ten is more than nine plus one

I know that sounds silly. I know it isn't true.

My son turned ten this last week. A decade. He won't add another digit in my lifetime. I hope he does add another digit, but I don't hope I'm around to see it. A week ago exactly he marked the day. We had his birthday party in a ghost town. How freakin cool is that? Cup cakes with his aunt & uncle in Grafton, UT; population: 0. Unless you count the seeminly rather angry and certainly rather large bull in the next pasture.

I can't take credit for how good he really is. He really is a good kid. A great kid. Tammy gets all the credit. I get to take him to the doctor.

Thats what brought this post on. I feel like it's my report card for him. He had to lead his parent teacher conference and he's doing really kick ass. No doubt about it. I'm so proud of him it's crazy.

This year he learned the words, bitch, shit, crap and hell. He's still trying to figure out what the middle finger word is, but all he's come up with fooch. yes fooch. I laughed too.

We have the concept of a "meeting" where he can ask me about any word that he thinks might be bad and he won't get into trouble and I'll give him the whole deal. I even use them in an typical sentance which can be really funny. Last one was, "the such and such at work are a real bitch." For him the meetings are fun. I was describing this process to someone and they said they thought I was encouraging him to find out how fooch was really spelled. (It's FUCK. (My blog is closed captioned for the humor impared.)) I think that person meant I was not doing a good job supressing the words. If thats the case then I agree. If they were implying I was not doing good parenting I disagree.

The main thing here is that he feels he can come to me at any time and ask anything and he's not going to get shit on for it. Oh he got "God Damn" this year too. (A personal favorite of mine) He knows they aren't appropriate and we talk about consequences for him using them in school or around grown ups or other kids. I hope this concept can carry forward with other concepts too.

I've started having the talk with him as well. I'm really don't want to face the Doctor when he asks me if he's had the talk and tell him I haven't stepped up yet. So I've been telling him about puberty etc. Visiting the doctor is like my report card. We check in with the doctor to see if I've been doing my job. I think I have with a ton of help from Tammy.

The doctor always asks Max if he has any questions. I do hope I don't hear him say, "What word goes with the middle finger? I know it's not 'fooch'!".

In the land of cotton... Look away... Look away...

So we're landing in the 30 seat airplane in St. George UT about a week ago when we pass a giant letter 'D'. It was night time. So how did I see the giant letter 'D'? Well it was in lights, bright lights in fact. So I'm thinking, "St. George" not one god damn 'D' in it. Is this twin turbo prop plane flying pilot taken us to the wrong city? Maybe it's like Cincinnati where the airport isn't in Ohio it's in KY. People get all confused and shit when we land in KY and they were going to "Cincinnati, OH". It's fun to fuck with them too. "Nope this is NOT Ohio", I say and watch as their faces get all weird; Good times. Anyways this time it was my face because there was a giant letter 'D'. It's like St. George was brought to you today by the number '4' and the letter 'D'.

So St. George is not very big and the rental car peeps go home at 6:00pm on Saturday so while we could see our domestically built Japanese mini van we couldn't actually rent it. We had to get a cab. Why do you care? Because with every cab comes a cab driver. They also come with meters and a funny smell, but that's not important. Our driver was from Salt Lake city but he was tired of the big city life. He moved to St. George and now the housing market is as he put it, "insane."

Our resort is new. As in not yet on the map. This is a problem for the cab driver but it has nothing to do with the letter 'D' or the number 4. I always like to talk to the cab drivers. It's fun. One cab driver in Rhode Island told me the state motto (Like New Jersey is the "Garden State") was for Rhode Island "The Mob State." He then quickly corrected himself and said "It's really the 'Ocean State'." (How about that for punctuation?) Maybe the amount of questions I ask is why cab drivers get lost so much with me in the car. Maybe they like to see that meter go. It seems fun for them.

So I ask him, "What is up with the giant letter 'D'?"

