Brain (s)Craps

A new direction

2006-08-10T06:44:00.000-07:00

So it's been five months since I posted last. I've finished my associate's degree, completed some projects at work, read a few books, got my wife a job with me, and sneezed a lot. You know, for five months having passed, not much has happened. That's just my life. I get up, go to work, come home and sleep. It's the american dream, right?

Well since the details of my life are quite inconsequential, I've decided to use this site to dump off bits of stories that are lurking around in my mind. I've had these little snippets floating around for a number of years, and I think I need to get them in print somewhere at least before the brownian motion in my mind comes to a complete stop.

Most of these will probably be little bits of fiction I've cooked up, while others may be based on true events, where the names have been changed to protect the innocent. I won't say which is which, though I'm sure it will be quite obvious.

Since I'm going in a new direction with this blog, I'm re-christening it. Keep an eye out for the first post of the all new an improved Brain (s)Craps next week.

Yoda, in the backpack,
Jes

He thrusts his fists against the post and still insists he sees the ghosts.

2006-03-21T12:52:00.000-08:00

I'm told I don't post enough.

I'm not sure people feel this way, but it seems to be an overarching theme in conversations lately. "Can we come in and have a gloat?" they say, and I say "Oh, you heartless gloater!" We're up to our ears in gloaters around here...

Anyhow...

What's been up? Well, I had my surgery on my hydrocele. Now my scrotum smiles at me. Apparently I had let it go too long and instead of being able to just drain off the excess fluid, they had to scrape the congealed gunk from around my poor testicle. For those of you reading this while eating lunch...you're welcome. Recovery time took about a week and a half longer than expected. The pain was magnificent, and barely held in check with the Vicodin the doctor prescribed. February was a fun month.

How about March though? It's been okay so far. I hit my year anniversary at my current job which is nice. I don't really get anything special for it but, since it has been a while since I had a job that didn't lay me off just before my year anniversary, the year is its own reward. There are also two opportunities for advancement that have opened up which would mean a very nice raise. I haven't heard anything back on them yet, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. The Missus is also trying to get a job here at the medical center which would be nice. Being able to take the HOV lane and sharing driving duties would make things a bit more tolerable on the commute. She like her job with UPS but she has no opportunities for full time work unless she gets a job as a driver. they do that by seniority and the list in front of her is fairly long.

I got a new laptop about two weeks ago. It's the Dell XPS v2 with all the bells and whistles. One of my regular clients purchased it for me in thanks for the many years of great service. I call it...The Machine. It is easily one of the finest pieces of hardware I've ever owned. Some people may badmouth Dell, but the people I've spoken with, with some careful prodding, can usually trace their problems back to user error. These same people have the same problems with HP, Alienware, etc. I have very few problems with any vendors, and the problems I do have are usually self created. So nyaa.

In other news, I picked up Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves recently and have been enjoying it immensely. It's definately a change of pace. I'm only about halfway through so far, but I've already started looking at the walls and doors of my house a bit differently. I highly recommend it.

Longhorns, Longhorns, Uber Alles

2006-01-05T10:07:00.000-08:00

Can I just take this opportunity to say what an incredible game that was? I thought the Orange bowl Tuesday night between Penn State and FSU was a bloody fight to the finish, but the Rose Bowl last night took the cake, injected it with nitroglycerin, and force fed it to me with a Plumber's Helper. It was like a late Christmas / early birthday present wrapped up in millions of glowing protons on my TV. Best of all? being able to put the game film on my other Christmas preset this year, my 60 gig iPod video. As Glen Quagmire would say: "Ooohhhh riiiiight!"

I hadn't really payed much attention to the whole iPod craze up until the newest iPod came out. Even then I was just like "Cool." Then my wife spring the surprise on me. She fooled me, too. She had me thinking she had bought me a new desk for Christmas. Now that I've got an iPod, I can't believe I didn't get one sooner. Well actually, I can because we don't have a lot of spare cheddar most of the time, but you know what I mean.

Hook 'Em!

Tiny Tim gets Bionic Leg! Film at 11!

2006-01-03T12:50:00.000-08:00

Ooo look! Christmas! **WHOOSH** There it goes!

Well, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to those of you I didn't get to talk to over the holidays. Nothing rushes by quite so fast as Christmas and New Years when you're dashing from house to house trying to get 'quality' time in with as many family branches as possible. It was rather interesting to see the extremes of family involvement in Christmas. One side of the family just mailed in cards to everyone else. This side of the family has no kids under sixteen, so I can see the point, sortof. Another side of the family had a huge Christmas eve party with one of those goofy White Elephant gift exchanges that's so popular around the workplace these days. Yet another branch of the family had a big Christmas morning do where all the adults stayed up all night getting everything set up for the little ones. It was quite a roller coaster.

Normally I'm all about peace, quiet, and solitude. For some reason, my tolerance level goes way up when the jolly red fat guy gets ready to make his appearance. I guess it's me getting into the Christmas spirit. It was great fun being in a big noisy house filled with family members I hadn't seen in ages, even if I did feel out of place for being the only one not wearing cowboy boots.

Family Ties

Last time I was on here, I talked about seeing my biological father again after a number of years. It went OK. Talk was rather banal catching up kind of chatter. It was his first time meeting my wife, so there was that. I saw cousins I hadn't seen in years all grown up and married with "little'uns" running around all over the place. I saw my older sister again and her youngest. Cute kid. Big sis looked like life was not being kind to her. I narrowly missed meeting my youngest sister for the first time. She's nineteen now. Every now and again I get a little wistful thinking about my sisters and how we could have made things work out despite our jacked up family arrangements. Then I wake up and realize they would probably feel the same way about me swooping in and trying to be a brother after all these years that I feel about our father trying to swoop in and be a dad after being persona non adesse.

While the atmosphere was great, it wasn't really conducive to a heart to heart talk. This is probably for the better, for now. I do have issues that need to be sorted with him, but I don't know that I'm ready to pick those deep psychological scabs and examine the pus just yet. It was suggested that a relationship with my father might be a good thing because he would more readily accept me as I am, whereas my Dad is a hard man who may never accept or approve of me. What would be better, the approval of a man who has guilt for not being there for thirty years or the disapproval of a man who has known me my whole life?

Another Holiday Rant

I've vacillated back and forth about whether to have a public rant about this, but I'm just gonna do it and damn the consequences!

People just don't appreciate what is done for them. Allow me to explain...

My wife is probably the warmest, sweetest, most selfless person I know. I'm not saying that she's a saint or anything, but whenever an opportunity to help someone arises she is always there, giving time or money or her own blood sweat and tears. Even more so when the person in need is one of her own family.

This year for Christmas, her family got her a grand total of ten bucks worth of junk. A couple of DVDs out of the Wal Mart bargain bin. Some of them got her nothing at all. It wasn't even an issue of people not having any money to buy something, it was just an 'Oops, I forgot' from most of them. After all the things she has done for them over the past year, they could at least give a thoughtful card or something if they were really hard up for cash. I know Christmas isn't supposed to be about the gifts. "It's the thought that counts" right? It would have been nice if anything she had gotten had been thoughtful. Or if the one who 'forgot' to get her anything had been a little more appreciative when she asked him to help her out with some of the proceedings that day. I know I'm being vague, but I really just wanted to get this out in the open since it's been festering in me since Christmas day.

Ho ho ho.

I second that emulsion...

2005-12-19T07:19:00.000-08:00

So Christmas is just around the corner, and this year that means seeing relatives that I haven't seen in a number of years. A week or two ago I got a call from my biological father. I haven't heard from him in about three years or so. Before that I don't think I had heard from him in about five years. It's hard to know what to think since I can count the number of times I've seen or talked to him in the past ten years on two hands and still have phalanges remaining to stick in my ears and wiggle my fingers at you while making a silly face. Partly it's my fault, sure. The phone does work both ways, and I could pick the phone up any time I wanted and give him a call. It's difficult to track him down sometimes, but not impossible. For some reason I just never get that urge.

The other side of it is that this guy didn't raise me. For most of my life he was in and out of prison for different petty stuff, or just MIA in general. My step-dad has raised me since I was about three. It leaves me a bit conflicted. I almost feel like I'm betraying the man I've thought of as my Dad for as long as I can remember. I've discussed it with my Mom a few times (she's got one o them psychofrackulator degrees), but I've never been able to acheive any sort of resolution in my own mind. I still feel uncomfortable, yet long for the kinds of familial connections that my wife has. Not that my own family isn't tight knit, but they are considerably more reserved than my wife's family. My wife is Hispanic and has a large extended family with more cousins and aunts and uncles than I could even imagine.

I also have three half-sisters, one older and two younger, all of which are from different mothers, none of which I've ever kept up with. I have nephes and neices that I've never seen. I don't dislike that side of the family, I just didn't know them well growing up, so therefore I never bonded with them. I saw them once a year for Christmas, if we lived close enough to make the trip feasible. Can relationships be built (or rebuilt) so late in life?

