Heroes in a half shell!

Admit it. After watching the trailer, you are as excited to see this one as you were the first time around.

Weekends Rule!

I'm so glad 5:00 rolled around today. I was ready to go when I walked back in from lunch. But now that I'm in a cubicle, it wouldn't look good to my employees. (they don't see the after-hours and weekend work I do to make up for it)

I just thought I'd share a fairly typical week for me at the office. (I blurred it so that no potentially confidential information gets posted on the net--not that anything I do is that important, but...) My current task list is at the right. I've got 2 of my 12 or so categories open. Right now, my task list is around 185.

Spam

Sorry, folks, I had to turn on that shitty "Word Verification" feature on my blog. It's been getting comment spam really bad. I still want to hear from everyone, but I don't think you should have to filter through the automated spam.

Work, Work, Work

First, to dismiss a general misunderstanding. (Most) supervisors and managers aren't the lazy bastards that most people think. The general thinking is often that these people stopped working when they got their promotion and just delegate all of their work. Let me say that is very rarely true. At least from what I've seen (and am experiencing), most people in any sort of management have about twice the work that their direct-reports have and spend many more hours doing that work. (regardless of how infrequently they are in their office) The problem seems to be that management does a lot of work that doesn't have as tangible of results as their direct-reports. Therefore, the assumption is that they don't do much anything.

I've been getting more and more behind at work. Between that and my boss consistently riding my ass, it's been a very stressful last month or so. It got to the point last week that I said "if I have another shitty day, I'm quitting." Hey, I'm fairly employable, and I wouldn't mind getting out of the oil business. Right now, I probably won't quit anytime soon, but I think that within the next year or two I'll be looking for another job.

So, in an attempt to try and catch-up, I headed to the coffee shop relatively early today. I love my task list--I've already said that it keeps track of everything I need to do. (work and personal) However, lately, instead of hovering around 100 "to-do's", it's swelled to about 150. No matter how much I work, I can't seem to get it down any. I thought that a day away from the office and house would help. I've got quite a bit of lingering work done today, but 2 lattes later I'm up to 185. Damnit.

BTW: There's a fairly cute gay guy sitting across from me that I've been tempted to flirt with. That's until he spent the last 30 minutes on his cell phone and I got an involuntary glimpse into the drama that is his life and friends. [sigh] Where are all the normal guys?

Mongo Sad

No, I haven't given up on the blog already. My Internet connection at the house has been down since Friday. Stupid technology.

I had to get some stuff done, so I'm at a local coffee shop with all the high school kids.

Why Not

(to Candice)

1. What time did you get up this morning?
6 AM as always. (even on weekends unless I was out late or drinking heavily—or both)

2. Diamonds or pearls?
Diamonds. They can be used in all sorts of engi-nerd ways.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Superman. (Suck it, C!)

4. What is your favorite TV show?
The Daily Show, Globe Trekker

5. What do you usually have for breakfast?
Non-fat, no-whip mocha from Starbucks if I’m lazy. Non-fat, no-whip mocha from home if I’m awake enough and a bagel. If I’m really awake, it’s a high-protein, all-natural fruit shake.

6. What is your middle name?
Michael. Get it? BMW. (yeah, it’s just a coincidence)

7. Favorite cuisine?
Anything I can eat, get up from the table and feel like running 4 miles. Heavy food = teh suk.

8. What foods don't you like?
How can people eat fish? It tastes rotten!

9. What is your favorite chip flavor?
Sour cream & onion

10. What is your favorite CD at the moment?
Sad, but the only thing that comes to mind is the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack. Yeah, I’m a big homo. I just don’t buy full CD’s now that I’ve got iTunes. I bought the new Dixie Chicks CD, but I don’t see the big deal. It’s ok, but not that phenomenal.

11. What kind of car do you drive?
Altima. 3 more payments, bitch!

12. Favorite sandwich?
There’s a greasy spoon in El Reno that produces the best burger on the planet. I should be shot for not remember its name. (it is on the tip of my tongue) That burger has helped me through many a hangover.

13. What characteristics do you despise?
Being an asshole.

14. Favorite item of clothing ?
Currently owned? Ok, well there’s this Polo t-shirt that almost makes me look “cute”.

15. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?
Extended tour of Europe.

16. What color is your bathroom?
Some stupid wallpaper. It needs to go.

17. Favorite brand of clothing?
Polo for practical at-work casual. Banana Republic if I’m hoping to bump into a potential date.

