Jagow's
Astronomy Page Current
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
Colo
Vacation
11
Colo
Adventure 04/05 Our
Cruise 03 Myrtle
Beach 02 Egypt
02
10:18:08
0001Failed to execute CGI : Win32 Error Code = 259
12-30-2001
Christmas is over! Hooray! I got some nice things including a Chinese checker game! Karen made out with lots of stuff as well as the Dork. The Grand-Dork, Cameron, made out the best I think. He got a walker, an activity center and some more stuff!
We had a very nice Christmas dinner at Karen's brother's house, ate way too much turkey and stuffing. I had some leave on the books I have to use up before I go on Travel in mid January so I had all this week off and will take three days off next week too.
On Friday the 28th I got to baby-sit Cameron while the mother-Dork was at work. Things were a little rough until his third beer. HAHAHA! He is a very happy baby who is quick to laugh and smile. It was a pretty easy afternoon, I had him fed (4 oz. every two hours) and his diaper changed (I remembered to put something over the wiener while I was cleaning to avoid the fountain of pee) and then down for a nap. I then went outside to get the mail, halfway back up the driveway I hear the phone ringing off the hook. It was the mother-Dork wanting to know how things were going. I told her it was well until the phone rang and awoke him from his nap... He was a bit fussy until I shoved some apple juice down his gullet and got a big BURP out of him. Cheryl picked him up after work and probably wondered how it really went...
Spent the last two days diddling with my front brakes on my bike... I replaced the front brake pads because I had a set and was bored on Friday afternoon after watching the Grand-Dork. Pulled the caliper off and replaced the pads, bled all of the old fluid out of the master cylinder because I could not remember when the last time I replaced the fluid. Filled it with new DOT 5 (man that is expensive stuff $8 a pint) brake fluid and started to bleed the air out. Six hours later and another pint of brake fluid gone, still no pressure when you squeeze the brake handle, just mush. Drove to Southside Harley Davidson and bought some new parts, O-rings for the calipers that had looked a bit ragged, talked to the service dept about no pressure and then went home to try the new parts and tips from the service department.
Once
home I installed the new O-rings and started trying to bleed the system
using my
third pint of Dot 5 brake fluid (still $8 a pint, spilled most of the
second
pint). An hour and a half later, still no pressure
building...
Called the Southside service dept, again, I know they are
snickering now
about the dumb ass that can't bleed brakes, and the best they can come
up with
is to rebuild the master cylinder. Good news they have a kit in
stock, bad
news they close in five minutes. Arghhhhh Bayside Harley
Davidson does not have a
kit in stock either. Arghhhh! Five after five, Eddie
the gray
haired pony-tailed parts dude at Southside is calling, says if I want
the rebuild kit,
to give him my credit card number and he will meet me off of Indian
River and give
me the kit. Wow, what a nice guy! I owe him a beer or
three!
Five thirty and I have the rebuild kit in hand. By six I have the
master
cylinder apart and cleaned. For the life of me I can't see
anything wrong
with the original parts, I put the new master cylinder parts in, bolt
it all back up
to the bike start pouring in new brake fluid from the fourth pint (man
$32 bucks
for brake fluid - Karen is going to kick my ass) and start the bleeding
operation. Viola! In ten minutes the pressure has built
up! I
keep bleeding until all the air is out and jump for joy!
Something was
screwed up with the original master cylinder parts and it decided to
fail right
then. Better now while I am working on it than later trying to
slow down
for an intersection. That $80 brake job cost me $151 ($38 brake
pads, $32
brake fluid, $43 rebuild kit, $38 misc. parts and cleaners) but I did
not have
to pay any labor! Now, I can't remember when I changed my rear
brake
fluid...
12-16-2001
We have had some crazy weather out here! Friday we were in the upper 70s and yesterday it was in the mid 50s. Makes for some very good motorcycle riding weather. Things are pretty quiet right now, must be the calm before a storm. We are still waiting on the final disposition of our insurance claim for fixing the floors after the hot water heater burst two weeks ago when I returned from Poland. My ankle is still sore and I can't wear my pull on boots yet.
I was able to watch the grand Dork last night, just me and him. The Dork went out with her best friend Joan after her office Christmas party and Karen was at work until 10:30 PM so Cameron and I watched TV and did guy things for about three hours. He was a very good kid, he did not throw any tantrums or need fed or changed, it has been a few (20+) years since I have changed a diaper. He is four months old now and is in good health and is a very strong little rug rat. He wants to stand most of the time, of course you must be holding him steady. If you try to sit him down, he stiffens out like a board! As he is standing on your lap, he must face you and you must be paying attention to him or you will be rewarded with unhappy squeals and fake crying. As soon as you lock eyes with him and start talking to him he stops the crabbiness and starts smiling, 4 months is a little young to be so spoiled!!!
Here is a picture taken last week of Dork and the Grand Dork standing besides our new Christmas tree. We buy our tree from a local tree purveyor from North Carolina, we have been buying trees from them nearly every Christmas.
Cheryl & Cameron
I put lights up again this year outside the house. Very minimal at best with one long string of white lights on the edge of the roof all the way around the house with the exception of the back, the dogs don't need decorative lights. There are some folks who really go to town on their lights around here. There is one house I see when driving home from work which has put a giant arrow on their roof pointing the way to their chimney for Santa , it is kind of funny. Then there are those whose power meters are spinning like a top and have lights every square inch of their outside area. We have folks in our sub-division that have a whole damn herd of lighted up reindeer. I told Karen that I wanted to go reindeer hunting with my .3006! At least I could make a cardboard target or something and sneak around and hang them on all the lighted reindeer! HAHAHA!
This
will be the weekend where I coax my bride into "cleaning" her closet
out. She has so much crap in there that I have no idea how she
figures out
what clothes to wear... We need to get the old stuff out and give
it away
to Goodwill for the tax write-off. We missed our big assemblage
of stuff
for them last year and I don't want to miss it this time.
12-01-2001!
Back
from Poland. Was a long eight days...
We left (three of us from Dam Neck) last Friday about noon. We arrived
in Copenhagen Denmark about 7:00 AM on Saturday Morning,
the airport in Copenhagen is nearly all hard wood floors! We spent the
afternoon and evening in Copenhagen which was very nice, I found the
Harley Davidson dealer there and acquired a few T-Shirts. Nearly
everyone there speaks
English well enough to converse. A very clean and well maintained city
with polite people.
Sunday we flew from Copenhagen to Gdansk Poland. Talk about a contrast.
Poland is old, gray and in bad need of repairs. They have only been a
member of NATO for about 8 years and free from
the Soviets for ten years (I believe). Their buildings reflect a strong
Soviet theme of functionality. Very square, very
sturdy and very plain. New structures since leaving the Soviet
Union are more modern and tasteful. The
Harley Davidson dealer in Gdansk was in a brand new facility.
