Down On Ferry Farm

That hasn’t changed. There are always the seasons, the TV season, the Football season… whatever it is. It’s a gradual change but it’s there. It’s all new. I recently went through an upheaval of my own. I have a new cell phone provider, a new cable TV provider and a new Internet provider – just like that. It’s always interesting to learn something new and this is no different. I am having to learn new channel numbers, how to work a different remote and how to control a different phone. The Internet is pretty much the same, just a lot faster. Always changing, always moving toward something new.

I feel compelled to write something but I’m not sure what I want to say. I’m going to go “stream of conscience” on you so hold on for the ride. I was out of town about a month ago and, in a few weeks, I’ll be out of town again. It’s for work. We’re supporting some training that’s being done up near Washington, D.C. It gets me out of the office for a week but the material is rather boring for me. The people taking part in the class are very engaged by the material because it directly affects them. Me, not so much. DubDub and I had dinner last week and then came back to my place for a little roll in the hay. She actually gave me the address of the house where she’s staying (her parent’s house) only because her car is in the shop. When I pulled up, her two girls were out in the street. They look like taller versions of the children I used to know. It was pretty funny to see them. I also had a date not too long ago with ‘the service’ I’m using. She was really beautiful and, as usual, I tot...

I read a blog that is originally in Spanish. It’s got a little nudity, a little music – it’s good. Sometimes the (female) blogger adds some thoughts of her own. When Google Reader translates it, this is what I get: I leave with language, like animals. Like a dog to be abandoned for your sake, because an owner not wanting to potty it would be something cruel. As the dust of stars universal clean with blue fluid. It seems a coincidence, but it is not, this is a lamp designed by Pixar fan of Japanese anime. The balancing between two people who are not going to roll, taking as much inspiration out of its truth. I have NO idea what the writer is trying to get across and it gets me thinking about the subtlety of language. There are probably some euphemisms in here or references to some situation of which I’m not aware. She’s probably alluding to something from her society for which I have no reference. It makes me think about some of the things that I say in daily conversation that people ma...

For some reason, the other day I got to thinking about my sexual conquests. There seemed to be a common thread through most of them and that was this: I was the best sex they ever had. Here I'll try to explain: MM - While she never came out and said 'best' she did say that we had 'really good' sex. She was the kind of lover who seemed to be hard to please. In the end, all she really wanted from me was the sex. It was tough when it ended because we still worked together. She eventually started dating another guy -- a TOTAL douchebag -- and didn't care that she flaunted this in front of me. I'm not the only one who thought this guy was a jerk but I'm not sure if people were saying that just to appease me. DubDub - As mentioned before, I could write a whole book on this woman. She is definitely the best sex I've had and mentioned (early on in our relationship) that I was her best. If it wasn't for the whole 'standing me up' situation -- whic...

Whatever you call them – gyros, grinders, subs, po’ boy, hero, or hoagie – I’m here to talk about them. This is not a “top 5 list”, simply a discussion of the type of sandwich by which I will be referring to as a “sub”. Subway – these guys have built their reputation on subs. If you’ve ever been to their place, the walls are plastered with early blueprints for the New York Subway system. Kind of a play on words. The basic premise here is that you tell them how long a sub you want (6 inch or foot long), what kind of bread you want, the type of cheese (if any), whether or not you want it toasted and then the type of “fixin’s” you want. A little of this and a little of that and pretty soon your sub is done. They wrap a piece of paper around it, shove it in a clear-plastic bag and it’s all yours. Generally speaking, Subway makes a good sub. By default I don’t get my subs toasted because I think their bread is good. If anything, there’s probably too MUCH bread. The meat is always tasty and...

