My truck was on fumes today. Filled it up. Took two tries because the pump shuts off when you hit $75.00. Now I accept I'll being paying more at the pump because of what I've chosen to drive. But, sheesh, this is getting a tad ridiculous. I'm aware that at some point I may be looking back on this as having it good. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Oh, and my truck takes regular. In case you were wondering. Which you probably weren't.

Nice. Check out the article here. I'm also partial to velcro.

Here's how to wrap a cable up (if you don't have velcro ), note that this is just one item on the list above.

I was down for the count for the last few days with some sort of mild virus. Symptoms included inability to stop watching Law and Order reruns. Twelve hour stunt sleeping. The scrambled egg whine (as in "please make me some..."). Power shots of cherry NyQuil. Delusion that a huge blue terry cloth robe and Sorel snow boots was acceptable "outside" attire appropriate for walking the dogs. In the front yard. Sorry. No pictures. Actually, be thankful.

The good news (for me anyway) is that all is well now and I've apologized to my neighbors and the kids that walk home from school in front of our house. They accepted my apology. At least that's how I'm choosing to interpret the rock throwing, picket lines, and subpoenas

Today we celebrated by getting massages at the Spa at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay. (Yes. I am heterosexual. Thanks for asking, Mr Limbaugh.)

Below is a shot of something you don't see everyday. This was taken in the Valet parking area just in front of the Ritz Carlton. Wow. Wow. Wow.

I believe these were two Ferrari 430s and one Ferrari 360 (the closest one). I know for sure the middle one was a 430 because it said so on the mirrors. I think the red one was too, but I'm not sure. The front is significantly longer than the middle one if you look closely so I wasn't sure. Gulp. Sorry about the fugly SUV polluting the back of the shot. I would have fricking paid for the guys valet parking to get it moved out of the frame, though the folks that drove the Ferraris came out in a shiny herd and paddle shifted away into the afternoon right after I took this, leaving me slack jawed and drooling in the tan bark under the rose bushes. I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of hearing a Ferrari zip up through the gears. Holy. God. Pray that someday you do. Just pray. Mozart ain't got nothin' on Enzo Ferrari. That's all I have to say.

After that we went and watched the sunset and I practiced taking landscape and seascape photography. I really like this shot. I shot this hand held, crouching on a rock, praying that my camera would be steady enough. I really need a tripod. A carbon fiber Gitzo is the next item on my Photography wish list. I *really* was wishing for this today at the beach as the light was fading...

We met a seal on the beach. He was sleeping. We were hoping he wasn't sick. We kept barking at him and he would look at us, yawn, and then go back to sleep. He actually doesn't look that healthy to me, so I hope he was okay.

Anyway, Bunny and I had a nice day. Though we spent like eighty bucks on lunch in the bar at the Ritz. Lets just say the view was nice and not talk about the food's worthiness. I had to send back my burger. Yes. Burger. BURGER. Sent. Back. D'oh. Kinda ruins the joy of the moment.

So no more cherry NyQuil tonight, I seem to be okay now. So we now resume our regularly scheduled programming - Shung-Shung!!

I got this one dollar bill the other day with "Track this bill at www.wheresgeorge.com" stamped in red ink on it. So I added it to the tracking here. Seems like a lot of work for not much pay off, but I'll play. I'll check back later and see if it ends up anywhere interesting.

PG&E turned on the power at 8pm, an hour late from the most recent estimate. What a relief.

We're past 72 hours without power. There's a stinking science project rotting in my refrigerator - I guess we missed something when putting the perishables in the coolers. I'm pretty sure I heard it growling and rummaging around in the crisper - it's going to break out and try and eat our brains. Damn undead fruit zombies.

A crew is supposed to come out and fix the problem today at four pm. I hope they don't let us down again.

Btw, in my last post, I said there were 250 houses without power. I meant 250,000.

We stayed with my Mom last night. Much better than a hotel. Thanks mom.

Omar's tale of woe.

Son. Of. A. Biznich.

Our power has been out since Friday morning. A tree fell over in the storm and took out the power for the whole neighborhood. They got that fixed yesterday and of course our little section of street is the only island left in the whole northern hemisphere without freaking power. Seems there was a "subsequent failure". According to the PG&E outage line there are about 250 homes without power in San Jose. I know where a dozen of these are. Maybe I should offer to show PG&E where the hell they are.

So we spent the night at the Weston in Palo Alto last night because our house is about 43 degrees inside. And, well, it's damn annoying to be at home and have no power to do anything. The novelty of building a fire in the fireplace and lighting candles and taking showers in the dark wore off after about five minutes. We thought that the power would get turned back on today. You know what they say about making assumptions.

I've repeatedly called PG&E's outage line and the projected fix time alternates between "we don't have any information" and some time late in the next day. Yesterday's prediction had the power back on this afternoon. Now they're saying that it could be late tomorrow or as late as Wednesday. Now I wish I had chosen a Hotel somewhere closer to home. I'm thinking about switching over to the Marriot Residence Inn near our house. The problem is our two little dogs complicate this a bit since not everywhere takes dogs.

Of course we've lost everything in the freezer, but we put all the perishables from the refrigerator in coolers and covered it in 7-11 ice. Though now we probably need to go add more. Ice is annoying. It, like, melts, and I about had to have my fingers amputated from frostbite after digging through the cooler for some damn string cheese. That shit is mother effing cold. Trust me.

