i've been feeling a little anxious lately...prob'ly has something to do with Loren being here for so long and then not being here, and then maybe or maybe not coming back tomorrow, as planned. i think it would be a little naive not to think stressors like these affect me; they do, i'm just a little dense like that...they're more of a low, dull ache than a sharp pain.
predictably, his mother is leaning on him to come back after the weekend. this seems contrary to his wishes, and if he wants to stay, he's going to. i'll be quite disappointed if he doesn't. her reasoning is (unsurprisingly) that she hasn't seen him in 9 weeks, to which i say, "tough, that doesn't even compare to 5 months." that's some irrefutable logic right there, and establishing the pattern of his spending alternate weeks at alternate houses now greatly increases the odds that it will stick. i'm sure she thinks if she subverts it now, she "wins". that's by no means a "win" for Loren. he's not blind to what she's doing, especially not this time, but it's obvious he feels the pressure. the trick for me is encouraging him to do what he's said he wants to do, and, admittedly, what i would be very pleased if he did, without putting the kind of pressure on him that his mother is. i mean, she hollered from across the room, "he's coming back on Sunday," and he said he wasn't, and she said he was, and he stuck to his guns through 5 rounds of that before walking away from the "you are" / "no, i'm not".
more of the same, really...typical selfishness on her part. really hoping this one goes my way. i'm sure it's the best thing for him, and i want to see him get what he wants- especially since it runs counter to what she wants. the woman's gotten her own way with no regard for what's good for anyone else for far too long, and i'm all for Loren showing some independent judgment and setting his own terms irrespective of his mom's manipulations.
Loren told me recently that she told him, in 7th grade, when he was seriously considering trying out an alternating week on/week off arrangement, that she wouldn't let that happen. he said she told him if he did that she'd refuse to let him spend his "mom" week at her house, only alternating weekends. WTF?! if that's not a threat of abandonment (and i can tell you for SURE he took it that way, from the way he told me about this) i don't know what is.
so i told him to call her bluff; she's not going to turn down time he'll spend with her (and time she can use to try to work her coercive magic to upset the apple cart). cutting off her nose to spite her own face is not in her bag of tricks. even if she did initially refuse his "mom" week, i'm absolutely sure she'd relent after a couple weeks of only seeing him on the weekends.
that's more than enough about that.
it was really interesting talking to him on the phone this (last!) evening. i haven't heard that tone of voice from him in months. he really becomes a different person in different environments, and the change isn't hard to see. i can't even really imagine what it would be like- what he would be like- if his parents weren't divorced. i'm sure he'd be different, i just can't imagine how so.
guess that's all i've got to say; more than i intended, really. well past time to crash for a few hours.
Showing posts with label my life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my life. Show all posts
2010-03-19
2009-04-19
another uneventful weekend
it may be a curse to live in interesting times, but on the other hand, a little excitement never killed anyone either. feeling more than a little stir crazy lately, possibly more so since i actually spent the last couple weeks working.
probably one more day of work left at Hollywood Lights, in which i need to put the final touches on their cable coiler (pics to follow, if i can remember my camera), and weld back together a couple of switch mountings Jason cut down to truck-loading size. after that, it's back to finding a more permanent means of recapitalization. 20,000 people in Washington state lost their jobs again last month, and we now have the 4th highest unemployment of all states at 9.2%, behind Oregon's 12-ish, California's (unbelievably high) 14-ish and another state's (which i'm too lazy to look up at the moment). inconveniently and dispropotionately represented among those ranks are machining jobs supported by the aerospace industry. this complicates my task somewhat, since large portions of my work history and experience are in machining fields, which are predominantly comprised of aerospace jobs. still, running some machine for another mom-and-pop company at grunt wages is not high on my list of career moves, and i've been applying for positions at all kinds of jobs outside of machining & production. i'm once again even weighing my options about going back to school...though i have no idea what i'd like to learn that would actually help me get a job somewhere.
as always, despite my share of adversity, i remain reasonably upbeat and resolute. nothing gets me down for long, and i have high hopes of seeing changes for the better in the near future.
the weather around these parts has taken a predominantly pleasant turn, and while a full week of sunshine still remains to be seen, the temperatures seem to be rising at a fair clip and the Orb of Life and Warmth has been seen shrugging off its thick blanket occasionally. i'm not the only one around here who's feeling fully overdue for a little solar vitamin D. sunshine charges my batteries...it's amazing how much better i feel when i get some regular sunshine. my sorry excuse for a back yard needs a lot of work (still) and Chowder's more than ready to get the rest of his space back. with any luck, i won't be in such a time-devouring job this summer, and i'll have enough motivation and $ and down time to actually finish some of the in-process projects i've started around here.
today i spent most of what started out a sunny morning but turned into a basically overcast day (at least here) screwing around online, doing chores, waiting to see if Loren would show up (he didn't), and listening to music. it's been basically Pink Floyd Day today, which sometimes seems like a quarterly holiday for me.
my Dad recently finished his last chemo treatment. he posted a few pics of before/after and it's a startling difference- not that none of us noticed without the pictures. wouldn't wish colon cancer on anyone. all in all, he's been as lucky as someone who's had to endure life-saving surgery and treatment can be. we're all crossing our fingers around here, and i'm sure i'm not the only one who's not going to be able to relax about all this without a few "negative" monthly follow-up screenings.
we're all looking forward to a little R&R in Old Forge, NY, with family, again this summer. couldn't come at a better time for my Dad, i think. i wasn't going to make it, but he talked me into it. who knows? things look pretty good right now, but it's always possible this could be the last time we get to all spend this time together...and i don't want to be the one who was conspicuously absent from the party if that turns out to be true. you just never know, and there's a part of me that believes, other concerns notwithstanding, it's just smart to take advantage of opportunities- especially rare ones, like spending time with family both close and far flung- while you have them (the opportunities and the family, i mean).
so, this is what a 'personal' blog post looks like when there's not much going on. it's not much, but it's all i got for the moment. time to cook some food and move away from the keyboard. PEACE
probably one more day of work left at Hollywood Lights, in which i need to put the final touches on their cable coiler (pics to follow, if i can remember my camera), and weld back together a couple of switch mountings Jason cut down to truck-loading size. after that, it's back to finding a more permanent means of recapitalization. 20,000 people in Washington state lost their jobs again last month, and we now have the 4th highest unemployment of all states at 9.2%, behind Oregon's 12-ish, California's (unbelievably high) 14-ish and another state's (which i'm too lazy to look up at the moment). inconveniently and dispropotionately represented among those ranks are machining jobs supported by the aerospace industry. this complicates my task somewhat, since large portions of my work history and experience are in machining fields, which are predominantly comprised of aerospace jobs. still, running some machine for another mom-and-pop company at grunt wages is not high on my list of career moves, and i've been applying for positions at all kinds of jobs outside of machining & production. i'm once again even weighing my options about going back to school...though i have no idea what i'd like to learn that would actually help me get a job somewhere.
as always, despite my share of adversity, i remain reasonably upbeat and resolute. nothing gets me down for long, and i have high hopes of seeing changes for the better in the near future.
the weather around these parts has taken a predominantly pleasant turn, and while a full week of sunshine still remains to be seen, the temperatures seem to be rising at a fair clip and the Orb of Life and Warmth has been seen shrugging off its thick blanket occasionally. i'm not the only one around here who's feeling fully overdue for a little solar vitamin D. sunshine charges my batteries...it's amazing how much better i feel when i get some regular sunshine. my sorry excuse for a back yard needs a lot of work (still) and Chowder's more than ready to get the rest of his space back. with any luck, i won't be in such a time-devouring job this summer, and i'll have enough motivation and $ and down time to actually finish some of the in-process projects i've started around here.
