Giving Thanks

Today is Thanksgiving and as we reflect on the year, there is a lot to be thankful year even in a "down" year.  

I'm thankful that I have a wonderful and supportive family who have helped out in a year when things got a little tight, and were there to keep me less stressed about the time it took to find  a new contract.  I'm also thankful that my career so far has been as good as it has and allowed me to have the skills necessary to land the contract that I ultimately got, working with 3 other people I know, and a 4th that seems like I've worked with him for years.

I'm thankful for my Grandmother who turned 100 this year and thankful for all the time I have been able to spend with her over the years.  I'm mostly thankful that she remains relatively healthy, alert and able to do a lot of things for herself, and that she was able to move to the wonderful place that she lives in now.

I'm thankful that my kids have all graduated from school and are now both teachers and are working.  I'm thankful that they have found spouses that they love and cherish so much, and that they found each other and are part of our family.

I'm thankful for the ups and downs of life, the ups which are great to celebrate, and the downs that just remind you that you are human, and we should take nothing for granted. 

But I'm mostly thankful for my Granddaughter, a gift to us from God, and has come into our lives because of the love of two people who love her so much that they entrusted her care with two others who will continue to love her as their own.  We are so grateful to have her in our lives.

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!

Turn Back the Clock Night

It used to be easy.

Back in the 60's and 70's when life was a lot less complicated and analog clocks were the norm rather than the exception, changing from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time was easy.  simply turn the dial counter-clockwise (now there's an outdated term for you) one complete revolution, and there you go.  Usually you had a kitchen clock, and a bedroom wind up alarm clock.  And maybe a big wall clock in the living room. And your wrist watch required you to pull a little pin out and spin the dial back. 

Ah, the good old days.

Now, it's a major event to turn back the clocks, if you even need to do it.  There are clocks in everything.  From VCR's, TV's Computers, Microwaves, and now even my watch has 3 different time zones on it.  Some of them set themselves automatically because I told the thing where I live.  Some you still have to manually set them.   And they are all digital.

And that's the problem.   I don't know which ones to set ahead of time and which ones not to.   The computers are all easy.  The software will automatically move back at 2 AM tomorrow morning, so that it will be 1 AM.   The Tivo will also set itself, but I'm not sure whether the VCR/DVD player or the TV's will reset or not.  Not a big problem since I don't record anything on tape anymore.   Used to be a problem if I was recording something on Sunday.

I have 4 clock Radios.  One I know has to be set, but it only moves forward.  So I can't move it backwards, I have to move it AHEAD 23 hours to get it set.  And it doesn't have a separate hour and minute button, so I have to hold the button down until it fasts forward through all the minutes and hours 1,380 in all.  Thank goodness it speeds up after a few seconds.

The other 3 I'm not sure what they will do, so I have to wait until Sunday morning to see what time it sets too, or doesn't.  I'm pretty sure my watch doesn't reset itself in any of the time zones, so I will use that as my baseline to determine what time it is tomorrow.    I also have an atomic clock that I think sets itself (it has some kind of radio signal), but I'm never sure.

Then there's the analog clock on the stove, that still needs to be dialed back an hour, but the plastic thingy that makes that easy to do, broke off years ago, so I either have to destroy my fingers to do it, or find the old rusty pliers to set it.

And finally the cell phone.  That simply needs to be turned off and turned on again to reset.  Please don't call me with questions.

Enjoy the long weekend.

Only took 9 months

On January 22nd, I was informed that I would be laid off by my former company.   On October 22nd, I was officially offered a position that I would accept. It was actually my 2nd offer, but the first one wouldn't start until early December, and would be back on the east coast.

It has been a long and sometimes frustrating process, but in the end, I got most of what I wanted.  I will be working with a new version of the software that I have been using for 25 years, as well as an increase in pay from the last time I was working (although fewer benefits),  and I will be working near home without travelling out of town every week.  All in all not a bad deal. 

More details will be coming, but the anticipated start date is November 2nd.

Fall TV Season

You may think I haven't been blogging for a while, but I actually have, on the companion Totally Gruntled Rockies Blog which you can find a link to through this blog.  My wife and I actually got to attend the two playoff games in Denver.  Despite the cold and the two losses, the games were a lot of fun and exciting right to the end.

I'm still following the baseball games, but with a little less gusto.  I grew up as a Phillies Phan, so I'm hoping they repeat as World Series Champion.

In the meantime, I thought I'd post my thoughts on the Fall TV Season.

Each year, my wife and I go through the descriptions of new shows and decide which ones are worthy of a "3 Episode Tryout."   Then we record them on the DVR and watch them.

Sometimes we make it through all 3 episodes before deciding yea or ney.  We also chose many more than we usually do, one because this year for the first time in a while, there are a lot of new half-hour comedies on, and two because we have no life, as I still haven't found a new job yet.

So here are the 1st Annual Totally Gruntled Critic's Choices for the fall:

It turns out the Comedy is not really that funny.  The best of them was Community which wasn't too bad, but not great, but then they moved it an hour earlier on Thursday, which made it conflict with two other shows, so we dropped it.   We also looked at ABC's Wednesday night Lineup starting with Hank, The Middle, Modern Family, and Cougar Town.  We were very hopeful of Modern Family, but it only lasted two episodes with us.   Something was annoying to us about it, and it just didn't strike us right.  Probably the whiny, stereotypical characters, that didn't really show that much depth.  Hank, we were pretty sure we wouldn't like, because we just don't think Kelsey Grammer is that good as a lead character, and in that sense we weren't disappointed in watching only the pilot episode.  The Middle was better, and had better  characters, but we haven't watched anything beyond the first episode, which did have it's moments.   Courtney Cox is good in Cougar Town, but it's just one joke (middle-aged woman looking for young hot guys) and the joke got old halfway through the 2nd Episode.

On Monday's we added CBS' Accidentally on  Purpose, a Jenna Elfman show, which has a similar premise as Cougar Town, but with a little more substance.  We already watch How I Met Your Mother, and Big Bang Theory, both of which originally thought we wouldn't like, but after giving it the old 3 episode tryout we loved, (although HIMYM may be past it's prime), so for now we are sticking with Accidentally on Purpose.  In it, Elfman's character gets drunk and beds a young guy, and gets pregnant.   She continues to have a relationship with the father and even allows him to move in together, but doesn't let him sleep with her anymore.  The development of one of the father-to-be's friends could save the show for us.  Kind of like the Morgan character on Chuck. 

FOX introduced the Pilot to Glee back in May which is an hour long musical/Comedy , and we were intrigued enough to continue it into the fall.  Initially we liked it and still like the music and the Glee Club characters, but the plot lines have got pretty ridiculous pretty fast, especially with everybody quitting, joining, rejoining, infilgtrating, changing directors,  pregnancies, non-pregnancies, and assorted relationships or non-relationships.  It's really become too schizophrenic for us, and we are dropping it.  

On the Drama side, we've had a little more luck.

We started with CBS' "The Good Wife" where the wife of a disgraced (and jailed) politician goes back to work as a lawyer, while continuing to raise her two adolescent children with the help of her mother in law. She is in competition with the young brash associate who settles cases rather than try them.  Christine Baranski is one of the Partners in the Law firm, which is an interesting choice since she has done a lot of comedy in the past.  I think once they put away the cheating, thieving husband for good, this show has a chance to shine.

We also watched ABC's The Forgotten, which is a team of volunteer detectives who try to identify and then figure out what happened to dead bodies that turn up and reach dead ends with the police.  It's an interesting premise and is based on a real "Forgotten Network."   We got through 3 episodes of this, but after the 2nd one, I knew I was going to forget it.   The stories are interesting, but the leaps the characters take to get to a conclusion, are so contrived, they seem more like guesses that turn out to be amazingly true.  And as the clincher, the narration of each episode by the dead character is just, well creepy.

We made it through 40 minutes of the 2nd episode in the new Sci-fi drama, FlashForward on ABC.  In the first episode, everyone in the world goes unconscious for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, and most people see a "flash" of the future 6 months from now.  Some had no flash, and one person is found on a camera still conscious.  The main character sees a flash of his future investigating his flash, while his wife flashes having an  affair with another man.   The rest of the first episode and the next starts the investigation and putting clues together as well as revealing other peoples flashes.  It looks interesting enough, but got too convoluted with all the visions, to continue to watch.  It also reminded me a lot of the first season of Heroes, where they tried to stave off Hiro's vision of the future.    Perhaps I'll watch the season ender of the this one in April or May, but I really don't want to see all the stuff in between.

NBC has a new medical drama on Wednesday's Mercy, primarily centered around 3 nurses, Chloe,  who is new and a little naive (from Amish Country in PA), Veronica who is recently returned from Iraq, and having Marital problems, and Sonia who is fairly normal, but still has issues with cops one of whom she is sleeping with.  Trouble ensues when a doctor comes in who had an affair with Veronica in Iraq.   Veronica is trying to reconcile with her husband who also had an affair when she was in Iraq, but is kind of a slacker.   I didn't expect to like this one, and expected another Grey's Anatomy (which I grew tired of after the first season), but this one is looking pretty good and we are staying with it.  

