Finn-ished

I told Tony that I decided to pass on the free Finn sailboat. This leaves me stuck on terra firma for the moment. However, there's a silver lining. The prospect of a scary olympic class sailing boat led Taylor to say something she has never said to me before: "You should just get yourself a boat. Try to find one you can handle." Coming from Taylor, this is big stuff.

See, many of you may not know this, but last summer we had a sailing trauma. I signed us up for a sailing class. Within five minutes of anchors away, the boom beaned Taylor in the coconut with extreme malice of no thought. (translated---Taylor got whacked in the head). Taylor was so traumatized and concussionized, that we didn't go back to any more of the classes. It's true, I didn't have a head injury. It was just too hot out for my liking, wah wah. And I was traumatized because I paid about $400 for these classes and we didn't even go. Usually when I want to throw money away, I invest in the stock market.

I did learn one essential fact before skipping out on class. I discovered that there is a boat for me. It is called the Club 420. This is the kind of boat used for the sailing class. Yes, Club 420. A club that might allow me for a member. There's even a Club for Club 420's. The Club 420 Club, or some such: http://www.club420.org/

They have a magazine too! http://www.420magazine.com/

Some day, I'm going to get me a Club 420 and name it Bogart. And some day, if you feel like it, you can come sailing with me and maybe be inducted into Club 420 too!

nuthin at all

I don't know what's gotten into me. I'm blogging like...all the time. And there's NOTHING to talk about! In fact, in between getting the idea "hey, i think i should write about that" and actually signing in, I forgot what I was going to write about. Yet here I am, typing away. I'm the keyboard chatterbox.

It's 11:10 pm. I'm sitting in the recliner, weighted down by the cat and the laptop. It was a rough day. This morning, I discovered that a package I had released was the wrong software version, and that was embarrassing. And it was supposed to only take about 2 hours to fix it, except for the part about having to grovel to the people who had already installed the wrong version. It's not a simple upgrade, more of an "erase it all and start over". And then the new rev won't install because it can't handle the extra daylight savings time (see....it's Y2K for a few weeks every year now). And all the usual whiners were whining at me extra. And the boss was mad at me cause I'm not supposed to talk to the whiners (why is that so hard to do????).

Um, still trying to remember what I was going to write about.

Strictly Rated G

Thank you to those of you kind enough to send notes in response to my recent promotion. I'd like to respond to a type of question that has arisen from a few different camps. The question goes approximately like this: "You should write about 'this event' or 'that episode'?" I will now take this opportunity to explain why I have not written about "this" and/or "that". It is because my blog is rated G (or maybe PG). Because that's how I like it. "This" and "that" strike me as rated R material. In these virtual pages, I get to present events in the way I would like them to be perceived (yes, you may read between those lines what EVER you want). For the record, these stories are, for the most part, true. Although my memory isn't exactly the most precise organ in my body. Some settling of contents may have occured during shipping.

Therefore, if you would like to hear about two people laughing uncontrollably for an hour over nothing (that can be divulged) in the paninininini restaurant, or whatever it is called. Or the time when somebody got a little over-excited and experienced a severe, public wardrobe malfunction. Or the time when something happened at work that the boss must NEVER find out about. Or anything sporting "adult themes"..you will have to come and sit on my unfinished deck with me and visit in person.

And...if anything untoward should transpire during that visit, you can rest assured that, by the time it hits these airwaves, it will be a properly presentable tale.

How to Wreck a Nice Beach

I remember the first time I ever came to Oregon. It was 1988, fall semester of my sophomore year of college. I went off for adventure and educatin' at the Oregon Extension. This is a one-semester college program, located in the southern Oregon Cascades in the town of Lincoln, population 21 (or so).

I lacked a clear understanding of what lay ahead for me at the Oregon Extension (OE). Al Gore hadn't yet invented the internet, so all I had to go on was a small packet from the OE folks and my own fantasies about the wild west. Truthfully, I had never thought much about Oregon. It's just filler in between California and Washington, right? So, my family and friends prepared me with the following factoids:

• It rains 366 days a year in Oregon (SO not true, but don't tell...)
• Oregon is full of hippies (loosely based in outdated fact)
• Oregon has more sheep than people (confusing Oregon with New Zealand, an easy enough mistake to make)
• Oregon is composed of rolling, heather-covered hills and criss-crossed with walking paths (now, confusing Oregon with the Yorkshire Moors, whatever)
• The woods are booby trapped, vietcong-style, by pot growers guarding their stashes (this "fact" supplied by my own dear dad, but I didn't believe this one.)