18. Where would you retire to?
Right now, a small costal town in the UK.

19. What was your most memorable birthday?
My 23rd. (for reasons I won’t get into here)

20. Favorite sport to watch?
Sports? Sorry, I fit that stereotype.

21. Furthest place you are sending this?
Distance is irrelevant.

22. Who do you least expect to send this back to you?
Abraham Lincoln

23. Person you expect to send it back first?
Abraham Lincoln (he’s always fucking with me)

24. Goal you have for yourself?
Get in better shape.

25. When is your birthday?
Feb 23.

26. Are you a morning person or a night person?
Morning. If I could wake up 2 hours before dawn, I’d be perfectly happy.

27. What is your shoe size?
9 1/2

28. Pets:
1 cat.

29. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us?
Nothing except what’s on the blog, I think.

30. What did you want to be when you were a little boy/girl?
The earliest thing I remember is wanting to be an Architect. That came from my dad, and I was like 12 at the time. Don’t remember before that.

31. How are you today?
Happy because I accomplished something really cool at work today.

32. What is your favorite candy?
Um. I don’t like candy.

33. What is your favorite flower?
“Favorite candy”? “Favorite flower”? If you want to ask me out, just say so.

34. What is your hair color now?
Light brown—almost blonde. The red is gone.

35. W hat is the last book you read?
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

Good News / Bad News

Well, I got some good news from a doctor today. Seems like something I thought might be a big deal turned out to be something trivial. Man, the suspense has been killing me.

On the other side of the coin, we are moving offices at the end of the month. They are taking away my office. Suck. Major fucking suck. And not only will they be imprisoning me in a cubicle--it's a "4-way". That's where some genius discovered that you can fit more people per square foot if you make the cubicles a little larger and then put one person in each corner. I want to kick that guy in the nuts.

So, I've been bitching non-stop to my boss about this. The best he's been able to come up with is to let me and some other people telecommute part time. That might not be so bad. Hey, it's the only time outside of a nightclub where I can get paid while just in my underwear.

Maybe life isn't too bad.

Suggested Reading

Today, I am suggesting you read you read USA Today's Religion Op-ed page. (two things I usually don't read)

It's a short essay by Barack Obama (D-Illinois) entitled "Politicians need not abandon religion." It is an excellent example of how religion can (and, arguably should) influence politics, but can be done without going to the extreme right or alienating the "average Joe."

"It's a series of tubes"

While debating the Network Neutrality bill on the floor of the Senate, one of my favorite politicians, Senator Ted "$230M Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens (R-Alaska) gave the audience a quick primer on how the Internet works. I wish that when I was first learning about the Internet, someone had explained it to me this way. (I'd still be flipping burgers)

Enjoy.

"There's one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.

But this service is now going to go through the internet and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.

Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

So you want to talk about the consumer? Let's talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren't using it for commercial purposes.

We aren't earning anything by going on that internet. Now I'm not saying you have to or you want to discrimnate against those people.

The regulatory approach is wrong. Your approach is regulatory in the sense that it says "No one can charge anyone for massively invading this world of the internet". No, I'm not finished. I want people to understand my position, I'm not going to take a lot of time.

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

Now we have a separate Department of Defense internet now, did you know that?

Do you know why?

Because they have to have theirs delivered immediately. They can't afford getting delayed by other people.

Now I think these people are arguing whether they should be able to dump all that stuff on the internet ought to consider if they should develop a system themselves.

Maybe there is a place for a commercial net but it's not using what consumers use every day.

It's not using the messaging service that is essential to small businesses, to our operation of families.

The whole concept is that we should not go into this until someone shows that there is something that has been done that really is a viloation of net neutraility that hits you and me."

(thanks to Salon.com for the partial transcript)

Gadget Freak

Ok, you all know that I'm a deep geek and I love my gadgets. Here's the newest one: the HTC Wizard from Cingular. Yes, it's a phone, but it also runs a mini version of Windows. (no blue screens tho--it just locks up when it gets pissed)

My main motivation was this: my task list (or "to-do" list) is where I spend much of my waking hours. When I think of something I need to look up, it goes on the task list. When I hear about a cool movie on the radio, it goes on the task list to see if it's playing nearby. The problem is, my task list was on my laptop. I seem to never have my laptop around when I think of something I need to do.

So, the 8125 takes care of this. It keeps my task list sync'd with my PC when it's in range (via Bluetooth), so I always have everything with me. It's handy when I'm out running around, and I can just stop in the grocery store on the way home because I've always got my shopping list. Or if I think of something I need when I'm sitting in traffic on the way to the office, it has that nifty built-in keyboard for me to punch it in.

Some of the other cool stuff it does:
- Wi-fi access : If I'm in range of a wireless network, I can hop on and surf the Internet
- Cellular Internet : If I'm not in range of a wireless network, I can still get on the Internet almost anywhere I get cell signal. For example, when I was in a grocery store in Scotland, I jumped on Froogle to verify that the price I was seeing on a bottle of really good whisky was as good of a deal as I thought. (it was)
- Can check any POP3 email account : It automatically checks my Gmail account. Like when you post comments on my blog, my phone gets that email about 5 minutes later. And it's a full email client--I can send/recieve email, compose email, etc... (and like when Amazon is sending a FedEx package, FedEx sends me an email when it's delivered, so my phone buzzes me if I'm at work and am not home to recieve it)
- It keeps my full contact list : Ever stuck somewhere and you need to call someone, but you don't have that # in your cell phone? Never a problem here.

