I've made an interesting discovery while reading an article about a guy who went to the deserts of Israel to understand the ecology in the logical framework of the three great monotheistic religions experienced there (yes, I have an obsession with the desert, otherwise no, I wouldn't be reading this article). If the last sentence confused you, fear not, just go back to watching Fox News and pretend this blog never happened.
My Christian name means freedom, which I knew. But I also discovered, through the article, that my Hebrew name, Yitzak (Isaac), female version Yitzi, means [DRUM ROLL]
"(s)he laughs"
What's in a name indeed.
Interestingly enough, as I also discovered in the article, the idea of eternity was introduced by desert monks.
And, if you're bored, think about this for a minute:
"The paradox of monotheism is that the desert God, refuting all other gods, demands acknowledgement within emptiness. The paradox of monotheism is that there is no paradox - only unfathomable singularity."
-Robert Rodriguez
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
million little pieces of paper...that some guy ate
Once I was riding the subway from Old Town Alexandria to DC with a work colleague. This was back in 1992. Her name escapes me at the moment, I think it might have been Arlene; in any case she was hands down the WORST systems engineer I have ever dealt with.
Anyway, it was around 10 am on I think it was a Wednesday, and we were prepping for a briefing when the train stopped and this homeless looking guy got on. The car was empty except for us and the homeless guy. At that point I was able to ignore homeless people, but apparently he was making, fine, let's call her Arlene, uncomfortable. I was trying to make sure she was prepared for our upcoming briefing, which involved asking congress for money, a lot of money actually, but she kept staring at the guy instead of paying attention to me. For fuck's sake, I remember thinking. Then I looked at the guy too.
He had a stack of porno magazines in his lap. He was holding a straight edge razor in his hand. Flipping through the magazines, he would stop when he came to a picture of a woman with her breasts exposed. He would then use the straight edge razor to, shall we say, extract the breasts from the page. And no, for all you engineers out there, he didn't check the other side of the page to see if there were better breasts, leading one to assume he must have had a liberal arts degree.
After extracting the breasts, he would take the piece of paper containing the breasts and fold it up into tinier and tinier pieces. When he could no longer fold the breasts into smaller squares he would put the folded paper into his mouth, chew it, and swallow.
He got off at the same metro stop we did. The stop happened to be the stop for tourists going to the white house. Coincidence? I report, you decide...
for more stories about my fun with homeless people, check out my blog about the dead guy in denver and the Italian guy who gave me the full monty in London
Anyway, it was around 10 am on I think it was a Wednesday, and we were prepping for a briefing when the train stopped and this homeless looking guy got on. The car was empty except for us and the homeless guy. At that point I was able to ignore homeless people, but apparently he was making, fine, let's call her Arlene, uncomfortable. I was trying to make sure she was prepared for our upcoming briefing, which involved asking congress for money, a lot of money actually, but she kept staring at the guy instead of paying attention to me. For fuck's sake, I remember thinking. Then I looked at the guy too.
He had a stack of porno magazines in his lap. He was holding a straight edge razor in his hand. Flipping through the magazines, he would stop when he came to a picture of a woman with her breasts exposed. He would then use the straight edge razor to, shall we say, extract the breasts from the page. And no, for all you engineers out there, he didn't check the other side of the page to see if there were better breasts, leading one to assume he must have had a liberal arts degree.
After extracting the breasts, he would take the piece of paper containing the breasts and fold it up into tinier and tinier pieces. When he could no longer fold the breasts into smaller squares he would put the folded paper into his mouth, chew it, and swallow.
He got off at the same metro stop we did. The stop happened to be the stop for tourists going to the white house. Coincidence? I report, you decide...
for more stories about my fun with homeless people, check out my blog about the dead guy in denver and the Italian guy who gave me the full monty in London
Monday, January 7, 2008
Power Bars and Pests
In a previous life, I worked in an environment called a SCIF, which stands for secured classified information facility. I am disappointed that someone in the government was not clever enough to come up with a different description that would have resulted in the acronym SHIT, because that's what working in a SCIF amounts to. Imagine spending 10 hours a day in a sardine tin that has been encased in one of those little fire proof safes you can buy at home depot. Someone farted in the safe before it was sealed closed and no fresh air can get in. That summarizes a SCIF environment.
