Stuff Archives

When two things you love come together, what can go wrong? Famous last words I'm sure, but we will reserve judgement for a couple of months as in May, Iron Maiden are to release a beer. Sad as it is, I'll have to buy a couple of crates just to see what it tastes like ... let's face it, it's going to take a couple of crates to decide if it's good or not. I imagine it's going to come at a premium price as well, but what do you expect these days?

Iron Maiden's Trooper Beer.

I figured I'd try out my new art talents - bit of sketching mixed with some water color work. Did a quick one of William playing on the xBox.


There may have been a slight trick to this ... but that's for me to know!

This blog was very close to being called “Mr O's lucky escape” as I toyed with the idea of bringing my new shorts to Vegas, but elected not to. So, for the first time in 27 years I bestowed my legs upon the world. One of the things that makes me laugh is that I actually worried about what color socks to wear. And even tried on both white and black before electing to chose black. The fact that I look like a complete tool regardless of the socks is completely irrelevant, but it felt like that might be the icing on the cake sort of things, so I tried on both pairs and solicited William's feedback. He did find it rather amusing that I was wearing shorts as he'd never seen me wear them before.

The reason I elected not to call it Mr O's lucky escape is because I did wear a bum bag (a.k.a. fanny pack) around Vegas. Basically I've come to terms with the fact that I'm going to look like a cock regardless of what I wear, so it really doesn't matter.

The pictures were taken with a 10 second timer and yes, I was trying to find an appropriate pose. Thought it might add to the knob factor ... but not the Sainsbury knob cheese that Owen found.

It's one thing to lose your AAA credit rating, but seriously, have things got so bad that you'll eat anything?

Trust Mr O to find this wonderful picture.

Today's biology lesson is about testicles. Quite amazing things really, but I've been focused on their ability to self regulate their temperature. Everybody knows the old excuse about coming out of cold water making everything shrink and that's because they try to crawl back into your stomach where it's nice and warm so they can keep at their optimal temperature. It's like the old testes have a draw sting similar to the one you have with window blinds to lift them up and down, they pull them up to get back into the stomach. However, it's the opposite that I've been focused on this last week.

I've had a pretty gnarly fever of over a hundred for a few days due to an infection (that thankfully appears to be gone now). If the old testes have a draw sting that they use to pull themselves up into the stomach, mine have let it out to hang out with my knees for a while due to the temperature I've been running. It's like their down there just chilling out, sunglasses on, sipping a cocktail from a coconut and relaxing in a big old wrinkly hammock.

It's almost freaky though as you kind of have your regular hang level and when you see it somewhat different, it catches you off guard a bit. I found myself automatically cupping them and sort of thinking “hey buddies, you guys OK hanging out all the way down there? .... don't want you to snap nothing or anything like that.” Obviously that's not going to happen, but the thought does occur.

Anyway, as I said, everything back to the same old same old and probably a bit of TMI, but hey!

Trying to get back into the habit of writing a bit more of what's going on, particularly when it's interesting ... well, maybe slightly interesting as a passing remark. I was up in Chicago at the beginning of this week and it just seems that every time I go there something happens - had to fly back and go straight into hospital just over a year ago. Last time I went I was diverted to Des Moines and when I finally got in, I only lasted a day before I had to fly out again (was supposed to be there for a week) due to a need at a client.

This time the being there went without a hitch, it was the leaving. My flight took off, then started shaking a bit and the captain made an announcement that the landing gear was stuck down and that we had to return to Chicago as opposed to carrying on to Dallas. Presumably we made an emergency landing as we were greeted by the fire trucks and ambulances that chased us to the end of the runway until we confirmed that we were OK. Now, I don't profess to being an aeronautical engineer by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know that of the two positions landing gear can get stuck in, down is definitely the one I prefer to hear about. The landing was fine .... which you can probably guess as I'd probably not be writing this otherwise.

Anyway, trundled off to the second plane. Next thing there's an announcement that there's a mechanical issue on that. Off to another gate for a third plane that did eventually get us to Dallas. Well, half of us - not sure what happened to the others - either frightened off or they got another flight. Minor problem though as I only got to my hotel at 2:00am and had to be up at 5:30 to go to a client and deliver a presentation. And not just any presentation, a sales presentation to a new client. Thankfully that went fine thanks to an excellent team, so off to return as had to get back to the Bay Area.

