What I'm doing for 2008

Of course I have new years resolutions. Who doesn't? What self-respecting, red-blooded American citizen-being wouldn't take advantage of this time to say what they want to do better in the next year? I don't plan on actually following through on any of them for longer than a day or two, but we'll see. A day or two spread out over a year isn't really so difficult.

1. Post more on my blog

2. Stop swearing so much

3. Stop swearing so much in front of the kids

4. Stop swearing at the kids

Damn, that's already getting up there. Now for some random things I'd like to do:

5. See more shows, movies, etc.

6. Have more dates with my wife. Which means getting more babysitters. Which is fine, but means putting an effort into things. I was saving 'making more of an effort' for 2009, but as long as I'm here...

7. Vote more. I did actually vote in the last local election. But it was for school board members, and since I know nothing about the candidates, I wrote in my own name. That's why I probably shouldn't even be wasting anybody's time.

8. Read more

9. I'd love to play more Canasta. Nobody really gets into that though. Maybe online?

10. Do more around the house. Last year I concentrated on the backyard, which was probably a bust. It's a muddy mess right now. We'll see if any of the new grass took. I haven't cleaned the gutters in over a year. The house needs to be re-painted. I re-did the deck, but half-assed, so slapping a coat of waterproof paint doesn't actually fix rotten deck boards. The fence is falling apart in places too.

11. Stop using the kids as an excuse for why I don't get things like home improvements done. It is true though--since the wife and I only have one day off together, I'm alone with the kids on my other day off. And they're not too good about playing quietly while I clean the gutters.

12. Stop using the kids as an excuse for why I don't get things done.

13. Start putting the kids to work to get more things done. They can't do gutters, but they can probably pick up rocks.

14. Lose 20 pounds. Of course most people have this on their list. In my case I'm being modest, I should probably lose 30 pounds.

15. Stop making lists.

New post

No, not this one...the one below it. Just a little note...what I wrote is about 1/20th of what I wanted to write. But sometimes it's not best to wait until midnight to post something, especially when your wife is trying to sleep and you're keeping her awake with the pounding keyboard. Anyway, I just wanted to get something up here so my mom will have something to read next time she checks my blog.

Love you mom!

Where in the world...

In anthropology, there is much use of the word cosmology. In studying so-called primitive societies, cosmologies help explain the relationship of human beings to the rest of the universe and are therefore closely tied to religious beliefs and practices (thanks Dictionary.com!). It's a word I hadn't hear before taking my first anthropology course in college, but it's a topic I've been thinking about ever since.

The latest thing to get me thinking about this was a post at the Great Whatsit. This post, to be specific. As it goes, I had written my own comment to this post, but deleted it at the last minute. Deleted it because a) nobody cares what I have to say on the subject, and b) I have a great place to post stuff that nobody cares about on my own blog without having to mess up someone else's.

Anyway, here's my take on the whole thing: My cosmology only extends to my daily life for the most part. I don't care much what's going on outside my own home, outside my work, or what goes on that doesn't affect me in a daily capacity. I know, I'm sticking my head in the sand, and I do it willingly. I guess what's been worrying me the most lately is that I've been doing it for the past 13 years or so and I figure it's got to catch up with me sooner or later.

Now, this sort of view definitely has its perks. I don't have to worry about politics. I don't have to worry about voting, and if I do decide to vote, I don't worry if I don't like the outcome. I pay attention to the news enough to know what's going on in the world (because you obviously have to pay attention if you're going to keep your Jeopardy skills honed). I just don't get worried unless the bad news is in my home town.

To some extent, my world view encompasses Washington as well as Oregon, so if I'm going to choose an identity, it's as a Pacific Northwester. But that's it. That's about as far as it goes. What's going on in California? Don't much care. Washington D.C.? Doesn't worry me. Bush stole the election? Not going to change the world for me. I do understand that it will change the world for others, so I'm not saying that you shouldn't care...I'm just saying that it doesn't bother me.

Same with religion. I grew up going to church every Sunday. When I decided it wasn't for me, it was a relatively clean break. Now I don't think about it. I don't worry about what church is right, who's going to hell, or what I'm going to do on Sunday. It's no longer a part of my world view.

There are definitely some subjects that I'll have an opinion on, however. Pedophile priests are bad whether I believe in religion or not. Bush is always going to lose the fight against words. I might vote for Obama this time if I do decide to vote. And if I decide not to vote, I don't bitch and moan about the outcome. I understand that I can't say anything if I don't vote. One guy's gonna cut taxes and the other's gonna raise them? Ok by me. I'm gonna pay them either way, just tell me how much I owe. I know Americans are fat and lazy and talk too loud when they're on vacation. Still doesn't bother me. I don't identify myself as one of those. Even if I get fat and lazy (not a far stretch), I'm gonna whisper when I'm in Europe. But the American identity isn't a part of my cosmology.

Is this world view wrong? I don't think so. As I mentioned before, I do worry that it's going to backfire one of these days. Maybe the next president will decide to put everybody with my name in prison. Then it will be too late, and I'll wish I had done things differently.

At least I'll have time to revise where I fit in.

Favorite Cheeses

I like cheese.

I like cheese a lot.

If you add some cheese to a recipe, it becomes good. I like ham and cheese the best. There are no two other flavor combinations that taste as good as ham and cheese I think. Maybe whiskey and Coke. Peanut butter and jelly being a distant third.

Have you ever had Stilton cheese? It's like bleu cheese times 20. I've only had it a few times, and I'd been drinking or I never could have eaten it. But it's really good. I keep meaning to buy some but I don't drink much so I'm always afraid it's going to go bad before I get a chance to drink enough to eat some (pretty ironic, I know, since it already is bad).

Bleu Cheese is my favorite kind of salad dressing. I've been loving it for like 20 years now. When I was a kid it was French and Bleu cheese, but now French is a distant memory and it's just the BC. If a restaurant doesn't have BC I pretty much won't have salad. It's good on top of steak as well.

Gouda is another favorite. Comes from living in Germany near the border with Holland, where Gouda is the ubiquitous, inexpensive cheese that everybody loves. Like cheddar here. I prefer smoked Gouda most, but then again, I like just about any smoked cheese. Especially with ham.

Pepper Jack is awesome. I didn't discover it until later in life. It gives things a zest they might normally be missing. I made a recipe the other day for a kind of tortilla/chicken layered casserole, using nothing but pepper jack for cheese. It was a mistake. I should have put some orange cheese in as well. But it was zingy.

Swiss is another I didn't like as a kid so much, but got used to in Germany. If I'm having a sandwich, Swiss is what I'm wanting to be having on that sandwich. It's easy to get a lousy Swiss though.

You probably haven't heard of Provel cheese before. It's a mix of Provolone and Mozzarella that is specially made in St. Louis. They put it on their pizzas there and it has a special taste that is unique to the city. Provolone is good on sandwiches too.

Asiago is great too. Ranks up there along with fresh parmesan. Love it on bagels.

Myzythra, if you haven't had it, is awesome grated over some freshly made spaghetti. Brown a stick of butter first (just cook it over low-medium heat for like 20 minutes until it turns brown, but not grainy). Then top it with the grated cheese.

Dubliner - One of my new favorite cheeses. Kind of in the Asiago/Parmesan vein. Great with a baguette.

Cheddar, Colby, Jack -- those are all good too. Not really favorites though.

Canned cheese - Heaven!

Kid Elves

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9605990093

Thanks Wayne, for showing me the scoop.

Turkey Day Wrap-up

So we had a great weekend with the family around. My parents and my brother and his family. We ate our brined turkey (moistest bird in Oregon), ate our 10 pounds of mashed potatoes (seriously, we had to throw half of them away, we made so many), at our sweet potatoes (better warmed up), ate everything that was thrown at us then ate some more.