Can a person's character change enough over the course of a lifetime that they can again be trusted with a familial relationship? I guess I'll find out this weekend.

"Where is fancy bred, in the heart or in the head?"

Let's Bring 'Em Home

2005-12-04T16:29:00.000-08:00

Every year about this time, Ernie over at Ernie's House of Whoopass (Not always safe for work.) does a little something for our service men and women stationed far away from their families. Ernie's little project is called Let's Bring 'Em Home. Ernie asks for donations of money or even frequent flyer miles which are used to get plane tickets home for soldiers and sailors who can't afford it themselves. Like Ernie says, it's not about who you voted for or whether you belive in what we're doing or not, it's just about getting some of these folks home for the holidays. Go without a half-caf-soy-double-latte for a week and send a few bucks over to LBEH for a good cause.

WTH is a Numenorean?

2005-12-01T09:11:00.000-08:00

I guess it's been a while since I read LotR, but I con't remember who the heck these guys are. Apparently I'm one of them though.

Numenorean

To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
brought to you by Quizilla

Just Having a Ball at my Coming Gout Party

2005-12-01T06:48:00.000-08:00

Gee, has it really been since July? How time flies when your life is a headlong rush of days whose sameness causes them to melt together indistinguishably. I see that I've been attracting a large number of hits from surfboard vendors for some odd reason. Gotta love automated Spam.

So what have I been up to? Not a whole lot. I get up, eat breakfast, sit in traffic for an hour and a half, listen to people who make three times more than I do and have four times my education cry because they can't figure out how to run a Peoplesoft query or save a Word document, Spend two more hours in traffic on the way home, get to spend a precious hour or two with the one person I'm happy to see all day before she has to go to bed because of her crazy work schedule, then I get up and start all over again. Yes, life is full.

Okay, so it's not all that bad. My wife and I both enjoy our jobs and it's really kind of nice to be on a regular schedule. After working nights, graveyard shifts, weekends and holidays for so long, it's a relief for both of us to have weekends and holidays off together. Our schedules are only a little out of synch since she has to be at work at 3am.

Current Events
Wow...Where to start? I guess the most recent news would be that I'm preparing to have surgery. I have what is known as a Hydroseal on one of my...gentlemen. Okay, so I have a swollen ball. Hooray. Basically one of my testicles has swollen to about four times its normal size. Big Teke Nuts in ya Mouth indeed. According to the doctor this is a "normal" issue. Normally, most guys would be like "Hell yeah! I've got a huge package!" Belive me, though, when I say that it's not comfortable, it's painful in some circumstances and I'll be glad when its fixed. The procedure seems simple enough. They slice open the scrotum, pop out the offending testicle, drain the excess fluid, cut open the sac that surrounds the testicle, flip it inside-out, then sew everything back up. Why are you guys out there crossing your legs?

Additionally, I apparently have gout, or at least a pre-gout condition. "WTF!?" you might say. I know I said it. I don't eat rich foods or drink heavily, but nevertheless my uric acid count in my bloodwork is abnormally high. I'm also not in any joint pain and I have no swollen or painful toes. So I did a bit of research. High uric acid levels can be caused by a number of things, the end result of which after a number of years, would be gout. One of the things that can cause high uric acid levels? Obesity. Guess it's time to dust off the diet and exercise equipment. Oh well, I've been needing to lose some weight anyway.

Insert Anecdote Here
So my wife and I were discussing my upcoming surgery when she recalled an event that happened a few years back on my birthday (which is coming up January 12th for those of you who want to lavish me with gifts like big screen TVs, Chrysler 300Cs, or a lifetime supply of half-eaten Fig Newtons). Marianne went to buy me a birthday cake from Baskin-Robbins (mmmm...ice cream cake...) and decided to put something funny on the cake. When she got the cake home and took a picture of it, she noticed the wacky foreign guy at the shop had made a minor spelling error. The cake read as follows:

"Happy Birthday to the Man with the Biggest Ball in the World!"

Considering what I'm going to be having surgery for...

"That, my friends, is irony writ large."
-George Carlin

A Posta

2005-09-06T11:12:00.000-07:00

Pants.

My nipples are cold!

I shall pull my pants up high enough to keep my nipples warm!

Attica!
Attica!
Attica!
Attica!!!

Thank you.

What did you think I would say at this moment...

2005-07-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about old songs quite a bit lately. That is to say, I've been thinking about songs that were originally released more than twenty years ago. Not that these songs are old or the people that remember them are old, but...well, I think you get what I'm trying to say.

I had to dig through our old albums to find some of the songs that had been haunting me for the past few months, but it was well worth it. Am I the only person that gets a little nostalgic when I hear the sound of a needle hitting vinyl on an old record player? Sure, the sound quality of your average CD totally blows vinyl away, but for me there's nothing that takes me away like the old snap-crackle-hiss of an old record on the turntable. Or Calgon. Calgon takes me away too, but that's another story.

Anyway, so I've been hearing these snippets of songs in my head for months now. It would start off with Kansas ("Dust in the Wind" and "Carry on my Wayward Son"), meandered through some of the Beatles White Album ("While my Guitar Gently Weeps" ran through my head almost constantly for a solid week interspersed with "Rocky Raccoon" and "Obla-Di Obla-Da"), and finally wound up with Erasure and The Cure battling for supremacy in some kind of weird auditory wrestling match. After finally locating the albums and giving them a listen, I felt so much better...

Appreciation

2005-07-05T18:23:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of political talk going on in the blogosphere these days. My good friends Chad and Greg have finally succumbed and made major political posts on their blogs. I can't fault them for it. These are important issues, and the outcomes will shape the futures of our children, our children's children, and our children's children's children. Most people are too self centered to see past their own comfy existence to realize that their actions have consequences not only for them, but for those they care about. Anyhow, I'm getting off topic. You can probably look at my previous post and make assumptions on where i stand on most things. As I have said previously, I don't intend for this to be a political blog. There are other people far more eloquent than I expounding on those subjects. I'll try to stick to other mundane details.

In Rememberance of Those who are Still Here
Today was a rather arresting day. As I sat slaving away at explaining the finer workings of electronic machines to people that are supposed to be diagnosing and treating human beings, I received a frantic phone call from my wife's sister, Christina. It went something like this:

"Hello?" (perturbed that she was calling me at all, much less at work.)
"Have you heard from Marianne (my wife) or Max (their youngest brother)? I just got a voicemail from Max and he said something about he got hit by a car and they were going to try to go somewhere. He didn't sound very good on the message."
"Oh crap. No, I haven't heard anything. Have you talked to your sister?"
"No, I didn't know what to do. Does he have one of your cell phones?"
"No, and since he and his girlfriend just broke up he had to give back the one she gave him."
"I don't know what to do..."
"Call the hospital and see if they've been admitted yet and I'll try to call Marianne and see if she's heard from him."

It's not verbatim, but it's pretty darn close. I spent the next 35 or 40 minutes trying to contact my wife with no luck. All of the lines at her workplace were busy the entire time. Tension was mounting. I also called the hospital myself but no one had been admitted by that name. As the minutes ticked away, I became more and more desperate. I tried to call back my sister-in-law several times with no luck. Finally, at 3:02pm I got through the busy phones at my wife's workplace.

"Hello?" My wife's voice was flat and strangely emotionless. Not good. I decided to try a tactful approach.
"Hey. Have you talked to Max or your sister?"
"Yes." Again, flat and strange. My stomach began limbering up for floor exercises.
"Is he okay? Did he get hurt?"
"He's dead!" Not flat any more. My stomach did a free fall, my vision greyed out for a moment.

Max wax only 17. He couldn't be dead. We had just been hanging out the night before. When we had left for work this morning, he was passed out on our couch, sleeping on one of my pillows, covered in one of our blankets. We had sat around last night eating fajitas, shooting off fireworks, and ended the night watching Princess Bride for the eighty trillionth time. This good natured kid that I had mentored since he was ten could not be dead. This kind and gentle boy who had at the tender age of twelve offered to buy me a truck if I would marry his sister because he liked how she was always happy and smiling with me could not have been taken away like this. I felt cold.

"WHAT!?!" My co-workers jumped and stared at me. I think they did, anyway. It felt like people were staring at me. "No, baby, no!"
My wife was sobbing now. "Everyone is up here crying. If I ever find that old man, I'm gonna kill him!" The rest degenerated into incomprehensible utterances behind the tears.
"I'm coming home baby, I'll be there as soon as I can."

She cried some more and I tried to comfort her enough that I could get off the phone and get started on the way home. It was an hour drive with no traffic, and I was going to have a hard time keeping it together long enough to make it all the way back without wrecking myself. Something in my voice must have been getting hysterical, because my wife stopped crying.

