Fat Charlie's Diary

Deadmill

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:09:28 GMT

The treadmill....is dead.

I bought this treadmill three years ago for $300; it seemed stout enough to put up with anything that I could throw at it.

But they say that dust is the great enemy of treadmills; and there's dust aplenty in our garage.I thought that the problem was that dust would cause friction in the bearings or belt; now I'm thinking that they are talking about dust in the circuitry.

Just before I left for the winter, the 'mill suddenly shut down and whine "ERROR S 1" at me. It turns out that this is an over-voltage error; support said to swap out the fuses. However, these fuses - big ceramic slow-burn 12- and 15A - well, they don't sell them at Ace Hardware.

I ordered some online - but they were the wrong length. I ordered some more, but then was too busy to use them.

But I finally tried them the other day, and it seems to not be the fuses; it's the motherboard. When I replace the fuses, and turn the 'mill on, the belt jerks suddenly, and a big POP emanates from the motherboard. And we're done - "ERROR S 1" shows up again.

Do I want another dreadmill? I have to admit that I'm not sure. Right now, I'm in a long slow ramp-up of my mileage, with the assumption that what I learn during the ramp-up will tell me what my training volume will be, which will indicate what length of race I might like to train for.

But I'm so discouraged these days that I can't help but wonder....WHY?

Maybe it's time for me to do 20 minutes on the elliptical and go to Denny's, like the majority of 50-somethings at the gym.

I've found a True 500 HRC for $350 in town; Trues are supposed to be very good, but there's a question of reliability. I'm assuming that any True that's made it this far is past the "infant mortality" period when lemons show up; it's understood that I'll check the functionality when it is delivered.

But maybe I don't want it. Maybe I want an elliptical, instead.

And to move closer to Denny's.

Two Weeks?

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Mon, 07 May 2012 20:28:53 GMT

...since my last post? That can't be right.

Or, maybe it is. When I get ...depressed? subdued? deflated?....discouraged, I have learned that sometimes not calling attention to my woes can help me forget them (or at least help me not bring them to mind every fifteen seconds). And blogging about them calls attention to them, even if nobody's reading.

But, whilst I still do indeed have things on my mind, here's somebody who is on top of the world - Ethel "Nancy Lopez" Puckett : )

Ethel took four never-ever lessons last fall, and then played a few games, and really enjoyed it but found it frustrating. (well, DUH!) And she was ready to get back out there this year.

However, I decided that she should now have some lessons after the "don't try to stick the putter in your ear" level lessons, and got her hitched up w/Sheila Peterson at the 500 Club.

Ethel's first lesson was about ten days ago, and she did some swinging practices, and then she went for her second lesson this last Saturday, around noon.

After that lesson, she and I went to a little Par 3 course down the street.

Ethel beat me six or seven holes out of nine.

She had two or three pars and two or three bogies. She was amazing.

(disclaimer - when Ethel took her second lesson, I took my first, in which Sheila showed her (NB -there is no word like "misogyny" for women who hate men. I reckon we'll just have to call them "women") whatever by tearing my swing apart and leaving me unable to find the ball with the clubhead. But this in no way diminishe's Ethel's play, which was amazing).

The next morning, Ethel beat Floyd and me pretty badly on the front nine of Mountain Shadows, but she started falling apart on the back nine. But those first eighteen holes were amazing - in fact, a little scary.

I don't suspect her to improve linearly like that - if she did, I'd already have my retirement plan in place. But I didn't suspect that she would be anything like this good after months of play. One week? I'm flabbergasted. That's right - my gast has been flabbered.

I just hope that she doesn't get discouraged if this....anomaly doesn't continue. But, then, Ethel doesn't get discouraged, much.

New Nipples and Old Sons

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:35:19 GMT

Today's FCD graphic is brought to you by my friend Arnie.

Arnie noted my my last post and decided that he saw possible commercial applications in the technique of Fire Cupping:

Like the second Meg Ryan in "Joe vs the Volcano", I....have no response to that : )

I will be having more firecupping done tomorrow, as the last treatment seemed to be effective. I will not be posting any more pictures, however, as I am wary of the direction in which this is going.

A general diary-like update ensues: We spent the last four days in Alabama, seeing Momma. Momma is really getting on in years now, and is pretty feeble. And sometimes I wonder if she remembers things.

Thursday night was a case in point; we got to the assisted-living complex which Momma is making her current residence, and walked into her room. I knew that she knew that we were coming, but we came into her living room at the same time that she was coming out of the bathroom, and as she toddled in on her walker, she....she looked up and me and smiled.

And she kept looking up at me and smiling. And kept looking, and kept smiling.

And so I finally said "Momma, it's me - Dick, your youngest son."
Momma said, "Oh, I know that you're Dick, but....you're not supposed to be so old."

Thanks, Mom.

....About being Dick - My name is James Richard. Up through fourth grade, I was Dick Puckett. It was sorta like the whole "boy named Sue" paradigm; want a kid to grow up tough? Give him a name that folks will make fun of.

..Except, in my case, it didn't work. I'm too much of a weeny, I reckon. But when I walked into the fifth grade and the teacher called my name, I told her that it was now Jim Puckett. And I remember that there wasn't much trouble in changing it - some folks may have given me a problem, but compared to the rest of my life, it wasn't much.

But Momma has never been able to latch on to the whole "Jim Puckett" thing, so, to her, I'm still her Dicky Duck.

(That will be enough of that. Don't make me come over there).

Anyway, Momma didn't quite recognize me because she didn't think that I would be so old. When an 82 year old woman holds onto her walker for dear life while telling you how old you look, you have to take it to heart.

I spent a good bit of the weekend looking at the old people that I would see everywhere, and wondering which of them were my classmates in high school. Didn't see anyone that I recognized - but, if my own mother can't recognize me, what chances do I have of recognizing people whom I never really got to know, anyway?

