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 |  If you havent ever read my blogs, give them a go! You will be amused at my journey! |
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Me and Holo-Zoo are building a submarine here next to the pond. We're determined that we're gonna find out what's at the bottom of this damn thing... ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ... If you're new to my journal, you've got a lot of catching up to do. So, don't be a slacker, get the full story. Here are my first two journals for your reading torture.
You don't have to read them all at once. Print 'em, and take them to that little reading room with the white chair. You know you love to read in there. Or print 'em out and use them as doorstops, bookends, or paperweights. You may prefer to leave a message on my voice mail. I award weekly Gift Points for clever, and or entertaining messages left there.
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| WARNING: This journal entry has all the interest and entertainment value of a farmer slopping his hogs. Trying to close out the month on a good note, so that my replacement doesn't think,"Damn, what a mess Mike left behind," is easier said than done. I have one foot in collections and one foot in audit study, trying to bone up on classification codes and Texas Manual Rules. My numbers will be okay for August. Looking back on the year, it's only been since June and July that I have righted the ship after the disaster that was January through May. Finally, my percentage of uncollected over 90's has dropped below 4 again, where it should be. I just had to know, so I went through the last 4 years of my numbers and was pleased to note that I averaged 3.3% uncollected, which is below the goal of 5 that the home office sets, below the mark of 4 that our branch manager wants, and below the mark of 3.5 that I set for myself. The lower the better, and it looks like overall, I surpassed everyone's expectations, even mine, in spite of the horrible run that I just went through over the last 6 months. Numbers, numbers, numbers. Can he ramble on about work any more? I'm glad I won't have to constantly worry about the numbers anymore. But I know, some other distasteful administrative task will surely take its place enough to rankle me properly in the new job. Everyone deserves to be rankled properly whether they realize it or not. It builds character. On to Florida. Please. We're taking one car into Austin tomorrow morning. Zach will get his first taxi assignment, dropping Steph off at her school in the morning before taking himself to school. He picked up his student parking ID today, he's pretty good at driving the stick, and his boss still thinks he hung the moon but isn't paying him enough to flip the switch and turn it on. Marv will drop me off at work tomorrow, and Kelly will swing by the office and pick me up on his way to the airport. We'll fly into Tampa early evening, get two rental cars, check into the hotel and probably find somewhere to eat. We'll be in meetings all of Thursday and half of Friday, too, then I fly back alone on Friday night. Kelly and his wife will be staying in Florida over the weekend, thus the need for two rental cars. It'll be good to see Martin Bali again. I hope to spend at least some time away from the office with him to catch up a little bit. What have his kids been up to? What have mine been up to? We should have a beer at the very least. Oh, brother. I'm boring myself to tears here. Please, feed the chickens,.... or something. I'm meeting Beyond the Cloud9  at the Cracker Barrel after work tonight. She's bringing me the golf clubs that she doesn't want to take with her on her lazy travelling European adventure, and I'm bringing her a framed, 12x9, original watercolor, one of my best, done in February when I was rediscovering how cool watercolor was. "Invalid Entry"  It's hard to put a monetary value on a watercolor painting. One person might pay hundreds of dollars for the same piece that another person would walk right past without even looking at. You could break it down in terms of how many working hours it took you from start to finish to complete a painting. How much per hour do you think you are worth? I remember an art teacher at Temple Junior College explaining to the class how to price their work. He said, "How many hours did you work on it? Twenty? Okay. A garbage collector gets about 15 bucks an hour. Do you think you should get more than that?" It made us all think. Hell yeah- we should get paid more than an unskilled laborer. We put our blood and sweat and tears into our work, labored over it, just as much as a garbage collector, but we have to be paid for our talent and skill, too. Not just our time. No wonder large paintings at some art shows can go for tens of thousands of dollars. I'm not there yet.  