SCIFs normally don't have windows, so forget natural light. Most of the main entry ways require you to open a combo lock that is older than your grandparents. Not good with numbers? You'll never get into your office. Every place you go in a SCIF requires you to enter a code or swipe a badge. And since the SCIF is classified, OSHA is never going to inspect it.
The furniture usually has mold on it, the carpet looks like it was purchased from a fraternity house that burned down after one last puke fest, and the walls are normally painted some color that makes you want to kill yourself every time you look at them.
Most SCIFs are far off from civilization, so people bring food in with them and just eat lunch at their desk. That is the reason why I had a box of 24 power bars in my office in a SCIF. I had procured the power bars from a Costco with the help of my friend Eva. I went to a Costco once by myself and sustained serious injuries to my head (mild concussion) and my knee (it was even bleeding), as well as breaking a freezer door (after which I was thrown out by the management), and after that I never went in there by myself.
The usual plan for my Saturday evenings back in those days was for me to go to Eva's house. We would sit in the movie room eating cookies, pretending we were going to go to Costco. Eventually Dan, Eva's husband, would give up on us getting to Costco and back in time for dinner. So Dan would go instead, and we could eat more cookies and watch movies instead of going shopping. Strictly Ballroom was a favorite ("Not FRAN!").
But then a bad thing happened. Dan went out of town. We were out of cherry tomatoes and peanut M&Ms. Survival through the weekend was threatened. So we ventured into Costco and somehow ended up in the parking lot with a whole cart full of stuff without quite knowing where it came from, including a box of 24 power bars. I must have been really hungry, and drunk, because I was somehow convinced I was going to eat a power bar every morning for breakfast, and that was my justification for buying them.
Wine goggling + food = bad purchase decisions
I brought the weighty box into my office the following Monday. It had three different types of bars in it. The bar type was distinguished by what was referred to as "flavors". There was "apple and cinnamon", "oatmeal", and "peanut butter". The quotes indicate the veracity of taste when compared to what, for example, actual peanut butter tastes like.
I opened a bar labeled peanut butter and took a bite. It sucked. I threw the power bar into a file drawer next to my desk. I opened the apple and cinnamon. Even worse. I decided to sample the third flavor, oatmeal. It tasted kind of like oatmeal, if the oatmeal was made in a bark bowl and then set on a sand dune in the Sahara for a week before it was consumed. These bars, with one bite taken out, also went into the file drawer.
Over the next month I would forget how bad the power bars tasted and I would open one and bite it. After a mouthful they would go into the file drawer. A few times I was at the office late and had to open a power bar and take a bite to keep my blood sugar up. Eventually all bars ended up in the file drawer.
Approximately 6 months later we were temporarily forbidden to go into the SCIF because there was a rodent infestation. I ended up leaving the SCIF shortly afterwards to go work somewhere else. Another 6 months past and I was working in that SCIF again. They were still having rodent problems.
And then one day a secretary that I knew pretty well because she was always standing outside smoking came storming down the hallway. She had a box full of power bars with a human bite taken out of them at one end, and mouse bites taken out at the other end.
"I just can't BELIEVE this!" she raged. "SOMEONE put all these food bars in a drawer after partially eating them! They attracted mice and now we are going to have to bring in a specialist!" It turned out, on top of snacking on the power bars, the mice had also eaten through some of the network cabling and almost brought down a major system. Oops.
"This is just DISGUSTING!" the secretary continued. "I can't BELIEVE an ADULT would do such a thing! I just know it was [a guy we both despised because he was always blowing his food up in the microwave without a thought to cleaning it up - once he blew up some kind of pasta dish and it looked like someone had run over a squirrel and then stuffed the squirrel in our microwave].
I put on my best poker face and said nothing at the time. Eventually the word leaked out that the power bars belonged to me. I became an outcast in the SCIF and was glad when I was finally moved to a different location.
And, for the record, I recently had a little critter eat the Clif bars I keep in my climbing backpack in my front closet. Thank god, because I wasn't going to eat them. I almost put out a glue trap for the little pest but then decided not to since it didn't eat any of my backpack. Since ridding the front closet of gu and food bars the critter seems to have gone back to where ever it came from.
