quirks of quantum electrodynamics,etc.

I have unfortunately gone down the bottomless worm hole of the casimir effect and need to stop reading articles about it. I heard about it while taking a study break last week and, checking out Discovery channel in the hopes that a shark show might be on, and instead stumbling on the show Ancient Aliens, where there was mention of the aforementioned casimir effect, I got obsessed.

Because that's what aspies do. 

I may figure out how to levitate. I think if I know how to levitate I would get invited to more parties. In fact, right as I started my research, I received an invite to a paradox sports party.

I bought the first two seasons of Ancient Aliens for my dad and we watched them a couple of thanksgivings ago. He thought it was a comedy. I didn't correct him. We laughed through both seasons.

But, discovery channel, really? Why clog the tv with that shit when you have all those good shark shows I want to see but can't except when I'm in a hotel because I don't have a tv? Next time I'll send you my schedule so you can plan accordingly.

I would also mention I have been reading about mereotopology for no good reason other than it has some relationship to meta models, which I love.

Today and tomorrow I have to catch up on my spanish class. I'm trying at the moment, even though I'm tired, to memorize the top five phrases I'll probably need to know: 

"Tienas una curita?" (do you have a band aid?) 
"Soy alergico a la miel y mariscos" (I'm allergic to honey and shellfish)
"Te gustan los tiberones?" (do you like sharks? (it's good to bond with people over common obsessions))
"Cuanto para el enano?" (how much for the midget?)
"Estoy bastante seguro de que se ha roto." (I'm pretty sure it's broken (thought I would keep that general, I break a lot of shit))

I've been in Texas too long. My brain is turning into refried beans or some other badly executed mexican dish.

I passed my iEAi exam on Friday (I missed one point on a rather bullshit question, the worst grade is 99 out of 100, that's like getting second place) and am now a certified international enterprise architect. Fucking yiiiippppeeeee. The exam took two hours. It sucked. I got the highest grade in the class and the company that teaches the class wants to certify me to teach it. As you can tell from the pic, the certification means so much to me that I got it all wrinkled within 10 minutes of receiving it. I put it in my suitcase next to all my dirty socks.

trust me, I'm internationally certified

Four people failed the final. I told them I would do some break out study sessions with them over the next month so they can retake the exam.

Flight from San Antonio was a disaster start to finish. The exam ended at 1:30 and my flight didn't leave until 745. Weather delay - check. Crying baby - check. Morbidly obese passenger seated next to me - check. Then when I landed in Denver it took me 5 minutes to find my keys (rookie error, I can tell I haven't been traveling much). I finally got home around 1130. My suit case smells like I packed the san antonio river in it. Which I guess I did, between my bathing suit and my shoes.

The oddest thing happened on Friday. After the exam I and the Texans who paid for me to get the certification went out to lunch. I never was invited to lunch with them because they said I wouldn't like the food they eat (true - and some true stories - they eat a product that's pork skin heated in the microwave - thankfully I'm a jew and could beg out of trying it - they also eat popcorn nonstop, and last Friday when I brought in cupcakes one guy took two cookies and mashed his cupcake between the cookies making a cookie cupcake sandwich - they're all going to have diabetes if they don't already).

I contributed to the problem - these cupcakes were ridiculous...

I found this great korean place near San Antonio called Seoul Garden. I had a bowl of yukgaejang which burned most of the skin inside my mouth off (it was temperature hot, not spicy hot). It was good. The Texans had ribs or the "korean" hamburger (the two american things on the menu - one did try some kimchee). Then we went back to the classroom and I met most of the Texans' spouses. They might as well have introduced me like "this is an alien named Franki, we believe she came from Mars". My pink hair was maybe a contributing factor.

But, they were also bragging about eating korean food. Expanded horizons are good. I hope they go back there. The food was great and the owner gave me a hug after earlier yelling at me when I inquired as to whether or not the yukgaejang had honey or shellfish in it. It was nice.

And since I hadn't eaten since lunch I had a bowl of granola cereal and a glass of red wine before finally going to bed at 1230. It's not as bad as it sounds.

(I'm lying)

How the FUCK did I ever fly every week? I feel emotionally crippled from a 2 1/2 hour (plus 30 minute delay due to weather) flight.

Oh yeah, I had status back then. And free drink tickets.

I woke up at 530 this morning and couldn't fall back to sleep so I got up and got all my shit done (laundry, ironing, food shopping, work out, etc.). 

Now it's only 3 PM and I'm le tired and ready for bed...

los idiomas

In preparation to potentially buy a place in Spain, near surfing, because their real estate market is in a downturn, I'm taking a Spanish class on edX.

Hard to believe I was at one time fairly fluent in Spanish...I suck at it now...

I've just finished my first lesson. What I learned is there's this guy Nacho who's a lawyer. He tells EVERYONE he's a lawyer. Nacho, congratu-fucking-lations on passing the bar. You must think you're the only guy ever to be a lawyer.

He has a friend Virginia who talks really fast. I think that might be because she likes Nacho. But there's this other woman Queque that hangs out with Nacho too, and I think he likes her better because he keeps inviting her for ice cream. Though, Virginia is a bit overweight and perhaps has diabetes so he doesn't want to risk her having an insulin issues which she probably would if she ate ice cream.

