All done

So here is a picture of the birds I talked about. There aren't as many as the first day, so imagine every inch of these wires and the big circle, covered in these birds.I also wanted to mention the desert that John and I had at a restaurant called Cafe Lux, which has the same owners as Cheesecake Factory for those of you who have heard of that. It's called the Molten Chocolate Cake and you can see what it looks like on this page: http://grandluxcafe.com/menu.htm

When you cut into that cupcake looking thing it just pours out melted chocolate. Not very tasty as you can imagine, I mean who likes rich chocolate cake with hot melted chocolate pouring out of it? Besides me? You order your desert before your meal and they bake it while your eating. Brilliant! You see this thing when you're hungry so you order it and then you eat way too much food so when the desert comes, you need to vomit to make room. You've all ready committed to it so you might as well figure out a way to get it down your gullet. John and I were both close to pulling a reversal on the walk back to the hotel. (If you don't know what a reversal is, that is a sports term from competitive eating (No shit) meaning to throw up. In competitive eating you would then have to eat that as well, but I'm not an athlete, so I would just leave that lay.)

We met our customer service people at a couple of our warehouses on Thursday, stopped in to say hi and took a couple out for lunch. I hope that meeting them will help us in the future get what we need from them. We also got a few better pictures of the bridge we crossed over into Baytown, where the Seapac warehouse is. Pretty cool. I wish I could show you via a picture how many oil fields there are in the Houston area, but it's impossible. Here is a picture of some of the structures, but I don't know what these are for. There are tanks everywhere, of course. We heard the the greater Houston area is actually bigger that the state of Delaware. I'm guessing the state of Rhode Island would be the size of just parking in Houston. I know we will be back in Houston since we have a bunch of warehouses and millions of pounds there, so I look forward to going back.

More from Houston

We had a great night out with John and Andrea. They are really nice and both have a good sense of humor. We ate at a steak house that you pick out your own meat and they cook it for you. I had my favorite steak, a New York Strip, and it was awesome. John drove us there and the car was equipped with a GPS system that was a tad bit lacking. It kept getting lost, tried to get us to down a one way street the wrong way, made us pull over on the interstate so it could reconfigure and had us do several U-turns. We all determined that we could have done all of this on our own, without a GPS system. If you ever rent Avis, think twice before you get the GPS. John and I headed out to Seapac in hopes of getting there around 9am, giving us a chance to miss the traffic and them a chance to get ready for us. We were told it was a 45 minute drive, which it is if you don’t do several U-turns. We didn’t even have a GPS system and we still got lost. It took us an hour or so, but when we went to lunch, we learned a back way out that saved us time on the way home. We finally got to the warehouse and set up in the conference room in a building that the air conditioning was broken. The last time a count was done here, I was told it was a mess. I’m happy to say that it went very well this time. We did our counts and were finished about 2pm and headed back to the hotel to put the info into the computer and finished up at 11pm. It looked pretty scary, but once we got back to Seapac on Wed., it all worked out pretty well. I have included some pictures of one of the 4 warehouses they have, and I will tell you that all 4 of them are huge. We used a golf cart to get around on Wed. and got lost in one of the warehouses. I know it seems like that would be impossible, but I assure you we hadn’t been drinking. This place is just that big. You can see all of the bags in this picture and there are thousands of them. Here are some pictures of some machines that they use to pack plastic out of railcars into cartons and bags. They are pretty dark, since it was almost 5pm when we took them and the sunlight was low. It was really cool to see how these works. All in all, this was a great trip. We will now have a good inventory record and we got to meet the people we deal with on the phone and via email.A couple of things about Houston. I had never been here before, but this place is crazy. It reminds me as to why I don’t live in a big city anymore. Most of the roads we drove on are 6 to 8 lanes wide and busy. The cars are doing about 65 to 70 mph and a bunch are weaving in and out of traffic. There are roads everywhere. The roads split, then split again, then again. If you don’t watch the signs close, your ass is in Mexico before you know it. There was one thing that pissed me off. We were on our way back from Seapac when we saw rain coming down up ahead. As soon as we got to the rain, the car in front of me slammed on their brakes. Now I’m going 65 mph and this guys stomps his brake with all he has. Was there a car in front of him you might ask, or perhaps a lost baby that had wandered out onto the highway. No, it was moist concrete that has frightened this brave Texan. I couldn’t believe it, then he proceeded to go 40 mph while still pushing his brake. I couldn’t get around him because all of the other lanes were doing 60 mph and it’s really hard to get from 35 mph to 65 mph before you get a Dodge up your ass. I did want to show you what my maid did to my toiletries on the counter of my room. I promise you I didn’t leave them like this, but this is how they are every night when I get back. I thought I was anal, this is crazy. I think I love her. Or him, I’ve never seen them so I’m not sure who I love on this one. They do keep putting the damn room service menu on my bed that I move everytime I get back. I think I will throw it away and see if they get the hint or just replace it. I think John is stealing all of the soap, shampoo and coffee in his room, so they might not miss a room service menu.

