I needed to buy a 12 Liter round bottom three neck flask, and the good people at the Chemlab in Inglewood told me that I could get one at their branch in Placentia. I honestly don't remember how I got the boss to let me drive up there in the company truck during business hours, but he did. His son heard about this and wanted to go, and dad approved, so to Placentia we went. When we got up there the first thing that I noticed was that unlike the branch in Inglewood whose employees dressed casual, in Placentia the employees had suits and ties on. There were two people in line in front of us. The first was a guy with hair down to his shoulders and wearing a Rolex watch. A large number of 100 dollar bills changed hands and an employee wheeled two five gallon plastic drums of Hydriodic acid out to his Fiero sports car and helped load them into the car. The next person if front of us was sort of a hippie looking chick with bell-bottomed blue jeans and a halter top. She also had a fat roll of 100 dollar bills and was counting out 28 of them at the counter. At this point the bosses kid was whispering to me "Bob, they're making drugs!" and I shusshed him to keep his voice down and told him "yes I know, just shutup". Up next I purchased my 12 Liter flask and we left. Definately a very interesting shopping experience! Months later I heard that the sale of Hydriodic acid had been banned in San Diego, Orange, and Los Angeles counties as it was being used to manufacture Methamphetamine, but they forgot to pass the law in Riverside county where Placentia was located so a loophole existed. Considering how much cash I saw change hands in the few minutes I was up there Chemlab must have been making a small fortune in acid sales alone. Of course it is a bit presumptive of me to conclude that the people in front of us were doing anything illegal just because they were paying cash and did not fit the usual profile of what we expect scientists to look like. They may very well have been researchers working at university or in industry. Like me for instance, just a science nerd who was doing research on Chlorine gas and needed a larger flask to gererate the gas in. But that is another story...
There is certainly nothing wrong with someone who has a clean house. In fact a messy house in the extreme can be a sanitation or even a safety hazard. When I use the term "clean freak" I refer to people who are obsessed with cleanliness to the point of it being an obsession and even a mental illness. I know people like that. One case was raised with a very domineering mother and an absentee father. The mother was the "mommie dearest" type who terrorized the kids into proper behavior and dress with a regimen of chores around the house and control of where they went and who they went with. So it seems so strange that years after the mother and father have passed away that as an adult this person has the same obsession with cleanliness and order. The house is cleaner than a hospital. I have found it impossible to visit there without making some kind of mess or transgression. If a fingerprint is discovered on a white wall I am questioned about if it was mine. A tiny piece of dirt the size of a grain of sand stands out on the white tile floor and well, it could have possibly been from me. The toilet seats must be left in the same position and if the toilet paper roll is turned around to face out it will be found out and turned back to the inside. Stringent "common sense" rules must be followed like making sure that any electronic devices are turned off at the power strips to eliminate any phantom power usage when off, even though the owner has solar panels on the roof and never has to pay any electric bill. One morning I used the microwave oven to heat a cup of water and when the timing cycle was over it went "ding" as all microwaves do. When the owner awoke I was asked if he was going to hear that every morning. The next morning I had breakfast out in my van and was questioned as to why I did that. In the middle of the night if I have to go to the bathroom a hinge on the door will squeek. That was noticed. It really is a no win situation as I really do not think that I am the one with the problem and I really do not think the owner thinks that he is out of place to expect more from a house guest. Needless to say I do not stay there more than is necessary. Once I stayed overnight with my brother and I was asked why the VCR light was left on. I didn't want to throw my brother under the bus so admitted that it must have been me. Now contrast that with a normal host who I visited with. We were out late partying and I had had a bit too much to drink and vomited on the carpet in the middle of the night. The only comment was "oh that's happened before" and that was all that was said. When I visit a clean freaks house I always call ahead even though I have the house keys and security code. That is just good manners and I like to know if someone is coming to visit too. The clean freak will spend the entire morning cleaning the house if a guest is coming over. If I mention that I do not expect anyone to go to any trouble on my behalf before a visit the reply is always "it just takes a few minutes each day to keep things clean" but if you really spend time around a clean freak you will realize that a very large percentage of every day is devoted to cleaning, sorting, arranging. Funny that the obsession with cleaning is the same thing that he complained so much about when growing up under mon's Iron control. I have another theory about clean freaks too. The theory is that psychologically they feel dirty and guilty about aspects of their life and to compensate, obsess over cleaning so as to assuage those feelings and be able to feel that they are good because their house is so clean. With the homosexual it is to compensate for guilt over the dirty butt sex, with women it is to compensate over feelings of being dirty due to menstruation. Just a theory.
