negative airways

Today traveling home from WVA I had two really strange experiences...

The first was when I was sitting in a people mover at Dulles waiting to be taken to my gate. It had 5 minutes to go until it left so I pulled out a book I'm reading about blackwater. Two soldiers got on the people mover and sat across from me. One was obviously a seasoned soldier and the other was a new soldier who had apparently never been on a commercial airplane before. The seasoned guy was explaining to the other guy how the airport worked.

He then noticed the book I was reading. The people mover started filling up. He felt the need to start expounding on americans who don't appreciate the war in Iraq and how they are just stupid liberals who don't know shit about shit, and how it should be illegal for someone to even publish such a book. At first I was going to just ignore him, but then I started getting mad. I put my book mark in my book and looked right at the soldier. I could tell the other people in the people mover were worried there was going to be a fight.

I looked at the soldier and I said "Are you talking about me?" He looked unsure as to how to proceed, and then he said "Yes". I said "You are offended by the fact I'm reading this book?" Again, he said yes. "Do you know me, know anything about me, or know anything about this book?" I asked him. He sat there and didn't say anything . So I said "Does it bother you when people see you in uniform and react negatively to that?" He answered in the affirmative. I said "So why would you do the same thing to me that you hate other people doing to you?"

I then explained to him that the most important point being made in the blackwater book is that the company has defrauded the tax payers out of a lot of money, for example, by bringing in people who aren't as trained as a soldier, to do the work of a soldier, and that those people make at least 4 times what a soldier makes. I offered to read to him sections of the book I had marked where high ranking soldiers complained that blackwater was shooting people and ramming cars for no reason, and how retaliation was usually directed at soldiers and that it unstabilized regions that had been stable. And that blackwater had bought so much equipment for their guys that the Army and Marines were unable to give all of their soldiers bullet proof vests and armoured cars.

"Does that bother you?" I asked him. He said "Yes." I told him I would mail him the book when I was finished with it, if he wanted to read it too, or at least the sections I had described since I had them tabbed. He said "Ma'am, you don't have to do that, I'll buy a copy". I then said that one of the things we are supposedly doing in Iraq is allowing the Iraqi people the freedom to read a book that may say negative things about their government, and that his comment about not publishing books like the one I was reading, or imposing negative consequences for people who read those books, was exactly against everything that americans are supposed to believe.

There was dead silence on the people mover for the rest of the ride. As we got to the gate I wished the soldiers good luck. I think the thing that most pissed me off about the whole encounter is that I've worked with special forces and the marines my whole career, doing things to support them above what I was required to do. Last summer after I worked with the Navy SEALs the captain who hired me walked me to my car the last day of my engagement and said "I just wanted to thank you for your support to the war effort. We get thanked because we're in uniform, and people like you are usually forgotten."

And, I just spent the past week working 14 - 16 hour days to support another military organization. I don't have to do that. I do it because I know if I don't do the work it won't get done, and I'm not okay with that. I'm sure in his head that soldier was thinking "fuck you" but maybe he really will buy a copy of the book.

Then, I got on my plane. There was a couple sitting next to me with a little girl who was around 3. They seemed happy enough. The wife was very attractive and she and her husband kept talking about her mom, whom they were going to visit.

The steward brought us drinks, and the husband asked for a straw. The steward gave him one of those straws that you use to stir coffee. The husband looked at it, obviously pissed. So I leaned over the aisle and said "I have some real straws if you want one". I have a hard time drinking out of a normal glass since I have limited feeling in my lower lip due to a bike accident so I always travel with straws. The guy said "That would be really great!"

I pulled out my straws and asked if the kid had a particular color in mind. The husband laughed and said "anything is fine". So I chose a pink one for her. He thanked me again.

A few minutes later I was reading my book and I accidentally knocked over into the aisle this little trash pile that had accumulated on the edge of my tray. The husband immediately leaned over to pick it up at the same time I did and we knocked heads. We both kind of laughed, and then he picked up the trash and handed it to me. I put it back on my tray, closed my book, and decided to try to get some sleep.

The next thing I know the couple is in this huge fight about me. The wife was asking what had happened when we knocked heads and why he was leaning over. She accused him of flirting with me. She said a bunch of other stuff I couldn't hear because he told her to lower her voice. I did hear her say some thing about him helping me pick up my trash being disrespectful to her. It was kind of insane. Then I heard her say "No, what happened was you put your dick in her mouth". I guess the guy had recently had an affair or something. I heard the word "attorney".

The fight lasted for the next two hours, and then the wife put on her headphones and ignored the husband for the rest of the flight. While I feel for her having to deal with her husband's infidelity, I was only trying to help by offering a straw. I would have done the same thing if she had been sitting on the aisle seat. I felt bad that an innocuous kindness had caused a big fight.

When we landed I saw them again at the baggage claim. The wife was sitting on the floor by herself sulking. The husband was walking around with the kid. I decided to wait outside until the bags came to avoid having contact with either of them.

And of course the baggage loader had a problem so it took 45 minutes for my luggage to come out...but I decided to not be unhappy about that. There are enough unhappy people in the world I think.

floods, bugs, emotional hugs

Early this morning I was at my customer site, and I went into the mess to get some hot water for my tea. The water thing was out of water, so I decided I would change the barrel thing by myself.

I removed the empty barrel, ripped the seal off of a new barrel, picked it up, and started walking towards the water thing. I had somehow failed to notice there was a power cord coming out of the water thing (presumably to make the water hot). Anyway, I tripped over the cord right as I was aiming the barrel downward to put it on the water thing, lost my balance and accidentally dropped the water barrel.

Five gallons of water spewed all over the floor. It was A LOT of water. I was like fuck fuck fuck. Then I realized, hey, it's 630 in the morning, no one is in yet, so I left the mess in the mess, and went back to my cube, where I kept laughing hysterically every time I thought about tripping (I would pay so much money to have the whole incident on tape). I am kind of embarrassed I did that, and I would have cleaned up the mess but there aren't even paper towels in the mess.

Luckily, when my customer got in, he immediately wanted to go over to a conference room in the other building. We were there all day, and when we got back to my cube it was 530 in the evening and the flood in the mess was gone.

Then, I realized I had caused yet another problem. I'm working in a SCIF, and no one told me we had to pack out our own trash. I ate two bananas, an apple, and two clementines on monday. I threw the peels and core away in the trash can under a desk in an empty cube. The trash was never taken out so I guess the peels and core started rotting or something. Plus, it's been raining like crazy here. Anyway, there is now an infestation of what the customer called "stink bugs" in the SCIF. They were literally jumping off the wall onto my keyboard when I was trying to go through my email and crawling on the cube walls. And they've even crawled into the honey comb space in the blinds, so all the blinds have dead stink bugs in them.

I don't think anyone has figured out the peels and core were mine. Or maybe my customer knows and he's being polite.

Because, he's really a great customer. Every night when I leave he says "thanks for everything you did today". I've never had a customer do that and it's like getting a little emotional hug at the end of every day. He also is getting really excited about all the architecture products we're creating. And the other day, when I pissed off a commander by saying, in response to a stupid comment, meant to suggest the stuff I was working on had no value, "That would be a great idea if you were presenting it in an insane asylum" (the commander ripped my head off), my customer told the commander "She knows what she's talking about. And if you don't get it, you're fucking stupid". The comment was a suggestion that, rather than research interfaces to a system that's going to be replaced, we just "unplug it and see what happens".

BTW, to get that commander back for being a dick, I devised a bunch of SQL queries to show, on a daily basis, how much work his team is getting done (next to nothing the past few days) vs. how much work my team is getting done (a lot!). The suck thing about that is our stuff is relying on theirs, and the longer they take, the less time we have to get our stuff done. When I showed the program manager what I did he got a smile the size of Texas on his face. He's going to present the reports at the next technical interchange meeting.

As for me, I am going to try to get through tomorrow without fucking anything else up in the office.

feral climbers, crazy catholics, and a barfing barry

In the past few days I've had 3 really bad dreams.

The first, on Sunday, was a dream about an ex-boyfriend of mine. I was in Yosemite with him (for the record, I've never climbed there) and he was leading a 5.8 pitch. I was standing on the ground in this kind of sandy area. He was mouthing off about how hard the climb was (in real life, that was kind of his climbing MO when I climbed with him). Suddenly, he fell. As he hit the ground I realized he had been 20 feet up with no pro in.

Then, all these, I guess I should call them feral climbers appeared out of crevices in the rock. They started mocking my ex. He was laying on the ground. There was blood all over the sand. Then one of the feral climbers threw a rock down and hit him right in the middle of his head (he's almost completely bald). I was like oh my god because a bunch of blood shot out of his head. Then two climbers threw another rock down on him, and it landed on his leg, and the bottom part of his leg shot off and landed about 5 feet away from his body. I kept thinking I should move his body but I was afraid the feral climbers were going to start throwing rocks at me, and I was tied in to an anchor.