Sunday night I really wanted to get some sleep so I went to bed around 9:45pm. At 10:30pm my electricity cut off and I did my usual – ponder all the ways in which I use electricity. I woke up to the sound of my UPS’s chirping like two heavyweight crickets. Luckily, the outage only lasted about half an hour and I fell right back to sleep. Monday evening I return home from work and it feels a little warm in the house. I take a quick look around just to make sure I have electricity – I do. I then go through the usual steps of checking to make sure my air conditioning is working: I check the breaker panel and I check the outside circuit. Everything seems okay. I then go to the thermostat and it’s not even on. It’s a nice digital, touch-screen thermostat with a glowing green face… usually. This day it was a non-functioning piece of plastic. Here’s the timeline (in 24-hour time… not years): - 1730: I make the call to the company that installed the unit originally. They’ll send someone and “h...

Having just stayed in a hotel for a week on business, I just wanted to put down some random thoughts about it: Hotels have to be the most inefficient places on the planet. People staying there take showers that are too long, leave TV’s on where they would not at home and run the air conditioning constantly. Do parents give up custody of their children when they check into a hotel? As mentioned, I was there on business and I cannot tell you how unprofessional it was to have teens and younger children running and screaming in the hallway outside our conference room. When asked to leave they become belligerent brats. “Where are your parents?” I asked. “I don’t know” is the answer I got. “Go find them” I said. “If they want us, they can come find us” was the crappy response I got. I picked up the phone and loudly asked for security. They left. Maybe the question should be “when did parents lose control?” It seems to me that the later it got in the week, the runnier the eggs were for breakf...

Read this entry quietly, I don’t want to jinx myself. I think that Karma is otherwise engaged and not paying much attention to me – which is nice. It was date #18 with “Danielle”: 40, divorced with 2 kids. I’m driving to the date and G-Lady calls me. I tell her that I don’t have a good feeling about this one but I don’t know why. I arrive a little early (as usual) and they are seating us in the ‘bar’ area. There are not many people there but the table right next to us has a group of celebrating co-workers. There’s a rather portly man sitting in the chair closest to our table who, with a turn of his head, appears to be listening in on our conversation. In reality he’s probably watching the TV screen to the other side of us, but I feel a bit uncomfortable. Luckily, so do they and that whole group moves to another table. So Danielle comes around the corner and I am fairly impressed. Her hair is auburn with shades of brown and has the most beautiful eyes. She seems to have the best attribu...

As you recall, I’ll be supporting a training class in Williamsburg in a few weeks. Today I took a preliminary trip to the site to make sure the Internet circuit we need is working. The hotel provides us a DSL connection, which we then connect to our wireless routers, which, in turn, can be used by all the laptops we’re bringing (about 20). So I stroll into the hotel lobby like I know what the hell I’m doing, turn a corner and walk down to the sales office. They know why I’m here (because we called ahead and let them know I was coming) so we take a stroll down to where the rooms are where we’ll be working for that week. The salesperson and I are looking around the ballroom – every wall has at least 2 connections of every type. There are electrical, phone, audio, video… you name it, it’s on the wall twice. “Which one do I use?” I ask. She runs back to the office to call the technology guy. I met him the last time I was here and everything worked out so this should be a piece of baklava. ...

Downloading blog Downloading installer Verifying installer Installing installer Install Yahoo toolbar? (Y/N): No Checking installation Inventorying installation Decompressing blog Building inventory of files Installing decompression Install Google toolbar? (Y/N): No! Verifying decompression Inventorying decompression Building list of inventoried files Backing up configuration Configuring installation Configuring configuration Verifying configuration installer Installing configuration installer Install MSN toolbar? (Y/N): No!! Bootstrapping configuration Creating configuration files Verifying configuration files Removing backup configuration files Installing configuration Install other useless toolbar? (Y/N): No!!! Inventorying configuration files Decompressing configuration files Converting configuration files Configuring conversion files Saving conversion configuration files Building list of configuration files Installing conversion Install virus protection toolbar? (Y/N): NO!!! Remov...

