edshots

One of the things about going into an establishment on a regular basis is that you get into the habit of going to the same general area every time. If you do as often as I do, it almost becomes funny because people talk about "Your seat". It's not a problem most of the time, after all, all of the seats at the bar will still get you a beer, but sometimes it becomes funny.

I went into my usual watering hole this evening, a bit later than usual, and there were people there who evidently didn't understand the seating chart. As such about half of the regulars, me included were out of our seats.

I pick the spot I usually sit at because of some small residual paranoia that have which means I don't like sitting with my back to the door. (I think I picked it up by watching too any cowboy movies as a youth) But the seats that were available were on that side of the bar. I mean I could have sat on the regular side but that would have meant sitting between a guy I find annoying and another I find even worse. So I sat on the "wrong" side of the bar. No big deal.

The bartender (whom I have a long unrequited desire for) mentioned that I was on the wrong side. So did a couple other regulars, one of whom was in "my" seat. Of course as soon as there were enough spaces on the other side, I moved my stuff to get on the "right" side, even though it was at the other end of the side I usually sit on.

It's no big deal, but why do all these other people come into my bar and mess with things? I know that's an irrational thought but it still occasionally comes up when situations like this occur. It's like the guy who walks into a strange church, hours before the service. There is no other person in the church but him as he sits there, pondering the mystery that is God. Not another soul is around. About an hour before the service, a little old lady walks into the church and approaches him. He thinks that she is going to welcome him to the community.
"Excuse me, you're in my seat."

Sometimes I feel the same way.

One of the most frustrating things about the job I do is that no matter what I do it seems that things are screwed up. I don't get called unless there are problems.

That is the nature of the job. I don't get called unless somebody thinks that a kid is getting hurt.

If the kid is hurt, I'm asked why I didn't prevent it.
If the kid is fine I'm asked why I had to mess up the family's life.

If I tell either of the above to go ****off, I get in trouble.

People need to understand the nature of the work.

The big storm that they were calling for, then not calling for, then calling for again did actually hit the area last night. It wasn't too bad, It looks like about six inches of only snow instead of ice. I headed out this AM to check it out and it seems that most folks have already got the walks shoveled, so walking was easy. I put the boots on which was a good decision because it would definitely have gotten into my shoes since it was that high.

It should be interesting tomorrow when the snow that has a chance to melt freezes up again. I've always thought that the day or two after the storm were the most dangerous because people forget about the danger of driving in the storm and ignore the danger of driving on the ice. We'll see how it goes this time.

The Panthers shut down Pittsnoggle last night and beat the Mountaineers of WVU by four, 57-53. A good game by the Panthers and even more satisfying because (a) they stop a two game losing streak, and (b) they did against the top team in the Big East and a top ten team.
Good going.

I haven't been able to get things down for a bit, so here are some random thoughts at the moment...

SUPER BOWL
Steelers Win!!!!
'nuff said.

The County has recently decided to cut off access to certain sites. Among these are sites for personal e-mail. To a degree, I understand this. I would have less of a problem with it if over the last five years I had a freaking e-mail account with the county so I didn't have to do business at my own personal address. Now, they want to "assure the integrity of the system" so I have to go to another computer to do county related stuff because I am not going to e-mail 50 people saying "Oh, now you have to use this address because the county thinks I'm a f-ing idiot and will down load viruses."
Swell.
They also have stopped putting A:drives in the computers. I can't get to many of the things I used on a regular basis because of the "security issues." I could download a file to my disk and take it home with me. But I can't do that now. I'll just have to e-mail it to my regular account.
Swell.

February has set in with the usual vengeance. January was kind to us but it appears that the second month will not be so kind. They're calling for snow and cold and other nasty stuff soon. But pitchers and catchers report in just three weeks. Spring is not far off.

The last three times I bought a car, it took less than a month before some misfotune hit it. When I got the Beetle (which Mom technically bought) about a month later somebody backed into it at the employee lot at Kennywood. I then bought the Citation, a nice car, nothing much. While driving home from Connellsville to Latrobe on a majorly snowy day, I took the long way. All major highways, no back roads. About a month after I bought the car. As I was cruising down the highway at a stately 25, a Trooper began to veer into my lane. I hit the brakes. I hit the guardrail. When I got the wagon, I knew to be careful. So as I was coming back from Connellsville around the same time after I bought the car, an Ice storm hit. The wagon got to the hill before the salt truck did. I left off the brake at the top of the hill and stopped in the ditch beside the telephone pole. I recently (in December(yeah I know winter plays apart in this)), bought a new vehicle. I didn't drive it too much for multiple reasons: gas prices, weather, not needing to. I made it past a month. However, this past week, the curse struck again. I pulled into the lot behind my building. There sat a car, sitting in the aisle between parking spots. He had his reverse lights on. I pulled over to the side away from where I intended to park, giving him room to back up. He did. Just not straight. His side mirror hit the side of the car, knocking the mirror off and putting a mark on mine. Thankfully it wasn't major, as he wasn't going more than 5-10 mph. But it hit my new car. S***! At least I made it six weeks this time.

