puffins

Today I was having a conversation with a colleague about the movie Four Lions and I accidentally said "penguin" instead of "puffin".

Me: blah blah blah penguin
C: you mean puffin
Me: what, are you an expert on puffins now? do you own a puffin?
C: no, and now I realize why I have this empty space in my life, it's because I don't have a puffin
Me: I could draw you a puffin, I am quite the artist
C: great, a non-interactive puffin, how will a piece of paper participate on social media?

So I went back to my cube and drew a puffin with a conversation bubble coming out of it's mouth that said "sorry I have asperger's". He put it next to his monitor. And I'm still laughing about it.

from a creature great to a creature small (and annoying)

On Saturday I was working in my back yard and some crack head fucking squirrel went into my garage. It took me forever to get him out and he was scaring me because he was running around on the garage beams right above my head and I didn't want it to jump on me and bite me causing me to have to get rabies shots.

Then last night I got home from work to find a mess in my garage. Things were knocked over, paper was shredded, and my favorite spray bottle was on the floor. At first I thought someone had broken into my garage.

I realized, after seeing some wiring that was chewed all to shit that was hanging out of a plastic storage container on a high shelf that it was a squirrel. I was like "that's fucking great" and I took the broom and started poking around at the stuff on my shelves and the dark space behind the shelves. I was pretty pissed because it was late, I was tired, and I wanted to work out, not look for a squirrel.

I left the door open, went into my house, changed, and went back out to the garage. I figured in the 10 minutes that had elapsed the stupid squirrel would have left my garage. I pulled the container with the chewed up wires down so I could clean up what ever mess was in it. I would mention I had shaken the container three times before pulling it down.

Right as the container was sliding off the shelf a fucking squirrel jumped out. It was headed towards my face so I looked down and it landed on my head. Then it scampered off to hide behind a plastic wardrobe where I keep my skis and stuff.

I didn't want to drive to Ace hardware to get a cage to trap it so I texted my dad. He first suggested I get Bentley to take care of the squirrel, and then suggested I use the hose to scare the squirrel out of hiding. I hooked up the hose and sprayed the crap out of every conceivable squirrel hiding place.

I didn't see the squirrel leave but this morning there was no more garage destruction. So I guess it's gone. Meanwhile, this weekend I'm cleaning the garage out and reconfiguring it so squirrels have nowhere to hide.

Fucking squirrels. I hate you.

and now for some big news - I bought a tiger!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and was bitten by a bear

I was contemplating getting a pet. I was thinking to get a dog, but then was also thinking about how I've always wanted a tiger.

And...a tiger is tax deductible, won't poop in my yard, and won't get hair all over the place.

Dog - 0            Tiger - 1

I spent months researching sanctuaries. I finally found one I like, outside Colorado Springs. And then I found my perfect tiger.
 

So, you might think I'm bias, but I think Bentley is the best looking tiger in the sanctuary, if not the world :) I toured the sanctuary today and then hung out with Bentley for an hour. He did a lot of cute things.

He's two years old, 6 feet tall, and they guess he weighs about 500 lbs (obviously it's hard to weigh a tiger). He's not on the normal sanctuary tour because he's shy and usually doesn't come out when people are around but he came right up to the fence when I got there. He even chuffed at me a few times. Chuffing is how tigers talk to each other and it sounds like they are grunting but also growling. It's kind of hard to explain...

Bentley was just chilling out under his structure when I first arrived

I was like "hey Bentley" and surprisingly he came over

 

Bentley having a discussion with his neighbor - he was probably like "yeah, I got adopted biotch!" and his neighbor was like "she's too skinny to eat, fuck her!"

