Oh Right... Rain

I met yet another blogger. Only there is nothing Yet Another about Duff. She is one of a kind and just so much fun. She showed Jen and I some of Chicago that I doubt we would have seen without her. We had a lovely dinner at a place that Duff has so much clout she ordered something not on the menu and they made it anyways for all of us. OK it was on the lunch menu, but they still made it. Our server was hung over so I offered him an advil, but he said no thanks he would tough it through with water. OK then.

Duff took us to Wrigley Field and therefore a ride on the 'L' (or is it "EL"?) I dunno they mark the stations on the map with an M. Then we went to a pub when I tried beer for the second time and yes I'm afraid I still hate it. My biggest issue with the like 2 micro sips of beer I had was that it seemed to just set up shop in my stomach and so I couldn't shake the taste.

Then we went back towards the 'L' and the rain really kicked in. See in Seattle when it rains on us we just ignore it and it goes away. You know it goes away in several... months. It's not heavy rain and usually isn't windy. Well the rain in Chicago did not treat us so well. I don't want to sound like I'm whining, but I got wet and me without my gortex(tm).

Just to end on a positive note. Thanks to Duff not only for dinner! You so didn't have to do that. Also thanks for the walking tour and the very entertaining conversation. We had a great time.

Oh if you didn't click on any of the "duff" links then check out the sidebar because I'm adding a link...

Wanna peek?

Jen and I spent the evening yesterday walking around Chicago. Despite my camera acting up I still managed to get some (typically lame) views of some of the stuff we saw. The photo links to the gallery which I will keep uploading to as the trip continues.

cops on a plane

So yesterday involved a 6 hour delay.

2 hours for weather delay.
2 hours for crazy delay.
2 hours for after weather and crazy the FAA rules said our pilots too tired to fly so get new crew delay.

Is it me? I mean you can tell me. Is it me? She was right in front of me. As usual I'm getting ahead of myself.

Going to Chicago for vacation to see Jen. She is on a business trip here (I'm there now I realize this gives away the fact that the end of the story involves my arrival in chi-town. So be it.) When I get there the plane is delayed for weather. OK fine. Get some food. Hour later they say another hour. OK again fine. I don't want to crash so take your mutherfuckin' time.

Finally time to board. yes. Not a full flight. Still very happy. Still getting to Chicago at a reasonable time. Get out to the end of the runway. Now you have to realize that if you can't land you shouldn't take off. I mean take offs? optional. Landings? Required. So they pull us over and planes are taking off and we're sitting there waiting for ORD (Chicago O'Hare) to clear us. Lady in front of us asks us the time. I'm sitting there with Brook and he's a nice guy. Just come from a funeral. Sad. We tell her and she goes to the bathroom. Perfectly reasonable. Not stupid. Not crazy. Not yet.

She comes back with 2 flight attendants on her heels and they are not pleased. They tell her she can't behave like that on a plane. Huh? Brook and I are all like, "uh oh." She fires back, "well if you people hadn't lied to me!" flight attendants go to the back for flight attendant huddle.

Crazy rings the bell for the flight attendant. The breaks up the huddle. Crazy is still pissed off she's going to miss some dinner in New Orleans. Flight attendants don't play this shit. They are all "you can tell it to security we're going back to the gate."

Crazy is now transformed into crazypanicweepylady we will call her cpwl for short.

Cpwl is asking what she's charged with. She apparently has some experience dealing with this sort of thing but not enough to know that crazy/weepy isn't going to help. She rings for them again. They come back and say to cpwl, "you can't swear and scream and kick the door in the bathroom of a plane." (very calmly actually)

Cpwl is all "I was just crying. Can't I cry? I didn't kick anything."

Flight attendant, "you were beating and kicking on the door or the bulkhead and we're going to have you removed from the plane." This was senior flight attendant.

Sure as shit we turn around and go back to the gate and the cpwl all the way is crying and asking us to "stand up for her" I'm all like "look at the floor" Brook is answering direct questions only "Did I threaten you?" Brook responds, "no ma'am" he's a nice guy. Me? I'm all don't talk to me. Lady behind us passes cpwl a note. I wish Brook hadn't been such a nice guy and had opened it. He didn't. We like Brook. He's from Tacoma, but lives in Chicago with his wife. He's a programmer and very nice guy. She keeps trying to get the passengers around her to protect her and "stand up for her because she didn't do anything." I don't know about you but the last time I didn't do anything I didn't get my ass and the whole plane hauled back to the gate.

