Homecoming?
So.... let me get this straight.
I got up this morning and grabbed a quick breakfast. I was in Longmont, so I hopped in my truck and started driving. I went down 119 to I-25, then south to E-470. I took E-470 east, paying toll after toll (about $6?), and exited to go to the airport. I drove north on Pena Blvd (the road to the airport) for a while. Anyone living around here knows the airport isn’t exactly
in Denver. I pulled into the parking garage and parked on the top level. I walked in door 512 (an easy number for a programmer to remember), in to the main part of the terminal, and into the bathroom to *ahem* take care of some business.
After that, I walked out of the terminal, out door 512, got in my truck and started driving. I paid my $2 parking fee, drove south down Pena Blvd to I-70. I took I-70 west to I-225, and I-225 all the way around to I-25 to Belleview so I could get to work, which is where I am now.
Does this story seem completely pointless to you? It does to me. I paid $8 in fees and tolls and another $7 in gas to drive an hour out of my way just to take a dump at the airport? What was I thinking?
I left out one minor detail. While I was in the bathroom at the airport, I got a call telling me that my son actually missed his flight several hours before, and wouldn’t be landing for at least another four hours, and even that’s uncertain since he’s flying stand-by on a Friday! Let’s add on top of this that he forgot to charge his cell phone, isn’t answering the airport page, and left his insulin at his mother’s in Michigan.
Labels: life
Me with the baby
When I got home yesterday, the baby was not happy. He was fussy and fidgety and not in a good mood. Nobody likes a bad-mood baby, you know. Cady was sitting on the bed trying to console him, but it wasn’t working. She stood up and laid him down on the changing table and he started crying. This is one unhappy baby.
"What’s wrong with him, anyway?" I asked Cady. "Oh, he’s constipated." I guess I would be unhappy too if that were the case. (Though those of you who know me realize that this is rarely my problem in that area.)
So I went over to him and felt around on his tummy to see what was going on. He stopped crying almost right away, and gave me that out-of-the-corner-of-his-eye wide-eyed look like I was from Mars or something. Then his head turned purple and I heard a noise like a firecracker went off in his diaper.
The smell of this hit me, and I left the room for his mommy to take care of. It wasn’t until a little later that I thought about how that all went down. How do I summarize? I think I scared the crap out of him!
I hope he’s feeling better today.
Labels: life
Stop it!
For about as long as I can remember, I’ve been interested in doing some serious stop-motion video stuff. I finally had a chance last weekend when I went with Ray to her college for a video class. She had missed class earlier that week, and during that class, the professor had the other students do a stop-motion project. To make up for it, the prof, Ray and I all went down to the prof’s office and he set her up with a camera, a tripod, a computer and an orange cow.
As I’m sure you can tell by the subject of the film -- an orange cow -- this wasn’t the most serious thing ever, but hey! I got to help out with a stop-motion project! It was fun! It was about everything I thought it would be! Okay, maybe not quite that much, but it did give me an itch to do more. Now I just need a digital video camera and some insipiration. But mostly a digital video camera.
Brother, could you spare a digital video camera?
Labels: school
Failed my Dex Check
If you know me, you know I can occasionally be a bit of a klutz. Okay, probably more than occasionally. It’s usually just embarassing, but sometimes, being a klutz can be pretty painful.
I was innocently walking down the stairs at my girlfriend’s place when all of a sudden, my foot slid forward in my loosely-fitting sock, right off the step I was standing on! WHAM! *thud*thud*thud*thud* Now, I’m looking up at the ceiling, wondering what happened, and starting to notice pain here and there. And there. Yes, there definitely hurts, too. My neck was sore for a couple days after that one. At least the steps were carpeted.
After dinner, my girlfriend and I went for a walk around her neighborhood. There’s a greenway with a mostly-dry creek through it that we were walking along. The side we were headed to get kindof steep and prevented us from walking any further in that direction. Rather than go back to the bridge we crossed, we decided to try jumping back across. I climbed down into the creek bed first, and Ray followed. I figured I could take a step and jump over the water to the angled concrete wall on the other side. I was wrong. My foot slipped on the slimy muck at the edge of the water, robbing me of the forward thrust I would have needed to clear the water, and I splashed my way across to the concrete. After my jump, my finger was stinging, and I felt patches of gooey dampness at my ankle where muck was kicked up onto me. Failed my dex check again! I had a cut under my fingernail that was starting to bleed, and muck on my shoes and pant leg.
The third and final entry in this somewhat overly revealing (TMI! TMI!) blog happened in a place where you shouldn’t be allowed to get hurt. I was lying in bed in the morning. The covers were mostly covering me, but it was a bit warm this particular morning. I decided it was time to get up, and my brain sent the signal to my hand to grab the blankets and throw them off onto the other side of the bed. My hand complied as best it could, but didn’t realize at first that the blankets were lying right over my crotch. So instead of throwing the blankets off, I reached down, grabbed my right testicle through the flannel sheet, and attempted to fling it across the room! Before I even knew what happened, I was doubled over in pain, thinking that with the day starting out like that, it might not be the best idea to make another attempt at getting out of bed!
