An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

I am so ready for Parrot Grande this weekend. Mentally, anyway. Physically, not so much. I've got clothes in the dryer, nothing packed and some administrative stuff still to do. I also have to pick some stuff up at a shop tomorrow and get the change fund from the bank. So, I can't quite leave yet. That didn't stop the Crime Dog from trying to get me to come down to the Francisco Grande tonight. He called me once to see where I was and reported the drunken debauchery that was going on. He then called me back to remind me that it's only a 45 minute drive and that a couple people offered up a bed for me. Considering that I'm sitting on my couch in my jammies, drinking a beer and putting off doing some of the must-dos before I leave, it's really not a workable plan. Tempting, though...

One of things keeping me from posting as much as I used to is work. I became my boss last week. No, I didn't start my own business. I took over the IT Manager position that my boss had retired from. Even gained a corner office out of the deal. It's going to be interesting, I'm sure. I've done the manager thing before but this position is way more administrative than I've ever done. Lots of maintenance and support contracts to control, all sorts of computer equipment and supplies to buy and many users to keep happy. I also, for the first time, report directly to Sugar Daddy. The good thing is that I've been at my company nearly 8 years so I have a lot of knowledge about what's going on and can recall the history of why we're doing things the way we are. We do so many different things that it takes newcomers at least 6 months before they even get close to understanding that it will take another 6 months before they come close to getting it all. It's go...

I went to the show last night with Norene and our friends, Rick and Lorean who live up in Safford. Before the show, Rick made it clear he wasn't too jazzed about seeing Willie. After the show, he still wasn't jazzed. A few songs into Willie's opening set, I noted to Norene that Willie wasn't keeping time with his band. She informed me that the band wasn't keeping time with Willie. Apparently, he's a stylist which means he never performs a song the same way twice. Um, OK. I guess you're a stylist if the audience can't even sing along with you because you've drastically changed the tempo and pauses. Willie did look like he was having a good time, though. I think the average age of his band was about 60 and that was only because the harmonica player looked to be about 40 and brought the average down. They played well. They just didn't quite play with Willie. I've never seen John Fogerty in concert so I didn't know what to expect. He put on a...

I read in the paper today that Monastery Too is closing and will become a Salty Senorita's. We just keep losing all of our favorite spots. I'm sad.

I've been talking about getting a new cell phone for months. Mine is probably three or four years old and I wanted something smaller and cuter. I also decided to dump Sprint since I have a heck of a time getting service in a lot of areas. Grandpa has Verizon and he gets service up in the mountains and all over the state and Sugar Daddy also recommended Verizon so that's what I decided to get. Of equal importance was picking out the new phone. My first thought was a RAZR because the pink ones are so cute. But then I talked to several people who had them and they weren't in love with them. They're also a little wider and longer than my current phone although thinner and weigh less. Sugar Daddy was convinced that I should get the RAZR. For everyone that I found who didn't like theirs, he'd counter with someone who loved the phone. Steven has a PEBL . I love it. It's cute and small and just what I wanted except I couldn't get it in pink. Unfortunately, you ...

Friday night's bottle of Boone's Farm. Norene enjoying the view from Jersey Lilly's. Lynn, Bill, the Midget and me at The Crystal Palace. Hanging at the Lizard Lounge. "Norene before she pukes." Back at the liquor store...that's a whopping $5.20 she's spending there.

Well, I can cross the Cowboy Poets event off my list of things I haven't done. Don't really need to do it again, either. Had a great weekend, though! Norene and I headed up to Prescott Valley to visit our friends, Bill and Lynn, on Friday night. The four of us went to dinner at Zeke's which is a pretty good restaurant that gives you way too much food. You could feed three or four people on one meal. It's crazy. After getting stuffed at dinner, we hit a local liquor store for Miller Lite. Bill's a Coors Light guy but we don't hold that against him even though it means we don't want to drink what's in his fridge. As we were checking out, Norene noticed Boone's Farm in a cooler by the front door. They had several flavors and she picked up a bottle (750 ml) of the Fuzzy Navel. It cost $2.60. No lie. That's some cheap shit there. The rest of the evening was spent hanging out on the back patio, drinking and gabbing. Norene polished off her Fuzzy Navel ...

I wouldn't have been surprised to see Noah last night; I was half expecting it as a matter of fact. I was pretty sure he was somewhere loading up the Ark in the huge storm we got. It started pouring just as I left my house around 6:45. By the time I got from my front door to the carport, I was in drowned rat territory. There were big, fat drops of rain and they were coming in sideways. I was talking to Sugar Daddy on my cell phone at the time and I literally couldn't hear him between the thunder and the rain on the carport cover. He was on his way home and going through a major dust storm while I was heading through the rain to book club. We compared notes on our rapidly decreasing visibility until it was too dangerous to talk and drive. The streets were flooding and I could see neighborhoods with the power off. Lots of stop lights out, too. The nastiest was at Baseline and the 60. That was scary. However, by the time I got to Guadalupe (heading South), it was all clear. I don...

This is where I'll be this weekend. I sure hope there are some cute, young and single cowboys to "entertain" me.

