Category: Daily Life

Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.

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Off the wagon – Gimme the juice!

My first cup of coffee was at age 10 or 11 in Café Du Monde (wikipedia entry) eating beignets.

The cafe is open (has been since Oct 19, 2005) and trying to contact its employees. If you took in some Katrina victoms that are related to or know of people who worked for Cafe Du Monde, please let them know.

We are still trying to make contact with many members of the Cafe Du Monde team. If you are an employee of Cafe Du Monde please E-Mail us to let us know that you are O.K. and fill us in on your future plans. [Source]

That cup of coffee was horrible. I switched to hot chocolate and stayed away from coffee for nearly a decade.

In college I was very involved in dorm life. I became the treasurer of the Clement Hall Resident Association. I ran movie night introducing double features with animated cartoons during intermission. I would start of with a series of cartoons then we would show a popular movie, do a cartoon intermission, and finish the evening with an esoteric cult flick (wish I had written the names down). I also had a bootleg of the Rocky Horror Picture Show (before it was released to video) and we would periodically watch the show on Friday’s at midnight complete with a virgin call but not with the full regalia. Eventually I took a job as a desk worker with shifts of midnight to 4am and 4am to 8am. Later I would become a Resident Assistant for the 8th floor.

As a desk worker, sleep would call. Change would tinkle into the vending machine and coca-cola would keep me awake. Soon it felt like all the money I was making was going into that machine. One night the coffee pot caught my eye. It was ever present and best of all free. I tried it. Didn’t really like it but it worked! And better than the Coke. I was renewed! And hooked.

At my peak, I was drinking 2 pots of coffee a day. I would brew one in the morning and another about 8 in the evening. I thought all that shaking was due to unstable ground (Knoxville is on a fault line discovered in 1993). When I started having serious dizzy spells, I cut way back on the coffee. 4 or 5 weeks ago I stopped drinking coffee altogether. Since then I have had 3 cups. I also had a very minimal number of soft drinks. In recent years, I have had very little alcohol to drink.

A full pot of coffee sits on the counter now. Thanks Target! Stopped in Target last night to get dinner supplies and they had my coffee marked way down. I grew weak. I bought it. Today I shall be perky!

See also RHPS fan club.

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Knee Replacement Surgery – No Big Deal

So this morning I pull in to pickup my mother-in-law to take her to physical therapy. See, a few weeks ago she had a mad scientist take a Dewalt 5 inch saw and cut her knees off. To his manic cackling he scraped out the stuff that holds the bottom part of the leg to the top part. To lightning, the humpbacked nurse helps insert the plastic and titanium, guaranteed-fun-at-the-airport new knees! He laughts and raises his hands skyward shouting, "she lives! She lives!" She stands up! And immediately falls on her face.

Getting back to this morning. As I approach her house I see hop-a-long with brace on the deadleg left knee toward the end of the driveway with walker in both hands and making the final adjustment on the second trash can that she just pulled down the driveway–somehow. I only wish I had shown up a few minutes earlier to watch. Fortunately, she had only pulled the recycle container out the back door and not worked it down to the street. Apparently, my inlaws recycle lead, ore, rock, and concrete disguised as aluminum cans and newspaper. After lugging it to the street I begged to take her place in physical therapy or at least sneak me one pain pill. I also noted that had she taken the recycle bin herself that she wouldn’t need the PT today because she’d be in the hospital!

Yes, I said "inlaws." Note the s. It makes the word plural. She has an ambulatory husband who, like my son, was asked to do the garbage the night before and, like my son, 7:30 came and he went. Also like my son, he doesn’t clean up animal poop. These two should live together for a year with cats and dogs! But that really wouldn’t be fair to the cats and dogs.

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My morning thus far

3:30 – beg myself to get up
5am – actually rise, bathe and dress
6am – wake the doughnuts
6-7am – some blogging, mostly help Noah cook muffins
7:30-8 – drive Sarah to school
8-8:30 – pickup mother-in-law
8:30 – pickup Amy
9 – Drop Amy at pre-school
9:20 – Drop mother-in-law at sadist’s (PT)
9:20-10am – Starbucks theraphy then home

Later:
10:50-11:30 – pickup mother-in-law, take her to bank then home
1:30 – pickup Amy
4:15 – Noah to karate
4:45 – Pickup Sarah from school
5:00 – Pickup Noah from karate
5:30-6 – drive to Lenior City
6 – Drop Tommy in Lenior City
8:30 – Pick Tommy up from Lenior City
9-10pm – Lost!

