Category: Trials and Tribulations

Whatcha think, Joe was perfect?

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Nothing but the best for yours truly!

Occasionally, occasionally,  when I cannot get on one of the courses where I regularly play and my golf addiction is screaming at me, I will go to a course that, in Oklahoma,  we would fondly call cow pasture golf. I am not going to name the course as I am slightly embarrassed to say I even play there

It is very cheap. During the week the green fee with a cart is only $25 for 18 holes.  Most courses anymore are around $40 – plus or minus – during the week for seniors.  Some are much, much more expensive.

The clientele is mostly the very old, the very young, and lots of hoosiers, the term used here for rednecks. At times you will see expensive cars there, but that is generally the very young driving Daddy’s Beemer or similiar luxury vehicle.

I was there a month or two ago, and they had this sign in the club house by the door.  Yup, stay out of the corn and soy bean fields.

Nothing but the best for yours truly.

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My Mossy Address Book – Revisited

“A rolling stone gathers no moss”

If you were to sum up my life in one phrase the above aphorism might just be it.  I spent the first 18 years of my life more or less as a military brat.  I literally had 13 changes of schools before I graduated high school.  This includes one school that I was in for a single day.  I have described the last 30 years of my working life as that of a computer gypsy, moving around to take different jobs in Information Technology.  I did have a stable period in between (at least as far as physical location) when I lived in Arkansas and we were getting kids through school.

In such a life people come and go.  It is just a fact of life that you get used to.  I do not know how many times I have said to someone, “have a good life”, knowing I would never be seeing them again. I have on occasions tried to maintain relationships over time and distance, but this must be two sided and has very seldom worked out.

I have now reached the age where many of my relatives, friends and acquaintances are passing away.  This is sincerely a sadness just in itself. If a person truly touches you, they take up residence in some part of your psyche.  I have sometimes described this as feeling like I have ghosts running around my soul.    At times it has felt a little crowded in there.

And now add an additional sadness  due  to this technical  age.  After the fact of someone’s death, sometimes much later, I will come across their information in one of my address books or contact lists.  I have such a hard time deleting the information, it feels like deleting the memory of that person.  Sometimes the address/contact card will remain in there for years.  I just cannot delete it.

On the positive side, it does make you stop for a minute and remember the person when you stumble across it.

Sigh.  We march on.

I originally published this 5 years .  The “empty slots” in my address book just keep growing.

Keep well.

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I Scared Myself

Something in my mouth was bothering me.  I could not figure out if I had something in my teeth or had developed some sort of lesion on my gums or…

I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror making various faces, attempting to get a view of the issue.  All of sudden I realized that Pennywise was staring at me out of the mirror in the guise of my father.  Well, at least the way I was contorting my face so reminded me of my male parental unit.  One time when I was taking his picture and he, perhaps, preferring that I did not, was making faces at the camera lens.  That is what I saw in the mirror.

I probably interpreted it as Pennywise as I finally got around to reading some Stephen King.  First I read his initial novel, Carrie, and then It.  Of course, It features a monster that frequently appears as a clown and in mirrors.

And just to do him justice, here is a better photograph of my father.

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Talk to the Lady…Please

Señora had a small fender bender in a parking lot in her Subaru Outback.  She is fine, minor damage to the vehicle. Thanks for asking.

This morning we dropped her automobile off to the body shop.  Since it is Señora‘s car and  she had been dealing with the insurance company and body shop I was trying to stay out of her way.  I ended up in a conversation with a gentleman awaiting his turn.  It turned out he was another IT guy who had been through a few corporate merger/divestiture nightmares like myself, so we had a commonality to talk about.

We finished up there, and I drove Señora across the street to the Enterprise Auto Rental office.  Again I was trying to stay out of Señora‘s way, but this time there was no IT guy to visit with. Having no where else to be, I was standing next to Señora while they were Continue reading “Talk to the Lady…Please”

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I Am Officially Old – Part II

I went golfing last Friday evening fairly late in the day. When I was done with my round I drove the golf cart up to my 18 year old mid-life crisis vehicle, Li’ Blu, to unload my clubs and other golfing paraphernalia. When I was I done I hopped in the cart and drove around the club house to the collection area for golf carts.

As I approached the drop off zone, another cart was approaching, being driven by a young man of around 6 years of age – hard to tell these days as they all look so young.  He was short enough that he was standing with his backside supported by the cart seat.  It was the only way he could reach the pedals.

Always the wisenheimer, I asked for his driving license and proof of insurance.  The kid said something which I do not remember, but his father, who was trailing the cart, said he was older than he looked.

It was at that point that the licenseless  muchacho remarked, “I am 39 years old.”

