September 30, 2011
093055: The Little Bastard

Still, wasn't that the best picture of Jackson? Rest easy Jay, here is the one of you that sits atop my dresser.................
Today is the anniversary of the death of James Dean in a Porsche 550 Spyder he named The Little Bastard which was coincidentally a nickname someone gave Dean. Alec Guinness saw the car and thought it was "sinister" and predicted Dean would be dead in it within one week. He hit the nail on the head. I have no idea what I had for breakfast yet I remember this junk.
Reminds me of the time I played poker with a Tarot deck; got a full house and four people died (thank you Steven Wright)
And it looks as though the Red Sox found a new way to lose; somewhere Bill Buckner is rejoicing. 162 games after the season start and it comes down to that.
In Utah this week and saw this beautiful flag flying with the translucent blue field. Never really realized how pretty it is with the sun in the background. The Rockies help a little too. Spielberg captured that image in Saving Private Ryan, great cinema shot; perhaps a little better than me with my point-and-shoot in the Holiday Inn Express parking lot?

I have been to Salt Lake City several times and always seem to catch good weather. I decided to give this Mormon thing a try while I was here, thought the polygamy feature sounded attractive (that way I could disappoint more than one woman at the same time), OK, have not used tobacco in a long time, do not need caffeine that much....................no alcohol? I'm outta here. Thought I would get a free t-shirt, but nooooooooooooo. Pygmy, they have your social security number, Here is a shot I did not take on this trip

Beautiful, huh? I never seem to be able to get into that part of any city I visit. This is the area in which I usually work:

Let me know if you would like for me to pick up any souvenirs, there is usually an abundance of crack and meth dealers in the near vicinity. As Jay told Jackson many years ago "daddy works in bad neighborhoods." Jackson watched as I unloaded the car and said "they must play a lot of baseball in those bad neighborhoods." Able to solve that riddle? Come on, think, not really that hard...........
Worked with some reps for the first time out here, great young guys with a lot of energy. What is up with 5 hour energy drinks? Better than coffee? Really? Better than a morning shot of Bushmill's? Really?
This is a picture I took from the airport, even through the glass I hope you can see the purple mountains' majesty. My first impression of Salt Lake City 30-some years ago, still so beautiful!

I guess metaphorically I just mixed those national songs up, please forgive me. Daddy always liked America the Beautiful over The Star Spangled Banner. He told me once it made him cry. I told him it would have made me cry too if I were a 12 year old girl. (Sorry, OK I actually did tell him that one time a year or so ago, he looked at me and laughed, as well he should! The Greatest Generation? Definitely! As a coach once told me: you couldn't carry their jockstraps.......and he was right) Thought about asking everyone to sing America the Beautiful at his funeral, then thought different. Maybe if he had ever heard Jimi play the national anthem at Woodstock......................................Purple Haze! Bless Be The Tie That Binds worked really well, please sing that at mine along with Softly and Tenderly, Great Is Thy Faithfulness and maybe if you could get Alice Silberhorn to sing In The Garden or Mark Waugh to sing The Lord's Prayer? And then some fireworks, yeah, that would be nice, thanks. And try to get TAR to quit laughing, yeah, thanks.
The Seafood Festival is this weekend and our Sanford based Riley crew will be on their way. We plan to babysit Saturday night as Sister Hazel plays. Guess they are some nuns in that combo?
Except for a day trip to VA I plan to be in town for a change next week. Was this blog OK? Took me 10 minutes in the Denver airport with some editing Thursday night. OK? Funny? Can I make a living doing this? OK, back to the humidifiers.........................Spread this blog please!
And enjoy the ride

September 23, 2011
Since I Am In Indianapolis.......................

