Quandary Again

Out of the blue one of my relatives contacted me this past weekend about a job opportunity.  When my wife told me who was calling I was immediately concerned because this relative is usually calls with bad news about someone in the family’s health.  After assuring me she was not calling with bad news, she outlined a job opportunity that would bring me back to my beloved New Hampshire.  One year ago I would have jumped at the opportunity and never looked back.  In the interim I took my current job in November and have really enjoyed being back with a group of people I love working with.  I also owe my current boss for his support and would feel a little guilty if I left him because the contract is coming up for renewal.  Apparently I am one of the big selling points with the client for my boss’ company (go figure).  This new job would also mean a pay cut of almost 1/3 because it involves work for a non-profit.  All that being said I am totally intrigued by the opportunity.  It would be a huge challenge and maybe that’s what I’m looking for because I could do my current job in my sleep.  I also like the connection the job has in a small way with the military which I do miss at times.  The biggest selling point however is the opportunity to return to New Hampshire.  Every time I go back to Keene I feel that elusive but heartfelt yearning to return home which is what New Hampshire will always be for me.  I’m going to get up there some time this week to check out the facility with my relative.  I’ll decide on whether to apply for the job after speaking with her, hopefully this week.  Maybe I can go home but honoring my commitments here may prevent it.

Sunday Adventures with “Pendejo”

Our Local Biscuit Heaven

Our friend, who when visiting usually disappears for home in the wee hours of Sunday morning, actually decided to stay and spend the day with us yesterday.  He accompanied us through our normal Sunday routine of church and the supermarket with a lunch at the local Cracker Barrel thrown in so biscuits were involved.  I love biscuits and no one alive makes them better than Cracker Barrel.  We had to fight the crowds trying to escape the madness that is Sunday on the nearby Massachusetts Turnpike but like I said, Biscuits!!!   We discovered yet another gaping hole in my friend’s cinematic education in that he had not yet seen The Dark Knight Rises.  I was more than ready to rectify this with an afternoon trip to the neighborhood Cinemagic.  My wife was not interested in seeing it again, I’ll never understand women (but that what makes them great!).  She decided to stay and watch the Olympics accompanied by Buddy (AKA Pendejo).  I enjoyed watching the movie again, especially the end where I was searching for some clues – Nolan does a great job with this ending.  When my friend and I left the movie it was pouring rain and I immediately felt bad for my wife who had to deal with Pendejo’s ever increasing fear of just about everything but topping the list is thunderstorms.  We returned home and were met by the wife and a very sheepish Pendejo.  My wife explained the thunderstorms came through and she tried to follow our latest tactic of ignoring the storm and the dog.  She said Pendejo was not to be tricked and she was afraid to go up and look at the guest room where our friend had been staying because that’s where Pendejo spent most of the storm (an area he is not allowed in).  My friend and I went up and opened the door and found the bed in total disarray.  My friend quickly assured me he had made the bed in the morning and was not responsible for the mess.  I started to take pictures of the bed and Pendejo arrived on the scene and immediately jumped into the bed – almost as if he was copping to the crime.  It was obvious he had tried to tunnel into the bed during the storm.  It was hard not to laugh really hard – especially when my wife was surveying the carnage.  I eventually distracted her by pointing out the noise making wind charm that she had installed on the back deck was damaged in the storm.  I had predicted this thing would succumb to the winds of our back yard and was not a huge fan of something that made noise every time the wind blew (her canaries sublimely passing on last year) but I still felt bad for her.  I eventually tracked down where the pieces of the charm had ended up strewn over an impressive span and she’s going to try and repair it today.  Pendejo refused to leave my side for the rest of the night – probably afraid of what my wife would do to him if caught alone.  My friend departed after helping lift a mundane and welcome weekend at home definitively above the norm. 

The Scene of the Crime

Pendejo Returns to the Scene and Cops a Plea

Wind Charm Damage (yes!!)
Who Said That???

Superb Saturday

My Friend Eliminating Insects

As I wrote yesterday, this was the first weekend in a long while that my wife and I did not have some major event to negotiate.  Our friend came down from Keene and we spent a great day at the house.  We put the friend to work washing the house with a power washer while I mounted my trusty steed and mowed the lawn.  My wife orchestrated the entire effort and found a dozen smaller tasks for the both of us to do.  We live in the country so the insects are constantly attempting to make their homes on our house – thus the power washing.  We had a somewhat unsettling confrontation with hornets who took issue with us moving their home, a chair swing.  We settled the issue chemically – the hornets lost.  After we moved the seat we found an entire family of yellow jackets were also a bit upset with us, more chemicals..  It was incredibly hot and humid yesterday so Buddy did not even try to venture outside after his obligatory morning walk with my friend.  He did come out and pose with my friend and I after the work was finished – kind of a poser.  I decided to give him a nick-name of “Pendejo” which is Spanish word for coward and lazy among other things – kind fits my young black lab.  We finished up the work just after lunch and our neighbors invited us over to their pool, did I mention how hot and humid it was?  We spent the entire afternoon over in the pool with the neighbors and their two sons who were so much fun.  They are seven and eleven years old and I was reminded once again about the boundless energy of the young.  They are great kids and we went from game to game all afternoon.  I think I’ll have a sore arm from throwing the nerf ball several thousand times.   I re-discovered the effect of my wife’s fingernails during a spirited game of pool basketball.  She even looked a bit surprised at the carnage by the end of the game and apologized profusely.  We trudged back home after more than four hours in the pool and threw some steaks on the grill.  Apparently I was supposed to clean out the grill dripping pan after the party a couple weeks ago because there was a minor conflagration when I started the grill.  I also found a refugee burger from that party that escaped evacuation.  Buddy volunteered to take care of the errant burger but I thought better of that.  We ended up clearing up a gaping hole in my friend’s movie watching experience by watching the first Expendables movie and then watched Phelps’ farewell gold medal performance.  As my wife and I made our way upstairs at the end of the night she said, “good day, huh?”.  I could not agree more with her.

