Wednesday...UPDATED...UPDATE 2nd

CJ's stay at the top of the blog ends after a week.  He will definitely return!  The new pic is a shot of the Brooklyn Bridge taken that weekend in late October that I visited 3 in The Big Apple.

4 never received her due last week with all of the news in Woodbury.  So here she is as a belated Daughter of the Day.  Her quarter-century birthday.  This shot is a repeat of the one I posted from France on the August day that we rode the Tourmalet.  You 'da girl, Kiddo!

Busy couple of days here at the shop.  Lots of year end planning to address.  Still no snow.

More later.

LATER...A follow-up comment on the golf simulator experience.  This was something that I am not likely to repeat.  While it might be billed as golf, it's really not a lot different than other video games.  Sure, you swing your own clubs like you are on the course, but it becomes apparent pretty early on that, if you want to pay attention to your score, you need to accommodate the whims of the computer program.  So really, we're talking about a hybrid video game.

The computer keeps track of everybody's ball and you rotate shots just like on the course.  I went there thinking that we would be doing something for an hour or so, like on the practice range.  But we didn't get through eight holes in two hours, and I had lost interest way before that.  And they didn't serve wine.

This is not a pic of us at the place on Monday, but it's very similar to the Bettendorf set-up.  They have 5-6 of these booths that border an open area with a couple of pool tables and other games.  There's a pretty good-sized bar at one side of the room.   I think they get live bands in for weekends, and the young folks may gather for apres' ski-like mingling.  Not sure if the Summer will be the "in" season.  And I didn't see a patio for that kind of Summer socializing.

After having the W around my place for several days, I've caught myself yesterday and today entering my house and expecting to see her.  And handling my schedule with her walks included.  If there's such a thing as Pavlov's Dogs, there must also be The Winniferous' Masters.

Again, more later.

UPDATE II...I had to stop over at the bank by Northpark Mall during my lunch hour, and I gave into my curiosity to check out the sale at Joseph A. Bank, the men's retailer that advertises heavily on CNBC in the early AM.  They're always offering "Buy One, Get One Free", or even, "Buy One, Get Two Free" every once in a while.  I figured that I might find some nice, fitted cotton dress shirts to balance out my wardrobe of dri-fit everything.

They did have some cheaper standard cut dress shirts on the sale tables, but the more desirable, fitted ones that I had interest in were all $88 or so.  Sure, it was "Buy one, Get One Free", but that still calculated out to $45 per shirt, which wasn't much of a deal in my calculus.  If you charge a high enough price for one, that give-away of the second one isn't much of a give-away after all.  Shocking.

This week is vapor.  BBQ and wine on Maplecrest tomorrow night.  Be there.
BCOT

Tuesday

forStill trying to find "normal" at this end.  The weekend was a great success.  1 has a lot of pictures up on her Walgreen's account.  I need to work on mine before putting them anywhere.  Here's a couple just to get the process in motion.

More later.

BCOT

Thursday

This is the shot that 1 had on her Twitter account this AM.

1 and 1.02 are scheduled to head home today.  More pics should be available at that time.

Busy day here today.  Lots to do before tomorrow morning's departure.

Coming Home!!!!

BCOT

Wednesday

Welcome to the world, 1.02!!!!!

Arrival time approximately 2130hrs December 20, 2011.

7.1 lbs...I think 1.1 said 28+ inches.  More details and pics as they become available.

UPDATE:   Via text from 1, the length was 20.5.  I'm taking the fall on this one.  I'm sure 1.1 gave me the correct info originally, and that I didn't get it properly registered.

The early reports from 2 seem to suggest that 1.01 has welcomed her new brother with open arms.  I wonder how long that will last?  I'm guessing that that last brownie won't be given up freely!

More later.

BCOT

Sunday...UPDATED

I've put my new flag pole up as the Home Page pic for a couple of days to recognize Old Glory's new spot on Maplecrest.  Thanks go to my Perfect Neighbor Jim for basically doing all the work.