Yeah, I can go on and on. It's a bit of a brick, but it's still small enough that I keep it in my pocket. I know it's not slim and sleek, but it's f'in handy when you are sitting at dinner with a friend and they tell you about this book you have to read, and you don't want to forget. Or like the other day when I was almost to someone's house for a party and got lost. I just pulled up his address in my contact list and then went to Mobile Google Maps to get directions.

And probably the coolest future feature is that since it's running Windows Mobile, I can write any software I want for that phone.

Zombie Zoo

Ever have one of those nights where you just can't sleep? I tossed and turned in bed and on the couch for over 3 hours before I just jumped in the shower and headed to the office. At least I should get a lot of work done before it finally hits and I fall asleep on my keyboard.

STS-121 Liftoff!!!

In the days before I was even born, the name "NASA" evoked images of what was best about America. It embodied everything about a group of the smartest damn people on the planet in a non-military contest with another country using the best of American ingenuity. It was the greatest of endeavours that everyone was behind.

These days, Shuttle launches barely make 2 minutes of the nightly news. Not for me. I don't care where I am or what I'm doing, I always make sure that I watch launches and landings live. Every time I see it, I still get chills up my spine. To me, the space race is still going strong. But instead of racing against the Russians, we are racing against ourselves. We still have so much to learn, and I hope we get to continue to reach for those things not yet discovered.

What?

(you might start reading from the bottom of the post list...)

Oops, Sorry 'Bout That

"As you all very well know, marriage is under vicious attack now, I think from the forces of hell itself. And...I believe that with that descrution of marriage will come the decline of Western civilization itself."

- Focus on the Family chairman James Dobson during his daily radio show, Family News in Focus, May 30


Mom always warned me not to end Western civilization

"Funny, But No"

For those of you that still don't listen to NPR, what's wrong with you?

The other day, they had an interview with 2 greeting card writers from Shoebox. I laughed so hard at parts that I almost had to pull the car over. My favorite:

The Other Ex

One thing that my last ex taught me was that it is possible to be friends with an ex. I had always feared that it wasn't possible with all of the lingering emotions, but it's worked out well for us.

So, with that in mind, I decided that it was time to look up my ex in Tulsa. When I left 3 or so years ago, he made me promise that he would get to see me again. I know that it really hurt him when I left, but I hoped that after 3 years, time would have healed those wounds and we would be able to talk.

Cooincidentally, I had to make a last-minute trip to Oklahoma for a funeral. So, I extended the trip for a couple of days and made my way to Tulsa. It took a while, but I was able to track him down and we spent about 6-7 hours catching up with our respective lives.

Please excuse me if I leave you hanging here a bit, but for those of you I've told this story to, you can attest that continuing on would surely make for uncomfortable (and a bit unbelievable) reading. Let me just sumarize by saying that his life has been lived hard and very different from mine. It was a very strange and eye-opening experience. I returned to Houston wishing that I had just left well enough alone.

The goal of this post is to convey that not all good intentions go as planned. (duh) Some things are best left unknown. In my head, I knew that I should have just left him alone and not tried to re-establish communication, but I just had to try.

The only thing that lets me feel a little good about this is that I got an email from his mom a few days later saying that he started talking to them again and he sounded happier than he had in the past year or two. Maybe this is where the emotional tables got turned, and I was the one burned this time.

Health Woes

You know it wouldn't be my blog without me bitching about my health. It's to the point that I feel like a hypochrondiac. (I would give anything if that was actually the case, tho)

So, the other day, I was at the dermatologist for an unrelated, simple little thing. That's when she noticed something a little "unusual" and got some lab tests done. It turns out that I had a "compound nevus with mild to moderate abnormal cellular activity." In other words, pre-cancerous skin lesions. Fuck me.

So, I got to make a trip to a plastic surgeon to have it cut out. (it was a plastic surgeon because it was on my temple and they were trying to keep me from having a huge scar) He did one hell of a good job. He had to remove a piece of skin about the size of a quarter, and I'll bet the scar is almost un-noticable in a month or two. It didn't even hurt other than a little soreness the next day. (I've got a picture of the stiches, but it might be a little gory for some, so I'll leave it out)

Now I've got another appointment to see the dermatologist the week after next to check some other shit out and probably cut out some other stuff. It sucks, but so far it's been early and benign, so I probably got lucky this time.

Scotland, Redux

A couple of weeks ago, I got my second chance to go to Scotland. This time we (my boss and I) opted to leave in the middle of the week and return in the middle of the next week. Among other things, that optimized the amount of time we had to sight-see during the weekend.

