Contrary to what you might have heard in the news, we ain't floated away down here, but we have had a wee bit of rain over the weekend.
Things have been pretty soggy down here lately.
And getting to work has been a challenge....
A ton of rain over the weekend, lots of localized flooding, lots flooded cars and there's more rain on the way next week. It's not the apocalypse that has been presented on the national news, but it has been a real mess. We've avoided some of the flooding although over at SIL's house, things got a bit dicey for a while.
I actually had an adventure over the weekend that I was going to share but the weather seem to take center stage. Needless to say, the weekend was "interesting". Story/pictures to follow...
First order of business - Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there. I hope everyone had a chance to enjoy the weekend with family. Back from our road trip. Still in one piece, if not a bit more worn. Last week was another whirlwind. Supplier trip, Pate, reviews, organization change, yadda, yadda. We loaded up the trailer and pulled out at 0300 Friday morning (yes, I know that is early). Nice quiet drive despite the minor detail that my brother woke up sick and finally gave up the helm to me about an hour on the road. Something viral that didn't sit well with him. He tapped out and asked me to take over driving. Now, I don't mind driving 4-5 hours towing a trailer, but a) this wasn't my truck/trailer and I get nervous driving anyone else's rig; and b) I wasn't awake yet. Despite that and the traffic chaos driving through Fort Worth, we made excellent time and arrived at Pate a little after 0900 - plenty of time to cruise the meet. After we set up camp, we were going to head out but my brother passed and crashed in the bed so I headed out to see what deals I could find. Found some bargains, some interesting sights, and a deal or two. We packed up early Sunday and headed back south only this time it was my turn to be under the weather. After we made it home, I spend the rest of the day (and all of Monday) trying to fight off a walking dead sort of virus. It wasn't really until some time Wednesday I started feeling human again.
Lots of old junk stuff
Long roads
What Maria should look like
Something to keep the cats out of the back yard.
Excuse me, do you have Prince Albert in a can?
No, they were NOT for sale
And, of course, I didn't leave Pate without scoring a sweet deal. Something to replace the 27 year old one I borrowed from my brother.
One owner, like new
This past Saturday, my nephew (the one with the Delorean) invited everyone over for some a crawfish boil. I haven't eaten a lot of crawfish before, but these darned good. A bit of work, but they can be filling. A good chance to celebrate Mother's Day early with the family.
First order of business, to all the men and women who have served, I salute your dedication and service. Veteran's Day is not just another opportunity to buy a tv or get a deal on some furniture. Thanks to all my brothers and sisters who have served.
I took a break last weekend to run off to my alma mater for a small gathering of old friends and rehash old days. The team was playing out of town, so College Station seemed a bit empty for a football weekend, but it was busy nonetheless.
This past weekend was our 35 reunion of our class. 35 freakin years. Wow. I really feel old. Typical reunions are every five years. We missed the first reunion (stationed over in Germany) but have made most of the rest. A good chance to catch up with old buddies, classmates, friends. It is interesting to see the changes time has made. A chance to answer those questions of who:
looks the same (or looks older)
still has hair
has the biggest belly
has the most kids (or grandkids)
is still married
got remarried (he's on wife #3)
has retired
passed away
went to jail
Back in the 80s, we had several hundreds show up for the early reunions. Over the years, the numbers have dwindled. This last weekend, we still had a decent turnout (~200) but we attributed it to it being an away game. It is interesting to see how everyone has changed (or not changed) over the past 35 turns. I will note that most of the people showing up were members of the Corps of Cadets. We had a distinct bond/camaraderie back then that we still share today. I gotta admit that, of all of the outfits, my outfit had one of the highest percentage of participants (aside of the band guys). Out of 11 guys that graduated, we had 7 show up for this shindig. Not too shabby. We spend lots of time trying to recall some of those glory days. The quad water war, Fish Drill team, summer camp, dorm life, Bonfire, the border crossing that almost turned into an international incident, corps road trips, who bunked with whom, who set off the fireworks in Meyer's room, how many people wound up sleeping in the one room when we stole our CO's stuff, "the Trial". Statute of limitations prevents me from elaborating on some stories, but suffice it to say, we found it amazing that we survived. One of our guys has taken on the role of historian to see if he can record all of the events/stories from those days of yore. We'll see if we can put something together for the next gig in 5 years.
