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red marks on my thighs

Whatever.
Sometime Saturday the weather turned, and I wore my first jeans of the fall. Sure, I still coupled them with sandals, but that’s how I rock fall fashion y’all. We even got a cold rainy Sunday, a Sunday what found me asleep on the couch at a friend’s apartment – enjoying being asleep on a foreign couch, being warm inside while it’s cold outside, the sound of football in the background as I wake myself snoring, good company, a full belly. Womby, it was great. Sorry guys, it’s the music that makes me write like this – what music you ask? Well, only what’s possibly the most awesome album to hit my ears this year. For those who don’t care, the next full two paragraphs will be about this album, so you may skip ’em. Onward then.

Effing-A people, the new music boat docked at my place long enough this weekend to rub some electrons on the platters of my hard disk – and impart to me some gorgeous new tunes in digital form. Here I was over the last month or so, trying to make the days’ memories stick to my brain, but with no new soundtrack to aide in the process. The Killers’ and Polyphonic Spree’s album sections in my head are already at their allotted memory-to-music fill-points, so I’ve got stuff going in up there with no album set as a trigger. Damn shame. How shall I earmark the passing of these days? Thankfully, the indie world has heard my cry, and bestowed upon me a new batch of tunes. And I’m not talking mediocre here, I’m talking some of that instant-like stuff, love-at-first-listen kinda junk.

From the moment I right clicked the folder called “Funeral” and highlighted “Play in Winamp,” I was rapt. With every listen I become more engaged with this album by some group called The Arcade Fire. Seemingly tailored for me, made near-perfect to what I enjoy about music. It’s presumptuous sure, but I call this as being on my “best of” 2004 list come December. Other music came from God too, Grand National and AC Newman; both sound good – but I’m hopelessly in love with this Arcade Fire. The first song is about kids growing up in their Neighborhood (a theme stretched over four tracks), and talks about every kid’s dream of underground tunnels from best bud’s room to yours. Talks about walking around and growing up and, and, sorry, I just had an orgasm. Enough about this album, it’s that good.

I’m just about finished up with the graphic novels Kristi lent to me, Maus. Two-thirds of the way through the second volume. I’ve been doing most of the reading in the john, I keep the book there so it’s always handy. Sure, your legs fall asleep from sitting there too long, but I don’t mind. What a sad book. To think a comic book could move someone to tears. A grown man, sitting on the toilet, red marks on his thighs from resting his elbows there as he reads a coming book, crying. Crying while reading a comic book on the commode, must look hilarious. Ach! What do you know from funny?

This weekend was our going-away celebration for Steve and Ragan. It was a joint-effort between Kristi and Erik and Sharaun and I, a pretty nice affair. We did it at our place, and drew a pretty nice crowd. Food was eaten and drink was consumed, and hopefully our guests of honor felt particularly honored. Eventually, the fog machine was taken out, and last year’s Halloween supply box was raided. The result was a zero-visibility black- and strobe lit garage, which was a big hit. Somehow the party ended with three guys, me included, playing Mike Tyson’s Punch Out! until 3:30 in the A-M, which is odd to me- but was great fun. Somehow sometime during the evening’s festivities, Steve ended up taking out the shower curtain – and what’s even better, it was caught on camera:

Anybody's guess really.

Prior to the party, I had originally had plans to go skydiving with the crew. However, upon hearing the appalling way that fat brothers are treated at the skydiving place, I chose to stay home. Being that I’m a beefy 240lbs, I’d’ve had to pay $40 extra to jump, and they’d’ve only taken me to 6000ft vs. the 14,000ft everyone else got to jump from. No thanks. I’m not gonna ride in the “special plane” to make a “special jump” at a paltry 6000ft. I play it off funny, but it does kinda run up in ya like a knife.

Found this site this weekend, linked from /., and I love the idea. Now, why can’t I ever be this creative? Tomorrow it’s an early trip by jet over to San Jose for another day of presenting, you know I can’t wait. Dave out.

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my stallion’s stable

I love this picture for some reason.
Thursday night. This morning, while I was waiting for Ben to come pick me up for work (Sharaun’s driving my car while hers is being fixed), I was outside sweeping up the glass from her broken window – all the while thinking it was Friday. I even wore a ballcap to work, which is something I usually only do on Fridays. When I got in the truck with Ben, I said something like, “Well, at least it’s Friday.” When he told me it was only Thursday, I was crushed y’allz. Crushed. I really need to pay more attention to stuff.

