Wasted Daze

The local Relay For Life cancer walk is currently taking place at The College of the Sequoias. It’s our local community college and the host of this year’s event. They have a 1/4 mile track and the area to set up tents and booths for the all-nighters. The event started sometime yesterday afternoon or early evening and runs a full 24 hours. I started taking part in the Relay for Life event after I lost a favorite uncle to throat cancer about 9 or 10 years ago. We recently lost my wife’s mother to breast cancer (June 2009) so it gave us both much more reason to want to participate this year.

Before retiring, I worked for the City of Visalia in their GIS Department. We were located in City Hall East. The City of Visalia also has a City Hall West and a City Hall North. NOTE: I have no idea why they chose to name them that, but they did. I have so much more to tell you about where I used to work and the people I worked with, but that will come in later posts.

As a government organization we had many departments and divisions, and several of them would put together teams to see who could raise the most money for the American Cancer Society. I was on the City Slickers team ( I know…very punny ) which consisted of people from City Hall East. I no longer worked there, but I know they’ve always had a hard time getting people for the early morning hours. I’m an early-bird by nature so I called to see if I could fill an early morning open spot or two. I was a little disappointed to find that not only was there no City Slickers team , but the City of Visalia did not have even one team at the event this year. Shame. Shame I say!

It wasn’t all bad as the City of Visalia employees did raise money, but apparently there was a lack of interest in people ’signing up’ to participate in the walk. In the past the fire dept, police dept, finance dept, and others had tents set up and had people there to cover the 24 hours. This year? Not one. It could be with the threat(s) of layoffs, furloughs, concessions, or the latest ‘fear-mongering’ technique being employed by the city manager, that people just aren’t interested in doing anything above and beyond for the organization. I can’t say that I blame them. Unfortunately it’s a good cause and it would have been nice to see the City of Visalia represented there.

So as not to paint my wife as the only one who had problems / issues during our weekend, I’ll let you all in on something that happened to me during our trip. It’s not pretty, and I’m not proud of it, but here it comes. Parents…you might want to have your kids leave the room.

If you read my last post you’ll know that just minutes into the drive to Napa we encountered California traffic. (see black arrow below) Not the way you want to start a 260+ mile trip. We got past (at least I did) my wife forgetting her formal wear for the wedding we attended and were set on just getting to our hotel so we could quickly go out and find my wife some clothes to wear. We stopped to use a restroom and grab an early lunch at a Carl’s Jr. in Chowchilla, CA. It’s a quick on / off of Hwy. 99. My wife had some sort of salad. I had two western bacon, large drink, and onion rings. We pee’d, got our food and drinks, and hit the road hoping to make up time by eating on the road.

Jump ahead a couple hours. We’re in the Bay area (see red arrow on map) when we hit a toll booth. Now, I’d seen a sign 5 miles prior that mentioned the toll. I asked my wife, who’d been in the area recently, about it and she said it was $4.00 US. No problem, I had singles. What was a problem was the large Diet Dr. Pepper I got from Carl’s Jr. a couple hours earlier. It had worked it’s way through my system into my bladder. All of it. Ice cubes and drink were putting extreme pressure in my crotch area when we hit toll booth traffic.

So maybe I should have gone early on…when I first felt the urge. But that’s not how I roll. I like to wait until the last possible minute for some reason. Maybe a ‘less trips per day’ mentality, I’m not sure. Regardless, this wasn’t the time or place to play Let’s See How Much Urine My Bladder Can Hold. Traffic was fine at the 5 mile mark, moving nicely, and we’re making time in the carpool lane until the signs said ‘FastTrak Only Left Lanes’. That’s when things started to slow down, except for the pounding in my bladder.

I’ve been in traffic before when I’ve had to go to the bathroom and it’s not fun. I’ve always been able to hold it long enough to make it to an appropriate place to relieve myself. Unfortunately my streak was about to end. I almost pee’d myself in the line waiting to pay my $4.oo. The pain was so bad I had to turn off the music just to concentrate on not peeing my pants. I finally made it through the toll booth, but I was far from pee-free. I found out that I had miles to go before there would even be an exit. Not good. I’d waited as long as I could. This was a battle I was going to lose. Traffic was SO bad, and I had to pee SO bad, I did the unthinkable. I asked my wife, age 54, to steer for me while I, age 51, pee’d in my empty Carl’s Jr. cup.

