Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Tuesday

We're getting this morning a little of that Deep Freeze that has had Minny below zero the last couple of days.  Hello Winter.  My Christmas scarf is coming in handy.

A Top Ten List of 2014 happenings for LtPC:

1.  FFF in Tahoe - July. 





















2.  MCSC -  Spring-Summer-Fall










 
 
 
 
 
3.  George Strait Concert
 
 
 

4.  TOMRV - June














5.  NYC - April and December













6.  Scottsdale - January - May - October













7.  Harvest Path - All the visits












8.  Buick upgrade - December















9.  Geneva golf with my pals


















10.  Vegas with the fam - November










This is just a short sample of the year.  Maybe I'll do a more complete effort over the holiday weekend.  It's been a great year!

All for now.

BCOT
 
 

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Sunday

The Lt.'s back on Maplecrest.  Great visit with the fam in NYC.  They are the Family Branch of the Day!  This first pic is a shot taken yesterday morning in front of 4's work place.  She had to work all of the days that I was in town...and for the next six as well.  Lots of hours to fill for others who are out on vacation.

Gotta say, I love visiting The Big Apple, but that three-day-stay is my sweet spot.  I think I need to see more grass to balance my synapses.

The new digs on 13trh Street are very nice.  Plenty of space, great location, attentive doormen.  The Union Square station is maybe a 7-8 minute walk from the front door of the building.  Coffee shops are closer. Same for eating spots.  Its a lay-up.

I was mildly surprised at the number of commercial establishments open on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day.  We did have to go to a back-up plan for the primary Christmas Eve dinner location, but there were plenty of alternatives in the area of the closed restaurant.  Street traffic was obviously down in volume, but there were lots of people out and about.  The City That Never Sleeps earned its moniker.

3 and 3.1 also get props on Christmas dinner.  Pot roast in the crock pot with potatoes and vegetables..  Really good.

The culture portion of my visit was a stop at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Friday afternoon.  Busy place.  4 got in with a corporate admission through work, plus one, so we only had to pay for my Senior ticket...$17, which I rounded to $20.  There was a special El Greco exhibit, and another display of some Degas' sculptures of the Little Dancer's.  We got separated in the Egyptian galleries/temples/tomb's.  But enough was enough.  (My favorite on this visit was a Renoir painting of a country road scene.)

My mid-afternoon departure yesterday permitted a morning meet-up with 4 at the Union Square Starbucks, and then a subway ride uptown to check out St. Pat's.  The crowds around Rock Center were thick!  Lots of languages spoken on the sidewalks.  And lots of folks going through the cathedral.  But it was great to get the extra bit of time with 4, and then to be able to stop in to light the votive candles for the folks.  Perfect end to the visit.

Not sure how I got the designation this time, but my return ticket boarding pass was TSA pre-approved.  Suite!  No issues getting out of LGA, but the plane was packed, and I had the person in front of me crank her seat back as soon as we were in the air...ouch!  Double Bloodies at ORD to decompress.  My pal Ron was my ride home.  I owe him and @bcbison a bottle of The Good Stuff for their transportation services.

Special thanks to 3 and 3.1 for the housing arrangements.  It worked great.  (And you know how much I like the Grand Central Westin!.)  Christmas couldn't have been better. 

And thanks to 4 for making the effort to get to our fff when her schedule was just not very convenient. 

Lots of compliments during the trip on The Hat.  Barista's.  Doormen.  Passer's-by.  Not a lot similar headwear in the big city,  Orthodox Jewish hats aside.  Next viewing will be in the New Year on Harvest Path.

Hope its a good last couple of days of 2014 for the Peanut Gallery.  Thanks for reading.

BCOT


Friday, December 26, 2014

Friday

So we did Christmas in a small but fun way yesterday. 4 had to work until about 1400 local, so we whiled-away the morning with coffee, greasy-spoon breakfast and a walk in the East Village.











