Last night I was almost thrown off my plane, flying from DC to Denver. Why, you might ask, was I almost thrown off the plane, anticipating one of my Marine-like tirades with the f word, a physical altercation with one of the stewardesses, or an attempt to bodily harm one of my fellow passengers that won't talk quietly...no, all I did was throw a pillow. Or, honestly, a few pillows.
You know that never ending business trip where you just continually cross time zones and sit on a runway in delay mode every 3 or 5 days for months on end while life passes you by? It can cause some strange behavior. I'm sure someone has done a medical study. I should probably be on drugs.
Anyway, my colleague and I had just boarded the plane, or preboarded the plane since we both have a million bizillion miles which allows us to entomb ourselves on the plane first. Joy. We tried to sit together but natch the flight was full because united grounded all their 777s and had to reschedule everyone. I got to my seat, an aisle seat, and found this stupid pillow already sitting there. I stood up and looked three aisles down to my colleague, who had a middle seat, and said "dude, have a pillow". He declined the pillow. So, for whatever reason, I threw it at his head as soon as he sat down.
The only people on the plane, at this point, were those people who fly a lot. All jaded, overworked, jaundiced consultants, abused by customers. When the pillow bounced off my colleague's head, he got mad and threw it back, and then threw his own pillow for good measure. Then he threw every pillow he could get his hands on, which was 8. The other jaded consultants started throwing their pillows at me too. I had to fire back. That's what I was taught at work. Pillows were flying everywhere.
At some point during the massive pillow throwing situation, the pedestrians started to board. Someone got tagged with a pillow and complained. The next thing I knew some cake boy in a united uniform was reading me the riot act. Separated me from my peeps, the jaded consultants. Sent me to the back row, without extra leg room, for bad behavior. Told me I was lucky he wasn't throwing me off the flight. I couldn't stop staring at his mouth as he yelled at me for being a, ha ha, "security risk". Was that spit or lip gloss? Couldn't tell from looking at him.
And that's when I knew, we in these united states have lost our sense of humor and our souls. I'm not a terrorist. I'm just an irresponsible human being who likes to throw things at people. Why not treat the guy next to me who snored and farted for 4 hours the same way? At least my behavior only caused slight discomfort.
post script:
The fight continued at baggage claim. I was hit with no less than 7 luggage tickets while I waited for my suitcase. And two e-tickets. No casualties were reported, although some were heard to actually laugh while in the airport.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Player, The Plan
I've decided to become a player. Here's a list of things I am going to do to be more player-ish:
- Start listening to more smooth jazz hits like James
- Buy some kicky shoes with really high heels (I'll just spend more time in the evening doing PT for my knee)
- Or, wait a minute, isn't night when I'm supposed to be out being a player, flirting?
- Also, I will start flirting
- Flirting with people instead of staring at my blackberry and pretending to read emails even if I don't have any emails just so I don't have to make eye contact
- Stop being afraid of midgets
- Oops, that's not really anything to do with being a player, it's just that I accidentally just saw a midget and now I'm going to have nightmares
- Not that I have anything against really little people, I just think your head and your hands should fit somewhat on your body and not be a lot bigger than your body
- Eck, how am I supposed to concentrate on being a player now?
- Fucking midgets
- I'm trying to visualize my favorite shoe. Christian Louboutin sandals made with real diamonds.
- How weird. Nordstrom does not sell Christian Louboutin shoes. But Neiman Marcus does.
- Nordstrom is supposed to have 5,000 plus shoes. What a bunch of bullshit.
- I bet there's a way to write a script to count how many shoes are on Nordstrom's web site
- I wonder if someone is selling those Louboutin sandals on eBay
- Also, I wonder if that guy sent my spinjas
- Someone was actually selling spinjas on eBay for $140
- I will probably have to hide them; I'm not sure players own spinjas
- Although it could be a good way to flirt with people
- Or would that be like asking someone to help you solve your rubik's cube
- Ahhh! There's another midget commercial. This is why I DON'T like TV. I am trying to watch a show on nebulae and they keep showing midgets, in fact a whole midget family, I think it's a show or something, but I can't watch it because there are also midget kids or they might just be normal size. I'm not looking.
- Orion Nebula is one of the most famous and you can see it with the naked eye
- The Orion Nebula has at least 700 stars in various stages of being "born"; it's called a "stellar nursery"
- The Mayans put symbols on their hearths that represented the Orion Nebula
- I wonder if a player would know that?
Maybe I will work on my player plan later...
My Finger Saga Continues
After much nagging from my customer and Clint, I decided to go see a doctor again about my finger. It still looks pretty bad.
The x-ray showed that I accidentally somehow re-broke my finger. The original break was pretty clean. This one was messy and might require a plate and pin to hold the bone together.
I am assuming that the break happened either when I fell skiing, or when I was carrying a box of manuals to my customer's site, or when some asspipe from United Airlines dropped a heavy box on my left hand. It's hard to say. I have been gifted, or cursed, depending on how you look at it, with a high pain threshold. Which is good since I am allergic to every drug except red wine.
But that leads to some problems when dealing with the medical community. This morning my doctor yelled at me for 5 minutes about my finger. He yelled at me when I couldn't pin point the moment of the break, saying "How can you not know when you broke your finger?" To which I can only respond I broke the tip off my femur and then ran competitively on it for 10 years before the break was properly diagnosed by my PT. I was told by 3 separate doctors that I didn't appear to be in enough pain given the fact that my leg was broken so they never took my injury seriously. I broke my right arm and didn't realize it until 2 weeks later when the swelling went down and I realized my arm was twisted. I broke my front teeth and almost ripped my lip off my face but walked 3 miles home carting my mountain bike without realizing anything was wrong with me.
I was also yelled at for going skiing, even though I figured after 5 weeks my finger should be fixed up. My doctor asked me if I really had so little common sense. Um, yeah. I'm an engineer. We aren't exactly known for "common sense". At least I wasn't running around with a key tied to a kite in the middle of a lightening storm.
So now I'm looking at possibly having a plate and pin put in my finger. I am eating broccoli and spinach every day to see if I can head off surgery by eating super foods. Every night before I go to bed I'm visualizing my bone healing. Best case scenario I end up with a weird looking finger. To match the scars on my chin, my weird looking knee, the scar on my heel, the broken nose, etc.
The x-ray showed that I accidentally somehow re-broke my finger. The original break was pretty clean. This one was messy and might require a plate and pin to hold the bone together.
I am assuming that the break happened either when I fell skiing, or when I was carrying a box of manuals to my customer's site, or when some asspipe from United Airlines dropped a heavy box on my left hand. It's hard to say. I have been gifted, or cursed, depending on how you look at it, with a high pain threshold. Which is good since I am allergic to every drug except red wine.
But that leads to some problems when dealing with the medical community. This morning my doctor yelled at me for 5 minutes about my finger. He yelled at me when I couldn't pin point the moment of the break, saying "How can you not know when you broke your finger?" To which I can only respond I broke the tip off my femur and then ran competitively on it for 10 years before the break was properly diagnosed by my PT. I was told by 3 separate doctors that I didn't appear to be in enough pain given the fact that my leg was broken so they never took my injury seriously. I broke my right arm and didn't realize it until 2 weeks later when the swelling went down and I realized my arm was twisted. I broke my front teeth and almost ripped my lip off my face but walked 3 miles home carting my mountain bike without realizing anything was wrong with me.
I was also yelled at for going skiing, even though I figured after 5 weeks my finger should be fixed up. My doctor asked me if I really had so little common sense. Um, yeah. I'm an engineer. We aren't exactly known for "common sense". At least I wasn't running around with a key tied to a kite in the middle of a lightening storm.
So now I'm looking at possibly having a plate and pin put in my finger. I am eating broccoli and spinach every day to see if I can head off surgery by eating super foods. Every night before I go to bed I'm visualizing my bone healing. Best case scenario I end up with a weird looking finger. To match the scars on my chin, my weird looking knee, the scar on my heel, the broken nose, etc.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Jumps
This weekend Clint and I went skiing at Copper. I was coming off an 80 hour week in California and that's my excuse for forgetting to pack a jacket. Luckily I had a fleece and the weather wasn't too cold. Clint lent me a bright green shell two sizes too big for me so I officially looked like a retard on the slopes.
I started out the day wrecking on my second run. I dropped down onto a trail, caught an edge, and then tumbled about 50 feet. My skis, not to be outdone by me, slid another 20 feet past me after I managed to stop by hitting a rock. That's when I remembered, oh yeah, I have a broken hand.
Skiing with a broken hand is not as much fun as one might expect. For one thing, it hurts to hold a ski pole. Not that I ever use my ski poles, but since I decorated them with little stars and they match my boots I always end up bringing them with me. I am supposed to some day learn to stick them when I turn instead of just using them to wave around when I'm about to fall. I guess that will have to wait until next season since I think the slopes will close before my left hand does.
Since the wind was blowing really hard and I was inadequately dressed we started traversing the mountain trying to find a protected place to ski (I should mention here I also forgot my ski mittens and was wearing some mittens I keep in my car for emergencies). We ended up finding this really cool area that had a bunch of jumps. I've never done a real ski jump and decided I wanted to try. I did accidentally ski off a small cliff last year in a snow storm at Winter Park, and stuck the landing, but then fell over and tumbled about 100 feet down the mountain, with some snow boarders on the lift shouting "you suck!" for the last 40 feet of that particular fall but was informed that didn't count as a jump.
We decided that Clint would go off the jumps to make sure I wouldn't kill myself, and then I would follow him. The sum total of coaching I got for going off a jump was "point your skis towards the jump and then jump". The first jump was an easy drop off of a cornice that had formed on a rock. I didn't bother to look where I was jumping since Clint made it look so easy. I launched off the cornice, stuck the landing, realized I was going kind of fast, flailed my poles, and then slid into a pine tree. It took me a few minutes to get out of the tree because my skis had gotten stuck.
Feeling kind of cocky, I decided to try a more challenging jump. I followed Clint down to a little snow cliff and stayed about 10 feet above him while he dropped off the ledge. For some reason, it seemed like it might be a better idea to get a rolling start for the jump, and so instead of stopping at the lip of the jump and then easing off I got a running start and had pretty good speed when I hit the edge.
Had I rolled off of it the way Clint did I would have gotten a little air, hit a bump in the snow and continued down the hill. Instead I was going so fast I missed the bump entirely. It seemed like I was in the air for a half hour although I'm sure it was just a few seconds. Part of my brain was going "wheeee!" and part of my brain was going "do you really think you can afford to break any more bones?" My skis finally hit the slope, I stuck the landing, slid a few feet, and then wiped out in such a spectacular manner that Clint asked me if I was okay in a worried voice, rather than laughing at me like he usually does. Some how I got snow in my helmet and goggles, although I don't remember my face being anywhere near the snow.
I started out the day wrecking on my second run. I dropped down onto a trail, caught an edge, and then tumbled about 50 feet. My skis, not to be outdone by me, slid another 20 feet past me after I managed to stop by hitting a rock. That's when I remembered, oh yeah, I have a broken hand.
Skiing with a broken hand is not as much fun as one might expect. For one thing, it hurts to hold a ski pole. Not that I ever use my ski poles, but since I decorated them with little stars and they match my boots I always end up bringing them with me. I am supposed to some day learn to stick them when I turn instead of just using them to wave around when I'm about to fall. I guess that will have to wait until next season since I think the slopes will close before my left hand does.
