farts, cars, and bars

Thursday night after class S and I wandered around the parking garage for 30 minutes before we found someone who could help us find our car (for some reason I remembered the four digit number of our parking space and once the garage guy pointed us in the right direction we were able to find it). When we got to the car we discovered someone had keyed the driver's side door. Nice.

We had dinner at Il Porto even though S hates Italian food. Our waiter was Palestinian and he and S had a conversation in arabic, I assume part of which was making fun of me and my hair. Then we went to Union Street Public House for a glass of wine. I was saddened to find my favorite book shop, which I used to visit once a week when I lived in old town, is now a starbucks. Those fuckers.

For some reason everyone was staring at us in the bar. I wonder if it's in part because I get giggly when I drink and S was telling me a story about hiding a fart making machine in the cube of this uptight woman he worked with. He and his boss would go into a glass walled office so they could watch her reaction when they made the machine fart. I was laughing so hard that I couldn't hold my wine glass.

The next morning I woke up with a slight hangover and met S out in the parking lot. We walked over to the rental car and the back bumper was smashed in and the tail light broken. I started unleashing a string of curse words but S found a note on the windshield. It said "sorry I hit your car, please call". We couldn't figure out how the woman had hit the rental car. We were parked in the last space and there was at least 40 feet to the other set of parking spaces. Idiot.

S asked if I made up curse words or learned them. I answered both. Thank you and bless you US Marines.

The two days of classes went really, really well. We even managed to make it to the airport on time. I had to fill out a form about the car accident and the guy servicing the car at Hertz drove us to the airport because, he said, "you don't want to take that bus".

Somehow S manages to get people to do all kinds of stuff like that for him. I need to get his skills. Oh, except for the guy in the office where I was teaching who got upset because S asked him to make a copy. I bet he would have done it for me.

And, to cap off the whole weird trip, at the end of class this kid named T who sat next to me and was always the first to answer my questions (most of the time, incorrectly) walked in front of me, bowed down with both hands clasped in front of him, and said "thank you, your highness, for this class". Awkward. A sales guy from my company started laughing (as did the rest of the students) when T left. He said "I've never seen anyone do THAT before."

S says I should become a writer for a tv show.

faster than the speed of light!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great article about scientists at CERN measuring particles traveling possibly faster than the speed of light.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/09/22/140713791/scientists-report-breaking-the-speed-of-light-but-can-it-be-true?ps=cprs

we don't know where we're going

I arrived in DC today to teach the make up class for the laptop debacle class. I am hoping the events of today are not a harbinger of things to come.

I flew in and did some errands while waiting for my work pal S to arrive. He's not a consultant (he's, eek, in sales) but he agreed to help me out with the class in case there's more problems with the laptops (he's a geek by training but because of moral failings went to the dark side). We got to the office where the class is being held at 4:15. I was told I would have access to the classroom at 4 pm so I could set up. Ha.

We walked into the building and I was trying to look up the floor for the company. S said "it's 4" so we went to the fourth floor. Wrong floor. I found the address and we were supposed to be on the 3rd floor so we took the elevator there. There was a sign on the office door saying we had to check in with reception on the 7th floor. We went there. There was a sign on the office door on the 7th floor telling us to go to the 3rd floor because the 7th floor office had been closed.

We went back to the 3rd floor but the doors were locked and there was no intercom or anything. So I tried to call my contact. She answered and I managed to tell her we were waiting outside the office for her and then my cell coverage went to SOS. S tried to call her on his phone but his coverage was non-existent too. We got someone to let us into the office even though there was a sign on the door saying "NO UNBADGED VISITORS BEYOND THIS POINT" because my contact didn't bother to come out and get us. Ha. We don't need no stinkin badges.

The class room is a disaster (the people using it didn't leave until 430, leaving us only an hour for set up and testing - thanks asspipes!). Three odd shaped tables. One has a piece of metal sticking out of the corner. I just know someone is going to get impaled on it. Some of the power plugs don't work so we had to crawl around under tables to find ones that did work. Our contact is worried she won't have enough badges for the students. The room has, seriously, like 20 extra chairs meaning there's barely any room to move around (a whole herd of the chairs is in front of my white board - I need to use the white board - how I will reach it if they don't move the chairs, I don't know). Ech.

Then S's gps sent us on a wild goose chase through Alexandria trying to find our hotel. We got there, and it turns out the woman S contacted to make our reservation made it for 21 December instead of 21 September. The hotel was sold out of rooms. I could feel the steam starting to come out my ears. After traveling all day and driving in traffic from Dulles and then having to set up the crap class room and spending 45 minutes looking for the fucking hotel the last thing I wanted to be was homeless.

S said "when you get upset you stop looking at people" because I was staring at my blackberry thinking "why can't I just be an application that can live anywhere?" and wondering if S was serious about getting a hotel in Reston and trying to do that shit ass commute back to Alexandria tomorrow morning. In the rain (it's supposed to rain, it's raining on and off now). All the hotels in Alexandria are sold out.

I decided the best course of action was to go outside and smoke. Came back in the lobby after, problem solved. S thinks the guy gave us rooms (he had to over ride the computer system) because of me. I think he meant because front desk guy was afraid I would kill him if he tried to send us to another hotel. Or maybe he meant because I looked so cute in my "I'm not homeless, I just dress like I am" outfit with my blond afro threatening to engulf the lobby.

Yeah, I suffer. But at least this time I'm making someone in sales suffer with me. And, sales people always pick up the tab for dinner, which S did tonight.

You have to be glad for the little happy things in life and ignore all the other shit. Or so people who don't travel as much as I do keep telling me...

because people always think I make this shit up

At 12:30 today I received the confirmation for the class I was supposed to teach today. With the added comment I can't make travel plans UNTIL I receive this confirmation.

My horoscope today said "feel free to ignore and move away from negative energy today". I wonder if I will get an apology from the scheduler. Probably not...

got English?

So last week on Wednesday evening I got an emergency request to teach a class this week in DC. The class was going to happen Tuesday or Wednesday, they weren't sure. So I told scheduling I could do Tuesday but that I was booked Wednesday.

I didn't hear anything back so I sent an email Thursday asking if I needed to change my flight (I'm flying to DC tomorrow) and asking if the class had been confirmed with the client (I can't travel without a confirmation).

So Thursday afternoon I get an email from the training coordinator that just said "Get it confirmed!" There were others cc:ed on the email so I assumed the training coordinator was asking someone else to get the class confirmed ASAP. I am supposed to receive an automatically generated confirmation when the class is "officially" confirmed (they have to enter the new status in a database so a charge code can be generated). I did not receive one so Friday I sent a final "WTF is going on with this class?" No response. Also, the only information I had about this supposed class was the teach location - no contact, no idea who the customer was, etc.

So, as I think any NORMAL person would assume, I assumed I was not teaching the class. Then I get a call at 3 PM yesterday from the customer wanting to go over logistics for the class. I politely told him I did not get a confirmation for the class and then I called scheduling. It turns out the training coordinator meant to write "got it confirmed!" The scheduler insists I should have been able to discern that. She is mad at ME.

Given the amount of classes canceled this year, the amount of last minute engagements that don't happen, not getting a formal confirmation or client information, HOW THE FUCK was I supposed to know there was a typo? Further, why didn't the training coordinator respond back to my email friday asking for clarification (she said she didn't have time to read it and just assumed it was something she could get to on Monday). They, seriously, wanted me to try to get a flight to DC last night (at this point it was 5 PM). Even if I could have gotten a flight it would have gotten in super late and then I would have had to be on site with the customer at 730 am.

A few years ago, I would have tried to make it. Now, fuck them.

The ironic part of the story is that there are two consultants in DC that could have taken the class, thus clearing up the problem, but they didn't want it.

