I'll start this off with, "I once met a man who had seen solid hydrogen". He was running a little engineering shop, and I was helping him set up a production line for circuit boards.

So, what have you seen or done that seems rare or wonderful?

 

Sometime in the fifties, I sat in the lobby of the Hotel Chisca until after midnight so my dad could introduce his son to Elvis Presley. EP autographed two one-dollar bills; the next week I spent them at the hardware store to buy a switch-blade knife.

 

I picked on Loosewire on line, and now he doesn't like me

 

Life would not be life...without shortbus.......how about 27 ct.

 

I'll re-post an email from one of my old Navy buddies, which explains my 15 min (4 years) of fame pretty well. It's mostly an inside joke, so if you want anything explained, let me know.

Here are some things you can do to see what it would be like to live on a submarine without actually having to join the Navy:

1. Obtain a dumpster. Paint it black, weld all the covers shut except one which can be bolted closed from the inside. Hitch it to the back of your wife's mini van. Gather 12 friends and bolt yourselves inside and let your wife pull it around for several weeks while she does the errands.

2. Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Six hours after you go to sleep, have your wife whip open the curtain. shine a flashlight in your eyes, and mumble "Sorry, wrong rack".

3. Don't eat any food that you don't get out of a can or have to add water to.

4. Paint all the windows on your car black. Drive around town at high speeds with your wife standing up in the sunroof shouting course and speed directions to you.

5. Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of your bathtub and move the shower head down to chest level. When you take showers, make sure you shut off the water while soaping.

6. Repeat back everything anyone says to you.

7. Sit in your car for six hours a day with your hands on the wheel and the motor running, but don't go anywhere.

8. Put lube oil in your humidifier instead of water and set it to "High".

9. Don't watch T.V. except movies in the middle of the night. Also, have your family vote on which movie to watch, then show a different one. Record The Sound of Music and show it at least every other night.

10. Don't do your wash at home. Gather your neighbors clothes along with yours, pick the most crowded laundromat you can find, and do the neighborhood laundry in a single washer and dryer. Make sure that 12% of the laundry is lost and 20% of the finished laundry is incorrectly distributed to the wrong neighbor.

11. Leave lawnmower running in your living room six hours a day for proper noise level. (For Engineering Divisions)

12. Have the paperboy give you a haircut.

13. Take hourly readings on your electric and water meters.

14. Sleep with your dirty laundry.

15. Invite guests, but don't have enough food for them.

16. Buy a broken exercise bicycle and strap it down to the floor in your kitchen.

17. Buy a trash compactor and use it once a week. Store up garbage in the other side of your bathtub.

18. Wake up every night at midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread, if anything. (Optional--canned ravioli, cold soup, or cherry peppers)

19. Make up your family menu a week ahead of time without looking in your food cabinets or refrigerator.

20. Set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the night. When it goes off, jump out of bed and get dressed as fast as you can, then run out into your yard and break out the garden hose.

21. Once a month take every major appliance completely apart and then put them back together.

22. Use 18 scoops of coffee per pot and allow it to sit for 5 or 6 hours before drinking.

23. Invite at least 85 people you don't really like to come and visit for a couple of months.

24. Store your eggs in your garage for two months and then cook a dozen each morning.

25. Have a fluorescent lamp installed on the bottom of your coffee table and lie under it to read books.

26. Periodically check your refrigerator compressor for "sound shorts".

27. Put a complicated lock on your basement door and wear the key on a lanyard around your neck.

28. Lockwire the lugnuts on your car.

29. When making cakes, prop up one side of the pan while it is baking. Then spread icing really thick on one side to level off the top.

30. Every so often, yell "Emergency Deep", run into the kitchen, and sweep all pots/pans/dishes off of the counter onto the floor. Then, yell at your wife for not having the place "stowed for sea".

31. Put on the headphones from your stereo (don't plug them in). Go and stand in front of your stove. Say (to nobody in particular) "Stove manned and ready". Stand there for 3 or 4 hours. Say (once again to nobody in particular) "Stove secured". Roll up the headphone cord and put them away.

32. Write a controlled work package to change the oil on your car.

 

Aha. That explains why you can stand the smell of Houston.
If it ever gets old, go a hundred miles east and smell the mud flats of Louisiana.

 

I'll start this off with, "I once met a man who had seen solid hydrogen". He was running a little engineering shop, and I was helping him set up a production line for circuit boards.

So, what have you seen or done that seems rare or wonderful?