In between eating we played the Wii. Everybody loved it, the whole family was up and about playing Wii Sports. Tennis, golf, bowling, pool. The grandparents were squaring off against the grandkids, brother versus brother, husband vs. wife--if the Wii had been around the past couple hundred years we wouldn't have had any wars, we'd just be playing video games. That's how much it brings people together.

I bought a little gadget the other day called the Skip Doctor, or something like that. It fixes your cds, dvds, games, whatever's round and shiny--if it's scratched and doesn't play correctly, the skip doctor fixes it. This is especially useful around our house since both kids know how to bypass the child guard on the dvd player and get the dvds out. They then throw them around the room, rub sandpaper on them, skate across the rough sidewalk on them, do whatever it takes to scratch them up nice and good. Seriously, it takes about 2 hours from the time the new dvd is opened to look as if we'd had it for 10 years.

I even tried it out on an 18 year old cd I had, the best of the Velvet Underground. This was one of the first cds I ever bought when I was in high school. The case has been missing for the past 8 years I'm sure, so it's been run through the washer. Half the songs skipped half the time. Ran it through the skip doctor, and voila!, good as new. I heartily recommend it.

One thing I can't recommend is the Safeway store in Tigard on Highway 99 near King City. I was in there the other day with my Dad, buying a couple stuff. This little old lady was ahead of us in line, and the guy that was ringing her up started scanning our items as well. I wasn't paying much attention, so I assumed that her own transaction was finished. The lady tells him she hasn't paid yet and then I tell him he's scanning our stuff. The guy doesn't apologize to the her, doesn't even acknowledge he did anything wrong, just starts re-scanning our stuff to remove it from her transaction. She says something about wanting to look at the receipt because she wants to make sure he got the right stuff, and he says, "It's fine, I removed that stuff", in an assholish tone. Then as he hands her the receipt he says, "Thank you Mrs. Grawarshkisoundslikethat". She doesn't notice this because she's asking him a question about the receipt, but what a total prick. That's when I look at his nametag and read that he's the assistant manager.

Working in retail myself, I recognize that everybody can make a mistake. This wasn't a very big mistake either, but I also know that you apologize when you make a mistake, and you don't make fun of the customer and blow them off to downplay that you messed up. That's the kind of thing that loses customer. It's like they say, if you have a great experience at a store you might tell 1-2 people, but when you have a bad experience you tell at least 10 people.

Hey, assistant manager at Safeway, Stop Being an Asshat!

Giving Thanks

Went shopping this morning for the thanksgiving meal. First we dropped the kids off at daycare, then the two of us went to the grocery store. It's very rare that we are off on the same day without kids, so it was kind of a nice break. Where'd we go next? Back to Crate & Barrel, because we just don't have enough stuff from there, and there's nowhere we'd rather be on our one day off.

We're brining our turkey this year. Seems to be the 'in' thing to do. Everybody's talking about it. I hope it works. The turkey was still a little frozen in the middle, so the Missus had to reach her hand inside and scrape out the gibblets and pull out the gross neck while getting frostbite and scratches on her fingers from the frozen icicles.

She made a small batch of mashed potatoes to check out the recipe, and they were good. I made a light lunch of turkey and gouda on a baguette and toasted in the oven.

Now just waiting for the parents to arrive, whereupon we'll go pick up the kids and try to relax while still fretting about all the preparations for tomorrow.

Woohoo.

To keep you from being disappointed

Sorry for lack of updates (I feel guilty about this almost every day). Busy with Noah's first birthday party planning, Thanksgiving planning, excuse for not updating planning. Lots of planning, very little execution.

So here's a little video of Noah walking.

Beck as a 2 1/2 year old girl

Sonny & Cher

You've kind of got to squint to see the resemblance. You might as well just call them hippies, but you get the general idea.

Noah kind of looked like a version of Sonny/Hitler/Jimi Hendrix. Of course, neither of them even had any idea what they were doing, and no, we didn't teach them to sing, "I've Got You, Babe". Maybe next year.

I kind of wanted to catch Cher in the "Half-Breed" phase, but we were somewhat limited in the costume choices as we waited until the last minute due to our San Diego trip.

Enjoy.

Latest Pics of the Kids

The kids posing in some homemade sweaters made by a friend of the family. I gave them both haircuts yesterday, so they don't look so much like dirty hippies. Smiling dirty hippies.

The kids are getting much better at playing together now. This usually consists of Noah chasing Lexi around, but she loves him almost as much as he loves her. Except when she's using him as a stepstool. Or he's getting drool all over her.

Good times.

Wherein I make cooking my bitch...

So a lot of my recent experiences with cooking have been negative, I must admit. But I'm here to tell you that the past two nights in a row I've managed to turn it around and make something that I was not only proud of, but that actually tasted alright too. Turns out the secret is ------

Casseroles!

Well, don't let me get too over-excited all at once. I know I've messed up casseroles too, so I won't say I've mastered them, but these two dishes turned out well.

1. Chicken casserole. This one didn't make me proud because it was fancy or anything. I got the recipe off the Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup can. Though I did give it a twist by adding some french cut green beans. I sort of melded the Campbell's recipe with a green bean casserole recipe on the back of the Safeway Beans can.

Ingredients : Chicken, Cream of Mushroom Soup (a Smith family tradition, by the way), 3/4 can of green beans, Salt, Pepper. Bake for 30 minutes, then add a little cheese and some french fried onions and you're good to go. Now that I think about it, not only was it my idea to add the green beans, I also added the salt and pepper and cheese. Campbell's must really want your dinner to turn out poorly if all they ask for is soup and chicken. That means I actually improvised, and won! Shiiittttttt yeah!

2. Beef Bourguignon. Ok, this one I'm pretty proud of. It was also in a casserole book, but it is more stew-like to me. Basically involves a bunch of half-decent ingredients (opposite of #1, above) that you cook on the stove top, then bake in the oven for 2 hours. Except that scenario wouldn't work out with my schedule today because I was minding the kids, so I went from the stove top to the slow cooker instead.

I just looked up beef bourguignon on Wikipedia and realized that my recipe was kind of boring compared to the traditional method of cooking, but I think I still got the idea correct. The main ingredient I had a problem with was the bouquet garni. The cookbook said you could find this at most grocery stores and I was looking amongst the spices, but after looking at a picture of it that I googled, I see this isn't something that comes in a bottle. It's basically a few different herbs tied together and tossed into the pot, then taken out before eating, like bay leaves. Oh well, now I know for next time.

Anyhoo, the main point to take away is that I cooked two things that turned out well. Maybe not exactly gourmet cooking, but it was nice to have them taste at least as well as I was expecting, if not better. What I really need to focus on now is side dishes. I usually get so carried away with one major recipe that by the time it's finished and ready to eat I realize I've forgotten to make anything to go with it. Apparently potato chips are not a side dish, though they do fill the rest of the plate quite nicely.

Going to California

Heading off on vacation for a week, so don't expect any updates. As if...

Brushes With Fame

Have you ever run across a famous person? I always hear others talking about star sightings they've had, but it never seems to happen to me. And with good reason...I don't expect to ever meet anybody I know, so I'm never really taking stock of those around me. I have had a couple of incidents, which I will now relate (in chronological order):

1. Billy Barty - This one I'm not even really sure about. I remember meeting a dwarf when I was a kid, and I think it was this guy.

2. Spider Man - Also as a kid. We went to the mall in Seattle where Spider Man was appearing at the local Nordstroms to sign autographed posters and take pictures. I was mega-excited, and I asked him some silly question, like does he sleep in a web-hammock. He was really nice but I think I got scared and wanted to leave really suddenly.

3. Dennis Rodman/Carmen Electra - I was at a casino in Vegas during a college weekend getaway and everybody was moving to the side to let someone through, and it happened to be these two. Rodman had the leopard-print hairdo at the time and everybody was whispering his name. I'm glad they did or I wouldn't have recognized them.

