What's that smell?

Something spilled. Not in my office or in my home but on the road. Traffic was all backed up. Whatever. I was plenty early. So early in fact I have time to blog before my first meeting. I know I'm so freakin' productive! So when I get to where the "backup" is occurring. No lanes are blocked and people are rubber-necking, again big surprise.

On the ground was all this orange sawdust. All over the right two lanes and cars were going through it. Not much choice. Just drive. It looked like that stuff they have at amusement parks to clean up "biological waste" What I mean is PUKE. I worked 2 summers at King's Island in Ohio. Oh I know.

It made me think of what size of create it had to be to yack up enough to slow down the 520... that's one big roller coaster rider.

Yes I'm aware it was oil. No need to comment. I just think puke is funnier.

Nothing bad happened

Don't take this as an apology for not blogging, it's not. I just wanted to say that no nothing bad happened and I wasn't depressed. Jen was here for the weekend and the Internet as a whole was not a priority.

You may now resume your work time productivity wasting surfing.

Thanks for your support.

Choices

I could either blog about dog puke this morning, or what I plan to have for lunch...

Can't decide.

When you've had one of those days

Sometimes it's worth it just to get that little bit extra done before giving up.

Then you can look back on one of those days and say, "At least my kitchen floor is clean."

It's all about the mopping people.

state patrol

Yes I called the WA state patrol this morning and reported a truck that had one of those signs that really piss me off on it: "Stay back 200ft. Not Responsible for Broken Windshields"

Oh yes you are, mutherfucker so your company will be getting a followup from the cops...

It's completely legal

It's not moon shine, it's earth shine. Or according to Wikipedia, "PlanetShine"



When I got home from playing pool tonight the moon sliver looked just too good to pass up. I squished the images enough that the camera data didn't come through into smugmug, but it was my eos 5D at f/5.6 at 400mm (the 70-200 with the doubler for 400mm)

If you click the image it will take you to the gallery which has both exposures worth uploading. I only touched up the gamma a little bit to boost the detail in the dark part.

Leonardo_da_Vinci is given credit for figuring out earthshine...

My dearest junk mailers

I'm not talking spam. I'm talking physical junk mail....

Dear Junk Mail Idiots,

I think I can save us both some time and you a little money by answering the following questions for you now:

No I'm not going to give your cause any money I have a few causes that I've already picked out and I give them money even when they don't send me shit, so stop.

No I don't need stickers with my name and address on it. Seriously I pay my bills online now so no need. Also I am able to remember and write my name and address when needed so thanks, but no thanks I'm not going to be guilted into sending you money because I might use your stickers.

I have a mortgage already. Clearly you know that because you even know who it's through. I'm not stupid so stop trying to be my lender trying to give me a new lower payment. You think you're all tricky and shit using the Re: loan and then my god damn address. Obviously you know my address since you sent me this shit in the first place. Just because you try to trick me into calling your 888 number because I believe you are my mortgage company I saved the "fuck you" for you. So ... well... fuck... you.

That's all I have to say about that.

Hardware Hotdogs

Doesn't that sound like an all male porno film? OK so the plan was to go to the hardware store and get drill bits (long story) and to get a hot dog after for lunch. You know lunch? That meal you aren't supposed to mention in your blog? I went to the big hardware store and did they have any good sets of drill bits? um no. I need drivers and bits. All they had was the same crappy Black and Decker shit I had before. No De-Walt. No Makita.

Fine so then I forget to get hot dog, hence the no Hardware Hotdog today. (Can you see I'm going for the search term?)

I got to Sears. You gotta love sears for tools. You know hardware. Not hotdogs though. I got a great set of 90 bits most of which I have no idea what to do with them, but that is not the point, I tell you. Not the point. No hotdog, but yes hardware.

I also got a volt meter so I don't electrocute (Yes that implies death anything less is just a shock, get over it.) myself later when I remove some light fixtures.

There you have it a content free post with the possibilities of a whole new brand of visitors here at backtalk. Who are looking for hardware hotdogs.

Not starting your day right?

So if your Friday the 13th isn't starting off so good. Try ordering something huge that you've wanted for a while...

Photos to follow in the coming days...

Fire Sale?

So my tooth. Yes that tooth that I've talked about endlessly since I started this blog. Yes the tooth that's done. Yes that tooth. The tooth that keeps making me bite my cheek (well hell there was no tooth there at all on Tuesday to bite with.) yes that tooth.

It's cheaper than they thought. Much cheaper. So they gave me quote 'A' when we started then when I was taking the last step I got, "Oh sorry we messed up and it's actually going to be A + thislargeamountwhichisgoingtomakeyoucry"

So fine I paid it. Today they called and took that last crying bit back saying that my insurance covered more than they thought it would. (Bullshit right? But whatever I get my mula back.) They took my card number over the phone and credited me back. Boo Yeah!

I know all this tooth stuff. I bet you'd rather hear what I had for lunch, huh?

It is done.

After over 3 years of dental gymnastics and being upside down in chairs and even given up a whole day (mostly to Deonn's amusement over me saying I wanted corn) and quite honestly a little more of that weekend ot the pain pills, I have my crown on my implant and the dental work is now done. I still have my glow in the dark retainer so don't worry I have still have creepy stuff, but the "tooth" itself? Doesn't look at all differnet from it's neighbors.

