ehowton ◾ ◾ Entries tagged withstories

2013-04-10 00:00

During a lunchtime high school conversation my friend and neighbor Jesus Valdez mentioned he had seen me dancing in the street. Naturally, I looked at him incredulously as I assured him at no point had I done any such thing. It would have been impossible for him to have seen me doing so, because I had not been dancing in the street.

At the time, I lived two houses off the main road down a perpendicular street. He assured me he had driven by, looked down my road, and had seen me standing in the street, dancing.

I couldn't make heads or tails of what he possibly thought he saw, but I was nonetheless adamant that I was decidedly not dancing in the street.

Yet he wouldn't budge either.

So I began a series of questions, "Where in the street was I? Was anyone with me? What time of day was this?" I was hoping to narrow it down. Once he answered all my questions, the realization hit me so hard that it was visible in my face. From his perspective, I had been dancing in the street.

You see, my 1968 Dodge Coronet 440, the pride and joy of my youth, had been misfiring. Daniel Anderson had been with me and we were working on the problem together. After cleaning the spark plug wires and plugging them back in, I had started the car, but the misfire was still present. So I reached into the engine bay and one at a time used my thumb to press on the rubber insulator ensuring the contacts were secure. Rubber or not, at one point, it shocked me. Flailing around under the hood of my car, I reached for the first thing I could grab - Daniel! The shock left me and entered him. It was these few seconds that Jesus just happened to be driving by, looked down my road, and saw me being shocked, then grabbing Daniel, who obviously reacted physically as well. What fun we must have looked like we were having as it appeared we were dancing in the street.

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stories

2011-11-10 16:11

When I was a pre-teen my younger brother had set the bottom of my mattress on our bunk beds on fire with a lighter and it had smoldered until we discovered it as the source of the smoke and threw it in the front yard where it was completely consumed in two days time. As my brother refused to confess to the act, my parents had us interrogated by two arson investigators from the Fire Department. "I know you did it." One of them told me when we were alone. I stifled a laugh. "Do you think this is funny?" He nearly yelled. Yes. Yes I did. Because his conviction of my guilt wasn't based on any factual evidence, and because I knew I had in fact NOT done it, completely destroyed his credibility. By speaking to me in the way he had, he'd admitted he knew absolutely nothing. Of course my brother and I are different people. My brother didn't care what they thought or what they could prove. He was quite adept at both lying, and being entirely unconcerned with consequences. Their interrogation yielded nothing.

In junior high I'd somehow lost one of my textbooks and reported it as missing. Later, I was called into the vice-principal's office where my book was sitting, but not all was as it seemed. The vice-principle wanted to discipline me. You see, it had been found in a restricted hallway, and he'd concocted the theory that I had been carrying this heavy book on the way to lunch, decided that I no longer wished to be burdened by its weight, and therefore slid it down the restricted hallway where I could later retrieve it after the lunch hour, and when it wasn't there when I'd returned, reported it missing. It took me a full hour to convince him that his fabrication was nothing more than that. In the end, I got my book back, was not disciplined, and had lost all respect for the man.

I was pulled over Monday in Junction City for doing 65 in a 55. When the officer asked, "Why were you going so fast?" I replied that since I had my cruise control on at the time, I was going to go with assuming it was the posted speed limit. When he returned from his cruiser with my warning I had a question for him: "How is that you found yourself parked on the side of the road at the bottom of the rise right before the 65 miles-per-hour sign?" His reply? That he had clocked me at the top of the hill. "Yes," I continued, "But why were you sitting there?" He could only repeat to me that I had exceeded the speed limit, and to reiterate, explained that the speed limit was 55 for the trucks pulling out of the plant. I thanked him and left. Did he really misunderstand, or were his woefully inadequate answers just a feint? Where's the honor in that?

At Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, the back gate was always a bustle of activity in the mornings as everyone, civilian and military alike arrived for work. There were two lanes in - two guards checking identification - but the left lane was always stacked with more cars because that was where the primary glut of personnel were assigned - headquarters and the administrations buildings at the "left turn only" lane, whereas the right lane wen straight t to the airfield. Oftentimes, because many people are distracted with their coffee, and the radio, and rolling up their window, and putting their ID back in their purse and whatnot, I would simply speed up in the right-hand lane, turn on my blinker, move over, then turn left. My Master Sergeant friend Fred Bohne once said to me after I relayed this story, "Heh, I don't let people over, they should wait in line like everyone else." I looked at him incredulously and asked how he would stop me from coming over. He explained that he simply didn't slow down enough to allow the time needed for the other car to move over until the road forked. I said, "Fred, your truck can't out-accelerate my car. No matter what you do, I'll always be able to overtake you, and change lanes. There's nothing you can do to prevent that." We just stared at each other.

The first time I'd heard the word, "queue" I asked a Mounted Royal Army vet who'd served in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) what it meant. He was the driver of the shuttle bus between RAF Alconbury and RAF Molesworth in the months before I purchased my Jaguar and we had just passed a sign which read, "Queues May Form." When I asked what a queue was, his answer both confounded and fascinated me - he explained to me that a queue, was these things, which formed. Well, I was just beside myself! I wanted to know the circumstances surrounding their formation - what were they? How did they form? He went on to explain they formed most often around roundabouts. You cannot imagine my fascination with this...unknown... was it a lifeform? Did lifeforms form? Or was it sand? Did the wind cause these queues to form? What the hell was a queue? It was simply, that which formed. This is how I feel about most answers I get from people when I ask them questions.

When I was stationed in Virginia, O.J. Simpson was big news, and every dependent wife (the best source of gossip and information on an USAF base) told me unabashedly that they knew he was guilty! I was downright amazed, for though I wasn't exactly "following" the story, it was on every television, radio and newspaper at the time - I remember half a dozen books at the bookstore arguing the case, and my roommate

photogoot would watch the trial with his dad on the phone. I was as eager as could be to know how they knew - they, above all the judges and lawyers and authors and news people - how did they know? Their answer 100% of the time? "I just know." It was myself this time who lost the respect of others as I very carefully explained how that was not a real answer.

I don't expect to have philosophical conversations with many people. My neighbors in Anna and I could touch on it when we were drinking, but I think they were mostly frightened of me in the light of day - I've seen many people use alcohol as an excuse to act out-of-character and I applaud them for their ingenuity, but being ashamed the next morning lessens my respect of their intoxicated fortitude. But I do enjoy the conversations. I prefer the sober ones, but I'll take what I can get. And usually everything is fine, even my shocking open-mindedness about damn near everything. The rub? Asking them why they feel the way they do. "That's just the way I feel," they say with conviction, yet without any quantification whatsoever.

The first Terminator had it right. If you want to blend in, and not stick your neck out or get noticed - if you want to live just enough to be accepted but not questioned - if you simply want to go about your business without the hassle of friends or family or inquiry, all you really have to do is memorize the following seven possible responses:

Its just that simple. You, and everyone else.

Bravo.

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2010-06-24 11:00

^{Inspired by swashbuckler332*}

Corporate America's fascination with near-meaningless buzzwords until they become deprecated would be downright hysterical if they didn't take themselves so seriously - and Corporate America always takes itself too seriously.

What do I like about salesmen? Their charisma and their energy. Dislikes? In a word, their insincerity. Motivating your worker-bees is less about the occasional pat on the back (though in this economy, with the hours we're putting in, it would be nice every so often) and more about tangible feedback. Telling us we're fantastic while simultaneously denying us training, bonuses & annual raises means almost nothing.

"The Great I.T. Crash of 2000" is over. Sadly, it ended as a global recession began. Ah, but in its heyday...

I left the USAF at the onset of the DotCom Boom and skyrocketed into the field. Of these, Sprint Paranet was at the `bleeding edge` of growth and perks, as well as (what I consider pioneers) of work/life balance. Boom meant lush weekly parties, even lusher monthly parties, and outrageous quarterly parties. And not just employees - family too.

One of these "training" events was a week-long corporate retreat at the Houston-area Chain-O-Lakes Resort where we were given cabins as our lodging, organic, locally grown gourmet meals and 8-hour classes on things such as Briggs Meyer, Customer Relations, Growing the Business, Limiting Scope, and Repeatable Processes. Of course most of us were hungover because each evening we were given all the beer and wine we could drink.

When we weren't in the classroom, we were doing team-building activities. You know the ones where you pass the tiny guy through the webbed netting, lean on each other when crossing the 'commitment bridge', and my personal corporate favorite, Jumping for the Brass Ring.

We stood atop a sixty-foot telephone poll on a tiny platform, and they used d-rings and pulley's to raise a brass-colored ring, and just like the carousel game of old, I snatched the brass ring. By jumping out with a belay 60-feet above ground level.

Aparently literally jumping was supposed to translate into success in the workplace.

As Mr. Sloan always says, there is no "I" in team, but there is an "I" in pie. And there's an "I" in meat pie. Anagram of meat is team...I don't know what he's talking about.

^{* http://swashbuckler332.livejournal.com/710624.html}

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◾ Current Music: Narada Lotus Piano Solos

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ehowton,
stories

2009-03-03 13:00

I transferred from one of the largest magnets in Dallas, Skyline High School, to a small, rural high school in Justin, Texas, Northwest the middle of my freshman year. And while I spent the majority of my time in school being bused to magnets outside my local neighborhood, never before had I come face-to-face with as diverse a school as I found Northwest to be.

Situated between the opulent Trophy Club, and the arid Justin (I'd never even heard of FFA prior to this move) I never understood how some friendships were able to be maintained outside of tight cliques which had formed. While most of them were apparent (jocks, stoners, rich kids, farmer's kids, geeks, etc) and some more subtle (drama club, band, honors) I was always surprised when there were apparently very strong friendships which traversed the cliques. The popular rich-girl cheerleader and the Future dirt-farmer of America. WTF? Why was that? How could I, a well-adjusted and articulate drug-free teenager, not make friends with either group, yet they were able to peacefully coexist?

I used to sometimes wonder if I hadn't missed out by moving around so much when I was younger. We moved no less that 12 times in as many years; mostly in the same school district thankfully, but different neighborhoods; different people; different socio-economic areas. I stopped wondering this after I married my wife and hanging out with her family, all of whom worked and lived in Wichita, grew up in Wichita, went to school in Wichita, because their folks lived and worked in Wichita, and went to school in Wichita...you get the idea. Generations, firmly planted in the tapestry of their environment. And while I was initially enamored with their sense of solidarity and camaraderie, over time, I saw at what cost this came: Inability to reach for that brass ring - to relocate if necessary to fulfill goals, or aspire for a life outside the box. And...all the intertwined drama which inherently plagues such tight-knit groups. Don't get me wrong - a formidable force when standing together - something I've never had; but infighting and a general lack of privacy without an external common enemy to face.

I was a late-bloomer. I wasn't exactly shy in high school, but neither was I outgoing. I spent most of my years being ambivalent. The majority of my social activities were with my folks, or our church group. I didn't really get to know myself well until my isolationist period in Germany in my early 20s. And while everyone in high school knew me, as my role dictated, I was never one of the popular kids. So while I have a Facebook account I don't use Facebook. In reality, my Facebook does nothing more than point to my LiveJournal (which BTW its entirely unsuccessful at doing as far as people commenting me here). This hasn't stopped everyone I've ever known in both High School and the United States Air Force from 'adding' me. It was here that one of my life's questions was answered.

One girl, awkwardly the same one I dreamed about early last year (whether that dream was triggered by Facebook or pre-dates her involvement on Facebook I have no idea), posted a picture of her 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade classes. Curiosity formed first, before blooming into full-fledged compression across my face. I knew nearly everyone in that picture. That's how they all remained friends. They all grew up together.

Despite the shortfalls, I think I would enjoy knowing that. My strengths lie elsewhere having been so well-traveled, and I likely approach life from a different angle; My wife and I take solace in our anonymity - it comforts us. But having moved my son from three different schools in each of his different grades, I wonder sometimes if I'm doing him a disservice.

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◾ Current Music: Tchaikovsky - Piano Concerto No. 1

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2009-03-01 23:15

I was never much into console games, never had the time nor inclination despite many of my peers often playing. But there were times I turned to them. Mostly out of long stretches of boredom. There were only so many books I could read on temporary duty, or places I could go when first arriving at a new duty station. During a particularly boring start at Langley AFB, Virginia, I went out and bought myself a SuperNintendo for one reason, and one reason alone: Street Fighter II.

It all started innocently enough and honestly, through a false sense of chivalry. You see, dorm life in the Air Force was mind-numbing. But overseas a very strong sense of community always formed, nothing like living stateside. And as with every group of people you find yourself with, we too had our early adopters. So when Street Fighter II debuted on the console, the individual who bought it was very popular indeed. And with a large-screen television in the common room, and 24x7 operations, it was never difficult to find a game.

I don't remember the exact circumstances which led to me watching a group of guys play, but I remember being inflamed watching these large, violent characters slapping around the sole female, Chun-Li. That's why I picked up that controller. To prevent a female video game character from being battered. Silly, I know. But I sat down, controller in hand, chose Chun-Li as my player, and entered her world.