We are in Indianapolis so let's talk about cars, OK?
Last weekend we went to visit Jackson at college and had a great although rainy time. Saturday night we went to what is probably our favorite restaurant in the world: Mamma Zu in Richmond. We go there once or twice a year and have enjoyed each meal there. All of our dinners were perfect. After dinner I was ready to watch Lawrence Welk and hit the sack, but Jackson and TAR wanted to go clubbing. After we danced for the next 6 hours we.......................oh come on, do you think we went clubbing? Really? No, we went to see the Rise of the Planet of the Apes. As it was not funny, had no nudity nor was a cartoon I was not thrilled at this decision. I do not care for that genre and do not remember enjoying the original. As usual my preconceived attitude was dead wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and are you ready for this? Sitting down? I did not go to sleep during the movie. I know, earth-shattering. Really good movie if you have the chance. We have seen four movie this summer; by my count that is four more than normal. Now I have to figure out how to get to Raleigh quickly to see Senna while it is still at the Colony.
Oh yes, cars........ saw this classic on the way to Richmond. Not often you see a Bricklin anywhere, this one was a bit odd with the custom paint job but I liked it. I would not want a car painted that way, but it was pretty with the inner panels highlighted. As you can also see the a$$hole was in the left lane so as I passed him I gave him the "salute."

Yes, that bothers me quite a bit. It is really simple, like falling off of a log actually, if you are not passing get out of the passing lane.
While at our hotel in Richmond I saw this car with no nomenclatures. What is it? Help!

It was pretty, I am thinking Maserati but not a logo on the car.
This picture was taken in front of Mamma Zu. Try not to look at the old guy wearing the cheap toupee, it is a missing pet picture with another shot added below by some local wag. Very funny

Yum yum gimme some.
Indy has been good through day one at Comfortech. Heading home Saturday, then to Salt Lake City Monday. Go away Ophelia, your name has been used too recently for my liking

September 16, 2011
Wow, Did Not Expect That

Had a fun although unproductive weekend with the FO, the water was muddy. Bait is starting to appear but I doubt the fish can see them. Pretty weekend and we took a nice ride down the ICW to Swansboro. Seems as though the statutes of limitation have expired and we are now allowed back in that town. The water resembled the Tar River in color. Good ride, not many boats on the water.

As I do every Sunday after Labor Day I drove up to Ohio. Every year on this day I drive north for the Famous Expo, same bat time, same bat channel. Always look over at the Winston-Salem airport and see their air show, always get to Marietta and see the remnants of the Stern Wheeler Festival. Always pay too much for a hotel room; this one came with an unmade bed but with a bar. No maid service performed Sunday morning in this room, but based on the liquor that was left I'm betting the maids spent some time in there. No I did not, life is too short to drink cheap gin.

As I left the house Sunday my phone was ringing, the FO left half of a Five Guys hamburger and hot dog but warned me there were some jalapenos on it. Threw them in the VW and thanked him for the snacks. Got around Kenansville and reached over for one, decided to go with the hamburger as I had nothing to drink in the car; big mistake because the jalapenos were on the burger not the dog.. Hilarity ensued as I tried to drive, sneeze, cough, blow my nose and act "normal" as the NCHP car pulled up beside me. Thankfully the hot dog did not have the peppers which were apparently raised in an insane asylum in Mexico; it cooled my mouth and cured the common cold.

Famous Expo day one was very hot and uncomfortably humid; owner Jay Blauschild missed the first day with an injured back, but was there for the second day, tough guy. He brought the crowds and cooler weather; much better second day.

Finished up Wednesday night and back peddled to Pittsburgh for distributor calls on the way home. Started in the 40's with rain in Bethel Park, through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and Virginia. Nasty, rainy day, but somewhere north of Somerset I saw a sign that led me to a new national park honoring the 9/11 Flight 93. About a twenty minute side trip but glad I went and saw it. I did not know there was a park out there in the middle of nowhere; there is a temporary setup at this time with plans for a permanent display later.

Managed to stop by Jackson's for dinner, and then headed southeast through the approaching front. So let's see, home about 12-something Friday morning, re-pack for Family Weekend at Hampden-Sydney this weekend, Comfortech in Indianapolis next week. Look for us there

http://www.hvaccomfortech.com/

Cooler weather=HVAC problems with heat start-ups? We can only hope...................

