The Emerald Rose

   I should never make concrete statements the same day I make them. Upon reflection, and the need to be a “happier camper”, I will not change the entire tone of my blog to political. I can not promise that from time to time I won’t regress and become a “whinning ranter”, but I do apologize for have been that concrete. From now on ALWAYS view my pontificated rantings as having the consistency of a hot bowl of oatmeal, (or if your political inclinations are different from mine, well,….simply a warm pile of “do-do” on the sidewalk!  🙂

          Last night was another first in my life. I , Me,  Mr. Guinness actually consumed some sushi, (and enjoyed it!) Now don’t go all wilty on me, I can assure you it will not replace a good steak, or scallops, or a firm whitefish(cooked of course),….but an old dog can be taught a few new things,…occasionally. Speaking of the occasion, my old friend Doug, (I’ve mentioned him a number of times in this blog before) moved from here in Paradise up to North Carolina but came down often enough that we were able to persuade him (didn’t take much either) to buy a place here again so he could come down more often, well he and his wife were down “fixing up” the new place. Another friend who had moved away, Mike, and his wife Johnny were also in for the week, and another couple so we decided to meet at the Pub, hoist a few together, and then go to the Japanese Steakhouse for dinner. (The site of Mr. Guinness’s first consumption of sushi!)

         We’ve all known each other at least ten years, in fact I’ve played golf a few times with Doug and Mike, (that was before the golf courses barred me because of the amount of mileage I could put on a golf cart during a round, and the stern urging of the PGA (Professional Golphers Association) because I was doing things deemed “impossible” with golf clubs and golf balls. (It wasn’t my fault the ball went three holes over and twenty yards behind me!)

      And despite of Mike’s wife, Johnny’s years of urging me to “take you’re white catholic ass back to Boston” (It sound a  lot better with her “cajun” accent, plus she really doesn’t mean it,……I hope.) I stayed and they left and moved to Louisiana. But the whole game got back together and spent the first hour or so playing the “What ever happened to, ________?” 90% of the time the answer was, “He’s dead.” And so it goes, mortality is fleeting, “Bartender, another round for my friends”.

       As you get older you have to be more careful,  it is so much easier to get “shitfaced” and all you are doing is “hoisting a pint” to an old friend who passed away. No wonder you always see a lot of old men at the Pub early in the morning to late at night,……man did they have a lot of old friends die,…may they rest in peace.

        End of old age flashback, you may proceed to newer material.

        Got to get back to writing my book tomorrow, and set up more discipline to my day. You know, sort of 7a.m. to 11 a.m. write, 11a.m. to 1 p.m. work on managing my condo associations, 1pm to 2p.m. have lunch and surf the web, and 2p.m. to 4:30 p.m. hit the gym and workout, and 4:30 p.m. to 6p.m. have a pint with the lads. All this work stuff is killin’ me, maybe I should reevaluate and increase lunch time and decrease work time. 🙂

          Bill Gates and I are on the “outs” again. His Windows 7 is great, BUT they don’t have any more “wizards” in Excel, and I’m trying to learn how to make bar graphs and charts just by reading the manual because, “..it’s so easy to use Excel 2007 you don’t even need the wizards anymore.” Yeah, right Bill! You’re talking about ME using excel,….not the average bear! Oh well another challenge for us old farts to get over.

            My Doctor has given up his medical practice here and is going to work for the government on the AirForce Base forty miles from here. I think it was a twofold decision, 1) the stress and pressure of working for a “not for profit” hospital empire, whose goal was to make a profit so Doctors were pressured to do more testing, more “small procedures”, etc. by the ” not for profit” management instead of the Eastern philosophy of keeping their patients well for a regular monthly stipend. I think it went something like,….. “Listen Dr. Jones, we noticed your MRI and Stress Test numbers were down. You should be doing at least 22% more of each per month for us to make our goal, so get with the program, do you know how many boxes of kleenex in the room at $28.00 a whack we are missing out on? The Cafeteria has committed to double it’s output of “Starbucks Double Latte Grandes. You really have to be more of a team player here,…do we understand each other?”

        So he solved all the stress and all the problems and now he gets a monthly stipend from the government (a/k/a United States Air Force), no test quotas, no $28.00 boxes of kleenex charges, and even better no paperwork to do. (They have government employees who do all the paperwork, that’s what they are trained for, just like you are trained to be a Doctor,…just go and Doctor.)

          #2, he liked being a Doctor and knew all his patients. Let’s face it, 80% of the time the Doctor is the guy who has to give out the bad news, you know, ..”It’s an aggressive form of cancer, there is always the possibility of a remission, but the rate is like 2%”, or the “I’m really sorry there is nothing else we can do, you are just not in good enough health for us to operate and you don’t have the possibility of getting healthier without the surgery. From having smoked all those years and working in the mines,…well regardless of what we did for an anesthetic it would kill you just as quickly as anything else. I will let your family know if you like.”

         Man I couldn’t do that day in and day out, and put up with the petty bureaucrats  whining about profits and “make work” items so they look good to the Board of Directors and then can justify spending another gabillion dollars on more state of the art that yesterdays equipment. I’m really going to miss him, but I can fully empathize with him,…life should not be that hard for a good man.

         This is our “YOU MAKE THE CALL” segment of the blog. About a year ago I happened to come into possession of a small, 36 bottle double compartment wine cooler that stood about three feet high and had a two and a half by two and a half foot footprint. I noticed at the time there was some duct tape wrapped around one of the condenser coils, but it was “new” had the all glass front, and wooden bottle racks built in. (I estimate from looking around it was about a five or six hundred dollar unit with two separate temperature settings so each of the two compartments was separately refrigerated so you could have a “slightly chilled” and a “chilled” section. Well long story short after a few weeks I discovered the duct tape was indeed placed there to try and prevent the refrigerant from leaking out, and by then it was all gone so I had a beautiful wine cooler that didn’t cool.

        Well I didn’t have the money to have it fixed just then so it remained in the pantry and became sort of a storage table for the cat food, the big tin of coffee, etc. Well now my wife wants me to throw it out,….just throw it out! Can you believe that? I said no and she says yes. (Mexican standoff time!) “I’m going to get it fixed”, “The hell you are spending good money on that thing is stupid, and besides we just don’t drink that much ‘chilled wine'”,……Well, I’m not throwing it out!”……”Sure would be useless if that glass door was to break some day and shatter.”……”No it would just cost me more to fix it.”

        So here’s the challenge,…..YOU MAKE THE CALL. Fix it and use it, or throw it out. All responses will be respectfully considered and the one with the highest percentages of responses over 75% will prevail,……maybe!

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