Today after a fine lunch at the all-I-could-eat Indian food buffet, I set off to a local sewing machine and vacuum shop to try and scavenge a motor for the Winch Witch. The shopkeep at the place was an eccentric guy, cracking jokes and stuff, and when I asked for any spare motors from dead/retired machines – he took me in the back room and showed me the graveyard of machines I could choose from. After picking a nice vintage Singer that had an external motor and housing, I joked to him, “Now what do you want for this? I have lots of things to trade, even money.” He joked back that “… a bottle of rum would be nice.” Conveniently located next door to the sewing machine shop is a liquor shop. So I walked over, bought an $8 bottle of cheap rum, and walked back to complete the trade. How strange. I traded a bottle of cheap rum for a broken sewing machine, now how many people can say that. Anyway, I think the purchase was for not – it doesn’t look like the motor will power the witch? but at least I got a funny story.

I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’m a big dude or something – but I battle constantly with an almost invincible foe: the creeping, twisting, and altogether encroaching boxers. Yeah you heard me, I’m talkin’ bout my unmentionables, my drawers, my stallion’s stable, and more euphemisms ad infinitum. As much as I’m plagued by my boxers, I’m surprised it’s taken me this long to write about it. So I’m here to rectify that y’all, I’m finna lay this down for ya.

As much as boxers are better than briefs, they do have one drawback – there’s a lot more “loose” material to move around and bunch up and tug and pull on things. Now, I usually wear what the underwear industry calls “boxer briefs,” which are like “tight” boxers, or at least tighter than free-hanging boxers. I prefer these because they are more comfortable to me, and why this is relevant to the story I have no idea.

Anyway, I don’t really know exactly what factors lead to the awful shifting and creeping and twisting, but I have some suspects. First off, I think they have to be put on properly. I’ve they’re even one inch off-center, the simple motion of walking will pull one side up your leg into a bunched ring of boxer at the top. Second, I think a tucked-in shirt can influence movement. If you’re getting a lot of tug from the left side of an disproportional tuck, you can expect the left leg of your boxers to follow suit. The real problem is, once the boxers start moving, it seems that no amount of mid-day readjustment can fix it. So, you learn other temporary-relief techniques. I’ve classified them below.

All unwanted boxer movement, at least for me, falls into the category of leg-to-crotch creep. One or the other leg seems to inch higher and higher with each step. This is not only uncomfortable, it’s supremely annoying. There are several ways to address this situation, short of stripping down naked and re-dressing. My two most-used fixes are a) the up-leg-pull-down readjust, and b) the spin-step-drop readjust.

Method A is the more hardcore of the two remedies, and involves manual insertion of right hand up the offending shorts-leg, at which point the boxers are grabbed and manually pulled down into place with a firm tugging motion. I say this is hardcore because to the observer, you’ve got your hand up your own short legs – so it’s really for more extreme situations when you can afford not to be seen. A less-obvious variation of this method is sometimes executable, and involves putting a hand in the pocket on the creeping leg and grabbing the boxers through the pocket lining. Using this method, sometimes just holding the boxers in place can offer some relief.

Method B is more subtle, and therefore better suited for quick-fixes among company. It’s pretty simple: as you sense the action of walking sucking your boxers upward – you counter the effect by spinning the foot of the afflicted leg as it hits the ground, and stepping slightly out with the opposite foot. This releases the boxers from the grip of the upward pull and lets the creeping leg fall freely back into place. While not as effective as the method A, it’s more socially acceptable. Be aware, though, that even method B is not transparent? many a time my wife has asked me, “Why do you twist like that sometimes when you walk?” Dang boxers?

If neither of the above fixes is practical nor feasible, there are occasions where you just have to take you punishment and let ’em ride. Usually this happens at the worst possible time, such as walking around the 90 , 90% humidity streets in Taiwan with customers, dressed in nice clothes and sweating bullets. In this situation, it’s best to just endure the pain – I’ve found biting down on a stick and taking a shot of strong whiskey makes it almost bearable. Then when you get back to the hotel and strip off the Dockers, you’ll see one boxer leg completely rolled up like a giant thigh-condom. Grab that sucker and liberate it, feel the fresh air in places that have been stifled for hours, and breath a sigh of relief – you are now free. Stupid boxers?

