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A lot of that going on this year. Will you still need her? Will you still feed her?

I always wrote “For total number of landings to be equal to the total number of takeoffs”. HR got a kick out of it but then asked “but really”? To which I would say “really”.

And see all the letters that you have transposed or words left out, do you wonder if your brain Never mind, I don't remember what I was trying to say.

This is how you politely merge ass and hole in a public thread.

Stop it at once.....you should be ashamed mocking a disabled person.....anyway my e-assisted bike has now come into its own now that I can't push an normal one. Last time we were out my friends had to ask me to slow down as we were heading into a strong wind....I ignored them and pretended I didn't hear.....serves them right.

You know how to really tick them off. Get there early and sit in one of their 'assigned' seats.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves......such racial stereotyping.......to say nothing about rampant ageism. From time to time I do look into the P&R forum and from time to time I'm still moved to offer some pearls of wisdom if a topic interests me. Did someone say something naughty to Caretaker as I see he is listed as missing.....he was after all a regular here for a while. I hope that it's nothing to do with his health as that would be too bad. I'm going to be pretty busy as I have to move to a smaller house due to my age and health problems and the prospect of clearing out forty-odd years of bike repair stuff and downsizing my possessions is a daunting one.

Among other things, we gave each other cards:

Ever been in a cockpit before? Ever seen a grown man naked? Ever hang around a gymnasium? Bonus answer Do you like movies about gladiators?

Well, that's all well and good unless "controlled flight into terrain" is considered a "landing".

Tonight is family night at Mom's assisted living. I'm going over after work for dinner and celebrate my sister's birthdays, the twins are turning 56. Making an apple pie afterwards and picking up beer at Norms for the party on Saturday. Friday is a work day. I may ride after work if nothing else comes up. Saturday morning ride then work at the LBS until 6:00. Drive over to boss's house for beer, food and festivities. Sunday will be a rainy day so I will putter around the house and do laundry. I need to jail break my Amazon Firestick so I might attempt that on Sunday. Monday starts a new schedule. I'm switching to four ten-hour days with four day weekends sandwiched in between weeks. This will allow me to drive to Ohio on weekends to prep for the wife and son move.

I remember Ralph in his younger days. He would walk into the arena and the crowd would go silent. Stepping into the ring, the young women and teenage girls would push against the crowd control barriers in anticipation. He would stand in the center of the ring and survey the crowd with his steely gaze. Most men, those in the know, would avert their eyes. Then, in an explosive gesture he would raise his fists to the heavens and shed his custom knitted shawl. The crowd would go wild, teenage girls would scream (those that didn't faint), and the security staff would rush to the arena floor and link arms around the ring in a protective maneuver. Ralph would then skip around the ring to his signature tune, Pat Boone's "Smoke on the Water". The crowd would sing along, victory assured. Mist generators would go into high, indicating that a classic battle was about to occur atop Mount Olympus. Yep, that was Ralph, as I knew him.

OMG, don't get me started on this! My shift at work starts at 10:30. I try to leave town around 10:05 to be able to get there and clock in on time. (I work for nuns, rules are enforced!). I always know when the really slow person ahead of me is on his/her way to the McD coffee clatch. For a long time I didn't know what was going on until one day I stopped in on my way back from a morning bike ride. LIGHT BULB MOMENT: Wait a minute....!!??!! THIS is why you torment me with 18 mph??!!! I finally decided to leave town a different way.

No, except on mornings when I have to go to town early to 'feed the vampire' or when I am turning on irrigation water, then I might stop in and say hello. I know several of the folks, but seldom go to town early in the morning. Like Max, I usually drink my coffee while looking at the little white screen.

Today I had a lot of gas. It was dry & fragrant, and I was enjoying farting with impunity. A rare visitor came to my closet sized office.... We talked out in the shop......

One time I was driving from Cleveland to Chicago the day after Thanksgiving, I think it was 1990. I have a college buddy that lived just outside of Toledo, pretty much on the way, and I knew he was out of town. He lived in a really old apartment building, and you could enter his apartment by using a credit card or hard jiggling on the door handle. Around Sandusky, I am realizing that I have to take a dump, and pretty soon it becomes clear it is going to be a really big one. A few more minutes, and I realize it is going to be a huge one, and it wants out badly. I don't want to do this in a gas station restroom, so I get off on his exit and drive as fast as I can to his place in order to make it. I get in just in time, sprint to the bathroom and let loose on a truly gargantuan dump. Something like this, you gotta look. Keep in mind that this is the day after Thanksgiving, and this monster is poking way out of the water like a corn-kernel speckled Nessie photograph, and I am dying laughing while I formulate my next move. I know I am going to leave this one unflushed in all its glory for my friend Mike, who has no clue that I would have been there. I wipe up and throw the toilet paper in the bathroom trashcan so as to not obscure the beauty I left in place, and I close the lid. I replace the plastic bag in the bathroom trashcan and add some trash to make it like like it was, and take the other trash out to the dumpster on the way back to the car. I laughed all the way to Chicago.

