Category: general

Where I put something when I’m too lazy to categorize it.

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take that Dodongo

Back in the F-L-A!
First off, thanks, readers, for the comments on yesterday’s blog. Made the effort all the more worth it.

Apparently all this rain the past few days is because there’s a typhoon churning off the coast of the island. I thought I left my days of tropical-weather-tracking behind me when I moved out of Florida. It’s OK though, it seems it’ll pass us by doing nothing more than giving a good storm or two. I mean, with the humidity here it might as well be raining everyday anyway. The eye is set to pass just offshore of Northern Taiwan, which is right where we are. Anyway, kinda nice to have a Florida-esque thunderstorm raging vainly against my open hotel window while I sleep – I’ve always dug being inside while the elements thrash outside, somehow gives me feeling of power or whatever. Like, try as is may, it can’t put forth enough effort to overcome the effort that man put into the shelter which houses me. We win: human engineering 1, weather 0. I say that now, when this week alone the earth and sky have so far teamed against me in both an earthquake and now typhoon. Damn, does Taiwan have volcanoes?

My trip to Taiwan so far has been filled with omen. OK, not “filled” with omen, but at least containing some omen. I’m not sure what it all means yet, but if one of you four who read this are armchair numerologists – get back to me with your interpretation. See, when I checked into the hotel – I got room number 1111. Now, I thought that was kinda cool – and immediately came up with some good jokes about how I’m all “number one” or something. Since then, the number one is all over my trip. Every time I take a cab ride, the total is spot on 100NT? each time for four separate rides. When we go to customers to present, we sometimes get temp badges. I didn’t check on the 1st day, but yesterday my badge was number 111. Is that crazy or what? I checked my flights back, and none of them are all ones – so I take that to either mean they will end in a fiery crash into the sea, or something? at least.

I skipped dinner last night, unintentionally, heading up to my room for a “nap” after a Boddington’s with the boys in the hotel bar. I hit the bed around 8pm and didn’t wake up until the typhoon loudly hurled rain into my window around 1am. I missed a phone call and a knock on the door, I think the 4am bedtime the night prior really sapped me. Anyway, I ended up getting about eleven hours of sleep – which I think is the main contributing factor to how energized and well I feel now. I even managed to wake up early enough to give myself some time to play a little Zelda64 before breakfast (I’m so freakin’ addicted, I totally just liberated Dodongo’s cave on Death Mountain and I’m kicking butt – I’m actually looking forward to a possible 10hr of uninterrupted playing time on the flight home). We were slated to head to some club which is infamous for it’s Wednesday night “ladies night,” but I sacked it instead. I’ll be here next Wednesday anyway, so I can scam the Taiwan-tang then if need be.

I gotta say, I look pretty awesome in some dress clothes. I mean, I’m still fat and whatnot – but I clean up OK. This morning I made sure to ask Sharaun if my intended shirt/pants combo was legal: blue shirt and black pants. It seems it would be legal, but dependant on what shade of blue the shirt was. I described it as light to medium blue, at which point she blessed the ensemble (seems dark blue and black won’t work). So anyway, I’m sitting here, looking dapper as all get out, ready to wow these dudes with my public speaking skillz. It’s good to be able to talk to Sharaun each morning and run my planned outfit by her, since apparently I’m totally incapable of knowing what “goes.” It’s OK though, because with her to rebuff me as an “idiot” for even suggesting dark blue and black, I don’t have to worry about it.

I’m getting tired of presenting the same thing over and over again. Tired of the forced laughs and smiles and feigned interest in things. At least next week I’m presenting some different material to a semi-different audience, maybe that’ll be enough to keep me awake. At our first meeting today, our audience sucked – eight presenters to three attendees. Three attnedees? For most of the previous sessions we had a pretty good turnout. Sometimes I wish I could just chill at the hotel or bum around the city instead. Owell.

If you guys wanna call Hammertime, the featured guest of yesterday’s entry, her international number (I think all Taiwanese hookers who are worth their salt have international numbers) is: 886955863197. ‘Night y’allz, Dave out.

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I shaved for you

Mmmm... beetlenut.
Taiwan. Again. Sitting here in the offices of one of our customers while another member of our traveling marketing troop presents up front. Marketing always gets to talk before engineering, it’s just the way it goes. Figured it’s as good a time as any to get a quick entry in. I was planning to write last night but I had my great “catch-up” sleep. You know, that night where you sleep like a corpse after traveling to a 15hr+ timezone. So far though, it’s been good. Yummy food, decent beer, and ridicu-hot Florida-esque weather. Yay Taiwan.

