Ramblin' Ed Abernathy: Ponderosa Gumption, not Petticoat Junction

Nope, read nothing into it. The title was just to help my feeble minded self remember some stuff I had thought of writing about while driving into work today. I think of a lot of stuff, but my rememberizer often fails me when I log into blogger. So I've took to trying to trick things into memory.

I got a 4 GB thumb drive from Radio Shack (Radio Chateau sounds classier, but French. Perhaps Radio Shaque?) for $40 on Friday. It wasn't some kind of special deal just for me, though. I saw it in the paper and stopped to pick it up on the way home.Just thought you should know. Flash memory is the bomb, not literally of course, for a traveling man. No matter if your laptop hard drive fails, your work will still be accessible on any computer. Da bomb, I tell ya. Though not literally.

Something I just realized today, and by now you know I observe the world with a slightly skewed, yet crystal clear vision, is that "Decaf" read backwards would be pronounced "Faked". That actually makes sense, doesn't it? Or maybe "Faced", I suppose, depending on your take of the whole hard c / soft c conundrum.

My ambition is higher with this wife than the first. First wife was a country girl from Looziana. We were both prone to make the most of what we had, but neither of us was eat up with the feeling that we had to work harder, faster, longer. We had what we had and we dealt with it. Left to my own devices I would invariably end up in a small home on a bayou somewhere, with a barefoot wife, a faithful dog and a 1o' jon boat, fishing days and watching TV at night.

My second wife grew up priveledged, and even when she moved out of her home and out on her own never believed for a second that she wasn't still priveledged. Broke, maybe. But still priveledged. So enter me, new husband and get along guy. Used to working with the hand I was dealt. Learning that, if the hand I was dealt didn't include an acceptable level money (moola, cabbage, greenbacks) then I needed to throw down another shuffle, because she had high end products to do and places to spend. And, the boy must admit sheepishly, I became used to nicer stuff than before, too.

For that reason, I wound up earning a college degree that I had never needed/wanted, working more hours than I'd like to, at a better job with a bigger company than I ever would have imagined, thinking hard on how best to advance and how fast I can do it all because it was being pointed out to me that no matter what I was making, the opportunity actually existed to make even more. I suppose. Hey, regardless of whether or not it comes as the result of a forced march forward, I'm calling it ambition.

I think I coined a phrase this morning, although I don't know if it counts as coining (or even phrasing, for that matter) if you don't say it aloud. I walked into the breakroom and a woman was staring off, towards the bulletin board, although I didn't get the sense she was looking at the board, or anything really. Kinda had that far off look. She was quite attractive, which doesn't have any bearing on this story other than I just like remembering her. Anyway, when I saw her I remember thinking to myself, "She's awfully pretty, standing there all lost in ponderment like that." Ponderment... that's actually kind of cool.