Monday, March 18, 2024

Junior prom.

Christ! What a joke that was.

Not only was I the oldest son of the family, I was the oldest son of the entire generation and the pressures were unfair. When my Junior Prom came around Mom asked be who I was going to go with and I told her I was not going.

"You HAVE to go to your prom!"

"Where does it say I HAVE to take part in ANY school activities?" I shot back. 

"You're going to the prom," she practically screeched.

The carrying on was close to epic and I knew Dad would be dragged into it and I cringed. While I knew he'd back me when push came to shove.

"Okay," I said. "I'll figure something out."

Off to the next town over where I generally hung out. I asked around and found out that Lisa Lorenzo didn't want to go to her prom, either. So I went looking for Lisa.

When I found her I told her that I didn't want to go to my prom and that I was looking for someone not to go to either prom with. She laughed like hell and agreed not to go to my prom with me if I wouldn't go to her prom with her. She said that when she told her parents she didn't want to go her mother was disappointed.

"So we both don't go to our proms together." I said. "It's a non-date."

"Okay," she laughed. "It's a non date."

The following afternoon I got a call from Lisa. She said her father wanted to meet the guy that wasn't taking her to the prom. "Don't worry. You'll like him."

I showed up that evening, having bicycled to her place. Al Lorenzo proved to be a real character. 

"I just wanted to meet the young man that isn't taking my daughter to her prom that she's not going to," he deadpanned. We chatted a while and finally he told me he would be delighted to have me not to take his daughter to the prom. We both laughed. Then he asked me how I figured that Lisa and I were not going to different proms together.

"Yogi Berra was asked how he knew someone and he replied "We went to different schools together." It makes sense to me."

He chuckled.

Then he asked me what I was going to do instead of going to the prom.

"Probably going fishing at Damon's Point," I answered. He said he wished he could join me. I told him to drop by.

The next day was Saturday and that afternoon Mom asked me who I was going to the prom with. I announced that a girl named Lisa Lorenzo and I were not going to our proms together.

We went round and round over that for a few minutes and Mom demanded the Lorenzo's phone number and said she was going to call the parents to find out what kind of funny business was going on. I gave her the phone number. As she was dialing it my father walked in.

My mother introduced herself and asked what was going on between Lisa and I. The next thing I heard her say, "What do you mean they're not going to their proms together?" and I knew Al had answered the phone. I pointed at Dad and then to the phone.

Dad stepped in and in about a minute it became clear that he and Al understood each other.

"I can do that...Bring him? Sure he's right here...Give us about 25 minutes... See you then..." He turned to my mother. "We're meeting him at the Harbor." He turned to me. That means you, too."

We went out to the crap can dad drove back and forth to work, a beat up old Ford. He started it up and laughed. "He's a hot $hit," he said. "He told me to meet him at the Grog Shop."

"You'll like him, Dad. You know how parents want to meet their daughter's dates? He had me over so he could meet the guy that's not taking his daughter to the prom she's not going to."

"What!?" he snapped.

"Yeah. He did that. It was a hoot. I went, met him and laughed myself silly. He's funny. You'll get along with him well." I said. Dad shook his head.

We arrived at about the same time and I noticed Dad was carrying two beers and Al had one. Dad parked a beer in front of me. This was back in the day and the rules were different then. Dads could quietly have a beer with their sons and nobody said anything about it.

It took the pair of them about eleven seconds for it to sound like they had known each other for years.

Al said his wife was totally confused over the story that they were not going to different proms together and Dad admitted that Mom didn't understand it, either.

"That's because women don't understand Yogi Berra," he said and they both laughed.

Then Al said something interesting. "I like the way these two young people came up with their story and ran with it. I spoke with Lisa and there's no romantic interest between the two. They just had problems with their parents and figured out a way to deal with it. I really like the way our children educate us and help us grow up."

Al turned to me and said, "IF you need a date sometime and ask my daughter you don't have to worry. You can go out with her anytime. If you don't want to I'll understand."

Dad  looked at me wide eyed and with a lot of pride. "Thank you," I said kind of humbled.

