A Summer Job

The chill of the morning reminds me that winter is closing in on us, and as a result, opportunities to barbeque at KC's Korner will soon be dwindling. As a barbeque professional, this development is somewhat disheartening because it means that I will soon have an aboundance of time on my hands. Consequently, I've begun looking for other opportunites to occupy my time.

In my long career, I've had a variety of jobs. One of the first I had involved pouring concrete for the 'new' Library at Arkansas State University. Of course, this 'new' library was being built in the summer of 1976. My job was to help pour concrete into forms for a concrete column. The columns were roughly fourteen feet tall and two and a half feet wide on each side. A huge crane would lift a steel bucket containing one cubic yard of wet concrete, and I would climb up the 2x4s that braced the forms and were held in place by things called 'froglegs'. Standing so that my waist was at the top of the form, I would reach up and guide the huge steel bucket so that it was over the top of the form. When the bucket was positioned just right, I pulled the release bar down, and a gate on the bottom of the bucket opened, allowing a stream of concrete roughly twelve inches in diameter to flow down filling up the forms. For all the construction jobs I had had to date, this was the best. No sweating....No lifting....No hauling..,..Three dollars an hour to climb the forms and pull the lever. Sweet.

Usually.

As with all sweet gigs, sometimes things go badly. One day in the heat of the summer, I was standing on top of the forms, and the crane operator, Bozo, had a bad day. Actually, his day wasn't all that bad, but mine got dramatically worse very rapidly.

As Bozo manoeuvred the bucket containing a cubic yard of wet cement toward the column I was standing on, something out of the ordinary happened. The bucket suddenly dropped about 2 feet, and swung rapidly to the left, toward the form I was standing on. A cubic yard of cement in a steel bucket has a good amount of kinetic energy. It was barely moving when it bumped the form, but it was like a freight train bumping a litter basket, the litter basket loses.

The form, originally made up of 2x4s and plywood, instantly turned into splinters. It wasn't a gradual thing. It was a 'touch' thing....like when you turn on the light switch, the light is 'on' right then. Well, when the bucket contacted the form, the form was shattered right then.

I had that Wiley Coyote feeling. The form I was standing on was no longer there. I was fourteen feet in the air, looking for something to grab so that I did not fall onto the concrete pad that the forms for the column rested on.

In a crisis, your mind works so fast that the world seems to slow down. As gravity took hold of me and started pulling me toward the concrete pad, I reached out for the bucket. If I could just get a hand on the metal rim around the bucket, I might be able to hang on.

I stretched with my left hand as far as I could, and just as my feet felt the forms fall away, I got a grip on something. I swung my right hand over and also got a grip. The forms crashed to the pad below, and my momentum caused me to swing toward the bucket, and then, unfortunately, I swung under the bucket and I realized that I had not grabbed the bar around the rim of the bucket. I had grabbed the release bar.

As I swung beneath the gate at the bottom, my weight on the release bar caused the gate to open, releasing the concrete. One cubic yard of concrete, in a 12 inch diameter stream hit me in the chest. I lost the grip I had on the bar. I fell fourteen feet, landing flat on my back on the broken remains of the forms, and was promptly buried by one cubic yard of wet concrete. The guys on the crew immediately jumped into the pit and began digging me out of the concrete using shovels.

That was the last time I climbed a form.

The Saucon Valley Country Club

As we continue to rehabilitate the basement from water damage incurred during August's Hurricane, I am finding interesting items long forgotten and stored in remote regions of the basement. With each item, there is usually some memory attached that brings a smile.

The other day, in the back of the storage room in the basement, I came across Landi's golf clubs. When we were dating, we used to play frequently, but we haven't played for years. Her clubs were in the corner of the storage room and I checked the bag for water damage. As I inspected the bag, on the shoulder strap, a smear of mud caught my eye, and I remembered the last time we played golf.

In the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania, there is a wonderful Country Club called Saucon Valley. It is a beautiful, high end country club that, were Landi not associated at the time with Bethlehem Steel, we would never had had occasion to visit or play. However, through a Bethlehem Steel event of some sort, we found our selves at this incredible golf course.

Landi was beautiful that day. She was wearing white shorts and a blue knit top of some sort. She had a white visor, and white golf shoes. Her golf bad was white, as was her golf glove. She had her hair in a pony tail, and a late summer tan. I wore dockers and a polo shirt.

Saucon Valley's course is one of those courses where the fairways are better than a lot of greens that I grew up playing on. We played our round with another two-some associated with Bethlehem Steel. They were much better golfers than us, but we were better looking.

The 18^th hole, was a long, down hill dog leg par four, with a small stream crossing at the bottom of the valley. Both of the other golfers in our foursome drove over the stream and into perfect position. I bearly cleared the stream, and Landi came up short. I drove her to her ball, and she asked me to go ahead and find my ball, that she would walk to me. I drove the cart to the little bridge over the stream and began looking for my ball.

Landi swung, and her ball flew towards the green. I still can't find my ball. I saw the other two golfers waiting, so I told them to go ahead and hit. I had lost a couple of balls already, and I didn't think I had another with me. So I kept looking for it, and I looked up just in time to see Landi kind of hop over the stream. It was a short hop. An easy hop, really. Actually, it was more of a long stride with just a little extra umph at the end, and she very gracefully cleared the stream without any distress at all.

The ground on the side she what coming from was firm, solid and dry. The other side of the stream was not. It was utterly saturated. Her lead foot landed on the soft green grass on the other side, and she sank up to her knee in muck. Her trailing leg completed the stride across the stream, and had no place to go but also knee deep into the muck. At this point, only her golf shoes were muddy.

I viewed this from a short distance away, and immediately came to her assistance. I remembered the old Tarzan movies where one guy stuck in quick sand quickly drags another to his doom too when he is pulled into the quick sand. No way, I thought, I was getting into the mud.

All thing considered, at this point, Landi was doing well. She was stuck in the mud yes, but she was calm. I grabbed a golf club to use to help pull her out. By having her grab the golf club, and using it to pull her out, I hoped to be able to stay on solid ground, and avoid the mud. She took hold of the club and I started pulling, but the mud on her hands caused her lose her grip. Because she was pulling so hard, when the club slipped out of her hands, she flopped backwards and sat down in the mud. When the club slipped from her hands, I was straining, pulling the club trying to lift her out. Suddenly losing that resistance, my hands, clutching the head of the 3 iron, crashed into my nose, which began bleeding profusely.

I ventured closer, and extended my hand to her, and again we pulled and strained, and the grass beneath my feet gave way, and suddenly, I was flat on my back in the mud. Landi's calm was wearing thin. I got up, and I grabbed her under the arms, and using brute strength, tried to lift her out of the mud, and again, my feet slipped in the mud and I went down. I sat down in front of her, and reached out to her, and tried again. Her leg was slowly coming free, and suddenly she shouts, STOP!

What's wrong? “I'm losing my shoe!!” Screw the shoe. I'll get the shoe in a minute. We kept pulling and straining and after a great sucking/slerping sound, her foot came free, and we rolled into the more firm grass. We were tired, exhausted really. Finally, after catching our breath, I started to head to the golf cart.

'My shoe?”, Landi reminded me.

I walked back over to the mud pit we had created. It was a hell of a mess. The groundkeeper was going to wonder what the hell happened here. I found the hole. I got on my knees, and stuck my arm down until I felt the golf shoe. I pulled it out of the muddy water, held it aloft, and watched as what looked like Hershey's Syrup poured from it. I looked over at Landi, and she looked like she had been dipped in Hershey's Syrup. I had to smile.

The other two players in our foursome had finished the hole, and were sitting on the patio at the Club House when we arrived. When they last saw us, we looked like we could have been in a photo shoot for a golf magazine, but that had changed. Both of us were covered from head to toe in a dark brown mud, and were coated with an abundance of grass clippings. Blood from my nose spattered on my shirt and pants just added a special ambiance.

