Harry's Ruminations

I have a notebook. It's spiral bound, college ruled paper, with 80 sheets. I notice others in meetings have graph-paper notebooks, so they can create cool engineering-y diagrams while they doodle. I envy those people.

Stumble in the dark Engineers search, people hate. Satisfying none

I'm drowning in baby gifts. My old church family was very generous, as were several members of mom's family. Got to drive Cathy's Mazda MPV today, and it handled very well at "interstate speeds" :-) More powerful than Yoda, in any case.

Tact: noun. a keen sense of what to say or do to avoid giving offense; skill in dealing with difficult or delicate situations. After attending the second of two Thankgsivings, I must say, Brentzels don't have tact. The Combs clan doesn't either. * * * Scorecard Atmosphere: The Combs homestead (now Janie's house) versus Papaw Brentzel's ranch-on-a-basement. Includes creek and hide-and-go-seek. Advantage: Combs Attendance: The Combs's were missing a whole family, while the Brentzels were only missing one cousin (Alan). Advantage: Brentzel Best after-dinner, catty comment: Combs. Hands down. Best nugget of wisdom: - "Hell, Harold, don't pay any attention. They can hear a gnat fart from 5 blocks away." - "You know how often I change the oil in my race engine? After EVERY race...Yep...used that special 50-weight stuff..." "Well now, I wuz turning 4600 rpm down the back straight, and if I have my math right, using an overall tire diamet...

"Camry" means 'crown' in Japanese ("Cam-U-Ree"), so here's my summation of our Crown so far: It's great so far; the only complaint I have is the engine--with 3-4 people + stuff aboard, it can barely get out of its own way. In the flat, it'll happily cruise at 80-90mph, as it's geared very tall, but it's hopeless in the mountains. We averaged 26 mpg on our trips in the past two days, which isn't bad, but it isn't the 30mpg I was hoping for. Some new tires and a tuneup should fix this. * * * Christmas presents...mom & dad bought us a set of Goodyear Assurance TripleTreads: And...a new stereo for my beamer: cool stuff! :-)

God help me, I'm taking off this week. I expect to get the shakes sometime in the next couple days, as I really haven't decompressed. I'm accustomed to the 7am video conference with India, and until that doesn't happen, I'm not "on vacation". * * * This weekend was pretty neat--did nothing on Saturday, and little to nothing today, aside from some shopping :-) In other news, we've Christened the Camry "Yoda", as it's unattractive, old, and unexciting. Yet, it's full of time tested wisdom. Yeah, something like that. Anyway, Yoda rhymes with Toyota. Close enough, anyway. :-)

Good old Michael K (aka "Gateway") is back on the GTO's are cheap, buy one bandwagon. Apparently, they'll be going for under $25k again, since the 06's are the last year for them, and they're still piled-up on dealer lots. 400hp RWD Clunky 6-speed no trunk :) no thanks. Do miss Thor occasionally, when those ever-so-rare patches of open interstate loom, and my 170hp just doesn't feel adequate.