‘Skippy’

BigUn

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Big’un@Big_un

April 19, 2023

‘Skippy’

We had only been back in Atlanta for an hour to an hour and a half, when Tiny Dancer came barging in our rig.
“Dad! Dad! There was a strange man wandering down the driveway!” She has several cameras that notify her if someone comes so far down the driveway.
“He didn’t knock on the door, he was just looking around the house and he got close to the rig!”

I stepped outside to see if I could see anything. I did see a white male walking down the road.
As I approached the driveway apron, I could see a silver dodge minivan parked on the road.

The lots in the neighborhood are at least one acre, so the houses are far apart.
As I entered the street I observed the man go up the driveway next door to Tiny Dancer’s house.
I walked up to that driveway’s apron, watched the man walk up to the house and knock on the door. The resident didn’t answer, as she is an elderly widow. Which is exactly why I followed him.
After several minutes, he gave up and came back down the driveway towards me.
As he approached me he said “Hey! How’s it going?!?” animatedly …
“Why were you wandering around my Daughters house?” I queried
“What?” was the response
I then pointed to the house next door.
“Oh! Hey, my name is Skip! I ran out of gas and I’m trying to see if I can get a gallon or two..” he said as he reached out to shake hands…
“Uh-huh, well Skippy, you could get shot doing that in a neighborhood like this” I said without responding to his extended hand.

He then turned to his right as if to go back to his vehicle.
I then walked back to ‘Tiny Dancers’ house.
I told her that he would most likely not be back because I basically told him I would shoot him.
She then told me that he stole an old gas can that I had found in her basement/garage. It had old gas in it, I set it outside because a can of gas near your furnace isn’t a good thing.

“Are you sure?” I asked
“Yes, he saw the camera and walked oddly that way, keeping his back turned.”
The direction she pointed to, would get him out of camera view, but was still on the property.

We were discussing all of this, and we then ordered two more cameras in order to cover more of the property. When I noticed two Sheriffs Dept cruisers near the entrance of the neighborhood.
“‘Deputy dog’ is here, go tell them about the gas can.”
She begged me to go with her.
I told her “it’s your house, and your property, you need to take care of it.”

@The_CINC guilted me into going down there.
I got within 25 yds or so and stopped, I was thinking I would just give her some moral support.

So of course they all walked towards me.
Yes, he had the gas can. It was obvious because the can itself probably hadn’t been sold for at least 25 years, it was a 2.5 gallon round metal can, with the white plastic spout.
He admitted it was ‘Tiny Dancer’s’ when he said “well if you just really need it back!!”
It was the principal of the the dang thing.
The lead Deputy asked me how much I thought it was worth.
“As a collectors item/antique, it’s only real value, it might be worth $5.00..”
The Deputy then said “I told him that he’s lucky he didn’t get shot…”
“That is amazing” I said, “because I told ‘Skippy’ the same thing.”
That cracked the second deputy up, me calling him ‘Skippy’.

No charges were brought, but a report was made in case he comes back.

Our contractor told me that the local Sheriff’s Dept are called ‘the Gestapo’ because they don’t take any crap.
“I knew I liked them for some reason…” I said…

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Big’un@Big_un

February 18, 2025

Blast from the past

Baby Sis is having all of her father’s 8mm film library digitized.
I hope that stag film I found isn’t in there.🤣😂🤣😂😂

Here is a short clip of Baby Sis and Mama leaving the hospital.
There’s a handsome 13 yr old young fella that carries her.

For reference, Mama was 5’8”, so at 13, I was 5’9”-5’10”.

00:00:29

Big’un@Big_un

December 31, 2024

Sous Vide

‘Under Vacuum’

I sous vide two ribeyes for supper.
2.5 hours at 132 F.
Here I’m ’putting a sear on them’.
I also put in a large roast at the same time, it will be in the water for 27 hours at 132F before I sear it tomorrow.
The roast should be as tender as Prime Rib.

00:01:07

Big’un@Big_un

December 17, 2024

Ascension into

Heaven.
I’m jaded when it comes to Cathedrals.
They are my lovely brides favorite thing. She’s even taken an online course all about them.
She loves a flying buttress…
Therefore, I’ve been in a few Cathedrals.
Don’t get me wrong, the craftsmanship and the time it took to build these Monuments, make them incredible.
I just see ‘cause’ for the reformation everywhere.
Especially the one in Toledo, it has a ‘Chapel’ in the corner of the Cloisters dedicated to a bishop and his nephew. Their Sarcophagi, with their likenesses are in the center of the chapel. The Bishop spent the equivalent of millions of dollars, glorifying himself in the 14th century. Money, given as tithes by the poor.