today i spent most of what started out a sunny morning but turned into a basically overcast day (at least here) screwing around online, doing chores, waiting to see if Loren would show up (he didn't), and listening to music. it's been basically Pink Floyd Day today, which sometimes seems like a quarterly holiday for me.
my Dad recently finished his last chemo treatment. he posted a few pics of before/after and it's a startling difference- not that none of us noticed without the pictures. wouldn't wish colon cancer on anyone. all in all, he's been as lucky as someone who's had to endure life-saving surgery and treatment can be. we're all crossing our fingers around here, and i'm sure i'm not the only one who's not going to be able to relax about all this without a few "negative" monthly follow-up screenings.
we're all looking forward to a little R&R in Old Forge, NY, with family, again this summer. couldn't come at a better time for my Dad, i think. i wasn't going to make it, but he talked me into it. who knows? things look pretty good right now, but it's always possible this could be the last time we get to all spend this time together...and i don't want to be the one who was conspicuously absent from the party if that turns out to be true. you just never know, and there's a part of me that believes, other concerns notwithstanding, it's just smart to take advantage of opportunities- especially rare ones, like spending time with family both close and far flung- while you have them (the opportunities and the family, i mean).
so, this is what a 'personal' blog post looks like when there's not much going on. it's not much, but it's all i got for the moment. time to cook some food and move away from the keyboard. PEACE
2009-03-27
wouldn't it seem to make sense
that buses ran North/South along highway 9?
Monday my car finally went in the shop to take care of the hit-and-attempted-run damage from last Halloween. having failed to get my truck started by the designated drop-off time, i elected to rent a car. it's taking a bit longer to finish fixing my Escape than anticipated (hopefully it will be done this afternoon), but i decided, rather than pay an extra day's rental on the rental car, i'd just return it as planned.
i planned on taking the bus back here, and looked up the routes. the closest route to get me from the body shop in Snohomish back home (about 7 miles away, i think) requires riding into Everett's park & ride / train station commuter complex, waiting half an hour or so, and transferring to another bus that runs between there and Granite Falls via Lake Stevens, a trip of around an hour and a half. this still requires walking about 1/2 a mile to the bus stop in Snohomish (from the body shop) and another mile from the closest stop to my house, about 1.5 miles total, or around 20-25 minutes, depending on how fast you walk, for a grand total of about 2 hrs for what would be a 7 mile trip by the most direct route.
i forgot to grab any small change before i left (a pretty dumb but easily made mistake for someone who pays for 95% of everything with a card and never takes the bus), and it wasn't raining, so i started walking it.
along the way a Good Samaritan stopped and offered me a ride up Hwy 9. i wasn't hitching, just walking. he drove me about a mile and a half, maybe 2 miles of the total distance. my entire trip back from the car rental place took about an hour and 20 minutes. in the absence of my Samaritan friend, you could tack about half an hour onto my trip.
conclusion: if you need to get from Snohomish to Lake Stevens, you'll get there in almost exactly the same time walking as you will riding the bus. making the same trip by car (via the direct route i walked) takes about 10 minutes total, and costs about the same in gas as the bus, or less, depending on what you drive. probably a bit less in my case.
this is a pretty textbook example of why public transit- as implemented around here- cannot substitute for a vehicle. the longer the round-trip, and the less far-flung the two ends of it are, and the less bizarre the times of day you need to be in those places, and the more notice you have of needing to go, the more public transit makes sense. but if you live in my world, there's always something coming up, often without much warning. the time of day the trips need to happen are often bizarre or arbitrary or subject to change on a moment's notice, or unable to be determined in advance. the destinations are all over the map, often in places there IS no public transit. trying to manage a system that served all those needs is impossible.
unless things get a lot less complicated, private transportation is here to stay- even if the world goes totally post-industrial, and people have to go back to riding horses and donkeys.
time to get something done. PEACE
Monday my car finally went in the shop to take care of the hit-and-attempted-run damage from last Halloween. having failed to get my truck started by the designated drop-off time, i elected to rent a car. it's taking a bit longer to finish fixing my Escape than anticipated (hopefully it will be done this afternoon), but i decided, rather than pay an extra day's rental on the rental car, i'd just return it as planned.
i planned on taking the bus back here, and looked up the routes. the closest route to get me from the body shop in Snohomish back home (about 7 miles away, i think) requires riding into Everett's park & ride / train station commuter complex, waiting half an hour or so, and transferring to another bus that runs between there and Granite Falls via Lake Stevens, a trip of around an hour and a half. this still requires walking about 1/2 a mile to the bus stop in Snohomish (from the body shop) and another mile from the closest stop to my house, about 1.5 miles total, or around 20-25 minutes, depending on how fast you walk, for a grand total of about 2 hrs for what would be a 7 mile trip by the most direct route.
i forgot to grab any small change before i left (a pretty dumb but easily made mistake for someone who pays for 95% of everything with a card and never takes the bus), and it wasn't raining, so i started walking it.
along the way a Good Samaritan stopped and offered me a ride up Hwy 9. i wasn't hitching, just walking. he drove me about a mile and a half, maybe 2 miles of the total distance. my entire trip back from the car rental place took about an hour and 20 minutes. in the absence of my Samaritan friend, you could tack about half an hour onto my trip.
conclusion: if you need to get from Snohomish to Lake Stevens, you'll get there in almost exactly the same time walking as you will riding the bus. making the same trip by car (via the direct route i walked) takes about 10 minutes total, and costs about the same in gas as the bus, or less, depending on what you drive. probably a bit less in my case.
this is a pretty textbook example of why public transit- as implemented around here- cannot substitute for a vehicle. the longer the round-trip, and the less far-flung the two ends of it are, and the less bizarre the times of day you need to be in those places, and the more notice you have of needing to go, the more public transit makes sense. but if you live in my world, there's always something coming up, often without much warning. the time of day the trips need to happen are often bizarre or arbitrary or subject to change on a moment's notice, or unable to be determined in advance. the destinations are all over the map, often in places there IS no public transit. trying to manage a system that served all those needs is impossible.
unless things get a lot less complicated, private transportation is here to stay- even if the world goes totally post-industrial, and people have to go back to riding horses and donkeys.
time to get something done. PEACE
2007-10-08
so, once again, it's been awhile
regretfully, i cannot regale you with tales of intrigue or adventure, as i've been experiencing neither. similarly, the minute details of the time passed since the last blog entry are so pathetically bland as to approach invisibility; or at least translucency.
such is the sad summary of the unremarkable life of an unremarkable man doing unremarkable things unremarkably.
assuming my readers (both of you), are (with sullen determination, vague resentment notwithstanding) still flagellating themselves with the unfulfilling and ultimately dissatisfying consumption of this unimportant diatribe, this excercise in futility that is my niggardly monument to mediocrity, i shall likewise endeavor to persevere, wringing though the cloth be dry.
i know there must be a horse in here somewhere. where's that shovel...
today i drove to Yakima, by way of the Sodo district and back again. looking at a map for the (plausibly) accurate mileage is a task requiring more motivation than i can presently muster. and running the route through one of the online map programs is an unimpressive task, easily completed, and therefore a trivial pursuit. suffice it to say it's a long damn drive.
i spent part of the afternoon coiling up cable in Yakima's SunDome. i'm not sure if one is actually obliged to capitalize the 'D' in 'dome' or not, another inquiry that could be easily answered which presently seems meaningless. the sUndOme is like a mini Kingdome, only not blown up and hauled off in pieces.
i like driving through the mountains and the desert, though. i think it's good for your soul to see wide open stretches where the land takes dramatic shapes.