Similar abberations exist when dealing with a perfectionist. I have worked for some of these people and the obsession with the unattainable becomes an excuse to abuse an employee over the most minor things. On the one hand I do accept that to do great work it is necessary to hold to a high standard and if little things like a bent nail that is not pulled and redone but rather just pounded in anyway, well, if that is overlooked where does it stop? You are doing well deed if you do a job and the perfectionest tells you "I coundn't have done better myself". On the other hand if the perfectionest blows up over a few drops of paint that I spilled on my wheelbarrow while painting some boards and goes into a red faced rage, well that is just mental and indicative of other serious issues having nothing to do with the job at hand. Maybe frustration over not getting any sex from the wife at home builds up to the breaking point and the paint on the wheelbarrow is just the excuse needed to dump on the poor employee? Just a theory.
It may not suprise you to hear that I believe that I have found a good healthy and workable balance between being too messy and too neat. Tools and materials on a workbench, a working mess, is perfectly acceptable and once the job is done tools and materials are put away leaving a clean workbench ready for the next job. Some dirt on the floor is normal and spending most of ones time cleaning is a waste of human potential. If food residue in the kitchen becomes attractive to vermin it is time to clean a bit. An overly clean house can make a visitor feel unwelcome and worry that they might accidentally mess something up just by existing. Ones feelings of self worth should not be pinned on how clean the house is but rather on other less obvious things like productive work done, compassion for ones fellow man, or maybe a vision of how humanity as a whole can be made better through a myriad of small decisions relating to less waste and environmental sustainability?
The phone rang one day at the TV shop where I worked and a lady was telling me about her tv reception problems she was having. She said she was out in Valley Center and was not on cable but had an antenna on her roof and that was how she got her stations but was not getting all of them. When I asked her if she was getting any UHF she replied "I don't believe in extra-terrestrials"...
The first car I owned that I really fell in love with was a Datsun 1200 coupe. This car had a 1200 cc engine which developed 69 horsepower, a four speed manual transmission, got 39 mpg on the highway, and with radial tires handled so well that the G forces around curves would scare passengers. One day the car developed a starting problem so I found out that the small slope of our driveway at home was just enough that I could "bump start" the engine without using the starter. I was working full time and going to college at nights so I put off dealing with the starter issue until I had more free time. I found a hill near where I worked and would park the car there so I could bump start the car after work. There was a parking lot at Palomar college with a sloping area so I bump started the car after class. I found a gas station on a hill. My bank had a hill. I started shopping at a Stators Bros. market on a hill. I kept this up for quite some time, weeks actually. One day I went to bump start the car after work but someone had parked right behind me so the only way I could bump start was to push the car up the hill and manuver enough to get out into the road. This took some doing and I used a deflection yoke from a tv (I happened to have this part in my car) to block the back tire while I turned the wheel and pushed some more. I think the people that lived in the house did not like me parking there even though it was a public street. After this ordeal I had just about had enough of bump starting so I bought another starter and broke down and crawled under the car to replace it one Sunday. When I got under there I noticed that one of the two bolts that held the starter to the engine was so loose that the starter was just hanging and not even engaging with the flywheel. That was all it was, a loose bolt. The repair took all of ten minutes. So from this one should learn not to procrastinate and put off dealing with a problem, thinking it could be a big deal but rather to deal with things as they happen when they happen. Was this a lesson learned and the last time I procrastinated? Sadly no. But I did remember that sometimes it could just be a small thing and did not let procrastination become a way of dealing with issues to the point of becoming a way of life.
In Mrs. Gibb's 5th grade class we had periodic recess breaks as all classes did. A bell would ring at the end of the break time so the students would know it was time to come back inside. The teachers thought that the rush of all the kids trying to pile back into class was too chaotic and also dangerous, so a new rule was adopted so that when the bell would ring to signal the end of recess all the kids would have to freeze in place on the playground, like statues, until a second bell would ring five seconds later and only then could the students calmly walk back to class in an orderly fashion. This actually seemed to work and so that was how it now was at the end of recess time. Kids being kids of course some kids would freeze but not perfectly still and make funny faces or gestures to the other kids. One day I did this and was immeadiately noticed and brought to the front of the class for punishment. After Mrs. Gibbs told the class that this behavior would not be tolerated I was told to write a two page essay on why I did not freeze and that I would have to read it in front of the class. So I did manage to write two pages but how on Earth could something so stupid and simple as not freezing fill up a whole two pages? So the only solution I could think of was to use needlessly long and verbose sentences to explain the act of freezing at the first bell and not staying perfectly still after the first bell rang but before the second bell would ring and then repeating basically the same idea but with different words but still somehow making a continuing explination of the act of not freezing when I was supposed to even though the first bell rang, and so on and so on. I wish I had kept that original paper as I honestly do not remember what I actually said that could fill up that much space. When I was done Mrs. Gibbs was scowling and did not like my essay at all. In fact she demanded that I write another essay, this time four pages, and read it to the class the next day. The only thing that saved me was a girl in the first row with long brown hair and a black long sleeved turtle neck sweater raising her hand and asking Mrs. Gibbs how could Bob possibly write four pages? Thanks to that girl Mrs. Gibbs rescended the punishment and class went on. Thank you whoever you were. I honestly think Mrs. Gibbs had a strong dislike for me perhaps because of the creative writing story we we all had to write one day in class? That is another story for another time.