The Winniferous and I have made it through another weekend together.  We've kind of figured a rhythm to living together for these short periods.  She knows that she gets 2-3 "hunts" per day...and lots of treats/snacks.  But when I'm out of the house, she's still a kitchen-only puppy.  Best adjective for her?  Needy!

I'm not 100% sure, but I think that I have been victimized by a minor burglary in the Buick.  The car charger to my new iPhone, and the midi-digi camera have both vanished.  The charger just never leaves the Buick, and it's not the kind of thing that just falls out of the car or between the seats.  The camera is stored in my murse, which I had in the car most of the week.  To "lose" both items at the same time is too unusual to be a coincidence.  I'm giving it a couple more days for the items to turn up, before calling it theft.  Bummer.

As reported on Twitter, Margret is now in the garage on Century Heights Avenue.  It was a nice enough day, and I hadn't had her out for a month or more, so I did a little ride in the country to "blow out her pipes" before putting her in hibernation.  Her next appearance in the elements will likely be close to April 1st in 2012.

It's another pleasant day here.  Mid 40's at least.  Lots of golfers on the courses near me.  I'm actually going to fire up my lawn mower and collect the leaves this afternoon.  Running a lawn mower in mid-December seems a little unusual.  Global warming, for sure, Al.

The local paper had major coverage on the reactions to the Stephen Bloom article today.  http://qctimes.com/news/opinion/editorial/in-defense-of-skuzzy-iowa/article_11d46296-2866-11e1-84d7-0019bb2963f4.htmlAs could be expected, there was near-universal disdain for the slant that Bloom gave to virtually every segment of Iowa culture.  Makes you wonder if The Atlantic was just looking for readership.  My guess is that the editors figured that a nice hit-piece on the state could get a visceral reaction and plenty of splash in the extended media, in a news cycle that now has the Iowa caucuses at front and center stage.  Bloom just comes off as a high-brow academic.

If you didn't notice, bowl-season started yesterday.  Hmmm.  Sorry I missed those crucial games.

I hope to get back on here later after my yard work and the next hunt with The W. 

UPDATE...Really not much to add here.  I enjoyed The W's visit, but I was glad for her to return to Highland Avenue.  I ache as though I was still in Turkey Trot training.  She should sleep well for 2 tonight. 

Sounds like the trip to C-town was a success.  I'll be anxious to hear details from the Continent as well.

I don't know the Commenter from IC.  There must be a search program out there that just looks for words or phrases and this guy was spending some time looking around on the Bloom article.  Maybe the engine picked up the link to the local paper that I included above.  Interesting.

My friend Pete is Pal of the Day.  He played Santa earlier this week and delivered a case of top-shelf Louis Martini Cabernet Savignon for all of us to share.  Suite.  You 'da man, friend.

Hope the peanut Gallery has a good week.

BCOT

Friday AM

Glad to see the end of the week.  It feels like I've been busy all week, but I'm pretty sure that I haven't got much done.  And now we have another computer problem this AM.  I'm guessing that this one is hardware related as it is unusual for us to have a LAN problem, but still have Internet access.

I attended the visitation last night of a modestly distant relative; a first cousin of Grandpa H.  The deceased was a priest at St. Ambrose, and was the last man standing of that generation of cousins on Daddy's side of the family.  Father William Dawson.  Questions on the related branches of the family tree should be directed to Tahoe Phil.

Lots of moving parts to the fam this weekend.  3 and Herky head to London later today, and 2 and 4 join @srh4 for a girls shopping weekend in C-town.  The Winniferous and I will be holding down the fort in the QCA.

4's addition to the Comments section on Wednesday is a direct link to the controversial essay in The Atlantic magazine by a professor (Stephen Bloom) at the University of Iowa.  The essay goes on for several pages detailing this guy's "honest" appraisal of Iowa's backwardness, small mindedness, and numerous other "ness's", and generally concluding that Iowa is a place where losers to go to die.  All this coming from a Left Coast transplant.  Maybe he should go back home.

