Friday, April 30, 2004

The complexity of money and finding you niche

I think one of the oddest complexities comes from employment, and how one fits in to the whole scheme of things.

In the beginning, our race lived in small clusters. Everyone had a job of some kid, whether it was collecting berries, hunting, holy man, chief, or whatever. Not many people slacked off, or at least I assume they didn't. This small communal system worked very well. If it succeeded, usually one subgroup would splinter off and form their own group. Small familles became tribes, where trade sometimes occurred.

This started to change, however. Primitive people began to had tribal events where several tribes would get together. Ideas of multiple tribes were exchanged at such events, including making better tools, hunting techniques, and so on. Goods must have been traded. At one point, someone got the idea that certain goods were more valuable than others. Food you could get pretty commonly, but tools? Took time. A few tribes must have realized that if one guy in their group just made tools, and got really good at it, they had a more valuable trade for other goods. A well sharpened spear by Running Bear was worth several baskets of berries, or maybe two hides. This idea probably caught on quickly, and soon, tribes probably had "specialists" who never went on the hunt, but simply created value for the tribe at the next opportunity to trade. Probably a few tribes got very rich and powerful fairly quickly.

For the longest time, mankind had to roam about with the seasons or with the migrating herds. Then someone realized how seeds worked. If you plant a seed, you get a whole new plant later. With more seeds. Mankind began to invest in the future. Mankind also began to look at land not just as hunting territory, but also as agricultural territory. Soon, staying in place to keep one's stake in land was a good idea. This led to problems with hunting, and thus, we started to domesticate animals. Agriculture has this problem, tough. Most of the time, you sit and do nothing. Then, a few times a year (depending on what you grew and where), you needed a buttload of help to gather all the food and store it. But how do you get those people? How do you feed them? And what do you do between times to work?

A system worked out on its own of people who lived to toil the fields, and then had a lot of free time. But they had to stay in the same place. So they found things to do, and suddenly arts and crafts exploded, which could be sold for food and other arts and crafts, like tools or storage solutions. Meat could be gotten from wandering hunters who wanted to trade, or from domestic animals. Suddenly, it became very advantageous to stay in one place, in large groups. Civilization began to form.

But as this got more complex, the "barter system" became harder and harder to use. Maybe you don't need anything now. The meat might spoil before you finish it. Certain things (like winter clothing) fluctuated in value. Civilization could only get so big if they just did 1 for 1 exchanges. Besides, how do you compensate your workers? Before you could just give them some of what they harvested, which they could eat or trade, but what if they wanted multiple things? Carrying wheat or your herd of sheep around all the time was a hassle. There had to be some common form of exchange. Something everyone could agree had a certain value that would be only one thing to worry about fluctuation.

Money.

Money is a very advanced concept. Basically, you have to have a whole group of people believe that something small and portable was valuable. The first step had to have been something common, but needed and lasted a while. It was probably pelts. Maybe salt. Luckily, a rare item became available, a type of metal that was used in crafts: gold. Gold had no real use to a practical man: it's too soft for tools, too rare to make stuff like jugs and baskets out of. But it had one very odd, "magical" property: it never corroded. Gems probably were used as well. But now you could say "this pelt is worth 5 ounces of gold" and you knew that 5 ounces would buy you more than that pelt would. The trader became a merchant, and a business man. The more of this gold he collected, the more he could buy. Or persuade others to do something for him. Money was the distilled essence of value and abstract power.

Here's where the story starts to fork off into many directions, like how value of money is determined, how governments were formed, and so on. But the thread I want to stay on is employment.

A few thousand years ago, you had a kind of hybrid of societal value. Gone were tribal clusters in major cities. You had family groups, belief groups, and occupational groups. Your value was how you placed in the society. For a majority of people, value was directly placed on value and skill of work. A guy who made good harnesses would sell more than one who made crappy ones. Someone who did something really hard and complicated would have greater value because there was less of him. This value was still abstract, really. But now almost everyone was specialized in some way. Very few people "did it all," and if left in the wild, most would probably die.

This went on for a while. People bartered a lot, and money was the core value that everyone spoke. In the Far East, some governments were so powerful that paper money, printed a certain way to keep forgery low, was replaced instead of gold. Now, suddenly, a government could control the value of this paper by restricting its circulation. Gold was finite, but if you needed a little extra value, you just printed more money. But if you printed too much, the value dropped. So you had to be smart about it. But the only way for the average person to get money was to specialize in some way, what's known usually as a job skill.

As time progressed, specialization stayed about the same until cities started to get really big. Then the overspecialization began. I am thinking it began around the time of the industrial revolution. This is where people become so specialized that they simply cannot live without the civilized infrastructure. There were always those sorts of people, but now most of us have become very dependent on civilization to keep us going. Sure, there's always a few of us who could live in the wilderness for the rest of our lives, but now it's very unlikely.

Civilization has become our habitat. Employment has become a niche in this habitat.

For example, my job. I test networks for a living. I program in several computer languages, know how to build a standard x86-based computer system. My specialization is making tools that use tools that use other tools that humans use to ... well, get information or make more tools. I don't do one thing from the ground up to ensure my basic survival. I depend on stores to have food so I can eat, I haven't once made any of my own clothing, and making a fire is only something I know how to do because I was in scouts.

If you put me in the wilderness in the middle of nowhere, my skills at survival would be those of a primitive child. My survival rate would be very low. It might be more than most, because of scouting background and this weird fascination with facts and nature, but would be sharply less than, say, my friend Travis.

The biggest problem with my specialization is the name with any animal in the wild, I am dependent on my niche. If I get laid off, I can't just go, "Okay," and take the next job that comes along. I have to take a job that pays equal or more than I make now, plus needs the skills I have. I have to fit into their niche. I am always flexible, but there's only so much I can do with a family to support. And when the waterholes are drying up, the competition gets fierce.

I don't have a college degree. In the wild, this would be equivalent to a bad limp. While some animals with bad limps to manage to survive, they are on the cusp of survivability. The next bad winter, or the next drought, those who can walk or run faster will make it to the best caves or last remaining waterholes faster than I will. Being so long-lived with a limp, it's not as much as a handicap as if it were a fresh wound, because at least I have experience that, in theory, overcomes the limp. But it's a limp nonetheless.

It makes me vulnerable.

I like what I do. Sometimes I don't like the work environment, but for the most part, I enjoy building and programming computers. I could do this for a long time before I burn out. But I may have no choice. Companies are like organisms, too. Then need to eat and grow to survive. They feed on money, and money alone. They can replace employees, especially employees like me, with little long-term damage. They have been doing so before and they are doing so now.

In the 1970s, a lot of textile jobs got shipped overseas. People who made clothing and that sort of thing. Why? Because it's cheaper to hire overseas workers. Their lifestyle is far more basic, and doesn't require a high maintenance salary for the same job. Those back in the US who lost their jobs often found new work was hard to come by, especially in small towns. They protested, passed some laws, and so on, but in the end, the ones that survived were the ones that were far more adaptable and flexible than I am now, and they work elsewhere or died off. Now my types of companies are shipping my type of work overseas. If I don't do something soon, I will be driven out of my shrinking niche, limp and all.

I must evolve.

But, being the kind of human that I am, I am lazy. I don't want to evolve. I am 35 and set in my ways. But that's death now. I have to keep changing, keep moving. Every year it gets harder. It seems that time is speeding up. When I was a kid, a year was a damn long time, but now I am losing track of what year it is. I have to mathematically think of my age, as birthdays blow by like background scenery. So job skills, especially in the tech industry, whiz by like bullets. I spend a good several hours a week, at home and at work, studying new trends. It's hard to believe how much has changed. I recall when the 486 computers came on the market, and how badly I wanted one. I recall when the "powerhouse desktop servers" I used to work with were Pentium 166 machines with 64mb RAM. Now I won't even take a free one. It seems like only yesterday I started in the tech industry, but I am rapidly approaching my ninth. Soon I will overtake the number of years I had spent in my previous retail management life. I'm not ready for a change yet.

The main thing that's calling me in my writing. These last two months have been so stressful, that my writing has suffered terribly. But my brain keeps thinking about it. Maybe my new niche should really be the unstable world of writing novels and stuff. Trouble is, that niche is really competitive, suffers vast whims of the market, and doesn't pay very well unless you are one of the few that are lucky and skilled enough to make it big.

I am beginning to wonder where I fit in. Maybe this is what a "mid-life crisis" means.

Posted by Punkie @ 04:19 PM EST [Link]

Thursday, April 29, 2004

Judging a Goth by her cover

Some people write me and say I am not punk or goth, and I don't know what to say. I first think of saying, "Screw you, poser!" but then I remember that arguing with preteens is pointless because when you win the argument, they won't know. I also think that debating whether I am goth or punk is pretentious at best, like I have to model myself after some standards. Not enough Bauhaus? What shade of Manic Panic should my highlights be? Feh.

Anyway, God (or whatever) has designated that she must always teach me a lesson, and recently, I was given the smackdown of what goth might be, and what form it may take. Thus enters Jackie.

Jackie comes from a small town. She's a homemaker, mother of 2. She dresses in fashionable and trendy clothing, model skinny, and a very bright, cheerful person whom I have determined is far more adult than I'll ever be. She'd be a perfect Girl Scout leader and den mother. Sometimes she comes off as a bit ditzy, with her wide eyes and enthusiastic nods when she speaks. She used to have dark curly hair, but she recently straightened it and turned it blond.

But it's all an act.

Recently, she came by to explain she was going to see her favorite band, "A Perfect Circle." I had never heard of it, and assumed it was some semi-Christian, wholesome country group. No. Not quite. For beneath the JC Penny white bread exterior of this country girl beats the heart of a goth. But beats so quietly, I never picked up on it. How many goths come from a small town in West Virginia? Not many. How she became goth is a subject brought up by her best friend growing up. "Well, she used to really be into heavy metal, so I guess this is what she's evolved to. She's not what she seems. It's all an act. Deep down, she has a huge dark side..."

I learned two things: One, I totally misread her based on stereotypes and I should have known better, and two, A Perfect Circle is a pretty good band.

Posted by Punkie @ 03:28 PM EST [Link]

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Blind Self-Improvement

I have been shopping on eBay and Half.com since 1999. All in all, I am pleased with it. I have only been ripped off once, and that was for $24.00. I usually pay attention to the seller's rating, length of account history, and age of account to decide whether someone's a good seller. Sure, an account can be hacked, but it's not that often. My account standing is pretty stellar at 100%. Then again, I have never sold anything, only bought.

Recently, on Half.com, I ordered a CD by the Swedish group, Rednex. When I got it, the CD had thick, Vaseline-like smears, some fingerprints, and a few minor scratches. I had to clean the CD pretty heavily, but when I got it clean, it played without complaint. Well, I left neutral feedback, stating what happened. I got a very angry letter that said, "IT IS PROFESSIONAL AND COURTEOUS TO CONTACT YOUR SELLERS B4 LEAVING BAD FEEDBACK." Maybe so, but how could she have fixed this? I did get the item and got it to work, so I didn't leave her negative feedback. The CD was $4.00, I didn't think I would get a refund or any satisfying response. So I just left a neutral sort of "buyer beware" kind of thing. Mine sits along with a few other comments she has about her sales of a similar nature. "Not what I expected," and "Took too long and book was mangled." Her responses were always angry and in all-caps, a few of them also stating "why didn't you mail me?" Well... maybe it's because your responses are so full of all caps to begin with? Take it easy, lady, you have a 99.5% rating. I read her feedback, and she leaves a lot of "NEWBIE CAN'T READ DESCRIPTIONS... NEWBIE LEAVES BAD FEEDBACK INSTEAD OF EMAILING ME!" kinds of answers. I can just picture this poor woman, sitting an an overstuffed Lay-Z-Boy, shaking her cane at the TV, shouting, "DAMN NEWBIES!!!"

In customer service, we were always told "for every person that complains about bad service, there are ten who will stay silent." Often, it doesn't seem fair. Especially because when someone has a good experience at a store, they rarely remember it, but if something bad happens? You'll be lucky to see them again. And what's even worse? They'll probably tell ten people who will turn around and tell a few more people. Life is the same way.

A good example is someone with offensive body odor. Maybe not offensive, let's just say you have a coworker that smells a bit odd, but it's only bad if you get close. Over time, people will avoid that coworker, and won't tell them why. "It's not that he smells bad," they might say to another worker, "it's just... well, I don't want to get too close, that's all." And the coworker will never know. It's hard enough to tell someone they smell bad. "Want a mint? No? You sure? Have a mint... please?" Most would rather die than say, "You stink, my brother!" to someone they have to work with. You could say this is unfair; how is the person supposed to better themselves of they don't know? Well, you are right, it's not fair. Life is not fair.

Sara: That's not fair!
Jareth: You say that so often, I wonder what your basis of comparison is.
--Sara and Jareth, "Labyrinth"

Posted by Punkie @ 09:48 PM EST [Link]

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Corporate Jesters: Wandering Minstrels of the Jingling Keys

Roy Romano has a bit where he has a newborn son, and says that he realized his only job is really to entertain the baby. This detracted from his time to write jokes for his act, so he apologizes for the next bit. Then he yanks out his set of keys, jingles them in front of the audience, and makes baby noises.

I don't know if it's just an American thing, but I doubt it. Jingling keys in front of the baby to entertain them. Today, as I sat through one of those corporate-hired acts, I thought, "Don't be angry, Punkie. It's for the children." They had us banging on cowbells, drums, tambourines, and various other salsa instruments of acoustical pain. Now, here I should mention, I have no rhythm. None. I can't carry a beat to save my life. So I had to endure the same humiliation I suffered through elementary school music class: no musical talent whatsoever. Okay, it wasn't so bad, no one cared I had no rhythm. In fact, it was hard to hear any beat in that hotel ballroom. It was just a lot of banging chaos, and you could almost see the resigned determination to plod through a bunch of programmers and corporate types to do a 150-person samba band. The purpose of this exercise? To, and I swear I am not making this up, chant the new mission statement like a cultist act gone mad.

Okay, I was just glad I wasn't laid off. So I wasn't nearly as appalled and bitter as I usually am when confronted with such indignity. The meeting was one of those twice-a-year "restructuring" meetings we have, where we show what we've done, what we're changing, where we are going, and what it all means. The samba thing just seemed like an insult. People elsewhere are getting their jobs outsourced to India and South Africa, while I pound on a cowbell to the tune of some chant to drill the mission-statement-du-jour into my head. And of course, it was all vague statements about values which meant nothing. If you are going to chant something, at least chant something specific, like "Kill Bill!" or "What do we want? Bill 432/ab12 vetoed! When do we want it? Before the deadline on March 30th!" Not, "Values which make us RIGHT will help us sleep through the NIGHT!"

[ Seig heil ]

It was creepy. The rest of the meeting was appallingly boring, as I stated in a previous entry, which made it all the more hard to sit through. Luckily, the power went out back in our building, so I got to leave early. It wasn't as bad as some similar events I had been to in my past, however.

In high school, they hired some "Positive Values" guy to speak to us kids. He was the typical Corporate Jester: nice suit, boundless energy, full of puns and double entendres... "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt!" Al Franken had a character named Stuart Smalley who was very much like these types. Anyway, this guy wasn't really so bad, but he was playing to a very apathetic audience of bored rich kids. Many jaded faces of whom lived in split homes, or moved every two years. Using sarcasm and disrespect as shields, they sharpened their wit and tested the weaponry on people like this guy. He was really playing to the hardest audience he could have been hired for. But he made it through without losing dignity, and he had a few cool stories. He was invited back next year.