Holy crap. See up there a few paragraphs where I used the word “finna?” I started to think maybe some people might not be familiar with the word, so I decided to look it up on Google and maybe link it to the definition. But, the results of the search are awesome enough to get a link of their own. Check out the “hip hop slang” entry in the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia: click here. I especially like how the word “fo” has, count ’em, three meanings. Oh man, rich.

Why do some people put a ‘t’ in the word “else?” Have you heard this band Hoobastank? I saw them perform live twice on the MTV lately, and man that dude can’t even come close to sangin’, couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. He sounds awful, how come I don’t have a contract? I’m done. Dave out.

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crappy bureaucratic machine

These little piggies... got crushed by an anvil, or something.
Inching closer to Friday, this week maintains its steady crawl. It’s ’round about nine and I’m watching some TiVo’d Andy Griffith. I didn’t do a thing tonight, fell asleep on the couch shortly after getting home from work. Didn’t work on the witch, didn’t shave, didn’t do anything.

Guys. Really. I mean, I thought I was finally done giving this presentation. For a week in Taiwan I parroted this stuff, and at two conferences already before that. I flew to Houston to present it, I presented it over the phone. I can do it blindfolded, on one foot, while whistling. I can do it in pig latin with no slides, I can recite it backwards while jumping through fire, I can roll out of bed and give the whole thing completely straight-faced in nothing but my skivvies. Please, please, don’t make me fight traffic over to the Bay to give it two more times… I might collapse. Oh lord…

Everyone is saying I’m guilty of fraud, just because I added a few letters to a doctor’s evaluation of Sharaun’s knee. OK, OK, I’ll back up and start from the beginning. Sunday, Sharaun tweaked her knee while playing soccer. At first she thought it was OK, but later that night it had swollen pretty bad was really hurting her. Bad enough that we drove to a friend’s to borrow some crutches so she could better get around at work the next day.

Anyway, since she can’t really make phone calls from work, I called the next day to try and get her an appointment at our doctor. Turns out there wasn’t anything until Thursday that she could manage to make it to. Since she was/is in pretty bad shape, I asked if there was anything else we could do. I told them that I was pretty sure she’d need to see a specialist, and that we just wanted to get a referral so she could do that. Our doctor’s office suggested she go to an “urgent care” clinic and get checked out, that way his referral to a specialist would be good enough for insurance, and she wouldn’t have to wait until Thursday. So, Monday night we spend roughly three hours at the urgent care place, where the doctor’s assessment was that she’d need an MRI and further evaluation. Before leaving, we got carbons of some paperwork with his assessment which we figured, according to what I’d been told on the phone earlier that day, would satisfy insurance’s requirement for seeing a “primary care” physician before being referred to a specialist.

So, the next day I called the our normal doctor back and relayed what the urgent care place said about Sharaun needing an MRI. However, this time I got a different story. For an MRI, she’d have to come in and be seen at the doctor – which is exactly what we were told we’d be avoiding by going to the urgent care. So I explained what I’d been told the day before, and that we’d spent three hours at the stupid urgent care, and blah, blah. Finally, the nurse relented somewhat and said that if the paperwork from the urgent care doctor stated she needed an MRI, I could fax it to them and they’d in turn fax it to the insurance for approval – bypassing another appointment. Awesome, I got the fax number and pulled out the paperwork from the urgent care.

Now, guess what y’all? That crap-doctor at urgent care didn’t even write the word “MRI” on this little paper. I mean, there’s all sorts of stuff on here – but the key statement says, “You have an internal injury to L knee, needs further eval.” He even captured such astute observations like, “… walks with limp..” and, “… swelling.” Great. Now I have no proof that this quack ever recommended an MRI, and Sharaun’s gonna have to go in for another appointment before she can see a specialist. So, here’s what I did:

Easy right? I just added the word “MRI” in parentheses after his “… needs further eval.” statement. I didn’t even bother to try and match his script, or the color of his ink. I didn’t even really think about it. The doctor wanted to see MRI, so I put MRI. I faxed it all over and am awaiting the response from whatever triad of governing bodies it requires to get a damn specialist referral through insurance. Crappy bureaucratic machine.

