Ben ordered the tacos especial along with a glass of lemonade, and I the tres enchiladas. We munched away the chips and salsa at the Cantine Flas and soon our waiter reappeared and gestured at Ben’s empty glass to offer another. There wasn’t much English spoken but Ben accepted and the waiter (curiously) asked a second time (for verification and understanding, I suppose). The check came and turns out that the refill was processed as a second order and the grand total for lemonade — six (6) bucks(!). Maybe should have said something.
All posts by cs
it’s a guy thing…
Capture the flag. S’man and his armed buddies entered the wooded area. The object is to shoot and not get shot. His team has 15 minutes to waste the enemy with their Markers. Not a sissy laser tag game, these rapid fire weapons use CO2 or Nitrogen to zing a paintball at XX fps and a strike will sting like a hornet. The boys may not be as cunning or experienced as the older guys on the field but they make much smaller targets as they slink through the trees hunched over, locked and loaded. They scan and seek watching and listening. Some opponents are wearing camouflage. They all have helmets and face shields. I would require a full body padded suit myself but a little fear and pain goes nicely with the hunter-killer instinct. Go get ’em men!
the kitchen sink
All cleared the security line, except for the FA, who’s getting a mindful look over including the inspection of his overnight bag. The gloved TSA is peering inside piece by piece. Our FA wears a suitably disgusted look on his face and at the end of the ordeal is muttering to us incredulously about ‘why do they always want to look in my bag — every time‘. He can’t understand it, and explains that he has tried re-arranging his stuff, leaving things behind, and so on. We nod and grunt listening sympathetically. Later on we arrive at our destination hub and enjoy a productivity break where we have the opportunity to snack or read a paper. I perk up to the sound of a juice blender (not something furnished in our minimalist facility). It’s our FA and evidently he’s been hauling this device contraption around in his bag! Feeling somewhat deceived (betrayed) I had to ask sarcastically ‘you wondered what it was that set off the security alarm?’ Duuuh! He offered me a conciliatory sample taste of his ( 40-30-30 Faust diet ) — pureed peaches, fructose substitute, power-bar powder, almond slivers and ice. No thankyou. Pass…
The Jumers aka Peoria Castle Lodge is a mighty unusual place… It is dark and haunting replete with flickering gas lamps and early Californian Spanish dark wood furnishings. The architecture theme is 1960’s medieval Bavarian. The carpets and wall coverings are deep reds and browns the windows have stained glass panes. The strangest feature, however, is an oil painting portrait of someone real or factious in every room. The eyes of the likeness gaze out into the room in a fixating stare. The guest must occasionally check to be sure that these eyes are not following you about the place. Creepy.
out of town meeting
We are camped at the holiday inn, Memphis. Also here: a manly bunch — attending a greens keeper conference where I’m sure they will hash out ideal sprayer calibrations, sprinkler cycles, cutting heights and other secrets of the trade. Perfect location. Next door to the hotel, a .::Platinum Plus::. (with its magenta neon signage they fondly nicknamed the Purple _____! and it’s bikini nite). Bummer! I will miss the show. We move on under cover of bright sunshine.
different-channel
Little passenger surveys cockpit with Mother sweetly prompting her to say ‘have a nice trip’. She was charming and was able to parrot Mom word for word. It was a change from the usual ‘say hi to the pilots’ which modesty or embarrassment makes awkward for a child (or an adult for that matter!). The youngster, around knee high, keeps saying ‘where are we going?’ and everyone falls over themselves trying to answer the void: ‘We are going up into the wildblue yonder — or to grandmothers house — or back home’ and I finally figured it out, she kept repeating the question. The adults were communicating on the wrong plain. She was not asking in a worldly sense but thinking in terms of row and seat number. e.g. what is our destination inside the aircraft; from where will we be enjoying this trip?. An obvious concern. Her Mother had ushered her into our confined space and she wasn’t seeing any empty chairs!
from the puzzle palace
Two computers — one monitor. The AB switch now allows alternation between them. This is necessary because I pulled my (original, first-ever-computer) ZEOS 486SX out of retirement. The old machine obsolete with VESA local bus and memory challenged might still be useful as a learning test bed. The other computer provides access to online help content, at least until I can get the LINUX OS to recognize its peripherals, and I’ve been using it for Google searches while typing cryptic instructions from the console command line on the other. After 3 or 4 relevant chapters and Appendix A & B in the manual, a HD format and re-partition I did a RedHat LINUX installation. The challenge is to install a driver for the network card. The driver is attainable as a free download but it is a source file, meaning that once downloaded and transferred over via floppy it must be compiled. So I use the windows machine to search for and retrieve the file. To get the file from the floppy to the LINUX system I had to learn how to mount the floppy drive. With the operating system that we all know and love all one does is open Windows Explorer and drag and drop. Takes a couple of mouse clicks. The floppy drive, fd1, I found in a directory called /dev/ (device). The command, and command line arguments, look like this: mount -t msdos /dev/fd1 /home/mnt/floppy. (Sounds simple but I had to read and learn this first) Finally, to transfer the file: cp /home/mnt/floppy/stl8139.c /home/temp. Whew! Except then I discovered that the software to compile the source file was on the RedHat Install CD 🙁 I researched and tracked down this one gcc-6.2.9-15.0.i386.rpm! after visiting and pouring over gcc.org and various other GNU and open source software web sites. To cut to the chase, after screwing around with trying to compile the driver source I discovered another command called locate which might just allow me to find the file ready to go. Another fork in the road because ‘locate’ wasn’t working. Happens that I must first build a db with script from a cron.date folder. More research. Mission accomplished even though I was thrown a kink with required script file misprinted in the manual it was similar and I gave it a shot. stl18139.o turned up in /usr/lib/2.2.2-15/etc . I struggled with this (must be fatigue at this point) file because the ‘l’ next to the 8 looks a whole heck of a lot like a ‘1’ and as we all know the computer does not forgive a syntax typo. Moving on, I had my file and could taste victory when the insert module, insmod command bombed. device active or not found… Okay, don’t give up yet! It’s early. Perhaps the kernel should be updated. This I understand is the most advanced thing that you can do in LINUX, so I wasn’t too hopeful. Every single tutorial on this tack was a variation on a theme. More .rpm files to download and these too large for a floppy so I had to burn them on a CD first. The kernel rebuild didn’t fly either. Too many absent file dependencies. Bail. Try a fresh re-install, I thought I had seen a dialog config option for network cards — nope —- same error msg. Arghhhhh!! I figure I’m computer literate but then I think to myself; I’m just trying to make it run (with varying degrees of success). There is actually somebody(s) out there in geekdom, godlike, that designed the thing from scratch! Impressive, no? If I could just get a hold of one of them! Time to put the keyboard down. It’s been total immersion for two days — two computers one exhausted overloaded pc nerd. Maybe after some rest… There’s a solution to the puzzle.
