Pate post mortem

Yea, Abby, Pate is definitely full of testosterone.  Old cars, cigars, scotch and lots of guy stuff.  When your basic meal plan involves beef jerky, chicharrones, and beer, you can just imagine the stories told and deals made.  But, to plagiarize the old Vegas slogan:  What happens at Pate, stays at Pate.  

Yes I was briefly tempted by the old Mustang but. fortunately, I was sober enough not to take the bait.  Besides, I figured I already had a Mustang project car that wasn't getting any attention.        

As with many of the "deals" you find at Pate, there is always a back story, just like you may hear when out hunting or fishing with your buddies.  Something about the conquest makes the story more "unique".  

Of course, just like any "buddy" trip, there is always someone giving your advice or encouraging you to "go for it" .  We were trying to convince the nephew to buy the Delorean golf cart.  After all, he already has a real Delorean.  

The details alone made it a prize - working flux capacitor, Mr Fusion, smoke generator. 

 

Unfortunately, the price of the golf card was equal to what he actually paid for his actual Delorean. so that pretty much was a deal killer right there.  

Of course, that did not stop us from "test driving" or checking out some of the other deals.

Doesn't everyone need a backhoe?  

An old Airstream project that was up for auction. 

 Of course, it required a "little" work  

An old Westfalia Vanagon.  This one is for my brother out west in Washington.  He owns one of these campers.   

The nephew used to own one a Firebird back in college (Smokey & The Bandit version - complete with the screaming chicken on the hood).  A real money pit.  That is why he bought the hood to hang in his back yard as "yard art".

 

After we hauled it back to our trailer and set it up so we could admire our daily haul we noted something interesting.  It may have been the scotch talking but I swore that you could see the face of Jesus on the hood and THAT is why he had to buy it.   

Catching up

As I said last time, I would try to post more often.  Thought I would start with a few pictures from my travels over the past few months.  Things have been busy, both at work and at home.  Hard to believe that football season is just a few weeks away.

I've been out on the road a fair amount.  Chicago, Buffalo, Atlanta, Fort Worth,  Some for work, some for play.  Looks like the job is kicking it up a notch and I will be  back out on the road this fall to more far off and exotic places like Denver, Minneapolis, San Jose, Dallas, Paris, Milan, etc.  I know, life's hard all over.

I was able to sneak off to Pate again in April for a few days of R&R.  Typical guy trip with my brother and one of his sons.  This was a pretty good year - weather was sketchy, nobody go sick, we scored a few deals, bought another bar light (or two), drank some beer, didn't come home with any new projects (well, except for the car lift). 

Weather looked ominous for a while...

You can find all sorts of conveyances...

My brother hurt his knee (translation:  he's an old fart) and he wound up renting one of those mobility scooters to ride all over Pate while we browsed for the deals.  Good thing for him - we wound up covering about 6-8 miles per day covering the entire meet.  

Not quite the same as texting and driving...

Need a lift?

Wagon train

Yard art?

When you really need to go back in time for another round...

And a new ride for the grandkids...

Of course, when my brother crashed for the afternoon, nephew and I "borrowed" the scooter to make one last run through the meet...

And I had my eye on this sweet looking convertible.  Just slightly older than my son but still a nice ride.. 

But this one really got my attention.  Only a measly $2k and you can drive it home today!  

A 1966 Mustang "Ranch" car.  It's had a "few" modifications done... 

Of course, being frugal (aka cheap), I didn't really buy much this year.  Instead, I blew my Pate money on getting the driver's seat for the landbarge reupholstered at a local shop while we were up at Pate.  It was pretty rough before, but looks like new now.    

  

Hello from the other side

Hello, it's me

I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet

To go over everything

They say that time's supposed to heal ya
But I ain't done much healing

Sorry for the prolonged absence.  Things got busy, I got sidetracked, work escalated and I kinda wandered off the grid for a while.  All lame excuses.  I am not really sure what happened, but my muse left me and basically I put my blog life on hold for a while.  I even stopped visiting everyone's blogs.  Sorry about that, guys.    

It's been busy over the past few months.  Birthdays, anniversaries, road trips, dog park, camping, floods, Pate, reorgs at the office and the ensuing changes, trailer repair, etc.    

Mrs Agg is doing well.  She's been busy trying to wade through all of the legal morass that comes with settling an estate and closing things out.  We continue to clear out her parents/sister's home and getting rid of a lot of stuff accumulated over a lifetime is hard, sad.  Still looking for homes for a few of SIL's feline children.  It's coming up on a year since SIL passed and there is no real rush to wrap this up.  The house is only 20 minute away and, honestly, I am not pushing anything.  This is her family home and she can take as much time as necessary to find closure.  Right now, it is finding homes for the cats.  I know that, when the times comes to sell the house, it will be a hard break for her.      

Grayson is doing well.  He still misses Claire but we've tried to make up for it with extra attention/treats.  I've made it a point to hit the dog park a few times to let him socialize.  I've also been out with our foster group for a few weekend adventures.  Back in April, we did the Doggy Party on the Plaza again.  Very nice dog-centric event sponsored by the city. In keeping with current trends, this year's theme was Star Wars.  Needless to say, there were a lot of interesting costumes and more than a few wookies & yodas around.  Our group, always on the left side of fanatic, had a lot of furry participants decked out in bandoleers or yoda ears.  And our resident carpenter outdid himself again with our "float".  Needless to say, our group came away with the trophy again this year.   

