What we have here is a failure to communicate.

From our "Don't-listen-to-what-she-says-Listen-to-what-she-means" Department:


Obviously a newlywed.

TBG out-

Fallen off the face of the Earth?

Well... Not really...

Last time I posted I was in on the road in the San Joaquin Valley heading for San Jose.

Since then I've been in San Jose, Seattle, Vancouver, Detroit, and finally back to Jacksonville.
As the late great Jerry Garcia said: What a long strange trip it's been.

Let's see...

A few pictures and a recap seem to be in order.

First- The drive from Jacksonville to Dallas was mostly uneventful.

I rented a Pontiac Vibe from Avis- gas milage wasn't too bad- I got about 360 miles per tank of gas. Not too shabby.

I got a late start out of Jax and as the sun was going down over Mobile it was killing my contacts so I stopped at one of the seafood places on Battleship Row...

My favorite one is being rebuilt after Katerina blew it out, so I had to go to the second choice.

Felix's

The oysters were local and not too bad, but not great either.
I had some crab soup too... Again, nothing to write home about.
They were out of the fried crab claws, which was the entire reason I stopped. Bummer.

Oh well... Just my luck.


I got back on the road just after sundown.

I made it all the way to Breaux Bridge just outside Lafayette LA before I had to break for the night, and I was off again just after daybreak.


I caught a quick lunch at Crazy Bob's BBQ in Hog Eye Texas...
And I arrived in Dallas fairly early that afternoon.

So with my carload of equipment I got to work the next day and the first of a oft-recurring problem presented itself.


"Uh... did anyone get a tape measure and measure the brackets and the rack?"

Once Dallas was finished I was off to laid-back California...Home of Pearly Sweetcake, you probably knew her well...

The Honda Center in Anaheim was on the list. I loaded their equipment in and found that their rack was even shallower than the one in Dallas.
Lovely. We'll be putting a new rack in there... Probably doing it the 3rd round of the playoffs.

I loaded up my rental car and drove the next shipment up to San Jose...

Ever driven up I-5, through the Breadbasket of California?

It's nasty.
Farmlands and stockyards. Yuk.
I had left Anaheim in the early evening and made it up just north of LA before I took a short nap, then drove on to Coalinga and got a room at a Motel 6, so I'd have a real bed and a shower before getting to the HP PAvilion Arena in San Jose.

I arrived in San Jose early the next day and spent some time in the arena,
and had dinner at a place called Hukilau in Japantown, San Jose. Not a bad little place.

I finished out (most of) the install the next day. There are a couple things outstanding that we'll iron out during the off-season, but overall we're doing good there.
The UPS took a little damage in shipment...

The shipping company obviously dropped it right on the corner of the unit...
(heh..heh...he said "unit") but I got it straightened out and it's ok now.

One thing about California- they wear their hearts on their sleeves and they wear their politics on their bumpers...
One sticker I really got a tickle out of...



I caught a flight out of San Jose the next morning for Seattle on my way to Vancouver...
There is a big, long explanation concerning why I went to Seattle and drove to Vancouver, involving reasonable airfares, rental car drop-offs and border crossings, and if you really want to know the details, email me.
Otherwise just accept it and move along....

Crossing the border at the Peace Bridge north of Seattle was cool...

I got into Vancouver that evening and stayed in a funky little Best Western called the Abercorn Inn in Richmond... The motif was Highland Scotland, and the folks in the bar were right friendly. The game was on that night and I hung out in the bar with a bunch of tourists from "Minna-Sowta" and had a great time.

Again, into battle the next morning, installing the UPS, switches, server, wiring, shelving and what-have-you...

The Canucks were practicing as I was installing my equipment... I peered over the edge of the press box to see what was going on...

Looked like a big druid worship circle, imploring the big fish-god to bring them a victory...
All went well... Obstacles were encountered and overcome.

I headed out that night, crossed back into the good ol' US of A, and stayed in one of the little neon-lit cut-rate hotel-places that border SEA-TAC, since I had a 5:30 AM flight to Detroit.
Just for the record- the Red Roof Inn at Sea-Tac is not worth the $59.00 a night that I paid. $39.00 would be overpaying. To call it a nasty shithole would be an insult to other nasty shitholes.
Avoid avoid avoid.