He wasn't invited back the following year. Why? He killed himself. Apparently hung himself in his own hotel room before a show in another city. Ironic, don't you think?

Years later, when I worked for the knife store, our happy-wappy district manager got all kinds of offers in the mail for sales training seminars, and for a while, they were his thing. Some of them were really good, like we went to a set from Strawberry Communications that was pretty good. But then there were some losers. Many of the losers just repeated vague "no duh" concepts like "if you sell more, you make more money!" The worst had to be a group, I think they were called "Up with People," or something, who pranced around in pastel tee shirts with their names across the chest like a show for preschool kids. The only seminar I went to with these clowns was a show about customer interaction which bordered on the insultingly patronizing. The worst moment had to be the hour, let me repeat HOUR, of bouncy talk, with skits, about why striking the customer was a bad idea. Yes, as in physically assaulting a customer that made you mad.

Folks, if you have to go to a seminar to learn that hitting customers is a bad idea, you need more help than this seminar could give.

When I worked for Cargo, we had annual sales conferences for all managers. The first year I went, they hired some poor sap who looked like a nervous rabbit. He had to somehow work into his standard "Yay teamwork" act the slogan "Soaring with Eagles," which was our sales slogan for that year. "Eagles," he said, "Soar in great packs..." and he lost me there. Then he started making up facts about how bald eagles care for chicks ("like you care for customers") in nursery packs, and he was completely making up everything on the spot like he'd just been told to mix it in his act right before he went on-stage. Bald eagles, which are solitary predators, and do not collect flowers to put in their mate's nests, are not exactly what one associates with teamwork. Ants, bees, wolves, and even prides of lions are examples of teamwork in the animal kingdom. But then again, I probably was the only one there who knew that. He then ended his act by putting his six year old nephew on-stage, who sang and did a tapdance to "You are my Sunshine" like someone had a gun to his dog backstage. I thought he would burst into tears at any moment, but to his credit, he didn't, and seemed to cheer up a little when we applauded him at the end. It was just weird.

The next year, the CEO of the corporation who owned our company had just gone through a heavy liquid diet, and lost like 160 pounds in three months. He was recovering, and full of spunk. He showed up, and discussed our recent buyout, Sav-on Office supply. He was so happy about this, that he tossed these things called "Bandy-balls" at us. These were balls of rubber bands sold in their office supply places. They fucking HURT when thrown at you. One girl had a goose egg on her head after taking one above the eye. Another guy sprained a finger trying to catch another one. After we started getting pelted by these things, a lot of us went under the tables, and the CEO laughed in sadistic glee.

Uber-creepy...

The last year, they sent us to a dude ranch in Bandera, Texas. Cowboy Billy made us do all this teamwork stuff, like roping cattle, riding horses, and living in cabins in baking dusty dry Texas heat. Okay, honestly, were like mini upper-class ski lodges, and since I was the ONLY non-smoking hetero male in the group, I got my own cabin far away from anyone... which was great, because it had satellite TV, so don't feel sorry for me here. Our managers at the time consisted mainly of overweight or older women, and several gay men. Most of whom were heavy smokers and drinkers. After day two, we had a broken arm, two sprained wrists, three allergic reactions, many asthma attacks (myself included), and a variety of insect bites and stings that "didn't look right." The rest of the week, we were just told to lounge in the pool, and we actually had a great time, demonstrating both teamwork and competitiveness in water volleyball, singalongs, and at night... bar hopping. We got thrown out of two local bars for unruly behavior. I learned one night that just because a man is a flaming queen and likes margaritas with umbrellas doesn't mean he can't kick the ass of three large drunken locals with a pool cue and a large ornamental spittoon. Go, go Gary!

Sometimes, I feel for these Corporate Jesters, though. Most of the time, the audiences are unwilling to do anything "fun." I was one of those today, and I wasn't even the worst one. My coworker Roy, a volunteer fireman, had come off his overnight shift with two calls and two hours of sleep. He was in NO mood. I think half the crowd got into the samba, a quarter just followed along with no emotion, and the rest of us were being obstinant. That can't be easy. Forced entertainment upon a crowd of people you don't even know.

So maybe I shouldn't have stolen the drumsticks...

Posted by Punkie @ 09:41 PM EST [Link]

So far, I still have a job

I am happy to report the meeting I just attended was terribly, excruciatingly boring. It was so boring, it was painful. But, I still have a job, no one got laid off in our group, and... well, I think it's over. But I have watched enough monster movies to still worry about the dead corpse to rise out at the camera when the protagonists kiss... so I haven't tossed away my gun.

God smiled on me today, because after 7 hours of sitting in a very uncomfortable chair, in a very face-scraping version of boring "look at me" lectures by people who were better suited reading bus schedules, and looking for 4 more hours of this, my boss ran up to me and went "there's been a power outage back in the building, you have to go!" Okay, really, he said, "Uh... why didn't the reports run? I heard there was a power outage, and now I can't ping the servers..." and I went, "I'LL GO!!!!!!!!"

I am happy to still be employed, as you can see. And the power outage, while severe, and it did crash several systems, I have a lot of backup stuff that always runs, so my own paranoia mader this a smoooooth reason to escape.

Posted by Punkie @ 02:25 PM EST [Link]

Monday, April 26, 2004

Better to have job and lost than to never know anything at all...

Well, the worst has happened. No, no one got laid off. Nothing happened. That's the worst, because you know it's coming, but now it's like the silence before the attack, the whistle before the bomb explodes, and the silence is deafening. I'd rather have some moment of chaos and it be over with, but now it's just hanging in the air. God dammit! I swear my ulcer is on fire.

We have this huge, mandatory "all hands" meeting tomorrow where no laptops, PDAs, or any recording devices are allowed. Normally, this isn't such a bad thing, I mean, they have these meetings twice a year. But now since nothing happened today, people are going, "Okay, the meeting is where they are going to can the whole lot of us." I doubt that. First of all, it's never been their style to do that. "There's always a first," is the reply. Because, you know, the sky is falling and all. In any normal situation, this would mean nothing more than, "Oh, gahd! I am going to be sooo bored!" But now we're all second-guessing every blip on the radar, and I am second-guessing the second-guessing. I don't even know how likely anything is, or whether we're living under a cloud of meaningless fear.

This totally sucks.

Posted by Punkie @ 03:41 PM EST [Link]

Sunday, April 25, 2004

Stress... give he stress and nothing less... a heart attack I cannot resess..t..

So Fran calls, and he's sick of the nursing home already. We knew this would happen. Hey, it's Jacksonville! Would YOU want to live there? So now he wants out. Debbie and Christine got a lot of paperwork through for him, and he's now well enough to travel, so next weekend, Christine's driving down to Florida again, with Debbie in tow, to pick up Fran, bring him here, and then next weekend, drive him to Debbie's apartment in West Virginia.

While nothing disasterous has happened in a few weeks, my stress level hasn't gone down much. I kind of thought it would, you know? But no. I find myself more and more depressed, now with migranes and muscle aches. I am hoping to go through next week still with a job. I don't look forward to Monday. I doubt anything will get done. I mean, everyone knows about it. This has to be the most "we know what day the axe will fall" I have ever lived through. I have equal fear that tomorrow will suck because people I know and work with will be let go, and I also have equal fear that nothing will happen, and thus the stress of "when... WHENN???" will get worse and worse until it actually does happen unexpectedly. I don't know why we're having layoffs. Our company did really well this last fiscal year. We had a buyout a few years ago where a lot of debt was ammassed, and for the last few years, our division has made tons of revenue from all our clients. But there's always this "restructuring" going on, and being in the tech industry, the Sword of Damocles hangs over each and every one of us.

Like being under a bomb attack, I have gone through the drill in my head on the way to the shelter. "What am I going to do... okay... yeah, I'll do this and that and... oh my God, this sucks I don't want to THINK ABOUT THIS!" [sigh] I have gone through dynamic mood shifts, passing each stage of denial like subway stops gone out of order. I accept, deny, weep, get brave, get chicken, practice all manner of things I will do. I even have my, "Sorry you got laid off, Bill," speech down pat when whomever Bill is gives me his "documentation" so I can do his job. I already have my "Goodbye, it was fun" speech if I get the axe, too. I'm going to leave dignified, like most of my former cowrkers have done over the years. I'm not doing the, "HOW DARE YOU FIRE ME, I'M NOT UNLUCKY... HA HA, NO *YOU* ARE THE UNLUCKY SOBS STILL STUCK WORKING FOR THESE BRAINLESS--" You get the idea. No one ever said, after reading such a letter or hearing such a speech, "Wow... he's right! He sure got us with that impressive talk!" No, we look away uncomfortably. We didn't want to see you get fired, and if we did, we don't care! In either case, leaving in a tantrum never leaves a winning impression. I even have a stock letter I plan to send out, so I don't have to sit and think about it, or post a knee-jerk, "Thanks to this, I'll lose my health insurance" kind of pity party.

Oh well. Next week should be fun.

Posted by Punkie @ 11:01 PM EST [Link]

On unexpected visitors and pollen

So, yesterday, we needed to do some shopping. It was not going well.

First off, we ordered from Peapod a few days ago. It's our supermarket's delivery service, and as long as you don't order fresh items from them (meats, fruits, etc.), it's okay. This is the third time we've used them, and it is kind of handy to order online, and then have it delivered. Today they were late, but they called ahead of time to say, "Hey, we're late," so we wouldn't wonder if they had forgotten us (I complemented the driver for being courteous). So we watched more episodes of "Family Guy" on DVD while waiting. This threw us off in our planned schedule, and by the time the food arrived, we were already hungry, so we made a late lunch before we went out to do more shopping (medicine and art supplies).

Then Christine's childhood friend showed up, rather unexpectedly. She was the one who last week didn't show because her husband was too stubborn to admit he was lost for 5 hours. They didn't call to say they were trying again this week, so it was a good thing we were running late because otherwise she would have missed us. The husband was with her, and he's not a bad guy, really. Just stubborn. They have been married for a while, have two kids, and still love and respect each other, so it was hard to be mad at him. But our house wasn't ready for guests so we had to grovel and apologize for the mess. They didn't stay long, because they knew they were unexpected, and also they had to drive up to Frederick, MD before they went back home to West Virginia, and had a long day ahead of them.

So then we went out, rather late in the afternoon. Then I had a massive asthma attack. The pollen has been unbelievable. The National Weather Service's Respiratory Index rated today as a "1" out of 10, or "Very Poor" in Air Quality. Pretty much as low as you can go. The pollen is so thick, it's leaving yellow-green dust on everything. So we cut our trip short.

My asthma and resistance to pollen, dust, and mold has really declined in recent years, and it's never been good to start with. I always had "hay fever" since I was about 6, but it was never treated, and so now my "hay fever" became "life threatening" when I was around 21 or so. Because of my high blood pressure, I can't take a lot of drugs others can, but I am on a low level of Zyrtek, which makes pollen season tolerable, but yesterday was just too much.

The asthma keeps be up at night, and so that's why I am online at 3:45 in the frickin' morning. At least it's Sunday, so I can sleep late.

Posted by Punkie @ 03:41 AM EST [Link]

Saturday, April 24, 2004

TGI.... (looks at watch)... S.

My book has NOT been coming along, mostly due to that last month of stress back there. This will throw off my schedule completely. Part of me was thinking, "Well, if I get laid off on Monday, at least I can have a lot of free time to do the book." My last unemployment resulted in my first (and currently only) published book. But being poor sucked, man.

Ahfu had to go to the vet because his shots were out of date, and I needed them in date to renew his license. He also needed a checkup. He's great, healthy, and still loves car rides. Still hates getting the blood drawn, but they know now to distract him with food. Hard to believe that Ahfu is 5 already. I still remember the day we adopted his sorry butt from his previous owners. Cute bundle of fluff who needed a bath soooo bad...

Those vets love us, BTW. They REALLY loved us when we got Widget. When Widget had to be there for his surgery last month, while he was recovering, the staff there took turns carrying him around because he's so damn cute, and only 4.5 pounds. Ahfu is 17 pounds, which seems funny when you tell people, "My Pekingese is almost 4 times the weight of my other dog..."

Our George Foreman grill died. I was a bit bummed. Christine was cooking with it a few days ago, and she said it suddenly just winked off and stopped cooking. When we got this thing 3 years ago, I thought it was destined for the appliance graveyard, but it turned out we used it a LOT. So I guess it was worth the $99 for three years of moderate use. The non-stick coating never came off, and when it worked, it cooked both sides of whatever meat you had there fairly quickly without making it too dry. Great for burgers, steaks, chops, and good for thawing, too. The huge metal surface wicks away cold, so if you have frozen steak, leave it in contact with the metal for a few hours, and it's completely defrosted (you can also pull this trick with an iron skillet or any other large metal object) by the time you're ready to cook it.

Posted by Punkie @ 12:55 AM EST [Link]

Friday, April 23, 2004

"Take Your Child to Work" or "Parade Your Crotchfruit to Annoy Coworkers?"

Yesterday was "take your child to work day."

I didn't take CR, because he's seen what I do numbers of times, and my office can't fit two people at the moment (I am in some rotational computer upgrade hell, and I am surrounded by maybe 30 machines). He's also 13 now, and past the age "they" suggest you bring your child to work. He wanted to come, don't get me wrong, but since he also lost a lot of school days with that skin infection, I didn't think it was really worth it. But some people brought their kids, and for the most part, they were well behaved.

The kids I mean.

The parents? Well, not so much. Right now, we're in a layoff scare lockdown, so people are generally full of angst and worry as it is. "Mommy may not have a job next week, sweetie..." There were a lot of these types of people as well, and some of the mutterings made me question the validity of "Take your child to work" day. So I started this entry yesterday. And then I read that blog entry by Invinciblegirl, but more on that in a moment. The only problems that arose were neglectful and mean parents. Some held their kids on tight leashes (metaphorically speaking), while others did let their kids roam free. A few didn't understand to concept, and brought a five-year-old. No, recommended ages are 8-12, read the permission slip you sent to the school. But really, no harm came to anyone I know. Someone got into the copier paper, a few disgusting nose pickers, and some yelling in the hallway were as bad as it got.

When I was in retail, there was always stuff for a child to do. By the time CR was old enough to attend something like this, I was running that furniture store. He watched me talk to customers, talk on the phone, do some paperwork, and spruce up the showroom. The next few tech jobs I was surrounded by a like of young people without kids, and most of them treated CR like some weird new toy. "Hey," said the girl with the green hair, piercings, and tattoos of flames covering both arms, "there's a KID in here ... oh wow... I have heard about those. Mind if I take him to the vending machine?" It was like I brought some exotic pet that people wanted to feed. CR loved this, of course.

