Missed it by that much

 

      It's not the hair on your head that matters.  It's the kind of Hair you have inside.   

                            Garry Shandling

Wrote the stuff after this paragraph a few days ago.  So obivously had not  lived through a monster storm alert unscathed.  A scant 200 miles away I heard some parts of Houston received "16 inches.  But it's another knock on wood incident. 

   I go to a gym.  An old guy gym, or so it seems.  Really I seldom see young people there.  Unless you don't count me.  I suspect I'm more or less the youngest of the old guy class.  But along with the anti progressive and Democrat bashing that goes on in Texas, amidst old guys, one particular conversation stood out.  In drawling Texas slang I heard Old guy #1 say to Old guy #2.   "This weather's crazy"  "There hasn't ever been this much water dropped around here is such a short time."   Then they resumed the bashing.   They're getting something for sure anyhow.

     



   Another slow day in the slow south.  Temp is going to be mid eighties here.  Funny, Lisa and I must be getting a little acclimated.  She keeps yelling at me she's freezing over the AC.  I get to sit here and make big plans but that's about it, as we are in full hanging out mode. Seems like we do that a lot.   At least I got my passport renewed.  I'm not even all that interested in fishing these days although that will all change when I get a boat.   Got an invite couple of days ago for next week. Damn nice boat. Certainly will see how that turns out.


   I think I already mentioned Lisa is a Delegate to the Texas Democratic convention in San Antonio this mid June. Now we leaned that my first retirement check isn't coming in until late July,  Consequently looks like our trip North will be cut short, ie probably not going to make it as far as Alaska,  But as I said to Lisa this morning, frankly I am looking forward to some frosty fall mornings in the mountains before we high tail it back here next winter.

    So I'm working on one o the rigs the other day.  A gentleman drives up and asks me if I know a particular individual or where a certain spot is.  He looks official but I can't help him.  Turns out I knew the guy he was looking for but I'd only known him by a nickname, intentional misdirection I suppose.  Also turns out he was a PO looking for a parolee.  He didn't even climb out of his car.  Apparently thinks the guy is low risk.  Knowing what I know not sure I'd agree, but wow sure activated old memories of the place it has been damn near nine years since I left, and the often subject of some pretty wild dreams of late. 

   Celebrating about a month of our diet.  We've both lost weight but the trip will be slow. No, I'm sure of it.  Gained over forty pounds the last nine years.  After the initial weight loss I doubt if I have lost an ounce. Not a problem, such as the way we have been eating is the manner we always should have been. However even eating with the new menu, we have resumed with the gusto that, well, I guess we could say we are known for. Eating pasta that has been added to twelve cloves of ground fresh garlic simmering in olive oil, red pepper flakes, lemon zest and crawdads is absolutely amazing.  Won't even talk about the salmon.  Nevertheless, wow I'd forgotten how much energy and other problems are fixed with an improved diet.  Ummmm less calories too.  With the help of a couple of handy dandy apps on my Android.

                           Random Pics

 Come across this pic the other day, pre fat and full head of hair.  Early thirties.  Stupid pic though.  

   

    Came across this.  Now here's a pretty lady.  That's right she's mine.

    Course we're both a little nutty.  I just resemble it a bit more.




   This was in Roswell, New Mexico by the way


    I've been remiss not to appreciate each and every day I wake up, particularly in a place and day such as this.  Gentle breezes wafting oak and palm trees and the endless chirping of birds.   Yeah, I think things need to happen in this country.  I personally don't feel insecure, but I do have some worries  for my children.  It really has been an amazing experience to be so privileged to grow up here.  Think of all the places one could find themselves living, say North Korea for one.

    I've come to rather dislike tele-radiovangelists however.  As much as I dislike intolerance. (Thanks Ayn Rand).   My view is that they exploit the elderly for a portion of their social security checks.   So does the state but that is a conversation for another day.  And tax free to boot.  I suspect that really, St. (whomever), minding the gates of heaven really isn't there working an adding machine giving out attaboys for bilking money and then waving em right on in.  Course I'm not sure those guys are believer's either.  Certainly they'd know this I suspect.  

   This Texas time has really proved to be a benefit getting to know the children as they fiiiiiiinaly become adults.   

     

       We just seem to be happiest in places like this     (Key West, Fla.)



