Category Archives: Castle Willett

March 29, 2018 · 23:59

No Pressure, No Diamonds

Another cool sentiment – diamonds are so idealized and glamorous and precious, but we know that they only exist because a lump of coal got squished for eons under billions of tons of pressure and enormous heat. So if we can put up with the pressure in our lives, we too can be diamonds! Right?!

It occurs to me that no one ever asks the coal how it feels about the whole process.

The posts of the last few days have been a bit cryptic and a bit of a buzzkill. Lemme give you the “tl;dr” version….

Busy, busy, busy at work – it’s audit season.

Busy, busy, busy at the hangar – it’s the hangar.

And finally, after 27 years in the same house, which is now way, way too big with the kids grown and the cats and dogs all gone, we’ve got a couple offers on the table which means we’ll have to find a new place and deal with decades of “stuff” in order to get out of here in the next few weeks.

There may be a lot of really short posts here in the near future, if you follow the way I’ve drifted.

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March 18, 2018 · 21:42

Lizard In The Sun

It’s been rainy here off and on for several weeks now, an odd weather pattern for this time of year. Given the gray and gloom, we haven’t seen a lot of “the Freds.” But today was sunnier if not much warmer, and at least one of the larger lizards was out to catch a few rays.

Not the biggest one I’ve seen by any means – I suspect it’s one of the handful of little ones that I first saw about two months ago, now with a bit of growth.

Some of the online references (San Diego Zoo, for example) say that this species can live 10-15 years. I don’t think we’re seeing the same lizards for that long since I suspect that the local bird population (crows and mockingbirds, primarily) have been seen catching the hatchlings.

It was a nice day to be out sunning, especially with shelter and a hidey-hole just inches away.

Yes, that is the, “Why are you bothering me and if you move one inch closer I’m going to vanish under this patio!” look.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Critters, Photography

March 11, 2018 · 23:41

Saved By The Toilet?

While there are most certainly circumstances in life in which the toilet can be a savior, today’s act of salvation might not one that works exactly the way one might expect given the overly dramatic and click-bait-ish title. Nonetheless…

I’ve mentioned, repeatedly, that I truly hate Daylight Saving Time. Not news.

I’ve mentioned in the last couple of days that I’m NOT a morning person. Also, being busier than God the last few weeks (okay, months, actually) my one day to usually sleep in a bit is Sunday. But not this morning for whatever reason.

We do the Sunday morning breakfast out thing, get groceries, I’m plopped down in the big, cushy, comfy chair and thinking that against all of that sage advice on the internet, this might be a really good opportunity to take a little nap – when disaster strikes!

The toilet breaks! One of the bolts that holds the tank onto the base has snapped and there’s water starting to flood the bathroom! Red alert!

Well, at least a pale shade of pink alert. We do have two other bathrooms so it’s tempting to go take that nap after the water is shut off and the mess cleaned up.

Protestant Work Ethic! Catholic school education! Nuns with yardsticks looming out of my memory like Jacob Marley wailing and rattling his chains with enough guilt to make any Jewish mother proud! (Wait, how did I get three different religions pissed at me in one paragraph with just the thought of a nap?)

Off to the hardware store. Get the parts, fix the toilet. And as long as I’m at the store, pick up the parts for another small repair that’s been neglected. Oh, and get 9-volt batteries for all of the smoke alarms since we’re supposed to change those with Daylight Saving Time as our reminder.

Do this. Do that. Oh, wait, there was one other thing I wanted to get done in the garage today, come hell or high water. But to do that, I need to do this other thing. As long as I’m doing that, why not…

Twelve hours later, we’ll see if being on your feet pretty much all day and working yourself into a totally exhausted state cleaning and moving and cleaning and throwing out and organizing and cleaning is an effective method of battling the Daylight Saving Time Blues.

I know it’s done wonders for the leg cramps that plague me at night – I’ve been having them all afternoon and evening as well.

Which self-inflicted force will win out tonight? Exhaustion? Cramps? Artificial jet lag?

Tune in tomorrow for our next exciting episode of “Battlefield Paul!”

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February 23, 2018 · 23:51

Curling

I can’t believe that I’m up at nearly midnight watching live Olympic curling.

I’ve learned enough of the rules to be dangerous and I know enough (I think; I probably don’t) to recognize a really good shot.

Strategy? Yeah, let’s not go crazy here.

When I was a kid I never imagined myself as a a rebel or a wild & crazy guy – I was never going to be Peter Fonda in “Easy Rider.” At the other extreme, I never saw myself watching guys slide forty-seven pound rocks a hundred and fifty feet down the ice to bump the other guys’ rocks off of the button and out of the house.

On the other hand, after the two weeks (or two months, or eight) that I’ve had, sitting on my ass for a couple of hours and doing nothing more mentally complex than watching guys slide forty-seven pound rocks a hundred and fifty feet down the ice to bump the other guys’ rocks off of the button and out of the house is wonderful.

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February 19, 2018 · 22:06

Heard In My Head

After being up way too late last night finishing up the CAF financials for today’s audit, I was up two hours early this morning to get out to Camarillo on time. As I’m coming out of the bathroom after showering and preparing to face the ordeal:

The Long Suffering Wife: “You can turn on the light.”

