Jellied Moose Nose: 2012

Monday, November 19, 2012

All that glitters ain't gold

I apologize to anyone who has looked at this thing in the last month. I've been in a funk as I've been spending waaaaaay too much time trying to figure out the direction of my life and also trying to keep up with the pace of stuff at work these days. Ugh.
What's been on my mind as of late has been the next step in my career and life. Since I work for the Army, I am limited to Army bases lest I forfeit my retirement (if it is still there in the future, only Congress knows what unfunded liabilities they are going to fund) and the 14 years of experience and training that I've acquired. This isn't a bad thing necessarily, Army bases can actually be pretty decent places to work with lots of amenities, most I help provide. In the last couple of months, I have applied for jobs in Alaska, Louisiana, Augusta GA, and now Davenport IA. All have their pros and cons. The problem I have is I don't necessarily know which may be offered to me. So if I get offered one that may not be my best option, do I say no thank you, not knowing if one or any of the others may come through. Jobs usually take 4-6 months or more to fill from the time of the first announcement. Do I want to wait here another 6 months?! I hate the drive to work. I hate the drive to stuff. I hate living in the middle of nowhere. I hate not really having friends nearby. Sure, I like the job for the most part. It is challenging and I am good at it, but I dread the drive every single morning. There is also the financial to think about. Each job has benefits to it financially, but they are not equal. Does the final salary matter the most or does the quality of life of the geographical area? Iowa is very close to family and friends and might pay well, but I might not even be considered. Alaska pays a little less, but in terms of beauty and adventure, it can't be beat. Augusta is close to friends and the weather is usually pretty amazing. How do I decide? Where does my heart lie? My friends and family in each place would love for me to choose the location nearest them, I know I am blessed to have so many friends around this great big country of ours.
Then there's definitely the personal. Do I want to be involved in Rugby still? Do I want to hunt and fish? Meet someone? Stay single? Have kids or not? As I am getting older, those opportunity costs grow larger as this may be the last chance for a great many things due to bad knees and ticking biological clocks. I found myself writing an email to my brother just the other day concerning my finances and wishes should I die unexpectedly. I have no plans to die, but who does except the suicidal. I'm just at that age I guess. I guess seeing the family deal with it all from G'mas passing in September brought it home harder than before. Someone would have to come to California and get my stuff. That's a haul, it's not across town. Luckily, I don't have much, but it's still a job, it's still extra stress and work for someone.
Throw the politics of my job into the mix and sometimes I just want to say the hell with it and join the merchant marine :) Not really, but you get the idea. So I continue to rack my brain and count my blessings that I have options. Real quality options that so many in this country do not have and good friends. Lifelong friends that I care about and that care about me. And family that will always be there for me through thick and thin. I guess I know what I have to give thanks for come this Thursday. All of the above and so much more.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Gamecocks Win! Gamecocks Lose!

