Things that go "HELP!!!!" in the night... my first MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
201

Hey, while we’re on the subject of ink I have a story to relate. This is about my high school physics teacher. Before he was a physics teacher - way, way back in ancient times, like the 1970s, he used to work for IBM, as a problem solver kinda guy. Now, this was before fancy printers and everything, so IBM had these ginormous machines that wrote their checks. Forty feet long, and with a pressurized ink system. So it’s 3 in the morning, and my future teacher gets called in because one of these machines has stopped working. IBM has lots of checks to write, so he goes in at 3 am - in his three piece suit and tie, because it’s IBM, and white lab coat.

This particular machine was positioned such that there was a 2 foot space in between it and the wall. He figured there was a bubble or something in the ink system. So he goes around behind the machine with a small cloth in his hand and crouches down to the screw cap. He’ll just relieve a bit of the pressure and it’ll be fine. So he unscrews it a bit. Nothing happens. He unscrews a bit more. Still nothing. He unscrews more, and the cap comes off in his hand.

“Uh oh.”

When he stands up and looks behind him, there is an outline of his shape on the wall. He is soaked through to the skin in ink. Through his lab coat, through his expensive suit. He’s got racoon eyes when he takes off his glasses. Turns out the problem was something else entirely.

Oops.

202

Mind if I join you in a :grinch:?? Somewhere along the line, Christmas ceased to be fun. That makes me sad.

Dinner was good, but Miss Brandy went nuts moreso than usual when she smelled the salmon. She’s a worse beggar than Bernie!

Dishes are washed, clothes are dried and awaiting folding. It’s a nice, relaxing evening at home. AAAAAhhhhhh…

203

:: sings ::
629 mopheads on the wall,
629 mopheads…
Take one done, swab it around,
628 mopheads.

:hee:

I’ve had vicodin, darvon, demerol, etc. and the onlyest drug I’ve ever had that;
a) makes the pain really go away, and
b) doesn’t make me sick, is morphine.
I lurves morphine.
Unfortunately the docs won’t give that to you, unless you’re in a hospital bed.
**Mrs. Mindfield ** has my sincerest sympathy.

Sympathies to PamphletPuss also.

Yay! for FCD’s bonus. I’m sure you’ll get one too FCM, 'cause you’re nice, dammit!

Someone mentioned rum balls back there. The only rum I’ve ever had that I liked was some that a friend brought back from Puerto Rico that tasted more like a well-aged Scotch than rum. Bacardi et. al. taste like airplane glue to me. Which is also why I don’t like store-bought eggnog. Whatever ersatz liquor flavoring they put in there I can’t stand. Unfortunately, the eggnog I grew up with was a raw-egg nog, and we can’t have that now can we?
For your edification and amusement:

Put 4 eggs in a blender,
Add (IIRC) about 1/4 cup white sugar
Add about a capfull of vanilla, maybe a little more.
Fill about 4/5 full with whole milk.
Blend.
Pour into glasses and grate fresh nutmeg on top.
Drink.

This is also pretty much the recipe for the home-made ice cream we used to make when I was kid. Of course my aunt kept chickens, so we knew where the eggs came from.
And we ate them anyway.
And we LIKED IT!

Glad there won’t be any player lynchings Snakes. It sucks that the fans can get away with so much, but whatcha gonna do?

There’s more, but it isn’t very interesting either, so I’ll close.

204

Spats’ IBM story reminds me of a story from my early days. Back in the day computer programs were punched into rather large cards called Hollerith cards and then read into the computer by a big card reading machine. The operator would load the cards into the input hopper and put a weight on top of them to hold them down as they were read in. *
Well, one day someone, who was NOT me, bent over the card-reader machine with a bag of M&Ms in his shirt pocket. :eek: Of course the M&Ms fell out into the input tray and were immediatly sucked into the innards of the machine. That poor guy spent about 2 hours cleaning chocolate off of various rollers, widgets, and mirrors inside the reader before we could load any more programs that day. :rolleyes:

  • there were also weights that went in the output hoppers where the reader would shoot the cards out, with some force, after they were read. If the operator forgot to put those weights back in place, the computer room would suddenly look like a parade with extra large confetti. :smiley:
205

I GOT MY PHONE BACK!

