No, it wasn’t a dark and stormy night.  As a matter of fact, last Saturday was a pleasant evening – a little on the warm side, but nothing to complain about.  But, this has been a crazy Spring and Summer.  And like so many other times, a storm cell located itself right over our neighborhood and cut loose.

Where it had been light out, all of a sudden it was dark (and stormy), and it was pouring down rain.  Then, some lightning and thunder and all of a sudden, we lost our power.

This was about the third time this Summer.  I grabbed my flashlight and headed for the big candles.  These are big brass candles that I picked up out of a catalog when I was in Vietnam.  The brass stand is three feet tall and the candles add two additional feet.  They are so tall that you can actually talk to them.  Their wicks are also big and thick and if you are not careful where you place them, you may find a black soot spot on the ceiling.  I always tell them not to leave a black spot.

The last time we used them, Carole suggested I shorten the wicks.  I did, and now I couldn’t get one of them lit.  Too short a wick and/or too much wax on it.  I carried the troublesome candle over to the one that was lit.  I figured I could light it with the large flame from the other candle.  I never got it lit, but I managed to pour hot wax all over my hand (I really talked to that candle).

Whenever we lose our power, I always call our electric company.  You never talk to another human being, but I want the iron lady to acknowledge that they are aware of the fact that I am sitting in the dark.  Finally, after being transferred from one iron lady to another, I was told that there was a “widespread power outage” in my area and that a thing-a-ma-jig had gone out at a substation.  I was informed that our power would be back on by 11:00 PM.  That was only two hours from the time I called so things were looking up.  I was asked if I wanted a call back when the power came back on and I said OK (closing the loop).

Carole dug out a couple of clip-on lights and we both settled down with our books.  My clip-on light kept getting weaker.  I thought my eyes were giving out.  Then, it to went dark (but not stormy).  Using my flashlight – which keeps going and going – I checked out the clip on.  It needed two triple A batteries.  Carole, who some time in her childhood must not have had the battery she needed, has at least 20 of each kind.  I was back in business.

In the past when the power company said 11:00 PM, it really meant 10:30 PM.  I was convinced that they always put in a fudge factor to ensure they would be on time.  Well, 10:30 came and went.  Then, 11:00 came and went.  No power.  At 11:15 PM, I again called the Dominion Power Company to see what went wrong.  I ran the iron lady gauntlet again and was told that my outage had already been reported and they didn’t need anymore information from me.  Me?  I wanted information from them.  None was forthcoming.

At 11:30, we went upstairs to bed.  No air conditioning, no ceiling fan, and it was too hot and muggy to open a window.  Nikki, our eleven-month-old Sheltie knows she is not allowed in bed.  But, with everything so screwed up and under the cover of darkness, she made two attempts to bunk with us.

At two in the morning, the house lit up.  I got up and went downstairs to turn everything off.  And since I was up and Nikki was staring at me, I took her outside.  Finally, I climbed back into bed to get some sleep.  I conked out right away.  Ah, and yes, at 2:30 AM, I got my phone call from Dominion Power advising me we had electricity.  Closing the loop at 11:00 PM works, but at 2:30 AM, I was feeling pretty stupid.

Yesterday, I had a nice chat with both of my candles and they seem to be working just fine.

 
It had been a little over two weeks since all the water damage.  The house was dry (and it didn’t smell funny).  Nothing was growing inside the walls.  A new ceiling has been put on in the kitchen and many of the wall holes have been patched.

I told Carole, putting everything back together would be just like a PCS (permanent change of station).  We had done lots of them and they were no fun, but we got through them.  I wanted to compare it with something she was familiar with.  After a week, she would stare at me and say, “PCS?”  It has been much worse.  Everyday, very early, workers, noise and dust.  Steve’s crew (Donovan and James) have been superb, but its hard to find anything normal when you are dealing with workers, noise and dust.

Last Tuesday, a second crew showed up to rip up the hardwood floor in the kitchen and put down a new one.  I had a 7:30 tee time.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.   I don’t know if it was guilt, but I couldn’t hit the ball worth a damn.  On the 8th hole, I called Carole to make sure things were moving along.  She told me that the house was full of dust and she was having trouble breathing.  This was very inconsiderate of her, because her comments were impacting on my golf game.

