Friday Night Potpourri

Well, it's about time.  Without further adieu:

• There's several sets of new tires in our family.  Those couldn't have come at a better time.  The thinning treads wouldn't have made it through the wet spell we're enduring.
• My first St. Patty's Day Guinness came in the wee hours.  Working late swing shift certainly helps that.
• St. Patrick used the three leaf shamrock to teach the Irish people about the Holy Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  I'll celebrate that!
• I'm at least part Irish, one eighth.  My mother's grandmother was Irish and she married a Lithuanian man.  I'm not sure how much Irish, if any, is in either of my grandfather's lineage.
• I wore a green shirt to work last night on the chance that I would work past midnight.  Did it work?
• It was really nice to jog in the rain yesterday.  It started sprinkling just as I left and by the time I got to the park, it was raining.  Mrs. Scott always remarks that I bring a fresh smell back home with me.
• It all goes together very well.

Weekend Potpourri

Ending the FNP drought:

• Played football with my boys out in the street today.  Nice chilly day, fall.  My arm hurts a bit after throwing for just a short time.  Must be getting old, but my boys are so full of energy because they're young. 
• My cell phone apparently doesn't adjust automatically for Daylight Savings Time even though it is set to "automatic" for date and time.  Mrs. Scott has the same phone model and discovered that the phone must be turned off then on again for it to switch between daylight time and standard time.  Kinda defeats the purpose.  My clock radio did just fine.
• Some friends brought dinner over a few nights ago because we were busy with an important matter.  One of the dishes was a green bean casserole with onion rings on top.  It was one of those childhood memories of mom's green bean casserole.
• Next Iron Chef is doing a competition in the bleachers at Petco Park in San Diego.  We were there just last year!
• It's good to feel the rain and cool weather of the last week.  That rain-on-the-pavement smell, too.
• My favorite pickings out of the leftover Halloween candy were the Hershey's chocolates and the Reece's peanut butter cups.
• obladioblada

Friday Night Potpourri

After a swing shift, Friday night at 11pm is my 5pm:

• I've been thinking lately about switching Friday Night Potpourri to Saturday Night.  I'm working swings on Fridays and I usually crash immediately on Friday night after I get home.  Like last night.  I woke up on the couch in the wee hours with my blog editor still open and too tired to do anything other than go to bed.
• I've encountered so many black widow spiders in the back yard it's hard to count.  I'm wondering why they only appear in the back yard.  It's been that way the last several houses I've lived in.
• Leaves are beginning to drop in the back yard.  That means getting out the rusty leaf rake and putting it to use in the next few months.  Nothing like getting the rust worked out of a tool by using it.
• I love a good cup of coffee every afternoon.  I'm not a morning coffee person, but usually have one after those post-lunch sleepy sessions kick in.  Makes the afternoon go faster and more efficient.
• What is up with laptops and their bizarre keyboard mishaps?  I type and right in the middle of what I'm doing, large chunks of text are cut and pasted to other parts of the document and the vertical scroll bar goes wildly up and down.  I mentioned this to a co-worker the other day and he experiences the same things.  Then Mrs. Scott agreed.  Anybody have these woes and know what they are?
• Popcorn ceilings. Or what everybody used to call "cottage cheese" ceilings. The inventor never took into consideration that kids and popcorn ceilings don't mix. Or... Must have been invented by the devil himself.  You've got to pick up all the little pieces...
• song.

Friday Night Potpourri

A week is a week is a week:

• Even if you don't write Friday Night Potpourri until Saturday afternoon.
• Even if the Beatles wrote a song titled, "Eight Days A Week."
• Especially when you think this FNP theme is cute then "This Week In Baseball" comes on.
• One of the things about my temp job that I haven't experienced in several decades is that I get paid once a week.  This is so unusual that I don't quite know how to process it.  But a paycheck shows up every seven days instead of twice per month, and we're all thankful for that.
• I've run out of "week" theme items so I'll switch to something random like breakfast cereals.  So there's a cereal called Reece's Puffs, a take off of Cocoa Puffs.  I guess some goof accidentally spilled some peanut butter in the Cocoa Puff recipe while in the General Mills laboratory.  Accidents happen.  Not that I would eat such a concoction.  I grew up on Wheaties, Cheerios, Corn Flakes, Shredded Wheat, Cinnamon Life and a half dozen other lessers.
• The kids were bored late in the summer.  I can tell by all the stuff accumulated on the roof.  Cups, balls, newspapers, toys, rocks.  Time to get the ladder out and do some fall cleaning.
• This last item has nothing whatsoever to do with a week.  Or so I've heard.

