Category: Life in General

Kayaking and Walking, Tidewater, VA, October 2011

Posted on by chappyshi

I headed off to see my sister Kim and brother-in-law Don on Sunday, 2 October, after working the night shift the previous night and catching few hours of sleep.  I got down there in the late afternoon in time for an early dinner before heading off  to church.  Upon our return to the house we just took it  easy.  Kim was exhausted because she got no sleep the night before.

On Monday morning, I headed off the MacKay Island National Wildlife Refuge on the border of VA and NC.  I never noticed it was there before though I been through it once on a road  trip with Kim and Don.  It looked like there should be some good paddling, walking and wildlife watching opportunities.  Unfortunately, I could  not figure out where exactly I should be able to put my kayak in so I ended up taking the 5.5 mile walk around the inland ponds.

I did have some good bird sightings and saw either a nutria, muskrat, or beaver swimming about working on its abode. As for birds, I saw numerous Great Blue herons, American egrets, osprey, Belted kingfishers, Eastern meadowlarks (cool birds)  and the occasional what I think were Gadwalls or American Widgeons, an American Bittern, etc.  I also saw a couple of smashed snakes on the trail including one that was likely to be an adult water moccasin.  All in all it was a nice day.

On the way home, I stopped in at the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant near Kim’s for a beer.  There I had a tasty Loose Cannon Ale and a Reissdorf Kolsch.  I also tasted the Aventinus Weiss which was very good.  Hopefully they will still  have it on tap the next time I stop in.  For dinner we went to Cogan’s Pizza, which except for one sub par experience, I have always enjoyed.

Tuesday was a slow day for me.  The mid-watches still take their toll.  I was finally able to get going in the afternoon and headed off to one of my favorite kayaking spots down Suffolk way, Burnt Mills Reservoir.  It was a beautiful paddle but I think I have explored almost the whole reservoir by now.  I always like to see what is around the next bend and there are very few more to go around.

Finally, on my way home and back to work on Wednesday night, I put the kayak in at Deep Bottom Park on the James River SE of Richmond.  That is another one of my favorites.  The river flows straight through the area but also has a huge offshoot loop where the landing is.  I went around the loop all the way for the first time and stopped into this huge lagoon to look for birds.  Usually I see tons of Great Egrets there but that day I was limited to Great Blues.

I had a passenger the whole time I was on the river.  What I gather was grasshopper landed on the prow of my kayak when I put in and stayed there for the whole trip until I landed.  First time in a long time I have paddled with a companion…

One Year at My New Job

Posted on by chappyshi

Last night marked one complete year at my job w/ Lockheed Martin Automated Flight Service Station.  I have been working the service desk and network operation/security center…on 12-hour night watches for most of the last six months.  I started as a contractor and got signed on full time w/ LM in late April.  The schedule and hard work have payed off.  I have been in line for a promotion to a systems administrator type position for a few months now.

I look forward to the change and opportunity to get back more heavily into Windows and Linux systems administration since that is more my background than help desk and NOC support.  I also will be glad to get back on to a day schedule that will be mostly Mon-Fri with flex time and telecommuting.  The down side is that I will have on call duty but that isn’t anything I haven’t dealt with in previous IT jobs.

My superiors seem to have a lot of faith in me and my coworkers respect me.  I hope to be able to return those feelings by helping our group to grow with increased training, organization, and communication.  Wish me luck!

Life Is a Fist Up the Ass

Posted on by chappyshi

My new apartment management company (at least the 3d since I have been here for six years) decided they needed to issue new parking passes.  This was  because, in this advanced computerized day and age, the new company couldn’t import the previous company’s records into their database.  And in this advanced age they only issue the permits that you have to hang from your mirror.  This is an impediment to my site picture as far as I am concerned.  It is even worse on my motorcycle because I really have no secure place to hang it and riding with it hanging from my rear view mirror is just not an option.

Anyhow, to get the permit, I had to provide a copy of my  vehicle registration.  Well  I re-register as required every two years but I don’t know what the hell I do with the registration cards.  Oddly, I found the one for my car in my glove compartment but the one for my motorcycle was  nowhere to be found.  So I thought, “Cool, I have one of the registration cards.”

