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How a B3 sounds through a Leslie


Happy voting day, Super Tuesday friends. Hope, if your state is having a contest, that you go out and exercise your rights today, regardless of which way your favor flows. How we gonna do it without you and me? We ain’t. So, go do it. Me, I’ve got the 7am hour blocked off on my calendar. Was thinking I’d get up early and walk to my polling place, which is quite literally right across the street. Maybe take my travel coffee with me and bundle up against the cold. Could be a fun civics exercise. Oh, I’m on fire tonight… Where’s my sting?

I’m secretly trying to raise a girl so well-rounded in her knowledge of rock and roll music that she stuns her mopheaded male middle-school classmates by knowing who played drums in all the retro-cool 1970s rock band patches on their denim jackets. A girl who’ll know that the latest screamolectric anthem, Murder In My Heart, is a remake of a musty Lee Michaels track. A girl who can describe how a B3 sounds through a Leslie. That’s the kind of girl I’m raising. Well, and also a beautiful princess who will be good at math, kick butt on the soccer field, and is smarter than all the bepimpled punks trying to get in her pants. Yeah, there’s a lot I want for my little girl… but I do hold out hope that my fanaticism rubs off just a wee bit.

Television told me today that Valentines day is coming. I’m glad it did, even though I sort of already knew. We’re going to be in Oregon for the occasion (the third of three trips in as many weeks for me, the second being tomorrow, as you read this), so I’m gambling on time out on the town while Keaton naps and Grammy and Grandpa’s place. A Portlander buddy of mine is helping me pick a nice swanky place to do dinner, somewhere where I won’t feel ten years too old for the crowd. After that I’d like to go see a Pink Floyd laser show. But, Sharaun would totally hate that… especially on Valentines day. So instead, we should probably go see a movie or something. It’ll be nice to get some time out on the town, even though we’ll likely give up early for being old, ending up at a local coffeehouse by 11pm. It’s OK by me as long as she doesn’t bring her crochet.

Gdnight friends and lovers, until tomorrow.

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longjohns


Happy Thursday my friends. I worked until seven this evening, wanting so bad to just finish the review work I’ve been working on for the past week or so. And, I almost did it too. Almost. Tomorrow will be the forcing function, as I’ve setup meetings with those I’ve been writing about. I figure sitting down with them to review the the review will pretty much force me to finish the review, right? Right.

Wednesday morning, as I readied myself to travel to Oregon, I had in the back of my mind my brother’s foreboding warning from the day prior: “Dude, it’s totally freezing here. It’s snowing!”. Mindful of this, I attempted to dress for the elements. I decided this meant I would try and wear my long underwear beneath my dress pants. See, I had to dress up, as I was meeting customers from Japan, where the coat-and-tie still rule the business world. And, I’m always conscious of how thin fancypants are. They may look nice, and give the Japanese assurances that I’m all-business, but they don’t do anything to stop the icy wind from freezing my thighs.

I’ve only every worn my long underwear when camping. In fact, I bought them (underwear are plural, why?) for specifically for hiking and camping, with no intentions of wearing them in real-life situations. They are dark blue, as a matter of fact, and you couldn’t really call them conspicuous at all. So, I had a bit of a time decided just how best to both wear them and completely conceal the fact that I was wearing them. In the end, I decided on tucking them into my tan dress socks, then pulling those socks up to maximum height to avoid any sneak-peaks during crossed-legged situations or the like. In the end, I found myself in front of the long mirror in our bedroom around 4:30am, staring at my pants and socks, trying to objectively determine if a third-party observer would be able to tell I was wearing long underwear. Satisfied, I kept them on.

And man, am I glad I did. It was completely freezing in Oregon, and even with the extra layer underneath my thin-but-snazzy khakis, I was hugging myself for warmth in the three minutes outside while changing trains. I even had enough confidence to cross my legs during the meeting, no fear. I mean, they were a little “pully,” and somewhat noticeable in terms of comfort-transparency, but I think it was worth it.