He laughed. He told us the story of how St. George was founded. Seems the Mormons needed cotton. So they sent a settlement south to the area to grow cotton. Of course this did not work because you don't grow cotton in the dry red rock canyons of the area. I'm thinking, "Still no giant letter 'D' in this story." He then goes on to tell us that they wanted the area to be the "southern Utah" or the "Dixie" of Utah. D is for Dixie. D is also for "Don't grow cotton in the desert, Moron." Luckily there was precious metal in the area so the town and surrounding area survived.

This concludes this Utah History Minute. Next week we'll have "Silver Reef the Ghost Town or what happens to a town in Utah when the silver runs out."

Yet another state

I set foot in a new state last week.




Can you guess which one?

Here's a little clue: I've been the red ones. No they are not "red" states they are just red on this map. Seriously.

And we're back...

You'd think I'd have a write up of the trip? Well I don't.

It was great and so much fun that I just can't write it up.

So I will return you to my regular dribble...

Murphy's law and the fire drill

I know I have a rule about potty humor. This isn't meant to be potty humor.

When a fire drill starts the worst place in the world to be... involves toilet paper.

I'm just saying.

Turkey and Bad Math

We're going on vacation to UT for a week starting tomorrow. I hope to blog, but ya I'm going to be in the middle of UT where Utah is a euphamism for nowhere. So don't expect much...

Vegas on thursday for bad math (no we don't gamble actually) and turkey wtih D & G...

another one minute of fame shot to hell

I called into the mountain morning show today. No I wasn't complaining about irony. I wanted to ask what the hell the new bruce hornsby song "Gonna Be Some Changes Made" means. I talked to shawn and resisited the urge to mention irony at all, it was hard.

They basicly said that Mr. Hornsby was singing in character and this particular character must in fact be a freak.

They also used the word enigmagic. I like it.

So I had to be on the air they wouldn't answer me offline or just restate my question for me. So that was one of my precious few minutes of fame... gone.

I guess a game show is next.

After that will be cops. But I'll make them blur my face. Does that count 1/2 time then?

Moby Dick

Someone I know told me this weekend that they just read Moby Dick over and over. They just start again right after they finish it. It's not like they don't read other stuff. He does.

Do you think it's that good?

Do you have any book that you think is that good for you? Dare I say a book that could be your "Moby Dick"

Yes I realize it starts to sound dirty at that point.

I have a new skill

It's a really good skill and I'm not sure how I picked it up. It just kinda happened. When work leaving work or even just going to lunch I can say to myself, "It's just work."

Ya know?

"It's just work."

It's a major stress relief. Work will be here tomorrow. Granted I'm not in danger of getting fired that I know of.

On a somewhat related note Halo 2 should be arriving early next week.

I am TheJinx.

Whenever I'm late the devil is involved.

OK this is a stupid look at how JR operates. It's just so sad. Nay pathetic.

I'm hardly ever late. It's a quirk I have. I hate being late. If I say I'm going to be somewhere at a certain time, I'm usually fucking early. Occasionaly just on time and somewhat more rarely I'm 5 mins behind. I've matured to the fact that 5 mins is an acceptable delta to any time that involved driving. That is Pathetic the first. Not that I'm ontime, but rather that it bugs me so much when I'm not.

Sad the second I voluntarily come to work at 6:00am. I get up at 5:00 as some of you have seen.

OK now for the really pathetic part. I cling to habits like an OCD checks the stove. I have this really stupid habit in the morning when I'm "late". This is more embarassing than I thought... I hum "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" in the shower when I'm late. Why? Because it stops me from thinking about other things. I think about work etc. and then I'm in there for a half hour and now "jezzzuss fuck i'm late".

So there it is my Charlie Daniels dirty little secret.

Today I was late.

Today it backfired on me... wholesale.

I was like "shit I'm going to have to have a 'devil went down to georgia' morning". (See? Pathetic. I know.)

