My Uncle Denny, Aunt Carol, and cousin Andrea are supposed to be coming to visit me from Kentucky. They are traveling around out here and weren't sure when they would get here so Den said he'd call me. He left me a message on Friday when I was stuck in this shit show travel situation trying to get home from Vancouver (DEN was closed and I got stuck on a runway in Cheyenne for three hours - fun) and I thought he was getting to my house Friday. But when I got home at 930 PM on Friday he wasn't there and so I assumed that he might have decided to stay with my evil twin cousins in Boulder since he couldn't get in touch with me. The evil twins are Chris and Andrew, identical red head twins that moved to Boulder two years ago.
So on Saturday while I was having lunch I got a text from a Kentucky area code number inviting me to see Andrew, one of the evil twins, play at a bar in Denver. I assumed it was Den so I called the number back, left a rambling message, and headed out to the bar. Then I got to the bar and found the evil twins but no Den. Turns out the text was from my cousin Chris, who also has a Kentucky area code because he never updated his number when he moved here. I was like "Where's Den, Carol and Andrea?" and they were like "Oh, are they in town?"
Andrew is an amazing performer and the audience was really into his show. I had to save him from these two horrible 40 something women who wanted to attack him. A guy in the back gave him a $40 tip for playing two songs. People were dropping money in his guitar case during the show.
He told me this great story about how once these really drunk girls once dropped their phone number in his guitar case. It turns out, as they were leaving, they hit a car as they were pulling out of the parking lot. When the cops showed up they were asking Andrew about the girls and he gave them the phone number. So then the cop called the driver and pretended to be Andrew. When the girl drove back to the bar to meet him the cops arrested her.
Too funny.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
folding papers
I have been having some really weird dreams lately.
A week ago I had a dream that I was standing in an airplane hangar with my friend Jen who used to be a lesbian but isn't anymore. The airplane hangar was on fire and I was trying to get the maps out of the plane before they burned up because the maps were expensive. Jen and Angelina Jolie were arguing about Jen deciding to not be a lesbian anymore because apparently Angelina wanted to hook up with Jen. Angelina kept pointing this really long finger in Jen's face and saying "I want to know if you're really going to do THIS!" and Jen kept making excuses about not hooking up. I was like Jen, you're an idiot and no one cares that the hangar is burning down except me. Then the roof of the hangar fell in and I woke up.
Then I had a dream that I showed up to work and everyone looked like a zombie and had blood coming out of their eyes. I took a secret staircase from whatever floor I was on and started running down the stairwell because I was afraid someone was going to eat me. That's what zombies do. Then I got to this lobby and started running across it and this guard was like "Oh god! Look in the mirror!" and I looked in one of the mirrors in the lobby and my eyes were bleeding too. So I started crying because I didn't want to be a zombie and then the guard shot me in the chest and I woke up.
On monday before I left for Canadull I had a dream that I was at work meeting with a client and the client kept staring at the cuffs of these brown tweed pants I was wearing. So finally I looked down at them and the bottom of my pants were covered with deck stain and I had accidentally worn my flip flops into work and all my toe nails had turned black and one of my feet was a really weird green color and was slowly disintegrating into this gelatinous goo. I started to panic because I thought I had accidentally stained my deck in my work clothes and now they were all ruined. Then the client got on the phone to my boss and told him I had to leave before all of me disintegrated into goo. I was trying to explain to the client that it was only my foot but then these guys came in with a wheel chair and put me in an elevator. As soon as the door closed I realized the elevator didn't work and I was going to plummet to my death as soon as one of the wheel chair guys pushed the button for the ground floor, the elevator buttons being outside this particular elevator. I heard the ding of the bell and the elevator started to fall and then I woke up.
My favorite dream I've had this week is I was in a garbage dump but all the garbage had been washed and smelled like soap. I was standing on this huge pile of junk pulling out everything that could be recycled and these little midgets were taking the recycling and putting it into magic wheel barrows that would fold up the recycling. So then I sat down on this old tricycle and started racing the wheel barrow to see if I could fold the recycling up faster than the wheel barrow could. When I woke up I was really happy because for a second I thought I really had recycled a bunch of garbage. But actually I didn't.
A week ago I had a dream that I was standing in an airplane hangar with my friend Jen who used to be a lesbian but isn't anymore. The airplane hangar was on fire and I was trying to get the maps out of the plane before they burned up because the maps were expensive. Jen and Angelina Jolie were arguing about Jen deciding to not be a lesbian anymore because apparently Angelina wanted to hook up with Jen. Angelina kept pointing this really long finger in Jen's face and saying "I want to know if you're really going to do THIS!" and Jen kept making excuses about not hooking up. I was like Jen, you're an idiot and no one cares that the hangar is burning down except me. Then the roof of the hangar fell in and I woke up.
Then I had a dream that I showed up to work and everyone looked like a zombie and had blood coming out of their eyes. I took a secret staircase from whatever floor I was on and started running down the stairwell because I was afraid someone was going to eat me. That's what zombies do. Then I got to this lobby and started running across it and this guard was like "Oh god! Look in the mirror!" and I looked in one of the mirrors in the lobby and my eyes were bleeding too. So I started crying because I didn't want to be a zombie and then the guard shot me in the chest and I woke up.
On monday before I left for Canadull I had a dream that I was at work meeting with a client and the client kept staring at the cuffs of these brown tweed pants I was wearing. So finally I looked down at them and the bottom of my pants were covered with deck stain and I had accidentally worn my flip flops into work and all my toe nails had turned black and one of my feet was a really weird green color and was slowly disintegrating into this gelatinous goo. I started to panic because I thought I had accidentally stained my deck in my work clothes and now they were all ruined. Then the client got on the phone to my boss and told him I had to leave before all of me disintegrated into goo. I was trying to explain to the client that it was only my foot but then these guys came in with a wheel chair and put me in an elevator. As soon as the door closed I realized the elevator didn't work and I was going to plummet to my death as soon as one of the wheel chair guys pushed the button for the ground floor, the elevator buttons being outside this particular elevator. I heard the ding of the bell and the elevator started to fall and then I woke up.
My favorite dream I've had this week is I was in a garbage dump but all the garbage had been washed and smelled like soap. I was standing on this huge pile of junk pulling out everything that could be recycled and these little midgets were taking the recycling and putting it into magic wheel barrows that would fold up the recycling. So then I sat down on this old tricycle and started racing the wheel barrow to see if I could fold the recycling up faster than the wheel barrow could. When I woke up I was really happy because for a second I thought I really had recycled a bunch of garbage. But actually I didn't.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
the coasties
I'm in nowhere West Virginia this week working with the coast guard. Don't ask me why they have an office that is so far away from any body of water, I don't know.
The class has been interesting, starting with the second day when I discovered a workbook that has all the student exercises in it wasn't shipped. I had to tap dance through the next hour while the customer printed the books (customer being NOT happy about that). It was even more fun than the first day of class when everyone's laptops were crashing due to a bad software image and me having a different set of slides than what was delivered to the students.
This is one of those weird dry counties and there are signs all over the hotel (not a chain) that I'm staying in saying you can't have alcohol in the hotel. So the coasties who came in for the training hang out right outside the door of the hotel with their alcohol. At any point in the day, starting around 4 pm, there are at least 5 guys outside smoking and drinking.
Yesterday, while I was trying to make calls to figure out what the hell happened to my training material, a bunch of coasties showed up from dinner. The guy who drove was so drunk he had vomit on the sleeve of his shirt, where he had, he told me, wiped his mouth after puking out the car window. He said this as he was downing a long island iced tea. I asked him if he thought it was a good idea to keep drinking at which point his friend defended him with the statement "Well, he's eating peanuts too!" Apparently vomit head dumped a bucket of peanuts in the bar they were at (I suspect Divas, a topless joint 30 minutes from the hotel) into his pants pocket. The friend then yelled at vomit head for not offering me a peanut.
