More Randomness

I have another story about Random Task here.

The first time I met him, we were at a company picnic. We were eating. I was with the Chief and he was with his wife. Random Task and I were in line to get food at the same time. He asked me if my name was "TurkeyToad" and I said "yes." (He asked me about my real name, not my blog name. My blog did not exist then...)

His next question to me was "How old are you?" I think I was 31 at the time and I tell him. He thinks about this for a minute then his next question is "You are a manager right?" At the time I had 3 people reporting to me so I naturally responded yes. His next comment puzzled me a bit. He said that Managers need to be at least 35 years old and normally they need to be 40. OK. I'm not sure about that but my boss had at least 8 direct reports at the time and she is one year older than me...

Random Task has a habit of asking some rather bizarre questions. Here are some of the highlights:

"How many push-ups can you do?"

"What do you know about trees?"

"What do you do here?" - asking someone in international sales what their job function was. 

"He does like girls, right?" - talking about another coworker that always dresses nice and does in fact, like girls.   

Another time Random Task was in a meeting with chemists and others from the international group. Random Task was showing some data he had gathered including a graph of the data. The graph consisted of a control sample and the "suspect" sample. The two lines on the graph were significantly different. Someone in the international group commented on the graphs saying how the suspect sample was not nearly as good as the control.

A little while later, Random Task visited the person commenting on the graphs in International Sales and asked if she had a chemistry degree. She said no. Then he asked how she was able to read that graph in the meeting. I guess people without chemistry degrees should not be able to read graphs - go tell that to engineers...

One last bit... a few days before Random Task announced he was going to a new company I was walking near his desk and he walked around the corner. Then he said something about what happens if you tuck your shirt into your underwear. Then he stops next to me and said that I made it funnier. I'm still  not sure what that was about.

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Another worker in our company likes to use post-it notes. At any given time there are no fewer than 30 on his desk. These are the 4 inch by 6 inch lined post-it notes. It appears there is a progression of the notes. If they are important they are front and center on the edge of his desk. If they are less important they are relegated to the pile which is a few days away from the trash bin.

Since there are so many notes on his desk, he would not notice a couple more notes...

Some of the notes we added are:

• A listing of all the My Drunk Kitchen episodes
• Things Chuck Norris did - including: slammed a revolving door, counted to infinity twice
• Things a honey badger might say
• The department members favorite colors. This was fun because if there person was not available during the interview then we made them up. My best one was "deer through the scope brown."

He is a good sport and tacks them up to the side of his cube.

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2013 Asia Trip

Earlier in the year I was on a trip to Asia. It is always fun getting to Asia, especially tropical Asia. Let's recap:

Flight 1:       1:00          Layover 1:     3:00
Flight 2:     13:00          Layover 2:     2:30
Flight 3:       9:00          Layover 3:     6:30
Flight 4:       1:00

We are talking 24 hours flying and 12 hours waiting... 36 hours altogether. Plus as a real treat when I arrive at my destination it is 10:00 am and I am very, very tired because I am trying to get my internal clock close to the local time which is 13 hours different than home.

During the first layover, I did get a good breakfast...

But since I'm going to Asia, I'm keeping a lookout for funny signs and anything else that makes me laugh...

While travelling I read magazines, here is one of the things that I found that made me laugh a whole lot is the name of a product to prevent chafing while riding a bicycle, oh yeah, and it is specifically formulated for women.

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Grapes Don't Always Improve with Age

The Chief and I were planning to go and visit friends over the 2012-2013 New Year's Holiday but that didn't work out because of the weather. I didn't want to get out in the snow and ice and drive what is normally a 4 and a half hour drive to Pepe's house. I am sad that we are not visiting him and his family. They moved farther away and we don't get to visit them as much as we used to.

Since we have a few extra days around the house it is a good time to do some cleaning. I started with the laundry room. It is kind of a catch all for kitchen overflow, and of course laundry. That is where we will store  cases of soda and juice and bottled water. Sometimes the Chief does not drink what she buys. For example I found some Tropicana Grapeade in the laundry room. I didn't know how long it has been there but I know it has been there for a long time. Notice the picture at right showing the multi-pack that is available at Sam's Club. This is actually what we purchased.

Now take a look at one of the bottles remaining in our stash... is it just me or does it look a little green to you too?

I also thought it looked a little green. I decided to pour some out into a white bowl to see for sure...

Yep, definitely green. It also did not smell anything like grape, more like some type of household cleaner.  Next I decided to look at the expiration date... February 2007, this is January 2013, nearly 6 years past the expiration date...

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Finally, A Mess Not Caused By Me

I started taking TRX classes at my gym on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The first couple weeks really kicked my butt, but after that it became doable. Not easy, but I can complete the two one hour long workouts every week and not be so sore the next morning that I have trouble getting out of bed. These classes are in the evenings from 5:30 to 6:30. I don't normally take classes in the evenings. I would prefer to get up early and have my workouts done before work. That leaves me time after work to hang out with the Chief. Since the only way I can persuade the Chief to get up early is if we are catching a flight to someplace warm and sunny. Since the Chief and I ride to work together a few days a week I thought she could go and walk or swim while I was doing the TRX class. She actually agreed to this. You can ask her...

The Chief has not been walking or swimming while I have been taking the class for the past eight weeks. She has not felt good enough and I understand not wanting to go to the gym when you are not feeling good. It is OK that she does not go, but just because she does not want to go does not mean that I am required to stay home with her. I go to the classes. When I am finished with class, I call and ask the Chief if she needs anything. I have picked up things for dinner, some ice cream, and some various items from the grocery store, etc.