Day one done

The first day of counting is done. The warehouse is huge, here are a few pictures.

Here are a few of the silos out back and a new one on a flatbed trailer. We didn’t have much trouble, until we got to the back corner of the warehouse. There were these bags that we were having a hard time getting an accurate count on. I stuck my hand down the side, when I pulled it out it was covered in the white power that was in the bags, and all over them as well. I didn’t think much of it, but still wasn’t sure of the count. I had John check the count, and even though he didn’t stick his hand down the side like I did, he was covered in the white powder as well. No big deal, we were dirty anyway, right? So the forklift driver comes by to move a few things and he says, “Those bags have arsenic in them.” I chuckled since he must be messing with us. He drove off only to return a little while later and said, “You might want to wash that off.” Now, he is either really holding on to this joke, or I'm up shits creek, sans paddle. He takes us over to the bags and this is what we see. Not very damn funny anymore. What in the hell is arsenic doing in a plastic powder? This I don’t know, but I can tell you where the closest bathroom is located from the arsenic. Even after 2 washings, I still feel the cancer now growing in my body. Please us this picture in the lawsuit. We got a tour of the testing lab and that was pretty interesting. Lots of equipment and a lot of words I didn’t understand, but very interesting. Now we are getting ready for a dinner with John Strobel and Andrea Cronin from our home office in CT who are down here counting. Tomorrow is the big day at Seapac, the real reason John and I are in Houston. Keep your fingers crossed that, 1. We find Seapac. 2. That we are welcomed and not dragged to the back of the warehouse and beaten to a pulp(Did I mention that they aren’t that happy with me since I questioned their ability to do, about anything?) 3. That the counts are “close.” And 4. That we are able to get back to the hotel.

Monday

So we board the plane in Des Moines, and I hear something I’ve never heard before. Over the intercom, they say something about lap children. I know what that is, I’ve just never heard anyone use that term. The flights were good, about a 45 minute layover in Dallas and a quick flight to Houston. We picked up the rental car, which is a Mitsubishi SUV, but I don’t remember what kind. It only had 69 miles on it when we got in, so it still has that new car smell. We only made one mis-step getting to the hotel, but we figured out the directions and made it from the airport in about 45 minutes. We checked in and made it to our rooms on the 9th floor. OH MY, this is living. I’ve added some pictures, but I promise you it doesn’t do it justice. We have a pretty nice view and the rooms are pretty plush. We crossed the street to eat at The Fox Sports Grill. There were a lot of TV’s showing a bunch of football games. After about 2 seconds, I remembered that we were in Texas, a huge football state and I was now surrounded by the enemy. I’m a Redskin fan and I’m in Cowboy territory. The Cowboys were on TV and the crowd was pretty loud. I’m glad they weren’t playing the Redskins this week or I might have had to start something. Yeah, right. We made it back to our room in time for Amazing Race, priorities you know. Now it’s relaxing time until our 6:45 breakfast and off to count 18 million pounds of plastic. I’m not sure how often I will post, so there may be 2 posts at a time when I do. Nothing real exciting happened today, in fact, it went much smoother than I figured it would. We’ll see if we can get to Baytown with as much ease. Well, I off to bed to watch the rest of this semi-porn music video on an HD channel that I found. I think it is Pink, if you know your pop stars, which I don’t, but I think I’ve seen her before. Did I mention that we have HD TV’s in our rooms? I don’t even have one at home yet, so I’m in luxury right now. We did have an issue trying to get back to the hotel from dinner. The restaurant is across the street, but the street is like 9 lanes wide, so you have to wait for the lights. We got over ok, but coming back, we couldn’t get the lights to change, so we just dodged cars so we could get across. We watched someone else push the crosswalk button and it worked for them, so maybe John doesn’t know how to push buttons correctly. I’ll have to keep an eye on that. When we went to dinner, there were these wires that held this big circle with street names on it, I can’t really describe it since I’ve never seen anything like it. Anyway, the thing was covered with birds, I mean hundreds of them. I had a flash back to The Birds movie and was slightly frightened. They even sounded like the birds in the movie and they just kept flying in. I’ll take my camera next time we cross over and take a picture of the circle and maybe the birds will be there again. I heard them dropping gifts as we walked under, not the best thing to hear before dinner.