A friend whom I used to work with, and used to be her manager, posted on FB how bad her week was going in detail (pretty bad but mostly off-spring issues), then closed with the "it's time to get my 'Goals and Objectives' done on top of all that." I resisted the urge to respond with some witty remark because we both hated it back then and it seems to still be part of the yearly pain of working for a living. My only G&O is waking up in the morning. Everything after that is questionable. And right behind me in my little file cabinet is a folder with copies of my last G&O from work. They are really hard to do if all you do is support whatever problems pop up and have no input or control over anything that you have to keep running. I would just reorder the priorities and change the percentages and turn it in. Worked for several years before I retired.

I have my 4th 3-day weekend starting tomorrow..coincides with our first snow fall..and my annual mammogram at 8 AM..after that I will head east to another health care place for a wellness consult (free cos everything they are gonna suggest will cost you $$$$$) Got my annual fall party Saturday night..oh possibly dinner with my sister...she turns 64 Friday...that is it aside from a little laundry and cooking.

Seems like I'd need something to get me in the mood

My goal is to collect a pay check for a few more years My objective is to not outlive my money

Definitely scarves since she's anti-wig! Food can be tricky and animal crackers should be fine since they're not spicy. My mother's stomach and appetite were affected by chemo but usually not until the next day. I took her for therapy every week, once or twice, for nine months before she passed away from lung cancer. The principal at the high school where I taught allowed my schedule to be set up so I had planning at the end of the day and allowed me to slip out early so I could take her for chemo, first at Johns Hopkins, then at Saint Agnes where a doctor, a colleague of my cancer-research nurse sister, was running a study of a promising drug and was able to add my mother to the trials. Unfortunately it didn't work. Puzzle books, if the friend likes doing them are good. My mother loved crossword puzzles and would do them or read magazines to pass the time while on chemo if she did not feel like watching the available TV. That was in 2002-3: there are tablets and other electronic things that she might have preferred today. The BIG thing was to keep her weight up. Many on chemotherapy die from too much weight loss before cancer kills them. I would do things like pick up several containers of different soups from places like Panera Bread, take them to my mother's house, and tell her I was going to stay and she wasn't going to rest, etc. until I watched her eat at least one of them. Sometimes she'd get angry and say, "I'm YOUR mother! I'll tell YOU when I'm going to eat." But I and my siblings stuck to our guns and she lived longer than expected: she weighed 142 lbs when diagnosed and 136 when she passed away.

I don't think there is a good part of this. At least if I'm awake, I will know that the procedure was done. You never know. They could just put you to sleep for a while, then wake you up and say, "All done!" They could make a lot of money doing that.

Roses are red. Violets are blue. You are the captain, fuck off.

What the fuck! Mayday! Mayday!

I can send you a couple of books to give her.

I hope that @Kzoo has the meter strapped down well when he runs this one through it.

I have ridden the Hemet Double Century 5 times now. I had ridden the Grand Tour twice, but Hemet was the first CA double I rode (successfully) other than that, so I enjoyed it. The first time was in 2013. The last 3 times it has been a staff ride. We were going to volunteer at a rest stop the day of the ride, so the CTC allows you to ride the route on another day. We have volunteerd now 3 times, 2015, 2016, and 2017. In 2015 and 2016 we rode on Friday. A couple of guys rode all night a couple of times, and since we expected to have warmer temps (the ride was in Sept this year, rather than April), I agreed to try that. We left the start at 6:15 pm, with sundown expected about 7 pm. My main concern was if my batteries would keep the lights on all night, followed by, no drizzle or cold. There was no fog nor drizzle, so that was ok. My wind vest was fine, as were my lycra arm warmers until 2am, when I switched to wool arm warmers. The Hemet DC is basically 2 loops: the first loop heads west and north from Hemet to Riverside and Corona, then back to Hemet for lunch, and is about 107 miles. The second loop heads south from Hemet, then west to Temecula and Murietta Hot Springs. Both loops go along Lake Elsinore. The other guys decided to ride the 2nd loop first. The biggest climb is about 10 miles in, Sage Rd. Climbing that in the dark was a new experience. It was much cooler than normal (not usually much wind in the canyon), and I had not already ridden 117 miles. The only disappointment was I didn’t get to enjoy the view during the descent. A friend had told me the view reminded him of Tuscany. Some of the roads had been repaved so that was a nice touch. Traffic was also light (Thursday night) so that was also a bonus. By 10-11 pm I was getting hungry. We passed several open Mickey D’s, but, nobody wanted to stop. By about 2 am we got back to the start. Jim’s wife and friend got up and met us, and they went to find a place open to bring us burgers and coffee. We started riding as they had the route and would catch us. After about 20 miles or so they got to us. In the meantime I started getting sleepy. I would have never thought you could fall asleep on a bike (similar to falling asleep while driving), but I am now convinced you can. About 4 am I starte yawning and had to keep moving my head around and blinking my eyes to stay awake. That burger and coffee hit the spot, and I was rechagred then (we ate while sitting on the curb at a place with a very wide shoulder, near Menifee CA). We continued to Riverside. One of the most beautiful parts of the ride is Victoria Drive in Riverside. I hated I didn’t have a GoPro shot of it (although it is much better in the spring). There are many roses as well as the different trees along the way. After that we rode thru Corona, where we dealt with all the traffic around the schools. We were rolling along pretty well until about 20 miles from the end, when one guy hit a piece of metal in the bike lane and went down. He was bleeding pretty good from his elbow, but he finished the ride. One of our group had a flat about 5 miles from the end. I went on with the rider that had crashed, since he was afraid of getting too stiff if he stood around and waited. He got a flat about a mile from the end, which I changed for him. With all of the flats (5 total) and the crash it took us 18 hours, and , riding in the dark was a unique experience. My light batteries lasted all night. Not sure I would want to ride all night again, but , I might consider it for Hemet, and if we were going to volunteer.

