Baseball, Plumb Bobs and Spoons, Oh My

In the midst of a difficult week at work, Daughter Rouge called and asked if I would like to go to the Rockies/Dodgers game on Saturday. That young lady has excellent timing and I gladly accepted her invitation.

As a youngster growing up in Colorado, I was a Dodgers fan. I’m not exactly sure how that came to be, but it seemed like a good choice. I mean Sandy Koufax, John Roseboro, Don Drysdale, what’s not to like?

In the 70’s it was Steve Garvey and Davey Lopes and Bill Russell and Ron “The Penguin” Cey; I became an even bigger Dodgers fan. The first major league game I ever saw was at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, Dodgers vs. Giants, to watch Fernando Valenzuela pitch. The dastardly (dastardly? Who still uses the word dastardly?) Giants won on a late inning grand slam by Jeffrey (don’t call me Jeff or I will kick your ass), Leonard. Not that I’m bitter or anything…

Anyway…

DR had found some great seats; we were about thirty rows up directly in line with third base. Our seats were right under the edge of the upper deck, so we were thinking that we might have some protection if it were to rain.

The game started nicely, with the Rocks jumping out to an early 5-0 lead. As we were watching the vendors work the stands, DR asked about a guy we called “Frogman.” Frogman was a beer vendor, who had a rubber frog clipped to each ear, wore beer cans for shoes and had a gravelly voice that carried two sections over. He seemed to be everywhere, we even saw him a couple of times at spring training games in Tucson. I told DR that I hadn’t seen him in a while.

Her reply? “Maybe he croaked…”

Along about the 5th inning, it began to rain. Wet sunflower seed shells were raining down from the upper deck. It was quite unpleasant for awhile, but the ushers finally got the problem under control.

It’s a good thing too, because sitting in the row in front of us were three couples, who had also received the shower. The ringleader of the group, fueled by the combustible combination of alcohol and testosterone, told one of the ushers “If you can’t get it stopped, then there are three guys here all over 200 lbs who will go up there and take of things.”

There’s a couple of things that are important to note about Mr. Testosterone and his buddies; they all had the number 4 as the first number of their age, and their 200 plus pounds were packed onto frames about 6” shorter than my 200 plus pounds are. Maybe their plan was to go up and bowl over the sunflower seed criminals…

After the game and the twelve mile walk to our car we started negotiating the streets of downtown. I got lost, no surprise there, refused to stop and ask for directions, again, no surprise. While waiting at a stoplight, a group of about 10 or so twenty-something dressed to the hilt young ladies crossed the street in front of us. They appeared to have had a couple of drinks and were likely on the way to the next bar.

“Oh my” came the remark from DR.

I think the ladies were from the I Phelta Thi sorority…

Anyway…

While stopped at the light at Colfax and 14th Street, DR exclaimed, “Look Daddy, that guy has a giant carrot in his head!”

“What? Huh?” came my thoughtful reply.

I looked over and saw this piece of “art,” which is essentially a hollowed out marble profile of a man’s head, unfolded, with a giant plumb bob hanging in the middle of the fold.

Wikipedia defines a plumb bob as “a weight with a pointed tip on the bottom that is suspended from a string and used as a vertical reference line.” These devices were quite handy in the old days (10 years ago) for folks involved in the construction business. Today they have mostly been replaced by electronic measuring devices.

I tried to explain this to DR, but she didn’t understand why you would need a plumb bob thingy when you could just use a laser. I felt the ol’ generation gap get a little wider right then…

Imagine a well-written transition paragraph right here…..

I have noticed that a lot of my mishaps seem to involve food. I’m not sure what that means, or am I sure I want to commit the $$ and time in therapy to figure it out. I guess it’s just one of those things that make me colorful…

Speaking of color, I became a little more colorful last night. DR and I went to the Coldstone Creamery for some ice cream. This is a very dangerous place, and I highly recommend it.

http://www.coldstonecreamery.com/

On the way out of the store in light rain, the lid came off of my ice cream, and my hand became covered in about $14 worth of a green-brown mix of mint-chocolate chip-fudge-brownie ice cream. Apparently the person (me) who put the lid on my cup needs some remedial training.

