Customers at a BP filling station in New York were showered with fire retardant chemicals after a small explosion.

“It was crazy! It first poured out like it was water, and then turned into a huge white cloud,” said Henry Pacheco, 29, a moving company worker who had just bought a lottery ticket at the station.

You know, I’m just paranoid enough that my first thought would have been chemical weapon, not fire extinguisher.  Bravo to the men and women who helped each other out until emergency workers could get to them.

1. No, you do not need root, oracle, or administrator rights. If your software demands it, re-code or find another vendor.
2. If you utter the words FTP, telnet, rsh, or rexec in my presence in reference to my systems, then I think you need to either re-design your solution or find another SysAd. I will not break corporate policy or industry best practices to make your life easier.
3. I do not now, never have, nor will I ever care about what your previous SysAd did for you.  If you want me to do your job or the job of your contractor/vendor, then I want payment from your or their salary up front.  If you can do it yourself with the rights that have been assigned to you, then it’s your responsibility, not mine.
4. I will answer my cell phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for you.  I will bleed through my eyes in exhaustion to bring your services back up in an emergency.  I will work through the night, while my children are peacefully asleep and by all rights, so should I, so that your customers aren’t overly inconvenienced by downtime.  But if you come to me on a Friday afternoon and announce that there will be a planned upgrade this weekend that you didn’t think to tell me about, don’t act surprised if I get a little red in the face while I sit there and hold back the torrent of obscenities that are filling up my mind.
5. Yes, it costs that much.  I know you can go to BigBox Electronics and get something for a lot less, but I’m not going to jeopardize our business using some crack-house solution because you want to save a few dollars. Yes, I said crack-house.  No I didn’t mean ghetto.  The difference between crack house and ghetto is that a man can still be proud in a ghetto.  There’s no pride in a crack house.
6. No, I don’t think we need to meet every week.  Face to face is essential, but not every bleeding week.  A status report and a quick phone call should be sufficient at least half the time.
7. I don’t work for you.  I work for my manager, his manager, and so on until you get up the food chain to the CEO.  I do, however, work with you.  If you need something from me, please feel free to ask for it.  Contrary to popular belief, I’m an easy guy to get along with.  I may object to what you ask for, and you may not get what you want each and every time, but I will at least be pleasant and explain why you can’t have it and suggest other options that may satisfy your requirement.
8. Going to my manager because I told you no, told you it would be expensive when your crack house solution would be cheaper, or tried to help you find a better solution that doesn’t resemble a Rube Goldberg cartoon will get you precisely nowhere.  He was a SysAd himself, and will back me up to the hilt if what I did or said is right.  If I say something that scares or offends you, then please, go talk to him about me.
9. Do not try to intimidate me.  I am a veteran, have four children, two ex-wives, and am married to a full-blooded Irish redhead.  Do you really think that threatening to give me a negative rating on my personnel review is going to scare me?
10. Please remember that I am not being a jerk just for the fun of it.  I am just trying to follow the rules that have been set down by our company for how we do business, which is to be spend money smartly to ensure that our solutions work, to keep our data and our customers’ data secure, and to plan our work so that everyone gets what they need and some of what they want.  We’re all trying to do the same thing here. 

LawDog is articulating exactly what I feel about this:

Having identified their target, a fierce battle ensued during which the warlord was killed. To prove that they had got their man, the Gurkhas attempted to remove the body for identification. Further enemy fire necessitated a fast exit minus corpse. So, an unnamed soldier drew his kukri  –  the standard-issue Gurkha knife  –  removed the man’s head and legged it.

The allies are blowing quantities of Taleban into mincemeat with assorted artillery rounds, bombs, mortar shells, bombs, rockets, bombs, missiles, and bombs — you damned well can’t tell me that all the sticky bits are getting recovered after Abdul the Moderately Rabid catches a 500-pound GBU amidships — so why are you getting all wrapped around the axle because one or more Gurkhas did the needful with a knife instead of high-explosive?

 Too many of us have forgotten that war is a costly, bloody, disgusting thing.  It is not neat and sanitized like a movie or a video game.  Even the gun camera videos from helicopters and Raptors fail to show how brutal being on the receiving end can be.

