Friday, January 30, 2004

Mad Lab Assistant

Years ago, in 1987, I was a lab assistant to an Earth and Science professor named Jim Sproull. I worked there as part of a college accreditation, but I got a lot more out of it than mere marks on paper.

Jim was a funny fellow. He had an odd sense of humor, often hidden behind a strict exterior that he only let down with certain people. He was skinny, well dressed (always in a vest and tie), had glasses, and a well-groomed mustache. He primarily taught Honors students in a high school, but he also taught a few remedial classes. I worked with him during his honors classes, and had a great time with it. Sure, I had to do the "hard work" of preparing class materials, grading tests, and cleaning the equipment, but it wasn't really that hard of work, and I spent time with an interesting man.

I was already a science buff, so we were a pretty good match from the start. I had been told that he was "mean," "cold," and "totally businesslike," but once I got to know him, I knew why certain people called him that. He was head of the science department at the school, and all the teachers pretty much didn't like him. They said he hoarded equipment, made them sign in and out for everything, and always questioned why they needed whatever they asked for. "It's an elected job," I said. "Why don't you elect someone else?" "Oh," they'd reply, "because no one else wants to do it."

Uh huh.

Jim was responsible for everything, so I thought it was fairly reasonable for him to ask for the things he did. He never badgered any of the teachers. I mean, if a biology teacher came to him needing the TV/VCR combo for a class, he'd ask, "What film are you showing?" and They'd say, "The Life cycle of Frogs," and he'd say, "Okay, for how long?" Some teachers said, "I don't know," which annoyed him. "What do I tell another teacher who needs it? I don't know when so-and-so will be done with it? No, because they'll got borrow it from him, someone will borrow it from them, and no one tells me, of course, and then I don't know where any of the equipment is." Sometimes I had to do those errands, like go to the biology teacher to "get back" (or as they called it, "repossess") the equipment. A few times, I'd get, "Oh, Steve from Physics has it now." So I'd go to Steve, and he'd say, "I am not done with it yet." Then I'd have to go back to Jim and report this. Jim was never happy, and sometimes he'd leave class, with the sign-out clipboard, and either come back with a signature, or the equipment. Luckily, most teachers played by the rules, but they still complained about them.

Sometimes, and this was so funny to me at the time, teachers would try and bribe me to get equipment without Jim knowing. First, some would try the "I am a teacher, do what I say," routine, which didn't apply to me because I wasn't obligated to answer to anyone but Jim. Some tried to bribe me with candy, which was pretty laughable; even they couldn't take it seriously. "No, Grig, wait! I have some fudge! I... oh, just have some. [in defeat] I'll sign out for the projector after school."

Jim was pretty strict with his students, too, but the Honors kids knew ways around that. Especially the girls, for some reason. Jim teased them a lot. There was this one girl I recall named Wendy who was very smart, but a bit gabby. In the first week of class, they were doing a meteorology lab, and Jim had a question where the answer was the name of the weather station in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in Canada. It's pronounced "Win-eh-peg," but Wendy said "Win-ee-peg, which, for some reason, seemed REALLY funny to Jim. For the rest of the year, he'd always have a disclaimer whenever the Winnipeg Observatory came up (which was often), "And in Winnipeg, or as Wendy calls in, Winn-EE-peg..." Don't feel sorry for Wendy, she gave it as good as she got it. "My name is pronounced Wend-eh." So Jim had a sort of spoofed "balance of power" with those kids, who bent the rules, but never broke them.

In the back, we had a huge curio cabinet filled with minerals for the geology labs. The first lab was always "Guess this mineral." Jim always told his students, "Don't go back there to find out their names, because I have rearranged the labels on purpose." This was actually a lie, a secret I held for a long time. But one day, I asked him, "Hey, why not arrange the minerals by type, and then alphabetically? That way, WE know where to find them, because we already know their names (I was a bit of a rock hound). So he let me do that. Some kids would ask me, when Jim wasn't looking, "Hey, what's this mineral?" I used to answer with, "I won't tell you," but I got sneaky, and so I'd say some totally made up name, like "hatamoronga," "nocurium," or "aycheetite." Later, I'd tell Jim, and he'd laugh. "Aycheetite, huh? An ignoramus rock, I am sure." [geologist humor, please move on]. He'd mark those wrong answers on student's papers, "My assistant thinks he's funny."

We had fake fossils made in cheesy gray plastic. We said they were all from the Plastocine era.

The school had a terribly unbalanced budget. For instance, the whole science department's budget was a measly $400. Already $200 was earmarked for disposable things, like formaldehyde frogs and the like. The rest was for incidentals, like light bulbs, ditto ink, and other things that ran out. In many cases, they'd hit parents up for money to balance out the budget, especially if a student broke something. Like a stereo microscope was $700, almost two year's worth of budget. Some kid broke one while horsing around, and the school demanded repayment for it (and got it). But Jim was displeased that they didn't use the money to get another microscope; it was put back into some "refund budget," which Jim never saw. So we were still out one microscope, and as it was, there were 2-3 students per microscope in a typical class. The only reason we had some of this equipment in the first place was by donations. Like the National Science Foundation gave us the microscopes years earlier. The A/V equipment was part of a pool owned by the school itself. In contrast, the football team, which wasn't even a class, but an intramural, got a $10,000 budget per year, with "unlimited extensions" for various needs. Like one year, they trashed their projection screen TV after losing Homecoming, so they got a new one. This infuriated Jim to no end.

Money was so bad, we even had to "reclaim" stuff from chemistry experiments. One of my jobs was to "reprocess" copper sulfate, a kind of blue powder you had to dissolve in some solution for some lab. I'd get pints of this liquid, and I had to boil it until all the water was dissolved, leaving a blue crust behind, which I scraped and ground into powder and saved in a jar for the next lab that needed it. We got about 80-90% back this way. One day, I accidentally left some on the burner, and left it there for a weekend. I thought I had turned off the burner, but apparently it was just barely warm. The liquid evaporated very slowly over the next few days, and when I got back in on Monday, the wide-mouthed jar it was in had dried, overheated, and cracked in half (I paid for it, $5). But in the center was one BIG blue crystal, about the size of my thumb. It was beautiful. I showed Jim, and he broke it off the bottom, and showed it around for a few days, using at as a lesson on how geodes were made. But, in the end, we had to mash it back into powder, because we couldn't spare the copper sulfate to keep it. I was pretty bummed by that.

One day, Jim tried to gross me out by showing me his mashed thumb. He had crushed it over the weekend while using a hammer, and the nail was all black, blue, and gross. He demanded I look at it under the stereo microscope, but I wouldn't. He said I was a girl, and chased me around with it. He teased me with it for months until it healed. Jim's style of humor, what can I say?

Another time, I had so cleaned out his back room, I came across an old map cabinet. For those who have never seen one, it's a dresser-like thing with dozens of flat, wide drawers, for keeping maps flat and neat. "I haven't been in there for ages," he said. "Why don't you clean it out." One of the maps I found was from the late 1960s, and was apparently part of some science education kit from McDonalds. It had a map of the solar system, notably missing a few planets, with product tie-in descriptions, like "Mercury is sure hot! It's the planet closest to the sun, and too hot even for the yummy and tasty McDonald's French Fries!" Ronald had a house on Jupiter, and Grimace had a house on Saturn (which was colored purple in this map), which struck me as odd, since those were gas giants, and had no solid surface to speak of. Planets missing were Uranus and Venus, and Jim and I speculated its probably because they sounded like naughty words. It also mentioned our Moon, and not only neglected to mention any other moons around any other planets, but had it in orbit between us and Mars.

Earth, by the way, is apparently a prime place to get McDonald's food if you are in our solar system. Your mommy and daddy can drive you there.

Sometimes we'd get more of these promotions. I recall there was a product called "Fruit gushers," a kind of candy with a liquid center, that gave out "educational materials" with text like:

Hand out each child 6 delicious Fruit Gushers. Have them arrange them in a pattern. Discuss geometric shapes. You may recall that Greeks gave us geometry. Best of all, students can eat their shapes when they are done! Please find included a Fruit Gushers ruler that you may keep or hand out as a prize for the most clever student!

Actually, the Egyptians ... no, never mind. My readers know. Now as an adult, when I think about it, it sounds like there's a hint of hypnosis there, too. "Stare at the pretty shapes children ... let's talk about shapes ... shapes ... wheels within wheels ... must buy Fruit Gushers..." Actually, the gushers were quite tasty, although they came in generic gray foil envelopes that said, "Fruit Gushers - the product does not contain nuts," and in bold, cold-war-era letters, "EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY!" Da, comrade!

I got to go conoeing with his Honors students that year, too. We went to the Choptank River and wandered around an estuary and wetlands there. Jim required our canoe be in the lead, but had me do all the paddling. Sometimes, he'd splash water on student with his oar with an "oops," and if they tried back, he'd say "Don't get my [expensive] camera wet, or I'll flunk you!" Then I'd have to paddle like crazy to get away from the teens bent on revenge. But it was all in fun.

I miss working with him. He enjoyed my work so much, because I spent a lot of after school hours with him, he put me up for the Heather Award, a Fairfax County Public Schools award for outstanding volunteer work. I got it, and still have it somewhere.

He ended up quitting school, and went to go back to work for the USGS, and last I heard was doing survey work up in Washington State. That was his dream job, so I think he's pretty happy.

Posted by Punkie @ 04:05 PM EST [Link]

Thursday, January 29, 2004

The Year of the Monkey

Ook ook...

I was born that year, 1968. I have never made peace with anything New-age (rhymes with "sewage") astrological, so I had always felt a little uncomfortable with being a Scorpio (often associated with moody backstabbers), and when I found out I was a Monkey in the Chinese Astrology, that was just terrible. My parents teased me about this mercilessly. I had always been uncomfortable around primates. When I was a kid, they terrified me. They were so close to humans, and I knew how mean many humans were. I always had felt monkeys were the pinnacle of what humans would do without civility.

I don't feel that way much anymore. I know several Scorpios, and they are all cool (Rogue, Sawa, Glen), but I still never go into the ape house at the zoo if I have a choice. I still feel that "they are too close to human" thing, but now it's more of "they should not be imprisoned" animal rights issue I have.

I had hope for last year, the Year of the Rat, because I like rats. But it seemed to suck for everyone, so I am hoping this Year of the Monkey is a good year, and maybe I can make peace. Not that I believe astrology has any answers, but the great thing about the Chinese Zodiac is you can put names to years, like Hurricanes. "Ah yes, 2003. The Year of the Rat. My sister in law died that year..."

I want to say, "Yes, 2004, the Year of the Monkey. My year. I published my first major novel, made millions, and became independently wealthy. Also, all my friends with problems came to terms with them, learned a lot about themselves, found soulmates, and lived happily ever after. We made peace with the Middle East, and they discover the cure for AIDS, Cancer, MS, and depression."

Here's to 2004! :)

Posted by Punkie @ 02:12 PM EST [Link]

Wednesday, January 28, 2004

New photos - EveCon and New Years

Just a quick note...

I know these are late, but:

New Year's Party 2004 - At Sean's Fun House!
EveCon 21 - The end of a great legacy...

Posted by Punkie @ 10:54 PM EST [Link]

Awkward Funerals

If you had told me this morning that later on today, I would be in church, listening to people cry their eyes out over the loss of their daughter, I would have said, "Wrong guy, dude." But my life always has amazing twist, turns, and bends.

We had a guy at work who lost his daughter this week. I don't work with this guy that much, but from time to time, I had to get something from him, or he had to get something from me. We worked with each other most during a period of DSL testing where he gave me the modems, and I gave him the results. We'd meet at some obscure meeting once in a while. He has a very odd last name, which sounds like a character from a cheesy 1950s horror film. Let's make up a similar name, to keep him respectfully anonymous: Arthur Dragonsnake. Like some character in a movie maybe Ed Wood would have directed. But other than that, he is a nice fellow, a good coworker, and I can't say a bad word about him.

So yesterday, I get this e-mail that his daughter had passed away. I didn't even know he had kids. This was apparently his first child, and I found out that she was born prematurely, and only lived for about two and a half months. I felt really bad for him. No one deserves that. But I doubted I'd see him for months, so I didn't think much of it other than a disconnected twang of sadness.

I almost didn't go to work this morning, because the local roads are still so bad, but then a guy at work with a 4WD Jeep said he'd come pick me up. So I went to work late, which was good, because something bad had happened that might have cascaded into a huge system failure had it gone unnoticed for much longer. Then I got a wireless card for my laptop, so I was researching that when my ride said, "We're going to Arthur's daughter's memorial."

I had come to work in jeans, and my "I'm blogging this" tee-shirt. "Uh... I am not dressed for--"

"Neither am I, but we're leaving at 3:30. Just keep your coat on, he'll just be glad we're there." This from a guy who absolutely hates Arthur. I don't know why he never liked Arthur, but he doesn't like a lot of people in my office, so that's just his bag. At least he respected Arthur enough to grieve for his loss, too.

So at 3:30, I went to a United Methodist Church, and met Arthur and his grieving wife, who had a name, and I am so sorry for thinking this, like a bad cowgirl from the 50s who had a man's name. Let's call her Houston. She was understandably on the verge of tears, but my brain was already going, "Arthur and Houston Dragonsnake... gads, what did they name their daughter?" It was a contradictory, perfectly normal and bland name, like Jane. Jane Dragonsnake. Now, no one can help what surname they are born with or married to, but I really had to keep from laughing at the morbid humor of this situation. Jesus, man, I had to keep it together!

The memorial, for the most part, was very touching. I say for the most part, because it had a dark religious undertone. The words chosen by the clergy had hints of "God or else" in them, and we all had to sing a hymn called, and I swear I am not making this up, "I am the Bread of Life." Now, I realize that's something Jesus has been quoted as saying, but the hymn was very disturbing, especially for a memorial to a dead child. This phrase literally made me stop in mid-song, "Unless you eat of the flesh of the son of man / And drink of His blood, and drink of His blood, you cannot have life within you..." Holy crap! My stomach revulsed at this line, like I had been asked to quote some ancient curse to allow my soul to become part of a vampire cult. What the hell? I mouthed the rest of the words, and did NOT say "Amen" after anything after that. It was too disturbing for me. Then there came the famous Psalm 23, "The Lord is my Shepherd," one. I am okay with this, although in the back of my head there's a voice that goes, "You KNOW what shepherds keep sheep for, don't you? Meat, wool, milk, and... when they get lonely..." But then the preacher went on and on with the sheep comparison thing, and part of me wanted to shout out, "Look out, his Lordship only keeps us because he sustains from our meat and skin! He is merely a wolf with a rod and staff!" But I didn't. I just closed my eyes, and tried to think of something technical. But most of the service was from the grandparents, with touching and loving testimony, and while it was sad, all of them had really good things to say in the face of their personal tragedy.

Afterwards, there was food. I hadn't eaten all day, but all they had were cakes, cookies, pies, and a small platter of deli meat. Because of the touching, heart wrenching, testimony of the grandparents, I don't think many people felt like eating. But I had to, or otherwise, I felt I would fall down and pass out. While the food was tasteless and generic, that wasn't the point. They had a lovely memorial table towards their daughter, with pictures of her in the Intensive care unit, and prints of her teeny, teeny hands and feet in clay. The step-grandfather had made this great speech that "celebrated the short life she had," and made a comment that he wasn't going to "girly girl" her when she got older, but teacher her football and motorcycles. Among the memorial was a small football jersey with Jane's name on it. That was a nice touch.

A LOT of people from work were there. Which just punctuated the end of a strange sentence of an experience, because here we were, in a room full of people, all hobnobbing, schmoozing, and talking about dialers, servers, and company goals. At a memorial service.

It was so... weird. Being at a memorial service for someone's daughter I barely knew. Who all had really odd names. That I only had two hours notice I was going to before I was there. In a church that made me uncomfortable. Arthur was very grateful I had come, and we shook hands a lot. So it was a good thing I went, but I felt really bad that I hadn't prepared or been "better in tune" with the situation. To add to this, it brought back uncomfortable memories of Brenda's death a year ago, the fact that my son almost died when he was born, and my own mother's funeral. Oh, and for reasons I won't go into now, I have always felt VERY uncomfortable in churches.

Well, anyway, here's to you, Jane Dragonsnake. Your life was short and sweet, and I hope your next life is longer, but you have the same kind relatives that I met today.

Posted by Punkie @ 06:39 PM EST [Link]

More on the new site

I should be sleeping, but my brain has been far more active than normal. I never did figure out Sendmail today, although the lure of Postfix is awfully strong...

I did, however, manage to figure out port redirection in OpenBSD the other day, so I set up a webserver of a dual proc in my SETI array, forwarded it through my fireeall, and tried very hard, for many hours, to get Movable Type to work on http://10.0.0.20:8061/blog. Lot of hit and miss, most of it my fault for not checking what I was doing. Finally, I have managed to get a mockup going, and now I know enough to use Movable Type to get a blog working on a Linux box. Once I figure out how to remove it from being boring white, and more of my "Chaos Coffee" style on this page, I'll start porting stuff over to Punkadyne, and work with the Sun permissions and software.

There will be three blogs. This blog will keep the same name, "Punkie's Watery Realm." A second site, tentatively titled "Clockwork Mouse," will be my techy site. Then a third, which has no great name yet ("Little Red Airplane" is a contender), will be a repository for all my links and quotes. Movable Type GRACIOUSLY has an import feature, so my original blog won't be lost or require some hard-core manual importing.

I feel bad, dumping Greymatter like this. It's been a great blogging software. If it had been written with a database in mind, I would have gladly stayed. But all the posts have slowed it down, and I want to move to something more scalable. Movable Type has XML feeds, multiple blog capability, wide community support, and a lot more "out-of-the-box" features.

