It was bad. I scared myself several times when I was driving in it. The most memorable event occurred when I, in my most demure voice, requested the J come by my house and pick me up for work on Wednesday. It was the worst day of the storm. Jerry knew he would not make it to his work in his truck. I suggested he take the Toyota, he jumped on it. I toyed with the idea of taking one of my days I still have remaining from last year's vacation. When I called J, and he said he was going to work, I asked if would come by and pick me up. I gave him directions, hung up and rushed around getting ready for him to arrive. It took him about 1 hour to get here. It would, under normal conditions take about 20 minutes. So, he picks me up, and we begin our 4 mile trek to the Matlock Central Office. The van is pointed toward the back road way, J says he does not want to turn around. I said fine and direct him the back way. We get about .5 mile down Collard and J looses traction and has no control. If he keeps doing what he was attempting to do, we were going to do some major damage to a very high dollar brick mailbox. Everything he did caused the van to slide in the direction of the mailbox. So, he gets out of the van and with gloved hands digs up dirt and throws it around the tires. Eventually, a man with a shovel and a ziplock bag of sand shows up and we are able to dirty the otherwise pristeen way to afford enough traction to back up to my street so we can take a more traveled route. We were on Collard, blocking traffic in both directions for about 45 minutes. During that time only one car attempted the same route and turned around. In retrospect, I doubt that this will be remembered as the great ice storm of 2003...but I will remember and next time take one of my carry over vacation days.
Congratulations
I attended a party tonight honoring Debra Jensen. She has been promoted to communication consultant for SBC. It is the highest paid non-management job with SWB. We had a wonderful time. Barbara Brittain hosted the celebration. I am really happy for Debra. There is not a more deserving person than Debra for this job.
Houston
Tomorrow I am going to the chiropractor, then I am driving to Houston. I am going to go see Guy Forsythe on Friday night. I am also meeting Meredith's new gentleman friend, Deon Metelski. Jennifer, Kathleen, John, Margaret,Gerry and I hope Tim and Felicia will be going also. I may get to meet Debra and her sister for breakfast before I leave town. Hopefully, that part of the plans will work out.
As promised, here is a link to my results of the Cowtown 10K. The site is being updated constantly, I tried to check for Jennifer and Stepan's results but they have not been posted yet. Soon, they should be available as well.
Danny's Homecoming
I spoke with Joanna tonight and Daniel is expected to arrive @DFW at around 9PM. I know she will be happy to have him here. I told Joanna about our date with Guy in Houston and invited her and Daniel to join us. She said she would talk to Danny about it. She wants to come, but it will depend on what Danny wants. Meredith and Jennifer should put the pressure on him.
We are at the cowtown post party posting from a Charter Pipeline kiosk for high speed internet. I will post more later, but if you want the Reader's Digest version of the story go here.
I just got a call from a 212 area-coded telephone number. The gentleman on the other end announced himself as being a film-maker in NYC and Meredith, my daughter, had applied for a job with them and had listed me as a reference. He thought it was very sweet that she would list her mom as a reference. He also said he was very impressed with her and complimented me on her upbringing. I thanked him. He then asked if I could recount an embarrassing moment in Meredith's life. My mind went blank. At any rate, the conversation ended with the phrase: We are going to hire her, we have not told her yet, you are the first to know. The urge to call her is overwhelming, I am trying to fight it...the urge is winning...Oh damn! I am dialing her number right now. Hello, Meredith?
I got up today at 2:45AM. I had to be at work at 3:30AM. SWB has some job functions that require you perform them in the "maintenance window". There are different windows. The job we did today has a window of Midnight to 6AM. The good thing about going to work early is you get off early! That plan was foiled for us today due to a FedEx 18 wheeler involving itself in an accident and causing the shutdown of the 2 left West bound lanes of I20. It took about 1.5 hours to travel what normally takes us 10 minutes. When we got to the accident the trailer of the rig was ripped completely open, there were packages all over the place and there were people fire brigading the packages from what remained of the trailor and the road into a new intact 18 wheeler. This would have been a great scene for the movie Castaway. I called the boss and told him of our predicament and he told us we could take off early one day next week. Yipee!
I love Cucumbers
Even without the slow down on I20 we had alot of windshield time today. We delivered the equipment we disconnected in Fort Worth to our office in far East Dallas. We we first began our journey, the announcer on KAAM 770AM advised her listeners that there would be some trivia quizes for prizes that she had available. One of those prizes was a quilted tote from a store in Carrollton. I told J that I wanted to win one of them. So, we drive all the way to our Dallas office and there were no opportunities to win. We spend about 1.5 hours at the warehouse and start back at around 1PM. Linda Martin of KAAM announces an opportunity to win. It was going to be a tote. The first person to answer her question correctly wins. The question is: In 1900, cold cream had not been invented (for lack of a better word); ladies, at that time, would mix vaseline with this common vegetable. What is that vegatable? So, I call and win! Talk about a high. It was so exciting to win. I am going to go pick up my tote tomorrow. The store where I have to go is in Carrollton. It will be a trip, but I want to see my tote!