He offered me a peanut.
Living in a small town makes people crazy like that. The guard at the base gate decided to give me a hard time yesterday when I was entering the base. He wanted to see my ID, class roster, black berry, and probably my tits. When I pointed out to him that I had a base pass, which he had given me the previous day, and which had his handwriting on it, he said "That pass don't mean shit. I'm not talking about yesterday, I'm talking about today." I was told by my customer that the "threat level" of the base had been elevated due to the Yemen embassy incident. Elevated to what I wonder? Bringing out the rednecks and their trailers so they can shoot people in rental cars? I mean, how could someone attack this little base that isn't even on a map and is hard to find with directions from the customer? And why would the base get attacked?
Unless vomit head stole his peanuts from a terrorist...
The class has been interesting, starting with the second day when I discovered a workbook that has all the student exercises in it wasn't shipped. I had to tap dance through the next hour while the customer printed the books (customer being NOT happy about that). It was even more fun than the first day of class when everyone's laptops were crashing due to a bad software image and me having a different set of slides than what was delivered to the students.
This is one of those weird dry counties and there are signs all over the hotel (not a chain) that I'm staying in saying you can't have alcohol in the hotel. So the coasties who came in for the training hang out right outside the door of the hotel with their alcohol. At any point in the day, starting around 4 pm, there are at least 5 guys outside smoking and drinking.
Yesterday, while I was trying to make calls to figure out what the hell happened to my training material, a bunch of coasties showed up from dinner. The guy who drove was so drunk he had vomit on the sleeve of his shirt, where he had, he told me, wiped his mouth after puking out the car window. He said this as he was downing a long island iced tea. I asked him if he thought it was a good idea to keep drinking at which point his friend defended him with the statement "Well, he's eating peanuts too!" Apparently vomit head dumped a bucket of peanuts in the bar they were at (I suspect Divas, a topless joint 30 minutes from the hotel) into his pants pocket. The friend then yelled at vomit head for not offering me a peanut.
He offered me a peanut.
Living in a small town makes people crazy like that. The guard at the base gate decided to give me a hard time yesterday when I was entering the base. He wanted to see my ID, class roster, black berry, and probably my tits. When I pointed out to him that I had a base pass, which he had given me the previous day, and which had his handwriting on it, he said "That pass don't mean shit. I'm not talking about yesterday, I'm talking about today." I was told by my customer that the "threat level" of the base had been elevated due to the Yemen embassy incident. Elevated to what I wonder? Bringing out the rednecks and their trailers so they can shoot people in rental cars? I mean, how could someone attack this little base that isn't even on a map and is hard to find with directions from the customer? And why would the base get attacked?
Unless vomit head stole his peanuts from a terrorist...
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Balls
File this story under things you probably didn't want to know.
When I was in the shower at 530 Sunday morning getting ready for my flight to DC I happened to notice my razor was on the wrong shelf. I went to move it and noticed that it was clogged with long hairs. That's strange, I thought to myself, especially since I haven't used the razor in over a week and had just changed the cartridge.
As I was toweling off after my shower, suddenly I remembered the following conversation I had with my housepest Ryan, who has taken a part time job teaching swimming:
F: Michael Phelps swim suit always looks like it's about to fall off.
R: That's how you're supposed to wear that suit.
F: I wonder if he shaves his back.
R: Of course he does. Swimmers shave everything.
F: Even their balls?
R: Especially their balls.
If Ryan shaved his balls with my razor, I really really really don't want to know.
When I was in the shower at 530 Sunday morning getting ready for my flight to DC I happened to notice my razor was on the wrong shelf. I went to move it and noticed that it was clogged with long hairs. That's strange, I thought to myself, especially since I haven't used the razor in over a week and had just changed the cartridge.
As I was toweling off after my shower, suddenly I remembered the following conversation I had with my housepest Ryan, who has taken a part time job teaching swimming:
F: Michael Phelps swim suit always looks like it's about to fall off.
R: That's how you're supposed to wear that suit.
F: I wonder if he shaves his back.
R: Of course he does. Swimmers shave everything.
F: Even their balls?
R: Especially their balls.
If Ryan shaved his balls with my razor, I really really really don't want to know.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
My Uncle Denny
My Uncle Denny and Aunt Carol are planning a drive by through Denver on their way home from picking up my cousin Andrea. Andrea works for the forest service and does things like jumping out of helicopters to tag elk. We've been emailing to figure out if I am going to be around when they come through.
My Uncle Denny is my godfather of sorts. We have a similar sense of humor. For my 9th birthday he gave me a Ouija board. For my 10th birthday he gave me Dungeons and Dragons, the first set ever made.
He also has a lot of good stories about farts. Sometimes when he's telling fart stories he farts. I laugh my ass off every time we hang out.
He has scars on his face from the time, when he was 10, that he decided to build a volcano. He and my mom lived in this plantation house in Louisville that took up an entire city block. It was haunted and had secret passages. One of my cousins wrote a book about the house called "The House on 3rd Street". Anyway, my uncle dug up a major part of the back yard and made this huge pile of dirt that was about 5 feet high. Then he dug out the core and put dynamite in the hole so his "volcano" would explode. The dynamite, as physics dictated, blew the dirt outward rather than exploding upward, at which point my uncle belated realized that standing next to the volcano was not a good idea.
I sent him an email today to let him know that I am going to be in Vancouver when he was initially planning on coming by. He sent me a response that started out: "Franki, What the hell are you doing in Vancouver ?" He then went on to make fun of my cousins who are referred to as the evil slacker twins in Boulder, and then he closed the email with "Love, Uncle Denny _everyone does".
Indeed...
My Uncle Denny is my godfather of sorts. We have a similar sense of humor. For my 9th birthday he gave me a Ouija board. For my 10th birthday he gave me Dungeons and Dragons, the first set ever made.
He also has a lot of good stories about farts. Sometimes when he's telling fart stories he farts. I laugh my ass off every time we hang out.
He has scars on his face from the time, when he was 10, that he decided to build a volcano. He and my mom lived in this plantation house in Louisville that took up an entire city block. It was haunted and had secret passages. One of my cousins wrote a book about the house called "The House on 3rd Street". Anyway, my uncle dug up a major part of the back yard and made this huge pile of dirt that was about 5 feet high. Then he dug out the core and put dynamite in the hole so his "volcano" would explode. The dynamite, as physics dictated, blew the dirt outward rather than exploding upward, at which point my uncle belated realized that standing next to the volcano was not a good idea.
I sent him an email today to let him know that I am going to be in Vancouver when he was initially planning on coming by. He sent me a response that started out: "Franki, What the hell are you doing in Vancouver ?" He then went on to make fun of my cousins who are referred to as the evil slacker twins in Boulder, and then he closed the email with "Love, Uncle Denny _everyone does".
Indeed...
