Suit Up

Is it?...........really?

2008-09-21T13:31:00.000-07:00

I'm trying not to turn this into an economics blog - there are too many of those already. However, I must comment on this newest development before Monday morning. As your "guy on the inside" of the mortgage/credit/bank/financial....um....thing, I feel I owe it to you, loyal readers, to drop my thoughts into the collective bucket.

Monday is going to be a really big big big day. There's a lot going on in the House and Senate, and Wall Street is going to have some huge reactions to what's going on in the government sector. The big one is the Bush administration's "Bailout Bill" - if you have not heard about it, here it is in a nutshell: the Bill would allow the government to buy the crappiest of mortgages from banks, hold them for a while, then slowly return those debt-backed assets back into the marketplace. The plan is that this will serve two purposes: one, to remove those toxic waste (a real industry term) mortgages from bank's balance sheets and free up the capitol currently being set aside to recover the monetary loss those assets are causing, thereby returning some consumer/market confidence to those institutions. Two, to allow the market in general to recover until such a time where those high-risk assets are no longer quite as scary - part of the current problem is that there are more toxic waste assets than there are buyers. Supply and demand says the price falls, and people get scared.

Now, I was going to post a link to the bill itself, but in case you don't use a tabbed browser I'll post it here so you can refer back to it while reading. Here it is in full:

Section 1. Short Title.

This Act may be cited as ____________________.

Sec. 2. Purchases of Mortgage-Related Assets.

(a) Authority to Purchase.–The Secretary is authorized to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, on such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary, mortgage-related assets from any financial institution having its headquarters in the United States.

(b) Necessary Actions.–The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation:

(1) appointing such employees as may be required to carry out the authorities in this Act and defining their duties;

(2) entering into contracts, including contracts for services authorized by section 3109 of title 5, United States Code, without regard to any other provision of law regarding public contracts;

(3) designating financial institutions as financial agents of the Government, and they shall perform all such reasonable duties related to this Act as financial agents of the Government as may be required of them;

(4) establishing vehicles that are authorized, subject to supervision by the Secretary, to purchase mortgage-related assets and issue obligations; and

(5) issuing such regulations and other guidance as may be necessary or appropriate to define terms or carry out the authorities of this Act.

Sec. 3. Considerations.

In exercising the authorities granted in this Act, the Secretary shall take into consideration means for–

(1) providing stability or preventing disruption to the financial markets or banking system; and

(2) protecting the taxpayer.

Sec. 4. Reports to Congress.

Within three months of the first exercise of the authority granted in section 2(a), and semiannually thereafter, the Secretary shall report to the Committees on the Budget, Financial Services, and Ways and Means of the House of Representatives and the Committees on the Budget, Finance, and Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate with respect to the authorities exercised under this Act and the considerations required by section 3.

Sec. 5. Rights; Management; Sale of Mortgage-Related Assets.

(a) Exercise of Rights.–The Secretary may, at any time, exercise any rights received in connection with mortgage-related assets purchased under this Act.

(b) Management of Mortgage-Related Assets.–The Secretary shall have authority to manage mortgage-related assets purchased under this Act, including revenues and portfolio risks therefrom.

(c) Sale of Mortgage-Related Assets.–The Secretary may, at any time, upon terms and conditions and at prices determined by the Secretary, sell, or enter into securities loans, repurchase transactions or other financial transactions in regard to, any mortgage-related asset purchased under this Act.

(d) Application of Sunset to Mortgage-Related Assets.–The authority of the Secretary to hold any mortgage-related asset purchased under this Act before the termination date in section 9, or to purchase or fund the purchase of a mortgage-related asset under a commitment entered into before the termination date in section 9, is not subject to the provisions of section 9.

Sec. 6. Maximum Amount of Authorized Purchases.

The Secretary’s authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time

Sec. 7. Funding.

For the purpose of the authorities granted in this Act, and for the costs of administering those authorities, the Secretary may use the proceeds of the sale of any securities issued under chapter 31 of title 31, United States Code, and the purposes for which securities may be issued under chapter 31 of title 31, United States Code, are extended to include actions authorized by this Act, including the payment of administrative expenses. Any funds expended for actions authorized by this Act, including the payment of administrative expenses, shall be deemed appropriated at the time of such expenditure.

Sec. 8. Review.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Sec. 9. Termination of Authority.

The authorities under this Act, with the exception of authorities granted in sections 2(b)(5), 5 and 7, shall terminate two years from the date of enactment of this Act.

Sec. 10. Increase in Statutory Limit on the Public Debt.

Subsection (b) of section 3101 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking out the dollar limitation contained in such subsection and inserting in lieu thereof $11,315,000,000,000.

Sec. 11. Credit Reform.

The costs of purchases of mortgage-related assets made under section 2(a) of this Act shall be determined as provided under the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990, as applicable.

Sec. 12. Definitions.

For purposes of this section, the following definitions shall apply:

(1) Mortgage-Related Assets.–The term “mortgage-related assets” means residential or commercial mortgages and any securities, obligations, or other instruments that are based on or related to such mortgages, that in each case was originated or issued on or before September 17, 2008.

(2) Secretary.–The term “Secretary” means the Secretary of the Treasury.

(3) United States.–The term “United States” means the States, territories, and possessions of the United States and the District of Columbia.

Now, let's break it down a bit because chances are you have no idea what that means. Here are some of my initial thoughts about this bill. Be aware the the Secretary listed in the bill is the Secretary of the Treasury: one dude. His name (right now) is Paulson.

Section 2.a - That just says what my intro gave you: the government will buy those mortgages from banks so the banks don't have to own them anymore.

Section 2.b.2 - or as I call it, Scary Item Number One. The last line is what worries me: "without regard to any other provision of law regarding public contracts." So the standing contracts laws (that arguably make contracts fair to all parties, or at least disclose the risks in a given contract) do not apply to anything covered by this bill. Total control outside existing law. Hmmm....

Section 2.b.5 - or Scary Item Number Two. "issuing such regulations and other guidance as may be necessary or appropriate..." That alone isn't too scary, but wait until we get into sections 4, 6, and 8. Just remember this point for now and call it up later.

Section 4 - Okay, so within 3 months of the first action under this bill, the Secretary must report to all those government groups in the Senate and House. What's wrong with that? Keep reading.

Section 6 - The Money. The Secretary has access to $700 billion dollars to work with under this bill. That looks like this: $700,000,000,000.00 and that's a lot of money.

Section 8 - The Very, Very Scary Section. Go back and read section 8 again. Go ahead, I'll wait. Decisions are non-reviewable and at the Secretary's discretion. No court of law or administrative agency may review them. No court of law. Ho. Lee. Crap. Bush to Paulson: "Here's seven hundred billion dollars. Go buy some really crappy mortgages that no one else is buying right now and if anyone asks what you are doing, tell them I said they can't stop you." So ask yourselves this question - if his actions are non-reviewable, why does section 4 say the Secretary must tell the House and Senate what they have done so far within 30 days of the first purchase? The House and Senate can't do anything about it if they want to! Paulson can say "so, here's what we have done. We now own $700 billion dollars worth of toxic waste investments, and I'm going to sit on them. Thank you and goodnight." and walk the hell out the door. Now, the argument that the Bush Admin is making is that if there is too much "politics" mixed into this bill or the actions of the Secretary, the whole proces will take months and we don't have months. That I tend to agree with. But making the actions non-reviewable by any law in the country is just scary. We might as well change Paulson's title to Mortgage God and let it go at that. I could go on here, but let's keep moving.

Section 11 - This section basically says that Paulson can name his price on these assets. On one hand, no one is currently buying them so that's sort of his right. On the other hand, what good is buying them from banks if they get to pay pennies on the dollar for assets that may (in theroy) be worth quite a bit later on down the road and/or when a few of these risky assets are packaged into an investment vehicle that includes more low-risk assets than high-risk assets? Sure, it restores market confidence, but would that short-change banks in the the future?

If you've stuck with me this long, you have realized that I only have tiny bits of information. I'm not an economist, and I don't clam to fully understand what's going on. But I have done some pretty extensive research and heard some pretty insitefull opions from actual economists, and it does raise some pretty important questions. All in all, we are living major history. The actions of and reactions to the government and Wall Street decisions tomorrow can have a huge impact on the global economy. I don't know if I'm so excited I want to barf, so scared I want to barf, or so sickened I want to barf. In any case, stay tuned!

PS: If this interests you at all, check out NPR's Money Blog to see/hear some really cool info, and subscribe to NPR's Planet Money Podcast on their site or at the iTunes Store (it's free). Adam Davidson has some AWESOME info broken down so it's easy to understand even without a Harvard Business degree. Goodnight......and good financial luck.

2008-09-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

Yes, I still have a job. No, the bank is not going under. Yes, it's business as usual.

Have you been following the financial news? Crazy times! Personally, I'm pretty much done "making history" - I was on the forefront of the Sub-Prime meltdown, then I was on the forefront of the Credit Crisis, now I'm on the forefront of the Bank Disaster. Yay, me!

Since I'm an uber nerd, I've been filling my free time (what little there is) with news, blogs, and podcasts about the current state of our economy. If you are at all interested, NPR.org has some awesome info, and the podcasts at NPR.org/money are amazing - they give great info about the financial sector presented in terms that anyone can understand, even without a degree from Harvard.

Here's the bottom line: we are screwed. Through "toxic waste" loans (a real Wall Street term) being bundled into AA+ rated CDO bonds and sold to the national and international market, naked short selling running rampant on the stock market, creating new and high-risk loan packaged to fulfil the global hunger for American Debt Bonds, and the Republican "hands-off" and "zero regulation" policy surrounding the stock and investment market, the global economy is in a place it has never been before. A baaaaaaaad place.

I'm not going to bore you with specific details (unless you want info about something - comment and I'll post about it next) but realize this is Historic. Last night as I was falling asleep I found myself really wishing I had gone to college so I could go back for a masters or Doctorate in Finance/Business/Economics now. This stuff is amazing to me! I would totally be at home studying all this stuff - modern economic education is almost more complex that astrophysics.

Monday is going to be a big day. Bush is working to have a $700 billion bail out of the toxic waste mortgages: banks will be able to sell the crappy high-risk mortgages to a government vehicle created to take this crap, hold it for a few years to let the market and investor confidence return, then trickle that waste back into the market. In short-term, that's a good and possibly much-needed thing. Long-term this could be devastating. First, the government has never stepped into free trade this way: there is no prescience for this. Second, where do you thing that $700 BILLION dollars will come from? Johnny Taxpayer, that's where. I'm not adverse to paying more taxes if it means that the global financial market will continue to turn and other countries will continue to buy up rights to American Debt (hell, American Debt is what makes the financial world go 'round, to no small degree). But for Bush to get "credit" for this "fix" and then leave office and let the next President figure out where the money comes from is simply bullshit. It's a case of "spend now, get the money later." Oh wait - that's the Modern American Way.

So there you have it. Banks are going to stay in business, AIG will still be around (I won't address the dangers of allowing a company to get "too big to fail", or more literally "too big to allow to fail" in this blog), Bank Of America is well on their way to getting "too big to fail" with the purchase of Merrill Lynch, and stocks are coming back up. Until, at least, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox decides to make another boneheaded move and do something that fixes thing for three days and then makes it a million times worse.

God Bless America, and out ability to spend way outside our means in order to fund other countries who want to buy the debt we incurred purchasing the goods that those countries produced in the first place!

Okay, so I'm done Financially Ranting for now. Does this interest anyone else? Or should I go back to my other trademarked Rants?

A humble apology.

2008-04-23T18:17:00.000-07:00

It has been brought to my attention that my last post may have had misogynistic undertones.

And by "brought to my attention" I mean screamed at me in a fit of eye-vein bursting rage.

That was not my intent at all.

I love women. I think women are wonderful creatures and mothers are the most wonderful of all. I mean, who else cleans up poopy diapers, exists on 10 minutes of sleep a week, never gets any time alone, and STILL comes back for more of the same? No one, that's who.

I think women are capable of doing any job a man can and then some. Granted, they might not do it as well or get paid as much as a man, but they can do it! The poster to the left proves it.

To any Lesbinatzi Republicrats who misconstrued my message in my previous post, shame on you. Have you nothing better to do than to read between the lines of this humble blogger's posts? Please! You can bitch once the dishes are done.

The more you know!

2008-04-22T09:54:00.000-07:00

Public Service Announcement!
WARNING: you just might learn something.

I am a pretty amazing and awesome guy. That didn't happen by accident - it took years and years of training and education. Over the course of my life, I've learned some pretty important things. Big things. Life changing things.

I'm going to spend a few minutes dropping some Knowledge Nuggets on you all.
Some serious Knowledge Nuggets.
It took me the better part of my life to learn these things, but you can benefit from my extensive learning. I'm going to try to limit these tips to the ones that are most practical for every-day use. Enjoy.

Now, I'm all for equality, but dudes: you cannot nurse your babies!
Yes, women can do jobs that were formerly only achievable if you were a man, and right now as you read this some poor whipped sap is washing dishes or doing laundry or cooking dinner or one of the other woman's jobs, but you cannot nurse your babies. I can't stress that enough. If you find yourself thinking "Hey, my wife is off somewhere earning a living so our family has already committed a huge affront to God's Plan for the Family, maybe I can nurse my baby."
No: you cannot.
I want you to bookmark this page and refer back to the above picture if you ever start having doubts about your ability to nurse your offspring. Do it now. I'll wait.

It's too early to start planning for a Zombie attack, right?
WRONG!
It's that kind of thinking that will get you and your family eaten by Zombies. It's what the Zombies want you to think. Zombies are even more scheming than terrorists or computer hackers or Republicans. Zombies are the single biggest threat to America, I assume. They are worse than abortion, the war in Iraq, working mothers, and brussels sprouts combined and divided by four. DO NOT let yourself fall into the group of a billion American's who aren't Zombie ready. Again, bookmark this page and refer to the above picture to plan your Zombie Defense Plan (or ZDP). Hold weekly Zombie Attack Drills with your family. Your neighbors might laugh at you, but who will be laughing when little Suzie down the street is having her brains slurped up by your Mailman.....who's now a Zombie. You, that's who.

There comes a point in everyone's life where they have to ask themselves:
What would I do for love?
Your answer should be a resounding
"Anything.

Except that.

I won't do that."

Pshyeah

2008-04-01T20:05:00.000-07:00

Remember? That one time? When I used to post? And, I used to, um, read your posts? And comment on them? Um, remember that?

That was awesome.

I'm going to TRY to get back to BlogSpot. I say "try" because I have about 10 minutes a day where I can do whatever I want. I love you guys, but I've got a lot of stuff to cram into 10 minutes!

Let's try to do a little update, shall we?

Work: I'm actually doing the job I was hired for now. I'm opening accounts, this month I'm getting out in the community to try to bring in some new accounts and create some "Points of Contact," I'm planning some pretty big stuff soon. All in all I like it a lot. However, my time as the "new guy" is coming to an end. I can't fall back on the "I don't really know what I'm doing" excuse anymore. I've got goals, and I'd damn-well better hit them! It's cool, having some structure and being challenged at the same time. The bathrooms are still horrible, but we won't get into that.

Home: The G and I have been trying a new sleep program for A, and it seems to be working......most of the time. Putting her to bed is only horrible for about 15 minutes instead of every hour (on the hour) all freakin' night. It's been pretty nice, and I think the G and I might be able to have an actual relationship again instead of co-workers. That sound horrible and it's mostly an exaggeration, but it has been pretty tough. With the Wee One sleeping a bit more (and in a better mood because of it) we actually get time to talk to each other and the stress level in our home has dropped. Not gone totally away, but then again Audrey isn't done with college yet.

Computer: Since I was horribly, horribly sick on Sunday and Monday, I was able to order an external hard drive and 7-port USB hub. Thank you, tax return! I know it's nerdy, but I can't freakin' wait until they come! I'll have a HD for media storage and data backup, and with the hub I won't have to unplug something every time I want to plug something else in. Plus Brent gave me another gig of RAM to tide me over until I can get my 4GB kit, so my already screaming computer it ever faster now. That's a good thing since we moved the TV to the back bedroom the computer had become the Media Center of our living room. I download the TV shows we have to watch (very few) and I have the stereo hooked up so iTunes plays on the big speakers. Awesome!

Car: I got all that crap done to my car (see my last post) and for a lot less than the dealership wanted to charge (duh!). All 4 tires, new front brake rotors and ceramic hi-performance pads, brake system flush, oil change, and 4-wheel alignment = $780 (vs. the $1400 they wanted at GM). Now I've got to find someone with a steam/carpet cleaner that has a hand attachment I can use for a day so I can detail the bad boy. It drives like a dream now! I don't get that shift in the front end when I take corners at 45 or feel that shimmy in the steering wheel when I get up over 75. Happy day!

Spiritually: Big happenings. I don't want to get into it just yet, but big, BIG stuff. I'm also trying to split my time between playing music at Sunday worship and working with Brent on the computer/sound system stuff. I filled in while he was in CA and I never realized how distracting it is! I figure I'll get good at it so he can take a week off and actually PARTICIPATE in worship instead of simply making it awesome for the rest of us.

So that's "lately" in a nutshell. Not a lot going on, but no free time either. I can't wait until the weather is nice again so I can go play golf. I think I really, really need a good cigar, a few beers and a nice glass of scotch after the last hole, and 18 holes of sun and relaxation. I think if I squeeze all my 10-minute slots for two weeks into one day, I can play a whole round of golf.

Oh! I'm in a charity Bowling Tournament next month. My work put together two teams (well, almost: we still need one more person on ours - are you a (passably) good bowler and free on May 3rd? We need another! It's for Junior Achievers and it's going to be a blast. I'm pretty excited about that.

In closing, I stumbled across the following video. Since then, Gina and I have played it at LEAST five times a day. I can't really say why it's so awesome, but it's so awesome. Enjoy.

Faloopa Jones; you blockhead!

2008-03-13T14:15:00.001-07:00

You know how everyone seems to crap on Charlie Brown? (not in a 2girls1cup* way - sick!) I feel a little like Charlie Brown today.

As you may know, I need to sell my Pontiac. Last week something happened where the ticker than makes noise when your blinker is on got stuck on. All the time. ticktickticktickticktick the whole time you are driving. It's quite annoying. I figured out (through calling a bunch of calling around is called the hazard switch assembly and it's a dealership-only part. Okay, that works. I called the dealership and they HAVE the part in stock, and it's only $29.99 plus tax! Awesome! I race over and pick it up, install it, and the problem is still there. ticktickticktickticktick the whole time you drive. Crap. Or in Charlie Brown language: AAUGH!

So I call Curt Warner Chevrolet (where I bought the car) and schedule an appointment to bring it in and have them look at a few things: (1) the ticker (2) the cigarette lighter doesn't work (I don't smoke but I do have a cell phone I'd like to plug in while driving) and (3) I'm getting uneven tire wear in the front and sometimes (like when I'm north of about 70MPH) I get a slight shimmy in the steering wheel. No biggie, says Carl at Curt Warner, bringer in at 8:00am Thursday (8:00 am???) and we'll take a look. Cool, thinks I, easy-breezy.

I take my car in at 8:00 am and Audrey does great in the car the whole way there - oh yea, I'm watching Audrey today while Gina's at work. We give Carl the keys and Gina's Mom Carol picks my and Audrey up: since they live a few blocks from the dealership we decided to go play with Grandma while my car is being worked on. At about 10:30 I finally get a call from Carl. "Are you sitting down and do you have a pen and paper?" Carl says to me. Crap, I think to myself. Here's the breakdown that Carl gave me:

The lighter won't work because the whole assembly is shorted out and keeps blowing the fuse. To replace it is $84
The ticker isn't the part I tried to replace, nor is it the wiring harness, nor is it the fuse, nor is it the celluloid. It's a short in the Multi-Function Arm: the lever that sticks out of the steering column and controls the blinker and headlights. Since you have to rip the whole steering column apart to replace it, that's $357
The front brakes are down to 1mm of pad left - and that's bad. Those need to be replaced and the rotors need to be resurfaced for $287
Also on the brakes, the brake fluid is due to be replaced, and the current stuff is looking dirty and cloudy. To drain, clean the lines, and refill the fluid is $110
The tires are unsafe. The front ones are so bald there is cord poking through and the back ones might be okay in the dry summer, but in the wet spring, Carl is actually surprised I've been able to keep my car on the road. All four tires are $520
The front end suspension is fine (I was afraid that was the problem) but the car need an alignment. That's $80

So all told, we're looking at about $1430 parts and labor (plus tax) to get all that fixed at the dealership. The ONE silver liner is that the Multi-Function Arm is covered by the Extended Warranty I bought with the car - that one only costs me $100 out of pocket. I guess the other good thing is that it's going to be easier to sell since I can advertise New Tires! New Brakes! New Brake Fluid! Front End Just Aligned! Transferable Extended Warranty - Still Good Until May 09 or 25 Thousand More Miles! That will be nice, I suppose.

Looks like my brand new credit card I got for emergencies will carry a balance right away.....

Anyone want to buy a 2004 Pontiac Grand Am?

*ps - if you don't know what 2girls1cup is, DO NOT look it up. Trust me, you don't want to see it. It's one of the most disgusting things on the web, and not in a good way!

And you thought YOU were having a bad day!

2008-03-01T07:46:00.000-08:00

I just read "Million $$ Baby."

It's the short story that "Million Dollar Baby" was based off of. I've never seen the movie.

Reading the story made me feel like that guy on the bike up there. It was really well written, but I think it's got to be one of the most depressing stories I've read in a long time.

Speaking of reading, if you read my lovely wife's blog (over on....dum dum DUUUMM!....MySpace) you know that we decided to give up TV for Lent this year. It's been pretty great! It made us realize how much time we not only waste watching TV, but how much we waste watching TV we don't even really WANT to be watching. Do we really need to watch Mythbusters, even though we've seen that same episode 50 times? Probably not. Or when we spend 45 minutes flipping through the 13 channels we get because we can't find anything good on, but still don't turn the TV off. Yea, that was us. You know what we do instead? We actually TALK to each other! It's so strange! I love it! :) Oh, and don't worry: once the new Good Shows come back on (The Office, HIMYM, 30Rock) I'll just download them and we'll watch them after Easter.

So between not watch TV and getting a ton of new books given/loaned to me for Christmas and my birthday, I've read more book from Jan 1st '08 through today that I think I did from Jan 1st '07 through about August. I've read some real winners, and some real stinkers. Here, in no particular order, are mini-book reports on those books:

The Books I've Read This Year
by
Faloopa Jones

Blaze by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman. Stephen King wrote this book way back when Carrie just came out, and tried to release it as Richard. Richard's publisher wouldn't make it, so it sat in a trunk for just over 20 years. Last year he found it again, made some minor updates, and released it. It's awesome: more like Shawshank Redemption that the traditional "King" horror books. It's a tribute to Of Mice And Men, and I really enjoyed it.
Winkie by Clifford Chase. When Gina told me her friend recommend this book about a teddy bear that comes to life and is tried as a terrorist, I thought it might be pretty good. It wasn't. It was wordy and boring. The story jumped back and forth from the trial to Winkie's life, and while the trial parts were funny, the rest sounded like it was written by a menopausal woman who was very, very bitter. I did not enjoy this one.
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill. Bree got me this horror book for XMas and it's not on the list of the top 5 creepiest books I've ever read. Then G read it and said the same thing. It's about an aging rocker who collects items of the occult. He buys a suit on the internet that is supposed to come with the ghost of the owner. The story gets scary in chapter two and keeps going until the last page. It was great - I want to get some of Joe Hill's other books now.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. The version I have is the complete - when it was first released in the US, they (and the film) cut out the last chapter, which changes the whole tone of the book. This one was really cool to read because Burgess created a fictional slang that the main character uses to narrate. It takes a while to learn to understand it, but it's well worth it.
Cotton by Christopher Moore. A boy is born to a black family in the south in the early 60's - but he's got white skin, blue eyes, and blond hair (his Father was an Icelandic sailor who had been passing through). The funny thing is that that's about normal for the book. It covers his adventures growing up, and actually had me laughing out loud more than once. Very funny read, but not just a light comedy book: it was really well written too.
Tommyknockers by Stephen King. I hadn't read this one in over a year, so I thought I'd revisit it. It doesn't disappoint.