If he asks Virginia to do his laundry I would say affirmatively he likes Queque and is just using Virginia.

There's also this woman Maria Jesus that everyone keeps talking about, but I haven't seen her yet. She's an architect. I'm glad they didn't make her a waitress. I would guess they wouldn't make her a waitress because Spain is pretty religious and it's one thing for him, Jesus, to be a blue collar fisherman or carpenter and quite another for him to be a waitress sweeping crumbs off tables and explaining the evening's specials.

He'd probably be good at recommending wine I would think.

When I took spanish in Managua I had to, as a class assignment, write a poem. My poem was:

Me gusta tocar la guitarra y cantar 
me gusta nadar en el mar 
pero no tengo brazos 
y mi boca está llena de arena

I like to play the guitar and sing 
I like to swim in the sea 
but I have no arms 
and my mouth is full of sand

I got an A for effort.

texan weekend

Saturday was pretty much a funny disaster start to finish. I got up at the crack of dawn to head down to Corpus Christi with the goal of either surfing or paddle boarding. Bu the red tide moved in so all the beaches were closed. I went to mustang island and started coughing uncontrollably because of the red tide and then I started having problems breathing. Then I decided to go to the aquarium but it was so packed there was no place to park in the parking lot. So then I decided to rent a bike but it turns out there was some bike ride going on and no one had any bikes to rent.

I headed to Padre Island north beach but that was also shut down due to the red tide. I ran an errand for one of the guys in my boot camp who has family on Padre Island (dropped some stuff off at the family's house - it was kind of weird). When I finally headed home I got caught in a huge rainstorm that was so bad I had to pull off on an exit (car was hydroplaning all over the place even though I was only going 20 MPH - I'm in a little chevy spark which generally sucks but did get up to almost 100 MPH on an empty stretch of highway but then it felt like it was going to fall apart so I slowed down).

Saturday evening I headed out for go carts but the place was jam packed and there was a huge wait to ride so I left. I was surprised so many people would go go carting on a saturday evening...guess I'm not the only one who never gets invited to parties...anyway, I spent a few hours at the San Antonio jazz fest and then headed back to the hotel.

Sunday morning I went to espada park for my kayak trip. The guide said the trip I signed up for would be too boring and recommended another trip but said I would have to do it solo. It was cool. There were at least 20 drops, the last one was 15 feet (at an angle, not vertical) which was really fun once I did it (I admit I was scared to go down it, especially because I couldn't see the whole drop so I had to figure out where to go to not hit rocks as I was dropping which is not the way you're supposed to do it). Yard sale averted, somehow.

 Also, I got caught in a current which took me under a tree that was in the water. It was like branch fireworks. When I arrived at the take out I took off my life vest and a huge branch fell out of the back of my vest.

I had to do 3 carries, which sucked because they were at the end of the paddle and I had a lot of water in my kayak. But, I made it.

Today in class someone said I smelled weird and I realized it was my shoes and my hair, from the river. I'm washing both tonight.

team building, my style

I'm in San Antonio this week because I was selected to attend a boot camp. I'm the first person from my area to ever be selected to attend in the 10 years the camp's been running. No pressure. I was given a list of people I was supposed to network with.

The first day I did no networking and instead stood on one side of the conference room fake smoking while the other participants, who all knew each other, stood on the other side having fun.

But slowly they started to like me, especially after I started giving them free training sessions and fixed some of the problems they've been having. There are two guys in their early 30s, Jaf and Zack, who have glommed on to me.

I was telling Jaf about my flying lessons and he said "I want to learn to fly too!" and I said (because he's pakistani) "you guys only need to use the simulator". Haha. Jaf also wanted to go surfing with me this weekend. As if. I'm not going because the surf conditions are horrible. Instead he and Zack and I are going to learn to race go carts.

Today at lunch we were all standing in the kitchen and Jaf offered me a pretzel ball. I said I couldn't eat it because it had peanut butter in the center. Jaf and Zack were then like "oh, I'm allergic to THE WORLD" in girly voices. I gave them the finger so Zack threw a pretzel ball at me. It broke into a bunch of pieces. So I squirted some foam hand soap into my palm and threw it at Zack. It got on his shirt so he grabbed a can of air freshener and sprayed me with it (why are guys at work always attacking me with aerosols?).

I finally wrestled it away from him and ran through the kitchen into the training room, Zack and Jaf in hot pursuit. I knocked over a bunch of chairs to slow them down and then ran into the ladies' room, where I left the air freshener. I waited about 5 minutes and figured it was safe to head back to the training room. But as I walked in Jaf and Zack jumped out from behind a partition and started throwing dry erase board markers at me. I threw them back until the instructor came in and yelled at us.

I smelled like "christmas spruce" (the name of the air freshener) for the rest of the afternoon.