SCIFs normally don't have windows, so forget natural light. Most of the main entry ways require you to open a combo lock that is older than your grandparents. Not good with numbers? You'll never get into your office. Every place you go in a SCIF requires you to enter a code or swipe a badge. And since the SCIF is classified, OSHA is never going to inspect it.
The furniture usually has mold on it, the carpet looks like it was purchased from a fraternity house that burned down after one last puke fest, and the walls are normally painted some color that makes you want to kill yourself every time you look at them.
Most SCIFs are far off from civilization, so people bring food in with them and just eat lunch at their desk. That is the reason why I had a box of 24 power bars in my office in a SCIF. I had procured the power bars from a Costco with the help of my friend Eva. I went to a Costco once by myself and sustained serious injuries to my head (mild concussion) and my knee (it was even bleeding), as well as breaking a freezer door (after which I was thrown out by the management), and after that I never went in there by myself.
The usual plan for my Saturday evenings back in those days was for me to go to Eva's house. We would sit in the movie room eating cookies, pretending we were going to go to Costco. Eventually Dan, Eva's husband, would give up on us getting to Costco and back in time for dinner. So Dan would go instead, and we could eat more cookies and watch movies instead of going shopping. Strictly Ballroom was a favorite ("Not FRAN!").
But then a bad thing happened. Dan went out of town. We were out of cherry tomatoes and peanut M&Ms. Survival through the weekend was threatened. So we ventured into Costco and somehow ended up in the parking lot with a whole cart full of stuff without quite knowing where it came from, including a box of 24 power bars. I must have been really hungry, and drunk, because I was somehow convinced I was going to eat a power bar every morning for breakfast, and that was my justification for buying them.
Wine goggling + food = bad purchase decisions
I brought the weighty box into my office the following Monday. It had three different types of bars in it. The bar type was distinguished by what was referred to as "flavors". There was "apple and cinnamon", "oatmeal", and "peanut butter". The quotes indicate the veracity of taste when compared to what, for example, actual peanut butter tastes like.
I opened a bar labeled peanut butter and took a bite. It sucked. I threw the power bar into a file drawer next to my desk. I opened the apple and cinnamon. Even worse. I decided to sample the third flavor, oatmeal. It tasted kind of like oatmeal, if the oatmeal was made in a bark bowl and then set on a sand dune in the Sahara for a week before it was consumed. These bars, with one bite taken out, also went into the file drawer.
Over the next month I would forget how bad the power bars tasted and I would open one and bite it. After a mouthful they would go into the file drawer. A few times I was at the office late and had to open a power bar and take a bite to keep my blood sugar up. Eventually all bars ended up in the file drawer.
Approximately 6 months later we were temporarily forbidden to go into the SCIF because there was a rodent infestation. I ended up leaving the SCIF shortly afterwards to go work somewhere else. Another 6 months past and I was working in that SCIF again. They were still having rodent problems.
And then one day a secretary that I knew pretty well because she was always standing outside smoking came storming down the hallway. She had a box full of power bars with a human bite taken out of them at one end, and mouse bites taken out at the other end.
"I just can't BELIEVE this!" she raged. "SOMEONE put all these food bars in a drawer after partially eating them! They attracted mice and now we are going to have to bring in a specialist!" It turned out, on top of snacking on the power bars, the mice had also eaten through some of the network cabling and almost brought down a major system. Oops.
"This is just DISGUSTING!" the secretary continued. "I can't BELIEVE an ADULT would do such a thing! I just know it was [a guy we both despised because he was always blowing his food up in the microwave without a thought to cleaning it up - once he blew up some kind of pasta dish and it looked like someone had run over a squirrel and then stuffed the squirrel in our microwave].
I put on my best poker face and said nothing at the time. Eventually the word leaked out that the power bars belonged to me. I became an outcast in the SCIF and was glad when I was finally moved to a different location.
And, for the record, I recently had a little critter eat the Clif bars I keep in my climbing backpack in my front closet. Thank god, because I wasn't going to eat them. I almost put out a glue trap for the little pest but then decided not to since it didn't eat any of my backpack. Since ridding the front closet of gu and food bars the critter seems to have gone back to where ever it came from.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Pee T
The details of my heinous knee surgery are not worth going into here. Suffice it to say for two weeks after the surgery I honestly thought I was going to die from pain. And I mean I physically thought I was going to die.