[editor's note: the previous section was actually written yesterday, Monday, October 9, 2007; the portion below was written today.]
i use the word 'soul' as a generic term for one's 'being' or 'self'; i don't intend to imply any connotation of spirituality, insofar as such connotation would pertain to any religious dogma. actually, having tried a few unsuccessful sentences on for size, it appears that delineating which things don't fit my definition of the term 'soul' is much simpler than supplying an accurate definition....
but since i started this post yesterday and never posted it, and the news i began talking about yesterday is old news, and nothing i have to say today is any more interesting than the things i failed to finish writing about yesterday, and since there's more than a fair chance i'm not going to finish this anytime soon, i'm just gonna shut up and go back to what i was talking about before. please forgive the interruption.
[editor's note: the following portion was written yesterday.]
many of us stare hour upon hour at an endless sea of constantly changing but absolutely identical brake lights, and street lights, and traffic signals, sleepdriving the same stretch of road to the very lane, at the same time of day, mile after mile, day after day, week after week, month after month after month.
[editors note: i'm sure that was a reasonable segue at some point, but it's certainly less than stellar now.]
"Hey, dude in the Rob's Electric van. I see you're 2 minutes late this morning as well." "Good morning, hoodie-up-over-your-baseball-cap/bad-muffler-Toyota-driver-smoking-a-cigarette." "Excuse me, piggyback trailer log/gravel truck." "Hey, slow down there, '92-Prelude-with-huge-whale-tail-and-bad-custom-body-work-overkill-still-all-just-primered/lawnmower-soundin'-P.O.S."
it's not just driving- all the mundane events, running on into blurred years, continuously surrounded by the same walls, dealing with the same people, talking about the same things, eating the same food, thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same, dreaming the same....
what's the point, if nothing very interesting ever happens? the sum total of experiences over the course of years could be accomplished in a busy week or two.
some people think information overload causes stress, but i think it's only a symptom, a side-effect of subconsciously self-prescribed distraction therapy. monotony weighs a lot more than stimulus. it's like getting a blowjob while you're trapped in a burning building: why not?
and we search for meaning in all the smallest things; we try to convince ourselves that the unremarkableness itself is noble, our obscurity heroic; we are the romantic Everyman of oft-sung praise. or we're all superstars, unique, each of us special!
[editor's note: the remaining final portion was written today.]
i want the Hallmark version of my life: an endless string of perfectly lit poignant moments and easy laughter, basking in a warm glow of goodwill that permeates all; when every day is Christmas, and every night you fall in love for the very first time.
there is this facet of our existence, for most of us. it's just the good parts are so rare, and the trudgery is endless, grinding us down into ever-more-shrunken, lesser copies of ourselves.
i don't think i've actually been happy all day since i was in my early 20s, and that was a long time ago. nowadays, a good day is when nothing disastrous happens. but that's wrong! life used to be all about making today amazing. but then you get married, and you have kids, and you buy a house, and you get a dog, and slowly all the likewise-fun-minded people you used to hang around all go their own ways doing the same things, and you have to get up and go to work every damn day, and come home and scrub toilets.
it all just seems really pointless sometimes. like this post. which is so long i should just post it. so i will.
such is the sad summary of the unremarkable life of an unremarkable man doing unremarkable things unremarkably.
assuming my readers (both of you), are (with sullen determination, vague resentment notwithstanding) still flagellating themselves with the unfulfilling and ultimately dissatisfying consumption of this unimportant diatribe, this excercise in futility that is my niggardly monument to mediocrity, i shall likewise endeavor to persevere, wringing though the cloth be dry.
i know there must be a horse in here somewhere. where's that shovel...
today i drove to Yakima, by way of the Sodo district and back again. looking at a map for the (plausibly) accurate mileage is a task requiring more motivation than i can presently muster. and running the route through one of the online map programs is an unimpressive task, easily completed, and therefore a trivial pursuit. suffice it to say it's a long damn drive.
i spent part of the afternoon coiling up cable in Yakima's SunDome. i'm not sure if one is actually obliged to capitalize the 'D' in 'dome' or not, another inquiry that could be easily answered which presently seems meaningless. the sUndOme is like a mini Kingdome, only not blown up and hauled off in pieces.
i like driving through the mountains and the desert, though. i think it's good for your soul to see wide open stretches where the land takes dramatic shapes.
[editor's note: the previous section was actually written yesterday, Monday, October 9, 2007; the portion below was written today.]
i use the word 'soul' as a generic term for one's 'being' or 'self'; i don't intend to imply any connotation of spirituality, insofar as such connotation would pertain to any religious dogma. actually, having tried a few unsuccessful sentences on for size, it appears that delineating which things don't fit my definition of the term 'soul' is much simpler than supplying an accurate definition....
but since i started this post yesterday and never posted it, and the news i began talking about yesterday is old news, and nothing i have to say today is any more interesting than the things i failed to finish writing about yesterday, and since there's more than a fair chance i'm not going to finish this anytime soon, i'm just gonna shut up and go back to what i was talking about before. please forgive the interruption.
[editor's note: the following portion was written yesterday.]
many of us stare hour upon hour at an endless sea of constantly changing but absolutely identical brake lights, and street lights, and traffic signals, sleepdriving the same stretch of road to the very lane, at the same time of day, mile after mile, day after day, week after week, month after month after month.
[editors note: i'm sure that was a reasonable segue at some point, but it's certainly less than stellar now.]
"Hey, dude in the Rob's Electric van. I see you're 2 minutes late this morning as well." "Good morning, hoodie-up-over-your-baseball-cap/bad-muffler-Toyota-driver-smoking-a-cigarette." "Excuse me, piggyback trailer log/gravel truck." "Hey, slow down there, '92-Prelude-with-huge-whale-tail-and-bad-custom-body-work-overkill-still-all-just-primered/lawnmower-soundin'-P.O.S."
it's not just driving- all the mundane events, running on into blurred years, continuously surrounded by the same walls, dealing with the same people, talking about the same things, eating the same food, thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same, dreaming the same....
what's the point, if nothing very interesting ever happens? the sum total of experiences over the course of years could be accomplished in a busy week or two.
some people think information overload causes stress, but i think it's only a symptom, a side-effect of subconsciously self-prescribed distraction therapy. monotony weighs a lot more than stimulus. it's like getting a blowjob while you're trapped in a burning building: why not?
and we search for meaning in all the smallest things; we try to convince ourselves that the unremarkableness itself is noble, our obscurity heroic; we are the romantic Everyman of oft-sung praise. or we're all superstars, unique, each of us special!
[editor's note: the remaining final portion was written today.]
i want the Hallmark version of my life: an endless string of perfectly lit poignant moments and easy laughter, basking in a warm glow of goodwill that permeates all; when every day is Christmas, and every night you fall in love for the very first time.
there is this facet of our existence, for most of us. it's just the good parts are so rare, and the trudgery is endless, grinding us down into ever-more-shrunken, lesser copies of ourselves.
i don't think i've actually been happy all day since i was in my early 20s, and that was a long time ago. nowadays, a good day is when nothing disastrous happens. but that's wrong! life used to be all about making today amazing. but then you get married, and you have kids, and you buy a house, and you get a dog, and slowly all the likewise-fun-minded people you used to hang around all go their own ways doing the same things, and you have to get up and go to work every damn day, and come home and scrub toilets.
it all just seems really pointless sometimes. like this post. which is so long i should just post it. so i will.