I’m just kidding about her comments being inconsiderate.  She has a breathing problem and this was just too much.  I made my excuses to the rest of the players and headed home.  I found more workers, more noise and more dust.  There was a big pile of ripped out hardwood floor in the driveway and the kitchen was a disaster.

I saw a worker coming in the front door and I thought I would kid with him.  Knowing full well they weren’t, I said, “You done yet?”  He pointed at his chest and said, “Jorge, you?”  I decided that “you,” pretty well exhausted his understanding of the English language and pointed at my chest and said, “Jack.”  Then, we smiled and went about our business.  Maybe one of the other workers was named “Doneyet.”

Before the day was over, the new hardwood floor was in place.  We are going to try to be somewhere else when they sand, stain and seal.  I don’t mean a golf course.  I mean out of town.  Perhaps an out-of-town golf course.

We had a wall paper border around the kitchen wall right at the top.  I suspect you know that the border would be right at the top, but just in case.  When the ceiling came out, so did the border.  So, on our own dime, we decided to put up some crown molding.  It was on the floor for a few days before it was put up.  Our eleven-month-old puppy, Nikki, thought it had an interesting taste.  By the time Carole figured out the noise (from all the other noises), a couple of the boards were an inch or so shorter.  As the fan blades for the kitchen ceiling fan were also on the floor, I’m glad her taste ran to crown molding.  I’m glad she couldn’t get to the seasoning.

The idea that adversity makes you stronger is a bunch of crap.  I feel wiped out.

Carole and I have now been married 49 years.  I tried, but I couldn’t find a happy 49th wedding anniversary card.  Wait till next year.  But, each month for the entire marriage, we have prepared a budget.

The first thing we did was purchase a very nice, substantial ledger book.  This adds significance and formality to the drill.  Picking up that formidable book and carrying it to the kitchen table was part of the ritual.  That’s important when you don’t have any money.  A budget is most important when you are managing very little money.

I don’t know anything about accounting.  I took beginners accounting in college and learned to line everything up neatly, but that was about it.  The only thing I know for sure is that debits go in one direction and credits go in the other.  But, I don’t know which is which.  I review my daily activities at Wachovia Securities on line.  Some numbers are in red and some are in black.  Then, some numbers appear twice, both in red and black.  I don’t have a clue.  I haven’t tried too hard, because I can tell that the bottom line is where it should be.

We started off married life with me going to law school.  Carole worked as a secretary, first for the University and then with the law firm of Smith and Lewis in Columbia, Missouri.  I vaguely remember that she cleared somewhere around $180 a month and my dad sent us $50.  So we budgeted $230 a month.

Almost everything in the budget was a necessity – no hair and nails or golf account.  We budgeted for rent, groceries, utilities, the car, household expenses, insurance and $3.50 for each of us for clothing.  After three months, we would have over $10!

For the first few months, I tried to make things add up, but it was too hard.  So, we just went through the process of writing down what we were spending.  Then, we would look and see if we were spending more than we were making.  It’s not very sexy, but I recommend it to anyone trying to live within their means.

Of course, we didn’t have credit cards, so if you didn’t have it, you couldn’t spend it.  I guess life was simpler.  No tickee, no laundry – no money, no spendee.  Our budgetary key was to find at the end of the month as much money in our check book as we had in our budget accounts.

There was no perfection in our system.  I will leave the accounting perfection to the DC Tax Department.  They kept superb books, while they were stealing $50 million!  They  just paid out tax refunds to themselves and to bogus companies they had created.  Fifty million.  That’s a lot of designer purses.  The patients were running the asylum.

In my system, I would move a lot of money among the accounts.  If we took a vacation and exhausted our vacation account, I would take money out of  “car and gas” and “entertainment.”  That’s not much of a stretch, especially if we drove.  But, I also might take money out of the “linen” account.  Why?  Because there was too much money in the linen account.  So sue me.  There is no auditor to keep me honest and Bed, Bath and Beyond will never know.