So I'm not much of a Tim McGraw fan.  But he has a couple of songs that have always resonated with me, the one currently in mind: Live like you were dyin'.  Another close friend from another lifetime passed away this week at age 62 from pancreatic cancer.  Tahoe Phil makes the comment that he's in the 1/2 of 1% on the survival rate.   We are all so lucky.

I'm headed out to my normal Friday AM "meeting" at Gold's.  Hope everyone has a good TGIF.

BCOT

Wednesday

I should be able to add an entry today during the course of this last CPE seminar that I have on my schedule for the year.  This one is a satellite program held at the iWireless Center in Moline.  I've attended this same annual Tax Update program each of the last few years.  Smaller group this year.  Maybe the folks have a better handle on their CPE hours for 2011.

There has definitely been a change in the delivery of CPE in recent years.  There's lots of in-office webinars that you can catch at your desk, and some of these vendors will do an on-line or satellite deal for small offices where an entire staff can be present.  It saves the firm a lot of time and money, and probably gets the same learning benefits.  Hello U of PHX.

The computer kerfuffle at the office is approaching a conclusion.  We're having a debriefing with the IT vendor next week.  That should be interesting.

My friend Lee in C-town was licking his wounds Sunday night from the latest Tebow comeback.  'Da Bears were extremely complicit in the Denver win, but the Tebow legend continues to grow.  One commentator (I think accurately) referred to this phenomenon as a "mania".  And mania's tend to run their course and eventually go down.  But I find the success that Tebow has enjoyed these last few weeks a bit refreshing.  And I really like the fact that this success is flying in the face of those so-called NFL experts that declared, flat out, that Tebow couldn't make it in the league.

My spot on the iPhone Learning Curve is below ground-level.  I have signed up for iTunes in order to have access to the apps for the phone (even the Free ones).  The on-screen keyboard is going to take some time to get used to.

Really impressed that Time magazine has selected The Protester as their Person of The Year.  I think that it is fitting that the uni-sex individual on the cover has a covered face.  In the under-developed countries of the world, I guess that the cloth-covered face look is somewhat normal, although for us Westerner's, that look gets routinely associated with terrorism.  In the USA, the covered face has historically been used by outlaws.  Occupy outlaws are just exercising there right of Free Speech.  Hmmm.

More here after lunch.

BCOT

Sunday

Sorry for not getting on here the last few days.  Life kind of got in the way.

The saga on computers at my office remains an open exercise.  The laptop is now serviceable, but I'm still just getting up-to-speed on the new machine and the updated software.  Turns out that the computer came equipped with an additional SEM card that was an AT&T add-on.  The Verizon air card couldn't get past the SEM card for some reason.  The IT installer finally noticed the extra piece of hardware, pulled it, and wow!  The laptop worked.

The desktop is still messed-up.  Our contractor has absolutely failed on this project.  I was livid on Friday.  Inconvenience has moved to unacceptability.  To be continued.

2's dinner at the Figge on Thursday night was a success.  She served as hostess for the short program following the meal...and did a nice job dealing with an uncooperative sound system.  Let's make her Daughter of the Day in recognition of this effort.  Way to go, Kiddo!

The Geneva Christmas party last night was a lot of fun.  Good friends.  Good dinner.  Top-shelf wine.  That bottle of Jordan Cab may have been the hit of the evening.

It looks like we are close to a final agreement on the house for the #7282012 events.  Tahoe Phil made an on-site inspection this weekend and I have contacted the owner about inking the deal.  Not far from Phi and Jan's, good space-age, and reasonable pricing.  Our check-in will be Sunday, the 22nd.

Anybody catch the replay of the brawl at the end of the Cincy-Xavier basketball game last night?  A number of those players should be kicked off their teams, and maybe even out of their schools.  Nothing short of thuggery.  And then the Xavier players actually go to post-game pressers and justify the physicality/retribution due to Cincy's lack of "respect" for the Xavier team.  Just like in the 'hood.