The List
My perfect man qualifications:
- A good climber and who excels at other sports
- Older than me and established (i.e. not living out of his car)
- Owns a custom made pair of cowboy boots and understands shoes
- Can socialize across the spectrum
- Has a good set of friends
- Writes well and reads a lot
- Has a great music collection of stuff I haven't heard yet
- Has a background in the sciences and likes to talk about math and physics just in case I want to talk about, for example, small number theory or strange attractors
- Has good business sense
- Is not a water sign
- Is above average height
- Has a large dog or would get a large dog and name it Heshy the Knuckles because I've always wanted a dog called Heshy the Knuckles
- Can cook
- Eats sushi a lot
- Knows something about wine and will drink wine with me
- Will hold my hand in public
- Is not obsessed with porn
- Knows who the Little Prince is
- Has traveled extensively
- Has had one traumatic injury from which he's recovered
- Can do currency calculations so when we travel we don't get ripped off changing money
- Owns a tux and wears it at least once a year
- Has above average intelligence and an above average sense of humor
- Doesn't have to wear anything to correct his vision
- Has some interesting scars, especially on his hands
- Doesn't have any tattoos, but has his ear pierced
- Is not afraid of the water
- Does something for his community or gives money to charities
- Speaks at least one other language besides English
- Has an advanced degree but not a PhD
- Has the same taste in films as I do and doesn't make me watch shit movies (Transformers comes to mind)
- Writes romantic notes to me and sends me postcards
- Believes in recycling and rides his bike
- Will not sandbag me on a climb or if we are skiing
- Plays at least one musical instrument
- Has at least some Romanian blood
- Tells the long version of a story rather than the short version
- Only gossips with me
- Doesn't have kids or any weird drama with an ex
- Self effacing
- Can identify trees and birds
- Would take care of me if I were sick or injured and wouldn't complain or expect me to have sex with him until I was better
- Owns a Toyota truck
- Drinks yerba mate and coffee but doesn't put sugar in his coffee
- Has great teeth, which he brushes and flosses regularly
- Gives me records even though I don't have a record player
- Likes John Coltrane and going to listen to music
- Is a good photographer
- Wears flip flops when ever possible
- Is not financially irresponsible
- Has lips like Mick Jagger or Keith Richards
- Has an imperfect rib cage
- Doesn't get headaches or whine about being tired
- Knows how to shave with a straight edge razor
- Is president of at least one thing
- Is not easily intimidated
If you happen to find this creature, please send him to me ASAP...
Words of wisdom from Neil
Last night I was talking to my friend Neil and we were laughing about my latest romantic entanglements and he said something that I thought was very profound. He said that to even get started in a relationship takes so much, and if the situation is complicated chances are it won't work out.
He quoted the Springsteen song Tunnel of Love "ought to be easy, ought to be simple enough/man meets a woman and they fall in love". I started thinking about how all of my relationships have been more or less mitigated disasters, and how every one of them was so complex I found myself spending all of my time trying to figure out how to make the relationship work rather than enjoying the relationship.
There was my ex who lived in a different country and who couldn't ever seem to be in the same city as me no matter where we moved. The idiot mountaineer who would argue with me all the time because I refused to drop out of my master's program on the off chance he was home for a week. The guy who lived 1,200 miles away from me with kids who was going through a divorce and, even though he didn't really have a job, was busy doing other stuff, forcing me to drive up to New York every weekend to try to spend time with him. Etc.
None of these guys ever did anything to try to accommodate me or my schedule. Even with my recent relationship, I ended up making some less than beneficial career decisions to spend time with him. All of my efforts ended up being a waste since every one of those guys ended up with someone else.
From now on I'm keeping things simpliciter. No more guys with a shit ton of problems or inconvenient issues. I feel like I should have stocked up enough karma going out with some of the biggest ass pipes on the planet to find a good guy. Hopefully there's someone out there that can qualify.
He quoted the Springsteen song Tunnel of Love "ought to be easy, ought to be simple enough/man meets a woman and they fall in love". I started thinking about how all of my relationships have been more or less mitigated disasters, and how every one of them was so complex I found myself spending all of my time trying to figure out how to make the relationship work rather than enjoying the relationship.
There was my ex who lived in a different country and who couldn't ever seem to be in the same city as me no matter where we moved. The idiot mountaineer who would argue with me all the time because I refused to drop out of my master's program on the off chance he was home for a week. The guy who lived 1,200 miles away from me with kids who was going through a divorce and, even though he didn't really have a job, was busy doing other stuff, forcing me to drive up to New York every weekend to try to spend time with him. Etc.
None of these guys ever did anything to try to accommodate me or my schedule. Even with my recent relationship, I ended up making some less than beneficial career decisions to spend time with him. All of my efforts ended up being a waste since every one of those guys ended up with someone else.
From now on I'm keeping things simpliciter. No more guys with a shit ton of problems or inconvenient issues. I feel like I should have stocked up enough karma going out with some of the biggest ass pipes on the planet to find a good guy. Hopefully there's someone out there that can qualify.
Monday, September 8, 2008
I knew it was Monday before you told me...
In the interest of trying to make my backyard look better I decided to stain my deck and fence. I spent the past two days doing that and some other little carpentry projects. This summer we've only had a few days of rain, which happened to coincide with my dad's visit and our hiking. The stain required two days of drying during which it's not supposed to rain.
Last night, when I was standing on my patio, I noticed a breeze had kicked up and the sky was a weird kind of reddish color. This summer has been characterized by evening thunderstorms that never produce any precipitation so, though I felt a little uneasy, I assured myself that it wouldn't rain.
This morning I woke up at 430. It was raining.
Fucking rain. I wonder what will happen now.
Last night, when I was standing on my patio, I noticed a breeze had kicked up and the sky was a weird kind of reddish color. This summer has been characterized by evening thunderstorms that never produce any precipitation so, though I felt a little uneasy, I assured myself that it wouldn't rain.
This morning I woke up at 430. It was raining.
Fucking rain. I wonder what will happen now.
Friday, September 5, 2008
lions, tigers, and yaks
Last night I had a dream I was in this field in England for a birthday party for Clint. He walked up to me and was holding hands with some girl that was his new girlfriend. I was trying to figure out why he invited me to the party but instead of answering my question he took me over to this rickety wooden fence and said "Look at my animals".
There were two doors like a barn and one had a small window. He slid the window down and there was a horse head in the window. Then he slid the window closed and open again and this time there was a yak with all these weird ribbons and shit on its head. Then Clint walked away but not before saying "don't let my animals out".
So I opened the doors to see what other animals there were and the animals started running out. None of them were real animals except for one which was a lion. The fake animals were really scary looking, like a tiger with a bear head. I started to panic when I saw the lion and tried to close the doors but the lion jumped on the doors and knocked me over.
I was laying on the ground and knew the lion was going to try to eat me so I pulled myself up between the wall and the door and the lion went running across the field. Then these two guys came up to me wearing suits and carrying briefcases and they were like "Franki, you missed your flight! We have to go to the airport now!" And I asked them who I should call to let them know I let all the animals out and they were like "We don't have time!" so then I was in this really old airport and a woman told me my flight was leaving in an hour so I ran up to security and I had these HUGE orange and red tickets.
Then I got to my terminal and found out my flight didn't leave for 6 hours. So then I was like well I'll go smoke but I couldn't get out of the terminal because there was no door, only windows and then I also realized I was in the airport by myself and that I was trapped for whatever reason by the guys with the suitcases.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
my coke habit
So today is the first day in my entire adult life that I haven't had a coke. Instead I drank 2 pots of green tea, made with three tea bags each pot. I suppose this is a good thing...
PROS:
-green tea is a lot healthier
-won't have to carry cokes around anymore
-can stop trying to force myself to eat broccoli since I'm drinking so much green tea
-can finally use up that huge thing of Agave nectar I bought 2 years ago that has since crystalized but I think it's still okay to use
-can use all my cool coffee cups assuming my idiot room mate brings them down from his room where he seems to be hoarding them like some kind of twisted underpants fairy
-um...
-oh yeah, if I ever get dragged to starbucks I will actually be able to order something instead of going "do you have any cokes back there?" like I usually do
CONS:
-I'm pretty sure I'm dying, or I feel like I'm dying, and I never used to feel that way when I drank coke, so that means I'll never live to reap the benefits of drinking green tea. Fuck.
PROS:
-green tea is a lot healthier
-won't have to carry cokes around anymore
-can stop trying to force myself to eat broccoli since I'm drinking so much green tea
-can finally use up that huge thing of Agave nectar I bought 2 years ago that has since crystalized but I think it's still okay to use
-can use all my cool coffee cups assuming my idiot room mate brings them down from his room where he seems to be hoarding them like some kind of twisted underpants fairy
-um...