ETA for launch? I am picking the beginning of March.

Oh, and I have been helping Rogue with her webserver at www.frankenhooker.com, which after trying to fix the Wonkiest Webserver in the West, we had to do a flat reinstall. During this time, the box crashed twice, so those trying to get to Rogue's site, we're working on it! :)

Posted by Punkie @ 02:27 AM EST [Link]

Tuesday, January 27, 2004

Snow and icebound

We have been home for the last two days. First, the snow kept me here. Then, after they finally plowed our streets, we dug out only to find the streets had turned to ice last night. We can watch cars slide by, since we're on a hill with a bend. Very scary. And apparently, the freezing rain is going to get worse, so we stayed home again today. I have been working from home, trying to learn Sendmail.

I also have gotten a lot of writing done. See, at the beginning of this year I had:
- A rough idea of the plot
- Four rough, rough draft chapters, three in the wrong person, first person
- A bunch of short odds and ends

Now, at the end of January, I have:
- A full plot diagram, complete with chapter breaks (23 chapters)
- Two and a half better draft chapters, all in the right person (third person)
- One and a half rough, rough draft chapters
- More short odds and ends
- Name of the second book

I am very pleased with myself. I figure at the rate of 3 chapters a month, I should be done by August. Then I will do my first "smoothing" of my work, trying to fix all the loopholes, loose ends, compact things, and so on. Then I will have a few friends critique it. Then I will write a "final draft" after I haven't looked at it for a while, and have a draft I feel will be ready by December, right on schedule. Of course, during this time, I also have to see how to submit to major publishers, which will be a real uphill battle, but I don't want to lose this book to some local press again if I can help it.

Posted by Punkie @ 11:47 AM EST [Link]

Monday, January 26, 2004

Dedicated to My Mother

I received a very touching e-mail from someone last week. His name is Mike, and he was a friend of mine in elementary school. Even thought I kind of suspected it at the time, his family life was not ideal. But he said something very touching, and it's moved me deeply, and I keep coming back to it. This entry has taken a week to write and re-edit, and contains a personal memory I don't like very well. I warn you, this is pretty depressing. But I am hoping that I can release this into the wild, and help some of you understand why I have forgiven my mother.

From Mike:
I read in your blog about your mother, and it made me very sad. She was
always very nice to me. I remember playing board games and drinking ovaltine
at your place many times. I never said anything about it to you at the
time, because I did not know what to say, but I cried like a baby when I
heard she had died.

I think this is one of the nicest personal tributes to my mother I have ever heard. He explained in another letter that my mother was like a second mother to him when his relationship with his mother was strained. Wow. I was stunned. Some voice in my head went, "You know what this means? It means someone else remembered!"

I have been kind of bummed since my mother died that it seemed pretty much everyone had written her off. I felt like I was the only one who remembered her on a personal level, and even though my memories of her are less than ideal, she was a really good person. Mike's letter awakened something deep in me that I have been needing to hear for a long time.

My memories of her fight often. I recall she was an artist, a cook, a funny and witty person. I also know she was sad, angry, frustrated, and an alcoholic. Mike never saw that side because her alcoholism got really bad right around 4th grade, when I lost a lot of friends. I am not sure why I stopped being friends with Mike (he was a great guy and fun person), but I think it was a general sort of drifting away I had at the time. Home life was turning dark, and the storm clouds that had been broiling in the distance were now over top of me, and my long night had begun. I think part of me is still mad she never fought for me, and that I had to take care of her and the house so much. I see it now, when I do housework, saying the same crap I said to myself when I was doing it at age 10. I know somewhere deep within myself I equate housework with abandonment: my mother felt that way because she was unappreciated, I felt that way because I had to do it when she didn't or my father got angry, and he had no idea, no appreciation for any housework I did. I got angry at her because I felt so alone. But I did love her.

I loved her because when she was sober, she was a lot of fun. She liked to play games, to sing (badly), cook, paint, act silly, and generally was so likable, you'd never know the pain she was trying to hide. All growing up, I kept hearing about how many friends she used to have, and how sociable she was. When my parents were a real couple, and traveling around Europe because of my father's business, she apparently was the ultimate socialite. She'd often move ahead of my father, set up camp, make friends with the neighbors, find out all the local places you could get stuff, and often become a social hub for the area ... sometimes even in the middle of nowhere, like some tiny mountain town in Italy. People spoke of her the way historians speak of Dolly Madison or Molly Brown. I did get some of that when I was young, and apparently, so did Mike. In fact, a few times people speak of her like this. A girl I was friends with very young, Allison, mentioned similar things. I recall one kid said at my mother's funeral that, "Your mom always had those huge birthday parties for you." I am glad someone enjoyed them, because I always felt awkward since she invited practically the whole class, and I wasn't friends with a lot of those kids. I mean, not to sound ungrateful, but they were more for her than they were for me. I once hid during most of one party, and she didn't notice for hours. But as weirded out as I was then, I'd give quite a lot now to go back in time and go through just one more.

Sometimes I think I could sum up my mother's policy of raising me by the phrase, "She meant well." Her heart was in the right place, no doubt about that, and I fully believe that anything good in me probably came from her. Often, when I try and find my "root" in morality, her voices are there. I am truly the closest thing she has to a living legacy. But that also has the flip side of many of my neuroses. I had this nagging, pleading, "Please, mama... LEAVE HIM!" voice ever since I was a kid. When I visited Sweden the first time, I realized that I was not alone. Apparently, everyone was saying that. All this time I felt like I was the only one that knew, the only one that saw. They knew. They may have never seen, but they knew she was unhappy. Sometimes I think much of my anger towards my father is her spirit still channeling the frustration, resentment, and anger she felt towards him. From my mother's milk into my soul. But she never left him. She never even so much as hinted that she wanted to. I used to be so angry at this, but now as an adult, I realized that she was probably trapped in her own fears and stubbornness. I have no idea, this is just speculation, but I have always felt that maybe she married my father because she saw him as a good provider (he was hard working, and probably still is), a way to get out of the slums of Chicago, and when everyone said, "Arv is a bad, bad man..." my mother mustered up the resolve to prove them all wrong. Hell, maybe she hooked up with my dad as a revenge against someone who said something to her; she was a very stubborn, resolved young woman, from what I heard. But I haven't actually heard the actual reasons why she dated and married my dad. I do know (by her own admission) that she thought she could "turn my father around" and get him to live an ideal life with the white picket fence and all. She wanted kids, he said, "No way." Then he joined the Navy. When he got out, she said, "Kids now?" and he said, "I don't like children." Then he got a job touring the world. Finally, she decided to go off the birth control, and she got pregnant while they were in Italy, and from what I heard, my father was so furious, that their love life all but ceased. In fact, one day (when I was 13), my mother sobbed and confessed her whole love life to me, stating they hadn't had sex since 1972 (about 4 years after I was born), and she was so lonely. For a while she was convinced that he would get used to me, and she was convinced he didn't hate me, even though he put me in jeopardy quite often, had abandoned me in public places numerous times, and tried to get me used to "living on my own" in a cruel "sink or swim" fashion. Oh, and the fact he said he hated me, I was a disappointment, useless, and wish I'd never been born ... out loud, in front of both of us ... well, that's why mommy drinks. I don't say that to be funny, that is the main reason why I forgive her alcoholism. Her life was so tragic, and I can't say, "Mama, you should have..." because I was scared, too. Terrified. Maybe for different reasons, but I see my mother more as veteran of the same war as I was in ... and then became a casualty. She really couldn't help what she did, and yes, she made some mistakes, but we all make mistakes in life from time to time.

One of the most sobering times of my life is when my father beat me so badly, I was barely able to walk, and I kept coughing and vomiting blood (part of the "overreacting" I was accused of by him... I am such an acting master, making my lungs bleed on command). I think I was about 13 or so, it would have been about 7th grade, since the thing that really tipped him over the edge was I threatened to tell the social workers what he had been doing to me. My father's response was to beat me severely, eventually knocking me to the floor, and kick me repeatedly. And I mean he just didn't let up. I had landed underneath a chair in such a way I could not easily protect myself or escape as he kicked me in the face, head, chest, stomach, groin, and legs like a machine. My mother watched the whole thing, which was unusual, because my father usually did not hurt me this badly unless we were alone. She did nothing. She said nothing. I confronted her, with blood dribbling down the corners of my mouth, asking her if she saw that. She said nothing, but kept watching the pot of spaghetti on the stove. I looked at her eyes, and they looked like someone rapidly erasing tapes. I have seen that look since then, and I know it's the look of a "it didn't happen, it didn't happen." I saw that look on people's faces during 9/11. Too numb to look horrified, to weak to be horrified, just clinging to the mast of denial on a sinking ship of your life because it's all you can hope for. In my head, I heard the words, "And now, you know you are truly alone." That seems a bit dramatic, but it's how I felt. So, I stumbled down the stairs, and the blood was coming out in raspy coughs. I felt so sick because my father had repeatedly kicked me in the stomach, chest, and head. I went to my bathroom, and threw up what was to be the first of many spasms of blood. I am not sure if my stomach was really that injured, or just the anxiety made me heave. I was dizzy, and my vomit was tainted with blood. Blood and other stuff came out of my nose and mouth, and it was getting everywhere in thin, sticky strands. I think I might have been hysterically crying, gasping, or something. Hard to say. I felt so alone, so terrified. I mean, bullies had beaten me up many times in school, but most of them stop after a few seconds. They just want to knock you down, mess with your head, and then they move on, all proud and stuff. All I could see was the look of anger and delight on my father's eyes with the gruesome smile on his gritted teeth. And I did think for a little bit I was going to die because all this blood kept coming out of me, I couldn't stop coughing and retching. I mean, looking back, I probably didn't lose more than a pint total, but it seemed like a lot more. Then, the back of my neck felt cool. My mother was behind me with a damp washcloth, and she wiped off my face and said some soothing thing I can't recall now, but I recall it being something along the lines of "you're not the only one that suffers when this happens." I didn't feel so alone anymore.

So she did mean well. She didn't want to see me suffer. I can't imagine what it must be like for a mother to see her only child being beaten by her own husband so viciously and joyfully like that. Part of me thinks that what I have seen her put up with was just the tip of the iceberg. I never saw my father lay a hand on my mother, nor did he ever openly insult her. He didn't even engage in any arguments, really, he just ignored her, or said, "Okay! Relax! Go to bed!" or something, which was slung like the term "whatever!" is now. He showed a LOT more respect and care for her than he did me, and I genuinely think they did love each other on some level. My mother certainly did love him, and not the "scared of him" kind of love, I think she did earnestly care for him. Too bad he didn't really seem to feel as strongly. But sometimes I wonder just what happened between them when I wasn't around. Was my father always this cruel and vicious? My mother never, ever had a bad word to say about him to me. Well, when she was drunk, sometimes she'd shout stuff, but it was mostly cries of, "Why don't you get along," and "He loves us, he just doesn't know how to show it." I always thought that if you really loved someone, showing it was like... one of the major must-haves in a relationship. My father's second wife seems nice. When I did some background checks on her, I found out that her father was very abusive, so that kind of makes sense. My mother's father was very strict, although I wouldn't call him abusive. Controlling, maybe. Maybe women like my mother and Nicole just want to be told what to do by a man; maybe they feel safer and more secure that way. My father is very controlling. But I have known, since I was about 12, that my birth "ruined everything," and that was my mother's last big stand on anything. Having to protect me from him tired her out a lot. I know because she usually had some sort of underhanded plan to get me what I needed. But sometimes it came out funny, like, "Your father is going to be upset if he sees you with those glasses, please don't wear them in his presence," which she could pull off because she controlled the finances.

That's right, she was in charge of the money. This has always baffled people, even her friends, that she had so much control in the house with the money, shopping, and everything, why she didn't pool up some dough, and high-tail it out of town? Well, as I said, she loved my father. She saw him as the provider, and I always got the hint that she felt she owed him something. So she put up with the pain, lonliness, and weird rules. Weird rules? Yes, my father had weird rules. One that seemed odd was even though my mother had a valid driver's license (renewed it every four years), and used to ferry my father all over town before I was born, she was not allowed to drive any of the cars (although, she did become an alcoholic, so that was sort of a good idea, now that I think about it). I only saw my mother behind the wheel once, and that was because she had to back the car out of the carport for some reason. But even though she was in charge of the money, she apparently could not make any "large purchases" without my father's permission. Like she had to beg and plead to get a Cuisinart, sewing machine, and radio. These were HUGE issues that dragged on for years. In my father's defense, when he finally caved in, she never used them. This explained why she wasn't allowed to save money for my college education. Or the air conditioner.

Two huge fights about those last two. See, my maternal grandparents started out poor, but ended up doing better and better as they got older, and finally moved out of the slums of Chicago to a nice house in Iron Mountain, Michigan, near Segola, where they used to vacation. I would have never called them wealthy, but apparently in the 1960s, they paid for my fother's education. It was money well spent, he got a PhD, moved to Washington, and became very rich off of US tax dollars, working for consultants. Of course... he never gave anything back. And he kept taking. The first big fight was the air conditioner. Our house in McLean was built at the same time 90% of the other houses were, and that was in the early 1950s. By the late 1970s, our air conditioner and furnace was very old, and dying. The heater didn't heat too well, and then A/C would dribble water and flood the laundry room every time it was on. My father refused to pay for a new one, and said he grew up without A/C, so it wasn't needed. In fact, if my mother ran the A/C because the house was too hot to stand, when my father got home, he'd open up all the windows. Finally, at the end of her strength, her parents said they'd pay for a new one. And my father promptly ordered the most expensive one he could find. Replaced the whole system. Heating, A/C, Humifier, everything but the ducts. And when it finally got installed, he still opened the windows when he got home. My mother's counter-strike was she bought large standing fans for all the rooms, and ran them all the time. The outcome must have lead to nothing but huge energy bills. The college eductation thing was one I had always thought she didn't win... until I visited Sweden in 1994. Turns out my grandmother sent my mother a huge sum of money so I could afford college right before my mother died. I didn't even know about it. My COUSINS knew about it, and they were very, very, very angry when I told them I had never heard of it (or the family heirlooms). Did my father steal it? I don't know. It would seem so, but think about it this way: he probably didn't even know it existed. He didn't run the finances, how could he? He probably saw this huge lump sum of money and said, "Hey, happy birthday to me!" He probably thought the heirlooms were just junk, because if it wasn't valuable to him, it simple wasn't valuable!

I can't say I got nothing when my mother died. I did get Social Security for a few months until I graduated high school. I used that toward my private college fund, which was deposited into a checking account my mother and I opened up a few years earlier. It was where my paychecks went, and when she died, the first thing I did was put the name into my name only. Smart move, because my father asked about it and I lied and said it was closed. He would have probably taken all of it if I had let him. The private college fund turned into my "roommate deposit/rent fund," when I moved in with Bruce and Cheryl. That's how I was able to pay my rent, on time, in full, even those few months when I didn't have a job. Later it got used to pay for my outrageous phone bills to West Virginia calling my finacee, and then later helped pay part of the ring. Then it was gone, but I think money well spent.

I think finally, she just couldn't take it anymore. The constant drinking to kill the pain and the addiction to pain medicine and tranquilizers was one of just a few inevitable ends such a life can have. The reality got worse and worse for her. When I was 15, my father was taken to the courthouse for child abuse charges, she cried through the whole thing. They put me into therapy, and I got better, but she didn't. They REALLY tried to get my mother to come, but she didn't want to face her problems, she wanted them to just go away. The few times she did visit my therapists, she'd be crying about halfway through because they asked all the good questions she didn't want to think about. She wanted us to be one happy family with the white picket fence, not face that my father did not fit this mold. When I became a teen, and started being on my own more and more, she must have felt truly alone. Some relatives have said my mother had me because she felt so lonely on the road, and I was probably all she had to live for. Then she found out, albeit incorrectly, that I was dying, and that must have been it. Why go on?

Sadly her death did improve my life. I mean, in the short term, it sucked. It was terrible, and I think I was in shock for about 2 years. But really, because she died, and my father got remarried and left, I was on my own, but found good friends who set me up right, pointed me in a better direction, and helped me along this journey. I may not have gone to college like I had planned, but that wasn't for me. I know that now. I met Christine, had CR, and became a writer and computer programmer. I would never trade the life I have now with anyone else's. My life, despite my petty complaints, is actually quite good. I am grateful for the lessons and shelter she was able to give me, and for giving a husband to a great wife, a father to a great son, and a freind to some of th best people in the world. And the good in her still glows in me, and carries on to share with others.

And now I know it glows in Mike, which was a really good way to start the new year. Thank you, Mike.

Posted by Punkie @ 05:18 PM EST [Link]

Blast from the past, one from the vaults, ripped from the crypts

I got some mail the other day. It was bundled together with a fat rubber band. Sometimes our mail comes to us this way, but only once in a while.

Our postal carrier is notoriously bad at delivering mail. We have lost mail here and there, and many times we get someone else's mail. It's gotten so that I have to look at a bill, to make sure it's mine, before I open it. I have accidentally opened other people's cable bills and gas cards, for instance. "What's this, another application for a Visa? Oh... no, it's Bob's credit card bill from down the street. Hmmm... he orders a lot of stuff from the same address in New Jersey." Sometimes people get our mail, and give it to us in person, or just leave it in our box later. That's what I do a lot, too. Except that one day recently when the carrier gave everyone the wrong mail, off by one house to the left. We all got to meet our neighbors to the right that day. Sometimes, I have found mail just lying in the street. Often packages in fat envelopes. When I put "return to sender" on envelopes, the mail carrier never picks them up. Sometimes, I'll mail it from elsewhere, and it gets sent right back to my house. My mail carrier cheerfully delivers mail, with "return to sender" right back to my address. It's like they are hinting for me to throw it away. A lot of us have complained, and it will get better after a while, but the problem just keeps coming back.