Chun-Li is an undercover Interpol agent, who enters the fighting tournament to get to its murderous founder, M. Bison, who killed her father. Seeking to avenge him, she fulfills her vow and returns to her life as an ordinary girl. Proof of which is in the second of these two "screen shots" (literally shots of the television screen) I took when I finally defeated M. Bison in 1993 while TDY to USCENTCOM at MacDill AFB, Florida:

Chun-Li, translated from Mandarin Chinese means "Spring Beauty" and she was the first playable female character in fighting games - something which is more commonplace now, but it was the gentleman in me which caused me to start playing her - I just couldn't stand seeing her get beat up by rough men. Chun-Li also has the distinction of being ranked 4^th on Gamefly's list of Hottest Chicks Ever, (Laura Croft came in at #2 but I can't find any information on the others) which is probably why she's so often seen in cosplay.

Yesterday we loaded up Gloria and took the kids to breakfast, dropped

catttitude off at the grocery store, and went to run our errands. That day, this included getting each of the kids a new game for their DS, as we have a tonsillectomy scheduled over Spring Break, and trips back-and-forth to my folks in preparation for the surgery (they're watching our daughter for the duration). My daughter picked hers out quickly, and I was wandering the store waiting for my son to make his choice (he usually takes an inordinate amount of time to make a decision). That's when I saw it. Only...I didn't understand at first. I walked closer, in absolute awe. Someone was playing Chin-Li on a large HDTV connected to a Playstation 3. Street Fighter 4! I NEED A PS3!

The graphics were amazing! Three-dimensional figures, lush backdrops, bullet-time camera spins; this is not your 32-bit graphical version, or any of those other attempts to restart the game - this was the real deal. Standing there in GameStop, once again, I reached for that controller. Fluid movement, responsive control, accurate hits and blocks - its what we all wished Street Fighter really were back in the day, but this time, its for real. Only...something was different. Something was very wrong.

In place of Chun-Li's long, lighting fast, super-sexy legs...she's been given the thighs of a fatted turkey. It was insane to see her with those meaty thighs and gigantic man-hands fighting Ryu. It hurt my head. And then I thought back to the CAD comic I'd read days before without understanding. It all made sense now! I SRSLY don't get it.

Chun-Li, you don't need me anymore. You can fight your own battles.

◾ Current Location: 75409
◾ Current Music: Toriyama/Komuro - Street Fighter II Score

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2008-10-09 10:50

I'm no scholar

I was supposed to have recited the poem, "Paul Revere's Ride" to my class, but since I hadn't *actually* memorized it, I instead orated a very colorful retelling. The instructor was so enamored, I received an A.

I always had a book with me in school. When not working on a project, I was reading a novel. All my book reports were on novels I happened to be reading at the time. The only failing paper I turned in was my report on John Irving's The Water-Method Man. That evening, my father explained to me how to write a book report on a book such as that in a way to remain completely free of the subject matter.

For my December "Holiday-themed" report in Public Speaking I spent fifteen minutes discounting every myth of a traditional Christmas, revealing its origins, its symbolism, and its meanings. Most of this I was able to pull from and cite various Christian Encyclopedias. When I concluded, there was a stillness over the room I'd never experienced. I was the only student who wasn't applauded at the end of their speech.

I have read a lot of the classics. I love them. I did not, however, enjoy James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohican's. For my book report, I instead turned in what can only be called a graphic novel. It was a highly-detailed, full-color illustrated report, bound & covered with those report protectors. I received an A.

Once, we were discussing a new server. It was an ODS server. "Output Data System." Our manager was giving us the pitch on how our team was going to help test it. One of the new airmen asked what ODS meant. The manger thought for a moment and said, "I don't know." I dramatically reached for a dictionary, opened it, and read aloud, interrupting the meeting, "Odious - repugnant, detestable. Loathsome." Half the team had worked with me a long time, and laughed out loud at my show. The other half, believed I seriously thought our manager was talking about an odious server. I was amused at both outcomes.

Apple Support Forums

Concerning the OSX NFS issue, I made progress, then hit a wall, succumbing to submitting a request on the Apple Support Forum two days ago. I have not yet received a single reply:

I am trying to NFS export a FAT32 formatted external USB device, which fails with the error:

/sbin/nfsd: Can't export /Volumes/: Operation not supported (45)

I am able to export internal/HFS drives, which have the "Owners Enabled: Yes" attribute, and therefore assume I need to set the flag accordingly on my external drive.

Despite the fact that the device has been assigned a uuid (it appears to be in place in .fseventsd and running 'repair disk' echos it in syslog), I get this error when running vsdbutil:

vsdbutil: Couldn't update volume information for '/Volumes//': Invalid argument
vsdbutil: no valid volume UUID found on '/Volumes//': Invalid argument

And diskutil returns this:

Permissions are not enabled on the disk (-9973)

I attempted to add the uuid to /var/db/volinfo.database in order to set the permissions there, to no effect.

I don't believe that I am the only person who has attempted this, but I can find no evidence to the contrary. Thank you.

Ineffective Solutions

I can't get any linux software to burn dual-layer. This has negatively affected my inventory of blank dual-layer media. Thankfully, the price has easily dropped half of what my first spindle cost me. I can, however, burn dual-layer through my wmware XP installation. I decided to make a backup of my backup of my iTunes database in order to burn it off on dual-layer media (the only DL burner I have is on my ubuntu laptop). However, since I boot from my external 500GB drive, and that's also where I dumped my library (apparently, I don't have enough external drives capable of containing my entire repository of music) which means vmware gave me the finger when I asked it to also mount up my iTunes directory.

Fine. I relocated my XP .vmx image locally, then attached the directory. I decided to use iTunes built-in "Backup" solution, which failed after burning six DL DVD's.

Back to the drawing board.

Politics

The Greater Anna Chamber of Commerce is hosting "Meet the Candidate" tonight. I'm linking my candidate's site on this page (http://www.beckyglover.net) because this blog gets indexed by Google rather quickly.

drax0r was testing various CMS's for all the projects we find ourselves in, and while were were dabbling in Drupal, we now jump for joy with Joomla. Both are cumbersome, but Joomla is far less difficult to work with. I'll be installing it soon at darkvoyager.homeunix.com to help familiarize myself with it, as there are several 'gotchas' that

drax0r was able to overcome, and my familiarization with it will greatly increase my efficiency.

Pathetic

I have checked http://lalalandrecords.com twice a day, everyday, for a month now, in hopes they will soon be releasing Bear McCreary's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles score. I'm on their mailing list, but I always get the email a day after the announcement and I'm unsure I could handle that amount of delay. I often find myself on my Theme Clips post, listening to the two online offerings over and over in mournful anticipation.

This entry has gone on far too long.

◾ Current Location: 75070
◾ Current Music: Sarah Brightman - Diva: The Singles Collection

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2008-08-10 13:25

On the USS Abraham Lincoln, 1997

Back when I was a Navy contractor installing HP/UX systems on aircraft carriers, I made several trips out to San Diego where my longtime friend Brad lived. Ive known Brad since I was five-years-old. He has always been one of the most singularly-minded people I know. When we were children he was fascinated with aircraft. He spent his time building aircraft models, had airplane sheets on his bed and wore airplane pajamas to sleep. As we got older he attended Space Camp, graduated Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University as an Aeronautical Engineer, got his pilot's license and pilots UAV's for a living. If ever there was a textbook example of living your dream, he's accomplished it.

USS Abraham Lincoln, Underway

One of my favorite carriers was the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) which I first stumbled upon during an install in Bremerton, Washington. The crew of this carrier was top-notch and I always enjoyed visiting with them whenever I saw them. It was an awesome experience and a great surprise when I saw them arrive, and berth at Naval Air Station North Island on Coronado Island - while I was standing on the flight deck of the USS Kitty Hawk (CVN 63). They moved the carrier so close to the one I was standing on, I felt I could've simply stepped across one to the other.

Kitty Hawk & Abraham Lincoln, NAS North Island, Coronado Island

While the ship was still in port, Brad took me up in his Mooney for a leisure flight around San Diego, and at my urging, gained clearance to 'buzz' the carriers at 800-feet. As I was telling this story the next morning in CIC, one of the petty officers asked me, "Were you in a little white & blue plane?" She'd been on the deck and had seen us fly by. How very cool. Most of these are screen-caps from a 8mm video camera using a pre-millennium parallel port capture device pulled from my old Geocities page.

Brad and I adjacent his Mooney, 1997

In 1982 I was in 7th-grade with

celtmanx and our school took our class to Dinosaur Valley in Glen Rose, Texas for a week of environmental science study. One of the activities was walking along the river bed looking for dinosaur prints. This weekend I got to see Brad for the first time in nearly a decade (7-years, maybe, as he was wont to say) at his father's house who, incidentally, retired to...Glen Rose, Texas! So I loaded up my boy and made the two-hour drive to let my boy discover the joys of Dinosaur Valley as I did some 26-years-ago, while using that opportunity to catch up with Brad.

Dinosaur Valley

We did a lot of hiking up and down (and at times, across) the river, scaling narrow footpaths a hundred feet above the river, and generally just teaching my son where and where not to step along the way. Its hard finding something that my boy enjoys doing, so I was thrilled when he told me how much fun he was having hiking in the park. Wants to know when we're going hiking again. Brad and I had the entire day to catch-up and tell stories (often reminding each other of past activities each of us had forgotten). Unfortunately, Glen Rose and the surrounding area had reached the high for Texas that day at 105-degrees.

Dinosaur World

Dinosaur World was an overpriced, underwhelming mile walking path with full-sized replicas of dinosaurs and an paltry un-air conditioned 'museum' which was hotter than than being outside (I did snap a picture of a trilobite for

melancthe while there) - but seeing the joy on my son's face coupled with the fact that he read every informational plaque looking for which dinosaurs were carnivores made it all worth it. That and Brad and I got our picture together again for the first time since the snap on the carrier.

Glen Rose, 2008

Getting to Glen Rose from Anna I took the most direct route: 75, I-35E, 67. This was the first time I've actually driven down Highway 67 and I hated it. Some seventy miles on a two-lane road with speeds restricted to 60mph. Before I even got there I'd decided on a quicker route back, 144, 377, I-20, I-35W, I-30, Loop-12, I-35E, 635, 75 which shaved 45-minutes off my drive. This route also allowed my son and I to dine with

celtmanx and his wife (who were without children that evening) at the Mexican Inn as we drove through the town they moved, putting us home at 2300.

Opportunities like this don't come around very often, and it was a fantastic day.

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◾ Current Music: Top Gun

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2008-06-20 09:45

I have a friend on here who very occasionally wears a mohawk. I wish I could get away with that sometimes! How very awesome to have that sort of freedom of expression - challenging others preconceptions. I grew up far too conservative for that type of behavior and it certainly wouldn't gain me much now anwyay.

Still.

So

drax0r and I are sitting outside on a bench discussing this - I wore my hair down yesterday (which my wife hates, thus prompting her to suggest it was time for a haircut) and I was mentioning to a man who grows his thick hair and beard out every three months then shaves his entire face bald; repeat - that having long hair gave you more options. I told him that since I couldn't justify a mohawk, and that you can do more with hair than just a ponytail, that I would walk in here wearing pigtails today!

"I'd like to see that." He said.

It was time for me to put the kids down last night and my neck was hot from my hair, so I went to pull it back and thought I'd try it out. Let me tell you, I had no idea how retarded it was going to make me look. I mean, jaw-dropping OMGZ! And really - I've not seen pigtails on man or woman, gay or straight, ever. In fact, I've not seen pigtails on anyone over the age of nine, and now I know why! And I don't mind telling you this: I wanted to beat the shit out of me and I'm not a violent person!

Regardless, I retire to the North Wing of the house to put the children down.

They couldn't stop staring. My daughter specifically was quite vocal about her disdain. So we got the camera out so the children could photograph me. When they were done, they wanted me to take a picture of them. They stood next to each other and smiled for a pose. I brought the camera up to my face and my son throws out gangsign. I lower the camera. "Son," I begin, "That's not necessary, please don't do that."

"Yes sir." He says, and lowers his arms to his side. I bring the view finder to my eye and he throws out some different gangsign. I lower the camera. "Son," I say again, more forcefully, as in my smallish daddy brain, I must've not properly conveyed my intentions to his behavior. "That's dumb, please don't do it. Do you understand?" My son nods his comprehension and places his palms on his thighs, straight armed. I bring the camera up and my son tosses up some gangsign. "GOOD GOD WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?" I snap. He doesn't know. He cannot discern why he's unable to have his picture taken without acting out. I chose to tell a story:

When your Uncle Kevin was a little boy, he used to dress like a clown, mixing harshly colored plaids with earthtoned argyles and pastel pants with brown saddle shoes. When your Grammie tried to correct him, he would scream and cry until he was allowed to leave the house dressed like a clown. People would snicker, because he looked so silly. Years later, when he was all grown up, we were looking at pictures of ourselves when we were kids your age, and Uncle Kevin found many pictures of himself dressed as a clown, and he got angry at Grammie, asking, "Why would you let me dress like this?" But Grammie told him the truth, that he refused to leave the house any other way, and Uncle Kevin felt foolish, because he wished that he had pictures of himself in which he wasn't dressed like a clown.

