Happy Birthday!

I woke up this morning to my birthday feeling sick to my stomach and a little dizzy. I’m 45 today. Laying down didn’t help…in fact it got worse. I went on with my morning (I was better when I was up and moving around) and gathered up my things and was walking with my 4 year old to the indomitable Speck when…there it was…in all it’s rubbery glory. A flat tire!

Undaunted by the cold I sent the 4 year old back inside (that was the intent, she kept coming out to “check on you, daddy”) and set to work. I pulled open the trunk and lifted the cover and pulled out the temporary tire. It looked a little worse for wear, but I assumed it would be OK. I went back for the lug wrench. Where was the lug wrench? That was when I saw it: the Styrofoam insert holding a screwdriver and an empty indentation where a lug wrench would go. Crestfallen, I went back to the garage and sought some tools. I saw one of my neighbors and asked to borrow his lug wrench from his Acura. Sadly, it was too small. I then saw another neighbor who owned a Honda. Bingo! His wrench fit. I managed to get the tire off and the spare on using my floor jack. I inspected the tire. Yup, a wood screw head was clearly visible. I must have run over it the day before and parked on it that night.

No matter, I thought to myself. I can take it over to the tire shop and get it patched. I tightened the lugs and lowered the car. Ugh. The temporary was almost as flat as the tire with the screw in it. I didn’t have much choice. Towing would have cost me hundreds. I put the tire in the trunk and strapped in the 4 year old. Slowly I made my way to the nearest station which had an air compressor. Natch! It was broken. I hobbled to the next station. Topeka! I filled up the temporary and took the 4 year old to breakfast. I was feeling a little better, so we shared some pancakes and sausage. I dropped off the tire at the local tire shop for repair and decided it was in my best interest to stay local since the temporary tire made a pretty bad rumbling noise. After an hour, I drove the Speck back to the shop, had the tire put back on, and was on my way to work.

Happy 45^th Clark!

Inauguration Day 2009

I keep hearing how things have changed now that Barack Obama has been elected president and is slated to be sworn in today. I don't want to make my site a political blog, but I have to wonder what it is that makes him so special outside of the color of his skin. We don't know all that much about him since he is a relative neophyte in the political world (only 4 years in the senate). We don't have much of a political record on him as a result and his voting record is somewhat odd (voted "present" a lot). The right side of politics is REALLY charged up about him since they can't seem to peg him for much (no college records available...sealed up). The left side has been disappointed with his cabinet and advisory selections (Clinton redux). Still, a neophyte may just be what the doctor ordered, so to speak.

There are supposed to be over 4 million people descending upon the Metro DC area today. I purposely requested the day to work at home. Roads inside the beltway are being closed down. Hotels have been booked up for months. Some folks are offering their homes for rent for over 100K for the weekend.

My dearest scheduled herself to be off of work today too, so I suspect I won't be getting much work done. She wants to watch the Inauguration on TV. It's cold and there's a dusting of snow on the ground. Perfect weather for an Inauguration.

Clark

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!

It's been a few weeks since I last blogged. Sorry about that. Life has been pretty much a whirlwind since early December.

My oldest has been pulled over three times in the past two weeks by the local police. She's been driving the truck and doing a pretty good job, but the cops decided she needed to: do a better job of stopping at stop signs, make sure that she is doing her best to wear her safety belt, and to make sure her lights were on when driving at night. Fortunately, she received no tickets for these minor mishaps. The lesson was learned however. Still, she managed to bump into the back of a car just enough to dent the truck bumper, but not damage the other car. Weird.

Speaking of the truck, I spent three days trying to find two tires for it. Why so long you ask? Well, I purchased two tires back in September because the truck needed it. Why not four, Clark? Well, my pockets haven't been very deep lately, so I opted for two then and would pick up two more later. Well, the same tire shop, the local Super Wal Mart, was consulted on the latest tire purchase as they were the shop who did the tires in September. They have very good tire prices. However, this time I spoke with three different people who told me that the tires I purchased in September were suddenly not available there. I must order them from Wal Mart online. No problem, I said. Being Intertube savvy, I went to the site and tried to place my order. Tried. You see, the website said the matching tires were out of stock! I went back to the shop and explained my predicament and they said they would call around and get back to me the next day. The next day comes around and I get no phone call. Frustrated and concerned I would have to buy two other tires or FOUR new tires (that wasn't going to happen), I called and spoke with the assistant store manager. In five minutes he was able to determine that indeed the store did have the tires I was looking for (In fact, they had 8 of them). I was perturbed and happy all at once. Why didn't they bother to look in their inventory three days ago? The assistant manager was nice enough to discount some of the services to save me about 30 bucks overall.

