Pilgrimage

The boy is off on his annual pilgrimage to Stanford this weekend. Argumentative teenagers from all over the country converge there for a grand Debate tournament. He brought home a trophy last year.
Not only willV be there, but my neohew from Minnesota will be there also. What are the odds of having two members of the same family at the event?
Let's hope Stanford is up to the experience.
This also means that Mrs A and I will have the weekend to ourselves. Believe me, we are looking forward to having the house to ourselves. I just may disable the phones.
I hope I get the time to get out and get Frankenhealey runninig. My cousin K is coming in from Texas next week and it would be cool to at least start it up and take him around the block. If we go any farther, it will be in the Z.
We will be going over to Vashon Island to visit our Aunt and Uncle. He hasn't seen them in about ten years. I haven't been there in four or five.

Do I know how to have fun, or what?

I think Homeland Security must have decided I was smuggling aliens around in my ass or something.
My health care provider sent me off the the gastroenterologist.
They made me drink a gallon of gawdawful swampwater, so I spent the evening pooing my brains out. For those who have accused me of having sh** for brains, I can assure you that it is no longer true. Anything below my hair and above my knees that even remotely resembled poo was forcibly ejected out
If that wasn't enough they inflated my intestines with compressed air and shoved a camera up my ass. Fortunately during the exam they filled me full of drugs so I didn't care. "Hey, more air over here. I think I can play the Star Spangled Banner on the Butt Trumpet!"
This is the only medical procedure I have undergone where I was actively encouraged to fart.
At any rate, they found no aliens. One small polyp that they removed. A small patch of diverticulitis but nothing major.
Two days without a decent meal. The first thing I did afterwards was head for Denny's and a decent breakfast. Unfortunately they didn't have any.
I think I will decline to do it again.

Did I really say that?

My mouth gets me in too much trouble.
I was minding my business this morning, parking my truck. Because I have been there forever, I have a parking pass that allows me to park a couple hundred yards closer. There is this security guard we call the Parking Nazi. He is a real ass. Just about everyone I work with has a story about an encounter with him. We sometimes sit around and swap stories.
At any rate, Robocop was patroling the restricted area. He pulled in behind me. I got out and started off. He said "Hey, do you have a parking pass?" I answered in the affirmative. He demanded I get it and bring it to him. So I said, Hey, there's no need to act like a dickhead.
I showed him my parking pass, started off. He waited until I had gone about 30 feet, pulled up and told me he wasn't going to put up with me. He demanded I stop and came over and called his superior. Who came out and asked me what the problem was. I said "Him".
I explanied that I had broken no rules, and did not care to be treated like a criminal by anyone. He tried to cover, saying that I had to display my parking credentials. I turned and pointed at my truck "See the blue truck. See the parking pass on the dash. That's where it was. Can you see it?"
At any rate I am now on double secret probation. The guy is seriously on this power trip and needs to be brought down a couple of pegs.
Next time I see him I will have to tell him that we all sit around and tell stories about him and laugh at him. He is just the kind of pompous ass that it will eat at him thinking about us laughing at him.
Nah, I'm just not mean enough.

The Line

When you are in a relationship, you have to take advantage of the opportunities that are presented to you. You need to be aware of your partners needs and moods.
Mrs A is sitting next to me.
Do you still love me?
Of course my dear.
At this point you know at this point that she is looking for something more that a yes. Don't give in at this point.
How come?
I don't know, I just do?
This is not the answer she is looking for, she will have to take it to the next level.
If you don't know why, maybe you will quit loving me.
You have set it up, now to go in for the score.
I don't think about it. It is like breathing. I don't think about breathing, but like breathing, it is something I must have in order to live.
He shoots. He scores!

