You've Never Really Lived...

...until you've vacuumed your back yard.

I know it sounds like a really messed up punishment you'd give a kid for some epic screw up, but this really happened recently.

You see, several years ago, The Queen convinced me we needed patio furniture. Pro tip to all: patio furniture should be made out of dimensional lumber. Anything else is a waste of money. Case on point to follow.

The Queen, being a serious shopper when she sets her mind to it, found a listing on Craigslist for a little out of the way shop that had a set up patio furniture for sale for a stupid low price. If you've ever priced patio furniture at a big box store, you know dropping a kilo buck is not uncommon for "decent" patio furniture. I forget the exact price, but I think it was sub $500. This is almost Guido "It Fell Off The Truck" territory, but we checked the place out and it was legit.

Any deal, one of the selling points for The Queen regarding this particular set of patio furniture was that the table had a glass top. Pro Tip Numero Dos: Never, EVER, buy a glass top patio table in North Texas (where hail storms with baseball or larger hail are a regular thing). Luckily, for me at least, this set of patio furniture managed to dodge several hail storms and even one tornado. Unfortunately, time and weather had not been kind to this set of furniture. Texas heat is brutal, rain rusts metal, things break and get lost...you get the picture.

So, after about a decade of service, we put the patio furniture aside for eventual disposal and/or repurposing.

Well, along came the dogs. Two dogs who'd never met a free range bunny in the backyard before. They really wanted to get to know Taco a lot better. Taco was less than thrilled with that idea.

So, The Queen decreed that a barrier must be erected to separate Taco and the pups. A trip to Home Depot and the parting of  $80 to$100 of my cash later, and we had a barrier. Of sorts. The dogs, managed to defeat my best efforts at fencing on a distressingly regular basis. Part of the problem was that we had to have a gate to allow access to the Taco side of the fence. This was the weakness that the dogs exploited. The Queen had a light bulb moment, and the table top from the patio furniture was pressed into service as a sliding gate supplement.

It did not end well.

Roughly 3' x 7' of shattered glass

One fine summer day, the weather turned nasty in a hurry with winds blowing storms in toot sweet. That lovely slab of glass patio table top toppled over and immediately fragmented into about a million little pieces of super sharp silicon.

Well, I needed an excuse to by a shop vac. I just never guessed it would be to vacuum the yard.

They Come In Peace...

...but dang those probes are cold.

That's about as good an explanation as any for the last month or so since my last post. Let me hit the highlights of the goings on, and then I will figure out what to do with this post.

Went to Florida, interviewed, returned home safely. Found out two days ago, not selected. The Queen was not pleased. She was looking forward to living near a beach.

A happy Queen and Princess enjoying some "chockit" ice cream near the beach.

Winter decided to dump a last minute winter storm on north Texas. You folks up north can scoff, but snow and ice shut DFW down hard because ice goes in your tea, not on your roads. Any global warming/climate change nuts in the audience can take your thinly veiled leftist, propaganda and stuff it. Be sure you fold it into sharp little corners for an origami suppository first.

That storm screwed up my other job interview. We were able to squeeze it in between ice storms. Found out yesterday, not selected. That was a bummer because it was a really good opportunity.

Got a call Monday from an HR person that I had written off after they had failed to respond to several phone calls and emails over several weeks regarding next steps letting me know I was still on the list of candidates they want to move forward with, but they have put the position on hold because of some other stuff. We shall see. At this point, my track record may see me still on the market when they get their act in gear.

For those that are interested, the job search enters its eighth month today. The stats so far are:

91 jobs applied for
8 in person final interviews so far
75 rejections (formal and informal)
16 applications still in limbo

Welcome to the new economy. That's hope and change you can believe in right there. To be fair, some of those applications were a bit of a stretch; but, you don't know if you don't try. And, based on the limited feedback I've gotten, companies are reluctant to make an offer to me based on my prior earning history. It's nearly impossible to hide that the way online applications are structured these days.

Castle Erickson has been besotted by various plagues. All three of us at once. I have to suck it up and go to work because we can't afford for me to miss anymore time after the time missed interviewing and waiting out the ice storm office closings. Being a temp on an hourly rate contract sucks sometimes.

Learned today that my favorite author passed away which leaves me in a deeper funk than I was already in to begin with. Sir Terry Pratchett is a British author I have spoken about here before. He has been dealing with the effects of Alzheimers for the last several years. His Disc World series is an absolute gem. If you haven't read it, I can give you suggestions. But, as another, more eloquent blogger said, "The worst was good, and the best was magic."