I was a sort of "secret agent X-9" in high school, and I was fairly sure that I was making it through the whole four years invisibly. As it turns out, that was not reality; people noticed me, anyway. For all the years since, I've been trying to get in touch with my Inner Wallflower, and failing.

But now that I'm aware - really aware - of how old I look, I think it'll be easier for me to keep that low profile. I'd rather be ignored than pitied : )

Desperate Appliance

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:46:07 GMT

The other day, my PT said that he wanted me to see his associate for "fire-cupping".

....backstory: 18 years ago this week, I ran the Boston Marathon. Right after that race, I noticed a tight spot in my right hamstring. Saw a sports doc, no relief. A few months later, while living in Bisbee, AZ, I went to physical therapy for that hamstring - alleviated the problem some, but it came back.

I've had some relief, over and over, but it's never been complete and the problem has always come back. And, since I only started recreational running in 1992, this has been with me for my whole career.

So I was willing to pretty much try anything.

“———–diseases desperate grown

By desperate appliance are relieved,

Or not at all.” -- Hamlet, Act IV, scene III

I think that this qualifies as a "desperate appliance":

Yes, that blob of flesh that has been sucked up into that bowl-shaped cup is, indeed, my hamstring.

They told me about how painful it was going to be, but, you know what? Not so much. I mean, there were times when it hurt, but mostly it was just uncomfortable. When he would run the cup directly over the affected area was when it was the most painful, but the greatest discomfort came when he was moving the cup onto, or away from, the big chunk of tight muscle; while directly over the offending tissue, it felt not so bad.

That big purple area you see around the cup is The Big Hickey, a byproduct of firecupping. By now, it's just plain ol' bruised leg (I've since put on long pants to avoid scaring people with it, so I don't really know how it looks myself).

And I have to admit that, while I'm typing this, I can feel that tightened-up area of my hamstring. It's sorta like an albatross around my neck, except that it's not a dead bird, and it's behind and above my knee.

And I don't think any dead albatross will last 18 years.

And I'm pretty sure that a dead albatross wouldn't make it through fire-cupping.

I'm supposed to go back next week.

"By desperate appliance are relieved, or not at all." ....yeah, I'm desperate.

PSA - I DO NOT WORK AT GO DADDY FOR THE SUBSIDIZED LUNCHES

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:51:20 GMT

....but, if I did, would that be such a bad reason?

Here's todays culinary offering - two masa tamales, w/rice and beans, and a bowl of Texas chili, and that's $2, out the door and back to my desk. No driving to a restaurant, no having to deal with anybody's Miracle Whip, just walk across the parking lot and mmfff tamales!

No, that's not why I work here....come to think of it, why DO I work here?

1) Compensation : I have a funny feeling that this is not a currently-favored answer. But the fact is that I work because they pay me - and GoDaddy pays me very well indeed, for being a Leaf Node.

Now, it is true that I might very well be doing programming even if nobody paid me, but I wouldn't be doing it full time. And I'd probably pick my projects with an eye more to "gee, what would be fun?" than having them come to me in an email.

So they pay me, and they pay me well. But that ain't all - 6 weeks vacation? Are you SERIOUS? And Ethel says that anytime she hands the insurance card to a provider, their eyebrows go up and they let her know that she has very good insurance indeed. The list of compensations goes on and on.

2) Co-workers : When I started working here, I had to take a short test (the Thurstone) that they gave to find out if I was a doofus or not. I must not have scored "doofus" (although they never did tell me what I DID score) but the point is that they made it plain that it was a doofus-free environment.

I don't even know if they still use that test, but simply in order to thrive at Go Daddy, you've got to be reasonably bright. And the way things move through here, you've also got to be interested in getting some work done.

So just working with smart, hardworking people is very nice, all by itself. N.B. - I suspect that the doofus test might have something to do with weeding out grumpies, because the grumpies here are few and far between (and, for all I know, the ones that I do know might only be grumpy when I see them, which is when they see me, which would indicate.....?)

3) Flexibility : Folks do a lot of work at Go Daddy, but it's surprising how much of that work might be earlier than other folks, or later than other folks, or on the weekend, or when they get up and go to the bathroom at 3 AM and suddenly wonder "what would happen if I moved that semicolon?" Go Daddy makes it easy to work for them.

In my own case, since I lived so far from the office, I started telecommuting years ago two, and then three, days a week, and then it became very easy for me to slide that into short full-time remote situations (such as when we are living in Colorado in the winter). My boss once mentioned in my review that he simply could not tell if I was in the office, or in New River, or in Durango - he just knew that I showed up as online in our chat tool, and whenever he dialed my extension it was forwarded to wherever I was.

Of course, that door swings both ways - Go Daddy is so flexible with me that I make it a point to make myself available for them, whenever they need me. So far, though, I've gotten the best of that deal (although maybe they don't think so - that guy checking his semicolons at 3 AM might just wind up sitting down and keeping going, you know...)

4) MISSION : First off, I love saying that I work at Go Daddy, because regardless of the size of the listening audience, somebody will be in the group who then starts gushing about how much they love the company and how great the customer service is and....well, that might last a while. So it's good to know that the company that I work for is serving a need, and serving it well.

But there's also a mission. It might sound hokey to say it, but - dadgummit - what we are doing at Go Daddy is changing the world. In the early 20th Century, automobiles existed, but most folks simply saw them, from a distance; it wasn't until Henry Ford came along with this whole "mass-production" thing that most everybody could afford an auto voiture - and the world changed.

Well, Go Daddy made the personal or small business website affordable, and - with our tools - usable by any Joe on the street. And so, while Google has been busy indexing the information from the world's websites, we've been busy increasing the number of websites. We're really like Homer Stokes in "O Brother", we're the 'friend of the little man". And the little man seems to like it.

5) TAMALES : okay, yeah, maybe that matters as well : )

NOTE: The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone
and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

She's Gone But It's Still Here

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 22:29:38 GMT

Yesterday I made lunch for Ethel and I here at the house.

