Vengeful Cynic

With Child

So for a number of years, whenever the notion of my having children was brought up in discussion, it was concluded that this sort of thing would portend the End of Days or some such nonsense.

With that in mind, I'd like to announce that my wife is with child. Also in that same vein, the due date is April 1, 2010. No, I'm not making that up and no, it's not a joke. Also, I failed to plan it that way... because if I were planning these things, I would have probably aimed for a date that I could turn into an offensive joke (like, say, April 20, November 5 or May 5, just off of the top of my head.)

"Make sure you put something in there nice about God, ya know" - Anna

Yes dear. To be fair, she's right... I have a wife with a pacemaker and myself have diabetes... 100 years ago, neither of us would probably still be around to be having a child, and certainly wouldn't be in the position to be HAVING children. Not to mention thanks to God for having a children on the way when so many do not (and no, that's not an invitation to twins.)

Really, I could keep rambling here for a while, I am rather pleased on the topic, even though I am also rather terrified. But let's just say I figure things will be get interesting here.

Quality and Quantity

So I've been jotting down a lot of half-done essays on a variety of work-related topics of late. Meetings, performance reviews, layoffs, peer reviews, re-orgs... the beat goes on.

The point is that I get a lot of half-done writings put together, primarily in meetings. This is, of course, because easily half of the meetings I sit in (time-wise) are comprised of agenda items which either inform me of nothing or add absolutely no value to my work for my having heard them. As a result, I have a lot of time to write, but it's very disjoint time. I do plan on finishing those essays, but it's a somewhat lengthy process that really doesn't leave me updating a lot.

This of course, also gives rise to my using twitter... and even better, because verbosity is something that I continually struggle with, the 140 character limit is a test of my revision skills and at the same time allows me to pass on information without spending 20-30 minutes of the time that I'm actually at my desk typing up blog posts (not to mention the several hours of polish that they probably really need.) It probably wouldn't be very professional of me to use my work time for that...

This of course, by necessity, also leads me to contemplate the future of this blog. More frequent updates are preferable, but they necessarily suck up time or just end up being low-quality. I feel that something like twitter fits the billing for that rather nicely and has the added benefit of enabling me to communicate links.

Of course, I really should come up with some sort of twitter aggregation service to plug into my blog here... and that leads to another point. We really do need to upgrade our services to MT 4.0 or something else... really, anything but a blogging service that dates back to sometime in 2004 or 2005 if memory serves. In the land of the internet, our back-end is will-nigh unto prehistoric.

So, new objectives:

1) Longer, more significant and less frequently-posted essays.
2) Mechanism for conveying links and "cheese sandwich" updates in a (hopefully) witty manner.
3) Update to the blogging back-end.

I'll get right on those and tell you how it turns out.

Oh, as to the twitter piece, for right now I can be followed at @vengeful_cynic

Quick, Someone Find a Pond!

Sadly, I lack a pond. But even lacking a pond, people should go wish Ardith a happy birthday.

I know she'll just love all of the added attention.

And while we're at it drawing attention to Ardith, I think I'll share a Dr. K quote regarding her that he shared at the honors dinner the week of graduation:

"So I heard about Ardith for a long time before I met her, and I had this picture in my mind 'Ardith the Dragon-Slayer'. And then I met her and I thought, wow... I guess it's more like 'Ardith the Squirrel-Slayer.'"

Happy Birthday, Ardith.

Hey You, Get Off of My Side

A co-worker of mine once sent an email to the CEO of the (rather large) company that I worked for (and CC-ed it to half of the rest of the company), complaining about working conditions that were unsafe and could potentially harm employees, not to mention costing the company millions of dollars in legal fees, workers' compensation issues and other expenses. The problem was that the email was written in such a manner that there was one spelling or grammatical error for every four words. The worst part was that I agreed with this co-worker: these were issues that needed to be addressed, but now they would be relegated to the inane demands of a drunkard, all because the argumentation was poorly presented and riddled with errors.

As a fiscally conservative individual beset by a socialist administration, I feel much the same way. I am deeply troubled by the problem of attempting to spend trillions of dollars to jump-start the economy, not to mention an unwillingness on the part of the Obama administration to address the problems attendant in the banking industry for fear of upsetting the stock market. And yet, what is my alternative? Rush Limbaugh?! A Republican party that alternately embraces President Bush's spending policies, ridicules those of Obama and refuses to stand up to its own pundits? And what's worse, the current Republican party seems willing to allow itself to play Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly and make ridiculous and inane statements in an effort to "consolidate the base."

As a Christian conservative, this will hardly be the first time that a stalwart attempts to defend the ground upon which I stand and does it so poorly, unconvincingly and with such reprehensible tactics that I am forced to side with opposition in addressing my would-be ally before I can resume my own defense. And this troubles me... after all, while I would argue that I am at least a slightly above-average representative of mental acuity, I'm not that far above the median... and I would like to think that I'm defending an intelligent position. So why is it, then, that I am beset by idiots who occupy my positions? Or is it that there is an equal distribution of idiots and simply that I'm that much more sensitive to the issue because the position they defend is my own?

Spring Cleaning

So, I've been doing some spring cleaning and am in an effort to get back on track with my blogging, or something. Old links have been cleaned out, a couple of new comic links have been added.

Per the usual blogger, I'm having something of a crisis of content. I used to be able to say whatever I wanted. I also didn't used to have a job or a boss to whom I had to report. Unfortunately, the best of what I have to write is also the stuff that is the most likely to make the boss upset either in terms of content or in terms of tone. Not to mention I have my own future at stake here.

Obviously I'm not going to sacrifice my job for the blog... but is there some middle category. Obviously I'm still free to do social, political and moral commentary. The problem is that, at least to my own mind, the thing that I'm best at is telling stories. And really, there are so many great stories to tell. I think I'm going to have to work out a way for that to happen.

Offensive

Do you know how hard it is to go through my day and intentionally avoid saying offensive things?

Thank goodness that I sit in a lab where there are only a handful (relatively-speaking) of managers who can get in... but still. Even with all of that, I have to mentally leave my regulator on and watch what I'm saying at work just about all of the time.

I honestly don't think most of my friends realize what a strain this sort of thing is for me. I think I need to go start a company where our main product is something so offensive that I couldn't be sued for harassment, no matter what I said.

Wouldn't my parents be so proud?

Hosting is Changed!

We have officially gotten our dns moved over to bluehost. Now my normal posting may resume.

In other news, Ardith is going to be upgrading the blogs to MT 4 sooner or later. Yay MT4!

Legitimate Excuse

Why no posting? It goes something like this. About a month ago, I did some paperwork and some paying of bills to change our hosting location. I just haven't backed up the servers and actually done it.

I really should have made Ardith do some of this, but I haven't even gotten around to pushing her into doing it.

And now I'm awake at 2 am with freaking acid reflux... so I probably shouldn't start the task right now.

In other unrelated news, apparently I have this thing linked into my facebook profile, which I should probably undo. And I may have some people that I'm a chauvinist... which is both amusing and unsettling. I kind of miss being a college student whose favorite hobby was making absurd statements and seeing who responded and how. Results may vary in a professional setting... but I have to say that I do have a co-worker who does this and gets away with it. Frequently.

To-Do 2009

So, in conversation with my wife and others, I'm working on a list of stuff that I have to do. This branched out of a list of things that I have to do around the house and stuff, but I suppose there are also books that I need to read and projects of my own that need undertaking... etc, etc, etc.

As to my personal projects, if anyone has any ideas, by all means. Also, I'm happily taking book suggestions because, right now, my book list is pretty much all programming books (several of which are listed here) and a stated need for an authoritative book on home repair. Beyond that, I plan on getting some more books for my pleasure reading and will happily take suggestions on what books I should be buying. And yes, I'll happily buy/borrow/steal textbook-type books as well.

Around the House
1) Close off ventilation to unused bedrooms (in such a way that it can be re-opened in <5 mins)
2) Use silicon sealant or something to reduce air movement through crappy old windows
3) Weather-stripping and sealant around front door
4) Tear out shelving in blue bedroom

Side Projects
1) Organize books on book-shelves
2) Take pictures throughout house to post and send out
3) Reformat and reload Anna's and my computers
4) Reformat and reload NAS & server boxes

Books That Need Reading
1) Some Authoritative Book (or Books) on Home Repair (probably ought to buy one or several on recommendations from others)
2) The C++ Programming Language: Special Edition - Bjarne Stroustrup
3) The Art of Computer Programming, Boxed Set: Second Edition - Donald Knuth

Resolute

I'd really like to blog more actively. With the slacking of my peers, it's fairly easy to be the most active Shadow Council blogger.

It's also really hard to take everyone else to task about not blogging enough if I don't blog more (and hopefully, more meaningfully) myself.

So here's to no weeks that go by without at least one post... and hopefully more than that.

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

This is the first Christmas I've come back to Ohio since I got married. It's also the first Christmas that I've been back in Ohio since my brother has been married and the first Christmas since Mom moved into her new digs.

It's really kind of weird. I mean, Geoff has been married for over 2 years now, I've been married over 3.5, but it really seems like kind of a shock not to have everyone at my mom's house. Of course, it's also been 4 years since my Dad told me that he and Mom were getting divorced and almost 7 since he moved out... so I guess in that sense, it's been 7 years since I had a Christmas like the sort that I grew up with... but each year it seems like I get a little bit further from my childhood.

Of course, stuff changes beyond just the house. Places open and close in Ohio, teachers have moved on and retired from my old high school, the "little kids" that I once went to church with are now 6 feet tall and 16 or 17 years old. I mean, the realities of my life are that things change and not just the things that I'd been hoping to see change. The prolonged absence makes it more noticeable.

So in a sense, I get to celebrate the fact that my family is bigger than it was before and (as much as she can drive me nuts), for the first time, I will get to celebrate Christmas morning with my brother's wife as part of the family. But at the same time, there is a pang of mourning that comes from my father's choice to leave us, the fact that we're not in the house that I once lived in (a mixed blessing to be sure), and the apparent toll that another year of hardship has taken on my mom and grandmother.

75th Anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition

This month marks the 75th anniversary of the passage of the 22nd Amendment, which became law on December 5, 1933. As a partaker of alcohol in moderation, this pleases me.

That said, I wish I could have been a bootlegger.

Thanksgiving Holiday

or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Little Children"

Actually... that's a patent falsehood. I love my niece and nephew, but I'm sure glad I don't have a 6-year-old and 3-year-old living with me full-time.

I would like to note that I have some of the best in-laws of anyone I know. My father-in-law was on vacation and still managed to help me with (read: do most of the work) home improvement projects. My mother-in-law did easily half of the cooking and 90% of the dishes. My sister-in-law... well, she kept and eye on the kids. And my brother-in-law kept buying lunch and alternated with me as we played Wii Sports with the niece and nephew and showed only the lack of compassion that two childless 20-something males can as we beat a whiny little child in direct correlation to the amount he whined. Oh, and my father-in-law kept buying stuff for me, which was awesome and MUCH appreciated.

On Thanksgiving day, Anna's cousins from Madison came out as well as her aunt from Chicago and aunt and uncle from Milwaukee, their daughter and her fiancé. Much food was ate by all, oyster dressing was tried for the first time by many (with no converts that I'm aware of), and we ended up with enough pies that there was 1/2 of a pie for each adult in attendance.

Really, there were too many great things for me to sum them up all here and now, but suffice it to say that I am duly impressed (again) by my in-laws.

Oh... and it's SNOWING!!!

Hail to the Chief

First off, I'd like to render my sympathies to my friends who wanted to see a McCain/Palin win. I can't say I'm giddy about an Obama win, but I find it preferable to the alternatives.

Really, any scenario where we balance out 8 years of Bush and 6 years of a Republican congress and their erosion of individual freedoms and civil liberties is a welcome change. Beyond that, I guess we'll see.

Book Meme

I found an interesting meme of 100 books in the English language that someone thinks that you ought to have read. These lists are a dime a dozen, though I happen to like this one in particular, probably owing in no small part to my having read a sizeable number of the books on the list and Tolkien and C.S. Lewis making multiple appearances. Really... it's highly slanted towards British authors, but it's worth looking at. I thought about hiding it below the fold, but my front page isn't all that occupied these days by text. It should be noted that my responses in particular as far as ownership goes are subject to my memory, made harder by the fact that easily half of my books are still in boxes. Oh... and I'm still not 100% sure what Anna does or doesn't have.

1) Bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you own.
3) Underline the books for which you have SEEN A MOVIE OR TV PRODUCTION.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (obv. have only seen movies of some)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (no movie, unless Conspiracy Theory counts)
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (BBC FTW)
34 Emma - Jane Austen (SO MUCH HATE!)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding - if you ever get a chance to see this, watch the Simpsons' episode instead
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (again, seen some, not all)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (Apocalypse Now counts, right?)
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (have seen both movies)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

My Great Friends

So... since I last posted, Anna and I have acquired a house. And then we moved into said house. Yeah, I know... I'm bad about these things. We'll take some pictures when things finish getting cleaned up to make it up to you.

In any event, I would like to thank my friends who have made this all possible: Ardith and Jason Hoyt, The Moores, Barbour, Maples, and my wife's cousin Heather and cousin's boyfriend Jeff. I'd like to especially thank Barbour and the Moores for making long drives and Ardith for helping out on not one, but two weekends.

Weekend one (for which the Moores came out) involved moving all of my stuff out of storage and into my house. That all went fairly well and made my new house seem much smaller, now that it was full of stuff. This said, it was really nice to get out of that tiny apartment. Also, I'm not going to miss the Zombie... not at all.

This last weekend marked Barbour driving up as well as Heather and Jeff driving out from the Milwaukee area. Oddly enough, this is also where the Moores live, so it would seem that I have trips to Wisconsin in my future. Also, this means that there should be a steady stream of quality beer being brought to me... but I digress. In this last weekend, we started to unpack all of the stuff that the first shift of friends brought in and put it away. Anna is happy to report that the kitchen is in good order. Oh... and the fridge is happily stocked with beer, cheese and wine. I'm pretty happy.

Also, after two weeks, the damages on new expensive stuff that I've had to buy as a home-owner:

5 book-shelves (2 5-shelf, 3 3-shelf)
2 sets of curtains
1 lawn mower
1 grill
1 new wooden desk for Anna

Really, I'm quite pleased, albeit slightly poorer. I'd also really like to thank God for giving me such gracious friends. I mean, yes, I buy food and beer (and top-shelf booze) for my friends who come out to help, but most of them are busy people who could take the money for the gas and the time and buy their own food and beer and not have to work... so I'm really thankful for them.

I'd also like to make a special note of thanking Jason Hoyt by not mocking him for waiting until nearly making it to 21 before even getting his drivers' license. I'd also like to note that I'm not mocking him for having his little sister getting her license before he did. See Jason? I don't give you a hard time ALL of the time.

Interaction with My Slum-Lord

So The Zombie* and I have had a variety of inane conversations and she's convinced me that she's really not the smartest woman. Here's the most recent:

So I left notice on Friday with the Zombie that we're moving out at the end of the month. When I got out of the lab on Friday afternoon, my cell phone had a message on it. I checked it, and it was the Zombie telling me that they wanted to show my apartment and that I should call them back to confirm. Well, obviously, my apartment is a mess and I don't want it shown, so I called back and got a busy signal. So this morning I called back again, left a message with their answering service and gave her my office number (not for the first time) for them to call me.

The Zombie: "So, we're showing your apartment at 11 am this morning... is that okay?"

The Cynic: "No, I would rather that you not do that."

Z: "Well, you should have called us back on Friday when we called your cell phone... it's scheduled now."

VC: "Wait a second... So you can schedule my apartment for showing unless I call you up to tell you I don't want to?"

Z: "Well... so long as you're there, you have the right to refuse, but I already scheduled the showing."

So at this point I guessed I'd have to go home and turn them away at the door or... *shudder* clean, so I lobbed the long-ball.

VC: "Look, if you show my apartment, you'd best be sure you're covered legally, because I WILL call a lawyer"

Z: "Well FINE then, we just won't show your apartment. You'll be gone at the end of the month ANYWAYS!"

*click*

Yeah... I think she just hung up on me. I'm just puzzled as to what the crap she's thinking... as if living anywhere besides in these crappy apartments is a punishment or something.

----------------------

*So, when my slum-lord wears her makeup, she looks like a zombie. I know from various conversations with her that she can't be older than 40, but the amount that she's smoked makes her look 65 or so and she has stringy, dirty hair to accentuate the look. Thus, I refer to her as The Zombie.

The Trials of Attempting Property Ownership

Yeah... I know, I haven't gotten back to the Moore wedding. I'm really not sure how to write significant pieces of it in order to keep it meaningful and accurate while at the same time refraining from over-editorializing and potentially writing things that I might not want to have published to the open Internet. Bear with me.

So Anna and I are buying a house. And part of buying a house is having a home inspection. So I went on my home inspection with the local Crazy Jamaican Home Inspector. I definitely recommend the guy so long as you don't mind that he's not really big on punctuality. He's very thorough, but very stereotypically Jamaican with respect to punctuality and attention to things like dates and times.

Anyways, we found a couple of issues with the house... nothing deal-breaking, but it turns out that the owner before the current owners was something of an aspiring home handy-man. Except that he sucked at installing toilets, electrical outlets and REALLY sucked at installing dishwashers and soldering copper piping.

The Toilet - When you grab it and try to swing it back and forth, there's about an inch that it comes up off of the ground and probably 45 degrees of motion from one extreme to the other. Oh... and it leaks to the basement. Fortunately, it leaks onto replaceable drop ceiling tiles... but it's still a problem.

The Electrical Outlets - He failed to ground any of the outlets that he installed in the garage.

Copper Piping - So when soldering the copper piping above the hot water heater, he failed. There are probably half a dozen pinhole leaks that have led to a bed of copper oxide roughly half an inch high on top of the hot water heater.

The Dishwasher - The capstone of the whole experience. So when he installed the dishwasher, he apparently noted a lack of electrical service under the counter. No matter, there are outlets on top of the counter. So what did he do? He drilled a tiny hole, cut off the end of the plug, fished the cable through, spliced the end back on and attached it to the wall. Except, apparently he also sucks as splicing, because the plug has since melted to the point where there is significant copper exposure. Seriously, I'm surprised nothing's caught fire yet.

All in all, I'm very grateful for the home inspector, because while there's a lot of things that I caught on my own, there's a much longer list of little things and significant but subtle things that I would have never noticed. And if anyone's buying in Cedar Rapids, talk to me... The Crazy Jamaican is sure to drive your Realtor nuts, but he's damned good at what he does.

The Moore Wedding: Part One

Really, this ought to be one contiguous story. And perhaps it will be, in time. But for now, it's being told episodically... because there was simply too much that happened this last weekend for it to be one blog post. In fact, the story of the trip leading up to the wedding and the night before the events described here are a story in and unto themselves. And honestly, if you want that story told, talk to Anna. But anyways, as I was saying.

There have been few times in my life where my instinct towards laziness would have served me better than this last weekend. I say "would have," because I utterly failed to heed its balking wisdom when, a month or so ago, David Moore asked me to emcee his wedding reception. Really, I should have panicked when he offered me room and board for the weekend simply in exchange for my talking into a microphone in front of a willing crowd, but we'll get to all of that in good time.

Instead, allow me to start with the third ill omen, wherein I called the groom on the morning before the wedding to get directions and was informed that he was only just now getting the marriage certificate. In due time, I would have occasion to take pause and contemplate these warnings, but at that time, I was far too preoccupied with attempting to navigate "Chicago-land" without a freaking map.

To his credit, the groom gave me excellent directions to the bride's house, where I was greeted by the recently-returned groom, the eager bride and Ziggy, The Best Man.¹ Well, really, Moore was fluttering about like a chicken with his head cut off, Sharon was busily preparing flowers and Ziggy was printing programmes. We all sat around a while and chatted and got caught up while I looked over the directions to the audio rental store. Since it was getting on to be 11:30 and there looked to be roughly a 45 minute drive, Anna and I headed out to get the audio equipment early so that we could test it in advance.²

A confusing, haphazard and poorly-mapped out hour of driving through Chicagoland later found us at the "audio rental store." It is at this point where I should digress and note that as I was perusing the Google map that David had kindly supplied, I noted that "store" looked like it was in a subdivision.³ Laughing this off, I supposed that this was simply owing to the bizarre and ridiculous road layout situation of the greater Chicago area. Our arrival in a subdivision gave credence to my initial misgivings. All of this said, I was in the computer business long enough to find valid and viable home-based businesses, so we found the house in question, drove up and got out.

Approaching the two men standing outside of the garage, I boldly announced my intentions, "Ummm... I'm here for some stereo equipment."

The men looked up at me and confusedly at each other. One spoke up in a Germanic accent as the other politely pantomimed, "Stereo? Go to front door. Yes?"

Shrugging, I waved politely, smiled and walked up to the front door. After knocking produced no result, I rang the bell. Barking ensued from inside and after a short wait, a tiny little old lady came to the door in what appeared to be a bathrobe and sneakers with some kind of small, furry dog under one arm. This woman looked like she'd had a hard life and, in all actuality, seemed as though she might have already died and was simply unaware of it other than the fact that her bottom lip had already bloated to disgusting proportion.

"HELLO?!"

"Yes, we're here to pick up the audio equipment."

"WHAT'S THAT?!"

"THE STEREO EQUIPMENT! WE'RE HERE TO PICK IT UP!"

"HERE ABOUT A STEREO?! That's nice... step inside."

And in we stepped, into the garbage storehouse. Well, to be fair, besides the actual wallpaper and paint, nothing in the house looked like it was actual trash. Instead, there was a 30'x40' room filled three to five feet high throughout with what could only be described as assorted... stuff. And rising high above the room was an overlooking hallway connected to the stairway that dumped out in front of the door through which we'd just come, and that hallway also appeared to be loaded with stuff. It was almost as though the occupants had been acquiring the unsold surplus from every estate sale in town for the last several years, to the point that the only way through was a narrow path along the wall below the stairs.

As we wandered inside, the little old lady toddled off towards the stairs, dog under one arm. Traversing the 5 feet with all of the grace of a small child learning to ride a bicycle and half of the speed, she began to shout.

"BRYAN!"

"BRYAN!!"

"BRYAN!!!! YOU HAVE VISITORS!!!!"

With this she paused and gazed back apologetically and then set off toddling down the aforementioned narrow path that had been cleared to one side of the debris field. After some time, she arrived at a door, which she opened and resumed her shouting.

"JASON!"

"JASON!!"

"JASON!!! THERE ARE PEOPLE HERE FOR YOUR FATHER!!!"

Noting that she wasn't being responded to, the little old lady shuffled back to the foot of the stairs and, step after tortuous step, began to ascend them. After seemingly an eternity, the would-be zombie reached the top of the stairs and began screaming again.

"WHERE'S JASON?!"

Almost incongruously, she was finally answered by a perhaps shriller female voice, "HE'S PROBABLY ON THE PHONE!!"

With a shrug, she turned to make her ascent, dog still under one arm, toddling precariously as she climbed slowly downward. "You'll have to excuse me... I can't afford to fall." Gazing pointedly at the dog that apparently needed the chariot ride more than grandma needed the balance, I omitted my response as she ambled slowly downward.

After this strenuous journey, the woman paused for breath and then made her way back through the minefield and over to the door that she had visited earlier.

"JASON!!"

"JASON!! THERE ARE PEOPLE HERE!!"

And, finally another response, "I'M ON THE PHONE!!"

"GET UP HERE!!"

We were met by an interlude full of angsty stomping followed by a young teenager emerging from the basement. Taking a parting blow, he turned on grandma, "I WAS ON THE PHONE!!" and then breezed past her and up to us, replacing bravado with teenaged awkwardness even as he shuffled through the wreckage.

"What's up?"

I figured repetition was the key here... say the same thing to enough people and maybe one of them would be able to help, "I'm here for some stereo equipment."

"Oh... that'd be my dad." Jason turned and pushed some piles of stuff aside to reveal a mountain of previously-unseen stereo equipment. "Hold on a sec."

And with that, Jason was all business again, whipping out a cell phone. Some mumbling later, he snapped the phone shut.

"He says come back in an hour."

So here I am, it now being 1 PM, 45 minutes from Joliet, without sound equipment, being instructed to come back in an hour. "Sure... whatever."

As we headed out the door, first I called Moore and gave him an ear-full. Not as much as he deserved, but as much as I could pile on the groom in good conscience. After fighting a losing battle to calm my rage, Moore picked a rapid retreat in the form of "Got to try on this tux... bye!"