I always tried to make it a learning experience. Once I had him install Windows, and twice install Linux. "See the line 'time remaining?' Red Hat is a liar." I explained everything I did, and why. I taught him HTML skills he later used on NeoPets, gave him logic problems, and while I am sure 90% of what I said didn't soak in, 10% is better than 0%. He also got to meet coworkers I had been talking about. Last year, he met the guy who always acts stoned, and we had this big "don't do drugs" discussion. I mean, if God wanted my kids to take drugs, he wouldn't have sent Stoner to my office. He came in, forgot what he was saying twice, even though he was never interrupted, stared at my desk for a while, left, came back, and repeated what he started to say during the last visit, acted like I hadn't answered him, and then wandered out as I was talking. My son, all of 12 at the time, was losing it, and I knew if we made eye contact, we'd die of laughter. Sometimes you just get used to people, and you forget that they are truly odd. Once, some project manager came in, and started being all self-important about something she did, and how she needed this and that to be done immediately. I repeated, "As always, I love you to help you, but you have to make all formal work requests through my boss," and she just kept going. Then she noticed my son, and suddenly acted like I had been hiding a pit bull from her, and nervously cut her talk short, and left like she had just had a very jarring experience. "I should keep you around more often," I said. We bonded, and I showed him some adults are no better than kids, and those that were, why they were. "Bob works hard," I'd say. "Bob saves my butt every day by fixing broken systems at night during production hours. When I had systems in Frankfurt, I would have killed to have someone like Bob working nights. Instead I had an anonymous person surfing porn on my test systems."

It really made me evaluate what I did, because when you have to explain to someone with a 7th grade education that you actually do work, it builds confidence. "I build and program machines that test the Internet and make sure people can get to the Internet."

My mother forced me to go to work with my dad on about 5 occasions. He usually had his own corner office up high, and it was always neat and straight. He never spoke to me, and if I asked what he was doing, I am sure I would have gotten a glare to shut up. His coworkers were nice, but it was pretty obvious they were uneasy around him. To this day, I have no idea what he really did. All I know is that he changed companies every few years (SRI, SPC, PRC, ARACOR, Booz Allen), was in consulting, hated lobbyists, hated war and the tools of war (including guns), worked with electronic engineers but hated computers (refused to have one in the house), and only had one friend from work, whom he dropped when he stopped working there. I guess he was a "Beltway Bandit," as they are called around here, because he was one of the many consultants working for the government.

I know some people are really uncomfortable around kids. I used to be one of them. I can't speak for anyone else, but my fear used to be that kids were like some sort of wild animal that had opposable thumbs and speech capability. Their uncivilized manners excused them from being polite, so they could go right up to a fat person and go, "You are FAAAT!" I also was scared that they were fragile, and that if they got hurt, I'd be blamed. Kids to me, at that time, represented lack of control of my environment; a random seed of unpredictable behavior that would destabilize me. Of course, I don't feel that way now. I almost have a perverse wish to see kids do harmless upsetting things to snobby people, like ask inane questions, or run around, doing totally weird stuff.

Which is why I sort of understand why some people don't like "take your child to work" day. But that's a parental problem, really. I don't want to "make an example" of Invinciblegirl's post in her own blog, and her types of complaints were certainly echoed through the office yesterday, so she's not alone. Here's a breakdown of the most common arguments given by people:

Take Your Children to WorkDay? And this is supposed to be fun? For who? It's supposed to be educational. But many offices are not even reasonable. I used to work in a building we shared with the USGS, and they had posted flyers about taking your kids to work. It went something like this:

8:30a - Orientation
9:00a - Speech by director, "Values in today's Mineral services"
9:30a - Film, "The Department of Mineral Services: A History"
10:15a - Break for milk and cookies
10:30a - Speech by Howard Huseman, "Shifting Geoclimates in Modern Drilling Practices"
11:15a - Q&A session with top managers
11:45a - Lunch in the cafeteria with parent
12:15p - Films on GEOSAT, "GEOSAT 1979 Launch" and "GEOSAT Today"
1:30p - Speech by Denette Fukelstein about her newest book, "Microscopic Phrenology for Aphanitic/Phaneritic Crystalline Cataloging"
3:30p - Break for yogurt-covered pretzels, raisins, and peanut butter
3:45p - Go back to the office with parent. Speeches given by local supervisors.
5:00p - Leave normal time

I am so glad I didn't work there. Speeches? Films? Most adults can't stand this type of day, much less a kid with a 10 second attention span. Towards the date, though, apparently so many people balked, that they just opened up a huge conference room and had a TV on to various nature programs. Which is not the point, either.

My work, two years ago, opened up a HUGE conference center, and gave all the kids gift bags, and it was like a mini-carnival. They got toys, freebies, shirts, and you name it. Tables to get your kid fingerprinted, vendors had tables that explained what they did, and it was incredible. This year, we had nothing. I'm not sure which I prefer...

I’m pretty sure that the day ends up making everyone involved miserable, unless you are employed as a clown, fireman, test pilot, or someone who works in the Crayola factory. Even then, clowns have to pay attention to their audience, you can't take a kid to an on-call, let them fly a new 2.5 billion dollar plane, or let them get injured by industrial machinery.

Most of us do not have exciting jobs. I guess it depends on your attitude. Mine is pretty thrilling. It's all about problem solving, so it's like doing a word puzzle or building a model daily. I pass this on to my son, and when he's here, we have a pretty good time. The worst problem is boredom, so he plays a Game Boy during those times I have to program or something.

The fact is, your kids are not going to learn shit by taking them to work with you one day. Again, depends on how YOU see your job. If you see your job as useless shit, and that bothers you, leave. Me? There are LOTS of lessons in day-to-day stuff in my job. Usually people skills. "Don't tell someone you can't do something," I told him once, "but tell them what you CAN do. Like if they say, 'Do this report on all numbers dialed in TEST A for the last 30 days,' don't say, 'No. I don't do anything without my manager's approval!' Say, "I'd love to do those reports, so just ask my manager for approval, and I'll go ahead and add them to my list of projects.'" I show him that being friends with "lowly people" like janitors, secretaries, and admins will be a Godsend. I tell him that blowing off people like that may make you feel better than them, but it won't make you any friends. In the real world, it's not always what you know, but a lot of who you know, and who you make friends with. I explain what other people do, and why. It's not just about doing a Powerpoint, you explain why you have to do it. Tell them the truth, too. "Mommy has to do this because she has to prove that her department does important work, or else people will forget about her, stop funding, and I'll have to get another job."

Because you are not bringing your child to learn, and I’d like every single parent who is reading this and who participated in Bring a Child to Work Day to sit back and admit that the only reason you took them is to show off your kid, and because you didn't want to have to do any real fucking work today. No, I don't need to show off my kid, I want him to fully realize where the money in the house comes from. He may not grow up to be a computer programmer, but he should have memories of what I did to pass on to his kids. Because of that reasoning, I know my maternal grandfather was a carpenter, worked in demolition, and I have stories that my mother told me about him. I am working with the Internet, and I am now a part of history.

Now, in credit to some of what Invinciblegirl said, there are some parents who let their snotnosed kids run around unsupervised, annoying people, and so on. Maybe their jobs are so important that they can't pay attention to their sproglings, or they are just bad parents. But you know what? You only notice the annoying ones. Why? Because the kids, like all kids, want attention. It's programmed into them at a very basic level. Attention means they learn something, which is a basic survival tool for the human species. They need interaction, and if they don't get it from their parents, they get it elsewhere. The age range they ask for is 8-12, who have a better attention span than the younger and older. Younger, they just can't sit still, and older, they are striking for independence. But if the kid is good, quiet, and well behaved, you often never notice them. When I worked at a book store, the other manager there said kids were noisy, obnoxious, and messy. One day I took a survey. About 30 kids came in my store that day. Out of those, 2 were noisy, and 1 was messy. You didn't even notice the other 27 because they were quiet, calm, and neatly kept in tow. Now adults? Out of about 100, 20 were noisy, and 5 were messy. Who didn't put back books where they belonged? Parents.

Take Our Children to Work has this goal in mind: "Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work provides a forum for girls and boys to share their ideas about the workplace of the future, directly with the companies that will someday employ them." My dad? What did he do? Dunno. I don't consider his work very important, and since he's a bad man anyway, I don't think he has any redeeming qualities but to steal US Tax dollars so he can have a yacht. This is based on guesses of what I think he did. If he worked for the CIA to keep our country safe, I might have found it easier to forgive his being a complete jerk all my life. If he worked air traffic control, and got fired by Reagan in 1981 because his union wanted better working conditions, and spent the rest of his life bitter while smoking and drinking his way to an early death, I might have also forgiven him. Especially after naming an airport "Reagan National." But... I don't. I didn't have any way to look at the future and see what I might have become. I didn't form goals or any bond with my father. My mother was a drunken housewife, so I learned housework. I was at her "workplace" every day, and bonded with her much better.

So, why did I take my son all those years? I wanted him to know I took pride in my work. I wanted him to get lessons he wouldn't get in school (they never teach people skills of any use or value).

[Apologies to Invinciblegirl - this was not meant as a slam on her]

Posted by Punkie @ 12:14 PM EST [Link]

Thursday, April 22, 2004

Howdy-ho, neighbor!

I wish I knew my neighbors better.

I live in a nice community, and when I say nice, I don't mean "wealthy," I mean nice in that it looks nice, and people are generally friendly. Many people who live here grew up here as kids, and when we go to garage sales, we hear all about them.

Our neighborhood was built in 1970. That seems young to me, but I guess to younger readers, I walked with dinosaurs, so 1970 might seem old. When the neighborhood was planned, potential buyers got one of 5 plans, and while some lots were pre-chosen as to which model went there, you could choose your favorite model of the 5 on an empty lot instead of choosing one already built. The models were generic, but represented standard home styles on the late 1960s. We have a colonial model, a New England model, a ranch model, and two more variations that kind of mixed different styles. I live in a modified colonial. About half the houses here are modified since they had been built, usually by adding a room or two, or modifying the garage to be a rec room. No one had a basement, and the ground below us is mostly slate, so we aren't allowed to have anything below ground (some zoning thing). A few people have above ground pools, but the yards are a bit smaller than most homes built in the time period, so a pool takes up most of your back yard.

Our neighborhood was built "in the middle of nowhere" at the time. In fact, behind us were two big green barns left over from the period where our area was a series of dairy farms. For years, people giving directions used to say, "Drive down Route 50 until you see two green barns, then turn onto the only road there." Those green barns were knocked down in the 1980s and turned into a mega shopping center, which became decrepit, then refurbished, then doubled in size to the sprawl it is today.

A lot of neighbors we have talked to said that they grew up here as kids, and moved back when they bought their first homes. Many of them have been the ones telling me about anecdotes of our neighborhood, and over the years, I have about a few of them.

The first I always hear about if the people who had the house before us. Most people regarded them as decent folk, because they were very Christian, and had three boys -- all adopted. The two older boys were the powerhouse team that did everyone's lawns and stuff, and when they moved away, they were missed. But from what I have seen of the family, there was a dark side. First, their choice of friends seemed rather ... well, I wouldn't let my kid around them. Slack-eyed kids who wore torn clothes and mumbled, ultra-skinny skanks, and seemingly half the cast from Grand Theft Auto. Apparently our house was the "hangout place" for these kids, which explains why, for two years, they kept sneaking around and drinking and leaving trash in the accessible areas not visible to the road. They would smoke, drink alcohol, and sometimes use our yard as a shortcut to the alley behind our house, which drove our dogs nuts. Even during school hours. Cutting back some bushes helped a lot, and the fact that Christine worked from home 3 days a week, and shooed the people away finally dwindled their numbers down to nothing. But neighbors seemed to like them, so what do I know?

To my left is a couple I thought I'd love to have as friends, but they are really aloof and standoffish. The former owner was renting it out, but the house was up for sale shortly after we moved in because he was tired of renting. The former owner was very nice, and told us a lot of what happened when the 10' addition was put on our house. Apparently, it was built too close to the property line on his side, but he and the former owner of my house came to an agreement, and the property lines were adjusted. He also loaned me his mower for a while. When he sold the house, the new couple moved in. They are SCA-like people, with bumper stickers saying "Woad Warrior," and their huge back yard (easily twice the size of mine) hosts several gatherings a year where people dress up in padded armor and practice medieval fighting skills. My type of people! But sadly, all they ever give us is a nod in greeting when given, and often they don't give greetings on their own. When I mentioned the fighting and my past with the SCA, the woman there quickly said, "We're NOT SCA..." and acted offended. When it rains, their front yard turns into a pond, and often, I have thought about putting rubber duckies in it as a joke, but I have this fear they'll get mad.

To my right is an older lady who I think lives with her two adult sons. She's also a bit antisocial. Apparently she's a bus driver, and twice we have met her sons, who seem nice, and they have helped us twice to move heavy objects, but then they never initiate contact on their own. The lady has 2 or 3 large dogs, one named Samantha, a kind of cowardly German Shepherd whom Ahfu is in love with. She has another dog, a mutt, and a third mutt we only see once in a while, so I think some of the dogs are visitors. They don't take the dogs out much, and when she does, and my dogs are out, my dogs go nuts (Ahfu, who just wants the social interaction, and Widget thinks he's some badass bouncer). This makes her visibly mad, and her dogs are scared of mine, even though her dogs are much, much larger.

Across the street is the home of our neighborhood's version of Eddie Haskell. It's apparently one of those ultra-clean, ultra-strict families who don't believe in curtains and who have very little decor in the house. There used to be four people living there, but the daughter, who seemed close to adult, often had HUGE fights with the mother. A few times, there were fights around the car as the daughter was leaving, and the mother would stand behind the car to prevent her from going out. The daughter always won by driving on the lawn around her mother. Their son, who's probably 16 now, is at the very least a compulsive liar and charlatan. He seems very abused, and the former owner of my house told me that he had "been trying to work with him" because apparently the home life there is a disaster. "Eddie" missed the former owner, and he tried to bond with me, but his oily personality, combined with several incidents where he threw tomatoes at cars in the alley, beat my dogs with sticks, and keeps harassing my son in the MOST manipulating manner ... keep me away from him. I feel bad, because I was also abused as a kid, but this boy is beyond my capabilities to help.

Then the rest of the neighborhood is kind of a blur of stay-at-home moms, elderly retirees, and a few islands of interesting characters.

One house belongs to a cop, but apparently he's a real jerk and is abusive towards his wife. They decorate a LOT for Halloween and Christmas, and for Halloween, they usually do a PG-rated Crime scene with a real cop car and everything.

Down the road a bit is the Tan family, a Vietnamese family where the husband and wife do nails for a living. When we moved in, Mr. Tan said, "Oh my God! I live just a few houses down from you!" They recently had a baby, but since they live with a lot of other relatives, they never need a sitter. Rats. I wish the Tans would be our friends, but they work very long hours, and so we only see them when Christine has her nails done. Mr. Tan is our major source for neighborhood gossip.

Another family is the spooky religious clone family. This is a house where an uber-Christian family raises their five children, home schools them, and doesn't really allow their kids to play with others (although lately, I do see her eldest daughter play with other kids). She keeps her brood close. What's really scary is the husband and wife look very much alike, and their kids look like identical clones of each other, spaced a few years apart. "Gracie here is what my eldest, Sarah, looked like when she was 7, and Hope here looks just like Gracie and Sarah when they were 4." The only difference is the girls have really long hair, and they boys have short curly hair. All of them have glasses, too. When the spring and fall "mass-yard sale" occurs, she's always selling off the kids used toys and games. Apparently, the mother/teacher has all of the kids at college-level learning sessions, even though the eldest is maybe 12-13. She has a lot of old textbooks, educational games, and religious stuff. She's a chatty advocate of home-schooling, mostly because she doesn't think public schools teach enough about God and his Holy Flock.