My friend Camile says I should start taking anti-depressants. I don't think they would help.

fucking bees

A bunch of fucking bees have invaded my hummingbird feeder. They've been drinking all the nectar. So far I've only seen one hummingbird. Well, I didn't see him because it was dark but he flew into my hair.

I have to figure out a new way to attract hummingbirds that doesn't involve bees.

the origins of (hee) gas

I've just started up with my chaos class again. I did the first 12 lectures with my dad while we were on vacation 3 years ago but we didn't get through the whole thing. I bought my own copy and am going to complete it in the next few weeks. The class is given by Dr. Steven Strogatz.

One of the things I learned last night is that the word chaos, which is greek, is also the root of the word gas. Makes sense. Gas is a collection of particles flying all over the place.

Think about that next time you're on a plane next to a lactose intolerant middle aged man who's just had an ice cream cone.

abbiacrossamerica update

Today I was surprised to find a little envelope in my stack of mail. It was from Abbi, whom I met at the San Fran airport a few weeks ago.

I can't believe I'm such a crackhead that I forgot to mention that Abbi is riding her bike cross country to raise money for Avenues, a shelter for homeless youth. If you check out the link for her trip you'll find a blog of her trip as well as information on where to make a donation. I've been enjoying her blog (and am envious, as I sit around working instead of having an adventure). Check it out, there's lots of great pictures. She even takes pictures of her food and biking injuries.

In any case, after I met her I made a donation to Avenues. The card she sent me was a thank you card. She's quit smoking (good, I'm next) and she wrote a really nice note about my donation.

I donate to a lot of charities, and it's always nice to get a hand written thank you with a personal note. Which she wrote in a campsite after riding all day.

If you have some spare change why not make a donation...

I can't make this incompetence up

I have to teach a makeup class for that class in August that went badly due to hardware and software issues.

You would think my company would take resolving the issues with the laptops seriously. The class starts next week and I'm still not sure the problem is fixed. Total nightmare.

These are excerpts from actual emails (I've bolded the really insane parts):

Me:
Can you follow up on the laptop problem or direct me to the person I need to talk to about what happened in the class with the laptops? We need to make sure the issue is resolved.

Training coordinator:
I have sent the notes you provided to our IT team, to investigate the issue surrounding the performance of the laptops.  No news yet.

IT (4 days later):
The systems have 3gb of RAM and one processor so that should have worked.
I tested the image on  four systems:
1.  3GB ram xp  (used for class)  -  1:04 min to boot  to vm image
2.  3 GB ram  xp (used for class) - 1:00 min to boot to vm image
3.  3.2 ram xp   two processors - 51.5 sec to boot vm image
4.  4 GB ram  two processors - Win7 -  30 sec to boot to vm image

Me:

Testing the image is critical to diagnosing whether the problem is the image or the hardware. Just testing the bootup time for the VMWare image doesn't address the problem.

IT (3 days later):
I could not test the VMWare image because I don't have the password.

Me:
The password is (blahblah). It was on the documentation sent with the VMWare image.

IT (2 days later):
I have done everything I have time to complete.   I wish I had time to test the other performance issues but I have to start the builds for next week.

(basically, IT is going to build the machines without knowing if the problems are fixed - and all they did was time how long it took for the VMWare to boot up - adding the numbers, that means they did 5 minutes of testing).

Training developer:
Are the laptops still available or have they been reconfigured? If they are available, can we do one or two tests as suggested by Franki?

Training coordinator:
If you'd like to order one laptop (the same as used for the class) pre-configured with the image than an asset request can be arranged so that you can test it. 

Me:
If you need me to do the testing you'll have to send the laptop to my hotel. I am currently on an engagement in Houston.

NOTE: Testing the laptops is NOT my job.

IT:
We can only ship a laptop to your residence.

Me:
I won't be home until a week before the new class and if there are problems that only gives us 2 days to fix them before you ship the new machines.

Training Developer:
You can send the laptop to me and I will test it.

(NOTE: testing IS the training developer's job)

Training Developer:
I received the Computer to test, but there is no VM image on it.... Please advice (sic).

IT:
I did not realize you needed the VMWare image. Only IT can access or download VMWare images.

Amazingly, with all these people involved, I still am not sure the problem is fixed. Next week may be a bad week...

on "artificial" intelligence

Yesterday my friend d sent me an xkcd comic. It gave me an idea for an iPhone app. I asked my brothers if the app would be feasible to create:

Bob wrote:
What you've developed could easily be implemented with a Bayesian tree. Some guy wrote a chess-playing email spam filter using this - the spam filter would reap through already played games looking for similar moves, pick the next move from a game that won, and reply with that move (in the form of a 'rejected email' notification) http://dbacl.sourceforge.net/spam_chess-1.html

I'm a fan of simply scrambling the orig message into anagrams (joe into EOJ) then truncating everything to 3 or 4 letters then injecting random punctuation.  The sender will spend hours trying to figure out what the abbreviations mean.  I get charged per text message (up to 130 chars), and I hate it when people send 'OMG, LOL! BOS @ CATS?'

(*nux users, check 'man strfry' and 'man atoi', other OS users will have to google it (be cautious, I once typed 'man find' into google at work and was a bit shocked at the results....))

Steve wrote:
All you need is a vacuum that watches twitter and Facebook conversations.  Then matches against what the human says with the typical response on one or both of the real conversations.  Maybe do some better filtering of the existing data. Shouldn't be too hard.  Also sounds like something IBM would do... 

Delusional people have existed throughout history, I don't know how much commercial appeal there is to codifying unproductive conversations. Before going too far, you may consider watching: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0805564/

 Then d, who has a flair for the dramatic, and who can twist even the most mundane musings into a PhD thesis, wrote:

Packaging and marketing is always the tricky part, but I think the appeal of codified unproductive conversations is a fundamental part of our idea of what it is to be intelligent, and in fact human. Look at the history of the idea of robotics - at every stage of concept and development, the first thing their creators want to do is carry on an idiot conversation with their creations.

1. God creates man, attempts to have a conversation with his creation. Fails, and is forced to behavioral methods to get his messages across.
2. Türing posits a 'sufficient' test for humanity dependent only on discernable idiocy of conversation, commits suicide.
3. The first thing (after mortgage calculations) that programmers do with BASIC is create ELIZA, a therapist emulator that works exactly like the Twitter/Facebook vacuum cleaner you imagine. It generates better results in patients, on average, than actual flesh and blood therapists.
4. Phillip K. Dick thinks (and writes repeatedly) that it is impossible to differentiate human from robot lovers in anything but a negative sense, commits suicide.
4b. Women argue that it is very possible to differentiate human from robot lovers, and choose vibrators and television.
5. Ridley Scott makes a paranoid movie proving that robots are better actors than humans, many tech-oriented corporations suffer huge losses or go out of business (see "Blade Runner curse").
6. Cell phone companies boost their business exponentially by offering "unlimited evening and weekend minutes". Largest user groups are those with the least to say - teenagers, friends who see each other every day, and people standing in lineups.
7. Schizophrenics popularly fabricate someone to talk to, whether than person wants to listen to what they have to say or not. So do children with 'imaginary' friends. It's also why people have pets, in many cases, and why pets are recommended for seniors' mental health.

'nuff said. We're ready to talk to anything, robotic or not. And pay for it.
Bring the app...

The interesting, or sad thing, is that none of these responses had to do with my original app idea.

Intelligent conversation? Maybe. Interesting? I'll give it that.

500? too much?

When I first started using netflix the limit on the number of movies you could save was 300. I filled up my queue in less than a week. So I wrote to customer service asking if they could extend my queue to 500. Surprisingly, they did it.