The other issue is that we both have to work tomorrow, and I'm not sure what to do with our dogs. It's too cold to leave them in our house. Sigh. Maybe PG&E will come through. Though at this point, all they've done is not keep any promises they've made. They told me they would call me. Nope. Nothing. Every projection for getting restored has been wrong. Batting zero folks.

Makes a fella think about packing it in and building a cabin in the woods and continuing my manifesto. Yes, I already started it. That's it. I'm not shaving. I'm now a mountain man. A backwoods outlaw. I got a shotgun in one hand and a chainsaw in the other. Which I'm sure will come in handy at the Marriot when I order eggs benedict from room service.

I just released it's been a month since I posted to my blog. Lame. I've had so much going on (not all of it good) that I just haven't found the energy. Plus I've been a bit overwhelmed. Still, that excuse is worthless and weak.

I've got a lot a could write about. Let's see if I can find some time to do so. I have another post in the queue which I'm working on.

Just in terms of gear, I bought the Nikon d300 (which I posted about and promised a review, which I failed to deliver). I also bought a new lens, the new Nikon 24-70, and a new photo printer, the Epson 4880 (and, yes, now I'm mowing lawns to pay for all this gear). Remind me to tell you the amazing story of how I bought the printer on line.

I've also been organizing my pictures and key wording everything. Yesterday I spent about four hours key-wording all my pictures for 2007. Painful. I've been using Adobe Lightroom for this. I would have used Aperture but Apple hasn't released support for the new raw files for the d300. Lame (and frustrating). Lightroom is a decent program but has some annoying things about it. For one, key-wording is at best awkward. At least it's better than Adobe Bridge (CS3) whose key-wording features are about as fun to use as getting waterboarded. I'm hoping to post more on this a bit later.

I also built a new Windows Home server and devised a new backup strategy for backing up my Macs. Basically its Mac -> Windows Xp via Retrospect -> Windows home server via WHS connector. I still don't have an offsite backup strategy. I was trying to use Mozy, but I have 12000+ pictures (and a bunch of video too) and I never have got it fully backed up in months of trying. I might need to do something more manual where I leave a big hard drive at work or something. That would be better than nothing but is definitely prone to failure (because I'm lazy and forgetful).

I also ordered, but haven't received, a Kindle. I'm very excited about this since I read so much. It'll be so cool just to download a new book instead of ordering it and adding it to my gargantuan pile of books. I'll try to post about this when I get it from an avid readers point of view (I average about a book a week).

We finally sold the SL500. So we're down to a more semi-normal three cars (from a high of five). Bunny's BMW 535xi sport wagon. My Nissan Titan. And of course the Z06.

But definitely the theme for me has been Photography. I'm trying to take my skills to the next level. Throwing in the printer adds a lot more complexity, but recent events in my life have really made me wonder why all my pictures (some of them are actually pretty good) are all on my computer where, mostly, *nobody* sees them. The Photography thing is very very challenging. The thing I struggle the most with now is the post processing. I want my pictures to pop. A picture of a dog in the grass? I want that grass to be so green you want to slather it with ranch dressing, throw on a couple croutons, and chow down. But I still don't get all the color stuff and my changes to my pictures still seem somewhat random to me.  If someone has any suggestions here, please let me know.

Anyway, I'm going to try to post more about this stuff.

Happy Holidays everyone!

I know this is a bit cheesy, but today I'm not taking my job for granted. Here's why I'm writing about this today: 

My credit union is on the grounds of Moffett field in Mountain View and intermingled with the military base are a bunch of other buildings. Maybe NASA or Lockheed, I'm not exactly sure. The point is the credit union is swarming with folks from these companies. I was sitting and waiting my turn to talk to a credit union representative when I overheard a snippet of conversation. A man an a woman, both wearing security clearance type tags around their neck and a lot of flannel. Both obviously from NASA or Lockheed. Both looks beaten and weary and didn't even really make eye contact with each other while they talked.

"Hey Bob haven't seen you in a while".

"Yeah, I'm in building 142 now." Bob looked embarrassed.

"Really. How is building 142? Do you like it?"

"Eh. No, not really. Um, it's okay." Bob looked pained.

"Yeah, that's what everyone says. Same ol', same ol'. It's a paycheck." The woman was clearly reciting her usual script on this matter.

"Yeah, I guess." Bob looked even more pained.

"I'm in building 137. I don't know how long I'll be there. I don't know what's going on." The woman is talking. Following her script. "I've been at the company twenty two years now and its always the same. I might be moving to building..."

"Yeah. I better go get in the teller line. It's out the door right now." Bob interrupts and scurries away. The woman shrugs.

This literally sent a chill down my spine. That could have been me in building 142 had I made different choices along the way. Working with the drones from building 137. May god have mercy on my soul.

One of the hard parts of being a professional software dude is that when you get close to releasing, your hours working tend to increase proportionally to the proximity of the ship date. In general I'm used to this trend, having gone through this countless times over the years, and now I can always tell when I've passed a threshold of working too hard.

