Conroe Municipal Courthouse

If you ever get a ticket in Conroe TX, then you will soon find yourself dealing with Conroe's Municipal Court employees.

So, I go there today. When I got in my accident, I didn't have the latest insurance card, so I had to go today to show them I really was covered. The other thing on the ticket was a checkbox for 'Failure to maintain speed'. Obvious since I ran into someone, but the cop wrote 'warning' for that one. The problem was the girl thought 'warning' was written too close to the line that said 'speeding'. ...and tried to charge me with speeding all on her little own self. Oh, and this was after I waited 5 minutes for her to get off the phone for personal business. I was in a good mood going into this conversation.

So I started very calmly with "I didn't get charged with speeding, if you notice there is no check in that box"

3 minutes later, the obviously mentally challenged civil servant behind the window earned my contempt. So to sum up, let me give you some of the phrases I used that earned me a court date on Thursday. Little tip, don't use these like I did.

- You could help me.. you just don't want to?
- Can we use common sense please?
- Can I talk to someone smarter than you?
- What are you? Minimum wage? (this one was to the supervisor)

Long story short, I got myself into the situation where they shut down on me. I hurt their pride and there was no turning them after that point. I get to go talk to someone hopefully smarter than them on Thursday and address them as 'Your Honor'.

Can't wait!

-Gary

Almost There

I stopped this AM to look at my car. It's almost done. They just put it thru the paint booth and now they just need to put the goodies back on it. Trim, bumper, lights, etc.

Here's where we stand.










(You can click the pictures to see them bigger)










-Gary

Little Late

It took me long enough, but I finally got around to putting this video together of the trip to North Carolina with Taylor.



Note - Some of you may remember Taylor and I being on an episode of 'On Tap'. Here's that video which has some of my video included in it. (Ends the same) But it also has several more pictures that were taken from Tim's camera on our road trip to Asheville.



-Gary

Forgot What It Was Like

My life seems to have an accelerator. I'm conditioned to move thru it at a fast pace, always looking for the next immediate task.

"Oh no! I'm idle.. What can I do right now?"

Sometimes, I feel like I can't slow down, or I'll get passed up. The result? Adding stress and gray hairs, obviously.

Then occasionally, there's a night like I had tonight. Where I'm reminded about the luxury of taking a night away from worry. Slowing things down and having a deep meaningful conversation with someone you enjoy talking with. In 2 hours, I was able to recharge tonight with a friend. We shared a bottle of wine and talked about our lives. I was reminded that there really are people out there who are pulled in the same ways I am. Better yet, there are people out there with compassion for their friends who feel the tug.













Tonight, I became better friends with someone I've known for awhile.

I'm glad I know her.

-Gary

A Split Second Can Cost...

Got my estimate today. Thank goodness for insurance. <-that sort of rhymes

-Gary

MOTHER HELL!

The day started good. It ended horrible. Apparantly sometime during rush hour traffic, my car got hungry and tried to eat the brand new Tahoe in front of me.










If you look close, you can see where the car got scared and pissed itself.

Good news. No one was hurt.

Bad news. I broke my beautiful car, plus I had plans to drive out of town this weekend. SUCK!

Oh, and I guess my insurance will be a little more.

Great way to start the holiday weekend. CUSSWORDS!!

-Gary

Sicky Dan!

Little trip to the doctor for Dan. Thought we'd do a video documentary on it. Pffft!



-Gary

Friday was awesome

I shot a 101 at Redstone, but I feel pretty good about it. I've completely lost control of my drives, but my short game was rockin. If I can get the fairways again off the tee-boxes my game will be amazing. Many of my strokes were out of bounds or water balls. Without those, I'm sure I could have tickled the 80's. Time to go to the range.

-Gary

PGA Courses

Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 12:40PM - I will start my new goal to play all public courses in the US on the PGA tour. I believe there are 11 of them. The first one being here in Houston where the Shell Houston Open is hosted. Redstone Golf Course.

Link -> here <-

I will also be posting my scores on each one, and this may take me 5 years or so to complete, but who cares. I have a dream.

I'm excited about this tee time on Friday. It will be the first time I play with a caddie. It's totally going to my head. I'm gonna ask him to call me 'Admiral' the whole time. His tip will depend on it.

