Curmudgeon's Comments

HER SUPREME HIGHNESS Princess Polly Pinknose passed away earlier this week. I never was sure if she thought she was Nefertiti, Bast or a Persian empress. Bast, I suspect, because cats are gods and to be worshipped. I'd post a photo, but the TOS allow Google, et al. to do anything they bloody please with my images, for which I receive their thanks. Note that Google's thanks and $2.25 will get you a cup of coffee. Do bring the $2.25 or the barista will mock you.

Dear Wolfe Tones:

Kindly stop chasing the British Army in my head.

Really.

Y'all are a hell of a band, but I'm getting tired of hearing "Go Home British Soldiers" and whatever tune it is that has the IRA chasing the Brits around Killashandra.

Please.

THIS AFTERNOON I submitted the paperwork to Carilion HR for my pension. Kudos to Dave at Carilion HR for taking the time to not only check to make sure I'd everything submitted properly, but who, unasked, thoughtfully made a copy for my records. He went out of his way to make dealing with it as stress-less as possible.

Monday my renewal for the Registry arrived in the mail. I'll renew this year, but I've no idea whether or not I'll renew in 2011. I'll cross that particular river when I arrive there.

Today I felt like Caesar must have felt when he crossed the Rubicon.

Alea iacta est. The die is cast.

Far past time for another update.

As we head toward summer, on this first holiday of the year, let us remember those who served, who fought and died and those who serve today.

Past readers may note changes in the design of this page, the body type should show as either Garamond, Baskerville, Georgia, TNR or Verdana. Failing any of those being resident in your beast, you'll get it in whatever serif or sans-serif font you have as default viewing.

The Curmudgeon's eyeballs are aging, as a result, the base font size was upped a tad to make things more easily read and a light grey tint was added to the background.

I call your attention to the links bar, there are several additions there: "Knives, Fire and Fun!" which has some excellent receipes; "Flinders Family Freer" — author and biologist Dave Freer's journey from South Africa to a island off the coast of Australia and life there; "Home on the Range" — photos, commentary and philosophy by a mid-western lady writing as Brigid, well worth reading.

I've corrected an oversight on my part by adding a link to the general section of my photo gallery.

If the changes in the style are pleasing to you — or displeasing — please comment as to why.

I'm considering venturing into (for me) uncharted territory, specifically, sales of items made for the kitchens and patios/yards on-line and possibly at local venues. We'll see how that goes; I have to get a site up and my son and I have things to do in his shop before it's capable of production, even on a custom basis, plus licenses and assorted paper-work.

That's all for now.

Another episodic update ...

In July, Carilion notified me that I'd be riffed, effective 11 September. And so I was.

The separation package was not bad -- many are worse, quite a few are better. So it goes.

I'm officially retired from Carilion Clinic (or Carilion Health System, no idea what name they're currently using). I haven't put in for a pension as of yet, it's most definitely in the offing.

Meanwhile, SWMBO and I have gone official and married. I'm working on a honey-do list and rather desultorily looking about for a job. The VSRT may well have it's first district president who's employed at Kroger. We'll see.

My son's hitch in the Marine Corps is up (as of July) and my youngest daughter is now stationed at MCAS Pendleton -- she's a helicopter mechanic. I fully expect (based on what I've been told by others in a position to be aware of such things) that before her hitch is up she'll be somewhere in the sandbox -- Marines inland like helicopters, she's a mech. Q.E.D.

So it goes. On into the new year.

Who dares, wins.

We survive.

The firm SWMBO works for has sold two-thirds of it's business to a Quebecois firm. SWMBO thinks she'll stay with the original firm, but doesn't know. She was told that should she be transferred to the Quebecois firm, in the spirit of morale-building, she'll start at zero for seniority and vacation.

SWMBO prefers being kissed when things like that are going on.

The Wombat is now stationed at Camp Pendleton, CA. How long she'll be there is anyone's guess, her orders read for three years.

David's due to be discharged some time in July. He's currently shuttling betwixt Pendleton and the Stumps.

MarsCon, StellarCon and RavenCon were neat. Caught up with friends.

Hopefully I will still be employed when LibertyCon and DragonCon roll around.

That's about it for now.