I saw gasoline selling for 19.9 cents/gallon.

 

..."I once met a man who had seen solid hydrogen".

I thought you were going to break out in limerick, #12:

I once met a man who'd seen solid hydrogen
Made cold in a tank full of cryogen
For fun and for kicks
He tasted the mix
Something that he'll never try again!

 

A couple of years back I biked and walked a distance of 92km in 10 hours, with an elevation span of about 800 meters, in tarmac and gravel. Alone. And the water ran out. And I got lost.

Despite my academic career, I think that's the achievement I 'm most proud of.

 

I got stuck on a plane to Reno with Sinbad. Not the cool muscular Sinbad, but the 90s comedian. It was well into the 21st century and he was still dressed about the same as back then...the gay steward wouldn't leave his side.

 

I didn't go to a single beach party or bar during my vacation in Jamaica and still left "engaged"

 

I said "excuse me" to an old guy who was blocking the door to the bathroom on an airplane. He was talking the the stewardesses. Instead of moving out of my way, he continued his conversation and took out a business card and wrote on the back, "best wishes, Bob Dole", I gave it back to him and said I just needed to get into the restroom.

Interestingly, I met Walter Mondale on a plane a few years earlier. He just said Hi, shook my hand and asked me where i was from when I said, hello Mr Vice President.

Not rare or wonderful, I am still waiting for my 15 minutes.

 

I met Elizabeth Dole; Secretary of Transportation, Willard Scott the weatherman (bought him a drink at 7Am) at the Chief's Club, and the local newscasters from CBS Channel 2 in NYC, during OPSAIL 1986 ... when the Statue of Liberty was unveiled after her restoration. President Reagan was there, but all I saw of him was him waving from his limo.

I didn't take the time to meet with a lot of the others, as I volunteered my time at the Chief's Mess and their events.

 

I met Merl Haggard at a concert in Aptos, Ca. I met singer Red Steagall at a gas station in Coppers Cove, Tx. I met singer/songwrite Gary P Nunn at a bar in Autsin, Tx. But my real 15 minutes is coming up at the end of this year, when I am to exchange vows with my fiancee. They said it would never happen

 

I was in grade school with the son of Leonard Burnstein, the conductor of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, but it didn't feel special to me, unless you count the fact that Leonard Burnstein was on the FBI's hippie watch list.

 

In college (sophomore year), I dated this girl.

She died in 2009 when she lost control of a borrowed plane.

RIP, Vicki.

 

I took my wife out to Red Lobster in Murfreesboro TN, just outside of Nashville. We were sitting there waiting for our meal and Garth Brooks and family sits down at the next table.
I jokingly said " Honey , you don't how hard it was getting him here for your birthday"
Apparently I said it loud enough for him to hear, and he went along with it. He reached over, shook her hand and said "Happy Birthday" to my wife, then said he might as well eat since he was already here.
I gotta say, he made the trip worthwhile.

 

When I graduated High School in 2004, before I went into the Navy I worked with my cousin. He was a subcontractor for United Van Lines, and we would get contracts to go into people's houses, pack up all their stuff, load it in the truck, drive to their new place, and unload/unpack it. We showed up one day at the address provided on the job sheet in Austin, TX, and it was a massive palatial estate. The homeowner wasn't there, but we got the scoop from one of the grounds staff; it was owned by one of the top brass at Dell, and he was selling it to one of the Dixie Chicks. So as we were going about our business, a blacked-out SUV pulled up and out pops one of the Dixie Chicks (don't know which one) with a couple of guys. I guess she was there to check out her new score. My cousin smiled and said hello to her, and she didn't reply; just turned her nose up at him. So he climbed into the cab, rolled the windows down, and put his Toby Keith CD on loop, at full volume. She was there for a while, surveying everything, and there were very few places on the grounds that you could not hear Toby Keith. From then on, an upturned nose was out of the question; all we got were hateful scowls.

 

Upturned noses are familiar to me, too. My longest standing friend was in his garage with me when his sister walked by with her nose upturned. It upturned out that she wouldn't speak to me because she thought I was a high school student, like her brother, but I was 23 years old (older than she was). Ha ha. Joke's on her. Forty years later, and she still hasn't spoken to me.

(and I was talking to her brother yesterday, and I'm still older than she is)

 

I have posted before that ,I was at a night club where Ray Charles was preforming.

I spoke to Giraldo in person ,talked to him about show topic. Many others ,I am

thinking ,by the way I met "Loosewire".