Then the subject was dropped and the bull$hit started. The three of us yakked the time and beers away for a couple of hours. We all laughed a lot. 

Those men were Old School guys of the WW2 generation. They didn't step down to deal with a younger man, they lifted him up to their level and I was a part of the conversation. I've said before I walked on the shoulders of giants.

Al asked me what I was going to do on prom night and I replied, "Probably go fishing at Damon's Point." and he laughed and said he might join me.

After we left Dad said he'd handle things from here on. He also said he liked Al and was surprised I'd met such a good guy and thanked me for creating the meeting.

When we got home with a mild buzz on Mom asked Dad what was going on. He said "Lisa Lorenzo is not going to her prom and your son is not going to his prom and that's that. The matter is closed."

"But they're doing it together," Mom protested.

"Yes," he explained. "At the same time but not in the same place. Lisa is going to do what she wants and  Piccolo is probably going fishing at Damon's Point. The end. Now drop it."


Aftermath. Prom night.

I actually did go fishing prom night and as it was getting dark I was working on my tackle. I caught the motion of a car approaching and turned back to my tackle.

When I was done I saw Al Lorenzo get out of his car carrying a tackle box, a rod and a heavy ammo can that I soon discovered contained about a dozen cans of beer. It was heavily iced to boot.

"Help your self," he said and Al and I fished until about 2300. When he left he left behind a scrounged cardboard box containing two or three beers and a pile of ice. I kept fishing until about 0200ish and brought home a pretty good striper.

Lisa and I remained casual friends. She later went off to college and I lost track of her. From time to time I'd run into Al here and there. I did meet him on a visit home after I got out of the army. He said Lisa had married, had a child and was living in New Hampshire.


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Saturday, March 16, 2024

Thin mints time.

which I bought my annual 2 boxes of from the Girl Scouts hanging out at the local stupor market.

Lately I've been grubbing up at Wallyworld which seems to be OK for basics. Sometimes they have some pretty good meat, too.

One thing they do have in the beef department is Carne Pacada or whatever it's called. It's basically beef chopped up not as fine as burger and not as coarse as stew beef. It makes pretty good chili which some people ruin by using top shelf beef.

Today is a day of things I almost did today. I almost won the lottery but picked the wrong number (again). I almost cleaned up the place and I almost worked a DXpedition on Tarawa. Yes that Tarawa.

This DXpedition is being run by Germans which means if they send cards from Germany I will likely have no problem getting them IF they clear the USPS. Germany's postal system is pretty good.

The DXpedition was a little too weak to work but I have a few more days. We'll see what happens.

Grub shopping today was pretty good as far as getting out and doing something interesting. I have to admit that I can get practically everything one stop shopping at Wallyworld because on top of chow I got cat food, canned and kibble, razors and place mats.

Shaving these days kind of sucks because of the 'brand new' bathtub. I generally shave in the shower and had to stop using my beloved WW2 Gillette double edge and now use Bic throwaways in case I drop them. I don't want to put a ding in the porcelain tub and the Gillette will do that.

As for cleaning the place up, it doesn't need a major swamping out so much as it could use a detailing. Maybe I'll put that off a few weeks and do an Old School spring cleaning.

====================================

Good news. Kitty is back to normal now. 

He started overgrooming and licked a spot bare AND stopped eating his wet food. He did continue eating his kibble, though. Off to the vets who looked him over and gave him a shot and almost instantly he stopped grooming and a day later started back on his wet food again. 

He's also gone back to being a royal pain in the ass which is what an orange cat is supposed to do so all is good.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Happy St Patrick's Day.

I always hated that boiled corned beef and cabbage. I always than God for Pete, the Jewish fish buyer in Seattle. He was a character.

We were in Seattle over St. Patrick's Day and he came by the boat the day before and offered to give us corned beef and cabbage at his office. Needless to say, we were saying WTF? Pete's a Jew! This I gotta see!

When we got there around noon Pete handed us a Guinness and a box lunch consisting of a really filling, thick corned beef on rye and a large portion of Cole slaw. 

"Now you Irish bums can tell your mothers you got your corned beef and cabbage," he announced, triumphantly.