When I finished my story I explained to my son that when he was older, and he looked back, he would likely get angry at me and ask me, "Dad, why did you let me throw down gangsign, it makes me look really dumb." And that I was trying now, to prevent this future event from occurring. He nodded his understanding, and as I brought the camera up, he tossed out some gangsign.

My son may be retarded.

Then again, my hair was in pigtails when I was telling the story, which stripped me of any authority I might have had on the matter:

◾ Current Location: 75070
◾ Current Music: Silvestri - The Mummy Returns

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kids,
stories

2007-07-25 13:05

Basic Military Training Squadron 3704, Flight 1741. January 1963. Fourth one from the right, second row from the top. Yeah, that's my dad.

I belong to the 497th RTG mailing list. I was stationed in Weisbaden, Germany for nearly the entirety of 1991. Someone posted a link to the BMT Archives there. I was in Germany because my father was in Germany. He was stationed at Sembach, Air Base, just down the road. I was in the Air Force because he was in the Air Force. Not that he ever pressured me to join, or because he wanted me to join. Just because he was my dad, and I wanted to do what he'd done.

I'd never seen the man write a letter the entire time I was growing up. He wrote me every single day the first three years I was in. Unthinkable.

He's always been supportive. Always. Even as I became an adult.

When I had a child of my own, I had an odd experience one day. We were visiting a friend and he let his dog, a miniature pincer out. This dog was a small bundle of energy and excitement! It came running at my son (18-months at the time) full-tilt. The boy reacted in a way I'd never seen and I felt an overwhelming paternal desire to protect him, at all costs. This was a new feeling for me, and later I called my own father to discuss it. "When does the primal reaction of defending your son lessen?" I asked him.

"Never." He replied.

Thanks Dad, for everything, for always.

◾ Current Location: 75070
◾ Current Music: Firefly & Serenity scores

◾ Tags:

2007-03-31 14:30

Newport News, Virginia 1993

Two white trashbags sitting next to the trashcan in the kitchen. I pull the bag from the trashcan, tie it up, replace it, and take all three bags to the dumpster, which is promptly emtpied at noon. Fast forward nine hours later when

photogoot and I arrive home. "Where's my cleaning supplies?" he asks.
"What cleaning supplies?"
"I was cleaning out the truck this weekend and put all my cleaning supplies in the kitchen."
"You didn't happen to put them in a white trash bag and set them next to the trashcan did you?"
"Yes."

For the first time since 1998, my cholsterol & triglycerides are normal.

drax0r's server has crashed a disc so my pics are all offline, as well as my banner picture and background. I have a backup of some of them, but to move them to lj, I'd have to sift through 465 entries and edit all my URL's.

I've been reading the Avatar series to my son. One book for each Nation. They make me want to buy the DVD box set.

My wife is still sleeping off the after effects off last night. I was swimming in a sea of boobs. I had no objection whatsoever.

Then entirety of my glans received a chemical burn last night in the hot tub due to over-chlorinated water. Not something you want to happen, believe you me. I'll take the hit for the team, so to speak by admitting it here. Please consider this my attempt at a public service announcement.

The QuikTrip bottle of Spicy Chipotle sauce for $3.99 (no refridgeration needed) is the perfect accompanyment for just about everything.

◾ Tags:

stories

2007-02-01 20:52

When I lived in a little apartment community in Maple Shade, New Jersey, my wife and I used to walk around the grounds each evening, holding hands and telling each other of our day. My job was to install a software suite on J210's running 9.05 (and later 10.20) and train US Navy personnel on its operation. Two weeks out of the month I was deployed to a different aircraft carrier, and one week out of the month I was on second-level helpdesk to support the ships.

Nextel had just released their first-gen "push-to-talk" phones and Space and Naval Warfare Command had passed them out to us. These were the models before today's "Alert" function which allow you to accept an incoming transmission. Remember those? Anyone could press their walkie-talkie button and begin speaking out of your phone.

As it turns out, I spent most of my day that day in the server room, so my phone was turned all the way up. My wife and I were walking, it was a bright, still evening and the weather was perfect. Now, had the Stennis or Kitty Hawk had a problem, I'd have been ok. But no. We were directly in front of a large family enjoying a cookout at one of the nearby pavilions when the Nextel announces at full volume, "ERIC, THERE'S A PROBLEM ON THE USS ENTERPRISE, PLEASE REPORT IN."

Yeah, the entire pavilion went quiet and they all stared at me.

They thought I was playing Star Trek.

◾ Current Location: 63114
◾ Current Music: The Best of Robert Earl Keen

◾ Tags:

star trek,
stories

2006-09-21 10:56

My car's trunk was dented while staying at the hotel before I bought my house in St. Louis as detailed in my January 3rd entry.

Recently, I attempted to rectify this with a staff member, a computer room raised-floor puller, and a can of monitor wipes:

( Clean the affected area for good adhesion )

( Securely attach the floor-puller )

( Pull back in a smooth, even stroke )

Photoshop's mensuration plugin confirms a 40% reduction in damage:

Last night I dreamed I was driving a late 20s Grand Prix racer. British Racing Green. It was an open cockpit, and I was driving around deserted cobblestone streets, slowing down around the corners because I was sure the tall, thin tires would give out around the turns. I was driving this car because I had seen a very popular man driving it the other day, and I decided I wanted one to. I was having some mechanical problems, so I chose to exit the vehicle at the stoplight and go into a store I had seen this other man do just the day before. There were no other cars on the deserted street, so I popped the engine cover and removed the troublesome component. It was round, and had four small peaked 'vents' on it with rectangular openings. I walked into a deserted bar and a large man with a foreign accent came from a door behind the bar as if to offer me a drink. I showed him the part. "Ah, bad air conditioning unit." He says, "Just so happens (so-and-so) stopped in here just yesterday with the same problem. The part is $69. I can install it now."
I was elated.
"Total price with labor will be $569." He said, as he started around the bar to put the new part on my car.
"But I don't have $569!" I said. It was too late. He was outside putting it on. I didn't know what to do, and started to panic.

A couple of weeks ago I dreamed that Carla had painted her nails orange. The same color orange my wife wanted to paint our dining room from a paint chit she'd brought home. I forgot about this completely until today, when I saw Carla's hands. "I thought you painted your nails orange?" I asked her. You should have seen the look she gave me. Then it came flooding back. That was only a dream. Weird.

It was 100-degrees in Korea during the hottest part of the summer. Worse, the humidity was over the top. I was off one day and wanted to do my run, but it was unbearable. So I cranked up the A/C to "High" and waited until about 1600. The ambient tempature in the room was 72. Perfect. Changed into my running clothes and took off. Damn hot, damn humid. I finished my run and started heading back to the room. I had a smile on my lips as I thought of my nice, cool room - just waiting for me to return. I opened the door to my barracks room, and there was my roommate, recently returned from his work day, sitting by the open window, smoking a cigarette. "Hi." He says when I come in. It must've been 85-degrees in the room...and humid. The A/C was off. I didn't understand. "Why is the A/C off?" I asked.
"Oh, I was cold." He replied.
*Grrrrr.* "YOU WERE COLD?" I screamed! "COLD?" I started for him. "WHY DIDN'T YOU PUT ON A JACKET THEN? CAUSE I SURE AS HELL CAN'T TAKE ANYTHING ELSE OFF!" He had that rabbit-look in his eyes, as if I'd just snapped. "I'm sorry," I said, "I'm wrong. If I'm hot, I guess I could take more off." I stripped naked right in front of him and took two more steps. My schlong was right in his face. "Is this better?" I asked. I went to take a shower. When I returned to the room, the air was on and he was sitting by the window reading a book...in his jacket.

I found the car I was driving in my son's History of Auto Racing book. It was a 1930 Bentley Blower (A smaller, one seat-version anyway) and have updated the picture to reflect this.

◾ Current Location: 63134
◾ Current Music: James Bond: Seventeen Soundtracks

◾ Tags:

2006-09-19 11:43

Got home last night and wife was already sauteing the onions in olive oil. She added a can of thick coconut milk, tomato paste, diced tomatoes and a healthy portion of red curry. I browned cubed mutton then dumped it in the mixture to let it all cook together. It was served with nan bread over rice & lentels. We followed this with a cigar and a glass of Kansan Spatlese. In a word, perfect!

Old & busted: POTC2: Track 2.
The new hotness: POTC2: Track3.

Picked up BSG Season 2.0 & 2.5 today at Best Buy. Can anyone guess what I'll be doing this weekend? The only thing I lack at this point is the US Release of BSG Season One, as I picked up the UK Release when it came out.

I require the new USAF digital tiger-stripe Airman Battle Uniform.

photogoot can you look into this for me? Just tell me how much and I'll pick it up when I'm there. I'll include a 10% finder's fee for the person who can make this happen. XXL please. Thanks.

Posted to Go Granny Go's "Most Embarrasing Moment post:

1999. I was the Network Operations Supervisor of a Data Center. We had a problem with one of the Sun computers where we required the manufactures technical support. I asked one of my staff to get them on the phone and go over what solution was required. A little later she told me, "I called Sun, and one of my friends who's seem this kind of thing before, Sun is supposed to call me back, but I have a prior appointment, so if the phone rings, will you handle it?"
"No problem." I assured her.
"Ok, thanks." She left. The phone rang. The guy on the phone asked for her, and I told him I was her supervisor and was handling the issue while she was away, what did he have for me? "Not much." was the answer.
"I'm sorry?" I inquired? Paid support is hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, I expected a lot more than, Not Much.
"Have you tried searching online?" He asked.
I'm seething...online? The support contract outlines 4-hour on-site response to any outage. We had 40 of these boxes representing a substantial cost, not to mention the very large price of support! HAVE I TRIED SEARCHING ONLINE? I took a deep breath, and through gritted teeth, explained as calmly as I could, that I had no intention of searching online for a problem I have asked him to look into. "Do not call here again until you've found a solution." He was very flustered, but agreed, and hastily hung-up.
The girl comes back in and says, "What did you find out? Did my friend call back?"
"Sun called and suggested I try to search online if you can believe it. I read him the riot act." She looked at me in a way that made me uncomfortable. "What?" I asked.
"I haven't called Sun yet."
Uh-oh. I must've mis-understood. That was her friend I spoke to that way!
Things were strained between us after that.

To this day I always go above and beyond on my phone etiquette.

I had this...cousin. He was a 'C' student at a rural high school, and decided he wanted to be a surgeon and was going to apply to John Hopkins. I explained you don't just apply to John Hopkins, that you required excellent grades from a well established and scholastically superior institute of higher learning, and that he would never even get that far without first completing several years at an adaquate university first. I suggested that right after high school, he apply to the local Junior College, and begin to study and apply himself so he could realize his dream.

His response? "Screw that, I'm not going to Junior College. I'll apply directly to John Hopkins and if they turn me down I'll just get a job at Wal-Mart."

I doubt even they would hire him...

◾ Current Location: 63134
◾ Current Music: Eric Serra Marathon

◾ Tags:

2006-09-10 18:46

WATERVLIET
Went to the Watervliet Arsenal Museum today on the suggestion on Bill (ex-Army artilleryman). It is the oldest, continuously active arsenal in the United States. The museum traced weaponry from the 1600s through modern times - most of it developed there. There were two highlights to this tour. One, was the development of the GBU-28 "bunker buster" used in the first Gulf War which was made out of a surplus of old 8-inch artillery barrels taken from deactivated M110 howitzers - conceived, engineered and built in just 22 days, and the other highlight was one of the employees who took an interest in us (after overhearing Bill giving my boss and I his own tour) and took us off the tour to show us their newly restored belt-driven low-rpm Civil War era machine shop! He turned it on and everything started moving and spinning through a series of cranks, pulleys and gears. Everything was oiled and working. It was fascinating. He stamped our leather wallets with the official Civil War 'Watervliet Arsenal' stamp of that era. What a great tour! It also dawned on me that this was the first time I'd been anywhere where the civil war was from the Union perspective. Being from Texas, I'd only ever visited Confederate sites. Hindsight being 20/20, I probably should NOT have worn my 'General Lee' shirt to this event. Live and learn. I took a ton of pictures, but I offer you this, thanks to

photogoot's recent successes, a macro of a gravity-fed oiler circa 1860:

USS SLATER
If we were going to see what Albany had to offer today, I wanted to see the USS Slater, the only memorial/museum Destroyer Escort ship still afloat. My first ship was the USS Alabama. Later, I was onboard six aircraft carriers currently serving (and I saw the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor). This would be the smallest military ship I've toured. I was planning on just poking around and taking some snaps, but we were rushed over to a tour group just starting, and instead received a wonderful guided tour from a man who had served aboard a DE during WWII. You couldn't ask for a better guide:

THE COLLAGE
That collage everyone is doing. What's with all the porn? I laughed heartily at all the cocks that showed up on my friend's page - and luckily I had none of that - but I did an extensive collection of...um, women. Which is pretty funny, because I'm pretty boring and don't have a lot of interests. All I'm going to say here, is click at your own risk. You've been warned!

