Setting Out Lines

Pt. Noire - Blackest of Nights

2012-01-29T19:00:00.001-06:00

Hoffman and I were visiting the Company’s West African offices. The tripwas a crazy one: San Francisco – London Heathrow – Lagos,

Nigeria

– Libreville,

Gabon

- Pointe Noire,

Congo

– Cabinda,

Angola

– Luanda,

Angola

– Paris,

France

– San Francisco. We might have even thrown in Kinshasa,

Zaire

somewhere, but I can’t remember. Allthat in only three weeks and a bit. It was exhausting.

The Pointe Noireoffice was a two person show: a Country Manager and a Finance Manager. I don’teven remember whether we had any oil production in the

Congo

at that time. Maybe we were just negotiatingto start drilling. Anyway, very small office. Country Manager was off-sitebeing treated for malaria. The Finance Manager (FM, for short) was hosting us.He had organized a “meeting-’n-greeting” service to pick us up at the airport.

Hoffman taught me: nevergo out of an airport in West Africa without beingdamn sure that the person with whom you are leaving is really who says he is. Sometravelers had been met by a person with the properly logo’d shirt, with seeminglyproper credentials, and who even knew the traveler’s name. The unsuspectingtraveler then got in a car with the guy and ended up in some bleak hideawaybeing held for ransom. No thanks.

Our smiling “greeter” waswaiting for us as we entered the terminal. We must have been the only expatsarriving because he walked up to us with hand extended. His shirt had a logo matchingwhat we’d been told to look for. We shook hands and asked his name.
He asked back, “Whoare you waiting for?”

We replied, “No, no.Who are you?”

His grin widened andhe replied, “Charles”, which also matched what we’d been told. We ignored thelogo on his shirt and asked, “What Company are you with?” Again, he gave a suitableanswer.

Finally we asked, “Whoare you here to meet?” He showed us a much-folded piece of paper with our namessemi-legible on it.

So far, so good: he’dpassed all the initial checks. We let him get our bags and help us through asurprisingly straightforward customs and immigration process. As we headedtoward his car, we verified that the license plate matched what the FM told usit would be. If any of our checks hadn’t matched up, we’d have remained in thepublic part of the airport and tried to contact the FM. After so much flyingaround the world to these out of the way places, these security precautions seemednormal to us – no big deal.

Charles led us to anew black SUV, loaded our luggage, and drove us to the Company’s guest house.Pt. Noire had no safe or comfortable hotels for foreign guests, so the Companyretained quarters for visiting employees. The house was quite nice – clean andbright. Too bad it turned out we wouldn’t be there much. We freshened up then acar and driver, which we again carefully vetted, took us to the Company officewhere we met the FM. It was mid-afternoon by this time. We chatted for a whilethen FM suggested that we go to his house, have a cocktail, and talk about whatwe wanted to do tomorrow. We’d been traveling for hours; it sounded like a greatplan to us.

Charles drove thethree of us 15-20 minutes to the gate of a high-walled compound. A securityguard swung open the solid metal gate at the sight of our vehicle. A secondguard was inside. The white painted stucco house was a chic, clean, tropicalbeauty with landscaped grounds. FM took us inside. His housekeeper asked whatwe’d like and brought us drinks in a sunlit, open family room looking out onthe backyard gardens -- and the security wall beyond. It was a huge house andso far as I could tell only the FM lived there. Pretty upscale, even if it wasin Pointe Noire,

Congo

We talked work for abit, but the FM didn’t really seem interested. We drank a couple more drinksthen he said, “Let’s go to the yacht club and sit by the water.” We loaded intohis car and he drove us to a nice outdoor bar – South Atlantic Ocean waves, beach, tropical breeze, sun, beautiful.We left the car on the street. He tipped a couple kids to watch the car whilewe were gone.

We had a few beers andwatched the gentle surf go in and out. He told us about life in Pt. Noire. Yes,it’s third-world-ish and you’re always worried about security, but not as muchas in some other cities in West Africa.Once you get the lay of the land, there’s a thriving expat community and plentyto do – as we’d find out. The legacy of the French occupation in late 19^thand early 20^th centuries meant that the food was excellent.

The sun started to godown and we returned to his car. He’d left his mobile phone in the car. Now itwas gone – car doors unlocked -- no sign of forced entry -- kids no where insight. Hoffman had left a binder in the car that had a cheap calculator in it.They took the calculator and left the binder – smart kids. The FM just shruggedit off. He said, “I’m here a lot and I’ll see those kids again. I’ll pay them afew dollars and I’ll get my phone back. Want me to try to get your calculator?”Hoffman shook his head “no” with a laugh. The calculator was probably worthabout a dollar.

FM drove us to arestaurant and we had a very nice meal. Like always when traveling I tried toeat only piping hot food, no raw vegetables. And, never, never drink thewater. We didn’t even order drinks with ice. And when we ordered beer, we madesure we saw them open it in front of us … ditto with bottled water. Otherwiseyou weren’t sure whether the content was pure or came out of a tap into a“recycled” bottle.

By the time dinner wasover it was past 10:30pm. Wewere beat, but FM said, “Nightcap.” He drove us towards the center of the townand parked. We walked down barely lit streets that were bustling with people. Thiswas definitely NOT the expat part of town. We attracted interested stares, butno more than that. I felt VERY white. FM led us toward the sound of music ablock or two ahead. We rounded a corner and found tables set up on the streetoutside a bar in the tropical nighttime heat. We found three open chairs andsat and listened to a not-bad band. We had a few more drinks. Fleas or someother creatures chewed on my ankles right through my socks. Finally, we said,“Enough.” It was after midnight. He drove us back to our rooms at the guesthouse. We agreed the car would pick us up at 9AM the next morning for work.

I took two aspirin anddrank two bottles of water before going to bed. Most African beer, it is said,is made with formaldehyde as a preservative. Plus, it’s strong beer … maybedouble the alcohol of American beer. The attending hangovers are massive.

I got up about 8am, took a shower (and some aspirin), and walkedinto the bright main room. The house staff provided coffee and breakfast, and Istarted to feel human again. We were ready to go by 9AM on the dot, but no car.No car by 9:30. With helpfrom the housekeeper, we called the FM. He said, “Oh, yeah. I’m running lateand I told Charles to get you at 10am.”

Thanks for letting us know, MF … sorry … FM.Another hour’s sleep wouldn’t have hurt.

So we got to theoffice at about 10:30. We triedto do what we came to do:

“Show us your computer set up. Who manages the system? What problemshave you had? How did you handle them? What problems do you anticipate? Whatare your biggest risks?”

“Show us your accounting section. What are about your financialcontrols? What problems have you had? How did you handle them? What problems doyou anticipate? What are your biggest risks?”

“Show us your office security measures and procedures.”

Etc.

We were not impressed.We heard lots of “Oh, that’s not a problem here.” Or “Oh, he’s not in theoffice today.” Or “I’ll show you that tomorrow.”

It was aggravatingthat we couldn’t get much business conducted. The FM knew weeks ago that we’dbe coming. He even knew the questions we were going to ask and what we wantedto see. Seems like he would’ve made sure we could meet the people we needed tomeet. It felt shady and, while the guy was extremely personable and fun to bearound, I was concerned about what he might be covering up. He was certainlyliving the grand life here … even if it was off the beaten track. What was henot telling us?

After a couple hoursof work, such as it was, he said, “Let’s go to lunch.” He took us to a niceplace. Nothing to special to note about it, except that it was a long lunch.

We went back to theoffice and worked fairly unproductively for a couple hours at which point hesaid, “You guys must be tired. Why don’t you go back to your rooms and we’llpick this up over dinner?” Huh? We’ve traveled several thousand miles and now workeda total of about five hours. We fly out tomorrow afternoon. We said, “No, let’sfinish this up.”

He said, “Well,actually I have an appointment with a government official.” We were not amused,but there was not a lot we could do. So a driver took us back to the guesthouse.

In truth, a nap wasa good thing; I slept like a log. I got up about 7PM and cleaned up for dinner. We hung out until theFM picked us up at 8PM. He drove us to a fancy French dinner club called the Pizzeria thatyou’d never know was there … set back off one of the main streets. (We neverfigured out why a French restaurant that didn’t even serve pizza was calledPizzeria.) The owner and staff seemed to know him. This became a theme. We atea proper meal and drank quite a bit. It was a long affair. He picked up the billand as we’re leaving, he said, “Nightcap?”

We said, “No. We havelots of work to finish in the morning and we fly out tomorrow afternoon.”

“No problem,” he said– meaning, we discover, not that he’s taking us back to the guest house,but that it’s “no problem” about working tomorrow.

And the next thing weknow we drive up outside yet another bar. We follow him in. The owner and staffseem to know him. We have some local beers: Ngok, meaning crocodile. I’mfeeling wasted. It must be midnight by now, and all I can think about is how I’mgoing to have to drag myself out of bed in the morning, and that I still haveto pack, and that I’m going to hate sitting on the plane tomorrow feeling hung-over.

Finally we leave andthe FM, unbelievably, says: “One more place.”

We say, “NO way.”

He says, “Oh, this is alocal place you have to see this to believe it.”

We say, “NO, really.”

He ignores us again anddrives down several side streets and then off onto a dirt track through aseemingly empty field. At the end of the track is a low building with dozens ofcars around it, but no lights. I hear a faint whump of a bass line coming frominside the building and see shapes of people around it. Intuitively, this isNOT a place I thought we should be going. As he gets out, FM says, “Watch yourdrink in here.” As in: “Watch your drink in here … because someone will sneak a drug into it and the next thing you knowyou’ll be in the alley with your wallet and passport stolen … and maybe beatenup -- or worse.”

This is just nuts butwhat are we going to do? He’s out of the car and heading for the building. No freakingway am I staying out there in the dark by myself or even with Hoffman. Wefollow him.

The owner, and thestaff, and the bouncers know him. Money changes hands at the door.Conversations with heads close together take place. A couple of the peopleglance at us. We’re waved in.

The door opens and I’mhit with the sound of rock music like a physical force. I can feel thepercussion from the speakers in my chest. My head throbs. It’s hot. It smellslike densely packed bodies, stale beer, and smoke. I sense more than hear thenoise of screamed conversations occurring over the music. It’s so black insidethat I can’t see anything for several minutes. Little by little my eyes adjust– alternately aided and hurt by multicolor strobe lights flashing over the tinydance floor in the corner.

More than half the crowdare women. I’m two steps in the door and three of them are pressed up againstme. They’re all looking in my eyes, smiling at me, and talking. Hand on mychest. Arm around my waist. Arm around my neck. Touching me, touching me. My right hand is in my front pocketwhere my billfold and passport are. I smile and try to fend them off. Big lipspout back at me as a quite nice breast presses against my chest. I feel aninsistent squeeze on my butt. Now I’m not smiling, I’m feeling claustrophobic.The FM rescues me, shakes his head at the hookers, and leads the way to the barthrough the mob.

Three Ngoks appear andwe watch the bartender pop the caps in front of us. We grab the bottles and putour thumbs over the tops. We turn our backs to the bar, keeping the beers inhand, and look out at the scene. It’s a constant parade of women walking by.One or two stop and lean over to say something in my ear. It’s so loud I have noidea what they’re saying – and they’re probably speaking French anyway. Oneleans in, smiles, and grabs my crotch and presses her chest against mine. Thatwas one too many. No smiles from me this time. I move her back a step using myfist holding the beer bottle. She frowns and sneers something obviouslyunhappy. A nearby guy gives me a hard look. Eventually the trick-parade thinsout as they realize we’re not buying. Another round of beers arrives.

Normally I would haveliked to watch the craziness. But, it is too dark to see – black faces in ablack night club. The music is painfully loud. Typically I’d have danced, but noway was I going into that churning mass on my own. The longer we are there, theless comfortable I become, and I haven’t been comfortable starting at theparking lot. I feel like a target – a conspicuous, easy target.

Finally at maybe 3 or 4AM, the FM decides he’s getting no more out ofus. He leads the way out. More money is exchanged with people at the door.Perhaps a “parking fee”, i.e., making sure the car is still there with all its accessories– wheels, battery, etc.

The FM drives us backto the guest house. It seems to take forever. We stumble out and agree that acar will pick us up at 10AM. That gives us a chance for three or four hours sleep anyway.

I drink four bottlesof water and take four aspirin. I know that’s going to be useless, but it can’thurt either. The room is spinning as I strip down to my underwear and flop onthe bed.

I almost don’t hearthe alarm because of the pounding in my head. I throw my clothes into thesuitcase, take a shower, and stagger out into the main living area. Hoffman’swaiting. “How do you feel?” he asks.

I reply, “Stupid. I’venever been so stupid as last night. I should have just said ‘Take me home.’ right after dinner. I think he was tryingto get us in trouble. I think he wanted something to use against us. If we findsomething really bad in the operation here, he could ask, ‘What’s your wifegoing to say when I tell her about that hooker from the club?’ That club: ascarier place I’ve never seen. And he’s been there a lot.”

“Can’t argue with anyof that. Let’s get out of here.” Hoffman says. I nod (which hurts) and we dragour bags out to the waiting car.

We made no attempt todo business at the office. He was not going to let us find anything, if therewas anything to find. Our flight was in mid-afternoon. We said our good-byesand headed toward the airport in the blaziing West African sun, which actuallyfelt good after that blackest of nights.

Lapses of Memory = Literary License

2011-11-25T10:38:00.001-06:00

Wonder of wonders, I heard from "Hoffman" about my previous post, "Brief Visit to Zaire". His memory was much better than mine. Here's the 'truer' story of our trip to Zaire. It doesn't make my earlier post any the less fun, however. I'll just change the label from non-fiction to fiction and all will be well.
We actually flew from Libreville, Gabon to Pt. Noire in the Congo first, and then our adventures started in trying to get from Pt. Noire to Cabinda, Angola. (The stay in Pt. Noire warrants a post of its own, I should tell you.)

Hoffman remembered that our flight from Libreville to Pt. Noire was an adventure in itself.

"...the plane we flew on was supposed to be Air Gabon flight but was a Lina Congo plane (not recommended by Corp Aviation) and had major mechanical problems at the gate. ... The mechanic who was working on it was in the cabin by the pilots' door when we took off. We weren't sure if he was there to fix anything in flight or if he was going to be personally accountable for any problem he didn't fix on the ground."

Hoffman also had a better recollection about our trip from Pt. Noire to Cabinda via Zaire:

"The flight from Pt. Noire was on Aero Servis, which was a commercial carrier that only did the local flights. It had regular flights to Cabinda was well as Muanda, Zaire.

"While we were in transit (I think we were still in Nigeria) the Cabinda airport was closed due to bomb incident. It was [Nigeria Finance Manager's] idea that we fly to Muanda [aka "Banana Base"]. He told us that he would have a [Company] helicopter waiting to pick us up and bring us to Malongo [aka Cabinda]. Well we landed in Muanda and no [Company] helicopter. So we started going through Customs which wasn't going well. I did have a Zaire visa but it was a single entry that had already been used. The local [Company] guy who came to get us was perplexed since we didn't have visas. He radioed to [the Country Manager] looking for direction. I remember this - hearing [his] voice on radio saying '...tell those guys that if they don't want to spend the night in a Zaire jail, they will get back on the plane and leave the country.' So we got back on plane not knowing what we were going to do since our Congo visas were no longer valid either.

"When we got back on the plane, we found out from the pilot that they were going to Cabinda, as the airport had reopened."

He also remembered:

"It was definitely one of the more challenging trips. One thing I remember - you were sitting in front of me on the flight into Muanda and when you didn't see any helicopter on the ground waiting for us, you turned and gave me the dirtiest look."

And I did too!

So THAT'S the real story ... and, thank you, T.H.

A Brief Visit to Zaire

2011-11-20T12:41:00.001-06:00

Deer in the headlights: that’s what I was.

It was an arduoustrip, aided only by the fact that Hoffman had been a great traveling companion… up to that point. We’d flown San Francisco-Paris-Lagos,

Nigeria

, spent three days in Lagos that felt like a week, then flew to Libreville in

Gabon

. All was well: we were out of

Nigeria

We had spent theweekend in Libreville at an acceptable hotel near the airport and next to the ocean. We’dwalked a couple miles into town and back. Along the way we had gotten more than a little drunkon sneaky-strong local beer. We ate crocodile for dinner at the hotel. We got areasonable night’s sleep. The next day both of us battled dysentery, thanks tosome scrambled eggs from the hotel’s (not very steamy) steam table breakfast.Even that nasty problem resolved itself by mid-afternoon, but we were in bedearly that night anyway. We had more traveling to do.

We were to leave the nextmorning via a chartered, twin-engine turbo-prop plane toward our company’s oilfieldin Cabinda,

Angola

. It was a short flight on a regular route forthe charter crew. Weather seemed cooperative -- never a certainty in thetropics.

In the morning we tooka taxi to the airport. I did my usual pat-down before leaving: Is the passport in my buttoned pocket whereit belongs? Is my Angolan visa application paperwork in my other pocket? Is mybillfold in my hip pocket? Yes, yes, and yes. In a few minutes: pat-pat-pat,check again.

Not knowing how longthe exit process would take, we arrived at the airport three hours early.Naturally we passed through immigration, customs and security without a majorproblem despite our not speaking French. That meant we hung out in the airportfor two hours before we finally got on the plane with a dozen or so otherpeople heading to Cabinda.

We take off and head south.I watch the ocean below us for a while then jungle as we cross back over thecoast. In the air for 30 minutes, a buzz begins in the plane. Someone in frontsays, “Trouble.” – never a word you want to hear in West Africa. Word filters back to us that the Cabinda airstrip is under mortar attack by the Angolanrebels. We circle. We run low on fuel. We need to land. Nearest strip: “BananaBase” in

Zaire

… now called

Democratic Republic of the Congo

We’re told we have noproblem: land at Banana Base, get some fuel, head back to Libreville or maybe down to Luanda,

Angola

The deer’s ears twitch. It shuffles its feet. Is that the sound of a carin the distance? Are those lights?

We circle a dirt airstripnear the coast then land. It’s hot, it’s humid. There’s no air conditioning onboard. I start to sweat. We taxi out and stop near a tin-roofed wooden shack atone end of the landing strip. It’s the only building in sight. Four scowling, heavilyarmed men in fatigues swagger slowly out towards the aircraft.

The pilot says, “Everyoneout. Show your passports and visas to the officials as you exit”.

I look at Hoffman and ask,“We need a visa?”

“I don’t know.”

“You have one for

Zaire

?”

“Yes.”

I ask, “Why didn’t youtell me to get one before we left the

?”

“I didn’t know we werestopping here.”

“Then why’d you getone?”

Hoffman: “Just to besafe.”

I say, “Thanks a lot.” Well, actually what I said was much more colorful. Hoffman’s rating as mytraveling companion dropped to zero, or slightly lower.

The deer clearly sees the car now. The headlights are bright, comingfast. The deer’s eyes are the size of pie plates as it stands statue-like,frozen in the road.

Hoffman got out first,passport (and visa) checked, waved on toward shack.

I’m out next -- passporthanded to a gaunt soldier with an AK47 slung over his shoulder. He has tribalscars on both cheeks. He smells like smoke and sweat. First there’s a squinty-eyedglare at the passport then at my face. Hard, calloused fingers flip one-by-one throughmy passport pages. Then a similar flip from back to front. Dark, angry eyes ina jet black face turn to me. The soldier growls something – French?

I give him a blank,doe-eyed stare.

The soldier stepscloser, barks more words – louder. He's missing a couple teeth.

Another silent starefrom me. Sweat soaks through my shirt. Sweat soaks through my khaki Dockers andmakes an I-wet-my-pants crotch stain.

Still louder words. Hewaves my passport in my face then slaps the passport into his palm. One of theother soldiers takes his gun off his shoulder and joins the first.

A Representative frommy company who has been watching the proceedings from a safe distance sidles over, holding his walkie-talkie. He tellsme, “He wants your visa.”

“I don’t have a

Zaire

visa.”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’texpect to get diverted to

Zaire

.”

“Hmm. That’s not good.You’re in

Zaire

, you know.”

The deer shifts from foot to foot. Its flanks quiver. It looks for anescape route. There is none. It lowers its head submissively.

I ask, “So, now what?”

Representative: “Idon’t know. That’s really not good. You’re sure you don’t have a visa.”

I say, “Believe me, ifI did, do you think I’d be hiding it?”

The deer thinks: Will someonePLEASE stop this? I’m just a helplessdeer. Don’t let that car hit me.

The Rep turns awayfrom me and begins talking in French with the soldiers. The Rep doesn’t lookdirectly at them – no eye contact. No one is smiling. The Rep makes a slightbow to the soldiers and wanders some distance off, his radio pressed to his ear.His free arm waves in my direction. Head shakes … no. More arm waving. He walksback toward me.

The deer thinks: Please, let thecar stop.

As the Rep gets withina step or two of me I hear over his walkie-talkie: “He’s going to get hisass thrown in jail, and I’m not going to bail him out.”

Rep says: “That’s the CompanyCountry Manager. He’s not happy.”

Rep re-opensnegotiation with the soldiers. Other passengers pass through the document checkand head to the potentially air conditioned, certainly shady, shack. I’m leftcooling, no, frying my heels in the sun.

Rep asks me, “How muchmoney you got?”

I answer, “Not much: coupleof hundred

maybe.”

“They’re saying the finefor entering illegally is $1000.”

“Now what?” I ask.

“I don’t know. This isreally not good.”

The headlights are blinding. The deer’s eyes begin to close, anticipatingthe impact, imagining becoming airborne and crashing through the windshield. Noteven the scant comfort of squealing tires as someone tries to stop.

“… And I’m not going to bail him out.” keepsplaying through my mind like a bad song.

And then I see peoplefiling out of the shack and heading toward the plane. The mortar attack on Cabinda has stopped and the airfield is mostly undamaged.We’re going to take off.

My passport is back inmy hand then stuffed back in its pocket. I force my way into line to be thenext person onto the plane. I flop into my seat near the window.

Hoffman, sits next tome and says, “Looked a little tense there for a second. Want a bottle ofwater?” His companion rating clawed itself back into the positive range. The door closes and the cabin becomes quite an efficient aluminum oven.The water is warm; I drain it in a gulp. I hear the engines start on oneside and then the other.

In five minutes we’reairborne. In another ten were at 8000’ and the air is cool coming in the vents.I slowly return to a semblance of normal body temperature. My hands stopshaking. My clothes even start to dry. In 20 minutes we start our descenttoward Cabinda.

The deer peers out at the road from the safety of the bushes – glad tobe alive. Wait, is that another car?

I overhear someonesay, “I wonder if they’ve cleared the minefield yet.”

End Of His Obsession

2011-11-09T19:36:00.002-06:00

Mitchell dumps thelast of the potato chip crumbs straight out of the bag and into his mouth, justas the game’s computer voice says, “It’s your turn.”

Mitchell sighs, “Fold… again” as he moves the mouse to click the appropriate button. Glancing at thebottom right corner of the screen he sees “3:32 AM”. He hesitates then clicksthe “Sit Out” button as well.

He thinks: Bathroom break then onemore hand. Work day tomorrow, well, today actually.

He tosses the potatochip bag onto the floor and kicks an empty Fiji water bottle out of the way as hewalks out of the den. He turns left to the bathroom and pushes open the door.He stands using the toilet and looks in the bowl. He wrinkles his nose.

I’ll clean up tomorrow. Take the trash out too.Tomorrow for sure.

Flipping lightswitches along the way he walks stocking-footed into the kitchen. He stepsaround a dead cockroach lying legs up on the tile floor and pulls the lastbottle of fruit juice from the refrigerator.

I’ll shop tomorrow too. Credit card shouldstand up to a few groceries.

Throwing the plasticbottle cap into the sink, he heads back to the den. The computer screen’s glowlights his way the last few feet.

Bad night. I can’t play my last hand with thatlittle bit of cash.

Sitting in front ofthe computer again, he clicks the “More Chips” button on the screen and beginsto step through the process of pulling money from his credit card. An “AwaitingAuthorization” pop-up window with an ad for a Canadian pharmacy appears on hisscreen. Then the “Awaiting” window turns into a red flashing “AuthorizationDenied.”

Frowning, he clicks“Retry” and walks through the process again, this time selecting half theoriginal amount he asked for. The computer again responds, “AuthorizationDenied.”

“What the fuck?” heasks the screen. He tries again -- just $50 this time.

“AuthorizationDenied.”

He stands up, sitsback down, and stands up again, rubbing his eyes with the palms of both hands.He walks into the bedroom, snatches his billfold off the dresser, and headsback toward the den. Sitting again in front of the computer he pulls a creditcard from his wallet. Holding the card at arms length under the desk lamp, hesquints at it.

Expired.

He tosses it towardthe waste basket. He pulls a handful of cards from the wallet and starts toshuffle through them.

Driver’s License. Insurance card. Businesscards. Credit card … for gasoline - no help. ATM card … no help - no money inthe account until payday. Citibank! There it is.

He holds the card withtwo fingers as though it’s hot.

I get my paycheck in a couple days. I’ll onlytake that much out tonight and I can put it back before she notices. She left itwith me after all. She said to use it if I needed it for emergencies. I cancover it. She’ll never notice.