We laughed like hell. Pete was a character and always generous and good for a laugh. However, what he didn't know is that I hated the traditional corned beef and cabbage. After that I generally celebrated the holiday with a corned beef on rye and a side of slaw.

I'm doing that to someone later on today. I'm having someone over after he gets off from work and treating him to the same meal I got from Pete.

I'm sure he won't be surprised or disappointed. He expects an occasional surprise from me.

Once I said to my sister who is married to a Jew that the only difference between an Irishman and a Jew is the Irish make better whiskey and beer but the Jews do a better job on corned beef.

There was a brief silence before she answered "You're right!" 






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Mail issues, probably the USPS in action

which is mildly surprising because they have a pretty damned good record as far as I can tell based on personal experience.

This started when I didn't get my ordered cards from 2 QSL managers, one in Italy, the other in Croatia. After almost 3 months I reported to both of these managers I had not gotten their cards and both of them sent them to me again.

The Croatian's card arrived 26 days later which is about right based on the formula according to Piccolo. The formula is you Google how long it should take to get a letter from somewhere and take the larger number in the estimate and multiply by 3 and that's about right.

Example: Google says 7-10 days to arrive from someplace . Take the 10x3=30 so the 26 days is about right. It's in the 21-30 allotted days.

The second card from Italy didn't arrive so after about 45 days I sent both an email and I emailed him telling him I was going to try the Old School method and to expect a yellow envelope containing my card, a pink SAE and 3 USD. He emailed back telling me he would be on the lookout for it. 

Two or three weeks later I got an email telling me he had gotten the envelope and had mailed me my card in the pink SAE.

Needless to say, the second card arrived two days later having taken over 62 days to work its way through the system. FWIW I think the pink envelope will arrive here in record time. Murphy's Law. (I think Murphy was an optimist)

My guess is that the first cards both the Croatian and the Italian sent were either lost in their respective mails or through the international postal system sent to someplace like Tonga or Lhasa, Mongolia but who knows.

So much for that.

Both of these QSL managers mentioned an increase in the return of undeliverable cards to the United States which interested me. I was wondering why as I do work Europe and collect QSL cards. Not all of mine have come home. 

Why?

The tiny handful I have missed I can easily write off as being just plain lost in the mail and/or dishonesty on the part of the ham which is rare. The ham world is small and the dishonest hams get brought to the public. 

QSL managers report an increase in returned to sender cards and I have managed to figure out why. They showed me pictures of a couple of redacted letters showing me the town, country and zip code. The overwhelming bulk of these were people using the standard 5 digit zip codes. Only a couple of them had the full 9 digit zip. ALL of them had USPS return to sender stickers.

That tells me that the problem lies with the USPS and it would not surprise me that they are caught at a sorter as they enter the country that rejects them without giving the local PO the opportunity to try and deliver them.

Typical government trying to do things at the highest level. They don't give credit to the local post office or the actual mailmen that have been doing the job for years.

If they send this mail to the local grass roots people I bet a lot of these could easily be delivered with little or no ado.

My advice would be to use all 9 digits when asking for something overseas. 

One other thing, periodically check with the PO for your actual 9 digit zip. Every so often the last four digits change depending if they change the route or not.

As for QSL managers, they should  start insisting on having QSL requests use the entire 9 digits. While I don't think it will eliminate the problem it should minimize it.

One thing all Americans can do to improve their odds on making sure the mail gets to where it has to go is to use their full 9 digit Zip code.

I don't know USPS procedure but my best guess is that when overseas mail first arrives in the States it goes through a sorter of some sort and the sorter spits out what it thinks is undeliverable mail and sends it back to where it came from.

Incidentally the fact that an American return to sender on these letters speak loud. It says the overseas post office has done its job. The error is the fault of the US Postal Service that should be doing a better job.

ETA a word from M0URX, a UK QSL manager.

I can also add a few words to this.   Letters are no longer sorted by humans.  All letters are now sorted by machines.  
So if the address is not formatted correctly or the handwriting is not good then the item is rejected and sent to the returns pile. DIXIE sticks a yellow sticker on the item saying letter cannot be forwarded. 
It is then returned to sender.  So most of the returns are because of automation.  
Our OQRS was designed to format address correctly and since we did that in 2016 we saw a big drop in returns from USA.

