This is not going to be a long post, at least in contrast to the Christmas post from a couple of days ago. I hope. I never know where my mind's going to lead me, and I'm dangerously well-rested.
First off, a little side note: I'm back in my plain old folding chair. Far, far too much hassle to get the other chair into my bedroom, considering I have to flip it up on its side to get it through the doorway. If anyone has a line on some inexpensive office furniture, specifically a chair that can withstand me, let me know. Otherwise, I'll just save my pennies 'n dimes and get a nicer chair. My old one broke rather quickly, yes, but you pay $35, you get a $35 chair.
Has anyone noticed I'm terrible at the art of the segue?
I was thinking briefly about the amazing way we take technology for granted so quickly. I hear people complain about cell-phone service so much, and how this service is better than that, and they're paying $x a month which is way too much... and I can't help but think back 12 years ago or so. My dad had a truck phone -- yeah, you remember those, a phone which was plugged in to your car -- and to call it, it was a long-distance call. Even though it was a 602 number, you had to dial 1-602 then the number, which was 377-6861. (Of course, that was back before 480 and 623... mind-bending to think back that far, right?) It was some ridiculous amount per minute, and only got good reception in spots around the city. Now, with the way things have advanced... I don't know. Maybe I'm just being picky.
But anyway, I didn't think about it for too long. I'm pretty sure that after a few seconds, my mind wandered to bacon or something else.
Anyone who's been outside tonight will tell you it's BITTER FRIGGIN' COLD out there. I swung by the track to drop off some paperwork in the office, and at 10:20 PM it was 37? according to a thermometer on a lightpole in the parking lot. For all practical purposes, it's the same temperature at the airport as it is at the track, too, so like I said, it's BITTER FRIGGIN' COLD. (Disclaimer: RELATIVELY SPEAKING. All you snow dwellers keep quiet. When, in June, I say it's 95? out "and that's not so bad," you'll be complaining because you're sweating miserably in 81? weather. Ha! Take THAT, humid-climate persons!) It's not like it was a few weeks ago, when I wrote about the odd conditions outside. It's crystal clear out, and the air's light and dry. There's scarcely a breeze, even. It's just... well, you know. And that means it's probably going to be brisk tomorrow, too, which is OK... I've got Apache duty, so I can enjoy the nice weather. So long as it's nice, and not BITTER FRIGGIN' COLD.
I'm happy to report I've almost mastered my stutter. It only manifests itself when I'm nervous, but I've been working on it. Oddly enough, it hasn't been as much of a problem since I started working with Diego after I moved back to Phoenix. Diego's been working for us for a while now, but his grasp on English is shaky at best. My Spanish isn't great, but I can put things together combining what words I know with syntax and inflection and pretty much understand what he's saying. Anyway, in an odd twist, working so hard on putting phonetic sounds to words in my mind has helped me speak more clearly myself since my mind also processes my own speech more quickly, and I can anticipate what I'm saying and form sounds more quickly. And, by proxy, it has helped to eliminate my nasty stutter, too.
The stutter occurs because of another nervousness-spawned problem; I speak too quickly as if I'm trying to fill every empty space with speech when I'm nervous. Basically, when I get to thinking too fast, my mouth can't keep up, and words crash into each other. Tonight I was at dinner, and I was doing a darn good job of spacing my words well, and moreover just keeping my mouth shut. If I felt a stumble coming, I managed to slow down just enough so that the words unfolded cleanly. Then, it happened: Gelly Roll. You know, those neat pens with the awesome-looking ink? Not "Jelly Roll"... Gelly with a G. Okay, so they sound the same, but so what? Anyway, I think the sentence went something like, "It was one of those Gelly Roll pens," and somewhere in there a word got derailed, and it came out, "It was one of those Gellelly, lellegel... uh..."
*shrug* Oh well. I inhaled and started the sentence over. I said I was getting better -- I didn't say I had mastered it yet. I'm not sure if the approach is to speak more slowly, or just perhaps try and not be a big ball of nerves.
Okay, I'm out of stamina. It's sure fun to make these entries. I don't know why I don't feel like doing it more often, but it is what it is. Usually I'm just too tired, and I know once I get a head of steam built up, I'm in for the long haul, even if I start to get sleepy.
Saturday, December 27
Thursday, December 25
This is going to be a long post, one way or another. Why, you ask? Because I went to such great lengths to get comfortable.
I need a new computer chair. The one I bought when I moved in is pretty much shot, due to my propensity to lean back and prop my feet up on my desk. This wouldn't be a problem, if only I hadn't bought the cheapest chair at OfficeMax. So, anyway, when the old one gave up, I didn't have the loose fundage to go out and buy a nice new chair, so I bought a padded folding chair for $14 at Costco. Not bad, really, except that (1) I can't lean back and prop my feet up, and (2) over long periods of time, it makes my coccyx act up. (Of course, that's a whole 'nuther story, about how two years ago I dislocated my tailbone... now if I sit a certain way for too long, it'll slide out of place and hurt like a sum'bitch until I can pop it back in. What? You didn't know what a "coccyx" was? Lay THAT over a Triple Word Score!)
Anyhow, I've been thinking about blogging all day, what with this being Christmas and all. (Sidebar: insert sound of sleigh bells here... Merry Christmas, all! [in my best Cockney accent] "an' God bless us, ev'ry one!") *cough* okay... So, where was I? Oh, so I've been running this post through my head all day, and I figured it was going to be lengthy, but sitting in my little chair for that long didn't appeal to me, so I dragged the big chair that matches my sofa in from the living room into my bedroom here, just for the purpose of doing this blog entry. I can't leave it in here, because it takes up too much space, but for right now, I'm pretty danged comfortable. I'm leaned back, with my feet way up on the desk, and the keyboard is braced between my left leg and right knee as I type. Oh yes. I am the KING of lazy.
And that was just the intro!
I was brutally attacked outside Fry's yesterday. Yeah, a tree hit me over the head. I was walking in from the parking lot at the Fry's on 61st Street and Thomas (those of you from my neighborhood will correctly remember that as a Smitty's), and I stepped up onto the sidewalk and... CRACK! I saw flashbulbs go off, and I heard a sound like a baseball being sent skyward by Barry Bonds. I took a few more steps, stumbled, then realized that, hey, that sound came from my head! I kind of stumbled into a sitting position against the soda machines, and took stock of the pain beginning to filter in from my skull. I'd stepped up from the pavement onto the curb, and apparently right into a low-hanging tree branch, guessing from the little piece of bark in my hair. Amazingly, the branch didn't give AT ALL. I'd caught it right on a knot where they'd cut another branch off, and I absorbed all of the force from the impact. I didn't see any blood on my fingers, but there was already a jagged-shaped welt forming on my scalp, so I called my mom and asked if she could come down right quick and take a look at my head (they're on winter break, so she was home, and I'd just come from there after doing bookwork, so I knew she wasn't busy, thankfully). It hurt so bad at first, and I'd hit the branch so hard, I figured for sure I'd fractured my skull. However, my mom poked around on it for a minute (to my muted screams of "MUST YOU PROD THAT HARD?!") and reassured me that she didn't think it was broken. She said it would take a lot of force for me to fracture it just walking, to which I told her I think that the tree was actually one of those trees from Lord of the Rings and that it swung a branch down and cracked me over the head. Maybe. Anyway, that was yesterday around 2:00 pm, and now 32 hours later, it's still tender but the headache has subsided somewhat.
So, the moral of the story... I'm a clumsy ass. Still.
So, it being Christmas and all (cue sleigh bells again), I've been mulling over a lot of things. I figured I could fit these themes in to go along with a verse from The Christmas Song.
Here we are, as in olden days
I was thinking earlier today that Christmas seems a lot less thrilling than it did when I was younger. I had the Santa thing figured out at a much younger age than I let my parents believe; I was maybe six or seven, but they had so much fun trying to keep it all secretive, I didn't want to spoil it for them, nor my sister. (We had to break the news to her this year that, now that she was out living on her own, Santa wasn't actually real. It was tragic. ... I kid, I kid.) Anyway, I've always had fun shopping for people, but this year it didn't have that usual holiday zing. I found myself getting tired of 99.9 KEZ's all-holiday all-the-time music that my sister insisted on leaving on in the kennel. But things started to pick up a little bit when I started the actual gift-giving. In conjunction with another friend, we were able to successfully surprise someone else with a new bookcase, which was apparently just what they'd been wanting. And then, earlier this evening, I was over at my parents' house, with my mom, Zachary, Olivia, and her boyfriend. (My dad's up in West Virginia, and he figured it would be too much hassle to fly in and out just to be home for a night or so, so we sent him his gifts up there. Kind of a downer, having the family apart this year, but we'll get by.) Sitting there, unwrapping gifts, with a stocking-full of goodies, I finally regained the spirit I'd been missing all season. Even after my brother successfully pranked me by topping off my stocking with two half-used rolls of Scotch Tape, a tube of shower gel he's had for I don't know how long, one (singular) McDollar, and a CD I lent him two weeks ago. The little shitbag. I've taught him well in the ways of the well-executed joke. Anyhow, I got plenty of neat stuff this year. I got the Roaring Fork cookbook, autographed by head chef Robert McGrath himself, as well as a gig bag for my tuba. (Gig bag = soft case, for those unknowing. I hadn't had a case for The Beast all year, and this one comes with backpack-like carrying straps, even. Too nifty.) I had thought to myself as I was opening up one of my last gifts that I hadn't gotten anything where it was going to be something relegated to the shelf in my closet, if you get my drift. Then, blammo! I unwrap a fire-engine-red Wheeling Island Casino pullover fleece made of the same non-insulating, non-water-resistant, non-comfortable 100% polyester material as the other pullover I recently got rid of. Bleh. Oh well... you can't win 'em all.
Happy golden days of lore
I don't know. Nothing for this one. I would like to point out that, since I've started writing this post, I've gotten two phone calls, and it's quite a hassle to climb out of this chair and over my bed to get to it. Comfortable, yes, but the chair's not staying.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more
In the past two weeks I've talked with several people I'd been out of touch with for a while. Jeff and Romo, a couple of the guys from the track in Tucson, popped up this past week. Romo was in town last Friday and dropped by the track for a few minutes the night of the puppy derby stake, and Jeff called me last Monday and asked me if I'll be working New Year's Eve, because he'd like me to go to the Fiesta Bowl Block Party with him and his friends. (I'm thinking about that one. It sounds bad to say this, but I'm going to wait and see if anything else comes up first. The Block Party has never interested me that much.) And then, out of the clear blue sky, Kassi called me last Sunday while I was out at Apache. Talk about unexpected. I hadn't talked to her in months, basically since, well, the last time I'd talked about it on here. I bumped into her one time on AIM in August, and she'd had a rough time. She'd moved to Quartzsite to live with her grandmother. My Thanksgiving phone call to her cell phone went unanswered, and the subsequent voicemail I left garnered no return call, either. Anyway, like I said, she called me last weekend, said she'd gotten my message after all but had forgotten to call back, and that she was back in town and things were going a lot better for her. She'd met a guy, been on a couple dates, and things were going well, there, too. We chatted for a little while but I was fairly busy, so I didn't have long to talk, but I told her I was happy for her, which I am. I never wished her any ill will after all that happened way-back-when (early May, I guess), and I'm glad fate smiled upon her a little bit.
Through the years, we all will be together
If the fates allow
This one's a little deeper, a little less about current events. For some reason, I found myself thinking about the future ("Through the years", anyway... I don't know if the rest of that line fits) today while I was trying to take a nap after working this morning. I'm 22 now, and better than 2/3 of the way to 23. And yet, in a sense I don't feel any older than I did when I was 17 or 18. My parents celebrated their 25th anniversary a month ago tomorrow, and were 21 when they were married, 23 when I was born.
I have a hard time picturing myself as a father anytime in the near future. Now, I didn't say I don't want to have children, but... first things first, you know? I haven't even had a serious, in-depth, past-high-school-stage relationship yet. Come to think of it, I guess that's one place where I feel different than I did when I was in 12th grade... I finally feel like I'm ready to... date? Is that the right word? Date still sounds kinda high-schooly. But I've got the right concept in my head, even if I can't explain it totally correctly.
I guess in the end, it's all about gaining experience as you go along. Eight years ago today, Christmas when I was 14, I couldn't have ever imagined driving myself around everywhere; I was deathly afraid of driving. Six years ago today, when I was 16, I was working full-time at the kennel and a drivin' fool, but I couldn't have ever imagined myself moving away from home; I'd lived a fairly sheltered childhood, with not a lot of friends and even less going out with friends. Three years ago today, when I was 19, I was up from Tucson for the holiday and figured that Tucson was where I was going to be for a long time. A year ago today, I already knew I was coming back to Phoenix (we'd figured that out in September). A year and four months ago today, in August of last year, I was at my lowest point. I weighed 350 pounds and was... well, let's just leave it at "depressed". (You can see the photo evidence on my bio page.) Anyhow, not long thereafter, we figured out we were closing down Tucson, and the thought of coming back to Phoenix got my fire rekindled. By Christmas I'd started to lose some weight, and by the end of January this year I was down to 280, which is when the other picture on my bio page was taken. I haven't lost much more weight -- I've been down to 275 but never over 282 -- I seem to be losing fat and gaining muscle a little bit. The casual observer of me (um... that sounds kind of weird) probably wouldn't notice any changes, but I have, like, arm muscles now. Biceps, right? What an alien concept to me, having biceps I can actually flex. And when I lay flat on my bed, I can see my ribcage. Dude! It may not seem like a lot to most people, but after living with flab for as long as I have, these are big developments for me.
I might still have my down moments -- see the last post -- but I don't think everything's guaranteed to be milk 'n cookies in any walk of life. So I guess the point of this segment is, I can sit here and worry about the future all I want to, but I ought to have learned by now that whatever's going to happen is going to happen. I just have to play the game as it comes along.
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
I think I'm all "deeped" out. This segment just deals with the fact that I didn't decorate for Christmas at all this year. *shrug* I haven't in any of the past 3 years I was in Tucson, either, but under the guise that I was going to be in Phoenix for Christmas, anyway. Danny, Pete, and I decorated the kennel in Tucson last year, though. A couple of people asked me if I was going to get a tree, and I said no. Why not?, they asked. Well, I wasn't going to have any guests over at any point, so why bother? I know it's Christmas. Why put up decorations only I'm going to see, then eventually I'll have to take down? I dunno. Maybe next year.
And have yourself
A merry little Christmas now
That's about it. Kudos if you stuck around 'til the very end. I can get pretty verbose, you know. But I hope you had a merry Christmas.
I need a new computer chair. The one I bought when I moved in is pretty much shot, due to my propensity to lean back and prop my feet up on my desk. This wouldn't be a problem, if only I hadn't bought the cheapest chair at OfficeMax. So, anyway, when the old one gave up, I didn't have the loose fundage to go out and buy a nice new chair, so I bought a padded folding chair for $14 at Costco. Not bad, really, except that (1) I can't lean back and prop my feet up, and (2) over long periods of time, it makes my coccyx act up. (Of course, that's a whole 'nuther story, about how two years ago I dislocated my tailbone... now if I sit a certain way for too long, it'll slide out of place and hurt like a sum'bitch until I can pop it back in. What? You didn't know what a "coccyx" was? Lay THAT over a Triple Word Score!)
Anyhow, I've been thinking about blogging all day, what with this being Christmas and all. (Sidebar: insert sound of sleigh bells here... Merry Christmas, all! [in my best Cockney accent] "an' God bless us, ev'ry one!") *cough* okay... So, where was I? Oh, so I've been running this post through my head all day, and I figured it was going to be lengthy, but sitting in my little chair for that long didn't appeal to me, so I dragged the big chair that matches my sofa in from the living room into my bedroom here, just for the purpose of doing this blog entry. I can't leave it in here, because it takes up too much space, but for right now, I'm pretty danged comfortable. I'm leaned back, with my feet way up on the desk, and the keyboard is braced between my left leg and right knee as I type. Oh yes. I am the KING of lazy.
And that was just the intro!
I was brutally attacked outside Fry's yesterday. Yeah, a tree hit me over the head. I was walking in from the parking lot at the Fry's on 61st Street and Thomas (those of you from my neighborhood will correctly remember that as a Smitty's), and I stepped up onto the sidewalk and... CRACK! I saw flashbulbs go off, and I heard a sound like a baseball being sent skyward by Barry Bonds. I took a few more steps, stumbled, then realized that, hey, that sound came from my head! I kind of stumbled into a sitting position against the soda machines, and took stock of the pain beginning to filter in from my skull. I'd stepped up from the pavement onto the curb, and apparently right into a low-hanging tree branch, guessing from the little piece of bark in my hair. Amazingly, the branch didn't give AT ALL. I'd caught it right on a knot where they'd cut another branch off, and I absorbed all of the force from the impact. I didn't see any blood on my fingers, but there was already a jagged-shaped welt forming on my scalp, so I called my mom and asked if she could come down right quick and take a look at my head (they're on winter break, so she was home, and I'd just come from there after doing bookwork, so I knew she wasn't busy, thankfully). It hurt so bad at first, and I'd hit the branch so hard, I figured for sure I'd fractured my skull. However, my mom poked around on it for a minute (to my muted screams of "MUST YOU PROD THAT HARD?!") and reassured me that she didn't think it was broken. She said it would take a lot of force for me to fracture it just walking, to which I told her I think that the tree was actually one of those trees from Lord of the Rings and that it swung a branch down and cracked me over the head. Maybe. Anyway, that was yesterday around 2:00 pm, and now 32 hours later, it's still tender but the headache has subsided somewhat.
So, the moral of the story... I'm a clumsy ass. Still.
So, it being Christmas and all (cue sleigh bells again), I've been mulling over a lot of things. I figured I could fit these themes in to go along with a verse from The Christmas Song.
Here we are, as in olden days
I was thinking earlier today that Christmas seems a lot less thrilling than it did when I was younger. I had the Santa thing figured out at a much younger age than I let my parents believe; I was maybe six or seven, but they had so much fun trying to keep it all secretive, I didn't want to spoil it for them, nor my sister. (We had to break the news to her this year that, now that she was out living on her own, Santa wasn't actually real. It was tragic. ... I kid, I kid.) Anyway, I've always had fun shopping for people, but this year it didn't have that usual holiday zing. I found myself getting tired of 99.9 KEZ's all-holiday all-the-time music that my sister insisted on leaving on in the kennel. But things started to pick up a little bit when I started the actual gift-giving. In conjunction with another friend, we were able to successfully surprise someone else with a new bookcase, which was apparently just what they'd been wanting. And then, earlier this evening, I was over at my parents' house, with my mom, Zachary, Olivia, and her boyfriend. (My dad's up in West Virginia, and he figured it would be too much hassle to fly in and out just to be home for a night or so, so we sent him his gifts up there. Kind of a downer, having the family apart this year, but we'll get by.) Sitting there, unwrapping gifts, with a stocking-full of goodies, I finally regained the spirit I'd been missing all season. Even after my brother successfully pranked me by topping off my stocking with two half-used rolls of Scotch Tape, a tube of shower gel he's had for I don't know how long, one (singular) McDollar, and a CD I lent him two weeks ago. The little shitbag. I've taught him well in the ways of the well-executed joke. Anyhow, I got plenty of neat stuff this year. I got the Roaring Fork cookbook, autographed by head chef Robert McGrath himself, as well as a gig bag for my tuba. (Gig bag = soft case, for those unknowing. I hadn't had a case for The Beast all year, and this one comes with backpack-like carrying straps, even. Too nifty.) I had thought to myself as I was opening up one of my last gifts that I hadn't gotten anything where it was going to be something relegated to the shelf in my closet, if you get my drift. Then, blammo! I unwrap a fire-engine-red Wheeling Island Casino pullover fleece made of the same non-insulating, non-water-resistant, non-comfortable 100% polyester material as the other pullover I recently got rid of. Bleh. Oh well... you can't win 'em all.
Happy golden days of lore
I don't know. Nothing for this one. I would like to point out that, since I've started writing this post, I've gotten two phone calls, and it's quite a hassle to climb out of this chair and over my bed to get to it. Comfortable, yes, but the chair's not staying.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more
In the past two weeks I've talked with several people I'd been out of touch with for a while. Jeff and Romo, a couple of the guys from the track in Tucson, popped up this past week. Romo was in town last Friday and dropped by the track for a few minutes the night of the puppy derby stake, and Jeff called me last Monday and asked me if I'll be working New Year's Eve, because he'd like me to go to the Fiesta Bowl Block Party with him and his friends. (I'm thinking about that one. It sounds bad to say this, but I'm going to wait and see if anything else comes up first. The Block Party has never interested me that much.) And then, out of the clear blue sky, Kassi called me last Sunday while I was out at Apache. Talk about unexpected. I hadn't talked to her in months, basically since, well, the last time I'd talked about it on here. I bumped into her one time on AIM in August, and she'd had a rough time. She'd moved to Quartzsite to live with her grandmother. My Thanksgiving phone call to her cell phone went unanswered, and the subsequent voicemail I left garnered no return call, either. Anyway, like I said, she called me last weekend, said she'd gotten my message after all but had forgotten to call back, and that she was back in town and things were going a lot better for her. She'd met a guy, been on a couple dates, and things were going well, there, too. We chatted for a little while but I was fairly busy, so I didn't have long to talk, but I told her I was happy for her, which I am. I never wished her any ill will after all that happened way-back-when (early May, I guess), and I'm glad fate smiled upon her a little bit.