I am not making it up. That is what I was expecting. When I stepped off that plane at the Klamath Falls airport in late August of 1998, I had the image of hippies frolicking on the lush green hillsides in the misty drizzle with throngs of fluffy sheep. And I brought duck boots, so bring it on!

On the first day of school at the Oregon Extension--which had rugged, rocky mountains with tall trees, brown grass of late summer, no sheep, no heather and definitely no rain in sight--the professors, who did seem maybe a little hippy-ish to my east coast eyes (phew, not COMPLETELY wrong about Oregon) gathered all us students together for orientation. These professors seemed nice enough at first. Things were going ok. That is, until they warned us about the BIG DANGER. I can feel my blood pressure rising right now as I think about it. They told us, in all seriousness, to watch out on cold mornings for THE BLACK GUYS ON THE ROAD IN THE SHADOWS.

Me (in my mind): What? HUH? ????

Prof: Yes, it's true. In the mornings, black guys sometimes get on the road in shady spots, posing great danger motorists and students.

Me: Now that I think about it, I can't remember seeing any black people since I arrived in Oregon. Why do they hide and only come out in the mornings? Why do they stay in the shade? This place is nuts. I think am not fully prepared for the seriousness of the Oregon situation.

Prof: Be mindful of the vehicles when you walk on the road in the mornings, because sometimes they can't see the black guys. And if they hit some black guys, they might lose control of their car and hit you.

Me: Looking around the room, I see that nobody else appears alarmed. I am now quite concerned. I know that racism still exists in America, but this is off the charts.

Prof: And, the logging trucks can be the most dangerous of all. In fact <...I SWEAR I am NOT making this up...>, once a few years ago, Howard was out walking one morning and a truck hit some black guys. The driver lost control, hit a horse, the horse FLEW through the air, landed on Howard, and broke Howard's leg. But don't ask Howard about it. He doesn't like to talk about it because the horse died.

Me: BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BLACK GUYS????? You know, the ones who were just run over by the truck!!!!

And that concluded the part of the orientation concerned with warning of dangers lurking in the shadows on the cold, hard streets of Lincoln. I was so baffled and scared by the sheer calousness, and the fact that nobody else appeared the least bit troubled, that I was afraid to ask anybody: "What is going on here???"

For several weeks, I tried to act normal (a challenge even under the best of circumstances) and pretend to watch out for these supposedly dangerous black guys. I didn't see any black guys, but how are you supposed to know if they are there. The professors say they blend in and can be impossible to discern.

Having paid in full up front, I persisted with the program, which seemed otherwise fairly reasonable. Until one day, a good several weeks into this education, a small voice came to me. The voice said: black ice, my dear, BLACK ICE.

Oh! OOOOOOOOOH! Um, so, yeah. Black ice. I've never heard of ice-of-color before. This could kinda make sense. ha ha ha! I get it now! Wow, that was quite the misunderstanding. Hey....did everybody else already know this? Was I the only one who got that wrong? Oh dear.

And that brings me to the actual point of my story, which is: It's not always easy to recognize speech.

Nautical Update

The boat is cleaning up pretty well. Although the trailer wheels are a lost cause. The tires are flat and off the rims, but the wheels are so rusted I can't get the lug nuts off. I may need to wait for the next "great flood" to get this thing launched.

Tony told me it is a "FINN" sailboat. So, I searched to see what kind of boat is a Finn. Here is what I found:

"A one-man centerboard dinghy, the Finn requires tremendous physical exertion and mental concentration. This combination of excellent craft with sophisticated competitor makes Finn racing unique.

Finn sailors are strong, fit and tolerant of long periods of concentration and physical exertion. Averaging more than 6' in height, they weigh in at 175+ lbs. and are unusually tough."
(quoted from http://www.ussailing.org/olympics/classes.htm, hope that's allowed).