Farewell, good sir. I'm sure DEATH and Binky gave you a clean exit from this mortal coil and a smooth journey.

Global Warming My Hairy...

Someone go tell Al Gore the global warming he sold everyone is defective.

It's March 3RD. The normal temps in the Dallas are are supposed to be in the 60s for a high and 40s for a low. Outside my office window right now, it's 16 degrees. The wind chill makes it feel like 1 degree. I live in Dallas, not Chicago, for a reason.

To make matters worse, it was 80 degrees and beautiful Saturday.

Whoever is screwing with the thermostat better knock it off. If we find you, there will be Hell to pay.

What's So New About This Year?

Looking at my writing production for 2012, it looks like someone fell off the wagon so to speak. In my defense, I've been a bit preoccupied with work, wife and kids. Hopefully, with the impending adoption of M&M and the return/moving on of The Banshee and Mini Me, time for writing will increase again. So, I thought I'd give a brief random update with pictures.

A little over two weeks ago, I came down with the rampaging nastiness. I've had garden variety nastiness in the form of the flu. Pneumonia was a breeze compared to the rampaging nasties. With pneumonia, I only thought I was going to die. With the rampaging nastiness, serious thought was given to WANTING to die.

Warning: TMI to follow. It all started with explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting. At the same time. After about eight hours worth of that, and I was prepared swear off food and water for life. Then, it stopped. I collapsed in a heap for several hours of sleep after that only to wake up to The Queen sharing my fate in the middle of the night. No fun. That was Sunday.

Monday dawned with me feeling weak but otherwise able to take nourishment and function somewhat normally. I stayed home from work to take care of The Queen and the kids. She needed it.

Tuesday dawned with me sporting a 103 degree fever. I normally run a degree or so cool compared to normal people. So, 103 is a bit of a concern. The magic elixir of alternating tylenol and advil only managed to keep me sleeping in a pool of my own sweat for three days.

Along about Wednesday or Thursday is when things really got interesting. My hands and feet broke out in a rash, the tips of my fingers and toes calloused over, and it felt like I had burned my hands and feet. This was new and interesting. It was also a giant pain in the keister. Friday I went back to work which was a mistake in hindsight as I had a sore throat.

Saturday found me sitting in the doc in a box's office trying to figure out what the hell was going on. The sore throat turned out to be ulcers in the mouth and throat. Which explained why swallowing water felt like I was gargling with broken glass.

The reason I am sharing this story is that the medical history discussion with the PA was amusing to say the least.

Me: [after relating the above history] I am concerned about shingles or staph.

PA: mmm...are you sexually active Mr. Erickson?

Me: Yes, I've been married for nine years to the same woman.

PA: Are you active with anyone else?

Me: No. Why?

PA: Well, I think it's either hand, foot and mouth or it might be syphillis.

Me: [BLINK, BLINK]...what the....????

I can assure my readers that I do not have such an interesting social disease. I have the test results to prove it. My C-reactive protien levels are about six times higher than normal indictative of a viral infection which, combined with my other symptoms, is consistent with hand, foot and mouth. I have Mini Me to thank for that one. HF&M is common in school age kids, and Mini Me just started pre-K in October. He was also worshiping Hurl!! the day before I did.

In other news, The Queen and I have made a firm decision to home school M&M when the time comes.

Other than my hands and feet peeling, flaking and cracking from a bunch of dead skin caused by the rash, I am over my affliction.

Moving right along, the forecast at Castle Erickson for Christmas Day was for cold but not freezing wet weather. Instead, we got this:

Global warming my big, hairy (flaking, peeling, cracking) toe.

Mini Me and The Banshee are still with us for the time being. There is a pretty significant security issue developing which may see them relocated in the near future. Or it might not. I'll share details after the fact. We are waiting to hear back from the powers that be regarding what they want to do about it.

M&M remains with us and is increasingly likely to be ours forever. By my count, we are 53 days away from the earliest day we would be able to adopt her assuming the genetic donors do not file an appeal. So far, there has been no indication that they have the means or the interest in filing an appeal. Also, female genetic donor's mother's home study was denied. Apparently, brain cancer and medical marijuana use make a person unfit to be a single parent to an infant. Who knew? Grandma Toker (not her real name) has 90 days to get a neurological evaluation if she wants her home study to be reconsidered. There is no guarantee that the Texas case worker will accept it even if her home state approves her the second go around.



