Category: general

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

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scratching

Big sawmill conference Day One. I presented today. Today and Wednesday. I left home around 5am to make time for the drive over here, and was due to present “around” 11:30am. Arriving around 9am, I had a quick breakfast with my boss and then found my conference-themed polo. I stripped to the shirtsleeves in some abandoned room filled with shipping containers and donned the just out of the box and still wrinkled “official garb.” I walked into the conference room around 9:30am and was surprised when they asked me to present right around 10am; imagine my double-surprise when they told the first presenter had flaked and they needed me to fill an hour of time rather than my planned half-hour.

Great. Not much additional time to prep, but thankfully I’d used the car ride over to do some last minute run-through and tweaks (nothing like editing PowerPoint at 70mph in the passenger seat). Anyway, unexpected as the early start was, and unsure I’d be able to pull out over 30min of talking, I walked up to take my lavaliere and plug in my laptop. One big sigh and a sip of bottled water later, I began.

“Good morning folks, I’m Dave Lastname and I was supposed to have about 30min today to talk to you about ThingX. Turns out they tell me I have more like an hour, so let’s see what I can do. I drove over this morning from PlaceX today, so I’m gonna pass around a little jar for gas money here at the end of my presentation. If you like what you hear, please show me some love.”

And with that I was off. I managed to go for about 50min, and everything went much better than I had envisioned. It still wasn’t the smooth, practiced patter that comes from doing a presentation for the tenth or twentieth time, and they managed to stump me a couple times – but I got some instant feedback that I was the most engaging presenter that morning. That can make a body feel good, y’know? So, after all that fretting, it looks like the medium amount of preparation I did was sufficient. Well, at least for Monday’s session it was… I still have to do it again Wednesday (but typically things get better, not worse). Glad you guys were here to see me through it all.

Anyway, I’m back from the bar now. One too many celebratory beers and I realize I have to cut this thing short for it to make sense. I went fishing at 5am on Saturday in Florida, and I got canvassed by no-see-um bites before the sun was high enough to force them back into hiding. Two days later and I feel like I have the chicken pox or something: my legs, arms, and lower back are literally covered with red itchy welts, and I can’t stop scratching. Please, Lord, help me to stop scratching.

Goodnight

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humidty & fried gator

Home from a great-but-short trip to Florida.

Sorry for the lack of writing while there, but the whole vacationing thing really did consume our hours fully.  We did an impressive amount of stuff for such a short getaway, and, on the other side of that coin, I got precisely none of the blogging I had planned done (my halfway best-of list for this year and a new batch of pictures for Keaton were on that list).  So, it’s time to catch-up this week if I can.

While we were gone, the birds ate all my almost-ripe apricots (I was looking forward to picking them upon our return, as they looked almost ready the day we left) and the little ants mounted their annual summer invasion of the kitchen to get out of the heat. I was more mad about the fruit – seems like I’ll never be able to grow anything sweet in this yard, ants are just a nuisance. I may have to think about netting in the trees, as they pecked every single fruit, about six in total, right down to the pits – leaving nothing behind. Y’know, you plant a fruit tree, you wean it, you care for it, and then the dang birds come and pillage your fruit. Stupid birds.

I don’t know how I’m writing right now, I’m just doing it in spurts between fretting and sweating over tomorrow’s presentation. I used the flight home today to work through the material I couple times, honing it , analog-style, with a pen so I could do the touchups in PowerPoint when I got home. And, with about an hour of massage the thing is, I think, where I want it. I’m still freaking a bit on time though, as I have to unpack, repack, and practice the deck a few more times before I’m comfortable with what I’m going to say. It’s just an unusual amount of procrastination on my part, and I’m usually comfortable with quite a large amount of the stuff – so this means I’m procrastinating a lot. By tomorrow’s entry, I’ll be able to either share with you my shame or trumpet my by-threads victory.

