My mom is down in San Diego with the grandkid which leaves my dad home alone. He’s been reading a ton of books by Robert Crais. (I highly recommend the Elvis Cole series.) Anyway, he sent out this email written in the Elvis Cole voice that I think is hilarious. So, here is my dad, aka Elmo Cole….<\/p>\n
6:00 AM Tuesday, July 23<\/p>\n
I wake up suddenly, shivering under a single sheet. The alarm isn’t set to go off until 6:30, and then I realize what’s happened. I’ve just turned 60 and my honey buns has run off with a younger guy in San Diego. No sense staying in bed because the day isn’t going to get any shorter. I smell the Peets brewing in the kitchen. I had set the coffee maker on automatic last night. My spirits begin to rise.<\/p>\n
On the way to the kitchen I stop by the scale to weigh myself. Big mistake. I can’t believe my eyes. I’m a porker. I immediately head for the Nordic Track in the den. By 6:05 I’m already pumping the Nordic to the blues music of Lighting Hopkins. After 20 minutes, the sweat is popping off my forehead. The ceiling fan isn’t even on. No pain no gain. That’s followed by 30 reps on the AB roller. I’m sweating like a stuck pig. Then it’s into the bathroom for a hot shower. I’m back in the kitchen and it’s not yet 7:00 and feeling better about myself already. I fire up the George Foreman and throw on 4 turkey sausage links, fry up two eggs and toss a piece of stale bread I found in the frig into the toaster. This is followed by a steaming cup of Peets. I glance over at the sink at the pile of dishes. Later. Maybe the day is going to turn out OK. For lunch I make a ham and swiss on stale bread, an apple and a banana and stuff it all in my backpack. I’m definitely on the right track. Then out into the garage to pump up my H400 Cannondale .<\/p>\n
It’s a beautiful morning on the peninsula. The sky is a deep blue and a gentle breeze is blowing off the ocean. I check to see if I’ve locked the doors three times and then head down Silver Arrow. The wind is blowing in my face and the speed is exhilarating. I’m feeling great until I realize I’m on my way to work. Bummer.<\/p>\n
I head down Hawthorne, then right on Rolling Hills Road. A short cut through the park and the past the airport and I’m almost there. I slow down to cut through Torrance Memorial Hospital. A young pin striper is crossing in front of me and gives me a big smile. She’s young enough to be my daughter. She probably can’t see the gray hair under my helmet. There’s no justice.<\/p>\n
Then it’s on to work. I stop by the lab with some snappy one liners to cheer up the troops. Some comedian. I park the bike in the office, strip off my backpack, flip on the computer and put my feet up on my desk. Another typical day. There on my desk sit the pictures of my honey buns and the young guy she’s infatuated with. Tough competition. I swing around and face my computer. Off in the corner sit my foam rubber Dilbert figure with the caption “Avoid meetings with time wasting morons”. Hans sticks his head in my office and says were having an engineering staff meeting in five minutes. A half hour later I’m back in my office with a weeks worth of work in my hands. Then HNS calls and wants a telephone conference. That lasts an hour and I’m exhausted. I go back to my office and turn Dilbert around to face the wall. I can’t face him. It takes another half hour to go through my accumulated junk mail and then on to email. Ninety five emails later and it’s lunch time. Just enough time to check my stock portfolio. Down another 17 percent. Redback looks like a great buy. I buy 400 shares and it drops like a rock. Maybe the afternoon will improve. At 1:30 Sandy calls and wants a capital equipment meeting. After an hour and a half of discussing next years requirements she tells us all capital equipment funds are frozen because the company is going down the tubes. What am I doing here? This meeting is followed by a R&D meeting to plan next years projects. Manfred has been invited and I can smell trouble. Three hours later and we can’t shut him up. Finally at 6:00 I stagger back to my office and strip down to my biking outfit. I’m ready to work out the frustrations of the day with an invigorating ride up the hill. About half way up my legs turn to mush and I’m getting light headed. Maybe that Nordic Track workout in the morning was a bit much. I check my elapsed time and I’m 10 minutes off my average. I can feel the pain but where’s the gain. At 7:00 I finally limp up the driveway and park the Cannondale. Into the shower for ten minutes and I’m felling much better. On the way back to the kitchen I stop to weigh myself again. I’ve gained a pound. I find myself fighting the urge to forget the whole thing head for Panda Express. I finally come to my senses. Chicken Caesar salad again. I pour a glass of Ravenswood Zinfandel and I’m feeling better. The sink is still full of dishes. Later. I top it all off with a tall Peets latt\u00e9. What can I do to salvage this day by accomplishing something useful? The lemon tree in the back yard needs trimming. Forget it. Maybe turning on the TV and watching the Padres kick the Dodgers butts. No way. How about curling up on the papason and vegging out. That sounds more like it. Only two more days to go and I’m heading out to San Diego to rescue my honey buns. That will make everything better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My mom is down in San Diego with the grandkid which leaves my dad home alone. He’s been reading a ton of books by Robert Crais. (I highly recommend the Elvis Cole series.) Anyway, he sent out this email written in the Elvis Cole voice that I think is hilarious. So, here is my dad, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Kqhb-2G","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}