2007-09-09
ok, it works.
not sure if i'm sold on the method, though. overall it's less click-intensive than meandering through the blogger.com logon & interface labyrinth...i'll try it again next time. but since i'm already here....
one of these years i'll get around to updating the other pages of this blog, but not tonight.
another weekend in the books. no shortage of chores for me yesterday, followed by a great salmon dinner at Nichole's, to which everyone but Loren made it out. nice to see everyone; i haven't seen any of the Sargent clan for nearly two months. my nephews are getting big!
i suppose it's only fitting i mention Harley's condition deteriorated last week and Jason & Melissa relucantly put him down. i suppose the only good thing to say about that is he's not suffering, and as hard as it is to have your dog put to sleep, it's surely much harder to watch him struggle and decline. i'm gonna miss Harley, he seemed to like me almost as much as i liked him, and he was a great dog.
Dozer was a hit for the Sargent boys last night- they sure love dogs. they asked me where Chowder was, but i was pretty sure Dozer would make an appearance, so i let him ride out the evening at home.
my neighbor Bruce had an extra (season) ticket for the Seahawks regular season opener today, and invited me along. he likes to take the train, so we did, a first for me. the train's clean, but probably not as fast as driving- especially if you get downtown somewhat early, know where to find parking, and know the right way to get to the freeway afterward. most people make the mistake of trying to get on the freeway as quickly as possible, creating a bit of a backup along the two southernmost on-ramps north of the stadium; pass those two up and head a few blocks north and you're in front of all those brake lights.
i checked the fares and timetables while i was on the train to get an idea of what it would be like to commute to work on it- not going to happen. even if it were cheaper or quicker, i just like having my truck with me. it's pretty easy to get used to having wheels at your disposal.
anyway, the Seahawks win at home; they looked pretty rusty in the 1st quarter, but started to get it together late in the 2nd, and looked pretty good in the 3rd. i think the final was 20-6; the Bucs never made a touchdown and never scored after the 1st quarter...at least as of the time i left, with about a minute and half left in regulation. ran into Jeff & Dean's little brother on the way out of the stadium; he tells me Jeff recently moved back from Montana, to Mountlake Terrace, and that Dean's flying solo again, this time living off of Olympic View Drive in the Perrinville neighborhood, over by Meadowdale Beach. for the life of me i simply cannot remember their little bro's name, which is bugging the crap outta me. real nice guy; totally didn't recognize him at first since he's got a thick goatee now. he saw me, actually, and called my name a couple times- i looked right at him and didn't recognize him before realizing who he was. always khoul to run into khoul people you haven't seen for a long time.
came home and caught the night game, the first Sunday Night game of the regular season. for me (as of last year) Sunday is the new Monday, since Al Michaels (my favorite) and John Madden (my other favorite) host that show. the Giants put up a good fight, but 3 starters and 1 backup guy got injured, and the Cowboys played pretty well (with Wade Phillips at the helm for his first regular season game) and chalked up their first W. Eli Manning went out in the 4th quarter with a "bruised" right shoulder, and they lost their starting running back, so welcome to the War of Attrition. not that i'm particularly a Giants fan...
so, two trips to Qwest Field under my belt this year, both Ws. gotta like that.
back to work tomorrow, with boats moving in for the Boats Afloat show, and a truck heading east to retrieve gear from the Gorge. i forgot to grab Jason's CDs to burn over the weekend, maybe that'll take up some of my evening time over the week this week...assuming i actually have any free time this week. i know now, that until the end of August, working where i work, i'm going to spend the majority of my time working and commuting. the sad part of that is, i think with just a little more organization and planning (admittedly not always possible due to lack of necessary information in advance) things would move a lot more smoothly there. i have a much better idea of what to expect in the course of a summer next time around.
Loren's started 9th grade...hardly seems possible. i'm going to turn around and he's gonna be all grown up, and i'm gonna wonder what the hell happened to the last twenty years. he seems to like his teachers alright, so far, which isn't altogether too surprising considering they haven't had the kids do any real work yet, and i think he's enjoying the difference in the atmosphere. he mentioned that he was considering playing basketball and baseball, and i told him for the 1,00th time that i totally encourage him to play any sports...he mentioned tennis, which would be interesting. i love racquet sports. told him again i think he's a natural for football, but the question is whether or not he's aggressive enough. personally, i think that's a long shot for him (he's just WAY easygoing) but you never know....when he gets a little hair on his chin he might surprise the hell out of everyone and become Captain Testosterone.
alright that's it for me, i'm not particularly inspired tonight.
one of these years i'll get around to updating the other pages of this blog, but not tonight.
another weekend in the books. no shortage of chores for me yesterday, followed by a great salmon dinner at Nichole's, to which everyone but Loren made it out. nice to see everyone; i haven't seen any of the Sargent clan for nearly two months. my nephews are getting big!
i suppose it's only fitting i mention Harley's condition deteriorated last week and Jason & Melissa relucantly put him down. i suppose the only good thing to say about that is he's not suffering, and as hard as it is to have your dog put to sleep, it's surely much harder to watch him struggle and decline. i'm gonna miss Harley, he seemed to like me almost as much as i liked him, and he was a great dog.
Dozer was a hit for the Sargent boys last night- they sure love dogs. they asked me where Chowder was, but i was pretty sure Dozer would make an appearance, so i let him ride out the evening at home.
my neighbor Bruce had an extra (season) ticket for the Seahawks regular season opener today, and invited me along. he likes to take the train, so we did, a first for me. the train's clean, but probably not as fast as driving- especially if you get downtown somewhat early, know where to find parking, and know the right way to get to the freeway afterward. most people make the mistake of trying to get on the freeway as quickly as possible, creating a bit of a backup along the two southernmost on-ramps north of the stadium; pass those two up and head a few blocks north and you're in front of all those brake lights.
i checked the fares and timetables while i was on the train to get an idea of what it would be like to commute to work on it- not going to happen. even if it were cheaper or quicker, i just like having my truck with me. it's pretty easy to get used to having wheels at your disposal.
anyway, the Seahawks win at home; they looked pretty rusty in the 1st quarter, but started to get it together late in the 2nd, and looked pretty good in the 3rd. i think the final was 20-6; the Bucs never made a touchdown and never scored after the 1st quarter...at least as of the time i left, with about a minute and half left in regulation. ran into Jeff & Dean's little brother on the way out of the stadium; he tells me Jeff recently moved back from Montana, to Mountlake Terrace, and that Dean's flying solo again, this time living off of Olympic View Drive in the Perrinville neighborhood, over by Meadowdale Beach. for the life of me i simply cannot remember their little bro's name, which is bugging the crap outta me. real nice guy; totally didn't recognize him at first since he's got a thick goatee now. he saw me, actually, and called my name a couple times- i looked right at him and didn't recognize him before realizing who he was. always khoul to run into khoul people you haven't seen for a long time.
came home and caught the night game, the first Sunday Night game of the regular season. for me (as of last year) Sunday is the new Monday, since Al Michaels (my favorite) and John Madden (my other favorite) host that show. the Giants put up a good fight, but 3 starters and 1 backup guy got injured, and the Cowboys played pretty well (with Wade Phillips at the helm for his first regular season game) and chalked up their first W. Eli Manning went out in the 4th quarter with a "bruised" right shoulder, and they lost their starting running back, so welcome to the War of Attrition. not that i'm particularly a Giants fan...
so, two trips to Qwest Field under my belt this year, both Ws. gotta like that.
back to work tomorrow, with boats moving in for the Boats Afloat show, and a truck heading east to retrieve gear from the Gorge. i forgot to grab Jason's CDs to burn over the weekend, maybe that'll take up some of my evening time over the week this week...assuming i actually have any free time this week. i know now, that until the end of August, working where i work, i'm going to spend the majority of my time working and commuting. the sad part of that is, i think with just a little more organization and planning (admittedly not always possible due to lack of necessary information in advance) things would move a lot more smoothly there. i have a much better idea of what to expect in the course of a summer next time around.