The single guy meal...

I finally found it. All you need is steak from a bbq where you bought too much prime meat and some potatos that your guests meant to buy as frozen but one of them got them fresh.

Cut up two potatos small. Nuke them.
Cut up a left over piece of steak.
Pan fry it all (potatos first then steak) in a non stick pan with just a little bit of olive oil, some garlic, salt and pepper...

Eat it.

Yum.

The spam stock and trade.

Does anyone really believe they can drive a stock up with spam? I just glanced in my spam folder and along with all the pills for this and that there are at least a third of the things wanting to give me a secret tip on a stock. It's usually a company I've never heard of. Yeah I wonder when the day will come when I get that stock tip that was "accidentally" sent my way for like at&t or p&g (do mega corps often get the ampersand?)

It's always some obscure "communications" company that is about to make it so that cell phone users can actually send megabytes of data right out of their asses even riding commuter trains while reciting the alphabet backwards skipping all the vowels while giving the US Sign language equivalent for each letter as they go by. I'm mean really who's gonna pay for that.

They also try to make it seem like insider info. You know material information about the company which is illegal. Just ask Martha (who I hear only uses pencil now). I'd like the SEC to track some of these fuckers down. Just sample the spam. If you SEC folks aren't getting any of this spam I'm sure I can send some your way along with some ads for 581 pills. Then check the dates and see who bought a shit ton of the stock right before the spam went out. Isn't it illegal to misrepresent a stock in the media after you've bought some of it?

I'm so glad the filter works. Or does it? I mean I did go in and read it, didn't I? Shit! I am an idiot. Oh this stock looks good, I'm sure people will want a non dairy toilet seat cleaner in a disposable tin. I wonder if I can get options on that...

Once again across the lake

This morning I picked up my car at the dealership and once again I got to cross the lake. The sun was shining and the temp is on the rise. So much so some of the peeps here at work are planning a horse shoe and frisbee outing on the grounds. I'll let you know if it turns to stitches. I'm sure you'll be up tonight waiting for my update. Often our "morale" events end in injury. So far not mine, but maybe that means I'm due. I mean when I was little my mother would take me to the park and she never really had to set a time when we'd go home because it was usually driven by me doing something stupid. Like (and no I'm not making this up) the time I fell under the merry-go-round and it hit me repeatedly on the head until some dad managed to drag me out from under it. Wait a sec. What is this therapy? Next I'll be talking about being last to be picked up from daycare... Yeesh.

I saw a sundog. While crossing the lake. It was beautiful. Not as beautiful as the photos in the link, but still very cool.

I don't even know a wood from an iron...

But today I'm golfing. Actually there are no sticks involved. It's not even a stick shift. My beetle is in for it's 40K maintenance today and I'm hoping they don't find anything interesting while all these massive inspections are going on. This is the big one! I'm gonna join ya, Elizabeth. It's actually a lot of money. More than I thought it would be when I thought I was early for the 50K. Um no. If they don't find anything interesting it won't be too bad, but still.

So I drove it this morning into work and I had a hell-uv-a time figuring out what controlled the rear wiper. It has seat heat though which rocks. It's so light that it's zippy as hell. Not as zippy as the Beetle with it's turbo and also extreme lightness of being, but zippy. I drove in from a completely different angle this morning too so I go to enjoy the benefits of a Seattle Commute... Um mostly ick.

Mostly? Well mostly because some kids are off school so the traffic was lighter than usual. That doesn't mean I didn't get stopped trying to cross the lake and no the 5 wasn't too pleasant either. Whatever.

What was cool was coming across lake Washington the sun peeked out and streaked through the clouds onto the water and the mountain was out all sorts of reflections. I would have taken a photo with my phone, but no officer I would never do that.

It would be the perfect car if the thing came with a caddy to load my luggage and bring me a yummy lunch...

I love people

Well from a distance.

From a distance people are OK. Cute even. I mean taking off out of Chicago (after having had a great weekend with Jen and friends.) The sky was mostly clear and the sun was shining. I got to watch the shadow of the plane so seeing the gear retract was cool. I looked at all the flat suburbs of Chicago and thought about how cute humans are. I mean we line our houses up in nice rows (when it's flat) and we have streets in grids. You can see all this from the air. These patterns emerge and you get this sense that from a distance people are actually quite likable. In fact all the cars seem to be moving in harmony. You can tell the little affluence people because they have blue dots of water in the back yard. This is the 10,000 foot view of humanity.

Then you have close up. In your face humanity. OK the woman in front of me on the plane must normally sleep with her hands not under her head but under her pillow. How do I know this? Because she had her hands right about the latch for my tray table almost the whole time. I'm glad she did her nails before we took off or I'd have been looking at icky cuticles, too. Even when she got her food she kept one hand back in my face for most of the flight. I've never really been encroached upon from in front of me, but I wasn't going to say anything or maybe she'd freak out we'd have to turn the plane around...

So up close? I hate people. Far away they are fun to look at.