One thing that lessened the pain was physical therapy. Or maybe the pain I endured in therapy was so great that the normal, every day pain of recovery seemed less. Anyway, when I moved to Baltimore from San Fran one of the first things I did was find myself a PT. It happened that a woman, who I will call X, had just opened a clinic in my gym. I became one of her first patients.
X was around my age. She was engaged to Y, who worked as her assistant. She spent hours doing extra therapy for me, and I often would be in sessions with her until 830 at night. There was a bar right next to the gym (good planning on some one's part!) and I would usually retire there for a drink and some peanuts before heading home.
As part of my PT I was also given a free personal trainer for a month. Let's just call him Z. He was a professional runner and in pretty high demand. Oddly enough, he had a close resemblance to my high school running friend Doug Rippey. I had gone through the other five trainers the gym had to offer in about a week, finding them all lacking and incompetent in even the most mundane aspects of working out (for the record, at that point I was going on 4 years working with a personal trainer, and was spoiled rotten by Tom Mendall and Shelley Hines, love and miss you both!). Z started joining me for my bar sessions after PT, and even participated in a few sessions to learn how to work better with my injuries. I kept waiting for Z to ask me out, but he never did.
So the holidays rolled around, and X invited me to her house for a party. She claimed she wanted to set me up with Z, who was shy, but who might open up in a social environment. So on the appointed night I showed up. The party had been in full swing for 3 or 4 hours (I was working late that Friday) and X was trashed. She grabbed my hand and pretended she was introducing me to people at the party, dragging me around like a child at a funeral, but it just seemed...weird. It was almost as though she were introducing people to me as her date.
Then, as I sat on the sofa next to Z and started trying to talk to him, X ran over, planted herself in my lap and put her head on my shoulder. Ignoring this, I continued trying to engage Z in conversation. I might as well have been talking to a frozen dog turd. The situation in my lap, however, was escalating. X began trying to fondle my tits. Then she grabbed my neck and started trying to force her tongue down my throat. I managed to fend her off, pretending that I had to go to the bathroom, but she followed me and was saying some very sexual stuff outside the bathroom door while I was peeing, including that it turned her on to listen to me pee.
I left the party shortly afterwards. Z ended up following me to my car. The interest of a female piqued his interest in me I guess.
For the record, I went on one date with him. He invited three of his friends. It was very high school. Also, when I was driving to his house to pick him up (get the picture - he was the bitch) I got lost because his directions sucked and I was on the cell with him and asked "so are you near the deaf kid sign?", the only visible land marker for miles, and it turns out the sign was in front of his house. I was like "why didn't you just say turn at the deaf kid sign" and he said "because the deaf kid is my brother and that's why the sign is there". How embarrassing.
I should also note that the hot guy muscle head of the gym got so wrecked at X's party that he peed his pants, and it was the talk of gym for the next few months. Why are the hot ones always so stupid?
Anyway, the next PT session was kind of awkward and I spent most of the time working with X's fiance Y. He assured me that X was just drunk and her behavior didn't mean anything, blah blah blah. Later, I went to the bathroom, and X followed me. I thought she was coming into the bathroom with me to apologize or something. To the contrary. While I was peeing she stood outside my stall door and said "You have a very strong stream". Oy vey. I cancelled all my remaining appointments, and started going to the gym at 430 in the morning so I could avoid everyone, X, Y, Z, and the idiot muscle head, who knew I knew he peed his pants and had taken to telling me stories about being abused as a child while I was trying to do my pull ups.
Shortly after the whole incident, X and Y broke off their engagement. X closed up shop and went back to her home town in New Jersey. I don't know what happened to Y. Muscle guy quit the gym and went to work for some other gym that offered Tae-Bo. As for Z, we had a heart to heart talk about life.
He told me that his deaf brother also had a drug problem and was mentally challenged. His mom started wearing a wig when he was in elementary school for reasons unknown. I suggested she might have converted to a very rigorous version of Judaism, which he said was "impossible". I was like dude, she is WEARING A WIG! NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!
