House Empty, Apartment Swim & Visitors from BNA

Baby's rooms full of furniture one day - packed boxes the next, today it is an empty room. We have moved to the apartment near Walmart. That is handy since we do most of our shopping there.

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Who is having more fun, Amaya or Grampa? The water was very cold - we didn't care. Amaya had her "deep ocean full body thermal protection wet suit" on that Nana bought her. (Grampa cut the arms off so she could hang them parallel to her body instead of straight out.) Grampa also deactivated the Coast Guard "Sure Save" monitoring GPS device that activates as soon as the deep ocean full body thermal protection suit hits water.

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Panama came to visit - Nana bought her a deep ocean full body thermal protection suit too. Grampa forgot to deactivate the GPS warning device and there were a couple of Coast Guard helicopters overhead for most of our swim. Fortunately there were girls in bikini's also at the pool. I think that the pilots were somewhat distracted and left after taking a couple of passes complete with infared pictures (I could see their hot lense snapping as they blew over).

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I mentioned to Amaya that the apartment would be close to Walmart - she went into the bathroom and combed her hair down the middle and plugged in a pacifier. She and I drove the pick-up over to Walmart first thing. I wore a muscle shirt and white socks with my shorts and sandals. She went with pretty dirty bare feet and spandex leggings over her swollen diaper. (We hadn't changed in diaper since we got out of the pool - she had a full wet ever expanding biggan booty look going on.) Just for kicks, when we got to the Walmart produce section, I threw a couple grapes into her spandex - looked just like cellulite. We had everybody lookin - we fit right in. We bought a couple of snacks. She got a bag of Pork Rhines, I got a can of Vienna Sausage - we ate in the parking lot. We shared a warm coke I found in the back of the pick-up. It was a good evening.

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Amaya went to sleep before we all had dessert. Panama and I went to Dairy Queen to get ice cream. Then we shared a dilly bar or two.

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The House Sold, Carol and Doug Officially Old

The house sold in just a couple of weeks, courtesy of people that have friends across the street. We appreciate our neighbors even more now... Lt. Cleveland came home for the weekend from San Antonio before he took all 247 of his soldiers to the field for a week. (He was selected to lead the group of doctors, dentists and engineers to the field exercise.) He will carefully point out which mushrooms, insects and frogs are edible, then they will go to the field mess hall and have pork chops and fine German Possmann Frankfurter Apple Wine. It is unlikely this group of officers will end up out in the booneys so this field work appears to be mostly for appearance. At any rate, Michael the commander of the group is taking it seriously. He does not want anyone shot, even though they are shooting with blanks.

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Do you remember the first time you saw an old person with the sunglasses the size of ice cream bowls over their eyes? Well Carol and I got our eyes checked today by Ms. Dr. Lisa Die at Sam's Club (the finest eye doctors in the world I am sure of that) and she instructed us to wear these glasses home after our dilation and evaluation. Carol wore hers but I told the doctor I would rather have a splitting headache and sleep in the truck a few hours than go outside her office and look like this. She said ok, I probably will have one. I did.

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#1 Raiders Fan Mobile Moving to Germany

The family Lexus has started making its exodus to Germany. The loading point is St. Louis, there it takes a slow boat to China. Once it gets there, they fill it with gas and drive it to Russia. Once it has old retreads put on (the tires and rims stolen in Kazickstan) it heads to the Czech border. After they use it for a week or two to accomodate refugees, it finally gets to Germany. "Hey, who forgot to leave the key in the ignition? This old Lexus goes to Munich I think, don know why it says Frankforter... Hey man get my smokes outa that wreck? Did you get your bail of weed outa the trunk?"

Well, we are hoping for the best anyway.

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Amaya knows that taking the car to St. Louis will give her a day with her Grampa as Erica and Nana are driving all day. She decides to skip her morning nap because the glass people came. She decides to try to skip her afternoon nap because "Grampa does not know the routine." It is not hard to figure things out around here in this house... I can get it my way, just like at Burger King. (Slept from 1:30 - 3:30, dang Grampa is smarter than he looks.)

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Hedcuts by Chuck E Cheese

The Name of Our Future Boat: "Yo Boss" - in Honor of My Wonderful Wife

We have talked about getting a boat and will probably do so some day. The more time I spend around ocean oriented towns, like Panama City, the more I think it would be a great family activity. (Carol has always wanted a boat, I am just coming around to it.)

At any rate, since Carol is keeping her nursing license up, "just in case she wants to work in Germany", and since we are getting her car ready to be shipped to Germany, Amaya and I designed a little side-of-the-car advertisement for her in case she wants to find work over there right away.

We all think that Carol is a wonderful boss - so naturally this post is sincere and in good taste. Even the nurses that used to "officially" work for her liked working for her.