But I am willing to part with one of my best watercolors in exchange for a better set of golf clubs than what I have. I just hope Beyond the Cloud9 likes the painting, and appreciates the sentiment, and doesn't go away feeling ripped off!  Hmmmm. I hear rumblings in the breakroom. That could mean a catered lunch is being brought in, and we all know what that means. Leftovers! I'm gonna miss being the official lunchroom scavenger. Which brings me right back around, full circle to "slopping the hogs". Whew. I made it. Zoo - Salted and Roasted   ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| That Zoo. He's a real pisser, isn't he? ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Now there's a phrase that doesn't get enough use. Sorry Ma, but that's an oldie and a goody that I just don't think gets enough airplay anymore. I don't know where I heard it before. Probably picked it up from dear ol' Dad or something. Not my Dad, of course. Somebody else's. <ahem> Speaking of airplay... I despise these earplugs people put in their heads that make a prison of the sound, forcing it directly into the skull without first letting it bounce off the walls of a room, its pictures, its furniture, my car windows, my face, the world that created it, to give it room to resonate and bounce, and grow and crescendo, and fade out and be gone, all on its own. They are jealous because they do not hear the music in their heads, and cannot conjure a symphony, or a brass section, not even a song or a passage, nor but a mere, single, musical note in their mind's eye, as some others can. So they force it in with a wire, squirting feedback and dischord directly in, hoping desperately not just to learn the music but to be the music, or somehow listen to the music through their ineffectual auditory injection. It's not good. I can't turn down any MP3 player low enough to stop the annoying chirupping sound from ringing in my ears. Can't stand those things.... I guess I'd make a crappy FBI agent. "Uh, sorry Mr. President, I haven't been wearing my earpiece for weeks now, because it irritates me. Can I help you with someth- ? Oh. You've been shot." Ain't that a pisser. Zoo - Salted and Roasted ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Arby's is trying to be funny, but it doesn't work for me. I like their new menu, because they now offer a corned beef reuben sandwich which is pretty damn good. I just ate one. While I was eating it, I was reading the text that they print on their drinks. They go into a short explanation about why it's good to "wash down" your Arby's with a cold beverage, saying that you could try "washing your sandwich down" with another sandwich, but that it would hard to fit in a cup and even harder to sip through a straw. They're trying to be funny and clever, but I think they made a mistake by using the whole "washing it down" imagery. To me, anything that is in need of "washing down", must be so dry, lumpy and/or disgusting that it's sitting halfway down your throat refusing to budge without the use of a plunger, ramrod or fire hose. It's the phrase "wash it down" that bothers me the most, not necessarily the food itself. My corned beef sandwich went down pretty good without a chaser or a ramrod of any kind, probably because they employ the use of a sufficiently slimy thousand island dressing, enough to grease the pipes and send things properly on down the line. The rest of their menu is also greasy enough that you generally don't have to worry about things getting hung up in your wind pipe if you chew your food thoroughly. But the need to "wash things down" implies that you couldn't swallow it to begin with, and that it needs to be loosened or dislodged from the roof of your mouth or the back of your throat before you asphyxiate yourself, and let's face it- is that a very appetizing picture to any of you? It's not to me. Arby's food isn't that bad, really, but their marketing people don't have a clue. Printing that whole "washing it down" joke on their cups might sell a few drinks, but it makes their sandwiches seem as dry and tasteless as chunky mashed potatoes from a box mix. "Excuse me, but there's a man outside lying in your parking lot, turning blue." "Really? He probably failed to read the warning notice on his sandwich about properly washing down each bite. It happens from time to time. Can I take your order?" "Well, aren't you going to help him? He's probably almost purple by now." "Is he blocking the drive thru?" "Well, no -but..." "Then there isn't anything I can do. He probably could use something to wash it down with though. Would you like to bring him a large rootbeer or something?" "Sure." "Would you like some curly fires with that? No? That'll be $2.20, please. Next!" As a general rule, I don't want to eat anything if there's a chance that it will become lodged in my throat, or that it may form some sort of blockage in my bowels. The idea of having colon surgery may have been amusing to me in my college days, but I'm getting too old for that sort of thing nowadays. I just don't have the