2011/10/11 20:30 There was an interesting story in the news today. There was an accident on the set of the movie “Resident Evil 5”. I have to admit I am a fan of the “Resident Evil” movie franchise and I have been looking forward to number five. One critic said, after “Resident Evil 4”, that he assumed they would continue to make the “Resident Evil” movies until all of Milla Jovavich’s kids were through college. Here’s hoping. Anyways there was a scaffolding or stage collapse and 19 zombies were injured. The responding EMTs were quoted as complaining that it was difficult to establish the true injuries on a zombie since they look pretty bad before being injured in an accident. Too funny! The article said none of the injuries were life threatening. Duh, they’re the un-dead.

Lunch at Sorrento's. Marguerite and Jan.

2011/10/31 20:00 Happy Halloween! Today is the last day of October and it is the day that precedes All Saints Day. Halloween is a contraction of All Hallows’ Evening. The holiday has its origins in the pagan festivals of the Celtics and the Druids; festivals centered on the harvest. It was also a time for festivals honoring the dead. I had a very bittersweet day at work today. My friend Marguerite has retired and today was her last day. While I am very happy for her I am quite sad that we won’t be working together anymore. I got up at six o’clock this morning and made my peach cobbler in honor of the occasion. It is the fourth time I’ve made the peach cobbler and I think it came out especially nice today. We went out to Sorrento’s for lunch. When I first started working with Marguerite we were in the “F” building. For a while we got moved to the “E” building. The “E” building had been abandoned in preparation for its sale. We were waiting for space to open in the “A” building and we were the only ones in the “E” building on the second floor. We joke that it was like being stranded on a deserted island. We said ‘goodbye’ in the parking lot and Jan started crying. I admit that made me tear up. Not ashamed of it. I say ‘goodbye’ but I hope that we stay close. Halloween was very quiet at my house. We had no Trick or Treaters. Karen and I watched the end of the movie “Halloween H2O: 20 Years Later” with Michael Myers still terrorizing Jamie Lee Curtis.

2011/10/30 22:00 I took Brego for a walk down on the canal today. She is getting so much better being around other dogs. We had stopped and were talking to a couple that had two German shepherd mix dogs. Actually I was chatting with the couple while the dogs were sniffing each other. We were all joined by a guy who had an Irish setter and a dachshund. The dachshund got right in the middle of all the bigger dogs and laid on her back with all four legs up in the air. The owner said she does that whenever she meets new dogs because she thinks she’s going to get her belly licked. That’s a service the Irish setter provides I guess. We finished the walk and I had just gotten Brego into the van when I heard a little boy yelling. “Please, can I pet the dog”. He seemed about six years old and his little sister was trailing after him. I got Brego out of the van and then after a little petting Brego thoroughly licked his face. His sister watched the face licking and then declined getting any closer to Brego. It was a fun walk.

Not that sure what’s going on in the picture above. I am reminded of the story of the Scotsman who was asked by the lass, “What’s worn under the kilt?” To which the Scotsman replied, “Nothing is worn under the kilt, everything works fine.” So, what’s under the loincloth maybe? Not sure what Karen is trying to ascertain here.

Posing with three witches. Tristan didn’t want to get that close to the witches so he couldn’t be in the photo. There was a statue of an Indian in front of the corn maze. Although I think to be politically correct I should say Native American.

2011/10/29 22:00 We had a fun time getting pumpkins today. It was a little too muddy; what with all the rain we’ve been having. And it was late in the season so the patch was pretty well picked over but we still managed to find some good ones. Tristan had a lot of fun. Karen is on the couch now. She is sleeping with the dog on her. She’s snoring pretty good. She is probably going to wake herself up with her snoring. She is obviously tired out from the pumpkin adventure.

Tristan loading pumpkins into the wheelbarrow.

Cartoon in the paper this morning. Now that’s a cocktail. I’m going to have to learn how to make that one.

2011/10/29 13:30 Tristan and I went to Tim Horton’s and met Karen there when she got out of work. We read the paper, had some coffee and Tristan had a donut. Tristan said, “You know that I am always going to have the one with the sprinkles on it right?” From here it is off to drop off the trash and recyclables in Jamesville and then we are off to peruse the pumpkin patches in search of the ‘Great Pumpkin’ maybe?

2011/10/29 09:00 I found a very encouraging word from Caitlin in my guestbook this morning. That made my day. Karen had to go to work early this morning so we haven’t been to get coffee yet. Maybe we will have time before we do the trash run. I saw a truly horrific accident yesterday and I will have to check and see if there is anything about it in the paper this morning. An SUV got hit so hard in front of the Tully’s in Cicero that it ended up flipped over and on its roof.

2011/10/28 16:00 I enjoyed my Chinese food and my hot tea last night. I forgot how much I enjoyed a cup of tea. I brewed some green tea. I think I am going to get some honey and some lemon that I can put in my tea when the mood strikes me. There was ice on my front porch this morning and ice on my car windows where the sun hadn’t hit it yet. I guess some of the outlying areas south of Syracuse got the first snowfall of the season. Old Man Winter is definitely on the way. It is Friday once again and I have a weekend free of the Evil Empire to look forward to. I don’t know if I am going to do anything special this weekend.

2011/10/27 19:00 I have left work for the evening and I am at the East Wok waiting for my Chinese food. My ‘girlfriend’ is working today. I haven’t seen her in a long time because I usually only get Chinese food on the weekend, mostly Sunday, and she doesn’t work Sundays anymore. I am just killing some time here while I wait. It is cold in here. I don’t think they have turned on the heat yet. There is one person that is eating here; most of the business is take-out. It has to be a very frigid dining experience. I think I am going to make some tea to have with dinner tonight. I feel in the mood for a cup of hot tea. The other night Michael and I watched the movie “X-Men First Class”. It was okay but I didn’t think it was anything special. I was equally underwhelmed by “Thor” when we watched that on DVD. I watched the pilot for the new series “Once Upon A Time“. I may give that a few episodes to see how it develops. Karen and I both watched the first two episodes of “American Horror Story“ and we both decided to skip that one. I am feeling very uninspired today.

Brego the beserker dog.

2011/10/27 17:00 Getting access to your own stuff on the internet sometimes feels like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. You have to answer riddles or solve puzzles to find out what your bank balance is. This is a picture of a _? If you answer faucet you can continue. Or, we had someone that was tripping their brains out write some really squiggly shit can you tell us what it is? I had to enroll in my flex benefits at work today. “What was the color of your first car?” At my age I can’t even remember what kind of car it was. I guessed three times and was wrong every time and the website locked me out. I felt like I was on a game show and I wanted to be able to say, “The cars category isn’t working out too well for me, Alex. Can I have first girlfriend for $100 please?” After talking to someone in customer support, Peggy I think, I was able to get my password reset. I still don’t know what the color of my first car was but I know it wasn’t blue, black, or red. Tomorrow is Friday. Thank the gods it’s Friday once more. A very tough week at the Evil Empire is winding down. It is raining and the temperature has dropped to thirty one degrees. Could be some slippery roads on the way home tonight. Karen just called and asked me to stop and get some Chinese food on the way home. I can do that.

A very nice fall day on the canal.

