Lots and lots of practice!

Saw this in Minneapolis and thought it was cute!

As y’all probably know if you have been reading my blogs, I’m not traveling pretty from home as often these days so that I can spend a little more time with my wife. Don’t know if she has noticed or not, but hey . . . So, I flew to Detroit the old fashioned and boring way – as a dud . . . err . . . I mean a dude.

Despite the fact that I got into Detroit late and was gonna have to get up early, I took my fat rear end down to the hotels gym and got in about a 45 minute workout. Ya see, I’ve been gaining weight lately and I’m more than a little unhappy about it, so it’s time to pull my head outta my butt and do something about it. I just have to remind myself of the gown that I bought for SCC and what a shame it would be if it didn’t fit, and that tends to motivate me a bit!


I put in a long day with my customer, working on four instruments in one day. A few of my larger customers have come to realize that if they wait until multiple instruments need work to call me out, they can save a lot of money in travel charges. The problem with this (from my perspective) is that it leaves me trying to carry enough spares to work on so many instruments, and then having to try and work faster than I like to get them done in a reasonable time. This time I was kind of under the gun for time because I had to fly directly from Detroit to my next service call in Minneapolis, and it would cost a fortune and inconvenience my customer if I had to reschedule the next service call.

When the following morning came around, and it was time for me to get ready to fly to Minneapolis, I was having a major confidence crisis. Looking back on it in hindsight, given my low confidence level, I probably shouldn’t have picked this day to take fashion risks, but there you have it. Quite a long time ago my daughter in law gave me some dark green eye shadow, and given that I was wearing a green skirt and green ear rings, I thought it would be neat to try it. The thing is, it was much darker than I had thought it was going to be, and through the day, I would swear that it turned blue! To make matters worse, as I was applying the dark eye shadow, little flecks of it scattered on to my cheek bones leaving them peppered with dark spots that would not simply brush off. I had to wipe the spots off along with my foundation, and then reapply my foundation. Right then and there I thought about getting a shower and just making the trip as a male, but I had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that if I caved in to this lack of confidence, I might not ever get it back. I was afraid that it would just get worse and worse and I would return to the bad old days when I was terrified at the very thought of leaving my hotel room. It really was a close thing, but I did decide to suck it up and drive on. I also chose today to try out a new pair of shoes that were kind of strappy and with a four inch heel. I thought that they were cute, but I wasn’t entirely sure that they really complimented the outfit – I’ll leave that to you to decide.




The good news is, despite their looks, they were deceptively comfortable to wear.

As a male employee checked my rental car in at Avis in Detroit, a young female agent walked up and started to speak to me.
“Girl, you always have the neatest shoes!” she said with a huge smile and a laugh in her voice.
“Awe thank you! I’m a firm believer that life is way too short for ugly shoes!” I replied
“I hear that! You know, you’re gonna have to stick around here so that I can steal your shoes from you!”
“Over my dead and bleeding body!” I responded with a laugh “ But I might be convinced to let you borrow them from time to time.”
 As she was still laughing, the Avis bus driver made his way over to us.
“Which airline are you flying today Miss?” he asked in a very professional voice.
“I’m on US Airways this time.”
“Then this will be your bus. I’d be happy to take and load your bags aboard if that is all right with you?”
“I would appreciate it very much, thank you! Your name is Harmon right?” I asked him.
“That’s right. So you’ve ridden my bus before then?”
“I have! I have indeed!” I told him as he was getting my bags into the rack and as I took my seat. Once my bags were in place, he made his way past me to the drivers seat.
“Well then welcome back, and I hope that you have enjoyed your Avis experience!” he said with a smile.
“It was just great thank you. You know, I have actually written to Avis about you sir.” I confided in him as he went to take his seat. He actually stopped mid-way through the process of sitting down to turn and look at me.
“Good I hope?”, he asked with a smile.
“Absolutely! I told them that in more than ten years of traveling for a living, you were by far the most professional and pleasant Avis employee that I have ever met.”
“Well thank you!” he said with kind of a stunned tone of voice.
“You are most welcome, and thank you for taking care of my bags for me.”
(Note to self – write Avis again about him because the guy is just awesome!)

