Supermarket

It's been 44 years since this was filmed and grocery shopping is still a drag.

Orlando, FL

Today was very hectic and busy. The phones were particularly busy.

Debbie came in this morning and she did almost nothing but complain for an hour. Evidently a lightning strike has ruined her pool chlorinator and it is going to cost $1,000 to fix it. Also, she has black algea growing in the pool. The men who were supposed to fix her drywall never showed up, so she can't push her furniture back up against the walls either -- emergency du jour, right? She should just be grateful the plumbing was fix and fix the damned drywall herself.

Tomorrow we are having a training session with a man from Jackson MSC. It starts at noon and Fay is ordering sandwiches for Craig, Nancy, Nick, Debbie, herself, me, and the trainer. I am not going to participate - I am going to catch the phones while it goes on.

This evening I made Cajun Blackened Fish Fillets with asparagus and mango slices for dinner. It's sufficiently low in cholesterol for Bob's benefit. I also watered the plants and wiped the vulture shit off of our balcony railing.

Now I just want to read and go to bed early.

Weekend

FER-Orlando finished the week with $218k in new orders, and Hollywood brought in something over $100k.

We had turkey-sirloin burgers on our little 14-inch tabletop grill for dinner on Friday.

On Saturday morning I got up around 7:00 AM to walk Buddy. Then we had Cheerios and coffee for breakfast. After this we went back to bed until around noon. Then we got up and went to Ace Hardware to get a flexible toilet fill line, and then to SuperTarget to get some fruits and vegetables.

In the afternoon the vultures reappeared. Two of them came to our catwalk and looked into our windows. It's kinda freaky how they seem to favor our windows.

When we came home I finished the master bathroom toilet rebuild. Then I made a salad and fried chicken breast for dinner.

In the evening we downloaded Doomsday to a DVD and watched this movie. We went to bed after the movie - around 11:00 PM.

This morning I got up shortly after 7:00 AM, walked Buddy, ate cereal and coffee, and then we got ready to go to Daytona to mow the grass at Tom & Louise's house. We also ran the grass whip, nailed the aluminum siding back up on the fascia board, and ran the vacuum cleaner inside the house.

We had lunch at Subway, then we bought cigarettes, potato chips, and candy for Bob's parents and went to Oaktree to visit with them.

The nursing home seems to have changed. They are keeping the front door locked, they are treating us VERY nicely, and they seem to have hired more help. There were also a large number of empty beds. The lady at the front desk talked to Bob about Tom and said that someone, she did not know who, called DCF about Tom.

Tom has lost a lot of weight and he is still on a liquid diet.

After a couple hours we headed back to Orlando, went to the ATM and then to the Farmer's Market to get some zucchini, tomatoes, and mangoes. Bob bought some of that good Blue Mountain Coffee, and we shared a funnel cake.

When we came home we took a nap.

In the evening Buddy got his walk, then we watched The History Channel's Ice Road Truckers series before cleaning the floors and tables. Now, as short as this weekend was, it is time for another week of work.

Orlando, FL

This morning we over-slept until 6:00 AM! It wasn't a big deal for Bob -- he was off today anyway, but I had a big day with the Kolpak training in the office. I pulled shorts and t-shirt on and took Buddy for his morning walk. When I got back I had a bowl of Cheerios and a cup of coffee.

I showered, shaved, and dressed in black slacks and blue permanent press shirt embroidered with the FER logo. I carried my bag and my plate of eggs down to the truck and headed to the office.

Nancy and Nick arrived at 8:10 AM. Fay told them to go to the Test Kitchen and leave me alone, but they could not resist. They wanted to chat me up even though I was trying to get the orders placed and the acknowledgements back as quickly as I could.

Nancy came up front with a package, "Vince, will you mail this for me?" I abruptly replied, "No." She said it didn't have to be done immediately, and I told her to make a label for it.

Randy White from Kolpak arrived at 8:45 and Fay drove up with Barbara right at the same time!

We transferred our phones to Hollywood for the day and both of us set out-of-office messages on our email so that our interruptions would be minimized during our training session.

We held the first part of the training in the Test Kitchen. There were six of us and our group fit comfortably around the conference table. We had coffee and muffins out for breakfast.

There was a strong thunderstorm around lunch time. We ordered assorted sandwiches, pasta salad, potato salad, potato chips, and pickles for lunch. We also had an assorted cheesecake in the reach-in refrigerator that we picked up during out trip to BJ's Warehouse yesterday.

After lunch we all headed to Fay's office to work on the Configurator - an online tool that helps to prepare quotations and drawings of the walk-in boxes. It seems to be a handy tool and the factory man was impressed with how detail-oriented Fay and Barbara are! He said that the last rep group always quoted stuff themselves and when they made mistakes they expected the factory to just absort the costs!