2011/10/25 22:00 I am attempting to change my attitude. I am trying to adjust my outlook on life. I don’t want to be as negative and uninspired as I have become recently. If I let the Evil Empire drag me down then I have lost. To these ends I got out of work today and I grabbed the dog and we went to the canal for a walk. It started out more like a tractor pull than a walk. Brego the beserker dog was the tractor, the puller, and I was the pullee. The dog can pull on her leash really hard. Especially hard when there is a squirrel involved. After about the first twenty minutes or so she calmed down a little and wasn’t pulling as bad. I am hoping that as part of my new attitude the walks will be frequent and the dog will settle into the routine. She’s a good beast. A sweet beast really. It was a cool and crisp Autumn day and a good day for a walk.

Last night Michael and I watched the SU - West Virginia game. I hadn't planned on watching the game. I didn't think it was going to be much of a game. Michael turned it on and it was the first quarter and there was no score. SU had the ball and they were moving the ball. I honestly hadn't thought it was going to be much of a game. Boy was I wrong.

2011/10/22 11:00

2011/10/16 11:45 post on Tiki Central I was watching the new show "Prime Suspect" last night that I had TIVO'd. A suspect broke away and two officers chased him through a department store. They found him hiding and one of the officers grabbed a Tiki torch and beat the suspect into submission with the Tiki torch. Not sure if this post belongs here in 'Tiki on TV' or I think at one point I saw another post about Tiki torches being used as weapons?

2011/10/17 00:30 It is very late Sunday night and the weekend is over. Actually since it is after midnight technically it is very early in the morning Monday. Karen and I just got finished watching the season premiere of the “The Walking Dead” on AMC. It was a rainy day Sunday today. My backyard is disgusting. It is a big squishy muddy mess. Adison came to the house this afternoon. She picked up some of her stuff she was storing here. I followed her to Michael’s house on Richfield where we got her TV. Then I followed her to Ithaca to deliver her stuff. I don’t get to see my daughter as often as I would like and I miss her. So, any chance I get to stay relevant in her life makes me happy. I was glad to drive to Ithaca and back for her. It had been a very rainy day and it turned into a very rainy night. Driving by yourself at night in the rain is a very lonely endeavor indeed. Making it worse is driving outside your comfort zone where your radio presets no longer work. The radio stations fade in and out and it just makes you feel lost and far from home. The rain on the windshield feels isolating. I stopped at the Dryden Dunkin Donuts for a little coffee to keep me alert. I went through the CD’s that I had in the car and as luck would have it I had the single best album ever made for rainy driving; “Aja” by the group Steely Dan. “Aja” was the 6th album by Steely Dan and was originally released in 1977. I let the sounds of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen take me home. I have logged many hours behind the wheel in the rain with “Aja”. Of course a lot of that was with a cassette and not a CD as CD’s hadn’t been invented for a lot of my “Aja” time. I should have brought my pocket recorder on the trip. I bought a Sony compact voice recorder and I haven’t even used it yet. Of course I haven’t gotten the software for it yet either. With the software I can record into the device and then download onto my computer and have everything converted to a word document. From there I can edit and upload to the website. If you think I’m boring now wait until I have that capability. I changed some of the architecture on the website today. I broke out my coaster collection and my swizzle stick collection to their own pages. With the addition of those two pages my website now has exactly fifty pages. I’ve got a lot of stuff cataloged on the site and I’m not even halfway done. Of course I’m still acquiring Tiki stuff and so I won’t ever be done really. My best friend at work, Marguerite, is going to be retiring in just two weeks. She is my best friend at work but more than that she’s one of my best friends period. We’ve worked together for at least nine years I think. I don’t know how I am going to get by at work without her. Fortunately I won’t be too far behind her. I plan to exit the Evil Empire not long after her escape.

2011/10/12 21:00 I went bowling after work today. I know I wrote in an earlier entry that I was ejected from my bowling team as the team attempted to become all feminine. That plan didn’t pan out and I’m back on the team. That’s right; I am back as the thorn among the roses that are the “Gutterflowers” bowling team. I bowled with Jen D. and Theresa. I had a really good time. I bowled a respectable 135, 159, and 128. Not that bad.

2011/10/15 23:30 I got my haircut today. Karen kind of pressured me into getting the haircut. I thought I had a pretty cool ‘Grizzly Adams’ kind of thing going on. I think Karen thought it was more of a ‘Unabomber’ thing. Karen and I had coffee at Tim Horton’s this morning as usual. She had to work today so I did the trash run by myself. After dropping the trash and recyclables in Jamesville I went to LaFayette and went out to brunch with my Mom and Dad. After brunch I did the haircut thing.

Grizzly Adams.

2011/10/16 11:30 Karen and I are at Tim Horton’s having our Sunday morning coffee. The couple next to us each had a muffin. The woman said like a ten minute prayer before they could eat the muffins. Can you imagine Thanksgiving at their house?

Avast ye swabs. Arrggghh! Tis a pirate's life fer me.

Playing on the trampoline.

Lafayette Apple Festival.

2011/10/10 12:00 It is Monday and I am back toiling for the Evil Empire. It is Columbus Day which is a day we used to get as a paid holiday. Now us minions just toil as usual like it is any other day. Yesterday morning Karen and I had a quick coffee at Tim Horton’s. We had to cut it short because Theresa brought her kids over for us to watch while she went to work. Danielle is very cute and came dressed in pink with pigtails. Her brothers’ rough house with her and she just takes it all in stride. I couldn’t believe the way they bounced her around on the trampoline and she just stayed unfazed and had a great time. Tristan and the boys ended up playing in my dirt pile. Karen said they were digging for buried pirates. I had to explain that, no; they were playing pirates and were digging for buried treasure. Digging for buried pirates would be gross. “Look, I found a spleen and a femur.” After the kids left Karen and I did some more work on the shed. Michael helped me move the new desk into Scott World. Michael wasn’t very impressed with the new desk. He said it was old, scratched, stained, and it didn’t sit right. All of that describes me perfectly. I like the new desk. It brings a little more character to Scott World. I’ll have to update the Scott World page here on the website in a little while with all the upgrades.

2011/10/08 23:00 Karen and I had a busy day today. After coffee at Tim Horton’s we went to Jamesville for the trash run. After we disposed of our trash and recyclables we drove south to Homer to pick up a desk Karen had found on Craigslist. I have some modular office furniture that I use in Scott World. I had purchased the modular stuff at Staple’s. Karen never liked the modular furniture and she found me a nice old wooden desk with some character. After we loaded the desk into the van we headed back north to LaFayette and the LaFayette Apple Festival. Things got a little scary here. The traffic was a little dense and Karen started to whine a little. The traffic was too heavy and she was afraid she was going to be stuck in the car, stop and go, for 45 minutes. She was hungry. We didn’t have enough cash to spend. And she had to go to the bathroom. She was also afraid that we weren’t going to get home soon enough to work on cleaning out the shed. The whining continued but we didn’t abort the mission. We made it to the Apple Festival having only spent 30 minutes in stop and go traffic. I got Karen into a port-a-potty, got her a caramel apple, and she bought a pumpkin shaped pin cushion. It was a nice afternoon after all and we made it home in time to work in the back yard and in the shed. We had a fire at night in the Tiki Fire Bowl and it was a good day.

