Flashback to the hill

I was sitting in my car. It was earlier than I intended to get there. I was watching the kids walk around. I didn't feel that much older than them, but a lot of time had passed since I was at this school. The dome was no longer the green petina of oxidized copper with the name, "Bruce" sprayed onto it as it had been when last I left this place.

I was there to speak to students of my old highschool. Computer AP students. Nerds. Geeks. Me. It was like looking in a time machine mirror, but honestly I'm way ahead of myself. I had just left MSFT for my 3 year retirement. I was burned out of it, but still I wanted to do this. I had contacted the school and setup the day. I was flushed with a major rush of memories. Melissa Sarley came to mind quickly. As an aside I'm sure that the love I felt for her was real because I still remember her and how she was. I can't recall even the name of any other girl I had a crush on so it stands to reason. That's not what this is about, but that's a flash back all in and of itself.

I sat and reminded myself, "When you left here, JR you were an arrogant 18 year old and you thought the staff here mostly had their heads up their asses." I kept trying to drum up all the respect I could for the faculty and staff. I was set to go in with an open mind and an open attitude. Not to mention a bit less hair than when I left.

I walked in. They had changed a lot of stuff and yet it still smelled the same. It was overwealming. Amazing. I could remember the senior prank we did which was to release hundreds of golf balls into the main hall one day. I remember the time I lost my wallet and the damn secretary upon returning it had confiscated my condom. My single condom in my wallet. You know the one.

I went and did my talk. It was really fun. I had someone volunteer and I just interviewed them as if they were going to be an intern in the industry. They guy did a great job. Good thing as my talk might not have gone so well if he had just flubbed it.

After, I went down to the office and interacted with some of the staff as I tried to run into some of my old teachers. They were less than helpful and they seemed to have an overinflated sense of importance. It creeped over my slightly... slowly as I talked to them. I wondered when Dr. Lerch would be free for a chat and I was told that I should not, "Darken his door." If he is busy as he doesn't take kindly to it. This was the man who took me to DC and to Chicago. The people in the office suggested I leave. Gently but it was there. So then it hit me in a rush.

I wasn't so stupid when I was 18. These people did in fact have their heads up their asses... I laughed out loud as I wandered out again.

Walnut Hills Highschool, Cincinnati, Ohio Class of 1987... um rules? ya.

Flashback to Prince.

It wasn't very bright in our basement apartment. It was the "nice" apartment in Ohio. I was out of college and we both worked at a software firm. We had access to a pool and a good supply of radon gas, but that's another story.

We kept the blinds pretty tight so the sun was barely streaming in when we got home. I wandered into the 2nd bedroom which was at the time my and Jamie's office. I got the phone. I remember it was a clear plastic phone that you could see the components of. I remember toying with the cord as I called my mom back.

She told me that my dog from when I was like in 7th grade had died. I completely fell apart. My mother described having to dig his grave in the red clay at the top of the hill where they lived in TN. I can remember that my face was completely wet with tears as we talked. I don't remember the specific words or exactly how it went. He had been sick and in pain for a while. I barely remember, but I think he died at home. He was 90lbs and I'm sure the digging was hard in that soil.

My parents have moved since to New Jersey so I doubt I'll ever stand on that spot again. I did visit it some so that's ok.

I remember the last time I saw him. He knew me right away. I played with the blue rubber ball with a bell in it about the size of a racket ball and as I bounced he "woke up" and my mother was amazed that he was playing with me. It was our last time together and he woke up and I'm sure despite his pain he played with me.

It was like he had lapped me. As a pup I took care of him and taught him. He loved me and feared me. When I would try to sneak in at night after hours he would bark but only a quick little one until he'd hear my hissing, "on your bricks!" from the other side of the door.

He was a barker. He wasn't much for new people, but when I said, "on your bricks" that was that. He'd run right to the hearth and lay down quiet until I called him. I hated his name. People would as me, "is your dog named Lassie?" A clever retort might have been, "No he has balls." I always replied the same, "His name is Prince, no relation." at that time Prince was the artist formerly known as "prince." It was hard on the dog.

He had lapped me. I looked at him and he was older than me. He wanted to play with me but could barely get up the steps and really hated going down them. I felt sad to see him that way, but happy he played. I'm happy now to think back on that day.

When I hung up the phone I was shocked at my own response being so heavy. I had known it was coming. Jesus he was an old dog for a dog that big. I don't remember how old, but it crushed me. I can remember seeing the light in the apartment... it was dim.

Hair chop..

If all the world drove a beetle

What is all the world drove a beetle? I mean yes I admit they are cute and mine happens to be sporty and fast. Could there possibly be road rage?

