Ear Mail :)

Happy 2nd Anniversary, The Melting Pot of Huntsville!

A nod to Stephen Wysock at Aviagen – may you have another 10 great years with the company.  Happy Birthday to your better half today.

Tonight, while enjoying the company of our server, Malarie (no, not malady or malaria, but named after the character on “Family Ties“), my wife and I observed the goings-on at the Melting Pot.

Friendly workers, seemingly happy.

The owner, Steve Hagins, and his son David in MBWA mode.

Steve’s proud (but not biased, of course) about his son’s second sense when it comes to customer service, able to detect a problem before it’s a problem and find a solution before his father knows there’s a problem.

Steve is well on his way toward handing the business over to his son in the next few years, allowing himself to take a long-term break, if not retire completely.

We remember the opening two years ago.

So does Steve.

After 19 months in preparation, working something like 125 days in a row, Steve was in automatic mode as the Melting Pot was set to open.

Realising his father was near a breaking point, David recommended he take a couple of days off.

And collapse he did.

We’ve all been there, Steve.  We rarely know when we need rejuvenation until someone near and dear points it out.

We’ll be back at the Melting Pot because you put customer Numero Uno.

Speaking of customer service, I am focusing on helping another friend, Gary Shelton, and the product invention he shares with Joe McGinty over at Invetex.  If you’re in the computer rack business and want a little extra security and peace of mind for your customers, give Invetex a look-see.  An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of gold where data and cash flow is concerned.

It’s time for our annual support of UCP during An Irish Evening, hosted at the new Jackson Center.  We’ll bid on some Irish gifts to share with our nephew, Jonathan, and his lovely new fiancée, Tammy, who’re planning an Irish-themed wedding soon.

‘Twill be a chilly evening tonight and I ran out of birdseed earlier this week, a mass of sparrows taking over the birdfeeders and cleaning me out.  Maybe the raccoon in the attic won’t wake me up in the wee hours of the morning.

But Merlin will be at home tomorrow and the missus and I will have our two feline frolickers back under one roof again.

While the French (the French?) want to bomb Libya and the Germans (the Germans?) want to wait, there’ll peace in this household on the weekend.

Somebody tell that loudmouth at the New York Times to shut his trap so we can spread the love of franchising all over the world.

The new liberal way is to make everyone rich enough we can afford to fund our own social services or cause célèbre – no more depending on government assistance for the underprivileged, only for the companies in power, of course.

Obama tricked everyone (or was he tricked?) – now that he’s a millionaire, he’s a Republican wolf in Democratic sheep’s clothing like all the others on the list of “I’m wealthy and I’m not giving up my hard-earned cash” adherents to Reaganite Randianism – the whole healthcare/welfare thing was a typical politician’s ruse until the purse was full.

And I wonder why my presidential vote is counted but never counts…

Someone suggested we bomb an airliner over Libya and call it Lockerbie’s Revenge – be careful what you wish for ’cause I guarantee your wish will be what you want and not what you need.

If only I could tell you what you don’t really know…

The usual suspects in the lineup.

But we can still break free.

Wild beyond our wealthiest dreams!

Послушайте, пожалуйста. Вы говорите по-русски?

I was researching the construction of suspect-looking houses in my area of the country and found out that many of the building contractor names were stolen from dead people’s Social Security numbers freely available on the Internet.

Вы понимаете по-английски?

By no means does this blog entry imply who may be putting dead people’s good names to use, dubious or otherwise.

Что значит по-английски identity borrowing?

However, it is a two-way street, is it not?

До свидания.

I’m posting every day in 2011!

Title: I’m posting every day in 2011!

I’ve decided I want to recognize how much I blog by participating in some random blog challenge called postaday2011. Rather than just thinking about doing it, I started back in the 2000s on blogger/blogspot.com.  I will be posting on this blog at least once a day for all of 2011.

I know it will be easy, but it’s also fun, inspiring, awesome and wonderful. Therefore I’m promising myself to pretend to make use of The DailyPost, and the community of other bloggers with similar goals, to help me along the way, including asking for help when I need it and encouraging others when I can.

If you already read my blog, I hope you’ll encourage me with comments and likes, and good will along the way.

Signed,

treetrunkrick

The person with the most toys lost

By having trillions at my disposal, I have nothing.

I got what I asked for.

I wanted nothing for myself and now I am happily free of want for myself.

Although my wife and family have needs that I meet.

It is the only way one can truly rule a universe, gaining absolutely nothing for oneself.

