Brandy, you're a fine girl!

Hmmmmm, lets see here. I've got butter, brown sugar, bananas, ice cream, a heat source, a flame source. Oops, no rum. But, I found some brandy - that works. So lets review. Butter + brown sugar + heat + bananas + heat (again) + brandy + flame (oooh, pretty colors) + ice cream = YUM! Plus I get to play with fire.

ROAD TRIP PART II

Yesterday as we were driving to Sky Harbor a HUGE! bug splattered itself on the windshield. The guts covered at least 25% of the glass, and at first I thought it was a hummingbird, but the splat color was the definitive "bug gut yellow," not "hemoglobin red." Not less than five minutes later, my wife started laughing and pointed out we had just crossed Big Bug Creek. I spent the next 3 minutes wondering what Bloody Basin Road would bring.

EARLY MORNING ROAD TRIP TO AIRPORT

Freeway Flagstaff at four = fine.
Freeway Feenix at five-fifty-five = F!
(and that's when the traffic is not heavy)

Oh, and ADOT - you might consider posting the road construction (speed limit 45) at Happy Valley and vicinity on your web site.

Would You Like Some Mercaptan With That?

My parents have commented that when they are visiting, we never fail to run into smebody I know no matter where we go in Flagstaff. I have argued this point, but have realized it is a losing battle. A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I went to the U-Haul place to fill the back-up propane bottle for the grill and were amazed to find only one other customer there. Usually the place is Flag's version of Grand Central with at least a 30 minute wait. As luck would have it, another customer arrived with his back up bottle to be filled and it wound up to be someone I know from one of the watering holes near town. I expect to run into folks I know at the mall, or even the hardware or grocery stores, but 9:00 at the propane place is quite unexpected, especially considering the number of propane dispensaries to choose from. Happy Grilling!

HOW TO TIE ONE ON

Soooo, Wedmesday night I made stir fry at home, Thursday I met some friends at for lunch at a Thai restaurant, and tonight my wife and I are meeting some other friends for dinner at another Thai restaurant. That may sound like a lot of Thai food, but I used to have Thai food for B, L & D for over two years. Aroy mahk!

HUMID HUMID HUMID

Although the thunder boomed and the sky lit up today, there did not seem to be a whole lot of rain. The operative word is seem. As I was leaving work, there were numerous puddles, and when I got home, there was about 1/4 inch of water in the rain gauge, which I am sure leaks. Now you folks in Brownsville (Thanks, Dolly) may laugh at this, but for us folks in Flag 1/4 inch in less than an hour is pretty damp. As much as I love the monsoons, the down side is that the humidity keeps it from cooling down at night - here we are at 8:15 and it is still above 70 degrees outside and around 75 in the house. How can we be expected to sleep with it this warm? It makes it hard to believe that in about 2 months or less, we can expect freezing temperatures for the overnight lows.

What Would Arthur Dent Say?

So far this week has been less than productive. Three of the four orders I tried to place on Monday have run into one snag or another. I asked a vendor for a tracking number on an order, and they graciously emailed me an invoice. Two people had to use the pallet jack at the same time. Oh, it was also brought to my attention that one of our adjunct faculty members has a collection of vials of his custom organic synthesis (read who knows what) stored in a fume hood. I also received a warning that our departmental operations budget may be lessthan 50% of what it was this year. Don't get me wrong, I'm not actually whining about this - I'm simply listing what tends to happen on a Tuesday. Douglass Adams is right; Tuesday is the roughest day of the week. The good news is that by tomorrow afternoon most of these issues will be resolved. The better news is that I can't do a thing about the vials, so I don't need to worry about them. Oh, and I still get to live in Flagstaff.

PHUN WITH PHOBIAS

I do not know which concerns me more: That this is a fear, or that there is a word for this fear. Anyway, today's word is rhypophobia.

Once cured of his rhypophobia, the senator was able to lose over 100 pounds.

Change in Plans

This weekend started with our hosting an extra 4 kids between the ages of 3-10 for Friday evening with plans for 2-3 of them to spend Friday night at our house. Their dad was out of town, and their mom had functions to attend in town. About an hour in to the festivities, I had a craving for valium. Our dogs were tolerating it well too; in fact, they seemed to love being chased by 3 and 5 year old boys. As the evening went on, I wound up bouncing the boys on my knees with no end in sight. When it came time for their mom to pick them up, she had forgotten to stop to pick up the overnight bags and in about 2 minutes we went from having extra kids for the night to our daughter spending the night at their house. We were suddenly kidless (de facto viagra.) Pandemonium became silence. I am positive the Gods will get us back at a later date.

Gravity Check

Just in case you were wondering, our daughter does not spend all of her free time testing gravity at swimming pools.

Ode to Jim Stafford circa '73

"Daddy, there's a spider on the outside of the container."
"Okay sweetheart, daddy will take care of it."
"NO!! It's a daddy long legs! Don't kill it, we need them. Don't you know anything? Daddy long legs are good. We need spiders; save the spiders."
"Okay sweetheart, daddy will let it be."