In between his sad wailings about all of this business of finding shady-ass sound equipment dealers not being his fault, Moore had noted that the number for this monument to ineptitude was located on one of my sheets of paper. As Anna and I departed to find food, I called our "equipment supplier" and was assured that he would be there between 2 and 2:30 PM.

During our drive, Toad finally called. "Wait... so if all of the guys are out getting fitted for tuxes, where the hell are you?" Sensing a chance to add to my motley posse of errand-runners, I gave Toad some crude directions while I stopped off at Target to get a real map. After a series of quick redirects and a lunch at a shady gas-station subway, we were now under way with Anna in the lead and Toad and I following in his crappy Korean rental car with its busted-ass transmission and screwed-up remote locking system.⁴

We arrived a short while later (in spite of Anna's frequent attempts to lose us at stoplights) and this time bypassed the Europeans completely as we headed for the door. True to form, our ringing of the bell was greeted by the walking dead and she invited us in again with the comment, "Oh look, you brought a friend!" I think she may have also mentioned something about the woman being in charge, but really, I was too busy trying not to stare at the dead maggot that she had stapled to her lower lip.

And then we were off to the races as grandma bypassed screaming up the stairs to scream down into the basement after Jason. And then, after a couple of failed attempts, she ascended beneath. And just as we were starting to wonder if the dog had finally tripped her up for good this time, she re-emerged, sadly shaking her head. "There's nobody down there." Then, without so much as an attempt to shout up the stairs, she began her ascent anew... every bit as frightening as the previous one. She did finally reach the precipice, commenced with some shouting and some muttering with the woman in the next room and then proceeded to tempt fate yet again by coming back down the same stairs.

"She called Bryan and he and Jason are on their way. Would you folks like to sit down?"

Almost in a panic, I stammered out an excuse, "We need to make a phone call.... outside.... on our cell phones.... long distance...." And not waiting for a response (fearful, really, of getting one), I charged out the door into the sunlight. Sensing the need for haste, Toad and Anna followed close behind, leaving the zombie standing bewildered on the now-empty landing.

As the zombie finally closed the door, Toad looked back and forth between Anna and I and shook his head. "Wow...."

After some puzzled glances back and forth, Anna pointed out that we should probably figure out the situation with the train riders. A quick phone call confirmed that they would be in soon enough that it would make more sense for us to go pick them up before we went back to the bride's house, which, of course, raised the question of how long we would be remaining at this improvised electronics shack. Just as Toad began mapping out a way to the train station on his phone via Google Maps, a van burst into view and it appeared that our erstwhile sound equipment had finally been stolen for our use... err... showed up.

Bryan and Jason hopped out of the busted-ass van and Bryan greeted me apologetically, "It's been a rough day... let's get your equipment." And with that, Jason vanished into the house and I followed Bryan into the garage, where he proceeded to open two additional vans and began lobbing equipment out of them and into a pile, shuffling through the piles as he went.

And then, the cops showed up.

No, I'm serious, a cop pulled up and began asking Anna and Toad questions about the box truck that was parked on the street while Bryan continued obliviously lobbing electronics.

"Is this your truck?"

(In concert) "No."

"Do you know whose it is?"

(Again, a concert of "No.") Toad followed up with, "We don't live here and we're not even from around here."

At this, the officer shrugged, inquired of the Germans, and then proceeded to begin writing the truck a ticket.

As all of this went on, Bryan continued to lob electronics until one of the Germans wandered up. "Bryan.... is your truck?" he asked, pointing at the box truck.

"Yeah..."

"Is police!"

At this, Bryan practically sprinted over to the truck as Toad and I loaded the stuff that he had already set aside into the car.

"You know, Toad.... we could just leave now and nobody could find us."

"Yeah... but then we'd be stuck with stolen goods."

"We're already going to be stuck with stolen goods... at least this way we won't have to pay to rent them."

And before we could wander further down this speculative path to dubious morality, Bryan returned.

And without too much more haggling, we were on our way to get Jared, Rachel and Wilson and rid of the shady sound rental guy... for now...

¹ Really, I can't say enough about Ziggy and his level of preparedness and organization. I'm pretty sure that everyone agrees that without Ziggy, there would have been no wedding.

² Having done this sort of thing a couple of times, I'd like to note that you really want to get the audio equipment as far in advance as possible. Rental audio equipment tends to be in lousy shape owing to all of the amateur "sound experts" who use it and all of the teenaged morons who tend to repair it and you really want to check out your system and find the kinks well in advance of the ceremony. In our case, I really wanted to get far enough out ahead of it that we could even go back in and get replacements if we ended up with duds.

³ I also noted that this stupid map had gotten me lost more than once and that it would appear that I would need an actual "Chicagoland" map of my own rather than relying upon the fragmentary maps in Moore's Google Maps printouts. Really, I should have just bought an iPhone at this point... but that's neither here nor there.

⁴ Really, I ought to let Toad expound upon the strangeness of this rental car, but suffice it to say that whenever you used the keyless entry to unlock the thing, it popped the damned trunk. Oh... and the 5-gear pretend manual transmission was designed by giving a group of mental patients access to a CAD program.

The Wedding

Grats David and Sharon Moore! I have many more thoughts on this event including a rather detailed retelling which will have to wait.

5th of July

Really didn't do much for the 4th. Well, that's not strictly true... we went on a "nature hike" (read: 5 mile hike on a nature trail near my apartment wherein we stopped frequently to allow Anna to take copious pictures), saw Hancock (which really isn't as bad as the reviewers are calling it... it's just really not all that good), and went and "watched" some fireworks (I say "watched" because we only saw the top 40% or so of the detonation field from our distant vantage point, and because it was a very short show.)

Anyways, pursuant to the 4th, we were invited to come out to the middle of jack nowhere:

View Larger Map

to spend the 5th of July with the Hoyt Crew, along with two of the members who we brought out from Cedar Rapids in our car.

First off, let me say that the Hoyts were excellent hosts who fed us well and kept us very entertained. I'd like to say that I wasn't a terrible guest... but considering that I kept egging on various children, encouraging civil disobedience, undermining various quality morals and just generally telling stories of my personal unsavory past, I really can't claim to have been anything but. Even so, adults laughed politely while Ma furiously scribbled down an extensive list of heresies, falsehoods and bits of foolishness that she would have to unteach over the next week. For her part, Anna made sure I didn't misbehave too badly while Ardith looked on bemusedly.

We did have a great time, and I learned a great deal about a variety of subjects including horses, engineering, electrocution, ingenuity the wrongness of animal cruelty, the technical difficulties of housing giant squid, the difficulties attendant to painting garage ceilings, the dangers of having children and a variety of other subjects. Really, in my opinion, that last point bears expounding upon in light of all of my friends who are having children.

To paraphrase Pa Hoyt (and I wish I'd taken better notes): children become destroyers of property round about age 2 and it takes them roughly ten years to grow to the point where they reverse this trend, during which time, you spend a lot of time re-fixing things that they break. While it should be noted that others felt this to be a tad on the excessive side, he does have the experience that only fathering 10 children can provide. And really, one only has to look around at the Hoyt homestead to realize that the Loren is a seasoned veteran of and a veritable expert on home improvement and repair... I'd take his word on it if I were you, prospective parents.

In the end, I hope that I didn't break too many minds or cause Ma too much extra work. That said, the kids seem mentally resilient and very well-grounded: I'm confident that they'll figure me out for the menace to society that I am and ignore my radical teachings. And if not... well... I'm sorry Ma: I'll send chocolate.

Not Drowned Yet

So... Anna, Moore and Ardith are all now posting more frequently than I am. For shame.

A Real Job

I've gotten a lot of questions about the new job, so let's see if I can sum it all up.

1) I'm doing something interesting... which is a nice change. I work in the Government Systems side of things at Rockwell Collins, testing the JTRS GMR.

2) I work in a cubicle, on a nice computer with a pair of 19" LCDs.

3) They have popcorn on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

4) I see Ardith once every couple of days. She is still short and antisocial.

Lost in a Snow Bank

Yeah... that's where I've been. Actually, I've been acclimating to my new job. And dealing with being a bachelor. And being lonely.

As many of you will recall, I don't do so well by myself. But not to fear, assuming Wheeler and Anna beat me enough, I've got stuff that needs posting. And with any hope, I'll get it posted... though I wouldn't go holding my breath if I were you.

24 Hours Left

We have now entered the period of the last 24 hours of The Cynic living in Longview. I will come back to visit and I will come back to move Anna, but, at least for the forseeable future, this is it for me and Longview.

Those of you who have my cell phone number would do well to call it if you want to see me before I depart. For those who do not, check with someone who does. I would love to see as many people as possible before I jet, and you can make it happen

Or something like that.

While I Write

While I work on writing up a post on the acquisition of the new vehicle, here are a couple of pictures:

More below the fold (I would use thumbnails, but the thumbnail creator is on the blink.)

The Unveiling

Well, with it being official, I would like to announce that Anna and I are moving to Cedar Rapids, Iowa in order that I may work at my new job as a software developer and tester at Rockwell-Collins. As some of you know, the offer has been on the table since mid-January after I interviewed with Rockwell, but that, for a number of reasons, I've been keeping a lid on it. Actually, if I were a good blogger, I would have already written all of this up in anticipation... but I'm thinking that a 2-month impromptu sabbatical should serve to settle any arguments to the contrary. Or... as the British would put it, I'm "rubbish at blogging."
Actually, in case I fail to get proper posts up, let me just jot down a couple of quick updates:

1. Anna and I are moving up to Cedar Rapids (oh, look, I already got that update up... look at me and my mad skills)
2. I have a new car for said job (yes, Anna also owns said car, but until she moves up, it's undesputedly My Car)
3. I have been watching a LOT of Dr. Who (hence the unusual predilection for highfalutin diction and old-world vernacular)

Sekretive Happenings

Usually I try to post once a month. And it's kinda been two months... and not a peep from me.

Stuff is going on that I really am not at liberty to discuss yet... good stuff, but stuff that's not out there for general consumption.

So while you contemplate that, watch this:

Moving Redux Redux... etc.

Dear Wheeler,

This letter is to inform you that you have officially used up all of your allotted relocations for the next two (2) years. My back is sore, my arms likewise, ditto on my legs and even on my hands, feet and head. Also, I feel this would be an appropriate time to remind you that my rates increase significantly with the accrual of personal property but can be easily mitigated by the provenance of additional movers. In other words: you need to procure some more friends with pronounced musculature.

Regards,

The Cynic

PS While I appreciated the vast array of good food to which I was availed, I am specifically writing "must be fed Mexican food at least once" into my next contract. That is all.

Spoilers

Just so you know, I have a general principle: spoiling something for me will make your life miserable. I mean, Wash dying and Rosebud being a sled aside, I WILL bring Barbour along and, together, we will kill you.

Vacation Again

Lake City is a special place... and I choose that word specifically for all of its full denotative and connotative range. And, by all accounts, it comes into its own at the epitome of special on the 4th of July. So it was decided by6 my wife and my in-laws that I should definitely experience Lake City in all of its wonderful eccentricity on Independence Day week.
And that's how I find myself dragging out of bed at 3:45 in the freaking morning on the Friday before the 4th. Why was this necessary? Well, I'll let you do the math: it's roughly a 16-hour drive to Lake City from Longview, assuming a minimum of delays, and the DFW Metroplex is on that route. In order not to end up in the joy that is DFW morning traffic and the potential for delays due to construction, etc, etc, I need to not be in the Metroplex between 7 and 9 am... oh, and it takes about an hour to get through the Metroplex (assuming a lack of severe traffic or delays.) So, 3 hours to the far side of DFW, I either have to be on the other side by 7 am or I want to be showing up after 9 am. So, I either leave at 4 AM or after 7 AM... the latter landing me in a situation where I'll be going over mountain passes in the dark: not really a great option... especially if I somehow end up driving them - given that my only experience in driving mountain passes is precisely none.
In any event, early morning awakenings and long drives notwithstanding, I was happy to find myself in Lake City in time for Alferd Packer Days. For those of you not in the know, Alferd Packer is (was) the Lake City Cannibal and my favorite icon of Lake City. I may have written about him before... if so, I'll find it around here at some point. Anyways, when I was informed that Packer was being celebrated in song and drink... and by drink I mean solid, locally-brewed beer, I was there. And for $10 I got a glass stein with Packer's mug on it, that stein filled once with beer and $2 refills. I think I even supported some wonderful Lake City charity like the Lake City Friends of Bears or something.
But even better than Saturday's festivities was what we did on Sunday. It's not just that we got to go to Church outside in our hammock chairs, but that the service that we attended was all of the churches in Lake City holding a joint Community Service. Yes, all 5 churches in town banded together to hold the service: Presbyterian, Grace Brethren, Episcopal, Baptist and Catholic. Yeah... that's right, the Baptists and the Catholics in the same service cooperating and singing together, saying the Apostles' Creed and even listening to a sermon by a Baptist minister. I really couldn't even begin to tell you what the sermon was about, what hit me was the ecumenical spirit in that community: after living so many years amongst Catholic-haters, Baptist-bashers and various denominational segregationalists, I always feel amazed and even slightly convicted by people setting aside the less-important things for the core doctrines of the Creed and the unity of Christ's Church.

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

At roughly 9 am this morning the phone rings. It's a customer who had wanted to pick his computer up on Friday. Owing to circumstances beyond my control, we closed at 5 pm on Friday, rather than 7. I apologized profusely and asked the man when he planned upon arriving to pick up his computer.

"Well... what's the damages?" was his reply. When I informed him that his bill post-tax (for parts and labor) was just over $200, he balked. "You see, if you'd gotten to me Friday, I couldda payed that. But over the weekend some utility bills an' shit came up and now you gonna have to wait."

With a shrug I informed him that I would be holding his computer until he payed his bill and that it wouldn't be a problem. After he agreed and went about his way, though, this puzzled me. I mean, not to pass judgment on other people whose circumstances I don't know, but does it strike anyone else as odd that this guy had prioritized computer upgrades over an apparently-urgent utility bill?

In my estimation, I've done this guy a service. After all, if he'd actually gotten his computer on Friday afternoon, by his accounting, he would have had his electricity or his water or something shut off over the weekend. And nobody wants to endure a Texas summer with his water shut off... that's for sure.

Ironic

I have had an irrational fear of needles for as far back as I can recall. This fear is due, in no small part, to my harassment at the hands of my father and brothers. My earliest recollection of this fear was when I was approaching my 5th birthday and being informed that I would have to get a DPT Booster shot... which my father overdramatized, largely due to his own phobia. My 10th birthday was greeted with a wonderful ditty that I believe either one of my brothers fabricated and all three used to mock me from time to time "Ten.. ten... booster shot again." Now, it sounds silly, but taking an individual with a deathly fear of needles and adding insult to injury is how we develop psychoses... or something like that.

Now, as most of you are aware, about two months ago, I was diagnosed as a diabetic. As of about 6 weeks ago, I started sticking myself with a lancet between 1 and 4 times a day to ascertain my blood sugar so as to make sure that I was within the proscribed limits. As I did this again today and milked the hell out of one of my fingers, I realized that the process really didn't bug me anymore... which is a stark contrast from the near-panic that hit me on the fateful day that my sacred life fluid was tapped and stolen to confirm that my blood sugar was over 500 (mg/dL).

And then, as I was reading about the inane decision on the part of the FDA to refuse gay men the option of donating blood, I said to myself... "You know.. I think I could stomach that." Yes, this is the same guy who dragged his wife (then-girlfriend) with him to get a tetanus shot due to the pure terror it struck in his heart. You know what the best part of all of this is (in terms of irony)? For probably the next year, I'm ineligible to donate due to the impetus of my changed perspective: diabetes... until my doctor says I'm properly in treatment, anyways.

Alone in Longview

So... graduation has come and gone. As my wife noted this morning, it's been a week and change since we've actually just spent a night in the house, just the two of us. Not that I'm complaining, mind you... but it does kind of put a damper on my blogging. Not that I really needed help in that respect, but you know how it goes. I'll post some more warped links and transpose an essay from a crinkled up old bulletin and hopefully you'll forgive me. That's how we do these things, right?

Anyways, Randy is in New York, Barbour and Sharpton are at their respective homes in Missouri, Martinez has returned to California, Paige is back in Boerne, Rebecca is back in California for the summer, Gallagher has returned to BFE Nowhere (Greenville), and, until Randy gets back from his little trip to NY (screw you and your pictures that keep showing up in my inbox, Randy) it's just the Wheelers and us in Longview. Damn... that sucks a lot. I mean, you've all abandoned us.... what are we going to do?

Backlog

Well, this is going to be something of a variety post... well, actually, I think I'll post some of the old stuff that I'd written up in the last two weeks on napkins during my lunch breaks and backdate it or something. Yes, yes, things from the fevered mind of the Cynic.

Oh... and a little FAQ stuff regarding the diabetes stuff that I posted yesterday regarding questions that I've gotten over IM and whatnot:

Diabetes, eh? Care to elaborate?

Oh... my bad.... details. I'm still confused that people want to know these things... I try not to know this stuff, and I'm the one with the sickness. Anyways, I have Type II Diabetes and I'm non-insulin dependant. Right now, I'm taking pills twice a day to help regulate my blood sugar, but the idea is to regulate down to where I can go of meds.

Doesn't being diabetic involve sticking yourself with needles? I thought you hated needles.

The Cynic is deathly afraid of needles and refuses to think more about the subject. Kindly refrain from referring to the subject again. -- The Cynic's Subconscious Mind

You sound depressed, are you ok?

I'm quite fine. Please stop worrying if I'm going to die or anything like that. My dying would be too easy for all parties involved... I intend on living long enough to make all of your lives very unpleasant. I wouldn't want Anna to get out of helping pay off my loans that easily either.

Life Happens

I was going to title this one "The Last Mountain Dew"... but I figured I'd try to be slightly serious given that 95% of respondents haven't found this nearly as funny as I have.

You see... I haven't posted for the last two weeks or so because stuff of a rather serious nature has come up and I've kinda been on the fence about it. As some of my more insightful friends will tell you, while I may talk a great deal and tell stories and give my opinions, these things rarely give insight into my own personal trials and difficulties. That's because I prefer to think of myself as invincible and whatnot... and I really would just as soon not advertise problems that I might have. However, this is going to come up with a great many of you sooner or later, and I do like people to tell me stuff... so sometimes that means that I have to share personal stuff as well. After all, my friends like knowing these things... or something.

Anyhow, for the last two months or so (maybe three) I've been drinking an ever-increasing volume of water on a daily basis, experiencing some numbness in my left hand, sweating like crazy and having random, abrupt changes in the quality of my vision (going from 20/20 the next day to 20/80 the next and then perhaps back again 2-3 days later.) So, I began doing a bit of research at about Spring Break and I said "hrmmm.... that's not good." And then I promptly attempted to repress this and hope things would go away... after I told my wife.

So, two weeks ago, my wife informed me that I'd stalled long enough and she was dragging me to the doctor. Turns out, I have diabetes... who'd have guessed?

Now, most of you have spent some time with me in person, but for those who haven't (and I'm not huge on posting pictures, either), I am not a small man. Nor am I a man of small appetites. Oh... and I drink a lot of Coke. Well... drank.

You see, your average person has a blood sugar level of somewhere betweek 120 and 160 or so. 80-180 is the acceptable range, but under 100 and over 160 and things start to get weird in your body. At around 300, the amount of sugar in the body gets to the point where the body begins dumping a significant amount of sugar into urine to get things under control and in poorly-hydrated persons, comas can occur. Typical glucometers measure up to 500 mg/dL... mine was off the top of the chart.

So... the fact that the doctor didn't hospitalize me is probably a Good Thing, but suffice it to say that I've been on meds and strict orders as to what my diet can and can't consist of for the last two weeks. The Tuesday after I registered off the chart, thanks to an assortment of medications and an absence of sugar, I was down to 187. So it would seem that I'm not going to die... except from fear of needles.

You see, I have to get a glucometer of my own (which was finally purchased last night, after a week of procrastinating) and measure my own blood sugar so that I can figure out what food does which to my blood sugar and whatnot. That's sticking myself with a little spring-loaded razorblade and taking my precious bodily fluids and plugging them into a little demon-box that tells me to drink less Coke.

Speaking of Coke... I haven't had one in two weeks, and it sucks. Coke Zero is not Coke and Splenda is not sugar. And needles do not belong in or around my arms. Suffice it to say that this has generally not been fun... but I have to note that my wife has been very supportive and that it looks like I'm not gonna die.

I'm still wondering if that would have been preferable.

Anyone Home?

*beep* *beep* *beep*

Cynic: (mutters) freaking interruptions... (wanders up front to meet customer)

Customer is a man in his late 50s with worn clothing and disheveled hair.

Customer: What do y'all do?

Cynic: Well, Sir, we build, upgrade and repair computers and provide IT support for businesses and home users.

Customer (confused): So y'all could look at my Compaq and fix it.

Cynic: Yes I could and I'd be happy to do so.

Customer: Could y'all look at my computer then?

Cynic: Uh... sure.

Customer exits and Cynic goes back to grab a couple of tools. After waiting for a minute or two for the customer to return, the Cynic notes that the customer appears to be fooling with something in his truck. He then notices the customer approaching the door with a large CRT monitor as a middle-aged woman comically stumbles along behind with a tower that is still attached to the monitor by several cables. This parade continues into the store until the man sets the monitor mid-floor to catch his breath.

Cynic: Sir, I really don't need your monitor. Cynic makes sweeping gesture at several monitors. I have some of my own.

Customer: Well, I need ya to test mine and make sure it works.

Cynic: "Ok..." Cynic attaches monitor to computer and indicates to Customer that it does, indeed, work.

Customer: You sure you don't want to keep it to test my computer... it ain't never really worked right.

Cynic: Sir, your monitor is large, bulky and unnecessary. For all intents and purposes, one monitor is exactly the same as another... please take your monitor.

Customer: But I'll need you to show me how to hook it up when I come back and I don't want to take it home and bring it all the way back.

Cynic: Sir, like I said, one monitor is essentially the same as another. Here, I'll show you now with your monitor and when you come back, I can show you again with one of mine. The connection is color-coded and everything and this is the only 25-pin connection on the back of your computer that matches this connector on your monitor. See? It's very simple.

Customer: What about them two knobs there?

Cynic: Knobs?

Customer indicates screws on either side of the cable

Cynic: Oh... those tighten in to hold the cable in place.

Customer: How do I use them?

Cynic (giving the customer a strange look): You tighten them in to hold the cable in and you loosen them to pull the cable out. They're just little screws to makes sure the cable doesn't come out accidentally.

At this point, having slipped out unobtrusively a minute earlier, Customer's Wife returns with a keyboard, mouse, and two speakers, along with a fax machine.

Customer: Oh yeah, could you make sure all of that stuff works too?

Cynic: Listen sir, I'll be happy to make sure that your fax machine works with your computer, but as for the rest of this stuff, I'll be happy to show you how it hooks up and assure you that it works when you come back to get it.

Customer: But I don't know how to hook it...

Cynic (interrupting): Yes, I know, and I"ll show you when you come to pick it up. after I know that the computer works properly. Now, let me help you guys out with this monitor.

Cynic promptly picks up The Giant CRT and lugs it out the door, leaving Customer to follow along.

Spring Break Open Thread 2007: The Winners

Yes... I know, it's not the morning. The problem is, while Toad has clearly won the quantity prize, I'm not so sure if anyone won the quality prize. So... here's what I'm gonna do... another contest.

Go through the comments and find the comment that you feel should win the quality contest and leave a comment here advocating that comment. The most well-advocated comment will be rewarded, as will its advocate. Oh... and you can't advocate your own comments... sorry. Oh... and I'm not advocating for anyone unless I'm well-bribed.

Spring Break Open Thread 2007

Because I don't get a Spring Break, because Wilson's blog is on indefinate hiatus, and because I am bored and in dire need of silliness, I am stealing the Open Thread for this year's Spring Break.

This year's rules:

1) No flamingos.

2) No singing, dancing, smoking, drinking, or speaking in strange tongues.

3) Polysyllabic words and those which use more than 5 letters of the alphabet are strictly forbidden.

4) Posts containing more than two hyperlinks are also forbidden, unless:

4a) Said links are to amusing websites... and then all posts with links are forbidden.

5) No quibbling, snivelling, cavorting, bandying, perambulating, prognosticating, equivocating or verbing.

6) There is to be no campaigning for candidates in various elections - imagined or not.

7) As always, contestants who post after 1 am will be disqualified.

Suitable prizes will be distributed in the way I feel most appropriate to such contributors who fulfill one or more of the following categories (or at my discretion): (a) the most frequent commenter and (b) the commenter who breaks the rules the most effectively. As always, all LU alumni and students are welcome to participate, but this is not limited to you.

