Tone Parsons

Today is my wife’s birthday.

No… I will not tell you how old she is, but I will say this is one of those “big” birthdays (it involves a zero).

I got her a pair of white gold earrings with diamonds (you can see them here) and had a dozen red roses and a bouquet of balloons sent to her work. Then, at noon, I took her out for lunch.

I figured with the flowers, I had done pretty well… but I was wrong. My mother-in-law totally pwned me on that one. My little dozen roses look unbelievably small against the arrangement of 40 roses that she sent.

Doh!

Oh… and my wife…. she’s very happy! 🙂

Edit: there’s pictures of the roses!

In other news: With the pending move to the new building, there’s rumors that a dress code will be enforced at the new place. No more jeans, no more comfy shoes. Business casual all the way.

But what is business casual?

I’m pretty sure they’ll define it as “dress slacks” and “a button shirt with a collar”. This gives me inspiration. I am planning on heading over to the local Goodwill to see if I can find some checkered pants (preferably blue and white), a few beautiful shirts (orange tux shirts with ruffles), and some lovely white shoes.

It won’t be pretty, but it will exactly match the verbiage of the dress code 🙂

Did you miss me?

We finished our whirl-wind tour of central Washington state and I’m back in the saddle. I would have posted updates from the road, but the hotel I stayed in had some issues with their internet (it has been down for weeks). Nice… maybe they should pull all those fliers saying “Free high-speed internet in rooms” down. They should also look under their mattresses once in a while (I found a spoon with residue on it under mine… can you say “heroin”?).

Yakima was a lovely town… if you define “lovely” as a pitiful dirt hole. It was hot, people grew corn in their front yards (odd!), and there wasn’t much to do… so we entertained ourselves by sitting on the patio outside of our hotel room and watching the “beautiful people” at the pool. That’s of course, if you define “beautiful people” as portly trolls with hairy backs.

We ate some good food (Red Lobster, Black Angus), and some really, REALLY horrible food (at the Howard Johnson, our hotel).

For those who are curious on what central Washington looks like, I present to you the following images of desolation:

You probably want to make sure you have a full tank of gas and a reliable car before going through the miles and miles of not a damn thing. You’ll also want to pee before you leave, as it’s a good distance between places with toilet paper.

I’ll write something clever about the trip up later (or not).

I’m in Yakima, Washinton.

Oh boy… what a place!  It’s hot, it’s kinda dirty, and english appears to be a second language.

After making multiple calls to hotels, I finally found one with a vacancy, the Howard Johnson.  They offer free wireless internet (except it’s been broken for over 2 weeks), a pool and hot tub (the hot tub is all torn apart), etc.

The place needs some serious work, but the rate is good, and the bed isn’t too horrible, so I think we’ll stay.

We’re here until Monday (the wife is on business… I’m just here for entertainment), then back to Spokane.

The weekend though… that’s all ours.

Today’s plan… find coffee, find something to do, find beer.

I’m easily entertained 🙂

Back in the day, I was young and stupid.

One of the stupid things I did in my youth was join the Army. To this day, I have no idea why I signed up to be a 91A10 Combat Medic. Apparently, I wasn’t doing anything that day, so I talked to a recruiter.

I found this picture the other day and it made me laugh. It was taken in March of 1986. You can see me in the top row, 4th from the left.

Yup… all baby faced and such.

Basic training was actually a blast. Everything my mother ever told me not to do… that’s what we were doing. Playing with knives, crawling through the mud, shooting weapons! Sure, I had a Drill Sergeant yelling at me, but he was yelling at everyone, and I knew that after my 8 weeks of training, he’d go away… so it didn’t bother me at all.

One of the best memories I have of basic training is the day we qualified to shoot the M203 (a grenade launcher mounted to the underside of the M16). I did everything perfectly, and was chosen to be on of the 3 privates to fire an actual M-72 (LAW rocket) at a stationary tank. I actually hit the tank, sending the hatch on top about 150 feet straight up in the air. After looking inside the tank after the fact, I pity anyone who might be on the receiving end of such a thing.

Because I scored high on the tests they give you, I was offered the chance to go to West Point. I declined (they take your soul, starch it, and hang it in a closet. You don’t get it back). My Drill Sergeant didn’t understand why in the hell someone would say “um… no” to something like that and made my life a little rough until he finally gave up (assume the position and do push-ups until your arms fall off). I still have no regrets about my decision, and would make it again.