Everything is fine, got the mustard, the bread, lettuce, tomato, got the cheddar and thin-sliced turkey - everything is fine EXCEPT for the fact that I have to have two jars or white stuff.

Ethel....eats Miracle Whip.

I've often littered these pages with my morbid reflections about how Mom raised me wrong - for my whole childhood, we ate Miracle Whip and called it "Mayonnaise". It never occurred to me to wonder whether or not I liked it - it was the white stuff that you put on one piece of bread to balance out the yellow stuff on the other piece - sort of like salt and pepper.

Then, when I grew up and went into the Outside World (and eventually sobered up) I found out about mayo, and it changed my life.

I've dropped (mostly) my bitter resentment against parents who didn't care enough to tell their child the truth. That's all water under the bridge.

But then, once I found out that Miracle Whip really wasn't mayonnaise, I married a woman who used Miracle Whip. And now, when I make us some sandwiches, I have to pull out two jars.

Looked at in the naked light of reality, there is no real resemblance between the two. Mayo is white, and Miracle Whip is white-ish. Mayonnaise is obviously a full-bodied, healthy colloidal suspension, whereas Miracle Whip is a greasy-looking gelatinous substance that looks like it might be purchased at a surgical-supply warehouse. Mayonnaise smells like *mayo*, whereas Miracle Whip smells like a salad dressing.

Ethel's gone now - she's in Indiana for the weekend, at the Barton Reese Pogue Poetry and Arts Festival. Turns out she's a featured speaker - the poet in question being her grandfather - and she'll be eating a couple of dinners with the celebrants.

But I wonder if she's going to admit to them her secret shame?

Nah. I'll bet that her Miracle Whip secret stays in the closet. As it should.

April Showers Bring May Avalanches

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:45:08 GMT

I....am in the Valley of the Sun.

I am here because Ethel hates me. I know this because yesterday it was 90+ F down here. Nobody would live in 90+ F if they had their druthers, which means that not only does Ethel hate me, she hates me so much that she's willing to be miserable herself in order to make me miserable.

Meanwhile, up at the condo:

See that? That's what my contractor buddy Jeff is living with - fresh snow.

But I'm not bitter! This weekend, Ethel is going to go to (wait for it...) INDIANA. On purpose. So she'll be seeing hard freezes, but no snow. Imagine - frozen corn pollen. That's got to do a number on one's respiratory system.

Whiles she's off doing that, I'll be here in Arizona, enjoying the last of the sub-100 temps and working in the yard. The yard is in terrible shape - we didn't lose that many plants this winter, but the ones we lost are in high-profile areas and need to be pulled and replaced with something. And, since Ethel will be gone while I'm replacing them, I'll be replacing them with the wrong things.

The weekend after that, we are both going to Alabama for a few days, to visit my mom and family (especially my middle son, who still lives in Alabama, on purpose. Something about kids : ) Spring in the Tennessee River Valley - folks come from all around the country for the Sinus Infection Festival. Pharmaceutical companies put up kiosks, and there are clinics on topics like "Nose-Blowing: How To Get Those Last Few Pounds Out of There" and "What To Do When Grinding Your Teeth Doesn't Relieve The Pain Anymore".

Then it's back to Arizona until such time as Herself decides that we can go back to Colorado and see how far the aspens have budded out. I suppose, in that context, I should be glad that I'm down here while it's snowing up there, because maybe that will hold back the timeline for a week or so.

Back In Arizona

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 21:23:01 GMT

Well, I'm back in Arizona for a while.

As you can tell, it doesn't agree with me:

This is a photo that Ethel took this morning, as a new side-gig I've picked up required a head shot. I became aware that it has been many years since a photo has been taken of me for any grown-up purpose whatsoever. All of my photos show me in ski gear or in climbing gear or running or looking goofy in some way.

This was the best that Ethel could do. Well, I didn't give her much to work with. When did my head get so big,. and my body so small?

When I'm back in Arizona, it takes me a while to get back on my feed. But not so up in the Rocky Mountains. Here is a picture taken just a few weeks ago, outside of the condo in Colorado:

Those mountains back behind me are the West Needles range we can see from the balcony.

Yep, I'm always at my best at elevation.

Now that I've got a head shot, I have to go write up a "bio". I hate those things. It's difficult for me to talk about myself in the third person. Additionally, all of the other folks doing this gig have such cool things to say - they are all Senior Architect Guru This or Vice President Director That, and they've all been opensourcing the platform analysis triage infrastructure,. the whereas I'm as far down the org chart as the org chart can go, and I "uh, wrote code".

But that's what they pay me for. So I'd best get with it.

As Far As She Goes

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 20:54:13 GMT

This was my next-to-last day of sliding on snow at Purgatory.

As you can see, the last day is coming none too soon:

That's on the front side of the hill - on the back side, there's still plenty of good skiing, but you have to cross over a lot of dirty snow to get there.

It's days like these when I would say "Let's move to Alaska".

Actually, it's not that I WOULD say that. It's that I DID say that. Just last night, as a matter of fact. And - unsurprisingly - she balked. Didn't want to move to Alaska. Yes, I know, but what can you do?

...As it turns out, though, Alaska wouldn't be the best (unless I could afford helicopter skiing all year round). The place with the longest lift-served skiing in North America is Timberline Resort on Mt Hood, Oregon. 50 & 1/2 weeks a year. (There they have lifts that only run in the summer, when the snow pack gets low enough for them to stick their towers out : ) Mammoth Mountain in California would be the second longest, although sometimes Snowbird in SLC claims that title. Whistler/Blackcomb in BC has a really long season, as well.

Well, we've already lived in SLC, and she won't go back. And the idea of a....a conservative girl like Ethel moving to Oregon or California - well, it ain't gonna happen.

And whenever I say "How about Whister?" Ethel has a quick response - "HEALTH CARE! HEALTH CARE!" So we won't be moving to Whistler.

Crested Butte has a longer season - and, in Crusty Butt, there's no commute. The mountain, meetings, church, groceries, HEALTH CARE is all within a short bicycle ride. But Ethel "just says no".