Beast and boy were both plum tuckered out. Dozing and drooling on the couch.

2011/10/07 23:00

Phineas and Ferb.

2011/10/04 18:00 Tristan and I have been watching “Phineas and Ferb” on the Disney channel. I find a lot of the kids programming to be stupid and tough to watch. “Phineas and Ferb” is clever and entertaining and I have to admit I really enjoy the program. Phineas Flynn and his sister Candace live with their English step-brother Ferb Fletcher in the town of Danville. Ferb is a man of few words; sometimes not speaking for the entire episode. When Ferb does speak it is usually a pretty pithy pronouncement. It is perpetually summer vacation in the town of Danville and the kids have wild adventures building huge and crazy contraptions. The big sister Candace is always trying to “bust” her little brothers and get them in trouble. By the time Candace gets her Mom outside there is never any evidence left. In the B plot the boy’s pet platypus, Perry the Platypus, is a secret agent, “Agent P”, in an all animal government agency OWCA “Organization Without a Cool Acronym”. Perry gets his assignments from Major Monogram and the summer intern Karl. Perry does battle with Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz. Dr. Doofenshmirtz is trying to take over the Tri-State area. Danville is one of the areas in the Tri-State area. It used to be the Bi-State area but an unaffiliated area was added to form the Tri-State area and the unification is celebrated with an annual unification parade. Doofenshmirtz isn’t a totally bad guy as much as he’s misunderstood. We see a lot of his childhood traumas in flashbacks. He’s divorced with an estranged sixteen year old daughter, Vanessa that he is always trying to connect with. Perry, or “Agent P’, seems to spend as much time helping Doofenshmirtz as he does thwarting his evil plans. In one episode Agent P breaks into Doofenshmirtz’s summer home only to find the Doctor isn’t “doing any evil today” because he has a blind date that he set up on an internet dating site. He asks Perry, “My date doesn’t know I have a nemesis so could you just pretend to be my pet for tonight?” Perry also helped Doofenshmirtz save his evil lair when it was being foreclosed on by the bank. As Doofenshmirtz builds his evil contraptions he often does so using recycled materials so that while he is pursuing his conquest of the Tri-State area he is helping to save the planet at the same time. My favorite episode so far has been “Dude, We’re Getting the Band Back Together” The Dad forgets his anniversary and so the kids band together, Candace included, to get the band “Love Handel” back together to perform for their parents. The parents first kissed during a “Love Handel” concert. Each episode has at least one musical number and one of the songs from this episode won an Emmy. Tristan got up and danced during the show. He’s a little self-conscious so you can’t look at him while he’s dancing. I joined him and we both danced without looking at each other. We were dancing with no one watching. In the B plot Perry helped make Dr. Doofenshmirtz’s attempt at a sweet sixteen party for Vanessa a success. I will admit with no shame that this episode brought a tear to my eye. The show is able to entertain me and my grandson at the same time and that’s no small feat.

2011/10/01 10:00 Today is the first day of October. We are well on our way into Autumn. My drop in readership seems to have slowed. I had 170 page views in September. And I did have two new entries in the guestbook for September. It’s a cold and drizzly kind of day. Adison came home last night and then she left this morning to participate in an Alzheimer’s Disease fundraising walk. It won’t be the nicest day for it. Too bad because yesterday it was nice. Missed it by a day.

2011/09/29 21:00 I don’t like how negative I get at times. Too much negative energy. I despise working for the Evil Empire and I let it drag me down. I wonder how different a person I would be if I didn’t toil in service to the Evil Empire. It’s raining tonight and I feel like it should be raining on me. I wish some things were different. I wish some things would change and there are other things I hope never change. It feels like the things I want to change don’t and the things I don’t want to change do. And I have no control over most of it. I often feel like so much flotsam and jetsam just bobbing on the waves at the mercy of the tides and currents. Where am I and how did I get here? More important, where am I going? Will I like it when I get there?

2011/09/30 18:00 TGIF! Made it to another weekend. It is the last day of September (Karen’s birthday). If all goes as planned I have nine months of work left. Thirty nine weeks remaining. Two hundred and seventy four days until I put the Evil Empire in the rearview mirror for the last time. If you take out the weekend days, the holidays, and vacation days, then I have one hundred and forty seven days of work left. But then again, who’s really counting, right?.

Hawaiian Isle Hawaiian Rum.

2011/09/28 23:00 I just recently acquired a bottle of extinct rum. I say extinct because I don’t believe the rum is in production anymore. The bottle is full and the seals are intact. The label says Hawaiian Isle Hawaiian Rum. The label says it is a product of Hawaii but was bottled in Chicago, Illinois. I did a Dun & Bradstreet check on the company listed on the label, Hawaiian Isle Trading Co. and came up empty. I will try to sleuth up some more info on this one.

2011/09/25 12:00 So, it appears that Albert Einstein may not have been as smart as everyone thought. I guess we are going to have to rethink some of his work now that a couple of neutrinos have been clocked breaking the speed limit. I took down the drapes in our living room yesterday and we threw them out. We have had the same curtains in the living room for almost twenty three years. I’m not fond of change much of the time but I think here is a case where it is time to move on. We have new curtains that we got from Pier One that we will need to hang today. My netbook computer is a mess. It is covered in cat hair. When I am working on the netbook my cat Elsie jumps up on the table and self-scratches herself on the corner of the screen. It’s not a bad day today. Kind of a nice Autumn day. I truly wish that I didn’t have to go to work tomorrow. I believe the anxiety attacks that I sometimes suffer will disappear once the Evil Empire is behind me for good. I am sitting at Tim Horton’s with Karen having coffee and the sun is bright and I can feel the warmth of the rays through the window glass. It feels really good. Have you ever sat in your car when the car has been heated by the sun? The warmth of the sun feels different than the warmth generated by the car’s heater. I sometimes sit in the car when it’s all warm and toasty with sunshine and it makes me feel good. I don’t know where the music they play at Tim Horton’s comes from. I don’t know if it is a tape or if it is a radio station. Today we seem to be stuck in the 1970s. Donna Summer and Vicki Sue Robinson. I hate disco and always have but I do like Vicki Sue Robinson’s “Turn the Beat Around”. It is going to be time soon to start getting things ready for another winter. Somehow I have a feeling this winter is going to be long and hard. We’re going to want to have our nuts squirreled away in time to see us through the long winter nights. The last few winters I have felt unprepared when the first snows arrived and this year I would like to feel ready and prepared. I cooked outside last night on the Weber grill. We had a couple of charcoal grilled pork tenderloins, fried potatoes, and baked beans. I had some left over beer in the fridge. I had some Amstel Light which I had bought for a party. I don’t usually like the light beers. About the only one I can tolerate is the Amstel. The bottles had been pushed to the back of the fridge and were up against the “cold thing”. I don’t know what to call that thing in the back of the fridge where the thermostat is but it’s the coldest part of the fridge and those Amstels were almost frozen. They tasted really good being that cold and nicely complimented my grilled pork. I am getting ready to add a new page to the site. I am going to start a page for vintage advertisements. These will be ads for things Tiki and somewhat Tiki. Examples would be ads for travel, cocktails and rum, and movies and literature. I have an ad for Bell’s scotch which has a Maori carving with a bell in it. I have an ad for Cointreau that’s very interesting. Cointreau apparently used to have a whole family of cordials that they offered. Now they only have the orange liqueur. One of the young girls that works here at Tim Horton’s has long hair that she wears in a hair-net. It actually looks kind of cute which I find funny. Her hair is a little curly at the ends and she has defiant wisps that won’t stay in the net. You wouldn’t normally think of a hair-net as being cute. I won’t be spending my Sunday afternoon the way I would like to. Because I spend too much time in service to the Evil Empire there are things I need to do that I end up having to accomplish on Sunday. I would love to spend a Sunday afternoon just sitting and reading the New York Times. Peace out.

