Erin has toothpicks saved away someplace and every day she brings me one and throws away the old one sitting on the table next to me. Not sure why this is happening, but it is. She just arrives, gives me a toothpick, walks around me and grabs the old one and throws it away. No talk, just does it.

Dennis Miller

I’ve been listening to Dennis Miller podcasts lately. I have to say that out of all the political commentators that populate the media cesspools, he is the one that makes the most sense. I just finished listening to his chat with Donald Rumsfeld. It was an enlightening and fun listen.

I found out that if I’m walking alone, I can do 1.25 miles in less time than it takes to listen to one 15 minute podcast. Not a bad pace I’m thinking. When I walk with others I walk at a more leisurely pace and it’s more of a social thing.

Yesterday, May 16.

I was mandated by the federal government to attend a class because I own an AST or an aboveground storage tank. One of the things I learned in this class was that aboveground is actually one word and even though it’s one word, it’s not incorrect to break it down to above ground. I’m pretty sure that the above information was not what the facilitator hoped I’d learn in his class, but then I’ve always been a poor student. Actually I did glean some things from the class. I’m having D & H Petroleum come out to do a site assessment after the holiday. Don (from D & H) and I had a nice little chat about the things that have changed since they did the install of our pumps and tank 10 years ago. It’s a bit disheartening to find out that the government can just mandate changes that cost me a shit load of money. Bastards. By the way, shit load can not be combined to shitload without showing as an error. Not germane to the topic, but yet I’m writing about it anyway. That’s what happens here folks.

Weather

Nice weather here lately. I’ve started walking early in the day again rather than waiting until later. It’s warm enough early to allow me to walk without a jacket early. The weather here has been abnormal this past fall, winter, and spring. I’m glad that spring has finally arrived.

Me

Today I feel really good. Nice walk at the national monument. Had a nice chat with a customer from Colorado named Adonis, who happens to be the regional director of the mountain states Rent-A Centers. I also got to ask a perennial pain in the ass to leave the property, again. I talked to Dennis this morning and we had a nice chat. Had a great email conversation with Donnie Kleyweg earlier this week. He’s doing well and he’s pretty happy in life, but he questions if all the hard work is worth it. I didn’t have a real answer for him, but I asked if there was an alternative. Nice kid.

Piece.

Had to run to Santa Fe to get a new flush handle for one of the downstairs toilets. Someone broke the original handle that came with the toilet when we replaced the toilet. We took Erin with us to Lowe’s for this little chore and did a picnic in a park with a Wendy’s meal. She had a nice time playing and Nina and I sat in the sun.

Dropped Erin off afterwards and continued on for a ride. La Liendra, a ghost town, was where we ended up. We couldn’t get to the cemetery because the gate was locked, but there are some cool headstones there that we’ve seen from previous trips.

We also did a bit of 4 wheeling since the river was dry and we drove down the riverbed for a bit. That was nice and there were some areas where we had to hit low range for rock crawling.

Nice driving day.

Well, the weather liars are predicting rain again and while they were right in the guesses earlier this month, can we trust them enough to get it right twice? We need the rain. I’ve had Henry watering our trees while he’s here to ensure that we don’t lose any of them during this third year of drought.

Things are leveling off here after Debra’s brother’s death. It’s a sad thing to lose a sibling and Debra seemed to have handled it well. I can only guess at her mother’s grief. No parent should have to bury a child.

Things here have been somewhat quiet so I haven’t been posting much about what’s happening. I graded the lot the other day and it looks nice again. I did it right after a rain since I didn’t have to eat 3 pounds of dust an hour while doing the work.

Business has been steady, but nothing to brag about. Customers still are driving Tori nuts, so nothing has changed in that arena. For some reason, she attracts the whack jobs that always feel they need to make a statement. That statement could be a complaint that is skewed to the limits of insanity, or a vocal and aggressive suggestion of how we need to run this business, or just some dumbass complaining about our gas prices. No one ever wants to talk to me about these issues. The latest was some lady that said we needed to post the phone number for the newspaper boxes on our property because we’re responsible for them. Stupid.

Oh well, that’s it for now. Have a great weekend everyone.

Got the above in an email this morning and I thought it was funny.  I hope you do too.  It falls into the other stuff portion of the title.

Erin and I went to Sam’s Club today because Nina was too busy to do it.  She had to get her hair done and go to a foot doctor or some such shit. I hate Sam’s Club. I’d rather pay more for the same crap and have it delivered by one or more of our regular vendors and then charge more for it in the store. I guess that’s just the whore in me coming to the surface again. Since I had to pick Tori up at the dealer too, I decided to bring her along to Sam’s to expedite the unpleasant task.  Nina drags her ass around the store for a couple of hours doing what Tori and I did in under 45 minutes. Shopping! Can’t stand it.