So Pujols took the money and went to LA.  It was a choice.  Take less money in StL and embellish his icon status in the best baseball town in the country.  Or follow the money and become A-Rod in LA.  I have no problem with him following the money.  And I have no problem with the Cards' not trying to match silly money for an aging star.  Maybe Albert figured that he'd always be second to Stan the Man, so why not take the money?  It's bid'ness.  (A hard-and-fast rule that has application in sports, business, politics and social-climbing:  When they say it's not about the money, always remember, it's about the money!)

2's flat tire yesterday morning brought into play a tool that I have never used for changing tires: the 4"x4"x4' club.  After finally unscrewing the lug nuts (they were on so tight I couldn't figure out which way was off!), the tire was still held fast to the axle.  I tried pulling, yanking and kicking with no success.  We actually went back inside the coffee shop to warm up and to review the owner's manual again to see if there was a "trick" that was unique to the Focus.  Terry O'C gave his input too.  (Uh, Terry...you were worthless!)

I finally went over to the trash bin at the next-door construction site and found the 4x4x4 and began to seriously whale away at the tire.  It finally popped free.  We got the donut mounted, stopped and aired-up the donut and the other front tire and took the car over to a tire shop on Brady.  Surprisingly, the fix was cheap enough for 2 to afford, and she's back fully mobile today.

A small visual factoid:  I was wearing the Dale Earnhardt NASCAR gawdy-printed black leather jacket while performing this tire-change service.  It was not a quality pit stop on the clock.

Now headed over to Gold's to sweat out some vino.

BCOT

Wednesday

This is another of the "days in history".  Pearl Harbor.  According to FDR, "A day that will live in infamy".  Before my time.  But etched in my brain from American History class.

The IT folks have made progress on the conversion here at the office.  But they still have several open points.  Suffice it to say, they severely under-engineered this project.  I'm moving on for sanity's sake.

I'm declaring the Christmas shopping season in full gear.  The traffic is now at the high volume that makes ingress and egress to/from any retail/commercial area problematic.  Actually, the flow is usually moving so slowly that people will let you in line without you being hardly aggressive at all because they know they can't get anyplace very fast anyway.

Today is RCL day.  Always a good day to get home.

I posted this on Twitter at lunch.  Roy and I ate at a local Irish bar (Kelly's on 53rd Street) as we do usually once every couple weeks or so.  It's bar food, but we know the owner and we usually get well-treated by the waitresses.  Anyway, they have a digital sign over the bar that counts down the days until St. Patrick's Day.  (Actually, the clock reads down to the hour, minute and second.)    And that sign read an even "100" today.  A hundred days seems like a long time, but to think that St. Paddy's Day will be less than 100 days away as of tomorrow, makes Spring seem maybe not that far away, eh?

Busy day for me tomorrow.  Cedar Rapids for another CPE day.  And Susan's Figge dinner tomorrow night.  Lots of moving parts.

I'm going to head over for an evening spin class.  I may try to hop back on here later, IF they have my air card installed.  Hmmm.  Taking the Under on that one.

BCOT

Tuesday

This entry is coming your way via the laptop and the Dunn Bros wifi hotspot.  The good news is that the laptop does work.  The bad news is that the Verizon air-card is still not installed.  And the desktop is still a work in progress.  I'm now past the point of irritation.  Well, maybe not.

I am very close to committing to a house for the #7282012 events with an arrival of Sunday the 22nd and a departure of Saturday the 28th.  Tahoe Phil needs to complete an on-site inspection before I send in the deposit, but the location is good...on the Mountain Golf Course in Incline...and the space in the home looks like it can handle the crew.  I want to get the reservation done so that we can take this one off the list of open items.

The new Dell doesn't have one of those nuisance balls in the middle of the keyboard...which is good.  But I still hit keys that send the cursor all over the place while I input.  And since I have to look at the keyboard as I type, I'll be three words or more into a sentence before I realize that I've shifted to the middle of a completed paragraph above my input point.  Inefficiency can be my middle name.