They threw more rocks and my ex's body was just getting pulverized. One said "Ha! He'll never be able to get his leg attached!" and another said "It doesn't matter because he's dead". And then I woke up.

Monday night I had a dream that I took my dad, my mom, and my grandmother to some remote area of Colorado. We were following Jeffy, who was on a snow mobile, in my subaru (I was driving). Jeffy started going up this really steep hill that was covered in snow drifts that were really high, and I tried to follow him, but my subaru kept sliding back. My dad was yelling at me so I hit the gas, and this time when we slid back my subaru went off the road and ended up in a ditch. Then these people from what I initially thought was an abandoned mining town appeared. They took us inside a house. I was really worried because my grandmother is old and she was really cold.

They bundled my parents and my grandmother up in these blankets that were magic blankets. Once you put them on they locked you up in this blanket cocoon. My grandmother and mom didn't notice, but my dad did and he was like "Franki, you have to go find Jeffy! We've been captured by crazy catholics!" Then one of the townspeople stood up and started doing this mass thing. I didn't want to leave my family but my dad kept telling me to run. So I ran out in the snow and started running up the hill where I had last seen Jeffy on his snow mobile. I was running as fast as I could and I was having problems breathing and I thought I was going to pass out and then my family would die. And then I woke up.

Last night I had a dream about my old boss Barry. In real life, Barry drinks a lot. Anyway, I was at a bar with my friends Neil, Jamesy, and some other old work colleagues. Barry was really wasted, more so than I've ever seen him. We were sitting outside at a long table at Nottingham's. Barry suddenly lowered his head and puked up this huge stream of fluid. I was like gross, he is so drunk! Neil asked me to help move Barry outside the bar in case he puked again but I didn't want to touch him. So Neil moved him alone (entirely possible, as Neil is about 6'4" and built like a brick shit house, and Barry is 5'5" and maybe 90 lbs soaking wet).

After Barry puked I wasn't having fun anymore so I told everyone I was leaving. Neil said I should bring Barry home with me. I didn't want to because I was afraid he would puke in my car. Neil said if I didn't bring him home he might die, but I left without him.

Then I got back to my parents' house, which was actually my grandmother's house (but my parents were living there), and I told them I wanted to sleep at their house because I was too tired to drive all the way back to my house. My mom was like "you can't stay here, there's someone in your room" and I went upstairs to look in my room, and there was Barry, passed out in my bed. I was really, really mad, so I went downstairs and was like "what the FUCK is he doing sleeping in MY bed?" and my parents said "he got here first". So then they pulled out this mattress from a sofa and told me I could sleep on that, but it was the wrong size, and way too short, so every time I fell asleep I would fall out of it. Then I suddenly realized Barry had died in my room. And Neil came over to see how Barry was and I was afraid for him to go see Barry dead because then Neil would think I was the worst friend ever.

Then I woke up. And, kind of funny, I had fallen out of bed. Which seems like it should be hard to do since I'm sleeping in a king sized bed. For whatever reason, I start sleeping right in the middle of the bed, and wake up in the morning right on the very edge. Or else I end up sideways. This happens even when I build a pillow blockade around myself before I go to sleep. I used to do that when I was a kid, and, hell, I seriously have about 10 pillows on my bed, so why not build a wall with them?

orange you glad it isn't Monday anymore?

I'm always bitching about my clients, so I thought I might mention that I am working with a client this week who, though the project is a shit show and there isn't enough time on the engagement to get things done, showed me two very thoughtful kindnesses today.

First, we were meeting with a team with whom my client has to coordinate. My client brought in doughnuts and bagels, and when I walked into the conference room where our meeting was to be held I saw he also brought in a huge bag of clementines. Last time I was with this client I ate 8 clementines over the course of 6 hours. He remembered. Not only that, he remembered I don't eat doughnuts and that I won't eat bagels unless they are toasted first.

The second thing he did, after I talked the group into having a working lunch instead of breaking, is, when we were ordering pizzas, he asked me what I wanted since he knows I'm picky. Everyone called that pizza the Franki pizza. One of the guys, who is an admiral, made fun of my pizza and then ate two pieces of it. "The Franki pizza wasn't so bad, was it?" I asked him, and he said "Yeah, I feel healthier already", then he rolled his eyes.

Which brings up a funny side note...since I'm in the middle of nowhere WVA there's very few places to eat. So last night I went to the restaurant where we ordered pizza from today to get dinner. I had called ahead, but when I showed up at the restaurant they didn't have my order. The guy finally figured out I called another restaurant with the same name, but that restaurant was located about 70 miles away. He called them and cancelled my order for me. Anyway, he's the one that brought the pizzas today, and as soon as he saw me he was like "Franki! You called the right restaurant this time!"

I refused to explain to everyone why he said that because I knew I would get teased for the rest of my life about it.

downward dog

Tonight as I was exiting the room that comprises the hotel gym, or should I say "gym", after doing my cardio I ran into Bones. He was sitting outside the gym door, perhaps I flatter myself, waiting for me. I'm not sure how he escaped the evil clutches of the cheerleaders but he did.

I was telling him about my cardio routine and he followed me right into my room. I told him he could hang out but that I had to finish my work out. I got into downward dog position, and told Bones he might want to try yoga since he's still young and limber. But he seemed to think I was making some kind of human dog house, because he crawled underneath me and laid down. Then I went into plank and tried to tell him that my next move was into cobra, and that he was going to have to move. But instead of moving he rolled over on his back and was like scratch my belly.

I told him that I would pet him as soon as I finished my workout but he wasn't listening. I decided to fore go cobra and just get my bicycle crunches done. It was hard though because Bones thought I was playing some kind of game with him. Every time I would extend my foot out he would try to smack it down with his paw. And when I was doing my 100s he kept trying to grab my hands with his mouth, and when I told him to stop he decided to stand next to my head and lick my ear.

So I said that I was going to do some crunches and then end my workout. While I was doing crunches Bones decided that he should jump on my bed. Then he ran around and made the pillows all messed up. I was like you are totally not allowed to jump on the bed and he said that he was allowed because he's a puppy.

After my crunches I showed Bones a you tube vid of a shark getting attacked by an octopus. I think he liked it because he was wagging his tail and trying to put his paws on my keyboard. Then we laid down on the bed and watched a show called modern marvels. Eventually the manager came to collect him. I was reminding Bones to brush his teeth before bed and he sneezed and blew dog snot all over the bottom of my yoga pants.

I talked to the manager for a few more minutes, and Bones fell asleep in the hallway. The manager had to pick him up and carry him out to the car.

when things go bad, make someone else the victim

So today we had a rough start in class again. There were a bunch of weird bugs in the software tool, and none of the exercises were working very well. People were getting frustrated. One of the students finally 'confessed that they knew next to nothing about the tool and that they didn't understand things that I assumed they knew.

There's one student in particular, I'll call him P, who kept asking the same question like a million billion times. So, I decided to put him center stage, thinking that might help turn things around.

I stopped the exercises we were working on and decided to go to ground zero. I said to the class "do you know what today is? today is P's lucky day". P, unsuspecting, smiled. Suddenly, everyone was interested. "Why don't you come up to the front of the class and see how lucky you are?" I said. P came to the front of the class and I told him to sit at my laptop.

Now, suspecting shenanigans, P said "Uh, I have swine flu. Are you sure you want me to touch your laptop?" Hopefully he was joking. I walked him through doing some basic stuff with the software tool. Then I started asking him "How would I do (some function)?" If P couldn't figure it out the class helped him. Then I had P walk the class through the exercises they were struggling with. By the end of the day everyone seemed to be doing much better. And I promised P that tomorrow he can select the next person who's going to sit up at my laptop and get picked on.

We also started talking about the practical uses of enterprise architecture. When I presented the class with some business questions and asked how they would answer them given the diagrams we created I could see about 90% of the class was finally getting it. That's always exciting. Two of the guys went back to their offices right after class (impressive considering we worked from 6 am to 330 with only an hour break) to generate some reports to show their customer.