So the flight attendants tell her they aren't going to discuss it with her anymore. She's pleading with them not to charge her. Flight attendant senior asks her if she will get off the plane smoothly or will the police have to come on and remove her. Now a dude gate agent shows up to remove her from the plane. He is very polite and doesn't answer any of the pleading or crying. "Did you get all of your stuff, ma'am?" was pretty much all he said to her as they kicked her off.

The cops come on the plane and look around and talk to a couple of people. So I say quietly hey look cops on a plane. Well sir now security is involved and they have to sweep the plane. That means Brook (nice guy) and I have to get our sorry asses off the plane along with every other non crazy. Right then they come on the P.A. and tell us that the crew has to be swapped out because we were delayed too long. OK fine. Another 2 hours later 6:30 pm we were headed out to the runway with less passengers less baggage and we took off quick for a midnight arrival. They made some time up in the air. Brook and I had a nice talk. Did I mention he was a nice guy?

Oh and I had a bagel for lunch.

Adventure day!

I'm headed to Chicago this morning for vacation. Want up to the minute updates as to where I am and how it's going? Follow me on twitter! Until I get to the hotel I will be txt'ing in as regularly as I can. (and by "I can" I mean that the FAA does not approve of SMS messages while in the air so there won't be any "think I'm at 26,000 feet" kinda thing.

It's easy to "follow" someone on twitter. Just go to http://www.twitter.com and register if you haven't then add me to your list and make sure you "follow" me.

My lunch could change your life!

Everybody uses the example of blogging what you had for lunch as what not to post. I hear it again on the Merlin Show. Peeps (not so much Merlin) go on about how nobody wants to read about what you had for lunch.

What if I had a kick ass lunch today? What if you would have liked it?

What if I told you and you told your friend about this lunch I had and how great it was and your other friend who has had this crush on you since you were 8 and they were 7 but you never knew about it over heard it and said, "Hey we should go," but your friend (not the friend who has the crush) can't go so you go with crush friend and the meal is so great they confess their undying love for you and you are so happy because the food is so good and even though you never thought about your friend (crush friend, obviously) in that way it strikes you as particularly endearing that they would go out on a limb like this, that you instantly fall in love, live together and eventually (not right away) have ten thousand babies together. Turns out the non crush friend knew about "admires from afar" kinda friend and actually bailed to be nice to crush friend so they could have a shot at having their way with you which of course turned out to be for the best for everyone.

What if I didn't tell you what I had for lunch? No ten thousand babies, no undying love not even any good food. I could tell you and it might change your life. But you know, you aren't interested... Seriously it was a good lunch.

I love that search engine stuff!

Someone found me today for: "wholesale rubber dog shit." You've got to like that.

I will say I'm alarmed at home many (I'm not going to use the actual search terms again because I'm tired of dissapointing searchers out there) people are looking for equine fornications and have come up with my lonely blog in which I at one time covered a news story about just such an equine fornication death.

Who searches for that? Better yet who clicks on my blog after having searched for that. Ick.

Turtles!

Not just any turtle no sireeee. I took the kids to TMNT today. I didn't get much sleep last night. Not because I was doing anything interesting just tossing and turning kinda thing. So I actually slept through most of it. Oddly enough I found it much easier to sleep through the loud parts than the quiet parts. Me sleeping is in no way a review of the film, but rather just a really needed nap.

Cars!

OK so I think I'm all ahead and calling for my 50K service with the dealership on the New Beetle (and at 47k it doesn't feel that new, but they still call it new.) At least the guy on the phone wasn't a mumbler.

I call the first dealership because it's closer to work than the old one. I know old dealership new beetle. I ask about a loaner and they won't do it because I didn't buy the car there. OK well fuck you. Wait there is a shuttle. It's important that she used the word shuttle. I'm like sweet ok. We start to schedule it and she wants to know which shuttle I want on and she rattles off some times. Then I'm looking at the calendar and it's complex as I have my kids coming and going, Dogs and Cats living together (ok I don't have a cat) total mayhem. I ask her when the returns are. Oh it's a one way shuttle. Um isn't that oxymoronic? Well it's just moronic.

So I called the "old" dealership all thinking I'm early and they are like um did you do the 40K service? I'm like um no. They're like well that one's gonna cost ya... I'm all pissy for a few minutes then realize I expected 50k to cost me. So instead of 3 thousand early I'm 7 thousand late. And... $700 lighter apparently and it takes all day.

