A Weekend of Adventure!
Apr. 16th, 2012 01:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterI really regret not writing here more often. I used to keep a pretty regular record of my life here, and now all you get most times is a collection of my Twitter postings…and I don't even tweet that much anymore.
Anyway, I had a really eventful weekend, full of adventure, unexpected power outage, running back and forth, a forgotten jacket, a mysteriously missing army surplus shop, a moral victory at a casino, overshooting in Oklahoma, chairs for parents, ordering a new television, a gizmo to make Kindle operation easier for my amputee mother, Tommy and Tuppence, an army surplus lunch box, and more. If that description whets your interest, read past the cut I'm placing to be nice to my Dreamwidth and LiveJournal friends, and witness the story of my weekend.
Adventure
I had long been planning a trip to my chiropractor in Carthage for Saturday, with a trip west to Joplin to stop by a bookstore and drop off some promotional material for the SpringfieldGAME convention I'm helping with. I would then swing around to visit my parents, and do my laundry at their house to save on laundromat fees.
I got my laundry all packed into the car the night before, and added a couple of quarts of oil (the car tends to burn the stuff). What with one thing and another I got to bed later than I intended, but woke up a half hour or so earlier than the last-minute alarm I had set—which was good, since I had (as usual) underestimated the time everything would take.
Unexpected Power Outage
My first challenge came when I noticed the light didn't come on when I flipped the switch. And there was a storm outside. For the first time since I could remember, my power was completely out, with no prospects of coming back on any time soon—certainly not before I had to leave.
The ironic thing is that over the last few days I'd had a few problems with my Ubuntu Linux box in the wake of a system upgrade. It finally chose to start working again under mysterious circumstances when I simply moved it from the guest bedroom onto the kitchen table temporarily to try to see about tinkering with it. (Perhaps it just got lonely. Who knows?) I was glad to have it back, since I rely on it to be able to keep a constant, resumable connection to a chatserver where my friends hang out that I can connect to even when I'm away from home.
Except, without any power, there was no way to have that box up and running while I was away from home. So after all that fuss, I was going to be without my Linux box for no reason more complicated than a fricking power outage. Bleah.
Running Back and Forth
Anyway, I did the best job I could shaving in the half-light from the bathroom window (at least I still had hot water!), called the City Utilities power outage report line, then threw my laptop in the car with the other stuff I'd packed and hit the road. Noticing that my gas gauge was just a tick from empty, I decided to gas up before heading out to Carthage, but I really didn't feel like getting out in the rain and doing it myself.
Fortunately, there's a full service gas station just a couple of blocks from me, though they're cash-only. But I needed to get cash out for the chiropractor anyway, so I ran by the bank to get it, then the Braum's for a breakfast burrito, and Krispy Kreme for a cup of coffee (Braum's makes the greatest breakfast burritos ever, but horrible coffee. Krispy Kreme makes lousy donuts, but awesome coffee). A quick run through the full-service station, then the road beckoned. I hit Chestnut Expressway west at about 10:30, an hour before my appointment, and through judicious application of acceleration made it to the chiropractor almost exactly on time.
A Forgotten Jacket
I shucked out of my jacket in the waiting room. Really, it was too warm for it anyway, but I'd brought it because I wanted to be wearing it when I ran by the gaming shop in Joplin—it was the one that had buttons all over it. I saw the chiropractor, and he got me all straightened out the way he usually does (really, he's just magical that way!), and I headed out again.
I was so proud of myself for remembering to collect my glasses from the glasses-holder without being prompted that I went and forgot my jacket completely, and didn't notice it until I was in Joplin—by which time the chiropractor's was closed for the afternoon and nobody answered the phone. Fortunately, the chiropractor is a friend of my parents, and they'll be seeing him on Tuesday, so they'll just get the jacket then. And I'll be seeing the parents again next weekend, for reasons I'll be coming to later, and I can get it then.
On the whole, it's a little annoying to be without it that long, but on the other hand I don't really need it with the weather we're having (and the other jackets I have) so it's just an inconvenience more than anything else. Oh well.
I stopped by the gaming shop, gave my spiel, and dropped off my SpringfieldGAMEware. I suggested that we'd really love to see them as a vendor at the place, told them our rates, and so on, but the lady who ran the place said that they were a mom-and-pop shop and didn't have the employees necessary to send someone out like that. But who knows; maybe they'll still advertise or something, and at least the fliers will direct area gamers our way.