<snoopy dance>

As I came out of the elevator on my floor, MindWife was there, shoving be back into the elevator saying, “1007! Go! Your phone! Apartment 1007!” So off to 1007 I went. A nice Indian woman answered the door and mildly interrogated me as to the legitimacy of my claim that the phone was, indeed, mine. Good; not that I had expectation that anyone else even know she had the phone, she it’s good that she exercised a bit of caution before just handing it over. Apparently she found it first thing in the morning right outside the side door to the apartment. I did stop to tie my shoes (damn shoelaces!) just inside the door, so I guess it must have come off of the waistband of my jeans and slipped down through my coat as I walked out the door. I definitely would have heard that had I not had my iPod on and, furthermore, been using noise-isolating canalphones. (A nuclear blast just down the street just make me wonder where all the wind came from with those things in!) Funny thing is I’ve always been slightly paranoid that one day either my phone or my PDA was going to slip off my belt clip and disappear into the ether if I wasn’t vigilant in making sure it was still there periodically.

Lesson learned. I’m keeping my phone in my pocket or backpack from now on. In my area, the chances are far greater that the one who found it would probably just keep it or sell it – and that’s not good when you’ve got a smartphone with all manner of sensitive information on it. I have a time bomb on it (text message with a keyphrase and it’ll hard reset, destroying all information on it) but I didn’t want to use it just in case someone did find it and would return it. Good samaritans are a rare species though, and I didn’t realistically believe I’d get it back. Whew!

Anyway.

swampt - thanks for the wishes. Her tooth has subdued to manageable levels at the moment, but she’s currently dealing with the repercussions of excessive consumption of acetaminophen and codeine. She’s lying down on the couch watching TV and taking it easy, which is good. I made her a bowl of soup (tomato soup with some beef bullion, vermicelli and a dash of parmesan) and she seemed to keep that down, so the prognosis is looking positive – for now, anyway. Let’s hope tonight is better than last night. The penicillin must have had a chance to do some of its work by now.

206

Of course I meant swampy – but with as busy as you’ve been with those hordes of mopheads and all, perhaps you were swamp’t at that.

207

Good morneve! I’m between overnight shifts,having coffee. I send my mom a picture of Mantree, and her reaction was “That poor tree!”

Brainpasture, my Uncle Mike the movie star works at an ink plant. I’d get the wife a new dentist if her won’t help with the pain.

Bibkitty, hope you feel better soon.

FCM, yeah bonuses! I opened a Christmas bonus one year that was only $23 dollars less than my weekly paycheck.

SCL, I agree with the Grinchitude. Retail will do that to you.

Bumba, the best drugs they have ever given me was 625mg Ibuprofen for my tendinitis.

208

Thanks for the Feel-Better wishes. The “Don’t get two steps from the bathroom” thing seems to have passed, no pun intended.

FairyChat, what does your beloved do for a living? He must be very good at it. Yay for him!

Speaking of drugs, demerol makes me dizzy and makes me barf. Codiene is good, but I prefer vicodin. Makes the horrible migraines go away. If you go to the ER and say your head hurts and ask outright for vicodin, they look at you sideways and make notes in your chart. : drug-seeking smilie :

209

My sweetie works for a contractor at NASA Goddard. His group is responsible for moving satellites to and from the facilities where they’re built, required test sites ,and ultimately to the launch pad. He started out designing and programming systems to maintain and monitor the satellites - vibration isolation, environmental control, stuff like that. And he’s good enough at it that he was promoted to branch head. Yep, and he’s a keeper. :smiley:

210

The Saga of AC Continues…

Today, AC assaults the marketing director (the national marketing director) with offers of help. “I have so many different skills that aren’t being utilized, and can work as a floater, and do whatever you need, I can do just about everything, blah blah blah.” She went on and on and on. Meanwhile, it’s all I can do not to laugh. What skills? When did she acquire them? She’s been here a year and still doesn’t know how to do an invoice. Invoicing is the very first thing that you learn here. She hasn’t gotten past step one yet, and wants to help marketing?

The position to support the marketing director used to be a revolving door. Sometimes people didn’t last more than a day or two (permanent hires, not temps). They tried to recruit from within and the resounding response was “HELL, no.” They finally found someone who’s stuck around, but the point is, this woman takes no prisoners and tolerates no fools. Come on, AC! All you’ve got to do is act naturally! Of course, AC’ll probably brazen her way through this, too, but I can dream, can’t I?

211

So he’s pretty much a rocket scientist? :smiley:

212

Feel better, Bibkitty! I hate it when my stomach’s sick. Worst feeling ever.

I just moved all my stuff into my new apartment - well, except for the stuff I’m taking on my holiday trip. My-friend-who-I-have-a-slight-crush-on-but-he-has-a-girlfriend helped me move (he has a car) for which am eternally grateful - it would have cost me at least 30 bucks to hire someone . Then I went over to another friend’s house and had mulled wine. Now I am happily tipsy and about to go watch a movie downtown.

I feel like the mood today is slightly grumpy. Perhaps a silly picture or three will make y’all feel a bit better.