Now, I've always had my own response to these sorts of statements. I would pretty much sum it up like this: "I want to live in ski country - somewhere wild and high, with big cliffs and huge dumps and a very long ski season. But Ethel won't go. Seems like Ethel decided where we'll have our condo, and my input doesn't matter at all."

There are a lot of things like that. I want to go climb in Patagonia with a llama and some short dude named Pedro - Ethel will be glad to go belay for me at Watson Lake or up at Jack's Canyon. I want to sell out and become a beach bum in Fiji - Ethel's willing to rent a condo for two months in Cabo so I can take surfing lessons.

I want to become a ski bum in Alaska, Ethel's willing to telecommute from Purgatory.

So - do we climb in Patagonia? No, but we'll probably head up to Jack's Canyon in a month or so. Do we become beach bums in Fiji? Nope, but Cabo's possible.

It always seems like I want to do something, and Ethel wants to do something else, and we always wind up doing it Ethel's way. That's the way that it SEEMS. And thus, it looks like Ethel always gets her way.

Sure, I can go to Patagonia/Fiji/Alaska, but I'd have to go without her, and I've always looked that one in the face and realized that, no, I don't want any of those things enough to not have her.

But last night, (after yet another 'No' on Alaska) I asked for a different way of looking at it, and you are sort of seeing how that way evolved.

Ethel doesn't determine what we do/ where we are/ how we live by official decree - Ethel just goes in the direction that I want to go, but she can only go in those directions so far.. She is not crazy enough for Patagonia/Alaska/Fiji, but she's crazy enough for Jack's Canyon/Purgatory/Cabo.

And instead of fussing about how my wife won't let me do what I want to do, perhaps I should be grateful that I have a wife who is willing to go as far as she is willing to go. Most guys would be tickled to have a wife like that, but I just grumble because she won't go farther.

Definitely need to change that viewpoint, most riki-tiki.

Stairway Through Heaven

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 21:21:41 GMT

Here's the current state of our stairway up to the 2nd floor of the new condo:

Down at the bottom, where you can't see it from here, is our signed "Smooth Johnson - Master of the Carve" poster, next to the front door : )

Coming up the stairs on your right - personal pics of Ethel standing in front of the big Taos trail map (at the ill) and me standing in front of the big Monarch Mountain trail map. Then there's the Niehues painting of Alta/Snowbird, then a poster showing various Jackson Hole Air Force members hopping into Corbet's Couloir from various directions, then the big map of Solitude, then the big map of Brighton, then a map of Powderhorn.

Coming up the stairs on your left, it's Jackson Hole, then the 1993 map of Crested Butte, then Snowshoe (WV), then the Canyons in Park City map, and then Sugar Mountain in North Carolina (which is one of the first two mountains I ever skied - the other one was Beech, and we skied both the same weekend, and I don't know which was which : )

And, in the middle, of all of this, the big Jackson Hole poster facing up the stairs:

College degree.
Good job.
Big house.

We all make mistakes.

....Man, I love that : )

This is one of the more highly-concentrated areas of trail maps in this condo; we also have some in the great room, on the dining area wall, and in the hot-tub room.

We're attempting to get a map of eveyr ski hill that we've ever skied onto the wall somewhere in this condo: we've still got one more map to get printed (Wolf Creek Pass; it's oddly shaped enough that we'll need a panoramic printing) and four maps already printed that are waiting on frames.

When Ethel mentioned this as one of the plans for the condo, I was ....diffident, but it's turning out great.

The View From Up Here

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:54:30 GMT

Last weekend, the director of the Durango Mountain Club told Ethel that ladies were complaining because I was running shirtless in the DMC fitness center.

Now, this is after an established practice of my having run on the treadmill without my shirt since January of 2010.

That seems sort of strange - what, did I suddenly get ugly? - but it turns out that the complainers were fairly new members. These folks aren't actually USING the fitness center - walking through the fitness center is one way of getting to the ski locker room - but they obviously found my shirtlessness so repulsive that they had to go find somebody to complain to.

(Ethel has said that maybe it's not *my* shirtlessness that they are objecting to, but shirtless males at the gym in general. Yeah. Okay, everybody raise your hand if you think these ladies would be complaining if Brad Pitt were running shirtless. Okay, you - over in the corner; you can put your hand down now. Everybody is snickering at you.)

So I got my feelings hurt and started whining and wouldn't even talk to the management because I knew if I did I'd start in on the litany about how I'm being mistreated blah blah blah - everybody loves to hear that stuff, especially over and over. (I knew that by saying "Chuck, I can't talk about this right now" I would owe amends, but that does less damage than saying "Chuck, you're the offspring of a syphilitic banshee and you're talking out your own self-hatred on little feeble old men who are trying to get in shape by overheating them into submission" would probably require more extensive amends.)

While all of this was going on, I was searching for a good quality treadmill to put here at the condo, in the storage closet in the basement (which is easily large enough) so that I could have my own fan and run shirtless and not have to worry about people who are just walking through expressing their intolerance of my appearance by demanding that I change my behavior to suit them.

(when did the world change from "I decide what I want to look at" to "you change so I don't have to look away"?)

So, at the end of the day (literally - Monday evening) I did my inventory and found out that I was doing the same thing - they wanted me to change so that they wouldn't have to look at me, I wanted them to change so that they would stop demanding that I change - and went in the next morning and made my amends.

And while that was going on, our HOA president decided that THEY would buy the treadmill that I had found and put it in the condo gym, which kept the money in my wallet, and the treadmill out of my basement, and - instead of the view at the club fitness center (which was a mirror with a little feeble old bald guy starting back at me) or the view in my basement closet (which was a cinder block wal two feet from my face) this is the view that I have now while running:

So I reckon it all worked out all right : )

'Scuse me - time for my Monday morning 8 miler...gotta walk a hundred yards or so and then crank up the fan, and take my shirt off.... : )

In The Trees

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 20:00:20 GMT

Yesterday was a power day.