Besides, Elaine owes it to me. Always blamingme for her mistakes and then having the nerve to say SHE’S moving out. She’sprobably got another man on the side anyway. So what if I relax playing poker.What’s it to her? I work hard. She did nothing around here. I take care of thisplace and I work too.

He clicks the “Retry”button, clears the automatically entered credit card information, and types inthe new number and expiration date. He hits “Continue.”

“Authorization Failed: Invalid Account HolderName.”

He thinks: Of course, Elaine’sname, not mine anymore.

He corrects theinformation, cursing under his breath when the system forces him to enter thecard number again. He clicks “Continue”.

Authorizing … Authorized … Enter BankrollAmount … Yes!

His fingers pauseabove the keys.

Maybe I need a bigger bankroll to get back evenfor the night, even if my luck does change. She must have a big limit on this.I wonder how big. I wonder if the penny-pincher knocked the limit down just tokeep me from using it.

$10,000. That’s the limit we had before shemoved out. I can always cash it out if I don’t use it tonight. I’ll put itback. My check comes in a couple days. And besides, she owes me.

He types quickly andthen clicks “Next”. The machine immediately responds: “Confirm $10,000 fromaccount … .” Grinning, he slaps the mouse with his whole hand to trigger the“Confirm” button. The computer prompts: “Return to game?”

“Yes,” he says aloudas he clicks the button on the screen.

The computer respondswith its manicured voice, “Blinds, please. Good luck.”

He leans forward inhis chair. Two cards appear at the bottom of his screen.

A pair of jacks! Now that’s what I’m talkingabout. It’s about time I got some cards.

The game says, “It’syour bet.” His avatar on the screen lights up. He rubs his hands together.

Let’s bully a few folks. $1000.

That’s a bigger betthan anyone’s made all night. Everyone folds around to the player on his right.

Call! You think you got me, chump? Not tonight,not tonight. I can wait you out tonight. I got the skill and tonight I got thebankroll.

The player to his rightcalls.

All right!

With the first roundof betting complete, the computer now deals three community cards face up onthe screen – the Flop. All three are small cards – 2, 6, 9 -- three differentsuits.

Here I come. $1000 more.

The player on hisright calls again.

Yum, yum. Come to papa.

The computer dealsanother card – the Turn: a queen.

Darn. Well you don’t know whether that helpedme or not. Let’s see how confident you are. $4000, that’s almost the size ofthe pot. Oh, dude. I’m sorry did that put you ‘all in’. Well, OK, give me that$3120 you got in front of you.

The player to hisright hesitates.

I hate slow players. Come on, bet, you jerk. Igot you.

The computer voicesays, “All In.”

Yes. That’s what we want.

The computer shows theplayers his two jacks, and shows his opponent’s cards: queen – two.

No! How did you bet $1000 with a queen-two then$1000 more with a freakin’ pair of deuces? You idiot. And now you sit therewith your two pair on the Turn. I need a jack. Gimme a jack, damnit.

The computer shows thelast card – the River: a jack.

“Three of a kind!” heyells.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, sorry. Is allyour money gone, you stupid jerk. You shouldn’t have bet in the first place. Yougot what you deserved, you worthless piece of … whatever. Oh, yeah.

The money flows hisway on the screen with a well-simulated sound of Vegas casino chips on felt.

Five thousand dollars on one hand.Tonight is my night.

He takes a sip fromthe bottle of juice and peers at the screen. His new hand is showing already:an ace and king.

Oh,yeah!

He bets strongly andwins again, forcing out another player by taking all his money. He smiles andslaps the desk.

Oh, baby. I’m on a roll, sweetheart. Come on.

He wins hand afterhand for nearly an hour before finally losing a pot. From then on he winsseveral big pots and loses some smaller ones. People come and go from thetable. His bankroll grows. He’s playing on adrenaline. The sun has been up forhours. It cuts though the gathering clouds and pierces the openings of theplantation shutters on the window. He’s heard the garbage truck come and go andheard the kids yelling as they walked to school. He never bothered to call insick for work. He’d only gotten up twice to go to the bathroom down the hall.He hated to do it, fearing it could change his luck. But, no, his luck stayedand his winnings kept growing.

He settles in to playagain. On the next hand he gets king and queen of hearts.

OK. OK. Not bad. Let’s see what a big bet makespeople do.

The betting rollsaround to him and he raises to $5000. Several people call his bet, then aplayer with the screen name URMineraises to $10,000.

This guy’s been a pain in my ass ever since hesat down. He plays pretty loose. I bet he’s got nothing.

When the bet comes tohim, Mitchell calls URMine’s bet. Twoother people call as well.

The Flop comes: jack of hearts, king of spades, ace ofspades.

Holy Cow, what a Flop. I’ve got middle pairwith the kings. I also see a possible straight and a flush. I’ve got the cash,you suckers. You’re not pushing me out of this pot tonight.

A few small bets comein until the bet passes around to URMine,who raises to $20,000.

Oh, heck. What’s this guy got? Has he got twopair, say king-ace? Or maybe he’s hoping for a straight or flush just like me.Does he have two spades? But how does he know I don’t have spades too? I’m cashup and I WANT this guy. I want to send him home. No, wait: I bet all he’s gotis an ace. I bet he’s just raising on the ace. The high pair: a pair of acesbetween him and the board. Not good enough, buddy.

He moves the cursorover the “Call” button. His finger shakes as he taps the mouse. Now he has$30,000 in the pot. It’s easily the biggest pot of the night. Everyone elsefolds. He’s playing heads-up against URMine.

The Turn card is aceof hearts.

Oh, yeah! Now I’ve got a nice two pair andstill a chance at my straight or flush. I just need one more heart. Just oneheart, baby, come on.

As though to heightenthe tension, lightning flashes outside followed immediately by a crash ofthunder. Rain starts pounding against the window. His gray cat jumps onto thedesk and head-butts his arm, alarmed by the storm. “Not now.” Mitchell hissesand forearms the cat onto the floor.

URMine is still thinking about his next bet.

Come on, you jerk. You’ve been playing slow allnight. Make up your mind, make up your mind.

URMine bets $65,000. Mitchell’s chin sinks to his chest. He squeezes his eyesclosed and pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.

Aw, hell, fuck. He’s got a queen-ten and isbetting his straight. Oh, no, worse: he’s got king-ace and just made his fullhouse. Or, shit, he could have two aces in the hole and just hit four of akind. I have to fold. I have to fold.

Of course, he could just have an ace for threeof a kind. Or maybe just a couple spades and is hoping for a spade on theRiver. Then our chances are the same. I need a heart; he needs a spade. What’she on?

He rubs his face withboth hands and looks up at the screen to see a clock counting down from 30seconds appear next to his avatar. A chat text from URMine arrives on the right side of his screen: “I’ve got the nuts,there sweetie. Give it up.”

No way, you arrogant jerk. You’re tellingme you have two aces in your hand plus the two on the board. That’s the highesthand with these cards. You just tipped your bluff, you idiot. You got nothin’.

He slides the cursorover the “Call” button and slaps the mouse hard enough to make it jump on thedesk. He’s bet $95,000 on two pair. He has less than $1000 left in front ofhim. He looks again at what he’s just done, runs his hand through his hair andlicks his lips.

I need a heart. Oh, dear god, give me a heart.I’ll never gamble again. I’ll give half my winnings to charity. Please, god,let me win this. Please let me beat this moron. Please.

He picks up the longforgotten juice bottle and tips his head straight back to suck out the laststale drops. The cat again sits on the desk beside him, looking at his face. Hescratches the cat between the ears. The computer says, “Last Card”.

“A Fucking HEART,” hescreams at the screen shaking his fist.

The virtual card onthe screen flips. The River card is the ten of hearts.

“My flush!” he yellsstanding up. Then his eyes become wide.

Ten – jack of hearts on the board, queen – kingof hearts in my hand, and ace of hearts on the board. Ten-jack-queen-king-ace.All hearts.

He sits down again.His finger leaves filmy prints on the computer screen as he points to each cardin turn.

Ten-jack-queen-king-ace. All hearts. That’s aRoyal Flush: the highest hand in poker. I can’t lose. Oh, my god. Oh, my god.I’ve got him. I’ve got him. And my money worries are over. I’ll make $100,000on this one hand.

He stands up yet againand takes a step back as another chat message comes in from URMine: “I told you to fold, Mitchell. Iknow that’s my money you’re playing with. Did you think I’d let you have thatcredit card without keeping tabs on it? I’ve got the cards, Mitchell. You’redone playing poker. I know you’re bluffing.”

He puts his hands onthe edge of the desk and leans forward toward the screen in disbelief.

Elaine? Are you URMine?Is that you that has been playing this whole time? Impossible. When did you start playing poker?And how did you get to be so good?

Another chat messagearrives from URMine: “I had thecredit card account configured to send text alerts to my phone when someoneuses the card. I knew you couldn’t resist. And now I’ve got you. You’re goingto be broke and no way out. I’m going to prosecute you for fraud, Mitchell. Youare mine."

And with that he sees URMine go “All In” with $5000. It’s morethan Mitchell has. If he bets and loses, he’ll lose it all. And then it hitshim:

So what if it is Elaine? So what if it is mywife? So what? I CAN’T LOSE!

“Oh, no, Elaine. Youare MINE,” he yells at the screen.

He sits down again,the cat next to him on the desk. He grabs the mouse and runs the cursor towardsthe “Call” button. Just as he moves the mouse, a blinding flash of lightningand a ripping crack of thunder rattle the house. The startled cat jumps forwardand lands on his hand holding the mouse. The cursor skids an inch to the leftand, as it does, the cat’s claws sink into his hand. His fingers clench andclick the mouse key. The cursor sits over the “Fold” button.

The lights flicker andbegin to fade out. The storm has knocked out the power. The last thing Mitchellsees on the screen is his mound of chips slowly flowing towards URMine’s four aces.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Walter smiled as heread the news article online two days later. He and Elaine would be happy nowwith Mitchell truly out of the way. Walter's plan had worked so much betterthan he’d intended. He’d only meant to get Mitchell in trouble with the law.That’s why Walter had gone online and set up Elaine’s credit card to notify himwhen Mitchell used the card.

Mitchell was such an idiot. He’d totallybelieved that I was Elaine online. Why did Mitchell think Elaine knew how toplay poker at all?

The whole thing could have gone so horriblywrong, and yet it all worked out so perfectly. What incredible luck: forMitchell to pull the one hand that could beat my four aces and then to fold andlet me win. Why did that fool fold the perfect hand?

And Elaine will never know that I had anythingto do with it.

Walter leaned back inhis chair in front of the computer and laced his fingers together behind hisneck looking at the news article again. He never imagined Mitchell would commit suicide, though -- slitting hiswrists with plastic shards from the smashed computer monitor. And, why had hefirst killed the cat by cramming a wireless mouse down its throat? Walterlaughed inside.

Oh, well. Can’t worry about that, can we? So,I’ll just play a few more hands before Elaine gets home. I'll clean the houselater.

Dodging the Bullet

2011-10-23T22:54:00.000-05:00

In 1969:

· The average

houseprice was $27,550. Gasoline sold for $0.55 per gallon.

· Neil Armstrong and three othersbecame the first men to walk on the moon.

· 400,000 attended WoodstockMusic Festival in Bethel, NY.

· Sugar Sugar (by the Archies) topped the Billboard 100 song list. Aquarius/Letthe Sunshine In (5^TH Dimension), Honkey Tonk Women(Rolling Stones) and I’ll Never Fall in Love Again (Tom Jones) were inthe top 10. The Beatles released Abbey Road.

· X-rated “Midnight Cowboy” wonbest picture at the Academy Awards. John Wayne won an Oscar for “TrueGrit”. Best screen play and best musicwent to “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”.

· The first commercial 747airplanes and the first ATMs went into service.

· Richard M. Nixon becamePresident, succeeding Lyndon Johnson. Dwight D. Eisenhower died.

· Australian media baron RupertMurdoch purchased the largest selling British Sunday newspaper, The News ofthe World.

· Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi cameto power in

Libya

following a coup.

· James Earl Ray was sentenced to99 years for killing Martin Luther King. Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of theassassination of Robert Kennedy. Charles Manson’s cult was charged with murderof Sharon Tate and three others.

· The first

troopsbegan withdrawing from

Vietnam

. News of the

massacre of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai was released.

And

I was a 19 year old college sophomore.

And

The

modified its Selective Service process to use a lottery system. The lotteryrandomly assigned each draft eligible male a number based on hisbirthdate. Starting in 1970, theSelective Service would draft men born between 1944 and 1950 into the US ArmedForces based on their lottery number, starting with #1 and working up thesequence until the required number of recruits was inducted.

On December 1, 1969the Selective Service placed 366 capsules in a drum. Each capsule contained aunique number between 1 and 366. The number one signified January 1; the numbertwo was January 2 and so on -- one for each day of the year 1950. Capsules weremixed then drawn one by one from the drum. The first date drawn receivedlottery #1, the second date received #2, and so on.*

My group of friends gathered at our collegefraternity house that day to watch the drawing on TV. The lottery process meantyou couldn’t know at what point your birthday would be assigned its number. Wemanually kept a table of dates and their numbers so that late comers could findout where they stood.

One of our buddies walked in late andasked, “What’s September 14?”

Our answer: “Oh, Christ, man. That’s #1.”

He stood without moving for some secondsthen took a deep breath and asked, “Really?”

We just nodded. He shook his head, turned,and walked out without another word.

Far too soon my birthday was pulled: #92.The Selective Service expected to draft numbers through at least #200.** With#92 I was most assuredly going to get drafted. I could keep my studentdeferment until graduation in 1972, but beyond that, I was going in the ArmedForces.

Males on campus were drunk well into thenext morning -- those with high numbers drinking to celebrate; the rest of us,drinking to forget. The most common question the next day: “What’s yournumber?” After that, most of us put out of our minds, as best we could, theSelective Service sword over our heads. We focused on keeping our studentdeferments by progressing normally toward graduation.

I married my high school sweetheart inFebruary 1970. We were blessed with a baby girl in June 1971. In June 1972 Iwas graduated with my BA degree in mathematics. My faculty advisor convinced meto work toward a master’s degree in statistics. I was lucky to receive ateaching assistantship in mathematics at a large university north of us. It hadan excellent program in statistics. We packed our meager belongings and movedwithin a few miles of the university. We rented a newly built two-bedroomapartment. It was across the street from a concrete factory and, even withthat, was serious upgrade from our cramped, dirty, two-room college digs. Ourdaughter finally got her own room: good for her and good for us.

In September I began attending classes instatistics and computer science. I also taught two units of freshman math aspart of my assistantship. My wife worked as a waitress at a restaurant near ourapartment. Our daughter was a healthy, happy baby. Things were going well, andthen I received notification from the draft board that my student deferment hadended. I was declared 1A: eligible for the draft.

Soon after came a notification to report toChicago for my pre-induction physical. A couple weeks later I got on a busbefore dawn for the two-plus hour ride to the medical center along with 50 ormore other potential recruits. It was a quiet group on that bus.

We pulled up in front of a large buildingsomewhere in a not very nice part of Chicago. Dozens ofother buses were queued up along the street as well, each disgorging its loadof potential draftees. Our driver said, “Remember your bus number: 255. Youtake this bus back when you’re done. If you miss it, you are on your own toreturn to your home. Remember 255. It’ll be in this same area when you’redone.” We filed off the bus and entered the large, open, high-ceilinged,warehouse-like facility.

First the recruiters gave us anintelligence test. As I read through the test, I thought about trying to missevery question. I wondered whether by pretending to be that stupid I could geta deferment. However, the recruiters dangled the incentive in front of us thathigher scores might qualify you for officer training, which I equated to higherpay. So, I gave the test an 80% effort, figuring they’d probably seen it allanyway, and the “intelligence” test was a mere formality. I thought they mighteven prefer a little stupid.

Then the physicals started. We had to stripto our underpants and put the rest of our clothes in baskets which we handed toan attendant behind a counter. We pinned the ID tag for our basket to ourunderwear. It was quite a sight with 100s of nearly naked young guys paradingbarefoot from examination station to examination station. The stations were notpartitioned, just different tables, each with a large number overhead. Theprocess went like this:

“Sit over thereand fill out this medical history form. Take your papers to the next stationwhen you’re done.”

“Papers please.You’ll feel a little stick. [Poke. Scribble scribble.] Take your papers to thenext station.”

“Papers please. Bend over, touch your toes.Turn around. Lift your arms. Raise your left leg to your chest. Now your right.[Scribble scribble.] Take your papers to the next station.”

“Papers please. Open your mouth and say ‘ah’.Turn your head left. Turn your head right. [Scribble scribble.] Take yourpapers to the next station.”

“Papers please. Drop your shorts. Turn yourhead and cough. Again. Pull them up. [Scribble scribble.] Take your papers tothe next station.”

“Papers please.Put on these ear phones. Raise your hand on the side from which you hear thetone. [Scribble scribble.] Take your papers to the next station.

Eventually we had a vision check. This wasmy one glimmer of hope for a medical deferment. I had “pink eye”(conjunctivitis) in my left eye. I didn’t say anything to anyone about it. Iassumed that they were the medical ‘experts’ and they’d figure out that a guywith a crud-matted, red, swollen, tearing eye was probably someone to whom theyshould give special consideration. I didn’t believe that pink eye would qualifyme for a medical exemption because it would go away with treatment within thenext several weeks – and I had to treat it because it could otherwise lead toserious eye complications. None of the people that examined me said a word. Ikept my mouth shut. That was probably stupid, but I’ll never know. (Pink eye isvery contagious. I wonder how many recruits I passed it along to during the courseof the exams.)

At the last station an officer lookedthrough my accumulated paperwork, put it on a stack with dozens of similarfolders, and said, “Get dressed then sit under the Results sign overthere until your name is called.”

We were happy to retrieve our baskets, getdressed and wait. I felt dirty all over. I sat with the mob under Results.

Three big football player types waitingwith me were all planning to enlist together – in the Marines, I think. Two ofthe guys skated through their physicals without a problem. They exchangedhigh-fives as they received news that they had passed the medical exam. Thethird guy, however, received a medical exemption: something wrong with hisfeet. He was disconsolate to the point of sobbing and crying on his buddies’shoulders. His two friends were going off to defend their country - anadventure in foreign lands. He was staying home with a defect he hadn’t evenknown he’d had.

I thought: Tell you what I’ll do: giveme your flat feet and you can have my place in the jungle with your buddies. I’llstay home. No problem.

My name was called and I sat in front of adesk with a uniformed officer behind it. He flipped through the pages of myexam results, and then said, “You have a bi-lateral calf muscle. That’s aboutit.”

I asked, “Will that keep me out?”

“No.”

I asked, “Will my pink eye?”

He looked at me, flipped through some of mypapers, and said, “That’s not in here.”

“Well, I’ve got it.”

He peered more closely at my face and said,“And, no one caught it. Unbelievable.”

He sighed and got up. He walked over to aknot of uniformed examiners some distance away. He exchanged some words withthem while showing them my papers. A couple of them glanced over at me when hewaved an arm my way. He left that group and walked through a door and out of mysight.

In 20 minutes he was back. “You’re clear togo. Wait at Section A downstairs for your bus. It departs in thirtyminutes. Be there or it leaves you.”

I asked, “What about my eye?”

“When you report for induction, if youstill have the problem, they’ll deal with it then.”

The “When you report …” rang like abell in my head.

We stood outside two hours waiting for ourbus 255 to leave from Section A. It was a long ride back home. The examhad taken more than 12 hours door to door. For having done nothing but walkaround naked, I was exhausted.

Six weeks later a letter arrived from ThePresident, my orders to report for induction: “GREETINGS: You are here by orderedto report …” I drank a lot that night. In four weeks, I was going to be inthe US Army.

The next day I called the local SelectiveService office, asking, “How do I get out of this?”

The nice woman on the other end of thephone asked me several questions about my status: In college? Married?Children? Siblings in the Services? Change in physical capability since themedical exam? Finally she said, “You can’t get out of it. You can, however,postpone induction until you receive your degree if you will receivethat degree within a year.”

I told an outright lie, “Yes, I’ll receivemy degree within a year.”

She said, “You’ll need to complete FormXYZ and have your faculty advisor sign it verifying that you’ll receiveyour degree within a year. You can pick up the form at the post office.”

I drove straight to the post office andfrom there to my faculty advisor’s office on campus. I filled out the formwhile I waited for him in the hall outside his office. His door opened, astudent came out, and I barged in. “Dr. [Name Withheld to Protect theInnocent], sign this please,” I said, handing him the form.

He glanced at the page and saw “SelectiveService” at the top. He frowned, sat down behind his desk and read thedocument. He said, “I can’t sign this unless we determine you’ll graduatewithin a year.”

I said, “Oh, just sign it.”

He said, “Can’t really. It’s a federaloffense to falsify information. I can’t risk jail, but don’t panic. Let’s workthrough this.”

He pulled my university paperwork from afile drawer (1972: pre-PC, pre-Internet). He flipped through pages in myfolder. “So to graduate you need 38 hours of credit. You’re taking 9 hours thissemester. If you take the maximum allowable 18 hours next semester and the maximum 12 hours in summersession, that’ll give you enough credits to get your MS degree in a year.”

Now we both knew that wasn’t going tohappen. My teaching assistantship was the only way I’d been able to afford togo to grad school. It specifically limited me to 9 hours per semester. To dowhat he was suggesting would mean I’d have to give up my assistantship --financially impossible. And even if I did manage to swing it financially, itwas probably impossible for me to sign up for 18 hours of classes in a singlesemester that would actually progress me toward my major. The university justdidn’t offer the specific statistics classes in any one semester that I neededto graduate in that short of time. We both knew this.

He said, “Look me in the eye and tell meyou’re going to sign up for that number of hours.”

I mostly looked him in the eye and said,“I’m going to sign up for that number of hours.”

He signed the form and handed it back to mewith a wink and a grin. “Good luck.”

I mailed the form to the Selective Serviceon the way home.

A couple weeks later, I received a lettersaying that my orders to report had been deferred until July next year -- 1973.I’d bought a reprieve. I still thought I’d have to go into the Army, and Iwould go when called, but at least we had several months to prepare for it.

Life settled into a tough but manageableroutine. I’d drive to the university early in the morning then spend the dayattending my classes, teaching freshman math, studying, going to computer lab,etc. I’d get home in the evening. Often I’d leave the car running while my wifecame down, jumped in the car, and drove to her waitress job. I’d feed ourdaughter, give her a bath, and put her to bed. I’d study and then go to bed.I’d feel my wife crawl in with me when her shift was over early in the morning.And then the alarm would go off and we’d start the routine again. It wasdifficult, but not as difficult as my being in the Army was going to be.

Then a miracle happened. President RichardM. Nixon officially saved my ass on 27 January 1973by instituting an all-volunteer army and canceling the Selective Servicedraft. To this day I firmly believe thathe single-handedly saved my life by not sending me to

Vietnam

.I have an awful premonition about what would have happened if I’d been shippedover there. I also know, from having seen my buddies returning, that at thevery least I’d have developed a significant drug problem. For keeping me out ofall that I’m eternally grateful and it really doesn’t bother me how many otherstupid mistakes Nixon made in his Presidency.

Three weeks after the announcement that thedraft had ended, I received a Selective Service letter canceling my orders toreport for induction. I still have that letter. I was clearly more drunkcelebrating this good news than I had been drowning my sorrows when I got myletter to report for induction.

My life suddenly was lighter – like thedifference between a gloomy tropical jungle and a sunny Illinois cornfield.I had a future for which I was in as much control as anyone ever is. I receivedmy MS degree in 1974. I took a job with a large corporation in New Orleans. Ihelped raise our daughter, and generally I have had a good life since then.

Thanks, Tricky Dick. No matter what theysay about you, you’re number one with me. You helped me dodge the bullet --probably a lot of them.

* Later it was shown that the lottery may not have been perfectlyrandom, but the results stood.

** In reality #195 was the highest number drafted during 1970.

The Math Class

2011-08-06T15:45:00.000-05:00

We six remaining advanced calculus survivors stared out the open second floor windows at the sun-dappled leaves on the oak trees just outside. The 110 year-old building was not air-conditioned, but the tall windows with their low sills allowed a fresh-smelling morning breeze to pulse its way into the classroom. The spring weather was perfect. We were concentrating on an afternoon of cutting our college classes while lying in the grass under those oak trees, letting the warmth soak into us after the long Illinois winter.

Our instructor stood at the front of the room, chalk in hand, going over our homework from the previous class. He wore his usual shapeless black suit and wrinkled white shirt without a tie. It made him look even taller and thinner than he already was. His worn, scuff-streaked shoes echoed his disheveled, gray-streaked hair.

He had taught math virtually forever at our liberal arts college. Everyone described him the same way: “Quirky, but brilliant.” He had PhDs in both mathematics and philosophy from University of Edinburgh in the UK. He was such a brilliant mathematician that we weren’t smart enough to really fathom how brilliant he was.

You could find him nearly every afternoon and well into the evening sitting at the bar in one of the college hangouts in town.He always smiled at us when he saw us come in. His wife had died some years before. People who knew him well said that without her, he’d become even more eccentric.