I feel like I'm missing at least one if not two more but I can't recall, so either I'm making that up or they wern't worth noting. In any case, 2008 has already been full of some pretty sweet books. I can't wait to start on the rest - I have three more (and Gina has about 5) that I haven't read, but the smallest of mine is 657 pages, so I've got to be ready for a long one before I start. I'll keep you posted.

There's a reason they call it a MANacure!

2008-02-20T16:36:00.000-08:00

I have yet another Tale of Creepy Things People Do - although this one isn't at all about a bathroom.

Have you all noticed that old working-class guys don't seem to EVER clip their nails? It seems like if you are between 65 and 80 years old and do/did a job that kept your hands dirty all the time (landscaper, mechanic, steel worker, etc) it's totally okay to NEVER clip your nails - even if they are about a foot long and so yellow it looks like you pasted Freetos Corn Chips on your fingers.

It's just scary! Long, jagged, yellowed claws flying toward my own hands, clutching a fistful of stinky bills to put into your savings account FREAKS ME OUT! And the thing is, most of them have tons of cash in savings. It's not like they can't afford the $2.49 for a pair of clippers.

Is this just one of the things that I can look forward to when I get old? Is it your right as a oldie to never clip your nails? Can I add that to the List Of Things That Are Going To Rock When I'm Old? Said list includes:

Leering in an uncomfortable manner at young, cute girls.
Telling long, boring stories to anyone who comes within three feet of me.
Lamenting about how things Used To Be all the time.
Spending fifteen minutes looking at a menu while the waitress waits, before ordering dry toast.
Being able to tip $.15 on a $35 tab.
Using racial slurs and not having it held against me.

Seriously: I can't wait until I'm really, really old.

I've got to go back to work now. There are old men with long fingernails waiting for me.

Bring Me My Rubber Boots!

2008-02-15T23:00:00.000-08:00

Yet again, I don't really have a Blog today. But it's been too long - I have to post SOMETHING. I mean, crap: there were a few of you who actually checked here even though it's like a million years from one post to the next. And that's down from 2 or 3 posts a day for quite a long time!

So here you are again, reading my blog and wondering "What kind of crap is The C going to bestow upon us today?" The answer is: I'm not even sure yet.

How about more Public Bathroom stories? Here's a new rant:

So I have a new PB™ (or Public Bathroom) issue today. It seems sort of sublime, the way it came up, but I have to share with you - my Faithful Reader.
It starts with my iPod. No, I didn't pee on my iPod. But I DID transfer all my This American Life podcasts to my Nano and I've been listening to them in the car on the way to work. One of the episodes I listened to was "David and Goliath" and the last Act (if you listen to TAL you know it's always three related acts) was a 10-minute reading by Dave Sedaris about people that poop in department stores. Yep. That's right. I can tell you first hand that his whole segment is true, but that's another blog entirely. Anyway, it pointed out that people make a lot of money talking about experiences they have either (1) in PB™'s, (2) while dealing with PB™ actions like pooping and urinating, and (3) in some non-PB™ place while dealing with a PB™ activity. I want on that gravy train (or not - sick!)

As you may know, I now work for a branch of GuitarPedal+CowSound and it's great. However, my branch is inside a Fred Meyers store and we use a bathroom that is public and used by GP+CN employees, Fred Meyer employees, and anyone else that needs to pee. In other words, a total PB™. Here's my newest issue with said PB™ - pissing on the floor directly next to the urinal.

Sometimes you miss a little. That happens. However, there are NOT times where you "accidentally" pee two liters of urine on the floor directly underneath the urinal - it just doesn't happen that way.

Today was rough. I had a 8:00am-9:00am conference call that I had to take at the office. Then, my normal shift started at 9:45am. That's not enough time to drive home, do anything, and drive back in Morning Rush Hour Conditions. So I was stuck there from 8:00am until at least 9:45am. My shift was over at 7:30pm. Yep - that's right: eight in the morning to seven thirty at night. And today was really hard, for reasons I'd not like to get into right now.

At about 5:45 I took my last break. I had to pee, so I made my way to the PB™ do, well, you know. I did most of my business, and happened to look down part of the way through. That's when I realized I was standing directly in the center of a puddle about three feet in diameter. A puddle directly under the urinal. Now, there are two urinals in this PB™, both of which are off-set in an alcove. To the best of my observation, here's what happened:

√ Some dude comes into the PB™ and has to pee.
√ He starts to pee into the left urinal.
√ He thinks "whoa! this 90˚ corner looks like it needs some pee!"
√ He pisses into the corner, and the pee bounces off the corner into the rest of the room.
√ He finishes peeing, and probably doesn't wash his hands.
√ Fifteen minutes later, I have to pee.
√ Ten seconds into my pee, I realize I'm standing in a puddle of stranger's pee.
√ I start to think about how no matter how much I wipe my feet, I'm tracking a stranger's pee into my house when I get home: even if it's only a few molecules.

Isn't that awesome? I'm thrilled! As if I didn't wonder who's pee got into what is now my house/car/work station/local supermarket before I even occupied that space, now I have North Portland Stranger's Pee on my shoes. Know what? That's never gone. I can wash my shoes in bleach and 1,000˚ water and I'll STILL know that at some point some stranger basically peed on my shoes.

And now I'm off to bed. Do we REALLY know what goes on in the factory that makes our 600-thread count PIMA cotton sheets?

do we REALLY know??

oh yea - and the Presidential elections are coming up. While I don't necessarily support Clinton, that pic was too funny not to post. LoLz.

Dang, even I fell asleep!

2008-02-11T13:59:00.000-08:00

I'm boring now.

As you may have noticed, I haven't blogged much lately. There are two reasons for that: (1) I have a job where I actually have to do WORK while I'm there, and (2) I'm totally boring now so I have nothing to blog about.

Since I now work at 70'sGuitarpedalCowsound, I have to edit the stories about work because of secrecy policies and whatnot. So my stories of work would look like this:

Last Tuesday this ______ came up to my work station and told me ___ needed to _____ some ____ out of ___ _______ and move some of it over to ___ _________. The problem was ___ didn't have ___ ______, ______, or _______ and the BSA says I can't do ANY of that without at lease one______ of ____. Luckily _____ could ___ for ___ and I was able to process the first _____. I still couldn't ____ the _____though, so ___ left all pissed off at me. Later on ____ came back for something else and was cool about it and had ____ ________ so I did what ___ wanted and ____ left happy. It was a pretty cool deal!

See? While that's cool for a MadLib, it's not great for a blog. Especially since I can't even really tell you what part of speech the missing words would be. Lame.

And that's about all I do. I go to work, come home and play with Audrey for a half hour or so to give Gina a break, then it's time to get Audrey ready for bed. Once we FINALLY get her to sleep, I've got to go to bed myself so I can be up for work the next day. That's really about it. not much to blog about, right?

At least I still have my crazy Chinese signs to play with. Here's the one for today:

That's right:
it's not "Trash," it's "Unrecycling."

I don't understand. Please help me understand!

2008-02-03T21:25:00.001-08:00

It has been brought to my attention today that I haven't blogged in like ten years. I'm here to apologize to you all: I'm sorry. I know you look to my blog for tips on how to be Awesome, and I've been sleeping on the job, as it were. I'm going to try to be more on top of my blog (that's what she said), but between a baby, a wife who works part time, and a job that demands 40 hours a week of actual work, I simply don't have a lot of time to blog. I will, however, try to do better.

You know what confuses me? Archie comics. Not because I don't understand the content, but because I can't understand who's buying these at this day in age. I mean, didn't they start in like the 1800's? And yet, you still see them in the checkout line at Safeway, Fred Meyers, and a lot of WinCo stores. NEW copies. This one here has video camera's on the cover - that means they are still making new copies. I guess if people are still buying things like the National Enquirer and Star, Archie still has a shot, but still! It simple blows my mind!

And why just Archie? Why don't we see new Richie Rich comics? Or Scrooge McDuck? Or Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers? I used to read all those when I was a kid, but you know what I never read? Archie. Because it sucked then and while I haven't read one lately, I'm pretty sure they suck now. Who ever liked Archie? It seems like when I was a kid, I didn't get many of the jokes and it seemed to be aimed more at adults. Now that I'm an adult, it seems juvenile and boring. When was this considered cool? When Denis the Menes was considered "edgy?" Seriously: is Archie banging Veronica or Betty? Is Moose still failing every class at school but the King of the Football Field? Is Jughead still a complete dumbass? I find that I don't really give a crap.

I understand that as long as we have white trash people and folks who are so dissatisfied with their own lives that they cling to any morsel of gossip about celebrities we will have OK Magazine and Soap Opera Digest and Weekly World News, but who in the crap buys Archie comics?? I consider it the mystery of the 21st Century. Maybe there's something hidden within it's pages. Like maybe it's really KKK Weekly but since they can't advertise that to everyone, they disguise their hate newsletter in an Archie cover. Or maybe it's full of Alien's plans to take over the world - like space Aliens, not border crossers - and they use Archie to get news updates to their unholy bretherin. Or maybe it's the smartest porn mag in America! I mean, who would pick up Archie, for cripes sake!

Now I'm tempted to actually open those mysterious pages next time I'm in line at Safeway: just to see what's going on in there. Although I don't want to be seen even looking at Archie, much less reading it. I suppose it shall remain a mystery for the next thousand years.

Oh, did I forget to mention that ayhole Jughead has his OWN magazine in addition to being featured in Archie? Yes, he does. Although you rarely see it in the checkout line - you have to seek it out if you want a copy. Could you imagine walking into Powell's and saying to the hip clerk "Excuse me, could you point me toward the newest edition of Jughead please?" I think they might take you out back and stone you. No, not get you stoned: stone you, like in biblical times.

You know what the coolest thing that ever came out of Archie comics was? When Ryan and Jessica dressed up as Jughead and Veronica for our First Annual Halloween Extravaganza back in 2004. That was awesome.

Look! In the bathroom! At the urinal! It's.........

2008-01-18T22:26:00.001-08:00

Today I was reintroduced to someone I haven't seen in a long time, but I really didn't miss.
Here's what went down:

¶ As you all know by now, I work for WaMu. I finished training (I aced both finals and had a 93.6% average for ALL the tests we did) and since Wednesday I've been in the branch. I'm working as a Teller for now so that I can get used to the computer systems and meet the customers. It's been great - today I even remembered some of my training! No, it's going really well and I think I'm doing pretty well.

¶ The one thing I miss about my last job was that we didn't have a public restroom. In fact, the bathroom we had was a one-person-at-a-time bathroom. Since my WaMu is inside a Fred Meyer, I now have to share a bathroom with (a) everyone who walks into Fred Meyer, and (b) I no longer have a one-person-at-a-time bathroom. I don't mind sharing my bathroom and I usually don't even mind peeing right next to some other dude - as long as the Rules are followed. The Rules are simple - no looking, no talking unless you know me already, and use your hands. You'd think that last one is a given, but that brings me to the topic of this blog: the Superman.

¶ If you are a dude and you've ever used a public urinal, you know who I'm talking about. It's the guy that, when there is a row of urinals or even just two side by side, walks up while you are peeing and proceeds to take a pee himself - however instead of using his hands to aim, he places them •both• on his hips and leans slightly backwards while he does his business. He does the Superman pose. While peeing. Seriously.

¶ Guess how many times I went to the bathroom today. Three. Guess how many Supermen I saw. Four. That's right: four. Two were side by side with me, and then, at my lunch, I went into the bathroom to wash my hands and there were two - count 'em - two Supermen side by side with each other. Sick. I mean......sick. Here's my Urinal Etiquette: stare straight ahead at eye level, use one hand to hold your clothes out of the way, use the other hand to "aim" your junk, and close up shop as soon as you are done - still looking straight ahead at eye level. No grunting, no scratching, no talking*, no looking, and always use your hands as described above.

¶ This. Is. Not. Okay. The Superman has to stop. It's arrogant and it exponentially increases my chances of getting pissed on by a stranger, and that's not a good day. Just because you are 60 and were in the War and served your country so that punks like me could wear our hair however we want doesn't mean you can pee using the no-hander. Sick. I'm not okay with that. It's embarrassing for both of us, but mostly me. Stop it. Just freakin' stop. I'm 90% sure that your wang isn't so big that gravity is sufficient to hold it down while you pee. I'm not 100% sure because I wasn't looking, but by the way you are acting I'm guessing you have a lap pinkie. Good luck with that.

¶ If I ever own a bar or restaurant I'm going to have Urinal Etiquette posted on plaques in the bathroom and the hallway leading to the bathroom. And if you don't follow the Etiquette, the Cooks don't have to wash their hands while they make your dinner, how's that? That's right: you don't aim your wang while peeing and you get SARS. How does that grab you, a nice greasy case of SARS? Oh, and BTW you just pissed all over the end of your belt.

Good luck with that.

The Conundrum of the Year

2008-01-13T19:00:00.000-08:00

I have a serious question, but it's going to sound racist. So I want to make this very, very, very clear up front: I AM NOT RACIST! I'm serious: I'm NOT a racist. That said, here's the post.

Why does it seem that, per capita, more 19-26 year old Russians own BMWs than any other group of people? I went to the Safeway on Main this evening. In case you didn't know, there is a Russian church right across the road and they have service quite late in the evening on Sundays. They also direct their overflow parking to the side lot at Safeway. I parked on the same side and I swear it was like I was on the showroom and Kuni BMW in Beaverton. I actuall counted and there were 12 cars on that side, and 5 of them were BMWs. Now, I can't say for sure that they were all going to the Russian church or that they were all driven by young people, but I will tell you this: I saw two of the BMWs park while I was getting out of my car, and and one was being driven by a girl who looked to be about 19 and the other was a dude that looked like he was maybe 23. Oh, and they both went over to the church.

Seriously: I want to know how that works! It is one of those things that just appear to be a majority but isn't really once you crunch the numbers? Because it seems to be the case - at least around here. Once you get to Lake Oswego or Oregon City the numbers change, but here in Vancouver and North Portland it really seems to be the case. When I was at TJ Maxx there was a 18 year old Russian girl that worked for us as a part timer. She worked an average of 20 hours a week at $7.25/hr, but she drove a three year old 525i with after market rims. I mean, she lived with her parents for free, but the insurance alone had to be over $500/mo!

I really don't get it. And I want to know because I want a BMW for myself. I want to drive a sweet 7-series on a super low salary. In fact, given my salary, I'll bet that Gina and I could each have a Beamer and we could still put aside a bunch of cash for Audrey's college fund.

It's like advanced calculus: I just don't understand it.

Again, I want to be VERY clear that I don't intend anything negative toward or about Russians. I've known some really awesome Russians......who drove sweet cars.

Clorox bleach, you's my only friend.

2008-01-13T18:35:00.001-08:00

Let me tell you how much I hate cleaning my bathroom.
A lot.

Let me tell you why.
Hair.
Namely, how hair sticks to pretty much every surface of the bathroom. Especially when the surfaces are slightly wet - like with cleaner. I swear: I spend more time chasing one hair around than I do actually cleaning anything. One stray hair will stuck to the front of the toilet, but not to the sponge you are using to try to get it off. Maybe I just don't know how to clean a bathroom properly, but crap! it pisses me off! I can't wait until I make enough money to pay someone else to clean my bathroom. And I'll pay very well! Or, even better, I'll have a contractor build me a custom bathroom made entirely of stainless steel with a drain in the floor and sprinkler in the ceiling. I'll have the walls powder coated so they have some color, but when it's time to clean you just take the towels out and turn on the sprinkler. The cabinets and door will have water-tight seals so there won't be any leakage. Or, even better than that, I'll make a custom fire-proof bathroom and just napalm the hell out of the place every week or so. Seriously, I hate it. But since my in-laws are going to be watching Audrey over here while Gina is at work (in case you didn't know, she's going back to work three days a week starting tomorrow), I figured I should make my bathroom NOT a hazardous area. So I cleaned it from top to bottom (except my bathtub - I got wore out before I got there, so I just closed the curtain for now. And it wasn't really that bad) and now my hands are dry and chapped from the cleaning products I used, and the bleachey smell is seeping out into the hallway. But it's pretty dang clean! I'm not looking forward to this spring when I decide to paint the whole room. Crimson. And hi-gloss white accents. Yep, red - the worst color to paint over anything. Oh well, I'll get some wicked chemicals and BURN all the stray hairs out of there before I start.

So I found a bunch of pictures of Chinese messages and the English "translations." I'm going to use them to close my blogs for awhile, so here's number one:

Remember:
Precaution before Salvation.

Why is it everything can be related to TV shows?

2008-01-11T17:00:00.001-08:00

Boo-urns, Writers Strike '07/'08.
Boo-urns and then some.

It's official: according to NBC there will be NO MORE NEW episodes from The Office or How I Met Your Mother this season. At least Heroes had the decency to tell us long ago that the season was ending: The Office and HIMYM left us hanging. Bastards.

Ahhh, HIMYM - we'll miss you.
I just re-downloaded seasons one and
two in Hi-Def wide screen so we can watch
them on The iMac (yep, it's now referred
to as THE iMac) to keep us in our fix until
the new season starts - in like 10 years.

We just watched The Pineapple Incident
again. And Sweet Taste Of Liberty. Which
leads me to the phase two and three of
this Blog. Keep reading for more.

The Pineapple Incident: I love my daughter. I love taking care of her, I love playing with her, I love watching her sleep (and she IS sleeping now). What I don't love is not being able to be irresponsible. I miss getting Pineappled. I miss going to the bar and - once a year - taking shots and getting really, really, really drunk and dancing in the bar and singing and having people write "My name is Chris. If found, please call (360) xxx-xxxx" on my arm in case I'm found in the gutter. Sure, I can still go out and have a few cocktails with friends, but I have to come home and take care of Audrey so I can't get really smashed. Or even mostly smashed. It's great growing up, but I don't like having the opportunity to act young and stupid. I used to be pretty crazy. I had a Drunk Chris persona that my friends would giggle at when He came out. It was somewhat rare, as I was a professional BarFly and rarely got out of control. But damn! it was fun when I did! Until the next morning - I got some wicked hangovers. I think that at some point in the future, when Audrey can stay overnight at Grandma and Grandpa's house, Drunk Chris is going to come out and play. Some point in the not-so-near future. Dang.

Sweet Taste of Liberty: I miss having a Ted. I miss being someone's Wingman. While I never tried to pick up women at the airport and ended up on a plane to Philly, I DID go to bars in Gresham and come up with a back story to fit the characters we were playing. While I don't miss trying to pick up on chick myself, I do miss helping other people meet chicks/dudes. Now that I'm watching HIMYM I really want to try the "Haaaaave you met Xxxxxxx?" line. Anyone need a good Wingman? I'm telling you: I'm an AWESOME Wingman! I can post up by the bathroom so if you want to bail you can hit the restroom and say the pre-determined code on the way by - then I'll call you with a "family emergency" so you can jet. I can also pay for my drinks in cash for fast getaways. I can come up with flattering stories on the spot to fit the Back Story. I'm telling you: I'm goooooood.

I don't want you to get the wrong idea - I love my wife very much. I love my daughter just as much. I love my life and what I'm doing right now. But I still miss, from time to time, being an irresponsible kid.

You know what I mean?

I've been through the website on a post with no name.

2008-01-06T18:12:00.000-08:00

I'm going to dump some music.
I decided I have too much music on my computer to keep the stuff I don't like, so I'm dumping a bunch of music very soon.

I know: I should try to get the music to dump me, but I'm so awesome right now, I don't think that's going to happen. So I'm dumping.

If you like the following albums or for any reason want some of this music, you have a short time to tell me before the music is lost forever (or at least from my computer). Let me know if you want any of the following (they are listed as Artist - Album):

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead - Madonna
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead - So Divided
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead - Source Tags & Codes (Bonus Edition)
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead - Worlds Apart
Arcade Fire - Funeral
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
Babyshambles - The Blinding EP
Beirut - Gulag Orkestar
Beirut - Lon Gisland EP
Block Party - Silent Alarm
Brendan Benson - The Alternative To Love
Brendan Benson - Lapalco
Broken Social Scene* - Bee Hives
Broken Social Scene* - Broken Social Scene
Broken Social Scene* - Feel Good Lost
Broken Social Scene* - To Be You And Me EP
Broken Social Scene* - You Forgot It In People
Cat Power - You Are Free
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Some Loud Thunder
CocoRosie - La Maison de Mon Reve
DeVotchKa - How It Ends
Finger Eleven - Finger Eleven
Finger Eleven - Gryest Of Blue Skies
Finger Eleven - Them vs You vs Me
Finger Eleven - Tip
Hawksley Workman - (Last Night We Were) The Delicious Wolves
Jim O'Rourke - Eureka
Jim O'Rourke - Halfway To A Threeway
Jim O'Rourke - Insignificance
Ludacris - The Red Light District
Natasha Bedingfield - NB
Outkast - Idlewild Soundtrack
Radiohead - In Rainbows
The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - Don't You Fake It (Deluxe Edition)

That's it for now. I figure I've got more than enough music, and while I'm not saying the above music is bad, I just don't see myself ever listening to it. Some of it I won't listen to: Arcade Fire is great musically, but the lead singer sounds too much like the dude from Modest Mouse and I hate his voice. Some of it sucks: Beirut was suggested to me, and it's atonal hippie crap, if you ask me - a "noise" band.

I won't judge you if you like it - it's just that I wouldn't listen to it and I still have something like 4200 songs after I delete these, so I'm all set. Also there are some other albums I want and I feel that I have to purge my collection before I move on.

So if you want any of this music, let me know right away. I'll wait a while and then it's all getting wiped off my hard drive.

* Broken Social Scene was the super-group that Feist was with before she went solo: it's like a 19 member band or something. It's cool, just not my cup of tea. Feist, however, I do like.

The Fear

2008-01-04T19:56:00.000-08:00

Let me tell you about The Fear.