We were also curious about Eastwick on ABC, which has three women who are witches and don't really know it, but a mysterious evil guy arrives and starts causing trouble.   Maybe if you were a fan of Charmed this might be good, but it wasn't our cup of tea.

Bella Update at Two Months

Just spent the long Labor Day Weekend with Isabella in Utah. This is our second trip out there since she was born. At two weeks, she slept a lot, but now at two months she is much more active. She has also gained over 2 pounds since birth.

Here are pictures at 2 weeks:

 

Now at two months:

 

 

Isabella is here!

Nothing is as exciting as a newborn baby, especially in your family. I remember the days that each of my children were born, and I wouldn't trade being there for anything else that I've done in my life.

Today marks the culmination of a huge journey for my son and his wife as the miracle that they have been praying for for several years made her entrance into the world this morning at 7:58 AM Mountain time.

About a year and a half ago, just around Christmas, 2007, they started applying for adoption, and were approved to adopt in the spring of 2008. Then came the waiting, for someone to choose them and allow them to raise their baby. As mentioned in an earlier post this year, they found someone in March and have spent much time getting to know each other a little bit over the past few months.

Today Isabella Harmony arrived. Isabella is the name my son and daughter-in-law chose, and Harmony is the name the birth parents chose forever giving her a bond with both families. The sacrifice of the birth parents will be longed remembered, as they have given us all a gift.

Welcome Isabella! I'm proud and very gruntled to be your Grandfather and I can't wait to meet you!

Baseball is a Funny Game...

Which is probably why I like it so much. It can be frustrating, mind-boggling and exhilarating all at the same time. It's also streaky.

I grew up as a Philadelphia Phillies fan. To the best of my knowledge, I don't remember the 1964 season when they had a 6 1/2 game lead with 12 games to play. And blew it by losing 10 in a row before winning the last two games. No, I became a fan the next year, when they would have some very miserable years, before they finally won their first World Series in 1980.

In 1976, the Phillies had a 25-5 run, from late April to early June moving to a 32-11 record and never looked back as they finished with 101 wins.

Sometimes a good run can carry you for the rest of the season:

The 1982 Atlanta Braves started the season with a 13 game winning streak--then were 76-73 the rest of the season, and won their division.

Sometimes you a good start is just the beginning:
The 1984 Detroit Tigers won 35 of their first 40 on their way to winning the World Series

**********************************************************************************

I became a Colorado Rockies fan in 1993 when they began, but I really started to follow them in depth in 1997 when I moved to the Denver area and fell in love with Coors Field. No, I became a fan right when they would have some miserable seasons having losing seasons for the next 10 years.

During the 2007 season however, my full allegiance moved from the Phillies to the Rockies despite both teams having amazing finishes:

The Phillies avenged the ghost of 1964, as they overcame a 7 game deficit to the Mets by winning 13 of their last 17 games, while the Mets lost 12 of their final 17.

Meanwhile the Rockies who were playing .500 ball all season, and had never in franchise history had more than a 7 game winning streak, won 11 in a row, lost 1 and then followed that up with a 10 game winning streak propelling them to their first World Series via the Wild Card Berth. Amazingly, they had to overcome a 7.5 game deficit to the Mets with only 15 games to play to do it.

Which brings us to this year. The Rockies were buried 12 games under .500 and in the midst of an 11 game road trip in which they had lost the first 3 before heading to the 1st and 2nd place teams in the Central division, when they started on another 11 game winning streak. Many times, especially if you are really a bad team, the end of the streak will send you back into a tailspin, but the Rockies met the loss with a 6 game winning streak. Overall, they have currently won 21 of 25 and are about to embark on a stretch of 16 home games out of the next 20 games after today.

Good news for the Rockies?--Like I said Baseball is a funny game. Check back with me later this month.

24--Season 7 Wrap Up

My wife and I have never watched 24 as it is shown on a week to week basis. It's always been some kind of watching it in blocks at the end of the season or after the season. I'm not really sure how people watch it on a week to week basis. In Season 6 we tried watching 4 hours one night a week for 6 weeks ending at the end of May when the season ended. That was very difficult.

After watching Season 7, it will probably be our last. Even though my hour by hour depiction was slightly off, but most of what I predicted would happen, happened, it's obviously too predictable and formulaic.

It was nice to have the geek contest between Chloe and Janice. Agent Walker was a nice addition and watching her evolution of being appalled by Jack's methods to using some of them was interesting. Apparently she will be on again next year.

I also realize that you have to suspend a certain amount of belief in nature's laws, as you do in most action movies as well, but the Tony is alive scenario was absurd to begin with and his cross, double cross, triple cross (and possibly a quadruple cross) got old, and made the whole storyline more absurd than normal. In retrospect some of his actions earlier make no sense in light of his character at the end.

The most amazing thing about the whole show was the fact that NO SATELLITES WERE REPOSTIONED during the entire 24 hours!!!!

For those of you who continue to enjoy this show, continue on, but for me I'm done with it (at least until next June.)

24 in Review--Night 6

The last events happen between 4:00 AM and 8:00 AM

Hours 20-22--Lots of dis-jointed things happen, causing mayhem at 2-3 locations, and HQ finally realizes (again!) that Jack is still a good guy, and they finally help him out.

Hours 23-24--The two hour finale, where in the first hour, things go miserably wrong, followed by the ultimate saving of the world by Jack Bauer and the taking down or saving (temporily--they will kill him/her off in a future season) of some big political figure.

Actual--Aaron Pierce, the President's Daughter's bodyguard figures out the President's daughter's plot to kill Hodges and turns her in to the President who makes the right decision by putting her away. Janice and Chloe have a techy catfight and make up at the end, in a way only two techies can. Jack thwarts Tony's plan and destroys the bomb, arrests Tony, who then uses Kim (in a ridiculous situation at the airport) to get Jack to let him escape. Tony takes Jack with him to obtain a new sample of the bio-weapon (from Jack's blood and organs), but Jack escapes by subduing 3 captors while handcuffed. Tony uses Jack as a human bomb, but Renee arrives in time to deactivate it. We find out Tony's lame reasons for his latest turnaround, and Mr. REALLY BIG is captured, and the last we saw of him is Agent Walker entering his interrogation room--alone, and after leaving her FBI badge outside. We can only assume she has fully gone over to Jack's methods. And finally, Jack reaches deep inside himself and surgically removes the pathogen from his body. (Well, not really, but he might as well have after all the other ridiculous stuff of the last 6 hours.)

Next the Wrapup...

24 in Review--Night 5

The events of Night 5 take place between 12:00 AM and 4:00 AM

Hours 14-18--Jack is at HQ, while Chloe and another person (who will die before the end of hour 18) breaks the rules to help Jack out. Usually at least one other lovable character dies during this span.

Hour 19--The mole(s) are identified by Jack, (although the "Big Guy" remains a mystery) and Jack subsequently leaves/escapes HQ in the confusion and is back on the trail of the suspects.

Hours 20-22--Lots of dis-jointed things happen, causing mayhem at 2-3 locations, and HQ finally realizes (again!) that Jack is still a good guy, and they finally help him out.

Actual--This is where it all goes lame and about where the season should have really ended, but the name of the show is "24" not "18". After Tony eventually destroys the bio weapon, with Jack's help from HQ, and then "turns" again and kills the Lead FBI guy, while helping someone sneak a last cannister (which is never explained where it came from) to even bigger bad guys. Tony and his new group then plot to release the cannister and making it look like a Muslim terrorist threat. Meanwhile the Biggest baddest guy is saved from a suicide attempt and given immunity and Witness Protection in order to get the even bigger and badder guys. Meanwhile Jack's health continues to deteriote, but he is able to get back on track by injecting himself during seizures (remember he's Jack Bauer!), while we keep seeing updates of his daughter who can possibly save him by giving him some of her stem cells, who is still in town. The President's daughter meanwhile plots a contract killing of the Biggest baddest guy, which is carried out despite her attempt to cancel it. (Some of this may have happened later, but I just don't care anymore.)

Fortunately only one more night and 4 more hours...

24 in Review--Night 4

On Night 4 the events happened between 8:00 PM and 12:00 AM

Hours 12-13--Jack evades the HQ people and is finally brought in to HQ just about the time that HQ becomes a target of the suspects.

Actual Hour 13--The lovable character dies an hour earlier than usual, but does it in heroic fashion to save the rest of the people (including Jack and the President). The Badder guy is also killed in the ensuing shootout, leading us to find out who the Even more badder guy is. The President brings in a schemer (her daughter) who will wreck havoc for much of the next few hours. Jack is framed for a murder while interrogating an earlier suspect mole which wasn't authorized by the President. Renee is suspended, but is not done yet.

Hours 14-18--Jack is at HQ, while Chloe and another person (who will die before the end of hour 18) breaks the rules to help Jack out. Usually at least one other lovable character dies during this span.