I was telling Bentley about Bringing Up Baby and he was like "yeah, that's pretty accurate tiger behavior"

Here I asked Bentley if he ever watches tiger documentaries and he's like "I'm too cool for school - no"

I mentioned to him that tigers can't eat pizza or sushi - he seemed upset at first but in the end was okay with that

Bentley's brother is to the right - I hate to say it but Bentley's better looking

I don't care if he was stretching because I was boring him - he's too adorable

this is him giving me his "fierce" look

here I asked him to give me the "tiger" look

I have a phone meeting with the experience director to decide on some toys for him. I definitely want to get him a ball in ball toy (it's a round doughnut looking thing that has holes and a small ball within the doughnut area and the tiger can bat the inner ball around via the holes - according to my research it's a favorite among tigers) and a ball with bells in it (tigers like toys that make sounds). Most of the tigers just have 16 lb bowling balls. They love bowling balls for some reason. 

As for feeding...Bentley is served a frozen meat brick. They chuck the meat bricks over the fence. The fence is really high. I need more time on my rower to build up my arm strength. Not sure how to improve my aim, I don't want to hit Bentley with a meat brick. Tigers can eat up to 60 lbs of meat in one sitting. That's a lot of meat to chuck over a 20 ft fence.

I can go see Bentley when ever I want (within reason), I just have to call and schedule it. The meet and greet (my brother Bob wanted to ensure it wasn't a "Meat and Greet") means you can get close to Bentley but you can't touch the fence or him. There are very strict laws regarding the handling of wild animals for any organization that wants an accreditation. You aren't allowed to handle wild animals after they are three months old because it could endanger the animal or the person. I'll be going out to see him at least once a month (honestly, probably more often if they let me).

After visiting Bentley the guide, Kristy, asked if I wanted to play with a 3 month old black bear. Um, YES!!!! 

Little did I know. She kept climbing into my lap and her (not retractable) claws are pretty sharp. She also climbed up my leg which was more painful than I would have imagined (baby bears like to climb everything taller than them, including people and other bears). 

The handler told me not to put my face anywhere near the bear's face but it was kind of hard to control the bear. Imagine a toddler on a double dose of crack cocaine washed down with a case of red bull and that's the energy level of a baby bear. The little scamp even bit me on the hand. After 5 minutes I was like "okay, done with the bear".

But I might buy her too...

Here comes trouble...with claws..and teeth

She wanted to sit in my lap. Given her weight she wasn't exactly a lap bear (she's heavier than she looks). And she wanted to eat my necklace.

And my phone...

Here she's trying to jump from my lap to the floor

since the handler had my phone she decided to eat the phone holder...kind of cool to have a phone holder with bear bite marks

 More Bentley (and maybe bears) coming soon...

asian bondage

I went to the shibari art show, knotty by nature, last night. Yawn.

The women getting tied up hung from this. Errol's wife was like "fuck that, let the guy get tied up and hang from a beam".

This is the only picture I took for this art show - I didn't want to put naked women on my blog.

The best part of the show was getting to meet more neighbors and Errol's wife, who works in Hollywood casting commercials and stuff. We were kindred spirits who both found the bondage shit insulting to women (we walked out during the first performance). We stood in the front courtyard and talked about a lot of things from the penal system to health care.

The performers had to take an hour break between sets (I assume it's quite exhausting to be tied up and hung) so a bunch of people from the show joined Errol's wife and I in the courtyard. One woman asked why we left and when we told her it was insulting she said "You have to be very dominant to allow yourself to be submissive" and I was like "what bullshit" and Errol's wife said "do you really believe that?"

Errol and his wife have lived in this neighborhood since 1984. She told me about planting petunias in her front yard while worrying about being shot. Her place kept getting tagged so she stopped some gang members on the street one day and asked them to stop. The next day she went outside to find a beautiful unicorn spray painted on the front of the building. Unfortunately the city painted over it before she could ask them to save it.

There was an almost full moon last night, which was nice. As people left the courtyard to watch the rest of the show, and I got ready to walk home since I had to get up early today, 20 scooters drove down the street. It's hard to explain but it had a magical feel to it, like seeing phosphorous in the ocean.

I'm sure I'll be hanging out with Errol's wife again. She said I could stop by any time to visit.

things I've gotten in trouble for at my new job

It's all hazing, but funny...