Loren's started 9th grade...hardly seems possible. i'm going to turn around and he's gonna be all grown up, and i'm gonna wonder what the hell happened to the last twenty years. he seems to like his teachers alright, so far, which isn't altogether too surprising considering they haven't had the kids do any real work yet, and i think he's enjoying the difference in the atmosphere. he mentioned that he was considering playing basketball and baseball, and i told him for the 1,00th time that i totally encourage him to play any sports...he mentioned tennis, which would be interesting. i love racquet sports. told him again i think he's a natural for football, but the question is whether or not he's aggressive enough. personally, i think that's a long shot for him (he's just WAY easygoing) but you never know....when he gets a little hair on his chin he might surprise the hell out of everyone and become Captain Testosterone.
alright that's it for me, i'm not particularly inspired tonight.
2007-03-02
i'm absolutely certain i did some stupid things, but
(i just thought that was a khoul sentence. that's all.)
it snowed nearly a foot at my house yesterday. freak weather. i've never seen it snow in western Washington this many times in one winter, and every time it snowed there was more snow than usual, and it came down harder, and piled up quicker. temperature fluctuations for any given 4-7 day period are wider than i remember seeing, and it's been much colder overall than normal. we got our quasi-annual windstorm later in the winter (accompanied by the largest power outage i've ever seen here), and yesterday's snowfall, coming at the end of February, occurred unusually late in the season.
quite strange driving to work this morning- traffic was light, and the roads within a few miles of here were very slippery still, but once on the freeway it was basically bare and dry all the way to Seattle, where i spent a fairly chilly but mostly sunny day. sure enough, driving back within a few miles of my house put me right back in the thick of it.
however, it's plenty warm in here (it should be with the fairly higher-than-normal electric bill i just paid), and i'm fairly comfortable, all things considered. i have a little strong, black coffee; i have Chowder sleeping under my chair. it's quiet. i can hear the power supply fan from Loren's computer over my right shoulder, and from my own computer below my desk i hear the power supply fan and a slight high-pitched whine from the hard drive.
another work week nearly finished. Loren won't come until Saturday, since he's attending a friend's birthday party Saturday afternoon. i'm determined my time not be cut short over another birthday party. not that i begrudge Loren the opportunity, far from it, just that i see no reason not to arrange things so that Loren gets his party and i still get to spend a little time with him this week. we spend altogether too little time together as it is. some might disagree, but be that as it may, i doubt many- if any- dispassionate, objective bystanders would.
i've been a little tired, so i kinda scaled back my work hours a little this week. i should only barely get into OT tomorrow. i've accomplished a lot so far, with a little help from the people around me, but there's still a long way to go to get the shop up to speed. i'm trying to accomplish what i can in the time i have.
the way i interpret my work priorities, my primary responsibility is keeping track of the gear sent out to shows or lent to the production lighting dept. (in which category i would include keeping the shop organized in general), followed by (in order) making sure it's either staged (time permitting) or ready to be staged by the time a show sets, offloading trucks as quickly as possible, transferring gear to Tacoma or Portland from Seattle and vice-versa, maintaining the vehicles, washing gear as necessary, and running people around to job sites when necessary.
on my lunch break today i ran into my old boss Todd, the former production manager who, before being fired himself, hired me to fabricate at Trade-Marx sign, back in the day. he valued my contribution(s) there, and quickly promoted me to lead the light fabrication dept. after his termination things went rapidly downhill there. i liked the type of assignments i was given (for the most part) and i certainly improved the quality, consistency, and timeliness of both the work i did myself and the projects other guys were working on, but i never actually liked working for that company.
the owner, Don, is one of those guys who one moment wants to act like an obliviously (annoyingly!) condescending buddy, and the next becomes a fully red-faced, screaming twit. he's the kind of guy you'd like to like if he didn't spend so much time being a jerk and a bully. i honestly think he had no trust in the good intentions of those who worked for him, nor an appreciation of their skills (which, in my mind, requires a comparable level of competency in those skills). however, he wasn't responsible for my departure- that would be one Mr. Bart Haynes, a prick on an entirely deeper level. Haynes is a man with a profoundly ugly personality, almost pitifully arrogant, and often completely incapable of basic civility. as you might imagine, i have no respect for someone embodying those qualities. in one such circumstance i was forced to leave the room to avoid losing my temper with the man, and- rather than allowing some time to pass, allowing the situation calm, or attempting to resolve the disagreement in a more positive manner, he chose to chase me down, grab me by the coat, spin me bodily around, and start shaking me like an abusive parent might a child. i believe my exact words at that point were, "take your fucking hands off me or you're a dead man," at which point he laughed and gave me one more little shake before releasing my coat. it was like middle school all over again. i was actually extremely happy with the degree of restraint i showed, since i refrained from acting on the nearly overwhelming urge to punch him right in his smug face- and he (with authority i'm sure was more assumed than specified) fired me. i told him, "you can't fire me, i fucking quit." as fate would have it, there were no witnesses. so be it. then, since i seem to be (re?)telling this story in detail, i told him he was lucky i'm able to control my temper. i don't remember the next words out of his mouth, but they were derogatory, and i told him, "that's right, Bart, just keep digging your hole." i think he realized the precarious position he'd put himself in by physically assaulting me, and he followed me around the shop making more insulting comments for the next 20 minutes while i tried to gather my tools and things. i think he was trying to make me angry enough i'd actually lose my temper and take a swing at him, hopefully in front of some witnesses. well, he got no satisfaction there. i shook some hands with my co-workers, and generally took my time leaving. he tried to get my supervisor to have me sign a termination paper stating i'd verbally abused and physically threatened him. you can guess my reaction: no chance.
in any case, i was the 29th (by all counts) employee to be fired or quit as of the time i was terminated, followed soon after by my supervisor Donna, who was 'promoted' into her role after my old boss Todd was fired. i've never seen turnover like that in any company i've worked for. madness reigned (reigns?) at Trade-Marx Sign & Display Co., and i think this is directly reflected in the quality of the work the company turned out. i saw, and all too often was forced to fix, project after project that had what could easily have been the killing stroke laid down on it by a varying combination of sloppy fabrication and lack of adequate or accurate planning. sometimes those projects were truly beyond help, and in some of those cases, rather than admit their error to the client and fix the problems, they almost inevitably chose to wordlessly deliver substandard product on time. over and over projects were wrong, installed, then uninstalled and brought back for additional work, and sometimes that became a repeating cycle of failure. certainly, in some cases there may have been no alternative but to deliver on time, but i believe the choice, between doing that and delivering what the customer is paying for in as timely a manner as humanly possible, is best left to an informed client.
in the interest of fairness, i'm attempting to restrict my comments to my personal experiences there, which occured over a period of about half a year, ending about 2 years ago. i would have to say that a majority of the product they put out the door during my term of employment was flawed to some degree. it's rather ironic that the owner's projection of his company's commitment to quality could be so diametrically opposed to the manner in which it operated. dysfunctional is the word that most comes to mind, a company with a systemic problem that flowed from the top down, exhibited frequently by cascades of mistakes brought about in large part by a remarkable lack of effective communication, occuring in an often manic environment pervaded with personal tension. most of the product delivered by the 2 other sign companies i've worked for was consistently higher quality. Trade-Marx was one of the most inneffectively managed companies i've ever had the displeasure to work for- and that's a shame, considering i had high hopes for my prospects there when i started.
having said all that, i did form some friendly relationships with my co-workers there, so the experience wasn't a complete loss.