I headed on out to the next item on my agenda, which turned out to be…
A Mysteriously Missing Army Surplus Shop
One of the annoying things that's been happening to me at work, or at least that did happen to me several months ago, was that when I tried to bring my lunch, people kept stealing my Mountain Dew out of it. Even when I put a padlock on the lunch box, the unknown culprit simply unbent the rings that held the lock in place. (Several different people suggested doctoring a bottle of Mountain Dew with a hefty dose of laxative, but while fun to fantasize about that could lead to legal liability.) I finally just stopped bringing my lunch. I half-heartedly checked at local hardware stores to see if they had any sort of a small lockable strongbox I could use, but nobody had anything that would really work.
Then I ran across this article on Wired about someone using a .50 cal ammo box as a lunch box, and it occurred to me that it might not be so hard for as awesome a DIY'er as my Dad to retrofit an ammo box to accept a padlock. So I decided I'd buy one before heading out to my folks' place.
Except I ended up waking up too late to visit the local army surplus place in Springfield on the way out of town if I wanted to make my appointment. But hey, no problem—there's got to be some kind of army surplus place in a town the size of Joplin, right? And when I googled "army surplus Joplin MO" I got some references to a place called Five Star Army Surplus, including a street address. And it actually wasn't too far from the gaming shop!
But when I drove out to the mentioned address, I didn't see anything resembling an army surplus shop. (And it originally seemed so promising, too—the street it was on was just off a street called "Veterans Way"!) In fact, it was a residential area, with a bunch of houses and not even a 921 number I could find, though I drove by several times. (The street isn't even indexed for Google Street View!) A little more googling got me a phone number for the place, but when I called it was answered by a Japanese steakhouse!
I finally hit Google Maps and looked for the nearest army surplus place in general, and it pulled up a little place about twenty-five miles southwest of town, over the state line in Wyandotte, Oklahoma. Not too far out of the way, given that I'd have to travel south to get to the parents' anyway. So I pulled up directions on Google Maps and hit the road.
A Moral Victory at a Casino
My route there took me through Seneca, MO, a little town straddling the Missouri/Oklahoma state line, with a casino sitting just on the Oklahoma side, inside the Eastern Shawnee Nation. The signs intrigued me, and I thought I might stop by and blow $10 on slots or games or whatever. I'd set myself a hard limit of $10 and when it was blown, I'd blow too.
I followed the directions on the signs to get to the casino, found my way there without too much trouble, and looked around. There were lots of slot machines, but I decided I was more interested in some more human interaction. I'd never actually tried playing any card games in a casino, though I knew the rules of some of them. So I stopped at a $5 minimum/50 cent ante blackjack table.
My first hand, I got an ace and a queen, and won $5. Then my second I got a 15 and hit with a queen and lost $5. My third hand, I got 14 and hit with a 6, and won another $5, placing me $4.50 ahead all told, and at that point I decided to quit while I was ahead.
On the way out, I put a dollar in a slot machine and tried to figure out how it worked. And I…couldn't. I pressed some buttons and the reels spun, and pressed some more buttons and they spun some more, and then I got a flashing light and was told I'd won something, and hit the button for collect winnings, and got a voucher reading…60 cents. (The slots at this casino didn't work on the old coin system, alas; they're all electronic and they give you a voucher you redeem at a cashier's booth or a change-machine-style card reader. I can't help feeling it loses some of the romance of the thing that way.)
I decided to cut my losses at that point. It's one thing to gamble when you at least have some idea what you're doing—but if I just want to see random lights flash, I can play video games on my computer for free.
Still, I came out of the casino $4.10 richer than when I went into it. And I'm glad of it. I could have stayed and played more hands until I lost that $10, and fretted about not having made it back. (Yeah, maybe I could have won a little more, too. But I know me, my beginner's luck would have run out fast.) This way I got to feel like I had the fun experience of dipping a toe into the pool of sin and iniquity and earned about the same amount of money I would if I'd spent the same amount of time working at my day job.
One amusing postscript to the experience: coming back to the main road, I noticed that the signs directing you to the casino actually take you a bit out of the way—you drive farther along the main road than you need to, then you make two rights and drive back a couple of blocks, then a left. But when I took the most direct route back to the main road, it came out right across from a church. Small wonder they wouldn't want a sign right across from them directing people to the casino!