Good news? They'll give me a loaner for free. Free?

yet another book

I finished another book. It was the short stories of 2006. I enjoyed it. I need to come up with something I can carry on the plane. I can't carry the designing interactions it's way too big.

and what happend to spring?

There is frost on the ground. WTF?

Yesterday

I posted. Well I tried. Either blogger or IE or something ate it. Pissed me off.

I can sum up yesterday: Compusa is closing. I bought some crap. You should too.

On looking at the summary I guess I should be happy it got eaten, huh?

Last night I had a nice dinner with the neighbors. I said hi as I was running out for carry out and they said, "hey we have an extra steak if you want to join us." It was great. Tasty.

Max is sick today so I'm kinda working from home (I'll actually take the day off, but I might be able to get some stuff done so why not.)

Oh I can check off the first thing. Post something superamazinglyboring to my blog...

Done!

It's a hot dog not a eastern european

So I got a hot dog coming out of the hardware store. I know very manly of me. Do you think it makes up for the fact that I got a little teary at the romantic comedy I went to see right before? Nope didn't think so.

"I'd like a hot dog," I ask in the rain in the parking lot.
"Beef or Polish?" He asks me back.
"Um... beef."

He gives me my hot dog and as I walk to car I think that phrasing isn't any good it's like he has meat products that contain Polish people in them. I realize that isn't the case, but we shorten everything so much.

Also I sometimes think it can be interesting to blog about what you had for lunch.

Somedays you just have to grab it.

Some days you just have to decide to suck it up.
Some days you just have to decide to grab something and hang on.
Some days you just have to decide to say fuck it and walk away.
Everyday you just have to decide what kind of day it is.

And do it early.

Update:
Sometimes the day picks it for you.
Sometimes you can tell the day to go fuck itself.
Somedays you can't.

So you know.

When insomnia strikes...

This idiot does sudoku. Not only have I gone all the way through the book, I'm going back and fixing the ones I flubbed and/or didn't finish. I have like 12 left that aren't finished. I will finish by the end of the weekend.

It's good to have goals, right?

How good am I?

I brought a healthy lunch with me today. Oh yeah.

The Governement was in my bedroom.

I know it sounds like I'm likely sporting a hand crafted aluminum foil hat, but I'm not. The aliens have technology that can cut right through Reynolds Wrap. Yes the government came in and fucked with my alarm clock. OK so they do this on Saturday night so we have Sunday to recover. Excuse me? Sunday? I fucking sleep in. OK I don't sleep in like some people do, but I slept in.

This morning? Gotta wake up at 6:00am to make sure the boy gets to his oboe class at the Jr. high. I know you shouldn't do the math, but that was just like waking up at 5 last week. First off if they have to do this why not do it on Friday night? Seriously. That would give me two days of sleeping in to at least get on the whole clock bandwagon.

OK so they did it early this year. I get cranky anyways so I guess I'm cranky earlier and I get it out of the way. I'm cranky now. Can you tell? Seriously what fucking purpose does this serve? "Oh it saves energy," I hear you say. We get up earlier. Bull-fucking-shit! Guess what? It's dark in the god damn morning and I turn on the god damn light. Where is your energy savings now Einstein? Seriously I say no it doesn't. Show me some data here people. I mean do the utilities actually see a drop other than the fact that I turn my heat off? (Do not get my started on my fucking new fancy ass doesn't work thermostat.)

Also we're such sheep we just take it. Where in the constitution does it say oh yeah and the government can tell us how to set our fucking clocks. Seriously is it a crime not to set the clock or would I just look stupid? I am stupid so whothefuckcares I'm an hour late/early depending on how you look at things.

Fact is the days get longer in the summer. Well in this hemisphere. (Chris, you can just think winter when I say summer, k? or do you reverse those too and say it's summer in December? As my only AU reader just leave a comment, k?) Longer days? More sun. The setting of my clock doesn't have dick to do with it. Nada. Nothing. Fuck you.

So why earlier? No idea. Did it really save the country money? Um no. Why because we had to fucking patch every god damn device on the planet because congress got an idea. I hate this shit. Seriously what if we all just didn't do it? What if we all just set our clocks back on Tuesday and dropped the white house a little email saying, "fuck you. we put our clocks right."

It would be a revolution. A revolt against DST. Sounds like alotta work. Luckily it's national nap day. I shit you not. See? I'm too tired for a revolt. Going back to sleep.