My roommate was always a flamboyant character. Mark was never one to back down from a fight or to charge blindly into some situation, he left an impression whatever he tackled. I'll concede this to him - he did everything with style. We had dinner Friday night at a local clubhouse and the SOB showed up in a tux! All of us old farts are decked out in casual attire and he ups the ante by showing up in style. Just guess who got his picture with all of the ladies of our class.
As there wasn't enough stress and drama around here, yesterday was enough drive a person to drink. And, NO, I am not talking football.
I had plans to knock out a few chores yesterday taking advantage of the fantabulous weather. Was going to trim the bushes in the back yard, caulk the tub, reseal the toilet, clean the carpets, and wax SIL's car (yeah, I know, I like to live on the edge down here). On top of that, I was coordinating a shipment of material from California that was supposed to be delivered to the plant on Saturday. Had people scheduled to be in to work on the receipt and everything was planned out. But, as they say, life has a way of messing with your plans. I was tracking the shipment so that I could arrange some the receiving clerk to be on site when the truck arrived. Everything was looking good in the morning and we were expecting it to arrive around 1030 so I was starting my yard work. Before I got too far, I checked back in to verify and noticed that the deliver was not made and the tracking status indicated that "Business was closed". My receiving clerk had tried to call the local FedEx office to get a status only to be told that the delivery was scheduled for Monday, not Saturday (not true). Needless to say, this was not what I needed to hear. I jumped on the phone and started calling FedEx to get the shipment resolved. Took all of my patience, tact and finesse to finally get the package picked up. Even after I had the receiving clerk drive up to the station to pick it up and they told her that she was not approved to pick up the package (another round of terse calls with my friends from FedEx). In the end, the material made it to the plant, people got what they needed, everyone was happy (well, almost everyone).
In the meanwhile, I was working on SIL's care to clean it up. I've had it for a few weeks doing some of the overdue maintenance. State inspection, oil change, new battery, etc. The car has been sitting since her surgery and the battery had died. I wanted to take care of the maintenance issues so this is one less thing she has to deal with. It was covered in pine sap and almost black from the dirt so it has taken several washings to get back to the original color. SIL hasn't been religious about following a regular maintenance schedules so it was lacking a few things. I had my service shop do a full flush of the system just a preventive measure. One thing I noted while driving the car is that the door locks had something jammed in them and anyone with a screwdriver could open the locks. Turns out that the key had been broken off in the lock. And not just the door lock but the trunk lock as well. The service guys told me they could replace the lock cylinders ($$) but I thought I could clear the locks using some redneck ingenuity. Pulled out all of my tools and tweezers and forceps and was able to tease the broken key out of each lock and clear the cylinders. Applied a goodly amount of WD40 to each lock to loosen them up and was working the keys in the locks to make sure they were not jammed. Door lock was doing well but the trunk lock was a bit "stiff". While working the lock, I broke the only other key I had off in the lock. Now, it is Saturday afternoon, the car is unlocked, all windows down, sitting on the driveway, and I have no way to move or secure the car (BTW - this was going on while I was dealing with the FedEx saga). I was calling the dealership to see if I could get new keys made and they could but I needed the original paperwork and proof of ownership (remember this is NOT my car) to get new keys made. Ran back over to SIL's house in the hopes she had one spare key and turns out she did so crisis averted. I was able to clear the lock again and get all of the locks lubed and working. I plan to have three sets of keys made today (just in case). Three hours of stress and panic that really added to weekend fun. Time to sit back and enjoy watch some football. Oh, wait, I said I wasn't going to talk football...
Reader's Digest version: Long drive, decent weather, miles of car parts & cools stuff. No major buys, just some interesting sights/finds and a couple deals. No DeLoreans this year.
All-in-all, a good trip, if only to see the mass of car parts and the miles we hiked over the two days.
Left town around noon Thursday hoping to set up camp before and get some picking done before sundown. Made it to the speedway around 1700, dropped the trailer and headed out to the meet. Way too much ground to cover in only two hours so we just stuck to a quick walk through to lay out a plan of attack, trying to score up a few "set up" bargains and spot some places we would come back to on Friday. Around 1930 - we headed back to our trailer to finish our set up and grill up some steaks and good scotch. That's one thing about doing this road trip with my brother, when he travels, he does it with style. We're not quite roughing it like we did in our younger days.