Yanked from Everyone on my friends page:

( My Interests Collage! )

Create your own! Originally Written By

ga_woo, Hosted and ReWritten by

darkman424

◾ Current Location: 12205
◾ Current Music: Hawaii 5-0 midi from my old geocitiesHawaii page

◾ Tags:

2006-09-09 18:21

Have only been getting a couple of hours of sleep a night. This gets very old, very fast. Our 14-hour days usually bleed over into a late dinner and discussing the project at the hotel. Speaking of hotels, we checked out Friday and moved next door to a hotel with very comfortable king-size beds. This has helped greatly. I actually slept something like seven hours last night. And tomorrow, we're not going in. I plan to sleep most of the day.

About Amsterdam...Several weeks ago there was a double-disc RAID failure and data was lost. Some corrupted files were retained in a dump, and because of the high visibility of this particular incident (which involved the State Authorities), one of the Division Presidents decided to send in some very expensive data-recovery professionals to asses the situation. After two days, the professionals exclaimed, "The data is lost and cannot be recovered." After they left, my boss began manipulating the file header info, and was able to un-corrupt the data. Unfortunately, there were 17,000 files lost across a four-month period of time. With nothing now to lose, the Division President agreed that we could make our attempt to recover the data. I think we've now done that. We should know for sure Monday after the apps guys get in and we get them to run some tests. Not just some of the data. All of the data. This will resound greatly for us, my company, and our client.

Not only am I having fun troubleshooting again and working with unix (well, cygwin in this case), but the people here are happy to see us. They appreciate the long hours we are putting in. They see that we are accomplishing things they were told was impossible. They think we are working miracles, and are thankful for us being here. This is so very different from working back home where my clients are never satisfied with any of the work we do for them, and constantly point out our shortcomings as to how we're not supporting them to their expectations. Its very frustrating, especially since we work our fingers to the bone for these people and they don't care, they just want more.

Special thanks to

drax0r who is a brilliant shell scripter and, for the first time since I've known him, awoke to answer the phone because he saw that I was calling and probably needed help. What a guy!

Picked up a Logitech MX-400 laser mouse today.

Ate at the NY 'Panchos' again.

Snatched from

oxy_irony:

My Personality


Neuroticism	0
Extraversion	70
Openness To Experience	3
Agreeableness	33
Conscientiousness	98

Test Yourself Compare Yourself View Full Report

MySpace Surveys, Bebo and MySpace Codes by Pulseware Survey Software

Wouldn't you know I couldn't sleep past 0600? I sat down to surf the web while my coffee was brewing, but my access code to the wireless network had expired. No big deal. I called the front desk by dialing '0.' I let it ring about 30 times. No answer. Hmmmm. I checked the phone: Front Desk...........0. I call again, and let it ring about 40 times. No answer. I'm trying to find some sort of reasoning behind this in my head. What exactly is going on down there? I make one more 20-ring attempt. Nothing. I get dressed and march downstairs to the front desk. There's a gentleman there. The weekend manager "Good morning." I said. "I tried to call."
He looks at the phone, and at me. Twice. "The phone hasn't rang all morning."
"Zero?" I ask. "To reach you?"
He stares at me for an uncomfortably long amount of time before saying, "I don't have any idea what you are trying to say."
I change my words, "I would dial zero from my room to get the front desk?"
More staring. Its as if I'm speaking another language. We move on. He tells me, "The phone here has not rang, sir. Look, there's the houseman." He points to the houseman. I turn to see the houseman. We're both now looking at the houseman. Somehow, looking at the houseman comforts this man, because now that he's pointed him out to me, we don't have to talk any more. The houseman sees us staring, and approaches. The manager asks the houseman, "The phone hasn't been ringing has it?"
The houseman replies, "Non-stop since about six. I paged you twice." Now that we've received input from the houseman, I feel we can get to the heart of the matter. I explain my dilemma and discover that the access codes roll over at 0100 on Sunday, and receive a new one.

[End 'Freak Show' scene one.]

Exit Stage Left.

◾ Current Location: 12205
◾ Current Music: Classical on the hotel alarm clock radio

◾ Tags:

2006-08-29 11:01

Have you ever noticed the zebras at the zoo always go to one area in their pen in which to poop? That always fascinated me.

I was the sole unix guy at a new data center we were standing up. I spent two weeks in the UK with the architects helping choose systems, assigning them IP addresses and hostnames. When I arrived back stateside I spent another two weeks building, racking, loading and installing these machines in the newly constructed data center, as well as deploying and installing 100 Sun U60 workstations. It was just myself and the sole Windows guy, working all day, everyday, to get this place up and running for its grand opening.

After all the employees showed up to start work at this new plant, we found that the two of us were woefully understaffed. We hired a Help Desk Technician. Our office had a very open floor plan - the build area was in one corner, and the three of us were in the other three corners. I had at my desk an XP box, a Sun U60, and an HP/UX box. The windows guy had two XP boxes, and our Help Desk guy, poor bastard, we made him build out his own XP box. We called him, "Danzig."

One day, we had an impromptu meeting. We wheeled our Herman Miller chairs to the center of the room and began talking about whatever issue we had going on. At one point, Danzig stood up, and walked to the corner of his desk, stood silently for a few seconds, then returned to his seat. We all just stared at him. "What was all that about?" the Windows guy asked.
"Sorry, I had to flatulate." He said.
"That is the most polite thing I've ever seen. I wish Eric would do that."

A few minutes after the meeting broke up and we were all back at our desks working, I stood from my workstation, walked over to the corner of Danzig's desk, and stood there adjacent him. Before anyone could ask me what I was doing, I broke wind, walked back to my desk and sat down. "OMG! Why did you do that?" Danzig asked?
"I was trying to be polite." I replied.

◾ Current Location: 63134
◾ Current Music: James Bond: Thunderball Soundtrack

◾ Tags:

stories,
tom_fav

2006-08-25 13:47

I recently watched the chic-flick Failure to Launch with my wife and

galinda822 during Movie Night. It wasn't a bad chic-flick. And I enjoyed watching Terry Bradshaw. I like Terry Bradshaw. But this was not always the case...

The Dallas Cowboys is America's Team. More people know the face of Tom Landry than they do of our own President, even in other countries. Long before our team was known for being in the slammer more than on the field, we played ball. Good ball. Football. We've made more Super Bowl appearances than any other team.

During my youth there were always two teams that would give us pause: The Philadelphia Eagles, and the Pittsburgh Steelers. This was back in the day when Roger Staubach, Number 12, quarterbacked for the Cowboys, and he was every kids hero. I was no exception. We were always nervous on game day, and during those late 70's, we always seemed to be going head-to-head with Pittsburgh. They'd snatched more than one Super Bowl win from us during the Big Game. Roger Staubach vs. Terry Brandshaw. He was everything my hero wasn't - uncouth, rude, loud, and had a mouth like a sailor. The antithesis of America's Team's Golden Boy! (Even daring to also wear the Number 12!)

My mother had heard a sermon on calling down righteous curses on people in this day and age by a young pastor. As is usual in sermons like this, every one heard something a little different. My mother thought on this long and hard. Then one day, during half-time, here comes Terry Bradshaw. I remember well his sweaty golden hair, missing teeth, and the black pit of death under his eyes. He even looked like a demon to me. And there he was cursing up a storm on National Television, and worse, using our Lord's name in vain. My mother had had enough! She called down a curse on this man to "Put a stop to his evil ways." This was probably 1978. He was injured and set out the rest of the game. My mother felt that she had been vindicated.

Of course when she relayed this story, she was highly chastised by her friends for this move, who heard the sermon in a different way.

Fast forward to 1986. My mother is in John Deer's Saginaw Implement store in Rhome, TX. She's having a bad hair day, feels like crap, and has to pick up a part for my father. She walks in and is surrounded by a bunch of cowboys. She HATES being the only woman in a place like this. She sits to wait for her part, and in walks...Terry Bradshaw (he has a small ranch out near us in Westlake, TX). He looks over at her, but she's so embarrassed at the stunt she pulled in 1978, she can't make eye contact with him! To add fuel to the fire, he's recently retired, and been depressed. He carries on with the other men about the extent of his injuries.

My mother quickly takes receipt of her part, and leaves.

◾ Current Location: 63134

◾ Tags:

2006-08-13 00:19

Every car has a story...Mine are just generally more amusing than others:

( 1968 Dodge Coronet 440 (1987-1992) )

( 1976 Volkswagen Scirocco (1992-Present) )

( 1968 Dodge Coronet 440 (1992-Present) )

( 1976 Jaguar 3.4 GT (1992-1993) )

( 1976 AM General DJ-5 (1993-1994) )

( 1995 Dodge Neon Highline (1994-1999) )

( 1999 Chrysler Sebring LXi (1999-2002) )

( 1992 Chevrolet Lumina Eurocoupe (2002-2004) )

( 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier LS (2004-2007) )

( 2007 Hyundai Tiburon GT (2007-Present) )

( 2010 Hyundai Genesis Coupe GT380 (2011-2012) )

( 2001 Mercury Grand Marquis GS (2012-Present) )

( 2002 Ford Ranger XLT SuperCab 4x4 (2016-2017) )

( 2016 Ford Flex Limited (2017-Present) )

A running editorial on my mad driving skillz can be found under the 'driving' tag http://ehowton.livejournal.com/tag/driving. Of particular interest is Pod-Racing on Interstate 30, Land Speed Record, and this excerpt from Looks like a Big Taco:

I pulled off the entrance ramp, having to adjust my speed to slip between two cars just after rush hour, accelerating to match. The car to my left was matching my speed, and since the car behind me had fallen back, I hit the brakes hard but quick, indicated once, and jerked the wheel to the left while flooring it to immediately draft behind the person previously to my left. A quick mirror check and I flew past him on the left with a single hit of the blinker, accelerating to prevent the person coming up behind me in the new lane from braking. One more hit of the blinker and I was back in the left right lane keeping the rev's up best I could as I coasted betwix two vehicles, one which was indicating to swing in behind me. With that nearly accomplished, I rechecked the mirror and hit the indicator, moving over one, accelerating, moving over again, this time into the far left lane, and took my place among the 80+ group! Had I 10" vented disc brakes, a 4-speed tranny and about 725 horsepower in that Cav, I could have accomplished this much easier. As it was, I'm pretty impressed I was able to pull off the delicate balance of maneuvering, maintaining RPM, and braking in an '02 stock LS model.

( 1968 Sears Suburban Lawn Tractor )

( 2002 Saturn LW300 aka 'The Wifemobile' (2002-2007) )

( 2006 Chrysler Pacifica Touring aka 'Gloria' (2009-Present) )

( 2007 GMC U-Haul )

◾ Current Location: 63114
◾ Current Music: The Road to Perdition Soundtrack

◾ Tags:

driving,
stories

2006-08-09 14:35

For about two days now, I have been trying to figure out what is the last thing on my mind. It's not an easy task because you have to think of all the first things on your mind, then the middle things on your mind, and then there's a lot of false hopes raised as you just think you're thinking of something else. For a while I thought it was "my sisters big toe," but then "ball peen hammer" occurred to me. I was about ready to write that down as the last thing on my mind when "foodelee-doodelee" struck me for some reason, and then in quick succession, "caraway seed," "twelve feet," and "dog pie." But then I realized how stupid I had been. The last thing on my mind was always, "The last thing on my mind." Every time I thought of something, I would check to see if it was "the last thing on my mind." So no matter what I thought of, it was always followed with, "the last thing on my mind." Therefore, according to the law of infinite regression, which says it is illegal for anything to repeat infinitely, the last thing on my mind is "the last thing on my mind."
-- Steve Martin, "Cruel Shoes"

GEICO called my wife to let her know we missed a payment. We don't have an account with GEICO.

LiveJournal avatars are an unwieldy beast. They all use the same filename. The 'Keyword' nomenclature becomes a misnomer at this point, as it suggests a memory aid, and nothing more. If you change the keyword, but keep the picture - lj replaces it with your default. If, however, you change the picture but keep the same keyword, it replaces it. Awkward. This of course only works with similar avatars you wish to replace. Most of this, I believe, could be worked-around if comments were allowed to be edited.

It was Christmas in Hampton, Virginia (...mama's in the kitchen cookin' collard greens...) and

photogoot's mother and brother were coming to visit! As I had the master bedroom and didn't sleep on a waterbed (ahem) I gladly gave up my bed so she would be comfortable during her visit. I washed the sheets, made sure my bed skirt was pleated in all the right places, swept the floor, straightened out my hand-knotted rug, but didn't have time to dust. I remember the aroma of scented apples in the apartment the day they arrived, bearing gifts. I took her bags and showed her to her room. She took one step on that rug and her leg slipped right out from underneath her. Paul nearly caught her, but she didn't fall. I do think she twisted something. She avoided the rug the rest of her stay there. During the end of her visit, she was at the mall and wanted to get me a little something for giving up my room that week. Paul suggested something practical. I got a sticky mat to go between the rug and the floor, and a feather duster. Thanks Paul's Mom!

Wife just called. 100 cigars were delivered today!

A beginning is a very delicate time. Know then, that is is the year 10191. The known universe is ruled by the Padishah Emperor Shaddam the Fourth, my father. In this time, the most precious substance in the universe is the spice Melange. The spice extends life. The spice expands consciousness. The spice is vital to space travel. The Spacing Guild and its navigators, who the spice has mutated over 4000 years, use the orange spice gas, which gives them the ability to fold space. That is, travel to any part of the universe without moving. Oh, yes. I forgot to tell you. The spice exists on only one planet in the entire universe. A desolate, dry planet with vast deserts. Hidden away within the rocks of these deserts are a people known as the Fremen, who have long held a prophecy that a man would come, a messiah, who would lead them to true freedom. The planet is Arrakis, also known as Dune.