pushing the fine line
My first thought on day-one was that I’d never be able to survive 4 days of this. The FA was already wearing on my nerves. Melvin is a performer. When you first meet him he’s the type you’d turn to your buddy and mutter whoa, we got a live one here. He’s so wired that he chatters non-stop and his passenger briefings would put any comic that you’ve heard from an Southwest ‘A’ type to shame. He strives to entertain. The best reference that I can give is that he is a sound-alike clone for Richard Simmons. After one of his long winded routines the captive audience in the back might erupt into a cheer and applause. He feeds on this and his carnival like showmanship zooms up another notch. Some of them must be annoyed thinking that he’s got to be on something. Forget trying to study the in-flight magazine, it is an act that his impossible to tune out. We touch down in Cedar Rapids (the city of 4 smells — which one depends on the wind direction) and Melvin is greeted with the one from North. Euuuuu! What’s that smelllll?! The cabin door opens and he realizes the full effect. “Euuuuu. It’s coming from OUTsiiiide. I thought somebody on the plane had pharted!” (I kid you not. That was a direct quote delivered for all to hear. Rosie O’Donnell couldn’t have been more loud and obnoxious. Remind me to speak to him about that…) I wasn’t offended (by the smell, that is). It was from a Tallow Works or an animal rendering plant. I think the paper mills of Georgia are far worse. Nevertheless, as the people disembark they get the farewell good byes shtick along with his opinion of the putrification and the advice that “if you’re not from here — look out!” I must play the straight man to all of this lest they think that the pilots are rocked out too. Two more days to go. I think I’ll enjoy the show!
wrong number
I spied a *free* direct network connection in my hotel room and thought that I’d give it a whirl. It was dead. I suppose I could have tried to reboot my machine or a few more tricks but it was late so I bailed and hooked up to the desk phone instead. I have a lengthy list of local dial-up numbers (admittedly some old ones) accumulated, one for each layover, so I clicked connect and disappeared to unpack my bag. I returned to grab my email to discover that the connection had failed: no answer. Hmmmmm. I decided to dial it again — this time listening for the handshake and or phone feedback through the rather feeble internal pc speaker. I wanted to make sure that the hotel phone wasn’t locked, that the modem was working, that number was still valid. I learned that the number did in fact did dial and was ringing numerous times but did not pick up. I was searching for a way to end the attempt (instead of waiting) when the phone picked up. I strained to hear, expecting a canned recorded message from Ma Bell saying that “the number you have dialed…” etc. but imagine my surprise to hear a rather live sleepy voice answer: “hello? hello? —– hello?”. I felt badly. At 1030 pm, I know I it would have been somewhat irritated. Shame that the phone company would stick a residence with a number formerly used by machines. You move into town and call the phone company for new service and they say sure, here’s a phone number that is available and in-active. When we rolled into town years ago we blindly accepted a number that, thru luck of the draw, happened to be one digit off from a local hotel. Can you imagine the occasional kinds of calls we get during the odd hours? Man! I thought that we had it bad but I see not. Maybe the pc could be used to sleuth a candidate phone number before we commit to live with it. Now — if I can just figure out how to get on-line…
parkside performance
“Smart Dog!”, comments the park employee from the rolled down window of his official vehicle. Our soft trail crosses the access road at 90 degrees and I was on the other side looking back for dawg lagging behind when I spotted the ranger. I thought we were busted. It was not a question of the pet’s safety, the truck was moving quite slowly probably deciding how my predicament would play out. Having awareness of the local animal leash law it was show time for us. Dawg would either make us both look good, else we were setting ourselves up for a warning lecture. It would not have been too swift for him to scamper across the roadway to join me. I faced him and gave a single wait voice command (which he knows) and he held short at the edge. Whew! I backtracked to rejoin him as he waited obediently and Mr. Ranger rolled on passed. I was relieved to hear ‘smart’ as opposed to the ‘leash’ word earful. Good dog!
cry wolf
B.O.U.R.Girl screams for me from the wardrobe like the actress that she is, “there’s a b-b-b-bug!”. And yes, it’s a big dern cock-a-roach trying to blend with my maroon bath towel. I grab a hind leg with bare fingers only to lose the rest of the body into the shower mat below where it tries furiously to entrench and burro in. Gottcha, uh huh. I’m rewarded with a shot of stink and the creature rakes my finger with its other barbed leg but I cling and rush the perpetrator over to the toilet and bombs away. I had to wash hands (twice).