Mimi, My Sister...The Devil and an Unidentified Midget. Shhssh! Don't tell anyone.

There will be a fight (legal...maybe otherwise too) if she gets approved. Just sayin'.

Some Very Special Feet

As of today, I have been at the new job for one year meaning I can no longer use the "I'm the new guy" excuse. In hindsight, it was a really good move career wise and otherwise. The travel requirement has been managable. And I can afford a better quality of bourbon.

MMMM....Tasty

My Life is a Bad Country Country Song - Part 1 of ?

I'm sure you all have heard the joke about what happens when you play a country song backwards...you get your wife back, your truck back, your dog back, your hair.... Let that be a warning to those readers who are faint of heart or overly emotional...there be teary eyed moments to follow. I'm also going to break this up into at least two parts because 1) I don't feel like writing it all down in one sitting, 2) you probably don't need that much bad news in one sitting, and 3) did I mention I really don't feel like writing this all in one sitting? Heck, I've been avoiding thinking about parts of this much less even writing about it.  Before I go any further, I will tell you now to alleviate any concerns on your part that, though The Queen and M&M both have parts in these sad tales, both of them are more or less healthy, upright and able to take nourishment. M&M's part of the story is more or less a story unto itself. So, that will probably be part 2 (sorry Kymber).  Any story, our tales of woe begin with me traveling to Charlotte, NC for business a few weeks ago. On a Tuesday. Why is Tuesday important you ask? Well, The Queen and I are participating in a coed volleyball league on Tuesday evenings with folks from my office. It's been quite fun even though my grasp of the game is not dissimilar to a labrador retriever playing fetch. BALL! PLAY! I'LL GET IT! [slobber, drool, tongue hanging out, tail wagging]. My team mates are very kind to my handicap (the fact that i can't play) and gently suggest things like "how about you let me set for you". So, while I was busy having a networking dinner with about 150 people, The Queen was busy playing volleyball without me...and pulling her calf muscle. By all accounts, she wasn't even doing anything truly epic or graceful to warrant a pulled muscle.  Now, The Queen is a tough woman. As you will recall, this is the same woman who said "If you can keep up." when we first met. I've also watched in horror as she flipped a four wheeler over on top of herself only to run up and find her giggling maniacally. Crazy broa...love of my life. So, there I am about a thousand miles away on the phone with my wife who is crying in pain scared that she might have torn a tendon or ligament. Not unlike friend Stephen, wife tears are my kryptonite. I spent two years during the darkest days of The Queen's mystery illness being stuck in Houston due to work having to listen to my wife in Dallas suffer over the phone. It's not something I want to repeat. Ever.  Flying home was out as I had business commitments in Charlotte for the next two days including an active part in a presentation to a group of risk managers and safety directors about crazy claims that you just can't make up. Fortunately, The Queen's parents were at the house babysitting M&M while The Queen played. They stayed the night with her and helped her get to her regular doc the next day. As mentioned, it turned out to be just a badly pulled muscle. She's been on the gimp...I mean on the mend ever since. She's better than she was by far, but she still needs a week or two more before she will be dancing swan lake or playing volleyball again.  Day two in Charlotte dawned with The Queen informing me of two other minor crises. First, The Queen's carriage managed to pick up a length of wire in the right rear tire. In the sidewall no less. For those who are not mechanically inclined, tire shops won't even bother trying to fix a tire that has a puncture in the shoulder or sidewall. I've never heard a good explanation of why, but it's pretty much unanimous in my experience that they won't touch it with a 10 foot pole. Oh, and did I mention that The Queen's carriage runs on 20" tires the cheapest of which go for $150 before you add in tax, mounting, installation, disposal fee, air, road hazard insurance, etc. And, of course, they did not have the $150 tire in stock. They only had the $180 or the $220 tire in stock. That's $250 I had to spend for the safety and security of my family that I willingly but not happily spent in light of the fact that the existing tire had a lot of tread life left on it.  The other day two crisis is the heat pump at Castle Erickson. I reported on the effects of last summer's heat wave on the castle's HVAC system. Well, The Queen reported that we are in for a repeat as the system was not cooling the house. And we haven't even really gotten consistently above 90 yet much less 100. We had our regular AC guy (who is a friend and church member with my brother in law) come out a few days after I got back from Charlotte  and recharge the system which has historically at least helped the problem. 30 pounds of R22 later, we had cool air blowing...for all of two weeks. As of Wednesday of this week, there was no cold air and no frozen refrigerant lines meaning there was no refrigerant in the system. I had companies out on Thursday to bid on a replacement, and we made the decision yesterday on a 14 seer 5 ton system that will hopefully solve some if not all of our problems. At a low, low, highway robbery, they've got me over a barrel price of course. The winning bidder assures me he will give us priority since we have a baby in the house. So, hopefully by the middle of next week, we should be awash in cold air again.  Finally for part one, You've heard the saying that a friend helps you move, but real friends help you move bodies. Sometimes to body you move is that of your friend.  The Queen and I had to make the sad decision to have our oldest dog, Sasha, put to sleep. She was a lab shepherd mix who was thirteen years old. She's been suffering with degenerative arthritis for a while now. Our vet had been keeping her going with regular vitamin B injections in her acupuncture points. That would help for a while; however, we finally reached the point where she could no longer walk. She was a wonderful dog...far better to us than we ever could have been to her. I took her down to Mimi's place and buried her in the shade of a nice tree. She would have appreciated that.  More to follow.