He stuffed his college office with mathematics books, journals, and papers – on shelves, side tables, chairs and nearly every other free surface. Over-full ashtrays were scattered about on top of the heaps. The blackboard on one wall was always crammed with densely packed rows of equations, none of which could we understand. His big wooden desk was stacked literally three feet high with papers -- stacked so high the pile seemed to defy physical laws of friction and gravity.

Amazingly, though, when we went in to ask about a test score, he’d mumble, with a cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth, “Oh, um, ah, yes, your test, um, ah, Mr…. , ah. Yes, your test. From last week … your, ah, test.” And his arm would disappear nearly to the elbow into the stack on his desk and seemingly blindly he’d pull out a paper or test booklet. Magically it would nearly always be the paper he was looking for. Squinting at the paper through the smoke, he’d say things like, “Um, ah, it, ah, appears you passed, sir. Only a C+, I’m afraid, but perhaps I, um, made the test a bit, ah, stout shall we say? Anyway, ah, here … … um.” We’d take the test, say thanks, and turn to go. He’d already have gone back to whatever math problem he was working on.

Today, though, we were sitting at our desks in the classroom, working through the solutions to the homework. He wrote a particularly difficult problem on the blackboard, and turned to us, eyebrows raised in question. The brightest of us piped up, “Dr. H we couldn’t get this at all. We worked on it together last night. No matter where we started, we always came up with an obviously incorrect result. We finally decided the problem must be wrongly stated in the book.” The rest of us nodded in agreement.

He turned and looked with renewed interest at the problem on the board for a moment then he turned toward us again. His pale blue eyes darted around the room, looking over our heads. He said, “Yes, well. The problem is, ah, correct, you see, and it’s quite an, um, interesting one. Can anyone suggest where we might start?”

We threw out ideas that we had tried and that had failed us the previous night. He nodded and gave a crooked-toothed, but sympathetic smile to each suggestion.

“Yes, er, ah, um, that’s a logical starting place, but it is quite difficult, um, complicated from there.”

“Um, yes, I can see where you might start with that, but I’m not sure that will work.”

“Ah, no, you should see quite quickly that starting point will, um, immediately lead to a solution that converges to, ah, infinity.”

When we ran out of ideas, he said, “Well, yes, you followed many of the trails that most, um, undergraduate mathematicians might try, but perhaps, ah, let me show you how one of the more simple, uh, more simple solutions might be derived.”

He faced the board, circled part of the problem with the chalk and said, “Now if we convert this to a Fourier series …”, and he began writing rows of equations on the board. “And then if we differentiate this first in x …” and more rows of symbols appeared. “And then in y … “

He began writing this derivation, but then stopped. He stared at the board, chalk dangling in his right hand at his side, his left hand pointing to various lines of mathematics on the board. “Hmm, ah, no, ah, hmmm … hmm. No that isn’t quite it, is it? Do you see? Hmm. Ah, that’s not right. Hmm. Ah! Sorry.”

He grabbed a large eraser and wiped several of the most recent lines from the board. “Ah, from here, no, ah, first, um, we need to use this … “and he circled a bit from higher up the sequence “… and, um, substituting …” and began furiously writing more on the board. I gave up trying to copy into my notes what he was writing.

He filled the entire first blackboard with equations and moved to the second board on his right nearer the window. “Now, if THAT is true,” he said, waving vaguely at something on the first board, “then, of course, then it must also be true that …” and he rapidly wrote across the top of the fresh board. “Um, ah, so then … “, and he wrote yet more, but again stopped with his hand poised over the board.

“Um … hmmm … ah … sorry … … sorry … … … sorry, uh, hmmm. This, er, can’t be correct either. Ah, oh, dear."

The bell rang in the hallway signaling end of class. None of us moved. The room was consumed by awed and complete silence. We felt ourselves quietly fade from existence.

He rapidly backed up a step then stood stock still except for his lips moving and his left arm conducting a pattern back and forth across what he’d just written. He ran his right hand through his hair adding a streak of chalky white with the gray.

“Ah, oh, of course. First, of course, it’s obvious that first I must …” With that he again erased several of the latest lines of work and slammed the chalk against the board writing a series of new equations. He mumbled as he worked, “So then, of course, this means …" more symbols … “so that THEN …” more and more symbols on the second board now. Chalk dust drifted around him in the sunbeams. As he attacked the board, broken pieces of chalk flew in the air and left trails down his suit as they fell.

“BUT, BUT … then, I see … I see now." More and more symbols. He stopped yet again. He stepped back, stared, and moved back another step. “Blast! What?” His eyes roamed the equations -- left arm pointing one way, right arm with the chalk pointing another. Sweat stood out on his forehead. “Where? Hmmm. Blast. Hmmm. Where?”

He charged the board, grabbing another piece of chalk from the tray with his left hand. “But if that’s true …” smashing the chalk in his left hand against the board, “… then THAT cannot be true …” slashing through that portion of work with the chalk in his right.

His head swiveled back and forth. “BUT! Oh, of course, but …” And chalk marks again flew across the board. He wrote first with his left hand then his right. He shouted, “And then …”

Clack, clack, CLACK went the chalk in staccato sequence.

“ … SO ! AH, SO! And THEN … SO, I have THIS AS THE SOLUTION!”

With his final flourish, he crushed the chalk in both hands against the last line he’d squeezed in at the very bottom of the board. Both pieces of chalk broke in two and flew in the air past his triumphant shoulders. With a delighted grin, he literally hopped back from the board and put is foot into the small waste basket near the wall. Losing his balance, he sat down hard on the low window sill, and, still grinning at the blackboard, began a slow motion fall out the open window.

Our trance of the last several minutes evaporated. I grabbed at his thighs and another guy caught him by his outstretched right hand. He regained his feet and didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. Still smiling he said, “So THAT’S the correct solution, class. Simple, really, except for that one bit. And um, well, simple. Ah, … class dismissed.”

Not knowing what else to do, we grabbed books and papers and rushed for the door.

We bought our lunches and took them outside to eat in the shade. We talked about the meaning of ‘simple’ and whether being brilliant was all it was cracked up to be. We couldn’t help but glance at the open window above us. Another math class was in session.

Mud

2011-07-11T13:42:00.000-05:00

The building’s glass front lets lots of sunlight into the clinic’s entrance lobby, but it still smells like a hospital inside. I show my appointment letter at the long check-in counter facing the windows. The attendant behind the desk hands me a slip of paper and waves me down a corridor to my left, brightly lit by windows on both sides. The corridor is full of people. Many have obvious physical or neurological problems – amputees, paraplegics. I try not to stare. The number of wheelchairs amazes me. It seems every third person is in a wheelchair -- ‘normal’ kinds of wheelchairs, chairs powered by handles attached to the wheels, chairs powered by hand-cranked bicycle gearing, “chairs” that are actually beds with their occupants lying flat and powering them with their hands using handles connected by gears to the wheels. I see only one or two electric powered chairs. I walk slowly down the corridor making way for people coming toward me. It is surprisingly quiet for the number of people - just a background murmur of voices.

At the end of the corridor I turn left into a narrower hallway less well lit with fluorescent lighting fixtures in the ceiling. There are no windows here. Doors line each side. Metal benches sit against the walls between the doors. The walls are faded brown, paint peeling in a few places. The floor is smooth concrete – and smoother still from the constant traffic and constant sweeping and scrubbing. People sit or stand in small groups up and down the hallway. A few patients lay on gurneys.

I see a desk halfway down the long corridor and walk perhaps 30 yards towards it. A stern looking woman in a blue nurse’s uniform sits with her back to the wall on a straight-backed wooden chair behind the worn desk. I hand her the slip I’d received at check-in. She looks at it. Looks at me and frowns. She waves for me to give her something else. I stare blankly. She says, “Ka-ni’ga.” I should know that word, but I panic and give her another blank stare. “Dok’koo-ment!” she says, rolling her eyes. Ah! Document and she had said “book” first, I now realize. I hand her the thin passport-like book I’d been given before arriving at the clinic. She sniffs and writes information on a ledger in front of her, glancing at my paperwork as she does. She writes a number on my slip, slaps it between the pages of my book and hands it back to me. “Sem-nad’sit”, she says, waving vaguely back to my left and looking down at the ledger on the desk. I should know that word too, but it doesn’t register. I smile and say, “Thanks.” Walking down the corridor the way she’d indicated I pull the slip from the book and see “17” written on it. Seventeen, “sem-nad’sit”. Of course. That’s what she’d told me.

Walking along I notice the small white painted numbers on the dark wooden doors to my right. 33 ... 31 … 29. At least Ukrainian and American numbers are the same. Good. Soon I’m at 17. The door is closed. Now I’m stumped. Do I go in? Knock? I opt to wait it out. I sit on the bench outside the door. Other people sit on the benches around me. I play “Watch the natives”. Uniformed attendants periodically come out of the numbered doors and wave people into the rooms. I settle back and hope someone comes for me.

I amuse myself watching people, guessing their ailments, where they’re from, telling stories in my head. Pretty soon a large -- a very large, actually -- woman comes out of door 17. She has on the ubiquitous blue uniform. Her hair is covered in a white handkerchief tied pirate style. She looks around, squinting and asks a half-question, “Dzhon?” John, that’s me. I smile and stand up. She beckons and I follow her through door 17 into a small anteroom with a bench and a chair. A second door is on the opposite wall as I walk in. She says something and I hopefully hand her my slip. She looks at it and then stuffs it in her pocket. She says something to me. I stare. She motions at my clothes and says something again and points at a sheet folded on the bench. Now I get it. I start to unbutton my shirt. She nods and leaves through the second door.

I strip down and wrap the sheet around me. I hang my clothes on a hook on the wall and slide my shoes under the bench. I’ve left most of my valuables in the hotel. Now what? This time I decide to take action. After all, there are no natives to mimic in this little room. I knock on the second door, open it and start to go in.

The attendant is facing away from me as I start to enter. She whirls around frowning and holds up her hand in the universal sign for stop. She says something that I interpret as “Idiot. Wait until I call you.” I say “Eez-veh-ni’teh. Sorry.” And quickly back out and into the anteroom.

I plop down on the chair and wait. A single bulb in a fixture on the wall barely illuminates the room. The floor is scuffed and the linoleum worn through to the concrete in places. I hear voices from the other side of the door to the treatment room and water running. It’s stuffy in here -- airless. A trickle of sweat runs from my temple and down my cheek. It’s warm, and I’m nervous.

After several minutes the attendant sticks her head in and motions for me to enter. I begin to think of her as Olga; she looks like an Olga to me for some reason. I realize she’s nearly as tall as I am, and has shoulders almost as wide. Sturdy she is.

I pass through the second doorway into the treatment room. I’m standing in a high-ceilinged room between two empty bathtub-sized tin tubs sitting on slightly raised concrete platforms. Plastic shower curtains on the far side of each tub block the view beyond them to either side – effectively making a treatment room with two tubs in it. I imagine the entire wing is set up the same way: each door in the main corridor leading to a treatment room with two tubs. It’s even warmer and more humid here than in the anteroom. The smell is a mixture of sweat and a fresh water lake with a few rotten eggs thrown in for good measure. I hear the murmur of voices around me beyond the shower curtains. The concrete floor is wet.

Four or five paces beyond the tubs I see a red brick wall. Three or four exposed pipes run along it near the floor. It has windows set high up. I realize this room is a couple stories high. There’s no air conditioning, only the breeze finding its way in through those windows. Sunlight streams in as well. A drop of sweat falls off the end of my nose.

A young man in jeans and a faded blue t-shirt appears from the right in the space beyond the tubs. He’s pushing a wheeled cart with several buckets on it. I realize this space is actually part of a service corridor running the length of the building. Clever. The cart looks heavy; he looks hot and tired. Olga says something to him. Without breaking stride, he looks at her, nods, and continues out of sight to my left.

Olga motions me towards the tub on my right. She reaches down next to the tub, lifts a large bucket and dumps black, slick-looking mud from the bucket into the bottom of the tub. She motions for me to get in. I put a foot on a small box and start to climb in. She says something and gives my sheet a tug. I swallow hard and unwrap the sheet. Olga holds up the ends to somewhat block her view of me and turns her head giving me a bit of privacy -- at this point anyway. I quickly climb into the tub. I realize that it is lined with plastic sheeting. I just fit with my back reclining comfortably against one end and my feet just short of touching the other end. I also realize the mud I’m sitting in is more than faintly warm and feels oily. It’s little disconcerting at first, but not bad.

Olga bends down and comes up with another bucket. She upends it right on my crotch. So much for privacy. This bucketful is even warmer than the first. It’s a notch above disconcerting – not painful, but, well, unusual. While I’m getting my brain around this, Olga pours a bucket of mud on my chest. It’s hotter still. It smells of sulfur, but not unpleasant – thick and very smooth, a bit thinner than toothpaste. Olga motions for me to spread the mud around on my body. I start spreading it on my arms and chest. She dumps one last bucket of goo on my legs. She puts the empty buckets in the service area beyond the end of the tubs, then returns to spread the mud over my legs – paying particular attention to my ankles and knees. She motions me to lean forward and spreads mud over my back. I’m sweating like a horse – partially because of the heat from the mud, partially from the nervousness from what’s happening.

Olga motions me to lay back on a towel rolled up as a headrest behind me. She folds the plastic sheeting up and over me. She tucks me in like a baby. I feel claustrophobia setting in. She throws one more clean plastic sheet over me, and heads out into the service corridor. I think, I’m OK. This is going to be OK. I’m OK. And just then she’s back carrying three heavy, tan flannel blankets. She proceeds to lay these over me. I can feel the weight of them pushing my back into the mud that I’m covered in. Hot. I’m really hot. I can’t even wipe the sweat off my face because my hands are under the sheeting. I’m OK.

Olga looks at me and gives me a questioning, thumbs-up sign. I nod and give her a half-smile. I can see a clock on the brick wall of the service corridor. I only have to do this 20 minutes. I’m OK. Sweat pours down my face. Actually I’m not OK. I try to remember the Russian word for Help.

I look at the clock again. I tell myself to calm down. If some of the invalids I saw in the corridor can survive and even thrive on this, then certainly I can. I close my eyes and try to think of something pleasant. I hear a rattling noise hear my feet and open my eyes. The attendant with the cart picks up the empty buckets from the floor near my tub, puts them on his cart, and pushes on down the hallway. He doesn’t even glance at me. Five minutes have gone by. Not bad. I close my eyes again.

Someone is shaking my shoulder. I open my eyes. I look at the clock and realize with a start that I’ve been in the mud for 30 minutes – sound asleep the last 20 minutes or so. Olga is taking the blankets off me. I’m done. I’m not even sweating anymore. Amazing. Actually I feel really relaxed and refreshed.

Olga unwraps the plastic sheeting and motions for me to help her scrape off the mud from my arms and legs and other places she doesn’t want to touch. I do, while she uses her hands to wipe some of the mud off my back. Then she motions for me to get out and she gives me a hand. The mud on the bottom of my feet makes the wet floor next to the tub feel like an ice rink. She indicates that I should stand where I am. She turns and grabs a garden hose that’s hanging on the wall between us and the anteroom. She sprays water on one of her hands and adjusts the hot and cold taps until she’s satisfied with the flow and temperature. Then she turns the spray on me. She washes me down from head to toe like she’s hosing down a car and then motions for me to turn around and does my back side. Mud cascades off me and through a drain in the floor.

She turns off the hose and motions me toward a shower stall near the tub to my left. She hands me a large clean white sheet. It’s clear I can finish washing off the mud in relative privacy of the shower stall. I lay the sheet on a chair near the shower, go in the stall and pull the curtain closed. Olga’s already started the water for me. I adjust it to make it cooler. No need to start sweating again. I start wiping down the mud. The shower head is on a flexible hose. I pull it out of its bracket and spray my hard to reach cracks and crevices. It’s surprising how much mud is still on me after Olga’s hose job. Every time I think I’m done, I find another spot with the black mud on it. Eventually I just declare victory. I turn off the water, step out of the shower, and wrap the sheet like a toga around me.

Olga is still cleaning up the tub and floor from my treatment. She looks up as I come out. She straightens up and points towards the door from which I’d entered.

I smile and wave. “Spa-see’bah. Thank you.” She nods, sighs, and turns back to her work.

I reenter the anteroom. My clothes are where I left them. Two clean towels are on the chair. I give myself a final drying with the sheet then use a fresh towel to continue drying off. I put streaks of black on the towel as I continue to find the mud’s hiding places. Sorry.

I’m pretty sure I still have mud in places I haven’t looked, but elect to get dressed without wasting any more time. (The next morning I’ll find streaks of mud on my pajamas.) I pull on my clothes and look around for anything I’ve forgotten. I pile the used sheet and towels on the bench. As I’ve been coached to do, I pull a few Ukrainian griebna from my pocket, open the door to the treatment room and hand the money to Olga. She smiles and nods a thank you. “Spa-see’bah. C zdah-roh’vee-yah. Do-sve-dahn’ee-yeh” Thank you. Good health. Good-bye. I turn and head back through the anteroom out into the main corridor. Outside my door a woman sits on the bench. A man in a wheel chair sits next to her.

I’ve lost track of which way the exit is. I see the desk down the hallway to my left and head away from it. In a few steps I see the larger windowed corridor leading to the main lobby. I turn right and again begin dodging people coming at me. I find the exit and walk out the wide doors onto the large plaza outside the clinic and into the bright Crimean sunshine and dry, fresh-smelling air. I’ve had my first mud treatment … and survived … and even enjoyed it. I hope the massage I’ve booked for tomorrow is as good. Or maybe I’ll take another mud treatment. I hope I get Olga.

Nor Valley of the Shadow

2011-05-20T15:21:00.000-05:00

My daughter participated in a month-long, Internet-based, poem-per-day exercise last month - NaPoWriMo - National Poetry Writing Month. One of the challenges NaPoWriMo posed for 10 April was to write a "mirror" poem: Quoting from my daughter's blog for that day (almost):

"Today’s prompt is a mirror poem. Find or think of a poem you admire, and write a poem that is a “mirror-image” of it. You can make this mirroring quite general, or very specific. For an example of the general approach, if the poem you like is about spring flowers, you might write one about autumn leaves. If you want to be more specific, you can go line by line. If the poem you like begins, “I was a blue bear,” your poem might start with “I will be a red ant.”

That prompt resonated within me for more than a month. Over the last few days, I finally did something about it. I don't know if what I wrote below mirrors one of my favorite poems or is a sequel to it. At the least, it's the first somewhat serious writing that I've done in many months. It feels good ... and it was a lot of work, I now remember.

Nor Valley of the Shadow

Tattered and torn,
Shop-worn with scorn,
The old man dragged his shadow.
Through desert heat,
His faint heart beat
A note increasing shallow.

And when he felt
His skin must melt,
And each breath a waiting pain,
Upon his cheek,
Like soft green leaf,
Came a single drop of rain.

Through wrinkled eye,
He looked to sky.
A drop caressed his face.
A dry smile rose
From his lost soul.
He kept his steady pace.

Moon mountain, no,
Nor Valley low.
He knew now where he must go:
The journey long,
Singing his song.
It was his Eldorado.

Trip Report - Club Med Cancun Yucatan

2010-10-01T11:42:00.000-05:00

I posted parts of the following on TripAdvisor.com. This post contains some additional comments. I also posted a photo album of this trip on FaceBook.

We visited Club Med Cancun 8-18 September 2010. We enjoyed it a lot -- probably one of our top 10 holidays. We've been to several Club Meds and always approach them with the attitude that they are summer camp for adults. If you go with that attitude, you won't be disappointed.

I'd been to this Club Med many years ago with two friends from San Francisco: Leslie Nipper, Hank Grundig. It’s where I learned to windsurf. We’d just moved to Tulsa and I left Deborah and Danielle home to take off on that holiday. My flight back to Tulsa via Dallas was cancelled. The airport, at that time, had no amenities – including pay phones in the departure area – so I couldn’t even call home. I finally got to call them when I eventually reached Dallas some 12 hours late. They thought: (1) I’d been killed. (2) Was in jail. (3) Had decided to never come back. (Sounds like material for a good short story there.)
The airport has changed a lot in 25 years. It’s beautiful, modern and has all kinds of shops and restaurants. Immigration and security process is as easy as it can be.

Plus:
o The excellent service. This was a major plus and a pleasant surprise. GOs were friendly, accessible, knowledgeable, and anxious to make our stay a good one. Most spoke English, French, and Spanish. Calls to the front desk were picked up immediately. After about 3 days, many of the GOs knew us by name. Service in the bars and restaurants was fast and good.

Was the service as good as Mauritius? Darn near, I’d say. There were so few guests, there should have been good service, and there was. I made particular friends with Fernanda, there on a college internship. L made friends with Kyle, the water sports GO. I think he took a shine to her as well. He’s from south of Houston and suggested we get together for sailing and fishing when he’s home. Oscar was the land sport GO and a Riki Martin look-alike. He organized volleyball, but we never played more than 1 on 2. I played the “one” and won more often than not.
We had meals with several of the other GOs including “Mad Max” from the circus – Jamaica “yah, mon”. Others too, but now I can’t remember with whom.

o Uncrowded resort at this time of year. That meant easy access to all facilities -- and perhaps was one of the reasons the service was so good.

o Lots wildlife including barracuda, crocodile, frigate birds, iguanas, pelicans, stingrays. The highlight: seeing a Green Sea Turtle lay her eggs on the beach at night. Snorkeling was excellent. The reef is in good shape.

See below about the barracuda and croc. The frigate birds are fun to watch in the air. L got a couple good pictures. The iguanas were fun to see. They were all over, especially on the walk to the lunch restaurant. L fed them bananas and it was fun watching two of them arguing over it. L liked pelicans best. We watched them fishing near the bar. Walking back to the room a couple evenings L saw a stingray in the lagoon. Not too exciting, but she got a few pics.

o Usual Club Med activities available. We kayaked, practiced salsa, sailed catamarans, snorkeled, swam, water skied and windsurfed.

L won the weekly kayak race Women’s Division. She first raced one of the GOs, who let her win. She then raced a French woman. L did really well. She paddled out to the turning buoy while the Frenchie paddled way right. L made the turn first, then the French came on. She tried to paddle across in front of L. L comes right at her. French falls in the water. L wins. I’m VERY happy.
They had salsa lessons morning and afternoon, but were only for beginners. A couple mornings we went over and practiced our moves. Their CD music constantly skipped and their equipment was crap. We tried to dance in the gym one afternoon using our PC for music. It didn’t work. PC speakers aren’t loud enough. Next time we’ll bring our travel speakers and use my iPod. We also danced to bands and recorded music in the bar and on the patio just for fun. We were clearly the best … well, OK, … the only salsa dancers at the club. L had to get a band-aid for a blister at the infirmary. When we walked in the nurse said, “Oh, it’s the salsa couple.”
The club had one Hobie 16 catamaran, which is a real sailboat – sloop rigged, lots of lines to pull, goes like a bat even in light wind – and you can tip it over in a heartbeat.. We opted all but one day to take out the Hobie 12. It has just a mainsail and it’s pretty hard to get in trouble with it. We did take the 16 out on the last day in very light winds. It took me a while to make friends with it, but in light wind, it was really fun.
Snorkeling was fun. The reef was in good shape. Lots of purple fan coral, big and lots of variety of fish. We didn’t see any eels.
I swam perhaps 100m out to the swim area buoys each day. It was a good beach, with stones in the surf zone only. Even on the days when the beaches further down were red flagged because of waves, you could swim on our beach.
I water skied one day. I told the guy I’d never done it before so I could get the beginner’s instructions. I got up on the first try. I made it through a turn just after getting up, made a turn at the far end of the lagoon, came back past the dock, made another turn, got outside the wake and back in, made one more turn and dropped off at the dock. I was TIRED and it didn’t last more than about 4 minutes. Fun. Next time I may try to do it more.
I windsurfed almost everyday even though there was very little wind. I used the harness one day, but the lines were too short to be comfortable, so I pretty much gave up on that. I didn’t really need it anyway. I used a fun board and a 6.5 sq-m sail. I made a few gybes and tacks. It was fine, if not real windsurfing. I should also say that the sailing area is set up in the wind shadow of the land so even on days when it was quite windy on the beach, there was no wind (or waves) at the sailing area.
No one wanted to play volleyball. We played three times total, I think. Disappointing. I played 1-on-1 with one of the GOs and beat him – 3-hit-must rule in effect. The other couple times we played 1-on-2 with me as the one. I only lost one game.

o Upgraded deluxe room looked out on the Gulf on one side and the lagoon on the other. Very nice. Internet access was available for a small fee. Bottled water and soft drinks were provided every day in the minibar. We could have had other drinks as well if we'd asked. Bed and pillows were extremely comfortable. We slept great every night.

L complained about ants in the bathroom, but they didn’t cause much trouble. We had to run the A/C on full cold to keep the room comfortable. It was all OK. Don’t go to Club Med for the accommodations.

o Impeccably clean guest room and public areas.

The tile floors were slick as heck when wet. To compensate, they had people mopping the floor of the bar all day everyday. This got the sand and the water out. Nicely done. Our guest room was very clean, I thought. They serviced the minibar everyday.

o Circus show was really good.

The first show was outdoors on the patio and that was fun. The second week it moved indoors which was OK, but not as fun … and hotter. I thought this circus show was better than a similar show we saw in Florida. At both shows one of the guests performed. Pretty impressive for them to do that.

o Close to airport. Transportation to and from was comfortable and spot on time.