30 And Counting

That would not be me.......
That would not be my marriage.........
It would be how long I have worked at Boeing. Although my actual Anniversary is tomorrow, the Company took me to lunch yesterday. I generally could care less about this sort of thing usually, but the prize in the puddin' was that I got to take the rest of the day off after lunch. Not to mention that the two choices for lunch were steak and salmon. Our cafeteria at work is pretty bad. Admittedly better than the School Cafeteria or the soup kitchen, but definitely south of fast food. I think of it as fuel as opposed to food.
The luncheon was at the Bellevue Club, a hoity-toity members-only kinda place. Everything was very nice and the food was excellent. Shake and pictures with the BIG BOSS. The head of Engineering for BCAG and VP of BCAG, Mike Denton is a nice guy. There were about 20 of us celebrating our 30th, one her 35th. Each one had to get up and say howdie and give a short autobiography.
"I stood on the tarmac of Boeing Field in Seattle on December 28th 1967 and watched the very first 737 take off on it's delivery to Lufthansa airlines". Some of you with rudimentary math skills might catch the fact that 1967 from 2010 does not equal 30. I had a couple of breaks in service. The first was because Uncle Sam decided he needed me. Very much against my will I was dragged, kicking and screaming into the Army, where I ended up as the Liaison Officer for the locked Psychiatric facility on Okinawa. As I explained, it was excellent training for my career at Boeing.
The second came when we lost funding for a top secret research and development project I was working on. The laid me off two weeks before Christmas, with no warning and no notice. I swore I would never go back. But of course I did, and I really don't regret it. It has been fun and a challenge.
I guess I'll stick around for a few more years.

Why animals eat their young

Because if you don't terminate them when they are small, they will turn into teenagers.
First of all, V came in the other night and announced he needed money for the Debate Team trip to Stanford. He has known about it since before the Holidays. The information he gave me said that the money was due by Jan 8th. He handed it to me on the 12th.. The actual trip is the weekend of Feb 8th. $200 for the room. Airline reservations another $175. Food and spending money, an extra $100. Total, almost $500, and I had to hurry and make the flight reservation before it filled up.
Not to mention that the night before, I reminded him that garbage pickup was the next day, and he just blew it off. Mrs A, ended up having to take it to the curb as she was going to work.
I was pissed enough that I told him to go away because I didn't want to see him right then.
Big debate tournament this weekend Saturday V uses the bathroom, uses the toilet and messes up the seat, doesn't flush and leaves his dirty boxers in the floor.
He won two trophies at the debate tournament. Second place in Extemp and third in Congress.
He got home late (11:00) from debate and by the time he unwound it was close to midnight, but I wouldn't let him go to bed until he cleaned the bathroom. We had left it for him and just used the one downstairs.
I told him that it was bad enough he chose to live in a filthy room, but he had no right to bring his filth out where the rest of us to have to deal with. It was really EEEWWWWW.
So he spent the day cleaning today.
It was either that or death by swirly.

Quiet Weekend

Didn't do a whole lot on the weekend. Saturday, L came over and she and Mrs A went shopping. I donated $100 to the cause. I had brought home work to do, so I spent the time doing data collection and collating. Boring stuff.
The reason I brought work home was that I went out for lunch and didn't come back.
A bunch of us that used to work together try to get together every Christmas and catch up. This tradition is over 10 years old, and is always fun. Our annual holiday fell through in December, so we decided to get together last Friday.
We went to BJ's Brew Pub. I decided I didn't want to go have a couple of beers and then go back to work.
Right before lunch they come to me and say "You know the statistical analysis you did on the costs on the last airplane? We need you to do it on the one before that, so we can do out headcount predictions for the next one"
I told them it would not get done Friday, but that I would work on it at home over the weekend and have it for them by the end of shift on Monday.
Lots of tedious number crunching At any rate, while the women were out, I put on the blues station and crunched numbers.
Sunday, R and "i" came over. We had a huge box of pull-ups for her, and she had promised to reorganize our spice cabinet. I'm not saying I'm a bit of a packrat, but some of the spices went back to 1985. They were probably still good..........................
All in all a nice quiet weekend.