Friday Night Potpourri

Is it really Friday?

• Family Scott has attained basketball hoop.  A Facebook post by some friends resulted in the kids using the driveway for more than throwing or hitting rocks.  Score!
• It seems like Tuesday for whatever reason.  Working a continually changing schedule for the last three months makes it difficult to know what day it is.  I usually know the date because so much of the work I do is tied to it, but not the day.  I turned on the game and the Giants were wearing their orange jerseys which means Friday.
• There's no there there.  I'm working in a city I used to live in for a number of years.  Everything I did I had to drive over the hill to central county.  The downtown had been blighted for decades, and numerous attempts at redevelopment were unsuccessful.  But there are a few good places downtown that have come about in recent years.  Now I need to find out more.
• Hey, my car is dirty.  Maybe I can get my kids to wash it next week.  Playing in the soap and water?  Hmmm.
• Upon further review, I found a post from last month that says my kids washed their mother's car.  Life isn't fair, but I guess it can be next week.
• I just found two dictionaries in the computer armoir.  Two.  I haven't read a dictionary in book form in quite a few years.
• The summer sound...
  

Friday Night Potpourri

Worked week:

• I had an encounter with a skunk at 5am today.  Still dark, and perfectly still out, the skunk was startled by me and crossed the street and headed down.  Whew.  I had to get my gear in the car, and it crossed back and headed up the sidewalk toward me.  I was stuck with the car open, so I shook my keys at it.  It swerved around into the front yard and past the side of the house.  Our skunks are regulars, as they cut through our property, under the fence, and out to wherever they go in the middle of the night.
• Well, we had plums and apricots already.  Now we get the fallout from our neighbor's fig tree.  Yummy, but a littered yard.
• I was thinking about grease monkeys recently and what they used to do.  A friend put a 327 small block into a Vega wagon.  The torque almost wrenched the frame for good.  You could feel it as the car picked up.  A roll to one side.  And 140mph was a huge deal when we were kids.
• It was very windy the last few days.  Out driving it was mostly garbage and pine needles flying around.
• I saw a Google Street car out driving around last year.  I still haven't seen the latest and greatest up on the internet.
• It's too late and I'm too tired to think about something to put on this 6th bullet point.  Some times I get not just writer's block...
• Hmmm, I think it's time for a haircut.

Friday Night Potpourri

Well, it's back.  A fortnight in the rear view mirror:

• Home from working overtime on swing shift.  Was tonight Friday Night?  It doesn't feel like it one way or another, but just like it's late at night, which it is.
• In my lab work, there's lots of call for what is known as de-ionized water (or "deionized" as one word, DI for short).  Anyway, Microsoft Word's spell checker doesn't recognize the word "deionized".  So, in its suggestion box it lists "demonized" as an alternate.  Demonized water? I guess that's different than holy water, no?
• Visited a new friend's house. The friend is new, but the house is old.  There's a concrete pouring in the back yard with the footprints of a young child imprinted in it and a name and date scratched in.  The date: 1952. 
• One thing about swing shift is that staying up late (or early as the case may be) allows viewing opportunities of the "paperboy" tossing the paper on the driveway as the car flies by.
• Summer is in full bloom and autumn is just around the corner.  My favorite season of the year.  The trees have, what, two months of totally green leaves left?
• The roof has accumulated a number of small toys.  Many of them were batted up there by our middle boy.  When I find the red volcanic rock in the back yard, I know it's been hit over the house by a little slugger.
• There's no other word to describe it than classic.

