You know a fella's good for the moula

So I got a voice mail at work from the dentist office today. Not really surprising, but my next appointment isn't for a few weeks so it seems early to be confirming my appointment. OK fine what is it? I listen to the message and it's about my account. They want to confirm my address because I've had a balance since March. Seriously? Moi? A balance? Crap. So there are some plausible explanations as to why the mail was lost or what not. So fine. I call back.

I get one of the usual accounts people when I call. I say who I am and that I'm calling back to settle up, but I can't remember being past due. So she explains that was a mistake and it was an insurance weirdness and not to worry. OK fine. Cool.

I'm fine. No worries right?

So a little while later my cell phone rings. I look at the thing and it says "Dentist" and I'm all, "What now?" I'm flossing I swear. Right now even as the phone is ringing I feel the minty thread cutting through my gums. Really I'm flossing. Cause no matter what you do at the dentist if they even think that you're using the floss the love you. Seriously if you're reading this Dr. Nohr, I floss. Really.

I pick it up expecting it to be "oh actually you do owe us and the mistake wasn't a mistake and now we really have our story straight."

I say, "Hello." (Seriously isn't that clever?)

I get back, "Hi J.R. this is Dr. Nohr."

I think I managed: "huh?" (Again mr. clever I am.)

"I wanted to apologize that we called you for collections on accounts payable when it was our mistake."

Now that shit is service. He went onto explain that the snafoo in the system lead this person to believe that I had owed them money since march and they were looking for to collect on my ass. I never really got that impression. I mean my dad used to collect on bad checks for food town and he sounded all bad ass on the phone. On the phone. He's built like me so it's bad ass only on the phone. He called himself Joe Black. Apparently people who wrote bad checks liked to come after the collectors so they gave you a pseudonym. My dad? Joe Black. Makes me laugh even now years later. Joe Black... my dad... ha! I'm not sure if they assigned it to him or he got to pick.

So he was really apologizing up and down and I didn't even realize the squeeze was on. I mean it's a dentist office you'd think they could call you up with the drill sound in the background and be all, "We know where you live pay us the money, Lebowsky" drill drill.

NO no I swear I'll pay. I'm good for it. Don't you know I floss?

He shoots

I was going to wait until I got 21 posts to the other blog, but it's almost been a week and I've posted daily to it. I thought I'd let both of you readers here know that I have a new tee tiny photo blog here.

If it's not broke...

I had them put cilantro on my burrito tonight. Yeah. No. Bad bad bad. I don't hate cilantro as some do, but there was too much and it invaded my salsa and just destroyed my taco del mar experience.

Reflections

I tried to reshoot a photo I did a long time ago. The reason I wanted to reshoot it was because I have a better camera now and it had gotten some good feedback.

I lit it the same way. At first it looked good but when I looked at images up close they an amazing amount of black dots on them. I could spot them out, but really they shouldn't be there.

It was just a tiny amount of dust on the front of the camera. I guess it's because the sensors are getting better and the quality of photos are going up. I'll re re shoot it tonight.

I know this post isn't funny, but sometimes to get blogging you just have to post what's on your mind. Other than work because you know that would be bad. Not that work is bad it isn't. Just posting about work is bad. Well not bad so much as, "no good can come of it," is more like it.

OK I'm done now.

Ah the homeland...

So I was surfing around the Internet like ya do and I came across the KingsIsland website. Since I had worked there for a couple of summers when I was young. I was interested to see what had remained. So looking over the lists of attractions and some are still the same, but most of it was unfamiliar. Understandable because you change these things so people year in year out think of the "new" stuff as why they go.

I would go for the old stuff and at first glance you'd think I'd be disappointed until I found this. Oh man they can rename stuff, but most of the pathways are the same and even the buildings. Sure Cafe K as we called it which was short for Cafe Kilimanjaro (fuck I can't spell it now, no way I could have spelled it then. Cafe K it is.) was part of the safari themed area. I worked near there at little stands that no longer exist. I remember Cafe K though as the "ohshitdontsendmetherefortheafternoonIwilldie" place.