"Baby, just calm down. Calm down!"
"I can't be calm - I don't know how you can tell me to be calm when...when Max is..."

It must have clicked to her then what was going on.

"No, baby, it's not Max, it was his DOG, Fry!"

I don't want to sound cruel or anything, but I've never been so relieved that a dog died. Fry was a good and handsome puppy, and he will be missed, but at that moment I was too busy accordioning back into my office chair with my heart racing a mile a minute.

Much later, after I was home and had given Max the first hug I had ever given him in seven years, we had an opportunity to listen to the infamous voice mail that started it all.

Max clearly said "Fry got hit by a car..."

Talk about a wake up call to teach you to appreciate the people around you.

Atonal

2005-06-24T12:26:00.000-07:00

When I first started this blog, I told myself I would stay away from political content. There's a billion other bloggers out there spouting off their opinions about political happenings for which they themselves do not have enough information on which to make a decision. This doesn't stop them, though.

Anyway, saw this little number on another blogger's page and decided to check it out. The data that it pulls from is a series of 25 questions concerning political issues of the day. The thing I love about this little questionnaire is that there are only two answers for each question. Yeah, because life is all about picking the option with which you disagree less. And people wonder why my blood pressure is so high.

Anyway, here's my score:

Your Political Profile

Overall: 90% Conservative, 10% Liberal

Social Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Ethics: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

How Liberal / Conservative Are You?

Massive Blog Movement

2005-06-23T14:43:00.000-07:00

My Sincerest Apple Loeggies
Well, the spring break story ended up longer than even i thought it was going to be. I probably should have broken it up into smaller chapters over the course of a whole week, but once I got rolling on it, I couldn't make myself stop. In the future, when I have stories I know may be long, I'll break them up to make it easier to read for those who don't have time to sit down and read a novel. Sorry Greg.

Organic Insanity
Okay, this is something I've needed to say for a long time now. You health food freaks and environmentalist wackos listen up!

EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE IS ORGANIC!!!!1!11!!oneone!!!

Phew. Okay. Now let me explain. No, it will take too long. Let me summarize.

You car is made of organic materials. The composite plastics and fiberglass in your quarter panels? Those are organic. Plastics are a petroleum product, and as we all know, petroleum comes from decayed organic matter compressed and heated over millions of years. It's organic. I don't care that it's been processed and refined and did two socow's and a triple lutz while wearing a blindfold.

Highly processed insecticides are still organic. They are complex chemical compounds to be sure, and no, I'm not about to go drink a gallon of DDT to prove it's organic. All chemicals come from the Earth in some way shape or form. You might argue that there are 'man-made' chemicals, but what are those chemicals made from? Other chemicals that came from something naturally occuring somewhere down the line.

Organic dirt. Do I really need to elaborate on why I have a problem with this? Do I need to explain why it drives me completely insane when I'm at the gardening store, and two bags of dirt are sitting next to each other, one is $20 more than the other. The only difference is, the expensive one has the word "Organic" in the product name. HELLO!! IT'S DIRT!

I need a drink.

-J

The Great Spring Break Odyssey II

2005-06-21T18:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay between updates. Every time I would sit down and get halfway through the second half of this story, something would happen that would cause me to lose the entire post. Be it a blackout across eight counties or me accidentally kicking the power plug out of my PC or going to use the spell-check feature on Blogspot and having it wipe out everything I had written. It’s been fun. No, really. Once again, the following is the continuation of a story of what two crazy kids got up to on spring break. If you have sensitive sensibilities, please do not read this entry. Some content may be offensive to people. You Have Been Warned.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

Detour
And so it came to pass that we were headed back towards Houston with our $50 still intact, a full tank of gas and a borrowed surfboard. We were booking along in the fast lane enjoying a brisk spring morning when a roadblock loomed in our path. This roadblock took the shape of a large red Ford Dually doing exactly the speed limit in the fast lane.

Now, before I continue my story, I feel I need to make a few things clear. Our families instilled in us a great respect for law enforcement as well as all people. Oscar and I were both pretty straight arrows and would never knowingly disrespect a police officer. Well, try to remember that I was only 17 and Oscar was only 16. As for what my parents taught me about respecting people and obeying the law? The best laid plans of mice and men…

We rode along behind this big red truck for a time, and he neither slowed down nor sped up, but instead matched exactly the vehicles next to us so that we could not easily go around him. After several more minutes of being stuck behind this guy, we were getting impatient. I suddenly looked to my left. Why, here was a jewel beyond compare! A nice wide breakdown lane without a breakdown in sight! I zipped over, slammed the gas pedal down and rode my way to glory and a clear lane ahead of us.

Once we had settled into our new groove, we figured on making good time. Then I looked in my rearview mirror. Mr. Dually had apparently figured out that his gas pedal could be used to make his truck go faster. Not only that, but he was also flashing his lights and honking his horn.

History often boils the genesis of great world changing events down to a single moment in time: The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the invention of New Coke, Sting losing his last name in the couch cushions… Some moments are longer than others, but they are all referred to as great turning points in history, as if the great inertia of history rested upon a fulcrum which if shifted ever so slightly would bring the whole thing crashing down around our ears like a failed Evel Kneivel stunt.

This was one such moment.

I used an ancient hand signal to let the driver of the big red truck that he was number one in my book. Apparently, this excited him even more for some reason. He roared up next to us and rolled his window down, shouting for us to pull over, his face beet red, spittle flying from his lips and, lo and behold, a deputy’s badge in his hand. My stomach performed a complex gymnastic floor routine but failed to stick the landing.

Once we were pulled over into the very same breakdown lane which got me into trouble in the first place, the deputy began to berate me in ways which I find difficult to recall at this time. Honestly, I was far too interested in his apparent lack of dental hygiene and the stench of snuff washing over me as he asked if I still wanted to copulate with him. I pegged him as a Copenhagen man, but as I am no Snuff aficionado I may be mistaken. I have had moments where I was in conversation with people dipping Kodiak, and the sensations of standing on the side of the freeway just north of Galveston while an irate Sheriff’s deputy screams incoherently three inches from my face come flooding back over me. I don’t know if they sold Kodiak in southeast Texas back in the spring of 1990, but I wouldn’t be surprised. He also had small quantities of dip stuck in between his teeth. I guess he got tired of being Mr. Shouty and he proceeded to start searching the innards of the Royal Knight.

Around this time, an on duty deputy in a patrol car happened by. I guess Deputy Kodiak knew the guy, because he went over and they chatted for a bit.

Meanwhile, Oscar and I were thanking our lucky stars. The night before, we had had a couple beers. For Oscar this was significant because the first one we had was, according to him, his first beer. He polished it off with relish, got a marker and signed and dated it, and vowed to take it home as a trophy. Due to an early start, he forgot his beer can, thus saving us the trouble of being charged with Minor In Possession as well as Open Container. As it was, Deputy Kodiak came back and wrote me a ticket for three separate offenses and sent us on our way with a stern admonishment to obey all traffic laws.

The rest of the morning was passed in relative silence. We obeyed the speed limit, maintained lanes, and generally drove as if a cruiser was behind us the whole time. As with many young minds, though, we soon began to look forward to the road ahead rather than dwell on the past.

Gas Man? How do they know I got gas?
The miles unrolled under the wheels of the Royal Knight like an endless Fruit Rollup. We headbanged to Metallica and Guns N Roses, kicked back with The Cure and Erasure, jammed out to Led Zepplin, and yes, we even listened to Enigma a few more times. Time passed, the miles flew by and the gas gauge crept towards the big E. At about ¼ of a tank, we started looking for a Mobil station. Since this was long before the days of the Exxon Mobil Merger, only a Mobil station would do.

We finally located one along the main street running through some tiny town with no name. We got lucky once again because had we been a few minutes later, the station would have been closed. It was almost five o’clock, and we had just made it under the wire. Gassed up and on the road again, we were close to our goal. We could smell victory in the air.

It was dark by the time we rolled into South Padre Island proper. We coasted over the tall bridge on fumes, practically. We weren’t worried though, since we knew Mobil was a big company and they were bound to have a gas station somewhere near a place as hot as SPI.

Our first night was spent in a bar called Charlie’s. The place was packed and, considering the near acre of space that was outdoors, that was saying something. We hung out and BSed with other people all night. Oscar at the forefront of every introduction, myself hanging back a bit. This was a pattern that repeated itself all through our lives. Oscar was a loud, boisterous guy who loved to meet people and had no problem just walking into a group of people and jumping right in on their conversation. Somehow, through his charm and devil-may-care attitude, people always took an instant liking to Oscar.

Upon our arrival, there was a girl passing out Camel cigarette paraphernalia. Oscar scored himself a goofy pink and neon yellow bicycle cap. He was stoked about winning it and vowed to never take it off.