 1. Smoking a fake cigarette in my cube.
2. Smoking a fake cigarette outside but not in the smoker's area (they are going to set up a fake smoker's area for me so I don't have to stand near the smokers).
3. Walking too fast in the hallway (apparently I scared someone with my fast walking).
4. Failing to turn off my cube lights (that cost me 2 tacos).
5. Not holding onto the hand rail while going down the steps (when I told my friend Dorothy about that she said "did you trip while you were walking down the stairs?" - hahaha!!!!).
6. Having my ID turned the wrong way (even though I tried to explain it was turned the wrong way because it was tangled in my scarf and my cube mate was trying to help me untangle it).
7.  Leaving tangerines on my desk on a day our office was inspected (I have by far the cleanest work area of anyone).
8. Eating cookies in the tornado shelter.
9. Clicking too many times on a button to launch a test on information assurance (how was I supposed to know it takes 10 minutes to load).
10. Not wearing a red shirt on red shirt day (I failed to comprehend how I would know when the next red day shirt is happening so I was advised to keep a red shirt in my car at all times).

In other news, today someone brought in doughnuts and a guy choked as he was eating his and then he said "that chocolate doughnut went down the wrong hole". The guys had a field day with that.

And tomorrow I've been invited to another art show my neighbor is having. This one is called "Knotty by Nature" and features a Korean artist who does shibari art. Should be...interesting.

a security event screws up my Thursday evening

Yesterday we had something crazy happen. The alarm for a secured area has been randomly going off. For whatever reason it went off last night right as I was about to go home. The police came and barricaded our building and wouldn't let anyone leave. Then they started calling the three people who knew the code to turn the alarm off and finally got in touch with a woman (she was at a gas station). Because the code is secret she had to come back to the base instead of giving it to the officer over the phone. It took 45 minutes for her to get back to base. Meanwhile the cops stood in front of the doors with their guns. We were all like seriously??????? They had to because the alarm going off is a security event but it seemed a little stupid to have guns, especially since they knew the security event was a faulty alarm.

Anyway, there were just a few of us left (this place is empty by 430, at this point it was almost 6 pm). It was me, two african american men, and one african american woman. After the cops left the building we were told by security that we could leave. The people I had been hanging out with were like "you go out first!" because the cops were still in the parking lot. They were honestly afraid they would get in trouble or something. So I walked out first, followed by the woman and then the two men. The woman asked me to walk her to her car just to be sure everything was okay, and then she followed me out of the parking lot. After we were a a mile away from the office she pulled up next to me at a stop sign and said she was going to hang out with me from now on because I'll keep her out of trouble.

Ha.

play off

I was set up on a sort of blind date last Thursday. The victim in question is a retired hockey player. I thought, perfect, I'll finally learn something about hockey.

The date Thursday got off to a bad start when I went to the wrong bar (do you know how many bars are called the Tavern in Denver? a lot). But all seemed to be forgiven when I finally showed up at the right bar. We made a plan to meet at his house Friday for thai food and then the hockey playoffs.

Friday morning he texted me that he was going to play golf. I had gotten to work super early so I could leave at a decent hour (it's hard having an hour commute after all these years of plane commuting). Traffic heading home was horrible and took an hour. That left me 20 minutes to make myself look decent enough to go on a second date. As I was rushing around trying to figure out what to wear and do something with my hair he called.

date: What do you want to eat?
me: What thai restaurant is it, I'll look up the menu.
d: I'll just order chicken.

A few minutes later he called me back:

d: It's going to take them 25 minutes for carry out and I don't want to wait, so can you pick the food up? I'll pay for it.

Now, think about that for a second. I spent 2 hours of my day commuting and 8 hours working. He was playing golf. And he picked a restaurant on Colfax where parking is, to put it mildly, a big fucking challenge (I ended up parking illegally and luckily did not get a ticket). The restaurant was a mile from his house but out of the way for me. But like an idiot, I agreed to pick up the food. The evening kind of went downhill from there.

