An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

We had to go through customs on our way off the cruise ship. I had no problem despite my lack of passport. However, two members our party got pulled aside and questioned. They were literally taken off to a back room and interrogated about their history. Here's the thing that gets me. These are two Caucasion males in their 40s who are natural U.S citizens and whose last names were Jones and Johnson. I couldn't help but think that if they're pulling aside everyone who meets that profile, they're holding up a lot of people.

At some previous reunion, the planners were working on the list of names of people in our class. Apparently, we had no one whose last name started with "I". So, one of the guys made up a name, Boola Ingodatu, and they told everyone he was a foreign exchange student. People bought the ruse (myself included). On the back of the big "C" sign, the creator (who also made up Boola) printed "Coronado High School" and "Boola Ingodatu". It cracked all of the planning committee up and they confessed the story. The theme of the weekend somehow became Boola and Blondie took it up a big notch. It started out innocently enough. We were drinking beers when the henna tattoo guy came by. The Babes and I have made a habit of getting temporary tats when we're on vacation so we gandered through the guy's sample pics. Mary decided to get a shark (I think) on her ankle. This is where Blondie stepped it up. She ended up with a nice Boola on her arm. ...

I got home late tonight and walked into the house to be greeted by waves of sauna like heat. I thought, "Oh, crap. Not again ." My first stop was the thermostat that showed that it was 91 in the house. I turned it off and on but the air didn't kick in. My mind immediately started racing...where's the business card from the guy who fixed it last time? When can I have him come out since I'm leaving town tomorrow afternoon and I have to go into work tomorrow? How much is a new unit going to cost me? Man, it's frakking hot in here! I resigned myself to a warm evening and started packing for my trip. As I went into the bathroom I saw the breaker box. Almost on a whim, I flipped the A/C breaker off then on. I heard the A/C kick in immediately. Praise the electricity gods! I really have to accelerate my savings plan for a new A/C unit because I feel like I got a lucky break tonight.

There was a small casino on the cruise ship. I was hoping they would do a Hold 'Em Tourney but they didn't. There were only a dozen tables in all and one dedicated to poker where they played $5-10 Hold 'Em. You can drop a ton of cash at those levels so I stayed clear of it. However, they did have one single deck blackjack table. Before my poker obsession, blackjack was my game of choice. I can happily play for hours at a $2 (try to find one of those these days!) or $5 table. This was a $10 table but I was OK with that. I was on vacation, after all. I went to the casino Saturday night after dinner. It took close to 45 minutes before a seat opened up at the table but I was patient. As soon as I sat down, I started hitting. I had more blackjacks than I could count - it was awesome! As the evening wore on, people would come and go but there were four of us who stayed, knew what we were doing and won. Won a lot, actually. It was like we couldn't lose. The hours ...

MILF in action. We had to take a bus back to the ship and this kid fell into the seat next to R. I mean that literally. He had gone to the $2o buys you all you can drink bar and he was completely polluted. R started talking to him and he decided she was hot. Which she is so he was still somewhat coherent. I admired her style. She worked him over pretty good. She told him we were on our, well, she added 10 years to it, reunion. He was very impressed! I told her later that I can't even admit to the real number, let alone 10 more. She told me, "Thing how fantastic I look for that age!" Good point. But Chinese water torture still wouldn't get me to say it out loud.

I went into Best Buy yesterday intending to get one CD, 5th Gear, which is the new one from Brad Paisley. I absolutely love his new song, Ticks . Classic Paisley. $91.66 later, I walked out with nine CDs. I couldn't help it. They were on sale ! Here's what I got: 5th Gear - Brad Paisley. (When I have a mission, I follow through.) Great album - I will listen to it often. Long Trip Alone - Dierks Bentley. Dierks is a home boy from the Valley. Another CD that will stay in my play list. Your Man - Josh Turner. The country theme continues. Turner's voice is so sexy, he could sing anything and I'd love it. Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace - Big & Rich. Good stuff but I wouldn't expect less from these guys. Sinners Like Me - Eric Church. The only one I haven't listened to yet. I know and like the singles off it, though. And from the bargain bin.... Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show - Super Hits. I had a cassette of this but wore it out. Who...