I was impressed with how much support it sounds like we will be getting from Kolpak. I am looking forward to working with them.

Evelyn showed up at 2:30 PM to work on Craig's computer. She tried to turn it off and ended up with the famous "Blue Screen Of Death". It said his hard drive had a corrupt boot sector or something like that. Anyway, it isn't something that can be fixed. Evelyn took the computer with her to get a replacement hard disk and try to recover the data. Craig was pissed when she called him to tell him.

Bob sent me an email message today letting me know that a vulture had landed on the ledge outside our window and was staring at him. He let the dog outside on the balcony twice and it flew away. Later in the afternoon it returned. Bob threw and empty Coke can at it, but the bird was completely unafraid.

I am not sure what the presence of that bird means. Vultures are a sign of death. Has something died nearby? Is someone going to die? Strange.

Fay was excited to hear that two of her grandsons and a friend are coming up from South Florida for the weekend and she asked me if she could take the leftover sandwiches and I said, "Sure, just leave me the cheesecake leftovers." Well, that wasn't good enough because she said, "Well, I wanted to take cheesecake home to my (diabetic) husband!" We compromised. She took two slices of cheesecake and replaced them with two muffins - yes, she took 7 of the 9 leftover muffins home too.

When I walked in the front door I immediately noticed a bag of charcoal on the dining room table. Then I saw some flames outside on our balcony. Bobby got a 14-inch tabletop charcoal grill from the grocery store and had turkey-beef hamburgers ready for the grill! We had a nice dinner of turkey-sirloin burgers and vegetables.

After walking the dog we returned home to conduct our Friday night ritual of brushing the teeth. He hates it, but it was over in a couple of minutes. I think it is helping - the brown tartar on his molars is getting lighter.

This weekend I want to replace the waterline on the master bath toilet, and read. Nothing ambitious. We have to go to Daytona Beach on Sunday to mow the grass, and since Tom is being returned to Oaktree, I guess we will drop in there to visit as well.

Orlando, FL

Finally!! I have a chance to sit down and bring you up-to-the-minute on what's been going on these past couple of days.

We lost a bunch of celebrities this week: Ed McMahon - 86, Farrah Fawcett - 62, and Michael Jackson - 50. Out of these Michael has received the most press - almost continuous reporting on TV news and the local radio stations are playing all Michael Jackson all weekend long.

Yesterday Bob had a short day at work. He was home by 11:00 AM. He emptied the dish washer and he ran a load of dark clothes. When I finally got home around 6:00 PM, he was off to his class. I took the darks out of the dryer, started a load of whites, fried up some lamb chops, boiled some eggs, and got the tools ready for the master bathroom toilet overhaul.

After the chops were fried and the eggs were boiled I put the pot of eggs into the sink, poured out the hot water, filled it with cool water, and added ice cubes. Then I harnessed Buddy up and took him for his evening walk. We checked the mail on the way back up.

For the next hour I carefully shelled the eggs. Then I split them into halves putting the yolks into a bowl and arranging the whites on my devilled egg plate. I mixed mayo, yellow mustard, dry mustard powder, dash of salt, and garlic powder into the yolk and I mashed and mixed with a fork. Then I spooned the mix into my cookie press and piped the mixture into the whites. I garnished with paprika and parsley.

With this done I folded up the dark clothes and then started work overhauling the toilet in the master bathroom. I got this finished before Bobby got home at 10:30, but it is not completely satisfactory -- the waterline is weeping and dripping where the tubing connects to the valve on the wall. We are going to go to the hardware store to get plastic tubing to replace the steel tubing. Then we can align everything better and stop the leaking.

I showered after this job. When I got out of the shower I found Bob putting his folded laundry away!

Orlando, FL

This morning started out foggy. It lifted some by the time I started toward work, but the tops of the downtown buildings were still up in the haze as I sped past on I-4.

Work was pretty busy today. The phones were quite busy.

I went to Subway during lunch. It was hot today, but not as hot as yesterday. Still, I think it was around 93°F. When I got back I was damp with sweat and that made me uncomfortable for the rest of the afternoon.

I developed a headache during the afternoon too - this was from the heat mostly - my sinuses, and from some of the stress of dealing with the Delfield factory and Darden regarding a very demanding project manager and a behind-schedule Capital Grille restaurant. They have become so demanding, and even abusive.

Fay left the office at 3:30 PM to go home and meet the cable guy for TV, internet, and phone installation. I wasn't able to leave the office until 5:45 PM. I got home quickly, but I had not thawed anything out for dinner so I made the Quick And Easy Tuna Casserole.

