Monthly Archives: July 2008

Anyone know what a degausser is? It’s a device to decrease or eliminate an unwanted magnetic field.  We use them here at work to wipe all the info off old hard drives.

For reasons I still don’t understand, the thing makes a hell of a noise.  It’s kind of like the electronic machinery in Frankenstein’s laboratory that brings the creature to life.  It’s really, really loud.  They’re degaussing across the hall.  It’s Monday morning, I have a terrible case of the fuckits and Frankenstein’s monster is coming to life right here in IT.  Need I say more?

As usual, I’m freezing my ass off.  My cold hell-with-florescent-lighting office is situated right next to the server room so I imagine that’s why this office is so cold.  I just don’t get it with all the air conditioning.

OK, here’s a question:

Why do people turn the A/C down to a temperature in summer that would be considered cold in winter and vice versa with the heater?  What’s up with that?  If it were 65 degrees outside right now, we’d have the heat up to 80!

Why can’t we just set the fucking thing to 70 and leave it alone?

It’s fucking July in Arizona and I’m sitting here wearing a sweater.

Ray and I went to Homer’s (and Sandy’s) places in Tucson to watch the 4th of July fireworks.  As usual, we had a great time hanging out with the gang.  Ray and I stayed overnight to avoid the late-night 90 mile drive home.  The next day we got up, went to breakfast and picked up a fountain we’d bought.  (We couln’t fit in in the little car so we had to come back with the bigger one.)  While we were picking up the fountain, we found another one that we liked so we’re going to have to head back up to Tucson this weekend to get it. 

After our cargo was loaded in the car, we made our way over to a little get together with a bunch of guys for some NPV (naked pool volleyball).  Yes, it’s silly, there are a bunch of naked guys splashing around in the pool but it’s still a game (or games) of volleyball and very good exercise.  My arms and legs were totally sore the next day. What a great workout.

We got home late and decided to set the fountain up the next day.  It’s made of concrete and was hard to navigate.  After lifting and positioning and all that, we turned it on.  It worked like a charm and we’re very happy with it. 

Ray decided to do a little bit of gardening in the front courtyard.  I went to clean out my fish pond to get it ready to move over to the other side of the patio to make room for the other fountain.  Ray yelled through the front door for me to come out front.  Something in his voice made me grab my camera.

This is what we saw:

A gopher snake in the courtyard.

It was about four feet long and didn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave.  Now, some people may get a bit squeamish when it comes to these critters.  Ray and I think it’s cool.  Just part of living in the country.  Ray finally shooed it away and I went back to my fish. 

About 15 minutes later, I’d finished refilling the fish tank and got the pump going when I noticed this:

Mr. Gopher Snake in the back courtyard!

It was actually behind the fish tank when I first noticed the little beady eyes which means it just slithered past me while I was standing there.  Ray came over and shooed it away again.  For something that moved from the front yard to the back in a matter of minutes, it sure was slow. 

About a half hour later, I saw the snake crossing the driveway going back out to the wilderness. 

Never a dull moment here at Stolen Horseshoe.

Ray and I got home from my reunion last Sunday. During the ten hour drive, I had time to ponder the weekend’s events. I assume most reunions have people sitting around talking about the winning touchdown at the big game, making the cheerleading squad (or doing the cheerleading squad) and that one time you went to detention for ditching class. We all sat around talking about that time we swallowed a handful of black beauties, smoked a dime bag and stole someone’s car to go into Hollywood for the night.

I don’t want to go back to those times. I lived in fear everyone would all find out that I was gay (yeah, I know, they all knew) and I’d get my ass kicked. Getting your ass kicked in school is a scary reality for everyone who’s ever been in high school except at my school, it meant an ass kicking from someone with an existing criminal record who was really bad—like fucked up psychologically bad.  What the hell was I doing at that school?

I left the reunion abruptly.

You can’t change where you’re from but you can sure change where you’re going.