I hope you enjoyed my pain more than I did.
Labels: life
St. Patrick's and a couple other items from the last two weeks
My son Richard went to see Debbie, the nutritionist at the endocrinologist’s office. His track record (no pun intended) on getting his daily insulin injections has improved dramatically. Finally! That’s awesome! Sadly, though, in the meantime, his grades have gone downhill. This is due in part to the fact that he has trouble getting his ass out of bed in the morning. I can totally relate, but he’s really bad at it on some days. Days like today, he was a little late, and that only because he got a ride to school.
My brother Gus turned what he calls fifty-something. I think he’s 56. I got an email from my sister Karen that went to me, my brother Gus, and my sister Laurie. This got Gus and me chatting on a couple things, and got Laurie and me chatting as well. It’s quieted down again, but it’s nice to know they have email access. I should write to them again. None of them has a MySpace account, though.
On St. Patrick’s Day, I let Cady know I was heading home from work, which gave her about half an hour to get ready to go. She said she was going to get in the shower. I got home shortly before Ray and Aeddan arrived from Longmont and started to get myself ready as well. With everyone there and just about ready to go, Cady finally decides to step into the shower. Slowpoke.
The six of us (Ray, Aeddan, Richard, Cady, Gene and I) went to Bennigan’s for dinner, which is about as Irish as my favorite Irish beer - Killian’s (brewed by the Coors brewing company, Golden, CO). The corned beef and cabbage was pretty bland, but the Irish whiskey was decent. We ate, we talked, it was fun. The waitress gave us beaded necklaces at the end of the meal. We didn’t even have to show her our boobs! I totally would have, too.
Afterwards, Cady took the baby over to her friend’s house and she and her friend attempted to go to a karaoke bar. I heard something about how that didn’t work out, but I don’t know what they ended up really doing. Ray and I went to a movie - The Other Boleyn Girl. I’d highly recommend it, though there’s a whole lot of "giving birth" scenes in it, and quite a few things that I would like to have gotten more detail on. In my opinion, the king looks like Brandon, a local IFGS’er.
After the movie, we were walking to the truck and went past a bar, Bar Louie. We went inside and over to the fire place to warm up. It’s a really cool-looking fire place with white crystal-looking stones through which the gas rises and burns, so it looks like the crystals are on fire. I want one! We tried a drink they called the Irish car bomb, which is a 50/50 shot of Bailey’s and Jamison Irish whiskey dropped into a half-glass of Guinness right before you drink it. In my couple attempts, I could not figure out a way to drop the shot into the beer without sloshing something onto the floor. When I got done drinking, it looked like I hurled on my feet! Ray and I hung around for a couple hours playing darts and sharing a Reuben. At the end of the night, we were tied at two games apiece in 301 (where you try to get to exactly 301 points first). Not bad for $2. The darts, I mean. There might be a tie-breaker in our future!
Labels: life
Man Stick
Man stick? What is it? Could it be some new type of deodorant? "Whew! I need to put on some man-stick!" No, that's not it, but good guess. (As everyone knows, the alternate names for deodorant are "underodor disarmament" or simply "pit juice." Extra points if you call it "dead ferret.")
Is it a reference to a walking cane? "Fetch me mah teeth and my man-stick, sonny!" Nah. I'm not even sure I can say you're getting warmer.
Does it have something to do with a car's stick shift? "Take that wimpy stock factory shifter out, I'm putting in a Man Stick!" Well, not that I know of, anyway.
Well, then, is it dirty? "&^ @(^$ man stick !% +* $%& ^!@!" No, get your mind out of the gutter. (For those of you who went here first, message me.)
No, no and no. But to explain what it IS, I need to tell you a story.
My girlfriend and I were downtown on the cold evening after a nice day. We found ourselves on Blake Street. I read in a local magazine about a Moroccan restaurant on Blake Street and we decided to try it out. Walking inside, we were first greeted by a happy warmth, and second by the host. The place is narrow but deep. Near the window were lower tables surrounded by pillows. Further back, there were proper tables with bench seats covered in pillows. There were essentially two rows of tables and an aisle down the middle. This is not a big place, folks. Between the tables stood large hookahs, but they weren't in use.
We took our seat towards the middle-back where the host placed us. Glancing over the menu, we found several things we wanted to try, and more that we couldn't pronounce. When the waiter finally came to take our order, we had settled on the seafood appetizer, some wine and two entrees. We told the waiter which appetizer we wanted, and he immediately corrected us to the non-seafood version. "You'll like it better, I promise," he told us. Alright, we'll go with that recommendation. Now to the wine. I took a stab at the pronunciation of it, and wasn't too far off, really. It was the one that was imported from Morocco. We told him which entrees we wanted, and he was off.
