How Dry I Am (NOT)
Hello World,
Well, anyone could see that Columbus Day has been and gone, and I don't mind saying that anybody in this area who was trying to make a nice long weekend out of it certainly had reason to complain about the weather and then some. I believe that it started raining on Friday of last week and hasn't let up since. By the time today rolled around, you would probably be hearing some pretty foul language from the locals, and that's just in our house! I found that the rain didn't have that much effect on our long weekend, but you know what I always say about those short weeks at work, and this was one for the books and that's putting it mildly.
I was looking forward to having a day off from work, so I could catch up with some things around the house, which I did, but apparently too many days off in a row had a noticeably deleterious effect on my brain, with unfortunate results. On Tuesday morning, I went to pick up the newspaper out of the driveway, and found that I had locked myself out of the house. Later at work, I scheduled a meeting for the wrong day, and had to call everyone back again to clear that up. Also during the week, I wore my boots to work and was supposed to carry my shoes to change into, but left my shoes at home instead. I was so bad that I realized I became contagious, when one of our buyers, trying to type a purchase order for some seats and tables for our Day Rooms, ended up instead with something he called "Sled Base Ding Chairs" with the upholstery fabric as "Clarrett." I think it was after that they began circulating a petition to keep me from taking any more days off, purely in the public interest, and I can't say that I blame them.
Of course, no account of the week's activities would be complete without a sports update, and to say that there is no joy in Mudville would be an understatement of epic proportions. The local fans could take no pleasure in the Red Sox losing to the White Sox, when their mighty Yankees suffered the same fate at the hands of the Angels soon after. The Braves also took an early exit from post-season play, courtesy of the Astros, maintaining their perfect record of consistently making it to the playoffs and then consistently losing. Hey, don't look at me, I wasn't anywhere near Atlanta!
Bill would like to make it plain that he disavows any comments that I may have attributed to him, especially concerning the idea to replace the NHL referees with small flying robots. Bill is of the mind that officials in all sports serve only to detract from the game itself, and would support a ban on them altogether, mechanical or otherwise. I misinterpreted his opposition to them as being merely human and prone to errors, usually against his favorite teams. So I'm glad we had a chance to clear that up, hopefully before anyone sank their life savings into stock of the company making small flying robots for the NHL.
He also provided this cogent exposition on the topic of four-dimensional furniture from last week --
=================================
However, I also have a suggestion about your fourth dimension equipment. If you recall, Einstein or someone like that said that TIME is the fourth dimension. Fortunately, your requisition takes that into account, because the last number is "54H", which obviously stands for "54 Hours". Now all you have to figure out is whether that represents the shipping time or the limited warrantee.
=================================
Now that's more like it! While we're on the subject of last week's note, for anyone who hasn't already checked out the list of retired hurricane names (this happens to be from about.com in their geography section) here is the information:
==================================
Usually, the six lists of names for tropical storms and hurricanes repeat every six years. However, if there is an unusually damaging hurricane, the name is retired because using it again could be considered insensitive. The name is then not used for at least ten years. Here is a list of names that have been retired.
Chronologically1954 - Carol1954 - Hazel1955 - Connie1955 - Diane1955 - Ione1955 - Janet1957 - Audrey1960 - Donna1961 - Carla1961 - Hattie1963 - Flora1964 - Cleo1964 - Dora1964 - Hilda1965 - Betsy1966 - Inez1967 - Beulah1968 - Edna1969 - Camille1970 - Celia1972 - Agnes1974 - Carmen1974 - Fifi1975 - Eloise1977 - Anita1979 - David1979 - Frederic1980 - Allen1983 - Alicia1985 - Elena1985 - Gloria1988 - Gilbert1988 - Joan1989 - Hugo1990 - Diana1990 - Klaus1991 - Bob1992 - Andrew1995 - Luis1995 - Marilyn1995 - Opal1995 - Roxanne1996 - Cesar1996 - Fran1996 - Hortense1998 - Georges1998 - Mitch1999 - Floyd1999 - Lenny2000 - Keith2001 - Allison2001 - Iris2001 - Michelle2002 - Isidore2002 - Lili2003 - Fabian2003 - Isabel2003 - Juan2004 - Charley2004 - Frances2004 - Ivan2004 - Jeanne
===================================
Now, personally, I think that naming a hurricane "Fifi" of all things is just plain stupid. You call a toy poodle "Fifi," not a natural disaster capable of killing thousands and causing millions of dollars in property damage. I would have to put "Hurricane Hattie" in that same category, no thank you very much. What I find most remarkable about the list is how many of them I simply have no recollection of whatsoever. I don't remember Alicia one single solitary bit. And even Juan and Allison, who were within the last five years, I can't recall hearing anything about them at all. On the other hand, a hurricane that I remember very clearly, and did a lot of damage on Long Island, was Belle (might have been 1975 or so) and she didn't get retired. Of course, the NHC might be one of those exclusive clubs where it's not what you know, it's who you know. For the statisticians among us, C leads the pack with 9 retired names, followed by A and F with 7, I with 6, D and H with 5, J has 4, B, E, G, L and M at 3, K with 2 and one each for O and R. I stand by my conviction that they could certainly come up with better L names than Lee, since they've only retired Lenny and Luis since 1979 when they began using male names. But I admit that I have to tip my hat to the NHC for being able to keep coming up with I names, with 6 of them on the retired list already. And that was without coming up with a "Hurricane iPod" or something else equally ridiculous.
