3 Degrees from 3rd World

This morning, my "Facebook Status" read...
"Timothy Is going to meet a really cool guy for breakfast at a place where the average age of the patrons tops the national debt."

Well, That's just the beginning of the story!
I visit my local "Al-a-Carte" cafeteria about once a month to once every couple of months, and ONLY when I am meeting a good friend who happens to like the food selection (and prices). Well this morning, there I was, My friend (which I did not know at this moment) was at home sick with a stomach bug.... I was sitting outside waiting and watching...

You see, I really do like just watching people. Not only does it give me lots to blog about, but gives me a deeper insight into the human condition, if you will.

So I decide I am getting hungry and figured something came up... so I head on in.
What do my wandering hungry eyes feast upon first in line........

PRUNES!!!!!!!!!

Not just Prunes, as in plums that forgot to wear their sunscreen and keep cool in the pool, but STEWED PRUNES!!!!!!!

Why oh why would ANYONE want to stew something that truly should have been thrown away 10 years ago when the expiration date hit???

Ok, so getting through the line.... asked the short order cook.... "Do you have any breakfast specials"?

Her answer.... in completion... "Yeah... a couple"!
.... that's it.... no more.... so like a confused non octogenarian I asked....
"and they are??"
Following this question I received an answer.... not too sure what the exact words were but I got the gist.... it was....
"You should know... but since you don't it's basically the same breakfast special that we have had since our grand opening in 1612!"

Strike 2!!!

Make my way through the line, got my receipt, made it to the table.... sat down and began to eat. By this time I was doing pretty good. Having had a stomach bug a couple of day's ago, this is the first real meal that I have had in a while and believe it or not was actually looking forward to it!

All of a sudden... it hit me!
The wall, the offensive wall, like falling off from a roof into a pile of manure.... took my breath away.... but not like that song from top gun, but the opposite way.... I about lost by food (for the second time this week).
It was..... Dun Dun Daaaaahhhhhh!!!!! (dramatic music)
B.O.!

Horrific, painful, and quite unnerving.... a smell that unfortunately I had smelled before....
All of a sudden here I am in a restaurant having flashbacks of being stuck on a very very small elevator in Kiev, Ukraine with a couple of "Locals" one of whom hadn't ever shaved.... and believe me... she should have.....
Hit by the smell of B.O. covered with some funky, musky french perfume that you get for free on your hotel bed (like we get candy).

Then I realized
The epiphany of all epiphanies....

Deodorant, good food, and manners....
without it...
we are 3 degree's from being a 3rd world civilization


how weird is that!

Now that's experience talking!!

Monday afternoon, there was a bit of drama around the ole vacation stead... My father in law desperately wanted to open a bottle of wine, but as catastrophes go, there was no corkscrew available in the condo... What to do, What to do???
We knew there was a possibility of a friend coming to visit, so I frantically sent an email telling them to bring a corkscrew.... but we continued to look. Later we found out that the friend wasn't coming till Tuesday night.... that's when things got interesting... and a bit desperate. We decided to leave the condo in search of the elusive corkscrew.

We began our search outside of the domicile, at the first store we could find, it was the something something something pier, bait shop and restaurant. I know it sounds like the kind of place you would be able to find anything you could ever dream of.... but not.

We (my father in law and I ) were looking through the shelves to no avail when we decided to ask for assistance. When we asked for a corkscrew we received (to my amazement) a response we weren't prepared for. One of the "Locals" (and this I know b/c he was sitting in the store, with his feet propped up on the counter, drinking a beer and watching that most holy of redneck sports... nascar) spouted off to our query.... "Just take a screw and screw it into the cork and yank it out with a hammer".

NOT exactly what we had in mind, ignoring his suggestion we pressed on. The owner (I presume) in his stained overalls and well worn ball-cap informed us they should have a whole bunch... he remembered seeing at least 3. I realized at this point that a corkscrew is probably not purchased often in this particular establishment if 3 is definitive as "a whole bunch" .... but a hammer and screw, maybe. As we continued looking another of these "Locals" pops off the same advice as the first.... screw, and yank it out with a hammer.....

At this point I start thinking.... what type of state would you need to be to require that type of ingenuity to open a wine bottle?? As we kept searching, the wisdom that was being presented before us once again, came to full conversational status when, what appeared to be the owner's wife, stated "All you need to do is take a screw and screw it into the cork and yank it out with a hammer....... I've done that before".
And THERE IT WAS.... wisdom had made itself clear! This was not just a half-brained crazy idea come up with by a race fan in a half-drunken stupor in need of a top-off..... this was experience talking..... I've done that before, she said. True Experience.... who am I to argue with that?

So we politely went to food lion and found a corkscrew for $4.99. But I guarantee I will NEVER forget the words of Wisdom formed from experience

I've done that before!

Going for the Gold!

Even the best runner knows that the winner always gets the Gold....
But, what happens when you already have the gold.... what then? Who are you going against then??

YOURSELF! The best competitors are not only trying to beat everyone else, but they are also trying to beat their own best scores....

The whole time you are reading this, waiting for me to get to the deep theological views in this particular blog, I have just beaten my own record!

Last Month 5 Blog posts....
This Month....
6

YEAH BABY!!!

The bikers guide to the secret handshake.

Every society, weather it be secret or not, has a certain expected ritual in which individuals identify themselves with that particular society. In the office world, it has a form of "Casual Fridays", In the Party School Fraternity, it looks more like a upside-down beer chugging contest. Whatever society you are a part of, there are rituals, regardless if you know it or not!