Minus:
o No smoke alarm in our room. That concerned me since some of the building is of wood construction, including the path to the single stairway exit. Most of the building was of concrete, however.

o Certain of the tile flooring became ice-like slick when wet. I went down once even wearing footwear. Barefoot was really treacherous. Beware.

o Cigarette smoke smell filtered in from adjoining room. Guests are not supposed to smoke in their rooms, but certain people must have felt that didn't apply to them.

Guess where the people next door were from.

o Room was shabby, frankly. Quite acceptable, but far from a 4-star room. Small and a bit of a strange layout with a 'step-down' to the back balcony. Our experience is that you don't come to Club Med for the rooms.

o Food was good but not great -- standard Club Med quality. There was a wide selection, but the selections tended to be the same each night except for the specials of the day. I will say that the boiled shrimp and the steak nights were excellent. I'll also say that we put on 5 pounds each, so the food must not have been too bad. We never tried the ala carte restaurants serving steak and Mexican food.

o Because of the low occupancy, the main restaurant was closed for lunch, which meant a trek to the second restaurant on the beach. If you didn't want to wait for a golf cart to take you, it was a long hot walk. More shuttles would have helped.

o We felt the drinks were pretty watered down. But it was hot and we were drinking a lot, so that was probably all for the better anyway.

o Because there were so few people there, there were no takers for some of the activities like beach volleyball. Not the Club's fault, just the time of year.

o Evening entertainment was weak -- except for circus nights. Like all Club Meds, the GOs put on the shows, in addition to doing their day jobs. Go with an accepting attitude and just enjoy it for what it is.

o Night club played nothing but club music, so far as we could tell. We were hoping for a better mix, including some Latin music and some rock standards. After all, the guests were predominantly older at this time of year. It would have been good for the DJs to recognize and cater to that a bit.

Other notes:
o Celebration of Mexico's 200th year of independence was great fun ... for us and for the GOs.

o Seeing the crocodile in the lagoon was exciting. I'd visited this Club in the 80s and crocs were there then too. You water ski with them. Don't worry; there's never been an incident.

If I can ever find the pictures from my first trip to Cancun, I can prove there was a big croc in the lagoon then too. I’ve hunted high and low, but can’t find the pics. I’ll keep looking, I know they’re here.

o The snorkeling area has some BIG barracuda. We saw one perhaps 5' long laying under a coral head. Very exciting.

The barracuda was cool. We went snorkeling one day and I dove down next to a coral head. I saw this black eye staring at me. I figured it was a big grouper or something. I dove back down and realize I’m looking at a barracuda with a head that seems as big across as my two hands held together … and four white teeth sticking out. Wow. I got L and after several minutes I finally got her to see it too. We spent maybe 10 minutes with it. On the last dive down I see that he’s now facing me head on instead of in profile as he has been. I feel like a target. We swim out of there at that point. We talk with the lady at the snorkel shack, coincidentally nicknamed barracudita (little barracuda), who tells us that when the water is high behind the reef they see lots of big barracuda – some up to 2 meters long. That’s 6.5’. I couldn’t really see all of our barracuda, but I’d guess he was at least 4’ and maybe 5’ – a big fish. Memo to self: next time remember to bring the underwater camera, you dummy.

o Sailing area has little wind at this time of year because of the wind direction. The Hobie 16 was fun even in the light winds. The smaller Hobies would move, but not fly. The wind and wave conditions were ideal for learning to windsurf, and the Club has the right equipment for it too.

o The iguanas love bananas ... but you're not supposed to feed them.

o The Club has an optional dress "code" for the evenings. For example on various nights they had all black, all white, jeans-and-white-T-shirt, "safari", and Club Med 45 shirt night. Dress for it if you feel like it, but don't worry if you don't. If you want to play along, bring a selection of colors.

o The boutique is eye watering expensive. We nearly bought a pair of $30 flip-flops before we double-checked the exchange rate. Buy the Club Med logo stuff there if you want, but be careful of the prices on the other items.

Club Med Cancun: what a fun time. We'll be back.

No More Makin' Fun of THIS Ol' Guy

2010-08-06T10:54:00.000-05:00

We live on the golf course at our country club -- hole number five of the Bridges course, for those of you who are keeping score. I bought a golf cart when we first moved to Houston from a guy that lives across the way. I paid a grand total of $700 for the old ... 10-year old, in fact ... cart. It ran OK mostly, but was so slow it could hardly get out of its own way. I was embarrassed because the guys I play with would make fun of me and how slow I was. If I was first in a line of carts going down the path, I could fairly hear the people behind me sighing with impatience as we putt-putted toward the next hole ... or hum-hummed toward the next hole actually, since we have to use electric carts on our course. Basically I was a moving roadblock. Plus everyone knew it as "Jack's old cart" and they'd made fun of him too when he had it.

I dumped another $200 into the old cart when the solenoid went out a few months back. Fortunately it had crapped out on me right by the house, so I pushed it back into the garage and called for help. Got it fixed. No big deal.

Still, we could do better so we started looking at the two shops near us. One was a bit of a drive north up I-45 ... Golf Carts of Conroe. Gregg The Salesperson there was really nice. His prices seemed good. He was happy to work with us. Had good suggestions about what accessories we should get. Knew all about the carts. He sold EZ-GO and Club Cars.

The other place was nearer the house: prices were not as good and salesperson not too knowledgeable. He did however have a street-legal Star electric car[t] that we could use on the course. Looked just like a golf cart, but had seat belts, turn signals, etc ... and went like a bat outta heck. It looked really good too. Wife was sold, but I didn't want to hassle with insurance, title, registration, etc. even if the Prez was willing to give me a 10% tax credit for buying a (supposedly) "green" vehicle. Even with the credit it was quite a bit more expensive ... and we really weren't going to use it on the street anyway.

In the end we decided to go with the cheaper cart from Gregg. It's an EZ-GO Freedom RXV. It jumps when you put your foot down and looks great. You can see for yourself in the pictures at the end of this post. It has a ball/club washer, sand bottles, a cooler. We bought the "Sun-brella" package in maroon, white and black. The Club's carts are maroon, so we fit right in. I was going to feel like one of the real people. No more making fun of this old guy.

Gregg was even was going to give me $600 for my old cart. (The other place was only going to give $200.) I thought that was generous. The new cart was to be delivered in three weeks, after they put all the accessories on it. I could keep using my old cart in the mean time. And, guess what: I'm playing one night and blam, the old cart stops dead in its tracks. This time I'm quite a ways from the house. I walk back home ... it's 94F, by the way ... and hope that the batteries just need water. I carry back a couple jugs of water and try pouring them in. No go. Fortunately a buddy, Keith, comes by and agrees to use his cart to push me back to the house. Once home, I fiddle with some more things and can't get it to go. I call Gregg, who says, "Don't worry about it. We'll straighten it out. If we can't, I can only give you $300 trade." I'm still happy with that.

A few days later they drop off the new cart. The delivery guy finds a corroded wire in my old cart. He fixes it and drives the old cart right onto his flatbed and drives it away. I got lucky for once!

I'm happy; Wife's happy ... and so are the guys behind me on our course when we're driving down the cart path. What do you think? Cute, eh?

Hanging up the gloves - boring as it may be

2010-08-04T10:02:00.007-05:00

I see retirement in my near future ... within the next four months. And I'm thrilled. People ask me, "What're you goin' to do? Won't you be bored?"

I look at 'em like they're crazy. Here's my list:

Write 1000 words a day on the way to publishing the great American novel. I've got ideas for loads of short stories, blog posts, and (really) a couple novels -- one sci-fi, one kids' book. (I wrote 1200 words today. It takes a while, for me at least, I should tell you.)

Take dance lessons. Wife and I love to dance. We are good salsa dancers, if I say so myself. We'd like to get equally good in other styles, especially, in no particular order, swing, hustle, tango, samba, chacha. Wife wants us to become certified instructors. I'm not sure I want to work that hard. I quit one job; I'm not looking for a second one.

Take piano lessons. Of course, it would help to buy a piano first, but never mind. I need to find an instructor that would be willing to circumvent the usual lessons and teach me to play blues and jazz.

Travel to all the places we've missed so far. Wife has not visited many places in US yet. Our US bucket list includes Niagra Falls (wife's pick), Yosemite (in my opinion, everyone needs to see Yosemite at least once before they die ... for what that's worth), Grand Canyon, Hawaii (I want to see an active, real live volcano), maybe Yellowstone, Miami, Key West, Southern CA beaches. I've not been back to the Bay Area for more than 10 years and that's WAY past due (but I'm afraid I'll go back and never want to leave). I suppose Wife should see New York and Washington, DC, but those are at the bottom of my list.

Internationally we have the whole Carribean to explore. (We're going to Cancun in September for 10 days, so we have that process kickstarted.) We want to get back to Italy, especially Rome and Venice and Sorrento. Wife's had her heart set on visiting Australia. We want to return to Thailand. And I'm going to visit Mauritius again before I die. Maybe in the future we'll spend August in our condo outside Moscow to avoid the Houston heat, but NOT this year: Moscow temps in the 90Fs, and no air conditioning anywhere. No thanks!

Get better at golf. I've started this process already. Wife bought me golf lessons, which of course screw you up at first but eventually really help. And with a golf course right outside my back door ... well ... this one's easy.

Pick up (doubles) tennis again. This assumes my knees will hold up. I used to be pretty good ... 35 years ago.

Build a personal website.

And this leaves out all the house chores and normal day to day stuff.

Bored? Yeah, it may be a while before you see that post on this blog.

Online news and the death of journalism

2010-06-01T07:38:00.006-05:00

Is it just me or has CNN stopped employing people to proofread releases before the items appear on the CNN website? Why would I care, you ask? My father hated this type of lazy journalism and would wave the newspaper at me when he saw it in print. I guess he ingrained it in me.

I've noticed the trend toward sloppiness for a while, but two examples from today's CNN.com home page finally triggered my wrath:

#1 "Why train workers to leave?"

Which of these describe the real content of the article?
(a) People that work on trains are leaving their jobs.
(b) Companies may train their workers with skills that enable the workers to leave for a better job.
(c) Employers may educate their workers so the workers know how to leave ... something ... the building, their jobs, food on their plates, whatever.

If you answered (b), you'd be correct. It turns out the headline for the article itself, once you follow this link, is "Training workers to leave for a better job". Why didn't they use that same clear headline on the home page?

#2: "Memorial for Mom found in suitcase".

Your choices here are more simple:
(a) Someone found a memorial in a suitcase. That memorial was for a Mom.
(b) Someone conducted a memorial for a Mom who herself was in a suitcase.

Well, tragically it turns out that (b) is correct. A woman was murdered in San Francisco and stuffed in a suitcase. The suitcase washed ashore in SFO. The CNN video article is about the memorial service her children conducted for her near San Francisco Bay. If I followed this type of horrible news more closely I'd have read about this terrible thing earlier and I would've put two and two together more quickly, but I didn't ... and so had no clue what this was really about from the description on the link.

And your last two questions: Is CNN doing it on purpose? Is it just me?

Brave or foolish? Another legless visitor.

2010-05-23T13:20:00.013-05:00

L is on the phone yesterday when I hear, "Doug, wait a minute, wait a minute. Snake! Bobby, big snake in our front yard. Bobby, snake. Doug, I'll call you back."

I walk out the front door and sure enough a four- or five-foot long, thin, beautifully marked snake is heading across our drive and into our front flower bed. I'm thinking it's another water snake, but this one's brownish, not grey, and much more clearly marked. Pretty, really. I got my snake handling tool, a rake, and tried to coax him back the way he came. He wasn't having it, but instead of striking out, he wound himself up in a knot with his head on the bottom.

Since he looked more afraid than angry, I slid the rake under him and picked him up in a lump. He decides that's his cue to move, and slithers slowly off. In a fit of unaccustomed bravery, I picked him up by his tail and used the rake to keep his head pointed in the right direction, i.e., away from me. He was fine with that. I dragged him across the yard and over to the wooded lot next door to us.

Double-checking online after the fact, I learned I was correct that this was a non-venomous snake -- not a water snake though. He was a picture perfect Texas rat snake. They can grow to six-feet long. They're distinguished by their markings, particularly the grey stripes on top of their head. They also have a bright orange tongue, which is easily distinguished in the video below. Normally they're cranky, but this one certainly wasn't. They're also called 'false rattle snakes' because sometimes they'll rapidly shake their tail against grass they're hiding in to mimic the sound of a rattle. They eat mostly mice and rats, though they'll eat birds eggs if they can get them. They're pretty good climbers. They kill their prey by constricting, and I could really feel that when I was holding him -- strong. He posed for a couple more pictures, then we let him go. My rake was 4-1/2 feet long, so he was certainly four-feet long, and maybe five. Here are a couple pictures and a video of our adventure.

Future sometimes looks scary

2009-04-04T07:46:00.003-05:00

I came home from work on Thursday at noon. I figured the flu was coming on: weak, blinding headache, bloated feeling in the gut. I staggered to the bus stop, plopped into a seat and thought "I will not puke, I will not puke, please, god, don't let me puke." Drove home from the park & ride -- cursing when the idiot in front of me lets a car in line in front of him, which allows that car and the guy in front to make the light and me to miss it. Lights at that intersection cause 3 minute wait, 3 minutes I wasn't sure I had.

But, I made it and dragged myself into bed. I moaned and groaned for a few minutes then fell asleep. I was glad Wife wasn't home. I just wanted to be left alone to die. I slept away the next four hours waking up three or four times to sip some water. Weirdest part was that I kept feeling like I had to stretch, like the blood wasn't getting pumped round my body. Water, moan, stretch, groan, sleep. Pretty soon it was dark.

Then my low back started aching. I lay on one side then the other then on my back then on my stomach. I lay with knees up, straight. What ever I tried, the pain would go away but be back in a couple minutes. I thought I should take aspirin or something, but stomach still wanted to roll over so I just tossed and turned and turned and tossed in bed.

I took my temperature later: normal. Well, that was something. I never actually had any stomach upset going either way. I was just miserable: weak, general muscle and joint aches, no appetite, and a back that wouldn't let me sleep which was all I really wanted to do.

Then it occurred to me: I'm old enough now that feeling this bad could be how I would feel for the rest of my life. No energy, constant low level pain, no appetite. Great -- so now, not only was I sick, I was depressed too.

I woke up on Friday feeling better, not good but better ... the depression gone ... the fear still there.

More and more critters ...

2009-03-29T10:02:00.009-05:00

I didn't realize how much I missed being closer to nature while I was living in the UK. Nature for those six years consisted mostly of seeing bunches of bunnies and a few foxes and once in a while a deer out on the golf course. Even though we're living in a relatively heavily populated area here in Texas, we have wooded empty lots on both sides, woods behind us on the other side the golf course across a drainage canal and more woods a block away out our front door. We get to see lots of animals. I love it. I wrote in my last post about 'big guy' that crawled across our backyard a couple weeks ago. The snake made one return visit to our yard a couple days later, then last week my neighbor told me he'd killed the snake. The snake had curled up under a bush in his front yard near the driveway. He has three dogs and all of them were overly interested in seeing what this big hissing thing was in their yard ... dogs not being overly bright. So, neighbor killed the snake. I was sad, but could understand. Neighbor also relayed how, just after he'd moved in, a delivery guy was coming up his drive and a snake laying under the same bush had snapped out and bitten the man's pant leg ... fortunately only the pant and not the real leg. I guess that would've made me a bit snake-averse also.

Then a couple days ago a wide-eyed Wife comes to me at the breakfast table breathlessly saying, "Snake. Snake on the porch. Right by front door. Snake, Bobby. Snake by the front door. Snake." I quickly deduced we had another snake to deal with.

I peek out the front door and happily coiled up in the corner of our front porch is a miniature version of 'big guy' ... OK, not miniature, but at least smaller. It's relatively warmer on the bricks that were heated by the setting sun the night before. I can't tell if it is a cottonmouth water moccasin like the big one we saw. The coloring is similar but the pattern is much more clear and his head is not as arrowhead shaped. I can't see any pits under his eyes, sign of a pit viper, but no matter; I'm treating him like he's the world's most deadly.

Shoes on, jeans on, two garden rakes in hand, I gingerly open the front door. "Lil' guy" takes no notice. I give him a poke with the rake and he glares at me. I give him a push and he reluctantly crawls along the wall to the opposite corner and curls up again. I push him toward the front step with the rake. He starts to go then doubles back toward his original place. I'm not having it. I push him onto the drive. He decides OK, I'll curl up under the azaleas in front. He damn near disappears in the shadows. I'm not having it. I poke and prod from a rake's length away. He crawls next to the house and he's getting pissed. Whap. He bites the rake in a flash. Whap. Bites it a second time. Then coils back up against the house and glares at me again. I poke him a couple more times and try to lift him with one rake onto the other. Whap again, but he crawls into the grass on the side of the house and again hunkers down -- tongue whipping in and out. I can tell he's thinking, "Put the rakes down you chicken-sh--, mudder-lover. I'll show you who can poke who." He just refuses to move, but after five minutes of increasingly brave pushes and prods he crawls off into the vacant lot next to the house. It was a bit more excitement than I'd really bargained for on a Friday morning, but still ... I found it pretty cool. And, yes, I check out the window before I open the front door now.

Even neater was a tale from snake-killing neighbor that we have a red fox that visits regularly. He comes at dusk most nights, walking along the cart path that runs behind our house. Of course, Wife is all gung ho about this. We have bbq chicken that night and puts the unused chicken skin out near the path. Then she returns and perches vulture-like on our breakfast nook chair waiting for Bre'r Fox. Darned if right at sunset, the fox comes trotting over the mounds across the fairway and then along the cart path. He stops like a statue and sniffs at our house then makes a bee-line for the chicken. He grabs the biggest piece and runs back across the fairway. We'd like to think that he's got a litter of pups back in the woods somewhere who are now munching on their first chicken skin. In five minutes he's back. He grabs the remaining skin and this time isn't sharing. He takes it to the other side of the fairway and gulps it down. Then he trots back along the path and into the vacant lot next to the house -- heading we think for the bigger woods across the road. Wife gets good pics of the whole thing.

We also are starting to see squirrels in our yard. They are not the world's brightest. If I break the corn off the cob and toss it in the grass they'll eat it, but haven't yet figured out that the whole ear is laying on the ground and they can serve themselves. Four blue jays on the other hand, have got it sussed out and will peck the kernels off the cob, take them to a branch and spend the next 90 seconds or so bashing it with their beaks to get to the good bits.

We've seen the red tailed hawk glide by a couple times. Once in a while he'll sit on a pole across the fairway. You can almost hear him say, "Here, mousy, mousy, mousy." We've not heard the great horned owl at night for quite a while. We have white egrets in the lake nearest to us. I also saw the blue heron fly by last night. Mocking birds are pretty regular visitors as are suicide prone doves. We've discovered that they're the ones that confuse reflections with the real thing. One committed suicide against our patio window -- much to Wife's teary consternation.

Now I know this can't match my cousin Dianne's wildlife stories from Anchorage ... moose in the backyard or maybe even Daughter's tales of the racoon army ... but for Houston, I'm likin' it. You can see a more complete pictorial essay on my FaceBook account by (hopefully) following this link: Houston Wildlife.

News and more news

2009-03-13T17:31:00.011-05:00

More than two weeks since my last post and not because of anything bad, which is good. My life's just been full.

Most exciting thing was arrival of "The Big Guy". Last Friday in February ... mid-morning ... I hear, "BOBBY. Bobby. Bobby." That's always bad. In the backyard we see "The Big Guy": 3-foot long, cottonmouth, water moccasin snake. He was the biggest snake I've ever seen in the wild. I ran out with the camera. I've included one picture here. You can find others at this link on FaceBook. I just let him crawl away back into the vacant lot from which he came. We've seen him once more since then. I'm fairly certain that god made him crawl across our lawn to convince Wife that snakes really DO live in Texas and that she shouldn't go looking for errant golf balls in the tall grass.

I flew to Columbus the last weekend in February to see my daughter be Lady Macbeth. My sister flew in from Chicago-land to join me. It was my first chance to see my daughter's and her husband's house. It's just great even if it was 18F outside. The new abode has even calmed down their dingo cat.

The Scottish Play was interesting. The director made some ambitious choices, which didn't always come off well, but naturally I enjoyed seeing Daughter on stage again. It had been many months since I had that pleasure. The play was, somewhat strangely, set in the swamps of Louisiana -- or at least somewhere south. When my girl came on stage for her first lines and she filled the theater with the most beautiful southern accent, my sister and I just looked at each other. We couldn't believe how lovely and fitting that accent was for she-who-would-be-queen -- refined, genteel, commanding. Daughter was so good she made me uncomfortable when later in the play she goes insane. She played it too well for me; I didn't like seeing her even acting like that. Yes, I'm extraordinarily proud of her. Check out her blog that I reference out to the right of this post somewhere. Acting is far from her only talent.

The following weekend was equally full. On Friday we drove into Houston and had dinner at my favorite restaurant - Tony Mandola's. Wife got her first taste of soft-shell crab. My past experience with them critters is that you have a 50/50 chance of them being edible. Well, these were the best I ever et ... Wife kindly shared one with me. And topped with crawfish and shrimp. Well, what can I say?

From there we drove to the theater district and saw the Houston Ballet Company perform "Marie". It was excellent -- easily in the top 10 ballets I've seen. The music was by Dimitri Shostakovitch -- wonderful -- abstract at times, lyical at others. Amy Fote danced the title role beautifully. She's light as a feather. The choreography didn't show off the male dancers' athleticism as much as I'd've liked, but the total presentation with as many as two-dozen dancers on stage at once was terrific.

The next day Wife dragged me for shopping. I have to say I view shopping with her only one step better than a root canal without anesthetic. We drove to a furniture store we've visited often: Gallery Furniture. Object of search: oriental rug for the family room. With the down turn in the economy we'd scaled back the amount we were willing to spend. We'd looked at rugs there before, but hadn't found any that met our price and style requirements. We figured we'd give it another shot since they might have something on sale. We looked through the stack of machine-made rugs and then through the hand-made. Then the salesperson showed us one he had hanging. Beautiful, sort of tannish-greenish. Not what we'd really been thinking about, but both Wife and I really liked it. And, it was almost 58% off, which put it just inside our price range.
Then a bad thing happened, Wife looks further along the rack and finds a dark blue background with traditional Persian pattern. They haul this down and lay it out next to the first. It's on sale too. We like them both. Independently, Wife and I think the same thing: one for the family room and one for the dining room ... and they're interchangeable ... when we get tired of one look we can swap them and get a completely different look. Oh, dear. After much hemming and hawing, we pull the trigger. They load them into the back of Wife's Merc and home we go. I drag 150 pounds of carpet into the house and we lay them out. They look better than we hoped. What do you think? And, busted heck out of the budget, but never mind; my flat screen TV can wait.

Last bit of good news comes a couple days ago. We have been battling Louis Shanks furniture store about the sofa and chairs we purchased. The chairs were floor models and we hadn't bargained for that. Seams were ripped. Ticking was hanging out. LS took them back for repair. They finally arrived this week. Suitably repaired and they look great with the new carpet as you see above.

Life is good.

Spring has sprung, the grass has riz ...

2009-02-22T19:04:00.003-06:00

Having a house is better than having an apartment. Weather was just beautiful today: clear, cool, dry, sunny. We'd gone to Home Depot yesterday and began planning our landscaping. Sum total of purchases was hoe, rake, yard broom, clippers and a watering can. We laid plans for a return visit for pots, tomato plants, herb seeds, soil, fertilizer, and flowers flowers flowers. Petunias, maybe marigolds (but Wife hates them) and lots of others that I don't know the names for. Top of wife's list is a pot and soil for her "yoelka" -- the live pine tree we received for Christmas. It's growing like crazy in its little pot. She wants to get it into something bigger before it turns into a bonsai.

So when I got up this morning the bug hit to go dig in the dirt. It's been more than a decade since I've had any dirt to dig in. Sounds like a chore to a lot of people I'm sure but I was happy to be outside raking up the pine needles from the flower beds, hoeing up the dirt around the flowers, raking things smooth. I trimmed our dead palm branches. Before I could remember past efforts, it was too late. Give me clippers or a watering hose and I sort of lose control. I trimmed lots of stuff ... names of which I don't know ... that had been frost damaged or fungused or that I thought just didn't look quite right. Several plants are now at ground level or lower. But ... the three flower beds I attacked all look better than when I started. And did I tell you the azaleas are blooming. Spring in February; I love Houston.

I'm a happy camper.

Plus we played nine holes of golf today.

And yesterday I stopped at a bike shop and got two new tires and two new tubes for my bike. Well, not my bike actually. It's my daughter's bike, but I sort of appropriated it when she moved to college or something and I've never given it back. Today before golf I got the tires changed, found my bike shoes and helmet after considerable looking and when we got back took it out for a spin. It'll only hit about 1/2 the gears, but the brakes worked, the wheels were only moderately out of round, I could get in and out of the clips on the pedals. It was nice to get out for a ride after probably seven years of never touching it while I was in the UK.

All in all, having a house is much better than having an apartment.