Winners will be announced after the thread closes... probably. Oh, and the thread closes at 11:59 p.m. (Central) on the 18th (Sunday).

Month Off

Since everyone else gets a spring break and I don't, I guess I decided to take the month of February off. Though, as Wilson notes, everyone seems to be posting with more frequency than I am. We are taking steps to change that, effective immediately.

Longview Vacation

Wilson crashed here last night after we sat up for a while and chatted about his graduate program and the politics attendant thereto. I had to get up entirely too early to drive Anna to school... oh, the joys of only having one car.

Anyways, so Wilson and I got out the door, grabbed some breakfast and tried to get Wheeler up for LAMP. Turns out that Wheeler didn't want to be on time, so Wilson and I went on ahead (stopping briefly in the Ice Cave for me to actually eat breakfast) to a fortuitously-timed Friday LAMP... with Dr. Batts 'officiating.'

I honestly didn't know that Dr. Batts could talk for such a short stretch of time, as the homily he gave was short even by Episcopal standards. Now, granted, it was a homily filled with Batts-style repetition ("Did you know that we're in the Church season of Epiphany?"), but I was amazed at its brevity.

After chapel, the SC descended upon Heath-Hardwick as is our custom. Oh... and Dr. K has discovered that he has access to the old CPI forums. That's right, the halcyon days of yore are with us again. I'll be attempting to log on and recover those in the days ahead.

So, taunting Dr. Woodring, K and Johnson was jolly good fun... but there was lunch to be had. Off to Joe's with the Wheelers and Wilson, where we met with my friend Luis and his girlfriend. Lunch was good, as Joe's always is.

Back to campus, where Gallagher finally arrived. With the four of us together in the Ice Cave for the first time since Wilson and Wheeler graduated, we decided to capitalize on the oppurtunity and forcibly eject the usurpers. Actually, we didn't... after all, Randy's art would have gone with him, and I must admit that it's a far sight more attractive than the old matador painting. Not that I mind the matador... but it's not exactly high-quality.

Oh... remember how I dropped my wife off at school? Turns out, she wanted to be picked up at the end of a hard day of work. So we did... except that we went by way of the loop... where there was a train. The train wasn't just crossing the road, the train was stopped... and showing no signs of moving. So we back-tracked and ended up being a bit late picking up Anna. Yay for stupid Longview.

After retrieving my wife, we returned to our apartment so Wilson could grab another shower before enduring his 30-some hour train trek. I've always thought there ought to be nicer train services for people who don't want to endure the railway version of Greyhound... but that's just me. After that, we joined the rest of the crew for a bite to eat and then we sent Wilson on his way to Chicago and on through to Syracuse. Send him an email if you get a chance... it's a long train ride.

The evening was finished out by playing cards at the Wheeler abode and going to see Stranger than Fiction with the Wheelers and the Dirty Old Man. I'll probably write about Stranger than Fiction later... but suffice to say that it more or less boils down to a more-amusing-than-usual chick flick. While I was hoping for something more, as a chick flick, one could do far, far worse. But Will Ferrell in a chick flick? That's just messed up.

Visitations by Wilson

So Wilson is in Longview until tomorrow. After an enjoyable but all-too-brief lunch with Wilson, Wheeler, Dr. Johnson and Dr. Watson, I find myself back at work, grinding away.

Word has it that Wilson is haunting the HHH offices even as we speak. We'll probably do a bit more of that tomorrow where I'll be taking a day off to enjoy with Wilson and Wheeler. I hear that Gallagher will even be driving in from Greenville to mark the occasion.

The Joys of Microsoft

So this morning I said to myself, "Self, I think I'd like to listen to some music today." So I went over and hooked up the NAS that we keep in the back that has some 70 GB of music on it (all legal, of course.) Now, because I'm lazy and didn't want to go hunt down the network name or address of the NAS (which is necessary to get the music) I figured I'd just use the UPnP (Universal Plug and Play... it's a network service that lets you use network stuff seamlessly like it was on your computer) functionality on the NAS to my advantage. Problem is, Windows XP frequently doesn't install and enable UPnP by default... so I went and found the install option and started it... and then it asked for the XP disk. Well... I was kinda busy at the moment and didn't have the disk handy, so I cancelled the install so as to get back to it later. And that's where the fun began.

Upon cancelling the install, most of my network functionality ceased. I could open up the remote share on the server, but I couldn't use web browsers and I couldn't use any of my internet-connecting programs... at all. Several hours of attempted fixes later, here I am, reinstalling Windows (after the repair failed.) Granted, given a couple of days, I could probably find a fix... this isn't unfixable. But I don't have the time. This is the one computer in the world that I need working almost all of the time. So here I am... reloading windows. At least this time I'm not installing x64 edition.

Unexplained Absence

It seems that over holidays, I get lazy. Thanksgiving approached, and I went AWOL. Christmas came, and I did likewise. Bad Cynic.

So... I will be attempting to post daily. The thing about getting behind is that once you get backlogged, you're reluctant to catch up. Maybe I'll back-date to the first of the year and make it a New Year's resolution to post daily. Yeah... I think I'll do that.

Cynic on Hiatus

So where did I go for the last month? Well... it started out as something of a break by virtue of the fact that I was swamped at work. And by the time I got that sorted out, I was waiting for a post to come to me, and then it was the computer and so on it goes. But I figure I owe it to myself to go and backlog and stuff... if only for my own mind in posterity.

Oh, I'm not on hiatus... I'm back from hiatus.

Bachelor on the Loose

I an scheduled to put Anna on a plane to Austin this afternoon. I am then a bachelor until Friday. Consider yourself warned.

Two Freaking Weeks?!

Two weeks at the RMA facility in Kentucky after they receive my motherboard before they ship it back.

#@$#$*

As a note, the email from ASUS regarding the RMA is copied in all of its 1995-era HTML glory below the fold...

Dear Sir or Madam:

***Please note if your product is one of the following, please return your product with the following accessory:

P5 series Motherboards-Please make sure to put the CPU Cap back on the motherboard to prevent pins from bending. If it is returned without the CPU Cap the product may incur a fee to have the product repaired or rejected back to you.

VGA CARDS - MUST be accompanied with the fan/heatsink, otherwise it will be rejected as physical damage.****

A8N SLI Deluxe-If you use only 1 video card with this product, please return the EZ Selector Card so that it may be properly tested as well***

Attention your package to RMA department. Do not attention your package to an RMA representative, unless instructed otherwise.

Freaking RMA

So... yeah, my motherboard is getting RMA'ed. Woo-hoo.

On the upside, I'm not going insane... at least about my computer. Nor did I set my motherboard setting wrong. Yeah... my motherboard is just a lemon.

Hey, I had to call at 5.30 am pst to get through, but get though I did.

Happy birthday to me.

Motherboard Woes

You see, all along here, my secret fear is that my motherboard just hasn't been set correctly. It should be noted that the ASUS Crosshair is a fine piece of electronics and machinery and that it makes me happy.... but it's a finnicky piece of work, owing largely to its complex overclocking system and recent release. To make a long story short, it's much more designed for you to configure it than for it to configure itself, because that's what overclockers typically want to do. I mean, who wants stock settings... honestly?

So, I called up ASUS, hoping that my settings wouldn't be jacked and, if they were, someone would correct me.

Step 1: "If you have internet, go to http://livesupport.asus.com ... it's way faster.

This sounded like a good idea... until I went to http://livesupport.asus.com and noted that while the open hours said: "5:30am-9pm (pst)" and it was clearly 11 am central (which is 9 am pacific), the little box said "Live Chat is CLOSED."

Stupid ASUS... and back to the phones.

Step 2: Wait on hold... where an "average of 10 minutes" becomes 30

Seriously... how the hell is the average 10 minutes? Do they take the average over the course of the year or what?

And when I did get ahold of someone, he informed me that they were really swamped and if I took a number, I'd get a call back. I informed him that I'd only be at work for another 3 hours and asked him where they should call me. He estimated that it might take them longer than 3 hours to reach me.

"So when should I hear from you guys?"
Response: "Sometime today?"

That was 2 pm. It's now 5 minutes until their 11 pm central close time. And I still haven't heard from them. You know... with Wilson no longer policing me... I think I will say that I hate the bastards at ASUS. I'd be using stronger language, but little old ladies read this blog.

Tomorrow, it's war.

Oh... yeah, step 3?

Step 3: Send an email to tech support

Response time is typically 48 hours... they closed my case after 4 with no resolution. Go figure. I'm so pissed right now that I'm inarticulate.

RMA?

The drama of my computer building continues. After bringing the other computer here at work online (I'll tell the story about that sometime when I'm not angry already), I swapped video cards... and, lo and behold, my video card works in the other system and its video card (which works in other computers) doesn't work in mine. The plot thickens.

I'm pretty sure it's my motherboard at this point (as I'm mostly out of other things it COULD be) and thus, it's time to call ASUS.

RMA Is On

Yesterday and this morning, the weasels at EVGA failed to inform me that even after I paid money for the cross-shipping service, actually getting the RMA number for the next-day cross-shipping takes 2-3 business days. Stupid telephone monkeys. Well, it's ordered now.

Suspect #1

Well, after a night of memtest-ing, it would appear that the ram and the cpu are fine. As a resul of this, it was decided (by me, of course) that it's time to call EVGA.

The guy was pretty helpful and very impressed that I'd actually gone to all of this work diagnosing my system. Apparently, most people who build systems just call up and say "hurk... gimme an rma, I think my video card's done broke itself."

In any event, I've paid for the Advanced RMA stuff and after I spend the rest of the day diagnosing this thing, I'll be on the RMA like white on rice.

Trouble in Paradise

World of Warcraft stays up for between 3 and 5 minutes before crashing down. It would appear that other graphically-intensive stuff follows suit. I've spent all day fiddling with settings and to no avail.

My current theory is that my video card is jacked up... I will be contacting EVGA in the morning for RMA stuffs. For now, I'm considering purchasing the Advanced RMA insurance so that I can get the video card cross-shipped in the even that I need it. (Ends up being about $3 more than the shipping costs, allows next-day air, and I don't have to pay any shipping.)

Oh... and my motherboard doesn't clock my ram correctly and there are reports that it does the same thing with CPU's, so I've spent most of the evening hunting down ram and motherboard timings and voltages in the fleeting hopes that setting those would fix my problems. It hasn't.

The plan right now is to run memtest overnight to check for cpu and memory errors, and failing that, it looks like the video card is going to ge the good ol' RMA. As of right now, I've run 5 cycles of memtest and everything looks good.... but a night of good burn-in testing can't hurt, can it?

Coming to You Live

From the Tower of Doom. Fear the Thermaltake Armor with 25 cm side fan. Currently installing Windows... all is well thus far. I plan to lug the monster with me to work tomorrow and get WoW up and running.

Earlier on Anna said to me, "Please tell me the case isn't as big as the box makes it look."

I could tell her no such thing, for it is stinking huge.

The Computer is Here!

I just got a call from my wife informing me that all of the parts for the computer that I ordered last week are here. Oh happy days, it's computer building time... and then I can give my current computer some upgrades (a DVD-RW drive, a new case, some cleaning, better fans) and it become's my wife's. Maybe now she'll be able to raid properly. Hopefully even by this friday.

Lead-Up to The Big Game

As many of you know, I am from Ohio... and at this time of year, that origin gives me a certain amount of responsibility with regards to spreading disdain for Michigan and awaiting the Big Game. This becomes especially important in years such as this one. I will explain all of that in further installments, and for now I leave you with some perspective.

Our Loss

I've suspected for some time that it would come down to this. Citing professional concerns, time considerations and personal reasons, our most popular, regular and vocal blogger is shutting down. Jonathan Wilson is closing up his own little spot in the blogosphere... a sad day in the life of The Shadow Council.

Why I Voted Kinky

As I went into the voting booth on Sunday for Early Voting, I went in with a heavy heart and an unsure stance. You see, for me, as for many with whom I associate, there is no good candidate for Texas Governor. Allow me to explain.

Many of my friends and I (with certain exceptions) have been raised Republicans since we drew the Republican breast-milk from our mothers, lest we be tainted and warped by the foul mind-warping Democratic formula administered by men whose liberated wives were too busy to be feeding infants. In any event, as we grew older, we were informed that the Republican Party was God's Chosen Party and that George W. Bush was God's Chosen Leader for America. And since God's Chosen Leader left behind such a capable man as Richard Perry to govern in his stead over God's Chosen State, who were we to question?

But seriously... if you've been a Republican your whole life and your whole family treats the political party as akin to religion (leaving out, for a minute, the party's flagrant campaigning on the basis of religion), it's a bit hard to step out and be the black sheep who might vote Democrat. Many, myself included, drew hope from the presence of Carole Keeton Strayhorn... right up until the point where she made an ass out of herself trying to get "Grandma" Strayhorn on the ballot and until, at least for me, a closer examination of her issues revealed that she hoped to increase spending, cut taxes, and draw the balance out of the ether... or something.

"Alright," said I, "let's do this. Let's cross party lines and vote Democrat." And then I noticed something. Unlike most Texas Democrats who will try to avoid the issues of abortion and gun control, owing to the fact that most Texans are rather Republican in their stances on both, Chris Bell had come out in a rather strong stance even for a Democrat and refused to vote against partial-birth abortion and was in favor of gun registration and a ban on assault rifles. Well, this kind of got me to investigating Chris Bell a bit more and challenging my earlier assumption that he wasn't the kind of Democrat who I disliked. Now, would he be a better governor than Rick Perry? Probably. But I just couldn't vote in good conscience for someone whose politics vary that drastically with mine... especially considering that Bell's only real selling point in the first place is "not Rick Perry."

And this leaves me with Kinky. Now, really... I couldn't vote for Kinky in a real political election which caused me to dismiss him out-of-hand at first. And then I looked at Austin and I took a hard look at my choices. Honestly, Kinky is the best out of the four precisely because he's not a real political candidate. He's like Jesse Ventura: if he gets elected, it will be because all of the alternatives sucked that much. To my wife's questions of Kinky's political stance being better than Bell's, my response is that it's more or less identical, balancing some improvements for some downsides... and honestly, if I've got to swallow some bile and vote for someone who I really don't trust or like, I'd rather vote Kinky.

I guess that will be my new mantra: "Vote Kinky, Because Texas Deserves It"

The Eventful Walk Home

As some of you know, in an effort to render myself into a healthier (and slightly smaller) Cynic, I have taken to walking home in the afternoons as the option presents itself. This means that 4-5 days a week, I take the 1.5 mile route home by foot, making a couple of small detours to chat with friends of mine who work at establishments along my route home.

At one point in particular, the shortest route home would have me walking right alongside a busy stretch of the loop, so like a clever lad, I walk up the parallel residential street that sits about 20 feet from the loop and then cut across the lot of the appliance store at the end of the road. This has been a rather productive endeavor as the street is all but vacant and it gives me a nice chance to wander through suburbia and admire all of the wonderful homes that the white trash residents have allowed to go to pot. Yeah... so it's not the nicest neighborhood, but it keeps me out of traffic.

Earlier this evening, as I was taking my daily walk through hickdom, I noted several dogs barking loudly from one of the hicks' front yards. This is not atypical in and of itself, though I noted that the dogs were out front instead of being fenced in around back of the house and closer inspection revealed that they were not chained up. Now, being a rather open-minded fellow, I figured the dogs were trained to stay in the front yard, bark menacingly and let travellers go along with their business. Suffice it to say that I was a bit taken aback when all three dogs took to the street and moved to within 10 feet of me, barking at me. Feeling in my pocket, I reached for my knife and attempted to walk a little bit faster as I noticed that the dogs were attempting to surround me.

Working back to some of the random knowledge I'd acquired on the way, I remembered that dogs attempt to surround their prey in order to take it down. Not one to be taken down, I began making lunges at the dogs in order to keep them all on one side of me, preparing to deal with the first one to charge. As those who know me will note, when truly angry, I have somewhat of a frightening presence and, believe me, these dogs were upsetting me. It was about at this point that the stupid inbred owners of these dogs came out of their house and noticed that their dogs were menacing me. As they began calling for the dogs, one of them attempted to charge and came up short of a kick that probably would have broken a bone or two. At this point the inbreds began shouting that I needn't kick the dogs, these were good dogs and wouldn't bite anyone. Right after this they managed to call off the dogs and I glared at them and walked off, thankful that I hadn't had to deal with the probable confrontation that would have resulted, had they noticed the knife that I was preparing to use on at least one of those mongrels.

Muttering to myself and thinking pleasant thoughts about calling animal control, I resumed my stroll, giving my friend Tim a call to recount my suffering at the hands of stupid hicks. My street crossings were thankfully without incident, and I proceeded to the mall, where my friends at Software Etcetera were holding my $10 Happy Hacker keyboard that they'd just gotten in (Logitech knock-off, not the real deal... :-( )

Wandering in, I noted that the store seemed packed with people, most of whom had come in search of a PS3 reservation, all of which had been sold hours before. As I stood around chatting with the guys who work there, a customer came up and sat a stack of games on the table, asking how much he could get for them. The response was $19 in store credit with a special that they're currently running or $8 cash. After some hemming and hawing, the customer decided that he wanted cash.

Now, some of you know, I'm not too easy on idiots, nor am I particularly reticent in pointing their idiocies out to them. True to form, I told this guy that $19 was a much better deal than $8... to which he replied that Software Etc. didn't sell cigarettes and he needed smokes. Yeah... because an stupid premise makes an idiotic decision viable, right?
Deciding that this was a lost soul, I began channeling P.T. Barnum. "You want $10 for those games?" I asked, whipping out a crisp Alexander Hamilton. "Sure," he said, handing me the games. Well, I've already got some stuff on reserve at Software Etc. and I wanted to buy my keyboard, so I handed them the games, they handed me my keyboard, and they transferred $9 to my reserves. Yes, that's right, I made $9 just for being able to do math and not having a nicotine addiction.
Now, if I can only get those dogs taken to the pound or at least have the rednecks fined, it will have been a very productive walk home.

To My "Brethren"

To my "Christian Brethren" at Longview Baptist Temple:

I applaud you in that you're out in the community going door-to-door, trying to win people to Jesus. I also applaud you that you're encouraging people to get to church via a free ride on your buses rather than spend money on their own gas. However, send a representative to my door before 10 am on a Saturday morning again and I will not be giving you any brotherly love but rather some of that Old-Time Religion like that described in Isaiah 66:15-16.

But seriously, people like to sleep on Saturday mornings. Do you honestly think that going door-to-door this early is going to engender open-minded responses to a church already viewed with suspicion?

Yarr!

Shiver me timbers! It do be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Get ta celebratin or we'll make ye walk the plank!

There and Back Again

So I went back to Ohio, I saw a lot of people, and I realized as I sat in church how much I missed being there. I don't know if I'll ever be able to move back to Cincinnati, but it's just amazing to be able to visit and see all of the people who God used in my life and in the lives of all of the people in my family.

I got to see my close friend Tim and spend time with him. I even got to go up to Miami and spend a couple of days with him there and attend a class with him (yes, I'm such a nerd.)

I "got to" go shopping with my mom, my grandmother (Nana, for those of you who've met her) and my great Aunt Anne (Nana's sister.) I love spending time with them... but I'm not sure I would have chosen to go shopping. That said, I'd forgotten the fun that I can have with those ladies... and how funny Nana is. She was arguing with my Aunt Anne and ended the conversation jokingly announcing that it was going to be her way or "I'll break your arm."

My little brother Jonny is also growing up and getting much more mature. Not only can he hold an extended and intelligent discussion, he's passionate about the Lord and the mission trips he's been on. I've just been amazed with the work that God's done in Jonny in the last year and pray that it continues.

There are so many other people I saw and got to visit: family, friends, my brother Geoff, his wife... it all went by so fast. The wedding was touching... and shorter than mine. The sermon was good, albeit slightly pointed... and probably longer than it would have been if Geoff and Christie hadn't requested that it be slightly shorter.

All in all it was a great trip and one that I hope I don't end up waiting a year to repat. Time will tell.

Back in the U.S.S.R.

Well... actually it's not really the U.S.S.R., it's Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm back for my brother's wedding, to spend time with my friends, to have fun times with my family, and pretty much to sow Cynicism and whatnot throughout the world.

I will try to update as much and as regularly as humanly possible, but without a computer to call my own and borrowing the computers of others... well... you know how that goes. Oddly enough, this will probably result in slightly more regular updates than experienced when I'm in TX. In any event, email is a yes, cell phone is with me, IM is irregular, and WoW is probably a no. See you next Sunday, Texas.

More Snakes on More Planes

So, 24 hours saw me sitting down in 4-Star Theatre in Kilgore to watch Snakes on a Plane, getting out and ganking one of the posters, getting 5 or so hours of sleep, working for 4 hours, eating lunch, packing, flying to Cincinnati (with a brief stop in Dallas), and going into Cinema Springdale in Texas, getting a beer at the bar that they have on-site, and then going to see Snakes on a Plane.

Is Snakes on a Plane just that awesome that I needed to see it twice? Well... I think once would have been enough for just me, but I needed to see it with my friends. As a reviewer wrote last week, SoAP is a communal experience that has to be enjoyed jointly to be truly appreciated. The Cynic's corrolary is that to have enjoyment, you need to see SoAP with your friends... as many of them as possible, even if it means seeing it multiple times to hit up all of your friends.

Wikipedia-ing

So where have I been? Over at wikipedia, of course. Keeping track of the vandals, wiping them out, and whatnot.

Oh... this last weekend? With Wilson in town... yeah, I suppose I ought to do some play write-ups and the like. This is mostly to assure you that I am, indeed, alive.

Internets

So... yesterday I visited the Longview Cable office. I've not had internet reliably in my apartment since it was supposed to have been activated last Tuesday, and this fact had me greatly angered. My visit was answered by a receptionist attempting to give me technical support and finally by a chance to speak with an actual "technician": an incompetent woman (yes, I know, redundant) whom I suspect was also a phone support specialist or something.

So, this "technician" was sassy, obnoxious and clueless. Oh, and she made the mistake of swearing at me. Apparently this is considered good conduct in Longview Cable Tech Support land. I probably ought not to be so proud that I tutored her both in the workings of the cable modem that they have in my apartment and the proper usage and assembly of profane and insulting dialogue... but... well... there it is. Now, given the choice of deciding to get her fired and shooting back, I probably should have chosen the former, but well... let's just say that having Anna several hundred miles away and a lack of sleep were partially responsible. That said and in hindsight, it felt very good to choose the latter.

In any event, apparently my vitriol, anger and profanity mixed together to get me results, because today I got a phone call informing me that my cable technician (note: not the crazy woman from the LCTV office) was on my doorstep. Ignoring the possibility of this being retribution for my conflict with the psycho woman, I rushed home and assisted the technician, who found nearly 25 dBmV worth of excess lossy spots between the main box and my apartment cable drop. Over the course of the next half hour, he bypassed and fixed some of those spots and just boosted the signal to account for problems and made me a happy man who now has internets.

So yeah... sometimes I can nuke the crap out of flies with vinegar. Take that: Anna, Wilson, Mom, and anyone else who has called my pursuit of verbal sparring a less than noble and productive endeavor.

My Anna....

She is gone to Lake City until next week. That sucks... =(

I hope she enjoys herself... but it still sucks that I'm down here by myself.

Oh... and getting up at 3.45 am sucks too... but not as much.

FYI

It should be noted that even as I tried to post, my internet connection went haywire. From what I can tell, the connection between my cable modem and the connection on the other end is tenuous at best... so if you should attempt to get ahold of me, bear in mind that I'm dropping packets like Shaggy and Scooby were dropping acid.

The Man Who Moved

There was once a man who needed to move across town... because the apartment that he lived in was small and dirty. The apartment wasn't really actually dirty, but it smelled very dirty on account of the man's upstairs neighbors being mean and nasty people. The man's upstairs neighbors smoked and drank themselves silly all night long and every morning, the man's apartment smelled as if he had been doing the same. To make matters worse, the man's wife was made sick by all of the dirty smells and kept awake by the noise of the nasty upstairs neighbors. So, the man and his wife decided to move to a nicer place.

Now, moving (even across town) is not an affair for the faint of heart or the weak of muscle... especially when one's new apartment is up a rather haphazardly-arranged flight of stairs. That said, the man had some good friends to help him... and help they did. So after two evenings of hard work, most of the man's worldly possessions (and even those of his wife) had been loaded into the back of a rickety truck, driven across town, taken out of the back of the truck, and carried up the stairs and into the apartment.

