Not The Lab For Me

I had to return to the lab that always has the closed sign on the door. This time I went with Massiel. I felt as though I was cool because I ignored the sign and just walked in. In the actual lab area the furnishing are kind of spare, just a few seats, a couple of desks with Petrie dishes on them and loads and loads of pizza boxes. I am sure they serve some sort of purpose, but I have no clue what that might be.

There Really Should Be A Law That Relates Height To Width

Women Have Been Seen Fighting In Supermarkets To Buy The Right Shape

There Are Balls Here, Wherever You Choose To Look

The Best Day Of My Life

I'm watching "City Slickers", a movie about dealing with aging, although in this case the age being reached is 40 (not 65 with which I have to deal). This was Billy Crystal's funniest movie. There is a scene where Crystal and his two friends are riding along and one of them asks the other two to tell him what was the best day of their lives, not counting the day their children were born. I got to thinking about how I would answer the question.

In 1990 I left a pretty good job to take a chance of opening my own garment manufacturing business. I had no where near enough money to do it on my own, but I knew that I did generate enough sales to support a business. I found someone, Mitchell Dobies, with an existing company who was willing to be my partner and to supply me with the necessary support to operate. When I told my daughter that I was leaving the company that I had been working for she was very unhappy, until, that is, I told her that I was planning on naming the company after her. Then it was OK. Her name is Michele, with one L and I called the company Wonell. My deal with Mitchell entitled me to 50% of the profits. The only downside was that he was only willing to invest $50,000. He said that once he reached that point, he would go no further. Right after we started two of the buyers with whom I had done a lot of business were transferred. They had committed to giving me a substantial amount of business, but once they were transferred, all promises were void. Four or five months later I had gone through the $50,000, and Mitchell came to me and said that I could continue to use his office space and my desk, while I looked for a job somewhere else, but that he was no longer going to pay me. I decided that since I had just shipped some test orders and was expecting them to do well, that I would wait it out. About 3 weeks later I got the greatest call of my life. I had shipped 400 dozen of a pull on pant to WalMart. The call was from the buyer and the question she asked literally turned my life around. The question was, "How many pants can you get me and how quickly can you get them to me. I don't remember the exact number, but I probably told her That within 3-4 weeks I could get her somewhere around 240,000 pieces. She took the 240,000 and gave me a future order for 500,000 more for about 6 weeks later. That same afternoon, the large size buyer, having heard from her Missy counterpart how good my pants were selling, called and ordered 300,000 pieces more, in large sizes. That came to about $4,000,000 in orders, which ultimately led to a $20,000,000 a year business with Walmart.

That Friday I did get paid.

Distraction

I discovered a game show called Distraction on TV a couple of weeks ago. I watched the whole show tonight. It is amazing. There are four contestants at the start. They play a series of elimination games until there is only one left. The person who answers the fewest questions in each round is eliminated. Tonight the games were as follows:
Game #1 Each contestant has a table and on the table are a bunch of live mouse traps. A question is asked and in order to signal that you know the answer, you have to raise your hand. First hand up gets to try to answer the question. However, you must have a mouse trap on your hand to raise it and you have to let a trap snap shut on your hand to make that happen.
Game #2 Each contestant, one at a time has to put their heads inside of a fish tank. They do this by putting their heads through the hole that has been cut in the bottom of the tank. Their are no fish or water in the tank. Instead, there are live pigeons walking around. The contestants head is what the birds are walking and shitting on. While this is going on, the questions are asked.
Game #3 Now they are down to the two remaining contestants. They are dressed in goalie's uniforms and have to signal in when they know the answer to the question. As they are called upon, two professional hockey players shoot pucks at their bodies as hard as they can.
The winner of this constest gets to play the final. Five prizes are shown. In this case they were a very expensive computer, a plasma TV, a Vespa motor scooter, a DVD player and a years supply of Rice A Roni. For every answer that the finalist gets wrong he has to push down one of five plungers which are connected to a prize, which then blows up.
What a great show. What kind of demented mind thought of this?

Conversations With My Beloved Part 2

MB: What time are you coming home?

ME: I really have no way of knowing what time I will be done, you know that.

MB: I wasn't asking you what time you would be home, I just wanted to know about what time you would be home.


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Photo Dump

I am not exactly what you would call computer literate, but I am sure that, strange as it sounds, something on my computer changed. I could not upload pictures to my blog. I went to an internet cafe today and I had the same problem using their computer. The guy working there showed me how to get around the problem. Below are some of the many photos that I wanted to post previously.

Smiley Dog

Now That Is A Plate Of Food

Under The Spreading Chestnut Tree The Village Smithee Stands

When I went to get my Cedula in Santo Domingo, I needed to get some photocopies made and I was directed to the street around the corner to this outdoor copy shop. What do they do when it rains?

The Famous Hotel MIRASH

Portable Laundry

I Imagine This Product Used To Be Called AIDS

The New Scam

I have said that there is nothing a Dominican would rather tell you than "No" or, "I don't know", so that they can avoid helping someone, but they have now taken this to a new level. I went to the hospital to drop something off at the lab and there was a sign on the door that said CLOSED. Of course, it was only closed if you didn't know that it was open.

The Road To The Free Zone

Antoine

Only Thing Missing Is A "No Hitchhiker" Sign

More Is Better?

Why just paint a couple of small lines when you can use so much more paint this way.





What is a Filament Stick?