i think i've written most of what i wrote in the preceding paragraphs as catharsis, but also in the hope that someone casually interested in either working for or purchasing work from Trade-Marx sign, and happens to bump into this information online (which i grant is quite unlikely) might have a little better insight into the history of the place. i encourage such a person to take my (true!) comments to heart in their decision-making.
enough about old jobs. and new ones, for that matter. and enough for one post, already...since i've managed to spend considerably more time on the latter subject than i wanted to anyway. PEACE
it snowed nearly a foot at my house yesterday. freak weather. i've never seen it snow in western Washington this many times in one winter, and every time it snowed there was more snow than usual, and it came down harder, and piled up quicker. temperature fluctuations for any given 4-7 day period are wider than i remember seeing, and it's been much colder overall than normal. we got our quasi-annual windstorm later in the winter (accompanied by the largest power outage i've ever seen here), and yesterday's snowfall, coming at the end of February, occurred unusually late in the season.
quite strange driving to work this morning- traffic was light, and the roads within a few miles of here were very slippery still, but once on the freeway it was basically bare and dry all the way to Seattle, where i spent a fairly chilly but mostly sunny day. sure enough, driving back within a few miles of my house put me right back in the thick of it.
however, it's plenty warm in here (it should be with the fairly higher-than-normal electric bill i just paid), and i'm fairly comfortable, all things considered. i have a little strong, black coffee; i have Chowder sleeping under my chair. it's quiet. i can hear the power supply fan from Loren's computer over my right shoulder, and from my own computer below my desk i hear the power supply fan and a slight high-pitched whine from the hard drive.
another work week nearly finished. Loren won't come until Saturday, since he's attending a friend's birthday party Saturday afternoon. i'm determined my time not be cut short over another birthday party. not that i begrudge Loren the opportunity, far from it, just that i see no reason not to arrange things so that Loren gets his party and i still get to spend a little time with him this week. we spend altogether too little time together as it is. some might disagree, but be that as it may, i doubt many- if any- dispassionate, objective bystanders would.
i've been a little tired, so i kinda scaled back my work hours a little this week. i should only barely get into OT tomorrow. i've accomplished a lot so far, with a little help from the people around me, but there's still a long way to go to get the shop up to speed. i'm trying to accomplish what i can in the time i have.
the way i interpret my work priorities, my primary responsibility is keeping track of the gear sent out to shows or lent to the production lighting dept. (in which category i would include keeping the shop organized in general), followed by (in order) making sure it's either staged (time permitting) or ready to be staged by the time a show sets, offloading trucks as quickly as possible, transferring gear to Tacoma or Portland from Seattle and vice-versa, maintaining the vehicles, washing gear as necessary, and running people around to job sites when necessary.
on my lunch break today i ran into my old boss Todd, the former production manager who, before being fired himself, hired me to fabricate at Trade-Marx sign, back in the day. he valued my contribution(s) there, and quickly promoted me to lead the light fabrication dept. after his termination things went rapidly downhill there. i liked the type of assignments i was given (for the most part) and i certainly improved the quality, consistency, and timeliness of both the work i did myself and the projects other guys were working on, but i never actually liked working for that company.
the owner, Don, is one of those guys who one moment wants to act like an obliviously (annoyingly!) condescending buddy, and the next becomes a fully red-faced, screaming twit. he's the kind of guy you'd like to like if he didn't spend so much time being a jerk and a bully. i honestly think he had no trust in the good intentions of those who worked for him, nor an appreciation of their skills (which, in my mind, requires a comparable level of competency in those skills). however, he wasn't responsible for my departure- that would be one Mr. Bart Haynes, a prick on an entirely deeper level. Haynes is a man with a profoundly ugly personality, almost pitifully arrogant, and often completely incapable of basic civility. as you might imagine, i have no respect for someone embodying those qualities. in one such circumstance i was forced to leave the room to avoid losing my temper with the man, and- rather than allowing some time to pass, allowing the situation calm, or attempting to resolve the disagreement in a more positive manner, he chose to chase me down, grab me by the coat, spin me bodily around, and start shaking me like an abusive parent might a child. i believe my exact words at that point were, "take your fucking hands off me or you're a dead man," at which point he laughed and gave me one more little shake before releasing my coat. it was like middle school all over again. i was actually extremely happy with the degree of restraint i showed, since i refrained from acting on the nearly overwhelming urge to punch him right in his smug face- and he (with authority i'm sure was more assumed than specified) fired me. i told him, "you can't fire me, i fucking quit." as fate would have it, there were no witnesses. so be it. then, since i seem to be (re?)telling this story in detail, i told him he was lucky i'm able to control my temper. i don't remember the next words out of his mouth, but they were derogatory, and i told him, "that's right, Bart, just keep digging your hole." i think he realized the precarious position he'd put himself in by physically assaulting me, and he followed me around the shop making more insulting comments for the next 20 minutes while i tried to gather my tools and things. i think he was trying to make me angry enough i'd actually lose my temper and take a swing at him, hopefully in front of some witnesses. well, he got no satisfaction there. i shook some hands with my co-workers, and generally took my time leaving. he tried to get my supervisor to have me sign a termination paper stating i'd verbally abused and physically threatened him. you can guess my reaction: no chance.
in any case, i was the 29th (by all counts) employee to be fired or quit as of the time i was terminated, followed soon after by my supervisor Donna, who was 'promoted' into her role after my old boss Todd was fired. i've never seen turnover like that in any company i've worked for. madness reigned (reigns?) at Trade-Marx Sign & Display Co., and i think this is directly reflected in the quality of the work the company turned out. i saw, and all too often was forced to fix, project after project that had what could easily have been the killing stroke laid down on it by a varying combination of sloppy fabrication and lack of adequate or accurate planning. sometimes those projects were truly beyond help, and in some of those cases, rather than admit their error to the client and fix the problems, they almost inevitably chose to wordlessly deliver substandard product on time. over and over projects were wrong, installed, then uninstalled and brought back for additional work, and sometimes that became a repeating cycle of failure. certainly, in some cases there may have been no alternative but to deliver on time, but i believe the choice, between doing that and delivering what the customer is paying for in as timely a manner as humanly possible, is best left to an informed client.
in the interest of fairness, i'm attempting to restrict my comments to my personal experiences there, which occured over a period of about half a year, ending about 2 years ago. i would have to say that a majority of the product they put out the door during my term of employment was flawed to some degree. it's rather ironic that the owner's projection of his company's commitment to quality could be so diametrically opposed to the manner in which it operated. dysfunctional is the word that most comes to mind, a company with a systemic problem that flowed from the top down, exhibited frequently by cascades of mistakes brought about in large part by a remarkable lack of effective communication, occuring in an often manic environment pervaded with personal tension. most of the product delivered by the 2 other sign companies i've worked for was consistently higher quality. Trade-Marx was one of the most inneffectively managed companies i've ever had the displeasure to work for- and that's a shame, considering i had high hopes for my prospects there when i started.
having said all that, i did form some friendly relationships with my co-workers there, so the experience wasn't a complete loss.
i think i've written most of what i wrote in the preceding paragraphs as catharsis, but also in the hope that someone casually interested in either working for or purchasing work from Trade-Marx sign, and happens to bump into this information online (which i grant is quite unlikely) might have a little better insight into the history of the place. i encourage such a person to take my (true!) comments to heart in their decision-making.
enough about old jobs. and new ones, for that matter. and enough for one post, already...since i've managed to spend considerably more time on the latter subject than i wanted to anyway. PEACE
2007-02-20
always too busy
to post here, or to get X amount of other things accomplished that i've still yet to accomplish. my dad likes to say, "life's what happens while you make other plans." ...i think i've got that right, and even if the wording's not exactly right...i think it is....hate to misquote m'dad....the meaning's on the money.