Actual Hour 14--Chloe is released from custody, after her husband helps out the FBI. The White House has a big leak, and the President's Daughter feigns innocence. Suspended Renee breaks the rules and helps out Jack trying to prove he is framed, and is immediately put in holding. Jack tracks down leads to the Senator who led the inquisition against Jack earlier today. They discover a connection just before the Senator is killed.

Actual Hour 15--Agent Moss believes Jack. The Chief of Staff resigns, elevating the President's Scheming Daughter as acting COS. Jack and Tony (did I mention that Tony reappears a couple of hours ago?) track down a bio-weapon to a port container. Jack uncharacteristically saves the security guard at the port at the potential expense to the mission. Jack and Tony subdue some of the bad guys, while Jack hijacks the truck with the container with the bio-weapan, which springs a leak. Jack becomes infected by the pathogen while trying to seal the cannister. Helicopters swoop in and take off with the bio-weapon for the more badder guy.

Actual Hour 16--Jack is decontaminated, is determined not to be contagious and is returned to FBI HQ. The more badder guy turns out to be the head of a military contractor near DC where the Bio-Weapon is brought to. Tony is caught and also brought in to the contractor, but an employee helps him escape and tells Tony where the BioWeapon is stored. The FBI plans an assault of the compound, but runs into problems. Renee and Jack stay behind as Agent Moss and a team goes in. The employee gave them bad info (intentionally) and Moss is standing in front of an empty building. The military contractor's men move in causing a standoff.

The day continues...

24 in Review--Night 3

On Night 3 the events happened between 4:00 PM and 8:00 PM

Hours 8-10--The loved one in danger is either a counter-spy or is held by someone who is a friend of Jack's, who is a counter spy. Jack discovers this, and will spend the next 3 hours defusing the situation, while the suspects take a short break.

Actual Hour 9--Jack continues to pursue the bad guy by using an "innocent" as bait. Moles are revealed within the FBI and in the Government, who send police out to detain Jack and Renee while the bait is now unprotected.

Actual Hour 10--Of course the innocent dies while bravely trying to help apprehend the bad guy. Renee feels tremendous guilt in the loss because she promised the girl's sister that she would take care of her. Bad guy delivers list of moles to Jack after being severely injured. Badder guy is found and another attack is imminent. But first the badder guys sends someone to the hospital to kill bad guy.

Hour 11--Jack is back on the trail of the suspects, when the people at HQ realize he broke the law in saving his loved one, and is ordered brought in.

Actual--By now, Jack has broken the law several times today, but still eludes final capture and continues. Chloe decodes the mole list from the bad guy, and Jack (and Chloe) breaks the law again by deleting a name on the list, who Jack is in pursuit of. Jack goes to the White House to interrogate the suspect--using his patented methods.

Hours 12-13--Jack evades the HQ people and is finally brought in to HQ just about the time that HQ becomes a target of the suspects.

Actual Hour 12--In this case "HQ" is actually the White House--and yes it is the target of the Badder guys and yes Jack is taken into custody. Renee discovers the target but loses her cell phone in the process, while the Badder Guy and his team infiltrate the White House.

To Be Continued...

24 in Review--Night 2

On Night 2 the events happened between 12:00 PM and 4:00 PM

Hour 5--Jack evades the thugs that his supervisors have sent after him, while stumbling onto the hideout or next target of the suspects.

Actual--Tony and Jack and the bad guys successfully kidnap the former African Prime Minister and his wife from a safe room. Agent Walker is tracking Jack down to bring him in, but they bring her into the truck. Jack is assigned to kill Agent Walker and bury her. (Of course they set this up so she stays alive). Meanwhile the President's husband finds out who is responsible for his son's death and it turns out it is someone very close to him who is about to kill him.

Hour 6--Jack kills at least 10 people, but the suspects are partially successful in carrying out their plan at the target. Someone Jack knows is taken hostage.

Actual--Tony and Jack kill at least 10 people and get closer to the bad guy, but the device is activated and a target set. The subplot is partially successful as the President's Husband saves himself and kills the bad guy, but not before his son's girlfriend is killed.


Hour 7--Jack confronts more terrorists, saves the hostage, and puts someone he loves in danger.

Actual Jack confronts the bad guy (but he escapes), stops the Chemical Plant terror (although one dies bravely in trying to save the plant) and destroys the device that caused the problems in the first place. The President's husband is now a hostage with the escaped bad guy. The danger happens later.

Hours 8-10--The loved one in danger is either a counter-spy or is held by someone who is a friend of Jack's, who is a counter spy. Jack discovers this, and will spend the next 3 hours defusing the situation, while the suspects take a short break.

Actual Hour 8--Ok a little bit of a twist--the "loved one" is actually the President's Husband who is being used as a hostage to stop the military invasion. Agent Walker, who Jack seems to have affections for and she seems quite smitten with him, reverts to Jack's methods on a suspects wife and baby to get the suspect to give up the location of the hostage. Jack and Walker go in together alone and kill the bad guys except for the head bad guy who leaves before they get there.

24 in Review--Night 1

Back in January, I wrote a post with the general outline of how the season would go. Now that we are watching the season in real time (about 4 hours a night) here is an update of how I did:

On Night 1 the events happened between 8:00 AM and 12:00 PM

Hour 1--Jack Bauer is generally relaxing (or hiding out somewhere), when a major event takes place killing people.

Actual: Jack is relaxing by testifying before a big old meanie Senator, being confronted about his tactics to withdraw information (these tactics will be a large focus this season), he is called out of the hearing by the FBI who wants them to consult with them because his good friend Tony is alive and doing bad, by planning terror. The President plans a military attack on a country in Africa.

Hour 2--Jack wrestles with a decision on whether to help out, and eventually always chooses to help out. His Supervisor (which changes year to year) exhibits concern about Jack's decision.

Actual--Jack can't believe that Tony is a bad guy and is reluctant to help as the government has shut down Jack's old agency CTU. His supervisor (this time the FBI Agent Moss) exhibits concern about Jack's decision to help out and his Agent's (Renee Walker) decision to bring him in the first place. Agent Moss is totally against torture tactics as he makes clear.

Hour 3--Jack's hot on the trail of the suspects, and something goes wrong at HQ. The sinister subplot begins with some mole at a high level.

Actual--Jack is hot on the trail of Tony and the other suspects, Jack and Renee capture Tony and bring him back to FBI HQ. Of course there a mole within the FBI and the trackdown begins. Jack finds out from his old boss, Bill who is working with Tony and Chloe that there are moles within all the levels of the government. Another sinister plot is related to the President's son, who supposedly committed suicide because of an SEC investigation. The President's Husband and his son's girlfriend meet.

Hour 4--Jack has to defuse a situation--not with the suspects, but his supervisior and his/her superior--to allow him to stay on the case.

Actual--Oh, this one is good! Jack has to break Tony out of the FBI and get him back undercover with the bad guys who we now know are from the African country that the President is attacking. Of course, now FBI agents Walker and Moss are pretty pissed off at Jack. Jack stays on the case by going undercover with Tony and the bad guys.

Safety Devices

I realize that Smoke and gas detectors can save lives when they are installed in homes, but I believe that these same "safety" devices drive more people insane than ever before.

In newer homes the smoke detectors are all interwired together so that if one goes off they all go off. I have had problems with this since I moved into my current house in 1997. Sometimes when we cook some smoke hits the one near the kitchen and sets off painful, deafening shrieks of noise throughout the whole house for many minutes before the smoke can be cleared and all of the detectors simmer down.

Then there is the mind-numbing "chirps" that are usually caused by low batteries in one or more of the devices. This usually occurs sometime in the middle of the night and the only way to stop it is to change the battery properly. And when I say properly I mean the 9V battery has to be inserted in the proper direction (nothing on the detector itself tells you whether the big side has to be on the right or left and it's only a contact point connection, not an insert the battery type device. You also have to make sure that the battery is inserted over top of the little plastic arm that comes out of the unit and the cover has to be replaced properly.

I changed all the batteries out in March (and yes I admit I don't change them every time I change the time, mainly because one of them is located in a place that requires a death defying acrobatic act to change because it is high over a staircase, but that's another story for another time.)

After changing them, a couple of the detectors still chirped at random times. I put other batteries in them, eventually getting them all settled in to do their main job which is to protect me and not drive me slowly insane.

Yesterday, I came home after a weekend in the mountains, expecting to unpack and relax a little bit, when I immediately hear a chirp coming from upstairs. Now upstairs, I have 4 smoke detectors in about a 10 square foot area, so diagnosing where it is coming from takes a few chirps to figure out. Usually I stand underneath each one and close the door. So eventually I determine the chirp is coming from the main hallway and not one of the bedrooms.