Through the years, we all will be together
If the fates allow
This one's a little deeper, a little less about current events. For some reason, I found myself thinking about the future ("Through the years", anyway... I don't know if the rest of that line fits) today while I was trying to take a nap after working this morning. I'm 22 now, and better than 2/3 of the way to 23. And yet, in a sense I don't feel any older than I did when I was 17 or 18. My parents celebrated their 25th anniversary a month ago tomorrow, and were 21 when they were married, 23 when I was born.
I have a hard time picturing myself as a father anytime in the near future. Now, I didn't say I don't want to have children, but... first things first, you know? I haven't even had a serious, in-depth, past-high-school-stage relationship yet. Come to think of it, I guess that's one place where I feel different than I did when I was in 12th grade... I finally feel like I'm ready to... date? Is that the right word? Date still sounds kinda high-schooly. But I've got the right concept in my head, even if I can't explain it totally correctly.
I guess in the end, it's all about gaining experience as you go along. Eight years ago today, Christmas when I was 14, I couldn't have ever imagined driving myself around everywhere; I was deathly afraid of driving. Six years ago today, when I was 16, I was working full-time at the kennel and a drivin' fool, but I couldn't have ever imagined myself moving away from home; I'd lived a fairly sheltered childhood, with not a lot of friends and even less going out with friends. Three years ago today, when I was 19, I was up from Tucson for the holiday and figured that Tucson was where I was going to be for a long time. A year ago today, I already knew I was coming back to Phoenix (we'd figured that out in September). A year and four months ago today, in August of last year, I was at my lowest point. I weighed 350 pounds and was... well, let's just leave it at "depressed". (You can see the photo evidence on my bio page.) Anyhow, not long thereafter, we figured out we were closing down Tucson, and the thought of coming back to Phoenix got my fire rekindled. By Christmas I'd started to lose some weight, and by the end of January this year I was down to 280, which is when the other picture on my bio page was taken. I haven't lost much more weight -- I've been down to 275 but never over 282 -- I seem to be losing fat and gaining muscle a little bit. The casual observer of me (um... that sounds kind of weird) probably wouldn't notice any changes, but I have, like, arm muscles now. Biceps, right? What an alien concept to me, having biceps I can actually flex. And when I lay flat on my bed, I can see my ribcage. Dude! It may not seem like a lot to most people, but after living with flab for as long as I have, these are big developments for me.
I might still have my down moments -- see the last post -- but I don't think everything's guaranteed to be milk 'n cookies in any walk of life. So I guess the point of this segment is, I can sit here and worry about the future all I want to, but I ought to have learned by now that whatever's going to happen is going to happen. I just have to play the game as it comes along.
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
I think I'm all "deeped" out. This segment just deals with the fact that I didn't decorate for Christmas at all this year. *shrug* I haven't in any of the past 3 years I was in Tucson, either, but under the guise that I was going to be in Phoenix for Christmas, anyway. Danny, Pete, and I decorated the kennel in Tucson last year, though. A couple of people asked me if I was going to get a tree, and I said no. Why not?, they asked. Well, I wasn't going to have any guests over at any point, so why bother? I know it's Christmas. Why put up decorations only I'm going to see, then eventually I'll have to take down? I dunno. Maybe next year.
And have yourself
A merry little Christmas now
That's about it. Kudos if you stuck around 'til the very end. I can get pretty verbose, you know. But I hope you had a merry Christmas.
Friday, December 19
I wish I'd had a camera tonight, so I could have at least had a picture and not felt like I dressed up for nothing.
Had a stakes final tonight, and we ran 3rd and 7th. That's a decent enough showing, but it's not a win, and thus I don't get my picture taken. All the careful preparation I put into getting my outfit just right -- black shirt, black pants, gold tie, gray jacket -- down the drain just like that, after about 15 minutes. I drove around for a while, not feeling like going home, until finally I grabbed a strip wrap and a cherry diet at Sonic and drifted towards my apartment.
I guess in spite of how goofy I generally feel I look all the time, I feel different when I'm wearing a suit. It's almost a feeling of relevance, like for a few brief minutes I can pretend I don't work at a job on the very fringes of social acceptance. Like for a few minutes, someone might care how I looked tonight.
Open question: If, for $27, you could be someone else for 2½ minutes, would you do it? Maybe I'll explain that more next time I post. Maybe.
I'm probably coming across as pretty down and out. I guess I am, somewhat. As much as I may irrationally hope, you can't win 'em all. That doesn't stop me from trying to, though. At least the lady whose dog won was very deserving of it. I'd probably be a lot more grouchy if someone I didn't like beat me, but Maxine Willis winning it... I can deal with that. She had her daughter and a few of her grandchildren out, and they all went out for the picture. It was a pretty decent chunk of change; winner took $6000 in bonus money plus regular money for winning a top grade race, spiraling down to last place taking $750 in bonus money. And since Maxine owns her own dogs, she keeps all of it for herself. Anyway, I'm happy for her.
I don't have a whole lot else to talk about. I'm not getting nearly enough rest of late. Hate to admit it, but spending two or three hours a day at my parents' house doing bookwork on top of my usual workweek is already starting to kick my ass. And in playing the part of the benevolent boss, I'm working Christmas morning. *shrug* If I were a prick, I'd've ignored the requests of some of my employees and just scheduled them in. As it is, I usually have Thursdays off anyway. *shrug again* Oh well. Hopefully they remember things like this down the road when they're mad at me.
Olivia's out cold with the flu. She's been sick since Tuesday night. She tried to work tonight, as the original deal was for her and Mark to swap Thursday for Friday, meaning Mark picked up for her Thursday and she was supposed to work for hhim tonight. She came out, and lasted about 75 minutes in the cold before she got violently ill again, but Mark offered to let her go home and do it himself since he was at the track to watch the big race anyway. So, she's going to urgent care in the morning, which means that she probably won't be working tomorrow at all, which means I get to, since Mark's doing Apache all day and won't be able to do the races at Phoenix at night. So, somewhere along the line, I lost most of my time off this week.
I don't know why I blab on and on about work on here. I'm sure nobody gives a shit. But basically, my desire to write about the weather has taken a holiday. If I could loose my brain from the fog it's in right now, I might feel like being more poetic. Instead, I'm going to go eat that strip wrap.
Come to think of it, maybe I won't. You ever get to the point where you're not really tasting the food you eat? Like you're just eating because your body says it's time to, but everything just kind of has the same vague taste? That's kind oif what I feel like. I'm going to go eat that sandwich, but I might as well eat a dish towel.
Or maybe I'll just go to bed and wake up tomorrow, hoping for a brighter day. Theoretically speaking. Brighter would mean warmer, and that's unfavorable.
Had a stakes final tonight, and we ran 3rd and 7th. That's a decent enough showing, but it's not a win, and thus I don't get my picture taken. All the careful preparation I put into getting my outfit just right -- black shirt, black pants, gold tie, gray jacket -- down the drain just like that, after about 15 minutes. I drove around for a while, not feeling like going home, until finally I grabbed a strip wrap and a cherry diet at Sonic and drifted towards my apartment.
I guess in spite of how goofy I generally feel I look all the time, I feel different when I'm wearing a suit. It's almost a feeling of relevance, like for a few brief minutes I can pretend I don't work at a job on the very fringes of social acceptance. Like for a few minutes, someone might care how I looked tonight.
Open question: If, for $27, you could be someone else for 2½ minutes, would you do it? Maybe I'll explain that more next time I post. Maybe.
I'm probably coming across as pretty down and out. I guess I am, somewhat. As much as I may irrationally hope, you can't win 'em all. That doesn't stop me from trying to, though. At least the lady whose dog won was very deserving of it. I'd probably be a lot more grouchy if someone I didn't like beat me, but Maxine Willis winning it... I can deal with that. She had her daughter and a few of her grandchildren out, and they all went out for the picture. It was a pretty decent chunk of change; winner took $6000 in bonus money plus regular money for winning a top grade race, spiraling down to last place taking $750 in bonus money. And since Maxine owns her own dogs, she keeps all of it for herself. Anyway, I'm happy for her.
I don't have a whole lot else to talk about. I'm not getting nearly enough rest of late. Hate to admit it, but spending two or three hours a day at my parents' house doing bookwork on top of my usual workweek is already starting to kick my ass. And in playing the part of the benevolent boss, I'm working Christmas morning. *shrug* If I were a prick, I'd've ignored the requests of some of my employees and just scheduled them in. As it is, I usually have Thursdays off anyway. *shrug again* Oh well. Hopefully they remember things like this down the road when they're mad at me.
Olivia's out cold with the flu. She's been sick since Tuesday night. She tried to work tonight, as the original deal was for her and Mark to swap Thursday for Friday, meaning Mark picked up for her Thursday and she was supposed to work for hhim tonight. She came out, and lasted about 75 minutes in the cold before she got violently ill again, but Mark offered to let her go home and do it himself since he was at the track to watch the big race anyway. So, she's going to urgent care in the morning, which means that she probably won't be working tomorrow at all, which means I get to, since Mark's doing Apache all day and won't be able to do the races at Phoenix at night. So, somewhere along the line, I lost most of my time off this week.
I don't know why I blab on and on about work on here. I'm sure nobody gives a shit. But basically, my desire to write about the weather has taken a holiday. If I could loose my brain from the fog it's in right now, I might feel like being more poetic. Instead, I'm going to go eat that strip wrap.
Come to think of it, maybe I won't. You ever get to the point where you're not really tasting the food you eat? Like you're just eating because your body says it's time to, but everything just kind of has the same vague taste? That's kind oif what I feel like. I'm going to go eat that sandwich, but I might as well eat a dish towel.
Or maybe I'll just go to bed and wake up tomorrow, hoping for a brighter day. Theoretically speaking. Brighter would mean warmer, and that's unfavorable.
Thursday, December 11
Winter has arrived
It rained tonight, and it was definitely the first winter rain of the season. You can tell because you can hardly smell any creosote in the air. As I've discussed before, with those summer storms, you can smell creosote for hours before the storm actually hits, and for hours afterwards. Now, there's just kind of a dank weight to the air. You know what it feels like? If it were foggy outside, that's what it would feel like. Except it isn't. In fact, it's starkly and eerily clear. And quiet. I got out of my truck just now, and there was hardly a sound to be heard, save for water dripping off the end of the covered-parking structure. Well, there may have been the faint rumble of a jet from the airport, but that was it. The roads were empty on the way home.
And it's friggin' cold, too. It's going to be a cold friggin' morning, maybe even foggy if the conditions hold. But definitely cold.
Anyway, nothing much to talk about as far as myself. My dad's halfway to West Virginia, spending the night in Kansas, so I guess I'm officially in charge here in Phoenix. So begins what could be one of the best years of my life, I guess, if all goes well. We'll see.
It rained tonight, and it was definitely the first winter rain of the season. You can tell because you can hardly smell any creosote in the air. As I've discussed before, with those summer storms, you can smell creosote for hours before the storm actually hits, and for hours afterwards. Now, there's just kind of a dank weight to the air. You know what it feels like? If it were foggy outside, that's what it would feel like. Except it isn't. In fact, it's starkly and eerily clear. And quiet. I got out of my truck just now, and there was hardly a sound to be heard, save for water dripping off the end of the covered-parking structure. Well, there may have been the faint rumble of a jet from the airport, but that was it. The roads were empty on the way home.
And it's friggin' cold, too. It's going to be a cold friggin' morning, maybe even foggy if the conditions hold. But definitely cold.
Anyway, nothing much to talk about as far as myself. My dad's halfway to West Virginia, spending the night in Kansas, so I guess I'm officially in charge here in Phoenix. So begins what could be one of the best years of my life, I guess, if all goes well. We'll see.
Saturday, December 6
Restraint
LiveJournal: Current Mood: :-|
That's the best way I can put it. :-|. There's such a war going on in my head right now, but I can't talk about it here. I'm seriously considering starting another blog, and writing it under a pseudonym, just so I can put these thoughts to paper.
It's not about the night out I just had, in case my friends I was with are reading this. That was fun. I've just got plenty on my plate right now. I'm staring the future in the face as we speak, since my dad is leaving on Wednesday (yeah, Wednesday!!) for West Virginia. That was about two and a half weeks earlier than I'd been figuring on, although that's not to say I'm not ready for it. It was just kinda short notice, is all. So I'll be handling things on this end of the continent for... well, we're not sure how long. Nine months? A year? Something in there, basically until, I suppose, he finds someone he fully, fully trusts to hold down the fort. Could be me, eventually... but I hope not. Although the pay would be unfathomable if I were training in Wheeling, I don't want to leave here. Not with everything else I have going on. ...... Okay, so, yeah, I don't have THAT much going on. Just my friends. But that's enough to make me want to stay; I don't want to leave my friends agaiin.
So that's just one thing. There's more stuff, but I'll keep it to myself. I learned the hard way that showing all of your cards tends to offend some people, especially if they're involved in said cards.
So it's actually 2:00 am, not 11:46 as my timestamp will claim. I've just got a lot to think about, things that could alter the course of the rest of my life. I dunno. I get too nervous thinking about big weighty decisions like that. So far, I've done OK just letting the chips fall where they may. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
If you should be bloghopping here at Blogger for some reason, and you come across a blog that has a writing style similar to mine, but seems to involve a whole lot more complaining about stuff, well, it might be me. It goes back to my need to see stuff written out just to get it off my head. Even if I tell no one about The Other Blog, just the fact that it's written down somewhere would help me considerably.
LiveJournal: Current Mood: :-|
That's the best way I can put it. :-|. There's such a war going on in my head right now, but I can't talk about it here. I'm seriously considering starting another blog, and writing it under a pseudonym, just so I can put these thoughts to paper.
It's not about the night out I just had, in case my friends I was with are reading this. That was fun. I've just got plenty on my plate right now. I'm staring the future in the face as we speak, since my dad is leaving on Wednesday (yeah, Wednesday!!) for West Virginia. That was about two and a half weeks earlier than I'd been figuring on, although that's not to say I'm not ready for it. It was just kinda short notice, is all. So I'll be handling things on this end of the continent for... well, we're not sure how long. Nine months? A year? Something in there, basically until, I suppose, he finds someone he fully, fully trusts to hold down the fort. Could be me, eventually... but I hope not. Although the pay would be unfathomable if I were training in Wheeling, I don't want to leave here. Not with everything else I have going on. ...... Okay, so, yeah, I don't have THAT much going on. Just my friends. But that's enough to make me want to stay; I don't want to leave my friends agaiin.
So that's just one thing. There's more stuff, but I'll keep it to myself. I learned the hard way that showing all of your cards tends to offend some people, especially if they're involved in said cards.
So it's actually 2:00 am, not 11:46 as my timestamp will claim. I've just got a lot to think about, things that could alter the course of the rest of my life. I dunno. I get too nervous thinking about big weighty decisions like that. So far, I've done OK just letting the chips fall where they may. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
If you should be bloghopping here at Blogger for some reason, and you come across a blog that has a writing style similar to mine, but seems to involve a whole lot more complaining about stuff, well, it might be me. It goes back to my need to see stuff written out just to get it off my head. Even if I tell no one about The Other Blog, just the fact that it's written down somewhere would help me considerably.
Wednesday, December 3
Guess what guess what guess what guess what??
It's now officially Christmas season. Want to know why? They've posted the information for Phoenix on the TubaChristmas website! I have literally been waiting all year for this. As many of you know, I finally got a tuba for Christmas last year, after having to rent one to play in Tucson's TC appearance last December. I've been waiting anxiously, checking the TC site every so often like a kid waiting to find out if he got in the same class as his friend in elementary school. And, ta-da! The Phoenix TubaChristmas is Saturday the 13th, at 6:00 pm at Town Lake.
Anyway, it's been a pretty good friggin' week. When last you guys saw me, it was six nights ago, and I was bemoaning what I thought was the start to a crappy weekend.
Bzatt!
I mentioned in the post before last that opening day at Apache was the day after Thanksgiving. The season has 20 weeks, each week including Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday, with the exception of opening weekend, which has a Friday instead of a Wednesday (to capitalize on the 4-day weekend). So, last season (last week of Nov. thru last week of March) we had 48 wins total and finished 8th in the standings out of 11 kennels. Not such a great showing, but then again, we were divided in force at the beginning of last season with me still in Tucson.
Anyhow, we'd set out to serve notice at Apache this year. In fact, our goal is to be top kennel in Wheeling, Phoenix, and Apache when Apache closes in the first week of April. (The seasons in Wheeling and Phoenix start in January 1. And, of course, we run Wichita, but it'd just be nice to have a good year there; top kennel isn't realistic there since there's a couple of kennels that run their absolute best dogs whereas Wichita is our 3rd string.) I had hoped for, say, three wins a day, for a total of 9. Well, we had 6 Friday alone. I figured, well, great, but I don't think we can keep up the pace all weekend. No, we couldn't; we just had 5 wins each on Saturday and Sunday. Better yet, there was only 10 races Sunday, so by percentage (there's usually 15), that would have been like winning 7 on a regular day. Anyway, that gave us 16 for the weekend. If you're counting on your abacus at home, that sets us on a pace to beat last season's win total -- before New Year's.
Damn!
And the best part is, the kennel isn't even at full strength yet. We qualified a few more from Phoenix on Sunday, and we're schooling 8 more Sunday to go with the 50 already active out there. (We don't actually kennel at the track out there; we're running it out of our Phoenix kennel.) As far as money goes, Apache only pays about 1/3 of what Phoenix pays (Wichita pays ½, while Wheeling pays about six times as much... the caliber of dogs we run at each track is directly related to the monies available), but we still had a really good weelk. And in the standings, the next closest kennel only had 5 wins, so we're eating more than our share of cake.
Today (Wednesday) eas the first day of the 2nd week, and though our win pace fell off slightly (3), we had enough dogs hit the paysheet (they pay for win, 2nd, and 3rd at Apache, unlike almost every other track in the country where they pay for 4th as well) so that our point total didn't dip at all.
Anyways, so as you might have noticed, I'm pretty excited. I'm going to bed, though. Hope everyone else had as good a weekend as I had. It sure didn't look like it was going to be much from the front end, but as Chris Berman says, "That's why they play the games."
It's now officially Christmas season. Want to know why? They've posted the information for Phoenix on the TubaChristmas website! I have literally been waiting all year for this. As many of you know, I finally got a tuba for Christmas last year, after having to rent one to play in Tucson's TC appearance last December. I've been waiting anxiously, checking the TC site every so often like a kid waiting to find out if he got in the same class as his friend in elementary school. And, ta-da! The Phoenix TubaChristmas is Saturday the 13th, at 6:00 pm at Town Lake.
"I'm so excited! And I just can't hide it! I know, I know, I know..." eh...
Anyway, it's been a pretty good friggin' week. When last you guys saw me, it was six nights ago, and I was bemoaning what I thought was the start to a crappy weekend.
Bzatt!
I mentioned in the post before last that opening day at Apache was the day after Thanksgiving. The season has 20 weeks, each week including Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday, with the exception of opening weekend, which has a Friday instead of a Wednesday (to capitalize on the 4-day weekend). So, last season (last week of Nov. thru last week of March) we had 48 wins total and finished 8th in the standings out of 11 kennels. Not such a great showing, but then again, we were divided in force at the beginning of last season with me still in Tucson.
Anyhow, we'd set out to serve notice at Apache this year. In fact, our goal is to be top kennel in Wheeling, Phoenix, and Apache when Apache closes in the first week of April. (The seasons in Wheeling and Phoenix start in January 1. And, of course, we run Wichita, but it'd just be nice to have a good year there; top kennel isn't realistic there since there's a couple of kennels that run their absolute best dogs whereas Wichita is our 3rd string.) I had hoped for, say, three wins a day, for a total of 9. Well, we had 6 Friday alone. I figured, well, great, but I don't think we can keep up the pace all weekend. No, we couldn't; we just had 5 wins each on Saturday and Sunday. Better yet, there was only 10 races Sunday, so by percentage (there's usually 15), that would have been like winning 7 on a regular day. Anyway, that gave us 16 for the weekend. If you're counting on your abacus at home, that sets us on a pace to beat last season's win total -- before New Year's.
Damn!
And the best part is, the kennel isn't even at full strength yet. We qualified a few more from Phoenix on Sunday, and we're schooling 8 more Sunday to go with the 50 already active out there. (We don't actually kennel at the track out there; we're running it out of our Phoenix kennel.) As far as money goes, Apache only pays about 1/3 of what Phoenix pays (Wichita pays ½, while Wheeling pays about six times as much... the caliber of dogs we run at each track is directly related to the monies available), but we still had a really good weelk. And in the standings, the next closest kennel only had 5 wins, so we're eating more than our share of cake.
Today (Wednesday) eas the first day of the 2nd week, and though our win pace fell off slightly (3), we had enough dogs hit the paysheet (they pay for win, 2nd, and 3rd at Apache, unlike almost every other track in the country where they pay for 4th as well) so that our point total didn't dip at all.