AS USUAL, it's been a while since I last updated this.

My son's unit returned from Iraq in May, 2008. While on this deployment they suffered no casualties.

My youngest is now at MCRD Parris Island, SC. She will graduate late this summer.

Work has been busy, the clinic split their orthopaedic practise and moved half of the physicians to our facility, so our workload has increased dramatically, much to my boss' relief.

We've started to add bookshelves to our back bedroom, getting some of the mass clutter under better control. I'm currently building a set of shelves for the basement to do the same there and expect to complete them this weekend (Labour Day).

The hurricane season finally broke our drought here, remnants of Fay gave us much-needed rainfall. While I doubt there will be another cutting of hay, the pastures and hayfields may be saved — it has been so dry that farmers are now feeding hay in August, something that usually doesn't start until late November. Many are sending stock to the slaughterhouse early, dairy farms will be scrambling for hay for the winter. Because of the drought, prices of milk are bound to rise. Beef may drop briefly, due to early slaughter.

To put this in a dollars-and-cents perspective, we're seeing truckloads of hay being hauled in from places like Iowa where they have had enough rain to keep the cuttings going. We're on the East Coast, so imagine what 1,500 or so miles of freight costs will do to the cost of hay. It's not going to be a pretty fall and winter for farmers and stables. One patient told me that hay was now going for seven dollars a bale (this is a "square bale") in nearby Bath County. Earlier this spring, hay was in the $4/bale price range.

Locally, we've had a lot of apple trees dropping fruit because of the drought. Cider prices may drop a bit, but fresh apples are likely to be expensive, or at least more expensive than anticipated. As this is a major crop in the area, it's a big financial hit.

We've been fortunate so far as things go with fires, although the local fire season starts in October, the rainfall from Fay will, it is hoped, help with keeping the forests wet enough that the understory isn't a tinder box waiting to flare.

That's all for now.

... since I updated this. So.

David's unit is deployed to Iraq and has been there since some time in October 2007.

They're east of Syria and west of the Tigris. For the most part, they're bored. Hopefully they'll stay that way until they return.

I've started to tinker a bit with the more involved capabilities of Photoshop, if you care to look, the results can be found in the Artsy Stuff gallery of my LJ site. If anyone cares to know how I did some of the manipulations, e-mail me, I can be reached through the info page on my LJ.

As a result of continuing frustration with MicroSloth, I've installed Linux on my beast and am slowly getting acquainted with it. So far, it works well. My thanks to the folks at Georgia Tech for hosting the download site I used, it worked very well with no problems.

More frequent commentary and observations are also at my LJ site, because of the availability of their photo hosting and several other reasons, I don't use this blog very much.

That's all for now.

SO I THOUGHT I'D put something up here.

Lessee.

Hotel CHRV (aka CRCH) is now pretty much closed. The last house patients shipped over to RMH (pardon me, CRMH) last week, and we closed the ER and changed over to an "Urgent Care" centre, open from 07:00 to 20:00 daily. Radiology has gone to a weekday only, first shift service for outpatients (as there are no house patients). The Wound Care Centre is still operating, Occupational Medicine is still here, the lab is now a weekday only, first shift service like Radiology (damn, there I go again, it's "Imaging Services [X-ray]" now. We had to add X-ray because the patients didn't want their film developed, they wanted their possibly broken ankles X-ray'd). Endoscopy is still here, first shift, weekdays, outpatients.

So, interesting times ahead. You betcha, Sven.

David's unit will be deploying this fall.

Having every confidence in our leadership, I'm certain their ROE will be suitably politicised instead of telling them to break shit, kill people and win the fight. Chesty Puller must be clocking at about 10k RPM in his grave.

Challenging times ahead, Sven, you betcha.

Dragon*Con was a blast. Eventually I'll put pix up, with the turmoil at work I haven't edited any of them.

So, for that matter, was LibertyCon. Pix up for that at my LJ Photo Gallery.

The D*C photos will be at that location also, when up.

Neat photos and lively discussions at Taunton's Knots and Breaktime forums, registration is required and can be done from Taunton's main site. Taunton publishes a range of magazines, Fine WoodWorking, Fine Homebuilding, Fine Cooking and Threads are amongst their better-known ones.

That's all for now.