2011/09/22 20:00 It was another crappy day at the Evil Empire. At least tomorrow is Friday and the weekend will bring a short reprieve from the unpleasantness that is the Evil Empire. The stock market took another major tumble today; the Dow falling over five hundred points during the day’s trading. There are fears of a new and potentially more serious recession than the one that just passed.

2011/09/23 18:00 The news is just so depressing. The Senate voted down House passed legislation to extend disaster aid and government funding and the impasse could mean a government shutdown by next Friday. There is a dead satellite that is going to crash in North America; maybe on somebody’s house. The price of gold plunged below $1,700 in a record drop. I am beginning to think I should probably take a good portion of my retirement and invest it in stuff that can be easily bartered. Stuff like cans of beans, condensed milk, and bullets. That way I will be ready for the end of civilization whether it comes from a worldwide economic collapse or from zombies. Either way I’d be covered. I won’t be bartering the rum though.

2011/09/21 23:00 I had a very unpleasant and stressful day of service to the Evil Empire. In general, as I get older, I find it more and more difficult to bow down and take the oppression, the abuse, and the disrespect so often required by society. I truly wish I had an island where I could start my own country. My own society. I will have to settle for the secession of my backyard. I am declaring independence for the back of my house, my Tiki lounge, and my backyard. The Republic of Khan Tiki Mon. The front yard can suffer and be subject to the indignities of so called civilization. My backyard shall be a free and independent country. Come to my backyard to live free. No passports required and I will be taking applications for asylum.

2011/09/19 23:00 Adison had her wisdom teeth extracted today. Karen had carpal tunnel surgery today. I took Adison to her surgery, waited for her, and then drove her home. While she was in surgery I sat in the waiting room, played some music on my laptop through my headphones, and kind of dozed off while I waited. The nurse had to yell at me when it was time to go see Adison in recovery. They won’t do the surgery unless there is someone responsible to drive the patient home. I probably didn’t look that responsible. My Mom and Dad took Karen to her surgery. When I got home from work Adison was feeling pretty good. She wanted to take Tristan to see “The Lion King” in 3D. So, the three of us, Adison, Tristan, and I, went to the movies. Tristan got very cool 3D glasses that said “The Lion King” on them. Tristan ate a lot of popcorn.

In the picture above that was my dog Brego and my cat Elsie last night. The cat and dog snuggled while Karen and I watched the latest episodes of “Haven” and “Top Shot”. Cats and dogs living together in peace and harmony. If only the Democrats and the Republicans could learn to peacefully co-exist. Maybe then the stock market wouldn’t be as volatile as it has been. A couple of weeks ago the market took a steep enough plunge that I got a margin call. I have a debit card tied to my stock portfolio and since there was a margin call that I hadn’t covered yet they wouldn’t pay anything on the debit card. The Netflix bill was due and the automatic debit wouldn’t go through. I came home from work and my four and a half year old grandson was seated in front of the computer. He looked up at me and said, “Pop pop, please pay the Netflix bill. I want to watch the Rugrats.”

2011/09/18 12:00

2011/09/16 00:30 It is just after midnight and I just got back from Wegmans where I bought diapers and popsicles. I am really way too old to be out at midnight buying diapers. But, little baby Alice needed diapers and so I got little baby Alice diapers. Before the diaper run Michael and I had been at the movies where we saw “Columbiana” starring Zoe Saldana. Zoe Saldana has to be one of the hottest actresses in Hollywood today. When I say hot I mean as in she is the most in demand and therefore must be one of the highest paid. She’s also just plain hot as well. She plays Uhura in the Star Trek re-boot and she plays Neytiri in the “Avatar” movies. She was also in the “The Losers” Now, “The Losers”, that was a good movie. “The Losers” was everything the re-boot of the “A-Team” was supposed to be and wasn’t. My son Michael doesn’t think Zoe is as hot as I do. He thinks she’s too skinny. He says ‘freakishly’ skinny. I have to admit I generally like women with a little more curves. Eva Mendes is physically more my type than Zoe Saldana. Karen says she has noticed that I seem to have a thing for Latin women. That’s probably somewhat true but it’s more of a thing for exotic and different women. When I was an adolescent and all my school friends had Farrah Fawcett posters I was much more enamored of Genevieve Bujold. She was more exotic. I was in love with her accent. Watch the Brian DePalma film “Obsession” with Cliff Robertson and Genevieve. When she says “I am Elizabeth” – just gives me goose bumps. The film “Columbiana" was written by Luc Besson, The night before we went to see “Columbiana” I watched “From Paris With Love”, which was also written by Luc Besson, on a DVD from Netflix. The guy is pretty talented. He is responsible for “Taken”. “La Femme Nikita”, and “Leon: The Professional”. If ever there was a movie where there could be an awesome sequel it has got to be “Leon: The Professional”. The 1994 film “Leon: The Professional” starred a very young Natalie Portman playing a 12 year old. How awesome would it be to have a new film, starring Natalie Portman, as a grown up Mathilda?

2011/09/12 20:00 Today was my grandson Tristan’s first day of pre-K school. He was supposed to ride the bus and he was supposed to ride the bus alone. I wasn’t very optimistic that he would actually ride the bus. But, the little dude manned up and rode the bus. No fuss, no tears, and even a smile. I was very proud of the little guy.

2011/09/11 20:00 Karen and I drove to Ithaca today to see Adison. We picked her up and went to downtown Ithaca where we walked around a little before stopping at the Ithaca Ale House for a late lunch. I went to the bathroom and when I opened the door this guy yelled, “Hey, I’m in here”. Yeah, well you could have locked the door. He was standing at the toilet peeing and texting. Really? I’m adding this to my list; don’t text and drive, don’t walk in crowds and text, and don’t text when you’re going to the bathroom. It’s just plain disgusting. I’m not saying you have to have both hands on your junk but the other hand shouldn’t be holding a cell phone and texting. We had what I thought was a really good lunch. I had a French dip and it was delicious; thin sliced roast beef with provolone on some crusty French bread with a really nice au jus for dipping and a side Caesar salad. Karen didn’t like the dressing on her salad.

Cartoon that was popular in the days after the 9/11 attacks.