I hate this game; I love this game

2009-02-17T21:18:00.011-06:00

Wife vowed some weeks ago that she'd never play golf again. Those of us addicted to the game, of course, completely understand the feeling and, in fact, have made the same vow at least two or three times per season ... sometimes even two or three times per round.

She does like to drive the cart though. So three weeks or so ago on a nice Sunday I coaxed her out with the offer to let her drive. I played my way up to the green on the first hole and then suggested she just bring her putter along and hit putts on the green with me. She did, and she's a pretty good putter, so that worked fine. We followed that pattern for three or four holes then I suggested she just bring her pitching wedge and hit from where I was close to the green. She did and not badly and then hit a putt or two and things went well.

The following Sunday she hit a few from the fairway and by the end of nine holes was hitting driver off the tee. She managed a par on one of the par threes after hitting it in the sand on her first shot. (For you non-golfers that's good in anyone's book -- not the sand, dummy, the three.)

This past Sunday saw us back out there. I think I've got her convinced "Golf is not a game of perfect" as they say. Of course, for a card-carrying perfectionist, that's a pretty big leap of faith. But ... She hit one ball, I kid you not at least 180-yards off the tee on one hole and right down the middle. She hit two shots with a sand wedge out of two separate fairway bunkers that must have flown 70-yards. That's a pretty stout wallop with a sand wedge. And then on the same par three that she had parred the previous week -- this tee shot: Of course, then she also three putted from there proving that she is, indeed, human. On our final hole she blasted a 7 wood from 100 yards right on to an elevated green and even left a pitch mark (hole) in the green she hit it so high. I think I've got her hooked.

Splat -- parts two and three

2009-02-17T21:04:00.005-06:00

Must be Spring ... at least here in Texas -- sorry, Northerners. We have a few azaleas blooming in front. We're having a warm, warm rain here tonight. A better tip off though: aggressive birds in the neighborhood.

I reported in my last post (among other things) that we'd had a bird strike our tinted window in back. Well, he didn't learn the first time. Wife heard another crash and again claimed that something must have fallen or that someone had set off a bomb outside. Later that night I look out the kitchen window and ...

... dusty birdy imprint on the window. Now we know why we saw feathers outside the window in the grass. We thought maybe the hawk or the owl had dined near the house. Now it looks like it's just feathers jettisoned in the crash.

And today ... bird boom again. Couldn't get a picture of that tonight, but you've probably got the image in mind now anyway.

Related topic: we've had a couple hawks floating around the house -- a mating pair maybe? I love 'em even if it means we don't have a lot of squirrels to watch.

And did you know that woodpeckers eat seeds? I thought they just ate bugs out of the bark. But, no. We've got a red-headed woodpecker (I think) that has become partial to the seed in the bird feeder we hung on a branch of a near-by pine quite close to the trunk. We laughed and laughed at him hanging on to the tree and leaning over backwards to the point of having his head upside-down in order to pluck food from the feeder. Where there's a will there's a way.

Random thoughts on a Sunday morning

2009-02-15T10:03:00.009-06:00

Off color jokes (those of you with weak stomachs, look away): I recorded the "Blue Collar Comedy Tour 2" last night and watched it this morning. Follow the link to see some of it on YouTube. I laughed until I choked. Ron White: "I got fired from my last job. It was at the pickle factory. I got fired for putting my finger in the pickle slicer. .... She got fired too; we both got fired." Larry the Cable Guy: "I like to use the handicapped toilets in public restrooms. They keep 'em cleaner. And they got them rails in case you need a power squeeze." Jeff Foxworthy: "Show me a three-year-old in nothing but underwear walking around in a flea market sucking on a baby-bottle full of cola and I'll show you a future NASCAR fan."

Bird-strikes: Wife heard a crash some days back. At first thought that something had fallen in the garage ... like, say, a rack full of sailboards hanging from the ceiling? Nope. Golfer hitting a window with a golfball? Nope, windows in tact. Branch falling off the trees and hitting the roof? Well maybe. Nothing else seemed to be out of place, fallen over, fallen off, fallen in. A couple nights later, I see on the window looking out on the patio the following image caught in the reflection. Case closed: a bird had done a full on face-plant into the window. A pretty big bird. He probably thought some other bird of his species was encroaching on his territory and flew to the attack, not realizing our tinted windows are pretty good mirrors from the outside. Imagine his surprise when the encroacher fails to back away. Gotta give the guy an "A" for perseverance, he just kept on coming. No dead bird on the patio, so he must've gotten over the concussion and flow off later.

More off color jokes: Wife came in this morning holding two eggs about the size of golfballs -- maybe a little smaller. She says, "Can you believe it? They call these Large Eggs." I say, "Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you that they measure eggs like penises. No one's EVER gonna buy a Small condom. They start at Large."

Valentines' Day: Worked up a sweat last night. We went to The Club with a couple friends of ours who live down the road. All four of us worked in Kazakhstan in mid-90s. We had a nice buffet dinner and took a couple turns on the dance floor to golden oldies. Wife forced me to practice our cha-cha moves before we left. I actually got through the whole routine once without a mistake at the club. DJ was smart enough to play "Smooth" by Santana with Rob Thomas -- one of our favorites. Also got in a couple salsas. A good time was had by all.

Times past: I recorded Bette Midler in "The Rose" a couple days ago and watched it this morning. I forgot how really good the movie is and how really hard it is to watch. They should make Amy Winehouse watch it until she pukes, ala 'Clockwork Orange". [I read this morning she's back in a hospital in St. Lucia. Something about running out of her drug substitute.]Years and years ago I saw Bette Midler in concert at the Concord Pavilion. She is just fabulous. What was her back up group? The Harlettes? She did one number in electric wheel chairs while wearing mermaid tails, I remember. I had season tickets for the Pavilion that year. I saw Donna Summer (far better than expected), Barry Manillo (which should have been awful and wasn't), and Chicago. It was a good summer. Wife-at-the-time had bugged out with a friend for a tour of Europe. Daughter had one week of my cooking and informed me she was going to Grandma and Grandpa's. All I remember is the concerts.

Sometimes I Just Don't Write

2009-02-10T21:07:00.003-06:00

My normal MO is to not post anything when everything's gone to sh-t. Fortunately that's not the case over the few days of no writing. Just no time or energy to write.

Here's a stream of consciousness summary:

Good news: Love our new car. Bad news: it was due for its 15,000 maintenance. Wife took it to Mercedes dealership today -- $500 for service and $200 more for a new key since guy we bought it from only had one to give us. Not wholly unexpected, but still ... grrrr.

Good news: I found in a box in our garage a hometown newspaper from May 1968. In it was an article that my dad wrote about my track exploits at a decathlon in high school. Those of you that have known me long, know that I wrote a short story about that meet and in that story I allude to the article. I thought it was long gone, and yet this week here it is ... in newsprint that's 40+ years old and still readable. Bad news: I scanned it, but can't figure out how to get it into the blog to make it readable.

Good news: I booked tickets to fly to Columbus to see my darlin' daughter be Lady M in MacBeth. It'll be my first chance to see their new house. Bad news: Ohio in February -- nuff sed.

Good news: Job's going good. Lots to do. Interesting stuff. Bad news: I'm spending all I'm making and a lot more besides.

Good news: Good news. Bad news: Less than good news.

If it seems too good to be true ... or ... Impulse buying can be fun

2009-02-04T19:15:00.007-06:00

We're a two car family ... at last. Wife's had her little heart set on a Mercedes Benz. Her first car: a Mercedes Benz. Nothing like starting at the top. I was, shall we say, less than enthusiastic. She is, shall we say, very persistent.

We saw a Merc C230 some weeks ago. Actually, I liked it. Asking price (at the Toyota dealership where we bought our Camry) was something like $24,000, maybe a little bit more. More than I paid for the Camry, but then she hadn't started her "show no mercy; if they're not bleeding, keep negotiating" negotiations. We walked away.

The search continued on and off. We got moved to the new house. We spent tons on furniture and stuff. Things started to settle down. There's a fly-by-night car dealership down the road. On a drive-by we notice a couple Mercedes there. We stop on a Sunday, and kick the tires on a couple C230s. The cars don't even have asking prices on them, but we decide to give it a second try.

We go back the next Friday. Both C230s are gone. In their place is a 2007 C280 4Matic, white, loaded, clean. We talk with Roger. He's asking $25,000 or something like that. We laugh and say, "adios". He says, "Well, maybe $24,550." We say, "We'll come test drive tomorrow."

Saturday: Roger is busy trying to sell a Dodge Viper, so Lenny helps us. We take a test drive in the Mercedes. I, personally, love the damn car. It only has 15,000 miles. It was a lease car originally. It's got everything: four-wheel drive, automatic transmission, electrically adjustable front seats with memory, sun roof, satellite radio enabled, iPod enabled, side airbags, heated seats (OK, stupid for Houston, but the car originally was sold in Colorado), 3-liter V-6 fuel injected engine. Very, very nice. About six times, maybe seven times better than the Camry, I'm afraid.

I turn the process over to Ms. Cut-throat. I walk away and talk to a guy and his girl-friend who just got back from test driving the red Dodge Viper. He says that he's a Corvette man, but thinks the Viper is cooler. He has to cover his jeans with Vaseline in order to squeeze into the driver's capsule. You don't drive this car; you wear it. He's taking pictures with his phone. I say his girl should be laying on the hood to get the full effect. He says that she just posed for Playboy last week. I say that completely changes the image I had of her laying on the hood. I quickly walk back to see if there's anything left of Wife's salesman.

The price is now thousands lower plus tax, title, and license. Wife says, "We're going home." Relieved, I say, "Great."

We get in the car and she says, "I want that car."

I say, "Me too."

We do a minimal sort of online research and find that Wife's price looks really, really good. Really, really too good. Why do they want to sell that car for that price? Well, Landmark Chevrolet, the largest Chevrolet dealership in the world (according to their billboard) is out of business in Houston. Times are tough. We go back and make Lenny show us a clean CarFax sheet: no reported accidents, no flood damage repaired, no problems ... that anyone's publicly reported. We decide Wife will beat on them again on Monday and we'll see what happens.

She beats on them on Monday. Price is the price. She walks away, hopefully, again. She calls on Tuesday, asking "Are you sure that's the price?"

Answer: "Yes."

Rebuttal: "I'll take it." Monday night I show Wife how to write her first check.

Tuesday, I call insurance company and find that the insurance is $20 per year more than the Camry. Very acceptable. Wife hits dealership again and gets them to confirm that factory warranty is still in effect for another 35,000 miles. She also finds out that the car's due for it's 15,000 mile maintenance,which will cost about $300. That's acceptable. She pulls the trigger on the deal and almost writes a check for $1,000 as earnest money, but her hand is shaking so hard that she has to tear up the first check and start over. Second time's a charm. She calls insurance company and gets that process initiated. She can make final payment the next day and the dealership will help get her home with both cars.

Cut to today: deed is done. Final check written on the first try. Dealership only has one key for car so that's probably another $100 well have to spend to get me a key. She picks me up at Park-and-Ride and I don't recognize her in the new car.

She drives us home after filling the tank for the first time ... $25.00. Not bad.

It's a very, very cool car. Now -- is it too good to be true? Time will tell.

Tales of woe and sundry disasters

2009-02-03T18:27:00.005-06:00

Yes, again it's been some days since my last post, so you know disaster has struck.

Well, not really. On Wednesday last week while at work, I thought I had the beginnings of a toothache. It had been coming on for a few days, but diligent flossing and brushing seemed to have kept it at bay. Wednesday afternoon though, it cranked up the intensity. I begged a couple Aleve from a co-worker. In 15 minutes the shooting pain was down to a mere feeling of pressure. An hour after that, it seemed as though some gremlin was pounding a ten-penny nail up through my back molar and into my left eye socket. In a word: maxpainful. Strong hearted lad that I am, I toughed it out until about 3:30pm at which point even the mighty were felled. I bailed on work and staggered to the bus stop. On the way home it hurt badly enough that my left eye wanted to wink closed and stay that way.

At home the flossing and brushing and swirling with Scope began. Russian folk-medicine-wise Wife prescripted a scalding hot saltwater mouth rinse with salt scavenged, er, harvested from a special salt lake in deepest Siberia or somewhere. Amazingly, to those of us not given to holistic crap, er, leanings, it helped. It didn't cure the miserable cold that I had on top of it, but I definitely felt better.

And not good. I got some sleep on Wednesday night, but not much, even with a handful of antihistamines to battle the clogged sinuses. The alarm on Thursday morning was a non-starter, except to leave a voicemail with my boss saying, "Fuggit it. I'm close to dead." Up again at 9am I online-researched dentists in the area that also were covered by our insurance. A call to the closest one landed an appointment at 10am the next day. In truth, the Pain had subsided quite a bit. More flossing and rinsing occurred. I got through the day laying on our (lovely, comfortable, red leather) couch and watching reruns of House. Another dose of antihistamines and some aspirin on Thursday night led me to a good night's sleep.

Up and going on Friday I make it to the dentist just down the road. Pain is back but only at 5 of 10. Head cold is back on the order of 7 or 8 of 10. After filling out multiple forms covering the doctor's ass for everything including a direct nuclear strike on his office, I get a 45 minute wait in the reception room reading six month old People magazines.

Taken to the operating theater by a really pleasant lady whose name appeared to be Amanda, I settle into the chair. "Amanda, how long have you worked here?" I ask.

She replies, "I'm not Amanda. I'm Tracy." (or something).

I say, "Your uniform says 'Amanda'."

Tracy-Amanda says, "Oh, I stole it because she's not here today and mine's not as nice as hers."

OK.

X-rays happen using a machine that looks like someone's beat on it with a hammer.

Doctor arrives in scrubs and tennis shoes. Nice enough looking old coot, meaning he's about an hour older than I am. "What's the problem?" "A toothache in the back upper left and a cold -- in that order." "Open wide. Hmmmm."

He takes a small ballpeen hammer and raps the four teeth on the upper left side of my jaw. Except for making me slightly deaf in that ear, there's no pain. He takes an implement that seems like a cross between a bent safety pin and a dagger and jabs each tooth and wiggles. Still no pain. A glove-clad finger presses gums inside and out. No pain. He jabs a hopefully unused chopstick in my mouth and says, "Bite please." I'm pleased to bite. "Open." No pain. Chopstick gets inserted and released from all four top left teeth. No pain.

"You don't have a toothache."

I smile wanly and say, "So why do I feel like I have a toothache?"

"Your sinuses are so swollen they're impinging on the nerves running through your upper jaw. Haven't you noticed how swollen your left cheek and eye socket are?"

Well, no. I just thought it was my usual bags and wrinkles.

"Double up on your antihistamines. Use salt water rinse because that sometimes helps relieve the pain. If you still have pain in a couple days, go see your doctor for antibiotics."

Thankfully he didn't say Siberian salt rinses or I would've had to kill him.

I go home, double up on the antihistamines and throw in three aspirin for good measure. I'm feeling better. Friday night is peaceful.

Saturday morning, all's good and I manage to get out for 18 holes of golf ... suitably medicated which leads me to a 54 on the front nine. The zombie like antihistamine state wears off on the back nine, encouraged by a sandwich and a couple of beers at my house as I troll by. I shoot 46 for 100 total which isn't bad on this course.

Sunday dawns bright and clear. Beginning-golfer Wife and I play nine holes. She gets a par on number 8, a par three. A good drive into the green-side bunker, a chip out to within 10-feet using a pitching wedge, then a well stroked slippery downhill putt into the dead center of the cup.

Life is good ... with a suitable supply of medication. I'm back in the blog-saddle again.

US Memories

2009-01-28T20:51:00.004-06:00

In my last post I wrote about some of the places I've visited outside the US and commented about how lucky I've been to have seen and done so much. My daughter pointed out in a comment to that post that I'd left out some pretty wonderful places in the US too. And she's right. I've been lucky on that account also.

I'll leave out the scenic beauty of Illinois where I grew up. But after all this blog is named after some of my best childhood memories from there. It was a much simpler time back then. We'd be gone all day and our parents had no clue where we were. We'd ride all over town, which admittedly probably wasn't five miles across. We'd go to "the creek" and mess about as boys do. In the winter we'd drag our sleds to the creek and slide down the hill and out onto the frozen creek. Sounds dangerous, but no one I recall ever got hurt ... badly ... enough to go to the hospital ... for more than a stitch ... or two.

We'd also go to my grandmother's house for a couple weeks in the summer. Basically there were no rules for those weeks. We didn't have to take a bath if we didn't want to. She'd give us wooden orange crates. We'd break them up, take our pocket knives and carve them into swords and play fight with them. Or we'd walk out the railroad tracks and use them to cut the head-high or higher weeds into forts and mazes -- or just cut them to see whose sword was sharpest.

Our family would go to Tennessee for vacations. Freedom. We always went to the same resort: Pete Smith's Watts Bar Dam Resort. Nothing but swimming in the pool and hanging out with the other vacationing kids there. It was a big deal to be able to order off the menu at the pool and then sign the receipt ourselves.

Knox College holds great memories. It was the first time in my life I didn't feel out of place. Lots of people there were at least as weird as I was. I fit right in. I made most of the friends there that I have to this day. And I got married there. And my daughter was born there. I remember glorious spring days running track.

And who can not like New Orleans? I moved there after grad school and
still work for the same company today. Playing volleyball at the lake front. Water skiing in the rivers and bayous -- in the same water with sharks and stingrays. I learned to sail there from two really good sailors and the passion for sailing has never left me.

Pensacola, FL beaches are some of the best anywhere. Lazy days with my family there just playing in the water ... minding our own business ... then along comes a wave (sorry, inside joke).

Where I fit the best was Northern California though. It's my kind of place. Perfect weather most of the time. More to do outside than you can accomplish in a life time. Everyone needs to see Yosemite Valley once before they die. And I'll never forget my one foray into backpacking. From the rim of Yosemite at Tuolome Meadows up to 11,000-feet at Young Lakes ... still frozen even in July. Altitude sickness for 24 hours like you wouldn't believe. Sailing in San Francisco Bay and learning what it is like to sail in real wind. And freezing while you do it. On big boats. Sausalito. Salt Point State Park for tide pooling and walking in the hills -- Pygmy Forrest. Seeing a wild mountain lion up close ... too close I now realize. Snow skiing at Lake Tahoe -- North Star, Squaw Valley, Kirkwood, Sugarbowl. Getting up before dawn to drive the four (or was it six) hours up there and being on the first ski lift ride up the mountain. And feeling like the day was not a success unless you also rode the last chair of the day to the top. Racing downhill for my company's ski team -- helmet and all. Running San Franciso Marathon and finishing. Monterrey Peninsula with Pebble Beach, Pacific Grove. Going to the aquarium in Monterrey itself -- fabulous. Learning to play beach volleyball from a real star and his wife. Santa Cruz on the weekends and playing all day. Watching my daughter grow up and seeing her learn that tarantulas are not to be feared and that being the best at cheer leading doesn't always mean you win the competition.

Business trips to Anchorage (correctly described as scenic over kill). Certainly one of the most beautiful places in the world ... but too darn cold and dark for me in the winter. Bakersfield, Ventura, El Segundo all in California. Ventura on the coast is fabulous. Bakersfield is not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be. I don't think I'll ever be a fan of LA. But a week long trip there looking at colleges with my daughter -- Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, San Diego. Oh, did I say colleges? Sorry, we mixed in a little bit of volleyball too.

Las Vegas -- I've been all over the world and there is no where else on the planet like Las Vegas. It's much more fun when you're winning. Reno is OK, but it's not Las Vegas

Tulsa, Oklahoma -- not a place where I'd choose to go, yet lots of good things happened there. I owned my first house. My daughter found her life's work and she grew up straight and strong there with a good sense of herself. I learned to windsurf and to play golf (again). I scared the crap out of a guy foolish enough to let me captain his sailboat in a regatta. ("I've never seen anyone pull the sails that tight." "It's windy. Don't worry." We finished second.) Playing indoor volleyball four nights a week because there wasn't a whole heck of a lot else to do in the winter.

Wonderful trip to Taos, NM for more skiing.

And New York, Boston, Orlando, Chicago, San Antonio, El Paso, Flagstaff -- good things about all these places -- although I'm not really much of an East Coast fan. Charlotte, Charleston, Atlanta. I guess I like the South second after San Franciso.

And now Houston ... it's all good. And I've rambled on long enough

Old enough to know better; too young to resist.

2009-01-26T11:58:00.005-06:00

Today I am 59. What a useless birthday. I'm actually looking forward to next year already. That's a milestone deserving big celebrations, fancy expensive gifts (just setting expectations here), a trip abroad to commemorate the occasion (can you spell Mauritius, boys and girls?), a birthday blowout with all my rowdy friends in Las Vegas similar to one we had for my 55th birthday. Next year won't be bad at all.

So what's 59 besides a prime number? Nothing. Well, except that gaining a year is better than not being around to have one, I suppose. And as a friend of mine just wrote, 59 in most cases is better than 95. Plus I'm not in bad health, I've got a new house, I'm living on a golf course, my mom's still alive and still putts better than I do, my daughter's doing well. My wife looks like she's 47 -- oooh, if she reads this, I really meant 39, sweetie. That is both good news and bad, by the way. I like that she looks so young; why can't I be that lucky?

One thing I have noticed over the last few birthdays: I used to say that I had no regrets -- now I have lots. I wish I had treated some people better; you know who you are. I wish I'd gone to work for a different company right from the start, but my company has done extremely all right by me, I have to admit. I wish I'd paid more attention to my daughter's growing up because those memories I do have are sustaining. I wish I hadn't thrown some things away; I wish I'd thrown away some things I've kept.

All in all though, not bad.

I've said before, how did a kid that grew up in a corn field ever get to do the things that I've gotten to do or go to the places I've been? I've been extremely lucky on that count. It's a great treat to look at our travel pictures from around the world.

It all started with fly-in fishing trips to Canada with my dad.

Mauritius is still the most special place for me. We loved our trips to Thailand too. Southern Italy was wonderful and seeing Pompeii and Herculaneum fulfilled a dream. Amsterdam was exciting and fun. St. Petersburg had the most beautiful palaces. London is one of the best cities to walk around in. The Pyramids and the Sphinx were both better and not as good as I'd imagined.

Singapore is nice but sterile. Hong Kong is crazy and dirty and loud and smelly and vibrant. I got to fly in to Hong Kong at the old airport ... the one where you fly between (literally) apartment buildings to land.

I'll never forget the Pushkin Museum. We're walking around Moscow one day and my someday-to-be wife says, "Oh, here's Pushkin Museum. I've not been there in years." I asked, "What's there?" "They have impressionist art." "Oh, OK. (hesitation) Let's go." And then we get in there and there's a FLOOR of impressionist art. We walked and looked until I just couldn't do it anymore. It was the first time I understood why they make such a fuss about Picasso.

And the first ballet I ever saw was in Kremlin Palace Theater in Moscow. And I've see ballets in both the Bolshoi and the Marinski theaters as well. I've been inside the Kremlin.

Can't forget Kazakhstan ... the land of sand and a great experience. Who else do you know that's been there? AndI met a certain beautiful, Russian dancer there.

And then there are the garden spots: Lagos, Nigeria; Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea; Caracas and Maracaibo, Venezuela; Bogota, Colombia; Jakarta, Indonesia. Sort of a coin toss as to which was the most dangerous. Papua New Guinea was the most beautiful. Bogota had the most friendly and happy people ... and the most guns. Venezuela had the prettiest girls, although it was a tough choice between there and Bogota. Jarkarta was fun back in the day. The most polite people live there.

Australia is caught in a time warp of about 1960s US. That's good news and bad. Fremantle and Surfers' Paradise were fabulous.

Mexico with friends many years ago was great ... and got me started windsurfing. The volleyball there on another trip was really fun (my team beat the instructors' team).

Which brings me to Urkraine of all places, which actually had even better beach volleyball (strangely enough), but I was too old to enjoy it.

And speaking of windsurfing: Aruba -- zowie zowie.

And speaking Caribbean, St. Lucia for a honeymoon ... and rain rain rain.

Turkey was OK, but I liked Egypt better. Cyprus was OK, but I liked Egypt better too.

And after that long list, I'm probably still leaving out places and certainly leaving out lots of memorable experiences. Amazing.

59 years -- Maybe 59 is OK.

Chewing gum and wee bits of wire

2009-01-25T20:21:00.004-06:00

I spent a good part of the day engineering a pulley system so I can store my sailboards (windsurf boards) up out of the way against the ceiling of our garage. I'd built something similar in my California house many years ago. It worked OK, but never perfectly. I decided: new house ==> proper engineering.

Last night I retrieved suitable bits, saved from previous rigging and that had languished in a paper sack for nigh unto 10 years. I sat in the family room and rove rope through pulleys, attached pulleys to scrap slats of wood simulating the ceiling and the cradle I planned to hold the boards. Much re-roving, re-attaching, and re-cussing. Eventually I had a design that looked reasonable. That left only to scale it up today.

Stud finders don't.

This windsurf equipment is relatively heavy, probably bordering on 75 pounds. The three attachments on the ceiling of the garage needed to be embedded in the wooden ceiling joists, not just in the sheet rock. I'd earlier purchased an electronic stud finder. That was supposed to make finding the studs easier and even would prevent you from drilling, screwing or pounding into live electrical wires.