And, it didn't matter that I got back to my hotel later than usual, because Bones is still ensconced with the cheerleaders. I got him a kong so he will hopefully not chew up any more of their bedspreads (they said, anyway, that Bones did it). They are brushing his hair and teeth as promised. He looked happy, though I worry about the music he's been listening to. And god knows what he sees on their TV at night. I hope they aren't exposing him to sit coms.

bad art, good love

Jamesy got my painting yesterday. I was a little hesitant to send it to him because I didn't know what he would think. Here's what he sent me today in response to the painting (it's also posted on his facebook page for those of you who might have already read it):

I LOVE YOU FRANKI

when i look around and see my friends, i see a small cadre of people. SHort, tall, old , young, male and female, black, white Hispanic, phillipino, Haitian, Belgian, British... I see an eclectic group of individuals all tied to me based on two principles : We love each other and my appreciation for each one is different...

None of your friendships is the same, because you are friends with folks for different reasons. Each friend represents a point in your life where you either had to lean on someone, or someone came into your life and has remained.

One such friend of mine recently sent me a painting she had done of yours truly. Granted it was not a Phyllis Marie Carter original (which by the way are the BOMB) or a James Palmiotti caricature, but her heart was in it and it made my 6yo smile and me cry. It was an early birthday present, from a person whom i know and consider a friend but never knew exactly how much she appreciated my worth to her.. "Jamesy I want you to know how much i appreciate our friendship and how much I miss you.. You have got to be the most positive person i have ever met" Franki Flowers....

i paraphrased but Ms Franki who is a Cancer survivor considers me "the most positive" person she has met.. WOW.. I am still flabbergasted...I bring a positive vibe and cheerful disposition in all ways of my life to hers, and that is my worth to her.. consequently, I see her as a person with whom i am most comfortable with and at peace...we can talk about everything and anything and usually do. We get mad at each other and still manage to remember how much we both mean to each others lives.. Friends have that affect on you..I have said it many a time, men and women "FRIENDSHIPS" are often challenged by sex and intimacy...as depicted in the ladder theory...yet i believe they can happen as long as you both know where you are...Im no damn fool, i would tap that in a HEART BEAT.. but thats not what we are about and coming to that empirical acknowledgment is HALF the BATTLE..

So yes i have female "friends" and they are friends in every sense of the word. These are not casual relationships based on the fact that we dated and it didnt work out so now we are friends.. HELL NO!! I have these relationships because I CAN COUNT on these people to be there for me as i will be there for them.. TO cry with me, and to laugh out loud.. to Dance with me even though no music is playing.. yep these relationships are what we want from either gender but most of all we want them for ourselves.... How do you love and appreciate your friends??

"True friendship comes whenthe silence between two people is comfortable."
David Tyson Gentry

"Friendship is a treasured gift, and every time I talk with you I feel as if I'm getting richer and richer."
Friendship Saying

"I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you."

"A friend is like father who scolds you,
like mother who caress you,
like sister who teases you,
like brother who fights you,
in short combine all worldly relations
you will have a friend and
that's what makes a friend above all relations "
Dr. Amanullah

"Daddy, why are you crying and laughing at the same time?"
"Baby, thats what you do when a friend touches your heart" James N

we can talk about robots, just don't write it down

I'm teaching class at a military base. I was told by the woman who purchased the class "Most of the students are experts in DoDAF (the theory I teach) and your software tool. This is kind of a check the box class we need for the customer, to show we've had formal training." She then went on to say that I could breeze over the theory part so the students didn't get bored.

Right. Well, there are a few problems with that statement. The first being that none of the students understand DoDAF. Oh sure, they all claim to have been doing it for years, but it's obvious from their questions they really don't have a clue, like when one woman asked me why an out of the box report contained the data it contained. I was like "uh, that's the standard information that goes in that report". She then went on to tell me that I was wrong and that this other tool she uses produces a different report.

I was like "well, does that tool support DoDAF?" No answer. "Have you double checked the content of that report against the DoDAF standard to make sure the content is in line with the standard?" No answer. Then a few minutes later, when I was on another topic, she blurted out "Well, this is what the customer wants." Okaaaaaaay, do what you like.

Then, there is a guy who sits in the front row who apparently doesn't realize my jokes are jokes. I showed the class, as part of an exercise, how I could hide data in the software tool so that it looks like it's gone, but it's really still there. I then suggested "so the day before a big deliverable, you can hide the data, and when your program manager has a heart attack, you can say 'I'll bring the data back if you give me one million dollars". No one laughed. The guy actually wrote down "hide data, one million dollars" in his student guide. When I made a joke saying "One of the mechanisms that could perform this activity is a team of killer robots, if you happen to be designing an army of killer robots". He wrote down "robots", circled it, and made an arrow pointing back to the example diagram.

I wonder what he's going to think when he goes back in 4 weeks to review his notes. I'll no doubt get an email asking about the significance of "robots".

Another guy in the class asked me if my hopkins degree was accredited. I was like "um, yes, hopkins is an accredited school". He then said all sarcastically "Ohhh, I bet everyone is so impressed when you tell them you have a degree from there". For the record, I didn't bring it up, my customer did, when she introduced me. I couldn't help but think dude, do you think people would be impressed if I made a fucking imprint of my engineering ring on your forehead?

Finally, there's Kermit. Yes. Kermit. He runs the lab where I'm teaching. He does not allow food or drink in the class room. How I am expected to talk for hours without having even water to drink, I don't know. My voice was almost gone by the end of today. People are falling asleep because they can't drink caffeine (and because the material is a little boring, not my fault, you try to make the equivalent of differential equations exciting on no caffeine).

The room where I'm teaching is under 24 video surveillance. I got in at 6 am to make sure the class was set up and ready to go with my lap top, which we couldn't test yesterday. Within 5 minutes of me pulling out my tea mug some guy came into the class and tried to confiscate it. Even though I pointed out to him it was empty he insisted I take it out of the class room IMMEDIATELY because, and I quote "people might see it and suspect there is liquid in it, and no liquid is allowed in this classroom". I would have mentioned that the human body is composed primarily of liquid, but he probably wouldn't have gotten the joke.

At one point I suggested to the class that we all act like we'd fallen asleep to see how long it would take security to respond. No one laughed. They looked at me, puzzled. The guy in the front wrote down "sleep - security responds" in his student guide.

Oh well, tomorrow's another day.

cheerleaders take bones

So I rushed home right after class to go see Puppy. Since I had to leave the hotel at 530 this am I left before he got there.

It turns out, Puppy has a new name. And no, it isn't Dogdaf, but it's not Buddy either. His name is Bones because he's so skinny. Here's a picture of Bones eating a pretzel. I tried to take a good picture of him but he won't sit still. This other picture is Bones with the manager holding him. Isn't he just so cute?

And that's apparently what the billion million high school cheerleaders who descended on my hotel today for reasons yet to be ascertained thought as well. They came running into the lobby, carrying a radio (seriously, who carries radios anymore?), listening to Michael Jackson's "I'm Bad".

"Ohhhhh!" they squealed "A PUPPY!" The manager looked at me and said "Can you make that noise stop?" The answer was no. They skipped over en masse, sending Bones to cower under a chair. I was like "Do you want me to take him to my room?" I was thinking Bones could eat more

pretzels while I did yoga and then we could go for a walk.

But, the manager is weak. One look at the cheerleader skirts and suddenly THEY were the ones who got to take Bones to their rooms. I obviously don't want to fight with some teenagers over a dog I won't ever see again after Saturday morning. I decided to go for a run instead, and felt much better afterwards.

And I couldn't have taken Bones running with me because he doesn't want to wear a collar.

I wonder what they're doing to Bones right now. I hope they aren't dressing him up. I hope they remember to brush his teeth.

Dogdaf

I got done with my customer early today, and went to check into my hotel out here at Ft. Huachuca. Inside the lobby was a great thing, that great thing being a german shepard puppy. He's about four months old, dark brown with black spots and really nice eyes.

The manager of the hotel found him abandoned on the side of the road this morning going into work. He brought him to the hotel and was debating whether or not he was going to take him to the pound. "You're going to take this great dog to the pound?" I asked. He said he wasn't sure if he could keep him or not. I was petting Puppy while I was waiting for them to check and see if my room was ready. Then when I started down the hall to my room Puppy followed me. The manager said "I think he likes you" and asked if I wanted him. Of course I want him, but I can't keep a dog with my travel schedule.

I went to the store (I had to anyway, because I forgot to bring tea) and got Puppy some bowls, a collar, a toothbrush, a hair brush, some vitamins, food, a stuffed bear, and a leash. When I got back to the hotel Puppy was waiting for me in the lobby. I showed him the collar, but I think he thought it was kind of gay and he didn't want to wear it. He liked the toothbrush and the stuffed bear. I gave him some vitamins and he decided he wanted to hang out with me. So the manager said he could hang out in my room until the manager had to go home (he has decided to keep Puppy, at least for now).