today i was 15 minutes late for work, my 10th tardiness of the 38 days i've worked so far this year. the luster on my attendance record is definitely lacking. incidentally, i've started early 10 times as well. each of those account for about 26.315789473684210526315789473684% of the time. which means i'm on time or early 73.684210526315789473684210526316% of the time. i've been early a total of 450 minutes, late a total of 277, for a net early start of 173 minutes, which, by mathematical average, works out to being approximately four and half minutes early each day.
the prior paragraph clearly delineates a convoluted reasoning necessary to float the data onto the ether with a subtle positive spin. while there may, in fact, be others, they exist in an area of the universe beyond the scope of this post, somewhere vaguely outside the boundaries of the author's motivation.
i hit a hat trick playing darts on my board the other night. missed the bull with two of the next three darts. actually, i left the hat trick in the bull, and threw the other three steel tip darts, followed by the remaining 6 soft tips. looking at all 12 stuck in the board, it was obvious that the proximity of my throws to the bull varied in direct proportion with the amount of time elapsed following the third hat-trick dart's impact.
make a big dent every day it's possible. that's just a little advice i threw in there for ya. no charge.
AC power is better than DC power for transmission over long distances. alternating current requires smaller wires at high voltages and can be stepped down with transformers. lack of transformers in DC distribution systems would require, for smaller voltages of electricity used in common residential appliances, widespread local establishment of small generation substations.
Nikola Tesla ripped up his contract for royalties due from Westinghouse, in order to release the company from financial liability threatening its solvency, and to ensure his dream of a ubiquitous three phase alternating current distribution system came to be. the man died penniless so that the world might benefit.
and he supposedly created a charged particle weapon in the period of the 1930s and '40s. an interesting device, that could theoretically render electric (and presumably electronic) equipment inoperable and kill men (or any living creatures) in wide swaths, by the thousands.
if this weapon doesn't exist, it should. the ultimate defensive weapon against an invasion force. too bad the tendency of early 21st century combatants is toward covert / guerilla tactics and random acts of suicidal violence. maybe they can make a portable one.
flittering across the surface of randomity, chaostically.
french fries aren't as good as hash browns, which proves that the post-cut shape of the potatoes matters in the interaction with the hot oil.
mcdonald's cheeseburgers are really not very good. the spongy buns are part of the problem. bratwurst is good partially because the bun is tougher. a killer hamburger needs a bun with some gravitas.
listened to SRV & Double Trouble's Live at El Macambo a few times this weekend. Stevie Ray was the best. also listened to one of Tori Amos's records.....the name escapes me at the moment. that's interesting stuff, too....she's got a great voice, and i like her piano lines, and she writes interesting lyrics. but Stevie....Stevie could throw down.
i have a taillight out on my truck. think it's just a bulb. maybe i'll get to looking at it tomorrow...but prob'ly not. more likely to get to it this weekend. reasonably likely it'll take me longer than that, if my track record of proper maintenance effort remains undisturbed. i'm really very good at doing the bare minimum necessary to keep a vehicle on the road.
however, it's a sad fact that even the most meticulously maintained vehicles won't last forever, and this truck is no exception. at some point it's going to finally give up the ghost, and then i'll either find myself in the position of being able to acquire a nicer, newer vehicle, or forced to purchase some similarly dilapidated hulk of rust and mildew with which to negotiate the asphalt gauntlet.
it's occured to me that i could literally drive to Bellingham every day, and work straight 8 hour days, and still be gone less time in a typical work day. right now the minimum amount of time i'm out of my house in a typical 8 hr workday is about 12 hrs. an average of three hours per day driving 74 miles round trip, for an average speed of exactly 24 2/3 mph. on the freeway.
but what the hell is there to do in Bellingham? i could get to Arlington or Marysville a lot easier, though. Hwy 9 northbound in the morning would be an interesting commute. or Monroe, with a Hwy 2 eastbound. just trying to go south from here at all, let alone all the way into the SoDo district in Seattle, is a fairly monumental pain in the ass.
i watched the movie Resident Evil the other night. not bad, for what it was. Milla Jovovich is easy on the eyes. not a particularly impressive movie. i liked her better in Ultraviolet. i liked Resident Evil enough to watch the sequel though, prob'ly. i was curious about those movies in the same sort of way i'm interested in seeing Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick. i watched Brad Pitt's Troy the other day, too- then again a few days later with Loren, since i knew he'd appreciate it. easily the better of the two movies, by the way- though certainly not LOTR-grade....that seems a fitting bar to set for the future. i hear Ghost Rider is tearing up the box office; been planning on seeing that one for a long time. looks like time to take Loren to the movies this weekend.
saw Jim Carrey on David Letterman last night, caught a clip of his new movie 23. didn't look the same as the impression i got from the preview i saw a few moments later when i flipped the channel. that can't be a coincidence- that Carrey's Letterman segment would end, and at that exact moment there'd be a preview for the very movie he was promoting on an adjacent (or very near) channel. some advertising person earned their money there....why buy the 'blatant' ad on the same station when the segment ends- you just reached that audience anyway....and anyone who was interested enough in Carrey or the movie to sit through the segment before changing channels might get sucked in at just the right moment. surely that's not coincidental.
ok that's got to be enough jangsplankin' tribibulation.
this has been a test of the post system. in the event this was a real post, you may have gleaned something from it. i now return you to a location somewhere in the vicinity of your original point of departure, with sincerely delivered, cloyingly heartfelt, practically genuine apologies.
today i was 15 minutes late for work, my 10th tardiness of the 38 days i've worked so far this year. the luster on my attendance record is definitely lacking. incidentally, i've started early 10 times as well. each of those account for about 26.315789473684210526315789473684% of the time. which means i'm on time or early 73.684210526315789473684210526316% of the time. i've been early a total of 450 minutes, late a total of 277, for a net early start of 173 minutes, which, by mathematical average, works out to being approximately four and half minutes early each day.
the prior paragraph clearly delineates a convoluted reasoning necessary to float the data onto the ether with a subtle positive spin. while there may, in fact, be others, they exist in an area of the universe beyond the scope of this post, somewhere vaguely outside the boundaries of the author's motivation.
i hit a hat trick playing darts on my board the other night. missed the bull with two of the next three darts. actually, i left the hat trick in the bull, and threw the other three steel tip darts, followed by the remaining 6 soft tips. looking at all 12 stuck in the board, it was obvious that the proximity of my throws to the bull varied in direct proportion with the amount of time elapsed following the third hat-trick dart's impact.
make a big dent every day it's possible. that's just a little advice i threw in there for ya. no charge.
AC power is better than DC power for transmission over long distances. alternating current requires smaller wires at high voltages and can be stepped down with transformers. lack of transformers in DC distribution systems would require, for smaller voltages of electricity used in common residential appliances, widespread local establishment of small generation substations.
