Author: Andy Labis

By:

The Dude on the Right
Fine, I don’t promise anymore.  Again, this blog was supposed to be about
the size of a man’s unit, with a totally unscientific study by Trash about Garth Brooks,
and the rantings of one of our staff members, Whammy, but alas, I finally
accomplished something more important than giving you dudettes supposed tools to
help you determine if you really want to get down with a dude based on, well, it
will just have to wait, because this is more important in my life right now,
especially since getting down with a dude will never be important in my life. 
What could be more important?  I finally finished my Christmas display.

If you read my

last blog, you found out that my Christmas decorating was not going very
well.  Decorations were all over the floor, I was one track short of
completing my train set-up, I had to buy more train
track connectors, and I was
almost ready to just say "Screw it." and leave the display in total disarray
because, well, as Christmas is approaching, pretty much, every day, I go from
being filled with the holiday spirit to being a total Scrooge.  I finally
just decided to get the damn thing finished, and I finally finished it, but it
wasn’t easy.

First off, I decided I needed a couple of new additions, and on
my way back home from a weekend with old friends in Chicago, I stopped at the
first American Sales store (they sell the
village series that I started collecting) on my way back, and as I looked, on display, they had
the extra lighthouse I wanted, they had the windmill I wanted, and they had the
boat I wanted, but they didn’t have any of them in stock to sell.  Them my
obsessiveness kicked in, because, as I continued heading home,
I knew I couldn’t finish this
display without them.  So I drive closer to my house, supposedly
remembering where the next store was, but, low and behold, I forgot the powers
that be turned this store into an outlet store.  I started swearing a lot,
especially since I was in total "I have to get these pieces" mode or else I
probably wouldn’t have even been able to get to sleep.  So, yes, I drove
down the street, to the new American Sales store, and yes, they had everything I
needed;  The boat, the windmill, and the lighthouse, and I also picked up what I
hoped would be enough fake snow.

Finally back at home, safe and sound, and
over the course of a few days, I knew I needed a better game-plan than I had
before, so I formulated it.  First off, get the train track secured to the
plywood, using anything from thumbtacks to wood screws if necessary.  With
the train track finally secured, it was time for the basic layout of the
buildings and the mountain for the ski hill.  Envisioned in my head, things
started
to come together except for the fact that the new, plastic, pebble road, needed
to be straightened out (it comes in a roll), and for a change, the internet was
no help at all.  Not really sure of the best way to do this, I heated a pot
of boiling water, put the rolls of "road" in the pot, and let them simmer a bit. 
After that bit, I laid them out on the floor, flattening them with a bunch of
Pyrex baking dishes, and low and behold, this actually worked.

The next issue,
when dealing with these goofy village buildings, is getting the power to them,
but somehow that all worked out, and alas, my lighthouses were lighthousing, the
sawmill pond was sawmilling and ponding, my ski-lift was ski-lifting, my
windmill was windmilling, and my boats were, well, not really boating, just
sitting there on some blue plastic that is supposed to be water, but at least
their lights were lighting.  All that working and the train was still,
well, training.

Finally
the last project was at hand, re-hang the Christmas ornaments that fell off of
the tree at my last debacle, and then, lastly, get all of the snow positioned. 
Surprisingly I had enough snow, the ornaments all fell into place (except I do
need to get some super-glue to fix my Angel and Snoopy), but, for the most part,
other than cleaning up the rest of the mess in my living room, my Christmas
display is done.  Finally.  And just in time for the six inches of
snow that fell this afternoon and evening that gave me a nearly three hour drive
back to my dude-pad today, mostly my fault, because I wasn’t as good as a
weatherman as I usually am.  Maybe I should have called my sister, she’s
the one that really needs a "Weather Channel" Intervention, but that’s another
story for another blog, or maybe a podcast.  Merry Christmas to those of
you that are Christmasers, and Happy End of the Year to those of you who aren’t.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

By:

The Dude on the Right
Okay, so this, my next Blog, isn’t about a scientific study about unit size,
hopefully for you dudettes, it will be the next, but I just wanted to lament
about my Christmas decorating and how it isn’t going too well so far. 