1. When I arrived with the food, he served himself, then licked the spoon, then put the food on the floor and used the same spoon to dish some of the food into his dog's bowl. Then he handed me the spoon so I could get some food. I used my fork. Dogs eat feces and lick their ass. I am not going to use a utensil that touched their food bowl.

2. He talked to his dog more than he did to me.

3. Minutes into the hockey game he complained about his hurt wrist (truth told, his wrist is really fucked up, as is the hand attached to the wrist, it was his "fighting hand" when he played hockey) so I gave him a wrist massage and he fell asleep.

4. The only thing I learned about hockey is "icing" and when I told my mom she said "that's the first thing I learned about hockey, everyone knows that". Wait, that's not true, I learned something else. When I finally decided to ask a question, which was "why aren't the guys hitting each other in the ass with their hockey sticks" I was told "this is the play offs, you don't do stuff like that in the playoffs".

I may have also made a faux pas when I first walked into his TV room because he had a number of signed footballs and I said "oh, they were all signed by quarterbacks" (full disclosure, I knew two of the signatures were quarterbacks and extrapolated that all of the balls were signed by quarterbacks). He looked at me and said "of course". But it's not like quarterbacks are the only dudes that touch the ball. So why wouldn't a running back or what ever sign a football? Was that really such a stupid comment?

Oh well. The joys of dating.

I had told some people at work about my date so today everyone wanted to know how it went. I told them the story and they were all laughing at me and then this kid that I am going to be a mentor to regarding architecture said "how could any guy not like you?" And he seemed sincere. That was sweet, though he's young and naive (and funny - today he came in late and I called him a slacker and he said "I had to go to the dentist" and then he said "did they have dentists back when you were my age?"). And my friend Jess said "oh funny, the dog went on his first date".

Guess you have to laugh.

other themes of the day

On Thursday nights the carpets in our office get cleaned. This is something the guys look forward to for reasons I can't quite fathom, but they talked about it obsessively on Friday. I think maybe because the carpet cleaner smells sort of like new car.

In any case some poor young woman was carrying a paper plate of scrambled eggs and what not back to her cube on Friday morning when someone either startled or ran into her. Eggs went flying everywhere. A guy yelled "YOU SEE! THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!!!!" and that became the theme of the day. Guys kept sneaking up on each other and yelling that in the hopes of causing the poor hapless individual they had snuck up on to spill something on the carpet.

And today, this poor gangly white kid came in with a new haircut. All the brothers had been teasing him about his hair on Friday, calling him mop and glow and shit. The kid had chosen a haircut style that I guess in his mind looked like the style that the brothers had. As he walked into his cube area, somewhat proudly, one of the brothers yelled "Yo, you 5-0 now?" and another joined in "you look like an undercover cop!!!!" I wish I had written down some of the more witty phrases these guys came up with.

I know I shouldn't laugh but I can't help it. It's not mean hazing. It's pretty funny. I could probably write a comedy series by just recording what happens at my office every day.

In other news, some of my seeds are starting to sprout!!!!! I wish I had kept track of which seeds I put where.

so these are either herbs and some vegetables or some vegetables and a few herbs - I planted half of this with veggies and half with herbs

seeds!

My replacement broken parts finally came for my grow light. I planted all my seeds tonight. Here's hoping for a good outcome.

I put soil in there instead of grow pods because I've never heard of grow pods before...not sure it's going to work, we'll see

shenanigans at the office

I really like my new office environment, if for no other reason than everyone who works there is hilarious. The people are always making fun of each other.

Yesterday a new guy showed up and all the other guys farted on his chair before he could sit down in it. Then they spent the rest of the day asking the new guy if he was aware of any "unidentified farting objects" in the office.

Today a guy came in late because he said he had an emergency doctor's appointment. Everyone knew he was hung over so as he walked through the cube farm and stopped to talk to people the first thing they would ask him, loudly, is "SO WAS IT A YEAST INFECTION?"