Decently-warm weather. Lots of places open, but nothing really crowded.











The plan today is for 3 and I to meet 4 for lunch and some kind of modified fff until 3.1 gets done with work. Wine may be involved.

Special props to 3 and 3.1 for their new condo. A very spiffy place. Great location. Plenty of space. I'm sure that it will be a Memory Maker for them.











We watched a fair amount of FOX News programming during the mid-day time-slots, knowing that 4 was whispering in the ears of the anchors. Then when 4 got to the condo, we enjoyed her commentary about the shows, the personalities of the on-air people, and the handling of content on a non-news-y day. Pretty cool to know that she's a part of national broadcasts. You are a star, Kiddo!!

Small note...I miss my Dunn's coffee mug. A standard SB cup just doesn't keep the heat in the Americano at my slow rate of drinkage. (Yeah, that may not be a word, but the meaning is clear, right?). But discretion is certainly the better choice here. The likelihood of the mug making it to NYC and back with my CRS in play would be near zero.

It was a hoot to FaceTime with Harvest Path. Technology shrinks the world.

Speaking of technology, 3.01 gave me one of those back-up battery packs for my mobile devices. That means that I now have a back-up to my iPhone battery (which is already backed-up by the sleeve-case), and the iPad. The back-up pack has like 6 adapters to fit various devices. Somewhat doubtful of my ability to not lose those items.
Technology has also allowed me to hear from my pals during the trip. Seems like everyone has had a good holiday. Mostly, we are all reasonably healthy. What a great statement to be able to make.












Obviously, not much to report. Just letting my vast readership know that all is well here in The Big Apple. Thanks for reading. Make it a great day in your neighborhood.

BCOT




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad



Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Wednesday - Christmas Eve Day

First things first. Happy Birthday to 4!!! You are DAUGHTER OF THE DAY!!!



I don't have a shot of her alone at the pass on this device. Sorry to have the Lt. sharing the space today. Obviously, this pic would have been taken in August of 2011 atop the Tourmalet in the Pyrenees. You were a stud on that climb, Kiddo!!

This is being written on the flight from C-town to LGA. Departure was about 35 minutes late from ORD, but if arrival is not any later than that in NYC on one of the busiest travel days of the year, I'm not complaining.

I'm also going to recognize my pal Pete today. He's been a great friend with airport delivery and pick-up several times in 2014. Again early today. I've said it many times, I am blest with great friends and family.



Here's a little example of the little complexities of technologies. The new Buick. It has Bluetooth capability. Very cool. But the sync-ing up between the iPhone and the car has some ironing-out to do. Incoming calls seem to require an additional step to force the call to the car. And voice mails from my desk-phone that get routed to my Outlook email (which automatically comes to my iPhone and iPad) won't play on my iPhone while I'm in the car. Interesting.

Over/Under on the RCL making it as regularly scheduled to Maplecrest today? Going with the Over. I got no call to reschedule, and even if it is the SRCL (Substitute), a payday is a payday.

In The FWIW Department, the coach for Northern Florida...whom Iowa beat Monday night...offered up that he thought Iowa players were easily discouraged when shots didn't drop or things didn't go their way. I read that as "soft". Which is the same assessment I opined here after the Saturday game in DSM.

Think I'm going to apply for the TSA pre-approval designation for 2015 after all. If I travel 5 times next year, the cost is less than a bottle of wine each trip. This business with shoes and belts etc. just doesn't work for me anymore.

I noticed on my basement calendars this AM that I have had a string of at least five Christmas's spent in Minnesota. And that run ends this year. Hmmm. Weather permitting, the plan is to get up there for the weekend after New Years.

In three weeks, it will be golf on a course TBA in Scottsdale.

So mostly, I wanted to get this up to honor 4. There's not a lot of wisdom here. Sorry. Pics from the weekend will hit Twitter for sure.

Make it a good day in your neighborhood!