The worst part about the whole story is we had a big exam today and I didn't study last night because I was researching things to do on the weekend and was supposed to study on lunch break, not get into marker fights. I got to class early this morning with the thought of studying but then got distracted fixing a problem for a colleague. And the woman who is the director for the group hosting the boot camp said she was going to sit next to me to cheat off me and I was like "oh shit, if I fail, she fails...will I get fired?"

Anyway, I got the highest score in the class on the exam (97%) even though it was really hard. And the director passed (but with a lower score than me because she didn't totally cheat off me). Out of 15 of us 5 failed the exam.

I told my program manager I am networking and team building as instructed but didn't mention that I was doing that by destroying our class room and throwing markers at my fellow students.

Now, since I'm in Texas, I'm off to have a steak.

just how hard is it to rebuild a WRX engine

Today I sent my brother Bob an email asking him to review a job description for a .NET developer (my work may be getting me my own developer!!!!).

He made some edits and sent them to me. My favorite part of the email is when he wrote:

"you should put in something really funny like "10+ years with visual studio 2012"

I responded:

Cool, THANK YOU!!!!!!

I'll try to not abuse the developer and get him / her to do things like build me a mobile app so I can order sushi without having to talk to a human being...

He responded:

I would not eat sushi in Denver.  Around here, you can get it at most grocery stores, and it's awesome and caught the day you buy it. haha.  with self-checkout, you don't have to interact with anyone.

Lately, though, I've been going to auto parts stores to buy various things like jack oil (for hydraulic jacks) and various misc fuel line hoses and crap like that.  There's no way to get these random things on the internet and the counter people are total idiots.  Walk into your local auto zone and ask them if they have a tool box.  Then you have to say it really slow, Tool ... Box.  No, not a shopping cart.  A metal box with a handle that you put your tools in.  What?  They don't actually have one?  argh.

Luckily, I found a shop manual for my car online.  No more printed books that get all greasy.  But now I fear when I go to put it back together, my laptop will get all greasy :)  I just need to know how hard to torque all the bolts down.

I was a little intimidated (ok, a LOT intimidated) when the new gaskets arrived - 4 bags full of anmarked gaskets of varying sizes.  I suppose I'll be able to figure out which is what, but the shear volume has me a bit worried.

I watched a youtube video of a master mechanic taking out a non-turbo Legacy engine - 4 hours, video edited down to about 20 minutes.  I've been having more difficulty than him - stuck bolts that require soaking in wd-40 or pb-blast, etc.  Also, I had some other stuff to do that I thought my friends could help with.  

I had to mow the lawn where I was going to park the car.  Then I decided that I should trim the bushes back in that same spot.  Then I pulled the car into the space, and it is sloped a bit, so I had to jack up half the car.  I took out the battery and alternator and power steering pump, but it got way too hot.  I put together a 10x10 tent that I had in the shed.  I was REALLY hoping to offload these tasks to friends, who didn't show up, even though they said they were interested and I only really invited them to watch and take pictures.

So I looked into renting an engine lift, and it turns out that harbor freight had one for $150 - wich was cheaper than renting one.  I put it together (yet another thing I was hoping to offload) and it didn't have enough fluid in it - so I had to undo the whole thing and repair the lift (argh)

So basically I've been a little frustrated by my friends, and wasted a ton of time doing non-taking-the-car-apart things.  But like every other project, I've had trouble getting others interested and willing to help.  It's a bob thing, I think.  

Here are some pics.

why is he rebuilding the engine? um, why not

here's a picture of all the stuff in the engine...it's a lot of stuff, and it's all interconnected

I would guess this is to protect the rebuild from the elements?

um...the engine...and he's going to take this apart...and put it back together...he will do it!

aforementioned hydraulic lift...I wonder how many sisters have brothers that own a hydraulic lift

I mention these things specifically because I had dinner tonight with my friend Gadget whom I haven't seen in 10 years (last time I saw him was around this time in 2005, he was on business from Baltimore, we met at midnight and did Torrey's and Gray's and then I made it back to the office for a 9 am meeting). He brought me a new member for my female army, Steph. She asked me to mentor her, which was flattering.

The female army grows.

Dear male world:

My army will be taking over. There will be no warning. And it will be a gentle take over, we come in peace. 

All we want is equal pay for equal work. And respect for female geeks, we don't give a shit if you want to date brainless waitresses or teachers, just don't treat us like your (inferior) sig o. And opportunities for females to do cool nerdy shit without having some bag of dick guys repress us by saying negative shit or ignoring what we say because you think we don't notice when we come up with a good idea and you take credit for it later...we do.

We're better at math than you. And better at sports. And coding. Get over it.

Or we'll teach you how to get over it. The hard way. And that's not a double entendre. 

courtesy of the female engineers of everywhere
we have you surrounded
give up

sincerely, us

...and the rest of my crazy Thurday (coke heads and crackheads)

On thursday after the project work meeting, I didn't get home until 730. I headed outside for a workout which finished around 830 because I was tired and needed to go to bed early to be at the office for a 7 am meeting.

Right as I was pouring a glass of wine my doorbell rang. It was the sister in law of my crazy next door neighbor (among other antics, he was supposed to pick me up from the airport after my surfing trip in February but got the date wrong and got everyone at DEN stirred up because he thought I had been kidnapped ). 