I found out in December that I have diabetes. Not the really bad kind, but the kind that comes at you when you are too fat. I have to diet and exercise now. Blah. I have to give up tons of good stuff to eat and take meds. It was hard, but I'm doing OK. I've lost a little weight and have tried to step up my exercise. Since leaving my last job I've lost about 20 lbs. I think 15 of that came from having much less stress in my work life.

I've been working hard, but not too crazily. I am running around, but it's a good thing. My work stress level is near zero. I am working with nice folks who care for a change.

Christmas was pretty cool. It seemed to come and go pretty fast. The kids had a great time, too.

Clark

Fixed!

Well, after a couple of weeks of torture and turmoil, the Dodge is fixed!

They did a nice job. I can't even tell where the accident happened! They washed the exterior and cleaned the interior. They even sprayed some nice smelling stuff inside. It almost makes me forget the following:

1. It took two whole days just to get the estimate
2. They lied about the kind of part they were going to put on the car (used vs. new)
3. The insurance company denied (at first) to repair the damaged driver window, but after sending my dearest to talk to them, they relented and fixed it
4. It took over a week to get the door
5. The replacement door had a defective "check strap" that had to be replaced before they could release the car. The "check strap" communicates with the driver display to show when the doors are opened or closed and to lock the windows.

Nice. All things being equal, this was probably a normal experience with an insurance company. However, the car is instantly devalued due to the accident, even with the replacement parts. Any CARFAX report is going to pick it up since it was reported to the insurance company.

Clark

Victory In Iraq Day

I saw on the web the other day that November 22, 2008 is Victory In Iraq Day.

Victory in Iraq Day!

I'm posting it here to share in this momentus occasion. Let's hope what is posted is true, so we can bring our heroic soldiers home as soon as possible.

/skeptical

Clark

Sad Event

I recently attended a funeral for a former colleague of mine who's daughter and my oldest daughter happen to be good friends and on the Color Guard together.

He passed way too early (he was 50) and will be missed terribly.

God Bless Tim and his family. They are now honorary Grizzwold's.

Clark

The dents, they are a changin'

Well, the Dodge is in the shop, hopefully getting fixed. It only took them five days to get me to this point. Our own insurer had an estimate in around 4 hours.

They set me up in a pretty good rental. A KIA Optima. It's the largest KIA model and is about as luxurious as the Dodge. I'd much rather drive it than the Dodge.

Oh well.

Clark

Update: 10/21/08 - Well, I've found out that there is a larger KIA, the Amanti. So I'm in the middle of the road model, I guess.

Whoops!

My dearest Ellen was involved in a minor accident the other day. Here's a pic of the damage. The other person was driving a brand-new Lexus SUV. The bumper was high enough to make a mess of the door. The Lexus driver was backing out of the drive through at a local fast food restaurant while my dearest was driving past. Yes, you heard right. The knucklehead was backing OUT of the drive thru.
I've spent the past three days negotiating with the other person's insurance company for money. I go to get an estimate on Monday. I hope they don't total the car. That would be bad. The car is about 5 years old and has over 92K miles on it. It's not worth a whole lot, but it would suck immensely if they totaled it because then I would have to go out an try and find a comparable car for whatever they give me (which probably won't be a lot). My insurance company said they wouldn't total the car because it's not that old and it was in good working order prior to the accident. I'm banking that my insurance company is right.

Clark

Another successful season

Fall Softball is done!

I enjoyed getting back into head coaching. While we didn't win every game (we were 4-6, I think) we were in just about every one. We only got blown out once (16-5...yuck).

I had a good group of girls and asked all of them to come back. I hope I can get all of them and a couple more good players.

The kids gave me a gift certificate to a local restaurant. A hundred bucks will buy me a lot of food!

Clark

It's Over! Finally...

I think we've been trying to elect a President since the last one was re-elected.

Thank goodness it's over. I was completely sick of it.

Don't ask your ol' pal Clark for whom he voted. I won't answer. Some things are meant to be private.

So when do the 2010 primaries start?

Clark

Open Thank you Note to all political candidates for 2008

In this fine year of political missteps, mistakes, and misogyny here is an open letter to all of the candidates:

Thank you, O political candidated for your continued ads on television, radio, road signs, billboards, cell phones, bumpers, and junk mail.

Thank you for your continued obfuscation of the facts, details, information, and opinions.

Thank you for your stump speeches in small towns that: block traffic for hours keeping regular folks from going to/coming from work; providing opportunities for people to park on strangers lawns, walk on strangers lawns, drop trash on strangers lawns, park in front of strangers houses; give opportunities for the people best known for tin foil hats to protest on bucolic streets, haranguing locals into voting for their "fringe" candidate; provide opportunities for the media to troll neighborhoods for unsuspecting nincompoops to give ignorant sound bites to equally ignorant and plastic "reporters".