Though, I am going to get some noise cancellation headphones. Sometimes the rowdiness is too much for me. I'm used to working in my little office with only noise from the treadmill. And I miss being able to walk while I work. But I'll figure something out.

green mountain lion

Sunday I went hiking with the amazons. We went to green mountain since it's supposed to be a nice hike for dogs. Edge is afraid of mountain lions and bears. He grew up in Brazil and they don't have that kind of wild life (though Jess pointed out they have even scarier critters there).

I assured him there was no chance we'd see one. The trail was either muddy or snowy. By the time we got to the top we were all splattered with mud and our shoes looked like they had been plastered with concrete (except Edge's shoes, which were proper hiking shoes - the rest of us wore running shoes). 

 

I was also wearing my new Voormi Hi-E hoody, which is awesome. 

 

When we got to the summit, Edge took a panoramic picture. I was standing by the east side of the mountain and I swore I heard a mountain lion. No one else heard it. Then I got worried because I didn't want everyone to think I was fucking with Edge.

But as we headed back down the trail...there were tons of mountain lion prints. And they were very fresh. You could even see, in the prints in the snow, where the mountain lion's tail was dragging behind it. 

 

I'll post better pics tomorrow...I'm guessing it was a pretty big mountain lion, I will post a pic with Edge's shoe next to the print for scale

We hurried down the mountain, Edge with two rocks and Ericka with her bear spray. I wonder what the people coming the other way thought we were doing. We did warn everyone we saw about the tracks. I would also note that we saw deer tracks near the mountain lion tracks. I wonder if it ate the deer.

And I wonder if they will ever hike with me again. Kidding, we have plans to go next weekend.

when snake dreams become reality

Today I decided to have some fun, since I am technically on vacation. I drove down to Roxborough and bought a new park pass and hit the trails.

First, I would like to say huge kudos to Roxborough for the amazing trail work they've done over the past year. I hiked the Elk Meadow trail for the first time in years because it's finally been cleared of overhanging vegetation.

I of course avoid overhanging vegetation on trails because you know who hangs out in vegetation? Snakes. And then you can't see them and then they bite your ass and you die.

Today I was a little more paranoid than normal on my hikes (I did three trails). My snake sense was up and that usually means I'm going to see a snake. I don't know how I can sense them but I do. Anyway, my hike up carpenter's peak went something like this:

Oh fuck, a snake!
No wait, it's just a weird rock.
AAAAAHHHHH, but that's a snake!!!!!
Oops, actually it's just a stick.
SNAKE IN THE UNDERBRUSH!!!!
Um, I mean, a bird.  They're descendents of snakes so I'm not an idiot for being confused.

And then as I was coming down carpenter's peak I saw what I thought was a strip of neon green fabric on the trail. That's odd, I thought to myself.

And then the fabric moved.

at first it just looked at me like "what you gonna do biotch? you might be bigger than me but you can't get past me because I'm taking up the whole trail. hahahaha! let's see what heart rate your fitbit is registering now because you're afraid of me. hahahahahahaha!!!!!!"

and then it looked at me in a menacing way

The snake was EXACTLY like a snake I dreamed about 5 years ago, when I thought I had cured my snake phobia, down to the unnatural neon green color. That freaked me out even more because in my dream it was the most poisonous snake in the world.

At first I tried to rationalize with the snake. "Look," I said, "you're screwing up my work out stats because I'm just standing here not moving and it's been like 2 minutes already. And you didn't pay to use this trail but I did. So kindly step aside and let me pass."

When that didn't work I jumped on the ground to make it seem like a big animal was coming to eat the snake. That only made the snake rear its head up higher.

Then I decided to get a rock and gently roll it toward the snake to scare it. I had to walk about 20 feet down the trail and the only rock I could find was square-ish. I was pretty sure I would not be able to roll it but figured I could toss it near the snake and if I accidentally hit the snake, well, tough shit. So I walked back to the snake and said "I have this rock and I will use it to scare you, and I don't want to hit you, but I am the most uncoordinated person on the planet so if it hits you it's your fault because right now, frankly, you are being an unreasonable asshole."