I am the (nearly) last person to propose doing shots. I'd rather stick to my Miller Lite where I can actually measure the amount of alcohol I'm imbibing. However, I'm not saying that I won't do shots. It's usually someone else buying me a shot and me saying, "No, no, no, no, no, no, okay." I put up a fight but usually cave in the end then blame the other person for bad behavior or hangover that might occur. I have been known to decline but that's usually when I'm out with the boys from work and I know that I have no chance of keeping up with them. So, it was funny to me how easily I went from shot victim to pusher on the cruise. I don't even know how the subject came up, but one of our gang, D, said he didn't do shots anymore. He even had cute phrases, "Shot free since 2003" and "Shots no more since 2004", etc. His stance made it a challenge and when he said, "Well, except for special occasions", I knew I had t...

As the last work week moved on to its end, I looked at my PDA and saw that I didn't have anything planned for Friday, Saturday or Sunday. At first, I thought it was a mirage. I honestly can't tell you the last weekend where I didn't have at least one event planned or errands to run. My first thoughts revolved around doing stuff around the house. My bedroom looks like a women's clothing store threw up in it. My closet desperately needs to be cleaned out. My den is well, a disaster. And, the back patio still has frakking weeds despite my attempts at poisoning them. My second thoughts were about calling someone to catch a movie or dinner or cocktails. I mean, what's the point of a free evening if you don't fill it with friends? My third, and final, thought was, "Frak all those other thoughts!" I did a mental survey of the fridge and realized I wouldn't run out of Diet Pepsi so there was no need to go to the grocery store. I also counted up th...

It seems like I've been waiting for D. Mulligan's CD forever. I think he first talked about it a few years ago when his brother, Trop Rock favorite Mark Mulligan, was doing a house concert in Tucson. Heck it may have been less than two years but it's been a long time. It's finally here! I've listened to it several times and already knew three of the songs because he's played them at several gigs. To get an idea about D's music, consider Mark's. Mark's is all about fun, sun, love, drinking with buddies in Mexico, happy, happy joy, joy. This is the guy who wrote a song about he doesn't sing the Blues. Go 180 degrees from that and you'll get an idea of D's style. Lots of breakups and breaking up and surprising mentions of guns. As you may guess by the title, a lot of the songs mention or evoke visions of Arizona. My favorite tune is Don't Wake Up . It's one of the tunes D's played for us before and I swear I don't like it ju...

We were quite the organized tour group on our Reunion trip. We even had a sign to gather around. When R first got the sign, she complained that it was too small but after carrying it for a while she appreciated its size. She seemed quite attached to the sign. So much so that we were surprised that she gave up possession of it, ever. We all took our sign watching duties very, very seriously and most of us got a turn. Being the responsible person that I am, I got a couple of turns. It always ended up back with R, though. A became the final owner of the sign. We all autographed it and he was declared the lucky owner for his feats of well, stupidity. He locked himself out his room. He spent time mocking people for repeatedly tripping on a step then tripped on it himself. The clincher was the "butt pucker". That sounds nice and juicy so I'll leave it at that.

I recently moved over to another building at work. It took me a few days to realize that the place pretty much shuts down when the Receptionist leaves. It doesn't matter if it's noon or 5, when she goes out the door she shuts off the lobby and main hallway lights. The hallway that leads to my new locale, btw . So, I sit in the near dark but that's not so bad. What is bad is that the cleaning people start working in the middle of the afternoon. Nothing like not being able to use the breakroom or the upstairs bathroom because they're being cleaned. Seems like it takes hours for them to finish. And it's especially nice to have to tiptoe around the huge bags of garbage stacked up on the breakroom floor. Then there's the vacuuming. I think that takes an hour. An hour during which there are cords strewn about the place and you can't make a phone call for fear of having to say, "Sorry about the jet engine noise in the background." We've tried to wo...