Global Warming My Frozen, Hairy Butt

The Queen once commented about how lucky I was to have a job which involved some out of town travel. I think her exact comment was something like, “I would love to have a job that involved travel.” I, the one who is “lucky” to have such a job and is the one tasked with accomplishing said travel, have a slightly different opinion on the subject. She thinks I’m being curmudgeonly when I repeatedly argue there is exactly zero glamour or fun involved in getting up before the crack of dawn of time, going out into the cold, harsh world (yes, the longer I work from home, the more of an anti social hermit I become), board a plane breathing the same air as 100+ strangers carrying God knows what germs only to arrive in a city where I have zero chance of 1) getting any productive work done, or 2) getting out to see any of the town’s attractions. My reward for putting up with this supposed benefit is spending the day at the destination de jour stuck in an office or conference room with a marginal view (at best, sometimes you get stuck in a windowless room) and no entertainment amenities like internet access or television (or worse, year old People magazines) so that I can attempt to negotiate a reasonable settlement with (more often than not) unreasonable people or (worse yet) review someone else’s files.

Yesterday was one of those days The Queen seems to feel I am lucky to have. I arose at 5:00 AM after getting to bed way too late the night before. I woke up with a headache which was temporarily beaten into submission with two Tylenol and copious amounts of caffeine (which I will pay for later today I am sure). The only saving graces are that the claim (which has been hanging around for five years and several adjusters) settled and I caught a flight home leaving 30 minutes earlier than my originally scheduled flight which was delayed by weather in parts unknown. All in all, I probably got home a couple of hours earlier than I would have otherwise. Southwest airlines rocks.

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to write something about this whole Global Warming/Climate Change brouhaha for sometime now. It may come as a shock to those who know me, but I have a rather straight forward but, nevertheless, strong opinion on the subject. I just haven’t found the impetus necessary to take the time to put fingers to keyboard and go to town on it. Well, yesterday was my lucky day.

Just before boarding the plane to return home from another exciting day spent in an attorney’s office in San Antonio for mediation in one of the claims I inherited from someone else, I checked Drudge Report on my iPhone and saw a headline which gave me pause (and a profound sense of amusement when I followed the link) as well as the requisite justification to waste some time on this subject.

Senate Global Warming Hearing Cancelled
(http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=b3e826ad-802a-23ad-45b8-8fa00c661d62)

After all the news about the Climate Change email scandals, the record low temperatures, the cries of tree hugging “preachers” everywhere that I must save the polar bears by trading in my perfectly functional 10 year old, 300,000 mile Nissan Maxima for a powder blue Toyota Prius that might or night not kill me with a gas pedal that sticks…after all that, the fact that the Senate’s hearings on "Global Warming Impacts, Including Public Health, in the United States." are brought to a screeching halt by a blizzard of monumental proportions is just too priceless a moment to pass up.

The irony is just overwhelmingly delicious. I mean, really, who is the Ivy League educated staffer who thought it would be a good idea to schedule a hearing on GLOBAL WARMING in the middle of WINTER in Washington, D.C. when a BLIZZARD is forecast. Brilliance. HelloOOOooo???? Is anyone in there?

If you want to make political noise about global warming, you don’t hold hearings in the dead of winter at a northern location. You hold them in Death Valley in the middle of the summer. Can’t you just picture it now?

Senator: So, Mr. [pick your most hated industry and insert here] Lobbyist, you’re telling this committee Global Warming is not real. If that’s the case, please tell the committee if it’s hot enough for you outside yet.