We drove to Dallas Love Field to drop off one of the guys who was also heading out, then went to lunch and then to DFW to drop me off. I have no idea why, but I checked my phone when I was curbside to look at the flight information. I really don't know why I did this, but it turned out I was booked to head back to San Francisco which is fine except for the fact that my car was in Oakland as that's where I'd left from. A call to my trusty assistant who admitted a boo boo, discussed a couple of options and decided to get a flight into Oakland .... from Dallas Love Field. Drove back over to that airport and tried to check in and the machine was having none of it. Back on the phone with my assistant how had now got me on the right flight, but the wrong day. Another quick change later and I'm on the right flight.

Everything from here went smooth. I did fall asleep waiting for my plane and woke up as they were boarding, so there was a close call there I suppose, but all was good.

It's interesting .... I've always been Mr Skeptical, particularly when it comes to urban myths or legends, stories that seem just a little bit too unbelievable. Notable ones where when we used to go fishing over in Ireland, there were rumors that folks from Germany were stealing pike to smuggle back and eat. Similarly, there are stories of the people from Eastern Europe that have come to England taking carp from the fisheries to eat. I've always taken these with a pinch of salt.

However .... the most ridiculous story of similar theme was when I first came to the States. There was actually a news item from a concerned group of one description or other over the safety of mustangs. The wild horses that is, not the cars. The news article commented that people from the UK were coming to the States and killing horses to take back to England and eat. I can't remember if it was claimed it was a delicacy or not, but I scoffed at such a thought .... for one thing, I could possibly see that you could get a pike into a cooler to smuggle back, but I wasn't quite getting my head around how you would get a dead horse onto a plane. Suddenly I feel stupid for not giving the report more credibility given the amount of horse meat that seems to be being sold in the UK as beef right now.

Perhaps I need to be a bit more like my brother who believes every story he's told.

I would say Vegas or bust, but I'm going with Mr O .... or the Big OC as he was advertising himself as at the darts. Tickets are booked to the 2013 NASCAR race, so we're about all set to head out there give or take the minor details of flights and hotels, but that's something we can address in a couple of weeks.

I've just created the framework for this year's race game and you can now register for 2013 NASCAR season. A more formal notification will come out when the drivers have been named so you can create your team and do your picks for the first race at the same time.

Believe it or not, this is a video to promote DC shoes even though the shoes only get about 10 seconds of air time. I'm also not 100% behind the logic of using car being driven to advertise shoes, but this is one amazing video so who cares? The first part of this video from the Bay Bridge to just before he circles the cable cars is my commute into work. Clearly he chose to shoot this whilst I was on vacation otherwise you'd have seen me sneak by on the inside on the freeway off ramp. Seriously ... well, a little bit more seriously, I've looked at that off ramp and wondered if you could take a car sideways all the way around it - it almost seems built for it. Clearly the answer is yes although I shan't be trying it anytime soon.

Gotta give a lot of credit for having Travis on the bike, but hats off to Ken for some pretty stylish driving.

Somewhat late in posting this completely irrelevant post, but it's sort of a continuation of my luck with taxi drivers. During my last visit to Houston, I ended up in a taxi back to the airport which was sort of interesting. It kind of started when I noticed the TV in the cab and asked what it was for. Not a flat screen display, a full 14 inch tube type TV. Initially I was told this was to play videos for the passengers.

Time passed and I ended up getting the life story of the driver that seemed to be full of ups and downs. To keep a long story somewhat short, he'd split up from his wife and seemed to be trying to get me to agree with him that it was all her fault ... yep ... and then you get halfway to the airport and you realize that the TV is in the cab because that's where the driver is living ... hmmm. Next we find that he thinks he's a music star and has created a CD with the song “ain't no drama with President Barrack O'Bama”. But oh no. Just creating it isn't enough when you've got a captive audience. How joyed I was to listen to this track that may or may not have had more lyrics in it, but all I can remember is a continuous repeat of the title.

So, you're in a cab with a homeless guy, completely down on his luck. He then started to ask me how I ended up needing walking sticks and then says “whenever I think I've got it bad, I see someone like you and realize it could be worse ...”

Way to make me feel on top of the world.