…is the day his daughter learns to give him a raspberry.
Category Archives: Day In The Life
3rd post’s a charm.
I smell like sour milk.
This and That
‘Twas a busy weekend.
We had the final Scandal! on Friday night, which actually went
pretty well. Since we really had no real plotlines to resolve, they all
just played each other’s characters. It was fun, and I’ve suggested if
they ever bring Scandal! back we should do that all season long.
Saturday morning I went to breakfast salon with
others, where we discussed cheating (academic primarily, though also a wee
bit of relationship-style cheating).
I came home around the same time as Rocket, Jr. and
who had gone to Rocket, Jr.’s last Music Class. While they headed back
out to a birthday party at Monkey Joe’s, I tackled the clogged shower
drain.
3.5 hours and a trip to Lowes later, I was covered in foul, black drain
grease (nobody tell me what that residue in drains actually is, I just
don’t want to know) and the basement smelled like something died in it,
but the water was back to draining.
After I showered for a long, long time,
dinner with a friend, so lil’ Rocket and I hung out for the evening doing
those various things that 3 year olds like to do.
Sunday morning,
Rocket and I walked down to the pool for the first time this season. He
starts swim lessons in June, so we did a little work with the kickboard.
He spent some time playing with a little red haired girl in the under 6
pool and then we cut out around lunchtime.
The rest of the day was spent resuscitating the propane grill and removing
evidence of the Great Drain Unclogging of 2006 before
Dinner was salmon steaks grilled using something called a grill basket
that
managed to char the outside of the steaks pretty well, and then performed
a bad Abbott and Costello routine with
unstick the salmon from the grill basket:
gl5: Why don’t you try opening up the basket from that side?
me: If I do, it’ll open from the bottom and the steaks’ll fall out on the
ground.
gl5: Oh.
me: Maybe if I shake it a bit, they’ll come unstuck from that side.
(shakes, causing the latch to unlatch and the steaks fall out, some on the
grill, some on the ground)
mayonaise, and a good time was had. Lil’ Rocket spent a lot of time
trying to pull focus from the adult conversation by singing nonsensical
songs very loudly, as is his wont.
On a side note, thanks to the double whammy of the Signing Times
ABCs and They Might Be Giants: Here Comes the ABCs DVDs, Lil’
Rocket has become obsessed with letters. His conversation is almost
totally comprised of asking what words begin with a given letter, or what
letter begins a given word, or how to sign a given letter that begins a
given word.
Not that I’m complaining. It can only be a good thing.
Last night, wee Rocket was more wired than I have ever seen him, something
akin to the cornholio episode of Beavis and Butthead but less
annoying or offensive. I’m sure someone injected sugar directly into his
veins.
Easy come, easy go.
It’s that time of year.
Taxes paid.
Rocket Jr’s Coverdell Savings Account funded.
Life and auto insurance policies taken care of.
Anybody else want a multi-thousand dollar check written while I’m on a
streak?1
1 The answer is no.
Happy Newtonmas! and De-evolution
I’m really terribly excited about Newtonmas or Gravmas. I had never heard of it until I looked up Christmas on Wikipedia.
Newton’s birthday is December 25 (though if you adjust the calendar to the current Gregorian, it’s actually January 4… but hey, Jesus wasn’t born on December 25 either…).
The Newtonmas tree is an apple tree (because of the apple that led him to gravitational theory), and presents are supposed to be gifts of Knowledge, like books or DVDs, as long as it contributes to intellectual development.
Everybody sing! Iiiiiiisaac Newton’s coming to town! Iiiiiisaac Newton’s coming to town!…
—
The De-evolution of The Answer to “What Happened To Your Hand?”
Telling 1: “I was pulling a water glass off the shelf when it slipped and fell. Instinctively, I reached to catch it right as it hit the countertop, but instead rammed my hand into a huge glass shard. Put a big gash in my hand from between the index finger and thumb all the way around my thumb. Blood everywhere. Pretty nasty.”
Telling 23: “I dropped a glass and cut my hand trying to catch it.”
Telling 43: “Nothing.”
