Blogging Archives - Page 3 of 8

The Woman is Cracked

July 16, 2013 by Michael Carnell

“Andrea, you are nuts,” he said. “Your senses have fallen out of a crack in your skull.” “I am not! And my name is Andra, not Andrea. Why can’t you get that right?” “I am getting it right.” He looked up from working on the bicycle and wiped his hands on his stone gray t-shirt. … Read more

The Good Times – Exercise #22

July 15, 2013 by Michael Carnell

Fast on the heels of my ten favorite foods list from yesterday, today’s exercise is to illuminate you on the best thing that has happened this year. A lack of specifics is what we have here though. Is this supposed to be a calendar year? So, since January 1st? Or is this a full 12 months, so since July 15th of 2012. Maybe this actually means a school year, since it is kind of an educational exercise, but that is even harder since I am not a student and we would be in the middle of summer break anyway. So let’s say we just do this for the last twelve months, and that will enable me to make my new(ish) job fit the bill.

In December of 2012 I was hired on board as a systems programmer for the Medical University of South Carolina in the pediatrics department. The job is good, the benefits are nice, and the work is interesting, but that is really not what makes this the high point of the year. What makes this job the best thing to happen to me over the past year is that they sought me out for it. Correction, my now-boss sought me out for the job. It means a lot when someone specifically comes to you when you are not even looking for a job and asks you to come to work for them. It tells you that they really could use your skills and would like for you to join their team. For we geeks, so often the last ones picked for teams, that is huge. The fact that Lori, the brilliant and talented person who recruited me, has known me for many many years and would still want me on her team says even more.

Favorite Foods – Exercise #21

July 14, 2013 by Michael Carnell

OK, this is going to be a shorter one. Not as wordy, but very tasty. The exercise for today, number twenty-one out of thirty-one, is to list out my ten favorite foods. Anyone who knows me at all knows I love to eat. And, other than most green leafy things, I enjoy a wide variety of foods. So the only real problem I am going to have with today’s assignment is picking out just ten foods and putting them in some sort of order. But, that being said, I have no problem picking number one, so let’s start there.

1) The top place in my favorite foods has to go to my wife’s salsa. Nancy makes the absolute best fresh salsa I have ever tasted. I like it so much that I have been known to just eat it with a spoon – no chips or other edible transport. I don’t know how she does it, because when I try to replicate her exact recipe it never tastes the same. Baffles me, but happily she doesn’t make me do the work often. I am sure she sneaks in some secret ingredient that she won’t tell me about. Oh, and by the way, she uses lots of fresh cilantro. Great stuff.

2) Second place goes to Mexican food. I am going to cheat and lump the entire category in here as a food. Yes, I know that because I am doing this that I am kind of repeating number one, but as I have said before, this is my damned blog and I will do what I want. So, number two goes to everything from carnitas to tacos, burritos to carne asada.

3) Buffalo chicken. It is a sickness with me. When I get on a spicy Buffalo chicken bender I don’t get back off for days. I will eat wraps, sandwiches, nuggets, and even put the chicken in an omelet or other breakfast food. Just take some Buffalo chicken, top it with cheese, wrap it all up tight and serve it with ranch dressing and I am a happy boy.

Difficult Times – Exercise #20

July 13, 2013 by Michael Carnell

I am guessing some might call it a cheap way out to just point at the poem I wrote earlier today and declare that to be the answer to today’s exercise. Oh, by the way, that exercise is “a difficult time in your life”. Problem is that I think so many of us define ourselves by adversity that the difficult times in our lives are about all we see when we look back. We often over look the good times, and totally and completely ignore the periods of just calm complacency.

There have been lots of those over the course of my years -both good times and times of calm complacency. There have also been some absolutely fantastic times. Yup, overboard, over the top, joyous occasions. But, for some reason, the creator of this series of exercises would like to hear about a difficult time – not the time I met my boyhood idol, or vacationed in the UK, or danced down the streets of Savannah in the Marching Kazoo band. So those stories will wait for another day.

Difficult times in my life seem to be many, at least they are able to form a rather well attended convention in my head, so I need to relate one that won’t leave me crawling around on my mental knees, like the sudden death of my mother, or tell you too much about my inner frailties, such as buying a motorcycle when I turned forty; and then spending a decent amount of time in the hospital because of the stupid decision. And I will leave my children out of this since some of you seem averse to “kid stories”, and others just don’t care. And my kids hate it when I talk about them.

The Collector – Exercise #19

July 12, 2013 by Michael Carnell

First off I would like to apologize to all who read my blog as soon as it comes out. I have discovered that the quickest and easiest way to proofread anything I have written is to just hit the “publish” button. Same probably works with email. As soon as you make the work public you will begin to notice all the small spelling errors, incorrect word choices, and mixtures of tense. I try to go back and correct these as quickly as possible, but those of you who get immediate notice of the posting or are Johnny-on-the-spot and read it as soon as I post it online will get to see all my gory and glorifying errors. Really quite shameful. Especially for an English major. We all know that spellcheckers and other such grammar tools cannot find all little errors. It takes time, it takes reflection on what you wrote, and it takes rereading with a keen eye and ear. None of that seems to happen until I hit the publish button.

Well, enough of that apologizing and self flagellation. Today’s exercise, number nineteen of thirty-one, is something that is near and dear to my heart, something that drives those who live with me nuts, for today I am asked to describe, “what do you collect?” That is both a dangerous and a broad subject. We can start with the fact that I am a collector of all things involving around British cars. Not just the cars themselves you understand, but books about the cars, emblems from the cars, models of the cars, publicity posters, videos of the cars and car races, well I think you get the idea. Basically if I run across almost anything that has to do with old British cars I will collect it and try to find some spot for it in my home or office. The more esoteric the better.

If that’s not enough on the large side, I am also a train and trolley collector. Unfortunately I have no actual prototype real-size trains or trolleys (not that I haven’t tried), so I have to make up for that by collecting the same tonnage in model trains. Next week in fact I will be at the NMRA (National Model Railroad Association) convention in Atlanta for four days. My wife is going with me, and boy is she thrilled. And as is inevitable with a collection like this, not only do I collect the model trains and track and scenery and buildings that all go together to create a scene, I also collect the aforementioned books, movies, posters, belt buckles, and anything else you can think of that has to do railroading.