I think netflix is the BEST thing ever. They are really service oriented too. They were kind enough to let me deactivate my account for 14 months (normally you can only deactivate for 6) when I was in the middle east. They always get my broken movies replaced in a few days. And occasionally (once every few months) they'll send more than my allotted movies.

So, I wonder if it would be pushing them to get them to make the queues support 600 saved movies. I can't add any more movies to my queue, but I need to. I even eliminated a few movies so I could get ones in my queue that I didn't want to forget about.

500 doesn't seem like too many movies.

in case you thought I was making that story up

The guy who wanted to make a cast of my ass brought in his custom made bike seats so I could take a look at them. I'm not convinced they would be more comfortable. And I'd get weird wrinkles on my ass. Glad I said no to his offer.

new cactus, new lights

Today I put in solar lights along my new path, put up the hummingbird feeder and the other kinds of birds feeder. I even weeded. It's nice to do something domestic after two straight weeks in Houston.

I also got a new cactus to replace my old cactus, Ernie, who died. He's third from the right. His name is Dr. Pascal Pointworth.

lost count of the body count

WARNING: this is a story about a dead person, do not read while you're eating or if you're sensitive

I don't know why, but I have a habit of seeing dead people, including a guy getting killed by a train and a homeless guy who died in my back alley. Maybe because of my zombie knee?

Today I worked all morning (actually, I worked all Saturday and Sunday, but, I'm stuck in Houston and there isn't much to do) and decided to take the afternoon off to go to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and the sculpture gardens. I was going to walk there.

I got two blocks from my hotel when I encountered the below pictured body. I wasn't sure at first that he was dead so I yelled at him. No response. I looked at his hands and the tissue was somehow, hard to describe, waxy or settled in a way. Also, his position seemed rigid.

I went over to a tree, broke a stick off, and then poked the guy with it. Stiff as a board, no response. He was so dirty I was afraid to touch him.

 So I called 911. A rude dispatcher asked me a bunch of questions. "Do you need an ambulance, fire engine, or police?" I was like "what ever you normally send for a dead body". And he was like "Ma'am, I NEED TO KNOW do you need an ambulance, fire engine, or police?" I was like "I guess send them all if you don't know because I don't know what I need."

I was transferred to the ambulance dispatcher. She made me spell the names of the street intersections (Bell, how hard is it to spell that?). Then she asked me what his race was. I couldn't see because he was laying on his face so I guessed and the woman started yelling at me for not being able to tell if he was hispanic or asian. She told me to roll him over but I said he was too dirty. Also, there was fluid leaking out from under his body. I didn't want to know where it was coming from.

She told me to ask him his name. I said "I'm pretty sure he can't answer because he's dead". She asked me to feel for a pulse but I couldn't bring myself to do it. This guy was REALLY dirty. She then advised me to wait with him until the cops came and to flag down the cops so they would know where I was (how hard could it be to find the fucking location? I gave them a street intersection and the name of the garage). I was supposed to start CPR on him, not give him fluids, and make sure he didn't take any medication. All of which I knew he wouldn't do, because he was dead.

So I was standing about 10 feet away from the body, smoking, when a guy came up to me pushing a guy in a wheel chair. Unbelievably, they were going to try to rob the guy. I started yelling at them but the wheel chair pusher was a lot bigger than me so I crossed the street after telling them the police were only moments away (which was a lie). The wheel chair pusher did something to the body and then I heard him yell out in disgust before pushing his friend away.

The ambulance showed up 30 minutes later. The guy got out and said "where is the victim?" I was like um, dude, RIGHT THERE. He put on some gloves and checked the guy's pulse. Dead.

So he and his partner pulled out a gurney and picked the guy up and dropped him in a heap on the gurney. I must have looked horrified because the driver said "don't worry, he's just homeless". The other guy said "if it makes you feel better pretend he's just sleeping". A fire truck showed up around that time and hosed down the area where the body was (there was vomit and other fluids all over the side walk). As the ambulance drove away the driver, I am NOT making this up, blew a kiss at me and said "thanks for calling baby". The other guy winked at me.

I decided, since I had spent so much time with the dead guy, to drive to the museum because it was going to close in 3 hours. It ended up being a wise choice because mapquest said it was only a 3 mile walk but in fact it was 5 miles.

I went to the sculpture garden first and saw this:

The second sculpture is almost exactly the position the dead guy was in.

I'm having a run of weirdness this month, imploding situations with people, bad travel karma, bad luck with my maids (how many more things can they break in my house), unusually angry customers (not at me, at my company - I just get to be the punching bag), and a general sense of unease about the 9/11 anniversary. I hope I don't have to fly that day.

And I hope my luck changes soon...

ass cast

Sometimes helping people backfires on me.

There's a woman in the office who's on crutches because she broke her ankle. The crutches were not adjusted correctly and so when she walked by my cube on Thursday I offered to fix them for her. She was really happy and kept thanking me.

The guy who's in charge of a major part of the business I'm consulting for came out of his office while that was going on and asked how I knew how to fix the crutches. I explained that I've spent over two years of my life on crutches. He asked why and I told him about my knee.

So he said "I'm having problems with my knee" and he walked into my cube and pulled his pant leg up. I immediately spotted swelling on the medial side of his knee and said "that looks like a tendon issue". I told him to see if the swollen area felt like a rubber band. He said he couldn't tell and asked me to feel it. So I did and decided he had damaged his PCL.

He went to the doctor's on Friday and it turns out I was right. In exchange, he said, for me helping him (I didn't actually do anything) he offered to make me a custom carbon fiber bike seat. Turns out he races bikes. I thought it was a nice thing to offer but told him it wasn't necessary. He said that he could make the seat for less than $15 (he has a company on the side and sells the seats on the web). All I had to do, he said, was let him make a clay cast of my ass, and then he would wrap it in carbon fiber and I would have a bike seat that weighs only 30 grams (most expensive seats weigh 150 grams).

I was like "um, no thanks" and he said "but it will be so much more comfortable" and I said "but I like being uncomfortable".

Hopefully he won't take that as permission to continue to bother me with weird offers like making an ass cast.

my friend with the broken butt

The second week I was in Houston I was parking in a garage because my hotel was too far away to walk to the office. The garage gate guy was very impressed for some reason with my corporate credit card. Or maybe he just liked me. He would always try to chat me up as I was leaving, even if there were 5 cars behind me waiting to get out of the garage.

The last day I parked there (I found a hotel less than two miles from the office) I said goodbye to him and he came around the side of the car to shake my hand and I think he wanted to give me a hug. I was parked close to his booth, though, and couldn’t open the door. As he was squeezing by my car mirror to shake my hand it folded in and then snapped back right into his ass as he turned to get back in his booth. He started making these hilarious jokes about suing my company.

I walk by him in the evenings every day on my way home from work and I smile and say hi to him. I could tell he recognized me but wasn’t sure who I was (I never saw him in the garage while I was wearing sunglasses and when I walk by him I always have my shades on).

Today, however, I was walking past with 3 colleagues behind me because they park in that garage (even with my zombie knee I walk faster than most people run, with the exception of esolo of course). I smiled and said hi to him and suddenly a look of complete recognition crossed his face. He pointed at me and shouted “You broke my butt! I’m going to sue [my company]!” My colleagues stopped walking and stared as this guy started laughing and pointing to his ass all the while yelling “You broke my butt!”

Then a car pulled up to the gate and thankfully he went back inside his booth.

I wonder if I will have some explaining to do tomorrow at work.

who wants the t-shirt?????

I was looking for a local grocery store in Houston, and happened upon this:

Who wants a t-shirt, if they have them?

Abbi, again?

Weird week this has been...besides having an exceedingly charming and considerate customer, I got to SFO on time for my flight tonight.

