sad songs, mom heads south, and lunch in the office

I've been listening to Aimee Mann's newest album - "The Forgotten Arm". Really great stuff, but there's one song on there called "little bombs" that kinda messes me up a bit. This part really gets me...

Life just kind of empties out
Less a deluge than a drought
Less a giant mushroom cloud
Than an unexploded shell
Inside a cell
Of the Lennox Hotel

Her album is a story about two lovers...so, of course tragedy. I haven't caught everything about the story yet, even after repeated listenings, but that little section just about reduces me to tears. The whole song paints a very vivid and precise picture of this person's reality and how it falls apart around them. You can almost see them standing there, being destroyed.

In other news...Mom has been asked to volunteer to help out with relief efforts in the south. We're not sure if she's headed to Florida, or Louisiana - it's scary either way. I'm glad she's able to help, but, well, you know...

Also, classes start this week so I'm hiding out in my office - and I brought my lunch today. It's usually a good plan for at least the first week of school. Parking is an issue and the student union is a mess at lunch time. I'm not sure I packed enough this morning - might have to make a snack machine run later.

Well, that's it for now. Back to work...

stained glass is tougher than it looks

I set up shop on the back porch for my first stained glass project last night. With instructions at the ready, I started out...

1. Scoring the glass. Easy as pie - I didn't try the more complicated inside curves, but the straight lines were literally a snap.

2. Adding copper foil to the edges. Not bad - I had a little trouble with the first piece, but it wasn't too tough once I got the hang of it.

3. Adding flux. Doesn't really count - any idiot could do that and this idiot was up to the challange.

4. Soldering. We'll start with the success part of this - the pieces of glass that I had prepped did stay together. However... ugly. Very ugly.

I think my problem was that the soldering iron cooled down faster than I expected. I'd be going along for a couple of seconds and it was suddenly stop being helpful. I guess I was expecting it to stay hotter for longer than that. Apparently, I thought I was purchsing a powerful tool and bought Barbie's First Soldering Iron (tm).

So, it's pretty ugly and I was frustrated toward the end of the evening. Ironically, it took a while for the iron to cool down to where I could put it away - especially since I couldn't get the stuff to stay hot for very long.

Anyway, that was my first trial run.


Last night I dreamed that a trans-dimensional shape-shifting cosmically powered alien landed in my parking space. It was the size of a gerbil. At least to start - then it started some pretty impressive shape shifting and ended up the size of a truck - though got back around to at least looking like a gerbil again. It went on and on about how it was there to study and test us - if we were worthy of keeping around after the invasion. I felt a little stressed that my actions might effect the fate of humanity, but I hung in there and made sure it had plenty of treats. I woke up before I learned what it concluded.

That's it for now - back to work...

a long walk

I was feeling peckish yesterday when I got home from work, so I decided to take myself for a walk. I've been wanting to try my hand at making stained glass - the real kind with solder and extream heat - so my planned destination was Home Deport, about 2 or 3 miles from my apartment.

The walk there was mostly unevently, though I did practice my "folding in the air" origami technique and built a couple of models while I was walking. I think I overextended myself as my hands got a little shaky, but I made it to HD with no trouble. I found the soldering iron, the solder, and the flux all in one section and did the self checkout. Borders is right across the parking lot, but I wasn't sure what to do with my current purchases. So, the solder and flux went into my pockets and the iron got tucked into the back of my pants.

I was looking for The Ring Two at borders, but they didn't have it yet. So, I got a magazine and a book on how to actually make stained glass (who would have guessed? I bought instructions.) and then trucked over to Wendy's for dinner. I got it to go, but figured the sandwich would be tough to eat on the fly - or on the walk, as the case may be. So, I stopped again at home depot and ate my dinner on the grass behind the sample buildings. It was peaceful.

The walk home was fine - though I wasn't able to fold as easily since I had the bag of stuff with me. And it mostly worked - I was tired and less cranky when I got home, though I'm still about 15% more cranky than usual.

Got me thinking a little about my internal walls - and I do have more than my share of them. I've got some ideas about my internal bricklayer, but I think I'll hold off on that topic for today. Too much to do here at work today to spend more time in the blog.

Later...

a crane in a traffic jam and a contact dream

On the drive to visit my family last weekend, I got stuck in traffic in a construction zone - behind an RV. So, no only was I not moving very fast, I also couldn't even see why we were stopped. Fortunatly, I had plenty of new music and a stack of Origami paper, so I was content to wait it out - since I really didn't have any other options. While I was singing along with the music, I glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw a woman in the car behind me - looking more bored than I've ever seen one human being look.

So, I quickly folded a crane and waited until we advanced a few feet, then came to a complete stop. Putting my car in park, I got out and headed back to her vechicle. She rolled down her window and I handed her the crane - telling her that I made it for her. She thanked me and I showed her how to make the wings flap. She told me I was clever - which I knew and which is usually my downfall. And I gave her a wave as I headed back to my car. The rest of the traffic jam portion of my trip I occasionally glanced back to see that she was in a much better mood.


