Category Archives: Quirks

Boys Night Out

Its Book Group time for Sweetie! Her once month outing with the ladies. SuperPizzaBoy and I go out and do stuff. Come join us!

Are you ready to go SPB?

First, Dinner at Fuddrucker’s. Plain Cheeseburger for the kid.


Dad loaded his up at the “make your own” bar.

Then to Laser Quest. One 20 minute game. Very intense workout. I came in number one! I gave those 11 year olds a butt kicking they will never forget. I’m the King of the World!

We finished at Barnes & Noble. The rule is I’ll buy you a book but you better be with me at the checkout stand; he was!

Home,

Habanero Popcorn

Do you have a problem with popcorn. I mean you microwave a bag and then everybody wants some. I’ve got the solution. Habanero flavored popcorn. I’m the only one in our house that will eat it. They carry it at Bass Pro here in Tulsa.

Its really good but it is really hot. Water and beer don’t help. Soda is probably the best, something with a little fizz to it.

I just eat it without any liquids and finish off with peach frozen yogurt. That works great. So I get two snacks instead of one.

And you don’t have to share. But not everybody is as selfish as me.

Road Trip – Kansas

Last Thursday coworker Dave and I went on a road trip to Kansas. We needed to talk to some of our field guys up there plus go to an energy industry meeting. I love going to Kansas. It is very scenic (yep, I think so, really), and the residents take great pride in their state. Regulatory wise in my industry it is a little more restrictive than what I’m used to so sometimes I irritate our Kansas based employees by calling it “The Peoples Republic of Kansas.” But I’m just kidding, they know that.

Dave and I each had new navigation systems. Same manufacturer, different models. We had to check them out so we used both. Let me tell you, you don’t want to go to Kansas without a backup GPS.

We took the back roads. We went through Sharon, Kansas. Home of Martine Mcbride. We happened to run into her. She let us take her picture. Very pretty lady with a great voice. Still runs around the praire barefoot.

We also went through Medicine Lodge, Kansas. Home of Carrie A. Nation. She’s deceased so we didn’t see her. At the cocktail party we went to that night though I led several toasts to her memory.

You know, if she took those glasses off and set that hatchet down she wouldn’t look that bad.

Spent the night in Pratt, Kansas very neat tidy midwestern town. Brick streets, all that good stuff. They have their Miss Kansas pageant there. Several have won the Miss America pageant. I don’t think Carrie would have won. Smashing whiskey bottles isn’t much of a talent, and the bathing suit segment would have been a problem for her.

After our meetings, dinner, and cocktail party I went geocaching. There a couple dozen caches in Pratt. I did not find a one. Made a bad decision on the route to them (I walked) by the time I got in the vicinity it was way dark. I had a great walk though. About seven miles all told. Most of it was out in the country.
Sweetie doesn’t like it when I going exploring on foot, especially late at night. But I see great stuff that I wouldn’t see sitting in a motel room. Like this sunset.

Or this house. Sorry for the blurriness. I didn’t have a tripod.

Pratt has a park called Lemon Park. Great lighted walking trails that meander all over the place. 10 PM and there were all sorts of people walking their dogs and walking together, I loved it. Not a hint of the creep factor that one sees sometimes in parks late at night.

Next day, time to head back to T town. Dave and I loaded up on Fat Tire Beer. (I mean we bought a couple cases of it, not go on a drinking binge.) Cannot get it in Oklahoma because of our strange liquor laws.

I finally got around to it.

We have a bicycle problem at the house. Sweetie’s is propped up against the wall. Makes it kind of hard to get in and out of her car.

Mine is balanced all wobbly on my work bench. So if I need to do anything I have to move the bicycle. Pain in the butt.

So after school today SuperPizzaBoy and I went to Home Depot and found two fold down bike racks for $5.95 each, plus tax. They come with screws but I spent a few more pennies on some heavier duty manly lag screws.

Come home, did my manly home project. Sweetie will be so proud of me when she gets home Thursday night! I’ve been telling her that I would take care of it since about 1992, and I did. Isn’t it nice to have a guy around the house who follows through?

Gadgets

To be a true geek you have to have lots of gadgets. Plus you have to know how to use them. You also have to be very self absorbed. This post proves that for me.

The collage below shows just a few in our household. My latest is a weather station in our backyard. It is solar powered and has a wireless connection to a console in the house. It measures temperature, inside and outside, rainfall, wind direction, barometric pressure. The whole deal. I’m always giving Sweetie updates on the weather. She acts like she doesn’t appreciate them. But I know that she does. The next step is to tie it to a computer and have a weather station on the internet at www.weatherunderground.com. I’m going to use the old PC upstairs for that.

I have a Palm Treo. So when I’m out of town I can see how Baloney and “Curt is Hot” are kicking my butt in Baloney’s online trivia game. And of course I have my laptop and SuperPizzaBoys’ alphasmart that he does his homework on.


I’ve got lots of other stuff. My Dell Digital Jukebox and my ipod. I’d die without my tunes. I have several progammable calculators. I know how to use them to. I have actually used them to design stuff and to troubleshoot problems in the field.

I have a calculator that will solve symbolic equations. You put in a quadratic equation for example and it will solve it. Don’t ask me what I use it for. I don’t use it for anything. I just have it and it makes me happy having it and knowing how to use it. Hey it will do three dimensional graphs also.

I have even more stuff. GPS systems for my geocaching and running. My satellite radio ( more tunes!). Heart rate monitors for running. Lots of stuff.

What do I like the most? The GPS. I am addicted to geocaching. What can I say.

What do I hate the most? Computers. They break my heart. They are fragile and overly complicated. Why do they have to reboot every time you turn them on? There is no reason why they can’t just turn on and run. Your car has computers in it. You don’t have to wait for them to boot up when you start your car. Your television has a computer. It doesn’t have to reboot when you turn it on to watch something.

I may be a nerd, but I know how to use my technology.

Fund Raiser Sucker

If your organization is having a book fair or a silent auction as a fund raiser call me. I can’t resist them.

My employer had their United Way silent auction last week. They do it online kind of like ebay. They didn’t have that much good stuff this year. Mostly the items of interest to me were logo shirts. I bid on a few then a few more. So for some reason I ended up with three identical white golf shirts and two identical navy blue golf sweaters. Nice stuff but one of each would be fine. Oh and I also purchased a long sleeve khaki colored oxford shirt.

Sweetie ran the book fair at SuperPizzaBoy’s school. I love book fairs, always have. I went a little crazy this year. Sweetie had a pile of stuff for her and SPB. It is a lot easier just to add to her pile than take a double armfull of to the cashier. Hey look a fiberoptic circuit experiement kit, always wanted one of those, now I have one. Hey look a book with fancy lettering templates, colored pencils, and instructions, got to have that also. Hey a funky looking mechanical pencil that looks like a regular pencil, and so inexpensive, and it has a matching eraser! Hey a book by Max Lucado, its bound to be good! I know that it is a good cause.