Here's how it backfired. I started questioning the song. (I think thats Sad the third.) I began wondering how if you bought into the whole judeo-xtian thing how could the devil *ever* be in a bind. How could that fucker be way behind? I mean really. Have you seen any reality TV ever? If anything the Devil has an intake rate/space accomodation/hot poker supply for those asses issues.

I can't imagine he'd have to hunt. He was "willing to make a deal". Excuse me? Let's set aside reality TV for a moment. There is a proof floating around that shows Hell is endothermic (yes i'm too lazy to google it and link so do it yourself. In fact if you are OCD add a comment with a link. Dave B comes to mind...) So if all those "other" religious people (and me) are going to hell then he doesn't have issues where he's willing to make a deal. He has a housing problem. His deals would look like this:

Devil on phone: "um ya St. Peter please?... ya I'll hold... Dude, this guy here, he wasn't so bad. You should take him.... uh number 6.023x10^23... ya that guy... that's the one.... Ya I know, but that's not so bad. A few bazillion years in pergatory and he's all set right... Yes... yes I know, it was bus full of nuns that he blew up with an rpg because his coffee came out cold from starbucks... but I mean hey all those people went to heaven so it was really a favor... a service... no? ok fine, fuck you, you halo wearing son of a biatch" (satan slams down phone)

So I mean his days must suck. Why does he need a fiddle player named Johnny anyways?

Then there is Johnny.... He was willing to trade his soul for a fiddle of gold. Then he accepted the terms of SATAN... ok idiot have you heard of maybe fair and impartial judges. As I recall -- and I dont' know the whole song when I hum it in my head there is a lot of "idon'tknowthewordsidon'tknowthewords" in my head -- as I recall some demons were judging. Then the devil gets beat. And he lays down the fiddle of gold. Oh it's an honest devil. A fair satan. right.

So how long was I in the shower... I don't want to talk about it. I got to going over the song and all the stupid stuff in it that we just love. Everybody loves that song. Admit it. You love it when the devil rosins up his bow and fire flys from his fingers. Thats good shit.

The question that started it all was very simple. As I stepped in the shower starting the tune in my head I asked myself on question and that was all it took. I asked myself:

Since when did the Devil ever leave Georgia?

The Incredible Hoodie Incident

Kids are doing great academically and as parents we have to pony up the rewards when they do a good job. We went to Ruby's and then the Incredibles. "Thank you fandago", that's all I have to say on that one. Our friend Jen went with us. Again we love fandango because it let me just add a ticket spur of the moment.

We showed up about 45 mins before the show started and got the tix and waiting in the holding pen. like 3 people in front of us. Closer to the time 3 people turned into 20. Thats 17 line cutters. Some people who didn't even know the first people had the nerve to make their own line by the consession area and just "merge" with us going into the theater.

See thats why someone came up with the concept of hell. For those people. Line cutters and mergers should be first in line for the firey pit, no? Ya well if you beleive there is no god then there is no devil either. You can't have it both ways. Not even me.

So we got great seats despite the line-A-holes. I went back out and got Sam a booster seat and we watches the same god damn slides we saw when we watched garden state.

The movie rocked. So many people have said such good stuff about this movie I can't really add to it. Unless you're stupid, you will go see it. Even if you are stupid you should go see it. (Like how I covered the whole state space there?)

At some point during the movie I hit my hoodie threshold. That is to say something in my body said to my concious self, "hey the hoodie is too hot and we're going to start sweating now unless you move it off of your body, so get to it." In other words I had a real urge to ditch the hoodie. I swear that was the ONLY urge. Promise. I mean really. So I took off my glasses and gave them to Tammy. Trying to negotiate the hoodie without losing the glasses can be tough, so better safe than sorry, right?

I got to the part of ditching the hoodie where my head pops out the back. When that happened the cooling or draft factor was up way too high for it to be right. At this point Jen was averting her eyes. (Since I'm a guy I guess than means I have a gross back, but I dunno). I had lost my fucking tshirt into the hoodie abyss. I had it in the front and i still had sleeves but my head was free and clear as was my torso.

doh.