Somewhere in the process of doing this, the man realized that he would very much like an internet connection at his new apartment like the nice people at the cable place had told him he could have. And they even came out and promised that it would work... but it would appear that they were misinformed, or just stupid. For when the man tried to set up his internet, it just didn't work. Try as he might, the man could not make his internet work... and so he did the thing that he hated to do: he called technical abuse.

Technical abuse is the secret name for the people who live inside of the telephone and pretend to help you with your computer and electronic problems. You see, once upon a time, there were real people who lived on the other end of the telephone and helped people with problems, but then the companies that hired the people decided that they could buy cheaper people in India and put them inside of the phone. The problem is, when they crammed the people in there, they forgot to cram some support in there, and then all they could fit in was a little script for the people in the phone to read off of.

So anyways, the man called technical abuse and after talking to 4 or 5 different people over the course of a very long time, he convinced them that he really knew what he was talking about. The people in the phone seemed very impressed at how much he knew about computers and electronics... so much so that they even agreed to send one of the people outside of the phone to come and look at his problem and make his computers get on the internet.

Sadly for the man, he was at work when the person from outside of the phone came, and so Technician (for that was his name) talked to the man's wife. And while the man's wife was good at many things, she was not well-versed in the secret trickery that Technician and his technical abuse friends practiced... and so Technician only fixed the man's internets a little bit.

And so now the man sits at his computer. He surveys his apartment, filled with partially-unpacked boxes and haphazardly-arranged furniture, and he is pleased with that. He looks at his computer, lovingly glowing and filled with electricity after spending several long days in darkness, and he is pleased with that. He looks at his happy blue wireless box, which sends internets in every direction to anyone who know's the man's secret handshake, and he is pleased with that. And then, he glances at Technician's box of lies, and he is sad and angry. For Technician's box of lies sometimes gives the man internets... only to take them away like an angry little boy stealing a piece of candy, and then it holds the internets hostage until nobody is watching, and then sometimes it gives them back.

Technician may have won this round, but the man is watching. The man will get technician... of that much you may be sure.

No Updates?

I was about to give Gallagher, Wheeler, Toad, and Paige crap about not updating.... and then I realized that I hadn't posted in two weeks, as evidenced by all of my beautiful long posts dropping off of my blog when I posted my bit of humor this morning.

So where has the Cynic been? Mostly at Wheeler's apartment, watching through the first season of Desperate Housewives. It's rather amusing and a good bit better than I'd suspected it would be. Still probably not up to my standards of "things with lasting cultural and intellectual value", but a good laugh and some fun times with friends.

We've gotten most of the way through the first season and the show, while frequently witty, is not above giving in to cliche. So far I've seen numerous scenes of marital turmoil, threats of extra-marital affairs, the gay young man crisis, depiction of religious leaders as out-of-touch and hopelessly trapped within an antiquated moral framework and several others. That said, I do have to recommend the show on the grounds that it manages to easily balance several dozen plot-lines in such a way that, even in keeping the allegedly-prerequisite ongoing suspense of a serialized drama, it manages to avoid the feeling of unresolved baiting and contrivance that is definitive of shows like 24 by allowing the viewer to have the rare joy of seeing something resolved on a regular basis. Further, just when the viewer feels like a character is going to fall into the trap of being cliche, the story-writers have a way of subtly twisting things to prevent the audience from losing interest. I don't know how long I'll be able to continue to enjoy the show, but for now, I'm still watching.

Ah... you want to know what Wheeler has been up to as well? I'll put the screws in him this evening and make him post. It's what good friends do. That, and help you move while only breaking small amounts of your stuff.

Anniversary

A good number of people were curious as to why they couldn't get ahold of me this past weekend. As some of you know (and most others will now remember), Anna and I have been married 1 whole year as of the 8th (that's pretty crazy.) As such, and because Monday was a school day and we spent the previous weekend with our friends, we decided (or rather, I told Anna to reserve the weekend) to do something fun for the weekend.

Now, as many know, I am given to plotting and sneakery. So I did a bit of working my local contacts and found a very cool little Bed and Breakfast in Pittsburg, TX (an smallish East Texas town less than an hour from Longview.) The Carson House Inn and Grille got me in at a rather late notice (some other plans that I had attempted fell through), got me a nice room (albeit one with entirely too much exposure to the morning sun), and provided an excellent dinner and two wonderful breakfasts.

Anna was uninformed where we would be going, much to her disapproval (she is something of a control freak in situations where she has been left in the dark.) I had arranged for the Wheelers to meet us at the Carson House for dinner, a tricky affair since neither Jared nor I had incredibly sure directions for how to get there from his remote honeymoon location. That said, things went off extraordinarily well, and each of us made it there within 2-3 minutes of the other, with a minimum of wrong turns.

Dinner was excellent (I've said that already, but it bears repeating) and the chicken crepes were absolutely amazing. I think I might want to go back just for the chicken crepes. Dessert was also rather impressive, and it was an altogether enjoyable dining experience. Who knew that you could find such good food in such a remote place? Dinner conversation was remarkable and probably should have been recorded... but quotations will be withheld to protect the innocent, and to provide a paper shield for myself.

After dinner, the Wheelers wandered off and Anna and I went up to explore our room. It was quite cool... decorated with period furniture and yet comfortable and not feeling like I should be fearing for my financial future (as I often do in antique and china shops.) One last point of note on sleeping in Pittsburg: it is a train hub of East Texas, and at least one set of tracks runs within 50 yards of the Inn. As you can imagine, this led to some consternation from Anna... though I can't say I minded. Then again, I can sleep through anything.

The following day heralded a tour of the surrounding towns and a visit to a winery. The tour of the local towns was instructive, but not altogether enticing. The fact of the matter is that old towns in East Texas are largely similar and begin to run together after a point. That said, there was a noteworthy "Exotic Animals Veterinary Clinic" along the route which housed zebras and giraffes and gazelles and what-have-you. Beyond that, we mostly just made fun of the Ugliest Baptist Church in the World (First Baptist Church of Mt. Pleasant, TX.) Pictures are forthcoming... but suffice it to say that two pieces of rebar should not be welded together and affixed to an incinerator stack and then decorated with christmas lights in an attempt to make a steeple. It just shouldn't be done.

Following our tour was a stop at Los Pinos Ranch Vineyards, of KZQX fame. It should be noted that Anna and I are turning into oenophiles (albeit poor ones) and that most vacations cannot be considered complete without at least a purchase of a bottle of wine, if not a visit to a winery, a taste testing, and a purchase of multiple bottles of wine. While we didn't actually get the full tour of Los Pinos (it was a bottling day), we did get to experience the unique feel of the young and expanding winery and taste most of their wines (they were sold out of one rather enticing white.) After a rather fine lunch, and the purchase of 5 or 6 bottles (and some rather cool shirts), we took ourselves back into town. At this point, I began reading through my guide to the Pittsburgh area and noted that there was a replica of the Ezekiel Airship in one of the local museums.

No, not an inventor named Ezekiel, but an itinerant Baptist preacher named Rev. Burrell Cannon. The man might have been a nut, but the airship is said to have worked... and it was well worth the $4 cost of entry to the museum to see the airship and the exhibit. Now, the rest of the museum about the town, the railroads, and the poultry industry... these things really didn't appeal. But crazy Baptists and flying machines? Count me in.

After this, we visited the local "actual farmhouse" museum. Can't say as they appeal, but there are sure a lot of them, so somebody must like the things. Outside of this line from the tour guide, I would count the tour a loss: "Oh yeah... they had running water back then. 'Here child, run and fetch some water!'"

And, true to form, Anna and I rounded out the afternoon finding a Hasting's to read at (and spend ourselves into the poorhouse at), and then went to go see MI:3 (better than 2, maybe better than 1.) We capped the evening off with dinner at Braum's and then a trek back to the Carson House. In spite of my best efforts, Anna decided that we would arise at 8 in the morning so that we could make it to church in Longview (instead of arising at 10, as I suggested, and attending church down the street.) And so, our mini-vacation came to an end with us being early to church. Go figure.

Graduation

So, at some point in the middle of the Great Weekend of Chaos Mark II (Mark I, having been occasioned by my own wedding), Anna and I saw fit to attend graduation. Plans were made to meet people before graduation and meet with the graduates afterwards and we felt generally good about ourselves and our planning foresight... and then it rained.

To those of you not familiar with graduation at LeTourneau, it is an outdoor extravaganza the like of which could not be replicated indoors... especially due to the estimated annual attendance of 4,000 graduates, professors, family members, friends, students and alumni which no building on campus could hold. But, the show must go on, and so it did. Solheim Arena was chosen as the new venue for graduation, being as that it is one of the largest indoor venues on campus and is adjacent to the Belcher Auditorium, which is nearly as large.

Anna and I showed up at roughly 9:20 and weaseled our way to a much nicer parking lot than was being used for the typical alumnus (we do know our way around campus) and then found our way into Solheim. After a bit of confusion, we found seats next to Rachel Wheeler (that does sound odd) and Daniel Leatherwood, and there we stayed... for a bit. At around 9:40 or so, it was announced that Solheim appeared filled to capacity and that everyone should take his seat so that if the room was not already at capacity, it could be filled to such. Scarcely a minute later, all students, alumni, and all people who weren't an immediate family member of a graduate (or a grandparent) were asked to relocate to the Belcher Auditorium for overflow purposes.

As an aside: anyone who knows me knows that I am not really about to be told to go give up my hard-earned seat to some twit who showed up late and lacked the foresight which my friends and I posessed. That said, I am not without sympathy... and when my wife rather pointedly tells me that she's not about to be the reason that some parent doesn't get to see his or her child graduate in person, I'm not so cold and callous (or stupid) as to contribute to ruining some parent's day (or to land myself in the dog house) by refusing to budge.

So after an intense internal struggle, some pointed interjection by my wife, and Leatherwood making his own exit, Anna and I made our exodus from the Solheim Arena and into the hall leading to Belcher Gym. The hallway had filled to capacity in the intervening period since we'd left it and we progressed at a crawl towards the gym, all the while being packed in from behind by a sea of likewise-disgruntled humanity. Roughly half-way down the hall, we were joined by faculty and staff who weren't directly involved in the graduation process and had volunteered to sacrifice their own seats for family members... which is kind of depressing when you realize that some of these faculty and staff are part of the only family that many students have for four or five years, but I digress.

As we neared the door to Belcher Gym, the line ground to a halt, and it was at this point that a revelation which had been nibbling at the edges of my mind came to the fore... the graduates sit in Belcher before they go out to the graduation ceremony. So the graduates would have to fight through the sea of humanity to get out of Belcher, would be generally unable to leave their posessions behind, and would carrying their posessions with them outside and around the building, due to being unable to fight down the hallway from whence the bulk of the attendees were coming. It was a generally disheartening thought, and one at which my wife arrived at about the same time.

Waiting at a stand-still in the gridlock, looking forward to watching graduation on a live feed (a black-and-white live feed operated by an absent-minded camera-man), Anna and I asked each other if breakfast wouldn't be far superior to the experience that awaited us. A moment of discussion mostly centered around how in the blazes we would get out, looking back over the glutted halls surrounding us. However, Anna's gaze alighted on the doors to the dressing rooms, and she informed me that she knew of a back exit. That settled, we left, promising to return for the post-graduation festivities.

The remainder of what followed will be chronicled elsewhere, except to say that we were vastly unimpressed with what happens at graduation when it rains. There has to be a better solution out there, and someone really ought to find it.

Anna's Children

...no, we're not talking in a biological sense. However, today her students are taking the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) in the math subject area. A large percentage of the assessment for her performance this year as a teacher is based on how her weasels... er... students do on this test. So praying for them to pass might not be a bad idea... or at least pray that they'll be able to represent the hard work of their teacher, in spite of some of their worthless, slacking selves.

My Family In Law

Many of you have been asking about my wife and her family in tones that nearly demand an update.

Anna's mom is technically discharged and is staying at the hospital (frequently residing) with my father-in-law to keep him company and keep his spirits up. After some faulty starts, his ankle is now plated together, covered in skin (grafted from elsewhere on his body) and being forcibly kept in place until such time as it is able to be moved. Its owner is less than pleased at the prospect of being cooped up, in pain and unable to move. We're all praying that he is released soon.

My brother-in-law who lives in East Bufu, East Texas (really the middle of Jack Nowhere) is trekking up to Denver with his 4-month-old and wife to help take his parents back to West Bufu, Colorado and assist them in their attempt to get life back to some semblance of normalcy. Oh, and my father-in-law, being self-employed, has a number of contracted jobs that need to be done that my brother-in-law is hoping to finish in the time he's up there. I don't envy him that at all, I've seen the kind of work-load my father-in-law keeps. That would be the kind of thing to drive me insane, even if it weren't plumbing and construction work.

And as for my wife. She's healing up rather nicely... except for the unrelated infection, the fact that the pacemaker seems to be programmed to run too fast, and the fact that her stomach really seems to be hating on all food that isn't soup. Which is to say she's more or less her usual self. She's not quite up to taking swings at me for getting out of line yet, but I'm sure that too will come, but I might get a grace period for trying to be a decent nurse... ;-).

Anna's Heart

To those who are curious, Anna has now successfully acheived the status of part woman, part machine. Her pacemaker implant surgery lasted just over an hour, and after 4 hours of observation, a false start on leaving, another 30 minutes of waiting for Anna's light-headedness (from standing up too fast and a bit of underhydration) to subside, and an hour to get Anna's chest x-ray, we got back to the digs that we've been staying at in Houston.

Anna was even feeling well enough to undertake an hour drive to go eat gumbo with family, less than 12 hours after getting her pacemaker installed. So yeah, she's a little green (literally), itching with the discomfort of healing, and mildly irritated about her mostly immobile left arm, but Anna's doing pretty well. I'll try to get her to post later.

Prayer Request

I just got a call from my wife, who got a call from her younger brother.

My parents-in-law were on their way down to Texas and got in an accident with a semi. They're ok, but the semi is totalled and it seems that they're at least shaken up and maybe a little injured... and thus are en route to a hospital somewhere in Southwest Colorado, as of my last information. I will be keeping my faithful charges in the Ice Cave, Iowa and Cincinnati abreast of the latest developments... so if you're not hearing it here, tune in there or, by all means, call my cell.

Update: As with anything of this nature, the initial facts were lacking and incorrect in places. It seems that Anna's parents collided head-on with a pick-up truck due to some slipping on the ice (it's not clear which party slipped), knocking both cars off the road on opposite sides. The occupant of the truck, upon it coming to a stop, jumped out of the truck and proceeded to run across the road, running in front of a semi going 55 mph, which hit him and killed him.

At this point we're not sure what to do about Anna's surgery. Oh yeah, which, by the way, the morons at the Dr's office called up and said, "Didn't we tell you Wednesday? Well, it'll be on Wednesday now!"

Update #2: It turned out that Anna's mom had a ruptured spleen and what appeared to be a cracked vertebrae. Her dad had a compound fracture (possibly broken in two places) in his leg, apparently right above the ankle. They were rushed to a hospital in Alamosa (I think) and then taken by helecopter to Denver, where my mother-in-law went into surgery. There, they took out her spleen, her problematic gall bladder (hey, they were in there anyways), and discovered that while her neck appears to be fine, she's got broken ribs on both sides. But she got out of surgery find and was recovery in the ICU last we heard. My father-in-law was just getting prepped for surgery to deal with the leg.

Thanks for all of your prayers.

Where?

*Cynic picks up the phone and inhales to start speaking*

Customer: I'm having a problem with my computer's sound system.

Cynic: Alright, sir.

Customer: It's making a funny squealing noise and I can't hear anything.... let me show you.

Cynic: No, sir that's.... *interrupted by loud blast of shrill feedback*

Customer: What do you think I should do about that?

Cynic: Well sir, I can't really diagnose it over the phone, but I would be happy to help you if you could bring your computer system in.

Customer: That costs money, don't it?

Cynic: Yes sir.

Customer: You won't do it over the phone for free?

Cynic: Well sir, as I just told you, I can't do it over the phone, for free or otherwise.

Customer: Well... ok, where y'all located?

*Cynic gives standard directions* On the loop, across the street from Johnny Carino's and Home Depot, next to Jack's Natural Foods.

Customer: Ummm.... I'm new to town, where's the loop at?!

Sidebar: "The Loop" surrounds just about all of Longview and is the main thoroughfare on the North Side of town, accessing the mall, all main eateries, both Walmarts, etcetera...

Cynic: Alright sir... why don't you tell me where you're located.

Customer: Ummm.... I don't really know... does Gilmore road sound right to you?

Cynic: Right... ok, yeah *proceeds to give directions from Gilmer Road*

Customer: So yeah, can I call you if I get lost.

Cynic: Yes sir.

Customer: What's y'all's number?

Cynic: Sir... you just called me.

Customer: Oh... yeah. Thanks!

Cynic: Best of luck sir.

It should be noted that if he runs out of luck and never makes it here... well... you get the idea.

Hard Out Here

So I watched the Academy Awards last night... and I personally thought Jon Stewart was hillarious. Sadly, the stars at the awards don't excel in laughing at themselves... so Stewart's self-deprecating shots at the hypocrisy and arrogance of Hollywood, which resonate well with his audience outside of the Kodak Theatre, barely managed to stir a chuckle from the crowd within it.

In light of Ardith's review, I guess I'll do a bit of looking into some of the individual awards. I was rather amused by the Academy's attempt at drawing attention to some of the lesser-known categories like "Audio Mixing" and "Set Design" through Stewart's trademark political attack-style commercial spoofs... and I was rather saddened by the lack of quality entries to choose from in the Best Original Song category. The three nominees were: Travelin’ Thru, from Transamerica (Dolly Parton), In the Deep, from Crash (Bird York), and It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp, from Hustle & Flow (Three 6 Mafia). The first song is abysmal, the second mediocre, and the third, while amusing, is obnoxiously repetitive and annoying as hell. Given the choices, it's no real surprise that "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" won. Though, every now and again, I suppose the Academy is allowed to perpetuate its string of "Awards that make you wonder." Oh... and to quote Jon Stewart: "For anyone keeping record, Martin Scorsese, zero Oscars. For Three 6 Mafia, one."

Beyond my general disdain for this year's Best Original Song, I thought the Awards did a rather decent job overall. As with every year, I was surprised and ashamed at the number of award-winners and top nominees that I haven't seen and, as in past years, resolved to get Wheeler's worthless self to start ordering some of those movies in as soon as they come out to DVD. And I mean, as much as I really don't want to see anything about country music, the fact that Reese Witherspoon now has an Oscar for her work in "Walk the Line" may just mean that I can see it... maybe.

In any event, to quote Jon Stewart, "I think being a pimp just got a little bit easier."

Anti-Social

An interesting point I'm coming to notice about myself is that while I am one of the most extroverted people I know, I like to deal with people on my terms. Which is why, at the end of the day, I start feeling anti-social towards the people who bother me at work. No, not my friends who come to bother me at work... but the customers and potential customers who actually do bother me at work.

You see, I've been criticized frequently in the past by my more amicable and socially conscious friends for intentionally excluding those with whom I do not get along. In short, given a chance to interact with 15 people, I will befriend those who are intelligent (insofar as my prejudiced gauge of intelligence goes, anyhow), entertaining, and at least marginally socially adjusted and will begin to, almost subconsciously, attempt to alienate the people whose combined indices of annoying and stupid eclipse my preset tolerance for such things. Ideally, I am left with a group of people who I really like to be around and have managed to evacuate the area of people who I really hate being around. If you've ever seen me in action, you have to admit I'm pretty good at it. Probably not something I should be proud of... but it works... much to the irritation of my wife.

In any event, the problem with work is that, no matter how annoying customers are, you just can't go running them off. They're paying you money, after all... and that's a big part of actually doing business. Now, I'm lucky in my particular business in that stupid usually has a very low shelf life in my store. The corollary to stupidity is that someone who knows almost nothing about everything usually hasn't specialized all of his handful of brain cells into any one thing... usually. The rare exception to this corollary gives me more headaches than you will ever know.

But yeah, so stupid and annoying come into my store on a fairly regular basis... and I can't drive them off. This typically results in an increase in my angst and a decrease in my social nature, to the point that when I get off of work, I usually just want to lash out and stab someone. I still want to see my friends... but I really don't want to deal with anyone outside of that group.

Cynic the misanthrope... go figure.

One of them Linuxes

So a guy just called and said... "So I see you've got them free Linuxes... which kind of those would I want for hooking up my Playstation and my computer."

My response: "Ummm.... eh.... wha? Sir, you do realize that an operating system is something like Windows, right?"

"Oh, yeah, right. So I want to hook up my Playstation and my computer to the internet and don't wanna keep taking the cat cable out and plugging it into one and then the other."

"Sir, what you need is a router... it already has a micro-operating system with Linux on it."

"But... how will I hook up my Playstation and my computer to the little Linux?"

"Sir, we will sell you two more Cat-5 cables... they're only $.50 a foot and then you can hook everything up to the router."

"Ok... so I come and buy this little Linux and these two cables and I'll be good to go?"

"You should be sir... there are some minor configurations that you might have problems with (oh yeah, you will) and if you do, one of our technicians can come out on-site and configure your router for you."

Note to self: no more ads in the paper aimed at anyone with a 3-digit IQ and anything more than a knowledge that computers exist.

Domesticated?

I think it's safe to say that I am not a well-domesticated man. The problems started with the instant mashed potatoes. On the back of the container there are several columns of figures to relate to the amount of each ingredient you'll need for a certain serving size. Unfortunately, there are two columns with large volumes in them: one for the size of the container and the other for the amount of water added. Obviously, the size of the container will be larger than the amount of water needed... by a significant margin. However, if you get splatter or something on the "water column" and don't really think that anyone would bother enumerating what size of a container is needed to make instant mashed potatoes (I mean, come on, just grab a freaking pot and go), you might read the "container column" and think "two quarts of water to 3 cups of potatoes... well, ok." In thinking this you would be wrong. You would also make some nasty-looking potato soupy stuff.

Now, the rest of the cookery (mostly left to Toad) went fairly well... and dinner was good and all of that. And then the wives tried to make us watch American Idol... and so we ran off to put up shelves. While the actual shelving went off without a hitch, apparently my neighbor relations aren't so good. I mean, it was only 8 or 8:30 when we started in on the shelves... how was I supposed to know that the neighbors would object to our drilling holes in the wall and banging nails into it? So we got about half-way through the project, with all of the holes drilled and most of the shelf-hangers anchored when the wall started making banging noises of its own. "Odd..." we thought, "the wall gnomes are usually much more subtle than to be making a loud racket. Maybe they're putting up shelves of their own." Continuing on to anchor the L-braces for the shelves, we started hammering and the gnomes started at it again, and then from the next apartment came a female scream, "QUIT IT!"

"Hmm.... I'm guessing that wasn't the wall gnomes."

To which Toad replied, "Yeah... guess not."

"Maybe we should call it a night"

"Maybe... I think you can finish this tomorrow on your own."

"Yeah... hehe... we pissed off the neighbors."

"Hehehe!"

Our wives were somewhat perplexed by our amusement and made us watch American Idol as penance for not having finished. For our parts, we endured our torture with a stiff upper lip and filed grievances with Amnesty International. That show is criminal.

Misplaced Nouns

Random Customer: "I'd like to buy some of that eterna... etreno.... eternal.... utrinal..."
Customer's Wife: "Infina-something."

long pause

Random Customer: "He told me what it was and now I've done forgot it... stuff looks like phone cable."
Cynic: "Oh. You mean ethernet cable?"
Random Customer: "Yeah, that stuff... I knew it had a funny name."

Customers Scare Me

I really ought to just start a blog with stories about the various and sundry people who visit my store and say/do retarded things. Maybe it would get better readership and whatnot... a la Acts of Gord. In fact, the temptation is very great, if only because people love reading about that sort of stuff, and I love writing about it... and I love attention.

Anyways... so this lady calls up with her computer and says, "I called SBC (the DSL/phone company) and told them about my computer problem, and they think it's my hard drive."

So do you want a replacement hard drive?

"Umm... maybe... is this one of those places that does computer repair work and stuff?"

(No, I just ask people if they want me to do hardware replacement work to screw with them and then tell them to bugger off.) Yes ma'am... you can feel free to bring it in and I'll have a look at it.

"Can you fix it while I wait."

Ma'am, it may take me 5 to 10 minutes to determine if your problem is, in fact your hard drive, and additional time to ascertain if there are other problems involved and how much it would take to fix them. That's not even counting repair time.

"So you can do it while I wait?"

Ma'am, that's not even counting the potential repair time of imaging the drive across, which could take several hours, in addition to updating Windows, virus removal, etcetera.