The Polish Navy was very easy to work with, they spoke English fairly
well and were very
attentive and curious about what we were doing. They have been given,
literally, a fairly modern (less than 20 year old) Fast Frigate
(FFG class) American warship with a complex combat system onboard,
capable of firing missiles and directing gunfire. The crew has been to
the basic maintenance and operators
schools, but they lack any folks experienced in anything remotely like
the combat system.
In our Navy our newly trained people go to their first duty assignment
green and a little wet behind the ears. The "old-salts" help dry them
behind the ears and turn their greenish
tendencies into a well seasoned technician or operator ready to help
the next batch of new sailors. This process does not happen overnight,
it is usually something that takes years to accomplish. The Polish Navy
is faced with a nearly impossible task of becoming proficient in use
and maintenance of their new system with no "old-salts" to help
them, everyone is "green". Imagine being given a Jet Fighter
after having a bi-plane, and then being responsible to fly it and
maintain it with only about 1% of your crew having
had only a few weeks of training in a language other than your
own...
When leaving the ship for the last time last Thursday, I twisted my
ankle and fell on the last step of the steep and slippery gangway. I
very seriously sprained my ankle and most of the tendons and ligaments.
I had to hobble on it painfully through the Gdansk and Copenhagen
airports and then had a nine hour
respite during the flight to the Washington Dulles airport. Once
through Dulles and back home to the the Norfolk airport I was convinced
that I had to see a doctor as soon as I got home.
As soon as I got home and went into the house we were met with a bad
smell and found water standing in the laundry room and had seeped under
our brand new laminate wood floor in the dining room and kitchen area
ruining it.
I tore out some of the wall in the laundry room expecting to find a
broken pipe and found nothing but
a wall that was dry. That means that whatever the leak is, it must be
in the concrete slab. A call to the insurance company and then it was
off to the doctor to have a look-see at my ankle which was quite
swollen and purple colored.
The doctor took X-Rays and said that it did not appear broken, gave me
a splint and a new pair of crutches (to gather dust like the last pair
in 1990 when I broke my leg) and some
anti-inflammatory drugs.
This morning the ankle is better, but still more water on the floor in
the laundry room and more squishy laminate flooring. The 1/4 thick foam
pad under the laminate floor is soaking up the water and is "wicking"
the water to other parts
under the laminate flooring. I sure hope our homeowner's
insurance covers this.
Karen must work today, it is above 70 degrees already and my leg is in
a splint. If I can get my lace up boot on over the splint, I may have
to go for a bike ride!
Turkey Day 2001!
Well here it is another Turkey Day! My favorite holiday. I like Thanksgiving because it has meaning to every American no matter what religious path they may follow. It is not overly commercialized like the big X. We get to eat turkey and stuffing and green bean casserole and pumpkin pies and mince meat (argh...yech...) pies and cranberries and candied yams and turkey gravy and biscuits and so much stuff that you will be sorry for it until Xmas dinner.
Karen's brother, Brian, made arrangements to get a 24 pound fresh kill turkey from a local meat company. Now this is a bird that was sacrificed on Tuesday and delivered to Brian on Wednesday morning and it was never frozen. I must digress a little here now, last year we were planning a big Thanksgiving meal with Karen, me, the Dork along with Brian and his horde and our friend Chris, The Weenie Queen, (get out of the gutter, she is the Weenie Queen because she sells the best hot sausages and hot dogs in our area at her cart). Anyway... Brian was supposed to acquire a monster bird 20+ lb, well the plans fell through and he was left with, let's just say, a bird substantially smaller than expected. It seemed like the turkey was rationed out among the 9 or so people here and there was very minimal leftovers...
So this year when Brian announced the plans for the special 24 lb. turkey, Karen was a little apprehensive to say the least. She has been stressing about what if Brian's connection falls through again this year. She has been wanting to buy a 20+ lb. turkey "just in case" for the last two shopping trips. Initially the big bird was supposed to make it to Brian's house Tuesday afternoon and Brian was supposed to bring it over that evening. Brian called and said that he did not have the big bird yet but, it would be here Wednesday morning. Karen was stressing, she was already working on a contingency plan. She was going to stop by Food Lion on her way home from work Tuesday night and buy a couple of smaller birds just in case. She ended up not buying any birds and agreed to wait it out.
I left work a little early and stopped by Brian's house and picked up the monster bird, Brian was able to come through! Karen did not know this yet and she was at work probably stressing over the arrival of the bird. As I was leaving, Brian suggested a little trickery was in order. He was right, on the way home from Brian's house I stopped and bought a small 8 lb frozen turkey breast. Once at home I took the real bird out of the meat company's box and stuffed it in the garage fridge and then took all of the wrappings off of the frozen breast and set it in the box with newspapers all around it so it would not roll around. I then taped the box back up and made it look as if it had not yet been opened. Karen came home about 5 minutes after I finished.
When she came in the door I pretended that I too had just arrived home and that the turkey was on the garage table in a box and that I had not yet opened it up. I did mention that it did not seem like a 24 lb box... Karen went into the garage and opened the box. She was aghast! What the hell was this tiny ass frozen turkey breast! She was back in the house on the phone calling her brother before I even had a chance to break a smile. After chewing out her brother for a few moments I began laughing as I am sure Brian did on the other end of the phone. I am sure she knew she had been had at that point. I brought her out into the garage and opened the fridge door and there was the big monster bird with a dozen carnations laid on top of it. It was a good prank and only cost me the price of a frozen turkey breast which we can feast on when I get back...
Yeah... I won't get to feast on Thanksgiving leftovers this year as I have to travel to POLAND on the day after Thanksgiving for work. We get to spend a week overseas performing a system evaluation on an FFG Combat System that the Polish Navy has. It has to be done right away as they plan on using this system to train their sailors on very soon. We leave Friday and arrive in Copenhagen Denmark Saturday, we spend the night in Copenhagen and then fly to Poland on Sunday. I hope to find one of the three Copenhagen Harley Davidson dealers so I can get some T-shirts. Then we leave Poland next Friday and come home.
Since I cam home from San Diego this last time I began some much due attention to my motorcycle. I bought it in 1990 and have not done a lot of modifications to it other than a new seat, extended foot controls and a different exhaust system. So far this year I have put a solid rear wheel and a 5-spoked front wheel on getting rid of the spoked wheels. I also just recently put a new high performance camshaft in it and a new high performance carburetor. I am planning on some modifications to the frame to rake it out 8 more degrees and extending the front end about 6 inches and finally a new paint job. the pictures below represent what a regular Harley Davidson Softail looks like on the bottom and then what one should look like after I have the frame has been altered by 8 degrees. My bike is black but this one is red as I am toying with painting it bright red.
Karen has about a zillion rolls of film to be developed that are almost entirely of Cameron, as soon as she gets them developed I will pick a bunch out and scan them in for everyone to see, probably when I return from Poland...
I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving and has a nice time with their families.
