January 2008

That is a Russian Blue my in-laws drove to Seattle to get. They say he’s real affectionate though you can’t tell from his predicament in the photo. Of course it doesn’t help that day was the day we all came over to see him. My grand-niece was there, an 8 year old of high energy who doesn’t understand why she can’t just hold the pretty cat and love it to death. She spent a goodly portion of her time attempting to coax him out from behind her bed. He was having none of that, proving, to me at least, that a 6 month old cat has more smarts than most 8 year old humans.

From what I can tell, he’s quite the handsome cat. The photo doesn’t do his color justice I think. Hopefully I’ll be over to their place when the overall activity level is low and he’ll be more inclined to visit.

Yesterday, at the half, I take The Boy down to his favorite local game store so he can trade in a bunch of games for store credit. He really wants to get an XBox360 USB wireless adapter but he doesn’t have the 80 clams right now. The process of exchanging his games for store credit takes well over an hour, but he was successful in his quest and even able to get a couple of additional games and still have 5 bucks credit left over. Woot! I tell Kenny, the dude at the game store, the score and he scowls because he a Giants fan. By this time it’s after 5:30 and he consoles himself by the fact that he’s off at 6 and can go watch the rest of the game.

After that we picked up dinner and when we got home I found I had missed the entire second half. I go to the NFL web site and, holy shit, Batman, the game is tied at 20 - 20 and is going into over time. So, we flip the channel over to Fox and watch NY score the game winning field goal. I’m thinking Kenny is pretty happy right about now.

Just watched New England swat San Diego down like an annoying bug, and since I’m already working on my computer, I’d thought I’d live blog the Greenbay / New York game for as long and I stay interested. I’m watching the game on a Sony 60 inch HD tv on the Fox HD channel.

3:15 PM: It’s still the pre-game show and I’m watching the Fox NFL commentators attempt to speak in -1 degree weather. Howie Long is wearing the same type of hat John Candy did in the movie Uncle Buck, which is not an image I really want in my head. Howie is sporting a 3 day beard. Dunno if that’s an affectation or if he just doesn’t give a shit. In HD, I can see every grey whisker. Terry Bradshaw is looking particularly pruney. He’s trying to explain how to throw a football in cold weather and he keeps moving his microphone away from his mouth. He’s so naturally loud it doesn’t matter much.

3:25 PM: It’s hard to understand Terry and Jimmy, the cold makes them slur their words. Terry gets all excited and upturns his water glass to demonstrate what happens to liquid in freezing temperatures. The rest of the group act as if Terry’s did a wondrous thing by inventing ice.

3:29 PM: Strange documentary ‘commercial’ about some surfers. One hell of a non sequitur. What does this have to do with Football? Ah, the channel had been changed. That’s better.

3:30 PM: Green Bay wins the coin toss, they elect to receive. The Packers

Koren Robinson to receive, but the ball is knocked off the tee. Second attempt to kick successful. Green Bay at their 25.

Two first downs in a row for Green Bay. They make playing in sub-zero temperatures look easy. They all show their manliness by exposing their arms to the elements. No news on whether this is intimidating to NY, which is no cold weather slouch and who is wearing long sleeved shirts. Because they’re not crazy.

3:51 PM: NY has possession with 12 minutes left in first. Get first down.

I take it back, NY stepped up and isn’t wearing long sleeved shirts either. Way to step on the bare arms detente.

NY isn’t making any progress. 3 and 10.

First down! 18 yard pass completion.

3rd and 1. Flag! Green Bay penalty 1st down for NY.

Another 1st down on pass completion.

NY gains 3 on run.

Trivial banter by Aikman. Eli Manning doesn’t wear a glove on his throwing hand. Earth shattering.

Another NY first down at Packers 11. So far Green Bay defense isn’t down much. So much for the bare arms tactic, I’m thinking they need to come up with something else, like actually performing defense.

GB must have heard me because they stop NY. Now it’s 4th down and NY scores first with a field goal. NY 3 GB 0.

GB 24 yard return on kickoff. YET another fucking commercial. At least it’s not for Bud Light.

GB at their own 30, 4:33 to go in 1st quarter. They gain 1 on a short pass.

Shovel pass goes nowhere.

Pass to 81 does nothing. GB to punt. Fair catch called, no return.

Now it’s another fucking Toyota commercial. I would LOVE to watch some football with my commercials.

Mac commercial touting their new Time Capsule. Too fucking many Justin Longs.

NY ball. 1st down 81 just stands there open and drops the ball anyway. 2nd down, nothing. 3rd down and 10.