This is our first "wintery" day of the season.  Snow flurries most of the day.  Had to brush off the Beater after early coffee.  No accumulation, but it sure looks like Winter outside.  Get used to it, eh?

Augie has a game tonight that I may try to get to.  They did get beat in StL over the weekend, so the #1 rating is gone.  But if they stay healthy, they should have a great year.

It looks like the new party song in the country bars is "Red Solo Cup" by Toby Kieth.  I never knew that those plastic beer cups at parties were "Solo" cups.  (He sang the song at the end of the country awards show on the tube last night.  Country cool...he comes out to receive a big award chewing a wad of gum.  And proceeds to sing while still chewing.  Very classy.

I may try to slide back on here later.

BCOT

Monday...UPDATED

This computer thing is beginning to wear a little thin.  No entry here yesterday largely because I had no Internet access from my house.  And the IT guy has taken control of both my laptop and my desktop this AM.  Inconvenient may not fully describe my assessment of the situation.

There was a fairly notably recurrence of my Sometimer's problem on Saturday night.  I had elected to wear some non-jeans, dress slacks to Geneva for dinner.  I figured that the club would have been fine with jeans, but I didn't want to be the only guy in the place in denim.  Anyway, the dark slacks required my black dress shoes, which I store in my bedroom closet.  Opening the closet, I find not only the shoes that I'm looking for, but also a new casual pair that I had totally forgotten about...and three long-sleeved dri-fits...all that must have made it there last Spring.  No recollection whatsoever.  Hmmm.

I had actually purchased a new pair of daily-wear shoes last month (20% off at Kohl's, Revkev!), as I had still been wearing the well-worn pair that those in the closet was obviously bought to replace months earlier.  The synapses obviously had lost contact.

The Home Page of my B of A accounts still shows a balance due of $200 on my mortgage, but now gives me a, "Can not process your request" message when I ask for account details.  Not sure if that's good or bad.

Interestingly, as I am now on another computer in the office (not my own), the B of A website makes me go through an additional level of security to access my accounts.  All you cyber shoppers out there,  Beware!  The online retailers will be following your electronic tracks forever!

With the Hawks going to Mesa, the 'Clones to NYC, and the Irish to Florida, we've got teams border-to-border.  I hope the weather in The Big Apple cooperates.  Of all the lower-tier bowls, ISU's spot looks like one of the best.  Weather being the down-side.

Maybe more here later.

NOW LATER....The computer guy finally had some success today getting a few things done.  My desktop is up and running with the new equipment, and my office email seems to be working.  I'll wait until tomorrow before declaring the change-over a full success.  He still has some small programming to do to coordinate some of the operational things.

The word on the laptop is not quite as good.  He's saying that Dell has to ship him a replacement air-card as the one built-in is defective.  Hmmm.  It took them this long to figure that out?  Whatever.

One of the by-products of the computer project has been the complete clearing of the top of my desk.  It had to be done to give the IT guy space to work.  Plus, there's about a million confidentiality rules in both the CPA and securities businesses that say, "Don't leave client material out for prying eyes!"   I actually like the look.  The question becomes, how long can I make it last?  I get so much junk mail, and I have so much stuff that takes multiple look-at's to get done, that the pile-building is continuous.  But I'm going to take another stab at the goal of clearing it off each day.  Wise betters will take the Under on this one.

Thanks for reading.

BCOT

Saturday

Well, my computer situation hasn't improved much.  My desktop tower still hasn't been exchanged for the new unit, but that hasn't stopped the updated Windows package now on the server from screwing-up my office email.  We spent most of Friday afternoon trying to isolate the bugs, but I still have a recurring error when more than a couple of inbound messages get in the cue.

And the laptop?  Well, I'm basically without a laptop for the weekend.  The IT folks had another breakdown in communication, and when the tech handed me the "new" laptop late yesterday afternoon, he was completely in the dark when I asked about the Verizon "anywhere" card that needed transfer/activation.  I was a bit miffed.  I left while he was trying to call Verizon to determine the protocol.  When I came in today, no Verizon capability on the laptop.  Suite.  And the laptop couldn't even pick up the wireless network in the office.  No Starbuck's for you this weekend, LtPC!