Checking in with US Airways, the lady that took care of me was perfectly cool about it, but the guy standing at the station next to hers looked like he was in shock and kept staring at me. I could see this out of the corner of my eye, but every time I turned to look at him he looked away. Tsk Tsk Tsk . . .

After getting through security, I was sitting at a bench putting my shoes back on when two female TSA agents were strolling by about five feet away from me.
“Pretty shoes!” One of them called out to me with a huge smile on her face. I just grinned and winked at her.
As the plane was making its way to the runway, I noticed that the level of conversation in the plane had just increased noticeably and so I glanced up from my book to see everyone looking out of the windows. Needless to say, I glanced out of my own to find a series of emergency vehicles making their way toward the runway as well. My first thought was “ah shit, someone is having a very bad day!”, but the more I thought about it, the more I figured that it must be some sort of training because I seriously doubted that airplanes would still be moving toward the runway if there was a serious problem out there. I suppose I was right, because we continued to taxi and then take off without issue.

 

When we arrived in the Philadelphia area where I was to catch my connecting flight, our airplane started to fly in a box-like circle around the airport, and after a few minutes the pilot came over the intercom to tell us that we had been put into a holding pattern due to “congested air space”. The good news is that we only circled for twenty minutes or so. The bad news is that my departing flight was delayed for almost three hours for the same reason, leaving me stuck in the airport for a good four hours. With so much time on my hands, I looked for a seat anywhere near a power outlet so that I could plug my laptop in and do some work, but much to my surprise I only found one, and it was in use. Still, I walked up to the woman that was using it and asked her if I might crowd her a little so that I could use the other plug of the outlet. “Sure! I know that I would hate to be without my PC, so pull up a seat!” she told me with a huge grin. I did just that, and then pulled out my laptop and its power transformer, and plugged it in. Much to my great regret, I did not hear the happy little “beep” sound that my laptop makes when it is plugged in, and so I checked all of my cables. All of them appeared to be well connected so I wiggled the plug at the wall to see if it was making a good connection or not. I never did hear a beep from it, and so I at last concluded that the second plug on this outlet must be bad. Disappointed, I reached behind our seats and pulled the cord out of the socket, and naturally, now that I had given up, I heard the beep of power applied, and then the “blurp” sound as the power was no longer available. She and I both started laughing at this, and I figured that this just proved there was power there and I was just getting a poor connection, and so I kept messing with it for a good five minutes or so. Once again though, I was forced to give up in disgust because I just could not get it to make a good connection no matter how I bent the prongs on my plug. I was rolling up my cables when the lady next to me spoke up.
“You know what? My phone is fully charged, why don’t you go ahead and take the plug?” she offered, and then reached out and unplugged her own transformer.
“Are you sure? I was just gonna do some work while I waited, and I don’t necessarily mind a good excuse to get me out of it!” I told her with a laugh.
“No problem! I’m all charged up and have to leave in a few minutes anyway, so it’s all yours!”
The reason I write about this mundane interaction is just because it was so casual. Here I was, clearly a cross dresser, and she didn’t care in the very least. She was perfectly happy to chat with me, sit next to me, and even go out of her way to be generous with me. Neat huh?

Several hours later it was about time to board the airplane, and so we were all standing near the door and waiting. I had been standing there for maybe five minutes when a man walked up to me. The first thing that I noticed were his eyes, because he had a sparkle in them that just kind of said “this is a nice guy that likes to laugh a lot”. As I was thinking this, he drew along side of me and leaned in to quietly speak to me.
“You’re hair is SO pretty!”
I was so surprised and kind of stunned by his unexpected comment, that I let out a laugh, and in a distinctly male voice blurted out “Well thank you!” He just grinned and continued walking by me as I sat there kicking myself for being startled into replying with such a male tone. It was all good though, because I was still grinning when I boarded the plane a few minutes later.