We've walked Buddy, I read the Orlando Weekly, and Bob is reading his book for his class. The dog just came in here, got comfortable under the table, and farted. I have banished him to his bed.

Orlando, FL

Around 4:45 AM I saw a brief flash of bright light. I imagined it was a truck shining its headlights into the bedroom. A minute later I saw another flash and then heard the thunder. It was an early morning thunderstorm!

I watched the fireworks of lightning as the storm moved off to the south and got up to walk the dog around 5:30.

It was clear that it had rained all over the downtown as I headed out to FER. Even the interstate was still wet as I drove. When I got past OBT and the road turns more southwesterly, I could see a rainbow out over Lake Buena Vista where it was obviously still raining.

Today was Greg Olsen's birthday (57th, I think) and we wished him a happy one. He thanked us for the birthday card we sent last week that played music when opened.

Debbie came in around 11:30 AM and did nothing but complain for an hour. She was telling Fay about her strategies for saving money since her pay was cut back so much. She had combined her cable TV, internet, and phone into one low monthly bill, she is shopping at Winn-Dixie, and she is boiling water in an electric kettle before pouring it into a pot on the stove when she makes macaroni. Geez. I don't even think that saves any electricity!

Fortunately for us, she had to get going to get some lunch, and then take her dog, Harley, to the vet for dental work at 3:00 PM. She just can't help herself -- she always tells us what she is up to!

The afternoon became quite warm and humid. During lunch I went to my storage unit to put my oil change supplies inside. I also poured the water out of the cup under the dessicant I set out in there. I stopped at Subway and got a sandwich before heading back to the office.

In the evening more powerful thunderstorms came through the area. Lots of lightning, thunder, and always welcome rains.

Orlando, FL

I followed Bob down to Ice Cold Air at Colonial Drive and Ferncreek to take him to work after dropping his Nissan off to have the AC fixed. When we got there we found out their opening time changed from 7 AM to 8 AM. Bob told me to go ahead to work and that he would have someone from the office pick him up.

The shop did not charge him to fix the AC! They said we had over-charged the system with refrigerant. Evidently the Nissan AC system is very picky about how much you put in and if you put in too much it won't work!

There were only a few orders at work today, and more than a few problems, but overall, I think, it was a good day. Craig said that he's never been busier. I believe him, but he takes on issues that FER really has no business in.

It was another very hot day. I stayed in at lunch and ate a packed lunch. If I go out, I will get too warm and sweaty, and I will be uncomfortable for the rest of the afternoon.

It was 95°F at 7:30 PM, but I took Buddy out for his walk anyway. I think we were out for 20 minutes. He was tired when we came back in.

Weekend

The nursing home phoned Bob on Friday afternoon to report that his dad signed a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) Form and said that he simply wanted to die. A little while later they called back to say that he changed his mind and wanted to go to the hospital.

The ER nurse phoned in later to let us know what Tom had low blood pressure and a few other things wrong. The next day the doctor phoned to tell us that Tom had renal failure, septicimia, UTI, and a bunch of other things going on. They had him on antibiotics and were keeping him in the ICU.

I think Bob started to become angry with the nursing home at this point because there is no way he could have had all of these things wrong and their doctor presents his dad with a DNR form (these are only supposed to be signed by someone in the right frame of mind).

Because it was so warm all day Saturday we did not go out. I had staged supplies for an oil change in my truck, but it was too hot to go out and do this.

This morning we got up and showered and decided to go to Daytona Beach to see Tom and take Louise to visit with him too. We started by adding a pound of refrigerant to his air conditioner. The AC would not take it all, but it wouldn't blow real cold air either. The clutch sounded like it was clicking on and off alot too. I wonder what is causing this. Is the clutch going bad? Has air leaked into the system and frozen, starving the compressor for refrigerant? I don't know.

We stopped at the 7 Eleven to get gas and I went inside to buy Coke Zero for us. The cashier asked me, "Are you a father?" I said, "Why, do you want to call me 'Daddy'?" The manager started to laugh, he said, "It's her duty to wish all the fathers in the world a Happy Father's Day."

We drove up to Daytona and the inside of the car grew steadily warmer.

At Daytona we checked on the house first. Then we went to Oaktree to get Louise. We told her to take her hairbrush with her because we had to put the windows down.

She said the last time she saw Tom was Friday and he was on a respirator that day. Nobody told her that he had been taken to the hospital. The home staff seemed very nervous and defensive about everything.

We went to Halifax Hospital and found Tom in ICU on the 5th floor. He looked pale, but he was awake and alert. His blood pressure was improved and it looked like he was making plenty of urine. I guess the biggest part of his problems was caused by not getting enough water.