On this particular Thursday night I called the Chief after class to see if she needed anything. She said "No" with a voice that clearly said something was wrong. She mumbled something about making a mess and cleaning it up but I couldn't understand what she was talking about. She mentioned something about popcorn and wanting butter to put on it.

First, we have an air popper. You can't put butter into an air popper or it will ruin it. So you either need to have a butter spray or melt some butter to put on after popping. She told me that I could pick up some butter spray. I guess that meant that she had a bit of an issue melting butter. So I understood the mess. When you make popcorn with the air popper it is difficult to not make a mess. At the end, the popcorn flies everywhere and sometimes one of the grains will pop after it has already made it to the bowl. I recently got a new camera that takes video and I have been looking for some things to take a video, and this sounds like as good a subject as any.

So that is the first part of the equation. The second part is the butter. You may think that the Chief does not need butter on her popcorn. You would be wrong. I made an example food pyramid for the Chief. It is just like a normal food pyramid, except I added a special section called "Condiments."

I know cheese is on there twice, but that is the way it is... cheese sauce, cheese in a can, etc. So we know that butter plays an important role in the Chief's diet. I could have also added a small corner in the meat section that would be fish. So having popcorn without butter is just something that cannot happen. What is the best way to melt butter, over the stove or in the microwave? I think the microwave would be faster but I think the stove would do a better job and there would be less chance of making a mess.

The Chief tells me she tried to use the microwave. We also have a popcorn butter sprayer. You melt butter and then put it into the sprayer. It will then mist the butter onto your popcorn, distributing it much more evenly than just pouring it on. The Chief said there was a bit of a problem with the butter melting in the microwave. She had to clean the microwave, which is something she dislikes, as it involves cleaning.

I get home and find this in the kitchen sink.

Click to zoom in if you want...

We had to go to a movie today, because she wanted real popcorn with movie theater butter...

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My Lameness

Sorry for the long delay but the Chief and I have been busy. I'm not saying what but I'm sure there will be many, many things to write about this coming year. I will do better and hopefully it will be funny and interesting .. at least it will be for me.

First, I just returned home from a last minute business trip to Canada to work with a customer. Being in technical service, I hate to say the problem is not our issue or that there is nothing we can do to help, but in this case it was actually true. The trip was last minute because I found out about it on Friday afternoon and left on Monday morning. I was not scheduled to return until Thursday but the customer realized there was nothing we could do for them and let us go. Besides that, the other supplier that was visiting decided they were done and left. Third, some of the equipment the customer needed to use for process validation (which was why we visited) was broken and there was no schedule as for when it would be repaired. And lastly, a snowstorm is scheduled to hit eastern Canada and the Eastern USA on Wednesday night and Thursday morning and I did not want to get stuck in a snowstorm... At least there was another coworker with me on the trip, but getting stuck somewhere that is not your home still sucks.

Because the trip was last minute, the flight schedules were not very good. Visiting this customer normally takes me into Syracuse, New York and then I drive up to Canada. The customer we were visiting is nearly half way between Syracuse and Toronto. Flying into Toronto is normally 2-3 times more expensive than flying into Syracuse.  However, for this trip we flew into Toronto, drove a couple hours east to our customer, and then drove East and South to Syracuse to return home. Plus we had the pleasure of a one way rental from Hertz, that crosses a border into another country. The rental car companies always over charge for a one way rental, I think it is their way of discouraging the practice. It turns out that there was approximately a $200 fee for the one way rental. What I didn't notice until the second day of the rental is the car, a POS Chevy Cruze, had New York licence plates. I was returning a car back to the USA for them and being heavily charged for it.

In addition to the $200 extra rental fee, our customer originally requested we spend two days in the plant. So we scheduled Tuesday and Wednesday in the plant and travelling on Monday and Thursday. That meant two nights in the first hotel, Monday and Tuesday nights. Since we were scheduled to stay two days, and the customer let us leave a day early we went back to the hotel at 5:00 pm and checked out. Of course, we were charged for the second day because we didn't check out at noon as the hotel policy dictates.

All in all this was an expensive trip to go to a customer and not be able to do anything except hold their hand and shrug our shoulders. On the positive side, when we were staying Tuesday night in Syracuse, near the airport, we didn't have any dinner plans so I followed my custom of asking the hotel attendant what is good in the area. Since it is next to the airport, there is normally not too much within a 5 minute drive. This time we struck gold in the form of North Syracuse's Clam Bar. http://www.theclambarrestaurant.com/ It was one of the best seafood places I have eaten in a very long time. They have a great selection of seafood and steaks and are very reasonably priced. I highly recommend stopping in if you are in the area. We were lucky, we walked in and there was only one open table in the place. I even had the chance to eat something new, raw clams on the half shell. I have had oysters on the half shell but this was my first time with clams. They are similar to oysters but are a little more chewy and less slimy.

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The next thing I want to discuss is shower etiquette. While I may not be an expert when it comes to etiquette, I have learned a little over the years. The showers at the gym for example are much better if there are private stalls. Of course this is not always the case, sometimes there are group showers and you have to make due or smell awful the rest of the day.

The gym that I visit over my lunch break during the week has the group showers. There is a room with 8 showers lining two sides of the room. Since I like my coworkers, I opt for the shower. A quick diagram of the shower...