I put up the ladder in the garage, turned on the stud finder and spent the next 45 minutes making marks on the ceiling. If you took the time to connect all the dots I made, you'd have a picture of Lady Godiva Riding a Horse. What you wouldn't have is any idea where the studs are ... or you'd be led to think they are everywhere.

I retreated to the tried and true. A little careful looking allowed me to find the nails holding up the sheet rock ... probably nails in the studs. A few taps of a long thin nail into the hoped for position of the stud either proved or disproved the theory. If true, then the pilot hole for the hook to go in the ceiling was already started. If false, eye-ball the sheet rock nails again and try the next most likely spot. At the end, throw the electronic stud finder at the wall.

I got the pulley system rigged. It worked a treat on its own with no load attached. Then I went to work engineering a cradle of sorts. I'd hoped this cradle would hold a couple boards, two masts, and nine sails. I got some wood roped and tied together. The pulley system worked fine with just the cradle attached. The system even looked like it was going to work with one board sitting in the cradle. It looked like that right up until the point that the cradle dumped the board onto the concrete floor. It had only made it to a height of about 12" so no great harm done.

Then two hours went by.

At the end of the time roughly eight different ideas for holding the boards in the pulley system had been tried and had failed. While pacing back and forth muttering, I happened to see two straps whose original purpose was to hold things on car roof racks. Roof racks were gone; straps now became sailboard holders: easy to attach to pulleys, easy to make tight and slip proof, easy to get off. Viola. Another 30 minutes of experimentation ensued, but eventually: two boards snuggled against the ceiling.

Now the sails should be a breeze. Hook them to the beam of the pulley system where the straps attach -- up they go. Except they over balanced the boards to one side and this time I had two boards and four sails on the concrete.

Another hour and two beers go by before I realize I don't actually have to hoist the sails. They're light. I'll just fasten them to the hooks in the ceiling and I'll be done. Two bungee cords and four trips up the ladder: Job Done.

It required another 20 minutes to clean up the 42 tools, 97 bits of rope, 6 left over pulleys, and some nails -- and pushing all the storage boxes back to where they belonged -- and picking up the remains of the non-finding stud finder.

For the record:

1. I did not use one strip of duct tape.
2. I did not use any newspaper.
3. I was not bleeding at the end of the exercise.
4. No animals were harmed in the testing except for the spider that fell off the ceiling and down my shirt front.
5. I only used two 4" pieces of wire in the whole construction.
6. Generally all the pieces that should be symmetrical, are of the same type and size, i.e., no big giant hook on one end and one tiny hook on the other. All the screws are the same type, size and color.
7. The rig has remained in place for six hours and has not crashed to the floor.

I rewarded myself by heading off to play golf. And when I got back, thanks to previous effort, I could even park my new old golf cart in its rightful place.

Technical writing ... a short course

2009-01-23T11:31:00.005-06:00

In my new position I get to review software design documents created by people in our work unit. Our project is integrating information from diverse software applications to provide my company a unified view of the crude oil and products trading that we do. We're merging data from the trading system itself, from a credit management system (really important in the current economic situation) and from a pricing/risk system. That last one's particularly interesting because it attempts to keep the Company from going bankrupt because it bought too much oil when prices were high or sold too much when prices were low. Complicated stuff.

We have to pass information back and forth between those three systems. Plus each of those three pushes and pulls data from more than twenty "outside" systems. For example, we have to send accounting information about the trades to the Company's accounting system monthly. We also pull in externally-created financial statements and credit reports for our suppliers and customers. It's nice to know that we'll actually get paid when the time comes, so we check that stuff pretty carefully.

The only way to pass that information around is to write computer programs to extract the information from one system, massage it, and then pass that information to the receiving system. For each one of those interfaces (on the order of 100, by the time everything's said and done), we need to write a document describing what we're going to do. The business people read the document and say, "Yup, that's what we need." The programmers read the document and say, "OK, I understand what software you want me to write."

Part of my job is to read each of those documents. I verify that the described solution appears to work. I verify that the solution adheres to our software architectural standards. I verify that the document contains all the information that a programmer is going to need to get busy in a few months and actually write the software.

It's driving me crazy.

My dad was a writer. I remember being in tears when I was in grade and even high school after I'd take some piece of writing to my father. I'd have spent probably an hour laboriously typing on a manual typewriter the single page that the assignment required. I'd be pretty proud of it. Dad would look at it, look at me, and then start in. "This isn't clear. Make this shorter. You can say this better. ..." It never failed. No matter how good I thought it was, it wasn't. I'd have to look at retyping the whole thing. (White-outs were never enough to correct the mistakes he found.) It was painful and only more so because ... damn it ... he was right. Everything he suggested improved the piece.

So now I'm the reviewer. Most of the team doing the writing don't come from a liberal arts background, and in fact not a US background of any kind. They are dyed in the wool techies. They need help. So, for posterity, here are my rules for technical writing:

All things being equal, shorter is better.

Figure out who your audience is before you start. Don't put anything in the document that your audience won't use. When you try to include it, don't tell me "Oh, that's good information." It's not good if no one's going to use it.

Use the journalistic pyramid style: start simple, get more detailed as you go. That way, when the reader has reached the level of detail he or she needs or desires, the reader just stops reading.

If a sentence contains any of these words then you probably need to rewrite it: "is", "are", "be". Those are tipoffs that you're writing in passive voice and it drives me crazy. E.g., "It is sent to program two." WHO or WHAT sends it to the program? Don't compound the problem by saying "It is sent to program two by program one." Say: "Program one sends it to program two." It saves two words: 22%. It saves five characters: 12%. You end up writing 9 pages instead of 10 and the 9 are much more clear and readable.

Write everything in present tense. If something's not happened yet, pretend it has. You're writing about something you want to make happen. Be positive.

Don't try to impress with how smart you are. Never use two syllables when one will do.

Put things in the document or in an appendix, but not both. That way if something changes you don't have to make two updates to the document, one of which you're bound to forget.

Look for chances to use the imperative sentence. That style is short and clear. Do it.

Whew. It's good to vent.

Score one for the 'bama

2009-01-22T12:18:00.007-06:00

As a knock on to my earlier post about the Presidential Oath of Office, I'm happy to note that President Obama got together with Chief Justice Roberts and they did their oath thing all the way through without a hitch. Of course people are bitching (a) that there were no press photographers present and (b) that he didn't swear on the Bible. But, he fairly well put to rest the paranoid few who were going to make an issue of the original oath taking. I'm glad he did that. Otherwise we'd have to listen to the moaning for weeks.

But that's not why the President is getting an 'atta boy' from me. It's because he ordered the closing of the Guantanamo military prison. Those of you that know me are probably surprised that I'd not want to keep that murdering bunch of terrorists safely locked up until Cuba sinks into the sea. Under normal circumstances, you'd be right. But our president is not letting them go. He's going to transfer them, he thinks, here to the mainland.

Of course, lots of people, including congressmen, governors, and other bottom dwellers, have ostracised GW Bush for putting those people there in the first place. But, now as the chickens come home to roost -- or in a more appropriate metaphor: the carrion-picking vultures begin to perch -- those same people are saying, "Oh, wait -- not in MY prison." Gosh, that's a shock.

So, I'm happy that this deal is going to make the people who love to gripe but don't want to do anything about it, start putting their money, or at least their prison systems, where their mouth is.

But that's not what I'm really happy about.

What I really hope happens is that they put these guys from Guantanamo into the general prison population in say, San Quentin or Attica -- preferably in the Aryan Nation cell blocks. The GitMo experience will seem like the good ol' days to the terrorists in no time.

So, well done, Mr President. So long as you're not turning those bastards loose, close that baby down, and let them have a little prison hospitality in our 'hood -- for as long as they last.

Is the test over? Did I pass?

2009-01-22T11:52:00.004-06:00

Those of you following my series of posts on our move to Houston know that it has been challenging. It has been so bad in fact that I have often felt that I was being tested by a higher power -- tested and found wanting, I'm afraid. I'm so down on the whole thing, life's really been a drag.

And then a ray of hope: Some days ago, Joe (a guy that lives near us) played golf with Jack (a guy that also lives in The Club). Jack received a new fancy golf cart for Xmas and was selling his old one -- cheap. Joe told me about it; I wrote an email to Jack. Days passed and nothing. Then late last week there's a knock at the door and Jack is there. "My wife just told me about your email. I still have the cart for sale. Want it?" I said that I'd come by his house the next day to take a look. He agrees and drives off. Next thing I know, there's another knock at the door -- Jack again. He's driven the cart over for me to see.

It IS old, but looks OK. We drive it around the block and it seems all right. He tells me that it is 10 years old but the battery is only about 18 months old. I tell him that I'll think about it and he drives off.

I do due diligence online and his offer is less than 1/3 of the cost of any other used cart that I can find. I call him and say, "Done".

I get home early on Tuesday night. Wife drives me to his house. I hand him a check and drive home in my new old cart. (Actually it was not quite that simple because I left my checkbook at home on the first 'go-round, but never mind.) Figuring in the cost of the cart and the yearly "trail fee" that I have to pay The Club, if the cart lasts a year or two, I'll have gotten my money. I have to play about 100 rounds of golf during 2009 in order for it to pay out versus just renting one of The Club's carts every time I play. Of course, if wife starts playing golf too, then it's 100 rounds between the two of us -- even better.

So I'm good. But, that's not the silver lining. The way things have been going, I'm pretty sure the cart will crap out on me the first time I actually use it. But ...

I arrive at work yesterday and my pay stub is in the mailbox. I open it and discover that I received some sort of strange tax refund from 2006. It covers the cost of the cart and a good chunk of the yearly "trail fee" that I have to pay The Club. So win or lose, I've not busted the bank with my impulse purchase.

Thank you, Oh Great Spirit. I needed a little light in the tunnel.

Faithfully yours ...

2009-01-21T12:08:00.004-06:00

I don't know for whom I felt sorrier yesterday: President Barack Obama or Chief Justice John Roberts (what a great name). Everything else about the day had probably been choreographed to the n-th degree. And then it came time for the Presidential Oath of Office -- a grand total of about 35 words. Obviously no one had earlier put the President and the Chief Justice in the same room for five minutes and said, "OK, you two do a dress rehearsal. I know, I know. It's dirt simple and you've both memorized the Oath, but just do it. You know stuff happens." And they didn't and then it did.

Roberts got thrown off when the President interrupted and started repeating the words "I, Barack Hussein ..." before Roberts was ready for him to begin. That gives Roberts one too many things to think about and so he proceeds to change the wording of the oath from that dictated in the Constitution. I thought the look on the President's face was priceless: You STUPID sonofabich. Now what the heck am I supposed to do? Say it incorrectly like you just quoted, or say it the way I know it's written? So the President starts in and then Roberts compounds the problem by interrupting the President. President Obama eventually elected to choose some from each side of the menu: failing to repeat the oath as written and yet not repeating exactly what Roberts had asked him to say. I bet President Obama thought when it was mercifully over, Great. Four minutes into the world's most difficult job and I've already fouled up. Well, the good news is that the press corp (and blog writers) won't have to make something up to write about.

Or maybe he thought, It's like a new car. You drive like you're on eggs until you get the first dent and from that point on, you just motor on down the road -- worrying more about where you're going than worrying about denting the car. I've had my first dent, so look out world: I'm comin'.

And then I had to laugh because one of the TV news reporters mused out loud about whether the President was really the President since the Oath was not correctly administered. Oath or no oath, the man was President from noon yesterday per 20th Amendment to the Constitution. The reporter should've known that.

I've already been reading that the white conservatives are going to take it to court about whether the Presidency is all legal or not. HELLO! Who are you going to take your case to? The Supreme Court? Like John Roberts's Supreme Court? Well, I wonder how THAT'S going to turn out?

Maybe I'm not listening in the right places but it also wouldn't surprise me if some people are saying, "Just another example of the white guy messing with the black guy."

I should say that President Obama was gracious to Roberts when asked about the oath taking later, saying something like, "Oh, you know, we were both nervous .... yada, yada."

My final thought: I'm glad it wasn't me up there in either role. I'd've probably forgotten all the words, puked, and then passed out. Mr. President, things are never so bad they couldn't be worse. Go drive that car like crazy.

Democracy

2009-01-20T07:30:00.006-06:00

"Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried." -- W Churchill

My father every four or eight years would say, "What's happening today is really amazing. In only a handful of places in the world does a government completely change, and there is no fear, no armies on the streets, no dead predecessors. The outgoing guy just hands over to the incoming guy and life goes on." So I'm celebrating today in honor of my dad because, once again, I think he's right.

I think President-elect Obama's been horribly over-hyped. I'm almost going to feel sorry for him when the honeymoon is over and people begin to realize that he isn't a saint. He's just a fairly smart guy with limited political experience who's willingly thrown himself in the deep end. As comedian Chris Rock said, you can't even make fun of the guy. It's like: "Ooh, you're young and virile and you've got a beautiful wife and kids. You're the first African-American president." What else are you going to say? Rock goes on, though, by saying that eventually President Obama will screw up and then the comedians will get on him and the rest of us can take off the rose-colored glasses.

I read in another article that it has taken 44 years since the voting rights act passed for an African-American to become the 44th President. I hear people saying that Martin King's 'dream' is becoming a reality. I thought about that some days ago sitting in a restaurant here in Houston. It was an ethnically diverse group ... to the extreme. There was even a Russian among us. For a period of my life back at least in part of the 60s and certainly in the 50s, that mixing would never have happened. We have come a long way and if electing Senator Obama gets people to admit it, it's a good thing.

And the last bit of my political diatribe: The United States of America does make progress. We move forward. The rest of the world at times hates us because we mess up their comfortable status quo. We don't always move forward in the the right direction, but generally we look ahead. I contrast that with other countries who have dipped their toe into democratic waters, gotten scared and turned back to the safety of a somewhat benign dictator. People who long for socialism to keep them safe at the expense of moving forward.

Thanks, but I'll take the worst form of government over all the others, especially the US version.

Good luck, Barack. You're gonna need it. But your country will face forward with you, like we always do.

More testing of my ability to cope

2009-01-19T12:15:00.007-06:00

You can probably guess by now that when days go by without a post from me, it is not a good sign.

Here's a litany of the past several days:

Family room and bedroom furniture arrived. Couch (a floor model and we knew it) had more damage than we would've liked including some disconcerting black stains on the back. One swivel chair has stitching on one seam coming out. The second chair has some of the ticking showing if you lift the cushion on the arm.

We found a few scratches on some of the bedroom pieces, but generally they were acceptable until ...

We discovered that each nightstand had lights underneath. Very cute. Just by touching them you could cycle through dim, medium, high and off settings. Frankly, we didn't even realize they had that feature. (And neither did the saleswoman, I should say.) We plugged 'em in, turned them on, liked them, and turned them off. A few minutes later, I come back into the room and they're on again. I figured Wife liked looking at them, but I wanted to save electricity, so I turned them off. A few minutes later I'm back in and they're back on. I stand there and stare for a few seconds, now they're off. A few more seconds, on - dim. A few more, on - medium. And then on - high before turning themselves off and starting the cycle again.

The saleswoman is actually at the house (more on that in a minute) so I ask, "What's the deal?"

She says, "Oh, just unplug them."

I say, "Wait a minute, I paid for these and they're supposed to work."

"Oh, well, I don't know ... "

So why is the saleswoman there? Because she and two of her minions brought four oriental rugs for us to see with the newly delivered furniture. The deal was that she would bring rugs in about our price range and we could choose. The first was way too red and it was easy to say "no". I'd liked it in the store but not on the floor. The next was really good. It looked completely different depending on which side of the room you were standing. It was the one the saleswoman originally picked for us when we were in the store. The third one was even better -- a bolder design, but looked fabulous in the room. The fourth one, not so good. Less traditional. We were ready to pull the trigger on the third one.

I ask, "How much?"

Rug seller (one of the minions) says a number that is more than double what we thought we were going to pay. I just blink.

Wife, quite appropriately, goes off on them saying, "You told me you were bringing carpets the same cost as the ones we looked at in the store."

"Oh, well these are bigger: 10x14, not 9x12."

"Why'd you do that?"

"Better for the room."

"Not if it is twice the budget. How much is it for 9x12?"

Cellphone calls and much punching of calculator buttons ensues. In about 10 minutes guy quotes a price still $1000 more than we'd agreed.

Bob is at the limit: "Sorry to waste your time. Pack this stuff up and get out of here. I told you we were over our budget just in buying your furniture. Out."

Response: "But such high quality ... highly discounted ... can't get elsewhere."

Rebuttal: "What part of 'get out' was unclear to you?"

Oh, yes and one more thing: the swivel chairs that we are unhappy about were floor models. Saleswoman says, "Oh we sell off the floor all the time. I never promised they'd come from warehouse."

Wife and I both say, "Oh, yes you did. The only thing that was not to come from the warehouse was the couch."

"Oh, no ..."

"... Oh, yes", we say

"... and your sales receipt clearly says 'all sales final, no returns'", she says.

We continue the battle with this, quite expensive I should tell you, store. I'm not giving the store's name, but when we get this resolved, or as resolved as we can get it, I'll publish the name and encourage everyone to avoid the place like the plague.

Continuing --

We also pulled the trigger on a new mattress and box spring - Simmons Beautyrest -- on sale -- a good deal, we think. Mattress looks good on the surface. Lots going on at the house; Wife's busy; she signs; delivery people leave. With more time she starts looking and finds loose threads on lots of the seams -- threads that just weren't cut off. But, also finds seams that are pulling out already. Only cosmetic, it appears, but still: we paid nearly $2000 for the set. She calls 'em back on the number delivery people gave. They say, "Sorry you signed for it." She calls the store and speaks to someone (our salesman's not there). The guy says he'll call the warehouse.

Long story longer: They agree to deliver new mattress after Wife threatens bodily injury to them if they don't. Delivery people show up one day late. Delivery man looks at mattress and says, "You don't want it." I'll bring you another." He goes away. He comes back a couple days later. Starts to unload, then says, "Worse than the other one." Goes away. Fourth try is supposed to be today. We'll see.

Lesson learned: when people deliver product, give them a cup of coffee and sit them down. Tell them they're going to be there for 30 minutes. Go thoroughly over every inch of the product. Have a cup of coffee yourself, then go over it again. Only then sign the papers.

And, oh, yes, Wife found broken tiles on roof during a cursory inspection she makes from a ladder. Calls warranty people. They come out and find as many as 25 tiles broken, saying that it looks like storm damage from Hurricane Ike. Why didn't our inspector find the damage? I don't know. We're in negotiations with warranty company on who's going to pay for replacing the tiles. Tiles are not part of warranty -- only leaks are. Grrrr.

Final straw: I go to fill up the car with gasoline yesterday and my card is denied ... my EMPLOYEE card is denied. I find out today that my bank didn't make my last payment like they were supposed to.

If this is a test, I'm on the border of not passing.

Sounds In the Night

2009-01-10T10:58:00.008-06:00

I have a few more fishing tales that are funny too, even though they're not actually associated with setting out lines. Here's one that we still laugh at.

It was a hot, humid Illinois night. We had the exhaust fan running full blast pulling air in through our open windows and out through the attic. Air conditioning was a luxury we didn't think we needed or could afford back in those days. My bedroom window faced the backyard with its apple and cherry tree. You could hear the cars on the highway some quarter mile away, but traffic was always light. We were a ways out in the country. At the end of our street, the corn fields began.

It was late at night, probably after 2AM. I was sound asleep but something woke me. I lay awake listening. Then it came, "Knee-deep. Knee-deep. Rib-bit." A frog. Like a big bullfrog. Couldn't be. A creek ran a few blocks from our house (a favorite play spot of ours), but there was no way a frog would make its way to our backyard. I lay there a bit and then it came again: a loud, throaty "Knee-deep". This time it was followed by a cymbal "crash". Then all was quiet. In a few minutes, again "Knee-deep, knee-deep, clang". This time the clang sounded like two pot lids smashing together.

I went to the open window and peered into the backyard. I could see nothing but shadows. I watched to see if I could tell where the sound was coming from. Pretty soon I heard the "Knee-deep, knee-deep, rib-bit, bang" and this time a second metalic "bong" as well. It was definitely coming from the backyard and it sounded close, but I couldn't tell from where. I briefly thought about jumping out the window and going to look around, but it didn't seem worth it. I figured a frog had somehow found its way to the backyard. OK, but what was the metallic banging sound?

Late the next morning (in those days 'double-digits', as my daughter would later say, was definitely the right time to get out of bed) I stumbled out, and my dad was sitting at the kitchen table.

"I heard a frog." I said.

He grinned and said, "I know. I brought 'em home from the river last night. Biggest bullfrogs I ever saw. I just wanted you and your sister to see 'em."

"What did you keep them in?"

"Minnow bucket."

And now the mystery was solved. We went out in back and next to the cherry tree sat one of his metal 'minnie buckets'. He popped the lid's fastener and opened the top. Two huge frogs sat goggle-eyed in the bottom of the bucket.

I laughed to think about them trying to get out last night. A couple warning croaks and then an escape jump. BONG! Little froggy head hitting the top of the bucket. Slight concussion. Shaking of head. Sitting dazed in the bottom of the bucket. Recovery. Croak. Jump. Bong.

Now they looked like they'd finally learned their lesson. They sat staring up at us from the bottom of the bucket.

Dad said he'd released them into the creek near the house later.

When I Was A Boy (WIWAB) - Read All The Posts

2009-01-10T09:08:00.011-06:00

My last post completes something I've intended to do for a long time: write some of the stories that revolved around my dad's and my setting out lines on the banks of the Mackinaw River in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. If you want to read all the posts as a short story, here are links to all the "When I Was a Boy" posts. I've marked my favorites with asterisks. Use the comments feature to let me know which ones you like ... if any. Critical comments appreciated too.

1 Fishing In Dad's Day
2 ... But When I Was A Boy - Getting Ready To Go
Seinin' Minnies
3 Driving To the Mackinaw
4 We Arrive
5 Getting Started
6 My First Pole
7 Set the Lines
8 Nettles and Firewood
9 Got One
10 Definition of Patience (*)
11 Hidey Hole
12 Runnin' the Lines
13 Harry's
14 Running Lines in the Dark
15 Where's the Pole?
16 Big Fish and Shooting Stars (*)
17 Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
18 Last Run
19 Home and Back Again
20 Sunday Afternoon

WIWAB - Sunday Afternoon

2009-01-08T21:10:00.005-06:00

We arrived home just before noon -- tired, dirty, and happy. Dad parked the car in the driveway in front of the house.

"First things first. Let me find something to put the fish in. Start unloading the car will ya'?"

He opened the trunk and then quickly disappeared into the house.

I started carrying the gear from the trunk into the back yard and laying it out in the shade of the apple tree. After only a couple trips, Dad was back with a metal tub and a big plastic bucket. He filled them with water from the tap on the side of the house. He pulled the net full of fish from the back seat, carried them into the backyard, and one by one put them into the containers of water. The largest one forced water over the rim of the tub when he slid it in.

"That ought to hold them while we get things cleaned up a little. You keep going and I'll get the poles."

Pretty soon we had the car unloaded and the gear spread out in the yard. He hooked the garden hose to the spigot and began hosing off all the equipment: nets, waders, my wet jeans -- everything that didn't mind a little water. He untied the bundles of poles and sprayed water on them concentrating on the muddy butt ends. When they were clean, he shut off the water and stood the poles against the side of the garage in the sun. Waders got thrown over the clothes lines.

"Guess I better do those fish. You can go get cleaned up if you want. I can handle it," he said as he started to go into the house. I hung around outside and pretty soon he was back. His arms were full -- a wad of news papers, a pair pliers, a knife, a ceramic bowl from the kitchen. He laid the stuff in the grass, went in the garage and came back with a lawn chair. Setting that in the shade he brought over the stuff from the house and the containers of fish.

He began pulling the fish from the containers and laying them in the grass -- sorting them by size. "... eight, nine, ten, eleven. That's a pretty darn good haul for this day and age. I haven't come back with that many in a long time. Couldn't 'of done it without you." I grinned at him as he said it.

With a sigh he sat down in the chair and picked up one of the fish. It lay gasping in his hand; its mouth opening and closing. It croaked like a frog and I jumped.

"They do that sometimes." Dad said. "The darn things can live quite a while out of water. They actually can breathe air using their swim bladders." And with that he picked up the knife. "Remember how to do this?" I gulped and nodded ... hoping he wouldn't ask me to clean one.

"Cut around his head just behind the fins." I flinched. The fish was still gasping in his hand as he did it. "Guess I should'a put him out of his misery first." With that he picked up the heavy pliers, laid the fish in grass and gave it a bash on the head. He eyed it for a second then hit it again, leaving a dent in its skull this time. I stood on one foot and then the other. He picked up the fish again.

"So cut around his body. Hold his head in your palm and put your fingers behind his fins. Careful: spines on these little ones are sharp as heck and they're poisonous ... oh, not enough to kill you, but they really hurt when they cut you.

Then grab the skin with the pliers and pull down toward his tail. It comes off like you're taking off a sock.

Now cut from his touch-hole to his chin." He said it with a grin.

"Make a cut down through his back. Now just hold his body with one hand, his head in the other, and pull down. All his guts come right out.

"Clean up his insides with the edge of your knife, cut off the tail and you're done."