-oh yeah, if I ever get dragged to starbucks I will actually be able to order something instead of going "do you have any cokes back there?" like I usually do
CONS:
-I'm pretty sure I'm dying, or I feel like I'm dying, and I never used to feel that way when I drank coke, so that means I'll never live to reap the benefits of drinking green tea. Fuck.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
a short history on explosives
I just sent the following email to my co-author, regarding a Red Bull video he sent me about some guys creating a wave in a river somewhere in Europe and then surfing it. Why he's watching videos instead of finishing our book is a mystery to me. My co-author and my brother got into a little tiff about the veracity of the vid. Note that my co-author is a geologist who works in the oil industry fracking.
I wrote to my co-author:
I just had the most scintillating conversation with my little brother (insert comment "I'm not so little any more" due to the fact that he is over 6' tall, and then do what I do, ignore the comment and continue on with the story...okay, where were we, oh yes, Nobel). Any way, we were talking about whether or not that explosion in that surfing vid could have been real.
Steve then went through the whole dynamite thing, including how Nobel discovered you could mix sawdust in with nitro glycerin and that makes it stable (NOTE: I am just guessing, yeah, just a GUESS, that Nobel was a bit of a slob and he accidentally got pencil shavings or some shit in his nitro glycerin, and then Bertha, his secretary, was all freaking out and shit, like "Goddammit Alfred! I've told you a MILLION times don't sharpen your fucking pencils around your experiments!" and then he was like, "What evah bitch! I just discovered some serious shit. You want the Nobel Peace Prize? Then shut the fuck up and go type something!" and then she was all like "Dick! I am SO marrying that baron! Then I'm going to tell him to smite you! Oh fuck, wait, then I won't win the peace prize. Fine. I'll just go around saying bad things about your penis." She won the NPP in 1905.).
And that's why dynamite really can't get wet. Or, oh, left that part out, water is what caused nitro glycerin to get so fucky after just sitting around for a few days (or was it weeks? I'm trying to not exaggerate.) And if they really threw some dynamite in that river thing it would have gotten wet and not exploded. That's why bomb squads use a water tank to diffuse bombs (I did not know that, BTW, until I did some research).
So, um, then...
Oh yeah. I threw a wrench in the monkey works quick like. I said "Well, maybe they put the dynamite in a water proof box!" I'm the creative one in the family you know. So then we started talking about Peak Particle Velocity. Steve said geologists probably don't know much about that, because rock people are kind of limited to the whole "Ooh rock. Rock is hard." kind of analysis, usually done before they insert a finger up their nose and stare vacantly at the neighborhood squirrels, going, "Heh heh. I think that one forgot where he buried his nut." PPV causes all kinds of bad things like making buildings fall down and shit. Causing ruptures in the earth. Or, maybe it was PPV is bad if there already is a rupture in the earth, that part is a little foggy, cause I was focusing on remembering PPV.
But, even more exciting, is the Air Blast. Air Blast can cause brain damage and brain damage causes things like confusion over whether the month is June, when the book was due, or July, which is when it is now, and that comes AFTER June, if you were wondering. I've heard climbing is therapeutic for these kinds of brain injuries because climbing doesn't require a lot in the way of intelligence (those in dis-agreement should hang out at the gear counter at Paradise, where, last time I was there, and had a gakked up toe nail, I was asked "Dude, is that your TOE?" to which I wanted to respond "No, I've removed all those and sewn little trinkets I found at the everything under a dollar store on my foot to replace them. Aren't they cute?" but I didn't because at the time I was looking for a climbing partner and didn't want to deal with the rumors of being the "toeless girl").
The bottom line is, could that wave have really been caused by dynamite, and what was the PPV anyway? Did all those building fall down right after the vid was shot due to PPV and Red Bull was like "Fuck us!"?
Also, Steve has a been a member of the International Society of Explosive Engineers for 12 years. He prefers the phrase "blowed up" rather than "blew up". Um, and, to be honest, he doesn't like oil guys too much because they are always hogging up the mountains and you can't mine for coal in the same place because they're always like "Dude, you're going to ruin my hole" in a whiny voice. And, ahem, he said they call it "sweet crude oil" because they are a bunch of arrogant pricks that like to say things like "sweet crude".
the end
I wrote to my co-author:
I just had the most scintillating conversation with my little brother (insert comment "I'm not so little any more" due to the fact that he is over 6' tall, and then do what I do, ignore the comment and continue on with the story...okay, where were we, oh yes, Nobel). Any way, we were talking about whether or not that explosion in that surfing vid could have been real.
Steve then went through the whole dynamite thing, including how Nobel discovered you could mix sawdust in with nitro glycerin and that makes it stable (NOTE: I am just guessing, yeah, just a GUESS, that Nobel was a bit of a slob and he accidentally got pencil shavings or some shit in his nitro glycerin, and then Bertha, his secretary, was all freaking out and shit, like "Goddammit Alfred! I've told you a MILLION times don't sharpen your fucking pencils around your experiments!" and then he was like, "What evah bitch! I just discovered some serious shit. You want the Nobel Peace Prize? Then shut the fuck up and go type something!" and then she was all like "Dick! I am SO marrying that baron! Then I'm going to tell him to smite you! Oh fuck, wait, then I won't win the peace prize. Fine. I'll just go around saying bad things about your penis." She won the NPP in 1905.).
And that's why dynamite really can't get wet. Or, oh, left that part out, water is what caused nitro glycerin to get so fucky after just sitting around for a few days (or was it weeks? I'm trying to not exaggerate.) And if they really threw some dynamite in that river thing it would have gotten wet and not exploded. That's why bomb squads use a water tank to diffuse bombs (I did not know that, BTW, until I did some research).
So, um, then...
Oh yeah. I threw a wrench in the monkey works quick like. I said "Well, maybe they put the dynamite in a water proof box!" I'm the creative one in the family you know. So then we started talking about Peak Particle Velocity. Steve said geologists probably don't know much about that, because rock people are kind of limited to the whole "Ooh rock. Rock is hard." kind of analysis, usually done before they insert a finger up their nose and stare vacantly at the neighborhood squirrels, going, "Heh heh. I think that one forgot where he buried his nut." PPV causes all kinds of bad things like making buildings fall down and shit. Causing ruptures in the earth. Or, maybe it was PPV is bad if there already is a rupture in the earth, that part is a little foggy, cause I was focusing on remembering PPV.
But, even more exciting, is the Air Blast. Air Blast can cause brain damage and brain damage causes things like confusion over whether the month is June, when the book was due, or July, which is when it is now, and that comes AFTER June, if you were wondering. I've heard climbing is therapeutic for these kinds of brain injuries because climbing doesn't require a lot in the way of intelligence (those in dis-agreement should hang out at the gear counter at Paradise, where, last time I was there, and had a gakked up toe nail, I was asked "Dude, is that your TOE?" to which I wanted to respond "No, I've removed all those and sewn little trinkets I found at the everything under a dollar store on my foot to replace them. Aren't they cute?" but I didn't because at the time I was looking for a climbing partner and didn't want to deal with the rumors of being the "toeless girl").
The bottom line is, could that wave have really been caused by dynamite, and what was the PPV anyway? Did all those building fall down right after the vid was shot due to PPV and Red Bull was like "Fuck us!"?
Also, Steve has a been a member of the International Society of Explosive Engineers for 12 years. He prefers the phrase "blowed up" rather than "blew up". Um, and, to be honest, he doesn't like oil guys too much because they are always hogging up the mountains and you can't mine for coal in the same place because they're always like "Dude, you're going to ruin my hole" in a whiny voice. And, ahem, he said they call it "sweet crude oil" because they are a bunch of arrogant pricks that like to say things like "sweet crude".
the end
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Bad Graveyard Bunny
One animal I forgot to mention in my zoo is the bad graveyard bunny. This bunny is pretty large as bunnies go. And he might have rabies or something. As I’ve been walking through the grave yard in the evening (there’s basically a quarter mile track around all the graves) the bunny runs in front of me and does very destructive things.