Surprisingly, the snake bent around, head to tail, and then slithered into the bushes.

I was going to run the rest of the way to the visitor center but didn't want to give the snake the satisfaction.

The funniest part of the story is that when I got to the visitor center, wanting to inquire there about the snake, I found the park ranger desk empty and a lobby full of senior citizens. I asked if any of them knew anything about snakes. They all wanted to see my snake pictures. Then a bunch of them asked me to email the pics to them so they could show grand children and what not. They all were impressed how bright the snake was and one woman told me I had had a marvelous experience. I was momentarily the rock star at Roxborough.

The ranger finally returned and said it was a green racer snake and that it's so bright because all the snakes have been shedding and how lucky I was to see it right after it had shed so I could see its true color.

After 20 minutes I managed to extract myself from the seniors' group and got on my way.

I would also mention as a side note that I really wanted to go to Roxborough yesterday but had a feeling of uneasiness and decided to get all my chores done instead. There was a rattlesnake on the trail yesterday.

tires, tired

Well, it's been a hell of a week and I'm glad it's in the rear view.

I got all my loose ends tied up by late Friday evening and all I have left to do is off board from my current job. And get up to speed on my new job. The PM sent me over 200 pages of documentation which I'm weeding through.

And I've been knocking stuff off my home to do list. I replaced my upstairs faucet and drain. The drain wasn't removable so it kept getting clogged. And the faucet lost an o ring and kept leaking in annoying ways. The new faucet is pretty cool.

drip free and easy to clean!

I also replaced the tires on my cyclocross bike with flat proof tires that my dad sent me. And I replaced the dealer tires on my Cross Trek with better all weather tires. I replaced my car tires at Big O. They gave me 85% of the value of the tires and then knocked another $50 off the price because I had to wait 45 minutes for them to go to another store and get the tires. And they were having a buy 3 get one free sale. I got a great deal.

major jake is ready to run over broken glass and take on thorns

I also got some friends to move a cabinet out of my kitchen to the upstairs guest bedroom. I never felt it worked well in the kitchen. 

I just need to move some art around to finish the look of this room

yes, I've turned my kitchen back into a gym

 

 

 Today I had my water heater replaced. It was 20 years old and now that I'm not working from home I decided best to be proactive and replace it because it's going to be hard in the next few months to take time off. 

Finally, I started my seed project today. I bought a germination kit and a grow light and was planning to get my garden started now. Of course, the kit was missing the electrical cord and the bulb for the grow light was broken...but they are going to replace them.

shit I'm going to grow...purple carrots!!!!!

the germination station

the grow light stand - pissed it's broken

 Think tomorrow I will head up to the mountains for a ski and to test my new tires out...

free at last

I quit my job today.

I have been miserable working for my idiot manager and told my parents that I was going to start looking for a new job as soon as I got my bonus for last year's work. I got the bonus on Thursday and then, the same day, was contacted by a recruiter who pitched me a job that I was a perfect fit for. She told me she would have the project manager call me.

Meanwhile, an old client emailed me the same job on Friday. It turned out he is the project manager. I spoke with him at 8 am this morning and they had an offer letter to me by noon today. I think the universe threw me an opportunity and I ran with it. So relieved to be out of my current company.

My horoscope for today:

I suspected someone's been spying on me...

...and confirmed my suspicions last night as I was putting my sushi on a plate in the kitchen.

my neighbor's cat Bobo

I would also like to take this opportunity to mention that my niece came in second place at her school's trashion show. The dress was made, in part, with 2,000 woven together soda pop tops.

amazon is the best

I arrived home at 2 am Friday morning, because of flight delays, from my trip to California. While in Cali I was working so much that I ended up getting sicker rather than better. All I wanted to do was go to bed and sleep for 10 hours but instead I had to get up at 8 am for an offshore meeting. Then my admin suggested I try to end the day early but I had meetings until 5 pm. By the time Friday was over I was exhausted.