That old man could skin and clean a catfish in less than two minutes. I tried and tried over the years; I never could do it.

In less than an hour all the fish were cleaned and laying in the big bowl of water.

The rest of that Sunday was a slow winding down from the work of the weekend. We showered, got some lunch. Dad had a beer or two in front of the TV. When the gear was dry we put it away. The poles went back in the garage rafters.

We slept well that night.

WIWAB - Home and Back Again

2009-01-07T17:53:00.008-06:00

We trudged back to the campsite dragging our one catfish on the stringer with us. Dad put the fish with the others in the net in the river. I climbed into my dry clothes and waited by poking around in the dying fire with a stick.

He was back in a minute saying, "Let's pack up and head home. I'm tired." I was tired too. It was well past midnight -- way past my bedtime. We started throwing things into the trunk of the car -- waders, fishing rods, wet clothes ... anything we could find that looked like ours. We were done in minutes. "Anything we missed, we'll get in the morning." he said. We climbed in the car and crept our way back down the dirt road with the corn to our right and river to our left.

"I hope those darn gar swim on before morning." he said. I just nodded. And in mid nod, fell asleep.

I felt a shake on my shoulder some time later. "OK, climb in bed. I'll get you up in the morning." he told me. I climbed out of the car, shuffled off to my room, stripped off my clothes and climbed in bed -- stinky, dirty, and all. A bed never felt so good.

The next thing I heard was my door open with a pop, and my dad saying, "Come on, boy. Rise and shine. We need to get back down there before the fish get off the hooks." From under the covers I poked my head out and gave him a bleary one-eyed stare.

"What time is it?" I rasped.

"Not that early. Get moving." came the reply. I tossed back the covers and reached for my jeans on the floor. "Grab another pair of jeans out of your drawer and bring them with us." he told me. "No sense in putting on your wet ones again. Your Mom's going to have to wash anyway." He left the door open and walked down the hall toward the kitchen.

After a two pieces of buttered white bread toast with cinnamon sugar and a big glass of orange juice we were on our way back to the river. The morning was sunny and starting to get hot already.

We turned down our dirt track again. I peered out the window as we got close to our camp of the night before -- straining to see our poles in the greenish looking water of the river. No such luck: a view of the nettles and a glimpse of the water was all I got.

We stopped under the trees, Dad opened the trunk and pulled out his waders. I was standing on one foot and then the other. "Run down and see if we've got anything on. I'll be right there." he said. I didn't need encouragement. I slid down the dirt bank and ran across the gravel to the edge of the water. Scanning the far bank I could see our poles. All the lines hung straight into the water -- no movement, no fish. I sagged.

He came up beside me. "Pretty quiet. Maybe we got skunked." he said. "Wouldn't be the first time, but we've got that one lunker in the live net, so it's not a total loss."

He walked to where the minnow bucket was sitting in the river and upended it. Spilling the few remaining minnows into the stream. "Won't need those now. I didn't dump 'em last night because I didn't want the fish eating them instead of our bait." He set the bucket on the gravel. "OK, let's see what we got." He started across the stream.

As he approached the first pole it twitched. Closer still and the end dipped down into the water. "Got one! He's tired from fighting all night, but there he is." In seconds, a fat catfish was flopping in the net. "Gars didn't get them all I guess." he said grinning. He carried the pole and the fish in the net back to where I waited on the gravel next to the river. He put the fish on the stringer, then fitted the hook into the eye-screw on the pole so it was all neat and tidy. He laid the pole on the gravel. "Let's go get another one."

And so the next hour went by in a flash. We caught a few more fish, but on some poles the bait was still on. He's slap the line like a whip against the water to knock the bait off, then hook the hook in the pole's eye and toss it to me near shore. Eventually all the poles lay waiting for us on the bank.

Then we retraced our steps. He had cords tucked away in some pocket or another and we tied the poles into two bundles as we walked back to the car. He rinsed the bundles in the river to get rid of some of the mud. Then, like a shot, he was up the bank with each bundle and tying them onto the roof racks of the car. He rinsed the buckets and threw them in the trunk. He cleaned up the last of the debris around the campsite. With a final glance we walked to the river's edge and pulled up the wire live net that contained our fish. We must have had more than a dozen -- a good haul for those days. He carried the net back to the car, laid a pad of newspapers on the floor of the back seat and put the net on top of it. "Let's go home. A cup of coffee sounds really good."

And so it was over. I caught a last glimpse of the river as we drove out to the main road. The leaves of the corn were waving in the light breeze. We rolled the windows down on the way home as the sun beat down.

"When are we going to go again?" I asked.

When I Was A Boy (WIWAB) - Last Run for the Night

2009-01-06T21:55:00.005-06:00

My last "When I Was A Boy (WIWAB)" post about setting out lines with my dad was way back in July. The story line from that post was that we'd just run the lines at night, caught a big fish, seen a shooting star, made a campfire and listened to the White Sox ball game on an old clunker of a radio -- while the smoke chased me around the campfire. I have to say the the WIWAB post just before that one took a lot out of me. That was a very personal glimpse into my soul and it was hard to think of anything to write after that which would be as good. But now, I'm going to try to get back in the writing mode. There's one more post about setting out lines that has to be written. I'm not sure when that will be. All I know is that I have to keep going.

The fire had begun to burn down. The White Sox had lost again. The old man grunted and stood up.

"That's what happens when the knuckle ball stops knuckling", he said. "The pitcher looks great for seven innings. The ball's jumping all over the place. Then suddenly it's not moving around at all -- just coming up there toward the batter like a pumpkin. Next thing you know the other team's scored six runs before the manager can yank the pitcher out of there. ... Oh, well.

"Let's go run the lines then we'll head home.

"Change your jeans and we'll go."

I grimaced at changing into the wet, cold pair of jeans again, but stripped off my nice dry pair, pulled the wet ones off the branch, and tugged them on. We found our head lamps. The batteries were getting low. I had to listen to him tell yet again about how he and his brothers used to fish with just oil burning miners' lights back in his day. "Just a tiny little flame -- more smoke than light", he'd say. It was a family legend. With every telling the light got dimmer and the fish they supposedly caught got bigger.

We clambered down the bank to the river and got the minnow bucket from the water. There weren't many minnows or crawfish left. "I hope we catch so many on this run we use up all the bait", he said.

We panned our lights across the river, picking up reflections from the poles. All quiet, no bobbing. He sighed and waded out to check the lines. "Bait's gone." He called. He re-baited that line and moved to the next and the next and the next. The same story -- all the bait was gone. Further downstream, he pulled a small channel cat off the hook and put him on the stringer. He waded into the bank and handed me the stringer. "You take care of this guy while I finish up." He panned his light back across the stream and one of the poles was whipping back and forth.

"Ho, what have we here?" he asked as he waded out towards it. "Doesn't act like a catfish." As he got closer to the pole he slowed and got the dip net in his hand. He carefully grabbed the line near where it attached to the pole and started to lift up. There seemed to be an explosion in the water next to him. "Ah, hell, it's a gar." he yelled. He lowered the net in the water and then lifted up. I could see the light reflecting from the side of the silvery fish. This time he pulled the whole pole out of the bank and walked towards me near the shore.

"Hate these damn things. They travel in schools, eat all the bait clean, chase away the catfish, and even when you catch one they're no good to eat. Damn things." He walked up on the shore and lay the dip net and pole on the sand. I shined my light on the fish. It was snake like with a long snout. It opened its jaws and snapped them angrily shut on the net. I caught the flash of rows of white sharp teeth. Just then Dad stomped down on the fish's head with the heel of his boot. The tail snapped back and forth. Stomp the boot came down again. This time there was no motion. When he stepped back the fish's head was jammed several inches into the sand. I swallowed at the violence of it and took a step back.

"That's the only way I know to get the hook out of its mouth without getting bitten." He reached for the line and pulled the fish up. He carefully pinched the exposed hook between thumb and finger and worked it out of the fish's bony mouth. When it was free, he held it up in our lights. I could see its needle like teeth even more clearly. "Damn thing." he said and threw it far up onto the bank into weeds. "At least the raccoons and foxes'll have something to eat tonight."

He turned from me and started baiting the hook. I continued to look up to where the fish was gone. I didn't really want to get back into the river.

To House or Not To House

2009-01-05T12:39:00.008-06:00

My newly (and FINALLY) installed AT&T cable TV service includes a Digital Video Recorder. What a great toy. I can record up to four programs at once and replay them on any of the TVs in the house. I can even do it on the fly ... like say if Wife has some urgent task that needs immediate response -- such as taking out the garbage or like telling me why we're having chicken not steak for dinner. Click, I push the "Pause" button and when I come back later I click "Play" and take right up where I left off -- merrily skipping commercials as I go.

It lets me record future shows and even set up a series record so that I get all the shows in a series without having to think much about it.

Which brings me to the real topic today: House -- the Fox Network dramatic series about a diagnostic physician at a major metropolitan hospital. I'm fairly well addicted to the show, and I wonder why. I really like Hugh Laurie. Reading his Wikipedia entry was interesting because -- some what frighteningly -- he has characteristics in line with his not-very-nice TV character: Dr. Greg House. He's a musician. He's suffered from clinical depression. He's got an eye for hot babes (he had a relationship with Emma Thompson). But he's a Brit (despite having locked in a good American accent), his university degrees are in archeology and anthropology, and his original theater experience was as a comic.

On the one hand I'm surprised at myself for liking the show. Dr. Greg House is a real asshole, frankly. He delights in manipulating people, is addicted to pain medication, got himself high on LSD to manage his migraines, likes hookers, and hates hospital clinic duty. He routinely dumps on his best friend, such as when he incrementally increased his requests for loans from his friend just to try to get a fix on how much his friendship was worth. His stock saying is "Everyone Lies". If he were a real doctor he would have been sued, barred from practicing medicine, and probably would've been beaten up and/or shot dead long ago.

Generally when faced with a character like this I'd say, "Why do I care about what happens to this guy?" then I'd switch stations. I do that with most reality shows since they tend to be populated by people that I would not chose to associate with under almost any imaginable circumstances.

And yet I'm recording every "House" program and even watching the re-runs. I think it's because I wish I were so good at something that I could be as big of a jerk as House and people would just live with it. The only way he gets away with being the way he is, is to be such a flippin' great diagnostician -- even without actually meeting his patients -- that everyone looks the other way when he acts out. And he acts out a lot. I act out a lot too, but nobody looks the other way. So, I vicariously live my life through House -- with his quick acerbic wit, flaunting all rules and quite a few laws, and pretty much putting on a show of never giving a damn what other people think.

Or maybe I just watch because his female boss (Dr. Lisa Cuddy played by Lisa Edelstein) looks great and always wears low cut tops. Afterall I'm never going to be that good at anything to be able to act like House.

Survey: What Carpet Should We Get

2009-01-03T21:03:00.009-06:00

Having had a difficult time choosing family room furniture, we finally landed on a leather sofa and two swivel arm chairs. Here are a couple not very good snapshots to give you an idea:

We're going to use our ancient, but still servicable, end table and coffee table. Here's the best picture I could muster of our family room in which the new furniture will go.

With the tile floor, we obviously want a carpet to pull the room together. As usual, we can't agree. So, dear friends, family and other parties, I'd be interested in any comment you'd like to make about each of the following:

1. Start with the picture of the sofa and chair above. The carpet on the floor is one that the designer chose. We felt it was a bit too light color and drab given the neutral colors in the room.

2. This is the one Wife has her heart set on. Yes, the colors look different in each picture. Sorry. Good news: it's the least expensive:

3. One I particularly like.

4. Another I particularly like.

5. And yet another I particularly like.

Pretend they all cost the same. Which do you like the best?

P.S., I didn't show you the $10,000 all silk one that I REALLY like, but would only be able to afford 1/4th of.

What Price Sleep?

2009-01-02T22:44:00.008-06:00

We've got a beautiful bedroom set on order. It should be here a week from tomorrow. I've not slept on a bed with a headboard since ... well, since I lived with my parents, I think. A king sized bed too. It's been years since I've owned one. Can't wait. Big chest of drawers coming as well. I won't have to use my grandmother's cast off, or the one I basically stole from my daughter. And honest to goodness night tables -- one for each side. Not some discount store $10 particle board thing that you have to keep covered with a table cloth. You know: we're gonna have a real bedroom.

But the darn thing needs a mattress and box spring. The store at which we purchased the furniture specialized in Kingsdown "Sleep To Live" bedding. The sales person even had us lay on a computerized mattress-thingy that said I needed a 'blue' (3 of 4 on firmness scale) and Wife needed a 'gold' (cushiest, 1 of 4). They had demo models of each and we tried them out. VERY nice. Wife decided that cushy was not for her. Felt better on my firmness. Cool! We finally agreed on something. "OK," says I to the salesperson. "How much?" She says, "$4500". I laugh and say, "No, really: how much?" She says, "$4500 ... plus tax, of course." I say, "What else you got?"

And then the sales job starts: "How much is a good night's sleep worth to you?" "Only bed you'll ever need." "20-year guarantee." "I have two hip replacements and I own one of these and have no pain." "Worth every penny." Yada-yada-yada.

I say, "What else you got?"

We try one of the lower price sets. Not nearly as comfortable. Even cheaper one; even less comfortable. Surprise. Surprise.

Final words from me, "Thanks. I think not. Send the furniture." Which by the way, costs less than the mattress and box springs we'd just looked at.

So today, we tried Mattress Giant store down the road. We knew they had Kingsdown as well and wanted to see if they had a better price. As my daughter had told me: you can't do apples-to-apples comparison on bedding. Each store calls each mattress something different so you can't tell whether you're comparing the same mattress or not. But never mind. The only Kingsdowns they had were all more expensive than the ones we'd seen at the furniture store. So I says, "What else ya got?"

And nice man Steve shows us some Simmons and some Posturepedic and some Tempurpedic. We find one Simmons Beautyrest for $2100 and another for $1800. Neither were as comfortable as the Kingsdown, but if the Kingsdown was a 10 for comfort, these were in the 7-8 range. Based on price, you'd expect them only to a 4 or a 5. Naturally I like the more expensive one and Wife likes the cheaper one, but those are high class problems at this point. We think we'll go back for the cheaper one tomorrow.

Oh, by the way, given the right circumstances, we can sleep anywhere.

Back In the Blog Saddle Again

2009-01-01T22:36:00.011-06:00

A New Year Resolution: get back to writing a blog post every day. So far so good for 2009.

When I last left you back in mid-November we'd just closed on our new house. The intervening weeks have been busy as you might expect. Household goods from the UK were delivered with only minor damage to a few insignificant items.

Goods that had been in storage in California showed up several days later. No damage there either.

Beautiful big Amana stainless refrigerator got delivered and installed without incident thanks to ABT online shopping site. Ditto with LG washer and drier from Home Depot. Just last week we chose an 8'-long leather sofa with a reddish cast and two matching swivel chairs from Louis Shanks furniture store. We also picked out a bedroom set with bed, chest of drawers, and two night stands. While we were at it we picked a beautiful mirror for our guest bath. The salesperson is pressuring us to get an oriental rug for the room. We saw one we liked, but it was out of budget. Later she called back and gave us an even better price. We said, 'no thanks', but she's bringing three options out to show us when they deliver the furniture on 10 Jan. Here's a link to updated house pictures.

We're still lacking window treatments. Wife is handling that. And we've not found her a car yet. She's got her heart set on Mercedes Benz. That'll take some real looking to find one within budget.

Shopping has consumed most of our time, but we managed a few nice events. For Thanksgiving we went to the buffet brunch at The Club. It was great and a needed break from unpacking.

We also attended our company Christmas ... excuse me ... Holiday Party at the Intercontinental Hotel. They served the best buffet I've ever had. They had two bands playing and had 'for fun' gambling going. We had a great time. We stayed home on Christmas Day and made steaks on the barbecue.

For New Year we went to the party at The Club again. (Gosh, it's cool to be able to say that.) We were seated with some truly nice people and had a fun, fun evening. The food was fabulous and the band was good even though they didn't play any Latin music that we could salsa to. Wife got called up on stage to dance a couple times and acquitted herself extremely well, I should tell you. Who is the oldest person in these pictures?

I've been walking the four golf holes that surround the house about everyday. I can start on hole #5, play #6, cut across the course and play #3 and #4 and be back at my house. I've also played one of the full 18 hole courses a couple of times. The first time I broke 100 and I didn't think that was possible. There's water on 14 of the 18 holes. The next time I played, well, it was a disaster, but that's golf after all.

So that's a good start for the New Year: one post done and 364 more to go.

A Post From the Now Landed Gentry

2008-11-17T21:36:00.006-06:00

At long, long, long last we are home owners in Houston, Texas. Many times during this process I never thought I'd live to see it, but perseverance has won out in the end. We closed today on a new house in Northgate Country Club north of Houston.

In my last post, more than a month ago now, we'd found three potential houses to buy -- all close to each other on a golf course in a country club. All beautiful, brand new, not over our (expanded) budget, and only 35 minutes by bus to my office. Unfortunately all three were close to the airport. My last comment was: "What to do? What to do?"

Well, the answer was: "Buy one, you idiot."

We negotiated what I think is a pretty good price on a brand new home on the course in Northgate CC. It's a single story patio home: big family room, formal dining room, study, breakfast area, beautiful open-plan kitchen, large master bedroom with huge bath and even huge-er walk-in closet, two guest bedrooms each with private bath, covered patio, backyard big enough for a pool. It has tile floors throughout except for shag carpet in the bedrooms and hardwood floor in the study. It has a two-and-a-half car garage; the 'half' is for my golf cart. The clubhouse is a mile away with its restaurant, swimming pool and tennis courts. The park-and-ride for the bus into town is about 10 minutes and the bus ride itself about another 35. Walmart, Home Depot, Kroger, and Walgreen's are just down the street.

Our plan for the rest of the week is: refrigerator delivered tomorrow (Tuesday) plus we do some cleaning and go buy a washer and a dryer; household goods delivered on Wednesday -- hopefully without mold after being in a container for four months; clean the apartment and move out on Thursday; get TV, cable, and Internet hooked up on Thursday; play golf on Friday!

A picture is worth 1000 words. Here's a link to a FaceBook album that shows what we've gotten ourselves into: Our New House

Assuming we get Internet access established quickly, I promise to start posting to this blog more regularly again. I quit because frankly, I figured you were as tired hearing about our house hunting problems as I was tired writing about them. Also, my ever superstitious wife claimed that I was jinxing us by letting anyone know what we were doing. I hate to feed her paranoia, but it looks like she was right!

News from the front

2008-10-15T07:06:00.004-05:00

The war continues between me and the Houston housing market, but even in the mud and noise of war, a flower blooms.

We're still battling to find a house to buy or rent. You'll recall from the last blog that we'd found a house only to discover that a petroleum pipeline ran near the house. THAT turned out not to be the problem; the problem was that the builder had operated under more than one company name in the last several years, had been to court and lost concerning shoddy workmanship, and was in some financial straights. Cross another house off our list.

We decided to punt and find something to rent: a townhouse close to work maybe. We enlisted another agent who specializes in rentals. We toured maybe ten places and found two that fit the bill. After debating over night we called the agent to pull the trigger on one. She told us that both had been rented -- one for more than its asking price. Two things are at work here: the refugees from Hurricane Ike all need to rent places until their houses are rebuilt and people whose houses are foreclosed all need to rent somewhere to live. The Houston rental market, particularly for upscale places in nice parts of town, has sky rocketed.

So, we go back to realtor #1 telling her to boost the ceiling price we're willing to pay and to show us houses built after 2003. She finds us three: in a country club, on a golf course, beautiful layout, brand new, and not over budget ... and directly under the landing pattern for Bush Intercontinental Airport. The planes come over the house at about 3000-feet. The noise is perhaps not as bad as we experienced in UK. The people we talked with who live there say, "Oh, yeah. The airplanes. What ever." We love the houses, love the location (the country club has the right feel, isn't expensive, has 27-hole golf course), it's only 35 minutes from work.

What to do, what to do?

The bright spots are more like candles in a cave, but we're taking our happiness where we can:

I passed my Texas driving test.

Wife has a new iPhone ... which I should say is really cool and fun and over priced and carries a hefty monthly fee. Did I mention it's really cool?

We're going to get a refund on our sofa that the moving company lost ... when I moved TO the UK seven years ago.

Good Buddy Bruce was here on his way back from Venzeuela with news that he's NOT retiring because he's been promoted to a great new job.

Work is good and I'm starting to find direction there. No promotion in sight or hearing, but, hey, in these times -- a job's a job.

My mom's doing well and having her 88th (I think) birthday ... or maybe she already had it ... I can never remember whether it's Oct 13 or Oct 17.

My daughter's and her husband are doing well. She teaching and acting.

And ... oh, darn ... that's it.

Will I NEVER learn?

2008-10-07T09:51:00.007-05:00

At last post we'd just backed out of a contract for a house we loved in Sugar Land, Texas. We'd also just started looking at houses north of the city and I'd said we'd found "quite a few possibles".

The part I left out was that one of the possibles was an absolutely gorgeous custom built home on a lake in the Senterra subdivision of Spring, Texas. It's unfinished, but even in that state it's impressive:

o Sits on a natural, not canal-like, lake.
o Has 3300 sq ft of floor space
o Three bedrooms including a master that looks out on the lake.

o Study with wood wainscoting (I think that's what you call it) and a computer nook just off of it. Full bath too so it could be a third guest room.

o Beautiful kitchen that opens onto the family room, breakfast area, and views of the lake.

o Formal living room that you see directly across the foyer as you walk in and a view of the lake through the picture window.
o Huge diningroom with butler's pantry.

o Two covered patios looking out on the lake with access from family room and master bedroom.
o Three car garage (no more wondering where to put my windsurfing equipment).
o Table for folding clothes and a sink in the utility room.
o Corner lot with a second lake (retainment pond actually) across the street.
o The not-yet-completed community swimming pool is across the lake.
o There's a public golf course within 15 minute drive.
o AND it's at least $200,000 more than we were planning on spending.
o AND it's a 55 minute commute to my office ... on good days.

We drove out there on Sunday. We walked through it again, and frankly just fell completely in love with it. We asked ourselves, "Why are we not just taking this? It's the perfect house for us and who cares how much it costs if we've got the money? Why are we even debating this?" We walked around the lake and saw a few minnows swimming plus signs people have been fishing. We had mild concerns about where the lake's outlet is; how does it keep from flooding the houses? But still. I could see taking this house and never moving again.

Then Lara sees a pipe sticking up out of the ground just on the property line: "Warning - Petroleum Product Pipeline -- call 1-888-555-You're-F-ked to report explosions, fires and other destruction. Sorry about that." Well, I'm kidding about what the sign said, but not about there being a 10 inch gasoline pipeline running next to the property. It carries as much as 1500 barrels (60,000 gallons!) of gasoline an hour and can run at 500 psi. It was laid in 1948.

I can hear god in his arm chair saying, "I TOLD you not to buy a house. Why won't you listen?"

Then why does he keep putting houses we like in our way and then jerking them out from under us.

Truthfully, we like it so much, we may buy it anyway.

Today though, we're off to look at townhouses to rent ... again. Maybe we'll find something we love that we don't have to buy.

Reason for no posts ...

2008-09-28T09:59:00.011-05:00

Never never never say things are going well or that you've been lucky like I did in my previous post.

On 18 September we'd just returned from a week in San Antonio waiting out Hurricane Ike. Our new house was virtually undamaged. We were to have the final inspection with the builder on Friday and hoped to close on the following Monday.

We had our final inspection on Friday. It went relatively well. Some things undone, because of the storm mostly, and Wife found a few dozen more items that needed touch up paint, but generally we were pleased.

But, while we were having the inspections, three business jet aircraft flew directly over our house. I would conservatively guess they were at 500-feet -- close enough to see the pilots. They flew directly at our family room windows then proceeded to land at Sugar Land Regional airport, which is 1-2 miles away.

I was moderately freaked out; Wife was solidly freaked out. We came home and the first thing I did was to start an online search of Sugar Land Regional Airport. I found that the airport services "more than 7200 aircraft a month" and that it "Handles small, private planes to the largest corporate aircraft, such as the Boeing 737 BBJ." Further digging revealed that in August 2008 they handled 6,961 takeoffs or landings. Digging into yet another site I discover that at peak times the airport can have as many as 10 operations per hour. So much for "it's just a little regional airport for private pilots".

We go out to the house on Saturday at about the time we expected the most take offs and landings. No jets came over head, but we realize that the house is right in the gun barrel of the airport runway. We see three jets taking off in the opposite direction away from us. We have more than a dozen propeller driven planes take off toward the house, but turn left before reaching us. We're still freaked.

We sweat things out on Sunday and on Monday, I call our realtor and the sales agent calling off the deal ... and watching our earnest money disappear ... and the deposits on the utilities. And probably the money for inspections, etc etc.

We're dispondent.

On Tuesday I write to our housing company telling them what happened and asking to extend the lease on our corporate apartment. We're supposed to check out on Wednesday. I start receiving emails saying, "No can do." Because of people needing housing from Ike, all apartments are booked. I swallow hard and start searching for hotels. The nearest one I can find is all the way back in San Antonio -- three hours away.

Now I'm suicidal.