For the flight over here, I thought I’d try something a little different this time. Usually, I just try and sleep as much as possible, and get through the 10hr trip with only a few crazy dreams and some bedhead. This time, I took a little while to load my laptop with both a classic NES emulator and a N64 emulator, along with a bunch of ROMs. I configured a cheap Wal Mart controller for the emulators, and boom – access to hundreds of old-school Nintendo games for the flight. Just like 5th grade again. Anyway, I started playing Zelda64 for the Nintendo64, which came out when I was college. Holy crap, I am now hopelessly addicted to this game. I played for nearly six hours on the plane and another couple in the hotel that night. And I find myself finding excuses to head up to the room for an hour and get some Zelda in. Hopefully I won’t beat it before I leave here so I can have something to play on the flight back.

The more I come to Taiwan, the more comfortable I am here. I guess it just comes with a sense of familiarity, you know, getting used to you surroundings and the way things work. On Saturday we took the public transit (MRT) downtown to poke around, and it was no problem having done it before – even for a couple of white boys who don’t speak the language. We headed down to Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world, and did some shopping. I hate shopping, but I love people-watching, especially in a foreign country, so it was OK. We’ve got a really good group of engineers and marketing brothers out here this time, so going out is always enjoyable no matter where we go.

Changing subjects, I was thinking before I left about what it’s going to be like when the backyard is finally done. I mean done like done, done like I can lay out a hammock and look around the backyard while relaxed – instead of spotting a million little projects that still need to be done. That backyard has consumed my spare time like nothing else before, I think of it all the time. It’s been a monumental project that I’ve given a lot of sweat and muscle too, and I’ll kind of be sad to see it go. Although, it will be nice to have the option of yardwork-less weekends and evenings again.

The “desert island” beard I was growing is gone. That’s right, in preparation for my trip, I mowed my face before leaving the other night after coming in from the yard. I had been planning to keep the shaggy unkempt mess as a vie for some respect while in Taiwan. See, at one point while my Taiwanese customers were here in the states, and I had neglected my shaving as I so often do, they told me I looked “much more handsome” with the “beard.” So, I started growing a “desert island” beard – a beard which is purposely unmanaged and allowed to grow wild. Only problem is, my beard tends to want to “connect” to my chest hair, which isn’t all that flattering. That and, my beard isn’t really that conventional, I don’t grow a single hair in the “soul patch” or moustache areas – smooth as a baby’s butt. Which makes for a beard that’s pretty unbalanced in favor of the neck, making my lack of chin all the more pronounced. Owell, it’s gone now.

As much as I can, I’m going to try and write each day while I’m here. It’s kinda hard, what with work each day and being addicted to Zelda64 in my free time, but y’know, I’m dedicated here folks. I need to keep my three or four readers abreast on what’s going. Until tomorrow, or whatever, Dave out.

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hammer to thumb

We're watching you.
I am so overly proud of the work I’ve done in the backyard. Honestly, when I’m out there working I’m constantly “taking a break” to look out over my creation. I think I spend about 40% of my time just wandering around looking at the parts that are finished, admiring them and judging them, recalling the work that went into them, standing in the sun beaming smiles towards them. The fruits of my labor, the reason my hands now have just a little teeny-tiny bit of oh-so-desired roughness in place of their normal computer-engineer suppleness. Yes that’s right, I made this, from scratch. The thing that really gets me though, is that it’s actually starting to look good. I mean, good like almost professionally-done good. When did I get so handy?

Anyway, in the spirit of fully enjoying this particular deadly sin I’ve decided to post some pictures of the current state of affairs out back. So here ya go, feast your eyes on these six new snaps of what’s going on. (See, pictures add seemingly-meaningful bloat an otherwise sleepy blog.) Gaze on, and see for yourself why I feel I’m rightfully proud:


The beginnings of our new porch, hand-laid and leveled.
Zone three in full operational glory, watering our pear trees.
Zone two in action alongside the newly mulch-covered retaining wall slope.

Once again our front yard is filled with pallets of stone.
What a thumb looks like after being smashed between a paver and rubber mallet.
Sharaun wanted equal-time for her newly manicured fingers when I was photographing my injured thumb.

Well, a combination of factors are making me close this entry tonight: I’m tired, it’s late, and I don’t feel like writing anymore. G’nite – Dave out.