 The photos don’t do justice to the skirt that I was wearing as it is a very pretty light green, with flowers embroidered all over it, and a few little sparkles sewn into it. It’s really remarkably pretty, but it has a drawback that I later became aware of as I was making my way to baggage claim.
“Miss? Miss?” I heard a voice calling out. I turned to find that a woman pushing a baby carriage was calling to me, and so I stopped to wait for her.
“I thought that you would want to know that your skirt is caught.” I frantically tried to look over my left shoulder, wondering just how bad it was and how badly I had made a fool out of myself.
“No, on your other side.” She said, and then helpfully pointed to my right side. I was probably looking panicked, because she started to laugh.
 “Don’t worry, your underwear isn’t showing or anything like that, but it’s caught higher than I would like if it were me!” Feeling about two inches tall, I discovered that one of the sparkly do-dads on my skirt was caught on the embroidered stitching, resulting in the hem of the skirt being caught about half way up. It wasn’t so much a modesty problem, as that I hated the fact that I must have looked like an idiot, and no one had bothered to say anything through my entire walk to baggage claim until this kind woman had spoken up.
“Thank you SO much!” I blurted, feeling the blood rushing to my cheeks in embarrassment.
 “Your welcome!” She replied with a smile and then headed off. Uggghhhh . . . .

 So in the Minneapolis airport, once you get your baggage, you have to take a series of escalator’s and a tram to get to the rental cars. Yeah, you would think that I might have learned my lesson about taking my bags on escalators but I just hate waiting for elevators. Anyway, I was making my way from the tram to the escalator, pushing my tool box in front of me and pulling my suitcase behind me, when I had to slow down for an older gentleman who was in front of me and moving at a very slow pace. That’s not a problem though, because let’s face it, I’m at the end of a long day and I’m at my destination, so while I might prefer to walk faster, I really had no reason to be in a hurry. I slowed down so as not to rush the man and then pushed my tool box on, stepped on myself, and pulled my suitcase on behind me. I settled in for the ride to the top when the older gentleman slowly turned back to look at me.
“I don’t know how you can do this while wearing those heels” he says while shaking his head.
“Lots of practice sir.” I answered with a laugh.
“So I take it that you get lots of practice at it then?” he asked.
“Oh yeah, lots and lots of practice!”

Sometimes I sure wish that I was “normal” . . .

So I get up early as always to get out of the house before my kids wake up, and I was just gathering my things up to leave when my wife surprised me by coming down the stairs. I was kind of surprised at just how uncomfortable this made me. 

Years ago, when I first started going out into the big bad old world, she used to do my makeup for me, so it’s not like she has never seen me, but that was a long time ago, and to the best of my memory she hasn’t seen “Kim” in several years. The first thing she does when she hits the ground floor is to wave her hand in front of her nose.

“Too much perfume!” she said with a look of distaste on her face.

“Hey now! I used two spritz up into the air just like you taught me!” I laughed.

“Well maybe next time you should stick to one.” She said as she walked past me on the way to the coffee pot. That little interchange pretty much set the tone for the rest of my trip. . . .

So at 530AM, I am ready to head out, but since I know that my neighbor always goes to work at that time, I stood at the window waiting and watching his driveway.

“What are you waiting for?” my wife asked me.

“This is when Lee goes to work, so I’m waiting for him to leave.” I replied. She just kind of snickered her amusement at the situation. Ten minutes later I was still waiting though, and she spoke up again.

“You know, maybe he isn’t going to work today? If you are going to make your flight, you better just get on with it.”

“I guess you're right!” I told her, then gave her a hug and headed out to the truck with my bags. Of course the very second I got in my truck, my neighbor came out to leave, so I sat in the truck with the engine off and just waited until he headed out. I gave him a minute or two, then started my truck and headed off for the airport. That was when I realized that I had made another mistake – my route to the toll road is the same as his route to work, and I hadn’t thought about this until my truck was passing his truck. I drive an F150 – literally the most common vehicle on the road in Texas, so I doubt he would have realized that the “woman” driving by him was actually his neighbor, but I guess we’ll see when I get home!

