Here’s a look at the day ahead for me:

Got a call at work on Monday telling me the laundry room was flooding. Rushed home, shut off the water, examined the carnage. As I suspected, and feared, our water heater that is (was) older than Dick Clark had decided to pull a Julian Assange and then retire. The good news, if any, was that I found a practically new water heater on craigslist for $50. Not that I have an extra $50 laying around, but you do what you have to do. The bad news? I have to put it in myself.

I don’t talk about it much, but my boss and job are awesome. A quick text and I was able to get the day off to play Curly. The new (used) water heater is about twice as tall as the old one. The pipes are not. I get to change that today.

I hope your day is more fun than what I anticipate. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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I mentioned on Saturday that, “I am even more of a Geezer today” and I hinted there would be more later. It’s later.

You see, I turned 56 on Saturday. I didn’t run out and buy a new Testerossa (not that I could afford the key fob for one. Besides, a classic Mustang or ‘Vette would be more to my liking). No, but I did change something. Me.

From the time I started shaving I’ve had at least a mustache. Yes, it was the 70′s, but it wasn’t any great fashion statement, I just never was very good at shaving the real estate between my nose and upper lip. After a while it just became natural.

Even into the 80′s and 90′s I always wore the ‘stache. I’m no Tom Selleck. Heck, I’m no John Bolton, but having a hairy upper lip was as much a part of me as hazel eyes and a strange sense of humor. It’s not that I chose not to shave it, I didn’t even think about shaving it.

Over the years I would occasionally grow a beard. Not all the time, but off and on. Until the last 10 year. Now, I don’t even remember the last time I didn’t have a full beard. Some time it would be neatly trimmed, and other times it would be needing to be trimmed. One theory (and I’m pretty sure this is accurate) is that I was just to lazy to shave. I never did care for it much. I didn’t even have a razor anymore!

I changed that on Friday.

At least I bought the razor on Friday. Then, I nearly chickened out. Friday night, Saturday, most of the day on Sunday – the razor sat, unused, in the bathroom. Finally, Sunday afternoon I took the plunge. After ten years of the beard, it was gone.

I look in the mirror and don’t even recognize myself. I think I like it, but it’s a big change. I sure don’t remember that second chin being under there. At least it’s cheaper than a sports car.

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You probably know I’m an old geezer. You may not know I’m also a gamer. I love playing online games, and I’ve created a blog for gamers like me who aren’t tweens, teens, or twenty-somethings — GeezerGamer.

My latest post takes a look at Star Wars: The Old Republic. I was invited to the latest round of beta testing, but my system wasn’t quite up to the task.

FYI, I am even more of a Geezer today. More about that later.

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It’s the day after Thanksgiving — Black Friday. I have to go to the store. Not for any great bargains, but to get cat food, dog food, milk, shampoo, etc. This shouldn’t take long.

On a different note, Happy Birthday to the next Senator from Florida — Adam Hasner.

Well, here goes nothing. Pray for me.

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I haven’t mentioned this in a few weeks, so I want to bring you a quick update. Most of all I want to say how much I appreciate all those who have donated so far. I do not have words adequate to say how much I thank each of you for what you’ve done.

As for the update, things are getting better, but still a bit rough. We are very close to bringing things around, and have been blessed to be able to keep up with other bills. The downside is I’ve exhausted all my vacation time for the rest of the year. We are so close. If there is anything you can add to the tip jar, we will appreciate it.

If you can…

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I did get Up Before Dawn yesterday morning, fully intending to find some good posts for the First Cup. Well, it just didn’t work out that way. You see, my internet provider (which will remain nameless) had a bit of an outage. I found out that it started around 4am and lasted until the time I was walking in the door at work.

Oddly enough, I couldn’t get a network connection on my smart phone at the same time. I couldn’t even make a call! I had no idea what was causing that. Between the front door and the office my phone started ringing (no cell phones are allowed on the floor). Got to the office, called home (very glad that I could make a call) and found out that everything else was back on.

I sure am looking forward for the pro-rated deduction they’re going to make from my bill. They’re not? Oh well.

This morning’s First Cup is on the way.

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The weather is about to change. I know it was around 90 today in Florida, and it will probably be around 90 again tomorrow, but it’s about to get cooler. It may be a week, perhaps two, but it will start getting cooler. How do I know, you ask? It is based on science every bit as unimpeachable as if it we coming out of NASA itself – I’m thirsty.