 Fun fact:  Youporn got over twenty one billion, that's "billion" hits last year.  (Not mine, course there was that one time)  # Thatsalottaporn.

        Sometimes when I do this, I feel a bit like a vampire, stealing the minutes of the life whoever gets this far.

Healthy living

   So flouting my state of denial. the amount of weight that is, I have gained over the past couple of years certainly has consequences. Refusing to weigh myself.  Should have gotten a clue when every picture I posted of myself dropped to the bottom of the page.  So this blog very well may just be devoted to our inspiration to lose that weight.  Following a trip to the doc's and having to finally get up onto a scale.  Quite the Oh shit moment for both of us.  

  That was nearly three weeks ago and we have both cleaned up our eating substantially.  My aggregate loss has been seven pounds and Lisa three.  Though I suspect she has lost roughly what I have because she was weighed only five days apart , whereas myself a couple of weeks.  We'd also forgotten that it was in fact kind of fun creating healthier dishes.  We had home made Crayfish Etouff'e last night.  Since this is Viking night  it's likely it will be something easier.

   I completed blood work though I have yet to convince Lisa to do hers.  Somebody with more clout than I should give her a call.  Surprisingly, even I thought a good chance existed I might be diabetic, but according to my number 91, not even close.  And that was the same number the last blood work I had about six years ago was.  Once again (I say with great confidence) absolutely, positively expounding upon the great health benefits of cheap red wine, my liver and kidneys seem to be the healthiest organs in my body.  Course probably why I've quite possibly packed on some extra el bees too.  Hmmm, the diabolical......ness of it all.

  Got signed up and approved for my SS.  Looking forward to a little bit of relief having to watch every penny.  Go figure, hard lesson learned.  Whereas I thought I'd have my check in the  mail on the first day of June following that  62nd Birthday, the federal government has their own way of conducting business.  Namely, to receive that first check for June, I won't get it until the last of July.

Our skinnier days.

                  Get this out of your head after listening to it.  Anyway, I got the Harmonica part down pretty good.

            A smattering of old pics I came across

                                                 Goodnight

Downsizing

A visitor.   So I shooed him off and moved.

Anyways, first things first.  Given the crazy costs of anything Health care related, I thought I might reduce the possibility of our breaking our asses, or any such other appendages.  

Since I have been bragging about this location awhile now.  It's so cheap to live here I've compared it to the kids as "like living with the folks" .  Rent, cable internet and all of the other utilities is just south of a couple of hundred bucks.  Not only picturesque, if one takes reasonable care, the freedom to pound a few nails and operate some power tools.  Old guy Nirvana.  Anything resembling this would have been verboten at some of the previous locations.  So I got busy. A trip to Lowes and about a hundred and forty dollars later.  Lord if I could only cut a straight line.

                           Princess Inspection

Start to finish, I got about a hundred and forty bucks into it.  Hardware store down the highway want six hundred for one pretty similar to this.

     We are fixing up our digs here because now it's official, we'll be spending a whole lot more time around here.  Lisa got us quit fired again.  Truth be told, after a couple of years of it I'm really not going to miss the work.  Financially, we certainly aren't rich but the financial damage is manageable.  There certainly are a lot of options to return to some kind of work but for now I'd like to just consider myself retired.


          So I've been dealing with some frightening dizziness lately.  Turns out not so much a health as a hygiene issue.  Yeah I get the self diagnosis bit, but I did have some medical help because we decided to make contact with the physician designated by our insurance. .  First conversation with a doctor in a long time as he poked his light sabery tool into my ears complaining he couldn't see anything.  Guess Q tips pack rather than remove wax.  Deeeerrrr.

Some commercial stuff and a few days later problem solved.  Well, mostly.  Doc also diagnosed me as medically fat.  What the hell!!!.  Somehow this wasn't much of a surprise as I'd already joined a gym.  Lisa and I are back on the wagon and I got weighed again for the blood work part.  Lost seven pounds.  Only one million to go.

     It's not like there isn't a lot going on.  I've been a bit preoccupied these days with a few other matters.  But to catch up. Lisa and I have gotten involved with the Democrats around here.  Fledgling bunch for sure and certainly one would think hopeless this deep in Texas.  But they seem to be a hardy bunch and attending the meetings has been anything if not enjoyable and informative.   Lisa managed to get herself selected as one of the Delegates to attend the State Convention in San Antonio this June.  Of course I'll be there serving as "Lovely Assistant".  
    