I start to literally have coding nightmares:

10 print "hello world"

20 goto 15

Hmm, why doesn't this work? I keep running it and it says syntax error, invalid line. I change the code:

10 print "hello world"

20 goto 5

Hmm, same error. Let's try again:

10 print "hello world"

20 goto 6

Dammit.

6 Exit

10 print "hello world"

20 goto 6

Wth.

Repeat this indefinitely. I can't quite get the code to work.

I usually wake from this dream (though the code is more complex and in c# these days) feeling like I tied one on the night before, with gym sock mouth, a roof nail in my eye, and my back all cramped up. Oh, and enough frustration to light the city of St. Louis for a week. Talk about waking up on the wrong side of the bed.

Sigh.

But we're almost there and I can't wait to talk about what I've been working on. When I take a step back and look at the big picture, it's all very exciting. Stay tuned!

Anyway, back to fixing bugs.

Yesterday was Bunny's birthday. Hard to believe she's already 21!

I bought her cupcakes and put those trick candles on them that are supposed to stay lit and sang happy birthday to her while the dogs barked at me and mayhem ensued and then she blew out the candles. And they stayed out. She has the lungs of trumpeting elephant. I'm surprise she didn't blow the cupcakes across the room. Boy howdy. She needs to blow up balloons for a living or something. I tried myself later and they kept relighting and finally I had to call the fire department to put them out.

 

 

Bunny graduated this weekend after two long years of working full time and going to graduate school. She received her Masters of Science in Nursing, with concentrations in administration and entrepreneurship. I'm so proud of her! Now she's way more educated than I am. Hello sugar momma!

So I'm still sick. I can't believe this. I'm going to write a letter. To, um, the annoying virus distribution committee (AVDC) I guess. The letter would basically read "HEY! WTF!" I blame recycled airline air. I actually made it a whopping half day back from Hawaii. That's point five days. Fifty percent, people. That's all the relaxation and peacefulness I brought back from the islands. Then I felt that uhoh I don't feel right moment. And the first cough. Damn you first cough! Then it was 101 degree fevers, coughing, and a gross word that starts with ph. Then came the antibiotics and the fever went away, but the coughing has remained and today I reached the limit of my patience with it. Enough already. For Pete's sake. Pete, I'm talking to you! Damn you Pete! Last week I got a CAT scan of my head. Showed nothing. Haha, I know what you're thinking. Very funny. That's it, make fun of a sick fellow having a bad day. So tomorrow I'm getting my chesticle area examined by some space age ray gun machine. I think my doctor called them x-rated rays or something. Sounds terribly risque. So you see, I'm not having a good day. I'm ready to strangle Rabbey, my childhood stuffed Rabbit. I also have Mousey. Evidently I wasn't too creative with the naming when I was five. Talk to the m.f. hand pal. Both are very thread worn and missing things like eyeballs. I think Mousey is actually missing his paws. He's a quadruple amputee. Basically a red stuffed ball with aged whiskers, a bent little nose, and big floppy ears. But he's EVIL and I'll still take the fucker out. Damn stuffed Mouse! Always hanging around that Rabbey. Plotting against me. The stuffed animals liberation front. Liberate this, pal.

 

We spent a fantastic week in Maui. Did a lot of stuff. Beaches. Mountains. Jungles. Volcanoes. Drinks with umbrellas. And the bubonic plague. Evidently contracted on the plane on the way home. Both of us. Yesterday we pretty much randomly called each other at the same time. Are you feeling okay? No? Me neither. I have a sore throat. Hey, me too. Damn bubonic plague on the airplane. Now I'm sucking on a cough drop and I sound like I've been smoking for twenty years. That's just not right. Some sort of parting gift from Hawaii. A curse. Like that episode of the Brady Bunch. You know the one. Looks like I have a mouthful of minty fresh toothpaste and a NyQuil chaser in my immediate future. Now that's a fantastic trip down tasty lane. Yup. Looking forward to it. Nighty nite folks (cough).

Here's a project I've been meaning to do for years. With the help a borrowed refuse trailer, my friend Phillip and I ripped the built in laundry room out of our garage. The reason we did this is so B. and I can fit two cars in our two car garage. Also the laundry room was just a waste of space. Big thanks to Phillip for helping with this project. His help was invaluable. And this was a lot of work. Both Phillip and I pretty much crawled home completely whipped on Friday.

After going to the dump in the morning with Phillip, I spent Saturday sweeping and vacuuming with the shop-vac and moving stuff around. I also wired up a new light above the washer and dryer (required two trips to Home Depot, dang it).

On Sunday, B. and I went to Good Will twice and moved the rest of the stuff out of the way.

Turns out there's still too much stuff against the walls. We can fit both cars in but we can't get out of the right car. We'll have to get rid of more crap yet and free up more space against the walls so we can pull the cars in farther apart.

I consider this a successful version 1 release. It works, but it's not really unusable. We'll have to rev it and try out version 2!

Boy am I tired. Jeez.

Before:

After:

More pictures here

Here's a list of the hours and locations for GoodWill donations in the Silicon Valley. Nice.

Goodwill has a Silicon Valley webpage at: www.goodwillsv.org

 

...and I guess that would make me Pa?