In the early years, I would run an account in the red for a few months.  But, in some accounts, the red number would just keep getting larger.  We would them have an executive meeting (Carole and me) at the kitchen table and decide to put $10 more in the particular account.  “The ayes have it.”  Then, we would write off the red number and start over.  I think my budget process is more an art form than a science, particularly that portion of the process where I manipulate the numbers.

There is a fine line between being cheap and being frugal.  For most of the early years, we straddled the line.  By doing so, now if we want to, we can go crazy (but of course, we don’t).

It was Saturday morning and I had half a blog written on the exciting subject of keeping a household budget.  It’s kind of neat the sly ways I can manipulate the family budget.  After all, it is our money, so who is going to complain?

We ran out to the commissary, and the house and garden to pick up some roses.  It was a typical Saturday morning.  When we got home, Carole went in the house and I opened the trunk to get the groceries.  We have eleven recessed lights in the kitchen area (don’t tell Mr. Monk), and the first thing Carole saw was water pouring from all of the light fixtures.  It was the morning from Hell.

She screamed.  I thought someone had died and raced into the house.  Then I raced downstairs and shut the water off.  After the water was turned off, it just kept coming.  I went upstairs to locate the problem.  In the master bathroom, I found the toilet tank hose just hanging there.  It turns out that the hose had a sophisticated shut-off device in the line and it ruptured.  The irony and humor are there, but it’s hard to appreciate while standing in two inches of water.  This definitely got me out of my promise to vacuum the downstairs drapes.

We had water on three levels of the house.  We immediately called Steve Norwood, our contractor and friend.  He told us to call the insurance company and then he came right over.  The emergency insurance agent told us to find a water extractor and gave me a list of names for our area.  Unfortunately, the Northern Virginia area had had tremendous storms the week before and no one was available.  Can you imagine sleeping in a house full of water?  Neither could I.  I can’t even stand to watch one of those stupid music videos where it is raining inside the house.  After about three hours, Steve located someone who could come out.  Then, there was an accident on the Wilson Bridge, so it took him forever to get to our house.  I was feeling like Joe Bfstplk, the Li’l Abner character who always had a black cloud over his head and bad luck followed him.

When I was a kid in East St. Louis, our basement was lower that the street sewers.  So when it rained hard enough for the street to flood (which was often), we had to race down stairs and screw a plug into the basement drain hole.  If we were late, water would be gushing into the basement.  With that experience indelibly etched in my skull, I have never purchased a house what wasn’t up quite high.  “I understand that the bathroom is in the back yard, but I want to know how high are we above the century’s worst flood level.”

The next day, Brian Jennings, our water extractor, came out with his sophisticated moisture detector and before we knew it, we had holes in the ceiling and walls.  The holes were like rabbits; they just kept multiplying.  By Thursday, we were in great shape on the floors and rugs, but we hadn’t turned the corner on the walls.  Off came the baseboards and Carole’s good humor.

Now, a week after it happened, I can still hear the professional grade dehumidifiers and super charged blowers grinding away on the first floor.  I’m hiding in my second floor study.  The minute I put down my pen and appear on the first floor, I will be pressed into service returning things to their original spots.

I have now been assured that we have turned the corner.  The house is definitely drying and nothing nasty seems to be growing inside the walls.  All we need to do is replace the ceiling and the hardwood floors.  That won’t cause any dust, will it?

I don’t know if you are familiar with the Beltway (I-495) that encircles Washington, DC, but it is the fastest way to get around DC.  It is at least four lanes in each direction and the speed limit is 55 miles per hour.  Except during rush hour, when it resembles a parking lot, the average speed in somewhere between 65 and 70 mph.  The dangerous speeders are going over 80 mph.  If you drove at 55 mph in one of the center lanes, you would probably cause an accident.

There are certain drivers who treat the beltway like a racetrack (it is an oval).  If you see these nuts racing up behind you, you become very cautious and hope that their accident doesn’t include you (or delay you).  I prefer they run off the road rather than have their accident in the lanes of traffic.  That can really slow things down.