Dressclothes suck for comfort anyway, right, with all their diabolical tug-and-pull interdependencies? Undershirt tucked into pants, dressshirt atop, belt cinching them both tight so that every twist and turn, every stand-up and sit-down pulls on my shoulders or somehow inexplicably at my wrists or elbows. I guess it’s just something you have to deal with, the price of being dapper, or somesuch.

And, speaking of mirrors, I noticed yesterday that, even though I’ve seen myself in the mirror thousands of times, I still catch myself walking through public places (airports, for example) mentally picking out folks and thinking, “Is that what I look like?” The portly guy with the well-kept, if unimpressively thin and sparse, beard, a decidedly unfair-trade coffee in one hand, iPod in the other. The wanna-be businessman thirty-something with a Bluetooth fixed to one ear whose laptop trails behind him in some lower-back sparing stewardess style rollerboard. That’s me, isn’t it? That’s totally what I look like. Like that dude right there, right? Awww man, it is. It’s absolutely what I look like.

Goodnight.

Posted on

read a book, fell in love


Hi people.

I’m sitting in the Portland airport right now. I have 59% battery on the laptop and approximately two hours to kill. I don’t know why I booked my flight so late, I think maybe I was using it as a “test case” to see if I could do an entirely public-transit based day-trip into the local sawmill.

Leave California around 6:30am, arrive in Portland around 8:45am. Hop the train from the airport towards work, arrive via shuttle van just shy of 10am. Work till around 4:30pm, take the shuttle van to the train, train to the airport, and clear security just before 6pm. Thing is, my flight’s not until 8:45pm. I think I did this just in case, assuming I could get on standby for the earlier flight if I broke speed records (I did, and I couldn’t, economically).

So then, here I am. Nursing the first of at least a few tall black-and-tans, pondering what to eat even though my bowels protest (I think they’re grumpy from not having a decent at-home evacuation today… 4am was just too early for them, and they do tend to get upset when they get off-schedule).

But, even though I’m weary from the rigors of travel, I count two good things which came of today: 1) I got do some much-missed reading-for-pleasure, and 2) I totally fell in love in the security line. Let’s take them in reverse order.

Cut to security line at the airport. The girl in front of me is small, slimish with crinkled-curly dirty-blonde hair. From behind, she looks plausible, but I’ll need frontal confirmation to say for sure. Suddenly, as we progressed through the ranks of the line, awaiting our turns to undress and empty our pockets as a thick, symbolic American middle-finger to Al Qaeda, my opportunity arose.

Roses and Cigarettes, as I have since fondly dubbed her, dropped her black belt on the ground – and failed to notice. As she continued to disrobe, gradually revealing her diminutive figure in what I imagined as a private audience, I stooped to retrieve the belt. “Excuse me, I think you dropped this,” I said casually to her back. As she turned, her sharp features came into view: An isosceles nose and angular jaw, not manlike, but designed. Her curly, almost crunchy looking, hair framed her face well, and she replied though thin lips, “Thank you so much, I kinda need that, huh?”

“No! No! You need neither that, nor any other clothing in my presence!,” my lustful heart wanted to cry.

“Guess so,” was the tepid response my level-headed brain formed in my mouth instead.

At least I remembered to smile my best smile while speaking, and was met with one just as warm and promising in return (and, in my head, no doubt).

Presently, I was aware of her scent as we moved: An overpowering wash of roses and cigarettes, the stink of the latter somehow imbued with the headiness of the former, combining into some sort of otherworldly aphrodisiac scent that said, “I’m delicate and feminine, but I totally do it.” It was only later, after using the restroom, that I realized the scent had been transferred, permanent-for-the-night, to my hand, presumably from my brief belt-fetching. (Yes, I do make it a habit of sniffing my hands after washing them in the restroom. It’s some compulsive thing I do to ensure my hands are truly “clean,” regardless of #1 or #2.)

Back in the present, Rosed and Cigarettes preceded me through the portal-of-ensuritude and we both began to reclaim our clothing and ore-laden effects from the rolling belts on the other side. As she redressed next to me, I sighed, overly loud, as I re-threaded my belt through the loops of my sliperry, pleatless, cuffless, khakis, in hopes she would hear. She did. Turning, in all her pale crisp-angled glory, to me and speaking, she said, “Take care,” as I walked away. “Thanks,” I replied, “you too.”