A friend of mine has been promoting ARCO stations as he pays cash and saves a few cents a gallon,
and claims that it adds up to over a hundred dollars a year as opposed to using a credit card.
I used to always use a credit card as I could fill up my tank and not have to go inside to get
the change. In addition, if I do go into an ARCO minimart there is a high probability that
I will also buy other items, like beer, and that can easily lead to another lost weekend(or week).
Also, due to my living situation I got in the habit of never keeping cash around as druggies
would try to strong arm me into "loans". However, since I am no longer living around druggies I am paying with cash again and no longer using credit cards only, I
thought to myself "why not save a few cents at ARCO"? The reality of this is however quite
different. I was driving an all but diserted highway late at night and knew I had enough gas to get to the ARCO station on the 86S but when I pulled in the only pump that had a a bill acceptor did not work. On another occation I tried the ARCO in
Cathedral City and the terminal was down, forcing me to put the gas cap back on and move
(after a slot opened up) to another pump. In Twentynine Palms I tried the ARCO station there.
I went in and put $100.00 cash for pump #8, went outside and pumped my gas.About the time
I was done I noticed the price I was being charged and it was the credit price. I did not
feel like going back into the line inside and trying to argue my case so just left. Still
optimistic though, I thought I would try
again at the new ARCO in Yucca Valley yesterday. I pulled into the only open slot and much
to my chagrin that terminal was out of order! With a leg in a boot and limping with a cane
I have just had enough. I drove to my destination and will be going back to the Circle K or
where ever.
On another occation I was gassing up in Cathedral City and went back inside
and got in line to get my change. Much to my chagrin I was told that the change was already
returned for pump 15. So apparently someone on the pump across from me saw that I had change and got ahead of me in the line to get my $15.00 change. So I pleaded my case to the manager telling him that my truck is at pump 15 and full of gas so I should get my change. I finally did get my change but this delay cost me 20 minutes of my time to get that 65 cents discount. So beware if you are due change to get right inside to get your change and forget about locking up your truck and rolling up the windows.
I am told by my friend that these things never happen to him. I guess he lives
a charmed life, or are my planets misaligned? Saturn perhaps? Just to be fair however I did
get gas once in Twentynine Palms and did get the cash discount so I gather from this that it
can work if one just keeps trying and has nothing better to do with his or her limited time on
Earth than to chase that often elusive 3 cents a gallon cash discount.
There was a time when I would work at Tommy's Tv in Pacific Beach,CA when the shop was busy and needed extra help. I tried driving down there from Palomar Mountain but the commute was terrible and took hours each way. I started taking my van down there and would camp in it for the two or three days that Roger needed help. This worked out quite well. I would drive to the shop around midnight when there was no traffic and after finishing drive back up to Palomar around midnight. To keep busy during the nights I would shop the nearby dollar store and then retire to the van and spend the evenings downloading from Roger's internet onto my laptop. I did have a portable camping potty in the van but no shower but for the short time I worked there it was not a problem. During the Summer months it never really got that hot in Pacific Beach during the day so the shop owner never turned on an air conditioner so he could save money on electricity. Insted he had two big box fans, one at the front of the shop and the other at the back door so as to circulate air through the building. It did get a bit humid at times and working under lights on tv sets was a bit uncomfortable at times but not unbearable. I coped with this by wearing shorts and a light shirt and since I was not dealing with the public it was no problem.One day I overheard the pickup and delivery guys two sons (they would help their dad with pickups and deliveries at times on the larger TVs) remarking about me "that is mister poopie shorts". I don't think they knew I could hear them. It was then that I realized that after a day or two of working in short pants (too hot for underwear) that one could see a poop stain on the rear of my light Beige colored short pants. So in my mind I thought of a song line "THEY USED TO CALL ME MISTER POOPIE SHORTS". If there is sufficient interest I will record myself singing this line and post it as a .WAV file. I was not terribly offended by this and in a twisted sort of a way found it funny, as they did. Life as a television technician is not always exciting and glamourous as it is depicted in the media. To live on the meager wages a tv repairman is paid it is necessary to forgo many of the comforts workers in other professions enjoy, like paid meals and lodging while on the road, but the work is there and someone must do it irregardless of the hardships that this profession often requires.