And then there was the shit thing that happened...

I pre-ordered the DVD for Dance Moms season 3 (shut up, I like Abby, she's a great manager when she isn't being dramatic) 6 months ago. I got an email last week that it was finally going to ship. I was super excited because it was supposed to arrive Thursday and all I could think about on the plane was getting my dance moms DVD. But when I got home there was no package. I waited for the mail on Friday figuring it would arrive then. Nope.

So I checked on Amazon and they said my DVD was delivered. I tried to trace the package through USPS (nightmare) but they said it would take them 3 - 4 days to figure out where it was. So I sent an email to Amazon explaining the situation, and you know what they did? They sent out a new DVD which will arrive Tuesday with no charge to me. And I had a lovely email exchange with some guy named Sharad who also loves dance moms (or claimed to anyway).

Thanks Amazon!!!!

California scheming

I flew into Cali on Sunday feeling like death warmed over. I have had bronchitis for the past week. I got sick last Sunday and have not been able to shake the cough. Last time I was sick was in January 2011. Guess I shouldn't have been bragging to my colleagues about how I never get sick.

I was worried that I would have a coughing fit on the plane but it turns out half the people flying seem to have the same thing I do. I was so hopped up on dayquil that I didn't realize my colleague P was on the flight until he smacked me on the arm at the bus stop for the rental cars. He thought I was ignoring him on purpose. Embarrassing.

I went to bed at 830 last night because I had a long day today, including a meeting with my boss who hates me. I have to say that every time I interact with him he is nicer to me. But, this is an example of what is driving me insane:

DHBoss: Oh Franki, you are so tan, you are taking so much vacation!

(Note that I have been working 10 - 12 hour days, including working weekends)

Me: I'm not sure what you mean.
DHB: Your face is so red!
Me: I think it's because I have a fever. I'm trying to shake bronchitis.

(Note that anyone around me knows I'm sick because I have a horrible cough and my coloring is about as healthy as a super size me diet)

DHB: You are not sick. You have allergies. I have allergies too. 

(he coughs, perhaps to compete with my lung splitting cough which I can't control)

Me: Um, no, I have bronchitis.
DHB: You need to go home! If you work when you're sick it just drags things out forever!

Then he gave me a bunch of assignments due at the end of this week. When I pointed out I don't have time to stay home sick because I have so much to do he agreed with me.

So, why suggest I go home sick?

I talked to someone who used to work for my boss and he said "if you call in sick you better have a doctor's note."

No shit.

In other, happy news, I've gotten to see a bunch of colleagues I haven't seen in 3 months. Every time I come out here I feel like a geek star because everyone seems happy to see me.  Even my old boss wants me to share his office (I declined, my coughing drives even me crazy). Today three large (tall and fat) men accosted me in the hallway when I was walking to a meeting. Turns out they are consultants I've been talking to on the phone. They recognized me because my Cali colleagues keep talking about my pink highlights.

Today's the first day I got 10,000 steps in since I got sick. I hope I'm turning a corner with this bronchitis shit. I'm pretty much over it. And I can't keep taking double doses of dayquil and mucinex (am I even supposed to take those two things together???) just so I can get through the day.

oh brothers

I sent the following email to my older younger brother who's been coaching me on development environments:

me: 

You might be shocked, but I'm really starting to understand all that technology shit on my lotus notes and sharepoint slides. The customer seems really happy with what I've put together and we're going to test it on two applications next week. Fingers crossed. I also learned a bunch of shit about InfoPath, template deprecation (I think that's a cool phrase, I keep saying it even when it's not appropriate), and Xpages.

Bob: 

I'm glad you're getting into a groove at work.  I hope the test migrations go well.

I got your dvd on sunday.  I opened it, but haven't watched it.  