     She doesn't know it yet but I am fully intending to attend a week long Blues Harmonica workshop somewhere, possibly in Mississippi next year. 

   And finally, last week we got a call from the Nephew Dustin that himself along with his DSO Tiffany were heading this way.  A spring Break trip bringing them nearly 1800 miles from Twin.  So they camped on our porch, enjoyed Texas BBQ, the weather and Mosquitoes for two days and toured our little tropical area down here.  Weather was awesome, low eighties and high seventies.  A couple of Pics.

     So for all intents and purposes I have chosen to hide this blog.  That really wasn't the choice it just kinda happened.  Anybody to read this, there have been numerous posts, just not showing up on FB anymore.  So I'm going to resolve this issue and make it available to people I think might be interested.  My apologies.


          Frogs that sound like Geese

    

Milestones

    I am now within the 90 day window in which I can file for social security benefits at 62.  (long sigh) At early retirement many years hence, I selected the option to receive less in order to receive more later.  In other words I have had to learn to do more with less as they say in government by the lucky individuals who will do anything but.  It's not going to be a lot though now Lisa and I have the option of working or not.  I choose not.

      Speaking of working,  Likely we are the privileged few who even now are occasionally called.  A nice present but surely over now (as I have said every other time.}  We just returned from a few day gig.

      Now we have had to learn to get along with the occasional inhospitable land owner.  And without naming names, there have been a few ( among other titles) who have been truly despicable.  This time we were warned that once again we'd be located on inhospitable land.  A truly onerous sort.  Drop by at two in the morning to check if you're asleep or let any of his animals out.  I'd heard another horror story from a previous gate guard about the gentleman.   So I was prepared to get in and get out.

      Let me digress just a bit.  Down near the border where we started, our location was situated on a huge piece of property I heard rivaled the King's holdings.We got to know one of the head hands who turned out to be the personable sort. Though when he dropped by to converse occasionally, his one complaint to us was the behavior of the Border Patrol, who often left gates open. " Every critter inside them fences has value" he said.  "And now they're getting out all the time.  When I was a kid, go to work  for one o' these ranches, you left the gate open one time you were fired.  One time.  No forgiveness or sorry, you're just down the road."

   So we were working a rig move and I was in the process of checking in a line of vehicles and equipment at around two in the morning, when the last one, a big shiny one pulled through.  I walked to the driver side and was met with a big smile, a hand stuck out to shake mine and the offer of a beer.  Of course contrary to some of my previous bosses who sought to besmirch my name, I've never drank on the job and never will.  Of course it didn't hurt that a company man showed up just a few minutes later.  Had I accepted, I'd be motoring down the road fired and blacklisted.

    But over the course of the next twenty minutes a very affable discussion ensued.  The land purchased by his grandfather after the second world war, he intended to take care of it and made no bones about battling the companies or individuals that disrespected it.  He allowed sure he made a pile of money, but his ranch would still be there when the big companies left.  He then commented he liked what we were doing and left.

Now it's tough to get everything done when it's hectic and never to leave the gate unattended or open.  But if it were me, and the beautiful animal I'd raised from a colt were to slide on out and get killed by one of those psycho truck drivers working down here.  Who've bragged working four days in a row with no sleep.  I'd be more than perturbed.  Especially given the money it cost.  The upside of this racket is that for a long time, the oilfield wages were good.   Sometimes it's just a point of view.

   I still dream about my old jobs.   The two that I worked the longest for.  Sometimes  even I'll admit them to be a little unsettling, the dreams that is, resembling not at all my actual experiences at that time.     But my  first retirement date was June 2007.  And the second in 2008.  So it has been nine and eight years respectively.   So what have I learned after all that time? That Curmudgeony is neither an illness, nor a choice.   It is in fact an insidious male phase of life whose symptoms can simply be described as more bellowing than voice. Speaking loftily as master of all things worldly, child rearing, politics etc,  I find myself in that unique position of being both astounded at my own senior abilities of possessing all that is wise,  with another tiny voice whispering in my ear, the one that has reminded me time and time again while in  the presence of such gifts,   "You are so full of shit".

Just ask my kids.....

And that folks is my tiny bit of insight accorded to me this two naught, naught, naught.  Enjoy.....

