Gray Beard

i saw the Swiss cheese upstream and it made me think of this..

When I go to Home Depot or Lowe’s I look up the item on line and it will say where it is. Bay 8 of Aisle 12, or whatever. I have had good luck with that tactic. The last time I was in Home Depot I was looking for a can of spray foam insulation. I couldn’t find it so I pulled out my phone and looked it up. It was on the end of an aisle about ten feet from where I was standing. I felt foolish, but nobody knew about it. Until now.

My only Dead concert... awesome, from what little I remember Alumni Stadium (U of Mass), Amherst, MA (5/12/79) Jack Straw They Love Each Other Me and My Uncle Big River Tennessee Jed New Minglewood Blues Stagger Lee Looks Like Rain Deal Don't Ease Me In Samson and Delilah Friend of the Devil Terrapin Station Playin' in the Band drums Not Fade Away Stella Blue Good Lovin' Shakedown Street One More Saturday Night

Kids playing pick up sports with their friends from the neighborhood. Now it’s all organized with parents, coaches, permission slips, schedules, referees. Explains why millennials don’t have coping skills.

I would not voluntarily leave Sarasota for Atlanta. I live in upstate NY so things are pretty close together. Small cities all along the Thruway. Utica, Herkimer, Oneida and Syracuse are all easy drives, with Utica being the closest. Old Forge in the summer. There are a lot of clubs, charities, gyms, adult ed, etc. i used to belong to a hike and ski club. I should try to get back into that stuff, except my knees are old, stiff and sore. it’s just a matter of getting out of my comfort zone and deciding to try something. Orchard Park is an easy drive. Less than four hours. My son goes to Bills games more often than I do.

Based on my age and financial situation, I could retire if I want to. One of the reasons why I am still working is that I have no significant social life outside of work (thus I spend way too much time on TDB). I enjoy spending time with my wife, but she isn’t good at sarcasm or puns or current events or any sort of “guy humor” so I am nervous about losing my social interactions at work. My kids are great, but they have their own lives and I can’t impose myself on them too much. Even though I am comfortable around and enjoy my coworkers, they aren’t really friends who I would continue to have contact with after I retire. Everyone says I should do charity work or join a club or something, but that sounds awkward and uncomfortable.

Part of the process is deciding who gets the big money after their rookie four or five year contracts run out. I feel that the process for making that decision can make or break a team. Some guys get the money then start to loaf. Other guys continue to play at a high level. A QB on a decent team seems like the kind of guy who would continue to play at a high level. But man, the QB money in five years is going to be insane unless something happens to reset the trend. But the team won’t have a choice. Pay up or your franchise QB walks.

Face is cute enough, but you can’t really tell until you see a whole body shot holding a fish

I can identify with every statement. I was thinking about starting a thread about one of my pet peeves, which is trucks passing other trucks on the highway. I am getting better at watching and waiting, but every so often I get worked up over it. There are two issues when this happens: the trucks slowing everybody down, and people passing each other and squeezing in to get to the front of the line. Why? That falls into the category of getting pissed off when I see somebody doing something stupid. I have a Master’s degree, but whenever I go to a symposium or even a work presentation I am surrounded by PhD types. Talk about arrogance. And my Master’s degree isn’t particularly impressive. I got it through work, and I just had to jump through several hoops that were all laid out for me (and several others). But hey, it’s a Syracuse U degree so that gives me Upstate NY cred!

I hate balconies above the third floor. I can be on the edge of a mountain with a one mile drop, and it doesn’t scare me. Put me inside a tall building, and it takes me a while to be able to look out a window. Put me on a balcony, and I become weak in the knees and imagine myself falling. I can’t explain it.

Girl bands of the ‘80s... any favorites? Belinda Carlisle? Susanna Hoffs? Jane Wiedlin?

Is the topic “What are your shortcomings”? You can add proofreading to your list. ? Edit: you fixed it. As for me, I’m lazy. I get by on natural intelligence and ability, but I never really try hard at anything.

He’s 33 years old. He knew he was done. Non story. Probably a smart move. I wish him well.

I’m not a Rob Johnson fan, but didn’t he save a game with a dive for the pylon once? Perhaps a week or two before the infamous Titans game?

I haven’t seen a kickoff or halftime discussion in years. I avoid it mostly because I find the announcers talking to each other annoying. A bonus is that I miss any political discussions regarding kneeling, etc. I mostly choose not to pay attention to the politicizing of sports. I’m actually an internet news junkie for things like government, international, and environmental news, but I lump politicized sports in with entertainment news, and I don’t waste time on it.

Canadian attack on Dieppe two years before D-Day is an event worth remembering. An experiment to see what it would be like to invade a beach. They learned the hard way that naval bombardment is a necessity. Not a large scale attack like D-Day, but with more than half either killed, injured or captured. Canada got a raw deal with that assignment.

She can catch a baseball, but can she catch a fish?

Scandal...Patty Smyth....? I actually prefer Goodbye to You, but they’re both good, especially the videos.

I didn’t know that about Lexington and Saratoga. I’ll have to find some books to read on the topic. I wonder if there are books like Dreadnaught and Castles of Steel written by Robert K. Massie. Those books are really well done and thorough, but they cover the British navy up until the end of WW1. I would need something comparable for the US navy in WW2.

That’s a pretty interesting tidbit of history. Lexington and Saratoga were originally going to be battle cruisers, but their design changed early in their construction so they weren’t really converted or modified. Of course the Langley was converted from a coal ship, but I don’t think it ever saw combat. From pictures of the Langley it is obvious that a flight deck was built on top of a cargo ship. Kind of like these pictures of the Kaga.

I often use PowerPoint rather than Word for simple graphic manipulation, but it’s the same general idea.

I built one of those near the end of my model building period, probably in junior high. I cant wait to get back into the model building mode, perhaps in a year or two when I retire.

It seemed like it didn’t age well. When it was new it seemed pretty good. I had it for nine years, and the knocking was getting pretty bad near the end. I would put high octane gas in it to cut down on the knocking. I also had the five speed manual. I would let the rpms get pretty high before shifting to keep it from knocking. Maybe it just needed a tuneup. I don’t really remember all the details, since it’s been over twenty years.

I love that movie. I watch it whenever one of the classic movie channels plays it. The love story with the Japanese girl and the focus on Charlton Heston was a little distracting. But otherwise an excellent movie, and fairly accurate from a historical perspective. The scenes where they are all listening to the radio as the battle is going on really highlights the tension.

Several cars, several issues. So far none were too bad... Loose lugnuts, got home just before they came off. My fault. Flat tire 150 miles from home. Stopped every 25 miles to put air in. Made it. Broken belt (alternator, a/c) two blocks from home. Whew. Many dead battery stories with my first car, when I was too poor/cheap to buy a new battery. Check engine light and occasional bucking in a 1993 Taurus with the whole family on a vacation 1000 miles from home. Made it home but nerve racking. Rental car oil filter fell off on a freeway near LA. Business trip by myself. Oil gushed out and car stalled. I missed my flight but no big deal in the grand scheme of things. Several fender benders, especially in a 1980 Mazda. Terrible car. Rear wheel drive. Had good tires. Didn’t matter. 1988 Chevy Nova (actually a rebadged Corolla) was a gutless wonder. Knocking and complaining all the time. A few other assorted check engine light stories.