Since the wind was blowing really hard and I was inadequately dressed we started traversing the mountain trying to find a protected place to ski (I should mention here I also forgot my ski mittens and was wearing some mittens I keep in my car for emergencies). We ended up finding this really cool area that had a bunch of jumps. I've never done a real ski jump and decided I wanted to try. I did accidentally ski off a small cliff last year in a snow storm at Winter Park, and stuck the landing, but then fell over and tumbled about 100 feet down the mountain, with some snow boarders on the lift shouting "you suck!" for the last 40 feet of that particular fall but was informed that didn't count as a jump.
We decided that Clint would go off the jumps to make sure I wouldn't kill myself, and then I would follow him. The sum total of coaching I got for going off a jump was "point your skis towards the jump and then jump". The first jump was an easy drop off of a cornice that had formed on a rock. I didn't bother to look where I was jumping since Clint made it look so easy. I launched off the cornice, stuck the landing, realized I was going kind of fast, flailed my poles, and then slid into a pine tree. It took me a few minutes to get out of the tree because my skis had gotten stuck.
Feeling kind of cocky, I decided to try a more challenging jump. I followed Clint down to a little snow cliff and stayed about 10 feet above him while he dropped off the ledge. For some reason, it seemed like it might be a better idea to get a rolling start for the jump, and so instead of stopping at the lip of the jump and then easing off I got a running start and had pretty good speed when I hit the edge.
Had I rolled off of it the way Clint did I would have gotten a little air, hit a bump in the snow and continued down the hill. Instead I was going so fast I missed the bump entirely. It seemed like I was in the air for a half hour although I'm sure it was just a few seconds. Part of my brain was going "wheeee!" and part of my brain was going "do you really think you can afford to break any more bones?" My skis finally hit the slope, I stuck the landing, slid a few feet, and then wiped out in such a spectacular manner that Clint asked me if I was okay in a worried voice, rather than laughing at me like he usually does. Some how I got snow in my helmet and goggles, although I don't remember my face being anywhere near the snow.
We did a few more easy jumps, and then I tried to do the rock jump again but ended up going off the wrong direction on accident so I landed on an uphill rather than a downhill, but I didn't fall. Clint tried to get me on the scary jump again but I chickened out.
The next day we went back to the same area and he took some films of me going off different jumps. I used to wonder how bad of a skier I am. Now I don't have to wonder anymore. I'm pretty horrible. But I stuck the landing on the scary jump, even if I looked stupid, and I'm heading back up on Friday to practice some more...
Monday, March 17, 2008
the cafeteria
I am working with a Fortune 500 company in California. The building where I work, which is corporate headquarters, has an interesting dynamic going on in the cafeteria.
There are 8 different food stations in the cafe. I have only eaten at the salad bar, but there is Japanese food, Mexican food, and some other stuff. My group that I work with consists of mostly Indians (dot not feather). I was first invited to sit with them two days after I started working with them.
You can tell a lot about the different cultures at the company. As you walk from the cash registers you will see two really long tables, laid out military style, and that's where the Chinese engineers sit. The room smells like a Chinese restaurant. It sounds like everyone is bickering.
To the right of those table is a separate room with round tables. That's where the Americans sit. The room is well lit but not by natural sunlight. Everyone sits in groups of four around their round tables. The room doesn't have an overwhelming smell, and it is the quietest of the cafeteria rooms.
To the left of the Chinese tables is another room. It has only natural sunlight, and can be pretty hot at noon under the California sun. This is where the Indians sit. All of the tables are four tops but, unlike those in the American room, the tables are square and can be reconfigured to suit the purposes of the engineers. To walk through this room is like walking through a market, where you have to take a non-straight line to get to where you are going. This room is next to the microwaves and everything smells like curry. Most of the Indians don't buy food at the cafe because they consider it unclean. They generally will buy a drink and take handfuls of wet naps, and otherwise don't do business there.
The Indians definitely have the best set up in the cafe. I love being able to set up a lunch meeting for 8 people or 20 people just by cramming tables together. I love the smell of curry. The room overlooks a garden and it isn't uncommon to get there and find some of my work colleagues with their feet out the window sticking into the well manicured bushes. As soon as I get my lunch I wind my way through the tables and say hi to at least 50 people before arriving at my destination. At the end of a meal there is a distribution of the wet naps. It's some kind of sign of friendship and respect. I knew my customer liked me when he offered me a wet nap from his tray.
And Fridays we all steal a fortune cookie and go around the tables reading our fortunes. The Indians take it very seriously. The other week the Indian to my right and my left had the same fortune. This was treated as a situation worth analyzing. the fortune was "you have an amazing personality".
There are 8 different food stations in the cafe. I have only eaten at the salad bar, but there is Japanese food, Mexican food, and some other stuff. My group that I work with consists of mostly Indians (dot not feather). I was first invited to sit with them two days after I started working with them.
You can tell a lot about the different cultures at the company. As you walk from the cash registers you will see two really long tables, laid out military style, and that's where the Chinese engineers sit. The room smells like a Chinese restaurant. It sounds like everyone is bickering.
To the right of those table is a separate room with round tables. That's where the Americans sit. The room is well lit but not by natural sunlight. Everyone sits in groups of four around their round tables. The room doesn't have an overwhelming smell, and it is the quietest of the cafeteria rooms.
To the left of the Chinese tables is another room. It has only natural sunlight, and can be pretty hot at noon under the California sun. This is where the Indians sit. All of the tables are four tops but, unlike those in the American room, the tables are square and can be reconfigured to suit the purposes of the engineers. To walk through this room is like walking through a market, where you have to take a non-straight line to get to where you are going. This room is next to the microwaves and everything smells like curry. Most of the Indians don't buy food at the cafe because they consider it unclean. They generally will buy a drink and take handfuls of wet naps, and otherwise don't do business there.
The Indians definitely have the best set up in the cafe. I love being able to set up a lunch meeting for 8 people or 20 people just by cramming tables together. I love the smell of curry. The room overlooks a garden and it isn't uncommon to get there and find some of my work colleagues with their feet out the window sticking into the well manicured bushes. As soon as I get my lunch I wind my way through the tables and say hi to at least 50 people before arriving at my destination. At the end of a meal there is a distribution of the wet naps. It's some kind of sign of friendship and respect. I knew my customer liked me when he offered me a wet nap from his tray.
And Fridays we all steal a fortune cookie and go around the tables reading our fortunes. The Indians take it very seriously. The other week the Indian to my right and my left had the same fortune. This was treated as a situation worth analyzing. the fortune was "you have an amazing personality".
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Goat spine - better than frog legs
It's kind of weird. I had to look up exactly what a goat was on wikipedia. I guess that's what city living does to a person...
The reason I was looking goats up is because, primarily, I wanted to picture the animal I had the pleasure of consuming this evening. I am working with a car company in Cali and was taken out by some of the engineers and the CTO on the team I am consulting with. I insisted on authentic Indian food. I figured, since I am surrounded by Indians, these guys would know where to go. I love curry of all types.
We ended up at a restaurant called Annapurna. It's not just the name of a mountain, it's also the name of the goddess of food. As my friend and consultee Ravi pointed out to me, Indians have as many gods and goddesses as they have people. Rav gets invited to weddings that last for 3 days. He is on my short list of people to go to India with.
Anyway, Annapurna is full of people less white than me. In fact, I caused a bit of a stir when I walked in. After seating me and my architecture team at the best table, the owner brought a tv out from the back and set it about 5 feet away from me. Rav told me this was a good thing, as it allowed me to watch an Indian movie during the course of my dinner. Full disclosure, I hate tvs.
The movie went as follows:
The reason I was looking goats up is because, primarily, I wanted to picture the animal I had the pleasure of consuming this evening. I am working with a car company in Cali and was taken out by some of the engineers and the CTO on the team I am consulting with. I insisted on authentic Indian food. I figured, since I am surrounded by Indians, these guys would know where to go. I love curry of all types.
We ended up at a restaurant called Annapurna. It's not just the name of a mountain, it's also the name of the goddess of food. As my friend and consultee Ravi pointed out to me, Indians have as many gods and goddesses as they have people. Rav gets invited to weddings that last for 3 days. He is on my short list of people to go to India with.
Anyway, Annapurna is full of people less white than me. In fact, I caused a bit of a stir when I walked in. After seating me and my architecture team at the best table, the owner brought a tv out from the back and set it about 5 feet away from me. Rav told me this was a good thing, as it allowed me to watch an Indian movie during the course of my dinner. Full disclosure, I hate tvs.
The movie went as follows:
- beautiful Indian woman dancing while flower petals fall on her - first musical number
- "teleport" to a wedding (Rav explained to me that in Indian movies they employ "teleport" to switch locations - this is because it is assumed most of what happens in an Indian movie is a dream) - musical numbers 2 and 3
- "teleport" to a train - musical number 4 - much rehashing of sentimental train rides at my table, as train rides in India are apparently a spiritual journey
- "teleport" to two guys fighting a la crouching tiger
- "teleport" to the Pyramid of Giza (seriously, could I make this up?) - a woman runs to the pyramid
- "teleport" to a couple in the forest, interspersed with tanks rolling along a runway - by far the strangest scene
- "teleport" to a guy laying on train tracks, except at the last minute the train turns into a ball of fire
- "teleport" to the last musical number where the guy and girl dance as pink rose petals fall on their heads - a popular song is playing and everyone in the restaurant, except for me, is raising their hands and waving them back and forth singing the song - I am counseled by Sri "this is a popular song!" followed by disappointment I haven't heard it played on a radio station in Denver...
I later told Rav that, even with my creative imagination, I could not think of a plot line that would tie the story together. There was a long pause at the table, and then Sri informed me "Eh hem, Indian movies do not have plot lines". Why not just put the dunce cap on me now, "cultural retard".
So, anyway, the restaurant has a specialty meal they make every night. You eat what they've made. and there's no choice inthe matter. There is always a theme to the dinner, tonight's theme was along the lines of some village in southern India, I didn't really follow that part, there was a discussion about the dessert which was a ball of dough filled with, I don't know, molasses and sugar and crack cocaine covered in more sugar and deep fried and boy was it good although unhealthy I'm sure but it was a specialty of the village that was tonight's theme. Anyway, I ended up with some rice that had hot peppers in it, melon, a doughnut made out of lentils and onions, some lentil curry, a hot chili and oil dipping sauce, a coconut based dipping sauce, some crepes made of lentils, and three pieces of meat that were stuck to this spinal thing that was a bone (very recognizable as a spine), and the meat was goat. It was actually very good, and made me realize that the rogan josh I had been eating at Yattra's in Houston was not lamb but goat.
Lying bitches. It was a fun night. And we have a happy hour scheduled for next Friday. Wonder what else these guys have up their sleeve.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Famed Mountaineer and Vino Specialist Visit Greece
From when my parents came to Greece in October 1998...
Famed mountain climber and amateur landscape artist Dr. X, and his lovely wife, Y, raiser of genius offspring (me), wine specialist, and winner of the “I can take my computer apart the fastest” contest, came to Greece this past Saturday. They stayed one night in Athens before departing for the lovely island of Corfu, where they are supposedly “working” and hopefully buying me even more presents than what they arrived with.
For their visit they arranged a trip to the Acropolis with X Expeditions, a somewhat shady tour outfit described in Frommer’s as “an atrocious tour of every bar in Athens from which you will wake up with a hang over that makes you think the Acropolis landed on your head”. The tour started out with a trip to the hotel bar where the waiter had the pleasure of listening to Y attempt to order white wine in Greek based on lessons she received in the language via e-mail from some guy named Tom that she works with.
After discovering English was a better vehicle for communicating with the hotel staff, the tour operator, a spastic young woman who seemed to get great pleasure out of walking in front of moving cars, made the couple chug their drinks so they could see the Acropolis. Dr. X responded to the stunning monument with exclamations such as, “look, there are some rocks stacked up in a pile over there” and “look, more rocks”. His final comment on the beauty of the monument was “wow, there are a lot of fat American tourists here.”