There is an entrance to the shower on each side. My preference of shower heads is either number 1 or number 5. There is a swim suit spinner outside the entrance next to shower head number 1 and I normally swim at lunch and need to dry out my suit after rinsing it in the shower. The time during lunch is normally pretty busy at the gym so I don't always get my choice of shower. However, on one particular day that I remember when I finished my workout, and went to shower, the shower was completely empty. I had my pick of spots. Naturally, I chose my favorite, shower number 1.

After a short amount of time, a second person comes into the shower. Etiquette dictates that he should take shower number 8. Of course any selection of 5, 6, 7, 8, or 4 would be acceptable. One thing to note about this shower, heads 4 and 8 are lower than the others. So as a result I try to avoid 4 or 8 because I have to bow my head in order to rinse the top of my hair. Where did the newcomer pick?

That clearly violates the shower etiquette. I almost said, "Really, this is the shower you must use?" That is what I was clearly thinking and if he could read minds, he would have moved. I did not want to speak to him so I quickly finished up and then went to get dressed to go back to work. Maybe that was his favorite shower, maybe he thought I was cute, maybe he was being an ass. I'm going to vote for "being an ass."

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Phone Troubles and Stellar Support

In my job I am frequently required to travel internationally. The other engineers in my group are also required to travel internationally. Usually there is some type of misunderstanding about what is being observed at the customer and we go and treat the start visit like a fact finding mission before trying to come up with a solution.

Frequently a call to the home office is required. This is all well and good, except that sometimes our IT department does not realize the perils of international travel or the consequences of being without a phone that works for more than an alarm clock.

Our IT department is very bad about upgrading phones. We go through Verizion Wireless and I guess we are allowed to get an upgrade every 2 years, like normal consumers. Who knew?

Before a recent trip to Brazil, Rodney received a new phone because his old phone refused to charge the battery. He went for about a week swapping batteries with another coworker before he could get a new phone, but that strategy would not work in Brazil where he only had one phone.

Luckily we have good local support in Brazil, and they actually have phones that work in Brazil and can call the United States...

Rodney arrives in Brazil and his phone does not work. He uses our local representative's phone and calls me for help. I send an email to IT requesting assistance for Rodney who is currently in Brazil on a customer visit. Here is the email conversation:

Me: Rodney is in Brazil and his phone does not work. Can you help with this issue?

IT: He needs to call the Verizion Global Support line at 908-559-4899

I wanted to retort with: "How is he supposed to call Verizion Global Support if his phone does not work?" but I did not. I would like my computer and phone to continue to function.

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Merry Christmas Piles

The Chief and I went away for Christmas as we do on most years. We went to visit our families that live about 5 hours away in northern Indiana. We left after work on Friday December 21 and returned on Wednesday December 26. It appears that while we were gone, our three cats had some type of drunken party. I found no less than 8 yak piles. The largest measuring about 24 inches in length, and ironically outside the bathroom door. It looked like a cat tried to make it to the bathroom to hurl and came so close... At least on the bright side, it was on the tile floor and not carpet... most of the others were on the carpet. That is always fun. It looks like a campground in the living room with little paper towels over the cleaned up spots.

On a related note, a few days ago I was vacuuming the TV room and decided to move the couches to vacuum under them. That is something that we don't do very often. It had evidently been quite a long time since the couches had been moved, or maybe it was not very long... it is difficult to tell.

Let's see what is under couch number 1...

OK, let's itemize this hoard...
     6 milk jug rings
     2 striped catnip filled toys
     1 plastic fork missing part of a tine
     2 tubes of chapstick
     1 cat toy ball with a bell inside
     2 Chic-fil-a mints
     1 full sized snickers bar
     1 bendy straw
     1 hair tie
     1 twist tie
     1 aluminum foil ball
     1 stick

OK, on to couch number 2...
     2 milk jug rings
     2 striped catnip filled toys
     5 cat toy balls with bells inside
     1 piece aluminum foil
     1 cord/cable tie
     1 blue sharpie
     1 black ink pen
     1 catnip bird
     1 metal bottle cap
     1 plastic bottle cap
     2 pieces scrap paper
     1 wrapping paper cutter - we were missing this...
     1 screw to a computer case

To summarize...
     8 milk jug rings
     7 cat toys
     4 striped catnip filled toys
     2 writing implements
     a lot of miscellaneous junk
     1 full sized snickers bar
     1 stick

And I was wondering where all the cat toys went...

Have a Merry Christmas!!

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What's in a Name

TurkeyToad, what the hell is that? Is it a hopping turkey or a toad with feathers that hates Thanksgiving? To me it is the nickname given to me by my father as a kid.

My given name is two syllables, as is my brother's name. To make things easier our names were shortened to single syllables. Such as Robert being shortened to Bob or Rob. In our case when our names were shortened they rhymed such as Bob and Rob. So my mother, whenever she was yelling at us, or trying to get our attention she would always yell, "Rob-Bob", or "Bob-Rob." Sometimes there was even a "Ba-Rob" or a "Ra-Bob." Mom still does this today and we have noticed that she will even include my dad's name in the list making it Joe-Rob-Bob.

We make fun of mom for this to this day especially since she is still doing it and modifying the name progression. Maybe she is just like a quarterback going through the passing progressions until she finds the open son...

Dad did not have the same problem with names. He made up his own nicknames for us. They changed and evolved over the years. First, before we get into the nickname, a little store from childhood.