And that’s the point.  If you don’t have the stomach for what the soldier on the ground has to A. complete the mission, and B. get home in one piece, then don’t send him to do your bidding. 

Troops like Gurkhas are trained from an early age to find, fix, and flay their enemy.  And now the British MOD is having a hissy fit over it.

This young man should be given a medal for finishing his mission in such a way that lessened the danger to his unit, not sent home to await punishment after an investigation.  The MOD needs to be flushed like a filthy stable and re-peopled with personnel who understand what it’s like at the sharp, shitty end of the stick. 

I took a couple of days in the middle of the week to spend time with Girlie Bear and get some stuff done.  I seem to enjoy taking time off during the week rather than just having a long weekend. 

Wednesday was “Clean the House” day.  It’s been a while since we did a wholesale cleaning of the house, and I always do housework better when I’m alone.  The kitchen was completely dismantled and scrubbed.  The living room and dining room were dusted, washed, and the floors were cleaned using Irish Woman’s electric mop.  Nothing like the smell of Murphy’s Oil Soap.

While I was working, I thought of something.  We’re not dirty people, and we do regular maintenance cleaning, but nothing brings you down to earth like looking at how funky your mop water is after cleaning the house.  When I was done, the floors shined, and the house smelled wonderful.

That afternoon, I broke out the clippers and started shearing Shadow.  His Newfie ancestry had made him quite shaggy, and he’s been shedding bad enough to change the color of the rug he sleeps on.  Add to that the hot and muggy summer we’re having, and he’s been miserable.

It took three passes over each area to get him shorn, but when I was done, he no longer looked like a throw rug with ears and a tail.  I didn’t take him down to skin, well not in most areas anyway.  He has enough fur left that he looks like most other black field labs.  I didn’t do anything funky like carve a message into his flank or give him a mohawk, but the temptation was there.  It’s not the most expert job that could have been done, but the only part that looks really weird is his tail.  He would not sit still at all, so his tale is completely uneven.  Oh well, at least he’ll be more comfortable.

After he was completely shorn, there was a pile of fur big enough to knit a puppy with laying on the patio.  And no, there are no pictures.  No need to embarrass  the dog.

Wednesday evening we had a pretty intense lightning storm, and just as it seemed to be moving on, we lost power.  Apparently a splice in the power line down the block had separated when the line was hit by lightning.  We were without power for about 3 or 4 hours, but the lights came back on just as it started to get dark.  I was actually looking forward to camping out in the basement.

Yesterday was my lazy day.  Had a nice slow breakfast, then Girlie Bear and I went to the library to get her some more books.  She’s started consuming books as fast as I did at that age, which makes me very happy.  When we got home, she conned me into watching “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” on Netflix, which just goes to show how far a father will go to please his daughter. 

After lunch, I lay down, drank some beer, and watched a couple of hours of Ren and Stimpy.  Girlie Bear wasn’t interested and went off to read.  She thinks my choice of entertainment is “immature and goofy”.  Guilty.

I followed Ren and Stimpy with an hour or so of Call of Duty World at War on the Wii, and then it was time to make dinner.  Immature, insane comics followed up with electronic mayhem does a lot to work off stress.

Coming back to work this morning was rough.  Today is going to be a much nicer day weather wise, and it pains me to spend it indoors.  Oh well, I’m going to be taking some more time off in a couple of weeks, and hopefully it’ll be nice enough to go to the range or fishing.

This weekend was extraordinary because I am married to an extraordinary woman.

On Friday, Irish Woman went with her girlfriends to Hullabalou, a music festival with multiple groups performing.  She says she really enjoyed Train and Bon Jovi.  Of course, if she could get enough plastic surgery and hair color into me, I’d look like Bon Jovi, so I’m not surprised.  She got home at about midnight, and seemed completely exhausted.

On Saturday morning, I got up early and went to McDonalds to get breakfast.  By the time I got home, she was up and cleaning the house.  Later, we went to Sam’s Club for our monthly supply run, and instead of heading immediately over to the groceries, she went over to the LCD and plasma TV’s and started asking me which ones I liked and why.

