Category: general

Mmmm… entry of randomness that could’ve gone up yesterday had I not worked until 10pm. That went over well on Valentines day, as you might imagine. Flying home from out of state and getting right on the computer to work. Not to mention I went into that damned factory at 6:30am this morning to get some more catching-up done. Well, I’m caught up now, for the most part – but it sure didn’t get me laid for Valentines Day. What a shame, work before cooter… what have I become? Read on, though, my friends… there’s plenty of stuff here to keep you busy for ~5mins.

Got in one of those “I have too much stuff” moods tonight. Tore through the few CDs I held onto when I did my massive CD dump for laser eyes and threw away everything but the very bare essentials. Even then, I plan to sell these essentials via eBay or some other online wares-hawking place. Used Craigslist for the first time tonight also, as a seller, that is. Getting rid of the massive CD shelves which once held all those beloved bits of plastic… gotta squeeze every last drop out of that part of my CD-hoarding life. The ease of selling things online is somewhat of a rush, and I start looking around the house evaluating the tons of shit we have as warehoused merchandise, priced to move. I’m gonna sell it all, gonna make room, shed some goods, make some bread. Y’know, I think I’ll also donate some books to the library. Surely I can write that that off next year, and who needs these things taking up space anyhow? That’s right, I’m mad!

Speaking of my laser-eyes, I’m made a follow-up appointment to go in and have them checked next week. Well, one of them at least – mostly because it’s all kinds of fucked up. OK, that’s harsh, but something is wrong. Since the surgery, my eyes have been pretty dry, even to the point of annoying discomfort at times. But over the past few weeks my right eye has been acting really odd. At first it just felt irritated, overly-sensitive or something, like there was some dirt or an eyelash in there. Then, I noticed my night-vision in that eye was a bit off, whereas both eyes had previously been laser-awesome. Since this week however, I can definitely tell a difference in my right all, and not just at night – this is an all-the-time kinda difference. It’s not that the vision is that unclear, but compared to the hawkish wonder of my left, it’s like having a layer of vaseline on the right. Hope it can be fixed. I have free “touchups” until May, not that I’m thrilled about the prospect of getting it surgered again…

Tomorrow is the first day of a three-day weekend, which I’m quite excited about. Not to mention, my folks get into town on Thursday, so I’m taking Friday off – which means I have a total of three working days next week. This is good, because things are so damn busy; but this is also bad, because things are so damn busy. That weekend is Keaton’s first birthday party, it should be good. Well, providing she gets over this flu-ish thing she’s rocking right now. Nothing like an impromptu bath at 2am to clean off a vomit-covered baby. Poor thing, she’s such a trooper, must have my tolerance for pain. On the other hand, she’s going to be one year old!! Cast your minds back with me down memory lane, and look how she’s changed….

I think I’m going to write a book. No, seriously. It’ll be a semi-non-fiction account of my life, with some more exiting bits misappropriated and assumed from others’ lives, TV, etc. It’ll be everything I love, telling stories about the things I used to do, it’ll be the reason I started this blog. I want to write tersely and rough, just simple sentences. Kind of like the Mike Fahey entry from the other day (not his real name, by the way, for those who may have been concerned). I really like that one – I think I want to write a book kind of like that. I bet I could write something I’d be proud of in a little more than a year… keeping only the best bits. I wonder if I could make any money? I guess I’d have to learn to write first.

I’ve got a friend at work who’s just starting to get into the Beatles in earnest. I mean, pretty much everyone is aware of the Beatles. Beatles-awareness, you might say, is somewhat ubiquitous if you’re at all up on the history of pop culture or music. You can’t avoid the Beatles, but you don’t have to like them. Oh, you might know the “nah nah nah” from Hey Jude, but that doesn’t mean you’re making a “study” of the group. My buddy is, though.. making a “study” of it, I mean. And, being a humongous Beatles nerd myself, I’m so jealous of his first-time-hearin’ ass.

The other day he has the gall to tell me he “really listened” to Sgt. Pepper, for the first time on headphones, over the weekend. Oh, the humanity!! Can you imagine my heart tearing as he waxed on about his appreciation for the diversity on the album? I can only hope for that feeting moment when I remember how amazing it was to hear the stabbing intro to “It’s Getting Better” for the first time, but it’s gone for me. I know it all inside and out. Every fart on tape, every missed lick, every doffed hi-hat. I still love every groove, savor every harmony, but that Beatles-virgin cherry-popping feeling is gone. Enjoy it, my friend… enjoy it while you can.