Anyway, she said my neighbor had a massive mental break down two weeks ago and they were going to get him committed but he disappeared. Before disappearing he destroyed his phone so no one had a way to contact him. And for what ever reason he told his sister in law that I was the only person he trusted.

She asked if I was hiding him in my house and I said no. She asked if I could help find him and I said fuck no. She said she thought the mental problems he's having are related to drugs and I was like no shit. She said "I know he smokes a lot of pot" and I told her that he was also doing coke (at least at the dinner parties I attended). I also showed her the disturbing text messages he sent me right before he disappeared.

...and that's when my doorbell rang again. This time it was two crack head women (seriously, they smoke crack) who live across the street and two doors down from me. They said their kitten was stuck in the engine block of their van and asked if I would get the kitten out. Seriously. Do these people come to my house because I'm the only one who is dumb enough to answer my door after 8 PM?

The sister in law is a kitten lover so she was like "you have to help them!" So I got my mag flashlight and went out to the van and looked around the engine block until I found the kitten who was in fact not stuck. The fucking kitten was just hanging out in the engine block. 

I was like "This kitten has no reason to hang out in the engine block. It's too stupid to live." And the crack heads and the sister in law were like "No, save the kitten!" So I said I was going to dump some water on the kitten but they were like "noooooo, that's sooooo mean!" I tried to fish the kitten out but couldn't get my arm in the engine block in such a way as to not kill the kitten pulling it to safety. Plus the two crack head women were holding the engine hood open and I didn't have a lot of faith in their ability to not drop it on me if I leaned to far into the engine. 

So I got some tuna fish out of my pantry and put it under the van and the fucking kitten climbed out of the engine block and ate the tuna.

Here's the kicker. It wasn't their fucking kitten. It was just some random kitten. They realized this only after the kitten climbed out of the engine block.

I was like seriously, are you fist fucking me?

I gave the sister in law my cell number and promised to text her if my neighbor came home. By this point it was 930 and I was on the verge of an exhausted collapse but I had to eat something because I hadn't eaten much all day because I was just too busy.

I had a tuna fish sandwich because I was in the mood to be ironic.

...a word about a cool project I'm working on

This project I am working on with a colleague of mine (it was his idea, I'm just doing the architecture and the code, we work on it after hours because it's not part of my real job) which is a really cool project got a tentative green light. We're briefing the project sponsor next week. We briefed the CIO and the CTO on Thursday and they are on board. The CTO is the one who ultimately green lights us and he said "In all the years I've been doing this I have never had a project come through my review with as much done as what you've done. You've pretty much built the software." 

(I included the code and sql statements from my prototype in the briefing because I'm proud of them and yeah I did fucking build the software, hopefully the dev team will just have to cut and paste from my code to their dev environment).

The above mentioned briefing was after hours because the CIO and CTO were in meetings all day. We thought we'd get 30 minutes, we got an hour and a half. During the briefing there was a huge storm (we almost lost power). After the CTO and CIO left the major and I wrote up some quick notes and then headed out (it was almost 7 by this time and only the emergency lights were on in the building because who is at work that fucking late and good job [my work place] for being environmentally conscious. 

As my colleague and I  walked outside from our dark emergency light office the sun had that weird quality of super bright fakeness that happens after a big rain (I'll spare you the scientific explanation of that phenomenon unless you're interested - I learned about that in my meteorology class). And there was, seriously, the BIGGEST fucking rainbow I've ever seen in the sky. We both stopped walking as soon as we saw it and we both said "look at that fucking rainbow" at the same time. 

I hope it was a sign from the atmosphere saying "nitrogen, oxygen, and argon support you and we are the foundation of life so go fucking deploy some software and shit! and since we have your attention, fuck carbon dioxide, and thanks for recycling!" 

(I was, instead of the above sentence, going to make a joke about reflection, refraction and dispersion but then thought "I'm really tired, I've written a lot of code this week, and that joke probably isn't funny even to a meteorologist")

The best part is the software acronym is the same as my dad's initials. And if it works it's going to be a big deal...

I've spent the past 4 weekends working on the prototype and sad to say went to bed at 8:20 on Friday because I was so tired...

unlike big foot we have proof...actually, maybe Mr. Army IS big foot...

I sent an email to my friend G about the cookie exchange I had with Mr. Army.

G responded back:

Mr. Army is comically idiotic. Does he seriously exist?

I wrote:
Yes he's real. And he's funnier than two greased midgets fucking in a burlap sack.

Actually, I would not find that funny. I don't even know why I said that. Midgets give me nightmares when they're the ones with disproportional hands and heads.

Shit, now I'm going to be thinking about that for the rest of the night.

Where was I...

Oh yeah. I'm going to stir him up on Wednesday by bringing in more peanut butter cookies but I'm going to record him and send you the recording so you can see I'm not making this shit up. The cookies will taste good but I'm going to make them look really fucked up to instigate as much mayhem as possible.

You will laugh. 

I'll take pictures of the cookies too.

NO. 

IDEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will bring in my quinoa snacks. Yes!!!!!! He'll have a verbal coronary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, doing that on Wednesday... 

mormons and cookies

Last night I went to see the book of mormon with my friend C and her daughter Bailey. Bailey's 21 and she reminds me of myself (no real interest in boyfriends because they are a waste of time and money, likes travel and adventure and has no intention to live a "normal" life). We hit it off from the get go and she asked me to teach her to climb, which I am going to do as soon as my foot is more solid. I'm pretty much over having a hurt foot.

My favorite line from the musical is when a mormon sings "I'm going to man up all over myself".

My favorite part was when the natives were doing the dysentery dance and the chief ran over to the mormon elders or what ever they're called and farted in their faces. Not because I care about a mormon getting farted on. I just find farts funny. It still makes me laugh remembering that part.

The musical, btw, makes fun of all religions, not just mormons.

And, the other day I made cookies for my colleague Dave because he did some shit for me. They were gluten free and I used agave nectar instead of sugar. MOST people liked them. But then Mr. Army the crazy fuck (who has a thing about cookies I bring in for some reason) decided to confront me about my healthy cookies:

Mr. Army: Those cookies tasted like shit! Why are you always making healthy shit?
Me: Because I care about the health of everyone I work with.
MA: I'd rather die early than eat a cookie like that again!
Me: Did I just say "go fuck yourself" out loud or did I just think it?
MA: No, fuck your cookies! And what's organic peanut butter anyway?
Me: It's peanut butter that's organic. Are you fucking stupid?
MA: Not fucking stupid enough to eat your cookies.
Me: So what do you want me to do, a cookie redo with unhealthy ingredients?
MA: I won't eat them because I'll just keep thinking that you fucked with them somehow.
Me: Yeah, because I'm in grade school and smart enough to know how to cook Ex Lax.

By this time all of the developers had gathered around. I would mention here that they were breaking the two remaining cookies into pieces so they could sample them.

Woman who recently had a baby: Mr. Army, what the fuck? These cookies are good.
MA: Shut up [woman who recently had a baby]! You have hormone issues and you don't know what tastes good! You're eating pickles and shit that pregnant women eat!
Woman who recently had a baby (to me): What is he talking about?
Me: I ask myself that every day.
MA: Stop ganging up on me you hippies!
A programmer: I thought the cookies were good too.
MA: You eat cookies from safeway. (then to me) And anyway, if these peanut butter cookies were supposed to be so healthy why did you put a hershey's kiss in the middle of them?
Me: I'm a complex person.
My friend C: And a gemini.
MA: Yeah you're all fucked up.
Me: (to MA) If I give you a kind bar will you shut the fuck up and go away?

At that point I decided to pack up and leave because I was getting nothing done at the office. I bid everyone a good evening, as I do every night, except for Mr. Army. I told him "I hope your evening sucks", gave him the finger, and left. The developers clapped.

Full disclosure, Mr. Army and I get along like a house on fire. We like to cause scenes to make people laugh.

neighbor hater

I haven't been writing much on my blog lately because shit is going crazy at work. And on top of that, because I'm the president of my building's HOA, I've been dealing with my neighbor's realtor because he just sold his house and she keeps asking me to fill out forms, send financials, and shit that takes up time.

Then my neighbor "disappeared" right in the middle of closing and the realtor was bugging the shit out of me. As if I'd know where his dumb ass was. And a house inspection uncovered a break in our sewer line (no surprise there, it's really old).

Then this email exchange occurred last night with the bag of dicks who lives on the other side of me:

Realtor: 

There was 1 more break in the line in the alley.  The plumber marked it with green paint.  The good news is it is only at 5 feet deep before the line drops to 13 ft.  I have the video link and the cost to repair is attached.  It will be $2550. 

They have to tear up a small area of concrete and re-patch after the repair.  This portion of the line is the shared community line as all the other units tie in before the break and according to the party wall, the other units should share the expense. 

Me (forwarding the above to everyone in the building, I would note, this was an issue we've been discussing on email for the past week):

It will cost $637 to fix per unit. Disappearing Dumb Ass Who Just Sold Your House, when is the repair work scheduled to start?

Bag of Dicks who lives on the other side of me:

Can you give me more context then "this is what is costs"?  I was told this is not my issue. 

I will mention here that he would not specify to me who told him it wasn't his issue. Further, the email from the realtor had the work cost estimate and a video showing the line break.

Me (responding back to bag of dicks):

The detail was provided in the forwarded email. To summarize, the break is after the place where all our units tie in to the line. That's why it's a shared cost, according to our party wall agreement.

Bag of dicks:

just sending an email to me with no context is a bit abrasive. Happy to discuss but please don't assume I know what's going. I will call [the realtor] to discuss what's going on for my benefit. Thanks!

I assumed he meant "going on" not "going". And found it amusing that he said he didn't know what was going on when we've been emailing about this for over a week. And, shitty use of the term "abrasive". He shouldn't email when he's been drinking, though he's just as stupid when sober.