Back to Detroit. Again.

I got into the arena and got my hardware... I even found the cables that the building guys had run for me...
None of them were labeled, and I had no idea which ones went where, but I never let a little thing like that stop me... I jumped right into the fray.

What the hell...?

Doesn't that look suspiciously like a forklift tine hole in the side of my server box?


Why yes, so it does look like a forklift done skewered my server!

I'm fortunate, Constant Readers, that I was alone up in rafters of Joe Louis Arena; Had anyone been with me it would have been an embarrassment, As I stood there looking at the pierced box (No out-of-context jokes please) I went through all 5 stages of the Kubler-Ross grief cycle:

Denial - No way! They did not run a forklift tine into my server!

Anger - If I find the M#*&%@er who did this...I'm gonna razzel-frazzin...

Bargaining - Oh, C'mon... If I could fix that UPS in San Jose, I'm sure I could get this patched up...And besides, Detroit probably won't make it to the third round anyway.

Depression - Oh man... I'm screwed. This thing is dead-dead-dead, and they'll never believe it was like this when I got here. They'll blame it on me. It will all end in tears.

Acceptance - Screw it. I'll give it a shot just to see if it will work. Who knows, I might get lucky.

Well... It was ok... the damage was superficial. I dodged a bullet there.

I did as much as I could and then split out of there...

As for the East- teams like Ottawa, Bufallo and the NY/NJ multiplex, my compatriot Sean handled them...

Sean? You know Sean.

This is Sean. (He's the one on the right.)
The other one is Nicole. You can visit her at the Hooters near the Long Island Coliseum.


Ok... Onward. More stuff as we proceed into Round 3.

(Oh yeah- By the way- Luc, I got your message. I said *I* liked "Galapagos"... I didn't say *you* would... I am a warped and twisted literary omnivore. My taste is quite suspect. The only thing I like better than Hunter S. Thompson's writing is perusing pornographic stained-glass windows. )

TBG out-

Flight Tips

I sat with two Flight Attendants while waiting on my flight to Orange County...

We discussed the issues surrounding Flight Attendants and passengers...
I had to share my irritation with them about getting whacked in the shoulder every time the beverage cart passes, and they told me the Flight Attendant's Litany of Passenger Stupidity.

Here are my takeaways from this oh-so-enlightening chat.
(Bear in mind, it was 5:30 AM when this took place.)

Good Ideas:

1. Never push the call button.
(Get up and find your own blanket or pillow, I'm not your Mom. And we'll be back around with the beverage cart or to pick up the trash shortly. Cool your jets.)
And NEVER ever push the call button just to ask when we are going to land.

2. Unless you absolutely have to be up, keep your butt in your seat. If they're doing a snack-and-beverage service, it's almost impossible with people in the aisle.
This especially includes you 18-to-24 year olds... You don't need to go visit the other folks in your group to discuss the hottie in row 14. You'll have plenty of time to do that when you get to our destination.

3. If it's a short flight or a small commuter plane, use the bathroom in the terminal before the flight.

4. If there is a food service of any sort, asking for seconds of anything is a way to get the big "ASSHOLE" tattoo on your forehead by the Flight Attendants.

5. Look- here comes the Flight Attendants with the fod service. I think I'll wait until they arrive and are holding my tray out for me to take before I start putting away my laptop and papers...
(you can wind up wearing your beef-with-brown-gravy-stuff if you take too long.)

8. If you are traveling with little 2 year-old Precious, find out what he or she wants before the Flight Attendant gets there for the beverage service. Asking Precious what he or she wants as the Flight Attendant waits and waits and waits is a Bad Thing.

7. You are a dipshit if you ask for a pillow, watch the Flight Attendant look through 8 overhead bins to find you one, then when she finally finds one for you, you then ask for a blanket too.

7a. You are REALLY a dipshit if you watch your neighbor ask for a blanket, then a pillow, and THEN ask the Flight Attendant to find you one (or both).

8. Don't ask the Flight Attendants to help you lift your bag into the overhead bin. Jerk.

9. If you absolutely have to take off your shoes during a flight, have the good taste to wear socks. Please. And don't put your bare feet up on the bulkhead walls or the back of the seat in front of you.