As we were getting off of the plane in San Jose, I couldn’t help but notice that a guy sitting several seats ahead of me had a classic Mohawk, and the bare sides of his head was covered in blue/green tattoos shaped like scales. I tried to sneak a photo of him, but it just wasn’t feasible. 

Apparently seeing “Kim” again set my wife to thinking, because a few days into my trip she called and let me know how very unhappy she was about it all. She’s upset to see my things anywhere in the house or when she sees any of my clothes in the laundry, and she thinks that “Kim” is taking over our lives. By the end of the conversation I pretty much wanted to cry, because it seems that my choice is to either be miserable myself, or to make someone that I love miserable. On principles alone I will not go back into hiding myself or my things and I wont lie to her and tell her that I will stop when I know damned good and well that it is not something I can just give up. So I guess that I can try and give it all up, and pretty much hate my life, or I can keep making my wife of 24 years miserable.

Sometimes I sure wish that I was “normal” . . .

LOVE the bunny slippers

One of the first things that you learn when you move to central Texas is that allergy season here is pure hell. I’m not entirely sure why, I mean it’s not like the area is exactly covered in greenery and vegetation. Still, this time of the year it is not at all uncommon to walk out in the morning and find your car completely covered with a green coating of pollen and other allergens.  This was exactly the case when it came time to catch my flight to Detroit, and I was having a major allergy attack, with eyes bright red and swollen, tearing up, and my nose running like a faucet. Let’s just say that there was no way in hell that I was even gonna consider trying to fly there “pretty”. The trip home on the other hand . . . 

Given the unhappy results the last time that I took my bags up the escalator, I decided to use the elevators this time and try to avoid making a complete ass outta myself again. The first elevator was where the rental car bus drops you off, and then you walk across a bridge and take another elevator to get to the airline counters. When I entered the first elevator, a well-dressed man in a suit and tie followed me in. He took one look at me and started to grin.

“So, is this a weekend trip for you then?” he asked with a sparkle in his eyes.

“Not exactly!” I told him with a laugh.

After I crossed over the bridge and approached the next set of elevators, there were about five women standing there and discussing whether they should just take the escalator or wait for the elevator. I grinned, thinking of what had happened to me, and then entered the elevator when it arrived. In just a moment, the elevator was packed full as these women and their bags also entered.

“You made the right call in taking the elevator.” I told them all, and then proceeded to share the story of my little escalator mishap. As the elevator drew to a stop and the doors opened, all of the women were laughing as we exited.

It seems that Delta airlines is pretty much always a lot more expensive than US Airways, and so these days I am flying with US Airways a lot more than I used to. That kind of irritates me, because I really like Delta better – they have always been a lot friendlier, and unlike US Airways, Delta has never lost my luggage. In today’s economy though, I can’t possibly justify spending $600 more for flights just to use the airline that I prefer. I was pleasantly surprised as I checked in with the airline, because the woman behind the counter was genuinely friendly and helpful. Maybe it’s just the US Airways people in the Austin airport that are unfriendly? Tickets in hand, I made my way to a chair just outside of the TSA check point, where I stopped to take my laptop out of my bag and to remove my jewelry and stuff. While I was doing this, a young woman walked up to the chair next to me where she was also preparing for the security check point. I took one look at her shoes and busted out laughing, because she was wearing huge bunny slippers.

“LOVE your shoes!” I told her with a wink as she looked at me.

“Yeah, I didn’t get any sleep last night, so I figured I needed to be comfortable!” she told me with a frown.

“That’s cool! And here I thought that I was being brave!” I replied with a laugh.

Later on that afternoon I was sitting in the Charlotte airport waiting for my connecting flight when a tall woman came and sat down next to me. We sat there for a couple of hours because the plane was delayed, so she and I ended up chatting about this and that. Apparently we were both watching as an absolutely flawless woman was approaching the moving walkway wearing a tight and form fitting dress and four inch stiletto heels. She came to almost a complete stop at the entrance the walkway and then very carefully stepped onto it. I glanced at the woman next to me, who was about my own size and shape, and was gonna make a sarcastic comment about how it must be nice to be a perfect little size six, but she spoke first.