So the power went out for a few hours tonight in our sod roofed leanto, and we had to make do old west style. I coped by reading at a table bathed in flickering yellow candlelight in the utter, and frankly disturbing, silence of stilled cooling fans, inert appliances, and powered down hard-drives, and for an eye-blink I felt like I was back getting my homestead on with my shotgun, buckboard wagon, and friendly horse named, um, Mr. Horse. Then I realized that I was was reading about the different forms of database normalization in SQL databases, and the illusion faded a bit.

It faded more when I called PG&E on my cell phone and navigated their voice recognition system for automated outage updates, finding out that, yes, it's true, my power was officially out. And then the power clicked back on killing my home-steading buzz. The fans, compressors, and motors jolted back to life; the hard-drives whirred and zipped and reset; the electronically filtered hypo-allergenic air began circulating again; the workstations, servers, network appliances, routers, and hubs beeped and booted; the Tivo resumed it's whiney recording; the automated fire and security alarms went back on line, complete with motion sensors and wireless cameras I can check from my phone anywhere in the world; and then, a few minutes later, my house completed rebooting. It was only then that I considered my earlier thought. And then I slapped myself. Little house on internet backbone, more like. What a dork.

But I can still be Pa can't I? Please?

A moment of silence. A gentle tear shed. A sniffle or two. A hug and comforting pat.

The Hummer is gone. Sold. Never to be seen again. Here it is sitting forlornly in the rain about to be driven off to a new home. A new home filled with the laughter of children. The panting of dogs. The crack of gunfire. Nerf gunfire.

Farewell, Hummer, how briefly we knew thee. Oh how I'll miss your hulking presence in traffic, your Prius crushing monster tires, your speedy automatic windows, your XM-radio. Alas, life will never be the same.

You'll always live on in my heart, you big metal lug.

Check out www.zillow.com. For me the weird thing is that my house is the only one on my street with no value. Don’t know why. It didn’t want to work in IE6 for me though and I ended up using the site with Firefox. Whatever.

So we get Alhambra water delivered to our house every other week. You know, in five gallon bottles. I started with them back when skinny ties and digital watches were cool new ideas. I was poor and couldn't afford to buy a dispenser. So I rented one from Alhambra. For ten bucks a month. So if you look around in, say, Home Depot, you'll see that you can buy a new fancy one for like $150.00. I think Alhambra owes me like fifteen new dispensers. Will I get them? I'm absolutely, unequivocally, one hundred percent sure I will. Yes. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Just spent a few days in Portland. Rain is the operative word here. Oh yeah, and Christmas. Not necessarily in that order. Eleven hour drive north last Friday and twelve and half hours back today. One way, one day. The return trip was slower because we rented a u-haul trailer and I filled it up with Portland's entire supply of X-Box 360s. Boing, say what? Still with me? Just checking. Actually we stole some furniture from B's sister and had to transport it back, trucker style: "Gas, ass, or grass, nobody rides for free!" 

"Breaker, breaker, I'm doin a double nickle in Georgia Overdrive!"

"Ten four, Rubber Duck!"

It was raining so hard in southern Oregon tonight that once when we passed a semi-truck, spray from under the trucks wheels shot against our windshield like water from a high pressure water hose in a drive through car wash. It pretty much scared the poo out of all of us and worse, I couldn't see for a second. This was like at sixty mph on I-5 going around a curve, at night, over the pass near Shasta Mountain, towing a trailer. Gulp. It was just an eye blink though since the wipers were already whapping back and forth at full whappage. We stopped in Weed for gas and it was raining sideways it was so windy. It was like standing in a fancy shower with side jets. Except it was forty degrees out. And the water was forty one degrees. And I wasn't naked. And I wasn't lathering my hair into a unicorn horn, but other that that it was like that. Oh, and I wasn't belting out show tunes.... "Oooooooh-klahoma, where the wind goes sweeping across the plaaaaaiiiin...." or something like that. Me tired. Me stop typing now. Me. Glad. Me. Home.

 

Once upon a time, I was in Target making arrangements with the concierge to take possession of the elusive and rare container of miscellaneous items. This was the ten by fourteen inch deluxe model constructed of space age plastics and/or polymers and held by some to be the finest container of miscellaneous items ever to be created by mankind. And it has a snap-on top. Fantastic.

But, friend, I digress. As I was standing there negotiating lease rates and delivery dates, a tousle headed miscreant sprinted by, arms pumping wildly, as if he were the anchor in the eight hundred meter relay, puffing and snorting. Now this chap wasn't past five, or my knees for that matter. From his mouth came the chant, the howl, the song, all echoing what I could only assume what was foremost in his budding young noggin. This audio stream of consciousness was loud enough to halt conversations, turn heads, and startle the more unwary. He was like a red furred hound leaping through underbrush, long ears and jowls flopping, braying at the top of his lungs in pursuit of a panicked varmint who was soon to be treed, dispatched, and roasted over a spitting fire.

Jogging after him in a festive jingle of keys and purse buckles was a red faced mom. Her hair style had recently collapsed like a dynamited building. Her coat was half on, or off, with only a single arm successfully sleeved. Her Latte' bounced and spitted molten java gobs over her hand and in a trail on the Formica behind her. She had a gleam in her eye and was locked onto her son like a laser guided missile, and she has hint of building amusement twitching at the corners of her mouth. 