◾ Current Location: 63134
◾ Current Music: The Fly/The Fly II soundtracks on repeat...

◾ Tags:

2006-08-08 09:46

You are walking down a country road. It is a quiet afternoon. You look up and far, far down the road you see someone walking toward you. You are surprised to have noticed someone so far away. But you keep walking, expecting nothing more than a friendly nod as you pass. He gets closer. You see he has bright orange hair. He is closer- a white sating suit spotted with colored dots. Closer-a painted white face and red lips. You and he are fifty yards apart. You, and a full-fledged clown holding a bicycle horn are twenty yards apart. You approach on the lonely country road. You nod. He honks and passes.
-- Steve Martin, "Cruel Shoes"

The core switch in our facility which is the fiber-backbone of our entire network blew out this morning bringing everyone down. This is not a small thing. Fortunately, the day before, we had identified a burning smell coming from the switch and it was hot to the touch, so we contacted the remote network guys and asked them to overnight us a new one. It arrived this morning, 30 minutes after the switch blew, fully configured. Swap GBICs, power on the unit, total downtime: 40 minutes. A severe outage that actually made us look good, like we know what we're doing. I love it when a plan comes together.

My back stopped hurting yesterday about 1500. Well, it evaporated to the point it was no longer my main focus. As I was mostly inanimate that day, my newfound evening-time energy level was over-the-top; a rare occurrence indeed. My wife was shell-shocked and hiding in the basement when I got home. Apparently, she stopped drinking coffee and had only decaffeinated tea during the day. She was completely listless. No worries, Super-Dad was home! I did a little of this, a little of that, danced a dance, then smoked some salmon on the grill. It was so good that both the children ate all of theirs, and asked for seconds. WOW! Later that evening, after I'd read to the children and tucked them into bed, the wife and I stayed up and played HGTV's Mission: Organization in the basement and tried to maximize our living area by shifting our paradigm of expectations and events. Even straight lines became blurred as we laid out the battlefield! At 0045 it was time to throw in the towel with much progress having been made.

From a meme on

swashbuckler332's site:

Made out with someone on your friends list?
No... but I certainly wouldn't mind with some of them... (stop looking so hopeful, ehowton, I'm not talking about you).

Alas, shot down again...

How cool is this: My wife asks me about digitizing all our music, and making it available wirelessly throughout the house. Wow! What a dream come true! I start with the plasma HDTV required for the new mac mini using iLife '06 and it's built-in wireless, sharing out the second 160GB drive she suggested I purchase to hold our (approximately) remaining 10,000 songs. I explained that most of the infrastructure was already in place to do this, we'd just require the second mini and the television as the big-ticket items. Her goal, in part - was to get rid of the physical media, my 2500 CD's. I explain corporate backup strategy and relate it to the CD's being our 'backup' in case of catastrophic failure, conceding that I would gladly pack them up and store them away for archival purposes. I also explained the time involved in bringing such a project to fruition. She wasn't disenchanted with any part of my oration, which is always a good sign. She also wanted to move toward a better surround-system, which I managed to talk up a more expensive version of what we currently have, without breaking the $500 range. Ta-friggin-da!

I'm sorry. My responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.

◾ Current Mood: FANTASTIC!
◾ Current Location: 63134
◾ Current Music: The Fly/The Fly II soundtracks on repeat...

◾ Tags:

2006-08-03 17:35

My wife's cousin's husband is a salesman for Big Dog motorcycles. He came to Irving, Texas in early '99 for an expo at Market Hall. Afterward, we drove out to Saltgrass Steakhouse for dinner, then he announced to my wife and I that he had some PR to do at a bar named Easyriders (later changing its name to 'Strokers' in 2003) and would we like to attend? Sure, sounds like fun. I hadn't been to a bar in several years (I used to spend a lot of time at the VFW in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, as I was a card-carrying member). Well friends, Easyriders was nothing like the VFW.

Everyone there was a biker, and in leather, studs, tassels, or all three. I was completely out of place. I did, therefore, what I do best in these situations - I lit up a cigar and started drinking beer. This blond in a very revealing leather bra-like thing and skin-tight leather pants sits next to me at the table, across from my wife and her cousin and starts visiting with us. Apparently her and my wife's cousin's husband knew each other. Every time she spoke to me, and I turned to look at her, all I could see was cleavage. It was difficult making eye contact with her. I started sweating. My wife and her cousin, however, stared directly at her breasts with mouths agape. I was jealous at this apparent double-standard.

It had begun to rain outside, and the ceiling dripped in places, one of those places being directly to the right of this woman. She kept inching closer to me to get away from the drops. Finally, she put her hand on my leg as she was telling the story of her being on Oprah the week before during her 'makeover' series, in which her hair had gone from straight down her back, to adult-film star big hair.

I excused myself and went to the restroom. Standing at the urinal, there's an issue of 'Easy Rider' magazine behind Plexiglas at eye level, bolted to the wall with the girl I'm sitting next to on the cover. I return to my seat and ask, "Are you Ms. Easy Rider 1998?" She was, and pulled out an 8x10 glossy and signed it for me.

I've not been to a bar since.

It has been suggested that my gastronomical distress might have been caused by my over-indulgence at the ice cream social the day before. I agreed. And to test that theory, I over-indulged again today is response to the email asking that we eat the rest of the ice cream until it was gone. I'll let you know the results of my experiment.

Just a reminder that as

drax0r will be out of town until Tuesday,

jesskd26 won't be posting for five (5) days. "She" will magically begin posting again once he arrives back from his trip. "She" will have been 'busy' during his absence.

Thank you.

◾ Current Location: 63134
◾ Current Music: Paul Oakenfold: Tranceport

◾ Tags:

stories

2006-07-27 17:57

I volunteered for duty in Saudi Arabia in August of 1994 while working at the 480th Intelligence Group at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia because I thought it would be something fun to do! I rec'd my orders two weeks later. Most everyone told me I would hate it, and that I was crazy for volunteering. I dismissed them as I do most people who are negative and lack any real imagination. I flew to Shaw, AFB in Sumter, South Carolina for a three-day orientation before flying to Frankfurt, Germany via Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By luck of the draw, I flew first class the entire way there. When we landed in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, it was night, and cool. We were driven directly to the mess hall and had midnight chow. I was shown to my quarters in Khobar Towers (which were later bombed in 1996 killing 19 Airman), and slept.

ehowton

The next morning, everything was normal. I dressed in my desert camouflage battle dress uniform (BDU's) which I had rec'd during a three-month temporary duty assignment at USCENTCOM at MacDill AFB in Tampa, Florida the previous year and began in-processing. I was assinged a meal card, four more pairs of desert cami's, and a velcro patch with my name and rank on it. Everything stopped being normal the moment I stepped out the door. It was 125-degrees! Damn hot. Oddly enough, though the force of the heat stopped me in my tracks, I quickly acclimated, as there was no sweat involved. The intensity of the heat evaporated any moisture right from the skin, leaving you feeling slightly salty, yet cool. I now ritualistically mock those who ignorantly believe dry heat is just as bad as humid heat - they have no idea. I was beginning the USAF's 14th Rotation since the end of the ground war. I was following my uncle's footsteps. He was over here for over a year in the thick of it, as a supply officer, Chief Warrant Officer, Third Class (CWO3) United States Army. After my first day, watching the sun go down over Khobar Towers from the airstrip, I felt such a longing for home. What the hell was I doing here? Three months? I WASN'T GOING TO LAST THREE DAYS! It was the single most foreign thing I had ever seen or done, and I felt such longing for familiarity. Three months was going to be intolerable! Except...it wasn't. Except for that one moment (which I recall vividly to this day), I had a blast in Saudi Arabia.

ehowton & the RAF

I was in a very unique position in Saudi, as I was attached to the Royal Air Force Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre as liaison. I had no direct reporting USAF official, and was at the mercy of my RAF superiors. As I had spent several years in the United Kingdom previously, it took no time at all making friends among my new coworkers. We were kindred spirits. Over the next three months I went digging for the desert rose, learned how to critique handmade rugs, learned how to read the numbers one through 10 in Arabic, and fell in love (in my head) with a French Air Force Intelligence Officer (as the Brits hate the French and vise-versa, they used me, their liason, to interact with her.) She was funny, attractive, and possbily the only woman within 100 miles I wouldn't get castrated over talking to.

ehowton & the French Intelligence Officer

I was scheduled to fly out the weekend before Thanksgiving. Since I would not be flying to Texas, and had no family in Virginia, I made up my mind to give up my seat so some married serviceman could go home. This was going to extend me another month. As it was so very hot there, I had to run my three-miles daily after about 2200, when the temperature would plummet to the high-90's. At this point, bearable. I used to run around Khobar Towers, jealous of the rollerbladers who flew past me! I bought a pair from an airman who was leaving, strapped them on, and off I went! I was then jealous of all the runners who flew past me! Oddly enough, I can ice skate, but not rollerskate. I was told that rollerblading was like ice skating. That was a lie. I sold them to an airman who had just arrived. I was 190 pounds in Saudi. As far as I could tell, Khobar Towers got their water supply directly from the (then) Arabian Gulf. The salt content was so high, that after a shower, you felt much as you did before your shower. Very salty. All the water we drank was bottled, and there were pallets of water all over base, so that no matter where you were, you could drink. In case you got caught off base, everyone carried bleach tablets with them. One tablet per litre, 15 minutes to activate. Then you could drink the water. Thankfully, I never had use for mine.

Saudi Women

Concerning Saudi women, and as a Texan, I found this very difficult, you're not allowed to acknowledge them. Do not hold the door open for them, do not even show you know they are there. If you do, you can be arrested. The last thing I wanted to do was go to jail in this place. What's worse, is making eye contact with them. NEVER EVER make eye contact with a female. That's another punishable offense. It gets worse. Even if you do accidently acknowledge them, or make eye contact - you must NEVER speak to them. EVER. Bad, bad news. That's an offense that can get you thrown out of the country overnight to save you from the Saudi penal system. And the holy grail of offenses? THERE SHALL BE NO PHYSICAL CONTACT. Don't ever touch a Saudi woman. These things were drilled into us from Day One. It just so happened I left base to do a little shopping at Safeway. Yes, they have a Safeway. It wasn't just any Safeway. They had the best of the best of the best each nation had to offer. Brazilian bananas, Belgian chocolates, the cream of each nation's GNP. I was behind this Saudi woman in the line. I had never seen an abaya (the black head-to-toe raiment they wear) this nice before, nor had I before been this close to a Saudi woman. Her entire outfit was threaded with gold, with the English word "Lady" embroidered in gold on her veil. I found myself staring at her eyes. Women in the United States know nothing about eye makeup. As this is the only part of a woman you are allowed to see (outside of possibly her hands) they take great care to highlight them with layers of beautifully sculpted tones of eyeshadow. I was mesmerized. The she made eye contact with me! I looked away, embarrassed. Soon, however, I found myself staring again. She again made eye contact with me! I was getting sloppy, and frightened. I didn't look again. Fortunately, a distraction. Several women had come up behind me, and asked in Arabic if they could put their items with hers, so they wouldn't have to stand in line. She agreed and I stepped back allowing the exchange to take place. (I couldn't understand Arabic, but it was obvious what was going on.) Then they tried to give her money to pay for the items, but she wouldn't accept. They tried again, but again, she turned them down. Then the "Lady" in front started speaking to me! (In Arabic, I didn't understand what she was saying). I looked away and turned. When I turned back, she spoke to me again! The man at the checkout was having a fit and began yelling. I looked away and turned again. Finally, the women behind me said in perfect English, "She wants to know if you would like her to pay for your items as well?" OMG! What was I to do? NEVER speak to a Saudi woman... The man at the counter was banging his hand on the checkout lane and now screaming. I shook my head no. But the women behind me asked yet again. Finally, under my breath, I managed a tight, "No thank you." That was it, the man was livid! Screaming and banging his fists now on the counter. That was when it happened. Looking straight at me, the "Lady" in front of me...touched me. I froze. The single most horrifying event in Saudi wasn't Operation Vigilant Warrior which was taking place around me as the Iraqi's amassed their forces on the demarcation line, no, it was what occurred in that Safeway. She exited, and the man begrudgingly checked me out with the evil eye on me the entire time. I felt lucky to escape the grocery store alive.