September 9, 2011
Because I Wanted To, That's Why

One of my favorite pictures of Jackson. Hang on Jay, I will get one of you up there soon.
Great week down on that old eastern shore, had family in for Dink's birthday over the weekend and did we ever have fun. No seriously, did we have fun?
We did! Took all of the family out on the boat Saturday morning, as we got off about lunchtime Cooper told we forgot to go fishing. Oh don't throw me into that briar patch. So after he had lunch out back we went. The water is so stirred up it is difficult to find anything but he was able to catch some hogfish up in the Haystacks. One even said "I can see my house from up here" as I threw him back in, that's pretty funny stuff.........if you are a Riley. We had a lot of fun with Holly, Jay, Cooper and Keelyn. She is developing quite a personality, one day I hope to hold her (she is still a bit aloof)
I got to meet my new grand-niece Caroline and she is entertaining. Full of smiles, facial expressions, and I have already started teaching how to howl at the moon. It was good to see all of that crowd.
Morehead City turned into Mosquito Central over the past week or so; it is really bad when I go for my bicycle ride in the morning and have mosquitoes all over my legs. Maybe I should increase the speed level a bit.............
And speaking of speed the motorcycle should be out of the shop today. I had a problem with the gas cap, the "ratcheting" as I closed the cap turned out to be a very bad thing, very bad; but of course I did not know that until I could not remove the cap; reading posts about old BMW Airheads told me not to do that. Wish I had read that before. But my friends at Knuckle Headz (a really nice Harley-Davidson custom shop within walking distance) were able to remove the cap and do some welding on the center stand for me. I have some new friends, wonder why they giggle when they see my bike? Good guys and good community citizens, going to see those guys again, although I hope not too soon.
Now the business travel kicks up into a higher gear; I leave Sunday for Ohio for the Famous Supply Expo. The hours for this two day show are incredibly long but it proves worthwhile year after year. Take a look http://www.famous-supply.com/expo.html
I plan to be home either very late Thursday night or early Friday, depends on how bad I whip John Hinton on the golf course Thursday afternoon.
And guess what? No, not that. The old FO and I are fishing together Saturday. This will make the second day this year we fish in saltwater, must be some kind of record. I am pretty sure that is some kind of record, but not necessarily a good one. He plans on taking lots of fish home with him Sunday morning and I am going to do my best to make sure he is successful.
And speaking of pictures, this one of Jackson in high school was posted on Facebook yesterday; doctored it up a little, but there is something I like about it, just not sure what. Wonder what he was thinking? Looks like it is before a game. Thinking deep thoughts? Wonder if I can get me some of them French fried taters? Can you help me out?

Have a good, productive, safe week

September 2, 2011
Happy Birthday Kevin

I know you sit and wait in anticipation of my recap of Hurricane Irene, but I am fortunate to have the stylized musings of one of my favorite writers of all time, ladies and gentlemen Conway Twitty.

Hello Darling.............Obscure Family Guy reference there, at 56 years old my favorite television shows are still cartoons. But I digress...........as usual
The FO offered to recap Hurricane Irene and I do enjoy his opinions so here goes
After six years in a Turkish prison I began to embrace alternative lifestyles................no wait, different story for a different time. Here's what Bobby thought about the storm:

I arrived in MHC on Friday afternoon. I left Durham early afternoon because leaving Durham during the daylight hours is usually a pretty smart thing to do and the NWS said that it would be blowing 49 in MHC by 6PM. It was a great trip. No traffic whatsoever. At least on my side of the road. The other side was backed up from Raleigh all the way down. "Odd for a Friday afternoon", I thought. "I wonder what's up? The clouds were beautiful ahead of me. I wish I'd kept my eye on the road instead of the clouds but that's a whole separate story and I don't think there were any witnesses. The winds were minimal. I think Irene was slowing down.

Got to MHC around 5PM. John was still hard at 'Skuttle work' so I unloaded everything and he coincidentally finished up about the same time I finished bringing all my gear in. Go figure.

We caught up and as the weather was still holding pretty good we went to see Dink and then rode over to Atlantic Beach to take a look around. The waves were pounding. (Pic to follow soon). None of the pics are good. Even looking straight at it you couldn't tell where the ocean ended and the sky began. There was no contrast. It was all a fuzzy whitish-gray. Sorta like watching Andy Griffith with a bad antennae fifty years ago or after a night out on the town now.