Some years ago, I attended a week long school on VCR repair, hosted by Magnavox.
I knew from past experience that the motels in that area were quite pricey for a TV repairman's budget, so I started looking for something cheaper before I got there. Mile after mile I saw nothing at all and I was getting close to where the school was so pulled in to the Greenleaf motel. The neighborhood didn't look all that bad during the day and the rooms were only $15.00 a night (with a one week stay) so I checked in. The first thing I noticed was that the TV in the room was too greenish so I reached behind with my small screwdriver which I carried in my pocket protector and adjusted the G2 (screens) control to balance out the greyscale. I had just gotten my permit to carry Mace (teargas) the week before and thought I would test it to see how it worked. I sprayed the tiniest drop onto the end of my index finger and rubbed it under my eye. Boy what a mistake that was!
I immediately started tearing up and my eye started burning so I splashed water from the sink onto them for what seemed like 20 minutes. Well at least I now had some idea what it would be like if sprayed into an assailants face. I the mace class they warned that mace might
not stop an attacker from coming at you if they were very drunk or high on dope and after my little test I find that hard to believe, although I do not doubt what the instructor had said.
So I settled down for the night and sought to get an early sleep so I would be fresh for class the next day. Somewhere nearby a dog started barking and barked through most of the night. With little sleep I did make it to class on time but did not feel fresh or rested at all. That was night one at the Greenleaf.
The next night I was kept awake by someone in the room next to me beating up on his prostitute. She kept crying and pleading "Bobo, I just can't do this anymore" and his reply was"but you been doin' it for us baby". That was worse than the barking dog. So much for night two.
In class that day I walked in pale and shakey and someone asked me "is everything O.K.?".
The class was interesting however and after the mornings theory lecture the instructor had us troubleshooting units that he had put "bugs" into.
The next night the same two were in the room next door making love all night. Listening to that was worse than the beatings the night before or the barking dog. The headboard on their bed was knocking against the wall on the other side where my bed was. The next day two of my friends were in town and dropped by to visit. One made the comment
"geez Robert, this place is a bit freaky even for you" and the other mentioned that if gone just one more mile across the river into Long Beach that the neighborhood was much better
and his room was only ten dollars more a night.
Night four after the school the driveway in front of the Greenleaf motel was blocked by street people hanging out in their cars. It was dark and after a long day at school with again little sleep the night before I didn't really feel like going up and politely asking them
if they could please move their cars so I could get to the parking lot so I opted to drive on the sidewalk to get to my room. And the owners car was parked in my assigned space.
Whatever...
After this hellish week I was looking forward to leaving and figured that after all this what were the chances that anything else could happen? Then there was the robbery at the liquor store next door. Before I checked out I re-adjusted the G2 control on the TV back to the greenish hue it had before. No way was this place getting a free TV repair after
what I had been through.
To sum up; If you ever need a motel in this area I cannot recommend the Greenleaf.
There is no "star" rating low enough for this place. I feel sorry for the owner who most
likely came to this country with the idea of buying a business and working hard to hopefully prosper and become part of the American Dream success story.
Back in the day, when G&C Television was still in the 707 S. Escondido Blvd. building, we had a secretary, Gina, who was kind of railroaded into the shop by the bosses wife as she was an unwed mother and needed a job. Gina would do whatever she understood as the minimum she had to do at the job, but really had no grasp of customer relations or the TV electronics repair business. Gina was in love and would listen to love songs on the radio while she "worked" for hours on end. We techs finally got tired of listening to this so we built a radio transmitter that would block out her station and put our music on instead. Gina did not like our music so would tune in another station. We the technicians however had the ability to take over any station in the FM band. Gina would again change stations only to find that music on that station was not to her liking either. Once she commented "there isn't anything good on FM anymore...". Eventually she turned the radio off altogether. The moral? Don't mess with a technician! Now, decades later I find that I am being peppered with rap music by my co-worker who uses his smart phone to connect wirelessly through Bluetooth technology to a mini speaker system in the store where I work. Does anyone happen to know the frequency that Bluetooth uses and how to take over that RF link? Jamming the frequency would not be that hard, but I would really like to take control of the music in the store (for the customers sake as well as mine!). At one time I had control of the store music and was playing oldies from the sixties and seventies, 1930's music, and "lounge" selections. Customers loved it and some even were singing along as they shopped. At the store we have all types of customers including all ages and also tribal elders. The store music should not offend anyone and (in my opinion) not contain words like "f**k", "s**t", "b**ch", or other negative ethnic inflections. In my co-workers defence, he did however humor me by playing a set of "Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band" with tunes like "mirror man", "she's too much for my mirror", and one of the bossses kids favorites who I used to babysit "I love you, you big dummy". I never thought that I would be hearing this at out store. Does this post seem long winded? Needless to say I do not do well on Twitter with the 140 character limit...