Thank for your incessant phone calls during dinner to ask if I am going to vote for the candidate on their script.

Thank you for "Change", "Straight Talk", gaffes, "improbable history", "ACORN", "Keating Five", Annenberg, POW, African Press International, Main Stream Media, blogs, polls, Ayers/Wright/Fleeger/Resko, Bush, "present", 90% for Bush, and "Sarahcuda".

Thank you for debates that weren't, moderators that didn't, and shameless plugs for books yet written.

Thank you for "nice" campaigns that called one candidate a "marxist" and made fun of the other candidates age by indicating that they could possibly wear adult diapers.

Election season.....priceless.

Clark

Hair

As I get older I often wonder why we are as we are at middle age. Men in particular have things that happen to them that just seem to defy logic. For example, some of us are particularly hairy and others are not. Then there's you ol' pal Clark.

See, I was never blessed with a lot of hair on my head, nor the rest of my body. However, I have hair that grows where I really don't want it. My back, my ears, my nose, and my eyebrows.

Thankfully I'm not like those cave men on the insurance commercials. I have moderate hair on my back, but it's freakin' annoying! It only grows on my shoulders and its patchy. I do my best to shave it off, but I can't see it! Why does it grow there?

My eyebrows aren't so bad. I've seen some guys that look like they have caterpillars on their heads. Mine are not nearly that bad, but I have these random hairs that are twice as thick as the surrounding hairs. Plus, they stick out of my forehead a little bit. Kinda like a porcupine I guess. What is the deal though? My eyebrows were fine for nearly 40 years and now they act like there is some kind of mutant DNA in them. I find these annoying hairs randomly and yank them out by the roots. Momentary pain for a few weeks of gain.

Now that brings me to my ears. I have these random hairs that grow out of random places on my ear. My left ear is the worst. For some reason the ear lobe and the pointy part near the canal have random thick hairs that just sprout out for no apparent reason. I probably could rationalize the eyebrowns and back hairs. But why the heck are thick hairs growing out of my earlobes? If I don't keep them in check, my ears look like they belong on some simian relative.

Ugh. I guess this is payback for perfect skin?

Clark

Oops

My oldest caught the pinkie on her right hand in the door of the truck. She tried to shake it off, but her threshold of pain is pretty low (she tends to faint too) so she couldn't hang with the finger in the shape that it was in. Through a consultation with the school nurse, we decided to get it looked at, so she met me at home. Her finger was in sad shape. The french nail she had on was punctured at the nail bed and it was swollen with blood. The nail bed was a delightful shade of reddish blue (purple for you "artistes").
We went to the local ER and the PA (we'll call him Dr. Apu) drilled a small hole in the nail bed to release the pressure. It took him a while (he didn't seem to understand that the french manicure was on top of her real fingernail, which explained why it took him far longer to drill the hole than I believe he thought it would take) to get the hole made, but finally blood started to come out.
Then they took the largest finger splint they could find and bent it in half to cover the end of the finger and the nail and wrapped it with some tape. It looked ridiculous. She held her pinkie up in the air like some affected snob at a tea party.
Oh, and she plans to attend Color Guard practice tonight. I told her that she was nuts and she was more than likely to injure her finger further. I sent her back to school. We only spent about 90 minutes in the ER. Quite a feat.

Clark

Politics

Your ol' pal Clark doesn't want his blog to be a political one. I prefer to read those. But I'm about sick to death of the election baloney now. Most, if not all, politicians are crooked. Some are more crooked than others. Some also get caught. It's really odd that those that get caught sometimes are still elected and re-elected to office. WTH??

I pride myself at being mostly in the middle with regards to politics. There are so many people on the fringes of both parties that are just plain kooks. I was appalled at how much money went into this supposed bailout and it didn't really do anything. Stocks plummeted and banks failed. Why not just let the stocks fall and the banks fail? Not all the banks will fail, will they? Perhaps I'm short-sighted or naiive or something, but I remember that the government bailed out a bunch of savings and loans about 25 years ago when they failed and that turned out OK. At least after a while.

I think the reprehensible people are the fat cat CEOs that manage to be awarded contracts that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, stocks, and bling (ooooo, I'm so hip!) regardless of whether the company they run is thriving or failing. The CEO of Lehman Brothers (Fuld I think is his name) got nailed by Sen. Waxman in Congress the other day. You see, my friends, Fuld got an estimated $450 million (or $350 million if you believe what Fuld said before Congress) in severance when Lehman crashed and burned. He shouldn't have gotten a dime over his regular salary plus two weeks. Some guy at some other company was only on the job a month and got some $20 million (estimated) in severance. Thankfully, someone with a set of cojones punched Fuld in the nose at the gym in the Lehman Brothers building in NYC. I would have liked to be a fly on the wall for that one.

