One of those days...

It had a little of everything, the good being I'm off for the most part today and tomorrow. There's some work email I have to deal with, but that shouldn't take too long. My computer's still working, but cytanet, the backbone of Cypriot telecommunications is performing typically, which means unreliable service.

The bad includes taking the bug to the shop. That's not really a bad thing because it definitely needs some work done, but the courtesy car they promised yesterday was still not available, so I'm without wheels. Other good news...it just flashed across the screen that UCLA/UW will be on over here. Bad news is I'll probably be on my way to work. Anyway, the bug is getting new tires, all the filters changed, fluids checked, plugs, points, etc....It's always sputtered a bit in the morning, but recently it's been doing it sporadically throughout the day.

I've never watched it much, but I have to say that MMA is far more enjoyable than boxing, at least most modern boxing. At least these guys are here to fight and most don't come across as prima donnas.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Yeah, I'm a few hours early, even by my time, but too bad. It's every son's job to embarrass his dad at every available opportunity. I'm not sure I've been living up to that and am trying to catch up.

I remember that one of the first times I told you how much I loved and respected you for the sacrifices you made while Bob and I were growing up...over gumbo at the Oyster Shanty next door to the Hog's Breath Saloon in Ft. Walton Beach, FL. I was nervous about it but needn't have been. You've always been easy to talk to and in fact sometimes hard to get to shut up. Don't change.

At least one your step-daughters loves you as much as I do and that says a lot more, at least to me, than my expression of it does.

It doesn't change my feelings though. You're one of the good guys. Happy Birthday! Gayle, it's a pretty significant milestone...hiring a stripper or are you going to be brave?

Love,

Dick

Cooking sausage...

No, this has nothing to do with my kielbasa, which was delicious and surprisingly not a magnet for cats. Shortly after I finished eating Victoria came home. She's an artist, Russian, very sweet, attractive but not a stunner and a good neighbor so far. She also likes rock and roll so we should get along fine.

She asked me, since it was her first time using a gas grill that the previous tenant gave her when he left, how to cook a sausage. Being the dirty old man I'm slowly becoming, my first thoughts were less than pure, but I quickly over came those to tell her to use her nose. Mine are done when the smell won't let me sit and wait anymore. She brought up a point that she applied to Japanese chefs that also applies though...use your ears, when the sizzle is right the sausage is cooked. I showed her how to clean the grill and start it and told her to start at a low heat until impatience and the smell took over.

She also mentioned a Bavarian deli that I used to drive by when I lived in the middle of town and bragged about its sausages. I always thought it was a restaurant, but it's really a deli so I'll have to check it out. The Cypriot sausage, or maybe it's Greek, is Sheftalia and it's pretty good as well. I'm not sure what it's made of , but it resembles hard hamburger in its texture and is pretty tasty. It goes well with a village salad, minus the damn tomatoes.

Other news...Alienware's customer support was pretty darn good when I finally got around to calling them. Being somewhat stubborn, I fought the new computer myself for a few days, not doing anything to void the warranty, but fighting it nonetheless. It turned out that I had done everything right and the only thing left to do was flash the motherboard BIOS with a new version. It's worked for over 24 hrs. so far.

This should be fun...

I'm initiating my new grill this afternoon with a nice fat kielbasa. They're not as good as the one's grandma and grandpa used to make, but neither is most bacon either. What should be fun is chasing off the neighborhood cats. I have a hose at the ready. Most are strays, but Victoria, my artist neighbor, has given me free rein to train her pets. They're already learning what cayenne pepper is, at least they haven't slept where I don't want them to in quite awhile.

I did this yesterday...

but for some reason, this program wouldn't let me publish it. These are very large photos taken from and of the new place. I hope you enjoy them.

Here's the view from the upper balcony on a normal day. It's zoomed so I'm not really that close, as are some of the rest of these photos. I think you can tell why I like it here.

Another shot from the balcony...this time you can see the Akrotiri peninsula in the background and several ships in the Limassol harbor.

Here's a clearer shot of the peninsula. We're at the left end of it, and yes, Dad, I forgot about the t-shirts, but not completely. This one's clearer and the sea's in it's normal state...Dickie don't surf...here anyway.

Except on days like these, although the generally rocky shoreline is a bit daunting even if I really wanted to try surfing.