Short pass complete not enough for 1st down. NY to punt. 21 yards, bounces out. More commercials.

Back with 59 seconds left in 1st quarter. GB on own 31. 3 yard gain.

Aikman discusses the Glove issue again, this time about Bret Favre as he walks off the field, apparently he and Eli share the need to not wear a glove on their throwing hand.

End of first, more commercials. Seriously, where’s the football?

Start of 2nd, GB to punt. NY on own 43. Less than a minute of football. Now a Ford truck commercial. I’m going to time the length of the game before the next commercial.

NY gets first down. Pam Oliver raises a potential scandal. The NY benches are supposed to be heated but aren’t. Maybe if NY looses they can sue.

3rd down and a beautiful catch, despite a fumble. Flag on play, against GB. 1st and 10 for NY. Another flag. False start against NY.

Damn 2nd and 12 for NY. Crowd getting loud now. Manning throws away the pass.

GB working the crowd NY calls timeout. Commercial. Nice, a good 4 minutes of game.

Another NY field goal. NY 6 GB 0. So far not a lot of spectacular play by either team.

GB can’t get ball. Williams slips several times, finally gets a hold of it on their own 10.

Driver catches pass and goes for TD. Greenbay finally gets on the board. Hometown crowd is going nuts.

Kickoff. GB keeps NY in their own territory. GB is feeding off of and encouraging the crowd. NY gets 7 yards. 2nd down and a loss of 1. GB defense getting all happy. Bigby gets tackle and struts around.

NY gets first down on own 45. 1st and 10, Pass incomplete. 2nd and 10, pass incomplete. 3rd and 10, pass incomplete. GB defense getting tough. Williams falls on anemic punt. 8:56 to go in 1st half.

GB 1st and 10, running play gains a few. 2nd, pass to Lee gains 18 yards.

GB 1st and 10. Pass complete to Jennings, another first down. GB definitely heating up now.

GB 1st and 10. Pass incomplete to sideline. 2nd and 10, Pass over the middle batted down. 3rd and 10, long pass down the middle, incomplete. Punt to inside NY 10 yards.

NY staring from their 7. Running play for gain of 9. Jacobs just plows through the GB defenders. 2nd and 1, Jacobs gets first down. Flag down against NY. 2nd and 9, gain of 2, 3rd and 7. Flags all over the place. Holding against NY. 4th down. Punting to GB 47 yard line.

GB 1st and 10, hand off to Grant for no gain. 2nd and 10, pass incomplete, that was strange Favre turned as if to do a handoff and then passed to no one. 3rd and 10, flag on play illegal contact against NY. 1st and 10. Grant gains 1 on short run. 2nd and 9, pass to Driver for 30 or so yards.

2 minute warning. Wow there was actually a nice block of football there. I forgive the commercials. Well, the commercials themselves, they annoy the living shit out of me, but the need for them I guess. Budweiser is trying to convince me they make quality beer. Yeah, right.

-2 degrees in GB now.

GB 2nd and 8, pass to Jennings in end zone, incomplete. 3rd and 8, pass to Jackson, who is surrounded by NY defenders, but keeps going. FG attempt. 37 yards made, GB 10, NY 6 with 1:30 to go. Shot of Howie Long in that stupid hat.

Kick off to NY, at NY 5, 17 yard return. 1st and 10, 9 yard run by Bradshaw, 2nd and 1, long pass to Burress, complete. Manning calls timeout. Clearly, we haven’t had enough commercials. 1st and 10, Manning to Burress, incomplete, almost called a fumble. 2nd and 10, Manning down. 3rd and 10, pass incomplete, 11 seconds left. 4th and 8, NY is going for it. Manning surrounded.

GB takes possession wth 8 seconds left. Favre kneels down and the first half is done.

10 to 6, Packers.

Went to check my Google mail and this is what I was presented with:

Google presents these ads based on the content of the email, but I really don’t remember discussing gaseous emissions with anyone recently. Not saying I wouldn’t, I just don’t think I have RECENTLY.

Because it seems interesting and got me thinking, I decided to share the ten things I’ve done you probably haven’t. This list is in no particular order.