So being a logical guy, I take down the smoke detector, check the battery, and put it back up. After a couple more chirps, I decide to replace it with one from another nearby detector that isn't chirping. Strangely, the hallway chirps and the one that used to be in the hallway and is now in the bedroom doesn't, so now I start thinking there is something wrong with the wiring. Each detector has a harness that is wired to the ceiling. I check the wiring in the hallway and retighten all the connections, to no avail. So now I decide to change the harnesses out with one from the other room that isn't chirping.

This doesn't go as smoothly as I wanted, because I don't wire the one in the bedroom properly and it starts chirping rapidly (about every 10 seconds.) But I eventually get it right, and change the wiring, but the chirping in the hallway continues. At this point I rip the detector and the harness out of the ceiling just to get rid of the danged noise. I even put it in another room. But the chirping continues in the hallway. I cannot believe it. Seemingly these systems are so wired together that even the wires can chirp if the detectors are removed. This makes no sense to me, so I decide to try to shut down the circuit, but even that doesn't stop the chirping.

At this point I figure I need to call an electrician out which is going to cost me plenty, because I understand basic wiring and this totally no sense to me. I try wiring the harness again, and somehow I now manage to get every single smoke alarm in the house to start chirping. GREAT! This is pretty easy to figure out though because I find the red wire has become detached from the harness (this is the one that connects all the detectors together.

Now earlier I had gone on the internet to see if I could find replacement detectors since these are all 15 years old now. I could find them, but I would have to order them which would take a couple of days to get here and I'd have to listen to the freaking chirping until they got here.

So now I go back to the internet to try to figure out what is screwing up the system. After I find a couple of unhelpful electrical guides to smoke detectors (ok, they were a little bit helpful, but they didn't solve the problem) I found this little blog entry which is a very long but very funny piece on a similar problem.

The blog entry didn't help.

However, I read the replies and the very last one from JackAsteroid pointed me to my problem.

O.K. here is a free laugh, I took apart the the largest, and most ancient hardwired unit above the stairs, yet could still swear that the sound was coming from the empty cavaty left behind.
I know, I told myself many times, with source of sound, those wires are just wires, but my mind was barely able to keep up with the angry things I was already yelling at it.
Mind you the CO unti is directly beneath this one.
So to wrap this up, one hand inspecting the wires only to find out painfully how poorly they were installed later, problem solved.

I thank you, I searched google and this came up and hit home.

I’d shake your hand but my right side is still numb and tingling.

Jack--I'd like to shake your hand too--my problem was the CO unit directly below the hallway smoke detector had somehow gotten knocked out of the outlet and was continually chirping.

To the alarm manufacturers, maybe you can create different chirps to help us discern between the different types of detectors. It would probably keep us a little more sane.

Finally Gruntled Again.

100 Years!

Today is the day we celebrate an event I have never personally celebrated before--a 100th Birthday. My Grandmother was born on May 4, 1909 near Philadelphia, PA and has spent her entire life living in Pennsylvania. For nearly 80 years she lived in the same house in Glenolden, PA until just before her 99th Birthday last year, she decided to move to a Masonic Home near Lancaster, PA.

When I was young, I remember spending a week with my grandparents every summer. My Grandfather was an accountant who worked in the County Treausrer's office until he retired in 1968. My brother, sister and I would get a chance to spending time with them, sometimes two of us, and occassionaly alone. My grandmother still recounts the time my younger brother was at their house when my parents came to pick him up, and he told them no, his time wasn't up yet and he wasn't going to go.

They also had a summer cottage at the top of the Chesapeake Bay, that we would spend time at either weekends, or a week's vacation there before we started taking camping trips for vacations. We always referred to it as "The Beach". Later when my own kids visited my grandmother there, my son tried to distinguish between Mom mom (my Mom) and Mom Mom (my Grandmother) and started referring to my Grandmother as Mom Mom Beach. She kind of took to it, because she still signs his card "Mom Mom Beach".

And that is the most wonderful thing about her--she still has her memories, and even though she is 100, she still has pretty good health and is capable of taking care of herself.

In November of 1981, just a couple of weeks before my son was born, my grandfather passed away after suffering from emphysema. I was unable to make it back for the funeral, because my wife was due with my son, but I worried just a little bit about how my grandmother who was then 72 would handle not having my grandfather around after 52 years of marriage. I didn't worry long. She not only learned how to drive, she started traveling a lot more, going on cruises, visiting her grandchildren, and taking other trips. Her last flight was in 2005 to celebrate my Son's marriage in Utah, when she was 96, although she has taken several other trips by car since then.

But the most amazing thing, was in 2003 at the age of 94, she had both of her knees replaced because of the severe pain, and she was glad she did it, because it enabled her to walk more steadily again.

Over 100 people will be gathered today in Glenolden for her 100th birthday, and it is expected to be a wonderful event celebrating her life and achievements. Among them are her 2 of her 3 Children, 6 grandchildren, 13 Great-Grandchildren and her Great-Great-Granddaughter who will all be in attendance, along with one of her two sisters, also in her 90's. Her other sister along with her daughter--my mother have passed away.

It isn't even possible to articulate all the feelings I have for my Grandmother and her incredible life, I just wanted to publicly wish her a very Happy 100th Birthday!
And many more!

Somewhere Over the Snowbow

It's snowing here again, (just a dusting) and the sun just came out, so I'm expecting to find a Snowbow somewhere in the sky. (Just like a rainbow, but one which appears when it's snowing.) If I find it, I will post a pic.

The Search Continues

Today marks the 3 month mark since I was told I was being let go by my former employer. I've got to admit, my outlook has taken some ups and downs. I didn't expect the search to take nearly this long, but the reality is that companies have been hesitant to hire at my level, because of all that has been going on in the economy and in Washington. In the past 3 months, I have probably submitted my resume over 100 times, and yet only netted one interview, and did not get the job.

But I move on. As I continue to look for work, my wife and I have formed a company which will be an umbrella company for all of our business ventures. Our first venture is a Home-based travel agency, which although it is my wife's business right now, we are both trying to "learn the ropes" of booking travel through various suppliers. One or both of us will be headed to three days of training in Mid-May, and we have been taking several webinars online over the past month. My wife also hopes to combine this venture with her writing skills and do some travel writing.

It's also difficult sometimes to focus on things to do while waiting for callbacks and interviews, so last week I decided to pick up some new skills hopefully related to my old skills. I've always been interested to some degree in web development, and it has changed a lot in the past few years, so I am teaching myself Web Development with ASP.net using Microsoft Visual Web Developer. It turns out there are a lot of skills and software involved in it including database development (one of my specialties), so my mind is racing with possibilities for building a great website for the Travel Business. At least for now, it makes me feel somewhat productive.

This week things seem to be picking up a little bit. I have one anticipated interview right now, and have talked to a couple of other people who may have something which will pan out in an interview soon.

Staying gruntled for now...

Springtime in the Rockies

Tomorrow is the last day of ski season for many Colorado resorts, but this year they probably could have favorable conditions well into May, as yet one more major spring storm has come into the area.

This is my backyard this morning


And it is still snowing! The good news is that it will be back in the 70's by Tuesday, and stay there until the end of the week, so this snow will become free moisture for my lawn over the next few days.

In the twelve years I've lived out here, I cannot ever remember having constant precipitation for 3 days in a row. This storm started out as rain on Thursday Morning, turned to snow overnight Thursday night, became rain yesterday afternoon, stopped for a little bit last night and now is a kind of a fine wet snow, probably changing to rain again before it stops. Right now there is lots of slush on the roads and sidewalks, but I expect everything to be dry again by tomorrow afternoon.

Hopefully this is the last major snow storm of the season, we will still get some snow in May and maybe June, but usually it's a couple of inches that lasts for minutes after the storm ends.

So from the Winter Wonderland that is my house, have a Totally Gruntled Day.

Death of "The Voice of the Phillies"

When I was growing up the voice of the Phillies was By Saam, longtime Philadelphia Broadcaster who teamed with Bill Campbell and Richie Ashburn to bring Phillies games to life on the radio, and occasionally on TV. The three of them worked all the games with Richie doing Color on TV Broadcasts on Sundays, and the other two rotating in out of the TV and Radio booths every couple of innings as the play-by-play men.

As a kid, to me this was the way it always was and always would be.

Until 1971.

That was the year, a young broadcaster who had spent 6 years with the Houston Astros became the 3rd man in the booth replacing veteran Bill Campbell.

His name--Harry Kalas.

For the next 38 years Harry would broadcast Phillies games becoming the longest continuous broadcaster in Phillies History, surpassing Richie "Whitey" Ashburn, who broadcast for the Phils from 1963 until his death in 1997 while on the road covering games in New York.

Ironically Harry would also die doing what he did best--working a Phillies game. Harry died Monday morning after collapsing in the broadcasting booth at Nationals Park in Washington D.C. He was 73.

Harry's death will not only leave a void in the Phillies broadcasting booth, but in other broadcasting ventures as well. He was the voice of NFL Films (replacing another Philadelphia Legend, John Facenda) as well as the radio voice of NFL games in the baseball offseason, college football. He also did voiceovers on the Chunky Soup commercials.