Contrary to my previous 'pity poor little ole me' post, things are not all bad in Kathy's world. Last night was great, in fact! I met up with Doona, her sister Sarah and brother-in-law Jim at The Monastery III. It's a very cool place with a couple of sand volleyball courts and there was some nice eye candy playing. Sarah and Jim are here for a visit on their way from Chicago to California where Sarah's going to get her MBA. We picked the Monastery so they could bring another member of their family, their dog Christopher Farley. They left the snake at Doona's, thank goodness. Now, when I think of a dog named after the late Chris Farley, I think English Sheepdog, Lab, Retriever...big, goofy dogs. This Farley is a Miniature Pinscher. He's a teeny fellow but cute. We grilled some cheeseburgers and chicken, drank some brews and shot the shit. I think I've only met Sarah and Jim once at Doona's 2004 Holiday Party but, being the friendly Mid-Westerners that...

I have a theory about stress. There are several areas in my life: work, home, family, friends and romantic interest. OK, no romantic interest right now but you get the idea. If there's a major stress in one of those areas, say I'm working overtime to get a big project done by a deadline, I can deal with it as long as the other things are going well. But, if you add in another stress source like someone in the family is ill at the same time, it's not so easy to deal. Add in a problem from another area of my life and I'm overwhelmed. These are all examples, mind you. However, I'm overwhelmed. There's stress at work, at home, in the club and I've got a personal issue roiling on the back burner. I'm hesitant to open any emails or answer my phone at this point because I'm afraid it's just going to add to the list of stuff that's weighing me down. However, I know it's only a temporary phase (please, God, let it be so). I've made a list of t...

Here's something to help you pass the time until I have something actually worthy to say... Puppy Wars . My friend Chris comes through with yet another time waster.

As I was getting into my car yesterday afternoon the Chesney song There Goes My Life was going through my head. When I started my car, the song was on the radio...and at the exact same spot as my internal version. I know it's one of life's little coincidences but it was freaky none the less.

It's pouring buckets here. My skylight is leaking like there's no tomorrow. Sigh. It turned out that my skylight was illegally installed by a previous owner so the HOA said I was on my own for resealing it. One problem with that. I don't do ladders. I don't even like to do steps. So, clearly, I wasn't getting on the roof. Grandpa pretty much blew me off about it (he's so fired as my handyman) so I asked Steven if he could do it. He said, sure, no problem and bought a bunch of caulk at Lowe's and put it all around the skylight. Apparently, not enough caulk. To top it off, he's in Vegas this weekend so I can't even call and whine about the leaks to him. Guess he'll have some more caulking to do come Monday when he's back in town.

A lot of the business/management/leadership type books that I read are either so basic I just say to myself "they paid someone to write the obvious?" or so full of stats and impractical theory that Im exhausted trying to remember all the salient points and give up. This book by Patrick Lencioni was not like that, however. He has ideas of why teams fail and the first part of the book is a fictional tale that illustrates the theories. It's the story of a new CEO coming in to a company, exposing the team dysfunctions and eliminating said dysfunctions. The second part of the book is a little more clinical and goes into more details on the theories. Here's what he identified: Absence of Trust - not feeling that you can show your weaknesses to your co-workers Fear of Conflict - incapable of engaging in unfiltered debate, resorting to veiled comments Lack of Commitment - no actual buy-in and feigning agreement during meetings Avoidance of Accountability - not calling peers o...

http://catsinsinks.com/ My friend Chris is trying to get me fired for spending all day looking at cat pictures.

For the kitty lovers out there... http://kittenwar.com/ . I think I went through 50 choices before I forced myself to stop.

As I was looking at the mustard greens that came in today's organic delivery, two things came to mind. The first was that I have no idea at all how to prepare them and the second was that in trying I'll probably get another story of how I mucked up cooking once again. I think I could make this into a reality TV show. Sure, there are lots of shows where you can see chefs whip up extraordinary meals in under 30 minutes but how many are realistic in any way? It's not like you nor I have a crew working behind the scenes to do all of the slicing, measuring and prep work. This would be more real world. The first part of the show would be me trying to decipher a recipe, deciding whether to substitute ingredients and attempting to cook. The second part of the show would be where you, my favored audience, gets to chime in on how and why I went wrong. I could become the Anti-Rachael Ray and an inspiration to all those bumbling wanna be chefs out there. I gotta get an agent.

That Cookie Dough Blizzard was GOOD !

I have a favorite Red Chard recipe. What's amazing (to me) is that two months ago I didn't even know what chard was let alone that there was a Red version. I got some more Red Chard with my organic delivery last week and I decided to try the same recipe that Steven and I made a while ago. It's still a lot of work but it's really tasty with a pork chop.

Participating Dairy Queens are donating Blizzard proceeds from August 10's sales to the Children's Miracle Network Hospital. See the details here . There will be a Cookie Dough Blizzard in my near future!

