A joke that's right up my alley........

After a late night of partying, a guy invites his friends back to his new apartment.

While he is giving them a tour, one of his friends notices a huge gong and hammer near the wall.

"What's up with the gong?", he asks.

"Oh that's not a gong, it is a talking clock."

His friends voice skepticism, "Dude, that's not a talking clock, it's obviously a friggin' gong."

The guy replies, "No, I swear, you hit it with that hammer as hard as you can and it tells you the time. Go ahead, give it a try."

His friend shrugs his shoulders, grabs the hammer, rears back, and strikes it with a loud: "GOOOOOOOOOOONG!"

After a few seconds they hear a voice from the other side of the wall, "Hey asshole! IT'S THREE-THIRTY IN THE F*****G MORNING!"

I love old people.............

I'm working with one of my senior citizen clients......I needed some information about their hard drive, older folks keep all their records. I had the info I needed in about 15 seconds. If you're under the age of 60....I bet you don't have all the paperwork for the computer you bought 6 years ago.

The only issue my older clients have (and I don't blame them) is that they get upset when the computer they paid well over a thousand dollars for 8 or 10 years ago is completely obsolete. The good news is that for considerably less than 1000 bucks- I can get them a system that is way, way faster than what they have and if they want to spend more then 5 or 6 hundred bucks...I can get a killer system for 1000 bucks or so.

I'm setting up a laptop for a client.......I had a budget of 1000 dollars- bought and configured a Dell Studio 15 inch. Got a mid level i5 processor, a 1 gig video card , 4 gigs of system RAM plus a few other upgrades....can't beat Dell if you know a few coupon codes and pick your components carefully. It'll be quite awhile until I upgrade my laptop-but the more I work with Dell laptops....the more I like them.

I finally worked up the courage to step on the scale........I had to double check it- I've gained less then 10 pounds since my knee surgery...couldn't believe I wasn't fatter. Right before my surgery, I had managed to lose almost 30 pounds, so I have to lose 10 pounds to get back to where I was before surgery and another 25 pounds to get back down to 199. It's been awhile since I've been below 200, so I figure that will be a good goal for now.

I don't think I'll be able to expense this.....but my consulting company bought a front loader washing machine. Our old one was getting ready to shit the bed and I have a year to pay for it....so it's all good and now my lovely wife has to do less loads (she doesn't let me help).

I don't spend as much time on this blog as I used to......I do post stupid and useless links on Facebook with some regularity....so go there if you want to waste your time.

till later.

Bikes....bikes......bikes....

Got my bike/moped with a motor to ride outside and I gots my mountain bike with skinny tires mounted to my trainer to ride inside.

The doc said I can pretty much ride as much as I want.

That's what I plan to do.....rain or shine.

till later.

Big Government.

Makes me proud to be a murican.

Masterchef...........

Just finished watching the 2nd episode of Masterchef America.....I gotta say- I'm not that impressed with most of the people they picked to be on the show.

Having been in the food service business for the past 35 years- I don't think most of those folks realize how hard it is to cook professionally.....do I think I could do better? Maybe...maybe not, but watching the show last night- I'm getting the impression that some of the contestants have no idea what they are getting into, quite a few of them had that "deer in the headlights" look.

If you work professionally in food service- the hours suck, it's usually God-awful hot, you're on your feet for a minimum of 10 hours a night....and here's a dirty little secret- most of the time it's a slog. You have to make the same things night in and night out and it has to be exactly the same as the night before and it has to be perfect. You screw up one time and it doesn't matter if the other 99% of what you did on your shift is perfect...that 1% of screwups can and will define your career.

Does a stay-at-home mom or a construction worked have the creativity, food knowledge and discipline to create new dishes each week? Not sure, but I'm betting some of these folks are gonna be in the weeds real quick.

I'm not really sure why people choose food service as a career.....I think it helps if you are a little left of center-most good cooks, bakers and chefs aren't 100% normal.

Why do I do it?

I enjoy creating things and I also get to teach people how to bake. It's always fun when I get to see the light bulb go on over someones head when they "get" something and it's really neat to see someone create something that didn't know they were capable of.

Anyways... it will be interesting to see who does the best in the series. It's too early to pick a favorite but it will be interesting to watch the cooks perform when they are on unfamiliar ground and out of their comfort zone.

till later.

My ass hurts...........

Rode my bike about 45 miles yesterday with my good friend Hank. I got the okay from my knee surgeon to pretty much ride as much as I want.....even if my knee gets slightly sore as he said it's great for my range of motion.

Currently, my range of motion sucks, I'm having a difficult time climbing or descending stairs as my knee isn't completely healed yet. It was starting to alarm me, but my doc assured me that it's gonna be a couple more months until all the cutting and moving of ligaments is completely healed up and until then- it's gonna hurt.

There ain't no way any of this would be possible if I didn't have a small motor on the back of my bicycle helping out from time to time. Yesterday, I pedaled pretty hard for the first hour and a half....the last hour- not so much as my knee was starting to hurt.

Life is good.