The law enforcement authorities have come up with traffic enforcement cameras that take pictures of these speeders, show the vehicle, the license plate and how fast the vehicle was traveling.  A big old fine arrives in the mail to the speeder.  Now, I am told that this is bad.  It violates our hot shot’s rights.  I get lost just about here.  What rights?  The right to privacy?  Driving a vehicle on an interstate highway seems fairly public to me.  What about the right to see the police car which will give the speeder an opportunity to slow down?  This is not a game.  If there is any due process involved, it is covered by posting the speed limit.

Those who object say it is just a way for the police to make money.  Well, it cost money to operate a police force and the cameras and personally, I would rather it would come from traffic violators than from my taxes.

In downtown areas, the city has posted red light cameras, which catch drivers who run the red lights.  Now who could object to that?  You would be surprised.  Again, you have the arguments about the city making money, privacy, and no opportunity for a violator to confront the accuser.  The inability of the red light runner to confront a police officer may keep him or her from going to jail.  No one will know about the drunk driving and the driver will not have an opportunity to resist arrest.  Can’t beat that.

Running red lights has caused a large number of accidents and injuries.  Statistics show that the red light cameras have reduced the number of accidents.  That’s good news.  However, it is argued that when someone who was going to run a red light sees the camera, he may slam on his brakes and this will cause the car behind him to rear end him.  If that is the case, I guess the car behind him was also going to run the red light.  Now, please remind me, who is it that I am supposed to feel sorry for?

People complain that a red-light-camera ticket can be issued without any police supervision.  I guess that is right and I think there should be police involvement in the process.  But as long as the cameras are calibrated and someone is overseeing the fairness of the system, I think that’s about all we can hope for.  No system is perfect.  Look at the O.J. trial

“Just get in a lane and stay there.  It may take you a couple of extra minutes, but you will arrive more relaxed.”  Whoever said that has no concept of what it is like to be a Type A personality.  A Type A person who “just gets in a lane and stays there,” will probably not be able to compose a sentence when he climbs out of the car.

I don’t recall choosing to be a Type A nut.  Maybe it was because I was a middle child and had to fight for attention.  Anyway, be on notice, we are not going to stay in one lane.

Driving in rush hour to DC and back everyday was a real challenge.  In the morning I picked up my carpool at 7:00 AM.  The carpool  permitted me to use the HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes.  We could zip right into the city.  Then, some well-meaning individual decided that if you drove a hybrid vehicle, you could use the HOV lanes.  So, then we had all those hybrid vehicles (one person in each) jamming up the HOV lanes.  Sometimes, we would look over and the regular lanes would be moving faster.  Because it was early, we still navigated through the city fairly well.  Arent Fox is located on the corner of Connecticut and L Street.

The real problem was trying to get home.  Our parking garage was on 18th Street, which is one-way heading North.  That meant I had to drive North for a couple of blocks before I could make it over to 19th Street and head South toward Virginia.  19th Street was a battleground and not for the faint of heart.  Nobody stayed in one lane.

I picked up a few tips from other Type A rush-hour warriors that proved very helpful.  First, never leave any space between you and the car in front of you.  If you do, someone will cut you off.  Second, never use your turn signals until you are already in the lane you are entering.  If you turn on your blinker too soon, there will be no space to move into.  Better yet, never use them.

Never drop your guard.  You must remain alert every moment.  If you try to change the radio station, you may not make it home.  I became rather stoic about having an accident.  I used to say, “Everyday, I am fighting the odds.”  Now that I am retired, I am surprised that I stepped away without hitting anything or being hit.

I do not return gestures (other than smiling at them).  That usually causes wild infuriation.  When someone blasts their horn, I assume its at me.  If I haven’t done anything, I become confused.  I quickly run over the last 30 seconds to see if there isn’t something I can take credit for.

If you are going to navigate downtown rush-hour traffic, you need a particular type of car.  You don’t want a boat, like the Town Car.  You have to be powerfully quick, but without unnecessary bulk.  I drive a Lincoln LS (a V-8 on a Jaguar chassis).

I just couldn’t own a small car.  When I was at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) certain members of Congress were trying to pass a law requiring cars to get 40 miles per gallon (MPG).  Can manufacturers do that?  Sure.  I think the Geo Metro got 50 MPG.  You just have to take steel out of the car and it will get better gas mileage.  Of course, the cars won’t be as safe.  Any number of advocacy groups (mostly controlled be Nader) insisted that small cars were just as safe as large cars. 