Puppy wanted more vitamins (they are wrapped in fake bacon) so I gave him some. Then he said he wanted a piece of the butterscotch candy they gave me, for unknown reasons, when I checked in. I said "Are you sure you like this candy? Because I don't think dogs eat butterscotch." Puppy told me that he did really, really like butterscotch. He put the eyes on me until I gave him a piece.

It turns out, I was right. Puppy licked the butterscotch for a minute or two, while I was working on email, and then he dropped it on the leg of my yoga pants, covered in spit. I was like dude, and he was like oh I'm sorry, I'm just a puppy.

He wanted me to brush his hair but after a few minutes I told him I had work to do and that he should play with his bear. I thought he was doing that but then I looked over at him and saw he was biting a chair. I told him if he mauled any more furniture I was going to make him go back to the lobby, because I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a job and isn't going to pay for that chair he bit (the manager said Puppy also bit a sofa in the lobby, and he isn't going to charge me for the chair).

We decided to sit on the bed while I tweaked a few things for my class, also giving me the advantage of being able to see what he was chewing on. I was explaining to him how the software I consult on works, and how it has cool reporting features that I ran for him, but he fell asleep. Then he pretended to be in such a deep puppy sleep that when I told him we had to go back to the lobby so he could go home with the manager he wouldn't wake up. I knew he was faking it because I saw him open his eyes when he thought I wasn't looking.

I put the vitamins and brushes back into the bag and then, when he saw I was going to leave with the vitamins, he miraculously was awake. I noticed he drooled on the two good pillows instead of the manky foam ones.

I dropped him off with the manager and said that I would take him for a walk or something tomorrow if he brought Puppy in to work. The manager said he would think about it. He also was trying to come up with a name for Puppy. I suggested Galapagos, Euclid, or Dogdaf (a play on the architecture framework that I teach, DoDAF).

He said he might call him Buddy. I hope he brings Puppy back tomorrow.

Dr. Jay saves the day

Yesterday I was doing some work, wondering if I was going to get to go out for sushi with my friends Becky, Craig, and Peter, when I got a text from Becky. Her husband Callum owns the wee garage, and he's the one that fixed my headlights. On Friday he accidentally hit himself in the eye with a pair of vice grips.

Worse, it was the same eye he had injured two years before, when a hot shard of metal penetrated it. Callum woke up yesterday with a painful eyeball, that was full of blood and swollen. Becky text said that Callum didn't want to go to the hospital but that she was worried about him, and that she probably wouldn't be able to go for sushi.

Seconds later, I got a text from my climbing partner Dr. Jay. Suddenly the little hamsters in my brain got back on the wheel. Wait a minute, I thought. Dr. Jay is...an eye doctor! And, he was at work, in an office really close to Callum's garage.

Dr. Jay agreed to see Callum and get his eye straight. Luckily the damage wasn't too bad and all Dr. Jay had to do was write Callum a prescription for some steroids. So, sushi was back on, though Callum decided not to go since his eye is looking pretty disgusting.

Everyone came over to my house, except for Peter, who couldn't come. We killed a bottle of wine, everyone made fun of my yard (I think my favorite comment was Craig's "Next time you buy rose bushes, pay the extra $2 and get ones that are alive"), and then we walked to Sushi Han, where another bottle of wine was procured and subsequently demolished. Much sushi was consumed.

Then everyone came back to my house and we drank 2 more bottles of wine. Becky and Jay didn't leave until almost 4 in the morning. We had interesting discussions about fake tits, torture, crazy drunken friends we've had, skiing, mormons, the intell community, how cats can spray things out of glands in their asses, and robot uprisings. Craig finally figured out that my phobia of midgets must come from trauma as a child watching the movie "the wizard of oz".

After everyone left I sent some drunken emails to the overlord of enterprise architecture for my company, who lives in UK and happened to be waking up right as the last bottle of wine was being consumed. I was supposed to send him a slide yesterday and didn't because it wasn't done. A short discussion ensued with the overlord where I (hee) accused him of being a robot. I don't know why I did that, except that I was drunk and thinking of robot uprisings. Then I sent him an email saying I was going to give him a turin test, realized my mistake, and then sent another email saying that I meant turing and that turin was a small town in Italy. To which he responded "And didn't Jesus get some of his clothes there too?"

So I guess I won't be fired, at least not this week. The slide still isn't done. And my head hurts.

a million little pieces...of a puzzle

I was really burned out after I returned to the states after working overseas. I was put on this horrible project. I hated going to work every day, so I decided to leave the gov and go work for a commercial company.


I went to work for a company that made ERP software. I was responsible for coordinating our software with Oracle, the database the ERP software was based on. Idiotically, unbeknown to my company, Oracle was creating a duplicate of our software with the intention to compete head on with us when they got it done.


Anyway, the company, we'll just call it ERP, was really cool. Every day at 3 PM they would bring a snack cart around to our offices and we would get free snacks. They also had parties all of the time.


I had been working there for almost 6 months when the biggest party happened. It was to celebrate our year end (in June). The president of the company was going to be there and everything. People were excited because at the party they always gave out great schwag. The year before everyone had gotten clocks from Tiffany's. I love Tiffany's.


The day before the party mysterious white boxes, the size of a smaller Tiffany clock, were placed on everyone's desks. We were told not to open the boxes until the party the next day because it was going to be a great surprise. I did not get a box, as I had just been moved to the headquarters building and mine was apparently lost in the mail.

I was bitter. The morning of the party, I arrived at 630 am to get some work done, and decided I was going to open my manager's box. I was sure it was going to be a great present from Tiffany's. Instead, it was three stupid puzzle pieces. I was like, what the hell is this? I closed the box and went back to my office, where I spied a large container of now stale animal crackers. Hm, I thought.

I went back to my manager's office, took the puzzle pieces out of the box, and filled it with animal crackers. Then, in what would prove to be a poor decision, I decided to replace all the puzzle pieces of every box on my floor with animal crackers.

Fast forward to the party. Everyone is sitting in a conference room. There were 600 people local, and then another 1,400 people on video monitors from Australia and Europe. The president walked in and said "We've had a hard year this year. We need to work as a team. Everyone open your boxes." The Van Halen song "Right Now" was cranked up over the speakers. People opened their boxes. I snickered in anticipation.

"So, to emphasize how we need to work as a team, everyone has been given three puzzle pieces. We'll use that to build a puzzle (it was the company logo). When your name is called, please bring your pieces up here." Uh oh, I thought to myself.

The first few people were called and had puzzle pieces. Then an engineer from my floor was called and showed up with his animal crackers. The president of the company glared at the VP of Marketing and said "What are these cookies doing in this box?"

Pandemonium ensued. The president asked "who got cookies in their boxes?" One of the engineers from my floor stood up and said "I got cookies AND they're stale". The VP of Marketing was in tears and saying over and over "I don't know HOW this could have happened". I was trying not to laugh, when suddenly my manager looked over at me. Busted.

The team building exercise came to an abrupt halt. I admitted I had the puzzle pieces in my desk, but I didn't know what pieces came from what box. The VP of Marketing said there was no way they could put the puzzle together and that I had ruined the party. Apparently they spent about $500K putting together the whole puzzle thing. She told me I was going to be fired.

But, I wasn't. The president, in the end, thought what I did was funny, especially after I explained that I hadn't gotten a box. The VP of engineering was a woman who really liked me, so she spoke on my behalf. Though I was called into her office and yelled at for over an hour, and only at the end did she start laughing.

From that point forward, the marketing and sales people HATED me. They would go out of their way to avoid me. To the engineers, though, I was a hero. Someone took the puzzle pieces I had stolen and glued them as a border around my door frame. Software engineers would randomly stop by my office to congratulate me.

In the end, the company went bankrupt because Oracle released their software the same time we released ours. Oracle fired the entire product development team at ERP except for me; I was supposed to go work for them. Instead, my old gov manager called me and asked if I could be ready to leave for Greece in two weeks to take a 3 year assignment. I took it.

trash with cash

I thought about this story last night because I was watching the Chappelle DVD and he did this skit called "the niggers", about a white family. He said that he thought it was funny until white people came up to him and started saying racist stuff, figuring it was okay because he had done that skit.

I dated this guy for a while in Colorado, I'll call him A. He had a "best friend", I'll call her R, who had inherited a bunch of money when her father was killed in an elevator accident. She personified the term "trash with cash", having horrible manners on top of being pretty stupid (she completely destroyed her house by turning off the power but not the water one winter while she was out of town; then she lied to the insurance company about what happened so they would rebuild her house).

A left his wife and went on a road trip with R about a year before I met him. There were questions about whether or not he left his wife for R. He was in love with R even though he refused to admit it.

I'd always found R to be an asshole. She treated A like shit, only spending time with him when she needed something. She always complained about money, even though she was rich. If there's anything I truly despise, it's rich people who lack generosity.

