Who Are You? with EDIT

I was recently tagged by Joe of CrankyOldMan to participate in this 25 question "getting to know you" exercise.  As there doesn't seem to be a male version of this questionnaire I guess I'm stuck with this one.  But, never one to back down from a challenge, I'll give it a shot....

WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
San Antonio, Texas

WERE YOU NAMED AFTER SOMEONE?
Yes, the Scott family, the first people to befriend my parents when they moved to North Texas.

IF YOU HAVE ANY CHILDREN, HOW MANY DO YOU HAVE?
Three daughters, ages 36, 33, and 30.

HOW MANY PETS DO YOU HAVE?
One, Luke, a Yorkshire Terrier.

WHAT IS YOUR WORST INJURY?
Injury?  My worst "medical issue" was a series of detached retina's in my left eye.

DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
I float.  I can't swim along on the bottom of a pool. When I try I shoot back up to the surface.  Friends use this as proof that I'm full of hot air.  ;)

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE THING TO BAKE?
Probably brownies.  Really, if it comes in a box with instructions and requires no more than 3 ingredients, I can bake the heck out of it.  I'm a regular Freddy Crocker.

FAVORITE FAST FOOD?
Fuzzy's Tacos.  I love their tempura shrimp tacos.  And with a slogan like this (for real)....

....how could I NOT like it?

WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
Yes, and no.  I'd love to, but after my detached retina problems a few years ago my doc said no activities with an abrupt stop at the end.

WHAT'S THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Their eyes and smile.  And then if I find they have a good sense of humor, too, so much the better.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
The last time I saw one of those Humane Society commercials that showed abused/neglected/abandoned dogs.  *snif*

ANY CURRENT WORRIES?
Probably financial security issues.  I've made and lost multiple fortunes (?) in my life.  I guess now I'm just paranoid.

NAME 3 DRINKS THAT YOU DRINK REGULARLY.
Coke Zero, Arnold Palmer Half & Half Iced Tea/Lemonade, and Trader Joe's Caffe Latte.

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE BOOK?
While I don't read many books (I prefer magazines) I'd have to say something by Frederick Forsyth or Tom Clancy.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE A PIRATE?
Aaaargh!  I mean, sure.

FAVORITE SMELLS?
Rich, very high quality leather, especially when covering the seats of a vintage car.

WHY DO YOU BLOG?
To meet people; to write something that might get people thinking and talking and hopefully smiling, too.

WHAT SONG DO YOU WANT PLAYED AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Amazing Grace, by the pipes/drums/brass of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. (Hear it here.  Be sure and wait until the brass kicks in.  Wow!)

WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
I'm hard to get close to.  I have lots of "friends", but very few really, really CLOSE friends.  And I talk too much.

FAVORITE HOBBY?
Today I'd have to say reading, blogging, and activities involving automobiles.  A few years ago I would have answered anything involving aviation, but my eye/retina problems have made that past tense.

WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A FRIEND?
Someone who can make me laugh, and who I can always trust.

NAME SOMETHING YOU'VE DONE THAT YOU NEVER THOUGHT YOU WOULD.
I've flown on most of the really great/historic aircraft of World War II.

     LATE EDIT:  I have one "trap" (landing) and one "cat shot" (catapult launch) from a US Navy aircraft carrier at sea.  I'll have to tell that story some other time.

ANY PET PEEVES?
Bad renditions of the Star Spangled Banner; people who drive slower than the posted speed limit.

WHAT'S THE LAST THING THAT MADE YOU LAUGH?
Watching my dog watch the Westminster Dog Show on TV last night.  Actually I find humor everywhere.

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The instructions say I'm now supposed to tag 10 other people and challenge them to reveal 25 things about themselves, too.  While many of these have already been tagged elsewhere, I'm gonna tag 'em again anyway.  Folks, in no particular order....you're up:

PT Dilloway

Betina/Pixel Peeper @ Thoughts From My Corner of the Couch

Old Geezer @ Old Geezers Out to Lunch

Dana/Bug @ Bugs Eye View

Dr. Mike @ Child of a Frosty Morning

Bruce @ Oddball Observations

Jim @ Suldog

Doug @ The Voice Inside My Eye

Jimmy @ Jimmy's Opinion

Ben @ BenB

And finally, James Bond @ Skyfall.com (just in case he reads my blog.)

Adios y'all....

S

Me from A to Z

Shades of JournalSpace!  These sorts of personal expose's were common back "in the day", but I haven't seen one since JS permanently crashed.   This exercise was at the suggestion of my friend Suldog, and at his request I'll play along.  Here's me, from A to Z:

Age:  62 chronologically, much less emotionally.  K sometimes says I'm a "stick in the mud", and I'm sure I am at times, but most of the time I'm having too much fun to act my age.  That may be because I pretty much toed the line as a kid and now I'm making up for lost time.