We, at NHTSA, conducted some tests to disprove that.  We took a 4,000 pound 1991 Ford Fairlane and crashed it into a 2,000 pound Suzuki Swift.  Both vehicles were traveling at 36 mph and they crashed with a 60% frontal offset.  That means that 60% of each cars front end made contact with the other car.  We sent the resulting video to members of Congress and that was the end of the proposed legislation.  Why?  Well, the big car literally ate the little car.  It was so devastating that no one would ever again say small cars are just as safe as large cars (I still have the video).  Put some steel around you.  You will feel better in the morning.

Congress, in order to save fuel, recently raised the Corporate Average Fuel Economy mileage standard to 35 MPG by the year 2020.  We’ll see what those cars look like at that time.  I’ll tell you for sure, they won’t want to run into a Ford Fairlane.

Isn’t the internet great?  If you have a question, with very little effort, you can probably find the answer on the internet.  I am so glad Al Gore discovered it.  Or, did he invent it?  I get confused about just what he did.  Well, to prove my point, I went on the internet and found out that while Al didn’t discover or invent the internet, he was one of the Congressional technogeeks who helped fund military projects which led to the internet.  That counts for something.

A few years back, I was at my desk working away, when I received a phone call from Smitty, a high school buddy.  He told me that he was spending the winter in Florida and there was a contest going around the pool.  He wanted to know if I could help him with one of the questions.  The question was, how many spikes are there in the Statue of Liberty’s crown and what do they represent.  I got on the internet and, in no time, found out there are seven  spikes and that they represent the seven seas and the seven continents.  I called Smitty back and gave him the answer.  Then, I realized that Smitty wasn’t as interested in the answer as he was in letting me know that he was retired and enjoying life in Florida, while I was sitting at my desk looking at the snow falling and wondering about the slippery trip home.

Most of the websites that sell stuff (and a lot that don’t) want you to register first.  It is usually painless, unless you failed to notice that they just signed you up for every solicitation they send out.  They want a user name or an email address and, also, a password.  I gave one company George Washington as my user name.  They came back and told me that it was already taken.  Bummer.  I found out that ricequips works.  What a break.  As for passwords, I think most people use their pet’s name.  If your dog is named Spot, you will probably be informed that your password needs at least seven characters.  “Spotspot” will work.  If your cat is named Gertrude, you are in great shape.

My voice mail at work requires a four number code.  I used the last four of my social security number.  How original is that?  After about eight years, somebody decided that we needed to change the code.  So, I switched to the pin number on my ATM.  Then a year later, they want me to change again.  I gave them the last four of my SSN.  But, the automated lady told me I had already used that number.  It doesn’t do any good to scream at her.  So, being a resourceful guy, I punched in the month and day of my birthday.  She came back and told me I could not use my birthday.  That was really creepy.  The automated lady in the phone knows my birthday.  I hung up.  I wasn’t prepared to go further.  But, she knew that I would eventually need to listen to my messages.  She planned on waiting me out.  I decided to see if she knew on what day I was married.  She didn’t.  That solves the problem for another year.  I wonder if she knows my wife’s birthday?

The password on my computer at work has to be changed more often than my voice mail.  It seems like it is every three months, but it is probably more like six or seven.  I started out with my dog’s name, Holly.  Then, I just started through the alphabet changing the first letter to the next consonant.  I started with Bolly, then Colly and Dolly.  Of course, when I needed some technical assistance from our IT department and the guy asked for my password, it was Folly.  What a great password for a serious minded attorney.  When he came back a few months later, my password was Golly.  Some while later, when I needed assistance, I had to stare the guy down and tell him my password was Jolly.  What’s in a password anyway?

If you forget your password, most companies make it rather painless to recover it.  It is like anything else, the first time you have to do it, it’s a little confusing.  I have forgotten passwords so often that I am what you would call a password recovery expert.

I hate surveys and questionnaires.  I don’t care if they come in the mail or on the phone (or internet).  I keep promising myself that I will never respond to another one.  Then, because of some weakness, I find myself in the middle of another miserable experience.