My new Nationality

There were many perks to being a Brit in Saudi. US Servicemen weren't allowed to leave country overnight. As a 'Brit' I was given documentation indentifying me as British Nationality. The Queen allowed us five days R&R every 22 days, and put us up in a five-star hotel in Bahrain, where we could eat likes Kings and attempt to drink the Nation dry. That's how I got my $75 free Steinlager T-shirt. That is, drink 10-pints of Steinlager, get a free T-shirt. The drinks in Bahrain were $7.50 a pint, hence, my $75 free T-shirt. I went twice, spending a total of 10-days in Bahrain. I kept up with many of my comrades (including the French Intelligence Officer) for several years. If SAC Dave Loose or Chief Technician Nick Town (ret.) is reading this, please contact me.

ehowton & the VC-10

Refueling Tornado's from the VC-10

My next flight out of Saudi was near. This one was the weekend prior to Christmas. For the same reasons above, I gave my seat up once again. Another month in Saudi. Our Squadron was invited to participate in a Tornado refueling mission. We boarded the giant VC-10 which had been refitted to be a huge flying gas tank. All the seats were stripped out, save for a dozen or so for aircrew. All the seats in VC-10 face the rear of the aircraft. Once we reached altitude, Tornado's started coming from the left and right. The drag-chutes were deployed, and the pilots had to insert their off-center refueling probe into the chutes. Not an easy feat at 30,000 feet! I was in the jump seat in the cockpit during landing. The Brits handed me a video camera to record the event. Bahrain is a long, thin island. As we approached, I was mortified to see that the airstrip was perpendicular to the length of the island! I could see both shores, one just prior to the airstrip, and the other just as it ended. Apparently, I was the only one harrowed by the orientation, as the aircrew had a good laugh over my incredulity.

Tornado's Reconnaissance View of refueling activity

Another unique aspect of being attached to the RAF was the vehicle situation. Each US Group rec'd one vehicle. Rather, the Officer In Charge (OIC) got it. If he wasn't using it that evening, then the next highest ranking officer got it, and so on. It was rare that anyone of my rank ever got to drive. They had a bus that would ferry airmen to and from base. The first thing the RAF did was issue me a Ministry of Defense driver's license, and allowed me pick of the entire fleet of cars they had onsite. Now, Saudi's are some CRAZY drivers, and I fit right in. Needless to say, I was quite popular with the US Airmen, always having a vehicle as my dispense. I rec'd mail through the APO (military post) system, and my father wrote me every single day that I was in Saudi. My girlfriend wrote me every other day...scented letters nonetheless. The US servicemen and women there were always quite jealous of this E4 who got letters everyday, had his own car, and didn't answer to seemingly anyone! Little did they know I did get my ass chewed on a couple of occasions by my British superiors. It was always quite humorous, being yelled at by someone with an accent, but I always wondered if they were going to hit me - which as far as I knew was perfectly acceptable behavior overseas. They never did.

During one of my trips to Bahrain, the Brits were very excited to take me to the "T-Shirt Shop" in the mall. I kept asking why they were so excited, but they never said a thing. However, on the escalator ride up to the second floor, all of them began thumping their cocks through their jeans. It was a most disturbing sight. I couldn't imagine what they were up to. All of them, thumping their cocks. We walked into the store in the mall, and were led through beads handing from the ceiling. These very attractive Philippine women emerged. Each of us was approached, groped (in a 'heft' sort of measurement) and lined up according to 'size.' The reasoning behind the incessant thumping was becoming clear. Once we were lined up, another woman came out with a backscratcher, and toyed with our members through our jeans. We each received a kiss on the very corner of the lips, and a business card. We were then escorted out. The Brits loved the expression on my face and boasted about who ended up at the head of the line. Very interesting indeed.

I had a great time, learned a lot, and am so thankful I didn't listen to assholes who would have prevented me from going because they'd heard it sucked. Now that's not to say that some of them didn't go and hated it - but those are the types of surly bastards that hate everything about life, no matter where they are, or what they're doing.

That's just not how I operate.

◾ Current Location: 63114
◾ Current Music: Lord of War soundtrack

◾ Tags:

2006-07-18 19:53

Buying a PS2 for my boy Saturday. Mostly just to play all the old PS1 games, though I do want to get GT4...

Rec'd my Netgear FR328S today. Will hopefully have configured in the next few weeks to get my Solaris box back online. Might be getting a little help from almost-offical CCNA

unixwolf.

Slept like a baby last night, and the night before. That's always good.

Smoked a micro-brisket this weekend. Haven't found any 20lb. briskets here yet. Used 'Jack Daniels smoking pellets' along side my hickory chips. It was a little over cooked (3 hours smoking, 2 hours at 200-degrees foil-wrapped in the oven) but I was unsure how long to cook a brisket so tiny.

Watched JSA: Joint Security Area with the wife this weekend. It was my second viewing. I didn't notice any 'second storyline' during the second viewing, but I did come to understand the ending. Good flick. Drama.

I'm not mopey, I'm 'non-enthusiastic.'

Enjoyed the movie Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Val Kilmer's lines were the highlight of that movie. He was fantastic, and I always enjoy the penal system letting Robert Downey, Jr. out to make a movie. "I don't think you'd know where to put food at, if you didn't flap your mouth so much. Yes I think you're stupid."

So I noticed SCI-FI was playing 16 episodes of Amazing Stories, which I missed on laserdisc when they were available. I tivo'd them all to later burn onto DVD until I read in Sci-Fi magazine that they've just released the DVD-Box set. Damn. Might have to pick those up instead.

So last night, as I was still in the smoking mood, I smoked some bratwurst for about an hour, then grilled them up to finish. Had them with grated horseradish and a Californian Pinot Noir. Most excellent.

Rec'd a request to photograph my Minolta X-700. I asked, "Which lens?" The answer was a 50mm, or something understated as to not overhwhelm the subject of the shot, the body of the camera itself. I dug out my camera and lenses to put it together for the shot, but couldn't find my 50mm lens. Hmmm. Thought maybe I'd sold it...then I remembered:

We were having a garage sale. We'd done pretty well. I started to get bored, and hot. So I started drinking. Next thing you know, I'm hugging my next door neighbor and giving him one of the X-700's with the 50mm lens!

Moral of the story:
Always stay sober at your own garage sales.

They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years and we're not using it anymore.

Tonight my wife marinated an enitre bag of boneless chicken breasts in olive oil and a variety of spices, and de-silked and wrapped 5 ears of fresh corn in foil with olive oil. I set my bag of Jack Daniel's Smoking Pellets on one burner at high, turned two on low, and kept the other off. Atop the burner which was off, I laid out the corn, and smoked/grilled the breasts on the low burners. About halfway through, I turned the burner under the corn on low as well. Pulled the chicken off at 180-degrees. Enjoyed with a (Californian) Barefoot White Zinfandel.

Everything was perfect, but the corn had no 'smoke' flavor to it, so....will consider 'grilling' the corn sans foil next time.

◾ Current Mood: non-enthusiastic
◾ Current Location: 63114
◾ Current Music: Yello: Baby; Neil Young: Harvest Moon

◾ Tags:

2006-07-11 20:27

This, from Amazon.com:

Please note that the price of [one of many CD's in my wish] has decreased from $13.99 to $13.98 since you placed it in your Shopping Cart. Items in your cart will always reflect the most recent price displayed on their product detail pages.

"By Grapthar's Hammer...what a savings."

Wife needed some books from Amazon.com. I used that opportunity to order:

Aliens Soundtrack, Special Edition (Remastered)

The Fly & The Fly II (thanks to lehah's engaging review in filmscore)

Paid for my router I got on eBay on the advice of

unixwolf. Soon, very soon, my Solaris box will be online. I now have a fantastic slackware box I have no use for. I wonder what trouble I can get myself into with it...

Been enjoying the hell outta

leonardii since he's emerged again from the primordial ooze which is Blogger. And I'm thrilled the unixwolf has been more verbose here lately as well. You are the wind beneath my wings.

My dissertation on

swashbuckler332's Sonorous post (an insight to me):

I used to believe that classical music alone should reside on CDs when they were first released. What else could possibly utilize the full-range of this new media? What goes higher and lower and is more layered than classical music?

Of course I was limited in my thinking then, and have come to appreciate much, much, more - but I always fancied myself a music lover rather than an audiophile (an old magazine I used to get delivered from the states to Germany when I was there, CD Review stated once, "A music lover uses his system to show off music, an audiophile uses music to show off his system.") nonetheless I owned an impressive system.

Being overseas and hearing so many people older than me, married with bills, bemoaning their current stereo systems always said, "Someday I'm gonna get..." and I just got sick and tired of that. I never wanted to live in mediocrity. So I hand-chose the best components I could afford, and over time, built a $10,000 system. Now then, being young, (and foolish) I had not factored in what was probably the most important facet of my brilliant plan - this shit was someday going to be old! Alas, I am now a married man (with bills) and one by one, each of my top-of-the-line components have broken beyond repair and I am left with a shadow of my former system. My Bose MediaMate computer speakers lasted 11 years before they gave up the ghost, and they are gone as well now. "Someday, I tell myself...someday." I am now what I once despised.

Truth is, where I am in life right now does not necessitate a system of such grandeur. I don't have the cycles to sit for hours on end any more and listen to entire symphonies. When I moved from Dallas last year I went from a 3-hour daily commute to one lasting approximately 15 minutes. I don't even get to enjoy music in the car like I used to. So I'll get back to where I was once I am able to enjoy it. I'm not bitter...life is funny and I feel sorry for the poor sods who choose not to enjoy it.

Reading your description of the fireworks in Manhattan lead me to express (The reason for the preamble comes to light!) that not even my uber-system could recreate actually sitting in a performance hall feeling each and every one of the instruments in an orchestra performing a full symphony no matter how hard they try. Often, live performances contain errors and errant notes - but that usually matters only on the recording, as the enormity of the experience waxes irrelevant when enjoying in person.

Alas, I don't often go these days - and I'm more likely to want to attend the playing of a score than a classical symphony nowadays. But perhaps that's something I'll get back to when life allows it.

As my responsibilties increase, things which were important to me in the past lose their priority, and I understand that will be a living, breathing, changing thing. If I get to play a game of Monopoly with my wife and kids on a day off - I'll take that any day of the week and twice on Sunday...just know I'll have something instrumental playing softly in the background.

◾ Current Mood: Getting there...
◾ Current Location: 63114
◾ Current Music: Alien Resurrection

◾ Tags:

2006-07-07 16:13

You see Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.

Every once in a while - not often mind you - I simply cannot handle the fact that every single user in this building sincerely believes that IT should be responsible for the contents and information which might be relevant to the success and well being of their corporate health and personal job security BECAUSE IT IS CONTAINED ON EITHER A MICROSOFT WORD DOCUMENT, AN EXCEL DOCUMENT OR TRANSMITTED VIA EMAIL!

Don't... don't care?

As a 36-year-old IT Manager, I guess the Dell Catalog isn't really geared toward me. I ran across a two-page ad on their new XPS desktops and laptops which read, (lower case 'g') "get right up in their grill." After asking around, I discovered that today's youth who primarily associate themselves with the "hip-hop" lifestyle, now wear jewelry on their teeth. In my limited understanding of these things, they apparently transform your mouth into something which represents the front grill of a car. So in fact, if you were to purchase this XPS, and game on it, you could in fact "get up in your [opponents] teeth." (possibly face but I'm unclear on the distinction.) Fantastic!

...time passes.

One of my Desktop guys places the song 'Grillz' by some rapper named 'Nelly' on my computer and auto-launches it for me. Nice.

It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime, so where's the motivation? And here's another thing, I have eight different bosses right now.

Two nights ago (I don't know why I never managed to write what I actually dreamed the night before) I dreamed that my father and I were cleaning the house, or a shed or something, and we found a like-new, perfectly functioning record player which was simply dusty. We cleaned it up and it sparkled! We hooked it up to the computer and ripped his LP of Boys from Brazil. What a nice dream! I think I'm obsessing about that soundtrack. I even did a title search on DirecTV to see if it was in the wings (of course it wasn't). Bah!

Eight?

It's been a busy, stressful week at work. I arrive home exhausted every evening, and here lately not at all on time. Wednesday night I grilled (get right up in their grill) chicken and my wife prepared a bed of salad to place it on. It was fantastic. We drank a bottle of spatlese with dinner, then sat on the back deck and smoked cigars while the kids played inside. Last night, it was the same chicken on a bed of mixed carrot and spinach couscous with straw mushrooms - again, fantastic. Then cigars & brandy on the deck while watching the children swim. That really does help take the stress out of my day.

Eight, Bob. So that means when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.

The real-live Bob's we're currently dealing with have created a website which allows us to put in our time in 15 minute intervals. As dumb as that sounds by itself, the web page they've created times out every 15 minutes and requires another login. How ignorant is that? So - the guy who mocks me openly with "what do you use that linux box for anyway, huh?" (which I had to give up to put on a users desktop a few weeks ago) asks me, "What can we do about this?" To which I reply, "If I had my linux box..." so I'm thinking of trying one of

drax0r's wget scripts, possibly trying to encapsulate username and password in a secure socket layer to play keep alive. I don't know if it will work, but I'll give it a shot. Assholes.

Robert William Kramer
1944 - 2006
Robert William Kramer, 60, passed away Saturday, July 1, 2006, in Arlington.

Funeral: 1 p.m. Saturday, July 8, in Arlington Funeral Home Chapel.

Memorials: Texas Girls Choir, 4449 Camp Bowie Blvd., Fort Worth, Texas 76109.

Robert was the son of E.W. and Dorothy Kramer of O'Neill, Neb. A 1962 graduate of O'Neill High School, he attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln in 1971.

Robert served in the National Guard 1962-1966. He retired in November 2005 from National Cartography and GEO Spacial Center, Fort Worth.