BCOT

Monday, December 22, 2014

Monday

Sorry for not getting here over the weekend.  Friday night included a couple of parties, and Saturday was just a long day with the trip over to and back from Des Moines.  Recovery on Sunday.

For those choosing more productive pastimes, the college football bowl season is underway.  After the market closed today, I flipped the TV in my office over to ESPN and have had the BYU-Memphis game on from an almost-empty Marlins Stadium in Miami.  Haven't paid much attention to it, but they have now gone to a second OT.  BYU played in some high-scoring games in the Holiday Bowl years ago.  This one's tied at 48.  ND defense-like.  And now Memphis wins.  And an end-of-game fight breaks out.  Why not?

The report from the games in Des Moines is that the 'Clones are dangerous while Iowa looks soft.  Big crowd.  Wells Fargo is not a bad place for it.  Although they must have under-estimated the number of urinals needed in the men's rooms.  Long lines that I thought were reserved for the ladies.

My pal Doug and I had beers from the vendor between games rather than wait the lines at the concession stand.  25-ounce cans from Budweiser!  (My Coors Light was only a 24-ounce can.)  The economics weren't bad...$8.50 each.  But that's a lot of beer for a wine guy!  The inflated prices were for the other stuff;  $7.50 hotdog, $5 water and $5 popcorn at half of the second game.  Welcome to the Big Show.

A piece of unfinished business.  My absence from the blog lead to an omission of recognition for 1.02.  He was three years old on Saturday.  So here is a belated Happy Birthday, Kiddo!.  You are Grandson of the Day!

The new car is working out ok.  It doesn't have quite the oomph that the Lucerne had coming off the line, but its adequate.  Nice ride.  Decent room inside.  Comfortable.  I kinda like the reduced length on the front end of the car.  You can get fully into a parking spot without getting the nose of the car over the cement block or sidewalk at the front of a stall.

If I spent more time in the car, I would subscribe to the satellite radio service.  I have it now for a limited period with the new ownership, and it was nice to have for those trips over to C-town and DSM.  But other than the trips to Harvest Path, I just don't spend that much time in the car.  And then, I have the books-on-CD that work just fine.  I really don't need to listen to Howard Stern.
 
I may or may not get back on here tomorrow.  I leave early Wednesday and will do an entry that day from the road for sure.  (And yes, the hat will be going to the Big Apple!)  In the meantime, best wishes from our family to yours for Christmas and the family-time that we all look forward to sharing.
 
BCOT

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Thursday

This is coming to you from the METRA train heading back to the western suburb of Lombard where I left my car this AM. Finding the Lombard station wasn't all that easy this morning. Getting a parking spot. Buying a ticket. Catching the train. Finding the CPA location downtown. Lotsa stresses.

The train cars are all double-decker's, and well-utilized. I've had seats each way...some standing passengers on this outbound ride. The round-trip fare Lombard-Chicago-Lombard was $9.50. Parking was only $1.25. So not having to drive on the expressways or find (and pay for) parking downtown were big pluses. But still. If I'm going to go to "live" courses, they need to either be in Davenport/Moline or be a 3-day conference at a resort location. Investing this much time in an 8-hour program in the Loop is nuts.

I did get through the NYT crossword during the class. The last couple of Thursday puzzles that I've done have had "tricks" that I never quite got. Keep in mind that the Thursday puzzle is almost always a trick puzzle. Today's trick wasn't awful, and once it fell out in one set of clues, the five other combinations were relatively easy. The Chicago Tribune puzzle also was done, but it really isn't that difficult. But I didn't attempt the Sun Times pattern-less puzzle because I just didn't want to think that hard!! Maybe next week in NYC with 3 and 4.

I'll be wrapping this up in just a few. We're almost to my stop. If I get to Maplecrest in decent time, I may jump back on to complete the story on this trip to the Big City.