The bar finally closed down, and we had to find a place to crash for the night. With no money for a hotel, we found a parking spot next to the beach and flipped a coin to see who would sleep in the back with the surfboard. Oscar won.

The next morning, we cruised around looking for gas. With slowly dawning horror, we realized that there were no Mobil stations within miles of South Padre. We were screwed.

Louie’s Back Yard
I had never been a real big believer in ESP or the ability to foretell the future or other such beliefs, but what happened the next day really opened my eyes to the endless possibilities that exist in the universe.

We were up early, it being difficult to sleep for long parked on the side of a busy street. After the dawning disappointment of the gas situation, we hit the RV park for showers. This was yet another fortuitous happenstance that allowed us to stay fresh and clean with no place to stay.

That first night at Charlie’s, we ran into a couple guys from Oklahoma. Dale and Scott. Dale and Scott were almost a mirror image of myself and Oscar. Dale was loud, boisterous and gregarious. Scott was a quiet guy along for the ride. It had been Dale’s birthday the day before, and he made sure we got to celebrate with him. Prairie Fires were the drink of the night with beers interspersed. It was Dale who told us about the RV park, and sure enough we ran into the pair getting washed up themselves. We asked them what they were doing. The answer?

Wet T-shirt contest at Louie’s Back Yard.

Louie’s was an outdoor bar, very similar to Charlie’s except for the beach sand that served as the floor. A series of stairs led up to a stage area as well as what looked to be an office area. It was here that the terrible event would take place.

I’ll leave the naughty bits to your imaginations. It was an enjoyable way to spend an hour as a 17 year old, truly. There were several rounds to the competition, with the young ladies involved making their daddies proud. Eventually there were only three girls left. They came out for one final round.

At this point, everything becomes hazy and difficult to remember. I hadn’t been drinking, because we had no money to buy drinks. What I recall is something like a mass Nostradamian hallucination. There we were, probably five hundred guys crowded around the bottom of the stairs, looking up and seeing…seeing…seeing ten and fourteen years into the future. It was the only way I can explain the chanting: “BUSH WILL WIN! BUSH WILL WIN!”

Well, we all know how things turned out in the end.

Border Patrol
We hit the beach for the rest of the day, Oscar and I taking turns on the surfboard, both trying to stay upright, neither of us doing a particularly good job, but having a good time. We got cleaned up again, ran into Dale and Scott again at Charlie’s and started the whole mess over again. Because we showed up so early, we kept getting into Charlie’s for free. It was a good thing too, because we needed the money for gas big time.

Over the course of the night, we learned Dale and Scott they were going over the border to check out Matamoras the next day. We partied that night, got the drinks flowing, etc. Oscar was still wearing the day glow neon bicycle hat. We met some marines that night, getting ready to ship out to the Persian Gulf. Oscar, being gung ho to join the marines himself, had us hanging out with them all night. It was a pretty cool experience. We learned all about different infantry MOs. We agreed later that our favorite was the Dragon Gunner. Basically, the Dragon is a large anti-armor machine gun. That’s all I really remember about it now, but we thought it was nifty at the time. It was probably that night hanging out with those marines that made me want to join up later, but that’s another story.

The next morning, we loaded up into Dale’s Ford Probe (no jokes, please) and headed for the border. We walked around and looked at the shops and ended up buying some of those rough knit hoodies that you see for sale all over those border towns. After spending that money, we only had ten bucks left to get enough gas to take us some 250 miles back to the one tiny Mobil gas station we had found on the way down. We stopped at a fairly swank looking Mexican restaurant where Oscar and I had tea and crackers as we sat and watched Dale and Scott scarf down some tacos or something. The crackers weren’t bad.

With most of the day shot, there wasn’t much to do as we headed back across the border except hit the beach and try to surf again. After wearing ourselves out on the sub-par waves, we showered and changed again and got ready for our final night at Charlie’s.

Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute
We had been hanging around South Padre without much to eat for a couple of days at this point. I’d like to point out that we did bring a little food but since we were expecting to be able to raid a gas station convenience store whenever we needed food, it didn’t last us long. Two growing football players needed a lot of calories to keep going. I was worn out around midnight, and headed back to the car to nap while I waited for Oscar.

A word about the surfboard.

The surfboard had been kind of a pain for us, since it was a fairly good sized one. It was slightly longer than the cab of the El Camino which meant that while we left the car anywhere, we had to jam the surfboard crossways into the cab of the car. It worked well enough for what we needed, and at night, one of us got to cuddle in the back with it. It wasn’t safe to just leave it in the back unattended, because you could turn your back for a few minutes and BAM it would be gone. This meant always being paranoid about where the board was. After all, it was borrowed.

So anyway, I’m sitting in the car, wishing I hadn’t had tea in Matamoras, since everyone knows you’re not supposed to drink the water. Additionally, I’m sandwiched into the front with the surf board, meaning there’s very little space to move. A few hours go by and the club starts to empty out. Oscar shows up, says he’s going to move the car and then help Dale take some girls home that they met. This alone should have been cause for alarm. After we moved the car to our normal sleeping place, I find out Scott is not going with them, and he climbs into the passenger side and passes out. Oscar and Dale promise they’ll be RIGHT BACK.

Naturally, about three hours later, they haven’t returned. Scott decides he’s going to go look for them, since they told us which hotel the girls were staying at.

Did I mention the board was in the back of the truck, all by its lonesome? An undetermined time later, I hear a commotion in the back. I figure it’s Oscar finally getting back and crashing in the back. I’m half asleep so I don’t think anything of it for a few minutes. Then I think “Hey, wouldn’t he have said something before crashing out?” And of cource the next thing I think is “Oh the surfboard.”

I threw myself from the car and looked hopefully into the bed of the El Camino. Alas, the board was gone. I glanced hurriedly around and off in the distance, I saw two figures running off into the night, carrying a surf board. I leapt into the car and gave chase, hoping I could catch them and get the board back somehow. They heard the car coming and ducked into some town homes, where I eventually lost them. Alone, beaten and nearly penniless, I headed back to the parking spot, hoping to find that at least my bro was back. No such luck. I parked, climbed into the truck bed and called it a morning.

A few hours later, Scott came back. No sign of Oscar, Dale or the Probe. We were both pretty bummed out. Scott said there was a parking garage that he couldn’t get into, so the car might have been there. We headed to the RV park for another shower and to wait for our friends.

Who finally showed up around 11:30am. Oscar had lost his hat somewhere, but he had a big feces-consuming grin on his face that I knew all too well. Lil Oskie had scored. What a bastard.

The story that unfolded was indeed one for the ages. After I left to pass out in the car, the guys were approached (more likely they did the approaching, but who am I to steal their thunder) by two college cuties who had a hotel room. It turns out these girls were looking for a good time, and Oscar and Dale were more than happy to oblige. They just had to dump those other two guys to pull it off. Thusly unburdened of the Quiet People, our intrepid heroes ‘escorted’ the ladies back to their hotel, where they partook of the hotel hot tub. Oh yes, Oscar assured me that the hot tub was indeed very hot and felt good on his poor stiff back which had endured much anguish from our poor sleeping quarters. He also assured me he felt bad about leaving me out there once he found out these girls had plenty of extra room in their hotel room which they were sharing with several other friends, but this in no way compelled him to come wake me from my slumber and let me know that a padded carpet awaited me just a mile up the road. Instead, he and Dale erected walls of sheets hanging from the ceiling, and proceeded to assist these young ladies in testing the mattresses for durability.

Somewhere between that, sleeping in an actual bed with an armful of warm girl, waking up and taking a nice hot shower (the showers at the RV park were lukewarm at best) and having breakfast with the girls, he had completely forgotten about…his Camel bicycle hat. Oh yeah, and me.

I let him know he was still number one in my book.

We loaded up, took our leave of Dale and Scott, found the cheapest gas station we could find (93 cents back then), and dropped our last seven dollars into the gas tank. We had miles to roll off.

Epilogue
The rest of the trip wasn’t bad. I gave him hell for a while about ditching me, but it was all in good fun. I had still had a pretty good time, and one night stands were never my bag anyway. I was glad that he had had fun his way. I still would have liked to sleep somewhere without a rubber mat on the floor, or tried that hot tub out, or not lost the surfboard…

Chris was surprisingly low key about the loss of the board. It was damaged anyway (it had a chunk out near the nose), and although I could tell he was kinda ticked off about it, he said to forget about it and sounded sincere. He may still be sore about it, I don’t know. We never really talk, and to be honest, we never got along well in the first place. He used to torment me pretty bad when we were little kids, but that’s for the therapist to hear. He lives in California and still surfs to this day as far as I know.

The tickets for my little escapade when we were leaving Galveston? Yeah, somehow that never got filed. I don't know if the officer decided to take it easy on me or if he just forgot to file the paperwork in time. Needless to say, when I went to the DMV some time later to check on an unrelated matter, they never showed that the tickets had been in the system.

