The Twelve days of Christmas - from 1998 and Indiana U's, Straight No Chaser group.

I'm dead....

I work in data processing. We are on call all the time. Last night, we got to bed around 11:30 PM. The phone rang at 1:35 AM. Operations had an analyst needing database help from me. Except she is from India. I caught about every third word. She told me she was "Quaker". So I logged onto the Quaker Oats systems. No job could be found. I kept repeating the name of the job. Finally, the operator told me it was on Frito Lay and NOT Quaker! I finally got it fixed and was back in bed at 2:45 AM. At 3:35 AM, shes back on the line with a similar problem. Except she has no idea that Frito is so massive, that they have two production systems. Again, the kind operator pointed me to the correct system. Back in bed at 4 AM. Alarm goes off at 6:01 AM. I hit snooze twice, but then was too awake so just went on in. My boss shooed me home during a 2 PM phone conference, but then I didn't nap!

At 4 PM, I headed out and walked 4 miles. With a North Texas cold front moving in, the wind was gusting to 25 MPH and the temp dropped quick! But it was still better than trucking out at 8 PM! Which is my normal time to walk.

Next stop, easy street

I eat Pop Tarts. But not for breakfast, for a desert with my at-my-desk lunch at work. I get the Low-Fat Frosted Cinnamon ones. I also keep them in the refrigerator. They are great hot and cold, but not so great at room temperature. So, at work last week, I open up my packet and take a bite and something is very different! Seems they have strawberry filling in this box full! Notice in the photo, the pink filling? It is supposed to be brown.

I was totally traumatized. I've had trouble sleeping. I've become very nervous about this.

I plan to sue. I've sent an email to John Edwards. He made zillions as a trial lawyer and probably needs some cash about now.

Unfortunately, all I have left is this photo. I ate the evidence.

Thanksgiving

I've been making and eating these since about 1974....




Fresh hot flour tortilla.

Butter (spray on is good)

Dash of salt

Salsa

Roll it up

Enjoy.





You can leave off the Salsa for a change



Or put on just Honey.



My wife doesn't "DO" much hot sauce. However, lately even she has been having some of these. Well, not as much salsa as shown here.

Kids climbing trees

As a kid, I loved to climb trees. We lived right off Lake St. Clair, outside of Detroit, when I was around eight. There were these massive trees. The military base, had been opened right after WWI, about 1919 or something. The trees had been growing ever since. They were great.

We moved into our home in Highland Village in 1986. We planted a live oak tree in our front yard in 1987 or maybe 1988. We brought it home in a five gallon bucket in the back of our 1986 Ford truck. In 1994 we brought home daughter number two in a 1984 Toyota Corolla. Daughter number two, sometimes likes to climb the front tree. I got home from work this past Monday and daughter-two had two friends over. They'd all climbed the tree. Three kids in the tree. Wife suggested we call the tree man out to remove the growths in the tree.

Just amazing to think that I could put my index finger and thumb and encircle that tree, just 20 years ago.

The squirrels love it for it's nuts. It helps that there are two more huge oaks in the back yard.

almost lost my lunch today.....

I'd finished my lunch at my desk.  I was listening to the local oldies station, KLUV.  When on comes this...



What posses's people to call in and request this stuff?????

Don't they remember Disco Demolition Night?   I wonder how many blown up Disco LP's, were Kung Fu Fighting....

Orienteering at All Saints Camp

Over the weekend of November 15 and 16, I went orienteering. It was a two day event for North Texes Orienteering Association. It was at one of my favorite camps, All Saints. 660 acres of forest nestled up on Lake Texoma. Being a two day event, you must complete both days to be in the hunt for an award. I went up with the Marcus High School and the Flower Mound High school kids. We had four adults and about 14 kids on day one. We left on the bus at 6:45 AM and arrived about 8:30 at the camp. Being a two day event, they also had us all pre-registered so we even knew our start times. But with that many people, we had to be up there early. I do the technically difficult orienteering, but the shorter course. Better for this out-of-shape-bad-back guy. Day one, I made a royal screw up. Not on the course. I finished the course in about an hour and 11 minutes. Being advanced courses, we were electronically timed. Meaning, you wear an RF thing on your finger. When you find a control point, you verify it is the correct one and then stick your RF thing into the device strapped on the control point. It records your time onto your RF thing and you keep going. You know it recorded, as it "beeps" and flashes at you. I got to the sixth control, and it wasn't recording. In that case, you must revert back to the punch card method. The lower, easier courses, all use punch cards. On those, when you reach the control, it also has a paper punch. Each punch makes unique marks and you punch the paper into the box for that control. It sounds confusing, but it is easy. So on the sixth and seventh, I reached into my pocket to yank out the paper, punched it, stuffed it back into my pocket and kept on going. You can always paper punch to be sure your presence is recorded.




About an hour after my return to the bus, I remembered that at 6:15 AM, I'd ALSO put my Texas drivers license into that same pocket! Yep, my license is out in the woods. I checked at the finish, but it hadn't been turned in yet. By then, all our group was back, so we headed for lunch and back to the Dallas area. I figured I'd ride the bus back up and then I had about an hour and thirty minutes on Sunday, and would check for the license and then ask permission to head back out onto the day-one course and those two controls and hope to find it. They would probably not be using that side of the camp on day two.


Can you say "Needle in a haystack"? Sure. I went out to the two controls and the one spot where I'd had to climb under an old barb-wire fence, but no luck in finding the missing license.


Over all, I did well. I got third. Our fearless leader also got a third. One kid in our troop got a fourth. Only one other kid in our group, had bothered to finish their orienteering course.

Here are some photo's. The bus, the camp area, the cabins, the woods.