It's a garage!

I worked all day on the garage. OK well I slept in quite a bit then I worked on the garage. It's so freakishly clean now. I even swept it and used the shopvac(tm) on it. I pulled all the shelves out and sucked up all those dead spiders and webs. I even cleaned out my work bench.

It's so cleaned out you could actually fit a car in each and every one of the three bays.

How does one reward one's self for such a thing? Fat calories of course. That is to say a shake from burger master. A double burger (no just the shake). Later because I worked past dinner time I ordered the kids pizza and we watched Betelgeuse.

Other happenings this weekend?

I took the kids (and one of Sam's friends) to see a sneak preview of The Last Mimzy. They were doing the preview here because it's set mostly in Seattle with lots of Space Needle shots. It was really well done. The print was pretty beat up (they sometimes use edit prints for sneaks) with a lot of splicing and some scratching, but that was easily overcome by the great acting and storyline. I was really enjoying the music and when the credits rolled I was thinking "very Pink Floyd"... sure enough Mr. Waters performed some of the soundtrack. Also Rainn Wilson did an outstanding job not fitting into the Dwight character. He's very versatile and and he got to make out with Kathryn Hahn. I only saw one "error" being from Seattle. That was when they got the ferry to Whidbey Island it was the wrong ferry. By wrong I mean it was departing from the wrong ferry terminal to go to that particular island. Talk about a nit.

cranky is

Installing the new thermostat and having it not work at all...

OK fine it heats when I tell it too but it's fancy ass programming features don't work because the touch screen barely works and the back light doesn't work at all.

Pissed.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

If you can count to 9 you can do sudoku. I finished off (mostly) The Ultimate Sudoku Challenge so I went out to the store and got myself The New York Post SuDoku (they cap it like that I think it's wrong) Fiendish.

We'll see how bad it really is. I tell you it keeps me up at night!

In the house (spoiler)

I watched house last night on the ole DVR. Man I love the DVR I can't wait til I have one that really works...

So house started out with something of what seemed like a season clincher. Look if you haven't watched it off of your DVR then stop reading cause I'm totally gonna spoil it.

So it starts off with oh no house is gonna die. I'm all like come on nobody not even in the US thinks you're going to kill the main asshole off. I mean seriously. So I was getting jaded. I felt insulted by the plot. I mean oh no it's inoperable. So what are they gonna drag this out all the rest of this season and then he'll be alive? Also can that fucker actually play the piano like that? Mad skills if he can and the editor has mad skills if he can't. Tangent.

So then they end it with a seriously good twist. No you aren't gonna die, but man you are even a bigger dick than we thought. Supreme. We should hate you. We don't. Why because you walk funny? Because you're smart? Maybe because you gave Cameron the tongue and put your hand on your boss' ass in the same episode? Maybe. I dunno. I do like it though.

I really do

Just want a cookie.

You can always say owww

I got lasered. No I didn't run into sharks with frickin' laser beams I went to the dentist. You remember the dentist? I don't actually recall the last time he was in this particular area of my mouth because I was looped the fuck out of my mind. Good times. This time we did a little topical which by the way he told me later was just for show didn't actually help at all. OK so did I have to pay for that shit then? How about we gas the fuck out of me so I think that sharks with frickin' laser beams are funny? no? ok fine.

So he lasers away the tissue which we've just let heal over so he can get at the titanium post inserted along with no I'm not making this up bovine bone grapht. Woo Hoo. OK you know what that didn't really hurt. Don't get me wrong it didn't feel good. I wouldn't pay someone to do it to me... wait scratch that I just did pay someone to do it. Anway. Then comes the screw. This just gets dirtier and dirtier.

He puts a little bolt into my mouth. First he takes out the old one. That was fun. Then he screws in the new one til I say "OW" then he stops. We talk. Another quarter turn of the screw and "Ow" and we stop and chat some more about how my tissue is healing even as we speak. Good then can we stop? nope. 1/4 turn. OW. OK actually I'm fine now. Dentists don't like to hear "I'm fine" so he added another 1/4 turn... "OW" OK we've made it all the way to the bottom. So now I have a screw in my mouth (again with the dirty) but hey at least I can show it to my opponent at pool tonight and have them run screaming from the room like a little girl taken in to the theater to watch "Misery" (True Story actually) and I can win. Winning isn't everything? Right that's why I let this dude put a bolt into my gums.

I'm done now.

