The day after

Well the fireworks were mild in my opinion, although it is an opinion formed by the exuberant fireworks in Shanghai. Sammy was restless but not too bad although the noise continued well after midnight.

My road trip went well and my boss talked a lot about how things are handled and how support works so well worth my time. He also alluded to Mr. No Fun getting on people's nerves with his weird attitude. If it is not happening to you it is hilarious and he did a fantastic mimic of him.

I think the Big Boss has been neglecting some duties and I was sent the long discussed contract to sign and return. I was pleasantly surprised to see that anything over 40 hours is time and a half. That is the worst part of this job, there is OT and it is random and almost always a surprise. Now to be able to sit/stand/whatever and repeat the mantra "big money" will make it so much more pleasant.

I spent over an hour talking to my Sprint representative explaining that I have between one and no bars on my phone. We went through the zero value added rebooting and adding and all kinds of bullshit and at the end I still had zero to one bar. At one point he tells me to get next to a window. I did not blow and tell him what a ridiculous requirement that would be to be able to use a phone-I told him I was next to an 8 foot doorwall on 2 sides and it was the biggest window in my house. So at the end of the day he has declared that my 1 year old phone from Sprint is a piece of shit and I need to go to the Sprint store and get my face slapped for wasting his time. I am hopeful Verizon will be better and the transition will be somewhat painless. That will be next week or next month.

For today, rain, rain go away.

I am having a no fun day

Went to bed last night to the pop pop pop of the fireworks. This is now a nightly event and Sammy is still not fond of the noises. He sits in the bed watching the window. He can't see out the window but he waits and watches.

Around 1 AM my GI tract made a decision, this would be a night from hell. Every time I got out of bed Sammy would get out of bed. When I got back into bed I felt like shit and was freezing so I did not worry about where Sammy was. He showed back up a few minutes later without fail, all night long.

When we got up and asked Big Daddy to cancel the furnace people the weather decided to have huge thunderstorms. Sammy does not like those either. He sits under  my feet or he follows me back and forth to the bathroom. He does not bark or whine, he just looks really concerned.

Well, Big Daddy was home for 1 and 1/2 days when they told him no more travel for a couple months. So, of course within the hour he told me he has to go to China the 21st, and stay for the week. I know I will have to schedule a colonoscopy after I see the doc on Thursday and he will need to be home for that, gotta have a driver.

Wow, just heard Andy Griffith has died. That is sad, loved that show.

Never again will I go out of my way to see fireworks

Standing on the balcony last night was unbelievable. At times it felt like I could touch the fireworks. There were a couple times I ducked and once I wiped my face looking for ash. There was not one inch of space in the Shanghai skyline that was not full of fireworks. It was like every fireworks show in the US showed up at once and set up shop one block from each other. I saw the fireworks once on the Detroit river (while on a boat) during the Freedom Festival, it ain't nuttin-as they say in Philly-compared to the light show last night. And these people who can't afford water in their homes pay for this. WTF.

Today is New Year's Day so we are having Duck Confit we bought earlier this week and will cook if we don't kill each other before dinner. And use the excess duck fat to fry the potatoes and make a salad. Yumm.

Weather is mild enough to have the balcony door open and walk out and look at the world. Absence of cars and people is weird. Then you hear to noises and see the huge puffs of smoke from the firecrackers that just lay on the ground and make noise.

Egypt is getting really scary and it appears no one has a plan, including Anderson Cooper. When you try to beat up Anderson you do not have a plan. Anderson, you can't just go anywhere and be safe, you are not the scud stud. Remember him? And then when we saw him in real life-it was eeew.

And when people are gathering in the streets saying pretty much they hate your ass and your response I won't run for re-election, well I want to know when they are going to start selling that tea in the market place.

And speaking of wacko shit, WTF is up with Cairns, Australia pronounced as CANS, excuse, me, should this not be pronounced CARNES. Cans? What happened to the i and the r. That is like Brett Favre. What is wrong with the world.

Well I can't fix it all today.