My pal Bill has a new granddaughter, born early yesterday.  By C-section.  Sounds like mother and daughter are just fine.  Congrats, buddy.

I reported this on Twitter last night.  I have purchased my last couple of cases of wine at the Hy Vee store on 53rd Street.  Like most places, they have a 10% discount automatically applied to case purchases.  But at each of these last two times, my mental calculations had suggested that I might have only been getting 5% off on the purchase.  I took both receipt tapes in last night to show the manager, and he was really flummoxed.

Turns out that the computer wasn't recognizing an Italian red (that had two or three bottles in each of these cases), as wine, I guess.  Because the computer was giving me 5% on like 10 bottles.  Pretty odd.  But it goes to show ya', the computer ain't always correct.

(I had actually gone in to the store to pick up a bottle of Jack London to take over to a party, and when the manager was really struggling with the math, I told him that the Jack London would be pretty close to even-ing things up.  Especially since, when I bought that last case, he had only one bottle of the Jack London available.  And I had had him actually physically check his back-room inventory for more of it.  So a really good manager should really have given me the 10% discount on the single bottle last night.  Which absolutely would have made it a pennies-difference deal.  He didn't bite, and I had to pay a couple of bucks for the bottle.)

So I need to get going to Gold's.  Given my lack of computer access, I won't be back on here until tomorrow.

Make it a safe Saturday night. 

BCOT

Friday

The Over bet on the computer conversion didn't pay.  As a matter of fact, the conversion hardly got off the ground.  There had been a mis-communication within the IT vendor and the installer guy had the preliminary set-up on my new machine wrong.  So I was basically off my desktop for the day, and then when he initiated the change in the afternoon he also kicked me off of my email-to-phone service.  Not-so-suite.

One of the by-products of the computer kerfuffle was that my business-meeting-guy had left a message on my desk-top that he was going to be a no-show for dinner.  Which I didn't find out about until my second glass of wine.  Welcome to our new technology.

Bank of America managed to frost my cookies yesterday.  I had called two weeks ago to arrange an early pay-off on a mortgage loan, and the service agent at that time apparently dropped the ball.  The end of the month payment then didn't get fully allocated to principal (the system automatically sent $200 to the tax/insurance escrow), so when I checked to confirm the pay-off, there was still a $200 balance due.

So I called the Customer Service number.  After fighting my way through the voice-mail system, I railed on the new service agent about the problem.  She confirmed that there was a record of my call on the 16th, but no action was indicated.  To complete the loan pay-off with the excess in the escrow account would require a letter of direction...and further delay.  And there was a $30 closing fee and a $7 recording fee...And I went ballistic!

Long story short; those fees disappeared, and I had a same-day transfer payment made from my checking account for the new exact amount of the pay-off.  (The bloated escrow would then just be paid to me.)  The great news?  Wells Fargo charged me $14.95 for a same-day transfer!  Better news?  The mortgage account still has a $200 principal balance today after the payment!  I love this country!

The Business Ethics seminar in IC yesterday was a crock.  All of my professional designations now require different minimums of annual CPE in ethics as part of the total CPE requirements.  The licensing organizations are all Madoff-sensitive.  Whatever.  The guy doing this program was a CPA from Wisconsin who had a sports background, and he used way too many examples of poor ethical conduct from various college and pro sports.  Like ethical lapses are rare in college football, eh?

The program was at the former Highlander Inn on the East side of IC.  It's a Clarion Inn now.  The Highlander was at one time THE hotel in IC.  I'm thinking that one of the last times I was there was the night that nephew/cousin Matt stayed there with the U of A basketball team when they were in town for a game with the Hawks.  Prior to that, I think I may have stayed there a few times in the late "70's when I was on campus to help with AA & Co recruiting.  There may have been some Beefeater gin involved.

Hope everyone has a good TGIF.

BCOT