Anyways, so as you might have noticed, I'm pretty excited. I'm going to bed, though. Hope everyone else had as good a weekend as I had. It sure didn't look like it was going to be much from the front end, but as Chris Berman says, "That's why they play the games."
Thursday, November 27
Watch as Clifton finds the true meaning of Thanksgiving. (This is a rare instance in which I came back and changed the title at the end. This post gave me an interesting bit to think about.)
I've been home for a while now, having hung around my parents' house for a while after Thanksgiving dinner. I watched the first 40 minutes of the 10:00 Simpsons hour on WB6 with my brother, then figured I'd drive on home before I was tempted to just zonk on the couch there and try (and, likely, fail) to get up at 5:30 to stop by my apartment and get changed for the day's work.
Anyway, so I've been sitting around debating whether to actually post on here tonight. I've been trying not to make this the Bitch & Moan Corner, because, hey, who likes to read about other people's self-pity festivals? But there it is. You can pretty much just skip the remainder of this post if you want. I just feel like putting it into print, because it's giving me a headache.
Thanksgiving blew.
*shrug* The day has just sucked overall. No major catastrophes or anything, but it hasn't left me feeling fulfilled like Thanksgiving's supposed to. I wanted to sleep in, but my bladder had other ideas at, oh, 9:45 or so this morning, when I'd fully intended to sleep until 1 or 2 in the afternoon. So I called and/or emailed a bunch of my friends to wish them a happy holiday (if I didn't catch you, don't feel snubbed or anything... sorry) and settled in to watch TV until dinner.
I should note that the suckness started last night, when I was informed that I was going to be housesitting and chauferring my brother around all weekend (Friday morning until Tuesday night) as my parents will be up in Wheeling getting started on the kennel up there. Of course, I asked my sister to help out, particularly on Friday and Monday, when I work from 6-11 and 3-midnight, and she laughed and said, "You expect ME to give up MY days off to watch Zachary??" ... which doesn't surprise me, and wouldn't surprise you either if you know my sister. Even though, I get to give up MY days off to do it, but... well, anyway...
Where was I? Oh, so anyway, I find out last night that I get to forfeit my weekend. Again. Oh well... not like I had plans or anything. I WILL be turning the thermostat down, though. I swear, they keep it at like 82º in there year-round. And I'll be doing my laundry on their nickel, too. I didn't want to grouse about it too much in front of my brother, because I don't have any problem with him personally, and I don't want him to get that impression. I have a great time hanging out with him. I just wish I'd known about this in advance.
But on the other hand... like I said, what plans did I have to cancel anyway? I was just going to end up renting a movie or something, probably.
And then dinner was really not that great. It's nice to know my parents will never read this... as far as they believe, all I do on the Internet is sit at Yahoo!Chat like I used to do when I was, oh, 16 or so. They don't even know about my website, let alone my blog. So, anyway, I can feel secure in divulging that the dinner wasn't very good. I feel bad, because I know the time and preparation that went into it, but... it just seemed like everything was kind of blah. I dunno, maybe it was just my mood. I do know that my favorite Thanksgiving dish -- my grandpa's scalloped oysters -- was a wreck. He brought it over basically straight from the oven without bothering to check it, and it wasn't done. It's supposed to be kind of quiche-like in texture, and it was basically oysters floating in hot milk with clumps of flour bobbing around. I ate some to be kind, but that was sort of disappointing, because I always enjoy that dish.
Anyway, then I went to the craphole Walmart with Kristy, because she needed juice and water to help with her flu but Walmart was the only store open by 7:30 pm, and who wants to go to the craphole Walmart (the one in Tower Plaza) by themselves after dark? So I picked up a couple of things as long as I was there... a chunk of Port Salut cheese, some canisters of Crystal Light, a 12-pack of caffeine free Diet Pepsi, a couple of other things. Then my debit card refused to work at the register. It's worn out, yeah, but it still works most everywhere. Well, the Checkout Lady From Hell gives it a few lame swipes herself, then tries the plastic bag trick, and then just hands it to me and says, "It's all scratched up. It won't work." I asked, "Well, run it as credit, then." She tried a couple of times, said, "Still won't work." I said, "Can't you type in the numbers?", like, I'll note, EVERY GROCERY STORE I'VE EVER BEEN TO CAN DO WITH A CREDIT CARD. She says, "No. Can't," then just sits there and stares at me. Well, Kristy offers to put it all on her card, which at least freed me from that temporary embarassment, since I hardly ever carry cash or other cards. I marched over to the ATM while Kristy was checking out, had no problem withdrawing a $20 to pay Kristy back with. I made sure the cashier noted the speed and ease with which I used the ATM, although in my foolhardy attempt to make a show of superiority, I paid a total of $3.50 in ATM fees. So then I felt pretty stupid about that, too, since I cold have just driven down the street and used the B of A ATM and paid no fees. So the fact that I made an ass of myself in front of a friend didn't help much with the mood, either.
Anyway... sorry... I don't like being embarrassed in public like that. That's probably my biggest fear.
So I dropped Kristy off, went back to my parents' house for a little while (watched TV, as mentioned above), then drifted on home.
Now, as the day had been going, should it have come as a surprise to anyone that there was a silver Pontiac Aztek parked in my spot? And that there was NO parking to be found save for a group of spots about as geographically far away from my apartment as possible?
Of course, what do I do? Complain? Have it towed? Sure, and be known throughout my complex as The Asshole That Had A Car Towed On Thanksgiving, let alone just The Asshole That Had a Car Towed, period. So I pulled out a copy of my Parking Spot Notice form letter that I keep in my console. It's the one the begins, "Hi. I hate to point out the obvious, but this is a reserved space -- mine, in fact." It goes on to explain that obviously, they had trouble finding parking near whomever they were visiting for the evening, so now *I* can't park near where I'm visiting for the evening (i.e., my apartment), and that they shouldn't feel particularly bad, because obviously since I'd taken the time to print this form letter out, it's happened numerous times before; as it says, "You're not the first, and I'm sure you won't be the last, either." Anyhow, on the bottom, I scrawled, "Happy Thanksgiving. Hope your holiday was OK. Mine sucked, if you were wondering." I stuck it under a windshield wiper and drove on around to an open spot.
*sigh* I honestly hope you're not reading this far. I hope you'd've given up by now, because even though I don't necessarily want everyone reading about my trivial problems, if I don't post this out in the open, I won't feel like it's beeen lifted off of my chest. Tacky as it sounds, my headache has subsided. I may not keep this page updated as much as I like, but it sure is damn therapeutic when I need to blab about crap that's bugging me. And if I get it down in print, it doesn't keep bouncing around in my head.
I know that in the long run, dealing with watery scalloped oysters, unhappy Walmart clearks, and people who disregard signs that say "Reserved" are just that -- trivial crap. And, you know, though I mentioned before that I was feeling strangely unfulfilled tonight, now I can see the forest instead of the trees. If the fact that I have to spend Saturday watching TV at my parents' place instead of watching TV at my place is the worst thing I have to deal with all week, well, I guess I've got plenty to be thankful for tonight after all.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
I've been home for a while now, having hung around my parents' house for a while after Thanksgiving dinner. I watched the first 40 minutes of the 10:00 Simpsons hour on WB6 with my brother, then figured I'd drive on home before I was tempted to just zonk on the couch there and try (and, likely, fail) to get up at 5:30 to stop by my apartment and get changed for the day's work.
Anyway, so I've been sitting around debating whether to actually post on here tonight. I've been trying not to make this the Bitch & Moan Corner, because, hey, who likes to read about other people's self-pity festivals? But there it is. You can pretty much just skip the remainder of this post if you want. I just feel like putting it into print, because it's giving me a headache.
Thanksgiving blew.
*shrug* The day has just sucked overall. No major catastrophes or anything, but it hasn't left me feeling fulfilled like Thanksgiving's supposed to. I wanted to sleep in, but my bladder had other ideas at, oh, 9:45 or so this morning, when I'd fully intended to sleep until 1 or 2 in the afternoon. So I called and/or emailed a bunch of my friends to wish them a happy holiday (if I didn't catch you, don't feel snubbed or anything... sorry) and settled in to watch TV until dinner.
I should note that the suckness started last night, when I was informed that I was going to be housesitting and chauferring my brother around all weekend (Friday morning until Tuesday night) as my parents will be up in Wheeling getting started on the kennel up there. Of course, I asked my sister to help out, particularly on Friday and Monday, when I work from 6-11 and 3-midnight, and she laughed and said, "You expect ME to give up MY days off to watch Zachary??" ... which doesn't surprise me, and wouldn't surprise you either if you know my sister. Even though, I get to give up MY days off to do it, but... well, anyway...
Where was I? Oh, so anyway, I find out last night that I get to forfeit my weekend. Again. Oh well... not like I had plans or anything. I WILL be turning the thermostat down, though. I swear, they keep it at like 82º in there year-round. And I'll be doing my laundry on their nickel, too. I didn't want to grouse about it too much in front of my brother, because I don't have any problem with him personally, and I don't want him to get that impression. I have a great time hanging out with him. I just wish I'd known about this in advance.
But on the other hand... like I said, what plans did I have to cancel anyway? I was just going to end up renting a movie or something, probably.
And then dinner was really not that great. It's nice to know my parents will never read this... as far as they believe, all I do on the Internet is sit at Yahoo!Chat like I used to do when I was, oh, 16 or so. They don't even know about my website, let alone my blog. So, anyway, I can feel secure in divulging that the dinner wasn't very good. I feel bad, because I know the time and preparation that went into it, but... it just seemed like everything was kind of blah. I dunno, maybe it was just my mood. I do know that my favorite Thanksgiving dish -- my grandpa's scalloped oysters -- was a wreck. He brought it over basically straight from the oven without bothering to check it, and it wasn't done. It's supposed to be kind of quiche-like in texture, and it was basically oysters floating in hot milk with clumps of flour bobbing around. I ate some to be kind, but that was sort of disappointing, because I always enjoy that dish.
Anyway, then I went to the craphole Walmart with Kristy, because she needed juice and water to help with her flu but Walmart was the only store open by 7:30 pm, and who wants to go to the craphole Walmart (the one in Tower Plaza) by themselves after dark? So I picked up a couple of things as long as I was there... a chunk of Port Salut cheese, some canisters of Crystal Light, a 12-pack of caffeine free Diet Pepsi, a couple of other things. Then my debit card refused to work at the register. It's worn out, yeah, but it still works most everywhere. Well, the Checkout Lady From Hell gives it a few lame swipes herself, then tries the plastic bag trick, and then just hands it to me and says, "It's all scratched up. It won't work." I asked, "Well, run it as credit, then." She tried a couple of times, said, "Still won't work." I said, "Can't you type in the numbers?", like, I'll note, EVERY GROCERY STORE I'VE EVER BEEN TO CAN DO WITH A CREDIT CARD. She says, "No. Can't," then just sits there and stares at me. Well, Kristy offers to put it all on her card, which at least freed me from that temporary embarassment, since I hardly ever carry cash or other cards. I marched over to the ATM while Kristy was checking out, had no problem withdrawing a $20 to pay Kristy back with. I made sure the cashier noted the speed and ease with which I used the ATM, although in my foolhardy attempt to make a show of superiority, I paid a total of $3.50 in ATM fees. So then I felt pretty stupid about that, too, since I cold have just driven down the street and used the B of A ATM and paid no fees. So the fact that I made an ass of myself in front of a friend didn't help much with the mood, either.
Anyway... sorry... I don't like being embarrassed in public like that. That's probably my biggest fear.
So I dropped Kristy off, went back to my parents' house for a little while (watched TV, as mentioned above), then drifted on home.
Now, as the day had been going, should it have come as a surprise to anyone that there was a silver Pontiac Aztek parked in my spot? And that there was NO parking to be found save for a group of spots about as geographically far away from my apartment as possible?
Of course, what do I do? Complain? Have it towed? Sure, and be known throughout my complex as The Asshole That Had A Car Towed On Thanksgiving, let alone just The Asshole That Had a Car Towed, period. So I pulled out a copy of my Parking Spot Notice form letter that I keep in my console. It's the one the begins, "Hi. I hate to point out the obvious, but this is a reserved space -- mine, in fact." It goes on to explain that obviously, they had trouble finding parking near whomever they were visiting for the evening, so now *I* can't park near where I'm visiting for the evening (i.e., my apartment), and that they shouldn't feel particularly bad, because obviously since I'd taken the time to print this form letter out, it's happened numerous times before; as it says, "You're not the first, and I'm sure you won't be the last, either." Anyhow, on the bottom, I scrawled, "Happy Thanksgiving. Hope your holiday was OK. Mine sucked, if you were wondering." I stuck it under a windshield wiper and drove on around to an open spot.
*sigh* I honestly hope you're not reading this far. I hope you'd've given up by now, because even though I don't necessarily want everyone reading about my trivial problems, if I don't post this out in the open, I won't feel like it's beeen lifted off of my chest. Tacky as it sounds, my headache has subsided. I may not keep this page updated as much as I like, but it sure is damn therapeutic when I need to blab about crap that's bugging me. And if I get it down in print, it doesn't keep bouncing around in my head.
I know that in the long run, dealing with watery scalloped oysters, unhappy Walmart clearks, and people who disregard signs that say "Reserved" are just that -- trivial crap. And, you know, though I mentioned before that I was feeling strangely unfulfilled tonight, now I can see the forest instead of the trees. If the fact that I have to spend Saturday watching TV at my parents' place instead of watching TV at my place is the worst thing I have to deal with all week, well, I guess I've got plenty to be thankful for tonight after all.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
Sunday, November 23
*groan*
Yeah, I know... I AWOL'ed again. This week has been Schooling Week at Apache prior to Apache's opening day the day after Thanksgiving. What with coordinating trying to get 50 dogs qualified out there, I've missed a lot of rest time this week. However, this mild sunburn could wind up a decent tan. (Yah. Right.)
Anyway, Coronado garnered an Excellent with 4 captions (missing out on the Music caption, which I can understand... they did what they could with a small band and mismatched show). I was bursting with pride at the progress of the low brass section. Don't tell 'em, but I had the sniffles while they were playing the big finish to the closer. I reminded them of the time we'd spent in that stinky dorm room at ERAU doing sectionals, and how it'd paid off in the end. I hope they'll have me back next season; I had a lot of fun working with the group.
I'm off to bed. I know, I know... 11:45?? Yeah, I'm clocking out early. For reals. Did I mention that now Blogger allows you to set the timestamp to whatever you want? Huzzah! Now when I finish a post at 12:03 AM, I can stamp it to say "11:46 PM" on the previous night, so it'll go under the date header I'd intended it to. (Go ahead and check the timestamps. If you see anything:46, you'll know I altered it.)
Yeah, I know... I AWOL'ed again. This week has been Schooling Week at Apache prior to Apache's opening day the day after Thanksgiving. What with coordinating trying to get 50 dogs qualified out there, I've missed a lot of rest time this week. However, this mild sunburn could wind up a decent tan. (Yah. Right.)
Anyway, Coronado garnered an Excellent with 4 captions (missing out on the Music caption, which I can understand... they did what they could with a small band and mismatched show). I was bursting with pride at the progress of the low brass section. Don't tell 'em, but I had the sniffles while they were playing the big finish to the closer. I reminded them of the time we'd spent in that stinky dorm room at ERAU doing sectionals, and how it'd paid off in the end. I hope they'll have me back next season; I had a lot of fun working with the group.
I'm off to bed. I know, I know... 11:45?? Yeah, I'm clocking out early. For reals. Did I mention that now Blogger allows you to set the timestamp to whatever you want? Huzzah! Now when I finish a post at 12:03 AM, I can stamp it to say "11:46 PM" on the previous night, so it'll go under the date header I'd intended it to. (Go ahead and check the timestamps. If you see anything:46, you'll know I altered it.)
Wednesday, November 12
Tuesday, November 11
The state of State.
Hey, group. Short entry here; I missed my usual Saturday ramblings due to a Surprise trip. (That's correct both literally and geographically.) For some reason, I was suckered into driving to the Wal-Mart at Bell and Grand... but anyway...
I know that the State Marching Festival is on this coming Saturday the 15th, but I'm unsure as to the venue and time that Coronado will be performing at. Hopefully, Ms. Rich will call me back tomorrow (that's "today" if this is Wednesday already) and let me know, at which point I'll post it to all the pertinent websites.
Quick side note: I tasted no difference between Honey Roasted Reese's and "regular" Reese's peanut butter cups. What would be cool, IMHO, is if they made a chunky variety. Just my 2¢ worth.
Matrix III was a bit of a letdown. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not as put off by it as Rick was -- but still, the plot fell apart somewhat towards the end. I appreciated how they wove Gloria Foster's untimely passing (the original Oracle) into the story line, though. I felt they tied up the loose ends fairly well as far as the story went, but it just seemed a little tacky at places. Case in point, without spoiling anything: When the kid is running with the ammo and tips the cart over, and the general crawls up his ass about it... then the kid says, "I won't let you down, sir!", so unfortunately, you can pretty much tell that half an hour later or so, the kid will have a chance to prove himself and, lo and behold, he comes through with flying colors. I don't know... maybe I'm too nitpicky.
All right. Hopefully I'll be on here by noon tomorrow with the info on State. Stay fresh, y'alls.
Hey, group. Short entry here; I missed my usual Saturday ramblings due to a Surprise trip. (That's correct both literally and geographically.) For some reason, I was suckered into driving to the Wal-Mart at Bell and Grand... but anyway...
I know that the State Marching Festival is on this coming Saturday the 15th, but I'm unsure as to the venue and time that Coronado will be performing at. Hopefully, Ms. Rich will call me back tomorrow (that's "today" if this is Wednesday already) and let me know, at which point I'll post it to all the pertinent websites.
Quick side note: I tasted no difference between Honey Roasted Reese's and "regular" Reese's peanut butter cups. What would be cool, IMHO, is if they made a chunky variety. Just my 2¢ worth.
Matrix III was a bit of a letdown. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not as put off by it as Rick was -- but still, the plot fell apart somewhat towards the end. I appreciated how they wove Gloria Foster's untimely passing (the original Oracle) into the story line, though. I felt they tied up the loose ends fairly well as far as the story went, but it just seemed a little tacky at places. Case in point, without spoiling anything: When the kid is running with the ammo and tips the cart over, and the general crawls up his ass about it... then the kid says, "I won't let you down, sir!", so unfortunately, you can pretty much tell that half an hour later or so, the kid will have a chance to prove himself and, lo and behold, he comes through with flying colors. I don't know... maybe I'm too nitpicky.
All right. Hopefully I'll be on here by noon tomorrow with the info on State. Stay fresh, y'alls.
Thursday, November 6
Tank, I need a primer on how to deep-fry.
Matrix III is all set. Friday night (unless you're reading this within an hour of me posting it, that's "tonight"), at the Harkins in Scottsdale Fashion Square, for the 10:00 pm showing. The plan is to rendezvous by the elevators in front of the theatre at 9:30, but I'll probably be there somewhat earlier, since I'll be home from the track around 7:15 and all I'll be doing is sitting around in high anticipation. Anyway, if anyone needs a ride, email me (tfg46@cox.net) sometime tomorrow.
It's been an interesting week. Dad's up in Wichita getting a new load of dogs situated, and our trainer from up there, Lazaro, drove down a load of dogs from there to take to Apache when it opens later this month. On the trip down, he got horrible gas mileage, so Dad told me to take it to Tommy Bishop's to have it tuned up. On the way out of town Tuesday night, though, Lazaro called and said he couldn't get it over 45. He came back and stayed the night, and in the morning we took it back to Tom's. Turns out the catalytic converter was totally shot, and the muffler wasn't far behind. So Lazaro had to hang around until 2:00 in the afternoon while we had the whole exhaust system replaced ($600), then had to drive all night to get back into Wichita by 6:00 this morning. Bleh. I felt badly for him, but if he'd mentioned to us that the truck sounded like a top-fuel dragster and wasn't running right three weeks ago, we could have had it fixed up there before he made the trip. He'd heard it, he said, but he didn't think there was anything wrong. *cough* Oh well... we got through it.
The dogs are running a little better this week. It's a cyclical thing... they're not going to be in peak form all the time. The best trainers, though, know how to extend the upswings while minimizing the downswings, espeically by paying attention to dogs who are starting to slip off form. Catch them before they lose too much confidence, and you can have them right back on the active list in no time, with just a week or so off spent doing light workouts.
Tonight, I also reaffirmed the fact that I can't use a deep-fryer. If I were stranded on a desert island with a deep-fryer and a bag of frozen french fries, I'd starve. (Well, okay... I'd probably gnaw on the frozen french fries, and, well, I guess they wouldn't stay frozen for long, but you get my point.) I don't know what the big secret is to having my potatoes come out all perfectly crisp on the outside and not soggy on the inside, like the hashbrown sticks at Del Taco. Oooohhhhhhh.... those little buggers are marvels of potato perfection. I mean, Sonic's tater tots are good, but Del Taco has got chopped and formed potatoes down to a T. The only tots I've ever had that were better, I got at a place called Taco John's. (Seriously.) There was one down on University and Rural for a while but they closed up shop a long time ago; they're actually really big in Kansas, which is where I first tried their Potato Olés. Little flattened tater tots, seasoned to perfection, soooooo delicious with a dollop of sour cream. McDonald's hashbrown patties can be good sometimes, but then again, everything else on the breakfast menu at McDonald's sucks (much like Del Taco) so it's hard to justify making a special stop there.