So now I’m standing in a parking lot in a rainstorm, frantically licking ice cream off of my hand while DR is doubled over in laughter. Actually, I think she was tripled over.

But wait there’s more…

On the drive home, DR was showing off one of the things she learned at college. As we were driving she was trying to get her plastic ice cream spoon to stick to her nose. She was successful, and kept the spoon stuck to her nose for 17 seconds, while the car was moving. Apparently this is some kind of a record, and she has now qualified for the Olympic Trials next spring.

I think I need a vacation…

Health Food

It takes a lot of work to keep my body in shape (round). It’s something I take a great deal of pride in. It requires dedication, constant vigilance, a willingness to sacrifice, and a nose for good food…

About 50 or so years ago, my father was in the process of being discharged from the Army, after spending a couple of years in the tropical outpost of Fairbanks, Alaska. He was spending his last few weeks as a G.I. stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs.

One evening his buddy suggested they go out for a burger, he knew a great place not too far from the base. They ended up at Conway’s Red Top, home of the Giant Hamburger. Oh man, am I ever glad about that…

For about half of a century now, my family has made pilgrimages to Colorado Spring to “go get a Red Top.”

Conway’s Red Top

Recently, Mrs. R and I decided to exactly that, and headed south for a burger. Now these Red Tops really are giant, probably about 8 inches or so diameter (the burgers may actually be a little smaller than that, since I have been accused of having some difficulty in estimating sizes…) and they are delicious. They are made fresh right at the restaurant, it’s not fast food, and it is definitely worth the wait. I like mine with fries and a chocolate milkshake. Give them a try sometime.

After lunch we headed to Manitou Springs. There are some funky shops there, many of which are housed in some beautiful historic buildings. I think a lot of the businesses are run by hippies who couldn’t afford the rent in Boulder, or Berkeley, for that matter. It’s worth the walk around town just to appreciate the architecture.

On our way back, we were headed east, toward downtown, when like an oasis in desert, a Dunkin’ Donuts store appeared on my left. Mrs. R screamed out “IT’S DUNKIN’DONUTS!” and we knew what we had to do, it was something that we had been training for for a long time.

I slammed on the brakes and put Big Mo into a hard left turn, doing a 180 in the middle of the street and power sliding perfectly into a perfect parallel parking spot in front of the store, facing west. We synchronized our watches, then I looked at Mrs. R and shouted “GO! GO! GO!”

The operation unfolded with military precision…

Mrs. R jumped out of Mo, fell to the ground and feigned a sprained ankle. This diverted the attention of about 10 of the dozen or so of Colorado Springs finest who were waiting in line. When she demurely batted her eyes, grabbed her ankle, and said “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers,” I knew we would succeed. The chivalrous officers literally fell all over themselves trying to help the damsel in distress.

As all of this was unfolding, I ran up to the store, put a head fake on one officer, used my ol’ drop step move on the other, and found myself at the front of the line where I promptly purchased 14 dozen donuts, and a pint of skim milk.

Mrs. R extricated herself from the pile of 10, I ran back to Mo with the goods, and we high-tailed it home. Actually, at my age, it’s more like “low-tailing…”

And after fourteen dozen donuts, well, let’s just say my wagon is draggin’.

Changes

There have been some changes at Casa del Rogue recently, the most significant being that Daughter Rogue has moved out and is sharing an apartment with a friend. This means that Mrs. R and I are now “Empty-Nesters-In-Training.”

DR’s move went relatively smooth, but it did involve lots of switching of vehicles to make things easier. There was the usual chaos and semi-panic of moving, throwing stuff into boxes, tossing clean and dirty clothes in laundry baskets, etc.