10. A good way to get a drink spilled on you is to request a refill of your beverage by rattling your cup of ice at the Flight Attendant.

11. You have ample warning as the Flight Attendants get the plane ready to land before they make the announcement to shut your Gameboy, iPod, Walkman, MP3 player, laptop, Crackberry, or whathaveyou... If the Flight Attendant has to come remind you to shut you item off, you are an asshat.

12. Don't let little Precious wander up and down the aisle. And clean your kid up, for crying out loud. No one want to see Precious' candy-bar-stained face and hands rubbed against their clothes as he/she meanders down the aisle..

13. Don't paint your nails on the plane. (This is from 5/1/07, on my flight from Seattle to Chicago) The smell irritates everyone for 4 rows around you.

14. Don't touch!! Don't poke, tap, grab or tug the Flight Attendant to get her attention while she's serving someone else...

15. Speak your order in tones loud enough to be heard. (I'm guilty of this... Just mouthing the drink order, because I'm afraid of yelling over the ambient noise level of the plane.)

16. Don't call the Flight Attendant a Stewardess. No no no.

17. Don't, under pain of getting stragled with a seat belt extention, as you are getting off the plane, tell the Flight Attendant to "Smile!". Big mistake.

Never Never nevers:

1. Never yell at, curse at, intimidate or threaten a Flight Attendant.
They are protected by federal statutes (just like manatees and spotted owls). Any interference with them doing their duties can land you with a hefty fine and prison time (up to 10 years). The law and the TSA is on their side, and they will make your life miserable if they want to...

2. Don't upgrade yourself. Aside from the walk of shame *when* you get caught (and you WILL get caught)...it is theft of service if the Flight Attendant and the Captain want to make a case for it.

3. Don't take anything off the beverage cart. Unattended or not, don't take sodas, ice, water or booze... Stealing is stealing...Even in business class, where the booze is free, you can't just take it. It must be served. Part of the regulations for service. Don't touch the cart.

Things I still don't understand...

Why I get yelled at when my seat is reclined 2 inches during take off.

Why do we get the life vest and seat-cushion-floatation-device talk when we are flying from Dallas to Denver. Aside from the obvious futility of a water landing (i.e. a crash), I doubt the captain will be trying to land in a lake or a swimming pool if we are going down during that flight.

And the ubiquituous "to fasten your seat belt, to unfasten your seatbelt..." lesson:
Do they think there is anyone on there that hasn't ever used a seatbelt before?

TBG, heading out, again-

Spotted Dogs

The long road.

Another rental car, another highway...and according to Google Maps, 5 and a half hours from Anaheim to San Jose.
(And for the music trivia buffs out there, yes, I know the way to San Jose.)

So, just returning some hardware at Fry's, then I'm on the road.
Going to try to make it up to at least Coalinga tonite. We'll see how it goes.

TBG truckin'-
(What a long strange trip it's been.)

From the "Lessons Learned" Department

Here is wisdom:

While working on equipment racks with devices electrical within, that may or (more likely) may not be properly grounded, it would considered a Good Thing to power off said equipment and unplug or throw breakers for the same.

If you choose not to follow these words, remember that electrical cooking is a slothful process, and a technician may sizzle in his own fat for A Good Long While, before the Big Engineer in the Sky sees fit to end his suffering.

Here endeth the lesson.

TBG, singed and shaking...

This is new...

I'm on a Frontier Airlines flight, Dallas to Denver to Orange County.

There were about 40 people in line when I got to DFW at 4:45 this morning.
They'd been bumped last night due to the storms...

Lots of angry people, spent the night in the airport since the airline wouldn't comp hotel rooms.
The plane is full of people with a skewed sense of entitlement.

I doubt we make it to Denver before the pissed-off soccer mom 2 rows up takes a swing at the (insolent rude lazy) flight attendant.

(To paraphrase JWI: I hate a boring flight.)

TBG out-

Travelin'...again.

The Big Map

Booked by 3 - In character.

Ok...

The March Hare, of Keeper of The Mad Tea Party memed me again...
(I don't mind her memes, I kinda like them. They force me to think... Like this one from last August...)

So... The theme of the meme... Booked by 3...

Name up to three characters . . .

1) . . . you wish were real so you could meet them.