Man, I live life on the edge. On the edge of my sofa in front of the telly, that is. Yep, I said telly. It's the influence of two new shows I'm watching on BBC America. The first, Life on Mars , is about a present day London cop who has an accident and wakes up in 1973. He's not sure if he's mad, in a coma or really transported back. He's a cop in 1973, too, and a lot of the action revolves around the differences in police work between now and then. Great soundtrack with David Bowie and Sweet being a couple of acts I recognized. The second show is Love Soup . It's two different characters' stories as they look for love. One's a male American writer living in England and the other is a female British cosmetics girl who works at one of the big department stores. I think that eventually they're going to get together but it was fun checking out the other characters in the stories. I also caught a US show that I'm going probably going to keep watching...

I got three yams in last week's organic delivery. They came with a recipe to cook them on the stove. I was supposed to slice them up, put them in 1/4 cup of water, add sugar and butter and cook them at medium heat for 25 minutes in a covered pan. I decided to forgo the sugar and butter so I added more water to make up for the liquid difference. I should have followed the recipe. They didn't turn out so well. Within 15 minutes, I could smell burning and the entire bottom of the pan was burnt yam since the water had completely evaporated. I ended up eating some of the top pieces that weren't carbon but there weren't that many. I shoulda baked them. Or, followed the calorie-laden recipe.

You Have A Type A Personality You are hyper, energetic, and always on the mood You tend to succeed at everything you attempt And if you don't succeed at first, you quickly climb your way to the top! You could be called a workaholic, but you also make time for fun As long as it's high energy and competitive, you're interested You have the perfect personality for business and atheltic success Do You Have a Type A Personality?

You Are a Chimera You are very outgoing and well connected to many people. Incredibly devoted to your family and friends, you find purpose in nurturing others. You are rarely alone, and you do best in the company of others. You are incredibly expressive, and people are sometimes overwhelmed by your strong emotions. What Mythological Creature Are You? Swiped from Pammy . At first I was disappointed that I wasn't something really cool like a Centaur but then I remembered that they're part horse. Me no likey the ponies.

Jimmie kissing the bricks at Indy. (AP Photo used w/o permission) What a great birthday present for Crew Chief Chad Knaus - a win at Indianapolis! I love this team. They had a tire go down early in the race but they worked their butts off and Jimmie drove perfectly to get the win. His pass of Matt Kenseth after the final restart was just awesome (Sorry, Lime Dart). When I first picked Jimmie as 'my' driver, I didn't know that much about him or the team (except that he was dreamy, made a lot of money as a rookie, and was young). I somehow made a great choice. This is a group that never, ever gives up. Sure, there've been some bumps in the road with Chad's suspension and some overly aggressive driving on Jimmie's part but they've been in contention for the championship in every full season that I've watched. I'm veklempt just thinking about them...talk amongst yourselves...I'll give you a topic...which is weirder - that Tony Stewart has a pet m...

You Are 44% Brutally Honest Honesty is important to you, but generally, you try not to be brutal about it. You'll sugar coat the truth when you need to... and tell a white lie when necessary. How Brutally Honest Are You? Lifted from El Capitan . It's most likely my desire to avoid conflict that kept me from having a higher percentage.

Talladega Nights has to rank in the top 5 of dumbest movies I've ever seen. Man, what a disappointment. The funny bits (you saw them all in the preview) are few and far between. I wanted to see it because of the NASCAR connection, Sugar Daddy wanted to see it because of Will Ferrell and we both just kept shaking our heads at how dumb it was. Others in the audience didn't share our impression. There was a guy at the end of our row who laughed really, really loudly like it was the funniest thing ever. He also ate really, really loudly. I've never heard popcorn so clearly from 10 seats away. The laugh thing was driving us crazy until Sugar Daddy mimicked it exactly. I was laughing so hard at him that I cried and thought I was going to pee my pants. That was the highlight of the flick. Steven was supposed to see it tonight. I can't wait to hear his reaction. His taste in movies and mine are miles apart so he'll probably say he loved it.

I went out with Doona for dinner this week at Rula Bula. It's a cool, Irish pub in downtown Tempe. A lot of the interior was imported from Ireland, the food is good and I'm always happy in a place with Guinness on tap. We got a table (after a few minutes confusion over who was sitting us where) and ordered some drinks. I went with the Half and Half (Guinness and Harp, yummy). Our server brought them then took our food order. The food was good and I ordered another pint halfway through the meal. Within a minute or two of clearing our plates away, the server brought our check. In what seemed like less than two minutes later, she was back asking if it was ready to pickup. We hadn't even touched it and I still had half a pint to go so we waived her off. Doona had the bird's eye view and said she was obviously jonesing for us to clear out and was repeatedly checking to see if we'd gotten our money out. She came back at one point and asked if I wanted another beer and I d...

I was talking with a friend about moving out of state. He asked me if I wanted to move anywhere and I said, "Nope, I love it here." To test whether I was just delusional from the heat, I took the quiz at www.findyourspot.com . You answer a bunch of questions about weather, schools, activities, the arts, religious preferences, etc. then it gives you a list of 20 places that match your responses. If I say my preference is to live in the Southwest, my first three choices are: Las Vegas Phoenix Tucson. If I don't set any geographic preference, my first three choices are: Las Vegas Honolulu Phoenix. So, I'm not delusional. At least about this one subject.