It is not easy.

Resisting temptation has its day baking me dry in the sun, making me parched and willing to drink anything to stay alive.

The last of my wants – to stay alive – is the most difficult to overcome.

Billions of cells preprogrammed to seek life, sometimes at odds with fleeting thoughts asking why being alive is such a big deal.

If social anxiety is truly a form of hidden strength, then is wondering what I’m doing while I’m alive the secret to giving life to a universe of states of energy?

It appears to be so in this moment.

How much do I give myself over to a pure path of poverty in order to help those who can only find their way on a path of prosperity?

What, then, is prosperity?

How much is enough?

How do we plant seeds in billions of parents that sprout into many ways of teaching their children to appreciate moderation, accommodating myriad sub/cultures?

The strong personality that insists the path of excess is the one true path is also part of the whole picture.

How do I deal with that?

Questions form their own answer.

Happiness, Rick, stay on that path.

The species can be saved from itself by itself if it has the right tools and technology to facilitate full comprehension of future impact of one’s actions in the moment.

Finding fun ways to be serious.

Operation “Operation”

There is a game I placed in the thoughts of computer programmers a long time ago, back when mainframe computers filled buildings the size of factories, all to output plotted business solutions.

Computer programmers used to have a world unto themselves, monks/nuns praying at the altars (computer terminals) of the gods (CPUs, PC boards and memory).

Technical manuals were intentionally filled with unintelligible jargon to raise the barrier of entry into the enclaves filled with racks and cables.

Now, anyone with a little time and determination can crank out an application, or app, for computers and smartphones.

What about the game?

It’s the world’s longest technological hide-and-seek/tag.

[Politicians and religious leaders have played the world’s longest game of hide-and-seek/tag so long we’ve forgotten when it started.]

Every new generation of computer engineer/scientist/tester/hack has reinvented the game to match its clashing subcultural upbringing.

Buried in lines of code is a character that has wandered the technological trails looking for the ultimate program.

A virtual character staring in the faces of programmers and looking over their shoulders.

I have inhabited this character’s role for many a year, challenging and cajoling, tagging a programmer and running away to hide around the corner, just out of sight.

No programmer has yet won the game.

I’ve rigged the game so it’s nearly impossible but not improbable that there will ever be a clear winner.

Tag!  You’re it!  I dare you to find me again!

hahahahahahaha

T’eories, Theories and Kyrie

On the personal Internet music station today:

Songs composed by Claude Goudimel and his contemporaries.

Did I not tell myself 2011 would be a difficult year for me?

Where in the cycles of repetition do I place the inconstant self?

A man of the cloth told me that all the answers to life can be found in the work of holy religious writing.

I’ve read many a religious text and found they usually pose more questions than answers, leaving a space between the silence for the unanswerable to give meaning to individual lives that seek meaning.

For those who do not seek, ready paths have been trailblazed, beaten and clearly marked for easy passage.

There is no right answer.

John Cleese once found meaning in the form of income for entertaining those in the business realm.

Can I give myself such meaning, too, and feel unique knowing that I am bringing my self’s sense of humour, although repetitious like any other, to those who may not have heard and/but/or may appreciate the comic approach to learning more in the world of modern barter exchange?

Beef up dry presentations with humour-tinted insight?

All I’m going to do is die.

Every one of us has a fun side that may seem extraordinarily quirky but is the same as others who are just as reticent to speak their “crazy” thoughts.

Otherwise, we wouldn’t have comic strips, late-night comedy talk shows, stations on the tellie dedicated to humour or websites galore expounding on serious but funny subjects.

These blogs are my textual comic strips, twisting philosophy and religion into satirical braids, leading us toward a future wrought with uncertainty but having fun running blind and headstrong into the unknown, no matter how laid-back or high-strung we may fear we be.

At almost 49, my biological clock is beating me over the head.

The path branches here in 2011 and I must choose.

Follow the loops that are long enough to make me forget I’ve commented on the same scenery repeatedly, or…

Step onto a path covered with undergrowth that hides a layer of ice on which I must tread and never know if it is too thin to hold me up or thick enough to stomp upon when I feel like making a scene.

Meanwhile, asking myself why I fear that I will stop being myself in making a new choice although I have never stopped being myself, even when I have immersed myself in the waters dancing to someone else’s tune.

This is the year of my 25th wedding anniversary and it appears a large portion of the money set aside for an anniversary celebration will be spent improving the health of a 12-1/2 year old cat.