Overshooting in Oklahoma
Southwest of Seneca, I hit highway 60 and headed west. And kept right on heading west. I passed a number of casinos, including one that was built onto a convenience store and gas station. And then I got to the Twin Bridges over the Spring River and realized I'd gone just a leeeeetle bit too far. Like maybe ten miles or so.
The annoying thing about Google Maps's interface on the iPad is that, for whatever reason, it doesn't give the mileage of the last leg of the journey. If I look on the web version, I see I only needed to go 2.1 miles along Highway 60 to get to the surplus shop. But when you're trying to drive and map at the same time, it's easy to miss out on knowing where you're supposed to go.
On the bright side, I was able to pull into a scenic overlook over the lakes Spring River turns into at that point and snap some nice photos. (Oddly enough, the same thing happened when I drove a hundred miles or so in the wrong direction on my way back from Indianapolis a few months ago: when I learned I'd gone too far the wrong way, I ended up at a scenic overlook over a lake. What is it with me and wrong turns and large bodies of water?)
Anyway, I got turned around and headed back east, and managed to find the surplus shop after all. There wasn't much in the way of ammunition boxes there, however. All of the ones the size of the one featured in the Wired article were without their lids. There was one larger one that was still about acceptably sized with a lid, however. I got that one and headed out.
Chairs for Parents
The trip east to the parents' was largely uneventful. I passed through Neosho, then headed down some back roads, heading roughly due east until I got to McDowell and thence to the parents'. I might have driven a little faster than maybe I should have in some places, but the roads were almost entirely straight as arrows (except for some curvier sections near home which I know very well) and I just wanted to get there as quickly as I could. I made it about 4:30.
The day before, Friday, my place of employment was getting rid of its old office chairs, having ordered some new ones. It was selling the existing ones to employees who wanted them for $5 each. My first choice of chairs were taken, but there were a couple of rather nice armless ones that were in good condition without any obvious defects, and all the levers worked, so I kicked in ten bucks and loaded them into my car.
When I got to my parents' place, I pulled one out and told my Dad, "Have a seat!" We carried them into the house and put one in the parents' computer room and one upstairs at the desk in the belvedere where I set up my laptop when I come to visit. In both cases they were considerably more comfortable than the chairs they supplanted (and I am now guaranteed a comfy chair when I use my laptop!) I was really glad that they liked them; I had been concerned they might see them as needless clutter.
Ordering a New Television
While I was showing my Dad a gizmo I'd come into lately (a combination tape measure, flash light, and multi-headed screw driver), I measured the dimensions of his TV cabinet, where sits a 25" 4:3 color TV set that they've had for a number of years. I observed that the largest TV I supported at work that it would fit was a 39" model that was currently on sale for $400, marked down from $430.
Sadly, the social media rules at work mean that I can't say what brand name the set is (it's the higher-end store brand of a certain Big Box store, who I can't name either), since our company actually subcontracts its phone customer service to the store and the store doesn't wait it widely bruited about that it doesn't do its own support. But from my time supporting it, I consider it to be a good quality product (I've heard that Consumer Reports has had a lot of good things to say about our brand); it doesn't have some of the fancier features that our other sets do, but I know my parents' viewing habits and they don't need a really fancy set. And when you consider that the nearest-sized major brand set I priced, a 40" Samsung at Sam's, was $700, it's quite a bargain at the price. And also, it's a TV that I know very well because it's my job to support it for people who need help.
To my surprise and gratification, Mom and Dad were amenable to the idea of buying it. I discussed it with them, giving them my insider perspective on how the set works and possible support issues, advised them to get the 4 year extended warranty, and picked out the additional AV equipment they would need (HDMI cable, and an AV switcher to let them hook up their VCR and their DVD player to the single set of AV/component inputs on the set). And they decided to go ahead and order it.
And I made plans to come down again next Saturday and help set the TV up. It should be an interesting and educational experience, getting to work hands-on with one of the TVs I support every day. And it's going to be a huge improvement over their current set.
Their current set shows a 4:3 picture at 20 x 15 inches, or 300 square inches. 16:9 programs are shown letterboxed to 20 x 11.25 inches, or 225 square inches.
The new set will be 34 x 19 inches 16:0, which will show a 16:9 picture of 650 square inches—but even a pillarboxed 4:3 will be 25.333 x 19", or 481.333 square inches—one and a half times bigger than their whole 4:3 set right now. Yeah, that's gonna look all right. Especially since when we bought the parents a Roku the Christmas before last, we sprang for the highest-end one that supported HDMI against the time they would upgrade their set.