I made it back to lovely SC last week. I rolled out on Friday, landing in Atlanta, grabbing my rental and driving the green green patch between there and Columbia. The weather was pretty amazing so the late afternoon, early evening drive was wonderful, the air full of the sweet smell of pine and early Fall. My good friend Foxy has an extra bed and as he lives alone these days, he enjoys my annoying company more than anyone really should. I mean I can't stand to be around myself as much as he can. The only downside is his hyperactive wild child of a pit mix 'Lady'. She's sweet, but crazy. It also means that the doggy dander typically gets my eyes and nose running so I need some Allegra to make it through the week. Saturday, we headed up to Spartanburg for a wedding and to save money we stayed at a dive hotel in town along with a bunch of other rugby friends, spouses in tow. It was a seriously crappy hotel, but since we spent most of the time at the church and reception and only slept there it wasn't too awful. The reception was amazing. I got to see lots of old friends and several of the the girl ruggers I used to coach back when I was in SC. They had grown up even more and become 'real' women as compared to the girls they were back in college. The band at the wedding was absolutely amazing, with a repertoire of songs that was unbelieveable. They played everything.....and very well. Oh and the Gamecocks crushed, say again, crushed Georgia. It was a great night all around.
Monday, I spent most of the day cruising around Cola checking out what was new and what was gone. Not a whole lot had changed, but a whole lot had changed, if that makes sense.
Tuesday, I had lunch with the Fort jackson crew and toured the base to see the few things that had sprung up there since my departure. It was great to see everyone.
I headed to rugby practice a couple nights and saw an old friend Isaac and his young son. We sat on the front lawn drink beers and getting caught up.
Thursday and Friday we worked on Foxy's deck, putting in some new joists, some new decking and moving the hot tub, so the plumber and electrician could work on it. unfortunately it wasn't ready in time for me to enjoy. But it should be up and running next time I visit. He's had a hot tub for over 10 years, but it hasn't worked when I've been there yet.
I also met with Hollie to talk about our divorce and work out some of the particulars with that. All in all it was a good lunch and I expect things will go well with everything.
Friday night, I broke down and hit up Little Pigs BBQ. The best Southern buffet in Cola. They have all the lowcountry favorites. They even have half a hog laying around for picking, you just grab off what you need then slather it is sauce. Fried catfish. Pork chops. livers. gizzards. greens. sweet tea. yams. banana pudding. fried chicken. pork hash and dirty rice. Really, everything I dream of when it comes to southern food, except steamed oysters in the shell. Oh and dove and quail. Really really good. The place has burned down a couple times, but it always comes back. So good.
Saturday was a rugby day. I was also supposed to head to a second wedding for my old lunch pal Brad but after a lot of thought and a couple beers I decided I'd go to their second reception in Cali, where his wife is from. There ceremony in SC was way out in Prosperity and I didn't want to risk drinking and driving. Instead one of the old ruggers, Philly was having a bachelor party and dinner for his second marriage, so i joined up with that crew. We hit up the Brazilian steakhouse in town. You pay a flat fee and the waiters walk around with skewers of meat and slice you off as much as you like until you've eaten so much meat you get the meat sweats. I stopped short of that point but I wanted to keep going. Sometimes you just have to say no. Afterwards, we headed to a couple bars to watch the SC LSU game. It was a heartbreaker with the final being only a few points difference from a stupid interception. Gamecocks, coulda, woulda, shoulda, but didn't. Ugh. They've got the talent and coaching, they just need to put it altogether at the same time consistently.
Sunday, Foxy and I hit up Gourmet Shop downtown and I had a gourmet cheese toastie and tomato bisque soup, oh so tasty and picked up some mexican cocoa bars. They are mostly ground cocoa and sugar and make great hot chocolate or just disintegrate in your mouth. So So good. We watched some Walking Dead, I took a quick 30 minute nap, and headed to Atlanta, finally making it back to CA at 1 in the morning and driving back to Helendale and crashing about 2. When I woke at 6 I felt like crud but got dressed and headed to work and gave a presentation to the Comuunity Council at 9. I had to wing my way through it since I hadn't been to work in a week, but did alright. I crashed out early on Monday and was back to the old grind no problem Tuesday morning. Another successful trip, another successful reintegration.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