Most of the people on the train are working on an electronic device. Do they run WiFi on the train? Almost no newspapers. Little talking. Is there a Club Car up there somewhere? I do remember getting beers on the way home a few times in the old life.

Of course, there's my favorite stories about trains between South Bend and Chicago. Fun times then.

All for now.

BCOT


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Wednesday

I was supposed to be in Chicago this AM.  Actually, the plan had been to be in Wheaton last night and then take the commuter train downtown this morning for a continuing education conference.  But yesterday was a disaster here at the office, and I decided to pass on the seminar today to catch up on what didn't get done yesterday.  If the morning goes as planned, I'll jump on the freeway this afternoon.  There's a dinner scheduled with my pal Lee this evening in Wheaton.

The new car is different.  It is definitely an upgrade from the Lucerne, but it has the feel of a Hertz rental.  Nice.  Low mileage.  But not all that distinguished from others.  The electronics will take some time to fully understand.  I'm sure that an engineering team came up with the "improvements" over the older models.  Old Dog (that's for you, 4!), new tricks, and all that.  But glad to have reliable transportation for future trips to Harvest Path.

Many thanks to the extended family for the Christmas cards.  I do enjoy seeing the growing families.  Phil and Margaret would be proud.


Special thanks to Julie for the follow-up message on Aunt Martha's service in Las Vegas.  We'll republish that pic from Sunday and make her Niece of the Day!

I see in the news where Tiger Woods is finally opening a golf course after a couple of economy-scrapped attempts.  This one is down in Cabo San Lucas at a resort (Diamonte) where there is already an existing track designed by Davis Love III.  Cabo golf is an expensive proposition, and putting Tiger's name on it probably doesn't cheapen the freight.  We've talked about going back to Cabo for the January Boy's Golf Trip, but I doubt if that happens anytime soon.  Too much time to get there.  Too expensive to play.  Local unrest makes partying away from the resort iffy.  Let the jet set take over.  Maybe some of Tiger's old girlfriends are still around there.  Just sayin'.

Interesting how the fallout from the Sony pictures hacking situation has caused quite the dust-up.  I see on the news now that they've decided not to open that Korean dictator spoof for fear of incidents.  And those emails from exec's to others prove again that, once written, electronic communications never go away.  Loose lips sink ships, etc.  Kinda nice to see some of the Hollywood types eat crow.  Even better to know that the exec's have the same opinions of the stars that some of us coffee shop experts profess.

Not sure what this says about a person, but cleaning out the old Buick before leaving the dealership with the new car created another bag of miscellaneous "crap" that will need sorting through.  I actually have a couple of shoe boxes in my extra bedroom (if there's no bed, is it a bedroom?) from previous exchanges.  Typical stuff.  Coins, pens, hotel note pads, trade-in papers on the car, insurance paperwork, CD's and CD cases.  All valuable.  Right.  And there's a couple of other shoe boxes with the contents of the "junk drawer" from my previous residences.  And from the "pile on the kitchen counter" on Maplecrest that the RCL makes me dispose of every few months.

Not proud of that rat-packing.  But fear not.  After the good feeling from last weekend's purge of keepsake-boxes in the back closet, I see the clouds of worthless possessions easing.  You make not have a lot of gratuitous LtPC possessions to kick to the curb when that time comes.

OK.  Gotta go.  Here's to Hump Day to all of us...and TGIF to 4.

BCOT

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Sunday

Going seasonal with the new Home Page pic.  Hope they get some snow at Tahoe this year.

Busy week at this end.  A couple of Christmas functions and your typical end-of-the-year action with clients here at the office.  These next couple of weeks will be more of the same.

1 tweeted and alert yesterday that there was a couple of "flyovers" at the Army-Navy game.  I didn't watch the game, and Youtube hasn't posted anything for the 2014 game.  I'm all for the flyovers, of course.  I'm guessing that the training schedules for the planes/choppers can be adjusted to nominalized the frivolous spending criticisms.  But I'm sure that there will be those who see these displays as government money just thrown to the breeze.  Whatever.