I wish I had a picture of the looks on their faces, and the faces of the others at the patio bar. This is one of the most exclusive Country Clubs in the United States, and this golf course has hosted many a PGA,and LPGA event. We walked dripping mud and trailing grass trimmings into the patio bar, and sat with our friends, who had a truly horrified look on their face. They were staring, slack jawed and silent.

The manager or waiter approached, looking very apprehensive.

“Can I help you?”, he inquired.

I wiped at my nose and looked to see if it was still bleeding, “Tough hole.” I said casually.

Moments of Inspiration

Every now and then, you experience an extraordinary moment of creativity. It happens in a flash, and you just have to take advantage of it when it happens. My first true moment of abstract, and somewhat malicious, creativity struck me years ago. I was working for a computer firm in Memphis, and the lady who ran the place pissed me off. I was working my ass off, maintaining all the internal computers, as well as her laptop, generating billable hours and she was screwing me out of my commissions. I wasn't really in a position to 'push back' so I just had to take it....for a while.

This was in the mid 80's, the days before multi-taking Windows was introduced. It was the days of MS-DOS - Microsoft Disk Operating System. There were some computer programs called 'TSR's...Terminate and Stay Resident. The first one was 'print'. I got a hold of a paper by some guys who had 'reverse engineered' 'print', and figured out how to make a program stay resident in the computer's memory. I used that paper to figure out how to write a program that would cause my computer to display a clock with the current time in the upper right hand portion of the screen at all times. It was pretty cool.

While stewing over my 'lost' commissions and having cocktails in a bar called The Bottom Line, I had an epiphany. It struck me out of no where. I couldn't make her pay me my commissions, but I could make her crazy. Just ask any of my X-wives. I can make women crazy.

If I used what I had learned about writing TSRs, and wrote one that used a random number generator to randomly trigger a video swap, I could have some fun. So, I wrote a program, driven by a random number generator, that would seize a block of memory identical in size to video memory, and in that space write in large block letters the work "BITCH". Next, the program would copy the contents of video memory to another location. Finally, it overwrote video memory with the contents of the first location (the word BITCH), and .25 seconds later, put the original contents back. The result was that the screen flashed "BITCH". Did I mention that I maintained her computer?

The nice thing about this, was that it did not happen often. She would just see it every couple of days,but when she did, she would scream, and everyone would go running into her office to see what had happened. She would tell us that her computer just called her a bitch. We'd hang around while she tried to recreate the 'flash', but of course, it wouldn't happen because it wasn't triggered by her. It was driven by my random number generator. Most of the office snickered some and thought she was nutts. I just kept my mouth shut.

After a couple of months of this, she bought a new laptop computer. It was a brand new Toshiba. She called me into her office and after going on and on about how the old laptop was calling her a bitch, she told me to install all the software from her old laptop onto her new laptop. When you are the low man on the totem pole, you have unique opportunities.

I installed the software....all of it.

A week later, a scream shattered the silence in the office again, and I smiled...Sweet Moments of Inspiration.

A word to the wise....Don't piss off your systems administrator.

A Peaceful Morning

In the peace of the morning, and before your mind is cluttered with the chum of the day, there is time to contemplate 'things'. Yesterday, Landi and I began discussing Thanksgiving. As some may remember, last year I recorded some tips for frying a turkey.....and for putting out the fire. Landi has made a request this year that I refrain from setting the backyard on fire. I really going to try to comply. As this turned over in my mind this morning, it occured to me that while this did involve a good amount of excitement and fairly large conflagration on the back deck (concrete), it was an inadvertant aberation and it did not involve any of our local emergency services.

Contrast that with Catfish. He has always been a unique boy. At 3, he called and tried to order the Phonics Game because he didn't feel that he was 'reading at his grade level'. Arround this same time he tried to buy homeowners insurance on the Lego Harry Potter Castle he built. He once asked me if I wanted to lose "ten pounds of unsightly fat". A few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, he emerged from the basement to tell me I was needed on the phone. It was the 911 operator who told me that Catfish had reported a 'dead soldier' in our basement. G.I. Joe's head had come off. The South Plainfield SWAT unit is very responsive. A year or so after that he attempted to warm a bagel in the microwave. Five minutes into the process, the bagel burst into flames, the fire alarm went off, and he began running arround the island in the kitchen hollering 'Fi-yr! Fi-yr! Call 911! Call 911' He used to claim that Buckwheat, our black lab, put poop in his diaper. At the spring Parent/Teacher conference in his kindergarten year, we were amazed to discover that Catfish had explained Judiaism to his school mates who were primarily Hindu, Muslim and Christian. I told the teacher that 1) we were Episcopalians, and 2)I've heard him explain things before. He probably created some misconceptions.

So, in this very peaceful morning, I'm wondering what adventure awaits Landi and me. Hopefully it won't involver emergency services or a flaming backyard, but it will probably involve Catfish. He's 14 now, and understands that he reads well, and understands that he doesn't need home-owner's insurance. He can warm a bagel without setting the house on fire. Though we did it at gun-point, he is potty trained, and understands that he is Episcopalian. It's gonna be a great day.

It's Different Below the Thermocline

There are times when you are really proud of something you kid has done. I was proud when Jenn graduated from Mount Holyoke, and I was proud when she decided to attend law school. She works full time as a paralegal, goes to law school at night, and in her spare time, is a cheese monger at Whole Foods. The thing that makes me super proud is that even with all that, her GPA is floats somewhere between a 3.5 and a 3.75. Pretty impressive, eh?

Jordan, too, has set the bar pretty high. Graduating with Honors in Economics from Tulane, and getting a full ride to UMass for her Masters. She reluctantly left the land of gumbo and helecopter sized mosquitoes and headed to the frozen wasteland of Massachusetts in persuit of another level of education. Today, she has her Masters, and is doing well in Indianapolis. She works for the government, and she really is there to help.

So, now we get to the Fish. He's a freshman in high school, and we haven't seen any grades yet. He plays on the school soccer team and he plays hard, and has a lot of fun. On weekends, he tells me his friends from school video games. His weekend was different.

Last Feburary, he began training to be a PADI Certifed Rescue Scuba Diver. That's a diver who is trained in how to rescue a diver in trouble. That diver may be on the surface, or 100 ft down. That diver may be unconcious, or he may be paniced, or he may just be exhausted. The diver may be lost and in need of being found. What ever the situation, the Rescue diver locates the diver in trouble, and gets that diver out of the water, and under the appropriate level of medical care as quickly as possible.

This past weekend, Catfish completed his final dives for certification. In one of the dives, he was acting as divemaster, and had to direct 6 adult 'inexperienced' divers in a search for a lost diver. He deployed his divers along a line and the 'lost' diver was quickly found, lying motionless on a slope at 65ft. The diver was unresponsive, and Catfish being the only 'trained rescue diver', had to lift this diver from the bottom and do a controlled assent to the surface some 65 ft above.

The female victim was 20-30 lbs heavier than Catfish. He ensured that her regulator stayed in place as he struggled to lift her off the slope. They slid down the slope to the bottom at 75ft. Silt filled the water and reduced visability. He stayed with it. They began to rise, then after coming off the bottom, she slipped from his grasp. He went completely upside down, holding on to her with one hand and ensuring her regulator stayed in with the other while she dragged him back to the bottom. Silt billowed around them. Back on the bottom, in visability approaching zero, he fought his way around behind her, and clutching her tank between his knees, with his arm reaching under her arm, and holding her regulator in her mouth, he again began surfacing the victim. He emerged from the clouds of silt with his victim and made a perfect assent. On the surface, he established boyancy and began rescue breaths.