It was on this date in 1965 that Nat King Cole died at the age of 49. I did not realize his birth date and death date was so close to daddy's birth and death dates. It makes me wonder, if maybe, they are jamming where they are now. I would like to believe they are.
I was just wondering if anyone is interested in going to Houston on February 28 and seeing Guy Forsythe at The Continental Club. I think I am free that weekend. Let me know.
On December 03, 2002 I wrote the following:
:: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 ::
What Was I Thinking
Recently, I signed a menu for a retiring co-worker named Van Ellis. I included an acronym and I am at a loss as to what it could mean. Help!
I know what the acronym is and what it means! I have worried about this off and on since Van asked me what it meant. I remembered writing it, and I remembered thinking, "Van is not going to know what this means, he! he!" But as soon as I wrote it, I forgot what it stood for. Anyway, with a little help from Van I figured out what the acronym meant.
The acronym=BHL
The answer= Bleeding Heart Liberal
I wrote that because during one of the few times that I was privileged to work on the same project with Van in Longview Texas, I said something--can't remember what--and Van said: "bless your little bleeding heart".
We are readying ourselves to go see Guy Forsythe. The people in our party will be Allen Haswell, Debra Jensen, Jennifer Riha, Stepan Riha, Jeffrey Barrett, Kris Weeks for dinner at Uncle Julio's. Then Daniel Lucio and Joanna Duke will join us at JJ's blues bar for a night of fun fun, fun.
Recently, my boss asked me to send him a list of central offices for the year 2002 that J and I had done some work. He also wanted us to let him know what work was performed. J and I, mostly J, came up with the following letter:
Doug,
>
> Following is a list of tasks performed at the following listed
> central offices by the following listed communications technicians at the
> listed central offices with the list to include some but not necessarily
> all of those following tasks, which attempted to list some if not all of
> those central offices which were obtained from a list of central offices
> which was in itself a task since the list does not list all current
> information which is indicative of the following trend in the lack of not
> updating current information to be disseminated to work forces responsible
> for the task of maintaining physical responsibility of SBC interests,
> customer satisfaction, safety, and timely completion of job tasks assigned
> by some but not all of managerial departments associated with assignment
> of daily job tasks which does not include listing those tasks since this
> information can be obtained from various other mediums of record storage:
>
> The tasks:
>
> * relocating cabinets and anchoring them to the wall
> * anchoring cabinets in their existing locations
> * extending ground to equipment storage rooms
> * grounding cabinets within equipment storage rooms
> * removing stacks and stacks of discarded masonite
> * removing iron work abandoned by vendors
> * firestopping
> * light bulb replacement
> * ladder repairing
>
> The central offices:
>
> * Granbury
> * Mineral Wells
> * Weatherford
> * Eastland
> * Cisco
> * Ranger
> * Graham
> * Jacksboro
> * Strawn
> * Gordon
> * Breckenridge
> * Walnut
> * Pershing
> * Terminal
> * Market
> * Mansfield
> * Grand Prairie
> * Midcities
> * Northlake
> * Edison
> * Fleetwood
> * Davis
> * Federal
> * Taylor
> * Ross Av
>
> The communications technicians
>
> * J W Parker, Jr.
> * Rita L Lucio
>
> Other offices with C O E I activity may be obtained from Rudy
> Cedillo, Debbie Edwards, Pam Fitzgerald, and Jeffrey Barrett.
>
> Sincerely,
> Rita & J
>
> PS Is this what you were asking for?
I know that this is probably cheating...repeating this letter here, but everytime I read it I chuckle, so I wanted to share it.
Guy Forsythe
Debra Jensen, Allen Haswell, Jennifer & Stepan Riha, and I will be attending a performance of Guy Forsythe this Saturday night at J&J's blues bar in Fort Worth. I am so looking forward to it. Anyone else want to join us? Here is his website.
We use to have a volley ball net set up in our backyard when we lived in Graham. We would get a game together almost any night the weather was nice. Danny and Wilma Evans with their 2 kids would play with us, among a bunch of other people. I cannot remember the daughter's name, but the son was named Chuck. When the ball would get close to Chuck we would all holler "upchuck! upchuck!" He hated it, and I cannot blame him for that. Especially after upchucking profusely yesterday. That is one bodily function that I detest and I cannot grasp the idea of doing it on purpose. Although, I did feel particularly skinny after the job was completed. I had a four hour flu or a really bad hangover.
Gallerita Was Open For Business
Yesterday, after my four hour illness was over, Kathleen and John came by and I opened the doors to the Gallerita. Kathleen left here with 5 huge bulging shopping bags and some hanging clothes as well. She is one very happy customer. While trying on, we came across a pair of capri length khaki pants. She said she would never wear those. I convinced her to try them on and she loved them! So, next time if you see her wearing a very cute outfit, ask her if she got it at the Gallerita.