I didn't open the bundle until today, because I needed to do bills. The bundle was odd. I opened the first letter from the pile, and it was from Sprint, claiming I still owed them $46.00. I growled and swore, since I switched to Verizon in November, until I saw the bill date: June 16, 2003. Holy crap, that was late! Then I saw the next bill. A cell phone bill from July of 2003. There were those replacement credit cards we never got (and thus, reported stolen) back in November! A bank statement from October, and a few postcards stating our pets were due for shots back in August. Oops. A notice our license plates had to be renewed by the end of January! Got to work on that now! But the saddest was a Christmas card, opened, from my late sister-in-law, Brenda. Mailed in December of 2002. She had passed away in February of 2003.

Why did we get a bundle of late mail? Was it from the post office? Or some neighbor that just collected them in a pile for the last year or so, to give to us all at once? Oddly enough, not one piece was junk mail, it was all mail personally addressed to us.

I guess better late than never, huh?

Posted by Punkie @ 03:26 PM EST [Link]

Sunday, January 25, 2004

Sorry, no "Theme"

I got a letter today from some group that said it considered putting my blog up for an example, and had been voted on because they liked the writing quality and frequency of updates, but I was disqualified because the people in charge of ranking could not find a "theme" to my blog.

I laughed when I saw this. Well, uh, sorry. I have no "theme" I can attach to. I think if I tried to find a theme, it would have to alter all my posts to that theme, and then it would seem rather silly. My friend Neal sent me a documentary of his honeymoon once, and in the various pages of his trip through Hawaii, he not only included insightful comments, but also kept reviewing the iced tea at every restaurant he went to. From 7-11 to the fine hotel restaurant to the bed and breakfast inn and all points in between. I noted this, and Neal said it was for those whole like subtle humor. I liked that little addendum; it sort of made the story, "My Honeymoon and Hawaiian Iced Tea Ratings."

The letter made me think that maybe I should do something similar, but I have no ideas. But it's got the gears a-whirrin' in my head. Hmmm...

In a slightly related note, I think I may have to drop Greymatter as my blogging software. Right now, I have about 600 entries, and updating is getting slower and slower. When I visit the Greymatter forums, I am seeing a lot of people starting to slow down and get timeouts at about 900 entries. This is apparently a result of this software not having any sort of database to connect to, so certain files just get bigger and bigger, and thus take longer to parse through. I am studying Moveable Type, which seems to be a good choice to move to, and is part of why suddenly the "www.punkadyne.com" no long is an alias to www.punkwalrus.com. I plan to separate my journal into 3 parts: one for the blog, one for a technical journal, and one for links and quotes I come across. But now I have to build a mock-up at home locally on Linux, test how everything works, and then upload it to Silverdragon, and hope it works just as well on Sun OS. :)

Posted by Punkie @ 03:19 PM EST [Link]

Bleah, depressed.

I have nothing to be depressed about. In fact, several good things have happened. The Martian Rover Spirit has communicated back to NASA, the new rover Opportunity landed with no faults, I got my Ohana Hawaiian coffee about a week earlier than expected, I ate great sushi, and I got a new toy, the Jabberwok figure from "American McGee's Alice," I cleaned part of my den so it doesn't look like a trash heap (but it's still cluttered), and Rogue came over to stay the weekend. On top of this, last week has been a bonus week for my son, who got "promoted" (of sorts) out of some supplemental LD classes to a more normal schedule, his grades are holding steady, and his teachers all love him very much. But I got wicked depressed anyway.

The depression that hit me was far greater than any I have felt in a while. See, when I was younger, I was "sorta depressed" all the time. So when a wave of depression hit me, it was just like a big wave hitting a beach on a stormy sea that gets waves all the time, anyway. Now it's like a flash flood in a dry riverbed: rare, but when it comes, you better get out of the way! Of course, I can't, so I get swept up and bashed around the rocks until the water runs out, and I am left spent on a drying shore. This leads me to belive there's a chemical problem, because since I have gotten older, I have noticed more and more I get depressed with no trigger. I mean, I'd get depressed if someone I loved died, because that makes sense. But I got depressed on the way to eat sushi with Christine and Rogue, and it got so bad, I couldn't see movies with them. I ate leftover Chinese food in my bedroom, bawling my eyes out for no reason. I could feel my brain searching for a trigger, something to blame. But this blog has been removing one story out of my head after another, and it's like if I wrote it down in my blog, I can forget about it. So childhood traumas are like, "No, I wrote that down, I can't use it now, it no longer has any power," so I attach to stupid crap. For a while, I thought my pal Mark Mandolia hated me. No reason. He was sitting next to me at the Katsu meeting, and did seem pre-occupied, but I doubt he hated me. It was just something stupid that just came to me, and as far as I know, totally made up from my own head. Then I got upset I had gained 3 lbs, but I know my weight fluctuates, and my diet hasn't been that good recently (they gave us free food at the training seminar last week, which while yummy, was all greasy and bad for me as hell). I am back on the better eating path, and part of me wonders if I am depressed because of something I ate. Now I feel foolish and stupid I was crying for several hours, and my sinuses hurt. I am still in a post-funk malaise, sensitive to EVERYTHING, and man, that's so melodramatic, and I am sick of it. "Boo hoo, I spilled trash while emptying it, and now my hands have rotten banana gunk on them, waaaaauuugghh!!!" Feh.

Of course, as bad as this sounds, this year I have been depressed a LOT less than I used to be. Like I think until age 18, I was depressed about 90-99% of the time. Then that dropped to about 75% when I was until age 22, then about 50% until I turned 30, and now I think I am depressed about 20-25% of the time, with a majority of these periods happening around wintertime. This winter has been REALLY low, like 10% or less, so while I am hopeful for a continuing trend, I don't want to jinx it. But the side effect of this is, when you get depressed less, by the time you get depressed again, it seems so much worse than normal, because you get addicted to feeling okay.

Bleah.

Posted by Punkie @ 01:59 PM EST [Link]

Saturday, January 24, 2004

Katsu excitement

Well, today was the Katsucon 10 last-chance panic meeting. Every convention has one of these. It's the last chance for any major changes, and it's kind of like the pre-game kickoff for a con. This one went rather smoothly, and the usual last-minute emergencies were annouced. Even for me.

Opening ceremonies didn't change much, but I found I am not doing Cosplay technical judging this time because Sue and Tom got Marty Gear (from Balticon) to do it. This doesn't hurt me in the least, because I know Marty, and he'll be great. I can't be another judge because I am doing the Cosplay Halftime, "Whose Katsu is it Anyway," and last year being technical judge was done BEFORE the Cosplay due to the difficult interviewing, hand-inspecting, and so on. One less thing to worry about! Except we lost a "Whose Katsu" player because he was sent to... well, he's military, so you know. So we're one player short. Maybe two, since we haven't heard from another guy (but he didn't contact us last year, either, and showed up anyway). On top of that, tech wants any slides I use *ahead* of time, and very soon (understandable). But I won't be able to give names, so I'll have to assign numbers or something. I am also going to have to find and then wear something formal for the Anime Music Video Awards. I hate formal. Bleah.

But the biggest issue is finding another (good) improv performer. I have some ideas, but I'll have to conact them first. You know who you are... how about doing improv in front of an anime audience of 2000? Anyone? Beuller?

Posted by Punkie @ 10:19 PM EST [Link]

Friday, January 23, 2004

Silly laws

This is part of my theory, "Where weird laws come from." It starts with some of the odder laws around, like from here:

Example: "Kansas law prohibits shooting rabbits from a motorboat."

Now why does Kansas have that law (assuming it's true)? Is it an interpretation of another law, like "Kansas law prohibits the transport of weapons across waterlines," which can be extended to mean, you can't shoot rabbits from a boat because that's transporting a firearm across water? Or is it a hunting law that specifically prohibts the shooting of rabbits from a motorboat?

If it's the latter, we must ask ourselves why this law came to effect? I always wonder if it's related to an incident, like some guy shooting rabbits from a boat and causing problems at one time, and a judge said, "There ought to be a law against this," and everyone agreed on Bill #438 or something, which had a line saying, "The hunting of rodent game from the vanatge point of the water in a motorized vehicle shall be forbidden," or something.

Then a lawyer can spin this ruling. "Your honor, my client was shooting rabbits from a rowboat, with no attached motor, and thus is not liable for prosecution." Maybe someone will write an ammendment stating that the shooting of rabbits from any water vehicle or vantagepoint on the water, shall also be forbidden. That's why we have so many laws, not because we are telling people what to do so much, but we're trying to define things down to the basic root.

"What is theft?" is a good one. I am sure we could spend weeks arguing that (please don't, this is not an invitation, merely an illustration of how law can be slanted). Law fasciantes me in this way, because we (as citizens) have to apply hard core definitions (what is stealing) to essentially abstract moral concepts (stealing is wrong). Even Hammurabi (old Babylonian King from around 1780 BCE) knew this. That's why we have juries, because you can't think of every instance of every case. You just have guage it based on the largely undefined, but believed, social values of the time.

That's why Clinton wanting to know what "is" meant could be valid, if not ironic.

The actual code of Hammurabi.

This was the first time historians think anyone ever put laws into writing. Some of them seem very sensible, others are... a bit vegneful. It's where "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" comes from (Laws 196 and 200, respectively).

Then there's #25: "If fire break out in a house, and some one who comes to put it out cast his eye upon the property of the owner of the house, and take the property of the master of the house, he shall be thrown into that self-same fire."

Ezikiel: Elijah! Thou hast stolen mine bucket!
Elijah: Nay! I useth it to quench the flames on thine property!
Ezikiel: Then why hast thou not returned self-same bucket?
Elijah: Perhaps because the fire still burns, mine neighbor.
Ezikiel: Thy excuses are as lame as a strikened mule!
Elijah: That self-same mule hath burned in the fire, Ezikiel.
Ezikiel: Then thou shalt burn with it!
Elijah: The richness of my irony thickens! [crackle crackle]

[The parts of the Babylonian citizens have apparently been played by characters with Amish names and badly-mangled Pilgrim accents in the style of a 1790's pantomine comedy for some reason]

Posted by Punkie @ 10:22 PM EST [Link]

Thank God for the Computer Revolution

I saw this link, and it made me grateful.

Sometimes, abused kids fantasize about going back in time and fixing whatever they thought was wrong. "If I knew then what I know now..." No. And the Internet/Computer revolution is one big reason I never want to go back. I think about all the stuff I did, and how I had to make do without computers. Word processing, communication, and reference was all done with pen, typewriter, the phone, and visits to the library. I didn't have time for all that! My stuff was full of misspellings because I had no spellcheckers. Want to find out how to spell something? "Look it up in the dictionary!" But if I don't know how to spell it in the first place... oh, forget it.

Like today, a coworker came into my office to show off his new Stingray boots. I had never heard of them before, but I was able to go on the Internet and look them up. Now I know about them. I was also able to call him on some BS that Elephant leather boots come from farmed elephants from the US, and they are not from elephants in the wild. Farmed elephants? How do you farm an elephant? They are huge, incredibly intelligent mammals that require a lot of space and food to keep alive. I can't imagine you could farm an elephant like you can goats or chickens. They'd pick up anything in their tusks and bash it around. Heck, people in Africa CAN'T keep elephant from their farms (elephants knock down all the fences, then go into the cornfields, and pig out), so how would you keep one in a farm? Having a game preserve or sanctuary, yes, but a farm? I told him I wanted proof. He hasn't gotten back to me yet, but I looked it up on the Internet all the same. Nope. No elephant farms to be seen. Sure, there are places where they are raised for work (but only in Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Africa, it seems), or for orphaned elephants, but I wouldn't call that a farm, because a farm is technically... well, the Oxford Dictionary says, "an area of land and its buildings used for growing crops and rearing animals, typically under the control of one owner or manager, for purposes of mass-production to market." Thanks to the Internet and computers, I was about to cut and paste that from a website, and put it in my blog. It makes it harder to make stuff up if anyone can look it up.

Of course, secretly, I'd want an elephant farm... but only if I bred mini-elephants as pets.

Posted by Punkie @ 01:01 PM EST [Link]

Paging Donnalee...

I used to have this friend, Donnalee McLeod. She was awesome. A very caring and intelligent person, a writer, and she did puppet shows for small children in church. I knew her since sixth grade, and became friends with her when I was asked to be her Algebra tutor in high school. Her mother was... leery... of me, and suspected at any time she left us alone, we'd be snogging on the couch. Now truth to be told, I did start to have a crush on her, but before it developed into anything serious, she moved away. Before she moved, she introduced me to Kate, who became my best friend all throughout high school. I saw Donnalee once more when she came back to visit, and then I sent her some flowers on Valentine's day when I was 19. We wrote to each other a lot, but then we both lost touch as high school friends often do. I don't think about her that much, except as the friend I lost due to drifting apart, and I wonder what ever happened to her (I can't find her on the Internet).

So I had this weird dream the other night I was in a cafe/diner in downtown DC, and I saw that she was a waitress. A bitter and angry waitress. She was wearing a diner uniform from the 1960s or something, and walked around like she was just totally pissed off at everyone. I wanted to talk to her, but she totally ignored me. I didn't press the issue, but I was upset. I also saw that the cafe was packed, and the tables couldn't get cleaned up in time for other patrons. So I started to clean up the tables. The manager on shift asked me if I wanted a job, and since I was looking for part-time work, I agreed. She took me into the back, and we had an interview. Quickly, she determined that I was "too overqualified" to be a busboy, but they needed a night manager to balance the books and close, and could only afford a part-timer for that. I used to be a retail manager, so I cheerfully agreed, and when Donnalee came where we were, the manager said, "Hey, Donnalee. We got a new night manager!" Donnalee angry screamed at me, "Stop STALKING ME!" and walked out. The manager sighed and said, "I am going to have to fire her soon." I pleaded Donnalee's case, saying I knew her back in high school, and she wasn't always this way. The manager explained that Donnalee had been working there for a while, and was getting worse and worse towards employees and patrons. I didn't know why Donnalee was so angry, or why she thought I was stalking her, but suddenly, working there didn't seem so appealing. The manager said for me to think about it, and as I was walking out of the cafe, I saw Donnalee on the front stoop, smoking a cigarette (she didn't smoke when I knew her). As I passed by her, she spat out, "And I don't need your PITY, either!"

I rarely have dreams so literal, and very rarely do friends enter into them. It's even rarer still that I recall them days later. I have no idea what this dream means. I doubt it's to be taken literally, like I doubt Donnalee would be a waitress right now, and I don't think she's mad at me. I try and to the "I am" exercise I learned in meditation. Like "I am a cafe. I need cleaned. I am Donnalee. I am stalking myself..." but that's not yielding anything useful.

Donnalee? If you are out there, call me, and tell me you're okay.

Posted by Punkie @ 09:55 AM EST [Link]

Commercials Lying on Services

To say my father hated commercials was an understatement. He claimed it was the main reason I was not allowed to watch TV as a kid. We only had two TV's in our house when I was a kid, a small color TV in my parent's bedroom, and a small black and white in the kitchen. If, at any time, one of those TVs was playing commercials, my father would yell "COMMERCIAL!!!" very angrily, and we had to scramble to turn the volume down to zero. To sing a commercial jingle in my house would have been punishable by... well, something way out of proportion. I never did find out why my father hated commercials so much, but when I got older, I kind of liked some of them out of spite.

But one thing I hate is commercials that tell you how awesome their company's service is. Good service, in my experience, is so rare... it's almost a joke to hear any commercial show you some smiling operator excitedly telling you something. Now, I have actually had good service before. Citibank, for instance, has pretty good service. American Express does, too. But Sprint is full of incompetent people, Verizon and Cox Communications (phone and cable) have appallingly bad attitudes, and other companies I have called have angry, bitter, or just plain stupid people who don't listen.

What started this rant is another Cox commercial that shows these WASP cable men with crisp shirts being welcomed into the community like the favorite newspaper boy. No. Let me tell you what I get from most utility companies: lazy, angry people. Cox Cable sends these foreign-speaking guys who have the technical skill of a spoiled young child. And each technician has a different way of doing things, and a different explanation as to why my cable doesn't work. It took them about a year, since the enforced "digital upgrade," to get cable to work on both my TVs. In that time, the exchanged about 5 different boxes, rewired my house and yard twice, and made a mess in my attic and drilled holes in my walls that they didn't end up using. Only one out of three of the "technicians" (and I use that term very loosely) spoke English. The other two were often yelled at by the one who did, and there was always one "designated peon" that got left to do 90% of the work while the other two went back to the truck. This peon often never spoke a word English, and often looked around like a confused small mammal stuck to the realm of the forest floor, looking at my house like he was surrounded by threatening Redwoods. If spoken to, even nicely, I'd get a sheepish grin, followed by him leaving and getting the angry supervisor. It's like a circus, and often they can never fix my problem without "going to get something," and then they never return. So we have to call Cox back. Then they sent three different guys, who fill the same roles.

Then I see this "Welcome to McDonalds" crap. Has any of the morons that do these commercials ever been to a McDonalds? No. It's complete fiction. Appallingly brash and bold lies. McDonalds out here are often damp filthy places run by disgruntled dregs of society who have an attitude like they have been forced to do the most degrading thing in their life. I have heard that the way they treat their employees borders on the edge of barbaric, and judging from the churn of bitter employees, I'd believe it. They never get my order right, and I have pretty much given up on them, and will only go if I am with a group that goes. This is universal to any McDonalds I have been to in the last ten years, from San Jose to Baltimore.

Commercial: Smiling young girl in crisp uniform, who says in perfect English, "Welcome to McDonalds, may I take your order?"
Reality: Some angry person who slurs in a dirty untucked shirt, will not make eye contact, says in one long sigh, "MeccumDaMcdons, haMinaHepya...?"