• Lazarus Long (Heinlein's Methuselah's Children, Time Enough for Love et al)
• Beowulf Schaffer (Larry Niven's Known Space Series)
• Travis McGee (John D. MacDonald's South Florida gumshoe)

2) . . . you would like to be.

• Jason Bourne - (Robert Ludlum's Bourne series)
• John Carter - (Edgar Rice Burroughs Warlord of Mars series)
• Dirk Struan - (James Clavell's Tai Pan)

3) . . . who scare you.

• Annie Wilkes. (Stephen King's Misery)
• Dimitri Ravenoff (Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash)
  The guy has an h-bomb attached to his motorcycle and makes Kevlar-piercing knives out of glass. Hijacked a nuclear sub singlehanded. One Scary Dude.
• Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Thomas Harris' Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon, et al)

Limiting choices to three is a difficulty.
Makes me really evaluate choices carefully...and still second guess my selections.

Oh well...

Happy reading.

Oh yeah-
I'm tagging Deidre at Time & Tides and James at Sarchasmic Hallucidations.
I'll try Yael at The World is MY Oyster, althought I know she is in transition now...moving from China to Germany. (Talk about culture shock!)

TBG- Packing my bags again.

BTW-
My current read: South-The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917 by Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton

Bay Area Newspaper Writer gets Dumbass Award.

Can you trust anything this media outlet says when they get the basic facts wrong?

Women & Guns

Women with guns a growing phenomenon
By Christine Morente, STAFF WRITER

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO - KIMBERLY SHRUM grips a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver and aims at a target 25 yards away.
Bang.
A hot shell casing hits the floor, joining hundreds of others littering the concrete at Jackson Arms Indoor Shooting Range in South San Francisco.

Shrum centers herself and aims again.
------------------------

I've shot a lot of revolvers, never had one eject a shell casing.

Obviously the writer is ignorant of her subject and is writing for effect.
Was she even at the range?
Any article that starts with such a glaring error is very suspect.

And I was expecting either a rant against guns in general or a villification of 2nd Amendment rights... and I was suprised. The article was fairly balanced and informative.
Except for a decided slant toward the Gun=Power mentality...

A lot of people believe that a gun is a magic wand: If you point it at someone, they have to obey you.
Sadly, that's not the way it works. And just because you know HOW to use one, doesn't mean you will be mentally capable of using it when the time comes.

Back in the day (1991 or so) when I owned Computer Services Inc in downtown Jacksonville, we often worked long hours preparing our systems for shipping or doing other prep work.
Since our offices were down on Union Street it was de rigeur to carry a firearm in the office after business hours. This practice started after the third break-in attempt while we were in the office.
After that, we started carrying pistols.
The Woman Who Knows Most Things had initial misgivings on this practice.
My argument:
"I can carry this gun, and if circumstances call for it, I will use it. And then we'll hire an attorney to defend my actions.
Or, I can not carry it, and instead of hiring an attorney, you can come to the morgue to identify my body and buy a nice casket."

She never said another word.

Oh well... Revolver owners- watch out for those hot casings...

TBG out (at the range)-

Seven Deadly Sins

Wow. Not good.

Greed:	High
Gluttony:	High
Wrath:	Medium
Sloth:	Medium
Envy:	Medium
Lust:	High
Pride:	High

I'm not sure how to dress this up to make it look positive...

Discover Your Sins - Click Here

Kurt Vonnegut

That's a helluva thing to wake up to...

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. passed away yesterday, at age 84.

He had a sharp and slightly skewed sense of humor, and his books are some of the most interesting and thought-provoking I have ever, or will ever read.
His most recent book, A Man Without a Country, I never read. Looking at the review it seemed like a book I wouldn't enjoy...too much politics, and not satiric enough to mask his leftist-ivory tower-blue state personal politics. Doesn't mean I don't enjoy his older novels- I don't hold his current politics against him... He was an excellent writer and he will be missed.


Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
1922-2007

I'm looking at my bookshelf in my computer room/library and I see 5 books- 4 of which I got while still in high school...
I've always been a sucker for End-of-the-World stories, and Vonnegut wrote some great ones. Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions are up there, brought down every few years to be re-read, along with Welcome to the Monkey House, a great series of well-written short stories, Galapagos, and Slapstick, which was given to me by my sister back when we were in high school.
Though I have read many more of his novels, these five I keep for their ability to be entertaining and interesting to read every time I pick them up.
There should be 6 titles there... The Sirens of Titan is out on loan to a co-worker...from 8 years ago. Probably won't get that one back...
Due to limited shelf space I can only keep the very best books I read, and it's hard for me to brush aside a good book and send it off the the second-hand book store, but these, in addition to select titles from Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, and Stephen King have permanent shelf space reserved.

An Internet urban legend, "Wear Sunscreen", a fake MIT commencement speech was attributed to him, which some people still think we was the source of.
(The entire story here)

Should you be inclined, pick up a Vonnegut book. Be entertained.
Think about his story lines.
That was his aim, that his readers should use their own brains to live their lives, not blindly follow someone else.

Just a couple Vonnegut quotes to round things out...

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.

Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.


And one for us bloggers to remember:

Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?

TBG out-

PS- My current read? I'm still slogging through "The Gulag Archipelago" by Solzhenitsyn
It's killing me.

It's 47 degrees in Augusta GA

I'm really starting to worry that this "Global Warming" is actually going to catch on and people are going to take it seriously.

Take these idiots in Belgium... Fighting "Global Warming" by outlawing outdoor grilling.
And they are going to enforce it by using helicopter surveillance.
(Helicopters fueled by puppy breath and wishes, no doubt.)
Brillant. (Note: This was an April Fools Joke.)

Before you swallow Ozone Al's load of baloney, please take a gander at this site, which is not as slick and pretty as Al's movie, but it has much better hard science...


The REAL Inconvenient Truth

Next...
Check this out:

(From an e-mail I received...)

Look over the descriptions of the following two houses, and see if you can tell which one belongs to an environmentalist.

HOUSE # 1:
A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not in a northern or Midwestern “snow belt,” either. It’s in the temperate South.

HOUSE # 2:
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house incorporates every “green” feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps, which draw ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F) heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.

And now the answers…

HOUSE # 1 (20-room energy guzzling mansion) is outside Nashville, Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore.

HOUSE # 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas. Also known as “the Texas White House,” it is the private residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.

Gore's spokesmodel will yammer on and on about "Green Premium Payments" and "Carbon footprint exchanges", but in the end, he is exactly the kind of energy consuming, carbon producing prig that An Inconvenient Truth is warning us about.

Go look it up over on Snopes.com

Look-
There are four dogs in this fight...

• Those that categorically reject any climate change. Very very small group. Idiots, Flat-Earthers.
  
  
• Those that admit climate change, but see purely natural change such as the higher sunspot activity and other natural cycles as the only cause. Another pretty small group of people, Short-sighted mouthbreathing Boneheads.
  
  
• Those that admit climate change as being caused by both naturally occuring phenomena and manmade activity. Typically they’ll believe that the manmade change is smaller than natural activity. This is the largest group... the one that I'd fall into.*
  
  
• Those that believe that man is the cause of all evil in the world, including climate change. An interesting group: they’ll have the idiotic bumper sticker “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism” but then demand in blogs and letters to the editor that “THERE IS NO MORE DEBATE, CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL” against anyone with differing views. I have another term for these types, assholes. They’re the same ones who seem to think that in the face of all evidence, scientists are not human and therefore infallible. As long as it agrees with their sacred views.

(*I tend to believe demonstrable science, not fringe rhetoric spouted by edgy soi-disant scientists who will publish controversial crap just to get publicity (and thus, funding). These are the same people that warned us of Nuclear Winter from the 526 Kuwaiti oil wells that got torched in the first Iraq War...
Remember in 1991 Carl Sagan telling us, with a straight face, on ABC's 20/20 that the black clouds generated by the burning wells would blanket the Earth and cause global cooling? Sagan died in 1996 of extreme embarrasment for being so badly wrong.)

If I'm going to hang my hat on a reason for global warming, I'll have to side with the Pastafarians.



1700's - Pirates roamed the seas at will. Average tempature, 14.25C
2000's - Not so many pirates. Average tempature, 15.90C

So, By Ozone Al's own logic... We need more pirates.

TBG- Quad Erat Demonstratum

Bunnies...