intestinal fortitude that I once did. Arby's, I like your reuben sandwich, but you guys need to fire the marketing team. Surely you can think of something that doesn't bring to mind a sudden, pressing need to master the heimlich manuever. Zoo - Salted and Roasted ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I love that commercial where Burt Bacharach plays piano and improvises. "I'll- never get hit in the ree-aar, again.... " ♪♫ Or the one where the black guy in the office is eating cake and says, "Whose agitatin' my dots? You agitatin' my dots?" Zoo - Salted and Roasted ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I spent most of today involved in some online training modules designed to better prepare me for the new job assignment. I hate these training modules. They're so damned generic and never seem designed to do exactly what they're supposed to. Either that, or the questions are stated in such a way that you are never sure if you are supposed to choose more than one answer, or if they want only one. I can't believe how many times I got an assessment question wrong because I didn't understand what kind of answer they were looking for, or because I picked six of the options and they wanted seven. Then the stupid thing insisted that I learn and understand the difference between "efficiency" and "effectiveness", two words so obviously close in meaning that they both start with the same three eff'n letters. Sheesh. Still, I don't consider the day a total waste. I'm broke as hell, though. I hope Bovet doesn't want to go play golf tomorrow, because he's going to get a big fat NO from me. I gave him a big fat NO last week, and he insisted that we go anyway, his treat, so, we can't do that again. I owe him one. Stephie is doing much better on her clarinet now. She's had a little bit of in-school instruction and has been practicing on her own at home. I hear her tootling on it everyday after school. She's blowing a nice long solid note on it now, and working her fingers on the keys, producing that little fluttering trill-like noise. I don't know what it's called. Big air + long note + fingers wiggling = tootle-tootle-tootle. You get the picture. Zach is upset with his online poker-playing, non-working, redneck of a boss. He's getting way too many hours for him to handle with school in session, but he's the best employee there, the one they count on to close the restaurant every night, and work days during the weekends. It's too much, and he's been working there since the end of May without a raise for his efforts. He's sick of it. He plans to stick with it, though, provided they scale back on the hours some, until they complete the remodeling for the grill they are putting in. If he isn't given a raise at that point, he's going to quit. In the meantime, there are other jobs he can be scouting out in case he has to quit Buck's. He's also learning how to drive my stick shift, so that once I get the company car (two to three weeks, at least), he can drive the Tribute back and forth to work and school. The pets are still alive, the roof is still on the house, and no major appliances have exploded. These are good signs. As I write this, a strange phenomenon is happening outside. I'm not sure what it is, but some kind of dang moisture is falling down out of the sky! I am not familiar with this sort of thing at all... It seems like I should know what it is, but for some reason I can't figure it out. It's too hot for snow, so I know it isn't that. Oh, wait, I think I know! It's...... What's the word? Damn, it was there on the tip of my tongue, but I can't for the life of me remember it. Now it stopped.... ...moisture falling from the sky... I should know this.... Oh, well. So much for efficient effectiveness, or is it effective efficiency? I'm so corn-fused. Zoo - Salted and Roasted ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Holo-Zoo called me down to the pond last night about midnight. He has this bad habit of calling me on my cell phone, no matter what time of day or night it is. He just doesn't understand "the sleeping thing", as he calls it. I found him standing on the shore, leaning proudly against what appeared to be an ancient, and very rusty, firetruck. His face was shining brighter than the moon. Tire tracks, mud, and algae led from the firetruck back to the pond's edge. "You didn't pull that out of the pond, did you?" I asked, surprised to see it sitting there. "Yes," he said,"I did pull it out of the pond." "You're kidding me- THAT was down there?" "Yes. It was. She is a beauty, is she not?" The dilapidated old truck was covered in a thick layer of brown-orange rust, and parts of the body were completely rusted away. Beautiful was not exactly the adjective I would have used to describe it, but Holo-Zoo has only his own perspective. He plays by his own rules, so there must be some reason he thought it was a beauty, something I couldn't see. "What's so great about it?" I asked. "There's