I recently re-read A Million Little Pieces by James Fry. I'm not one for plagiarism, but a section of the book put to words what I've been feeling. If you've never read this book (or watched Oprah) it's about a character named James who is in rehab at 24 years old for alcohol, meth, pills, coke, but mostly crack. His life is hell. Here is a passage:

I've always felt these things. I don't think there are any words that describe them exactly, but they are a combination of rage, anger, extreme pain. They mix together into what I call the Fury. I have known the Fury for as long as I can remember. It is the one thing that has been with me throughout my entire life. I am starting to learn about how to deal with it, but until recently, the only way I knew was through drinking and drugs. I took something, whatever it was, and if I took enough of it, the Fury would subside. The problem was that it would always come back, usually stronger, and it would require more and stronger substances to kill it, and that was always the goal, to kill it. From the first time I drank, I knew drinking would kill it. From the first time I took drugs, I knew drugs would kill it. I took them willingly, not because of some genetic link or some function of some disease, but because I knew they would kill the goddamn Fury. Even though I knew I was killing myself, killing the Fury was more important.
I look at my Parents.
I don't know why, and I don't know if it matters, but whenever you are near me the Fury gets worse. Whenever you have tried to control me or baby me or take care of me or stop me, the Fury has gotten worse. Whenever we talk on the phone or hear your voices, the Fury gets worse. I'm not saying you're to blame for it, because I don't think you are to blame. I know you did the best you could with me and I know I'm lucky to have you, and I can't think of anything in my background that would have caused it. Maybe the Fury is genetic, but I highly fucking doubt it., and I won't accept disease and genetics as the cause of it anyway. It makes it too easy to deflect the responsibility for what I have done and what I have done knowing full well I was doing it. Each and every time, I knew full fucking well, whether it was take a drink or snort a line or take a hit from a pipe or get arrested, and I made the decision to do it anyway. Most of the time it was to kill the Fury, some of the time it was to kill myself, and eventually I didn't know the difference. All I knew was that I was killing and at some point it would end, which would probably be best for everyone involved. For whatever it's worth, I feel it now, sitting here with you, and I'll feel it tomorrow morning when I see you again. I will feel it next time we speak, and the time after that and the time after that, and if there is an explanation for why I am the way I am or for who I am, it is that there is a Fury within me that is uncontrollable without drinking or drugs.
[I skip some text here - C ]
My Mother and Father stare at me. My Mother looks as if she's going to cry, and my Father looks pale, as if he has just seen a terrible wreck. My Mother starts to speak, stops, wipes her eyes. My Father just stares.
Joanne [the counselor] speaks.
Not discounting other factors, I would say there may be some validity to your theory, but I am curious where you think this Fury comes from.
I don't know.
She looks at my Parents. There are tears on my Mother's face, my Father still stare. My Mother speaks.
Why didn't you tell us this before?
What was I supposed to say?
Do you hate us?
I shake my head.
What did we do?
You didn't do anything, Mom. This isn't your fault.
She wipes her face. My Father stares.
I'm so sorry James.
Don't be sorry, Mom. I'm the one who should be sorry.
There is a long silence. My Father looks at Joanne, speaks.
Could this feeling, or set of feelings, have been brought on by a Medical Condition?
Did James have a Medical Condition as an Infant?
He had ear problems.
Were they diagnosed and treated?
My Mother speaks.
We didn't know.
How did you not know?
My Mother looks at my Father and she takes his hands. She speaks.
We didn't have much money when the Boys were first born. Bob was a Lawyer, but most of his salary went to paying off his school loans. Bob Junior came out healthy and he was a happy child. He was very quiet and very calm. When James was born, he was the opposite. He screamed and screamed and screamed, and no matter what we did, we couldn't get him to stop. It was awful screaming, long and loud and piercing, and I can still hear it in my memories. We went to the Doctor, and we got the best one we could afford.
The Doctor told us that there was nothing we could do, that James was probably just a vocal child. We went home and the screaming continued. I'd hold James, Bob would hold James, we tried giving him little toys and feeding him more, and nothing worked. Nothing could make him stop.
The tears started flowing. My Mother grips my Father's hand, my Father watches her as she speaks. I sit and listen. I have never heard about my screaming before, though it does not surprise me. I have been screaming for years. Screaming bloody fucking murder. My Mother cries and she continues.
It went on for almost two years. James just screamed and screamed. Bob started doing well at his Firm and got a raise, and as soon as we had some extra money, I took James to a better Doctor. As soon as he looked at him, he told me James had terrible infections in both his ears that were eating away his eardrums. He said James had been screaming for all that time because he was in tremendous pain and that he had been screaming for help. He recommended surgery, and just before he turned two, James had surgery on both his ears, which was the first of seven surgeries that he would have on them. Obviously we felt terrible, but we didn't know.
The tears have turned into sobs.
If we had known we could have done something.
Sob.
But we didn't know.
My Father holds her.
He just screamed and screamed and all that time we didn't know that he was screaming because he hurt.
My Mother breaks down, burying her face in my Father's shoulder and shaking and trembling and quivering. My Father holds her and he patiently waits for her, stroking her hair and rubbing her back. I sit and I stare, and though I have no memory of what she's talking about, I do remember the pain. That's all that remains. The pain.

My Fear is that something like that will happen to Audrey, Gina and I. My Fear is that her not sleeping at night is due to something other than "it's just a phase" and we aren't helping. My Fear is that she's going to grow up with her own version of the Fury and turn to self destructive means to kill her Fury. Because of something I'm not doing. My Fear is that before she's even old enough to remember what's wrong, I'm letting her hurt in a way that's going to effect her life and who she becomes. I don't want to sound melodramatic, but my Fear is that by not fixing whatever is making her not sleep at night, I'm going to set the stage for Audrey to become a crackhead.

Our Doctor has told us that Audrey is fine: she's just going through a phase. But James' Doctor told his parents that he was just a vocal baby. I know it's normal for a parent - especially a first timer - to worry about their parenting abilities. But this doesn't feel like worry.

This is my Fear.

I hope that at the three-month mark Audrey starts sleeping at night instead of taking 2-hour naps during the day and then wanting to play from 11:30pm until 9:00am, especially since Gina goes back to work in a couple of weeks, and I hope that this isn't a symptom of something more serious. I hope that I'm not ruining my Daughter.

Welcome to my Fear.

Excerpts taken from
A Million Little Pieces
By James Fry

pages 303 through 305

So what do I do after I press controll+alt+delete?

2008-01-03T12:25:00.000-08:00

It's day two of my training. This picture isn't my class, but it's similar: we are doing a combination of class room and self-paced computer work.

It's pretty fun (as strange as that sounds). It's exciting to learn so much new stuff. And there's a lot of it!

The bad part is that Audrey is back to forgetting how to sleep, so today I'm really tired and it's kinda hard to concentrate, especially when I'm going through a guided computer simulation of how to log into Windows (seriously). I've been downing coffee like a madman, but we are almost out at home again so I've got to stop off and get some more, I think.

The Company is awesome - I've learned a lot of things about how they treat their employees and customers that really show me that this is the right place for me. I can't wait until I get to start working in my branch with me team instead of training at the OpCenter.

I'm at lunch right now so I've got to run, but I am going to try to do a longer blog later on:

the topic? I want to tell you all about the Fear.

Stay tuned....

A reading from to Book of Sumatra Roast.

2007-12-31T22:59:00.000-08:00

For Christmas, Gina's Sister's Boyfriend (Dan) got us a bottle of beer.

Only it was more than just a regular bottle of beer. It was

Lagunita's Limited Release Cappuccino Stout.

It was amazing.

Here's what it said on the side of the bottle:

Coffee is my shepheard; I shall not doze.

It maketh me to wake in green pastures,

it leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses.

It restoreth my brain,

it leadeth me in the paths of consciousness for it's namesake.

Yea, though the valley of the shadow of sleep,

I will fear no artificial sweetner for thou art with me;

Thy cream and thy sugar comfort me.

Thou preparest a carafe before me in the presene of my zzz's,

Thou anointest my day with sunlight;

My cup runneth over.

Surely richness and flavor shall follow me all the days of my life:

and I will dwell in the house of Cappuccina forever...

...Let us sip...

...or whatever...

Yep.

That's how cool it was.

And Chris and Gina spake saying,

"Yea, it was delecious."

I'm tired of fighting

2007-12-28T10:24:00.000-08:00

Last night I got 10,800 seconds of sleep.

That's 3 hours for you non-math majors.

Why won't Audrey sleep? This time I decided to try playing with her when she woke up instead of fighting her and trying to make her go back to sleep. When we fight her, she just screams. If I'm playing with her she's still up until 4:00am but at least she's not screaming.

We put her down around 6:30 last night. She was looking tired, so we fed her and I rocked her for a while. When she was pretty close to asleep I laid her in her crib and when she started to fuss a little, I sat back in the rocking chair and read for a while. She could still see me and was still fussing, so I laid down on the floor of her room and read: it was like she knew I was there but wasn't distracted by seeing me so she laid there quite but awake until about 7:30 when she fell asleep. I thought she might be tricking me, so I laid back down and took a nap on her floor. At 8:00 Gina came in and suggested I go to bed for a while. While I was brushing my teeth, Audrey woke up. She seemed pretty awake so we tried to feed her a little more but she kept falling asleep. However, when I put her back in her bed she was wide awake again. That's when I started playing with her. I sent G to bed and hung out in A's room talking to her and playing with her rubber duck (she loves that duck right now). At about 12:00 she was getting fussy again so I woke G up to feed her. She ate a little then fell asleep again. Again wary of trickery, I read in the rocking chair while she laid there staring at the ceiling. Once she fell asleep I came to bed, but Audrey woke up an hour later. So we played some more. This time she didn't even look tired at all and ate again at about 2:45 - after eating she was wide awake. At 4:00 I finally left her with Gina and went to bed, because I was having breakfast with Kevin and Ken: I thought breakfast was at 6:00 so I set my alarm for 5:15.

When it went off I got up and doubted myself about the breakfast time, so I checked my email: it was at 8:00, not 6:00. Gina had given up trying to get Audrey to sleep in her room and had her in the swing in the living room. She sent me back to bed and I got up at 7:30 to drive to Shari's for breakfast.....the wrong Shari's. I went to 164th while Kevin and Ken went to Orchards. I corrected my mistake and had a nice (if sleepy) breakfast.

Now I'm at the office for a bit. I was able to sleep from about midnight to one, and again from about 5:15 to 7:15. When I left G was asleep on the couch and A was sort of asleep in her swing.

This really worries me bacuse I start a job with set hours on the 2nd. I can't train for a new and complicated job with three hours of sleep. Shit, I can't even make it to the right Shari's on three hours of sleep. And now Gina might go back to work at Columbia part time. We have to make a decision about her work today, and we are both dead tired.

What are we going to do? Why is Audrey's internal clock totally backwards? A week ago she'd take two or three 3-hour naps during the day and then be up until 2:00am when she finally fell asleep. Now she takes a couple of hour-long naps and is awak all damn night.

Why won't. My daughter. Fucking sleep?

Shit.

Hurry up - it's time to go!

2007-12-27T11:58:00.000-08:00

Didjall have a good Christmas? We had a pretty fun one.

I started getting sick on Christmas Eve and I felt pretty crappy on Christmas Day, but it was still pretty awesome.

This is a picture of my siblings and I. By order of age it's me, Jay (gray sweater), AD (green shirt), Nic (beard-o), Mac (brown tee), and Matthew (white and red LS tee). First off: yes, Nic is my LITTLE brother.

Anyway, we did presents in the morning at my Moms house with all the kids, plus G and Audrey, Justin (AD's BF), Devan (Jay's BF), and my Grandma - 11 people in all. At our house we open one gift at a time so everyone gets to see what you got and so you can thank the person who gave it to you right away. It's really fun, but opening presents takes forever.\

You may or may not know that my family is effing crazy. Fun crazy, but still crazy. Somehow we started this thing where you open your eyes as wide as you can, open your mouth into a huge "O", tilt your head slightly to the side, turn to someone else in the room - but you have to start by facing about 90-degrees away from the person, then slowly turn to face them. The point is to make an over-exaggerated surprised/shocked face and not laugh. It's hard! Gina latched onto it and I caught her practicing in the car on the way to Mom's house. My brother is really good at the face, but it's so funny that you always crack up when he does it and then HE cracks up.

We also over-use the slow clap - especially on Christmas. If someone opens a really awesome gift, one of us starts the slow clap and it builds into a cacophony of cheers. Sometimes it lasts a good 3 or 4 minutes. I'm cereal. We are nutjobs.

The Sunday before Christmas we did our celebration at my Dad's house. That wasn't quite as crazy, but still pretty funny. At one point we were re-living all the injuries we sustained as kids - it started when Matthew opened one of those Wave Skateboards (see below) and was going to ride it. He wasn't wearing any shoes (they were just outside the door) and that led to re-living the time Nic tried to skateboard down our steep driveway with each foot on a different board: picture skiing on skateboards. In bare feet. One board slipped out and his big toe got totally dislocated and was sticking out of the bottom of his foot. AD and Jay were outside with him and AD came running in saying "Dad! Dad! Nic's toe broke off his foot!" My Dad took Nic to the ER and his toe is now fine. But that story led to other injury stories, and it was odd to notice that almost every instance happened either while we were leaving the house to go somewhere, or bed time. Here are some highlights:

AD, at about 3 or 4 (I think): We were going to a family friend's house to be babysat while my parents went to a meeting or something. Since it was dinner time, my Mom made a huge crock pot full of soup to take with us. The soup was SUPER hot and on the floor of the back seat. While trying to climb into her car seat, AD slipped and plopped her foot right into the boiling soup. It filled her shoe and soaked her sock, and she got 2nd degree burns and almost had ot have some skin grafts.
Me, the summer between 7th and 8th grade: It was 6 or 7 days after I fell off the monkey bars and knocked myself out, had a seizure and a ride in an ambulance, and got a concussion. We were heading to swimming class and I was the first one outside, but the car was still locked. We had an AWESOME climbing tree next to the driveway and we had an awesome rope swing made from some rope my Dad got off a ship at the Terminal where he worked. Little did I know, but my neighbor Tyson had tried to move the rope to a better location, but could only get part of the knot untied, so he left it. I grabbed the rope and did one of those things where you run in a half circle and swing way out sideways. Just as my Mom came out with the rest of the kids, the knot let go and I fell directly onto the side of my head. I thought I was okay, but I barfed twice at swim class and couldn't get in the pool, so we went to the ER and I had another concussion on top of the one I got a week before.
Jay, around 10 or 11 (I think): The family was heading out the door to come see me perform in the Vancouver Dance Theater's production of The Nutcracker (one of the 11 years I was in it). I was already there and the Fam was just heading out the door. Jay, AD, and Nic had just seen Mary Poppins again, and Jay wanted to do what we all now refer to as the Chim Chimminy Dance - it's when the Mom is dancing at the beginning of the movie: two people lock arms and another person does a "skin-the-cat" over their arms. Jay had AD and Nic set up so she could flip over them (right as my Dad is yelling "Come on, it's time to leave"). Since Nic and AD were quite young, they dropped Jay and she dislocated her shoulder. That was a trip to the ER......
Also Jay, I'm not sure what age: Jay had come out to the living room to kiss Dad goodnight. On the way back to her room, she stopped to dance on our parquet floor entry way. She slipped, and broke her foot. No joke.
Nic, probably around 9: We were getting in the car to go somewhere, and Nic decided to climb up the Climbing Tree. There were two trucks that crossed each other and Nic was climbing right there. Someone (me?) was hanging from a branch off one of those two trunks, and right when Nic put his knee in the joint, whoever was on the branch let go. That pinched Nic's knee in the joint of the two trees and he got stuck. Mom came out and we tried lubing his knee with dish soap, Crisco, and butter but nothing worked. We ended up having to call the fire department who used three guys and two corwbars to get him out.

Those are just a few examples, but there are tons of them. The two youngest (Mac is 12 and Matty is 9) don't seem to get hurt as much as the older bunch did - I can't help but wonder if my parents know better now and don't let the little boys get into situations that have to potential for danger. Then again, who expects to break their foot by dancing for a second before bed? Maybe the boys are just a little smarter than we were.....

In any case, parties at my Mom's house are always a riot. If you ever get the chance to join us (and pretty much everyone is invited for every celebration) try to make it: you'll fit right in.

(this is the WaveBoard Matty got: cool, hua?)

"Wait, you're breaking up with me??"................(awesome)

2007-12-22T10:38:00.000-08:00

Remember dating? Remember breaking up? The G and I were talking about that the other night (I don't remember what brought that up) but it got me thinking: in the spirit of Awesomeness, I thought I should share my personal experiences with you.

See, I dated a lot. I take GREAT pride in the fact that I didn't "sleep around" but I sure did date a lot of chicks. When you date a lot of people you have a lot of breakups. I came up with a simple solution to the break-up conundrum:

Get Them To Break Up With You.

Early on, I broke up with quite a few girls. It rarely ended well. There comes that point when you realize that you don't want to date that person anymore, but either (a) you can't name a specific reason or (b) the specific reason is something that you just can't bring up without starting a fight. There are other reasons, but those two are accurate about 99% of the time. There are so many phrases that only cause problems. "It's not you, it's me" means just the opposite. "I think we should take a break from eachother" ends up dragging out the breakup timeframe and makes things much worse later when she realizes that it's a forever-break, not a spring-break-break. "We just don't seem compatable" only works if you have been dating for less than 4 business days. "I think I love your sister/best friend is NEVER a good idea. Then there are the ones that are just way too blunt: pointing out a physical trait that suddenly sickens you after dating for 2 weeks isn't going to make her feel very good. So what is one to do in this situation? Simple: Get Them To Break Up With You.

The trick is making yourself un-datable enough to break up with, but not enough to make them go postal. This takes tact, planning, and you have to read the person you are with. Don't go too drastic, but be sure you aren't still a "good catch." Here are a few things that I suggest:

1) Physical. It's time to stop suiting up. The GTTBUWY dress code can take some work, but is a pretty easy way to achieve your goals. Wear lots of sweatpants. Mismatched shoes is a good one too. If you are a guy, stop shaving. If you are a girl, stop shaving. Try to get as little sleep as possible the night before a big date - you will look terrible and be unresponsive to conversation (see number 2). Quilted flannel shirts are pretty effective, as are ill-fitting clothes (unless you are a girl: then you have to be careful of dressing too tight, which can have the opposite effect). Leave little bits of food on your lips and in your teeth. If they can't show you off to your friends, they might re-think the relatioship.

2) Communication. Just stop it. Hide your feelings, don't listen when they are talking, interupt often with off-subject comments...things like that. Contridict yourself often - say you want to go see the new Nick LaShay movie and then bitch all the way through it. Video games and sports are great for this if you are a guy, while shoes and Martha Stewart are great if you are a girl. If you are emotionally distant, they might want to move on.

3) Get really excited about interaction with other people. If you are going to spend time with your BF/GF, sound bummed out by it: not too much, just simple lethargy will work. Then constantly talk about how excited you are to hand out with people you see all the time. NOTE: this method looses it's effectiveness if you are excited to see family that you haven't seen in a long time - that excitement is to be expected. It has to be people that you see all the time, and only when you are going to be hanging out without you BF/GF. Also make sure that you aren't ONLY excited to hang out with people of the opposite sex - a good mix of guys and girls is essential.

4) Make really horrible friends. If she likes preps, make friends with the stoners. If he like emo and metalheads, hang out with the tennis team. And include your new friends whenever possible - doubledates with them will cause especially hot tension. Watch out though: getting close to your new "friends" can result in you having to get THEM to break up with you later.

5) Develop fake crushes and bring your GF/BF to the place your "crush" works. This is a little more advanced because you don't want to be accused of cheating. If you find a really cute Coffee Girl, take your date there often and make flirty-eyes at her while mostly ignoring your date. Go to Hooters often and ask to sit in a specific waitress' section (look very dejected if her section is full). Girls, find a hot Car Salesman and go car shopping every weekend, even though you are broke. And be sure to bring your boyfriend - say you need a "man's opinion" but never listen to him. When you are going to go visit these "crushes" dress REALLY nice: that's especially effective if you have been following number 1 while at home with your BF/GF. If you are going to use this tool, always pick a place you rarely go in Real Life - you don't want to have to get Coffee Girl to break up with you later.

6) If your date doesn't have strong morals, set THEM up to cheat. Go see a movie with your date and your Wingman, and then get a "call" while in line for tickets and have to leave. Plan a big party at your Wingman's house and leave when everyone is getting tipsey. If your date has a crush on someone (like Coffee Girl/Guy) send your date to pick of coffee often. When used along with some of the other rules above, you might have a justified dumping on your hands! Or take fake business trips a lot: say you are leaving for a week, have your date drop you off at the airport, then take a taxi home and don't answer your phone. While this option doesn't get THEM to dump YOU, it can be effective as a last-ditch effort. The support of a good Wingman makes this method MUCH easier. Although sometimes they have to later get your now-ex to break up with them.

If you follow these simple guidelines, you should be dumped in a week or so. You don't have to worry about stalkers, and after a short time you may even be able to start dating your BF/GF's friends (the friend will say "Is it okay that I want to date your ex?" and the person you were dating will think "yikes! I got AWAY from that one, but you go right ahead!"). You leave guilt-free and totally clean. Plus you can play the "I-just-got-dumped" card on the next person you decide to date (always helpful).

One last thing: you have to look sad. If your date FINALLY breaks up with you, you CAN NOT act happy! Remember - this was the last thing you wanted; you've just been going through some stuff that you are trying to work out. In the even that you use method 6, be sure to seem sad AND angry, but not too angry. You don't want to lay a guilt trip on them, you are just really, really dissapointed. Oh, and the use of number 6 may require a period of public "fighting" between you and your Wingman, esopecially in places where your now-ex would see.

So there you have it! Next time you don't want ot date someone any longer you have to tools for a smooth breakup.

I'm available for one-on-one training or group sessions at a very reasonable rate.

The New Layout

2007-12-21T17:14:00.000-08:00

So I did it. I decided to make some small changes to my blog layout. I kept the same template though, so it's still very similar to the old one - just with new content. I think I might start playing with iWeb and see if I can make a custom layout and plug it in this domain. We'll see though: it's pretty busy around here.

Anyway, enjoy the new Awesomeness.

Mommy, why does that man's Windows computer have an apple on the front?

2007-12-20T02:14:00.000-08:00

I've went and gone and done it.

I loaded Windows XP Pro SP2 on my iMac.

Now I can boot from my choice of the Mac side or the Windows side. It's pretty sweet.

The most important thing is that I can now play Jeopardy! 2nd Edition again. It's hosted by videos of Alex Trebek!

The odd thing is that I've never experienced Windows running so fast before. Ever. It's totally crazy-go-nuts.

But now I can play all my old games that were PC only. And I can access NetFlix "Watch It Now" option. I can stream movies off NetFlix.com instead of waiting the two days it takes them to mail me DVDs. Although I am a little pissed that they still can't remotely beam movies onto the backside of my glasses whenever I want. I mean, jeeze! I actually have to THINK about stuff while I'm at red lights!

So there you have it. We are now a dual-computer household, but it's all on one machine. Sweet.

ps - I don't have a MacBook Pro. I have an iMac. I wish I had a MacBook Pro. That will be the next Mac I get.

The A-Team Triumphs Again!

2007-12-19T12:14:00.000-08:00

Good news!

I got the WaMu job!

My background check and fingerprint record came in fine, and I start training on the 2nd of January. As of 2008 I'll be a Personal Financial Representative.

I'm SO excited! I simply can't wait to start. It's going to be HELLATIOUS training, but I'm pretty good with that stuff, so I'm ready to get started.

It's a great Christmas Present for the A-Team. It takes a huge load off our shoulders and let's Gina plan to stay home with Audrey for longer. Since I'll be in training for a long time, I won't have much contact with customers and money will be kinda tight, but it's tight now so that's nothing new to us.

Insurance and benefits kick in March 1st (I think - it might be Feb 1st) and I'll have a regular paycheck coming every two weeks.

It's major. I'm thrilled.

Yay!

Oh, fudge it!

2007-12-17T13:32:00.000-08:00

Man, I love to swear.

I don't think I "over-use" swearing, but I do have a pretty foul mouth sometimes.

And I'm the self-proclaimed Master of Innapropiate Comments. I don't mean any of it, but I make some pretty innapropiate comments on a sami-regular basis. Just listen to me while I watch an episode of The Biggest Looser. I really respect those people: it takes a LOT or will power to loose 100lbs! But I make some jokes in the comfort of my own home that I'd never make in public.

And now I have a daughter. A daughter who is going to learn how to talk. By watching me.

I think there is a good chance that Audrey's first word will be something like "douchbag" or "asshat" or something like that. I've really got to put a stop to that. I don't think that Gina's Folks would appreciate it very much if they come to babysit and Audrey says " Scrotum!" really loud.