We rolled back into the same Mobil gas station we had hit three days earlier and loaded up on gas, sodas, chips and ice. We lived like kings all the way back to Houston. At least it felt like we did.

Once back in Houston, we met up with my Dad again, got one last full tank of gas and some snacks, and relinquished the card. After that, there was nothing left to do but head back to Dallas. We hit the freeway doing 65 (speeding back in those days), put on our sunglasses, rolled down the windows and cranked up the radio.

Sadness, Part I was playing again.

Damn radio.

-J

Knock, knock, knockin on heaven's door...

2005-06-14T06:44:00.000-07:00

On a lighter note...
I was having a conversation with a friend at work yesterday and tangentially an old friend of mine came up. This old friend was a sheriff’s deputy in Harris county and, as I started thinking about it, it's been almost five years since he passed away. He was injured on June 21, 2000 and died of complications arising from his injuries on July 22, 2000. Oscar was one hell of a guy, and I had known him since high school. He was a year behind me and we played football together. Oscar was the guy that got me into martial arts originally, introducing me to my first sensei and one of the best teachers overall I have ever known.

Anyway, enough of the maudlin stuff, the reason I bring Oscar up is not to mourn, but to celebrate some of the crazy crap we did as kids. Hereafter follows the story of the Great Spring Break Adventure of '90. Those with bad hearts or sensitive sensitivities may do well to skip this blog entry.

It has begun...
Spring Break and we're both so broke it wasn't even funny. We pooled our resources, rolled our change, and did some odd jobs. In the end, we had a whopping $56 between us. We were determined to do something cool for break this year. At the time, my Dad had just started up his construction business in Houston, remodeling repossessed homes for a bank at the time. My Mom and I were still living in DeSoto, a little town south of Dallas where Oscar and I went to school. I had a cousin, Chris, who was going to school at A&M Galveston. He was (and still is actually) a surfer, and we thought it would be cool to trek down to Galveston and hang out down there on the beach and maybe catch some waves.

Now, lest anyone in the peanut gallery pipe up and point out that Galveston is not the best place in the world to surf, I'd like to remind you all: $56. For a week. So we fueled up my 1982 El Camino, a royal blue number with a cool graphic on the hood and tailgate that said "Royal Knight," raided the kitchen of my house for sustenance on our journey, and took off for a short little jaunt from Dallas to Galveston.

Detour
We got a bit of a late start, not to mention that driving to Enigma's 'Sadness, Part 1' doesn't engender pushing the top end of the speed limit. The song had just hit the airwaves and was playing every five minutes it seemed. We arrived in Houston looking for a place to stay. I stopped at a gas station and called my Dad. My aunt and uncle could fix us up a place to stay. We made our way out to Sugarland and bunked down for the night.

On a side note, Oscar had terrible sinuses. This caused him to snore incredibly loud. This wasn't usually a big deal, and a good kick was enough to get him to roll over long enough for me to get to sleep. Not this time. My Aunt and Uncle didn't have a spare bed for us, so what we ended up with was a couple of old Army cots in the spare room. I began to doze off and was instantly awakened by some of the worst snoring ever issued from a human being. I reached out with my foot and kicked Oscar's cot, waking him up. I began to doze again, and sure enough, here comes the chainsaw. I kicked his cot again. "Cut it out, man." He grumbled a bit and subsided. I tried to get to sleep again. Again, as I began to drowse off, Oscar started snoring. Again I kicked his cot. This went on for probably an hour, until finally, Oscar sits bolt upright and utters a string of expletives at me that caused the paint in the room to peel.

"Dude," I emoted, "Just roll on your side for a little bit."

The aforementioned dude instructed me to attempt something quite physically impossible. He then flopped down on his cot again, which promptly collapsed under him. It was a rough night.

The March to the Sea
We awoke the next morning, neither of us very well rested. At some point during the night, Oscar had taken his cot into another empty room in the apartment. I suppose we both enjoyed a measure of peace from that move. We were still bone tired though.

My Aunt and Uncle had both already left for the day, so I called my Dad and we met him for lunch. Everything was supposed to be arranged down in Galveston for us. We had directions to my cousin's house and lo and behold, the old man parted with his Mobil gas card to help us on our trek. Revitalized by this turn of events, we headed down to Galveston.

Upon our arrival, the house seemed abandoned. We knocked several times with no response. We decided to go hang out on the beach for a bit, but after a while rain threatened, so we headed back to the house. Still no one answered. After relaxing in a hot car for several hours, calling the house and knocking every once in a while, we saw someone drive up and enter. I didn't recognize the guy, but we went and knocked again anyway. I was prepared for the house to be a portal to some alternate dimension, or a teleporter to the alien mothership, and the lack of answer was due to there being nothing on the other side but the madness of Cthulu. Fortunately, the guy we had just seen opened the door and after identifying ourselves, our quest and our favorite color, he allowed us entry to wait for my cousin.

It turns out Chris was just coming off his spring break, and had been in Colorado, skiing. So we waited patiently in the living room. Oscar made himself at home and started going through the house CD collection. CD's were still fairly new and we actually thought it was cool that the guys had a collection. We were watching TV and listening to CDs.

At some point I dozed off. And was awakened by someone screaming at full volume a single word:
"F**********************K!!!!
F**********************K!!!!
F**********************K!!!"

Oscar had passed out listening to a group popularly referred to as RevCo. The Revolting Cocks (On a side note, RevCo also had members in common with Ministry and Nine Inch Nails). The Title of the song that woke me was indeed what you think it was. I rolled off the couch and killed the power on the stereo.

At some point, my cousin finally arrived, fresh off the plane from Colorado and in no mood to put up with our shenanigans.

I swear to God I'll pistol whip the next man who says 'shenanigans!'
Hey, Farva, what's that one restaurant you like with all the goofy stuff on the walls?
Shenanigans? You're talking about Shenanigan’s right?
Oooo! (offers the Captain a pistol).

But I digress. So Chris was pretty beat, and he had school and work all week, so he wouldn't be able to do much with us. We managed to hit the beach again the next day, but the surf was pretty minimal, and neither one of us managed to get up on one of the surfboards Chris loaned us. As we sat around later that day, we started talking about where to go for better surf. Along the Gulf Coast, the further south you go the better the surf gets. I had family in Corpus Christi, but that was a heck of a drive. If we were going to drive that far, why not just go all the way?

Why not go to South Padre Island?

To Be Continued...

-J

Is it catchy? No.

2005-06-10T06:33:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I had a nice long post ready to go that I had worked on in my free time over the course of the day. I wanted to save it as a draft so I could add some more and post it when I got home from work. Since I had just left the window open all day, the session had expired and it rolled over to the login screen without saving the post...Nice. So I'll come in again...

The origins of WIF?
It's been a long time and, as things have a habit of doing, details have faded, been misunderremembered or embellished. You Have Been Warned.

Back in the time when Wandermike was still just Howdy Doody, but in the days after the Great Hashbrown Fable, Chad did take up residence in my living room. Mike came down to the Big C to visit before he began his meanderings. This was about the same time that the Sci-Fi Channel first aired their Dune mini-series. Well, with the three of us being big fans of the books and the original movie, we all paused in our festivities to view some of it. In the show, some of the characters had a little salute/gesture they did that looked like a little kid throwing an egg into the air to see if it will fly, then looking disappointed when the egg fell and splattered everywhere. They had a little saying that went with it as well, I think, but that is lost in the sands of time. Naturally, we had to add our own little sayings, theone which stuck was saying 'Will it fly?' with a goofy accent full of hope, pause for a moment, then as the hands do the egg-falling-and-splatting motion say "No." in a voice filled with disappointment.

Hrm. It seemed funnier at the time.

It rubs the lotion on its skin...
Not that I condone serial killing or anything, but Silence of the Lambs has been one of my favorite movies for a very long time. Buffalo Bill was a really incredible character. We even splurged and spent fifty bucks on the Criterion Collection Special Super Uber Edition of the DVD of the Film of the Book when it came out. Well, now a little band called Greenskeepers has done this. Without a doubt a catchy little tune, and I've found myself leaving it on repeat as i work on stuff at home. Probably not healthy, but oh well. I really like how it goes with the video as well.

Of Tumors and Tannenbaums

2005-06-08T07:30:00.000-07:00

So it's nostalgia time here at WIF?N.

Greg's wife Shannon mentioned something in my comments area last post that shocked me. Apparently three is more than two! Okay, all kidding aside, that comment did actually dredge up one of my favorite Shel Silverstein poems from my childhood.

Smart

My dad gave me one dollar bill
'Cause I'm his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters'
Cause two is more then one!

And then I took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes--
I guess he didn't know
That three is more than two!

Just then, along came old blind Bates
And just 'cause he can't see
He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!