Okay, that's not the weird part. I decided to smoke a cigarette since I got to the airport on time. A girl with a big box asked to borrow my lighter. I noticed the box had a bike. I asked what she was doing and she said she's riding her bike cross country. It turns out I'm reading a book called strange piece of paradise about a woman who did that with her friend and they ended up getting run over by a truck and then axed by a maniac guy. I mentioned a few words of caution because she's going it alone, and then asked if she had a headlamp. Sheepishly, she said no. I offered to give her the one I carry but she promised she would go to REI tomorrow and buy one.

She had told me her name, but I guess I do better when I see people's names written down. She handed me a card with her email as she left, and I told her I'd send her my phone number in case I'm home (I know, hah) and she runs into any problems when she gets to Colorado. I looked at the card and her name is Abbi.

About 4 years ago my dad, Clint, and I were driving from Montrose to Ouray when we happened on a girl with her pannier strap stuck in her chain. It was pitch dark and she didn't have a headlamp or tools to fix her bike. She was new to biking and had decided to ride her bike to college (from Montana to New Mexico). We loaded it in the back of Clint's truck and drove her to Ouray. Clint fixed her bike and lent her a headlamp (I thought he should have given it to her but he didn't). I grabbed all the food we had in the apartment that didn't require heating and filled her water bottles (she had no food or water) and we drove her to a camp site.

The next day we went up to the site to retrieve Clint's headlamp and found a note scrawled in red lipstick (????she brought lipstick, paper, but no pen or headlamp) thanking us and giving us her email address. I sent her a few emails to make sure she was safe but never heard back from her. I might have gotten the email wrong because lipstick is hard to read.

The thing is, her name was Abbi too.

I just sent the new Abbi an email to see if she might, coincidentally, be the old Abbi.

Mom, make sure you mention this to dad if you talk to him tomorrow. As soon as I find out I'll let you know!

guess which country this happened in

Below are some scenarios that recently happened to me at work. Guess where I'm working.

Me: Um, it appears you've made some changes to the meta model without clearing them through the governance board.
Client: There is no governance board.
Me: In addition, you're using terms like "application component" in a non-standard way. We need to fix this.
Client: This meta model and its definition can't be changed, it's taken me a year to get it approved. I can't go back and ask for a change after spending so much time getting an approval.
Me: So there is a governance board that approved this?
Client: No.
Me: So can we go talk to the people who approved these changes and explain why we have to make more changes?
Client: I don't think they would be receptive to that.
Me: Can you tell me who the people are at least that approved this?
Client: Me.
Me: And you're the only approver.
Client: Yes

This happened in:
a. Kazakhstan
b. the Middle East
c. Texas

(as I'm stuffing my work badge into my backpack in the lobby of the client building leaving for the day today)
Security: Excuse me, you are violating a VERY IMPORTANT security policy that you must wear a badge at all times.
Me: But, I'm leaving (as I'm standing 2 feet from the door to the outside world)
Security: But you are in the building so you must wear your badge at all times
Me: But when I drop off my badge at the end of the week I'm allowed to walk through the lobby without it.
Security: Don't make me write you up for a security violation!

This happened in:
a. Kazakhstan
b. the Middle East
c. Texas

Client: I'm very upset. Your software stopped working last night!
Me: It just randomly stopped working?
Client: Yes.
Me: I find that very hard to believe. Maybe there was some kind of automatic update to your computer last night? Or you may have changed something?
Client: We do our updates manually. I didn't change anything. Your software is broken!
Me: Can you show me?
(I look at his computer and see the software is working except for some hyper links)
Me: The software is working, just the hyper links are broken. And I'm getting a message that the JDK was updated to a different version than you had previously installed.
Client: I updated that last night.
Me: But didn't we discuss yesterday afternoon not to do that upgrade because that JDK version is not supported? Don't you remember me sending you a link to the web page stating that?
Client: That's not the point. The point is the software isn't working.

This happened in:
a. Kazakhstan
b. the Middle East
c. Texas

my family and natural disasters

My sister, mom, and brother experienced the earthquake in Virginia. The emails (how a family of engineers deal with a crisis):

My sister Cat:

Pretty interesting, got hit by a book off a bookshelf but otherwise nothing happened from the stupid quake. Hope everyone fared well! Kind of interested to get home and see if anything fell/broke. All is well!


My dad:

Earthquake about 4 miles deep, not too far north of I-64 between Charlottesville and Richmond (south of Lake Anna)...Mary (my mom) said she felt it shake the house pretty good, but everything seems OK. And this weekend we'll get hit with a hurricane there! (maybe he's too excited about the hurricane - but my dad loves weather)

my sister:

Hurricane should be a non-event here.  At least the hurricane would put out the fire in the great dismal swamp!!! (dismal swamp has been a big conversation in the family)


My brother Bob:

Unfortunately it stopped before I could get my phone out - I was going to try to use the accelerometers in it to measure the vibration (who's the biggest geek of all???).  I even have just the perfect app that I wrote for measuring my car's acceleration.

Just got home, nothing seems out of place or disturbed, although Rocco (his cat) was uncharacteristically affectionate when I walked through the door.

It's comical to read about the overblown knee-jerk reaction of everyone (especially Congress).  It simply wasn't that powerful.

A scare-mongering quote from washingtonpost.com:

Minutes after the quake, the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, Marcia McNutt — who watched objects falling from the shelves in her office — cautioned that the shaking might not be over.

“What the concern is, of course, is that this is a foreshock,” she said. “If it’s a foreshock, then the worst is yet to come.”

OK, EVERYBODY PANIC  :)

I'm not making this up, it's an actual headline.

OH GOD: The First Photo Of The DC Earthquake Devastation:
http://www.bestweekever.tv/2011-08-23/oh-god-the-first-photo-of-the-dc-earthquake-devastation/

my brother Steve:

Events like this and our upcoming Uranium Mining report should make it fairly interesting in the state.  The real damage was to Verizon and ATT, I thought after 9/11 they had their system setup for events where everyone calls everyone from their phones.  I never lost my data connection, but the voice and text were shot.  One of our project directors sent me a text I will never get that reads, "Steve, what did you drop?  The whole building is shaking."
 
my brother Bob:

Have you been fracking in Mineral, VA?


Thanks for writing my blog today sibs. You're funnier than I am :D

worst nature walk ever

This weekend I hung out with my dad, who is doing really well with his chemo (he's barely lost any hair). We decided on Saturday to go for a walk so he could show me a nature trail in his neighborhood that he recently discovered. It turned out to be fraught with danger, and we barely escaped with our lives. Okay, slight exaggeration but actually it's not.

The trail was in the woods, the trail was damp, and it was overgrown in places. My snake sense was tingling like crazy so I was looking down at the trail to make sure one didn't sneak out of the undergrowth and bite me. I barely registered a family in front of us with three noisy girls ages 5 - 8. I almost bumped into my dad when he stopped, and I looked up, noticing the father of the girls was taking pictures. Oh, more boring pictures of trees I thought. Then my dad said "that's one hell of a snake".

I looked over to the area where the dad was pointing his camera and saw a HUGE black snake cruising along a cleared area. My brain was like "FUCK ME" but then I managed to suppress the urge to run. "You better get the fuck away from me RIGHT NOW!" I yelled at the snake (it was 10 feet away so technically not that close, but, how close is too close for a 5 foot black snake?).

The snake seemed to turn its head towards me so I made the meanest face I can, which is my serial murderer face. Surprisingly the snake high tailed it down a hole. It' looked like a corkscrew it was going down the hole so fast. I was like "you better run you fucker!" and my dad said "good job! you scared the snake!"

The annoying family in front of us was moving slow and my dad thought about passing them and then, thankfully, said "let's go up this other trail and look at the swimming pool". I didn't want to look at the pool, and wanted to pass the family instead, but I followed him. That diversion literally probably saved my life.