This year was the 42nd annual meet and it seems to keep growing. Haven't yet seen the final report on attendance, but last year they had over 7,000 vendors on site and this year it was supposed to exceed that tally. The whole meet is laid out in the parking lot of the Texas Motor Speedway. If you have never been to a NASCAR track, let me just say that these things are humongous. I used to think our little weekend football games down in college station were big with a capacity of 75,000 for one game. TMS can supposedly hold up to 150,000 screaming, sunburnt NASCAR fans. The parking lot that surrounds the race track is probably the size of a small town. The meet is set up on the east side of the speedway in streets/rows. The entire meet is laid out in a very logical grid pattern that takes some planning if you want to see it all. The first day, we tried to walk one row from north to south and it turned out to be around 3/4 of a mile in length (that's just one row out of 12). On Saturday, we switched to a grid attach (just combing through each grid to cover the most ground. I started at 0830 (brother was waiting for his son to show up) and we walked until almost 1900 and just barely covered 1/2 the meet. Sure, there was lots of digging and looking and talking along the way, but, in the end, my FitBit indicated that we had covered over 10.5 miles. Almost a half marathon.
Lots of interesting things to see. From new cars to classics to junkers to what-the-hell-where-they-thinking contraptions. Car parts for new/old cars. Car memorabilia. Signs. Tools. Bar lights. Road signs. A general mish-mash of stuff for different tastes.
I found a few minor bargains, but nothing really major. Did score a portable BBQ grill that I have been looking for that is no longer available. Got it for a really cheap price to boot! I intend to keep it in my trailer and use it for football games/camp outs. My brother got a "new" Coors bar light that I spotted. My nephew scored one of those big, official government looking boxes that he intends to paint and put radioactive stickers on for his DeLorean (ala Back to the Future). I found a neat road sign of a Texas Farm Road (shape of Texas) for FM 1311 (the numbers on my brother's trailer). Actually bought two more signs that I intend to peal off the numbers and put on 131 for my dad's rig and 1131 for mine. Another trinket to adorn the garage wall.
I noted a lot of people on motor scooters this year. So many that there were actually two companies running the scooter business and both were sold out by 1000 in the morning on Friday and Saturday. After hiking over half of the meet on Friday, my brother's hip/knee was hurting him so he opted for one to make the rounds on Saturday. As much as I scoffed at the scooters, it did seem to make a difference and allowed us to pick up the pace. Several times we used the scooter to haul out some bigger items (box, grill, road signs) back to the truck.
I also noted a lot of dogs this year. I always thought that dogs were not allowed but it appears that rule has been lifted. Many walking dogs but a few dogs on carts or in wagons or strollers. I debated taking Claire and Grayson, but after our marathon hike on Friday, decided it would not go well. Grayson might be able to handle it but I am afraid that much hiking would do in Claire.
We wrapped up Saturday afternoon and decided to head back south instead of Sunday morning. Weather reports had a nasty storm headed our way late Saturday and would make driving/packing up pretty messy so we chose to bail out early. From the number of vendors packing up at 1300 Saturday, a few others had the same idea. We made it back to Houston about dusk. Good trip. Got lots of good ideas for next year.
Well, that did not end well. My heart goes out to all my Broncos friends. I had high hopes that they would preserver, but it started out badly and kept going downhill. Normally, I don't get into all of the big game hype. Our team has been so far out of the hunt, they were looking towards the 2014 season back in November. I am not a die hard fan like a few friends of mine who live, eat, sleep and poop the team colors. I'm not going to name names, but those green and gold colors really stand out. I do watch some of the game to catch all the advertising hoopla. Some of the commercials were funny/interesting, but, in my mind, most were lame or just plain dumb. Besides, I had already seen a number of them the internet. Still, it amazes me on how much money it costs to do a 30 second commercial during that game. Speaking of costs, a lot of people lost a good chunk of coin on that game. The one that I found interesting is a local businessman down here. To set up the story, I need to give you a few background details. We have a local guy who owns a furniture place on the north side of town who has been a cultural icon down here for years. Jim "Mattress Mac" McInvale owns a little place called Gallery Furniture. He started out with $5000 and his own pick up truck back in the 80s selling furniture on the north freeway in one of those places were you can get your bean bag chairs, lazyboys and discount mattresses. He now has a massive warehouse/showroom on the north side where he is selling a ton of furniture every day. He has a sort of a carnival barker sales approach and is always at the store running promotions. Back in the 80's, he bought some airtime on the local tv stations to run ads for his store to run late at night. At the end of