The tour continued from the Acropolis to the main restaurant strip where Dr. X felt the need to say “I’m not really hungry, but if any one else wants some food this restaurant looks good”. After dinner and a few more attempts to get hit by a car, the tour guide dropped the tired couple off at their hotel room. They will be returning to finish their tour Friday morning.
Famed mountain climber and amateur landscape artist Dr. X, and his lovely wife, Y, raiser of genius offspring (me), wine specialist, and winner of the “I can take my computer apart the fastest” contest, came to Greece this past Saturday. They stayed one night in Athens before departing for the lovely island of Corfu, where they are supposedly “working” and hopefully buying me even more presents than what they arrived with.
For their visit they arranged a trip to the Acropolis with X Expeditions, a somewhat shady tour outfit described in Frommer’s as “an atrocious tour of every bar in Athens from which you will wake up with a hang over that makes you think the Acropolis landed on your head”. The tour started out with a trip to the hotel bar where the waiter had the pleasure of listening to Y attempt to order white wine in Greek based on lessons she received in the language via e-mail from some guy named Tom that she works with.
After discovering English was a better vehicle for communicating with the hotel staff, the tour operator, a spastic young woman who seemed to get great pleasure out of walking in front of moving cars, made the couple chug their drinks so they could see the Acropolis. Dr. X responded to the stunning monument with exclamations such as, “look, there are some rocks stacked up in a pile over there” and “look, more rocks”. His final comment on the beauty of the monument was “wow, there are a lot of fat American tourists here.”
The tour continued from the Acropolis to the main restaurant strip where Dr. X felt the need to say “I’m not really hungry, but if any one else wants some food this restaurant looks good”. After dinner and a few more attempts to get hit by a car, the tour guide dropped the tired couple off at their hotel room. They will be returning to finish their tour Friday morning.
A Trip Through Western Crete (or, Why Do I Have A Dead Frog In My Backpack)
This is a story about hiking the Samarian Gorge in Crete back in 1998. The Samarian Gorge is the longest gorge in Europe.
Greek Traveler-At-Large Grant met up with this editor Thursday to take a 4 day trip to Crete. Planning for this trip included drinking some Amstels before packing and discussing how boring reading the guide book was. Upon arrival in Hania, Crete, after a boat ride on a nice but Arctic temperature ferry, with no sleep, the traveling duo discussed what they should do. Of course, at 6 in the morning on Friday nothing is open in Hania so they took a taxi into town to watch the sun rise.
Once there was enough light to read the guide book this editor suggested taking a trip to the Samarian Gorge, the most famous gorge in Crete and, as they would discover later, the longest. Later, the prophetic words in the guide book “Proper footwear is essential” would come back to haunt the pair.
Undeterred by the fact that the editor was wearing city boots with heels, and Grant had only sandals, they hopped a bus for Samaria. What follows is a kilometer by kilometer tour of the gorge:
KM 1 – Stop every 100 feet to take a picture. The gorge is beautiful from the top. Even though our footwear is a little lacking, we did remember to bring our bathing suits because Grant has assumed there will be a nice pool of water and a water fall at the bottom of the gorge that we can swim in.
KM 2 – My feet hurt a little. The trail isn’t as tourist friendly as I figured. We should reach the bottom soon, though, so I’ll keep going.
KM 3 – My feet fucking hurt. Are we there yet?
KM 4 – Four stupid German girls just passed us and they were laughing at my footwear. I’m going to push them into the gorge.
KM 5 – Mutiny. Threaten to kill Grant if we don’t turn around. Am persuaded to continue because “we’re almost there”. An image of a pool of water a few kilometers away keeps me going.
KM 6 – Stop a guy and ask how much farther. He tells us 9 KM. Grant will be drowned in the river if we ever reach it.
KM 7 – Grant’s sandals are disintegrating and my boot soles are almost non existent. We have finished our small bottle of water. We are going to die in the gorge. Grant is mumbling incoherently about the pool of water.
KM 8 – We see some ruins from WWII where the Cretans had an outpost to fight the Nazis. Big fucking deal, my feet hurt.
KM 9 – We see lots of kri-kri, the endangered puffy sheep like animals that run around the gorge. I hope one will come up and offer me a ride. No such luck. And Grant has finally read the guide book and tells me there actually is no pool of water at the bottom of the gorge.
KM 10 – We see a large rock with smaller rocks piled on top of it like pieces of wood in a jenga game. They are put there by the hikers. We contribute two rocks and take some pictures.
KM 11- A guy in cammo walking the other way tells us to watch for falling rocks. We ARE going to die.
Km 12 – No rocks have fallen on Grant yet in spite of the editor’s attempts to be psycho kinetic.
KM 13 – We reach the “Iron Gates”, where the gorge narrows dramatically. More tourists ridicule my footwear and generally hobbled state.
KM 14 – 17 We both agree we hate the gorge. Will this nightmare ever end????
KM 18 – The gorge opens up to the sea. We see a guard shack where they ask us to return our tickets that Grant has somehow managed to lose. They feel sorry for us and let us go. I see a beer stand!
KM 18 – The guards kick us out of the park after 1 beer. The park is closed. We also find out the only way home is to catch a ferry at the nexr town. What do you mean we have 3 more kilometers to walk to the ferry????
KM 19 – More kri-kri. Do they care that I am now an endangered species?
KM 20 – Grant spies a completely flattened dead frog in the road and picks it up. I tell him to put it down.
KM 21 – I ask Grant where the frog is and Grant says he threw the frog away. I find it the next morning in my backpack trying to locate the source of a foul odor.
KM 22 – I see the lights of Agia Roumeli.
KM 23 – Hop on a ferry to Sfakia. Drink many Mythos on the ferry which later proves to be a bad decision as the bus ride to Hania takes 1 ½ hours with no bathroom breaks.
Editor’s Note: Although it was Grant’s fault that this editor suffered greatly he made up for it by treating the editor’s blisters for the rest of the trip. He did, however, say she had “Medusa Feet” which upset the editor so greatly he had to buy her band aids with dinosaurs roller skating on them to get her to speak to him again.
Greek Traveler-At-Large Grant met up with this editor Thursday to take a 4 day trip to Crete. Planning for this trip included drinking some Amstels before packing and discussing how boring reading the guide book was. Upon arrival in Hania, Crete, after a boat ride on a nice but Arctic temperature ferry, with no sleep, the traveling duo discussed what they should do. Of course, at 6 in the morning on Friday nothing is open in Hania so they took a taxi into town to watch the sun rise.
Once there was enough light to read the guide book this editor suggested taking a trip to the Samarian Gorge, the most famous gorge in Crete and, as they would discover later, the longest. Later, the prophetic words in the guide book “Proper footwear is essential” would come back to haunt the pair.
Undeterred by the fact that the editor was wearing city boots with heels, and Grant had only sandals, they hopped a bus for Samaria. What follows is a kilometer by kilometer tour of the gorge:
KM 1 – Stop every 100 feet to take a picture. The gorge is beautiful from the top. Even though our footwear is a little lacking, we did remember to bring our bathing suits because Grant has assumed there will be a nice pool of water and a water fall at the bottom of the gorge that we can swim in.
KM 2 – My feet hurt a little. The trail isn’t as tourist friendly as I figured. We should reach the bottom soon, though, so I’ll keep going.
KM 3 – My feet fucking hurt. Are we there yet?
KM 4 – Four stupid German girls just passed us and they were laughing at my footwear. I’m going to push them into the gorge.
KM 5 – Mutiny. Threaten to kill Grant if we don’t turn around. Am persuaded to continue because “we’re almost there”. An image of a pool of water a few kilometers away keeps me going.
KM 6 – Stop a guy and ask how much farther. He tells us 9 KM. Grant will be drowned in the river if we ever reach it.
KM 7 – Grant’s sandals are disintegrating and my boot soles are almost non existent. We have finished our small bottle of water. We are going to die in the gorge. Grant is mumbling incoherently about the pool of water.
KM 8 – We see some ruins from WWII where the Cretans had an outpost to fight the Nazis. Big fucking deal, my feet hurt.
KM 9 – We see lots of kri-kri, the endangered puffy sheep like animals that run around the gorge. I hope one will come up and offer me a ride. No such luck. And Grant has finally read the guide book and tells me there actually is no pool of water at the bottom of the gorge.
KM 10 – We see a large rock with smaller rocks piled on top of it like pieces of wood in a jenga game. They are put there by the hikers. We contribute two rocks and take some pictures.
KM 11- A guy in cammo walking the other way tells us to watch for falling rocks. We ARE going to die.
Km 12 – No rocks have fallen on Grant yet in spite of the editor’s attempts to be psycho kinetic.
KM 13 – We reach the “Iron Gates”, where the gorge narrows dramatically. More tourists ridicule my footwear and generally hobbled state.
KM 14 – 17 We both agree we hate the gorge. Will this nightmare ever end????
KM 18 – The gorge opens up to the sea. We see a guard shack where they ask us to return our tickets that Grant has somehow managed to lose. They feel sorry for us and let us go. I see a beer stand!
KM 18 – The guards kick us out of the park after 1 beer. The park is closed. We also find out the only way home is to catch a ferry at the nexr town. What do you mean we have 3 more kilometers to walk to the ferry????
KM 19 – More kri-kri. Do they care that I am now an endangered species?
KM 20 – Grant spies a completely flattened dead frog in the road and picks it up. I tell him to put it down.
KM 21 – I ask Grant where the frog is and Grant says he threw the frog away. I find it the next morning in my backpack trying to locate the source of a foul odor.
KM 22 – I see the lights of Agia Roumeli.
KM 23 – Hop on a ferry to Sfakia. Drink many Mythos on the ferry which later proves to be a bad decision as the bus ride to Hania takes 1 ½ hours with no bathroom breaks.
Editor’s Note: Although it was Grant’s fault that this editor suffered greatly he made up for it by treating the editor’s blisters for the rest of the trip. He did, however, say she had “Medusa Feet” which upset the editor so greatly he had to buy her band aids with dinosaurs roller skating on them to get her to speak to him again.
Ameriki Attica - Hellenic MOD
Based on the time I spent living in Athens, Greece...I had a newsletter that I used to send out. I was working as a contractor with the Hellenic Ministry of Defense.
Visiting the Greek Pentagon
As many of you may or may not know, Greece also has a Pentagon. The editor of this outstanding source of news had the opportunity to visit it this past week with her boss, Demitrius, to discuss contract requirements with the Navy.
D: This is the Greek pentagon. Just like the states, right?
F: Well, this building is actually square. And it’s a little smaller.
D: It used to be a stable and housed many horses, cows, and pigs. It was redone in 1980.
F: It’s changed so much. Now it contains military guys instead of pigs.
D: The parking lot can hold 500 cars. This is bigger than the Pentagon in the states.
F: Not exactly. In fact, this entire compound is smaller than one parking lot in the real Pentagon.
D: This pentagon is the real one. We copied exactly the Americans.
F: Well, it is very close, except for the size, shape, internal structure, and lack of computer equipment. But all the military guys look the same.
D: See, it is the same.
F: Right. Where is the ladies room?
D: There’s no ladies room. Women don’t come here.
F: Just like the states.
Visitor Badge Blues
This editor had the pleasure of dealing with the Hellenic Air Force this week in an attempt to get a visitor badge to visit the Ellinikon Factory, where she is currently working on a project. The following is a summary of the conversation with Adonis, head of security for the Air Force’s Ellinikon Factory.