To squeeze in: work, programming, marketing, resume writing, returning calls/emails, budgetting, banking, and food

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They are more important

I am so stressed over my work that my head feels like it is going to crack. Noah wants to make blueberry muffins. I can’t argue with that. I love blueberry muffins. However, poor Noah needs guidance. Lots of guidance. He gets priority.

If you haven’t had a 10 year old boy yet, their brains don’t work.

The cooking lessons are fun. I enjoy watching him go through discovery. This morning I have had questions like:

"What’s a muffin pan?"
"Where’s our can opener? How do I use it?"
After getting the mixing bowl, "Where can I get a bowl to put in the ingredients?"

I had no doubt that one or two of the eggs would splat on the floor. One did. Learning to crack and egg is scary. I feel bad for him. He will have to go to school before these are done. This child moves in slow motion!

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Bionic Mother-in-Law moved

Cathy and I helped move her mother from rehab to home. One mocha later she was very happy to be back in the real world but wishes the laundry lady would have come with her. New knees, less pain. We returned home heavy one skeleton and one dracula both of which remain buckled into our backseat.

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Lower the bar!

I have to quit taking on the impossible projects.

What am I doing now? My current contract is to allow a user to enter a single product id or a list of product ids then go out to a government website and download the 17 or so pages of pdfs for each product. Then I combine the multiple pages of pdf documents into a single pdf document and present it to the user for download to their local machine. I may end up inserting footer information into each page of the pdf. I have to do this for 4 different countries. Then I have to convert the code from php 4.4.4 to php 4.0.0.

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Driving Topless!

I love the Internet! The Jeep has been sitting in the driveway with a bad water pump. Relatively speaking, a water pump is a pretty straightforward repair. Unfortunately, my Haynes manual was a little vague on the details of the repair. Fortunately, a simple search gives wonderful details that I would have missed. (like 3 additional bolts that needed loosening) Good thing I couldn’t find that crow bar!

The Jeep went back together with relative ease and no apparent leaks. Next task is a radiator flush but I’ll leave that to the shop. Before it gets too much colder I need to reattach the metal bar to the top of the windshield that holds the roof. Then go to ebay and buy a top.

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Night Hike at Alum Cave Bluffs

Years ago one January I drove to the Smokies with a female companion and we embarked upon a night hike of the Alum Cave Bluffs trail. Our only source of light was the moon and two cheapo AA battery $1 flashlights the first of which died on the hike up just as we emerged from the tree line.

• Alum Cave Bluffs Trail (11 miles round trip) starts off easy but become difficult. An initial one-and-a-half-mile trail takes you through Arch Rock’s erosion-created tunnel. the next 0.8 mile is steeper and leads to Alum Cave Bluffs which is a 100-foot high cliff. This last half of the trail is steep and, at times, hikers must grip trailside cables to traverse cliffs. The trail begins at the Alum Cave Bluffs parking area at Newfound Gap Road between Newfound Gap and Chimney Tops on the Tennessee side of the Smoky Mountains. Elevation gain is 2,800 feet. [Source

We conserved the batteries on the other light and chose to walk the rest of the way up by moonlight. It wasn’t long before we came to a thick, solid sheet of ice covering the trail. To our left, a steep ravine. To our right, a towering ice and snow covered cliff face.

I was pushing the boundary of my comfort zone. This was dangerous, we were ill equiped for such endeavors, and no one knew we were on the trail. I would have been more comfortable alone.

I am a strong believer that we grow by pushing our boudaries. We find the edge of our comfort zone and step just beyond it. That night we made it carefully up the slippery slope and, on the way down, we rode the trail like a surfer rides a wave. It was blast! Right after the ice the second flash light died and we had to hike the rest of the way in the forest blackness.

There is a fine line between pushing the envelop and stupidity. We can step outside of our comfort zones and still be safe. Personal growth comes through experimentation. By definition, nothing happens in stasis. Walk a different path to class. Drive a backroad to work. Wake up earlier than normal. Look at the tree outside your office building and study it. Create change in your life. Seek entropy. And try something that makes you uncomfortable. Live!

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and I can’t getup

Last night I fell and slid down a hill. I couldn’t stop. It was a terribly helpless feeling. The effort I made trying to stop pulled several muscles in my right side and shoulder. It felt like I had dislocated my shoulder. This morning I still feel it.

Until last night, I always thought getting hurt by falling was due to stress and trauma. Very strange experience.