4. Matt Damon/Bob Vila/Barbara Bush - These three supposedly shopped at the store I worked at in Boston, but I never saw any of them. Well, I saw the lady that was supposedly Barbara Bush, but I thought it was just some Grandma. Bob Vila bought a pan scrubber, and Matt Damon was eating lunch around the corner from the store. I walked along the sidewalk and saw some guy in a baseball hat, so I like to believe it was him.

That's pretty much it. My goal for 2008 is going to be to look for more famous people.

Rube

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The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread

http://baconsalt.com/

I mean, seriously, what's better than bacon? Ham n' cheese mebbe, but otherwise not much.

The Score So Far:

Mark:2

Food Disasters: 43

I forgot to mention that with my Rachael Ray disaster, I also made an appetizing dish that was part of the recipe. Crostini topped with Manchego cheese that's been mixed with parsley and chopped roasted red pepper. Slice a baguette, broil the pieces for about 10 minutes until slightly brown, then mix together the ingredients in a bowl and put them on the browned toast. Then stick back in the broiler for another 5 minutes until melted. The cheese is pretty important, as I tried it again last night with Parmesan (that store didn't have Manchego) and the cheese was overpowered by the parsley.

Now a smarter man than myself would say, "Hmm, the recipe that only contained 4 ingredients turned out well, whereas the recipe with 11 ingredients was shit, what's going on here?". And that smarter man would have a point. I have no use for the smarter man. The Mrs. pretty much made that same point last week. I have a couple reasons for not wanting to use simple recipes.

1. I can still muck up a simple recipe. I know that if you follow the recipe exactly and are careful it should turn out fine, but I can still mess it up somehow.

2. If I mess up a simple recipe, I don't really have any excuse. If I mess up a complicated recipe, I can blame any number of factors--the instructions were unclear, my store didn't have the correct ingredients, or my usual excuse, I drank too much whiskey while cooking and everything just kind of fell apart.

3. On that one day where everything just comes together just right and I make the most heavenly morsels that you've ever eaten, then I'll be even prouder because it wasn't the easy recipe.

Don't bother pointing out how stupid my thinking is on this point...a smarter man (or Mrs.) has already told me. Anyway, thanks for reading, and if you ever want a homecooked meal, let her know.

Rachael Ray

I whipped up a dish from my new Rachael Ray cookbook last night. I'm not sure whether I love that woman or loathe her. My opinion seems to ping-pong back and forth depending on what day it is. Lately she's been bugging me by being everywhere at once, but because the Mrs. bought me a RR cookbook for my birthday, I felt like I should put it to use. So I picked out a soup recipe that had mostly ingredients that I like, though one that I don't (cooked spinach).

So I start by browning a 1/2 pound of chorizo. In the recipe it says I should quarter the chorizo lengthwise, then make thin slices from these. I don't know what chorizo she uses, but I couldn't cut that shit for all the tea in China. It didn't cut, it pulled apart into chunks. So instead of nice slices of chorizo it looked more like mashed brown stuff. This wasn't a good sign, though I later learned it's about the taste it adds to the dish, not necessarily the substance.

Then I cut up an onion and some garlic and cook it up. Then defrost the frozen spinach, add it to the onions and garlic, and puree the bastard in a blender. Our blender sucks the big one. It didn't puree anything but the bottom 1/5 of the mixture, so I had to stir, then puree. Repeat, oh, 10 times.

Put all this back in the pot, add some chicken broth, add some bite-sized chicken chunks, and let those cook in the soup. The result is baby-poo. With chicken.

Seriously, had she told me at the beginning that it was going to look like green baby crap, I probably would've just made grilled cheese and tomato soup. Mandy had already been home sick throwing up all day, but she gamely ate a few bites for me. I had to drink a beer first before I could try some. Luckily the accompaniment of crostini with manchego cheese mixed with parsley and roasted red peppers provided something solid to help the green shit go down.

I did take the leftovers to work today and ate while I read a book. This way I didn't have to look at what I was eating. And you wanna know something? It was pretty good! Even the spinach added to the dish, which is the least it could do, after giving it the sickly green finish. I know what you're thinking, couldn't you have left the spinach out? No, because one of the reasons I can't cook is because I often make detours from the main recipes and these turn out horribly, so I'm trying very hard to actually follow the instructions. But I think if I had just used a little less spinach and maybe some more broth the results would've been much more satisfying.

I don't think I'll make that again though.

Happy Birthday...

to my sister, Stephanie. She's not that old, but still two years older than I. She thinks she hasn't accomplished much in her life, but everybody who knows her begs to differ. Love you sis!

Designer Clothing and Idaho

Part of the awesomeness of my job is that I get to dress up each day for work. Dressing up might be a stretch, at least as far as imagining me not looking like a schmuck, but I have to wear button-down shirts and tuck them in, which definitely counts as dressing up in my book.

Lately I've been wondering about the fashion designers who create the looks I wear. The funny thing is, I don't really know who they are. I'm not talking about the Tommy Hilfigers, Hugo Bosses and Calvin Kleins...I'm wondering who David Taylor is, Van Heusen, and Hagar. You never see them on the style channel, never read about them in magazines or hear about their awesome fashion shows in Paris and Milan. But obviously they're real names of people who design clothes, aren't they?

And what's with these ultra-conservative types who rail against homosexuality then get caught in toilet stalls with their pants around their ankles? Jesus isn't going to save those guys.

The Historian and Kids

So I just got finished with a long ass book called The Historian. It's kind of about Dracula. It's about 860 pages about a historian who doesn't believe in Dracula but finds enough clues that the bad dude himself may be alive that he searches for him all over Europe, then maybe 40 pages of action that actually involve Dracula. That is not a good ratio, my friend. That's a lot of buildup, maybe a little too much background history, you might say. How about half the book is about the historian searching for Dracula, then the other half is Dracula beating his ass. Or maybe 1/3 is him not believing in Dracula, then 1/3 is him searching for Dracula, then 1/3 him getting beat down by Dracula. Except for like 1/16th at the very very end where he kills Dracula.

By the way, he does end up killing Dracula at the end. Or so you think...

Lexi can now climb over her baby gates. She just hops right over. Except for the one that's in the doorway of her room. I think she can do it but chooses not to when we're not looking, so she can spring it on us one day like when she learned to climb out of her crib. I expect I'll be getting out of the shower and she'll just be standing in our room, like, "Hey Dad, what's up?".

Tonight I was laying in bed with her for a few minutes and she was telling me what Joey says at Daycare. I couldn't understand her though, it was like, "Joey says fooboomafoo". I said, "Foomoobafoo?" and she said, "No, fooboomafoo". I tried again, "Foomoobafoo?" And she leaned over and pushed my head down onto the pillow and said, "Shut your eyes Daddy". Apparently I only get one try to understand what she's saying.

Bioshock and Tuna Fish

I've been playing a new game that came out this past week, Bioshock. It's gotten a lot of press lately and the first reviews were very positive. I'm normally not a fan of the genre that this game is in, but I played it for a few hours last night and it was really pretty awesome. It's kind of a first person shooter, but there's enough action mixed with puzzle type elements that it makes for a great game.

The graphics are great, especially the water. From the outset of the game, where you've survived a plane crash and you're swimming in the ocean near the downed jet and have to swim towards land, you're immersed in a gorgeous world that just takes over. The whole world they've created just draws you in and is done in such a great style that it kept me playing much longer than I normally would have for this type of game.

Anyway, the tuna fish thing...just found a great recipe the other day for tuna sandwiches without mayo...using lime juice, cilantro and scallions, it was a nice, light summery type of sandwich and hit the spot (though there was too a little too much cilantro).

If green means 25 mph then count me out...

I've never been in a Prius or other hybrid car. I rarely even notice them on the street. But this week I've had three (3 in one week!) encounters with the almighty Prius, all of them being almost exactly the same (only the colors were different).