(As a post-script, I noticed this evening that the price on the set has fallen another $50 today, and have emailed advising them to call in and get the price adjusted.)
A Gizmo to Make Kindle Operation Easier for My Amputee Mother
I can't remember if I mentioned this here, but my mother lost her right arm in a farming accident on New Year's Eve. Earlier, we had gotten her a Kindle Touch. With only one hand, a Kindle could be easier to read than a paper book in some ways—but only if she could manage it one-handed, which can be a little tricky with a device of the Kindle's size and weight.
But a representative from a company that made a device called the Flygrip saw a blog post I made on the subject, and offered a free unit for Mom to try out, and another for me to review for my blog, TeleRead. They sent them out, and the devices arrived that weekend, and we tried them out. Though for the full story, I'll direct you to the review I later wrote and posted to TeleRead.
Tommy and Tuppence
That evening, after a meal of a bean soup recipe my parents call Different Bean Soup, and cornbread, and as we folded the laundry we'd done, we watched a show. They weren't interested in the movie I brought, but they offered to show me the movie The Secret Adversary, based on Agatha Christie's first Tommy and Tuppence novel, which I had actually just read the week before. I was very interested to see it, gratified that it hove quite faithfully to the book, and delighted by how well the characters were cast. It did make me a little late for bed, though.
And boy did I feel that lack of sleep when it came to be time for church the next morning! Now, usually on these visits I pack my stuff up in the morning, drive separately to church, and head on home from there. But today the parents offered me lunch at home (more Different Bean Soup and cornbread) and conversation on the way and back if I wanted to go to church with them, and I figured why not—it was good soup and cornbread.
And after church, Dad stopped by the hardware store to get the parts necessary to convert the ammo box into a locking lunch box—so staying also meant I could take my lunch box back home with me, rather than having to wait a week for it. So why not?
An Army Surplus Lunch Box
So Dad went out to his shop to work on the box, and I fiddled with my laptop upstairs, writing posts for TeleRead in between bouts of having to unplug the computers due to thunderstorms passing near. (My parents had actually been worried about thunderstorms Saturday afternoon, but it was extremely fine weather everywhere I was then, even though I later heard there were tornados near Oklahoma City.) At one point we even got a little sleet or small hail for a minute or so.
When the rain let up, I headed out to Dad's workshop to see how he was doing on the lunchbox, and it turned out he'd just finished. Rather than describe it in detail, I'll link to a photo gallery with pictures and details. It was really impressive what he did, especially since it turned out the hasp he bought at the hardware store was too short, and he had to make his own out of some aluminum scrap he had on hand.
I can't wait 'til tomorrow when I take it in to work. Nobody's going to steal my Dew again!
Parental Pizza
After that, I half-heartedly thought about packing up my computer and laundry and heading out, but then my parents offered to make pizza for supper if I cared to stay. And parent-made pizza is not exactly something that comes along every day anymore. So yes, I stayed. And I even contributed a tin of anchovies that had been kicking around my car ever since falling out of a bag of groceries I'd bought some months before.
The pizza was good, albeit a little salty from the anchovies. I do wish I'd suggested to Dad that they should just be evenly spaced around the pizza, rather than mashed up and combined with the sauce. They would have been more flavorful on their own; all they really did mixed in was make the pizza saltier. But even with that, it was still incredibly delicious, and there were two pieces left over that they sent home with me. I'm looking forward to having those for lunch tomorrow and Tuesday. (In my new army surplus lunch box!)
A Taxing Experience
After supper, I packed, hit the road and headed on home while it was still light, getting back just as it got dark. After which I proceeded to download the latest version of H&R Block's income tax program and do my taxes at the last possible minute. Fortunately, I only had about three forms to enter and a lot of things to click "Next" to, and in the end, this year it turns out the Federal government owes me $433…but I owe the State government $150. Going to have to do something about cranking up my State withholdings at work, methinks. And write a $150 check…
Tomorrow on the way to or from work I will stop by the library or FedEx Office and print the forms out, get some envelopes, and perhaps meter and mail them through the automated machine at the post office. Or perhaps even a living person, if the lines aren't terribly long.
And that's my weekend, written while the memories are still fresh in the hope that, in years to come when I look back and read this, I will perhaps be able to remember something of what happened in the last couple of days. If it's very long, the recollections will probably be pretty dim. I look back at some of the earlier entries in this journal and wonder what the heck I was talking about.
Still, it's something to leave behind for the future me, or people who come after me.