11-2-2001
Back from travel. Spending my day off fixing the wife's motorcycle, the starter solenoid was screwing up before I left, seems the replacement solenoid plunger I put in there a couple of months ago was actually the wrong part number. I ordered one before Ii left for San Diego and now it is in her bike and viola! The starter works as it is supposed to now! Amazing what the right parts do for you...
My trip to San Diego was a good one, installed a display upgrade to the Advanced Combat Display System Command Table and upgraded some network stuff on our previously installed Emulator cabinets as well as an upgrade to the KCMX Emulator. Got to hang with some of the BOOZE-FIGHTERS motorcycle club and a few of the local "Angels". Did not go hog wild buying T-shirts this time, so I saved a couple of my dollars for upgrades to my own motorcycle. I am hoping to get her painted this winter and I want to install some new things like an exposed 3" belt drive between the engine and the transmission. I also want to install a little more of a high-performance cam and a new S&S carburetor. All these things are expensive and I hate spending the $$$, but this is the year that I have done some other expensive things for her like a new solid rear wheel and a solid 5 spoke front wheel. Christmas is also coming and I don't want to be cut short there.
Cheryl and baby Cameron are doing well, the little nipper has grown quite a bit, I believe he is 11 lbs and 10 oz. I think. Karen took him to the doctor's office yesterday for four shots for the Dork who was working. The little bugger was not real pleased to say the least.
I will get some pictures of him and put them up here for all to see soon.
Came home and Karen had bought four pumpkins to carve. Three were pretty nice, the fourth would not stand up on it's own. Karen worked on Halloween so I carved the three pumpkins and sat out and handed candy out with the Dork. We had a pretty light showing of kids as compared to other years, but it was good seeing the ones who did come out. Seeing the big full moon on Halloween was worth sitting out there for two hours. I guess we won't see another full moon on Halloween for twenty something years.
10-05-2001
through
10-28-2001
On Travel to San Diego to the Lovely USS TARAWA LHA-1...
09-14-2001
This picture haunts me...
Of all of the pictures I have seen, this is the one that moves me. Imagine the thoughts of the passengers as they realized they were now on a guided missile. Imagine the thoughts of the folks peering out the window during another tedious meeting.
As Americans we have joined the rest of the world, we are no longer safe in our homeland. Tuesday the 11th of September was indeed a day no one alive in America will ever forget. Unfortunately, this is our generation's "Pearl Harbor". Our country has been vulnerable for a very long time. We have had a veil of "security" for a very long time. Anyone who has traveled through Rome, Frankfurt or London airports has dealt with the European airline security and probably wondered why American security was not comparable. It was because we had yet to discover the horror of homeland terrorism.
This is the first battle, to which we have lost in a new war. Let not the politicians, bureaucrats and sympathizers allow this act of war to fall through the cracks.
When terrorists struck the USS Cole, we were aghast and vowed those responsible would pay. What has become of that incident? Someone is in jail. Did we put Japanese Admirals in jail as a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor?
The difference between September 11th and December 7th is that we had a clear picture of who our new enemy was. Today we have a shifting enemy whom we are unsure of their identity, but we know them as terrorists. We must find out who they actually are, where they actually are, and then strike back with the same terror.
We must understand that the people of the Middle East do not hold the same beliefs as western civilization does. Their views seem radical to us, as our views seem radical to them. Don't get me wrong, there is not an ounce of sympathy in me for these people, however we must understand our enemy in order to defeat them. An enemy that would rather die in service to their cause than live in service to others. Two hundred and twenty five years ago we knew another such people with the same resolve against their King, but with a more noble cause.
I applaud President Bush's restraint in that he did not immediately unleash a rain of Tomahawks upon Afghanistan. I hope it is because we are gathering evidence and not just waiting for our Navy to get situated...
America must prepare for a long battle if we are to make good with our President's promise of removing terrorism from our planet. There will be a military response, there will be counter strikes against Western targets. We must have perseverance and patience, we can not let escalating acts of terrorism deter us from our destination. We must realize many more people will die before this blight is removed.
I always thought that witnessing Americans landing on the moon would be the greatest thing I would see. Since that July day in 1969 I have added the falling of the Berlin Wall to my list of "greats". Sadly we all now have another "great" to add to our list. It is so very unfortunate that this "great" is not so great...
08-12-2001
Cheryl
and Cameron
came home last
Saturday afternoon. Baby and Mother are doing just fine. In
fact the
baby spent last night with us. it has been a long time since
either Karen
or I had to get up in the middle of the night and attend to an
infant...
We went to dinner last night at Athens Pizza at the corner of
Centerville and
Kempsville and Karen was wallowing in all the people coming up and
asking about
the grandbaby, she was very proud and honored that Cheryl let us watch
him over
night.
With the
celebration of new life
brought into this world with Cameron, we were also suddenly reminded of
the
frailty of life as we learned of the passing of a long time friend,
MaryAnn Toth.
MaryAnn died in the Norfolk Sentara hospital as the results of
complications
with a previous surgery. Our deepest sympathies are extended to
Brian and
the families of both. Brian's father performed the eulogy and a
couple of
her closest friends rose and spoke of their happiness and good times
with
MaryAnn. A celebration of MaryAnn's life party ensued at their
house in
Suffolk. 08-03-2001 First of all we
attended the
sentencing of Roderick for his robbing our house, he was given 4 years
in the
state pen, all suspended upon successful completion of supervised
probation.
Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! While we were
leaving the courts I
mentioned to the Commonwealth's attorney that the Chesapeake police
department
and the Commonwealth's office did a another "bang up job" getting
themselves a conviction and not really punishing the criminal.
The
Commonwealth's attorney then stated that if I thought I could do better
then I
should have. Before I answered him, Karen told him that maybe
what was in
order was for him to find a new job. To which he commented "If
you
had done a better job raising your daughter you wouldn't have had this
problem". With that remark, we went directly to the commonwealth
attorney's main office and filed a formal complaint. School is
still out
on this one. Karen pulled off
a really nice
baby shower party for Cheryl last Saturday, there was over twenty
people and
Cheryl received some very nice gifts. Had to haul them over to
her house
in the Expedition. Our friend Marianne came to the baby shower on
her
bike, when she arrived she had a flat tire. So her husband and I
worked on
the flat tire during the baby shower. Then afterwards, while
Karen was
helping the Dork get her new things home, Mike Chaney and I went for a
ride on
our bikes. I had a run in with a rubber traffic cone that ended
up bending
my .303" thick steel foot peg and brake mounting bracket on the right
side
of the bike. After about $115 the bent parts are replaced.