Festhause is still there which was the place in which on my very first day I got very nearly fired. (Not so interesting or long story. Fuck you're making food and you aren't allowed to taste it? Who knew? On top chef they'd all go home.)

If you look on that map you can even see the employee cafeteria. There was one July 3rd I almost got canned from there. Luckily I knew to "get your stories straight" before going into the area manager's office.

I learned lots of stuff at KI. Shit I was 16 and just learned to drive. Lots of stuff.

Where do dead blogs go?

So I was checking out domain names today. Mostly because I had a stupid idea for one and no it's not going to fly. I'd like to report that it's being used for something seriously cool. I'm sorry to say that I will not be able to do that without completely lying to you. Luckily it was just a stupid idea and I probably wasn't going to go through with it, but still. Taken.

So I do have to report it's parked. It's just parked with godaddy. It was registered in 2000 and It has to be on some kind of "auto renew" option that is costing this guy $6.00 a year or something but it's not doing anything but advertising for spammers. Isn't that lovely?

So then I thought what about blogspot? I tried the same idea there. Yeah there is a blog sitting there. Last post? April of 2004. Small variation on the words? Yup there is a blog there too, but hasn't ever had a post and no activity since 2003.

Dear blogger,
Please figure out a way to reclaim these hosted wastelands. I'm not suggesting taking down blogs with real content even if they are done. I'm suggesting reclaiming names that were never really used and aren't getting any hits. Please keep blogger from going to that AOL place of having cryptic numbers such as 69 after ever clever blog name. K?

Maybe some button on a web form you have to push once a year if you're not posting or getting hits. K? Then put it back up for grabs. Come on google you can archive it somewhere I'm sure.

Please? I promise I'll feed it and take care of it.

Drillbit?

Um the movie Drillbit Taylor was just bad. Most of the funny moments were ripped off from superbad which was in fact a funny fucking movie. I was just bored for this one. Glad Jen rented it instead of us buying it or worse seeing it in the theater.

Maybe we'll go see something tonight. Something good.

Like an old friend

Last night I set up the telescope and I didn't really have any kind of plan. I wasn't sure Jupiter would be visible (I was right it's really to the south and in the trees from my driveway). The main point of the exercise was to set it up and make sure everything was working (including me on the whole setup and alignment thing.)

Not having a "go to" mount or telescope it's up to me to point the damn thing. I have setting circles which can be helpful, but I've never mastered them myself. As usual I didn't have much in mind so I head for my old friend M13. I swear once you've seen that thing and you can kinda get a clue from the Planisphere (which by it's very nature does not include planets.) where it is roughly it's like falling out of a boat from there. The only problem was it was just about straight up which makes actually pointing at it a little difficult and awkward with the equatorial mount.

I spent some time after locating it just scanning to the south with my binoculars. Some things looked familiar but it was getting late so I decided to call it a night. The best part was I checked and my telescope was still pointing at the same M13 as when I started. That means I set it up right. Maybe I'll go out again tonight and check things out.

an accidental blog

I'm trying to blog by accident. Um wait. I'm trying. How can that be an accident? Crap. This one is doomed from the start.

fuck.

At least my rash is better. I'm peeling now. Not like an onion or even an orange and I don't think I'll need a shot. It's like my skin is like OK here's the thing we're going to start over here here and yeah, over there so all y'all just get to it and peel...

Ok that last paragraph at least seems like an accident.

Why I can't blog right now

I really try to blog stuff that I find funny. Since I picked up this little allergic rash not much has seemed all that funny. Is it funny not to scratch? no. Is it funny that it's not contagious so I've gone to work? nope. Is it funny that the donation place wouldn't take my fans that I was trying to donate? Again no.

Is it funny that I'm sitting outside of google and using their guest network while I wait for my friend to come out for lunch? A little bit.