Now I'm going to go shower and try to catch up on some sleep for tomorrow. I've got a full day of work ahead…and an army surplus lunchbox!
Anyway, I had a really eventful weekend, full of adventure, unexpected power outage, running back and forth, a forgotten jacket, a mysteriously missing army surplus shop, a moral victory at a casino, overshooting in Oklahoma, chairs for parents, ordering a new television, a gizmo to make Kindle operation easier for my amputee mother, Tommy and Tuppence, an army surplus lunch box, and more. If that description whets your interest, read past the cut I'm placing to be nice to my Dreamwidth and LiveJournal friends, and witness the story of my weekend.
Adventure
I had long been planning a trip to my chiropractor in Carthage for Saturday, with a trip west to Joplin to stop by a bookstore and drop off some promotional material for the SpringfieldGAME convention I'm helping with. I would then swing around to visit my parents, and do my laundry at their house to save on laundromat fees.
I got my laundry all packed into the car the night before, and added a couple of quarts of oil (the car tends to burn the stuff). What with one thing and another I got to bed later than I intended, but woke up a half hour or so earlier than the last-minute alarm I had set—which was good, since I had (as usual) underestimated the time everything would take.
Unexpected Power Outage
My first challenge came when I noticed the light didn't come on when I flipped the switch. And there was a storm outside. For the first time since I could remember, my power was completely out, with no prospects of coming back on any time soon—certainly not before I had to leave.
The ironic thing is that over the last few days I'd had a few problems with my Ubuntu Linux box in the wake of a system upgrade. It finally chose to start working again under mysterious circumstances when I simply moved it from the guest bedroom onto the kitchen table temporarily to try to see about tinkering with it. (Perhaps it just got lonely. Who knows?) I was glad to have it back, since I rely on it to be able to keep a constant, resumable connection to a chatserver where my friends hang out that I can connect to even when I'm away from home.
Except, without any power, there was no way to have that box up and running while I was away from home. So after all that fuss, I was going to be without my Linux box for no reason more complicated than a fricking power outage. Bleah.
Running Back and Forth
Anyway, I did the best job I could shaving in the half-light from the bathroom window (at least I still had hot water!), called the City Utilities power outage report line, then threw my laptop in the car with the other stuff I'd packed and hit the road. Noticing that my gas gauge was just a tick from empty, I decided to gas up before heading out to Carthage, but I really didn't feel like getting out in the rain and doing it myself.
Fortunately, there's a full service gas station just a couple of blocks from me, though they're cash-only. But I needed to get cash out for the chiropractor anyway, so I ran by the bank to get it, then the Braum's for a breakfast burrito, and Krispy Kreme for a cup of coffee (Braum's makes the greatest breakfast burritos ever, but horrible coffee. Krispy Kreme makes lousy donuts, but awesome coffee). A quick run through the full-service station, then the road beckoned. I hit Chestnut Expressway west at about 10:30, an hour before my appointment, and through judicious application of acceleration made it to the chiropractor almost exactly on time.
A Forgotten Jacket
I shucked out of my jacket in the waiting room. Really, it was too warm for it anyway, but I'd brought it because I wanted to be wearing it when I ran by the gaming shop in Joplin—it was the one that had buttons all over it. I saw the chiropractor, and he got me all straightened out the way he usually does (really, he's just magical that way!), and I headed out again.
I was so proud of myself for remembering to collect my glasses from the glasses-holder without being prompted that I went and forgot my jacket completely, and didn't notice it until I was in Joplin—by which time the chiropractor's was closed for the afternoon and nobody answered the phone. Fortunately, the chiropractor is a friend of my parents, and they'll be seeing him on Tuesday, so they'll just get the jacket then. And I'll be seeing the parents again next weekend, for reasons I'll be coming to later, and I can get it then.
On the whole, it's a little annoying to be without it that long, but on the other hand I don't really need it with the weather we're having (and the other jackets I have) so it's just an inconvenience more than anything else. Oh well.
I stopped by the gaming shop, gave my spiel, and dropped off my SpringfieldGAMEware. I suggested that we'd really love to see them as a vendor at the place, told them our rates, and so on, but the lady who ran the place said that they were a mom-and-pop shop and didn't have the employees necessary to send someone out like that. But who knows; maybe they'll still advertise or something, and at least the fliers will direct area gamers our way.