And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs
Down at the seed-feed store,
And the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!

And I went and showed my dad,
And he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head--
Too proud of me to speak!

I've always gotten a chuckle out of that one, no matter how many times I've read it. Really, anything of his gets a chuckle out of me, but what more could you expect from a man that once wrote lyrics for Dr. Hook & The Medicine Men.

I guess this means it's Poetry Week in our little blog circle, what with Chad waxing philosophic while quoting Milton. I'm interested to see what Greg comes up with.

It's not a tumor! Really, it's not!
There's this rumor being bandied about these days that I once had a tumor in my leg. Not only did I have this alleged tumor, but I allegedly had the alleged tumor removed. Once this alleged tumor was allegedly removed, I am alleged to have put it in a container alleged to be a jar. The final outrage is that I kept this alleged jar, containing the heretofore mentioned alleged tumor which was allegedly removed from my alleged leg, next to my bed.

This, of course, is patently absurd.

1.) It was a sebaceous cyst, not a tumor
2.) It was kept in a small container slightly larger than what you would store film in.
3.) The container was kept on a bookshelf in my room.

I hope I have cleared up any confusion on this matter.

-J

I really blog way too much...

2005-06-01T14:17:00.000-07:00

Okay, so that is obviously not true. My two loquacious cohorts, Chad and Greg, have already inundated a perfidity of pages with their wit and wisdom over the last few months. Meanwhile, I've put up a miniscule (Mini-School? I went to a day care called Mini School when I was little. It was red...but I digress) 7 posts now. Reason? I dunno...maybe I'm just boring. I don't have dogs and a new truck to talk about, my wife and I don't travel much, my back yard is harbor only to fire ants, a small stream and some scraggly grass. Oh yeah...and mosquitoes. Big ones. I don't go out there much. Sunlight frightens me.

BUY THIS MAN'S BOOK!!!
My old sensei has written a rather enjoyable science fiction novel called Dark Crusade. I've been trying to pimp it for him, but it hasn't been easy. Not a lot of people are willing to take a chance on an author they don't know. So I thought I would tell the two people that read my site and then they could tell two people, and they could tell two people, and they could tell two people...

But hey, it's not just enought to tell people - they need to buy the book! Head over to Amazon and check it out. You can also check out the Dark Crusade web presence for excerpts and info.

Jibber-jabber
Not much else going on...For memorial day, we went and volunteered at a cookout for one of the local volunteer fire departments. That was fun, and I got a whole brisket out of the deal. We had fun, met some good people, and ate some bar-b-q. Yee haw.

Chad and Greg have been competing in my comments section to see who the first to make me post a new entry will be. Chad has even gone so far as to post his perception of our 'adventures' at the drive through. I'd like to categorically deny any current or future allegations put forth by Officer Smith. I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the Drive-Thru Taunters party. In fact, just the use of the 'word' thru is abhorrent to me. Just spell out the whole thing please. It's not that hard.

As for who wins the race to make me post first...Well, the drawing was held and that distinction belongs to Gavin Warrilow, a school teach from Essex and winner of the 1972 Olympic Being Eaten by a Crocodile event. The event has since been banned because it made far too much sense.

Get down with the sickness
So I'm sick again this weekend. Getting sick is teh lame. I wouldn't really call myself sick, I guess; it's more allergy related. My allergies flare up and I end up with all kinds of problems caused by sinus drainage. Yes, that's right, snot. It pretty disgusting. Personally, I can't understand why I'm not losing fifty pounds every time this happens, since I can go through two rolls of TP or two boxes of tissue in a day. Disgusting I know but, hey, it could be worse. I could have chronic recurring projectile diarhea.

Like Chad.

Traffic.

2005-05-27T21:08:00.000-07:00

I hate traffic. I thought having a good job would assuage some of my frustration with having to drive 110 miles a day in rush hour traffic.

Wrong.

Because of this commute, I get to experience the entire gamut of commuter problems:

I have to leave two hours before I need to be at work. I will then arrive one-half to one hour early for work, but if I leave even fifteen minutes later, I will be between five and twenty minutes late.
For thir first two months of my employment, traffic on the off-ramp from the freeway has been rather light during the times when I needed to make use of it. For the past two weeks (for no reason I can fathom) I have endured 15-30 minutes delays on the two off ramps I know I can use to access my workplace. There's probably somewhere else I can go, but I'm not familiar enough with the area and since it's downtown, it's easy to wander into some dangerous sections.
No mass transit easily accessible from where I live. I tried a van pool, but shortly after I started riding, four people left and suddenly we're having to pay $300 a month for van and gas. I was by far the lowest paid person in the van pool, so I made myself bailer number 5. I would ride the bus, but trying to decrypt a Metro bus schedule is about as easy as learning to speak Basque with a bag of marbles in your mouth: It's fun for the goat, but their square pupils freak you out.
On the way home, right before I get into the little town I live in, the freeway drops from four lanes each direction to two. About two years ago they completed a big project to widen the freeway for another couple of miles. This year they decided to resume conscruction and extend the four-lane section another couple of miles. The problem? They decided to start just before Memorial weekend, so traffic going out of town is backed up for ten miles.
Throw in your usual crazed drivers that don't want to let you over, aren't watching where they're going, talking on cell phones, putting on makeup, falling asleep because they partied too hard last night, etc. I usually pass at least one wreck and two stalled cars on the way too/from work. It's crazy.
What's even crazier is getting to a clear section after a long backup and realizing there was no reason for it. No one was slowing down, no wreck blocking the lanes, no stall...just that someone tapped their brakes twenty minutes ago and the ripple effect ends up stopping traffic five miles back.

Bang bang.

Someone please explain this trend with men having bangs lately. Maybe I was just sheltered growing up or something, but I always felt bangs were something best kept on women and little flags sticking out of fake guns. Some of the guys I went to college with had bangs. We ragged on them. They cut their bangs. They felt better about it later.

My wife's little brother has bangs. His girlfriend wanted him to get them. I had a hard time reconciling this with my version of reality.

Maybe I'm just getting to be an old fart.

Where are my sock suspenders?

I bet you they won't play this song on the radio...

2005-05-15T22:50:00.000-07:00

Listen to the sounds...of silence.

Sorry I've been away so long. My wife got very ill with some kind of skin infection and it has been a roller coaster ride trying to find out what was wrong with her.

It all started with her waking around 2am with a bad case of the chills and a fever. I tried giving her something to bring the fever down, but it persisted over the next couple of hours. She was shivering violently and uncontrollably. I finally was able to convince her to let me take her to the ER around 4am. The folks at the ER looked in her ears and eyes, made her say ahh, took a chest xray and a pee sample, then told us to go home and keep taking Motrin for the fever. Supposedly it was a viral infection and there was nothing to do but tough it out. If she gets worse or the problem persists, we're supposed to go to some state run clinic for the needy. Now, I feel it is neccessary to point out that both my wife and I are gainfully employed and have insurance. Unfortunately, when you wife starts shivering violently to the point of near convulsions due to feve in the middle of the night, digging through desk drawers and boxes you haven't opened since moving for an insurance card is not high on your priority list. We did tell them all this, but I guess they thought we were lying.

We both stayed home from work since we didn't get out of the ER until around 9am and later the next night, we notice a red patch of skin on her left shin, like she was burned. Obviously we hadn't been setting each other on fire that day, so we thought it was odd. She also complained of a lot of pain in her leg. The fever came back strong again that night, but we gave it the old college try and toughed it out. The next day, we noted the red area on her leg had spread quite a bit, covering most of the front of her shin. We thought this was odd, but she was staying home from work again, so we decided to wait and see and follow up with the clinic the ER had referred us to later. Shortly after lunch, my wife called me in a panic because her fever had shot up again and she couldn't get anyone from her family to take her to the doctor. I left work early, but due to the distance of the commute, didn't get home until around 5pm anyway. Fortunately, this clinic they referred us to had after hours service, so we loaded up and headed over to see a doctor. We had also armed ourselves with our insurance information, obtained by phone and written out since they were sending us a new card. We went through all the rigamorole of signing in and filling out patient history, etc. After we finally got to see the doctor, he said the redness was just a rash that was the side effect of the viral infection. By this time the redness had spread most of the way up and down her shin, onto her ankle and partly around the back of her calf. I'd also like to note here for posterity that this redness was accompanied my swelling and localized fever in the red area. The redness was not splotchy with raised welts like you would see with a surface rash, and my wife could barely put any weight on her foot without being in excruciating pain. She also said it "feels like something is eating at the muscle." The one thing I will give this doctor credit for is that he had the foresight to get out a sharpie and draw a line around the area of redness. Unfortunately, he only drew around the portion on the front of her shin. He sent us back home with the viral infection story and said to keep taking something for the fever. If the redness spread outside the lines, we were to come back to the clinic and have someone look at it again, but he was pretty sure the redness would start to go away.