DISPLAY ERROR:3265:F514
I have a device on my desk that is giving the above error. I hate cryptic errors.
I know and understand the reason for cryptic errors on these devices, but I’m pretending I don’t so I can continue to be irritated by it.
—-
Last night, a few members of our investment club met for a Constitutional Convention (sans white wigs), including
We tried first to meet at Mo’s Pizza up by me, but it had been taken over by a gazillion high school students, who told us they were there for a birthday party. The fourth person was late by about half an hour, so we stood in the lot watching a poor, struggling high school girl try to park her car. She finally gave up and had one of her guy friends park it for her.
We then tried another pizza place, which was closed, and ended up at Famous Pub, which is very dark.
We had written by-laws stolen from another club when we started, but we never really paid any attention to them. So we spent some time changing the laws to reflect how we actually did stuff. I think it’s better now (it was dark in the pub, so who knows?). Though I think we should have an amendment where I get free candy.
—-
Today I found out that we are moving to another building sometime before the end of the year, so I may or may not be out of an office. They’re going to remodel the area we’re heading to to accomodate us, but that may mean offices, or it may mean quad cubes. The sad thing is the reason we’re moving is all an accounting fiction that won’t save the company money, but may on paper look like it’s saving the engineering department money, though it probably won’t due to reasons that were explained to me but are very complicated in terms of department lease periods and whatnot. Something about we’re still being charged for the 16 people who got laid off, and only moving everybody around will get them off our department’s books. Stupid Dilbert Stuff.
—-
Busy weekend ahead. Saturday is a breakfast meeting, Kid’s show, Stacey’s going to see Debbie at Dad’s saturday night, Sunday is investment club and a zoo trip. Zounds.
Torontoin’
So I’m in Toronto.
I’m in a meeting room at our Toronto office. There are 12 guys, some from Atlanta, USA, some from Toronto, Canada, some from Reynosa, Mexico. Very NAFTA. We’re training each other on the various aspects of the product we’ll be releasing over the next few months.
For the first time, I had trouble going through customs. I used to carry my passport in my back pocket, but one time last year I left it in my jeans when I got home and it went through the wash. It wasn’t too bad, to my mind. The cover was gone and the pages were a bit wrinkled, but nothing was smudged. The picture is as bad as ever.
So when I showed it at the ticket counter, the agent held it up between two pinched fingers like it was a dead fish and said “was this… a passport at one time?” I said, yup, it’s been washed. He shook his head and gave me my ticket.
When I showed it to the person who checks your ID before the metal screeners, she held it up between two fingers like it was a dead fish and said “this is your ID?” I said, yup, it’s been washed. She shook her head and let me through.
When I got to Toronto, the customs agent held it up between two fingers like it was a dead fish and said “is this a passport?” I said yup, it’s been washed. He shook his head and directed me to immigrations.
Going to immigrations is the worst punishment they can dole out. Because it takes a long time. I was in line about a half an hour. And when I got to the agent, she held the passport up between two fingers like it was a dead fish and said “this… is not a passport.” I said, “Yup, it is. It’s been washed.” She looked me in the eye and said “This is an insult to the government that issued it. This is unacceptable.”
What I didn’t say was “my government is an insult to me, so we’re even.”
What I also didn’t say was “hey, at least it’s clean.”
The third thing I didn’t say is “bite me.”
Apparently, it WAS acceptable, because she let me into the country, after handing me a “tell us how we’re doing!” comment card.
I’m going to send the card in saying “Your agents let me in even though I was using a dead fish as ID.”
The Perfect Excuse
So, take note folks. The perfect excuse is “I’m waiting for my sock monkey to be helicoptered in.”
A $20,000 house
For eastlake, who wondered what a $20,000 house in Lynchburg, VA looks like.
If you look close, there is a dog named Tesla in the upper right window.
The End of Fritz
I just found out that the kids show I’ve been doing for about 3 years has been cancelled. This will be the last season for Uncle Grampa’s Hoo-Dilly Stew and Fritz the Evil Butler.
My son comes to see the show almost every week, but he’s not old enough so that he’d remember it later.
I feel like someone died.