Think about it. I was in a long ass meeting(tm) the other day. I mean it was long and one of those meetings where people just speak. Not much Q/A and nothing is decided as it should be. Over time I begin to feel like it's a waste of time. After 2 hours I get a touch surley. Just a touch.

OK I get a lot surley. I can't stand it and the blood pools up in my ass I do believe. When I left the meeting I was in a right state.

Someone told me not to drive til I calmed down because that could be, "bad." Really? I said what am I going to do. Kill someone with my beetle. How silly would that look. Man kills other man with cute car. Man obliterates man with VW New Beetle. It just doesn't compute. If you're driving a Beetle you smile and you wave. There is no road rage, how could there be? Seriously. God damnit I'm going to smash into you with my moving bubble of cuteness. Watch out!

It just doesn't add up. So if nobdy drove hummers or tacomas or f150's there would be no rode rage, right?

Well one thing. In a VW it's still OK to take out a PT Cruiser, I mean really even use cute car drivin' straight males have to draw the line somewhere. Don't we?

zero

Proxy Shoving

OK so I have a few stocks. I don't worry about them. I just buy into a fund right and while I can see what they have I don't have any choice or power at all about what's in the fund. So far so good right? If I had to worry about when to sell my coke and buy Pepsi I'd be up all night in tears. So I take the easy way out. Those boys mostly play safe and that's just fine with me.

Sometimes when a company needs to have a stock holders meeting they send out voting forms so you can vote for stuff they are going to do. Like this:

Check this box if our accounts should have a pineapple shoved up their respective anuses for the fraud they perpetrated on you in the spring of 2003. Check this box for pine cones. (I usually vote for the brick with sharp corners, but hey that's me, "Mr. Aggressive.")

Actually it's like do you want Bill W running the board check here. Vote for your top 3 execs. They don't even give me a photo so I can see by the look in their eyes who the real asshole is in this bunch. I'd vote for that fucker so that later I can vote to have a Louisville slugger inserted into him in a rather uncomfortable way for robbing the retirement fund of all of my sweat shop workers.

They send me these fucking proxy votes all the god damn time. I hate them. So then I started thinking well fuck I own a lil piece of that company so I should vote for what I think is best. Then the voice of reason steps up and as profane as usual: You dumb fuck, you don't know shit about importing ben-waaa balls from the orient and marking them up for a god damn profit. You didn't know baseball bat man (super villain? no) was robbing the retirement fund to buy a big ass yacht outside of Fiji with an all girl concubine crew. (Fucker didn't invite my skinny white ass either!) So what the fuck do I know. Nothing. OK so don't vote. Wait what if all the stock holders didn't vote. huh... No idea.

WORSE: What if all the stock holders know what you know (exactly ZEEEEROOOO) and they did vote? Uh wait that's probably the case. Shit.

Oh well I guess I'll check the boxes and takes my chances... What do you say to 2 ninja throwing stars each for the VP's... um ya and a live angry ferret for the COO... good enough. Oh look it's postage paid. Yay. (I have such a short attention span.)

it's like I have my own bee

So my arm keeps stinging. It's my right arm and when I reach for things that stretches my arm out a stining tingling pain shoots up my arm from my wrist towards my elbow. Nothing seems stung for real. No swelling that I can really see. I guess a nerve is getting hit in a "bad" way. How often do they get hit in a good way? God damn I pinched a mutherfuckin' nerve in my neck and man did that feel good! I'm gonna be dancing like that for a week. I mean sometimes nerves feel good right. right? Someone rubs or scratches your back. Why doesn't pinching a nerve ever produce some fun effect? God damn that was fucking great I stretch my arm like and all of a sudden... ok I'll stop there. I mean I say "fuck" enough that google has flagged me as "adult" already and won't ever let me have ads on my site. Whooopadeeedoo. Like I (or you) want ads on here. Dumb fucking smart shits.

flashback... nine

So KMTT has this feature called 9 @ 9 where they play nine songs and media sound bites from a particular year (so far they have all been in the past, no future year's songs have been explored, I think they are missing the boat)

Today they played 1987

Oh I could taste it. It was the year I graduated Highschool and started college. With the temperature of the air the way it was it really reminded me of that first year of college. All I cared about were card tricks, school some, pizza and girls. Not in that order.

I remember that for 5.95 you got a large pizza and 2 pops from Domino's pizza. Those guys would run massive amounts of pizza into our dorm. Our dorm was 23 floors of tower. There were not right angles in the place at all. The lobby would be crowded for the delivery. It was so good.

I remember the nights I had engineering graphics so late it was almost impossible to get dinner. We'd have to rush to the cafeteria from class to eat. Lots of pizza nights on Mondays.

Engineering graphics still used pencils and on very rare occasions... ink. Yes I'm that old.