Nikola Tesla ripped up his contract for royalties due from Westinghouse, in order to release the company from financial liability threatening its solvency, and to ensure his dream of a ubiquitous three phase alternating current distribution system came to be. the man died penniless so that the world might benefit.
and he supposedly created a charged particle weapon in the period of the 1930s and '40s. an interesting device, that could theoretically render electric (and presumably electronic) equipment inoperable and kill men (or any living creatures) in wide swaths, by the thousands.
if this weapon doesn't exist, it should. the ultimate defensive weapon against an invasion force. too bad the tendency of early 21st century combatants is toward covert / guerilla tactics and random acts of suicidal violence. maybe they can make a portable one.
flittering across the surface of randomity, chaostically.
french fries aren't as good as hash browns, which proves that the post-cut shape of the potatoes matters in the interaction with the hot oil.
mcdonald's cheeseburgers are really not very good. the spongy buns are part of the problem. bratwurst is good partially because the bun is tougher. a killer hamburger needs a bun with some gravitas.
listened to SRV & Double Trouble's Live at El Macambo a few times this weekend. Stevie Ray was the best. also listened to one of Tori Amos's records.....the name escapes me at the moment. that's interesting stuff, too....she's got a great voice, and i like her piano lines, and she writes interesting lyrics. but Stevie....Stevie could throw down.
i have a taillight out on my truck. think it's just a bulb. maybe i'll get to looking at it tomorrow...but prob'ly not. more likely to get to it this weekend. reasonably likely it'll take me longer than that, if my track record of proper maintenance effort remains undisturbed. i'm really very good at doing the bare minimum necessary to keep a vehicle on the road.
however, it's a sad fact that even the most meticulously maintained vehicles won't last forever, and this truck is no exception. at some point it's going to finally give up the ghost, and then i'll either find myself in the position of being able to acquire a nicer, newer vehicle, or forced to purchase some similarly dilapidated hulk of rust and mildew with which to negotiate the asphalt gauntlet.
it's occured to me that i could literally drive to Bellingham every day, and work straight 8 hour days, and still be gone less time in a typical work day. right now the minimum amount of time i'm out of my house in a typical 8 hr workday is about 12 hrs. an average of three hours per day driving 74 miles round trip, for an average speed of exactly 24 2/3 mph. on the freeway.
but what the hell is there to do in Bellingham? i could get to Arlington or Marysville a lot easier, though. Hwy 9 northbound in the morning would be an interesting commute. or Monroe, with a Hwy 2 eastbound. just trying to go south from here at all, let alone all the way into the SoDo district in Seattle, is a fairly monumental pain in the ass.
i watched the movie Resident Evil the other night. not bad, for what it was. Milla Jovovich is easy on the eyes. not a particularly impressive movie. i liked her better in Ultraviolet. i liked Resident Evil enough to watch the sequel though, prob'ly. i was curious about those movies in the same sort of way i'm interested in seeing Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick. i watched Brad Pitt's Troy the other day, too- then again a few days later with Loren, since i knew he'd appreciate it. easily the better of the two movies, by the way- though certainly not LOTR-grade....that seems a fitting bar to set for the future. i hear Ghost Rider is tearing up the box office; been planning on seeing that one for a long time. looks like time to take Loren to the movies this weekend.
saw Jim Carrey on David Letterman last night, caught a clip of his new movie 23. didn't look the same as the impression i got from the preview i saw a few moments later when i flipped the channel. that can't be a coincidence- that Carrey's Letterman segment would end, and at that exact moment there'd be a preview for the very movie he was promoting on an adjacent (or very near) channel. some advertising person earned their money there....why buy the 'blatant' ad on the same station when the segment ends- you just reached that audience anyway....and anyone who was interested enough in Carrey or the movie to sit through the segment before changing channels might get sucked in at just the right moment. surely that's not coincidental.
ok that's got to be enough jangsplankin' tribibulation.
this has been a test of the post system. in the event this was a real post, you may have gleaned something from it. i now return you to a location somewhere in the vicinity of your original point of departure, with sincerely delivered, cloyingly heartfelt, practically genuine apologies.
2007-01-28
decent weekend
nice to spend some time with Loren, for a change. he didn't make it last weekend at all, and a couple weekends before that he didn't make it either. that makes for a pattern of "a couple weeks off, a couple days on", which is a particularly irritating combination of frustrating and annoying. so i took advantage of a slight lull in the work schedule at the end of last week and enabled a 3-day weekend with m'boy.
Thursday night we made our way through another of Hiyao Miyazaki's films, My Neighbor Totoro
, which was aimed toward a little younger audience than i anticipated, but was still funny and enjoyable. i was tired enough that i missed the last 10 or 15 minutes of it due to falling asleep on the couch. Friday we took care of chores and got the house in order, and i watched him chew through a couple levels on a PS2 video game Sly Cooper 3: Honor Among Thieves
, and we had steaks for dinner and watched a bunch of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
in the evening. Saturday we got to play some chess, and a round of his D&D Three Dragon Ante card game (despite neither of us seeming to muster quite a firm enough grasp on the rules of...), and we ate a great spaghetti dinner while we plowed through another DVD of Star Trek: The Next Generation- which incidentally had a couple of excellent episodes on it: one which i'd never seen featuring a temporal anomaly allowing an appearance by (the previously deceased character) Tasha Yar ("Yesterday's Enterprise"), and another which i've seen often in which Data creates himself a child ("The Offspring"). fun stuff, there. Sunday we did put the final nail in the chore coffin, got in a couple games of darts, played a little Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi
(2, i think) on his PS2; just enough to know that it would take more than a couple hours for me to master that head-to-head game sufficiently enough to be any kind of competition for him, and headed downtown for the Sonics / Clippers game at Key Arena, courtesy of my folks' Christmas present to us. the Sonics got beat down handily, shooting slightly less than 33% from the field, and around 60% from the charity stripe, losing to the (lackluster!) Clippers 98-76. it was the Sonics' mascot Squatch's birthday, and at one point i had my eyes on the game and he ran up a row of seats literally right over my head. Loren and i had a great time at the game, with excellent seats, despite the loss.
only things of note (not that they're particularly important in the scheme of things) that i left out of this weekend were finishing T.H. White's The Once and Future King (great book, 2nd time i've read it), and beginning Harry Thompson's To the Edge of the World
(only just begun it, but so far so good).
so much for the weekend. Loren's back to his mom's in the morning, and i'm back to work. PEACE
Thursday night we made our way through another of Hiyao Miyazaki's films, My Neighbor Totoro
, which was aimed toward a little younger audience than i anticipated, but was still funny and enjoyable. i was tired enough that i missed the last 10 or 15 minutes of it due to falling asleep on the couch. Friday we took care of chores and got the house in order, and i watched him chew through a couple levels on a PS2 video game Sly Cooper 3: Honor Among Thieves, and we had steaks for dinner and watched a bunch of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the evening. Saturday we got to play some chess, and a round of his D&D Three Dragon Ante card game (despite neither of us seeming to muster quite a firm enough grasp on the rules of...), and we ate a great spaghetti dinner while we plowed through another DVD of Star Trek: The Next Generation- which incidentally had a couple of excellent episodes on it: one which i'd never seen featuring a temporal anomaly allowing an appearance by (the previously deceased character) Tasha Yar ("Yesterday's Enterprise"), and another which i've seen often in which Data creates himself a child ("The Offspring"). fun stuff, there. Sunday we did put the final nail in the chore coffin, got in a couple games of darts, played a little Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi (2, i think) on his PS2; just enough to know that it would take more than a couple hours for me to master that head-to-head game sufficiently enough to be any kind of competition for him, and headed downtown for the Sonics / Clippers game at Key Arena, courtesy of my folks' Christmas present to us. the Sonics got beat down handily, shooting slightly less than 33% from the field, and around 60% from the charity stripe, losing to the (lackluster!) Clippers 98-76. it was the Sonics' mascot Squatch's birthday, and at one point i had my eyes on the game and he ran up a row of seats literally right over my head. Loren and i had a great time at the game, with excellent seats, despite the loss.only things of note (not that they're particularly important in the scheme of things) that i left out of this weekend were finishing T.H. White's The Once and Future King
(great book, 2nd time i've read it), and beginning Harry Thompson's To the Edge of the World (only just begun it, but so far so good).so much for the weekend. Loren's back to his mom's in the morning, and i'm back to work. PEACE
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)