My Christmas decorating used to be the easiest thing in the world, usually
taking about 15 minutes. It started probably about six years ago, when I finally
broke down and bought a tree. Now, me, being the generally lazy decorator that I
am, of course bought a tree with lights pre-installed. I had ornaments thanks to
my Mom ordering me Hallmark ornaments for a number of years, and so, I moved one
of my end tables in front of the front room window, assembled the tree, put on
the ornaments, and even bought some Christmas tree skirting. Bamm, that first
time it took me about 60 minutes to go from opening the box to having a lit tree
complete with ornaments.

Christmas came and went that year, and as it went, I was faced with the crappy
task of packing away the ornaments, taking apart the tree, and in all honesty,
this seemed like it would take longer than the assembly. But then a moment of
genius occurred to me. I had a spare bedroom upstairs, the tree wasn’t that
heavy (it’s only a 4 1/2 foot fake tree), so I said to myself, "Self, why don’t
you just carry the tree upstairs, ornaments and all, throw an old bed sheet over
it, and then next year, all you have to do is move the end table, carry the tree
down the stairs, and you’d be done?" And so, for years, that is exactly what I
did. I’d get back from the Old Country after Thanksgiving, move my end table, go
upstairs and remove the bed sheet, carry down my decorated tree, and
"Voilà!" , about 15 minutes
from start to finish, my Christmas decorating was done. I was always so proud of
the time it took me to decorate that whenever I was in a conversation about how
long it would take someone to deck their halls, and had to regale those present
with my genius.

Then, visiting a friend of mine, I was shamed, at least in my head, at the
total lameness of my Christmas decorating. At her house they had this giant
village built, in their basement, that stretched along one wall and halfway
along another, and as proud as I was that my decorating only took 15 minutes, in
my head I decided something more needed to be done. So, after Christmas was
over, I saw an ad that the village houses and props were 75% off, so it started. 
I bought a couple of houses, a lighthouse, and the next year, my decorating
started to get more complicated. This was a few years ago. Then I added a
ski-lift, an old train set, and things got a little worse, although not as bad
as this year. In the previous year I sort of had the train set halfway done as I
didn’t have the width to make the full loop. It looked alright, but the train
didn’t work. So, this year, I calculated all of the space needed, set up the
plywood, and started to get to work. This is where things really started to go
wrong. First mistake, bringing down my ornamented Christmas tree and plopping it
on the plywood first. Yup, there was my tree, standing proud, only now I needed
to install the train track.

No biggy, until, well, sprawled along the plywood trying to get the
thumbtacks put in to secure the train track, my svelte body under the tree,
well, wouldn’t you know it, I lifted my back just a little too much, and then
the tree started to tumble, I caught the tree, but not before 90% of the
ornaments decided to vacate their place on the tree and onto the floor.

Great, my decorating is now starting to go horribly wrong, now I’ve got to
re-ornamentate the tree, and the angel on the top of the tree, while taking her
tumble, well she lost her wings.

But that wasn’t all.

Nope, finally settling into the fact my decorating was getting slightly more
entailed than I planned it to be, I continued laying the train track, only to
quickly realize that I didn’t have enough track connectors. So much for getting
my decorating done on that night. So, decorating not finished, I go to bed, wake
up the next day, head to the hobby store, get more track connectors, and I’m
psyched that "Yes, I can finally finish this Christmas decorating crap this
evening, it will be great, the train will work, and it will officialy be the
Holiday Season in the dude-pad." Evening comes, and begin decorating again, and
I thought I would be creative with the train by kinda loopy-looping it rather
than just having a normal oval, except there was one other problem – I
miscalculated the amount of track needed. Yup, there I was, most of the track
tacked down, getting towards at least finishing the train, when, low and behold,
I was one track short. One freakin’ track short.

I’ve already spent way to much time on this project, I’ve got a tree with
only a few ornaments left on it, I’m sure I need more fake snow, and I need ONE
PIECE OF TRACK THAT I COULD HAVE BOUGHT AT THE HOBBY STORE EARLIER IN THE DAY
BUT NOW THE STORE IS CLOSED.

I thought of just leaving my decorating as is, tree half done, train not
finished, ski-lift still in its box, especially since I rarely entertain, so who
is going to see it anyway, and wouldn’t it be a funnier story if I had people
over with my "not done" decorating, but, after this blog, I’m going back to
work. I decided I will untack some of the train track, remove one piece,
re-assemble the train, so hopefully I can at least get the train going. Then
it’s time to unpack my village, get the skiers skiing and the boat boating, and
I can almost bet you by the end of the night, I will have one last problem, not
enough fake snow.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

By:

The Dude on the Right

Well, Thanksgiving is over, and there is usually at least one story from a
Thanksgiving that is sort of entertaining, and I’m pretty boring at telling
them, but this Podcast has a story about me, my sister, and my under the age of
seventeen year old niece, going to see "Saw
II."  Also is some talking about staying at the old homestead instead
of a hotel, and my being jealous of Oprah, especially as her "My
Favorite Things" show came around.