There are two UK QSL managers I have ordered confirmation cards from, M0OXC and M0URX and both of them seem to have a far better than average track record of mailing cards to the States. 

-----------------------------------------

Maybe I should explain what a QSL manager is. 

First, a QSL card is a postcard sized certificate that serves as proof of contact. A ham desiring confirmation of contact generally sends the other ham his QSL card made out with the pertinent contact information along with either an SASE (for stateside contacts) or an SAE and return postage. 

A QSL manager is someone hired by a ham to basically do his paperwork. This pretty much means mail out his QSL cards. 

There are a number of reasons for this. The ham overseas may have a mail theft problem at his post office. He may simply have lousy postal service to begin with. In the case of one place it's $11 USD to simply mail a letter which makes a simple QSL cost prohibitive.

The ham may just plain be too busy to keep up with requests which is somewhat common in rare DX areas. The other thing that comes to mind are DXpeditions that make thousands and thousands of  QSOs and are overwhelmed by the total volume.



 


 






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Friday, March 15, 2024

Busy today

I'm trying to work on a project with a couple of overseas hams that are having problems with the USPS.

 


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Thursday, March 14, 2024

Looking for an unindicted co-conspirator

because I have worked a couple of countries that will neither accept or receive mail from the States and I want their QSL card.

I would imagine Switzerland would be perfect.

It would work like this:

I send the middleman my card from the States and he would forward the returned card to me.

Not all hams in countries like that have QSL managers. 






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Wednesday, March 13, 2024

I am now exchanging emails with a Croatian ham QSL manager that was in Samoa when I worked him.

Needless to say, I sent for a QSL card and after 2 months it didn't arrive so I emailed him and he promptly sent me another which arrived about 27 days after he mailed it.

Google says it should have arrived in a week or 10 days but my rule of thumb is to take the 10 days and multiply by 3 and start looking for it about then. 

I have never figured out how New Guinea managed to get me back a card in about 2 weeks but I digress.

Anyway, the QSL manager and I are swapping emails. He says that he's had a few returned to him and all of them were mailed to the States. What's more, is that every single one had an American 'Return to sender' sticker on them. This tells me that the Croatian post office is doing their job. The envelopes obviously got to the States.

Lately I've had problems getting mail from Europe and one Italian QSL manager has tried twice to no avail to get me a card from Iran. 

The process is the Iranian sends his log (almost always electronically) to the Italian who fills out the cards and mails them. The Iranian does this likely because his post office isn't very good coupled with the fact that mailing a letter from Iran costs about $11 US. It cuts costs and in some instances is the only way to QSL.

Any number of Cubans go this route, generally through Spanish QSL managers. I haven't used a Spanish QSL manager in a while but they were excellent in my book.

The problem lies with the USPS.

WTF?! 

The USPS is (supposedly) the gold standard for the planet for getting things to people efficiently. 

Yeah, right.

A Google search says it's number 6.




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Tuesday, March 12, 2024

As for yesterday's post, I had to go to the bank today

and made another friend of sorts.

She's a young lady and took care of me quickly. I wanted to make sure my credit card could be used for an emergency cash withdrawl but could not be used for cash back at a register. 

Anyway she was not a teller and had an office which I was invited into. She checked and I was good to go.

We chatted and because of yesterday's post I told her to Google the Hash and read yesterday's post which she did.

She did laugh and pointed out that business is based on relationships with individuals and that we're all different. 

The ability to communicate with them on their own terms is an important and very much overlooked skill by upper management. They tend to want to keep things sterile.

I said to her "Then HR comes charging in..." and we both laughed and swapped brief HR horror stories.

That's when I went in for the kill. She had a beautiful complexion.

"They ought to throw you in jail for stealing that beautiful complexion from a 15 year old girl!" I said. She really wasn't a hottie but the did have a really beautiful complexion.

She blushed and told me I made her day and on top of that gave me her card. She's my new go-to person at the bank.