What to do?

I ducked back in the hoodie. Right? I mean you took it off... put it back on. Makes sense? yes. Did I miss the t-shirt when I was inbound? Yes. So now I'm in the hoodie missing quite possibly the best animated movie ever. Lots of laughter from Tammy and Jen (not at the movie). Luckily we had laughter cover from Mr. Freeze doing something funny.

There was me struggling with 100% cotton Geocaching.com T-shirt and my favorite hoodie in the whole world for what seemed like hours. It seemed like the hours in which it took pixar to render the very frames that were wizzing by me on the screen that I was missing so I didn't violate the famous policy:

No shirt; No shoes; No incredibles.

I managed to get into the shirt and out of the hoodie and tammy was in stitches and Jen was looking a bit scandalized as she was also laughing. She did avert her eyes. She asked me to put that in.

Jen averted her eyes. I can't imagine doing anything but because that movie is incredible and i'm ... well... not.

Yo T Dog

photos are done...

1 day
2 rolls
72 exposures
30 finished photos...

I learned something about my photo "work flow"... it's way slow compared to pure digital.

This is the start of my typical weekday. Off to the shower. Almost every morning I have to hunt for myshoes.

All dressed (no, not my underwear.. yet) I head downstairs. I don't normally open the fridge, but today I made an exception.

When you get up that early unless it's summer around here it's rather dark. That was a really long exposure that makes it look kinda light out, but don't let that fool you. This shot of the car with the door open and the garage light on.

I went to work as usual I got there before 6:00. It's early so maybe I need to read a little.

That particular day the sun rose at 7:18am local time. From the third floor of my building it looked like this. After that i headed to breakfast and I cross this little bridge from building to building and this shows that it was raining (the weather). I got my breakfast and came back.

As the sun comes up you can see the last bits of autumn out the same window. Leaves of various tones here and here.

It was taco salad day. (That has to do for my "dinner" shot as dinner well was left overs and didn't look too good.)

After that I brushed my teeth, which I always do after eating. I'm sure you know why.

Bill is my favorite service person. He our UX designer. He draws stuff for our team. You can see in the photo that he's from New York and they lost to Boston.

Heading for home I had to pick up some of the around the house shots. This is my desk. No I didn't clean it for the shot.

Large is relative, right? I found these "large" rocks in my office...

I don't normally photo my underwear... It's not my thing at all, ya know. And all my underwear is the same so I don't have a favorite. I mean I grab them in the dark and there is no slection process so enough babbling about it here it is.

Under the bed is kinda boring because it's our dresser.

I went outside because I was headed to the store. The eastern sky looked like this. It was about sunset. I think thats my favorite shot for the whole day. While out there I turned over a rock and found a pill bug. It's circled in red. I didn't mess with it to make it roll up because as a nature photographer it's important not to mess with bugs when you take their picture. OK so moving the rock pissed him off and likey the worm too, but hey thats life, it's my retaining wall.

This is one of my favorite rooms in the house.
As you can see we really value books. Books, Books and More Books.

The room isn't just about reading. There is also craziness and mayem happening all the time.

I stayed up later than usual that day, and I tried to take a photo of Tammy having carrot cake. We didn't have any asparagus and she doesn't like peas.

The end of my day looked just like this....

I learned a lot doing this. It was a long day and the hours of work that went into editing them. Thanks to Michelle at work for keeping asking me when they were going to be done. Thanks to Bill too for taking the macro shot of my teeth, I couldn't have done that myself.

The coolest fucking site ever

OK so I'm a freak, but this is so cool:

http://www.wordcount.org/

Political posts

I've seen a lot of blog stuff on the election results. Some were happy, most were not. I'm not going to go into it because other's have covered it pretty well.

What do I have to talk about? (I realize you didn't ask, but I'm telling you anyways.) The media.