Goodnight.

It’s cold here and snowing, which is kind of nice, actually, being that I’m just visiting and don’t have to live here. We drove home from the bar tonight in the snow, the Kia got loose a couple times on the backend with the roads so slippery and icy. The plows were out, it was cool. We drank microbrew and ate brisket and talked skiing and international travel and nerdy engineering stuff, we all played at bigshots, pretending we had high-power information and made high-power decisions. We all knew that if the snow swallowed us up forever, though, that the machine would churn right along with nary a hiccup. It’s OK, we’re not that delusional, more like functionally-delusional. I fly home tomorrow, Valentines Day, surprisingly Sharaun didn’t bust my balls to much about that. We weren’t planning on celebrating that day anyway, we have babysitters to coordinate and whatnot, we’ve got strings now. Anyway, I’ve got a first class upgrade again, so it should be nice. Customer meetings went well too, so all-in-all it was a profitable trip.

I watched X Files until midnight last night, I wanted to go to bed but the hotel room was freezing and I wasn’t tired. I’d finished my book and called Sharaun, so I didn’t have anything to do but not-sleep. I was cold even under the covers, and the thermostat only has two settings: freezing or sauna. In the end, I opted for sauna and just tossed the covers aside. I tried to get to bed early, since I had to wake up and iron my shirt, but it didn’t work. I still like being in a hotel room though, always have. Reminds me of the freedom and fun of family vacations when I was younger, the hotel stays were always some of best times.

Goodnight.

Arrived safe and sound in chilly Colorado this evening. I upgraded to first class, it’s the only way to go – and I figured I may as well use the upgrades before my 100k status expires and I don’t get them anymore. First class is tits. I got wine and cheese and fruit, steerage got water and $5 beer if they wanted to pay. The wine was good, felt good to drink it when I would normally be working. I was working, though. Typing in between bits of cheese and kiwi and sips of wine. I put my whole presentation together this morning, half at work before I left and the rest in the plane – tonight’s for finishing touches. Finishing touches and steak, I think.

Fast forward to the hotel room, I had wings and a philly instead of steaks, but did manage to get some beers and good “schmoozing” done while I was at it. Funny how much you learn while drinking and eating. In the “Working with China” class I took, the instructors stressed the fact that, in the Asian culture, a business dinner is anything but a dinner. “Think of this as a more laid-back, relaxed extension to your meeting,” they’d say. “The atmosphere is casual, but don’t be fooled, more real business often gets done over beer in China than in the boardroom.” I find that interesting, and certainly see some aspect of it in our own culture. Although, for me, if I know I’ll be dining with customers, I’ll cunningly leave certain bits of information back to purposely divulge them over beers as if imparting a key secret with a loose tongue. This may seem stupid, but it wins confidence like you wouldn’t believe. A key bit of strategic information inserted at just the right time (often a “right time” manufactured by me expressly to give said information) can do wonders for your “human” side in the eyes of the customer. Tsk tsk, now I’m giving away my trade secrets…

On the way home to Florida this past Christmas, the shoulder strap on my laptop bag broke while I was navigating the airport security line. For nearly a month and a half now, then, I’ve been carrying around my laptop straplessly. For the record, I don’t like this, for multiple reasons: 1) I think I look like a fool carrying my bag around like 1950s businessman-briefcase, and 2) it’s inconvenient to “lose” a hand to carrying the bag by its little handle. It’s hard to open doors while carrying an umbrella or, god forbid, an umbrella and a cup of coffee. So, before my recent return to traveling (although a less than triumphant return), I decided I had to have a new shoulder strap. I could be lumbering around the airport and plane with my throwback-style handbag, forget it.

In the end, I got a buddy’s old strap, rather than buying a new one. The only thing I don’t like about having a shoulder strap is the way it presses against the fat of my flabby chest, and parts my man-boob into to lumpy bubbles. I hate that. I’m constantly re-positioning the damn thing to try and minimize the fatty protrusions, they feel like a big neon sign proclaiming my lack of shape, my atrophy. I look down as I walk, making sure the strap is positioned as dead-center as possible on my breast, to minimize the lumps on either side. I’m shooting for an overall pressing-down of fat rather than a push to one side or the other. I walk, I look, I adjust. Walk, look, adjust. Stupid fatty man boobs.

I finished Bukowski’s Ham On Rye tonight, what a terribly sad book. Now it’s on to On the Road. Goodnight.