Anyway, back to the crisis at hand... I just don't know what it is. I used fresh oil, didn't overfill my cooker, only filled the basket half full, cooked them at the right temperature for the right amount of time, and they still weren't GBD (that's Golden Brown & Delicious... cookspeak). So I cooked them until they looked right, and they were somewhat crunchy on the outside, but the insides tasted like Idahoan insta-potato granules mixed with lukewarm tap water. And then they just soaked up the ketchup like a sponge, so instead of having that tang when you first bite into them mellowed out by the delicious interior of the tot, it's just sort of this bland, ketchup-and-mashed-potato taste all the way through. *sigh* Like my title says... this is where being jacked into the Matrix would be handy.
Anyway, I'm gonna head back to watch more TV. Housesitting for my parents last weekend left me behind on my programs. I made it through last Thursday and Friday earlier, and now I'm working on Saturday fare: America's Most Wanted and L.A. Dragnet. Among things to look for on here soon is my opinions about the shows I'm watching, including the new ones I've checked out. I heard they already cancelled Skin on Fox. Aww... well, the guy from Timecop will have to find a new gig already. I hope the cast enjoyed those prime seats in Yankee Stadium that Fox kept showing them in, because that was the pinnacle of their popularity: before the show premiered.
Matrix III is all set. Friday night (unless you're reading this within an hour of me posting it, that's "tonight"), at the Harkins in Scottsdale Fashion Square, for the 10:00 pm showing. The plan is to rendezvous by the elevators in front of the theatre at 9:30, but I'll probably be there somewhat earlier, since I'll be home from the track around 7:15 and all I'll be doing is sitting around in high anticipation. Anyway, if anyone needs a ride, email me (tfg46@cox.net) sometime tomorrow.
It's been an interesting week. Dad's up in Wichita getting a new load of dogs situated, and our trainer from up there, Lazaro, drove down a load of dogs from there to take to Apache when it opens later this month. On the trip down, he got horrible gas mileage, so Dad told me to take it to Tommy Bishop's to have it tuned up. On the way out of town Tuesday night, though, Lazaro called and said he couldn't get it over 45. He came back and stayed the night, and in the morning we took it back to Tom's. Turns out the catalytic converter was totally shot, and the muffler wasn't far behind. So Lazaro had to hang around until 2:00 in the afternoon while we had the whole exhaust system replaced ($600), then had to drive all night to get back into Wichita by 6:00 this morning. Bleh. I felt badly for him, but if he'd mentioned to us that the truck sounded like a top-fuel dragster and wasn't running right three weeks ago, we could have had it fixed up there before he made the trip. He'd heard it, he said, but he didn't think there was anything wrong. *cough* Oh well... we got through it.
The dogs are running a little better this week. It's a cyclical thing... they're not going to be in peak form all the time. The best trainers, though, know how to extend the upswings while minimizing the downswings, espeically by paying attention to dogs who are starting to slip off form. Catch them before they lose too much confidence, and you can have them right back on the active list in no time, with just a week or so off spent doing light workouts.
Tonight, I also reaffirmed the fact that I can't use a deep-fryer. If I were stranded on a desert island with a deep-fryer and a bag of frozen french fries, I'd starve. (Well, okay... I'd probably gnaw on the frozen french fries, and, well, I guess they wouldn't stay frozen for long, but you get my point.) I don't know what the big secret is to having my potatoes come out all perfectly crisp on the outside and not soggy on the inside, like the hashbrown sticks at Del Taco. Oooohhhhhhh.... those little buggers are marvels of potato perfection. I mean, Sonic's tater tots are good, but Del Taco has got chopped and formed potatoes down to a T. The only tots I've ever had that were better, I got at a place called Taco John's. (Seriously.) There was one down on University and Rural for a while but they closed up shop a long time ago; they're actually really big in Kansas, which is where I first tried their Potato Olés. Little flattened tater tots, seasoned to perfection, soooooo delicious with a dollop of sour cream. McDonald's hashbrown patties can be good sometimes, but then again, everything else on the breakfast menu at McDonald's sucks (much like Del Taco) so it's hard to justify making a special stop there.
Anyway, back to the crisis at hand... I just don't know what it is. I used fresh oil, didn't overfill my cooker, only filled the basket half full, cooked them at the right temperature for the right amount of time, and they still weren't GBD (that's Golden Brown & Delicious... cookspeak). So I cooked them until they looked right, and they were somewhat crunchy on the outside, but the insides tasted like Idahoan insta-potato granules mixed with lukewarm tap water. And then they just soaked up the ketchup like a sponge, so instead of having that tang when you first bite into them mellowed out by the delicious interior of the tot, it's just sort of this bland, ketchup-and-mashed-potato taste all the way through. *sigh* Like my title says... this is where being jacked into the Matrix would be handy.
Anyway, I'm gonna head back to watch more TV. Housesitting for my parents last weekend left me behind on my programs. I made it through last Thursday and Friday earlier, and now I'm working on Saturday fare: America's Most Wanted and L.A. Dragnet. Among things to look for on here soon is my opinions about the shows I'm watching, including the new ones I've checked out. I heard they already cancelled Skin on Fox. Aww... well, the guy from Timecop will have to find a new gig already. I hope the cast enjoyed those prime seats in Yankee Stadium that Fox kept showing them in, because that was the pinnacle of their popularity: before the show premiered.
Sunday, November 2
Some Things Are Changing; Some Things Never Change
Okay, so the movie plans have taken on an alteration. At least three people are working all day Saturday, so we've moved it to Friday night. We're figuring on a 9:00ish show, and I imagine we'll have our choice of theatres with numerous screens of Matrix III. I was kind of hoping to scope out that new complex up north, the Harkins Scottsdale 101. I couldn't figure out if that's just a description of where it's at, or if they actually have 101 screens... just kidding. Actually, Revolutions is showing at the Cine Capri, and I'd really like to check that one out sometime, but I figure two nights after the biggest event of the year opens, it'll still be fairly crowded. I'll look into it, though. harkinstheatres.moviefone.com doesn't have anything specific beyond two days ahead. All they show for each theater on Friday and Saturday is 5 showtimes for Matrix III, and I know there's going to be more than that, especially at the big'uns like AZ Mills. Anyway, I'll let you guys know as soon as I can get the exact showtimes, probably Wednesday or so.
As far as the other half of my topic... I checked in on my profile on a personals website which shall remain nameless. Six months, now, and no hits. Also no responses to any messages I've sent. When you add in the six months I had one up last year (that one I paid for... I know, not too smart), that's been about a year's worth of no one being interested in my profile. *chuckle* I sure would like to find out the secret of these people who give glowing endorsements of these personals websites. You've heard the commercials... "Hi, I'm Sam. I met my fiancée Nancy at _____.com. We've hit it off ever since our first date." *shrug* Maybe it's just me. Or maybe they're paid spokespersons and these sites actually don't work after all. But am I going to delete it and give up? No, I just tweaked a couple of things (took out the reference to the heat outdoors, for example) and let it be. You never know. Maybe tomorrow, someone will actually look at it.
Okay, so the movie plans have taken on an alteration. At least three people are working all day Saturday, so we've moved it to Friday night. We're figuring on a 9:00ish show, and I imagine we'll have our choice of theatres with numerous screens of Matrix III. I was kind of hoping to scope out that new complex up north, the Harkins Scottsdale 101. I couldn't figure out if that's just a description of where it's at, or if they actually have 101 screens... just kidding. Actually, Revolutions is showing at the Cine Capri, and I'd really like to check that one out sometime, but I figure two nights after the biggest event of the year opens, it'll still be fairly crowded. I'll look into it, though. harkinstheatres.moviefone.com doesn't have anything specific beyond two days ahead. All they show for each theater on Friday and Saturday is 5 showtimes for Matrix III, and I know there's going to be more than that, especially at the big'uns like AZ Mills. Anyway, I'll let you guys know as soon as I can get the exact showtimes, probably Wednesday or so.
As far as the other half of my topic... I checked in on my profile on a personals website which shall remain nameless. Six months, now, and no hits. Also no responses to any messages I've sent. When you add in the six months I had one up last year (that one I paid for... I know, not too smart), that's been about a year's worth of no one being interested in my profile. *chuckle* I sure would like to find out the secret of these people who give glowing endorsements of these personals websites. You've heard the commercials... "Hi, I'm Sam. I met my fiancée Nancy at _____.com. We've hit it off ever since our first date." *shrug* Maybe it's just me. Or maybe they're paid spokespersons and these sites actually don't work after all. But am I going to delete it and give up? No, I just tweaked a couple of things (took out the reference to the heat outdoors, for example) and let it be. You never know. Maybe tomorrow, someone will actually look at it.
Thursday, October 30
Muuuuuusical guest: The Clifton Gray Quintet!
I was told by a reader that they had a dream that they saw me (well... me, me, me, me, and me) singing my song on Saturday Night Live. Hopefully, if my group's ever that famous, we'll sound a little better by then. We need to work on our harmonies; our voices just don't seem to go together well.
Besides, I don't know if the world could handle 5 of me. There wouldn't be enough Clamato and Diet Dew to go around.
Anyhow, so it appears that everyone wants to get together and have another Matrix Convoy. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be hosting another dinner beforehand... I'm thinking the next one of those will be next year, after all this Wheeling Island hubbub dies down. Right now, all of our efforts are going into getting everything organized for opening that new kennel, and it's starting to wear on me somewhat. Yesterday I was up at 5:00 am, at the kennel by 5:30, then after we finished at 11:00, I spent all afternoon at my parents' house helping him with paperwork. I barely had time to zip home and change before I went back to the kennel at 4:00, and I was there through the track all night, getting home around 12:30 and getting to bed an hour later. I slept until 4:00 pm today, and yet somehow I'm still tired. I've got the yawns as I speak, so I'll probably be heading to bed soon. I do need to be at work at 5:30 again.
Anyway... I mentioned the movie, right? Perhaps if someone wants to figure out a time and rendezvous point, we could pull it off. I'd assume we're doing AZ Mills again, and I haven't looked to see how far in advance they put showtimes up, but they're probably going to have it going like every half hour on seven screens or something. I wouldn't worry for having to find a suitable start time. Saturday the 8th sound good for everyone? Let me know. I'll crosspollinate the idea on to a few other blogs, Mark's and Rick's... I won't do Katie's, 'cause it was her idea in the first place. :-)
I was told by a reader that they had a dream that they saw me (well... me, me, me, me, and me) singing my song on Saturday Night Live. Hopefully, if my group's ever that famous, we'll sound a little better by then. We need to work on our harmonies; our voices just don't seem to go together well.
Besides, I don't know if the world could handle 5 of me. There wouldn't be enough Clamato and Diet Dew to go around.
Anyhow, so it appears that everyone wants to get together and have another Matrix Convoy. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be hosting another dinner beforehand... I'm thinking the next one of those will be next year, after all this Wheeling Island hubbub dies down. Right now, all of our efforts are going into getting everything organized for opening that new kennel, and it's starting to wear on me somewhat. Yesterday I was up at 5:00 am, at the kennel by 5:30, then after we finished at 11:00, I spent all afternoon at my parents' house helping him with paperwork. I barely had time to zip home and change before I went back to the kennel at 4:00, and I was there through the track all night, getting home around 12:30 and getting to bed an hour later. I slept until 4:00 pm today, and yet somehow I'm still tired. I've got the yawns as I speak, so I'll probably be heading to bed soon. I do need to be at work at 5:30 again.
Anyway... I mentioned the movie, right? Perhaps if someone wants to figure out a time and rendezvous point, we could pull it off. I'd assume we're doing AZ Mills again, and I haven't looked to see how far in advance they put showtimes up, but they're probably going to have it going like every half hour on seven screens or something. I wouldn't worry for having to find a suitable start time. Saturday the 8th sound good for everyone? Let me know. I'll crosspollinate the idea on to a few other blogs, Mark's and Rick's... I won't do Katie's, 'cause it was her idea in the first place. :-)
Saturday, October 25
Fa La La La (etc.)
First off, I posted yesterday, too. I know! Sudden overload of information after all that time gone! No, seriously, yesterday I discussed my friends and deep-fried foods. Just in case you were wondering. It's just below.
Now, on today's theme... it's October 25th already. That means there are two months until Christmas. How time flies! But though I like the holiday season for several reasons, the music part is a definite plus: I can walk around singing, and people will think I'm "festive" and not "nuts." So, in the spirit of the upcoming holiday season, I recorded a little MP3 for everyone. Allow me to introduce...
The Clifton Gray Quintet!
Clifton Gray, lead vocalist
Clifton Gray, high tenor
Clifton Gray, tenor
Clifton Gray, baritone
Clifton Gray, bass
Thank you, thank you. Yeah, it's just me, my crappy system microphone, and Windows Sound Recorder, so it's not exactly polished. And the group could use some work... our timing gets a little off by the end of the song. But I'm still fairly pleased with it. It's "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," Rockapella's version. Right-click on the link below and select "Save Target As," because I don't know how to do streaming.
Clifton Gray Quintet - I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
(thetfg5.mp3 -- 1.54 MB)
All right. I'm going back to bed now.
First off, I posted yesterday, too. I know! Sudden overload of information after all that time gone! No, seriously, yesterday I discussed my friends and deep-fried foods. Just in case you were wondering. It's just below.
Now, on today's theme... it's October 25th already. That means there are two months until Christmas. How time flies! But though I like the holiday season for several reasons, the music part is a definite plus: I can walk around singing, and people will think I'm "festive" and not "nuts." So, in the spirit of the upcoming holiday season, I recorded a little MP3 for everyone. Allow me to introduce...
The Clifton Gray Quintet!
Clifton Gray, lead vocalist
Clifton Gray, high tenor
Clifton Gray, tenor
Clifton Gray, baritone
Clifton Gray, bass
Thank you, thank you. Yeah, it's just me, my crappy system microphone, and Windows Sound Recorder, so it's not exactly polished. And the group could use some work... our timing gets a little off by the end of the song. But I'm still fairly pleased with it. It's "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," Rockapella's version. Right-click on the link below and select "Save Target As," because I don't know how to do streaming.
Clifton Gray Quintet - I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
(thetfg5.mp3 -- 1.54 MB)
All right. I'm going back to bed now.
Friday, October 24
Is This a Title or a Theme?
I'm going to start putting a title at the top of each entry. Or a theme. I'm not sure if I want to call it a title, because that sounds like schoolwork and anything that resembles schoolwork makes my brain cramp. ouch... okay. So, theme it is.
Anyway, that's not necessarily the theme for this whole entry... but I figured I didn't want to just start doing it and have everyone bewildered and in the dark. The real theme for this entry is as follows:
Y'alls deserve a deep-fried Twinkie.
You guys, the readers of my blog, are a nifty, nifty group of folks. I appreciate the kind words on my update, and moreover the fact that you guys kept coming in here and checking even after I fell off the face of the earth for two months. This must be true, because I didn't tell anyone I'd blogged again (well, 'cept for Ashley, because I was IM'ing her at the same time I was blogging), yet just the same, I got comments from pretty much everyone. Kinda makes me wish I hadn't disappeared in the first place, but by the same token, it was an interesting experience to work for a couple of months with no outside distractions. And I mean none... we stopped karaokeing when the school year fired up again since everyone else got real busy, and besides, as I mentioned before, they stopped doing karaoke at the place we'd been going to. And that was about the extent of my social activity each week.
But anyway... thanks for being nifty, all. You guys deserve a deep-fried Twinkie. "What?", you ask? Yeah, apparently the new midway rage this year at the State Craphole -- *cough* I mean, State Fair -- is deep-fried Twinkies and Oreos. Last year it was deep-fried candy bars, especially Snickers and 3 Musketeers. I haven't actually been there this year (did I honestly miss much?). Has anyone seen that episode of The Simpsons where they go to the county fair and Homer gets his shirt deep-fried? I truly think he was right -- they CAN deep-fry anything. I mean, seriously, which friggin' genius sat down and said, "Hmm... Twinkies... all that hydrogenated oil 'creme' and 'golden cake' that's so full of preservatives, it has a half-life instead of a shelf life... How could I make this even less healthy?" I dunno. Pass the fry bread and the little squeeze bear of honey, please. You can keep your grease-soaked snack cakes.
Anyway... so, yeah, you guys are good friends.
I went over to Coronado tonight for the big homecoming game. Sure, I love my alma mater, but oh, how the mighty have fallen. I mean, we sucked pretty bad at the outset... then we lost our starting QB to a broken quarterbone, and he provided most of the offense, AND defense as a safety. So, draw your own conclusions. But, hey, got to see the band for the first time in over a month. The performance had its rough spots, but anyone who was in the CHS band can agree that Homecoming Day BLOWS CHUNKS. You've got your regular practice in the morning, then a pep rally, then you have to march the show in the stadium around 10:30 or so just when it's starting to get hot out for the big rally and float presentation... then right after school, back to the band room to prepare for that night's festivities, march the show during the game, THEN stand around for 20 minutes RIGHT after the show while a bunch of cheerleaders and football players move at sloth-speed across the field so that one lucky couple can be crowned King and Queen. Whoop-de-friggin'-do. Anyway, so usually by the end of that day, the show suffers a little. I thought, though, that it was all right. Honestly! However, everyone in the band I talked to afterwards said it was one of the worst shows of the year. *shrug* I know how they feel. I've now officially been on both sides of the tuba.
Anyway, it was neat going down there, because everyone there seemed to miss me while I'd been gone. I went up and helped load the truck for the NAU performance tomorrow (sorry, crew, no way I'm able to get up that early on a Saturday), which was a blast... it's been a good 4 years since I've broken down pit carts, but just like riding a bicycle, it all came right back to me. Anyway, it was great seeing all of the band again, and I promised the people I spoke with that I would make State no matter what. They've got the usual hectic performance schedule coming up; NAU tomorrow, a Thursday night game, some invitational in the west valley next Saturday, the last home game of the season on the 7th, and State on Saturday the 15th. I don't know when they're performing at State, but as soon as I find out, I'll post, and if anyone wants to convoy over there (I assume it'll be at Glendale Community College... maybe... might be at Chandler-Gilbert CC), let me know via the Comments box.
(Speaking of the comments box: Press the button once! The server is in the United Kingdom somewhere, and it takes a minute, but lately I haven't had any problems. My £12.00 "donation" (came out to like $14.77, I think) for a lifetime upgrade to Enetation Pro! seems to have helped some.)
Anyhow, so I'm pretty pleased right now. Things are on the up-and-up. I mean, there's things that aren't going so great, but those are things that are NEVER going so well, so it's nothing new. But when everything else is going so well, that part doesn't seem like such a gaping abyss. More like just something I look at and I think, "Well... someday..."
I'm going to start putting a title at the top of each entry. Or a theme. I'm not sure if I want to call it a title, because that sounds like schoolwork and anything that resembles schoolwork makes my brain cramp. ouch... okay. So, theme it is.
Anyway, that's not necessarily the theme for this whole entry... but I figured I didn't want to just start doing it and have everyone bewildered and in the dark. The real theme for this entry is as follows:
Y'alls deserve a deep-fried Twinkie.
You guys, the readers of my blog, are a nifty, nifty group of folks. I appreciate the kind words on my update, and moreover the fact that you guys kept coming in here and checking even after I fell off the face of the earth for two months. This must be true, because I didn't tell anyone I'd blogged again (well, 'cept for Ashley, because I was IM'ing her at the same time I was blogging), yet just the same, I got comments from pretty much everyone. Kinda makes me wish I hadn't disappeared in the first place, but by the same token, it was an interesting experience to work for a couple of months with no outside distractions. And I mean none... we stopped karaokeing when the school year fired up again since everyone else got real busy, and besides, as I mentioned before, they stopped doing karaoke at the place we'd been going to. And that was about the extent of my social activity each week.
But anyway... thanks for being nifty, all. You guys deserve a deep-fried Twinkie. "What?", you ask? Yeah, apparently the new midway rage this year at the State Craphole -- *cough* I mean, State Fair -- is deep-fried Twinkies and Oreos. Last year it was deep-fried candy bars, especially Snickers and 3 Musketeers. I haven't actually been there this year (did I honestly miss much?). Has anyone seen that episode of The Simpsons where they go to the county fair and Homer gets his shirt deep-fried? I truly think he was right -- they CAN deep-fry anything. I mean, seriously, which friggin' genius sat down and said, "Hmm... Twinkies... all that hydrogenated oil 'creme' and 'golden cake' that's so full of preservatives, it has a half-life instead of a shelf life... How could I make this even less healthy?" I dunno. Pass the fry bread and the little squeeze bear of honey, please. You can keep your grease-soaked snack cakes.
Anyway... so, yeah, you guys are good friends.