But, for now, I really have to get to bed.  It’s going on 10:30pm and I have to be up around 5am to shave and shower and get all coffee’d-up before heading over to the bay for the conference.  I’ve done three “dry runs” of my material now in front of the mirror, using the iPod’s stopwatch functionality to time how long I linger on each slide, and the total time I take for the whole of the material.  And, while I’m still not as practiced as I’d like to be, I’m as good as I’m going to get tonight.  And, I still have the carpool on the way over tomorrow to get in a few more goes.  But, I also need sleep.  So…

Before I go, I noticed that Pat has decided to blog through his sabbatical. Might be something worth checking out when ol’ faithful sounds familiar skips a day or disappoints.  I also added a link or two to the old “blogroll,” if that’s what they still call it (do they still call it that?).  So, poke around there while you wait for me to resume some sort of schedule again.

Until next time though, I love your bones… and, goodnight.

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all talk, no action

Yahtzee, 10pm and the fleshy part of my forearms is sticking to the table in the humidity.

Yeah, we’re in Florida.  You’ll have to excuse the break from daily (or somewhat-daily) writing.  It’s a short vacation, but so far it’s been a good vacation.  Chiefly comprised thus far of the pool, the beach, and some evening drinks outside by the ocean.  Like we always are, we’re a bit smooshed in the time department – lots of things we want to do and people we want to see and not a lot of time to do and/or see them all.

Our flight out was eventful, with an emergency landing in Denver for a medical emergency which emerged, medically, about two rows behind us and across the aisle.  Some poor soul had a (very frightening to watch) seizure-type thing back there two rows back and across the aisle.  The crew put an open-ended request for a doctor on the PA and a man in a maroon shirt strolled back from the front, feet guided by his Oath.  In the end, the afflicted gentleman walked off the plane in Denver under his own power, and we were off and running again after a brief refueling and visit from the cleanup-crew (this was not a clean medical emergency).  And, with a sufficiently accommodating layover, we arrived in Florida later that evening spot-on time.

Tomorrow we’re off to some new waterpark, another day with sweaty skin and wrinkled fingers.  Sun and water, water and sun – and I have not practiced one single minute for the presentation I’m giving morning-Monday the day after we return.  In all honesty, I’m feeling pretty guilty about my total and complete lack of preparation.  I mean, I’ve been under-prepared before, but this time it’s aggregious: I don’t even have my material finalized yet, and I don’t know when I will… maybe not until Sunday night when we get home.  I’m doomed, I really am.  Woe; woe is me.

I won at Yahtzee, but it’s only because I add so poorly.  Goodnight.

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mondayfriday

Sunday evening, the sun on it’s way out and the house is at it’s warmest from being open all day, baking.

I just came in from an afternoon spent working around the yard; one of my rare fits of activity. Was a good one though: got the lawn mowed, fixed a couple busted sprinklers (the tough ones, where you have to dig a trench and redo pipe and whatnot), tinkered in the garden, and finally got around to finishing up the mending I had to do on the fence ever since it blew down waaaaay back when (seriously, it was a long time ago). The work got bonus points because I got to use both my circular and jig saws, as well as my sawhorses. Any man’ll tell you, he loves getting to use the tools he spends so much money collecting. Makes me feel virile… might not wanna get near me, may end up with twins just from my scent.

Today is both my Monday and Friday this week, as we leave bright and early tomorrow morning for a week-ish long (or short, rather) vacation in Florida. The plan is simple: Some beach time, some time by the pool, maybe some molasses-based Southern barbecue, and a good bit of time with family and friends. I’ll tell you this: I’m ready for a vacation. Work has picked up of late, and looks to be aimed in that general direction for the next few months. I actually think I may have squandered my downtime… shame on me. At least we’re getting away though – and I can’t wait to see if Keaton is a little more keen on the sand and waves this time around, since she’s getting so much better in the pool.

The other day Sharaun found one of these Fisher Price kids’ digital camera things at the local Goodwill. I’d never heard of the things before, but she apparently had – and she realized the $3.99 pricetag was a steal, even if the thing didn’t turn out to be in working order she figured it for a worthwhile gamble. When she got it home, I opened it up and put in 4 AA batteries and one coin battery, put it all back together, and turned it on. Thing fired up and worked perfectly. I bet the folks who sold it either didn’t realize they needed to replace the coin battery, that, or it was stolen… one of those.