Lobbyist: Well, Senator, we are in the middle of a desert…

Senator: (yelled in an accusatory tone for emphasis) A desert caused by greenhouse gases emitted by your industry’s manufacturing processes and products no doubt.

Lobbyist: Senator, our industry does not now have, nor has it ever had, production facilities in Death Valley.

Senator: I’m sure the polar bears are glad to hear that.

Lobbyist: Senator, there are no polar bears in Death Valley.

Senator: Why not? Has your industry killed them all?

I’d better stop now before I give someone ideas.

Before I get too much further into this tirade, I feel compelled give you, the intrepid reader, a brief disclosure notice. Specifically, I think the idea of manmade global warming is a marketing ploy cooked up by the makers of compact fluorescent light bulbs, deep cycle NiMH and Li batteries and hybrid vehicles. There, now that the conspiracy theory is fully disclosed, we can get on with our story.

So, is there really such a thing as climate change? To be perfectly honest with ourselves and the available, reliable, scientific evidence, I think we must concede that, yes, in fact, there is such a thing as global climate change. There are a few wooly mammoths still frozen in glaciers like giant, Neolithic, TV dinners who might have a word or two to say on the subject to any naysayers. That is, if they could be thawed out, resuscitated and gifted with the power of human speech.

The bigger questions are whether or not mankind has contributed to, accelerated or otherwise caused the latest round of climate change and whether or not mankind can do one blessed thing about it. Based on the information I have come across, there is no way to definitively answer those questions.

That is not to say, however, we can not come up with some a fairly well educated and logical but still largely hypothetical statements on the subject.

First, man has had an impact on the environment. This one is pretty much a no brainer. If you break wind, take a shower, build a house, drive a car, fly on an airplane…basically, if you are born, live anywhere and eat anything on the planet and then die, you are impacting the environment. Being born? Medical waste has to be disposed of somewhere. Living and eating? You’ve got to cloth your naked body and consume food more or less daily which, by the way, creates waste in one form or another which must be dealt with. Dying? If you are cremated, guess what? Carbon emissions. If you get planted, think about all the trees killed and/or factory emissions that went into even the simplest of caskets. The Muslims might have it right after all: wrap your carcass in a sheet and dump what’s left in an unmarked hole in the desert to rot in peace.

It stands to reason that more people on the planet means more environmental impact, and there is a point at which the land will not be able to produce enough food to sustain the population. The term for that is “carrying capacity”. Once the carrying capacity of the land is reached, someone is going to go hungry. Guess what happens when there is not enough food to go around? Riots, if you’re lucky. Full blown war, if you’re not.

If you are a Christian, you can go read the book of Revelation chapters 6, 8 and 9 to get an idea of what that’s going to look like. If you’re not a Christian, I’d point you in the direction of the news footage from Ethiopia, Haiti and just about any where else in recent times which have undergone food shortages for whatever reason.

So, is there anything we can do about climate change?

I’m of two minds about this question. On the one hand, I believe in God. I further believe He has a plan for mankind and the earth, and there is not a thing mankind can do to change that plan. If climate change happens to suit His purposes, guess what? We’ll have climate change.

On the other hand, we shouldn’t be poor stewards of the world God left in our care either. That’s not to say we all need to give up our cars, homes and laptops to be tree hugging, tent dwelling hermits. We need to be mindful that actions and choices have consequences. Do you really want to use longer lasting compact fluorescent light bulbs? That’s great. Do you have any clue how to properly dispose of those little gems which are filled with toxic mercury when they quit working? I didn’t think so; and, yet, Congress has passed a resolution encouraging the use of CFLs. Do you want to drive a fuel efficient hybrid vehicle? Excellent. More power to you. Just one thing though: what are you planning on doing with the 1000 pounds or so worth of batteries that will lose their ability to recharge after about 100,000 miles? Are you planning to make it someone else’s problem by trading it in for another life limited hybrid which took a significant amount of resources to build? Doesn’t sound like such a good idea now after all, does it?

Can we and should we all make better choices and actions which are more environmentally sound? Absolutely. Do we always know the full consequences of those choices and actions? Not likely. We’re not that smart, and the environment it too complex. Should we force everyone to “do the right thing” (whatever that is) through legislation? Are you kidding me? Have you been paying attention to the crap Congress has been trying to do lately? Did you not catch that they weren’t even smart enough to schedule a hearing on global warming when there wasn’t a blizzard forecast?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to freezing my butt off in this era of “global warming.”