The boys holiday haiku was simply one word, stuck in and endless loop, ejected from his mouth with impressive velocity and enunciation, it was a good word, a word at some time impossibly important to everyone one of us, and the it went something like this: "Toys! Toys! Toys! Toys! Toys! Toys! Toys! Toys! Toys!Toys! Toys! Toys!"

Mother and son cut a wake of frothy mirth behind them, like the V from a ferry boat cutting across a choppy bay, and it was only after they had passed, and the din diminished that, we, the collective group of disparate shoppers, leaned far back on our heels, grasped our bellies with both hands Santa Claus style, and projected our bearish roars of amusement and glad tidings toward the fluorescent heavens before continuing our quests for our glittering and space age treasures. 

 

During my usual suburban corporate sponsorship rounds earlier today I had stopped in at Noah's Bagels. I set my Starbuck's double-tall-nonfat-cappuccino on the counter so I could pay for my plain Bagel Dog (yummy!). The transaction ensued with no hitches. I returned my wallet to my back pocket and stepped back. I reached for my cappuccino and my hand waved about in empty air. It was gone. Poof. I stepped back and looked around. Nobody else was there. A tumbleweed bounced by. I swear I heard legions of crickets. The missing beverage was not on the floor. It wasn't on the counter. What the hell? How was this possible? Was I loosing my marbles finally? My face starting to turn red and heat up. I'm embarrassed to be doing this silly dance. It's only then that I realize that its actually hanging off the front of my stylish fleece outerwear. Yes, unbelievably, the thin plastic edge of the lid had wedged itself between two teeth on my vest's zipper and was hanging there like James T. Kirk hanging one handed from El Capitan. Frickin' show off! I grabbed it, uttered "holy crap", took a big swig, and swaggered out of Noah's like I planned the whole crazy stunt. Then I went back in for my Bagel Dog. Sometimes you just gotta laugh. 

Yesterday B. worked one of her odd jobs doing drug infusions at a Doctor's office near Alta Bates in Berkeley (she's a R.N.). Her BMW is in the shop, so she had to drive the Hummer. To Berkeley. Probably not a good idea for a couple of reasons. Parking. Irate mentally ill and fanatical Berkeley citizens.

So when she got to Berkeley and parked the truck, she saw some cranky old lady walking her little mop-head rat faced dog nearby. The old lady was giving the H2 the evil eye. Whatever. This happens a lot. I've been flipped off. Honked at. Whatever. I don't care. People are non smart, closed minded, and stubborn. But when B. came back to the H2 after a long day's work, tired, and needing to drive all the way home to San Jose, she found that the cranky old lady had left her rat faced dog's poop bag on the hood of the car. Not cool. And massively passive aggressive. I feel sorry for her husband (or partner) and her forty-five rabid cats. Hah. Presumably this was some sort of political statement. In the end we just laughed. But this is typical of my experiences in Berkeley and is why I hate it. To this day I refuse to go there.

Let me explain why. I know this is going to piss someone off. Let me just say that I hate Berkeley because of my personal experiences living there for a year. This is my view on it, my opinion, and I freely agree that you may have a very different experiences with it. For example, I think a UC Berkeley student's experience there would probably be very different than mine. Much more fun. I worked at Halestorm, a small game company which is now defunct, and that was why I lived there. No other reason. Working for Halestorm was great and living in Berkeley really sucked the life out me. In fact I got the sickest I've ever been when living there, which I don't think was a coincidence. But for the record I met some great people while working at Halestorm. Unfortunately I've lost touch with them and I regret that. (Mitch are you out there?)

So take the poop bag experience. Multiply the frequency of weird stuff like that by like a couple hundred. At least something weird happened every day. Buying coffee. Getting lunch. Walking to work. Dodging extremely aggressive street people (who were as likely to spit at you as harass you). After a while it really got to me and I quit my job and moved back to San Jose and I haven't been back since. This was over ten years ago.

Berkeley does have one good thing. Zachary's Pizza. Actually there are two stores, and one is in Oakland, so you don't even have to go into Berkeley to get it. Anyway, B. brought home a Zachary's pizza the other day and it wasn't all that great. So maybe Berkeley doesn't even have that going for it anymore.

Before you fire up your irate comments. Know this. You're not going to change my mind. My experiences were real. When I moved there I was excited. It was a change of scene. More hip. More urban. Berkeley let me down, disappointed me, and crushed me under it's weird vibe and I ran screaming back to the suburbs. This was MY experience. Your experience is probably very different from mine. Notice I didn't say that Berkeley sucks or make any generally sweeping judgements, I'm only talking about my experience there. I said "I hate Berkeley" and I'm only speaking for myself. If you leave me a flaming comment, I'll just delete it, so don't bother. If you want to leave a thoughtful comment, please do, even if you disagree with me.

And I really do miss the friends I made working there.

Edit: We got another Pizza from Zachary's. A half baked one we finished cooking ourselves and it was excellent. The previous not so good was not so good because it sat in the car for a while before we ate it and it got a bit cold and soggy I think.

I posted about the Campbell Duck Killer a while back. Urge to kill rising! Today I searched around on the web a bit, but there doesn't seem to be any developments as of yet (I was surprised to see my post so high in the results!). I hope they catch this sociopath path soon. Anyway, that's not why I'm posting. I thought you might like to know that when I drove by the scene of the crime this morning (as I do every day), I saw four ducks poking around on Spoons restaurant lawn. Yay, it wasn't total duckocide then. That made me smile. A little thing in life to be sure, but who doesn't like starting their day off with a good duck sighting? Not me.

For the love of Pete. What in the name of all that is holy? What the fajizzle?

Luck. Hah. I laugh at you, Mr. luck. I turn and show you my backside, luck. Luck, we used to be friends. Now? Not so much.

Started off with the big blinking neon sign. Letters brilliantly crimson. A sign as big as little Timmy's heart. NO SALE. See, the Hummer didn't sell on ebay. The auction ended some seven grand short of the reserve. And the reserve price included a pint of my blood and and ass kicking from Lenny a big fellow I know who bounces at the Spearmint Rhino (hah, inside joke). Needless to say, I would have only reluctantly parted with the truck at the price. Very reluctantly. But seven grand less? That's just not happening. Might as well start it up, put it in super low crawl speed, jump out and lie down in front of the 35" knobbies and let it crawl over me, squishing me like a jelly donut. This I'd kinda like to avoid.

Next, around three thousand bucks in fraudulent charges on my debit card, which started a house of cards collapse of my financial empire including maxing out my already heavy laden credit card in overdraft charges and about forty five hundred bank fees, thus tripling the original theft, all assessed to my already bleeding from the ears account, assessed from my friends over at Wells Fargo Bank. First they have the overdraft fee, which keeps recurring while you're still overdrawn, thus making you more overdrawn, which they charge you for, and and so on. Then they start in with the we're really annoyed with you fees, and the you could loose a few pounds fee, and the you're addicted to caffeine fee, and then the crowning jewel, the ha ha you can't sell your gas guzzler truck fee. Then they really start going to work on you.

Next, I call in the theft to the bank. Of course their computer system is down. I think they said something about it being overloaded by all the fees it was assessing my account in a feetastic binge. Bastards. So they write down my info with a pen which was obtained, after a battery draining hold during which I was curled up on the floor crying, from the supervisor at an additional pen acquisition fee levied against my account. Ok, fine. Whatever. Do what you need to do.

Next, on the following day, B. calls me during her lunch break at work. The BMW won't start. It goes click click click. But the stereo still works. Hmm. Not good! AAA comes out. We're expecting it to be towed to my pal Ted. Ted waits with his fellas like a F1 pit team. Turns out the car just needs jumping. Stand-down Ted, stand-down! The jump ensues. The car starts. Okay. She drives home. Uh oh, all the feared warning lights on the dashboard related to stopping the vehicle safely appear to be blinking on the dashboard and a female voice is repeating, "you have ten minutes to reach minimum safe distance". Holy crap. Wells Fargo calls me and tell me they've fined me for allowing B. to drive home under these conditions and I hear laughter in the distance.

Next, I take the car to Ted the next day. He does his thang. Wrenches. Grease. Lifts. Much hilarity ensues at my expense. He calls me. "I think it's the ABS brake controller. It's gone bad. The car was jump started incorrectly. The ABS controller is worth more than your house." So to be sure he takes it over to the dealer. Ted's guy knows a guy there. Some green slides palm to palm stealthily. Turns out it's a calibration issue. The steering wheel must be perfectly straight when jumping the car or the computer freaks out and explodes. Who knew? This is fixed at the dealer. Ted saves the day. Things are looking up.

I call Wells Fargo Bank to check up on the fraudulent charges. Who are you? Why are you calling us? We have no record of your call. We'll have to redo the report. Sorry your card has not been cancelled yet.

Then out to a fun dinner with the peeps in San Francisco to celebrate my buddy Dick's birthday. I pick up B. from work at Stanford Hospital on the way, leaving the Corvette there for later pickup. So you know when you go out and there's that loud annoying table shooting off bottle rockets and air horns? That was us. The waiter took away our super soakers though. It was a fun dinner anyway. Then just as we're leaving. Um sir, there's a problem with your card. We accidently voided the transaction. Can we run it through again? Fine whatever okay. Um sir the bank is asking us to call them now and they're not answering. Meanwhile it's 1am in San Francisco and I have to work the next day and we're like an hour away from home. Everyone else has left. We still have to pick up my Corvette at Stanford Shopping Center on the way home. Finally they give up and give me my card. I have my revenge by doing a big smokey donut in the parking lot when I pick up my Corvette. Sweet. Take that, um, credit card people, I give you smoking rubber (which, of course, I'll need to replace now, using said credit card. Oh, the irony.)

The next day Bank of America calls me. To make sure all the recent charges on the card are legit. Uh oh. They run down the list, ending with the resteraunt the night before. It's okay. It's me. I've just been using the card for all my usual cash card purchases since I don't freaking have a cash card at the moment. It's ten minutes after I hang up with them before I realize that they said the charge was $175.00 instead of $146.00. Jeez. Wells Fargo Bank calls me up and just starts laughing at me and then they hang up. Now I have to go hunt down more stolen money.

I check my WFB checking account. I was supposed to have a credit of the money stolen back to my account the previous night at midnight. Hah, it's still deeply in the red.

The next day, they finally do credit my account. Minus all the fees. Which they said they would reverse. Hah.

