snoopy snake attack

While working at my mom's desk in her office the other day, I noticed this Snoopy art thing that she had sitting in the middle of her desk. It's from an art show done in St. Paul to raise money for a program called Doghouse Days of Summer. The purpose of the program is/was to do an artistic tribute to Charles M. Schultz, who drew the cartoon.

But as I looked at the figurine, I noticed something weird. There seemed to be a snake coming out of Snoopy's dog house (see pic - I put a red border around the snake). "Mom, how come this snake is attacking Snoopy?" I asked.

"There isn't a snake attacking Snoopy. Where do you come up with the crazy things you say?" she replied, typing away at an email. I turned the dog house around. "Then what is THAT?" I said, pointing to the red thing coming out of his dog house.

"It's a scarf" she said, without even turning from her monitor to look at me.

"Since when do scarves have eyes and a big mouth?" I asked.

My mom finally turned around and looked at me over her bifocals. "Let's practice being really quiet by you not speaking for the next 15 minutes" she said.

I left her office to get some more hot water for my tea, and started making inquiries of her colleagues (I was able to wander around the building, as I mentioned before, with my mom's badge). It turns out I'm not the only one who wondered what the hell that thing is at the foot of Snoopy's dog house. "I think it's a monkey" said one of her less intelligent co-workers. When my mom brought it in some people went as far as to do research on the web to see if they could determine what the stupid red thing might be, but no one has gotten an answer.

So, if anyone knows what that thing is, please advise via a comment to this blog. If you want more detailed pictures I can provide them. The figurine is called "Breaktime!" and it's by the artist Simon Foshey

no pants in newport

My dad grew up in a rough neighborhood in Cleveland and was quite the hooligan. He and my uncle used to steal cars and do other illegal stuff. But he ended up getting an engineering scholarship to Case Western and his freshman year in college was supposed to be on the straight and narrow.

Except that, he joined a fraternity. To give you an idea of how rough a city Cleveland was back then, he joined the honor student fraternity, where he was constantly hazed by older students, even though this fraternity is normally the refuge of geeks. This physicist, who was a junior, kept harassing my dad, who quickly got sick of his bullshit.

So, with a few other fraternity brothers, my dad developed a plot one evening to kidnap and drive this physicist to Newport, Kentucky (5 hours away from the university). Back then Newport was a shit town full of prostitutes and drug dealers. When they got the guy to Newport they were going to dump him out on the street with no pants on, leave him there, and drive back to Case. I asked my dad if he thought that might be unsafe. And my dad said "I didn't think about that. I just wondered how he would solve the problem." As if being in a shit town with no pants on was a differential equation or something.

The frat brothers threw this poor physicist in the trunk of a Buick and took off. The Buick was burning oil so the bumper was covered in residue. When they got to Newport my dad let the guy out of the trunk, and, having had a change of heart, talked him into stealing street signs instead of taking his pants and leaving him there.

My dad climbed up some water tower thing and took a sign. The rest of the guys stole street signs. Then all the frat brothers piled back in the car, with the stolen signs in the trunk, and headed back to Case. Unfortunately the physicist, fearing my dad would change his mind again and throw him in the trunk, wrote "help I'm being kidnapped" on the Buick bumper right before they left.

Around 2 in the morning my dad was pulled over for speeding. Then the cop saw the kidnap message on the back of the bumper and made everyone get out of the car. He handcuffed my dad because the physicist started yelling "He wanted to kidnap me!!!" He was a little pussy who didn't want to get in trouble. As my dad stood there in his handcuffs the cop opened the trunk and saw the signs.

In the end my dad got out of jail time by agreeing to do community service. The physicist graduated early. And no one ever messed with my dad again.

train yard

After we got done at the aquarium my dad wanted to go check out the railway museum of greater Cincinnati. It's in a very bad part of town, and it was freezing outside. But, I do like trains. So we got there and it turns out it's only open two days a week, and one of the days happened to be yesterday.

We paid our admission even though the yard was deserted. I went through the locomotive and the caboose, which were the only cars open. My dad was talking to my brother on his blackberry, and I was bored, so I decided to climb on top of a milk car. At the top of the milk car I announced that I really, really wanted to go into one of the Pullman cars that were also in the yard.

As if by magic, a guy showed up. He said he was working as a restorer of the trains. He offered to let us go into a Pullman car. My dad looked at me incredulously. Yeah, all I have to do is wish for something and poof it appears (this pic was from the top of the milk car, notice my right sleeve of my jacket is still soaking wet).

We went into the first Pullman car, called the Jovita. Our guide couldn't remember the combo for the lock to get on the porch thing so we had to climb over some stuff to get up there. The car, built in the 19 teens, was used in the movie 8 Men Out, and the train scene was even filmed in the yard of the train museum. Before the Pullman was retired and donated it was used to haul circus performers around.