After the unpleasantness, we went to Burger King and picked up lunch and I forced Tori to watch Erin with me play at a playground. Terrible things I do to that child. Erin loves this park and while there were no other children there, she still had a great time today.

The dealership was loaded with foreign sales peoples, peoples that I’ve never met. They swept in like sharks to chum and both Tori and I got the pleasure of disappointing them. The dealership had a big sales push going on and the sharks were a professional sales crew that goes from dealership to dealership working these type of events and moving on. I managed to capture a lot of attention of these guys because I was towing my little trailer that matches my Jeep.

Cute, ehh? Anyway, they sharks thought it was a sweet setup. One of them asked if I’d sell it and I told him sure, for $4K. He passed.

The return trip from London left me with a horrid case of jet lag. Worst case ever. I’m almost over it and I’m sure I’ll be completely over it in another 3 or 4 days.

Later peoples.

Let’s use the liberal’s own ideas to defeat them!

Airplanes:

I really hate flying.  Really, really hate flying.  I’m pretty sure that 1st class would be better, but not much.  I hate being confined with no option to leave or walk or choose the people within my view.  Some very ugly people fly.

Nina is a champ flying with me. I extend 4 inches in both directions outside the parameters of my seat.  That’s in my shoulders, not belly.  I always book an aisle seat with Nina on the other side of me.

As much as I’m sure I encroach on Nina while flying, the flight attendants, beat the shit out of my aisle side body parts.  On the return trip from Heathrow, one FA was flying on her last flight before retiring.  She hit me with her fat ass more times than I can count.  The captain asked everyone to congratulate her when we deplaned, so I did.  I said congratulations, but you almost didn’t make it, if she had hit me with her butt once more on that flight I was gonna take her out!  She laughed and said it would never be a problem for me again.  Nice lady.

iPad mini mostly, but all in general:

While it’s a nice backup for someone like me that enjoys the internet, it will never replace a laptop for me.  I enjoy the keyboard and larger screen. I can’t type on that screen keyboard to save my life. I know I can get a wireless keyboard, but then I may as well use the laptop.  The iPad makes a great book reader and a nice game platform, and on this trip I abused both.  I even decided to add to my game collection on the mini.

People:

People here are more friendly than in London.  Until you get a comparison base line, you usually highlight the negatives about your daily encounters.  If you open the door for an elderly person in London, 30 other people will try to push their way in to gain an edge in the race to get where they’re going.  In this country, I never see that. I’m sure it happens, but it’s not often.

My feet:

While I abused my feet by walking the shit outta them in London, they are really in great condition compared to what they looked like prior to leaving. The humidity has to be the big factor in this.  Nina noticed that she didn’t need to moisturize after a while while there.

We averaged 5+ miles per day while there and we saw a lot of London in the process. I was beat at the end of each day, and I assume Nina was too.

Drink:

Beer

While it’s no secret that I prefer beer while traveling in Europe, this trip has placed it even more firmly in my mind. I drank more beer this trip than ever. I love trying house brews at various pubs, but am a little troubled by the number of corporate pubs that are showing up lately. They buy out an existing pub and bring in their beers and ales. Fullers was the one we visited mostly, but there were a few others.

Coffee

I have no clue why, but coffee in Europe is better than here.  It’s stronger, richer and has more flavor. No matter what we try here, it falls far short of what we’ve had there.

Food:

I LOVE pub food.  Fish and chips are my all time favorite pub food. We’ve had pretty good food all through London while there. Fullers, see corporate pub info above, has some pretty fine people working in their kitchens. We always tried to do pub grub for lunch and other type of places for dinner. Breakfast for us was whatever was convenient.

Pub customers are freaking fanatics about their football, soccer to us Yanks, and they get real vocal when games are on TV.  You can’t hold a normal conversation during a football game in a pub. It’s fascinating to watch as an outsider. I sat in a corner and just stared at these people for an hour.  I thought that there’d be a fight at one point, but it didn’t happen.

Tube:

One of the greatest places in the world to people watch! I love watching the crowds ebb and flow through the tunnels. Very focused herd mentality. Just move and avoid.

Trip in general:

With Nina hurting her foot, this trip was different than planned. Slower. No big deal, we adapt when problems happen. Nice trip, but we’ve had better trips there. Still saw plenty, but as usual not everything we wanted to.

Peace.