I will be
watching out not to hit any more plastic road cones, on my bike that
is... On Tuesday the
31st Cheryl was
complaining that she did not feel well and that she had not been able
to keep
any food down. She went to the Chesapeake hospital and they held
her
overnight for observation and then sent her home the next morning and
told her
it was early contractions without any adjustments occurring to her
cervix -
false labor - and gave her a shot of something to stop the contractions
and sent
her home ignoring her complaints of pain all around her side and
back. On
Wednesday the 1st she went to a hospital in Portsmouth complaining of
severe
chest pain with pain all around her side. They did some checking
and could
not find anything so they transferred her to Norfolk Sentara hospital
in
downtown Norfolk. I was working on the LHD7 and the aircraft carrier
CVN68 and
was getting voicemail messages on my cell phone every time I went near
an open
area. I left the ships and got to Norfolk Sentara hospital about
5:00
PM. Karen was there with Cheryl and they told me that the Dork
was
suffering from toxemia and that her spleen and some other internal
organs were
inflamed due to the pregnancy. Her doctor was there working this
night and
explained to us all that Cheryl would have to have the baby that night,
either
by inducing her labor or by C-section. She
explained that Cheryl was
further along this time than last year when she lost Haley
and that despite being about five weeks premature everything should be
OK.
At 6:00 PM they gave her medicine to induce labor, Cheryl soon
started to
feel mild contractions. By 8:30 she was starting to dilate and
was begging
for an Epidural for the pain. The Dork has a very, very low pain
tolerance
to say the least. At 9:00 PM she was given an Epidural for the
pain.
Once the Epidural started to work, Cheryl turned from "the Beast" into
her usual happy self again. Ten O'clock rolled around and she was
dilated
to four centimeters and her contractions were about midway in amplitude
on the
monitoring machine's chart . The Dork, under the effects of the
Epidural,
could not feel them at all. She continued to dilate about one
centimeter
an hour until after midnight when they told her she was at about 6
1/2.
One twenty came and she was dilated to 8 1/2 and her contractions were
"pegging" the meter. At two fifteen she was dilated to 9 1/2,
the doctor could still feel just a small cervical lip. Soon
Cheryl began
to feel pressure like she needed to take a righteous dump. That was
what the
doctor was waiting for, they started having Cheryl push around 9:30
hoping she
could pop the baby's head past the cervical lip. No luck, that
kid was
stuck, or so it seemed. They let her rest for a few minutes and
then had
her start pushing again about ten minutes till three. Only five
minutes
into the second round of pushing and the Dork pushed hard enough for
Cameron to
be born at 2:55 AM on August 2nd, Roderick got to cut the umbilical
cord. They hurriedly
cleaned, prodded
and poked the little newborn until we all heard the little cries that
told us
that the baby was OK. I was being a pain in the arse with the
video camera
trying to capture everything including the preceding birth.
Once
Cheryl has viewed the recording and OK'd it, I will make VHS copies to
be sent
to Colorado and Vegas for family viewing. Cheryl finished
up with no major
complications. Prior to the birth, the nurses has already parked
a
portable incubation unit just outside the door to Cheryl's room.
After
about twenty minutes of cleaning and checking the doctor and staff
decided that
Cameron was developed enough so that he did not need the
incubator.
Once all cleaned up, Cameron was placed in his mother's arms.
Everyone
ooh'd and aah'd and then the grandmothers each wanted to hold him. Karen was fit to
be tied, couldn't
stop crying and she was shaking and nervous as she held her grandson
for the
first time. A bunch of video
and pictures were
taken, which I will scan them into the computer this weekend and put
them all up
as a web site. I will probably have to put them on the Cox @ home
server
as I am running out of room on the Visinet server. Cheryl and
Cameron are expected to
be released on Saturday. 7-23-2001 Well
I just don't know what to say... My wife acquires TWO that's 2 as
in one -
two motorcycles in less than a month! I have had mine since the
summer of
1990 and have only dreamed of a second bike! We were out for a
ride
Saturday before last and stopped at a local "biker" bar (read biker as
"rich urban bikers that now have a Harley, think that they are bad
asses") for a cold beverage. I saw someone I had spoken to a few
months before and asked them if they still had their Harley Sportster
for
sale. To my surprise they said that they did and that it was a
1986
Sportster. I perked up as that is the exact same year as my big
bike. I started to think in my head they will start at about
$5500.
Then they went on to tell us it was an 1100cc and was Liberty Special
Edition
and that only 2000 were made. Ching, ching I figured that would
boost the
price about $800. Next they started rattling off all of the
customizing they had done to it, new seat, forward mounted foot
controls, sissy
bar and pad, custom mirrors, new exhaust pipes and a custom powder coat
paint
job. I was sure that their asking price was going to be way out
of our
budget. When I was done mentally adding up all of the amenities I
bravely
asked how much they were asking. They looked at one another and
started
talking about how they were tired of it taking up space in their garage
and
paying the insurance premiums and then they blurted out a price of
$4500.
I about crapped my pants and calmly asked if we could stop and look at
it on the
way back home. They agreed and gave us their address.
When
we finished our frosty beverages we navigated over to their
house. The
bike was up on a trailer. The husband had been driving around
with a
for-sale sign on it with out a phone number for a couple of
days... We
unloaded it from the trailer and fired it up. I took it for a
test drive
down the block. It was a hot little dude! I yanked the
front end up
rather reminiscent of my dirt biking days and was immediately
impressed. I
looked it over real close for oil leaks and other tell tale maintenance
clues. The paint job is a glossy black with blue metallic
speckles.
I had made my mind up basically when I had the front wheel about five
feet off
the ground during my little test ride. I told them that I would
give them
a check on the spot but they wanted cash.
So
Monday I went off to the credit union and found out that the big
deposit I had
made to savings was on hold until my personal check cleared. I
was told it
would be about another week to ten business days. Arghhh! I then
went to
the loan department and got the paperwork for a signature loan that
could be
processed in a couple of days. To make a long story short we
borrowed a
little on an existing loan and had the money in hand Friday
morning. Went
back to the people's house and picked up the bike. Karen and the
Dork
drove me out there to pick it up. On the way back, with no
license plates
or inspection stickers of any kind, we drove right through the heart of
Virginia
Beach's municipal section. Once we cleared the cop shops and were
on an
open back road, I opened the little beast up and was pleasantly
rewarded with a
very quick excursion to a triple digit speed. Karen was mildly
pissed when
we got home for me hot-roding her motorcycle. After about
an hour and a half in the DMV we paid our dues and got a new license
plate and a
new title. That evening I took the new bike and Karen to the city
park for
her first ride on a Harley. I explained to her very carefully
that this
has about 4 times more powerful that her Honda Rebel and that if she
goosed it,
it was going to go very fast in whatever direction it was
pointing. She
was a little nervous, but she put on her helmet and we very slowly got
her
started. She made about five laps around the Chesapeake city park
until
decided that she liked it. I asked her if she got out of first
gear, and
she said no. Just that she was taking it easy, Karen did seem
very excited
instead of nervous. The next morning we got up and she rode her
new Harley
over to our friends the Chaneys before she went to work, then we rode
to IHOP
and had lunch. Sunday there was a poker motorcycle ride that
Karen very
much wanted to go on, but she had to work. This weekend coming up
I am
sure she will get some road time on her Hog.