At the end of our road is a house where teens used to hang out constantly and cause problems. Their neighbor has 8 or 9 kids, all of them unsupervised, and the cop neighbor has often threatened to put some of them in jail. The house belonged to a very wealthy housing contractor, and it is the most modified house on the block. The teens don't hang out there much anymore (most are now college age), and the house is up for sale.

A few blocks away is a house that is also heavily modified. We know because we looked at the house before we found the one we're living in now. Basically, they owner added over at third more living space by simply adding a whole new back to the house, and thus, all but removing any yard they had back there. Sadly, he had no sense of design or decor, because they new section was a very different style, and to make matters worse, after he built the house, he ran out of money, and was forced to sell it. Unfinished. He had like 6 kids (which is why he needed the addition), but half of them were foster kids. The floor plan was insane, with S-shaped hallways, uneven floors, and rooms that you had to go in another room to get to (railcar-style bedrooms).

Many neighbors marvel at our house. Apparently adding 10 feet to one end was the talk of the town for a while. Everyone asks about it. Kids who have visited are amazed how huge CR's bedroom is (it's like 10 x 25, originally it was 10 x 15). Sometimes, we have had neighbors who own the same model, think they are in a funhouse. "Where's your laundry room? Oh, accessible from the garage? Wait, the former garage goes here. It's now laundry. So this door must lead to the outside ... no, it's a whole 'nother room! With its own kitchen! Oh my! Does this house ever end?"

Still, most of the time, everyone keeps to themselves. I hear this is normal now, but growing up, I always knew who my neighbors were, even though I was that "tragic Larson boy" whom people sort of avoided. My father was very antisocial, and people always complained and gossiped about that. Nowadays he wouldn't even be noticed.

Posted by Punkie @ 10:26 AM EST [Link]

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Kitchen Guys, Part 2: They are also divers

Those guys were back in the kitchen again when I went to cook my Healthy Choice meal. I tried to read their names off their badges, to see who they were, and looked up who they worked for, but they always have their badge flipped name-side down for some reason.

Anyway, this time there were three of them, talking about where they had gone scuba-diving. Must be nice. I'm not sure if they were exaggerating, but let's just assume for now they are telling the truth, they really do dive in the Bahamas, Florida Keys, Cancun, and Australia's Great Barrier Reef. I had to stand there and listen to them one-up each other about their diving expeditions while my food cooked. I had to keep from laughing, because while they did seem to be telling believable tales, they made them sound so dramatic.

Guy1: There I was, sharks all around me!
Guy2: I had that too, while feeding some fish in St. Thomas. Scary!
Guy3: I once dove in one of those cages with a great white. Wow. It must have been 40 feet long!

[Anal fact point, they usually are 13-17 feet long, unless you found a long-lost Megalodon, but I can totally understand being in the water with such a large Great white, you might easily think 40 feet when you combine fear, the refraction of light from the water to diving mask, and just general memory issues of the exciting experience]

Then they started talking about sharks attacking helicopters. No, really. Based on this legend, I am assuming. I thought for a while saying, "Dude ... that was a hoax," but one of his boofoo buddies had already asked if it was, and he swore he knew that it was real. Third guy confirmed he also heard it was real, and then they started saying stuff about sharks getting more aggressive now that their food was diminishing due to overfishing. So they're attacking surfers, helicopters, and the sharks are being so cunning, they are also attacking fishing boats and low-lying bridges. I swear to God, that's what they said. I guess those sharks are putting 350 million years of experience being a predator to good use.

It was real hard to stay quiet. But I figured if I started correcting them, it might get unfriendly, so I said nothing. But I had to look away when they made some strange claim that was loosely based on a fact (say, "Sharks eat surfers because they sort of look like seals from below...") and then they took it in a rather obtuse direction (" ... so now they're requiring surfers to wear air horns and pepper spray to scare the shark packs away..."), because I really didn't want to giggle in front of them. When my lunch was done, I quickly left.

BTW, I tried to picture how such a "requirement" would be enforced, and how effective gas canister based tools work when used in salt water. But I guess you can always tell where the shark you caught came from, because they might be deaf and smell like pepper.

[Update: I found out who they were. They're vendors who are here for a few weeks to go over some problems we're having with their equipment on our site.]

Posted by Punkie @ 11:34 AM EST [Link]

Tuesday, April 20, 2004

The types of people who don't refill the coffeemaker

In the kitchen at work, we have a huge coffeemaker. All of our coffeemakers used to be 4-pot clear decanter systems seen in diners all over America, but now they have two tall "airpot" cylinders, and kind of look like the system I have pictured to the left.

When I first started working in an office, one of the first rules of etiquette I ever acquired was "If you kill the Jo, make some mo!" Okay, that's what "Terrible Terry Tate" says, as evidenced by a sign some joker lovingly put up in the kitchen. I believe what I was actually taught was, "If the coffee level is low when you are done, brew a new pot so when someone wants more coffee, it's already made." I have always liked doing this because I feel like I am doing a favor for a stranger.

Of course, as many of you already know, many selfish bastards just leave it empty. So you have to set up a new pot, get the filter, the grounds, put it together, run the hot water, and put the pot back on the hotplate, and then wait. Your 5 second cup of coffee just turned into a 5 minute ordeal. The actual setup is really easy on these new machines.

1. Remove filter holder from maker, dump old grounds and filter in trash by tipping over filter holder over trash can.
2. Put in a new paper filter, add one pre-measured packet of coffee grounds, and place back in maker.
3. Making sure airpot is underneath the spout, push the "Start" button.

That takes all of 10-20 seconds. Waiting for the decanter to fill takes 5 minutes, but the decanter on this model has a gauge on the side, and when you place your cup under the decanter spigot, wait for the "1 cup" to show up, you press a tab, and fresh, hot coffee comes out into your mug.

Normally, I never see these mysterious selfish people who just leave a decanter sitting empty. I am not the only one who is ticked about this, as evidenced by the Terrible Terry Tate poster, but today, I actually saw two people in the kitchen, chatting about something they did to someone the didn't like. I wasn't sure who or what was done, because I came during the end of the conversation, and when they saw me, they stopped, and left the kitchen. Sort of like this:

Guy1: ... so that's when I put his words on the line.
Guy2: Well, you have to do what you have to do.
Guy1: Get this, he actually shows up to the meeting, anyway. You'd think after that, he'd never show his face around me again.
Guy2: I don't believe it.
Guy1: And if he ever tries to show me up again, I'll... [sees me, drops to whisper] ... anyway, it's over. He'll be gone soon.
Guy2: Yeah. I can't wait.

I don't think they were talking about me, because the conversation ended more like, "Maybe this shouldn't be public," not "Oh, crap, there he is!" But the snobbery that these two gents showed didn't give me confidence they gave something to someone who "had it coming." They are those kinds of people who joined the tech industry for the money angle, not because they like computers. I saw nurses and doctors like that in Jacksonhell. Like, "God, I hate patients. They are always whining or sick or something!" I see these guys saying, "Man, I hate working with nerds," a lot. We don't have many of them in our company, but we have had more slink around after the merger a few years ago. You know their offices because they are usually pretty plain, with pictures of fast cars, sports memorabilia, and generic small plants ... but little else. Like a stoic male jock forced to survive in a terrifying nerd world. They only have one computer, usually a laptop, on their desk, and nothing else technological, like they are only interested in technology if they have to use it (which stands out, since we're a testing lab, everyone else's office looks like a bomb went off in a file cabinet, and they have enough spare parts lying around to make two sophisticated robots...or four uncouth ones). They always wear nice shirts and matching slacks with dress shoes. They don't wear ties, because that's like an offense punishable by death around here, but you can tell by the shirts they wear that it's begging to be reunited with its lost tie and sport coat. If it's not an unbuttoned Oxford, it's usually a polo with a sports logo or something. Their hair is always short and streamlined, unless they are older, then they may have a hair transplant or toupee (rare, average age around here is probably like 35). Like they could step right outside the front gate, be handed a golf club and visor for a stagehand off camera, and stroll right into a golf course with Arnold Palmer.

"I say, good weather we're having, Arnie. As I was saying to my trophy wife, 'The sun in your $120 hair style just positively glows like the horizon, lovey, like a big ... big golden BMW!' Ah, good times."

They gloss over or blank out when you try and explain things to them. It's so obvious they don't like tech. A few rare ones try to patronize you, in a desperate attempt to look superior, but often just slowly repeating what they just said back at them often shuts them right up. I'm not sure why this works, but just going, "So you have just said that I don't know what I am doing, and you are going to report this to my boss? Interesting. May I quote you on that? How about we both go down and see him together, and you can explain why you feel that way..." will be enough, unless I really didn't know what I was talking about (but so far, things around here haven't gotten so bad that just saying, "I have no idea what you just said," isn't a negative smear on your character). I'd like to say these people have names like "Chet" and "Biff," but they don't, actually. Usually they have really ultra-common biblical names like Dave or Joe. I don't think I have met anyone from "Hah-vahd" yet, but you'd think they came from such a place the way the display their diplomas from UVA and UCLA. The only other people who put diplomas on the wall are usually VA Tech and MIT grads, usually right behind their five-foot cardboard Wolverine standup, pile of space-themed Legos, and anime figurines.

These Daves and Joes just don't belong. And I don't mean that as a "get out, foul cretin!" sort of way, I mean that like, "You know what... ahh ... how do I say this? Okay, you're just not working out. You don't fit in, you don't like the people you work with, and you don't understand what we do." A lot of those people have come and gone for that reason, over the years. "Chet has moved on to other hozions and opportunities," as they say in such "general announcements."

But back to these two, who still work here. I noticed they were drinking coffee, and as they left, one of the guys refilled his cup, and said in a disappointed tone, "Awww ... all gone." And they left. Leaving me to fill the pot. No one could have taken the 10-20 seconds to risk staining an Oxford white cuff by refilling the pot and let it fill while standing there, chatting?

Asshats. I hope your BMW gets a flat.

Posted by Punkie @ 04:40 PM EST [Link]

Sunday, April 18, 2004

Ask directions? No, I prefer to drive around like an idiot for 5 hours...

Well, it turns out that the reason Christine's childhood friend never showed up was her dumbass husband thought of "a shortcut" to our house, which got them lost for 5 hours. Five hours. He refused to ask for directions, and refused to let her call us to tell us, because he feared she would ask for directions. Like his wife was going to "sabotage the process" or something. She finally did call us when she got back home, angry beyond all words because of what she went through. See, the major reason she was coming here from West Virginia to begin with is that they needed to "learn how to get here" because they are going to a concert near here in a month or so. So her husband screwed that up for them as well.

I'm not a "man's man," I admit. If I am lost, and it's apparent I am lost, I ask for directions. That's one good way to get un-lost. I'd only drive around randomly if I couldn't ask anyone, and I needed to test where I am going. Any advice when I am lost is always appreciated. I realize I have been wrong many times in my life, and will still have moments I *swear* I am right, only to be proven otherwise by, you know, REALITY! I have been in car trips where the directions given to me don't match what I see, and then I get totally lost. Northern Virginia is FULL of double-names, unlabeled streets, non-sequential address numbers, random street name changes, and cute little horseshoe-shaped suburban roads where there are two entrances to the left with the same name. I have given and been given well-meaning directions, only to miscount stoplights, or forget a second entrance, or lived on weird side roads that were parallel to the main road, only separated by a median. But when I'm lost, I call, or go to a gas station, or something!

Jesus.

Today, I was in Baltimore with some friends. We were helping out with someone's networking problems, and then we all went to dinner at Pizzeria Unos in Harbor Place. It was nice. We ate outdoors as the sun was setting across the inner harbor, and we had a great view of all the scenery from the World Trade Center on our left to the USS Constellation to our right. There was a cool breeze, warm setting sun, it was awesome.

Posted by Punkie @ 10:55 PM EST [Link]

Saturday, April 17, 2004

Lateness

Right now, I am writing this while waiting for one of Christine's childhood friends to show up. Currently, she's two and a half hours late, and we don't know where she is. Christine called her house, her cell, no answer. We could have been doing other things.

I don't know why some people are perpetually late. There have been issues where I have been late to something, and it's usually not my fault. But if it's a repeating event, I'll show up early next time. Whether it was my fault or not. Some people have no concept of time whatsoever, and the worst are people who have no concept of time, or courtesy to alert you they are running late. If it's a party, and theres a lot of you, fashionably late is okay. If it's a party, and you are hosting it... late is bad. If someone is waiting for you, late without calling is really rude. When I first went to Sweden in 94, the SAS Stockholm flight was overbooked. They were bribing people to stay behind. The bribe kept getting sweeter, and got up to, "Okay, layover in London overnight. We pay for hotel, transportation to hotel, dinner, breakfast, and $400 spending money." Wow. But I knew that my cousin was waiting for me in Kallix, and I had no way to get ahold of him. Sure, I could have been possibly 20 hours late and gotten a free trip to London and $400... but I knew that would be rude. So I took my normal flight, and the bribe went to a more deserving family of four, who probably had a great time.

I don't know what goes through some people's heads. If you point out their rudeness, they always skirt this issue, act defensive, and make up excuses. But they rarely have a decent answer to, "Why didn't you call?" I understand when you might be at a relative's house, and they talk and talk and talk, and you are running late. Then there's unexpected traffic. Things happen. But you can always call. Or at the very least, arrive with an apology and explanation. Hell, lie to me, I don't care, at least show the effort that being late was not a polite thing and you are aware of it. But many don't. If they show up at all, they just come in, or give some lame "I wasn't looking at the time" kind of excuse. I am amazed how many times, in my private life, and especially at work, how many people just don't show up, and don't ever give an explanation. I honestly think that many people have this idea that when they are not around, things don't happen without them. Sort of a quantum theory of other's behavior. "If I don't see it, does it happen? Of course not. A tree doesn't make a sound if it falls in the forest without anyone around."

In fact, I think they don't even expect the tree or the forest to exist unless they think about them. If it's someone you care about, you begin to worry. "What happened to them? Are they okay? Did their car run off the road, and they are dying in some gully no one can see from the road? AUGH!"

Sheesh. At least the house got clean.

Posted by Punkie @ 02:49 PM EST [Link]

Friday, April 16, 2004

Writing ideas that go nowhere, and thus, so go my days...

My hard drive has tons of snippets of characters, short stories, and beginnings with no middles or ends, a lot of middle material, and... well, a cluster of ideas. I hate that. My brain does this too.

Today, I had this brilliant idea of a world after judgement day. You know, the Book of revelations stuff. God takes all the Christians home, and wipes out everyone else. Or something. I really don't know, because I didn't grow up with the Bible. I started to do research online about the end of the world, but it probably surprises no one that I met more hysterical sites than any good basic timeline of events. So I gave up. I was going to do a story about what the world's like afterwards. And it's kind of weird, but it turns out that with Christians gone, things work out pretty well. Then I thought of how offensive that was, and by then, I grew tired of the work this was causing.

I am so lazy.

Anyway, saw "Kill Bill: Vol 2." It was awesome as described. Not so much chophockey, but a lot of plot twists and turns, and points that make you go, "Oh... I see!" Some funny points, too. Less homage to old chophockey, but more to Film Noir and westerns.

The theater experience was odd. First, we went to see the 4:30 showing, and we arrived early, predicting crowds. There were no crowds. But the theater seemed terribly understaffed for the few of us that were there. It took them 5 minutes to fill our simple order of 2 bottled waters and 3 frozen drinks. Next, there was no ticket man, usher, or whatever you call the person who tears up the tickets. People were just passing through, so we did as well. There was more than one screen showing KB2, so we went in the first one, and it was still playing. We went in the second one, and it wasn't. But its started early, like 4:10, which, you know, hey... why complain? Obviously we were at the wrong screen, but it never filled up, so we saw the film 20 minutes early.