Keaton absolutely loves the thing, and acts like a professional photographer when she has it. She point it at you and say, “Onetwothree smile!,” before she snaps. The pictures are fairly poor quality, something like a tiny cellphone camera, but she still enjoys it. It has enough built-in memory for her to take about sixty or so photos, but I noticed it also had a SD card slot. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any spare SD cards, but I did have a gig MMC card I’d bought long ago when I was in Taiwan, it was for an old Nokia phone. Since MMC and SD are pretty much the same thing with just slight physical differences, I figured I’d try. I slid right in and worked great.

Anyway, I figure I may feature some of Keaton’s photography soon here on sounds familiar, so keep an eye out for that. And, while I have no firm plans for blogging or not-blogging while we’re in Florida, I can forsee a slow week (or, maybe all that free time will mean lots of writing… who knows). One thing I do want to try and do is my annual halfway best-of list… but, again, who knows.

Goodnight folks!

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the crick in my neck

Ermmmm… head so heavy. Wrested from my couchful slumbers by the phone ’round 7pm: The wife’s on the cell. “On your way home from the city?,” I say. I fell asleep on the couch; guess it’s time to heat up some leftover lasagna and figure out what I’ll be writing. Ugh, but not before I work this kink out of my neck. Why I do I sleep on this little loveseat vs. stretching out on the full couch? Every time I get this sore neck, yet I never learn. Next time – big couch.

Next week we go to Florida. It’s a short trip, only about six days, one and a half of which are arguably lost to travel. I’m excited. Some friends of ours are coming along, and I’m pretty pumped about showing one of my modern-times California friends a little of the olden-times place where I grew up and came into my own. Not that I intend for the trip to be a tour or something, but, still… the prospect has me excited about getting to impart some “color” to the local scene for them. Now then, I started that thought not to talk about how I’m excited to go “home,” which I am, but to talk instead about what happens when I get back. See, the day after I get back I have to give the first of two presentations.

I haven’t given a real presentation, like to a decent sized audience that will ask challenging questions, in a good while. And, as almost always, I’m woefully underprepared. Dave, you may say, you still have a week and a half to get ready. Yes, yes I do. But, you see, this kinda of unprepared isn’t because I simply haven’t looked at or studied or practiced the material, it’s just that I’ve not assigned a whole heck of a lot of gravity to the thing in my mind. So, I’ve given it the cursory look, practiced a loose patter, dreamed up some witty bits to add here and there to keep the crowd awake… but it’s far from what I’d call “polished.” In fact, the material is still fluid, and I fully expect it to stay that way right up until the night before I go on stage.

I’ll invest some time readying myself and the material, to be safe… but to be honest the whole thing just isn’t doing a lot to rise to the top of my task list, you know what I’m saying? C’mon presentation, you gotta fight for my attentions, I’ve got a lot going on. If you want to be good, you’d push to the top of the list. But no, you just lay there expecting me to breathe life into you. You’ll get it, but it’ll be weak.

On the way to lunch the other day, as the small group of about-to-be diners walked through the parking lot to our vehicles, ready to burn close to five bones per gallon to fill our physiological need to eat, I happened to look down and found $40 in folded twenties in a vacant spot. In one motion I bent to scoop up the money as I exclaimed, “Oh my God I am rich.” (Delivered in deadpan homage to the “Oh my God I am the winner” line from Sandler’s Billy Madison, like I do with so many other “Oh my God am I am…” starts.) I stood there for a moment, looking around me, half expecting someone walking nearby to be checking their pockets before turning around. I waited, and waited, and finally decided that the Lord had ordained I receive that money. I like finding money. When we got to lunch, I spent the $40 buying the meals of those in my car – flexing a little philanthropy in case karma was watching (I even put the dollar change into the tip jar, at Jeff’s behest). Easy come, easy go.

Goodnight.

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back to work… forever

I know, two days without writing. Don’t worry though, nothing horrible happened to me – I’ve just been spending time with our guests in from Florida, and taking a break from the daily routine. Yesterday, however, I, like millions of other dragging Americans, made the sad return to work.

Monday though, we took Sharaun’s cousin Mia and her son Tate up to Tahoe to see the sights. Even though we were initially bummed that the mid-80° temperatures that we had last weekend had disappeared in favor of cold, clouds, and rain, we ended up having a great time despite the weather. Once we got home and got all dressed-down we lounged on the couch while Sharaun got on the phone with the Chinese joint up the street to order dinner. Finally we capped off the day-off watching Cloverfield, a movie I actually really enjoyed.