My uncle (dad's brother) lived less than a mile from my grandparents' house and about 2.5 miles from my house growing up. One summer he bought a baby turkey. It was kind of cute, for a bird, and it lived at my uncle's house. It was named Tom... It was a farm and there was plenty of room for the bird to do whatever it is that birds do when people are not watching. I think it used to chase the pigs through the barn when nobody was watching. At least that is the story I told and I'm sticking to it because it wasn't me that was chasing the pigs.

The turkey grew up as most animals do. It was a domesticated turkey and got fairly large. Turkeys are also mean and territorial especially if you are a small kid with a penchant for rock throwing.

My brother is two + years younger than me. I think I was 8 or 9, making him 6 or 7 years old. We were throwing rocks at the turkey trying to get it to chase us. We would run in opposite directions and it would normally get confused and stop chasing us. Once however it did not stop chasing us, or rather chasing my brother. Tom caught up to him and flopped him with his wing repeatedly. Eventually it gave up the fight and wandered off.

I guess dad was watching us taunt the bird and apparently he warned us to stop it (we couldn't really hurt the bird) or the bird would take after us. It is funny how sometimes parents are right. For some reason, Dad started calling me Turkey after that. Maybe it was because I was making fun of my brother who was traumatized. I thought it was funny as only an older brother can. It might have been my Dad's way of taking some of the focus off my brother. Needless to say, I did not enjoy being called a turkey but dad didn't give it up.

I'm not sure where the "toad" portion came in. Maybe he is a big fan of alliteration. Maybe he thought a part turkey, part toad animal would be one funny looking animal. I'm not sure. Maybe I liked to hop as a kid. I'm not sure about that but anything is possible.

Eventually I accepted the fact that I was going to be TurkeyToad. Mom became MommaToad. Dad simply became Toad.

After college, I moved out and got married to the Chief. A few years later the Xbox360 came out and Red Hat Jef coerced me into getting one so we could waste more time playing video games over the internet. I signed up for the Xbox Live and had to pick a screen name. TurkeyToad fit the bill perfectly.

RHJ and I would play Halo 2 online with other people and sometimes I would get comments about my screen name. I had someone leave a recorded message in messaging section of Halo. It was something like this: "I love turkeys and I love toads, so I love you!" I thought he was very funny, of course I am assuming it was a guy... or a kid. It could have been a 9 year old boy that had just kicked my ass during the last match or it could have been some 9 year old girl that just kicked my ass during the last match.

Anyway... we are one big hopping family.

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Free Magazines for Everyone

Working at an industrial chemical company, I receive a lot of trade magazines for various things. All of them are free and almost all of them are irrelevant. Every few months someone calls requesting to update my information to continue receiving the free publications. They ask for name, title, number of employees, industries served, etc. They always try to throw in a personal question... for example, "In order to verify that I spoke with you today, could you tell me what city you were born in?" They have asked other questions too such as my birthday, it could be the year, month or date. I have a set of standard responses for the personal questions they ask:

Telemarketer: "Could you tell us what city you were born in?"
Me: "No."

Telemarketer: "Could you tell us what month you were born in?"
Me: "No."

Telemarketer: "Could you tell us what day of the month you were born in?"
Me: "No."

Telemarketer: "Could you tell me the name of the street where you currently live?"
Me: "No."

Telemarketer: "Could you tell me the day of the month when you were born?"
Me: "Tuesday"

After the personal question they always ask if there is anyone else in the company that would benefit from receiving Industrial Magazine. The answer is always an emphatic no.

The last questions they ask are:

Telemarketer: "Would you like to provide your email address to receive electronic copies of the magazines?"
Me: "No"

Telemarketer: "How would you like to receive your free subscription to Industrial Magazine, print or email?"
Me: "Didn't I answer that in your last question?"

Then I say that I would like to receive the magazine via email... But it makes me laugh so it is OK.

One thing I like about a certain free magazine is that it contains Dilbert cartoons. Having worked in a cubicle in a cube farm for a portion of my career Dilbert really rings true. I always look forward to it every month. One other thing I like about the magazines is the articles in some cases, but mostly the advertisements.

I'm not sure if it legal to scan comics but here is the Dilbert, you can view more at: www.dilbert.com

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Now it is time for the first post in what will likely become a series of posts where I/we look at the great advertisements in industrial magazines and take things out of context. This is the stupid stuff that makes me laugh. I hope it makes you laugh too.

First we have an unfortunate name for a company.

This is the guy's last name, maybe I would come up with something different as my company name. Since they are into burning stuff, why not Combo Controls or "Huh, huh, fire..." I just hope they are not burning their namesake, unless they are in Terre Haute, IN which is probably the worst smelling town in the USA. 

Second we have a headline.

I immediately thought of these...

My question for her is, "Why are you wearing a thong-a-tard? Is that really necessary for the feat you are undertaking?

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You are Not Qualified

The Chief and I have season tickets for the Indianapolis Colt's. We have had these tickets since 1996 or 1997 when Jim Harbaugh was the quarterback. We lived through Peyton Manning's horrible 3-13 first season as Colt's QB. We then watched in amazement when the following year they went 13-3 and made the playoffs and lost in the first round. It was still the playoffs...

Being a season ticket holder, the Colt's send us stuff. Every year we get a DVD of season highlights. The DVD for the 2011 season was very short... They also send us a Christmas card every year with a team photo. They also send us some cool stuff, like being able to call into a phone number and listen in to the team on draft day. That was pretty neat.

Since the NFL and the Colt's is a business they also like to have surveys filled out so they can "See how we are doing." I received one of these surveys last week. The email with the survey link said it would take approximately 15 minutes. I start answering the questions and after about 4 questions (and 2 minutes) this screen comes up:

I guess my opinion is not that valuable after all...

