It’s been a long time since I hear the bell for last call… and this morning, I’m remembering why. Had a great night with old friends as well as meeting some new and interesting people. A good time was had by all… but I’m going to leave it there because I’m fairly certain that staring at this computer screen is going to make my eyes explode.
Author Archives: jdtharp
The saga continues…
OK, I’ve filed my plans (for the second time) and have all the paperwork cut, reservations made, all the appropriate notifications that I’ll be floating around the old homestead over the weekend have happened (almost). When everything is going according to schedule, my day ends at 3:30. At 3:19 I got an email that I had been “uninvited” to the DC meeting on Friday. At 3:26 another email hit my inbox that I was “reinvited.” I appreciate you boys fighting over me, I really do, but this whole plan has all the classic hallmarks of a typical government operation… no one has a damned clue what is actually going on.
As of 8:30, I’m planning to fly out tomorrow. That, of course, is subject to the requirements of the service and can change at any time before “the cabin door has been closed and customers are asked to turn off their cell phones, pagers, and other electronic devices.” If you don’t see a stark, raving post about government ineptitude by 6:00 PM eastern time tomorrow, you’ll know I’m winging my way somewhere over the Eastern half of the country. Stay tuned for developments as they happen.
Weekend update…
The best way to end your Monday is to find out you will be hitting the road again on Thursday night. As it happens, I have to be in DC for meetings on Friday and due to arcane federal regulations, I can’t technically be forced to travel outside “normal duty hours.” What that effectively means is that Uncle is going to pick up the tab for me to spend the weekend at home and that I’ll fly back here to Memphis on Monday morning.
So, cool cats and kittens, I’ll be in town sometime late Friday afternoon. Hope to see ya’ll there!
Itinerary…
Spend enough time doing what I do and you’ll learn that flight plans are never for sure until you are taxing up to the terminal at your destination. I filed all my paperwork this morning that put Uncle’s official stamp of approval on my travel plans… Thirty minutes later I was walking to the shredder with those plans.
You should always be suspicious when the boss wanders over to you and starts the conversation with “since you’re going to be on the road Monday anyway…” So, instead of a nice quiet flight back to Memphis on Monday morning, I’m going to reroute through Atlanta for a 10 hour layover so I can take a meeting downtown before heading back to the airport to catch my newly scheduled evening flight to Memphis.
There ought to be a law against forcing someone to go through two airport screenings in one day… especially when one of them is Atlanta.
Dear Neighbor (or Another reason why I hate people)…
Dear Neighbor,
They pick up the trash in our subdivision on Wednesday. It’s customary for folks to put their trash out on Tuesday evening and then take their newly emptied trashcan off the curb when they get home Wednesday afternoon. Is it really so hard for you to get with the program? Why is your lovely green can still sitting on the curb on Saturday morning? It’s right there by your mailbox and I’ve seen you picking up your mail in the afternoons when you get home. Is it too hard for you to extend your other hand and drag your can back to the garage like every other damned person in the universe?
And another thing… Why the hell are you watering your lawn? I mean, really, why bother? You clearly hate cutting your grass because you do it so rarely… Not to mention that there are three foot tall weeds growing around every obstruction in your yard… including you house. If you’re not going to do the required maintenance, why do something that actually encourages the stuff to grow in the first place? And really, if you’re too lazy to break out the weedeater once a week, at least invest $5.00 in a bottle of Round-up and kill that shit.
Yours very sincerely,
Jeff
Door-to-door…
It’s the worst kept secret in the world that organized religion and I have a general difference of opinion. I don’t have any problem with folks who embrace religion, I’m just not one of them. If I would have been interested in finding a church, or Jesus, or whatever it was I was supposed to be looking for, I would have done it by now. What I don’t need is a van-full of Baptists showing up in my driveway when I’m trying to tend to the yard – yes, I fired Paco and his lawn service, by the way… That’s a story that involves scalping the lawn and chopping the shit out of downspouts with a weedwacker, but I digress. I’m sweaty, the sprinklers are running, and I’m holding a shovel. If you’re pulling into my driveway, this is a sign that it may not be the best time to stop for a chat… especially if I don’t know you. Because quite frankly, I’m not thinking about my immortal soul at the point… I’m mentally calculating how many of you I can take out with the pointy end of a shovel before you get me… This is Memphis after all.
