It is not everyday that one encounters a penguin and a giant wiener.

TR

A visit to the Wizards

While in DC in June I stopped by to see the Wizards in the big stone house. As usually DG went around the left side of the building and came in through the entrance that the lawyers use. The chamber was open and we were able to get in for a tour. The Whizzes were all busy whizzing, trying to finish up so that they could take there summer break that ends the first week of October. Not a bad job if you can get it, lifetime tenure and a three month summer break.

TR

Play it again Johnny

The sidewalks play music in Nashville, now I have heard musical rocks at Disney World, but Johnny Cash songs coming out of a street light control box was a bit of a surprise. The Renaissance Hotel is connected to the convention center, and the hotel is connected to a parking garage by an elevated walkway across what someone thought would be a busy street. Rather then build the typical covered overhead walkway; they built a “Skybridge.” It is huge; glass enclosed and contains a deli and a bar. Here I am on the top of the grand piano in the Skybridge waiting to be discovered by a big time producer.

TR

I'll try not to twang

I was in Nashville the other day, for 25 hours. It was about 101 degrees in the shade, so I walked as far as I could inside the air conditioned convention center and came out the doors on the far end on my way back to the hotel. I pop out and what do I see across the street, the historic home of the Grand Old Opera. You never know what you will bump into when you are trying to stay cool.

TR

Class

THE way I was meant to travel. Comfort, elegance and class.

TR

No Pictures

Ok, Blogger won’t let me upload pictures right now.

During the fire yesterday the police came through DG’s office building telling people to evacuate. DG ran to his office, shut down his computer, grabbed his briefcase and cell phone and headed for the door. About half way down the hall he turned around and went back for his glasses. He then started for the door and realized that the only copy of about 25 hours of work on a major grant proposal was on his office computer. In a panic he decided he should email a copy to his home email address. Of course this involved restarting his computer. He pushed the button and waited, XP takes a minute to boot up. Then there is all of the security software and the synch-programs for the handheld and phone to start up before Outlook will open for mail. He started Outlook to soon causing the blackberry synch program to crash and ask him 50 times if he wanted to send an error message, are you really sure you don’t want to send an error message, it help to improve service for everyone still alive 10 minutes from now. As he is waiting for email to get ready the pyrotechnics in the building across the street start to explode, did I mention that DGs office is on the side of the building facing the fire. He was starting to wonder if he would die in service to his company. He was nearing panic when email finally opened and was wondering out loud, will anyone know that I died trying to safeguard my work, work that could change the destiny of the organization?

Probably not.

TR

The dog ate my homework

DG had to email a friend and ask her to resend to him the dial in number for a conference call this afternoon. His excuse was that the information was in his office and his office had been evacuated because the fireworks warehouse across the street caught fire. The friend's response was that this was the best "the dog ate my homework" excuse that she had ever heard. He sent her this picture that he took just outside his office window as he was fleeing the building. He knew it was probably time to leave when he could hear the exploding shells. A fireworks warehouse is not a good place to hold a wienie roast. The fire was contained to the fireworks building, it burned for over 4 hours and the 100 year old building is likely a total loss. Just another fun day at the office. Makes me want to go out of town!

TR

It is all a matter of scale

It is all a matter of scale and proportions. I am a giant, if the Capital is in a small enough scale. I have found that it is a lot easier to be a major force, in a less competitive field. It is easy to stand out in the shallow end of the gene pool. Of course in DC it is hard to tell the shallow end of gene pool from the shallow end of the ethics pool.

TR

Union Station

Why Amtrak is in trouble. We recently looked into going to Washington DC by train. There is passenger service from Cincinnati. The problem is it only runs a couple of times each week going east and a couple of times a week going west. Now we can cope with the fact that in a couple of years baby squirrel would get there faster riding her big wheel. You can drive there in less then half the time it takes to ride the train. To get there for a conference that starts on Wednesday you have to leave Cincinnati the previous Wednesday and you can't return home until Sunday. If the ticket was free, who would put up with such a poor schedule? Maybe I can swim? How do you get from the Ohio River across to DC?

TR

I have more of these

After nearly 45 years of marriage, a couple was lying in bed
one evening, when the wife felt the husband begin to fondle her
in ways he hadn't done in quite some time. It almost tickled
as his fingers started at her neck, and then began moving down
past the small of her back. He then caressed her shoulders and
neck.
He then proceeded to place his hand on her left inner arm,
working down her side, passed gently over her buttock and down her leg to her calf.

Then suddenly stopped, rolled over and became silent. As she had become quite aroused by this caressing, she asked in a loving voice, "Honey, that was wonderful. Why did you stop?"

"I found the remote," he mumbled.

Flightless

I stopped to talk to the FAA about classifying us as flightless. Engineers claim that there is no way that a bumble bee can fly, but it never stopped them and they were never classified as flightless. Unfortunately the person in charge of such classifications was busy changing airline flight numbers and adjusting flight times by 2 minutes to protect the future, security and safety of American air travel. I will try again the next time I am town.

TR

Bears

DG wants to see a bear in the wild. He has tried in Alaska, he even tried to talk one of the locals in Anchorage into taking him out to the local dump at snack time. But she was afraid of becoming the snack, apparently she had the windows broken out of her car in a parking lot behind the Anchorage Police department a couple of months earlier when she left her lunch on the seat one warm spring day. There is a line in a promo for a TV programing that says "that warm fuzzy bear can rip your head off and eat you when it wants to." For now I am content to visit indoor bears, like this cute little trio in the National Portrait Gallery in DC.

TR
Lions and Tiger and Bears, oh my!

US Capital

I went looking for the man in the funny hat
No one wearing a funny hat, if you can imangine that

The trip was great fun
But now I have to run

TR

Statuary Hall, US Capital

I am not a statute, despite my temporary installation in the Statuary Hall in the US Capital last week. Each state is allowed to have two statues displayed in the capital and they can only change the statues after two years. Being informed of this, and not wanting to place a state in violation of the law, I was promptly removed.

TR

Shiny boots

DG should take lessons from this guy.

TR