OK so I get 1.5 channels as Deonn has pointed out many times after she's watched the kids when we've gone out. So our choices for election coverage were channel 7 which is, I think since I don't watch TV at all, CBS.

Mr. Dan Rather.

So I recall when the Florida debacle was going on the man got overly tired and actually said (and as Dave Berry says, "no I'm not making this up"), "If a frog had pockets, he'd carry a hand gun!" Excuse me? He said that and many other nuggets while Gore conceeded and then unconceeded.

OK that was 2000. If I had to do Mr. Rather's performance review that year, that would have been an action item. "No matter how tired you are, do not say stupid shit on live TV."

Easy right?

So 2004 rolls around and who do I see on my 1 channel (We live in a valley, ok? We don't have cable.) But Mr. Rather again. Now I have to say I would have said to him before this year... You know Dan the organization is looking to make a change this election. We think someone who can handle his coffee is going to handle it this year. K? Thanks, I knew you'd be a trooper on this one.

Nope. There he was again.

What was he covering? Election 2004? Nope. Campaign 2004. What? Are the news people stupid? oh wait, did I say that? duh.

Campaign is the process before the election where you try to get people to decide to punch your button/pop your chad/draw your line/absentee your name. Not the act of doing it. Thats the election. So class, were they covering the campaign at that point? NO. I realize it's a small aside to frogs with handguns, but I just couldn't resist.

OK so it's 9:00pm our time (thats Midnight for Mr. Rather) and at a camera cut we hear someone saying something about we need more coffee. I wonder if that person would have said, "Hey we need some more fucking coffee hgere or Rather is going to pass out." I wonder if the FCC fine would be the same as a "wardrobe malfunction" on national TV. Probly not. A nipple is way more of a problem that fucking coffee.

So midnight for the man and he's showing This number and that and going through each state. Like we can't read the graph. There is all this high tech shit going on. Some idiot keeps writing on the graphs of polls taken yesterday about who trusts who to fuck whom while our backs are turned looking at wafflers. By the way the man is either an idiot savant (or just an idiot) with finger writing or they did it before and he just finger-synced a la Miss Simpson the words onto the graph. You decide.

All this high tech shit going on and Dan (by now I stopped calling him Mr. Rather as I felt having watched him for an hour we should be on a first name basis) Dan was really needing to explain that Bush had the south and the central line of states in the middle of the USA. He used a pencil. He got a pencil out and was point at this state and the other. The other guy is finger writing the great american novel feeling like a certain Mr. Madden (I'll never be on a first name basis with that guy). My man Dan is point at Texas and reminding us, that the president is from Texas. He's pointing with a pencil... how quaint. No motion graphics. No pixelshaded semi-clear windows... nope just a good old #2.

I can just see him going off on the producers as they try to teach him to touch the screen and move shit around. "God dammit, I'm old school we didn't even have color when I started this. You were still shitting in your cloth diaper when I was calling elections back in the day you can take your motion graphics and shove them right... oh and we're back. President Bush has a serious lead in the south, but the big ass state of California has yet to come in..." (I did make that up.)

Then I'm thinking well Dan you're doing OK. You've got your pencil. You've got your results. You even have hot blondes all over the country calling in "the feeling outside the polls", You're doing ok.

Then he says it.

He gets finished with all the current states and the states where the Polls haven't closed yet and he's got some time to fill. You can imagine a director doing the "stretch time" motion at him. He says in a matter of fact kinda way, "Yes the states are humming along like Ray Charles!"

Tammy and I both go "whuuut?"

I repeated what he said. Damn, I wish I had a tivo I would have rolled it back and checked, but with 1.5 channels it just doesn't seem important.

Tammy goes, "Isn't Ray Charles dead?"

To which I reply so defty, "Yup."

She then points out, "Well he's not humming at all then."

So at that point if I were writing Mr. Rather's performance rewview... I don't think it would go that well... But then again I'm not a frog, and while I do have pockets, I'm not carrying a hand gun.

Egg Count?

zero. Life is turning good again after the broken spring.