We rode around a bit. Everything was quiet and boarded up. No sign of life except for a lot of folks like us riding around going, "Hey, there's no sign of life around here!" The weather picked up though and we headed on back and by the time we got back to the house Irene was starting to show her bloomers and I think she had on a pair of Grandma's red lace ones. Even though we had electricity the thought of some cold fried chicken that I had picked up from Smithfield's on the way down (and in more than one example of similar thoughts John had picked up some at Hairy Teaters as well) overtook us and that's what we had for dinner. Wish we'd thought that out a bit better. We would have paid handsomely for a hot meal the next day. Off to bed by eleven as we listened to the storm pick up in intensity. I slept until 3:40. Not sure what woke me up, but I was awake. The wind was howling, the rain pouring and I took a look around the window seals and door jambs to make sure nothing was coming in. I went on back to bed but before climbing in I decided to get dressed. Don't know what made me do it, but I did. The funny part, as we compared notes, is that John and Dink both were awakened within fifteen minutes of the same time and got up, looked around at things and got fully dressed before going back to bed. Weird. I also have a dog that will go and stand by the door three minutes before any family member comes home after being away for weeks or even months, but again, that's another story.

We lost power at 4:25AM Saturday morning. I was up once again checking on things and the power went off while I was in the sun room. My first thought was, "Oh, crap....what did I just do?" Well, whatever I did I caused the power to go out for everyone from Kinston to the coast. You're all welcome.

John and I got up early on Saturday and watched the radar as the storm moved northward. Landfall was just shy of the hook at Lookout and when we were in the eye we ventured out and took a look around as well as looking in on Dink. The city had fared well so far. Water was high in places (another pic here) and plenty of trees down and branches and leaves everywhere but no major flooding of important buildings like the Sanitary and no structural damages that we saw. We probably stayed out about 15 minutes too long as the other side of the hurricane started to kick up. We headed back to the house and settled in. What a great day. Just laying around, watching the storm, reading, eating (cold fried chicken again...I think I'm about done with cold fried chicken), laughing, telling lies, napping, etc, etc. But, it was a long day. We went out again in conditions that were improving but still not good around 5PM to check on Dink. She was missing her phone and her daily talkfest. We took the brunt of that 'missing'. Don't get me wrong. I love Dink. I don't mind being her captive audience. Um, which way do the bullets go in ?

We did manage to watch the race Saturday night. Everyone is into big screen tv's these days. Not us. A 4.3 inch Droid X provided everything we needed except for libations and we found those after digging around in the Riley's backyard. We also found the first wife of the previous owner.

Sunday morning brought sunshine but still no power. Not a big deal. But by then even we began to notice how we smelled now beginning the third day without a shower. When the Rileys lose power they lose everything including water. Any water...hot or cold. We got up and rode around....with the windows open. Lots of trees down but again, that was about it. I don't mean to say that lightly. A lot of folks are going to be doing cleanup for the next few weeks. Dave and Bev called and they were heading down (early on the road) and picked us up some biscuits in Goldsboro, about the last place there was power. I can't tell you how good a cold sausage biscuit can taste.....it wasn't cold fried chicken. Thanks to you two. Really. Hope your new house down there came out OK so I have someplace to stay. John's house has a bit of a funk to it now.

John and I put a few things back together in the yard and on the porch and then I took off and headed home. Got back around two, unloaded again, mowed the grass (my neighbor Wendy whom I adore came by about then so I turned off the mower and although we usually exchange hugs I told her that I was a bit too ripe to do so. She had just come back from Atlanta an hour earlier and said "Hey...I've been on an airplane," and gave me a big hug. I've got a feeling that might be the last hug for a while 'cause I didn't smell any airplane.) Then off to Greensboro to take something to Amanda and back home again.