no telling how long it's been down there. I'll bet the engine is ruined. It's been soaking in pond scum for decades from the looks of it." Still I was mildly intrigued with the idea that an antique fire engine was pulled from the depths of my pond. I didn't even know my pond had "depths" big enough to hide an entire fire engine. But there it was, its rotted wooden ladders hanging crookedly along the sides, tires all blown out, sheet metal nearly corroded away entirely, windows cracked or missing altogether. "You are right," said Holo-Zoo. "The engine does not run yet, but when I complete my repairs and modifications, you will never have to buy gasoline for it- ever." I looked at him like he was an illusion, which he very nearly is anyway, only he's not. "Not ever? What's it going to run on?" I asked, "pine needles?" "No. Not pine needles. One -there is not enough kinetic energy stored up in pine needles to generate enough torque to turn the flywheel without supplementing it with a fossil fuel, and two- the PH level is all wrong." "What then? Yogurt?" I was skeptical. "Tofu?" He started calmly explaining to me in his best scientific jargon why neither yogurt or tofu had the necesarry properties to make an engine run. I interrupted him by holding up my hand- "Hold on," I said, "I'll make this easy. Why don't you just tell me what you're going to use for fuel?" "It is a new scientific breakthrough. I invented it yesterday," he said, beaming a little. I am always enthralled by these moments that Holo-Zoo has, these physically glowing moments when even though I know he has no emotions to speak of, I can swear that he looks proud and happy, his pixels flashing, his chroma magnified. "What is it, then?" "Popsicle sticks and expired kitty litter. Watch this." He led me around to the other side of the firetruck, and squatted on the ground next to a length of PVC pipe, a handful of popsicle sticks and a one of Marv's nice tupperware bowls filled with some well-used kitty litter. One end of the pipe was capped off. He stood it up on that end, dumped the popsicle sticks in the other end and added a precisely measured cup and a half of kitty litter. He then added an eydropper full of a clear fluid-like substance that he said was moonshine. I didn't taste it, but it smelled very foul, and he assured me it was 80 proof pure grain alcohol that he made himself out of sunflower seeds and dandelion stems. Lastly he dropped a blue racquetball into the pipe and loosely capped the top with an old strip of inner tube, secured snugly with a rubber band. Then he attached a car battery to a small electrode on the side of the pipe, and told me to stand back. I could see where this might be going, so I took several giant steps backward, and hid behind the fire truck. Nice of him to think of my safety, I thought. Two seconds later I began to hear a sharp whistling noise, like a tea kettle blowing off steam. Holo-Zoo crouched over the pipe and aimed it out over the pond as the whistling got louder and louder. Suddenly I heard a very large bang, causing me to instinctively duck my head and squeeze my eyes shut- just in time, I might add, because the pipe exploded into hundreds of tiny plastic projectiles, some of which struck me in the forehead, even though I was in the process of getting out of harm's way. Holo-Zoo, of course, being the holographic bastard that he is, was unaffected by the blast, and stood there staring out over the pond wondering where the racquetball had ended up, and how far it had travelled this time. Meanwhile, my forehead and scalp was pock-marked and speckled with tiny wounds and punctures, and small rivers of blood were trickling into my eyes. "You idiot!" I cursed. "You could have killed me! What the hell is wrong with you?" Holo-Zoo didn't answer me right away. He appeared to be in his own little world, staring out over the pond, making mental calculations, and turning ideas over in his circuitry. "Wrong?" he finally answered with his back to me. "It worked perfectly the other three times. It is obvious that I merely miscalculated the long-term endurance of the material properties in PVC pipe," he said. "Merely?" I fumed. "You nearly blew my damn head off!" "Yes, but do you not find the fuel mixture fabulously combustible?" "No. I don't." I didn't find any particular joy in Holo-Zoo's ability to make a large explosion happen, but even so, I knew somewhere inside me that there was some good that might come from all of this. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday. At least someone was working on ways to help us stupid humans break the chains binding us to our gasoline addiction. I didn't want to encourage him, but I didn't want to discourage him, either, so I just asked him to help me pick the plastic pieces out of my head. He has excellent microscopic vision, and a perfectly steady hand. All the entries concerning Holo-Zoo can be found here, "Invalid Item" all together, for your reading pleasure.Zoo - Salted and Roasted ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I'm not sure what I think about this, but it's definitely worth talking out loud about to see what flavor shit hits the fan. By the time I get to the bottom of this page, you'll know how I feel and so will I. Assdrop High School conducts random drug searches at different times during the school year. From what I understand, this is a common practice at schools all across the nation. Police officers show up with drug-sniffing dogs, and the whole school is put on "lockdown". Kids are required to line up in the hallways, like inmates at a prison, hands outside their pockets while the dogs are brought around sniffing for cigarettes, pot, crack, and anything else they are trained to seek out. The whole process takes about three hours, and during that time, nobody is permitted leave the school, go to their cars in the parking lot, or even go to the bathroom! If the dogs detect anything, that student is asked to empty their pockets and take off their shoes. If nothing is turned up, and the dogs are still pointing, that student is whisked away and strip searched in the presence of the principal and other witnesses. I can certainly understand the need to keep drugs out of our schools. They don't belong there. But if that means anything, then why don't strip searches happen everywhere? Drugs don't belong in college dormitories, and public courthouses, either, but you never see random drug searches at those places. Where do drugs belong? If the logic behind violating the civil rights of minors holds true, then obviously, drugs don't belong anywhere. So, how come when you go to the public library, you don't worry about police and drug dogs showing up there? How come the teachers don't have to line up with the students? If I smoked a big fat joint in my car one night and then lent the car to my son the next day so he could drive to school, and somehow the lingering smell of the joint got on his skin or his clothes, he could be strip searched at school! Well first of all, I don't smoke big fat joints in my car at night, but if I did, and he got harrassed at school about it, that would really piss me off! He told me a story about last year, when the dogs were in the parking lot sniffing the cars and they stopped behind one particular car, and indicated the presence of something. The girl that drove the car to school that day was pulled out of class and asked to open the trunk of her car. The cops found nothing in there but a Bic lighter, and for that "infraction", the girl earned herself a couple of days of "suspension". For a lighter? Give me a break. There's a tire iron in there, too, you idiots. Why don't you just declare that a dangerous weapon and zap her with the tazer? Then you could even cuff her and take her downtown and really violate her. I'm not stupid, or blind to what they are trying to do. They want a strong deterrant to kids bringing drugs on campus, and their plan probably works. I understand that. But my son is an honor roll student that knows better than to tangle with dangerous drugs. There is absolutely NO reason why he should ever be searched, sniffed or even looked at funny. I swear by all that is holy, if I ever hear of my son being strip searched at school without my permission, by some over-zealous, trouble-making police officer, or school official, I will have all their asses on a platter so fast they'll have to legalize gambling in this county to get the school district back on its feet again. I'm all for metal detectors in order to keep guns and knives out of schools, but why body-search my minor without probable cause, just because he might have drugs on his person...? Drugs that aren't going to hurt anyone but himself. Look at it this way: Assdrop ISD doesn't have metal detectors, and dogs can't detect sharpened pieces of metal, or loaded guns. So, who's finding the guns and knives? Nobody. I hope those backward-assed hicks are happy. Assdrop High School is drug-free, sure, but everyone is probably packing a piece instead. Dumb-asses. There. I knew if I started writing about it, I would form an opinion. But you know what they say about opinions. Don't you? Okay I'll tell you. Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has them and they all stink... except your own. Zoo - Salted and Roasted ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I was editing that last entry while at least five of you were reading it! It's much better now. Zoo - Salted and Roasted ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