When I say everyone has been impacted by the events of 9/11 it is no exaggeration. Of course there were victims that day and they and their families suffered. There was massive property damage. And it slowed business to a crawl for quite a while. The events spawned massive spending on security and two wars evolved. There has been more loss of life because of the wars. The spending, on both heightened security and the conflicts, has to be measured in the trillions of dollars. Beyond the actual expenditures are the lost opportunity costs. How different would things be if those resources had been spent on repairing and upgrading our crumbling and deteriorating infrastructure? If we had used those resources for research and development, for space exploration, for education? I’m not saying Osama Bin Laden caused all the problems of the day. The greedy bankers that brought about our near financial collapse weren’t working with Al-Qaeda. And, who’s to say, maybe the completely dysfunctional government we now have would have happened anyways. Maybe America would have elected the same bunch of partisan assholes whether Bin Laden had been successful or not. Still, we have some serious problems in this country and a long way to go to set things right. Putting a couple of bullets in Osama may have felt good but it isn’t even a baby step as far as fixing the damage done is concerned. Let’s try to remember our common goals. We need to work together as a nation, not at cross purposes.

Picture of my family under the Statue of Liberty, taken on that trip to NYC.

It seemed that within a week the mural above showed up on the side of the Family Dollar in East Syracuse. The photo of the mural above was taken 10 years ago but it looks about the same today.

Things, after the attacks, were not normal. A few days after the attacks I ventured out to the store for some stuff we needed. I went to K-Mart. As I drove the short distance to the store it was eerie how deserted the roads were. There was no traffic. I passed houses with their lights on but no one was out and about unless they had to be. I got to K-Mart and there were only a couple of cars out front. I went in and got what I came for and again it was eerie just how quiet everything was. The local newspaper had printed an American flag in the paper and in the days after the attacks these paper flags appeared everywhere. Office workers downtown put them in their windows and they were just everywhere. The vestibule at K-Mart was papered with these flags. The scotch tape on many of these flags was coming loose and some of the flimsy newsprint flags were sagging. As I left there was a man in the vestibule who was systematically moving around the small space re-sticking the flags, rubbing the tape back into place. I thought he worked at the store but then he picked up his purchases and followed me out to the parking lot. I will never forget that random man and the respect he showed for those flimsy newsprint flags.

About a week before the attacks on the World Trade Center I had found a bunch of film that I had never sent in to be developed. I mailed it off and forgot about it. Truthfully I couldn’t even remember what was on the film that I sent in for processing. A few days after the attacks I got the prints from the film back and I was going through the pictures and was shocked (a little creeped out actually) to find photos of my wife and kids standing beneath the twin towers. These were pictures from a trip we had taken to NYC. We had stayed in the Marriott next to the World Trade Center towers. At one point during the trip we contemplated taking the trip to the top of one of the towers but it was seven dollars each to ride the elevator and we decided to save that for a later trip. It never occurred to any of us that that would be our last chance.

After the appointment I was driving them to school. Once I dropped them at school I would then go on to work. On the way to drop them at school I was listening to NPR on the radio in the car as usual. There was a news story that a plane had hit one of the towers at the World Trade Center. It was initially assumed by many, me included, that some small aircraft had wandered off course and had accidentally crashed into the tower. It wasn’t long until the second plane hit and we knew that we were under attack.

2011/09/11 09:00 Ten years ago, on the morning of September 11th, 2001, I was tasked with taking my two oldest children, Robert and Adison, to their orthodontist appointment. They were having their braces removed and I was instructed by my wife to make sure I got a picture of them while they still had their braces on.

Little baby Alice in the swing.

The Glengarry Bhoys.

Kick-ass bagpipes - some have described their music as full contact highlanding - the band puts on a great show.

2011/09/10 14:00 It has turned out to be a quite nice day today. Karen had little baby Alice out in the swing.

The Elders were playing when I arrived downtown in Clinton Square. They were warming up the crowd for the headline act; The Glengarry Bhoys.

2011/09/09 23:30 I did make it downtown for the Irish Fest. I just got back from a very good time. I had some corned beef and cabbage from Meghan MacMurphy's. It was a pretty healthy piece of corned beef that was fork tender served with potatoes, carrots, and cabbage. The corned beef was just the right saltiness and this tasty dish was well worth the price. I washed it down with a glass of Guinness.

2011/09/09 18:00 TGIF. I made it to another weekend. Once again I put the Evil Empire in the rearview mirror for a few days. Downtown in Clinton Square it is Irish Fest weekend. The Glengarry Bhoys are playing tonight and I think I may head downtown to have a little listen.

My certificate of authenticity.

Rum delivery took place in a parking lot. I met Michelle in a parking lot for the delivery of the rum. It felt a little like rum smuggling but everything was actually legal and above board. Still, as careers go I think rum smuggling might have been my true calling.

2011/09/08 23:00 Michelle, my secret Guyanese rum connection, was in Puerto Rico last week. She toured the Bacardi distillery and brought me back an awesome bottle of rum. The Bacardi Reserva Limitada was first made available to the public in 2003. The rum was introduced to the public in honor of and to celebrate the inauguration of the Bacardi Visitor Center in Puerto Rico. As the name would suggest the Reserva Limitada is truly a ‘limited reserve’ and is available almost exclusively in Puerto Rico (very small amounts available in the Bahamas, the Caymans, and Aruba). The Reserva Limitada is aged in lightly charred American white oak barrels. Rums as old as 16 years are in the blend.

Bacardi Reserva Limitada.

2011/09/03 16:00 After Karen and I had coffee at Tim Horton’s this morning she had to go to work. While she was at work I mowed the front lawn, emptied the van (hadn’t been unloaded since the trip to Ocean City, Md.), and got the trash and recyclables ready for the trip to Jamesville. When Karen got home from work we went to offload the trash and then stopped at some garage sales. One wasn’t really a garage ‘sale’ because everything on the front lawn was free. There was no one there and we poked through the stuff. I took a Greenpeace book on nuclear arms and power. It’s kind of funny looking through someone’s stuff. There were albums from the 70s; Peter, Paul, and Mary, Corole King, and the Paul Winter Consort. There were some psychology books and a book on bellydancing. I couldn’t help thinking this might be an interesting person to have a conversation with.

2011/09/05 19:30 The Labor Day Weekend is coming to a close. Summer 2011 is officially over. Once again I am left shaking my head and asking where has the time gone? Karen and I went to the fair once and once only. I didn’t get my baked potato this year. Someday when I am retired I will go to the fair every day. That’s going to be on my ‘bucket’ list. Michael and I were going to go golfing today but it rained all day. I haven’t golfed in probably twenty years. Maybe it’s been even longer than that. I’m starting to think that maybe we should go to a driving range before we venture out onto a public course. I don’t want to make a complete fool of myself. Last night Karen and I watched the special “Heroes of the 88th Floor”. It was the true story about two men that gave their lives saving others in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. The show, on the TLC network, was about Frank De Martini and Pablo Ortiz. Frank and Pablo worked on the 88th floor of the World Trade Center. When everyone else went down towards safety these two went up and together rescued 77 people that were trapped on the floors above them. September 11th, 2001 was a day that changed everyone’s life. It was a day that changed things for some people more dramatically than others, but it was a day that changed everybody’s life. The ten year anniversary of that horrific day is just around the corner. I have been posting my ramblings here on this website for over 4 years now I have been rambling for much longer than that. I am going to go back to what I wrote in the days after the 9/11 attacks and I am going to post a little retrospective on the anniversary. I am writing this while I am at East Wok waiting for some Chinese food. For me this is the perfect end for any weekend; some Chinese take-out. I have a bottle of Middle Ages Wailing Wench at home in the fridge getting chilly. The season finale of one of my favorite shows, “The Glades”, is on TV tonight. One last little bit of relaxation and then it’s back to toiling for the Evil Empire in the morning.