So I’m driving 55 mph +/- trying to stay between large vehicles with my feet pushed to the floor so i can unzip my pants while my wife steers trying to keep it between the stripes. She did as good as could be expected, considering.

Thank goodness I asked for a large drink or there’d be a lot more to this story. Heh!

My wife and I were invited to a wedding (*several months ago) that was to take place at a golf course in Yountville, CA. This happens to be Wine Country, CA. It was probably many women’s perfect backdrop. It was held at a local golf course which had banquet facilities and a club house that had a bar, music, and dance floor. We made reservations at a Holiday Inn Express back in May or June. We’d recently stayed at one in Walnut Creek, CA and liked it, so we thought we try the one in American Canyon, CA. We even decided to stay an extra day to do some shopping / site seeing. The wedding was to begin at 4:30 p.m., Friday, September 5th, 2009 (Labor Day weekend). But I’m jumping ahead of myself as I’d like to begin the trip from it’s start in Visalia, CA.

We planned to leave early Saturday morning (9 – 10 am), drive to our hotel in American Canyon, CA, shower, change, and drive the remaining 18 miles north to the wedding. We should have known what type of weekend laid ahead when we began the trip with complete traffic stoppage just 10+ miles into the drive. See black arrow on map above. See next post for info regarding red arrow.

After 20 minutes or so, and after being pelted with stones, dirt, and garbage by the 50 mph shoulder driving ambulance and fire truck, we finally started moving again. Jump ahead 45 minutes. We’d just gone through Fresno when my wife says “Oh, no!” That’s never followed by anything good. Ever. She said “I forgot all  my dress clothes in the closet!” Pardon me? She forgot all her dress clothes?! *How is that possible when you have months to prepare? At this point it’s too late to drive back to Visalia to get her clothes and still make it to the wedding on time so I told her we’d pick up clothes for her at a store near our hotel. She was upset of course. I even heard a “…if your clothes would have been hung up where I could see them it would have reminded me…” line which I took as a ‘THIS IS YOUR FAULT’ comment. Quiet time commenced.

Anyhow, we fight the Labor Day traffic and arrive at our hotel at approximately 2:00 pm to check in and find out where the nearest mall or women’s fashion store is. The gal at the front desk said something along the lines of “There’s nothing here. You’ll have to drive to Fairfield (15+ miles away) or go back to Vallejo.” We told her our situation and time constraints and she said “Well, there’s a Super Walmart just across the street.” Let’s just say that my wife wasn’t thrilled about our prospects.

So off we go to Walmart with my wife stressed to the max. We spent an hour in there trying to find something acceptable for her to wear to a wedding. She found a top, but no matching pants. She found pants, but no matching top. She was in and out of the dressing room several times. With her almost in tears (again) we actually found her a nice top, black pants, necklace, bracelets, and earings for $42.41 total. LOL!

Thank you, Walmart! 

I thought I’d talk about these two products. I love their commercials. :)  Every time I hear The Scooter Chair commercial start I expect to see a guy in overalls wearing a ball cap say ”Hi! I’m Scooter Johnson…the inventor of the Scooter Chair!”

And the Hoveround commercials are classic!

“Hey, Bernice and Joy! Who got you to the Grand Canyon?” It shows two elderly women just a few feet from the edge. They don’t even have them parallel with the drop off. I picture one of them rolling backwards right off the edge. Heh!

I love this line too! “If you owned a Hoveround Powerchair where would you go next? The Statue of Liberty? The Grand Canyon? The family picnic?” I’m waiting for them to show somebody deep sea diving.

If you watch the above commercial, at about 1:10 in you’ll see an old mob boss say “No cost…absolutely no cost to me!” He’s one of my favorites. Deep, scratchy, New Jersey voice.

There’s a line by a gentleman in the commercial where he says ”This chair is so comfortable to sit in, sometimes I don’t even realize I’m in the chair!” OK…this is where I set aside the topic we’re dealing with to point out the stupidity of that statement. Has anyone, anywhere, at any time, regardless of their mobility, ever forgot they were sitting?! I know I haven’t! But they have somebody, someplace saying “Wow, that must be comfortable. I think I’ll buy one.” based solely on that statement.

