Your laugh for the day. We got several holiday catalogs in the mail yesterday, including one from Swiss Colony. So I’m looking through it at all the chocolates, cheese logs, giant sausages and other artery-clogging items when an ad insert falls out of the pages. I pick it up and discover that it’s an ad for. . .wait for it. . .burial insurance! Gotta wonder whose bright idea it was to include that! The catalog went into the garbage.
We put a man on the Moon before we put wheels on luggage.
The first humans landed on the Moon in 1969. The first wheeled luggage was invented in 1970, and wasn’t patented until 1972.
Now that is a blast from the past. If you’d asked me I’d have said “I think they died around the 1990s.” Sure haven’t seen any of their paper catalogs since about then. Then again, I’ve been ruthless for about 30 years now on preventing junk mail.
Good to hear the mostly good news from most everyone. Dog park unpleasantness notwithstanding.
Around here it’s mid-70s, windy, and mostly rainy all day. The surf is big and the beaches are deserted. I’ve been up about 4 hours now and it’s been actively raining about half the time, with more on the way.
Dancing last night was good, but once again the dance they taught, “nightclub two-step” didn’t really mesh with the music they played which was more 60-80 pop/disco. Which was itself enjoyable for freestyle, but not useful for practice. We’ve been to that venue before and we’ll be back.
Her Ladyship is gone to spend the day with Daughter and to make outline plans for our T-day next week at Daughter’s. I’m casting about for stuff to do.
My two month retire-iversary passed unnoticed a couple days ago. I sorta miss the added variety in my life; new people, different places, etc. But the rest not so much.
Same here. They were common in large malls, but I haven’t bought anything from them for at least 40 years and thought they’d gone out of business.
We got a Swiss Colony catalogue. I think Mrs. L.A. ordered something from it.
I love those catalogs. The other one ‘Harry and Davids’ I haven’t seen lately.
Never ordered anything from them.
The one time I ordered ‘Omaha Steaks’ turned on a switch somewhere and I get 2000 ads, circulars, magazines and special offers a month. It ridiculous.
So I spent most of the day in smalls, since it was Wednesday. Then at the 300 Slide, since that was FUBAR. Then I finished up the 200, or at least what WB didn’t get, including all the ammo. Now if the geese attack, we’re defenseless. 
And I’m usually owner #3 of mine.
We have COVID in the building again, so all activities are shut down for awhile, including the exercise sessions. I did ten minutes on the NuStep while watching Andrea Mitchell interviewing Joe Manchin and some other congressional ass-clown. Our country is apparently being run by 5-year-olds. A senator threatening to kick the ass of someone who is testifying before the committee? WTF?
Got our shipment from Nueske’s, a Wisconsin purveyor of smoked bacon, hot dogs and bratwurst, among other things. They are supposedly renowned for their bacon. I’ll let you know.
Dinner will be delivered today by the in-house kitchen. Creole shrimp. Now, I make this dish, and it’s pretty dang tasty, but I let myself be talked into getting it by the wife. We pay extra for any meal that we partake of, and at my age I really object to spending any of my remaining time on earth eating things that are substandard. We’ll see how it goes.
They finally got the replacement motors for the garage doors and installed them today. Hopefully this will quiet them down, as our apartment is two floors above them.
I brought Tobias home early and dumped him in his bed to nap. Dunno why I haven’t been doing this all along! I hope Daughter comes home early - I’m exhausted.
MIL is spending the night tonight after they take some clothes to BIL. She was going thru some of his stuff and came across a big bag of meds, some dating back to 2011, most unopened. Yeah, BIL needs close supervision.
As for me, I’m sleeping with Mel tonight.
It’s really hard - the galvanizing thing for me was when my kids’ friends started finding me on social media and then (gently) teasing my daughter. It wasn’t mean-spirited but it made her uncomfortable, so I told her she has final say, and so does my son.
I’m freakin’ tired today - I spent most of my night last night trying not to throw up and this morning woke with dizziness and chills. I got rid of the chills after a nap and the nausea faded, but my eyeballs still feel a little swimmy. From what I hear from a coworker who went into the office, there are a LOT of people there who shouldn’t be. Even though technically I’m supposed to be in 50%, I think I may stay home for the rest of the week.
Anyway, it’s bright and beautiful outside. If it doesn’t hurt my eyeballs too much, I might go sit in the sun, though I’m starting to sweat now. Dammit. Stupid internal thermometer.
Back on the boat after seeing sloths, jaguars and macaws and listening to Howler monkeys then cruising in a Mangrove lagoon with a crocodile sighting. Now need to get cleaned up and be thinking about dinner.
FCM, the Canal crossing took about 9 hours give or take, getting through the locks (6 of them) took about half the time, but it wasn’t to busy due to low water levels in the lake that feeds the Canal.
Will reply more once a bit refreshed. Take care all.
Started Typing: 1:30 PM ET
Clicked Reply: 4:30 PM ET
Finally getting to catch up with y’all this week! There are only 87 posts in the thread at the moment: I took my time reading and quoting, and am now ready to jump in. 