During this time, my new phone, whose number I haven't even given out yet, rang several times. I had it on "Etiquette mode," which is "no sound, vibrate on ring only," so it was only annoying to me. All the phone numbers came from the same number: 604-550-7000. That number seemed familiar, and that's when I remembered that area code from that weird guy in Canada. I picked it up on the next call, and was met by silence in the form of blank static. You know, like just after you dial a number and before it rings on the other side. Was it a friend of someone who previously owned my new number? Oh, no, not for Tyrone! AAAUUGGGHHH!!

No, it wasn't. Apparently, this is bit of a mystery, since a lot of people have gotten the same phone call. Maybe it's a hacker. Maybe it's some bad telco switch program somewhere. Back in telecom, we used to hear stories of old gas pumps that used to be connected to a phone to auto-dial a computer to register when they are near empty or need service. Over the years, they switched to a better system, but some systems didn't get switched over, so they keep dialing out. Over the years, people inherit these numbers, and get mysterious rings in the middle of the night... and no one responds. Great.

After I answered the phone (I only got the dead static), the calls ceased. Maybe the spy realized Tyrone is not in my pants. :)

Posted by Punkie @ 11:57 PM EST [Link]

No more Tyrone in my pants

Well, I got a new cell phone. It's the Virgin Mobile plan, which is "pay-as-you-go," which should save me a lot of money in the long term. All I have to do is make sure I spend $20 every 90 days to keep the phone active. But due to some Sprint silliness, they couldn't transfer my old number without a lot of problems, and since didn't care for it all that much, I didn't really fight it.

Problems? Well, yes. First, the number had a lot of the same digits in it, in a different order. Like 713-737-3717 (not my real number), and people would keep dialing the wrong number. My new number is easier to say. Second, and this didn't happen often, there was a guy named "Tyrone" who apparently owed a lot of people money. I am not sure if I got his old cell, or he put my cell by accident, had bad handwriting, or if he did so on purpose as his "standard fake number." But I'd say every few months, sometimes in 3-4 call bursts, I'd get calls for Tyrone. "When are you going to pay this bill?" "You tell Tyrone that if he don't come here and settle this, we gonna send down some people, yo?" It always seemed like people with urban accents called for Tyrone from 202, 301, and 410 area codes (DC and Maryland). Most hung up the second I said, "Hello, this is Grig." Some would call right back, and then pause, maybe ask for Tyrone, or just hang up again. One number in particular was a young sounding woman from a 202 area code, who would call once, hang up, then call again, and say, "Yo, is Tyrone deh?" "No," I'd say, "There is no Tyrone at this number. This is a private cell phone, owned by me. Please update your records." "Okey, lissin. I do'n know who put you up to dis, but you tell TY-RONE dat Mee-shell ain't buyin' di shit!" I could almost feel her finger wagging a Z shape in the air. After a few years of this, I has assumed that Tyrone has a particularly dim family member who calls as a Michelle proxy at my number, because Michelle never calls directly. I also have guessed that Tyrone owes a lot of hospital bills from a clinic in PG County, stiffed a few car shops around Columbia and Baltimore, and has some friends who mumble more than drugged teens in an opium den. "Naanah do dif naaa eeehhh Tyrone?" "There is no Tyrone at this number. This is a private cell phone, owned by me. Please update your records." Can you tell I memorized this script? There'd be a long pause, where I can usually hear traffic or club music, and then something like, "Ayeh dem no fo. Shee-- [click]" I might go months without hearing calls for Tyrone, and then another burst, usually with the same players. I won't miss that.

I wish it had been Chris Rock, though. That would have been funny.

As I have said a lot in this blog, I'm going to see "Kill Bill: Vol. 2" today, I think, when Christine gets off of work. The ratings have been superb. RottenTomatoes.com had it rated at 89%, which is really high for them (over 60 is considered "good" and over 70 is "really good"). Hellboy was only at 73%, and that movie was great. I have heard it's not as "active" as Vol. 1, it has more story, but I don't care because, wow, I just want to know what the hell happens! After seeing Pulp Fiction again, a few months ago, I can appreciate Quentin's directorial style a lot more that I could back in 1993, when I first saw it. I should see "Reservoir Dogs" at some point, too.

This weekend marks the end of my vacation. Tomorrow, a friend of Christine's is coming from out of town and spending the day, so I have to clean the house up. Then on Sunday, I am going to be in Baltimore on business. Then back to work Monday.

Posted by Punkie @ 02:08 PM EST [Link]

Flipping to a hunch

There are these "writing exercises," or "memes" as some are calling them, that I have seen going around the blogs that say "take the book closest to you, flip to page 23, and type the fifth sentence."

Hmmm...

The first book I found had only diagrams on page 23. The next was a magazine, so I guess that counts:

"Normally, I despised hunches and had always denied their validity -- to my mind, an intuition was no more than the product of an analytical process that took place in the mind's dark back rooms."

Pretty intriguing.

I would honestly say that a lot of my "hunches" were similar, but paid off quite well. A hefty bout of cynicism and "too good to be true" have always saved me from some pretty tight spots.

Christine used to work for a terrible employer. It was an insurance group run by the owner's son, Bill, who was a cruel and terrible tyrant. He was one of those guys who was pretty flamboyant about how much better we was than others, enjoyed making employees cry, and often drove away customers. In less than two years, he went through 109 employees in a company that held, at most, 30 at any given time. At two years, Christine was one of the few "old timers" left. She came home almost every night, hating life, because of the horrible treatment she constantly got. Because she was an "old timer," she was always doing all the paperwork of the recently quit and/or fired. She became pretty important at the company, and for a while, was one of the few people who really knew how to get things done. But she was so unhappy there, when a job opened up at another company, she leaped for it, and gave her two weeks notice. Bill's first response was, "Good! You don't do anything useful anyway!" Of course, when a week went by, he said, "Er... um... actually, it seems you did a lot. Please stay. I'll offer you what the other company is paying you, and give you a company car. A new Lexus, and you choose the model." We were very poor at the time, and that was SO tempting, and Bill knew it. He was using our insecurity to try and tempt Christine back. Our car was always breaking down, I was still unemployed, and money was so bad. But Christine was so miserable there, and I smelled a rat, so she declined. Bill said she'd be back.

Well, she didn't go back, and it turns out, when Bill gave this offer to another employee, he screwed them over. He ended up forcing them to pay for the car, and it got cut from their pay, and... well, he screwed her over pretty bad.

One day, I had this really strong urge to not go to school. I mean, sometimes I felt like I didn't want to go like every other kid, but this was different. I figured it was a test I was nervous about. I patronized myself all morning for being foolish, but by the end of the day, I was in a hospital where I would stay for the next three months. I don't want to talk about why yet (no, not the neck injury), but let's just say I got REAL serious about following "hunches" after that (although, come to think of it, if I had stayed at home, I would have gotten injured later anyway... "bullies" are like that).

Oddly enough, I have this "hunch" that things will get better. I mean, I feel like the bed luck spell is finally over, and this felt right after the new table was finally finished. I think this year will turn out pretty well, if only because it started so badly.

Then again, as the joke goes, "Somehow, I always knew I'd never be psychic..."

Posted by Punkie @ 01:25 AM EST [Link]

Thursday, April 15, 2004

Blog entries have been scarce because...

... I am relaxing, trying not to be in front of the computer 24/7.
... I am doing dull stuff, like housework, playing video games, and watching movies, and catching up on sleeping.
... The weather outside is very nice ... now that it's stopped raining.
... 2 hour block of Perry Mason on the Hallmark Channel! (doo doooooooo... du dum!).

Posted by Punkie @ 02:54 PM EST [Link]

Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Vacation - Day 4

I have now been away for 4 days. When I first arrived, I tore down some bamboo and frond leaves and build a small lean-to to protect against the rain. I dug some deep holes in the ground and covered them with wet leaves to keep the contents cool. Here I preserve the food I have hunted and collected. I am surrounded by nature's bounty. I have hunted a few animals already with a spear I made from some sharpened sticks which I hardened with fire. Fishing has proven difficult, but already I have taken down two wild pigs and several birds. I think I can live here fine for the next few days.

I'm pissing off the staff at the National Zoo, though.

:-D

Seriously, the last few days I have been doing a lot of swapping parts out of computers. I had started to collect a lot of hardware that "only works in Windows 98," like my webcam and Sound Blaster Live Platinum, for instance. So I decided to make one of my systems a Win98 box. I hadn't set up a Win98 box in a looong time, so I wasn't used to all this rebooting and crashing. Yeesh.

I have built the new table. It took a LOT longer than I expected, because one of the legs was drilled improperly (not deep enough and off center), and so I had to re-drill it to get it to fit. Now I am in the process of taking the old table apart. Christine has said she's going to put a tablecloth on this one, and I think that's a smart idea.

It has been POURING rain for the last few days. Today, it came down in buckets. I was going to walk to the store and buy a copy of "Kill Bill: Vol 1," but I don't want to get soaked in a cold rain. Maybe later. They said the rain would end tomorrow, but then it gets cold. I still can't plant my tomatoes, because they still predict dips in the mid 30s later in the week.

April showers bring May flowers...

Posted by Punkie @ 01:18 PM EST [Link]

Sunday, April 11, 2004

Happy Ressurection of Bunny Jellybeans

"Hellboy" was pretty good. I had read part of the comic book series a while ago, at some con, while stuck in someone's hotel room (one of those, "Stay here, I'll be back... [hour goes by] "...whoops! Sorry that took so long!" kind of things). I am not a real fan of comics, and it's not their fault, really. I just read, really, really fast, so I can read most standard comics in about 10-15 minutes (depending on complexity), and that's not worth the $1.35 I paid for it.

"Punkie," said Rogue. "They are $3-4 now!"

Okay, then they are REALLY not worth it. That would cost me about $12-16/hour for entertainment, and I can do better with a paperback.

But the movie was good, because while it didn't have any real surprises, it wasn't entirely predictable, either. Very Lovecraft-ian in nature, which always scores points with me.

Oh, and Happy Easter, everybody! I am not spending this Easter following the old lady in the front pew to "do what she does" (Catholic friends of mine know what I am talking about), but I am spending it at Nate's birthday party at his parent's house. That's cool, because Nate's mom and dad are pretty nice people, and I always enjoy their company.

Posted by Punkie @ 11:55 AM EST [Link]

Saturday, April 10, 2004

On new housing and cheap building

Last night I had dinner with Nate and his wife Jen. I got to see where they live (for now, they are trying to buy a house), and they currently live in one of those Tetris-style condo/townhouse complexes that have sprung up like weeds in this area for the last 15 years. I say Tetris-style, because the floor plans are kind of stacked in odd shapes. Like you'd have one "chunk" of these homes where several homes will have the front doors next to each other. Some will be ground floor dwellings, so you open the door, snake through a narrow twisting hallway, and end up in a kitchen. Some will have stairs that go up, and dump you in a living room. Sometimes your living room floor will be the ceiling of a bedroom of another apartment below, or maybe just the stairwell of the apartment next to you. One room in such a house could be surrounded by the rooms of up to four different neighbors, like the right wall will be your right neighbors's bedrooms, the left wall will be your left neighbor's kitchen, below you is your back neighbor's garage, and above you is the floor of your top neighbor's sun room. In order for all these homes to fit together like an almost Escher-esque 3-D puzzle, there are a lot of thin hallways, curving stairwells, creative floor plans with lack of walls to save space (Nate and Jen's have one big living room/kitchen/dining area only separated by the half-height kitchen counter), and... well, it seems like whomever made them had some damn sophisticated 3-D modeling software. I'm sure these end up this way because of a computer model showing maximum floor space in such an arrangement, but they sure confuse someone not used to it. The neighborhood itself was VERY poorly designed. Like some houses have private garages, some only have driveways, and some just have reserved parking in group lots. The biggest flaw is that they don't have enough parking. Like for about 100 homes, they only have 8 "visitor" parking spaces, which Nate warned us about, using words like "stupid" and "insane." The lot is way the hell out of the way, too. It's parked BEHIND some houses, in an unlit area, with no sidewalks in some places, so you're either forced to walk on the street or across the landscaped lawns. And the landscaping is even worse. These houses look fairly new, they even smell new (drywall dust, paint, fresh wood kind of smell, or as my son commented, "smell like a Hatteras Beach house" which are rebuilt every few years after hurricanes), and they seem to think short-term, if you look at the construction. Landscape is another giveaway, since they plant bushes in places with little sunlight, no access to rainwater, or the worst crime: trees that grow large in spaces they cannot grow into. Not one of these planners think about what these places will look like in 20 years. I estimate in about 10 years, there will be major structural problems. Property values will drop. As people leave the properties for better ones, they will turn into low-income housing, and with nothing for poor people to do around there, crime will go up. Finally, they will be knocked down, and new homes will go up in 2030, probably a huge high-rise by that point, that will tower into the sky like they have done in Reston.

I play Sim City. I know how this goes. :)

Anyway, for now, the places look nice, and Nate and Jen made us some pollo con arroz dish with a delicious banana pudding dessert. Then we played games, like Slap, which I didn't care for, and Scattergories, where I won 2 out of 3 games. Then we played Trivial Pursuit, Pop Culture DVD edition. I am a fact hound, and my brain works overtime a lot, so I kind of like those types of games. Before I left, Nate gave me an old Sun Box, saying he fried the power supply, and for $25 I could get it running again. "I never want to see it again" he said.

Why did I take it home? I have a problem with orphaned computers, I do ... just say "no" Punkie!

Anyway, today I am taking it easy until 3, when I'll go see "Hellboy" with Christine and Rogue. Then tomorrow, I am going to Nate's parent's house, where we're celebrating his birthday. Then I have next week off, where I am going to slum around, play with computer parts, and maybe play with POV-Rayand Moray as a "gift to myself," since a lot of my recent tech learning has been pretty much "for work." I'll probably work on my garden, too. As I predicted, the cucumbers have already sprouted, and are growing quickly. And get some writing and housework done. Maybe up[date my website to Moveable Type. But I want to make sure I take it easy!

No sense needing a vacation after my vacation.

Posted by Punkie @ 01:29 PM EST [Link]

Nyah, nyah... your name ryhmes with ... something I can't think of, so you're fat!

I had posted earlier about Ted calling me "insulting" versions of my name in my blogs before, and I couldn't remember when anyone had ever done that, so I have spent the last few days thinking about it. Last time was at work, a while back, where some guy "found out" my convention nickname was "Punkie" (it's not exactly a secret), and decided to tease me with that for a while. He would have been 35 today (just kidding). Actually, I don't know what happened to "Howie," as I started to call him, I am sure Sean will know. But then we have this looong gap back to high school.