TEOTWAKI

Awhile back, 5 or so years ago, I became interested in the notion of prepping. I think it stems from my Boy Scout background. The Boy Scout Motto is 'Be Prepared'. Prepared for what? The short answer is anything or better yet, everything. This generally makes for a VERY responsible human being, which I will admit I am not always. I eat out too much, take too many trips and don't plan far enough ahead to be considered overly responsible.
Most preppers spend a lot of time going over lists, buying needed supplies, putting up stores, fortifying their houses, etc. And while any of this is acceptable prepping practice, I think it falls short. Sure it is a great way to feel 'prepared' as everything you have is at hand should A, B or C happen, but what about D, E and F.
It's funny, just the other day, one of the guys at work and I got into a discussion about politics that led to what could be around the corner, TEOTWAKI. For those that don't know, TEOTWAKI stands for The End of the World As We Know It. basically that financial meltdown, giant asteroid, great war on American soil, Peak Oil or whatever else changes our way of life at a fundamental level. I'm convinced it could definitely happen. He even made the point that I seemed to have pretty strong convictions about some of what we discussed, and that is a fact jack. A lot of Americans, this guy included, felt that we were the top dog and would always stay as such and our way of life just couldn't ever change too much. I'm not so convinced. I'm sure if you asked the Greeks or the Romans or the Egyptians or the Brits and any other world power if they thought their reign would ever come to an end they would each say 'hell no' andeach of them would be flat wrong, nations are born, mature and change, some for the better some for the worse. Has ours matured as we have aged? If we look at history, are we repeating the same mistakes others have made before us?. I think most people fail to realize how fragile our society is. How reliant on good faith America is. Ask yourself what if tomorrow your bank cards and credit cards no longer worked? How long could you get by? How much cash do you have on hand? What if paper money was no longer any good too? What do you have to barter? What if ALL government employees (police, fire) were told to stay home? What if we started having brown outs or black outs? What if the grocery store stopped getting deliveries? What if the bank asked for your entire mortgage note owed to be paid in one lump sum like just prior to the Great Depression? What if banks stopped extending credit to businesses, how many would fail quickly? All of these have happend in other parts of the world in recent years. Some due to corruption, some due to incompetence, some due to globalization, while we are a lot more insolated than most third world countries, we are not completely immune.
So what about D,E, and F? My answer to all of the scenarios is one of flexibility. I am planning to be valuable wherever I am when things go bad. knowledge of medicine, constructing/maintaining shelter, acquiring food and water, security. These are the things at the bottom of Maslows Hierarchy of needs and when it hits the fan, these are the things that matter the most and make one useful to a community, no matter where that community may be. Just something to think about. While I believe it is important to enjoy life, I eat, I drink and I'm pretty darn merry, I still think of the hardworking ant and the frozen grasshopper who failed to prepare for winter while the ants toiled away, which would you rather be when the first snow flake falls??

Thursday, September 27, 2012

$500 Vegas Tax

Firstly, Thank You to everyone who called or wrote after the passing of my grandmother. The outpouring of caring was awesome. I'm blessed to have so many good friends in this life. You guys rock.

Now onto the title of this entry, the dreaded Vegas Tax. So it seems that I simply cannot make a trip to Vegas without $500 disappearing from my account in one fashion or another, take this past weekend. My good friend Ryan works for Caterpillar designing very big trucks, earthmovers really, crazy giant yellow earth devouring monstrosities. Caterpillar held an international sales and tech conference in Vegas this week. Since I didn't get to see him very much last time I was home, I told him I'd come spend some time while he was out this way. Saturday, he got in and had some time off from their busy schedule, so I rolled over first thing in the morning to pick him up when his flight landed. I got up, had a leisurely coffee, hopped in the golf cart Prius and cruised over, no problems, great weather, easy drive, not much traffic. I guess I should have known something bad was going to happen. Anyway, I hit Bass Pro Shop in LV to watch the big fish swim for a little bit then cruised over to the airport. LV is made for car drivers. I parked in the short term parking, about 200' from the terminal entrance and headed in, checked the baggage monitors and found his carosel. I sat down, waited about 10 minutes and here he came, bags already in tow, with his work buddy Rod, who was going to be working the show as well. We cruised out to the car and headed towards Caesars. I hopped on the wrong ramp on the way out of parking, so we ended up going to the far south end of town, which was fine since we would just be cruising the strip. There was quite a bit of congestion on teh strip but we made the best of it, joking back and forth about the sign trucks and people walking around. We even ran into a line of convertible mustangs, like 50+ of them. I rolled down the window and asked what the deal was and the nice ladies in the mustang next too us explained that they were part of a tupperware contingent from Germany. No shit. You can't make this stuff up. Cool. We worked our way down and turned into the self parking garage for Caesars, turned up the first ramp, Rod asked if i had bought the Priuws new, I said no, it was used and blackout. The damn thing died on the ramp into the first level of the garage. All the lights still worked but the system would not turn on. Just dead. The Prius is computer controlled, almost everything relies on the CPU to work, even the transmission. So with it dead, there was no way to put it in neutral, no way to push it, roll it, or carry it, well not with just three of us, to get it out of the way. So there it sat with flashers on with a steady stream of casino staff and hopeful gamblers flying by with confused and oftentimes annoyed looks on their faces. The CAT engineers quickly assessed a blown fuse to the CPU, we tried a spare and it blew too. Great!! We decided there was little we could accomplish, technology being so esoteric as it is, and I decided to call AAA. The boys headed into Caesars to check in and I waited on my tow truck, which took about an hour. The driver, Daniel, was a real nice guy and we were out of there in maybe 10 minutes and headed to the dealer. Once at the the dealer it took 20 minutes to diagnose, 45 minutes to fix and 30 minutes to wash. Verdict. A secondary cooling pump had failed, pretty common apparantly. This particular pump cools the inverter that provides power to the cpu and keeps both cool, so its a big deal, about $500 worth of big deal. Ugh!! Vegas Tax strikes again.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Loss