Today was the day after the powder day - when the bumps are soft, the groormer are sweet, and when- if you know where to look - you can still find nice stashes of power in the trees.

This is looking down between the aspens to the skier's right of Styx. For some strange reason, this is only the second time this season that I've spent any time over here; for one thing, I've been steeps, bumps and jumps happy, while trying to get ready for Corbet's (which didn't play out)and then bumps and jumps since the camp using what I learned there.

And we haven't had much in the way of real powder this year - this week may be only the second real powder dump we've had. Quite a few big dumps, but only a Vermonter would call that snow "powder".

Today I was up at the hill for my lunch runs, but it turned out the the detachable six-pack on the front side was down, and they were using an ancient fixed-grip triple (the last time I rode on that lift was January of '93) and it kept slowing down and stopping, and starting up and slowing down and stopping....

Which had two results:
1) It meant that I was only going to have time to do one run down the mountain, AND...
2) It meant that i could get to the top of Styx without poling.

The new six-pack goes further up the mountain than the old triple, but it also lets off farther west - so making it to the true top of Styx takes a lot of time and effort, The old triple, though, lets one off right up there, so I got one full run down Styx, most of which I spent in the trees to skier's right.

This was Day 70, and I've only got eleven more to go, so I might not be in those trees again (currently no snow in the forecast). I might just have to ski bumps and groomers in warm sunshine for the rest of the year.

Dangit : )

Up In The Air

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:03:50 GMT

Since I got back from Jackson Hole, I've spent a lot of time in the air.

(photo courtesy of my friend Chris, who you think would have better things to do)

Now, you can't tell from looking at this much of the picture, but I'll be in the air here for about three seconds or more, because the hill that I'm jumping over falls away a whole lot to the backside. This area is called a "terrain park" because it has a lot of places like this where the terrain has been artificially shaped to give a particular result; in this case, it is to give you time to be in the air for a while, ostensibly in order to do silly things.

I've never done silly things in the air (other than, of course, just going up into the air or off those cliffs/rocks in the first place) - but today, as I was moving through this same terrain park, it suddenly occurred to me that I had never fallen while taking on of these controlled terrain-park jumps (in fact, even when I'm coming off a big rock or a short cliff, I don't fall during the landing).

So I said to myself, I said, "self, we've never fallen one one of these jumps, so why don't we try something simple today - like, maybe, a spread-eagle?" (that's where you go up at launch, and then shove your fists down between your legs while spreading the legs wide, then bringing them back together for the landing).

I said that to mayself, and decided to do so on the second jump, which just happens to be the same one seen above, but I had MUCH more speed going into it.

So I launched and attempted my first spread-eagle.

The astute reader will note that, all during this post, I've said "I had never fallen on a landing". That is the proper tense to use, because now I can say "Yes, I've fallen from a landing, and no, I haven't yet successfully completed a spread eagle. I did, however, get snow in lots of hidden places."

BTW, this is my friend Chris and I, standing aside the top of Lift 8:

Chris is a great skier and a great guy. He's the kind of guy who does all of this so easily that it would make you made, were it not very difficult to be mad at Chris (I've never managed it). I hadn't seen Chris in about ten years, but we made it plain that that sort of silliness will NOT be tolerated again. He'll be back soon, or he'll be hunted down and harried.

That's how I treat my friends : )

I Really Hadn't Noticed

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 22:43:54 GMT

Ethel today posted some before-and-after pics of the new condo on Facebook. I brought four of them over here, for the purposes of discussion.

Here is the view from the loft, before we spent all of our money redecorating. This is the place that we bought that we said "Hey, we can live in it the way it is just fine. Won't have to do anything right away."

We said that two months ago, while looking down at this living room:

Now, between them taking this picture and us buying the condo, they replace the carpeting and the fireplace surround tile with new tile. Everything else is Ethel's obsession:

See that "Skiing Bliss" sign on the chimney? When we walked out of the title company after signing the papers on this place, I walked across the street to a little frame shop and bought that. Ethel gave me grief all the way home.

When we got home, I put it up on the mantel. Three days later, Ethel and the contractor had decided to take the green, gold and red from that picture and use it as our colors.

Now, I would never tell Ethel this, but this doesn't look as cabiney to me as I thought it would look, since everything we bought was high on the cabiney scale. No, this almost looks hip, slick and cool.

Of course, the first picture was taken in daylight - the second was taken at dark, and you can see the blinds pulled (where before we had big shutters). But it still seems a big change - and I never even noticed it really happening around me.

Here's the view of the kitchen, as it was before:

A nice kitchen. Dated, perhaps, but then so am I, and I wouldn't expect anybody to rip out MY countertops and change my plumbing. But that's just what Ethel did, among many other things:

We

That's Tan Brown granite, which means black granite with tan and brown flakes. All new appliances (except for the dishwasher, which was already almost new).New plumbing. New cabinet facings. New lighting. Wall taken down. Pendants put up. Island shortened and moved out about eight inches. Copper toned vinyl backsplash. Wallet emptied.

And we were seriously going for the cabin look, and bought everything with antlers and rubbed-oil bronze, but it still looks kinda hip, slick and cool to me.

And, again, this only took about eight weeks total, but I never noticed just how much it was changing around me. We've changed some other rooms - some more than others; upstairs was mostly just hanging our art and putting in our furniture. But even that looks startling, now to look back and see it.

But at least the bleeding has stopped for now. Since we're broke, we can't do anything else (except for putting up all of the trail maps that we've got ordered, for all of the places that we've ever skiied : )

Isn't This Cozy

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:10:29 GMT

Gentle Reader -

The soft blobs of light you see on either side of the fireplace are called "Blinds". That name means that you are "blind" when trying to look through those windows.

Please allow me to tell you a little story that I like to call "The Blynds of the Windoes".

