American Pie in General

About five years ago I was travelling cross country with an old friend in a Penske truck, moving his shit from New Hampshire to Las Vegas. I didn’t get the impetus; I’d lived in Las Vegas in the 80’s and the bloom was definitely had come off the rose.

But I wasn’t doing anything, and a road trip sounded like a good idea.

We would switch off driving at every refuel.

Whoever was driving was on the hook to recite as much of the lyrics for whatever song shotgun called out.

RL had his phone out with the lyrics on google.

I fucking did it.

I recited/sang the entire song without missing a word.

I can’t even reliably spit out the dual engine failure on takeoff or spin recovery procedures without pauses. American Pie. I guess hearing and singing along with the song a million time the lyrics sort of imprint.

I got to ” Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage

No angel born in Hell
Could break that Satan’s spell…”

I dramatically paused and pretended I was stuck, pushing down on the gas pedal going uphill on some mountain in Tennessee.

Then launched dramatically into “And as the flames climbed high into the night.”

He looked at me and said “You fucker, I thought I had you!”

Next gas, when he was driving, I handed him G&Rs “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”

He totally dicked it up.

Break Break

I read this morning that military retirement is now going to be tied to Social Security rates.

And a course correction happens. I am getting a 8.9% raise next year.

That is about the rate of inflation, so it is a wash.

I sold my youth the US Military. One of the promises being I would never pay for healthcare for the rest of my life. My premiums, between med and dental are closing in on 300 bucks a month. Still relatively cheap, but not what was promised.

A few years ago, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were at a committee hearing where they were considering drastically changing the military retirement system.

The chairman, the Commandant of the Marine Corps put it succinctly:

“You have broken the faith. Don’t for a minute take this lightly. You can’t make promises then not fulfill them. It will take generations for anyone in uniform to trust you again.”

Break Break

I called HR Friday, got voice mail. Didn’t get a callback.

Called again today. A woman answered and looked up the offer process. Still pending, needing two more approvals. She told me to call back on Friday if I haven’t heard anything by Friday.

Apparently I am waiting on a phone call from “Chris.”

Okay.

I have tutorials on Oneplan, Access, Project, and Excel bookmarked and ready to go.

I dicked around with Access a bit yesterday. It has changed a lot.

The concepts regarding relational databases are not hard, but the way Microsoft keeps moving functions around is a bit frustrating.

Oneplan is a completely different animal.