The first night there was a little rough. I had gotten a little cold the day before I left, so I slept about 17-20 hours right before I got on the plane. Therefore, I couldn't get any sleep on the flight over to help offset the jet lag caused by a 6-hour time difference. So, by 8 PM the first night, I had already crashed with all of the hotel room lights on, the TV blaring and the curtains open. When my phone rang at 3:30 AM by someone back in the states that didn't know I was overseas, I looked outside and got even more confused. Scotland is far enough north that during certain times of the year, the sun doesn't completely set. The picture you see is how light it still is in the middle of the night this time of the year. It's kinda cool, but it really screws you up.

Our trip coincided with the start of the World Cup. To those of you that don't know or don't care, soccer (or "football" if you are outside of the US) is the only sport anyone cares about. And, man, do they love this shit. Everything stops for the World Cup. Stores shut down. People don't show up for work. (they don't even bother feigning sick--everyone knows better) News coverage turns to 100% soccer. It's a hell of a sight.

The Friday night we were there, some of the guys from the office came by and took us on a classic pub crawl. It was fuckin awesome.

We began by getting a couple of pints at the hotel bar--waiting for everyone to show up. At the end of just those two pints, I was more than a little buzzed. Then we walked to the city center and hit no less than 3 pubs and 1 nightclub. By the end, I think I had as much alcohol that night as I've had in the last couple of years. I was absolutely smashed. I think I crawled into my hotel room sometime after 3 AM. (I don't think they stop serving until 4 AM) The bad thing was that my boss and I were going to leave for sight-seeing at 7 AM that morning. When I got up 3 hours later, I was still really drunk. We had to sleep it off for a while before leaving the hotel. The amazing thing is that I didn't have a hangover! After getting a little food in my stomach, I felt perfectly fine. To this day, I still don't know how that happened. Under any other circumstances, I would have been sick for 2 solid days with as much as I had to drink. Viva la Scotland!

P.S. You can see some of the pictures from this trip at Flickr.

Freshman 15

I know that I'm reaching back a bit here, but back in High School, I was in damn good shape. I played basketball (at 5' 11" tall, I could dunk) and ran track during the summer. While you wouldn't have called me "buff", there wasn't an ounce of body fat to be found.

Then came college. Freedom. No parents, no rules. Lots of Mt. Dew and cheap pizza. I stopped doing any sort of physical activity that didn't involve wrestling the espresso machine away from my roommate. (those were the days) That lifestyle gave me the Freshman 15.

Since that fateful year, I've continued to add to that 15 pounds. In my estimation, slowly grew up to about 20-25 pounds over the years. A couple of months ago (just after I broke up with G), I decided that it had to go. I wanted the 6-pack abs back. So I went on a diet.

Now, I've never been much for paying attention to what I eat, so this was new. I got some sage advice from our favorite bald guy in Tulsa, and he recommended simple calorie restriction. He might have given other, more useful advice, but that simple concept is the one that I focused on.

Not being the patient type, I decided to go full-force. I counted every calorie. I ate several small meals (snacks, really) a day. I rode my bike every day after work. Everthing I could think of to sustain myself on the lowest number of calories I could. I didn't really add up my daily intake, but, looking back, I think there were many days that I lived on much less than 1000 calories.

Yes, that was extreme and probably not healthy, but after 6 weeks, I had lost 15 pounds and stopped. (plus, that extreme of a diet was taking a real toll on my energy levels by then)

Now the plan is to get in better shape and replace what fat is left with muscle. I've still got a long way to go to get the 6-pack back, but at least my stomach is flat for the first time in over a decade...

Amore

Well, there's no way I can start off blogging about the last several months without mentioning the ex. Since anonymity on the Internet is like a low-key Jerry Bruckheimer film (it doesn't really exist), I'll try to respect his privacy and just refer to him as "G".

The short version goes like this: I really liked him from the first minute I met him. We had a great 6 months together and I wouldn't trade it for anything. We had a lot of fun together and I learned a lot about myself and others around me. I had forgotten how great the beginning of a really good relationship felt and what it was like to fall madly in love with someone.

Of course, in the end, it didn't work out. The last month of the relationship wasn't fun for either of us, but we ended it amiably and still keep in touch. I'll be lucky to end up with someone that I love as much as I loved him. Next time I talk to G, I'll have to make sure I told him how much better a person I am for being with him.

Back for the nth time

The bloop has been suffering much as of late, so I thought I'd see if I could revitalize it a bit. (well, that and it's been a while and a bunch of stuff has happened, and I thought I'd share)

So, sit back and enjoy the quick (or knowing me, not-so-quick) history of what's been happening in my life over the last 7-8 months...

(warning: these posts won't be particuarly long or well thought-out--I'm just trying to catch up)