So I'm going to try to replace swear words with words that are appropiate to most situations. Or I'll start a swear jar (like in the video) and build up a fund to send A to Harvard. Harvard Law. By the time she's 5.

Crap.

I mean crud.

Speaking of: I've always had a problem with people who use faux-swear words in place of real ones. The only reason swear words are taboo is because we all agree they are offensive. So if we sub "crud" for "crap," isn't that really the same thing? If you say "crud" but mean "crap" isn't crud now a bad word? Shoot, that crud isn't even freaking cool! I mean, Jeeze! We all know what teh eff you mean - why not just say the dang word, you know? Common usage, my anus!

My daughter is doomed to a lot of time outs, isn't she?

Are you ready to rock the house?

2007-12-15T13:07:00.000-08:00

I've done it.

I reached just over 4000 songs in my iTunes.

That's just over 12GB of music.

That's a lot of tunes.

My friend Phil and his GF Mary came over the other night and we talke about music. Mary had just recieved a new iPod Nano (video) and I was jealous. I downloaded a program that let me take songs off her Nano and put them on my computer. That took me to about 3800 total songs, so I had to try to hit the 4000 mark.

Phil said "dang! Have you LISTENED to all those songs?!" I said "Well, not all - but I'd guess most of them." Then I made a smart playlist that grabbed all my unplayed tracks. Out of 3800 there were about 2750 that I hadn't listened to. That means that 75% of the music I had was stuff I hadn't heard. And now I have just over 4000 tracks.

It's pretty cool, because I like new music. Oh - that 4000 doesn't count the 10 CDs that I deleted because they sucked. Stuff like "Kings Of Leon" and the newest Prince CD. There is still quite a bit of crap on my compy, but most is stuff that I at least THINK I'll like.

So the moral of the story is: if you WERE thinking of buying me a Christmas present, don't buy me music. Unless it's something totally hard to find or local music. But even then, I've got a couple of weeks worth of music to listen to, assuming I listen to music 24 hours a day.

The one thing I'm looking for is good Christian bands (I know, "good" and "Christian" rarely go together in music). A lot of the stuff I know about has great lyrics, but sound like.....um......American Idol music. I'd bet that most of my songs are labled "Indie" or "Indie Rock" or "Brit Rock" or "Folk" or "Modern Folk" so there's not a lot of C music that fits those genres. I can't stand sappy, breathy vocals. I can't stand (most) over-produced music (quick example - I didn't like Regina Spektor's radio stuff, but when I saw her live with Matt and it was basically her and a really nice piano I got a little hooked). Unfortunately, most C music I've been able to find falls into that z100-type music that I don't enjoy. Or Crap Rock. I don't like Crap Rock. I liked Jars Of Clay when they were big - that was sort of a secular Alternative sound that I can get behind, but that's about it. Any suggestions?

Anyway, if YOU want some music, let me know. Chanses are I have what you want, and if not I know where to get it. Alls I need is some blank CDs (or some $$ for them, if you want a lot) and it's all you. I'm super anal about tagging as well, so everything I have is tagged really, really well in iTunes.

Oh, and video? Shoot! I've got so much of that (properly tagged for iTunes, of course) it's not even funny. All seasons of "Arrested Development?" Got it. "Freaks and Geeks?" Complete. "My So-Called Life?" You know it! Scrubs, South Park, The Sarah Silverman Program, The Office (US and UK), Drawn Together, The Brak Show and Space Ghost Coast To Coast.......I've got it all. I've even taken to DLing current shows so I don't have to watch them when they are on TV: I've got all the up-to-date episodes of "Chuck" and I haven't even started watching them yet. "How I Met Your Mother?" I had season one and two, but I deleted them for hard drive space - but I have all this season up-to-date (I've got two more to watch before I'm caught up).

So crack a beer with me to celibrate the 4000th song on my beloved iMac. I may be somewhat of a bastard, but when you come to my house you always get good music!

Cartoon Music For Superheroes

2007-12-14T14:43:00.000-08:00

Have you heard of Albert Hammond, Jr?

He's the guitar player for The Strokes, and he has a solo album out called "Yours To Keep."

It's amazing.

It sounds a lot like The Strokes early stuff (see "Is This It?") mixed with indie and folk influences. His voice is amazing, and his rock-guitar skills lend themselves very well to folk-ish indie music. I took the CD off Mary's iPod (the new video Nano - I'm green with envy) and listened to it today. Killer. Not The Killers; just killer.

Check it. Check it hard.

Suit Up - Round...um....whatever.

2007-12-14T14:02:00.000-08:00

I had my 4th interview with Washington Mutual yesterday. As a recap: 1st was the Career Fair where I interviewed with the manager of Canby; 2nd was the second interview in Canby with the MGR, ASM, and OpsSupe (I didn't get that job); 3rd was with the manager of the North Portland branch and her ASM; 4th was with the ASM of NPDX along with the other Personal Financial Representitive (she and I would be working very close with each other and the MGR wanted her to have some say in who gets hired).

This last one was really, really great. I left feeling like that is where I'm SUPPOSED to be. I think I'd fit the branch very well, and I have a lot of sales skills to offer them. It takes me about 14 minutes to get there and back (even in traffic) and the position REALLY offers me the opportunity to have a salary and make enough in commission to allow Gina to stay home as long as she wants. Also, the bennie package is AWESOME and WaMu really offers a lot of opportunity to move up in the company as fast as I want (and am willing to work for).

Throughout this whole process, I've discovered a new facet in my relationship with God. I've prayed constantly and so far I've got some very quick answers. Truely and completely giving things over to God has always been a tough spot for me, and this situation has helped me grow very quickly.

I REALLY hope I get this job. It would take so much stress out of our house, and I know Gina would feel a LOT better with some set income coming in - it would really allow her to stay home as long as Audrey needs is. We both feel that Audrey needs Gina home untill she's at least 6 months old, and this would allow that. As well as cover all three of us with killer medical insurance, give me another 401K (with company match), and let me be home more instead of spending my baby's early childhood in gridlock on I-5.

We are one step closer! It's in God's hands now! :)

Internet: 1............Burnmanster: 0

2007-12-14T12:13:00.000-08:00

Bad news, R-1.
I can't find you the Juniper music.

I searched all my resources - I even found a few new resources I haven't tapped before.
All to no avail.

Then I did some research on the band Juniper.
See, I didn't know that they are uber underground. They don't even have a full-length CD out: they only ever released two EPs, two singles, and a compilation album made of the two EPs.

That and the fact that they are underground indie music from Ireland isn't enough to overcome the fact that Damien Rice was in the band, and make their music popular enough for me to find it. I even asked some of my peers to see if they could find a hard copy and upload it for me: no luck.

If it were to be found, I'd have it for you. Unfortunately, it's just not out there. In the case than one of the people I've set to look for it (in the real world - not online) come up with a copy for me, I will of course let you know right away.

You may have to purchase it though conventional means.
(if you can find it)

Suit Up - Round Three

2007-12-11T14:30:00.000-08:00

I'm out of good Barney pictures.

1) I got a call from BofA today - I mentioned that in my last blog (from earlier today). That was cool.

2) Later on, I got a call from the branch manager of the North Portland WaMu. She actually trained under Mark: the guy from Canby that I interviewed with. Mark had called her and STRONGLY recommended that she interview me for the same position at her store. So I've got an interview with her tomorrow at 12:30.

I prayed for some answers and options, and boy! did I get them! This other store IS in Portland but it's only about 8 miles from my house. I'm still going to fill out the paperwork for BofA, but I was really pleased with the job function and pay scale at WaMu so we'll have to see how that one goes.

Sweet!

Mr. Belding, The A-Team, and a Cat Who Likes Pie!

2007-12-11T12:13:00.000-08:00

I got another call-back today. This one was from BofA about a Personal Banker position at the Mt. Tabor location. I talked to a rep who is sending me a pre-app and if I qualify based on that, will send my application to the Recruter for that area. Even though Mt. Tabor is still in Oregon, it's not nearly as far as Canby, so I'm hopeful. Also, they start at a higher salary. So I got that going for me, which is nice (anyone know what movie that line is from?). I just don't want to end up like Mr. Belding thinking "I had it all...."

I started figuring out how to play the A-Team Theme Song on my guitar last night. Audrey was having a hard time falling asleep and I needed something to occupy my time while we let her cry it out a little, so I plugged in my guitar, cranked up the overdrive (at low volume, of course) and got about a third of the song figured out. I think I'm going to record it with GarageBand, add drums and bass, then record the vocal intro but customize it to fit our family (the NEW A-Team!). Now I just need to find a place that will paint our minivan like the one to the left. Then I can install my old CB radio that has an output for a loud speaker so I can blast it for the whole neighborhood to hear. Then I'll be cool. Real cool! And Audrey's friends in High School will all be like "Oh, Audrey! Your Dad is the coolest Dad in the world!"

So now it's the Holidays and I love me some sweets. After my Great Grandma's 90th Birthday Party, Teresa had us take home a whole lemon-poppy seed bundt cake, since she made all the cakes and there was a ton left over. Gina bought a tin of cashew rocha. I came into the office yesterday and Carl had two ENORMOUS plates of cookies. Teresa always has cakes, cupcakes, cookies and chocolates at her house. Gina's folks always have some delectable desert and beers to offer. I think that instead of trying to get a set job, I'm just going to try to get as fat as I possibly can, and then win the Biggest Looser contest. I'll get thin, get all kinds of endorsement deals, and win $250K. All in three months. And since I'm equal parts nice guy and total bastard, I have a good chance of "playing the game" and staying on until the finals. I figure I need to gain about 150lbs or so in order to be on the show. So the cat in the olde time shirt and tie is spouting my new motto: "Keep your fork - there's pie!"

You got questions? Just ask for the answer.

2007-12-10T18:04:00.000-08:00

I got an answer to a prayer today.

When I was leaving the in-branch interview for the Personal Banker position (the second interview) I was still unsure if it was the place I was supposed to work. So on the way home I prayed that God show me if it was for me: specifically, I said that if it wasn't for me that I not get the offer. I got a call today and didn't get the job.

The manager said I was the best interview he'd ever had (and he's been a manager for 10 years) so that was good. He told me it was a VERY hard decision but they ended up offering the job to someone internally (and who lived closer). He strongly encouraged me to apply for the same position at a North Portland branch that just became open (which I had already done) and said that when I get an interview again, he'd give me a recommendation to the hiring manager.

So God did answer my prayer, and He did it just like I asked. I'm actually pretty glad I didn't get the job - I don't really want to work in Canby, especially since we've been putting Audrey to bed between 6:30 and 7:00. However I don't know if I would have been able to say no, had I been offered the job. So I'm back out there on the market, and I'm praying that I'll hear back from either another WaMu branch (closer to Vancouver) or another company.

Keep praying for me! :)

Today's Blog: the Faloopa Jones Remix

2007-12-10T15:02:00.001-08:00

Have I told you about my newest project?

I took the song "Dickhead" by Kate Nash and loaded it into GarageBand on my computer. The sing is her singing and playing a simple bass riff on her guitar, playing the body of the guitar like a percussion piece on the off-beat. Now that it's in GB, I've been adding extra tracks to it: an old 808 digital drum machine drum track, a sweet conga track, some cool complimentary effects, and I re-recorded a more "pumped up" bass line on my electric guitar. Now it's a whole new beast, and I'm now trying to get all the balancing and sound envelope work done so I can export it to iTunes. It's been a lot of fun: I found that I really like making remixes.

However I'm very picky about remixes. It REALLY ticks me off when I hear a remix by DJ Somethingorother where the (new) background is in a different key than the vocal tracks. Really? You can't hear that? The way that they don't match up and it sounds like someone making a ferral cat forceably eat a pinecone? And you're a "professional" DJ, hua?

I came to this relization today after DLing the D-Sides CD by Gorillaz. Disc Two is all remixes of songs off the last two albums, and I was excited. I wanted to hear what some other folks did with Dare and Don't Get Lost In Heaven. I heared the FILA2000 remix of Feel Good Inc. and it was great (but not on this CD). Let me tell you: whoever did the remixes on this CD were drunk. Or deaf. Or drunk and deaf and trying to get a car to eat a pinecone. They suck. Suck hard.

This really gets me down: I adore Gorillaz, and was really looking forward to buying this album. This sounds like one of those CD's where the band has a shitton of extra tracks that producers cut from the last albums, and the band was like "ok - now we are Big Time and we can release this tripe and our 'hard core' fans will love it because, well, it's us."

I still love Gorillaz, but I wish I could find MP3's of just the vocals so I could do my own remixes. Anyone know how to get those? I've got thousands of loops in GB and I want to start doing more of these. I think my next project, however, is going to be making my own songs from loops and live tracks that I record - guitar, bass and vocals mixed with GB loops. I think that will be kinda fun. I do miss my bass guitar though.....

Suit Up - Round Two

2007-12-06T13:44:00.000-08:00

It's time to once again

SUIT UP!

Yesterday I was part of a mass-interview with Washington Mutual Bank. I had applied online and received a call from HR the next day asking me to take part of the interview meeting they were holding for multiple applicants. That was the first Suit Up blog.

When I got to the meeting, I was signing in with the HR director when she said that after reviewing my application, I was way overqualified for the teller position I applied for and asked if I'd ever thought about being a Personal Banker. I had, because the recruiter from another bank old me the same thing on the phone, so I said I was interested.

I interviewed with a branch manager who was hiring for the PB position. I NAILED the interview (or at least thought I did). The only problem was that there were no PB positions in Vancouver, and the guy was hiring for Canby, OR (that's just south of Tualatin). I figure worst case was that I get more interview experience, so I had nothing to lose.

This morning I got a call from Mark (the manager I interviewed with) and he asked me to come to the branch for a second interview with himself and his assistant manager (who is moving up from the Personal Banker position and would be training whomever they end up hiring). I figure I must have a pretty good chance of getting hired if I've made it to the second interview. Mark mentioned on the phone he wanted to interview me with his ASM, and also wanted to get me an opportunity to "meet the rest of the team here at the branch." Does that sound like I'm in the running to you?

So now it's seriously time to make like Barney and suit up. I mean, can't you just see me as a Personal Banker?

At the sound of the bell, turn to page two. ding!

2007-12-06T13:23:00.000-08:00

For those of you who know me, you may know that I tend to "latch on" to something and get a little obsessed for a short time. Then I could care less about whatever I was obsessed with. That's the main reason I don't own a PS3 or an XBox 360 - I wouldn't get bored with the system, but I would buy a $60 game, play it every free moment until I getabout halfway through it, then never play it again. It's too expensive a hobby to get hooked on.

For a while my obsession was downloading music: remember when I jumped from about 20 CD's to over 3500 songs? That was a bit obsessive. But now I have a new obsession: downloading Audiobooks.

Audrey is having a hard time falling sleep at night, and I've spent time almost every night rocking her to try to get her into a deep sleep. Since I can't have a light on very bright, it gets really boring. So I started DLing Audiobooks to load on the iPod so I can wear one earbud and help pass the time. I started with "The Ten O'Clock People" - a short story by Stephen King - and got hooked. When I finished that story, I wanted to get another one to replace it. So I searched my super-secret resource and found one. Then another. And another. Pretty soon I had over 40 audiobooks on my computer. That's right: forty. Wow.

I've got everything from the Harry Potter Series to the Chronc(what?)cles Of Narnia to "The Lord Of The Flies" to "I Am America And So Can You" by Stephen Colbert to Ellen Degeneres' book "The Funny Thing Is...." and a ton more. The pic on this blog is a book that I hadn't heard of, but after reading the reviews on Amazon I had to get it. There are some that I've read in book form before, and some that I've never even heard of. Pretty exciting.

Here's the problem: the audiobooks aren't as popular as mp3 albums so the tagging and file splits aren't that great on some books - "Survivor" and "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk are only 7 tracks that are about an hour and a half each. On the other side of the coin, Ellen's book is 27 tracks that are only 7 minutes each. It's going to take me quite a bit of time to change the split points and get these books all coded into iTunes. Once I get them done though, I can burn them all to CD's and archive them forever.

Unless I lose this obsession before I'm done - I'd better start with the books I really want to listen to just in case.

Yes, I WAS looking where I was going!

2007-12-03T17:02:00.000-08:00

I saw a really cool bumper sticker on the way home from work today. It said:

"God bless everyone in the world.
No exceptions."

I thought that was pretty cool. And harder to really mean than you might think.
I mean, really ponder that: no exceptions.

A Decidedly Positive Post

2007-12-03T13:02:00.000-08:00

It's time to Suit Up.

Well, almost time. It will be time on Wednesday. You see, I've got an interview that could be pretty amazing. I don't want to jinx it, so I won't say much about it just yet, but here's a short version:

The day after posting my last blog abut being bummed out about income, I filled out a bunch of on-line applications. I've got a pretty well written resume and cover letter, so I sent out about 6 apps with attached resume. I focused on one industry and applied for entry level jobs since I dont' have SPECIFIC experience in this particualr branch of said industry. I figure I'll earn my spurs for a bit, then work my up to somewhere I really want to be - even the entry level jobs I applied for all had a pay scale I can live on for a while and full benefits for me and the rest of the A Team*. I didn't expect much, but it made me feel better just doing something, you know?

So the next day, I was in the shower and I had left my iPod in the Woodruff's van so I was showering in silence. Since I didn't have blaring music to distract me, I decided to really pray again about my job situation: about the apps I put out specifically. I told God that I'd taken some action on my own and done what I was able for the time being, and I honestly put the next steps in God's hands. I finished my shower, and when I opened the shower curtain I say that my phone was blinking with an incoming call. I didn't recognize the number, so I answered it (I thought it might be a client wanting a mortgage or something). Turns out it was a recruter from one of the places I applied for 16 hours earlier who wanted to talk about my resume. She told me she pre-screens applicants and if they are qualified for the job, she passed the app onto the specific manager hiring for that job. We talked for about a half hour, and at the end she told me that she thought I was way over-qualified for the job I applied for, and even though she would release my app to the manager, she challanged me to go back online and apply for positions that "better suited someone of [my] skills" - positions that were definately not entry level and that started at a much higher pay scale (and offered unlimited commission bonuses). I thanked her and finished getting dressed (I did the whole phone interview in a towel).

When I got online to apply for the better positions, I noticed I had an email from another company inviting me to a mass-interview for multiple positions within said company (said huge company). I marked it for reply later on and completed the other work I had to do. Before I could get back to the email, I was called into my current job for a while. While at the office, I got a call from the gal who sent me the invite for the interview and we ended up talking for a while. She was a recruter with Company Two and had the same thought as the first recruter - I was over-qualified for the job I applied for, but they are hiring for upper-level positions. So this Wednesday I'm going to interview with two high-up managers for Company Two as well as the District Manager. Company Two even mentioned that they are going to start a year-long Manager Training Program next March and based on my resume, I may be qualified for that program. I'm not sure if that's something that interests me, but most of those jobs start around $60-80K a year plus bonuses, bennies, and perks.

So it's time for Chris to Suit Up and impress some upper management types to possibly start off in a new industry: but instead of starting at the bottom, I might start somewhere decidedly higher up the chain. I don't want to get my hopes up, and it might not be the job for me, but it's really uplifting to know that less than a day after putting myself out there I have some opportunities. Possibly lucrative opportunities, at that!

Keep praying for me, but things are looking up again. I can't wait for Wednesday afternoon.....

*The A Team = The Alexander Team: Gina, Audrey and I. It will be even better when we get our van. I wonder how much it would be to get our mini-van painted like the origional A Team van?

Warning: this one's a downer.

2007-11-27T11:16:00.000-08:00

So I'm pretty down right now.

I have been for a little while I suppose. Not my normal self, you know?
If I don't either (a) start making a crapload of money at my current job or (b) get a second job, Gina's going to have to go back to work real soon. And that sucks.
I'm almost 27 years old, I have a wife and a child, and I don't have any solid income. How lame is that? If this was like 5 years ago when receptionists in the mortgage industry were making $10K a month, I wouldn't have a problem.
But I do have a bit of a problem. The plan was that I'd be making enough to support our whole household by now. That's not happening.
So the new problem is that I don't know what I'm going to do, but I've got just under four weeks to figure something out. I'm going to look for some more work, but I don't even feel qualified for much of anything. I could always go back to TJ's, but I kind of like my soul and don't want to totally kill it just yet.
I also feel like I don't do anything. I have time to be with Gina and Audrey, but I don't have any friends. I don't have any money to go and do things. I don't have time to do things that might put me in contact with others.
I'm just not feeling very up with myself right about now. I hope I'll feel different once I suit up and turn in some applications, but this sucks. I mean, the most important thing I've done in the last two weeks was put insulating plastic on the windows in our Audrey's room so we could start her sleeping in there. For most adult males, that's an afternoon project to be done in between football games on a Sunday after a hard week of work.
Crap.

A letter to Television

2007-11-27T10:11:00.000-08:00

Dear TV,

I'm a little mad at you right now, and I think I owe it to us both to share my feelings now before things get out of hand. We have always communicated so well together, and I don't want to throw that all away.

In the last few years, you have been changing and I don't think it's been for the better. I think you know what I'm talking about: Shortened Seasons. When I was a kid, your Seasons lasted at least twenty two if not twenty five full episodes! You provided us with new episodes of our favorite shows from early fall all the way to early summer. Sometimes the season premiere would show before we were even back to school! Those were the Golden Years (not the show, but the actual years). But a dark shadow has fallen over your programing lately. It's been getting bad for a while now, but it's gotten so bad lately that I feel I must say something. Let's take a look at what I'm talking about:

Scrubs: this is a prefect example. Season 4 was 25 episodes. Season 5 was 24 episodes. Season 6 was only 21 episodes and rumor is that Season 7 (which will be the last season ever) is only going to be 19 episodes. If that doesn't map the decline of your programing, I don't know what does.

South Park: one of my favorite shows. Seasons 1-7 ranged from a respectable 18 to 15, but Seasons 8-11 have been 14 episodes. Fourteen. If that show was a child, it wouldn't even make it to High School.

Freaks and Geeks: this was a double whammy - we only got one season before it was dropped, but the only season ever filmed was onlly 8 episodes! I mean, in the cast you get Linda Cardellini (Sam on ER), Busy Phillips (Hope on ER), Seth Rogan, Martin Starr (the dude with the beard on Knocked Up), John Frances Daily (he's on Bones now), Jason Segel (Marshall on How I Met Your Mother), and a ton of others! But we only get one season of 18 episodes? Not cool, TV: not cool.

The IT Crowd: now, I know it's from the UK, but there are only 2 seasons with 6 episodes each. Six! That's a quarter of a season. Why even show up?

The Office (UK): this has the same problem as above. The US version had a 6-episode first season, but since then it's held on to the 22-24 episode standard. The UK version, however, has 6 in season one, 6 in season two, and TWO EPISODES in season 3! Season 3 was only one extra-long episode split into two pieces and it was a Christmas Special, but why call it a season?!

The Sarah Silverman Program: given the number of episodes, you'd think it's British even though it's a Comedy Central program. Two seasons, 6 episodes each. I don't even have the energy to talk about this one.

And now we have the Writers Strike to deal with. The commercials for this coming Thursday night almost make me cry. "All new My Name Is Earl! All new 30 Rock! the office and All New Scrubs!" Once the rest of those shows run out of pre-filmed episodes, what's going to happen? In January when Heroes and Jeopardy! run out of new shows and the riots begin, what's going to happen? If you steal episodes of The Office and other shows that aren't filming during the strike, are you going to extend this Season into the summer and make up the missing episodes for us? I seriously doubt it. I'm guessing we'll have even shorter Seasons. So shows like The Sarah Silverman Program might have two episodes this Season. If we're lucky.