Well, I left that one in my car and down the line cleaned out my car and added whatever paper products to my recycling and took that to the recycling center.  Next thing you know I couldn’t find my car registration.  Crunch time…I had to get the stickers by 9/1.   So, on the last day of the month, bad time to be at the DMV, I drop in at 1400 or so.  Thankfully the line was moving well.  I got a bit freaked out when the woman who was setting us up w/ paperwork and such gave me some forms that asked for information I did not have with me.  All I wanted to get was reprints of my vehicle registration cards….  So I filled out as much of the paperwork as I could and  waited for my number.

When my number came up, I went up to the counter and was pleasantly surprised to find that my request, after I explained what it was, was easily and quickly fulfilled.  I paid 2$ each for the reprints and marched right out of that place.

It was not much later that  afternoon when I got myself ensconced in a chair in the rental office to get my vehicle parking permits.  I handed my paperwork over to the clerk who was inputting my vehicle information when she stopped to ask me if I could have the same license plate for both my car  and motorcycle.  I said, “No, of course not” and looked at the printouts of the registration only to find that the DMV clerk printed out two copies of my car registration and none of my motorcycle registration.  The rental management company, thankfully, and aware of the folly of trying to hang vehicle parking permits from motorcycles, has  said that they will not be towing motorcycles.

So where is the fist up the ass?  I don’t know but I hope it isn’t near me.  I just want to say that the whole process felt like getting one.  And then this evening when emptying my grocery bag, the environmentally considerate one, I found my car registration car.  Fistulator, eh?

Three Days in Tidewater

Posted on by chappyshi

I went down to see my sister and my brother-in-law in Suffolk, VA, on my three day break this week.  What with my work schedule recently, I haven’t done much on my days off but try to catch up on my sleep so the trip was a nice change.  I drove down on Sunday after a few hours of sleep in the morning.  That afternoon and evening was just hanging out, lazing in the pool, and chatting.  I was good to see Kim and Don who I hadn’t seen since late February or early March.  Kim’s friends the Kent’s came over for dinner which was based on some awesome ribs that Kim did in the oven.  We even got to break in Don’s new Cornhole boards.

On Monday, my intent was to go down to Virginia Beach (VB) in the morning, have some lunch, and head back to Suffolk to kayak.  I hoped to stop in at the Beach Brewing Company to check out their establishment and taste their beer but since they were only open on the weekends that did not pan out.  I did get out on the beach for a couple of hours where I read the paper and enjoyed the scenery.  Since I haven’t had good experiences lounging and swimming at the beach with much of a drive in front of me I didn’t make it into the water.  They don’t have much in the way of changing facilities at VB and I didn’t relish the thought of making the drive back to Suffolk with a bathing suit full of sand.

I did have a tasty Starr Hill Brewery Northern Lights IPA and chicken Caesar salad for lunch at the 11th Street Taphouse Bar and Grill.  They had quite the beer selection that made me want to grab a nearby hotel room and just hang out for the rest of the day and night.  As it was, I head back west only to encounter traffic slow downs and blockages due to bridge openings and car fires.  I was able to get off the highway onto a road I recognized and planned to get on eventually so that worked out okay.

By the time I got back to back to Suffolk, I decided not to kayak and headed toward a local place called Cogan’s Pizza where they have a pretty good beer selection.  I missed my turn and ended up at Buffalo Wild Wings which wasn’t a bad thing.  There I tasted the Beach Brewery Pale Ale but was not impressed.  I did enjoy immensely the O’Connor Brewing Company Great Dismal Black IPA.  Black IPA’s are quite the rage in the craft brew community this year.  I have had at least four different ones this year and enjoyed them all.

Monday night was relaxing.  We did leftover ribs and such and watched a movie that I didn’t make it all the way through.  I was still running on a sleep deficit and despite that fact that I should  be awake nights because that is the shift I work, I still had to crash.  As it was, I woke up early and tossed and turned before finally giving up and getting up.

I did my two crossword puzzles for the day and read a bit of the paper before heading out to kayak on Bennett’s Creek which is just a short drive from Kim’s, and if you read anything I write, you will recall is one of my favorite places to paddle.  I put in at the local park and either paddle upstream until  I run out of creek or paddle down to the James River and back.  The journey was a good as ever with numerous sitings of wildlife including Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets, Green Herons, Belted Kingfishers, Red-winged Blackbirds, Ospreys, and one Muskrat.