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Quirks

We all have quirks. I am sure that I have some things that I do that amuse or bug the Chief. She does some things that amuse me that I have never witnessed other people doing. I have talked about some of those things in other posts. A couple quick quirks: French Fry sorting, straw paper knot tying, car buying while I'm on a business trip... etc. Another one that I have noticed over the years is that when we go out to breakfast and there is toast as a side, the Chief always gets white toast. A normal breakfast consists of two full slices of toast cut diagonal into halves. The first piece she will normally eat all the toast. When she is nearly finished and starting to get full, she eats all of the toast except for the corner crust.

I asked the Chief if I have any quirks that she notices. The first one that she told me is that I line up the magnets on the refrigerator. All I have to say to that is "Who wouldn't line up the magnets. More will fit that way... duh." The second one she came up with is that I have an aversion to putting silverware into her lunch box. If I get up early enough, I will pack the Chief's lunch box, except for the utensils...

One other thing she swears by is a home remedy for the hiccups. You take a glass of water and bend over and drink it from the side of the glass farthest away from you. You are drinking the water upside down. I have witnessed her do this a number of times. The last time I saw it was while we were in the Bahamas with some friends. We were drinking and playing cards in our friend's hotel room. The Chief gets the hiccups and can't get rid of them. Next comes the drinking upside down...

I don't know if it works or not. I don't normally have to resort to such measures to rid myself of the hiccups.But the laughing in the semi-drunk group definitely prevented the rest of us from getting the hiccups.

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Here is some food for thought...

Why is it that recording artists were very upset by the free file sharing of Napster, to the point they shut the site down? I don't recall seeing authors of books being upset that you can go to the Public Library and read their books for free. Then you can recommend it to a friend and they can read it for free too...

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Pissing Rocks

A few years ago I was on a business trip in northern Michigan. It was a trip of 3 days visiting the customer. On the third day I went into the customer's facility early in the morning because I had a flight back home in the afternoon. I woke up and was not feeling especially well. My lower back hurt and I felt like I had to pee every 5 minutes. I don't know what is going on so I call the Chief and say that I am coming home early. The Chief dropped me off at the airport so I needed to tell her if I was coming home early otherwise I would be sitting there waiting until she came to get me.

I then called my customer and told them I was ill and was going to go home. We had pretty much finished up the day before but we were going to have a final meeting. I suggested we do this the following day via conference call. They agreed, which was a good thing because I was not going into the plant regardless of their request. I was experiencing things I have never felt before and not in a good way.

I go to the airport and change my flight to an earlier one. I think I got back 8 hours earlier than I had originally scheduled. I had a one stop flight in Detroit. By this time I am feeling worse. I ask the Chief to make me a doctor appointment. I don't know what is wrong but I know there are some definite things that are not correct with either my kidneys, bladder, lower back, lumbar vertebra or something else in that general area.

The flight from Detroit is only an hour but that was one of the longest flights of my life. I spent about half of it in the airplane restroom trying to figure out why it felt like I had to pee every 2 minutes and only a trickle would come out. I'm lucky they didn't think I was up to something, like smoking...

I arrive at my home airport and the Chief picks me up and takes me to our family doctor. She proceeds to give me a quick exam and then she gives me a shot, not alcohol, better. I get a shot of Demerol. It is some wonderful stuff. The nurse did not give me very much but it did the job very well. It wasn't that the medicine made the pain go away. It did not make the pain go away. I very clearly remember that it still hurt, and hurt bad. I just didn't care that it hurt.

The doctor sent me for x-rays and it turned out that I had a kidney stone. The stone was small enough that I could pass it on my own without any external help. The doctor gave me a urine strainer to catch the stone. The funny thing was, the urine strainer looked exactly the same as the filters my company uses to filter paint made in the lab...

I'm not sure why but I don't catch the stone during the straining process. Maybe it was too small to be caught by the strainer, I hope not because it felt like a boulder. The other possibility is that I woke up in the middle of the night and forgot to use the strainer. I can see how this is possible since I don't normally make a habit of straining my urine and if I was sleep-peeing I know all bets are off. What I didn't know is that the stones can be analyzed and the results used to help with a patient's diet. By the composition of the stone doctors can tell you what to eat and other stuff to avoid. I did not have the benefit of this advice.

I have no more problems and go about my business as usual.

About 6 months later I wake up for work one morning and start having severe back pain. At first I think it might be another kidney stone, but after a half hour or so I believe it is something different. The pain is many orders of magnitude worse. The Chief is working a job where she is on third shift at the time so  I wake her up and ask her to take me to the emergency room. She asks if it is another kidney stone. I say, "no, it hurts much worse and the area where it hurts is much larger than before."

We get in the car and leave. After we get about 3 blocks away from our house I say, "Pull the car over." The Chief pulls the car over and I proceed to throw up in a neighbor's driveway. I compose myself and then we go to a local hospital. The Chief lets me off at the door and I walk into the ER to the nurse's station.

I didn't exactly know how to get some attention but I found a method that works pretty quickly. I say to the nurse behind the desk, "I hurt here!" and make hand gestures from the bottom of my rib cage to below my waist. Then I lay down on the floor. It turns out that is all you have to do to get some attention in a hurry. You can use that for future reference...

The nurse starts an IV and then I go into radiology for an X-ray. It turns out it is another kidney stone. This time it is much larger than the first one. One of the nurses says, "Here you go. This is some good stuff." He injects it into my IV and a warm sensation spreads from my left arm to my shoulder, to my abdomen to my hips and on down my legs. When it reached my junk, once again it felt as if I peed myself. I think I had to reach down and make sure I didn't...