So here's the deal: consider this an Intervention. I care about you too much to sit back and watch you destroy almost 80 years of work. Let's work together to get past this, and I know we'll have an even stronger relationship then before. I don't want to turn my back on you, but I can't be part of this self-destruction either.

I miss you, TV, and I can't wait until you are back to normal.

Sincerely,
Chris

Notes from the Safety Cupboard

2007-11-16T01:06:00.000-08:00

Oh, hello.

I rather didn't see you blokes standing there.

I'm not sure the 11:30 bus will be on time. I'm.....I'm afraid we'll all be late for Saint Eldna's Day this year.

Number eight coming out was nothing to get all froggie about, you know. I'm not sure that you chaps are eating all your beans at supper any longer anyway.

Perhaps we should all take a trolley to the Portsmith's house and read about the great war. Such things won't paint themselves in rosy hues, as we found out yesterday.

If one was the first, than thats where we shall start, Marjory Stewart-Baxter. The folux won't catch us napping if we all drink a tall glass of summerwine.

A man can't cope with all these unpleasant frequencies about, you know.

Fairwell, dear Office

2007-11-15T13:47:00.000-08:00

Tonight's it, kids: the last new episode of The Office until the writers strike is resolved.

(I was going to post a picture of The Office cast, but BlogSpot is having issues)

Do you think they will extend the season to include all 21-24 episodes that a normal season has, or will they still end on time and short us a number of episodes?

My guess is that we are going to get jacked.

That's lame.

That's lame hard.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

2007-11-09T22:16:00.000-08:00

The Good:
My beautiful daughter. I call this look her Gene Wilder. She LOVES the bath, and really loves to her her hair washed. As you can see, her hair gets a little curly after her shampoo. Cute, or stinkin' cute: you decide. She was getting kinda snuffely, but it was only a HUGE booger that we had to get out with the aspirator. It was like a nostril cork. Gross. But still cute. Gina's getting a little sick so we are really scared Audrey will get it. Having an infant is scary enough: a SICK infant? No thank you!

The Bad:
I like the new Britney Spears album Blackout. I can't help it. I downloaded it simply because I could, and I got into it. Anyone could have recorded the vocals, but the producer did a GREAT job! It's mostly dance inspired and it works: it makes you want to dance. She's still a total nut job, she seems to be really screwing up her kids, and I hope I never see her in the news again. That said, I like the new album. It was part of the last batch of music I DL'd. Right now I'm DL'ing the soundtracks for all 6 Rocky movies. Yea.

The Ugly:
Okay, by the Ugly I really mean the Hot. I just downloaded season one of the Sarah Silverman Program (that airs on Comedy Central) and the G and I watched the whole thing. I forgot how stinkin' hot and funny and inappropriate she it. Have you seen her DVD Jesus Is Magic? It's irreverent and hilarious. And she's really, really hot. Curse you, Jimmy Kimmel. Curse you and your Sarah Silverman dating-ness! Jimmy had a cameo in one of the SSP episodes: he looks like a 280lb bag of stoned pasty white pudding. He's a pudding face, and he always looks stoned. There. I said it. Sarah is way to hot and funny to be with ol' Pudding Face.

Dang Zombies!!

2007-11-01T01:02:00.000-07:00

Believe In Your Dreams

Good advice, Andy!

Please take them away - I'll only barf again.

2007-10-28T23:36:00.000-07:00

Have you seen these?

Raspberry
Flavored
M&Ms.

I'm totally cereal here. We found them at WalGreens in the Halloween candy section. We didn't know what they were, or if they were any good.

So we bought some.

And were amazed.

I know it sounds scary, but stay with me here: they taste like the decadent milk chocolate that's in normal M&Ms but they are as big as peanut M&Ms. Oh, and they have a slight RASPBERRY FLAVOR!!

You know those wack-and-unwrap chocolate oranges they sell at Christmas? The raspberry-flavor level is about the same as the orange-flavor level in those.

You start with one.
Then you eat another.
And another.
Soon you ate most of the bag.
And you kinda feel like you need to harf.

But you still eat a few more.

Damn you M&M/Mars! Damn you hard!

*ps - in this blog I refused to use the fake word "Razzberry" that the candy is really called. I chose instead to use the real word "Raspberry" in it's place.

Audrey Rae Alexander: a Baby Story

2007-10-24T23:04:00.000-07:00

Finally.

I tried to post these the other day, but BlogSpot was having issues uploading pics, then I was too tired. Let's o the pics first, then I'll recap the birth:

Here is Audrey Rae about an hour or so after birth.

First day home, she was napping.

All three of us a few hours after getting home. Do we look tired or what??

I titled this picture "Look At This Studio Full Of Fabulous Prizes!"

Her first bath. She was PISSED and looking at me like "Daddy! Save me!"

Here's the three of us just after she was born. Gina looks great, doesn't she??

So there are some pictures. She is stinkin' cute! I know every parent thinks their baby is the most beautiful in the world, but this little sweetheart is just perfect looking.

So here's the story:

At about 1:00am on Wednesday the 17th (her due date) Gina started having contractions. We had a Dr's appointment at 9:45am anyway, so we loaded our bag in the car and headed to the Dr's office. By the time we got there, Gina was dilated to 4cm and the Doc sent us over to the hospital. Once we got all checked in, Gina's contractions slowed waaaaaay down, so we walked around a bunch. After a few hours of not much changing, Gina got checked again and was at 6cm - even though her contractions slowed down, she was still progressing just fine.

We had decided to try to give birth without pain meds, and Gina did it: she's an amazing woman, and I knew she had some amazing inner strength, but she was really awesome! We kicked everyone out of the room when the contractions got strong, and the staff got the room all setup. She went from 8cm to 10cm in a very short time (I think it was like 30-45 minutes or so). The Doc broker her water right when it was time to push. She thinks the Doc said she was pushing for an hour, but I really have no idea of the time frame. All I know is that Gina was again super awesome! She would push really hard, and then between contractions she was having conversations and even laughing with us. When Audrey finally came out, I got to announce the sex to the room: that was pretty amazing. They put her on Gina's chest and we got a few minutes to look at her before they did all her checks. She was deemed perfect, wiped down, and passed back over to us.

We had 11 people there with us, and that was only parents and siblings (and didn't count my step siblings!). Audrey was alert and calm with the fam when they came in to meet her. She was awake for about two hours after birth and then slept for about two hours. After she woke up - around 11:30pm - she stayed away and calm until 6:00am the next morning! She was just looking at us and making eye contact with G and I. The only bummer was that we couldn't sleep since she was awake the whole time.

We stayed at the hospital until Friday morning when we checked out. Both Audrey and Gina got a clean bill of health, and they both have been doing great since. Audrey has such a laid back personality and is so calm, we feel like we are cheating at being parents. She rarely cries and is very lucid when she's awake. She did loose quite a bit of weight after birth, but on Monday we had the Mommy/Baby checkup and get her on a feeding plan that's working really well: she's put back on 8oz in 48 hours now, and is almost back up to birth weight.

She's INSANELY strong, and really likes me a lot. She loves my voice and her favorite position to be held is kind of away from your body facing you so she can look right at you. I do fine in the rare cases that she cries really hard, but I totally loose it when she smiles. I'm going to have to work really hard to NOT totally spoil her completely.

I have to add that our support has been awesome. G's folks have both come over and watched her for a couple hours so we can both sleep. Ryan and Jessica coordinated a "Bring The Alexander's A Meal" schedule and folks have brought us food: Ryan and Jess, Tre and Allison, my Dad and Teresa, and there are quite a few more coming in the next two weeks. We have a lot of snacks and veggies and whatnot, but having some hot, prepared food brought to our home is amazing! The prayers and well-wishes from everyone have been awesome as well. Thank you all for everything.

The pregnancy was easy (all things considered), the birth was easy (all things considered), and Audrey is a perfect little baby. We are so blessed, and are spending time loving on our new daughter right now.

In the next couple of weeks, we want to start having friends over to visit: right now, Audrey does okay with family in small visits but she's easily over stimulated and it's a little early for visitors. However, as soon as we feel comfortable with it we want people to call to set up a visit time. We do want her to get used to being around our friends as soon as she's able.

Cheers!

OLP: Thanksgiving

2007-10-20T13:56:00.000-07:00

On October 17th, at 7:20pm, Audrey Rae Alexander entered into the world. I'll post a detailed blog later when I'm not so tired, but for now please feel free to join me in an On-Line Prayer (OLP):

Lord God, we thank You for the miracle of little Audrey. You protected her in the womb and brought her into the world safely. Thank You for also taking care of Gina; both during the pregnancy and through the birth process. It's an amazing testament to Your design that her body was made perfectly to bring Audrey to us. Your grace has brought us this perfect little girl, and we give You thanks. The joy we experience with Audrey will bring us closer to You and add a new depth to our understanding of love: this too is by Your design and through Your grace. Thank you also for the support of Family and Friends through this wonderful but trying time. The prayers and help of our support group have been amazing, and we ask that You continue to bless their lives.
In Jesus' name, amen.

I've got an idea!

2007-10-14T20:58:00.000-07:00

Are you stuck on what to get us as a baby present? I've got an answer! Follow this link for a new idea!

Okay, that's more for me than for baby, but baby wants you to buy it for me!

I'm ugly enough to rock!

2007-10-09T09:39:00.001-07:00

I was reading Arwen's blog and had an amazing insight. Let me back up just a bit:

See, I play guitar. I'm self-taught and I've been playing for quite a few years, off and on. I also play a little bass - also self-taught. I dream of being part of a big time band and playing in front of large crowds of people. And given the movement of the Indie Rock genre, I may have a chance. You see, I think I'm ugly enough to be in an indie band.

Let's start by exploring some of the current chart toppers in the indie genre. After that, we'll forage through my iPhoto and look for some pics of me. Let's see if I really am ugly enough to be in a hit indie band:

Here's the band that kicked off this whole idea: Death Cab For Cutie (or DCFC to some of it's more hard-core fans). I recently got all the albums they have released - including one that's garage recording from before they were even called DCFC - and they are all awesome. Their music is haunting, their lyrics are meaningful, and they are not very cute. And their haircuts in this picture don't help at all.

Now we have the Kaiser Chiefs. I'm embarrassed to say that I've only just discovered them. They (like Modest Mouse) were around for years before recording their first album. They are one of the bands that got me all excited about British Indie, and they are some pretty ugly dudes.

Ahh, the Decemberists. When you think about pasty white, doughy Portlanders with bad hair and unfortunate expressions, you think of the Decemberists. Fantastic live show, by the way. But not cute people.

While technically not a true indie band, the Plain White T's are on the fringe of indie attitude. And they are unfortunate looking guys. No wonder Delilah moved to New York City....

Here's Spoon. An amazing band who bring us totally new material on every album, while keeping the core of what the band is. And not only are they not very cute, they are on the older side of people in indie bands. And this picture make Britt Daniel's head look oversized and lopsided.

The Shins. I think this picture says it all. Are you sure that gold teeth are the curse of this town? It's not something else?

The Arctic Monkeys. They are kinda like the Plain White T's in the fact that they aren't on an indie label, but I still consider them an indie-style band. While they aren't the most ugly blokes in the world, they aren't going to win any beauty contests either.

Now we come to Arcade Fire. OMG, these are some seriously unfortunate looking folks! If you look for the video of them performing on Saturday Night Live, you will see what I mean: Win Butler (lead singer) has the most awful haircut ever. The cool thing is they are really talented musicians - they all play at least two instruments and trade off during live shows (or so I was told by the person who first showed me their music). It's just too bad that Win's voice is very similar to Isaac from Modest Mouse, so I can't listen to the band at all.

Here we have Modest Mouse: the very definition of an indie band. They are all pretty not-cute, but look at Isaac Brock, the lead singer and guitarist. Gross! And this is actually a somewhat flattering picture of him!

I know that Radiohead isn't an indie band, but they are pretty ugly.

So there's examples of the bands: now we'll explore some pictures of me I found on iPhoto. Keep in mind I didn't have to look through the thousands of pics we have in iPhoto - I made this collection in about 5 minutes or less.

In this picture, replace my glasses with horn-rimmed ones, and replace my Adidas sweatshirt with a vintage western shirt with snaps, and you have an ugly indie band member, right?

This was at the beach on our Anniversary this year. I think this hair style lends itself well to an indie band (see Colin from The Decemberists).

I was playing pool, and Jason snapped a pic without telling me he was going to. I look either (a) stoned, (b) drunk, or (c) like I'm going to kill someone with that cue. Eeww.

Even though this expression was on purpose, it's not very cute. Sure, it was on purpose this time, but I'm sure I make expressions like that without trying.

I think we were drunk. I'm pretty sure we were drunk.

In the pictures of both Gina and I (where we aren't drunk), I seem to not be quite as ugly as normal. It's sort of a "cute by association" kinda thing. So if I ever am in a super-popular indie band, Gina might have to be there in secret so as not to make me too attractive.

We are being Pirates. Those are our Pirate faces. Again, I think we were a little drunk.

This is my old band In Like Flynn at our first show. The three guys who aren't me are the original members of Freddy: later I took over playing bass for the guy with the bow tie.

So there you have it. I think I'm ugly enough to be in an indie band, don't you? I need to get some different glasses and some uglier clothes, but I'm on the way! Get ready to see my ugly mug staring at you from a CD cover!

"Mommmmmmm, South Park made me think again! Make them stop!"

2007-10-03T09:45:00.000-07:00

What would you do?

I watched an episode of South Park last night that I hadn't seen before. As with quite a few episodes of South Park, it made me think about some pretty serious issues. No, I'm serious: not every episode makes me think, but a lot do - especially the newer ones.

The one I watched last night was the "Family Guy" episode. Only it's really about free speech and censorship. Have you seen this episode yet? You should send me a blank CD or come over with some portable media so I can give you a copy. Not because it's funny (although it is) and not because it has characters from both Family Guy and The Simpsons (which it does), but because it makes you think.

Family Guy makes an episode that shows the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Now, in case you didn't know, Muslims don't allow the face of Mohammed to be shown - they haven't since the 16th century. Showing Mohammed's face is really, really bad. Like, REALLY bad.

So when the commercials for theFG episode where they show Mohammed's face come out, terrorists release videos saying they will retaliate if the show is aired. When they DO air the episode, Fox edits the image of Mohammed. However all is not well: FG decides to do another show showing Mohammed the next week, and Fox can't edit the image because the writers will quit.

Cartman and Stan go to stop the airing, but when Cartman's true motives come out they get into a big fight (I won't spoil the story). The point is Stan is fighting not to censor the episode in the name of Freedom of Speech. The whole nation wants the show to BE censored because if not, there will be terrorsit attacks on US soil.

Here's what it boils down to: do you censor the show to protect against the possible loss of lives, or do you air the show to protect our Freedom of Speech?

A) You puss out, kick Freedom of Speech square in the balls and censor the show. You justify that people don't have to die for an animated sitcom. You basically send a message to the terrorists that says "Hey, if you threaten me enough, I'll totally puss out and you can do whatever you want. Please don't hurt me."

B) You DON'T censor the show and people DO die. Something like 911 happens again because the terrorists (NOT the Muslims, just the terrorists) use this instance as an excuse to blow up something and kill an assload of Americans. You uphold our Constitution, but people die.

Stan had a really great speech in this SP. He talks about how people talk about Freedom of Speech when the issue is something like airing some celebritie's dirty little secrets, but back away from our Freedom when you may actually incure injury for standing up for your beliefs and rights. He says that's what the solders durring our fight for independance did: risked their lives for an idea of Freedom. They knew they might die at the hands of the Brittish, but they knew they would die a slower death of they stood down and gave up their rights in the face of a threat of violence. He talked about how people preach night and day about their Rights as Americans, but back down and hide if they have to defend their beliefs.

Many people who say "If we pull out of Iraq now, the terrorists win!" are the same people who would censor the show that depicts an image of Mohammed if there was a threat of terror attacks in retaliation.

The ironic thing was that in the SP episode, FG DID air the show with Mohammed. No, that's not ironic: what's ironic is that in Real Life Comedy Centeral censored the image of Mohammed. Instead of a big black box over the place where Mohammed was standing (like FG did the first time) Comedy Central made the whole screen black with a paragraph saying CC pulled the scenes depicting Mohammed. I do't know if that was really Comedy Central doing the editing, or the South Park writers making a joke.

In any case, what would you do?

I'd like to say I'd stand up and fight: even though the "symptom" of the problem is just an animated sitcom that relies on poop, sex, and race jokes. But would I? When push came to shove...

would we?

The Golden Age of Cinema!

2007-10-02T00:47:00.001-07:00

So now that I have some movies on my computer and Ryan has access to a projector, I have no time to watch movies with my friends. I thought it would be really fun to have a few folks over to watch one of the following movies:

1408
Blades of Glory
Blood Diamond
Evan Almighty
Hot Fuzz
Knocked Up (Unrated)
Reno 911! Miami (Unrated)
The Life Aquatic
The Simpson's Movie
Vacancy
The Last Mimzy

or

Anything off season 18, 17, or 15 of The Simpsons
Anything off season 10, 9, 8, or 6 of South Park

or (by tomorrow)

Anything off season 1 or 2 of Robot Chicken
Anything off season 2 of How I met Your Mother

But I'm too busy. We finally got the paint and chair rail completed in the baby's room. We also got the crib put together. Oh, and I re-caulked my tub so Gina can soak in the evenings. Now we have to finish sanding and staining the dresser, but the weather isn't helping much there.

So there you have it. If you have not seen the above movies (and would like to) let me know and we can see what works. I'd sure love to have a mass-screening of one of the movies in 85"-inch splendor, but I just don't know if it will happen.

2007-09-28T14:37:00.000-07:00

How can I be expected to be successful in my job if I'm up against such professionals as this??

He advertises a No Probalo loan! How can I compete with that?

Curse you, Senior Cardgage!

I've also been kissed by a rose on a tree. If by a rose on a tree you mean a smelly person on Morrison and 5th.

2007-09-27T23:49:00.001-07:00

I would pay to watch Jack Black read the back of a Wheat Thins box. I'd pay a lot.

As if we needed MORE proof that Paula Abdul is TOTALLY out of her mind, I give you this clip:

To paraphrase another Great Person: I love you Jack Black. I love you hard.

And Kyle Gass? Don't think I forgot about you: I love you sloppy seconds. I love you sloppy seconds hard.

And from now on we all call Ryan Seacrest "Crusty." That's a fact!

Hey, I was on Base!

2007-09-25T08:57:00.001-07:00

I've been Tagged.

If you maybe live under a rock and don't know what I'm talking about, here's the rundown: when you are tagged, you have to write a blog with 8 facts about you. You also have to tag 8 more people; and they tag 8 friends, and they tag 8 friends, and so on, and so on........

So here we go:

8 Facts About Chris Alexander

I was mostly homeschooled. I went to public school for the last 1/2 of 6th grade, I went to Jr high for electives and math (and was homeschooled for the rest of the day), and my sophomore year of high school was my first complete school year in public school.
I'm a huge Stephen King fan. I use to have every book he ever wrote, but between lending some out and never getting them back and him writing new books, I've fallen behind. But I have ALMOST all his books. In fact, last year my brother Nic (who I also got hooked on SK) and I saw him lecture at the Schnitz. It was awesome. You can pretty much call me a Dark Tower Expert.
I have an extremely high tolerance to medications. I usually have to take doses designed for 400+lb men (and I'm not 400 pounds......well, not quite). Either that or the meds don't really work. This is especially true of painkillers and meds that are supposed to make you sleep.
I quit smoking (again) just three weeks ago today. I first started smoking a long time ago (early jr. high, I think?) because my Dad was trying to quit and would only smoke a couple drags of his cigarettes before putting them in the ash tray in the garage. My friend Tyson and I would pick them up right after he was done and smoke them. My first cigarette was lit with a magnifying glass. Anyway, I quit about 3 or 4 years ago kind of on accident - I got really drunk and smoked two full packs in one night and was sick the next day: since I couldn't smoke, I wanted to see how long I could go without smoking. Then I started a little over a year ago, also an accident. I tried to quit, tried to quit, and finally decided I couldn't TRY to quit, I had to quit. I said a prayer committing to God that I'd do my part to quit if He would help, and I enlisted someone at church to pray for me as well. It's been 3 weeks today without any cigarettes.
My first car was a 1993 Ford Tempo 4-door. It had the bigger engine available that year, and I installed a ton of stereo equipment in it: at the end of it's life I think it Blue Booked at about $600 and had over $3,500 of audio stuff in it. I would pull up next to a nice looking car and CRANK my stereo so everyone would glare at the nice car. We named it Joe, and had lots of good times.
I have never lived with a boy who wasn't family, and I've never lived alone. Right after high school my friend Michelle and I (we weren't dating) got a duplex together over behind Cactus Ya Ya. Then we moved into another duplex by Mt. View. Then I moved back into my Mom's place for about 6 months before moving in with Gina when she bought this house (Gina and I were, in fact, dating). I don't think I could live with a boy. They're smelly.
I played bass in a band for a while, and we played a Battle Of The Bands at the Roseland: yes, I've played music on stage at the Roseland. My brother played guitar and sang, Andrew played drums, and Joe was playing bass. They wrote some songs, played a couple small shows, then played the Roseland show. I went, and it was awesome. When they got invited back to the same Battle the next year, Joe didn't want to play anymore. So I took over. I learned bass, I learned their songs, and we freakin' rocked. Then we recorded an EP at the Art school in Seattle. You can hear some of our songs on our MySpace page here. It's only got two songs: if you ask me, I'll burn you the other two un-released tracks.
I'm self-employed right now. I'm a partner at a mortgage brokerage, and I basically work for myself. Well, mostly. I'm also a team manager so I have a few people who I have to train and motivate. I like it - I get to help people. Mortgages are freakin' confusing, and I know a ton about how they work. It's cool to be able to help people with something as important as, you know: their financial future.

So there you have it. Now you know me. Or at least 8 things about me. Now here are the people I'm tagging:

Lori, Steve, AyD, Jay, Phil, My Gina, Michelle, and Sarah. That's right: I'm bridging over to MySpace as well as Bloggerland!

A rose by any other name.....

2007-09-24T23:29:00.000-07:00

My name is Christopher.

I don't have a really cool nickname.

I use Chris, but that doesn't really count. I used to be called C2D2 because my Dad's name is Christopher (so I'm C2) and my Grandpa's name is David (my middle name is David, so I'm D2) but that was when I was really little.

I use Faloopa Jones, but that's more of an internet alias and not a true nickname.

Everyone shortens Christopher to "Chris." Well, except for Topher Grace. He only used the end.

Maybe I should drop the beginning AND the end of my name and just use that. No one else is yet, right?

Should I start going as.....

Stoph Alexander?

Wait, I'm not ready!

2007-09-24T12:14:00.000-07:00

This isn't the Blog I foreshadowed last night: I forgot my camera so the pics I was going to post are at home. Instead here's Jesus at the door.

Like Stan Braufloskey on South Park, I learned something this week. I learned that when it comes to my friends and social situations, I don't have to be a producer. I don't have to manufacture a good time or plan out much of anything, I just have to be there and enjoy the company of my friends.