I went over to Coronado tonight for the big homecoming game. Sure, I love my alma mater, but oh, how the mighty have fallen. I mean, we sucked pretty bad at the outset... then we lost our starting QB to a broken quarterbone, and he provided most of the offense, AND defense as a safety. So, draw your own conclusions. But, hey, got to see the band for the first time in over a month. The performance had its rough spots, but anyone who was in the CHS band can agree that Homecoming Day BLOWS CHUNKS. You've got your regular practice in the morning, then a pep rally, then you have to march the show in the stadium around 10:30 or so just when it's starting to get hot out for the big rally and float presentation... then right after school, back to the band room to prepare for that night's festivities, march the show during the game, THEN stand around for 20 minutes RIGHT after the show while a bunch of cheerleaders and football players move at sloth-speed across the field so that one lucky couple can be crowned King and Queen. Whoop-de-friggin'-do. Anyway, so usually by the end of that day, the show suffers a little. I thought, though, that it was all right. Honestly! However, everyone in the band I talked to afterwards said it was one of the worst shows of the year. *shrug* I know how they feel. I've now officially been on both sides of the tuba.
Anyway, it was neat going down there, because everyone there seemed to miss me while I'd been gone. I went up and helped load the truck for the NAU performance tomorrow (sorry, crew, no way I'm able to get up that early on a Saturday), which was a blast... it's been a good 4 years since I've broken down pit carts, but just like riding a bicycle, it all came right back to me. Anyway, it was great seeing all of the band again, and I promised the people I spoke with that I would make State no matter what. They've got the usual hectic performance schedule coming up; NAU tomorrow, a Thursday night game, some invitational in the west valley next Saturday, the last home game of the season on the 7th, and State on Saturday the 15th. I don't know when they're performing at State, but as soon as I find out, I'll post, and if anyone wants to convoy over there (I assume it'll be at Glendale Community College... maybe... might be at Chandler-Gilbert CC), let me know via the Comments box.
(Speaking of the comments box: Press the button once! The server is in the United Kingdom somewhere, and it takes a minute, but lately I haven't had any problems. My £12.00 "donation" (came out to like $14.77, I think) for a lifetime upgrade to Enetation Pro! seems to have helped some.)
Anyhow, so I'm pretty pleased right now. Things are on the up-and-up. I mean, there's things that aren't going so great, but those are things that are NEVER going so well, so it's nothing new. But when everything else is going so well, that part doesn't seem like such a gaping abyss. More like just something I look at and I think, "Well... someday..."
Tuesday, October 21
Pooooooooooffffff... Mind the dust.
*shrug* Figured I'd drop a blog on y'alls. I have spent so little time on my computer lately... I dunno. I've been busy as I've ever been at the kennel, but at the same time, strangely, I'm enjoying work almost as much as I ever have, too. Things are really flowing right now. Oh, and by the way, we've been accepted at Wheeling Island, which is the top track in the country. My dad will be moving up there to start it up after Christmas, and I'll be taking over the Phoenix operation. Wheeling pays anywhere from five to eight times as much as Phoenix, so it's an exciting time for our family and our business.
And that's just the future. The past two months have been rollicking fun, too. You may recall (and if you don't, scroll down) that I was in the finals of a stake. Well, we won that one, and I got to flex my new jacket and pants. Then, well, we just came right back and won the September stake, too. I picked out my own attire for that one, which is a whole 'nuther blog.
Speaking of whole 'nuther blogs, well... I'm going to TRY and get back into the rhythm on here. I have several great topics for posts... "I Can't Resist the Allure of Bacon," "There's More Than One Length of Tie?", and "My New Light Switch Mechanism." Ohhh, yeah... my new light switch mechanism. I can't wait to tell you about it. It's a sterling example of TFG engineering.
Anyway, so... this is a good re-start. Catch you in a few days.
*shrug* Figured I'd drop a blog on y'alls. I have spent so little time on my computer lately... I dunno. I've been busy as I've ever been at the kennel, but at the same time, strangely, I'm enjoying work almost as much as I ever have, too. Things are really flowing right now. Oh, and by the way, we've been accepted at Wheeling Island, which is the top track in the country. My dad will be moving up there to start it up after Christmas, and I'll be taking over the Phoenix operation. Wheeling pays anywhere from five to eight times as much as Phoenix, so it's an exciting time for our family and our business.
And that's just the future. The past two months have been rollicking fun, too. You may recall (and if you don't, scroll down) that I was in the finals of a stake. Well, we won that one, and I got to flex my new jacket and pants. Then, well, we just came right back and won the September stake, too. I picked out my own attire for that one, which is a whole 'nuther blog.
Speaking of whole 'nuther blogs, well... I'm going to TRY and get back into the rhythm on here. I have several great topics for posts... "I Can't Resist the Allure of Bacon," "There's More Than One Length of Tie?", and "My New Light Switch Mechanism." Ohhh, yeah... my new light switch mechanism. I can't wait to tell you about it. It's a sterling example of TFG engineering.
Anyway, so... this is a good re-start. Catch you in a few days.
Tuesday, September 9
I'm actually writing this on January 2nd, 2004. I tweaked a few site settings today, one of which was to convert my archives from weekly to monthly. I went a good six weeks or so without touching this site back in August-to-Octoberish, and there were no posts in September. I didn't like the break in sequence from 08.2003 to 10.2003, or however the site may look now if I've gotten a new whim since I wrote this.
However, could you do me a favor? If you're actually reading this, which means you were curious enough to go back and read through my archives, email me at tfg46@cox.net right quick. Just for shits and giggles.
However, could you do me a favor? If you're actually reading this, which means you were curious enough to go back and read through my archives, email me at tfg46@cox.net right quick. Just for shits and giggles.
Tuesday, August 26
So, before I get to the real reason of this quick post, let me drop the knowledge on Video Bo. If you were like me, back when you had your regular Nintendo and that was about it, Tecmo Super Bowl was one of the best games EVER. And who was the best player, unquestionably? Bo Jackson on the Raiders. The creators at Tecmo juiced up Bo to levels unimaginable in the real world. Anyway, I don't want to give too much of Bill Simmons' story away, but I'll say that as I was reading it, I couldn't believe how well he described the game and how fanatics played it. He mentions the Madden Cover Jinx, too. What, you didn't know about that? The last five players to be featured on that year's Madden NFL game box have had terrible seasons, culminatng in this year's Michael Vick cover resulting in... well, you saw what happpened to HIM already. Anyway, click here for the story.
I mention that quote because I will be unable to stop myself from saying it while I'm trying on sport coats tomorrow night.
What? I'm buying a new sport coat? "Why?", you ask? Well, I've got THREE dogs in the Quarter-Mile Chalenge finals on Friday night. Walk through some math with me here: There were 18 dogs originally entered, of which I had 4. There are 6 dogs in the finals, of which I have 3.
Not that I'm patting myself on the back or anything, but... well, yeah, okay, I'm patting myself on the back. The ¼-mile distance is kind of screwy, what with its start right there at the finish line. It takes just the right dog (or three... *cough*), because the box literally opens right into the first turn. It's less about a dog who has a lot of early speed than it is about one who is used to exploding out of the box. Many trainers mistakenly simply enter dogs who can get to an early lead consistently, but this can fail them because you have to be able to tell the difference between a box-breaker and a dog who just has average box-popping ability but uses the 110 yards' worth of track before the first turn to power to an early lead.
Anyway, I know I'm boring my audience whenever I launch into a greyhound theory discussion... So, what with our better-than-average odds of winning this thing, Da Boss called me from Kansas (more on that later) and told me to go out and buy myself a new sport coat, on the business. (Hey, I'm all for free clothes...) I've only got the one coat, the gray one I'm wearing in the two photos on my main page, but my dad told me he didn't want it to look like I only owned one sport coat, since I keep getting dressed up for these stake finals. (Even though, you know, I do only own one sport coat, but, well... y'know.) Also, I need a new pair of dress slacks; ask Kristy and Jenn, who were with me the night of the Swift Six match races back in May, and they can tell you all about how I split oppen the seat of my pants getting into the truck leaving my apartment for the track. I've worn my nice black jeans to the last two stakes I dressed up for, including that night. From a distance, you can't tell (sooner or later I'll scan in the pic from that night), but up close it's fairly obvious. So I'll be stopping by Wal-Mart tomorrow, too, to pick up a pair of pants.
Like I mentioned briefly above, my dad's at Wichita right now. Our trainer up there supposedly "up and quit" on us, calling on Saturday morning and informing my dad he had X-number of hours to get up there before she left, because she "couldn't take it anymore." Funny thing is, see, Mark, my uncle who's our co-trainer here in Phoenix, has a brother, Greg, who works for another kennel up there in Wichita. Greg told Mark they'd been planning this for at least a week, maybe longer, and that they had already cleaned all their personal effects out of the kennel by Friday -- before our trainer's alleged breakdown. *shrug* Oh well. Uneasy is the business owner who doesn't have a contingency plan. This didn't come as a total shock, since we knew she was unhapppy. We had a guy here in Phoenix who was looking to get back into the business, and when the boom came down, we let him know, and he's already on the road to Kansas.
So I'm the de facto had of affairs while he's out of town. I had thought (and those who were at the birthday bash Saturday night can attest to this) that it was going to be a big stress-fest, but in reality, it's not a lot different than it usually is around here. I just have to do a little more office work, is all.
"Richard!... Fat guy in a little coat, Richard!"
I mention that quote because I will be unable to stop myself from saying it while I'm trying on sport coats tomorrow night.
What? I'm buying a new sport coat? "Why?", you ask? Well, I've got THREE dogs in the Quarter-Mile Chalenge finals on Friday night. Walk through some math with me here: There were 18 dogs originally entered, of which I had 4. There are 6 dogs in the finals, of which I have 3.
Not that I'm patting myself on the back or anything, but... well, yeah, okay, I'm patting myself on the back. The ¼-mile distance is kind of screwy, what with its start right there at the finish line. It takes just the right dog (or three... *cough*), because the box literally opens right into the first turn. It's less about a dog who has a lot of early speed than it is about one who is used to exploding out of the box. Many trainers mistakenly simply enter dogs who can get to an early lead consistently, but this can fail them because you have to be able to tell the difference between a box-breaker and a dog who just has average box-popping ability but uses the 110 yards' worth of track before the first turn to power to an early lead.
Anyway, I know I'm boring my audience whenever I launch into a greyhound theory discussion... So, what with our better-than-average odds of winning this thing, Da Boss called me from Kansas (more on that later) and told me to go out and buy myself a new sport coat, on the business. (Hey, I'm all for free clothes...) I've only got the one coat, the gray one I'm wearing in the two photos on my main page, but my dad told me he didn't want it to look like I only owned one sport coat, since I keep getting dressed up for these stake finals. (Even though, you know, I do only own one sport coat, but, well... y'know.) Also, I need a new pair of dress slacks; ask Kristy and Jenn, who were with me the night of the Swift Six match races back in May, and they can tell you all about how I split oppen the seat of my pants getting into the truck leaving my apartment for the track. I've worn my nice black jeans to the last two stakes I dressed up for, including that night. From a distance, you can't tell (sooner or later I'll scan in the pic from that night), but up close it's fairly obvious. So I'll be stopping by Wal-Mart tomorrow, too, to pick up a pair of pants.
Like I mentioned briefly above, my dad's at Wichita right now. Our trainer up there supposedly "up and quit" on us, calling on Saturday morning and informing my dad he had X-number of hours to get up there before she left, because she "couldn't take it anymore." Funny thing is, see, Mark, my uncle who's our co-trainer here in Phoenix, has a brother, Greg, who works for another kennel up there in Wichita. Greg told Mark they'd been planning this for at least a week, maybe longer, and that they had already cleaned all their personal effects out of the kennel by Friday -- before our trainer's alleged breakdown. *shrug* Oh well. Uneasy is the business owner who doesn't have a contingency plan. This didn't come as a total shock, since we knew she was unhapppy. We had a guy here in Phoenix who was looking to get back into the business, and when the boom came down, we let him know, and he's already on the road to Kansas.
So I'm the de facto had of affairs while he's out of town. I had thought (and those who were at the birthday bash Saturday night can attest to this) that it was going to be a big stress-fest, but in reality, it's not a lot different than it usually is around here. I just have to do a little more office work, is all.
Monday, August 25
Editor's note: Sunzabitches. I thought I saved this before midnight. Oh well. This was technically written Sunday night.
Howdy. Before I get into tonight's entry, let me plug my next entry, which I'll do when I get around to it: Were you as much of a nut about Tecmo Super Bowl as I was? Tune in to my next post. Bill Simmons (The Sports Guy) goes in-depth into the dominance of Video Bo.
Anyway... now on to your regularly scheduled sporadical blogging...
I should really do more entries more often, rather than waiting until I've got six or seven things to write about. I know by the time I get to the end of this post, I'll have forgotten at least two of them. Regardless of that, happy birthday to Jenn, Jung, and Brian. They all turned 21 yesterday, or at least it seemed that way, since there was a giant party at Club 1030 for all three of them last night. In actuality, Jenn and Jung entered official adulthood on Tuesday, while Brian's birthday is really today. But it made more sense to have the party on a Saturday, I suppose. It was fun. The spirits flowed freely, but I left the party with a pleasant realization: My friends up here are a pretty solid group of people. At Kyle & Jimmy's last night, most everyone had a drink or two, while a couple people, well, had more than a few too many. I, of course, as I believe I've mentioned before, don't drink. And the only reason is, I don't like the taste of it. "But trust me," you say, "there's lots of drinks out there where you can't even TASTE the alcohol!" And I say, well, if I can't taste it, why bother with the unpleasant aftereffects? I'm not against drinking, by any stretch of the imagination. I just don't see the point in drinking if I'm just as happy with Diet Dew.
Anyway, I'm off on a tangent. My point I was getting at is, nobody really cares if I'm drinking or not whenever I hang out with my friends. And that's SO COOL. When I went out in Tucson, people seemed to have this really big problem with the fact that I wasn't drunk like they were. Jeff made it a priority to get me to try beer, to the point where I didn't go to any more of his "parties" for the last six months I was down there, after he left the track. You know, Jeff's a good guy and all, and we still keep in touch by phone every so often, but that got REALLY old, having to constantly defend myself for not wanting to slam a few back. Look, I tried beer. I thought it was the worst thing I'd ever taste, until I tried wine. And you know, Mike's Hard Iced Tea doesn't taste ANYthing like iced tea, nor does hard apple cider taste ANYthing like apples. And that's pretty much the extent of my alcoholic experience. When I say "tried," I mean I had a sip or two, and that was enough for my taste buds to let me know they were displeased with me.
Ba-zing! There I go, tangential again. So anyway, I was offered a Mud Slide when I got there, and I said "no thanks," and that was the extent of it. Nobody cared! It was so REFRESHING not having to explain myself or try and make up other reasons when the explanation wasn't good enough. It's nice to know I've got friends like that. It makes me feel like I'm not an outcast... whereas in Tucson, I might as well have been naked and painted with purple polka dots when I was at a party.
Another thing I noticed is that once people were actually getting drunk, Kyle came out and confiscated keys. I noted that I'd never seen that at any of the parties I'd been at in Tucson. Again... makes me glad I'm back in Phoenix, back amongst my friends, because my friends are good people. In fact, while I was leaving the party, I tripped over a rock, and John, who was sitting outside, was quick to ask if I was okay to drive. I had to laugh. "No, no, I don't drink... I'm just naturally that clumsy. But thanks for asking."
You know, speaking of Tucson... like I mentioned, I really never felt like I fit in down there. Now, to a certain extent, I was working six full days a week, and spending three out of every four Mondays up here in Phoenix anyway, so I probably didn't give it a fair shake. It's a nice enough town, as I'm sure Becky wwill tell you. But I noticed something interesting today. I had to stop by my parents' house to pick up some paperwork for the kennel. Usually I wind up lounging around for a few minutes, but it was after weigh-in and I wanted to get back home and eat dinner, which I'd already prepared earlier. So I grabbed the clipboard and the mail I needed to drop off, and headed right back out the door. My mom asked where I was going in such a hurry, and I told her, "I just want to get home, is all. I'm sweaty and I've got dinner waiting."
As I drove west on McDowell up through the draw in the Buttes, I thought about what I'd said... that I was heading home from my parents' house. Oddly enough, when I was living in Tucson, "home" was my parents' house. I would always say I was heading home from "my apartment," or "my place," or whatever. I never really felt like Tucson was my home. But up here, I've got a real concrete sense that my apartment is my home. Rarely a day goes by that I don't have to stop in at my parents' place for something or another, whether it's to drop off the meat invoice on Monday, or to leave a copy of the morning workouts on Monday and Friday, or to make the deposit on Wednesday, or... so on, and so on. It's nice not being far away from it; I'm at 44th and Oak, and my parents are at 64th and Oak. For those of you not here in town, Oak doesn't go through, though. It dead-ends at 48th Street (among several other places, like just down the street from my parents' house at the canal, and at Eldorado Park, to mention a few), so I have to take either Thomas or McDowell. McDowell is usually my route of choice, because there's far fewer stoplights to worry about; it's a smooth trip from 52nd Street to 64th Street up through the draw in the Buttes, while there's three more lights on Thomas, at 56th, 60th, and 61st streets. (There's a light at the 202/143 on-ramp on McDowell, but that cancels out the light at 46th Street on Thomas.)
Hey, look at that... off on a tangent again. Oh well. What I'm getting at is, my home is here in Phoenix. I doubt I could move anywhere elose and really feel like I was at home.
GAS "SHORTAGE" 2003 UPDATE: The worst seems to be behind us. On Tuesday, a report came down that the pipeline pressure test had failed, which seemed to doom us to another weekend of panicky gas buying. However, cooler heads managed to prevail. People finally started listening to the reports that we had enough gas to replenish the stations if they'd stop converging like flies on a carcass every time another station got gas in. Now, I haven't seen a station in two days that's out of gas. There's still almost no mid-grade or premium, but there's plenty of 87 unleaded to be found, as long as you don't mind paying anywhere from $1.99 to $2.17 , depending on where you go. More good news came today in that Kinder Morgan (the pipeline company) bypassed the failed section of line with a smaller-diameter "detour", allowing at least SOME gas to make its way to Phoenix. That bypass opened up today around 10:00 AM, from what I heard, and has started to supply some gas to the Valley, albeit not a whole lot as compared to what we usually get through that line. But every little bit helps. Now, if they'd just get rid of that stupid MTBE requirement, the prices wouldn't be so friggin' high... Yeah, since our clean-air requirements mean we have to buy special gas (you've seen the stickers: "This gas contains 15% MTBE from April to September and 10% ether from October to March" or whatever the specific dates are), and that special gas is specially expensive! Now, by the same token, California's gas is additive-free, but then again, it's more expensive than ours is (usually). Those wacky Californians...
Congratulations to Nichole for passing her EMT Basic Skills exam last week. She doesn't read my blog -- as far as I know, she doesn't even have a computer -- but I figured I'd give her a shout-out anyway.
I didn't attend Coronado on Thursday morning, as I was pretty wiped out from karaoke Wednesday night. No, not drunk... just smoke inhalation, is all. Cigarette smoke. CJ's, the place in Mesa where we've been going for the past few months, has discontinued karaoke because they don't make enough money off of it. Can't blame 'em for not showing up -- the place is a dump. There was no more than seven people in there Wednesday night, and only two of them were smoking, yet the whole place was choked with smoke the whole 2 hours we were there. Eventually, I got too lightheaded to stay inside, just like every time I've gone there, and I had to go outside. Oh well. I'm not going to miss it. I may even take a pass on karaoke for a while; the new has worn off pretty badly. And besides, our winter schedule kicks in September 1st, so I'll be working Wednesdays and having all day Thursday off instead, so I would've only been able to go to CJ's once more anyway. I dunno. The place, aside from being constantly polluted with cigarette smoke, also always reeked of frying grease, like they didn't have a ventilation system over their deep fryer and all those little particles of grease just floated out into the main room. Like I said... a dump. But it was all ages, so other under-21 friends could go.
We're into the semifinals of our August stake at the track, the Quarter-Mile Challenge. It's a 6-dog-race event, over the 440-yard (¼-mile) course, which they accomplish by rolling a starting box out to the finish line, then after the race starts, quickly jacking it up and rolling it off to the apron of the track before the dogs come back around again. Takes a quick breaker, a dog who really gets out of the box quick, because there's inevitably a jam in the turn in these races; you have to be good enough to be in front of it, or talented enough to navigate through it. Guess you could say I did my homework; I've got 4 dogs in the semis out of 12 competitors left, and those were the original 4 I entered. You had to finish 4th or better in the first round to advance, and there were three races. I ran 1st and 2nd in one, 3rd in the next one, and 4th in the last one. Now there's two races on Monday, and you have to finish in the top 3 to advance to the final on Friday. I've got 2 dogs in both races. I'll go into a little more detail if we do well tomorrow night.
Whew. I've said so much, and yet so little in this post, I feel. I could go through and edit out most of the non-topic blather and cut the word count in half. Yet still, I feel like I've forgotten a couple of things I was going to talk about... pretty much like I figured I would. I don't know. Like I've said before, it feels good to put what I'm thinking into text, because it gets it out of my head.
Howdy. Before I get into tonight's entry, let me plug my next entry, which I'll do when I get around to it: Were you as much of a nut about Tecmo Super Bowl as I was? Tune in to my next post. Bill Simmons (The Sports Guy) goes in-depth into the dominance of Video Bo.
Anyway... now on to your regularly scheduled sporadical blogging...