Because of the upcoming holiday most of the graves have flowers on them. The bunny likes to jump into the flowers, knocking them over. I try to not laugh because I don’t want to encourage him, but yesterday he jumped into the leg of a tripod flower arrangement and sent the thing tumbling into two other flower arrangements, causing this kind of daffodil domino effect.
I know he had to have done that on purpose. Even if he is in dire need of bunny spectacles there’s NO WAY he could have not seen that arrangement. It was gargantuan. In the hour I was wandering the graveyard he knocked that over, two vase arrangements, jumped over a low bench and I’m pretty sure pooped on it, and then he ate some of a nice bushy kind of arrangement. I saw him eating it and asked him if he was allowed to do that and he gave me this look like "what are you going to do about it even if I’m NOT supposed to be eating this?" I felt like telling him that I used to eat rabbits so he better watch his attitude around me, but didn’t bother because those types of bunnies never listen.
Speaking of arrangements, while we are on the subject, some people put strange things on their graves. One person that’s there has a flag on her grave that has a picture of one of those small annoying dogs with a hairy face and a bow on its head. I didn’t even know you could buy a flag with a dog on it. Nor did I know that people put flags on their graves.
If someone ever made a grave for me I hope they will put a pirate flag on it. I however, will not be there, as I plan to be elsewhere. Being buried is not great for the environment.
Because of the upcoming holiday most of the graves have flowers on them. The bunny likes to jump into the flowers, knocking them over. I try to not laugh because I don’t want to encourage him, but yesterday he jumped into the leg of a tripod flower arrangement and sent the thing tumbling into two other flower arrangements, causing this kind of daffodil domino effect.
I know he had to have done that on purpose. Even if he is in dire need of bunny spectacles there’s NO WAY he could have not seen that arrangement. It was gargantuan. In the hour I was wandering the graveyard he knocked that over, two vase arrangements, jumped over a low bench and I’m pretty sure pooped on it, and then he ate some of a nice bushy kind of arrangement. I saw him eating it and asked him if he was allowed to do that and he gave me this look like "what are you going to do about it even if I’m NOT supposed to be eating this?" I felt like telling him that I used to eat rabbits so he better watch his attitude around me, but didn’t bother because those types of bunnies never listen.
Speaking of arrangements, while we are on the subject, some people put strange things on their graves. One person that’s there has a flag on her grave that has a picture of one of those small annoying dogs with a hairy face and a bow on its head. I didn’t even know you could buy a flag with a dog on it. Nor did I know that people put flags on their graves.
If someone ever made a grave for me I hope they will put a pirate flag on it. I however, will not be there, as I plan to be elsewhere. Being buried is not great for the environment.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
The "unofficial" King George, VA Zoo
Never heard of King George, VA? That's not too shocking. The town has about 200 residents, most of whom are stray dogs. My "hotel" also is the town's trailer park, grocery, and, I am not making this up, grave yard. The closest restaurant is The King of Pizza (having had it, I would postulate that is an exaggeration unless they are referring to just this county).
To entertain myself, which has not been easy since there's no gym and the only place to walk is in the graveyard, or down the side of Rt 301, I have created a little zoo that I like to visit every day. It's unofficial, but fun, if you ever find yourself in King George VA:
First, walk past the rusted Mercedes with no wheels, and past the grills laying in the grass, to the office, which is actually just a room with lock boxes that contain room keys. When you check into the hotel you have to call a special number and a guy reads you the combo and then takes hits off his bong while you try to open the lock box, saying things like "yeah dude, just turn it slow". Around the door to this office you will find Dusty Cat, a species of cat known for giving off clouds of dust when it fluffs its tail and runs away from you. Besides dust, this species can be identified by its singular ear.
Walk down the drive way onto the highway. As you walk in the gravel break down lane you will encounter the bush bees, bees that collect together in a swarm on a bush. They only leave the bush to chase people like you who are walking by.
A half mile from the bush bees is the electri-dog. The electri-dog has an electric collar, and lives in a trailer park habitat. It is known for lunging furiously at visitors to the zoo and then falling on the ground and wiping its face with its paws as it gets the shit shocked out of it.
Empty pig is the next animal on our tour. Empty pig is a big white pig on top of Crazy Ray's Ribs, which may or may not be closed, it's hard to tell.
Finally, as you cross the highway and head back to the hotel, look for the venemous black strap snake laying on the side of the highway. It looks like a snake, though in reality it's really just a strap that was blowing around from the air currents generated by all the trucks. But, it could have been a snake.
Finally, encounter that truck babboon, hanging out the window and cat calling as you pick your way up the Woodside Inn driveway.
Thanks for visiting the zoo. Please don't feed the animals.
To entertain myself, which has not been easy since there's no gym and the only place to walk is in the graveyard, or down the side of Rt 301, I have created a little zoo that I like to visit every day. It's unofficial, but fun, if you ever find yourself in King George VA:
First, walk past the rusted Mercedes with no wheels, and past the grills laying in the grass, to the office, which is actually just a room with lock boxes that contain room keys. When you check into the hotel you have to call a special number and a guy reads you the combo and then takes hits off his bong while you try to open the lock box, saying things like "yeah dude, just turn it slow". Around the door to this office you will find Dusty Cat, a species of cat known for giving off clouds of dust when it fluffs its tail and runs away from you. Besides dust, this species can be identified by its singular ear.
Walk down the drive way onto the highway. As you walk in the gravel break down lane you will encounter the bush bees, bees that collect together in a swarm on a bush. They only leave the bush to chase people like you who are walking by.
A half mile from the bush bees is the electri-dog. The electri-dog has an electric collar, and lives in a trailer park habitat. It is known for lunging furiously at visitors to the zoo and then falling on the ground and wiping its face with its paws as it gets the shit shocked out of it.
Empty pig is the next animal on our tour. Empty pig is a big white pig on top of Crazy Ray's Ribs, which may or may not be closed, it's hard to tell.
Finally, as you cross the highway and head back to the hotel, look for the venemous black strap snake laying on the side of the highway. It looks like a snake, though in reality it's really just a strap that was blowing around from the air currents generated by all the trucks. But, it could have been a snake.
Finally, encounter that truck babboon, hanging out the window and cat calling as you pick your way up the Woodside Inn driveway.
Thanks for visiting the zoo. Please don't feed the animals.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Women - Stop Being Bitches
Today I find myself wondering why women are such assholes.
I’m in my fourth week of dealing with professional, or should I say “professional” women. Normally, thank Allah, my job is done by men so I usually don't have to deal with members of my own sex. Also, up until a month ago, the women I ran into in my job were more like me (of the successful women I met who do architecture, not a SINGLE one had a spouse that had a job - not a SINGLE working husband among the lot).
I spent two weeks working for a woman who was an idiot. My favorite thing she did was call a meeting without informing me, blindsided me as I was trying to get my code done by saying "we have a conference call with everyone in 5 minutes" (thanks for giving me some prep time!), and then, when everyone had joined the call, she announced "I haven't seen any of the code so if this is wrong it's not my fault." Really bitch? Weren't you the one giving me the requirements???
This woman also purposely withheld information from me until the second to last day of my consulting gig, and that required me to pull an all nighter to completely restructure my code so that I could do a presentation the next day for her three bosses, all of whom are VPs. I wanted to kick her in the cunt for that. There I was, for two weeks, putting in twelve hour days including working the weekend, and she couldn’t even give the most basic professional courtesty by providing me with the information I needed to do my job.
And then she had the balls to start crying when I confronted her about withholding information. And I did it nicely, when I was tired from a long run, so I would be able to control the urge to slap her. The entire project was almost ruined because she was so stupid.