Pitt plays WVU this evening. I hope they don't get Pitsnoggled. But the boy can play ball. Since it's at Pitt, I think they'll win. But not by much.

Oh, by the way on the Super Bowl, did I say six? I meant 11.

Tomorrow is the Super Bowl. The Steelers against the Seahawks (what the hell is a seahawk anyway, there ain't no such critter).

I am looking forward to the game. I think the Steelers will win by six. I'll have my doubts until Bill Cowher actually wins his last game in the post season.

In the meantime, I will keep thinking of all the great moments in Steelers history and hoping that tomorrow will add one more.

This post was originally written the evening of jan 31, 06 on a computer that didn't have access to the web. It took until today to get it here.


Kenny may be the most miserable SOB I've ever met. I love him.

There comes a point where being miserable becomes charming. While I recognize that part of it just shielding, there is a certain charm to someone whose best compliment to you is greeting you by saying "hey, trouble," or "hey you old fart" when he's at least a thirty years older than you are.

I think that this has hit me today because there have been a couple situations today where the idea of the curmudgeon has come up in casual conversation. I work in an office where one of the characters that is there is a worker who says he is doing time. He's looking forward to quitting. He mentions that on a regular basis, saying he only needs to finish paying off the truck so he can retire. He is old enough already, having both time and age to retire according to most of the rules that I'm used to, but is just too full of piss and vinegar to actually do because he wouldn't have as much to bellyache about.

Later, I was talking to someone else who asked me if a certain bartender in town was getting nastier. I mentioned that while she was never the nicest bartender in town, she didn't seem any grumpier than usual. Of course you notice that I didn't say that she wasn't grumpy, sarcastic, or inhospitable, I just said that I didn't notice any change in her general demeanor.

Of course she happened to be working tonight. I said hello and signed the book and she seemed to be in her usual mood. Should she be on the other side of the bar, even if she looked like Kathy Ireland (who is the best looking babe ever), I would probably not last past the "hi" stage because of the negative waves. She was civil and almost nice for the most part but I did notice more negative waves coming from her toward some patrons than others. I guess my general attitude of not worrying about stuff makes me easier to deal with, but I think that the observation may have been not incorrect.

Some of my favorite bartenders were grumpy, negative waves, types of folks. My favorite of all time is still Norm, who owned Chief's Cafe in Oakland when I went to PITT, who as I sat with an (underage) buddy of mine was the subject of an armed robbery. As the guy was waving around the gun, Norm spent the next five minutes bitching the guy out. He called him every name in the book and called him everything but a white guy, because he wasn't. About half way through the rant, where he told this guy waving a weapon, what he would do if he ever got the chance (and it wasn't bake cookies) he never broke rhythm telling the crook what he was as he told the missus to get the (expletive) money out of register but not all the change. After all, he'd need it because everybody was still drinking at the bar. The guy took the money and left.
After that, I looked at my buddy and said, "Stroke, do you realize we just witnessed an armed robbery?"
"No, you just witnessed an armed robbery. I'm not supposed to be here."
"Oh, yeah. We'll have to remember that."
We finished up our drinks, (we were getting ready to leave anyway), and I stopped up at the bar to talk to Norm. I asked him if there was a problem if we headed out as Red was calling the cops. He said that there wasn't as he knew the SOB and would get his money back in a few days.

I left "the Chief" a bigger tip than usual that night.

I went back to Chief's a few years after I got out of school. Red had gotten sick and Norm wasn't up to keeping it without her. They had taken the one wall, which had paintings on the wall and gotten rid of them. Back in the day they had served Schlitz beer (not Bull which was big at the time and was not a great tasting beer), now they served the usual beers that the college crowd drank. The steel workers that had made up a large percentage of the drinkers there, when I was going in there for that very reason, who kept Sinatra and Crosby and the Andrews Sisters on the juke box were gone. So were the songs.

My favorite bar as a college student had become a college bar. It was the worst moment of a nice trip back to school.

I've been friends with grumpy old men since I was working the American Legion Bingo as a 13 year old. I loved working with guys who had fought in WW1 who the guys that fought in WW2 would give crap to. "Old Parks there, he has heart trouble and dropsy," Steve (the boss) would say. "Once he drops into a seat, he ain't got to the heart to get up."

There is a big difference between being cranky and being negative. Thankfully I've learned that. It's unfortunately not a lesson learned by many of the political figures today.

I often describe myself as either an optimistic pessimist or as a pessimistic optimist. I'm pretty sure that’s because I've run into a lot of them over the years. And they were usually right. I hope I can be just as accurate.