Other than legislate people's salaries, which is way too socialist for my tastes, how do we combat runaway salaries for CEOs? If I were in charge, I would have written into the so-called "bailout" that CEOs immediately forfeit any severance if their company has assets purchased by the government. Those "golden parachutes" would immediately go to the government to buy back the reworked securities.

Oh, and another thing, company CEOs caught cooking the books would be prosecuted no matter how much money they gave to lawmakers on the Hill.

Clark

Financial Panic

Your ol' pal Clark is woeful like the rest of us since the US Government attempted to buy up the banking industry. Stocks are falling like so many stones and folks are losing their savings and retirement. Mine was wiped out long ago and I've not been able to get back into it. I'm hoping that will change soon. I'm supposed to get a personnel review at the end of this year or beginning of next (all of us get reviewed at the same time). I hope to be able to start to set aside at least 1 percent of my salary into something that will earn some decent interest. Not the lowly stuff like a money market...but something in the 5-10 percent range. I also have to get the Mrs. to do the same thing.

As a side note, gas is down to about $3.15 a gallon at one station near the house. I have to check out my fave spot, Sheetz, to see if they are at least that low. They were around $3.29 the other day. It's about time to fill up the Speck, too!

Clark

More on the new J-O-B

I'm stoked (is it OK for someone in their mid 40s to say that?) to be working at my new job.

I'm settling in and feeling good about what I am doing. Of course, I said that after the first month at my old job too. Just before the "football bat" situation started. Anyhoo, I've been sent out to work on another site in the DC area that wants to increase their knowledge, improve their situation, and win the re-bid coming in about 18 months. I'm proud to be included in the group that hopefully will help them out.

I'm still waiting on my own personal company laptop. They've issued me a company credit card (God only knows how that went through), too. My buddy is going to Florida for a week to hash out some issues with a project down there. I was thinking that I was going to go, but he's gonna plan for a week down there and I'm sorry....I've got too much going on at home to spend the week hand holding. I'll be ready to support him from a distance. Plus I have to review a bunch of material for my site review. I'm hoping that goes well.

Later,
Clark

New job

Hey everyone!

I've been at my new job about a month now. I've taken a sick day today cuz I'm feeling rotten with cold symptoms. My dearest Ellen keeps feeding me these zinc tabs that are supposed to help rid you of your cold faster. I don't think these work.

The new company covered me on the losses I had for missing the San Francisco trip. It was an honor to be selected, so I still have that.

More later,

Clark

Fast Forward

Sorry...it's been a quick month. I should be more diligent in my blogging, but I'm a busy guy.

See, the boss came in on 8/25 and basically told me that I could go. I'd be paid for the day, of course, but not the rest of the week because...well...he wasn't getting any more money from the client, so he couldn't afford to pay me for the rest of the week. He offered me a laptop in exchange for the hours, but I really needed the money, not the PC. In retrospect, I should have taken the computer, but I wasn't thinking clearly at the time. That kinda sucked.

Oh well. I lost 5 days of pay. I tried getting on with my new company, but they wouldn't have an office for me for another week, so I was stuck at home. You'd think I would have blogged while I had all that down time, but I ended up doing stuff with the kids since school hadn't started yet. I did have one day all to myself, but I wasted it.

Clark

Sleepy Monday

I'm here and the last guy left are here...but no one else is here. I wonder what time these guys get to work? Sheesh! Now I know what it's like to work at the corporate office!

Clark

Class Acts All

Well, I'm free of that old client.

It wasn't the way I'd planned it, but it came true a week earlier than I'd planned.

You see, the class acts that were my clients decided that they would sever their relationship with me earlier than August 29. They sent the contract Program Manager in to let me and the last guy left go this morning at about 9:30am. They didn't even have the guts to come in and say good-bye. What cowards!

This is after I spent about 90 bucks on going away lunches where the bill was divided rather than separated. In one case, I had about a 15 dollar lunch (tip included) that I had to pay 35 dollars for!

What losers!

I guess now the "football bat" will swoop in and take over, saving the day! Ya know what? That would be poetic justice, I guess. The "football bat" and the client are made for each other.

Well, I'll have to see if I take an unpaid vacation or work some menial stuff at HQ until Sept 2nd. I take back what I said before about my current employer. At least the CEO cares something about me as a person and employee.

Clark