Encounter one: I'm leaving the parking structure at work, last in a line of about 5 cars. When we get to the bottom I realize the lead car is a Prius going 10 miles an hour. I'm not needing to speed through parking structures, but even after we got out of the garage he continued at the same pace for about three more blocks. Worse yet was his license plate, "Oommpph". That's the sound his car made as he tried to get it into second gear to go the speed limit I guess.

Second encounter: Almost the same as the first, but this time I got from the parking structure to the street, and as soon as I turned onto the street, there was a Prius ahead of me going about 25 miles an hour (speed limit is 35 there). This guy apparently lives near me because I ended up following him nearly a mile, him going under the speed limit the whole time (though I suspect he sped up as soon as I turned onto my street).

Third encounter: Just driving down the street again, this time nowhere near work, and I get stuck behind another Prius owner that drives about 27 mph on a road that's 40. This is typical on this street, because the speed limit sign is hidden behind a tree so people never know that they can go quicker than this, but because this was my third slow Prius encounter in a week, I didn't give that little bastard the benefit of the doubt.

So what's the problem here? Do Prius owners just drive slow, or can the cars themselves not accelerate quickly? I don't really mind a leisurely pace now and again, but this just seemed too bizarre that each time it was a Prius.

Gyro mess

So I tried this great new recipe in Cook's Illustrated for homemade Gyros. At least it looked like a great recipe, until I followed it and it tasted like crap.

This is apparently where my lack of cooking skill tends to show itself most readily -- when I try to cook something.

Lex and I went to the grocery store and found all the ingredients. Lemon, garlic, onion, fresh herbs, ground lamb. All the stuff I wouldn't normally be able to fit in the cart because the Hot Pockets are taking up all the space, but since I was just getting stuff for this one recipe, I had no excuse.

Followed the recipe exactly. I do this to prove that it's not the recipe's fault, it's my own, when things don't turn out.

So I had to make a paste of all the ingredients, then add the paste to the ground lamb. Then form little balls (no jokes please), squish them into patties, and cook them in oil for a few minutes. They formed the requisite hard shell on each side, so with all systems go, I assembled the gyros: Tzatsiki, shredded lettus, Tomatoz and the homemade lamb patties.

Ugh. I had to thank the Mrs. for finishing hers. I ended up eating one and a half, but only because I was so hungry from making them. The patties were soggy in the middle and this totally ruined the gyros. Is it really just too much to ask for a restaurant that makes good gyros so I don't have to try making my own?

And to think that last week I wanted to try making Beef Wellington. Looks like I'm back to beans and weenies. Those I can't screw up.

Never Trust a Hippie

So I got my haircut today. I went to the same place I've been going for about 6 months now. I don't go often, once every 4-6 weeks. Each time I've had somebody different cut it, except for today, it was the same woman that cut it last month.

I thought she looked familiar, but I wasn't totally sure, so I didn't say anything right off. She started asking me how I liked it cut and I told her, but she seemed kind of strange about it. Last time she totally got it and I didn't have to go into as much detail. This is one reason I thought it was a different woman. I told her I wanted the sides shaved, like with clippers, and she said, "You mean bald?". Uh -- no, dumbshit, just short.

Once she started going though I totally knew it was the same person. I knew because she's a total stoner. She was like, "Man, I hate driving, it's like everybody's just got to share the road man." Meanwhile I've got my glasses in my lap so I can't actually see what she's doing to me. Maybe she is shaving me bald and I wouldn't notice. I did notice a lot of gray hair falling away.

She's really nice though, even if she is a hippie. She didn't wash my hair because she was the only one working and there was another guy waiting in line, but she did give me a little neck massage while wiping away the stray hair clippings from my neck, so I gave her a good tip.

I'll be back hippie chick. Hope you remember me next time.

Mail carriers aren't morning people

So I've always wondered who gets their mail in the morning. Only once in my life have I lived in a place where I got my mail before noon, and even then it occasionally arrived at 11.

I've always lumped mailmen in with paper carriers who get up early in the morning to start their deliveries. I don't think they're sorting their own mail, so what's the holdup? Is it proximity to the post office that determines what time you get your delivery? I have to admit, I've never tried living next to the post office so I haven't tested this.

In Seattle we were on the last part of the route, so we didn't get our mail until after 5 pm, sometimes 6 or 7 even. Here in Portland it's about 2.30. I see mail trucks driving around all day, so what's going on here? Are they stopping by the coffee shop to get enough caffeine in them so they can go deliver all the mail between 12 and 5?

And UPS guys aren't any different. I'm waiting on a package right now (which is what go me thinking about this topic). It's noon, and I'm leaving for work in 30 minutes, and I'm sure the package won't be here before I leave. Not that it's a big deal, just strange that I never seem to get early deliveries.

Another mystery of life...

Now we're cooking with gas...

Cooks are in these days, my mom-in-law said today. She's right, we're watching cooking shows left and right. Hell's Kitchen, Top Chef, Rachel Ray (not much but sometimes I watch her). It's enough to make me wish I knew how to cook.

I can follow a recipe for the most part, but to be honest, even if I were to follow it to a T, it never turns out well. Which usually means that I end up winging it. This involves adding more salt and pepper and usually more cheese as well. If it's not a dish that calls for cheese then I might just add a little cheese, and if it has cheese in the recipe then I might just add a variety of cheeses to give it more cheesy goodness.

Now, I've had a couple successes in my life. In fact I had two in one week last month, I can't even remember what it was, but probably had something to do with pork chops and cheese. I find pork chops difficult to mess up. I think I made home-made mashed potatoes and some kind of green vegetable as well. Or maybe it was squash. Funny enough, being a picky eater as I am, I like a lot of vegetables that turn most people off.

One of my problems is that I love to drink when I'm cooking. I find cooking to be kind of like gambling in that I never know whether it's going to turn out well or not, so if I drink while cooking, then 1) I have an excuse for why it turned out poorly, and 2) the food is going to taste better if I'm a bit tipsy.

I just have to remember not to grate the cheese when I'm drunk. That always leads to trouble.

Movies

Now that I'm getting over being sick I'm going to post more. That was my Sick Time Resolution.

We watched 'Running With Scissors' last night. It made me sick it was so bad. I was puking and crapping my pants with righteous indignation for having wasted time of my life watching it. Don't watch it if you don't want to puke and/or crap your pants. It's a shame as I remember slightly the book being decent.

Tonight I watched Munich on HBO. I watched 2/3 of it at least, because I didn't realize it's a 3 hour movie. probably could've easily been boiled down to 2 hours, but the 2/3 of it I watched were pretty good and did not make me any sicker. In fact they probably helped dispel my sickness of the night before, because at this moment I'm feeling a little better now.

Sick Goals

Why is it that whenever I get sick I feel like it's time to renew my New Years Resolutions? It's like, I'm lying in bed, feeling horrible for whatever reason. Maybe the spicy chicken wings made me puke, maybe I got the stomach flu from the kids, whatever...but my mind automatically starts thinking, "If I weren't feeling so bad I'd be getting a lot of stuff done right now".

Which is absolute crap, I know, because if I weren't feeling so bad I'd probably be lying in bed, wishing I were sick so I could stay home.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my own father and all other fathers out there.

My own fathers day started last night with Lexi throwing up in her bed. We cleaned it up and let her sleep in our room, and she's probably thrown up about 10-15 times since then.

It's really horrible to have to watch her do that over and over again. Though now she seems to be pretty good at it and isn't surprised when it happens. And we got her a big red bowl to use, which she seems to like. Maybe I should paint a bulls-eye on the bottom of the bowl.

Ow, My Balls!

So there's this Japanese game show called Ninja Warrior that Mandy and I have been into a bit the past few weeks. In one segment, the contestants have to straddle a giant log and roll down a track while astride this log. One day we were watching it and I might've said something along the lines of, "Ow, my balls!".

A couple days later I flipped across the show again, and Lexi exclaimed, "Ow, my balls!". I think she thinks it's the name of the show. Though she kind of seems to know what it means because at daycare she kept spreading her doll's legs apart and slamming it to the floor and yelling, "Ow, my balls!".