It has been awhile since I've written on here. Since my trip to Vegas to hang out with my Dad and his work buddies something profound has happened and it has changed my outlook on life in ways I didn't really expect. The Friday after my Vegas trip my mom called later in the day, probably about 5 my time, just as I was getting redy to head home for the day, and told me her mother, my grandma Lorene was in the hospital. She went in due to being in a lot of pain. She had very impacted bowels. Her second husband, Al, who passed many years ago, had had the same complaint and passed only a few days later, so I was prepared mentally for the worst, but mom reassured me by saying they had given her some pain meds and she was sleeping comfortably and they were talking about doing surgery. I was hopeful. My dad called a few hours later and told me she had passed. I sat on the couch in a daze. Wow. I know there are people out there without any grandparents left, others who have lost parents, brothers, sisters and best friends. I haven't. So this is a huge loss for me, one that I am still reeling from a bit.
When I go back, I try to make an effort to see all of my granparents, because you never know how much longer you'll have with them. I was very fortunate that when I visited Illinois for 2 weeks in June, I stayed at Lorene's the whole time. In part to spend more time with her but also due to my allergies always going haywire when I stay at my parent's house. We had breakfast a few days, dinner a couple nights, and were able to spend some time talking and joking around, but the best part was just being in the same space together, sharing time.
The visitation and funeral were kind of surreal. I guess everyone goes through this. She had touched so many people in the little town where I grew up, but I had no idea. At the visitation, there were videos with pictures of her through the years, some as recent as my last visit. My favorites were the older ones, from when she was in her 20s. Dressed up in her finest, likely headed out to some social event looking for Mr. Right. I especially liked the pics of her and her 2 sisters, both gone before her. they were so close in age, and the pictures said volumes about their inseparability in their youth. It's strange when I realize that they are all gone now, all three sisters. On my mom's side, a generation has passed on and another has stepped into their place.
As her kids worked together to sort out her affairs, I hid in the living room, trying to pretend that it wasn't most likely the last time I would sit in her lazyboy. Almost like an ostrich with my head in the sand, somehow, if I pretended hard enough, it wouldn't all be real. But it was. There are things that have to be dealt with, things have to get settled. Furniture, clothes, car, tools, you name it, it's got to go somewhere and something has to be done with it. Even though she was raised during a simpler time, she was as much a person of modern convenience as most of us. Maybe more so. I've always tried to live a life of simplicity, but even I have hoarded some things over the years, magazines, books, movies, things that others would have to deal with, if I were to depart this world tomorrow. Most likely my parents would have to do it. Bradley told me of one of his friends that has a box labelled, 'Mom- Just throw this one away. You can guess what is inside.
Basically the whole thing has made me want to simplify my life even more and to write a will to help in the process. After I'm gone I want people to remember how I made them feel, how much I loved, laughed and the enjoyment and wonder we shared, not how much crap I had in the place I lived. I want them to feel pride in the things I leave behind, I want them to be viewed as heirlooms not just stuff to be 'dealt' with. A freind once told me, he didn't want much, but what little he did want was nice as hell.
I've always hoped that I don't linger too long when I get old. I guess a lot of people wish that.
I loved my grandma very much, but I am thankful that she went with dignity, without much pain, and with her daughters by her side after 85+ years of life. Hopefully, we can all be so lucky.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Vegas Face