Anyway, the drama was too much and as much as I lusted after free shoes and running clothes from his sponsor, I couldn't bring myself to date him. Also, his check engine light was on in his car all the time and he never got it checked. It practically gave me an ulcer.
I wish I could say X was the last woman in Maryland who hit on me, but that is not the case...
One thing that lessened the pain was physical therapy. Or maybe the pain I endured in therapy was so great that the normal, every day pain of recovery seemed less. Anyway, when I moved to Baltimore from San Fran one of the first things I did was find myself a PT. It happened that a woman, who I will call X, had just opened a clinic in my gym. I became one of her first patients.
X was around my age. She was engaged to Y, who worked as her assistant. She spent hours doing extra therapy for me, and I often would be in sessions with her until 830 at night. There was a bar right next to the gym (good planning on some one's part!) and I would usually retire there for a drink and some peanuts before heading home.
As part of my PT I was also given a free personal trainer for a month. Let's just call him Z. He was a professional runner and in pretty high demand. Oddly enough, he had a close resemblance to my high school running friend Doug Rippey. I had gone through the other five trainers the gym had to offer in about a week, finding them all lacking and incompetent in even the most mundane aspects of working out (for the record, at that point I was going on 4 years working with a personal trainer, and was spoiled rotten by Tom Mendall and Shelley Hines, love and miss you both!). Z started joining me for my bar sessions after PT, and even participated in a few sessions to learn how to work better with my injuries. I kept waiting for Z to ask me out, but he never did.
So the holidays rolled around, and X invited me to her house for a party. She claimed she wanted to set me up with Z, who was shy, but who might open up in a social environment. So on the appointed night I showed up. The party had been in full swing for 3 or 4 hours (I was working late that Friday) and X was trashed. She grabbed my hand and pretended she was introducing me to people at the party, dragging me around like a child at a funeral, but it just seemed...weird. It was almost as though she were introducing people to me as her date.
Then, as I sat on the sofa next to Z and started trying to talk to him, X ran over, planted herself in my lap and put her head on my shoulder. Ignoring this, I continued trying to engage Z in conversation. I might as well have been talking to a frozen dog turd. The situation in my lap, however, was escalating. X began trying to fondle my tits. Then she grabbed my neck and started trying to force her tongue down my throat. I managed to fend her off, pretending that I had to go to the bathroom, but she followed me and was saying some very sexual stuff outside the bathroom door while I was peeing, including that it turned her on to listen to me pee.
I left the party shortly afterwards. Z ended up following me to my car. The interest of a female piqued his interest in me I guess.
For the record, I went on one date with him. He invited three of his friends. It was very high school. Also, when I was driving to his house to pick him up (get the picture - he was the bitch) I got lost because his directions sucked and I was on the cell with him and asked "so are you near the deaf kid sign?", the only visible land marker for miles, and it turns out the sign was in front of his house. I was like "why didn't you just say turn at the deaf kid sign" and he said "because the deaf kid is my brother and that's why the sign is there". How embarrassing.
I should also note that the hot guy muscle head of the gym got so wrecked at X's party that he peed his pants, and it was the talk of gym for the next few months. Why are the hot ones always so stupid?
Anyway, the next PT session was kind of awkward and I spent most of the time working with X's fiance Y. He assured me that X was just drunk and her behavior didn't mean anything, blah blah blah. Later, I went to the bathroom, and X followed me. I thought she was coming into the bathroom with me to apologize or something. To the contrary. While I was peeing she stood outside my stall door and said "You have a very strong stream". Oy vey. I cancelled all my remaining appointments, and started going to the gym at 430 in the morning so I could avoid everyone, X, Y, Z, and the idiot muscle head, who knew I knew he peed his pants and had taken to telling me stories about being abused as a child while I was trying to do my pull ups.
Shortly after the whole incident, X and Y broke off their engagement. X closed up shop and went back to her home town in New Jersey. I don't know what happened to Y. Muscle guy quit the gym and went to work for some other gym that offered Tae-Bo. As for Z, we had a heart to heart talk about life.
He told me that his deaf brother also had a drug problem and was mentally challenged. His mom started wearing a wig when he was in elementary school for reasons unknown. I suggested she might have converted to a very rigorous version of Judaism, which he said was "impossible". I was like dude, she is WEARING A WIG! NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!