"So you probably can't do it while I wait?"

I'd rather you didn't... I'll give you my card so you can call me and I'll get your number so I can call you when it's done.

(She apparently took me very literally, calling at least 5 times over the length of just yesterday to "check up and see if we'd made any progress.")

Freaking Wheeler

Hey Jared. Do you want a ride back from Dallas? Check your email, then.

Oh... and if anyone else sees this and then communicates with our filthy goat-faced Guatemalan crackhead (see how family-friendly that was, Wilson?), please tell him that checking his email will lead to getting a ride.

New Year

So yeah... Anna has some goofy procedure tomorrow. And for whatever reason, one of the prerequisites of said procedure is that the victim... er... testee is required to have no more than three hours of sleep that night. So, like a good husband, I'm trying to stay up with her, for at least some of it.

I really haven't done any of my first-of-the-year posting that I should be doing... in fact, I haven't really posted at all since I listed my complaints as regards juvenile human spawn. So with apologies, I will get to that as we speak.

New Years

As this year draws to an end, I cannot help but be overwhelmed by the blessings having been afforded to me this year. I suppose I shall have to do a good and proper "year in review" post... but suffice it to say that this has been an excellent year, in spite of everything else and whatever setbacks may have come. I mean, marriage, graduation, a job.... wow.

Blessings from the Lord?!

Let's put it this way... I write this as I ride in the van with my 1-year-old niece and 3-year-old nephew. As far as brats go... these are the well-behaved ones. And to their credit, they have had to tolerate a marked change in elevation accompanied with traveling in a somewhat-crowded minivan for 7 hours (probably 8 by the time this is all said and done.) But yeah... my niece keeps screaming off and on in a rather closed space. Granted, this is a new development that only started about the last half hour before we had lunch (where she pretty much screamed for 30 solid minutes) and probably indicates a desire to be done with all of this... but all caveats aside, I can't handle it. I am literally blaring Metallica as loud as it will go on this laptop so that I don't develop a pounding headache as a result of the stabbing sensations in my forehead that I get every time she screams.

So yeah, that makes my life fun and joy... but I would be remiss if I didn't attempt to make a Hobbesian insight about my 3-year-old nephew's seemingly-schizophrenic alteration between treating his younger sister nicely and taunting/poking/hitting her. And while one could make an argument for him having learned this behavior from other children, I find it perplexing that he would have learned such a behavior and applied it towards a largely non-adversarial relationship. Granted, one could argue some adversity for motherly attention (FREUD!), but I have a hard time seeing how this translates into random acts of unprompted cruelty (albeit infrequent) directed at his helpless and harmless little sister.

All that to say, the point of this little whimsy is that my sister-in-law asked today, "Have you ever considered not having kids?" and I would be lying if I didn't say "Yes... frequently." Especially when I bear in mind that these are good kids.

Vacating

Until further notice, I am on hiatus in Colorado. As per usual, my cell phone will be with me... and I will attempt to make posts as I am able. If you don't know my cell # and still want to contact me... well, VengefulCynic [at] ... well... this domain (shadowcouncil.org) will get to me, and I might deign to give you my cell phone number, or at least respond to your email. More later.

They Think I Lie

Lady: Hello, is Brad there?
Me: I'm sorry ma'am, he's busy with a call on the other line, can I take a message or help you with something myself?
Lady: Go get Brad, I want to talk to him.
Me: Ma'am, he's busy or else I would... is there something else I can do for you?
Lady: Brad just doesn't want to talk to me.
Me: Ma'am, being as that your name and number don't show up on caller ID and also given that I haven't even had a chance to tell Brad who's calling yet, I find it highly unlikely that Brad has told me to lie to you.
Lady: Just tell Brad to call me back *click*
Me: Umm...

*breaks out the sticky note* Brad, psycho woman with no name and no caller id information who is convinced that your assistant manager is a liar wants a call back.

Goings-On

I would like to thank everyone who showed up at Joe's for my birthday whatnot. Since there are far too many blogs to link and people to thank individually, I would just like to thank my wife for organizing it and Joe's Pizza and Pasta for putting up with 20 of us and cutting us a break on the price... I know it should have been more than the $80-some that they charged us to feed 20 people.

I would also like to thank Ma Hoyt (somewhat belatedly) for the 'not birthday' card she sent me. Every now and again, it's nice to get some mail from someone who isn't Sallie Mae or someone else who I owe money to. At least, I'm pretty sure I don't owe Ma any money... ;-)

Another Year

At this time last year, I was a student, unengaged and unmarried, looking forward to final projects and finals, and a semester away from graduation.

Two years ago my goofy friends dragged me out to Jefferson to celebrate my birthday, despite Anna being sick with mono and most of the others being under the weather one way or another. Yes Jared, I've mostly forgiven you for skipping out due to severe illness.

Life has been good to me. God grant that this next year will be as good as the past one has been.

Sacred Month

I offer my condolences to my various college friends (and even to those in college who I really don't like) on your entering "the sacred month." It was first referred to as such to me by my old professor Dr. Chen as "the sacred month where students like you do the only real work they intend to do for the whole semester." Now, I know some of you are bogged down simply as a course of the natural progression of the semester, while others have taken the practices of the Cynic to heart, and are just getting into all of the stuff that you should have done months ago.

For the edification of the masses, I will post a list of projects accomplished by me during the sacred month in years past.

Freshman Fall: Bearing in mind that you really don't do much in freshman fall, I wrote both of my little theological treatises for Dr. Woodring, both of which could have been done far sooner than the last week of class and finals. Ah... the joys of freshman year.

Freshman Spring: Like freshman fall, I really didn't have much by the way of actual work to get done... go figure. Ah yes... I did finish that damned bolt. I also studied a lot of Calc 3... pretty much the final for which I was best-prepared in my tenure as an undergraduate.

Sophomore Fall: Ah... Diff EQ and your stupid excercises in homework copying, how I loathe you. I finished 3/4 of my Armstrong Data Structures programs during the last month of the semester. It was also during this stretch that I gave the longest presentation of my college career in P.O.D. I also took the $*%$&% $%&%*$%*$ *$%&$%$* $&&%$$*#$(# $#&% $%&$%$%* P.O.D. Final. I'm not sure I'll ever forgive Batts and DeBoer for that class.

Sophomore Spring: I did a LOT of Bib Lit Journals. I also wrote an entire term paper for Historiography in one day. I would also like to note that it was during this last month that Stu and I walked out of I&M in the middle of Dr. Anazia's yammering. I'm particularly proud of that.

Junior Fall: You will note that up until this point, I had managed to shirk the majority of my workload altogether. It is at this point in one's career that that starts to change. I would like to thank Dr. Varnell for making my draw hundreds of pointless UML Diagrams during the last month of this semester. Dr. Leiffer also gets credit for the most-skipped class of all time where I had a LOAD of work to make up during the last month. I also wrote a decently-long complete BS paper for learning from leaders, and polished off the month with more writing for Inklings and the final from hell in that class. I mean, I was prepared... but 10 pages of writing?!

Junior Spring: You see, I did this one ALL wrong. I had a prophets paper that Woodring made us do for the beginning of April, a 3-parts-in-a-series program for Baas' Computer Theory class that was supposed to be done over the whole semester that I did in the last month, and 3 separate programs for Programming Languages that I did in about the last two weeks.

Senior Fall: Determined to do better than I had in the Spring, I got most of my work done earlier... but I still ended up doing Algorithms and Networks programs late into the last month. This wouldn't have been a problem if I hadn't had a COMPLETE screw-up of a group for Varnell's special IBM class and 2/3 of my teammates for King's Software Engineering class weren't utter... well... I'll be nice: academic deviants. This resulted in my not even seeing Anna the two weeks of school more than 5-10 minutes a day plus (some) meals.

Senior Spring: On the upside, it was this semester that I gave new meaning to passing with doing nothing. Almost nothing done for Architecture, Program Translation and the IBM Project combined... nothing really done for Speech, a decent bit of effort for Watson's Brit Lit II and NOTHING for Racquetball. I mean, hell, it's racquetball. What little I did this semester was mostly the hell of preparing for a wedding/graduation/move/get-a-job. That was fun.

So there you have it.... 8 semesters of slacking, each followed by its own month of furious effort. I feel your pain... and you can keep it.

Broken LED

So Wednesday I was given the service call of doom... or so it seemed at the time. You see, when little computer companies sell high-end computers with on-site warrantees, there's no way in hell that they can service more than maybe a 200-mile radius... maybe. So what they do is they contract to a third-party on-site technical support agency. And when such an agency lacks a presence in a particular region or is too busy due to proximity to the holidays, such an agency contracts to us.

Anyways, we got a request for service on Monday that we accepted, not really thinking of the implications. Turns out, the agency wants us to "fix a broken hard drive LED." That's right, the little red light on the front of your computer that blinks when your hard drive is accessed... the one that is usually soldered into a lead that comes from the front of your case and is hot-glued on. Fortunately, we're brave at Plug 'n Play and figured that the odds were against the user's comptuer having blown an LED without having had a colossal motherboard failure and that it was far more likely that the lead had come off the motherboard or something workable. However, just in case, I brought a soldering iron, a whole array of tools and some industrial solvent for my 1:00 appointment in Hallsville.

As has ever been my luck with Hallsville, I found myself slightly turned-around following the directions I had been given, and thusly found myself on a residential street where the locale in question was supposed to be located... and after a time, I even managed to find the house... with one small hitch: the house lacked a driveway. This seemed peculiar, even for the Hickville, USA town of Hallsville... and I resolved to investigate later. Upon approaching the residence, I noted that it did not appear to be occupied by a hermit, which suggested that the lack of a car and a place to put one was odd... but I resolutely rang the doorbell and was greeted by a rather... normal-looking gentleman in perhaps his mid-50s.

The house was in something of a state of disarray that was indicative of someone having just moved in and I was ushered through the maze of boxes to the computer. Observing the client use the computer, I could not help but notice that the HD LED was, indeed, unresponsive. It was at this point that the client began to tell me of his woes, beginning with "they went and put a RAID in my computer and I didn't want one" continuing on to "it didn't come with a modem" and cumulating in "when they put the modem in, the hard drive light stopped working." It was at this point that I paused for clarification: yes, in fact, the computer company put in an extra hard drive in a performance-increasing RAID array in the user's new computer for no extra charge (free upgrade of the month or some such nonsense) and he demanded it removed. Oh, and the modem was presumed to have been standard with a computer because, "every computer has a modem." So basically, I had my work cut out for me with a man who seemed somewhat difficult to please... joy.

Next, we turned off the comptuer and I sat it on its side... a process that seemed to upset the client to no end as it was apparently unnatural to turn the device away from its usual (and natural) orientation. This was followed by the ceremonial opening of the case... another one of those unnatural acts we technicians perform. And lastly, the examination of the motherboard. And it was here that our hero sighed with relief, as he noted gleefully that a quick removal and flipping of the HD LED lead caused the current to be passing in the correct direction through the LED in question and render it illuminated once more. And the peasants did rejoice, the hero did charge the contracting agency, and he subsequently left quickly before the client envisioned new demands.

Oh... and as it turns out, this house is one of only two houses on its residential street to have a driveway on an parallel street that lies behind it. How bizarre.

"The I Button"

Thanks in large part to Anna being off of work this week, this morning I got to work around 8, instead of the 7:30 arrival followed by a half an hour of killing time that I usually do. Anyways, when I walked back into our work-room, I noticed a computer that had been freshly-built with a note on it that said "was here working on this until 4... don't expect me in until afternoon" which was signed by my manager.

From this, I surmised that the client had wanted the computer built for today and so I examined it and gave it a once-over to make sure everything worked and that there weren't any issues resulting from Brad's sleep-deprived work. Satisfied that the computer was ready, I moved it up to the front of the store, where it was picked up later this morning by an employee of the client for whom we had built it.

At about 11, I got a call from Caleb. "Umm, Cynic... I'm scared. I think we should go take our computer back from that client."

Cynic: "Why is that, Caleb?"

Caleb: "They just called up and told me that the computer wasn't working."

Cynic: "Well, that's not probable... it left here working."

Caleb: "That's what I told them, and they said their technician couldn't get it to boot or respond or anything... so I asked to talk to him."

Cynic: "Good call."

Caleb: "Yeah... well, I got him on the phone and he told me, 'I only have one question for you... that little button on the back, is it supposed to be in the "I" position or the "O" position."

Cynic: *Breaks up laughing* "NOOOOOOOO!"

Caleb: "Yeah, I told him the "I" Position and he responded 'Wow! It turned right on! I'm just going to fiddle with it some more now.'"

Cynic: "Damn."

Caleb: "I wanted to say, 'Please don't fiddle with it... for the love of God just bring it back!'"

Cynic: "I think we can safely invalidate their warranty on grounds of their technician ruining that computer.... because I'm pretty sure he WILL break it."

Caleb: "I feel bad, because they're a non-profit and I really like the lady in charge of this place... I think I should tell her that their technician is a moron."

Cynic: "Yeah... and tell her that if he touches the computer again, we'll invalidate the warranty."

My Attention

It has come to my attention that the SC blogs are rated family-friendly and are not being actively filtered by some of the more upstanding and anal-retentive ISP's out there. You have no idea how irritated it makes me that Wilson has won this one.

A bit of history for those who haven't been here since the beginning of this shadowcouncil.org thing. Back in time... way back in January of 2004, we came to the conclusion that Blogger sucked and decided we were leaving. And by "came to the conclusion", I mean that we had already known for a long time that the arbitrary server crashes, down-times and maintenance windows that Blogger was famous for had come to be an annoyance. And by "decided we were leaving", I mean that I had decided to front the money from my credit card to provide hosting digs (to be paid back by individuals... sometimes) and that I had conned Ardith into doing the actual work of setting up MT on our new host so that we could get the hell out of Blogger-land.

Anyways, as one of the conditions of moving to sc.org with the rest of us, Wilson insisted on family-friendliness. I'll give you one guess as to whose blog was the only one that had to be cleaned up (which also happened to be the longest-running and, at that time, containing the most posts.) In fact... I think (*goes to check*) it's still up in all of its uncensored glory over on blogger. This insistence was satisfied by me as I went through and ran the conversion process on my old posts, censoring as I went, along with doing other things like correcting a rather reprehensible habit I had picked up for hot-linking images off of the sites of others. But all of that to say, I was now family-friendly... mostly.

Granted, I'm pretty sure that Wilson's ISP at home still won't let him visit my site... but I don't think it will typically let him visit his own either, and his doesn't even get interesting search hits for "midget and big man sex", "power wench", or "www.man have sex little midget woman". All that to say is that I'm family-friendly now, I don't really want to be, and I blame Wilson for it. I think I might revert... if it weren't for the fact that the rest of the sc.org bloggers have gotten used to family-friendly and might be unwilling to allow me to revert.

Faithful Henchman

I am now Murray's faithful henchman. I stumbled into the kitchen yesterday morning to the now-familiar sounds of my wife flipping out about the presence of a mouse. Only this time, Joe had gotten his poor paw stuck in the mouse trap, but was still alive and well. He was understandably upset about this and was scurrying back and forth with the trap in tow, trying desperately to save his poor paw. He looked so sad and desperate, you just wanted to make him feel better. At least, I did... Anna was muttering and going on about killing him.

Putting a stop to that sort of homicidal ranting, I tried to use the broom to pull Joe and the mouse trap out from the side of refrigerator where he had dragged it. Sensing the malice of my mate, Joe decided to take temporary refuge underneath the fridge. Minutes passed with Joe moving around underneath the refrigerator with his trap as I negotiated his safe conduct with my increasingly-agitated wife. The deal was I could set him loose, but only outside. So it was that I pushed the refrigerator to one side, grabbed the mouse trap (by the safe end... I didn't want a delirious mouse to bite the hand that was going to set him free), and took him outside, where I pried the bar open and set him loose. The end... or so I thought.

Yesterday evening, I set down in the bathroom to do some light reading. As I sat there, in scampered Joe. I bolted upright as I was a bit startled, thus scaring Joe out into the hall. Joe should have stayed with me... as his presence out in the hall attracted the attention of the more wrathful resident of the apartment. I hurried out to Anna, who was already informing me (rather bitterly) that Joe had just run into the bedroom and she was unhappy with this fact. I wandered into the bedroom, and there sat Joe, gazing about from the middle of the floor. Knowing that I had to act fast or lose Joe, I begged Anna to get my a broom and a dustpan. Chasing a limping Joe from the bedroom (so yes, I know it was the same mouse), I cornered him in the hall. Anna seemed much more willing to allow for his escape in light of Joe's improving manners (barging into a married couple's bedroom to hide out is considered bad taste in most areas), and so she handed me the broom and dustpan, whereupon I scooped Joe up and escorted him outside. It was only after I let Joe loose that I informed Anna that it was, in fact, Joe who I had just let loose. She might have been a bit peevish... but at least our resident mouse lives on. And Murray approves.

Murray

I think it's safe to say that the only person to blame for the 2nd return of Joe has to be Murray. Yes, technically we are standing at the 5th actual reappearance at this point.... but I think we can safely break down Joe's appearances into episodic events (the 1st coming, the return, the 2nd return.) And behind it all is the ever-popular and self-proclaimed UberSkull of the Underworld himself.

Any doubters will be pointed to the fact that it would appear that Joe has, in fact, learned the inner workings of the mouse traps and can now actively avoid the firing mechanisms and yet still clean them of all but traces of peanut butter. I must gladly thank Joe in this in that he doesn't utterly clean the mouse traps, thus helping me deflect accusations by certain parties that I perhaps set the traps without bait (advertently or inadvertently, you be the judge.)

Anyways, so I got a call on Sunday afternoon from my wife, who seemed to be slightly hysterical. Yes, apparently there had been yet another mouse sighting. But what was worse was the fact that Joe had taken one of the mouse traps underneath the refrigerator where he and his friends had proceeded to clean it off, without fear of it going off. As she spoke to me, Anna got shriller and more irritated as she apparently alternately saw and heard mice around the refrigerator. So it was that I was commissioned to get more mouse traps.

For the record, why is it that even though I like the mice and I want to have them around, I'm the one stuck killing them? And further, I get not wanting to have mice around... but taking it to Anna's homicidal mania seems to lack for a logical stepping-stone in the process. But that's just me.

Joe Lives!

It would appear that not even a mouse trap can take Joe down. As of yesterday, we have confirmed Joe sightings! Sadly, this has also precipitated ultimatums from my wife regarding Joe's ongoing existance and my setting traps to kill him. My refusal has met with a great number of threats and allegations regarding the responsibilites attendant to my status as the "Man of the House"... and so it would appear that today, we are hunting for Joe again, all the while silently rooting for him... and biting my tongue rather than pointing out that Ma seems to do just fine hunting her own mice.

Go Joe!

He Came to Us in Peace

R.I.P.
Joe Mouse
? - 16 October 2005

Roughly a month ago, Anna first met our friend Joe Mouse. This was an exciting event, as Joe frolicked about the apartment for the amusement of all. Sadly, Anna could not peacefully coexist with Joe and his unusual ways, and thus I was ordered to exterminate Joe.

Through a series of delays and procrastinations, I managed to avoid laying out the implements of cultural insensitivity for over a month. Sadly, Anna's wrath would not be so easily turned aside, and yesterday occasioned several Joe sightings, including one by myself. While I valiantly argued on Joe's behalf that he added culture to our humble abode and wouldn't hurt a fly, Anna refused to budge.

What's more, even though Anna was the party responsible for decreeing that Joe should die, I was made the unwilling executioner. Though he came to us in peace, we have killed him anyways... and the blood is on my hands, to my great and abiding shame.

As penance, Murray and I mourned Joe's passing, and freed him of the trappings of this world, sending him on to a better place.

I hope Joe won't hold my unwilling part in this against me.

Longview Cable

Longview Cable sucks... a lot. You should never get it if you have a choice, and if you already have it, you should get your cable and internet from somebody else. Here is what happened to me: it could happen to you.

Last month, due to an effort to reduce the number of bills being paid out (and the exponentially high risk of accidentally forgetting to send one out), we got direct bill to credit card set up on at least half of our bills: LCTV and CableLynx included. Yes, Cable and Internet are two separate bills, for no reason that anyone can figure, but we had them both billing to the credit card.

Then, because my wife is good like that, she called Longview Cable to verify that the charges were going to be processed on the credit card and life would be good, and she was assured that there would be no problems. This was the 28th of September. Then, on Thursday, October 6, our cable internet went down. Those of you who have LCTV and CableLynx know this isn't very rare, so I called tech support and found myself waiting in a line of 8 people... and after 20 minutes, I deteremined that there must be only 1 tech answering calls. Thus, I used a nifty feature and left a call-back number so that I would hear from them that evening or the next day.

Friday morning I checked my messages (none) and then went off to work, expecting a call. Work was busy and the cares of home slipped my mind, until I returned home to no internet. Pissed off that I had gotten no call, I called up tech support and managed to wait out the line and get through. I was pleasantly suprised to find a competent tech who checked the server I was working through and then paused to check my account, in the space of 2 or 3 minutes. He informed me that my account was on hold and gave me the information to call LCTV about it. Calling LCTV yielded me the information that the accounts people were gone for the day (apparently they leave at 5) and the informative young lad promised to leave them with my number.

Saturday (today), I awoke around 10.30 to no call and no message. Beginning to suspect this was typical of LCTV/CableLynx, I called them. The lady at the other end of the line seemed to be a tad inept... as it took her about 5 minutes to pull up my account. After we got through that, it took her another 5 or so to figure out why it had been disconnected. Once we'd gotten through all of that, she told me that they had already billed me and had somehow disconnected my internet anyways and that she was fixing it. Following this was a rather irritating set of restarting the cable modem 3 times followed by her calling tech support, another restart and renewing my IP a couple times before I finally got internet back. She promised that her boss would call me so we could discuss the wretched service I've gotten from LCTV/CableLynx... but I'm not holding my breath. Looks like I might be calling or visiting on Monday.

Blogger Goes Down

You see... it's at this point in time that I can't help but notice that the SC blog system is up and the Blogger system is down. Thus, as it would appear, it is the perfect time to appeal for those of you who are on the dark side to come to the SC.

Yes, we have a post/comment system that doesn't go down at the whims of Blogger... friendly local admins, and a reliable host. So, if you feel that you ought to consider hopping in, drop me an email at v.e+n-g=e,f`u~l&c^y$n%i'c\ [at] shadowcouncil.org. Heck... even if you haven't been invited by name and you're interested, drop me a line. The bandwidth is there, as is the web-space. That, and we haven't put Ardith through the wringer lately... and we know she needs to be working harder than she is right now.

This means you: Martinez, Barbour, Sharpton, Scott, Paige, and Rachel. Oh, and our Xanga associates Melby and Fleetman are more than welcome to leave their crappy digs as well. I mean, I would make an offer every time Xanga screws up... but that would be a bit harsh.

Oh, and I apologize to anyone who may feel neglected by a lack of a personal mention... it's late and I'm sure to have forgotten to invite someone who ought to ditch Blogger. So by all means, even if you've been slighted by a non-mention, take this as a invitation to get out of your web-slum and into a nicer place.

Faith in Humanity

Someone really ought to ban me from interacting with the public in retail locations. Someday soon, I'm going to decide that one of these people has just lost the license to live. The parents of a family who came in today came pretty close.

We knew that we had incoming customers when we saw a toddler come... well... toddling up to the door. Caleb graciously let the toddler in and we stood amused as he charged down the center aisle while we awaited his parents and brother. Once they made it in the door, I took to talking to father (who was holding a computer) while the mother set about tracking down her children as Caleb stood aside, surveying the situation. Now note, while I have few doubts as to the status of the mother, the guy who walked into my store shouldn't, by all means, have been the father. He looked about 19 at the oldest and acted with an immaturity and social awkwardness that belies the onset of adolescence in most boys... and yet it would appear that this was his family and he was the head of it.

It became quickly apparent with the mother's frequent barking at her two young children and her simultaneous disregard for the fact that they kept getting more hyper and reckless that this woman had no control over her two sons, nor did she have any clue about this whole mothering thing... at all. As things became more apparently uncontrolled, Caleb and I had a quick whisper-conference wherein it was agreed that he would try his best to prevent the children from destroying any inventory, as it was apparent that the mother didn't really have the capacity.