No, The event was real. The pictures are just digital images. Now go stick your had in the fire and see if it is real.

I had one without and it was fine as I could watch the whole journey on the screen....you can feel the camera going around the bends though but it was OK. Those that opted for the sedation had to lay down as I did and then we were served tea and toast. They had to stay a bit longer though.

RG probably has experience with this....

Ohio gas station cashier pummels would-be robber

LOL LongJohn..my sister doesn't cook..last time she boiled eggs she forgot and left the apartment..came home and squished an egg as she walked in the door..it must have exploded out of the pan..

Here's my girls after hours.

I know I should probably turn in my Canadian card for saying so, but I prefer McD's coffee over Tim Horton's

Me too. In the same vein, I miss the days when nothing hurt. When I could jump out of bed in the morning and do stuff all day long and never be in pain. And I could eat anything and never worried about it's effect on me, short or long term. I miss those days of being able to run and to play a pick-up game of basketball. I miss the feeling of freedom and the exhilaration that I got from running. I miss all those days. Those were wonderful days.

Dora Sanchez ?

I think my boss finally gave up when I wrote "to be here next year with another goal".

My job I retired from didn’t have goals and objectives but I had my own. I wanted to get out of there healthy and strong and not crippled up and impaired. I managed to succeed at doing that and continued for a whole year before becoming impaired.

Nope, I have stopped in at The Korner Kitchen in downtown Mercer for breakfast a few times. Usually if I have an early morning doctor appointment. The last time I stopped in I counted 22 men having breakfast, no women, none. Most of the men appeared to be retirement age but some younger looking farmers and contractors too. As I was having breakfast a man and woman came in and sat in the booth next to me. I asked the woman if she has permission to invade the “old men’s club? She looked around and laughed.

I don't understand. Is this some sort of ritual gathering with real people over coffee as opposed to my preferred coffee and imaginary friends on the little white screen? Why in the world would I want that?

Problem is, when you turn the light and it goes on, they get to see the cockroaches scatter.

That is truly nightmarish.

Last seen running through the streets of Fife in a pleated skirt.

Al Gore told us all about it just after he invented it.

I like his music

Here is a conspiracy for you... Some years ago I worked for a defense contractor in a classified environment so as you can guess key control was a huge matter. The particular defense company had a hate on for the firm I worked for as a contractor due to poor performance before I got there. (I was hired to clean it up). We had a key set go missing which required about a $10K rekey that the company i worked for was on the hook for. However the circumstances of the keys going missing were really odd. It was a Saturday afternoon, the plant was for the most part quiet and there were no other people working in the building the security dept was in so the office doors were shut/locked with card key access or a hard master key entry only. The keys were placed on a desk with a notebook, radio & cell phone and the supervisor went into the control center via card access (a room within a room) and was in there for roughly 5 minutes. When the supervisor returned the keys were missing. Granted the supervisor should have never let the keys out of her control but they were in a secured area. Now one of the control center operators said he saw movement in the bank of cameras but didn't recall who was in there but thought someone was in the office. So we had asked for CCTV coverage and badge access coverage for the time in question. The only card access was the Supervisor at the time she indicated. There was no other card access on the door. Our attorneys, knowing there was huge animosity between the company and us demanded CCTV coverage (which would have indicated who entered the hallway and office) and they refused to provide it. Absolutely 100% refused and said due to the classified nature of the facility they couldn't. So our attorneys asked to let a cleared person, like me view the CCTV's and they refused that to. Basically just told us to fuck off. About 3 months later the contract was terminated with the company I work for and the loss of the key set was one of the reasons indicated as why.... So addendum to this story... It's about 8 years later and I'm working in the industry in a different capacity. One of the Lock & Key guys who was subsequently laid off applies for a job with my firm and I'm like oh shit I know this guy so interview him. So in the interview I say, dude it's water under the bridge now but which one of you fuckers took the keys? He flat out said "Ken did". He accessed the office with his master to ask the Supervisor a question, saw the keys but no Supervisor, knew the animosity between companies so took the key set and gave them to the Director as ammo to get rid of you guys....