If it is a questionnaire about work done on my car and my service representative needs my help to prove he is doing a good job, I am there for him.  I will always report that he is the best thing since sliced bread.  There is no reason to respond unless you are going to rate him tops.  Not responding sends a signal to the dealership.  I guess I could call them up and tell them I don’t do questionnaires and that they shouldn’t read anything negative into it.  But, then they may ask me questions.  By the time I hang up, I will have answered the questionnaire.

Then, there’s the Department of Defense asking about my medical care.  Do I have a choice?  I’m not sure they want to keep me happy (as they profess in their questionnaire), but I want to keep them happy.  The funny thing is, I have had the same doctor for the past 15 years and DOD hasn’t asked about him.  But, I had a bad cough a few months back and called in to be seen the same day.  I saw a different doctor.  Then the questionnaires started flowing.  They were all on the doctor I saw for my cough.  I filled out the first questionnaire and threw away the second figuring it was a duplicate.  Then, a month later, the third shows up.  Maybe DOD has it in for this particular doctor.  Rest assured, as long as I keep getting free medical care, I will keep sending in that same questionnaire. 

The reason I got started on this particular blog was a phone call I received over the weekend.  It was an automated voice inquiring about whether I planned to vote in the Virginia primary.  Then, whether I planned to vote Republican or Democrat; whether I planned to vote for Governor Huckabee; whether I planned to vote for Senator McCain.  All I had to do was say yes or no, and I was on a roll.  Then, the iron lady wanted to know in the area of immigration if I wanted an amnesty president or a president who would seal the borders and had the support of some minuteman organization that I had never heard of.  This required more than a yes or no answer and it was such a loaded question.  I hung up.  You can’t hurt an iron lady’s feelings.

Later, after I decided to write on how I hate surveys, I wish I would have continued to listen so that I would better understand what was going on.  I am now under the impression that what I was listening to was not a survey at all, but a political campaign call, dressed up like a survey.  They were putting out the Huckabee message and calling it a survey.  I now believe if I had said I was going to vote for Bugs Bunny the message would have continued.  I hate surveys.

I periodically look at survey questions in the newspaper.  Sometimes the answer they want is so obvious from the way the question is presented.  For example, “Do you think we should honor our commitment to the Iraqi people or do you believe we should cut and run?”  Or, “Do you believe we should continue to support the senseless loss of American Soldiers’ lives or should we call the troops home and find a political solution?”  I’ll admit my examples are pretty one sided, but when I look in the newspapers, some of their question are almost as bad.  I hate surveys.

Shortly after I joined the United States Golf Association, I received a letter in the mail telling me that I had been selected to test golf products at no cost.  All I had to do was fill out a questionnaire on what I thought of the product after I had used it.  The letter was not from the USGA, but I figured that was how they had gotten my name.  I called.  The lady was very nice and told me they wanted me test a set of irons.  What great luck.  She asked a lot of questions, such as how tall I was and how old I was.  She explained that these clubs would be custom made.  I was impressed.  I should have realized that something was wrong when she was impressed with my handicap.

I had spent about 45 minutes on the phone and was really excited.  I had read in golf magazines about people testing different clubs.  They had my address and would ship the clubs (along with the questionnaire) within two weeks.  She told me to take my time in evaluating the clubs and at the end of three months, I could buy the clubs or return them.  I told her I thought she told me she was giving me the clubs.  She said, ‘We are, for three months.”  When I explained the difference between a gift and a loan, she wasn’t interested.  Things sort of went South from there.  As I reflect back, I thought I had asked the right questions at the beginning of the call.  Obviously, I didn’t.  She probably had been her high school dodge ball champion.  At least I didn’t have to fill out the questionnaire.

Oh, there’s a survey attached to this blog.  I would appreciate it if you would fill it out.  No, I am not serious.  I don’t care about the survey.  I wouldn’t mind if you subscribed to ricequips.com (see Subscribe Now!).  It is free and I would know you are out there.  You are out there, aren’t you?