See, you might now know this, but being pregnant makes you really tired. And taking care of a pregnant lady makes you really tired. It also takes up a whole lot of time. So when friends invite us out or we want to invite people over, I tend to try to "maximize" the experience since we don't have time to hang out often. Here's the problem: I turn it into a production. I think "I haven't seen my old roommate Michelle in a long time - we should have her over Saturday night!" Then on Saturday I have to add to my to-do list. I took my list for the day (roll the final coat of green in the baby's room, do the final yellow touch-up in the baby's room, install the closet shelf system in the baby's room, remove the caulk on my tub and re-do it, deep-clean my bathroom, do three loads of laundry, make Gina a nice lunch, buy and cut the chair rail pieces for the baby's room and paint the first coat of white on them, move my guitars and my keyboard into the new Office, take a load of junk to the Goodwill, and take a load of music equipment over to my Mom's) and add the items that need to be done in order to have the house ready for dinner and a movie with Michelle: move all the baby stuff out of the living room, pick up the rest of the crap in the living room and vacuum, do a quick-clean of Gina's bathroom, wipe down the kitchen cabinets and countertop, run the dish washer, put away the clean pots and pans on the kitchen counter, run to Safeway so we have a couple of dinner options to choose from, buy some regualr beer for me and Michelle and some non-alcoholic beer for Gina, clean out the fridge and take out the garbage, dust the TV and entertainment center, organize the pile of crap in the back hallway that has no home since the baby's room is a construction site, and take another show and shave. Whew!

I felt like I had to add all that stuff because I haven't seen Michelle in a couple of months - I know, that's sad since we used to LIVE together, but I've got a baby coming and she was in school fill-time and going to school full-time. Anyway, I had to try to get the first part of the list done first since that was the origional list. Yea, I didn't get done. I even moved some stuff to Sunday and still didn't get done. Michelle was supposed to be at our house around 6:30 and at 6:15 I found myself wishing she wasn't coming because I didn't get enough done and the house wasn't ready. I didn't get ANYTHING on the secong list done, so the house was trashed, we didn't have much food in the house, and I was un-shaven. I wanted to back out, but Michelle had already left her house and was on the way.

When she got to our house, It...Was...Awesome! She didn't care that our house was a mess: she missed us and we missed her! We did go to Safeway as a group for a few salad items and some beer, but that was all. I ended up making oven roasted chicken with celery, carrots, and onions in a balsamic vinegar/olive oil sauce with fresh sweet basil and Tai basil along side couscous with italian dressing and pureed yams with a savory herb demiglaze. Just stuff I had around the house.

We were going to watch a movie, but ended up just talking and then we watched one episode of South Park. It was simple, and really fun. Michelle wasn't pissed about the clutter in our house, and she wasn't grossed out by our bathrooms: we just enjoyed each other's company, and it was great.

Same kind of thing with Arwen, Paul and Julie on Friday: I "needed" a bunch of time to get ready, I "needed" to clean the inside and outside of my car since Arwen was riding with us (Paul and julie met us there), I "needed" to stress about how the Montage was because Paul and Julie had never been there and I had been talking it up...... I almost forgot to simply have fun.

On Sunday at church, I realized I do that way too much in my life: I make a huge production out of things and thendecide not to do them at all because I don't have time to "get ready." I do it with my friends and family, I do it with my wife, and I do it with God. I forget that all these people want is to spend time with me. It's nice every now and then to make it a big production, but it dosen't have to be that way every time we get together. I end up pushing those people away because I can't offer them something amazing. I forget that they never asked me for that: they asked to spend some time with me.

Remember that: Keep It Simple. I'm sure going to try to live that.

This post is only a place holder.

2007-09-23T23:03:00.001-07:00

I was gonna blog real big tonight, but I got stuck playing golf on my computer and now it's too late for a whole blog. I golfed a 24 under par on a 36-hole tournament and now I'm upgraded from Amateur to Pro: now I get to start training for the PGA Tour and if I play well in the next tourney I might get sponsored.

But that means you will have to wait till tomorrow for a real blog. Maybe one with pics of Arwen's new tats. And maybe with an update on the baby's room. And maybe with a secret surprise.

Maybe.

News of the Wierd!

2007-09-22T00:48:00.000-07:00

No.

No!

Not for real!

You have GOT to be kidding!

This dude has a tail?

Why does she touch it???

I'm rockin' the new layout.

2007-09-20T23:04:00.000-07:00

I decided to try a new layout. The only reason I chose this one was because of how wide it is: my old one made me feel cramped. What do you all think?

I've had a long day today. I met Brent and Ryan for coffee at 8:00am and I didn't get home until 9:30pm (not from coffee - that 8 to 9:30 gap included work and dinner with Gina's folks, her sister, and her sister's BF Dan). It was all pretty cool, but I'm beat again and we have a Dr. appointment tomorrow.

Why do so many people have double standards?
I mean, some friends and I were out walking and this bird took a crap right on my head as we were crossing the street. My friends all laughed and thought it was the funniest thing in the world. However, when I tried to take a crap on a blue bird's head that afternoon, they acted like I was crazy!

(Okay, I can't take credit for that: Dan told me that story, and he got it from some stand up he was listening to)

Did you know that the spell checker on FireFox doesn't recognize the word "okay" as being spelled right, and "ok" is no recognized either? What's up with that??

I don't have a Vespa OR a VW, but this guy gets both??
Unfair!

Snap Into A Slim Jim! (Oh Yea!!)

2007-09-19T23:04:00.000-07:00

I'm beat. It's about 11:00pm and I should be going to bed.
The problem is that I lied when I said I'm beat.
I'm emotionally and mentally tired, but I'm not sleepy right now.

I made calls again today.
This time I only made about sixty.
But that's because I got a good one.
I talked to him for quite a while.
It's a dude in Florida that I really think I can help.

I also took an application for one of Jason's clients.
That took about a half hour because I was chatting to the dude.
It was fun.
But it made my brain tired.

But not my body.
I just got a text from Ryan.
He invited me to coffee at 8:00 tomorrow morn.
I can do it, but I have to go to bed right now.
I forgot I had a meeting at the office this morning.
I slept in.
I got to the meeting late.
I wasn't able to shave.
I HAVE to shave tomorrow before coffee.

We are going to dinner with Gina's fam.
I have to be clean shaven.
I don't think I'll have time to come home after work.
I'll go to coffee.
Then I'll go to work.
Then I'll go to Juliano's for Birthday pizza.

I have some house projects to this this weekend.
I HAVE to get done with the painting.
I have to re-caulk my tub.
(the re-caulk I did last Sunday never dried)
I have to buy new caulk.
Then I have to re-caulk my tub.
I have to start sanding the baby's dresser.
I have to stain the baby's dresser.
I have to assemble the crib.

I have to go to bed.

Is it 8:00pm yet?

2007-09-18T16:49:00.000-07:00

I'm a little crankey right now.

It's Gina's birthday and I'm stuck at the office making calls: something I freakin' HATE doing. the onyl reason I have time to blog is that's it's too late to keep calling Florida and a bit too early to start calling Washington. It's my 5 minutes of reprise before I get to start calling all over again.

Today in Florida I called 41 contacts. I actually talked to 3 people: one didn't need my services, one didn't speak very much english, and one told me to "go blow [my]self" and hung up on me.

This sucks. I hate this part of the job. Does anyone know of anyone who needs help with their mortgage? I don't want to make calls any more.

So, no pressure, but....

2007-09-14T23:34:00.001-07:00

So, get this:
I talked to my Dad's Dad today (yea, my Grandpa). My Bumpa Dave (yea, I still call him Bumpa Dave: what of it?) is a history buff, and especially when it comes to our family bloodline. He and his cousin have done MASSIVE research into our family history. Like he has, in his possession, a letter that was written by someone directly up the bloodline from me: this letter was written during the CIVIL WAR and taken off the battle field by my relative's friend. And that's considered relatively NEW material in this bloodline research (the Alexander's fought for the South, by the way. It has nothing to do with my current political views).

So that's just a glimpse into how serious this stuff is. Bumpa Dave has traced our actual bloodline (directly through the males) from us now to the Earl of Nova Scotia. Yea, Duke Alexander became the Earl of freakin' Nova Scotia. My ancestor OWNED Nova Scotia. The next step is for Bumpa Dave and his Cousin to get DNA tests done and record our Alexander DNA with the National Society Of Really Old Bloodlines or something (we only had 10 minutes on the phone - he's going to give me a more in depth breakdown and show me a bunch of his research once we can get together).
So that's not the huge part. I mean, I've known about Nova Scotia for years. I've also known that my Alexander bloodline has, in fact, been traced back to Alexander the Great - I'm dead serious: I know that I tend to exaggerate (hell, out-and-out LIE) but this is totally serious. What I DIDN'T know until today was that my Bumpa Dave has sired the last living portion of our branch of the Alexander bloodline.

That means that my Dad Chris, his brother Dave, Me, my brother Nic, my brother MacAllister, and my brother Matthew are (to date) the very last of a bloodline thousands of years long. Uncle Dave isn't having any kids, and my Dad's got six (ten counting the step-kids), Nic is going to be a Catholic Priest, and Mac and Matthew are under 14. This means that, as o right now, a thousand-plus years of Alexander History rest on my unborn child being a boy.
In case you didn't know, historically speaking, namesakes are carried on only by male children. So my Bumpa Dave had two sons and two daughters. The daughters have kids, but they don't count as continuing the family line (BS, I know, but that's history for you). As I mentioned, Uncle Dave (Dad's brother) isn't having any kids, so it's all me and my bros.

So there you go. If I don't have a boy, Alexander the Great will be a little less great, and Nova Scotia will be taken over by - I don't know - the Mongols (because the Mongols are always taking over stuff). Seriously, all joking aside, this stuff is pretty cool. My little brother is named MacAllister is so named because at one point the Alexander blood mixed with the MacAllister clan and came to America - that's how I got to the good ol' USA. My family doesn't LIVE by our history, but it is really cool to know where you came from.

If I have a little girl, I'm going to love her like nobody's business. I'm going to have tea parties with here, I'm going to be her best friend (until she hits 12), I'm going to sing her to sleep; I'm going to love her and do my damnedest to help her grow up to be an amazing woman. In my mind the Alexander Bloodline carries on regardless of the sex of my child.

Random Thoughts And Observations That Have Nothing To Do With Each Other In The Smallest Way

2007-09-14T16:41:00.000-07:00

So how's my breath?
I got a ton of new music. You can check out my MySpace Blog for a complete list, but suffice to say it's a lot of new music. A lot. Now I've got to listen to it all and see what's good and what's not so much (early review: don't buy the "Planet Earth" album by Prince. There are a couple of good songs that are worth listening to, but just over half the tracks suck).

Why am I so amused by Fat Guys on Pocket Bikes? I just can't help it. You know who should get to ride Pocket Bikes on the road? Oompa Loompas. I figure to them a Pocket Bike is actually perfectly sized, right? I mean, they can't take them on the freeway, but only because Pocket Bikes can't go fast enough. Not because of the Oompa Loompas. They are freeway ready.

What the heck is wrong with this blog? I'd check with my IT guy, but that's him off to the left. If that was your IT guy, wouldn't you deal with a broken computer? Not that my computer's broken, but if it were I think I'd leave it broken if the alternative was to visit or converse with that guy. I mean I could deal with the hair, the tighty whiteys, the glasses, OR the socks, but everything together? No thanks!

We should do this in Portland/Metro: I'm serious!

2007-09-11T16:58:00.000-07:00

Because sometimes people need a hug and have no one to give them one.

And sometimes, people need to hug and have no one to give one to.

I'm pretty serious: on NW 23rd, in Lloyd center, in Van Mall, at Esther Shore Park...anywhere. It could be simple. And amazing.

Step right up and place your bets!

2007-09-08T13:39:00.000-07:00

That's right: we are totally going to rip off Ryan and Jessica's idea of taking bets on our unborn child! Here's the deal:

1) What day will baby Meatburg be born? (Due date is October 17th)
2) Will Meatburg be a boy or a girl?
3) How much will Meatburg weigh?

Gina started this contest yesterday on her MySpace Blog which you can view right here. You can add your guess to her blog there, but if you don't have a MySpace account you can leave your bet on here and I'll transfer your guess to MySpace for you. Here are the guesses so far:

Gina = Boy, October 20th, 8lb 6oz
Me = Boy, October 13th, 8lb 2oz

Phil Poyfair = Girl, October 16th, 7lb 14oz
Michelle Armon = Girl, October 12th, 7lb 8pz
Jeff Monday = Girl, October 10th, 8lb 10oz

Kevin, I know you told me on the phone, but I totally forgot what you guessed. Remind me, and if someone else has taken your date or weight I'll make them change it - you were the first person besides me and G to guess.

Good luck, boys and girls!

Wait......what?

2007-09-07T01:30:00.000-07:00

There's a whole series of these, but this one made me laugh and it's one of the lease offensive.

Heh. "We snorted the state of Montana." Heh.

Warning! This video contains adult language!

2007-09-06T14:38:00.000-07:00

I love this vid, but I have to warn you that it does have adult language. It's not long and I think it's pretty tasteful (and funny....and true) but I had to warn you.

Oh, and I had to install Yahoo! Messanger at work, so if your add "yourloanguychris" to you messanger, you can chat with me while I'm at the office. :)

"Daddy, where is that man's skin?"

2007-09-05T10:41:00.001-07:00

Have you guys heard of this? It's an exhibit that's traveling the world and it's in OMSI right now. Gina and I went to see it last Monday (she got us tickets back in January when they first went on sale). This poster is from when the exhibit was in Houston, before it came here.

See, this doctor (I think he's German) developed a method of preservation that basically swaps all the fluid in the body for a plastic-type material. People donate their bodies to him (after they die, of course) so that he and his team can patrially dissect and then preserve them. That's right: these are real actual people, not statues or anything. We got to see the one pictured below - it's a dude holding his skin. Woah.

Here's the deal: I thought I'd be really creeped out by this. I mean, these are REAL people. The skin guy was behind glass, but a lot of the others were just hanging out in the open. They had signs that said "Please Do Not Touch" but there were no barriers between you and the bodies. Creepy, right? Actually, not really. The plastic process leaves the tissue looking a lot like, well, plastic. It was easy to forget you were NOT looking at a well-made model of a person. I'd get all sucked into examining the structure of the fibers of muscle that make up a taunt thigh, or the inner-workings of the kneecap and forget for a moment it was real.

Each one had a sign explaining what was going on in that pose: it also had a front and back graphic of that pose with all the major muscles or bones or nerves labled. Each specimen was amazing to look at (1) for the scientific aspect of seeing how a person is built, and (2) for the asthetic look of the poses. It can only be described as ScienceArt. There were only a couple of times that I felt funny. The above picture shows the Circulatory System: the bones and some muscles are left, but all the red fuzzy-looking stuff are veins. The head on the table is ONLY veins - no bones or other tissue. There was another one that showed (quite clearly) the huge vein that runs down the back of your leg. It's HUGE and I get to thinking about how clost to the skin it is and how easy it would be to......I'm actually getting a little dizzy just thinking about it to write this. Veins and blood make me queasy.The whole exhibit was amazing! OMSI itself wass really cool - I wish we would have had more time in the rest of the place, but we had both been on our feet standing for almost an hour and a half and were getting sore. Body World 3 is going to be there for a while more and you can get tickets at the door. I think they are $22 each, but it includes a pass to the rest of OMSI. I think you get a discount of you already have an OMSI pass. Anyway, it was awesome and I'm really glad we went!

So I played Golf today.

2007-08-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

I had a "meeting" on the Green Mountain course today. How awesome was that?! Pretty awesome...

I shot a 118 which, for me, is amazing. If I were to play about 4 or 5 more games, I'm sure I could shave a stroke per hole off - out of bounds, bad chips, 2 putts that should have been 1 putts, etc. We had a freakin' blast and I really needed a day out with the folks I was with.

I think I got pretty sunburnt, but I had a "no mosquito baby wipe" that helped with that. Although I probably stink really bad (a morning in the sun and a cigar will do that to you) we had a killer morning. Out tee time was at 7:12 am. In case you don't know, NO ONE is up at 5:00 in the morning (except, maybe, your barista: I did stop at Starbucks on the way out). It was dark until just before we got there and then the sun was in our eyes off the first 4 tees.

I wish I had a pic that matched this "golf" blog, but I don't. You'll have to get by without one.

I also got to talk to Brent about babies - he has an almost-3-month-old. Is it odd that I talked to my male friend Brent about breast feeding on the golf course at 8 in the morning?

So if you want to play a round of golf with me (*cough*arwen*cough*) let's start saving now and plan on playing before the season is totally over. I've now played Green Mountain and can vouch for it's greatness. Or Herron Lakes - the greenback side - is a new experience.

I'm just sayin'....

"Mommy, why does that man have eyes in his hands?"

2007-08-27T23:21:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen Pan's Labyrinth, you don't have an answer. Have you seen it? Wow.

I knew I was going to like this movie right away - it has the word Labyrinth in it, and you all know who was in a different movie with the word Labyrinth in the title. That's right: Mr. David Bowie. Here's the kicker though - The Labyrinth was a kid's movie that even adults could love. Pan's Labyrinth, on the other hand, is a film that if you let your kids watch, should immediately result in your kids being taken away.

I thought (for some reason) that it was about a little girl that escapes from war-torn Spain to an imagination land of wonder and magic. Umm....no. It's dark. Pretty dang dark. It's not uber-violent or anything, but there were some pretty graphic scenes: ones that made me cringe and Gina hide her eyes. Violence isn't the main theme of this movie, but it's there.

The story, effects, acting, and directing are awesome. Early on you learn who you hate, who you feel sorry for, who you pity (much different than feeling sorry for), and who you are leery about. The jacket from NetFlix starts out "In a fairy tale for adults," and it really is. The subtleties in the story are somewhat buried and left to the imagination of the viewer, which I really like: if the movie takes no thought to understand, I'm not a big fan (that's why I like films such as Donnie Darko).

Watch it, but be warned: it's not a light-hearted romp in the land of fairies. It's twisted and beautiful at the same time. I'd be interested to discuss your take on the ending - how did you read it? - although not here, as we don't want to ruin it. If you are easily disturbed by "necessary" violence, don't watch this one. As I said above, there isn't a lot of violence, but what's there sure is impactful.

ps - I love FireFox and it's inclusive spell checker.

Things I'm so totally over.

2007-08-24T10:34:00.000-07:00

Amy Winehouse. Or should we say, Amy Whine-house. I know there are a lot of people who like her music, but I'm not one of them. I find her music to be un-origional and pretty boring. If I hear "Rehab" again I might have to actually GO to rehab in order to re-learn how to listen to music again. Aside from her music, she's a freakin' nut job! During an interview with Spin she found a piece of broken glass in her shoe, lifted up her shirt, and carved her boyfriend's name in her belly. She's in the news right now because some pics of her all beat up surfaced and the rumor was her BF was beating her. She came back and told a few Celeb Blogs that what really happened was she was at a party, met a call girl, and went back to her hotel room to do coke and herion. When her BF came back, he tried to break up Amy and the hooker, and Amy fought him. She got hit "on accident" by both BF and the hooker. Sounds like a real winner.

Now let's talk Beckhams. I'm done with them. Are we missing celeb gossip so much that we now have to focus on Brits? I know, I know: the moved to CA. So what? Do we really ahve to recap their entire life before they moves to the US? Ug.

Lindsay Lohan.

Do I really have to explain this? Put her in jail, put her in rehab (no, Amy Whine-house: don't start!) and move on.

The Mortgage Crisis. Yes, it's bad in some places. Yes, it's happened before. Yes, if you enjoyed 200% increase in value in the last 2 years without doing anything to the house, you are going to see it drop a huge number - guess what? It wasn't your equity to begin with! If it wasn't time passing or improvements that raised your value, if was fake equity anyway. (ps - that's not the case in the NW: we are really strong right now and will continue to be).

Michael Vick. He's a scumbag (here he is with a bag of pot) and a terrible person. Put him in jail and get over it. Or better yet, fill his jail cell with fighting dogs. See how that grabs him. Okay, that's mean - don't do that. But get him out of the news. This kind of dog fighting crap goes on all the time, but no one thinks about it until a high profile person gets busted. Did anyone know anything about Vick until this happened? Maybe he just wants to get some news time in order to re-work his contract....

That's what I'm over. I think I'm done with this now. Let's move on to some good topics. Something uplifting and interesting. Oh look - I just went to Yahoo homepage to see what's in the news, and the first headline is "Vick enters guilty plea." Um, Yahoo? I hate to tell you this, but that was done last Tuesday. So the non-news you are reporting isn't even up to date. Sad.

Here's something ACTUALLY cool: scientists are going to make another huge exploration dive into the deep sea. It's been in planning for years and they expect to find some new forms of life (as they do on about every deep sea dive). I'm pretty pumped about that. I love the deep sea shows on Discovery - Blue Plannet was one of my fave shows ever, and the new episodes are coming later this year. Yay! Ironically, it's my facination of the deep that makes me not want to swin in the ocean...

I have a new addiction.

2007-08-22T17:54:00.000-07:00

Have you guys ever been to the Discussion Forums section of Craigs List? There's a forum in there called "housing." I think I'm totally addicted to it.

You see, it's kinda about mortgages and real estate. I say "kinda" because for every one person with an actual question or good insight into what's going on in the mortgage/RE industry right now, there are 15 crackpots who almost all fall into one of four categories:

The "I Wanna Sound Smart" group: these people go to Yahoo!News or CNN or BBCNews and do a search for "mortgage." Then they come up with some lame subject line blurb and repost the link to the page. It might say something like "Realtors are eating Ramen* tonight!" with a link to an article about the decline of housing sales in San Fran. When people ask them questions on their thread, they seldom have an answer. The re-post the stuff that was already discussed earlier the same day. Usually if they get cornered, they turn into category #3.

The "Doom and Gloom" group: these folks are usually bitter renters who can't afford a house, so they re-post the negative press about the industry, take it way out of context, and then predict that in less than a year one (or more) of these things will happen - the Fed will take away all brokers and the only place you can get a loan is the government; the housing market will crash and prices will fall anywhere from 50% to 90% of the current values, and then they will buy their own mansion for pennies; the country is going to go into a terrible resession and everyone is going to be poor, except the people who are poor now because they will keep the meager amounts of money they have now while the "fat cats" loose it all; our nation's dollar will so weaken that we will be invaded by Turks/Kurds/Canadians/Chinese/Italians and/or a few other groups.

The "Angry" group: watch out! They will resort to personal attacks and slander at the drop of the hat. I think they are mostly people who are mad at whatever shitstorm is currently on the news and latch on with a vengence. They can be funny, if you can keep from getting pissed when you attack you. You can learn some cool insults (like asshat) for later use, but be cautious not to use them in the Forums or people will think you are a member of this group.

The "Head in the Sand" group: who believe this current market is ONLY in the media and isn't going on anywhere in the US right now. These people can be dangerous because some of them sound really smart, and the few people really asking questions can get duped into thinking they really know what they are talking about.

Sometimes I get in the Forum and simply answer questions. Other times I go in simply intending to debunk the people who have misinformation in a firm, but reasonable way. A few times I go in to totally tear up the asshats that fall into most of the above categories. It's kinda fun because there is a 5th group that's much harder to see: The "We Actually Know What We Are Talking About" group. That's me and a handful of other regular posters who jump in and out at random. There is an unspoken society among us WAKWWATA's that isn't easily observed until you spend some time in the Forum.

I have actually got some really good real-world contacts as well. I've hooked up with a realtor in Boston who wants to team up for some business. I'm talking to three people who may need my services on a personal level. It's kinda cool.

So there you go. Be careful with the Open Discussion Forums: they can suck you in pretty fast.

Godzilla is NOT comming!

2007-08-16T12:38:00.000-07:00

I'm tired of the news. I'm tired of the "Mortgage Crisis" in the paper, on the web, and on the TV. People are only partially informed and are freaking out over part of the story.

Rates are going up. Programs for certain "high risk" borrowers are going away. The Feds are tightening down on lending practices. Lenders (some big ones like CountryWide) are filing for chapter 13 bankrupseys or closing their doors. This sucks...but only for some people.

Here's the facts in a nutshell: this current "crises" is almost exactly what happened in the early 90's. We lived through it then and the market was stronger after if leveled out. IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN!!