During the week, I had to leave work and run down the block in the pouring rain, to open the doors at church for the fire extinguisher people, so they could update the tags on our fire extinguishers before, God forbid, we had an organ fire or something. I had been chasing these people around for two months, and couldn't get my hands on them, so when they called, I flew out of my office with my coat-tails flying behind me and heedless of the weather. I very plainly said to the young man on the phone that I would meet him at the front door, which is where I was standing with the door open and the rain blowing in on me. I found him later at the side door, where he had let himself in after I had opened all of the doors on all sides, just in case. He said, "Man, I got soaking wet coming over here," as if it was somehow my fault, and I hadn't splashed over from all the way up the block myself. It made me wonder if he thought that I actually had some sort of Christian force-field that I could invoke to keep the rain off of me, while it poured down on the rest of the heathen world out there. For the record, I would certainly vote for that, if there was any such option in the offing, and I would call it "Dem Dry Bones." Hallelujah!
My other favorite work story of the week was from Bill, who said, " ... our friend Karen McKay was in the inbox, complaining that 'somebody' didn't order enough decals. You realize we just make up the quantities on these orders, right?" It seems like everyone was suffering from the same "short week syndrome" that I was, and as far as I'm concerned, I'm the only one with a valid reason to use that excuse, because as we all know, no one celebrates Columbus Day around here any more. So all of the rest of these people had just better shape up or ship out, and no bones about it. At least not Dem Dry Bones, which like the flying robot referees, the world is still waiting for, along with Hurricane iPod.
Well, anyone could see that Columbus Day has been and gone, and I don't mind saying that anybody in this area who was trying to make a nice long weekend out of it certainly had reason to complain about the weather and then some. I believe that it started raining on Friday of last week and hasn't let up since. By the time today rolled around, you would probably be hearing some pretty foul language from the locals, and that's just in our house! I found that the rain didn't have that much effect on our long weekend, but you know what I always say about those short weeks at work, and this was one for the books and that's putting it mildly.
I was looking forward to having a day off from work, so I could catch up with some things around the house, which I did, but apparently too many days off in a row had a noticeably deleterious effect on my brain, with unfortunate results. On Tuesday morning, I went to pick up the newspaper out of the driveway, and found that I had locked myself out of the house. Later at work, I scheduled a meeting for the wrong day, and had to call everyone back again to clear that up. Also during the week, I wore my boots to work and was supposed to carry my shoes to change into, but left my shoes at home instead. I was so bad that I realized I became contagious, when one of our buyers, trying to type a purchase order for some seats and tables for our Day Rooms, ended up instead with something he called "Sled Base Ding Chairs" with the upholstery fabric as "Clarrett." I think it was after that they began circulating a petition to keep me from taking any more days off, purely in the public interest, and I can't say that I blame them.
Of course, no account of the week's activities would be complete without a sports update, and to say that there is no joy in Mudville would be an understatement of epic proportions. The local fans could take no pleasure in the Red Sox losing to the White Sox, when their mighty Yankees suffered the same fate at the hands of the Angels soon after. The Braves also took an early exit from post-season play, courtesy of the Astros, maintaining their perfect record of consistently making it to the playoffs and then consistently losing. Hey, don't look at me, I wasn't anywhere near Atlanta!
Bill would like to make it plain that he disavows any comments that I may have attributed to him, especially concerning the idea to replace the NHL referees with small flying robots. Bill is of the mind that officials in all sports serve only to detract from the game itself, and would support a ban on them altogether, mechanical or otherwise. I misinterpreted his opposition to them as being merely human and prone to errors, usually against his favorite teams. So I'm glad we had a chance to clear that up, hopefully before anyone sank their life savings into stock of the company making small flying robots for the NHL.