My favorite Easter Bunnies

Because nothing says Religious Holiday, Ressurection and Redemption like a sugar coma.

The Usual Suspects

The Many Faces of Sombrero Night


Too much tequila will do this to you...

Amazing out-

And the hits just keep on comin'....

"Do you use any vaseline on any of your gear?"
-Berry in Scoring Control

Wow.

Double wow.


Famous out-

Pretty Pictures from Augusta

...or not so pretty...

Another fine tournament week...
No rain in the forecast like last year, Which is good if you want to finish in a timely manner and get home and do laundry and the like...but it's bad of you are a golfer and mant the greens to slow down and have opportunities to make birdies and eagles.

So...no rain, but we do have frost warnings.

Not so bad for me, somewhat worse for the guys who have to go outside and work on the course.

Earlier in the week is was pretty horrible with pollen...


The steps to the trailer. Each step would drag several hunderd thousand pollen granules into thte trailer, each with the express mission to make me sneeze.


Our carts, which had sat outside for the better part of a week before we got here, were coated with a fine layer of pollen.

We did get a little rain earlier this week which finally washed away some of the pollen...So I'm no longer eating Claritin like candy...


One last picture from work-
I had intended to go the entire week without actually going out on the course.
Alas, it was not to be... I did go out and do some testing with Ed and Mark, and later I went out with Mitch to to Hole 10 to look at a laser issue.


Ed and Mark preparing to run our test.

Then there was Sombrero Night...


Nice Mugs on that guy.


Ed Keyes, stylin'.


Raising the glasses


Zack, making an ash of himself.


John, Justin and Andy the Eurotrash...

And on Monday night we all got to gether to watch the Florida / Ohio State matchup...


Jamie, with his Suburban Couch Camouflage shorts on...


So much fun...

TBG out-

Oh. My. God...

TV announcer: "The swirling wind will play havoc with anyone's balls."

Wow.

TBG out-

Yet another OOC

Day One of Tournament Play:

Hole 3: "We can't see the ball. What do we do?
Yours Truly: "Just shoot the player."
(long pause)
Hole 3: "Just a flesh wound, right?"


Film at 11.

TBG Out-

Out of context - Chapter 6, page 4.

Over the radio:

Mark: (Not Spongemark)
"Ok... I'm getting ready to shoot."


Ewwww!

Famous, out-

They keep coming...

Carlos just brought out a bottle of Mezcal...

Yet another quote out of context:
About The Eurotrash:
"He eats the worm all the time..."

It's really getting ugly...
And it's only 10:30, I think...

TBG, so out (of my mind) it's not funny...

Out of context...again!

"I almost gagged when I saw how big that was...."

Oh. My.

TBG, way out.

Bad... Not Good.

I got a text message earlier today...

MM: Oh BTW, change of plans. Sombrero night tonight. Gumbo and basketball tomorrow at our house.
TBG: Lovely.

So here we are, at Veracruz, the 3rd round of shots has arrived and we still haven't ordered any food.

Gonna be a long night...

TBG out-

A Cautionary Tale

(Danger: Scatalogical content- those with delicate sensibilities are warned to skip to another site and avoid this post. Contains graphic content not suitable for those with weak constitutions.
You have been warned.)

I'm diligently working up in Augusta GA at A Nice Golf Course...

As I'm working on my Daily Report, one of my partners-in-crime starts laughing hysterically...

He is chatting via SKYPE with another Event Staff Dude in at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami.
(And herein lies the cautionary tale...)

One of the favorite activities is, as someone is working, to do a flatulent fly-by. That is, to walk by and pass gas as close to the victim as possible.
(a/k/a/ - a toot-fairy, or the fart bomb)

Well... a "JB" was making a low-flight pass at Dingo with the target of throwing down a noxious cloud, and since "JB" was suffering from an acute case of Event Food, instead of just the Gas Warfare, JB wound up with a little more "substance" than he bargained for...(i.e. he "sharted" himself) .
He spent the rest of the day in a pair of plastic pants... Serves him right, I say.

Some might say it's a shitty way to treat your friends and coworkers...
In reality, he's just made an ass of himself.

Yo! JB! "Depends" are on sale down at Walgreens this week!

TBG out...

