shouldn't you be working?

What are they going to do? Fire him?

Hahahahahahaha! In 24 hrs, I'm free!

You just hush! :)

My mother won a blue ribbon and the medal for best chili at the Oklahoma State fair back in the 80s. It would have killed the judge in the story above. When I was in my teens and and even my 20s I could eat it. When I hit mid 30s my guts rebelled. I had to have 1/2 a bottle of antacid to survive. Just stirring the pot while cooking was enough to get me sweating. I had to eat it like hot salsa on chips to survive. Dang it was good.

so hot that when you wave a chip over it the chip gets to hot to eat!

You have to come at it from the side or the chip will melt if it sees the salsa.

Had Peruvian stir-fried steak and potato with yucca fries, plantains, pickled onions, and rice for lunch. 9pm and still not hungry.

Wow, sound great.

Buongiorno, y'all. Last morning commute.

Congrats on finally reaching that huge milestone....retirement. I think a walk around, and talking to everyone is in order at work (not much work actually getting done).

I'm off to my hometown as my BIL is having emergency heart bypass surgery. The prognosis isn't good so Mom asked that us kids be there for my sister. She is the one that does for everyone else and now it's our turn to support her.

Wow good luck Wayne for your BIL and your sister. That sounds scary.

Welp Jim, the last day at work. Congratulations. Retirement training is over, now get out there and get busy. Most every friend I know that is retired wondered how they had time to work because they are busy all the time.

What is left to do on the left coast house?

At home the new sewer line in in place and inspected and the dirt is mostly stuffed back in the hole. It is weird how the dirt will not go back in the same space it was but that is the nature of digging. There is always left over dirt. And I use the term dirt only in a general context of soil or the ground. Our "dirt" is pure clay. I am sure at some point you have seen a potter "throw" a pot and they start off with a large lump of clay on the potters wheels and start shaping. That is what our yard is. It is brick red, and except for the grass roots and tree roots and other stuff it would make great pottery. It is pretty much impossible to to shovel if it is wet.

The crew did a decent job of filling the trenches but the leftover that put on the yard in a sort of low wide hill. Mrs. Carrera thought it we could just move it around. Yea right.

It is no joke, no exaggeration at all to say that when I try to shove a shovel into the mess I can get the shovel into the clay a few inches by standing on the edge of the shovel. When I try to lift it as much clay sticks to the back of the shovel as to the front. I have to use a scraper to get it off of the shovel. Then I have to scrape the scraper with something. It is just crazy. This may take the rest of the summer to get done.

We have pockets of clay but mostly its glacial till. Till is the kind of dirt that has rocks ranging from fist size down to gravel. You can't really get a good shovel full for hitting the next rock in the hole.

Morning all. I'm not speaking to Jim as he will just gloat about his perm vacation status. LOL

When I put in the sprinkler system it was because the yard needed to be watered, duh. The yard was baked dry and just like adobe. I had to use a pick-axe to get some things dug. I hat several pieces of sandstone. I never officially retired as a sprinkler installer but my fee is 10,000 per day and I work real slow. So far no one has wanted to hire me to do their sprinkler system.

I don't blame you one bit.

Who is this Jim you speak of? :D

So were any of the storms by ya'll in OK? I only hear tornadoes and OK on the radio this morning.

Thanks for all of the responses to my impending retirement! :D

I was working my butt off this morning preparing a document to help transition one of my projects to one of staff to take over. Now that that's done, I can goof off a bit, turn in my computer equipment to IT, and turn in my employee badge. I'm hoping for a short afternoon here.

Hey Wayne, I'm sorry to hear about your BIL. I'm hoping for the best.

the document should read "for the right fee I'll fix it for you"

Part of my regular job is dealing with customer orders for historical images. One of the square miles in Edmond, OK is the site of numerous oil wells and a refinery. Much of the gasoline that helped win WW2 came from that square mile. Wells were every 10 acres back in the day. Over the years it is down to just a few wells still pumping away and the refinery is a natural gas plant now. Much of the square mile is covered in nice houses. There is a school there and of course there was some hydrocarbon pollution over the years. Wells were "sealed" by digging down 10 feet, throwing a gunny sack over the well and pumping in a few yards of concrete and covering it with topsoil. It is hidden and the records were lost on purpose.

With historical images we can point out where a well was back in 50s and later images will show when it was covered up or properly shut down.

It is an interesting project. I just wonder how many of the people living on that square mile have any idea that their house in on top of an former disposal pit for a well or the well itself.

When i first started here I looked up the aerials of my property. It was never more than a farmers crops and then a soccer field before becoming a housing edition. :D