R ended up getting married to a guy named Paul, an obnoxious New Zealander who drank a lot. In October of what ever year it was, they were flying to NZ, and asked to stay at my house. I agreed to let them come, thinking if I spent some time with R I might like her better. Paul wanted to go see some DJ playing in downtown dinner, so we planned for them to come to my house, go out to see the DJ, and the next morning they would leave for the airport.

They showed up at my house with a bunch of alcohol. That's strange, I thought. They were drinking in the guest room, I guess because they didn't want to share, although I had no interest in getting trashed drinking the shit vodka they had. Then Paul decided to build a fire in my fire place while I was in the shower, even though I had told him numerous times it didn't work. I got out of the shower when the fire alarm went off and we had to open all the doors to air my place out.

Paul also decided to crank up my stereo to an ear splitting level, pissing off my neighbors. I finally took the batteries out of the remote so he couldn't turn it on since every time I turned the stereo down he would turn it back up. We ordered dinner, and when it came they didn't give me any money for it. I thought that was shit manners, but not unexpected. And, I usually pay for dinner when I have guests; it just pissed me off they didn't even offer to pay.

Fast forward to us arriving at the club. Paul was seriously intoxicated and kept trying to climb into the DJ booth. R was no where to be found. I ended up on the dance floor by myself, and ran into some guys who, oddly enough, had just been transferred out to Denver by my old 3 letter employer. We had friends in common so we talked for a while.

I then went outside to smoke and ran into this guy M. M had just told this girl to fuck off. I looked at him and said "you're a dick". We ended up hanging out the rest of the night. He was a climber and we made plans to climb together since I didn't know any climbers in Denver.

While I was hanging out with M, R came down and told me that Paul was getting kicked out of the club. Her reasoning is that he hadn't bought any drinks. I was like uh huh, it has NOTHING to do with the fact that he's totally drunk and annoying the FUCK out of everyone.

M went with R and I up to the bar where Paul was arguing with the bouncer trying to throw him out. Paul was so out of control they got this huge african american bouncer to help get him out of the club. That's when the horrible thing happened.

Paul called the bouncer a nigger. I was appalled. Having many african american friends, and seeing what they go through on an almost daily basis because of prejudice, I wanted to say something. I wanted to kick Paul in the balls. But I did nothing.

The white bouncer was going to have Paul arrested but M stepped in and stopped them from doing that. As we walked out of the club, Paul called the bouncer a nigger again. I didn't do anything except apologize to the bouncer. The bouncer said "you know, it happens, it's okay". But, it wasn't okay, and isn't okay. Had it been anyone else I would have done something. But I was afraid to cause a conflict since R and A were "best friends". I to this day regret not saying something.

We got home and Paul broke a dish, lost his balance, fell backwards on the floor and hit his head. That's how drunk he was. Then he took my phone and called the club about 14 times cursing and swearing at them for kicking him out. I ended up going to bed because I couldn't take being around Paul and R any more.

The next morning they didn't apologize for the way they acted. They packed up their alcohol and shit and went to the airport. I called A and told him what happened. A said he was going to confront R, and I told him not to bother because it would just cause problems.

But A wanted to confront R because he was jealous of Paul. So when R got back from NZ A told her that I had said that Paul called someone a nigger. She TOTALLY denied it and said I had lied about the whole evening. Even when I got M to send A an email verifying that everything I had said was true, A still accused me of lying. His reasoning: "I've known R for 6 years. I haven't known you that long".

I should have broken up with A then, but I didn't. We went on a break and then got back together. But, since A and R live in a small town, everyone was gossiping about what happened, and I was made out to be the bad guy. I sometimes wished that M had just let them arrest Paul. By trying to protect people that weren't even my friends I had inadvertently fucked myself.

After that, I decided I will never again date a guy like A. I can't deal with people who lack integrity and who have shitty friends. And I will never again stand idly by and let someone call any minority a derogatory name.

they were surprised to discover, among them, a dancing ant

I wanted to paint a picture for my nephew, so I painted this. I was walking around downtown tonight when I got the idea for the painting. He's only 5, so I think he'll like it.

all the other flowers were embarrassed when the tulip showed up drunk again without her stem

This is the painting that some of my friends said looked like a floating clit. I started it on Sunday, and added some stuff to it to try to make it look better.

It's a throw away, but at least I got some practice painting flowers.

I was painting it for my friends Eva and Dan, but I'm too embarrassed to give it to them (they own 2 Peter Maxx paintings). I'm going to paint something else for them.

pails

This is a painting I was going to give to my mom for mother's day. It turned out kind of suck so I might repaint it, or just get her something from Tiffany's like I usually do.

The painting was based on this photo of me and my sister playing on the beach at Martha's Vineyard. I'm sitting down and my sister is standing up. The picture was taken right before she dumped her pail of sand on my head.

The figures turned out suck, the beach was the wrong color, the rocks look like turds, and when I initially painted it the water was way too big. But, I think I'll try to paint it again.

trimming the bushes

Now that it's getting nice outside I took a look at my yard. It's a disaster. All of my rose bushes look like they're dead.

So, after I whacked all the weeds in my yard, I decided I should trim the bushes. I later found out from Jeffy I was supposed to do that in the fall. Oops. Fuck me.

I started out just dead heading the bushes. But that was boring and tedious. So then I decided to just cut off the dead stalks. Things went south pretty quickly. It's kind of like when you go to get waxed and you ask for the tiffany. Then the waxer keeps waxing until finally you hear an "oops!" and you look down and see that now you have a brazilian. And then the waxer says "well, I'll just charge you for a clean up". And you start thinking "my chop chop is going to be soooo cold if I'm wearing a skirt and there's a breeze".

Why do I even have a yard at all? I need to get some rocks.

Speaking of rocks, yesterday when I was on a bike ride, it suddenly occurred to me that the stamp logic puzzle has to have a pretty simple solution. I can sort of formulate what the solution is but haven't had a chance to write it down. That's the nice thing about logic puzzles. They give your mind something calming to chew on instead of worrying about, say, the decimation of the shark population.

would you get to drive the porsche?

Back in the day, after 9/11, I moved from San Fran to DC to help out this 3 letter collective on a project.

I didn't do a good job of ingratiating myself with the team. They were trying to foist a bunch of bullshit work off on me. I was not having it. Then I stood up in a meeting and told a bunch of contractors they were all terrorists because they were more concerned with how much they would get paid for their work than actually doing their work. I was summarily fired and then before that could actually happen rehired because the head gov guy liked that I did that.

I was put in the architecture group, working for a guy named Barry. Barry looks like yoda, if yoda only weighed 70 lbs. We made sure that, for every award he won, they spelled his name "Berry" on the certificate or plaque. He never noticed.

Barry wanted less than nothing to do with me. So he tried to annoy the ever loving shit out of me every day to get me to quit. I finally decided a detente at the local watering hole was in order.

As we sat there with our beers (back when I could drink beer), Barry asked me if I liked logic puzzles. I had never given them much thought. He gave me a simple puzzle (the old "cannibal which village do you go to") and I solved it pretty quickly. We then moved on to the bags of marbles, candle fuses, etc. Before I knew it, it was really late and Barry was running out of puzzles. I discovered then that I love logic puzzles, and that being good at solving them raised my street cred with Barry.

Next happy hour, Barry told me that he was going to give me a really hard puzzle. It had taken him 4 years to solve. He wondered if I could solve it faster. I countered with an incentive to solving the puzzle faster. I said that if I could solve it in less than 4 years Barry would have to let me drive his Porsche. It was a beauty, fuck me red, 1,500 miles on it, and just screaming for action.

I solved the puzzle in 4 weeks. Barry had to let me drive his car. Barry thought I was going to take a lap around the parking lot with it. Instead I drove it to Annapolis (about 40 miles from our office). I got it up to 120 MPH on a lesser highway in Maryland, in the rain, while Barry kept commenting, in a high pitched voice "Uh, you can see how fast you're going because there's a digital display of the speedometer on the windshield".

So here's the puzzle. I figured out the crux of the question you have to ask within a minute of getting the puzzle, but it took me a while, and many truth tables, to figure out how to formulate the question.

If you want to solve it, you have to do it without cheating and looking the answer up on the net or in a book.

You are in a room with a knight, a liar, and a knave. For those unfamiliar with logic puzzles, a knight always tells the truth, the knave can lie or tell the truth, and the liar always lies. In three questions you have to correctly identify who is who. The puzzle solution is the three questions.

If you solve the puzzle, I will paint a picture of what ever you want me to paint. You've seen my skills at painting. So yeah, it's kind of a shit reward. But, you will get to tell all your friends why you have such a crap painting hanging in your bedroom. Or where ever you put it.