And, as I walked away towards my gate, my heart crumbled to dust at the prospect of the life I’d lost for not being with her.

Secondthingwise, I read a book today on the plain/train/shuttle. A book a friend loaned me because he said I needed to read the author’s work. He even commented as such right here on this very blogish thing. When I saw him this weekend, I borrowed one he recommended, and set about digging in today. I hadn’t intended to day-read it, but it was short and really good and I totally got sucked in. It was called A Maze of Death and it was a kind of theological/metaphysical/sci-fi mashup that I totally dug. Anyway, whenever I read something, I have this misconception that it makes me write better. I have no idea from whence this delusion comes, but I labor under it still. In fact, I wrote a ton today on the train in between fits of reading; all of it thumbed into my BlackBerry in a gush. I decided, however, after some consult, to leave over these bits for tomorrow – as having them pre-written will afford me an evening “off.” Unfortunately (right?) for you, this means you’ll have to to wait.

Speaking of the train (I was, I swear), it always amazes me how many people stumble onto public transit in the early-morning still reeking of liquor. Today, as the train hit its downtown run, at least three people wobbled on looking worse for wear and emanating the sickly-sweet aroma of a night spent in the bottle. One guy even paced the center aisle in a decidedly certifiable stomp, back and forth, back and forth, chuckling loudly to some unheard joke replaying silently for him alone, making everyone uncomfortable. These roll-your-own-smokes types seem to flock to the train, maybe as shelter from the biting cold outside on the concrete where they live. For me, to wake up smelling of booze is an awful, shameful thing. The kind of thing that will get you in deep trouble with the Lord and make your soul weep. I can’t imagine reconciling myself to a life of waking up that way. It must be terribly depressing.

I should so be writing employee reviews right now, but I’ve squandered my battery life on blogging. Tsk-tsk. Looks like tomorrow will be a late night getting things finalized. Good thing I have boxed-content ready to go, hope you don’t mind leftovers.

And, 23% battery dictates I now say: Love you all truly and deeply and madly. Goodnight.

Posted on

and it likely shows


Hi dear readers. Let me apologize for ruining what was a great month by neglecting to post for the past couple days. It just happens sometimes. A couple late nights are to “blame” this time, one spent hanging out with friends and one spent in a cramped bar listening to music. My entry today was written while I was distracted, and it likely shows. Sorry.

I called to cancel my free trial of the penis-building pill Enzyte on Monday morning, one day before I would’ve been auto-enrolled in Berkeley Nutraceuticals’ “auto-renew” program, where they’d begin shipping me a new supply of pills each month, at a cost of some $60 (Confused? Catch-up on the genesis of the Enzyte business here, take note of the scientific process I’m using here, and finally, check out the first results reported here). Anyway, I thought the conversation was worth sharing, and works well as a lead-in for my latest benchmarking session:

Cast of Characters:
Enzyte HQ – A cheery female with a decidedly Southern accent.
Me – Dave, the guy trying to cancel his free trial of herbal penis-enlarging pills.

Enzyte HQ: Thank you for calling Berkeley Nutraceuticals, how may I help you today?

Me: Yeah, I want to cancel my free trial of Enzyte before I get in the auto-renewal program.

Enzyte HQ: OK hon, I can help you with that. Do you mind if I ask why you’d like to discontinue use of the product? Is it the cost, or some other reason?

Me: No, sure. It’s not the cost, really… I’m just not seeing the “results” I was looking for. (Not entirely true, since I wasn’t exactly looking for any results other than some good blogging, which I think I have definitely got.)

Enzyte HQ: Well, sir, I can appreciate that. However, this is a natural herbal product and because of that we really ask that you give it a full ninety days to see results.

Me: OK, well then it’s the cost.

Enzyte HQ: Well hon (I can hear the smile on her face now), what I can do today for you then is offer you a standard two month supply, normally sixty-some-odd dollars, for just forty-five dollars. And I’ll also take you out of the auto-renewal program. Will that work for you?

Me: Ummm… thanks, but I really don’t feel like paying for it.