This pain killer was better than the Demerol. This time I also did not care if it hurt. It also did not hurt anymore.

This time I was able to catch the stone and send it in for analysis. It turns out that I need to lay off the coffee (I was drinking 2+ cups a day) and eat more citrus. Since I never want to do this again, I have taken both of those steps.

Here is the culprit.

Not the penny...

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Chief Cuts Now Open for Business

One of my presents for Christmas 2011 was a set of hair trimmers. I looked at the cost of a haircut by a professional and how much the clippers cost and decided that by the fourth haircut we would have our money back for the trimmers. Before putting the clippers on my list, I checked with the Chief to make sure she was OK with giving me haircuts. She agreed. So I put them on my Christmas list and someone got them for me.

My first haircut by the Chief was later in January 2012 and the Chief did a great job. There was hair all over the place, which was expected and we had planned for it. The second haircut was in late March and again the Chief did a good job. The second cut took a little less time than the first. The third cut was in mid July and she again did a great job. I also think she did it faster than the second cut. She is getting the hang of this!

When we started this endeavor, I was concerned that the Chief would make a mistake. I did not think she would make a mistake on the first haircut, and maybe not the second either. Here was my reasoning: the first couple cuts the Chief would be very nervous and very careful about not making a mistake and doing a good job. The second or third cut she would be more comfortable and potentially more prone to making mistakes probably caused by going to fast or cutting corners.

The way she gives the haircut is to start with a large guard on the clippers and gradually move to a smaller guard until the top is the correct length. Then she will drop another guard number on the sides and then do the trim work around my ears and neck. It is a simple process and she is getting pretty good about it. She is getting faster as predicted but she did not make a mistake until the fourth cut... this Saturday.

She started out normally getting the clippers set and asking about the different guards we used. She asked: "Did you like the guard we used last time?" My answer was, "Yes, it was fine. I think it was a half inch, or maybe five eights." Her response was, "OK." Then I hear some fumbling with the clippers. Then the clippers turn on, and I feel her start near my side burns and go up to the top of my head. Then I hear a gasp from the Chief. Here's why...

She forgot to put the guard on the clippers... I made her stop and take a picture of my head... I was laughing the entire time, she was mortified and feels horrible about it.

So now I am buzzed and I must say, I didn't realize how much my hair insulated the top of my head. It is a little cool outside this weekend and I am wearing a sock hat every time I go outside.

On the bright side, having very short hair, at least shorter than I have ever had as far back as I can remember, has some advantages:

1. I won't need a comb, for at least 3 weeks
2. I won't use near as much shampoo
3. I won't need to wear a swim cap when I go and swim - I still will because it helps keep in my ear plugs

On the downside, 

1. I will need to wear sunblock or a hat on my head whenever I go running at lunch
2. My head will be cold, but I can wear a hat...

Now the Chief will not cut anyone's hair except mine. Not that she did before, but now it is official. I'm sorry, you had your chance or a Chief Cut but now it is over...

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UPDATE:
It seems like the Chief may have done me a favor... it turns out that having a very short haircut make me look more confident, dominant, mature, and appear to be a better leader. All in all, it looks like a haircut may get me a promotion... Don't believe me? Watch this video from the Wall Street Journal here.

Told ya...

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A Battle in Your Armpits

I just realized something a couple days ago. I have been wearing the same deodorant for as long as I can remember. I wear Old Spice and the scent is High Endurance. I always get Old Spice, sometimes the scent varies. I normally purchase it from Sam's club and when you shop there you get to buy what they have, sometimes at a slight discount versus other retailers...

I like this deodorant and scent, obviously, or I would not use it for years on end. I also have, at any one time no less than 3 sticks of deodorant in use. I have one in the bathroom at home, one in the locker room at work for the lunch time workouts, and one in my gym bag for swimming. There might also be one in each of my other gym bags that I use for everything else. So there is a minimum of 3 and as many 6 in service at any one time. Some get used more than others, for instance my swim bag gets used frequently and as a result I need to replace that deodorant more frequently than some.

The nice thing about the having all these sticks open is that you can see how the packaging has changed over some time period. I did notice a change in the labeling on the most recent stick. Here is the label on the old stick.

The new label seems to have branched out a bit on what the product does...

I hope the "Atomic Robots" and the "Scent Elves" get along peacefully. I don't want an uprising in my armpits.

Of course, every morning I do this while I'm putting on my deodorant.

Ask the Chief if you don't believe me...

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The Year of the Pecker-Gnat

One of the strange this about this year is the weather... it is not so much global warming as it is global weirding, or perhaps global laming. One thing I noticed a lot of when I was training earlier in the year was the sheer number of insects out and about. The first thing I learned about said insects is that a combination of Coppertone Sport SPF 50 and sweat will kill any bug that has the misfortune to run into my bare arms, legs, neck... etc.

When I would get done with a long bike ride I would be covered with small flies and other bugs. On one particular ride, I went through a swarm of bugs very early in the ride. When I got home and finished the ride, I took a shower and later that night I realized I had many small spots all over my arms. The bugs left tan lines  leaving light spots everywhere a bug was.

I also rode through my share of bug swarms, mainly consisting of pecker-gnats. I would invariably get a mouth full, or at least a lung full. Extra protein... yummy.