I headed on out to the next item on my agenda, which turned out to be…
A Mysteriously Missing Army Surplus Shop
One of the annoying things that's been happening to me at work, or at least that did happen to me several months ago, was that when I tried to bring my lunch, people kept stealing my Mountain Dew out of it. Even when I put a padlock on the lunch box, the unknown culprit simply unbent the rings that held the lock in place. (Several different people suggested doctoring a bottle of Mountain Dew with a hefty dose of laxative, but while fun to fantasize about that could lead to legal liability.) I finally just stopped bringing my lunch. I half-heartedly checked at local hardware stores to see if they had any sort of a small lockable strongbox I could use, but nobody had anything that would really work.
Then I ran across this article on Wired about someone using a .50 cal ammo box as a lunch box, and it occurred to me that it might not be so hard for as awesome a DIY'er as my Dad to retrofit an ammo box to accept a padlock. So I decided I'd buy one before heading out to my folks' place.
Except I ended up waking up too late to visit the local army surplus place in Springfield on the way out of town if I wanted to make my appointment. But hey, no problem—there's got to be some kind of army surplus place in a town the size of Joplin, right? And when I googled "army surplus Joplin MO" I got some references to a place called Five Star Army Surplus, including a street address. And it actually wasn't too far from the gaming shop!
But when I drove out to the mentioned address, I didn't see anything resembling an army surplus shop. (And it originally seemed so promising, too—the street it was on was just off a street called "Veterans Way"!) In fact, it was a residential area, with a bunch of houses and not even a 921 number I could find, though I drove by several times. (The street isn't even indexed for Google Street View!) A little more googling got me a phone number for the place, but when I called it was answered by a Japanese steakhouse!
I finally hit Google Maps and looked for the nearest army surplus place in general, and it pulled up a little place about twenty-five miles southwest of town, over the state line in Wyandotte, Oklahoma. Not too far out of the way, given that I'd have to travel south to get to the parents' anyway. So I pulled up directions on Google Maps and hit the road.
A Moral Victory at a Casino
My route there took me through Seneca, MO, a little town straddling the Missouri/Oklahoma state line, with a casino sitting just on the Oklahoma side, inside the Eastern Shawnee Nation. The signs intrigued me, and I thought I might stop by and blow $10 on slots or games or whatever. I'd set myself a hard limit of $10 and when it was blown, I'd blow too.
I followed the directions on the signs to get to the casino, found my way there without too much trouble, and looked around. There were lots of slot machines, but I decided I was more interested in some more human interaction. I'd never actually tried playing any card games in a casino, though I knew the rules of some of them. So I stopped at a $5 minimum/50 cent ante blackjack table.
My first hand, I got an ace and a queen, and won $5. Then my second I got a 15 and hit with a queen and lost $5. My third hand, I got 14 and hit with a 6, and won another $5, placing me $4.50 ahead all told, and at that point I decided to quit while I was ahead.
On the way out, I put a dollar in a slot machine and tried to figure out how it worked. And I…couldn't. I pressed some buttons and the reels spun, and pressed some more buttons and they spun some more, and then I got a flashing light and was told I'd won something, and hit the button for collect winnings, and got a voucher reading…60 cents. (The slots at this casino didn't work on the old coin system, alas; they're all electronic and they give you a voucher you redeem at a cashier's booth or a change-machine-style card reader. I can't help feeling it loses some of the romance of the thing that way.)
I decided to cut my losses at that point. It's one thing to gamble when you at least have some idea what you're doing—but if I just want to see random lights flash, I can play video games on my computer for free.
Still, I came out of the casino $4.10 richer than when I went into it. And I'm glad of it. I could have stayed and played more hands until I lost that $10, and fretted about not having made it back. (Yeah, maybe I could have won a little more, too. But I know me, my beginner's luck would have run out fast.) This way I got to feel like I had the fun experience of dipping a toe into the pool of sin and iniquity and earned about the same amount of money I would if I'd spent the same amount of time working at my day job.
One amusing postscript to the experience: coming back to the main road, I noticed that the signs directing you to the casino actually take you a bit out of the way—you drive farther along the main road than you need to, then you make two rights and drive back a couple of blocks, then a left. But when I took the most direct route back to the main road, it came out right across from a church. Small wonder they wouldn't want a sign right across from them directing people to the casino!
Overshooting in Oklahoma
Southwest of Seneca, I hit highway 60 and headed west. And kept right on heading west. I passed a number of casinos, including one that was built onto a convenience store and gas station. And then I got to the Twin Bridges over the Spring River and realized I'd gone just a leeeeetle bit too far. Like maybe ten miles or so.