After we looked at the pool and the tennis courts, basketball court, and playground, we headed back into the woods to finish the nature trail. I heard shrieking coming from the girls farther down the trail. I said to my dad "that's weird, it sounds like something bad is happening and not like they're playing around". Seconds later the (I guessed to be) 6 year old girl came running towards us screaming, seriously, at the top of her lungs. "What the fuck?" I thought to myself.

She said "we were attacked! we were attacked!" I said "what do you mean?" and she showed me her arm which had 5 large welts on it. Apparently the family had been attacked by yellow jackets. The rest of the family (maybe they were idiots) were still standing in the area getting attacked. The 6 year old girl had run away.

I found more bites on her legs and back but she was so hysterical I couldn't do anything to help her. I asked where her parents were and she said "still back there!" No way was I going to go get them since I have an anaphylactic allergy to yellow jacket stings. I started yelling for the parents and then the 8 year old came up. Finally, after a few minutes, the mom came lumbering up with a toy poodle in her arms. I said "your daughter has been stung at least 10 times by yellow jackets - you need to get her out of here now!" Of course the dad and grandfather were still in the area of the yellow jackets.

We all started walking out of the woods. The 5 year old kept flipping out screaming about being in pain or getting stung again (she was right behind me and I was like oh god she is attracting bugs like crazy and they might get me). Finally we came to the trail divide and my dad and I decided to take the pool trail and walk home on the road. All the little girls were screaming and hysterical and we couldn't take it anymore.

We ran into them getting into their car as we circled around the trail on the road. The 5 year old was taking benedryll. The six year old and the father had been stung multiple times on the face (and other places). The mom had been stung on the ass. It was horrible. I don't know why they didn't run when the first yellow jacket hit the 5 year old.

As we headed back to the house I couldn't help feeling lucky that we didn't pass them. If I had been attacked by yellow jackets I might not be writing this. And I told my dad I'm not going into those woods again until it's fucking winter.

now I'm a published author

One of my students came into class on Thursday and said "are you a marine biologist?" I was like, um, no. And he said "well that's weird, because yesterday I googled your name and the first result was someone with your name who wrote a book about marine biology, and it's not like you have a common name".

I thought for a minute and then said "wait, that must be this anthology that's publishing a story I wrote about great whites". The student looked at me for a second and then said "so, you forgot you wrote a book?" I had to explain to him that I had just written one story and that the anthology wasn't published yet. He asked how I came to write a story about great whites and when I said it was a hobby he just shook his head.

That caused some interest in the class so I showed them some pictures of great whites. Now three of the students want to go on vacation with me.

Here's the link to the anthology. Oddly, if my student hadn't googled me I would have never known there was already information about the book out there.

In other news Rock & Ice turned down my gimps on rock story because they said that it "didn't have a point". I guess I could rewrite it to be an inspirational story about amputees that keep climbing despite their injuries. But, I'm not going to do that. I have too much respect for the amputees.

I hope Agent Cooper is proud of me

The best manager I can think of is Agent Cooper from Twin Peaks. The guy has better people skills than I ever will, and I like his incorporation of his sixth sense in his work. Well, he was great until he was taken over by Bob.

Anyway, after an hour interview with the manager of security and then the director of security:

Director of Security: Can you confirm that the student who complained, er, had a, er, that there was a, er
Me: (no I did not check his pants) Um, ye...um, yeah, I can confirm the story is true

the offending security guard was moved off the front desk. My student was happy again (he thinks she was fired). Sure all the female admins are bitching about me. But, it keeps them from bitching about each other which is a lot more annoying. And despite major hardware problems with 10 of the 15 laptops my company provided for the class (my favorite laptop crashes every 20 minutes and I don't have a spare to replace it even though they are supposed to send 2 spares as a backup) my class is going well. Which is to say, the students aren't trying to kill me. And because of the let's just call it the "security snafu that caused my student to have an accident" we are getting breakfast and lunch brought in at the expense of my company tomorrow.

People get so excited about free food. I brought in a deli menu for people to look at so I could put in an order for lunch but everyone decided instead of individual sandwiches to get three dessert trays (which will contain, in total, 10 brownies, 30 cookies, 15 things called blondies what ever those are, 15 little cakes, 12 pastries with fruit, 30 marshmallows (????? they are strewn across the dessert tray - decoration?), and 12 "oreo crumbles" which are kind of like brownies with crushed oreos on the top and bottom with a cream cheese center). A woman from Vietnam in my class, who's finishing up her final round of ESL classes said "fuck sandwiches!" She then said she learned that from TV, not her ESL class.

I just need to survive tomorrow. I won't even go into the story about how the overhead projector mounted in the ceiling blew a bulb (literally blew, we had a power surge) this morning so on top of all the other issues I had to talk to slides and use the white board for 20 minutes while the "education coordinator" tried to find me a new projector. Two of my students took great pleasure in building a table to put the projector on since the room we're in comfortably fits only 10 people (and we're 16) and there was no place to put a non-ceiling mounted projector. They built the table out of cardboard boxes I pulled out of the trash, empty cans, some wads of white board paper and almost an entire roll of scotch tape. Sure, there was a replacement bulb for the projector but the "education coordinator" refused to give it to me since they had just replaced the bulb a few weeks ago and she thought it would be "a waste to put a new lightbulb in". 

?!?!?!?!?!

I can't believe I have to teach this fucking class again, in the same building, in three weeks...

what am I teaching - kindergarten???

This is a disturbing story. Maybe you shouldn't read it. Don't read it while you're eating.


Today I was teaching a huge class (15 students). They all had to go through building security which takes forever.

One student, who's had 2 classes with me, was at the end of the line and he had to poop. He's in his late 40s. Security wouldn't give him the combo for the bathroom til they checked him in. So, he pooped a little in his pants.

Luckily he had work out clothes in his car so he changed. No one needed to know. But he felt compelled to tell me in the hopes I might get the woman in security that wouldn't give him the code fired.

Ech. I don't get paid enough...

jet set

I was talking to my friend Deanne the other day and she said she was jealous that I get to travel so much. Travel is not all it's cracked up to be...

Yesterday I was finishing up with my client at 3:30. I had to drive from San Ramon to SFO to catch a 6:50 flight. Oh, it will only take you an hour to get there my client said. You're going to be sitting around the airport. He wanted to talk to me more about his organization.

I sat there for 15 more minutes and then said I had to go. Clients always wait until I'm about to leave to decide they have something very important to tell me. These are the same clients that get pissed for having to pay extra charges when I miss my flight because they delay me.

I started driving on 580 and thought maybe my client was right. Even though I thought I had plenty of time I was speeding, thinking maybe I could grab a glass of wine before my plane took off.

Then traffic came literally to a screeching halt. By 5 PM I was still 24 miles from the airport, stopped dead on the highway. I hate being in those situations. Further, I had not had a chance to print my boarding pass so on top of having to return a car and get through security I had to print my boarding pass. I thought for sure I would miss my flight.

I managed to make it to car return by 6 PM. A train showed up right as I was arriving at the platform to go to the terminal but the fucking fuckwit in front of me wouldn't get out of the way on the escalator so I missed the train. It was 6:05. I knew if I missed my flight I'd be stuck at least overnight and that assumed that there were seats on a flight out. And I'm flying to Richmond tomorrow so I really needed to not be stuck in SF until Friday.

Finally I got to the terminal at 6:15, ran for security, and luckily the woman manning the line thought I was a stewardess and let me through the premium security line. You would think I'd have status on an airline with all my travels but they all expired while I was in the middle east and my company flies me on a different airline every week. It will take forever to get my status back.