F: I need a visitor badge to this facility because I’m doing a briefing next week.
A: Your name is not Greek. You must be foreign.
F: You are a master of the obvious.
A: (flattered) A master, yes. We can’t give you a badge because you are foreign.
F: My paperwork for my clearance is being processed now so they said if you would agree to give me a badge I can go into your facility. I will not be discussing classified data.
A: What does your father do?
F: He was in the American Air Force.
A: Oh, you are in the military family. Perhaps I can help you then. What did he do?
F: He did something with planes.
A: He was a war hero?
F: Yes. Very decorated. And he knows many high ranking Hellenic Air Force officers (a lie).
A: Very good. He has been to Greece?
F: He is coming in October. Are you going to give me a visitor badge?
A: I need to take some pictures of you.
F: For the badge?
A: I need pictures. These things take time. (He takes three pictures of me.) Please if you could smile. This will help with the badge if you look friendly and not dangerous. I need to make a phone call.
(Adonis makes a phone call and then two more “security officers” come into the office and pose behind me while he takes more pictures. His friend takes a picture of me with Adonis standing behind).
F: So now that you have these pictures will I be able to get a badge? (The “security officers” are laminating the pictures of me "with" them and putting them in their wallets.)
A: I need more information. You have a phone number?
F: All that information is in my security paperwork.
A: You have a boy friend?
F: Yes.
A: In Greece you have a boy friend?
F: Do you think it would be possible to get my badge today?
A: I’m sorry, but as you can see the office is now closed.
F: The sign says the office is open until 4:00 and it’s only 2:30 now.
A: As you can see the office is closed because I am going home.
F: Is there anyone else who can help me?
A: Yes, I can help you.
F: I thought you were going home.
A: On Monday I can help. These things take time.
Contracting In Greece
The following procedures outline the contracting rules of Greece. Note that they are subject to change at any time, without any notice.
1. Greek military makes private contractor provide money for a software development program.
2. A committee known as the European International Community something or other sends a contract to a private company (e.g. ISI) with requirements as descriptive as “Automate Technical Orders”
3. The company (ISI) meets with the Greek military. They need two months to review the contract since they haven’t seen a copy of it.
4. The Greek military tells the company to start development.
5. The Greek military decides after two months to change the scope of the project.
6. The Greek military point of contact retires and a new person takes his place and changes the scope of the project.
7. Two years and millions of lines of code later the project is no where near completion.
8. Repeat steps 4 through 7 until everyone at the company has a nervous break down or quits.
Visiting the Greek Pentagon
As many of you may or may not know, Greece also has a Pentagon. The editor of this outstanding source of news had the opportunity to visit it this past week with her boss, Demitrius, to discuss contract requirements with the Navy.
D: This is the Greek pentagon. Just like the states, right?
F: Well, this building is actually square. And it’s a little smaller.
D: It used to be a stable and housed many horses, cows, and pigs. It was redone in 1980.
F: It’s changed so much. Now it contains military guys instead of pigs.
D: The parking lot can hold 500 cars. This is bigger than the Pentagon in the states.
F: Not exactly. In fact, this entire compound is smaller than one parking lot in the real Pentagon.
D: This pentagon is the real one. We copied exactly the Americans.
F: Well, it is very close, except for the size, shape, internal structure, and lack of computer equipment. But all the military guys look the same.
D: See, it is the same.
F: Right. Where is the ladies room?
D: There’s no ladies room. Women don’t come here.
F: Just like the states.
Visitor Badge Blues
This editor had the pleasure of dealing with the Hellenic Air Force this week in an attempt to get a visitor badge to visit the Ellinikon Factory, where she is currently working on a project. The following is a summary of the conversation with Adonis, head of security for the Air Force’s Ellinikon Factory.
F: I need a visitor badge to this facility because I’m doing a briefing next week.
A: Your name is not Greek. You must be foreign.
F: You are a master of the obvious.
A: (flattered) A master, yes. We can’t give you a badge because you are foreign.
F: My paperwork for my clearance is being processed now so they said if you would agree to give me a badge I can go into your facility. I will not be discussing classified data.
A: What does your father do?
F: He was in the American Air Force.
A: Oh, you are in the military family. Perhaps I can help you then. What did he do?
F: He did something with planes.
A: He was a war hero?
F: Yes. Very decorated. And he knows many high ranking Hellenic Air Force officers (a lie).
A: Very good. He has been to Greece?
F: He is coming in October. Are you going to give me a visitor badge?
A: I need to take some pictures of you.
F: For the badge?
A: I need pictures. These things take time. (He takes three pictures of me.) Please if you could smile. This will help with the badge if you look friendly and not dangerous. I need to make a phone call.
(Adonis makes a phone call and then two more “security officers” come into the office and pose behind me while he takes more pictures. His friend takes a picture of me with Adonis standing behind).
F: So now that you have these pictures will I be able to get a badge? (The “security officers” are laminating the pictures of me "with" them and putting them in their wallets.)
A: I need more information. You have a phone number?
F: All that information is in my security paperwork.
A: You have a boy friend?
F: Yes.
A: In Greece you have a boy friend?
F: Do you think it would be possible to get my badge today?
A: I’m sorry, but as you can see the office is now closed.
F: The sign says the office is open until 4:00 and it’s only 2:30 now.
A: As you can see the office is closed because I am going home.
F: Is there anyone else who can help me?
A: Yes, I can help you.
F: I thought you were going home.
A: On Monday I can help. These things take time.
Contracting In Greece
The following procedures outline the contracting rules of Greece. Note that they are subject to change at any time, without any notice.
1. Greek military makes private contractor provide money for a software development program.
2. A committee known as the European International Community something or other sends a contract to a private company (e.g. ISI) with requirements as descriptive as “Automate Technical Orders”
3. The company (ISI) meets with the Greek military. They need two months to review the contract since they haven’t seen a copy of it.
4. The Greek military tells the company to start development.
5. The Greek military decides after two months to change the scope of the project.
6. The Greek military point of contact retires and a new person takes his place and changes the scope of the project.
7. Two years and millions of lines of code later the project is no where near completion.
8. Repeat steps 4 through 7 until everyone at the company has a nervous break down or quits.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
pull my finger
On Saturday I was climbing in the ice park in Ouray and ended up breaking my hand due to another climber's incompetence. Here's what happened...
I was at the bottom of the upper bridge routes Seamstress and Tic Tac. They are located in a narrow area of the canyon which has a river running through it, meaning the belay ledges are pretty narrow. I should also mention the temps had been up and down so the ice was spindly and sublimated.
So this guy I'll call fuck nut (his real name is Todd), who had been spewing to me before rapping down on our rope, decided to climb a section of WI3 before hitting the rock section of tic tac. There was a ledge at the base of the rock section so I'm not sure why he lowered all the way down on the route. Then he got to the rock section and realized it was going to be a lot harder to lead than the WI3 he just climbed.
So he decided to traverse right to an ice curtain directly above me. It was dangerous and stupid. First, because of the length of the traverse, he would have had a twenty foot swing if he had fallen. Second, you don't climb above someone who can't get out of the way of your ice, especially if she has a reputation for ripping people's heads off.
At first he was just knocking thin icicles on me. It was annoying. Then he somehow dislodged a piece of ice the size of a small country and didn't even bother to yell. I felt it whiz past my face*. Oh good, it didn't hit me, I thought. Then I looked down and saw a geyser spewing out of my hand at my pointer finger and middle finger.
By the time my partner lowered off my finger looked like a mail order tee pee in purple and green. I tried to grab an ax to climb out of the gorge but couldn't close my hand. FN's partner kept apologizing to me. Two of the guides with clients in the vicinity looked at my hand. One didn't say anything and the other one just said "shit". Ah, but the fun was just starting.
By the time we got home my hand looked like a baseball that was left in the gutter for three seasons. Es called the emergency room in Montrose, an hour away from Ouray. They wouldn't see me without doctor's orders. The on call doctor at my primary care physician's office finally wrote me a script. I went up to Trose the next day to get x-rays. I had to wait 30 minutes. They said they were really busy even though there were only 2 of us in the waiting room and neither of us was gun shot. Then they made me go into the chapel while they wheeled an x ray machine to me. They took three x-rays and said see ya. No cast, no x ray results, no nothing except an offer for drugs for the pain.
The next day Es called the doctor's office while I was in the shower. They had not received an x ray report from Trose hospital. Chaos ensued. Turns out Trose did not have an ortho on staff and the radiologist had gone home early on sunday without reading my x ray because she was sick. I had to head back to Denver. Again, no treatment for my hand but an offer for drugs. My head was about to exlode, especially as I sat in traffic for 9 hours with my hand costuming itself as the goodyear blimp in black.
I found out my hand was broken Monday night but couldn't get in to see a doctor before my flight to DC. The flight sucked and the change in air pressure caused patches of fluid in my hand. Pipes thought it was cool but the stewardess almost puked when I showed m hand to her in an attempt to get ice. She offered me a pain killer but didn't have ice.
I finally got an appointment today, 4 days after the accident, to see a hand specialist. apparently any idiot can't put a cast on, they have to be an idiot working for an ortho. I got to the office early morning only to find out their x ray machine was down, Trose wouldn't send my x-ray report until 10 am, and that the doc could do nothing for me. I had a laughing fit that scared the office enough that they called another doctor's office so I could get x rays. I have a fracture in the middle of my hand, two broken knuckles, and a broken pointer finger (Trin, I can get you the report & xrays if you want them - let me know, already arranged for them to be faxed). A guy named Gabe re-broke my pointer finger to realign it. The re-break sounded like a tire running over a bottle on a gravel drive. No, they didn't give me any painkillers. I got instead this ridiculous long splint that goes from my wrist to an inch after my finger stops. I was also again offered drugs. I asked the doctor 'can't I control the pain with icing and movement?' and she looked at me and said, in a tone that implied I had suggested giving up my blackberry, 'yes, but a drug is faster'.
Ah, the american way. Only a specialist can cast me, but everyone can give me drugs...
*quote from my dad when I told him about the accident - "At least it didn't hit your face. You can't really afford to break any more bones in your face."
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Pipes and ryebread
I met the coolest kid on the plane ride out to DC. Her name is Piper and the first thing I noticed about her was her sparkly pink shoes. I asked her where she got them and she said "An air conditioner fell on me and I was in the hospital". That is the best thing anyone has ever said to me on a plane.
Pipe's mom used to be a professional trapeze artist (she now works for State dept.) and Pipes decided to rig a "trapeze" (bath towel) over an 80 pound air conditioner. Needless to say at first swing the thing fell off the wall and crushed her chest. She was in the hospital for 4 days and then had to wait another 2 days to be able to fly (on a plane this time). The injury did not slow her down any. First she made cards for the pilots. Then she made cards for the stewardesses. Then she wanted to see my broken hand. As we were deplaning she was showing me how she could jump (almost concusssing some surrounding passengers) and her mom told her to chill out. Pipes said "I haven't been able to work out for 6 days, so I have to get some exercise right now!"
Hopefully she will have a full recovery. She belly flopped onto my legs a few times which scared me but seemed to be fine for her.
Also, I ran into an old climbing pal named Ryan (aka ryebread, his Jewish name) in DIA. It was great to see him again and hopefully I talked him into moving to Denver so we can climb together. He coaches kids in competitive climbing and placed 10 of them in Nationals. Go Ryebread!
