Getting to be that time of year again:
Incidentally, that white vehicle on the left margin? That’s an armored truck absolutely running through a stone cold red light. Almost whacked that car, which was turning under a supposedly protected green arrow. I hope the money made it to wherever 45 seconds earlier than necessary. But I digress.
I stopped by an outdoors store — where they pay a guy to ride a forklift, full time, moving giant gun safes back and forth across the parking lot. It is a curious activity. Anyway, I’d stopped there because I have this old knife:
My great-grandfather gave it to me, years ago. It is a Marine Corps knife, though my grandfather was in the army. (You can read a bit more about the knife here and here.) He was a medic in Europe, earned a silver star and a purple heart. After the war he came home, never talked about it, raised his family and farmed his land. I think, if I remember correctly, he found this on the side of the road and gave it to my mother to give to me when I became old and smart enough to not cut off my hand.
Not that there’s any danger of that right now. The blade needs sharpening. But, otherwise, it is in great shape, except that the one tang has the point snapped off. The blades need a good deal of cleaning. I know a little about knives, enough to know you can damage them if you clean them incorrectly. So I’ve been hoping, for a while, to find a knife expert. Hence the outdoor store.
Find the knife counter, they had a knife counter, and the guy working there interrupts his conversation with another man who was Ted Turner.
Or his twin.
And, yes, you’d think he would have been taller. In the South the man is as big as life itself. In person, this gentleman was about five-foot-four.
The guy behind the counter says he can show me what I need. He leads me away. I apologize to Mr. Turner, who says “A great-grandfather’s knife is far more important than I am.”
Which is how I realized that the man I met wasn’t Ted Turner. There’s no way that guy is as cool as this guy.
The stuff I need, is a product called Flitz. Wash the blades with a mild dish soap, he said. Dry it. And then go to work on it with Flitz. It will take elbow grease, but it will shine the blades up nicely, he said.
I’ll let you know how the project turns out.
Met the new sales manager today. She’s a nice young lady. I try not to overload them with too much material all at once, but sometimes there is just a lot to be shared. We talked for about an hour about rate cards and sales approaches and this and that. I think she’ll do a very nice job.
I’m going to sit down with the Samford Crimson staff next week and talk about goals and achievements and try to start them out with a good, passionate first step. The are a little young, this year, but there’s a lot of potential in the group and I expect they’ll take some great strides and be doing great things before the year is out.
No pressure.
At the gym I had a monster workout. Basically doubled the reps on squats and lunges. I did way too many trapezoid curls. I did abs. I rode 30 miles. All together it was a two-hour endorphin ride. That ended before I even made it to the shower, unfortunately. But! But. If I could work out for two hours on a regular basis I’d be very pleased with myself.
If only.
Tomorrow: I work the phones. I read. And the 1939 World’s Fair will make a comeback.