-Gary

Get Well, Pop

For those who don't know, Dad had neck surgery last week. This past weekend I went up to Arkansas to see family and brought my video camera with me. I thought my dad would like to see a message from everyone up there and was able to show it to them tonight while I had dinner with them.

Thanks to everyone. My dad really enjoyed seeing everyone and decided to respond with a video back to y'all.

Family gets this one:



The cute girls get this one:



If you're looking for me, I'll be in Arkansas....

-Gary

Original video -> here <-Clicky.

Halloween '07

Beth and I went to the Vela/Higginbotham party and it was a blast.. Here's the pics.



-Gary

Driving Overseas

Here's a couple videos of me driving overseas. The first part was in the UK, where you stay on the left side of the road and the steering wheel is on the right side of the car.

The second part is in Germany, I got to drive on the autobahn where there are no limits. Just FYI - This was in a minivan, so if you hear David cussing me out, that is why. It's like dogfighting in a commercial jet.



-Gary

Love The Brits

The trip to UK was pretty awesome. Here's a link to the rest of the pictures. Some are London, the old tore down castle is Bury St Edmunds.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakergd/sets/72157602177633251/

Cheers,

-Gary

If Your Not Right..

If you're not right, you must be wrong. For well over half my life I've been driving a car. The basic rules of the road are now a part of my nature. I'm at the point where I can dial my cell, read a book, even take a nap and get to work safely. Knowing where to look when merging, turning or weaving happens without thought.

...until today. I'm in the UK. I rented a car at Heathrow airport to drive up to Bury St Edmunds with my boss. Now we've been in London since yesterday. We've been riding in cabs and we got the whole experience watching someone drive on the left side of the road. It was actually a litte exciting the first time we looked outside the front windshield while taking a right turn, but after a full day of it, it seems to flow pretty normally. So we go get this car. A light blue 5-speed manual Peugeot. We collect our 'Tom Tom' from the lady behind the desk and walk out to the car.

First mistake. David never planned on driving and I had the key, but that didn't stop both of us from naturally walking up to the wrong sides of the car to get in. We just looked at each other over the roof, rolled our eyes at each other and traded sides.

Second thru Three hundred fifty seventh mistakes. Driving a stick in the UK. It's on the left side. I can't remember how many times I needed to down/up-shift and hit my right hand on the door. I've heard of this from a colleague who said he went for the door handle once. He wasn't exaggerating. It's queer as hell.

It took about 30 feet in the parking lot to lose all cockiness and realize this was going to take an amazing feat in concentration if I wanted to make it a couple hundred kilometers to Bury St. Edmunds. Thanks the LORD, it was mostly freeway. After awhile, we got a little hungry and wanted to exit at a place that advertised 'services'. This was another major event. The normal intersection on this side of the Atlantic Ocean seems to be 'roundabouts'. (Rotaries if you're from New England). They're all over the place, but here they go clockwise. The rules are the same, but be dang sure you know which way to look for oncoming traffic, or you will become 'foreign stuff smeared on the road'. At one point I think David's eyes were closed, but I can't blame him. Mine were too for a few hairy moments.

But, in the end, we made it to the hotel. The best practice I got was in this small English town where David thought he knew where the hotel was. Trying to take lefts and rights on his command while also trying to keep from having a head-on was a pretty good lesson on driving in the UK. My suggestion if you're ever going to do it. Get on the Internet and study the rules of the road up here. The signs, lights, rotaries and street markings are completely different than those back home. Also, get a rental with the maximum insurance. It gives you a small edge on the comfort side.

I'll be posting pictures of the London sites in the next couple days. Will be seeing 'Stonehenge' also before flying to Germany. Oh, which reminds me... Oktoberfest started last weekend. You might not ever see me again.

Sweet!

-Gary

Dagnabit!!!

I missed it. Today was 'Talk Like a Pirate' Day and I got too busy to lay down the lingo to anyone. I was really hoping to annoy my boss today with it. CRAP!

