I'm back. Heaven is a nice Place-- Really!

I’m back from sabbatical . . . er. . .hiatus . . . er . . . I’m back. Yes, there is a Heaven. I’ve been there. It’s a really nice place.

It’s been a struggle. For starters, the day job started to swallow me just after deer season ended. I’d planned a major upgrade to the server farm at the wire foundry. It went well, but it took a maximum effort well up to Christmas and beyond. Guys like me dream of getting a $100K equipment budget, but now that I had one, I had to make it all work. It didn’t help that one consultant was sick and thoroughly green and another started looking grey and started having chest pains half way through an install.

Then there was Christmas to contend with. I’m not a big fan of that holiday. My body always tells me to go into hibernation around the second week of December. I’m not depressed; just grouchy, absent minded and misanthropic.

About the only thing that went well over the holidays was the food—we ate venison until it hurt. I’ve discovered allrecipes.com -- Zowie! Seldom does a website change one’s life. This one has. Christmas Eve I did up tenderloins with crabmeat stuffing in a whiskey-peppercorn sauce. It was transcendental.

New Years was a washout. We had a turn of nasty weather and I had to tear down to deer camp at the last minute and winterize. I left at 9PM and was back by 2 AM, but I had a major ice storm nipping at my heels all the way back. It took an extra hour because I had to boil water to thaw the ice in the toilet before I could dump in the antifreeze. I got home about a half-hour ahead of the black ice. Camp had 4 inches of Ice. Back home, it snowed 15 inches. I’d held off the final shut down due to a major blowout end-of-season party we had planned. My hunting buddy was due in from PA, and 3-4 couples were going to hoot and holler for the weekend. Then the big ice and snow event happened, and it all got cancelled. Last time I checked, there still wasn’t electricity down there.

The first week of January , we got news that the wire foundary had been sold. That was a huge surprise. All of a sudden my future looked pretty dim. It looked for a couple of days that I’d be spending the next few months mining the bridges and building my redoubt, but now it looks like the new owners want to keep us all around and life will be good. All my big upgrade projects suddenly fizzled, but within 48 hours they were back on again with a new and more aggressive timetable.

Just as I was recovering from visions of my career swirling into oblivion, I was at work, going through my morning routine. I got up from my desk to go into the other room. All of a sudden I got a weird feeling and various parts of my body went numb. I went back in my office and called the company nurse. She came down, gave me a once-over and got real scared. From what she was seeing, she was thinking stroke—for a little while, she had me convinced too. Oh well, I’m a good Methodist with strong Taoist leanings. I’ve got no worries.

Bottom line: I had nothing more than an acute lack of food and too much coffee. This is a normal state of affairs when you’re a network guru and operations manager. I’d just forgotten to break for breakfast. My doc checked me out the next day and gave me a clean bill. He also said I should take it easy. It also turns out my left eye is a little dialated on a permanent basis, and anytime anyone sees that , they freak out—been that way for years.

As I went out the door at work, I issued authorizations for the next month’s worth of PO’s, Requests for Quotes, and Work Orders. I dumped a bunch of scratch backup tapes in loader, and sent out an e-mail telling everyone I was unreachable for a week. I got home, and finished cleaning 5 rifles. On the way to the airport, I dropped by Dad’s place and dumped all my deer rifles into his safe.

Screw it! I’m going to Florida--packed up Girlfriend and #3 Son and flew down to Miami and hung out on the beach. We did next to nothing for a week. Forget what you heard in Sunday School! There really is a Heaven, it is open to all major credit card holders, and you can get a 25% discount if you stay more than 4 nights. I found this place up in Pompano Beach that had a Tiki Bar, a hot tub, a Greek restaurant, and a private beach. I broke a toe in the surf the first night, so that slowed me up a bit. At low tide the next day, I found a twenty pound chunk of coral where I’d gone in. Nothing for miles in either direction but sand and this boulder! Oh well, I was slowed, but not finished—bent, but not broken.

I still managed to take #3 out to the pier for some fishing. We also made a pilgrimage to the Seaquarium and on the way home we stopped at Wolfie Cohen’s original Rascal House up north of the Haulover Cut for lunch. Gawd! That’s great food, but I have to admit that my chopped chicken livers are now better than Wolfie’s. Master, I have snatched the pebble from your hand!
Most of the time, we laid around and watched the kid in the pool. In the evenings we swilled cheap scotch, and gorged on Greek food. When we got bored with the Greeks, I bought a $5 grill and ate on the beach. There is nothing so soothing as a happy hour spent over a slightly illicit charcoal grill with Cajun shrimp kabobs and beef ribs cooked right at the high-tide line, except maybe the eventual return to the hot tub and watching a bunch of fat Greeks dancing the night away.

On the plane ride back I cracked my latest issue of Turkey and Turkey Hunting and got back to thinking about the important things in life. The toe isn’t too crooked, and it’s stopped hurting. I still have a job, my career is intact, and hopefully the toilet won’t have exploded when I show up after the thaw.