My company is going to still be here after the ess hits the fan and things settle down. I'm still going to be here doing what I do. With all the "crappy" and "dishonest" mortgage brokers going out of business, we are going strong because (1) we are really good at what we do, and (2) we are honest.

If anyone you know is in freak-out mode over their mortgage, have them call me. We are all going to be okay. Things are going to balance out. I'm still doing the awesome stuff I do, and I'm keeping an ear out so that I have the most current information every day. Don't panic: just call me.

Now here's a picture of a cat eating candy to lighten the mood:

an' You Don't Want No Drama

2007-08-16T00:36:00.000-07:00

I almost like this song now. Alanis rocks.

Stop. Animation. Is. Awesome.

2007-08-15T11:52:00.000-07:00

I saw this on MSNBC iCaught last night. This is the kind of stuff that I'll be able to do this afternoon: I'm picking up my iMac today!

If this doesn't load for you, you can follow this link.

How important do you have to be before...

2007-08-15T08:22:00.000-07:00

....you are assassinated instead of murdered?

Bad news, Blogland: there are reports in a British Newspaper that Bear Grills (the dude that hosts Man vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel) isn't all he appears to be. According to these reports, there are a lot of scenes in the show that are totally set up, and Bear even spends the night in hotels a lot of the time - not sleeping in the wild like it appears. What's next, is Survivor Man fake too? I'm not sure that I believe this report just yet - the news story I saw said it was a British tabloid and I don't know how trustworthy it is. Is this the same tabliod that reported Michael Jackson was going to move the entire Neverland Ranch to England, or the one that first reported that Eddie Murphy is the daddy of that Spice Baby? (one is true, one is not).

Let me ask you bloggers a question: if you were at risk for some severe health problem and the only way to know for sure if you were in danger was to undergo a procedure that looked like it hurt or was cruel, but in reality didn't hurt you in the slightest, would you do it? What if the same was asked about the baby your were having?

Now, don't get the wrong idea: Meatburg is totally fine! I only ask because this came up in our childbirth class last night. We divided up into groups and got a poster and a medical instrument to review. Our task was to teach the class about our topic. Group C, including Gina and I, were given Internal and External Monitoring. The instrument we were given was a Scalp Electrode used for internal monitoring. Picture two small wires - one red and one black - twisted in a spiral encased in clear plastic tubing. At the far end is a white plastic tip about the size and shape of a pencil eraser, with a tiny thin curled wire poking out. The wire looks like you took one of those little micro springs and partially unwound two turns of it. I mean, this wire isn't even as thick as the period in your browser bar at the top of this screen. Now, if the external monitors that strap to Mom's belly aren't getting a good enough reading of baby's heart rate, and Mom's water has broken, and she's dialated to at least 1cm, and they already have reason to be a little worried about baby, they may use the fetal scalp electrode. What they do is insert the plastic tip through the cervix until is rests against baby's head, they give it a tiny turn clockwise. This hooks a super small piece of skin and allows the doctor to accurately monitor baby's heartbeat. It's like when you were a kid and used to push safety pins under the first layer of skin on your finger because it looked like you stabbed yourself but you didn't even feel it. Once baby is born, a quick turn the other way and the electrode comes out. Baby may have a pencil-lead-sized red dot for the next 8-10 hours, but then it goes away: that's the only side effect. Sounds kinda barbaric, but it's really not and they only do this if they have good reason to believe baby's in danger.

So this girl in our class flips out and asks if there is a way she can tell the doctor not to use a scalp electrode under any circumstances. She said she doesn't want some "quack" doctor "stabbing" her baby in the head with a "huge" wire for any reason. The next 10 minutes consistesd of the whole class sitting there bored while the nurse-teacher tried to get her to realize that this is only used on a rare occation where it's needed and it's not painful or cruel to the baby at all. It's like getting stitches - it's gross to think about someone sewing your wound shut, but it sure beats bleading to death or getting gangreen! I know having a baby is scary (and our whole class is all first-time parents) especially when you don't know what going on and have no prior knowledge that applies here (I've never though of poking something at my unborn baby's head before last night!) but if you don't trust the doctors to some degree, you are going to freak yourself out and have a really hard delivery. Calm down, take the time to learn more about the procedure, and get used to the fact that, although it's a very small chance, there is some chance that this will happen to you.

Also, Gina won't let me grow just a moustash. I can have one with a beard or a goatee, but not a moustash alone. No moustash, no mullet, no fun.

We're gonna talk about Beaches and Shows

2007-08-13T22:47:00.000-07:00

The G and I hit our one-year anniversary on Sunday. Sometimes it seems like we just got marries yesterday and sometime it seems like we've been married for a long time. Since I proposed at Long Beach, we went there for a night: we left Sunday morning and came back Monday late afternoon. It was awesome! We both have been so busy lately it was really nice to get out of town and just spend time together. We got a nice room and played on the beach, ate a ton of seafood, killed time at the shops and arcades, played on the beach some more....that was about it. The weather was NOT Northwest beach weather! It was it sunny, warm, and only a little windy. On Sunday night we watched the meteor shower and were able to see some because of the lack of clouds. We spent probably about 3 hours total just sitting or walking on the beach. We had a freakin' blast, and ordered two-scoop waffle cones that had about eight servings of ice cream on each cone (eating them was epic!). We really wanted to ride to go-karts, but didn't think it was a good idea.

On Sunday night we watched "The Number 23" with Jim Carey. I was bummed that I missed this one in the theaters, and we got it on NetFlix last week so we took it with us. I love Jim Carey movies where he's not Jim Carey, you know? I think "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind" is one of my favorite movies right now, and even "The Truman Show" was great. The Ace Ventura-and-such movies are funny, but he's a really great actor when he's not being totally dorky. "23" will make your feet cold because it will rock your socks off!! I was a little bummed about the end (I won't spoil it, but after you see it ask me how I think an extra scene of about two minutes would have make the ending way better) but overall it was a sweet movie. Jim was fantastic, and he plays a really convincing crazy person. One of the cool options was that on the DVD we got you could choose the regular theater version or the unrated one. There are a couple of really creepy scenes in the unrated version. Everything about this movie was fun: the camera work, the directing, all the actors, and the story were really well done. If you like kinda dark suspense, get this one. Get it now. I'll wait.

Why do people say they "slept like a baby".....

2007-08-09T11:56:00.000-07:00

....when a baby wakes up every two hours?

I found some info that's currently being debated on a couple of web sites, but TMZ.com (one of the leading Hollywood and Entertainment news sites ever) is saying it's true as of now, and it makes me excited and also angry.

The news is that Van Halen has scheduled a new tour starting in fall of 2007 with David Lee Roth as the lead singer. This will be the first time since the 80's that DLR is going to be part of Van Halen, and that's pretty cool. That's not, however, what has made me happy and mad at the same time.

You see, the bassist from VH, Michael Anthony, was replaced in late 2006. Do you know who replaced him? Eddie Van Halen's son Wolfgang Van Halen (or Wolfie as his family calls him). So now the band Van Halen is made up of three Van Halens (Eddie on guitar, his brother Alex on drums, and his son Wolfie on bass) along with the origional lead singer DLR. That's still not what makes me mad.

What ticks me right off is that Wolfie is only 15 years old. Not only is his Mom Valerie Bertinelli (of the soap opera fame) and his Dad one of the greatest guitar players of all time, but at 15 he's getting to tour with one of the most influential rock bands of all time. At 15. Not fair. I'm 26 and have never got to tour with a rock band!

Lastly, Wolfie looks a lot like the kid who played a young Jack Black in the Tenacious D movie "The Pick Of Destiny." Also not fair.

The Legend of David Bowie, Part Two

2007-08-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

I want David Bowie's hair.

Except for the late 70's and early 80's where everyone had really bad hair, David always has a great style.
He's gone from long to short, blow-dryed to slicked back.

Whether he's wearing a suit, a tee shirt and jeans, or some strange stage costume, his hair is always great.

My hair is much too thick to copy his styles. Even if I were to grow it out and flat iron it, my hair would never lay like his. This makes me sad.

I wish I had David Bowie's hair.

The Legend of David Bowie, Part One

2007-08-08T11:47:00.000-07:00

Ricky Gervais and David Bowie together on the same video?? I must have died and went to heaven!
David Bowie is totally allowed to make up a song that's only purpose is to make fun of me: I'm okay with that!

Why does a round pizza come in a square box?

2007-08-07T11:53:00.000-07:00

Batman called today to point out that my last two blogs have been kinda downers. He used the Batphone to tell me that it's time to have a blog filled with positives and get off this negative kick. After we had a long discussion about life and the world in general, I aggreed and so here is Chris' Positive Blog, fresh from it's shrink-wrap:

On Sunday there were four episodes of the Family Guy on in a row. Three of them featured Mayor Adam West (played by the real Adam West). They were all reruns, but I had not seen the first two before so they were new to me.

On Monday Gina told me she had set aside $700 to replace the muffler and tailpipe on the Honda. I had went into Midas for an estimate a few months ago and it was going to be $700 for Honda replacement parts, or $600 for a custom-built tailpipe and a Flowmaster performance muffler. We scrimped and saved until we had the needed money and since I had it read on Monday, I decided to call around a bit. I found a guy right by my office that did a custom exhause system, installed it in four hours, and only charged me $281.36 for everything. That made me really happy, and now my Honda runs better, is faster, and gets better gas milage.

Monday was also my sister Jay's twenty-first-plus-three birthday. The G and I met my family at Mom's house for cake and ice cream (which was awesome!), then later on in the evening I went up to Back Alley Bar where Jay's friends had set up a surprise party. There was a huge group of people and we all sang Karaoke like we used to do - at one point there were 12 of us on stage singing "Bye Bye Bye" by the Backstreet Boys, complete with the hand motions. I sang Piano Man by Billy Joel and I nailed it (it's one of my sister's fave songs). Then, to close the night, I was put up last and sang Ice Ice Baby by none other than Vanilla Ice. Awesome.

On Thursday I have a big paycheck coming. That's going to put a little in our pocket for baby stuff. I can't wait to go to Ikea and get furnature!

Last Saturday Gina, Jason and I helped the owner of my company move from Orchards to his new house on the Lewis River way back in the woods. After we unloaded his stuff from the truck, he took us out to his river rock patio with a built-in 1952 brick oven/fire pit. We ate hamburgers and roasted marshmellows. Good times.

My Dad bought a really nice Sealy Posterpedic Pillowtop bet set last year. Since he's married now and moving into Teresa's house, they don't need it so he's giving it to us. The bed G and I are sleeping on right now is about 12 years old and has gone through 5 moves. Also, our current bed is a full and the new one is a queen. That saves us about $2500 in bed costs!

Sunday the 12th is our one-year anniversary so Gina and I are going to the beach Sunday and Monday. Longbeach is where I proposed, so it's going to be a pretty special weekend. I'm really excited, and we got a killer suite at the Breakers - that's only a few yards from the beach itself. We'll eat crab, walk on the beach, and I'll probably ride the go-carts since I have to do that every time I go to Longbeach. Oh, we'll also go to Marsh's Free Museum. It's not a beach trip until you see Jake the Alligator Man.

We start our childbirth classes tonight. For the next six weeks we will be learning about babies and birth from 7:00 to 9:00 every Tuesday. that's going to be fun: we will build our birth plan, tour the hospital, practice changing diapers and cleaning up baby puke, and network with other expectant couples. I think it's going to be a good time.

So there you have it. There are a few positive things going on in my life right now. There are more, but I have to get to work now.

And now, here's a Skatebird.

Jerkface Card Punk

2007-08-06T10:24:00.000-07:00

I'd call this the not-so-merry-go-round.

I got screwed by Target.

I'm not too happy about it.

When I was like 21, I went to Target to open an in-store line of credit. I wanted to start building some credit history, and Target would give me a card even though I didn't have much of anything on my credit report. Also, I wanted to buy a digital camera.

I got the card with a $300 limit - it was enough so I could buy some cool stuff, but not enough to get me in trouble if I maxed it out. I got the camera. I got a memory card upgrade. I made the payments, and got the balance down to zero. I bought an XBox. I bought some games. I paid the balance down to zero. I bought some more little things that I could have paid cash for, but I wanted to build some credit, remember? I paid the card back down to zero again, and it sait in my wallet for a long time.

Skip ahead to last week. On Tuesday (I think it was) the G and I went to Target because we needed a body pillow (for the G's sleeping time) and a new ironing board (because the last one died and almost broke my thumb in the process). Again, I had the cash, but wanted to build some credit.

I forgot a part: a couple of years ago I signed up for on-line statements so they wouldn't keep sending me 15 pages of crap every month. It killed trees and I had to shred it all, so I went on-line. When the card was sitting in my wallet with a zero balance, I didn't get anything from Target either on-line or in the mail. Nothing. At all.

Skip ahead to last Thursday. I got something in the mail from Target. I figured it was a new privacy policy or something and didn't open it right away. When Gina got home she opened it for me. It was a new Target Visa card with a $3,000 limit. This is not a Target in-store line of credit: this is an actual Visa card with Target rewards. I thought it was one of those "pre approved" junk cards that I'm always getting from Capital One and whatnot. No, this is a real card issued in my name and the paperwork said my old in-store card is no longer active. Now I'm getting worried - this means that Target pulled my credit, and that's not okay with me.

I called the activation number listed in the letter since they didn't have a customer service number listed. When the computer voice told me to enter my card number, I pressed pound a bunch of times until it said "please wait for the next available customer service representative" (that's a trick to talk to a real person, by the way). Long story a bit shorter, the dude told me they sent me a letter weeks ago that informed me that if I did not reply, they were going to up my card service. That's BS! remember when I said I hadn't recieved any mail (e or otherwise) from Target? Yep. They just jacked my credit, lowering my scores, because I never responded to a letter I never got.

Number one: my credit got dinged because they pulled it. This always happens whenever you pull credit, but when the user has controll of it, it's easy to manage. When a company pulls it for you, it can get out of hand real fast.

Number two: my credit also got dinged because it raised my potential debt load. Now that I have the opportunity to run up a three-grand debt, my credit score goes down.

Number three: there was no real info about the card terms in the letter I got. It talked about the possible 1% reward at my local Target store (a reward that's possibly bumped to 5% if I make purchases at Target) and had two pages about how this new card covers the damage to a rental car should I rent a car and crash it. That's it. No mention of the APR rate, no mention of what (if any) the annual fees are, no mention of who they are going to sell my info to and who will soon be sending me tons and tons of junk mail.

This is not cool. Since the G and I just closed our refi (all in Gina's name) we are starting to focus on building my credit so that if we decide to buy a new house in a year or two, I will be in position to get a killer rate. This little Target screwing could possibly set me back about six to nine months of credit work. BS. B freakin' Ess!

I'm going to call them now, and I may have to do some screaming. For now, if you in Bloglandeeah have a Target card, watch you mail closely.

Do you know how fast meow were going?

2007-08-03T10:41:00.000-07:00

This is not a blog: it's going to be a rant. Lori knows about the Chris Alexander Rants. I'm going to try to calm the language down here, but every now and then I tend to go off on something that's been pissing me off. For those of you who didn't know me in High School, the Chris Alexander Rant can be a blistering observation of modern life. Picture George Carlin meets Andrew Dice Clay meets Eric Cartman.

I was on the way to work today driving east on SR 500. We passed St John's at a nice 60 mph (only 5 mph over the limit) and things were going well - although Starbucks was super busy so I didn't get my coffee. Two blocks later, the crowd of cars all around m abruptly slowed to 40 mph, and as we all inched through another intersection, slowed further to 30. Now, as I mentioned, the speed limit on 500 is 55, right? Why the hell are we going 30?? What the frick is the problem??

Just after we passed the intersection, I saw the problem: someone had been pulled over. On the other side of the effing freeway!!! Not an accident, where people tend to do some rubbernecking, but a car pulled the eff over! What the crap! Has the whole morning commute in Vancouver, Washington really never seen someone pulled over before? And this was two lanes away, on the other side of the barrier. There are two reasons that I can possibly think of that would cause other drivers to slow down:

1) "Uh oh, there's a cop! I'd better slow down!" - You freakin' idiot! First off, the cop is on the other side of the freeway! Second, he already has someone pulled over and is off his motorcycle looking in their window: not pointing a speed gun at you! Third, you're going 25 mph less than the damn speed limit! I'd bet you are more likely to get pulled over for doing 30 in a 55 that you are doing 60 in a 55! Dumbass, put you foot on the GD gas and move!

2) "Wow! Flashing lights! What happend? Was it a wreck? Is it someone I know? Hmm...it's a white car: who do I know who owns a white Nissan? No one....let's slow down and take a look anyway." - ....... I need a few seconds to compose myself: I don't want to blow a vein in my brain.......okay, if this is the reason you slowed down, you deserve to have your license taken away. That's it. If you slow down on the freeway to gawk at someone pulled over on the other side of said freeway, you are a danger to other drivers. When you slam on your brakes to see who got busted, you run the risk of someone hitting you. Personally, I don't expect to suddenly go 30 in a 55 zone. I'm observant in the car, but what if the person behind you is some skank drinking her coffee and talking on her cell phone. Do you think she's going to stop in time when you brake at a gree light? Move your effing car, jackass! You aren't just inconviencing your fellow drivers, you put us all in jeopardy.

When I worked in Clackamas, I used to drive down 205 right smack in the middle of rush hour, and this behavior was standard procedure: we are all going southbound, but we have to slow (or stop, heaven forbid!) because some cracked out spazzhole got pulled over going north. It turned my 9-hour workday into a 12-hour event (when you factor in the same problem going north in the morning). I personally witnessed more than one accident because someone slowed way down to watch a cop incident on the other side of the freeway and someone slammed into the back of the gawker. Bastards! If you keep driving the speed limit, you will get home faster and if the incident was big enough, you can catch it on the news!

Now, if I am in the right lane on SR 500 and someone is pulled over going the same way as I am, I will either get over to the left lane, or slow down by 5 mph or so: if I were a cop, I would not want some a-hole going 60 five feet away from me while walking up to some drug dealer's car. If, however, the incident is on the other side of the road, you know what I do? I continue to effing drive!! And I continue to effing drive at the posted effing speed limit!

We need a big social change here, people of Blogdom! It should be as illegal to rubberneck at the scene of an accident, someone pulled over, or any other scene when the red and blues are flashing. Just because you want to see if your ex-girlfriend got a speeding ticket or who is missing an arm in a terrible crash is not a good enough reason to keep me from where I need to go! Did you know that as of July '08, if you are caught driving in the carpool lane alone, it's a ten thousand dollar fine? Know how much you get fined if you slow down and cause a 4-hour traffic jam on the freeway? Nothing! Not one freakin' dollar. You know what it costs me? Time away from my family! Or time away from work where I could be making money! You see a stranger get a ticket, then, four hours later, I'm not at the office and miss a deal that could have made me five grand! Son of a..........

I'm going to stop here: if I continue on I'll get into the hell that is merging in the greater Portland/Vancouver area. THAT rant would not be clean at all, and I probably end up breaking something here in my office. Suffice to say that if I ever see any of you pulled over on the side of the read, don't expect me to slow down! You are on you own, buddyroe!

In closing, here's Abe Vigoda on toast.

My Cat's Breath Smells Like Cat Food.

2007-08-02T10:49:00.000-07:00

The Simpson's Movie: a Review

by Chris Alexander

(aka Shirtless Alex Trebek)

*Disclaimer*

there are no spoilers in this blog!

The movie rocked right from the opening: the 20th Centur Fox logo comes on and the theme music plays, Ralph Wiggam comes out of the zero and sings along. From this point, I knew the movie would rock, and I was not let down.

There was a lot of danger in creating a Simpson's Movie - it's currently one of the longest-running TV shows in history, so it has a huge fan base. One tiny screw up and 18 years of TV could be tarnished forever.

This film has been looked forward to by adoring fans for 18 years, and it did not let us down! If you stay through the credits (and this reviewer recomends that you do!) you will see that there were something like 14 writers involved in the script, and about 13 of them were writers on the series. On the Show, one or two writers will write thw show and the other will assist: that's why you have so many different story lines following so many characters. In the film, they all worked on the script, so every character had a very well developed part. It really hit the goal that it set to: not to seem like a movie, but to be a super-long episode.

While some characters were sadly missing from the film ('ol Gill, for instance) the cast from the show was very well represented in the film. Manjula was missing, as was Sideshow Bob, but overall your favorite characters were part of the film. Bart had a scene (you'll know it when you see it) that was one of the best scenes in a comedy I've seen in a long time.

I have a really hard time giving any movie five stars, but this one was a strong four (unless you believe in half ratings - then it's a four and a half). I can't say I'd watch it every day, but I did not feel that $7.50 was too much to pay for this one. I had a blast, and I recomend that you see it - if you are not a big Simpsons fan, you'll like it and if you are a big fan, you'll love it!

Carrots: Satan's Vegetable

2007-08-01T15:14:00.000-07:00

You know what I hate about carrots? No, I mean besides Carrot Top's stage act. I have two major issues with carrots:

1) I'm sure I'm the only person who ever has this issue, but they get caught in my sinuses. I chew them up real well, go to swallow the mouthfull of carrot pulp, and almost every time I get a few pieces that go up towards my sinuses instead of down to my rumbly tumbley. There they sit for hours on end, irritating me just enough that I feel like I have to hawk a loogie constantly. Does the loogie-hawking help? Heck no! It only jams them up higher where they reside for anywhere from a few hours to overnight.

2) They forever get stuck in my teeth. There aren't a lot of strings in a carrot (like it's cousin the celery) but somehow a bit always get caught in my teeth. Then I have to do that really annoying tongue-gouge-with-the-teeth-suck deal that people need to be beaten for doing in public. What the frick! How does that work??

I must say, both problems are solved by cooking the carrots first. I've been on this sweet and sour carrot kick where I saute some thin-sliced carrots with onion untill just tender, then add onions, Thai basil, a splash of vinegar, and something sweet; I've used sugar water, a rasberry reduction, maple syrup, and peach juice in the past. Let all that simmer and reduce until the carrots and onions are pretty tender and serve alone or over a bed of basmati rice. Yum!

In conclusion, cooked carrots are fine, but raw carrots, while tasty, are the Devil's Vegetable.

I've got to go dig at my teeth and hawk up some loogies now.

Take off your jacket and get the **** out!

2007-07-31T11:18:00.000-07:00

I'm kinda hooked on a show again. I swore that after the "Heroes" season was over, I would not get tied into another show. I don't like scheduling my life around a TV show, and I don't like being pissed off if I miss an episode of something: that's why I stopped watching "The X Files." However, I started watching Hell's Kitchen sporadicaly this season, and I've been stuck on it the last few episodes. For shame, Chris, for shame.

But it's a cool show! As harsh as Chef Gordon Ramsey is, it kinda brings me back to my cooking days. You can be ready to serve up your peers as a new entree in the middle of the rush, and once the last table leaves, everyone is all friendly again. As we get closer to the final episode, Chef Gordon is showing that more and more: he still berates the cast members, but is praising them more and more now that the loosers are gone. Last night we were down to the final three: Jen, Bonnie, and Rock.

Last night, we said goodbye to Jen. She won the challenge, but during the dinner service, she expoed a plate of crab pasta that didn't have any crab in it. She also overcooked the whole steamer pan of rice for the risoto. Easy mistakes to make, but we just can't have that on the second to last show. Now it's down to Bonnie and Rock.

So here's to you, Jen, and you mid-west charm we will miss so much. I had hoped you got booted off the show, but not before Bonnie. Your simplistic ways were refreshing in the midst of LA culture, and your big heart was broadcasted for the whole world to see. All of us here at WtmRR wish you the best, and look forward to seeing you on the Today Show or some other psudo-journalistic morning crapfest where you will get to cook something that Al Roker will scarf down without tasting.