                               



     


   

   

The future is now?

   Four years, two days ago I permanently became a grandfather. Apiphany was born and immediately out of the hatch she showed us that this was to be a very unique little girl.  These past four years Lisa and I have been able to spend a good deal of time around  her.  have witnessed many of the things that make her amazing.  But she is nearly 2000 miles away now and those times sadly will probably be shorter.

   Seems Danny is fed up with working months with few days off.  Graves backed up with swings and other nonsense conditions.  Specifically working in the tougher part of town.  Two events of late has kind of brought home reality for these types of jobs.  One, a few days ago somebody got shot in the parking lot resulting for whatever reason, the cops tend to not hang out as often.  Thus no longer brunting the odds of a robbery and the second, cleaning up a large amount of blood from a homeless man vomiting in the parking lot.  Pretty legitimate complaints for the pay.  Can't say I blame him.  So I offer to help and we spend a few days at Mcdonalds updating resume.  Gets one application in.  Called the next day and hired immediately after the interview with better pay and benefits.  Boy could sell an eskimo a freezer.

       
Getting older now I tend to confront the future and consider our outlook.  We probably can make it work.  But looking over my social security stuff as I am about to legitimately become a senior citizen, I noticed something most folks probably ignore.  That item would be in the past earnings column. Yup that's what I am going to talk about as it relates to something else.

   So, I'm taking an avid interest in,  something called cpi.  (Consumer Price Index)  There is a handy little calculator found here.   It's pretty cool, plug in the year and amount and fast forward for value in today's dollars, or any other year one might want to compare against..  Kind of provides a perspective of living on a fixed income for the next several years.

        So once again turning to my past earnings numbers, I discovered that directly after graduating from high school, I earned about 2700 bucks.  Not much by today's standards. Probably the reason I've never paid much attention.  I was only eighteen years old then after all. For some reason subsequent years earnings were cut by half during those muddling years after high school,  But that's another easy explanation.

       Out of curiosity, I plugged that amount in to get a comparison what that meant in 2016 dollars.  And holy crap, 2,700 bucks in 1973 is nearly fifteen thousand now in purchase value. Actually 14,500 to be accurate. Dementia is an insidious evil thing I was thinking.  I was going to college then and already earning the same monthly amount as a professional today.  Maybe as a  junior Engineer or Certified Public Accountant if I was just working those three months over summer. Five grand a month, whatever did I need college for?  I was bound for big things. Big things I say, just ask my teachers and football coaches enthusiastically praising my drive and work ethic.  Oh wait...

      Through my alcohol and thumped about old brain, memories of that time  churned  to the surface.   That time of my life really was not that unusual.   It just consisted of a steady $2.75 per hour typical construction job that lasted the summer and the following fall and winter, a popular pizza joint, (where I consumed most of my calories during the week in pizza and beer) and for some reason or other I was also entrusted to safeguard the lives of nearly eighty kids whom I transported to school each day. (Silly adults) Usually arriving late provoking some unnecessary reactions from them.  Really,  making me wonder about the quality of parenting they'd received.  Normally the first bell had already rung and the little varmints really had to dash for it in order to avoid being tardy.   Watching them scramble like that really made up for all the "You asshole, again ?"  queries (or words to that effect) blurting from young mouths as they hopped out. Followed up by my own cheery "See you again tonight (ya little bastards)" That last part under my breath.  Those jobs both lasted several months, overlapping each other.  Pay was a little more than minimum

So I really have to break this down here.  My memory is a little clearer now. During that summer, as an 18 year old, I earned 477 per month.  Roughly 1400 over the summer.  (2500 per month in today's dollars.  Who pays an 18 year old that kind of money now?) The next nine moths or so another 145 bucks per month.  Easy peasy. three years before I'd been making a buck and a quarter for moving sprinkler pipe.  Sometimes fourteen or so lines a day.   But anyway, at minimum wage for the day, 146.00 per month is just 20 hours a week.  Typical part time job. I think I worked less than that. Easy 14 or fifteen credits, with a couple of shifts a week.  Beer money left over.

  Oh, did I mention that amount equals the annual income of a full time minimum wage worker today.  And who are we fooling, they are working a lot more hours than that trying to make that 600 to 800 rent that is now a days considered "affordable".