Yeah, that’s me. Sigh. The things I do for you. :smiley:

213

Mechanical engineer. He doesn’t design the space stuff - he designs the earth stuff that moves around the space stuff. It’s cool, but it ain’t rocket surgery.

:smiley:

214

How you doin’?
Here I am, flirting with a babelette that could be my daughter…

215

Just say you were speaking for me, I’m 25 and those are my sentiments exactly.

216

Hell, I’m straight, and even I think you’re hot, Haze. what are you holding?

Black floral top it was - thanks all for your input. more on the date in a moment - I just have to say before I forget - all this talk of ink and aromas - Remember mimeograph machines? and how the purpled paper smelled? I’m getting visions of Mrs Acker’s third grade class. <happy sigh>

Ok - Today draaaaaaaaaaaaaagged. It couldn’t get to 5:30 fast enough. Then I was out the door like a shot, so of course I hit every red light on the way to the salon, then I had to wait 5 minutes for a parking space, so i was 10 minutes late for my appointment - But I came out of there with hair and nails looking super spiffy - Oh, and I did put a little eye make up on this morning - not too much - a little mascara and some shimmery grey on the lids - plus a little blush.
I got to the diner, he was there - he hadn’t been waiting too long - he’d gotten there early so he could hit the Trader Joe’s across the street. We had a nice conversation and made slightly-more-than-vague plans to do it again. I kept hinting around at things to do - I’d been listening to Spamalot in the car (never heard it before - never saw it either) and decided I had to see it, but it wouldn’t be practical until the summer when a) I will have recovered from knee replacement surgery and b) dropped a few dozen lbs. Nothing. I mentioned some movies I’d like to see. No real enthusiasm. So I think what I get out of this is another friend. And what’s bad about that? But still, it would have been nice to have a boyfriend. So I guess I’ll give the MySpace guy a shot.

Yes I did say knee replacement surgery. I’ve already got titanium hips - the knees should have been done years ago, but I’ve been putting it off. (Did I tell you all this already?) Tentatively scheduled for late April’07 - right after competition. It’ll be hell - but a brief one with a foreseeable end - unlike the constant pain I have now. Plus I decided to go ahead with the Retuxan treatment, so at least I’ll have a better winter.

217

Quick drive-by…haven’t read real closely, but I hope everyone’s feeling better, especially after the silly pictures. Also…yay for the found phone! (I would collapse if I lost mine.) Long day at work, then quick SUCCESSFUL shopping trip (got presents for best work friends - yay!), then book group (my reward for having survived the rest of the day).

Li-Li, one of the book group members mentioned the difficult-person passage that you quoted back there somewhere. I haven’t made it there yet (pretty sure I wouldn’t have overlooked it), but I recognized it right off. Also, I now own both Gilead AND Housekeeping, since one of my stops on the shopping trip was the bookstore. So now I’ll be able to mark and highlight all I want.

Bedtime…

GT

218

Oooh…missed your post, rosie. Friends are good…keep telling yourself that, cuz it’s true. And new knees are excellent inventions, from what I’ve seen. Everyone I know who’s had them replaced has regretted putting the surgery off.

Really…now it’s bedtime.

GT

219

Hurray for new knees and reduced pain. Friends are good, rosie, and sometimes friends have friends. You never know (says the woman who hasn’t been on a date since July, um, 200? But it was during this century!)

The dinner meeting seemed to go well tonight. I left as they were closing the first 3 auction tables. I think they’ll have a nice check for this year’s charity, Girls for Change. I had a leetle bit of wine, a Mondavi Cabernet. I know I shouldn’t have, but it smelled soooo good. I only had an 1/8 of a glass, so hopefully that’s not too much. Dinner was yum, there was a green salad with feta cheese and kalamata olives, enormous caraway dinner rolls, steamed broccoli with parmesan, arborio rice with mushrooms, cheese ravioli in marinara, chicken breasts and slabs of some sort of well-done meat, and trays of little custardy cakes decorated with red and green flowers and walnut frosted brownies.

I stopped at the bookstore and bought a couple of anthologies: Cosmic Cocktails and Furry Fantastic.

I think it’s bedtime. Another holiday party in the morning, this one for administrative staff, hosted by the partners (sometimes they hand out money at those). And then a hot chocolate and cookie party in the afternoon.

220

It’s official. Haze = extremely cute. The Spatial has spoken. Today my mother, brother and I went shopping to get a gift for my dad - a massaging pad for his computer chair. I’m sure he’ll really like it. :slight_smile:

I also went to the DMV today. Please, please, no need to call an ambulance, I made it through just fine. No no - well, the flowers would look fine over here, thank you. It went smoothly because I went during everyone’s lunch hour, so there was no line to get my license renewed. Easy as pie. Mmm, pie.