There's a strange little zoo in my county that has some of the most mixed up species I've ever seen, or even heard about. Assdrop County Zoo is off of FM973 out in the country, and it claims to have a two headed musk donkey that knows how to operate a loom. Sounds like a personal problem to me. A two headed donkey is strange enough, but this one knows how to make a blanket? Very odd, but true. I've seen it. They also have over 600 different species of lizards, ranging from tiny yellow salamanders to monstrous blood-spitting Kimono Dragons, and at least one South African Saddle Frog that is big enough to ride. No kidding. Remember the pushme-pullyu from Doctor Dolittle? They have a pair of those at the Assdrop County Zoo. It's some kind of alpaca or llama that has two necks and two heads, one pointing south and one pointing north. It appears to have no hind quarters at all, and if you look underneath at its bellybutton, well- that's not a belly button. Don't get too close. It's got to be the weirdest animal I've ever seen, but seen it I have, and smelled it, too. Assdrop County Zoo also has some inbred sheep that have a curious appetite for Copenhagen and Skoal. I don't even want to speculate on how they got that way, but suffice it to say, their cage is often crowded with Wranglers-wearing fans with little faded circles on their back pockets. Draw your own conclusions, please. Interesting writing to me, means taking the smallest, simplest, everyday thing and making something extraordinary out of it. I want people to think,"DAMMIT! Why didn't I think of that? It's so damn simple," because that's what I think everytime I read something imaginative that someone else has written. What are birds really thinking about as they sit on the wires all day? What if I had a holographic image of myself? What if decided to rob an armored truck dressed as a giant Twinkie? What would a rock say if it could talk? What if Mother Nature went postal on us? What if the postman went natural on us? Even the most boring and mundane things can be given a twist, and a kick start. Merge two ideas and see if they have any similarities, any connections to each other, intentional or not. Opposites attract. Ironies and subtle shades of meaning add color and depth. Throw in some recurring themes for unity, some ambiguity for mystery, and let the reader try to sort it all out and come to their own conclusions about what kind of weirdo you are. I know exactly what kind of weirdo I am. It makes for some interesting writing, don't you think? So tell me, what kind of weirdo would you like to be? What kind of weirdo do you think I am? Anything goes in creative writing, because there are no boundaries. Can you think of any? I can't. My imagination is limitless. If I tell you I've seen it all, it's because I have. In my imagination. Zoo - Salted and Roasted ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I've played golf at Butler Pitch n Putt many times since December 2001, some with my son, some with Bovet, and sometimes alone. It's a great little spot in the heart of a city that seems intent on eating the park, chewing it up, and swallowing it down. It's in South Austin, and near Barton Springs, Auitorium Shores and Zilker Park, so there is a lot of foot traffic, joggers, bicyclists, and homeless, as well as busy boulevards and train tracks on three sides. There's a drainage tunnel, connected to a culvert next to the 5th putting green, that goes under the train tracks, also bordered by heavy shrubbery and trees. I've hit my ball into that culvert before on many occassions when I've overshot the green. I never thought to watch my back in case some idiots come running out of the tunnel to mug me. Well, last night on the local news I learned that two homeless assholes jumped an elderly man on that very green. They bashed him in the face with something, breaking his nose, and detaching the retina in one of his eyes. I'm angered by that, but it's a selfish anger, borne of the fact that I somehow feel violated. They took the old guy's wallet and a ring he was wearing, and disappeared. The police arrested two vagrants matching the description of the attackers, but later released them, believing they were not involved after all. Who knows if the cops will ever find the ones that really did it. The old man is going to be okay eventually, but my pristine little oasis in the middle of the city, packed with history almost as old as the giant elms and oaks that surround it, has been tainted and sullied by the selfish needs of the two transient attackers. I hate the city. Large cities can be very beautiful from an airplane, or from the safety of a skyscraper balcony at night. The face of the city; twinkling lights, glowing avenues and boulevards, pulsing and vibrating with life and color- it's exciting to see all the energy and movement from that perspective. But the surface of every city's flesh, if you get down to sidewalk level, is covered with gaping pores, blackheads, and cystic acne, festering in the tunnels and dark places, bubbling up to scar the landscape. Did you know that even right after you get out of the shower, there's still bacteria crawling all over every inch of your body?? I hate the city. Zoo - Salted and Roasted ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
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