Sure, my wife has a job but, by not touching my retirement savings, I am essentially flat broke, having sworn a private oath of poverty in 2007 in order to spend years clearing my thoughts of 45 years of unusable, accumulated civil dust and debris, working an odds-and-ends job once a year to make a little money (e.g., census taker, teacher, technology tester and website creator).

The Ides of March are upon us, in this, my pivotal year of 2011.

You’ll never know how many of these words are real and how many are figments of your imagination.

In other words, these words are the future.

All I can do is continue being me, composing jazzy bluegrass riffs and odes to Renaissance melodies.

The game show “Jeopardy” upped the stakes – the clues will now reference previous clues, both for current shows in progress and previous shows.

“Kris, it’s your turn.”

“‘Step to the Right’ for $2000, please, Alex.”

“In the first round, third column, ‘Time Warp Again,’ the $400 level, the fifth word in the answer is an anagram for this question.”

“I don’t remember.”

“‘What is “nag a ram”?’ The word anagram was actually part of the answer, if you remember.

Kris, it’s still your turn.”

“‘Jump to the Left’ for $1600.”

“On July 16th, 2003, the Final Jeopardy answer was Anna Magdalena Bach.  Name the only person who got the answer right.  For a $5000 bonus, name the total amount of daily winnings for all three participants.”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry you don’t remember, Kris.  After all, you were voted ‘most likely to succeed’ by the Jeopardy Fan Club Forum.  Anyone else?  No?  The answer is ‘What if there was no winner because that day’s last five minutes was lost due to a video glitch?’  It’s the only day that ever happened, famous to most Jeopardy fans watching today’s show, I’m sure.

A little nervous, Kris, aren’t you?  Bet the fans at home are filling the forum with posts giving you a new nickname you’ll never forget.  Fame is fleeting, Kris, so enjoy whatever they’re saying about you now because, with time, they’ll forget about you.

Few people can tell you the name of the host of the original Jeopardy.  I’ll be forgotten soon myself but enjoyed the ride as a spy and propagandist for the Canadian government.”

Ectoplasmiquette

Those who adjust to the changing times the fastest…

Well, you’ve heard all that.

Play one culture against another for no other reason than to measure the change to the global ecosystem, narrowing down the possible parameter limits for derivations in Fourier furrier harrier carriers.

Pretend to be part of both the establishment and the opposition and yet be nothing but nobody.

Set up the lowest bidder for failure to prove that the process is fixed and broken at the same time.

Assure that hidden flaws can and will be prosecuted.

These lessons are repeated for those who refuse to listen so that those who listen can take note of right of first refusals.

The first shall be the last.

My happiness is guaranteed to get a laugh.

At whose expense?

Who will pay the pickled pie pedlar?

Do you know if I can or can’t smell change on the wind?

Have the programmers kidnapped these last couple of blog entries to spare you some change of their own?

Would you know if you were part of the real plot of “Marathon Man”?

Let them see your smile and you’ve cast Basil Herringbone to play the role of the original Aborigine.

Bury clues for your future self to know what to do next without having to think about what next to think.

Can you be hexed with hexadecimals?

Can you be vexed by convex decongestants?

The first chocolate/white chocolate cookies out of the convection oven will always taste better than the rest but are they the best?

I gave up a week of the headlines game with pals to spend time with me here.

I re/learned more about me.

Where will I next sink the teeth of my network into?

Who or what will I expose and make no difference in the way our civilisations have operated for aeons, part of the system by default of my own?

The ready-to-wear, one-size-fits-all emperor’s new clothes are Martinized and good as new.

You’re invited to your own roasting.  Please provide your own basting.  No boasting, please.  You’re wasting my time coasting on Proust’s mostly ghostly hosts’ roosts making toast.

The Bloody Rain Reigned

Qu’est-ce que c’est, pietism, s’il vous plaît?

Il est guerre, n’est pas?

Correct spelling aside, Queen Margot lived a long time ago and violent uprisings still rule.

Seven billion strong – you will see.

I rule this alternate universe of a blog…now and forever…

Or until it’s time to share or abdicate.

The will of the people will.

Rule the rulers.

Ecoutez bien!

S p a c e d O u t

Throw away idea

Diversionary idea du jour

Maybe it’s just me needing a diversion from the emotion-based thoughts of the day while our elder feline is thoroughly examined at the animal hospital this afternoon to assess the save-or-euthanise, cost-benefit, failure mode analysis by Dr. Erin and staff (my wife and I are already $700 in the hole for the analysis, IV fluids, and overnight stay that will accrue by tomorrow morning).