K-Mart

So I'm getting ready for my trip to Houston on Sunday, and I needed to pick up a few things. I went to the K-Mart by my office, which is probably the highest concentration of white trash in the state. I know that isn't politically correct to say, so maybe I should put like this. They are looks, money, soap and teeth challenged. Anyhoo, I watched a 350 pound guy pull up to the front of the store and park right under the no parking sign and walk in. The funny thing is, he had a handicapped license plate, so he could have parked legally just 6 feet away. As I go into the store, he is right in front of me, leaning on his cart as he pushed it. I shit you not, 2 inches of his ass crack were clearly visible along with another 3 inches of what used to be white BVD's. I grabbed my phone so I could take a picture, because I didn't want all of my family and friends to miss out, and just as I was about to snap the picture, Bob's Big Boy pulled them up. Sorry. I walked around the store awhile and I saw him again, this time only a small crack was showing, hardly worth the awkward feeling I got trying to shimmy up to the man's crack earlier. I now know how to send pictures to my computer from my phone, so be prepared for uncomfortable pictures in the future. I did find an interesting product on the shelf that I'm not sure what you do with. Here it is.

Can anyone tell me what this is used for? If you can't read it, it says "Head Lube" then the more scary line is "Glossy." I now see it says "Moisture" and then maybe lotion, but I'm not sure. I would have spent more time looking at it, but I'm uncomfortable looking at anything with "Lube" in the name and ass man walked by and I didn't want to miss the show.

Wish me luck in Houston. My intention is to post while there, but the Internet connection at the hotel isn't free, so I will have to see what it costs.

Let me tell you what a dumbass I am. I know, you all ready know this, but here is proof, just in case you doubted it.



We have had trouble in our house with drains smelling. I searched on the Internet and the consensus was, it has hair or other crap, stuck in the drain and, for lack of a better word, rotting. If you have seen me lately, you know that if it's hair, it ain't me. Regardless of what exactly is causing the problem, the suggested remedy is bleach and hot water. It has worked in our shower drain and once in the laundry room washing machine drain. Well, the smell was back in the laundry room this weekend, in fact, it about made me gag, so I set out to clean the drain on Sunday. The spot you have to pour the bleach and water is set back into the wall and very hard to get to, so I use a funnel, that is actually to short and small to use without getting water every where. I looked at 2 home improvement places this weekend with no luck of finding a larger funnel. I got it all done and started the washing machine to see if the smell was gone. Tip for you, when you remove a drain tube, you need to replace it before you start using the equipment. I skipped this important step, so I returned in time to see a tidal wave wash across the laundry room, kitchen and eating area. My first reaction was to cuss, which I now know only allowed the water to get that much further across the lower level of my house. I ran to the laundry room to find the source when a light bulb went off and I replaced the drain hose back into the hole in which it belonged. I was a little late seeing as how there was no longer water spewing out of the hose since that cycle was done. I turned around in time to see water start to pour into the air vents conveniently located on the floor. Luckily, we had a stack of old towels, so I tossed one on the vent in the laundry room and ran to the other vents to plug those up as well. I was at a loss as to what to do now. I don't own a wet/dry vac, so towels were my only option. I figured it was too late to put a for sale sign in the front yard a call it a day. I could say it had an indoor pool, all be it not very deep, it was still deeper than anyone else's in the neighborhood. I threw towels around and ran upstairs to grab a bunch more. I threw those around and started to sop up the water, wring out the towels and re-sop. My arms were exhausted and I kept finding water in places I didn't know it got to. After I had the pond contained, I decided that I needed to check on the basement to see if I had a pool on two floors. I'm guessing there aren't too many houses with two indoor pools, maybe I should have sold it. I have been working in my basement to finish it, so luckily I had removed just about everything that was down there. There was quite a bit of water, but since there is a drain, the major pools were gone. After about an hour, I had it cleaned up, other than a small seepage from under the dishwasher that I'm sure will cost me a mint to fix at some point when I think it's all clear. That was my excitement, jealous?



Update on the basement. There are now lights and cable. I will be pulling the wires for the outlets this week before I head to Houston on Sunday. Our hopes are to go to the Houston Rockets vs Los Angeles Lakers basketball game while we're there, so we will see. I'd also like to play a little disc golf, but that might be a stretch. Take a look at the hole on the front page of this website. http://www.hfds.org/index.html I want to play this one.

This is my second post, so be sure to look at the photos below. The whole fam went to Mt. Pleasant a few weeks back and Marcy spotted this sign when we stopped for gas.

I don't know about you, but I'm not eating anyplace with colon in the name, whether it be a village or a whole damn town. Ass does not equal quality food to me. Hooters, OK, colon, no thanks.