The fight started shortly thereafter.

If you read my previous post about the new living room furniture you’ll know my ex-wife had issues of the obsessive-compulsive variety. Though I was able to get her to take the sheets off the new furniture, I couldn’t get her to stop complaining about how I was ruining the couch and chair cushions by sitting on them. I had to decide. Sit on the furniture and hear her complain about it forever, let her put the sheets back on them, or just stop using them. I decided on the latter. I stopped using the furniture. I would sit on the floor to watch TV when I was in the living room. I would have done whatever it took to shut her up. For the next couple weeks things were fine. I could at least see the furniture we just bought.

So I come home from work one day and the ex says “Honey…I bought you something today!” I was excited as anyone would have been. She goes into the other room and comes out with a floor mat. She said it was for when I was sitting on the floor. She said “Your butt cheeks are leaving marks in the carpeting and I don’t want it ruined!” My mouth just dropped. I was being treated like a dog. First it was “Off the furniture, Don!”. Then it was  ”Go get on your rug, Don!”. What was next?! Was I going to start getting my dinner in a bowl on the floor?

She honestly had no idea why I was so upset. The worst part is that I ended up doing it just to keep the peace. The crap I took just to keep the peace. <headshake>

My ex-wife and I had just purchased new living room furniture. We bought it over the weekend from a local furniture store and it was supposed to be delivered that day (Monday?) while I was at work. There was a full size couch, love seat and recliner. I remember the couches were a set, brown in color.

I don’t remember the color of the recliner, and it plays no part in the story so I’ll continue. Remember, I’m at work all day knowing that when I get home I’ll have a new recliner to sit back and watch TV in. It’s going to be great!

So I excitedly pull into the garage and come into the house. I look into the living room and where I should see my new recliner / furniture, I see what may or may not have been new furniture. I couldn’t tell. My ex-wife had put old sheets on all of  it. I asked her what the heck was going on and she said she put the sheets on them ”…so we don’t ruin them!”

I stood there for a second trying to comprehend the whole thing and especially her explanation. I then told her “If we ruin them, we’ll buy new ones!” I couldn’t believe it! I should have been tipped off she had problems by the car she drove. It was a 1970-something Cutlass four door. Nothing special, it’s just that she had plastic seat covers on both the front and back seats. Read my previous post about how friggin’ hot it gets here. Think shorts and sweaty legs.

Think anal-retentive / obsessive-compulsive.

So, it’s Sunday morning 9:30 a.m. P.S.T. in central California*. It’s still pleasant enough for us to have the doors and a few windows open. That all changes over the next few hours. By high noon it’ll be at or near 100 degrees Fahrenheit…again! You see, central California, aka the San Joaquin Valley, is really a desert that the water from the snow pack of the Sierra Nevada’s runs through.

Some of the water makes it into the ground for local use, but I think most is pumped / gravity fed to water-hungry southern California via the aqueduct. <SOAPBOX> Why don’t you guys build your desalination plants and start using the water you have sitting right in your front yard and leave our water here where it’s created? </SOAPBOX>

But back to this hell-hole I call home. I should have known to pack it up and call it quits the year I moved out here. The first full summer I spent here we had 30+ consecutive days of 100 degree weather. The day the record ended the temp only hit 99, but went back up to 100+ for another 10+ days. It was brutal and I should have ran when I could. As time went on I made friends, bought property, and helped raise two kids. It became too late to leave. At least until retirement (which just happened recently – more on that later) which now gives us the opportunity to find someplace, oh, I dunno…A LITTLE FREAKING COOLER?!

You see, I don’t live in the California you all know and love…

…I live in central California where you see more happy cows, nut trees and oranges.  

A lot less glamorous than TV portrays all of California to be unfortunately. On the upside we are “close to everything” as all the locals say ( i.e. we really don’t have anything to do in the area as it’s all dairies and orchards). We’re 3 hours from Los Angeles, 3.5 hours from San Francisco, and 2 hours from the coast. People here seem to be proud of the fact that they’re close to everything without actually having anything. It’s a way of life that even after 25 years of living through, I still can’t explain it.