I left Bob and Louise with Tom and went down to the second floor waiting room to read the paperback I brought with me.

After about an hour Bob and Louise came to get me and we took Louise out to Arby's for lunch. She was very hungry and at a regular roast beef sandwich and fries up like a wolf! I am sure it tasted much better than the swill they feed them at the nursing home.

We took Louise back to Oaktree and let her smoke a cigarette before she went inside to lay down.

Our drive back to Orlando was sweltering. The thermometer inside the car displayed 102, 103°F on the interstate. It was a very hot and very humid afternoon.

When we got home I changed the oil and oil filter in the truck and then got a good shower. We waited until after 7 PM to take Buddy outside for his walk. I think it was still too warm for him then.

We had leftover Italian Spinach and Chicken Skillet for dinner along with salad and a fruit salad for our dinner. Bob ran the Swiffer Wet Jet in the kitchen, emptied the dish machine, and wiped the range down. I range the vacuum cleaner and cleaned the glass table tops.

Now it is time to start another week. Ugggh. This was the longest day of the year - tomorrow will be two minutes shorter than this one.

Orlando, FL

It was a hot day today. I took leftovers with me to work to eat during lunch. It was just too hot to go anywhere in my un-air conditioned truck.

In the morning a phone call came in from Darden Restaurants. Fay took the call. It was Monica Marcotte asking Fay, "So, when do you officially take over Kolpak?" Fay said, "Well, we don't officially have it until July 1, and we've already had our fingers smacked for sending quote requests to the factory early! We haven't even had the training on this line yet." Monica replies, "Oh, well, I have an emergency at a restaurant with a Kolpak walk-in and Frank Finn's Group said they would not help me!"

I called Craig and asked him what we should have done, he said, "Well, you should handle the call!!" I am like, "Okay, who do I call? Do you even have a phone number for the factory?" He didn't and he said he would call Joan Salah to let her know what was going on. He promised us he would bring us up to speed on what was going on with this line when he came in.

Fay gave me the phone number for customer service at Kolpak and a lady named Amy forwarded my call to Patty Mitchell who handles the Darden account. I told her what was going on and she said, "Oh my! This is sure turning into a mess! I am going to have Randy White call Monica back and we will get someone to the restaurant to take care of this!"

Apparently, what happened was that an Olive Garden was broken into, and the way the thieves got in was by cutting a hole in the wall of the walk-in refrigerator! Anyway, we didn't have a way to handle this crisis, especially since we didn't officially have the line yet.

FER-Orlando finished the week with $404k and Hollywood brought in $149k. Not a bad week.

We had leftover chili with a nice cool salad for dinner. Later, after watching the news, we took Buddy for his walk. While checking my email I saw that the package of coffee I sent to Dad for Father's Day was left on the porch by UPS, so I figured I'd better call him and check on that too.

It's gonna be a short weekend. Tomorrow I want to change the oil in the truck and add some R144 to Bob's AC in his car. Maybe I can get some of my reading done too.

Orlando, FL

We had strong thunderstorms yesterday and this afternoon. The storms were so strong Bob insisted on turning the computers and TV off to keep them from getting fried by the lightning. So, no blog entry for yesterday.

On Tuesday evening I mixed up four cans of salmon with two bags of crushed pork rinds, two diced onions, some minced garlic, and eleven eggs. I formed this into patties and fried them in butter.

I took a few of these salmon patties to work for lunch and I packed some for Bob to eat during lunch at work too.

Today I took a frozen stuffed pepper and a little can of apple sauce for lunch.

We've been having a very successful week for orders at work. Right now we have $363k in new orders. Craig said that Hollywood isn't doing so well this week.

Orlando, FL

Uuuggh... back to work. It wasn't too bad, I guess. We had a pretty good morning for orders - around $50k.

We saw Craig during most of the day. He was in a mixed mood. He was feeling foul about the stupid things we have to do, and the sheer amount of stupidity we have to deal with, but he was pleasant enough for us to talk with.

During lunch I went to the storage unit to put my floor jack and wrenches up. I put a can of dessicant inside to keep the humidity down and I got my oil change pan out.

It was very hot outside and my truck does not have AC. It must have been over 100°F in the truck. I felt hot and wet and sticky around my waist (at the belt line) for the rest of the afternoon.

Fay ran out at 2:30 PM to get to her follow-up meeting with her cardiologist. This is a follow on meeting for her little "episode" from last year.

I had intended to mix up salmon patties to fry for dinner this evening, but by the time I got home I was so hot and I tired I just mixed a drink and layed down on the sofa until Bob came home. Even though temps were still warm at 7:00 PM, we took Buddy out for his evening walk.