-Gary

Trimethylxanthine

I quit Trimethylxanthine on Tuesday. The last time I took the psychoactive stimulant was Monday night in the form of Coke. Yep, I'm talking about Caffiene. Over the past 100 years that I've been chain-drinking soda's, my body has build up a substantial number of adenosine receptors in my central nervous system. Who doesn't mind a few extra receptors, am I right? Well, the problem with those extra receptors is that my body built up a tolerance to caffeine. As a matter if fact, it was nothing for me to have a soda just before going to bed and still sleep like a baby. Not the kind of baby that wakes up every 2 hours screaming, but more like the kind of baby who has a momma that puts alcohol in the bottle to help him/her sleep.

So what's the big deal about adenosine receptors? Well adenosine serves to regulate blood pressure. The increased effects of adenosine due to caffiene withdrawal causes the blood vessels of the head to dilate, leading to an excess of blood in the head and causing headache and nausea. Well there we go. In short, that's where I've been living the past 4 days. (Today being day 4)

The more I read about caffeine withdrawal and the possible effects it could have on a person, the more I feel lucky that all I had was blinding headaches and some serious stomach issues the last few days. Now I won't say I haven't been irritable. Just ask my boss. But the pros say this could also put people into depression and just the fact that I'm having a pretty good life right now counteracts the crap out of that. I'm a lucky man. I'm in a lot of pain right now, but still... a very lucky man!

Voo Doo Nachos

It's peculiar what happens to the body when you're sick. You starve yourself because of the major loss of appetite, which deprives you of nourishment, which makes you feel worse, which makes it that much harder to eat. That happened to me last week. A diet consisted of half-eaten can's of soup and the occasional Ritz cracker.

That's right, I said 'Cracker', Cracka!

The achiness started to go away on Friday, and so did the loss of appetite. It was kind of like the dam breaking and it all came to a head with a trip to Fajita Jack's. Everthing was the same until I started to put salt on the chips. I started chain-eating chips/salsa and ordered a plate of fajita nachos. Beef, not chicken. As I sat there trying to feed the starvation, I realized, "Heck, I feel better". Now I asked myself, "Are these magical nachos?" Maybe the cheese was a bit moldy and I had my share of penicillin. Maybe the salt that I put on the chips went into my system and got in the eyes of all the little germs that made me feel bad confusing them and made them kill each other. (..a stretch, I know)

It didn't take me long to realize that eating 'crap' doesn't make someone feel better. Just maybe it was the simple fact of having a good day after a few bad ones. Seeing the sun, getting outside and talking to a friend.

-Gary

California Trip

Here is a video of the photos of Dan's trip to California. We hit Hollywood, Universal Studios and Catalina Island. 5 days of fun for the boys.



-Gary

Yahoo Photos

Any link in any post that I point to a photo on Yahoo photos in now dead. Yahoo removed that service and moved all my pictures to Flickr.

Go Here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakergd

All my trip photos are there for the browsing. I should be putting new ones up of North Carolina and Southern California soon.

-Gary

Featured on Lago's Lounge!

My daughter and I just got back from North Carolina. Our trip just happened to be featured on "On Tap" at Lago's Lounge.

Take a look at the movie.

http://lagos-lounge.blogspot.com/2007/07/on-tap-lagos-lounge-727-282007.html

This is right up there with Letterman and Leno, baby!

-Gary

Finally

I'm HOME!

Strike 2

Well, crappity! I was in the conference room today, plugged in my earpiece to my laptop and was gonna listen to some tunes on http://www.pandora.com.

...and I get this because of licensing and playing music outside the US.

Click on it to make it bigger to read.






















Denied!! ...oh, and I'm not always complaining about France. There's a lot of ups. For instance - the food, the beautiful countryside, ...and of course, the women are fine. (Yeah, I'm judging). I'd say more good than bad, but I've done plenty of previous posts about the good.

-Gary

Long ways to Caen

Left Houston for Caen. Had 9 hours on a plane to Paris, followed by a mess at the airport, then 2.5 hours working my way thru both train stations on Metro subway. I get to St Lazare and jump on a faster train with a 2 hour ride to Caen. It was the next day when it was all over and I took a cab straight to the office for a conference call before checking in the hotel.

Here's a look.