“I was just hoping that she was gonna bust her ass!” she told me with an evil grin.

I don’t know why we both thought this was hilarious, but we both laughed for quite a while about it . . .

A shining example of feminine grace and beauty (NOT)

So after you get your baggage at the Detroit airport, you have to go up a series of escalators to get to a bridge that takes you to the area where the rental car shuttle buses pick up and drop off. This is nothing new to me, because I’ve made this walk about a million times, or so it seems anyway, but this time things didn’t work out quite right.

Now you have to sort of get this picture into your head before you can really “see” the event I’m about to describe. I have a HUGE suitcase because let’s face it, I gotta carry enough clothes, shoes, makeup, and stuff for two people for a week. I also have to take a large rolling toolbox with me that carries all of my tools and spare components in it. Then, just to top it all off, I also have a backpack with my laptop, notebooks, kindle, GPS, and a good 25 pounds of assorted stuff in it. So, there I am, pushing my tool box in front of me and pulling my huge suitcase behind me as I head up the fairly narrow escalator. When I got the end of the escalator, I pushed the tool box forward and stepped off of the escalator just as I always have.

Well, that was the plan anyway, but it didn’t quite work out that way. . .

At the end of the escalator I pushed the tool box forward and it went absolutely nowhere – it simply stopped at the end, trapping me behind it on the still moving escalator. Realizing that the escalator was moving me, and the people behind me, toward the now blocked exit, I reached out my foot and shoved the box as hard as I could . . . and still the damn thing wouldn’t budge. Now things are really getting exciting, because the box is blocking the narrow exit of the escalator, the escalator is still happily moving me and everyone behind me toward the blockage, I’m off balance because I’ve got one foot desperately trying to shove the tool box forward, and I just ran out of room. You know, I would have paid good money to have someone filming or taking pictures when I was left with no choice but to leap over the toolbox, while wearing a dress and four inch stiletto sandals! Once on the other side of the tool box and now looking down the escalator at all of the people that are about to run into my little road block, I grabbed it with both hands and yanked it as hard as I could. At last, the tool box came free and went sliding about ten feet across the floor, along with the backpack that had been sitting on top of it. With the tool box now out of the way, my suitcase was free to tip over, and so I reached out and snatched it out of the way just as the next person behind me got to the top of the escalator. Horribly embarrassed, I made my way from bag to bag, picking them up and apologizing to the folks behind me that had come within seconds of also having to jump over my baggage. The man that was behind me helped me grab my things and even offered to take one of the bags up the next escalator for me. The woman that was right behind him just gave me this horrible “You are SUCH a loser” look that it made me want to wilt and die on the spot.

When I got to the rental car lot and stepped off of the bus, I was making my way to the board where they display your name and the space where your car is located, when an Avis employee walked up to me.

“Your car is in space G11 ma’am” he told me with a smile

“Thank you!” I replied, and then turned to find the space when it struck me. He hadn’t asked for my name or anything, and yet knew which car was mine. Now despite the show I had put on at the escalator earlier, I am not an idiot, and so it doesn’t surprise me that he recognized the cross dresser that has done so much business there, but the fact that he remembered the name that went with the cross dresser was pretty impressive. I was still thinking of this when I handed my contract and drivers license to the female guard at the gate.

“Well look at you!” she said as she compared the two documents. “Looking all pretty and everything!”

“Awe, thanks!” I replied. And then things got a little weird as she continued to gush

“You are REALLY pretty, and wearing your pretty little dress and everything. You make me think of Rupaul – he is so gorgeous!”

“He IS pretty, isn’t he? Yeah, but I’m nowhere near being in his league!”

“Have you seen his show before? Rupaul’s Drag Race?” she asked.

“You know, believe it or not, I’ve never seen it!”

“Well you should check it out!” she said, and then continued to just stare at me without handing me my things back. “You just look so cute with your perfect hair and pretty dress!”