Then, last week, I was teaching a class and got into a confrontation with a woman in the class about her project. She made a bad engineering decision, and rather than deciding to correct when her team realized she had made a bad decision based on an example I gave in my class, she decided to attack me instead. Personally and in a passive aggressive fashion. She is lucky, as she stage whispered shit to her embarrassed male colleague, that I don't kill clients that pay me. Her fatal error was when she made a blatantly false statement about a technical standard, and when I pulled the standard up on my laptop and said "Show me where it says that" she picked up her stuff and ran out of the room crying. This woman was in her 40s. It was sad.
I then sent her an email that night saying I would be willing to discuss her point further if she thought it might help. She was a dumb bitch but I was trying to be nice. She didn't even respond back to my email, and sent a male colleague to my class the next day to tell me she wasn't coming back to class and that I didn't need to contact her again. I am embarrassed for her, and feel bad that her coping skills are to act like a pussy.
Ladies, do you really think that kind of behavior is going to get you equal pay with a male colleague? Do you think it's going to help your career to try to fuck over every other professional woman you encounter?
This week in class I got a blonde bimbo who is obviously fucking the program manager, who has made it his mission to get some "after class tutoring" with me. He's divorced. Since he has been asking me questions at break and after class about WORK, she has been disrupting my class by talking loudly, making jokes, complaining about how the software tool that I'm using to teach the class is unuseable (that's right honey, because it requires intelligence), and has been flirting with every other guy in the class, one would assume to make the PM jealous. The guy who set up the class is thinking about removing her because other students are complaining about her behavior.
For the record, I don't fuck redneck guys from small towns that aren't smart. Especially when they are shorter than me. And have a beer gut.
Here's what would be nice: for you, as a woman, to get a fucking REAL education. Don't skate through school getting some bullshit liberal arts degree. Don't take a job in a tech environment if you can't handle it. Stop running off to have a baby every time the going gets tough for you.
You think you're the first woman treated badly because of your chromosomes? Trust me, you are not. And yes, you're going to get hit on, lose your boyfriend because he can't handle a woman that is smarter than he is or makes more money than he does, you are going to pull all nighters for your customer, and they are going to complain because your company sent a female consultant instead of a male consultant and that's life.
And you keep doing your job because you love it. And you aren't going to let some asshole stop you.
Even when that asshole should be supporting you because she's in the same boat. So women, please, stop acting like fuck nuts. Help a sister out.
I’m in my fourth week of dealing with professional, or should I say “professional” women. Normally, thank Allah, my job is done by men so I usually don't have to deal with members of my own sex. Also, up until a month ago, the women I ran into in my job were more like me (of the successful women I met who do architecture, not a SINGLE one had a spouse that had a job - not a SINGLE working husband among the lot).
I spent two weeks working for a woman who was an idiot. My favorite thing she did was call a meeting without informing me, blindsided me as I was trying to get my code done by saying "we have a conference call with everyone in 5 minutes" (thanks for giving me some prep time!), and then, when everyone had joined the call, she announced "I haven't seen any of the code so if this is wrong it's not my fault." Really bitch? Weren't you the one giving me the requirements???
This woman also purposely withheld information from me until the second to last day of my consulting gig, and that required me to pull an all nighter to completely restructure my code so that I could do a presentation the next day for her three bosses, all of whom are VPs. I wanted to kick her in the cunt for that. There I was, for two weeks, putting in twelve hour days including working the weekend, and she couldn’t even give the most basic professional courtesty by providing me with the information I needed to do my job.
And then she had the balls to start crying when I confronted her about withholding information. And I did it nicely, when I was tired from a long run, so I would be able to control the urge to slap her. The entire project was almost ruined because she was so stupid.
Then, last week, I was teaching a class and got into a confrontation with a woman in the class about her project. She made a bad engineering decision, and rather than deciding to correct when her team realized she had made a bad decision based on an example I gave in my class, she decided to attack me instead. Personally and in a passive aggressive fashion. She is lucky, as she stage whispered shit to her embarrassed male colleague, that I don't kill clients that pay me. Her fatal error was when she made a blatantly false statement about a technical standard, and when I pulled the standard up on my laptop and said "Show me where it says that" she picked up her stuff and ran out of the room crying. This woman was in her 40s. It was sad.
I then sent her an email that night saying I would be willing to discuss her point further if she thought it might help. She was a dumb bitch but I was trying to be nice. She didn't even respond back to my email, and sent a male colleague to my class the next day to tell me she wasn't coming back to class and that I didn't need to contact her again. I am embarrassed for her, and feel bad that her coping skills are to act like a pussy.
Ladies, do you really think that kind of behavior is going to get you equal pay with a male colleague? Do you think it's going to help your career to try to fuck over every other professional woman you encounter?
This week in class I got a blonde bimbo who is obviously fucking the program manager, who has made it his mission to get some "after class tutoring" with me. He's divorced. Since he has been asking me questions at break and after class about WORK, she has been disrupting my class by talking loudly, making jokes, complaining about how the software tool that I'm using to teach the class is unuseable (that's right honey, because it requires intelligence), and has been flirting with every other guy in the class, one would assume to make the PM jealous. The guy who set up the class is thinking about removing her because other students are complaining about her behavior.
For the record, I don't fuck redneck guys from small towns that aren't smart. Especially when they are shorter than me. And have a beer gut.
Here's what would be nice: for you, as a woman, to get a fucking REAL education. Don't skate through school getting some bullshit liberal arts degree. Don't take a job in a tech environment if you can't handle it. Stop running off to have a baby every time the going gets tough for you.
You think you're the first woman treated badly because of your chromosomes? Trust me, you are not. And yes, you're going to get hit on, lose your boyfriend because he can't handle a woman that is smarter than he is or makes more money than he does, you are going to pull all nighters for your customer, and they are going to complain because your company sent a female consultant instead of a male consultant and that's life.
And you keep doing your job because you love it. And you aren't going to let some asshole stop you.
Even when that asshole should be supporting you because she's in the same boat. So women, please, stop acting like fuck nuts. Help a sister out.
Expressions I Dislike
"What ever floats your boat" - What exactly is that supposed to mean? That something besides water can float a boat? What's the visual I'm supposed to get when someone says this? A boat floating in outer space waiting for something (jello, money, candy corn) to gather around it and hold it up? It has appalling alliterative qualities. Say it while looking in the mirror. Look at the way your mouth forms around the long O. Yeah, you look like an idiot.
"Getting a bite to eat" or worse "Getting a bite" - My prejudice against people who use this expression always seems to bear out. For example, I was recently invited on a date "to get a bite" by a man who failed to mention until 5 minutes after the date was underway, that he had giardia (AKA horrible diarrhea), meaning I sat at a table in the restaurant by myself, with people staring as my date rushed to the bathroom every 10 minutes, for most of the "date". Which is not to say explosive diarrhea is a bad quality, but the guy didn't have much else going for him, except that he was super rich. He told me I was "over educated" and that "most guys don't see that as a positive thing". Really fucknut? Because, I'm not the one who was so stupid I drank some water I shouldn't have and got giardia. Maybe you wouldn't be shitting your brains out all day if you were smart enough to have known the water wasn't safe.
"Shut up!" - This is an East Coast girl thing I think. I dislike it immensely when I am telling someone a good story (e.g. "So, last night I had a date with a guy who had explosive diarrhea") and I'm interrupted with the exclamation "Shut up!" I often fantasize about slapping the utterer across the face and then waiting to see what will happen next.
"Toodles" - Guys seem to say this to me. I have no idea why. How can you purport to be straight and say such a thing?