I wish I could take more vacation while they’re here, but I’m all booked up through the end of the year and will have to resort to sneaking out early here and there while I can for the rest of the week. Also, it’s tough to write with company in town… so you’re gonna get a mixed bag of stuff today (and perhaps for the remainder of the week).

Sometimes I wonder if I’m going to work at my job forever. On one hand, I feel like I might like to do just that. I’m good at it, I like it, and it’s not that hard for me. Why wouldn’t I want to stick around and do it until I retire? On the other hand, I feel like there might come a point where I’m just “done” with it. I often fantasize that this will take the form of me finally having my fill of the modern business world and running off into the country with Sharaun to grow alpacas or something… but that’s probably not too realistic. Anyway, I think the whole alpaca thing is a scam anyway. In fact, maybe I should try to invent the next “alpaca.” I could popularize some under-the-radar animal that no one wants, sing its supposed virtues and sell poseur hippies like me on forsaking their careers and disappear into the country to tend to the beasts. If not though, I bet I stick around here for a while. I’m a creature of comfort, you see, I tend to settle into a routine and stay there. Upsetting that routine upsets me.

For now, I plan on taking it one day at a time. Things seem to be moving pretty fast under that approach thus far. Too bad the same days, weeks, months and years I’m at work to go fast that I want to go slow as Keaton grows. If anyone figures that out, let me know, OK?

Goodnight.

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12-20-22, i’d bet on it

Windy windy days in California lately. When I walk through the entry vestibule on my way into work it’s like being sucked through a wind tunnel (whatever that’s like, the phrase just seemed to fit). The decorative dusty-purple plum-cherry trees that line the long sidewalk up to the sawmill are losing their fruits to the gusts, the concrete littered with them, both whole and smashed flat. I didn’t even know those trees made fruit, but I jumped up to grab and eat one just to see what it was like. Not bad, tart.

Tonight I called to cancel our old United credit cards by “folding” them into our new ones (read over here about why we upgraded). Usually, I do all things related to our credit cards – I call once for myself, and then when I’m finished I call right back and impersonate Sharaun. No, I don’t affect a faux-female voice or anything, I just call and say my name is Sharaun. I’ve been doing this for years and years and never once has any credit card company called me on it. I always figured that sex wasn’t one of the immediately visible pieces of personal information the representatives are presented with when verifying they are indeed speaking to the true cardholder. This time around through, I got cold-busted. And, what’s more, I was put through the security wringer in the craziest Orwellian data-mining checkout process I’ve ever participated in. The recount:

1st rep: Good evening and thanks for calling, how may I help you tonight?

Me: Hi. I have two United Visa cards and I need to cancel one or combine them or whatever so I only have the new one.

1st Rep: No problem sir, I can do that for you. May I have your account number please?

Me: (Reads account number off card.)

1st Rep: Thank you, sir. And, may I ask who I’m speaking with?

Me: Sharaun.

1st Rep: Uh, what’s your first name, sir?

Me: Sharaun.

1st Rep: OK, let me transfer you to security sir, please hold.

Hmm…. this is strange, it’s at this point I figure something must be up. The screen in front of the representative must’ve had told her she should be talking to a female, it must have. And, she surely wasn’t. I assume she reacted just as she was trained, not asking any more questions and instead immediately escalating to the account security or fraud department. While the hold music played, I told Sharaun, who was sitting on the couch across from me, “Uh-oh, I think they know I’m not you. We’ll see how this goes.”

Security Rep: Hello sir, thank you for contacting the account security department, how can I help you this evening?

Me: Combine cards, blah, blah.

Security Rep: Of course, sir, I can transfer you to an account representative who can take care of that for you. Before I do, however, I’d like to take this opportunity to verify a few pieces of information with you for security and identification purposes. Is this OK?

Me: Sure.

Security Rep: Very good sir. I’m going to ask you a series of multiple choice questions. All the information I will be basing the questions on is from publicly available records. At any point during my reading back of the possible answers when you hear the correct answer, you can just interrupt me and tell me. Do you understand?

