Rants

Can You Hear Me Now?

This evening as my wife and took our walk around the neighborhood at dark, we were marveling at the fireflies. I don’t know if it has been the really wet weather that has kept them scarce or what, but tonight they were everywhere. A few minutes into the walk we were passed by a 20-something fellow on a mountain bike with no lights or reflectors. We exchanged hellos and off he went. As Donna and I started discussing his unsafe riding habits once he was about 20 yards away he pegged the stupid-o-meter. He suddenly swerved across to the other lane as he reached into his pocket to answer his cell phone. At least he was travelling down a quiet street with little chance of getting flattened by an automobile.

It’s Begining To Look A Lot Like Christmas

This is almost a week late too. When we went into the Wal-Mart in Dahlonega last Saturday night we entered through the garden section and much to our horror they already had one aisle set up with Christmas stuff.

This easily trumps the Thanksgiving decorations we saw at a Michael’s craft store two weeks ago.

Shouldn’t I Be Grandfathered In

There is a stretch of US 1 & 78 that runs between Aiken and Augusta that they recently lowered the speed limit on from 55 MPH to 45. Myself, being a law abiding citizen, I slow down to 50 from 60 when I reach here. No one else does, they just keep barreling along. You can’t miss the signs, there are even “Reduced Speed Ahead” signs wih two orange flags popping out the top to warn you. Still no one slows down. What will they tell the cop? “Well, I used to drive 60 MPH through here before, shouldn’t I get grandfathered into being able to still go 60?”

Extra Tire

My wife and I went for a bike ride this evening (in the stinking hot, humid weather.) Our road bikes hang by their wheels upside down from hooks in the garage ceiling. To take them down I have to grab the handle bar with my left hand and the seat stay with my right, lift a little to clear the hook and then rotate the bike to the right side up position and land the wheels on the ground. Today as I rotated my bike down it suddenly stopped short about 2 feet of the ground. The back tire had landed on the extra Toyo tire that is sitting there waiting for Mr. FedEx to come get it, that was 2 weeks ago. I think the waiting period is over, I’m going to try and sell this tire as the folks at Onlinetires.com sure ain’t missing it.

There Is Such A Thing As A Free Dinner

Well, actually, pay me $25 to eat dinner. Donna would rather I didn’t share this with you and I don’t think it is my most shining moment either, but it happened, so here goes:

Friday night in Dahlonega, GA we went to our favorite place in town, Caruso’s. It is right on the square and has some of the best pizza we know. We got a new waiter, probably just back in school at the local college, that wasn’t the swiftest antelope in the heard. He checked in one to many times to see if our food was OK (which is as bad, if not worse than, not checking at all.) But then we had to call him over to ask for the check. Once he brought the check for $12.50 he never reappeared. We both had time to visit the restroom.

I went second and as I was heading back to the table, I saw our waiter leave the dining room. I thought, good, he’s got the check. Donna told me he had just walked on by totally ignoring her and the $20 bill in the tray. Tired of waiting we headed towards the entrance to the kitchen where we could see behind the curtain, the cash register and another waitress doing a check. When she came out, she asked us what we wanted. I replied, “To pay our bill.” She looked at it and said, “Oh that’s Ralph’s,” and ducked back into the kitchen. While we stood there waiting a different waitress appeared and asked what we wanted. Pointed back where she came from and repeated, “Pay our bill.” Waitress number one reappears and says, “He’ll be right with you.”

When Ralph finally appeared he handed me the tray back with my change and walked off. No sorry you had to wait, nothing. I walked back to our table to leave him a couple bucks tip anyway. When I got there I noticed that he had placed my $7.50 in change right over the top of the ticket and my original twenty. The little devil on my shoulder said, “Take it!” – so I did, it and the five.

I Don’t Think That Is What Lady Bird Had In Mind

I have plenty I could rant about this evening as I have just returned from Atlanta and I despise big cities and the urban sprawl that surrounds them. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want 200 acres of woods, live in a cabin I built myself in the middle of it and feed off the wild game I trap there. I like smallish towns with just enough civilization. But I digress…

Somewhere between there and here I noticed a very small patch of 4 foot tall Black-eyed Susans growing in the median. Right in front of it stood a 2′ x 3′ brown sign with white lettering on it proclaiming, “DOT WILDFLOWER PROJECT. DO NOT MOW.” The sign had more square footage than the plot of flowers.

There Is Such A Thing As A Free Lunch

Last fire story – The Activities Committee several weeks ago had set up a Bar-B-Que luncheon for those employees who wanted to participate for Thursday. The cost was $9. A local favorite BBQ joint, Shealy’s, came in and set up their food warmers and laid out all their stuff on a couple tables in the cafeteria at around 11:00 PM. The first group in the plant that goes on lunch break is QA with about 25 people and they start at 11:30AM. I don’t know how many of them took advantage of the BBQ lunch. I have no idea how many total through out the plant were scheduled to get BBQ, but QA were the only ones to get a chance. Them and me. I eat breakfast at around 6:30, so at 11:30 I’m digging into my lunch box even though my scheduled lunch time is 12:15. The fire alarm went off at 11:40ish about 2 minutes after I got back to my desk with my plate. The caterers were forced to abandon the food to evacuate the building. When it turned out to be an actual fire and the smoke made it’s way into the cafeteria, the food was no longer able to be served to people (wouldn’t have mattered as no one was allowed back in the building until around 3:00 PM anyway.)

Friday morning a couple of members of the Activities Committee made the rounds of the plant and gave everyone who had signed up for BBQ their $9 back. When I tried refuse the money saying I had actually gotten my food, they told me that it was easier all the way around for them this way. Cool, I got a picnic BBQ on the lawn for free.