He also provided this cogent exposition on the topic of four-dimensional furniture from last week --
=================================
However, I also have a suggestion about your fourth dimension equipment. If you recall, Einstein or someone like that said that TIME is the fourth dimension. Fortunately, your requisition takes that into account, because the last number is "54H", which obviously stands for "54 Hours". Now all you have to figure out is whether that represents the shipping time or the limited warrantee.
=================================
Now that's more like it! While we're on the subject of last week's note, for anyone who hasn't already checked out the list of retired hurricane names (this happens to be from about.com in their geography section) here is the information:
==================================
Usually, the six lists of names for tropical storms and hurricanes repeat every six years. However, if there is an unusually damaging hurricane, the name is retired because using it again could be considered insensitive. The name is then not used for at least ten years. Here is a list of names that have been retired.
Chronologically1954 - Carol1954 - Hazel1955 - Connie1955 - Diane1955 - Ione1955 - Janet1957 - Audrey1960 - Donna1961 - Carla1961 - Hattie1963 - Flora1964 - Cleo1964 - Dora1964 - Hilda1965 - Betsy1966 - Inez1967 - Beulah1968 - Edna1969 - Camille1970 - Celia1972 - Agnes1974 - Carmen1974 - Fifi1975 - Eloise1977 - Anita1979 - David1979 - Frederic1980 - Allen1983 - Alicia1985 - Elena1985 - Gloria1988 - Gilbert1988 - Joan1989 - Hugo1990 - Diana1990 - Klaus1991 - Bob1992 - Andrew1995 - Luis1995 - Marilyn1995 - Opal1995 - Roxanne1996 - Cesar1996 - Fran1996 - Hortense1998 - Georges1998 - Mitch1999 - Floyd1999 - Lenny2000 - Keith2001 - Allison2001 - Iris2001 - Michelle2002 - Isidore2002 - Lili2003 - Fabian2003 - Isabel2003 - Juan2004 - Charley2004 - Frances2004 - Ivan2004 - Jeanne
===================================
Now, personally, I think that naming a hurricane "Fifi" of all things is just plain stupid. You call a toy poodle "Fifi," not a natural disaster capable of killing thousands and causing millions of dollars in property damage. I would have to put "Hurricane Hattie" in that same category, no thank you very much. What I find most remarkable about the list is how many of them I simply have no recollection of whatsoever. I don't remember Alicia one single solitary bit. And even Juan and Allison, who were within the last five years, I can't recall hearing anything about them at all. On the other hand, a hurricane that I remember very clearly, and did a lot of damage on Long Island, was Belle (might have been 1975 or so) and she didn't get retired. Of course, the NHC might be one of those exclusive clubs where it's not what you know, it's who you know. For the statisticians among us, C leads the pack with 9 retired names, followed by A and F with 7, I with 6, D and H with 5, J has 4, B, E, G, L and M at 3, K with 2 and one each for O and R. I stand by my conviction that they could certainly come up with better L names than Lee, since they've only retired Lenny and Luis since 1979 when they began using male names. But I admit that I have to tip my hat to the NHC for being able to keep coming up with I names, with 6 of them on the retired list already. And that was without coming up with a "Hurricane iPod" or something else equally ridiculous.
During the week, I had to leave work and run down the block in the pouring rain, to open the doors at church for the fire extinguisher people, so they could update the tags on our fire extinguishers before, God forbid, we had an organ fire or something. I had been chasing these people around for two months, and couldn't get my hands on them, so when they called, I flew out of my office with my coat-tails flying behind me and heedless of the weather. I very plainly said to the young man on the phone that I would meet him at the front door, which is where I was standing with the door open and the rain blowing in on me. I found him later at the side door, where he had let himself in after I had opened all of the doors on all sides, just in case. He said, "Man, I got soaking wet coming over here," as if it was somehow my fault, and I hadn't splashed over from all the way up the block myself. It made me wonder if he thought that I actually had some sort of Christian force-field that I could invoke to keep the rain off of me, while it poured down on the rest of the heathen world out there. For the record, I would certainly vote for that, if there was any such option in the offing, and I would call it "Dem Dry Bones." Hallelujah!
My other favorite work story of the week was from Bill, who said, " ... our friend Karen McKay was in the inbox, complaining that 'somebody' didn't order enough decals. You realize we just make up the quantities on these orders, right?" It seems like everyone was suffering from the same "short week syndrome" that I was, and as far as I'm concerned, I'm the only one with a valid reason to use that excuse, because as we all know, no one celebrates Columbus Day around here any more. So all of the rest of these people had just better shape up or ship out, and no bones about it. At least not Dem Dry Bones, which like the flying robot referees, the world is still waiting for, along with Hurricane iPod.
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 7:50 PM
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