I thought it would be polite to ask those of you who live around me if they have any objections or opinions as to how I generate electricity. I am looking at three options: I can run a small scale nuclear pile to generate steam for electricity, run a gas powered generator, or set up some solar panels. The nuclear option has the advantages of small profile so all you will see is a concrete containment dome about the size of a garage, is quiet, and has no Carbon emissions, and will generate electricity 24 hours a day. The downside is that there will be spent radioactive (low level) nuclear fuel stored on my property for the next 24,000 years as the United States still has no centralized storage facility for spent fuel. Option 2, the gasoline generator, has the advantages of being a cheap startup technology with easily available fuel. The downsides of this option is that you, as a neighbor, will hear my generator run (which unfortunately may mean early in the morning or late at night), will create Carbon Monoxide and Carbon Dioxide emissions and contribute to global warming, and for me mean frequent maintenance. Option three, the solar panels, has the advantages of silent operation, no radioactive or Carbon emissions, and no maintenance for the 20+ years of their lifespan. The downsides of the solar panels is that you, as a neighbor, will have to look at my solar panels, which it seems some people have a real problem with. In addition the solar option means that I will need to buy batteries to power my home during the night hours when the sun is not shining. So here I am, your new neighbor, asking for your opinion. What do you want in a neighbor? A side note to all of you who use electricity but cannot for whatever reason generate what you need for yourself: the money you spend for electricity is the same as a vote. You as a consumer can dictate through the power of economics where and how your electricity is generated. I have noticed that there is a big push to convince the consumer that the best option is to build more big centralized nuclear facilities. I wonder who is behind this media blitz and who is to gain? Who do you want as YOUR neighbor?
I have tried to use languages to communicate with people in other cultures.
At one time I lived with a hispanic family who spoke English to me but I wanted to be able to communicate with them in their native language.
I bought a Spanish-English dictionary to help me. I tried to tell the wife, Tina, about my pyrotechnics hobby, and how I would shoot rockets.
In the dictionary the word for rocket was "cohete". So I tried a simple sentence like "me gusta disparar cohetes". Tina blushed and looked down.
I asked "what is wrong?" and she replied "ask Pedro". So when the husband came home I asked Pedro about this and he said "cohete means fuck.
Fuck you." So I found out that the word for rocket spells the same as the word for intercourse. But the key is to the pronounciation of the word
and the emphasis on each of the sylables. Who could have guessed? So I found out that if the word is pronounced "co-et-ee" is means rocket
but if the word is pronounced "co-HAY-tay" that means intercourse. From that point on I stuck with English.
On another occasion I was in Holland and picking up my film from the photomat. I thanked the lady with "Danka" which is thank you in German
but I should have said "dank-ye" which is thank you in Dutch. The lady did not look pleased with my thank you and my friend told me that today
is memorial day in Holland where the Dutch celebrate the Nazi's being driven out of Holland by the Americans and to thank her in German was
in insult on that day. Who would have guessed...
On another occation I was in the Disneyland parking lot and I came across a German couple and tried to ask them about the Black Forest in Germany
but got the word "swartzvalt" (which means black forest) confused with "hungersnot" (which means famine) so I guessed I asked them about the great
famine in Germany? They turned off real quick and moved on...
On another occation I was with two Dutch friends and they told me that they had a matter that they needed to discuss and apologized for having
to talk in Dutch which they knew I would not understand but it was easier for them so I said "no problem". After about 20 minutes they stopped and asked me
if I had any idea what they were talking about and I replied "yeah, you two were talking about masturbation". I was way off track on that one...
Not even close. so much for my ability to understand that language.... My friends did not converse in Dutch if front of me after that...
So with these subtle little nuances of prounciation and emphasis it is no wonder that all these other countries are so behind in the world
compared with the United States huh?