The boarding was just finishing when I got to the gate and thankfully I was able to stow my bag before the bins got full. All I could imagine was a glass of red wine but the fucking plane was out. Note to people who don't travel much: airlines always run out of food and alcohol usually by the time they get to the 10th row. Don't plan your meals with the assumption there will be anything other than crappy snacks on the plane.

Got home at 11 PM last night and had to work on another project until 1 in the morning (they were doing a customer presentation today and waited until 4 PM PST to tell me they needed me to run some reports on their data - nice planning). Today I'm trying to get all my local errands done because I won't be back to Denver until September.

Ech. Life in the fast lane.

stabbed

Today I went back to Dr. Crane to get an injection in my knee to add some lubrication and hopefully alleviate some of the pain.

I didn't know what to expect so I was pretty nervous this morning before the appointment. Dr. Crane was running late but he told this other doctor that was going to do the injection that he wanted to do it. I think he likes me as a patient. A nurse painted iodine all over the side of my knee and then said "I need to get Dr. Crane's bucket". That made me more nervous but it turns out it was just a square sort of bucket thing that had all the shit in it for the injection.

When Dr. Crane came in I gave him a status report of all the things I've done since I last saw him. He was pretty happy with my progress. I joked with him that it would be hard to find a place in my knee where he could insert the needle since it's all bone and he said "even if I hit a bad spot don't kick me because I'm in a very vulnerable position". I was sitting on the examination table with my legs dangling over the side - he was sitting right in front of my right foot with his legs spread so he could get leverage on my leg to get the needle in.

The initial poke of the needle wasn't bad. When he started to work it under my femur, that was terrible. I could feel it scraping on the bone like there was a snake in my leg. Then when he started injecting the stuff it felt like my knee cap was going to blow off. He told me to look at an x-ray he had brought in of a normal knee instead of watching him wiggle the needle under my knee cap but I didn't want to look at the good knee x-ray. That's like when I cook something from a cook book and the picture in the book looks great and my food looks like shit.

When he finally pulled the needle out (the most painful part, but maybe because it was the end) I thought I might be a little sore from the poke but other than that I was expecting instant pain relief. It turns out the injection can take up to 6 weeks to start working. Sometimes the pain is worse after the injection. Sometimes the injection doesn't help at all and sometimes it wears off before 6 months (shot on average provides relief for 6 months) but you can't get another one until the full 6 months have passed. He said to take it easy and not even ride my bike for a week. I was kind of surprised at that, but I was like "okay, I'll be good" and Dr. Crane said "that will be the day" and walked out.

I hopped off the examination table (stupid stupid stupid) and the second my right toe touched the floor the pain was so excruciating I thought I was going to throw up. I was like what the fuck did I do to myself???? Then I looked down at my knee and saw it was hugely swollen from the injection goo. I couldn't straighten my right knee fully so I limped out of the office and into the parking lot. I seriously could barely drive home.

Anyway, the goo should get itself settled in a week. Hopefully. Dr. Crane thinks I will see a big difference in the pain I'm experiencing, and hopefully I can ride my bike in three weeks when I get back to Denver from a trip odyssey where I will be flying to Williamsburg, driving to DC, then flying to Houston, then flying to San Fran, then flying back to Houston all in the space of 3 weeks. Ech.

shot

Last night I had a dream that I was hanging out in this mansion like place somewhere in the suburbs. There was going to be a party and a male friend of mine (not sure who it was because I couldn't see his face - but he was someone I knew) was trying to help me pick out something to wear.

Then these two guys from the CIA showed up and started telling me about how they had given my male friend a shot so he would never get the flu again. They asked if I wanted a shot too and I said yes so they injected something into my back.

A few minutes later my friend came in and said "if those guys ask if you want a shot say no because they're testing a chemical that kills a person in a month". I was like oh fuck, they gave me the shot and my friend was like you're going to die.

Then the CIA guys came back and said "Oh, don't worry about the shot. It might not work. And it's easier because you'll never have to worry about catching up on your sleep again." I started trying to find a calendar in the house so I could figure out when I was going to die, but I kept traveling in time back to when I was 5 years old. I was standing in my old back yard, at the age of 5, in the rain, when I heard one of the guys say "time travel was not something we anticipated this drug could do." Then I started traveling through time so fast that I felt sick, like I was on a roller coaster. Then I felt a burning pain in my head and realized I was going to die.

Then I woke up.

that's the big city...

Well, things are as I expected in Houston. The trip started out insane when my fucking GPS gave me the worst directions ever to my customer site. Then my customer, who is furious at my company and at his sales person, started yelling (yes, yelling) at me the second I walk in the door. All I could think of is the episode on Southpark when the aliens are talking to the cows and the cows are like "but you ripped this other cow's ass out" and the aliens were like "oh, that was Carl, he's new" and the Carl alien goes "my bad!"

Anyway, I've managed to fix some problems, but my ability to fix problems is directly related to how much information the customer gives me. Which is little to none. Until today I couldn't even see what they were doing. He dumped a 40 page pile of the worst code written ever in my lap and I'm supposed to "fix it". On top of what ever other crisis happens. And my customer keeps saying "I think I'm confusing you" and I'm like "maybe if you gave me an actual example of what you're trying to do I could help". Ech. Also, he wants me to write code to fix problems in the release he's using (and yelled at me as if I personally released a version with bugs). He says he can't upgrade until he tests shit, and he won't let me do the testing, so that testing will probably happen next never. When I pointed out to him that if he had used such rigorous "testing" for the previous release he never would have installed it he promptly declared it was lunch time and left the meeting. Why introduce logic into an argument?

The office smells like farts, or maybe it's just that my cube mate farts non-stop. I've lost my rental car twice now in different parking garages. Yesterday I wandered around for over an hour before I found it (I remembered the floor and the area where I was parked, but it's a three part garage spread out over two city blocks and the garages aren't connected, so I went up one side and then had to walk down and go to the next side, etc.). Today I parked in a space I was sure would be easy to find. The problem was the door I came out was locked and I couldn't use it to go back in. I had to go to the bowels of the garage, take an elevator, and then try to re-orient myself. I was only lost for 10 minutes today.

The good news is I have a quart of blue berries and I plan on eating the whole thing for dinner. Tomorrow, as they say, is another day. I just have to keep reminding myself to be like Special Agent Dale Cooper...

Houston

Well, I'm off to spend 6 weeks in Houston. This is probably the worst time of the year to go. As a reward for my suffering I get to spend 2 weeks in Northern California.

I'm kind of over the traveling, but it's billable work. I'm getting sick of clients who cancel engagements at the last minute (one the day before work was supposed to start) and those that screw around and decide on Friday afternoon that I have to absolutely be at their place on Monday morning.

I sometimes think clients don't understand how hard it is to be a consultant. My biggest pet peeves:

• You've known for a few months that I'm coming to town, and you made ridiculous requests about the amount of work you want me to get done. But when I get to your place you have no time to spend with me. Really, I love staying up until 1 in the morning looking at your jacked up spreadsheets of data trying to figure out what the fuck to do so I don't get dinged for not finishing a deliverable.
• Oh, you didn't realize I need a desk to work at? Where the fuck do you think I'm going to put my computer? You thought I would love balancing my laptop at the end of your desk between pictures of your kids and dog? No, that doesn't work for me.
• So your office is locked down like Fort Knox. If my movements are going to be restricted tell me before I get there. Yeah, I smoke. Shoot me. I don't think it's unreasonable that I can leave your building at least once during the course of a day to have some peace and quiet. You think it's inconvenient for you to escort me? Try being me.
• If your building doesn't have a cafeteria or a close by place with food tell me before I get there. It's not so much fun to have to go the whole day without eating. 
• All that noise in the conference room is not conducive to me being able to write code. I can block out most noise. But give me a few hours of quiet to work.
• I know I'm not the typical consultant. But that doesn't mean I want to have sex with you or spend hours eating dinner with you while you drop hints about how your marriage sucks and you haven't gotten laid in years. Not my problem. I'm at your site to work. I'm not there to entertain you. I have other clients to deal with in the evening. Except on a rare occasion I don't want to eat dinner with you. Or lunch for that matter. That's an hour of time that's precious on a short engagement, and being able to work through lunch means I'm not going to have to work until 11 at night in my hotel room.
• If because of security I can't get on the internet think of a better way to get data to me than email. If we can't exchange stuff using a USB drive email me stuff while I'm at the hotel. No, I don't want to drive over to starbucks and waste 45 minutes of my day receiving emails from you because you can't get files to me any other way. And if you send me to starbucks don't freak out that the huge file you sent me takes 20 minutes to download because I'm using free (i.e. shitty) wifi.
• If you know I have to leave to catch a plane don't bring up a major issue as I'm packing up. It's always the clients that make me miss my plane that end up bitching about the $150 fee to schedule a new flight.

