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".
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
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".
Monday, March 12, 2007
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Saturday, March 03, 2007
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.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
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 .
Sunday, February 11, 2007
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, February 02, 2007
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.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
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.
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.
Once we get rid of the crying fits and smelly diapers we'll be home free. I can't wait to retire.
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