Having a name like "Gregory" served me well, growing up. I had school chums with names that were FAR more easier to make fun of, because they rhymed with something (e.g. "Scarin' Karen" on "Jean, Jean, the Jellybean"), or just sounded odd (like poor "Yogesh Uppidya," who got called "Yogurt Diarrhea" a lot) in the white-bread American name landscape at the time. The best they could come up with me was "Greg the Pegleg Egg" (and for the holidays, added "ate nutmeg"), which was fairly weak at best. When I played the lead for "A Christmas Carol," I got called Scrooge a lot, but I was kind of proud of making the lead, so that didn't bother me at all. One summer school I got called "Butterball" a lot because I was fat, and some people called me "Charlie Brown," because, as they saw it, I couldn't win. In junior high, this kid named Danny Jarris came up with a classic, "What's the difference between Greg and a Bucket of Lard? The Bucket! Haw haw haw!" So, for years, I was known as "Bucket," and that did hurt for a while, and it even held on even when I lost weight. And then it became common for "the others" to call me that because, I think, it had been a nickname for so long, people didn't know I had another name. But by the senior year of high school, name calling was pretty much outgrown, and only one guy held out, but he called me "Buckaroo" (after Buckaroo Banzai) in friendly jest, so that didn't count.

These days, I don't hear much name calling. Occasionally at cons I see it, but you have to REALLY be a freak-assed person to get fandom to name call you. There's this one guy who goes around anime cons around here who looks like a skinny homeless guy, with a slouch, scraggly bead, and messed up hair. He seems like maybe some bum who hangs around the shipyards... except he wears Sailor Moon costumes. He's known as "Sailor Scary," and that's kind of mean, because he never seems to do anyone any harm. He just lopes around the convention floor, looking disconnected and partially bored. Like the Desolate Transvestite. But he's a rare exception. I hear stories from other people's jobs, where bitter employees gang up on some poor soul they are jealous of, or just can't stand working with. I was doing that for a while. There was this guy I called "Stoner" because, well, he looked like a hippie lost in time, and when he talked to you, he'd stop mid sentence and space out, he never got much work done, and no one could ever find him. But after a while, I thought that was just mean and unfair to make a personal attack and an assumption I based on a stereotype, and I don't want to be that kind of person. I solved the problem by working with him as least as possible, or by constantly leaving decisions up to him and giving him a lot of "the ball's in your court" kind of endings. He never gets back to me, and thus, problem solved. But I'd never stoop to actually, you know, making fun of his name or anything. That's just... 3rd grade-ish.

So when Ted decided to make fun of my name by calling me "Griggy," I don't think he was aware that my first thought was, "Bwah! That's what other children call me, too!" A lot of my friend's kids either call me "Uncle Punkie," or "Grig/Griggy," but unlike Ted, they're like 10 years old or younger. I mean physically.

Posted by Punkie @ 12:46 PM EST [Link]

Friday, April 9, 2004

Unqualified Advice

Actually, I have delayed seeing Hellboy until tomorrow because I was invited to dinner tonight with Nate. Last night I went out to dinner with another friend who knew what I was going through, and asked for advice, because he's going through similar issues (remote relatives in poor hospital conditions).

I was taken aback. He had "snapped" at work, and was freaking out about it, and I sympathized. Nothing really bad happened at my work to cause me to snap, but if I had to go through the same things he did... I might have snapped, too. But advice? I was taken aback because I felt totally unqualified. I don't think I came through this last month winning anything. I think I did a lot of ducking and curling up into a ball, wrote about it my blog, and that's about it. Oh, well, I also ran around with my arms outstretched, screaming "AAAIIIEEEEEE!!!!" I think. I felt humbly unqualified to give anyone any advice on coping skills at the moment. It reminds me of a quote from a series of humorous advice on how to prepare to be a parent of a new child:

#2: Before you finally go ahead and have children of your own, find a couple who are already parents. Berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appalling low tolerance levels, and how they have allowed their children to run amok. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behaviour. Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Posted by Punkie @ 10:43 AM EST [Link]

Thursday, April 8, 2004

Kung Fu Punkie

I finally got some sleep. I haven't been able to sleep well, and so yesterday I was running on 5 hours sleep in 3 days. Last night I got another 8 hours, so I am starting to catch up. A lot has been on my mind. My vacation request has been approved for next week, so I am going to totally take it easy.

I think I am going to see Hellboy tomorrow. And I am DEFINITELY going to see "Kill Bill - Vol 2" next Friday because ... well, damn! I want to see Uma Thurman chop her way to the top. I saw the new trailer, and there seems to be a lot of plot twists. Ooooh! I am pretty excitied over this. I hope it doesn't suck. The DVD for Volume 1 comes out Tuesday, I am going to get it because I am sick of watching my hacked DivX copy (I was just impatient). I already see some more Tarantino interpretations of the old chop-hockey films, especially that old white-haired, long-beared guy. I swear, there was one of those characters in every other kung fu film I ever saw. Oh, if you like old martial arts films, expecially from the 1970s, you'll love Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. It's a Steve Oedekerk spoof made from the old Yu Wang film, Shao Lin hu ho chen tien hsia, released in English as "Tiger and Crane Fist" (or "The Savage Killers"). The original movie, which I remember as a kid because it was one of the more... bizarre films of its type, is gloriously spoofed by Steve, which used some really cool special effects to make it look like he's really part of the film. What's with Ling's hair curl?

"Killing is wrong. And bad. There should be a new, stronger word for killing. Like badwrong, or badong. Yes, killing is badong. From this moment, I will stand for the opposite of killing: gnodab."

Posted by Punkie @ 11:39 AM EST [Link]

Tuesday, April 6, 2004

One for the black notebook: South of the Border.

Okay, I had heard of South of the Border offhandedly while travelling through Hatteras, but it never crossed my mind until last week's road trip, where we stayed. Tacky, slightly insulting stereotypical Mexi-kitch. When I spoke to Rogue on the phone while we were there, she was like, "Oh my GOD! I have been there! So tacky!" In fact, a lot of people I have spoken to allude to having at least traveled through it.

Then today, I was speaking with Sean, and it turns out last weekend he was at a wedding in South Carolina, and they stopped off at SOB to entertain their kids. Like 24 hours after I had left. I didn't even know Sean was in town. Then I'm reading this book in my guestroom I had been meaning to get to (I got it in Hatteras about three years ago), and in some offhanded trivia comment, they mention, you guessed it, SOB.

Weird, huh?

Anyway, with everything happening recently, I asked my boss for a week off. I have been at my company for a while now, and accrue 4 weeks of vacation a year, which is spiffy! Last year, I didn't take a week, and it rolled over. So now this year I have 5 weeks. I feel so European! Ooh la LA! So next week, I am taking a sanity vacation. Sean says he's going to kidnap me, and his wife, and go to Fantasm after all because, if anything, he's avoiding Easter Dinner with his father and sister. He's probably kidding, but you never know with Sean.

We'll probably end up at SOB at this rate. Mi vida es muy extraña, no?

Posted by Punkie @ 11:56 PM EST [Link]

A list of where I was when...

They have this list floating around work, and I thought I'd take a crack at it. I see this sort of thing from to time, but right now I have to watch 40,000 text files go by over the network in a backup, so I filled it out. Here's what I put at work:

Where were you when...

Pearl Habor was bombed? (12/07/1941)
Not born yet, but a lot of older guys I knew as a kid talked about how it affected this area. The best story was a friend of mine's grandfather who said, "It was during an exciting Redskins game on a Sunday afternoon. Suddenly, they just started paging all these military guys over the speaker. 'Will General So-and-so please call his office...' That sort of thing. Later we heard on the radio we had been attacked."

John F. Kennedy was shot? (11/22/1963)
Also not born yet, but I heard about it a lot growing up. I guess I am not the generation who understood Camelot.

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the Moon? (07/20/1969)
I was not even one yet. We (my mother and I) were in Italy at the time, and all the Iocal people kept congradulating my mother about what the Americans had done. Being the only blond Swedish-American in that small town, she was already a celebrity (men would shout out, "Bela Bela, Swede!"), but when we landed on the moon, EVERYONE wanted to speak with her. Heh.

Mt. St. Helen's blew? (05/18/1980)
This would have been late fifth grade, and since I wasn't allowed to watch TV at the time, I probably found out second hand somehow. I didn't really appreciate how bad it was until I was an assistant to a geologist who surveyed the site shortly after ot happened. "Whole forests... just... gone. Jesus Christ, man! I had never seen such devestation..."

John Lennon was shot? (12/08/1980)
I heard it on the radio, and WAVA 105.1 kept playing Beatles tunes. I wasn't into the Beatles at the time, although I knew their songs. This tragedy was delayed, and kind of affected me more years later when I realized what a great guy he was.

Reagan was shot? (03/30/81)
I was at home, playing with a friend, when my mother shouted down to my room, "Hey! The president was just shot!" She had seen it live. At first, we were told that he was okay, but then they said he was in the hospital, and then they said he got shot, but it was just a grazing. Later we found out George Bush Sr. was almost our next president. My father really hated Reagan (something we kind of agree on), but said Bush was even more inept.

The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded? (01/28/1986)
I saw it live on the new NASA channel. I was at home on a student holiday/teacher workday. I was just about to eat some hamburgers I cooked when I saw it blow up. More on this here.

The 7.1 earthquake hit San Francisco? (10/07/1989)
I don't recall, really. I was newly married, and we had just found out Christine was pregnant. I watched CNN and saw those people all smashed in the overpass, the reply of the Candlestick park game, and Dan Quayle later visiting the collpasing houses in a shameless photo op.

The Berlin Wall Fell? (11/07/1989)
I was working at the knife store when I heard over the radio. There had been a lot of buildup leading up to this, so I don't recall it being a surprise, really. I recall feeling relieved that my prediction communism couldn't sustain itself was coming true.

The First Gulf War began? (01/16/1991)
It was an eerie day in Springfield Mall. I was still working at the knife shop, and all day it had been really quiet. I think it was a Wednesday, or some day in the middle of the week. It was usually dead on such a day, but this day was REALLY dead. You could hear all the echoes in the mall, and everyone had on WAVA, and I recall the echo of a dozen or so radios playing Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares to You" for the zillionth time (WAVA was a pop station that played top 40, and realy big hits were played once an hour, I swear). Around 6pm, a customer came in and said, "They started bombing Bagdad. I wanted to turn the station to NPR, but my manager wouldn't let me. About 30 minutes later, WAVA finally announced we had been bombing Bagdad for a while, and then went to more music. My manager, a Ranger Qualified Paratrooper on reserve duty went, "Oh shit." Weeks later he went back to school to avoid getting drafted, and I got a new boss. The night of the attack, though, Christine and I put CR in his crib, and watched the live CNN broadcast until 2am.

Burning of the Koresh/Waco Compound? (04/19/1993)
I was recenltly and very tired. I had just about lost interest in the standoff, which was filling the news with "useless chatter," I felt. Before I left for work that day, I heard that finally, they charged the place. When I got to work, I heard that the Waco compund had been "blown up," but later saw the footage which included a sort of time-lapse of the events as all those people burned.

OJ Simpson was chased in his White Bronco? (06/17/1994)
I was working at the Furniture store at the time, and didn't hear about it until I got home. We had a radio, but we were not allowed to play it.

The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed? (04/19/1995)
I was still running a furniture store, and didn't hear about it until I got home. I was working in a dead mall at the time, so no one came in and told me. I found out when I got home, and I recall feeling totally shocked by the devestation. I thought, "Pleasedon'tletitbeArabs...Pleasedon'tletitbeArabs...Pleasedon'tletitbeArabs..." and thought "Ha ha, everyone blamed the Arabs and it was one of our own wackos." Post 9/11? I stopped laughing.

Princess Di was killed? (08/31/1997)
I was setting up an old computer named Alice (which is still my firewall), while Christine turned on NBC4 to watch Saturday Night Live. At first, we thought the live coverage was a really tacky skit that went on too long, but after a few minutes, we were like, "No way!" I was in shock, and my first thought was, "How convenient for the royal family." For weeks I secretly thought she had been assassinated, but my hatred of the Pavarotzi made me change to blame them to this day.

Terrorists destroyed the WTC? (09/11/2001)
At work, programming. Entry here.

The Second Gulf War began? (03/19/2003)
Entry here...

The Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry over Texas? (02/01/2003)
Aaand... entry here. (this is easy!)

The trains in Madrid were attacked? (03/11/2004)
I heard about it at work off the web. I am more upset by the fact they backed down, and now all they have done is shown that Terrorism works in Spain!

Posted by Punkie @ 03:23 PM EST [Link]

The Little Black Book

A few months ago, I was watching, I think one of Penn and Teller's "Bullsh!t" episodes, the one with the UFOs, and they had this guy on I thought I'd seen before. Not personally, like he wasn't a specific person, but he reminded me of a specific type of person I had seen and heard about over the years.

The note-taker.

This episode has a classic note-taker. It was some guy whom P&T had totally framed up to be crazy. And I admit, he did look crazy. He was milling about the UFO convention floor, looking for aliens among us, I assume. He jotted down his notes about what he saw, his theories about them, and how they tied together all in a little black notebook. Later, I think, he wore a mustache and pretended to be a different person. A spark in the back of head went off that led me down an old path I had stored when I read children's books by Dan Pinkwater or Gahan Wilson. Some of them had eccentric people who were note-takers, jotting down what they saw in little black books.

I think I want to be that guy.

And here's why: strange crap happens to me all the time. Usually in waves. I could go days without anything unusual happening to me, and then BAM... a whole string of events that make me go, "What a WEIRD day!" But so much happened so quickly, I forget most of it. My brain can only remember so much, and it occurred to me in a coffee shop a few weeks ago I should really try writing it down, and see if there's a pattern. Is it a perception issue? Does weird stuff happen all the time, and I just notice it in waves, or does weird stuff happen in waves? And more importantly, why? When I was a teen, friends loved taking me placed because, "Whenever we take Grig anywhere with us, weird stuff always happens!" I even used to have a button that said, "Weirdness magnet."

The day in the coffee shop I only remember because I was with Christine. I think I like being with people because it seems more weird stuff happens to me when I am alone. Maybe I am more aware at these times, but there have been many times I have been with people and weird stuff happens anyway, like it's a dam that can only hold back so long before a flood of weirdness floods out. And I wonder does this happen to anyone else?

The day in the coffee shop I only remember bits and pieces of. I had this odd feeling when we got out of the car to go have coffee, and that's when the first two events happened. The first jarring event happened when I noticed that the old vacant Nail Salon place (it moved) was now occupied by one of those "We'll loan you $500 until payday" kinds of places. It was totally strange in the fact that the place had been completely remodeled to look as bland as possible. In fact, it was like the whole store had been gutted, paved over with drywall and carpeting, and the least amount of decor was put in: a small library chair, a small table with a lamp and credit application holder on it, and next to this setup was a small generic painting. The only other feature was a large counter in the back, where a bored-looking man sat. It kind of looked like a place where one rents a car, with the huge CashAdvance logo behind him, and a door that led to some back room. There was nothing else. A tiny island of home decor on a sea of bland carpet, the counter, the man, the logo, the door... and nothing else. The window and storefront had no logo, signage, or anything. It looked like one of those places that customers knew would be there, and those that didn't know didn't need to know. Like a front. I am sure it wasn't a front, but the very second I thought, "Heh, like a front... maybe cash laundering?"... the gypsy lady showed up.

She was short, like child-short. She couldn't have been more than five feet tall. She was stooped, looked very Mediterranean, and was waving an index card in front of me. The 5 x 7 card was laminated, and the text was written very boldly, like it had taken a long time to write in order to make all the letters look the same. "Help me," it said, "I am 80 years old, and taking care of 4 grandchildren. We have just come to this country, I do not speak English, and have no money for food or clothing. Please help God Bless America by giving whatever you can spare..." or something like that. I shook my head no, even though I immediately thought, "Gypsy scam."