 That being said, I'm sure I'm going to have fun in Houston...

my latest knee x-rays

This shows my knee cap when my right leg is bent. You can see how it's not tracking straight. The femur bone overgrowth is pushing my knee cap out, which is why it hurts when I bend my leg. Also, you can see the femur defect (compare the right, or lateral, side of my knee with the left, or medial, side). My right side is pointed. It's not supposed to be pointed.

This shows my right knee bent. You can see that the bottom of my femur is overlapping my tib-fib when I bend my knee not even 90 degrees. The white area shows arthritis.

This x-ray shows the lateral side of my femur. You can see where bone is still missing on the lateral side (compare it with the smoother, medial side of my knee). You can also see how my femur is causing my leg to go sideways because of the bone overgrowth. The amount of daylight between the femur and tib-fib that's supposed to be there is missing (compare to my medial side).

my newly relandscaped back yard

This is my old backyard. Tres ugly, and full of weeds.

Here's the new backyard. Hopefully my transplanted rose bushes won't die. It's not finished, and the tree in the back is going to be replaced, but it's a lot better than it was.

pic of people from the Lighthouse retreat, and a bear

Here's a picture of most of the people from the retreat (a few left early). I'm hiding in the back.

And here's a bear that showed up on Wednesday night while we were eating dinner. He didn't stick around long, probably because dinner that night was kind of suck. Over cooked fish and this weird breaded eggplant. That tasted like slime instead of eggplant, to be honest.

hire me, please

My brother was updating his resume and sent me this fucking hilarious email:

I was reading this article on typos people put on their resumes, and I
couldn't help but create a fake one.  All information below is
directly pirated.  It should not be read or published.  It is for your
amusement only.  If you happen to put your boss's name on it and post
it to job sites, that's not my fault.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OBJECTIVE
Seeking a party-time position with room for advancement.  I'm working
today in a furniture factory as a drawer.

SUMMARY
I would like to assure you that I am a hardly working person.  I
prefer lunch to be gin at Noon everyday.  I was an inspirational
leaper for a development team.  They described me as a perspiring
leader.  Am a real problem.  Please don't misconstrue my 14 jobs as
'job-hopping'. I have never quit a job.  Here are my qualifications
for you to overlook.


2010-2011
Voluntary work for taking care of the elderly and vegetable people.  I
was a Candy Stripper, but I don't like dealing with blood or needles.
Helped injured people process clams.  Dispensed medication and passed
out.

2010
Instrumental for ruining entire operation for a Midwest chain store.
Planned new corporate facility at $3 million over budget.

2010
Answer phones, file papers, respond to customer e-mails, take odors.
Revolved customer problems and inquiries.

2005-2010
Experienced in all faucets of accounting.  As indicted, I have over
five years of analyzing investments.  Failed bar exam with relatively
high grades.  Wholly responsible for two (2) failed financial
institutions.  Managed sex (6) units.

2002-2004 PUBLIC SERVICE
Spent several years in the United States Navel Reserve.  I am a Notary
Republic.  I'm a hard worker, etc.  I would like to work at a law
farm.  Received a plague for Salesperson of the Year.

1999
Career break in 1999 to renovate my horse. I have an excellent track
record, although I am not a horse.  I never take anything for
granite.  Reason for leaving last job: maturity leave.


SKILLS
Strong Work Ethic, Attention to Detail, Team Player, Self Motivated,
Attention to Detail. extreme experience with PowerPint, Microsoft
World.  I have lurnt Word Perfect 6.0 computor and spreadsheet
programs.

HIGLHLIGLHTS OF QUALIFICASIONS
Responsibility makes me nervous.
Bi-lingual in three languages.
Speak English and Spinach.
Exposure to German for two years but many words are inappropriate for business.
I have an excellent track record, although I am not a horse.
Achievements: "Nominated for prom queen.
I have extensive experience with foreign accents.

HOBBYS
Enjoy cooking Chinese and Italians.

EDUCATION
Completed 11 years of high school.
I have a bachelorette degree in computers.  Have repeated courses repeatedly.
Graduated from Havrad University with a Masters Degree - Graduated in
the top 70% of my class.

Hope to hear from you shorty.

umbrellas or else

At the writing conference this week I had the pleasure of meeting J. Diego Frey, a local Denver poet. His new book just came out Umbrellas or Else. Check out his web site. He has posted poems about jello wrestling with Barbara Walters, eating a milky way, and toupees.

I sent this email to everyone at the conference when I got home. I was hoping more people would add stuff to it but that didn't happen. The quotes are based on the poems one of the other conference people read one night when we were getting drunk in the smoker's lounge:

I was saddened to read about J Diego's law suit this morning on the NPR web site:

FAMOUS PEOPLE BRING CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT AGAINST POET

A number of famous people have filed a class action law suit against J Diego Frey, author of the now infamous book Umbrellas or Else. The following excerpts were pulled out of the court document:

"In "Haikus to a Drinking Buddy" JD said the way I belched the Rockford files theme song was cool, and that my hair looked good. But now my wife has filed for divorce. I think he's a dick." - Donald Trump

"I was eating nougat and reading "Milkywet" when I laughed so hard I choked. It was worse than the time with the pretzel. I think JD is trying to kill me." - George W. Bush

"The back of Umbrellas or Else specifically stated that the poems wouldn't make my brain hurt. But now it hurts so bad I may not be able to run for president. Like, I can't stop wondering what part of JD is shaped like broccoli." - Sarah Palin

If the law suit is successful it will set a precedent in the writing world. The judge has commented that, besides having to pay a huge settlement, JD may also be sentenced to three years of house arrest during which he will be forced to read Eat, Pray, Love and submit a report answering all the reader's group discussion questions.

my first published article!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just found out last night that Chapter 9 of my book is going to be published in the Oceans anthology this fall. They donate all the proceeds to ocean conservation. I'll post the information about the anthology once I receive it.

HOORAY!!!!! Thanks to my pal and fellow writer Hans Hartman for passing the information about the anthology on to me. And thanks to my family for dealing with my neurotic ramblings at Thanksgiving last year when I was editing the story.

CP

Last night I also got to hang out with a new friend, Kristen. I met her Friday night. She has cerebral palsy. It's caused by a bruise on a baby's brain. If treated before the age of 2 the outcome is usually really good. Her parents didn't believe in hospitals so they didn't get her treatment until it was too late. She had to have surgery on her hip and her parents took her out of the hospital immediately afterward so she didn't have any physical therapy. She laid in a bed for 6 months until her surgical incisions were so infected that she had to be rushed to the emergency room.

