The closer one gets to the grave, the greater the demand for escape mechanisms like scooters, skiing and Viagra.

Spring is here in Southern California. The days are growing noticeably longer. This weekend we start daylight savings time. The weather is great here now. T-shirts, shorts and sandals time is fast approaching and everybody is happy about that.

This is also the best motorcycle riding time of year in southern california (fall is good too). No warm clothing is required and the temps are not uncomfortably hot.

God bless the troops in the middle east putting their lives in danger so that the world may be a peaceful place. Give them the wisdom to make the right decisions in the most difficult time of their lives. The entire world looks forward to the day when peace will return.

My friend Alex was involved in a serious motorcycle accident back in the 1980's. He didn't ride for like twenty years. Then I bought a motorcycle about two years ago. I hadn't ridden for around thirty years. Alex and his wife come over and right away he's like "where's the new bike man?" We go down to the garage to check it out. Alex asks me "can I take it for a spin?? Just around your complex." (I live in a condo complex with private roadways.

Alex takes off grinnin' from ear to ear. Two months later he bought a brand new Harley-Davidson Dyna Sport and he's havin' the time of his life ridin' it all over Southern California.

When I was a young boy I lived in seattle, washington. It never really gets very cold in western washington. And we lived near Lake Washington which keeps the temps a little above others in western washington.

So in winter when it got down close to freezing temperatures, all the boys who lived on my block looked forward with GREAT anticipation to the night
when we would go to sleep and wake up and find either SNOW or ICE on the ground.

One night it did freeze over night. That morning my buddies from school came over to my house and pounded on the door to tell me the good news. I woke up, put on my clothes and went RUNNING outside without eating breakfast (unusual for me even today!). Remember - freezing temps are RARE around Lake Washington, so we wanted to take advantage of that ice!

When we got down to the sidewalk in front of my house, we all found a SPLENDID patch of ice! Throughout the year, a slow trickling underground stream ran through my father's property out onto the sidewalk. Overnight,
just enough water had frozen on the sidewalk to make a nice sliding area.

So I walked up the street about fifty feet and started runnin'
When I got to the ice I started a skid..... I slid for about two feet and *WHHHHOOOOOOPPPPP* I went flyin' on my keester.

Ever see that movie "Home Alone" where the guy slips on the ice? That was me. I hit the sidewalk so hard I separated my collar bone. Luckily I was young and I bounced back easily.

Here in santa clarita, we had rain off and on this weekend. We are now at fourteen inches of rain for the season, which is two inches above normal for this time of year. There won't be many more rains so I tried to enjoy the rain while it lasted. The "Endless Summer" goes on for a long time here in Southern California.

This weekend I watched the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" on DVD. Great movie if you haven't already seen it. Sunday night I watched the first annual TV Land awards show. They saluted a lot of the old timers.

Today at work I continued working on my new series of shiptape jobs. There are many many pieces I will need to put together to make this work. I will need to draw diagrams of how it all works after i'm done with it - otherwise I'll never remember how it works.

The sun is shining brightly this afternoon!

audblog audio post

Gigi has been enjoying her walks in Central Park this week. I have taken her there after work several times this week.

The weather this week was quite delightful. However today (saturday) it has started raining and the weatherman reports that it will rain througout the weekend.

At work I have been building a new set of jobs to replace the old "shiptape" job. These new jobs will take full advantage of our new batch scheduler CONTROL-M. This old job was more linear. It processed one ship at a time. In my new scheme I process all the ships at one time in parallel fashion.

It's the beginning of march now. I found a different partk to take Gigi for her excercise - Central Park here in Santa Clarita. Much more room there than the summit park. I took her there this morning and she enjoyed it. Didn't see any bits of tennis balls either.

The days are getting a bit longer now and slightly warmer. We had a tiny bit of rain the other day. It'll probably rain one more time this season (or maybe twice) and that'll be it... I saw on the news that the Western United States are going through a four year drought.

President Bush and Colin Powell seem determined to invade Iraq. Seems like their ears are closed to the rest of the world and their minds are made up. The U.S. Senate is eerily silent on this issue. No debates. The senators are probably afraid that they will be labeld unpatriotic.