I then went to talk to the man who informed me that they were evacuees from Mississippi who would be staying locally for a while. Asking him what I could do, he grinned (more about that later) and produced a "Matrix Online" box and queried, "What do I need to get so's I can play this?" I told him I'd have to plug his computer in, at which point he informed me that he was gonna have to type the password in himself and wouldn't give it to "nobody." After I informed him that we had utilities to deal with such problems and suggested (rather forcefully) that he could go keep an eye on his sons for a moment, his curiousity was piqued. Rather than going to deal with his children, he began pestering me for the application we used so that he could "play around with it" (otherwise translated, get into my wife's account... go figure.)

At about this point, mom wandered up, abandoning even the appearance of attempting to control her children. As I explained that the system would need RAM and a new video card to be brought up to spec, I noted that the computer was a bogged-down mess that was loaded up to the gills with porn. At this point , the couple decided to discuss what they could afford, so I wandered off to help Caleb with the brats. Unfortunately, I couldn't get out of earshot before I got the distinct impression that a significant amount of the relief moneys being received were about to be set aside for computer upgrades, and the wife was arguing that she ought to get her computer (left behind) replaced before the husband got more upgrades... and then there was the prospect of their ailing vehicle.

I hurried further away, eager to assauge my guilt for selling these people things that they shouldn't be buying, coming up to Caleb and helping him watch the children for a moment. As it dawned on me that I would feel better selling people things that they couldn't afford to buy than I would continuing in this babysitting fiasco, I waited for a lull in the conversation and returned to my customers post haste.

As I stood there, double-checking his system configurations and discussing his final choices, I began to play 20 questions. It came out that our husband and wife duo typically had the two brats in day care until 3 so they had plenty of time to do a bit of gaming, hence their presence in my store. They had opted to go the cheaper route on equipment at this junction so as to save money until after they had discovered how much it would cost to repair their car and perhaps buy the wife a new computer. At about this point my boss arrived back from an off-site job and began chatting up the husband while I completed the sale and talked with the wife. It was at this point that it came out that she was currently pregnant with twins. I didn't know whether to congratulate her or look up some adoption agencies and pass her the numbers.

In any event, it was at about this point that we finished the sale, gave the couple their new parts (plus a game that the husband had decided to snag) and sent them and their spawn on their merry way. It was at this point that I slipped through the back door and began shuddering at the thought of this couple continuing to breed and we discussed what we had all been thinking about: the husband and his "fresh out of the trailor" appearance. He smelled of the most foul things in nature and his breath was even worse, he looked kind of like a young, blonde Una-Bomber, and his teeth were nasty, yellow, caked in grime and housed in bleeding gums. All told, I was very glad the whole family was gone and hope that I never have to deal with any of them again.

My Friend Jason

When I lived in New York, I met and befriended a guy named Jason. Jason always wanted to be a pilot and while I was starting high school in Ohio, he started taking classes to get his private pilot's license, in addition to his normal high school stuff.

Several years later, I went off to LeTourneau... and I tried talking him into coming, but he raised the valid point that LU is expensive as crap. So, he went to Embry Riddel and got all sorts of licenses, graduating a year before I did (though, he IS a year older and all.)

Anyways, due to an incident that happened on Friday, he's getting his 15 minutes. All I can say is it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy and I'm just glad he's ok, and hopefully enjoying his bit o' limelight.

I would like to note that this is the first of my friends to ever get noted in one of my warped links. Isn't that sweet?

The Cynic Works!

So where have I gotten off to? You would think that with a computer in front of me for roughly 50 hours a week (M-F) I would be posting with a bit more regularity. But yeah, I've been busy... all kinds of busy, with my job. And really, even when I'm not busy with my job, I do have a wife who I like to see every now and again.

On the flip-side, by the middle of this week, barring a barrage of new business, life ought to be substantially calmer at the job with the advent of finishing off inventory. That ought to be replaced with the less-stressful jobs of figuring out Win2003 Server (not my choice, I would have done Linux), getting our webpage up, and fixing a couple of computers a day. Mmmm... thinking work. But yeah, stop on by some time... I have lots of free time to talk to customers. And while I can't build you the cheapest computer in existance, I work for the only store in town that will happily put Linux on any computer you want and save you the $100-some dollars of an OEM Windows install.

Life as a Professional Tech

I've been the Assistant Manager of Plug 'n Play Computers for 3 days. In those 3 days I've spent roughly 28 hours at the store, doing everything from providing quotes over the phone to glancing over resumes to repairing computers to performing inventory to engaging in interior decorating overhauls of the store. I've been having a blast working with my boss and the "Marketing Man" to help improve the store-front, develop a functional business plan, acquire a fix on where the company currently stands, and just do the plain day-to-day stuff like talk to customers, take orders and fix computers.

In the course of the last couple of days, I've seen all sorts of special things. The top of the list, as I've told some of you, is a resume that lists having a baby as employment experience for a computer tech/sales postion. Other interesting points of note are customers. Check that, pretty much every oddity that pops up in this job is the result of a customer. Today, it was the customer who was under the impression that her monitor was what she needed to bring to the shop so that we could fix her computer... and when we finally talked her out of that, she told us that she could indeed bring the grey box... but she didn't know if she could disconnect it from the monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. She also referred to the case as the "software". I was amused.

Anyways, come by and see me sometime... maybe I'll even score you a discount or something.

My Kingdom for a Job!

As many of you know, I have been unemployed since I ceased my activities as a traditional full-time student in May. Unfortunately, this period of time neatly coincides with the months that I have been married, meaning that my wife has never had any financial support from her husband... and that's been kind of sad and a little bit rough as far as money goes. As many of you have been told over the years, teaching does not pay well.

Anyways, I've been looking around for a job for quite some time now, and the market in Longview, to put it politely, sucks. I've had a couple of calls, even an interview in Mt. Pleasant (which is an hour away), but nothing by way of a seemingly-good lead, other than the local company that's been giving me the run-around for roughly 1 1/2 months.... that is, until this week.

I had heard that Plug 'n Play computers on the loop was hiring about a month ago, but when I went there, they'd already filled the position. So, it was much to my surprise that I heard over the weekend that they were hiring again... and lacking anything better to do, I went to check it out. It turns out that the manager, Brad, has had terrible luck with employees. He's had 6 of them in the space of 8 months and only once has he had 2 at the same time. Four of those 6 were just clueless and inept... not really bad employees as much as they were bad hires and incapable of doing the jobs for which they were hired. The 5th employee was capable, just lazy... more willing to invite his girlfriend to the store and sit with her rather than do work. And the 6th... yeah, he robbed the store blind. So to say that I was overqualified in comparison with my BS in Computer Science, experience in technical work, and good references by reputable people was an understatement. Fortunately, Brad wanted what I had, I wanted what he had (a job at a company that really wants to grow), and we both got along very well. Still, there was the matter of convincing the owner (his father) that it was worthwhile to pay me a bit more than the average "pimple-faced" technician. That took the rest of the week and saw the hiring of a very intelligent and capable business-man to handle the marketing side of thingsl. So, on Friday, I got the official word that I was hired, along with another LU grad so that we'll have 2 guys to do technical work and a guy to do marketing.

Usually, I'm not very excited about work... I've had some bum jobs and even the good jobs have been rife with bad co-workers or nasty customers. But this job, I'm really excited about. The challenge is more than I've faced at any other job, but I'm really anxious to prove myself, help this business get off of the ground, and help build it into a competitive brand. So yeah, if you need software, hardware or computer labor or you know someone who does, send them my way and I may even buy you lunch.

note: at the moment the web site is down (one of my first projects) or else I would give you a link. More on that on Monday, after I've worked a day.

The Great Steak-Out

To those of you who weren't fortunate enough to make it down to the Ice Cave yesterday, you missed out on good steak and fun times. I don't even remember how many people showed up, just that I cooked up 24 steaks and had roughly half a dozen left over. I could go count now... but that would involve getting up.

Anyways, I want to especially thank Paige and Paige's Mom for making the mashed potatoes on such short notice. I was especially amused that this was only their second time making instant mashed potatos, and they were very good anyways... especially good when you consider that by their accounts, the first time (made only 2 weeks ago) was a great failure. I would have tried to get Paige to make the real thing, but these were almost as good and really... mashed potatos from scratch for 20 or so people? That would just suck.

And then there was the problem of finding a grill. It has been my knowledge for several years that there are some grills floating around the Honors Apartments at LU that were set aside for the use of the students living there. So, given the option of using electric skillets or real propane grills, I set my compatriots at the Ice Cave to finding a grill. To make a long story short (and I'm sure they could tell you the long part that I wasn't there for), there are 3 such grills, and they all suck. The least sucky one was there when I arrived, and it lacked lava rocks and a flame distributor, which means when I turned it on, it shot two huge streams of fire straight up. Well, that's a lie, when I turned it on, I discovered that Uncle Doug's assessment of the lighter was correct and, as a result, I needed to find fire. For some reason, Wilson wouldn't allow me to use my tried and true method of lighting a paper towel on the range (he says it makes the Ice Cave smell bad or some such nonsense)... so I was forced to solicit a lighter from the masses... and it turns out that Paige has one (and that's probably a Bad and Dangerous Thing.) So, when I finally did get the fire under-way, I really should have taken a picture of the flame-thrower grill, but suffice to say it was utterly worthless to cook steaks on it... would have been about as effective as a blow-torch. So, because I was the cook and busy preparing, I sent Uncle Doug and Wheeler to go find lava rocks or something... and they went to bug Corey and to check the other two grills. In the end, there were no lava rocks, but Corey Ross turned out to be our hero as he let us borrow his industrial-size 3-burner grill of doom that I used to cook 15 8-ounce steaks on at once. I was pleased, because I'd been planning on cooking 24 steaks in shifts of 4 or 6... and that would have taken a while. As it was, the whole operation, plus Mollie's chicken (which was left behind at my apartment and Anna had to go fetch) finished up in just over 30 minutes of cooking and right on time for everything to start... even with 30 minutes of grill-finding delays.

It should also amuse everyone that Wheeler was late to the 5:00 scheduled start of the grill-out at his own apartment. I will cede that, for the first time in the collective memory of the SC, he had a good reason to be late: he was picking Martinez up at the airport. That said, it has been proven that Wheeler can be late to his own apartment in addition to being 10-15 minutes late to everywhere else he goes... and that's just sad.

The food was good (or so I thought... but I cooked the steak that my wife seasoned, so I'm biased on that), the conversation was great, and it was just wonderful to see everyone got back... even Wilson, in spite of his car attempting to foil his return. Leatherwood called at one point for something or another, and we all said hello to him over speaker-phone. My wife was even good enough to switch the speaker-phone off before he could start waxing eloquent about something or another. I mean, I can talk anyone to death... but Leatherwood has me beaten and then some.

All too quickly, it was over and then everyone had to go put their stuff together for the start of the school year or attend a Themelios function or some such crap. I must say that it's nice to be (mostly) moved in already and not having to move in right now... it's probably one of the few points from LU that I won't miss... other than going to Freshman Orientation Crap. Sorry about the mandatory Freshman Retreat, Tyler... but better you than me.

Virtues of Comparison

When I look at everyone's blogs, I realize that I'm not such a big slacker after all. I mean, you figure Barbour hasn't posted ALL SUMMER LONG, Gallagher has been stuck at a median rate of about two posts a month for at least a year (with a bizarre exception like 3 posts in July and a post a month for the other summer months), my wife posts irregularly at best, and Moore manages to post half a dozen times a month. Oh... and let's not forget our Guatemalan... I mean, while Wheeler only posts once every week or two, at least he's got verbosity going for him (something one usually can't say for Ardith, though her latest post proves that she can occasionally be counted upon to write at length on the more interesting points of her life.) But in the end, Wilson's really the only one of us who really puts me to shame... and well, I've never been one to compete with Wilson on dedication to scholastic pursuits... I'm just too taken with talking to people.

That said, I have a couple of posts cooking along which are attempting to make it up some time in the near future. Heck, if you pester me (unlikely), they may see the "light" of day a bit faster... come to think of it, we should probably all pester each other to be a tad more prolific and regular in our writings. And in high Cynic style... I name our first victim to be Barbour of "I can't post during the summer" fame. So when you see him/talk to him, be sure to smack him for me and make him post or something. As for me, well... I'll get to that later. Right after I nurse my little addiction for a while.

Fallout Zone

I really wish I had a digital camera right now so that I could take some pictures of our apartment and show them off. We officially moved in yesterday, but it took me until this afternoon to finally manage my computer getting set up so that I could do work and (eventually) post.

More impressive than all of this is the fact that we've moved more stuff into this place than we even owned 2 months ago. Our friends and family have been very good to us, as has God, and so we have furniture and a roof to keep the rain off of it and 4 walls to keep the Guatemalans from stealing it.

As Promised

Here is a picture of me with my beautiful bride. At least she looks good... everyone knows that even photographic geniuses like Morgan have their work cut out when dealing with my ugly mug.

Blogger on Hiatus

One will note that it's been quite some time since I've posted. So long that I'm beginning to feel like Wheeler or Moore or maybe even Gallagher.

I really don't have a lot by way of excuse other than married life, classes and World of Warcraft have come together to steal my soul. I'm also searching for a job with every spare minute I have, so we'll see what that comes to.

I ought to write down more, but I must run errands for my wife. After all, being the stay-at-home husband involves doing a bit of domestic work to earn my keep. That said, it's been a good ride... even if I feel very guilty for Anna working and me taking fun classes and playing. Ah well, I'm sure things will balance out when she gets summer break and maternity leave and all of that stuff.

Pictures Are In!

That's right! The official wedding pictures as taken and digitally cleaned up by our own Morgan Miller are in! Soon, we will post a couple of the favorites online and maybe even attempt to set up a gallery of sorts for those of you who are really interested.

The Eagle Has Landed

So, Anna and I are back in Longview after putting roughly 3300 miles on the car in our various honeymooning travels. The stuff we need is mostly in our temporary home, we have gone to dinner with Wheeler and Rachel, we have put more stuff up in storage, we have opened the wedding presents received at the actual wedding (that we hadn't had time to open before now), and life is generally good.

Tomorrow Anna has interviews with Garland ISD in Dallas, and I get to sleep in. Life shall be wonderful.

Until later... we are now in apartment 3B and we both have our cell phones with us. You should stop by or give a call (email us or IM us if you lack our cell numbers, I really don't want to post them.) Anyways... enjoy yourself as I am enjoying myself.

Hello Again

As some of you may notice, I am happily going along and retro-posting to inform the world of everything that happened on the honeymoon in North Carolina. There's still a whole lot to type up and post, but I figured it would make a pretty good record for posterity and make for entertaining reading.

As for right now, I am camped out in Cincinnati at my mom's house until we roll back down to Longview. I will catch people on IM as I am able.

The Last Day

After having such a wonderful dinner the night before, Anna and I decided that we would go and find a nice dinner to finish the day off with. First, we decided that we ought to make some half-hearted attempts at finishing off the bit of food that we'd bought for the week and hadn't yet consumed. Thus, I made a big breakfast, complete with scrambled eggs with lots of stuff in them, fried bacon and some wonderful biscuits that Anna actually made. Here we should note that Anna improvised said biscuits out of pancake mix and water... no knowledge of proportions nor any directions. They were good.

After breakfast, we ran around town taking pictures for posterity. We also stopped in at a quaint little local bookstore. It really didn't end up being the sort of place that one would want to visit very often... sort of a knick-knack shop combined with a sad attempt at a mall bookstore. It had the occasional book that you would want and a whole lot that I suppose someone wants... but it seemed to try to provide variety with a very limited quantity to a somewhat lackluster effect. Ah well, the cards were rather entertaining in any event and if it would have been a bit closer to Moore's birthday, we would have picked up this nifty card that we found for him.
Anna cooked up a wonderful assortment of left-overs in a unique spaghetti casserole for lunch. I also was treated to green beans with bacon and onions: a culinary creation of whose existence I was not aware. All in all, Anna has been doing some outstanding cooking

This afternoon we bummed around and took a nice long walk to the pier. We then paid a frikking dollar each just to walk on the local pier. It was a nice pier... but not so nice that I should be paying a dollar to walk on it. For a dollar, they should have had a midget out there doing tricks or someone there to give me a foot massage or complementary martinis (or at least cokes.) Bunch of tourist-baiting malcontents... %&%^&@#

Anyways, the weather was wonderful, the view was marvelous, and we are very happy with our stay. At this point, all that we have left is a bit of cleaning and packing... but first we shall go hunt down a meal. We keep trying to go to this little place called the Indigo Marsh Chophouse, and if that fails, we shall go revisit Skulley's.

Dinner in Wilmington

Dinner was quite the experience to say the least. The ideal plans, as we set them out, involved going to the local laundromat, doing a couple of loads of laundry, and then coming back to finish off some left-overs for dinner.

Reality was, as ever, far more interesting. Our journey began when we realized that the local laundromat closed at 6 PM. This precipitated a search all over the island which culminated in the conclusion that there was no laundromat available on the island to people who wanted to do laundry after 6 PM who didn't live in the local trailer park. And thus, we expanded our search to the nearby town of Hampstead. After searching that town in vain, we stopped in at a local gas station where a goodly clerk did some phone work for Anna to find an open laundromat. Turns out we had two options: the close option that would close about 30 minutes after we got there, and the Wilmington option.

Going back through my posts, I find myself shocked that I have failed to express my disdain for Wilmington, NC. The place appears nice when approached from the west, but one is quickly confronted by the fact that the stupid city lacks any efficient way of getting through it. Every single fricking route is plagued by narrow roads, a plethora of stop-lights, poorly-engineered intersections, too many commercial venues, and bad signage. In short, the city is a standing monument to urban and suburban sprawl in all of its nasty glory. To add insult to injury, I quote the local tour guide that this to say about local drivers, as it lists tips in dealing with local traffic:

Red-light runners. Local drivers are bad about this. To protect yourself, look twice before going on green to be sure some knucklehead isn't trying to race through on yellow.
Turn-signal phobia. For some reason, many Wilmington drivers don't seem to do with those levers on their steering columns. Keep that in mind, and keep the rest of us in mind too: Please use your turn signals when changing lanes, and especially before making left-hand turns.

Anyways, by virtue of this explanation, it should be becoming clear to you that Wilmington is death to get through, and so it was. Thus, I was reluctant (to say the least) to return there for my laundry needs... but we had no choice.

You see, as a result of a bit of poor planning on our part, we had put the wet towels in with the sheets. Thus, it was either wet sheets or laundry in Wilmington. We chose the latter, and after leaving the condo around 6 PM, we found an open laundromat around 7:30. After negotiating the stupid washing machines, I sent Anna to go find food whilst I reveled in the fact that we seemed to have found Wilmington's equivalent of South Longview. Fortunately, I owed my best friend Tim a phone call, so I passed away the time discussing the finer points of our plans to see Star Wars on opening night (yes, I know, but I can't help it... I need to see the last one, and I'm praying... nevermind, you know what we're all hoping for.) Anna was back before I knew it with a disgusted look on her face and a McDonalds' bag in her hands (Anna hates the golden arches, so I knew things had to be bad.)

"It was the easiest place to get to and this area is really ghetto" was the first thing out of her mouth. I was fine... I've never really minded McDonalds', but she continued. "There was a homeless man who walked in and tried to bum food off of people." You are now wondering why I hadn't already left this area, and believe me, I wanted to. But now my laundry was almost done washing and I wanted to dry it before I left this horrific little grotto. But anyways, it was at about this time that I noted something else that was very unusual about this laundromat: it had a ratio worse than LU. So now we have the laundromat of down-on-their-luck ghetto-dwelling men? Wonderful. Just wonderful.

Anyways, we got out of there without any real incidents... and Anna even managed to talk me out of burning the whole city down. Let this be a lesson to you: stay out of Wilmington.

Mawwiage

So yeah... I'm now married. I'll swear on my blog for the second time since the sc.org move-over... damn. It's strange being married, but a very good kind of strange. I highly recommend it to those of you considering vows of celibacy and the like.

I wouldn't have been married without a wedding, and that wedding wouldn't have happened at all without such excellent friends as we have. Anna and I would like to extend thanks to everyone who made it ("thanks times 1000"), everyone who helped out, everyone who sent wishes, and everyone who prayed for us. We felt it, and the wedding wouldn't have happened without all of that... much less have been the spectacular success that it was. My only regret is that we didn't manage to beat the rector into allowing us a receiving line to meet so many of you who couldn't stay for the reception, or couldn't stay long enough for us to make it around. ( :-( )

Bless you all for all of your prayers, support and well-wishing.

Oh yeah... and some of you have been griping about not being let in on our plans and whereabouts. We left the wedding, hit up a car wash (the one at Marshall and H.G. Mosely) which cleaned EVERYTHING off, and then we ran off to Jefferson... and here's where we'll stop being so detailed... (Anna sticks her tongue out at you... all of you)

... our tale continues the following... er... afternoon... with a hurried return to Longview to deal with some niggling details and then a return back to Jefferson. Jefferson hotel rocks... and the honeymoon suite is quite nice... ("mmm.... king-sized bed")

This morning we departed early, had breakfast in Jefferson at The Bakery (actual name) which was very good. We then drove to Atlanta, making intermittent stops for food, Drink (mmm... ;-D), and gas. We are now in Atlanta... soon to be departing for Topsail Beach in North Carolina. We'll be there for the next week... and maybe we'll find somewhere to post from. If not... well... we'll post sooner or later.

Thanks again.

-Mr. and Mrs. (edit) Cynic

Travel, Pt. 1

After a wonderful breakfast at the Jefferson Bakery (just "The Bakery" in Jefferson), we drove to Atlanta. Turns out, we probably should have at least driven to the other side of Atlanta, but thems are the breaks. We posted, we ate, we found a decent motel.

The only real interesting notes from this day are that it was a long drive, especially being as tired as we were. An important note to those of you who aren't yet married but may become so: driving a long way to your honeymoon destination may not be the best idea in the world... but it's negotiable as long as you get a good bit of sleep each night. This may be a problem for some of you who have always slept alone and haven't had a new and beautiful wife next to you. It's very hard to sleep the whole night through as your body adjusts to having another warm body nearby, and when you wake up, it's especially hard not to just play with your wife's hair and muse that you're really married, which in turn wakes her up... and as a result neither of you gets much sleep.

Almost Honeymoon

You see... when you skip town without having spent a lot of time on getting out the days previous, there are usually some niggling details. In our case, we had to deposit some checks (after photo-copying them to remember to send thank-yous), pick up a replacement blinker light (which turned out not to be broken), drop stuff off at the storage unit, and pick up some last stuff from the apartment to drop in storage. I would like to stop and thank all of the guys in my apartment for dealing with my stuff as ably as they did, and I would especially like to thank Jared for dealing with my tux along with everyone else's and his brother's. After that little foray into Longview, we darted back out to Marshall for dinner at Applebees' and then back up to Jefferson for another relaxing nights' sleep at the Jefferson Hotel.

It was quite a nice day, and a necessary break.

Wedding Bells

I really had planned not to get up until around noon and to head up to the hotel to get dressed and ready to go at that point. However, I think the stress of the day caused me to wake up in a cold sweat from some dream around 9 am, and after that point I couldn't calm my nerves enough to get back to sleep.

So it was that Gallagher and Wilson were also vaguely awake, and I conferred with them and we decided that we could join mom for breakfast at IHOP. I called and told Geoff to pass that along, and then Wilson took the traditional 30 minute shower of his, and so we revised our schedule a bit and departed at 10, which ended up being about the same as the rest of the family. I am told that at this point, Anna had been up for a bit doing pictures and whatnot... but this is where we all laugh and note that there are a couple of perks with being the groom. Oh, and I'm assuming that Martinez was asleep as we had no way of reaching him, and we know that Wheeler didn't want to get up that early... so we just dashed off and left them to their own devices.

Sunday breakfast at IHOP is insane on any Sunday. On Mothers' Day, it's even worse. Thusly, there was an interminably long queue that left us standing around outside, us being myself, Gallagher, Wilson, Tim, Jonny, Geoff, Mom, Nana and Christie. At some point, it was realized that I lacked a beard trimmer, and so Geoff went with Christie to go buy one for me while we waited. Apparently, Tim and Jonny were wandering about outside at this point and declined a ride from Geoff. Then, it started drizzling and in a mad dash of valor, the two managed to run over to the van from across the parking lot and jump in to narrowly avoid the torrential downpour that followed. It was very impressive to behold, or so I'm told.

Lest I get bogged down in trivialities, I should note that breakfast was good, and was followed by me heading to the hotel to change and the SC-ers running back to campus to confer and prepare. It should also be noted at this point that a beard as massive as mine is no trivial thing to tame and trim to size. It took roughly 45 minutes and was accompanied by much pain and wailing from the Gremlin as the Great Goat was reduced to the little goatee. A shower and shave followed and it was decided that I should be tuxed at the church rather than risk rain-spotting the tux in the dashes to and from the car.