Game on.

bitch, you just got served

I just spent the past hour at small claims court filing a suit against the stupid fucking bitch who hit my car.

I'm not, by nature, a vindictive person. I tend to get mad at people when they try to fuck me over, and then I usually let the matter go after talking to them. I can't help having a strong sense of justice. I am, after all, a gemini.

And I would be less pissed at that stupid bitch right now if she hadn't been such a shit head. I had to get a copy of the accident report to get her (hopefully) correct information since everything she gave me was wrong. I tried to call the number listed on the accident report to talk things out with her before taking her to court. It was apparently the wrong number. I am hoping the address on the accident report isn't fake too. I was also REALLY PISSED to discover she had not been charged for driving without insurance because she gave the cop the same fake shit card she gave me.

After I filed my papers at small claims court (which was really easy, thank allah) I went over to the sheriff's department. The guy there was super nice. I told him what happened and he said "what a bitch". They're going to try to serve her with papers three times. I'm so glad she's going to have a sheriff showing up at her house. I want her neighbors to know what a fucking cunt she is.

Then the sheriff told me that if they can't find her because she gave me a fake address, I can use the VIN number to track down who ever owns the car she was driving. He thinks I'll have a good chance of finding her. I hope he is right.

The sad thing is, I would have just asked for the money that I spent fixing Jake. But now she's going to owe $105 more because of court costs. Also, I technically could charge her interest for not paying me immediately after she received my car bill. I could charge her for the time I've spent dealing with this bullshit. But I decided not to do that.

All I can say is, she better pay up. I'm going to donate the money to a women's homeless shelter that just lost their building (they used to be right down the street from me but they can't afford their place anymore so they're moving).

My court date is 1 June. And I'm pretty sure if she doesn't show up, they are going to arrest her bitch ass.

Joe makes me cry, Gadd makes me laugh

I am SO mad a Joe right now.

The reason, you might inquire? Well, a few weeks ago he sent me a link to this vid that he heard about somewhere, called sharkwater. I procured it immediately (http://www.sharkwater.com/). Then I watched the trailer for it, which showed this guy swimming around with sharks having fun and stuff. I thought it was going to be the best shark vid ever.

I didn't get the vid until yesterday. I had told Joe that I would try to wait until he was visiting or I was visiting him to watch it. But, having the will power of a 4 year old, I ripped off the cellophane and stuck it in the DVD player the second it got dark enough outside to watch it. Then I sent Joe a text saying I was watching it so I would feel less guilty.

The beginnings of the vid are great. This kid goes off swimming with sharks and even some whales. He holds the sharks like cats and pets them. He even swims right up to a great white who just ignores him. It was really cool. It made me want to go swim with sharks this weekend (hard to believe, my last shark encounter was way back in 2004).

But then, the vid went horribly, horribly wrong. The guy in the vid went to cocos island in costa rica and noticed there were no sharks where there should have been a ton since it's a marine sanctuary. Then he found this boat that had strung out all this fishing line to randomly catch shit in the sanctuary! Which is TOTALLY illegal! And the equivalent of randomly shooting up the woods to see what you can kill, and then leaving 90% of what you killed to rot in the sun.

So the guy tried to tell the fishing boat they couldn't fish there and to take in their lines and go away. They refused. So then he called the authorities, who told him to bring the ship in. The ship refused. So the guy started firing water cannons at the illegal fishing boats. Do you know what those mother fuckers did? They started pulling up every shark that was alive on the fishing line and cutting its fins off and leaving the shark to die. They said they were going to keep killing sharks until they were left to go back to fishing. Mother fuckers.

The vid footage just got worse and worse. I guess for the non-sharky types out there, imagine this: a vid of a little cute tiger playing in the grass. Suddenly, some fucking fuck of a fucker comes up to it and sticks a huge hook in its mouth and starts dragging it along the grass while blood gushes out. Then the fucking fucker cuts the little tiger's paws all off, and leaves it in the grass to die. The equivalent was going on in this vid, but with sharks instead of tigers.

I started crying because I was so horrified and angry. I wanted to join this guy's boat and become a pirate and seriously fuck up those fishermen. I wouldn't kill them. I would just cut off a few of their limbs and let them go the same way they definned sharks.

Then Joe called. I tried to pretend I was not crying but then he was like "dude, are you crying?" I was trying to tell him about the vid and he said "yeah, I started thinking, after you told me you were going to watch it, that maybe there would be some bad stuff in it, and that's why I called you". I was like FUCKER, why didn't you call me earlier BEFORE I started watching the vid to tell me that???? And he said "oh, because I had some people over for a barbecue and they didn't leave until just now".

Gee. Thanks. Fucker.

So now I've been a little bit bummed out all day about the stuff I saw in that vid. I didn't even finish watching it because it was too sad.

But luckily, Gadd sent me a very funny link so reading through it has cheered me up. One of my faves:

http://xkcd.com/253/

Though, I am a little insulted because he called me a nerd, and said:

I was laughing away at that site even though I only get about 75 percent of the nerd jokes. I thought, "Who do I know who could possibly relate to and enjoy this more than me?" Your name topped a list with one name on it.

Fucking smart ass. If he thinks I'm going to explain the jokes he doesn't get (probably the ones relating to Perl), he's wrong.

art critic

After climbing at clear creek yesterday (it was nice to be outside after being trapped in office buildings for weeks) Dr. Jay dropped me off at my house and came in to see my paintings.

First I showed him the planet exploding painting. I explained to him that some people thought it looked like a giant white anus. Dr. Jay said "Yeah, I can see that". I showed him where I had to paint over the man with the triangular head. He was like "Hmm. Well, it's your first painting." Even though it actually wasn't my first painting. I think the problem with that painting is it's really hard to paint an explosion when you don't know how to paint.

Next I showed him the picture I did of Jamesy, and told him how someone said that it looked like a lesbian. He said the painting made Jamesy look like he had some kind of skin disease. That's because I hand made the color I used for his face, and then I ran out before I finished painting his head. I tried to remix the color but I couldn't get the same shade. So I tried to blend the new color in with the old, which had already dried. I asked Dr. Jay if I should send the picture to Jamesy and he said "Well, um, you know him better than I do". So now I'm all paranoid if I send the picture to Jamesy he's going to get mad at me because he looks like he has a skin disease.

Then I showed him the picture of my fake co-author, and then the photo that I used to paint it. He said "Why is the smoke all over the place?" I had to explain that I couldn't paint the hood on jacket so I just painted smoke where the hood should be. Then I noticed that some of the hat got smeared on his face, so he has a weird grey streak right on his cheek. Dr. Jay looked at the face and said "Well, no one can really paint a face...." I asked again if I should maybe not send the painting. He said "I can't really say. I mean, you know him better than I do. You could just send the pictures and they could always throw them away."

I showed him the paintings I did on Sunday. He said "That's weird" and "Maybe you should repaint that one".

I think I need a painting lesson.

in the interest of keeping the reading public happy

No more comment moderation. Please spell check your comments and don't write anything that will make you appear too insane.

And, I washed my hair today. I hope you're fucking happy.

what to do about those damn pirates

Deprived of my paint brushes on the road here in Toronto (trying not to laugh every time someone says "proe-cess" or "eh?"), I resorted to reading the news:

"Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he expects to spend long hours in the White House situation room in the coming weeks trying to figure out what to do about pirates."
(http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103055945)

some suggestions:

• Exterminate all parrots. How could someone be a pirate without a parrot? Oh sure, greenpeace will complain, but fuck, they're kind of like pirates too. So better exterminate greenpeace.
• Arrest Johnny Depp and put him in Camp X-ray because once he played a pirate in a movie and that might have encouraged others to be pirates. Use the usual torture methods to find out if, in fact, Johnny Depp might be behind the current "pirate craze" in an attempt to get people to watch his boring and crappy sequels.
• If anyone says "yo ho ho" in line at the airport or is wearing an eye patch, arrest them. Of course, a pirate wouldn't be taking a plane you might point out. Well, smarty pants, TSA knows a lot more about airport security than you do, and there are many pirates on planes, you just don't know it. TSA will protect you, don't worry your pretty little head about anything. I wouldn't wear anything that looks like a pirate hat at the airport though. And no jokes about pirates while you're in line for security screening. That will result in someone you aren't attracted to sticking a gloved hand up your ass.
• Oh, and that makes me think of another good idea - parrot sniffing dogs at the airport. And a machine that everyone has to walk through that blows air all over them, to dislodge parrot dander, to identify pirates. Gee, I feel safer already, don't you?
• Reinstatement of scurvy. To aid in this, all future care packages sent to Africa will have only M&Ms and coke in them.
• A super secret, multi-billion dollar program run by the CIA to invent super great white sharks that attack only pirates. They will be under CIA mind control. Unless, of course, something goes horribly, horribly wrong...
• Special breeding program for wood peckers. They could perhaps be cross bred with pigeons so they breed quickly, like the ocean and boats, but still peck big holes in wood.
• Ha, what pirate ship could survive an onslaught of woodpeckers and super great whites?
• Super beavers...yeah, and let's throw some super beavers in there. Super beavers could build beaver dams across major shipping lanes to keep pirates from getting in there and stealing ships.
• Female super beavers...they could keep the pirates at home...