She has a lot of problems she shouldn't because of her parents' irresponsibility. She has severed all ties with them because they always wanted to hide her problem. Socially she runs into a lot of issues as well. Most people see people with CP on television and think it's really severe. It depends on the person. She also has guys who have dumped her because they were afraid the CP would get worse - it doesn't. Some times people think she's mentally disabled because of her walk. She told me "I feel like I walk normally and I always hate walking by a mirror and I can see that I don't". She endures a lot of ridicule from people who don't realize she has CP but she's at the point where she just ignores it and gets on with her life.

Kristen was never much of an outdoors person until 2003 when she met a woman at the airport who asked if she had tried hand cycling. Kristen was like "what the fuck is a hand cycle?" She started attending events like No Barriers and now sky dives, hand cycles, rafts, and horse back rides. She spent every day of No Barriers doing two new sports she never tried before.

Like me she often travels by herself. We cooked up some adventure trips to go on, and hopefully we will get to do a trip together this year. Though, Kristen and I are a lot alike, and we like to get into trouble, so it might not be a good thing for us to hang out together. Or, it could be the perfect thing!

Herr doctor

On Saturday night Dr. Hugh Herr was the keynote speaker at dinner. He was a child prodigy climber who lost both feet due to frostbite (he and a friend spent three nights in -20F temps after getting lost in a blizzard). Now he designs, builds, and wears bionic legs.

After his talk paradox invited him to come drinking with us. I thought he would be a boring professor but he isn't. He told me as we sat down at a table that he had just gotten back from Geneva after giving an important talk. I was like "Oh, I thought you went there to eat chocolate" and he said "I did eat chocolate, and it was decadent".

Of course all the amps wanted to know more about his legs, and when they would be available. His legs have flashing lights on them like R2D2 and they have processors on them. I asked him if someone could hack his legs and he said "definitely" and we were joking that someone would make him walk somewhere he didn't want to go (I was picturing him being forced to walk into a sleezy lingerie and sex shop).

Somehow we ended up with two bottles of wine on the table. Dr. Herr poured me a third glass of wine and I was like "dude" because I was afraid I would start babbling like a drunken idiot. He said "you're hotel is close by isn't it? you don't have to drive" and I was like "yeah, but I still have to walk there" prompting great laughter from around the table. I was the only one there with two legs.

Then Dr. Herr said he was thinking about starting a facebook page for his legs, and that he wanted to set up an account so they could send out tweets like "Dr. Herr is walking to starbucks". I started trying to explain the episode of Wallace and Grommet called "the wrong pants" but everyone was asking him questions so I started talking to Rob about side stix.

It was a fun evening, unfortunately cut short at midnight when the bar threw us out for being too noisy. I have to say most non-profit events I've attended in the past were boring with weird people. No Barriers was like a non-stop adrenaline fueled party and I met lots of cool people that I will hopefully be climbing and hiking with in the future.

not your average amputee

I spent this weekend up at Winter Park doing a charity event called No Barriers. Mal invited me and in the evening I got to hang out with the paradox athletes. Since I'm still suffering from the parties and lack of sleep, I decided to post a few pics and write a real blog tomorrow.

You think you know what a double amputee looks like? Check this girl out. With her prostheses she's over 14 feet tall. Loved the butterfly wings too.

One of the prosthetic designers at the show offered to let me use demo boots to see what it's like to walk with fake feet. My feet are in the boots and the feet you see below the boots are two different types of prosthetics. I got to experience the difference between a stiff foot and one with ankle movement.

This is a new design for a prosthetic foot, made from a plastic called PEEK and aircraft aluminum. I told them the name they had given it was boring and suggested they rename it the Darth Vader foot.

I also am REALLY psyched that I am now the proud owner of a pair of side stix. One of the paradox athletes recommended I talk to the company about my knee problem. They gave me a pair of side stix and then I went for a half mile walk with Jon Arnow. 

We went up and down a rolling hill, then up and down a steep hill, and then up a bunch of rocks. I could not believe the difference that using the side stix made with my leg. It was the first time in over 14 years I've been able to walk down a hill without excruciating pain in my femur. And my leg was a lot more stable. I used the side stix for the rest of the day because I was on my feet (I ended up working 12 hours Friday and Saturday as a volunteer) and I was amazed when I got back to my hotel that my knee not only wasn't swollen but it was barely hurting at all.

I told Jon that I had been feeling a little bummed out because I couldn't do long hikes anymore (after an easy 6 mile hike at Roxborough I couldn't walk the rest of the day). I'm taking my stix out tomorrow to Roxborough to see how they do on a steep-ish 12 mile hike. If they work out Jon said he would do the rim-rim-rim in the grand canyon with me in september and we'll post a story on the side stix web site.

BTW, if you go to their web site you'll see this adorable guy named Nico doing an aerial with the side stix (his leg was amputated right below his hip). He's a competitive soccer player and can out run almost everyone with his stix.

The best part of the weekend was meeting a bunch of athletes that are hardly gimps even if they have a few missing parts.

Tommy's corrections

I had a bizarre (as usual) meeting with Tommy to go over his corrections to the story I wrote. In the middle of a thought he often veers off down strange mental alleyways, jumping from his accident to his truck to his family to bluegrass to children to the fiancee he lost on September 11th to prosthetic adjustments to what a bitch I am for showing up at the meeting wearing sunglasses and a hat. He also said I'm uncoordinated and that my cruiser bike is "laughable".

Here are the corrections. The story is actually worse than the initial version:

Tommy is an Army veteran. One day, while riding his motorcycle twice the legal speed limit on a winding road in Pennsylvania, he came around a turn an almost hit the back of a car going the speed limit. The car swerved off the road and Tommy started to pass it. But the car tried to pull back onto the road and the front bumper caught Tommy’s back tire. That forced him into a telephone pole. The impact embedded 10 ½ inches of his left femur and 5 inches of his lower left arm in the pole. Disks in his neck were shattered.

He was in a coma for 3 months and in the hospital for 15 months. Doctors tried to save his leg for over a year, performing 15 surgeries. Finally the doctors told Tommy they would have to do an amputation because his foot had gangrene. The doctors wouldn’t tell him how much of his leg should be amputated, and gave him the choice of half his foot, his foot below the ankle, his leg below the knee, or his leg above the knee.

Tommy’s father, Daddy Joe, told him to let the doctors cut the leg off above the knee. Due to the severity of his injuries any amputation lower down would have left him unable to walk. More importantly for Tommy, he would have been unable to drive his Ford Ranger truck.

Meanwhile, the guy who lived in the house up the hill from the accident site pulled Tommy’s leg and arm bones out of the telephone pole to put over his garage door as decoration. Tommy’s siblings were so pissed they went to the guy’s house, ripped the bones off of the garage, and then beat the guy up. Tommy said his family was very protective of him even though he doesn’t think about being an amputee.

After we got the story straightened out I had a grilled cheese sandwich and Tommy had chicken wings with no sauce on them (even the waitress thought this was odd). He told her I was a bitch who wrote a story about him being a player which was not true, and then he hit on her, calling her "honey". Somehow his twisted charm convinced her to comp our last round of drinks. 

He also taught a little 2 year old girl how to toss a bean bag (we were at Vine St. pub and they have a bean bag toss game in the back - drinking and throwing things - does that ever work out?). He also showed her that the inside of the bag was stuffed with corn so she started pulling corn out of all the bean bags and bringing it to Tommy. She would put the corn in Tommy's hand and then Tommy would clap. I found myself thinking if the game went on much longer all the bean bags would be destroyed. The little girl's parents decided to leave and the little girl gave Tommy a high five and stood next to him on the sidewalk, refusing to go with her parents, waving good bye to them instead of Tommy.

Tommy made me a bouquet of flowers, and as we were leaving also rescued to damsels in distress (they were from the south) with his bike pump (one had a flat tire).

But I still think he's a little shit.