I've been tinkering with creating my drone hardware (the stuff that flies with the airplane). It's difficult to write and test embedded software - you can't easily tell what's going on.  And there isn't much memory or program space, so your code has to be super-tight.  And it's a real-time environment, as you're reading carefully timed pulses from the rc radio and generating carefully-timed pulses to control the servos.  Of course when the radio is not there (aka it's autonomous) you have to do calculations on where you are and where you want to go, while still having time to generate carefully-timed pulses to control the motors.  Here's a failed attempt:

WARNING

Sketch uses 15,736 bytes (51%) of program storage space. Maximum is 30,720 bytes.

Global variables use 2,841 bytes (138%) of dynamic memory, leaving -793 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 2,048 bytes

Um, I guess I'm not learning as much about software development in these days as I thought. I had to read this email twice just to sort of understand what he was saying.

Then I got this from my other brother:

You should enter this contest. Just remember your baby brother and his wife love their stuff.

I opened the attachment thinking it would be a writing contest. It was actually a contest to find a model for Duluth Trading Company. Maybe he thinks the model gets free stuff?

I responded:

The model has to have fetching features and be able to fix stuff...
Maybe I could submit a picture of myself standing next to my spider mite infested tomatoes :)

He responded:

Send a post about your swamp cooler and pictures of you ice climbing. Don't worry about the features. Doesn't hurt to try. Plus Mom and Dad will get a kick put of you being in the catalog. Don't forget Dad, me and Tammie all love their stuff and you would too if you were the outdoors type.

If they make you fix something just put in a Bluetooth and call me. If you can't just say "Ok Google" to your phone and ask it.

I hate talking on my phone. I can't imagine talking to my phone.

But maybe I'll enter the contest. I'm sure it would make for a funny rejection blog post.

there's a reason I always keep my house clean

I had a bunch of errands to do today, my last one being a trip to the post office. On my way back I saw my next door neighbor outside and we started talking. Then a couple came by and my neighbor introduced us. The couple live two blocks from me and, as it happens, they are in the process of redoing their kitchen AND they run the house tour for my neighborhood.

My neighbor suggested I give them a tour of my house, so I did. They loved it and want me to be on the next house tour. The husband said my house is the most unique property in our neighborhood (most people decorate with traditional Victorian stuff - expensive but not creative). The wife took tons of pictures of my kitchen and bathrooms and said she was going to steal some ideas from me (I gave a lot of props to Christine - maybe they'll work with her).

Maybe after I pay off my mortgage I'll do some design work. Although I am getting excited about my data analysis (data visualization) class. It's one of the few things I've done at work that I thought "I could do this the rest of my life and be happy." I never thought I'd do anything but enterprise architecture...

a confession that embarrasses me

One of the most useful things I learned in my astronomy class was how to find stars by using easy to see constellations. I also learned how to use a planisphere (I got one with my course).

However, something has been troubling me for the past two weeks as I took the class. Most of the constellations have stories that explain where they are in the sky and that are supposed to help you recognize them. And I consider myself a pretty creative person.

I can't see the fucking bear in ursa major. I can't see the horse in Pegasus. The southern cross is supposed to be so beautiful but it looked like all the other stars. About the only constellation that I can really see is the big dipper. Pathetic.

And I got completely confused by stories about mortals sleeping with gods or gods chasing creatures and throwing them in the sky like the hydra and all that shit about lovers being banished to the edges of the universe but being able to see each other once a year because magpies would gather so they could walk across the sky and see each other (can't remember the name of those two constellations, but it was something about a god being pissed at two mortals who were in love so he separated them or some shit). And that story about the dude, Phaethon, who rode his dad's chariot across the sky and wrecked it...why does that story, which is so old, not redeem women drivers?

My favorite lecture was on the northern globulars. Mostly because I just like that phrase. I find myself saying it in my head over and over

I now know what causes the aurora borealis and why you can sometimes see the moon during the day. I know the difference between spiral galaxies and clusters. One interesting thing is that we think we're a spiral galaxy but we don't know because we can't see ourselves.

Next week I start a data analysis class. Hopefully that will be as entertaining.