Bed Size:  Queen.  To me a King is just too big.  They're so big you can stretch out and never even know you're in bed with anyone else.  I like to think snuggling in a Queen bed is the perfect way to promote world peace.  *I can't imagine why that line hasn't worked better?*

Chore I Hate:  Yard work, hands down.  I hate mowing, edging, weed-eating, trimming shrubs, raking leaves, fertilizing, spraying for various bugs and lawn diseases....all of it.  All so it can look good for maybe 3 days until it starts looking shaggy again?  Talk about an exercise in futility!

Dogs?  I love dogs, pretty much all dogs.  But I only want a small to medium sized dog for myself.  Big dogs have too much going in one end and coming out the other.  My love of dogs is odd since my parents didn't have dogs and therefore I was never around one as a kid.  Right now we have a Yorkshire Terrier (Luke), and before him we had a Miniature Schnauzer (Emma), a West Highland White Terrier (Tara), and many years ago (pre K) I had an American Eskimo (Tahsha).  Dogs bring me much happiness.  :)

Essential start to my day:  A cold beverage.  Right now I'm partial to Trader Joe's Latte's and Mocha Cappuccino's.

Favorite color:  I'm easy.  I like green, blue, red....there's no color in particular I plan my wardrobe or room furnishings around.  If it looks good in context, I like it.

Gold or Silver?  Silver.  It's less flashy than gold.  I'm not a flashy person.

House or Apartment?  For 35+ years I owned my own home(s), but for the last 4 years I've had an apartment and I LOVE IT!  In fairness, at certain times in my life, such as when I had small children and they needed a safe place to play, a house was perfect.  But I'm long past that now.   A house again someday?  Never say never. *wink*

Instruments played:  AM radio, FM radio, Quadraphonic stereo, 8-track, cassettes, CD's and iPods.  I'm accomplished in them all.  ;)

Job title:  Until last fall, President of Park Place Custom Homes.  That sounds impressive until you read my job description:  "Responsible for every shitty detail if no one else can be found to dump it on."  Now I'm semi-retarded.

Kids:  Three daughters; Kristan, Andrea, and Erica.  Today all are grown, well educated, and gainfully employed.  *happy dance*  They've also blessed me with four grandkids (Austin, Colby, Parker, and Blakely), with one more (Reese) on the way.

Live:  If that's a long "i", yes I am.  Otherwise, in Frisco, TX, a far-northern Dallas suburb.

Married:  Happily, to the lovely and talented "K".  Six years so far and counting.  :)

Never Again....will I ever sign my name to a mega-million dollar bank note.  Been there, done that, (successfully) escaped by the skin of my teeth.  I don't trust #$%& bankers.  "He who has the gold makes the rules", and the rules are 100% tilted in their favor.  Always!

Other Fun Facts:  I love history (college minor), and in particular aviation history.   For a while I was a docent at a Smithsonian-affiliated aviation museum.  I was also very active for nearly two decades with the Confederate Air Force, today known as the Commemorative Air Force.  I traveled the country on their behalf and had a great time, but what I did was extremely dangerous and about 8 years ago I figured I'd pushed my luck long enough and hung up my chocks.  

Pet Peeves:  People who throw cigarette butts on the pavement, people who make messes and leave it for someone else to clean up, f__ked-up renditions of the Star Spangled Banner, people who pull in front of me on the road and then just poke along, cops who get all bent out of shape when I do 54 in a 40....

Quote:  "Character means doing the right thing, even when no one is watching."  (author unknown)  Also: "Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never - in nothing great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense." (Winston Churchill)

Righty or Lefty?  Righty, although I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous!

Siblings:  One, Todd.  Good guy, business partner, extremely competent, totally trustworthy.  He's 11 years younger than me (can you say "Oops"), so we were never close as kids.  Especially after the time I put him in the clothes dryer and gave him a couple of spins.  (Oh stop it!  You know you'd have loved to do the same thing to your kid bro/sis.  You just didn't think of it.)

Time you wake up:  Wake up around 5:30 (thanks to Luke the Wonder Dog), feet hit the floor about 6.

University attended:  Texas Tech University, class of '72.  Nine of the happiest years of my life!  (Kidding....I made it in 4.)

Veggies I dislike:  Pretty much all of them, especially those that have a color...yellow, green, red, orange...yuck! The blue ones aren't too bad.  And I do like jalapenos.  (When I was a kid to get my mother to quit bugging me I convinced her a jalapeno was a green vegetable.)  

What makes you run late?  Very few things.  I'm extremely punctual.

X-rays?  Sure.  For dental work, of course.  And on my head to see if I was "normal"....oh, and to check out my sinuses, and on my back, and on the typical assorted adolescent broken bones. 

Yum foods?  Steak!  Mexican!  Italian!  Banana pudding!  Pecan pie!  Ice cream!  (I'll stop there as this post is already waaaay too long.)

Zoo animal (favorite):   I'm not really into zoo's all that much, but I'd have to say it would probably be one of the birds of prey.  I find them fascinating.

OK, that's me.  Now as Jim (Suldog) challenged me, I'm challenging you to do one of these on yourself.  I think it's a pretty cool way to learn more about your blogging friends.  