Jen, We Salute You!

Can you hear it off in the distance?

2007-07-30T23:04:00.000-07:00

<---- This is the POS computer I am using right now at home. That's right: a Compaq Presario desktop running Windows ME as the operating system. This is a stock photo, but the PC I'm currently using is even the same color accessory package (except I've added a 3-piece Altec powered speaker system). When I say POS, I don't mean Point Of Sale. I think Stevie from the hit TV show Malcom In The Middle runs faster than my computer! I was going to totally revamp my entire MySpace page tonight, but it took almost two minutes to load the Page Editor website, so I gave up. This computer was pretty kickass way back in '99 when it was brand new. I don't know if you have noticed, but a lot has changed with computers in the last eight years!!!

All that's about to change, though. We are turning a corner here, people! In the next couple of weeks, I will be making the second biggest Life Decision I've made so far (being second to asking Gina to marry me):

I Am Getting A Mac.

That's right: I'm getting us a brand new, state-of-the-art iMac that Brent's going to help me pimp out even more with a ton more ram before I even take the thing home. Am I scared? Sure I am! I've been a PC guy my whole life and all I know about apples is thay they taste good with peanut butter. Okay, if I'm going to be a real MacHead I've got to stop making jokes like that. Seriously, I'm really pumped. After the baby is born Gina wants to get back into photography - both manual and digital - and I want to get into more sound and video recording/editing, so an iMac is the perfect choice. Dual processors, either 3 or 4 gigs of ram, a huge video card...I'm even going to buy a cable signal booster for my cable modem so it can keep up with the iMac.

Here's the bummer: word on the street is that the NEW version of the iMac is supposed to drop sometime in early August. If not then, the newest version of the OS is supposed to come out in September. I might be able to wait a couple of weeks for the newest complete system, but there is no WAY I can wait until September for the new OS! That's like telling a kid when the next Christmas will be on December 26th. Lame.

In any case, the new Computer is on the way and research starts now. Be prepaired, o ye of Bloggerdom, to be dazzled and awestruck by my Blogger and MySpace awesomeness once the new System is purchased.......and I figure out how to use it.

Bask in the glory of the coming Alexander iMac!

ps - did you see Hells Kitchen tonight? Jen?? Sucks to be her. Rock is going to win.

Won't you take me to.......Taco Town!

2007-07-30T13:24:00.000-07:00

At work today I was starving. I was so hungry that I was starting to feel sick....like barf sick. I was desperate. I needed food, and I needed it now. There is a Taco Bell across from my office. I broke down. I ordered food, and I ate it. I haven't eaten Taco Bell in years. I was a little scared. Not for my immediate safety, but because I usually try to eat real food when I'm hungry.

I did, however, remember what a good idea it was to take a hard-shell taco and wrap it in a tortilla with beans. Who's idea was that? What a great idea! I used to make those at home and for some reason, I forgot how cool they are. Try it: take a regular taco, spread some beans on a flour tortilla, and wrap the taco in the tortilla. Good times, my friends - good times.

Taco Town - These bloopers are hilarious

This is the Greatest and Best store in the World.

2007-07-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

My Dad is getting married this Saturday at St. Luke's. We decided last Monday that I would be his Best Man and stand with the wedding party at the alter during the service. Up until that point, I had planned to wear my black suit with a white shirt and pink tie. Since I'm now part of the wedding party itself, I found myself needing a tux by the end of the week. Yesterday my Dad took me to a store I never knew existed, but is now someplace that I can see myself shopping often: the Mr. Formal outlet over by OMSI. They sell tuxes that have been very lightly worn for a super discount. Check this out:

Tux Jacket: $99

Tux pants: $60

Tux shirt: $10

Tux shoes: $10

Tux vest: $10

Black necktie: $12.99

Looking freakin' awesome and owning my own tux: Priceless.

If you were keeping track, that's just over $200 for a complete tuxedo. Yea, baby.

Yea.

No Soup For You!!

2007-07-26T23:39:00.000-07:00

I watched Seinfeld tonight. That's really all I got right now. So there you go: no lobster bisque for you.

You want bread? Three dollars!!

It's the End of the World as we Know It

2007-07-25T12:09:00.001-07:00

Guess what. It's true. The Weekly World News is closing down. It's all over the AP Wire today (what does that say about our Media outlet??*) and they will from now on be on-line only. No more Freaks, Geeks, and Weirdos peering at us from the checkstands. No more great journalism about how Jesus' Missing Sandal was found in Central Park. Worst of all, no more updates on what BatBoy has been up to lately. How will we know what Bigfoot is doing? And with the election coming up, how will we keep abreast of which Presidential Cantidates are robots?

It's a sad, sad day for "journalism" in America when such a foundation of our global education is shutting it's doors. Sure, we can see all the same great stories at their web page, but in a world of Internet Spastics and Oddities, will they stand out? This writer thinks no. Somehow with you have such bizarre items at your fingertips, "Redneck Zombies terrorizing parts of Mississippi" don't have the same draw. After 28 years of the stories that other publications wern't brave enough to cover will forever be leaving our checkstands.

I suppose I can't blame the WWN staff: they reported $106 million in net losses for the fiscial year of 2006, and they have just over $1 billion in debt at this time. But if we don't get pictures of black-eyed-Bill after getting in a fistfight with an alien over Hillary, will society as we know it continue? Sadly, no. We shall be forced to instead read about what female celebrity has gained 40 lbs, and who got a boob job, and who Bradjeleena is adopting now while we purchase corn on the cob and Ritz crackers. This reporter fears for the livelyhood of other such publications as the National Enquirer who lost almost 400,000 readers from 2004 through 2006. Who is going to pick up the slack? Us Weekly? Star? The O Magazine?? We as Americans have a responsibility to provide the upkeep for such amazing periodical papers that brought us such gems as "Dentist uses UFO metals in patient's tooth" and "Man bothered by alien telemarketers." Maybe America is loosing it's sense of whimsey. How, then, do you explain the success of books such as the Harry Potter series and the Star Wars books (that are still being written and sold, by the way - still!)? One can only wonder.

I, for one, tip my hat to the Weekly World News. Anything that can keep going for 28 wonderful years deserves some mention. Cheers to the fiction writers (I mean journalists) who have kept us from thinking for the few minutes we stand in line at Safeway. Cheers to the editors who thought to themselves "could the Pope really be talking to aliens?" and gave us a resounding yes! WWN: you will be missed.

* the other big AP Wire news story is about a woman in Germany who walked into a petrol station and bought a pack of smokes wearing only a gold bracelet and a pair of gold high heeled shoes. She wasn't charged with a crime because no one called the police with a complaint. I'm serious - do a Yahoo! search for "german nude petrol station" and see what comes up. It's being reported all over the globe.

I make great decisions!

2007-07-24T22:35:00.000-07:00

Let's play pretend.

Pretend you are a somewhat nice person who seems to make bad choices.

Pretend one of those choices is to drink at a club and then get behind the wheel.

Pretend you get caught by the cops, but instead of getting a huge ticket and jail time, you instead get a smaller ticket and a drug and alcohol class.

Pretend you go to rehab for alcohol abuse and a drug scandal that may or may not be true.

Pretend that sometime later you go to another club and have some more drinks before again getting behind the wheel.

Pretend you get caught again, and this time have to go to court in a few months.

Pretend you go to rehab. Again.

Pretend that 4 days after you get out of rehab, you are pulled over a block away from the police station and arrested for drunk driving.

Pretend that when the cop asks if you have anything on you that he needs to know about you say "no."

Pretend that once you get booked they find cocaine on you and press you with two fealony charges: one for having coke and one for bringing coke into the police station.

Now ask yourself this: do you deserve to be put in jail for 6 years?

You'll have plenty of time for smokin' doobies....

2007-07-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

....when you're living in a van down by the river!

Ahh, Chris Farley: how we miss you.

I'm hiring. I need people to come work with me. You do not have to know anything about the mortgage industry. You do have to be a nice person who likes dealing with other people - sometimes nice, sometimes not so much. Now that things are taking off, we need some more people: both full-time and part-time. You will be on my team and working directly with me, and I'll train you and get you all the tools you need. In case you don't know what I do, here's a brief:

I'm a partner at Security Pacific Funding, a mortgage brokerage. We have access to every type of program and are approved to work in all 50 states. We have a very progressive vision, and a ton of resources that most brokerages do not. We have the whole place set up and the processes streamlined, so now is the perfect time for you to join: we are all set and everythving works. The people here are great, the owner Carl is an amazing guy will a huge heart and an awesome vision for the company and it's employees, and you can make a lot of money while helping people.

The thing is, I need a team of like 10 people and I only have 2 on my team right now. People with sales and/or service backgrounds are perfect - I can teach you the industry, but I want folks who already know how to talk to strangers. I'll bet you have never thought about being in the mortgage industry - neither had I. It's freakin' awesome! You get to help people who, for the most part, don't understand enough to make well-educated decisions.

Think about it. Interview with me. Worst case scenario, you get some interviewing practice. Let me know if you are interested and want to talk about it further.

You'll have plenty of time to not work with me....when you're livin' in a van down by the river!

I'm really sorry Steven...

2007-07-23T15:12:00.000-07:00

...but you're bicycles been stolen.

This weekend was rockin' awesome! I was supposed to go to the beach with my Dad and some of his friends for his Bachelor Party, but things got too crazy and we didn't end up doing that. Instead my Dad, his friend Ken from work, our buddy Michael and myself went to play golf at Skamania Lodge on the Gorge and have a nice dinner after the game. Michael, Dad and I all drove together and met Ken up there. Since we were early for our tee time we decided to have a cold beer and a bite to eat before taking the course. We also had to hammer out the details of what the game would look like and how we were going to determine who won. We thought about doing a two-man scramble, but decided to play the front 9 straight and then adjust handicap for the back nine based on how many strokes everyone was behind the leader. Now, I haven't held a golf club (except for mini golf) in about four years and haven't play a whole 18 holes in like 8 years, so I was a little worried. But I figured I'd be way behind on the turn and have a major advantage on the back nine. If you are a golfer and have ever played Skamania, it's one of the top 5 hardes courses on the west coast and like the #1 hardest in Washington. I didn't know this little tidbit until about the 10th hole. I remembered that I have a beautiful natural swing and address, but I did shank quite a few into the woods. Oh, and about that: in most cases the whole fairway is about 30-40 yards wide, the rough is a foot wide, and the rest is out of bounds. So shanking into the woods was something that we all did quite a few times. I don't remember the final score, but I do know that I was way last. We had a blast though: drinking beers, smoking cigars, bitching about our irons, and having a grand old time. It was really great to spend time with my Dad: we are both very busy and don't get time to hang out much, but when you are on the course it's a 6-plus hour block of time where the cell phones are off and we are out in beautiful surroundings.

After playing the course, we went back to the clubhouse to have some drinks before our dinner reservation time, and there was a wedding just over the hill with the reception right across from the deck where we were. So we sat there smoking more cigars, drinking whiskey and listening to the string quartet. After a bit we moved into the dining room and had the most amazing pork loin with an orange-and-chardonay demiglaze....yum! All in all it was a totally awesome day and now I want to hit the links again (but at a more moderate-skill course).

Then on Sunday the G and I went to the Decemberists concert at McMinimin's Edgefiled and that was totally awesome! It was part of the "Concerts On The Lawn" program so it was all outside on a slightly sloping hill - we all sat on blankets and beach chairs and there wasn't a bad seat in the whole place. If you don't know the Decemberists, they are from Portland and they just came back from a east coast tour and in six weeks they take off for a world tour (starting in California and touring across the US, then over to England and Scottland). Since they have been gone so long, they were all really glad to be back home and their show proved that. The sound quality was outstanding and they did a great job of keeping the audience involved throughout. Collin (lead singer and guitar player) sounded just like he does on the CDs and the whole group sounded like they were in the studio. Their final encore was "The Mariner's Lament" and when, in the story, the giant whale comes and swallows everyone, the opening band came onstage in a huge whale costume and "ate" all the Decemberists. It was one of the best shows I've ever been to, and there were enough people there to make it high-energy while still keeping a very intimate feel. There were a couple of drunk lesbians right in front of us who had too much wine and spent the whole show talking with each other and taking MySpace-style pictures of themselves, but other than that it was great. The only bad thing was that the beer was wonderful, and G couldn't have any :(

All in all, it was a pretty good weekend. But now I need gold partners. I was to close these next couple of files at work and then I want to play Camas Meadows. I was there for work a month ago, but didn't get to play and now I really want to. Who golfs? Who wants to go with me? Maybe who wants to hit the driving range first?

Motown Philly...

2007-07-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

...back again.

This post is 90% for R1. Lately her blog (DTBS3) has been featuring dudes without shirts. Since I'm aparently copying her blog, I thought I'd beat her to these ones:

Tom Selleck

Richard Dean Anderson (aka McGyver)

The Hoff

Iggy Pop

and of course, The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Arwen, this one's for you!

All she wants to do is...

2007-07-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

...dance dance!

VS.

I was drinking a soda and I had a very mysterious question come up: how does Sierra Mist Free differ from Sierra Mist Diet? The nutritional information is the same on both cans - zero values for everything except sodium. I see that this is a trend: more soda companies are coming out with "free" or "zero" versions of their top sellers, but still leaving "diet" on the market. Only Coke has a really new product on the diet front: they have a new Diet Coke Plus that has some vitamins and minerals added. Do they think we are so dumb that we won't notice that "free/zero" and "diet" are the same thing? In a nutshell, yes - they do think that.

Speaking of "the consumer is dumb" advertising, let's talk about LendingTree.Com for a minute. Have you seen their ads on TV? "When banks compete, you win"? What a joke! They charge through the.....um..."nose" and tack on all kinds of hidden fees, then send your file to up to four different banks and give you the choice of where you want your home loan to go. Here's the fact: shopping you file to different lenders is exactly what all mortgage brokers do. The difference between my company and LendingTree.com is that (1) I'm always here if you have any questions instead of getting a different customer service rep every time (2) We disclose all fees right up front, and explain them to you in detail, and (3) instead of searching 4 banks for the best deal, I can send your file to up to 83 different lenders. Which sounds better to you??

Or 7-Up. Their new promo is that they now use only natural ingredients. First, what did they use before?? Second, if you have read Fast Food Nation you may remember that even when they say they use "natural" ingredients they usually use them in un-natural ways. Did you know that you can make cherry flavor from beef fat? Or licorice from rotting corn? Yummy.

I don't think this blog is that important - you all are so smart that I'm probably preaching to the choir. Right?

Right??

Ziggy Played Guitar....

2007-07-17T13:05:00.000-07:00

....jamming good with Wierd and Gelly, and the spiders from Mars.

I'm lo-teching it today. I have a ton of music on my computer here at work, and the Honda only has a tape player. So I huffed one of our component stereo systems into work, and right now I'm transfering David Bowie from MP3 to cassette tape. That's right: high-end digital sound files being transfered to cassette tapes. How cool is that, right? I started with "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" (that's got to be the longest album title ever!) only it's the Special Re-Issue from Rykodisc (1990) with five extra bonus tracks. Yea, bonus tracks.

Next weekend I'm heading off to the beach for my Dad's Bachelor Party at Seaside. We got a suite at the Breakers and will spend the weekend smoking cigars, playing poker, drinking beer, and golfing; you know, all that "manley" stuff. I'm looking forward to it - I haven't had an opportunity to hang out with my Dad's friends since I became an adult (mostly). Then the day we get back (Sunday), Gina and I are going to see the Decemberists at Edgefield. I'm pumped for that too! I've wanted to see them live for years now and Gina got us tickets! Rock on!!

So there you go - What My Weekend Will Look Like by Chris Alexander. I don't have anything else funny or amazing to say now. But as always, watch out for Fighting Cats!

Its a...........MAAAAD world...

2007-07-13T10:34:00.000-07:00

Ever have one of those days where the smallest things go wrong, but you are still afraid they will set the tone for your whole day? Today's one of those days.....

Today I did not want to shower. I know that sounds gross (and so I did shower) but I just did not feel like going through all that. It didn't sound like fun. Luckily I shaved really well yesterday so I was okay for today - scruffy but not shaggy. I showered, got dressed (I realized I only had two crappy shirts to choose from, but that's what I get for not doing laundry yesterday), and found that we were out of coffee. "That's okay" I thought to myself, "I'll just stop at my favorite coffee shop." (not Starbucks)

I ordered a 16oz coffee-of-the-day with a shot of espresso added. The total was $2.98 so I tipped $1.02 to make it an even four dollars. I like to tip at this shop because I like to support local businesses and I get great service there. Right before my coffee was ready I got a call on my cell, so when I got my drink I was on the phone. I don't like doing that, but it was work and I needed to take the call. When I got back to my car and drove a block I realized they served me a 12oz regular coffee. I paid $2.98 for a dollar twenty five coffee, and tipped a buck on an incorrect order. The picture to the left illustrates the difference between the size I ordered and the size I got. I was surprised because I have always got great service and exactly what I ordered at this coffee shop. I was too far away and needed at the office, so I couldn't go back and bring it to the attention of the business.

Then, because the cop was a 12oz and not the bigger (see pic) 16oz, it didn't fit in my cup holder. I had to hold it while driving and ended up spilling some on my light-colored shorts. I only got a small burn on my leg though, so it's okay.

I got the the office and had some horrible news about on of the files I'm working on - there is a good chance that I'm going to loose the file and the paycheck that goes along with it. Not to mention the terrible position this puts my client in. I've learned that when a lender says something is 100% sure to be okay, it means there is a 35% chance that it will be okay. I might be able to fix it, but I'm not sure we can in the time frame we need to. That's going to put a dent in my wallet and renders all the hours of work I have done on this file possibly worthless.

See: nothing big went wrong, but it's one of those days were a bunch of little stuff starts to add up. "At least it's Friday!" you might say. I've got an event to work tomorrow for work, and that's going to burn up my whole day. I might have to come into the office on Sunday after church to make cold-calls in order to try to get some more deals in, just in case the one mentioned above falls out. Then we are back to Monday and I have a very full day planned at work. No rest for the wicked, right?

On a positive note, the insulator band on my coffee cup points out they ways to tell if you have having a stroke. So I got that covered. In case you think you might be having a stroke, here is the graphic to tell if you are:

We now have a 6-day week: Wednesday is gone.

2007-07-09T10:09:00.000-07:00

Gina and I have two cats, a brother and sister, that G adopted back when she had her own apartment. She got them from the pound and we named them Wednesday (girl) and Pugsley (boy). Gina's always been alergic to cats, but not super bad - until she got pregnant. Now they are horrible. We didn't really notice until we went to Sun River for a week and lived in a cat-free house. We had been talking about finding Wednesday and pugsley new homes before the baby came in October, but after we realized how bad Gina's alergies really were we decided to move on it right away.

After returning from Sun River, we made them out door only cats. Then I posted them on Craig's List and got a couple of calls/emails about them. I found a possible home for Pugsley, but after a week at the house he had to come home: the adults loved him and he loved them, but they have 3 kids under 7 and whenever the kids were around Pugs would just hide. So I brought him back here - I told them at the beginning that I'd rather have him back here than send him to the pound.

This is Wednesday. I found a great sounding home for her out in Milwaukie: a retired couple with one cat and a forrest-like backyard. The woman I spoke to was really nice and wanted a friend for her other cat: they used to have a dog the cat loved to play with, but the dog was like 17 and passed away late last year. They have a cat door on the garage (Wednesday would piss me off sometimes wanting to go in and out of the house every 5 minutes), lots of squirels and butterflys for her to chase, and two older people to give her attention all the time! Great, right??

So on Sunday after church I packed Wednesday up on the carrier and drove her out past Clackamas to meet her new family. The woman was outside with her other cat so she and I went in and left Felix outside. I opened the carrier and Wednesday came right out and was nervous, but friendly - she let them pet her and she seemed to LOVE the sunroom. After a few minutes the woman let Felix back in the from screen door so Wednesday could meet him while I was there. Well, she got all hissy (but didn't attack him or anything) and trotted from the living room into the kitchen.

Now, at this house there was a big circle from entry way to living room to kitchen back to entry way. We were in the living room when we heard a noise by the front screen door and looked just in time to see Wednesday's butt scoot outside and vanish. Either the woman didn't latch the door when she let Felix in, or Wednesday was more scared than I thought and slammed into it with panic force. In either case, she got outside after being in a strange house in a whole other state and ran off before we could even see which way she went. These folks live on an older street off the main road so there are a lot of trees, bushes, ferns, and other underbrush ALL over - in their yard and the all the others on the street. Wednesday is a very small cat and can hide anywhere. We looked for quite a while, and she never came out. I tried, but I'm the bastard who took her on a car ride in the first place so she wasn't coming out to my voice! We ended up putting some of the food she's used to in a dish outside and the woman said she's talk to all her neighbors (who almost all have indoor/outdoor cats) and have them keep an eye out. But the fact is this: I'm afraid Wednesday is gone.

She's too prissey to become ferral I think, but she's also so scared that I don't know if she will go up to strangers at all - she used to here, but that was at a house she knew, where she could run under the deck if need be. She's way the hell out in Milwaukie and I kinda don't think I'll see or hear from her again. I feel like I've failed her. I swore to myself I wouldn't just dump her off at the pound - we saved them both from there as kittens, and I owed it to them to find a good home myself - so instead I go dump her off in the woods in Oregon. I honestly don't even know if she survived the night: she's always been a very suburban cat and the most vicious animal she's ever come in contact with is the neighbors weiner dog - now she's in a place with coyotes, foxes, cougars, and God-knows what else. She's in a place she's never been so even if she decides to come back, she dosn't know where "back" is. She ran in a panic, and now is lost.

If you are a praying person, and you believe God takes care of ALL his creatures (not just people), please pray for Wednesday. I let her down, so I'm praying too, but she needs all the help she can get. If you are Catholic or believe in the Patron Saints, pray for St. Francis to protect her. I doubt that I'll ever see or hear from her again, I just hope she's safe.

Damn. Some parent I am, hua?

I'll have the eye lo mein, please!

2007-07-08T06:49:00.000-07:00

This is the real deal, folks. Jason showed me this article on Yahoo! News late last week (you can't make this stuff up):

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Hong Kong woman who blinded her boyfriend in one eye in a fight six years ago has been jailed for jabbing a chopstick into his other eye, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Last November, Po Shiu-fong, 58, accused long-time boyfriend Kwok Wai-ming, 49, of having an affair, the South China Morning Post reported.
During the row, Po stabbed a plastic chopstick into his left eye, which she had already blinded six years ago when she poked it with her finger.
"Po became hysterical when she saw the wound and mopped it with a towel. The pair then went to bed," the paper said.
"The next morning they had another argument in which she grabbed a chopstick and stabbed Kwok's right eye," it said.
Two days later, he sought medical treatment and filed a police report against Po, whom he had dated since 1993.
The paper said he didn't report the attack six years ago, telling the court his silence was "a love sacrifice."
Kwok lost 10 to 20 percent vision in his right eye, the paper said.
Po was jailed for six months on Tuesday.
"If I forgive her, God would not forgive me," the paper quoted Kwok as saying. "No matter what, nothing could compensate for the loss of my eye."

Wow. I mean, we have all done stupid stuff for love, right? Have you ever lost an eye and called it a "love sacrifice"?! Yikes!

And maybe I'm just fooling myself here, but I could never picture Gina stabbing me in the eye with anything. In fact, that's pretty high up on the list of why I married her - the lack of eye-stabbing potential.

Think about who you surround yourself with on a regular basis. I think a good tool to measure how much time you should spend with someone is ask yourself "how likely is it that this person stab me in the eye?" and then judge the time spent by that risk factor.