All of my adult life, I have worn a green visor.  You say that sounds a little strange.  Well, it is.  It started rather harmlessly in law school.  The lighting was terrible in the library and about half of the students wore green eye shades or visors.  Even Professor Howard, who taught Constitutional Law, wore a green visor.  His was of a higher quality than the cheap ones we bought at the University Book Store.

During law school, I used to get severe headaches and they seemed to start in my eyes.  I figured it was the glare from the lighting and religiously wore my green visor.  It turned out the headaches were migraines, but I didn’t figure that out for 30 years.  But, I was convinced that the little green eye shade permitted me to work longer without getting a headache.  When I graduated, I just kept wearing my visor.

When I went to Germany in 1966, I took a couple of visors with me, but they didn’t last.  The cheap plastic cracked.  I searched all over for visors, but with no luck.  Visor in German is visor (but they pronounce it “veezor”).  Finally, I found a pair of clip-on, flip-up sun glasses.  I would clip them on my glasses and flip them up half way and use them as an eye shade.  Any port in a storm.

Wearing a green visor has inherent problems.  Someone will come into my office and say, for the hundredth time, “Where’s the card game?”  Finally, I started responding with, “Sorry, but we are not giving out prizes today for originality of thought.”  It seemed like it was usually the women who would suggest that I needed garters for my shirt sleeves to make the outfit complete.

In 1984, I was assigned to Command and General Staff College (C&GSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  I used to know why we were sent to the school, but I can no longer remember, nor care.  I remember that our section had a pretty good flag football team.  I also remember that so many players got seriously injured that it was the last year the C&GSC played flag football.

Joe Conboy, for whom I worked in Vietnam, was the Post Staff Judge Advocate.  He invited me over to visit his office.  When I got there, he took me around and introduced me to his officers.  Every one of them was wearing a green visor.  I was really impressed.  I was so impressed that it never occurred to me that I was the subject of the joke.  You would think that when I saw the 4th or 5th captain in a visor that some light might have come on.  They all had a good laugh at pulling it off.

Sometime in the late Eighties, the little green visor started disappearing from the stores.  Of course, the small office supply store was also disappearing and Staples and Office Depot couldn’t figure out what I was talking about.  I am probably the only guy who was excited about going to Las Vegas so he could buy some green visors.  Well, it is a myth.  They didn’t even have them in Vegas.  What a rip.  I would go into sport stores and they would say, “Sure, we got visors.”  Then, they would bring out  some strange looking visor that said, “Myrtle Beach.”  All I wanted was a little old dark green visor, like every accountant wore back in the 1930’s.

I even made some effort to get the material and have them made (I could corner the market).  But my efforts to find the right green plastic failed.  Then one of my friends, Howard Bushman, found two visors at an estate sale.  They were beautiful.  They had a copyright date of 1924 on them.  Of course, the elastic in the bands had died.  I cut off portions of the band and sewed them together.  They worked great for a while.  Then, I took them to a tailor and had new elastic put on.  I kept one at the office and one at home.  Now, being retired, they are both at home. 

My green visor has been to me like a kid’s sleepy blanket.  I was lost without it.  Sometimes at work, friends would hide my visor and just watch me circle my office and come unglued.  Since they were friends, they never let it go too far.

I figured out my headaches were migraines when Newsweek published an artist’s conception of different headaches.  I looked at the orange ball of fire surrounded by blackness and said, “That’s my headache.”  Well, after I figured out I had migraines, it made it easier to communicate with people why I didn’t want to do something.  But, I still had the headaches.  Then, Motrin with Ibuprofen came along and I was saved.  My migraines were very polite.  They always let me know when they were going to visit.  And, at the first signal (which was hard to miss), all I had to do was pop a couple of Motrin and the migraine never captured me.

Wearing a green visor my entire working life (and also at home) is quirky, but when you think of all the crazy people out there, I don’t think that wearing a green visor rises to too high above the ridge line.

Life is good.  My wife, Carole, is delighted that I have solved my migraine problem.  And, as for my green visor, she even helps me look for it when it is lost.  With the kids grown up, I am now her only child. 