Just your average Cypriot hillside...

Here's a view to the east. The earlier ones are from the south and west.

I thought I had some photos of when it was messier than this, and, believe me, it was, but here's a fairly organized mess anyway.

Slowly but surely I'm getting there. It really did seem bigger before I moved my stuff in.

A view from the other direction...does it look like a guy lives here?

Here's the odd man out, chair-wise, sweat stains and all.

The final product, plus or minus a few minor changes. Oh yeah, the table on the flokati is no longer there.

For me at least...

the ones where Lileks begins and say he has nothing, zip, nada...often turn out to be the ones I link to. I wish they had raccoons in Cyprus so I could make me some goulash. Read it...and smile.

Another timewaster...

timewaster

It's not a virus, but you treat each color like one and try to make the screen all one color in the fewest moves. Just click on a few colors until you figure out what's going on.

So much for woodies...

They always get me in trouble anyway. The new computer lasted about two more hours and then reverted to it previous behavior pattern. I did get a new phone so I can call them now. My mobile doesn't work in the chair nearest my computer and several other spots in the house so I figured I'd better. Send me an email if you want the number. Right now I'm waiting for a grill to be delivered and don't want to get caught in the middle of getting the computer fixed when the delivery guys show up. And yes, I do have a ton of photos to post about this whole ordeal when I finally get the computers working, so save up some time to waste downloading them.

Woodies...

No, I don't have one, but after the past few days of negative happenings, I'm surprised I don't. I've been experiencing major problems with a brand new computer that worked perfectly for about two weeks, blue screens of death. I know a bit about fixing computers and probably should have tried this earlier(sorry, guitar riff from "Love is Like Oxygen"...love it) but, knocking on my wooden head as I type, it appears to have been a power issue. Like a lot of places over here, there aren't enough outlets, especially when you play with as much electronic equipment as I do so the computer ended up on the same outlet as my freezer and the transformer I use to power some American cooking staples. Like I said, I'm knocking on wood, but so far I have triple the previous length of time it's worked after an attempted fix.

I'm also impressed with the Classic Rock station on the Arab satellite I'm using instead of Sky.

Hey, I'm workig on it...working too... :)

Busy at work and at home. I've got visitors from the plant in to upgrade our system and my new computer is tits up, a position I like in some respects, but not with an expensive new computer. Things are fine and the move is generally done except for minor practical adjustments.

Finally...

I'm mostly done moving. A few minor things, but this is more or less home for now. I've got one of my dishes working and when it quits raining, Boris is going to run a cable for the other one. I did have to get rid of the pinball machine and one of the recliners, but oh well. This place sure looked bigger than the old one, but it's not, or then again, it could just be the way I wanted to arrange things. Time to relax and remember what it's like to sleep on my flokati. It's folded in half here so it should be especially comfortable.

Conspiracy...

against me moving. I don't know why, but aside from the internet fiasco, I woke up early this morning to swap my bug for Roger's truck and get an early start on things. I made the mistake of stopping to fill up the bug on the way. I think that in my early morning stupor I put the card in upside down. Normally it kicks it back and I pull my head out and move on, but it was stuck. I tried to pry it out with another card to no avail and headed down to work to wait for Roger. We swapped keys and I went back up to see if maybe the machine had kicked it out and hopefully, wait for them to open at 7.

The previous manager of 47 years recently passed away and the hours have changed so I went back to work and borrowed a pair of needle nose pliers, but I had no luck with them either. It gets worse, or better, hard to say. I returned the needle nose and headed back up to see if they opened at 8 instead, but on the way I noticed that the post office was open and since I had a package, I thought my new cell phone, I stopped in to pick it up.

Well, and you know me and my wells...it turned out to be my new computer, which I've thought for two months was being shipped to my parents and then to me. I wasn't disappointed, just a bit confused. I'm sure you can guess, which won out, playing with the new toy or moving a bunch of heavy awkward stuff. Needless to say, got a late start, but the computer is nice. It's made by Alienware and is so quiet I was scared when I first turned it on, half thinking the power in the new place fried something, but it's been great, aside from a minor head up ass moment configuring my proxy. Now tomorrow's the big moving day...yeah, right.

Welcome to Cyprus...