This years butter sculpture. There is actually a feature length movie in production about butter sculpting that will star Jennifer Garner. I guess if anyone could make the subject of carving butter 'hot' it might be Jennifer Garner.

The sand sculpture this year was in honor of the victims and heroes of the terrorist attacks ten years ago.

There are always some cute baby pigs at the fair. Everybody loves the piglets.

2011/09/01 18:00 The last summer month for 2011 expired yesterday. So sad. Three day weekend ahead; Labor Day. Karen and I will most likely go to the Great NY State Fair tomorrow after work. There were 177 page views of my website in August. I continue my downward spiral in readership.

2011/09/03 11:00 Karen and I went to the Great NY State Fair yesterday after work. I had a good time. I had a falafel sandwich and a Middle Ages Syracuse pale ale. I had a couple of beef empanadas from Las Delicias and of course some milk from the milk bar in the dairy building. The weather was nice; not too hot. Here are some brief observations I made while at the fair. First, if you are angry. If you are pissed at the world, don’t go to the fair. Please go to WalMart instead. You will fit in better and you will save some money. Second, it’s crowded and there are a lot of people walking around so if you need to text then please stop moving. There are enough distracted people walking around (I’m blaming the girls in the really tight short shorts for the distractions) we can’t have people walking and texting. Third, when they shear the sheep and take all their wool they dress them in white capes and white hoods to keep them warm. They look like little Klan sheep. Couldn’t they make the sheep clothing in paisley to avoid the KKK look for the poor sheep?

2011/09/01 13:00 My four and a half year old grandson has a small plastic calculator that got left out in the rain. It probably cost $1.89 brand new. The device functions as a phone, a PDA, a camera, a video recorder, a tape measure, and a magic 8 ball. This amazing device can even locate dinosaurs and monsters. The best part is that all the apps are free.

Sub-station in Amsterdam, NY.

Roasting marshmallows in the Tiki fire bowl.

2001/08/30 14:00 Hurricane Irene wreaked havoc in certain areas of New York and New England. Below is a picture of the sub-station in Amsterdam. When we saw the picture at work one of my co-workers remarked. “Why would they build a sub-station in the middle of a river?” The hurricane and the response caused the Evil Empire to delay the massive layoffs that had been planned. All hands were needed on deck. There is another hurricane, Katia, fermenting out to sea. More than one of my co-workers has said, “I guess my job is safe as long as there’s a hurricane in the pipeline.”

2011/08/28 11:00 Karen and I were supposed to celebrate our 28th anniversary by the ocean in Ocean City, Maryland. Instead hurricane Irene drove us out of town and we spent our anniversary in the back yard roasting marshmallows with our grandson.

Beach scene before the arrival of hurricane Irene.

We left Ocean City about 2:00 P.M. on Friday. We were part of a mandatory evacuation. Before we left we walked down to the beach to check out the scene. The path to the beach had been blocked by the lifeguards. Adison and I crawled through the makeshift barricade and made our way to the beach. There wasn’t a soul on the beach as far as we could see. The roads were pretty well clogged with evacuees and what is normally a six hour journey home took about twelve hours. Of course the twelve hours did include a stop at Panera, soup and salads, and a stop at Ikea. The hurricane made us so late we couldn’t even get Swedish meatballs at Ikea because the café was closing just as we got there.

Beach barricade.

2011/08/26 17:00 As part of the advance preparations being undertaken in response to the hurricane on its way the mayor of Ocean City has suspended alcohol sales. That is certainly un-American. I’m not sure if it is unconstitutional as well. You can’t make a hurricane (the kind you drink) without booze. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be a storm response I’m just wondering if we have to go right to martial law. I have never been forcibly evacuated before. I suggested that it would be more fun for us to stay behind for the looting but I was overruled on that one.

2011/08/27 14:00

Our last stop on our day trip was to see ‘Bruce’ outside of Frontier Town. Bruce was a prop used during the making of the movie “Jaws” by Steven Spielberg. Karen and Adison had fun posing with Bruce.

We stopped at the NASA museum at the Wallops Flight Facility (WFF). The WFF is NASA’s busiest launch site. The range routinely launches sounding rockets and high altitude balloons. The missions support science projects for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

After we saw the horses and after the abbreviated visit to the lighthouse we stopped for lunch at a local establishment in Chincoteague. We sat on a deck for some open air dining on the water. There were pelicans, seagulls, and bartenders in bikinis; all of which can be described as atmosphere. I had some hush puppies, crab soup, and some fried scallops. The oil in the fryer could have been changed a day or two earlier but I forgave that and just enjoyed the atmosphere. The bird in the picture above was drying off in the sun as we ate. It was some kind of a diving bird. A cormorant maybe?

Assateague lighthouse.

We left the horses grazing in the marsh and walked back to the car. We stopped at the Assateague lighthouse. I like lighthouses. My ‘bucket’ list would include visiting all the lighthouses on the Eastern Seaboard. My passengers wouldn’t get out of the car and walk to the lighthouse. They sat in the van in the air conditioning and whined. I walked to the lighthouse by myself. I couldn’t climb the lighthouse because my travelling companions were impatiently waiting for me and they were hot and tired and hungry and sunburned and hungry and hot and itchy and hungry.

2011/08/23 20:00 Some people might say, “I could sleep through an earthquake.” For me, that’s just not the case. This vacation I had the opportunity to test that premise. I had dozed off on the couch while everyone else was at the beach. I was awakened by some fairly violent shaking of the couch. I thought it was my nephew messing with me. Then I looked up and saw that the wall was shaking as well. The shaking seemed to go on for a long time. When it stopped I got up and checked behind the couch to see if I was indeed alone. I was. I walked out onto our balcony and I could hear a buzz of conversation about the earthquake.

2011/08/26 09:00 Yesterday Karen and Adison took a trip with me to see the Chincoteague ponies. The Chincoteague ponies are a breed of horse that live in feral conditions on Assateague Island. The ponies were made famous by the book “Misty of Chincoteague” that was made into a movie “Misty” in 1961. You have to park and then walk out to a boardwalk to see the ponies grazing in the marsh.

2011/08/22 09:00 We are settled into our condo in Ocean City, Maryland. So far I can't say I'm that impressed with this area. The condo is nice but it's on the 4th floor and there's no elevator. Also, there is no WiFi and that's very depressing.