Weekend

Saturday morning I slept in as late as Buddy would let me. Around 7 AM he started crying so I decided that I'd better get up and walk him.

When we got back home Bob had breakfast ready. We had scrambled eggs and a raspberry coffee cake with coffee and our vitamins.

After breakfast we went down to the garage and got the bottle jack and the floor jack out and we rotated the big tires on Bob's Nissan X-Terra. We checked the brake wear while we had the wheels off. After his car we moved over to my Toyota and rotated the tires on my truck too.

As we were cleaning up I played with Buddy and noticed a flea on his chest. I decided right then that he was getting a bath. I put his bedding into the wash and sprayed Hartz all around his bed and anyplace he lays.

In the afternoon, even though it looked like it was going to storm, we went out to the store to get new shoes for Bob. He got some black tennis shoes and some nice lace-up sandals. We went next door and got some hair color and a pencil sharpener at Target. When we came out the winds were really blowing and the sky was black. The winds were really blowing the car around!

We drove down to Lowe's on Sand Lake Road and got a toilet rebuild kit for the toilet in the master bath. We headed over to Ace Hardware on Orange Avenue, but as we drove into the parking lot they were closing!!

Dinner was a pizza from American Pie and leftover salad.

This morning I had Shredded Wheat and Bob had a slice of leftover pizza. After I shaved, cut my hair short, and showered, we drove up to Daytona Beach to mow the yard at Tom & Louise's house.

After the yard was taken care of we went to Walgreens to get White Diamonds for Louise's birthday and we went to the home to pick her up. We took her to Hair Cuttery for a wash, cut, color, and set. The blonde color they put in looks very natural.

We took her to Olive Garden for lunch. She couldn't eat all of her food and had to take leftovers in styrofoam clamshells. We ordered some ravioli to go for Tom too.

It seemed like the AC was not working 100% during the drive back to Orlando. We stopped at Ace Hardware and bought furnace filters, some Frontline for Buddy, and I got a can for R-134 for Bob's AC. We charged the refrigerant into the low-pressure side of the AC, but it really didn't seem to help. The compressor clutch keeps cycling on and off quickly like it was doing last year.

We cleaned the floors and glass tables this evening and I called to talk with Mom for awhile. It's time to start another week of work!

Orlando, FL

Today was a long day for me. My right sinus was sore all day and I felt tired.

I took leftover creole porkchops for lunch in a Glad container with lid. I heated those up with some leftover mixed veggies from the demo yesterday and ate lunch. I put my head down on the table for awhile. At least I didn't have to go out in to the heat.

The week ended very well for FER. FER-Orlando brought in $318k and Hollywood totalled $292k -- almost $600k all together!

Bob heard that his parents are now living together in a private room at Oaktree. So, Tom's bed problem has gone away. Also, he was fitted for his new chair, but it hasn't been delivered yet. They are going to have a VA doctor come in and see if Tom needs anti-depressant medicine.

Tomorrow we are going to rotate tires on both of our cars.

Orlando, FL

Debbie phoned in today for a quote number and to complain about her work yesterday with Mike Beachkofsky of Tucker Safety Products, "It was so hard standing on that hard slanted concrete floor all day! They had to use bricks to level the table!" They set their table up for a Safety Fair in the Magic Kingdom Tunnels.

She said that since she has to work tomorrow, she was taking half a day off for her birthday starting at noon. She had to get her hot rock massage and her pedicure. She's having a BIG PARTY at the bar.

I mentioned it to Craig and he replied, "Whatever floats your boat!" Yeah, I'd love to go fucking float my boat sometime, but then everything in the office would go to hell if I did half of the shit she gets away with.

Today was a long and eventful day for us. We had guests in the Test Kitchen for a demo, we had Nancy and Nick come and go. We had quote requests and service issues. I had to get Mike's banners ready for the return to his factory in Colorado Springs.

I found out today that Martha, Barbara, Fay, and me will not be going to Tennessee after all. They are going to have someone from the factory come to Orlando and do the training here. Great. That means I will end up answering the phones while they train in the Test Kitchen.

This evening Bob made creole pork chops on a bed of rice. He had a small round cake of cornbread too. It was nice. I unloaded/loaded the dishwasher and I folded all of the laundry I did yesterday.

I don't feel good. The sinus behind my right eye is congested and it hurts all around my eye and even my upper teeth hurt! I am taking aspirin and decongestant, but it isn't helping. Uggh.

Orlando, FL

This morning I went to the office early because I saw that Craig was still sending me email messages after 7:30 PM last night! I easily had most of my daily routine things done by the time Fay arrived at 8:02 AM.