It has been a bad opening week for baseball. Last Thursday morning Angel's Rookie Pitcher Nick Adenhart and two friends were killed in a hit and run drunk driving accident in LA. Later that day, Giants' pitcher Joe Martinez was hit in the head by a line drive suffering a concussion and 3 hairline fractures.

And also on Monday, Mark "The Bird" Fidrych who was a refreshing rookie in 1976 was found dead after an accident while working on a truck at his home. The only time I ever saw him pitch in person was the 1976 All-Star game in Philadelphia, and he was a joy to watch with his antics on the mound. Unfortunately his career was cut short by injuries, but he will always be rememberered for his antics on the mound, and the fact that he never seemed to let stardom go to his head.

We will miss Harry, Mark and Nick, and best wishes to a speedy recovery to Joe.

The ex-Bronco

The disgruntled Jay Cutler has left Denver.

I'll use Cutler's own words

“I’m just not that big of a fan of the guy. I don’t like how he carries himself. I don’t like some of the stuff he does on the field.”

He was referring to San Diego QB Phillip Rivers, but his comments apply as to my opinion of Cutler. I also don't like some of the stuff he does off the field.

Jay Cutler seemed to get a chip on his shoulder when Jeremy Bates (the QB coach) left for USC in January. He was apparently assured by Broncos owner Pat Bowlen that Bates would not be let go. The Matt Cassel trade was just something he used to manifest his immaturity about the matter.

Granted the Broncos haven't done themselves any favors in playing it out in the press either (thank goodness there's only one newspaper left in Denver to hype all the crap over the past month.)

All you have to look at is the phone calls that Jay didn't return, to show you how immature he is (or is he just being used by his own agent?)

McDaniels won't last here very long--I say max 3 years, but I've never been impressed with Cutler--sure he gets the yards, but he makes way too many mistakes still. Remember the San Diego game? No, not the fumble/non-fumble but the interception on the drive before that where he fell down after throwing it.

Then look at the 3 straight games that the Broncos lost at the end, needing only 1 win. Cutler passed for 850 yards but only had 2 TD's and 4 INT's. Maybe he will mature, but right now, he's not anywhere near a franchise QB. That's not to say that he won't turn out to be a good to great QB, it's just that he's not there yet. And until he actually proves it on the field, he needs to quit the Prima Donna Act.

Good luck and good riddance! Maybe the local newspapers--er newspaper can start following the Rockies now!

The Sun-Warmth Factor

Part of the premise of this blog is to occasionally come up with things that should be but aren't usually the opposite of something else. As an example, Gruntled is the opposite form of disgruntled, but we have never been actually provided the word.

So Friday, my wife and I were sitting on a chair lift at the old ski resort, when we noticed that unlike two days before, when the air temperature was warmer, and we felt colder because of something called the Wind-Chill Factor. The wind chill factor apparently didn't exist before the 1970's which meant we were ignorant about how cold it really was, until some smarty pants guy came up with a way to make -7 degrees to psychologically feel a lot colder!

Fortunately, in 2001 someone figured out an error with the old formula and came up with a new formula, which actually made it warmer than the old wind chill factors as seen in this pretty picture:



You'll notice that the combination of the red line and the blue line kind of form a little smirky smile that seems to tell us the joke has been on us, because for thirty years they fooled us into believing we were colder than we actually were.

So anyway, back to the chair lift. We were noticing that it was much warmer feeling on Friday, than it was on Wednesday even though the actual air temperature was about 20 degrees cooler than on Wednesday, because like 299 other days a year in Colorado, the sun was shining.

So it is our opinion that the Weather Scientists who unleashed the cruel joke of Wind-Chill Factor on us, have been withholding the corresponding opposite, which we immediately dubbed the Sun-Warmth Factor, which either partially or fully negates the wind-chill factor when the sun is shining, or even substantially warms us when there is little or no wind.

We demand that the US Weather Service start providing us with the Sun-Warmth Factor as a regular part of their forecasts, and stop trying to cover up the Sun's warmth on us.

And if no one has actually laid claim on something called the Sun-Warmth Factor, then we call DIBS!

Stay Gruntled AND Warm!

An Example of The Way Things Should Work!

Without going all political and everything, one thing that bothers me is how the various governments decide to raise taxes "for the public good" on things that maybe the "public" really doesn't want. I think all levels of government overreach into things that maybe they shouldn't be getting into, and certainly private enterprise can do better in general. Especially when government sponsored programs tend to have cost overruns, 75% rate increases AND then require a doubling of the tax, all while increasing the pay of the ones that run it.--See Denver's RTD as an example.

That is why I was impressed with this story that I read this morning: Supporting cast steps up to save live theater in Trinidad

The recession, fueled by increased regulation and decreased gas prices, hit principal sponsors of the theater hard, mostly from the gas, tourist and manufacturing sectors. Canceling seemed inevitable.

"But first we felt we needed to at least take it to the town and give them the opportunity to rise to the occasion," executive director Brad Askew said.

Rise they did. The citizenry rustled up nearly $90,000, not only saving the upcoming season, Askew said, but maybe even offering a blueprint for the way communities can come together to help solve economic problems in hard times.

"This is a town that basically said, 'We're going to opt out of the recession,' " Askew said. "We know that recovery starts at the grassroots level. How much easier would it be for this country to recover if everybody personally got involved?"

It's really a pretty simple concept--if you really want it and it's necessary everyone will help pay for it. One of the statistics listed in the article, is that 60% of the contributors had never been to one of the theater's productions.

Here's sending some Gruntlement the way of Trinidad, CO!

Opportunity Hunt Month 3

Sunday marked the two month mark for when I was notified that I was being laid off. Time kind of flies doesn't it? As I've continued to look for work in a down economy, I also formed a new company partnering with my wife and her ventures. My venture is to work as an independent consultant or what they call Corp to Corp contracting, and hers is to write as a freelancer and publish books.

We have also started our own Home-Based Travel Agency which we've been investigating for a while and finally affiliated with a Host Company to offer travel options. We are still in training mode at this point, but it looks pretty exciting.

The consulting search has been going fairly slowly, but I have been keeping tabs on many people in my network. It's my opinion that many companies have been a little hesitant to hire new people, mainly because of some of the uncertainties in the economy and with the new Presidential Administration moving in.

Over the last two weeks, however, I've seen a rather dramatic improvement in activity. Last Friday, I had my first interview for a specific position. And on Monday, I had some serious discussions about specific jobs who didn't chuckle when I gave them my rate.

And although there is nothing definite yet, I have tried to maintain a positive attitude about the hunt, and feel very strongly that something is going to come along that fits me very soon.

Happy Pi Day

Today is Pi day. And what is Pi Day you ask?

Well, for all you math whizzes out there, Pi is a greek letter that is also the symbol for the ratio of a circle's circumference divided by it's diameter or approximately 3.1415926535 (rounded) or further rounded becomes 3.14 or 3/14 which is March 14th which is today.

The US Congress has even deemed it officially National Pi Day!

So Happy Pi Day--Celebrate with the Pi of your choice!

Preparing to be a Great-Dad

Got some great news last night. My son called and told us that he and his wife were expecting. They have been looking to adopt a child for well over a year, and it looks like they will be graced with a baby girl in July.

Of course, Mrs. Blind and I are especially gruntled over the news, and have spent much of last night and today calling family and friends with the news. And we are so happy for our son and daughter-in-law, the happy parents-to-be. We know that they will be wonderful parents.

In the meantime, I have four months to prepare to be a Great-Dad. I'm already a Great-Uncle to a wonderful little girl who is now 2 1/2 years old, so the equivalent of my children's children would be a Great-Dad to them. Besides Grand Dad sounds so old and I'm certainly not old! Am I?

Change For Time

A few rants on the time change this weekend.

If you are finding yourself running late today, check your clocks. According to the new law passed by congress a few years ago, Daylight Savings Time goes into effect on the 2nd Sunday in March and ends on the 1st Sunday in November. (Unless you live in Arizona, Hawaii, or parts of Indiana, where they sell clocks without mechanisms to change them). This has been a public service message from Totally Gruntled!

Okay, so why the change, why do we change and why do we need change? If I were king of the world, we would always have daylight until at least 7 or 8 PM. It gets extremely dreary in the winter when it starts getting dark before 5.

Now I've always lived around the same latitude (~40 N), even though I've changed my latitude a few times, but the time changes always mess me up. My days of daylight always seem to go from about 9 hours around Christmas to 15 hours on July 4th, which come to think of it is pretty ideal. Those poor folks on the top of the world, get all their daylight at once about 6 months of it, followed by 6 months of near dark, (I would love to experience near 24 hours of light just once in my life sometime). Those people of middle earth, also known as being on the equator, pretty much get 12 hours of daylight followed by 12 hours of night every day. Can you say B-O-R-I-N-G?