Once
Karen has finished taking her motorcycle riding test at the DMV on the
Honda
Rebel, we will be selling it and I have already put dibs on the
proceeds to
paint my bike. Can't have the wife's bike showing my old mule
up!
The
rest of this week is shaping up for a fine crescendo. On Thursday
the
Shithead, 7-13-2001 We
did have a nice 4th of July party. About 20-30 people showed up
on and off
during the day. We had two cases of beer, 48 hamburgers, 36 hot
dogs, two
cases of soda and various hamburger and hot dog buns left over. I
will be
eating dogs and burgers all summer... That's OK, I love burgers,
Karen can
have the hot dogs.
Just
before we were getting to the fireworks, some other fireworks were
erupting.
Karen's brother had been drinking beer and talking crap to another guy
at the
party all day long. Well the other guy, John who I work with, had
finally
had enough so he threw a crushed up beer can as hard as he could and
hit Brian
right between the eyes. A scuffling match ensued. No blows
were
thrown, no one hurt, just some bruised pride. Brian's was
hurt a
little more as later he hopped on Karen's motorcycle and tried to push
it into
the garage and he fell over with it. Karen was a little pissed to
say the
least. The two "wrestlers" ended up shaking hands and having
another beer.
Karen
is still riding her motorcycle and going on longer and longer rides now
that she
has her motorcycle learner's permit which she acquired by passing the
written
motorcycle test that she only missed one question on!
Today
as I was writing this, our front doorbell rings and it is the garbage
man, today
is our regular pickup day, he says "some computer things fell out of
your
garbage can and I don't have time to pick them up" and then he walked
away.
I had a few words with him and he left in a huff. I came back in
the house
and called the city's solid waste department. I was given the run
around
by several people who claimed all of the supervisors were out in the
field.
Then Karen said there was another city truck in our court. They
did not
bother to even come up to the house so I went down there and discussed
the
matter with this "supervisor". He basically told me that they
were not going to pick it up because it was not bagged in the garbage
container.
I told him that it was trash in the trash container and that I would be
damned
if I was going to pick it up. I went back inside the house
and
attempted to get a hold of the city manager. I finally got hold
of an
assistant city manager named Perry. He assured me that the
garbage would
be picked up. I told him that they had 30 minutes or I was
going to
bag it and bring it down to their office.
Two
more supervisors from the city solid waste division showed up and sat
around for
about 20 minutes, then they acted for a few minutes like they were
going to pick
it up, but they just stood around and looked at it. Three
supervisors and
a garbage truck driver. Kind of reminded me of when my sub was
being built
at Electric Boat in Groton Connecticut - way too many Chiefs and not
enough
Indians... While all the Chiefs and the lone Indian were having a
powwow,
I brought out the video camera and recorded the mess and the efficient
use of
city management personnel. They seemed none to happy about my
video
camera.
The
thirty minute deadline had passed, so Karen and I went outside and
bagged the
trash and the yucky stuff left in the garbage container and headed to
city hall
with the video camera too. On the way I attempted to view my
video of the
incident and discovered that I had forgot to push the RECORD
button.
Damn... Those garbage workers didn't know that though.
We
arrived and found a really good parking spot. I removed my Kimber
.45
caliber pistol from my front pocket and placed it in the glove
box. Then
Karen and I marched up to the city manager's office and told the
secretary that
we had a delivery for Mr. Perry the assistant city manager. She
asked us
to wait a moment and disappeared. About fifteen seconds later a
uniformed
city police officer entered the door and went right around back where
the
secretary went. A few moments later the policeman emerged and
tried to get
us to leave the city manager's office. I explained that I was
going no
where and that the double bag of garbage that I had set down on the
floor would
not be leaving with us. The officer tried to intimidate me by
threatening
me by arrest for littering, disturbing the peace and at least one other
thing
before I reminded him that he was making more noise and being much more
aggressive than I. I asked him twice to stop advancing towards me
in a an
aggressive manner. Eventually a man came out and stood behind the
police
officer using him as a shield. I immediately stepped past the cop
and
extended my hand and introduced myself. He introduced himself as
Mr. Perry
the assistant city manager and he said that he could give me the cell
phone number for the man
that was in charge of all of the city of Chesapeake's waste departments
and that
I should call him and resolve the matter. Mr. Perry handed me a
piece of
paper with the man's name and a phone number fully expecting me to
leave and
pursue this lead. I promptly asked Karen for her cell phone and
dialed the
number TWICE in front of the police officer and the assistant city
manager, both
times it came up as a disconnected number.
I mentioned how convenient this was, and expressed my disapproval that
he had
given me a bogus number just trying to get me out of their
office. I then
stated that I was not leaving until this guy was contacted
directly. Again
more threats from the police officer concerning disturbance of the
peace and
being uncooperative with a police officer, I just kept backing away
from the cop
and ignoring him. Mr. Perry, remember the city manager hiding
behind the
cop? He all of a sudden had a better number for the waste manager
guy, but
would not give it to me now that I had the cell phone out.
He called
the waste guy and found out he was at city hall in another office and
he was on
his way to the city manager's office. Karen and I stood our
ground and
waited.
Mr.
Dave Thompson from the city waste department showed up dressed rather
casually
for the head of such a big department in the second highest populated
city in
the area. He listened to our complaint. Apologized and
offered the explanation
that the workers did not pick up the spilled garbage because they said
that they
saw a live round of ammunition on the street and said they had called
the fire
department's hazardous materials division for assistance.
Karen
added to this by telling Mr. Thompson, the waste management fellow,
that the
city garbage boys did not see the DUD round of ammunition until WE WERE
BAGGING
IT UP OURSELVES as this damaged .357 case with a squashed bullet was
plucked out
of the GRASS and was not in the street at all. Karen just happen
to catch
a glimpse of it as we were squatting down picking up the garbage and
she reached
over and picked it up. It did not have a primer or powder in
it. She
further explained to him that garbage people were aghast that we were
picking up
the garbage, then even more so when we came out and got in her car and
drove
away with the bag of garbage and the video camera.
Mr.
Thompson again apologized and then he bent over and picked up the bag
of garbage
and went off on his way. And so ended our morning in the
city
manager's office.
This
was just the cap on a much longer standing problem we and most everyone
else in
Chesapeake has had to deal with concerning our garbage collection.
Years
ago it was routine that the garbage trucks were preceded by a couple of
city
pickup trucks. The city workers in the pickup trucks would
salvage
anything they thought was of value from the neighborhood garbage
and put it in the back of the pickup, then and only then would the big
garbage
truck empty the cans. The fellows empting the cans would always
spill
garbage on the ground and never pick it up. They were always well
versed
in the destruction of your garbage cans too. The city put a halt
to this
practice after a local TV station followed one of the pickup truck
crews in
action in another neighborhood. The city also started using an
automated
garbage collection system where this big mechanical arm extends from
the truck,
grabs a special city provided garbage container and then dumps it into
the
bowels of the garbage truck.