I don't really cook much (big surprise, I know) but I did notice the last time I used my oven (for frozen pizza) that it was a little dirty. Tonight, I was looking for a recipe to cook patty-pan squash. Never really noticed them before, wasn't sure if you could eat the rind or not so I found a recipe. It required the oven and I did debate the microwave option but passed. Here's the recipe: Preheat to 500 degrees. Cut squash into 3/4 inch squares. Cut 3 small red onions into 1 inch wedges. Spray shallow roasting pan (which is a cookie sheet in my house) with olive oil spray, place veggies in pan and dust with Italian seasoning, pepper and Kosher salt. Spray a little more on the top, mix and cook for 8 minutes. The problem happened when I opened the oven after preheating. I wouldn't exactly call it billowing smoke but it was visible. I quickly put the pan in but not before my smoke alarm started beeping. This, despite the fact that I already had the exhaust fan on....

I had a great time at my high school reunion! Thursday night, we had a Don Voyage (our school was the Coronado Dons so we were pretty clever with that one) Party at Flicka's in Scottsdale. I was there a few minutes early because I couldn't wait to see everyone. The plan was for those folks who couldn't cruise to come show up and do a meet and greet. There were about 50 people there throughout the evening. I tried to chat with all but I got hung up (in a nice way) with some people. I don't know how they would feel about being blogged about so I'll just use a code name (which happens to be their first initials so it's not that clever of a code). There was the "cute" couple, A and M, who haven't changed a bit. Everyone remembered M because she was just about the nicest person in our class. She hasn't changed a bit. Hardly anyone remembered A because he was one of the quiet guys. It was pretty funny - people would come up all gushing over M and I ...

This made it through to my Yahoo! account: Ras Al Khaimah Ceramics,P.O.Box 11232 Abu Dhabi,United Arab Emirate. RKCE.AD RE: Offer to act as our Financial Representative in your country.Good day and we hope this Job Offer reaches you in good faith. We are a group of Registered Company based in Ras Al Khaimah Ceramics, UAE. We are in the field of Exportation marketing. We deal on Manufacturing - Pipes ceramics, Tiles & constructions. We seek representatives from the United States of America , Canada and Mexico who will represent the interest of this company. The representatives we seek are Individuals, corporate body, and companies.The Representatives will act as receiving payment agents, and also act as a medium for our customers to place order for goods and products from our company. As our Representative, you are guaranteed a minimum of US$ 2,000 monthly and also 15% commission from any payment you receive from our customers. This is a part time job and will not interfere with you...

I'm going on a 4 day Mexico cruise on Friday. It's for our class reunion (you couldn't pay me to tell you which one). 72 Beer Mary and I were in the same class and Kathy was a year behind (and hung out with us the whole time) so we're all going. I don't think I've ever been less prepared for a trip before. Cruise booked? Only because Mary did it for me. Packing started? Not at all. I haven't even decided if I'm going with the weekender bag so I can carry it on the plane or the bigger bag. Laundry done? Nope. I do have some in the dryer, though. Got cash? Haven't been to the bank yet. Passport ready? Um, no, but this is where procrastinating paid off. I've known about this cruise for months. I knew I should get a passport (actually, I thought I had to). However, I kept screwing around until there was three weeks to go. I went to the Post Office to finally get it taken care of and they said Rush Service would be at least four weeks. C...

I use my Yahoo! account to email files between home and work. It's pretty convenient, actually. However, Yahoo! has apparently decided I'm a spammer. And, that I'm spamming myself! Is that even possible? Any email I send from my account to my account that has an attachment ends up in my Bulk folder along with all of the other Spam. I keep moving them out but to no avail. The Spam filter doesn't seem to learn that I'm not sending myself offers for free laptops or Nigerian money transfers. Generally, I appreciate Yahoo!'s spam filter but I think it's a tad overzealous since it's protecting me from, well, me.