It's about relationships.










To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY

For the past few months I get greeted warmly at a place I regularly do business with.

which I attribute to the woman there that I have a good relationship with and have had for quite a while. She has been kind, considerate and has given me a couple of tips along the way. Two of her tips have been very financially helpful.

When I thanked her she cheerfully replied quietly, "Stick with us old broads, Kiddo. We'll take care of you." which made me laugh like hell. Ya gotta love people like that. Women in professional positions rarely say things like that to customers.  However when they do it means something. For one thing it means they like you and are comfortable with you.

In earlier conversations I had mentioned I worked on the water and she said that years ago she had worked as a fisherman to help fund her education and later when she made the old broad comment, while delighted I was not 100% surprised. She was obviously comfortable with me and my flippent, sarcastic nature. 

Business was usual for the next couple of months and then when I came in her face lit up and she told me she was spending a vacation week on the dragger she worked on in college as a cook for $50/day. The $50 was to keep her on the insurance which had a no passengers clause. I knew she'd have gone for free. Afterwards she probably refused her paycheck or spent it on drinks for the crew.

 She just wanted to get out on the water again. Underneath her professional demeanor was a water girl that needed an occasional fix. She's in her mid to late 50s and still has an adventurous spirit.

"Well," I said, cheerfully in an upbeat voice. "Anything to keep you old broads off the streets and out of the pool halls.  Have fun!" and she laughed like hell. She was tickled pink to get back on the water for a week.

We did business and I turned to leave as the woman behind me snapped, "Hey! You called her an old broad!"

I turned to the woman and put on my 22 year old schoolteacher talking to a recaltricent child voice. "That's because she's a member of the Old Broad's Club which you will never be invited to join. She's been through the mill more than once and come through it every time without losing her sense of kindness, common sense, compassion and sense of humor which is something you don't have to worry about losing because you can't lose what you don't have."

I continued. "I would be honored to take that woman anywhere from a Presidential Inaguaral ball to splitting a sub sandwich with her on the tailgate off a pickup in the rain. On the other hand I wouldn't take you to a dog fight in Greenbush, Masachusetts. Try joining the Karen club because with your mean spirited nosiness they'll greet you with open arms."

As I was turning she started to open her mouth.

"I'm troo wit choo," I said and walked off.

Aftermath.

About a month later I walked in and she wasn't there so instead of shuffling myself around I went to the first available person that looked like a fairly new elementary schoolteacher. When she saw me her face lit up. I think she was the woman that had been in the next booth and had heard everything.

She said the karen had stormed into the manager's office who told her business policy was to get involved in disputes between the customers and the karen left in a huff.

I was mildly concerned and asked her if I was in any trouble. She replied, "Lord, no! That woman is a regular nuisance and everybody was glad to see her get put in place. We're always glad to see you." 


This is an old post I had made a couple of years ago and not posted. I found it while digging through the files. 

The woman that used to take care of me has since been promoted and transferred and I miss her. She made things fun.





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Monday, March 11, 2024

What happened to all the people in a 1962 fifth grade class picture (According to Piccolo)

Something must be wrong with me but I am sitting here with a friend looking at the picture and we are trying to imagine what happened to who even though other than Dennis we cant recognize anyone. Now don't everyone come along and ruin a good story with the facts! Let's see the guy on the right stole a million bucks and ran off with the tomboy that had become a Las Vegas showgirl. The guy on the left married and had 6 kids and 36 grandchildren and is retired with his wife in Florida. The guy on the right joined the French Foreign Legion and stayed in and made it a career. He moved to Polynesia and married a Polynesian girl and has not worn a pair of shoes since he got there. The kid on the upper left is a confirmed bachelor and lives in a cabin in the Cascades. The girl in the left has been married six times and now lives alone with six cats. The guy on the right got cleaned out by his ex wife and has lived under a bridge since. The guy in the green shirt is still on the lam after 48 years for a murder he didn't commit because the kid next to him whacked a drug dealer that ripped him off and pinned the murder on him and the pretty little girl joned the convent and is currently in a home for retired nuns.






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