Robert Gates, if you're reading this, I'm available to consult on project plans for any of the above mentioned suggestions.

happy birthday sunshine (don't read Jamesy)

Jamesy, this is a painting I made for your birthday (coming up soon in June, didn't know how long it would take to dry or how long it would take to make it not suck so I finished your painting early - check me out never missed a deadline and you know :). It's called "happy birthday sunshine" because James is one of the most positive people I've ever encountered in my life.

So...Jamesy...I always associate him with my move to Colorado because he's the one that pulled the strings to get me on the project out in Denver so I could move. He also took good care of me when I was sick from the c. I associate a lot of memories with him, sitting in McFinn's, watching boxing matches, him smoking a cigar while I smoke cigarettes, but the thing I most think of when I think of Jamesy is music. We used to sit in his car while we smoked and listen to all kinds of things, jazz, rap, big band, whatever as long as it was good.

Reminding me of a side story...one day I got into Jamesy's rental car and wasn't paying attention. I sat down, went to lean back in the seat, and ended up laying on the back seat. I sat up and noticed foot prints, fucking FOOTPRINTS, on the glove box. I was like "uh, James?" and he just giggled and said "long night".

We actually got to share an office for about, oh, a day, on our project, until someone maybe got nervous about allowing the two of us to hang out behind closed doors. We could have taken that project over so fast it would have made everyone's head spin. But, instead, we decided to be good.

Jamesy, I miss hanging out and talking with you.

Here's the picture I based the painting on (sort of) http://frankiflowers.blogspot.com/2008/05/proust-questionnaire-james-justifiably.html.

Then I found a web site with music notes on it and just copied some. I know jack shit about music notes so I have no idea what any of them mean. I painted him with his eyes closed because I don't know how to paint eyes yet.

my cigarette talks better than I do

This is a painting I made of my fake co-author called "my cigarette talks better than I do". It's based on a picture he sent me taken by Andrew Querner (I am probably not allowed to even post it, but it's always easier to not ask permission). He had gone on a trip, and I hadn't heard from him for about a really long time. So when he got back and sent me pics from his trip I kept saying "the pictures didn't come through" even though, ha ha, they did. I wanted to see how many times I could get him to send me the same email with pictures because I was pissed at him. After 5 or so times I finally fessed up.

I should give it to him. It would serve him right to have to find a place to hang it. It's my first time trying to paint a face. I should note that I spent 4 hours on Saturday at the Denver MOMA getting ideas for paintings...

they need a cop at copper

To add to my list of bizarre occurrences, today I went up to copper late morning, after I finished most of my work, to ski. The snow was slushy shit except where it was ice, but still, a day of skiing is better than working.

I got in line and the guy zapping passes said "uh oh, you're on the hot list". The three snowboarders next to me snickered. I was like "what do you mean?" and he said "this pass is reported as stolen". I was like dude, I lost my pass in January, I was just up here Tuesday, how could my pass be stolen? Luckily he recognized me and said "Go ahead and take a lap, and then go to customer service".

The 17 year old boarder sitting next to me was like "oh, you're an outlaw" after we got on the chair. I was like yeah whatever. Jokes about being on "the hot list". I ignored them. Then he asked me if I stole the pass. I told him the whole story but I don't think he believed me. Then he said that I should meet him at the bar for a drink when I was done skiing. I was like "are you old enough to drink?" (that's when I found out he was 17). He said "dude, they don't card me because they've lost so much money this year they'll sell to anyone". Then he invited me to a high school party tonight if I didn't want to drink illegally with him at the bar, assuring me he didn't want to get me in more trouble.

I was like "dude, not only can I drink legally, I'm old enough to be your mom". He thought I was 18. His friends were like "maybe I could see 20" but they didn't believe my real age. They thought I was fucking with them so then they started making fun of me. I was like will this lift ride never end.

I get to customer service after a run, and find out from the woman behind the counter that my pass has been pulled because I supposedly lent it to a friend of mine on Wednesday. I was like this is insane. I argued with her for 20 fucking minutes before she got a manager who re-instated my pass. I know now for a FACT that the person who found my pass has been using it all winter, and even though they assured me that my new pass had a different number I know they are full of shit. I would bet $1,000 they never deactivated my lost pass.

I was like dude, first of all, if I had my pass pulled on Wednesday, why would I come skiing today when the snow is in such shit condition? And if my pass was pulled, why did they not physically pull it? And if my new pass has a different number, why do I have the same number for my old pass stored in my crackberry (from when I got it 3 years ago)? I kept asking sensible questions until the manager re-instated my pass. They kept looking at me like I was a criminal the whole time though. There's no talking common sense with some people, even when I offered to pull up my copper account on the web and show them that I was never re-issued a new pass number.

Then, I was headed down a black run near the super bee lift, going pretty fast (for me anyway), when I stuck a ski edge. I went cartwheeling down the slope, which was ice, and ended up sliding about 30 feet away from my left ski. It was right under the chair lift, by far my best crash yet at copper. People were yelling "OUCH!" from the lift.

A guy skied up to me with my ski and said "wow, you were going way too fast". Anyone who has ever skied with me knows I don't go "way too fast". Ever.

Then he said "don't move, maybe we should call somebody" (I was trying to stand up still at that point). Except for my left shoulder, I was feeling fine so I said "no need". He grabbed my helmet with his huge black gloves, and looked into my goggles (still slightly crooked from the crash) and said "but you might have an aneurysm and then you'll die".

I don't even think I hit my head, so I backed up and said "I'm pretty sure I don't have an aneurysm". The guy said "But that's THE PROBLEM! You won't know UNTIL YOU DIE!" He was getting scarier by the second. Then he said "Promise me you'll go get medical help immediately when you get down". I was like "sure dude" just so he wouldn't grab my head again.

This old dude came up then and said he would ski behind me the rest of the way down. Scary dude left. The old dude shared a chair with me going back up super bee. He asked if I had hit my head in the accident (he only caught the tail end of it). I said I didn't think so. He said "that man who was talking to you was acting strange" and said that's why he skied down behind me and then followed me onto the lift.

Old dude started talking about going to a Rockie's game tomorrow, and said that I should go because "if you're 12 and under you can get in for $1". I looked at him and said "I'm older than 12". He laughed and patted my leg because he didn't believe me.

Okay, now that I think about it, I wear a kid's helmet because I have a small head, and I decorated it with girly stickers. Maybe that's what's throwing everyone off about my age. I don't know. It's not like I'm short. I'm pretty tall.

To end my copper odyssey, I got back to my car only to discover someone tried to I guess break into it. The driver's door handle is pried up and the lock cylinder is knocked back into the door. Good thing I have to leave my car at the airport for a week and can't get the door fixed until I get back. I wonder if someone can just open the door even if I lock it.

Sigh.

the danimal

The past few days have been, even for me, strange.

It all started last night. I was at Wahoo's picking up fish tacos for dinner (my favorite fish tacos ever). I was standing against the railing, and, to set the scene, I was wearing climbing pants, a baseball hat, and a t-shirt, the same outfit I've been wearing all week, I hadn't showered for two days (working at home so why bother) and worse, I hadn't washed my hair in almost two weeks. And my hair was looking especially ratty since I had put a hair mask on it the night before and hadn't rinsed it out yet.

Suddenly this guy comes walking towards me from outside. He was dressed in really expensive clothes, including his shoes. I'm pretty sure they were hand made. That song "walking in memphis" was playing. He stood RIGHT next to me and said "will you dance with me?" I was like "whaaa?" and he said "please, I really, really want to dance with you".

I was like "dude, I'm just waiting for my food". There was a couple waiting in front of me for their food. I had ordered blackened salmon tacos which take a while to make. I was like please don't let them get their food and leave me with this maniac. Wahoo's was deserted, and the two idiots behind the counter were just staring at me as if the hamster turning their thoughts couldn't keep up on the wheel.