Friday Night Potpourri

Late again.  In the habit?

• We got plenty of plums off the plum tree this year, and the apricots just ripened to the point of picking this last week.  We beat the squirrels this year.  There didn't seem to be many.  Sill some pits lying on the top of the back fence.
• True to form, it hasn't rained here in the San Fran area for a few weeks.  We had tons of rain this winter, and now that summer is here, none.  That means extra special care in watering things.
• Hopefully I'll get to be back on the normal Friday night routine for FNP.  Because of my job, I've been getting up a lot earlier and we've been trying to do family things at night.  Sometimes I just crash at the computer.
• Why is it that the bbq potato chips always go faster than the regular potato chips?
• Looking out the window, there's a huge fog bank to the south.  Bright and white.  It was overcast this morning and not all of it has burned off.  It's cool today with a breeze.  So somebody down there has no sun.
• Saw Chronicles of Narnia 2 last night in the parking lot of a church in the downtown of a small town.  It used to have about 300 people in the 70's when I was growing up and the housing boom started in the 80's.  It still has a small town feel to it.  We brought our chairs and blankets, yet were still cold.  The kids liked the movie, and so did we.
• Speaking of such towns...

Friday Night Potpourri

A day late and a dollar short:

• Yeah, yeah, late again.  But, what else can a man do?
• The youngest kids got dish soap out and washed mom's car with it and the garden hose.  Two days in a row.
• I wonder if "extra dough" really means extra dough.  So many ways of interpreting this, and... wait a minute.  If this applies to chocolate chip cookie dough, then it becomes easy.
• The back lawn has been temporarily shut down for fertilization.  After reading the label on the back of the bag, it says that I'm supposed to wear long sleeves, pants, shoes, and to wash my clothes separately from the others.  Serious stuff.
• There's a brightness difference between copy papers.  Yup.  Some whites are whiter.  It makes it weird when the plain paper drawer of the printer has multiple whitenesses of paper mixed in.
• Despite living in the same house for over 50 years, my parents have had three different area codes and three different zip codes during that same time. 
• So I'm at the gas station this evening, and the guy at the pump in front of me is pumping gas with his door open and stereo up, grooving to and singing this song out loud.  I couldn't help but join in.

Friday Night Potpourri

Toward the weekend ahead:

• Friday, July 1st is one of the worst days to go to the bank.  The last time I went on a Friday, July 1st, it was insane.  Friday is payday for many people.  The 1st is payday for many people.  And since the 4th of July is on a Monday, Friday July 1st is a three-day weekend getaway day.  I hope none of you got stuck in a long line.
• In the last town we lived in we established a tradition for the 4th.  There are fireworks over the water and the marina park is the gathering place for thousands of people.  From our vantage point, we can see four different shows from the various waterfront towns and nearby theme park.
• This year we're determined to gather all the ripe plums and apricots off the trees before the squirrels get them all.  This year's yield looks to be several times what last year's was.
• It promises to be a gardening weekend around the house.  Weeks to pull and plants to water and cultivate.  A house full of black thumbs don't make things any easier.  It's good that there isn't too much to care for.
• Mrs. Scott just pulled into the driveway.  Sometimes that means a car full of stuff the kids will help bring in the house.  Let's see what's in store...
• Okay, yes I sat down last night to do FNP, but fell asleep at the mouse wheel.  I'm getting up way earlier than I used to so the night owl in me is at a disadvantage.
• They had then more hair than I have now.