Me:
The context was in the email I forwarded. I didn't see a point in repeating the information assuming that everyone would read the forwarded email. Here is what it said. Because the break is after the point where we all tie in it should be everyone's expense because it impacts all of us:

There was 1 more break in the line in the alley.  The plumber marked it with green paint.  The good news is it is only at 5 feet deep before the line drops to 13 ft.  I have the video link and the cost to repair is attached.  It will be $2550. 

They have to tear up a small area of concrete and re-patch after the repair.  This portion of the line is the shared community line as all the other units tie in before the break and according to the party wall, the other units should share the expense. 

Bag of dicks:

Thanks, Frankie for your email and italics...very informative. 

I wish that asshole would move. Or learn to read. Or buy a place he can afford so we don't have these arguments every time something needs to be repaired. Classless fuck.

vegetables and stuff

Last week I went to a farmer's market with my friend Jess. Here's what I bought:

a loaf of cheddar jalapeno bread (to quote one of my co-workers: "no me gusto" - actually, I thought it was okay), two green chili and egg empanadas, a cucumber, a zucchini (for spaghetti sauce), a squash (just to eat), tomatoes (for spaghett sauce), a bar of black soap (it smelled really good), and something called body butter that will supposedly help with my dry hands because I probably wash my hands too much

 I'm going to meet Jess at another farmer's market this sunday.

In other news I was walking on my treadmill Monday morning when I felt something pop in my right foot. I tried to keep walking but couldn't. Like an idiot I didn't put my boot on because I thought I would be okay and because I knew everyone would tease me unmercifully. By the time I got home Monday I could not put any weight on my foot.

So tuesday I wore my boot into work...and was teased unmercifully. I called my doctor and he said to wait a week and see if my foot got better, that maybe I should consider working out in a pool, and that a "reasonable" person would not think it was okay to up mileage to 10 miles a day so soon after fracturing a foot.

To which I responded "I'm not a reasonable person, I'm an engineer" to which he responded "what am I going to do with you?" to which I responded "give me quantitative guidelines". I only walked 5 miles today because I've turned over a new leaf and am now a "reasonable" person. I can do 10 miles in late september if my foot is okay.

But by Friday my foot was a lot better. And today I went for two walks without it. Here's the kind of funny thing. I ordered a pair of shoes in May and had completely forgotten about them. They came Monday evening. The heel on them was the perfect height for my boot.

Please don't let me get addicted to Paul Green shoes. I love them. And they always show up at the right time.

yes, this is the cutest shoe EVER, the one on the left that is

 And on Friday my friend Carol gave me an italian cucumber. I'm going to eat it tomorrow.

looks weird, but supposedly tastes good!

aw, it's even sparkly and pink

My co-worker C had a birthday last week, and I decided to get her a fitbit so we can compare our sleep cycles (we both are poor sleepers) and maybe I can help her get into better shape.

Today I found this on my desk:

she got me a pink sparkly card - she knows me pretty well :)

....and it was a card that didn't just open to the inside, it had an extra page even

aw...

Her daughter wants to learn to climb so I'm going to teach her. And we're all going to see The Book of Mormon on Tuesday. Girls night out!

really, I just wanted to run

Silly me. The other day I came up with a great idea. I decided to invite my work friend C (of toxic chemical PINSM fame) and that annoyance Mr. Army to do a 5k with me. I'm starting to get back into running again now that my foot is doing better. I've been getting up at 4:30 every morning to get some miles in before work so I'm not exercising until 8 o'clock at night...

Anyway, as I was walking across the parking lot yesterday morning all excited to invite them to do the 5k, and also thinking about a work thing, I was almost run over by Mr. Army. Like seriously, within 2 inches he missed me. Then he rolled down his window and said "What the FUCK are you doing?!?!" and I was like "what the FUCK are YOU doing???" and he said "I was going to pretend to run you over as a joke but you didn't get out of the way." He now says I owe him a favor because he's given me a new sense of situational awareness.

He and C both agreed to do a 5k with me so I sent them a link to the 5k I picked, which is in support of the Colorado Symphony. The conversation went something like this:

C: They'll have beer trucks there, right?
Mr. Army: Fuck this! Who wants to raise money for some fucking symphony? Can't you find some 5k that's for saving boobs or helping retards?
Me: Saving boobs? Why is everything about strippers with you?
Mr. Army: Men get breast cancer too so go fuck yourself.

So, still researching 5ks...

PINSM popularity persists

A guy I work with, who happens to be the guy who smashed the birthday plane cookie I gave him to pieces because he's Army, has been trying to fix my new laptop so the network adapter doesn't disable (I need admin rights to re-enable it because they're locking down laptops these days - and I don't have admin rights) because that makes me unable to use wireless.

I had, in May, given the above mentioned guy a PINSM with a kangaroo on it because he fixed my laptop and he said, as he started to work on my new laptop, "don't make me another one of those fucking PINSMs because I'm helping you." I think it's because he's the only one I've made a PINSM for that had a rodent on it. Perhaps I hurt his feelings. Fuck if I know.