When
we have bulk trash, yard clippings or whatever is too big for the
garbage
container, we are supposed to call the solid waste phone number for the
city and
give them your address and what you have out there for them to pick
up..
A couple of years ago when my shed blew down, I hauled the debris to
the curb
and called the boys to come pick it up. They came out with
another
mechanical monster of a truck with an enormous claw device and began
picking up
the shed debris. They were so efficient with the claw that not
only did
they remove the shed scraps, but also the curb and about two feet of
attached
pavement. Oops! After much hassling with the city, the city
finally
replaced the curb and "repaired" the missing pavement. They did
a real bang up job on the pavement, kind of resembles a 45 record that
was left
in the hot sun too long. That incident was strike one.
Strike
two came several weeks ago when I removed our old carpet. I again
called
the solid waste number and left my address and that I had put the
carpet on the
street and to please not destroy our curb this time. I happened
to be
enjoying my Friday off getting ready to cut the lawn when the clawed
garbage
truck came into our circle. He drove right past our carpet
without picking
it up. I ran after the guy, OK - trotted, and asked him why he
did not
pick up the carpet. He told me it was not on his list. He
said there
was carpet supposed to be at 1205 Saddleback. I explained that
perhaps
someone made a mistake on the number and that there was indeed carpet
at 1204
Saddleback. He said that since 1204 was not on the list he could
not pick
it up and he drove off. I then went in the house and contacted
someone
from solid waste and explained the mix-up, they promised someone would
be out
there that day to pick it up. It did not get picked up until the
next
trash day a week later after calling them again.
And
so strike three was the stellar waste worker who spilled my garbage
can, not
just a little, but a lot! And then told me he was not going to
pick it up
because he did not have the time...
6-16-2001 Wednesday
we bought Karen a used
Honda Rebel 250cc street bike for her to learn on. That night she
had me
pushing her around the court here on Saddleback so she could get a feel
for it.
Friday
morning
we went to DMV and transferred the title into our names and acquired a
new
license plate. Karen also found a motorcycle riders handbook so
she can
study for the tests. Once she takes the written test they will
grant her a
learner's permit which she must hold for thirty days before she can
take a road
test and get her full fledge motorcycle license. After
we finished at the DMV we had a quick McDonalds breakfast and then we
took the
Rebel to the Chesapeake city park (yes I rode the little bike down and
back) and
for nearly an hour Karen
rode. She rode on grass first, then a little gravel and then
riding laps
around the perimeter of the park. she
did very, very
well! She however never went out of first gear. On Sunday
we will
work on getting into second gear.
This was a Christmas Party at my house in the early 90's when we all
worked at
Raytheon. MaryAnn is the second on the left. Mrs. Lombardo
is
left-most while Mrs. Peterson is on the other side of MaryAnn, Karen is
sitting
on very right end.
This picture is an example of what usually ended up happening whenever
MaryAnn
and I were at the same social gathering. I would grab her and
start
looking for the closest swimming pool. She would sometimes make
it in, but
usually wind up soaking me and everyone near. Everyone will miss
MaryAnn. I know we will...
Cameron Coleman
Grandmothers, mother and Cameron
Grandmother Karen and Cameron
,
is going to court for sentencing for his robbery of our house and then
on Friday
Karen and I will be cleaning for Saturday. Saturday is the Dork's
baby
shower. Sunday we don't know what is in store for us.
Probably a
good thing, as we have had enough surprises for awhile.
We are getting a bunch of rain today. It started yesterday in the early evening, it is the remnants of tropical storm Allison which has dumped a bunch of rain on the east coast. We hope it moves out tonight as predicted, as Karen has motorcycle practicing to do tomorrow at city park with me as coach. The good news is that I slide out of having to cut the lawns this weekend. Yipee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is raining pretty good right now.
We are s t i l l working on the new floors. I have most of the trim down now, just one hall way left to do. Then we have to do the thresholds. I have to drill into the concrete and set anchors to screw into. I am not looking forward to doing that. I have never done it so I am very apprehensive about drilling into the concrete sub floor. So far everything has gone fairly well, only screwed up in a few places...
I need to give the mutts a bath, as they have not been bathed since before Christmas. I will do it outside in the rain. Might as well use Mother nature's handy water to help rinse the mutts off. That way I don't get the dog shaking in the house on the new floors, it will be restricted to the garage area.
Last weekend we went to Karen's brother's house for a BBQ and Mike and his latest girlfriend showed up from Georgia! Her name is Katrina and she has a little boy that is less than two, I think. The little boy is a handful and keeps them both very busy. Michael seems to be doing OK, he is working full time at a construction firm and is framing houses. He is working a great deal of overtime. They are trying to save money as they want to move to Spokane Washington where her family is. I understand that he has filled for divorce from Rebecca and is just waiting for the final papers to come in the mail. Mike did not mention the outcome of his case in Georgia for trying to sell mushrooms and I forgot to ask. We are planning a fourth of July BBQ at our house and he may drive up for that. Cheryl did not attend Brian's BBQ as she would rather be with the "Shithead" than with family. Just don't know what to make of her...
We again go to court this week for the preliminary hearing for Cheryl's Shithead boyfriend. Since this is a preliminary hearing, all the judge does is decide if there is enough evidence for the Shithead to be tried on, and if there is then a trial date is set.
Not much more to yak about, so I will go get started on bathing the mutts...
6-10-2001
The last time I updated this page I was eluding to whom had stolen our stuff. Well, we don't know for sure, however what we do know is that Cheryl's boyfriend sold & pawned five of the stolen jewelry items. He was arrested for robbery and selling stolen property for which he spent the night in jail. Someone bailed him out the very next day. We have not located any more of the items that were stolen. The guns are probably in the hands of some little criminal shithead by now. The preliminary hearing was on June 6th, Roderick and his mother must not have likes the court appointed attorney and retained another lawyer who immediately requested a continuance until June 20th.
"The Shithead"
So the saga continues. If you see Roderick ask him if he still has some guns for sale or perhaps some nice jewelry...
Cheryl is still maintaining a household with the shithead (Roderick) for whatever reasons Karen and I don't have a clue about. Our relationship with her is somewhat strained to say the least. Her pregnancy is going well, she is in the last three months now and is expected to deliver early in September. Karen is really looking forward to a grandbaby even though the circumstances with Cheryl are not the best right now.
Michael calls his mother on occasion and says that he is working a construction job while living with his current girlfriend in Southeastern Georgia. He and his girlfriend are saving money so that they can move to the Spokane Washington area where her family is and have promised them a place to live.
I returned from my latest California trip a little earlier than last year. I only spent about three weeks on board LHA3 with several other members from our command installing and testing the Advanced Combat Direction System upgrade for that ship. Now I come home to work on some software for another emulator that needs updating.