My Friend with my Steed in the Background

The Orchestrator Worked Also

My View From the Tractor

My Friend and I Along with "Pendejo" the Poser

My Friend and I Confronted with Boundless Energy

Friday Cool Down

My boss returned from his time off following his daughter’s wedding and I felt good that he found everything in top shape.  He did come to my office and almost apologetically laid a huge project on me that needs to be done in a couple of weeks.  I loved it because things were getting a little boring and being this busy will help the time fly at work.  It involves creating this very complicated spread sheet and tying in cost estimates for different bus routes.  I would not have been able to do this when I first got out of the Army.  I would have just sent it to a subordinate and explain what I needed.  One of the things I really enjoy about my post military life is getting to do these kinds of things.  I’m pretty much self–taught on the computer and I always learn something new when I do one of these things, so I’m a little psyched.  For the first time since May my wife and I have no event to prepare for this weekend and yesterday was appropriately calm in preparation for that.  I needed to get home right after work so when my boss suggested a celebration of the First Friday of the Week I told him I was time constrained.  He then showed up at my office door an hour earlier than normal and said let’s go.  As I’ve said in the past, I have a great boss!  We headed over to Brew City and had a few adult beverages before I made it home just a little bit late.  Our friend from New Hampshire came down to help us out with some yard chores and we rewarded his kindness with one of those truly mystical pizzas from Zorbas.  My wife demanded ice cream following the pizza and who am I to deny this basic need.  We returned to the house and watched another Sox debacle while checking in on the Olympics as well.  Mundane Friday but more than welcome from a decompression standpoint. 

Watch Out

Don't

So yesterday was date night postponed from Wednesday due to the sublime son visit.  We faced a quandary as my wife and I headed to the movie theater.  The only new movie out was The Watch.  I went out on a limb and guessed that my wife was going to hate it, I wasn’t too sure about my own feelings about it but it was my only real choice.  The big problem was that the only other movie we hadn’t seen was Step Up Revolution.  I defy anyone to propose any enticement, no matter how bizarre, that could get me to go watch that movie.  I’m just saying it would take some form of paralytic drug to get me inside the door of that theater – I even felt leery walking by the door.  We approached a turn off where we could have headed back home and I told my wife that it was decision time.  She knows how much I enjoy the weekly movie night so she said she would see Step Up while I could go to The Watch.  I honestly would have preferred seeing a movie together but there was no way either of us was going to see each other’s movie.  The Watch turned out to be barely watchable.  Stiller and Vaughn really mailed this one in, taking characters from some of their recent, more successful films and trying to channel them into this.  It seemed a real vanity piece in which Hollywood threw a lot of money at them and they got a bunch of friends together to ad lib around a really thin plot. The only thing memorable about the movie was an actress named Rosemary DeWitt, playing Stiller’s wife, who seemed to be the only one who was actually trying.  My son warned me not to see this movie – guess I just might have to start listening to good advice.  My wife really liked her dancing movie – go figure.  Before we left for the movie my wife had to take some “head shot” photos of me which turned out to be pretty comical.  My company is putting together a proposal for a contract renewal and they needed head shots for both my boss and I.  He is a former politician and had some professionally made photos which looked great.  I was less prepared.  When he asked if I had any photos I could crop to just a head shot I winced.  Most of the photos I had of myself usually involved a Coors Light in one of my hands.  My wife loved the opportunity to direct and I came downstairs wearing a suit jacket and tie with no pants which Buddy thought was hilarious and worthy of extremely distracting and painful (for me) sniffs.  When we got back from the movies we had DVRed the Olympic coverage which allowed us to fast forward through the commercials and any time Costas was on screen = win. I also finished another book yesterday.  I've written before about favorite authors who I ignore for a few years so they can build up an inventory of books to read.  Last week I started reading Raymond Feist again who's written some truly great fantasy novels set in a world called Midkemia.  After the first few chapters I realized that I had missed a couple of books in the series because some major charachters were dead and there was this whole new race of beings referenced as if they were old news (remember - fantasy here).  So I headed back to the trusty Amazon kindle store and found I had missed not one but two previous novels.  Twenty seconds later I owned both (lovin the kindle store!) and started reading the first, Rides  A Dread Legion.  I really enjoyed the read as Feist does a great job of describing action and there's a lot of head bashing not to mention a six foot blond female knight who's really good with a mace - what's not to like.  Feist has gone as far as he can with some of these characters but I'm glad he's still churning out these novels because it's like visiting old friends.  It is kind of sad that to keep things moving he has to kill off some of them but if he didn't I'd be complaining about how stale it had become.  If you like Feist and Pug (unfortunate name for a superhero but there it is), which I do, you'll love this return to the world of Midkemia and The Kingdom, I did.