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out of element

Look at that black dude's balls!
I’ve decided that I’m just not extreme. Some people, while not extreme – can make that extreme transition. Working a desk job by day and paragliding or basejumping by night. Me, not so much. Not that I’m not crazy or afraid to take risks, I’ve always been willing to stick my neck out. It’s not even that I’m afraid to be extreme, I just don’t think I’m cut out for it. I’ll wakeboard, slide down waterfalls, hike mountains, etc., but I think I’m just a few ticks shy of being truly “extreme.” No worries, I think I’m “mundane” or maybe “average with a touch o’ crazy.” Either way, this paragraph is over.

Oh man, I thought of an awesome idea last night. I decided that Anthony, Ben, and I should get together and pitch a reality show to the networks. I had several ideas, but most centered around us pitching a classic “out of element” show where three computer engineers go somewhere “uncharacteristic” and have their experience taped. My first idea was to take three engineers and have them go to Alaska and homestead (man, I really thought you could still do that). The cameras could follow us as we try to build a house, farm, hunt, whatever. You know: “Three computer engineers, one raised on farm, one who used to be fat, and one who can’t do math – abandon their cubicles for a shack in the Alaskan wilderness.” Maybe the Alaska thing is too extreme (there’s that word again), but we could pitch a few ideas just for good measure: three engineers run a charter fish camp on a tropical island, move to the French countryside and run a winery, walk the Appalachian trail for three months, etc. So yeah, I have a wife… don’t worry, I’d work her in somehow.

Today I actually broke my cycle of laziness and got out to work in the backyard. I filled all the ditches for the sprinklers in “zone three,” and did some general rock cleanup. Then I fired up the sprinklers and sat on a stool in the middle of them, just because I could. It was relaxing actually, after sweating and working to rake dirt and rocks, sitting in the middle of a rain of cool water looking out over my creation. I am God of this backyard, all ye lizards and crickets boweth unto me and offereth up ye tributes unto me.

I’ve been listening to the new Polyphonic Spree album, and – it’s pretty good. I mean, it’s saccharine-sweet hippy crap, but great music. I’ve also decided I have to see these guys live. You may remember them as doing a song on an Ipod commercial a while back (indie is so out-of-the-closet), but the “band” is a sight to behold. Actually, they freak me out a little bit. Mostly because they look like some freakish doomsday cult, ala Heaven’s Gate or something. I count twenty-five white frock wearing “brethren” in most of the band shots, creepy. But for all the creepiness, they make some dang fine tunes. Even though the copy I have is all busted (a terrible blippy, bloopy, hiccuppy rip), I can hear the potential goodness of the album.

Time for bed, g’night.

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waiting for the bus to take me to college

Spacey man, far out.
Even though Skinny Puppy’s Rabies may be one of the worst examples of “music” ever, it’s a like opening a musical time capsule for me. Listening tho this album brings my clad-in-black high school days rushing back. Not that I feel into the whole industrial/goth thing for too long, I’d say maybe six months top – but there was a time I lived for Frontline Assembly, Ministry, Skinny Puppy, and the like. So listening to it now as a byproduct of my ripping project is fun enough. I’m mad right now because I can tell I’m going to have to stop writing at some point and go pee, and I hate interrupting my writing – the urge goes stale really quick. Chances are I’ll come back to the page and deem everything I’ve written already “crap.” Owell.

I came home from work today fully intending to head into the backyard and fill in the ditches that comprise my recently-finished sprinkler system. However, it was so balls-hot today, I decided a nap on the couch would be far more rewarding. It’s OK, I worked quite a bit this weekend – the pavers for the porch were delivered last week and I started laying them. Seeing the combination of the finished retaining wall and newly-added mulch, the trees, and a little imagination for a finished paver-porch and green grass, I’m getting really excited. I actually think the backyard is gonna look better than average when I’m done. To be able to say that I did it 100%, from planning to labor to maintenance – will be a source of extreme pride for me. Considering I learned most of the skills on my feet as I went along, I think I’ve earned that pride.

Listening to the “new” Nick Drake album, not new really – but some of the mixes are new and even a few tracks are new to me. He’s got one of the most brilliant voices, and his writing is awesome. To think I “discovered” him back in college from a VW commercial or something (remember, they were all headed to a party – got there, and decided that driving with the moonroof down was better than the party?). Anyway, fate would have it that I “discovered” Nick Drake and Elliot Smith around the same time – so they’ve kinda “melded” in my mind as period artists. Reminding me of hot, rainy, summer afternoons in Florida, waiting for the bus to take me to college. Good memories, good music.