Oh! and if I hear one more person say in 100 degree weather that “…at least it’s a dry heat…” I’m going to scream! Any time the thermostat says it’s 100+ degrees outside and I leave the house, I’ve never said to myself “Wow, it’s hot out, but at least it’s a dry heat.” It’s usually more like “Son of a @^#$& it’s hot out!”

</rant>

*After repeated interruptions, this post actually got finished about 11:13 a.m.. The air conditioning is on. 

I once worked for an engineering firm in Dallas, Texas. As if there’s another Dallas. The firm had recently moved from an office in downtown Dallas to one in north Dallas occupying the sixth floor of a ten story+/- bank building. The bank took up the first floor and the rest was leased out to other businesses. The entrance to the bank was on a mezzanine, up a flight of steps from the street. The mezzanine had trees, benches and tables for people to have lunch or breaks.

It wasn’t long before the guys in the office realized there were a lot of women in the building and many of them took their breaks on the mezzanine. A couple guys, horn-dogs that we/they are, brought in binoculars to get a better look. You could set your watch to it. Every morning at ten o’clock, our engineering firm’s drafting department would spend fifteen minutes sharing the binoculars looking at the women six flights below.

One of the individuals who brought in binoculars…Erin was his name…was in the National Guard and one weekend a month and two weeks a summer he’d have to report to duty. It happened to be the two week summer break when I realized he hadn’t taken his binoculars with him. They were still on a shelf above his desk. This was back when drafting, be it architectural or engineering, was done by hand. Every draftsman had a pencil pointer. Pencil pointers are what draftsman used to put very fine tips on their drafting pencils. By putting your drafting pencils in the top and spinning clockwise you would put a nice point on the pencil and also create a generous amount of graphite from the lead.

This is where M*A*S*H comes in. They did it with shoe polish I believe, but soon after he left I took the graphite shavings from my pencil pointer and dumped them out on a napkin. I then took Erin’s binoculars out of the case…took off the eye covers…and proceeded to tap the eye pieces into the graphite covering them nicely. I put the eye covers back on…put the binoculars back in the case…and basically forgot all about it.

JUMP AHEAD TWO WEEKS: It’s 8 o’clock-ish and I’m at my desk working. By chance Erin comes to my desk to see what went on while he was gone. I look up from my drafting table to see Erin…with big black circles around his eyes. I busted out laughing! He looked at me and asked again what was new and I couldn’t talk to him. I was laughing so hard. He ended up walking away thinking I was crazy. LOL!

He ended up wearing the stuff for almost two hours before one of the higher-ups asked him what he had on his face. We all had a laugh with that one, including Erin. From that day on nobody ever used somebody’s binoculars without checking them for graphite first. 

 (pic somewhat related)

Did that get your attention?   Unfortunately for me, it was true. After 7 long years (for me) I told my now ex-wife I wanted a divorce. She hadn’t held a full time job in a few years. And before you women go off the hook, we had no children so she doesn’t get the “…stay at home mom…” pass on this one. But this isn’t the time or place…more not the time…to get into all the things that caused the breakup. All you need to know for this story is that we had just got done (I did all the construction) building a new home in Three Rivers, CA. when I told her I wanted the divorce. We agreed that  that after we sold the house and paid bills, I would get nothing but half the remaining money, my truck, tools, and clothes. She could have everything left which included the first home we (I) bought which we”d since turned into a rental. I just needed what little piece of sanity I might have back.

So all this unfolds. The new house went on the market, the rental became empty, and she started cleaning people’s houses to pay her way again. I’ll go into how cleaning houses is a perfect a line of work for someone obsessive compulsive later. As I was saying, she was working to pay for her half of the utility bills and her own groceries. We each had two shelves in the fridge and one shelf each in the freezer. Don’ t touch my food and I won’t touch your food kinda thing.

Since I was making more I paid the strokes on the new house as well as the rental. If you noted above I said that as this thing unfolded the rental became empty. I was making the strokes on both places. I told her to move into the rental and I’d stay in that house until it sold. She wouldn’t move out! I later figured out it was because she knew she couldn’t make my life as miserable from that far away.