2011/08/23 08:00 I had a very disturbing dream last night. I dreamed I was a banana. I was part of my bunch and I was very happy. I was happy until I was broken off the stem and separated from the rest of the bananas on the bunch. It seems that bananas aren’t really autonomous. As a banana many of your memories and cognitive functions exist as part of the bunch. So, having been stripped from the bunch I couldn’t access many of my memories and some of my mental functions were severely compromised. It was very much like, I would imagine, some kind of extreme brain injury. It was very depressing and sad because I knew there was virtually no chance I would be reconnected to the bunch. I woke up and the horrible feelings conjured up by the dream lingered for an hour or so. The only place I seem to be able to get a decent WiFi connection is at the Starbucks across the bridge. I don’t think I will rent another place for vacation that doesn’t have a broadband connection to the internet.

Adriana and her twins.

Adriana is Karen’s cousin. So, the twins would be her second cousins and my second cousins once removed? Not sure how that all works.

2011/08/20 10:00 Last night Adison and I went to see the “Glee” movie in 3D. Adison kept asking me why I was going with her since I hadn’t watched the TV show. She was afraid that I wouldn’t enjoy the movie. I like going to the movies and I would never turn down an opportunity to hang out with my daughter. The movie was actually pretty good. I got to see ‘Brittany’s’ boobs in 3D. The character Brittany is played by Heather Morris. In an interview at the beginning of the concert film she remarks that America is going to get to see her boobs in 3D and she hopes America is appreciative because they are “awesome”. They were nice. It was a concert film and the musical numbers were really well done. The 3D really worked well for this film. Adison and I sat in the fourth row with no one in front of us and several times during the movie I was kind of annoyed as people walked in front of us. Of course no one was walking in front of us it was all in the film and the 3D just made it seem very realistic. I did receive some bad news today. Karen told me I am being evicted from my bowling team because of my penis. I was the only boy on the team and it seems they have decided to go with a squad fueled by estrogen only.

2011/08/13 12:00 Karen and I are in Baltimore this morning. We left Syracuse about 3:30 P.M. on Friday and drove to her Aunt and Uncle’s house. We made pretty good time. We stopped to eat and rather than stop at a fast food place we stopped and had dinner at a Red Robin restaurant. It was fun. I like traveling with my wife. Not sure how we are going to spend the day or what we will do tonight. Just going to kind of hang out and see what happens.

Happy 16th birthday to Middle Ages Brewing Co. I'm wearing my Spongebob Hawaiian shirt. I got the shirt for two bucks at the Rescue Mission. Sweet!

Much fun being had at the birthday party.

2011/08/08 09:00 Yesterday Sean and I helped Middle Ages Brewing Company celebrate its 16th birthday. The party was held in Leavenworth Park across from the brewery. I am not going to turn down many opportunities to have Wailing Wench on tap. That’s my favorite Middle Ages brew. There were six bands that performed including the “New Riders of the Purple Sage”. It was a nice day when we got there and then the rains came. There was a downpour; a heavy soaking rain. Sean and I huddled under a tree with our backs to the trunk but it wasn’t much protection. Great big heavy wet raindrops plopped into my beer and splashed everywhere. It turned into Mother Nature’s wet T-shirt contest. The funny thing was it reminded me of a time about twenty years ago when I went to my son Robert’s end of kindergarten party. It was a summer day in June and I was one of the few fathers in attendance. It was mostly the moms there. The fire department had set up some sprinklers and the kids were having a great time playing in the water. Later some of the firemen turned the hoses on the moms and I remember thinking that I had paid a ten dollar cover when I was in college to see a wet T-shirt contest and it wasn’t as much fun as that. Enough of my inappropriate ramblings. It stopped raining and we stayed until the end of the party.

2011/08/07 11:30 Sunday morning. Sunday mornings are nice. I am having a breakfast sandwich at Tim Hortons. Yesterday Karen, Tristan, and I went to Danielle’s first birthday party. We took our laundry to the party. Our washing machine broke and we bought a new one but it won’t be delivered until Monday. So Karen did a couple of loads of wash in Theresa’s machine during the party. The party was fun and Tristan had a lot of fun playing with the other kids. He was involved in a big pillow fight with Nicholas, Andrew, Ashton, and Vincent. It is a lot of fun for me to see the kids having so much fun. After the birthday party we stopped home, dropped off Tristan, and then Karen and I went on to Sean and Tina’s to see the movie “New Susquehanna” which was produced by Zack. After we saw the movie, which was quite good, we were chatting and Tina confided that Caitlin hadn’t been keeping up with my blog. This explains a lot. Caitlin is one of my biggest fans and so it is no wonder that my measured readership has been down. Caitlin has been kind of busy and that’s understandable. Caitlin, when you read this, it’s good to have you back. I have been doing some pretty good sized uploads to the website. I added quite a few magazine acquisitions to the magazine page. I added new postcards that I recently acquired to the Trader Vic’s page and to the Mai Kai page. I am getting ready to redo my pulp fiction page. There is too much content for one page so I will be breaking the page in two and I have a lot of new content to add. I scanned about 30 new books that I will be adding.

2011/08/04 19:30 Tomorrow is Friday. Friday has been a long time coming this week. I worked late today and I have stopped at The East Wok to pick up some Chinese take-out on the way home. I have a low grade headache starting and I need to get some ibuprofen in me before it has a chance to get worse. It might be a sinus headache starting. The stock market took a tumble today and I got a margin call. I hate it when that happens. The approval rating for congress is at 14 percent. That’s the lowest recorded since they started keeping track. The news agencies deemed it necessary to state that the approval rating was in fact 14 percent and that it wasn’t a typo. I just wonder who are the 14 percent that think things are okay.

Page views of my website for the last eleven months.

2011/07/31 11:00 It’s Sunday morning and I am chillin’ out at Tim Horton’s with Karen having some coffee and a breakfast sandwich. It’s the last day of July. Only one summer month left for 2011. On Friday night Michael and I went to the movies. We went to see “Cowboys and Aliens”. It won’t be a classic but it was entertaining. There was a preacher in the movie and he had the line, “it’s not what you were it’s what you become.” I liked that.

2011/08/01 19:30 Today it was Monday and back to work. Nice day. Too nice a day to be trapped in service to the Evil Empire. I had 188 page views of my website in July. That’s the least amount of traffic since I started keeping track. The funny thing is that I keep rising in the search engines. Search for certain keywords and my site features prominently. I do better on Bing than I do on Google. Google is very skewed towards commerce. The more you pay on Google the more your site comes up and the higher the ranking. Google is so bad that one day I was searching on Google for my broker, E*Trade, so that I could log in and the top 3 hits returned for a search of E*Trade were for competitors. If Google ran the grocery store and you asked for an apple they would give you an orange because the orange paid them to. If Google was a doctor and you had a broken arm they would do a hip replacement.

2011/07/29 18:00 There is something worse than toiling for the Evil Empire. That would be toiling extra hours for the Evil Empire. I worked a fair amount of overtime this past week. While the money will be nice when I get it I have to say I would prefer not working. I do feel a little less stressed and harried after the overtime. The extra work has reduced my backlog some. It is Friday. It is raining very hard right now. The rain is coming down in sheets. I guess we really do need the rain. It just would be nicer if it didn’t rain on my free time. It should only rain on the Empire’s dime. Once again I find myself feeling somewhat adrift. I continue to count the days until I can break free from my cubicle hell. I am anxious to start my new life and feel like I am just treading water waiting for that day to arrive. I wish I could find some inspiration to make these last months of work more bearable.