I’m spent.. I have nothing more. Dave out.

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vehicular violation

Cool picture of something.
Another day. Thankfully, work went by fast enough and relatively painlessly. Now it’s already 11pm and I’m just starting to write. Won’t be a long entry tonight, but at least I have some media to post – which in my mind somehow makes up for a lack of verbiage. Here we go.

As work has been moving forward on the Halloween props, I’ve been spending a little time at each big phase thus making little “teaser” videos for this year’s haunt. It started with the witch’s test flight video the other day, but now I kind of like the idea of creating a series of short teasers for the props and whatnot – it satisfies the nerd within me. So today I whipped up one from the footage Ben took during our lunch-hour test of the new fog machine. Watch it by clicking this sentence. More teasers to come, stay tuned.

Anyway, we got together tonight to work on the Winch Witch. Keeping with our run of luck and productivity, we completed the entire costume portion of the prop, and she now looks like a full-fledged witch. We were also able to do a couple “real life” tests of her drop path from the roof, to judge speed and crap. I think she came out looking pretty dang good, judge for yourself:

Awesome ain't she?!

I installed a new script on this page the other day that let’s me see when people visit. Since my readership is pretty limited, I can, for the most part, know who is looking at the page, when, and how often. It’s really cool in a voyeuristic kind of way, and there’s always those tantalizing IPs that I don’t recognize, which just fuel my thoughts of closet readers. I guess I need to start spicing up the entries, or providing some kinda service, if I want readership to increase tenfold or something. Owell, I’m cool with writing for writing’s sake.

That’s it all, I’m tired and out of junk to say. Watch the video again or stare at the picture, they’ll have to take the place of the words that aren’t here.

Dave out….

Man, I am so angry right now. The fact that I’m writing this postscript to last night’s entry can vouch for it. I dunno man, the insurance industry must have gotten together and realized we hadn’t paid them a deductible in a while or something. First, Sharaun injures her knee playing soccer. Next, her windshield cracked top-to-bottom this weekend when she was washing her car (hot glass, not-hot water). And finally, shortly after leaving for work this morning she comes back in the house sobbing that her car’s been broken into. Damnit! I absolutely hate car break-ins. She had parked it outside last night because Ben and I were taking up the garage working on the witch project.

Anyway, one night outside – one night! Looks like they tried to slim-jim the door first and then either gave up and shattered the window, or inadvertently broke it while slim-jimming. All they took was her teaching tote-bag full of books and papers, which happened to have $41 in one-dollar bills she’d collected from her class for something. It just pisses me off, and mostly because we’ve already been through this twice at our old apartments in the ghetto – and I don’t like to think that kinda crap goes down in our new suburban utopia. The peace and quiet, not to mention perceived security, of having our own house has fleeced me a bit, sheltered me from the car break-ins and overheard domestic disputes of an apartment complex. Man, really pisses me off.

For real this time…

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dustin’ smokies the whole way

Sorry if this is your kid.
Just got back from the “urgent care” clinic with Sharaun, but let me tell you, there ain’t nothing urgent about it. Those people move with all the urgency of an turtle. Anyway, Dr. Professional at the clinic diagnosed her injured knee as.. an injured knee, and said she should get an MRI. Mission accomplished though, she got a quick referral to a specialist who’ll really be able to figure out what’s wrong.

Saturday Kristi walked into my place and held out a couple smallish paperback books, offering them to me. Looking at them, they appeared to be graphic novels. Since I’m not really a comic book person, I didn’t know what to think. Turns out these books, called Maus Parts I & II, are part graphic-novel, part memoir, and part history lesson – all about the life of the author’s father, a Holocaust survivor. Finished the first one tonight while the doctors at the clinic must have been using up all their urgency on some other patients, and I’m anxious to start Part II. Interesting stuff and easy reading.