When I worked in malls, we had security seminars where the topic of gypsies would come up every so often. There would usually be a policeman with some slides, or a small video of gypsies in action. These aren't your stereotyped wooden caravan, dancing with tambourine, playing the fiddle, owning goats, and telling fortunes kinds of gypsies. These are large reclusive families, almost like tribes, who live all around the East coast. Many are being watched by the Feds because they operate huge theft and scam rings. The gypsies we were taught about were those kind. They operated in very sophisticated pods, were experts at decoys, and fell under the term "professional shoplifters." They often came upon a mall in a wave, usually starting off with scamming customers, but their main target was the anchor stores: particularly clothes and jewels. I won't digress how good these people were at robbing thousands of dollars of merchandise from stores in less than an hour, but I will add that one of their biggest scams on "marks" (people they think are easy to steal from) is the "I am a poor orphan" type of thing. They want you to get to your wallet, which they have a second person watching not far away who notes where you keep it. The "poor orphan" then makes hand signals to the other person as to whether the wallet is worth stealing. Then pick pocketing might shortly ensue.

The whole setting seemed wrong. The focus I had was the fact the card was laminated, which would indicate heavy use. I suddenly became aware of all people around me, and kept my hand away from my wallet (sometimes, when you think you are about to be pick pocketed, you instinctively put you hand where you wallet is, which then marks you as having something worth stealing). "Sorry, I don't have any money to give," I said without giving any body language. I wanted to see if she spoke English. She nodded, bowed, touched her forehead, and moved on. But the lettering on the card was particularly notable. See, my mother had the exact same handwriting. Immediately, my over-speculative brain ("Where the wind of weird blows through...") worked out that the card had been magically charmed to make everyone who read it think it looked like their mother' handwriting, but then the rational part of my brain went, "Oh, whatever!" I quickly walked into the coffee shop.

I told Christine about the incident. See, she's half-gypsy. Her father's family ran several carnivals, and although she never lived with them, she has studied her lineage fairly deeply. She was very aware of the scams gypsies pulled, since she grew up with her mother telling her about them. "Yeah," she said, "that is pretty suspicious." As we sipped coffee, we watched this woman go back and forth to various people, all whom shook their head and moved out of the way. We think we identified several gypsies around the parking lot, and later, a younger women, with the same laminated card, approached Christine. Christine told me the card said the same thing. They seemed to move in and out of the coffee shop bathroom a lot, changing clothes.

But this wasn't just about gypsies. At the table next to us was a girl, who couldn't have been more than 4, wearing (in her size) a tee-shirt that had the logo for The Ramones, an old-school punk band I used to like (okay, still do). It struck me as odd that a tee-shirt came in child's XXS. I first thought it might be an adult small, or a half-doll that looked like a full shirt on a little kid, but no. The kid was very gregarious, and soon Christine had struck up a conversation with her, and then her father. I commented on the shirt, and he said it had been a gift. Then they finished their food and left.

During this time, a lot of other strange things just kept floating by. Christine and I discussed the "note-takers," and I said I wanted a little black book like that guy on the P&T UFO episode had. Since then, we have started saying to each other, "That's one for the little black book," when something weird happens.

Soon afterwards, a lot of semi-punk and Goth kids came into the store, but they didn't buy anything. Two of them seemed interested in one of the baristas, who then excused himself, and changed from his shop uniform into some sharp-looking street clothes, and then have a cigarette with them outside. I watched these Goth kids with interest, noting their social structure. Child and teen social structure is absolutely fascinating to me because it's just like adult social groups, except more exaggerated; I feel it's a good study on human interaction. The kids had split up into three groups, one of them (mostly girls) stayed in the coffee shop and bummed around. A second group went off to McDonalds, and then came back to smoke outside the cafe. One of those girls had just bought a rat at the pet store across the parking lot, which was part of the conversation in the coffee shop. One of the girls looked a LOT like a girl I used to know back when I hung out with the drama/Goth crowd in the 1980s. I focused on her, comparing her to my childhood friend. Almost as if on cue, she started searching for something, and opened her military-style jacket to expose... a Ramones tee-shirt. It was older and more beat-up than the little kid had worn (and obviously a larger size), but it was the same logo and everything. I had gone probably 20 years since I had last seen a Ramones logo on anything, and now I see two shirts in less than 30 minutes.

This kind of stuff happens to me a LOT. And now I want to start writing it down.

It doesn't seem like much, but it's pretty stark. A medicine man would call this "a sign," but a sign of what? Something about my youth? My punk past? Hell if I know. Christine also noted this coincidence. She also tried to point out something outside, but I was wasn't looking for the right thing.

The employee came back alone, changed back into his barista outfit, and continued working. I thought it was a typical "friend of those kids," but Christine told me that she was trying to point out she saw "something" change hands with that employee and one of the kids that was outside. Something that involved the exchange of money. Drug deal. I am not sure if the Goth kids were scoring or selling pot, but that's when I realized that the nagging feeling in the back of my head that a clean-shaven employee who looks about 25 probably does NOT have punk or Goth teen friends.

Side note: When I was in Jacksonville, on Neptune Beach, I saw some preteen girl staring at me (fat people always draw stares at the beach). She was wearing a Ramones tee-shirt over her bathing suit. I pointed this out to Christine. One for the black book. I mean, are the Ramones making a comeback?

More stuff happened that day, but as I said I forget stuff when it happens in too much quantity. That's why I am going to get a little black book, and start writing it down. I'll compare stuff, draw links and speculations, and then maybe blog the really active days. I am not sure why, but I feel I have nothing to lose.

Hey, at least it will help with my writing. Even if they never have any meaning, these little odd days.

Posted by Punkie @ 04:01 AM EST [Link]

Monday, April 5, 2004

Save the lap dance for... someone else.

When I was a kid, I was real picky about what I ate and what I experienced. My life was all about control back then, and I didn't have the tools to deal with new experiences very well. My high school chum Kate dragged a lot of that out of me, and my long-time friend Neal also helped push the envelope with his experiences. After getting married and gaining experience with new friends, my mind slowly opened up to new experiences, and while some of them have been bad choices, most of them have been at least interesting, and some have become new traditions (gourmet coffee, sushi, anime, and so on).

Many years ago, back when I was a furniture store manager, our company did so well one year, they sent us to Vegas for an annual sales meeting. Now, before that time, the desire to go to Vegas was pretty low. In fact, I regarded Vegas with distaste and I might add, a little snobbery. "Eww... gambling. Tacky, tacky, tacky..." But a friend of mine at the time (I think Brad, not sure), said, "You won't enjoy Vegas because you have already made up your mind you'll hate it. Why not go and see it as it is, not as you think it's going to be." Wise words. I went, I didn't gamble much (won $60, though), and I hung out with some rather mild-mannered managers who just wanted to dine well and see the sights. And I had a damn good time. Some of the other managers went out, drank until they practically couldn't stand anymore, gambled, drank some more, went to titty bars, probably whored a little, and spent most of the sales meeting hung over or sick. "The Topless Girls of Glitter Gulch" was really a big hit back then. Everything I hated, but they had fun, too. I saw a few disturbing things, like a preteen approached another manager and said she hadn't eaten in a while, and would offer sex for money or food, but for the most part, Vegas was just one big Disneyland for adults. Something for everyone.

This may seem like a bad segue, but stay with me for a second. Back when I worked for CK&T, we had a full-timer named Ed who also worked at Dauphine's Steak House. It was a titty bar. One day I went with him when he was on some errand, and needed to pick up his paycheck there. I don't know what Ed did, I think he might have been a bouncer or something, but it was part time, and I was supposed to be hush-hush about it. That place was rank, dank, dark, and dirty. The most disturbing thing about it was the men near the dance floor. They looked like lions watching elk; they were cold-staring focused men. I was very out of my element at the time. That image stuck with me for years.

A few years ago, while relating this story, someone said, "No no, you went during the day. That place is much better at night." At first I thought, "whatever," but later I really thought about that. Since those days, I have known two strippers, and my fear and ignorance of porn has mellowed out a lot. I thought, "Well, maybe I did give it an unfair shake. I was 22 at the time. Now I'm in my mid 30s." Since then, I have seen a few images of what those places were like from HBO specials, and Dave Attel's show "Insomniac." They still don't appeal to me very much. I don't want some stranger rubbing her butt in my face, and I have never thought nudity was ever a big deal. Strippers pawing themselves around poles and arching their backs on stage don't hold anything for me, and even make me a bit ill like I get watching live surgery. Sex thrust in my face by a stranger is always more repulsive than it is attractive. Yeah, I'm weird that way, but not many of my friends go for strippers, either. Or at least that's what they tell me...

But maybe it's different live. Maybe it's the ambiance with the strippers you just can't get on TV. I know being at a hockey game was FAR more exciting than watching one on TV, and I hate sports.

So why do I even bring this up? My upcoming trip to Vegas. Yes, it's looking pretty certain now, and even though I kind of wanted to go to New Orleans for my anniversary, Vegas is not a bad second choice. I only hope the eventual flooding of New Orleans holds out for one more year. Already Christine has tossed away the Mardi Gras beads for a showgirl attitude, and it looks more certain that the third week in June, I'll be in Vegas again, along with my family, Tracie and her family, and her new husband Anders, whom's she's marrying in Vegas. Well, she's already married on paper, this will just be the ceremony. And Vegas is great to go with friends, too. Last time we went with Brad.... who ironically, is Tracie's ex. So the five of us, plus whomever parties with us from Tracie or Ander's respective families, will be spending a week of fun in Vegas. And already we're making plans. Not only will it be Tracie's official wedding, it will be Christine and our

This time, we're taking a tour to the Grand Canyon/Hoover Dam, which is an all-day thing. I have always wanted to see the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam. Not really for longer than an hour or so, but most of the 14-hour tour is spent going back and forth on a bus. We're also going to take a Limo ride around Vegas just for the hell of it.

And there's talks of a strip club. Tracie is bisexual, see... and Christine is always curious. I have been invited, and I think I will go, because I have to experience the real thing at least once. Then I feel I can fully state whether I like them or not. That's kind of why I wanted to go to Fantasm, so I could say, "Well, I went to an adult-themed con, and assaulted my dignity to the point where it wasn't so uptight anymore."

But I am not paying for a lap dance. Ewww.

Posted by Punkie @ 09:34 PM EST [Link]

Trying to catch up

I found out, after posting my new Linux box wasn't as fast, that I should have said, "My GUI seems as fast as the previous box." I did some speed tests and ... well, okay, in SETI units, where most of my boxes do one unit in 11 hours ... this box does one unit in little over 3 hours. Wow. I should break 20,000 SETI units by June at this rate. I got some great advice from the Madpenguin forums that I should run the command line version in Windows instead of the screen saver one, and it will increase my speed a lot. I don't have many Windows boxes anymore, but I do depend on them for a few things, like games, and those annoying applications that don't work on Linux.

I realize I am way late upgrading this site, but bear with me as I try and recover from the last month. I wrote some more of my book, but I just reread it and boy, did it stink! Not so much the parts of the story, but how it was written: stilted, distracted, and you could tell I wasn't focusing. Thankfully, it was only 4 pages I'll have to rewrite.

This morning I was met with a broken deck chair (it's been windy lately, and I don't how how the hard plastic legs shattered, but they did), Ahfu peed on my new table (warping one corner), and a server on a brand new project at work is dying and I don't know why (we think the power supply). So this sort of bad luck thing is continuing.

I'm gaining weight again, but I have been indulging in a lot of "comfort foods" due to the sheer amount of stress I have been having. I think I'll go back to computing points again, since that seems to work best. Work is stressful, too. I have asked for a week off from work in the next few weeks, just so I can catch up on all the housework and repairs that need attending to. And sleep.

All I want to do is sleep.

I try and focus on the good things, like the tomato plants doing well, the fact I'm getting a new bed, I have a great new Linux box, the fact none of my friends hate me right now, that I am married to a wonderful woman, have a son with a good heart, none of my pets are sick, my house is still standing... but that sometimes reminds me of that prayer sung in the boy's school in "Monty Python's Meaning of Life:"

O Lord, please don't burn us.
Don't grill or toast Your flock.
Don't put us on the barbecue
Or simmer us in stock.
Don't braise or bake or boil us
Or stir-fry us in a wok.
Oh, please don't lightly poach us
Or baste us with hot fat.
Don't fricassee or roast us
Or boil us in a vat,
And please don't stick Thy servants, Lord,
In a Rotissomat.
Amen...

Posted by Punkie @ 02:31 PM EST [Link]

Sunday, April 4, 2004

Lessons in Knifery

I worked in the knife industry for several years, and even to this day, I am rather snobbish about it. A good knife is a wonderful thing in the right hands. It's a basic human tool, one of mankind's FIRST tools, elegant and graceful in the hands of a master, and dangerous in the hands of a fool.

When I worked in the knife shop, most of our repair/replacement jobs started with the customer saying, "Well, I loaned this to a friend of mine..." I heard them all. The most common stories were people using them as pry bars, cutting things they shouldn't, hammering things with the handle, and the most common was someone just goofing around. We had a saying, "If someone asks to use your knife, there's probably a good reason they don't have one."

When I was in scouts, they were really thorough with knife care and safety. We were issued some Ulster 3-bladed folding pocket knife, and I paid extra for the one with the Philips's head. We had exercises of how to handle a knife while cutting, carrying, handing off, and general care. When cutting, we were told to cut away from ourselves, a practice that has spared me many deep gashes in my life. You never know when the knife will slip. You were also taught not to cut things that harm your knife, like barbed wire or really hard wood. We were strictly told to carry a folding knife folded, a straight knife in a sheath, or if we have neither, pointed downwards away from you. When handing off a knife of any kind, face your victi--er, buddy handle-side first, so when they grab for it, they don't slice their fingers open, revealing their sweet, juicy, nourishing ... life fluid... er, sorry. You never run through a crowd with an exposed knife, and if you are carrying an open blade, you should make wide berth and announce something like, "coming through, watch out, exposed blade!" That made you look geeky, so we usually just sheathed it. In the SCA, anytime anyone draws a blade, they are supposed to yell, "DRAW!" and usually no one opens a blade in a crowd, anyway. The general care was to keep the knife sharp, because a sharp knife didn't slip as much as a dull knife, and you didn't have to work as hard to cut something. A dull knife will make you press hard, and if you slip, the inertia could stab you or something close to you. You also had to keep your knife clean and properly oiled, and when we were inspected, that was checked.

Some kids never got knives. My parents were pretty cool about it, but some scout parents were afraid to let their kids near a sharp object. Those kids were pretty dangerous because you never could predict what would happen if they got around one. Some were terrified of them. Others craved them a little too much. In either case, they didn't have experience with knives, and saw them not as tools, but as weapons of fear they would either be a victim of, or cause on others. The former were not so bad, they just needed supervision because sometimes those who are afraid of getting cut cut themselves as part of some self-fulfilling prophesy. The latter, though, the ones who thought knives were cool weapons used by some media stereotype, like ninjas or something. I recall one kid in our troup got in a lot of trouble because he used pocket knives as throwing knives into trees (bad idea). My nose has a small scar from another kid who used a meat cleaver as part of a game where he played Jason from those slasher films, and he accidentally hit me across the bridge of my nose. You can't tell with my glasses, but I have a scar where the blade cut down into the cartilage, but didn't cut all the way through, so all I needed was a few stitches.