 

Last weekend it was the Annual Dog show at NRG stadium.  Grayson and I had a fun time albeit a bit melancholy since Claire wasn't with us this year.  Lots of dogs and doggy stuff.          

Dog cam

Loving the attention

Grayson & Emma working the crowd

Attention ham

We roamed the hall and got to tour all of the booths and free samples, although I don't think Grayson was as interested in doggy shirts and leashes or pet psychics.  I did manage to get Grayson to still still for a pawprint that turned out to be pretty good art.  There was group doing the pawprints for donations (big basket in the picture) and we talked people doing the pawprints to do the same gig at our annual picnic in October.  I wound up winning the drawing for the basket and the $$ that was donated and I turned the money over to my group and may give the basket up as an auction item at the picnic.      

Grayson & Emma

Picasso would be jealous

There may be another fur buddy for Grayson at some point in the future but, for now, we need to deal with the excess feline population. 

And I promise I wont' take as long for my next update....



  

Clean up

Happy VD to everyone!  With all the cards and floral sales on every street corner, it's hard not to forget today.  Of course, after ~36 years of wedded bliss, momma and I tend to do this day on the d-low.  At this point in life, we are trying to downsize/eliminate stuff instead of accumulating more trinkets & baubles.  We are trying to focus on a simpler, less cluttered lifestyle.  Given what we amassed over the past few decades, that may take a while.   

Following Abby's lead, I have been cleaning out some of my files/pictures.  Been resorting and reorganizing some albums.  Moving things around,  Rebuilding some old albums.  Of course, there are more than a few dog pictures.  Here are a few from the dump:

One left over from Thanksgiving at my brother's house with my dad and Claire passed out from too much turkey & dressing.   

A few from the old days.  A lot of people from my previous company have reconnected on line and have been posting updates and pictures of the old days.  It's been 16 years since the old place got bought out and shut down and a number of people have moved out of the area.  A lot of us have items in our cabinets/closets we collected over the years at the farm and a few have been posting pictures of old items that they took or held on to when the plant shut down.  This is one of the mugs they gave out at one of our annual picnics.   

And a key ring with one of our product names.

Our Airstream group had their annual luncheon and I ran into these two old retired Airstreamers.  A cute couple even considering the one on the left celebrated her 93rd birthday last week.

And, a few left over shots from last month's half marathon.  I always look at the shirts intending to buy one, but just can't seem to find the right slogan for me.  

And, this week's prize was something I spotted while driving into work this week.  Do you see what caught my eye?  
  

Nuts to you

Slowly working my way back to some sort of normal.  Barely 1 week inside of February and I feel like it is April already.  Work is a real challenge right now.  Ever since our merger with our Italian compadres, things have take on a whole new direction.  Lots of new priorities, objectives, initiatives.  And my favorite word - "synergy".  Anyone who has gone through one of these merger/buyout deals is intimately familiar with that term.  We've already seen a few people depart the scene.  The operations VP, 3 Engineering Fellows, one of the Marketing directors, and, oh yea, the new president.  Most of these guys had over 15 years of experience with the company and they knew were all the bodies were buried.   Needless to say, it has left several people around here about as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.  Not sure of my ultimate role or longevity, but being a pragmatist (or maybe a pessimist), I fully expect things to change in a big way.  We are already working on new goals/objectives.   As I tell my people, the boat has turned into a new heading.  Either you are on board and embrace the new direction or you may wind up as a castaway.  Remember the mantra:  Resistance is Futile. 

And don't feel sorry for me.  I am not really complaining.  I've done a lot with the company and I see a lot of new opportunities ahead.  I've traveled to a lot of places and seen a lot of things, so I am grateful for the chances I've had.  I still feel a I have a strong roll in the new regime, albeit different.  I expect a road trip to France/Italy in the near future, so things are not all that bad.  Beyond this year, who knows?  In the meantime, I will take the cards dealt to me.  Besides, one of the few benefits is that all this drama at the office has kept me distracted from dwelling on Claire. 

Another distraction has been the damn cough I have had since October.  Nothing I have done, nothing I have taken has seemed to help.  Multiple trips to the doc, with no real progress.  Around Christmas, I finally switched over to a pulmonologist - a guy that deals with respiratory problems.  A chest x-ray revealed nothing, allergy test was negatives (although I told my wife that he said I might be allergic to redheads), but the CT scan (computed tomography) showed some small obstruction in one of the bronchi of my lung.  Nothing alarming, just something to get checked out.  At this point, I am so fracking tired of this cough that I am willing to try voodoo or a seance to get rid of it.  So, the doc recommended a Bronchoscopy.  That is similar to a colonoscopy, just from the other direction.  Normally an outpatient process.  Check in early, dress in that silly hospital gown, get wired up and knocked out and they run a scope down your throat (or nose) into your lungs.  I was knocked out at the time, so I don't recall anything aside of being hungry and really jonesing for some coffee.  Everything came out fine and the doc said they found a pistachio lodged in one of airways that was creating the irritation/coughing.  Pistachio?  I don't recall having any of those for a long while.  Like, maybe back at one of our football games at A&M. As my loving wife glibly pointed out, you are what you eat.  Gee, thanks.  Good news is that the nut is out and I should start to recover soon.  May take a week or two for the irritation to go away, but, hopefully, this is will clear up quickly.  

Feeling a bit better now, if not somewhat sore/tired. Not sure if that is from the procedure or from the lack of coffee.  Of course, that does not spare me from any lectures I get from my loving spouse on watching what I eat.

Yea, right.  I'll take that advice to heart....