Gnat Swarm found here

I am calling this the Year of the Pecker-Gnat because even though it is now fall, there still seem to be an inordinate number of these little bugs. They also seem to be small enough to make it through the screens in our windows at home. There is nothing better than sitting down to eat and being dive bombed by 2 or 3 pecker gnats.

I hate those things.

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OK Ship It... or Maybe Not

I work at a company that makes stuff... I know, sounds interesting. You see, the thing about stuff is that someone needs to buy the stuff you are making. We have a pretty good business at the moment. People are buying our stuff at a great rate... keep it up!

One of the essential ingredients in any business that makes stuff is shipping. Your customers have to get the stuff you make. In my case it is paint. None of our current customers are large enough to need a dedicated pipeline to their facility. As a result we ship our paint via truck.

Before a company decides they want to use our product they usually talk to one of us to make sure we are providing the correct product for their needs. The next step is to send a sample of the paint. For this we would normally use a reputable shipping company such as FedEx or UPS.

Sometimes, the shipment does not make it to the customer. The shipment could be damaged, the container could leak, it could smell funny, etc. We ship our samples in paint cans... like this one:

Notice the shape, a cylindrical metal can with a metal lid. This is basically the same can that we use to ship paint to customers. We add a special plastic ring around the lid that helps prevent spills and also make the can difficult to open.

Sometimes they come back to us because the customer didn't want them, or they made a mistake. Sometimes we send the wrong paint, but very rarely.

One time we sent a free sample to a customer for a trial they wanted to run. They needed to test the paint for a new program they were working on. Appearantly there was something wrong with the shipment's paperwork and they tried to file a claim against us for about $200, simply because there was a problem with the shipping paperwork. The product was correct, it was what was requested. Oh, and it was a FREE sample.

Another time we shipped a sample material to a customer. It came back to us because it was leaking, a little.

OK, maybe it was leaking a lot. It also kind of looks like frosting. I promise it isn't.

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So I don't Forget

For lunch or dinner I sometimes like to have salad. I put lots of different things on my salads. Some of my favorites (besides the greens) include:

Hard boiled eggs

Grilled chicken

Black olives

Peppers - green, yellow, red

Bean sprouts

Onion

Mushrooms

Avocados

That is a small list, there could be more things or a combination of those and other things... I'm not picky when it comes to food.

My salad dressing choice is something that is what some people would consider a little odd. I like a combination of ranch and honey mustard. I will also sometimes go with blue cheese and honey mustard, but I prefer the ranch. 

The Chief also uses ranch dressing for salads. She also uses ranch dressing for French fries, cheese sticks, cheese curds, and various other things except vegetables. I let the Chief run out of ranch dressing because I was eating salad for lunch. I got scolded because the French fries the chief brought home were now worthless, ketchup just will not do. As a reminder, I left this note to get some more ranch dressing at the store...

We now have a minimum set level of ranch dressing in the house of one in the refrigerator, and a minimum of one in the pantry. Now there are two in the pantry...

We did just run out of ketchup but that was for me so it wasn't important.

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Go Wash!

During my return home from Juarez, Mexico I am upgraded on the first flight to business class. It is a domestic flight and there is a meal. Since my flight left at 6:15 am I did not eat anything beforehand. I was expecting something tasty for breakfast on the plane. I was mistaken. Cheerios. Seriously, Cheerios? I don't eat cereal. For one, it is not on the Paleo Diet and second, I don't really care for it. Soggy crusty bread or twigs in milk, what is good about that. Plus almost all breakfast cereals have a bunch of vitamins and minerals added (they are listed in the "Ingredients" section on the nutrition label). Why would someone want to eat something that started out so unhealthy that it need to have all the vitamins and minerals added to it to make it healthy? You got me, I don't know. That isn't really the important part. I could rant about the crappy food we eat and are pushed to eat, but I won't, at least not now.

Regardless, I didn't eat the cereal. They did have some yogurt which is only marginally better and a bowl of fruit, which I ate gladly. When I arrived at my layover in Atlanta I got a cup of fruit and went to wait for my next plane.

The last plane was going home to Evansville, Indiana. It is an hour flight more or less and there is definitely no food, maybe some peanuts if you are lucky.

While I am talking about food, for lunch we ate in Juarez since crossing the border always comes with a long wait. We did not eat at the plant but we went out to eat. The first day we went to a Mexican buffet with a lot of traditional foods. The second day we went to a Chinese buffet, which was still cooked my Mexicans... just like in Evansville.

I overheard a lady talking on the phone while waiting for the Evansville flight. It turns out she was on the same flight, except Evansville was not her final destination. From Evansville she was flying to Detroit and then  back to Ft. Wayne, Indiana. I don't know why? Evansville does not have an area for connecting flights. She will probably have to go and get her bag and then check back in... She could have driven from Evansville in the time it takes to fly to Detroit, wait in Detroit and then fly back to Ft. Wayne. But what do I know, I'm only approaching 750,000 flown miles...

Anyway, the flight back to Evansville I am sitting next to a Japanese lady that does not speak much English. She also did not understand our flight attendant as she was based in the south and had a bit of a drawl. So there was no talking between me and the lady sitting next to me. I also noticed a smell emanating from her. I wasn't sure it was her at first. The flight attendant said all the passengers were on and that we could move to another seat if we wished. The two seats across the aisle were open, so I moved. The odor vanished immediately. Of course, then the two people came on board that were in the seats that I had squatted in. I looked everywhere and there were no other empty seats. I had to sit down next to Smelly. I was not sure if she actually smelled until I sat back down next to her. It hit me in the face like a flaming sack of dog poo. I opened my air vent and had it pointing straight at my face and it didn't help all that much.

