the end of my trip when I visited a couple of people. Maybe this weekend. All this cleaning, trashing, and reorganizing has got me behind on a number of things, and eventually I should get caught up, since I’m not too far from done. I still need to get into my closet, but the downstairs closet is done. The office closet is just about done, and I’ve almost emptied all the junk I’d been storing in the dining room. Shortly, I may even breakdown the three empty boxes currently sitting in my living room, waiting to be filled with something.

Other than that, can’t say I have any other exciting news to report. Still working at TNG on a consulting basis, but I still have feelers out on other stuff as well. Nothing really happening there yet, though. If something changes, maybe I’ll put it up here. Or maybe not.