McDonalds has not been doing too well recently. They think it's that the food isn't fast enough. No, it's because you treat your employees like crap, and so they don't give a rat's ass about the customer, so the food is awful and the service is so uncaring, it's like going through a meat packing plant in Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle." And it's not about "only the dregs of society/immigrants can get work there," because Taco Bell has the same pay rate and environment, and their service, on average, is far, far better. Immigrants or not (and, for the record, being the grandson of immigrants, living in a country built by immigrants, I am totally for immigrants). My order is always right, I get smiling service, and the overall attitude is better.

Now onto phone reps. No, skip that. This post is long enough. I don't have solutions for this problem. But I know a good start:

- Pay your employees better. Treat them like humans. Fire those who have poor attitudes, and don't encourage poor behavior.
- Stop advertising what you can't deliver. Instead of saying how great your service is, claim something else that is... you know, true. "We're Red, white, and yellow!" might be a nice start for McDonalds.

Posted by Punkie @ 12:37 AM EST [Link]

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

Forgiving my father... please?

I wish I could forgive my father.

I don't think a day goes by where I don't get mad at the son-of-a-bitch at least once or twice. He was cruel, unloving, hateful, and pretty much insane. My childhood is pretty much under a cloud that was my father. In fact, I find it hard to BE a dad because of him. I think a lot of my male-anxiety comes from the past I have with him.

When I think of my childhood, I think I have the same reaction young Jews fleeing Europe in the 30s and 40s must have felt about Hitler. His fear was everywhere, and he touched and ruined everything you had ever loved. He was out to get you, and made no attempts to disguise this fact. You hated him because you were terrified of him. I have so many reasons to hate the man. I have scores of childhood traumas, and I'd say a good portion of my daily brain cycle is devoted to overhead just to keep back the tide of childhood memories from stuff he did to me. I mean, I had bullies in school, lots of them, but I can't even remember their names anymore. I barely remember specific incidents where I was beaten by bullies in school more than I have of similar encounters with my father.

My friend Bruce always said, “You should never hate, because rarely does the person you hate care about it, and then you're left doing all the work.” My relationship with my father is so dead on to this concept. Hate is a transference of power. I give my father power over me, every day, and I doubt he even thinks of me anymore. Sometimes I wonder if anyone has asked him if he has kids after I moved out on my own, and whether he said, “from a former marriage,” or just, “no.” So why the hell do I even care?

Well, there's always the loose ends. I guess we all want approval of some kind from our dads, and I never got that. My father was the typical “never good enough” type of parent when it came to praise. Some kids go insane trying to impress such a parent, and some, like me, gave up. In fact, it was sort of a sick game I played where I pretended to be really stupid. Like pot-head stupid. Sometimes, I'd even do the, “Duuuuhhh...” look and act like I couldn't even navigate a hallway without bumping into something. It was a very passive aggressive move on my part, to be truthful. Part of it came from the fact that there were several instances where showing I was right, or smart, got me punished. Severely. “Playing dumb,” was sort of a part I learned because assuring him I was stupid was cathartic to him, almost like watching a heroin addict take a hit. “Playing clever” was a sure way to get punished, often way out of proportion to the crime. It seemed to be a threatening posture to show even a hint of power, which was pretty random. There were many things I was punished for that left me confused. Like every time he beat me severely... I don't recall what started it (although it has occurred to me that I may be blocking it out). I also think playing dumb meant that I had given up trying, and set my standards so low that achieving them required little energy. Sadly, I got addicted to this game, and it spread into my personal life, and finally, in my blood. My self confidence can be very shaky sometimes, in uncertain territory, and I fall back into old habits. But when I think back to all the “Duhhh... I dunno,” crap I pulled? I can't blame him for hating me for that. I think that was on purpose.

Forgiving is a very hard thing to do sometimes. The only kind of forgiving I can tolerate is unconditional. Otherwise, there's too many gray areas. I have been told forgiving is often harder when you blame yourself, at least in part, towards the person you hate, and I think that's true in this case. I have forgiven a LOT of people in my past, and I know what an enormous release that is, but it's easier if you have no guilt attached. Sometimes you have to forgive yourself as much as the person you are forgiving. Like, “I'm sorry I blew up your car because you slept with my sister,” would be a good example of a hard apology, especially if the statutory limit on car bombing in your state hadn't passed yet. I have forgiven friends who have “done me wrong” in the past because of mistake, miscommunication, or just time. Like I have forgiven almost everyone who did anything mean to me five years ago or earlier if they were under 25 at the time, because I figure sometimes we mature, and I want to give hem the benefit of the doubt. These limits will expand in time. But forgiving 18 years of hell? Takes a lot of undoing.

I have considered several scenarios, and none of them are very good. The first thought was to totally block out my childhood, and never speak of it again. That didn't go very far, because not only would this make me psychotic, but doomed to repeat the mistakes I learned from him (i.e., what not to do). Then I thought of the, “he was insane, and couldn't help it,” route. This gets weak because while I do realize that insanity runs on that side of the family like a poisoned black vein down the family tree, he was a fully cognizant man, very intelligent, and ... well, it feels like I am making excuses. If I go murder a guy, insanity won't excuse me from the family of the victim. No one forgave Hitler, for instance. I have also tried to see it from his point of view; raised poor by an alcoholic dad, a crazy mom, married an alcoholic wife, had a stressful job, and so on, but his brother says he was cruel as a child, too, so that's more leaning towards the insanity plea. So the last resort I have to do is tot totally muster up enough strength to collect all the memories, pain, and anguish, and just forgive the poor man. And there, I lack the strength.

I'm too weak. In fact, the hatred and anger still burns strong like a fire, and I have often used it to complete physical labor. If I have to do something I hate, and requires a lot of muscular power, I just relive some thing he did to me, and wala! Like taking steroids. It's some weird fuel that not only burns and powers the engines, but also burns and damages all the parts until I am left spent and bruised. Sadly, whiule this does get a lot of housework done, this is doing me no good mentally.

I have tried to disassociate myself from him, but I'm not fooling anyone, especially myself. My blog is FULL of it, like stains on a carpet that just keep coming back. It's a bile I am constantly spitting out. While writing this, I told myself, “No specific events, do NOT get into that trap...” because once I start...

Some potential entries have been pages and pages of abuse, but after I reviewed them (I was so angry, I had to do the “wait 24 hours before posting rule”), I thought, “This is far too shocking, ugly, and ... dammit, almost unbelievable. People are going to think this is a V.C. Andrews novella.” So I have to refrain from specific incidents, however many may escape, from becoming long histories.

Still, the power I could have if I forgave him...

Dear Dad,

Sorry for the first 18 years of my life. I suck as a son.

Please love me,
Your son Grig Larson.

Nah... not sincere enough. It makes me want to add, "I'll do anything to have a real dad in my life, even live in denial!" Besides, I bet he'd think, “who?” Some quote goes, "To err is to human, to forgive, devine!" Maybe God or whatever is the only one who could forgive him fully.

Must be nice to be God.

Posted by Punkie @ 10:12 PM EST [Link]

A bit of explanation about Punkadyne...

I got a letter from a friend of mine about Punkadyne.com, which "seems to be down." It is. Actually, it's been moved, and put as a placeholder for a new project I am working on.

The name "Punkadyne Laboratories and Archives" came to me in a dream. I was wandering the desert, when a barefoot young woman appeared before me, dressed in gossamer and gold silk. "I am the 'I am,'" she said. "Worlds within worlds, come before me and whisper the pearls of your experiences before my nubile feet, and I shall sing that tune of the Price of Blackbirds on nigh..." Instead of eyes, her sockets held black pools of the night, dotted with tiny diamond stars. Her voice flowed like water, and the desert night sky turned gold and orange like a halo around us. Sitar music played as I kneeled before my Golden Goddess, and begged mercy for my putrid and wretched mortal existence. Then, I was as a cobra, swimming across the desert sands like a stream of golden liquid across the moon drenched dunes. I saw the births, lives, deaths, and rebirths of many people, lands, and cultures through my serpentine eyes. "The is the why, when you live in the here and now, we all sing like bird trapped in the castles of our own minds. Free yourself, Punkie. Be one with the voices of a thousand ancient statues that have seen those who have passed and became reborn." Then, a met a tall, thin man wearing a tie-dye loincloth and a leather mask drawn over his head and face, stretched tight like a gourd. His eyes were covered with aviator goggles, and feathers stuck from cracks in his mask. "Arise, Punkie," he said. "The mushrooms you ate on that Pizza Hut delivery had gone bad, and you might feel a little funny. How many fingers am I holding up?" Indeed. "How many fingers are we ALL holding up?" I asked. "Uh-huh," said the Man in the Mask, who, waving his fingers in front of my face, symbolic of the uncounted souls that wear the masks of their everyday lives. "Listen," he said, as wisdom dribbled forth from his lips and formed colors in the sky, "I am going to prescribe you some medicine to ease the stomach craps, and help you get some sleep. Your wife has come to drive you home. Please let go of the jar of tongue depressors, and give them back to me." It was a test! A test, I tell you! No, no! I was NOT going to release the magic canopic jars that contained my organs to him! I spit fire into the air, and ran to the temple, which looked a lot like the underside of a hospital gurney. "Okay," said the Man in the Mask, "you can have them..." I had passed. I had passed...

Okay, actually, I was at a con party, I am pretty sure it was an Evecon or Castlecon, and there was a discussion about what "dyne" meant in company names, like Solidyne, Betadyne, and even the fictitious Yoyodyne in "Buckaroo Banzai." I suggested they stood for "dynamic," as in moving excitedly. Someone said it came from a chemical suffix used in labs. It was around the time people started calling me "Punkie," and I was thinking about my book, "The Punk Walrus Saga," and so I thought, "Punkadyne." I registered the name, and copyrighted it in 1993. But it wasn't just the name, but I needed something that sounded like it created and stored ideas, so "Punkadyne Laboratories and Archives" came to mind.

I used it once on a resume. They gave me GREAT reviews. Best worker they had every known. It also became part of a small sting operation a friend of mine had concocted to see if a former employer was saying bad things about me (it turns out they were not). Back when we had terrible bill collectors, I used it, pretending to be my secretary (I can fake a good female voice, thanks to my friend Velvet B. who once taught me), and fielding my own calls. I had a staff of several people working for me, apparently. I still get mail to the company, and was even offered an Amex Gold Card (I declined).

For the longest time, www.punkadyne.com and www.punkwalrus.com were synonymous. They pointed to the same pages. But no longer. I can't say what's going to happen to Punkadyne yet, but I assume, something will happen.

Something wonderful.

Posted by Punkie @ 07:05 PM EST [Link]

Microsoft

I am typing this from a dungeon computer somewhere in the belly of Microsoft HQ in Reston. I am in VB.NET training classes today, and most of this week, so entries will be scarce. But I have been alerted by two people that my "comments" section is on the fritz. I think my journal has started to tax the limits of the Greymatter software.

Microsoft HQ in Reston is in a generic silver-steel and glass building, one of the many buildings they have erected in the last few years around here, in what used to be a beautiful series of woods and nature paths. It has a cheap aluminum siding feel to it, and still has the "new building" smell. The digs are nice, and we get free pizza and soda, so it's not a bad experience so far.

The teacher is pretty good. MUCH better than the last guy, who among other things, was obsessed with the fact that Billy Bob Thornton and Angilina Jolie had broken up. He also bosted he "posted on the Usenet," like that was some great accomplishment. Gee. I feel special. This teacher knows a lot, is irreverent towards the Evil Overlords, answers questions fairly well, and you can hear him when he speaks. Which is nice, especially when the guy next to you is bothering you all the time.

Yeah, the same guy from my RHCE class.

Oh well.

Posted by Punkie @ 09:24 AM EST [Link]

Monday, January 19, 2004

Coffee... coffee coffee coff-ay!

I know I've said this before, but I didn't like coffee until I went to Sweden, and realized that there was such a thing as "good coffee." For a while, I was only drinking Gevalia Dark Stockholm Roast, but last year, I took some advice from a friend of mine. He said when he was in Seattle, he went to this "Hawaiian Foods" store, and found this amazing coffee that he said was better than the European coffee he preferred, some brand from Amsterdam. He went on about how Hawaii was the ultimate place to grow coffee, and then wouldn't shut up about it. So finally, I went to Kona Blue Sky Coffee, and ordered the sampler pack.

Wow. That was some good coffee. It's expensive (like $8.50 for a half-pound), but I don't drink coffee daily, so half a pound lasts about a year, unless your friend Travis comes over and drinks it from a large Pyrex measuring bowl :-D. My favorite blend is Ohana, dark roast, freshly ground, but they are all good. So, here's my top 5 coffees:

1. Kona Blue Sky Coffee, Ohana dark roast
2. Gevalia, Stockholm dark roast
3. Cafe du Monde, Chicory roast
4. Starbucks, the "coffee while going out" choice
5. Dunkin' Donuts, no really, their coffee isn't half bad!

I prefer milk and raw cane sugar, but powdered light creamer and NutraSweet are good, too! And better for my new way of eating.

Posted by Punkie @ 11:20 AM EST [Link]

Chair! The Musical...

My new chair broke. Not the chair itself, but the left armrest, which was a loop, snapped like a crushed Cheerio. Sadly, I can't find the receipt and I already threw away the box. It was not metal, like it looked and felt, but a huge slab of plastic. Duct tape to the rescue. Oh, freakin' well. [sigh...]

I have always wanted those Aeron Chairs, the Cadillac of office chairs, but they also have a Cadillac price tag: $700. For a chair. They are nice, but not that nice. Okay, maybe they are that nice, but I don't make that kind of money to justify spending $700 on a chair, when that $700 could redo a bathroom, buy a new mattress, or any of the other more pressing issues we have.

Maybe someone will buy me one. Like, you know, a sugar daddy or something. :)

Posted by Punkie @ 11:00 AM EST [Link]

Still losing weight

Some of you may have been wondering if I am still eating different. While I did make a few exceptions for Christmas, I am still on track for the most part. I still love eating those little pre-made frozen dinners for lunch. I did gain some weight during the holidays, and went from 302 up to 304 for a week, but then was back to 302... and this weekend I saw two zeros in a row. 300. I'm pretty psyched about that. The weight is arbitrary, of course, because nothing is loose on me yet, but it's the only quantitative guide I have to go by. I can't say I feel any different, although eating balanced meals has certainly helped my mood and energy level.

I know at some point, I will plateau, and I'll have to face the exercise demons. I hate exercise. I hated it when I was a kid, and I hate it now. I have mentioned why a few times in my blog, so I won't mention it again, but I am hoping to gain enough spare energy so that exercise will be the only way to expel it. I'd love to be 220 by the end of 2005, and stay there, but I have a feeling I'll plateau around 260-280 before I have to say, "Okay, how much does this REALLY mean to me?" And honestly, I'd love to be a bit more pumped up and stronger so I can do housework and repair without being so damn tired all the time.

I'm not mentioning a blow-by-blow of this exciting "walrus losing weight" saga because it's pretty much the same thing every day, and I don't want it to seem like I am boasting to those friends of mine still working with their weight. But I'd like a record for myself later, so I hope you don't mind when I pop in and list where I am at. It's part of the "keeping honest" thing I do with my blog. I figure if I have to answer to people publically, I won't be tempted to make stuff up or avoid topics.

Posted by Punkie @ 10:53 AM EST [Link]

Sunday, January 18, 2004

AMV - Not for wussies

Anime music videos... what a day. Over 55 entries. Judging anime music videos can be a hard process. I mean, I know some of these people pour their heart and soul into making these, but ... if I had to make a "to do" list, here's some tips:

Make sure you have an idea to convey. We saw a lot of videos that were just a collection of clips to a piece of music. That's... really dull. Some were even disqulaified because it was literally one clip with one song backdrop. That's not fan dedication under fair use, that's copyright violation.

Be original. Eva, Trigun, and Cowboy Bebop have been done to death now. It looks like the Animatrix is next. We have also officially gotten sick of Europe's "The Final Countdown" as a soundtrack.

Make sure your video follows the guidelines. Like if the submission requirements say no X or R-rated material, do not have clips where someone is giving oral to a girl in a jacuzzi, or being raped by a demon until she's bleeding from the mouth. Like, ew.

Make sure the media works. Some were disqualified because they were on bad VHS tapes, broken CDs, CD-Rs that had not been "closed" after burning, or had missing video or audio tracks. Before you submit them, check the media in someone else's player.

Unlike last year, there were NO Sailor Moon videos, which was good, and almost all of the videos were of great or at least acceptable quality. But a lot of them seemed...

... I am not a mean person. I realize many people work very hard at making these, pay a lot for video editing software, and watch a lot of anime. And maybe they will get better. My earlier writing sometimes makes me cringe. But just be glad that the ones you see at our anime con have been... screened down to a handful. We watch the mopey teen dedications, confusing montages, and just plain dull videos so you won't have to.

Posted by Punkie @ 12:04 AM EST [Link]

Friday, January 16, 2004

Yeah... that's about right...

I Am A: Chaotic Good Half-Elf Ranger Bard


Alignment:
Chaotic Good characters are independent types with a strong belief in the value of goodness. They have little use for governments and other forces of order, and will generally do their own things, without heed to such groups.


Race:
Half-Elves are a cross between a human and an elf. They are smaller, like their elven ancestors, but have a much shorter lifespan. They are sometimes looked down upon as half-breeds, but this is rare. They have both the curious drive of humans and the patience of elves.


Primary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.


Secondary Class:
Bards are the entertainers. They sing, dance, and play instruments to make other people happy, and, frequently, make money. They also tend to dabble in magic a bit.