After we had gotten our groceries and taken them home, she started cooking.  Rather than just splitting up the bulk meat and freezing it, she cooked several meals with it, split those up, and then froze the meals.  She and I went to the peach tree in our back yard and picked a bushel of peaches.  Irish Women then blanched, peeled, sliced, prepared, and froze 8 quarts of peaches.  She also made me a very delicious peach cobbler to go with the boneless pork ribs in homemade bourbon barbecue sauce she made.

Sunday morning I stuck my head out the door, decided it was too hot for yard work, and headed back into the house.  Irish Woman got herself out the door and did the yardwork, even after I protested that it was too hot and sticky to be working outside.  She didn’t just mow the grass.  She mowed, edged, weed-whacked, and raked the yard.

After coming in bright red and weakly sweating, she drank a quart of Gatorade and then started in on the house.  I had been working on some small stuff while chasing BooBoo, but she took over and hit it hard.

Overall, Irish Woman spent the weekend busting her tail.  I figured she would have been too tired after all day and night in the heat at the concert, but she seemed to be energized by it.

Overall, I’d say I’m a very fortunate man.

Never one to miss out on a meme, I’m following in JayG‘s footsteps, and listing a few of my favorite guilty pleasures:

Old Cartoons – I lurve me some Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, and Tom and Jerry.  The Golden Age of Cartoons, which ran from the 1930’s to the 1950’s, was a period when animators, writers, and voice artists used god-like powers to synthesize ink, celluloid, and squeaky voices into masterpieces of American cinematography.

Fast Food Breakfasts, especially McDonalds and Hardees – I love fresh fruit, hot cereal, and wholesome whole grain pancakes as much as the next guy.  But what really curls my toes is a nice piece of deep fried potato matter, a nice greasy egg, cheese, and something that resembles processed pork sandwich, and a cup of coffee.

Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee –  Jay already mentioned this, but I love a 55 gallon drum sized coffee, with plenty of cream and sugar, from Dunkin’ Donuts.  This wonderful concoction may not have been made by a wonderfully artistic, multiply pierced college student, using beans that were grown in the shade of a unicorn tree on the side of a cotton candy volcano, then roasted in an oven warmed by the fires of a gumdrop dragon, then ground between the thighs of a Ukrainian super model, but it definitely tastes good and gets me going in the morning.  I just wish we had a real Dunkin’ Donuts in Louisville so I could sit at the counter and eat cruelers with my coffee.

Best part is, I got to indulge myself in all three this weekend.  Yesterday morning was made of Win!

So, what do you guys love?

Only a couple more weeks to NFL pre-season football!

And yes, I am ready for some football!

I walked into the Tractor Bar, smelling the smoke of French cigarettes and Cuban cigars coming from the little beer garden as it wafted in through the open double doors.  The bar was almost empty, with only a few Finns the size of small tractors playing darts in the back.

The Marilyn Monroe look-alike tending bar smiled at me.  Without asking, she passed me my usual, a Lapin Kulta poured into a beer glass big enough to drown in.  I settled down on the bar stool and started sipping at my beer.  It had been over a decade since I’d had one, and I was going to enjoy every drop.  The beer was strong, and dripped down my parched throat like warm honey.  Ahhh, bliss. 

As I drank, I read over the newspaper I found laying on the bar.  The front page was mostly taken up by a story about the war in Afghanistan, and a smaller story about problems between Georgia and Russia.  Since I was in Helsinki, the problems in Russia were closer to home, but I read both articles from start to finish.

As I turned to the second page, I heard someone at the other end of the bar ordering a Black Jack and Coke.  As I glanced down to see what other American was in the bar, I was surprised to see an old friend.  He looked just the same way he did the last day I saw him, 20 years old and healthy.  The intervening years hadn’t grayed his hair at all, and he was the same Irish/French-Canadian Massachusetts fire plug he’d been in Monterey years before.

“Hi DB, how’s life been treating you?” he said between sips of his drink.

“Not bad Sash, where have you been?”

“Oh, here and there.  How’s my name sake?”

“OK, I guess.  He started his freshman year of college a couple of months ago.  Seems to be doing well so far.”

“Good to hear.  What brings you here?”  His smile brighened his eyes, and I swear his red-blonde hair looked even brighter than normal.

“I was about to ask you the same thing.  We lost touch when you left Monterey.  Now you show up at my favorite bar in Helsinki.” 