I've been in Montana and Minnesota around the summer solstice and it's weird but cool to have the sun still out at 9:30 or 10:00 PM. I've also been in Minnesota at the Winter Solstice, and it's not cool to have less than a full workday of sun. Literally driving to and from work in the dark is downright depressing. In fact the first time I worked in Minnesota, I drove the same route to work for about 5 months before I realized I was passing some tall buildings on the way, until DST went into effect and I could actually see them in daylight!

Well, that's enough time spent on the time change. Check your clocks, some of them may have moved automatically ahead, because they know about the time change, and others won't. Still others will think they are supposed to move ahead an hour on April 5th, because that used to be the law, so just remember you may have to check them again, or you could be different and just run an hour ahead of everyone else.

Stay Gruntled and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Let the Madness Begin!

I'm not sure when or where the term actually began, but March Madness has come to symbolize the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament held annually in mid to late March until early April.

But the battle for the slots in the tournament starts two weeks earlier as 30 of the 31 Conferences hold a qualifying tournament involving their teams, in which the lone survivor is given an Automatic Bid to the tournament. A committee of 10 people will lock themselves in a hotel room in Indianapolis in the middle of next week to select the remaining 35 entrants, as well as seed and pair all 65 teams into the tournament field.



Then the fun begins as 64 games are played in 21 days to determine the national champion in Detroit, Michigan on April 6th.

A corresponding tournament is also played with the Women's Teams culminating in a National Champion also with finals being played in St. Louis, MO.



The qualifying starts today as the Big South and Ohio Valley Conferences start their tournaments.

This is one of my favorite times of the year, and in most cases I will root for the dark shirts (or underdogs) in the games. Who knows what great moments will come out of this year's tournaments, but it will certainly be a gruntling experience to watch.

Headlines #3

I think Congress should look into this one cause I'm sure it's below minimum waqe:

Haynesworth gets 7-year, $100 deal from Redskins

For those of you who didn't know the Redskins are a football team and Haynesworth gets paid for playing football. $100 spread out over 7 years comes to $14.29 per year or about 89 cents per game.

I'm all in favor of bringing pro sports salaries down, but this is a little too severe.

Goodbye to the Rocky

When we first moved to Denver in 1997, we were able to subcribe to both papers The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News for a ridiculous price of about $4 for 3 months each. So I did, just to see which one we liked better. The Denver Post had a more traditional broadsheet format (folds from top to bottom) and the Rocky Mountain News was a tabloid style (folds like a book).

The papers at that time were in a battle for subscribers and thus had the price wars for as low as a penny a paper at times. The battle continued until a joint venture for advertising and subscriptions between the two newspapers was started in 2001. Under the agreement, both papers would publish Monday through Friday, with the Rocky publishing a broadsheet edition on Saturday and the Post publishing the Sunday Edition. This amounted to reading essentially reading three different papers, and I've never really liked it. And the subscription rates skyrocketed to over $100 a year.

Somewhere along the line my wife and I got attached to the Rocky as it is called in Denver. We were used to the broadsheet papers from back east, but somehow over the years we got used to the smaller pages and sections of the tabloid style.

Today the Rocky Mountain News published for the last time. According to the joint venture the rest of my subscription will be filled out by the Denver Post. My subscription (which now costs $70 a year) runs out in September, at which time I probably will not renew, because we just don't like the Denver Post and probably won't read much of it. But maybe we'll get used to it as at least now we will only have to read one newspaper format all week instead of three different ones.

Defintely disgruntled about the news, but I've been expecting it for some time. It seems to be a trend in the newspaper business, especially those cities with more than one paper. It also probably not good news that the joint venture (which now absorbs the Post) had to renegotiate a $150 million dollar loan yesterday.

Farewell to the Rocky!

Life Happened...Part I

I saw the rest of my old friends
At our reunion at the Holiday Inn
And it seemed like it was only yesterday
Standing in the gym in our cap and gown
Full of wonderlust and glory bound

We set out to chase our dreams on wings of passion
But somewhere along the way we got distracted
Life happened

Our clothes went out of fashion with our songs
We started families and bought SUV's
Became step dads and soccer moms
I finally realized we turned alright
And we spent the night just catching up and dancing
And life happened

--Tammy Cochran "Life happened"

I can't help but get nostalgic about my own high school days and friends whenever that song comes on the radio or my Ipod. Over the years, I have joined several reconnecting sites like reunion.com or classmates.com and have gotten notes from a couple of people that I knew back when. The big problem is that they have had various costs and premium services to actually connect. The other problem was there was no online interaction between people. I sent a message out in April, the Recipient picked it up in February of the next year.

Then comes FaceBook, which until recently had been geared to the current high schoolers and college students (along with MySpace). I joined FaceBook last fall mainly to keep up with my own kids and my nieces and nephews ('phews as I call them--feel free to use it, I hope it catches on). I've slowly added friends and other relatives over the past months, mostly my kids friends--because obviously they've been at this for years, and why not--I like most of them and care about them and want to keep up with them too. Along the way, I've also come across people in my adult life.

I graduated from William Penn High School
in 1974 which if my math is still correct was 35 years ago. We had a class of nearly 500 people. Some I have been in contact with here and there over the years. At one point I had moved into a house across the street from one of my classmates. I've also been back for two reunions, the 10 and 15, and so far as I know we haven't had a reunion in the past 20 years.

Now all of a sudden, I am reconnecting with people I used to know on Facebook, bringing back many memories, mostly good, from the high school days. More and more people seem to be signing up for Facebook, and I hope to at least meet up with people virtually over time, as we reconnect.

Somewhere along the way we got to be 50 year olds, but over all it's been a very gruntling experience!

And one more thing: My clothes in high school were NEVER in fashion! :-)

Play Ball!

Two words can never be more gruntling to me, today marks the start of the exhibition season for Major League Baseball, and the World Champion Philadelphia Phillies (I love saying that!) got to work getting ready to defend their Championship along with the other 29 teams including my favorites, the Colorado Rockies.

It's also time for me to start evaluating the talent, so I can finalize my order for drafting my fantasy baseball team and determine who I keep from last year.

And once again I get to maximize my XM Radio subscription by listening to a lot of baseball from all over the country over the next 8 months.

In the meantime I'm heading to the mountains for a few days of skiing (and escaping the oppressive 70 degree heat of Denver) before resuming my job hunt in earnest.

Hope everyone has a Totally Gruntled day!

Weight Loss, Weight Gain, Weight Loss, WAIT!!!

Starting in January, 2005, I made the conscious effort to lose weight. My plan was to exercise more, and eat less. Yeah, sure that's what everybody says. But I was pretty successful losing about 25 pounds by August. (No, I'm not going to tell you my starting or ending weight).

By January, 2008 I had gained everything back plus about 10-15 more pounds, so I started again to try to lose weight. This time, we started using the smaller plates, which made smaller portions, we kept snacks in single servings around the house rather than great big bags, and even got Weight Watchers type ice cream and other desserts (also in single servings.) I cut out most sodas except for one or two diet sodas a week, and started walking more. Once again by August, I had lost 20 pounds. Between August and December, I gained back around 13.

So January, 2009 rolled around and I went back on the diet. In the first 8 weeks I've lost 8 pounds. I'm walking more, eating generally less, and I'm finding a lot of the usual treats too sweet (which I think is a good thing.

I'm not sure that setting goals doesn't frustrate me more, but currently my goal is to lose weight each week, even if it's only 1/2 pound. I also look at losing inches off my waist. Last year at one point I dropped 4 inches, and bought new pants that didn't look so baggy. When I gained the weight back, I put two inches back on and the smaller pants didn't fit anymore, or were tight and uncomfortable. I'm happy to say that I'm back down into the smaller waist sized pants, and hoping to go down 4 more inches this year.

And this year I will stay totally gruntled if I am able to keep the weight off between September and December.

Responding When Bad Things Happen

Many times we expect companies to be perfect and serve us well, but occassionally things happen, and I like to judge some companies I deal with on how they treat me when something adverse happens. Many of us choose Car or Home Insurance because the premiums are low, but I would never leave my insurance company (USAA) even if I didn't think they had good rates, because when I have had a claim, they have responded quickly. I had claims with other companies in the past, and they were a lot less responsive.

How about another industry--airlines for instance. Obviously they have been forced to cut back on services as they individually try to survive. I have been flying for business for the past 6+ years and have likes and dislikes about some of the airlines I have flown on. Since 2006, I have been flying almost exclusively on Frontier Airlines, based here in Denver. I find their flight attendants generally more friendlier than the others, the only delays I have experienced were weather related and never mechanical.

Last week, my wife and I flew to Nashville, as we went to visit our daughter and son-in-law in Knoxville. We checked three bags, none of them arrived in Nashville on our flight. Now in all the time I have flown, I have only had a lost bag once which is amazing in itself. In that instance it took nearly 24 hours to get the bag back. Kimmy, who was The agent on duty dutifully took our information (along with several others who were missing bags.) We told her we were driving to Knoxville (about 3 hours away) and she told us that it would be no problem to get them to us once they came in there. I asked her to call us if the bags came in on the later flight that night and she told me she would. She not only called me, but also had a courier ready on stand by to drive to Knoxville, Thursday night to deliver them around 3:00 in the morning as it turns out. We made arrangements with them to leave a signed note on the door and they were there the next morning for us.