Just now took B. to the airport in her BMW. You know the recently fixed one. On the way home, "blong" goes the dashboard. I look down to see a blinking warning message. "ALL TAIL LIGHTS RELATED TO SAFELY COMMUNICATING YOUR BRAKING STATUS TO A FOLLOWING VEHICLE HAVE IMPLODED, LEAVING SMOKING CRATERS, YOU HAVE TEN MINUTES TO REACH MINIMUM SAFE DISTANCE." That's okay though, cause when this happens I'm stuck in a massive traffic jam on the freeway and am already stopped.

My cell phone rings. It's Wells Fargo Bank and they're laughing at me and once again I'm crying like a little girl.

So I tonight I'm kickin' it in my best Hef styled robe, all plush, fuzzy, and warm. It's a deep maroon. I'm puffing on a tightly rolled stogie and flopping around the east wing of the ranch in my mink and leather slippers. I sit down at my tennis court sized desk, which is made of amazon rain-forest burl-wood, and I fire up Microsoft Money in order to survey my vast financial empire, expecting to fire off some memos to have my grovelling underlings pay the Lear jet pilot, the helicopter fuel people, and my monthly submarine parking fees, and I see that I’m overdrawn by like eight hundred bucks in my checking account. "What in tarnation?" I shout, the side of my mouth clamped down on the Cuban. I look at my transaction history and see about three thousand bucks worth of google ad word purchases. Them there's fraudulent charges, I say to myself, and quickly follow this statement by launching the cigar out of my mouth like a scud missile propelled by a soliloquy of profanities so vile, so poisonous, so disgusting that it kills all the plant life within several hundred feet of my home and just stuns any nearby mouth breathing mammal into motionlessness, placing me at ground zero of my own little crater of scorched and smoking ex-greenery. Near as I can figure it, either my latest purchase at the local five star eatery (Arby's) or a recent donation to the red cross is the culprit, the corrupter of my exclusive one of a kind credit card, the one I almost bought an aircraft carrier on last week. Them sons of bitches, now ya'll have gone and pissed me off.

 

I work in an office building which is a few hundred feet away from giant freeway road construction project. CalTrans is building about three to four hundred ramps and overpasses and braiding them all together to connect two pathologically clogged bay area roadways. It's so complex that they'll have an exit for you that will put you back on the freeway you were already on BEFORE you exited the first time, all so you have more time to choose which of the many exits to take and read the thirty to forty road signs. My theory is that you'll be able get stuck behind yourself in the fast-lane and give yourself the finger. A closed loop of road rage. Time travel paradoxes be damned.

So my coworkers and I have all been watching the build progress, and every so often they open a new connector or entrance or exit and it's kind of fun to explore and to watch the progress they're making. Well, most of the time. Sometimes they do something that doesn't help much, like funnel forty lanes of traffic through a concrete walled alley where teen agers shoot paintpall pellets at you. Or they periodically they bust out the effing ginourmous post hole pile driver.

This thing is about three or four stories tall and all it does is lift a giant metal battering ram up and then drop it into the hole they're pile driving into the ground (paging Dr. Freud). You may guess that this is a little loud. You can actually hear it in our building several offices deep, though double paned windows, office doors, and Star Wars posters. I used to have a window office facing the spot where they're doing this work and it's more than a little annoying when they were running it all day, everyday. Clang. So. Clang. How. Clang. Is. Clang. The. Clang. Project. Clang. Coming. Clang. Along? Clang. Clang. Clang. Shit!

So today was a beautiful morning. Blue skies. No clouds. Around seventy degrees. I had fun zipping around frightened minivan pilots in my little red corvette. Heel toeing into corners, lane splitting at 110 MPH, passing on the shoulder, jumping creeks in an effort to loose that pesky Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane (get 'em flash!), all while rocking out to my Lynyrd Skynyrd cassette I bought at the stop n' sip truck stop. And all while holding my double tall non-fat cappuccino from Starbucks in one hand, the gear shift in one hand, and the steering wheel in one hand. A typical commute for me.

So I pull in to a spot at work, open the door and am greeted by the pile driver's cheery clang. Then I notice something. After every drop into the hole, and after every window vibrating clang, a puff of diesel smoke chugs out of the machine with a very loud whuufff. Then the clang echoes off the buildings behind me a couple of times with a clang-alang-alang. Then the pile driver drops again with its bone rattling clang. WTH? All the noises were bumping along in a catchy musical rhythm! I stopped, cocked my ears like a curious dog, and listened for a few seconds. Wow. And in stereo too, the clang-whuff in my left ear, the clang-alang-alang in my right ear. So I got my cardboard out of my truck and break danced for two hours. Then I did a little popping. Then I did the robot (more cool videos here).

After that I strutted into work with my own kickin' industrial soundtrack. And, yes, I am a ladies man.
Clang-whuff-clang-alang-alang.
Clang-whuff-clang-alang-alang.
Clang-whuff-clang-alang-alang.
Clang-whuff-clang-alang-alang.

Once I entered the building though, it was back to the Clang. Hey. Clang. Good. Clang. Morning. Clang. Clang. Clang. Shit!