-Gary

There's a Little Truth in Southpark

Few points you should know about this video. First, this is my buddy Tim in North Carolina. Second, he should never be left home alone. ..and third, yes his dog is named 'Stinkerbutt'. If you've clicked the link over to the right for Lago's Lounge, then you may have already been exposed.

Take it away, Timmay!



-Gary

How Bout Some Clam Chowdah!

Today was a meeting in Boston. Arrived in town yesterday from Cleveland, and had meetings in our Billerica office. Towards the end of the day, we've covered everything from local situation, to the company's budget info and even some high level discussions about direction. At some point, we're all sitting around staring at each other as if to say "What else do we need to talk about?", so I break it up with a suggestion - "Let's head down to Newport, RI and get dinner". The look on their faces was sort of 'Is he serious?', but I eventually bullied it over and we get in the car and head south for a couple hours. In the end, they were glad they did it.














Tomorrow, Maine for Lobster before the flight home! It's a tough life, sometimes.

-Gary

Buttcrack of Dawn

So here's the scene. I'm sitting at a table in Denny's in Cleveland. I order up my Lumberjack Slam breakfast and it comes to the table within minutes. I get my eggs cut up like I want them with the sausage cut into bits and mixed with them. I offload the ton of butter from my pancakes which always ticks me off that it created a hole in my pancakes before the plate got to me. Just the right amount of maple syrup and I move my laptop back and start enjoying my breakfast. Yesterday's weather in Cleveland sucked, but today is a nice sunny blue sky with some puffy clouds hanging around. It's a good day.

So I start eating and about 3-4 bites into my breakfast, I take a look out the window to enjoy this nice day, and in one flash of a moment, my breakfast is ruined. Apparantly, there are some contractors working on the outside overhang of the restaurant and all I can see out the window is construction worker ass crack. Blatant crack. As in, 'why even wear a belt' crack.

So, of course, I wish this is one of those experiences that I could share with all of you with enough detail so you can fully feel the experience like me, but a shipload of poets couldn't illustrate this well enough to give you the gagging moment I had with a mouth full of pancakes catching an unearned glimpse of arse.

...and isn't technology great where I can grab my Cingular card, connect to the Internet and update you with this info before I pay for my bill. My waitress, Kelly, just came by and asked if she could get me a box.

"It's ok, Kelly. I won't be eating again..... forever"

-Gary

Room Service Sucks Here

It's the last time I stay in this 'Dam Hotel'.














Ok, I didn't really stay there, but I saw when I was walking back to my hotel. Come to think of it, I don't think I've stayed in a European hotel that had room service that delivered food to me.

Regardless, there wasn't too much about Amsterdam that just didn't make me scratch my head or giggle like a school girl.

-Gary

The Blue Carpet

So it never fails. When I get to the gate to catch a plane, I always hate those uppity jerks who get to board first on the lane with the nice blue carpet just because they have a higher frequent flyer status.

So I say to them...

"You can now kiss my butt easier since I'm in the same line as you."









-Gary

Nuclear Crawfish

I know, I'm a little late with getting these pictures posted, but I blame my job. Regardless, let's start this post off with an example of the size of crawfish we had this year. I would say about half of the crawfish in the bags were closer to this size rather than being too small. Good year for mud bugs.



We had 38 people turn out this year and still went thru a lot of crawfish. I had about 210 pounds with only about 20 lbs left over at the end of it all. I had every intention to peel and freeze what was left, but since I just got back from Europe the day before, I just didn't have the energy. Here's some pics.






































...and then around the 4th batch of crawfish, and a few beers later, the party really got started.

The Holy Hooker?

In the middle of City Centre in Amsterdam is the 'Old Church'. Apparantly the oldest building in town. It's surrounded by a very touristy area including the red light district. So what do they put a monument of next to the front door? Basically a hooker statue.














That's my colleague, Martin in the picture with me. Oh, and by the way.. There's a sandwich place in City Centre that sales Dr Pepper. Now I can become Dutch with no issues. We all took a chair and downed a few like they were lifesaving water.


















I'm in Caen, France today. I'm not sure what I could possibly take pictures of in this small French town, but I'll keep ya posted anyways.

-Gary

Seriously

Be careful which alley you walk down.