I arrived at the church in time to meet up with the SC crew, who were just noticing Gallagher's tie dilemma. After getting us all dressed and ready to go, I was abandoned with my hair unfinished so that all of the guys could be photographed. Most of my anxiety can probably be linked to the being left alone. In their absence, I attempted several times to make calls to the hotel where I would be staying that night and was met with complete failure... and this only served to increase my anxiety. Fortunately, at this point my brothers apparently snuck out of the picture-taking extravaganza and came back to entertain me. After this, a couple of anonymous friends returned to confer with me about absconding with the car to a hidden locale, and this at least served to keep my mind off of the coming show.

Shortly after all of that, Lily came back to work on my hair, and then it was time for pictures, pictures and more pictures... followed by a brief respite of pacing. My nerves were a bit better off now that my friends were all around me, but then I decided that they should have to suffer as I had suffered, and as such, I began proclaiming aloud my intent to escape. At this point, my nerves got one last shot as I had to listen to Anna loudly speed-talk from around the corner... attempting to soothe her nerves or something and stress me out in the process. God has apparently built some sort of mechanism into men to make us want to go calm our beloved women down... and it was very aggravating to listen to Anna gibber as though a mental breakdown was imminent and not be able to do a thing about it.

Anyways, after that the show was on. We processed, we stood, we watched processing, I got to hold on to Anna, we stood... vows and stuff... more standing... blessings and sermonizing... more standing... and finally the blessed kneeling followed by taking a seat for communion. I have heard it said that all brides are radiant and all grooms are nervous... and I will definitely agree that the bride was radiant (she was also nervous) and that I was nervous (and probably not radiant.) It should be noted that Dr. Watson's sermon was very good... but my feet hurt and thus I had a hard time focusing.

After we were proclaimed husband and wife, it was out the door and around the corner to wait for more pictures, and it is here that I have my profoundest regret. Namely, we didn't have a receiving line. I missed saying hello and thank-you to a lot of wonderful friends and family because of that one fact and a lot of people had to leave before I made it to them at the reception. After Morgan got the pleasure of bossing the SC around and the dubious pleasure of dealing with my brothers, it was off to the reception for cake and food and punch. First we said our hellos to a lot of wonderful people, then we cut the cake (and we smeared it all over each others' faces), then we tossed the bouquet (to Lily) and the garter (it was originally avoided by all single men, and then picked up by Baba), and then we waited... and waited... and waited. Apparently, Gallagher sold us out to my brothers and they finally got to decorate the car that had been hidden from their sight... and they were very pleased. And then we ran off into the night... but first we had to get the car cleaned.

I highly recommend the new little gas station on the corner of H.G. Mosely and Marshall... it has a nice little car-wash that COMPLETELY removed all remnants of the decorating job and in 4 or 5 minutes flat. Don't worry, we got honked at once or twice before we made it there.

After that, it was off into the night to the Jefferson Hotel and its wonderful king-sized bed, where this account will trail off and leave the reader to his or her own imagination.

Oh... one last thing, the IHOP in Marshall (more or less just off I-20) has a 15% discount for students, 25% discount for service-men with ID, and 50% discount to uniformed cops. Just figured that any hungry college students and military folks in the area might like to know that (I don't think I know any cops... but I know some desperate Q3 guys who might pick up cop uniforms.)

Married in the Morning

The countdown eclipsed 24 hours yesterday as I was working my butt off to get things ready to go into storage and the 12 hour mark was eclipsed as I lay asleep, building up my strength. So it's now 10 AM and I'm going to be getting married in 5.5 hours. That's not much time... at all.

I'm afraid I won't be able to say hello to half as many people as I should like nor should I be able to enjoy the best party thrown on my behalf to date half as much as I should... but I want to thank all of you in advance and I am sure I will thank you all again after I am done and married.

5.5 hours... (said in a voice filled with awe and wonderment) damn.

Graduation... almost

Unlike Anna and Ardith who are totally done with their degree plans and already have their nice, shiny diplomas, I still have one more class to take before I will be officially done. Fortunately that class is Introduction to Fine Arts, as taught by Dr. Watson.

But I get ahead of myself...

The morning started out bright and early at 7:30, and I even dressed up in collared shirt, khaki slacks and a tie. I did wear sandals, but that's more or less to be expected, right? I went and fetched Anna and we walked over to Belcher with Ardith, where we got food and our caps and gowns. $75 to drag in some crusty Alaska politician for a PR stunt and to sit there and watch 200 night college students who I don't know get diplomas?!?! But I get ahead of myself again...

After getting dressed up in our regalia, Anna and I met with my dad, her mom and my grandparents to get our pictures taken. More accurately, campus was chaotic and it was all anyone could do to show up at 8:15 and get over to meet us by 8:45, but my dad, Anna's parents and my grandparents made it. That said, after the pictures were done, we ran inside, we got in the group picture, Anna figured out that her tassel was actually an engineering tassel, we got lectured at by admin, I got $5 from some alum who wanted me to donate it back to LU (they can blow me; kiss that $5 goodbye...), and we finally got ready to march outside at 9:45.

After going to last year's graduation, I knew what to expect and it was mostly more of the same. I clapped my frigging hands off for the 100+ traditional undergraduates (most of whom I knew at least by face) and got a diploma cover and a picture with Bud. Then I started out clapping in some sort of good-faith effort for the GAPS students, until my hands got tired. After that, I clapped for Terry Turner, and Ethan and Ken (who both got their MBA's.) Just an aside, MBA's take forever, because a Master's degree comes with a hood, and at LU they put the hood on each and every one of them... and it takes 20-40 seconds per hood. You do the math. I know it's nice to do all of the graduation stuff with the non-traditional students, but the traditional students have busted their butts together... shouldn't we all at least graduate together and not have to deal with LU's cheap budgetary considerations? $75 graduation fee.... grrr....

Anyways, after graduation was finished (my best friend, the best man Tim having arrived from Cincinnati at some point during graduation) we all went over to Solheim to do pictures with Anna's family and my family. Nana was there, as were my brothers and my mother, but I don't think some of Anna's siblings were. Anyways, we did more pictures, Anna and I returned our gowns, we all ran around campus a bit, and then we went over to McWhorter Park (I think) to do lunch with all of the family and friends.

Lunch was good, of the Bodacious BBQ variety. All of my family that made it down was there, Anna's parents, siblings (with families) and her Uncle Jon (my favorite trouble-maker in her family) and Aunt Carolen were there. Anna's parents organized the thing, and were even gracious enough to invite some of our poor, starving college friends. After getting food in all of us and having some revelry and discussion, we spent 20 minutes trying to organize logistics. This little personification of hell was characterized by my hard-headed middle brother in one camp, my father in another camp, my ambivalent grandparents, Anna's stressed-out mother, and a whole lot of interested bystanding parties organizing into various circles and Anna and I running around between them as each attempted to dictate some subplot of the plans. Guh...

Anyways, after lots of chaos, Anna and I managed to figure out that she should go back to campus with her Uncle and Aunt to finish cleaning and packing, Dad should go with Anna's mom to do flowers, Anna's dad should go with Kirk and Eric to drop off food and then come get tuxed, and Mom, Nana, my brothers, Tim, Christie (Geoff's girlfriend) and I should go immediately to get tuxed (meeting up with others at some point in the tuxing process.) I think everyone else went to relax in hotels, but honestly, I was so busy thinking of details directly related to wedding stuff, that I couldn't tell you. Oh yeah... and the crew went to go crash the Hoyt party at some point in there...

The tuxing process went well and virtually without a hitch on our end (though it would appear that Gallagher's tuxing from the day before had unrecognized issues, but we didn't find out about that until later.) It turns out that due to his experience in the high school orchestra and wearing a tux to every concert, my youngest brother has become an expert in the art of tuxes... or at least enough so that between his experience and my one other experience in wearing a tux at Toad's wedding, we were able to help all interested parties into their tuxes. About half-way through, Anna's brothers and father showed up along with Amanda (Eric's wife) and they tried on tuxes while Amanda joined the tux evaluation crew along with Mom, Nana and Christie as they looked over each of the guys as they came out to show off tuxes. Anyways, at this point we all finished up and ran our separate ways with Jonny driving Tim and I down to LU after dropping off Nana, Mom and Christie at the hotel. Jon got to see the denuded Ice Cave and we mostly finished off the process of depopulating the Ice Cave of stuff just in time for Jon, Carolen and I to run things up to storage while Anna finished dealing with apartment checkout with Tim's help.

It should be noted at this point that any decently full day could have ended at this point and be said to have been a very productive day, but our day had not yet begun to fight. After leaving the storage facility, I received a call from Anna informing me that she would probably be late to the wedding rehearsal (along with the best man and a couple of the bridesmaids.) Fortunately, I arrived on time and attempted to pacify all of the involved parties as people kept piling up at the rehearsal. I have to say that there are two unsung heroes of the wedding rehearsal are Christie and Dr. Mrs. Watson. Christie kept my dad out of my hair and in the business of getting the food for the rehearsal dinner, and Dr. Mrs. Watson kept all of the details smoothed out and came up with a lot of good logistical suggestions and helpful tips. Rehearsal ran long (as every rehearsal I've ever attended has) and then there was a little bit of running back and forth, but dinner was finally served around 6:50 or so (only 20 minutes late) to some very hungry people (to whom it seemed closer to an hour and 20 minutes late), myself included.

After the chaos had died down, we found ourselves looking at a couple of details for the Unity Candle left to play with and a reception room to rearrange. Oh yeah, and people to find sleeping places for, groomsmen to relocate, and a little bit of partying to do. Fortunately, all of the cleaning and preparatory nonsense didn't take too very long at the church, but it did start eating into the night-time hours. Between that and the final cleaning back at the apartment (where it was discovered that we could fortunately spend the night), the groomsmen deemed it a bit too late to do anything other than sleep, and so Tim and I made the trek to Applebees' all by ourselves, where Jonny had decided that he would meet us, sans Geoff (who probably wanted to spend time alone with Christie.)

Here, fortune played a hand, and my friend Kevin Baba rolled in from out of town to amuse us all at Applebees'. Kevin is quite the character and was very entertaining and Tim was quite amused by his antics and his wondrous story telling. Kevin is really quite the entertainer... if only he could manage to be the sort of fellow that one takes out in public with polite company, he would have a real act going. Anyways, the evening went well, drinks were had and enjoyed by all (except for my underage brother), and we had a riotous good time... even if it was a mellower sort of riotous than I think Tim might have liked. Ah well... such is life.

The evening was finished out by Jonny driving Tim back to the hotel (where he was informed that breakfast would be had at IHOP at 10 am, much to his dismay) and I drove back to LU, with Baba tailing me close enough that for a while, I was convinced I had angered some gangster or something. Anyways, I crashed at the Ice Cave, and thus ended a VERY long day.

AWOL

So yeah, the last 48 hours have been very stressful. I've had to check out, pack up, and try to coordinate everyone coming into town. And I haven't even graduated or gotten married yet, so the next 48 should bode interestingly as well.

Due to residential considerations, I will probably be out of contact save by email and MAYBE a post, if I am so lucky. Keep well until I get back online.

Check, check, check

The day started out with the graduation breakfast. This should probably be a post in and of itself, but I digress. After running myself fairly hard the night before (staying up until almost 4 am) to get things packed and ready to move out, I went to pick Anna up at her dorm at 9:50 or so to make it to breakfast by 10. The breakfast was nice with most of the stuff there provided by the faculty and staff who had come to give their best wishes to the graduating seniors. After a while of eating and kibitzing (I don't remember who Anna and I sat with, but I'm sure she does) the graduates were encouraged to get up and talk. Caleb Roepke and Matt Cadmon talked, Leatherwood talked, Becky Casselberry talked (I think), and memory blurs... oh, and Dr. Helmuth talked and closed things off. All in all, it was a very nice breakfast with some nice sentiments mixed in. It really reminded me how much I would miss this place.

After breakfast, Anna and I called her parents and went down to our apartments and loaded up everything that we had packed into their Suburban and our Camry. After all of that packing, we trekked up to the north side of town and deposited the whole lot of it in storage, got gas, and headed back to campus, picking up lunch along the way. It would be more accurate to say that I came back to campus to clean and check out and everyone else went off to run errands, but more about that later.

I got back on campus around 1, and we were supposed to have all of our stuff out of the apartment and cleaned up in time for our 3:30 - 4:30 checkout. For a while, I honestly thought we might pull it off. Turns out that Wilson actually managed to pull it off (with a great amount of help from his father) and Gallagher came pretty stinkin' close (I think he might have made it if it weren't for a couple of complications that he will surely mention.) Wheeler got to stay for the summer and came out smelling like roses... whereas I have a WHOLE lot of stuff.

In the meanwhile, Anna and her mother went to Tyler, Pounds Field to pick up my Nana (maternal grandmother who didn't want to be called Grammy Sherman in the Pennsylvania Dutch tradition.) As it turns out, her flight got delayed by 2 hours in Houston, which would have made her late for the graduation banquet and my fiancée and her mother late by proxy. So Anna and her mom (I still don't know what I'm supposed to call my mother-in-law to-be) came back to Longview, and I was left trying to find some poor schmuck to sucker into running out to Tyler to catch her plane. At that same time, I began getting phone calls, reporting that my Paternal Grandmother Cynthia and her husband (Grandpa Earl for the sake of convenience*) had just arrived in Longview. So, I ran around the apartment, called in some more banquet tickets, and begged Strang... er... Gallagher to run out to Tyler to pick Nana up when she arrived... which turned out to require him to leave no less than minutes after he agreed.

Anyways, with graduation banquet looming large, I realized that Nana couldn't make banquet and so I wouldn't need her ticket. So I begged Wilson to run and pick up only 1 ticket (instead of the two that I had called in earlier) and I would keep cleaning. Turns out that I could have used that ticket, as Dad called an hour or so later, having arrived in town after driving 12 hours from Cincinnati, instead of the usual 14 that it takes (lead foot runs in the family and the construction in Arkansas is finally done.)

So yeah... it was Grandma, Grandpa and I running to graduation banquet with Anna and her parents. We sent Dad off to his hotel for and dinner and an early turn-in (he turns into a pumpkin at 9 PM EST, which meant he was about ready for bed just as the banquet started.) An important note is that Grandma and Grandpa had never been to campus before, so it took them a bit to find the place, and Anna and I had been confused as to where the banquet would be, so that added to the fun. Anyhow, we found the grandparents and went and got seats, whereupon Anna's tardy parents arrived and we all had dinner, punctuated by some rather entertaining speeches filled with jabs at LeTourneau by people from whom I would never expect such things. All in all, it was a nice event, but probably not worth the $13 per ticket except that I got to see my friends receive honors, and that was really nice.

About 10 minutes (maybe less) into the banquet, Geoff called to inform me that he, my mother, my "little" brother Jonny (at 6 feet tall), and Geoff's girlfriend had all made it into town. So I tried to line them up something, but they just wanted to eat and crash. Anyways, the evening was ended off by seeing my grandparents off to run back to the hotel, lining up picture time for the following morning, calling all of the family to organize logistics for the next day and wish them good night, and going back to Anna's apartment to help put furniture back where it was supposed to be.

It was fortunate on the furniture front that we were assisted and largely organized by Anna's father, at least on the door front. My future father-in-law is a handy-man extraordinaire, and if anyone could help with the hellacious project of moving full-sized wooden doors out of the attic and putting them where they belong, it was Anna's dad. That bit took about 45 minutes, and the wiser heads ducked out at that point, right as the cleaning began in earnest. Shortly thereafter, Anna and crew decided things needed to be moved here and there and I ducked out a bit to do more phone calling and apartment work, returning to finish bunking beds with Ziggy and Moore's help and then heading back to my apartment for an early bedtime. Hitting the sack at midnight helped prepare me for my 7:30 am wake-up the following morning.

*footnote: He's been my grandpa all of my life, even though we're not technically related, and he's a cool old computer nerd who has taught me a lot of things and helped me fix a lot of computer problems.

Inhale, Exhale

Well, it would seem that my Dad has decided to be wonderfully helpful about my stuff in Ohio and is going to drive an empty truck down because I didn't "pull my weight" or some such nonsense. Most people have families who try to make their lives easier when a wedding goes down... mine seems to have the idea that they should try to make my life more hellacious.

Stress

It comes this way every semester, but this time it's worse. That ball in my chest and feeling of unease, as if there are a million things wrong and the worst part is that I can't remember most of them but yet I know they're there lurking behind me watching and waiting for the most inopportune moment to rear their nasty heads and send all of that hard work of mine spinning out of control and wrecking my whole life in the process. Fortunately, I'm keeping myself busy enough that the only time the monster can get into my head is right before bed and right as I wake up. It's the finals, the last bit of stuff, the wedding, the fact that I still don't have a job, and then whatever new stress can brew up. Maybe this is God reminding me that I still need Him and now more than ever... but I wish it wasn't all so unpleasant.
I could do with a few less reminders about my own insufficiency and a little bit more comfort about the future.

Debtor's Prison

A great many of you owe me money in some form or another. For those who are counting, hosting runs us about $4 every 3 months, and I get hit up in January, April, July and November. Let your conscience be your guide, but most of you SC-ers owe me roughly $16 at least. As I'm poor and about to be marrried, now would be a good time for you to pay up.

To those of you who owe me various other monies, I would love if you paid up on those as well.

Wiki Wiki Wiki

Where have I have been? Well, I must direct your attention over to Wikipedia. More specifically, I must send you over to my page so that you can see the prolific nature that I have taken on. Perhaps it's just that I love doing work that isn't required or something, but I've taken to Wikipedia like a fish to water.

chirp, chirp, chirp

Well, I keep intending to post an essay that I've been working on related to illegal immigration... but I also keep having work to do. Right now I'm embroiled in an IBM project that has already inflicted one all-nighter on me and looks like it might get me with a second (I hope not.)

This is a public service announcement... The Cynic is not dead, but you might wish he was if you run into him on the day after an all-nighter. Consider yourself warned.

If You Want It Done Right

Some of you may or may not have noticed that we've been having problems with comment spam for about the last 36 hours. It turns out that the MT plug-in we've been using to stop comment spam (MT Blacklist) can generate some SQL difficulties that you can read about here. All that to say is that we've needed to talk to tech support, and so I nominated Ardith for the job after I got Gallagher to look into the problem initially.

As of 11 or so this evening, the problem was still unresolved and worsening... and so I took matters into my own hands. At 11:35 PM I sent in a tech support request after doing a little bit of research and writing. At 11:40 I got a response indicating the problem had been solved.

Just goes to show that if I want something done right, I need to do it myself.

Perkins Reloaded

Being as that we're back in Cincinnati and Anna had never been to the Perkins of Legend, it seemed appropriate to give it a visit. My best friend Tim, a fellow veteran, was understandably reluctant to revisit the home of the worst restaurant service available in Cincinnati, but that reluctance, as always, was tempered with the anticipation of another exciting Perkins episode. Thus, it didn't take me too long to sell Tim on the idea and so we went, with Ben in tow.*
I began anticipating a good time when I arrived at Perkins and noted that the parking lot was parked 3 cars deep in some areas, as opposed to the common American practice of parking 2 deep and leaving access aisles such that there isn't a middle car that is potentially prevented from exiting. In light of this entertaining parking scheme, Tim pulled through one spot and I followed him so that I would be able to leave at the proper time. What's more, upon exiting we discovered that this mystical "third row" wasn't a row at all but rather a mechanism of parking in the access aisle unilaterally adopted by the presumably disoriented (and potentially inebriated) customers of Perkins.
Upon accomplishing the marvelous feat of parking, we set out to go in, only to pause at hearing noise emanating from the adjoining dumpster. Tim managed to mutter "dumpster diving" just in time for us to note a man climbing up onto the dumpster and sitting down upon it. Then, instead of rifling through it, he discarded several boxes into the dumpster, hopped down, and dashed into Perkins. We thought this slightly odd, commented such, and proceeded into the restaurant where, lo and behold, this same employee was standing at the front counter, handing a customer her take-out food. This level of sanitation should have discomforted me, but I was distracted at that moment by a man sticking his head in the women’s room.
Pausing to attempt to figure out what was going on, I noted a couple of "Caution: Wet Floor" signs on the floor, that the man looking through the door was wearing a Perkins shirt, and that the peeping tom and the man at the counter both appeared to be managers. Oh... and the man at the counter appeared to be agitated and, well, gay.
As we stood there waiting, Peeping Tom darted from bathroom to bathroom and into the back, at which point the counter manager paused to shout after him, "I've already dealt with it!" Noting that he wasn't being acknowledged and affecting more flagrant mannerisms by the moment, the dumpster-diver turned to a heretofore-unnoticed Perkins employee sitting in the waiting area and said, "You'd better get him out of here or me and him are gonna have to fight!"
The employee looked up from where he seemed to be trying to hide and responded, "I don't work here any more James, leave me out of this."
At this point the manager emerged from the back and James interjected, "It's all deatlt with! I've been on my hands and knees wading, through 6 inches of water for the past hour to get the water up, but it's dealt with! Get out!"
The manager turned to James and told him, "I'm just doing my job!" and then turned and retreated into the back, where James followed him after barking at the camouflaged employee. It was at this point that our waitress emerged from some side door and escorted us to our table.
After being seated, I had to know what was going on. That, combined with the apparent unprofessionalism of both the restaurant and the waitress prompted me to inquire, "What's been going on in here?"
The very question seemed to be all that the waitress needed by way of encouraging to unload the ever-increasing burden of the goings-on of the evening to somebody. "Well," she began, "this isn't even the first of it. It all started earlier this evening when a group of drunk guys brought this girl in and she decided at some point to go sit with a different group of guys. Now, they were also drunk and we could smell the alcohol from over there," she continued, pointing over to the kitchen. "There was almost a fight and the manager had to come over and break that up and we had to hurry up to get them out of here."
"What about the manager who's here now?" I prompted.
"That started a bit later," she answered, leaning over conspiratorially, "when the toilet in the employee bathroom plugged up. Water poured everywhere and there was, like, two inches of water everywhere in the kitchen and all of the bathrooms. And our manager is gay, so he was all exaggerating when the general manager came in. And now he's checking up on our manager and they hate each other so I just hope we get the general manager out of here because they're back there screamin' at each other right now."
After a bit more colorful dialogue wherein the waitress informed me that I looked like a stoner friend of hers whose hair she used to braid, she wandered off to find somewhere to hide or something. It was at this point that a group of 6 young teenaged girls, sporting a good bit of attitude, was seated at a nearby oversized booth. One of the girls was given a chair and was sitting in the aisle, which was promptly noted by James in the kitchen. He came storming out, looking very agitated and very gay, and tried to calmly tell the girls that they couldn't have a seat out in the aisle due to the fire code. I must admit, I was really hoping for an explosion, but the girls moved into the booth together with only minor grumbling.
It was at this point that my coffee arrived, complete with a suspicious layer of sludge on the outside of the carafe. I didn't ask, I don't want to know, and all I can say for the food was that it was barely tolerable, and without the company it wouldn't have even acheived that. Sadly, the rest of the evening was largely uninteresting with one exception:
Roughly 10 minutes before we were to leave, the waitress came back by our table to check on us, and inform us that she hoped her TV wasn't going to burn. Apparently she was renting-to-own a 64-inch plasma television and had spent roughly $4000 on it. For reasons that weren't explained, she was remodeling her apartment or something and the television had just been moved to James' apartment for storage earlier that evening. Apparently, James had just received a call to tell him that his apartment had just caught fire. Thus, the manager had rushed off to his apartment, leaving our waitress to hope and pray that her television wouldn't be burned. I suspect and hope it had some sort of insurance... but this was just one more oddity to top out a rather entertaining, and surprisingly well-serviced Perkins run. Come to Cincinnati with me and I'll hit Perkins with you, too.

*note: This was more of a risk than it sounds because Ben is a notorious over-tipper and supporter of the International Brotherhood of Waiters and Waitresses, no matter what a bunch of hacks they are. We've had to steal Ben's tip back from him in order that we can under-tip for execrable service on numerous occasions.

Happy Leprechaun Day

The leprechauns are BACK!!!