I knew he could learn the skills to be a Rescue Diver. He's a great swimmer, and a good scuba diver. There was no question in my mind that he could do that. I was concerned when he was asked to act as the divemaster on the exersize because that's a tall order to ask of a 14 year old kid. How many kids do you know who are comfortable giving orders to adults? Well, he wasn't comfortable either, but he got it done. I'm sure he wasn't comfortable directing the search, but he got it done. I'm really sure he wasn't comfortable when we found the victim on the slope, and she slid down to the bottom. Hell, it was 43 degrees there, and he has zero body fat. He wasn't just uncomfortable, he was freezing his ass off, but he hung in there. In zero visability, 43 degree water wrestling with a motionless woman he was not only uncomfortable, he was magnificent. He did the things he had been trained to do, and did them calmly and confidently. He safely overcame every obstical, and did every that was possible to "save" the victim.

He's not just my boy. He's a PADI Certified Rescue Diver.

The March of Time

Apparently, as we age, we acquire the collective phobias of our parents. To date, I have determined that bridges are the work of the devil, and having been constructed by the lowest bidder, are inherently unsafe. I am not just refering to the Huey P. Long bridge in New Orleans, which I must add was clearly engineered by Satan in the depths of a cocaine fueled acid binge, but also the Burlington Bristol Bridge, engineered by the spawn of Satan, between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Huey's bridge is unique in that some bastard decided that it would be cool to put the actual roadway beside the damn bridge instead of inside the bridge. They have put the damn train track 'inside' the bridge,and the road surface 'outside' the bridge. Notice how much room the stinking train has.
When was the last time a train had a blow out and suddenly veered to the right? Think about that for a minute. A damn train can not turn.

The road surface of the Huey P. Long Bridge that you and I drive our automobiles across is held up by the same sort of magic you see in Las Vegas magic shows. Oh yeah. Like the trick where they have a tiger in a cage, and make him appear outside the cage? Screw that. If you are going to make the tiger appear outside the cage, then make me appear in the cage. Likewise with bridges, put the road surface inside the bridge.

Try driving across a bridge 300 feet above the Mississippi River with no side rails. Welcome to New Orleans.

The Burlington Bristol Bridge is almost as much fun. It is about 200 feet above the Deleware bridge, but unlike Huey's bridge, this piece of art has no concrete. Although the lanes are actually inside the bridge, the lanes are metal grating. If you look down,you see water. It's a two lane bridge sized for muppets pushing hand carts, built by dwarfs and traversed by frenzied people who drive according to the traffic laws of their native lands. Now the best part.

See the section between the two tall towers? They can make that section go up. Yep...they can move the damn bridge. You're driving along minding your own business and suddenly zooop! Some sick bastard moved the bridge. Who thought that particular feature would be attractive? Next time I cross it, it will be at gun point.

Mom was scared of bridges. Dad was scared of politicians.

A Barbeque Professional

I was recently reminded of my days as an Information Technology professional. In 16 years as a consultant to the likes of Hewlett Packard, Verizon, Sprint, and Bristol Myers Squibb, you see a lot, learn a lot, and develop some pretty strong ideas about how to get things done. Having acquired this knowledge, if you then abandon the consulting life for the corporate life in hopes of avoiding out of town travel which conflicts with your son's soccer schedule you need to be aware that the fates are going to deal you a screwball.

I was hired some 4 hears ago by a former client whose Unix boxes were a disaster, an absolute disaster. My first week there I received over 100 alarms a night from the unix servers. Using all of my knowledge gained in 16 years of problem solving for 'the big guys', over the first month or so, I constructed a plan to bring the unix environment into a more 'standard' configuration and introduce 'Best Practices'.....and that was a problem.

At this particular company, the use of 'Best Practices' was forbidden. The CEO expressly forbid using recognized 'Best Practices'. He also forbid note taking in technical meetings, claiming that if we couldn't remember what was decided, then the answer wasn't 'clear' enough. The environment was expected to be 'up' 100% of the time, but the infrastructure had no redundancy built into it. We had two tape libraries. One was purchased from HP, and the other was 'found'. The CEO did not believe in maintaining Service Contracts on servers after the initial warranty expired. He didn't like Support Contracts either, which sometimes made problem solving 'interesting'. One of the more interesting features of the corporate culture was that success depended on your ability to determine what Voldomort wanted to hear, and then saying it. Success was not related to your ability to deliver results.

So, I enjoyed a liquid lunch for a couple years. I kept my mouth shut, for the most part, and got the unix environment stable using Best Practices, and for my sins, was 'promoted'. Actually, the stability of the unix environment brought me to Voldomort's attention, which ment that I now had to interact with the loon and his band of lunatics. Actually he wanted me to do for the rest of the environment what I had done for the Unix environment, but without using the techniques and strategies on which my success had been built. Welcome to the land through the looking glass.

You simply can not reason with a lunatic. While trying to bring a new environment under control, I was confronted with blank stares when I explained to the imported morons that at some point, if we want things to get better, we simply had to stop doing things that we know are wrong and start doing things that we know are right. Silence. The morons had an interesting defensive tactic. When they were trying to thawart your plans, they would find the least informed person in the company who was at least one rung up the food chain from you, and get that person to make a 'decision' about the matter. More than once, I found myself in the position of having a non-technical imported moron tell me that I simply did not understand the 'technicalaties of the matter'. What is this world comming to when we have to import morons? Aren't home grown American morons good enough any more?

On another occasion, I got a lecture about priorities from Voldomort himself after I told him that until his commitment to quality exceeded his commitment to a release date, the software development guys would keep releasing non-functional software into production. I knew what he wanted to hear, but I wouldn't say it. I was an Information Technology professional, not a syncophant.

Liquid lunches got longer.

Finally, on the Monday before Thanksgiving, when Voldomort's pet monkey threatened to fire me because I would not require my entire team to be on "standby" over the Thanksgiving Weekend just in case Voldomort decided to move servers, I got mad. It was in the morning, before lunch. "That is a chicken shit threat.", I told him," Either man up and fire me, or shut the hell up." The meeting was pretty much over, and I went to lunch.

What did I care? My servers had gone two years without an unplanned outage, and I already knew my days were numbered, and it was time for lunch.

So, now I am retired from Information Technology, and, tragically, my alcohol consumption has taken a dive. I barbeque a couple of weekends a month at KC's Korner, a bar in South Plainfield, and I scuba dive. When in competition, or barbequing for one of our parties, I have been known to inbibe a bit...ok..a lot. Now, things are different.

It's important to get some things right. When you are introducing folks to the joys of real Memphis Dry Rubbed Ribs, you have to be 100% on top of your game. No liquor, because I am a Barbeque Professional.

Hurricane Ready

At last reports, the eastern seaboard is being threatend by a hurricane. The Weather Channel is breathlessly hyping the storm. Their ratings in NYC are going to be great. The major networks, thankful for something other than the economy to talk about, are exersizing extreme gravitas when speculating about the possible impacts of the storm on New York City. Grim faced broadcast professionals are advising us to 'get hurricane ready'.

This is gonna be tough, as I have barbeque responsibilites I have to meet, but I'll give it my best shot.

It looks like it will be a two day event, so I'm thinking a 1/2 gallon of Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum, and a 1/2 gallon of Malibu Caribbean Rum wiht Coconut Liqueur. I have a gallon of Nature's Select orange juice with Calcium and 3 cans of frozen orange juice. I have a 1/2 gallon of cranberry juice.

On the bloodmary front, I have 3 containers of Tabasco bloodymary mix, a fresh bottle of Tabasco, a fresh bottle of Worchestershire Sauce, 3 limes and a half gallon of vodka.

We have 2 boxes of wine, and a gallon of bourbon.

I have 6 lbs of frozen shrimp, and a new can of Old Bay Seasoning. There are 4 ribeyes and 4 filets in the freezer. I have some ribs I brought home from my bbq gig at the bar. I'm going to buy a couple of bags of ice, just in case we over run the ice maker.