-Gary

I've been Amsterdam'd

I landed at Schiphol airport yesterday, met up with Mikey who drove up from Germany and we toured Amsterdam. I must admit, I love the Dutch. Friendliest people in the world. The culture is amazing and everyone rides bicycles. You have to be careful though. When you're walking around 'City Centre', make sure you don't go down any alley's with the rainbow flags waving. You might just find some people trying to sell you tickets to something you don't want to go on.














I'll have plenty of pictures to post on my ->Yahoo photos<- page. Keep checking. They will be in '04/07 - Amsterdam/Rotterdam' album. Oh, and I would have gotten a picture of the window hookers, but as I understand, if you take a picture, the pimps fall out of the woodwork and beat the crap out of you. So I refrained.

-Gary

Never Bring Work Home

We had to get a document done, so I invite the fellas over to do some work at the table while burgers grilled. Little food, little beer, little attitude from Ross.



Nobody wants to work after 5, I guess.

-Gary

Boromir tells it like it is!

This made me laugh pretty hard. Not sure why, though

...for all you Lord of the Rings fans.

->clicky<-

-Gary

You know you've made it when..

...they put your name on the welcome sign when you arrive. Of course, vanity combined with my inherent nature to take a picture of everything demands that I get a picture of these occurances.

Here's the sign at Zetec in Snoqualmie, Washington. (It may be hard to see, so click the picture for a bigger version)














Here's a sign from ISL in Verson, France.













That's Mikey Elsner, my colleague in Germany. It drives him batty that the French has yet to spell his name (Michael) correctly.

Meetings are over. I'm sitting in a hotel in Seattle near the airport today. Got myself a flight tomorrow afternoon. Weather sucks.. Can't wait for the turbulence tomorrow.

Ciao,

-Gary

Snoqualmie Falls

So after the morning meeting with Randy and Teren in our Zetec office, we head to lunch and make a detour just down the street to 'Snoqualmie Falls'.














We find a parking spot and trek across a foot bridge to see where the rumbling is coming from. It was pretty impressive. Now I've never been to any large falls, but after seeing this thing, I can only imagine how impressive Niagara Falls must be.















See this thing peek over while walking to it wasn't too shabby, but the best part was walking over to the observatory and see it dead on with the water hammering down on the surface at the bottom. That's a lot of power. It would be a bad place to swim.

Here's a video. It doesn't do any justice to standing there, but it was cool to see and that was the high point of my day.



-Gary

Pike's Market

So now I'm completely dangerous. I figured out how to convert videos from my camera to a format I can post on YouTube. Look out! Fish comin at ya!



-Gary

I Have No Problems Sleeping in Seattle

David and I get in town about noon (Pacific Time) and head straight for downtown Seattle. ...with the help of the NeverLost system in the rental car, of course. I couldn't for the life of me think of what awesome sight I was going to see in Seattle, but leave it to David to do a little research.

Here's me in front of the first ever Starbucks.














...and you may have seen this place on TV, ...it's Pike's Market Fish Company.















These are the guys who throw fish back and forth to each other. It's pretty amusing to watch. I think they actually have a fun job and probably just a small percentage of people in Seattle who aren't running around depressed all the time. You can tell these fellas enjoy having a good time. We grabbed something to eat at a seafood place in the market and headed to the hotel. Meetings start tomorrow.

Possibly more later. I have Friday night and Saturday morning to myself and I might go up the Space Needle. If I do, I'll post pics.

-Gary

I've Never Felt so Redneck

So I read in a book that you can save about 64%ish on rifle ammunition when you reload it yourself. So I turn around and spend a few hundred dollars on all the equipment and start reloading my own rounds. I figure that I will most likely break even sometime just before I die.














I will admit, however, that it's quite a bit of fun. I like the part where it gets meticulous. Adjusting dies and measuring powder. It's not the fastest process, but when you get started, it definitely puts the stress of a normal work day behind you. I got everything setup this weekend. I started with the de-priming and cleaning yesterday, and after a couple hours of work tonight, I finished my first ever bullet.














It has a 52 grain bullet that will be pushed by 32 grams of powder. It's almost right on the factory recommended 2.350 inches and I pray that when I shoot it, it doesn't blow up in my face disfiguring me for life.