Why 39? A bit of an odd number, but maybe someone he knew recently had this birthday.

Still the wisenheimer, I responded, “Well if you are 39, I must be 150.”

He then jumped out of the cart and ran back to his mother waiting by their car saying, “That man is 150 years old.”

Obviously my well honed sense of irony (sarcasm?) was lost on this innocent.

It was at this point that the mother waved at me with a big grin on her face, laughing.

Obviously, I am officially old.

I wonder what I will look like when I reach 200.

Just as an aside, up until 4 or so years ago, I always walked the course carrying my bag.  My back will not let me do that anymore.  I even tried push carts and pull carts, but they hurt my back in a different way.  Oh well, a fun gig this getting old is.

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My Turn Signal Conundrum       

I am a big fan of myself and others using turn indicators, turn signals if you will.  At the minimum it is just common courtesy.  It is also, many times, a manner of safety. Using and acknowledging turn signals keeps traffic flowing in a safe and sane manner.

However, I am utterly convinced that this device, usually a lever that controls the signalling lights, is missing or broken in many vehicles.  I even wonder sometimes if they are still installing them in new vehicles.  Perhaps no one has bothered to educate the drivers of these vehicles on how they function. I remember the salesman taking 20 minutes to explain how the touch screen worked on the last new car we bought. For my money they could be throwing in the turn indicator functionality as a public service.

To give you an idea of how old I am, I actually Continue reading “My Turn Signal Conundrum       “

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YouTube Curation

YouTube uses an algorithm to feed the user videos that they might like.  Of course the goal is to keep you on YouTube as long as possible to feed you the most advertisements possible.  I started to call this algorithm, curation, but the definition of curated is: “carefully chosen and thoughtfully organized or presented.“  While this may be what YouTube is doing on one level, it is more than a little nefarious on another.

As long time readers will know (ad nauseam) that I am studying Spanish.  As part of this journey I subscribe to various YouTube channels for learning Spanish and others in Spanish for their entertainment value.  So now the YouTube curation algorithm feeds me videos in English and Spanish.

A while back, for reasons unclear to me – perhaps it figured out that I am old and male, it fed me a video from an urologist.  The video captured my attention as the presenter was a very attractive young female who turned out to be a M.D. in the field.  Being a man of a certain age, urological topics have a bit of an interest for me.  Then you add in the mujer linda, and I just had to click. Bad move on my part. Now YouTube is feeding me tons of videos dealing with urological topics.  However, what really floored me was that it was also feeding me urological videos from urologists in Spanish speaking countries… in Spanish.

Everyone is concerned with Big Brother being the government, for my money, Big Brother is  here and he is the personification of these huge technology companies coming after your wallet and your mind.

And yes I know it is possible to erase your YouTube history and start fresh.  Or for that matter simply turn off their algorithm. But then how would I find videos of a pretty young urologist preaching to me about urological measures I should be following?

And so it goes in La Casa de Viejos.

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The Tale of the Five Binders or A Monkey with a Typewriter

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Click to see bigger

I save my blog articles off onto my hard drive, and remembering the three most important tasks in the information technology world, backup, backup, backup, my hard drive is also backed up.  One would think I have important sh… stuff on my computer to worry about.

For some wild reason, I decided the chore I needed to undertake was to PRINT off every single one of my blog articles. Since I have a laser printer these printed pages might take more than a season or two to fade away.  This was a project that took some time, went through four reams of three-hole paper, and a couple laser cartridges. The articles filled up Continue reading “The Tale of the Five Binders or A Monkey with a Typewriter”

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Size 12, Myself

Tis a subject of which I have touched on in the past, the fact that our feet tend to enlarge as we age.  For most of my adult life I wore a size 10 or 10 1/2 shoe. I am not remembering exactly when, but at some point that changed to 10 1/2 or 11 size shoes, with the occasional cowboy boot checking in at 11 1/2.

One would think that the same style within a brand would have a consistent size over time.  I started wearing New Balance’s 990s running shoes a while back because they are mostly “Made in America”. I have several pairs, that are different colors, that are dedicated to different uses.  I have one pair that I wear only in the gym, another pair that are my daily walkers, and so forth.  New Balance updates Continue reading “Size 12, Myself”

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The Apocalypse…Very Soon

I follow my investments with  a portfolio on Google Finance.  For the first time since I don’t remember, every single investment was green, meaning the price has increased.

The Apocalypse is coming and very, very soon… there is absolutely no doubt about it in my mind.  Now is the moment to duck and cover under your desks while you still have time.

Or maybe I just have The Apocalypse on my mind after reading this article: Medvedev begins to frighten world with apocalypse. It almost seems like Putin would rather destroy the world than admit defeat in Ukraine.

And so it goes.