Thanks Ringo

I think I have mentioned it before, but in case I haven't, whenever I see someone from back from my youth I usually find it upsetting. My normal response is, "My G-D, how old I have gotten." Someone sent me a DVD of a Rolling Stone's concert at the Beacon Theater in New York. I got one look at Mick and that thought raced through my mind. It is not, by the way, a thought that is accompanied by good feelings. I never really feel old, unless I am looking at myself in the mirror, which I try to avoid, or when I am looking at someone my age. My G-D look how old I have gotten. It never fails. When not faced with empiric evidence of my age, looking out from inside my head, I still feel like a young man. Well today something happened involving pictures of a contemporary and I feel really good. Today is Ringo Starr's birthday. He is 70. Wow. 70. But he looks great and as I watched the story on the news I could only think about how young I still am. Thanks Ringo.

Who Is Happier Than Me?

After a year Verizon allows you to exchange your old phone for a new one at no cost. I wanted to get an IPhone, but somehow at this point in time a new free BlackBerry seemed to make more sense. I don't really love the new phone, but it does have some features that I didn't have before. I can download all sorts of apps for free. Unfortunately the good ones cost money and they are not available in the DR. I have checked out most of the free ones, but there is a good reason they are free. They suck. HOWEVER, I discovered one last night and I can't stop playing with it. It's called the Fart Board. Once you download it, it plays about 25 different farting sounds, each of which has its own name. It goes from "AfterBurner, to Low Winder, all the way to WindyGas." Each is very distinct in sound; different textures, depth, and length of sound. Today I discovered the best feature of all. Each sound has its own timer so that you can set it, move it to where you want someone else to hear it. And not just 10 seconds either. You can set it for as many seconds as you want. I can't stop playing with it.

Conversations With My Beloved

#1

I am very sick. I am lying in bed moaning. Of course I always do that when I am any kind of sick. I am having trouble breathing and realize that even though Afrin has a negative side effect on my prostate, sometimes I really have to use it so that I can breath through my nose. When my nose gets very clogged and shuts down I can't sleep so I have to use it. Anyway, I am lying on the bed and I start looking for the Afrin and I go through the entire apartment, every closet and drawer, and can't find it, moaning and groaning the whole time, just to make sure Massiel knows how sick I am. I know that it is not yet 9:00 and the pharmacy across the street is probably still open. So I ask Massiel, "Do me a favor and look out the window and see if the lights are still on and the pharmacy is still open." She looks out our bedroom window (from which I know that you cannot see the pharmacy) and says,"There are no lights on, it must be closed." I drag myself to the balcony, from which you can see the pharmacy and of course the lights are on. I tell her that it is open, giving her the momentary opening to offer to go which of course she doesn't do. I drag my ass down, in my near death condition (I never just get very sick) and buy the Afrin by myself.

#2

It's 7:00 P.M. I am watching TV and Massiel is busy with the new love of her life, Facebook. She says my name. I ask what she wants and she doesn't answer. I ask her again. Again, no response. I ask one more time and when she again ignores me I say, "Do me a favor and don't say my name anymore." I know that this is a ploy she uses when she wants something. If she makes me ask a lot of times what it is that she wants, I think she feels less guilty in asking for it, as though I made her tell me.
She tells me that she needs nail polish remover from the pharmacy. I look out the same window she did and tell her that I can't see the lights so it must be closed and she tells me that it must be open because it closes at 9:00. I remind her of the events of a few nights ago when I needed the Afrin. I go down to buy her the nail polish remover.

#3

I am back from the pharmacy, and I figure what is good for the goose is good for the gander, so I say her name. She asks what I want and of course, I don't answer. She again asks what I want and again I don't answer. When she asks the third time, she is laughing because she realizes that I am doing to her what she always does to me. Finally, reluctantly, I tell her that by the time I got home today our housekeeper, Santa, was leaving. I had bought two melons so that Santa could make juice with them. As I walked up the stairs she was locking the door and I just didn't have the heart to ask her to turn around and go back in to make the juice. I tell her that I have no more juice and ask if she will make it. Her answer? "Santa will be here on Wednesday."

Problems I Have With Soccer

I have been watching the World Cup Soccer Tournament. Aside from the problem I have with the noise of the vuvuzela, which are so annoying that they should be appearing on the streets here any day, I have a number of problems with the game as played.

1)Diving- This is a very popular "play" during soccer matches. When a player has the ball and is moving near an opponent, if he loses the ball, or sometimes even when he doesn't, he falls down, claiming to have been fouled. The referee is usually far away from the act and has to make his decision based on sketchy information. I watched one guy play act an injury in an effort to use up the clock in overtime. It worked. He pretended not to be able to move, waited for a stretcher to come carry him off the field, allowed himself to be lifted onto the gurney, and then hopped off the stretcher as soon as he was off the field. This used up almost 5 minutes.
2) The referees suck. There appears to be only one and it seems as if either they are not paying attention, the fix is in, or they just are doing a lousy job. In the games I watched several non goals were allowed and some actual goals were disallowed. How about some more officials?
3) Since using your hands is illegal, why not give the appropriate penalty to a player when he does so. Ghana lost because an opposing player (not the goalie) used his hands to stop a ball from crossing the plane of the goal. This absolutely would have been a goal. Instead, the team from Ghana was given a free kick. Why? Why have to try to kick a goal, when if not for a flagrant foul, it would have been a goal. Ghana missed the free kick, the game went to overtime and Ghana wound up losing. That was a bad result. Ghana should have won.