Vegas face (n): either the wild eyed look people have as they check into the hotel as they dream of the fun times ahead or the worn out, glazed over look after staying up for 40 straight hours, losing hundreds of dollars, chain smoking and binge drinking.

Thursday, I drove over to Vegas to hang out with Dad and his work buddies. I hit up Mad Greek on the way and then rolled into Harrah's about 9. I met Dave and his buds in the sports book room and had a couple drinks. The night flight contingent from Illinois called and told us their flight was cancelled and they'd be in on Friday afternoon. Okay. Dad was in that group. We checked into our rooms and since Dave and the others had been drinking all day, they crashed out at 10pm and I headed downstairs to lose a $100. Friday, we decided to hit Fremont Street before the group got too big to move easily. Fremont is the old Vegas area. Dave wanted to hit up the Gold Nugget. We parked in Binion's Garage and hit the covered roadway. We were on a losing streak at the Nugget so decided to walk and grab some lunch. I had to use the little boy's room, so we stopped at an anonymous casino. G walked up to the bar to order a drink and the bartender told him is he played $10 on the video poker he'd get a free drink. He put in $10, got his free drink and 2 hands later hit $1000. Guess who's buying lunch. We hit up a restaurant in one of the casinos and I had prime rib. The whole place smelled like au jus. Heavenly. We then headed back to chill out before the rest of the crew got in. I snuck down to the spa for a massage and got back just as they were all getting ready to head to the floor for another round of craps and slots. I lost some more money. Then we headed to dinner at the HofBrauHaus (see next blog entry) then back to the casino. Saturday was a long day of hitting up lots of casinos, chilling in their Diamond lounges and playing some cards. We made it to Harrahs, Caesars, Paris, and the Flamingo. Lots of drinks and lots of free food and of course further losses at the craps and blackjack tables. Let's just say I should have been playing the no pass line and got way too many 12s and 13s. Ugh. By Saturday at 7 I had hit my loss limit and tried to call it a night, but was summoned back down to the lounge for a few more hours of watching other people lose money at Blackjack. While I love Vegas; the architecture, the shows, the food, the hustle and bustle, and enjoy the casino, I hate losing money. With the money I lost, I could have bought some sweet stuff, but I guess all vacations are like that.

The Mad Greek. Heck yeah.

Shawn Blair is alive and working in Vegas.

G with his $1000 voucher he won during my pee break.

Dad getting his just desserts.

Heather, blurry from running away after the paddling.

Zac from Fairbanks.

Caesars has its own bottled water. Fancy Schmancy.

yes my legs are that white. A new Vegas tradition, getting my Docs polished up.

Diamond Players Lounge. Free Food. Free Drinks. This is at Flamingo. Lots of tempura shrimp and hot wings. Tons of veg tray, chips and dips. Oh, so full.

HofBrauHaus

Friday night we drug ourselves from the casino for dinner out on the town. I had to juggle two groups a bit, my friends from Alaska were passing through on their way to Palm Springs and my dad's groups of hard partiers from the midwest.

The group decided on the HofBrauHaus and we were off. I love german food and beer and this place took it to the next level and made it an experience. Awesome is the best way to describe it. Beer was big, food was tasty and fun was had by all, even those that got a paddling. Yep, the waitresses would bring you a shot of something then paddle your behind, fun fun fun. We also sang songs, did the chicken dance and just had a great night.