I should really do more entries more often, rather than waiting until I've got six or seven things to write about. I know by the time I get to the end of this post, I'll have forgotten at least two of them. Regardless of that, happy birthday to Jenn, Jung, and Brian. They all turned 21 yesterday, or at least it seemed that way, since there was a giant party at Club 1030 for all three of them last night. In actuality, Jenn and Jung entered official adulthood on Tuesday, while Brian's birthday is really today. But it made more sense to have the party on a Saturday, I suppose. It was fun. The spirits flowed freely, but I left the party with a pleasant realization: My friends up here are a pretty solid group of people. At Kyle & Jimmy's last night, most everyone had a drink or two, while a couple people, well, had more than a few too many. I, of course, as I believe I've mentioned before, don't drink. And the only reason is, I don't like the taste of it. "But trust me," you say, "there's lots of drinks out there where you can't even TASTE the alcohol!" And I say, well, if I can't taste it, why bother with the unpleasant aftereffects? I'm not against drinking, by any stretch of the imagination. I just don't see the point in drinking if I'm just as happy with Diet Dew.
Anyway, I'm off on a tangent. My point I was getting at is, nobody really cares if I'm drinking or not whenever I hang out with my friends. And that's SO COOL. When I went out in Tucson, people seemed to have this really big problem with the fact that I wasn't drunk like they were. Jeff made it a priority to get me to try beer, to the point where I didn't go to any more of his "parties" for the last six months I was down there, after he left the track. You know, Jeff's a good guy and all, and we still keep in touch by phone every so often, but that got REALLY old, having to constantly defend myself for not wanting to slam a few back. Look, I tried beer. I thought it was the worst thing I'd ever taste, until I tried wine. And you know, Mike's Hard Iced Tea doesn't taste ANYthing like iced tea, nor does hard apple cider taste ANYthing like apples. And that's pretty much the extent of my alcoholic experience. When I say "tried," I mean I had a sip or two, and that was enough for my taste buds to let me know they were displeased with me.
Ba-zing! There I go, tangential again. So anyway, I was offered a Mud Slide when I got there, and I said "no thanks," and that was the extent of it. Nobody cared! It was so REFRESHING not having to explain myself or try and make up other reasons when the explanation wasn't good enough. It's nice to know I've got friends like that. It makes me feel like I'm not an outcast... whereas in Tucson, I might as well have been naked and painted with purple polka dots when I was at a party.
Another thing I noticed is that once people were actually getting drunk, Kyle came out and confiscated keys. I noted that I'd never seen that at any of the parties I'd been at in Tucson. Again... makes me glad I'm back in Phoenix, back amongst my friends, because my friends are good people. In fact, while I was leaving the party, I tripped over a rock, and John, who was sitting outside, was quick to ask if I was okay to drive. I had to laugh. "No, no, I don't drink... I'm just naturally that clumsy. But thanks for asking."
You know, speaking of Tucson... like I mentioned, I really never felt like I fit in down there. Now, to a certain extent, I was working six full days a week, and spending three out of every four Mondays up here in Phoenix anyway, so I probably didn't give it a fair shake. It's a nice enough town, as I'm sure Becky wwill tell you. But I noticed something interesting today. I had to stop by my parents' house to pick up some paperwork for the kennel. Usually I wind up lounging around for a few minutes, but it was after weigh-in and I wanted to get back home and eat dinner, which I'd already prepared earlier. So I grabbed the clipboard and the mail I needed to drop off, and headed right back out the door. My mom asked where I was going in such a hurry, and I told her, "I just want to get home, is all. I'm sweaty and I've got dinner waiting."
As I drove west on McDowell up through the draw in the Buttes, I thought about what I'd said... that I was heading home from my parents' house. Oddly enough, when I was living in Tucson, "home" was my parents' house. I would always say I was heading home from "my apartment," or "my place," or whatever. I never really felt like Tucson was my home. But up here, I've got a real concrete sense that my apartment is my home. Rarely a day goes by that I don't have to stop in at my parents' place for something or another, whether it's to drop off the meat invoice on Monday, or to leave a copy of the morning workouts on Monday and Friday, or to make the deposit on Wednesday, or... so on, and so on. It's nice not being far away from it; I'm at 44th and Oak, and my parents are at 64th and Oak. For those of you not here in town, Oak doesn't go through, though. It dead-ends at 48th Street (among several other places, like just down the street from my parents' house at the canal, and at Eldorado Park, to mention a few), so I have to take either Thomas or McDowell. McDowell is usually my route of choice, because there's far fewer stoplights to worry about; it's a smooth trip from 52nd Street to 64th Street up through the draw in the Buttes, while there's three more lights on Thomas, at 56th, 60th, and 61st streets. (There's a light at the 202/143 on-ramp on McDowell, but that cancels out the light at 46th Street on Thomas.)
Hey, look at that... off on a tangent again. Oh well. What I'm getting at is, my home is here in Phoenix. I doubt I could move anywhere elose and really feel like I was at home.
GAS "SHORTAGE" 2003 UPDATE: The worst seems to be behind us. On Tuesday, a report came down that the pipeline pressure test had failed, which seemed to doom us to another weekend of panicky gas buying. However, cooler heads managed to prevail. People finally started listening to the reports that we had enough gas to replenish the stations if they'd stop converging like flies on a carcass every time another station got gas in. Now, I haven't seen a station in two days that's out of gas. There's still almost no mid-grade or premium, but there's plenty of 87 unleaded to be found, as long as you don't mind paying anywhere from $1.99 to $2.17 , depending on where you go. More good news came today in that Kinder Morgan (the pipeline company) bypassed the failed section of line with a smaller-diameter "detour", allowing at least SOME gas to make its way to Phoenix. That bypass opened up today around 10:00 AM, from what I heard, and has started to supply some gas to the Valley, albeit not a whole lot as compared to what we usually get through that line. But every little bit helps. Now, if they'd just get rid of that stupid MTBE requirement, the prices wouldn't be so friggin' high... Yeah, since our clean-air requirements mean we have to buy special gas (you've seen the stickers: "This gas contains 15% MTBE from April to September and 10% ether from October to March" or whatever the specific dates are), and that special gas is specially expensive! Now, by the same token, California's gas is additive-free, but then again, it's more expensive than ours is (usually). Those wacky Californians...
Congratulations to Nichole for passing her EMT Basic Skills exam last week. She doesn't read my blog -- as far as I know, she doesn't even have a computer -- but I figured I'd give her a shout-out anyway.
I didn't attend Coronado on Thursday morning, as I was pretty wiped out from karaoke Wednesday night. No, not drunk... just smoke inhalation, is all. Cigarette smoke. CJ's, the place in Mesa where we've been going for the past few months, has discontinued karaoke because they don't make enough money off of it. Can't blame 'em for not showing up -- the place is a dump. There was no more than seven people in there Wednesday night, and only two of them were smoking, yet the whole place was choked with smoke the whole 2 hours we were there. Eventually, I got too lightheaded to stay inside, just like every time I've gone there, and I had to go outside. Oh well. I'm not going to miss it. I may even take a pass on karaoke for a while; the new has worn off pretty badly. And besides, our winter schedule kicks in September 1st, so I'll be working Wednesdays and having all day Thursday off instead, so I would've only been able to go to CJ's once more anyway. I dunno. The place, aside from being constantly polluted with cigarette smoke, also always reeked of frying grease, like they didn't have a ventilation system over their deep fryer and all those little particles of grease just floated out into the main room. Like I said... a dump. But it was all ages, so other under-21 friends could go.
We're into the semifinals of our August stake at the track, the Quarter-Mile Challenge. It's a 6-dog-race event, over the 440-yard (¼-mile) course, which they accomplish by rolling a starting box out to the finish line, then after the race starts, quickly jacking it up and rolling it off to the apron of the track before the dogs come back around again. Takes a quick breaker, a dog who really gets out of the box quick, because there's inevitably a jam in the turn in these races; you have to be good enough to be in front of it, or talented enough to navigate through it. Guess you could say I did my homework; I've got 4 dogs in the semis out of 12 competitors left, and those were the original 4 I entered. You had to finish 4th or better in the first round to advance, and there were three races. I ran 1st and 2nd in one, 3rd in the next one, and 4th in the last one. Now there's two races on Monday, and you have to finish in the top 3 to advance to the final on Friday. I've got 2 dogs in both races. I'll go into a little more detail if we do well tomorrow night.
Whew. I've said so much, and yet so little in this post, I feel. I could go through and edit out most of the non-topic blather and cut the word count in half. Yet still, I feel like I've forgotten a couple of things I was going to talk about... pretty much like I figured I would. I don't know. Like I've said before, it feels good to put what I'm thinking into text, because it gets it out of my head.
Tuesday, August 19
He's BACK!!
Well, it's only been two weeks, I guess, but still... it feels like I haven't blogged in a month. Seems like the summer weather has finally gotten to everyone around here, as most of the blogs I frequent have suddenly become much more sporadic -- mine included. Of course, if my Net connection weren't through Cox, perhaps I could actually be blogging online right now. As it stands, I'm WordPadding this to be pasted in later, whenever my connection decides to come back around.
I, of course, never planned to go two weeks without blogging, buuuuuut... I've been under a fair amount of stress lately, as I'm sure most anyone who lives in the metro Phoenix area and drives a car has been as well. You can take that stress and copy it in triplicate for me, since I have my own pickup as well as our two work trucks to worry about as well. "So," you must be asking if you're an out-of-state reader, "just what exactly are you talking about?" Well, it's the... drumroll please...
PANICKY FEAR-OF-A-GAS-SHORTAGE GAS SHORTAGE!!
Yes... that's worded correctly... the Panicky Fear-of-a-Gas-Shortage Gas Shortage. For the actual Arizona Republic news articles, you can click here. But, here it is, in as small a nutshell as I can manage: The Valley receives 30% of its gasoline via a pipeline that runs from El Paso to Phoenix. On July 30, this pipeline ruptured just north of Tucson. About a week later, it was closed, to prevent an obviously impending disaster (i.e., the pipeline blowing completely apart). Now that the Valley was receiving only about 70% of its usual gasoline supplies, retailers citywide began to raise prices by the nickel and dime, since THEY were getting the squeeze from the transport companies, since THEY were getting the squeeze from the dealers since THEY had to augment their supply with more expensive "spot market" gasoline. However, mid-grade and premium supplies, which came in largely through the pipeline, were pretty much S.O.L. until the pipeline was repaired.
Nobody figured that, even at 70% capacity, there would be any problem with regular 87-octane unleaded. Unfortunately, as stations began to run dry of 89 and 91-92 gas around last Wednesday and Thursday, our beloved, beloved, beloved newsmedia (okay, not ALL of the outlets; CBS-5 and FOX-10, though, you're as guilty as snot) began to open their newscasts with headlines like, "PREMIUM GAS RUNS DRY; SHORTAGE IMMINENT?" Then the perma-smiling newscasters put on their serious faces and warned people, "It might be a good idea to top off that tank this weekend, as stations are experiencing a SHORTAGE of GASOLINE."
Gak! They said SHORTAGE! The general public HATES words like SHORTAGE! So, EVERYONE ran out on Saturday night and on throughout Sunday and filled up every possible receptacle for gasoline they had!
It was like a scene out of a horror movie. As I was driving around town Sunday, stations were closing up left and right. And if one station closed, the next station down the road saw its volume of cars double. And when that one closed, the next station had quadruple the number of customers, and... it grew exponentially. And since no one really saw it coming, the tanker-truck companies were caught with their pants down. Since almost the entire city (it seemed) bought gas in a 24-hour period, the trucking companies couldn't possibly keep up with the demand. And then -- yes, it gets better! -- as people began to panic, they would drive around "FOR HOURS" (yes, people allowed themselves to be interviewed saying, "Hell, I almost ran out of gas trying to find gas!") trying to find open gas stations. Whenever a truck could make it to a station, cars would FLOCK to the location and back up for half a mile (literally!) from the station waiting to gas up, and they'd run the tank dry in six or seven hours.
From what I understand, the problem is beginning to ease somewhat at this hour (1:30 pm Tuesday). See, it's not that we don't have the gas; it's here in town, just it's out at the gigantic storage facility. They've got trucks running 'round the clock and overtime trying to get it from there to the stations. See, now their major problem isn't the doofuses who ran out and filled up their car, their jet skis and eight gas cans all at once. Now, the people who waited it out like we were told to are running out of gas, and now WE have to follow tankers around in we want to have a shot at getting any. See below for more on that...
Now, back to me having to mind three trucks... sine I take care of the expenses for our kennel, that includes gassing up the main truck (the black truck) and the backup truck (the white truck). I fueled up both my pickup and the black truck on Wednesday, but since I was listening to the media outlets who said there wouldn't BE a friggin' GAS OUTAGE, I didn't worry about the white truck. We only use it once a day at best, anyways, and it's just around the corner and back, from the track to the kennel.
Unfortunately, the white truck was damn near empty already. Oops. So, that was my own screwup. That, and I made two roundtrips from my apartment to Central and Bell on Sunday, even as I watched our gas supply go from bountiful to mediocre to depleted to GONE. My screwup #2. I should have gassed again Friday, but... well... I'm hard-headed.
Anyhow, so Monday morning, I got a severe verbal lashing from Da Boss (my dad) since I hadn't gassed up the white. Lucky enough for me, though, it was 6:45 in the morning, so I hit the road, and the second station I came to (the Exxon at 44th and Van Buren) had been supplied recently. I had to wait three deep in line before I got to a pump, and I ran out of gas pretty much just as I got there. I managed to start it up the two times I needed to and nursed it forward without getting pushed, and I filled 'er up. $1.97 a gallon. Mission accomplished.
However, as I watched the progression go from panic to "uh-oh, we've actually got a problem in distribution here", I began to get pensive about my pickup and the black truck. They both dipped below 1/4 yesterday, with my truck dropping another line this morning. By now, it was too late to drive out of town far enough south to gas up, as I didn't know if I'd have enough gas to get there in either truck. At about 7:45, as rain started to fall, I gave the guys at work a list of things to do, and I said, "I'm going to go find gas. I'll call you when I find it."
No, I don't know what I was thinking, either. It wasn't the most brilliant of plans, but I was starting to get worried, and I don't like to worry. It makes my stomach hurt.
However, my brazen journey paid off. I looped up past 44th and Washington (Circle K: empty) and 44th and Van Buren (Circle K: empty), then up to 44th and McDowell (Arco: empty), hanging a left and passing 40th and Van Buren (7-11 and Diamond Shamrock: both empty). I cruised down to 32nd and Van Buren (some corner store, I think it's called Speedway Convenience: empty) and hung a left. Before I crossed the canal, I noted that the ABC-15 news van was broadcasting from the empty Texaco right there. Over the canal on 32nd, under the freeway, and at the Mobil on the left-hand side—
Was that a tanker pulling in to the parking lot?
Wait! Stay calm... There's no one there yet. Why wouldn't there be anyone there if he's not filling the tanks?
Then, just as I passed by the station, four cars swung into the station and screeched (literally) to a halt at the pumps. Yowza! I flipped the quickest illegal U-turn I could and zipped back to the station. I got in line right behind a guy in a Sentra who had gotten to a pump first. The tanker driver must have felt like Keanu Reeves in Matrix 2 as we drivers all swarmed around his truck as he began to uncoil hose. Yes, he was filling the tanks. No, he wasn't sure how long it would be, but no more than half an hour. "All right," I figured. "I'm game." I had a bag of sunflower seeds, an almost-full liter of Diet Dew and The Tony Kornheiser Show on the radio. I could wait. But the first thing I did was call back to the kennel and told Olivia to tell everyone that, if they hurried (by my roundtrip route, I was barely a mile from the kennel at this point), they could make it to this Mobil at 32nd and Roosevelt without too much of a wait. Yeah, so I was contributing to the very problem I mentioned earlier. But at some point, the cliché "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" comes into play. When EVERYONE is running out of gas, a certain level of community-mindedness is in order.
Olivia, community-minded person that she is (I might use a stronger, less-sarcastic term, but she IS my sister), jumped in her car and lit out like a bat out of accounting, and called back to the kennel and told whomever it was she got a hold of to tell everyone else. (chuckle... Gotta love 'er.) She was at the station within two minutes, and she was barely off the driveway in line, probably fifth or sixth from getting to a pump. (Each pump had two people in line for it, and there was 5 double-sided pumps, so that was 20 people in the initial lines, of which I was in the second 10... so she was 25th or so in line.) By the time word got to the rest of the crew, the line had backed up clear to Celebrity Theatre, according to Greg who had brought one of my aunt's trucks. Danny, on a hunch, zipped right past the station (I saw him fly by on 32nd; I think my exact words were, Where the f*** is HE going?) and went to the Arco at 32nd and Oak. I don't know how he knew they'd just opened; he doesn't have a cell phone or anything. But he was gassed up and back at the kennel before I was. Spooky.
As the trucker filled the reservoir, I chitchatted with the guy in front of me during commercial breaks on the radio. We both commented on how civil it seemed. No one was shouting, no one was pushing in line (although Olivia told me she wouldn't be afraid to use her pepper spray on anyone who cut her off, and she's just crazy enough to do it), and tempers seemed to be holding steady. I think it was the pleasant weather. (It was gray and overcast all morning, with intermittent showers. That's "pleasant" around here.) And no one seemed to mind when the attendant came out and changed the price from $1.95 to $2.09. Whatever. Funny thing is, I'm hearing less in the news about the shortage than I am about price-gouging. Was I being gouged? I don't know. After the guy in front of me put $30 into his Sentra and one gas can he tried to be real clandestine about in his trunk (I don't know why, it's not like they said we couldn't fill them... perhaps he didn't want to look greedy, although if I'd had the foresight to grab any of the three gas cans we have sitting in our shed, I'd've filled 'em, too), I wheeled up and slipped in the ol' debit card. I got ready to punch the digits, and...
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!! "SALE CANCELLED"
GAAAAAAAGGHHH!!
No, wait... breathe... breathe... everyone else is still fueling... then the speaker crackled to life. "Sir, your card wasn't read. Would you like to try it again?"
Well, dammit... could we possibly program our pumps to say, for example, "Card Not Read"? *shrug* Ah well... beggars can't be choosers, after all. I zipped in the card again, and this time it went off without a hitch. Within seconds, that sweet refined nectar was flowing into my truck. $43.27 later, I had a full tank again.
Now, as to the black truck? It should be all right. It was right on 1/4 last night, and we only need to make one roundtrip with it tonight, and, theoretically, it doesn't need to go anywhere Wednesday. Mark's planning to drive down to Casa Grande with five or six gas cans, and Da Boss is going to pay him to fill up a few for the business, so we can use those on the black if need be.
* * * * *
Okay, so I guess that's all I have to say about that. My life's been pretty much average of late. Haven't gotten out much; karaoke was called off last Wednesday, and that's usually my one night to get out and enjoy life. However, I paid Danny and Jose to do my work Sunday night so I could have the night off, and I went and saw Seabiscuit (that was the purpose of one of those round-trips to Central and Bell). Decent enough flick. I'm not much on reviewing movies, but I'd say go and see it, especially if you don't know the story. Unfortunately, nothing came as much of a shock to me; having grown up in the racing world, I'm familiar with the Seabiscuit saga, even though that's, well, horse racing, and I'm not a horseman. But I liked the characters, and how they talked about how The Biscuit acted really struck a chord with me. I know most people will think it's movie BS, and they'll write off the trainer as an eccentric nut, but most of what he says in the movie, about how the horse reacts to outside influences and people and other horses and such, is all true. It's true with my dogs, anyway, so I'd have to figure it's true with horses, too.
Oh, and there's the Coronado Band. You all better watch out for this program. Rebuilding year, you say? Ms. Rich says Screw That. She is, of course, the new director, and her directive is to reverse the direction the band's been directed in the past couple of years. I spent three days up there in Prescott at band camp with them as a volunteer staff member two weeks ago... well, I left for Prescott right after I finished the last post in the blog. The odd phenomenon is, the program may be really, really small this year, but the people who didn't want to be there quit, so the ones left are the ones who REALLY wanted to stick with it. So they're all gung ho about getting everything they can out of THIS season instead of just writing it off and gearing up for next year. The band is blessed in that it's comprised mainly of juniors and below, with only 5 or 6 seniors. So there'll be a solid nucleus of people coming back next year, and if everything keeps going like it is, they'll hit the ground running with an infusion of freshman talent, my little bro included.
Since they had no staff all summer (Ms. Rich was finally able to hire a guard instructor last week, but she has no paid assistants and no perc instructor as far as I know, unless that's changed since last Thursday), the section leaders really stepped up and took the reins. Hell, I've seen so much of Matt Masters in staff meetings that it's easy to forget he's a senior this year. Two of the seniors on the guard line were writing the work until the instructor arrived. But no one's complaining about it, and a big part of that is Ms. Rich's highly positive attitude. Near as I can tell, she's viewing this as a gleeful challenge, and I can certainly appreciate the fun in that... when pretty much everyone's written the band off for this season, she's getting ready to shock 'em all.
I had more coherent thoughts on this last topic, but I'm getting foggy. Nap time. My connection's STILL down, so I'm going to save this and post it later on. It feels good to be back blogging again, though.