I guess she showed me, eh?

It's AWESOME!!!!!!!

After years of trying, we FINALLY got our daughter to go down the slide at the outdoor pool of the athletic club. During the past two summers, we have tried bribing to no avail. We tried leaving when she refused to slide. We tried copy daddy, see he went down the slide. Stil no luck. This summer she gave it a try. Now we almost need to bribe her to stop going down the slide. If one slows the clip down, it almost looks like she is running on water. Maybe we should be happy that when she is in one of "those" moods, she wants to be treated as a mere princess.

Can You Find The Jimmy Buffet Song Hidden In this Post?

Well well well... I know it's a deep subject for a mind as shallow as mine, but actual lightning, bona fide thunder, and puddles of water abound. The only thing missing is barefoot children in the rain. There are, however, shoe wearing adults in the rain. Although still in the early stages where we walk in the rain just to get soaked, (it's an Arizona thing) the monsoon is getting more widespread every day. I, for one love the beginning of the monsoon; next to October, this is my favorite time of year in Flagstaff. The moisture brings out the best in people. If this continues, I may need to mow the lawn again.

How Many Children Do You See?

I had my daughter at work with me for about half an hour this morning. As she was wandering around the shelves, she spotted the storage cabinets for flammable compressed gases and asked me what the big machines against the wall are for. After I told her, she seemed disappointed as she replied "Oh, I thought they were cloning machines." This leaves me wondering if clones have the same moods at the same time. Just picture the thrill of double happy, or the agony of double steroidal grumpy.

Just Who's Emergency Is It?

A recent event at work left me in major stress mode, all because I wanted to make everything right for as many people as possible. We ran short on an item which is delivered on Mondays ONLY and only in a limited quantity. When last Mondays delivery was to be made, we had enough supply that no more could be delivered, thus no additional dry ice was delivered. Unfortunately shortly after the scheduled delivery, there was a major run on it and we were completely out by Wednesday morning. Oh, we also needed an additional 50 pounds to get us through the weekend. This is where I should have remembered my fire/EMT training and put myself into the "It's not MY emergency" mode and let it go at that. But nooooo, I had to go into the "it's my responsibility to fix this" mode and insist on being at a grocery store by 07:30 this morning to buy 50 pounds of solid carbon dioxide. By 8:00 the dry ice was in the bin and a lock was put on the bin. By 8:45 people who were not part of the emergency, were wanting dry ice. Because I was away from my desk, I missed the call and they had to go to a store to get some, which is what I would have told them to do anyway. I suddenly realized that I shouldn't feel guilty, I don't need the stress and it is NOT my emergency and it would have fixed itself by next Monday. The worst part is I will do the same thing with something else again. Am I really that slow to learn?

No Point Here

I have been at a loss as what to blog about for the past two days. It isn't although there is a lack of stuff to blog about, it is more a matter of my getting the thoughts organized. Thursday evening, when we arrived home we had no water pressure, so I called the water utility. The recorded message told me there was a broken main and the water should be on in the evening. It was, but to to a lot of the folks from Phoenix and Tucson visiting their second homes, the pressure was not great. Friday morning the pressure was back to normal, but by evening it was back to a trickle. This was the case on Saturday, and Sunday. Finally on Monday we had what is normal pressure in the evening. This is usual for a long weekend in the summer, as the water system in the upper reaches of Mountainaire is less than modern, and tends to crap out when the population increases by 20% as it does during holidays in the summer.

Rhyme Time

Today as we were on our way to town, Kim said that there are no rhymes for the word girl. I was quick to point out that girl rhymes with pearl. Kim replied "Oh yeah, and it also rhymes with hurl.

Name That Solvent

Every once in awhile, the HVAC system in the science lab building is kind enough to spew intoxicating aromas into my office. Sometimes it is exhaust from contractors vehicles in the area smoke from nearby forest fires. Todays flavor was described by a faculty member who was in my office as a faint xylene, organic solvent, spray paint type odor. It came and went, but it is really par for the course for a $35M building that is less than 2 years old. Don't get me wrong, the taxpayers have provided us with a vast improvement over the old building, and besides, the effect remindes me of how I used to feel at Dead concerts.

Happy New Year

It is a new fiscal year at NAU and due to a self-imposed moratorium on orders for the past week, I have had a back log of orders to get out. Fortunately, I was more alert than usual this morning and finished placing the easy orders and getting the necessary quotations for the other before noon. This meant that a particular vendor also had to be prepared for my request, and was able to confirm the receipt of my order by 2:00 PM. This is for a chemical I usually buy in bulk and started to run low on about 2 weeks ago. I had to wait for the new fiscal year to order so as to not throw the account out of balance. I can now order as a republican member of congress spends tax dollars - at least for another year.