29 April 2011

The Road Scholar - Day 118 (Hoping For An Easy Weekend)

I started a little later than I wanted this morning, but still made it to Oklahoma City, OK with a little time to spare. Once I unloaded, I got the trailer washed out, fueled up (in Tulsa), then made it to the service plaza here in Vinita, OK (a small town about an hour east of Tulsa, right on the Will Rogers Turnpike, a.k.a. I-44). My next load picks up at noon tomorrow in South West City, MO (it's in the southwest part of the state, but by no means should it be referred to, nor confused as, a city), and that will be delivering to Chicago for Monday morning. I am really hoping they are very efficient in the loading process, so that I can cover some ground as soon as possible.

My hopeful plan is to cover as much ground tomorrow as I can, so I may have more time available to me on Sunday, as I hope to get together with an old Marine Corps friend who just happens to live in Chicago. I've been unable to get together with Chris for some time now, as I'm usually passing through while he's at work, or short on time, or late at night, or any combination of the three. The last time I saw him was when I was transferring to a different unit, back in... my gosh... has it been that long?! 1987 or '88?! When does the time go? Some things I do remember about Chris was, 1) He was an avid D&D player, and, 2) he was a computer GENIUS (and, mind you, this was a few years before the advent of the internet)! I remember once, our regimental Executive Officer (or "XO" for short), a LtCol, came to Chris with a new program he just received from Base Command (on a 5" floppy - THAT should tell you how long ago that was), and the XO wanted to know if Chris could figure it out. Chris popped it into his computer, looked at it a little, then told the XO to come back in 45 minutes. The XO exclaimed, "45 minutes?! I've just spent the last 1 1/2 hours trying to figure this thing out?" Chris just looked up at the XO and calmly said, "45 minutes, sir."

45 minutes later, the XO returned. Not only did Chris know how to operate the program, he also knew every "back door" that was hidden in there, as well!

As I said... computer GENIUS!

- Another rant via BlogPress

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