I retired from Arent Fox at the end of the year, so that I could devote more time to RICEQUIPS.COM. That was the plan.  You know what happens to plans.  They never quite work out as originally planned. That’s one of the things that I think makes Americans so special.  We adapt, adjust, modify, or shift gears without having to start over.

In the 1960’s, I was sent to the Defense Language Institute, West Coast (DLIWC) to study German.  That’s all I did for six months.  A lot of the students in my class were enlisted and even though I was a junior captain, I became class leader.  After about three months, the Chairman of the German Department, Hans Von Richter, called all the class leaders together (there were only four).  It appeared that a new building had been completed at DLIWC and no money had been made available for landscaping.  So, one of the professors, on his own dime, paid for all the landscaping.  The department chairs did not think he should bear the cost.  So, each department decided to come up with a money making project to help pay back the professor.

The German Department decided they would have a German picnic and charge each person a small amount.  Much of the food would be contributed by the faculty.  One professor was going to make her famous German potato salad.  A German friend of the department owned a winery and he was going to contribute all the wine for the picnic.  There was a lot of excitement and planning by the faculty who were all Germans.  The picnic was set for about a month out and we must have had eight to ten meetings to make sure everything would be perfect.  The attention to detail was maddening.

The day of the picnic came and we drove inland to the picnic grounds.  While it was cool on the coast in Monterey, it was in the high 90’s at the picnic.  Also, we had brought a lot more children than anyone had anticipated.  The result was that we ran out of soda in the first 45 minutes.  Director Von Richter and the German professors were running around saying, “How could we know it would be so hot and so many children?  Mein Gott!”  While the professors were ranting and raving, a senior NCO came up to me and said, “Sir, give me a couple of bucks.  We’re going to buy some more soda.”  Well, twenty minutes later, we had all the soda we could drink and the German professors were amazed and delighted.  They couldn’t get over how we solved the problem with good old GI ingenuity.  The NCO came up to me and quietly said, “that’s why they lost the war, big on planning and unable to react.”

Well, my retirement took a left turn.  I’m still retired, but the blogging isn’t as efficient as I hoped.  It is still catch-as-catch-can.  My wife, Carole, had arthritis in both knees and we planned on getting it taken care of after my retirement.  She had both knees operated on last Wednesday.  Operation on Wednesday, walking on Thursday, climbing steps Friday morning and home Friday afternoon.  Mein Gott!

It was no fun putting Carole in the car at the hospital, especially for her.  She had a prescription for pain killers and Carole took it out of the folder as we were driving to the military hospital at Fort Belvoir to fill the prescription.  Suddenly, she couldn’t find the prescription.  It is crazy how a little piece of paper can go hide, and hide it did.  We knew it had to be in the car, but we actually had to have Carole painfully climb out of the car in order to find it.  What an ordeal.  Then, after we found it, I wanted to negotiate to see how many of the pain killers I got.

Now, I am fully employed as a not-so-practical nurse (NSPN).  It came to me in a flash.  RN stands for “really nuts.”  I would have to be really nuts to do this any longer than absolutely necessary.

She is making incredible progress.  Back in 1987, I had my knee scoped.  They took out some small pieces of meniscus.  It was no big deal, but I had to sign a release saying it was OK if they broke my leg.  I asked them why they would break my leg if they were just scoping my knee.  They told me if I didn’t sign the release, they could not operate.  So I signed.  They could have said they wouldn’t break my leg (I knew they wouldn’t), but then again, they couldn’t say that.  It’s all quite confusing unless you have dealt with medical malpractice issues.

Well, no broken leg.  After the procedure, they bandaged and wrapped me up, gave me crutches and sent me home.  They told  me I could take the bandage off (and shower) in five days.  I couldn’t wait to get the bandage off so I would be able to bend my knee.  After five days, I took the bandage off and found out that it wasn’t the bandage.  The knee was stiff as a board.  This is Carole’s fifth day and she has been bending her knees since day two.  Modern medicine is wonderful, but it’s still no fun for NSPN Rice.

But, don’t give up on me as a blogger.  When I’m not preparing a meal or washing clothes, I’ll try to write something.  I know, I know, women do these things all the time.  I truly don’t know how they do it or why anyone would refer to them as the weaker sex.  I’m going to take a nap.