We're really going to have to start watching our language one of these days.

Phone Spam

I hate answering the phone. But I hate marketers even worse, so I inevitably pick up the phone even when it says Unknown Caller. In fact, I usually only pick up the phone when it's an unknown caller. I'm an all-day sucker.

Lately it's been for some guy named Phillip Anderson. It doesn't matter that I tell them they have the wrong number, they just hang up and try back later. I swear the next time they ask for him I'm going to pretend I'm him and see what happens. I'm guessing they're bill collectors. I'm gonna tell them the check's in the mail and see if they believe me. I'll even describe the check, tell them what color it was, what kind of pen I used to fill it out, and tell them I put the stamp on upside down, because that means I love you. I wish Phillip Anderson would pay his goddam bills on time or at least update his phone number so I don't have to take care of his problems.

The last phone call I got was the local newspaper. I subscribe to the Sunday paper so I can look at all the pretty ads for the local stores. Most the time we don't even get around to reading the actual paper itself, we just like to check out the specials at Target and what have you. Ever few months though I get a call and they tell me they're going to give me the rest of the week's papers for free, for a year. One year of free daily newspapers just by paying 2 bucks a week for the Sunday paper. I'd say they're a bunch of idiots, but I really think they're a bunch of dimwitted fuckers. Because every time they call I tell them thank you for your offer but I don't even read the one paper each week that I currently get.

Last time they called I warned them of how serious I was. I told them I was thinking of unsubscribing even to my Sunday paper because their phone calls were getting annoying. I told them if I got another telephone call I would cancel my Sunday paper. It was quiet for awhile while they respected my wishes, but I guess they got bored and decided to invade my privacy again.

And the worst ones are the firefighter and police associations. I've been suckered into giving to these a few times. Usually just 5 bucks so they could take some kids to the Shriner's circus. What kid really wants to go to the Shriner's circus anyway? Most kids want to hang out behind the mall and smoke cigarettes with their friends. Next time I feel like donating on the phone I'm going to drive to the mall and search out some poor looking kids and give them 5 bucks. That should make both of our days.

Ow, my eye!

For the past year or so I've been troubled with an affliction involving my eye. I'll be sleeping and wake up suddenly in the middle of the night when my eye feels like someone's stabbing it with a burning poker.

I went to a doctor about it and he said it's called Corneal Erosion. This means that the top layer of my cornea sticks to my eyelid, and when I wake up, it rips that top layer like a flap of skin off my eye. It hurts for hours until that flap re-attaches itself to the eyeball.

Sounds nasty, doesn't it?

Well it is. I usually find myself doubled over in pain with my fist or an ice pack compressed into my eye socket to try to relieve the pain. I mention it because it happened again yesterday. I actually tried to go to work, I dropped the kids off and went in for a couple hours, but I'm pretty well useless (and shouldn't have been driving anyway), so I came home and went to bed.

Normally my head starts hurting and my vision in that eye is blurred, but it's always been better the next day. But today it's still blurry and even though my headache is gone, it always comes back after a few hours of this blurred vision.

I'm going to see a specialist this afternoon to find out if there's anything to be done to fix it.

Hot Pockets

I admit I have been eating Hot Pockets for many, many years now. This guy is hilariously right-on about the truth behind them.

By the way, if you get a chance to check out the Chicken Bakes from Costco, I heartily recommend them, they're wonderful.

What the heck is going on here?

Jesus loves me

To: Macsmith230

From: Jesus

Subject: Re

I got an email today from Jesus. I didn't read it since it was in my spam box, but it looks like he finally got around to answering me.

The problem is, I've forgotten what I wrote him about in the first place. I could have been e-viting him to my birthday party, or maybe it was forwarding the message about saving the children. In any case, it was nice of him to write back.

Best Job

Ok, may as well tell about my favorite job ever. I spent a summer working for Washington State University's Tree fruit research center in my hometown. It was totally awesome. Spent most the summer outside, often driving around in government cars with their bad paint jobs and am radios. I actually listened to a lot of Rush Limbaugh because I've never liked listening to Top 40 radio.

The worst job we did that summer was to spray the fruit trees with chemicals to test them out and see how effective they were at killing the pests. At first this wasn't so bad, because I just drove the truck slowly down the row of trees while someone else had to trail along spraying the trees. Then they got smart and taught me how to do the spraying. It's not that spraying was so bad, it's that you had to wear a jumpsuit (not the bad part) and big rubber boots and a big, floppy rubber hat and big ol' rubber gloves and a respirator, and it was usually 110 degrees out, while the driver got to sit up front in the air conditioned cab and listen to cds. I'm not sure why the spray truck got air conditioning and a cd player, but we didn't take it for granted.

It was mainly a group of college kids working there, so we sat around a lot and shot the shit while doing menial labor. One of the most boring jobs was to take a box of leaves we'd plucked from the test trees and run them through a little machine that had two brushes on it, which would brush off any tree pests onto a microscope slide, which we'd then count under a magnifying glass to see how many had survived the sprays.

Another job I had to do was to go into a test orchard and pluck little worms from the leaves there. These worms would get in the middle of a leaf and wrap the leaf around them, so I had to unwrap the leaf and put the worm into a container. I had to collect 200 of them so it took me several days to accomplish this task. Once I had my 200, I had to put each one in a little plastic cup with a lid and a few fresh leaves for them to eat. Over the summer we would do tests on these worms, so I had to make sure they had fresh leaves and then I'd have to clean out their little worm poop from their cups every couple days. These worms had a surprisingly large amount of poop coming out of them. After a few months they turned into moths and we pretty much killed them all with hazardous chemicals.

The very best part of the job was that sometimes I had to go out to the remote orchards to collect samples, so you'd grab a car and drive a couple hours with the windows down and a soda in your lap. Once you got to the orchard you didn't even have to leave the car. You'd just drive down the rows and pluck some leaves from the trees as you drove past. This was totally awesome and I'm not sure now why I didn't stick with this job.

Once we were done with all our tests and had our data compiled, the supervising bosses would write up their results and publish them so that the orchardists knew which sprays to put on their crops to kill the invasive pests. I know it's a long ways from the organic food which is getting to be popular these days, but I sure did love that job.

My worst job

I had one job that I worked for just one day because it was so horrible.

I was in college and my uncle offered to get me a job through a friend working for RPS, a delivery company similar to UPS. I was going to school at BYU and the job was in Salt Lake City, 45 minutes away. Somehow I thought that wouldn't pose a problem. The worst part about it was that the hours were from midnight to 7 am. Since I had just learned about No Doz and Mini Thins, I figured I could go to work, come home in time for classes, then sleep in the afternoon and start all over again.

On the night I was supposed to start my new job, there was a blizzard. Maybe not a full blown blizzard, but one of those where you're the only car on the road and the plows haven't come out yet and you're wondering what you're doing outside. I knew what I was doing, I was starting my new job! I left around 10.30 to make sure I'd make the 45 minute drive in time, and I got there just before midnight. I had a quick smoke, then went inside and introduced myself.

The rest of the night was so horrible. Basically they would back a semi truck up to a conveyor belt and unload the packages onto that. Delivery trucks were parked in rows on each side of the belt, and you were supposed to pull the packages that were on your truck's route. Except since I wasn't from there I didn't really know whether a package went on my truck or not, and the big information sheet they had posted near me didn't help much either.

I guess I was being trained, in that they explained to me what to do for 10 minutes then let me go. I had my own truck, and a woman came by every 15 minutes or so to see how I was doing. I was doing terribly. The inside of the truck was divided into six sections, then each section subdivided by 3. Once a section (or subsection) filled up, you weren't supposed to put the next packages in the nearest section, as you'd suppose, instead you were supposed to magically make the packages fit into their correct section that was already too full. Somehow this seemed pretty fucked up, because 5 of the sections were empty and only one section was getting packages and it was overflowing.