The annoying thing about Google Maps's interface on the iPad is that, for whatever reason, it doesn't give the mileage of the last leg of the journey. If I look on the web version, I see I only needed to go 2.1 miles along Highway 60 to get to the surplus shop. But when you're trying to drive and map at the same time, it's easy to miss out on knowing where you're supposed to go.
On the bright side, I was able to pull into a scenic overlook over the lakes Spring River turns into at that point and snap some nice photos. (Oddly enough, the same thing happened when I drove a hundred miles or so in the wrong direction on my way back from Indianapolis a few months ago: when I learned I'd gone too far the wrong way, I ended up at a scenic overlook over a lake. What is it with me and wrong turns and large bodies of water?)Anyway, I got turned around and headed back east, and managed to find the surplus shop after all. There wasn't much in the way of ammunition boxes there, however. All of the ones the size of the one featured in the Wired article were without their lids. There was one larger one that was still about acceptably sized with a lid, however. I got that one and headed out.
Chairs for Parents
The trip east to the parents' was largely uneventful. I passed through Neosho, then headed down some back roads, heading roughly due east until I got to McDowell and thence to the parents'. I might have driven a little faster than maybe I should have in some places, but the roads were almost entirely straight as arrows (except for some curvier sections near home which I know very well) and I just wanted to get there as quickly as I could. I made it about 4:30.
The day before, Friday, my place of employment was getting rid of its old office chairs, having ordered some new ones. It was selling the existing ones to employees who wanted them for $5 each. My first choice of chairs were taken, but there were a couple of rather nice armless ones that were in good condition without any obvious defects, and all the levers worked, so I kicked in ten bucks and loaded them into my car.
When I got to my parents' place, I pulled one out and told my Dad, "Have a seat!" We carried them into the house and put one in the parents' computer room and one upstairs at the desk in the belvedere where I set up my laptop when I come to visit. In both cases they were considerably more comfortable than the chairs they supplanted (and I am now guaranteed a comfy chair when I use my laptop!) I was really glad that they liked them; I had been concerned they might see them as needless clutter.
Ordering a New Television
While I was showing my Dad a gizmo I'd come into lately (a combination tape measure, flash light, and multi-headed screw driver), I measured the dimensions of his TV cabinet, where sits a 25" 4:3 color TV set that they've had for a number of years. I observed that the largest TV I supported at work that it would fit was a 39" model that was currently on sale for $400, marked down from $430.
Sadly, the social media rules at work mean that I can't say what brand name the set is (it's the higher-end store brand of a certain Big Box store, who I can't name either), since our company actually subcontracts its phone customer service to the store and the store doesn't wait it widely bruited about that it doesn't do its own support. But from my time supporting it, I consider it to be a good quality product (I've heard that Consumer Reports has had a lot of good things to say about our brand); it doesn't have some of the fancier features that our other sets do, but I know my parents' viewing habits and they don't need a really fancy set. And when you consider that the nearest-sized major brand set I priced, a 40" Samsung at Sam's, was $700, it's quite a bargain at the price. And also, it's a TV that I know very well because it's my job to support it for people who need help.
To my surprise and gratification, Mom and Dad were amenable to the idea of buying it. I discussed it with them, giving them my insider perspective on how the set works and possible support issues, advised them to get the 4 year extended warranty, and picked out the additional AV equipment they would need (HDMI cable, and an AV switcher to let them hook up their VCR and their DVD player to the single set of AV/component inputs on the set). And they decided to go ahead and order it.
And I made plans to come down again next Saturday and help set the TV up. It should be an interesting and educational experience, getting to work hands-on with one of the TVs I support every day. And it's going to be a huge improvement over their current set.
Their current set shows a 4:3 picture at 20 x 15 inches, or 300 square inches. 16:9 programs are shown letterboxed to 20 x 11.25 inches, or 225 square inches.
The new set will be 34 x 19 inches 16:0, which will show a 16:9 picture of 650 square inches—but even a pillarboxed 4:3 will be 25.333 x 19", or 481.333 square inches—one and a half times bigger than their whole 4:3 set right now. Yeah, that's gonna look all right. Especially since when we bought the parents a Roku the Christmas before last, we sprang for the highest-end one that supported HDMI against the time they would upgrade their set.
(As a post-script, I noticed this evening that the price on the set has fallen another $50 today, and have emailed advising them to call in and get the price adjusted.)