When I got home I was immediately hit by the odor of our carpets... Last year when I went to California for about a month or so I shampooed the carpets before I left. This year I was unable to do that before I left. Ten years of dogs, cats and ferrets make for an interesting odor to say the least. It was a good thing that I earned a little overtime while out on the left coast as we decided to put down new flooring. At first we looked at tile, then at Berber style carpet and then we settled on a cherry color/style of wood laminate floor by Armstrong that you just interlock the boards together and does not require glue for installation. We purchased 34 cartons of boards and 7 rolls of a foam & plastic underlay and headed home. That was Thursday the 31st of May. It is now June 10th and we almost done. We have all of the new floor in, now we must finish the trim and glue some special cut boards, I refer to as the jig-saw part, around some really angled areas around the fireplace and it's adjoining wall. We are still working on putting all of the "stuff" back that we moved so that we could put the new floor down. Overall we are very pleased with our handiwork. Karen and I have never done a major home improvement like this on our own. We had to borrow our friends the Chaney's table saw, which we would have never been able to do the job without. Karen and I worked several days from early morning until near midnight. And we are sure that we while we are happy with how our floors turned out, we definitely do not want to be professional floor installers.
Here is a layout of our house, the gray area is where we put down the wood laminate floors. The light blue in the bedrooms is still carpet and the yellow areas are a light colored linoleum. The family room is paneled and with the new floors looks nice. The fireplace is located in the family room where the black triangle type shape is.
I cut all of the lawns yesterday. The rear one was quite high. I did leave a strip alongside the house that is centered between the fence and the house about 18 inches wide and about 16 feet long. This will be my "test-plot". I want to see how high my grass will grow in there. It is currently about 12-16 inches high. If it gets over the top of the fence the homeowner's association will be on my ass, again...
4-1-2001
April Fool's Day!
Been awhile since I updated this page. A lot has happened to us since. As far as my work goes I had been pretty much balls-to-the-wall since mid February. One of our functions is to build equipment that functionally emulates older equipment that is no longer in production and the Navy is finding it more and more difficult to keep them in working order. This old equipment includes a magnetic disk drive (UYH3), a magnetic tape drive (RD358), line printers (TT624) and a CRT display terminal (USQ69). We make a single cabinet that contains enough hardware to emulate one UYH3 disk drive, one RD358 tape drive, two TT624 line printers and two USQ69 display terminals. Our emulator is lovingly referred to as a PES (Peripheral Emulation System). They work quite well, and we have produced about 20 cabinets of varying configurations over the last 7 years. Since I am considered (horn blowing time) the hardware expert on these emulators. Here comes Lockheed/Martin with an emulator of their own which is similar to ours. I jumped up to the plate and asked to be involved in the testing of this new kid on the block. So here is the plan, receive a brand new piece of equipment, not just new - but the prototype unit, test it at our Dam Neck facility and then get it installed on board the Teddy Roosevelt, one of our big aircraft carriers in less than 7 weeks. When I got my hands on this box I went after it "loaded for bear". I intended on exploiting it's weaknesses and problems and then watch it die and then recommend one of our PES units instead.
Damned if the darn thing worked. I beat the heck (figuratively) out of it while testing it. I found a couple bugs which Lockheed/Martin was pretty quick to squash. I finished my testing with my mouth open and my jaw dropped! I provided a detailed test report with the recommendation that the installation continue with the Lockheed/Martin unit. The unit was installed and training was provided to the ship. It seems to be of sound design and has now been on board the ship with a couple small deployments under it's belt now with minimal problems. As soon as I finished helping with the installation on the Roosevelt it was back to work taking delivery of the equipment set for LHA3. This would pretty much be a rubber stamp copy of the four equipment cabinets and Command Tables that we put on LHA5 last summer. So the entire month of March was spent getting these ready for shipment to California. If you are curious, poke here to see all of that equipment. As you can see I have been pretty busy. I will get to "slack-off" a bit this month, but I will spend most of May in San Diego helping to test the equipment after it is installed on LHA3.
Karen has been in pretty good health and has been very busy with her work and reading her gothic romance novels. We thought that her computer's hard drive was acting up, so I went out and bought a modest 4.3 GB hard drive. As soon as the new hard drive got home, her computer stopped screwing up. So now we have a 4.3 GB hard drive just waiting. Her cats are in good health as well as Karen's dog Molly and Cheryl's dog Chester. Bart is doing well also. I brushed enough hair out of Bart this weekend to make another cat...
Cheryl finally got tired of me harping on her about her "shit-head" boyfriend and decided to move out. She moved out in a huff and I didn't speak to her for a quite some time. So much fun at the Jagows! She ended up getting an apartment in Portsmouth and the "shit-head" is staying there with her, arghhhhh!!! About a week or so after Cheryl left, we had a knock at the door and there stood our son Michael, whom we bailed out of jail about 6 weeks previously down in Georgia. Kind of a surprise. Initially he said he was just here for a visit, but now he is staying at Cheryl's apartment and is looking for work. The night Michael showed up is the night of our other big surprise.
We found out that we had been burglarized! I was sitting on the edge of the bed looking at my gun cabinet and I noticed that the lower section's door was ajar and open. Thinking that Karen was clowning around with me, I called to her as I stood up and opened the door all the way. All that was left in there was one empty clip and a nylon style holster. All my handguns were gone! I did a careful check and found my Desert Eagle still in it's shoulder holster tucked away out by my computer desk. I also found my snub-nosed .357 revolver and my full size .357 revolver both in their hiding places. There were five handguns stolen from the gun cabinet. The one I valued the most, a High Standard .22 that my Mom gave to my Dad as a birthday present some 40 odd years ago and I got when my Dad died some years ago, my serial number BDF-001 Vektor 9mm which was the first one imported to the states, a full size Colt .45 semi-auto, a .22 revolver and a Ruger .22 semi-auto target pistol. We also discovered Karen's jewelry chest was hit. Karen lost thirteen identifiable items. The most noteworthy was her 2ct. diamond tennis bracelet that I gave her a couple of years ago for Christmas. Total dollar loss in jewelry about $4400 and about $3600 in guns. Now we found out that ALLSTATE lowered their loss limits on jewelry to $2500 and to $3000 on guns. That means, that ALLSTATE will only pay a claim up to those amounts. So we are screwed out of about $2500. So much for being in good hands with ALLSTATE...
The Chesapeake police came and dusted for fingerprints, a couple were lifted and recorded. However they could have been ours. They are working the case and told Karen that they are planning on arresting someone early next week. Sorry, but we can't let the cat out of the bag, until the cat gets behind bars...
Here is a picture of the stolen guns. Clockwise from the upper left: Vektor 9mm, .22 revolver, .22 High Standard, .45 Colt, .22 Ruger.
We don't have pictures of the jewelry, but you can bet your ass that we will have pictures of everything when this is over. Other than all that... Everything is just peachy at the Jagows!