Deity:
Solonor Thelandria is the Chaotic Good elven god of archery and the hunt. He is also known as the Keen Eye, the Great Archer, and the Forest Hunter. His followers respect nature, and only hunt when needed, but are quick to defend the forest from intruders. Their favorite weapon is the bow, and they tend to be extremely talented with it. Solonor Thelandria's symbol is an arrow with green fletchings.


Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy ofNeppyMan (e-mail)

Posted by Punkie @ 11:45 PM EST [Link]

Like your house... [click]

When we moved into the house we live in now, the former owners had left... odd clues to a possibly checked past. Here is a list of weird stuff they did.

When we bought the house in May, the agreement was that they could live in it until September, and pay us rent. Our lease with our current house expired in September, so that gave them time to move out. At the bargaining table, they proudly clamed that their new house would be built by then. "How far is is now?" I asked. "We still have to dig the foundation," said the seller. Build an entire house... in 5 months. Well, I shrugged in my head, "Not my problem," but I made a mental not that he would start hinting to stay. Which he did around July, but we said, "Nope, we won't have a place to live. Sorry." Then he said this would force his whole family, which was three adults, three teens, and two dogs, to find an apartment. "Yeah," I agreed.

They did move out in time. To an apartment, which they moaned about. When we did the "final check-through," the floor in my den was missing. There was bare concrete and some spirals of old cement, which was NOT a pre-existing condition. When I asked why this was done, the old owner cheerfully said, "The old floor tile was asbestos, which I removed for you!" Then why didn't he put a floor back? "Uh... so you could, um... choose your own!" Part of the agreement was that any changes he made, he'd have to pay for. So when I said I'd hire a guy to put my floor in and charge him, he said he could do it. And so I agreed, and I can't complain at all about the floor he put in, but what the hell? I have always had this fanciful theory that there was a huge blood stain on it they had to remove.

They left a lot of stuff behind, with the promise of picking it up later. Then they vanished for months with no word. Their contact information was a dead end. Then they showed up in a van around December, and picked up about half of what they left behind. They have never come back for the other half.

Judging from the stuff they left, along with some graffiti and brands of things they left behind, I suspect they sold for Amway. There's graffiti in the attic that says, "Doug and Donna, Silver Star Members, 1998!" A lot of the light bulbs were Amway. Same with the A/C filters, water filters, and cans of paint. I have a ... dislike ... of Amway (another post for someday). When I asked Doug what he did for a living, he gave the typical, "I am a distributor for major brand name products to businesses in the area." Amway people say that because they know the word "Amway" is a named more sullied than Enron and Amy Fisher put together.

Bad Amy Fisher joke...
Knock, knock.
Who's there
Amy Fisher.
Amy Fish--
BANG!

A few times, the former owner or his brother came by. By coincidence, either myself or Christine were at home at the time. One day, I was at home, and the former owner went into the shed... poked around, went into a tool box, pulled something out, put his finger in it and licked his finger, shrugged, and continued poking around. Red flags sprung up so fast, they nearly knocked me to the floor. I went out on the deck, and said, "Hey, Doug... what's up?" He looked stunned, a bit too surprised, and said, "Oh... sorry, I didn't know you were at home." I told him that he needs to tell us when he comes to visit, as per our agreement, and the same went for his brother. "My brother? Oh, yeah. He came for his ladder. Say, when are you guys at home, anyways?" I reflexively lied, "One of us is always at home, either Christine or myself... or both." He had a poor poker face. "Oh," he said. I told him he needs to call, because once we have the alarm system installed, it might call the police. I never saw him again. I changed all the locks that day. I also scoured the shed, but never found what he might have been licking.

Other weird stuff happened in the few months after we bought the house.

The sheriff came by, looking for the grandfather who used to live in the apartment we have downstairs. There was a subpoena to go to court over some $110,000 in property he owed, or had a lein on, or something. We got a lot of letters for that guy.

A small beatup car drove by our house, and took some pictures, and then drove away. We thought it was the insurance company, but we're not sure.

Then another beatup mopar-style car drove past our house slowly while I was at home alone. Then it drove past again, parked in front of our house, and was there for about half an hour before two very large men got out, and came to my front door. One was wearing corduroy blazer, and the other was wearing a football jersey. When I answered the door, they asked, "Mr. [former owner}?" I said no, that they had moved out about 8 months ago. They looked at each other, and then said, "We're college friends of his, do you know where he went?" I said that they left a forwarding address I was sending mail to, but I stopped when they started getting returned. They told me that if he stops by, to tell them to contact his alumni association. Then they went back into the car, were there for another 20 min or so, and then sped off with a screech. I mean, I can't honestly say who they were, but I doubt very much they were Doug's "college friends" if they didn't know what he looked like.

Over the years since then, the mail trickled down to almost nothing but a few junk mailings of the various Christian organizations they belonged to. Over a year later, Mrs. Former owner came by unannounced looking for their huge ladder, which Doug's brother had already taken (which her response was, "Oh, that's right..."). I told her all the people that came looking for them, and she claimed she knew what some were about ("Oh, my father was involved in a trial over some property we rented out."), but had a dead poker face when I mentioned the two men ("I don't know who those people might have been..."). She gave us a new address, and laid on us a story about how miserable they were, that finally, a year later, they got someone to dig their foundation of their home in Winchester. She left us a newer address, when I forwarded mail to, but then I lost it about a year later. I wasn't getting personal mail for them anymore, by that point.

In the years following, we heard other rumors about them. Most people liked them, specifically their kids, who apparently were the chore-doing people of the neighborhood. Their did lawns, mostly, but were also hired out for other odd jobs. Their friends... seemed a little off. They befriended a lot of teens I would never have allowed my son to play with. One of them still hangs around, and is like the Eddie Haskell of our neighborhood, trying to get CR to do stuff for him. This teen told me that the former owner was like a father to him, which doesn't give me a lot of confidence, because he's always boasting what a great hacker he is. There were hints that the former owners were rather religious and pretty preachy about it, and the junk mail we still get in their name from time to time supports this. A lot of Bible camps, Christian retreats in the wilderness, and invitations to big productions in outdoor theaters in Pennsylvania, where one can watch the saga of Noah's Ark acted out in a huge amphitheater with a full orchestra, a 500-person chorus, and a laser show projected on the side of a mountain. Hallelujah. The best was a series of junk mail where you can learn how to preach the gospel while selling real estate (I kid you not). But no one really had anything mean to say about them, so I was left in confusion as to who these people really were.

But a few months ago, we started getting personal Christmas cards for them, and a few more mailings have started to come through. A few have been for the grandfather, from his Veteran's Benefits and Social Security info. So now while we don't get must junk mail for them anymore, we are getting some serious personal stuff. I mark them "return to sender" but the mailman, who is an idiot (don't get me started), won't take them. I tried putting them in another mailbox, and they just keep sending the stuff back to me. So I shred them. I don't want part in whatever they are doing; I don't even read them.

Why do I bring this up now? Because Christine just told me that another car drove slowly past our house and took pictures. A small, older, gray Toyota. I also got a credit card application response (denied) in the grandfather's name, this address, filled out in October of last year. I have this... fear that some Mafia is pissed off at them, and one day some thugs will come into my house, thinking I am the former owner, and break my arms or something. Or that they are committing financial fraud out of my mailbox.

I hope I am just paranoid, but as they told us in safety class once, "Nine out of ten rape victims reported they felt 'something was amiss' right before they got attacked."

Posted by Punkie @ 01:15 PM EST [Link]

San Antonio... eighth largest--SHUT UP!

About 9 years ago, I was on my way to a sales meeting at a Dude Ranch in Bandera, Texas. The airport we all met at was the one in San Antonio, which had apparently just been remodeled. Everywhere you looked, there was at least one billboard, aimed at business travelers, to open their business in San Antonio. That's fairly normal for an airport, but here... there was an air of desperateness. The one item they mentioned over and over again was that they were the eighth largest city in the US. In fact, not only was this posted everywhere, all their recordings said it as well. Repeatedly.

Welcome to San Antonio. Please do not leave any bags unattended. San Antonio welcomes business travelers to the eighth largest city in the United States. The white zone is for unloading and loading passengers only. Please do not park in the white zone. San Antonio, the eight largest city in the United States, wishes your trip to be a happy and safe one.

Even the rent-a-car recordings had that.

Thank you for choosing Hertz Rent-a-car of San Antonio for your business needs. Please hold while we get the next available agent. San Antonio, the eight largest city in the United States, caters to the business needs of a modern economy...

It was like that Monty Python "Njorl's Saga" sketch were the North Malden Icelandic Saga Society, the sponsor to the saga, was advertising North Malden constantly and inappropriately:

Erik Njorl, son of Frothgar rode off into the desolate plain [the Viking mount the pony and rides off]. Day and night he rode, looking neither to right nor left. Stopping neither for food nor rest [shots of Erik riding through a bleak landscape]. Twelve days and nights he rode. Through rain and storm. Through wind and snow beyond the enchanted waterfall [Erik rides past a waterfall], through the elfin glades until he reached his goal [shot of a modern road sign: "North Malden. Please drive carefully"]. He had found the rich and pleasant land beyond the mountains [shots of Erik riding gently through a modern suburban shopping street], the land where golden streams sang their way through fresh green meadows. Where there were houses and palaces, an excellent swimming pool and one of the most attractive bonus incentive schemes for industrial development in the city. Only fifteen miles from excellent Thames-side docking facilities and within easy reach of the proposed M25. Here it was that Erik Njorl, son of Frothgar, met the mayor. Mr Arthur Huddinut, a local solicitor.

And it seems desperate to claim, "We're number 8! We're number 8! Yaaaaaaayyy!" I half expected John Cleese to interrupt with:

We apologize to the visitors of San Antonio Airport who may be confused by some of the references to being the eighth largest city in the US. After a frank exchange of views we have agreed to carry on playing the announcements supplied to us by the San Antonio for Business Company on the undertaking that future announcements will adhere more closely to the spirit of a modern Airport.

I bring this up because my friend Tracie is always trying to get me to live in Texas, and when I think if Texas, this stupid recording of San Antonio STILL goes through my head. So I looked it up, and according to the 1990 census, San Antonio was the TENTH largest city in the US at the time, up from 11th in 1980. So not only does this recording play in my head, but it's a LIE!

[dun dun duuuuun]

Posted by Punkie @ 11:45 AM EST [Link]

Thursday, January 15, 2004

Dream Blog

I got a book recently called The Weblog Handbook by Rebecca Blood. It wasn't very big (144 pages), so I was able to read it cover-to-cover in about 2 hours. I liked it. A lot of it I already knew, but some of it I didn't. The history of blogs, blog communities, and blog style was a bit of a new topic for me, and I compared it to my blog.

There were some nifty ideas, and some ideas I don't want to implement. For instance, I am not much of a fan about side panels. Some blogs have three columns of panels, and are so complex, the site is almost like a news portal. I think too much can go wrong in such an array, but then again, I may not have the right software. Here are some changes I'd like to add to my site:

Technical Journal. I work on a LOT of tech stuff when I am not writing, and I need a place to keep my notes. But if I add it to my main journal ... people snooze. One of the major drawbacks of this is that making it public means I'll have to change some data so I don't give away any company secrets or hackers some insight into my own home LAN. I don't like Slashdot's very much, and as you can see, I don't update it very often.

Link Log. I find a lot of links, and share them with my friends. I should log some of them, because I constantly want to refer to them, but I lose the link. But I don't have enough to make a decent entry like BoingBoing does.

Quote Collector. I have a lot of quotes I collect. Sometimes someone says something I find particularly witty and insightful, and I want to save it. I only get them once a week, so I might have this as a database that refreshes with a new quote when the main blog opens.

Link Referral. I want to link to other people's blogs.

In order for this two happen, I must have two things: a total understanding of CGI/Perl, and a big site redesign. AND update from Greymatter. So ... these might never happen. Any bloggers out there who might have software for all of it?

Posted by Punkie @ 10:29 AM EST [Link]

What Do You Do with a Doggie Like Widget...?

Widget's got some macho problems, man. His' all of 4lbs of wee tiny dog, but acts like he's some angry German Shepherd. He's suspicious of strangers, barks a lot, and growls at people passing by our house. He's bitten people, too. Not like poodles you see in TV and movies who nip at your ankles, but he'll jump high into the air and try and bite you at the arc of his jump, usually around waist level. He's the harsh to Ahfu's mellow. Sometimes, Widget goes so crazy, Ahfu has to jump on his head, and then Widget goes "Yipe yipe yipe...!" and squeals like a pig. How annoying. I need to get him out more, to meet more people.

With Ahfu, we properly socialized him at a very young age. He's all about people, and his only problem is he has food issues. Like, he's incredibly addicted to food. He'll attack anyone who tries to steal food from him, and if you have food, he's 100% loyal to you if he thinks you have some to give him. But he's pretty mellow the rest of the time.

Widget is also a runner. He runs around like a little horse. I call him "Itsyhippus," a name I stole from a gag science book. He gallops all over the place when he gets excited.

I should have stayed with Pekingese.

Posted by Punkie @ 09:11 AM EST [Link]

No snow... BWAH!

They predicted this moderate snowstorm (1-3 inches) yesterday and people freaked out as they usually do. I woke up this morning: no snow. As Nelson would say, "Ha ha!" When I was a kid, there were a few times when school was closed, in advance, because of an impending snowstorm. It was always funny to hear school had been canceled, and to "bundle up, and hunker down, because this is going to be big,"and the next morning ... no snow. Not a flake. I haven't seen that as an adult, I suspect because they are better at predicting the weather, and the school system is less trigger-happy than they used to be.

Posted by Punkie @ 08:56 AM EST [Link]

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Punkie's Cooking History, Part 2: The Larch (or Horse Chestnut, but not complaints about ants)

Over the years, I have also learned cooking techniques from various TV shows, message boards, and occasionally something someone said at a party. My most valuable tools are my iron skillet, and my Kitchenaid mixer. Pretty much everything is else is generic; a pot's a pot, a spoon's a spoon to me, man. I used to be particular about knives, but not so much anymore. I realized fussiness = inflexibility, which can lead to = bad food. My cooking is still pretty basic, but I have learned a few good things. I have two specialties I am known for: mashed potatoes and spaghetti sauce (not together).

The mashed potatoes thing confuses me as to why they are popular. This is my "secret recipe:"

- Six large baking potatoes (so chosen because they are easy to peel)
- Half a stick of unsalted butter
- Some milk (like 1/2 cup)
- Some salt (like 2 teaspoons)
- 1/2 oz of crystallized methamphetamine (just kidding, don't add this)

Peel potatoes, cut into thumb-width slices, and boil until you can break them with a spoon (10-15 min). Drain. Put in Kitchenaid Mixer bowl, blend at low speed until all large chunks are gone. Switch to high speed, and keep it on. Cut up butter, put in bowl, wait until all melted (less than a minute). Add milk a little at a time until it's as smooth as you like. Remember, you can always add more milk, but you can't take back what you already poured in, so don't make it more runny than you like. Then add salt to taste (same warning as milk). Serve.

My spaghetti sauce is also pretty basic:

- About 1lb lean hamburger
- One large jar of spaghetti sauce (don't laugh, read directions)
- 1 tablespoon of "McCormick's Italian Seasoning"
- 1 teaspoon of ground pepper, preferably fresh-ground
- 2 teaspoons of paprika
- Some powdered or fresh crushed garlic to taste (optional)
- 1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
- 1/4 cup mozzarella cheese (shredded, in small chunks, whatever)
- 1/4 cup cheddar cheese (shredded, in small chunks, whatever)
- 2 pinches of sugar

- 2 tablespoons high-quality olive oil (extra extra virgin, brand name)
- However much spaghetti you need

Take one package of hamburger (I say about 1lb, because stores usually give you 1.33 lbs or something), thaw it, then fry it on high at the bottom of a large pot until it starts to become a little crunchy and dry. Drain grease. Add spaghetti sauce and stir everything until it is thoroughly heated and boiling (about a minute). It will splatter, be careful.

Now, "why add pre-made sauce?" you ask? Bruce taught me this. He said spaghetti sauce that comes from the jar is usually the right consistency, and has the proper amounts of salt, but "is made for the bland American palate." So it is really our base, and saves us a TON of time and tasting (also reduces cost). I have tried this recipe with tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes, and tomato paste (in varying amounts), and it still comes out funny and bitter. So they add something in the spaghetti sauce that I haven't figured out how to replicate. The brand you use is up to you, but even the cheap $1.39/can stuff works fine.

Now that the sauce is boiling and splattering everywhere, add the Italian seasoning, pepper, paprika, and the parmesan cheese. Oh if you like a lot of garlic (and I don't), add garlic (fresh crushed or powdered is fine, but not garlic salt) to your taste. The sauce usually has garlic in it, but it is weak. Reduce heat to med-low, and cook for 15-20 min (with a cover), stirring every 5 min or so (so it won't burn). Clean up splatter before it dries on the stove and walls.

Boil some water in another pot. Add the 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Bring to a boil. Now would also be a good time to clean up the kitchen from messes other people left, whether it's related to today's cooking or not. You're already in the kitchen, and have to watch over your cooking, so you might as well. Less to clean up later, right?

After those 15-20 minutes are done, go back to the sauce. Add the rest of the cheeses to the sauce. Cook until all the cheese melts, stirring every few minutes. Then reduce heat so it is not bubbling anymore, but still kept hot. Add pinches of sugar (reduces acid taste), keep the lid off, and let it sit hot for another 5-10 minutes.

Put spaghetti in the boiling water, and set the timer for about 10 minutes (al dente). Stir the spaghetti every few minutes to keep it from clumping. When the spaghetti is done to your liking, drain. The sauce will now be done. Turn off heat, but leave pot on stove.