one of his commercials, he was frustrated with trying to come up with some catch phrase and wound up pulling some bills out of his pocket and jumping up and down on a mattress saying that "Gallery Furniture will save you MONEY!!!". Seemed campy at the time, but it caught fire and stuck and gave him a cult like notoriety. One of his key selling points is that, if you find something you like and buy it today, he can have it delivered the same day (Buy it today and have it in your home TONIGHT!). His huge warehouse store has a restaurant (free food), ice cream for the kids, several big screen TVs, and a huge playroom for the kids. He is a pretty savvy business expert who has built a huge business and is often speaking at the local college or event on how to get ahead in life. He is a big supporter of the USO and donates a lot of items and money for returning veterans (big points in my book). I've met him a few times and, despite all the hype, he is a real nice guy. He is big into the community and is always donating furniture or money to people in need or organizations who need it. He has helped with scholarships at the rodeo, sponsored charity events, and always been an interesting character to follow. Now that we got that out of the way, let's go back two weeks ago to the championship games. Mac made an interesting proposition: if you come to his store and buy $5000 worth of furniture and have it delivered before the championship games, you can bet on the two teams who will win the championships. If your two teams win, you get your purchase for free. Turned out that almost 80% of the people who participated bet that the Broncos and Seahawks would win. And Mac lived up to his promise. Wound up costing him $600,000 that weekend. That bet was not covered by insurance so it came out of his pocket. Needless to say, there were a lot of people questioning his motives or his sanity. Afterwards, he was a good sport about it and took it in stride but did say that he didn't expect the turnout to be so great and wouldn't be doing that again any time soon. Well, never say never. Mac must have had a change of heart or drank too much because starting last week he came out with a new bet: If you come in and buy $6000 worth of furniture and have it delivered by game time and, if the Seahawks win, you get it for free. No strings. Needless to say, that bet did not come out as he had hoped and this weekend's game wound up costing somewhere near the $7 million mark. As with the prior weekend, Mac was upbeat about it and has been doing a number of interviews with the local media. Mac was quoted as saying: "It's great,It's the perfect outcome for our customers. In the long term, we made a lot of happy customers and that's what it's all about: building customers for life." I gotta give Mac credit, he is living up to his word. Of course, he is getting a lot of free publicity an outcome. BTW - this is the place where we got our couches a few months back.
Was a pretty good weekend. The weather turned really nice for most of the weekend with clear skies and cooler temps. A harbinger of spring, perhaps? Before you start to put out the lawn furniture and start planting the vinca, you gotta remember where you are at. This is Texas. There’s an old saying down here: If you don’t like the weather, wait a few minutes, it’ll change. I’m pretty sure that saying could apply many other places, but it seems appropriate down here when the morning opens up at 37 degrees and we are capping out at 74 by the afternoon. But this ain’t my first rodeo and I will wait to start any spring time activities until early March. Still was a decent weekend. Spent most of it with the dogs. Saturday, I took them to the local Farmer’s Market where our Golden Retrievers Rescue group has a booth set up as part of our public awareness efforts. We cut a deal with the people who run the market and they give us a spot where we can set up a table and hang out with the dogs. Our little band of furry misfits tends to draw a crowd with lots of attention, so I think this is a win-win for both us and the Farmer’s Market association. Regardless of who benefits, the dogs didn’t to mind the attention. Of course, with most Goldens, any opportunity to get lots of heavy petting is always welcome. As usual, Claire & Grayson know how to work the crowd.
Sunday I took them to the dog park to “let their hair down”. I kinda felt guilty about it. All that time off over the holidays and I got so wrapped up in my chores and projects, I never took them over to the park. Oh, I did many long walks to our local neighborhood pocket park and they got to run wild, but, to them, the dog park is almost akin to taking your kids to the playground with all sorts of new friends. Great, clear day for a run at the park, meet new people, roll in the mud.
The rest of the weekend was just a blur. Fixing an edger, drop off recyclables, wash the truck, run to the grocery, etc. I even got in a pair of short runs. Weather was way too nice not to hit the streets. Not hard/long runs, just enough to limber up and stretch the legs. Of course, that won't help me much this weekend. There is no way am I prepared for my annual pilgrimage to abuse myself on the downtown streets. Yep. It's that time of the year again. Time once again for the Houston Marathon. Or, in my case, the Half Marathon. A wonderful opportunity to hit the streets with 40,000+ other crazies in the early dawn light and see how far I can run without puking.