Let's see...I've had an application in for internet service since 1/23 and was told back then that maybe they would come tomorrow or the next day to install it. It's now 2/7. I called on 2/5, thinking that they had had enough time to both lose and find my application and was told that they would be there yesterday. I called late yesterday afternoon to see what was up and was told that they'd be there this morning. I waited a couple of hours and noone showed up or called, so I called again and was told that I would be called back in 10 minutes. I gave them an hour and called again. Now they're coming tomorrow again. Island paradise my ass!

I learned a very important distinction...

between the words lost and gave while watching and listening to this. The Intrepid Center. Thanks Rantburg for finding the link for me.

Nasty...

No, I didn't do anything of that nature after waking up at 0100 and drinking through the game, just the weather. It's been raining pretty hard and late this morning got pretty windy too. I love it and hope to go up to the new place and get some photos of the surf later this afternoon. It looked pretty cool this morning when I was up there.

I finally called cytanet and got them to commit to a date(tomorrow) to hook up the web. They complained that I hadn't closed my old account but finally relented when I explained to them that the internet was critical to my work and based on past experience, I couldn't afford to rely on things being cut off at my old place and smoothly transferred to the new one. I needed the new one up and working before I paid off the old account. I also discovered just how poor the mobile phone connection is when talking downstairs at the new place. The battery lasted about 3 minutes and I thought it was fully charged. I'll probably have to get a regular phone too. It's been awhile.

I also broke the damn stylus on my turntable again. I move it in 3 pieces and mistakenly thought I could avoid removing and transporting the cartridge properly. It survived being taken upstairs and placed in the car. It survived being removed from the car and carried up while I pushed the door open. I had already unlocked it anticipating a problem here, but as I bent to push the door open, the zipper on my jacket made contact with something and a heard a soft metallic ting. Sure enough, no more stylus.

Oh well, even though I'll be moving, I've got three days off.

Watching the Super Bowl...

over here is a bit different. I have two options, either AFN, military TV, or Sky Sports, a British satellite broadcast. Neither have commercials, normally one of my favorite parts of the broadcast, but I read a lot about them lacking this year, so maybe I didn't miss anything.

The AFN version is straight football, with history and geography and life lessons as commercial replacements. It works, and you can use some of the questions they ask in silly drinking games...as if we need an excuse...it's the Super Bowl!

The Sky version is different. No actual commercials, but they show Brits at Super Bowl parties and other commentary during commercial breaks. The commentary is provided by Don Johnson(of Miami Vice fame) and some ex-NFL player whose name I didn't catch. It's pretty lame but at least they use the actual game announcers for the play by play.

At least I managed to wake up in time, although it was tempting to go back to sleep. The game's close and competitive, if not terribly well played, but the weather is quite a contributing factor in that respect.

I wish I could say the same about the rugby I've watched over the past couple of days. I went down to Jonny's for a couple of pints and caught France/Italy and England/Scotland in the opening games of the 6 nation's tournament and was bored. I can't give away scores because Rob is watching them later on tape delay and I'm not sure if he reads this or not, but while Ireland/Wales was closer, it was pretty boring.

I've never tried it...

but after reading this article, I visited their website. It certainly looks good and their whole story from the first link is kind of a feel good thing. I don't eat much fried chicken, but if you have your oil hot you can keep the oil from reaching the meat and have a relatively healthy meal. I may have to do some experimenting. Paul Prudhomme's cookbook has some things I'd like to try, but it took this article to get me off my butt and maybe give it a shot. I'll probably use my deep fryer instead of the cast iron, but he uses the remnants of the fry for other things and I probably won't. That reminds me...I need another Dutch oven. Time to go shopping.

It's been raining most of the night and so far this morning so I haven't been very ambitious. I should be cleaning the old place, but...you know me and cleaning. Eventually...

Serves me right...

for enjoying a sport like rugby. I get a t-shirt a month from a company with artwork from clubs around the world on them. Some are cool and some aren't but I got one that made me laugh today. The package has been sitting in my car for awhile and was a bit dirty so I was disappointed when I opened it and saw that apparently whatever had soiled the package had stained the shirt as well. The stain on the package didn't look like it was made by a liquid so I was surprised a bit. I opened up the shirt and, I think, realized that the stains were part of the design, I'm guessing to resemble the stains a shirt acquires at a post match drink-up. Kind of cool looking...