The Taiwan trip is sneaking up on me, and I haven’t really been preparing that much in terms of getting ready for my presentations. I need to set up some meetings at work to “pick some brains” and make sure I have the right canon of knowledge and current marketing party-line when I get up there. I’m not worried about the customer visits, but the industry training event is a little different, as I want to do a good job and not just be another white dude up there blathering. While I’m excited about the trip (I always am), I expect the last minute “ugh, I don’t even feel like going” feeling to set in as the date draws near (it always does). I always end up having a blast though, and each time I teach or present in front of an audience my confidence in doing so improves vastly. Crap thing this time: I miss Sharaun’s birthday while I’m over there. Yeah, that really bums me out, but what can ya do?

Doodoo time.

Much better. An odd out-of-cycle dump, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Drifting off into the don’t-wanna-write-anymore ether, Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures lulling me along. Too long staring at the screen writing nothing means it’s time to call it quits. Until tomorrow, Dave out.

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roll your own

I am the winner!
I’m off vacation, I’m off vacation (read it again, as a funeral dirge). Yes yes y’all, it’s over. It was rad to the bone while it lasted, filled with relaxing days of blessed unproductively and unabashed laziness. Alas, the week is at an end and by the time this is posted I’ll be back at work, busily climbing the corporate ladder. It’s cool though, I’m refreshed and actually kinda ready to get back to things left cold on my plate a week past. I mean, I’m just sitting here on bellyful of tri-tip omelet, fresh off a splendid leisurely dump, ripping through my CD collection. What am I saying, this rocks. Work blows. Where’s that winning lottery ticket?

Somehow, we got to talking about the whole toilet paper discussion the other night – and my earlier entry about the mechanics of my wipe. People were in general agreement that the “kinda stand up and wipe from behind” technique which I employ isn’t that odd at all, which made me feel better – but then we delved into more detail and I was once again made to feel alone in my wiping style. See, we decided to discuss not just the “direction” of wipe, but the TP usage model as well. So, how to you use the paper? My answer brought forth laughter, shock, and mocking. However, like my previous fears about my strange wiping techniques – the internet helped me to feel a bit less “unique.” (Not that the internet is a good place to judge the weirdness or non-weirdness of your actions or anything).

According to this page, 20% of people admit to using TP the way I do: the “whole-hand wrap.” That’s right. I forsake the more popular “wad” and “fold” techniques for what I consider to be a far superior method. It goes something like this: take TP in hand and grasp the lead edge between thumb and inner palm, now spin roll around hand to get hygienic “mummy-like” coverage (if you cannot remove the roll from the spinny thing, you must unravel a long span and manually wrap). It’s best to cover from the top of the palm to about a half-inch below the fingertips. Now take the karate-chop edge of the hand and pinky and use as the primary wiping-surface. Once you’ve used this section of the wrap, and with a little practice, you’ll learn to rotate the entire TP glove to a clean spot and reuse – all with one hand. Usually three rotations’ll do it clean. At this point, depending on the tightness of your wrap, you can either unravel the TP into the bowl using a gentle circular shaking motion, or alternatively spread your fingers and break through the paper straightjacket ala Bruce Banner’s Hulk-transformation shirt ripping.


getting ready to wrap		        
a couple rotations to rule out any
single-layer bleeding
 

tightly wound, nice coverage		        
powerful, yet clean, hands bust through
the feces-coated paper sheath

And that’s it, no chance of poo on the hand as I would imagine you risk with either the “wad” or “fold” technique. Am I a savage for this? I mean, is this not more sensible than simply shoving a “wad” of paper up your butt? A wad which may or may not provide 100% hand-coverage? So, next time you’re at my house and you catch yourself wondering why all the rolls of toilet paper are loose and sitting on top of the spinny thing rather than inserted through it as normal – you’ll know why. Mock me if you will, I found what works for me and America tells me to embrace it rather than change it because society deems it “odd.” So to summarize – I wipe in a semi-upright position, from bottom to top, and with the paper wrapped around my entire hand. What a site this ritual must be for an observer, I shudder to think.