Over the weekend, I had a dream that my gas-permable broke in my eye. Which is pretty bad, but the worst was that a sliver of the contact cut my eyeball and I started to bleed. I remember looking down and seeing the blood that had dripped out of my eye fall and hit the table. I think I was looking for some tweezers to pull the sliver out when I woke up.

The first thing I did when I woke up was gently rub my eyes to make sure they were okay - and I didn't put my contacts in for several hours after that.

Which makes me wonder. I have nightmares all the time and people usually blame them on all the weird books, movies, and video games that I enjoy. But, the contact thing wasn't related to anything like that. Are my dreams weird because of the weird stuff in books and games - or are my dreams weird because I'm weird and those elements just end up there?

Food for thought, I guess.

Well, back to work...

watching a headache and traffic travelers

So, two days in a row - while driving - I had people on foot look toward my car. See me. Make freaking eye contact with me.

And still walk right out in front of my moving car.

One guy was at an intersection talking on his cell phone - he crossed against the light. The other guy just crossed in the middle of the street.

And what really gets me is that they didn't even give the illusion of hurrying. Hello? What's up with that? If you're going to be so dense as to delibertly step out in front of a moving car, shouldn't you at least hustle a little bit? I mean, come on people!

So, I had to slow down to avoid hitting them. Which annoyed me. Again.

In other news, I watched myself get a headache last night. Ummm...yeah, better explain that one. The cluster headaches that I get will occationally have a visual element to them, a distortion that looks like the transporter effect from Star Trek the Orginal Series. Not the Next Generation, mind you, but the old style. Like hunderds of little points of light all clustered together that form in my perferial vision of one eye and then expand. It got worse for a little bit as it expanded, then it retreated. As my vision returned to normal, the headache started to kick in. Which actually worked out well as I had time to finish my dinner, take some Aleeve, and lay down with a cool cloth on my head before it really got bad. I went to bed early and slept pretty well - but my head still hurts a bit this morning. Aftereffects, I guess.

I had a dream last night that my great-grandmother was still alive and we all went to visit her in her hobbit house. My uncle (who's over 6 foot tall) and I had some trouble with the doors, but it was a nice visit. It should be noted that she had all her applicances lined up on one wall. Fridge, stove, freezer, washer, dryer - it looked like Sears. And she also called me Randy - though I totally let the name thing slide as at this point she would have been 104 years old.

Well, that's it for me. Got two back-to-back training sessions to conduct today so I'd better get ready. Later...

headache, Kmart, and sinking lozenges

I stayed home from work yesterday morning - woke up with a cluster headache. I thought I could get past it, but when I was dressed and nearly out the door a wave of nausea hit me and I decided to go back to bed. Fortunatly, my neighborhood is fairly quiet during the day so I was able to sleep. At some point the nausea came back and I spent some quality time in the facilities. Hence the need for throat lozenges later.

When I finally got up again a little before noon I was feeling better and decided to go on into work. I went to the downstairs bathroom and discovered, to my delight, that I had a dozen lozenges and they weren't expired. Which, given my bathroom medicine cabinet, is saying something. But, I fumbled. Blame in on the lingering headache or something, but one of the packages slipped out of the box and then...

splash.

Right into the toilet.

In my shock I nearly dropped the other package of six right in after it, but I recovered and saved. I looked down to see the six packaged lozenges slide gently down to the very bottom of the toilet. The toilet had been recently flushed, but I just really didn't want to deal with it then. So, I wrote a big note on my message board to myself - "TOILET" - the hopes that it would me remember. When I got home later that day I fished it out and tossed the package.

In other news...I sent an email to Kmart today regarding asking for my zipcode during a debit transaction. I'll post the response in the blog - if I get one.

That's about it for now...back to work...

helping move

Spent most of the weekend helping a friend of mine move. And the scrawny geek acquited himself well, if I do say so myself. The TV was the worst - down a flight and a half of stairs, across the sidewalk, then up two flights of stairs. Took a lot out of me. Lots of boxes, a computer, mattresses and box springs, etc.

So, I figured that last night I'd be so tired I'd be asleep before my head hit the pillow. No such luck. I went to bed at my usual time and tossed and turned for a while. Finally, around 1 am, I got up and played video games until I was fairly sleepy - sometime around 2.

Needless to say (though I'll say it anyway) - my posterier was dragging this morning. I'd really like to just crawl under my desk and take a nap. Hmmm...nah, I'd never get away with it.

Well, I'm going to try and get motivated and get some work done, so it's back to it...

Retail Annoyance (it's almost a given, isn't it?)