Out of context, I hope.

From one of the GUYS in Augusta...

"Where's Robert? I need someone to eat my taco."

Ewww!

TBG out-

Baggage Claim Times...

You know how poorly-managed airport services drive me up the wall...

As I have been traveling for the last month, I've been tracking baggage claim delivery time at all the airports around the country.
(Mostly so I have some ammunition with which to beat JAX and the JIA/Jaxport over the head.)
And I have to say there is a new winner in the "Longest Delay Between Gate Arrival and Bag Delivery" race...Dallas is the new winner, which I'm sure JIA will be thrilled to hear...

Here are the results:

Baggage Claim times:
Las Vegas....................19 Minutes
Anaheim (Santa Ana Airport)..21 Minutes
Nashville....................18 Minutes
Raleigh-Durham...............14 Minutes
Pittsburgh....................9 Minutes
Vancouver....................29 Minutes
Calgary......................11 Minutes
Detroit......................23 Minutes
Dallas.......................58 Minutes --- A new winner!
San Jose.....................25 Minutes
Montreal.....................23 Minutes
Toronto......................32 Minutes
Newark.......................24 Minutes
Minneapolis-St Paul..........14 Minutes
Jacksonville.................49 Minutes


And the biggest crock of crap that is supposedly a "benefit" of being Elite Status on Continental's One Pass system, the "Priority Handling" tags...

Number of bags passed before I got mine:

Las Vegas................51 Bags
Anaheim (Santa Ana)......33 Bags
Nashville................23 Bags
Pittsburgh................0 Bags-Mine were the only bags.
Vancouver................19 Bags
Dallas...................52 Bags
San Jose.................41 Bags
Montreal.................28 Bags
Newark...................24 Bags
Minneapolis-St Paul......13 Bags
Jacksonville.............42 Bags

Needless to say, Continental and JIA will be getting some correspondence from me.

TBG out-

Random Notes from The Road

It's been Robert W. Service week here on the Install Swing...

First, working up in Canada, it's been cold cold cold...

I was working in Ottawa at the ScotiaBank Center. I had a 6:30am call time because they were loading in the Meatloaf concert starting at 8:00AM. I wanted to get done with as much as possible before the roadies started moving in all the equipment.
I arrived at 6:30, the temp was (according to the temp indicator in my car) -14 degrees Centigrade.

I was working down in the TV Truck patch bay mounting my equipment on the wall when the concert trucks started rolling in...
They opened the big door and the wind came in and started to really make life difficult.
(Keep in mind, I don't have a nice thick warm jacket... It's just me in a polo shirt.)

As I was finishing the install, I kept hearing the lines from Robert Service's "Creamation of Sam Magee"
"Talk of your cold, through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail; If our eye's we close, then our lashes froze and sometimes we couldn't see..."

My hands were chilled to the bone... I could barely hold my screwdriver...
But I survived it.

Then down in Buffalo a block or so from the arena was a funky little saloon, the Malamute.


The Malamute

I wondered, if I went inside would I find a character like Dangerous Dan McGrew or the Lady known as Lou...

"A bunch of the boys were whooping it up
In the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box
Was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game,
Sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love,
The lady that's known as Lou."


-----

I've been to quite a few bars and restaurants over the last 6 weeks... Taverns, bars, diners, restaurants, and a few places that a girl in orange shorts would serve up a plate full of wings...Irish Bars, Chinese food, Mexican, Sports Bars, and the occasional fast-food places.

But I came across one in Toronto that I was curious about...
Unfortunately it wasn't open when I was there...


The Shawson Grill


The Rallis Collection

I really wanted to try the Rallis Classic Strip Chicken Wrap...

Not.

Comments taken out of context...

Comments taken out of context, snippets of overheard converstations:

It's either a huge fantasy, or a huge nightmare. Not really sure which.

She's good from afar, but far from good.

If you touch me again, I will have you thrown off this plane.

I almost wrecked my car opening my beer.

Yeah, the car was fine, except the spot on the left side where I hit the bridge.

Here's your drink. It's a double. And here's your next one now, because I don't feel like coming back here to talk to you any more.

If it doesn't quit snowing soon I'm going to need another six-pack for the ride home.

TBG out-

Global Warming my ass.