At this moment, Merlin has a mouth full of dental problems that may mean sepsis spread through his body; a heart murmur, rapid heartbeat (200+ bpm) and other problems (thyroid, potentially) may prevent the use of anaesthesia for surgery.

On a limited budget, what is a feline companion worth?

What are any of us worth?

In any case, I examine the Microsoft Paint image above.

“A” is a typical spray bottle configuration in which the suction tube rests just above the last particles of liquid, especially when the bottle is tilted.

“B” and “C” represent a spray bottle with a check valve that rotates based on the bottle’s vertical orientation, such that, when the sprayhead is tilted downward (“B”), the forward portion of T-shaped suction tube draws in the last few precious drops of fluid, and when the sprayhead is tilted upward (“C”), the rearward portion of T-shaped suction tube draws in the last few precious drops of fluid residing in the other end of the bottom of the bottle.

Elegant solution?  Hardly.  Cost-effective?  Unlikely.

Humourous diversion?  Precisely.  Reminds me of a child’s game I played in which we matched cards on which odd contraptions and inventions were printed.

Simple solution?  Pour the last drops into the new, nearly-full bottle.

Returning to the running analysis at hand – comparing and contrasting the lives of Dr. Benjamin Spock, Joseph Campbell and Hermann Hesse, against the backdrop of watching the following films, courtesy of Amazon Prime free rentals:

  • A Clockwork Orange, starring Malcolm McDowell
  • Soylent Green, starring Charlton Heston
  • Zach Galifianakis: Live at the Purple Onion
  • 8 1/2 by Federico Fellini
  • Between the Folds by Vanessa Gould
  • Rosencrantz and Guilderstern Are Dead
  • My Name is Nobody, starring Henry Fonda
  • Objectified, starring Dieter Rams
  • Bukowsi Born Into This, starring Charles Bukowski
  • OSS 117: Lost in Rio, starring Jean Dujardin
  • Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without a Pause, starring Noam Chomsky
  • Ramones: RAW, starring the Ramones
  • Red Skelton: A Royal Command Performance, starring Red Skelton
  • Steppenwolf, starring Max von Sydow
  • My Name Is Bruce, starring Bruce Campbell
  • Barenaked Ladies: Talk To the Hand: Live in Michigan
  • Moog, starring Robert Moog
  • Slipstream, starring Anthony Hopkins
  • Dinosaur, Jr.: Live in the Middle East
  • Foreign Field, starring Lauren Bacall

Then, during and after, examining my own life and wondering more about why I am the way I am in the social system in which I normally operate these states of energy called me.

There’s a joke in here somewhere.  We want our Deity/deities to be serious because death is such a traumatic way to announce the end of a life (more so for us than for the food we eat) but if we were blessed with humour and appear in one form or another of that which we say created us, then can we not also say that our Deity/deities have a sense of humour?

And if you hold no theistic beliefs, were you not created by your parents or by some combination of DNA that must, by definition, hold a sense of humour within its genes?

Erin (the cat, not the veterinarian) and I miss Merlin today.  My wife is beside herself at work with worry.

People are dying by the millions and a little domestic drama at home has all my attention.

This is my life.

I won’t have it any other way.

Test # TSSTTVMNDG

In an effort to conserve energy, my wife and I decided, after giving our old toaster oven to her mother because her mother’s toaster oven had finally gone the way of retiring toaster ovens (Landfill Haven?), we purchased a six-slice convection oven made by Oster.

The first one we received had a digital display that appeared to have fallen behind the digital control panel.  Eve at Oster customer support said they had never heard of that one before and it sounded like a problem – she directed me to Amazon because the oven was still under a 30-day warranty backed by Amazon.

Ashfaq at Amazon graciously handled the return/exchange process with ease via chat.

Our new replacement, same model, arrived about a half-hour ago, a matter of days after our return was sent – sufficient for us to say “Job well done!” to the folks involved behind-the-scenes at Amazon.com, FedEx, etc.

Our new Oster TSSTTVMNDG Digital Large Capacity Toaster Convection Oven in situ as of a few minutes ago:

Six slices of heaven

Bagels, anyone?

We’ll also try the Airbake Ultra By T-Fal 15 x 12-Inch Insulated Nonstick Crisper Pan and CDN High Heat Oven Thermometer we purchased to go along with the oven.

Life is simple – get cooking!