Anyway, this job sucked. And next time you're wondering why your package is broken, it's because those little bastards at the warehouse are throwing your shit around from one end to the other.

Sick-o

Ugh, sick as a dog today, and the wife's in California for a couple days so it's just me and the holy terrors.

Ok, they're being very good, but it's doubly hard when you're not feeling good.

I used to like being sick. You could lay around and watch tv and do whatever. Now it feels like work. I feel like I have to clean the house, and now I'm doing laundry to prove that my sick day wasn't enjoyable at all. Sometimes I wish I had no conscience (I'm sure my wife thinks I don't, but it could be much, much worse).

Video

Trying to get video up and running here...

Lexi Dancing

Hometowns

I grew up in a smallish city in central Washington. I went home this past weekend to visit, and while there I realized I hadn't been home in over a year. Even when we lived in Seattle I didn't make it over as much as I wanted to, but now that we're six hours and two screaming kids away, it makes for an even tougher journey.

But every time I go to visit my family there are certain things I just have to do. I have to eat a hamburger at the local place called Dusty's Drive-In. I have to go to the Hastings bookstore, which has a better selection of magazines and books than the Borders near here. I'm not sure why, I like to think that they feel bad for all the people who live there that can't escape, so they like to offer a lot of diversions.

And I usually make Mandy drive around with me and I point out important places from my childhood; the schools I attended, that sort of thing.

But this last visit there were some surprising things that I wanted to see.

First was the Gas/Groc. That was never the real name of the place, but for some reason they built a convenience store/gas station and right in front they had a 50 foot sign that said Gas/Groc. I always understood the gas part, but the Groc was the funny part that didn't make so much sense. I guess it stands for groceries, though it's not really a place you're gonna go shopping for your evening meal. Alas, the sign is gone now, though there is still a convenience store there. I didn't go in.

Just down the street from the Gas/Groc is the oil-change coffee shop. I forget the actual name, but it's the first place I ever saw that combined oil changes and lattes. When Seattle's coffee boom hit, Wenatchee wasn't spared. We had coffee shops on every corner with coffee stands/carts on the sidewalks between them. And we had the oil change/latte shop to complete the set.

Anyway, though I miss not being near my family, it's good to be back home again in my own bed.

God made mud

A PRAYER FOR THE DYING

God made mud.

God got lonesome.

So God said to some of the mud, ‘Sit up!’

‘See all I’ve made,’ said God, ‘the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars.’

And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.

Lucky me, lucky mud.

I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.

Nice going, God!

Nobody but You could have done it, God! I certainly couldn’t have.

I feel very unimportant compared to You.

The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn’t even get to sit up and look around.

I got so much and most mud got so little.

Thank you for the honor.

Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.

What memories for mud to have!

What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!

I loved everything I saw!

Good night.


R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut

Misc. Wednesday

Work's been painfully slow lately. Nobody want to buy furniture right now, not with taxes due soon. We went to see Blades of Glory tonight, the new movie with Will Ferrell and John Heder. It was pretty hilarious. Now I need to see 300 before it leaves theaters. I'm going to try to see it next week when we go to visit my family in Wenatchee.

Lately I've been getting annoyed by all the talk about being carbon neutral. It reminds me of the indulgences you could once buy from the church to rid yourself of sins by paying money. I'm not sure that giving money to organizations that build solar panels in Africa should really get you a gold star and a pat on the head. Ooh, I helped pay for a windmill, so now I can feel better about driving around in my gas-guzzler.

Maybe it's a good thing, but I'm suspicious.

Mondays suck

The worst thing about Mondays is emptying out two diaper pails. Holy sheet it's some nasty-ass jobbery.

Changing one diaper is bad enough, but opening up the lid and being assaulted by the smell of 25-30 poopy/pee-stained diapers is just too much.

Saturday Night Live

We watched Borat tonight on dvd. A bit of a letdown since it has been built up so much. Not that it wasn't funny, but I'm not sure why People gave it 4 out of 4 stars. They never give anything 4 stars. I give it 6/10, it definitely had its moments.

After it was over we realized how sad we are. We were watching the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, on a Saturday night, with the kids in bed. And actually somewhat enjoying it.

Lexi's been listening to music lately and dancing around her bedroom. We put a cd player in there so she could listen to the cd's that her Uncle Jeff got her. She especially likes the Sippy Cups and Apples in Stereo. I like them too, and you can usually find me dancing away in there with her. She likes to shake her booty, though her normal dancing style is running around in a circle bobbing her head.

The other night was a classic night. Mandy blames it on me giving Lexi some Coke. That was about 4 pm and she probably had about 4 ounces of it, so I'm not sure it was my fault, but Lexi wouldn't go to bed all night. She probably conked out about 2 am finally. But at 1 am I was jolted awake to music playing. I thought it was my alarm and that morning had finally come, but then realized it was coming from Lexi's room. She had turned the stereo all the way up then hit Play. When I got to her room she was lying on her bed with her hands over her head, partly because of the volume, and partly, I'm sure, in preparation for the yelling she knew I was going to be doing. The next day she kept saying, "Music loud...daddy mad".

Noe gets older

Pics of Noah, Stories of Lexi:

We told Lexi that she could get a sticker for every night she stays in bed the whole night. I asked her, "What do you get if you stay in bed all night?" and she replied, "A sticker!". I asked, "What do you get if you don't stay in bed all night"? She said, "A taco"!

Then tonight we were singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little star, how I wonder what you...television".

She also told me, "Just a minute" a couple of times today. "Lexi, let's go inside now."
"Just a minute".

Dylan sings Seuss

Saw this link on Unfogged this morning...

Like father like daughter

At least she's reading...

Lamps

Sweet lamp here

I'm not buying a lamp. I just saw this one and thought it was mecha-awesome, like my throbbing foot.

And while we're on the subject of awesome furniture coupled with lousy customer service, have you ever been in a Design Within Reach store? A friend was telling me about his experience going in there one day...said he went in and there was a woman behind a computer sitting at the desk, totally ignored him at first. He looked around for a few minutes and she finally asked, "How are you today?", and that was it. Never asked if he needed help, never offered any information, nothing.

When he finished I told him I had the exact same experience, except the lady at least asked me how I was within a few seconds of entering the store rather than waiting until I'd been browsing for awhile.

I tell you, that furniture better give my kids a bath and put them to bed if it's so goddam good that you don't need to put any effort into selling it.

My new desktop

courtesy of Twohead

Birthday Castle

It's always easier to just throw up a picture and show how cute they are than try to explain why they keep me up at night.

Dinosaurs

I know there are some of those out there that know you're getting old, but it's still kind of new for me. Sure, I've got more gray hairs than I would like and the kids and mortgage payment are good indicators that I'm getting up there, but what really does it for me is seeing bands that I used to listen to reforming and heading back out on tour.

There are bands that do this every few years (The Eagles, Van Halen), then there are bands that should have hung up their guitars decades ago (Rolling Stones), but the one that's hitting home for me is Dinosaur Jr.

Maybe the Pixies started it a few years ago. Which is funny because I was telling a co-worker around that same time that if they ever got back together again, I would go see them no matter where they were playing. Turns out it was at the Gorge, in Washington, and the enormo-dome Sasquatch fest, and I don't like those big festival shows, so I didn't go. Another sign of my fogeyness, perhaps?

But when I saw a post on Pitchfork about Dinosaur Jr. getting together again I just about crapped my pants. You've got to see the accompanying photo.

J. Mascis looks like a complete goober. His long, stringy hair is now gray and he's still got those big fucking glasses like my mom wore in the 80's. Not sure if he's trying to show how non-trendy he is, but somewhere he made a huge mistake in optical fashion trends.

Lou Barlow looks about the same, maybe a few pounds heavier, and Murph has a giant bald head and looks kind of like James Carville.