"Getting a bite to eat" or worse "Getting a bite" - My prejudice against people who use this expression always seems to bear out. For example, I was recently invited on a date "to get a bite" by a man who failed to mention until 5 minutes after the date was underway, that he had giardia (AKA horrible diarrhea), meaning I sat at a table in the restaurant by myself, with people staring as my date rushed to the bathroom every 10 minutes, for most of the "date". Which is not to say explosive diarrhea is a bad quality, but the guy didn't have much else going for him, except that he was super rich. He told me I was "over educated" and that "most guys don't see that as a positive thing". Really fucknut? Because, I'm not the one who was so stupid I drank some water I shouldn't have and got giardia. Maybe you wouldn't be shitting your brains out all day if you were smart enough to have known the water wasn't safe.
"Shut up!" - This is an East Coast girl thing I think. I dislike it immensely when I am telling someone a good story (e.g. "So, last night I had a date with a guy who had explosive diarrhea") and I'm interrupted with the exclamation "Shut up!" I often fantasize about slapping the utterer across the face and then waiting to see what will happen next.
"Toodles" - Guys seem to say this to me. I have no idea why. How can you purport to be straight and say such a thing?
Monday, June 23, 2008
girl fight tonight
Is it not bad enough that I have spent the past two weeks in Vegas getting hit on by a very unattractive lesbian? Why, baby Jesus, did you put that stupid bitch C in my class today?
This woman is a cunt of the highest order, which would be fine if she were smart, but she's really quite stupid, and worse, lies when confronted about the stupid shit she keeps saying in an attempt to derail my class. She started off the morning by making a stupid comment that was more aimed at me personally than the class material, which I turned around on her to explain because her logic was so poor it only took mere miliseconds to poke a hole in her argument (for architecture geeks, she stated that she had created a business function hierarchy using a UML activity model - this is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of).
So the next hour she escalated by making another, more personal comment and another more idiotic technical comment (that a sequence flow and a functional decomp accomplish the same thing). I seriously think she was out surfing web sites and just reading random sentences. She accused me of not knowing the course material that I am teaching (yeah, I've only been doing this FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS BITCH). Then she claimed the standard doc I teach to said something it didn't (that you could use an activity diagram in place of an IDEF0 or use case model). So, being a retarded engineer, I pulled up the standard and said "Show me where you read that" because I've used the standard since 2004 and I know what it fucking says because I argue with idiots like her all the time.
Meanwhile, the front row, all 8 seats, are filled with retired Navy guys, who start quietly chanting "girl fight tonight!" I can hear them, but C, who is sitting 5 rows away can't. I am trying to not laugh. I am trying to not jump up on the table in front of me, cross the room Lucy Liu style and cut her head off with my imaginary samurai sword.
I instead start to laugh as the "girl fight tonight" chant gets more lines added to it, of the flavor you would expect from a navy kind of guy. Fine, I'm immature. Cheri apparently thought I was laughing at her, started to cry (this woman, by the by, must be in her late 40s, going on, I guess, 5), and ran out of the room. Then there was stunned silence. I kept going with the class and then afterwards when everyone else had left the navy guys were all like "what the fuck was THAT?"
I'm pretty sure this doesn't happen to the male instructors but I could be wrong. And this could explain why women in general get a bad rap in engineering organizations.
This woman is a cunt of the highest order, which would be fine if she were smart, but she's really quite stupid, and worse, lies when confronted about the stupid shit she keeps saying in an attempt to derail my class. She started off the morning by making a stupid comment that was more aimed at me personally than the class material, which I turned around on her to explain because her logic was so poor it only took mere miliseconds to poke a hole in her argument (for architecture geeks, she stated that she had created a business function hierarchy using a UML activity model - this is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of).
So the next hour she escalated by making another, more personal comment and another more idiotic technical comment (that a sequence flow and a functional decomp accomplish the same thing). I seriously think she was out surfing web sites and just reading random sentences. She accused me of not knowing the course material that I am teaching (yeah, I've only been doing this FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS BITCH). Then she claimed the standard doc I teach to said something it didn't (that you could use an activity diagram in place of an IDEF0 or use case model). So, being a retarded engineer, I pulled up the standard and said "Show me where you read that" because I've used the standard since 2004 and I know what it fucking says because I argue with idiots like her all the time.
Meanwhile, the front row, all 8 seats, are filled with retired Navy guys, who start quietly chanting "girl fight tonight!" I can hear them, but C, who is sitting 5 rows away can't. I am trying to not laugh. I am trying to not jump up on the table in front of me, cross the room Lucy Liu style and cut her head off with my imaginary samurai sword.
I instead start to laugh as the "girl fight tonight" chant gets more lines added to it, of the flavor you would expect from a navy kind of guy. Fine, I'm immature. Cheri apparently thought I was laughing at her, started to cry (this woman, by the by, must be in her late 40s, going on, I guess, 5), and ran out of the room. Then there was stunned silence. I kept going with the class and then afterwards when everyone else had left the navy guys were all like "what the fuck was THAT?"
I'm pretty sure this doesn't happen to the male instructors but I could be wrong. And this could explain why women in general get a bad rap in engineering organizations.
Friday, May 23, 2008
"Here's your hockey octopus!"
I was reading an article today about why one should watch hockey. I read it in part because I was shocked that there was still hockey going on. Or maybe it's one of those sports that goes on all year, like...um...karate.
My favorite, of the 8 reasons cited by the author of why one should watch hockey, was this:
Octopi: Another sell for the NHL, Wyshynski says, is the grand tradition of bringing raw octopodes to the game and throwing them on the ice either before the game or to celebrate a goal. He says the league banned raw octopus-twirling because of the goo and slime, but they still make appearances, their eight legs representing the eight wins once required for a Stanley Cup win.
I am sorry to have not gotten to see this before the NHL banned the practice. I think giving a bunch of drunk red necks raw slimy things to throw during a sporting event is a great idea, slightly better than giving base ball bats out to passionate fans who have been drinking.
My favorite, of the 8 reasons cited by the author of why one should watch hockey, was this:
Octopi: Another sell for the NHL, Wyshynski says, is the grand tradition of bringing raw octopodes to the game and throwing them on the ice either before the game or to celebrate a goal. He says the league banned raw octopus-twirling because of the goo and slime, but they still make appearances, their eight legs representing the eight wins once required for a Stanley Cup win.
I am sorry to have not gotten to see this before the NHL banned the practice. I think giving a bunch of drunk red necks raw slimy things to throw during a sporting event is a great idea, slightly better than giving base ball bats out to passionate fans who have been drinking.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Slip Ray & Ajibberish
My favorite people to talk to when I fly out to DC are the people who work with Avis. I always rent cars from them and have gotten to know a few of the people there beyond just getting my receipt for my car.
One of my favorite people is Slip Ray. The other people at Avis call him Slip Ray because he’s always slipping and tripping getting onto or getting off the bus. I have personally seen him slip and almost fall three times getting onto the bus. Two of those times he was holding a big suitcase so it was really funny.
Then there is Ajibberish. Ajibberish is from Korea and no one can understand what he is saying so that’s why he’s Ajibberish. Usually he will lean his head out the window and yell at Slinky as we are pulling out of the Avis parking lot. Slinky is Slinky because he has orange dreds that are styled in this kind of weird spiral design. Ajibberish will yell “Hey Slinky! You no use you eyes where you put that cars!” And then Slinky will yell back “Why you always talking ajibberish?” Then the other two guys who work in the parking lot will start yelling “Ajibberish! Ajibberish!” Then Ajibberish gets a smile on his face like he’s Elvis and drives us about 40 miles an hour over the metal teeth and out the parking lot.
One time he missed the turn out of the parking lot and drove us up on this grass hill. The bus was momentarily stuck but Ajibberish finally figured out to put it in reverse and got us off the hill. The guys who work the guard shack came running over and Ajibberish yelled “I drive use the force!” Those of us that weren’t smiling were probably scared.
As I pulled into Avis today it was raining, and Slip Ray ran over to my SUV with an umbrella. I got stuck with a Dodge Nitro this week. They tried to give me an H3 but I flat out refused to take it. This was the same day the bandage was taken off my cornea and my eye was hurting horribly besides watering non-stop. The little Indian guy called Soup came running over and switched out my car. I think he thought I was crying about my car but I wasn’t.