I am as ready as it is possible to be....well...maybe I should get some batteries for the flash light, if I get a chance.

As I survey my preparations, I am reminded of a cheer I last heard at my sister's 1973 High School Graduation in the wreckage of Jonesboro High following the tornado that year....

Open the roof and let it rain, Give'em Hell, Hurricane!

Plaid Clad Strangers Invade Jersey Town

All manner of wilted, worn out, sold out hippies and roving yuppies have arrived in our fair town. Freely roaming the streets in BMWs, a number of them sporting plaid shorts and polo shirts descended on KC's Korner last night.

Each approached me and the smoker with great caution. It was as if they were approaching an alien spacecraft. Warily they eyed me, which was odd because I wore shorts yesterday, not a kilt. I have become aware that kilts sometimes freak people out. Women are particularly intreigued by a kilt, and they pose quite a threat to the unguarded. Eventually, our plaid clad friends ordered ribs, or chicken, and cautiously retreated to the Patio Bar area.

Ten minutes later, after they had devoured the chicken and ribs, I discovered these guys weren't worn out hippies and yuppies, these guys were my new best friends! We began chatting about all manner of things and having just a hell of a time. One guy was from Philly, was a auditor with a giant consulting firm, and he'd never had dry rubbed ribs before. A lady, who's father was some sort of judge, ordered 1/2 a chicken, and devoured the entire thing. She wanted to know if I would be there again today. Several bought ribs to take home with them.

So today, we're told to expect 50,000 people in our little town. It's going to get 'interesting' today. Our friends from yesterday said they'll be back, and that they'll bring there friends. I can just see the teaser on the news...."Plaid Clad Strangers Take Over Jersey Bar...Film at 11:00

Ribs and Yard Birds

The sun finally clawed it's way over the horizon just an hour ago, and my bloodymary sits sweating and waiting. From my kitchen window, I see a great expanse of green grass, and uncounted huge corporate 'hospitality' tents. The Woodstock generation is all grown up, has adopted golf as it's new religion, and will be descending on us tomorrow for the Barclay's Golf Tournement. Fifty thousand strong they will come in Saabs, Mercedes, and Volvos. They are going to clog our streets, and annoy the hell out of everyone....except me.

One of the great things about having a smoker is that occasionally a friend who owns a bar will ask you to come over, hang out and cook ribs....all week long. This just amazes me. I get to hang out at a bar all week long and cook ribs. He's hopeful that some of our locals will find their way to KC's Korner for a cold one and some ribs. I'm thinking this is a hell of a good idea.

KC's is a great little bar. Twenty years ago, it was a biker bar. It's no longer a biker bar, and today, it has the best food in town. It's clientele is an ecletic mix of locals, and imports (me). It's like 'Cheers', but without Kirsty Alley. I'm setting the smoker up by the new 'patio', and will be doing ribs everyday. I'm going to do them as if we were in a competition, which means I'll be mostly sober for most of the week.

So, beginning this afternoon and going for 7 days, there are king hell, championship quality, Memphis style, dry rubbed baby back ribs at KC's.

Baseball

A few years ago, for some reason, Catfish decided he wanted to play Little League Baseball. He's always been a 'soccer kid', and had never really got into baseball. We go to see the Yankee's about two or three times a year, but throwing the baseball in the front yard just doesn't happen. I never played baseball, so I didn't really didn't encourage him to play. When he asked to join a Little League team, I thought "What the hell....this will be fun."

That was a understatement.

Our team was a collection of about 12 or 14 10 year old boys of various sizes, skill levels, and attention spans. We had one kid, a tall lanky pitcher, who threw smoke. He was probably the best pitcher in the league. No one got hits off this kid. We had another kid, a much shorter hyper-competitive pitcher, who threw almost as well, but would let the other team get into his head. One kid, a big bear of a kid, showed up for practice about a 2 weeks after we had begun training the team. He was a big kid, and talkative. Our head coach sent him to me. I was working with kids in right field, and the coach was hitting balls to us. We had a kid serving as a runner so that when the coach hit the ball, we had someone to 'throw out'. The big kids was explaining to me that he knew all about baseball.

Coach hit the ball, a slow grounder, to the big kid. He trotter up to field the ball. The kid running the bases saw the big kid trotting to the ball, and kicked it into high gear. The kid was trying to get to second base. He was really moving as he sprinted past first and toward second. It looked like it was going to be close. By this time, the big kid had the ball, and with a long and very athletic stride, he threw a rocket and nailed the runner in the back with the baseball about 4 strides short of second base. The runner was down.

It seems that the big kid actually knew a lot about kick ball, and very little about baseball.

Catfish, on the other hand, understood baseball. It only took getting hit once or twice by a pitch for him to figure out that if he stepped backwards out of the batter's box, he would avoid getting hit. Unfortunately, when you are stepping backwards out of the batters box, you don't hit the ball very often.

One Saturday, we were playing a pretty good team. Their pitcher threw hard and well. We just weren't getting hits. It was a zero/zero game into the 4th innning. Catfish had come up to bat a couple of time, and on each occasion, with each pitch, he stepped back and out of the box.

Finally, it was Catfish's turn to bat again. Before he went up to bat, I told him, "Don't back out of the box.". He looked at me like I had two heads, and said "He's going to hit me with the ball.". No, I assured him, he's not. He hasn't hit anyone in the whole game. My words fell on deaf ears.

Catfish walked to the batters box, and got set. The kid readied to pitch. With a swerl of arms and legs that only a 12 year old boy can accomplish, a pitch came rocketing right down the middle of the plate, and Catfish stepped back.

Again, I called to him. "Don't step back!". He glared back at me, and got ready for the next pitch. Again, another strike emerged from the swerl of arms and legs, and again, Catfish stepped back. He looked over at me with that 'I know I'm in trouble look'. I again told him to not step back.

He stepped back into the batters box, and readied for the pitch. The pitcher readied, and the tornado of arms and legs began again. Once more the ball came smoking out of the tangle, and sped toward home. This time, Catfish stood as still as a statue. He didn't step back. He didn't flinch.

The ball nailed him right in the kidney. It was a smoking fastball, and it got him solid. It didn't richochet off and go to the back stop. It hit him solid on the kidney and dropped at his feet.

He was kind of hunched over as he trotted to first base. As one of the Coaches, I was allowed to go check on him. As I trotted across the field, he glared at me. I could almost see smoke coming from his ears. He wasn't rubbing his back, but I knew it had to really hurt. I slowed from my trot to a walk just a few steps short of first.

Before I could ask how he was, with a steely gaze fixed on my eyes, he said "I told you he was going to hit me with the damn ball."

Catfish prefers soccer.

The Last Swim Meet

In early August of 1965, I joined the Jonesboro YMCA swim team. I joined on a Friday, and the State Swim Meet was held the next day in Jonesboro. I won 3rd place in Freestyle and Backstroke, and would have had 2nd in Butterfly, but I was disqualified. Before that morning, I had never heard of "Butterfly" and the kid who explained the stroke to me before the race didn't tell me I had to touch the wall with both hands at the same time, so I was disqualified. I swam competitively for the next 10 years until I discovered cigarettes, beer and women.

Several years ago, Jenn and Jordan were on the swim team here in New Jersey. At the final meet of the year, the last event was the "Parents Relay". My daughters, having grown up hearing of my adventures swimming,and seeing my trophies and medals, were particularly excited by this event. Of course, they ensured that I was recruited to be on the relay team. I wasn't overly concerned about it because the other parents recruited for the relay team were about 10 years younger than me and looked to be in pretty decent shape. We would be competitive with the parent's of the other team. I wasn't going to have to really sprint or anything.

In those days, I still smoked so naturally I watched the swim meet, and cheered our team on while having cigarettes and beer in the bar/patio area of the swim club who hosted the meet. The teams were well matched. It was a close meet. Though our relay would not officially be included in the point tally, in the end, it would take a 'win' by our relay team would produce a team victory in the 'UnOfficial' tally.