A Gizmo to Make Kindle Operation Easier for My Amputee Mother
I can't remember if I mentioned this here, but my mother lost her right arm in a farming accident on New Year's Eve. Earlier, we had gotten her a Kindle Touch. With only one hand, a Kindle could be easier to read than a paper book in some ways—but only if she could manage it one-handed, which can be a little tricky with a device of the Kindle's size and weight.
But a representative from a company that made a device called the Flygrip saw a blog post I made on the subject, and offered a free unit for Mom to try out, and another for me to review for my blog, TeleRead. They sent them out, and the devices arrived that weekend, and we tried them out. Though for the full story, I'll direct you to the review I later wrote and posted to TeleRead.
Tommy and Tuppence
That evening, after a meal of a bean soup recipe my parents call Different Bean Soup, and cornbread, and as we folded the laundry we'd done, we watched a show. They weren't interested in the movie I brought, but they offered to show me the movie The Secret Adversary, based on Agatha Christie's first Tommy and Tuppence novel, which I had actually just read the week before. I was very interested to see it, gratified that it hove quite faithfully to the book, and delighted by how well the characters were cast. It did make me a little late for bed, though.
And boy did I feel that lack of sleep when it came to be time for church the next morning! Now, usually on these visits I pack my stuff up in the morning, drive separately to church, and head on home from there. But today the parents offered me lunch at home (more Different Bean Soup and cornbread) and conversation on the way and back if I wanted to go to church with them, and I figured why not—it was good soup and cornbread.
And after church, Dad stopped by the hardware store to get the parts necessary to convert the ammo box into a locking lunch box—so staying also meant I could take my lunch box back home with me, rather than having to wait a week for it. So why not?
An Army Surplus Lunch Box
So Dad went out to his shop to work on the box, and I fiddled with my laptop upstairs, writing posts for TeleRead in between bouts of having to unplug the computers due to thunderstorms passing near. (My parents had actually been worried about thunderstorms Saturday afternoon, but it was extremely fine weather everywhere I was then, even though I later heard there were tornados near Oklahoma City.) At one point we even got a little sleet or small hail for a minute or so.
When the rain let up, I headed out to Dad's workshop to see how he was doing on the lunchbox, and it turned out he'd just finished. Rather than describe it in detail, I'll link to a photo gallery with pictures and details. It was really impressive what he did, especially since it turned out the hasp he bought at the hardware store was too short, and he had to make his own out of some aluminum scrap he had on hand.
I can't wait 'til tomorrow when I take it in to work. Nobody's going to steal my Dew again!
Parental Pizza
After that, I half-heartedly thought about packing up my computer and laundry and heading out, but then my parents offered to make pizza for supper if I cared to stay. And parent-made pizza is not exactly something that comes along every day anymore. So yes, I stayed. And I even contributed a tin of anchovies that had been kicking around my car ever since falling out of a bag of groceries I'd bought some months before.
The pizza was good, albeit a little salty from the anchovies. I do wish I'd suggested to Dad that they should just be evenly spaced around the pizza, rather than mashed up and combined with the sauce. They would have been more flavorful on their own; all they really did mixed in was make the pizza saltier. But even with that, it was still incredibly delicious, and there were two pieces left over that they sent home with me. I'm looking forward to having those for lunch tomorrow and Tuesday. (In my new army surplus lunch box!)
A Taxing Experience
After supper, I packed, hit the road and headed on home while it was still light, getting back just as it got dark. After which I proceeded to download the latest version of H&R Block's income tax program and do my taxes at the last possible minute. Fortunately, I only had about three forms to enter and a lot of things to click "Next" to, and in the end, this year it turns out the Federal government owes me $433…but I owe the State government $150. Going to have to do something about cranking up my State withholdings at work, methinks. And write a $150 check…
Tomorrow on the way to or from work I will stop by the library or FedEx Office and print the forms out, get some envelopes, and perhaps meter and mail them through the automated machine at the post office. Or perhaps even a living person, if the lines aren't terribly long.
And that's my weekend, written while the memories are still fresh in the hope that, in years to come when I look back and read this, I will perhaps be able to remember something of what happened in the last couple of days. If it's very long, the recollections will probably be pretty dim. I look back at some of the earlier entries in this journal and wonder what the heck I was talking about.
Still, it's something to leave behind for the future me, or people who come after me.
Now I'm going to go shower and try to catch up on some sleep for tomorrow. I've got a full day of work ahead…and an army surplus lunchbox!