Slip Ray grabbed my suitcase and escorted me to the bus. He’s been carrying my luggage for me since I broke my hand back in February. I tell him he doesn’t have to but I think he might have a crush on me. He was also excited to tell me about the woman bus driver Colleen. Colleen is a large, large woman who doesn’t always seem to be aware she is driving. I have made fun of Colleen to Slip Ray and Ajibberish, who don’t like her because she’s a bitch.
It turns out Colleen that very day backed her bus into a brand new Lincoln Navigator. Then she tried to say that the Lincoln Navigator hit her even though no one was in it. She was fired. The manager asked how how she could have missed seeing the Lincoln in the back up camera. Colleen apparently screamed at him “I wasn’t looking at the camera! I was trying to look at the steering wheel.” His repeat of this line in a female falsetto sent Ajibberish into hysterics. Then, as we arrived at the airport (Slip Ray rode the bus with me, ostensibly to help me with my bags, but mostly because he likes to tell me what has happened since the last time I was at Avis) he said “You know why she wrecked the bus? Cause she’s a woooooo-maaaaaaaaan!” I smiled and got off the bus, and as he was pulling away Ajibberish opened the bus door again and yelled “Woooooo-maaaaaan!” at me.
I think they deserve their own TV show.
One of my favorite people is Slip Ray. The other people at Avis call him Slip Ray because he’s always slipping and tripping getting onto or getting off the bus. I have personally seen him slip and almost fall three times getting onto the bus. Two of those times he was holding a big suitcase so it was really funny.
Then there is Ajibberish. Ajibberish is from Korea and no one can understand what he is saying so that’s why he’s Ajibberish. Usually he will lean his head out the window and yell at Slinky as we are pulling out of the Avis parking lot. Slinky is Slinky because he has orange dreds that are styled in this kind of weird spiral design. Ajibberish will yell “Hey Slinky! You no use you eyes where you put that cars!” And then Slinky will yell back “Why you always talking ajibberish?” Then the other two guys who work in the parking lot will start yelling “Ajibberish! Ajibberish!” Then Ajibberish gets a smile on his face like he’s Elvis and drives us about 40 miles an hour over the metal teeth and out the parking lot.
One time he missed the turn out of the parking lot and drove us up on this grass hill. The bus was momentarily stuck but Ajibberish finally figured out to put it in reverse and got us off the hill. The guys who work the guard shack came running over and Ajibberish yelled “I drive use the force!” Those of us that weren’t smiling were probably scared.
As I pulled into Avis today it was raining, and Slip Ray ran over to my SUV with an umbrella. I got stuck with a Dodge Nitro this week. They tried to give me an H3 but I flat out refused to take it. This was the same day the bandage was taken off my cornea and my eye was hurting horribly besides watering non-stop. The little Indian guy called Soup came running over and switched out my car. I think he thought I was crying about my car but I wasn’t.
Slip Ray grabbed my suitcase and escorted me to the bus. He’s been carrying my luggage for me since I broke my hand back in February. I tell him he doesn’t have to but I think he might have a crush on me. He was also excited to tell me about the woman bus driver Colleen. Colleen is a large, large woman who doesn’t always seem to be aware she is driving. I have made fun of Colleen to Slip Ray and Ajibberish, who don’t like her because she’s a bitch.
It turns out Colleen that very day backed her bus into a brand new Lincoln Navigator. Then she tried to say that the Lincoln Navigator hit her even though no one was in it. She was fired. The manager asked how how she could have missed seeing the Lincoln in the back up camera. Colleen apparently screamed at him “I wasn’t looking at the camera! I was trying to look at the steering wheel.” His repeat of this line in a female falsetto sent Ajibberish into hysterics. Then, as we arrived at the airport (Slip Ray rode the bus with me, ostensibly to help me with my bags, but mostly because he likes to tell me what has happened since the last time I was at Avis) he said “You know why she wrecked the bus? Cause she’s a woooooo-maaaaaaaaan!” I smiled and got off the bus, and as he was pulling away Ajibberish opened the bus door again and yelled “Woooooo-maaaaaan!” at me.
I think they deserve their own TV show.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Dr. D's Dirty Undies
My wonderful opthamologist (if you are in the Denver area and need a good eye doctor send me an email and I'll give you his name) told me the following story when I was in his office Monday getting the old eye ball checked out...
He often goes to Mexico and brings back Cuban cigars which he sneaks in either in his coat or, if it's warm, under his shirt. He's jewish and as our MOT has suffered throughout history we figure it's okay to to say fuck it to some arbitrary embargo.
The past month, coming back from Mexico, TSA found out he was a doctor, and, as he went through customs, they pulled him aside and started going through all of his bags. He said they began ripping his bags open and throwing the contents all over the floor of the airport. As he says it "Dirty underwear was flying everywhere!"
The reasoning given by TSA is that they had gotten some intell that a doctor was smuggling body parts into the US. Never mind that Dr. D is an opthamologist, so what did they think he was going to smuggle in, eyeballs, and that, in general, packing, say, a heart or lung in with your dirty underwear is not a great way to ensure the viability of the organ for a transplant.
Lovely that our airports are being run by people who can't even get a job at McDonald's. If you say they are protecting me put the word in quotes.
He often goes to Mexico and brings back Cuban cigars which he sneaks in either in his coat or, if it's warm, under his shirt. He's jewish and as our MOT has suffered throughout history we figure it's okay to to say fuck it to some arbitrary embargo.
The past month, coming back from Mexico, TSA found out he was a doctor, and, as he went through customs, they pulled him aside and started going through all of his bags. He said they began ripping his bags open and throwing the contents all over the floor of the airport. As he says it "Dirty underwear was flying everywhere!"
The reasoning given by TSA is that they had gotten some intell that a doctor was smuggling body parts into the US. Never mind that Dr. D is an opthamologist, so what did they think he was going to smuggle in, eyeballs, and that, in general, packing, say, a heart or lung in with your dirty underwear is not a great way to ensure the viability of the organ for a transplant.
Lovely that our airports are being run by people who can't even get a job at McDonald's. If you say they are protecting me put the word in quotes.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Proust Questionnaire: James "justifiably james" Nathan
So, let's see...the first time I met James I was jacked up on chemo sitting in his office trying to figure out what the fuck he was talking about regarding RBAC, ISSM, and wanting me to write a paper on the security features of Solaris 10. I went to the nearest bathroom and puked. He got me out to Denver on a project and supported me through my time with the c. He is one of my true friends and I know if anything every happened to me I could count on Jamesy to help me out. We are going to work on a book together, as soon as the other one is out the door, called "the player chronicles". Hugs & xxx to you J.
http://iamanmd.multiply.com
What is your current state of mind?
BLESSED
What is your greatest fear?
That I wont live long enough to see my children prosper
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
my Patience and acceptance of people
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
lack of integrity
What living person do you most admire?
Muhammad Ali
What living person do you most despise?
hmmmm any conservative talk show host
On what occasion do you lie?
"daddy is santa going to grand ma house too"
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Vera Viera my second wife
When and where were you happiest?
Hawaii
Which talent would you most like to have?
SING
If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?
my height
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
my girls are my greatest achievement
If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
hmmm OBAMA
What is your favorite occupation?
the one i am now
Who are your favorite writers?
lawd!! JR TOLKIEN , Philip Margolin, LA Banks, Cornel West
Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Aragon
Who are your heroes in real life?
Ali, OBAMA, Ben Disraeli, my grand pop
What are your favorite names?
James, Franki, Aayana, Aanisa, Aarika, Aakira, to name a few :)
What is your greatest regret?
that I didnt go back to art school
How would you like to die?
in my bed in my house, in my sleep with my children around me
What is your motto?
Today is a day worth LIVING FOR!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