Thirsty? That’s right. Twice a year, spring and fall, just before the weather changes, I get thirsty. Not, “I think I’ll have something to drink” thirsty, but “can’t-get-enough”, “drink-till-I-pop” thirsty. I can’t explain it. It’s a gift, I guess.

Bet I could get a government grant to study the phenomenon.

If you can…

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Just a few random thoughts for a Friday morning.

We are only a week away from September 1st. That’s how long you have to participate in the bRight & Early 2012 Presidential Primary Poll #11. The poll is in the sidebar, and although participation so far has been rather low, the results so far are rather one sided.

I still haven’t resolved the issue between the number showing at the bottom of the site and the number seen on my Sitemeter stats page, but both numbers are now over 500,000 — so it’s official.

Hurricane Irene is well off the Florida coast, but still could impact the Carolinas. Be safe up there.

It’s a Friday and I’m home from work. I was off yesterday, too. And, I’ll be off this weekend. A four day weekend sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it? Not in this case. Wednesday night Cindy was on the way to work and our VW Beetle died. She was 10 minutes away from work. I guess it was better then than when she gets off at 2am. Her daughter went and picked her up, but she missed a night of work that we needed (she works for tips). We had the car towed yesterday morning by our mechanic. After taking a look at things he informed us that we have a major short in the electrical system. When he gets the (expensive) repair done he will still have to take the car to the VW dealership to have the computer reset. He will work with us, but if you ever wanted to hit the tip jar, this would be a very good time.

UPDATE: We just heard from our mechanic. It wasn’t good news. He can’t fix it, and estimates that the dealership will charge us over $3500 to get it fixed. That’s more than the car is worth. We don’t have access to the money we would need for a down payment on something else. I’m working on that, but time is not on our side. If you can help, thank you so much. If you can’t do anything financially, can you point people to this post?

Have a great Friday, and a wonderful weekend.

If you can…

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It’s that time of year again — School Time!

During the summer I could sleep late and leave for work as early as I wanted. Of course I usually waited until the last minute so I didn’t end up with overtime. Still, I could have left earlier, if I had wanted too.

The biggest challenge during summer break is getting some computer time. Three computers divided by three growing kids and two adults is math that even I can do. That changes with the ability to use those magic words, “it’s a school night.” On the downside, I have to get up earlier.

Next year is going to be really interesting. We will have one child in each school; Elementary, Middle, and High School. That’s going to be fun.

The new school year is, to me, more of a marker of the years passing than a birthday. That means I’m getting older, and that’s not right.

Time to get back into the school year routine.

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This isn’t X-Files strange, just a day or so of oddness. And maybe that’s not really the right term. Let me put it this way, I am extremely predictable. I take the same route to work, watch the same shows on TV, I’ve even caught myself wearing the same shirt the same day every week. When I started to think of it as my “Monday” shirt I, at least, put a stop to that. When I go to certain places to eat, I order the same thing. I get home about the same time every night, and save yard work for the weekends. That’s where the oddness starts.

Tuesday night I got home at the usual time. Being summer, there was still plenty of daylight left and there were some bushes that needed a good haircut. I got the loppers out and trimmed them back to decency. In the process I pulled something in my left shoulder. Yesterday morning there was a bit of a twinge, and still this morning I’m in a bit of pain if I lift my arm the wrong way.

I mentioned yesterday that I was getting a new Smart Phone. That’s not really odd, but I’ve had the same phone for nearly three years. It came in while I was at work. It’s going to take me a week to get used to all the new capabilities. Like I said, not really odd, but when I got home and went to activate the phone my carrier’s activation system was down. It was about two hours later that I was able to get the thing going.

Earlier yesterday, on the way to work, I tried to use my debit card and it was declined even though there was more than enough balance to offset the small purchase I was trying to make. I called customer support and they assured me I had plenty in that account and that some security feature had been triggered inadvertently. They also claimed that they had fixed it. They hadn’t, as I discovered when I went to lunch. Thankfully I had enough cash. Another call to customer support, a transfer to card security, several minutes of answering questions and confirming previous transaction and I was good to go. This time they were right. I checked on the way home.

Of course, when I got online last night one of the things I checked was the number of visitors to bRight & Early. On a typical day I will get 250-500 visits, a number I’m always trying to increase. Last night that number was over 10000, ending the day at 14,946. What? What great bit of writing could have possibly brought in that many views? Come to find out that it wasn’t my great writing, but a picture of Danica Patrick that I posted months ago that had moved up to the top of one of the search engines image listings.

See? Not odd odd, but not typical either. I wonder what today will bring. I hope I can get my shirt on without help. My “Thursday” shirt is one of my favorites.

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