Category: Trials and Tribulations

Whatcha think, Joe was perfect?

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The Year I Almost Went to The Masters

When I moved back to Oklahoma from Rhode Island I went to work for Coburn Optical.  Their main line of business is the manufacturing of the machines that other companies use to modify lenses to mount in eye glasses.  They also have a division that takes orders to modify and mount lenses.  I was young, still working on my education, and my work experience had been in restaurants, factories and warehouses.  I was a warehouseman there.  I worked there from 1973 to 1976, leaving to move to Oklahoma City to pursue my educational goals.

My father had left his position with Kaman Aerospace and moved back to Muskogee, OK where my mother had been living for a while.  Looking around for a job he found one with Coburn and started there shortly after I left.  He moved up rapidly and after a while was managing the division that prepared lenses for other companies.  Part of his responsibilities involved making Continue reading “The Year I Almost Went to The Masters”

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Just call me Dr. Frankenstein

Señora and I went for a short stay a Pere Marquette Lodge to celebrate the February triplet of her birthday, Valentine’s Day and the anniversary of when we met, all happening within five days of each other.

Dr. Frankenstein’s Most Current Operation

For reasons inexplicable, early in this couple’s fiesta I related to Señora a behavior my ex developed late in Continue reading “Just call me Dr. Frankenstein”

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A Southern, Jewish Tradition – Revisited

I originally published the article below  in 2014, and since it is about to be the first of the year, I thought that it would be a good time to revisit it.  One thing that has changed is that instead of Señora doing the cooking on New Year’s Day, it is yours truly.  And just for the record my collard greens are to die for… if I say so myself.

I performed this tradition when I was single, but then it consisted of the opening up a can of black-eye peas and a package of frozen turnip greens and Continue reading “A Southern, Jewish Tradition – Revisited”

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My Retirement in Crypto-Currency?

“In fact, even today coins and banknotes are a rare form of money. The sum total of money in the world is about $60 trillion, yet the sum total of coins and banknotes is less than $6 trillion. More than 90 per cent of all money – more than $50 trillion appearing in our accounts – exists only on computer servers. Accordingly, most business transactions are executed by moving electronic data from one computer file to another, without any exchange of physical cash.”

The above quote is from the book Sapiens – A Brief History of Mankind by Yuval Noah Harai.

I started wondering if for some reason electricity generation became an issue then all those 1s and 0s, those bits and bytes in a myriad of computers around the globe would be naught.  There goes 35 or 40 years of hard work, saving , investing and retirement dreams. Of course if electric generation went away there would be logarithmically worse problems on the third rock from the sun.

60 trillion dollars worth of money in the world and 50 trillion of that is in digital form… talk about your cyrpto-currency.  Have you ever noticed the first 3 letters of this new fad in “money” is C-R-Y said the Curmudgeon channeling his inner Seinfeld.

And so it does not go… I hope.

And here is a country worried about electricity: Winter is coming: The ‘best country in the world’ is planning to ban electric cars amid the energy crisis. Is it time to revisit oil stocks? Here are 3 big plays

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I Taught Señora a New Cuss Word

I taught Señora a new four-letter word.  Well I might have had she been home.  All couples have their origin stories; our tale involves a lot of off-color words.

What got me scandalizing the neighbors Saturday was that one of the rear drive wheels of my new Toro lawnmower came off.  This mower is so new that just yesterday my check to pay off the credit card I charged it on cleared. I had ordered it online from Home Depot as they did not have it in stock at the Chesterfield store.  When I unboxed the mower I was glad to see Continue reading “I Taught Señora a New Cuss Word”

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Where’s the Pause Button?

There is a common cliché about your life passing before your eyes just before you die.  If such be true then perhaps my body/mind knows something I don’t know.  The last few months my life in review has been on a never-ending loop.  I ache to stop it, but expressing with the new word Señora taught me eons ago, I keep perseverating on the past.  If I could escape out of my mind I would.  Maybe I have already and I do not know it.

This perseveration likely has more to do with the fact that I just turned 70. I reckon I should be celebrating that I have reached this milestone Continue reading “Where’s the Pause Button?”

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Picture from 6th Grade…

A couple of days ago was Valentine’s Day which got me thinking about one etched in my mind from when I was in 6th grade.   Digging around I found a picture taken that day during our class party celebrating the event.  I had given a card to every kid in the class – seemed like the nicest thing to do.  I did not have to use even one finger to count the number of Valentine Day cards I received.  Twas not a good day, and one that was burned in my memory.   Perhaps this was the impetus starting me down my curmudgeonly path.

And so it went.

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Gift Idea for Yours Truly

I see the above sign often around the St. Louis area.  Sometimes instead of Student is reads Permit. It just a small cautionary signal to other drivers about an inexperienced driver who may need a little slack.  Sometimes I have wanted one with the not so original saying: “Please Be Patient, I’m from out of town”

So I started wondering if that they made such signs/bumper stickers for “Senior Drivers” as it might be a good gift idea for someone I am intimately acquainted with.  No drum roll please, they do.
Do I need to put one  on all three vehicles, I drive all of them differently?  I pick and chose my places, but I drive my Miata, well, like a sports cars.  I drive my Tacoma fairly staidly, and Señora’s Outback even more so.  I about have the leaving the blinker on for miles and miles down pat.  I am not so prone to push right on red like I used to.  I’ve  recently quit looking at speed limits simply as suggestions.  Wonder if I could get an insurance discount if I had one of these on each of our vehicles.  Or maybe I should just be content that I am still driving at my advanced age…

Of course, I might need another sign that reads “I brake for rest stops.”

And so it goes.

 

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Yiddish for a Good Marriage

Senora when she gets upset or annoyed with me – yes, I know, hard to imagine – has a tendency to call me something in Yiddish.  Not knowing exactly what she is saying, although I am picking up on her tone of voice and expression, I just smile at her.

All o f which started me hypothesizing  that perhaps the secret to a good marriage is not understanding what your partner is saying… at least at times.  So far I have resisted the urge to test my hypotheses by going tit for tat with her using my Spanish against her Yiddish.

But I am wondering how you  do say, “Sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but words never will” in Yiddish.

And so it goes.

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It is a wonder…

It is a wonder that I have kept any job.

In 2001 I took a programming job with Saks at their Information Technology center in Jackson, Mississippi.  It is a long story how it came to be there, I will not bore you. At that time Saks was the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue, and three other department store chains.

The week I started the departmental secretary sent me an email requesting that I write a short blurb about myself.  She was going to put my “bio” and the photograph from my ID badge on the departmental bulletin board to introduce me to everyone.  I did so, she did so, but she failed to read  my expository remarks, simply cutting and pasting my profundities into her document.

Click to see bigger

A few days later she came to me all excited asking about what I had written, insistent that I “correct” it.  Unfortunately not every one gets my sublime sense of humor.  It might also be the reason that a year or so later when I asked her out, she was very adamant about having to wash her hair seven nights a week.

Just in case you cannot read the verbiage in the image here is what I wrote:

“David joined SAKS in February of this year. He came from American Electric Power in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is working as a Senior Programmer with Greg Kinsley’s IT Logistics Team. David has two kids and a granddaughter. They reside just outside Ft. Smith, AR. David resides in the Reservoir area.  His interests include golf, photography, fishing and backpacking. He volunteers part-time with the Frankenstein Laboratory of Experimental Humanity.”

And so it goes.