Category Archives: Day In The Life

Aprendiendo Español

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Ayer en mi clase de español, dijimos unas historias que usó el tenso pretérito. Entonces, creo que puedo escribir en mi diario en español porque más de mi escritura son sobre el pasado. Ya no puedo escribir sobre el futuro.

Por ejemplo, por la noche pasada mis hijos estuvieron muy enloquecido. Creo que estuvieron entusiasmado por las vacaciones con sus abuelos en Kentucky. Los dos cantaron y saltaron en la cama cuando necesitaron estar durmiendo.

Vamos a ir a Kentucky esta noche… con el perro. Nosotros nunca viajamos con un perro, y estoy un poco preocupado. Lo está bastante difícil viajar con dos niños. Y si se perdemos durante el viaje, ¿qué?

Creo que voy a comer ahora.

The Pitter Patter of ElectricRocket

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I was walking by a coworker’s cube, not having said anything, when this coworker calls my name from behind her closed door.

How did she know it was me walking by her cube? She claims she can identify me by the particular rhythm of my footsteps.

There are 2 or three people whom she claims to be able to do this with.

Which means I walk weird. Apparently.

An Open Letter

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An Open Letter to the People Who Are Missing This Puppy That Is In Our House,

Please, for the love of Dog, come get your puppy.

He is very cute and possibly housebroken, but he is trying to eat my daughter.

Also, he sits on her toddler couch, which is completely unacceptable to her.

Kind Regards,
ElectricRocket

Foreshadowing the Weekend

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There is 150 feet of 1″ manila rope in a box in our entry way, a slingshot in the basement, a roll of yellow poly twine on our kitchen counter, and a heavy bolt or nut somewhere on the premises.

There are two size #3 soccer balls in a bag in the entry way.

In the basement, there are a number of unused toys stored in shelves in the back room.

In the back of a small theater in Little 5 Points, there is a play-board with one more show left in it.

In the backyard, there are a number of left-over fence stakes still staked in the ground.

There are squeaky doors leading to the bedrooms of children, and a can of WD40 in the garage.

These material items form a map of my weekend to come.

It’s a Poor Artist Who Blames His Tools

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In an ongoing effort to get back into drawing to fill the void left by a lack of improv, I’ve been looking at good drawing software to use my Wacom Graphire3 with. GiMP is kind of touchy and not great for freehand drawing (IMHO).

I cam across ArtRage, which is a neat little free ($25 for full version) package that’s really well thought out for tablet users, and has neat effects simulating various drawing and painting mediums.

This was done using the colored pencil on a canvas texture background. I like how realistic it looks compared to actual canvas and pencil drawings.

The paint effects are cool, too. If you paint red and then blue on top of it, the colors mix as if the underlying paint is still wet. It’s awesome. The brushes change shape depending on how you move them, as if they were real bristles.

Fun, fun, fun.

In Which My Nose is Roto-Rootered, and I Enjoy A New Phone

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My mobile phone bit the dust a week ago, as a result of being thoroughly Scoutified.

So, after selling my soul to T-Mobile, I picked up a Motorola RAZR and a bluetooth ear thingy. As silly as those bluetooth ear thingys look, I look forward to my next hour-long conference call with the knowledge that I will be able to flap my arms like a duck while listening in.

Also, I’m very excited that I can tap the button on the ear thingy, say “Stacey… STACEY… stacey… STAcey… dammit… STACEY!… staCEY…” for five minutes, and the phone will possibly eventually call her automatically via the miracle of voice recognition. Modern technology is wonderful.

In other exciting modern news, I’m having my nose Roto-Rootered at some un-Dogly hour of the morning on Friday. So, as you start your day that day, take joy in the fact that no one is sticking a sharp slicing implement in your nostril.

The hope is that I’ll come through the other end with a straight septum and the ability to breathe through my right nostril, to say nothing of a distinct lack of eye-popping-pressure in the sinus area. In the meantime, I shall be enjoying a weekend with gauze pads taped to the underside of my nose with a bloodstream full of heavy-duty controlled substances. Anyone need a date to a fancy dinner party somewhere? I’m your man.

I have been extremely excited about this for the past year as I waited for my sick days counter to reset, in anticipation of getting this particular gremlin off my back. But as it draws closer, and I’ve been given my long list of prescription stuff to be filled and detailed and graphically described list of pre and post-op Things To Do, it’s becoming clear that this is not going to be a Pleasant Experience. In fact, it may, and I hate to sound pessimistic, suck more than a little bit.

I take consolation in that I can have my phone and Bluetooth earbud. Should I need something to ease my discomfort during my convalescence, I can simply tap my ear and say “Stacey… STACEY… STAAAAAAAACEY… stacey… STAAAAAAACEEEEEEYYYYYY… dammit.”

Boo ING Direct

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I’m working off some bad financial karma this week, I guess.

We’ve had a situation during our transition from Netbank to ING Direct where for the last week, we’ve had no checking account available to us to pay bills. The one that has the money (ING Direct) is locked because I forgot about a $18.00 check written to the Boy Scouts back in September that just got cashed on the old Netbank account right before a Netbank-ING Direct transfer went through for the last of the cash in the Netbank account.

The upshot of which is that it triggered some automated-fraud-detection thingy at ING Direct (even though it’s essentially an intra bank transfer since they ARE Netbank now), and they locked the only checking account we have available for an undetermined number of days, it’s been 5 so far. No, they can’t tell me when it will be available. No, there’s no way to get it unlocked so I can pay my mortgage. No, there’s no one I can talk to about this. No, they have no ideas about how to get the money in my savings account transferred out to pay the mortgage on time. No, they simply can not help me. They are awfully sorry, though. Don’t I have some other checking account at another bank I could use?

Not yet, no. But soon.

Luckily, I called the mortgage company, and they were able to do a wire transfer out of our ING Direct savings account to cover the payment today. Whew.

So, in summary, Boo, ING Direct, boo.