Me: “What if I don’t want to turn on the light? What if I’m still upset with the light over that little tiff and I’m not speaking to her, let alone trying to turn her on? What if I don’t care if the light ever gets turned on again? Serves her right after that little ‘tete-e-tete’ the light had with Rex, and while she says that it was just innocent word play, *I* saw how they were looking at each other and *I* know that it was much, much more than that! So I will NOT be turning on the light any time soon! Let the little minx just stew on that for a while – she knows where to find me when she’s ready to apologize!”

Well, at least that’s the way it played out in my head. Not sure if any of the drama or counterfeit angst actually made it past my larynx. I was pretty tired.

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February 10, 2018 · 23:20

That Feeling When – February 10th

That feeling when you’re indulging in a little bit of “musical therapy” to unwind on a Saturday night and it’s a good night on the Sirius Channel 33 “1st Wave” Saturday Night Safety Dance show and they keep playing favorites and when they do of course you turn it up REALLY LOUD and your phone keeps pinging alerts and you finally give in and look at it and find out that the music is loud enough to be triggering the security camera on the front door three rooms away and you’re disgustingly pleased by that fact.

I’m easily amused.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Music

February 9, 2018 · 23:30

First Light

Among this week’s crises (some of which approached almost comic proportions, like where you want to raise your weary eyes to the heavens and plead, “Really? REALLY? That’s just lazy writing!” – line blatantly stolen from the new “Deadpool 2” trailer because it’s freakin’ hilarious) were a terminally ill phone, which lead to the move up to the iPhone 8 Plus.

Of course, with a new, much better & faster smart phone comes a new, much better & faster camera. Let’s be real – they’re actually pocket-sized high definition video cameras that can take really good still photos with a supercomputer attached for kicks and a phone tacked on as an afterthought today. Oh, and they play music.

Alas, my train of thought has derailed once again.

Given the new phone and a foggy, dreary grey morning on Tuesday morning, the first pictures to come out of the new device were of the flag hanging in our front yard.

It is not lost on me that our house’s flag might well be an accurate symbol for the current state of our country – faded, a bit tattered, beaten up, feeling a bit worse for wear, adrift in a fog with no clear direction in sight.

As with the phone, perhaps it’s time for a replacement and upgraded flag. While we’re at it, let’s keep working on that upgraded and refreshed country as well.

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February 1, 2018 · 22:41

That Feeling When – February 01st

That feeling when you’ve had yet another long, long day at work toward the end of yet another long, long week at work and you don’t even get to go home yet because you have to go swing by Fry’s (aka “The Seventh Level of Hell“) to get stuff that you need for one of the office systems so you’re just going through the motions until you slowly become a tad more aware only to find yourself confused because the elevator is acting odd by not doing what you’re expecting so you hit the “6” button and again it just sits there with the doors open and not moving and AGAIN you hit the “6” button with a bit more awareness (but obviously not nearly enough) and this time you notice that the illumination on the light when you hit it just blinks off and you hit the “6” button AGAIN and AGAIN it lights for about a millisecond and then goes off and you’re not sure what’s going on only to finally be rescued when someone from the next office come out and get on the elevator while looking at you curiously and you AGAIN hit the “6” button because it will work now that you have a witness but it doesn’t and the guy from next door edges away from you to hit the “G” button so you can leave the sixth floor where your offices are and go down to the “LAAAABY” so you can all go home and all you can mutter in your dawning horror is, “Thanks, man, I don’t know how long I would have been stuck there if you hadn’t come along.”

Then you go get into your half ton of small & zippy automobile and drive out with the rest of the zombies trying to get home.

It’s a wonder any of us make it through the day alive.

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January 25, 2018 · 23:04

That Feeling When – January 25th

That feeling when if it weren’t for exhaustion and the headache you wouldn’t feel anything at all and what you really want is some loud music so you’re stepping through your favorite YouTube set list and after a while you realize that the favorite favorite in their hasn’t come up so you go looking for it only to find out that it’s been pulled for copyright violation after all of these years and you’re angry and sad and ready to ugly cry and you let You Tube go ahead on its own and inexplicably, after three hours of listening to Bronski Beat and Pet Shop Boys and New Order and Morrisey and Eurythmics and Depeche Mode, inexplicably You Tube decides what you need is the Bee Gees’ “Staying Alive.”

So is YouTube’s algorithm really, really freakin’ insightful and wise and godlike, or just a really, really annoying pain in the ass?

Or is there no difference between those two?

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January 16, 2018 · 22:54

That Feeling When – January 16th

That feeling when you suddenly remember lunch two days ago when you really wanted cheese but it had that moldy spot on one corner and you were kinda sure you could just cut that bit off and eat the rest without getting food poisoning so you did but it was really good cheese so you just cut off a teeny tiny bit extra around the mold because you didn’t want to waste any but then later you decided to google it to see if that was a good idea and they said you should have cut off a much bigger margin just to be safe and then you worried for a couple of hours before forgetting about it until just now when you realized that you CHEATED DEATH ONCE MORE!

But now you’re hungry for cheese again.

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