As always, I welcome your comments.

That’s it for this one!  I’m The Dude on the Right!!  L8R!!!

By:

The Dude on the Right
Last weekend was my 20 year high school reunion and I didn’t go, and the more I
think about it, I’m a little bummed I missed it.  The worst part about it,
as things ended up working out, in hindsight, I could have gone.

The first
hindrance in making any plans was that by the time I found out when the reunion
was, I had already put in a request for concert clearance for Bon Jovi. 
Jovi was playing in Chicago last Friday and Saturday, and when I put in the
request, I said either show would be fine.  Not knowing if I would get
clearance for Friday or Saturday, or get clearance at all, I couldn’t make
definite plans.  And in a case of unbelievable coincidences, I missed my 10
year reunion, because of, well, a

Bon Jovi concert.  Anyway, my plan was that if I got clearance for the
Friday show, or didn’t get clearance at all, I would head back to the homestead
Saturday morning for the reunion on Saturday night, then head back to the Windy
City on Saturday.  As it turned out, I didn’t get clearance at all, so
could have gone, but something else got in the way.

In addition to this web
site, I also do some business consulting, and one of the companies I do work for
was having problems with this GPS unit they recently purchased.  They
wanted to use it to find manholes for a construction job they had, and got the
manhole coordinate files from the General Contractor.  I got it installed,
but something wasn’t right.  When I installed it at their office, I knew
that the manholes were anywhere from 30 to 40 miles away from their office, but
the GPS unit kept saying the manholes were about 500 miles north.  That put
them in Canada.  The G.C. files also contained a "coordinate system" file,
saying the coordinates were in something called a "Stateplane
Illinois East 1201" system, yet every time I entered that into the GPS unit, I
kept getting the same thing, manholes 500 miles away.  Not being a mapping
dude, I tried to do some investigating on the internet, but no matter what I
tried, the result was the same.  Then one of the computer dudes at the GC
said they had problems getting the right distance out of their office, but when
they were actually in the near vicinity of the manholes, it worked fine. 
Well, the company was really jumping to get this thing to work right, so I
agreed to go up to northern Illinois on the Saturday of the reunion, pretty much
cementing my missing the reunion.  The thing is, in my gut, I knew it
wouldn’t make a difference.  I figured something was wrong with either the
coordinate file or the coordinate system they said it was, but I went up to the
north shore of Illinois to do some testing anyway.  Sure enough, I get up
to the North Shore and the manholes are now around 470 miles north of me. 
Yup, according to the GPS, they are still up in Canada.

As things worked out,
on Monday I got a hold of the engineers who supplied the original coordinate
file, and low and behold, the coordinate system was in something called "UTM
NAD83 ZONE 16," or something like that, and the coordinates were in meters, not
feet, like the G.C. supplied file said they were.  I popped that into the
GPS unit, and yup, everything was right with the world, or at least the manholes
were right where they were supposed to be.

My problem, still to this day, is
that at times I don’t listen to myself.  Everything told me not to waste my
time heading to northern Illinois last Saturday, it wouldn’t make a difference,
and it didn’t.  No Bon Jovi clearance, the GPS unit still wouldn’t work
right, and in the end I could have gone to my reunion.  I will give the
folks that organized the reunion credit, though, because they put it together
even though my

high school closed down, and they posted some pictures from the shindig, but
I have to say, that for the most part, after checking out the photos, I’m having
a hard time recognizing most of them.  Me, I look in the mirror and I don’t
look like I’ve aged a day after high school.  Well, alright, maybe a year
or two.  The hair is the same, I’ve still got the svelte body I had back
then, and figure I would have walked in the door with everyone saying something
like "Dude, you look exactly the same as I remember you!  What’s your
secret?" to which I would reply back "Who are you?"  All I know is I hope
Bon Jovi won’t be in Chicago the same day as my 25th year reunion because that
started the entire process of missing my reunions ten years ago.

That’s it for this one!  I’m The Dude on the Right!!  L8R!!!