Then we went into another Pullman car, called the Overdale, which was even fancier than the Jovita. It had beautiful wood work and light fixtures. It was built in the 1940s. I felt like I was in the movie North by Northwest, except that when I watch that movie I'm at home on my sofa with a blanket, rather than being in a train yard in a bad neighborhood with a wet jacket freezing my ass off (this pic taken inside the Overdale).

Our final stop on the tour was to a locomotive. Our guide pulled all the panels off so I could see the pistons, the fuel tank, the cranks, and the brakes. We were about 12 feet off the air standing on this pretty narrow platform so my dad was getting a little nervous that I was going to fall. And we looked at the wheels and the rails.

I think the guy wanted to take us through an Amtrak train they had just gotten but my dad walked out the gated area and was like "thanks for the tour!" So the guy went back to what ever he was doing and I followed my dad to the car and cranked the heat up to 80 degrees.

If you are curious, it costs about $70,000 to move a train car. Most train cars weigh about 6 to 7 tons. If you have a train to donate, Amtrak will take it, but you have to meet all their safety and quality requirements.

into a shark tank...an adventurous new year's eve

Yesterday, new year's eve, I finally convinced my dad to take me to Newport aquarium.

The aquarium has a display where you go into this room and stand on a metal floor which shakes around. In front of you is a projected image of bars and a great white. It is supposed to simulate cage diving. They missed a lot of the more interesting details, such as the cold and the way you can smell blood from the chum but there were a lot of kids having fun with it. I gave an impromptu talk about great whites until parents started pulling their kids away from me (guess they didn't think me encouraging them to go see great whites was a good idea).

We saw a really flat frog called the African Clawed Frog. It's the only frog with clawed toes and it looks like it's been run over by a car. It has a small head, no eyelids, and no tongue. There was also a Burmese python that weighed over 500 lbs and was 25 feet long. Horrifying. And when we went into the aviary two birds dive bombed my hat. The little kid behind me was like "they're going to poop on your head!" But they pooped on his dad instead. Ha.

There was a display with crocodiles hanging out on a front porch with a bunch of reindeer. Weird. And a santa in the shark tank so people could stand next to the tank and get their picture taken with underwater santa, who had a sleigh being pulled by two plastic sea horses that appeared to be scavenged from a trailer park in Miami. It kind of distracted from the sharks but I tried to not look at it.

Then we got to my favorite part of any aquarium, the shark petting pool. I displaced some annoying little boys and leaned over to look into the pool. There were three asian tourists standing next to me, a man and

two women, and they watched as I leaned over the pool to touch a shark. There was this beautiful little leopard shark that swam towards the surface when I put my fingers in the pool and I was able to pet the full length of him. I tried to get my dad to pet a shark but he said "No, I think they snap at people." I petted a pajama catshark because she looked traumatized. Then a lesser sand shark came by me and I tried to pet her, but, not realizing how deep the petting pool was, I accidentally stuck my arm in up to my elbow and then almost toppled over the wet kid sized railing into the pool (picture to the left taken by my dad moments before I almost fell in - you can see how deep my hand is in the water - the lesser sand shark is in the top right corner, and the pajama catshark is coming back by my hand to be pet again). The asian visitors were taking pictures of me so that was a little embarrassing. And my jacket kind of smells now.

But, one of the asian women finally got up the nerve to pet a shark. And then she looked at me and said "It's feeling nice!" I hope she goes back to her country and starts speaking out against definning and using shark cartilage as an aphrodisiac.

working with my mom

Since I worked with my dad yesterday, and my mom is retiring this week, I decided to come into work with her today.

It was a different day than yesterday. We arrived at the office and people were waiting for my mom to get in so they could ask her a million stupid questions. I set my laptop up in the corner of her office so I could stay out of everyone’s way. Annoying. And then she had to go to a meeting every 5 minutes practically. People kept coming into her office while she was gone asking where she was and when she might be back. As if my mom was telling me any details about where she was going or what she was doing.

I got to meet a number of her colleagues who all have single sons. I had my picture taken 5 times by parents who thought I might make a good girlfriend. Ugh. One guy followed me around with his cell phone camera trying to get action shots. His son is 22. Yeah. Done dating young dudes.

The best part of the day was sneaking around the bank building with my mom’s ID. I couldn’t believe how lax the security was in her building.

The not fun part of the day was being followed around by the "recycling guy", Bob, who looks like a serial murderer. I was sitting in my mom's office by myself and he came in to get some candy. He saw me and he was like "Hiiiiiiiii" in this weird low voice like he was Dracula or something. I tried to ignore him but then he was like "where's Maaaaary?" I was thinking to myself, why, do you want to lock her in your basement, but I was nice and told him I had no idea. I finally closed my mom's door so he would stop coming by.