He was a loving father and grandpa. He will be fondly remembered.

Survivors: Son, Cathan and wife, Gale, of Burleson; daughters, Lauriann and husband, Dusty, of Arlington and Caitlin of Fort Worth; Granddaughter, Robyn; brothers, Tom of Los Angeles, Calif., and Todd and Bruce of Lincoln, Neb.; and sisters, Beth of Minneapolis, Minn., and Rene of O'Neill, Neb.

One of my first jobs at my last client was to put Big Brother monitoring on all the servers there. I was given my own box to build-out as I desired and to just 'make it happen.' That's what I do, so no big deal. There were four boxes I did not have root access to, so I emailed the owner of the box asking for privileges so I could accomplish my task. The next day, I get this nasty email back from this surly bastard, "Don't you touch my boxes. Don't you ever touch my boxes!" Hmmmm. Taken back a bit, I ask around. "Oooooh, that's Bob. Don't mess with Bob." It seems he'd been in government service so long, and was so surly, that every one was afraid of him.

Not one to back down from a challenge, I peer over at his desk - messy to be sure - and get the lay of the land...lots of empty coffee cups. I bring in some cream & sugar the next day just in case. I make a strong pot of coffee at my desk and have a cup. When that's finished, I pick up my pot and announce, "I have a pot of fresh Starbucks I can't finish, would any one like a top off? You sir?" As I peer into his cube. He accepts and I introduce myself. When he tells me his name, I mention, "Oh of course, you sent me that email..."

We became (not 'tight' exactly) but he came to respect my opinion and I often consulted with him. He sure was a surly bastard - to those who were afraid of him, but never to us, the unix guys on his team.

Take care Bob.

◾ Current Mood: blech
◾ Current Location: 63114
◾ Current Music: Valley of the Kings score

◾ Tags:

2006-07-04 22:00

My grandfather was born George Washington Howton on the 4th of July. He was a cowboy through and through. Born in Pampa, Texas he served in the Army before what is generally assumed among family as a dishonerable discharge - we don't know because we never asked him, and he never talked about it. He was a cook in the Army and gave me this advice before leaving for Korea, "You can trade a pound of coffee for some poontang." Very disturbing news coming from my grandfather I don't mind admitting. Never without his Stetson, he always proclaimed that he'd drink a bottle of whiskey and eat a bullet if he ever got too old to enjoy life. Which is exactly what he did Christmas 1997.

Dreamed last night I was back in the Air Force. Lots of standing in line in this dream.

The entire family played "Escape from the Deathstar Action Figure Board Game" before the kids went outside to play with friends. Wife and I played a rousing game of "Star Wars Episode I Monopoly" yes, a gift from

celtmanx. When we were poor and living in a one-bedroom apartment in Jersey, we always played "Star Wars Trilogy Monopoly" but Episode I is a very nice Deluxe Edition game. It's funny to watch my wife get frustrated. That is, until she made herself a Bali Trader and mellowed completely out...

Burned off my entire iTunes directory and reformatted that USB drive with Mac OSX's Extended Journaled filesystem. Since I've already cleaned up the ID3 tags, I'll be able to just re-import what I want in there for the time being. I really wonder if I'll need anything on there but soundtracks. Also found the 8-CD collection of Charmed for the wife. All eight season soundtracks. She's been wanting them, but I could only find one-off's at the store. This will be nice for her.

Then I drank some cocktails and watched Nanny McPhee, grilled up some din-din, and watched King Arthur (Clive Owen & Keira Knightley) and it was as good as celtmanx said it was. And, as an aside, I found it interesting that both movies contained actors from Gosford Park! (Kelly MacDonald in the former...)

Hope you all had a great 4th.

Update as of June 2006 -
Uncle Lonnie told me that George was given an honorable discharge and records were expunged. Pat varified this and said there was a small wallet size honorable discharge card he carried in his wallet. I have not found it yet. All the written articles make him sound guilty
but Lonnie was there when it happened. I just discovered this when I started work on the Howton scrapebook in May.

John (1852)
George (1882)
George (1917)
Brian (1943)
Eric (1969)
[my son] (2000)

◾ Current Location: 63114

◾ Tags:

2006-06-19 19:12

I think you sell yourself too short. Don't forget that you're also Fatass, the Destroyer.

That reminds me of a story.

The wife was gone for a week or so, visiting her parents in Wichita. Tony and I took a long, holiday weekend and drank quite a bit of Buffalo Trace (Not available in STL) while lounging in the pool.

After a considerable amount, my hefty friend thought he could run (in itself a feat), jump (this I'd never seen), and clear (unthinkable!) the pool. After much deliberation and consideration, I sat on his glasses and crushed them under my fat ass.

Then he made good on his claim:

To watch full-motion video of both of us fat asses jumping into the pool, visit the Water Buffalo Trace website!

◾ Current Mood: Fantastical
◾ Current Location: 63114
◾ Current Music: Spongebob Squarepants

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2006-06-19 11:22

Saturday night I dreamed I was a vagrant in Germany, living out of my 1968 Dodge Coronet 440 which I had had shipped over during my heyday. I was sitting behind the wheel marvelling at my past accomplishments and wondering what had gone so wrong with my life when I found some photographs I had taken so long ago I forgot they existed, yet there they were - a series of blurry photographs I had taken ages ago of Glinda, the Good Witch of the North transforming into the Wicked Witch of the West...all from the perspective of my side-view mirror. They were scandalous as they proved who the Wicked Witch really was, and I had proof, there in my hands. A plain-clothes German polizei reached his hand in my open window and peeled away my Texas inspection sticker and crumbled it up. I didn't need it ever since getting my two Missouri windshield stickers. I jumped out of the car. It was a major I used to know in the Air Force, Major Elsnau. He looked like he'd hit hard times, an alcoholic trying to keep it together. He was a German Inspector now. My '68 Dodge was now a pool-cleaning van, and it was filled with pool-cleaning supplies and some dear friends. We had a good time, visiting and laughing, and trying to organize a heist with Elsnau's help, but he was reluctant. Pretty soon, everyone became disgruntled with me and left, and I sat alone, in my pool-cleaning van, in Germany, getting ready to lay on the floor of the van and go to sleep.

Last night however, I dreamed that this new senior VP of one of our remote sites wanted our Headquarters to install some IT equipment for him. A couple of printers.

galinda822 was against the idea, but I wanted to meet with the guy. We drove out to the lake and people were on jet-ski's of varying sizes and operating capabilities having fun in the water, and here comes this guy wearing a suit and tie. He introduces himself to us and we follow him into a cabin's conference room. There are three chairs by a small coffee table, and one by the fireplace. As Manager, I choose the chair directly in front of him, so we can talk terms, leaving the chair adjacent him for galinda, who tells me, "Fine, I'll sit over here." And she sulks by the fireplace. I had no idea why she was so mad. He wants us to install some printers at his remote site, a wooded area surrounding a lake in Texas. galinda thinks its a horrible idea because one, we're not responsible for installing remote equipment and two, she's afraid we'll ultimately become responsible for it's upkeep...but all I can think of ia riding jet-ski's on the lake in the midst of a wooded area in Texas...But then the lights go dark and we're in a theatre watching a humorous movie about a several cosmopolitan city-slickers trying to survive as they're lost in the woods. It's both endearing and horrifying! I text message galinda who's still sitting by the fireplace in the theatre. The men on the big screen are finally rescued, and taken to a hospital, where I sit among them, one of the victims. We talk amongst ourselves about what went wrong. Soon, however, we get split up, divided, and lost...in this very large hospital. As I take it upon myself to regroup everyone, I slowly begin to panic. But then I find the last person, and instead of bringing him back to the group, we sit and watch a movie in his room. Upon conclusion of the movie, I take him back to the group - who's once again missing! After miles of hallways and twists and turns, I find the group of men. Every one of them lined up against the wall on a gurney wearing a hospital robe, on their knees with their ass in the air, exposed. I walk by ten brown-eyes winking at me thinking, "As soon as I walk into the doctor's office, my asshole will be lined up there with the rest of them." And I sigh with resignation as I walk in.

One, two
One, two
Microphone check
Groove is Strong
It'll break your neck
In two
Or maybe three parts
True to the blood
And straight to the heart.

◾ Current Mood: Done.
◾ Current Location: 63134
◾ Current Music: Snap: World Power

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2006-06-18 22:32

060616_1730 Depart work, listen to BSG on the way home.
060616_1740 Wife meets me at the door with an ice cold Corona.
060616_1750 Order Chinese, change clothes.
060616_1830 Finish dinner.
060616_1900 Start Flightplan.
060616_2100 Start 4th installment of Revelations mini-series.
060616_2230 Bed.
060616_2300 Blissful sleep.
060617_0900 Wake.
060617_0930 Coffee, emails, blog, shower, dress, breakfast.
060617_1030 Depart house.
060617_1045 Arrive Carol House furniture store to peruse the selection.
060617_1150 Arrive Ruby Tuesday's. Order the ALL-U-CAN-EAT salad bar.
060617_1230 Home to pick up gift we forgot.
060617_1300 Arrive Brunswick Zone for neighbor kid's birthday-party.
060617_1301 Start drinking beer, Bud Select on draft.
060617_1430 Depart party.
060617_1500 Arrive Dillards at the Galleria...4th floor, furniture.
060617_1600 Arrive Lay-Z-Boy.
060617_1645 Arrive IHOP. Order the chicken-fried steak skillet.
060617_1730 Arrive Weekends Only.
060617_1800 Arrive Value City.
060617_1845 Arrive home.
060617_1950 Check emails, blog.
060617_2000 Start Goblet of Fire
060617_2100 Rid XP box of trojan.
060617_2200 Bed.
060617_2230 Blissful sleep.
060618_0830 Wake.
060618_0900 Coffee, emails, blog.
060618_0930 Shower, dress, breakfast, mow lawn.
060618_1050 Depart house.
060618_1115 Arrive Target.
060618_1215 Arrive Lone Star Steakhouse. Order dreadful steak nachos.
060618_1345 Arrive home, call Dad.
060618_1415 Watch Food Networks "Build a better burger" competition.
060618_1510 Update blog, scooby-snack, play Hot Wheels with children.
060618_1800 Finish Goblet of Fire.
060618_1830 Grill salmon, while smoking a cigar and drinking a Tecate.
060618_1930 Scan some pics of when I was in Germany for my buddy, then called him.
060618_2045 Added Google Chat to Adium using my gmail logon information - played Power Rangers with my son.
060618_2145 Read to both my children, then put them to bed.
060618_2230 Post. Bed.
( My arrogance )
( Baiting TheTheologian )
( Father's Day )

January 12, 1991 - I receive my first stripe, bringing me from the rank of Airman Basic to Airman at Goodfellow Air Force Base, San Angelo, Texas.

That's me on the left.

◾ Current Mood: So tired
◾ Current Location: 63114
◾ Current Music: Power Rangers Generations

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2006-06-10 15:29

Want to take the kids to see Cars this weekend. Don't know if I'll get a chance. I know the theater will be packed with screaming children, and that will make me angry. And that they'll tag-team me for restroom breaks. Still, I'd love to take them. We downloaded the HD trailers a couple of days ago and watched them over and over.

Once upon a time, during in Air Force days, my roommate had recently gotten married, and his wife's arrival was pending. She would need a car. He needed something cheap. I suggested - just for a test drive, just in case it wasn't as bad as we assumed it was - the Geo Metro. I'm in the back seat, my roommate is driving, and the salesman is in the passenger seat. As we're driving, I ask the gentleman, "What's that on the right front fender?"
He takes a look out the windshield, but doesn't see anything.
I point this time, "That thing protruding from the right fender, what is that?"
He moves and strains to see it, but cannot.
"That metal whip, secured in the fender," I say, "What is it?"
He sees it, and turns to me, confused and answers, "The antenna?"
"Yes!" I proclaim. "That's right!"
The salesman is now looking at me as if I might be retarded.
"What is that for?" I ask him.
Now, pretty much convinced I'm stupid, says very slowly, "The radio?"
"WHAT RADIO!?" I nearly scream, as the car is not equipped with one.
Nice. He didn't buy the car.

Loaded Windows Vista (the Longhorn replacement) on an X1 and will be playing with that all week. Our group test-upgraded to Office 2003 prior to the migration to our users, and I lost my office bar. Office 2003 doesn't have an office bar. I know a lot of people hate the office bar, and many don't use it. I rarely care what "other people" do, or do not do. I liked it. I used it daily. However, in a fantastic turn of events, the Microsoft knowledgebase article written concerning the absence of the office bar in Office 2003 running on XP, (and I quote:)

The Office Shortcut Bar is not available in Microsoft Office 2003. However, you can use the Start menu in Microsoft Windows XP to start an Office program or to open a file or a folder. Additionally, you can use the Quick Launch bar in Windows XP or in Microsoft Windows 2000 to start an Office program or to open a file or a folder.

I wish I could slap someone at Microsoft for releasing that ignorant "Summary." Do they think I'm stupid?