The first ray of sunshine shows up late Tuesday afternoon. The head of Oakwood Apartments for Houston calls me himself saying that he's pulled all the strings and called in his chips and we can stay for 30 more days. Being the manly man I am, I cry on the phone.

We start looking for houses to rent -- figuring that god is trying to tell us "Don't buy a house right now. Weren't you paying attention when I put a landfill next to the first one you wanted, sent a hurricane, and now put this house in the glide path? Go rent." But, he's not helping us: everything we see to rent in Houston is crap. The depression grows.

So today, we're back looking for new houses. We visited 16 houses today north of the city. We found quite a few possibles. We're organizing our thoughts, and 700 pictures that Wife took today, and we'll try to make another decision.

Sorry for not writing more. It's been a long 10 days.

I'd Rather Be Lucky Than Good

2008-09-17T22:44:00.004-05:00

This has been a very good day.

We left our friends' house in San Antonio about 8:30am this morning to start our 3-hour-plus drive back to Houston area. We made a pitstop for gasoline and a McDonald's breakfast after putting an hour and a half of driving behind us. We drove toward Houston in very light traffic. We didn't see any damage at all until we got quite close to Houston. Then we started to see torn up and torn down billboards, trees leaning at funny angles, etc.

We turned off I-10 and headed south towards our new house. The damage became more severe as we drove. Soon we were seeing uprooted trees, signs completely blown down, blue tarps thrown across a few roofs. As we got nearer our house we really began to worry. The New Territory Blvd leading to our subdivision was a mass of broken limbs and downed trees. It looked like the city had planted red bud trees, or something similar, in the center divide of the road. Those trees hadn't stood up well to the storm at all. The city had done a good job of getting the downed trees cleared, however. The roads were open, stop lights working, shopping centers full, no long lines at gasoline stations.

We rounded into our subdivision and couldn't see damage on any of the houses. We pulled up in front of ours and found it open. We could see a few shingles pulled up, but all in all no damage to speak of. A couple of the small trees planted in front were pretty much stripped of leaves. I found a couple shingles laying in our back yard. A nest of fire ants had tried to get above the high tide line by building a nest up into our brick work. I couldn't detect any damage inside the house at all. The electricity was on, air conditioning working. While we were prowling around, some workers came to resurface part of our fake-granite countertops -- an item we'd noted in our earlier walk-thru. To say that we were relieved was an understatement.

We drove to our builder/agent's office. He said that his electricity was still out at his house a few blocks away, but that electricity in his office had never gone out. He said that they'd already noted the roof damage and had people on the way out to repair it as we spoke. He felt he would have all the required work done from our walk-thru, including re-painting the media room, by Friday. I was amazed.

He also shared that our lender hadn't received some paperwork from me and that my insurance company hadn't provided proof of coverage yet. I worked with Eric and got the lender one of the items that I owed her. I knew how to get her the other information, assuming my computer worked back at our apartment. So, we decided there wasn't much more we could do, and started to drive into Houston itself to check on our apartment. It was now about 3:00pm.

Pessimistic me was expecting (a) a tree through the window leading to, (b) significant water damage, (c) a refrigerator that would have to be thrown out because of the rotting food inside, and (d) looting that would've seen everything we left behind now sitting in someone else's house.

I was totally wrong.

As we got closer to downtown the damage became even more prevalent. Windows knocked out, large bill boards blown over -- bent over, actually. We could see lots and lots of windows blown out of the high rises downtown. It didn't appear that my building was too badly hit. As we turned off the expressway onto the side street leading to our apartment, there was lots of tree damage and several had fallen into people's houses. We pulled up outside our apartment complex and saw a tree leaning out toward the street. We held our breath.

We walked through the hallway to our apartment and could see signs of water having been standing there. We screwed up our courage and opened the front door. The air conditioning was running. We flipped the switch and the lights came on. A note slipped under the door told us that they'd emptied all perishible items from our frige and freezer. No broken windows. No water damage at all. The TVs worked. Even the broadband access was running happily along. All our possessions were right where we'd left them.

All your, and our, prayers were answered today. Thank you all for thinking good thoughts for us.

To celebrate we went to our favorite cajun place about 4:30. A bottle of wine, gumbo, crawfish bisque, salmon-and-shrimp garden salad, and "Mama's crab and shrimp spaghetti" cures a lot of ills.

We came back to the apartment. Wife wrote emails to her boys. I crashed out on the couch. About 9am I displaced her from the computer and got busy getting things moving again to buy the house.

It looks like we'll try to close on Monday 22 September. Original plan had been Friday 19 September. We need to get the insurance thing settled. My insurance agent's office is still without power, so I'll work Plan B on that tomorrow. I handled the one bit of outstanding info that the lender wanted from me tonight. We have to have a final walk-thru on Friday to make sure the builder has fixed all the things we want fixed. The lender is ordering a second appraisal to verify there's not been any serious storm damage. I have to get money from the credit union, assuming it is up and running normally; otherwise, I'll have to invent a Plan B for that.

I've gotten our household furniture back on the road toward us ... or at least I've written emails asking the companies involved to get the process restarted. (We heard from our movers that their warehouse in Houston had suffered no damage, so our UK household goods should be OK.) Next steps are to get telephone, TV, broadband, and security set up at the new house. I need to order a refrigerator, washer, and drier for delivery next week. The list is never ending -- but at least it's a positive list, and not the one I was expecting to be doing tonight.

It's been a very good day.

Heading Toward Houston Tomorrow

2008-09-16T19:59:00.002-05:00

We plan to drive to Houston tomorrow morning. We called the apartment this afternoon and received our answering machine. That must mean that the electricity is on at the apartment ... and that looters have at least not stolen the answering machine.

We've been in contact with our builder and our agent. The builder says the new house incurred no damage except for some fencing down and some shrubbery destroyed. He also says that the electricity is still out at the new house. Everyone, except me, seems to think we can close on Friday as planned. I'm not optimistic about that. I want the inspector to come back out at least to look at the roof and to make sure no water has entered the attic, etc. I don't think we can make that happen by Friday.

Also it appears that my financial advisor didn't get my email directing her to get funds made available. I called her today and got that process started. One more notch in my ulcer.

We moved out of the Hyatt on Monday and spent last night and will spend tonight with our friends Gridley and Terry at their house in San Antonio. We're going to leave as early as practical tomorrow morning and hopefully will be at the new house in late morning. Our builder is working at the subdivision tomorrow and will let us into the house. We'll see if we see anything horrible for ourselves and start making plans from there. After that we'll go to our apartment and at least empty the now undoubtedly disgusting fridge. If the place is livable, we'll stay there. We have plenty of bottled water and some food with us. I don't expect that we'll have telephone or internet so bear with us for a while on that front.

The Chevron office in Houston is closed for general business until Monday. It is open for mission critical people, which doesn't include me ... he says thankfully.

So that's it. Wish us luck.

Sunday Morning In San Antonio

2008-09-14T09:34:00.002-05:00

We're struggling to get going after quite a lazy day yesterday. We got up late on Saturday and tried to hit Denny's near-by for breakfast.

On the way out of the hotel we arranged to stay Sunday night for Monday check-out. We can't get a reservation after that here so we'll need to find other accommodations somehow.

At Denny's the 30 minute wait seemed too much. We wandered RiverWalk drinking a bloody mary and a strawberry margarita ... well, it was 11:30 by then, after all. We had a nice fight over where to eat then decided to eat next to the river at Landry's Seafood. It turned out to be a good choice. Wife had redfish with scallops and I had a monster seafood salad. A nice bottle of Buena Vista chardonnay was perfect with it.

We went back to hotel and just flaked out for the next several hours -- watched a stupid movie or two. The housekeepers came about 4pm and we went downstairs for a drink in the bar and nibbled some snacks. We went back up to the room and that was it for the night. We never even made it out for dinner.

So now it's Sunday morning. We're not getting much news about Houston, but it doesn't look good. It doesn't appear that they've gotten much if any of the power restored. I've not received any news on how Chevron's building fared. I just got a text message from a work colleague saying, "Stay where you are. Power out. Cell phones spotty. Trees down everywhere."

Looks like we'll be at Hotel Gridley (i.e., our friends' house) tomorrow night, if he'll have us.

Still OK here in San Antonio

2008-09-13T10:18:00.003-05:00

We had no wind and no rain in San Antonio over night. We drove to our friends Gridley and Terry's house about 25 minutes from our hotel downtown. Our other friends DW and Pat with their daughter Debbie and their four dogs had driven two hours up from Padre Island so we had a Knox reunion. Terry made great spaghetti and even greater brownies. We shared old times and then we drove back to the hotel about 11pm.

Houston doesn't look good and if they'll give us a room at the hotel for tomorrow night we'll probably stay here one more night at least -- planning to drive back to Houston on Monday. If we can't get a room, we may crash at Gridley and Terry's.

Not much more to say about all this. I'm glad we left Houston. I'm too old to deal with the mess.

One thought occurred to me: our furniture is sitting in a shipping container -- somewhere in the Port of Houston. Or at least that's where it was supposed to be. I hope it's not floating away somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico! Or hasn't had water blown into the container.

I'm expecting that our rented place in Houston has water in it -- just from the force of the wind blowing water in through the cracks. I'd duct taped the sliding glass door to try to seal that a bit, but I've got not much hope that it did a lot of good. Good news is that, so far, we've not seen any evidence of flooding in our area of downtown.

How did our new house do? I have no idea. I suspect that water blew in and that we at least have some damage. It's supposed to be very water tight, but with winds at 100mph, water's going to find a way in.

Smart move for the day yesterday: I filled up the gas tank. Gasoline prices are going to be up over $5.00 per gallon until they figure out what's happened to the refineries.

We're off to breakfast.

San Antonio - Waiting for the Storm

2008-09-12T11:38:00.002-05:00

We arrived safely in San Antonio after a 4-1/2 hour drive from Houston. Traffic was bad for more than half the trip. I'd filled the tank with gasoline the night before so we cruised on in without having to worry about the long lines for gas. We stopped at McDonald's for a milk shake - a reward for all our "suffering". The sat-nav brought us right to the hotel. It's a Grand Hyatt right downtown in San Antonio, on their "Riverwalk". It's brand new and very very nice.

Last night we walked the Riverwalk and found a Mexican restaurant right on the water. The food was pretty poor, but the margaritas were cold and we danced a dance to the mariachi band.

We called our Knox buddies, Mark (Gridley) and Terry, who live in San Antonio. Grid was at a high school football game, moved to Thursday instead of Friday because of the storm. Grid's an assistant high school principal, not a football addict -- that's why he was at the game.

Our other buddy DW and his wife Pat are in the same boat we are. They just moved to Padre Island near Corpus Christi and are living right on the beach. They're debating about driving up this way too. We'll find out whether they're coming later today. They're only expecting tropical storm conditions down there, but the storm surge could still be pretty bad.

We got a good night's sleep and are heading out for a VERY late breakfast. We're meeting Grid and Ter tonight for dinner.

All's ok. Including, obviously, that I figured out the hotel Internet.

Bugging out ...

2008-09-11T10:03:00.002-05:00

Us chickens is bugging out ...

Looks like the storm is coming to Houston and we can't see any reason to stay and welcome it.

I've booked reservations through Saturday night, checkout Sunday, at the Grand Hyatt San Antonio. The telephone number appears to be 1 210 224 1234, if you need to catch us there. I have my mobile with me too.

It's about a 3 hour drive under normal conditions from Houston to San Antonio. They're outside the storm watch area because it looks like Ike is heading north after making landfall near Galveston.

They're evacuating the coastal areas. Houston (Harris County) residents are being told to "shelter in place" and to lay in supplies of food and water to last five days. People who stay can expect electricity to be out. I'm thinking, "No thanks." We had water in the hallway outside our apartment after just a thunderstorm. I've got no desire to sit in this cramped little place with no airconditioning for four days, so we're loading the car and heading out in a couple hours.

I'm expecting to have internet access from the hotel, so we'll make another post here after we arrive and get settled.

Wish us luck.

Of Bedrooms and Rate Cuts

2008-09-09T10:19:00.006-05:00

On Sunday I admit it: I was lazy and worn out. Wife finally pushed me out the door about 2pm. We drove to Gallery Furniture just north of us on I-45. HUGE furniture store. Sales people waiting vulture-like as we enter the store. "Irene" latches onto us and leads us to five separate areas with bedroom sets. We spend probably three hours wandering back and forth finally narrowing things down to five different sets that are "possibles". Good prices ... better than at Fingers the day before ... maybe not the highest quality furniture, but pretty good.

We finally burn out without making a decision and drive to another store we'd seen on the way to Gallery -- Star Furniture Outlet or something like that. Another big store but not filled with people like the other. Immediately I don't like that there are no prices listed. You have to have a salesperson run off and come back to you with a price when you want something. We wandered, but couldn't get enthusiastic about anything.

We drove to Kroger near the apartment, but decided we were too hungry to shop. We hit Gulf Coast Kitchen for a glass of Kendall-Jackson chardonnay, shrimp-crab quesadillas, smoked-corn-and-crab chowder, and crawfish etouffee. We're becoming regulars at this place. Excellent food if a tad pricey.

Suitably fuelled we hit Kroger for $200 worth of groceries. Everyone had the same idea and the store was pretty jammed. Too tired to cook, it was sandwiches for dinner and then some TV before bed.

Monday, yesterday, was a day of days. Hurricane Ike is headed right at Houston it seems. My insurance agent calls to verify we're closing on 19 September because she wants to get policy in the system before storm arrives. Evidently (and logically) State Farm shuts down order taking right in front of a storm ... sort of like not selling health insurance to someone who's already sick, I guess.

Then I receive a call from one of our Company-preferred lenders -- Citibank. They're offering 5.500% 30-year fixed mortgage. I'm sitting on an offer from another lender -- Wells Fargo -- for 5.875%. I decide I should give them a shot and write to my contact there. While I'm waiting for his reply, I receive another call from Citibank: rate is now 5.375% with a "float" -- meaning I get a one time option to take a lower rate if that happens between now and our close date. Plus I don't have to put taxes or insurance into escrow -- so I earn interest on that money instead of someone else earning it. I write to WF and receive a quick reply, "Can't match that." I call Citibank and say, "Sign me up." Citibank says, "Rates are back to 5.5% already, but I locked you at the lower rate so you are good to go." How cool is THAT?

What's it mean? A difference of about $400 per month in house payments -- about $4500per year savings. More than $120,000 total savings over the course of a 30 year loan. Zowie. Plus I've got to feel that with rates that low, more people will get back in the market and we should see house prices go up from here.

I NEVER time anything correctly. I'm sure the other shoe will fall and I'll find out that this really IS too good to be true, but, until then, I'm basking in my glory.

Sprinkler systems, termites, bedroom sets and other potential disasters

2008-09-08T10:08:00.009-05:00

Daily blog posts seem to be a thing of the past for me. I'll give you a partial weekend update. This weekend was Inspection Weekend. It went well. It was also Refrigerator-Washer-Drier-Bedroom-Set weekend and that went less well, but not a disaster. All that effort did grind me down to a nubbin though. When does this get to be over? I'd like to play golf again before I die.

We were out at the new house on Saturday morning: Wife driving; me navigating. I failed my end of the bargain and we were 20 minutes late getting to the house. Our ever(normally)-trustworthy sat-nav really has trouble in area around our new house. She thinks roads are there that are not, thinks roads aren't there that are --- like our street. Eventually I found the house though ... after forcing Wife's hands to unclamp from the steering wheel and taking control myself.

Inspector Mike from MasterCraft and his daughter-side-kick Leslie were hard at work. They seemed pretty thorough with usual disclaimer that they could only test the things they could see and didn't take anything apart to look under the covers. Here's the short list of items ... or my interpretation of same:

One of hot water heater vents isn't seated properly on roof. (Surprise: we have two hot water heaters.)

Damaged shingles and shingles separated in front. (Wife caught the latter item.)

Gap in roof flashing at front.

Gas flame out of log starter in fire place is HUGE. He advises caution. (I saw it. He's not kidding. When he cranked it open you could feel the heat halfway across the room. You could cook a steer over the flame and heat the whole house ... or burn it all down.)

Compressed insulation in the attic in one place.

Attic stairs not properly installed.

Cover on electrical receptical on patio is upside-down.

Grounding wire to gas pipe is connected to insulation, not to pipe itself. (What COULD the installer have been thinking?)

No heating or cooling in downstairs half bath or in master bedroom toilet. (OK, will keep people from spending too much time there.)

MAJOR ITEM: Walls on both sides of upstairs bathroom have been cut into and not completely repaired. They even left a gaping hole in one wall. We can't figure out what was going on there, but it doesn't look good.

Dishwasher door rubs on cabinet. Ho-hum.

Gas cooktop appears set for grill mode, but has burners instead. Fan comes on when you light the burner. Ho-hum.

Cover for drier vent isn't firmly attached. (Need that fixed to keep the birds out.)

Looks like a leak in the sprinkler system in backyard. Some sprinkler heads not working properly.

Termite (Wood-Destroying-Insect) Inspector Chaz came an hour or so later. He did his thing and said, "Only seventh time in my career I didn't find one thing to complain about. No branches touching house, no fences butting against walls, no foliage too high, no dirt mounded too close to foundation. You're good to go."

Then Alarm-System Melanie shows from Brinks Security. She checks all the security contacts and declares system working. She says we have one of the coolest touch panels going at the back (garage) door. It will not only do all the security stuff, it will answer your telephone and tell you how many voicemails you have when you walk in the door. It'll turn your lights on and off while you're gone to make people think you're home. It'll greet you when you walk in the door. How cool is that? Of course, I'll foul it up and have police called every time I go in or out, but they'll get used to it. Fee (if we go with Brinks): $30/month.

Cleaners show up. That was unexpected. A small army descend into the house, start work, then decide we're in their way and all leave again -- the leader saying, "I'll be back." with Mexican not Austrian accent.

My big concern is the cabling. It's not obvious to me that they've yet run all the cabling for telephones, internet, cable TV, etc. I'm going to bug builder about that.

Wife has done her own inspection. I conservatively estimate 100 items on board. Everything from paint dings to rotting fence slats. I pitty the builder, but Wife's got no remorse and I'll just stand and look stern.

We finally wear out (actually I wear out) and head out. As we're leaving the cleaners show up. (Were they waiting down the street for us to leave?)

We decide to drive around the area. We're both hungry by now. We don't find suitable place to eat, but do discover some shopping centers. As we near the main expressway for the area we find a big mall with Walmart (what else?), Circuit City, Toys R Us, PetSmart(PetsMart?) and Fingers Furniture.

We also find, please don't puke, International House of Pancakes. Strange as it may seem breakfast sounds good at about 3pm. Wife's never eaten at IHOP; I don't imagine a good outcome. I'm happily surprised. Wife says, "I'm hungry." And then proceeds to eat, I kid you not, a sirlion steak, three poached eggs, two pancakes, a load of hash browns, and a strawberry milkshake. Hungry? Sweet jeeminy. Where did that little girl put all that food?

We discover that Fingers is going out of business and having a big sale. We find a couple bedroom sets we like. Unfortunately neither of us like the same ones. We mark them for "look again later" -- gambling they'll still be there.

We hit Circuit City for prices on new TVs: you can spend how ever much is in you pocket. I also discover that they have a service ($100) in which they'll come to your house, survey the situation, and make recommendations on how to handle your audio and video needs. If you buy more than $400 from Circuit City, they'll apply the cost of the survey to the purchase. I may have to do that because I don't know jack about the current state of audio/video.

We go home and I'm past ready.

That's Saturday. Sunday is fodder for another post.

A Chicken with Its Head Cut Off Drinking From a Firehose

2008-09-04T10:28:00.008-05:00

I missed a day or two of posts. Sorry. Here's why:

Monday

Wife decides she doesn't like the house we bought.

Tuesday

I ignore Monday's problem.

Tried to resolve address problem with Company credit card in UK. Failed.

Obtained cashiers' check from credit union to cover earnest money for house.

Wrote to financial advisor asking her to arrange for handling downpayment

Visited Company fitness center and decided for $30 per month, I'll join. Did that online 'paperwork'.

Tried to sign up for Company's automated expense report processing. Couldn't because I had no copy of a check from the credit union with me. Grrr.

Applied for and received permission for Company-subsidized covered parking space in near-by building. It'll be about 1/2 the cost of the $5 per day I've been paying up to now.

Sent expense account form to UK HR to get reimbursed for money we spent for our flights from UK to here

Drove to sales agent's office in our new subdivision to deliver earnest money and to sign preliminary paperwork. Met our realtor Marla there. Nothing scary showed up in the paperwork. Found that the house has built-in pest control system. Found that they're in the process of constructing a pool and fitness center for subdivision residents less than 5 minute drive from the house. Found that the builder has a website that shows our house from the time they started laying our slab through construction. Only disconcerting part: Our yearly home owners' fee is $650; the home owners association takes 1-point-something percent of our selling price when we eventually sell the house. Oh, well.

Drove home and made telephone calls to three Company-approved lenders. Decided on Wells Fargo when they showed up with best rate (5.875% on 30 year fixed when I put property taxes into escrow.) Citibank a close second. GMAC a distant third because they seemed disorganized on the phone.

Called State Farm insurance agent from whom I'd purchased car and renters' insurance and asked her for quote on new house.

Arranged Simple Power as electricity provider for new house based on comparison website for electric providers in Texas. Only locked myself in for six months, so if I've goofed, it's not forever.

Made Campbells vegetable beef soup for dinner. Threw in some left over veggies too. Yummy. Can't get it in UK.
Lasted about 5 minutes on the couch in front of TV before falling asleep.

Wednesday

Picked up parking badge.

Brought check from home and submitted application for automated expense reporting. Now I can request reimbursement for Company mobile phone.

Sent estimated tax payment to Internal Revenue

UK HR agreed to reimburse for airfare, but whined that it should have been handled by US HR.

State Farm calls back and emails insurance info for new house: ~$1300 per year. Seems OK to me.

Booked business meeting for next Tuesday. Changed it to Monday at vendors' request. Changed it back to Tuesday when vendor says he made a mistake.

Gave additional info to Wells Fargo to get mortgage process officially kicked off. Citibank calls back and wants back in the game. I say, "Nope, you had your chance."

Talked with Company IT Procurement in California. I've apparently broken someone's rice bowl and I need to glue it back together. Nice guy though and the end result is going to be good, I think.

Received notification that our sea shipment has cleared customs! I arrange delivery on Tuesday 23 September ... giving us time to have house cleaned after we close on 19th.

More talks with our own Procurement people to make sure I've not done anything incorrect with them like I did with IT Procurement. I don't think I have and we're all going to teleconference next week to start pulling on the same end of the rope.

Toyota dealership called to let me know they are mailing our license plates to us.

Went to gym for first time in three months. Fifteen minutes on rowing machine; 15 minutes on 'stepper'; 15 minutes cooling down walking on treadmill. Thought I was going to die.

Drove home then walked to "Fish" restaurant near our house. Poor Wife still has terrible stomach upset from the antibiotics she's been taking for her toothache. Tries to eat, but nothing tastes right, and then she's sick again anyway. Fortunately, last day of pills is tomorrow.

Wife allows that maybe the house will be OK afterall.

Other than that, not much going on. Sorry I've not posted more often.

Done and dusted - or at least half-way there

2008-08-31T22:14:00.005-05:00

We bought a house today. Well, at least made a commitment on one. After a long and tedious battle in trying to decide between Erik's house and Vicki's house. We finally landed on Erik's. We made an offer, he made a counter offer, and we took it. And I, for one, am just thrilled. We'll work out details starting on Tuesday or Wednesday next week, depending on what Hurricane Gustav does. We have to go through all the formalities, including inspections, arranging the loan etc., but for all intents and purposes, we're home owners. It's thrilling. It's been a long, long time since I've owned a house. I didn't realize how much it meant to me until we finally said, "Go" on this one. I'm very, very happy.

For those of you that want to dig deeper, I put pictures and captions on FaceBook. The pictures were taken on two different days: the first when we viewed the property on our own with the sales agent and the second when we viewed the property "open house" with our realtor, Marla, yesterday. You can tell the difference between the two days because they dressed up the house with plants and do-dads for the open house.

For those that want the gory details, read on:

We ended up picking this house just because it is so darn pretty inside. We loved "Vicki's" model home too, but it had a lot of hassles and we just ran out of energy to deal with them. Vicki came down a lot in price -- $6000 lower than Erik's offer -- but she couldn't tell us whether we could move in right away, plus the whole upstairs would need repainting, plus it was a model and had some wear in it, plus we had the problem of what to do with the furniture -- some of which we liked, but much of which we didn't, and finally we couldn't figure out how to convert one room into somewhere to practice our dancing. We loved the lake access, the landscaping, the nearness to the community pool. In the end though the problems out-weighed the benefits.

The new house is in Telfair subdivision. That's a newly opened tract of land just opened in Sugar Land, Texas. We're about 23 miles from downtown Houston on Route 59. That'll be 30 minutes at the best of times and 50 minutes during commute ... or so we think. The house is built by David Weekly Homes and they tout how "green" they are.

The subdivision has lakes in it, and you can kayak and canoe on them. No one could tell me if there's any fish, but there's a lake at the end of the street, and you can bet I'll give it a try.

I'm very, very happy, and thanks to Robert Mondavi, more than a little drunk tonight.