Not Necessarily Interesting News

Yesterday I received a new toy in the mail. A nice powerful green laser. It looks like any ordinary red pen laser but has a green dot instead of red. It is a bit more powerful than your $5 red laser. It also is visible in air at night as you can see in the photo of me lighting up the neighbor’s house. It can be modded to be even more powerful but I’m happy with it as-is and see no reason to do that and risk breaking it. I can light up a street sign from 1/2 mile away and dazzle myself with the reflection.

You definitely do not want to look into this laser with your remaining eye.

: Look At Little Sister from the album “Soul To Soul” by Stevie Ray Vaughan

As you can see by the picture to the left, we took the Defender out mudding this evening. I’ve got a semi-secret spot we go to that has some really nice deep dark mud that is perfect for making a mess. We probably spent an hour out there getting dirty. The Defender 90 was looking way too clean after last week’s car show where I got it all gussied up. My son took some really good photos that I’ve put in the defender album. My son learned to keep his arms and head inside the car when mudding as the huge lugs on those giant BFG Mud Terrains really throw the mud all over the side of and into the truck. We both got a bit of mud on us. Him more than me. 🙂

Once we got done having our fun we went by the new HEB that’s just opened up near our house on the corner of Anderson Mill Rd and 620. The place is huge. According to what I’ve heard it’s the biggest store in the entire HEB chain. As we walked in the first thing we saw that they were selling was an upright video game cabinet that played like 30 classics from the 80’s. Interesting. We stopped to play a few rounds and decided the $2500 price tag was a bit much. As we were playing I noticed an older man walk by that was wearing an HEB name tag, ‘Charles’ is what it said. What was so interesting about him was the 10 or so other people wearing HEB name tags following him around like puppies. They all looked like executive type. Nice logo’ed shirts or suits. I figured he was a high-up exec visiting the new store.
A bit later as I was navigating the store I guess I looked a bit confused as one of the execs asked if I was looking for something. I told him I was trying to find the juice aisle. He motioned to an manager type to help me out and the manager type led me to the juices. They had two sections for juices. Their ‘All-natural’ section and the regular section. I asked the guy who the big-wig was and he said it was Charles Butts, the owner of HEB. I said cool. I said it was nice the way he was stopping to talk to every employee he passed. I then grabbed the juice and headed for check out.
Once we were done checking out Charles was making the rounds of the baggers. There were two baggers for each aisle. Kinda showed they were showing off for the Boss. I don’t expect that to last. Anyways, he was shaking the hand of a bagger on our aisle so I kicked back and waited for him to finish so we could leave. Once he was done with her he turned to me and said ‘Hello, how are you doing?’ I said not bad and ‘you have a nice store here Mr. Butts’. He smiled and asked if I’d found everything I was looking for. I said ‘Not exactly. I was looking for Cran-Strawberry juice but couldn’t find it’. (I love Cran-Strawberry and could easily drink a 1/2 gallon a day. HEB used to carry it but stopped about a year ago. I’ve been lost ever since.) He looked a bit puzzled and I noticed looks of horror on a couple of the execs faces. He turned to one of the managers and asked if they carried it. He said it should be in the juice aisle. I told him I looked in both places and they didn’t have it. Another manager agreed, they didn’t have Cran-Strawberry. Mr. Butts looked at another manager and said ‘Get this man’s name and address when you get it in give him a call.’ I said thanks to Mr. Butts as threee different execs came up to me with their notebooks and took my info. It was kinda cool. He basically gave the store management the order to start carrying my favorite juice on the word of one customer.
The embarassing part was I didn’t know it until I got home but I had mud on my face. Literally. I had mud on my arm and a bit on my shirt, I knew that. I didn’t know I’d managed to get my face while mudding in the truck. I think it’s damn cool that the CEO of a company as large as HEB would still take time to talk to a customer that’s covered in mud and actually listen to his suggestions.
I’ve shopped at HEB over all other stores here in Texas since moving here. Mostly because it is convenient but also becuase I just prefer the store. After my brief talk with Charles Butts, they’ve got a customer for life, especially if they start carrying Cran-Strawberry juice.

