White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Lunch yesterday was actually pleasant. I had a nice 22oz IPA and a small plate of some kind of Mexican-Asian fusion chicken stuff. I think it was chicken. Doesn't matter, it was sufficiently greasy and fatty that it will shoot right through my system. We had lunch at the John Harvard's Brew Pub. Really nice place actually. The beer is always top notch. You may ask, why did I only have 1 beer when I usually have two. In this case, it was on the house so three is not out of the question. Well, the Big boss and the other Big boss showed up. That would the Husband and Wife team who own/run our tiny little company. Why an organization of 15 people needs to have a CEO/President and Executive VP of development and infrastructure is beyond me. It's their company, they can call themselves whatever they want. Funny thing, the husband, we will call G*, who started this company is a Turk who is also Muslim. I was sitting next to him as he drank his beer and ate his bacon-cheese burger. It always makes me chuckle when I see how quickly people drop their religious sheets after they spend a few years in America. I've worked with many people from overseas, Hindus, Jews and Muslims, who just don't give a damn about the dietary restrictions of their religions after a few years. As I chow down on my steak and wurst plate, I think to myself that the world could be unified under the American diet. Really!

Yesterday afternoon, I had ordered a load of sand to be delivered and dumped in our driveway. I was expecting the 10.5 tons of sand to show up Friday afternoon or later. Much to my surprise, when I arrived at the Haupertonian Manor, there was a giant mound of sand in our driveway. URK! It was about 5 feet high and about 10 feet in diameter. Ok, this is different, what am I going to do with this stuff for the next 3 days. Argh. I quickly got out a tarp and covered it up. I needed to put some stones or weights on it to keep it from blowing away, but didn't have the time. I'd do that later in the night when I was pruning the beans. I had to get going, it was getting late and I needed to get to the 'Child Detainment Center' to pick up the Totalitarian Toddlers of Terror. As I pulled into the parking log, the sky opened up and sheets of rain came down. Lightning started to spike down all over. It was Ragnarok! Apocalypse! The End of Times! But wait, where are all the frogs and locust and stuff. Never mind, just a big thunderstorm. So I rush the kids out to the car and get them buckled in. I let Jacob do his usual exploration of the car while I secured his sister. She was not entirely interested in being secured and resisted ferociously while the rain pounded my back into a sodden mess. Finally, I chased down Jacob the Jovial Joker after he had exhausted his avenues of escape. I gave them each a wad of beef jerky and started back to the City-State World HQ. The rain and wind really started in after that. Traffic came to a halt, because people in Pennsyltucky cant drive in the rain. It's against the law, dont-cha-know. Maybe if we gave everyone boating permits, they wouldn't be so terrified of driving in the rain. You would think that these people melt in water or something. Hmmm, maybe. By the time I got home, the wind had carried away the tarp. I had to go chase it down in the pounding rain and re-cover the mountain of sand. To keep the tarp in place, I hurled six large Belgian paving blocks I had conveniently sitting at the end of the grand avenue leading to the manor. In the short time it took to accomplish that, it became completely drenched. I really wish I had don't that to start with.

The rain managed to drench the cloth flag that I had put up the other day. This caused the holder to fail and the flag was no longer pointing up. Well now, that will just not do! I went about retro-fitting the failed flag holder with a 7/16 inch pin to keep it from heading south. Took a bit because the old battery drill I was using is pretty much shot, but it made it through the task. It saved itself and will not be disposed as of yet. With all that busy work, the kids got a stay on the bath-time. An extra half hour was just fine by them. They were being relatively good tonight so we had no wails of discontent or tantrums of impetulance. About a half hour before bath time, Alexis loaded up her diaper with yesterday's dinner. She was pretty discontent about the situation and when we asked her what was wrong, she pointed to her diaper. "Did you go poo honey?" She nods her head in agreement. "Do you want your diaper changed?" Again, confirmation. Scary smart. I think it may be time for potty training for her.

After we got the kids down for their nap, I began my nightly bean counting/cutting/canning and Joyce went off to get some stuff ready for the next day. Within minutes of me sitting down, a great flash of light blanketed the room. "Whaaa?" Then within a second, the lights flickered and the thunder rolled through. It was loud, the kind of "CRRRAAACKKKKKK" loud that lets you know that the strike probably hit ground near-by. I look up at the tv thinking that I should tune in the weather channel, only to see static. Ut-oh. If the cable is out, that means not only no "Adult Swim" on the cartoon channel tonight, but the internet will be out of commission too. Oh dear GOD, what will I do! I went out on a limb and did something we had not done in ages. The Mrs and I put a DVD in and watched a movie with Adam Sandler: "50 first dates". It was nice. The movie was ok, a little silly and not very involved, but a good movie to watch curled up with your S.O. late on a rainy night. That was nice.

The late bed-time for the kids translated to them sleeping in. The dogs were good and didn't whine until I went down to let them out. A good start. There was a 7 car accident on the Turnpike that cost me about 10 minutes. That is pretty good in that it could have really been ugly if I had not gotten going as early as I did. The location of the accident was in the passing lane of course. I think I had gotten there just moments after it had happened, the anti-freeze was still flowing out of the radiator and had not made its way across the other 2 lanes yet. Its funny how when you want to get out of the lane that the accident is in, but the person in the lane to the right of you pretends that she cannot see you. I honk my horn and she looks over to see me moving into her lane. Onse-twose ... I go, you go, the right way to do things. She pulls back and lets me in. Jeeze, I know you saw me, do you need me to make you confirm that I know that you saw me. People, it's called civility. Common courtesy. Argh. There is a law in the works here in PA. If you are in an accident and your car is drivable, you MUST get out of traffic as soon as possible. These cars were not drivable for the most part, but 6 of the 7 were which really pisses me off. Its going to be a 'No Fault' citation so why the hell are you trying to preserve the accident scene. I hope they get tickets for obstructing the flow of traffic.

At work, I find that my Canadian Lat-Long load had failed, a table that was not supposed to be there was, and caused a create fail. 15 hours of load down the tubes, time to start over. My index create failed too because something was running at a time that I thought was safe. I'm going to bump the index create to 2 hours later and cross my fingers. I want to get this off my plate, stupid reports. Stupid table. Stupid Oracle.