Another sleepless night, fever, and pain later, and guess what? It spread more! Now there were red spots going up the inside of her leg following the path of the major artery in the leg. Not comforting.

Back to the clinic we go.

This time, a different doctor comes out to take a look and see if they will see her or send her back to the ER. The guy takes one look at her leg, listens to her explain what she's feeling and says, "You need to go to the ER now. We'll call and let them know you're coming. Tell them to check you for Cellulitis."

A brief aside:

1. Cellulitis is a bacterial infection of the tissues just under the skin.

2. My wife's mother died when my wife was 9 years old because doctors and nurses at the ER failed to properly diagnose her and recognizethe symptoms of toxic shock and treat for it, sending her home three times with "the flu" and "viral symptoms."

3. Bacterial infections, if not treated in time, can make the blood septic (poisoned) aka Toxic Shock.

Thanks WebMD.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program...

So we rush back over to the ER, they are waiting for us and start taking vital signs to check my wife in. Her temperature, which had been hovering aroun 99-101 has gone up to 104.2. Not good. Over the next five days, my wife is in the hospital and they pump her full of some very powerful broad spectrum antibiotics. So powerful that it burns like fire going into the IV in her hand. Because it hurts so bad, she begs them to turn down the rate of the IV from 100ml to 35ml. It is normally supposed to be run at 200ml. This causes the IV to take about 3 hours to empty. They are supposed to give her a new bag of the stuff every 4 hours. Needless to say, she doesn't sleep much and is in a lot of pain.

The good news? After the second day, there are visible signs the infection is going away.

So they finally release her, but are not real clear on why she got this infection and were even still hesitant about calling it cellulitis. I know it's just a general term, but you would think that would make them more confident about using it. Nope.

Fast forward through another week and a half of antibiotics and a follow up visit that made me want to bodyslam a doctor through a table...

This past Sunday morning about 3am, my wife started getting severely dizzy out of nowhere. It went on for about half an hour and then she got nauseus and started throwing up...a LOT. Rush back to the ER, sit in waiting room for half an hour while my wife throws up in a trashcan every five minutes, finally get them to check us in and the first doctor that looked at her said it looked like she had an infection in her inner ear. This he referred to as Labyrinthitisand said he would get her an IV started with some more antibiotics. Sounds like another bacterial infection, right? Enter the first doctor we saw at the clinic that told her the problem with her leg was just a normal rash from a virus. Hear the learned doctor tell us it's just vertigo while also telling us that her white blood cell count is four times normal. Enter several hours of back and forth getting two different stories from nurses and doctors. She gets admitted to the hospital again, but this time instead of an actual room, they put her in observation, which is like a prison cell with a hospital bed in it. No TV, no shower, barely enough room next to the bed for me to sit with her. I was surprised they actually had a toilet and sink for her use. This is about four hours later, by the way, and still no one has brought her any antibiotics. What she does have is a saline drip IV which gets emptied and replaced on a regular basis.

Cue the angry waterlogged wife.

They did give her a shot for the dizzyness and nausea. Also, during the initial screening they asked her what the room was doing while she was dizzy. She told them it was jumping up and down. This was described to me as "A very bad thing(TM)." After a while, the room stopped jumping up and down and started to turn right 90 degrees and reset itself. This was better but not best. They kept her overnight and discharged her the next day, saying she just had vertigo. At the follow up the next day, the clinic doctor said "I don't know what you want me to do, this is all just in your head."

Yes. That's right. He said it.

Needless to say, I had her go to another doctor and get a second opinion. This second doctor saw her right away, looked at her pupils (one was dialated and fixed, the other was normal, again I'm told this is a Bad Thing(TM)) and proclaimed her with a severe ear infection. When she told him her tail of woe he was amazed at the incompetence of the previous doctors. He immediately put her on antibiotics again and gave her a patch for nausea.

Over the last few month, the wife has slowly gotten better. She's to the point where she can get around on her own power now, but she still has the occasional dizzy spell or twinge of pain outta nowhere in her leg. Seems like she's out of the woods, but with something like this, who knows. The doctor seems to think she'll be fine to go back to work after he vacation time runs out in mid June.

And then there was one...
So what else have I been doin over the last month that has been keeping me out of Blogland, you ask? Finishing up my classes for this semester, for one. I made it out alive, and now I have one class that stands between me and my degree. One unit of Humanities...language, philosophy...something... And I'll be done...unless I want more of a degree. I do, but my wife made me promise that it was her turn to go back to school after I finished this degree plan...it's only taken me..hrm...let's see...from 91 to 05, carry the two, divide by zero....

...

Yeah...14 years for an associates degree. WTF mate?

"The Lord loves a workin man, don't trust whitey, see a doctor and get rid of it...Thanks Dad!"

2005-03-13T18:22:00.000-08:00

Would you like fries with that?
Well, I've had a lot of clamoring for more updates since the job started. The office is real nice, and so far everyone there seems pretty cool. I am the only guy in our department with hair, which I find amusing. The commute every morning is grueling and even worse in the afternoons, but that will get better as there is a vanpool that leaves from nearby and they just happen to have an opening, so I'll be checking that out. My desk sits next to a window, and my view is nice and unobstructed to the Astrodome and Reliant Stadium about a mile or so away. All in all, I'm liking what I've seen so far. I'm still 'training' but from what I've seen of that, I should be able to handle things easily.

Everyone jump the queen!
One of the cool things about this job is that the guy who told me about it is not only a good friend, but a decent chess player as well. We played during lunch the other day and I managed to beat him, but it was a very close game. I wouldn't say either of us are masters or anything, but we do enjoy a good game of chess. Over the time I've known him, we've gone back and forth in our chess battles, but I can't really remember who is ahead any more. It doesn't matter anyway, because it's all in good fun.

And so on...
Next week is spring break, so I don't have school (thank God), so maybe I can update a bit more. For now, it's off to grab some dinner and watch this week's episode of Carnivale...

-J

You want the job? YOU GOT THE JOB!!!!11!

2005-03-03T10:59:00.000-08:00

Soooo....This morning, after being awoken bright and early by workers cutting down a tree that may or may not have been on my property, I received a pleasant call from one of the HR ladies at UTHSC. It appears that they would indeed like to hire me. I somehow managed to keep the elation out of my voice and speak to her calmly as she explained all the benefits I would receive:

Health insurance
37 paid days off a year to start (12 vacation, 12 sick, 12 holidays, 1 'wellness' day)
Two retirement plans (one pension, one savings matched by the state)
Access to two different gyms on the medical center campus
Discounted tickets to all Houston area sporting events
And much, much more!

Yeah, that last one is the biggie for me. I loves me some sports. Not real big on basketball, but football, baseball and hockey are fun. Anyway, I'm really happy right now, so I'm off to do pirouettes in the front yard...

-J

As promised, puppy pictures.

2005-02-26T21:17:00.000-08:00

Ok, not really. Just trying to make Chad confused when he first looks at my blog.

Anyway, as I promised earlier, here is a pic of the house. Please excuse the ditch out front, we're still trying to get grass to grow properly there.

>

-J

Get a job, sha na-na-na nananana!

2005-02-26T17:00:00.000-08:00

"And so it came to pass that Saint Victor was taken from this place to another place..."

Yes, it finally happened. Thanks to a friend I met at a previous job, I got the heads up on a nice job at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. I went in for my interview yesterday, a bit nervous because of where it was. I guess I acquitted myself well, since while I was on my way home from the interview, the university human resources department called me on my cell and told me they would be starting background checks ASAP. I spoke to the friend that works there and he said he thinks I pretty much have the job. There were two openings and the way they talked about it in the staff meeting, I was a lock for one of them and they were trying to determine which other candidate would fill the last spot. Additionally, the background checks cost them money, so they don't do them unless they're sure they want to hire the person. This is great news as I was beginning to get worried about the whole job situation. Even better news is the great benefits that go with the job: paid training, health, dental, retirement, etc. It's also the first salaried job I've ever had. WOOHOO! No more hourly wage slaving! Needless to say, I'm just about dancing around with joy.

"In other news..."

I've got some hosting space set up through my ISP, so as soon as I unlazy myself, I'll pull the house pics off my wife's PC and put them on the host site and link them here. I'll probably get to it tomorrow.

More to come
-J

Dammit, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!

2005-02-22T01:09:00.000-08:00

Nothing much going on, really. Did a some work in the yard, built flowerbeds in front of the house, spent way too much money on those damned windsor wall stones to go around the flowerbeds, but in the end, it looks really nice. Aside from the big ditch at the front of our property, I'd say we have one of the nicest looking yards on the street. It's still a bit brown because the grass is still kinda dormant, but I'll be hitting it with some fertilizer and such next weekend. We're still trying to figure out what to do about the ditch, though. I never thought I would be one of those people that obsessed about their yard, yet here I am...