My first math test at school was a 35% which was a cold hard slap in the face. It worked my first quarter I made the dean's list. English was a bear and I started finding out that I really preferred non-fiction to literature. I can remember writing a whole paper about a classic magic tome named: Our Magic. Which really talked about how to develop a show from tricks. Man was that a hard and boring paper. I really learned how to do laundry and when.

The song that really kicked me back to that whole world was George Michael and "Faith." I wouldn't be caught dead with that on my iPod. OK well as Mo points out the best thing about iTunes music store is you can buy really embarassing music in your underwear late at night for $0.99 and nobody knows. So if you get a chance to check out my iPod... maybe it'll be there, but I won't admit it.

Update 5:21pm: Uh so ya... I didn't go to the music store... nope not me. I didn't buy "Faith" for .99 nope not me no fuKKKKin way. NO sir not me. Moi? you jest. NOPE. Yo tengo nada. ... ya

Out late last night...

Tom and I went to his gig at the Fenix Underground.

Notable quote I heard was from Tom to me, "Man you've got game."

The craziest thing we saw was a see no, hear no and speak no evil massive flash piercings where this guy ran huge around and over one girl's eyes, the next girl's ears and finally the last girl's mouth. It was nutty. The people doing it seemed to enjoy it so, "right on!"

Tom and I said that a lot, "Right On"

I found one bar tender would give me free sodal. That was cool, but makes for many trips to the little hacker's room.

I got home about 1 and to sleep about 2 so I'm tired today.

I actually did magic for strangers. They were pretty drunk, but that was really the only selection of spectators...

Right on.

squid with tom and buster.

sour cream has PHat

I was in the store today shopping. That's what you fucking do in a store, no?

I wanted me some sour cream. Like ya do. So I went down the dairy section and all I could spot was fat fee sour cream. Has there ever been a more moronic oxymoron I ask you?

Cream. What the fuck is that? It's the FAT on top of the milk. You can skim it off and then you have skim milk. What is skim milk? It's fat free. Hello. So how the fuck do you get fat free sour cream? Let's step back. How do you get sour cream. You take cream and let it go sour, right? OK there is likely more to it than that, but what the fuck do I know from a cow? I know if you take the cream and mix it hard (some say churn) you get butter... oh that's so lovely. I wonder how they discovered that. Hey charlie, check this out if I beat the shit out of this cream for a really long time it makes this yellow that that tastes fucking great on toast. I bet they invented toast right there after.

So I look moronic looking for spoiled or sour cream. Finding it fat free. That must be fat free milk go sour. yuk. Sour milk? fuck that.

when I want cream I want fat, none of this fat free crap. Cream is fat. Fat is good. Even when it is a little... sour.

is it hot in here?

or cold? Neither, I have a cold. I have no complaints though. It could be a lot worse. People are relative creatures and we respond so heavily to stimulus right by us that we often miss the big picture. I listen to a pod cast Skepticality and one of the hosts Derek, a young man, had some bleeding in his brain. I read the daily updates and it reminds me that I'm healthy as all get out. It's interesting to see the skeptic's take on all this. That is a catastrophic event and yet my cold might get me down. Perspective.

That being said the media really plays on our reactionary tendencies. In Virus of the Mind Richard Brodie gives the example of an island where everybody fishes for food. Once in 20 years on that island someone dies from a shark attack. One time in 20 years. Safe thing to do, right?

Now hook up 40,000 islands like that with TV. Put reporters in aircraft that go from island to island talking about the shark attack of the day. Make that attacks of the day. Really soon what happens? People stop fishing.

So I sneeze, I'm fine... Keep fishing, k?

you know you're a parent

acting alone when you combine peeing (sorry) and brushing your teeth because you just don't have any other options....

Did Martha Stewart have kids? I don't know but I'm guessing not. Anybody who has time to decorate like that hasn't been to a curriculum night, paid the sitter, gotten the downstairs cleaned up, lunches, backpacks and kids to bed on a school night....

well now my parents know

and you do too. well maybe not. Tammy (wife) and I have separated. Now you do.

I'm not going to dig into details at all, but that's why I haven't been posting much lately.

Am I doing well? No. I wish I could say I am, but quite frankly I'm not. It's hard. There are people in the world doing so much worse, so I do count myself lucky in some respects. I have my kids to hang with 1/2 the time. I have a great job. I have my health and I've lost weight from the stress and some new eating habits. Well? no. OK? yes. I'm doing OK.

Coming around

My body is finally getting back to normal from being gone.

I slept last night for the first time in a week or so. While I was gone I saw the sun rise every day.

knock knock

who's there?

server

server who?

server is giving me nightmares....

testing again

yes i'm back from burning man.

no i won't tell you about it.

well if you ask me maybe.

maybe not.

testing

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