My upcoming travel plans have morphed so much in the past week not even I know what’s really going on. I think, that it goes something like: Houston to Taiwan, and scrapping the Japan visit for another week in Taiwan. I was kinda bummed that the Japan stint got canned, but there’ll be other chances I guess – I was just looking forward to the newness. The good bit, Pat and Anthony will be in Taiwan that 2nd week, so I’ll have some people to hang out with and whatnot. Also sounds like I’ll be headed to Oregon again next week to teach some kinda class. In other work news, my boss decided to take a different job – so in a short while I’ll be bossless and anxiously awaiting the appointment of a new good, or bad, leader. I have some concerns there, but it’s out of my hands – so I just do what bossman says (whoever bossman may be that day).

After a week of laid-back vacationing with Sharaun’s folks, and a semi-forced relapse into a slow southern drawl, I’m realizing how much I enjoy spending time with family. I mean, the in-laws used to be this intimidating bunch of people from whom I desired acceptance. After four years of marriage, it’s clear they approve of my union to their eldest, and even that we enjoy each others’ company. Much to my surprise, Sharaun’s dad and I agree on a great many things – more so than I ever would’ve imagined. The thing that probably floored me the most: he’s a die-hard Democrat and thinks Bush is making a mess of the good ol’ USofA. I dunno why I was so surprised by it, I just associate Southerners with conservatism or something. Actually, politically, he’s a lot like me. Not a rabid Dem, but not a rabid member of the GOP either – somewhere down the middle, and not afraid to vote for a dude regardless of party affiliation. Surprising, but nice.

Dave out.

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me, i whistle all the time

Guess!.
I’m on vacation, I’m on vacation (read it again, mockingly sing-song this time, like kids on the ballfield, y’know?). No, really. I’m on vacation. A week of time off, today being day #1. Sharaun’s folks don’t get here until late (10ish), so I have the whole day tomorrow to work in the yard, write, sleep, or maybe cook something. Cook something?

I was thinking the other day about the talent of whistling. Some people can’t whistle; me, I whistle all the time. I actually prefer whistling along to music over singing, perhaps because I tend to favor the tune over then words – but that’s immaterial. Anyway, whistling: how’s it work? Have I just been conditioned to know what blow-velocities and degrees of lip-pursing produce which tones? I can hear a song, or note or whatever, and whistle it back nearly pitch-perfect. I guess it just comes with time, eh?

I’m gonna admit something right now, I’ve never seen Goodfellas. Yup, that’s right – and I’m not even gay. I mean, there are quite a few mandatory-man-movies that I’ve somehow missed over the years: Goodfellas, Platoon, Scarface, Full Metal Jacket, Caddyshack, the list goes shamefully on and on. It’s not that I was a practicing non-male or anything, I guess I just never saw ’em. I know, this is cause for excommunication from the secret society – but I just had to get it off my chest. Think of more requisite male-movies, I bet I missed a fair amount of them.

Dude, all this buzz in the media about this about this unbeatable Jeopardy champ got me curious, and I decided to TiVo a couple episodes to see what it’s all about. After thirty consecutive wins, this dude has won nearly a million dollars – all from answering trivia in the form of a question. I pitted myself against him tonight and did OK, but the guy knows some seriously obscure stuff. Watching him trounce the opponents, I couldn’t help but imagine myself in his place… sweeping the categories, ripping through useless facts with a confident posture and cocksure smile, making millions.

Tonight Kristi called me with the perfect setup: she told me she was killing time reading her Jane magazine (not to worry, no more femmagazine bashing), and there was an article about the proliferation of blogs on the internet. She proceeded to read to me from the article, which started out talking about some political pundit site, and then read on: “…or read about the every day musings of an average guy at www.pharaohweb.com…” I about choked, wanting to hang up the phone that instant and call everyone I know (to brag that my blog had hit the big time, Jane magazine of course). After telling her to “shut up” a few times, she broke down and admitted the ruse. As far-fetched as it was, I wish is were real? I mean, what is a “blog” but a big “look at me” sign?

Holy crap, this has got to be the coolest game ever. Sharaun and I sat up for an hour trying to stump it with sitcom characters last night, but it beat us every time (at least, when we knew enough to give it meaningful answers). Try it, pick a sitcom character and then answer the questions as if you were that character – it’s fun with two people because one can think of the character but keep it a secret while the other poses the questions. I mean, we went totally obscure on this thing and it guessed ’em all.

Update: 12:17am, I’ve stumped the damn page! Haha, take that – I’m Fred Mertz from “I Love Lucy,” not Charles from “Charles in Charge.” Triumph! Sweet victory! Playing a dictator/sitcom guessing-game to into the wee hours… who cares! I’m on vacation.

Dave out.