Hope you enjoyed.  :)

S

An offer they can't refuse....

Good morning world!

I heard on the Happy News this morning that men are helping out around the house more these days.  Not much more, but more than the 0% from days past.  The report said that women spend 52 minutes a day doing housework while men do 16 minutes a day, and women do 70% of the laundry, too.

Another advantage to downsizing to a much smaller place....there's less to clean.  I make up the bed 'cause I'm the last one up.  K does 90% of the cooking, while I do 90% of the clean up.  The laundry is pretty much 50-50.  A housekeeper every other week for a few hours does the heavy lifting.  We could do it ourselves, but after all these years Geneva is like family.  She stays.  

How about at your casa?

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Let's see....first there were the Castelano's, the Gambino's, and the Bonanno's, and now we have the USB's, the RBS's, the Citi's, the JPMorganChase's and a bunch more, too.  The list of mafia outfits grows every day.  HSBC just paid a $1.9B fine for money laundering.  (They helped Iran and the Mexican drug cartels.)  A dozen other banks are ratting on each other over their interest-rate-rigging scandal in the UK.  (Their defense....the others were more guilty than they were.)  

Now there are a combined TRILLION dollars in claims pending against BofA, JPMorganChase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and others over their fraudulent mortgage securities businesses.  The banks will probably settle for something like $400B.  (Does this mean they'll get away with the other $600B?  How is that fair?)  

The only thing missing from this organized crime drama is some executive "whacking" in broad daylight while they're eating their spaghetti dinners.  (Personally I'd classify that as "justifiable homicide".)

First we had "too big to fail".  Now we have "too big to indict".  It seems the Feds are offering plea bargains to the banks rather than indicting their ivory tower Dons because they're afraid a guilty verdict in court would scare away investors and the banks would go belly-up.  Then us taxpayers would get stuck with the clean up.

The message here....if you're gonna commit a crime, make it a BIG ONE!

Now, unless you're a banker....have a nice day.  :)

S

It was sheer pandolerium!

This was the scene yesterday at the new Trader Joe's that opened in Plano, just a couple of miles away from us.  We had dinner out last night, then thought we'd drive by TJ's and check it out.  It was crazy!  People began camping out the night before to be among the first ones inside on opening day.  We didn't dare buy anything because there were 20 people deep at every check out.  We just did a quick reconnoiter, found the snack aisle and the Three Buck Chuck (wine) display, then fought our way back outside.  Whew!  Maybe we'll try again in a couple o' weeks. 

One disappointment:  It's a tiny little store.  I thought it would be like a regular grocery store, but it's maybe 20% as large as Central Market or Whole Foods.  Maybe they're trading quantity for quality.  I'll let you know.

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I took Luke The Yorkshire Terrier out this morning as usual to find the weather had changed dramatically from yesterday's 104 degrees.  As forecast, the wind was howling at 20+ mph and the temp was in the mid-60's.  I was lovin' it, but the Lukester....not so much.  The poor little dude would find himself a nice tree and hoist his leg....and then he'd blow over.  Another tree, another try, same result.  (His "trees" were more like a big bushes, but when you're as small as he is, I guess even a bush looks like a tree.)  I finally took him over to the construction site a block away where he used one of their big orange "road closed" barrels as a wind break and completed his mission. I wish I'd had my camera....it was a hoot!

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Yesterday they opened a 41-mile-long stretch of toll road between San Antonio and Austin, TX.  With a speed limit of 85 mph it's billed as "the fastest road in America".  I hate to be the one to break the bad news to the toll road authorities, but no one is going to pay money to slow down to 85 when they can drive 90 (illegally) for free everywhere else.

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Going back outside to get me some more cool.  :)  

Have a great Saturday, everyone.

S

Trader Joe's is coming!

I don't know why that title deserves an exclamation point, but according to everyone familiar with Trader Joe's it's at the very pinnacle of the grocery store pyramid, so I'll go along, too.  I know my friend Bruce is posting regular updates on the progress of the Trader Joe's being built in his hometown in AZ and is just giddy with anticipation.  K spent years in California when she was in the Navy saving the rest of us from the scourge of creeping communism and swears TJ's (as I'll hereafter refer to it) is indeed special.


We got the word yesterday that TJ's is opening 2 stores in the Dallas area, one being in Plano just 2 miles from where we live.  I hope they're not over-hyping it to the point it opens and people just yawn.  I think that's what happened when they opened In and Out Burgers in Dallas.  The lines were huge at first, but then people decided it was just another burger.  (Mooyah's has better ones.)  Right now Central Market and Market Street are our prefered specialty "foodie" grocers.  It's gonna be interesting when they all go head-to-head in a few months.


Today is the first of 4 holiday days off for K.  For me, considering how little I have to do at work right now, this will make it number 8 of 11 days off.  If I'd started learning a foreign language last Friday I could be fluent in it by the time I go back to work next Tuesday.  Another missed opportunity.  Darn!


Have a great weekend everyone.  :)


S