The Fine Art of Wench Management

Following is the outline from my speech in Col. Payton's Speech and Communication class today. If I have time and enough response, I'll rework it to an actual transcript form:

1. What Is Wench Management
1. Making the Women Around You Act Reasonably
1. Scenarios from real life
2. Why Do I Care?
1. Immortal Question: "Do I look good in this?"
2. Three Words: Irrational, Illogical, Over-Emotional
2. Could I Learn?
1. Are you a rational person?
2. Do you need to learn?
1. LeTourneau
2. Real World
3. How Is It Done?
1. My Borrowed Methodology
1. Insistence
2. Persistence
3. Consistency
4. Persistence
1. Don’t Give Up
1. Everyone has bad days
2. Keep Reinforcing Reason
1. Eventually you WILL teach her to listen to it.
3. Think Fast
5. Insistence
1. Don’t Let Irrational Thought Win
1. Thought Reform
2. Provide Incentives
1. Chocolate and Flowers
3. Women CAN be made somewhat logical
1. Social conditioning
6. Consistency
1. Keep Pusing Logic and Rationality
1. You can win by sheer force of will
2. Don't Get Sloppy
1. Unlike Canine Training
3. Keep An Escape Plan
1. Remember the ELH-2 Raid
7. What About the Wenches?
1. You Could Participate and Learn
2. I Could Hope
3. Just Have Some Chocolate

Manly Month of March

Welcome to the Manly Month of March. For more details on participation, talk to Gecko.

Happy Schmoopy Day

As a very happy man who has three months of bachelorhood remaining, I must say that today is a great day to consider all of my many blessings, especially that of my future wife. May you find yourself equally and abundantly blessed either today or in some day hence.

Because I really can't let Valentine's Day pass without posting something sappy.

Happy Massacre Day

This is my second Valentine's Day with a wench... and my last as an unmarried man. To those single people out there, I empathize and bring you a link to Wilson's list. Even if you've read it before, I encourage you to read it again... the list is very worthwhile.

And for those of you unfortunate enough to not have known me back in the day when I was a more verbal chauvinist, I bring an excerpt from the forum flame-war that more or less led to my close friendship with Anna, which in turn led to where I am now... but anyways, here you are:

Being as that the Shadow Council more or less runs itself these days, I have decided that I will be pursuing other things in addition, so that I don't get slow or dull on my rhetoric.

The idea of returning to the halcyon days of yore when men ruled the land as they should and women held their tongues has always appealed to me. Recently, I have begun to explore the feasibility of making such a change and it occurred to me that even should I control the government in an autocracy, I would need something more. Just because women are relegated to their proper state as second-class citizens doesn't mean that they won't continue to stir up dissension and create problems for my regime.

And then, as is with all problems, the solution came to me. The control of all forms of media would be my tool. Primarily, the constant barrage of the news media and entertainment would reinforce my message of truth. Feminist literature and the like would be banned and burned. As a cautionary measure, women would be forbidden to read, but this would take some time to implement. In the meanwhile the state-run media would pervade all of life. I honestly don't think it would take much to return peoples' minds to the proper frame of reference with the use of that media...

The Weekend is Coming

Here it is Wednesday evening and I am happily looking forward to the weekend for two reasons:

1) We're going to be ponding Paige for her birthday on Friday... regardless of the temperature or how many people she musters to her defense.
2) Friday is now an especially significant day of the week (warning: not family-friendly)

Controversy

As I have been personally involved in both the organization of the Independent and spreading the news of the controversy attendant to its dismantling, I feel it necessary to post on the ensuing chaos of the past 48 hours.

Up until evening on Thursday, I was of the sure opinion that Dr. Austin had indeed called the prospective editor of the Independent and had ordered it shut down. While I am admittedly guilty of not following up on information myself, I would have to say that my position as a fairly highly-placed editor within the Independent did not predispose me to going and looking for what could amount to be trouble. On Friday, a flurry of damage control came from administration, including several administrators who I respect and trust a great deal, basically saying that allegations were false. I think my friend Wilson sums the whole thing up very nicely.

All that to say, is that I am now in an interesting position of not knowing what's going on. Some have said that there is a natural tendancy to villify LU Admin... and I would respond that this is due to a natural tendancy of LU Admin to withhold and repress information and color the information that is released to the students in such a way that they are not trusted. Combine this with a couple of controversial disciplinary moves that they've made and you've got yourself a lack of trust on the part of the student body. Others will fairly assert that the administration has done very well by the students on many occasions, and I will agree to some extent or another... and I will really say that someone should have done some follow-up before I published a post like I did a couple of days ago, LeTourneau deserves at least that much benefit of the doubt.

Where does this leave me? Trying to figure out what really happened.

A Dream that Died

Some clarifications on what was to be The Independent:

The publication in question was intended to be a non-profit independent newspaper to serve as a service to the students and the community. While the authors and editorial staff would have been compensated for their time and efforts in the form of pay (rather than class credit as with school publications), the paper itself filed for non-profit status in the vein of The Dartmouth Review.

It has been suggested that perhaps faculty or the Student Senate could take up the cause of the paper. Insofar as support from the Senate or the Faculty is concerned, I would be hesitant to ask any such groups to stick their necks out on something like this. The attitude taken by Dr. Austin is such that I don't think that the University would brook any opposition in this matter. That said, I suppose I could ask a senator or two to look into it. However, especially as far as student organizations go, the express point of an independent newspaper is to be outside of the school's purview, so I really don't think it would have been a good idea. Even moreso, I feel that involving faculty would be a bad idea with the way that Dr. Austin feels about this as he is their boss and I wouldn't want to endanger their careers. In short, I guess we might talk to Senators, but this thing seems to be quite dead.

Alvin O. Austin

Bearing in mind that this is second-hand knowledge, I'm rather irritated and want to get this out there:

As some of you may or may not know, a group of students came together at the end of last semester with the idea or running an independent campus publication at LeTourneau University. The idea was to run it better than the Yellow Jacket had been run and to make a paper that the students would want to read and would be proud of.

Plans were in place to run the first edition of the paper this Friday, and people were excited. Then President Austin found out. Without going into a whole lot of details that I'm shaky on, he called up the prospective editor of the independent paper this afternoon and told him not to publish. He furthered that if the paper was published, the staff would be expelled and the paper would be sued by the school. There was no tone of compromise, no inquiry as to the purpose of an independent paper... merely the promise and threat of a scorched-earth campaign directed at the staff of such a paper in the event of noncompliance.

Right now, I'm kind of numb. I was really looking forward to this, as a chance to do some journalism outside of the constraints of the Yellow Jacket and to get pay to do fun work. I had even gotten so far as to thinking out some fun articles I wanted to write about LeTourneau and just what a good time we could have with an unfettered paper and with a real budget that the editorial staff had secured through advertising. Talk about your let-downs...

All I want to know is how someone can do something like that to a group of his own students and claim to be a man of God and to be leading a campus in the direction that God wants us to go.

My Fault

In case some of you hadn't noticed, shadowcouncil.org was down for about 12 hours earlier today... that was my fault. Rather, at least half my fault and partially the fault of the impatient people at hosting matters who charged a credit card without money in it and closed down the account within 24 hours. I will beg off on the fact that I was travelling and sleeping during the majority of that period of time.

All of that said, it's my fault that things went down...

Happy New Year

At Year's End

It would appear that I am running out of year with which to blog. That would also mean that we are nearing our 1-year anniversary at Shadowcouncil.org and that it is about time for me to post my year in review.

But as I work to do all of this compiling and whatnot, I would like to wish everyone a happy New Year and note that while the Asia quake-related death tolls are topping 120,000 there appear to be minimal to nonexistant animal fatalities. How bizarre...

Blown Back In

So after my brief stay in the windy city, I am back with Anna. I guess it's now time for us to get quasi-serious about wedding planning after almost 2 weeks of slacking bliss.

Fruits For Jesus

I'm going to hunt down the sermon mp3 from today and bring a copy back with me. My youth pastor gave the sermon today and at the very end, he was trying to make a point about love and the church body as a whole. When he prefaced his illustration with, "I told my wife this morning that I was going to do this, and she laughed at me," I knew we were in trouble.

He started out well by pulling out a bowl and saying that without an emphasis on loving one another, the church is a lot like the empty bowl... a nice bowl, but very empty and not doing anyone a lot of good. Then he paused, and pulled out a pair of apples, and likened some members to apples where it doesn't take long to get through their thin protective layer and get to know the "sweet part." So we're still good. And then he pulls out a pear, noting the slightly thicker skin and the different nature from the apple. And then a grapefruit, noting the really thick skin and the fundamentally different contents. We're starting to lose him there, but then things get really interesting. Bill pulled out two oranges, looked from one to the other almost stunned, and kind of blurted out, "and some of us are just happy, shiny people." Still kind of dazed, he tossed the oranges in the bowl with the other fruit, pulling out a banana. Staring at it, he mumbled somethign about rotting bananas and having to cut them up and stuff. Without much further production, he started referring to us collectively as the "fruits of the Church." And then, to finish off his abortive efforts, Bill noted the sniggering occurring in the youth section, realized what he'd said, and proudly announced:

"Hey, it's ok to be a fruit as long as you're being a fruit for Jesus!"

Thanks Bill.

Poisoned!

In light of the wonderful roads and snow emergency, I decided to defy the odds and the authorities and drove down to Tim's house. I arrived about half way through It's a Wonderful Life, so we finished watching that, played some cards and were generally bums until about 3 am. At this point, it was decided that we should make a Perkins run.
After digging out the end of Tim's driveway to the point that I could get the van out, Tim, his sister Christy, Danny G and I drove off into the snowy night. The roads were crappy and largely unplowed as we drove through the sleet towards Perkins. We drove by Dunkin Donuts and Christy whined loudly about our choice of Perkins over her beloved Dunkin Donuts. Driving on, we arrived at Perkins only to note that the 24-hour establishment had closed. Christy gleefully announced that we were going to Dunkin Donuts, and the rest of us lacked counterarguments in that we lacked alternatives... so I turned around and we went to Dunkin Donuts.

Here is where I made the mistake. The doughnuts were fresh, as they were being placed on the trays as we arrived. I, however, didn't see fit just to order a doughnut... so I ordered a bacon and egg croissandwich. I really should have suspected something was up when the sandwich was rubbery as if it had been microwaved, but I was hungry and I ate it without much thought. And that was that until 10 pm at Tim's house, when I awoke to an angry stomach. It wanted to get rid of the badness, and it wasn't taking no for an answer.

So there was puking badness followed by a feeling of much relief. Sadly, this resulted in a mess. The mess was cleaned and I took a shower and went home. Unfortunately, the driveway at home was covered in snow and the subdivision was in a bad way. So I parked the van in the road and climbed up the driveway to help clean the driveway of snow. It was shortly after this that I noted a fundemental truth of food poisoning: it leaves you weak. I was barely able to shovel at a rate of 1/4 that of my little brother. So after about 10 minutes of my abortive efforts, my mom came out and sent me inside. It was around this point that I realized I was feeling much sicker. So I got some pajamas on and crashed on the couch, where I remained for about 6 hours after ingesting a peptobismol. For dinner I had a piece of toast and a glass of coke, following which I went to bed.

Anna called around 7:00, and I got sick again between when she called to tell me her brother's cell number and when I called her back. That said, it was nice to hear from her... and very encouraging to know that there was someone out there who had a better day than I did.

After talking to her, I went back to bed and slept fitfully and deliriously until about 12:30. My fever-addled dreams had something to do with a cathedral or something... I don't recall except that the whole thing made very little sense even in my fitful state and I was happy to awaken at 12:30, at least until I noted that I had a terrible migraine. Hobbling upstairs, I was happy to note that Jonny was still up, and he graciously went and got some Excedrin for me. So now I'm without a headache and about to go back to bed. NO MORE POISON!!!

Snowed In

Mmm... I love snow. That said, I hate it when there's so much on the ground that you can't get anywhere. It's so beautiful... and such a pain in the butt.

The difference between the Midwest and the Northeast is that in the Northeast (and just about anywhere else that averages over 40 inches of snow in a winter) it is known that if you plow the snow when it starts and keep plowing, the roads will stay clear. In Cincinnati, nobody has that one figured out. So when there were 4 inches of snow on the road, someone realized, "Crap! Cars are getting stuck! Quick, get plowing!"

But by then, it was too late. And so the area is in a snow emergency and I don't think that we're supposed to go out in the snow unless we have a very good reason to be out on the roads. Not that I will allow such nonsense to stop me... but life could prove interesting between now and Christmas. Stupid government plow monkeys...

Bunch of Saps

Well, I would like to thank the bunch of saps whom I call my friends for responding so kindly to my post regarding engagement. I will try to keep you all posted as things roll along... but right now I'm mostly just settling in for a nice, restful Christmas.

Oh yeah, and unlike some others whom I know, I get to experience the joy that is a bustling Christmas, and I love it.

"It's About Time"

So I was faced with a conundrum... do I let her go home and hold on to this thing for a week and a half, having already asked for permission, or do I ask her the question and give her the ring.

Now, obviously the ring wasn't doing me a whole lot of good in my pocket. In fact, its large angular box was causing discomfort on a purely physical level, not to mention mental and emotional anguish that the unasked question was wreaking. Had I talked to her about marriage before? Yes. Was it almost certain that she would say yes? Oh, yeah. Would she kill me if I didn't get around to asking soon? You'd better believe it. Was I still nervous about asking her? Quite.

That said, I had even gotten the really hard part out of the way the night before when I called her father to get permission. I mangled the hell out of asking him, and really illustrated my ability to turn even the simplest of sentences into a convolusion on par with the Gordian Knot. But Anna's father was benevolent and saw it in his heart to ease my worries and give me permission to ask Anna.

So with permission to ask out of the way, here I was with this ring and this question and the awkward problem to solve. Oh yeah, and I was sitting in an airport, looking at the reality of being about 3 hours from letting her go for a week and a half... and I didn't want to do that.

I was out of cards, folks, so I improvised. It was sadly unromantic, and I regret not being able to do better with the time I was given, but I wasn't given much. So I asked her if she wanted her gift now or later. She said now, and thus she was offered the gift. She accepted and said "yes" to the question that came to her with the opening of the gift, and has thusly set my mind at ease... to at least this stage of things.

And so, we await May 8... the day of a celebration to which all of our friends are invited and which, hopefully, will be more romantic and less necessarily practical.

More details coming... stay posted. And in the meanwhile, see what my fiancée* says about the matter.

*Note the gender-correct spelling, Wilson.

Once Again At Home

So here I am, back at home in Cincinnati. I'm alive, well and all in one piece. More news coming, pending sleep and thought.

Finals Observed

I'm posting odd things I see during finals week here:

12/14/2004 1:04 AM - Gallagher practices singing along with Catholic Hymns (specifically, "Bring Flowers of the Rarest")
12/14/2004 1:09 AM - Wilson prances through the Ice Cave flapping his hands like wings and saying "I'm Jet Li! I'm Jet Li!"

*gurgle*

To the outside world:

Yes, I'm alive in here. Not particularly thriving at the moment, but I am working myself to a near-fatal state in order to pass my classes this semester.

To those in here with me:

I'm in apartment 12A, MSC1 or the computer labs. I would love it if you came to give me a hand: either in the form of fellowship or maybe C++ programming.... I'll take either or.

On a slightly sarcastic note: *

It's finals time, and that means it's time for me to drink myself into a gutter. Come one, come all to the Wednesday night binge-fest. That will be the Cynic, laying in the gutter in a slushy pool of half-frozen cheap beer, vomit and indiscernable fluid. You should join me in the gutter... I'm buying.

*I have gone to the trouble of dropping in the specific note about SARCASM because I know LU Admin probably reads this blog and you never can tell if they can take a joke. Also, some of you don't know me too well and might actually suspect that I would do something like this. I assure you, I have no intention of ever finding myself in the state enumerated above.

Finals Schedule

Monday:
7:30 – 9:30 a.m.
9:45 – 11:45 a.m.
Tuesday:
9:45 – 11:45 a.m.
Wednesday:
12:45 – 2:45 p.m.
Thursday:
9:45 – 11:45 a.m.

Craving the Warpedness

A Desperate Guatemalan in Search of "Real Ultimate Power"

So apparently my roommate was astonished that the warped link I had shared with him wasn't yet posted. As he put it, "WHY isn't it on your blog? I need it!"

Another addict joins my happy distribution chain.

So without further ado, I bring you Real Ultimate Power - the bound and printed edition. Ninjas, on paper, flipping out and killing things. Go Robert Hamburger!

License for Evil

I would like to thank Ma Hoyt for sending me a birthday card with a license to cause trouble... specifically to "Do Evil." I think everyone around here would like to join me in thanking her for such a gracious push in the right direction. I feel truly inspired to go wreak havoc.

unHappy Birthday...

I just want to thank everyone for the birthday cards and whatnot that I've received. Right now I'm a bit too busy to do much other than work. It's not that my friends haven't come together and been with me on an enjoyable day, but rather that I'm far too busy to really get much enjoyment between all of the work that's coming due.

My Wonderful Brother

If anyone was wondering if there was someone more warped than I am, they haven't met my brothers. Geoff in particular, is quite special. Below the fold is a conversation for those people who enjoy my warped links. It's got some gems in it, but it's largely quite disturbed and definitely not family-friendly or for people like Anna.

Geoff: dude
Vengeful Cynic: yo
Geoff: we all just shaved our pubes and put them in kurts toilet
Vengeful Cynic: DOG!
Vengeful Cynic: that ain't right
Geoff: minor oil slick too
Vengeful Cynic: that ain't right
Geoff: yes it is
Geoff: propose yet?
Vengeful Cynic: not yet, Geoff
Vengeful Cynic: not yet
Vengeful Cynic: I'm going to bed, dog
Vengeful Cynic: I'm tired
Geoff: ring shop yet?
Vengeful Cynic: mebbe
Geoff: let me give you something to think about while you sleep
Geoff: im dating the ropp now
Vengeful Cynic: seriously?
Geoff: yeah
Vengeful Cynic: as in, Christie?
Vengeful Cynic: as in, Christie that drove me to school?
Vengeful Cynic: not that I don't believe you
Geoff: haha
Geoff: yeah
Vengeful Cynic: I just need to hear you say this a couple of times to counteract all of the other things I've heard you say about her
Geoff: hahahaha
Geoff: i know, thats what mom said
Vengeful Cynic: dude, you're growing into a mature guy
Vengeful Cynic: at least... kinda
Geoff: haha
Vengeful Cynic: I'm almost proud
Geoff: remember how this convo started
Geoff: with the pubes thing
Vengeful Cynic: like I said "almost"
Geoff: hahaha
Vengeful Cynic: night dog
Geoff: peace

Election Day

Sadly, Hosting Matters (may they rot in hell) was down today like a hobo on a ham sandwich. Thus, instead of being able to exhort people to vote and make notations on those people too lazy to vote while people like myself had to vote absentee, I merely get to comment that even though I might not like the end results, I love Election Day and everything that comes with it.

Yes, I am a political junky, and proud of it.

3-Day Week

Day 1 of my wonderful 3-day week is down. I might have a lot of homework and other stuff to grind through, but at least it's only 3 days worth.

Fall Break!

I'm sooooo tired... I need this break like you wouldn't believe.

I'm Not a Baby-Sitter

So here I sit, in the computer lab, listening to this brat scream her little head off. I really should ask the lady to leave, but I don't see how that could do anything good for me and with my luck, I will get screamed at by her and then have a complaint filed with my boss. So instead, I blog about how much I hate children and post mean things about them:

"Never raise your hand to your children -- it leaves your midsection unprotected."
-- Robert Orben

An S*P comic just for children.

I Hate Spam

Just when I thought that the comment spam wasn't going to get any worse, I start getting offers like these:

Now granted, I am not a purveyor of links of this variety, but that is not to say that I am totally opposed to the entreprenurial efforts of such web content providers. In short, that sort of thing will sell regardless, and in such a case I cannot cast aspersions on the fact that someone will sell it because someone will buy it. However, I will not be party to such ad sales unwillingly, much less on a pro bono basis. It just isn't right, on too many levels to count.

The Eternal Treadmill

Where has the Cynic gone?

Well... first off, I've had a lot of work to do lately and it really doesn't show many signs of slowing up. When I get past the 15 hours or so of work I do each week, I have 18 hours of classes. When I get past the 18 hours of classes and the associated 30 horus of homework, I get to my time with my friends. When I have spent time with my friends, I try (with a disturbing lack of success, lately) to spend some time with Anna. And when that is done, I try to sleep.

If I had any time left over, I would blog. Sadly, between an exegesis, two programming projects, grading, a take-home test, psych journals, bible journals and two tests, I really haven't had much time to blog. Oh yeah... did I mention I was sick all weekend?

Not that I want pity... I just want to remind those readers who seem to have more time to post of what life is like for the rest of us.

Sick... Bleh

So I have a fever and life sucks and I'm feeling like crap. But at least it's friday.

Got Work?

It wouldn't be a wondrous slacker week if I still wasn't managing to put off work and effort for as long as possible and goofing off in the mean time. In short, go to The Butcher Shop on Mondays and avoid homework. But if you do go, be sure to keep an eye out for the LU-ers like Dr. Batts.

Three Long Weeks

As any good friend of the Cynic knows, I am a slacker. That's actually a fairly large part of who I am... especially when it comes to being a student. This is not to say that I don't get my work done and I don't know how to work hard... but I do have a finely-honed appreciation for relaxation.

This aforementioned slacking has given me a natural inclination to... miss class from time to time. This usually isn't a huge problem, and though it has gotten out of hand in one or two classes, this proclivity to forego class attendance has become molded into part of my general scholarly approach and I would contend that it has enabled me to cope with larger amounts of stress than the average student due to the relief that such skipping gives.

That said, every semester I set out to wait a little bit longer than the one before to skip class. Last semester I made it two whole weeks and I was determined to make it three. Making matters worse was the fact that I committed the sin of informing Anna of my inclination to do this... which quickly turned into a promise to Anna. Today was the last day of the three weeks.

I'm not sure yet how to properly celebrate... Anna keeps trying to make me promise to behave and only skip once every two weeks (blech.) I, on the other hand, might have just skipped every class tomorrow if I didn't have a test in one, little reason to skip the next and a group that is counting on me for the afternoon class.

How sad... maybe I'll skip my afternoon class anyways and try again on Wednesday.

M.O.C.K. Assault Upon The SC

Anna and I had occasion to wander back to her apartment yesterday evening to discover that Ardith's mom had sent Ardith a care package. Oddly enough, she also saw fit to send some apples and various and assorted other items to the members of the Shadow Council.

Thus, Ardith gleefully informed me that she would be taking the box over to the Ice Cave and dispensing her mother's generosity to its intended recipients and so we wandered over, myself carrying the box, Ardith carrying the enclosed letter, and Anna carrying a breath of air or something (notice how I'm the only one around here who does any work.)

So it was that the three of us wandered into the Ice Cave and rounded up the denizens so that Ardith might read to us of the great trials and tribulations endured by her mother (and dutifully recounted to inspire thanksgiving in the hearts of the Shadow Council) in order that she might retrieve the aforementioned fresh-picked apples to send to us. After reading of the hardships suffered by the maman d'Ardith, Ardith dutifully dispensed the various and sundry items which had been sent on our behalf. Oh, in case you were wondering, I was sent a box of Band-Aid's and some antibiotic cream so that I wouldn't have to go around with a sock on my finger any more. I will allow the rest of the grateful recipients to express their gratitude as well as explain their gifts in their own times and on their own respective blogs. I will just say that we are very thankful to the Hoyts and M.O.C.K. This would almost make up for an early-morning wake-up attempt or two on Ardith.

If Only You Were in My Class

Today in Introduction to Psychology we discussed male performance anxiety at the urinal. Not to mention the unspoken social rules of urinal usage and the great fear of The Trough. You know you wish you were there. Hell, some of you just wish you knew what I was talking about.

On the other hand, most of you really don't want to be in either my Networks class or my Software Engineering class. Networks is a good deal... if it weren't at 8 in the frigging morning. Software Engineering is one of those classes that's a great deal as long as you can get the professor to stop talking about his 3000 PowerPoint lecture slides that he wants to fit into one class period. Admittedly, it's hard to do... but Dr. King has so many applicable anecdotes to hear and so little of the slideshow is worth beans. I guess you'd just bring a book to read, like I do.

00:04:00.00

You just wish that you got out of any of your Tuesday/Thursday classes (or hell, any of your classes for that matter) in that kind of time. Even better, I managed to make a group presentation along with 5 other presentations in that space.

Pray for Dr. King

Yesterday I went to Software Engineering expecting my normal slacking oppurtunity and anticipating a nice nap to go along with it. Then I watched Dr. King wander into the room, looking like he had just aged 10 years since last Thursday. He proceded to tell us that his late wife's mother, who had cared for his children when his wife passed away, had died of smoke inhalation when her house burned down on Monday. So he is flying to Australia today to go to her funeral and see his children. Be praying for them, Dr. King especially.