There were only a few orders today, but a new Cleveland Range kettle and a replacement steamer were among the orders from Darden. Craig is still very dismal about Cleveland's chances at Darden. I told him that removing the equipment from the existing test kitchens makes perfect sense because they are moving to the New Campus soon. Besides, they aren't sending any of the paid-for Cleveland items in the New Kitchens back to Cleveland!

I never heard from Debbie today and I have no idea what she did.

Craig said that they partners are working on having Barbara, Martha, Fay and me sent to the Kolpak factory in Parsons, TN sometime in the next couple of weeks. We would be there for a day and a half or two days. The partners are scheduled to go to the factory July 23 and 24. Kolpak makes walk-in refrigerators and freezers.

We would fly into Nashville, TN and then rent a car to drive the additional 2 hours to the factory. Parsons is a small town half way between Nashville and Memphis. Coincidentally, a small town 4 miles west of it is called "Darden"!

It was very hot today. I took a stuffed pepper in a Tupperware bowl to work with me and heated it up for lunch. I did not want to go out into the heat. I need to buy gasoline and air my tires, but it will have to wait or I will get it in the morning on the way in.

This evening we did not leave until 5:45 PM. It was a very busy day.

I washed a load of towels and a load of dark/colors this evening, watered the plants, and read a little bit. Soon I heard thunder and looked out to see a black storm coming from the east - the East Coast Seabreeze. I harnessed Buddy up and got him outside for his walk.

Buddy took his time about "getting busy", and as luck would have it, it never rained a drop!

As we came back up, we stopped in the second floor lobby to check the mail and had to interrupt the Waverly On Lake Eola Community Watch Meeting. Why don't those fools get a meeting room?

The new edition of The Orlando Weekly, Orlando's alternative newspaper, comes out on Wednesdays and I picked on up from the paper box and brought it home to read.

Now we are just waiting for Bobby to come home from his math tutoring.

Orlando, FL

Craig is still convinced that Darden is going to kick Cleveland Range out. I am not so sure. There were two more kettle orders and a steamer order this morning.

During the morning he started to compile pricing history all the way back to 2000. It turns out inflation has raised prices in general 13% since that time, and Cleveland Range has posted increases of 65% since then, but only passed on increases of 17% to Darden. It really doesn't make sense.

Another wrench was thrown our way today too... Kevin Clark, President of Delfield, was to fly down for a meeting at Darden, but his flight was delayed and he did not arrive until 5:22 PM - too late to meet with anyone. We are not sure he will be able to meet with anybody tomorrow.

UPS delivered the ConvoClean solution today and I hooked one of the jugs up to the Combi.

When lunch time came, I was still trying to get the pricing history for Craig, and Fay is urging me to get going to lunch - we were taking Debbie out to lunch for her 50th birthday. I made copies of the pricing sheets I had and gave those to Craig to work from and we left.

Debbie was already at the restaurant waiting for us! All she did this morning was write two quotes. Then she met us for lunch. In the afternoon she warned us that she had an appointment to take her Toyota in to Sears to have the power steering belt replaced. Poor thing - she can't help herself! She always tells us what she is up to!

Craig was still working on his pricing spreadsheet when we returned.

I started up the combi and warmed it up as a test to be sure we don't have any surprises during the demo on Thursday. Once the warm-up was done, I cooled it down below 190°F and started an auto-wash cycle.

Around 3:00 PM Craig left to go over to Darden. I still had plenty of items to keep me very busy - including a $67,000 Garland order that needed to be checked.

When Craig came back he was still very down about Cleveland Range's chances at Darden. He said that Nass was scheduled to go over to the Olive Garden and Red Lobster Test Kitchens and remove the consignment equipment in those kitchens. Not a good sign.

This evening I mixed thawed ground beef, diced onion, minced garlic, oats, eggs, tomato paste, diced tomatoes, and stuffed eight green peppers. I basted them with V-8 juice. They are baking right now.

Weekend

On Saturday it rained off and on all day and we stayed home almost all day except to take Buddy for his walk or a short trip across the street to Publix.

During the morning I installed a new faucet in the bathroom sink. It's nice that it won't be leaking all over the sink and vanity top when you run it to brush teeth or shave. I had to scrub the mineral deposits off of the sink before putting the new faucet down!

In the afternoon I roasted pecans and then salted and buttered them, and I made custard to make buttered pecan ice cream. Bob made Wolfgang Puck's Bacon-Wrapped Meatloaf for dinner and we had that with a salad.

I finished Twinkie, Deconstructed in the afternoon.

We pretty much hung around the house all day and that is fine - I was kinda tired. I helped Bob with his math homework.