This story begins in ancyent times - over two years ago. At that time, we bought a little condo here at Cascade Village, near Purgatory (not the spiritual plane - the ski hill). It was such a...a....a COZY condo, so well appointed, warm, and inviting, that upon the second viewing, Ethel cried. She loved it.

However, shortly after moving in, Ethel found that the condo, while cozy, was not perfect. It was an imperfect condo, and therefore must be banished for all time from our awareness.

The imperfect condo has at least two unforgivable and intolerable imperfections:

1) It wasn't big enough for us to each have our own office, and
2) It did not have a view of the Needles Mountains.

We did each have office space, but no space such that we could leave our desks out all the time...well, yes, we could do that, but we would have to put the desks away when we went back to Arizona and put the place into the rental pool. It was cumbersome.

And, no, we did not have a view of the Needles. We could see the aspens and pines along the Cascade Divide, but, while pretty, that was not very dramatic.

But the place was lovely, cozy and warm. No denying that.

However, soon the stench of imperfection ran us out of that miserably cozy place, across the parking lot into a larger condo that had nice views of the Needles.

While remodeling/redecorating, we noted that the large view windows were allowing cold air to come in - some leaks around the edges, and of course the glass surface itself was large enough to allow heat exchange to the outside.

I insulated the windows as best I could before replacing the window trim, but it still wasn't enough - we needed more insulation.

So Ethel came up with a scheme - we would put blinds on the windows.

My immediate response - "Honey, if we do that, then we won't see the mountains. We'll have a cozier condo with no view - which is exactly what we had across the parking lot."

Ethel: "Nonsense. Why won't we see the mountains?"

Me: "Because we will not remember or care enough to open the blinds. It will take effort and time, and we will quickly just forget about it. Before long, we'll realize that we just didn't open the blinds - and we won't care."

Ethel: "Poo-poo on that notion. I curse you with a pox for thinking that we won't open the blinds. Of course we will open the blinds."

The picture above shows that we didn't open the blinds today. We were both in the room, but we didn't open the blinds. It's almost 10 AM, and we got up latish (6:45) and just didn't take time or effort to open the blinds.

So we have a warm, cozy condo - which we already had - with closed blinds.

QED, ipso facto.

But if you think that I'm about to mention this fact to Ethel, then you obviously haven't been married for 25 years.

N.B. - we now have solved the problem of having to store away our desks and office equipment before putting the condo in the rental pool. We've done this by....moving into a bigger condo, getting bigger non-portable desks, and just not putting the new condo in the rental pool.

Another problem solved : )

(Editor's Update: Ethel came downstairs at 10 AM and pulled the blinds back. I didn't mention anything to her, but this posting was already on one of my monitors in the editor, so it was a little ironic.

So maybe we aren't headed into the abyss after all. Just yet.)

Git Me Outa Here

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:51:27 GMT

<EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS POST IS JUST AN ATTEMPT AT A STYLE, FOR REVIEW. THIS WILL NOT BE A PERMANENT POST. DON'T EVEN BOTHER TO READ IT; I AM ONLY USING THIS MEDIA BECAUSE I LIKE THIS BLOG EDITOR. WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULAR INTERNET, WHICH IS ALREADY IN PROGRESS>

I have had it with Git.

Yes, I've heard all about how Git is going to change my life. Well, it's already done that. WHERE IN THE HECK IS MY CODE?

Excuse me. I shouldn't start off ranting. Let me introduce myself.

I'm a former developer who has come back to development in the New World of Web X.0. I actually wrote code on a VT100, back when we were programming in ones and zeros (and sometimes, we didn't have any ones - we had to use lower-case Ls). And that was no mom-and-pop shop, either - that was working w/NASA.

I was quite happy writing code for a good many years - from VAX Pascal to C to Java in the mainstream, while writing C# w/.NET for internal projects, and picking up the odd compiled or scripting language along the way.

Then, some seven years ago, I was led down a primrose path that led me to doing load testing here at GoDaddy, and I sorta got into a groove writing server-side Javascript in a single IDE. I was useful and happy and productive - but the programming world seemed to be passing me by.

And pass me by it did - when I came here, we had just started using Java generics. Now , cruising through Eclipse, I don't recognize half of what I'm seeing. And now there are all these annotations, built-ins, plug-ins, modules, and what-not. (When I stopped writing Java production code, AJAX was something that Mom kept under her sink to get rid of those nasty stains).

In my particular case, I've had the Google Web Toolkit dropped in my lap, with legacy code that thinks "int i" is a descriptive example of internal documentation. The fact that this class here is actually going to be compiled into javascript and will be using AJAX to talk to that back-end class there is not actually discussed anywhere at all - I'm supposed to just know this as though I were some sort of double-domed genius mutant alien who detects hidden software architecture patterns directly with my brain waves.

But, at the end of the day (which, since I took this new gig, is often a very long time indeed) all of this is programming. Even if they hide it and make it look like magic, it's still ones and zeroes, and my job is to figure out where to put the ones and where to put the zeroes.

Coding can be done. I was trained to do that. But it's the other, more "agile" and multi-tasking aspects of programming in the 2010s that are causing my eyes to twitch like this and make my therapist hide behind her chair when I come in. For instance, source code control.

Please don't get me wrong. I stand foursquare for good roads, good weather, and all things American, such as making sure that my code is backed up. But in my day, programmers didn't handle those things..

SInce products weren't supposed to be "agile", they were large and monolithic enough to require programmer support, such as a Configuration Manager dude who handled all of that CVS stuff. Similar folks would handle operating system updates, database changes, and all of the other unpleasant "plumbing" that is necessary to allow the coder to pursue his art without distraction. We didn't even do deployments - we wrote up "deployment docs" and the deployment dudes would run off and deploy while we started writing the next version.

And source code control was the least intrusive part of that seamy underbelly.

When we would start working on the next release (which would of course take six months at least; and we'd kick off the project with a party and everybody got coffee cups and Aloha shirts with the name of the next release on the pocket) the CM guy would have already created the branches, and when I brought up Emacs, the code that I was working on was already in said branch, and I didn't have to do anything at all in a source-code-control sense - I would just start moving the ones and zeroes around.