“Oh, just travelling around.  There’s a few of us who are going to be here tonight.”

I gave Sasha a quizzical look, but he just smiled and turned back to his drink.

I took another look around the bar, and at one of the tables, two tall, thin men were playing chess.  To my amazement, I recognized them.  They were privates from the MP company next to my unit in Bosnia.  To be honest, I can’t remember their real names.  We all just called them Iff and Biff, the twin brothers of different mothers.  These two were closer to each other than most blood family, and you never saw oen without the other.  We’d met when I’d shown up to a Dungeons and Dragons game with my old worn out dice and a pencil.  They’d become good friends during my time there, and had been a part of the close knot of friends that had kept me from going off the deep end when I got a Dear John phone call.  They saw me looking at them, and waved hello before turning back to their game.

Turning back to the bar, I found the seat next to me occupied.  A pretty girl with short, dirty blonde hair was stirring the ice in a Pepsi. 

“Eileen!  What are you up to?  I haven’t seen you in decades, and no-one else has either!”

“Oh, not much.  Just coming ’round to see everyone.  How are you doing?”

“I seem to be having a pretty good day. Four old friends show up in my favorite bar.  I wonder what’s going on.”

“Well, that’s something we wanted to talk to you about” said a deep voice from behind me.

I turned to find a tall, thin, dark haired man sitting in the stool across from Eileen.  He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.  He was dressed in a pair of old faded Levi’s and a blue work shirt.  The smoldering Camel cigarette in his hand was about half gone, and he placed it in an overflowing ashtray next to a large cup of coffee.

“DB, we all know how much we meant to you once upon a time, but as things happen, we’ve lost touch.” the dark man rumbled as he picked up his mug. “It’s no-ones’s fault.  Life makes it hard to stay in touch when everyone’s in motion all the time.  Heck, I’m not surprised you didn’t recognize me after all these years”

“But I’ve tried to find all of you.  Google searches, posting my name and email on bulletin boards, joining trade groups, you name it.”

“Well, some of us didn’t quite make it to the digital revolution.”

From across the bar, Sasha raised his hand.

“And some of use don’t want to be found.”

Eileen looked down into her glass of soda.  Iff and Biff smiled from across their knights and pawns.

“And you?” I said to the tall man.

“Well, let’s just say it’s best that I stay in the shadows.  When the time is right, we’ll meet up.”

“What we’re all trying to say, DB, is that it’s not your fault or anyone else’s that we’ve all floated away from each other.” said Eileen.  I could see the ouline of a small tear forming at the corner of her eye, and reached over to gently wipe it away.  Eileen had been the big sister I’d never had, and was loved by everyone who knew her.  Seeing such a good and gentle woman cry was enough to break anyone’s heart.

“Yeah, we all try our best, but when it’s time to go, it’s time to go” remarked Sasha from the end of the bar. 

“And we all remember the good times” chorused Iff and Biff, now walking over to the bar.

“So we all know how much we mean to you, and our memories of the good and bad times won’t ever vanish like we did.” explained the tall man.  Everyone nodded their agreement.

“Well, I need to get going.” said Eileen.  She gave me a quick hug and a peck on the cheek in the same way she’d said goodbye the night before I graduated in Monterey.

Sasha came over and clapped me on the back a little too hard, the same way he had when he’d last said goodbye.  Eileen and Sasha walked out of the bar together.

Iff and Biff came over and gave me a hug together, the same way they had the morning I flew home.  They left the bar hand in hand, leaving me alone with the stranger.

“Well, it’s about that time.  Better finish your beer, son.  You’ll be leaving soon too.” he said as he finished his coffee.  He took his unfiltered Camel with him as he headed towards the door. 

Just as he got to the door to the beer garden, he turned around.

“Take care of yourself and my grandchildren, DB.  It’s time you got back.”

And then he left.

BEEP BEEP BEEP      BEEP BEEP BEEP

“Honey, wake up.  We’ve overslept,and I need you to get BooBoo ready this morning.” said the Irish Woman, shaking me awake and back to the real world.

Some dreams vanish the instant you open your eyes.  But I swear I could still smell the cigarette and taste the beer.