But for me those were awesome times.  Bought a nine year old car for $200 .  Almost two weeks earnings.  A 2007 vehicle today for two weeks pay? (good luck with that).  Plentiful opportunities for lodging at 60 bucks a month.  Your own damn place for eighty or ninety.  And as I muddled around living in different cities finding myself , I'd eventually wander back to college and fork out the hundred and sixty or so dollars for tuition.  Saved me from a lifetime of "you want fries with that?", which I have done, or department store greeter. Something I have also done.  I blame the right wingers of course.  Who through greed or delusion want to keep wages as low as possible.  Problem with that thinking is, whether I like to accept that fact or not, the right wingers tend to love their kids just as much as I do.

And the kids, those amazing kids who are still making it.  Making it with every unnecessary roadblock ilk of my generation have thrown at them. But no fooling around, no sir.  Best get serious yesterday.  But again, speaking for myself, is that what we intended as parents?  Conservatives and normal folks alike?  Because I think we can agree they are getting screwed and screwed good.  The numbers look really bad that they will fare as well as we did.

So that leads to the one question I ask myself.  Knowing this why do we tolerate it?  And that's  the question for the ages cuz I sure as hell don't know why.  Especially when we are in a position to change it.

Stephen Hawking on Capitalism

Last Night

       Had a dream last night.  It's been similar to others I have had this past year.  Involving people who are no longer with us.  This one was a bit different though, involving my late uncle, although younger and at an earlier age than what he was when he actually died.  He was accompanied by a number of other people who for the life of me, though I could still see a face or two in my minds eye upon waking, I had no idea who they were.
    
    To qualify this, I have no particular belief, or didn't before that dreams meant anything more than random nocturnal activities of the brain.  

     Kenny was the closest to me in age of all my uncles and aunts and consequently the one who I share a lot of childhood memories.  Just before he died several years ago, I had a last, very emotional, talk with him that left me in tears after hanging up.  I knew he was close to death when I was talking with him because he told me as much, and if memory serves me he passed that night. I carried a lot of guilt because I'd really made no attempts to contact him for several years.  Kenny had called my house a few times trying to get a hold of me and had talked with my wife instead.  I'd just written my being an asshole and not calling him back off to being too busy.  Trust me.  My kids fully believe the asshole thing about me back then.

      My wife and I unable to attend the funeral traveled through Missouri a few years back and attempted unsuccessfully to locate his grave in the small Amish town he was living in.  We'd driven a hundred and fifty miles from our camp. out of our way. and were due at another location the far end of the state the next day.  So basically we had until dark to try and locate that grave somewhere in an old untended and overgrown Cemetery. We tried our best walking up and down the rows until dark.  I left strangely not disappointed, but satisfied making it to that small town he'd lived.  At least I'd gotten that close I was thinking making that long drive back that night.

      So to my dream.  Solid 1080p.  Kenny, myself and a number of people, maybe twenty five or so in the old style living room. Some old house somewhere. Like I said, I remembered some faces but recognized none. Men, women, all dressed in 60's style formal.  Kenny wearing brown slacks, white shirt and tie underneath a V neck beige colored sweater.  Later  I vaguely wondered if he'd really  owned those clothes or they'd been manufactured by my mind.   We talked for a few minutes.   I remember none of the words, and then Ken hugged me.  A long tight brotherly type of hug and said goodbye.  He then went on to hug the other people in the room who surrounded him and blocking my sight of him.  (mind's eye anyway).  

       So yeah, my wife snuggles and hugs me in my sleep. Can't discount that.  I tell her about my dreams, those mornings I remember.  We think alike.  There's no particular discussion involved afterwards.  It just is what it is.    

        Now I tend to scoff at radio and televangelists. I've just seen more than my share of hypocrisy displayed by these people over the years.  And when some  "vision" is related by any of these types, well, then I tend to discount them.  Like I said, too much water under the bridge over the years to warrant any kind of respect.  

       But then I think and feel quite strongly here, that the emotions I felt after waking, of being moved in a manner lacking words to describe, were quite real, to me anyway. That in a sense, I genuinely got to meet Kenny one last time and say goodbye in person. And that experience was as real as anything else in my life. And for that, I just don't have an explanation, just appreciation.