: Like a river from the album “Wayward Angel” by Kasey Chambers

We took the Defender out to the Texas All British Car Day at Old Settlers Park in Round Rock today. I’ve never seen so many British cars in one place. Lots of MGs, Triumphs, Mini, Jags, Austin-Healey’s and more. I entered the Defender in the Land Rover class. I brought out a couple small ramps and twisted the suspension a little and also brought the RC truck that is painted the same to sit in front of it. I got lots of questions about the D-90 as it stuck out like a sore thumb among all the tiny Minis and MG. Most of which’s rooflines weren’t even as high as my door tops. There wasn’t too many Rovers there and I was the only Defender. I spent probably close to 10 hours cleaning and prepping my truck for the show. It was sparkling. Didn’t even look like the mud covered mess it usually is. I even got comments from the Land Rover dealer that showed up. I spent most of the day answering questions about my truck and many people expressed wishes that they could find one. Others were surprised at it. People in the US have a mental image of Land Rovers as these plush luxury vehicles. When they are told that in the rest of the world Landies are work trucks and that a Defender reflects that heritage they are genuinely surprised.

It was a participant judged event. Everyone that entered a car got a set of ballots, one ballot for each class. At the awards ceremony at the end I took first place in the Land Rover class and received a plaque. I wasn’t looking for a win or anything, I just wanted to go hang out with people that loved British cars. The win was just a bonus.

Does this mean I have to stop driving it and make it a trailer queen like a lot of the cars out there? 🙂

I didn’t have a lot of free time to take pics but I did take a few. Check out the Best in Show winner, a very rare Jaguar D-Type.

I was siting in my computer room this evening playing with my new copy of The Sims 2 when I heard something strange in the house. My son was supposed to be asleep and my wife was at work so all should be quiet. It sounded like a weird popping or wood creaking. I couldn’t figure it out because it came and went. After about 5 minutes I got up to investigate. I found our Black Lab, Jack, in the living room eating something and it was crunchy. I, of course, assumed it was a pecan. We have a 1/2 dozen pecan trees and he eats them all the time. When I walked in he got up and walked away from me and left something on the carpet. Looked just like a pecan to me but a lot bigger than our normal ones. The dog laid down and resumed his crunching. Now I was baffled as I could see he left the pecan shell behind. I went to investigate what he was eating and he got up and left it behind. It was a very small partially eaten jaw bone. Huh? I looked again at the ‘pecan shell’ and realized it was a squirrel skull. My dog was eating squirrel brains. Yummy. Zombie food on the half shell. I cleaned up the mess and as I was finishing I found an old air-rifle slug on the floor. It appears I shot this squirrel months ago and it got away. (Rare for me. I usually drop them with a well placed shot to the head. He got lucky.) The squirrel lived with a slug in its head for months only to be caught by my killer, brain-eating, zombie dog.

Damn, as I wrote this the dog decided the squirrel brains didn’t agree with him and he left it on the carpet. Is there any more distinctive sound than that gagging a dog does just before it vomits? By the time your brain processes what that sound is it’s usually too late, the dog has barfed. That was not a fun cleanup, let me tell you. Thankfully my wife was home to help.

: Soldier, Soldier from the album “The House Carpenter’s Daughter” by Natalie Merchant

Who does one petition to become The Official Digital Camera of the Internet?

Does this mean all the pics taken with my Sony and Nikon need to be taken offline?

: Plaisier D’Amour from the album “Band of Brothers” by Michael Kamen

This past weekend we visited Goliad and Presidio La Bahia. I had wanted to go there for years as an ancestor of mine, James Walker Fannin, led troops in the Texas Revolution that were massacred at that site. It was a very interesting and informative. We visited the Fannin Memorial Monument while there also. I’m waiting on my photos to get developed and will post them later this week.

Seeing all this piqued my curiosity about the archeology of the area and other parts of Texas. My son also seemed interested in the history of Texas. I took a bit of archeology in college and thought it might be a good learning experience for my son. I found the Texas Archeological Society online and saw that they had a mailing list. I tried to subscribe to the list to see what kinds of people were in the group, what they discussed, and to find out if I might want to join. I was asked if I was a member of the Society. I said, ‘no, do I need to be to join the list?’. I was told that to join the mailing list I needed to be a member. So, let me get this straight. I have to pay $40 to become a member so I can join your mailing list to find out if I want to spend $40 to become a member? I wanted to find out what kinds of activities they did because their website lacks info on those things.