After I got to GD and became a one-man load test show, I learned enough SVN to store off my scripts. That's pretty simple. Want to update a script? Check it out. Update it. Check it back in. Don't need no steenkin' branches, HEAD or master - just, well, it was this and now it's that, and if we have to we can go back to what it was.

But one of the apps I was given when I came back to the development side was a PHP app (PHP sitting on top of the Zend infrastructure using jQuery, Knockout and Underscore - sheesh!) that was a single large repo in SVN, so I had to start learning about how to do my own branching et cetera. Okay, I'm still trainable. I can be taught to commit my code, revert if needed, and not make messes on the kitchen floor. I got enough SVN to get by.

The other main project, mentioned above was Java with GWT in Eclipse (which wasn't called Eclipse in this manifestation - no, it's called Indigo) with a bunch of doo-dads and thingamaggies. But it had a UI interface to SVN, so I could muddle my way through (although I made mistakes).

But then I had GIT ~~forcibly foisted upon me~~ revealed to me in all its glory. As in "Use Git. Now."

If you'd like to have a fun morning, google "git learning curve". It seems that while I was spending seven years programming in Utah where the strongest language from the next cube would be "oh, my heck!" , they invented a lot of new cuss words, and many folks don't spare 'em when discussing Git.

A spider monkey is agile - an amoeba is formless and infiinitely malleable. Git is much more like a messy organic fluid than a structured way of storing off code. In Git, there is no central repository. It's kind of like a South American political structure, where at any moment another coup happens and somebody new is in charge.

And it's not just that there is no "home base" - there are all the different ways of TALKING to the bases that aren't home base. Git. Egit. Gitorious. Smartgit. Tortoisegit.

It's just not the same as SVN. And it's not SUPPOSED to be the same.

That's why they have all of those new commands - push? pull? fetch? sound similar, but not the same as the SVN commands that you think that they might be related to.. reset? doesn't do what you think it does. untrack? help me, Lord!.

rebase? That sounds like you're about to cook your code in a spoon and then smoke it.

They are new commands because they aren't the same CONCEPTS as the old commands. They are different - and not only that, but they are more POWERFUL.

And that's not always a good thing. Don't hand your kid nephew the C4.

When I was writing Army contract code in VAX Pascal, I wondered what the big deal about this "C" thing was. One evening, I finished up my work early, and pulled out Herbert Schildt's "Complete C Reference" and started in on it - from "Hello World!" up to stacks of linked lists of functions returning arrays of pointers to functions returning int. It was a long night, and it was exciting.

But I learned that while C was powerful, that very power made it dangerous. If you are writing Pascal, it is impossible to cause the display to suddenly start bleeding colors in fractal digital shapes. In C, that can happen with a typo.

Git is like that. It allows you to completely destroy the very things that you are trying to save - and to do so without even knowing that you are doing it.

Which brings me back to my original question? WHERE IN THE HECK IS MY CODE?

A month or so ago, I finished up a project that only had code changes in one file in the codebase. Wrapped it all up in a nice war file, depoyed to QA, they passed it, so I committed it and then deployed to prod, all safe as houses.

...right up until I tried to find that code again. And I couldn't find it. Anywhere, root or branch.

Seems that, while I was working on that branch, I was working on another branch as well. And when it came time to merge them, I didn't merge in the right order - I was supposed to merge this one with master/origin, and then that one, or maybe the other way around.

So I pinged my Mentator (I call him that because I want him to be my Mentor, but he seems more like a Mentat from "Dune" - he figures everything out in a flash of insight, and then provides three-word answers to three-paragraph questions. And the three-word answers seem to be pointers to clues to other answers. It's like I'm asking him "How long is this hypotenuse?" and he'll say "Pythagoras died around 490 BC"

:....PLEASE UNDERSTAND I'm not complaining about my Mentator. I suspect that his trying to teach me this stuff is a lot like trying to explain to my 83 year old mother that, no, the Internet isn't inside the little box, and I have often complimented him on his patience. He has more patience with me than I would have with me)...anyway, I pinged my Mentator (who is Git-enamored) and said ":Where is my code?"

My Mentator had previously made it plain to me that I don't have to understand Git to use it. "Here, all you need to do is click these four little menu links in Eclipse, and that will do everything that you want it to do.Don't worry about all of the great and wonderful stuff that Git can do for folks who wish to investigate its power and glory - this interface is designed for GEICO caveman developers to insure that you can't screw it up."

(yes, I know that I said that he only gives three-word answers. The above is a compilation of 147 MOC messages, linked and cross-referenced and run though my Mentatorium defibrillator. That's the way that we have to communicate, since I'm a Stone-Age Luddite.)

But, obviously, my Stone-Age Ludditism was stronger than his four-command mojo, because I managed to screw it up.

So we spent an afternoon proving that the code was out there somewhere, and all you had to do was discombobulate the fragistat (N.B. - during this MOC discussion, I do, truly, believe that my Mentator did, actually, type this message - "I'm sure that you can reset pull the fetch head" - or something very like unto that).

And we reorged the branches, and I saw my nice one-changed-file stuff up there somewhere in the Headless Homeless Git Cloud, and I got a new branch and started a different project.

And this was fine until two days ago, when while debugging I happened to hit that bit of functionality, and - uh oh. This branch from that branch of the code that Certainly Has Those Committed Changes Inside did not have those committed changes inside.

And I went looking for them through Egit and Gitorious.

And I can't find them.

And situations like that leave me standing on the ledge up above my condo, wondering - jump and end it all? Or try to figure Git out?

It's getting cold up here on this ledge. WHERE IN THE HECK IS MY CODE?

Please Help

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 13:26:05 GMT

We're revamping this old condo. It's starting to come together.

However, there is one item that we do not have, and Ethel is balking at it.

We do not currently have a deer's rear end mounted and stuffed on our wall.