With that being said, don’t peddle your church door-to-door. It’s annoying. And really, assuming God really is all knowing and all powerful, He doesn’t need to be sold like encyclopedias or vacuum cleaners. That’s just tacky.
Flock of Seagulls…
I was feeling fine when I went to bed last night, but woke up around 3:30 with a cough and sinus stuff going on. All very unpleasant. Even more unpleasant, of course, is that once I’m awake, the chances of actually going back to sleep hover between slim and none. So, reaching for the book I have been working on, I decided to prop myself up with a cup of coffee and read a bit. I don’t get the uninterrupted time to read that I use to, so I am still plowing through Castles of Steel, a really well-written analysis of British versus German fleet action during World War I.
Apparently, during the Great War, the Brits were working on a program that was supposed to train seagulls to poo on U-boat periscopes, preventing them from making torpedo attacks on commercial vessels making the run between England and the Americas. I’ve been working in government for a while now and we hear a lot of dumb ideas, but I’m having a hard time figuring out how someone could walk into a room of senior admirals of what was then the world’s most well-respected navy and recommend that enemy submarines could be defeated by having a flock of seagulls drop a duce right on their eyepiece. I haven’t decided if that was wishful thinking or just plain disturbing.
Oh, and for the record, I think I’ll be staying home today. I’m a half-dozen pages into Jutland and want to see how it turns out… well, that and every time I move my head I can actually feel my brain banging around. Sinus pressure blows.
Ambivalently Yours…
I’ve not thought of anything worth saying in the last few days. Postings will resume when the ambivalence dissipates.
Snarl…
Here’s a breakdown of three recent charges on my debit card…
– DirecTV = $170.15
– Direct Insurance = $168.75
– AT&T prepaid cell phones (3) = $87.93.
The problem is mainly that none of those charges was actually mine. So, currently I have $1 in my wallet along with a debit card that is deactivated. I have a police report that I can pick up tomorrow afternoon, and Bank of America looking into the situation. Fortunately, they were nice enough to credit my account after I filled out an affidavit and faxed it back to them this morning.
I talked to a “fraud specialist” with AT&T this afternoon who was able to tell me that the charges were made by someone using the name “Jackie.” They declined to give me any more information about the individual until I fax them a copy of the police report. So, Jackie, hear this… I’m coming for you. And when I find you, I’m going to latch on like a bulldog and make your life absolutely miserable. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to loose months of frustration on a singularly deserving target.
The Glorious Fourth…
We live in troubled times. Love of country is seen as the exclusive province of the closed-minded and Patriots are derided as jingoistic bombasts. The good that America has done and continues to do in the world is swept under the rug in favor of discussions on where our steps have faltered. The long list of our national accomplishments are pushed aside and only our mistakes are held up to the light of public scrutiny.
Two hundred thirty one years ago, 55 patriots, working under conditions of secrecy and in contravention of the instructions that had brought them together, voted for independence from Great Britain. Those colonials, mistreated and abused by the king’s government, launched the world’s greatest experiment in representative democracy. We fought a great civil war to determine if such a nation could endure. In the century just passed, we fought two world wars to ensure that this legacy of freedom did not perish and a long cold war that pitted America against the forces of an evil empire. Now, America’s bravest sons and daughters stand post in places with names like Kabul and Tikrit, just as their predecessors held the line in the la Drang Valley, at the Chosin Reservoir, in the snows of Bastogne, and the muddy trenches of the Marne.
Today is Independence Day and I remain committed to the proposition that our country, warts and all, remains the last, best hope of earth; that, as it was at the beginning, it is a shining city upon a hill.
JEFFREYTHARP.COM 