"I luv ya boss!"

PS I give full credit for this idea to my friend Tim, who named his boat after his wife: He called his boat: "Yo Bitch." I will try to get the story on that in good time since I know there is a joke behind it somewhere. I just cannot remember the details.

Spring Yard Work: Five in This Family, Only Two of Us Featured Working in This Blog

Amaya is doing hose duty, we watered the grass, washed out the recycle bins and generally learned how to take a long draw of water from the hose. This is not as simple as it looks as you will note in the movie below.

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Weedeating the place means walking/weedeating 2.3 miles of linear feet of property. If you do not believe me, come here and I will let you weedeat the property - you will think that it seems like 2.3 miles of linear feet after doing it.

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Not only do you have to walk 2.3 miles of linear footage but afterwards your legs look like Chia Pets.

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Home Sweet Home - I Sure Missed Everybaby

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Don Sutton is King - at least in Panama City he is...

If you have been to Berg Pipe more than a time or two, you will know that it is directly across the street from the PC branch of Florida State U. I regularly went over to FSU prior to my late afternoon shift and watched either the FSU Girls team or the Mens team practice. It was my last day at FSU Mens Practice when the pitcher hit a home run and everyone cheered... Sutton Homer, Sutton Homer... I was not sure what all of that was about. Later during practice, I noticed that no one was going out to shag the home run balls. I thought this was strange and that I decided to walk out to the way-out-field to shag them. This was a mistake.

The baseball field is built on a level surface only because they added a rock base and dirt to grow grass. As soon as you step beyond the outfield fence, you run into high/low swamp grass and other things I do not want to mention. At any rate, I was on a mission to shag some balls. I saw at least five homers during practice and I thought I would be the only one shagging so it would be an easy 5-ball-pick-up. Oh Lord, help me with the rest of this. I found two balls easily behind the left field wall - these were easy to spot as they were sitting in high grass tufts, surrounded by moist areas, yes, in retrospect, I guess you could call it swamp. Being a non-swamp native, I would have called it, "too much watering, a few wet spots." As I ventured to center field, I noted that the high spots were fewer and that there were short little worms - I didn't think them snakes - kind of moving around in the water surrounding the higher grassed stepping areas. Two homers were hit into center field but I noted only one ball after a step here - search - step again search of the area. It was a floater, meaning it did not hit and stay into a high spot. Its life span was limited in the water. I plucked it out - it will live to see another practice. The real interesting part of this whole drama happened as I ventured into right field to shag two more balls. It was difficult to even find a high spot, most of the ground was under water. The water was noticeably turbulent, like you would around a stream bank. As I ventured forward, I suddenly got this feeling that perhaps this was not a good idea. This feeling was confirmed shortly by an older gentlemen by the name of "Coot". He drove a golf cart to the right field fence as I was looking for the next dry spot. He said, "do you know there are a multitude of poisonous snakes out there in that swap?" I was thinking, I did not know that this was a swamp, I certainly was not aware of the snakes. I proceeded to say spontaneously, "are the snakes about a foot long, like big worms." Coot said, "I have never seen a foot long worm, but we have got a lot of foot long snakes out where you be." Well at that point, I decided to leave promptly the area that I was at. I clumsily crawled the 6 foot fence, acting as if I was tired of my forage into right field, and drove in with Coot, wet boots and all, to the dugout. He showed me around and even gave me a league baseball. It had markings on it that did not show up on the practice balls that I had shagged. By the way, I did not show him the picture that I had taken of one of the many disintegrating ball that I found out in the swap. I now know why there are so many. Live & learn, End of Story.

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Don Suttons - FSU Hall of Fame Memorial on the Wall of the FSU Stadium.

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Disintegrating baseball found in left field. Now I know why no one comes back here to shag them.

Coot gave me a league ball in exchange for the practice balls, dang near brand new.

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Last Shift at Berg

Why would anyone throw a perfectly good bicycle tire onto a pipe car. Not sure. Also not sure if this is the most unusual piece of junk found on a returned car since everyone is at supper.

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We finished the Williams job and John sent everyone home after a few hours of last minute final touches. I decided, rather than stay around an extra day to pack up and drive the 10 hours home. I arrived home in the middle of the night but it was great to be back home. Carol was waiting up - not sure why but it sure was nice to give her a hug.

