DLand - Take This Tree and Shove It

Had a pretty good weekend. I stayed up WAY too late on Friday night watching movies and putzing. By the time Saturday rolled around it was 10am and I was just getting out of bed. Decadence, I tell you.I had a list of two things I was looking for in my shopping plans - a new kitchen faucet and tying twine. I could have gotten those at the closest hardware store. Needless to say, I never made it to the hardware store. I started at Price Club and bought new clothes and some random food stuff. Then I realized it was 95 degrees outside, so I bought a cooler and got some ice so I could keep shopping. This shopping trip would stop for nothing. It seemed like every store I entered I then left spending around $100. Bed, Bath and Beyond beget me new sheets and a nice poster. Planet Music produced Talking Heads, the Gourds, Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Tom Jones. I found a used copy of Red Hot and Blue for only $4 but already own it. I considered buying it and then giving it to someone who I thought deserved it, since it's such an excellent disc, but doubted my follow through on this project. So I just left it in a very prominent place so someone would spot it and take it home. I thought about giving it to the guy who decided to follow me around after I told him that the Dead Milkmen cd he discovered was a good choice, but didn't think he needed any more encouragement. “Apparently he seemed to think that because I complimented his choice in music that meant that I thought he was groovy.” “No, you talked to him so hoped you wanted to have sex with him.” “Is it really like that? Is it really all about sex? I was just being friendly.” “There's a Chris Rock monologue you should hear about why guys do nice things.” Barnes and Nobles netted some German and Latin textbooks as part of the Puddin' Language Exchange Program. I'm teaching him Latin and he's teaching me German. I'm pretty pleased with both of our progress so far and hope that we'll soon be international citizens. Probably the most satisfying part of the weekend, though, was when I decided to take down the apple tree in my front yard. It has started dumping apples all over my driveway and sidewalk. They're pretty nasty and not very tasty apples in the first place. So I've been anxious to take it apart. I had already cut off all the limbs I could reach from the ground or from standing on the Saturn's roof. But then I got the bright idea to climb the tree as I cut off limbs, being careful to not cut off my own exit from the tree or the limb I was standing on at the time. In about two hours I managed to cut everything off the tree that might bear fruit. It was a very satisfying feeling. Rich has been suggesting I join a gym so I could work out and relieve some stress. But tearing this tree apart literally limb from limb did more for me than any Stairmaster could. I had a vendetta against this tree. And while my arms have a good sore feeling to them today, I feel even better knowing I've bagged and bundled every last damn apple from my yard for the last time. Much like Scarlett O'hara at sunset, I declared with God as my witness I would never see another apple on my lawn again.

DLand - Happy Anniversary to Me

It's my third anniversary today ... third anniversary with my company that is. Three years ago today, Jer and I packed up all our stuff and drove across the state to start anew. I think it was the very next day I was on a plane headed to our annual convention. That was the convention that we all fondly look back on as the one where I was ready to kill Bossman and Dan. I think the term “yutz brothers” was used at one point. They sent me home early from that trip. Probably for the best.And thus began what I later termed the Year of Darkness in my marriage and life in general. It sucked all around. Jer was in a new city basically alone and unemployed, I was living in hotels more than at home, we rarely saw each other and when we did it was not pleasant. Sigh, how times change. Every year at work is better than the one before. And I'm a naturally optimistic person. So I can see a day when it will kick ass. It kicks ass occasionally now. And overall my job rocks. Just sometimes it makes me very very tired. This weekend was nice if too short. I worked from “home” on Friday so we hit the road soon after 5pm to head to Kevin and Jake's. Kevin was ready for us with delectable fajitas and we marvelled at Jake's dedication to putting together handouts for her classes. I must be a slacker when it comes to handouts. But at least I was a slacker with pink linen hosen! Actually, I had stayed up too late the nights before getting ready for my class in general and handouts of any great detail were just not going to happen. So maybe next year. University was fun and I really really enjoyed teaching my class. It was titled “How to Get into a Man's Pants” but most of it involved “How to get Izzy to take hers off and show how they were put together.” By the end of class I had to take 10 minutes to get dressed again. Dinner was excellent but I started getting sicker and sicker as the evening wore on. By the time we left Thornbury Cottage and I sat in the car, it all just rushed over me and I fell apart. Hurray for the Puddin' going back for pain pills from Jake (Hurray for Jake donating her codine to the cause) and then driving me home in my doped up state. By morning I didn't hurt anymore but I slept I think all of SUnday except for one short journey to the kitchen for dinner. I'm just now feeling human again. All in all a good weekend and a good day, but I think I'm up for a nap.

DLand - Hello World - a prgrammer's update

Hey, it's me again. I'm alive really. This is gonna be a choppy update, bear with me.We have a new mail server at work and it has a new SPAM filter in it. I can't tell you how pleased I am about the SPAM filter. I'm one of those lucky folks at the company who gets the emails that go to our product names or webmaster etc. I don't get nearly as much SPAM as Bossman but it's still over a hundred emails a day at times. Enough to warrant a better filter, in my opinion. The best part about this filter is that it has a report card at the top of each message showing why the spaminator deemed it an unsolicited email. It has great phrases in it like “contains lots of white space”, “as seen on national TV”, “gives an excuse about why you were sent this spam”, “contains 'G.a.p.p.y-T.e.x.t'“, and my favorite “no such thing as a free lunch”. The irony in all of this is that I now spend more time reading my spam just to see these than I ever did when it loaded into my Inbox. Work is the same crap, just a different day. I don't really want to talk about that so we'll skip that and move on. My parents are in the process of selling me a house - the house I currently rent from them. I may be a home owner by the end of the month. Pretty exciting if you ask me. I like my little neighborhood and living so close to the water. To that end, I've been hiring some yard work do get all the stuff done that I don't have the time or desire to do. This involves taking down a few small dead trees and removing the cursed apple tree from my front lawn. It has already started making disgusting apples and I'm just waiting for the birds and hornets to start arriving. That and if an apple hits my new car in the driveway, I'll tear the tree down with my bare hands. Daddy apparently got wind of my yard plans and snuck over on Memorial Day weekend to cut down my cherry trees. I think he's trying to save me money. I appreciate it but now I think I'm going to have the lawn people take down the apple tree instead. That is if Daddy doesn't beat them to it. The big news in DadLand is that he's losing his job. His job ends the end of this month. We're really all secretly pleased in that his job has gotten suckier and suckier for less and less money. And between my trees and home maintenance things, I've got plenty for him to do. He's taking it well and with good humor. This is a big change from the last time this happened 9 years ago (good grief, time flies). We suspect that he might learn to like being “retired” and his quality of life might improve. That's if he doesn't break his neck before the end of the month. Dad first showed me his impressive bruise that runs from his butt all the way down past his knee. It's like he sat in purple ink. He apparently fell off the hood of a minivan at the junkyard trying to get a windshield loose. And when I called Mom on Sunday she reported that Daddy had fallen out of the oak tree in the front yard. 19 feet - he measured it. Apparently he hit the ladder several times on the way down so that “broke his fall,” but still he's pretty banged up. I think his helper who was at the bottom of the ladder was more shook up about it than Dad was as he went home soon after that. But Dad kept cutting limbs, this time from the safety of the roof before going off to mow the lawn. Sometime my father just has too much energy and determination for his own good.