While running some errands this weekend, I made my way first to Kmart in search of a shower mirror for shaving. Which was impossible to find. After scouring the store, I gave up, got my secondary items (soda, beef jerky and a book) and made my way to the check out. After waiting 1.5 eternities, I got to the front and swiped my debit card for my purchase. Instead of asking for my PIN number, it prompted me for a billing zipcode. I told the cashier and she said I needed to put in my zipcode. I said, "but I don't want to put in my zipcode" - thinking it was some kind of marketing survey thing that I despise. She replied, "well, then you can't use your charge card".
I glowered for a moment, then relented and put in my zip code - and then my pin number, then verified the amount, then confirmed that I did not want cash back. While it was digesting all that, I commented that usually the zipcode is some kind of marketing thing. She didn't reply - though she did thank me for shopping at Kmart. I rather doubted her sincerity.

So, why was I tweaked at having to put in my zipcode? Well, it goes back to the idea of public vs private keys. A public key is like a user name or an email address. Fairly easy to find and work with. The private key is some secret bit of information that allows someone direct access to the public key and the information it holds.
In this case, the card - with my name on it - is something like a public key. If I lose it, anyone could pick it up and try to use it. My name alone is a public key and certain information is available without any special access. This information would include my address and zipcode.

If someone got ahold of my debit card and my pin number, then my zipcode is easy to locate. So, Kmart is attempting to verfiy my private key and my identity with multiple pieces of public information. It's pointless and gives only the illusion of security. And it's a waste of time and computer power.

If I hadn't already waited so long I think I would have taken the items back to their shelves out of sheer annoyance. But, I needed some level of success for my trouble and actually making it through the line would have to do.

After a brief stop to gather my wits - I headed to Walgreens. I found a shower mirror, VHS tapes, a magazine, and some Tazo tea (Giant Peach flavored). Got up to the checkout and the women in line in front of me was apparently paying by check. And the guy behind the counter ( I would use the term dottering if I was british) was having a difficult time pushing all the right buttons in the correct sequence. When he was finally done with her, he wished her a nice day and told her "God Bless You".

I knew I was in trouble.

His first action was not to start ringing up my items or determining what kind of bag I would prefer - instead, he opened up this weeks circular to see if there were any coupons for the items I was about to purchase. This involved a careful scan of each page, then his reaching over to a small damp sponge to wet his finger - allowing for easier page turning, then actually turning the page and repeating the process. Scan, wet, turn, repeat.

Yes, this is really what happened.

When he was finally done he concluded the same thing I knew just by looking at my own items - there were no coupons that were valid for my purchases. He then scanned each items with care before placing it in the bag and I was way ahead of him with my debit card before he came up with a total. No zipcode this time - thankfully, but he wished me a good day and also told me "God Bless You".

And again, I'm annoyed.

He used the exact same tone with me as he did with the woman in front of me. No inflection, no depth - nothing. It was as empty as if he'd mentioned something about the weather.

Shouldn't that mean something? A request for an intersession from the supreme being - spoken as though he was trying to determine if I wanted fries with my combo.

Granted, it's not like he told me - "Have a crappy day. or Burn in hell, sinner" It was a generic and mildy friendly send-off. But it was empty. And that alone seemed disrespectful in some way.

So, my foray into the retail world was not that great today ( though the cashier at Taco Bell said she liked my shirt that says "You're just jealous because the voices talk to me") - but I got through it and I'm now that the bile is out of my system I'm going to take my book and sit outside. Alone and quiet. And if you should see me, please don't ask me for my zipcode.

boats and thunder

Woke up at 4:00 this morning - massive thunderstorm. One of the crashes of thunder sounded like I was in a garbage can being hit by a sledgehammer - the size of a city bus. A really huge loud noise. Of course it's not the thunder that's the real problem - that's just sound. The lightning must have been pretty bad too, but I put a pillow over my head so I couldn't see it. It wasn't raining too bad when I had to get up and go to work.

A couple of days ago I remembered something that I came up with while canoeing with my uncle several years ago.

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the river.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Cold things make me shiver.

Not sure why I remembered that, but it struck me as funny.

I've been helping my friend move. He's only going from one building to the one right next door, but he only found out he had to move on Wednesday and they'd like him moved by the weekend. And the new place is filled with stuff (it used to be an office/apartment). And the current buildings entrance is no longer structually sound due to construction. The ceiling could collapse if the posts are "bumped".

So, yesterday we tried to quickly and very very carefully move things out and pile them in the new place where we could find room. We've still got a lot to do and there's just no space. I had to resist the urge to flip off the landlord every time we saw him.

Going to be a busy day here so I'd better get back to it...

the truth of things...

If you open a bag of Doritos labeled: "Now better tasting!", you should be aware that this means:

"Now tastes vaguely like Cheetos!"

and

"It's more orange colored!"


Knowledge is power.

Back to work...