I saw this article in The Arizona Republic last week. I found it pretty interesting, especially since so many of "my" generation have been frustrated with our co-workers. It's not just at my company; lots of people I talk to express the same frustrations. The article talks about those born after 1979 who are coming into the workforce and how their motivators are so different from those of us who have been out there for a while. Here's an excerpt: While tech-savvy, independent and well-educated, these young workers revel in, even crave, constant praise. The trend is puzzling to many older supervisors who rose steadily through the ranks believing that a talk with management usually meant trouble and that praise was rarely doled out. The latter statement is me to a T. I hardly talk to my big boss (and it was the same when I was his direct report) but it seems like when I do it's because he's concerned or critical about something. We kind of feel like if we ...

Sugar Daddy is in CA for a week long Apple conference. I imagine he's kicking back with Steve Jobs and gushing about how Macs are superior and Apple is a religion worthy of following. So, that leaves me in charge. But, it's like Alexander Haig was in charge. (I know, just that reference alone makes me very, very old.) For the whippersnappers out there, when Ronald Reagan was shot, Al Haig went before the press who asked who was in charge. To which he replied, “As of now I am in control here in the White House.” Of course, he wasn't in charge, Reagan still was and he got hammered for even saying it. Today's the first day SD is gone. One of his employees emailed in sick, another called me to ask for the day off and a third came in wearing shorts. I asked the latter where his long pants were and he said he was wearing shorts in anticipation of his health appointment...two hours from then. I let him know that wasn't the best choice to make but he didn't go change. I...

The latest entry in Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries, finds telepath Sookie Stackhouse attending a Vampire summit meeting in Chicago. She's there to gather information for the Louisiana Vampire Queen and also in attendance are her current boyfriend, Quinn the were-tiger, her former boyfriend Bill and former fling Eric, both vampires. I enjoyed the story (the sex scenes were quite nice) but I did find myself frustrated with Sookie missing some obvious clues that heralded issues with the summit. There were a couple of times when I was like, "Hellooooo, pay attention!" It was a nice read but not my favorite of the seven so far. Still worth reading, though, and it opened up some great potential storylines.

I had one of those great moments when I went to the library. I found the latest books from two series that I read. Sweet! I dove into Kim Harrison's new book, For a Few Demons More, as soon as I got home and finished it in one setting. The latest adventures of witch Rachel Morgan include making deals with demons (always scary), the release of her main vampire nemesis from prison, tracking a serial killer who's doing in female werewolves and, perhaps the scariest thing of all, having to wear a hideous bridesmaid dress. OK, the latter is clearly a girl thing. Harrison did a good job of continuing Rachel's development as well as fleshing out further a few others of the gang. The story was intriguing and the end left us with a puzzle that calls for resolution. It was a good addition to the series.

I played poker with boys on Friday night. I only got called "Bully" once so I don't think I played aggressively enough. Actually, I know I didn't. I made it to the final four and was third in chips. The big stack folded, the short stack went all in and I was in the little blind with the big blind playing the rush behind me. He'd been up and down the whole night and was on a nice little winning streak. I debated calling the all in but I chickened out because I figured the big blind would call and do the dirty work for me. He did call but ended up doubling up the short stack. My hand would have knocked him out. Dang it! It was a bad non-call on my part. I ended up with the short stack and went out fourth, one spot out of the money. I did win back half of my stake from Friday when I played with the girls on Saturday so I had that going for me. Oh well, lesson learned. Hopefully.

I was listening to my favorite radio station this week when the DJ said, "The new Diamondbacks uniforms suck". (An opinion I completely share, BTW.) He got an email from a listener who said he shouldn't use that kind of language because people had their kids in the car with the radios on at that time of the morning. Sugar Daddy's initial response to when I told him about it was, "Well then, don't listen." But, it made me start thinking. What's the objection to suck? It's pretty much part of our common lexicon. Is it crude? Or, just too severe? Would she have objected to "bite", "blow" or " reek "? It's not like it was an actual curse word so I don't quite understand her complaint. I know I'm not the best judge because I sound like the proverbial drunken sailor on my worst days and I'm not much better even on my good ones. So, I have a high threshold when it comes to inappropriate language. B...