So, let's see:
Finn sailors: over 6' tall
Me: significantly UNDER 6' tall

Finn sailors: 175+ pounds
Me: not EVEN (although, I suppose this is more adjustable than height)

Finn sailors: Unusually tough
Me: wuss

So...I'm getting increasingly intimidated by the prospect of cutting my sailing teeth on an olympic class heavy sailing ding-ee. The more I think about it, the more I get a scared feeling in my stomach. That's where the scared feelings live, not in my heart. That's where the cholesterol lives. On second thought, I'm not scared of trying to sail this boat as much as I'm scared of trying to back it down the boat ramp. I have a mental image of launching not only the boat, but also my car, into the river. I just don't know if I can face the prospect of having to get my car towed out of the Columbia, all radioactivated and glowing. I know....I'll drive Taylor's car. Good, problem solved. Now, how to fix those trailer wheels.

Spring is in th'hair

Scruffy engaging in her second favorite hobby--birdwatching:

Her first favorite is bird CATCHING.

Enemy doing recon:

Fraternizing with the enemy (how COULD YOU):

My Weekend

What I did this weekend, by Xtine....

I had a very nice weekend this weekend. I worked a teensy bit on my never-to-be-completed deck, drove the stinky VW, played in the yard when it was sunny. Normal stuff.

Then....all great weekend hell broke loose. Taylor & I walked down to the nursery to look at plants. On the way home, I FOUND A TEN DOLLAR BILL!!!! yes yes YES...crispy ten dollar bill. New and crispy and authentic. Oh, the feel of finding paper money...glglglgllllllllllll. The happy chemicals went shooting into my brain. You can't plan this kind of stuff. That's the best part, it just sneaks up and BAM. Credit goes to Taylor who actually spotted it, but I got to pick it up. Yippee....

For those of you who may fret for the dear soul who had a less good weekend and managed to LOSE a crispy new ten dollar bill, there was nobody anywhere nearby. We couldn't have given it back if we wanted to. Once I found $2 in DC and gave one to a begger sitting nearby. See... I can share.

Oh, and Tony gave me a sailboat. Technically, maybe it's just a boat. The sail is missing. And it needs a light cleaning. (click on the pictures for a larger view). I bet that ten dollar bill will take care of any necessary maintenance this thing needs. The universe provides...

stuff

I used to drink too much about once a year and regret it severely. I've grown up some. Now it's more like...once every few years. So, judging by last weekend, this kind of thing should not happen for a few years.

we're building a deck, it may never get done. we will always be BUILDING a deck.

i put lime on the lawn..then it didn't rain for like 2 weeks. WTF? This is Portland in February. Whatever. Now all the lime is on the deck and in the house. I guess we need PH balancing indoors too.

Wised up and had somebody else trim the monster 150 foot long, 15 foot tall hedge. Haven't gotten the bill yet.

Man, this is boring. See....told ya. You know, I frequently think of brilliantly funny things to write, then I forget them. What's that all about?

Oh yeah, I was composing an ode to my VW. It's not done, probably never will be. I have some notes: There are sections about how lovable it is; how it's good that it can't talk; about how it used to know its own way to Cook's Tavern, but now it only knows its way to Home Depot; about how's it's reliable except when it's not; about how it used to smell wonderfully of sandalwood and exhaust, but now it smells like fermaldyhide (sp?) from that stupid pink insulation I left in there for a few weeks; about how you can hear no road noise in it --not over the rattling of all the old parts and the whistling over 40mph; about how, even at almost 40 years old, it still gets better milage than the average SUV; about how I can't part with it because some kind of aging issues I seem to have, etc etc. I'll commission somebody to turn these notes into a work of art.

Tony just called and offered to GIVE me a racing sailboat. As soon as I got off the phone, Taylor said: Tell me you are NOT considering that seriously. ummmm, no dear, of course not...(crap)

I'm probably due for a picture. Let me go find a picture worthy of posting....

Ok, here's one that almost NOBODY will recognize. It's uncharacteristically cheesy for me, but anything can happen. Taken last Oct when Andra and I were cruising up I-95 toward Newark. If you can tell me what this is, drop me a line and I'll confirm or deny.

No Hope for the Dentally Ill

I'm dentally retarded. It's true. My dentist said so. He said: "You're dentally retarded." Just like that: "You...are..dentally...retarded." I'm not merely dentally delayed, I'm bona-fide dentally retarded. I STILL haven't gotten 3 of my wisdom teeth. Now what?