My handy dandy wireless thermometer is telling me that it is 97 degrees on my front porch. In the shade. And in my bid to remain cool, I just shredded a few thousand old financial documents. Take that, heat. And now I'm off the Staples to buy hanging folders. See, here's my theory, the best way to fight the heat it to organize your financial documents. Thank god for Staples. Or I'd be, like, really hot right now.

Happy birthday to me! Today's my fortieth birthday and a wild pack of nerdly inclined folks are going to Las Vegas to celebrate. Hah, like you need a reason to go to Las Vegas. They're just humoring me and I'm onto their diabolical plot.

We're leaving any second now and I'm anxiously waiting for our ride to the airport. Travel always stresses me out. But it's Vegas and that's worth the triple no-soy no-foam shot of Pepto-Bismol. 

So we're staying in the The Venetian and we're going to see Zoomanity, the "Erotic" Cirque Du Soleil show. We've been calling it Cirque De Boobies because we think the work boobies is funny. And we're immature. Huh, huh, you said boobies. Did I say I was turning forty? I guess you're only old once the word boobies isn't funny any more. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Interestingly, the World Series of Poker is this weekend in Vegas. Maybe we'll drop by and loose our house in a no-limit game of Texas Hold-Em. Will Wheaten is playing in the tournament. Good luck Will!

 

Sorry, no jokes in this post. Consider this fair warning of this post's tone. 

I'm not sure what the "Taliban" is all about in this context (and don't care), but these are some terrifying quotes from some powerful people. These extreme viewpoints frankly scare the poo out of me.

This really hit a nerve with me, having gone to church all of my childhood and having attended a Christian high school. Let's just say that currently I'm not a fan of the whole going to a random building and singing songs and listening to some guy talk about stuff in a way that doesn't resonate with me. Who is this guy to tell me how I should live my life? Who are these people? What is this building? I think you know what I mean.

I've experienced the attitude found in the linked quotes first hand, though it wasn't so extreme, and it wasn't perpetrated by people who were running the country. I experienced this at church and in school, and it really makes me want to blow chunks into the nearest recycling bin. This is why I don't go to church. One reason anyway.

I'd like to have more of a spiritual connection to a higher power, to god, or to God, whoever she is, I really would. I'm not even sure what that would mean exactly - I just have a vague feeling there's more to this life than meets the tape-measure, but if it means hanging with this crowd and acquiring these viewpoints, then I'm so out. I'm as far out as possible. I'm no longer in the Milky Way, I'm so far out.

It also strikes me that having a relationship with god is so not about this. It's so not about people who don't take personal responsibility for themselves. It's so not about forcing intolerant morals on others. But unfortunately (for me) I associate church with this so strongly that I really get a major case of the hee-bee-jee-bees (internal gurgling and build up to chuck blowage) in any church I set foot in. Even in the Notre Dame in Paris I felt this way! How sad for me. It's a decidedly unpleasant feeling to be avoided. Kind of like food poisoning. Ok one joke. Sort of.

I hope this doesn't offend anyone used to my lighter fare. Some of very best and oldest friends are Christians, one in particular, as is my family (you know who you are and I love you all). I respect their beliefs and, thankfully, they don't fall into this category of narrow moral blindness and they don't judge or pontificate or try to convert me. So thank god for that (he said ironically).

So there is hope, actually. So some kind of separation between the intolerant dogma, and what modern intelligent, and self aware Christians believe exists. That's good. That's very good. It's hard for me not to throw the baby out with the bath water though. I admit it. I can't separate it all very well. I probably don't have a very objective or rational viewpoint on all this. But you know what? That's on me. That's my responsibility. So there.

So in lieu of a point, I'll just stop typing and I'll now return to my regularly scheduled programming. Thanks for reading.

 

 

I just got my Corvette washed and waxed at the local hand wash place. $85 bucks, but holy cud eating cow, does it look down right spiffy and shiny and sweet. There was so much dirt and grime on it, it had changed it's shape into a 1973 lime green pinto. Not good! Not good at all! But now it's back, it's bad-ass, and it's wanting to rumble (yeah, that's it ). Even my shiny semi-thrashed steel wheels look great.

Anyway, thought ya'll might like to know that get a car washed actually cleans it! Who knew?

 

Zooink! Wasn't expecting this piece of good news. Nice way to ring in my 40th birthday this summer, don't ya think?

 

 

I just found out about a property tax exemption that reduces what you owe, and if you qualify, they'll retroactively refund you what you overpaid! My mom's getting back a nice chunk of money, my sis and her hubby already had the exemption, but I just found out I've been overpaying. Whoohoo! Um, D'oh! Whoohoo! D'oh!

Anyway, don't know if will apply to you but here's the link for more info. Just email them and ask if you are exempt. It took less than a day for them to get back to me and they've already mailed me the paperwork! Awesome service. Go SCC!

http://www.scc-assessor.org/content/0,4745,ccid%253D66124,00.html

BTW, we would have never found out about this except that some random company sent some snail mail (spam?) to my mom offering to check her status with SCC for the low price of $49.00. My mom bit (I would have ripped it up in a rage against spam). Sigh. Anyway, this company has nothing to do with SCC and this whole process is free if you deal directly with the county. This company just sent the offer to likely candidates I guess. Makes me wonder what other money saving exemptions I'm missing out on... Hmmmm..