Friday Night Potpourri

The one-minute to go on Friday Friday Night Potpourri:

• I've got to fix the side gate again.  The latch broke and the kids are now trying to push the gate open from the back yard.  Won't work, guys.  I know it can't open in that direction, and that's why there's a big rock lying there, to prop it open.
• I remember several years ago hearing about how the internet was going to run out of space in 2010.  There wouldn't be enough storage, etc., to keep up with the growing demand.  That was supposed to happen last year.  Did it happen and I missed it?  Was the problem solved?  Was it another scare?
• I got my main-gate badge at work today that allows me to take a shortcut on paved roads to the parking lot instead of going all the way down the side road and backtracking down a bumpy gravel road.  I should save several hours per day and thousands in car washings.  Not to mention damage to the suspension.
• They don't make my socks anymore.  Or at least they came up with new packaging and are charging more.  Are socks really that critical?  Are they worth the price?
• Reflecting on my best car ever.  A Honda Accord, 1990.  I got 18 years and over 300,000 miles out of it.  It was a rare 4-door/5-speed.  I miss my clutch!
• There's a comedian on TV who is actually funny.  Mrs. Scott is laughing hysterically.  Yes, he really is that funny.  I used to watch some of those stand up comedy shows.  Not many comedians or comediennes really were that funny.  Only a few.  Some comedians say funny things and some are funny.
• Old.

Friday Night Potpourri

Qwerty weekly:

• I did a Google Images search on "Frank Viola."  The two of them are pretty evenly matched in the number of photos department.  Are they the same man?
• I don't know if it's like this where you live, but a good percentage of radio commercials here are for mattress companies trying to make the best deal for you.
• This week marks the first time our three year old takes any interest in baseball whatsoever.  He played catch with me, wanted his older brother to give him his all-star uniform top and ran around the house yelling "Buster Posey!"
• My oldest son was fishing in the pond and accidentally caught a wild turtle.  The poor thing had a hook stuck in its mouth, so we brought it to a nearby museum animal hospital to have it removed.  Hopefully they let it go in the same pond.
• In a bizarre episode, the store bakery had no cheesecakes in its cake case today.  The baker couldn't locate any either.  I was planning on picking one up for our Father's Day dinner.  So I settled on a chocolate cream cake Friday special for five bucks.
• Lit up the barbecue tonight for the first time in quite a while.  Used the last of the briquettes, smoked up a good chunk of dinner, and later the kids tried creating some s'mores with marshmallows over the dim and dying coals.
• I'm not sure how the movie clips fit in here, but it's the song I was after. 

Friday Night Potpourri

A full week of work, including tomorrow:

• It's odd to be commuting again.  But, thankfully, it has been a counter-commute that is earlier than the heavy traffic time.  The one big potential delay is having to wait 10 minutes for a train to pass.  A co-worker has that happen yesterday.  After work today, the crossing arm malfunctioned - with bells and lights - and I was detoured into the next city in a long runaround.
• Many bosses.  It's quite interesting.  I'm working for a plant that is still under construction, and we're doing prep work in the lab for when it starts up.  Since it's still under construction, we're technically in a construction zone, and the construction company has rules and procedures that have to be followed because it controls the site.  Meanwhile the plant is on leased property of another plant, so there are rules and procedures of that plant, since we all access their right of way to get to ours.  Finally, I'm working for a temp agency that has its own guidelines for my employment.  Whew!  Got all that?
• Our six year old says that mom's grilled cheese sandwiches come in third.  Grandma's are first.  Then Mrs. Scott's work's are second.  Hers are only third.  But... she's the one that makes the grilled cheese sandwiches at work, so she comes in both second and third.
• School's out for the kids and their cousins and neighbors.  What does summer have in store?  Let's see... boredom?  Can I go to...?  Summer camps?  When is school going to start?
• Chocolate chip cookie dough.  Who needs an oven?
• We've had a bit of warming in our weather, so the neighborhood kids have taken to the garden hose.
• At my previous job, I used to play this CD every Friday at 3:30, and this is my favorite tune on the CD.