So it had been almost a full year and the house hadn’t sold, our divorce was final, and she’s still living there. I had the master bedroom and a spare bedroom and she lived out of the other bedroom. One day I happened to be talking to a friend on the phone when she came storming from the other room, kind of mumbles angry gruff as she passes me in the kitchen, goes out the door into the garage, starts the car, backs out of the drive, and barrels down the street. To this day I have no idea what her problem was. Maybe she thought it was a woman I was talking to.

Anyhow, I continue my conversation with my friend and a few minutes later I see her drive back to the house, drive into the garage really quietly, and nothing. She never came in. I figured she was at the door listening to me on the phone, eavesdropping. So…I continued to talk while slowing walking over to the garage door where I proceeded to turn the door knob very, very slowly until it came to a stop that signaled it was completely open, and then I swung it open as fast as i could hitting her right in the forehead with the door. LOL!

She has been right up to the door to see who I was talking to and what it was about and i caught her. She yelled /asked “What’d you do that for?!” I told her I didn’t know she was there. He-he!

My wife and I are building a cabin in Hartland, California. It’s located in the Sequoia National Forest about a mile as the crow flys from both Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Parks. That’s us…the red pin.

We bought the property about three years ago. It sits at the end of a private dirt road. Hence the last resort title.   We looked in the area several years before and could have bought the same piece back then. We decided it would be better if we waited a few years until prices had doubled. It’s near the 5000′ elevation with temperatures generally 20 degrees cooler than our home in the valley located just 44 miles away. When temps are in the 90’s and 100’s here (home) it’s in the 70’s to 80’s with canyon breezes. I love it.

I wanted to tell you about a run-in I had with a neighbor up there. I’ll call him ‘Pixley’ for now. A little background on Pixley.He’s probably in his early 50’s. Never been married. Retired from the military. The Navy. I now think his mother (who recently passed) may have sent him off to have the Navy raise him. He is now using as a cabin what used to be his mother’s home. He also inherited her black cockapoo.  This guy will walk through private property to get to our property to see what we’re doing and offer advice. Unfortunately after just a few moments it becomes obvious he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but he sure’ll give you lots of ‘great’ ideas. I heard a lot of “…you know what you ought to be doing is…” lines followed by something completely off the wall. More on that part in later posts.

I can’t really stop Pixley from doing what he’s doing as it’s not my property he cuts across. It’s my neighbors and they’re hardly ever up there. The biggest problem is the direction he comes from is behind a huge hill and he just sort of pops out right next to my cabin. Startled the heck out of me on many occasions as you can’t see or hear him until he’s right on top of you. Somehow we got on the topic one day of him walking about like that where people can’t hear him. He told me that people at the other end of the camp didn’t like him as they had the same issues. I talked to a couple who said they’d caught him standing up on the side of the mountain  looking down into their cabin. Spooked the wife and pissed off the husband. I found all this out later. So before I really knew the circumstances I thought they may have had the same issue with him as i did. Not hearing him coming. I suggested that maybe he should try wearing one of those little bells you put on the end of a fishing pole to let you know you have a bite. I’ve also heard of people wearing them on their lapels when walking in the woods so they don’t accidentally sneak up on a bear / mountain lion.

Our conversation ends…his dog finishes crapping on my property…and they leave. Now through good luck or proper star alignment I didn’t see him for a couple weeks. One morning I was working on the framing of the cabin and I heard this obviously ‘non-mountain’ sound from someplace. I look up just in time to see this guy come around the corner of the hill with his dog. He’s carrying a long walking stick of sorts. Maybe  six foot tall. On top of the the stick he nailed a long white shoe string. On the end of the shoe string was a cowbell. Not a little dinner bell sized bell. A full sized cowbell! He was walking and shaking the stick raising all kinds of heck. I’m sure people three canyons over could hear him.

I just about lost it. It was one of the funniest things I ever saw. I ended up feeling somewhat guilty as he took my advice and this is what he came up with. It was not my intent to humiliate the guy, but that’s what I felt like it did. I said “Don’t you think the bell’s a little big?” He mumbled something and continued along his merry way.

He used the bell and stick for a month or so and stopped. I’m sure I made a lot of friends in camp that day. You could hear the guy coming for miles.