I took a picture of the last rail car that I prepped. Usually, the rail car comes into the load out bay and 2-3 people scramble to clean all the junk off of the car, put the new dunnage on the car, check for nails that might scratch the pipe coating and then put the chalks on. Well, everyone went to supper, I was all alone and I (get bored easy) decided I was going to prep the car by myself. You should have seen the faces when the guys came out of the break room after lunch. I smiled and the foreman strolled over and asked to see my union card. Told him I did not have one but did he want to see my receipt for the Holiday Inn Express. (Not sure he got the joke but they all kidded me all night long... did I want to prep cars without them? They would take a break... good bunch of dudes. We all got along well. I cannot finish this post without telling you the best part of prepping a car. It is the pneumatic nailer - that thing is like shooting a 45 magnum. Not once but twice into every chalk and 10 times into every contour. We are talking literally about 10-shots in less than 5 seconds. Imagine that - it is fun.)

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Another Day, Another Dollar, Geico Spokesman Visits

While I was working Shipping Loadout, the Geico Spokesman showed up to talk last nite. I was glad because he knows a lot about Berkshire Hathaway since he occasionally attends the Geico board meetings. Warren occasionally attends as well. I told him that I was not that impressed with the new round of Geico commercials, you know the ones with the eyes sitting on a pile of money. He told me he did not like them either. I asked him why State Farm is saying on their commercials that they can save you money over Geico. He said that he had no comment.

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More Days & Pictures from Panama City

I stop at a restaurant in old downtown Panama City after work to eat breakfast. Right behind the cafe is a pretty park - I took the picture below at about 6:20 am in the morning. (The cafe does not open until 6:30 so I was walking about.)

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Sunset at the Berg Pipe Port of Panama Pier. I would have gotten closer to the tug but it was outside of the Berg fence. This is a edited telephotograph.

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Every Quality Manager's nightmare. A box of pipe-to-pipe heat samples signifying an API yield failure... ouch!! I feel sorry for them as they have multiples heat infected.

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First car of Williams ARO going to the job site up north.

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ID lined pipe - FBE and ARO coated OD... pretty pipe indeed.

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Just a reminder, all sexual conjugations in Panama City are required to be in private indoor pools, not the outside kind. The local newspaper publishes all of the police arrests. I suspect this young lady's friends will not let her forget her Panama City Spring Break experience for awhile. This is slightly worse than getting a ticket for jaywalking main.

Still in Panama City - Few Days More

Still working at the pipe mill - pipe production is over so we are heading to the double jointer and coater for ID paint and OD FBE/ARO. Going to be a mighty pretty 42" pipe.

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I got into my car at dawn after a 12-hour night shift and this reminded me of a picture I took years ago. Carol and I were going to Europe and the sun never set as we traveled over what seemed like the North Pole. This picture reminded me of that picture and that trip.

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I took a picture of the sunrise, I might as well add this picture of the sunset the previous evening. If you look really close, you can see the water and West PC Beach on the other side. Can you tell that we are looking through a 4o-foot, 42" diameter pipe?

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I found a marina very close to where I am renting a room - If you sort of lean back in the swing, you can get a picture of the 80 degree reading thermometer. It has been 75 - 80 degrees every day since work started. Very pleasant days and cool nights.

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I noted that a Keystone, South Dakota resident contributed to the Pluggers cartoon of the day.

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Then I went outside to the parking lot to get my lunch. I noted that someone was pulling a U-Haul trailer with the Mitchell, SD logo on it. Small world it seems today.

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I was walking down Mainstreet of the old Panama City and I noted this picture in the window of a camera store. I used this camera in high school to take pictures for the yearbook. Now it is a valuable antique.

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I advertised on Craigslist and found a room to rent near the vintage downtown area of Panama City. It is quite a lovely area of town with grass growing in the trees. (Picture of that later.) Every morning after work, I stop at Cassandra's restaurant on Main for breakfast. It is just two blocks from a huge, well kept high rise retirement home so I feel right at home. People start rolling in their chairs promptly at 6:30 am. When I get old, I am going to sleep later than that.

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First Day at Work in Florida

This job has had a lot of schedule changes - ask me sometime to tell you about it all. We finally started the order and I drew the lab watch on the night shift. The first night was slow as the rest of the mill, minus a few maintenance people, went home for the Easter break. So I made myself useful by walking around the plant and checking out that all quality tools were within calibration periods. I bet you will never guess which mill I am at.

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Gotta include a picture of me just before going to work. (I wanted to be sure that I got a picture of me smiling.) It is a pain to go back to work but it is kind of fun at the same time. Figure that out...

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An interesting tool box out in the mill. I guess Floridians sort of feel above Arkansawians.

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This company apparently has a lot of problems with the storeroom. The storeroom complaint department has its own line-up window.

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This is a pretty city. This is the old Panama City downtown Marina. It is on the opposite side of the city as the beaches are. It has a lot of older condos on the beach - consider it the old money side of town. Not so much glitz and drama - nice and quiet if you know what I mean. I like this side of the city.

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