Friday December 11, 2015

December 11, 2015: A Christmas Story, 2015 will be the 50th Christmas Nancy and I have spent together. All 50 have been great but you always remember the first. We were living in Redwood City, CA in a two bedroom rented apartment located at 875 Woodside Road. Until just before Thanksgiving I was working for Clifford Engineering, a small engineering firm. I knew the firm was having trouble. Several pay days were missed or late. I headed to work the Monday after Thanksgiving and the office was locked up. Calls to my boss Watson Seeley Clifford went unanswered. Nancy did not like Clifford but I always thought he had a good resume. He went to the elite Hawaiian HS, Punahou, graduated from Stanford and was a US Marine Corps Officer. Nancy as usual was right. I started looking for a job. Nancy typed up my resume and away I went. I spent several week looking and traveling around the Bay Area. I had an interview with the cities of Redwood City and Santa Rosa. I even drove over to Livermore to interview with a National Lab. I stopped at all the Civil Engineering firms in San Francisco and along the Peninsula. I had no luck. On a Friday several weeks before Christmas I started out early stopping at Civil Engineering firms listed in the Yellow Pages. About 1600 on this dark gloomy day I decided to make one last stop. I stopped at Charles S. McCandles and Company, 1020 Corporation Way, Palo Alto. The firm’s office was at the end of a cul-de-sac. I walked in and was met by a surly secretary. I asked if they were hiring and she told me to sit down. She disappeared and about 15 minutes later a 5 foot five inch, 250 pound man appeared smoking a big cigar. We retired to his office. He looked over my resume and asked several questions. Finally he said what do you want. I was making about $3 per hour so I said what the heck and told him $3.80. He said could I start on Monday. Silly question. I got in the VW beetle and flew up the Bayshore Freeway to 875 Woodside. I told Nancy we had just gotten an early Christmas present. I had a job! The man who hired me was Marvin Nachetein (? sp). Marvin was from a German farming community in Oregon. He was given a football scholarship to Stanford. Marvin was a blocking back in the single wing formation. During WWII Marv was a bomber pilot flying missions over Germany. His plane was shot down and Marv parachuted to safety. Because he spoke German he was able to find his way out of Germany. He made contact with the Dutch underground and was picked up by a British patrol boat. Friday December 11, 2015. I had a quick breakfast and got on my bike with the snow tires and headed to the Y. The temp early this morning was in the mid 40s. The Y was not very crowded. I did my calisthenics and ran 2 miles. I achieved my running goal. Had coffee at Panera and read the WSJ. After Panera I pedaled to Macatawa Bank to make a deposit. Took a long route home. I had lunch and then spent some time paying bills and cleaning out my in basket. I took Ms P on another long walk. I did talk to my computer guru this afternoon and he said that he thinks my netflix problem is lack of data capacity. Netflix will conk out several times during a show. I will give ATT a call and see what additional capacity will cost. When I watch netflix on my iPad netflix never conks out? Nancy had lunch with her friend Kathi today. They stopped by the Two Scotts to get some pulled chicken for dinner. I took a short nap. Nancy fixed a pulled chicken sandwich with a sweet potato. It is now 1936 and I am on hold with ATT. Stay tuned! ATT could not fix my problem. They said I had their elite package with plenty of band width and capacity. Now were back to square one. Can anyone solve my problem?