Since it was Don’s day off, we got together with Kim for lunch where I finally did make it to Cogan’s Pizza and we enjoyed a tasty Supreme pizza and I had a Bell’s Two Hearted Ale, always a favorite.  We had a bad experience there earlier in the year when the service was iffy and the pizza cook seemed to be having a bad day but they were back in good form on  Tuesday.  Later in the day we caught up with friend’s of Kim and Don, one of whom is a preacher, at the movies to catch “Horrible Bosses.”  That  was an incredibly raunchy, but very funny, movie, albeit interesting to watch sitting next to a preacher.

We had a quick dinner when we got home which was about 1830.  I was tired and called it a night early.  I wanted to get up early in the morning to get on the road home w/ a stop en route to paddle.

I stopped at one of my new favorite spots on the James River, Deep Bottom Park, in Henrico County off Route 5.  Unfortunately the tide was out and I couldn’t get all the way into this large pond off of the river that I wanted to go into.  I have seen hundreds of herons and egrets in there and wanted to see if I could get some pictures.

The birds there are very skittish so I hoped to just float around and minimize the disturbance.  That was pretty much a no go since there were huge mud flats exposed due to the low tide.  I ended up paddling back past the launch and up a creek I had seen previously but not yet explored.  It wasn’t a bad paddle overall but it was hot and my boat was leaking so I wrapped it up sooner than I intended.

Thankfully, I had an easy trip home and got a few things done before I had to go to work.  I had a productive and relaxing three days and it was great to see Kim and Don.

Creedence Clearwater “Revisited” at Wolf Trap Last Friday

Posted on by chappyshi

I saw Creedence Clearwater “Revisited” on Friday night at Wolf Trap.  They are a tribute band that includes two of the original members of Creedence Clearwater Revival.  We got there a little before 1800 which was plenty of time to get in line and get good lawn seats near the middle of the amphitheater.  I thought the gates opened at 1800 but they did not do so until 1830 so we had a bit of a wait at the gate and then a longer wait for the music which did not start until 2000.  There was no opening band.

CC Revisited sounded very good…much like the original and covered many of their most popular songs.  Unfortunately they only played for about 1.5 hours.  It seemed like an awful run around and wait for that much music.  Thankfully, Wolf Trap is a great venue where, if you are on the lawn, you can bring in food and drinks of any kind.  Plus it is like a festival atmosphere on  the lawn with people just hanging out, meeting new people, talking,  and dancing.

We also ran into some friends at the show who joined us at my sister’s house afterward for a beer and concert review.  All in all, it was a good time.

Coolest Rainbow I Ever Saw

Posted on by chappyshi

The pictures of this rainbow action  are terrible which speaks for carrying a camera with me other that the POS on my cell phone.  I was driving home from work the other morning at 0610 and was able to view this double rainbow for almost the whole drive.  The brightest of the two arcs was so clear I could clearly see at six different colors of the spectrum.

Sunday Morning Coffee…In the Afternoon

Posted on by chappyshi

The mid-watches are starting to catch up with me.  I work 0600 – 1800, two on, two off, two on, two off, three on, and three off which isn’t really a bad schedule but it does take its toll.  Life starts to revolve around just sleep and work.  I force myself to get up as early as I can on my off days to have some semblance of a life but it is not easy.

For example, I got home about 0625 this morning, did the Sunday LA Times crossword puzzle and read for a while to wind down.  I went to bed at about 0830 and tossed and turned for quite a bit before getting a mostly fitful sleep.  I intended to get up at 1300 but no later than 1400.  I got a “Restricted” call on my cell phone at 1303 that was a hang up so I decided to get up.

So here I am at 1345 on a Sunday afternoon with bacon in the pan, coffee in hand, George Thorogood on the stereo, and three days off in front of me.  Bonus!  On a side note, I am supposed to be promoted soon but it is not official.  Once that happens, I will return to a more normal Mon – Fri schedule but will be on call.  It is hard to decide if it is better to on the watch schedule where my off time is purely my own or on a normal schedule with on call duties….

Water Ya Thinking?

Posted on by chappyshi

To say that we have had plenty of rain this spring in Northern Virginia would be an understatement.  It is green, green here.  We are eco-green and green friendly.  Those of you in the desert Southwest are green with envy, eh.  But I digress…

Driving through the neighborhood this evening en route the grocery store, I noticed that someone had a rotary sprinkler out watering their lawn.  WTF you say?  Moi aussi!  To make matters worse, the sprinkler was placed right next to the driveway so half the water was landing on that and draining right into the sewer system.  Really, what are people thinking?

