SoCS – You Can’t Win if You Don’t Try

Linda is back with a late July prompt for us. All the SoCS details are here. You might just want to join in and make some new friends.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “one/won.” Use one, use them both, use them any way you’d like. Bonus points if you use them both. Enjoy!

---

Late July is the perfect time for this prompt. It reminds me of summer and the times in my life I seemed to have a lucky streak. I have won more than one contest in my life, but darn it – no lottery yet.

I won my first contest when I was in first grade. It was an FBI poster contest. I wrote about the experience in an earlier blog post. (I still have the letter signed by J. Edgar Hoover to prove it. 😉)

The summer of my sophomore year in high school I won two different radio contests. Radio contests were such a big deal for promotions back in the day. The first contest was a 10 album set of Oldies But Goodies records. The songs were from the 50’s and I wore them out. The second contest I won movie tickets to go see “Soylent Green”. Ha! Does anyone but me remember that movie?

In Alaska we had a great radio station that took call-in requests and of course had their fair share of contests. They also had block parties from time to time. I do not remember what I had to do to enter this particular contest but I won a sizable gold nugget necklace which I finally sold years later.

I was tempted to buy a lottery ticket the other day, something I rarely do. I just think of all the good I could do with the winnings. Maybe I could buy just one ticket. After all, you can’t win it you don’t play.

Records – SoCS

Linda is back with another prompt for us. You can read all about it here and learn all about Stream of Consciousness Saturday.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “record.” Use it as a noun, use it as a verb, use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

---

Close your eyes. It’s 1973. Temperatures are unusually cool for this summer day. Upstairs on the second floor of my military dorm, the fire escape door is propped open – a definite violation but it is Saturday and the cool air moving down the hallway is worth the risk.

Inside my room at the end of the hall, we sit on the yellow shag rug, records strewn out all over the floor. A Cat Stevens record spins on the turntable – Teaser and the Firecat – while we debate the next record to be played. Everyone brought their favorite records to this impromptu gathering. Four or five girls with long dark hair normally confined to the top of their their heads, just chill to the music and chat about everything and nothing.

This scene seemed to play out in one form or another throughout my life until one day, the records were gone and this ritual of choosing records and chilling with friends cross legged on the floor slipped away with it.

We still have some records packed away. We also have a turntable designed to play the records and record them digitally, but it too, is boxed away in a closet upstairs.

But the memories remain of that carefree girl who loved to sit on the floor with records all around her deciding what she wanted to hear next. Maybe The Association, or Marvin Gaye, or maybe, just maybe a little Pink Floyd.

This song has that feel…enjoy!

 

Say what? Geek Speak Ahead – SoCS

Linda has once again reached into magic hat and pulled out a prompt for us. You can get the scoop on SoCS here and learn all about Stream of Consciousness Saturday.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “acronym’.” Choose an acronym and use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!

---

I remember the day I applied for the internship. I was in a less than satisfying career and struggled with the mundane tasks of my job. I needed a challenge. I was quite frankly shocked when I was called for an interview. I was even more shocked when I found out I got the job.

I balanced school and work and family and believe me when I say I was challenged. I was thrust into a new world that spoke a new language – one full of acronyms.

My college studies included a few COBOL classes, some System Design and Analysis classes, and of course a few college Algebra classes. At work I was assigned programs to write, staff to shadow, and problems to solve.

I found myself in a male dominated field, with my direct supervisor being a woman. Mrs. K was firm but kind, and had extremely high expectations for any woman who entered this field.

I attended DPMA meetings with our corporate counterparts. We taught classes using borrowed Osborne computers running programs written in BASIC.

This was a time before the personal computer appeared in the workplace. It was an IBM mainrame shop and we lived in their own world of acronyms.

Operating systems had so many iterations from OS/370 to System/370 to OS/VS2 (MVS) or DOS to DOS/VSE and VM, we learned them all. We managed batch job ABENDS and learned to manage jobs using JCL and HASP forward to JES2 and JES 3.

Our programs told the mainframe CPU what DASD to use and what tapes to mount at what point in any given job.

I was the communications person and managed IBM’s programs VTAM and NCP. I learned SNA and SDLC. We managed CMS terminals and installed the first IBM PC’s in our offices, Our early LANs were Token Ring.

Of course there were third-party vendors, too. We ran programs like TPX and NDM.

My head hurts thinking about how much this world has changed and I am thankful I must no longer keep up with the myriad of technology used in the corporate workplace. I doubt much of what I have written here even exists any longer and I doubt anyone is writing anything in APL any longer.

I am not at all bothered by my state of obsolescence,.

I Have a Rock to Grind – SoCS

Linda is fighting the smoke again but she made time to give us our SoCS post for the day. You can get the scoop on SoCS here and learn all about Stream of Consciousness Saturday.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “rock’.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

I never met a rock I didn’t like.

From the time I was a kid wading the creeks in southwest Virginia, I always admired the colors of the striations in the well tumbled rocks found in the creek bed.

As a kid, though, we all looked for nice flat ‘skipping rocks’ to see who could skip one the farthest across the ponds where we swam.

We learned to carefully turn rocks in search of crawdads. The big ones loved to hide nestled between rocks. There was a perfect size to use for bait when we fished so knowing just the right sized rock to turn over was key.

Rocks served as our pathway to cross the creek to the other side of the valley. It was much shorter to cross the creek than to follow the gravel road that wound through the valley. There was one huge rock that almost crossed the entire width of the creek – long rock. We often sat there to rest or enjoy a picnic while the creek swirled around us. It was my sister, BJ’s favorite place to think. 🥰

I was so excited when we found our retirement house because the local art school held lapidary classes. Since I was getting into setting stones, the chance to slice my own rocks and grind them to a high shine intrigued me. There I met my dear instructor, Robert, who sadly has since passed away. They no longer offer lapidary classes so I have boxes of rocks and rock slabs ready to grind. I hope to buy a cabbing machine some day so I can grind rocks again.

Rock slabs ready to grind into cabochons

Fill ’Er Up – SoCS

Linda is singing my tune this morning. Check out her post to learn all about Stream of Consciousness Saturday.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “the last thing you filled.” Think about the last thing you filled or the contents you filled it with and use one or both of those things as your prompt. Enjoy!

Let’s talk coffee.

It has been almost two years since I gave up caffeine (except for chocolate of course). Now all you die hard coffee swiggers are rolling your eyes and groaning right now, but hear me out.

My heartbeat can be irregular and caffeine does a number on the rhythm. But giving up caffeine did not mean I had to give up on coffee! I just had to find a coffee I like. And I did.

Hubby still drinks caffeinated coffee, so we make our coffee separately, one cup at a time. We use the pour-over method. It is our morning ritual. Two cups is my limit except for rare occasions.

I do occasionally break my caffeine rule. When I go to Florida there is a lovely little Cuban cafe that serves a great breakfast and a fabulous Café Con Leche. I went to breakfast with my friend and she coerced me into a second cup. Man, was I jacked up! My daughter-in-law said she had never seen me jacked up in caffeine. I learned my lesson. One cup – large of course! It is to die for. 🥰 (Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it is good!)