At Mac's Taxidermy, you can buy a deer's hindquarters that is ready to go on your wall - and you can buy this for $99. (the link above is to their novelty page, which includes the deerbutt, golfing squirrels, and fly-fishing bears).

For the rest of the day, I'm going to attempt to work, all the while knowing that there is a deer's hind end out there, and that Ethel won't let me buy it, because she's so mean and selfish. We just had some six posters framed, and the combined purchase cost of all of the posters together was about half the price of the framing for an individual poster - but I can't have ninety-nine dollars for a deer's rear end.

BTW - ruminant hineys are important - everywhere you go in the San Juan Mountains, you'll see a picture of an elk butt and a number; this means "Elk Butts - Next 40 Miles". They aren't worried about the rest of the elk - just the butt:



If I had this deer butt on my office wall, then I'd be able to deal with deer butts when I come upon them suddenly on the highway. It's actually a safety measure.

Please help me get this all-important deer rear mounted in my home office. Contact the Office Of Letting Jim Puckett Have A Deer Butt On His Wall with petitions and pleadings for this just cause. Remember: Only YOU can get Jim a deer butt.

Getting Jim a deer butt is but the first step in getting deer butts out there to all the people who need them. Right now, it's just an idea, but it can become a cause, and then - then it will become a Movement!!

Now, sing along with me!   (swelling "We Are The World" music in background....)

"We are the world, and we need Deer Butts
We are the ones who want a mounted butt, so let's keep singing
It's a choice we're making - it's Deer Butts on the wall
It's true, we'll get our mounted butts, just you and me!" - Awww, lemme hear ya!

(this has been a puckett service announcement).

No, She's Not The Cheerleader

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:40:14 GMT

However, Miss Isom WAS last year's homecoming queen.

And she kicked a 90 yard goal for the LSU soccer team.

And (drum roll, please) - she may be LSU's next place kicker.

Already, she's kicked a 51 yard field goal while practicing with Brad Wing, LSU's place kicker last year who both a) ran in a fake field goal for a touchdown and b) was the first Division 1 player who had a touchdown called back because of taunting. Now he's playing kicksie with the LSU homecoming queen. He might be the World's Most Interesting Aussie.

I'm sorry - call me sexist I(you might as well - I am) but when I look at the picture above, I don't think sweaty locker rooms and shoulder pads.

I would expect to see a lot of calls for "roughing the kicker", but I don't think that they would be ROUGH - they'd just have to touch, is all. "Must...touch....pretty....Cajun......kicker...."

(no, I don't know if Miss Isom is a cajun. Based on a preliminary tooth count, I'd say it's unlikely. But we SEC folks all assume that anyone in Baton Rouge is a Cajun who smells like corn dogs. I am strongly willing to believe that Miss Isom does not smell like corn dogs.)

I'm sure that the world is ready for a female place kicker. I'm just not sure that the world is ready for a female place kicker that looks like Miss Isom.

The Moose Has Company

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 23:26:05 GMT

Ethel.... is home : )

That's a soul-filling sentence all by itself. However, in the current context, it also means that things keep moving.

For a week, it's been me and Contractor Jeff. Which means two males, powerless to make decisions on our own.

But now ETHEL'S HOME! and so some decisions got made.

Here's the new Moose Wall:

Stuff from our current house, and the previous condo from across the parking lot, and from previous homes,and even some new stuff.

Center-left high is our old favorite, "I See By Your Outfit That You Are A Cowboy". Our friend Mary gave that to us back in - 1998? 1999? - when she stayed with us in Park City, and it has always had a prominent place in our home.

The lower left is "The Forests Have Eyes", which is a puzzler; you see an Indian on horseback leading a packhorse through a forest,. and then - when you keep looking - you start to see faces in the wood, creek, rocks and trees. Counting the faces is a major pasttime here at the Money Pit.

Now we're getting stuff on the walls. Now Ethel is cooking Chile Verde in the kitchen. Ethel brought my guitar back from New River. So the place is starting to look, smell and sound like home.

And it IS home, because Ethel's here.

Next Up - Antlers on the Dog

jimp@fatcharliesdiary.com (Fat Charlie the Archangel) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 23:50:15 GMT

Ethel is in the Sonoran Desert, where there might be a few mule deer with one antler each. However, she left me in the Colorado Condo, finishing up her antlerian fantasy.

Let me take you for a tour of Antler World. (forgive the photography - I'm using an old LG dumbphone). We've got antlers on the chandelier -

--- (if you look closely at the print on the wall, you'll see some more antlers) and we have antlers on the pendant lights ---

--- and we have antlers on the sconces in the stairwell ---

-- and, of course, His Antlerness ---

I haven't yet found antlers for Maia, but I'm sure that Ethel is in Arizona, googling herself silly looking for dog antlers.

But, you know what? Who cares!?!

I've got a good woman. If she wants to put antlers on everything in the house, that's fine with me. I'm sure that she won't be putting any horns on me. (this is a reference to cuckoldry; I'm safe there, I'm sure).

In fact, I'm safe from most of the horrors that can be visited on husbands. Whenever anybody complains about their wife/girlfriend and attributes whatever attribute they are complaining about to all women, I can always say "You've never met KimPuckett." She doesn't spend money for fun, she doesn't nag, she doesn't complain, she's not a clothes horse, she'd never spend a hundred bucks on a pair of shoes, she's not demanding, and she never told me what her mother thought of me or about how she should have married John Clark.

She is infinitely supportive, infinitely patient, always loving and attentive. She loves to cook for me. She keeps a nice house but she's not gonna freak out if there's mud in the hallway. The clothes are clean. We have the same set of core values and ideologies, and we share the most trivial facts of our lives, and we have the same primary purpose in our lives.

She lets me go skydiving even though she doesn't want to, she sent me to Steep and Deep camp, she plays golf with me, we read a lot of the same authors, and she wants to try again next year to ski 100 days in a single season.

I reckon if she wants more antlers, I'll buy 'em and mount 'em.