The Depths of Unremarkability

Dear Sweet Pearl -- It is for you that I finally post to this long neglected blog. Nobody else has wondered where I've been. In fact, you haven't wondered WHERE I've been, just when I'll write about it. I've been right here...in my basement. Until very recently, I've been one of those irritating "more interesting than thou" types, always ready with some kind of story of my remarkable adventures. I don't have such adventures now, I'm not remarkable. I work at home....alone...in my basement. There are certain benefits to working from home, besides the obvious short commute. The main benefit is the complete lack of office hygiene requirements, enough said...

An odd thing is going on in the new year. In a concerted effort to become even more boring than I already am, I've become absolutely, completely organized. I have completely cleaned the house, the garage, the basement, the attic and even my files. I consolidated some bank accounts. And I just finished the cleanup from the original construction of this house 55 years ago (they left trash in the crawlspaces, can you believe it?). I have done my taxes already, in two different ways to see what works out best. I've organized my files and I even went through my old computer backups and organized those. If I die at this very moment, my business is in order. So, in a way, this is quite remarkable, but really, it's completely unremarkable. Why? I am just perfecting the art of avoiding something. As I re-re-re-organize the basement cupboard and file my strings of Xmas lights by length and color, I try to figure out what it is I'm avoiding with all of this uber-organization. I've been considering this for a few weeks, and I think i know what it is:
DIET AND EXERCISE

Yep, entirely unremarkable.

Tonight, I shall consider this while watching reruns of British TV shows, drinking beer and eating brownies. This unremarkability thing, I think I like it.

Third Quarter New Year Resolution Status Report

Just remembered that I made some New Years Resolutions. Let's check in and see how they are going....


1. Finish that window I half rebuilt last summer
Status: Complete.
Report: It looks like a window. It doesn't leak (it hasn't rained either)

2. Take a vacation
Status: Complete. ...twice in fact.
Taylor at Silver Falls State Park:







Crater Lake National Park in Southern Oregon:











Taylor with Family (nephews, neice, mom) at Crater Lake--Justin, Jared, Taylor, Katie, Claris


3. Don't give the cat a haircut

Status: Failed.

Scruffy sez: I'm COLD now!


Hey, there's a funny animal in the trash. It smells kinda like....me!

POOF!

Reinterpretting the Volume in the Glass

Question: Is your glass half full or half empty?
Motivation: Some kind of personality test.
New discoveries: Scientists have recently uncovered more potential responses. Four out of five scientists agree, there are more than two ways to address the perplexing mystery of the level of matter in the glass recepticle.
Answers:
1. Half Full -- optimist
2. Half Empty -- pessimist
3. Somebody stole the other half of my glass -- paranoid schizophrenic (or playground nerd)
4. The glass is too big -- spin doctor
5. I spilled the other half -- toddler
6. I ordered a SKINNY and this is a SKIMPY. Take this back! -- Spoiled starbucks customer
7. That half glass will be $900 and comes with a free toilet seat. -- govt contractor
8. You only fill it halfway with scotch, anyway. -- Responsible drinker
9. Keep it comin! -- Alcoholic
10. That's way more polonium 210 than you could possibly need. -- KGB
11. The nurse said to fill it halfway and give it to the attendant. -- Drug suspect
12. Yummy! -- Pollyanna

My Dream House

Last night I dreamed I was with a realtor looking at houses.

<...fade into dream scene...>

Realtor: "Here's one that is very affordable. Only 275."
Me: "275 thousand?"
Realtor: "No, just $275. You can get it out of your ATM."
Me: "HEY, that's not a house, you just painted trim and windows onto a port-a-john!"
Realtor: "It's cozy and cheap to heat."

The Best Revenge

Taylor and I went on a cruise to... it doesn't really matter where, does it? Then we came home and I bought a convertible. Is it a midlife crisis? No way. It's THE BEST REVENGE!

The cruise was wonderful. I recommend a cruise to anybody who wants to spend $1000 a day in a hotel that rocks (figuratively and literally) and comes with folded towel animals. Contrary to predictions, we did NOT overindulge (often). We sipped on champagne and thought up many toasts, our favorite of which: "The best revenge!" It may bear saying that we don't really have anybody on whom to get revenge, but if we did....take THAT!