This sauce is good when it gets cold, too. It stores well (the preservatives in the pre-made sauce work for you here). I just put extra sauce left over (rare) in those clear disposable containers we got from all the Chinese takeout we order. The recipe is real easy, I cheat everywhere, and I don't know why it comes out so good, but people seem to love it.

Posted by Punkie @ 02:33 PM EST [Link]

Punkie's Cooking History, Part 1: The Larch

A long time ago, I was part of a thread that spoke about "essentials for the kitchen." I didn't agree with all of the choices, but it's probably because, as a cook, I am very basic. I don't cook with garlic much, so a "garlic press" seems like a drawer filler more than something I'd need. I have had several major influences in my life when it comes to cooking, one of which I was reminded this past weekend.

My mother was a gourmet chef, and when I say that, she never really cooked for anyone but family and friends, but she took a lot of cooking courses in college (she went to college late in life, in her late 30s, when I was very young), and kept up on all the latest trends in modern cooking via magazines and cooking shows. Her cookbook library was easily over 200 volumes that filled a whole 6' bookshelf, all the kitchen shelving, and several boxes. Some were sets, but others were cookbooks she collected from all over in her travels. She had cookbooks in several languages from places she visited all over Europe and the Mediterranean, as well as some from local neighborhood clubs. She never had a recipe box, she just stuffed any recipes she found in magazines and such in a book that would have something similar or matching. Like if she found a good recipe for orange sauce, it would be stored in a book about sauces, or perhaps a book where she thought orange sauce would complement another dish (like, say, a duck recipe). Occasionally, if it really matched two items, she'd write the recipe in pen in the margins of one of them. Did she really cook all these things? No. She seemed perpetually frustrated by the picky eating habits of my father and I, although to my father's credit, he did appreciate her cooking far more than I did. At one point, when I had an argument about taking home economics instead of shop, my mother said she could teach me all the home ec I needed. Some of it I knew already, like cleaning and washing, but she took some time (when she was sober) to teach me basic sewing, ironing, finances, and cooking. I love my late mother, I really do. But sadly, a lot of the "cooking" was lost to me because it was far to complicated and none of the foods appealed to me. At the time, she was rediscovering French cooking (as were a lot of housewives in the early 1980s), and I thought all French cooking was nasty and purulent. I... pretty much still feel that way. Any cooking which requires vinegar is usually out of my acceptable taste range. So while she taught me the fine art of blanching veggies or sauteing goose liver, it never really got used after the lessons were over. I stuck to my usual fare which was pretty banal, if not outright bold in its perfunctoriness, like spaghetti with no sauce, hot dogs with no ketchup, and popcorn with no salt or butter (I hated salt, too). My steak was always well done, my fish was always breaded and fried, and I pretty much would eat most frozen dinners ... sans the vegetables. If I think about it, as a kid, I pretty much ate less than a dozen different things.

That changed when I became a teenager. I don't know what happened, but suddenly, that anal control of pickiness relaxed heavily, and now I'll try almost anything once. Like for instance, I never ate pizza as a kid because it looked like an infected sore, and I used to retch at the thought of tomatoes on anything. And the spices? I'd throw up. No, really, pepper and oregano, for instance, did literally make me nauseous. I only ate fried rice at Chinese restaurants, and Mexican places I old ate plain, corn tortillas (until they found out my corn allergy). But when I became a teen, not only did I start eating pizza, I stared eating "weird stuff," like sushi, which in the 1980s, in McLean, was still pretty far out. I credit my best buddy Kate to opening the world of Asian cuisine in my life back then, because she had lived in Thailand and Japan for half her life. My parents tried to get me to use chopsticks, even got angry at me that I "didn't try hard enough," until they gave up in disgust. When I was 15, Kate showed me how to use them in 15 seconds, and in 30 minutes, I could pick up a grain of rice with them.

If anyone tells you using chopsticks is like "two very long fingers," put them down, and walk away, because that advice is useless. My parents did this. Kate just said, "No, no. It's like salad tongs, but you hold one stick still, and the other clamps up and down." This may not help anyone else, but it sure helped me. Thank you, Kate...

By age 18, I was on my own, and living with Bruce and Cheryl. Bruce was my second teacher, and he taught me how to cook "normally" by feel, experiment, and using basic cheap ingredients. Some recipes he taught me have always eluded me (like his fried bread), but he taught me how to make spaghetti sauce, for instance. Why adding oil or salt helped the food from boiling over. I also learned from other roommates (Cheryl and Liska) how to cook other basic things. My problem was that when I tried to apply gourmet with basic, it never really worked, and they quickly hated my food. It was like I had learned how to assemble an engine, but never actually driven a car. Sadly, after a few bad meals (and make no mistake, they were bad), they just had me doing dishes, which I was good at, and no one else liked to do, anyway. But those lessons just sat like seeds in the back of my head, slowly growing.

When I lived with Tim and Anita the next year, they were weird in ways I won't go into, but they had these "uber-gourmet" pots and pans that required more care than antique furniture, and after a year, they had pretty much forbid me from cooking of having food in the house (long story, but I hid food in my room anyways). I was poor, and trying to save up for my wedding, so I literally ate the same thing, almost every day, for a year: baloney and cheese on white bread, milk, and Ritz crackers. I mean, not for every meal, but I'd say about 90% of my meals were those same things. I had a sort of ... quest, to see how cheaply I could eat. I got down to $20/week in 1989, which was pretty good then. On days I couldn't take it anymore, I ate a steak and cheese sub at Subways. Cooking? Forget about it.

Then I got married. Christine comes from a non-nonsense, diner-running family. Her mom and grandmother owned several diners off an on in their lives. So she knew comfort food better than anyone I have ever known. She can cook, and she became my next teacher. What I respect about her is similar to what I respected in Bruce: none of that foo-foo cooking with 50 ingredients measured by the gram, no. Only a few ingredients usually measured by the container they came in, or an even portion thereof.

Posted by Punkie @ 02:29 PM EST [Link]

Monday, January 12, 2004

Bruce and Cheryl's house

Sunday, I got to work on my CCNA... sort of.

Bruce is a very good host. We had this plan that when Sean got back from Tampa, he'd call, and Bruce would come over. But it turns out that Bruce's back was NOT hurt, as Sean had reported (he still insists that's what he was told - it was never resolved why he was told that), but Bruce's Great-uncle passed away at 9. Bruce and Cheryl had to go to Virginia Beach. From what Bruce said about his great Uncle, he sounds like a great guy, and will be missed. But since he'd been in his car almost nonstop since last Sunday, he called me on Saturday, saying he'd prefer to have the meeting at his house. When Sean called on Sunday, I told him, and he agreed.

So, we went to the FanTek house, which ... for me, is kind of like going back home. There are a lot of things of my past there. First, there are a few items that actually used to belong to me, and when I moved into the FanTek house back in 1987, got fused with their collection. Then, when I left, I didn't take them with me because I was moving to a smaller room. So it's kind of weird to see, "Hey, those are the towels that my mother bought for the yacht back in 1978... in Bruce's bathroom." Just weird stuff like that. They also have a few items I grew up to from my room, like posters and a stuff. I don't say this because I want them back, I say this because it's kind of cool to visit them, and know they have gotten more love and attention than I would have given them. In addition, they still have stuff I remember buying with them. When they moved from the small house in Hyattsville to the one in Mount Vernon, we were short furniture. There was a several month period, when I was between jobs, that Bruce kept my spirits up by having me tag along with him. Usually to shop. Bruce, Cheryl, Liska, and I (maybe Debbie, too) would go "garage sailing," as Cheryl called it, to get stuff we needed for the house cheap. Some of the relics are still there, like their kitchen table (bought at a Reston garage sale), the "bathtub chairs" (bought at a Reston swap meet), and just assorted items from my memories that make me realize that FanTek holds better memories of my youth than any other place on Earth. I hadn't been there in a while, in fact, so long, there were massive changes that Cheryl said, "Uh... we did that years ago, Punkie." Like removing the carpeting in the living room, getting a new gas stove, and the Jacuzzi (which I knew about from the list). I have made a mental note to go more often.

We started out with the CCNA, and Cheryl kept apologizing for the mess which hadn't been moved since the con unloaded into their house. She told me a tale that she finally got rid of the Registration Box, a box so heinous, it refused to close properly, and could not be locked. In fact, it would spring open and scatter stuff everywhere at each con, apparently. Sort of an explosive piƱata of money, address cards, and loose pens. I had brought my luggable Compaq Personal III computer (a relic from 1989), which has already been set up to talk to Cisco routers. But the keyboard started to stick again, and that made typing a wee bit hard. Then Chris Schafer called, and Bruce had to help her with her new computer (which she won at the raffle), which had died after one of her grandkids hit it. Bruce figured out he had to go and fix it. We took apart the two non-working clones of the machines, and found out that the chips in them (AMD 2000's) were "factory seconds," and the motherboard were PCChips, the cheapest motherboards still allowed in the US (my exaggeration). After a lot of testing, we think most of the parts in these boxes are junk (I am not so sure about the hard drives, either, for instance), but we're going to try and resurrect them at some point.

Then we ate dinner, which was fish, veggies, bread, and "spuds." More talking. Cheryl seems really interested in Aerospace and Aeronautics, and talked about her future degree in management through a little known local college called Capital College, which was mainly for engineering students, but has recently expanded. It sounded great! Sean was full of admissions advice, and was interested in some of their credit programs.

Then Albedo came by to pick up his sweater he left at the house, and we all discussed subnetting for a while. Then we broke for dessert, and then it was time to go home. I had a really good time. Sean and I discussed going to Fantasm again, even though some of you have already mailed me about how sad and pathetic it is. But we have friends going (like Tiger), and Sean and I have already attended one disastrous con, why not attend another? We pretty much make our own fun. We discussed dressing as pirates and Mexican bandits for not other reason than we could. Besides, I just have to see the merchants at this con!

Posted by Punkie @ 10:03 AM EST [Link]

Saturday, January 10, 2004

Remodeling the house

Let's start with the bathroom, shall we?

Part of my plan for 2004 was to work on my house. Now, my "son's bathroom," which some of you who have been to my house have used, is... yellow. You can no longer use it because there was a lot of slow-term seepage that occurred because the toilet was cheap, the bathtub leaked, and the wallboard reeked. Those who visited that lemon-mint oven chamber might recall that it was not... a pleasant place to do business. I'm not sure which happened in what order, but here's my view on things.

The house was built in 1970. It had one set of owners until 1984. Apparently, according to the next set of owners, these original owners really made the house close to being condemned. I have stories here and there about their legendary past, but today's entry will focus on this bathroom. The next set of owners supposedly "fixed up" the place, but their type of jobs were far more... quick-fix practical than "let's strip it down and build it right," my approach to all repairs. I can't say they "ruined" that bathroom, because I am guessing what they had to work with wasn't so good. It smacks of something that "looked a lot better than before," which is one way to approach home improvement, I guess. The second set of owners (we're only the third, BTW) had one solution to ugly walls: panel it! I am serious. The paneled almost everything. Most was a fake wood paneling, but in some places, they had paneling in forms I never have seen before. In my son's bathroom, it was faux tile. No, really, it's a thin wood veneer covered with a rubbery tile-esque coating. It's the kind of stuff you find in cheap mobile homes. Like a vinyl flooring for your walls. Now, they just GLUED this stuff on the existing wall. They didn't repaint, sand, or even strip the pre-existing wallpaper, for god's sake. They just covered up whatever was there before with this paneling. With glue. Glue that was apparently not heat or moisture resistant, since it buckled out pretty quickly.
"Not a problem!" the second owners must have said, "We'll just screw those back in with drywall screws!"

Of course, where the screws were not put into wall studs, they stripped out of the drywall, and then moisture got behind there and made the walls a bit funky, especially near the shower. Well, after the toilet broke, we closed off the bathroom, shut off the water, and left the door closed. What we didn't know was that this bathroom gets REALLY HOT due to some funky airflow issues with the duct system. So this winter, the room got hot enough to dry fruit. And the paneling buckled off the wall so far, I was able to pull off two panels with my own hands, and they came off in perfect sheets with a bit of gooey adhesive behind it. The previous wallpaper was not that bad. Dated, yes, but it was a small and simple tiled print of multicolored berries and leaves. Some of you girls out there might have had the same exact print on your undergarments in the 1980s. But I could see the damage behind the walls. here's what we have to do now:

- Plan overall "theme" to the bathroom, so we know what colors of everything to get.
- Totally strip down the bathroom to the bare studs. All the drywall has to go. Rip up the floor, and survey the water damage on the subfloor. Replace if needed. Toss out all the mint-yellow fixtures: sink, tub, and toilet.
- Put in new bathtub. Something much deeper, possibly a little wider. It's the old tub in the house. Since we'll have no drywall, we can also take this opportunity to fix the plumbing: test for the leaks, fix leaks, and attach them to the studs. No, really, the bathtub plumbing is free-floating in the wall. When you turn water on, it rocks back and forth. I suspect this is where at least one of the leaks is. I might need a real plumber for this part.
- Re-tile the floor. Something nice, like wide stone tile.
- Replace wiring, put in ground-fault receptacle. Right now, there's a combo dual switch/plug that you can turn on and off by whacking the wall around it. No, that's not a fire hazard...
- Put in drywall... I think this time we'll splurge the extra $5/panel for the kind rated for moist areas, like bathrooms. My god.
- Put in cabinet and a nice countertop (like the kind rated for moist areas, like bathrooms. I am sure the "buckled Formica" look is passe by now.
- Put in lighting, a wider cabinet/mirror, and nice, sturdy fixtures. Not the $19.95/pair they have now, which the "Hot/Cold" labels have fallen off, and leak when you turn them.

After much discussion over sushi, we went to Home Depot today and checked out prices of stuff. Prices are significantly cheaper than I expected. I will easily be able to do this work for under $1000. The tub is the most expensive cost. I got a crowbar to help me remove the tile to see the subfloor damage, and a new tape measure.

Now I know these projects can "be from hell" sometimes, but I watched a lot of "Do-it-yourself" shows over the years and have a few remodeling books, so I have a good idea what I need. I have also done repair work before, and I am pretty good with building and repairing stuff, but I also know I have never taken on a project at this scale before. I will also ask my friends who have done this before for their advice (Travis is going to look at my floor to help me assess floor damage). Then I will plan this out, on paper, and give my self a LOT of time for learning and try and learn some patience. I will make mistakes. But I can't learn if I don't make mistakes, so this will be a good thing to do in general.

I also finally got a new office chair. You might remember I broke my last one. I had some gift cards from Best Buy I have collected from birthday and Christmas, so I used them to get a chair that's really nice. It's made from a "microweave," which is a cloth that feels like suede. It's very soft, and sturdy; it doesn't rock side to side, or heave me to the floor if I lean back too far. I hope this chair stays friendly.

Posted by Punkie @ 09:58 PM EST [Link]

Friday, January 9, 2004

Snow, Happy Birthday Blog, and Money

Today was a washout. I am working from home (thank you, Cisco VPN), because I felt terrible when I woke up, and then this really dry, slippery snow was everywhere. Christine almost wrecked twice getting CR to school, only half a mile or so away. Our little blue Saturn SC3 is so terrible in the snow. I am surprised that Fairfax County didn't cancel school, because they usually they are so sensitive, and have, in the past, closed even though no snow was on the ground yet. Sometimes it didn't snow at all (although, that hasn't happened very recently).

My blog (in this format) is now over a year old! When I first started, I thought I'd flake after April or May, but this blog has been so cathartic, I can't stop. I know it helped me feel better over the holidays. I can write and forget, which is something I have been needing to do for a long time, and I can also organize my thoughts, see where I've been, and keeping it public keeps me honest. The blog has also kept me writing, which is also good. It kept me in contact with friends (some I hadn't heard from in a while), and helped me make new ones. It killed time I had at work between waiting for something to happen, and being unable to do anything but sit. In fact, even with issues like "Trinity7," it's helped me out by being a testbed in some skills, both personal and network hacking. In fact, I'd recommend blogging to any writer, or someone who just wants to be one.

Financially, I am still not in good shape, although I am a lot better than I thought I'd be in January. Our methods of saving money, plus a small cash bonus I got in December (not from my work), plus a severe reduction in Christmas costs, put me in the black for January, even if it's only $300 (I thought I'd be at -$700). I haven't even maxxed out one card, and my expenses on all but one now will now be only payments until the balances go back to zero (barring any emergencies, I estimate they will be paid off by spring). The winter has been fairly mild, so my heating bills have been almost half of last year's at the same time. My stock portfolio is also creeping up a bit, although it's still a massive loss from where it used to be. Oh, and my bank and paycheck? It was deposited 5 days late, but did make it! Wow.

Posted by Punkie @ 01:20 PM EST [Link]

Thursday, January 8, 2004

Idle Gossip with Idol Worship

I really hate gossip. I can't say I don't take part in it, but I use gossip more for information than spreading rumors, and while I know it's unreliable, sometimes it's all you have to go on. If you can get gossip from more than once source, sometimes you can triangulate some of the core elements, although even that can be misleading. But I hate useless gossip, like those that consist of personal attacks or other vehicles for attention, with a passion. All it does is encourage bitterness, jealousy, and paranoia.

There's this local radio personality named Jack Diamond, and while in some way's he's not a bad "morning zoo" type of leader, in others, I can feel his personal problems creeping up through his words and messages. Now, I am no Shining Pylon of Morality, but even I know that if you say too many bad things about people, you look bad. As the saying goes, "You can't do mudslinging without getting dirty yourself." Jack constantly has two themes in his show, "Celebrities suck" and "The morality of today's citizens is shameful." This from a guy with two ex-wives, the last he left for a much younger woman that was a member of his band.