Usually on the weekends I watch those “how to” and “renovation” shows. The shows are only 30 minutes, which means they need to pack a lot of construction into a short amount of time. What they end up doing is a lot of “recapping”. I have been watching the show from the beginning – I KNOW what the Bohanan’s are doing to the deck in their back yard. I don’t need you to bring me up to speed coming out of every commercial break. That 30-minute show is now down to 6 minutes of original content. A little over a month ago I was out of town on business, supporting a training session that was going on for a week. The first part of August I’m doing another – but there’s a catch. It’s going to be the same class (different students) with the same Facilitators but we won’t have our trusty Training Coordinator with us… she’s leaving the company for a new job a few days before the whole thing starts. That means I’ll be doing her job as well. I complained bitterly about the job she WAS doing but at le...

First up was Anna (I couldn't find a picture that looked like her). The date was made for a Tuesday night (originally it was for Monday but got pushed back a few days before the date). We were scheduled to go to a restaurant to which I’d never been. As usual, I arrived first. We were supposed to meet at 6:30 and by 6:35 I was wondering if I was going to get stood up for the first time. Just about that time the Manager waltzed by and told me that my date called and had hit some traffic so she was going to be late. About 10 minutes later she arrived. She’s cute, sweet, has a nice laugh and a great smile. We get into conversation easily. I order ‘real’ food, she orders just an appetizer. She has traveled quite a bit and asks about my travel habits. I’m fairly stationary. There’s a tool I’ve devised that has helped me figure out if the date is going well or not. If she’s not asking questions or furthering the conversation, it’s not going well. If she’s talking about something that happ...

I've been away. I just got back into town. I was working. It was a long and tiring week. It was longer than it needed to be. It was more stressful than I thought it would be. I had some chances to relax but was still tired. Those DVD's of "As Time Goes By" are still sitting here. I haven't been away from my house for a week in quite some time. When I got back home there was a mysterious smell coming from the kitchen. I left a dish in the sink and it 'turned' on me. I ran a load of dishes in the dishwasher and everything is back to normal. I just feel 'blah'. I was working on some follow-up material for the project I was supporting all week (adding pictures to a website). I figured I was going to take my time and do it right. I figured I'd have the rest of the week to put all the pictures out there. I was told in an off-hand way that they needed to be there by the end of the day. That's how it is -- I'm not usually told to do something d...

I was over at my parent’s house a few weeks ago. My dad was having trouble with his new computer (I told you he would) and asked if I couldn’t come look at it. We had some dinner and talked after – it was all very grown up. At some point the conversation turned to TV. My parents admitted they don’t watch ‘conventional’ television anymore. They watch the news, “Wheel of Fortune”, “Jeopardy” and some shows on the History Channel that catch their eye. Most of their viewing habits concern the British comedies that are on PBS. One of the shows they watched for many years, “As Time Goes By” they purchased on DVD so they could continue to watch – even though it still comes on PBS. I mentioned not having anything to watch since most of the ‘regular’ programming is in summer re-runs and they suggested I watch this series. At the risk of sounding like my parents, it is actually a good show… I guess I should say ‘was’. It ran from 1992 to 2005, 10 seasons – or what the British call “series”. Each...

Lots going on, let’s get right into it: Wedding – I went to a wedding last Saturday (friends of friends). The big drama was whether the ceremony was going to be held indoors or out. You see, it was raining sporadically throughout the day and the event planners needed to know where to set up. The bride said, “Plan for both” but you knew she wanted it outside. At the last minute, the weather cleared and everything went according to plan. As soon as the reception began (indoors) the rain poured down in buckets. Crisis averted. Electrical Problems – I walked into my kitchen at some point last week and saw someone standing in my back yard. “Hello?” I said from my kitchen (window open, of course). There was no response from him. He leaned lazily against my back porch and seemed to be staring into the sky. I walked out my back door and asked, “Can I help you?” He told me that my neighbor had called and said the piece of equipment that hangs over my yard was sparking and that lights were dim...