I always try to find the ‘crypt’ to see if they have any ‘Saints’ on display, in glass cases. This Cathedral had one. St Ursula, of the 11,000 virgins. She and her handmaidens were executed by Atilla the Hun, after she refused to marry him.
She is the Patron Saint of young girls.

The one thing that ...

00:01:27

Big’un@Big_un

March 02, 2022

This is my Darth Vader voice

For you doubters…
😂🤣😂😂🤣

Big’un@Big_un

February 21, 2025

“I’m a man…”

“Yes I am and I can’t help but love you so…”

It’s cold as hell outside.
The water is ‘stiff’.

My Scooter is ready for pick up.
The HD dealer called day before yesterday to let me know it was ready…

I’ve ridden in cold weather.
When I had to.
Not exactly my first choice in riding weather.
Yes, I could go get it and ride the 15 miles back, but why.
I don’t have to.
Yes ‘I’m a man’ but at my age, I’ve nothing left to prove.
So I’ll wait for a day when the water isn’t ‘Stiff’.

Big’un@Big_un

February 20, 2025

Just once more?

“I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days I thought would never end
I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought
That I’d see you
One more time
Again…”

“One day, one time,
will be the last time,
you will pick up and hold your child…”

“You can never go ‘Home’.”

The other day, I had a realization.
We’ve lived in the Big Blue Beast for almost 1/5 of our marriage. Almost 8 years out of almost 41.

Lots of life has happened in the last eight years. The birth of two grandchildren, two marriages and one divorce. My parents going from independent living to passing.

I’m stoic, so I take it all in stride.
I have one, strange life fear, I can’t conquer.
I don’t fear death.
I fear the desperate loneliness if my wife were to die first.
You may say
“Well that’s selfish.”
Yes it is, but if it’s any consolation, she would not fare better than I.
Someday will be the last; kiss, touch, hand hold, and look of love in her eyes.
For us all, for ...

Big’un@Big_un

February 19, 2025

Just a ‘bit’ of OCD

Whenever I purchase a ‘High priced coffee’, that has a logo on the cup, I line up the ‘sippy hole’ with the label.
Why?
Because there is never a ‘seam’ in the label.

I once, on the way to a meeting, which was one of the last times I wore a white ‘Button down’ shirt, bought a coffee.
The intelligent barista put the ‘sippy hole’ near the cup’s seam.
I spilled coffee all down my damn shirt.
Since then, I always line up the label, or make sure the seam is opposite the ‘sippy hole’. (That sounded vaguely dirty)

Big’un@Big_un

November 30, 2022

The Day I Retired

Its almost the sixth anniversary...

Some of you may have looked at my photos and thought; what young looking handsome man… He couldn't be old enough to retire …

Thank you Mama

Anyway, I am 60 and I retired at 55 in July of 2017. I was given a retainer for two more months in order to be on call. I couldn’t always get a reliable Internet connection and I can’t take someone’s money for nothing, so I shut that down in Sept 2017…

So you are thinking, what day in July did you retire? I didn’t really retire in July 2017. I quit going to work then…

I retired Thursday, around 1:35 PM, December 15, 2016…

Life was good for @The_CINC and I.

It was shortly before Christmas 2016. Tiny dancer, our surprise baby was a junior in college. We had a 4K sqft house on 7 acres, 40 miles south of Washington DC. It was our second house in 33 yrs of marriage. We had lived there for over 20 yrs. The final house payment was due Nov 10, 2017.

The CINC was at the highest point you can achieve as a civilian Govt Employee without going into the Senior Executive Service. When she was offered SES, the CINC had gotten to the point at which it would have meant more work, more time away from home, for no more money (because of the pay structure) for at least five to seven years. We also knew we wanted to Retire, so it made no sense to invest the time required for an SES position.

She worked for OSD, DOD, WHS (The office that runs the Pentagon, they are the ‘Landlords’) for 34 years. At one point she ran a division that had a yearly budget of $1 Billion.

She would be eligible to retire in April 2017. We really hadn’t decided what we were going to do. My top-secret NSA/DOD clearance was supposed to be coming through anytime. One of my specialties was encrypted secure communications.

I was a subcontractor for IBM and they were paying $50,000 for my vetting. It had been 2 years because I was a traveling consultant that didn’t associate with my neighbors… I was gone all of the time and I couldn’t see any of them from my house anyway..