I will say that the OP made me chuckle, because the whole “you mean Thanksgiving is next week??” thing happened to me on Monday! I think taking the first full week of the month off has messed with my sense of how far into November it is.
The lawn company raked up my leaves at around 4:30pm yesterday and left them in front of the house for their vacuum, which hasn’t arrived yet. I hate having a big pile of leaves in the street like this; makes me feel like a bad neighbor! The vacuum usually comes the next day, so I’m hoping it will get here this afternoon. If the leaves are still there in the morning, I’ll email the lawn company. At least it isn’t rainy or windy.
As for Thanksgiving…
My parents divorced when I was in high school: my dad (and brother) never cared about Thanksgiving, and many moons ago I made a deal with my mom that I would always see her on Christmas if I could spend Thanksgiving with my friends. I actually spent a couple of Thanksgivings with a former Doper and his SO/their friends, but ~15 years ago I started spending them with my BFFs (a husband and wife), their son, and Husband BFF’s (HBFF)'s sister and fam – who have since become like extended family to me, too. I never looked back. We haven’t had a big Thanksgiving together since before the pandemic, though, due to various health and logistical issues. Plans for this year are small: just HBFF, Wife BFF (WBFF), and me. No extended family, and their son will be in Texas with his girlfriend (who goes to college there). Right now, though, WBFF is battling a couple of infections and having a really tough time: I’d put the odds of there being a Thanksgiving get-together at about 50/50. If I don’t go to their place, I’ll be happy to spend the day at home with Bailey doing as little as possible. I won’t try to recreate Thanksgiving dinner or anything; at most, I might look into having a turkey sandwich.
I’m between LEGO projects, and have been missing having something to do at the kitchen table on quiet weekend afternoons; otherwise, my waking hours at home are spent either at this desk or on my couch. Yesterday WBFF mentioned that she’d been doing some coloring while she isn’t feeling well, and it reminded me that I have coloring stuff! Back in the day, I collected Crayola items; 13-14 years ago I gave it all to a friend’s young son. My current collection is much smaller, but includes a mix of crayons, markers, and colored pencils. And, I have three good coloring books. The wicker basket holding everything had been tucked away on a shelf, but this morning I dusted it off and put it on the kitchen table for later/this weekend. I’m kind of psyched!
For things like personal phone calls and Zoom meetings I add email reminders to my Google Calendar. Of course, I’ve been late to/missed a few things because sometimes I ignore the email notification sound… 
Reminds me of a line from a song in the show 1776: “A second flood, a simple famine, plagues of locusts everywhere…or a cataclysmic earthquake, I’d accept (with some despair). But no, you sent us Congress: good God, sir, was that fair?”
Ugh. 
Yay!! 
That’s a positive step, at least.
Same here! LOL! My bariatric center followup is on 12/4 and at first I scheduled the lab appointment for a week prior, but then I realized that would be just a few days after Thanksgiving. My fasting blood sugar/A1C levels will be challenged enough already! So I rescheduled the lab appointment to the day before Thanksgiving.
We’ve been fairly distracted by that, too, but it looks like a shutdown has been delayed… 
Good luck!!
But how did it taste?
Same here! We have until 12/1 to complete self-evaluations, conversations get held around mid-December, and managers have until the end of the year to finalize everything. Meh. I’m glad I only have two direct reports, though.
Excellent!!
Oh, that’s good to hear.
These two both made me literally laugh out loud!! 
Ha!!
That sounds very cool!
It tasted fine, although I prefer bacon to sausage in a toast sandwich. (I prefer sausage in a biscuit sandwich.)
Just because it’s a quarter 'til 14 o’clock and I haven’t had lunch yet, I need to see if any of the avocados are ready to eat.
Like any smart-thinking person.
OK, lunch is done. Trader Joe’s except for the mayo. A rather small avocado with Best Foods mayonnaise on it, a Kosher Dill Pickle Spear with Fresh Dill & Spices (plastic tub in the refrigerated section there’s actual dill prigs in it), and some Double Gloucester with Chives.
Yay on the job wheelie!
Your dog park is waaaaaayyyyyy more dramatic than ours sari.
Yesterday was my 18 year work anniversary. I got a group chat going with the other 8 survivors (of 81…we were onboarded after a hiring freeze of ~ 1 year). It’s been a long, strange trip.
Nelson got to meet Linc this afternoon. He barked a little (he’s getting better about not doing that), but Linc was cool as a cucumber and wanted to play, in his 80# lab way. Nelson was game. I think they’ll get along fine.
Stay safe and healthy y’all!
Howdy Y’all! We did end up procurin’ provisions as I wanted the high falutin’ crackers from the Pubic Sto’. We also decided to go to the not too shabby hog trough Chinese buffet place for N.O.L. Thus, we eat leftovers tomorrow. That works out, actually, since I’ll probably spend two to three hours over to the church house tomorrow mornin’ gettin’ stuff in place for the big funeralizin’ on Sattidy. Of course, everything will have to be moved around after the funeral for Sunday mornin’ services. We be weird like that.