Our relay team gathered behind the starting blocks. I stubbed out my last cigarette, and handed my beer to one of the timers. I climbed up on the starting blocks which were higher than I remembered. I stood there...all 226 lbs of pot bellied, hypertensive me. I was sporting a two or three year old knee length baggy bathing suit that still had a little sand in it from the last visit to the Jersey Shore.

I looked down the blocks at the other 2 relay teams preparing for the race. Their lead off men were tall... much taller than me, and they wore Speedo's and had bathing caps with their team logo, and goggles. They were stretching and shaking down. What the hell? These guys really looked like swimmers!! They weren't fat. They looked like early middle aged marathon runners. They were skinny and had long arms and legs. Compared to them, my whole team looked like Danny DeVito impersonators wearing bad swimming suits and having a bad hair day. We drank, smoked and wheezed everyday while these guys obviously were running or swimming. They wore Speedos and caps and goggles. We wore baggy swimming suits and needed bifocals. "Oh damn", I thought to my self. This is going to be ugly. I looked at the crowed, and saw my daughters waving and smiling at me.

In looking from the crowd at me on the blocks beside the tall, skinny guys in Speedos, my daughters saw 'invincible dad'. Everyone else saw a fat middle aged man in a baggy bathing suit about to drown himself in a race against real athletes. Oh damn.

I looked back down the blocks and began to construct a plan to make this as respectable as possible. I knew I needed to be the first one off the blocks because that might be my only advantage. I had always has a quick start, and I knew I'd really need it this time. Each leg of the relay was 25 yards, so if I beat them out of the blocks, maybe it would take them a bit to catch me, and I could make this respectable.

I tried to shake down some but the only thing that moved very much was my belly, and I'm sure that wasn't very attractive. I began to hyperventilate. I figured if I could go the whole 25 yards without taking a breath, it might save me a stroke or two. I continued to hyperventilate to get as much oxygen in my blood as possible.

The starter was ready, and called out "Swimmers, take you mark!". I bent down into a starting posture that probably hasn't been seen in competition in 20 years. It was a little awkward. Swimming starts aren't normally done by a person sporting a pot belly. The starters pistol sounded. In the corner of my eye, I saw that I had them off the blocks. I hit the water, and sprinted. It was only 25 yards but when you haven't sprinted in 20 years, thats like a marathon. My arms were burning and getting tight after only 6 or 8 strokes, and my lungs screamed for air. I wished I hadn't had that last cigarette. I could feel the muscles in my chest getting tight, and the muscles under my arms start to cramp, and then with one final thrust of my arms, it was over. My right arm stretched out and tagged the wall. The next swimmer on our team flew over me and began sprinting his 25 yards.

I was wheezing and coughing, and exhausted. My heart rate must have been 200 beats per minute. Gasping for breath, I looked up at my team mate for help getting out of the pool, but he was looking at the other team. I turned and looked, thinking that we must have been smoked really badly.

Our second swimmer, who wasn't very fast, was nearing half way of the pool, and the lead off swimmers of the other two teams were just now reaching the end of the pool. I hadn't been smoked. I hadn't been humiliated in front of my kids. I had won. I smoked the tall lanky guys in Speedos, caps and goggles. I beat both of them by 1/2 the length of the pool.

With my chest pains beginning to subside, one of the other parents helped me out of the pool, and told me that my 'split' was a 12.9. "I swam 25 meters in 12.9 seconds?" , I wheezed as I looked around for my beer. I looked back at the race. Our third swimmer was in the water, and we were still holding a 1/2 length lead. I looked down the lanes at the other teams, with their speedos, and caps and goggles. Our fourth and final swimmer hit the water, and churned his way through the final 25 yards to victory.

Still standing poolside and wheezing and coughing, I reflected on the moment. From that first meet in in August of 1965 in the Jonesboro YMCA pool, until this one, last race at a club pool in New Jersey, there was never a sweeter victory than this one. I waved at my kids, swigged my beer, and looked for my smokes.

That was the last swim meet.

Morning Coffee in Memphis

Seated in front of the fountain, and between the marble columns of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, watching the procession of early risers seeking coffee is an event unto itself. Beginning at about 6:00am, bleary eyed guests, shaking off the night before and wrestling free from the sultry embrace of Beale Street, wander slowly in. Pausing to extend a courtesy or two at casual encounters, each guest is drawn irresistibly by the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Meandering ever so casually and yet striding so discretely and purposefully across the shiny marble floor of the lobby, they are on quest. Guests walking past the grand piano smile faintly at the tunes from the night before that now exist only in memory, smiles and photographs. Up the six steps to the hall leading to the Deli, each in turn go only to emerge seconds later smiling and clutching a steaming cup of hot coffee.

It’s only fitting that a day in Memphis begins this way.

37 West 65

Sometimes you run across something that really puts life in a new perspective. You pause for just a moment, and reflect on the blessings that you have been given.
Last week, Catfish and I had a wonderful weekend of diving. We dove in deep, dark, cold water, and he accomplished things that few kids his age attempt, much less accomplish. In training for these dives, and in acquiring the skills and knowledge to make the dives, he's achieving a maturity of thought at an early age. He's learning that anything can be accomplished with proper equipment and training. Anything.

On Wednesday of last week, his 8th grade class went on a three day trip to Washington, DC. One of the places we visited was Arlington. It may not have occurred to anyone else, but it struck me that each of the heros buried there was someone's son, someone's brother or sister, or someone's dad. Over 600 acres of heartbreak. At the Tomb of the Unknowns, the click of the heels of the Honor Guard echoed across the plaza while 300 8th graders stood silently. The sun beat down on everyone, but the silence of so many lay very heavily on the moment. Again, the little voice in my mind whispered to me that this was someone's son, someone's brother, someone's father.

We visited the Vietnam Memorial. It looks like an open wound across a grassy field. At panel 37 West, Line 65 the name Douglas D Estes appears.

On December 8, 1968, Doug was Killed in Action in Vietnam. He was 18 year old, and he was my cousin. I met him but once in the spring of 1968 at my grandparents home. It was a hot day, and he was smiling and laughing and horseback riding with his girlfriend. He had kind words for his little cousins. I remember thinking that he was so big, and so strong. He was a soldier. He knew how to shoot a machine gun. He got to fly in helicopters. He was there that one weekend, and then he was gone.

Only a parent can know the heartache of burying a child. As I looked at panel 37 West, Row 65, I remembered Aunt Dale's tears at Doug's funeral in Memphis. For a moment, I remembered Doug, smiling and laughing at my grandparents home. I looked further down the sidewalk before the Wall, and caught a glimpse of Catfish and his buddies, looking somberly at the wall. Like a bolt of lightening, a thought struck me. I looked up the sidewalk and saw only children coming down, looking at the wall. I looked back at the wall, and knew that each name was someone's child. I looked back toward Catfish and his buddies, but in that instant, they were gone.

I looked at Doug's name on the wall again. It was there, but he was gone, and for just a second, I sensed the utter loss and profound sadness that covered Aunt Dale for the rest of her life. With a new insight, I moved up the sidewalk to find Catfish and his buddies.

A long way from the rice fields

When she was just a baby, I used to look out over the rice fields from my perch on Crowley's Ridge and pray that she would grow up knowing that there was a whole world out there full of challenge and excitement. I wanted her to know that Paris was the city of lights in Europe, but Beirut was it's counterpart in the Middle East. I wanted her to know that while Memphis dry rub was the way to do ribs, the Carolina's really have pulled pork down right. I wanted her to sing the songs of Hank Jr., Elvis, the Boss, and Lynyrd Skynyrd with equal passion. It was important to me that she know the difference between Kentucky Bourbon and Tennessee Whiskey.