“Thank you . . . “ I told her again, trying to give her a smile, but starting to get distinctly uncomfortable. 

I wonder if she realizes that she ran a serious risk of offending me? Nothing against RuPaul, but your average TG out and about and living their life, isn’t necessarily going to like being compared to a self-proclaimed drag queen, even if we are talking about a world famous and pretty one.  Still, I like to take into account what someone’s intent is, and she was trying to be nice.

Nuttin' Happened . . .

This was another one of those trips where it’s almost not worth writing the story up because nothing terribly interesting happened. I guess that’s a good thing, because it implies that I, and the people that I interact with, are so comfortable with the whole cross dressing thing that it’s nothing special. I suppose that I should be pleased!

Ahead of me in line at the airline counter was a young couple, apparently on their way to get married. He was asking about the cost to upgrade them to first class and then made the decision to go ahead and do it.

“Now I have to warn you, I can get you both into first class, but I don’t have any adjoining seats. Are you OK with that?” the customer service rep asked them.

“Sure, that will be OK” the young man told her, after glancing at his lady for confirmation.

“You can always ask the people next to you if they will move so that you can sit together. Very few people will tell you no. Oh, and I find that it helps a lot of you tell the person sitting next to you that you get violently ill with motion sickness. They just can’t wait to trade seats after you tell them that!”  That got a huge laugh from all of us within ear shot.

This time I was flying with US Airways, and much to my disappointment I discovered that I had gone from being “Gold Preferred” to “Silver Preferred”. What this means is that my odds of getting upgrades to first class on US Airways just plummeted AND I guess that they are supposed to charge me for my second bag.

“OK, so I see that you are silver preferred!” said the customer service rep with a smile as she checked me in.

“Silver? I thought I was Gold? Heck, I’ve even got this purty little card y’all sent me saying that I’m Gold” I replied while handing her the card.

“Yeah, they updated everyone’s status on March first, and it looks like you didn’t make Gold this time. Sorry. . .” she told me, managing to look honestly unhappy about it.

“Oh well, bummer! No worries though.”

“I guess I’m supposed to charge you for the second bag, but I think we’ll just overlook that – what do you think?” she said with a grin.

“I think that sounds awesome – thank you!”

So tickets in hand I headed over to a bench before the security check point to pull my laptop out of it’s bag and to take of my jewelry, and out of the corner of my eye I can see that someone is walking directly toward me. I glanced up and found a very pretty woman with gorgeous hair down to her waist looking straight at me, and so I stopped to wait for her.

“You know, I just had to tell you how much I love that coat!” she told me, pointing at my pretty blue coat.

“Awe, thank you! It is kind of pretty isn’t it? I think I got it at JC Pennys a while back.” I replied with a huge smile. Let’s face it, I love getting compliments from women – there is something most gratifying and affirming about it.

We're gonna share 'em!

So my wife, our two youngest children, and I all went shopping in a Goodwill yesterday. On the way to the check out counter my 8 year old daughter and I stopped to look at the ear ring racks. She and I both liked a couple of pair that were pretty, and so I looked at her and said "All right, tell ya what - I'll get 'em and we can share 'em OK?"
"OK Daddy!"
So we get to the check out counter and the girl behind the counter says "Wow - those are pretty!" when she was ringing them up.
"Yeah, my daddy and I are gonna share 'em!" my daughter proudly proclaimed to the woman and more than loud enough for everyone in line behind us to hear.
Oops . . .

Orange County Choppers

 

So I had just gone through the TSA check point and am sitting down putting my shoes and sparklies back on when I notice a beautiful woman going through the check point wearing absolutely killer heels. They were about four inches tall and tan with red accents. Given the fact that she was exceptionally attractive, well dressed, and wearing awesome shoes, she was getting quite a bit of attention and I could hear one of the female TSA agents telling her how much she liked the shoes and then they had a short conversation about them. As soon as the woman moved off, the guy that was in line behind her started talking to the same TSA agent.