I was doing some math this weekend in anticipation of Monday being the 15th of the month.  My vision of my professional career "glide path" had etched a line in the sand on April 15, 2012 and projecting forward for 60 months.  On that timeline, December 15, 2014 is well past half way...a disturbing thought.  With the months more or less flying by these days, some serious planning needs to be done.

Without changing that 60 month scenario, a more realistic picture might be to consider the extension period for those returns that have a normal due date of April 15, 2017.  Meaning that September 15th and October 15th 2017 come into play.  Going out to October 2017, the number that kind of comes to the fore is 1000 days.

If you consider that each year has 104 weekend days, and that I also schedule myself on the road an estimated 20-25 additional days per year, we're talking in the neighborhood of 650 work days.  That doesn't seem like that many days, eh?

A Thousand Days is a non-fiction book written by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in the mid-60's on the abbreviated presidency of John F. Kennedy.  Anne of a Thousand Days is a historical movie (based on a Broadway production of the same name) released in the late '60's starring Richard Burton as King Henry VIII.  Not sure if A Thousand Days with LtPC will make the best seller's lists.

Today is also the one-month mark before our golf trip to Scottsdale.  I've put my pal Ron in charge of the golf course reservations.  The economy in The Valley of the Sun must be on the upswing.  Rates at Grayhawk Golf Club where we have played their two courses each of the last several years have doubled from five years ago.  We paid like $99 per round back then, and didn't have to shop very hard to get that rate.  The rack rate today for Thursday through Sunday rounds at either Grayhawk course is $255! Yikes!  We'll end up at some lesser-known courses and likely average $150 for the three rounds.

(For historical reference, we paid at least $200 per round 15 years ago when we went to Cabo.  And one course was over $300.  That's why we stopped going to Cabo.  Ron says that he and Jane did not play Pebble Beach in 2012 when they went to California after 3 and 3.1's wedding due to the $499/each charge for one round.  But he does say that it would have been cheaper to play golf than it was for the wine that they ended up buying in Napa Valley!)

Another frightening example of Big Brother is Watching:  I did a Google search on my iPad while at home one night last week regarding the income earned per-episode by Pat and Vanna on WofF.  The next day at work, I was doing a Google search on my desktop, and the query words for whatever I was looking for started with a "wh" word.  The auto finish-the-query function, on my desktop, offered up "What does Vanna Make?"  Electronic tracking is way too much in-play.

The Salvation Army bell-ringing is very annoying.  I get that it is their primary fund-raiser.  But enough already.

Adding some gratuitous pics from home later.

Hope it is a good week in your neighborhood.

BCOT
















Tuesday, December 09, 2014

Tuesday






-




























Posted using BlogPress from my












Great memories!!
BCOT

Sunday, December 07, 2014

Sunday

I have no excuse for the lack of new material here this week. I started an entry on Wednesday, but had a guy come in for a meeting that never ended (more on that meeting later). And the Road to Good Intentions couldn't get past the idea stage on Friday and Saturday. Whatever.

I'm a little slow with this today. Among other things, the "a" key on my iPad keyboard has lost it's top...and getting an "a" to print requires an extra step each time. I don't often use the keyboard...not sure where the key top went for the "a".

The BEATER lived up to its name on Friday. After couple of early morning coffee stops, the car failed to turn-over in the parking lot at Dunn's. It was a "Car Dead, Call Fred" moment. A new alternator and peripheral parts later, I was good to go. $500. Great start for the weekend.

We have a new wine-bar in Davenport. Wacky, the guy who ran Wacky Waters for my pal Roy, opened a new place in one of those commercial buildings just South of Biaggi's on Utica Ridge Road. Its similar to the place in LeClaire that he had with his now ex-wife. I stopped in Wednesday for the first time with that guy who had come in to review my office procedures for my securities business. Kinda small. Good selection of wine. Not cheap, but not outrageous. Not sure how you make money at a place like that. No food. So no catering. Only 30-35 places for customer seating. Hmmm.