When I checked in last night for the flight home, I happened to see Kimmy again and I thanked her for taking care of getting the bags to us with minimal delay. She apologized again for the delay (as if she personally had not loaded the bags onto the plane) and asked how our visit with our daughter went.

It's people like Kimmy who make a difference when things go wrong and I'm pretty sure I will continue to fly Frontier as long as they continue to fly.

As for the rest of us who are in the service industry, remember that it's not necessarily how things go right that will keep your customers, but it's how you handle things when they don't go right. Even if it's not your personal fault, you need to accept responsibility for your company and take care of the customer.

Here's to Kimmy, from one Totally Gruntled customer!

Opportunity Hunt Week 3

Time to make an update on my search for new employment. This week starts the third full week of the search, and so far there have been no solid leads that have ended up in an interview. There was one early in the first week that had been interested but they put the position on hold for the time being. It may surface again later, but we'll see.

My official layoff date was February 4, so I promptly filed for unemployment on Wednesday. This is the second claim for unemployment that I have filed in my life. I hate taking money from the government, but the money was put there essentially by my company, so in a way I can rationalize that it was one of the "perks" of my job. As soon as you sign up though (it's all possible online--no waiting in lines, yeah!) they send you about 10 things in the mail. Now apparently they can't send it all out as one package, they have to send everything individually--what a waste! I've now got the Handbook, a pin number (for my bi-weekly claims submission), verification of my income from my employer (and the fact that they laid me off), a calendar showing me which weeks I need to file my claims, an income tax withholding form, along with additional information from the County Job Works Center (which you also have to register with in order to collect your payments.

You never really know how important networking is until you need it. I have probably contacted about 20 people that I know over the years who I thought could help me, and then a couple other people have seen my resume back up on the job sites, and contacted me, and have even introduced me to some other people that they know that could help me. I still have another 10 people that I still need to contact.

There was another programmer who was laid off at the same time that I was, and he has managed to get on for a couple months at one of his former clients. A third programmer, who will probably get laid off at the end of her current contract, was extended from March to June, so that's good news for them and in a way, me too.

This week will be a short one in the job search, as we head to Tennessee Thursday afternoon through next Tuesday, for the holiday weekend to visit with our daughter, her husband and their friends. It should be a nice break, but I have lots to do before then.

Why I Love Living in Colorado!

I moved to Colorado in 1997 from the East Coast. Besides the great outdoors here (minus beaches), I've always thought that Colorado has a perfect climate.

In Delaware, which I always refer to either the Ice Belt or slush belt, we rarely got real snow. Most of the storms came due east from the west and usually occurred at temperatures around 30 degrees, which meant the storm either started or ended as rain. The best snow storms were the ones that came up from the south (gathering Atlantic Ocean moisture with it) and had a cold front in front of it, plunging the temps into the teens and 20's and would drop a foot or more of snow. The best winter there was 1979 when 3 such storms came in. The worst was 1994 when the conditions were just right that we had several Ice Storms--literally frozen rain coming down and creating natures ice rink on our lawns and roads--and folks, you just can't drive on ice.

The rest of winter in Delaware were Overcast warm days and cold sunny days, and the humidity was high, so the cold days in the 40's were bone chilling as well.

Now here in Colorado, we are on the last day of a string of about a week where the temperatures are in the 50's to 70's in January and February. Now of course tomorrow or Sunday it may snow, but right now people are pulling "Colorado Doubles"--Ski in the morning, Golf in the Afternoon.

The snow here is snow--real snow--the white fluffy stuff. Some of the spring storms are more moisture laden, but I can think of only one or two storms where it was slushy/icy. The day after the storms the sun comes up and the roads are bone dry because of the low humidity.

Even when it gets cold here, it doesn't seem as cold because as I always say "It's a dry cold". Single digits here especially when the sun is shining feels much warmer than 30 degrees back in the east.

Our first snow storm in Colorado came in October, 1997 when about three feet were dropped on us on a Friday and Saturday. The kids were ecstatic, because a similar storm had come in Delaware the spring before and they were off from school for an entire week, so they thought they were going to get significant time off from this storm. On Monday they went in an hour or two late. They weren't so gruntled about that.

So I'm going to finish this post and enjoy the weather. Hope it's nice where you are.

Jury Duty Part V: Reflections

Note: to read the case from the beginning start here

After the verdict we left the court room and went back to the Jury Room to wait for the Judge.

She thanked us again for our service and told us that the verdicts we gave were the ones that we had to based on the information we had. I'm still not certain whether she told us that to reassure us, or whether she truly believed it.

We asked some of the questions that had been bothering us. One of the biggest was that it seemed to us that someone could beat the DUI rap by refusing to take the Roadside Maneuvers as well as refusing the Blood Test (which prevented the prosecution from having a number introduced.)

The judge told us that there was a consequence to refusing the blood test--mandatory suspension of the driver's license for a year. We then asked if the prosecutor could have brought that information in, and the judge replied sure, she could have simply asked the defendant if his license had been suspended as a result of his refusal.

From the reaction of the other jurors, this simple fact probably would have changed the outcome of the trial. I'm still not convinced I would have gone for the DUI, but I would have been more likely to convict on the DWAI.

My overriding feeling is that the prosecutor blew it. She kept on pushing this idea that he didn't let us "look in his bag" while not letting us know that there was a huge consequence to not letting us look in his bag. She also put the forensic expert on the stand for no purpose, BTW--the delay on the first afternoon, was a hearing on whether or not the judge should allow the forensic expert to even testify! If I had any advice for the Prosecutor it would be to not overlook anything.

I'm sure the defense attorney thinks he did a great job, but IMO he didn't. But he didn't have to. The prosecution never really made the case, so there was nothing to really defend. I was actually annoyed by him asking the same questions the prosecutor had asked seemingly to confirm something to us. His one brilliant moment came when he only asked the one question to the forensic witness, and then promptly sat down. Had he made some attempt to defend the turn signal charge, he may have gotten his client completely off.

I think there's a good chance that the defendant "got away with it," but hopefully if he was drinking or drunk, he considers what he did and how much it cost him to successfully defend the charges. The next time he might be up against a better prosecutor, or this one learns from the experience.

Overall Jury duty was interesting enough, and I'd like to do it again. When I watch cases on TV or the movies, I realize you see all the sides and back and forth, but the one amazing thing to me is that--other than the things that were said in the courtroom, that we were told to disregard--the court system really did prevent us from hearing or seeing things that would prejudice our decision.

The other thing to keep in mind is that you really do have to decide the case on what's presented in court, and not personal feelings that develop regarding the participants.

Have a Totally Gruntled Day!

If I Won The Lottery...

I've always thought that if I won the lottery, I would put some money aside to give away. The rules would be that anyone who asks for money would not get any--ever. I always hear stories of people who win the mega-lottery and then go broke fairly quickly, and hopefully that rule would take care of the people who glom onto those who win lotteries to stay away from me.

Then I'd look through the papers and internet sites and find people who are deserving of something, because they did a selfless act for someone else. I remember when the Minnesota Bridge collapsed, there was a youth counselor on a bus that fell toward the river, who rescued the camp kids on his bus and made certain that they were all okay before he got out, without knowing what danger he was in. A story the next day said that he couldn't afford college so he went to work as a counselor. So I thought my imaginary lottery fund if I had it at the time would be used to help him go to college.

I bring this up, because there are many people in the world who act selfishly a lot, or for their own good, and some on the celebrity level seek adulation and recognition along with praise for relatively minor things that they do, while others toil every day in relative anonymity for no recognition at all.

Then you have people like Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, who gained fame last month for the incredible landing in the Hudson River, and miraculously losing no one in the process, due to the efforts and training of the crew and passengers.

It's probably been a whirlwind month for the guy, what with TV interviews, Super Bowl Appearances, and his humbleness has been incredible. But I became aware of a small story today, that speaks volumes about the good Captain. One of the casualties of the crash in the Hudson, was a book that Captain Sully had with him that was left behind. Presumably, the book is in the Hudson or at the NTSB where they are inspecting the plane to determine what happened. However the Captain had borrowed the book, and despite everything that has happened in the three weeks since the accident, the Captain took time out to personally make sure the borrowee was aware that they weren't going to get the book back. He didn't get some assistant to do it, he did it himself. He actually called the library he borrowed the book from, and let them know he couldn't return it. The library waived the fee. Good for them! If I had my lottery fund they would get some books funded by it.

But the best part of this story is that the book--although we don't know what the exact title is--was purportedly on Professional Ethics!

Here's Wishing Captain Sully much Gruntledness!

Happy Groundhog Day!

Today is Groundhog Day, the day when Punxsutawney Phil pokes his head out of a hole and determines whether or not there will be 6 more weeks of winter or not. He bases this on whether or not he sees his shadow.