“Those were some serious shoes weren’t they? I wish I could wear shoes like that!” he said with a laugh and a theatrical exaggeration. Considering that I was putting my own high heels on as they were laughing at his joke, I almost choked. If I had been close enough that I wouldn’t have had to yell, I’m pretty sure that I would have gone ahead and told him that he could have worn shoes like that if he really wanted to . . .

A mother and her little girl (about four or five years old I would guess) came and sat down next to me to put their things away. The little girl was cute as a doll and I couldn’t help but grin as I noticed the large and elaborately jeweled Tierra that she was wearing.

“You know, I KNEW I was forgetting something this morning! I left my Tierra at home!” I told the two of them with a smile and a wink.

“I KNOW! And they go with everything!” the mother replied with a brilliant smile.

So as I was sitting on the plane to Albany, I was surprised when the young woman in the seat in front of me turns around to speak to me.

“Hey, I know you! You were on my last flight to Albany too!” she said with a grin.

“I thought you looked familiar!” I replied with a laugh. “You work in the medical field right?”

“Yes, and you are an engineer right?”

“You got it! So we both lucked out when it comes to upgrades to first class on this flight huh? Once you get used to flying first class, flying sardine class really sucks!”

“Yes. In fact if I remember right, you and I were both upgraded on that last flight and that was what we talking about.” She replied.

“You know I just don’t get it. I’m platinum on Delta and Gold with US Airways, and yet there are people that fly more often than I do?! What in the heck can they possibly do that has them on planes more often than I am?” I asked her.

“I know right?!” she answered.

I was working in Fishkill New York installing one of our Ozone generators. I guess most people don’t know about it, but sometimes they use high concentrations of Ozone in the fabrication process of semiconductors (computer chips). I am really starting to get kind of frustrated when installing these things because I keep having the same issue – customers insisting that they are ready to go and that they need us there ASAP to do the install, and then I arrive to find out that they were nowhere near ready. We send them checklists and everything in advance, telling them that they must do this and that before we arrive, they tell us that they have done it all, and then we arrive to find out that they lied and are not ready. In this case, Bret, one of my colleagues from New Hampshire, and I arrived to find out that they didn’t even have electricity to our system yet! Still, we did all that we could without power before reaching the point where there was nothing left that could be accomplished. At that point, we headed off for a nice long lunch, then did a little shopping for some minor expendables we knew we were going to need, and then we sat there looking at each other.

“Well, we could go see a movie, but sure as hell, just as soon as we paid for the tickets and sat down, we would get the call that the power was now on and we would have to bail out.” I told him.

“Yeah, I’m not all that big on movies anyway.” He replied, and then his face lit up. “Hey, have you ever watched that show ‘Orange County Choppers’ on the Discovery channel?”

“Sure. I love the bikes they make” I replied.

“Well their shop is only about twenty minutes from here. Ya wanna go check it out?”

“Hell yeah!”

And off we went . . .

As far as I can tell, it is pretty much a huge tourist trap. This immense store, and it is filled with T-shirts, caps, mugs, etc, etc and relatively speaking, very few bikes. Still, it was pretty cool to look at the bikes they had on display and to read the stories behind them. Oh, and I did get my wife and father in law T-shirts and a coffee mug. 

 





 

Somewhere in the next day or so, they did at last get power to our system, and we started testing all of its safety interlocks and then trying to operate it. I wont bore you with too many details, but the system basically works by running Oxygen through these special gas cells where a LOT of power is applied to cause electrical discharges – more or less creating lightning inside our system, which then converts some of the Oxygen into Ozone. That’s the plan anyway. The bad news is, that if your customer does something really silly, like, oh I don’t know, connecting the Oxygen line to your tool to an entirely different gas, very bad things can and will happen. In this case, they apparently filled the oxygen plumbing with Argon while they were working on it for safeties sake. Pure Oxygen is a very dangerous thing around welding or sparks and so I understand why they would do this. The thing is, when the work on the Oxygen line is complete, one would expect them to remove it from the Argon supply and actually connect it to Oxygen, but they hadn’t. . .