The WHOLE day

OK I was in a meeting the whole day. My PC wouldn't unlock. It doesn't have a keyboard and the security button wasn't tripping. It simulates pressing CAD when you don't have a keyboard. Well it wasn't tripping because I fucking wasn't pressing it. I kept turning the Wifi on and off... lovely. Such an idiot. No email. No browsing. Just some wifi pushing. Batteries? Charged.

Um seriously is that your hair?

Dude you must respect the folicals. I just wanted to say that to the research guy who was presenting today. He had what one might goth hair. OK I'm losing my hair. I can admit that. It's like the last part of that auctioneer calling when something is being sold for way too much fucking money on one of those serious auction blocks. I mean like Christy's or something like that not like the estate auctions my parents dragged me to as a child in North Carolina. That's just one long sound, those guys never take a breath. It's a vowel movement. Anyways dude has goth hair. Likely dyed that black. I'm not sure that color of black exists outside of regions where the "event horizon" becomes an issue. OK fine so just fucking comb it. Yes you're smart. So smart you don't even need glasses to look smart ok so fine comb your mutherfucking if even just a little. OK I'm done.

I hate that when I read a book now I have to blow the hair off of it after...

Distribution

So as big ass corporations go this one on occasion will reorg. You know it happens and I'm old school I just chill about these things. I was thinking about the moves though. They move us all over the fuck and it costs money. Lots of it. What if they just threw everybody's name into a big ass hat (well ok it would be a database, but still just for effect) and placed us in random offices in random buildings with some kind of telecomuting junk and said go. Change jobs? no need to move this office is just as good as any other office.

What if we did it by seniority? Would building one have early bird specials in the cafeteria? Maybe they would have an AARP rep instead of someone from HR on site. The 'younger' buildings would have skate parks and be more like a college dorm in a big state school. A ginormous state school. OK Ohio State. Lots of alcohol and the "girls gone wild" folks would show up to do a special and find pretty much nothing to do. Oh we thought you said "dorks gone wild" sorry.

What's that light?

I had some good luck in the form of a flat tire this morning. I know you're wondering "how is that lucky, you idiot?"...

So I'm cruising on the highway this morning towards work when a warning light appears on my dash. I had never seen this light before and I couldn't readily identify it. I know it was bad. How do I know this? by the '!' in the middle of it. It looked kinda like a droplet of liquid around it with a comb at the bottom so I was all "what the fuck?"

I take the very next exit (which is what you do when an unidentified warning light appears when you are on the highway) so happens that's where my dealership is. So I pull the fuck in there and say, "yo what does that mean?"

Dude says, "Tire pressure bad." He then looks at all my tires and asks me to roll back slowly so he can watch this one tire. He goes yup you got a flat. I'm all what do you mean flat? Look. OK. Sonofabitch there is a screw sticking up out of my tread. He points out that it is in fact hissing. Sure as shit. Well fuck how much is this gonna cost? Nothing. Sweet. And they drove me the fuck to work. Gotta like that. So I went out to lunch with my old boss who left the company about a year ago and he drops me off at the dealership to get the car. See that was a flat lucky tire...

I can't believe it's not toast

i bought me a toaster
from Oester

Sounds like the start of a very dirty limerick, doesn't it?

I got this new toaster because the old one failed. I don't mean it failed to toast. Oh it toasted all right. It failed because it stopped popping. So a nice dark setting of 9 went straight to super black and on fire and the light setting of 1 went straight to super black and on fire. You can see my dilemma. I don't like my toast in the ghost rider state. Flaming. OK so only 1/2 of my 4 slotted toaster failed the other 2 slots were still working. This lowered the priority of the task because jesus H christ (jury is still out on the H) I could still make toast. Yes that other side of two slots could have failed the same way with the kids "cooking" and that would have been a disaster so slightly higher priority.

It's a 20 questions toaster. This toaster wants to know what I'm toasting. Is it a bagel? no. Is it Toast? no. Is it frozen? no. Have you seen that cheap electronic game called 20 questions? You think of an object and the thing asks you yes or no questions and it figures out what you are thinking of. It's surprisingly good. I tried my son's out this morning and the eventual output was, "It's a god damn jesus h christ english fucking muffin if you must know and I want it a dark shade of brown and not at all black."

There isn't a button for that on the toaster. I lied (surprise) it's not 20 questions it's just three. I didn't want to pay for the 20 question model and consumer reports rated this cheaper one higher.