So I initially toyed with the idea of drawing a bunch of PINSMs and papering his office with them. But then I thought that might make PINSMs less of a status symbol. So instead I came up with this, which I presented to him today after he tried (but failed) to fix my network adapter issue:

I'm such an asshole

So now he keeps stopping by my desk to ask "WHAT IS THE FUCKING ANIMAL YOU DREW???? AND WHAT IS IT SAYING?????" I think because no one in the office knows what to make of this PINSM.

I think I will draw a part of an animal on a post it note every day, as if it's a puzzle, and I will write on the back "this is part of the coolest animal in the world" and give it to him. But of course the pieces will never fit together to make an animal.

Perhaps, at some point, I can use that as leverage to get admin rights on my laptop.

why sheridan wy?

What am I doing in Sheridan this weekend? Good question.

Which I will answer by cheating and pasting something I sent to my friend G in an email a few weeks ago:

I have a friend, Dave, who lives in Missoula (lots of my people, not the jews, the other people related to where I used to work, go there for some reason - my one visit there I found it to be a mud pit with no redeeming qualities but that was back in 1998 when I went to visit Dave and his wife, well, really, I just wanted to eat a raw steak and not be judged). Yesterday I had sent him a picture of myself in a cowboy hat for reasons not worth going into here other than to say he was feeding me shit for not learning how to fly fish even though I live in Colorado and I responded with a joke about taking up rodeo, thus the cowboy hat.

Anyway, he was laughing at my email (normal people, not like you and I, find my writing to be funny because they think it's outrageous - but seriously, is use of the word vagina really that outrageous in these times?) and his friend J, whom he happened to be having a drink with, was like "what's so funny?" so my friend showed him my email, which had my cowboy picture attached at the bottom.

And this is where shit gets WEIRD.

J looked at my picture and said "oh my god, that's the angel!" Dave (my Missoula friend) then sent me an email telling me how J wants to meet me because he almost drown rafting on a river and while almost drowning he saw an angel and it was me and she, the angel that he thinks is me, well, didn't save him, but, okay, I don't know what the fuck she did, but apparently she made quite an impression on him and got him to the surface so he didn't die.

In any case, I sent Dave an email back like "haha, go fuck yourself you piece of shit" and he sent me a link to a story J wrote about his near drowning experience where he mentions the angel.

So I have been emailing J shit like 20 bizarre questions that he has to answer and he's complying (example question I sent him: "Write a 200 word essay on anchovies"). And you know how people look for "connections" that may or may not be there?  I correctly guessed his profession and some other shit about him and while I thought I was being random with the anchovy question it turns out that's his favorite thing to eat. 

Now he wants to meet me for dinner and to teach me to fly fish... Missoula is a long ways away from here. And he has three kids age 19 - 22 (the troubled-rehab-failing out of college years). And Dave said he's 5'8'. I'm 5'8". And guys always lie about their height so he's probably 5'6" (he looks like Al Pacino, who is also short). What's with the short dudes...

Anyway, I've been bored so I thought why not meet J in person. We agreed to meet in Sheridan which is exactly between Missoula and Denver.

My friend G cautioned me about going on this date because he knew it was going to be a shit show. Frankly, I did too but I'm bored.

Some highlights of our Friday evening:

• J was rushing me to meet him at a bar that was 1.6 miles from my hotel (where he said he made a reservation, but he actually made a reservation at the nice hotel in the center of town where I wanted to stay - how fucking weird is that?). I walked there because I don't drive even if I'm only having one drink (unless the drink is beer). When I arrived he asked me what took me so long (I was at the bar 25 minutes after arriving in town and I wasted precious time trying to check into this fucking hotel and get a functioning key so I thought I did pretty good). Then he said "you could have at least put on some make up".
• He insisted we drive to a restaurant that was only 5 blocks away (even though he had been drinking, I wasn't sure how much, he had two beers after I arrived and had a plastic cup of something that he chugged shortly after I arrived). As we approached his truck I noticed it was covered, literally COVERED in bees (they have a bee / wasp problem here, not sure if it's seasonal or not). I've had two nightmares about bees this week. We walked to the restaurant.
• I ordered a salad with chicken at the restaurant. The chicken on the salad was bad. Like, disgusting. So I pushed it to the edge of the salad figuring I would just eat the veggies since I hadn't eaten all day (I don't usually eat when I drive because I get car sick sometimes). J asked why I wasn't eating the chicken and I told him it was bad. He gave me a look and I was like "you fucking taste it and tell me." So he took a bite, and, SERIOUSLY, spit it out IN THE MIDDLE OF MY FUCKING SALAD. Which I then was NOT going to eat. He ended up making a big scene about it and for those who have never been here, Sheridan has about the WORST customer service. It was like being in France. Anyway, a waitress came and took my salad and it wasn't until we were about to leave that the manager came by and asked if I wanted something else to eat. J said "no, she's fine" and when I said "thanks for deciding if I'm hungry or not" he said "you probably think you're really skinny but you aren't very skinny." ??????
• We went to a bar where he did some shots of Jim Beam blue what ever and then he realized I had to walk home because there was no fucking way I was getting into a car with him. He complained the entire 1.6 miles about having to walk me back to the hotel. I told him to shut up because walking was good for him.
• Good night kiss? Are you fucking kidding me? I didn't even give him a hug.