Pipe's mom used to be a professional trapeze artist (she now works for State dept.) and Pipes decided to rig a "trapeze" (bath towel) over an 80 pound air conditioner. Needless to say at first swing the thing fell off the wall and crushed her chest. She was in the hospital for 4 days and then had to wait another 2 days to be able to fly (on a plane this time). The injury did not slow her down any. First she made cards for the pilots. Then she made cards for the stewardesses. Then she wanted to see my broken hand. As we were deplaning she was showing me how she could jump (almost concusssing some surrounding passengers) and her mom told her to chill out. Pipes said "I haven't been able to work out for 6 days, so I have to get some exercise right now!"
Hopefully she will have a full recovery. She belly flopped onto my legs a few times which scared me but seemed to be fine for her.
Also, I ran into an old climbing pal named Ryan (aka ryebread, his Jewish name) in DIA. It was great to see him again and hopefully I talked him into moving to Denver so we can climb together. He coaches kids in competitive climbing and placed 10 of them in Nationals. Go Ryebread!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Weird Things I've Eaten in the Past 60 Days
This year I resolved to be a less picky eater. Okay, that's a lie. But I have been peer pressured into eating some strange things this year (not stranger than rat spaghetti, so don't worry if you are eating lasagna right now).
First up, I ate frog legs. To be honest it was only one leg, and it was pretty small. I pretended like I ate two and conned this Texan that I work with into eating my other leg by telling him he mis-counted how many legs he had eaten. The leg was okay but it was tiny. I was expecting something more along the lines of a small chicken but it was like a chopstick with some bread glued to it. And garlic. Immediately after eating the leg I started to break out in a rash. Luckily my compatriots JJ and Kyle didn't notice the rash as we wound up the evening at a bar called new york new york that gave us a bottle of wine to leave their premise so they could close (it was 4 in the morning but I thought NYC is the city that never sleeps).
I recently also had chicken fried steak. Someone from Texas told me about it. I thought, when I first saw it on a menu, that it was like a turducken or something. I was wondering how they got a whole steak inside a chicken. It turns out it is really just a piece of steak that they try to make you think is chicken by breading it and then frying it. To ensure secrecy they cover it in this white stuff that I will just call "scary sauce" because fuck knows what was in it. I scraped off the sauce before eating my CFS, so it's possible I didn't get a "true" experience with the CFS. I would compare CFS to wonder bread, if there were such a thing as wonder bread steak. About an hour after I ate it I felt as though the little bread crumb things stuck on the steak were scraping along the inside of my stomach. And people wonder why I don't usually eat meat...
The final weird thing I've eaten is spare ribs. Full disclosure, I guess I should say spare rib because I only ate one of those bone stick things. When I saw what a spare rib grouping looked like I was thinking "hell no" but then all those movies about Compton have families having barbecues and they seem so happy even though they are in Compton so I decided to eat one because the parties in the movies always have spare rib things. I burned my fingers peeling the stuff that you are supposed to eat off the bone thing because I refuse to put some poor cow's rib cage in my mouth.
This is progress as I used to not be able to eat meat on the bone because my imagination is way too vivid. Just looking at a chicken leg makes me think of some chicken sitting in one of those stinky houses with its beak cut off because it was trying to peck out some other chicken's eyes. Gross. The blame for my meat phobia totally lays at the feet of one Frank K. who gave me a book to read about the Greeley slaughter houses.
Well, actually, I was a vegetarian before then, but I was just thinking I haven't blamed anything on Frank in a while...and, he is the guy that gave me Cryptonomicon...but I bet he isn't even reading this. It's Frank's fault.
First up, I ate frog legs. To be honest it was only one leg, and it was pretty small. I pretended like I ate two and conned this Texan that I work with into eating my other leg by telling him he mis-counted how many legs he had eaten. The leg was okay but it was tiny. I was expecting something more along the lines of a small chicken but it was like a chopstick with some bread glued to it. And garlic. Immediately after eating the leg I started to break out in a rash. Luckily my compatriots JJ and Kyle didn't notice the rash as we wound up the evening at a bar called new york new york that gave us a bottle of wine to leave their premise so they could close (it was 4 in the morning but I thought NYC is the city that never sleeps).
I recently also had chicken fried steak. Someone from Texas told me about it. I thought, when I first saw it on a menu, that it was like a turducken or something. I was wondering how they got a whole steak inside a chicken. It turns out it is really just a piece of steak that they try to make you think is chicken by breading it and then frying it. To ensure secrecy they cover it in this white stuff that I will just call "scary sauce" because fuck knows what was in it. I scraped off the sauce before eating my CFS, so it's possible I didn't get a "true" experience with the CFS. I would compare CFS to wonder bread, if there were such a thing as wonder bread steak. About an hour after I ate it I felt as though the little bread crumb things stuck on the steak were scraping along the inside of my stomach. And people wonder why I don't usually eat meat...
The final weird thing I've eaten is spare ribs. Full disclosure, I guess I should say spare rib because I only ate one of those bone stick things. When I saw what a spare rib grouping looked like I was thinking "hell no" but then all those movies about Compton have families having barbecues and they seem so happy even though they are in Compton so I decided to eat one because the parties in the movies always have spare rib things. I burned my fingers peeling the stuff that you are supposed to eat off the bone thing because I refuse to put some poor cow's rib cage in my mouth.
This is progress as I used to not be able to eat meat on the bone because my imagination is way too vivid. Just looking at a chicken leg makes me think of some chicken sitting in one of those stinky houses with its beak cut off because it was trying to peck out some other chicken's eyes. Gross. The blame for my meat phobia totally lays at the feet of one Frank K. who gave me a book to read about the Greeley slaughter houses.
Well, actually, I was a vegetarian before then, but I was just thinking I haven't blamed anything on Frank in a while...and, he is the guy that gave me Cryptonomicon...but I bet he isn't even reading this. It's Frank's fault.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
the bad train story
This story is about someone getting killed. So consider yourself forewarned...
About a month after I moved to Baltimore I was invited to a Pampered Chef party by one of my work colleagues. I decided to go because I didn't know many people at that time and I was a little bored with spending my whole weekend at the aquarium. Also, I thought, because of the name of the party and the invite description, that I was going to go to this colleague's house and some great chef was going to cook for us. Had I known it was just a get together so someone could try to sell me kitchen stuff that I would never use, this whole bad day never would have happened. Anyway...
The party started at noon. It was an hour drive from my place so around 11 am I walked out in front of my apartment building, a building called the Atrium. I had been parking at a flat lot two blocks down the street. A homeless guy would sleep against the side of my car to keep people from breaking in to it. There is a light rail train that runs in front of the apartment building on Howard Street. The apartment building sits on the corner of Howard Street (where the light rail is) and Lexington. There is (or was, when I lived there) an alley that runs alongside the apartment building that goes to the Lexington Market. The intersection of this alley and Howard Street is a stop for the light rail.
As I walked down Howard to my parking lot, I saw a man on the other side of Howard Street running down the alley towards me. I figured he must be running for the light rail train. For whatever reason I stopped walking and watched him. As he exited the alley, I noticed he wasn't slowing down. Neither was the light rail. The man ran behind the bus stop shelter where people would wait for the light rail, so there was no way the train conductor could have seen him. He continued running on to Howard Street.
At that point the light rail conductor saw the man and tried to brake. At the same time the man tried to turn and run back onto the sidewalk. The train hit him on the back. As the train hit him I think I turned my head because I don't have a visual of the man being hit. The only thing I remember is a sound like a cork coming out of a wine bottle and then something that sounded like gravel being stepped on. I turned back to see what had happened and the man's body was bent over completely backwards. In my memory his legs were pressed up against his back but I'm not sure that's what he really looked like. I looked away from the accident and in the direction of my car because I was trying to get myself to move but I couldn't.
A cop came running up behind me and asked if I had seen the accident. I said yes. He asked if I could tell him what happened. I said no (I filed a police report that evening). There were some women on the other side of the street who had been waiting to cross when the man was hit. They were screaming. I realized that after the popping noise I hadn't heard any other noises until the cop came up and talked to me.
After the cop gave me his card I walked to my car and drove to the party. My hostess was kind of upset with me because I was a half hour late. I told her I had just seen a man get hit by the light rail. Everyone at the party looked at me but didn't respond. Then I asked for a drink. She offered me a coke and I told her I wanted a shot of something.
We ended up going into the kitchen and her husband poured me a shot of Jack. He had just gotten back from Afghanistan. I did three shots with him and didn't feel any change. He started talking about the war. Then my hostess came into the kitchen and asked me to come back to the party. I sat on a sofa with 5 other women while some lady chopped up cheese and cut crust and did whatever other things you are supposed to do when you are cooking. Then she pulled out this apple crumble thing that had been warming in the oven and when I saw it I felt sick and ended up throwing up in their downstairs bathroom. When I came back from puking I noticed no one had eaten the apple crumble thing and they were all putting on their coats to leave.
I ended up buying a pizza stone and a chopper thing because I felt so bad for ruining my hostess' party. I gave the chopper thing to Miss Daisy, who manned the front desk at the hotel, because she used to make me dinner. I put the pizza stone in what I thought was a drawer in my oven with the thought that some day I might make a pizza. Unfortunately the drawer was actually some broiler thing connected to the oven, so every time I turned the oven on to heat something the pizza stone would burn up. When I finally discovered it the day I was packing my kitchen to move it looked like a blackened pancake. It smelled worse. I tossed it and vowed to never buy kitchen stuff again or to attend a kitchen party.
About a month after I moved to Baltimore I was invited to a Pampered Chef party by one of my work colleagues. I decided to go because I didn't know many people at that time and I was a little bored with spending my whole weekend at the aquarium. Also, I thought, because of the name of the party and the invite description, that I was going to go to this colleague's house and some great chef was going to cook for us. Had I known it was just a get together so someone could try to sell me kitchen stuff that I would never use, this whole bad day never would have happened. Anyway...
The party started at noon. It was an hour drive from my place so around 11 am I walked out in front of my apartment building, a building called the Atrium. I had been parking at a flat lot two blocks down the street. A homeless guy would sleep against the side of my car to keep people from breaking in to it. There is a light rail train that runs in front of the apartment building on Howard Street. The apartment building sits on the corner of Howard Street (where the light rail is) and Lexington. There is (or was, when I lived there) an alley that runs alongside the apartment building that goes to the Lexington Market. The intersection of this alley and Howard Street is a stop for the light rail.
As I walked down Howard to my parking lot, I saw a man on the other side of Howard Street running down the alley towards me. I figured he must be running for the light rail train. For whatever reason I stopped walking and watched him. As he exited the alley, I noticed he wasn't slowing down. Neither was the light rail. The man ran behind the bus stop shelter where people would wait for the light rail, so there was no way the train conductor could have seen him. He continued running on to Howard Street.
At that point the light rail conductor saw the man and tried to brake. At the same time the man tried to turn and run back onto the sidewalk. The train hit him on the back. As the train hit him I think I turned my head because I don't have a visual of the man being hit. The only thing I remember is a sound like a cork coming out of a wine bottle and then something that sounded like gravel being stepped on. I turned back to see what had happened and the man's body was bent over completely backwards. In my memory his legs were pressed up against his back but I'm not sure that's what he really looked like. I looked away from the accident and in the direction of my car because I was trying to get myself to move but I couldn't.
A cop came running up behind me and asked if I had seen the accident. I said yes. He asked if I could tell him what happened. I said no (I filed a police report that evening). There were some women on the other side of the street who had been waiting to cross when the man was hit. They were screaming. I realized that after the popping noise I hadn't heard any other noises until the cop came up and talked to me.
After the cop gave me his card I walked to my car and drove to the party. My hostess was kind of upset with me because I was a half hour late. I told her I had just seen a man get hit by the light rail. Everyone at the party looked at me but didn't respond. Then I asked for a drink. She offered me a coke and I told her I wanted a shot of something.