I don't mean to single them out to be rude, it's just that in a couple more years it's going to be me and that's scary.

Honk honk

So getting the girl to actually sleep in her big girl bed has been harder than expected. Apparently we didn't follow all the rules we should have when considering moving her out of the crib. Rules such as putting the new bed in the same position that the crib was in, letting them help assemble the new bed, letting them pick out bedding they like, etc.

We didn't find this out until 2 1/2 hours after trying to put her down for the night.

She went to bed just fine. Gave her a kiss and shut the door. Wait 10 seconds. Door opens and she sticks her head out. Back to bed. Close door. Wait for door to open. Rinse, repeat.

I went upstairs to see how it was going and just in time...Mandy was getting tired of dealing with the girl. I take a different approach and lay down on the bed with her. She's good for about 10 seconds, then she reaches over, grabs my nose and says, "Honk honk". It's very hard not to laugh when you know you shouldn't encourage her.

She sits up in bed, wants to read a book, wants to turn the musical birds on, wants to see Mommy. I get mad and reason with her. Oh yeah, two year olds don't do reasoning, so i resort to Mandy's tactic of slamming her on to the bed and closing the door. Ten seconds later, door opens a crack. I put her back on the bed, repeat. This time Mandy comes up to relieve me and keeps her company for awhile.

Then it's my turn again.

Finally, after 2-3 hours of this, she nods off and finally drifts off into la-la land.

Then comes the snoring. Just like her mother.

Sigh

I'm the worst intrnetter ever. I swear, I'll be right in the middle of writing something and get just so goddamn bored with what I've just written I can't even be bothered to finish what I'm writing.

Catch me again in two more weeks.

'V'

Remember the old television series 'V'? I don't really, other than the crunching noise the aliens made when they ate cockroaches, which I believe was their favorite snack. Anyway, we've had a steady stream of visitors over the past few weeks, none of which I suspect of being from another planet, I just was thinking that the 'V' in title stood for 'Visitors'.

Nothing wrong with visitors. It's not like we've made so many friends in Portland over the past 10 months that we can't spare a little time to see family and friends. First Mandy's parents came to see us for a week, then our friends Brett and Lexi came up from California. They couldn't make it to our wedding, so they were able to get away for a quick weekend.

It's not easy to entertain, however, with two little kids. It really makes me wonder how others do it. Well, how they do it without seeming like it's killing them inside.

We spent the entire day today changing rooms around. First the guest bed (now that our steady stream of guests has petered out (two shakes and a pull)) was moved down to the living room, along with an extra bookcase (not really extra, we need all the bookshelves we can get, but it doesn't fit in) and an old nightstand.

Next we moved Lexi's crib into the guest room, and magically it turned into Noah's bedroom. Then we had to move Lexi's new twin bed into her room, to turn it in to a big girl's paradise.

Once all the furniture was moved, I had to map-quest my way to southeast Portland to go buy a dining table we had our eyes on. I dropped that off at home, took an old computer to work for a co-worker of mine, and picked up Lexi at daycare while Mandy finished decorating/un-trashing the new rooms. Then I was off again with my bookcase to drop it off at a stranger's house. All in a day's work it was.

Not sure if I got off topic yet or not.

Good going, Hoss!

Just a little shout out to my brotherinlaw Jeffrey D. for getting a favorable mention in The Believer. Get the latest issue to read more about it, but it seems someone at the mag is in love with Jeff .

Sam's fingers

One quick story before bed.

One day I came in to work and found out Sam was going to be out for a week because he broke his fingers. How did he break his fingers, you ask?

Well, a customer came to pick up a dining table one day. Somebody else was in the loading dock of the store, so the customer had parked across the street. Now, the loading dock was about 4 feet above street level, and there were no stairs, so we would put any heavy boxes on the edge of the loading dock, hop down, then grab them again and put them in the cars. So on this day, Sam jumped down, got the box and carried it across the street. Kevin asked him if he needed any help, as it was a pretty heavy box, but Sam brusquely said, "No, I got it" (this was a huge catchphrase of his, as he didn't like to admit ever needing help, because of his special-neediness).

Halfway across the street, Sam dropped the box. The customer asked if maybe this table was broken after the fall, and even though Sam said it was fine, the customer looked at the dented in corner of the box and asked for another one. So Kevin jumps in to the action, goes to the stockroom to get another dining table box (the flat pack kind that you put together yourself if it's not obvious), and carries it across the street and puts it in the customer's car.

By this time, Sam is steamed. He's mad at himself for dropping the box, he's mad at Kevin for asking if he needed help, then coming to his rescue after he made a mess of things. So he carries the box back to the loading dock, hoists it up onto his shoulder, and when he shoves it on to the loading dock, it lands right on his hand and breaks four fingers.

This is typical.

Why things matter

I often find myself wondering about the status quo. Moreso than that, I wonder if there is a status quo, and if so, am I even close to being part of it or am I totally so far off my rocker that I'm like the creepy uncle that parents warn their children about.

This one lady at work keeps telling me how weird I am. I think it's usually after I've said/done something funny, so I think she has a problem with synonyms, but sometimes I'm just not sure. She also says it when I say something direct to her that she's doesn't want to hear. I think it's her way of saying, "You're not doing/acting the way I'd like you to act". The thing is, she's definitely not the first person to tell me that I'm weird. I just happen to think she's kind of odd herself.

But I've always admitted to being off-kilter. I don't really want to be a normal, run of the mill bozo in bad Dockers and boat shoes. But I'd like to think that I could, if I tried. I don't know though.

Everybody has their own quirks. One of mine is that I get passionate about certain issues, but a day later I've forgotten all about it. Or else I'm extremely irritated by the human race and pretty much everybody around me. For example, two days ago I was in the local bookstore looking at magazines. This dude next to me is finished flipping through a magazine, and he just places it back on the rack in some random spot, even though it's home was totally out there in the open. And this really pissed me off. I even muttered under my breath after he left, but I think then I became the weird guy in the bookstore that seemed to be talking to himself. How weird.

This is why I can't get into serious pursuits such as politics...I just can't be bothered. One day I might actually care about the environment, then the next I read an article about some bleeding heart nancy-boy scientist (or Al Gore) and I just want to smack them upside the head. Then I don't care about the environment anymore. And age just makes it worse. I now care about less than ever before. I don't even care about good things I used to care about. I don't care about new music or new bands, nor do I care much about the latest televisions shows or movies. I just like to stand in the aisles of the local bookstore and mutter about the assholes that surround me.

The title is a misnomer, I'm not answering any questions about why things matter -- I guess I'm asking the question.

So I called Kevin

So I called Kevin up today at work. I talk to him every month or two, just to catch up and usually make fun of Sam a little more. I told him that I gave them fake names to protect their identities. He told me I should have used Hector and Carlos for their names, but I told him that sounds kind of racist. He called me a bad name.

Kevin is about 25 years old. He's short, like I already said, and if you watch Entourage, he is very much like Turtle, only not so much in the white-boy rapper vein. He's got a baby face that the girls think is cute, and he pretty much always wears white t-shirts and jeans.

Sam is probably 38 or so by now. He definitely doesn't look this old. I always thought he was about 28 when we worked together. He liked to wear white t-shirts too, but with disastrous results. See, unloading trucks all day tends to get one dirty. Kevin knew how to keep the dirty boxes from rubbing up against his clothing, but Sam lacked dexterity and coordination, so after a long day his shirt would be turning gray, his hair would be disheveled and he's be pretty much a mess.

Doing trucks there was fun and painful. We unloaded boxes from the delivery truck, and formed a fire-line to the elevator. One guy would unload a box, pass it to the middleman, who would then pass it to the third guy, the elevator loader. Loading the elevator required some skill in organization, so it was always Kevin or myself that did this part of the job. Sam would often ask if he could load the elevator, but I would only let him do it if we had a very small truck that day.