Following is a list of women I find very attractive who all share a common attribute: they are featured players in shows about renovation. Either they do it themselves or they are the designers or coordinators. This list is in no particular order. Amy Matthews (Sweat Equity) – This is a recent addition to this list. The cable package I have does not include DIYNetwork but some of their shows have been ported over to HGTV. I happened to find her show on one day and – wow – she is really cute. She has this great quality to her voice and she really knows how to swing a hammer. Almost every time they mention her name, they precede it with “Licensed Contractor”. She can renovate my house any time. Kristan Cunningham (Design On A Dime) – Kristan is an interior designer and artist who uses only $1,000 to remodel a room. Her greatest accomplishments in the shows are the “finds” on furniture and accessories at thrift stores and antique shops. She also likes to take an ordinary item and use it...

Say what you will but sometimes the timing of life is perfect. Next week would have been the last week of unemployment. I say “would have” because I was offered a job this week. In fact, I really had two job offers. Several months back I interviewed with a company that was a subcontractor for the military. In this area, it’s hard to get away from government contractors. The job, as it was explained to me, would be the hardest job I’d ever have to do in my life. There was going to be a lot of physical parts to the job and a lot of traveling involved. I wasn’t looking forward to this job but it was a job. This company got the ball rolling on my security clearance (which I’d never applied for, therefore never denied). As I understand it, these are very expensive to acquire. I filled out all the paperwork – it took me about 4 hours but I did it – and submitted my fingerprints. I did whatever they asked and they were expecting me to be there at the end. Fate had other plan...

I spent a lot of time outdoors this weekend. The weather was nice and I’m glad I did but I ended up with a mild case of sunburn. Saturday I went to the spring version of the Virginia Wine Festival. My sister Dee works for one of the major sponsors so I called her up and asked if she was getting tickets. Turns out she was going to be out of town but hooked me up with a pair of tickets for the event. So I asked G-Lady to see if she wanted to go. She’s not a wine drinker but I don’t really have any close friends that are wine drinkers. Usually the festival is in Town Point Park in downtown Norfolk but, since the park is being renovated, they had it on the pier behind Nauticus (I kept wanting to say Nautilus). Saturday was a bright, clear day but it was windy down on the water – and I mean RIGHT on the water. Being on the pier meant the water was about 4 feet from the edge with no fencing. Things and people were being blown all around. G-Lady took in all the sights, as she had never been t...

In my quest to organize my life, I’m going through some old accounts and closing them down. As I traveled through life I made a spreadsheet of all the accounts I had signed up for: site name, account name and password. I may have missed one or two but it’s a pretty complete list. Don’t worry, the accounts I’m shutting down are not ones I use frequently. In fact, in shutting some of them down I found out the site had closed my account due to inactivity. I also found out that some of the sites no longer exist or had been transferred (bought out?) by another site. Okay, so the process is simple, right? I log in with my username and password and then close my account, cool? If that were only true. About half of the time I ended up using the “forgot my account” link because it said I was using the wrong password. In my compendium of passwords I have the password as “assmunch” for the site. I hit the link and it sends the account name and password to my e-mail account (a real security breach...

I know that movies made in Hollywood are meant to be entertainment. I watched a couple of movies recently that defy that statement. House of Sand and Fog – I remember seeing the commercials for this movie and wanting to see it when it came out. Boy, would I have been pissed to see this stinker in the theater. Jennifer Connolly played a recently-divorced woman who has deluded herself into thinking everything is okay. She gets a knock on her door one morning telling her she’s just been evicted. At the same time, an Iranian immigrant has been eying the property, waiting for it to come up for sale. The woman is thrown out of the house and the immigrant buys the house. Everything seems like a done deal, right? Wrong. The woman gets entangled with a sheriff's deputy (thereby ruining him and his family) and tries to get the immigrant to give up the house (thereby ruining him and his family). She got a lot of letters telling her what was about to happen. As her lawyer tells her ...