Damn youse, HGTV! Damn youse all to hell!

First, let me start off by saying that I love my wife so much that sometimes I think I'm going to grin so wide that the corners of my mouth will meet in the back of my head and the top will just flop off onto the ground with a nice wet plopping sound. She makes me that freaking happy. This is after being together for almost seven years now. It's crazy, but I still wonder where all that time has gone. They say that the longest journey starts with one step, but that no journey is long with a good companion. I don't think I could have asked for a better companion.

That being said...

She watches way too much HGTV. I know she'll be reading this later, and I know I'll probably get swatted, but I can't help it. She's obsessed with doing things to the house. We've only been in here since October and we're already repainting, landscaping and talking about even bigger projects in the future.

The frightening thing? I'm starting to enjoy the shows too. If any of my friends see me wandering around like a zombie going "Im-ho-teeeeep", just give me a paint brush and point me towards the nearest wall. I'll snap out of it eventually.

Maybe I'll get some hosting space set up and put a few pics of the house up.

A funny thing happened on the way to my blog...

2005-02-17T01:21:00.000-08:00

So there I was, sitting on the couch, eating chips with Jesus...

But you've probably heard that one before.

It's been quite a while since I updated, I know. The one person that reads this Blog is surely tearing out his hair in frustration. But really, it's a funny story as to why I haven't updated in so long.

It all started a few days after my last post. I had finally decided to break down and update again. I sat down and logged into my account and viola! The account is there but there is no blog tied to it. I read the faqs, checked and made sure the blog itself was still working, but after a while I grew lazy and figured it must be a server problem. I would try again later. Certainly enough, I did try to log in several more times, all to no avail. I never quite worked up the energy to mail blogger support to have them check it out for me, so my blog just kind of drifted in limbo, much like a(n) [insert cogent paradigm here].

Which brings me to tonight. It's late. I'm doing some stuff on the computer for my wife, processing some of our movies onto hard drive so we can set up a streaming movie player in the living room. As I'm waiting for one of them to process, an idea occurs to me. I quickly pull up the blog login and try an alternate login name I use sometimes. Lo and behold, in my absent-mindedness, I had created two accounts with almost identical information. Fancy that.

"This 'Unspeakable One,' and I realize I may not want to know the answer to this, but whatever he has in mind is obviously facilitated by my being slippery and pliant, yes?"

Another reason I haven't updated much is good old fashioned depression. I've been unemplyed since mid November, and frankly it's hard to be funny or insightful or witty when you're wondering how much longer that unemployment check is going to last before you have to take that job with Micky D's. Kids, if you're reading this, listen to what I am telling you: Stay in school! It's as simple as that. The older you get, the harder it becomes to learn efficiently the way you do when you're young. Finish high school, go to college, get fifty degrees...learn as much as you can while you're young and your brain can absorb things. I can't count the number of times in my classes recently I've sat and read and reread the same page of text because no matter what I did it kept slipping out of my mind. Had I buckled down when I was in college the first time, I might not be in this situation, or if I was, at least my wife and I would be better off financially while I hunted up a job. There's plenty out there that I have the skills for, but they won't even look at me without a Bachelor's degree penciled in by my name. At this rate, I might actually get one before I'm forty, too!

Other than school and work, not much else going on. I bought a new book to read on the toilet, George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones. A friend that I worked with before I got layed off recommended it to me, and frankly, I was surprised at how good it is. I'm normally more of a science fiction reader than fantasy, but I've been captivated so far, and my legs have fallen asleep as I have sat on my "reading chair" the past few nights now.

He looks so regal there, upon his throne...

One final note - on reading upon the toilet. A former professor of mine once alluded that I might be obsessed with bodily functions and bathroom talk. I think i may get this from my mother, but I can't be sure. Mom was never shy when speaking about bodily functions, and I guess that kindof rubbed off on me. Don't get me wrong, I still close and lock the door whether I'm making lemonade or dropping the kids off at the pool (not to mention having mastered the art of the courtesy flush and having a wide variety of spray fragrances available in case the ventilation fan is defeated), but I've never been bothered by talking about it in public. Anyway, I've gotten way off topic. Reading on the John. I've been told I'm a bit off because I can spend so much time reading in the bathroom. Lots of people read in the bathroom, sure, but I've been known to spend up to three hours reading in the can. I'm not sure what it is, if it's the solitude, the relative quiet or just that it's really the only place in the last few places we've lived that's properly lit for reading. I simply find it increasingly difficult to read anywhere else. I guess it's time to buy a more cusioned toilet seat...

-J

The Roach Story

2005-01-31T23:27:00.000-08:00

And so it came to pass that my friend Chad finally checked his mail and saw what he had wrought. And it was good. As a way of motiviating me further, he suggested I tell...The Roach Story.

One night a few years back when Chad and I were roomies, we were sitting talking about phobias - that's irrational fears for those of you playing the home game. During the conversation, it came out that I have a problem with roaches. No sir, I just don't like 'em. I believe it all stems from a childhood incident when my parents were living in some pretty shoddy apartments. I awoke one night to find myself covered in roaches. They were in my hair, trying to get into my ears, crawling on my face...you get the idea. I was two at the time. I start screaming bloody murder and my mom and dad run in and hit the lights. Mom grabs a pillow and starts knocking roaches off me left and right. That's about all I remember clearly. Pillow were hard in the '70s. Just kidding.

So anyway, I'm telling Chad this story about how the roaches swarmed me when I was two and that was why I hated them so much. He's got this odd look on his face, which is to say a look different from his normal odd looking face. He keeps looking at my left arm. As I continue to tell the story, his gaze slowly roams up to my shoulder. About the time I'm getting to the part about roaches crawling all over me, he finally is unable to control himself any more.

"Jes...uh...there's something..."

And he points at my shoulder.

Many of you may know what is coming, and for those of you who have figured it out, I'd like to preface the upcoming events by saying we did not keep a filthy apartment. There were three guys in the apartment at the time, and we weren't the cleanest of people, but we had never seen any roaches or bugs in the apartment in the two years we were there. Up to the point when I looked down and saw a roach sitting on my shoulder listening intently to the legends of his ancestors.

Now, I haven't shared any photos on this site yet, so those that don't know me will not know that I am a very large man. I stand 6'4" and weigh about 350 pounds. Large. This is quite a bit of mass to move around, so just imagine for a second the physics involved in causing a mass like this to actually leap into the air and engage in actual flight.

"It's easy, Jim, just put a roach on his shoulder."

Thus it was discovered that roaches were the true power behind man's ability to fly. Or at least my ability to fly. I leaped into the air and started frantically waving my arms around like I was trying to bring back disco single handedly. Chad, meanwhile, is having convulsions on the floor. Something about a lack of oxygen because he was laughing so hard. Mr. Roach disappeared and was never heard from again, although he is sometimes spotted with Elvis in shopping malls in the mid-west from time to time. We were in that apartment for another year after that and never saw another roach again. Chad still breaks down into uncontrollable laughter whenever he thinks of this story. The bastard.

"You ever seen a fat man fly?"

-J

99 Bottles of Blog on the Wall...

2005-01-24T17:50:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so I think Blogging is ridiculous. I've told my friend Chad this before. There's nothing as fatuous and tenth-rate as spewing your vitriol onto a weblog that no one reads but you and the two or three other pathetic folks that suckered you into writing the damn thing in the first place.

If I sound angry, well, Kudos to you, Sherlock! I have been dragged kicking and screaming into the world of the Blog and now, much like Randall McMurphy after the lobotomy, I can only sit in stupified wonder and drool, as I watch myself type out...a blog.

It's really not that bad. There's nothing like opening up your private life to any passing motorist. In many ways, it's like walking down a crowded street and asking every tenth person to kick you directly in the bollocks.

I suppose it satisfies the frustrated writer in many people. This of course includes me. When I was younger I could sit down at the old Apple //e and fire up the trusty old Borland word processor and bang out what I thought were fairly good short stories. Most people I showed them to enjoyed them and this was, of course, encouraging. So what happened? Did the well of creativity just dry up? Had I squandered my talents by the tender age of twelve?

Nah.

I went back and read the damn things. I suppose that in some ways, they might have found an audience if ever published. Much the way the old Mack Bolan serial novels used to sell. If you have never heard of or read the Bolan series...well...you're probably better off. Lots of guns, gratuitous violence, hot chicks...hrm...maybe they weren't so bad after all. Anyway, the stories I wrote made Mack Bolan look like masterpiece theatre.

So.

Here I am, 20 years later. Have I learned anything? Probably not. Ask my wife and she'll confirm I still act twelve years old. Now I'm just a married twelve-year-old frustrated writer.

And to Chad for sucking me into the world of Blog...

"Poo to you with knobs on!"

-J