In any case, whoever had to be the guy behind Sam always had it bad, because he had a bad habit of touching your balls nearly every time he handed you a box. Again, lack of coordination, and not gayness, is what caused this. You know how when you're folding sheets with someone and you don't know which way they're going to fold it, and you go back and forth in a little sheet-turning dance? This is what working with Sam was like. If you reached for a box one way, he was sure to hand it to you the other way. And for some reason the way he gave it to you was likely to have his hand touching up against your testicles.

We would usually finish doing the truck about 2 pm, and then it was lunchtime. Kevin and I would usually scrape a couple bucks together and buy a pizza, then we'd make Sam go pick it up a couple blocks away. As a reward for going to get it, he could have some of the pizza. This went on for about a year before he started to tire of it. I remember the day when we asked if he wanted to go pick up the pie, and he said, "Why do I always have to go get the pizza?". And Kevin told him, "Because we always pay for it". "Oh yeah", Sam said, and off he went.

The funny thing is, he probably had more money that we ever did. Because Sam was a gambling savant. I don't know how he did it, but he was always going to the casino or buying scratch tickets and winning big. This pissed Kevin off more than anything, because he always lost. Always. He showed me a big stack of losing scratch tickets he kept in his glove box. I asked why he kept them, and he said once a month in Boston they have a drawing where they pick one of these losers to win. You just had to fill out your information on the backside and turn it in and you were entered. He probably spent $300.00 a month on scratch tickets each month, and invariably Sam would walk in on a Monday morning and show us his scratch ticket that won him $500.00. Boy was Kevin steamed.

Sam and Kevin

When I lived in Boston once upon a time, I had two guys who worked for me in the stockroom. I'm going to call them Sam and Kevin, just because they're quite guilty and I probably should protect them from undue ridicule.

Sam was my big problem at work. He has a learning disability and he tends to take a long time to process information. In some cases he doesn't process it at all, in others you wonder exactly was processed, because it surely wasn't the information that was given him. Great guy though, heart of gold. He'd worked at that store for about 5 years at that point, first helping the designers move merchandise around, then later moving to the stockroom. He usually had a pretty one-track mind, but he was a real workhorse because of it, would just keep working and working and working (even if sometimes he was doing it completely wrong).

Kevin was a little Southie punk, except he didn't actually hail from south Boston, he was from Cambridge, living in the shadow of Harvard University. He could have easily been a stand-in for any of the friends of Matt Damon's character in Good Will Hunting, except he's kind of short so he would've looked pretty funny next to the others. He had a real thick Boston accent and always called me Mahk. He told me once he wondered why autistic children got a lot of attention just because they can draw nice. Maybe you're getting the picture of this guy just from that last statement.

Now these were my full time stock guys at this store. It was a little store, and while we could have definitely used a little more help in the stockroom, the three of us did a decent job of keeping things up, along with a couple of part-time night workers.

The whole purpose of this introduction is that I have some pretty good stories to tell about my time there, but I realize it's midnight and I have to get up early in the morning, so I'll stop there and resume tomorrow.

Mini Me

I got a new car yesterday, a 2003 Mini Cooper. It's dark blue with a white roof. It's the S model, which means super-awesome I guess.

I feel like I'm ten years younger. Having driven a minivan for the past 5 years I guess my soul was aging more rapidly than my body. I forgot what it was like to drive a real car, a car with a manual transmission, a car without an armrest.

The ride is certainly bumpier, but it's also such a performance powerhouse. The handling is the best I've ever driven, and I can turn on to a street and be driving the speed of traffic within seconds instead of minutes.

Throbbing

I've got a throbbing in my foot. I just noticed it. I'm sitting in front of the computer desk, leaning back in my chair, with my legs crossed atop my desk. And I see a throbbing in my foot. It's right below my ankle in what I usually think of as the 'weak' part of my foot.

I say weak because it's a place on my foot where the skin is kind of strange. It's more wrinkly than the rest of my foot-skin, like a little triangle of thin-skin, and now it's throbbing. It's maybe going one beat per second at the moment, in-out-in-out. It's kind of like the stomach part in Aliens. I can't get it to stop. I move my foot to a different angle -- no luck. I think it's odd that I just noticed it.

Snow Woe

A funny story about our snowstorm (!) earlier this week. We were closed on Tuesday, but Wednesday we opened at noon, figuring that was enough time to let employees get to work without rushing.

One of my co-workers was bitching about why they made us come in, saying it was still really dangerous and she didn't think it was safe to be out on the road. When I pointed out that she lives closer to the store than anybody else there (she's probably 1/2 a mile to 3/4 of a mile away), she started to cry and put on a show saying how her parents were almost in a bad accident during the snow a long looooonnng time ago and she just gets freaked out by winter driving. Did I stress that they were almost in an accident? Apparently their car spun around a few times but they didn't actually hit anything. What a loser.

I offered to come drive her home that evening if she needed me to, but they ended up closing 3 hours early anyway so it was a moot point.

Sissies.

Just me & my babies

Just me and the kids home today by ourselves. It's the second time we've done it, though Mandy did it for two months before going back to work. It's an incredible test of patience to be home with a 2 year old and a 2 month old, but it can be really funny too. Lexi's at an age where she's repeating a lot of what you say to her, sometimes this is not a good thing. And Noah at two months is starting to smile a lot and you can make him laugh by making funny faces.

Once we get rid of the crying fits and smelly diapers we'll be home free. I can't wait to retire.

Snow Day

Mandy woke me up this morning with the announcement that surely we would have a snow day today, since we've accumulated about 3 inches of snow overnight and it's steadily coming down. That might not be a lot of snow, but in cities like Portland and Seattle where it rarely snows, it's enough to entangle traffic and shut down the entire city.

I haven't had a good snow day in a about 3 years now. Last time was in Seattle, and I lived so close to work that I went in anyway, until they closed an hour after opening. Those of us that had made the trek in went to the bar across the street and had a few beers before returning home. Today I'll have no such luck, since the kids will be staying home with me (and Mandy as soon as she gets back home, she had to go to the store to officially 'close' the store and call people to tell them not to come in). I was thinking of taking Lexi outside to see the snow, but it hit me that she really doesn't have any snow gear and I don't think we're going to buy her boots and gloves just for one day. Who knows though, I bet we can sneak out for a few minutes of frolicking.

Woohoo!

Supersize me

Like many people, I saw Supersize me a couple years ago when it came out. I wouldn't say that it was a life-altering experience, since I never was fooled into thinking that fast food was anything other than bad for you, but for about 6 months after I saw it I didn't go to McDonalds more than a few times.

But, as is the norm, after some time you forget about all the bad stuff and slide back into old habits. I love McDonalds. It's not my favorite fast food joint, but it's cheap and easy and easy to pick up (kind of like my ex-wife ).

So one of my big new years resolutions is to start eating healthier. Notice I didn't say healthy, just healthier. And so far I've been pretty good about it. Two weeks in and I'm pretty proud.

Maybe it helps that I totally cut out smoking last year, so this doesn't seem too difficult. Plus, I figure I spent the past 20 years or so eating whatever I wanted without worrying about the consequences, so it seems like maybe having to exercise some discretion may not be the end of the world. If I drink soda, I drink diet soda. This is because I hate diet soda and I usually only drink about half a can. I've been eating smaller portions, and over the past 2 weeks I've noticed it getting easier to eat smaller amounts. I've been having little snacks more often too to help. And better portions of fruits and vegetables.

The upside: I've lost about 4 pounds in two weeks without having to exercise (ugh!). The downside: I get grumpy when I don't get enough junk food.

For now though it's been positive enough of an experience that I'll keep going for awhile and see what happens.

New Games

I bought the new Final Fantasy XII the other day and after an hour I'd say it's pretty awesome. But then today I downloaded the Vanguard beta client and been playing that the past few hours and that's decent too. Too many games, not enough time. And to illustrate that, Noah is crying in the other room so I've gotta go.