Sitting here listening to some A Silver Mt. Zion, frantic apocalyptic violin and percussion sounding really rad right now. Sometimes I just need to kick back and get my instrumental on, y’know? Words can wreck a song sometimes anyway, and instrumental tunes make for great thinking and working soundtracks. You know, blaring in the headphones as you pound away on the keyboard for your paycheck? Cranking out PowerPoint presentations to give the flashy-graphic addicts their daily fix of 38pt drop-shadowed Arial text and multicolored block diagrams. Wait. Why didn’t I go to trucking school again? I could be smugglin’ an 18-wheeler full of bootleg beer across statelines right now, dustin’ smokies the whole way.

Anyway, I guess it’s time for bed. So until then, when the next the world hears from me will be the customary sounding of my “morning claxon” as I trumpet my own response to the alarm clock’s horrid beeping.

Dave out.

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the winch witch

May not look like much yet, but I got the vision.
A good weekend. Football at our house with friends on Friday night, dinner at Benihana and a night at the bar on Saturday night, and all the while work forged ahead on the Halloween prop during the days. I’m slowly working on a page dedicated to this year’s Halloween project, the Winch Witch, but it won’t be ready for a while. Anyway – it was a good weekend, involving just the right mix of hangin’ out and gettin’ stuff done.

I don’t think I’m going to write much, as I’m not really in the mood. Sharaun hurt her knee pretty bad at soccer this morning and we ran over to a friend’s place just now to borrow some crutches so she can try and make it to work in the morning. I don’t know quite what that has to do with my mood and writing, but it felt like the right time to write it. This paragraph is pointless anyway, so why try and make it cohesive or anything.

Saturday I helped Kristi and Erik move some furniture into their new place, and then we all convened at our place for some college football. With everyone around, I took the opportunity to bring up the current plans for the Winch Witch. I figured with a bunch of smart people we could have an ad hoc think-tank and maybe brainstorm up a good idea. Turns out it worked, and we collectively not only greatly improved on the original idea Ben and I had, but also managed to really simplify the planned implementation.

We moved away from the original track idea and settled on suspending the witch from a wire strung above. Also, she’s no longer up on the roof, she just starts her run there and ends up nearer the ground before being reset and ascending again. Even the name I gave the project is now somewhat misleading. We’re not using a winch-winch, but we’re still “winching” the prop back up the wire to it’s pre-drop position. The cool thing being that we moved away from something uber-complicated to something really simple: a fishing reel.

We went up to the sports store and picked up a $10 el-cheapo fishing reel, which will act as the “winch” that hoists the witch back up her wire path to be dropped again. With the fishing line attached to an anchor on her back, we’re using a small DC motor to reel her back up after she free-falls on the wire-track. The reel will hold her in place at the top, and when someone breaks the infrared beam we’ll fire a solenoid to depress the reel’s “cast” button, where line can be freely fed. No longer held by the reel, gravity will send her flying down the wire-track toward the trick-or-treater, while an eerie flood light turns on and illuminates her. On the same circuit as the light and solenoid, a cackling soundtrack is played during her descent.

We managed to get everything but the motor and solenoid this weekend, and I’d say we’ve engineered about 70% of the project. We still need to figure out the whole beam-activation and motor on/off timing, and I’m sure once we get her up and running there will be little things we never even thought of that we’ll have to deal with. The good news is that Ben and I were able to make the armature for the prop’s body in one day, with only about $20 worth of material. Now all we need are the electric parts and a good old-fashioned witch mask. I want to string the whole thing up as early as possible to get a good amount of “proving” and debug time in before she actually has to perform on Halloween. We did some initial testing today, and you can watch the results here. People think I’m crazy, but I’m also pretty sure I’m adding this secondary prop to this year’s display – as I can’t see it taking more than a few hours to construct (‘cept I’m planning on using a cheaper and easier windshield wiper motor to power the prop, implemented kinda like this).

OK then… I guess I talked about everything I really wanted to talk about, now I better hit the sack. Until tomorrow or something. Dave out.

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one years old

Thanks to all my people.
A rare weekend entry to say happy one year anniversary to the blog.

So, “happy one year anniversary blog.”

365 days in a year, 104 of those are weekend days, and we’ll estimate 10 for non-working holidays – that leaves us with 251 days. This is my 242nd entry. 242 out of 251, or 9 non-writing days.

Pretty dang good if you ask me.

Dave out.