 
 

It probably doesn’t sound like too big a deal, but it was. With the generator filled with Argon instead of Oxygen, this means that we were not creating lightning and ozone inside it, but were creating a plasma instead. As far as the power supplies and other electrical components in our system are concerned, a plasma is pretty much a direct short, and very bad things happen when you short out high voltage power supplies. Suffice it to say that they destroyed one of the two brand new Ozone generators and so I had the pleasure of spending the weekend so that I could wait for my colleague to hand carry the destroyed generator back to the factory to have it repaired and then bring it back the next week.

That night I went to the sports bar in the hotel for dinner and even though I was in boy mode, I bought a “girlie” drink called a “she-she” - and no, I swear that I didn’t make that up. So when the drink arrived I couldn’t help thinking “Damn but that thing is pretty – let’s take a photo of it!” As I was taking out my phone to snap a pic, I noticed a table with about half a dozen people sitting at it, and they are all looking at me! As I found my phone and start lining up the shot, a middle aged guy from their table gets up to make his way to me, and he starts to roar with laughter as he sees the camera. He stopped mid-way and turned back to his table.

“Look it that! That drink is so pretty he’s taking a picture of it!” The whole table busted out laughing and the man continued on his way to me as I snapped the photo.

 
 

“What IS that drink?” he asked, still laughing. So we went back and forth with my laughing with him and telling him all of the stuff that is in the drink. Here I thought that they were making fun of me, but this guy and one other from the table were just irritated that they had already ordered something else. Shortly after he returned to his table, a waiter came walking by me and winked while nodding his head toward the other table.

“Those folks sure are enjoying your drink!”

I pretty much had a movie marathon that weekend. I saw them as Kimberly but not a thing really happened that was amusing or interesting and so I guess I’ll just tell ya what I thought of the movies.

Red Tails – This is a movie about the Tuskegee Airmen in WWII. The special effects and cinematography were absolutely incredible. It’s hard to believe that the footage wasn’t real – it was THAT realistic. The bad news though is that some of the dialogue and acting was a bit lacking. It was almost as if the primary goal of the movie was to educate people and not to entertain them, and that’s OK, just be prepared for it. Like at one point, the Red Tails had just saved the lives of dozens of bomber crews, and one of the bomber pilots says something lame like “Gee, those red tails just saved our butts. I sure hope that we get them next time!” It wouldn’t have been so bad if the guy hadn’t said it in a monotone as if reading from a cue card. In my opinion, the movie was worth seeing, I just wish they had devoted a little more effort to the story instead of expending it all on the effects.

"Chronicle" - Not a bad show. This movie was about some teenagers who end up with super hero type powers and the chaos that follows. I thought it was OK, but three guys walking down the ramp behind me were loudly stating that it was "the worst F'n movie they had ever seen". Yeah, it wasn’t the best movie I’d ever seen, but also wasn’t the worst.

"Safe House" - pretty good action flick and the time passed quickly. It’s about a veteran secret agent that goes rogue, and the efforts of a new agent to try and capture him. Cant say much more without giving away things, so I’ll just leave it at that and say that I enjoyed it and the time passed quickly.

"Ghost Rider" - I love Cage, but this movie sucked - I wouldn't even spend the money to rent the DVD if I were you. I liked the first show, but this sequel was pretty much lacking in every way. Major disappointment . . .

 
 

 

When it came time to fly home, I would have had to get up at 2AM to fly pretty, and even I’m not THAT crazy, so I flew home the boring old fashioned way. At the Austin airport while I was waiting for my bags, I was chatting with the woman standing next to me. She grabbed a bag that came around, then laughed that it wasn’t hers and put it back. When my rather large and over packed bag rolled around and I struggle to lift it off of the belt, I saw her giving me an amused look.

“Yeah, I know – I don’t exactly travel light!” I told her with a laugh.

“I see this! I’m guessing there is a woman involved in this trip?” she asked with a sparkle in her eyes.

“Yes, ma’am, you could say that!” I replied as I extended my bags handle and headed for the door while grinning like an idiot.