Wednesday, September 26, 2007

THINGS I AM ABSOLUTELY TIRED OF:

Passive Aggressive Pantywaists.

Ok, that is today's major dislike. Believe me, there are many, many more T.I.A.A.T.O!

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Mug Shot DEAD!

OMG, my coffee cup at school can no longer serve me after having been accidently broken by one of the secretaries. Or did she read this blog and decided to do in my office coffee cup as some weird revenge factor? We will never know.

This cup had a story of its own. Originally, I started Boyet with a special cup presented to me by my friends Donna and Ernie. It was green with my name (Charlie) painted on it. It stood out from the rest of the cups in the neighborhood. It lasted me quite a few years and met its demise at the hands of one of our custodians. It had to be put to sleep.

Then, I took up drinking coffee from just any cup that was available.

That was until my secretary Beth purchased a cup with my name all over it. This one included the last name. No doubt about who owned it. Charlie Edwards.....it was written on the damn cup. Keep your hands off........all you who are not Charlie Edwards, it cried!

Some people were not observant of my name on the cup and went as so far as to use it. The absolute nerve of them.

Oh well, it, like my home coffee cup is just an inanimate object. I will miss it. I look forward to bonding with the new cup.

Viva Coffee
Viva The Charlie Edwards cup

Peace Out.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Mug Shot?

It stormed here this evening. A perfect night for a little hootchy kootchy (it is hump day?) and it is just my luck is that the WW is out of town. Alas, poor Charlie. OK, back to the post.

When the little woman is not around in the evening, cleanup chores fall right in my lap. As I washed my coffee mug I began to contemplate it's place in my life. After all, I have fore soothed all other cups/mugs to drink only from this one for a very long time.

Flash back to me purchasing some Christmas gifts at Bass Outlet Store (no, not shoes, but neat gifts) in Gonzales around Thanksgiving. I use to buy my niece, nephew, sister, and mom their gifts and ship them to Virginia back in the day. If my memory (insert joke here) serves me right I purchased for my niece a moose/winter/Xmas type frame and possibly a mug(s)? for this one particular Xmas. While in the Bass store I became intrigued by this mug that now renders itself available to me almost daily.

What I like about you, eh, the mug? Well, the mug was big enough to hold a cup and a half of coffee (less refills) and it was a mug, not a cup. The mug reminded me of my time as a camp counselor at Camp Winaukee on Lake Winnepauskee in New Hampshire during my college days. If you were assigned to late night duty at camp, after all the campers were asleep, you took turns going up to the kitchen cabin to have Coffee klotch. Klotch = Hot, delicious coffee accompanied by the pastry or the like of the day. Yum! Good memories.

Well, this inanimate object is a part of my life, family you might say, the coffee just tastes better in it than it does in anything else. It is a source of comfort to have my old friend hold my coffee and dispense it on the turn of a hand. Ah, the simple pleasures of life. Ok, it isn't lively like a pet, but, heck, I like it dammit!

Viva the MUG.
Peace Out

Monday, September 3, 2007

A Chat with Bob from New Delhi

Disclaimer: Against the sage advice of PlaceMatt & ElMol (well known Techies from Cowtown) I purchased an HP Computer Sunday. There were several factors involved in the purchase the most important being that I get it right away as my WW (wonderful wife) was on call and needed the computer tout de suite.



Well, yesterday I went out and purchased a new HP computer. The old PC got burnt up on power outage at the house on Wednesday. Time was of the essence (see disclaimer below) and the normally long thought out process (sometimes agonizing, eh Rick?) was shortened considerably. Rick was on stand by for emergency purposes if the purchasing process went south.


The new PC has Microsoft's Vista platform........word is and I can confirm.......it is a work in progress and is undergoing changes/upgrades as I blog. If you notice that I have stopped this entry.....I am sure I will be able to pick it up later when everything is upgraded.



Now, to the chat with Bob. Having to reload software programs to a new computer is time consuming, but, nonetheless essential. Quicken is my method of tracking my finances, in particular, my checkbook (which is virtually non-existent with the advent of online banking). But, the format does give me an accurate picture of how much money I do not have.


Problems during the downloading of the program resulted in me calling the Quicken support hot line. "Bob" answered....OK it wasn't really Bob.......but, a very nice gentleman who is in New Delhi? He directed me through the process which took a good 30 minutes of uninstalling, installing, and reinstalling programs. He was quite patient with me. It is at times like this that I feel technologically inadequate. What was really interesting about the call is that there were long periods of time where we waited for parts of the installation process to take place and Bob talked to me during this "down time". Topics of discussion included my breakfast (he didn't know about biscuits), spicy food, movies, and favorite sports. While it sounded somewhat from script (i.e. - during the first "down time" ask the customer about his/her interest in spicy foods, be sure to mention Curry) and yet maybe it was his way of just getting through the arduous process without being bored. I want to believe that it was just Bob talking to "Coach" (can I call you "Coach"? he had asked). Overall, it was a nice experience and after he wished me a good day and a wonderful breakfast a phone survey asked me to quantify my experience with Bob. I rated him 7 on a scale of 1 to 7 with 7 being the best.



Halfway around the world I had breakfast with Bob while he had a late night snack. Cue: Its a small, small world.



Viva Bob
Viva the 20.5 Widescreen Monitor

Peace Out