He said "Well, if you won't dance with me, come have a drink at the bar. I would love to buy you a margarita". He crooked his arm out like some old fashioned guy escorting me to a dance. I just looked at him. He reached out to grab my hand and I said "don't fucking touch me". He said "What's wrong???? I'm not hitting on you! Look, I'm married and have two kids." He held up his hands, palms facing towards me, and waved them around like a homecoming queen. He was not wearing a wedding ring.

Then he said "You coloradans are so cold. I miss California." The couple waiting for their food said "You can buy us a drink" so they sat down with him at the bar and he bought them drinks. He bought me a beer and tried to give it to me. I said "I don't drink beer". Then he bought me a bottle of water and I said "I don't drink that because it's bad for the environment".

By then the two guys behind the counter were laughing. The guy said "Look, my name is Daniel. I'm not a stalker. I'm not going to kill you. I just want to share the love." Uh huh. The couple started talking to him. He kept edging back over to me and trying to include me in the conversation. I was like where is my fucking food? I think the kitchen was being slow on purpose to see what would happen.

Daniel told the couple that he had a house in Redondo beach, on the water, and a house in Colorado, that he was starring in Spike Jonzes' movie "where the wild things are" (googled his name when I got home, that was a lie), that his friends call him "the danimal", that he loved to surf until he broke his back (surfing was playing on the tv behind the bar) and that he had a scar on his leg from getting bitten by a shark. Around then my food came, so Daniel turned to me and said "I can't believe you want to sit home alone when you could hang out with me." Right. Then he said "I'm sure I'll see you again. What is your name?" He held out his hand as if I should shake it.

I said "why do you think you'll see me in here again?" even though, ha ha, I eat there a lot. He said "because you live really close to here". That gave me a chill so I left.

dark arms

Last night I had a dream that I showed up for my consulting job in Toronto and was put in this small windowless office. Outside the door I could see this woman dressed like Lara Croft rolling bee hives around on the floor. Then she would pick them up and juggle them. I went to the door of my office and watched her for a while and decided she had the coolest job I'd ever seen.


So I told her I wanted to learn how to juggle beehives too, but that I was afraid because I'm allergic to bees. She showed me all these pieces of white tubing sticking out of her arms, and said that the tubes had anti venom so if she got stung there was no effect. Then she showed me, in the crook of both of her arms, that she had a spider, that looked like a tarantula, that ate any bees that were trying to sting her. The spiders kept running up and down her arms eating bees while we were talking.


I was like cool, put some tubes in my arms so I can juggle the beehives and she did. Then she gave me two spiders for my arms as well. I picked up a hive and started throwing it around like she was doing. But then both of my arms were in serious pain. I looked down and saw my bee eating spiders were dead. I yelled to the woman to help me. She came running over and was like "oh no, you picked up a hornet's nest instead of a beehive! that's why your spiders died!"


My arms were burning and I fainted (in a dream, I know, weird). When I came to she was putting new tubes in my arms to try to get the poison from the hornets' out of me before it killed me. And then she said "I'm going to have to give you a shot" and she stuck these two huge needles right into my abdomen.


I fainted again, and when I came to I was sitting back at my desk. My arms were covered with little squares of white gauze that were totally bloody. I couldn't lift my arms up at all because of the pain. The woman was like "you'll be okay" and then she ran away. Then my customer, this kind of bland looking guy, came in to my office and said "we need you to do a software demo in 15 minutes". I was like fuck fuck fuck, I can't lift my arms and I'm covered in blood. But I told him I would do it because I didn't want him to know that I was juggling hives.


Then I woke up.


It was around 230 in the morning so I went back to sleep. I dreamed that I was asleep in bed when my old housepest Ryan walked in the door. He was wearing a paper plate over his face with these jagged eye holes cut out. I was like "what the fuck are you doing here?" and he said "oh, I was just bringing in your mail, and then I was going to take a shower". He came up the stairs towards me and I saw he was holding a huge knife. I knew he was going to kill me with it.

I started yelling at him to give the key to my house back. He kept coming towards me so I grabbed a pair of nunchucks that my brother Bob gave me (that's true, they were from when he took martial arts, and he gave them to me 6 months ago) and threw them at his head. It knocked the paper plate crooked, and he dropped my house key and started running down the stairs. I was going to chase after him to get his knife but when I got to the front door I realized I was wearing my robe and couldn't go outside.

Then I woke up and decided that was enough sleep for one night.

one day, for no reason, our planet suddenly exploded

Having had a perfectly horrible day at work, and having bewailed my situation on the phone with my dad for 15 minutes, he suggested I, and I quote, "have a glass of wine...and, um, maybe paint another picture". I think because he didn't want to hear me complain anymore.

So here it is. It's called "one day, for no reason, our planet suddenly exploded". The colors and texture of the exploding planet didn't quite come out in this photo. There's some green in there that you can't see. Also, there's a white epi-center on the star that didn't come out.

That weird blob at the bottom is a person I painted with a triangle for a head. His hands came out pretty good but his feet sucked. So I painted over him. Didn't work like I thought it would.

The white blobs were inspired by me accidentally spilling a white blob on my painting when I was trying to put the epi-center on the star. It looks cooler in real life than it does in this photo. Because, I think in this photo, it looks like it sucks.

Oh well. It's my last small canvas. Now I have to paint bigger.

worse than a big fluffy beaver

So I painted my second painting ever. The painting was done from memory. It's of a fox that I saw on Friday afternoon while I was hiking at Roxborough. I was walking down the trail, looking for more puddles to jump in (it was really muddy and wet, but warm out, and there's nothing I love more than jumping in puddles) when I suddenly saw something running towards me. At first I thought it was a dog, but then remembered that dogs aren't allowed at Roxborough.

As it got closer to me I realized it was a fox. He was about 25 - 30 lbs, so, not small, and he was brightly colored with a little brown beard and a huge tail that was white on the back. He ran almost right up to me, realized I was human, and took off into the bushes. As I was standing there amazed, he turned around, looked at me for a minute, peed, and then ran off again.

For whatever reason, a fox has always appeared at a pivotal point in my life. I thought it was a good sign. Plus, I've always liked foxes after reading the little prince.

Anyway, I tried to paint the fox. But, I was given a bit of bad advice from my friend Neil, who told me I should drink while I was painting. After one glass of wine I decided to touch up the fox, and made him all blotchy. Then, after the second glass of wine, I accidentally put my thumb down on his tail, so it smeared. Thinking I could fix it by adding more paint (thank you, wine brain, for that suggestion) I ended up making his tail bigger and bigger. I tried to add the white at the end but by then he was just a shit show. And accidentally I stuck him with my pinkie when I was trying to move him to the wine shelf to dry (if you click on the picture to look at it in a bigger format the pinkie stick is obvious).

I meant to give the painting as a gift to someone. But, how can I give it as a gift when I know it sucks?

Comments from Neil:

"It doesn't suck. I like everything but the fox. The color of the fox is fine, he just looks trite and out of place in the expressive but still realistic landscape. I guess you could say he's expressive as well. If his shape were more realistic, like the all the other shapes, and you used the same color, I think it would have blown me away."

He looks trite, and out of place, and like someone was drunk when she painted him.

Joe didn't say the painting sucked. He was a little more polite. He wanted to know why the fox's tail was so big.

Jeffy said "I think modern art would accommodate alcohol consumption much better than landscapes with animals." He then suggested I paint an abstract ice fall, and glue a GI Joe doll to it.

Guess what you're getting for your birthday, you fucking smart ass.

did he mean what he said?

I called my friend Neil last night to let him know I finished my first painting, and to tell him I was going to send it to him if he liked it. Below is pretty much word for word our conversation, with my interpretation of what Neil was thinking in italics.

Me: So, I emailed you a picture of the painting. If you want you can look at it or be surprised when you get it in the mail.
Neil: I better look at it. We can reduce our carbon footprint by you not sending me crappy paintings.
Me: So what do you think?
Neil: It's surprisingly good. For a five year old. Who's a retard.
Me: Should I send it to you then?
Neil: Well, it's your first painting. Don't you want to keep it? And have that piece of crap hanging somewhere in YOUR house instead of mine?
Me: Since you were the one who inspired me to start painting, I thought you should have the first one. I'd really like to send it to you if that's okay.
Neil: Sure. Damn. Maybe it will get lost in the mail. Though if it's just damaged, I wonder if I'll even notice.
Me: Should I put it in a frame?
Neil: No, don't worry about that. Because then I'll feel obligated to hang it up somewhere.
Me: Is there anything else I should do to it?
Neil: Throw it away. Make sure you sign it. I don't want people thinking I painted it. And put a date on it too. So people can see how old you were when you painted it. And laugh.
Me: Cool. I'll do that. Are you going to hang it up?
Neil: Yeah, I am. Somewhere that no one will see it.