So, sitting in the boardroom yesterday, I notice that my CEO is wearing a pink tie, with a pink shirt? I never would have done that. But he is a very distinguished, powerful man. Today - what the hell, I too show up with pink-on-pink. So far half a dozen people have mentioned to me, "Hey, the CEO wore pink and pink yesterday too..." The king looks like the piss-boy!

galinda822 came over for movie night, and the three of finally watched Office Space. I think I was the only one who enjoyed it, unfortunately. We followed that up with the first half of the mini-series Revelations, a galinda suggestion. It was quite good.

Took the kids to see Cars this morning. I expected the worst, and the wife even tried to talk me out of it. Boy was I surprised. I took a page out of the book of my dad and went to the first showing. There were maybe, 10 other people in there. I couldn't believe it. A nearly empty theater on a weekend opening show. Furthermore (and this really is hard to believe) neither of the children had to go to the bathroom for the duration of the full-two hour movie! And yes, it was good, on many different levels.
( mild spoilers here )

Was drinking my coffee this morning when my wife announces, "Oh, and your CD came in yesterday."
"WHAT! WHAT! WHAT? Hell woman, why didn't you mention this before?"
"I just remembered."
I snatched it out of her hands and ripped it into iTunes, read the liner notes, and made a copy for the car. I've been listening to it all day. it's very good, and as promised, a scan of Bear McCreary's autograph:

Drinking Pilsner Urquell...

◾ Current Music: Battlestar Galactica: Season Two soundtrack

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2006-06-02 11:15

I'm still trying to decide if Tony's glaciphobia pertains to fear of alpine glaciers, continental glaciers, or just fear of glaciers in general. Because this is a sensitive subject for him, I never discuss it outright, rather, I try to pick up on associated fears to pinpoint what exactly about glaciers frighten him (though even I admit that glaciofluvial sediments are a touch scary). I don't think his fear of swimming fish is a puzzle piece, (though I was hoping for a good lead) as its not quite ichthyophobia which leads me to conclude that his fear of swimming fish is not a true phobia, rather, taking my lead from psychologists from the University of Arkansas who claim that homophobia is not an actual phobia because it's caused by disgust, not fear or anxiety, that his is completely unrelated. As I discover more, I'll gladly post here on this fascinating topic.

Dreamed that

danzigfried and I were going into business together. From what I recall, however, we were dodging the gangland underworld quite a bit. I have no idea why. Perhaps I suffer from bolshephobia, the fear of Bolsheviks?

In an unrelated dream last night, I was packing my stuff as quickly as possible to move the hell out of Missouri. We were going to back to Texas.

galinda822 was quite distraught, and kept questioning why, but all I could tell her was, "I gotta get outta here." This one I'm pretty sure stems from my fear of change, metathesiophobia.

schpydurx suggested backing up my iTunes to prevent further corruption. After careful consideration I've decided that he's right. Although it's sure easier to make flippant comments than to actually troubleshoot solutions, I think I'll cron a script to backup the database. That should protect me from any future occurences of this nature. As to backing up the entire iTunes library however...And I'm pretty sure this one is dead balls on with sectoratychiphobia the fear of hard drive failure.

Echoing my chronophobia or fear of time, I would LOVE to see The Barber of Seville at the Saint Louis Opera, and since Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is an entire year away, this is something I could do in the meantime. I really don't have the time for these excursions, but I'd sure like to make time for some of them.

And because I'm not here to poke fun at Tony, here's a list of common phobia that does not aflict him:

( behind cut )

◾ Current Location: 63134
◾ Current Music: Frankie Goes to Hollywood: Welcome to the Pleasuredome

◾ Tags:

2006-05-08 11:04

Monday, Monday

Couldn't use text messaging this morning, the firefox update crashed firefox (with my weekly tabs already open no less), Ad-aware and Spybot found 90 items collectively (most of them IE related, despite the fact I don't use IE), my Outlook & Notes accounts are so full, they won't close properly, defrag is crawling, and I had over 15 voice messages this morning, most of them from vendors, I have to pick up my Bengal kittens sometime this morning, I'm hungry, I'll be working late today (at the Sister's - adding & deleting user accounts), iTunes can't find my library due to a corrupted file...and I've had to reboot this thing three times before 1100! Perhaps it just feels slow since I've been using my uber-box at home?

So good to me

Dreamed last night that I was trying to get an audience with data10 who was running his business out of an abandoned hotel in the middle of nowhere, but his two oldest sons (who were both middle-aged CEO's) kept blocking me from seeing him. I could get glimpses of him every now and again, and he always wore his political baby-kissing smile, and doing the Queen's wave.

I also dreamed I went to an interview for a unix admin position. This nice-looking lady was doing the interview, and had brought her entire staff with her. Two of them I had met before, but they didn't remember me. It was in a dark hotel room (what's with all the hotels?) and there were lots of drinks and laughing. I was assured the job. I didn't think twice about this short dream until I was asked for my resume today - wtf???

Then I dreamed that I was having a fight with my wife. But I'd look back up and it was

galinda822. So then we'd start arguing and it was my wife again. This went on and on. I woke up exhausted.

Monday, Monday

Tickets, emails, and phone calls coming in back-to-back like crazy. astro just called, he's 30 miles out. I'm 10-minutes away. I'm bringing Carla with me to help pick which two kittens we want from the litter. How will my Maine Coon take to this? WE DON'T KNOW!

It was all I hoped it would be.

Yes, I know this song has been posted recently but only today am I feeling the ramifications of leading such a busy life...and a busy dreamlife after hours as it turns out. So much on my mind...all the time.

Oh Monday morning

( Encouragement )

Monday morning couldn't guarantee

Got a call from astro. He told me what highway he was on, I set a meeting place. Left work, drove to meeting point. They ended up on a parallel highway. Set a secondary meeting place. Tore-ass across town. Secondary meeting point had been razed. Made an impromptu thrid meeting place - he was three minutes behind me. It was nice seeing astro and his family again. They were travelling in a lumbering R.V., pulling a horsetrailer, preceded by the brother-in-law in a Jeep pulling a car. Only a lack of a rocking chair lashed to the top prevented it from looking straight out of The Beverly Hillbillies. Ok, that's not true, but it sounded funny. All the Bengal kittens were sleeping on the massive dash of the R.V. so I gave them and their mama's some lovin' and picked out two. My wife is naming the one with three legs, 'Trinity' and that being said, I'm thinking of naming the other one, 'Niobe.' I wish them a safe trip!

That Monday evening

Just heard from my daughter. She likes holding the kitties. I hope to game tonight.

You would still be here with me.

◾ Current Mood: recumbent
◾ Current Location: 63134
◾ Current Music: iTunes database corrupt :(

◾ Tags:

2006-05-02 12:12

Correction: My cat Daisy was not sleeping on my head while I was gaming. I apologize for the missunderstanding. In my last post, I stated,

Gamed until 2300. Daisy slept on my head.

That is, I meant to suggest, that these two events occurred sequentially. I apologize for the confusion.

Entry Begins: Slept on my 600-thread count sheets last night. It was like a dream. Perfect and unending. Until the phone woke me at 0400. Another outage at work. Fortunately, my on-call guy was onsite and the issue resolved with no customer impact.

I've been....well, emotional lately. And it dawned on me I've been doling out advice here lately without time in between to stop and ponder things in my own life; to take a little of advice I so freely give. So, here is my haiku:

Even keel and calm
On the inside
Chaotic

Someone else took my advice and posted the lyrics to the song, Smile by Nat King Cole. Let me tell you, reading those lyrics in that circumstance made me ache, and it was much easier to say what I said, than to read someone else's perspective on it. What a bitter pill we sometimes are forced to swallow.

My life is never dull (though I consider myself somewhat boring) though I wish it were. There is always so much going on around me, that sometimes I can't simultaneously assimilate it all at once. I have to have a priority ticketing system in my head. And when people's feelings are at stake, they don't always like being prioritized. That doesn't always work out for them. And lastly, my newest reply to someone's post. I really don't feel that I am qualified to give advice, so what I usually end up doing is sharing how I feel in hopes that something positive can be gleaned from it:

( Read more... )

In other news, Solaris-admin turned SSDM comes to teh rescue on an Sun Netra X1 box being used as an (passive) Intrusion Detection System which did not come up after the power-outage due to an corrupt file system. It was the most exciting thing that happened to me all week.

I leave for an emergency trip to Wichita and will be out of the office all week. I'll post when I can, and as always, I look forward to the comments you leave on this site, as I enjoy posting comments on yours.

Take care.

◾ Current Location: 63114
◾ Current Music: Nat King Cole: Smile

◾ Tags:

2006-04-28 14:32

Concerning the poem below, no, I do not believe that we, as people, cannot overcome external influences. What I believe is that because it's difficult, most people choose not to.

When I was an emotional teenage, my mother said to me, "You're wearing your heart on your sleeve. You have to fake it until you make it." I was horrified at that comment! FAKE being a good mood? That was akin to living a lie - something I vowed never to do. If I wanted to be miserable then so be it.

Experience, on the other hand, has proven otherwise. Have you ever been depressed? Sullen? You begin to get comfortable with it, wearing it around you. You actually, in some twisted way prefer it. It's easy. Warm. Life seems to have less complications. Oh, you're not exactly happy - but hey, it's working, so why mess with it, right?

"Fake it until you make it," isn't about pretending to be someone your not any more than getting comfortable in your bad mood/depressive self is your true self actually revealing itself. I've experimented with this over the years, and when I 'wake up on the wrong side of the bed,' have a 'bad hair day,' whatever - and propagate that mood throughout my day, I find that I'm generally grouchy, unpleasant, and irritable. Furthermore, I mutter things like, "Why me?" Or "Figures." And NOTHING EVER TURNS OUT LIKE I WANT IT TO.

But if I force myself to smile and be pleasant (mind you, I'm not in the mood) then not only are all my expectations exceeded, but in a short period of time, I really am in a better mood, no matter what external influences are exerting pressure on me! You see, it's not about wearing a 'happy face' masking what you really feel inside, it's more a technique used to pull yourself out of a slump that (when experienced enough) you know will go absolutely nowhere and plop you smack dab in the middle of misery.

You know that feeling that comes along only every once in a while when you're just in a fantastic mood? Imagine holding on to that for weeks, months, even years. I am a firm believer in - because I experience it every single day - getting whatever you want, whenever you want it, every single day, simply by working hard and fighting daily those forces which try to bring you down.

Of course I could have built this entire philosophy on something my mother said simply to be flippant and dismissive. Who knows!

◾ Current Music: Back to Future I, II & III Scores

◾ Tags:

fake it,
stories

2006-03-02 14:37

Sometimes, and I don't know why...I feel like laws just don't apply to me. And I'm not just talking the Law of Man. Sometimes it feels as if even the Laws of Nature (i.e. gravity) or the Laws of God are also not applicable to me. I don't know why. Is that an ego-complex? Most of my life I've been described as a snob, but never egotistical. The hard part about putting this in writing, is that in the past when I've done so, I've regretted it almost immediately. Something knocks me down a notch. A speeding ticket, or an accident, or an illness, or a regret. Something which can traverse each of the Laws I feel don't apply to come smacking me in the face. Also, it feels a bit blasphemous to feel this way. I'm not special.

I think I was feeling all this because they played 'Flashdance' on the radio this morning and it's been so many, many years since I've heard it. How odd.

Talked to my old roommate in the Air Force last night for the first time in about seven months. It was a bittersweet reunion. We shared good news, and he had some bad news. What could possibly come from this bad news? After I relayed the news to my wife, she reminded me of a story I had once told her about the two of us. We were learning to kayak back in '93...

After watching our requisite training video, required to check out kayaks from the Air Force base, and a day in a still lake practicing maneuvoring them, we set out on our grand adventure. We hit the Appomattox River and were in our gear and in the water right at the first light of dawn. We dressed for full rapids just in case - a skirt over the cockpit, and crash helmets; along with backpacks filled with essentials for the day. The first part of the river was calm and beautiful. We dailied quite a bit enjoying the quiet awakening of nature with the coming of the morning. Deer staring at us from the banks. Despite this gorgeous morning, my companion was getting incresingly irritated, more and more angry as the day wore on. Occationally he would just grab his head and scream aloud in frustration. Not only was this annoying, it was wearing on my nerves. "What the hell is wrong with you?" I would ask. Usually, the reply, at the top of his lungs was, "I DON'T KNOW!"

Later, we broke for breakfast. We found a little island of sorts at a wide spot in the river and stopped there to eat, pulling our boats ashore. "AAARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!" my friend yells. "IS YOUR HEAD KILLING YOU?" he screams at me.
"Uh...no." I reply.
"I DON"T KNOW WHY I'M SO ANGRY!" he yells.
We store the oars in the kayaks, shrug off our backpacks, and remove our helmets. I hear a sigh of relief. He's staring into his helment. "What size is your helment?" He asks, perplexed.
I peer into mine. "Large."
"Mine says Small. No wonder I'm so angry! This thing has been squeezing my head!" He pauses for a moment and says, "Don't you have a smaller head than I do?"
I think back to our Battle Dress Uniform caps back at the apartment, and the tags inside. "Yeah, by like nearly half an inch." I tell him.
"Can we trade helments?"
"Sure."

....he was calm the rest of the trip.

◾ Current Mood: Superior
◾ Current Music: The Cure, among others, on iTunes.

◾ Tags:

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