Once that clearance came through, I could double or triple my salary which wasn’t small in the first place.

Here we were, at the top of our earning potential, few bills, house almost paid for, kids all gone…

Life was good…

Then Thursday, around 1:35 PM, December 15, 2016, happened…

I was in Birmingham AL, working at the US HQ, of a regional US bank that had been acquired by a Spanish bank. I was digitizing and updating their manual and electronic bank and treasury transactions. I had been on this contract for three years. The last 10 months or so I had been mostly remote, working from my lazy boy.

They wanted me to come in for some end of the year meetings and Christmas parties.

I flew in Monday mornings, getting to the office around 10:00 AM. I would work 10 hours Monday, 12-14 Tuesday and Wednesday, 6-8 Thursday and then catch a flight home around 4:00 pm Thursday. I would have 40-45 hours in 4 days by the time I caught my flight home.

I was sitting at my ‘station’, there weren’t really ‘cubes’, just tables with 3-4” dividers that had plugs. It was basically a giant open room, semi closed at each end by meeting rooms. My seat was near the meeting rooms. Behind me to my right was a large opening which led to a spacious elevator lobby.

The bank of elevators were the divider for another large working area. If you really tried, you could easily get 150-200 people in the elevator lobby.

I had just come back from lunch. I was trying to wrap a few things up before heading to the airport. A woman calmly walks behind me and says “Does anybody know first aid?”

I stood up “Excuse me?!?” She pointed to the elevator lobby behind her.

So I walked that way to see what was happening…

I am a trained first responder. I was a police officer at the pentagon and I was a FFX County VA police officer. I am also a trained BSA leader with back country first aid training.

As I entered the elevator lobby I saw an extremely obese man laying partially on his back. A woman by his side rubbing his hand looking concerned. Another man near his feet watching. I looked around, there were about 10 gawkers.

“MA’AM!”

I startled the woman to look at me…

“We have to treat him for shock”

First thing I could think of, get him flat on his back, elevate his feet.

"Go get that footstool"

That gave her something to do and think about.

I looked at the gentleman "Find me something to keep him warm."

I got him on his back. He must have weighed 400 Lbs.

I ripped his shirt open, put my head on his chest.

No Breathing, no heartbeat.

I took his pulse at his carotid artery to make sure.

No, pulse, his face was white, blue lips, his eye lids were partially open, his eyes were already clouding over...

He was already dead.

I looked up for a second...

At least 175-200 people were watching me...

I could hear people sobbing..

Where the hell did they all come from?

So I measured up his sternum, and began compressions..

If you've never really done CPR...

The first time will gross you out. I broke every bone in his chest away from his sternum. It sounded like I was crushing a bag of potato chips.

Another gentleman, kneeling beside me asked "Shouldn't you do the breaths?"

I was doing this for show. I knew he was dead. I have seen and handled many dead bodies. He was already dead, he wasn't coming back.

I looked over at the decedent's face, my compressions were forcing his lunch out of his mouth.

"Turn his head to the side, sweep his mouth, knock yourself out."

About that time a woman came over with an automatic defibrillator.

As I was giving compressions, I talked her through placement of the electrodes. She was so upset, she couldn't read the instructions.

She placed the electrodes, hit the switch, and audible countdown started from 15. When it got to one, it would send the charge.

I kept doing compressions until the Defib audibly said 'CLEAR', at which time, for some reason , I through my arms up like a touchdown. As soon as the cycle was over, I started compressions again.

I was starting to get winded, when I heard the elevators open and EMTs emerged.

one immediately kneeled across from me and took over.

I simply stood up, and walked away.

I didn't want to be there anymore.

I walked back to my station, and packed my stuff.

I was going to the airport.

As luck would have it..

I followed the gurney down to the lobby, one of the EMTs on the guy's chest still giving compressions.

On the drive to the airport, the shakes hit... I can stay extremely calm in the most stressful situations, but it takes a heavy toll later.

After arriving at my gate, I sat down, my cell phone rang. It was my boss from the bank "I just wanted to let you know that the guy didn't make it."

'I know" I said, "I knew that before I left, thanks for letting me know"

I called @The_CINC and told her everything. I then said "I don't want to die in a cube farm. Let's retire"

The Bank, and my employer tried to do some kind of ceremony for me. I told them not to, it was a dumb idea. If he would have lived it would have been a celebration of his life. He died, there was nothing to be proud of.

That was why they gave me the retainer...

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