Look, I see most Hollywood celebrities as everyday people who have everything magnified and distorted by thousands of voices. Sure, some of them might be scumbags with a history of poor choices, but cut them some slack, man. Jack has this thing with Brittany Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and Mariah Carey that reminds me of someone desperately trying to convince himself that he doesn't like underage girls, no matter how his penis acts at his daughter's soccer game. He's constantly tearing these people down, and then taking a "tut tut" attitude with their actions, like someone appointed him a grand moral judge. Look, I have to admit that Mariah is a bit nuts, J-Lo seems a bit cutthroat, and Brittany... well, she's a kid. But I don't go on and on about them. No one appointed me judge, jury, or executioner, and if I feel like spreading morality around, I'll do it by my own actions, and let others make their own personal choice, thank you. I don't live like a celebrity, I am not in their shoes, and while I sometimes think, "If I was a multimillion dollar celebrity, I'd do this and that, save my money, blah blah blah," until that actually happens to me, it's all speculation and fantasy on my part. I just think Jack wants to sleep with them, but won't admit it, so he denies it loudly, hoping to conceal his true feelings ... but now I can just hear them loudly.

"But people like celebrity gossip," says Christine, my main contact with the outside world.

She's got to be right (again), because it's everywhere. People, The Star, Glamour, Rolling Stone, and countless others all cater to this desire to know about stars. Now, I don't have a problem with knowing about stuff like, "Johnny Depp has been signed on to do Tim Burton's version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory;" that's trade news. But I don't care what Johnny Depp might have done in some nightclub in London with some waitress. That's none of my business. I'd only care about what he does with his personal life if it affects people I have a personal stake in, and since I really don't know any celebrities personally, that's not likely to happen anytime soon. And besides, the press often lies, anyway, so how the heck would I know if what I heard was even remotely true?

Besides, hating someone I don't even personally know is a total waste of time.

In my personal life, gossip has served little purpose other than rumors. I do listen, but hate to spread, because I always fear I'll get called on it, and I am a poor liar. Gossip at work about layoffs is something I keep one ear to, but often that's so unreliable, I really don't know why I bother. Gossip in fandom is interesting, because sometimes you can actually trace the spin. At EveCon, I did gossip a whole lot, but I felt spurred on by a hot topic that affected a lot of people back in 1993. One woman really screwed up a lot of people's lives so much, we still gossip about her, even though no one has really heard from her in ages. But I keep hearing new stuff! Eleven years later! One woman told me that she interfered with her marriage, and was stunned I said, "Oh, get in line." But her spin was new, apparently Miss Evil 1993 had tried to convince her (now) husband that marrying "one of her kind" (that is, racially), was not a good idea. That's a new one. I knew this toad tried to break up people's relationships, but I never heard the racial angle before. But it was useless, or "idle" gossip, because knowing a new bad trait of this person I haven't even seen since 1998 served no purpose. But thought I let her rant because I knew she just had to get it off her chest, some sad part of me still giggles with glee that we're still sticking her effigy with pitchforks (I am not proud here, but being honest). I was lounging in the hotel bar, and we brought up some more gossip about how another con was so impersonal, it treats volunteers like employees that must be herded and disciplined. I engaged in that, and actually found out some really useful information that, sadly, I can't mention in public, because that would be totally irresponsible ... and gossipy.

But the irony would have been succulent if I did, wouldn't it?

Posted by Punkie @ 11:12 AM EST [Link]

Wednesday, January 7, 2004

Asthma: More suffocating than depression

[Sorry there are so many entries today, but I finally got my Evecon report out. I'll have pictures up in the next couple of days, too. I love having a digital camera...]

My asthma and I have a sort of mutual agreement not to bother each other much, but it's starting to creep up on me as I get older.

I started getting asthma when I was about 14, but didn't know it at the time, because it was misdiagnosed by my parents as "overreacting to simple hayfever." I had serious allergies at the time, like breaking out in hives, wheezing, and all spring was nothing but one runny nose. Those small tissue travel packs? I'd go through 2 a day, which got expensive. Finally I just bought hankies and used about 2 a day, alternating as one would get soaked, and then washing them when I got home from school. Gross.

It was like this until I reached 21, when one day, I stopped breathing. I was rushed to the hospital and they cheerfully told me I had asthma. I told them that wasn't right. They said, "Oh, yes it is. See, we gave you asthma medicine, and you got better, too. You have classic asthma." Several doctor visits later, I found out I had untreated asthma for so long, my lungs had actually sustained permanent damage. So now I have to have an inhaler with me at all times.

Two years ago, I got a very bad case of double pneumonia. They wanted to hospitalize me, but Christine was still recovering from her ankle mishap, and I couldn't stay away from home. They gave me a lot of meds, and I got better, but ever since then ... it's been a little harder to get around. I am out of breath more, and they had to strengthen my inhaler with a combo of Pulmicort, Zyrtec, and they changed my inhaler from Venolin to Serevent. Prescriptions cost a lot of money, so I haven't been taking them as much as I should. Okay, I haven't taken the Pulmicort for over a year, and I only use Zyrtec when I really have problems. If I took all my meds like I was supposed to, it would cost roughly $54 a month for all the co-pays, and I don't have that kind of money to goof around with. Besides, asthma doesn't bother me that much. I use my inhaler very sparingly, so it often goes bad before I use it up. The Serevent I have now is only the second one I have every had, I got that back in June of 2002, and it's still half-full.

Last night, without warning, my asthma exploded into the worst attack I have had since the bout with double pneumonia. Now, I know I have been "pushing off" a cold, but in the last two days, I seemed to have defeated it, although I am still rather tired (and that may be because I'm only getting 3-4 hours of sleep a night). I am not at death's door or anything, crawling on the floor to get to my Life Alert keychain, in fact, I am at work typing this between meetings. But I hate the shortness of breath, and then I feel guilty I haven't been taking all my meds like I should. But I don't feel sick, I don't feel like there's junk in my lungs (like, I am not wheezing), and so I have no idea what brought this on. It feels terrible when I lie down (which is why I have almost no sleep), and I get out of wind after just a few steps, but if I am upright and not moving much, I am fine, which is an improvement over last night.

I told this to my boss, and he said, "At 2:00am? Yeah, I had the SAME THING!" CR is also in bed sick, although I am not totally convinced this is related. Maybe they put something in the air. Of course, with the "High Terrorist Alert," I get paranoid...

Posted by Punkie @ 03:48 PM EST [Link]

EveCon XXI - What a Long Strange Trip It's Been, Part 3: Some random events...

Here are some random things that happened that didn't fit well in what I wrote, but I'd like to look back on when I read this later on in life.

Christine, who uses our main credit card account online due to the fact I haven't gotten her own card (my bad, it's not like she hasn't asked), told me on December 31st, "Hey, our cards expire today!" They sure did. I called the bank, and they said, "We sent them back in November. We didn't get them, which is not a great shock, because our mail person is routinely losing mail (like, we'll find bundles on the road), putting wrong mail in our box (and ours in other people's boxes), and sometimes doesn't deliver mail at all. I knew something major like this would happen eventually, but luckily, no one has seemed to be using our cards, because no one activated them and no unauthorized purchases have been made on them. The bank sent us new cards right to the hotel, and so we had a package waiting for us on Friday. So during that time, we had to use our "spare cards," which we usually only use for emergencies. They have a high rate, and this sucks.

I could tell Cheryl was not happy with the hotel. I am not going to pry, but she did use the word "idiots" more than I am used to hearing from her. Apparently, the restaurant was friendlier than the hotel was, and even though they didn't have as many buffets as they used to, Cheryl persuaded them to at least have a lunch buffet, and I think one dinner one. I sat next to Bomber and his current entourage, and had one of those many pangs I felt over the weekend: this may be the last I ever see of this person... Sure, I'll see some at Balticon, but ... not all of them. I'll miss Bomber. He's so cool.

I stole an EveCon sign. Sort of like a souvenir, it's a small neon red sign posterboard with Bruce's handwriting that just says "EveCon" in black marker. I put it up on my den so I wouldn't feel so bad and lonely. It was up at Registration for years, and I was sitting next to the sign before Closing Ceremonies, and after deliberating for a few minutes, I just took it. It wasn't attached with more than masking tape. I am pathetic ... but I am also surprised there wasn't more looting.

I lost my "Hello Kitty" Goth pin. It had one of those crummy pin backs, and it either fell off in Sawa's car, our car, or somewhere at the con. I am bummed, but I know I can get another for $3 at Hot Topic, so I am not SERIOUSLY bummed, but I couldn't show it off at the con.

The Airzooka was a big hit. I thought people had heard of it before, but apparently not, and congoers though this was so cool, that they wanted me to shoot them over and over. It's a funnel that shoots toroids of air like blowing a huge, invisible, high-velocity smoke ring. It feels like you have just been hit by a ball of air, and travels up to 30 feet. Well folks, like I told everyone, it's at ThinkGeek, and it's only $20 (plus shipping): http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toys/60b6/

I wore my "There's no place like 127.0.0.1" tee-shirt on Saturday, and people LOVED it. I mean, I knew it was kind of geeky-funny, but the huge slew of comments and questions I got about it was a bit surprising. Most got it. Some didn't, but they asked. A few did what I first did when I saw it on ThinkGeek (also a Christmas present), "There's no place like the loopback? Oh, HOME! Ha ha ha [snort]!" I thought the "I'm blogging this" shirt I wore Sunday would get a similar response, but only a few people mentioned it in passing. Go figure. Well, I blogged it!

Bruce's apparently hurt his back. Bruce is helping Sean and I pass our CCNA (which, I just got the notice will be approved at work, since we just inherited a whole bunch of switches), but it's been delayed until Sunday. I hope he feels better.

Posted by Punkie @ 03:36 PM EST [Link]

EveCon XXI - What a Long Strange Trip It's Been, Part 2: Feeling better never felt so sad...

But after that programming, I was totally spent. I went back up to the room, dizzy and out of it, and ended up having a bizarre discussion with April about the psychology of brain fixations. April is a sort of psychologist (she can reply to her actual title), but studying to become a brain specialist. Did I mention she was sharing our hotel room? Yeah. She was the same April from our beach trip, and I find her analysis of the human animal to be quite useful in my growing repertoire of knowledge. She changed into her costume, the Slave Girl Princess Leia from "Return of the Jedi" a costume she made herself. Complete with a mini Salacious Crumb on a chain. Now, I have seen a lot of fan girls wear this costume, and I must say, this was one of the best. It was made entirely from cloth, there was no metal, but it still looked VERY much like the original. April, I'd've been more enthusiastic about it, but I was rather sick. You looked good in it.

She ordered us Chinese food, and I just got Shrimp fried rice. She didn't want me to pay for it (she had to order a minimum anyway), but she was downstairs when the food came, so I gave the delivery guy a BIG tip instead :).

I didn't do masquerade as my usual position of "nonjudgmental judge" this con. Kory was unsure who was doing it, and when I asked Cheryl she said, "Keep your head low, and mouth shut ... maybe they'll never find you." I must say, I felt bad being in my hotel room, but they got Jim Morrison (not the late Doors singer, but ... never mind, just Jim of "Aynne and Jim") to do it, and I managed to catch the last few minutes, and he did a great job. I kind of missed not doing it for one last time, but I am glad I got to rest.

The Chinese food had a lot of MSG, which I felt I kind of needed, and after eating it, I felt WAY better. MSG makes my heart rate go nuts, but if I don't have to sleep, that's fine. Shortly before 9pm, I felt good enough to wander about and socialize. I caught the last few minutes of Jim's award performance, and then I spent the rest of the night ... chatting and catching up. But I apologize to the following people for not having a good heart-to-heart:

- Albedo: Damn, I have to go see you in Philadelphia some weekend.
- Rocky: How did we miss each other? We need to spend a day in DC.
- Miguel: I am sorry I didn't attend the poetry panel. I just forgot my poems.
- Kory: But you were busy, man. Read your mail: I have some GenCon questions.
- Cheryl: I have some plans I want to discuss with you. But they can wait.

I stayed up until 4am. Talking. Why do you people let me keep talking? But thanks to some of these chats, I found out:

- Arabian Horses are the "dumb blondes" of the horse world
- I have actually known Sawa since she was 5.
- Crazy people are often customers at fabric stores
- A calm, curious, "Well now, how did you do that?" is how Tiger's parents respond to impaling injuries found in their children.
- If you liked "Kids in the Hall," or various members of Saturday Night Live in the 1990s... you are alone in Security Central.
- Members of the London Rocky Horror cast had sex a lot. With each other. Richard O'Brien and Patricia Quinn are also ... rather free about their choices. Apparently, there's a tale about an orgy where some cast member was trapped against a wall, too afraid to run out the door, because that meant he'd have to move around the people having sex, and might get sucked into the fray, so he just waited for hours until it was over.

The next day I felt a lot better, even though I only got a few hours sleep. We had to get up so Dominic (Chris's best friend, who came with us) could call his mom. Then we got breakfast. I did the art auction with Ralph (Sasquatch), which was kind of an honor, because he used to run the art show with Darryl Kummerow way back when, and has been around since EveCon 1 (he was from the first Technicon wave that FanTek received). It was nice to do Auction with Ralph, and sort of a full circle closure for me. This auction had the highest-selling Cjae piece that went for something like $165 (starting bid: her usual $3). It was also, fittingly, the last auction. And even though Christine was not Art Goddess this time around (Moria was), she helped them close anyway.

Closing ceremonies was pretty cool. Everyone there got to say who they were, and what they did at the con, from volunteer to just attendee. Bruce and Cheryl really dedicated the last ceremonies to the audience, which was very good of them, I think. I was so proud to see them there, getting the praise they deserve, and to hear so many testimonies from people who grew up, gained a friend, or even met a spouse because of FanTek cons. Man, Bruce and Cheryl have changed so many lives. Ralph then suggested we get a group photo of all kids born because of cons, or grew up from kids at cons. There was like 20 of them, aged 0 - 21 (but most around 5-8 years old).

Chris Schaffer and Tony Montori won the computers in the raffle. Chris really deserved it, since she doesn't have a lot of disposable income. Tony was collecting for someone else, and said it would be used as a proxy server. I can't be jealous, because I would have just used it as my new Linux box to add to the 6-8 I have now.

After that, we packed up the truck, and met at the Sunrise Buffet, a Chinese buffet in Reston. We did another toast to Bruce and Cheryl, and then Christine and I said our final good-byes, picked up our dogs, and went home.

I still have my last EveCon badge in my backpack. It has a photo of Bruce making a sand castle, and I feel like he's been sent off to persue a dream. It was a fitting last badge for the end of an old era, and the beginning of a new. I can't bear to put it away yet, in my ziplock bag of badges past. I just want to hold on for a few more days...

FanTek itself is not dead, of course. Bruce and Cheryl will still have parties, bad movie nights, and other events at their house, and maybe show up at other cons, but their own cons and the Castle are gone for now. If they return in a few years, after Cheryl has graduated college, and Bruce's career has given back some good money, they may have something new, like a FanTek reunion, but it will be a while.

But I will be there.

Posted by Punkie @ 03:32 PM EST [Link]

EveCon XXI - What a Long Strange Trip It's Been, Part 1: Through sick and tired eyes...

Pbbbthth... I think about 50 people said that "strange trip" quote all weekend. But it's TRUE! When the cons started in 1983, sci-fi was still pretty rare in the popular media. The Internet was only used by a few huge mainframes around the US, cable TV was still pretty new, and Michael Jackson still had most of his original face.

Of course, FanTek is not dead, but I am sure all those people who said the cons would die will claim otherwise, and they suck, because I have never been to a con where several hundred people poured out their hearts to two people who really changed a lot of people's lives. Sure, Bruce and Cheryl are not perfect, they are human, and like the rest of us, prone to make mistakes. But at closing ceremonies, I was very happy to hear I was not the only one to have these feelings of gratitude and appreciation towards what the cons meant to them.

I wasn't as sad at this con as I thought I'd be. Sure, I was a little bummed, but it's not like Bruce and Cheryl went down in some flaming wreck of politics and infighting. It was kind of like ... like the last episode of your favorite show. You know, the kind where the cast KNOWS it's the last show, and has a tribute to everyone. Very touching.

Sadly, I was sick through half of it. I was battling out some cold or flu or something, and it took every once of raw energy to battle it. I took a strange combo of echinacea (thanks to my cousin Sven, who turned me onto this), elderberry, vitamin C, cough drops, aspirin, and coffee (more to warm me and give me some adrenaline). When I wasn't doing something, I sat up in my room with a heating pad, meditating and praying, that some strength would come to me and I could tip the scales from sick to healthy. I mean, I feel I never actually got sick, but I was teetering on the edge of going one way or the other, and I knew "sick" would mean "very sick." I kept smelling things, my feet were freezing, and I sometimes would get shaky and felt feverish. So, sadly, Friday I spent a lot of time in my hotel room, and Opening Ceremonies wore me right out. I didn't get all sappy (although I had a small moment of silence for Hal), because I felt I might pass out if I didn't focus. I feel bad that my last EveCon Opening Ceremonies ever was done on a combination of autopilot and relentless self-checking. After it was over, I went right to bed. I woke up to a groggy stuffed head on Saturday Morning.

I felt Saturday would KILL me. I mean, it was partly my fault, and part miscommunication. I told Kory (head of programming) that I preferred my programming "in clumps," meaning I didn't want an hour here and there, scattered everywhere, so I didn't have enough time in between them for lunch or socializing. He took this to mean "one big clump" and thus, I had a programming block for five. solid. hours. From 1pm to 6pm, I had all my panels. Scattered all over the hotel.