Some pics thinly disguised as attempts to make everybody jealous...(there it is, the revenge part)

Snazzy dress-ups
The room.

New Friend.
New ride.

Take your child to work day

This Thursday is "Take your child to work day". I am pondering the concept. I can see a couple of problems right off the bat. First, I hear plenty of whining and crying on days when no children are at work. Second, many people seem strongly opposed to children at work. Just ask Nike and Kathy Lee Gifford. Finally, and most significantly for me, my entire job revolves around conference calls, computer console screens and emails. Any kid that comes to work with me will decide to drop out of school and give up on life.

Now I see that the day has been renamed to "Take our Daughters and Sons to work day". I didn't catch the reasoning behind the renaming. Maybe you can take them even if they are no longer children. I don't have any children, so I decided to observe "Take your inner child to work day." My inner child, code named ICK for Inner Child-Kid, hasn't seen much action since Dr Phil's "get over it and take some responsibility" style took over pop psychology.

The very first thing ICK noted: "Your office is boring! There are no toys." So I made ICK take my first conference call of the week whilst letting my outer adult go down for more coffee and the paper. Oddly, nobody seemed to notice this switch. After the call, with ICK getting fidgety again, I decided to allow her to assist in some actual work, called: "playing with scotch tape." This involves printing out my car insurance cards and "laminating" them with about 50 yards of scotch tape. Admit it, everybody (I mean everybody's inner child) loves to play with scotch tape.

After that, all facets of my personality got tired of trying to come up with amusing things to say about "Take Your Child to Work Day" and started thinking of other days that we can dedicate to specific child-centered activities, such as:
1. Teach your child some manners day (one day a year would be more than most kids in my neighborhood currently get)
2. Lock your child in the basement with a box of cheerios Day
3. Make your child sleep in a cage day (this is more of a night activity)
4. Lose your child to child services day (sometimes follows cage day)
5. Let your child play with a plastic bag day
6. DON'T take your noisy child to a restaurant day
7. Act like a child at work day (certain co-workers observe this day all year)

I'm sure there must be enough days to fill up an entire year, if not a whole decade.

People who should NOT take their children to work:
1. Strippers
2. Airline pilots
3. Proctologists
4. Me
5. ...

It's a record

Two posts in one day? It can't be! Ok, you're right. That first post today is one I started last August and finally got around to finishing. But this one is new. Let's see how long this takes to write.

I got a couple of inquiries regarding a post from some months back where I mentioned my plan to attend a college reunion. Yes, I did go. No, it wasn't awful. It wasn't even terribly awkward. The Messiah College (jesus christ, what the hell kind of name is that for a college? I digress) class of 1991's 15 year reunion set a record for the highest 15 year reunion attendence in the history of 15 year reunion attendance taking. I saw a bunch of old friends. It was great fun. Everybody looks GREAT. Well, The women all look great...thin, fit and no gray hair (bitches). The men have aged a little more unevenly, from "you look exactly the same" to "omigod! Who's the grandfather over there". There were two of us (hi Cathy!) who were brave enough not to dye our hair. I'm on to the rest of you girls, I KNOW your hair can't possibly be as grey-free as you are putting on. I developed a theory about reunions and looks. The reason everybody looked so great there (and made me feel dowdy) is because the ones who haven't preserved as well don't show up. I'm convinced of my theory and will be writing for research grants as soon as I can figure out what foundation would want to research this.

I have no pictures of this reunion. Why not? Because I left my camera in the car. Why? Because I wore tight jeans that make me look as slim as possible and twarn't room for a camera in them pockets. Twaren't room for a single sheet of note paper in them pockets. Maybe I should have stayed home with the other, normally proportioned classmates. Too late.

Embrace Flatulence

You can't resist, can you? You just have to read an article entitled "Embrace Flatulence". I know how you are. If it makes you feel any better, I couldn't resist either. There it was in my "bulk mail" folder, where all the spam gets dropped. There sat the email with subject line: Embrace Flatulence. After looking past thousands of spams over the last few years to find the three important emails that ended up in there, I have determined that spammers use some kind of random text generator for these headings. And, like the million monkeys with their million typewriters, eventually they came up with something good. So I opened it to see what the spammer had to say about celebrating the wind.