Craaaaaaaaaaaapppppp

 I know I have said it before, but judging that we have not been paid for the last week of work, it seems that finally the manner in which we have made our living the past few years has finally come to an end.

These last few years working in the Oil Patch have definitely created many life time memories.  Often Lisa and I have spoke while making the night time hundred mile drive through central Texas to some god forsaken nowhere location on some dirt road setting up the trailer in the middle of the night with the sounds of feral pigs and Coyotes sometimes sounding only yards away, "did we in ever in our wildest dreams believe that we would ever be doing this a few years ago in the cloistered office environment we'd grown up in?"  Best answer is no.  Will I miss it? yes and no.  The very first day not a hundred and fifty yards away I saw my first cougar in the wild.  Thereafter, used to Border Patrol showing up in force in the middle of the night pursuing illegals who'd passed by me in the middle of the night and I hadn't seen or heard a thing.  Waking up to the sounds of a government helicopter not twenty feet over our rv.  Or the time I was awakened by Lisa not to get too excited, but there was an exodus of workers from the several or so rigs we were guarding that one had been taken over by armed illegals.  Turned out to be much less but I'll always remember waking up to the mass of vehicles speeding out and helicopters heading in overhead and circling the suspect rig. My calm and cool wife confidently directing traffic. But, well there it is.

Mornings usually started around three thirty AM with large numbers of guys showing up.  You got to know them pretty well over the weeks of continuous days and nights.  No longer needing to inquire their names and just a wave as they passed by.  Lots of free lunches, Breakfasts and original Texas BBQ.

The expression on my face when I realized ten miles South of Catarina meant we were only a mile or so from the Rio Grande but more or less isolated.  

During move days Lisa and I getting more and more efficient each time. Going through the routine of discovering the new location, wrapping our place up and  hurriedly driving through the region to arrive at the new location in the time allotted us.  But then the time Lisa tearfully informed me a young man, one of our regulars was killed that morning in a traffic accident.  Nice kid about the age of ours.  That one hit a little hard.

Driving to town for groceries and the inside thermometer registering 121 degrees outside.

Or the time she told me a bulldozer started slipping our way in the mud during a downpour while I dozed away.  Darn, maybe a week later when a wheel came loose from a speeding semi coming to rest about fifty yards away from us.

  When we learned that illegals had spent the day scant yards from us in a porta potty, only figuring it out when we discovered the hole cut out in order to see outside.

The time we watched a rig burn from a distance of about five miles.  Nary a word of it on the news.  Though rumor had it there had been some deaths.  And on one occasion workers arriving conveying the news that a dead guy was just down the road.  Turns out,  he remained there awhile as the state, feds and the locals feuded over who was responsible for him.  We even were told the rumor was false until some oddball folks showed up with morbid pictures.  

Did I mention my roadrunner pet Fred?

Being presented with an official doo rag of a bunch of non english speaking guys sporting Oilfield Mafia decals on their trucks the day we left

So I was trying to find the youtube video of crazy surreal mix of the oil boom insane traffic contrasted with the incredible poverty one drove past found in some of the central towns in Texas.  Appears to be plenty of them. Just type Eagleford traffic.

And all the grand mornings, beautiful sunrises and waking my wife with the smell of fried Texas sausage and eggs and coffee.   Definately some awesome together time.

So, anyway, I don't think it likely that the EagleFord will ever be that lively "hair on fire" again.  And yeah, years from now, grand kids ask, we'll have the stories. We were there.

Fridge

I really really try to head off problems before they occur. So explains that I have been in search of a replacement two way refrigerator to replace the twenty year old antique we'd been using.  Luck would have it, I located one barely five years old and acquired it not seven days before ours took a long and elongated dump.  For some reason I didn't have the fifteen hundred bucks, (two thousand installed) for a new one.

Truth be told, I messed up on the measurements just a little bit......k a lotta bit.  Anyway, took about a week but we finally got it in....after taking the door, furnace and other misc stuff.  Seems to work.  Biggest plus, saved literally hundreds of dollars...so far.

Kinda looks Ok.... eh?

So in the meantime I guess I'll just enjoy these mix of summer and fall like days that make South Texas so enjoyable in February.   For Super Bowl the neighbor is going to provide the TV and steaks and we'll provide the fire pit for an outside party.  Found this on youtube.  Thought I'd share.  Course you'll have to turn off the overhead music to hear.