Well, it's only been two weeks, I guess, but still... it feels like I haven't blogged in a month. Seems like the summer weather has finally gotten to everyone around here, as most of the blogs I frequent have suddenly become much more sporadic -- mine included. Of course, if my Net connection weren't through Cox, perhaps I could actually be blogging online right now. As it stands, I'm WordPadding this to be pasted in later, whenever my connection decides to come back around.
I, of course, never planned to go two weeks without blogging, buuuuuut... I've been under a fair amount of stress lately, as I'm sure most anyone who lives in the metro Phoenix area and drives a car has been as well. You can take that stress and copy it in triplicate for me, since I have my own pickup as well as our two work trucks to worry about as well. "So," you must be asking if you're an out-of-state reader, "just what exactly are you talking about?" Well, it's the... drumroll please...
PANICKY FEAR-OF-A-GAS-SHORTAGE GAS SHORTAGE!!
Yes... that's worded correctly... the Panicky Fear-of-a-Gas-Shortage Gas Shortage. For the actual Arizona Republic news articles, you can click here. But, here it is, in as small a nutshell as I can manage: The Valley receives 30% of its gasoline via a pipeline that runs from El Paso to Phoenix. On July 30, this pipeline ruptured just north of Tucson. About a week later, it was closed, to prevent an obviously impending disaster (i.e., the pipeline blowing completely apart). Now that the Valley was receiving only about 70% of its usual gasoline supplies, retailers citywide began to raise prices by the nickel and dime, since THEY were getting the squeeze from the transport companies, since THEY were getting the squeeze from the dealers since THEY had to augment their supply with more expensive "spot market" gasoline. However, mid-grade and premium supplies, which came in largely through the pipeline, were pretty much S.O.L. until the pipeline was repaired.
Nobody figured that, even at 70% capacity, there would be any problem with regular 87-octane unleaded. Unfortunately, as stations began to run dry of 89 and 91-92 gas around last Wednesday and Thursday, our beloved, beloved, beloved newsmedia (okay, not ALL of the outlets; CBS-5 and FOX-10, though, you're as guilty as snot) began to open their newscasts with headlines like, "PREMIUM GAS RUNS DRY; SHORTAGE IMMINENT?" Then the perma-smiling newscasters put on their serious faces and warned people, "It might be a good idea to top off that tank this weekend, as stations are experiencing a SHORTAGE of GASOLINE."
Gak! They said SHORTAGE! The general public HATES words like SHORTAGE! So, EVERYONE ran out on Saturday night and on throughout Sunday and filled up every possible receptacle for gasoline they had!
It was like a scene out of a horror movie. As I was driving around town Sunday, stations were closing up left and right. And if one station closed, the next station down the road saw its volume of cars double. And when that one closed, the next station had quadruple the number of customers, and... it grew exponentially. And since no one really saw it coming, the tanker-truck companies were caught with their pants down. Since almost the entire city (it seemed) bought gas in a 24-hour period, the trucking companies couldn't possibly keep up with the demand. And then -- yes, it gets better! -- as people began to panic, they would drive around "FOR HOURS" (yes, people allowed themselves to be interviewed saying, "Hell, I almost ran out of gas trying to find gas!") trying to find open gas stations. Whenever a truck could make it to a station, cars would FLOCK to the location and back up for half a mile (literally!) from the station waiting to gas up, and they'd run the tank dry in six or seven hours.
From what I understand, the problem is beginning to ease somewhat at this hour (1:30 pm Tuesday). See, it's not that we don't have the gas; it's here in town, just it's out at the gigantic storage facility. They've got trucks running 'round the clock and overtime trying to get it from there to the stations. See, now their major problem isn't the doofuses who ran out and filled up their car, their jet skis and eight gas cans all at once. Now, the people who waited it out like we were told to are running out of gas, and now WE have to follow tankers around in we want to have a shot at getting any. See below for more on that...
Now, back to me having to mind three trucks... sine I take care of the expenses for our kennel, that includes gassing up the main truck (the black truck) and the backup truck (the white truck). I fueled up both my pickup and the black truck on Wednesday, but since I was listening to the media outlets who said there wouldn't BE a friggin' GAS OUTAGE, I didn't worry about the white truck. We only use it once a day at best, anyways, and it's just around the corner and back, from the track to the kennel.
Unfortunately, the white truck was damn near empty already. Oops. So, that was my own screwup. That, and I made two roundtrips from my apartment to Central and Bell on Sunday, even as I watched our gas supply go from bountiful to mediocre to depleted to GONE. My screwup #2. I should have gassed again Friday, but... well... I'm hard-headed.
Anyhow, so Monday morning, I got a severe verbal lashing from Da Boss (my dad) since I hadn't gassed up the white. Lucky enough for me, though, it was 6:45 in the morning, so I hit the road, and the second station I came to (the Exxon at 44th and Van Buren) had been supplied recently. I had to wait three deep in line before I got to a pump, and I ran out of gas pretty much just as I got there. I managed to start it up the two times I needed to and nursed it forward without getting pushed, and I filled 'er up. $1.97 a gallon. Mission accomplished.
However, as I watched the progression go from panic to "uh-oh, we've actually got a problem in distribution here", I began to get pensive about my pickup and the black truck. They both dipped below 1/4 yesterday, with my truck dropping another line this morning. By now, it was too late to drive out of town far enough south to gas up, as I didn't know if I'd have enough gas to get there in either truck. At about 7:45, as rain started to fall, I gave the guys at work a list of things to do, and I said, "I'm going to go find gas. I'll call you when I find it."
No, I don't know what I was thinking, either. It wasn't the most brilliant of plans, but I was starting to get worried, and I don't like to worry. It makes my stomach hurt.
However, my brazen journey paid off. I looped up past 44th and Washington (Circle K: empty) and 44th and Van Buren (Circle K: empty), then up to 44th and McDowell (Arco: empty), hanging a left and passing 40th and Van Buren (7-11 and Diamond Shamrock: both empty). I cruised down to 32nd and Van Buren (some corner store, I think it's called Speedway Convenience: empty) and hung a left. Before I crossed the canal, I noted that the ABC-15 news van was broadcasting from the empty Texaco right there. Over the canal on 32nd, under the freeway, and at the Mobil on the left-hand side—
Was that a tanker pulling in to the parking lot?
Wait! Stay calm... There's no one there yet. Why wouldn't there be anyone there if he's not filling the tanks?
Then, just as I passed by the station, four cars swung into the station and screeched (literally) to a halt at the pumps. Yowza! I flipped the quickest illegal U-turn I could and zipped back to the station. I got in line right behind a guy in a Sentra who had gotten to a pump first. The tanker driver must have felt like Keanu Reeves in Matrix 2 as we drivers all swarmed around his truck as he began to uncoil hose. Yes, he was filling the tanks. No, he wasn't sure how long it would be, but no more than half an hour. "All right," I figured. "I'm game." I had a bag of sunflower seeds, an almost-full liter of Diet Dew and The Tony Kornheiser Show on the radio. I could wait. But the first thing I did was call back to the kennel and told Olivia to tell everyone that, if they hurried (by my roundtrip route, I was barely a mile from the kennel at this point), they could make it to this Mobil at 32nd and Roosevelt without too much of a wait. Yeah, so I was contributing to the very problem I mentioned earlier. But at some point, the cliché "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" comes into play. When EVERYONE is running out of gas, a certain level of community-mindedness is in order.
Olivia, community-minded person that she is (I might use a stronger, less-sarcastic term, but she IS my sister), jumped in her car and lit out like a bat out of accounting, and called back to the kennel and told whomever it was she got a hold of to tell everyone else. (chuckle... Gotta love 'er.) She was at the station within two minutes, and she was barely off the driveway in line, probably fifth or sixth from getting to a pump. (Each pump had two people in line for it, and there was 5 double-sided pumps, so that was 20 people in the initial lines, of which I was in the second 10... so she was 25th or so in line.) By the time word got to the rest of the crew, the line had backed up clear to Celebrity Theatre, according to Greg who had brought one of my aunt's trucks. Danny, on a hunch, zipped right past the station (I saw him fly by on 32nd; I think my exact words were, Where the f*** is HE going?) and went to the Arco at 32nd and Oak. I don't know how he knew they'd just opened; he doesn't have a cell phone or anything. But he was gassed up and back at the kennel before I was. Spooky.
As the trucker filled the reservoir, I chitchatted with the guy in front of me during commercial breaks on the radio. We both commented on how civil it seemed. No one was shouting, no one was pushing in line (although Olivia told me she wouldn't be afraid to use her pepper spray on anyone who cut her off, and she's just crazy enough to do it), and tempers seemed to be holding steady. I think it was the pleasant weather. (It was gray and overcast all morning, with intermittent showers. That's "pleasant" around here.) And no one seemed to mind when the attendant came out and changed the price from $1.95 to $2.09. Whatever. Funny thing is, I'm hearing less in the news about the shortage than I am about price-gouging. Was I being gouged? I don't know. After the guy in front of me put $30 into his Sentra and one gas can he tried to be real clandestine about in his trunk (I don't know why, it's not like they said we couldn't fill them... perhaps he didn't want to look greedy, although if I'd had the foresight to grab any of the three gas cans we have sitting in our shed, I'd've filled 'em, too), I wheeled up and slipped in the ol' debit card. I got ready to punch the digits, and...
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!! "SALE CANCELLED"
GAAAAAAAGGHHH!!
No, wait... breathe... breathe... everyone else is still fueling... then the speaker crackled to life. "Sir, your card wasn't read. Would you like to try it again?"
Well, dammit... could we possibly program our pumps to say, for example, "Card Not Read"? *shrug* Ah well... beggars can't be choosers, after all. I zipped in the card again, and this time it went off without a hitch. Within seconds, that sweet refined nectar was flowing into my truck. $43.27 later, I had a full tank again.
Now, as to the black truck? It should be all right. It was right on 1/4 last night, and we only need to make one roundtrip with it tonight, and, theoretically, it doesn't need to go anywhere Wednesday. Mark's planning to drive down to Casa Grande with five or six gas cans, and Da Boss is going to pay him to fill up a few for the business, so we can use those on the black if need be.
* * * * *
Okay, so I guess that's all I have to say about that. My life's been pretty much average of late. Haven't gotten out much; karaoke was called off last Wednesday, and that's usually my one night to get out and enjoy life. However, I paid Danny and Jose to do my work Sunday night so I could have the night off, and I went and saw Seabiscuit (that was the purpose of one of those round-trips to Central and Bell). Decent enough flick. I'm not much on reviewing movies, but I'd say go and see it, especially if you don't know the story. Unfortunately, nothing came as much of a shock to me; having grown up in the racing world, I'm familiar with the Seabiscuit saga, even though that's, well, horse racing, and I'm not a horseman. But I liked the characters, and how they talked about how The Biscuit acted really struck a chord with me. I know most people will think it's movie BS, and they'll write off the trainer as an eccentric nut, but most of what he says in the movie, about how the horse reacts to outside influences and people and other horses and such, is all true. It's true with my dogs, anyway, so I'd have to figure it's true with horses, too.
Oh, and there's the Coronado Band. You all better watch out for this program. Rebuilding year, you say? Ms. Rich says Screw That. She is, of course, the new director, and her directive is to reverse the direction the band's been directed in the past couple of years. I spent three days up there in Prescott at band camp with them as a volunteer staff member two weeks ago... well, I left for Prescott right after I finished the last post in the blog. The odd phenomenon is, the program may be really, really small this year, but the people who didn't want to be there quit, so the ones left are the ones who REALLY wanted to stick with it. So they're all gung ho about getting everything they can out of THIS season instead of just writing it off and gearing up for next year. The band is blessed in that it's comprised mainly of juniors and below, with only 5 or 6 seniors. So there'll be a solid nucleus of people coming back next year, and if everything keeps going like it is, they'll hit the ground running with an infusion of freshman talent, my little bro included.
Since they had no staff all summer (Ms. Rich was finally able to hire a guard instructor last week, but she has no paid assistants and no perc instructor as far as I know, unless that's changed since last Thursday), the section leaders really stepped up and took the reins. Hell, I've seen so much of Matt Masters in staff meetings that it's easy to forget he's a senior this year. Two of the seniors on the guard line were writing the work until the instructor arrived. But no one's complaining about it, and a big part of that is Ms. Rich's highly positive attitude. Near as I can tell, she's viewing this as a gleeful challenge, and I can certainly appreciate the fun in that... when pretty much everyone's written the band off for this season, she's getting ready to shock 'em all.
I had more coherent thoughts on this last topic, but I'm getting foggy. Nap time. My connection's STILL down, so I'm going to save this and post it later on. It feels good to be back blogging again, though.
Tuesday, August 5
Well, I never got the itch to come back and redo the lost blog from Saturday night. Oh well. I was just mainly going to discuss football, really. Can you taste it? IT'S FOOTBALL SEASON!! The great Mel Kiper once said, "I've always viewed summer as that droll time between draft day and the opening of camp." How right you are. Now that the preseason is underway, I can finally see the cool light at the end of the long, hot summer tunnel.
Buccaneers came out and represented, winning the preseason opener over the J-E-T-S-Jets-Jets-Jets in a laugher, 30-14. It wasn't even THAT close, as the Jets picked up a junk TD late in the game; it had been 30-7 much of the way throughout the fourth quarter. I was pleased, but you always have to take preseason games with a grain of salt, as most of the starters played one series and that was IT. I think Brad Johnson threw maybe 2 passes. However, Marv Levy's philosophy on preseason was firstly to ensure that no regular starters got injured; assessing 2nd- and 3rd-string talent came second, while actually winning the game was 3rd or 4th on his list. The man took teams to 4 straight SBs, so he was doing something right.
So I'm about to head to Prescott and join up with Coronado's band for a few days. Since the staff pretty much consists of Ms. Rich by herself (last I heard, which would have been Thursday, there was still no pit instructor, no drumline instructor, and no guard instructor, so section leaders have a lot of responsibility this year), I moved my time off from Friday/Saturday and combined it with my regular Wednesday afternoon-thru-Thursday-morning break to give myself 2½ days off all at once, so I could spend these next two days up in Prescott. 'Course, I have to work straight through until next Thursday when I get back, but them's the breaks.
I'll give my thoughts of this year's program when I get back. They certainly are an eager group, though. With all the turmoil of the past year, the ones that have stuck it out REALLY want to be there, and they're willing to work. But there's no escaping the fact that this is the quintessential "rebuilding year." It's a fairly young group, lots of sophs and juniors, so we're working towards building a cohesive nucleus as a core for next year's program. But "rebuilding year" doesn't mean "throwaway year," either; we're still going to make the best of what we've got.
Look at me, saying we, we, we. I guess I feel like I'm part of the staff, kinda. I'm just volunteering, though. Once camp's over, I'll only be able to help out Thursday mornings during the week, since I decided to keep my day off on Saturday so I can go and help out at band days and stuff.
Anywhey, I'm going to take a brief snoozer, then head for the hills.
Buccaneers came out and represented, winning the preseason opener over the J-E-T-S-Jets-Jets-Jets in a laugher, 30-14. It wasn't even THAT close, as the Jets picked up a junk TD late in the game; it had been 30-7 much of the way throughout the fourth quarter. I was pleased, but you always have to take preseason games with a grain of salt, as most of the starters played one series and that was IT. I think Brad Johnson threw maybe 2 passes. However, Marv Levy's philosophy on preseason was firstly to ensure that no regular starters got injured; assessing 2nd- and 3rd-string talent came second, while actually winning the game was 3rd or 4th on his list. The man took teams to 4 straight SBs, so he was doing something right.
So I'm about to head to Prescott and join up with Coronado's band for a few days. Since the staff pretty much consists of Ms. Rich by herself (last I heard, which would have been Thursday, there was still no pit instructor, no drumline instructor, and no guard instructor, so section leaders have a lot of responsibility this year), I moved my time off from Friday/Saturday and combined it with my regular Wednesday afternoon-thru-Thursday-morning break to give myself 2½ days off all at once, so I could spend these next two days up in Prescott. 'Course, I have to work straight through until next Thursday when I get back, but them's the breaks.
I'll give my thoughts of this year's program when I get back. They certainly are an eager group, though. With all the turmoil of the past year, the ones that have stuck it out REALLY want to be there, and they're willing to work. But there's no escaping the fact that this is the quintessential "rebuilding year." It's a fairly young group, lots of sophs and juniors, so we're working towards building a cohesive nucleus as a core for next year's program. But "rebuilding year" doesn't mean "throwaway year," either; we're still going to make the best of what we've got.
Look at me, saying we, we, we. I guess I feel like I'm part of the staff, kinda. I'm just volunteering, though. Once camp's over, I'll only be able to help out Thursday mornings during the week, since I decided to keep my day off on Saturday so I can go and help out at band days and stuff.
Anywhey, I'm going to take a brief snoozer, then head for the hills.
Sunday, August 3
Okay, so I think I'm losing it.
I logged in to blog and discovered that the Blogger interface had changed again. Okay, so I'm used to it varying without warning by now, so I started typing away. A little way in (okay, it was more like half an hour later), I clicked on the "Manage Posts" tab to look up a link for reference, and when I went back to the "Posts" tab... it was gone. All of it.
Sorry... I don't feel like re-typing it all now. I don't even remember all of it. When I blog, it's totally stream-of-consciousness.
Anyway, so I signed out in frustration, but I logged back in to post this post, and.... the interface is back to the old one, where I can go to the other posts without deleting what I'm working on. Go figure.
I'll blog tomorrow, sometime, and try to recapture what I was working on tonight.
I logged in to blog and discovered that the Blogger interface had changed again. Okay, so I'm used to it varying without warning by now, so I started typing away. A little way in (okay, it was more like half an hour later), I clicked on the "Manage Posts" tab to look up a link for reference, and when I went back to the "Posts" tab... it was gone. All of it.
Sorry... I don't feel like re-typing it all now. I don't even remember all of it. When I blog, it's totally stream-of-consciousness.
Anyway, so I signed out in frustration, but I logged back in to post this post, and.... the interface is back to the old one, where I can go to the other posts without deleting what I'm working on. Go figure.
I'll blog tomorrow, sometime, and try to recapture what I was working on tonight.
Monday, July 28
Sigh. As long as I'm not getting any sleep, figured I'd blog-in right quick.
There's a maintenance man in my bathroom fixing the AC. It's midnight. I can't go to bed yet.
My AC has decided to start leaking all over the bathroom at odd intervals. It happened Tuesday, called maintenance, no one showed up, happened Friday, called maintenance, no one showed up. Happened again tonight. It picked the wrong time to happen, let me tell you. I had a headache, PLUS I was in a grumpy mood because I failed yet again to strike up some small talk with the waitress I see at Sonic three times a week (see more for below on that... it's not nearly as creepy as it sounds). So anyway, I come inside figuring on finishing my cherry limeade and hitting the hay around 10:15, and I hear the familiar drip-drip-drip coming from the bathroom again. Luckily, I hadn't bothered to put my rugs back down since the first incident on Tuesday, but still, 'twas flooded all over again.
So, yeah, I got a little testy with maintenance this time. They told me that since I hadn't filed it as an EMERGENCY, that it didn't get high-priority status. I said, "I've called twice this week. You mean to tell me five days is about the average for a maintenance call?" Um, yes. More like a week, apparently. "Oh. Okay. This is an emergency, then." Well, the guy shows up 20 minutes later, and now he's in there clanking around (the AC access panel is in my bathroom). Which means I can't go to bed 'til he leaves, and I'm ragingly tired. That, and I have to be at the kennel at 4:45 in the morning.
About this waitress at Sonic... actually, I guess the correct term would be "carhop", but whatever... I invariably stop by Sonic after I get done Thursday and Sunday nights, the nights I just do turn-out. Also, I'll occasionally pop in there on my nights off. I rarely get food, and if so just an order of tots... I get three or four big sodas and stash them in the fridge. Anyway, I ALWAYS get served by the same carhop. (Now, *maybe* I'm parking in the same spot each time... maybe.) SO she's always really nice, though I guess that's part of the job description, but... still... and she's seen me at least 50 times. No exaggeration there. But I COMPLETELY freeze up whenever I try to ask her, say, "So, how ya doin tonight?" or anything along those lines. I'm even nervous about asking her for a drink carrier. And every time, it just makes me want to bash my head into the steering wheel a half-dozen times or so. I don't understand it. Well, I mean, I do... it's a form of social phobia, but still... you think I'd be able to handle it by now. Blegrah. I'm not trying to ask her out to dinner... I'd just like to avoid sounding like English is my second language when I talk to her.
"C-c-c-could I, uh, possibly, uh, g-get a d-d-dr-drink carrier?"
Geez.
So, anyway, Thursday night I'll be over there again probably.
Maintenance guy just left. He said I was right -- the drainpipe from the AC was plugged up. (Well, I had THAT much figured out -- I just didn't want to go disassembling plumbing on my own.) He asked if I changed my AC filter, and I said I pick up a new filter from the office each time I pay the rent every month. (...which is another bone of contention... apparently most apartment complexes provide AC filters. Wow! I've been buying my own for three years in Tucson. Sunzabitches.) So he said it was probably the people before me, since I hadn't been here long enough for it to get that dirty that fast. So, hopefully, I won't come home to an Aqua-Bathroom again for a while.