Most of the move occurred over a weekend, but the work week began before DR was completely moved in. She asked to borrow my truck, “Big Mo,” to finish up. Since my choices at that point were going to work or helping move a couch into a third floor apartment, I chose work and gladly let DR take the truck. She tricked some friends into helping her, and the couch was successfully moved with no injuries to humans or furniture or vehicles.

By Friday things had settled down, and we all had our original vehicles back. I went out that afternoon to run an errand. For some reason, I looked in the back seat of Big Mo. I saw something I had never seen before, at least not in any vehicle I ever owned…

Lying on the seat was what appeared to be an article of women’s underwear that begins with “t” and rhymes with “wrong.” “Hmmmm” I thought, “how in the hell did that get back there?”

Thinking it may have fallen out of a laundry basket during the move, I asked DR about it. She vehemently denied that it was hers. Something along the lines of “Daddy, I would never wear one of those things!”

Thinking it might belong to Mrs. R, (although being somewhat confused about how it might have gotten there) I asked her about it. She also vehemently denied it was hers. Something along the lines of “Not even in your dreams mister! It’s your truck, and you’re asking me how a pair of women’s underwear got in your truck? I think you owe me an explanation!”

The advantage to sleeping on the couch is that it's in the coolest room in the house...

Science

I remember when I used to be nostalgic….

That’s a great line; I wish I could remember where I first heard it...

This past week was mid-year performance review time at my office. I told my coworkers that my plan was to blame my less than stellar performance on biorhythms. This generated a great deal of discussion amongst the guys, mostly about how stupid my plan was, and whether or not there was anything to biorhythms.

Biorhythms, along with mood rings, John Denver, and earth shoes were among the more interesting things to come out of the 70’s.

The theory regarding biorhythms is that our lives are affected by some natural biological cycles; physical (23 days), emotional (28 days), and intellectual, (33 days). Proponents claim you can use biorhythms to predict when you may be at your peak physically, emotionally, and intellectually, and use that information to your benefit. Personally, I keep waiting for those peak physical and/or intellectual days. I’d like to think that at 49+, I would’ve had at least one of each…

Here’s a link to a biorhythm site:

Biorhythm Calculator

If you were born in the Mountain Time Zone, select -7 from the pull-down menu.

Also, try the Dalai Lama Personality Test from the blue “Rubbish” button. I took this personality test, but I failed…

Note to reader: Imagine a well-crafted transition paragraph here…

There’s an old saying about men with big feet… Since about the 8th grade, I have had large feet, size 12 to be more precise. Anyway, in my case the old saying is definitely true. Men with big feet also have really big….

Shoes….

I used to have a pair of size 12 earth shoes; they were the most comfortable pair of shoes I ever owned. They were big brown, ugly, nasty-lookin’ things and I loved ‘em. Mrs. R, however, did not, and was often made physically ill by the sight of me wearing my earth shoes. So for the sake of Mrs. R’s health, as well as the general betterment of things here at Casa del Rogue, I reluctantly parted with my earth shoes.

Does anybody need some John Denver albums?

Huh?

Spanning the globe, bringing hard-hitting news directly to your screen. Here are the stories you could probably do without….

You might be a redneck if….

Man Cited for DWI at Drive Through



Who volunteered for this research?

Viagra May Help Travelers with Jet Lag



Now, I’m a sound sleeper, but this is pushing the envelope…

Man Sleeps through Gunshot Wound to the Head


To boldly go…

Beam Me Up, Scotty

Spring Fever

Several recent, seemingly unrelated, events have led me to a troubling conclusion.

I celebrated my birthday earlier this month, and up until that time I hadn’t noticed any memory problems. It has been a different story since then.

The other day, while driving home form work, I noticed I was running low on gas. Well not me; no wait, I was low on gas, but so was my car. I did some quick math in my head, and figured out that my car had enough gas to get me home, and most of the way to work in the morning. There is a gas station a couple of miles from my office, and I planned to stop there on my way to work the next day.