Briefly Back

Posted on by chappyshi

I have been bad about blogging which if you care about following me you already know.  I can’t say what the problem is but I am trying to get past it.  It has been a wacky seven or eight months what with starting work again as a contractor for a major corporation and then getting the opportunity to apply for the same job at the corporation as a full-time employee w/ benefits.

Forgive me if I don’t mention any company names.  A few years ago I would not have worried about doing so but,  even though I have never made good or bad comments about a company I have worked for or am working for and would never do so in my blog, I still feel it is risky to be too specific.  So much for free speech, eh?

The new job involved a major learning curve mostly for call center support but also for systems/desktop support.  I feel like  I have done quite well.  I may not be the star for the newly established support center but am certainly one of the stars.  Finally starting as a full time employee this week has been  the cap on the whole venture.

I finally have health benefits which is mucho beuno as you will see later in this entry.  Additional benefits besides health such as education and training  with the company are a big positive.  As I have mentioned to some of you who might read this, the pay is subpar, from my point of view, as much as  25% less than many of us in the group have earned, but the benefits help to make up for the direct loss in income.  I think the opportunities for the future with this company are very good.  I am already enrolled for a web server admin class in May which bodes well.

On the personal side, I have been laying kind of low.  Having been w/o health insurance since last June, I haven’t been riding my motorcyle or skiing much.  My last health insurance quote was for $450 a month due to pre-existing conditions.  Thanks “Obamacare!”

I did get up to Vermont for my good friend Linda’s 50th birthday in December.  I stopped in Avoca, PA, about halfway up, to see my friend  Terry and his boys.  I think that Linda was surprised when she saw me with the crowd at her house but who knows.  That was an 1100 mile road trip crammed into about three days but well worth it.  I did get about 2.5 hours in on the slopes at Killington on the way up which was nice.  Only time I have skiied since I tore my ACL at Seven Springs in 2008.

Turkey Day was spent with my sister Julie who lives  about a mile away from me.  Christmas was spent with my sister Kim in SE Virginia.  We went on Christmas morning to her husband’s parent’s house for breakfast and the ceremonial tearing apart of the Xmas presents for the kids and grandkids.  Madness I  say!

It took a longer than I expected drive to go camping at the northern part of the Chesapeake Bay a month or so ago.  And I didn’t have the cash I needed to get into the “unattended” gate at the park.  Of course, I saw 3 or 4 park staff members there including one who stopped by my campsite to give me the money I had overpaid for the site.  I figured it would just be a donation to the park system but…  I was at Elk Neck  State Park.

For those of you in the know, I am playing in a Cornhole league that friends of mine have sponsored  for a few years.  On Fridays, when the WX is good, we all get out and throw some bags.  Unfortunately, the WX has sucked  so my partner and I  have to  hook up w/ the teams that we missed games with and make them  up.

I mentioned that I was glad to have health benefits again through my employer, who wouldn’t’ be, eh?  Recently my blood pressure and cholesterol levels have skyrocketed despite my efforts to keep them down using natural supplements.  My blood pressure was so high the other day I almost went to the emergency room.  Being a man, that was of course out of the question.

I  did go to “Urgent Care” at my doctor’s office the next day.  My blood pressure was still high.  I got an EKG which was okay but had some possible  anomalies.  I got an immediate referral to the cardiologist at my “doctor’s office” and since I was paying out of pocket I had no insurance “people” to deal with, which was nice.  Unfortunately, the cardiologist scheduled me for a “Nuclear Stress Test” for which I had the insurance coverage but no documentation.

I have had to put the test on hold.  Hope I don’t die first….

Order Disorder

Posted on by chappyshi

I ordered concert tickets earlier this evening.  It costs less, for me, $2.75 vice $4.75, to have them snail mailed to me than to have them emailed…  What is up with that?  The seller has  to pay for the ink, paper, and postage for snail mail and for next to nothing to email.  Apparently most people  pay no attention and just have the tickets emailed to themselves at nearly twice the price of having them sent via the postal service.  Ticket sellers are…wait for it…winning!