Who's with me?

-Gary

I'm back in Bean Town!

I haven't been here in 11 years and a lot has changed, but I'm managing to find my way around this confusing city after a few wrong turns and some jack ass blowing his horn at me. Eventually, we found a bar where everyone knows our name. ..and some girl named Jenny, who didn't seem to mind that David and I made her stand in a picture with us just because she had a funny Boston accent. Which reminds me, I discovered that if you get mad at someone and say "How about I smack you with a tuna?!", you can't help but to have a Boston accent. It's almost natural.
















Sorry for the quality. We only had a camera phone with us.

By the way, beware of Samual Adams Boston Lager. It will knock you on your butt. ...in a good way.

-Gary

I Have the Best Luck

So I'm on the Eiffel tower last week, and I've had good weather for days defying all the weather reports. All of a sudden, a rain storm blows thru and it's freakin cold. I'm thinking "Well crap, guess I've used up all my good kharma."

Then as quick as it comes, ...it goes. So I walk over to the railing and check out the freshly drenched soggy town and look at the picture God gave me.

Click the image to make it bigger. It's worth a good look. If you look closely just to the left of the 'pot of gold' spot, you'll see the Arc de Triomphe.














-Gary

Outside of Town

So, I'm out of Paris now and in the town of Caen.














It's near the beaches of Normandy and we got to see the sites. I'll be here thru tomorrow returning to Paris on Thursday. By they way, if you notice in that picture above the land looks like swiss cheese? That's not natural. It's Pont Du Hoc that was cratered by a crapload of bombs just before 225 Rangers set out to take the point. In the end, there were 90 usable soldiers left that kicked the crap out of those trying to defend it. Way to go, Rangers! Read about it -> here <-.

I've added an album on Yahoo pictures for Normandy. Check them out.

-Gary

Part Deaux

I'm back in Paris again 3 months later. Me and my buddy David are here to make a site visit to an office in Verson.


















My kharma seems to be a bit better this trip. Last night I went to the Arc De Triumphe so I could claim that I climbed to the top. When David and I got there, they were holding a ceremony with guys standing around the flame in French military uniforms holding flags and the works. ...and yes, I climbed to the top. It was all stairs, and I thought my heart was gonna sieze up on me.

Then today (Sunday) we went by Notre Dame and got there just in time for mass. Now I'm not Catholic, but how many people around the world can claim they went to church on Sunday in Notre Dame. So, of course, I take pictures.














I wasn't the only one taking pictures, they had the people who were serious roped in, and they had a line of tourists around the sides.

Tomorrow, a train to Caen and a tour of Normandy beach and the American Cemetary. I'll be posting all my pics -> here <-

-Gary

That's a Lot of Pavement Under my Arse!

Geez, I just got this thing in October with 34 miles on it. Ok, so I drive about 100 miles daily.

I better start using my scooter more.

-Gary

80 Quarts of Goodness

I've set the date for this years Crawfish boil. Come to my place and watch crawfish die on April 28th. If you haven't got an invite online and you want to show up, just let me know. I'm gonna need a headcount. Kids are welcome, but I'll warn you now that if they piss me off I'm throwing them in the lake.

Last couple years, I've always used a borrowed pot to cook the bugs in, but I just got my 80 qt pot delivered to me the other day. I can't wait to break it in. It's very shiny, and if I'm lucky it will never be this clean again.

Yes, that's Dan's butt in the pot, but don't worry, I'll clean it before the party.

-Gary

Pancho's Backyard

If you're in Cozumel, and you wanna try the Iguana, go to any restaurant and order the Chicken Taco's. ...take it from me, I have inside information on that. I ended up in a restaurant called "Pancho's Backyard". This is Victor, my waiter.














I don't know if you can tell, but I'm a little tanked at this point. This little dude brought me one margarita, and I couldn't walk a straight line the rest of the day. Apparantly, the best taquila is made right there on the island. I saw some of the Blue Agave plants myself.

Here's a picture of the fish bowl he brought it in.














....and yes, that's bottled water in the background, but no, it didn't belong to me. I found a pair and drank the water in Mexico.

Fun trip!

-Gary