They claim as part of their charter they are to ‘inform Texans of their rich archeological heritage’. Only if you give them $40 I guess. I was very interested in their digs around La Bahia and wanted to ask some questions. I also thought it’d be good for my son to see a working dig. I was probably going to join their group but this kind of exclusionary elitism really put me off. Way to ‘educate the public to the aims of archeology’. I guess next time I find a site of interest I’ll keep it to myself. That seems to be the way things work in archeology around here.

: Upside Down from the album “Everything To Everyone” by Barenaked Ladies

I had an interview this morning. I gave the worst interview of my life. It was with a major video conferencing manufacturer here in town. I walked in to the interview room and there were 10 people there. Ten.

I’ve done a lot of interviews and many have had two or three people in them. It’s not uncommon in this industry. It’s never bothered me and is actually the norm. Ten people is far above the norm in my opinion. I was hooked up with these folks because my wife knows the wife of a guy that works there. If it hadn’t been for that fact I’d have probably turned and walked out upon seeing 10 shiny happy faces staring at me. I seriously just froze. I’m borderline ochlophobic and definitely xenophobic, so this was setting off all the alarms. I can suppress those phobias during interviews as it’s normally only a couple folks and it’s a necessary evil. It didn’t help that they had a demo of their product running so I was treated to my face on a 50″ plasma screen, that’s a real confidence builder. I blew the answers to questions I knew and stuttered through stuff I know inside and out. I’ve heard they’re a great company to work for and all but this was very intimidating. I felt like I was before a grand jury. I’ve never actually sweated in an interview but I did in this one, I was literally sweating. I just wanted out of that room. It seemed like it’d be a decent job and interesting too.

I appreciate any chance to interview and thanked the interviewer for giving me a shot, but I won’t have to take the job if it’s offered to me.

I got a call during the interview and when I checked the message afterwards it was my new pimp telling me that they finally have a start day for me at IBM, three weeks after I signed paperwork. Looks like I’ll be starting there again this Wednesday. I wish that call would have come 30 minutes sooner so I could have just skipped The Interview From Hell.

: Like a river from the album “Wayward Angel” by Kasey Chambers

P.S. While searching for an image to portray ‘sweating bullets’ I came across NWS this NWS. Um, interesting.

The stupid ‘assault weapons’ ban expired today. Time to get the toys that they say were too dangerous for you to have. You know, things like bayonets. Yeah, there was a rash of bayonettings that were solved with stupid laws like that. The law was written by people who didn’t know weapons and had no experience with them. The things they banned were cosmetic only. An AR-15, like mine, is a lot less dangerous than any standard hunting rifle. Would you rather be shot by a standard 30.06 deer rifle or a .223? Yeah, I thought so. Yeah, it may look like what the military uses but that’s where the similarities end. Hell, the military drives Hummers, we allow the ‘common folk’ to drive those. Just because it looks like something the military uses does not mean it functions the same.

Now I can finally add that collapsible stock to my rifle like I’ve wanted for years. Yes, it serves a very sporting purpose. I find the standard length stock to be a bit too long for me. A shorter stock will make things much nicer.

For those that ask why I need one, the answer is, because I want one. That’s all the reason you need. Period.

: Upside Down from the album “Play Everywhere For Everyone Austin, TX 03-10-04” by Barenaked Ladies

I ran down to the supermarket this afternoon to grab a couple things. As I walked in I got stuck behind this old man trying to pick out the perfect basket from the pile. It seemed he required the handle to be perfectly centered and symmetrical. Whatever. Once he finally picked one I grabbed one and scooted past him.

As I passed him he said: ‘Hey, you can’t come in here barefoot’.
Me: ‘Really? Where’s the sign? I do it all the time’
Him: ‘It’s a state law’
Me: ‘Ok, sure. What statute covers being barefoot in a grocery store?’
Him: ‘Um, I dunno.’
Me: ‘Well if you don’t know how can you tell me it’s state law?’ (BTW, there is no such law)

I walked off.

If I get old and start getting into other people’s business, someone, please shoot me.

: Midnight Special from the album “Shout On: Lead Belly Legacy, Vol. 3” by Leadbelly