1. Watched a thunderstorm in the western Caribbean from my cabin balcony.
2. Dropped acid and, while peaking, walked down the centerline of Chapman Avenue in Orange, CA, at 3 am as if it were a tight rope. As I recall, that line kept moving around a lot.
3. Had a private viewing of the The Oxcart by Vincent Van Gogh at the Portland Art Museum. I was able to stare at that painting from 3 inches for several minutes. As I fancy myself a painter of modest talent, it was important for me to do so.
4. Helped organize a charity auction which was attended by the Governor of Oregon and raised close to half a million dollars for said charity.
5. Tubed down the Great River in Jamaica.
6. Swam in Dingleberry Lake in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains. It was fucking cold despite doing so in the month of August.
7. Had a sea lion stare me in the face six inches from my mask while diving off the coast of Santa Barbara island.
8. Saw The Mikado at the Savoy Theatre in London, England.
9. Went snorkeling in Molokini Crater and fed the fish.
10. Shoveled pig shit from the pens on my cousin’s farm in Iowa. I didn’t necessarily enjoy doing that, but I was getting paid.

I spent a good portion of Sunday playing Guitar Hero III on Easy level and watching The Boy play it on Hard level. He was consistently thwarted by Metallica’s One. He could get past the melodic guitar bits in the beginning without letting the Rock Meter dip too far into the yellow, but as soon as the serious speed metal bit came, he just could not keep up and the Rock Meter made a smooth transition into the red every time.

This game has a thin veneer of a story. You are part of a band paying its dues on the road to rock stardom and if you play a given set of songs well, you end up with promotion deals, a manager who steals your soul, videos, being the opening act at a Burning Man like concert in the desert, etc. I made it to London and started to play ‘Anarchy in the U.K.’ by the Sex Pistols. The Boy asked me why a band would name a song that, whereupon I was able to give him a short history of rock music between 1968 and 1976 and the cultural threads between the death of the Hippie movement at Altamont, the rise of corporate sell-out rock, disco, and the rise of punk as a reaction to all of that as well as a reaction, especially in the U.K, to society as a whole.

When I started to play ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ by the Dead Kennedys, I could see he understood. It’s nice to know all that time rotting my brain listening to rock and punk at high volume when I was a teenager could translate into a teaching moment with my son 25 years later. It truly is the Circle of Life.

Update: Per a person who was actually there and who assures me she does remember the experience, updated the spelling of hippie.

In which our hero regales us with a long rambling piece to record his Christmas vacation just past.

During most of this decade, the oughts of the 21st century, I worked at a tech startup in south Orange County, California. Tech startups are furious hives of activity, concerned chiefly with getting product out the door as quickly as possible to maximize profit and justify investment in same. As such, many of the more mundane aspects of running a company in the business of making money are left as second thoughts or not thought of at all, things such as tracking vacation days and sick days taken during the course of a furious year gloriously death marching to a finish line which moves further and further away.

Each year from 2002 to 2004, I would take a week’s vacation in mid to late July, depending on whether it was an odd or even year. I also took time off here and there each Spring. Each year, I would fill out official paperwork. Each year my boss would not submit the form to HR for recording slash archiving. Each year from 2002 to 2004, early in December, I would receive an email from the so-called HR director telling me I had 14 days of vacation I needed to take by year’s end or lose it. The company was run by a bunch of cheap bastards. No rolling of days for them!

The HR director wasn’t located in my office. She(?) was in corporate, across the country in the beautiful state of West Virginia. Not much was communicated to her. For reasons too numerous to recount now, there was a strong dislike and distrust towards her by those of us in the West Coast office.

As a consequence of this serendipitous lack of communication, for those years I calculated I had unofficially taken a month to a month and a half off for vacation after I added up all of my ‘unofficial’ but manager-approved time and the two weeks the HR director officially knew about. I got to really enjoy and appreciate taking the latter half of December off. It really provided me with the rest and respite I came to feel I deserved after a hard year pushing code uphill.

I was let go in March of 2005, when the company closed its doors. For the past two holiday seasons, I worked at my new company — somewhat. Who works between December 24th and Jan 2nd, really? This year I made sure to plan for the time off and with the holiday days falling on Tuesday, I was guaranteed 10 days away from work with only 4 days of vacation time used. Sweet!

So what did I do? Nothing, absolutely, gloriously nothing. Each day, I got up a few minutes later than the day previous and I went to bed a bit later than the I did the day previous. I played Blue Dragon on the new XBox 360 we got for The Boy and watched a bunch of dvds. I drank beer and wine and made Dirty Ashtrays for the alcoholics in my family when we all got together for Christmas. I made lefse for the first time in a few years. I read 4 books in 5 days. I soaked in the jacuzzi. I kissed and hugged my wife, several times we did things consenting adults do in the privacy of our bedroom. I relaxed.

All in all, time well spent.