So, to the lady sitting in 3A. Go wash!

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Waking Up On the Wrong Side

Last week I was travelling for business to beautiful, tourist friendly, Juarez, Mexico. We have a customer there and they are having some issues. They could likely fix the issues themselves, but they need someone in their facility keeping them focused. Kind of like an industrial dose of Ritalin…

Since Mexico is not as safe as it used to be, we always stay in El Paso, Texas which is right across the border from Juarez. To give you an idea about the safety concerns… how’s this. The price for the Hampton Inn in El Paso is approximately $130 per night. The Price for the Hampton Inn in Juarez is $60 per night. Both hotels were built near the same time and both offer similar amenities.

I have made many different trips to Juarez over the years of my employment. I remember my very first visit in 2002. I head across the border, cross the bridge, and the first thing I see is Mexican Federal Police, armed with automatic rifles. There were 5 or so officers at the border crossing. Once we left the border crossing there were no other machine guns in sight. There were also people walking, children playing in the local parks, and dozens of street vendors selling anything from cell phone chargers, to candy, to knock off oil paintings.

Fast forward to August 2011, my previous visit to Juarez. The drug cartels and the Federal Police are in the midst of an epic battle… I cross the border and still see the automatic rifles, about the same number. We move past the border and immediately notice there is nobody outside. No children playing, no people walking, and I could count the street vendors on one hand. The street vendors were also very concentrated near the border. There were some people out in the town, they were federal officers and they were all carrying automatic rifles. There was one officer approximately every 500 yards along the main streets. Each one was wearing his full uniform with an addition of a face covering mask. There were also mobile gun trucks with a large 50 caliber machine mounted to the top that patrolled the main roads of the city constantly. During the 4 mile drive in Mexico, we saw 3 machine gun caravans.

During this last trip, there was a line to get into Mexico. This is a first. There has never been a line for getting into Mexico; there is almost always a backup to get back into the United States. The issue is that the US Border Patrol cut the traffic down to two auto lanes and added a series of speed bumps before crossing the bridge into Mexico. This causes everyone to slow down greatly. They also stop autos and inspect them. I witnessed one or two different vehicles being searched on the way into Mexico.

Once we cross the bridge into Mexico, there are the customary federal officers with their rifles waiting at the border. They also installed some barricades to drive around in an ‘S’ shaped pattern with their own compliment of speed bumps. The next thing that I notice is that there are many more street vendors than last time. There are also people outside after dark; including me… we worked in the plant until after dark. When we were driving back to the border, I noticed people eating at restaurants and sitting outside, not as many as in 2002 but still an improvement over the zero people out after dark the previous year.

We go back to the hotel for the night and then repeat on day 2. The hotel we are staying at is the Embassy Suites (the Hampton was full…). The room layout is a living room with sofa, chair, coffee table, desk, refrigerator and sink in the first room. The bedroom contains two double beds and the bathroom is attached.

The first thing I do is set the air conditioning. Then I pick a bed. I chose the bed furthest away from the window and closest to the A/C vent. I use the other bed to hold my suitcase. The first night I slept well until about 4:00am, then I woke up, went to the bathroom and then went back to bed until my alarm sounded.

The second night, I woke up and looked around the room in the semi-darkness and something didn’t look right. The alarm clock is on the wrong side and the window is in the wrong place. Also, the bed sheet seems awfully scratchy. I finally realize that at some point in the night, I got out of my preferred bed and climbed into the other bed. I then kicked my suitcase off onto the floor along with the clothes I was planning to wear the next day. I also noticed that I was lying on top of the blanket but under the bead cover. That explains why what I took to be the sheet was so scratchy…

I get up, go to the bathroom. Then get back into the correct bed and go back to sleep until my alarm sounds. I have no recollection of getting into the second bed or of kicking my suitcase off onto the floor.

When I am at home, the Chief must have me on a shorter leash or I might wake up on top of the washing machine trying to cover up with some dryer sheets and using a ball of lint as a pillow…

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Cool, Can I Take It Apart?

Although I'm the engineer in the relationship. The Chief has some tendencies. Normally engineers take something apart to see how it works and then to put it back together, or perhaps to add some features. The Chief, takes stuff apart to, well... take stuff apart. A few things she/we have taken apart include:

1980's era big screen projection television
iPod classic
Multiple computers
A broken TiVo

I know there have been many other things but I can't remember what they are at the moment. However, the Chief's latest "Ooooh, can I take it apart" moment came over Labor Day weekend. I had given a piece of yard equpment to a friend who was good with small engine repair to tell me why it would no longer start. It is not a really big deal. I have had this particular piece of equipment for 10+ years. It turns out that repairing it would cost nearly as much as purchasing a new one. So it gets relegated to the trash bin.

Enter the Chief: "Can I take it apart? Can you get me some tools?"

So the Chief sits in a chair in the garage with an old towel in her lap, and proceeds to disassemble this device. You tell me what it is...

First hint.. here is the Chief sitting in the chair disassembling the device.

Next hint... the engine. Broken down as far as we could without some more specialized tools. I don't have a machine shop at my disposal.

Next hint... the engine plus the rest of the screws, bolts, fasteners.

A little more...

Here is all of it. If you can't get it now. I'm not going to tell you.

Good guess if you said it was a squirrel tail hair trimmer. That is why it has the long bent tube. The noise from the engine would cause the squirrel some distress, so it is moved further away from the trimming end.

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