We ended up going into the kitchen and her husband poured me a shot of Jack. He had just gotten back from Afghanistan. I did three shots with him and didn't feel any change. He started talking about the war. Then my hostess came into the kitchen and asked me to come back to the party. I sat on a sofa with 5 other women while some lady chopped up cheese and cut crust and did whatever other things you are supposed to do when you are cooking. Then she pulled out this apple crumble thing that had been warming in the oven and when I saw it I felt sick and ended up throwing up in their downstairs bathroom. When I came back from puking I noticed no one had eaten the apple crumble thing and they were all putting on their coats to leave.
I ended up buying a pizza stone and a chopper thing because I felt so bad for ruining my hostess' party. I gave the chopper thing to Miss Daisy, who manned the front desk at the hotel, because she used to make me dinner. I put the pizza stone in what I thought was a drawer in my oven with the thought that some day I might make a pizza. Unfortunately the drawer was actually some broiler thing connected to the oven, so every time I turned the oven on to heat something the pizza stone would burn up. When I finally discovered it the day I was packing my kitchen to move it looked like a blackened pancake. It smelled worse. I tossed it and vowed to never buy kitchen stuff again or to attend a kitchen party.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
the "costume" wedding
I had a friend from the old country that I met and worked with my first few years out of college. Let's call her "X". We were really close friends during that time, but after I left to go to Central America we lost touch, as often happens in the industry I was working in. Ten years later I got a call from her. She had somehow managed to track me down in Baltimore. She was getting married and wanted me to come.
I got the invite about a week later. It was an evening "costume wedding" occuring the weekend before Halloween. I'm not a person who likes Halloween, and I'm horrible at picking out costumes, so I was a little annoyed, but figured between myself and my friend Eva we could come up with something good. X and I spoke on the phone often over the next few months, but we talked about what we had been doing in the past 10 years, not the wedding.
At one point she and her boyfriend invited me to NYC to visit. I was at a bar with X and her friends. I stepped outside to smoke and her fiance came out with me. He was all over me, trying to get me to give him the key to my hotel room. It was disturbing. I ended up leaving right after breakfast the next day. The fiance made a point at breakfast of complaining about his hangover. I figured that was his way of saying "I was drunk last night! Oops! Did I hit on you? Ha ha!" I felt even worse about the whole thing when X asked me to be in her wedding party. After some wrangling with the family her mom agreed to let her have me as a double bridesmaid with X's sister. This was decided the week before the wedding, relieving me of having to get a dress or throw any parties. All I had to do was stand up there while vows were exchanged and to try to stay awake (religious services are worse than boring).
So the wedding was also held in NYC. At that time I had a very stressful job. I wanted to spend a three day weekend up there but couldn't because of work. So Friday night, while everyone else was at the rehearsal dinner, I was running around Saks looking for a dress after a 12 hour day in the office. It wasn't ideal to be looking for my costume the night before the wedding, but it was the only time I had to do it.
Eva and I had decided I should be a black cat. Yes, the decision was made while we were drinking. I showed up at her house around 830 PM Friday, and she got out her sewing machine. She was going to sew a tail I had also purchased that evening to the back of the dress. The dress was this great little Betsy Johnson black silk sheath with beads all over it. The bottom had a fringe of beads as well so it made a clicking noise when I walked. In most cases it was probably too avant garde, but I figured it would be fine for the costume wedding.
Eva and I drank a bottle of wine, and then she proceeded to try to sew the tail on the dress. Since the bodice of the dress was covered in beads, it was not easy to do. The needle would break on the bead, or the tail would sew on crooked, or the silk material would shred. Compounding the problem was that Eva and I had moved on to port. I passed out at their house (at that time I had two guest bedrooms there, mostly because I lived there on the weekend even though my apartment was only a 20 minute drive away) and barely woke up in time to leave for NYC.
Traffic was terrible and the 4 hour drive turned into 7 hours. X called frantically every half hour. I got to the hotel, showered, and pulled on my costume, which now consisted of the black dress with a tail, a set of cat ears attached to a head band (which, it turns out, I was allergic to), a collar with a bell on it, and then a fluffy grey scarf. Luckily the wedding was being held in the hotel. I got ready in 20 minutes and made a mad dash to the room where the wedding was supposed to be starting in 5 minutes.
But as I ran down the steps disaster struck. It turned out the tail was too heavy for the silk fabric of the dress. It literally fell off as I rounded a flight of steps, leaving me with a GAPING hole in the back of my costume. Insert "honey moon" joke here. I picked up the tail and ran behind the registration desk where two nice ladies safety pinned the tail on my dress, and then stapled the remaining gap. It was horrible but at that point what choice did I have.
By the time I got to the room, the bride's mother was standing in the hallway fuming. The rest of the wedding party had already paraded down the aisle, and the whole event was waiting on me to show up. As the mother got a look at my "costume", though, she whispered in the meanest voice ever "You are OUT of the wedding!" and stalked into the room. I followed behind, and all eyes turned on me.
That's when I noticed everyone else was wearing formal evening gowns and tux suits. I met eyes with X and she was blushing as much as I was. Seems she had talked me up quite a bit at the rehearsal dinner. And now here I was dressed as a cat. Turns out, when people from the old country (or, I guess, anywhere in Europe) say "costume" they mean "formal attire". When they say "fancy dress" they mean "costume". Is it any wonder we went to war with them twice in twenty years?
As if sitting on a cat tail with staples poking into my ass wasn't humiliating enough, I had no other clothes to change in to for the reception. I went back to the front desk and the ladies again helped me, taking the tail off and closing up the back of the dress so that on top of being an ass I wasn't also showing my ass. X did ask me to leave the cat ears on because she thought it was funny that in the two wedding party pictures I was allowed to be in I still looked like a cat. By the end of the evening they caused me to get a rash on my scalp that spread to my neck and forehead. Sexy.
And, as I was one of the few people not getting drunk I ended up having to take X's sister up to her room after she drank too much and passed out in a hotel toilet stall (you try climbing over the top of a stall in 4 inch heels and a dress). That was when she threw up on me. Also, during one of the traditional dances with the groom, he solicited me for sex, saying we could pretend to be taking presents up to the honeymoon suite. The camera man caught the whole exchange on tape. Finally, in the process of taking presents up to the honeymoon suite, I walked in on X's best friend fucking her date on the bed. Tacky.
X never spoke to me again after the wedding. I never even got a copy of the picture I was in. I'm not sure if it's because I showed up as a cat or because her husband hit on me or because her sister threw up on me or because I walked in on her best friend defiling the honeymoon bed. I heard from a mutual friend that they dissolved their union after two years of marriage. They didn't have any kids.
I do wonder if they fought over who got to keep their cat...
Yes, this was a true story. I know these things only happen to me.
I got the invite about a week later. It was an evening "costume wedding" occuring the weekend before Halloween. I'm not a person who likes Halloween, and I'm horrible at picking out costumes, so I was a little annoyed, but figured between myself and my friend Eva we could come up with something good. X and I spoke on the phone often over the next few months, but we talked about what we had been doing in the past 10 years, not the wedding.
At one point she and her boyfriend invited me to NYC to visit. I was at a bar with X and her friends. I stepped outside to smoke and her fiance came out with me. He was all over me, trying to get me to give him the key to my hotel room. It was disturbing. I ended up leaving right after breakfast the next day. The fiance made a point at breakfast of complaining about his hangover. I figured that was his way of saying "I was drunk last night! Oops! Did I hit on you? Ha ha!" I felt even worse about the whole thing when X asked me to be in her wedding party. After some wrangling with the family her mom agreed to let her have me as a double bridesmaid with X's sister. This was decided the week before the wedding, relieving me of having to get a dress or throw any parties. All I had to do was stand up there while vows were exchanged and to try to stay awake (religious services are worse than boring).
So the wedding was also held in NYC. At that time I had a very stressful job. I wanted to spend a three day weekend up there but couldn't because of work. So Friday night, while everyone else was at the rehearsal dinner, I was running around Saks looking for a dress after a 12 hour day in the office. It wasn't ideal to be looking for my costume the night before the wedding, but it was the only time I had to do it.
Eva and I had decided I should be a black cat. Yes, the decision was made while we were drinking. I showed up at her house around 830 PM Friday, and she got out her sewing machine. She was going to sew a tail I had also purchased that evening to the back of the dress. The dress was this great little Betsy Johnson black silk sheath with beads all over it. The bottom had a fringe of beads as well so it made a clicking noise when I walked. In most cases it was probably too avant garde, but I figured it would be fine for the costume wedding.
Eva and I drank a bottle of wine, and then she proceeded to try to sew the tail on the dress. Since the bodice of the dress was covered in beads, it was not easy to do. The needle would break on the bead, or the tail would sew on crooked, or the silk material would shred. Compounding the problem was that Eva and I had moved on to port. I passed out at their house (at that time I had two guest bedrooms there, mostly because I lived there on the weekend even though my apartment was only a 20 minute drive away) and barely woke up in time to leave for NYC.
Traffic was terrible and the 4 hour drive turned into 7 hours. X called frantically every half hour. I got to the hotel, showered, and pulled on my costume, which now consisted of the black dress with a tail, a set of cat ears attached to a head band (which, it turns out, I was allergic to), a collar with a bell on it, and then a fluffy grey scarf. Luckily the wedding was being held in the hotel. I got ready in 20 minutes and made a mad dash to the room where the wedding was supposed to be starting in 5 minutes.
But as I ran down the steps disaster struck. It turned out the tail was too heavy for the silk fabric of the dress. It literally fell off as I rounded a flight of steps, leaving me with a GAPING hole in the back of my costume. Insert "honey moon" joke here. I picked up the tail and ran behind the registration desk where two nice ladies safety pinned the tail on my dress, and then stapled the remaining gap. It was horrible but at that point what choice did I have.
By the time I got to the room, the bride's mother was standing in the hallway fuming. The rest of the wedding party had already paraded down the aisle, and the whole event was waiting on me to show up. As the mother got a look at my "costume", though, she whispered in the meanest voice ever "You are OUT of the wedding!" and stalked into the room. I followed behind, and all eyes turned on me.
That's when I noticed everyone else was wearing formal evening gowns and tux suits. I met eyes with X and she was blushing as much as I was. Seems she had talked me up quite a bit at the rehearsal dinner. And now here I was dressed as a cat. Turns out, when people from the old country (or, I guess, anywhere in Europe) say "costume" they mean "formal attire". When they say "fancy dress" they mean "costume". Is it any wonder we went to war with them twice in twenty years?
As if sitting on a cat tail with staples poking into my ass wasn't humiliating enough, I had no other clothes to change in to for the reception. I went back to the front desk and the ladies again helped me, taking the tail off and closing up the back of the dress so that on top of being an ass I wasn't also showing my ass. X did ask me to leave the cat ears on because she thought it was funny that in the two wedding party pictures I was allowed to be in I still looked like a cat. By the end of the evening they caused me to get a rash on my scalp that spread to my neck and forehead. Sexy.
And, as I was one of the few people not getting drunk I ended up having to take X's sister up to her room after she drank too much and passed out in a hotel toilet stall (you try climbing over the top of a stall in 4 inch heels and a dress). That was when she threw up on me. Also, during one of the traditional dances with the groom, he solicited me for sex, saying we could pretend to be taking presents up to the honeymoon suite. The camera man caught the whole exchange on tape. Finally, in the process of taking presents up to the honeymoon suite, I walked in on X's best friend fucking her date on the bed. Tacky.
X never spoke to me again after the wedding. I never even got a copy of the picture I was in. I'm not sure if it's because I showed up as a cat or because her husband hit on me or because her sister threw up on me or because I walked in on her best friend defiling the honeymoon bed. I heard from a mutual friend that they dissolved their union after two years of marriage. They didn't have any kids.