Friday Night Potpourri

A week of work, finally.  Or maybe just the beginning:

• I was reminded a number of times this week that there were already a number of guys named Steve at work, and now I'm another one.  Funny that I haven't run into anybody named Mike.
• I drove by our old house this week, as I took our oldest to play with his former next door neighbor.  I parked in front of the house, like I did so many thousands of times before.  The house remains about the same, with no changes other than a few potted plants on the porch. 
• Shortest. Name. Ever.  The previous record for short names I ever knew was five letters.  The guy was named Ed and his last name was three letters.  Well, I met somebody with four letters in their name, a two-letter first name and a two letter last name.  Must be a good jump start in taking tests.
• A day of much needed sleeping in prompted several of our children to get their own breakfasts.  Knowing how it was done, they attempted culinary mastery on short notice, and came through with flying colors.
• We're still in rainy season here in California, it seems.  Rain keeps interrupting my watering schedule.  There are ten foot snow banks in the mountains and it continues to snow.  Tahoe is white.  In some areas there is over 30 feet of snow.  Some people are digging down to find their cabins.
• Friday Night Potpourri is a bit late, as I was so tired I nodded off at the computer.  Then it was all I could do to drag myself to bed.  So, here on Saturday morning I sit finishing this set of trivial - yet ultimately important - set of thoughts.
• What other song could I post this week?

Friday Night Potpourri

Enough for a week:

• My last final in Process Technology was this week, having now completed three semesters of coursework.  Incidentally, or maybe coincidentally, I start a temporary job next week in a lab at a chemical plant.  It will be nice to work for a while until I get that full-time career job...I hope.  This long period of time has taken its toll and we all hope it's over.
• From here.  Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway takes exception to a Colorado punk rock band with the name "Elway."  His lawyer asked the band to change its name.  The band's reply was choice: "We have no intention of changing the name again. We love the name, regardless of what connotations are inferred by the listener. Surely, if the Dead Kennedys could become one of punk's most popular bands without incurring litigation, Elway can keep their moniker and continue making so-so music for our dozens of fans to enjoy."  I guess all press really is good press after all.
• My six year old loves Trader Joe's roasted seaweed snacks, and I do too.  So, I was driving by and decided to drop in.  Mmmm.  I love the peanut butter cups, too.
• Well, the world didn't end and the rapture didn't happen.  Buster Posey was injured in a terrible collision.  Tornadoes hit California.  I got a job offer.  Oh, and the garden hose sprung a leak.
• It's been about the coldest May I can remember.  Not even close to a 100 degree day, and few 90 degree days if any at all.  Maybe a couple.  Wonder what this summer will be like.
• Maybe we can do the painting project this summer that we wanted to do for a year.  We've got the colors picked out already, and bought matching towels.  The towels might wear out before we get around to it, so maybe we should just set those towels aside.  I love to paint the house.
• It just doesn't get much better than this.

Friday Night Potpourri

The end:

• It looks like I may be starting to work pretty soon.  Stay tuned...
• Today I was in an industrial area, driving on a gravel road, about to park in an odd parking lot, when all of a sudden a cargo ship went by just a couple hundred yards in front of me.  I guess I was a lot closer to the water than I thought.  Strange sight to see a ship go by on "dry land."
• Looks like Family Radio's website is down.  I'm wondering why.
• Mud, mud, mud.  Our three year old found the hose at the same time he found a pot full of soil.  We had a very earthy sidewalk for a half hour.
• What's the difference between a frog and a toad?  An alligator and crocodile?  A rabbit and hare?  I've lived this long and I don't know.  I'm sure there are many others I can come up with if I think hard enough.
• Yesterday was one of those reading program things for kids where if you read a certain amount you get to go to an Oakland A's baseball game.  My third grader was there with many from his class and I was along as well.  And so were 11,000 kids from all over.  In case you're interested, a game crowd sounds much, much different with 11,000 kids there.
• Okay, yeah it's over eleven minutes, but what's that compared to eternity?

Friday Night Potpourri

A week that went by far too fast, but I'm not complaining:

• Trying to get some major work done on my car and getting the local community college auto shop class just might do the trick for a lot less.
• One of the kids trimmed the bushes out front with a pair of scissors.  Art.
• I saw a pretty cool 1954 Chevy yesterday.  I guessed it to be a '54, then saw the license plate ring that confirmed it.  They don't make them like that anymore.
• My ten year anniversary clock from my previous career is several minutes slow.  I adjust it every couple of months.  I wonder if it being slow means anything.
• 409.  It's a catch-all cleaner around our house.  Bathrooms, kitchens, floors.  We should buy stock.
• It's a bit strange, but my school's cafeteria makes a pretty good burrito.  Not expected, but when I feel the need, it's a good one.  And they carry my favorite hot sauce, Tapatio.
• This is like next week, huh?  Will we ever make it?