At 13, she transitioned from a tiny school in a tiny town in Arkansas to a pointy headed private school in New Jersey. She didn't know a soul here except for Landi, Catfish, Buckwheat and me. She had never lived through a 'jersey winter', but she had survived many an Arkansas summer. She had never even seen a soccer game played when she went out for the soccer team at school. Four years later, the pointey headed private school awarded her the Wigdon Cup which recognized the Most Athletic girl.

The first week of August her first year of college brought good news and bad news. The good news was that she had 'made the soccer team' at college. The bad news was that Katrina was coming in, and that New Orleans was evacuating. She wound up never playing college soccer, but she graduated with Honors from Tulane, and got a full ride scholarship to UMASS for her Masters.

She has her Masters degree, and she'll be 24 years old in September. She has a job lined up in Indianapolis, and will move there next month. It's just now soaking in that 'Indianapolis' will be 'home' for her. It's not like the time in college, when she's gone, but 'here' is still 'home'. 'Home' will be 'there', in Indianapolis. Mapquest claims it's 11 hours and 35 minutes away. That's a long way.

I'd like to visit the spot on Crowley's Ridge where I used to stand and look out over the rice fields. This time of year, you can see the farmers working the fields. From up on the ridge, it looks like nothing has changed in the last 24 years, but so much has changed. She has seen the lights of Paris and grandeur that was Rome. She has shopped the bustling, dusty markets of a North African town. She's stood on Times Square to welcome the New Year. She'll holler 'Hotty Toddy' or 'Go Yankees' with equal vigor. She can speak to you in English, French or Arabic. She's all grown up now, and I am so very proud, but she'll always be my little girl.

A Public Service Message

One of the hazards of being sentenced to lose weight is that you have to modify your lifestyle. In addition to giving up Bourbon until I hit the proscribed weight, I have taken up using our treadmill. Unlike in the past when I tried jogging on the damn thing, this time I am adopting a more sane approach. I set a minimum time, and a minimum distance and I do at least that time and distance each day. Some days I go further, and others I just do the minimum. On all days, while walking on the treadmill, there is ample time for thought.

An idle mind is a dangerous thing. An idle mind trapped in a wheezing fat man's body sweating gravy on a treadmill is a very dangerous thing. Today, for example, rather than dwelling on whether or not my heart rate was actually 188 as reported by my treadmill monitor, my mind wandered back to a recent dispute with the good people at Travelocity. There was a problem with a ticket I had purchased, and I had to call Travelocity customer service. The customer service organization at Travelocity is not designed to solve your problem. It is designed to beat you. This posting is a tutorial on how to 'win' when dealing with a customer service organization designed to 'beat you'.

The first thing to know is that you will no be speaking with the company you thought you were calling bu that you will be talking to a call center company and the agent you speak with will be compensated based on his/her ability to close calls. That means they want you to hang up. The more calls they close in an hour, the better they get 'bonused'. The longer you keep them on the phone, the more 'bonus' money they lose. So, start the call by carefully, completely and politely explaining the problem to them. Keep in mind that nearly every call is recorded, so be nice, and make notes about the persons responses to your questions. If the agent will not resolve the issue, ask for the supervisor. The agent may not want to pass you to the supervisor, but be persistent. The agent may tell you the supervisor isn't available. Remember, their goal is to get you to hang up. The agent may offer to have the supervisor call you. Tell the agent you will hold, and be prepared to wait about ten minutes.

Eventually the supervisor will come on the line. The supervisor's bonus package will be a factor of their ability to motivate their people to close calls, and their ability to close 'troublesome' calls. Time is a factor, so you will want to start from the beginning and again completely, honestly and politely explain the problem and the first agent's efforts. Refer to your notes if you need to. In my case, I had caught the original agent in a lie, and I told the supervisor that I had. Stay polite, accurate, and persistent. At the supervisor level, their motivation is still to get you off the phone, so no matter what, stay on 'message' and do not let them get you off the phone. When it becomes apparent that they are not going 'solve' your problem, as to be passed on to the supervisor's management. They are not going to want to do this, so you may have to apply additional pressure. I was able to figure out when they had hit the end of their script, so I told them we were in a 'loop' and to pass me up the chain of command.

It's helpful to know that usually the supervisor will not actually have the authority to solve your problem, and solving your problem will not be his goal. His goal is to get you off the phone. You have to get to the supervisor's management, and to do this you 'play' to the recording. Trouble calls will be played back by management, and sometimes even reviewed by the 'real' company you thought you were calling. Put your self in the shoes of the call center company, and think about what they would not want their client hearing. I told the supervisor that at some point I was going to encounter someone who actually cared if I ever bought another ticket using Travelocity. I got passed up the chain of command. Again, don't let them call you back, stay on the phone, and be prepared to wait another ten minutes.

Continue this exercise until you get someone who is actually in the United States. Only at that point will you have transitioned from the call center people to people who actually work for the company you thought you called. You will notice a definite difference. If necessary to verify that you are actually speaking to someone in the US, ask them where they are. When they answer, simply ask how the weather is today. Simple question, unless you aren't actually where you say you are. You can verify weather conditions anywhere using weather.com. When you get to the US side of things, your problem can and will be solved.

I would argue that it is your responsibility to use this technique at every opportunity because if you 'beat' them, at some point even the corporate ivy league pinhead bastards who thought that outsourcing customer service into a country whose culture is to 'game' the system will realize that this just isn't working. Whether it's HP Technical Support, Travelocity Customer Service, Dell Customer Support, you can get your problem solved. Just don't hang up.

In the interest of full disclosure, I used to work for the world's 3rd largest Call Center operations company. That's how I know how 'they' work. Now you know how 'they' work. So ,next time you have to call customer support or service, get a note pad, a nice big glass of tea, and be prepared to spend an hour or two. Be nice, polite, accurate and persistent. If it's not worth and hour or two of your time, then don't bother to call because you won't win.

The preceding has been a public service message brought to you by the Leady Meat Company. For meat you can't beat, it's Leady Meat.

If you hang up, the terrorists win.

I'm Fat.

There must be a class in Medical School where they teach young doctors to give that 'look'. It's a serious look...with the brow sort of crunched just a little. It's an eye ball to eye ball look. No kidding around, looking away, or mumbling. When you get that 'look', you just know the doc is about to tell you something horrible. I guess in Med School they teach them to 'just spit it out'; "just say it'.

And so he did. Dr. Frankenstein, standing there in a white jacket with his name on it, looked me right square in the eye, and in a solemn and measured voice, delivered the words everyone my age dreads hearing: "Bill, the problem is that your are just too damn fat."

Somewhat take aback, I replied testily "So what? You're ugly. What's your point?"

"Seriously", Doctor Frankenstein continued, "You need to lose about 15 or 20 lbs. before I can do the surgery."

"You'll still be ugly.", I thought to my self.

Having been down the surgery 'road' before, I did not fall for his misdirection. Hell, Stevie Wonder can tell I'm fat. Here's the deal...when they want to cut you open and root around with your insides, they want to give you something else to think about rather than how much pain you are going to experience as a result of their 'fix' of what ever you have wrong with you.

Case in point. A few years ago, when I blew out my ACL, tore my meniscus, and broke my tibia, it took a lot of effort to get the knee fixed. First, the doctors said I was too old, that people my age don't really 'need' and ACL. To me, an ACL isn't optional equipment. I play soccer. I ski. I run to the bathroom. So, I told the good doctor I wanted the damn thing fixed anyway. So we scheduled the surgery. I was in the ready room when the gass-passer hit's the 'stop button'. The anesthesiologist didn't like my blood pressure or my thyroid. It took two months to get the blood pressure and thyroid issues resolved. During this two month period, because I had a great deal of difficulty walking, and was in a fair amount of pain, I was focused on getting the blood pressure and thyroid in line for the day of the surgery. I wasn't thinking about the 'day after surgery'. I was so focused on getting the surgery done that I didn't ask the most important question. I just wanted the damn surgery done.