It was so hot that a woman took her shirt off and walked in her bra. “Shortly before 1 p.m., witnesses saw a woman with long blond hair who appeared to be in her late 30s walk past the Bank of America on the corner of Salina Street and Erie Boulevard carrying a red shirt and wearing a white bra and shorts.” Wow, slow news day? “As witnesses waiting on the corner watched, the woman unzipped her shorts, revealing white bikini underwear. She appeared to consider taking the shorts off too. After hesitating, she rezipped the shorts, hitched them back up around her waist, turned south on Salina Street and strode down the sidewalk.” Okay, I have to question this story reported by the investigative reporter from the Syracuse Post Standard. If the woman only unzipped her pants how was it determined she was wearing bikini undies – maybe they were granny panties? And if this was really hard hitting informative journalism don’t you think we should get some kind of info, a guess at least, on her cup size?

Tristan ate some ice cream and wore some.

2011/07/21 18:00 Who won the space race? The answer doesn’t seem so obvious today. NASA’s space shuttle program came to an end today. If you want to travel to the international space station tomorrow you will have to hitch a ride on a Russian rocket. The old US of A is not what it once was. The country is twelve days away from default because the people of this once great country elect idiots and morons to a completely dysfunctional government. And I toil for a foreign company. Pretty soon the Chinese will own everything. It sure is hot today. We reached 100 degrees. That was a new record high for the date.

2011/07/22 16:00 The heat wave that was centered in the Midwest made its way to Central New York. It has been one scorcher after another for the past couple of days. The folks at the Syracuse Post Standard were right on top of the story. This story will probably be picked up by the national wire services (maybe international).

Karen, Tristan, and an unidentified penguin.

2011/07/17 23:00 Today was Penguin Palooza at the Burnet Park Zoo. It was a beautiful day and Karen and I took the grandson Tristan. Tristan really enjoys the zoo and is very excited to see all the animals. There was a lot of ice cream to sample.

2011/07/08 12:30 I received a visit this morning from my HR department. The company will not be keeping any of the promises made to me by the Director of Compensation. All promises made are off the table. The company will not step up and do the right thing. As a result I will not get the VSP (voluntary severance package). The company acknowledges the fact that I have been treated very badly. The company acknowledges that I have not been treated in a fair way. Basically I was told, “it must suck to be you”. It was suggested that I take some solace in the fact that over 500 people are going to be involuntarily severed and so I am not the only one that has or will have reason to be unhappy. I fail to see how the misery of others is supposed to make me feel better. Misery loves company? Is that a new tactic in the world of human resources? After the meeting some of my co-workers suggested I talk to an attorney. I explained how futile that was since promises aren’t legally binding. While it may be unethical to break promises it isn’t an actionable item for litigation. I wasn’t really upset by the news. I never expected the Evil Empire to step up and do the right thing and so what I suspected all along was just confirmed. I know where I stand.

2011/07/14 23:30 It is Thursday night and it would seem that I am going to make it to another weekend. Tomorrow is Friday and that will conclude another week of service to the Evil Empire. Tomorrow after work I will be attending a happy hour at Limp Lizard in Liverpool. That should be a great start to the weekend. Last night I met Sean and Tina downtown in Armory Square and we watched the movie “Social Network”. It was a free movie in a series they are calling ‘Flicks by the Crick’. The movie was shown on the side of the Sound Garden building which is next to Onondaga Creek. I brought my folding chair and Sean brought some homebrews and it was fun. Next week is “Iron Man 2”. Tonight Karen, Michael, and I joined my parents for dinner at the Olive Garden. It was another nice evening. I’ve had some annoying car problems the last few days. The Saturn wouldn’t start and we ended up having to put a new battery in it. Today we got four new tires for the Saturn and an alignment. My son Robert is working at Dunn Tire and he got us a really good deal on everything. The van needs brakes. The van will go into the shop next Tuesday. Automotive transportation can be a very expensive proposition. Sometimes it seems the vehicles have a way of sensing when you are starting to get ahead a little bit and they choose that time to bleed you just a little. I haven’t been writing as much as I would like. I have been letting some things get me down and that needs to change. Tomorrow is a new day. Mornings are great. The whole day lies ahead, unspoiled, and full of promise. It’s going to be what you make it.

2011/07/16 09:00

Hanging out on the deck at Limp Lizard last night after a long week of service to the Evil Empire. Me and my friends Michelle and Marc, who also dwell in the belly of that soulless corporate beast. Could there have been a nicer night to hang out on the deck? I don't think so; perfect weather for Syracuse!

2011/07/06 09:00 I had a very strange dream last night. Or I should say I had some very strange dreams – plural. I dreamed I was on a date with a hot Asian chick. It was a triple date. There were two other couples. Usually in my dreams the people that populate them are people that I know. Sometimes the people in my dreams are actors from TV or films. In this case I didn’t recognize anyone. It was just some generic hot Asian chick. We were going to the movies and we were getting popcorn. The boxes of popcorn weren’t filled and I went behind the counter to fill the boxes. The popcorn smelled really good and it was warm and the boxes warmed in my hands as I filled them with the truly delicious smelling popcorn. I woke up and in that instant as I awoke I was really mad that there wasn’t any popcorn right there in the bed with me. I went to the bathroom, came back to bed, and slipped right back into the same dream. That almost never happens to me; slipping back into the same dream. I think I went back for the popcorn. I told my wife Karen about the dream and she said, “You were on a date with a hot Asian chick and all you cared about was the popcorn?” I know, hard to believe but true.

Cartoon in the paper this morning offers more proof, as if anymore were needed, that the judicious use of rum can solve many of life’s problems. The long weekend comes to a close. I am getting some Chinese take-out for dinner tonight. I usually get Chinese food on Sunday night but this kind of feels like a Sunday night. Not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. The weekend was nice. Very relaxing. All I did was some work around the house.

2011/07/04 20:00

2011/07/01 11:00 It is the first day of July already. Time is passing by so quickly. Slipping away really. I have started a new page for the Rants and Rambles section. This is Rants and Rambles version 5.5. I am trying to keep some of these pages from getting too big. I didn’t make as many entries in June as I would have liked. Sometimes life gets in the way of our best intentions. I had 225 page views in June. Again my readership is down. On my vocational front I am looking to get an early out. I am pushing for HR to include me in the voluntary severance package that was offered. At work I sometimes feel like Chicken Little running around telling everyone the sky is falling. Except that in my case it really is falling. I want to have some kind of shelter when things fall, when things implode, when there is a fire and everything tips over and sinks in the swamp (Monty Python reference). I told one of my bosses, the one I like, that my process was a train wreck waiting to happen. I told her, “the train is going to derail and I don’t want to be onboard when it happens.” I am waiting to see if the Evil Empire can step up and do the right thing for once and give me the package I deserve.

khan tiki mon's rants and rambles v.5.50

WTH?? What is going on? What's happening? What's the real deal? You want the truth? Can you handle the truth?

This latest iteration of my rants and rambles will be much like past versions. The key components will be unchanged. There still may be too much information shared and I am still most definitely weird as all get out. Being fair warned please read at your own peril. The truth is in here.