Bikers beware, what I am about to share has been passed down from generation to generation, unknowingly through time. It is a truth that will awaken the realization to others that bikers, although they work hard to communicate their solidarity, are actually one of "Them"... A part of the "In" crowd (please don't egg my house or throw rotten fish at my windows, you know that its true).

Just like the frat boys of old, or the Illuminati... The secrets in the handshake (or beer guzzle if you prefer).

It begins at about 100 meters out, the recognition of another biker heading your way. Any further than 100 meters makes it more difficult to distinguish if it is a "True" motorcycle, or a set of motorized wheels that an 8 year old would get for Christmas, or a last attempt mode of transportation for someone who can't keep a license if their liver depends on it (and in most cases it does).
At this point the handshake truly begins....

step 1. Recognition - I see them, do they see me?
step 2. Loyalty? - What kind of bike are they riding? Harley, Harley Wannabe, Crotch Rocket? and will they respond if I initiate?
step 3. Execute - The Most Vital of Steps!
step 4. The Return
step 5. The George Lucas!

Steps 1&2 are fairly self explanatory, yet critical to the "Brotherhood". It's not a pretty site when you let slip a brotherhood tradition, to someone who is driving a metal frame powered by a lawnmower!

Step 3 - The Most important, is the execution of the "Secret Handshake".
The execution begins from the neck. As you are riding (regardless of what type of bike you may be on) at the point of execution the bottom of your chin should be parallel to the gas tank on which you sit. The neck should be limber, but still firm in that you don't want a sudden gust of wind to ruin all that you are preparing for.

At this point, the chin should be lifted heavenward no more than 15-20 degrees at which point the chin should stop moving and begin its return to its resting place parallel to the tank. This movement should take precisely 1.5 seconds to complete from start to finish. Any faster, and you risk looking like you are having a spasm, any slower and the people driving next to you will begin looking for the piece of sky that is falling. This move should not exceed more than 15-20 degrees, any more than this and you risk whiplash, and a good sound laughing from your passing brother

This is the tricky part.... As soon as the chin has begun to move, the left arm should also move... out away from the body turning only at the shoulder, elbow locked in the same position as you were driving. The arm should move out so the left hand is facing the opposite street ready to greet the passing driver. Now not everyone sees the importance of the hand shape as I do. Let me explain.

Some bikers prefer to extend the first 2 fingers out as the "Peace" sign... This is perfectly acceptable, however discouraged by me because of its insinuation that you are a part of another crowd... the hippies.

Others see it as just sticking your hand out fully extended.... here's the problem with that;
1. it looks like you are trying to fly-- please, for the love of all that is holy... don't flap
2. If your arm is raised too high, you can be mistaken for a white supremacist, or one of the Luftwaffe.

My preferred method is sort of a mixed approach - first two fingers go lazily out the other fingers stay in roughly the same shape as while riding. This speaks volumes... it says, Hey man, what's happnin.... your cool, I'm cool --- but not too cool, ya dig??

Now at this point you have completed the execution!

Step 4. The return. If you have judged carefully, and the other driver has seen you then as soon as your arm has been extended you should see the return "Handshake" from the other driver.

If there is no return, don't worry... You may not have completely botched the execution.... It may be that the other driver has misjudged and assumed you wouldn't "Shake" because of bike breed type, or other factor. However it may still be your fault so try every time you see another biker (of course there could be other environmental factors, wind, water, sun, etc.)

Step 5. The George Lucas, Affectionately called this, by me, based on his use of sunsets as a metaphor for change... At this stage of the "handshake" there is nothing left to do but to ride off into the sunset, hoping for another opportunity to prove your mettel in the brotherhood that is the biker!

WOO HOO, I Have TB!

Now, before I get swarmed by the CDC... busting down my door with little white suits, putting my little dogs in little surgical masks and little plastic booties (what an image)...

Let me explain

I Have Terabyte!!!!
Ok, so it doesn't sound as exciting as I think it should, but I thought everyone who doesn't really care should know. Last weekend I created my first +terabyte storage server.

The purpose??? Does it matter??? Point is, growing up, learning computers in my teens I had always heard about this "Magical term". Now mind you, this was when a Gigabyte was still theorhetical, and "Google" was a 1 followed by 100 "0's"(googol).
Now my intention with having this "machine" was for the main purpose of file backups and storage for My wife and I as well as for some clients and projects... I got tired of lugging around 20 protable storage drives, having 30 coppies of each backup just to make sure everything was safe, only to drop a hard drive and wipe out the last 6 months of backups in one fell swoop.
Hopefully I have fixed all of those problems, and solved a few I wasn't originally intending on solving.

Here's where normal people can stop reading (i'm gonna get a bit techie)

What I did...

4 - 500GB Hard drives (480+- actual ... you know binary)
1 - Roswell SATA Raid Card (supports raid 5 - mui importante)... and Yes I bought a second as a backup
1 - HP MediaCenter PC

Pretty simple really, and somewhat painless... hardest part is going to be transferring all of my files from my other drives... not looking forward to that.

Total Storage space 1.3+ TB WOO HOO!!!!!
(for those of you that know math but not Raid)
Raid 5 is the key for me.... Parity, uses the equivilant space of 1 HD to create recovery info so in the event of a drive failure, the data can be re-written, and not lost

So that's my story,
I feel like I have reached a milestone known as the future....
Up next ...
Phasers!