It’s Tuesday night and my toenails are too long. Not all of them, just a few here and there. How that happens I have no idea, I always cut them all at the same time. Must be that some are just rogue growers, outpacing the other toes. The crooked one, in particular, seems to have an agenda.

It’s Tuesday night and there’s a tied-off bag of dirty diapers sitting on the ground next to the trash in the garage. It’s there because the diaper-eating machine we have in Keaton’s room got full, and Sharaun put it there for me to take the final few steps to the “outside” trash. That’s my job, see; taking things to the “outside” trash. If Sharaun says she “emptied” the trash, what she means is she tied off the bag and moved it somewhere other than in the garbage can from whence it came. This is “emptying the trash.” It is then my responsibility to take this bag, be it on the floor in the garage or slumped out of the way next to the sliding glass door in the kitchen, to it’s final resting place in the “outside” trash. It’s a tiered approach, see.

It’s Tuesday night and so far I’ve listened to four albums all the way through: Of Montreal’s Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?; Andrew Bird’s Armchair Apocrypha; Aqueduct’s Or Give Me Death, and Patrick Wolf’s The Magic Position. They are all quite good, and I listened to them because I feel like they’ve suffered a bit for my Arcade Fire tunnel-vision. In particular, the Of Montreal album is a standout. Seriously, listen to this track and tell me what you hear. Beatles? O&O-era Zombies? Beach Boys? Great stuff, right? When I was bangin’ this joint in the car today, turned up to eleven, the weather was so gorgeous and not a thing in the world seemed amiss.

It’s Tuesday night and I stopped at the store on the way home to buy vanilla extract. I was, or am, I can’t quite decide, going to make cookies. A family recipe of Sharaun’s, her mom’s dad’s favorite. They are somewhat difficult to make though, and my mind wanders to easier tasks like peanut butter or sugar cookies. I don’t think we have any chocolate chips, or maybe I’d make those. Anyway, I bought a big thing of vanilla extract at the store, it was the store-branded generic kind, the kind with names like “Sunny Select” or “Sam’s Choice.” It was $5.99, cheaper than the size smaller of the “name brand.” I came home a triumphantly showed my purchase to Sharaun. I was shown the bottle she bough (larger by one ounce) for $0.98 that day at the local sprawling el-cheapo store. Fine, back tomorrow with the receipt then. Cookies aren’t getting baked by typing anyway.

It’s Tuesday night and I’m in a wonderful mood. Things seem great, and my cares seem small compared to the many things I enjoy. My job, while difficult, is becoming easier by the week as I find more confidence in what I do. Difficult things turn into easier things, and impossible things into only difficult. I feel respected and even somewhat revered, unjustly so, to be sure, yet I feel it. And it’s not just my job: I’m happier than ever with the little family Sharaun and I are working on. Our daughter is the most precious thing in the world to me, providing me with an endless source of fascination and pride. I like our house, the town we live in, and the direction in which we’re headed. I couldn’t ask to run with a better clique, our friends are our extended family. Things are good, and looking up.

It’s Tuesday night and there’s still a pile of dead ants on the guest bathroom floor (I killed them with the death-spray, you can get it at the supermarket). I thought about vacuuming them up, Sharaun vacuumed today and left the vacuum right there in the hallway. Right in the middle of the hall, cord stretching off into the other room, looping and bending around corners. It’s right there outside the bathroom door. It’s her style. Cleaning up but leaving all the implements of cleaning out, thus making a mess out of cleaning. It’s her ironic twist on tidying, like the joke about a towel getting “wetter as it dries.” She tortures me with it, because I’m expected to notice, and give praise, for the cleaning that has taken place. All I see is the dustpan, and the vacuum, and the 409 and the sponge and the upholstery spot-cleaner, splayed around the room in disarray. “Yes honey, it looks clean and tidy, neat as a pin right under all this mess. Yes indeed.”

It’s Tuesday night and I missed registrations for the Spring semester philosophy classes at the local community college by one week. I marked my calendar for the wrong week, the deadline’s passed. I’m bummed, but figure it’s OK. I’ll just mark the calendar for summer term, no big loss.

It’s Tuesday night and my on-again/off-again beard is on-again. I admire it in the rearview mirror everyday on the way to work. I want to grow it long and bushy and wear it fashionably unkempt like a fake hippie. I like the way it makes me look, like to twist it up into little hair tornadoes while I sit and think, like the fact that it’s something different on my face after so much same on my face. I think this time might really be “the” time. The time when I grow it for good and learn to live with it. We’ll see.

Goodnight lovers.