Enzyte HQ: (Still as cheery as a Bible Belt Cracker Barrel waitress on Sunday morning.) I understand hon. Tell you what I can do then, I can go ahead and send you another thirty day supply at no cost so you can continue to evaluate the product. How does that sound?

Me: Well, if y’all are going to send it to me for free, then, yeah… sure I’ll take it. (See how easily I affect an accent when in the proper company? It’s got something to do with winning friends and influencing people.)

Enzyte HQ: OK hon, well you will still have to call and cancel again when this thirty day trial is up, is that OK?

Me: Sure, I can do that.

Enzyte HQ: Well we’re sure are glad you’re not giving up on us, hon!

Me: Uh-huh… thanks…

Enzyte HQ: And sir, before you go today, I’m happy to inform you that you’ve won a free five-night stay at a Walt Disney resort hotel in Orlando Florida. This is a completely free offer sir, for five nights for you and your family. All you’re responsible for is getting there and your tickets to the park.

Me: Wha…? I…

Enzyte HQ: So sir I’d like to go ahead and transfer you to our vacation department so you can go ahead and book this amazing deal, would that be alright?

Me: (Not wanting to be outright rude, so beating around the bush.) You know, we’ve actually got family in Florida, and we can get into Disney pretty cheap and don’t need to stay there…

Enzyte HQ: Well that must be nice sir, but we have plenty of other locations to choose from. You can go to Las Vegas, San Diego, Vale….

Me: Ah, no thanks… I only really called to cancel the pills…

Enzyte HQ: I understand hon. Did I tell you about our magazine offers? I can get you two full years of either Maxim or Details for over 90% off the cover price.

Me: (Chuckling as I talk.) Noo, no… but thanks tho.

Enzyte HQ: (Now also chuckling, a good sport.) OK hon, well we do appreciate your time and business. You have a good day now.

Me: You too.

Having this place try to sell me on vacation deals and “mens” magazines as closing pitches fits with the impressions I’ve developed of them. First, the pills themselves come with advertisements for more pills, specifically pills of the “eat all you want and still lose weight” variety. Then, when you try to cancel, they try to sell you on everything in the book. Seems shady, right? But, I guess the people that are ordering penis-embiggening pills may very well be the people who’d impulsively book Disney vacations (though a penis pill company, by the way) and spring for “eat all you want and still lose weight” pills. Still, the popup-esque spamvertising that accompanies their products speaks for itself if you ask me.

But, legitimate or not, let’s get to the results. If you’ll remember my post from about a week ago, you’ll recall that I saw zero change. Now, I need to take some time here and mention that I actually had some hope for changes on this measurement. Why? It’s hard to explain… but, I just kind of “felt” like I’d see results. There’s no doubt about it, things seemed different – felt different enough that I actually half-expected to be surprised. Maybe this is how these things sell? Some physical sensation that works to psychologically hook the user?

Unfortunately, although not entirely unexpectedly, however, the three-week results aren’t any different than the nine day results. Here’s the graphical representation:

(Learn how to interpret this chart here.)

But, don’t fret. Looks like I’ll be able to extend the experiment for another thirty days, and, who knows, maybe another thirty beyond that if they continue to comp me when I call to cancel. I’ll keep to it as long as they provide me the pills, so stay tuned.

And, before I go, I thought I’d point again to Megan’s photoblog, where she’s got another stunning snap of Keaton up. Don’t let the coy look fool you either, she was actually taking a coed bath with Jerah and Job when that picture was taken. One day I’ll get some new pictures up myself…

Well, I’m off to bed. An early rise tomorrow to head to Oregon for an extremely long day-trip. Goodnight my people.

Posted on

two hours in each word


Established.
Demonstrated.
Exemplifies.
Critical.
Enabled.
Essential.
Successfully.
Consistently.
Engaged.
Willingness.
Confidence.
Desire.
Fostered.

I dare you, internet.

I dare you to become a manager-type at your sawmill, wait for annual review time to roll around, and extol the virtues of of those who toil ‘neath your iron fist without using the above words. Check me on it, even. This year, if your sawmill is the kind of place where you get an annual review (or where you write the reviews of others), check it for those words.