MetalMouse that sounds like a way cool excursion!
red glad Nelson has a new friend.
A member changed their a/r system a while ago, and they’ve been unable to send a usable file. They’re still trying. In the meantime, I got what they could make, which is different elements on different records.
- Account name
- Individual aging records with customer numbers and their codes for the divisions, plus address information, terms, etc.
- Total aging amounts
Sometimes there are no individual invoices, and thus no Total record, thus the amounts are the totals.
El Jefe doesn’t want me spending my time writing programs, so Big Multinational Credit Reporting Agency and our own database get raw files. I explained the situation. Our database person, who is a programmer, said the file can’t be used. I did explain previously that it could be used as the aging file, and that the member can work to get us a customer file. Not in so many words she said, ‘It’s hard.’
So I wrote a quick-and-dirty Easytrieve to capture the account name, customer number, and totals. I didn’t account for single-record accounts that don’t have open invoices, but that’s an easy fix that I can address mañana. I’ll send the raw file, the ‘combined’ file, and my program to our database person, and let her know she can just convert my program into her program.
So, I dreamed I was at work on Christmas Eve, waiting for a load, and for some bigwigs. One of the PT sups was painting the inside walls yellow. I went out in the horseshoe, and was chatting with this Russian chick, when a three humped Bactrian camel painted like a Chik-Fil-A cow(complete with “Eat Mor Chiken” slogan on the side) ran up to us, and was leaning against us. But I’m having a martini, Spot is having A Moment Of Incoherent ScreamingTM, and hockey is on. Dinner is cavatappi with chicken and sauce, for those of you keeping store.
A gaggle of 5 years would be improvement over that lot. Also you do not challenge a Teamster named Sean O’Brien to a fistfight, unless you really want your ass handed to you. 
Yay!
This. You (Truefish) totally need (and deserve) a break somewhere in the Chaotic Evil that swirls about you.
Bravo Flyboy for saving the day with yet another custom ETL. If only the folks at vendors and customers could get their shit together, being middleware IT would be soooo easy.
My today was … different.
As I’d said above, Her Ladyship would be gone all day. And it was a non-stop light to moderate rain day. What to do?
I’d been making threatening noises about trying golf. So after a bit of fruit as a down payment on breakfast here w Her Ladyship, she left then I headed out into the rain to a nearby deli for a bagel & schmear as the rest of my breakfast. Then to the fancy mall to check out a shop that had been closed for renovation. Wow, everything is on super-duper sale at every store! If only I actually needed anything or could figure out what Her Ladyship would enjoy as a gift. But the early returns are that anyone wanting Xmas gifts of whatever sort can expect pretty good prices this year.
A lady neighbor at my old condo was a lifetime golf nut and now works at a local course’s pro shop mostly for something to do. So I went to visit her at work for some non-selling unbiased advice. We had a fine reunion. Their course was utterly shut down for heavy rain outside, so no interruptions with any other customers.
She and her cow-orker answered all my utter noob questions. Which were basically how to wade into these waters that I may or may not enjoy without blowing a stack-o-cash up front. They recommended I visit a golf “thrift store” about 10 miles up the freeway. Cool! Stop for low-carb roast chicken lunch to offset my earlier carb-heavy bagel and off through the driving rain to the thrift store.
It’s a retired pro my age who accepts clubs & other gear for donation and sells them cheap to fund a “save the kids through golf” program. And the guy has a full bore golf sim and spent a lifetime teaching. Anyhow, we picked out a whole rig for me for next to no money which we set aside. I’ll have a first lesson on Fri morning with those tools in his sim and if it’s fun and he’s not declared me hopeless, I’ll buy more lessons and that gear then. On the way home I stopped by a big golf superstore to see what new toys cost. Yowza! Glad I’m shopping at the thrift store.
Here’s hoping this can become fun. The older dudes at my old condo are golfin’ fools, so I’ve got an instant buddy group once I’m merely bad, not embarrassingly bad. There’s no shortage of nice days and no shortage of places to play. If it’s fun.
OTOH, tomorrow starts with an Uggh! and ends with a Yaay!, abeit a subdued Yaay!.
Have to set an alarm and be out the door at 7:30 to go to the dermo for my semi-annual checkup. He’s gonna be freezing suspicious spots all over, and probably doing biopsies on some already cancerous spots on my forehead. Which battle damage & medication makes for a draggy afternoon.
Later on Thu night should be better. I, Her Ladyship, & my Big Boy pal & his wife are doing a sponsored wine tasting at one of the places we’re both frequent fliers. Lots of opportunities for wretched excess. OTOH, I gotta be a little circumspect or I’ll waste the next day’s morning first golf lesson.
Planning outdoor geezer disco for Fri night. The rain should have moved out by then. If not, it’ll be a bust; the venue just can’t deal with significant rain. Will be fun if it happens at all.