This will be number 6 for me. Lord only knows why I am doing this again. Oh, sure, I have my reasons and a cause, but this year it seems harder to find my motivation. Each year I sign up in June with the intent of cranking up the training and getting better prepared than the last run. Each year, I somehow lose steam around November and limp into the holidays with the misguided idea that I can catch up on my training over the holidays. This year was worse than the last few - I've just not found the spark to keep up with my runs. I am not sure why but I am just having a hard time finding my mojo for this run. Yea, I could offer up a couple of excuses, but those would just be just that, excuses. I am sort of embarrassed to be out on the trail with the rest of the truly dedicated runners with my lack of training. It doesn't help that this is typically the time just prior to the run when I start to question my resolve. Too late to cry about it now. I just need to cowboy up, pop some advil and hit the streets. I'm sure that my knees will have something to say about it come Monday.
Some of the inspirational sayings I try to keep in mind :
Either you RUN the day or the day RUNS you.
There will be days I don't know if I can do a Half-Marathon. There will be a lifetime knowing I have.
I do not run to add days to my life... add life to my days.
Thirteen point FREAKIN' one miles. It's that damn point one that kicks your butt!
Like RC, this is an extended weekend for me. I am off today getting ready to head back to campus for another football weekend. Ok, enough with the "where's waldo" hints/challenges. Ya'll are way too busy to spend time figuring out where I am bedding down at night. With all of the audits we do throughout the year, I control the process and have the opportunity to pick and chose the ones I will conduct, so I will try to arrange audits to meet my plans. Hong Kong was an incredible new experience to go to a county where I have never been. The Philippines was another one as well. Within the last year, I've traveled to Belgium, The Netherlands, China, and the Philippines, so I should be happy for now. A new company showed up on our radar a few weeks ago that requires an audit. While the design center is in Austin, the factory is actually in a small town in Wales (United Kingdom), so that translated into somebody getting on another long flight overseas. Since I've been doing most of the international trips of late, my boss was willing to take this one, but I selflessly volunteered for the road trip. Given a chance to go back to London and revisit some of the places I missed on my last brief trek, I thought: "Hell yea". Besides, if I can work out another opportunity to meet up with the Romantic Rock Chef, who am I to turn down that deal? RC and I are working out the details so I am hoping to spend a bit more time to meet with him for lunch and a pint. Perhaps we may even talk about certain bloggers.
This trip is turning into a grand adventure. The audit will actually consume 2 days but getting there and back can eat up a few more. Given the timing to fly there and back, I put in for a few vacation days to allow me to explore London properly. Since I am doing part of this on my own dime, I have been looking at options for lodging. Most hotels in central London are obscenely expensive so I am exploring other options. I found a really interesting Bed & Breakfast for a really reasonable price located near downtown. I've scoped them out via TripAdvisor and I am really jazzed to see if what I have read is true. Should serve as an excellent base camp for the expedition. The real trick for me will be to figure out the Tube/train system, but I do love a challenge.
Excellent trip. Short, not much of a drive, ate too much, got sunburned, way too hot, game went well, everything worked as expected, dogs are worn out.
Saturday was our first game of the season. We've been doing this for about 10 years now, so it is pretty much old hat. Load up the trailers, head north to campus, set up camp, pull out the awnings/canopies, fire up the A/Cs, set out the fans. When I hit the parking lot Friday afternoon, the truck was reading 101. At those temps, it takes a while for the A/C units to cool things off.
I took the opportunity to walk the dogs over to campus. They love the exercise and chance to meet new people. Of course everyone loves Goldens, so they got more than their fair share of attention. I was thinking I was going to have to ice down Claire's tongue. Along the way, I spotted all sorts of tailgate set ups. I've seen this one for several years. Look closely and you'll see it is a BBQ smoker.
With the temps hovering near 100, I am always mindful of the dogs. I carry water and a collapsible bowl for them, but I worry that the heat will be too much for them (especially Claire). That's why I map out my route to take us to several fountains on campus. Now most are inaccessible for the dogs - bench/lip too high, water too deep. However, one on campus is a pond with a low access that is easy for the dogs. When it is this hot, I normally wind up taking them there to cool off and get a drink. Of course this garners them more attention (aww, How cute).
Packed up early Sunday for the short trip back home. We had hoped to head to Austin, but we'll have to leave that for another day. Glad to have the extra day in the weekend to catch up on my chores/projects. From the look at the dogs on the way home, I'd say this weekend was a success in their book.
Next weekend is another game I am planning to attend. I only hope that the temps are a bit more fall like. The following weekend I am out on the road again for a week to an undisclosed destination. Flights are booked, agenda in place, reservations made at the site. For this trip, I have set aside a few extra days to explore/visit. I am looking at a set of accommodations today that are totally different than my normal haunts. No Grand Hyatt this time.