The next morning, when I was about 7 miles from my suburban office building, and about 5 miles from the gas station, the low fuel warning light came on in my car. Based on some previous calculations (I think Mrs. R should receive some kind of special commendation for having lived with an engineer all these years) I had determined that my car has about 8 miles left before it runs out of fuel when the warning light comes on. Since it was only 5 miles to the gas station, I wasn’t worried.

I pulled into the gas station, stopped my car, got out, opened the gas cap, and reached for my wallet. Unfortunately for me, my wallet was sitting comfortably on the dresser at home….

From the gas station, it’s about 20 miles to my house, but only 2 miles to the office. I decided to head to my office. It was not a low stress trip; I got stopped at every freakin’ stoplight between the station and my office, burning precious fuel for 20 seconds without moving, 5 separate times.

I made it to the office and called Mrs. R, who rescued me by delivering my wallet about an hour later. When I finally filled up, I put 22.46 gallons of gas into my 22.5 gallon tank. Some people might consider that an efficient use of fuel. I am not one of those people…

One isolated occurrence of forgetfulness? No big deal, everybody has days like that.

Then…

A couple of days later while at work, I was making some notes on a drawing with a red pencil. Something distracted me, perhaps it was something shiny on my desk, and I set the pencil down.

Then the phone rang, I got a couple of e-mails, etc. and before I knew it, half an hour had passed. It was at this time that I realized that I needed my red pencil again. It was also at this time that I realized that I could not remember where I had put the pencil.

Now, it should have been no problem, since I had several more red pencils in my desk drawer. I could have easily grabbed one of them and gone about my business.

But no….

It was incredibly important to me to find that pencil, just to prove to myself that I wasn’t losing my mind. I looked everywhere for the damn thing. The pencil, not my mind...

Drawers, trash can, lunch bag, books, folders, neighbors’ desk, all to no avail. I never did find it. Probably in a hundred years or so, some archaeologist will be sifting through the detritus of my professional life and find a lone red pencil. Godspeed to him/her. I’m sure that if I looked for one-hundred years I would never find it, nor would I stop and get another pencil out of the drawer.

In my desire to find the pencil, I figured out that:

a. I had wasted 30 minutes of company time looking for a #@!#*&#@! pencil.
b. The memory deterioration curve becomes very steep in your late forties. (I’d draw a graph, but there’s already been way too much math in this story…)

I was feeling sorry for myself, bemoaning my lost youth, etc., when Mrs. R shared this story with me…

One of her students kept pestering her for help with an assignment, and Mrs. R kept telling the youngster that he needed to get his paper and bring it to her, so she could help him.

The student kept saying “But, but” and every time he spoke Mrs. R reminded him to get his paper. This went on for several minutes until Mrs. R’s classroom assistant calmly pointed out that Mrs. R was holding the youngsters’ paper in her hand…

Apparently spring fever is contagious…

What Hath Orville Wrought?

This really happened…

A couple of weeks ago, shortly after lunch one blustery afternoon, the fire alarms sounded in my suburban office building, and we had to evacuate to the parking lot. The fire department came, and at that point we decided that it was something more serious than our annual fire drill.

After about 30 minutes, we were allowed to return to our desks.

As it turns out, someone left a bag of popcorn in the microwave a little too long. The popcorn was burned and the smoke triggered the alarms. I can only imagine the jokes at our expense around the dinner table at the firehouse later that evening.

Anyway, the next day an all employees memo was e-mailed to us. The management of our building has “banned the potentially life-threatening practice of popping popcorn in microwaves.”

I know popcorn isn’t the healthiest snack, but life threatening? Sheesh…

I wonder what’s next. I have both an electric pencil sharpener and an electric eraser at my desk. I guess if you’re not careful, you could put somebody’s eye out with either one of those things…

I also have a pair of scissors, but have never felt compelled to run with them in my hand.

We also have automatic flush valves on the urinals in all of the men’s rooms. I shudder to think at what might happen if one of those bad-boys malfunctions. Perhaps we should ban…?

Well, never mind…