Toronto.

-5C
-20 with wind chill.

Al Gore is full of shit.

TBG (the B is for "brrrr!") out-

Welcome to the East Canada swing...

Last Sunday (what the hell day was that...the 11th?) found me in beautiful Dallas...
Or rather Irving Texas, since I tend to stay near the local airport, and in this case, Irving fit the bill.

Monday morning bright and early I was in the American Airlines Center to do my install. It was a dark day for the arena, no concerts, no Hockey, no B-Ball, Circus, or Disney-On-Ice. Sweet... I had the place all to myself.

I installed everything possible, noted that I was running really low on supplies so I split and instead of heading to one of my favorite churrascarias, I headed up northeast of town to Fry's Electronics...
I laid in a stock of pieces and parts I needed for my tasks and then hied for Irving, just in time to miss House MD.
(Monday night at 8, 7 Central, Bonehead.)
Oh well...
I had a 5:30 flight Tuesday for San Jose... (Yeah... 5:30 AM. So Uncle Jay's Airport Math had me up and moving at 3:45...Egad!)

San Jose was...well...short & interesting. Since we really didn't have a location to install the new rack and equipment, most of the cables couldn't be run. I did, however, install some of my stuff and did get the new equipment location nailed down.
Heading back out I was on the red-eye to Newark then Montreal... I think I mentioned earlier that it was possibly the worst flight I have been on in a while... It was bad... No leg room, couldn't sleep (and I was counting on sleep because I had to work the next day and drive a good hunk afterwards).. I was miserable.
Made me seriously think about finding a new vocation that didn't involve sitting in airline seats.

So I'm driving for the next few days...


The Road Trip

I made it into Montreal via Newark, just before the big snow storm shut everything down...
(What? Another snowstorm in the northeast in mid-March? I thought we had this whole Global Warming thing going on?)

Right hospitable folk here in the Great White North... I had an offer of booze, women, and guns from my man Luc in Montreal, and Big Benny E in Toronto made threatening noises about drinking heavily and much debauchery in Ontraio.
Fortunately I was able to resist temptation, and really didn't need the firearms that were proffered... but I appreciated the thought.

So Montreal was OK- More unfinished cabling, more changes in the plans...then I hit the road for Ottawa.
I did stop for a power nap for an hour or so along the way, and got to the hotel about 11:00...
The one cool thing about the hotel? It was an old (and I mean old- 50's vintage) Best Western, I had a ground floor room- car right outside the door...dragged my bags 5 steps right in that night and right back out the next AM.
Good thing too, cause I had a 6:30 call at the arena. Meatloaf (This guy again? I thought he was dead?) was playing at Scotiabank Place, and I had a window of opportunity from 6:30am until 2:00pm to do my stuff... And of course, afterward I had to drive to Toronto...
a 4 to 5 hour drive... I got to my hotel here in Toronto just as the snow was starting to fall...
I checked in and collapsed-
The next morning I had a 10am appointment- Had to be out of the arena by 4:00- they were setting up for a lacrosse telecast and didn't need an ogre underfoot...
But first, I had to dig my rental car out from under the snow...


My car-

But when you're from Florida, it looks (and feels) like this:


Off to the arena!

I was checking out the different areas in the arena and as I was up in the Scoring/Stats area, I looked down at the floor- Green Ice for St. Patricks Day?

No... Dude, you need some sleep- It's the flooring they put down for the lacrosse matches.

As I sat making patch cables for my box, I noticed something in the bag of RJ45 plugs...


Oh crap.

Somewhere in one of the remaining plugs, there is a tooth missing.

I test all my cables, so the defective one is either one that I've already re-made because it failed, or it will be in the next batch or so... Thank Ghod I have my trusty Microtest cable tester...

I drilled and soldered and plugged and crimped my fingers to the bone and departed for my humble (temporary) abode at just after 4 pm...

Today (Sunday) is a down day for me... Laundry, catching up on e-mails, writing up some plans for next week, making travel arrangements for the next few days...
I need to do another expense report, too, before American Express starts sending the Brute Squad out looking for me...

OK- Buffalo tomorrow, then the Islanders, then Minnesota...then (dare I say it?) home.

Stay tuned... keep the cards and letters coming...

TBG out-