A little bit later, we had bread, herb butter and wine in front of us. Yum! Then came the appetizer. Much to Ray's chagrin, it was covered in powdered sugar and cinnamon. I was fine with that, but I like sweet much more than she does. We ate the whole thing, even though we probably should have only had half of it. We didn't think it would reheat well.
Yeah, yeah, man stick. I'm getting to that. Hang on.
Our food came out, and it looked great. It was delicious, too! While we were eating, a belly dancer came out and danced at the table diagonally across the way from us. She got some of the patrons to stand up and dance with her. Then she went past and danced further down (where we couldn't quite see). She returned to the back end of the restaurant, and made another round through. This time, she stopped at our table. At her encouragement, Ray got up and danced with her for a while. I was going to try to take a movie of it, but they were a little too quick for me. I would've totally been caught! After Ray sat down, she and the dancer both insisted that I get up and scare the other customers. "It'll be fun," the dancer said. So I did.
She had me try different moves, waving the arms, sliding my head back and forth, and then.... I turned into the Man Stick. Hands on hips, she wanted me to rotate my hips around in a circle. The best I could manage was a vague back-and-forth motion, totally revealing how little movement I was trying to get away with. Laughter from Ray, of course. She joined us to do the rock-your-hips-back-and-forth move. Then we sat down and Ray dubs me the man stick. Apparently, it's some sort of genetic cross between a man and a stick, and greatly limits ones mobility.
And there you have it.
Labels: food
Curtains
Several lifetimes ago, or so it seems, I was a pretty big Elton John fan. I blame my sister, Jo-Eva for that one. I used to listen to her albums (back when they were made of vinyl) all the time. That was back when I had the nickname "Brownie Boy."
A song from Captain Fantastic just played on my music player and it instantly brought me way back in time, as music does to me sometimes. Not quite back to my Brownie Boy days, but back to another life of mine, when I was still in the Army. I present to you: Curtains
I used to know this old scarecrow
He was my song, my joy and sorrow
Cast alone between the furrows
Of a field no longer sown by anyone
I held a dandelion
That said the time had come
To leave upon the wind
Not to return
When summer burned the earth again
Cultivate the freshest flower
This garden ever grew
Beneath these branches
I once wrote such childish words for you
But that's okay
There's treasure children always seek to find
And just like us
You must have had
A once upon a time
I had a once-upon-a-time back at the dawn of time, but despite the proximity of the Magic Kingdom, there was to be no happily ever after for me back then. It's just as well, I suppose, since I would have likely outgrown it anyway. I mourned its loss at least in part with this song.
I hope someday I can look back on this time in my life and call it a once-upon-a-time with a much happier ending. So far, it looks promising.
Labels: music
Random geeky thoughts
Driving down I-25, I noticed a sign that said, "
I-25 ALIGNMENT CHANGE." Those of you who know that Gary Gygax died yesterday will know what I mean when I say it made me wonder what I-25's alignment was, and what it is now. I suspect it was evil before and that part hasn't changed. I remember seeing lots of cops on it before, making it lawful. Maybe it's chaotic now? This morning's commute would certainly support that. On the other hand, maybe it's always been neutral of some variety or another and it's about to get really evil. I think I'll take the side streets for a while to be sure.
Bees make honey. Bee gees make disco. Bee eff gees make explosions.
Imagine the scene in Star Wars where Darth
"I find your lack of faith disturbing" Vader is force-choking Admiral Motti. Put some donuts or bagels and some coffee cups on the table - it is a business meeting, after all. Now all of a sudden, Motti chokes on his food at the precise moment Vader singles him out. Wait for Motti to nearly pass out from lack of oxygen and have some random stormtrooper run in and give him the Heimlich, berating everyone for just sitting there and watching him choke almost to death. Rumors circulate about how "management" behaved and there is a low-level revolt on the station. Now all of a sudden, the rebellion has a Death Star. AT&T is born. It makes the rest of the trilogy kindof boring, but much more realistic.
If you see kitty litter, do you make him pick it up?
Finally, my idea for a reality TV show. It's a little too late now that the writer's strike is over and we can return to those well-written shows we've been missing (ha ha). Religious reality TV: Get a small "flock" of 21-25 year old male and female contestants. Make sure one looks like the stereotypical Anglicized Christ. Then ply them with various temptations. At the end of the week comes "confession." The one who commits the worst sin as voted by the others is kicked off. Everybody else has to wash their hands. I envisioned some really geeky guy getting kicked off the show when they introduce a bunch of strippers, but being happy about it since he only got on the show to get laid anyway. There could be the immunity aspect - "let he who is without sin cast the first vote." The religious right would shut it down fast, so it would likely never make it as a proper TV show. It would be fun to make. Know anybody who likes to do video production? /wink
Labels: news