Me: Sure.

At this point, after the security person had given her SAT-proctor style preface, I began wondering if I hand’t got in a bit over my head. I briefly considered hanging up, running. I worried, though, that doing so may set off some alarmist sort of flag and possibly result in a hold or cancellation of the card. So, I dug in and made the choice to tough it out.

Security Rep: Which of the following four addresses in [the town Sharaun and I attended college in] are closest to a location where you previously lived in that city?

I purposely let her get through all the options. She reads four addresses, and ends with a “I’ve never lived near any of these” option. Luckily, having dated Sharaun in college, I instantly recognize the right choice, which interestingly was not her actual address, but an address on the same street she lived on. Tricky.

Me: The one one on Street-X.

Security Rep: Thank you sir. Next, according to your driver’s license, which of the following heights is closest to the height listed.

I let her read them all again. She listed four heights, all in the five foot range, and once again ended with a “None of these heights are close to what’s on my driver’s license” option. Thankfully, I had Sharaun’s wallet next to me and flipped it open to read her ID. Funny, her actual listed height wasn’t one of the options the representative offered me. So, instead of picking the closest, I decided to instead quote the height actually listed.

Me: Five foot five.

Security Rep: That’s as it appears on your driver’s license, sir? (Maybe wondering why I’d not chosen the closest option, and instead given an answer not on her list, but I was feeling bold at this point.)

Me: Yes.

Security Rep: OK sir, just a couple more questions here. Next, can you tell me what month [Sharaun’s dad’s name] was born in?

No multiple choice here, but she did give me the option of saying the person she named was not related to me in any way or I didn’t know them. Problem is, this one stumped me. I don’t know Sharaun’s dad’s birthday offhand. Worried, and again considering giving up, I didn’t immediately know what to do. After a quick “Ummm” so I could think, I decided do the only thing I could think of: I simply asked Sharaun, out loud and with the phone right at my mouth, “Hey babe, what month is your dad’s birthday in?” “May,” she replied.

Me: May.

Security Rep: (Hesitating, stammering a bit as she began, having heard me loud and clear ask someone for the right answer.) Uh… OK sir, thank you. Ah… can you please verify that last four digits of your social security number?

Me: Number-number-number-number. (This was easy, I’ve long had Sharaun’s SSN memorized.)

Security Rep: OK sir, one more question. Can you please give me one previous address?

Me: (Feeling somewhat bulletproof at this point.) Previous to what, to where I live now?

Security Rep: Yes sir.

Me: [Sharaun’s old address in high school, also her folks’ current address.]

Security Rep: And what county is that in, sir?

Me: [The county.]

At this point, I sense that the representative knows she is not talking to the real Sharaun, but is perhaps at a loss to do anything because I’ve aced the security gauntlet. What she must be thinking, I have no idea. I assume she may have figured out that I was calling on behalf of someone I was in the room with, since she should’ve been able to clearly hear me straight-up ask Sharaun for the right answer to the dad’s birthday question. Eventually, she told me she’d transfer me back to the account representative to finish my transaction.

After the hold music, the 2nd representative did end up processing the request – but not before asking me to confirm “my” mother’s maiden name, “my” current address, and “my” current home phone number. All in all, I answered around ten detailed personal-data questions, and it was the nature of the data that really surprised me and inspired me to write about it.

It’s crazy to think that somewhere, in some tiny cubicle late at night, some woman can pull up a plethora of details about you and me and anyone else in the USofA. Your old college address, what county you’re registered to vote in, what kind of car you owned from 1983 to 1991, the middle name of your firstborn, what carrier your dad served on in Vietnam, if you’re an organ donor, how long you’ve owned your house, and your favorite kind of food is based on an one-year average of credit card charges parsed and bucketed according to a “restaurant-name ethnicity” algorithm. Sheesh.

Welcome to the information age, where you exist as a collection of facts in a machine. Better hope you can remember your 7th grade gym locker combination… or you’ll never get that shiny new minivan with the built-in DVD players when the 2nd kid comes around.

There are things they don’t know, though… I still have that over them.

Goodnight and enjoy you long weekend. Love ya.