Note to self: Think about the day after surgery. That's a very important day because the hospital pain meds will be worn off, and you be using Percocets. Think about that day. Never let some doc fussing about your age, or your blood pressure or your thyroid distract your attention away from one critically important question: "How much is this going to hurt?"

Beware! "We'll give you pain meds." is not an answer. It's part of a grand strategy for an ambush.

Here's how it works. Following surgery, you are in more pain that can be described using the English language. They have cut open the front of you knee, and using power tools or explosives, they have removed the center third of the petalar tendon. They break out the ole Black and Decker drill and, usually using a worn out wood bit, they bore a hole through your femur and one through your tibia. Next they take a coat hanger or something, and they poke the sliver of tendon through both of these holes to create a new ACL for you. You wake up, with your knee immobilized in a big ass brace that has two hinges right at knee level. Take special note of how to lock and unlock the hinges. If you fail to lock the hinges, movement of even .01 degree in the knee will bring you to new heights of unimaginable pain.

They give you "Pain Meds". Percocets, they are, and they have two distinct effects. One is to relive pain, and the other is to shut your guts down. I ate them like popcorn. The pain relief is marginal at best, but the cessation of the colo-rectal function is complete and absolute. Everything in your digestive tract stops moving just prior to its 'leaving the building' so to speak. You still get hungry. You still eat, but Elvis isn't leaving the building, if you know what I mean. Because you are looped on Percs, you don't notice for 3 or 4 days that you've apparently and miraculously been impregnated, and that what ever you are going to give birth to is going to be big. Anyone who has given birth to a large piece of firewood will never take percocets again, and the medical theory is that you'll remember the pain of childbirth instead of the pain from the surgery. It's an evil strategy.

So, now Dr. Frankenstein wants to open me up like a butterflied pork chop and rearrange my innards. He's doing that doctor 'look'. He's very serious. He's offering to gut me, for a price of course, and I suspect there is a lot of pain involved in this.

"How much is this going to hurt?", I ask, trying not to sound scared.

"We'll give you pain meds, but you've got to lose 15lbs.", Dr. Frankenstein replies.

"How much is this going to hurt?", I repeat, not falling for the misdirection.

The doctor isn't playing around. He goes for my jugular. "The easiest way for someone your age to lose weight is to cut down on your drinking.", he says without blinking. He expects this to shake me, for my love of bourbon is legend, but I don't take the bait.

"How much is this going to hurt?" I press on.

"Hurt? Not much.", he finally replies.

"Really?" I exclaim, with obvious relief.

"No...not really.", he smiled, "I can give you some pain meds."

Surprise!

Surprises come in all flavors. Some are good. Some are bad. I remember several years ago on my 40th birthday, Mom and Dad had sneaked into New Jersey for a visit. That was a good surprise. I enjoyed that a lot. Back in 2004, when we were in New Orleans to watch Jordan play soccer for Loyola, we had to cross the Mississippi River via the Huey P. Long Bridge. The Huey P. Long Bridge has two lanes with no apparent means of support, floating in mid-air on either side of train tracks which ran down the center of the bridge structure. It is about 1000 ft above the river and the guard rails that should prevent you from driving off the bridge are about 12 inches high. Hell, I've driven over curbs that were taller. When you are driving in a conversion van, or an SUV, you can not see the guard rail. This was a bad surprise, a very damn bad surprise.

I closed one eye, repented of all my sins, and drove 15 miles an hour right down the center of the two lanes heading west. Traffic quickly backed up behind me, and the people right behind me were honking and flipping me the bird, but I didn't care. With everyone behind me honking, flashing lights, and flipping me the bird, I imagined that it must look like we were leading a parade across the bridge. We survived and I'll never, ever cross that bridge again.

Last week on our return trip from Florida, we were hopeful of avoiding an unpleasantness in terms of breakdowns, bridges or surprises. The Beast (pet name for the Ford Expedition) had performed flawlessly. On the trip down, we got almost 20 miles per gallon, and we figured out how to use the satellite radio. The DVD worked well, and Jordan and Catfish watched movies and studied. The only giant bridge encountered on the way down was skillfully avoided on the return route. The return trip was going alarmingly well. Too well.

On the first day coming home, we drove 540 miles, and got a room at a Marriott hotel in Knoxville, Tennessee. We were exhausted, hungry and thirsty. Landi, Catfish and Jordan went directly to the room with the Bell Hop, while I parked the Beast. When I walked into the lobby of the hotel, I noticed that there were about 200 tables set with beautiful white table clothes, and formal china in readiness for Easter Brunch. I wearily stepped onto the elevator thinking about how nice it would be in the morning if we could be out of here before all that got going. I punch '9' on the controls, and the elevator began to rise. I turned around, and HOLYSHIT YOU CAN SEE OUT OF THIS THING. IT'S ONE OF THOSE GLASS ELEVATORS!!! I was in a glass elevator rising like a rocket toward the 9th floor.

That was ugly surprise number one. As one who has an increasingly profound respect for heights, I was stunned. I was in a glass elevator shooting up at an uncivilized rate of climb heading toward the alpine region of this towering building. My fear turned to absolute panic as we neared the ceiling and I noticed that we were not slowing down and clearly we were going to hit the damn ceiling really hard. I grabbed hold of the hand rails tightly and braced for the collision. I wondered if the doors would open following the impact, or if the elevator would just break away from the elevator 'track' and plummet to the hard tile floor of the hotel lobby. I had visions of all manner of movie scenes where some poor bastard gets dropped from a really high place. Wiley Coyote and Road Runner came to mind, but I had no illusions as to my ability to survive a fall like the coyote.I closed my eyes, and again, repented of my sins.

The collision never came, but ugly surprise number two did. The elevator flew threw the ceiling and emerged into blinding sunlight on the outside wall of the damn hotel and continued slimbing upward like a squirrel on crack.

At this point, I was nearing incontinence. This had been a bad ride. I just wanted off the damn elevator. It was bad enough riding in an elevator inside the building, but this damn thing was now outside the building. Who the hell thought that was a good idea? If I survived this ride, I'd never ride another elevator. Finally, Saints be praised and to the sound of trumpets, the doors of the elevator opened, and I exited the jaws of death. It took a minute to regain my composure and dignity.

I found the hotel room, and went in. I must have looked a little shaken up, because Catfish and Jordan both thought my experience was exceedingly humorous. Funny my ass! I fixed a bourbon. No ice. No water. Just bourbon....a very strong bourbon. I was safe and in the room. I was out of danger.

Landi came out of the rest room, and cheerfully said, "Ok, Let's go down for supper."

I'm gonna need more bourbon.

Third Time's a Charm

I feel a little like Charlie Brown charging up to the football as Lucy holds it. Just like Charlie, I just know it's going to work out ok this time. Nothing bad is going to happen. Everything is as it should be. Here goes...We leave for Florida this morning.

It's pre-dawn here. Ninty nine years ago today, in the dark of the night the Titanic struck an ice burg the size of a city block and sank. Last Februrary, our van lost oil pressure 78 miles into our trip to Jonesboro. In December, the Van's fuel line froze in the middle of an ice storm in southern Virginia. We sold the van.

Today, we prepare to leave in "The Beast". Cars should have names, and this one's name is 'The Beast'. It's a 2008 Black and silver Ford Expedition with 2 1/2 years warranty left on it. The tires are good. The oil is new. The windshield washer reservoir is full. The Port-a-bar is stocked with bourbon and Vodka, and we have wine and Bloodymary mix. We have snacks, and movies, and music. We are ready for a 1200 mile trek to Destin, on the banks of the sea of Wahoo, where there are never any troubles, or at least very few.