The first panel was my reading, which had the usual attendees, whom I love dearly. Then I had to run to the computer room at the other end of the hotel (which is really just a big ring), and give a Windows vs. Linux panel, which had a huge turnout (like usual), and I might do something similar for Balticon (if they let me). Then I had to run to another room across the hotel, and give an hour discussion on Harry Potter, which only had a few people, but those who attended were very insightful (thank you, BJ). Then I had to run back to the computer room to talk about online security, harassment, and how you're not really anonymous (even anonymous remailers? Yes...) on the net. Then it was back to the other end of the hotel again to discuss how to make the world a better place using the chaos theory and how to influence people in your little sphere of existence. I want to especially thank Ida, April A, and Maug for their valuable input. Maug, as a former street musician, had some valuable insight and experience to share.

Posted by Punkie @ 03:31 PM EST [Link]

Tuesday, January 6, 2004

Half written, half broken...

A lot of this blog is not written all at once. Some of the longer entries have been sitting around for days, weeks, and sometimes more than a month before they get put up here or just deleted in disgust. The series about my mother's suicide was the longest on record, it took about 50 days of actual writing, rewriting, ignoring, forgetting, and rediscovering before the final edited four parts went up. This very entry was started just before EveCon, but discussions I had at EveCon fleshed it out, so I wrote half of it last night, the rest of it today, and now it's being posted. My fiction is the same way; I can't tell you how many half-done short stories clutter my hard drive.

Usually, if the entry is not that great, I'll just delete it. I have deleted a lot of entries before they got here, and even closed some I already put up. The majority of the ones that get deleted are from rants that run out of steam after a few days of calming down, or seeing the other side. Some get deleted because they are too controversial, and those are the ones that hang around the longest before finally getting the ax. I have an "inner voice" that I listen to, and if it says, "this feels wrong," I don't put it up. What "feels wrong" usually has someone else included in it that I don't want to get hurt.

For instance, my entry on insanity still "feels wrong" because while my paternal side has a huge streak of bad insanity in our family tree, my uncle does not, and I don't want him to feel bad. Plus, what would that mean to my cousins, who are also fairly sane? It's too bad, though, I think it's really good, but not good enough to hurt those I love.

Another issue is came about when "Sara A" said I was secretly writing bad things about her and the board in my entries, which came out of nowhere. I saved the e-mails, and was reading them over the Christmas holiday while cleaning my inbox, and apparently I still hurt from them. She didn't ask, she TOLD me that, "There is so much misinformation being tossed around in your journal it's astonishing." Wow. She saw something of herself or the board in what I wrote, and it astonished her. Not concerned, not worried, but it shot right past anger and actually astonished her. That paints the picture of someone reading something I thought was fairly neutral in their direction, and her possibly gasping in shock. Maybe pausing in mid-denial before the flood of confusion and pain forced her to send me an e-mail confronting me in my obvious bold aggression. Of course, I was also astonished like a bucket of cold water had been tossed on me. After the whole regrettable incident, it made me more sensitive to my rants, and I still wonder, "If I post this, will another friend of mine think the same thing?" I used to post things generically to keep certain things anonymous, but then that makes it very susceptible to interpretation. That whole ordeal shook my confidence more than asshats like "Trinity7" did, because at least you know what they are thinking. With Sara A, I never saw it coming. I mean, I suppose I should say, "Oh, Sara, you crazy dinkus," but I actually still feel bad. I didn't mean to hurt Sara, but I guess that's one of life's lessons: sometimes, life is not fair.

I wrote this entry because I am trying to think about where my writing (non-bloggish fiction) is going. Now, not to be full of myself, but suppose my writing becomes so popular, I actually get a little following. I go to a few book signings, asked to be a guest again, and the usual stuff I see at conventions. You know the more people I meet, in the spotlight like that, I am going to meet a few crazy people; just statistically speaking for the moment. Maybe one or more of them will think my book was really about their lives, you know, like the reason they have those disclaimers in books and movies: "All persons depicted in this work, living and dead, are purely coincidental.'' I could counter the same way I did with Sara A, "What the hell are you talking about?" But I learned that you just can't sway people sometimes. They are going to think what they want to think, and that's their right, and truth is sometimes subjective to the person who started the argument, anyway. Now what about Trinity7? I would be really arrogant if I thought everyone would like my work. I'll be happy if only half do. I suppose I'll be at a book signing table, and geeky Star Trek collectable card gamer from Colorado will come up and scream at me, "You say you are fannish, but in a blog entry back in '04, you mentioned an angry geeky Star Trek collectable card gamer, and I am here to say as a person from the Denver Star Trek contingent who games, that I took offense to that! You're no fan! You're EVIIIILLLL!" and maybe throw his can of Mountain Dew at me. And as I sit at that table, with wet and now sticky orange-scented hair, what do I do? What does J.K. Rowling do when someone says she stole their ideas, or that the Harry Potter series promotes violence, rebellion, and Satanaism? I am sure that Steven King has had his share of loony encounters, too. I have to learn how to deal with this, because incidents like Sara A and Trinity7 will be nothing compared to some lazy crazy person with too much time on their hands and a lawyer. And with "Between the Lines?" That book has a lot of flavor from my past in it. I have to be careful I don't piss some people off or make it TOO close to life.

So, this blog takes on yet another role as a sort of testbed against these sorts of things. If I can't handle them, I can't handle fame. If I can't handle public scrutiny, I should keep all writing to myself. But I can't do that. I like to entertain. This is a choice I have made... and I have to stick to it.

This year will be full of lessons.

Posted by Punkie @ 08:29 PM EST [Link]

New Shoes

My Evecon entry is getting fairly long, I may have to split it into several parts. So I think I will "drain" some things from it in this entry if they are not Evecon-specific.

When I was 13, I got a pair of used Doc Martens from a store called Sunny's Military Surplus (not related to Sonny's Surplus chain) in Georgetown (it's gone now). They were slightly scuffed brownish-red boots, kind of combat-looking, and they had the steel re-enforced toe. I got them for like $5, by the recommendation of a friend who said my "Kangaroo" shoes (sneakers with a zippered pouch) were geeky looking. I wore them only a few dozen times, because that winter, my toes got real cold. Then by spring, my feet got too big for them. When I wasn't looking, my mother threw them away because she hated them, but I didn't care because my brief punk phase was over by the time I noticed.

When I finally faced and made peace with my punk phase a dozen years later (it ended badly, and I was bitter), I kind of missed my Docs because while they were a bitch to lace up and the steel toes were cold, they had felt very sturdy, and I kind of liked the fact that they were "serious" shoes that were meant to last. By this time, I knew a lot of people in fandom who still wore them. I knew one guy who had a pair from the 70s, and all that was replaced was the sole, laces, and one tear was repaired. I am a big guy, and go through shoes pretty fast, but my attempts to buy "serious shoes" always met with failure. I once spent $170 on a pair of Rockports, and they lasted about 8 months before they just fell apart everywhere. Payless and K-mart had similar-looking shoes for $9.95, and they fell apart after 6 months. By one year, I was already ahead. So that's all I really have been doing all my adult life: buying cheap-ass shoes and replacing them every 6-12 months. I always considered this a waste. I should be buying shoes because my old ones are out of fashion, not because they fell apart. Usually the soles are the first to give way. I must walk slightly pigeon-toed, because the outer edges wear down faster than the rest of the shoes. Then the sole will break, and around that time, the heel will crack away from the sole.

About four years ago, I started wear steel-toed shoes again. I was working with a lot of equipment, and I am fairly clumsy, so I injured my toes fairly frequently. Once I got steel-toes, the only time I have injured my foot since then is when I dropped a metal pot of cold water on my big toe a few months ago when I was cooking in stocking feet. But finding steel-toed shoes, in my size (US12), that aren't the basic light-brown construction boots are hard. Target and K-mart had some that looked like hiking boots, and that was what I have been wearing all the time. But in the last year? Not to be found. So I started to look online. I came across some Doc Martens that fit the bill, but they were $120. So I kept an eye on Ebay, and a few weeks ago, won a bid on a new pair for $79.

I got them on the Friday of Evecon, and wore them all con long. My previous shoes were in such bad shape, I had duct tape holding on in the inside, the interior soles were worn down so thin, I had to put in gel inserts to give them extra life. There was a hole the size of my thumb in the back of my right foot, and the left foot had a crack in the sole, so when I walked into a puddle, my socks would get soaked. I was glad to get the new shoes, and when I got back to my hotel room, I put them on right away. My feet feel funny because the support is now way better, but I have been wearing them now for a few days, and I think they are pretty solid. I was worried because our friend Anya's husband Matt had gotten a similar pair, and said they were so uncomfortable, he couldn't wear them (and offered them to me, which I might take him up on). Now all I have to do is wait, since time will tell if they last. I'll be happy with 2 years, but I'd rather it be 4. By that time, I'll probably want something different, fashion-wise.

Posted by Punkie @ 12:35 PM EST [Link]

Monday, January 5, 2004

Remnants from Last Year

Here are some odd remnants from last month that didn't make it to my blog, but I saved for later. I had them saved on a machine to tack onto another post, but they got left behind, and now they're all jumbled up.

Attitude
Years ago, I was watching this copy of a copy of a copy of a tape that Christine got from her work. It was a "up with you" type of video, designed to make employees feel better about themselves. I have always wondered if they ever lost people from such tapes; employees who went, "I could do better than THIS job, I'm leaving!" But I digress. This woman was very funny, and I can't remember her name, but she had one line I'll never forget:

"When I wake up in the morning, I say, 'I'm BACK!'"

I think my goals in life would be finished if I thought like this. What an ultimate positive and exciting way to wake up. Often, I wake up thinking, "Oh man... I want to sleep more..." or "My head hurts..." or "My back is sore..."

Pet report
Widget has a problem with bald patches of fur on his butt. Turns out this is a genetic problem with Poms, and the breeder has given me some self-described "voodoo-advice," including shampooing him with Dawn every other day, and wearing a sweater (not to hide the patches, but sometimes constant rubbing of cloth on the skin "unclogs" the fur pores). She's aware of the problem, admitted her solutions were not perfect, and my studies on the web confirm what she said. Widget Baldy-butt.

It seems there's also been some politcal shifting happening among our cats. Artoo is still the same alpha male, but Cosmo has been trying to assert his dominace everywhere, and has become troublesome. Thisby has been a lot more friendly, although she's still skittish. Storm is more like her crazy old self, but has now returned to being more people-oriented, which may be the catalyst for the recent upset. Storm and Cosmo fight a lot now, which is new. I think that Cosmo is trying to be beta male over Storm's alpha female position. Thisby is taking a shot at Storm as well by coming when you call Storm's name (and Storm comes to Thisby's name), and both want equal attention. Storm doesn't have to worry about Thisby so much, because Thisby is still completely insane and paranoid, and petting Thisby has a 1 in 10 chance her attacking you, and a 7 in 10 chance of her freaking out and running away. But the whole political shift revolves around Storm, it seems. Artoo and the dogs still have an uneasy peace. The dogs really hate Cosmo for some reason, and attack him a lot when they can get to him. Cosmo is very attached to CR, and lets CR do anything to him. Artoo is the same way with me, and so sometimes I dance with him, put things on his head, and poke him for no good reason.

CR Got a Laptop
CR got a Win98 Laptop. A girl at Christine's work got a new one, and Christine's workplace gave it to CR. A Dell Inspiron 3700 (Cel 433/32mb RAM). I bought new memory, installed 256mb RAM ($40), got a Xircom PCMCIA NIC ($30) so now he has network access. The original owner hasn't returned the CD-ROM yet, so he can't play games. He's already covered it with stickers. Since CR got an Alphasmart 3000 and a m505 Palm Pilot, he's all hooked up for a 13-year old.

Posted by Punkie @ 06:02 PM EST [Link]

Plans for 2004

I have a great EveCon 21 review, but I haven't finished it yet, and there's a lot I want to say (all good, no worries). I am still fighting that cold/flu thing whatever, and go between feeling like I am going to get real sick to feeling like I will make it out of this with a vague recollection of I might have overreacted. The cold has now spread to my chest, and I am taking my inhaler a lot. I am still on the echinacea, but I think Christine's speculation of "all you did was put off the cold" might be right.

The year of 2004 will be a very busy year. Here's my plan.

Less convention work. With the reduction of EveCon and CastleCon, I will only be doing some minor programming work at Balticon and Katsucon. Any and all con work will involve little preparation (that is, I am not running any departments, or doing anything complex). I don't want to "stop all conventions" because then I start to lose touch with a lot of friends. But I have a lot to accomplish this year.

See more new conventions. I have a few cons "on my radar" this year to be a simple attendee. There's TCEP (a con I have been meaning to go to for years), Fantasm (link probably not safe for work) (several people have invited me), and AMA (which my Katsu pals, Ed and Liza run). A lot of these depend on money issues, so if I even make it to one of these, I'll be ahead of the game. TCEP looks like the most likely, but I have several people egging me to go with them to Fantasm; a con that makes me nervous because of the "adult" theme, but I have been trying to explore my fears as an adult, and try and overcome stereotypes. I might also make it to Gencon, depending on certain situations. Why go to a gaming con when I don't game? Well, I used to, and the 15 years I played Dungeons and Dragons gave me a sense that Gencon is a "Mecca" of sorts I never got to attend. Besides, the people I'd go with are Kory, Allison, and the rest of Mystic Station Designs, where I will WORK their table in exchange for free room and perhaps travel. The main reason is really to be with MSD, learn what they do, and help them out (since Kory has helped me out many a time) but I picked Gencon out of all their cons for the "Mecca reason."

Go to New Orleans for our 15th wedding anniversary. I want to go and see it before some hurricane puts it 100 feet under water. This is my primary expense goal for this year, because Christine, as always, in my #1 priority in all matters of my life. At least she deserves the vacation for putting up with me for so long. I also plan to use this opportunity to study some of the occult around that area, and make my first foray back into studying mediums since I stopped back in 1987. Yes, this has to do with my new book, but there's also some personal journeys in this.

Go to back to Sweden. This is REALLY a money issue here, because this time I don't exactly have a place to stay (my cousin has moved to a small place in Sundsvall with his girlfriend). But I am not out of tricks just yet. Airfare is not a problem (FFM), but the place to stay and how to travel around is. I am waiting to hear Sven's ideas. I'd say there's a 50/50 chance I make it this year. If I don't make it, I plan to definitely make it in 2005, no matter what it takes.

No beach trip. Money, plus look at all the other traveling I am doing! I'll miss my beach buddies, though. And Hatteras.

Finish "Between the Lines." Currently, it is 40% finished, only 10% of which was done last year culminating in maybe 6-8 hours of work. This is my MAIN goal for this year, and I hope to spend several hours a week writing, re-writing, and outlining various things. Currently, I have an outline of the plot (right now it's still flexible, though), put in the framework to pace the story (currently 23 chapters), tighten the story line to be more self-referencing, and solve a few blind corners, logic loops, and instances of "well, why didn't he just...?"). I am also changing the work to be third person instead of first (easier to explain a few things). The characters and most of the major "scenes" are done, now I just have to put them around, and smooth them out. I figure if I spend an average of 4 hours a week on this, I will have a finished product by the end of 2004. My goal is to have a complete, final draft to submit to major publishers by the end of December 2004.

Write more short stories, and get them published. Sometimes, I "don't wanna" work on my major work, and so I think I'll use this time to write short stories. I have a list of plots and ideas, so I am not short on materials. But after I assessed the work into short stories, they are almost as hard as a whole novel, so this may not happen.

Work on my house more. There are a lotof minor repairs and design projects we have been putting off. Half our house looks "ecletic ugly" because of the former occupants. I wish I could get my deck replaced, because that's REALLY unsafe, but that costs a lot of moola.

Visit Albedo. Albedo and I have drifted apart because of our work, and the recent end of FanTek conventions for a while means seeing him even less. I'd like to go to Philadelphia, and go see him, and where he works. He's "Dr. Waksman" now, and teaches at some college. Albedo is so cool, I don't want him to be a "whatever happened to..."

Of course, many of these goals could be thwarted if something goes horribly wrong, and I have had a few years like that. Layoffs, deaths, illness, or terrible money problems... that sort of thing. I am PRAYING that, apart from my goals, this will be a calm year. And there's still a lot of unforeseen opportunities I might take on.

Posted by Punkie @ 05:03 PM EST [Link]

Friday, January 2, 2004

Evecon 21 - The First Day

Here I am, geeking in the computer room, on a Linux box that serves as the gateway to the default network. I hope you all had a happy New Year. I did. I spent it at Sean's house with a lot of people. But then I caught a cold from his son, Kieran, and was out in the cold having the most interesting conversation that I have had in a long time with a good friend (but, sadly, it is as private as it is interesting). I have a good feeling he's about to find the happiness in his life that has eluded him since childhood.

By Thursday, I felt very sick. Stuffy head, fever aches, rattle in my chest... ugh. And before Evecon? "AUAUAUAGGHH!!!" as Charlie Brown might have said. So I took a lot of echinachea, vitamin C, Tylenol, and a ton of Hawaiian coffee (Kona Blue Sky - Ohana Blend... I *highly* recommend), and stayed in bed even though my friends were going out to see "Return of the King." I really wanted to see "Return of the King," but I wanted to be well more. Turns out it was a good thing, because the theater was aparently playing the version of the hard of hearing, ala Garret Morris in SNL: the movie was LOUD!!! I would have gotten very sick. But instead, I stayed home, ate light, and slept with a heating pad, and by the evening I felt good enough to go out to eat with my family, Chris Trader, and Sawa. Then we arrived for con set-up, but most of it was done already.

I am still taking echinachea every few hours, and I feel better, although a bit tired. We left in a rush, as usual we were running late, and now I am just bumming around the con (ie. the computer room). I feel sad this is the last one, and I am sure that will get worse as the weekend goes on.

More bulletins as situations warrant...

[PS: Since I am not near spellcheckers, please excuse my horrible misspellings in the blogs over the next few days]

Posted by Punkie @ 02:46 PM EST [Link]