His Pronouncement earlier this morning (as translated from Groundhogese):

Hear Ye Hear Ye
On Gobbler's Knob this glorious Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2009
Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators
Awoke to the call of President Bill Cooper
And greeted his handlers, Ben Hughes and John Griffiths
After casting a joyful eye towards thousands of his faithful followers,
Phil proclaimed that his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers were World Champions one more time
And a bright sky above me
Showed my shadow beside me.
So 6 more weeks of winter it will be.

He has been officially predicting for since 1887 and according to his website his predictions have been 100% correct.

I love the fact that a town gets up at an ungodly hour in early February and makes a spectacle out of a rodent predicting the weather. If only the human weatherpeople were accurate even half the time! Hmmm, maybe the stations should hire Groundhogs to give the weather forecasts.

Speaking of weather, I hope that anyone reading this blog who has been affected by the recent ice storms in the southeast are doing okay. Our thoughts and prayers are with you all.

Odds and Ends:
This post marks the 6th day in a row that I've blogged. I'm going to try to keep it going at least until the 12th when I head down to Tennessee to see the kids.

Thanks for the comments regarding my Jury Service blogs. I kind of enjoyed the serial nature to it, and may do other stories in the future like that. Feedback is always great. And I will wrap it up later this week.

Steelers 27 Cardinals 23--What a game! Hope you enjoyed it Kim!

About Things Random Me

This is the list that is taking Facebook by storm. I finally broke down and wrote some things down.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you, but I won't be upset if you DON'T tag me back. If I tagged you, there’s no real special reason behind it, unless of course you tagged me and therefore I must tag you back—unless I don’t. (If confused see #14 )

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

25. I’m a non-conformist

24. I like to make made up words and phrases from real words and phrases because I feel the other words should exist too. Examples are “Gruntled” and “Illegally Blind”

23. I used to be described as an introvert. Now I’m more of an extrovert, and can do some silly things sometimes, but I have never ever sung Karaoke in public.

22. I have been unemployed 5 separate times in my adult life ranging from 1 month to 1 and a half years.

21. Every time I get a job after being unemployed, I have been much better off than before.

13. I get annoyed with Oblivious people who seem to have no idea that other people exist around them.

12. My favorite oblivious people are those who stop at the very top of escalators for a moment before they decide where they want to go--forgetting that the escalator is still moving with people on it.

4. Sometimes I turn out to be one of those oblivious people.

18. I have been married for over 28 years.

10. My wife tells me I have been happily married for over 28 years.

2. I used to have two children.

6. Now I have four adults, because my two children have grown up and got married.

8. Raising my children to adulthood is probably the greatest achievement of my life.

5. Not going insane while raising my children to adulthood is probably my second greatest achievement.

20. I am not very religious, but I have a strong faith that there is a supreme being in charge of things.

17. I believe in karma.

9. I once left a job after 13 ½ years, and surprised just about all of the management. They thought I was a “lifer” and would never leave.

11. I was told that leaving that job would be a big mistake. I thought staying would be a bigger mistake.

13. After 12 years, I still think I was right.

7. I like to play games.

3. Game nights are big in my family.

14. Sometimes, I play games using different rules than everyone else is playing.

15. Some people refer to this as cheating, but I disagree.

19. I invented “Full-Contact Nertz” which is a wonderful enhancement to the game “Nertz”.

1. I belong to a professional organization that calls itself WUSS. I have also been called a geek. So I guess I am a WUSS and a geek. But I have a sense of humor.

26. Have I mentioned that I’m a non-conformist?

Be Gruntled! Enjoy the Super Bowl!

Jury Duty Part IV: Deliberation and Verdict

Note: to read the case from the beginning start here

At 4PM we left the court room and got down to the business of deliberating in the jury room.

During the trial we were allowed to take notes in notebooks provided to us by the court. In many cases the evidence is submitted during the trial, and the jury gets it as part of their deliberations. In our case we had no evidence, so all we really had were our notes on the testimony in the courtroom.

We also were instructed to decide innocence or guilt based on the evidence presented in the trial. It really had nothing to do with whether we liked the prosecutor or defense better. We could use our own life experiences to help us judge the testimony.

The first thing the Jury is supposed to do in deliberations is choose a foreperson. We decided not to do that up front, and instead decided to take a little bit of time to see what each person thought about the case. So the 6 of us each took a turn and discussed it.

Here's what we generally thought of the testimony we had heard:

1. 1st Police Officer--Many of us including me, thought that he was enhancing his testimony unnecessarily. When pushed by the prosecution at one point, he claimed the defendant was speeding as they followed him down the road after the first turn. He actually put a number on what he thought the defendant's speed was--30 MPH, "because we had to go around 40 to catch up to him". He also claimed the second turn was about 1/4 mile down the road. One juror pointed out that there was no way a guy in a BMW could be speeding on that road, because of the numerous speed humps on it. This officer also described the odor of alcohol on the defendant as very strong. It also turned out that the distance from the first turn to the second left turn was much further down the road probably closer to a mile which is where the defendant placed it. Most of us seemed to question this officers credibility on his recall of that night.

2. 2nd Police officer--This officer seemed to be more straightforward in his description of the events. When asked if he saw any erratic driving other than not using the left turn signal, he said no. He was asked specifically if he thought the defendant was speeding and he said no. He did say that the defendant did not use the turn signal on the left turn into the neighborhood of the party. He described the odor of alcohol on the defendant as "low or moderate, but distinctly alcohol" and that he smelled like "he had an alcoholic beverage."

3. Forensic Expert--We all pretty much had no idea why she was testifying. We felt she was very believable in her knowledge, but her knowledge of alcohol on the body, though fascinating, was not considered in our decision.

4. The Defendant--The consensus was that we did not believe that he had not had a drink that night before leaving the party. He was definitely nervous on the stand. We also were disappointed that we did not get a clearer explanation for why he did not submit to the roadside maneuvers or the blood test. His testimony was shaky at best.

First the DUI Law for Colorado: Driving under the influence means driving a vehicle when a person has consumed intoxicants which affects the person to a degree that he or she is substantially incapable, mentally or physically, to exercise clear judgment, sufficient physical control, or due care in the safe operation of a vehicle.

As we talked through it, none of us felt that any of the testimony indicated that the defendant's driving that he was driving unsafely even if he had been drinking. None of either officer's testimony showed anything unsafe. They admitted they were wrong about the left turn arrow at the light, and even at 30 MPH, he was probably not speeding because the main thoroughfares are between 35-45 MPH. So nothing was indicated that he was driving recklessly other than not using the left turn signal, which is fairly common by sober people. And without any evidence submitted as to the Blood Alcohol level, the prosecution really had nothing concrete to convict.

On the DUI Charge--NOT GUILTY.

On to the DWAI Law: Colorado DWAI (driving while ability impaired) is similar to Colorado DUI, except that to be convicted of Colorado DWAI, the prosecution is only required to prove that the defendant was affected to the slightest degree, so that the person is less able than he or she ordinarily would have been to exercise clear judgment.

One of the jurors on the initial discussion thought he was guilty of the DWAI, and another was waivering on it or wasn't completely convinced that he wasn't guilty on that. My opinion relied on the second police officer, who I felt was the most believable, in that he said more than once that the man had had "an alcoholic beverage", not "alcoholic beverages" in the plural sense, but very specifically one drink. And once again, there was no evidence of any impairment based on the testimony. I think this argument swayed the two jurors who were uncertain and we arrived at a decision.

On the DWAI Charge--NOT GUILTY.

Now the decisions so far took about 20 minutes of deliberation. The left turn signal charge was much more difficult. Five of us initially went for guilty on the charge, while one person thought he should be not guilty on that charge primarily since he was being followed for the wrong reason in the first place. Surprisingly, we had a nice civil discussion as he raised several other issues about why he thought we should go not guilty, and the other five gave him our reasons for why that didn't persuade us. He eventually got me to waver on my vote briefly. One of the arguments was that we didn't believe the police officers on the alcohol related charges, so why should we believe them on the turn signal? Plus they had been wrong on the left turn arrow in the first place. My final argument was that I was believing the 2nd Police officer in both cases. His testimony had told me that he didn't believe that the defendant was alcohol impaired because he had chosen his words carefully. But I also had to believe him when he said the defendant didn't use his turn signal. The defendant also didn't really defend the left turn signal charge. His only response was that he didn't remember whether he used it or not.

After about 40 minutes of discussion on the left turn signal we arrived at a final decision.

On the Failure to Use Turn Signal: GUILTY.

I made the comment that the attorneys, judge and defendant were probably in the courtroom thinking we were trying to decide between DUI and DWAI and here we were trying to figure out the left turn signal.

Since we still didn't have a foreperson, I volunteered to do it, which just required me to sign the forms with the verdicts and give them to the judge when we returned to the courtroom.

We pressed the button to summon the clerk, and when he came in he asked us if we had reached a verdict, we told him yes, and moments later we were back in the courtroom where the verdicts were read.

Next: Oh, the Things We Didn't Know!