I’ll bet you those words are there, trying to neatly encapsulate, in paragraph form, some two-thousand hours of your work. Two-thousand hours crammed into a thousand words or less, two hours in each word. An entire year of phone calls and meetings and hallway conversations, a year of stressful nights where you can barely reclaim your own thoughts from your to-dos and deadlines, a year away from quality time spent with your family so you can have the means to spend more quality time with your family.

Throughout 2007, Dave successfully established a desire within himself to become less engaged with work in general. He consistently demonstrated a willingness to shirk critical duties, all the while fostering his peers’ confidence in his abilities by simply “faking it.” This technique enabled him to spend essential time with his family, which he loves dearly. In summary, Dave exemplifies the modern worker.

Goodnight drones.

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it’s going to be thin


It’s 11:30pm and I’m just sitting down to write. In fact, I only have about twelve more minutes to finish this thing. I’ll warn you now, it’s going to be thin.

Keaton’s third fevered day and the doc says she’s got an ear infection. She still acts like a million bucks, you’d only know she’s sick by the snots, coughs, and wheezes. Sharaun swung by the pharmacy after I got home from work to pick up her prescription, hopefully it’ll start her mending soon. I hate looking at her puffy eyes and red cheeks, it makes me sad even if it is contrasted with her spastic and joyous dancing around the room singing “Sunny day… sunny day… sunny day.” Seems that even sickness can’t suppress the Sesame Street within.

I used my 7am meeting, and my relatively light morning, as an excuse to phone it in pre-lunch. Sharaun was kind to me and tolerated no TV or music while I worked on the employee review documents I’ve been laboring over this week. And, compared to the cubicle-clustered environment at work, the sensory deprivation in the quiet of my living room allowed me to get a ton of solid work done. I still dread finalizing that annual review totem… does that mean I’m soft? I guess maybe it does, but I also think it makes me normal, and I’d rather be normal.

I’m sorry guys. This is it. I really just didn’t want to miss a day in what, is otherwise, shaping up to be a wall-to-wall month (New Year’s Day doesn’t count, by the way). Goodnight.

Posted on

the night is still mine


Happy Tuesday night friends. Today at work I took the liberty of blocking off the 10am-12pm slot on my calendar for the remainder of the week. I plan to use the daily two-hour escape to complete all the remaining work I have to do around our annual review processes. As someone who has to be responsible for ranking others, I hate this time of year; but as someone who himself gets ranked against others, I actually look forward to succeeding. But, I don’t want to talk about it now… because I came home from that awful place to get away from it, at least the night is still mine. For now…

About a year ago, I read on a friends’ blog that their daughter was into the show Backyardigans, which is a computer animated kids show on cable that has a bunch of friends use their imagination to have adventures Muppet Babies Rugrats kinda theme. The twist being that all the adventures the crew has are set to original music, each show tending to have a musical theme in addition to a storyline.

I liked it so much I started TiVoing episodes for Keaton, and it’s become on of her favorites. And, actually, I’ve really come to appreciate the music that goes along with each half-hour. The songs are well-written, enjoyable as “real” music, and often infectiously catchy. And, while I don’t think she’s ever actually sat through an entire show (she’s just not much for the television), we enjoy watching snatches of it together.

Well, today when I got home from work and Keaton asked to watch “Yaganins,” I saw the lightbulb flick alight above Sharaun’s head. “Oh,” she said, drawing out the word for emphasis, “I want to show you something that will blow your mind.” Firing up the TiVo and scrolling down to the Backyardigans, she highlighted a new episode called “Tale of the Mighty Knights.” Now, there’s a pretty finite number of these shows, and I’m fairly certain I know them all, so the title was new to me. Turns out it’s an hour-long special episode, done in the style of a 1970s prog-rock-opera. And since knights and dragons are the stereotypical storylines of epic rock music, it’s the perfect genre to accompany the story.

Anyway, I was curious, and with a little research and I’d uncovered the interesting backstory on the guy responsible for the show’s tunes, Evan Lurie. And… that linked article is the whole reason I wrote those previous two paragraphs. Hey, with heavily musical shows like the Backyardigans and Yo Gabba Gabba!, Keaton and I can both have a good time watching Nick Jr.

Goodnight, and act your age.