Friday, September 7, 2007

Rambling Man

I'm rambling today so be prepared.

Isn't it wonderful when you have problems connecting to the Internet? We had some severe weather last night and lost power a couple of times (lots of lightning strikes, some very close). Evidently, one of the resulting strikes knocked out the wireless base station and I spent a good portion of today in trouble shooting and recovery mode.

The bottom line, it looks like a new base station is in order and thus, I did not have any time to do any research on the Marshall Plan today. I must explain my priorities however. During a normal week, golf is in first place. NK is generally OK with this. When I retired I was told not to interrupt her morning routine so I take that as my guide to good relations and play and practice in the morning.

Today however, my goal ignored golf, I had to bring us back to the connected world. After trying all I could think of I had to do the unspeakable, call the ISP. Then after waiting for about 30 minutes on hold, and trying a number of different options, we jointly decided that the base station was kaput (that is a German word for no longer working).

So, my priority shifted back to golf and I went out to practice (it was to late to play as I was cooking dinner tonight). After whacking a few on the driving range, I noticed that a few yellowjackets had appeared, then more and still more. Before I knew it there was an infestation.

Don't get excited, it was just one of the local high school golf teams, the TJ Yellowjackets. So, I finished up there after talking to the coach of the team and came home to cook dinner (which is really the subject of my story today (we had Potstickers and Fried Rice, all homemade of course).

NK has been trying to find a Microplane for some time. About a week ago we decided to take a trip west to the Factory Outlets where we knew we would find said item. We did not find it and were about to walk out in disgust when lo and behold, there at the front of the store, right next to the counter, the one that held the cash register, we saw it.

The Micorplane, it was really there. And not only that, right next to the Microplane was the device that keeps you from adding human flesh to your meal. We call it the skin saver, since when you are shredding something like garlic or ginger, your hands do not come in contact with the shredder and only the desired ingredients are added. It is a miracle tool and I love it.

So now that I have rambled on about nothing, and since I also have a connection to the outside world again, I will get back to my research in hopes of finishing the Marshall Plan. In the meantime, the good General in charge has indicated that all is not well in Iraq but wants us to be patient. While everyone there deserves our support, our leadership does not deserve our patience.

For BW, I am still reading the RS article and my comments on the Marshall Plan will include my thougts on the "Swindle". In case anyone is interested, there is a very good book on the subject (now in the hands of CK) titled Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Some of the info from the Rolling Stone article came from the aforementioned book.

No comments: