Sunday, December 20, 2015

Homesick snowbird...

Homesick snowbird...  Via my pistol-packing, rock-painting mama:
In Vero Beach, Florida the other day, there was a bumper sticker on a parked car that read: "I miss Chicago.”

Someone broke the window, stole the radio, shot out the tires, added an Obama bumper sticker and left a note that read: "Hope this helps!"
Ha ha ha ha!

One company I used to work for (Stac Electronics) briefly had a branch located in an old bank building in Vero Beach, as a result of us acquiring their former company.  I visited there far too many times for my own liking.  My first visit was to let the employees there know, at our management's behest, that we intended to fully integrate them with the rest of the company, and keep our offices there.  My last visit there was to shut down the office completely, laying off most of the employees.  The two visits were just a few months apart.  Not a pleasant memory, those.

But one thing genuinely funny happened there on my very first visit.  I was in a meeting with about a dozen local employees, in a conference room with no windows.  An hour or so into the meeting, another employee opened the door, came in, and said one word: “Rain!”  Everyone – literally everyone – other than me leapt up and ran for the door of the conference room, and then out of the building.  Slack-jawed, I wandered out and asked one of the few employees still there just what in the hell just happened.  She educated me about Vero Beach rains: those people ran out to get to the marina so they could cover their boats – before they sank!  They get so much rain in Vero Beach that they actually have to worry about that.  Yikes!

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  It's snowing, right on schedule, right at the beginning of our forecast for a Snowpacalypse.  We're snug as bugs in rugs, in our cozy house that will soon be full of wonderful smells (Debbie is planning to bake all day).  My brother Scott has reported in; he's snug in his cabin to the north of us.  I'm chugging away on a fun project (reverse-engineering SolarEdge's monitoring data, which traverses our network on the way to their servers) and finishing up the last of the financial catch-up.  Christmas carols are playing in the background.  From time to time, I glance out the window at the Christmas-card scene outside.

Full of good cheer, are we...