Do

My Official Head Shot
Not Much to Work With But Buddy Enjoyed It

Ferocity

Buddy's Near Suicidal Greeting

The #1 son made the generous effort yesterday of coming home to spend the night with his parents.  I know he missed spending time with the Most Excellent Girlfriend but both his mother and I appreciated to finally have some quiet time with him.  Since his return from Central Asia we’ve only seen him in social settings where either he or we had to deal with competing interactions.  We had planned on going to the movies but he (of all people) suggested a calm night at home to just relax and enjoy each other’s company – one cool dude.  I was impressed over the days leading up to his arrival at the frantic efforts of my wife to prepare things for him.  She does this whenever my son or daughter come to visit.  She has this deep abiding, ferocious love for these two and always has.  I’ve been awed at times at just how much she does.  She’s the kind of person that doesn’t seek out praise or recognition for her efforts so at times some of the efforts go unrecognized which is a shame because she does the same thing for me and I’m the biggest culprit in the non-recognition arena.  I know the “kids” balk at times at her ferocity but they also understand how deeply she cares about them.  We’ve all heard about the pervasive quality of a mother’s love for her children, an instinctual need to care for her offspring.  I’ve been honored to witness an almost perfect example of this for nearly thirty years and, as I said, I am in complete awe.  She completely subjugates her own self to insuring she does whatever her children need, even if the children in question don’t always understand the need.  I would hate to be the person who was trying to harm either of these two.  Buddy was also extremely glad to see the son although he almost throttled himself during his enthusiastic greeting.  He launched himself at my son and got entangled in the carrying strap for his computer case.  On the reading front, Amazon’s recommendation software got me again a couple days ago when I bought a Reacher short story called, “Deep Down”.  It was a story about Reacher when he was still in the Army and chasing a Soviet mole.  I liked the fact that the bad guys in this one were Army congressional liaison officers who in real life I found were always a little full of themselves – just as portrayed in the story.  It was nice to get a short dose of Reacher while I wait for his next full length novel which doesn’t come out for another month.  Last night was such a fun time.  As I said, my wife went overboard in preparing my son’s favorite things and that included the food.  Luckily my own preferences align very closely with his but my wife’s strict control of my diet usually prevents my indulgence.  Last night’s menu included frosted sugar cookies and a chocolate pie – gotta love that ferocity.   

The Ferocious One Monitoring Her Son's Meal Last Night
Note Sugar Cookies Conveniently Located Near My Seat

Nice, All Too Quick Read

Olympic Rebound

I believe I wrote in this blog a few weeks ago about my frustration with NBC for their prior television coverage of the Olympics.  My complaint being they had gotten away from covering the actual sports and were focusing on the human interest stories, usually accompanied by sweeping strains of some sort of elevator music. It was turning into a version of a Hispanic Soap Opera instead of a sporting event.  I really don’t need to know that some athlete’s second cousin is suffering from debilitating case of (insert heartrending illness here) which is what he/she uses as motivation.  ABC used to cover the Olympics when I was growing up and I thought they did an absolutely great job and I was captivated as a young boy watching the Mexico City games and then the tragic games of Munich, both hosted by the incomparable Jim McKay.  NBC took over after that and gradually descended into the almost unwatchable schlock of the past few games.  They spent way too much time with smarmy hosts and “experts” explaining to us what was happening instead of showing us.  I guess NBC thought we were idiots who needed endless explanations.  It was almost as if they were trying to manufacture emotion and drama.  This is of course, laughable, because within the games themselves, the competition is replete with honest emotion and drama that does not have to be manufactured.  My brother in law (who’s in the sports reporting business) says this started in an attempt to attract more female viewers but agreed that NBC had gone too far.  Maybe the emergence of female sports in which world class female athletes are showcased has helped NBC grasp the error of their ways because I find myself finally enjoying the Olympics again.  NBC must have realized the groundswell of unhappiness about their earlier efforts because this year (so far) they are focusing on the athletic competition and we are all better for this.  (Maybe they just fired the idiots who produced the last few Olympics) They still sneak in their little background stories which immediately has me reaching for the remote but they minimize this and get back to the competition, reducing Costas time which is so appreciated.  This is such a welcome change because the Olympics are great.  You see sports that seldom gets coverage and the athletes strive to realize life long dreams on this fleeting stage of fame.  This is so much more enjoyable to watch than the spoiled, over paid superstars in most US major sports that don’t always give you their best effort; despite the millions they are paid.  It’s just refreshing to see athletes genuinely struggling to be the best and NBC is FINALLY is showing it to us in all of its glory.