1-21-2001
Today Karen and I celebrate our 23rd wedding anniversary! Today is also bright and sunny with the temperature climbing to about 40 degrees. We have no real plans, just a day off with stuff to do like grocery shopping.
|
January 21st, 1978
I intend on taking down my Amiga computer BBS (Bulletin Board Service) which has been in continuous operation here in Virginia since May of 1987. Yes 1987, that is 14 years. The BBS has been running on the original Amiga computer I bought in April of 1986. We were living on the submarine base in Bangor Washington, none of the stores in the Seattle/Tacoma area had any of these computers in stock and the waiting list was long. I had observed the Amiga at several computer shows in the area and was very impressed with it's power and speed. I was a Navy Instructor teaching the UYK7 computer at the Trident Training Facility. I was teaching a mid shift course and one of my students, also an Amiga fan, told me there was a store in Portland Oregon that had Amiga computers in stock. When I got home from class at 6:00 in the morning I went to sleep for three hours. I got up at nine and called the store in Portland. They did have the computer in stock and the monitor and extra memory and an extra floppy drive. I asked them to hold all of these things for me and I even gave the guy my credit card number to charge them to.
I cleaned up and jumped in the car, Karen thought I was nuts, and drove nearly 5 hours, I got lost at least once, and finally found the store about 3:30 PM, they closed at 5:00 PM. The guy I spoke with on the phone was not there, and he left no instructions about the computer system he was supposed to be holding for me. The sales clerk indicated that he had sold six systems that day already. He was unsure if they had a complete system left. I was a little upset, I berated that poor fellow until he scrounged up enough things to constitute a complete system. He had to yank the expanded memory cartridge out of their display computer and I had to buy the display monitor also. Just as I was trying to negotiate the price of the monitor down because it was their floor display, the fellow who I spoke with earlier came back to the store. He apologized for not holding a complete system for me and gave me a hundred bucks off of the cost of the monitor. I walked out of the store about 4:45 and drove home. I got home in time to eat some dinner and take a shower and then go teach that night's class. I did not even get to turn my new computer on until the following day. I came home dog-ass tired and set the new Amiga up and marveled at it's display. I went to sleep until late that evening and then played with the Amiga for about 2 hours before I had to go to work.
That was the start of my love affair with the Amiga computer. This computer was introduced at COMDEX in 85. It ran graphics programs so smoothly and seamlessly every professional who viewed it began immediately looking for cables leading to a much larger computer that they suspected was creating the images being shown on the Amiga Monitor. At that time, late 1985, the IBM XT was in full swing. Hard drives were a pipe dream for PCs and if you had an IBM you either had a monochrome "green-screen" unit or one that could display 16 colors of text and very rudimentary graphics, you wondered if anyone would ever use the entire 640,000 bytes of memory that the IBM had and you were running either PC-DOS or MS-DOS, no Windows or anything remotely like it. Along comes the Amiga, right out of the box capable of 640X400 full motion color graphics and running a full featured GUI windowing style operating system. It came standard with 256K of memory and the user could install another 256 on the front of the machine, it came with a single 800K floppy disk that held the ENTIRE operating system and still had room for data. Now when I said full motion color graphics, I should have added FULL SCREEN to the description. Even today's finest PC/MAC can not handle FULL SCREEN graphics as smoothly as the Amiga did. The bad thing about Amiga is that it was produced by Commodore Business Machines, most notably known for the very low-end Commodore 64 home PC. To make a 10 year story short, Commodore never figured out how to market their technologically superior PC and finally went bankrupt in 1995/96.
|
We have owned five different Amigas during the course, first the Amiga 1000, which I will be powering off for good today, an Amiga 2000, an Amiga 2500, an Amiga 3000 - this was a full thirty two bit computer with a 100 MB hard drive and running at 25 MHZ - an Amiga 500. I had purchased a used Amiga 1000 and sent it to my mom, but she never took interest enough to use it much. I still have the Amiga 3000 in the garage. I intend on packing them up today and putting them into the attic as collectors items. I still love the Amiga, I just wonder what would have become of it if Microsoft would have chosen the Amiga platform...
Karen is cooking breakfast and I need to take a shower and make some more bullets for my new toy.
|
I really, really like my Desert Eagle!
In the last installment, I said that our son Michael was in Jail in Georgia. Since then, after a long and thoughtful conversation, Karen and I paid the bondsman's fee and bailed him out of jail. There is a good chance that he could have just sat there in jail for up to two years awaiting trial. We hope that upon extending our helping hand, once again, that we don't regret it.
Cheryl is still plugging along, she sleeps until noon usually each weekend day. She is a professional sleeper! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
I am still in the process of making a web page that will serve as a repository of information concerning the folks I worked with during my five year employment with Raytheon.
The link to this page is: http://www,jagowds.com/_jrs/chuck/raytard.htm
1-14-2001
We dodged the big "storm" that was headed our way a couple of weeks ago, it did leave it's mark much further North from here. All in all, our weather over the last couple of weeks has been pretty good. A little cold at times , but not too bad. We are hoping to go ride motorcycles today with our friends the Chaneys as it is supposed to get into the upper 50's here today.
The last time I posted here I was in the middle of starting a new web page that will serve as a repository of information concerning folks I worked with during my five year employment with Raytheon.
The link to this page will be: http://www,jagowds.com/_jrs/chuck/raytard.htm
As far as work goes, Karen is glad that the Christmas rush is over, Cheryl is still plugging along working in the juvenile courts and I am working steady out at the beach. Our command, Combat Direction Systems Activity Dam Neck, is right smack on the beach. If you wander about 100 yards east of our parking lot, you will be standing in the Atlantic ocean. Had to tour the USS Teddy Roosevelt, a nuclear aircraft carrier, for a "ship-check". We had to find room in the computer spaces for a new emulator that is to be installed on board hopefully before the end of February.
Karen and I decided upon early anniversary gifts, except I had to figure out how to pay for both of them, she received a very ornate hand crafted 18K gold ring with three linear diamonds surrounded by scribed roses. I received a Desert Eagle pistol. Karen may take the ring back and look for another as this one is a bit too small and it does not appear to be able to be sized. The pistol is very nice. I have been whining about this gun for several years now. Now I have nothing to whine about...
As the world turns...
Our daughter Cheryl is again pregnant. She is about 6 and a half weeks along. She expects delivery sometime in September. The father is Roderick Coleman.. It is a tough cookie for me swallow. But she is an adult and capable of adult things. So now she must grit through all of the "not-again" crap and carry on. I hope she has better luck this time...
Our son Michael is once again in trouble. Seems he was caught with a bag of mushrooms in Georgia and faces charges. He is currently in the Liberty County jail in Georgia. His bail is pretty steep and he is considered a "flight risk", that means the bondsman will not "bail" him out unless he holds significant collateral. We have refused to post his bail citing his irresponsibility. We have no idea of the actual severity of his predicament or the prospects there of. Again he is an adult, and has done adult things.
Life is what happens while you wait...