I used my scout knife even long after I left scouts. I used it so much, I broke the Philips's head right off. I still have the knife, but it lies in a safe place now.

When I started working for CK&T, I met a lot of characters. The first knife I bought from there was a Swiss Army Knife, a Victorinox Swisschamp, which was the model with everything (now the current Swisschamp has like 5-6 more things on it). I could afford it because I got it at cost. I kept it in my Zermatt pouch until it wore out, and in my backpack since then. Right after I felt CK&T, a friend of mine in Maryland knew this family gun store that was closing down, and I got a Spyderco Delcia which I used almost exclusively until a new workplace got "itchy" about carrying knives (as part of a broad and vague policy). I don't work there anymore, but now I carry at my hip a Leatherman Wave, a gift from Christine a few years ago after being jealous of her Leatherman (which she got as an award for outstanding volunteer service).

In all those years, I have rarely loaned out my knife to anyone. Most of those times were when my knives were broken or chipped. My Swisschamp has a nick in the plastic shell when someone tried to use it as a hammer, and a chipped blade where someone tried to pry off a screw. My Spyderco knife has multiple nicks and a chipped tip when someone used it to saw through wire, and another guy wanted to "test if it would stick into a tree" (ass). Even my Leatherman has a broken tip on the blade because ... well, I did that. I dropped it onto a hard floor. But I use that Leatherman about 2-3 times a day for various things. It never leaves my side unless I am forced to keep it home (formal events, airplane trips, and the like). Why did I loan it out at all? Only because I had to get someone out of trouble; several times at cons and a few times at work, where saying, "I never loan out my knife," would not be seen well.

I have never used my knife in fighting. First, I don't get into fights, and second, pulling a knife in a fight is really a bad idea. A Judo champ once told me "never be the first to pull out the weapon, because then you have escalated the fight beyond you hands." I wouldn't know how to use a knife in a fight, anyway. And if they have a gun, then what? A Smith and Wesson beats and Ace of Blades any day.

Posted by Punkie @ 05:13 PM EST [Link]

Lazy Sunday... I hope

We took today off. I didn't end up going to West Virginia like I had planned, CR went with Christine instead in the blue Saturn, because we're still worried about the green Saturn's tires, and he didn't mind packing into the back seat. We got ahold of Fran again, and we're going to send him a care package so he won't have to worry about money for the next few weeks. He's doing very well, and this whole affair, as bad as it was, has really settled some old wounds for Christine and Fran. See, Fran was the youngest next to Christine, which means they were only 11 years apart. He left home when he joined the Navy when Christine was just 6, and he never came back because the family situation was pretty bad back then. Christine idolized her older brother, the only male influence in her immediate family, and when he left, it broke her heart. Christine never knew her dad, since they left him when she was 2, and she only saw him once since then (she was 8). So "making up" with Fran was very important for her. Her and Debbie also got a lot closer during this ordeal, and I got to know Debbie more. I always liked Debbie, the first sister of Christine's I ever met when we were dating, and she's no different now. She's still cool.

So I spent most of yesterday re-potting the catnip, and planting seeds for the impatiens and cucumbers. The tomato plants are really getting out of control, because some of them have gotten so big that the roots are growing out of the peat pots and into the peat pots of their neighbors. It really is a miracle, that such hardy and aggressive plants can come from such small seeds. I can't plant them outside, as the recent weather reminded me (it dipped below freezing last night).

I also tried to assemble my new table and two new chairs, but the chairs had the wrong parts (fixed) and the table has a problem because one of the legs was drilled wrong, but I am sure I can fix that. I hope.

I also did a massive cleanup of my hard drives on all my systems, and got a backup working again. Ha ha... my backup program hadn't run since March of last year! Hoo! Thank you Windows... damn. Good thing I caught that before a virus or hard drive crash or something. It was also a nice trip through memory lane, because now I have financial records and website backups dating back to 1998. It's also weird to see what I have saved after all this time. Snippets of text from the web, notes to myself, and so on.

My new Linux box is working pretty well, although, it doesn't seem much faster than my old one, to be truthful. But at least it's quiet. My room doesn't sound like an old exhaust fan in a factory anymore.

Posted by Punkie @ 01:13 PM EST [Link]

Friday, April 2, 2004

The story so far ... random tidbits from today

I have spent a lot of today catching up at work. Man, all hell broke loose, but thankfully it, wasn't my department :). But it did fill my e-mail box. I recall a similar incident with a former company where I did QA for their software. After a lot of issues with the Apple folks, we had been testing a Mac version of our software. We had gotten to Beta 10, which had a serious bug. Like made 1/3rd of the software unusable. We sent back the reports, and they sent us Beta 12. What happened to Beta 11? Turns out, some genius in marketing pressed a zillion copies of this untested Beta 11, and released it as a "Preview Copy" at Macworld Expo. The president of our company was doing the demo in our booth and ... well, it didn't work. Reviews were terrible. Heads rolled. Dude, QA exists for a reason, you know? Luckily the FDA doesn't listen to, "Oh, just pass it!" or we'd have the same problems that Great Britain had in the 1960s with thalidomide.

Christine and Debbie spoke with Fran last night, and he's in the Hospice Nursing facility. He loves it, although he's a bit pressed for money at the time because it's going to take at least 3 weeks for Social Security to kick in (the Nursing home takes in most of that, but Fran gets a stipend to spend on whatever). We're going to call him every other night to check in on him. We're not losing touch with him again.

My tomato plants are growing real strong. They are about to outgrow the larger peat pots I just replanted them in, but the weather has been flaky, and I am afraid of leaving them outside just yet. I don't want them to freeze to death. My catnip needs re-potted now, but I have to find time to do it. The Cambridge flowers definitely need replanting, and I think I'll make a shallow cardboard box (I have spares), and make a planting bed I can just cut apart and drop into place.

The whole AC/Heating unit in the guest room has died (it has its own, self-contained system apart from the rest of the house). I figured there was something wrong with it last year, because it when I tried to heat the guest room, all it did was heat at max 100% or not at all. My SETI array has kept the guest room above freezing, and I must have saved over $40/month of electrical bills this winter. But when Debbie stayed this week, we just put in a space heater so it was human-tolerable. Luckily, when the main AC died last year, I think I found a good, reliable repair company, so I'll probably use them again.

Tomorrow, we are going to Westerport in the far western end of the Maryland panhandle to drop Debbie back off at her apartment, so there's another 3 hour car ride up, and 3 hours back. Bleah. Christine wants to take the green Saturn Wagon, so there a chance we'll get stuck out there, since it's so old now, with almost 100k miles on it, and has a tire that was recently repaired (not replaced). Considering our luck, I'd say there's a good chance we'll get stuck somewhere, so I'm going to bring a survival kit with us (blankets, extra food, flashlight, first aid kit, etc.). We can't drive the blue Saturn SC3, because it needs a serpentine belt replaced (which we were going to do weeks ago, but then all this crap happened), and despite its rear seating, the cramped conditions back there make it impractical to cram poor Debbie (or anyone) back there for a 3-hour trip, anyway. It's a coupe, which we got for the mileage for Christine going back and forth to Baltimore, so we didn't care about the "roadster style" seating, really. If I could afford it, I'd exchange what we have for a Toyota Prius (hybrid car) and a Saturn Vue (SUV). I'll let you know if I win the Lotto.

It looks like instead of New Orleans this year, Christine and I are going to Vegas for our 15th anniversary. Our friend Tracie is getting married the same week, and finally settled on a place. This solves a few problems, money-wise, because it will combine two trips into one. It was going to be in Upstate New York later this year, but due to poor support of her relatives, she decided it would be cheaper to have it in Vegas. So the third week in June, we'll be in Vegas. We'll watch Tracie get married, then celebrate her birthday, then Christine and I will celebrate our 15th Wedding Anniversary, and it will be like one big party. Watch for us on Taxicab Confessions... :)

Oh, and one topic I avoided that's been in the news: gay marriage. You know what? Let them marry! For goodness sake, get your mind out of the junior high bathroom, and move on with your life. Seeing those people line up outside the California courthouses was touching and inspirational. These people love each other. Their marriages will last more than most hetero marriage licenses made in the same time period, I'll tell you that. If you want to "preserve the sanctity of marriage," why not spend money of programs that prevent spousal abuse, curb high divorce rates, and improve school education. You people worry about gay people "having an agenda." Well, I worry more about the Christian Republican Right having an agenda. Gay people can't recruit "new members" any more than left-handed people can make right-handed people southpaws. You can't make people gay, it's not a choice. They are born that way for a reason, and only God can judge them based on their character. Not you. The Bible contains 6 admonishments to homosexuals and 326 admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean God doesn't love heterosexuals, God just thinks they need more supervision. Lay off. God is watching, and doesn't like it when you use God's name to do evil.

I saw plenty of that in Jacksonville.

Posted by Punkie @ 01:42 PM EST [Link]

Thursday, April 1, 2004

Suffer the Magpie

I got up late today, and I feel like I have woken up on the other side. What "the other side is," I don't know, but there you go. The last week has seemed so out of bounds.

While I was gone, I picked up a lot of e-mail, and in between washing things and doing general housework, I have been catching up on it; mostly deleting spam. Some of you might have also seen comments from Ted, who is my personal magpie, teasing me from the treetops where I could not reach him. I have often thought about "getting even" with Ted, but he's not too bright, so I doubt he'd know when he had lost, and then I'd just have to keep escalating it. So I just banned the Anonymizer he was using. The fact he used a commercial one, and not one of the thousands of hacker ones out there showed me he's not very resourceful, either. But then again, he's had a bad life. He grew up in a strict Catholic family in Montana, got tossed out of Boy Scouts, and in a whirlwind of bad choices, ended up a "Senior Web Coordinator" for a medical group in Colorado. I've seen his site. Full of dead links, security holes, and ... well, I couldn't compete with his current life. He's got it bad, so that's why he spends his evenings, posting to boards, playing Star Trek card games, and making rude comments in people's blogs.

He reminds me of bullies in junior high. I can't say all of them ended up as bad web coordinators. In fact, most of them grew out of bullying in high school. The few that didn't ended up getting expelled for various reasons. Some of them were Catholics, though, which makes me wonder just how much molestation goes on in those churches of theirs. In any case, Ted's jeers and taunts, while useless for me, provide him with much-needed feelings of control and power, like those kids who used to stab at the class hamster with pencils, just to see it squeak and run away.

Some adults never grow out of these habits, especially those with bad home lives. Cruelty begets cruelty. I'm not sure what kind of cruelty Ted has in his life. I am guessing his parents still dominate him in some way, or he feels helpless at work. Maybe he's stuck with a gay lover who doesn't respect his needs and wants, or feels trapped in some homosexual/Catholic tug of war with his moral base. So he escapes to Star Trek, using an alias of some long-forgotten Deep Space Nine character online. He makes overt hints of being from "The-BBS-that-shall-not-be-named," I guess because he wants to rekindle the war those asshats waged against me some... man, it's been almost 4-5 years now. I won't. I don't care. They will continue to burn my effigy for however long they feel in necessary, no matter how I scream and shout, or sue, or whatever. You can't win a fight with the magpies. I don't think they have even mentioned me in 2-3 years now, so even they have forgotten, except this one guy, and I doubt he represents anyone but himself.

I have been thinking about his bullying and taunting today, and comparing it to those used by preteens, in those desperate attempts to puff out their chest and strut. I compared it to those still used by a few adults, except not those as obvious as Ted, because he's just immature. Here are two verbal bully moves (with apologies to my Latin-speaking friends, who might actually post Latin versions, or real debate labels for these tactics):

Bullius Interruptus
Excellent taunt against those who seem unsure about themselves, or who have speech impediments. The tactic is to interrupt the victim in the middle of everything they say, and repeat it back to them in a mocking tone, sometimes only using grunts.

Victim: Please stop hurting me
Bully: Pluuu stuuu huwtin maaaah....
Victim: Is that best--
Bully: BWUH BWUH BEST?
Victim: -- the best that you can do?
Bully: BWUH BWUH DOO KAN DUH DUHHH?
Victim: I am telling on you.
Bully: BWUH BWUH TELLING ON DUUU... DOY!

Adult bullies will often use this method in a less obvious way, like finishing another's sentence, twisting words, or just dismissing what the other says.

Victim: So, as you can see, these charts show that the current fiscal quarter cannot sustain--
Bully: '"Cannot sustain the fiscal year," yes, Johnson, very nice. Okay, can we hear from someone else?
Victim: I was not done. It can sustain the fiscal year if we cut costs in the--
Bully: Yes, yes, yes... this has all been said before, every year. Anything else?
Victim: As I was saying, the fiscal year can be positive if we cut costs of deliveries in the third quarter by using inventory--
Bully: Johnson's inventory genius strikes again! I believe you are done, now.

Bullius Sarcasticus
The use of repeating back what someone says by saying it as if it was very stupid. It uses exaggerated points, draws in negative concepts, often without correlation, but makes it seem like the person who is delivering the line has more knowledge.

Victim: Please give me back my violin, it belonged to my great uncle.
Bully: Aw, poor little Johnny. Are you going to cry? About a crummy old violin?
Victim: It came with him on a boat when he arrived on Ellis Island in 1904.
Bully: Ooooh! It's a MAGIC violin! From FRANCE!
Victim: No, from Italy. Please just give it back...!
Bully: Look-a at-a me-ah. I'm-a Johnny's great-a Unlce-a! Look-a at-a me play-a dah spaghetti!

Adults use similar tactics, but often they involve eye-rolling, sighs of indignation, and leading people's conversations down blind alleys.

Victim: I did a comprehensive report on the network, and I think I can scale down costs by 25% if we re-utilize old equipment in new ways.
Bully: I see, and why did you come to THAT conclusion?
Victim: I did a diagram of the system, based it on load, and ran several scenarios. Looking at the hardware list, I saw that we already had most of the equipment needed, and can change some of the existing systems to compensate.
Bully: And just how did your "magic scenario" deal with a virus attack?
Victim: It didn't directly, but the use of firewalls at certain points will reduce the spread of the virus far more than we have now.
Bully: So, really, your system is not virus-proof?
Victim: No system is virus-proof. Viruses happen on machines, and are only carried by networks. The only way to make anything virus proof is to shut it off.
Bully: Let me see if I get this straight, your solution to a better network is to shut down all the machines? Great! Let's all do things by pen an paper! Johnson, I don't even know why people like you get hired.

Ted likes the bullius sarcasticus method, but, sadly, his arguments are more at the 12-year old end of the scale, by making fun of my name, which no one has done since... well, a long time, that's for sure. I have deleted a lot of his comments, including some that would probably pack some of my friends into a van to go down to Colorado and personally beat the shit out of the Ogden Street Kid. I'm sure he would deserve it, but bullies like him don't know when to stop, like the Black Knight in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

It's just a flesh wound...

It just amazes me. I mean, Ted has gone out of his way to post mean stuff about me. Think about it. He's even gone through an anonymizer, spend good quality time he could have spent watching Star Trek, to post stuff in my blog. He's invested time out of his life, time he won't get back, in order to get the rush of being mean to someone. People like him are VERY easy to control. I blocked him, but like a bad fungus, he'll be back. He'll find some other way to taunt and jeer me. And I'll feel a little better knowing he had to spend even more time to do so. He's like a lab rat in a maze, who when he gets his cheese, wonders, "How did the lab staff fall into my power?"

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