The evening extended further with a stop at 1/2 price night at Crust where I met up with my pal Pete and the owner of the Healthy Habits bike shop. (Generally, half-price wine tasted better than the same bottle at full price. Just sayin'.) The bike guy's girlfriend is a dead-ringer for Ziva David, including the widow's peak. She wasn't aware of who we were talking about, and was taken aback with the resemblance when she pulled up a Google image. I'll get her pic next time and share here. Long story short, I've been in wine-detox since Wednesday.

There was a story on Yahoo this AM about the 10 Most Disappointing Destinations for travel. On the list were such places as LA, the Pyramids, and Venice. Reasons for making the list were predominately, 1) dirt and grime, 2) aggressive street vendors, and 3) costs. I get that. But I am struck by the opposite results as I consider my destinations over the last several years. Other than a little bit of the LV Strip going a long way, my stops have been universally good experiences. Then again, except for the trips to Europe, I have mostly chosen to re-visit places that have produced good results previously. NYC. Tahoe. San Antonio. SF. Scottsdale. Total Wine.

And those trips to Europe have mostly stayed away from the big cities. The Palermo experience in Sicily was up the size charts, and Torino was big-city-gritty. But neither of those towns were/are huge tourist destinations. Lourdes in France had the most touristy feel...need any holy water? And the Isle of Capri was probably the biggest tourist trap.

Today is another memorable day in history. The anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. For us of the Boomer Generation, it was a big item in American history. Semper fi.

All for today. I'll be doing better this week.

BCOT

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Sunday

Here we are, the last day of November.  The 2014 vapor trail continues.

The visit from the Dornies was a big hit.  We'll make them Family of the Day.  (This is a shot from their photo session with Noelle last month.)  Nothing overly exciting accomplished during their visit.  Just good 'ol fff.  Missing 3 and 3.1.

Great also to have 4 here for the week.  And 2 for several days. 

I efforted steaks on the grille last night on Century Heights Avenue.  Not the worst results, but there was a grille malfunction with the upper shelf in the BBQ that diminished the results of my mushroom-veggie concoction.  And doing the cooking in darkness is a challenge.  But regardless, outdoor grilling in late November is a bonus...and a fitting finale for the holiday weekend.

As reported on Twitter, Margret went into hibernation today.  That gets a spot in my garage for the BEATER which then keeps the Buick off the street.  (I've been driving the Buick these cold days when the outdoor-sitting BEATER would be frosted over in the mornings.)

And speaking of the Buick, it's days are numbered.  It needs a new set of tires ($1200 or so), some front-end work (another grand), and its now seven years old.  Blue Book value is down to $5-6K, and those repairs noted, if completed, won't increase that value.  I've contacted my car dealer client to find as good of a low-mileage Buick LaCrosse as he can find as my next vehicle.  They don't make the Lucerne anymore...or any 8-cylinder Buicks.  So a 6-cylinder LaCrosse is the best available substitute.  The color won't be black or white, but all others are okay if the car checks out on mileage and options.

(My pal Roy says I can borrow the Caddy anytime I need a dose of testosterone.  He's also ordered one of those new Dodge Chargers...with 700 horsepower!...which may make it up to Harvest Path one weekend after the snow is gone in the Spring.)

2, 1.1 and I went over to the Augie men's game last night...which Augie won in a rout.  They're rated #1 in the D-III poll right now...and they are very good.  They have a 5'9" guard who continues to amaze.  He has range, quickness, and a no-fear mentality.  They've already lost one big man for the year to an ACL (his third!), and they could run into problems with a team with height, but the way they shoot, run and play D, they''ll be hard to beat..  I'll be going to a few more games.

OK.  Enough for tonight.  Hope everyone gets December off to a good start.  Thanks for reading.

BCOT