Anyway, the drama was too much and as much as I lusted after free shoes and running clothes from his sponsor, I couldn't bring myself to date him. Also, his check engine light was on in his car all the time and he never got it checked. It practically gave me an ulcer.
I wish I could say X was the last woman in Maryland who hit on me, but that is not the case...
Clouds
My dad was on the road all the time when I was a kid. I never really understood where he went when he was gone. All I knew is that he was on a plane, presumably flying around somewhere. I thought he was in a plane just flying around our house. I used to stand in the backyard and look up at the sky. I assumed he was on whatever plane happened to fly over the house.
One day I got a great idea, inspired by having to present something at a school show and tell. The last show and tell I had brought in my favorite stuffed animal, a shark from Sea World that didn't have any eyes because my dog had chewed them off. I was ridiculed for weeks afterwards. So I decided that I would bring a cloud in for the show and tell, and that the cloud would be supplied by my dad.
I cleaned out a jar that had contained sweet relish. I believe I even wrote "cloud" on a piece of masking take and stuck it to the jar. I packed the jar in my dad's briefcase. I thought all he would have to do is roll down the window of the plane, stick the jar out, and then put the cap on once the jar filled up with cloud. I imagined a it would be like a soft cotton blanket and was pretty excited at the thought of having my own cloud. I even found a hiding place in our house to make sure one of my siblings didn't let my cloud go during one of our fights.
My dad was pretty pissed when he returned from his trip because I has put a relish jar in his briefcase. He then gave me a lecture about clouds, and I'm sure it was along the lines of:
"A cloud is a visible mass of condensed droplets or frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth. the condensing substance is typically water vapor, which forms small droplets or ice crystals, typically 0.01 mm in diameter. When surrounded by billions of other droplets or crystals they become visible as clouds. Dense deep clouds exhibit a high reflectance (70% to 95%) throughout the visible range of wavelengths. Thus they appear white, at least from the top."
I didn't believe him, and I was really mad because I had told everyone at school that I was bringing in a cloud. I ended up bringing in a copy of the book Jaws that I had purchased at a garage sale, and was subsequently sent to the principal's office for bringing an "adult" book into school. Sister Mary Paul (see my eighth grade talent show for more on my school) took the book away from me and I never saw it again.
The moral of the story is, if you want to raise a kid who isn't obsessed with great whites, fill a jar full of whatever and tell the kid it's a cloud.
One day I got a great idea, inspired by having to present something at a school show and tell. The last show and tell I had brought in my favorite stuffed animal, a shark from Sea World that didn't have any eyes because my dog had chewed them off. I was ridiculed for weeks afterwards. So I decided that I would bring a cloud in for the show and tell, and that the cloud would be supplied by my dad.
I cleaned out a jar that had contained sweet relish. I believe I even wrote "cloud" on a piece of masking take and stuck it to the jar. I packed the jar in my dad's briefcase. I thought all he would have to do is roll down the window of the plane, stick the jar out, and then put the cap on once the jar filled up with cloud. I imagined a it would be like a soft cotton blanket and was pretty excited at the thought of having my own cloud. I even found a hiding place in our house to make sure one of my siblings didn't let my cloud go during one of our fights.
My dad was pretty pissed when he returned from his trip because I has put a relish jar in his briefcase. He then gave me a lecture about clouds, and I'm sure it was along the lines of:
"A cloud is a visible mass of condensed droplets or frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth. the condensing substance is typically water vapor, which forms small droplets or ice crystals, typically 0.01 mm in diameter. When surrounded by billions of other droplets or crystals they become visible as clouds. Dense deep clouds exhibit a high reflectance (70% to 95%) throughout the visible range of wavelengths. Thus they appear white, at least from the top."
I didn't believe him, and I was really mad because I had told everyone at school that I was bringing in a cloud. I ended up bringing in a copy of the book Jaws that I had purchased at a garage sale, and was subsequently sent to the principal's office for bringing an "adult" book into school. Sister Mary Paul (see my eighth grade talent show for more on my school) took the book away from me and I never saw it again.
The moral of the story is, if you want to raise a kid who isn't obsessed with great whites, fill a jar full of whatever and tell the kid it's a cloud.
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