Today he started texting me at 630 am. I was finally like "dude, I'll see you at 1030" because we were supposed to go hiking. Instead of going to the right hiking place he turned down a gravel road that looked barely maintained and I was like "dude, this is not the way to cloud peak, this is a ranch access road" and he was like "you don't know what you're talking about, this is exactly what they described in the guide book". So of course we ended up getting stuck in an area where the road had washed out and he started to freak the fuck out so I took over driving (learned a lot about driving a truck on back roads from the fun hog) and then after I got us back to the easier to drive on section of the road he said "only a lesbian would know how to drive a truck like that."

Luckily he didn't talk on the hike at all. Because I was ready to hit a bitch.

We went back to town for lunch (I have to say lunch was really fucking good, I had an ahi tuna salad) and then he dropped the bombshell on me that he had checked out of his hotel with the thought that he could stay in my room tonight. I decided enough was enough and there was no point in trying to be polite or nice. So I told him to go home and never contact me again. Then I had a pleasant walk back to my shit hole hotel. Getting up at O dark 30 tomorrow to do another hike (the hikes out here are beautiful, who knew this area had mountains? not me) and then head home.

I've decided to stop dating for the next...forever. Anyway, I have to study to be a pilot and won't have much free time and I am going to get back to the climbing gym since I really miss climbing.

Sheridan, WY - come here for the hiking, stay at the best western, eat at Frackelton's and get the ahi tuna salad

do not stay here...this is my hotel...it sucks

guess who's making dinner

Since the maids come tomorrow and there's not a lot for them to clean I've decided every other tuesday is cooking day. And they can clean my kitchen.

Today I made fettuccine spinach carbonara.  It actually tastes good and looks like the picture.

of course, how can any food with bacon in it taste bad?

 Then I made an orzo salad. I started with a recipe and realized I didn't have half the shit I needed so I just made something up. It's good!

the recipe said "serves 4" - 4 what? professional football players???? that's a lot of orzo salad

I was at the brazilian festival on Sunday helping Jess and Edge during slam time. I got to try this brazilian treat, which is like a ball of yum. It's called coxinhas. It was amazing but I could only eat half of it.

chicken, peppers, and cream cheese in a fried...breaded...ball thing - yum

psychic

There's a guy at work that I like to fuck with because when I brought in airplane cookies for my birthday he smashed his to pieces because he's insane.

Anyway, he had been feeding me shit about doing a tarot reading on him so yesterday I did. I told him to think of a question and not to tell me and not to give any indication of whether I was on the right track or not. And guess what. My reading was accurate! For one of the cards I extemporized the meaning of the card and said "you should not do anything hasty and don't create a bad situation because in the end it will backfire." It turns out right after the reading he had been planning to tell his boss to go fuck himself. 

So as a secondary test he said he was going to think of a question and then I would answer it with a card. His question (he told me after) was should he continue stalking this woman he likes on the internet. He had viewed a video of her and her son like a billion times not realizing youtube logs the views and who's viewing the videos if they are signed in. After like the hundredth viewing the woman took all her social media stuff down. Anyway, the card said "you've made a mistake but you should learn from it and move on." Hahaha! Now he thinks I'm psychic and all these people at work are asking me to do their readings because he talks too much. And I have to be like "no bitches, I'm busy".

funny, flying, and veggies

Today at work my colleague B ate a doughnut that was sitting on my colleague C's desk. He does stuff like that on purpose to piss her off. So when she got back to her desk I ratted B out. Then we tried to think of a good joke to play on him. My suggestion was to tell him that C had pulled the doughnut out of the trash to give to a homeless person. C's was better. She decided to tell him that it was sitting on her desk because she was going to throw it away because it had fallen on the floor in the women's bathroom.

The conversation went something like this:

B: I ate your doughnut.
C: Oh my god! I was going to throw it away because it fell on the floor in the women's bathroom!
B: I wondered why it tasted familiar.

Hahaha!

B also said to me "oh, I have a present for you for your anti social network shit". I thought he had made me a PINSM. Instead he brought me these:

I said "but you also have to make me a PINSM" and he said "I can't draw" - um....and I can????

Then I talked to him about when I'm getting my new laptop because my current laptop sucks a bag of dicks. He said "next week, and don't make me another one of those gay ass fucking pictures of rats and shit". And I said "you mean a PINSM?" and he said "one of those gay ass fucking post it notes with pictures of shit on it that you give to people because you have asperger's" and I said "you mean a PINSM?" and that went on until finally he said "yes, a PINSM". Then he left and didn't come back to my desk for the rest of the day.

In other news, I'm going to learn how to fly an airplane. A guy I work with is getting his instructor's license and I'm going to be his first student because, he said and I quote, "I know you'll be an asshole." I'm so excited I've already started studying. If all goes as scheduled my lessons will start in February.

In other news my garden is finally rallying:

black tomatoes!!!! I can't wait to try them!!!!

I also grew these. I wonder what they are. Cucumbers? I thought that was the container where I planted the arugula.

squash! I have a feeling I'm going to have to shoot some squirrels to defend my garden