In other, somewhat more perky news, I'm helping out at Coronado with the band this year. They've finally hired a director, and I've got to say I like her style already. Whoa, did I say "her"? Yes, 'tis true, Ms. Rich is the first female band director in CHS history. Anyhow, I spent much of last night making name tags, as nobody'd done it yet and camp starts, well, today (Monday). I got a couple of extra mornings off over the neext two weeks so I can put in a little more time with the band.
I put people's sections on their tags, but mine reads "NICKEL-PACKAGE CORNERBACK." Anyone care to take a stab at the meaning?
Anyway, I sure feel a lot better than I did an hour ago. I mean, things are still relatively crappy, but it's nice to be able to air it out and get it in print. But hopegully, volunteering at Coronado will be the outlet I need. The walls are starting to close in again, just a little bit.
There's a maintenance man in my bathroom fixing the AC. It's midnight. I can't go to bed yet.
My AC has decided to start leaking all over the bathroom at odd intervals. It happened Tuesday, called maintenance, no one showed up, happened Friday, called maintenance, no one showed up. Happened again tonight. It picked the wrong time to happen, let me tell you. I had a headache, PLUS I was in a grumpy mood because I failed yet again to strike up some small talk with the waitress I see at Sonic three times a week (see more for below on that... it's not nearly as creepy as it sounds). So anyway, I come inside figuring on finishing my cherry limeade and hitting the hay around 10:15, and I hear the familiar drip-drip-drip coming from the bathroom again. Luckily, I hadn't bothered to put my rugs back down since the first incident on Tuesday, but still, 'twas flooded all over again.
So, yeah, I got a little testy with maintenance this time. They told me that since I hadn't filed it as an EMERGENCY, that it didn't get high-priority status. I said, "I've called twice this week. You mean to tell me five days is about the average for a maintenance call?" Um, yes. More like a week, apparently. "Oh. Okay. This is an emergency, then." Well, the guy shows up 20 minutes later, and now he's in there clanking around (the AC access panel is in my bathroom). Which means I can't go to bed 'til he leaves, and I'm ragingly tired. That, and I have to be at the kennel at 4:45 in the morning.
About this waitress at Sonic... actually, I guess the correct term would be "carhop", but whatever... I invariably stop by Sonic after I get done Thursday and Sunday nights, the nights I just do turn-out. Also, I'll occasionally pop in there on my nights off. I rarely get food, and if so just an order of tots... I get three or four big sodas and stash them in the fridge. Anyway, I ALWAYS get served by the same carhop. (Now, *maybe* I'm parking in the same spot each time... maybe.) SO she's always really nice, though I guess that's part of the job description, but... still... and she's seen me at least 50 times. No exaggeration there. But I COMPLETELY freeze up whenever I try to ask her, say, "So, how ya doin tonight?" or anything along those lines. I'm even nervous about asking her for a drink carrier. And every time, it just makes me want to bash my head into the steering wheel a half-dozen times or so. I don't understand it. Well, I mean, I do... it's a form of social phobia, but still... you think I'd be able to handle it by now. Blegrah. I'm not trying to ask her out to dinner... I'd just like to avoid sounding like English is my second language when I talk to her.
"C-c-c-could I, uh, possibly, uh, g-get a d-d-dr-drink carrier?"
Geez.
So, anyway, Thursday night I'll be over there again probably.
Maintenance guy just left. He said I was right -- the drainpipe from the AC was plugged up. (Well, I had THAT much figured out -- I just didn't want to go disassembling plumbing on my own.) He asked if I changed my AC filter, and I said I pick up a new filter from the office each time I pay the rent every month. (...which is another bone of contention... apparently most apartment complexes provide AC filters. Wow! I've been buying my own for three years in Tucson. Sunzabitches.) So he said it was probably the people before me, since I hadn't been here long enough for it to get that dirty that fast. So, hopefully, I won't come home to an Aqua-Bathroom again for a while.
In other, somewhat more perky news, I'm helping out at Coronado with the band this year. They've finally hired a director, and I've got to say I like her style already. Whoa, did I say "her"? Yes, 'tis true, Ms. Rich is the first female band director in CHS history. Anyhow, I spent much of last night making name tags, as nobody'd done it yet and camp starts, well, today (Monday). I got a couple of extra mornings off over the neext two weeks so I can put in a little more time with the band.
I put people's sections on their tags, but mine reads "NICKEL-PACKAGE CORNERBACK." Anyone care to take a stab at the meaning?
Anyway, I sure feel a lot better than I did an hour ago. I mean, things are still relatively crappy, but it's nice to be able to air it out and get it in print. But hopegully, volunteering at Coronado will be the outlet I need. The walls are starting to close in again, just a little bit.
Monday, July 21
Boo-yah!
Well, then, now that I have your attention... I'll pull the DeadJournal and say, "current mood - peachy". A confluence of good things have come together to create this peachiness. Actually, truth be told, it was mainly just the dinner going over so well. I could have dropped a spiked bowling ball on my foot today and still have been in a good mood. There's three main parts to tonight's blog effort, so read away. (Yeah, it'll be under Monday... *grumbles about inability to set the timestamp on his own*) Oh, and Lindsay, I owe you an email. It's forthcoming.
1. ¡Está lloviendo!
Tonight certainly looked like it was going to be our best chance for the first rain of the summer. It has literally not rained since I moved into my apartment in mid-April, mind you. It was damn hot today -- not necessarily as high a temperature as we've seen in the past weeks, but just the right combination of heat and wind to make it really hot. And, of course, since it's officially monsoon season, a really hot day breeds volatile thrunderstorm conditions later. The wind really picked up around 7:00 and blew all night, and it was a HOT wind, no cool breeze. As I was leaving the track at 11:00, I saw the first roils of dust moving across the parking lot. Of course, the really big storms get started around 6:30, so this wasn't going too be anything huge since it was already so late. We had a dust storm Tuesday night, too, and that led to nothing, so I was cautiously optimistic. As I was doing my chart work at the kennel around 11:15, I heard a noise which sounded like the wind had really picked up. It continued for a minute or so as I wrote on the whiteboard, until suddenly -- PLOP! I distinctly heard a drop of water fall. PLOP! PLOP! It took a second, but then I went to the door and threw it open, and... TA-DA! It was RAINING!! A LOT!! I was so happy, if all the dogs hadn't been asleep already I would've busted a move. See, when it rains really hard in the summer, water drips in through the swamp cooler vent in the roof (since the AC is on, the swamp cooler is off). So I put a bucket up on top of the crates to catch it, and since I was done with my work, happily dashed to my truck through the rain.
As I drove home, I started thinking about all the wondrous stuff I was going to post in my blog about it all. Then, as I pulled to the light at 44th and Washington, I noticed it was letting up. Well, crap. Like I said, it wasn't a big storm since it was so late already. Here's the fun part, though -- heading north on 44th, as I crossed Van Buren, it went DRY. Not a DROP of rain had fallen north of the Chinese Cultural Center or the 202, let alone when I got to my apartments. Gak! Less than a mile south of 44th and Van Buren, water was seeping in under the kennel's front door. A mile north? A nice rain-scented breeze. (Rain-scented, you ask? Actually, it's the smell of creosote oil from the bushes of the same name. The bushes, which are all over the desert, excrete the powerfully-scented oil, which gets mixed with rainwater and then blown ahead of an advancing storm.)
You gotta love this Arizona weather.
2. Dinner& A Movie
Well, the dinner went over GREAT. The ziti was a little crisp (okay, it was blackened on the bottom), but that was the only major mishap. Everybody seemed to like the Tequila-Citrus Carne Asada, and the Shrimp Sausage Creole Linguini was popular as always. BIG props to Tara, Ann, and Kristy for helping out with clean-up. That was a daunting task which they made significantly less daunting.
Zachary and I had been talking about going to see T3 afterwards, but after having been up since 6:00 AM slicing, chopping, mixing, marinating, sautéeing, baking, deep-frying, boiling, and simmering, we kinda decided we were a little spent. Besides, Z's allergies were acting up, especially after I chopped four different varieties of onion. His eyes swelled up and his nose clogged. Bleh. I had to call Mom and ask her to bring by some medications for him before he went to his card show in the afternoon.
Anyway, even if we'd decided to go, we probably would have called it off, because Jung brought Taboo. Woo-hoo! Word games! Count me in! Zach wanted to play, too, but since he's 13 and everyone else in the room was pretty much around my age, he got left out somewhat. Eh, well... he had fun playing with the buzzer. There was lots of shouting, fist-pumping, and rapid-fire insults... okay, most of it was from me. What?! I LIKE word games! (While Zach was still playing, he was on the opposite team from myself. When he took the card dispenser, I shouted, "Okay, guys, infield in!" ... Took a second, but it was my best zinger of the night.) (We have a loving, caring, older brother/younger brother relationship... I swear.)
So that was grand fun... our team 0WNED theirs. (No "3" in there... not quite as cool as a midget ninja jumping out of a trash can and scaring the crap out of you, I guess.) Oh, I almost forgot to mention... Zachary was finally defeated in Smash Brothers Melee! Rick was the man to do the job. Big ups.
As far as cooking goes... See, I love my job. I may gripe occasionally, but I love my dogs. However, as is the case with many an endeavor, occasionally you just need to get away and refocus. For 36 hours over the course of Friday night and all day Saturday, I didn't think AT ALL about the kennel. I was so focused on cooking, trying to keep on the schedule I had in my head, that I managed to completely disconnect from work. I can get like that during karaoke night, too, but it was SO much more fun doing the cooking because I actually had a concrete result (in the case of the ziti, literally concrete) afterwards. I just enjoy it. I don't even LIKE my own food that much. I'm a Rice-A-Roni and Velveeta Shells 'n Cheese kind of guy. I have 40 packages of ramen in my cabinet. See, I'm extremely easy to please, so if I'm satisfied with Maruchan ramen, why bother making chicken cordon bleu every night for myself? I COULD, but why bother? So, therefore, I'm hosting these dinners to satisfy my gourmet-cooking jones. I had maybe half a bowl of the clam chowder and a serving of the linguini, and one carne burrito, and that was IT last night.
So as long as people still want to come, I'll be doing these feasts fairly often.
3. Iron Chef USA
Yeah, you read that right. Iron Chef USA. Now, I'm sure most of you have picked up that I'm a big fan of Iron Chef. (I have the T-shirt.) I was hooked on the King of Iron Chefs tournament like most people were hooked on American Idol.
I was watching Good Eats or Unwrapped or something I'd Tivoed off of Food Network when I saw a commercial... "Iron Chef USA, this Saturday at 10:00!"... and I saw... William Shatner as the chairman! Zach and I were chopping vegetables at the time, and I must have said "WHAT?!" like 7 times in succession. I was floored. In the words of Jon Stewart, "I started to look around for Ashton Kutcher, for I was certain I was being Punk'd." Happy DAY! NEW Iron Chef, and in English of all languages? You could probably broadcast it in Hungarian dubbing with Portuguese subtitles and I'd still like it. Crazy go nuts!
So I checked my events guide on Tivo. Funny, searching the program list I see no Iron Chef USA. So I go to my Iron Chef season pass and look up what's coming on at 10:00 that night (Saturday), and according to Tivo it's... a regular Iron Chef. The Battle Onion, where Kunio Santo challenges Iron Chef Sakai. (Seen it.) Bleh! However, see, the Tivo updates its program list nightly, but it's beeen incorrect before, where the network has made a change in the programming, say, within a week. Since I hadn't ever seen a commercial for Iron Chef USA before, I decided to bet on Tivo being wrong, and I let it tape the show at 10:00.
So today, I call up the Iron Chef from last night, aaaaaaand...
Yay!
I've honestly only watched 5 minutes of it. It looks like it's going to be so good, I want to wait until I have a full hour to devote to it. (Today I had to watch Last Comic Standing from Tuesday night, since it's almost Tuesday again. That, by the way, is another show you should have been watching. Despite Jay Mohr.)
In closing...
So I guess that about covers it. I've literally been typing for an hour. Why? I don't know. It feels good to stick this stuff somewhere where people could theoretically see it. Steve and Nick got into a fiery debate over on Mark's blog about site usage and people visiting sites and stuff, and it got heated in a hurry. Since, frankly, I didn't understand most of what they were arguing about, I didn't want to take a side. But it got me thinking on a different tangent, about the importance of my site. I see people (like Annika) whose blogs get all kinds of random traffic, and for a while back when I started this thing up, I wanted mine to be like that. But, I've come to the realization that it's more fun to make an inside reference about midget ninjas and know that my loyal group of friends will know of what I speak. I don't have a lot of interesting political, sociological, or religious topics to air out. I just sat here for an hour and blabbered (clobbered?) on and on about [1] rain, [2] my party, and [3] Iron Chef USA (kick-ass!). And even if no one were to read it, I feel in some way like I've accomplished something. Because it's there. I have successfully placed what's in my head on the Internet. Interesting? Not really. Thought-provoking? Shit, no. But it's THERE.
And now, since my head is empty, I'm going to go fill it with Rice-A-Roni. Why? Because Rice-A-Roni is tasty.
Well, then, now that I have your attention... I'll pull the DeadJournal and say, "current mood - peachy". A confluence of good things have come together to create this peachiness. Actually, truth be told, it was mainly just the dinner going over so well. I could have dropped a spiked bowling ball on my foot today and still have been in a good mood. There's three main parts to tonight's blog effort, so read away. (Yeah, it'll be under Monday... *grumbles about inability to set the timestamp on his own*) Oh, and Lindsay, I owe you an email. It's forthcoming.
1. ¡Está lloviendo!
Tonight certainly looked like it was going to be our best chance for the first rain of the summer. It has literally not rained since I moved into my apartment in mid-April, mind you. It was damn hot today -- not necessarily as high a temperature as we've seen in the past weeks, but just the right combination of heat and wind to make it really hot. And, of course, since it's officially monsoon season, a really hot day breeds volatile thrunderstorm conditions later. The wind really picked up around 7:00 and blew all night, and it was a HOT wind, no cool breeze. As I was leaving the track at 11:00, I saw the first roils of dust moving across the parking lot. Of course, the really big storms get started around 6:30, so this wasn't going too be anything huge since it was already so late. We had a dust storm Tuesday night, too, and that led to nothing, so I was cautiously optimistic. As I was doing my chart work at the kennel around 11:15, I heard a noise which sounded like the wind had really picked up. It continued for a minute or so as I wrote on the whiteboard, until suddenly -- PLOP! I distinctly heard a drop of water fall. PLOP! PLOP! It took a second, but then I went to the door and threw it open, and... TA-DA! It was RAINING!! A LOT!! I was so happy, if all the dogs hadn't been asleep already I would've busted a move. See, when it rains really hard in the summer, water drips in through the swamp cooler vent in the roof (since the AC is on, the swamp cooler is off). So I put a bucket up on top of the crates to catch it, and since I was done with my work, happily dashed to my truck through the rain.
As I drove home, I started thinking about all the wondrous stuff I was going to post in my blog about it all. Then, as I pulled to the light at 44th and Washington, I noticed it was letting up. Well, crap. Like I said, it wasn't a big storm since it was so late already. Here's the fun part, though -- heading north on 44th, as I crossed Van Buren, it went DRY. Not a DROP of rain had fallen north of the Chinese Cultural Center or the 202, let alone when I got to my apartments. Gak! Less than a mile south of 44th and Van Buren, water was seeping in under the kennel's front door. A mile north? A nice rain-scented breeze. (Rain-scented, you ask? Actually, it's the smell of creosote oil from the bushes of the same name. The bushes, which are all over the desert, excrete the powerfully-scented oil, which gets mixed with rainwater and then blown ahead of an advancing storm.)
You gotta love this Arizona weather.
2. Dinner
Well, the dinner went over GREAT. The ziti was a little crisp (okay, it was blackened on the bottom), but that was the only major mishap. Everybody seemed to like the Tequila-Citrus Carne Asada, and the Shrimp Sausage Creole Linguini was popular as always. BIG props to Tara, Ann, and Kristy for helping out with clean-up. That was a daunting task which they made significantly less daunting.
Zachary and I had been talking about going to see T3 afterwards, but after having been up since 6:00 AM slicing, chopping, mixing, marinating, sautéeing, baking, deep-frying, boiling, and simmering, we kinda decided we were a little spent. Besides, Z's allergies were acting up, especially after I chopped four different varieties of onion. His eyes swelled up and his nose clogged. Bleh. I had to call Mom and ask her to bring by some medications for him before he went to his card show in the afternoon.
Anyway, even if we'd decided to go, we probably would have called it off, because Jung brought Taboo. Woo-hoo! Word games! Count me in! Zach wanted to play, too, but since he's 13 and everyone else in the room was pretty much around my age, he got left out somewhat. Eh, well... he had fun playing with the buzzer. There was lots of shouting, fist-pumping, and rapid-fire insults... okay, most of it was from me. What?! I LIKE word games! (While Zach was still playing, he was on the opposite team from myself. When he took the card dispenser, I shouted, "Okay, guys, infield in!" ... Took a second, but it was my best zinger of the night.) (We have a loving, caring, older brother/younger brother relationship... I swear.)
So that was grand fun... our team 0WNED theirs. (No "3" in there... not quite as cool as a midget ninja jumping out of a trash can and scaring the crap out of you, I guess.) Oh, I almost forgot to mention... Zachary was finally defeated in Smash Brothers Melee! Rick was the man to do the job. Big ups.
As far as cooking goes... See, I love my job. I may gripe occasionally, but I love my dogs. However, as is the case with many an endeavor, occasionally you just need to get away and refocus. For 36 hours over the course of Friday night and all day Saturday, I didn't think AT ALL about the kennel. I was so focused on cooking, trying to keep on the schedule I had in my head, that I managed to completely disconnect from work. I can get like that during karaoke night, too, but it was SO much more fun doing the cooking because I actually had a concrete result (in the case of the ziti, literally concrete) afterwards. I just enjoy it. I don't even LIKE my own food that much. I'm a Rice-A-Roni and Velveeta Shells 'n Cheese kind of guy. I have 40 packages of ramen in my cabinet. See, I'm extremely easy to please, so if I'm satisfied with Maruchan ramen, why bother making chicken cordon bleu every night for myself? I COULD, but why bother? So, therefore, I'm hosting these dinners to satisfy my gourmet-cooking jones. I had maybe half a bowl of the clam chowder and a serving of the linguini, and one carne burrito, and that was IT last night.
So as long as people still want to come, I'll be doing these feasts fairly often.
3. Iron Chef USA
Yeah, you read that right. Iron Chef USA. Now, I'm sure most of you have picked up that I'm a big fan of Iron Chef. (I have the T-shirt.) I was hooked on the King of Iron Chefs tournament like most people were hooked on American Idol.
I was watching Good Eats or Unwrapped or something I'd Tivoed off of Food Network when I saw a commercial... "Iron Chef USA, this Saturday at 10:00!"... and I saw... William Shatner as the chairman! Zach and I were chopping vegetables at the time, and I must have said "WHAT?!" like 7 times in succession. I was floored. In the words of Jon Stewart, "I started to look around for Ashton Kutcher, for I was certain I was being Punk'd." Happy DAY! NEW Iron Chef, and in English of all languages? You could probably broadcast it in Hungarian dubbing with Portuguese subtitles and I'd still like it. Crazy go nuts!
So I checked my events guide on Tivo. Funny, searching the program list I see no Iron Chef USA. So I go to my Iron Chef season pass and look up what's coming on at 10:00 that night (Saturday), and according to Tivo it's... a regular Iron Chef. The Battle Onion, where Kunio Santo challenges Iron Chef Sakai. (Seen it.) Bleh! However, see, the Tivo updates its program list nightly, but it's beeen incorrect before, where the network has made a change in the programming, say, within a week. Since I hadn't ever seen a commercial for Iron Chef USA before, I decided to bet on Tivo being wrong, and I let it tape the show at 10:00.
So today, I call up the Iron Chef from last night, aaaaaaand...
Yay!
I've honestly only watched 5 minutes of it. It looks like it's going to be so good, I want to wait until I have a full hour to devote to it. (Today I had to watch Last Comic Standing from Tuesday night, since it's almost Tuesday again. That, by the way, is another show you should have been watching. Despite Jay Mohr.)
In closing...
So I guess that about covers it. I've literally been typing for an hour. Why? I don't know. It feels good to stick this stuff somewhere where people could theoretically see it. Steve and Nick got into a fiery debate over on Mark's blog about site usage and people visiting sites and stuff, and it got heated in a hurry. Since, frankly, I didn't understand most of what they were arguing about, I didn't want to take a side. But it got me thinking on a different tangent, about the importance of my site. I see people (like Annika) whose blogs get all kinds of random traffic, and for a while back when I started this thing up, I wanted mine to be like that. But, I've come to the realization that it's more fun to make an inside reference about midget ninjas and know that my loyal group of friends will know of what I speak. I don't have a lot of interesting political, sociological, or religious topics to air out. I just sat here for an hour and blabbered (clobbered?) on and on about [1] rain, [2] my party, and [3] Iron Chef USA (kick-ass!). And even if no one were to read it, I feel in some way like I've accomplished something. Because it's there. I have successfully placed what's in my head on the Internet. Interesting? Not really. Thought-provoking? Shit, no. But it's THERE.
And now, since my head is empty, I'm going to go fill it with Rice-A-Roni. Why? Because Rice-A-Roni is tasty.