During the evening we watched the How Do They Make It series and Bob kept falling asleep. Around 10 PM I made him get up and go to bed. I did not sleep very well and I tossed and turned alot during the night.

This morning I got up shortly after 7:00 AM because Buddy was crying. I took him for his walk while Bob made coffee and got our breakfast ready.

Around 11 AM we walked to the new Plaza Cinema Cafe to see the new Star Trek movie, but their actual schedule did not agree with the website times or even the time shown on their marquee. We decided that we would see the movie someplace else.

We walked back to Eola Park and shopped in the Sunday Farmer's Market. We bought two plants to plant on the balcony and we got a bag of green peppers as well as some grapes.

In the afternoon we drove out to Ocoee to the West Oaks Mall where we saw the 2009 Star Trek movie. It was pretty good! It stormed a couple of times while we were in there - you could hear the rain beating the roof!

On the way home we stopped at Walgreens to get moist towelette wipes (good for cleaning Buddy's ears) and a bottle of peroxide. We stopped at Staples too where we got some magazine holder boxes and refill black ink cartridges for the printer.

For dinner we ate leftover meatloaf with a salad and cottage cheese.

Next we cleaned the floors and tables. Then Bob finished editing his paper for his class. We are almost ready for another week of work now.

Tomorrow I am going to mix beef, oats, tomatoes, tomato paste, eggs, salt, and pepper together to stuff those peppers, and I am going to transplant the plants we bought into terracotta pots on the balcony.

Star Trek 2009 Trailer

La Nouba Preview

Orlando, FL

Bob drove me to work on this morning because I wanted him to pick me up at 5:00 PM so that we could go directly to our evening show at Downtown Disney Westside.

Because of rush hour traffic, we took the surface streets out to Disney. We followed Vineland Road west to Turkey Lake Road, and continued west until Turkey Lake became Palm Parkway. We followed 535 into the back of the park, and then turned onto Buena Vista Drive and followed it west to Downtown Disney. We parked around 5:35 and headed to the box office to get the tickets I had waiting at Will Call.

After picking up the tickets we went upstairs and bought pop corn and softdrinks in special commemorative plastic containers. Two popcorns and two sodas cost $21!

Now we went into the auditorium and stepped all the way down to the

front row of Section 104. We had Seats 3 and 4 in Row A - right next to the stage - see the picture attached showing where we sat.

La Nouba (fr. "to live it up, to party") has been at Walt Disney World Resort since 1993.

It was very exciting being in the front row next to the stage! The trick bicyclists would run right up to the edge of the state as if they were going to run you over! The trampolinists would come down right on the edge of the stage!

There is no spoken dialog in the show and the story is told by the performers acting. Behind us a French (or Canadian?) couple babbled in their native language through the show. We could not understand them, and I am sure they intrepreted the show in their own way. Cirque Du Soleil is sorta like Blue Man Group in that the story is mimed and acted out with no speaking.

The show lasted about an hour and half. It really was a remarkable "modern circus" and we both agreed that we would go to see it again.

After the show we browsed the (over-priced) souvenirs and went outside to find something to eat. Because it was Friday evening, and the beginning of the big gay One Mighty Weekend, all of the restaurants had long waiting lists, so we went to the car and headed back downtown.

We ended up eating a late dinner at The Greek Corner on north Orange Avenue. Bob had the Marathon Sandwich and I had the Greek Sausage Souvaki with a side salad. We were out until around 10 PM - a late night for us!

When we got home I took Buddy down to the street for a brief walk so he could pee, and then we all went to bed.

FER-Orlando finished the week with $288k in new orders and Hollywood brought in $168k. Not a bad week, but we should be able to do much better. Fay invited Debbie Owings to lunch on Tuesday. We are taking her to The Cheesecake Factory for her big 50th birthday.

Orlando, FL

Today's picture is an overdue picture of our dinner on Monday. I don't know why I carry these pictures around in the camera for days before I ever get them downloaded!

Work was a little emotional today. Craig came in saying, "Today's a terrible day!" I contradicted him by saying, "No, today's a GREAT DAY and we're making lots of money!" He said, "Well, enjoy it while it lasts because we officially lost Cleveland Range from Darden Restaurants." I replied, "Well, that's funny, because I have two Cleveland orders from this morning!"

He was a in a very foul mood and he looked like he didn't sleep last night.

If it ultimately proves to be true, that loss will be staggering to FER. Cleveland sales to Darden Restaurants were worth around $2.7 M in 2008.

After work it was storming and I-4 was jammed up. I took surface streets home.

We ate a meal of turkey breast with carrots, onions, and potatoes from the crockpot. Next we went down to the garage and I pulled my truck up next to Bob's car and got the jumper cables out. We jump-started his car and I put my truck back into its parking space.