I do wonder if they fought over who got to keep their cat...
Yes, this was a true story. I know these things only happen to me.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
dude, that's my neti pot
Boise airport. 4:30 AM. Insomnia headache. I was standing in line thinking “I could be hit by a hellfire missile right now and I wouldn’t feel any different”. The lady in front of me has apparently missed the changes in airport security that have occurred over the past 10 or so years. I was trying to stay calm by doing some tiger breathing. It occurs to me after some sleep that I might have looked a little weird. My eyes were also blood shot from eighteen hour days at my computer trying to finish a client engagement that should have been scheduled for two weeks instead of three days.
I walked through the metal detector and the guard called for a bag check. I realized that I had left my wine bottle opener in my suitcase. So annoying. Even though it has no knife on it they always inspect it. And while logic would suggest that if I can actually kill someone, or even injure them, with a wine bottle opener knife that can barely cut a label the problem is not the wine bottle opener, I am still forced to sit through the security scrutiny.
I felt like I was looking through sand as I slogged over to the “special table”. I could tell the guard was psyched to have busted me on something. I was getting this vibe from him that if it were just the two of us alone he would have already shot me. He opened my case and began rifling through the contents even though I told him exactly where the opener was. He poked at my yoga toes with a pen. I’m sure he thought they were some kind of kinky sex implement. Then he spied my neti pot.
“Don’t MOVE!” he yelled at me. He talked into his shoulder mike: “I’ve got some drug paraphernalia.” What for the love of ganesh is this idiot talking about? I wondered. The drug guy came over. They conferenced about the situation off to the side. I hear something about “pipe”. It finally dawns on me that they are talking about my neti pot.
“Dude, that’s my NETI POT” I say. They look at me as if I’ve suddenly sprouted 2 more arms and started playing the ukulele. Then they discovered the salt that goes in my neti pot.
I will spare you the rest of the details. The drug dog came over and drooled on my suitcase. I swear that one of them went and looked up “neti pot” on the web to find out what it was. They finally let me go. I went to my gate and slumped down in a seat wishing I had the supernatural power to cause men to get ingrown hair on their testicles. The DEA guy paraded past my gate at least 5 or 6 times, usually with his buddy, and usually talking very loudly about hippies or druggies not being welcome in Boise. Everyone at the gate kept staring at me.
I think someone should make up a shirt that says “Dude, that’s my neti pot” and sell it alongside shirts that say things like “Don’t taze me bro”.
I walked through the metal detector and the guard called for a bag check. I realized that I had left my wine bottle opener in my suitcase. So annoying. Even though it has no knife on it they always inspect it. And while logic would suggest that if I can actually kill someone, or even injure them, with a wine bottle opener knife that can barely cut a label the problem is not the wine bottle opener, I am still forced to sit through the security scrutiny.
I felt like I was looking through sand as I slogged over to the “special table”. I could tell the guard was psyched to have busted me on something. I was getting this vibe from him that if it were just the two of us alone he would have already shot me. He opened my case and began rifling through the contents even though I told him exactly where the opener was. He poked at my yoga toes with a pen. I’m sure he thought they were some kind of kinky sex implement. Then he spied my neti pot.
“Don’t MOVE!” he yelled at me. He talked into his shoulder mike: “I’ve got some drug paraphernalia.” What for the love of ganesh is this idiot talking about? I wondered. The drug guy came over. They conferenced about the situation off to the side. I hear something about “pipe”. It finally dawns on me that they are talking about my neti pot.
“Dude, that’s my NETI POT” I say. They look at me as if I’ve suddenly sprouted 2 more arms and started playing the ukulele. Then they discovered the salt that goes in my neti pot.
I will spare you the rest of the details. The drug dog came over and drooled on my suitcase. I swear that one of them went and looked up “neti pot” on the web to find out what it was. They finally let me go. I went to my gate and slumped down in a seat wishing I had the supernatural power to cause men to get ingrown hair on their testicles. The DEA guy paraded past my gate at least 5 or 6 times, usually with his buddy, and usually talking very loudly about hippies or druggies not being welcome in Boise. Everyone at the gate kept staring at me.
I think someone should make up a shirt that says “Dude, that’s my neti pot” and sell it alongside shirts that say things like “Don’t taze me bro”.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Hockey Sticks and Raw Fish
I must be doing something right in my current life. I am spending the week in Boise, Idaho, which is a pretty cool city (the current weather non-withstanding - apparently they are having the worst snow storms in the past 20 years - bringing natural disasters where ever I go).
And what could be better than Boise? Well, the theater across from my hotel has the Banff films playing (not that I have time to see them with my work load, but still). And, even better, there is a sushi restaurant IN MY HOTEL. Yes, the gods and goddesses are definitely shining down on me in my sushi induced coma, saying "we just want you to be happy - have another eel roll".
So what could make this place even more of a heaven on earth? Well, try professional hockey players. It turns out the lobby of my hotel is actually some kind of, whatever you call it, hockey stadium thingy with a big ice rink and everything. I discovered it when I got lost coming out of the parking garage. I was escorted to the lobby of my hotel by two hockey players (both with fake choppers) who were staying there. I have no idea what team they are, but I know they are pro based on some recky I did (that's spying for those not in the industry).
And what's not to love about hockey players. They get to wear those little chin straps so they always seem to be smiling. And the pads under their uniforms make them look really muscular. There's something feminine, yet artistic and deadly about skates. Kind of like people who do fencing. Gay until they stab someone, then it's pretty sexy. And the gloves. I like a man with big hands. The standard hockey luggage is a very sensible bag of epic proportions. If needed, you could stuff the stray corpse in it and ride down the elevator with Sherlock Holmes and not get caught. Which is not to say that luggage is everything in a relationship, but just to say it is something to consider.
Of course, many hockey players are short. And have fake choppers. I don't mind really great fake teeth but I hate caps. I do not want to see metal when I'm staring at some one's pearly whites. For some reason it makes me think of biting into an empty aluminum can. Yikes. Also, most hockey players are under 5'10", and I can't imagine dating a guy that short. Because you know he will never appreciate the 6 inch stilettos...
And what could be better than Boise? Well, the theater across from my hotel has the Banff films playing (not that I have time to see them with my work load, but still). And, even better, there is a sushi restaurant IN MY HOTEL. Yes, the gods and goddesses are definitely shining down on me in my sushi induced coma, saying "we just want you to be happy - have another eel roll".
So what could make this place even more of a heaven on earth? Well, try professional hockey players. It turns out the lobby of my hotel is actually some kind of, whatever you call it, hockey stadium thingy with a big ice rink and everything. I discovered it when I got lost coming out of the parking garage. I was escorted to the lobby of my hotel by two hockey players (both with fake choppers) who were staying there. I have no idea what team they are, but I know they are pro based on some recky I did (that's spying for those not in the industry).
And what's not to love about hockey players. They get to wear those little chin straps so they always seem to be smiling. And the pads under their uniforms make them look really muscular. There's something feminine, yet artistic and deadly about skates. Kind of like people who do fencing. Gay until they stab someone, then it's pretty sexy. And the gloves. I like a man with big hands. The standard hockey luggage is a very sensible bag of epic proportions. If needed, you could stuff the stray corpse in it and ride down the elevator with Sherlock Holmes and not get caught. Which is not to say that luggage is everything in a relationship, but just to say it is something to consider.
Of course, many hockey players are short. And have fake choppers. I don't mind really great fake teeth but I hate caps. I do not want to see metal when I'm staring at some one's pearly whites. For some reason it makes me think of biting into an empty aluminum can. Yikes. Also, most hockey players are under 5'10", and I can't imagine dating a guy that short. Because you know he will never appreciate the 6 inch stilettos...
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Clean Like China
WARNING: do NOT read this blog if you are eating, driving, or praying. Do NOT read this blog if you are prone to sickness, including motion sickness, sleeping sickness, morning sickness, or if you are sick at heart.
Seriously, I have warned you. I do NOT want a bunch of vomit spattered emails asking why I can't write about things like daisies and funny things to do with chopsticks.
So, since we are on the subject of chopsticks, I've been doing some consulting in a lab. Without going into too much detail let's just say it's a lab that does scary things with radioactive materials. Needless to say, you need a lot of bright people to work at this lab to make sure there isn't a bad boom boom that might cause blight on the West Coast. So the lab is full of Chinese people, the second most intelligent race in the world, with the Jews being first of course.
So, I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth. My doctor TOLD me to brush my teeth after I eat and I am not being OCD so nip it all you climber guys who avoid the bristles like they cause plague. This Chinese woman walked in to the bathroom. I know she is Chinese because we talked earlier in the lunchroom (she was impressed with my pearls of jasmine tea, which she immediately recognized as coming from China, although, full disclosure, I was pulling them out of a tin that had Chinese writing on it).
The past few weeks I've been trying to figure out how the Chinese manage to trash a bathroom so badly. At my company kickoff in Paris I would walk into the bathroom and immediately be able to tell which stalls the Chis had been in. There would be toilet paper all over the floor. The seat would be up. There would usually be water (hope it was water) spattered on the walls. While talking to a UK consultant I was like "dude, wtf?" and he said "well, they are trying".
Back to the lab, where I noticed the same problems in the stalls, I couldn't help but glance over as this Chi woman walked into a stall. She didn't close the door. I saw her make a huge wad of toilet paper which she threw into the toilet. Then she flushed. This was repeated 3 times. Then she pulled a toddler sized wad of toilet paper off the spool.
NOTE: this is your LAST warning to stop reading
She then dipped the wad of toilet paper into the toilet water and proceeded to scrub the toilet seat and the bowl with it. I couldn't see how much of the inside of the bowl she was "cleaning" because of the angle of where I was standing compared to where she was. I did mention that this was a public restroom, didn't I?
I suddenly flashed back to this lovely Italian movie called Bread and Tulips (recommended by Nini, thanks Nini!) where the main character drops something in the toilet and is afraid to reach in and grab it. This leads to her being left by her bitch ass husband at a rest stop, and then her creating a new life for herself sans kids and aforementioned human tumor, oops, I meant to say "spouse".
Anyway, after scrubbing the toilet "clean" with toilet water, the Chi closed the stall door. I heard two more flushes. God only knows what happened in there. And then the Chi walked out without washing her hands. There was toilet paper all over the floor in her stall, some of which was accumulation from the cleaning, and some of which collected on the floor after the stall door closed.
A mystery that provided some answers, but that still leaves questions...
Seriously, I have warned you. I do NOT want a bunch of vomit spattered emails asking why I can't write about things like daisies and funny things to do with chopsticks.
So, since we are on the subject of chopsticks, I've been doing some consulting in a lab. Without going into too much detail let's just say it's a lab that does scary things with radioactive materials. Needless to say, you need a lot of bright people to work at this lab to make sure there isn't a bad boom boom that might cause blight on the West Coast. So the lab is full of Chinese people, the second most intelligent race in the world, with the Jews being first of course.
So, I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth. My doctor TOLD me to brush my teeth after I eat and I am not being OCD so nip it all you climber guys who avoid the bristles like they cause plague. This Chinese woman walked in to the bathroom. I know she is Chinese because we talked earlier in the lunchroom (she was impressed with my pearls of jasmine tea, which she immediately recognized as coming from China, although, full disclosure, I was pulling them out of a tin that had Chinese writing on it).