I've had the X-Men on my brain lately. I watched bits and pieces of The Last Stand a couple of times last weekend, mostly to enjoy that they killed off Scott and Jean. Of course, it's the second time they killed Jean in the series so I've no doubt they'll both be back. The other reason I've been thinking about them is our new server at work. We used to use disease names (since we're in the health field) but a few years ago, we started using X-Men characters as our machine naming convention. Our latest is Mystique and she should be up and running next week. I have fun checking our co-workers' "cool" quotient when I start listing the server names to see how long it takes for them to catch the theme. My buddy T is completely uncool. He didn't get it at all. Guess he's too old.

Magneto and Xavier are both the strong, leader types... You scored as Magneto , Magneto possesses the power to control all forms of magnetism. He can shape and manipulate magnetic fields that exist naturally or artificially.Magneto’s ability to wield his superhuman powers effectively is dependent upon his physical condition. When severely injured, his body is unable to withstand the strain of manipulating great amounts of magnetic forces. Magneto 80% Winter Soldier 70% Doctor Doom 65% Green Goblin 60% Venom 55% Juggernaut 35% What Mavel Villain would you be? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Professor X , Professor X ordinarily possesses vast psionic powers, including telepathy; the ability to induce in others mental illusions, temporary mental or physical paralysis, and loss of specific memories or total amnesia; the projection of "mental bolts" to stun or render a person unconscious; astral projection; and the ability to sense other superhuman mutants within a small radius. At present Xavier is unable to use his psionic powers Professor X 81% Colossus 81% Gambit 81% Cyclops 69% IceMan 69% Wolverine 63% Nightcrawler 63% What X-Men would you be? created with QuizFarm.com

Unfortunately, the light is from a damned old train. I really thought it was easing up at work. Sugar Daddy planned on taking last Thursday and Friday off (his first two vacation days this year) and things seemed calm. Yeah, like the calm in the eye of the hurricane, maybe. I was sitting in my jammies on Thursday morning reading the paper when my cell rang. All of the work numbers ring Animal House and I can't tell you how much I regret making myself hate that song now but that's what was playing at 7:40 AM. I answered to hear a very plaintive "Help!" coming through the line. Without getting too technical, I have to say that my database is really, really stable. So, when they call to say there's a problem I'm usually like, "Who screwed it up?" Turns out the hardware that controls the disks screwed it up. For some reason (sunspots have actually been blamed), the controller that makes the disks available choked. Our Admin was on site and checking it o...

Nearly every guy I know loves the movie, The Rock . I think it's pretty much the silliest movie I've seen in years. After desperately going through the channels tonight, I decided to stop on it and watch it for a while. Oh. My. God. Could it be any dumber? I'd forgotten just how lame Michael Biehn's character was and well, frankly, how lame the whole movie was. I stuck it out for about 5 minutes (and the time it took to refill my wine glass) then I was roaming up and down the channels. Thank goodness, I found some poker to watch instead.

My pal, Lewie, from Utah is a camera guy. By camera guy, I mean obsessive compulsive picture taker. Pretty much the only time he puts the camera down is to go to the restroom and, on very rare occasions, dance. I take advantage of those situations every chance I get and start snapping random pictures of all sorts. Some of my pics even make his final cut for posting. That's quite the honor since he's pretty picky about what he publishes. Me? I just upload everything to Kodak Gallery and maybe take out the fuzziest ones first. Lewie edits everything which is why my pics are online long before his. However, his pics are also fantastic where mine are not so much. So, check them out. There are lots of Parrot Head events featured as well as pics from Lewie's world travels.