Friday Night Potpourri

Six days just aren't enough:

• The rain has left us for very warm, almost summerlike weather.  A few days in the 90's made it shorts weather, even at night.  Today it is very breezy, which is welcome.  Sun, sun, sun.
• We have achieved fountains!  Duck ponds near where we live have water fountains in the middle of them.  Broken since we've lived here, somebody came out and restored them to glory.  Another cool thing about being a kid.
• Our nine year old has taught himself how to fish.  In a nearby creek he practices catch and release with some of the small fish.  He fills a container full of creek water and catches about a half dozen, then returns them.  He now knows how to fish.  Can't wait to see what's next.
• Oh, goody.  English soccer on the Tele.  Or, excuse me, football.  So much more exciting than American soccer, even if the announcers aren't speaking Spanish.  Gooooooooooooal!  I'm waiting for the riot to break out.
• Memories of the desert.  One of our boys was born in a city in a desert, and today he was asking if there were sand and rattlesnakes.
• Something that almost never happens.  Our three year old takes a nap on the couch.  How funny.  This one is worth a picture!
• It's my favorite song from my all time favorite album, but it's not my favorite song.  Dig?

Friday Night Potpourri

Weak week:

• This was the first time I had to change a tire in our van.  All new stuff to me.  Trying to find the right tools in the back and coordinating it with the instructions.  But I got it.  Putting everything back together was the easy part.  A very large screw and even larger washer were embedded.  We got the screw back from the tire shop as a souvenir.
• The kids went wild this week with getting stuff up onto the roof.  Plastic easter eggs, foam balls, then a whole line of things, each one meant to knock the previous one down that was used to knock the previous one down that was used.... okay, you know what I mean.  Broom handle very valuable.
• It's time to tape over the hole in the mailbox so that wasps don't start a new nest.
• Everybody into the pool!  Okay, well maybe not.  The weather is better, but it's not close to being summer.  Only a few more months until it's so hot I wished it were winter again.
• What kind of ale to they drink in a royal pub?  Maybe it's a stout.  I'll have to Google that one.
• A crowd at Buckingham Palace was just about the same size as the Giants World Series victory parade.  Must have been an important event.
• Bop.

Friday Night Potpourri

Holy week, or week of holiness?

• Our third grader did the "egg drop" science project this week.  He schemed up a cube-shaped Kleenex box filled with cotton balls and attached to a parachute and helium balloons.  Dropped from the top of the school gym, the egg didn't break.  Doing trial runs from our own roof allowed me to clear off all the small toys up there.
• Some in-laws dropped by this week in what to our kids was a surprise visit.  Our kids and theirs always have different Easter weeks off so we can never plan big things to do together.  Well, playing basketball and going to the creek were great for a few hours, and a weeping willow switch is a great toy for a three year old.
• Spring is in full bloom here in California.  Although there's no snow, we get plenty of blossoms falling to make it look like it in my neighborhood.
• We've got some really messy pine trees in our yard.  At least I think they're pine trees.  They drop huge clouds of pollen all at once, and the tiny, wispy cone things fall and make a mess all over.  Rain makes it worse. 
• I've got some blue towels from 1988.  Yes, that old.  We use them as scrunge towels to clean things up and to lay down on certain surfaces so they won't get messy.  The 80's are still with us!
• I tried some pine nut flavored hummus this week.  Pretty good.  Reminds me of Euell Gibbons commercials for Grape Nuts cereal back in the 70's.  "Ever ate a pine tree?  Many parts are edible."
• Whatever you make of the title is your business I guess.  Happy holy weekend.