The message was a "hot stock tip" which I didn't even read. But the text at the end of the message caught my eye. Another trick spammers use to get past spam filters is nonsense writing that can't easily be classified by automated methods. The text read like the novels in my dreams. Do you have these literate dreams? I dream I am reading, and there are real words and they almost make sense until I concentrate and then all meaning evaporates (how post modern). Eventually, in my dreams and in my spams, I give up.

What do you think? Can you make sense of this?

"The finished work of art still depends on Ray and other scientists believe that some electronic creatures In medicine and academic research, information technology can be avant-garde will continually rear its unusual head where it's association. The dream to achieve machine intelligence that is imagination. It is the dimension of place in the world that computer programs distribute it world-wide if I so choose. "

I guess if one likes spam, one best learn to embrace flatulence.

New Year Resolutions

Happy new year, non existant readers. You may notice that I changed my blog url. Or maybe you won't.

The new year morning started off pleasantly. Taylor and I sat on the couch congratulating ourselves for a good 2006 and thinking of what we'd like 2007 to hold.

2006 was a good year for us. My work took a turn for excellent. I've been working on a data center standup project as chief Oracle implementer and number one sidekick to the lead data center architect (that comes with no title and many visio diagrams). I had the extreme fortune to spend not one, not two, but THREE weeks in Kansas City in the pursuit of a center of data. Kansas City, for those of you curious coastal types, is pleasant. Gosh darn super duper pleasant without a shred of cynicism, and with lots of malls, strip malls and chain franchises.


Taylor set up a little gym in the basement and took on a few clients. In December, she embraced 40 with gusto, starting with the fanfare of a surprise party. Here's Taylor looking surprised.


Then we had christmas and came up with a little family portrait, minus Pixel, who made a run for it just in time. Scruffy struggled in vain, as you can almost tell. She's just excited to get to her presents.



Now it's 2007, and where were we? Coming up with resolutions. Like many of us who are (none of your business) years old, we don't much bother with resolutions. Besides, we've been exercising, eating (mostly) right, getting enough sleep, putting money in our IRA and flossing. There's not much left to resolve, is there? What we have it more of a to-do list. Here's ours for 2007:

1. Finish that window I half rebuilt last summer
2. Take a vacation
3. Don't give the cat a haircut

And thus begins 2007. Hope you all have a great new year.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, photographic highlights of 2006:

Me and Taylor and the Columbia River Gorge



A day at McMenamins Edgefield

Co-conspirators develop evil golfing plot.









Garden type things









House project type things






Nephews and Niece: Justin, Jared, Katie
Taylor's 40th B Day Party




Kate, Taylor, Diane, Me

When peppers attack

In addition to "don't touch your eyes", here's another thing to put on the list of "stuff not to do whilst eating hot peppers":

I'm eating away on a nice, HOT cayenne pepper fresh from my garden. Crunch crunch. Sometimes these things can make a girl sneeze. But my mouth is full of crunched up cayenne pepper, one of the last things I'd like splattered over my computer screen. So I cover my mouth and sneeze through my nose.

Bad BAD idea. Might burn less to clean off the monitor with my eyelids. Next question: How does one get pepper chunks out of the sinus cavity?

I'd better get a good high from this.

Poke her and see if she moves

It's been months and months. I have no more fans. . . . That statement is meant to make you think I had fans to begin with.

It's summer in Portland. It's in the 70's. The rest of the country has heat stroke. It's not always like this. Sometimes we have nice weather (rain).

I've been really busy with work lately. My friend Khalkho says: "Why would you ever want to retire? Working for the forest service is like being retired!" It's one perspective.

This summer has not been very interesting. I work a lot. I landed a small contract to teach an Oracle class at a software company in Corvallis. That means that during my vacation I'll be working that job. At least I can afford better wine now.

On Monday, I made the potentially regretable decision to go to a class reunion at the christian college I attended in my past life. Why? Nobody can figure out WHY I would want to do that. My friends are all amazed. Apparently I associate with non-reuniters. But I had fun in college. Everybody there was real nice...TOO nice. It was like four years of summer camp, with grades. Well, there's another reason: it has given me the motivation to retain a personal trainer. Every day, I get an hour or so of training in my own home with my own home gym. What's my secret? Big bucks consultant? Oh sure. That and Taylor is my trainer. I get special treatment (Taylor: Just 5 more minutes. Me: You said that 10 minutes ago!)