So, I'm home and safe. At 6:30 I had a cold beer (I was afraid to quit cold turkey after Saturday night....and on a related note may I be among the first to congratulate Ted Kennedy on two years of sobriety) followed by a hot shower. John is still without power at this moment. Glad I went down. Not so much for the adventure although it was fun. More importantly it's just another experience that we'll all be sitting around and at some point someone will go, "Do you remember.....?"

Nope, but if you hum a few bars.............

Funny stuff and finished off with a great old joke. Know it, hell I wrote it! The last time he guested here the blog went viral at Duke and got over a thousand hits, let's do it again.
The water got high Saturday morning as Irene came in:

But at the end of the storm Bobby talked me off of the roof. No, I was up there to put the marine radio antenna up, thankfully it lasted another storm. We had minor tree damage (needed anyway, thanks for the reminder there God) and lost the contents of the refrigerators and the freezer. And what the heck, they needed cleaning out anyway. At the end of the storm it was not raining inside my house, I have nothing to complain about. Lots of people Down East got hammered, and judging by the empty bottles in the trash Monday, so did we.

Anyone else want to guest host just let me know
Happy Labor Day, in town next week and then on the road the rest of September. Oh, happy birthday Kevin, I love you and am very proud of the man you are.

August 26, 2011
I Am So Sorry

First of all my apologies to First South; last week I crudely misspoke about their lack of customer service and how they handled a situation with my parents' account. I use this account to pay their bills and am listed as the third owner of the account. Upon further review the blame lies on their online BillPay company with whom they apparently are not affiliated. Seems as though they have never even talked with BillPay before. Looks like this was the first time they had ever had any problem with BillPay............................... Anyway they would not let us access the account online because my father was the only authorized online person.....yeah, let that one sink in for a while. But to their credit all was fixed this week. Thank you First South.
Bite my ass BillPay. And yes Farley, it does make you feel good to flip someone off.
Oops, let that one slip out. I'll try to class this blog up a little; I promise.
Saw this picture online. With Irene pointing at us tonight I can not help but fret a little. High winds are one thing but these tornadoes scare the heck out of me. Classy huh? Didn't curse! Time to batten down the hatches and see what Irene has in store for us. Good luck to all. Come on Irene (what's that? The song was Come On Eileen? Really? Was it written for Paul McCartney's second wife Eileen? Wasn't that her name? I thought that since she......never mind, my bad) Sorry, come on Irene! Regardless, a beautiful picture of a water spout off Carolina Beach a few weeks ago.

Found this picture while accumulating stuff for the closure of the estate this week, it was in Daddy's 1940 Bluejackets' Manual. Nice picture, at that time in his life he usually had his glasses on. I think this will make a good Christmas present for Dink. He died a month ago yesterday, I really miss him and our routine. Probate filing went well.

Enough of the high class entertainment, what the hell is this? Found it on the breezeway this week, it has flakes of an iridescent green material in it. All righty all you scatologists, turdmeisters, doodoo doctors: what animal dropped this on my sidewalk and why the green? Maybe someone stole my dog food idea; you remember, put some kind of nuclear waste in the Alpo and eliminate (private pun there, hang on, a ha ha ha) Fido's land mines. Cleanup can be as easy as pie (hang on, a ha ha ha) and you can even do it in the dark. Designer colors are available.

Inquiring minds want to know. The FO is on his way here this afternoon to see what a hurricane is all about. TAR is in Rockingham so I welcome the company. Irene is a BMF (nautical term) and looks to be very destructive. Good luck to all.

August 19, 2011
Yeah, That Just About Says It All

Thank you Wil Power for summing up my adventure this week with First South Bank. I appreciate your being the "neighborhood bank" with whom I look forward to ending my business.

Oh that feels better. After dealing with the Bill Pay customer service (oxymoron) it was off to one of my favorite areas: Hershey, PA. I somehow or another end up here a couple of times a year and really like the area. Yesterday we displayed at the annual APR Expo, today is our golf outing. After that I have to figure out how to get home without getting close to DC. Any ideas?
Maybe a chance to get on the boat tomorrow or Sunday?
Sorry about the obscene gesture but I learned from Farley Arnold; otherwise I really don't know what it means.
Oh and screw you First Bank