The past few weeks I've been trying to figure out how the Chinese manage to trash a bathroom so badly. At my company kickoff in Paris I would walk into the bathroom and immediately be able to tell which stalls the Chis had been in. There would be toilet paper all over the floor. The seat would be up. There would usually be water (hope it was water) spattered on the walls. While talking to a UK consultant I was like "dude, wtf?" and he said "well, they are trying".
Back to the lab, where I noticed the same problems in the stalls, I couldn't help but glance over as this Chi woman walked into a stall. She didn't close the door. I saw her make a huge wad of toilet paper which she threw into the toilet. Then she flushed. This was repeated 3 times. Then she pulled a toddler sized wad of toilet paper off the spool.
NOTE: this is your LAST warning to stop reading
She then dipped the wad of toilet paper into the toilet water and proceeded to scrub the toilet seat and the bowl with it. I couldn't see how much of the inside of the bowl she was "cleaning" because of the angle of where I was standing compared to where she was. I did mention that this was a public restroom, didn't I?
I suddenly flashed back to this lovely Italian movie called Bread and Tulips (recommended by Nini, thanks Nini!) where the main character drops something in the toilet and is afraid to reach in and grab it. This leads to her being left by her bitch ass husband at a rest stop, and then her creating a new life for herself sans kids and aforementioned human tumor, oops, I meant to say "spouse".
Anyway, after scrubbing the toilet "clean" with toilet water, the Chi closed the stall door. I heard two more flushes. God only knows what happened in there. And then the Chi walked out without washing her hands. There was toilet paper all over the floor in her stall, some of which was accumulation from the cleaning, and some of which collected on the floor after the stall door closed.
A mystery that provided some answers, but that still leaves questions...
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Three Snow Whites Offend in Paris
I swear this story is true. If my friend John J. sends the picture I will find a way to post it on this blog...
I was at Disney in Paris the past week for a company kickoff. As part of the kick off we had a night where people dressed in costume (referred to as "fancy dress" on our invite, not to be confused with "costume", which is black tie - no wonder why we went to war with UK - we probably just had a semantic mis-understanding with them). One of my new company friends, a kid named Duncan, dressed up as snow white, along with two of his mates. They formed the Snow White trio and they ended up winning an award for their costumes.
The co-winner was a team of two guys dressed as babies. I found the costumes extremely disturbing. Maybe it was the adult sized pacifiers, or seeing two guys who were over 6 feet tall dressed in pink pajamas and bonnets. But apparently it was fine for these guys to later frequent the bar in their getups. Not so the Snow White trio.
Apparently, as they were leaving their hotel to go to the costume dinner, they caused some children to be traumatized. Someone complained. Management at Disney decided that the trio was "besmirching the image of Snow White". They were forced to go back to their hotel and change before going anywhere else in the Disney park. Disney management later said they had an existing policy about not allowing people to dress up as Snow White for any reason. Which seems weird since the boys bought their costumes at the park...
I was at Disney in Paris the past week for a company kickoff. As part of the kick off we had a night where people dressed in costume (referred to as "fancy dress" on our invite, not to be confused with "costume", which is black tie - no wonder why we went to war with UK - we probably just had a semantic mis-understanding with them). One of my new company friends, a kid named Duncan, dressed up as snow white, along with two of his mates. They formed the Snow White trio and they ended up winning an award for their costumes.
The co-winner was a team of two guys dressed as babies. I found the costumes extremely disturbing. Maybe it was the adult sized pacifiers, or seeing two guys who were over 6 feet tall dressed in pink pajamas and bonnets. But apparently it was fine for these guys to later frequent the bar in their getups. Not so the Snow White trio.
Apparently, as they were leaving their hotel to go to the costume dinner, they caused some children to be traumatized. Someone complained. Management at Disney decided that the trio was "besmirching the image of Snow White". They were forced to go back to their hotel and change before going anywhere else in the Disney park. Disney management later said they had an existing policy about not allowing people to dress up as Snow White for any reason. Which seems weird since the boys bought their costumes at the park...
You Think You're Free?????
I know I will be getting hated on for this posting but someone had to say it...
The other night I was flying into Washington state. There were two Marines on the flight. They sat in front of me. It was an evening flight. Through the two hours neither of them said a word. I was stuck next to the window and I could see through the space between the plane window and the seat that tears were running down the Marine's face. When we landed at the airport there was a huge group of people waiting to welcome the Marines.
They were blasting patriotic songs and waving flags. As we came up to the crowd the Marine that had been crying turned to the other and said "I can't wait to take this fucking thing off", referring to his uniform.
I went to the rental car counter to pick up my car and they started blasting this country song, the name of which is unknown, but the words go "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free". I found it ironic that they would play that song in an airport. These soldiers went to Iraq and did whatever they were assigned to do under the auspices of maintaining freedom in the US. It hasn't made a damn bit of difference here, and it's made things worse in a lot of ways. And the current administration and policies are taking away more freedoms every day.
If you don't believe me, spend the next week flying. I have seen the following at airports in the past three months:
-A woman was arrested at a security checkpoint for "arguing" with the TSA guy checking IDs. She did not understand that she couldn't board a plane with a printed itinerary and that she needed a boarding card. Rather than helping the woman the TSA guy kept telling her "You can't get on a plane with that. You need to go over there," pointing vaguely towards the checkin counter. When the woman said in a louder voice "But this is an e-ticket" the TSA guy called security and had her arrested. She was kind of an idiot, but he wasn't helping her and I don't blame her for raising her voice.
-I was stopped and harassed by immigration because, coming from Paris to the US, I lost my re-embarkation card but didn't realize until I got to the immigration counter. Having been awake for almost two days at that point I was fumbling to explain to the immigration guy why I walked up to his counter without having the card filled out. He started yelling at me and accusing me of trying to pull something funny. I was like asspipe, I spent 17 years of my fucking life working with the government and now I am being accused of being a terrorist? Because I lost my re-embarkation card? Are you fucking serious?
-I had all of my clothes taken out of my suitcase because I had nail clippers in a side pocket of the suit case. They didn't take them away from me, just made a mess of my clothes. I asked if it was now illegal to carry nail clippers on a plane and was told that if I was making a threat I would not be allowed to fly that day, even though I'm not sure how "So are nail clippers now illegal?" could be considered a threat.
-I was told to take a sweater off before walking through an x-ray, even after explaining to the idiot at security that I didn't have anything on under the sweater. They made me roll the sweater up to prove this before letting me through the x-ray.
Security is being run by a bunch of fucking gerbils. I fly every Monday and every Friday, and I would be happy to have all those assholes just go away. They aren't doing anything but annoying frequent flyers like myself. If you go to any other foreign country they don't do any extra security checks for flights not going to the US and guess what, they aren't getting hijacked or blown up.
I will take my chances that some idiot from Al Quaeda is going to try to blow up my plane. Also, for anyone who thinks those security checks are doing any good, guess what. I know how to get three ounces of liquid through security. I've even gotten an unopened can of Coke through. I carried an orange through the x-ray machine that could have contained an explosive.
I wish we as Americans would stop buying in to the fear mongering of the Bush administration/Fox News. If someone wants to kill you, they will. So get over it and stop thinking that some guy x-raying your 1.7 ounce shampoo bottle saved your life...
The other night I was flying into Washington state. There were two Marines on the flight. They sat in front of me. It was an evening flight. Through the two hours neither of them said a word. I was stuck next to the window and I could see through the space between the plane window and the seat that tears were running down the Marine's face. When we landed at the airport there was a huge group of people waiting to welcome the Marines.
They were blasting patriotic songs and waving flags. As we came up to the crowd the Marine that had been crying turned to the other and said "I can't wait to take this fucking thing off", referring to his uniform.
I went to the rental car counter to pick up my car and they started blasting this country song, the name of which is unknown, but the words go "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free". I found it ironic that they would play that song in an airport. These soldiers went to Iraq and did whatever they were assigned to do under the auspices of maintaining freedom in the US. It hasn't made a damn bit of difference here, and it's made things worse in a lot of ways. And the current administration and policies are taking away more freedoms every day.
If you don't believe me, spend the next week flying. I have seen the following at airports in the past three months:
-A woman was arrested at a security checkpoint for "arguing" with the TSA guy checking IDs. She did not understand that she couldn't board a plane with a printed itinerary and that she needed a boarding card. Rather than helping the woman the TSA guy kept telling her "You can't get on a plane with that. You need to go over there," pointing vaguely towards the checkin counter. When the woman said in a louder voice "But this is an e-ticket" the TSA guy called security and had her arrested. She was kind of an idiot, but he wasn't helping her and I don't blame her for raising her voice.
-I was stopped and harassed by immigration because, coming from Paris to the US, I lost my re-embarkation card but didn't realize until I got to the immigration counter. Having been awake for almost two days at that point I was fumbling to explain to the immigration guy why I walked up to his counter without having the card filled out. He started yelling at me and accusing me of trying to pull something funny. I was like asspipe, I spent 17 years of my fucking life working with the government and now I am being accused of being a terrorist? Because I lost my re-embarkation card? Are you fucking serious?
-I had all of my clothes taken out of my suitcase because I had nail clippers in a side pocket of the suit case. They didn't take them away from me, just made a mess of my clothes. I asked if it was now illegal to carry nail clippers on a plane and was told that if I was making a threat I would not be allowed to fly that day, even though I'm not sure how "So are nail clippers now illegal?" could be considered a threat.
-I was told to take a sweater off before walking through an x-ray, even after explaining to the idiot at security that I didn't have anything on under the sweater. They made me roll the sweater up to prove this before letting me through the x-ray.
Security is being run by a bunch of fucking gerbils. I fly every Monday and every Friday, and I would be happy to have all those assholes just go away. They aren't doing anything but annoying frequent flyers like myself. If you go to any other foreign country they don't do any extra security checks for flights not going to the US and guess what, they aren't getting hijacked or blown up.
I will take my chances that some idiot from Al Quaeda is going to try to blow up my plane. Also, for anyone who thinks those security checks are doing any good, guess what. I know how to get three ounces of liquid through security. I've even gotten an unopened can of Coke through. I carried an orange through the x-ray machine that could have contained an explosive.
I wish we as Americans would stop buying in to the fear mongering of the Bush administration/Fox News. If someone wants to kill you, they will. So get over it and stop thinking that some guy x-raying your 1.7 ounce shampoo bottle saved your life...
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Funny Cause the Bible Says I'm Funny
I've made an interesting discovery while reading an article about a guy who went to the deserts of Israel to understand the ecology in the logical framework of the three great monotheistic religions experienced there (yes, I have an obsession with the desert, otherwise no, I wouldn't be reading this article). If the last sentence confused you, fear not, just go back to watching Fox News and pretend this blog never happened.
My Christian name means freedom, which I knew. But I also discovered, through the article, that my Hebrew name, Yitzak (Isaac), female version Yitzi, means [DRUM ROLL]
"(s)he laughs"
What's in a name indeed.
Interestingly enough, as I also discovered in the article, the idea of eternity was introduced by desert monks.
And, if you're bored, think about this for a minute:
"The paradox of monotheism is that the desert God, refuting all other gods, demands acknowledgement within emptiness. The paradox of monotheism is that there is no paradox - only unfathomable singularity."
-Robert Rodriguez
My Christian name means freedom, which I knew. But I also discovered, through the article, that my Hebrew name, Yitzak (Isaac), female version Yitzi, means [DRUM ROLL]
"(s)he laughs"
What's in a name indeed.
Interestingly enough, as I also discovered in the article, the idea of eternity was introduced by desert monks.
And, if you're bored, think about this for a minute:
"The paradox of monotheism is that the desert God, refuting all other gods, demands acknowledgement within emptiness. The paradox of monotheism is that there is no paradox - only unfathomable singularity."
-Robert Rodriguez
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