Though I'm a blind optimist, I know something is going to happen. No way Charlie kicks the damn ball. As daylight sneaks up on us here in New Jersey and our departure grows near, I know there is an iceberg lurking out there somewhere, but you know what? From my perspective an iceberg is simply free range ice cubes, and I have plenty of bourbon.

Lucy looks up at Charlie and smiles.

The Good Stuff

All the grandchildren say the house is haunted, and they just may be right. Fifty years of Christmas Eve Quail dinners linger in the kitchen. That just doesnt' fade away very quickly. On the patio where thousands of cocktails were consumed and countless steaks were cooked on a gas grill beneath the spreading branches of the old 'acorn' tree, the ghost of Daddy Doc smiles back at me in a reflection off of the French Doors. In the Den, the footstools are gone, but it's a sure thing that my brother still can't fly. In the tile, Mom's reflection still glares at me, and she's still pissed. Somehow, it's my fault that Matt can't fly. Miss Dot sits in the lounger in the Den, sipping a cocktail and telling us all 'one damn thing'. Don't blink, you'll miss her. Yeah, this house is haunted.

Today, to the casual observer, the house appears mostly empty. The silver and jewlery were carried off some time back. Last weekend, we removed furniture. As we went from room to room sorting out memories and wading though smiles and tears, it became clear to me that this house would never be empty. Though Mom and Dad no longer lived there, and despite being stripped of it's contents, this house would always be full of history. Just stepping through the door brings back floods of memories and emotions. Though the pictures have been taken down from the walls, the memories still hover in the air.

In emptying the house, we are closing a chapter. We each come away from our home with things to remind us of Mom and Dad. Mom will always smile back at me from her secretary. I'll see her every time I use the corn bread stick mold. In looking at the swords, I'll remember her Antique Store. Dad will forever be sitting on the couch, cigarette and cocktail in hand, explaining things to me. He had a certain clarity of thought. On this, the last weekend in the house, the old grump, smiling and sitting on the couch, explained to me what the 'good stuff' is. I understand.

It Happened Out There

In one of my favorite scenes in the movie 'Captain Ron', the one-eyed captain gazes out over the blue green waters of the Caribbean Sea, and says 'What ever is going to happen is going to happen out there.' I love that line. Of course, at this point in the movie, Captain Ron has yet to be revealed as a complete lunatic.

In a similar fashion, we set out last Thursday for Arkansas. As a result of having suffered various forms of vehicular failure on most of the last few trips down south, we have recently acquired a 'new' van. It will be recalled that a year ago last December, we made a Christmas run to Arkansas that was inturrupted only 60 miles into the journey. After being rescued by my Father-in-Law, and slamming my hand in the car door, we continued on to Arkansas for a successful trip. Our next excursion was Florida for spring break. Unfortunately, on the day we left Florida we discovered that our fuel system was still compromised, and water was still able to penetrate the tank. The final debacle was this past December when we were stranded in a rest area near Marion, Virginia in a horrible ice storm. It was certainly time to retire the old Ford Van.

Our new van is a Dodge. It has a few miles on it, but it is pristine, and we bought it through a reputible dealership. It's about 3 feet shorter than the old Ford, but we don't need all that room anymore. I was anticipating much better gas milage because it has a six cylindar engine rather than the huge eight cylindar that was in the Ford. We looked at the van and drove it on a Saturday, and returned to the dealership on Monday and bought it.

On Wednesday, the dealership filed for bankruptcy protection. Uh oh.

Did we have the title in our hands? Nope. Did we have tags for the van? Nope. Did we have the registration? Nope. But, apparantly the Fates were in our favor because all three materialized over the next week or so, and I thought out troubles might be over. I was wrong.

Having secured tags, title and registration, I drove the van one day to have lunch with some of my old work pals. It's a 24 mile commute up over the Watchung Mountains. I drove it almost daily for 3 years. I was 10 miles into the journey when I noticed that the alternator was not charging. Damn. I turned around and took the van to our local garage. There was a little voice in the back of my mind snickering. The rational moron who apparantly co-habitates with the little voice in the the back of my mind suggested that 'Hey, it's not that bad. Alternator's go out. It's a maintenance thing.' That's 'reasonable', I thought, but the snickering still bothered me.

While in the shop, I decided to have the van checked for other potential problems because in a few short weeks, we would be making a trip to Arkansas in it. $2700 later, with a new water pump, a mostly rebuilt front end as well as new brakes, our 'new' van was fit to make the journey to Arkansas. Having picked the van up from the garage, we decided to drive it when we went out for dinner and a movie.

The restaurant and theater are only about 5 miles from our home. Before we even got half way, the van was surrounded by clouds of steam. Back to the garage. The little voice in the back of my head snickered again. The rational moron in me said "This sort of stuff just happens sometimes."

Finally, the day for the trip to Arkansas arrived. My bride and I both were a little apprehensive because this was the 30th day we had owned the van, and it had been in the garage for 18 of those days. The little voice in my head was placing bets with the rational moron in me as to whether or not we'd even make it out of Jersey.

Never the less, as we loaded the van with luggage and assorted crap, my mind wandered back to Captain Ron's words. The van's engine was tight, and pulled well. The tires were good. The belts were good, and the radiator was topped up. There was plenty of windschield washer fluid. Landi, Jordan, Catfish and I got in the van and pulled out. Weather reports indicated that we could expect good weather for the entire trip. Everything was wonderful as we crossed the river from Jersey to Pennslyvania. We switched the radio to the rock station that broadcasts from Allentown. Jordan was studying in the back of the van. Catfish was listening to his Ipod. Landi was knitting, and I was listening to the clatter of the lifters.......

Clatter of the lifters? WTF? The little voice in my head and the rational moron in me were laughing their asses off.

A quick glance revealed that we had no oil pressure. None. Ziltch. I switched off the engine and steered the van onto the shoulder of the road. We had gone 78 miles, and suffered a catastrophic engine failure.

Captain Ron was right. It did happen out there.

A Truely Super Sunday

Sunday was a beautiful day. It began with Mimosas and a good breakfast. Since my former employer told me last month that my services were no longer needed because my performance was not on par with that of my fellow Vice Presidents, I don't get up and check 'my' computers first thing in the morning. It's just not my problem anymore. I get up, and I have a Mimosa and cook the Catfish and my bride a good breakfast. I have found that it really is true that if you're going to drink all day, you have to start in the morning.

So, SuperSunday began nicely, and then it got better. A friend texted me. "Intellione is down.", the message read. Intellione is a huge computer that runs roughly 30% of the world's third largest collections company. When it is down, the company is down and is bleeding serious money. Intellione had been one of my boxes. For three years, I had monitored it and pampered it and corrected the miriad of problems that had made the big server so unreliable and troublesome for prior administrators. In the last two years, Intellione had been very stable and reliable. It had not suffered not one minute of unplanned downtime in over 25 months, which is why 2.0 decided that my services, and my bad attitude, were no longer needed.

These sweet moments are to be treasured.

This guy, who just days after Mom passed away, gave me a ration of shit telling me that this company doesn't have berevement time; this guy who gave me a ration of shit about taking a day off in December to attend my Father-in-Law's funeral; this guy who just last month told me that 'my performance wasn't up to par' and fired me, was being slow roasted over a raging fire of sleep deprived, caffine fueled weasels. Because he didn't have a single ally in the organization, I knew that he was alone in the debacle, swinging in the breeze. It must have been truly agonizing because I know that he would rather french kiss a monkey's ass than call me, but my friend had texted me again, and he was asking for my phone number.

There are moments in your life where you get to make a decision. Sometimes, you see a drowning man, and, even though you know him for what he is, you find the means to rescue him. You find a bouy, or a rope, in worst case you get in the water, but you find a way to help the man.

This wasn't one of those times. This was a time for popcorn...... and Mimosas

The phone rang.

Pucker up big boy.