We drove to Sears and got a DieHard Gold battery with a 3-year 100% replacement warranty and pro-rated warranty out to 100 months. The battery change only took a few minutes.

With the Nissan working good again, we came home and took Buddy down to the street for his evening walk and picked up the mail. The storms this evening have been very powerful!

Orlando, FL

It was a very hot day, but the weatherman predicted strong thunderstorms in the afternoon. After lunch it did start to cloud up and we got some sprinkles, but no raging downpour.

Debbie phoned in from home to give us an update on her home re-plumbing project. All she did was complain. She complained about the holes in her walls, the dust in the air, the fact that her dogs bark alot, and how crazy she is going from being confined to her house. "I'm going stir-crazy in here! I can't even go to the post office or the supermarket! And my dogs bark so loud - why Gigi, her bark is sooo ear piercing - you can't have a phone conversation with any dealers!" Poor little lamb - she's so used to coming and going as she pleases during the work day. She ought to come in here and do what Fay and I do everyday.

She went on to describe the plumbers as Oriental guys, "and they speak in a very pretty sing-song language. I can't understand a word of it. For all I know they could be talking about me!"

Right. They all want her. I told Fay and she burst out laughing.

Around 5:15 PM Bob phoned me to tell me that his battery died on his car. I told him I would be right home. When I got there I changed into shorts and drove him to his tutoring session in Maitland. We had to snake along surface streets because I-4 was congested with rush hour traffic.

I dropped him off, went home, walked Buddy, showered, made some dinner, and then drove back to get him again. I was tired. A long and busy day.

Orlando, FL

The crepe myrtle trees are really pushing out the colorful flowers now! I really like it when they are planted close together and in various colors.

Today was a long and hectic day at work. During my lunch, using the Internet, I bought a Father's Day gift for Dad and I bought show tickets for Bob and me to go see this weekend. We are going to see the Cirque du Soleil La Nouba Show at Downtown Disney West Side in Lake Buena Vista on Friday evening. Incredibly, I managed to get front-row seats (but not in the center)!

When I came home this evening I started work on the guest bathroom toilet. It's been running for several weeks and we picked up repair parts for the tank at Lowe's this past weekend. Following the directions, I changed out the flapper valve, the filler valve assembly, and the mounting bolts - basically rebuilt the whole thing! It works perfectly now. Infact, it flushes better than before - this is due to a slightly higher tank water level in the finished toilet.

After the toilet project was done I saddled Buddy up and took him for his walk. We picked up the mail when we came back up and then we peeled and sliced up a mango for our snack. Buddy really likes pieces of mango!

Bruno

Yes, it turns out Eminem was in on the MTV Awards stunt with Bruno descending from the rafters and planting his ass in his face! It seems he was able to fool the entire audience into thinking his storming out of the auditorium was genuine!

What a pro!

Orlando, FL

A ladybug walked across the inside of my windshield while I drove to work this morning.

I found today's picture while browsing architectural eyesores on the James Howard Kunstler website. I try to read his Clusterfuck Nation column every Monday morning.

Anyway, this barn is at the intersection of Hughsonville Road and Highway 9D in Wappingers Falls, NY. I used to get my hair cut at the barber shop across the street from here. I browsed this shop once, but they painted it this godaweful garish way after I moved away. It was a completely unremarkable building before this paint job.

Today was an okay day at FER. Fay returned from her trip to Fort Lauderdale and she was full of stories. She also brought in some mangoes for us. Craig can't eat them -- they make him as red as a beet, so I got his too!

Craig confirmed that we might have to hire Terry Tucker from Finn's group to do Kolpak walk-ins. He said that if we do that, Debbie will have to go. We can't afford both.

It was sunny all day long and I think temperatures got into the 90's. During lunch I drove to Subway and got a sandwich. Fay gave me money and a Post-It Note with everything she wanted on her sandwich. I told the poor Sandwich Artist, "Yeah, I know, heartburn. Maybe I should bring her back a pack of Tums too."

When I got home I took two chicken breasts that had been thawing in the sink and started to slowly fry them while I peeled two of the mangoes, an onion, and a cucumber. I diced up these up and made a dressing with lemon juice, vinegar, Splenda sweetener, and celery seed. Stir. We had chicken fajitas with mango salsa for dinner this evening! A surprise!

Turns out Buddy likes mangoes too!

Today was the start of Hurricane Season. Also, today completes four years for me at FER. As of today, I've had Buddy for three years.

Eminem vs Bruno

Funny and outrageous!! Was Marshall Mathers in on this? It's funny to see the homophobic rapper, Eminem, end up with a man's ass in his face!!