I would also like to note that my mom said we would leave work early to go to the wine store but instead we stayed late. I was like dude, you're RETIRING and she was like "oh well, [some annoying developer] just sent me an email and I have to respond". Then I realized, ech, I do the same thing. So now I'm going to stop doing that because I know how annoying it is.

working with my dad

Monday I was “working at home” at my parents’ house. My dad decided to stay home and “work” with me. This ended up being not very productive because my dad felt the need to interrupt me every 15 minutes while I was trying to work on a network concept diagram to ask me questions.

His first question had to do with what I wanted for breakfast. This was a trick, because he was trying to get me to make him breakfast. I told him I wasn’t hungry so he decided to stand at the kitchen table, where I had my temporary office set up, crunching cashews really loud and wondering if I didn’t want to make some oatmeal because he would eat some too.

He was also obsessing about going to Trader Joe’s so after breakfast time came and went he decided to ask me every 15 minutes if I might want to go to Trader Joe’s. Then lunch time came and he asked me what I was having for lunch. I finally broke down and went to the refrigerator and handed him a bag of cooked chicken and told him to have that. Then he said he needed something to go with it. I handed him a Tupperware container full of red beans and rice and watched him stand there holding it for a full minute before breaking down and putting it in the microwave for him.

The food kept him occupied for about a half hour, and then, right as I was joining a conference call, he came out of his office and started mouthing “Trader Joe’s” to me, so after the conference call I went into his office and said “Okay, let’s go.” He glared at me and said “I’m in the middle of working on something right now.”

We ended up going for a 7 mile hike in the late afternoon, and then going to Trader Joe’s where we were supposedly only going to buy more oatmeal. We ended up buying cheese and chocolate because my mom won’t buy either, and now that I’m here my dad can pretend it’s for me, even though I don’t really eat either. We also got some really good wines. I am sorry to report that the French coconut sorbet is no longer carried by Trader Joe’s, and that was the main reason I wanted to go shopping there. But we did find some nice lemon tarts.

I was reminded yesterday of being a little kid and going into work with my dad. He used to even bring me to meetings where I would take notes (this at the age of 8). I also would sit by a computer and feed punch cards into it, type up his papers (I learned to type when I was 6), and file things which was fun because the filing system had a wheel that you had to turn to open the passageway to get to where the files were. For doing a few hours of work I would get a huge gumball out of this dispenser that was in the lobby of the building where he worked. I thought it was the best thing ever.

A year ago he brought me into his current office. I had to get a badge so I made a weird face when the lady took my picture so I would seem to be a person whose eyeballs were falling out. In my dad’s office he had a picture of my ex boyfriend but none of my family. We went to this engine museum where my dad was treated with a lot of deference from the staff. They looked on in horror as I did things like ask him “Dad, what kind of engine is that?” pointing to a Christmas tree. He dared me to climb on an engine, which I did while he distracted the guard by giving him a cup of shit coffee he had gotten at the badge office and decided not to drink.

The whole point of going to the museum was to steal cookies that were for visiting dignitaries. My dad shoved them into my bag. I was just an innocent bystander.

tammy faye

I recently watched a documentary about Tammy Faye Bakker (The Eyes of Tammy Faye). I will admit that I often watch documentaries about religious people because I know they will come across as crazy and that makes me laugh. Or sometimes get scared, like when I watched Jesus Camp.

But. I watched this documentary and was like damn. Tammy Faye was one amazing woman. Rather than being some crazy religious zealot she was, I think, a truly caring person. She worked with AIDS patients back in the 1980's when no one wanted to acknowledge them. In fact, in the documentary, she gives a guy who is dying from AIDS a hug and says everyone should hug someone with AIDS because they don't have many people who will touch them.

She married Jim Bakker, who decided to sleep with someone else, and who then got caught. It was reported in the press that he was embezzling money but that turned out to be a lie in part propagated by Jerry Falwell, one of the most evil fucks on this planet (though Jim did pay off Jessica Hahn to keep her trap shut, not realizing, I guess, that as part of her playmate video she would talk about having sex with him). He stole the empire Jim and Tammy had built (PTL) and then kicked them to the curb, lying the whole time. And, cowardly little asshole that he is, he refused to talk to Tammy Faye for the documentary. He's dead now.

The end of the documentary showed Tammy Faye pitching ideas for shows. She wanted to hang out with disadvantaged youths to see what they were experiencing. Why she was not picked up for a show is a mystery to me. She did her shows for PTL totally unscripted and was always coming up with new ideas for the network.

I was so touched by her, and the documentary, I decided to write her a fan letter. But, unfortunately, she's dead. She died 20 July 2007. She said this in her final interview, the day before she died: "I'd like to say that I genuinely love you, and I genuinely care, and I genuinely want to see you in heaven someday. I want you to find peace. I want you to find joy."

I am going to make a contribution to the american cancer society in her name, and think everyone else should too.

the santosbrazzi killer

Great story...and not just because I'm in Cincinnati...

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/01/0082352