clearing my plate

Things have been pretty busy in Wasterland over the past few months. As a result, I've been slacking pretty bad on getting this thing posted on any sort of a regular schedule. I'm sorry for sucking.

I realized today, that writing is more difficult when I do it less often. When I do a weekly post, there's generally been one main activity to write about. It's pretty easy to select the subject matter when the choice is limited to one. Plus, it's totally fresh in my mind so I don't have to fictionalize my memories.

Last time I scribbled anything was right after the cruise, which was a full month ago. I've got a skull full of a month's worth of topics trying to get out, but no gentle and orderly way to release the jam.

So I'll just ramble on, in no particular order.

All the young'uns skipped school and spent the day with me on Take Your Kid and Make Them Work Day. Sam, Ethan, and Megan, plus Sam's bf helped me around the office for a few hours. They really did earn their lunch, too. They cleaned my whiteboards (and drew new pics), hung some corkboards, did some software installs, and helped with a bunch of inventory tasks. Then we took a walk up to Moe's for lunch.

btw - Moe's in Herndon has $2 beers all day every day. Welcome to Moe's!

I scraped all the Christopher Newport University stickers off the truck last weekend. When Joe first dropped out, I held on to the hope that he'd have a revelation. He'd get his act together and go back to school. My "CNU Dad" stickers would be legit again. Now he's been out for nearly a year, got married, and moved out of state, so I've accepted the fact that it'll probably be a long while before he focuses on education again.

A good friend of mine just recently started working with University of Phoenix (not in AZ, right here in NoVA) He's the guy that can help you get back on track with your own derailed education. They cater to working adults who have to balance jobs and schoolwork, so they really do understand your situation. Touch base w/ Brandon here: brandon.bonnette@phoenix.edu

Sam applied early-admission to both Radford and Longwood. She got accepted to both, so the admissions process ended rather quickly. She decided on Radford, did the dorm paperwork, and already had me sign the first check. I've got a lot of space on the truck windows to put up new stickers.

My school has been a struggle this semester. I've been putting off my final ENG class, "Writing for the Business Professional" for a long time, and finally had to hunker down and do it. It's kicking my tail. I can take a full load of senior tech classes without any troubles, but this stupid sophomore-level writing class just isn't what I'm cut out for. Midterms were this week, so I'll be done with ENG in 6 more weeks.

Work sucks. Way too busy, being pulled in way too many directions. It's still better than not working, but some of these sunshiney spring days makes me wonder how true that is.

I've already registered for two triathlons this year, and I'm looking into a third. Plus there's an open-water swim coming up at the end of the month that I might go after, too. My workouts have started to extend recently, and I'm just feeling good. It's pretty rewarding being 40 years old and feeling better now than I have in a long long time.

Besides, biking makes me smile.


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I seriously have dozens of submissions for the Waster sitting in my inbox. I've only got a few items here. Keep sending stuff, I promise it's not going into a black hole.

Geek out with this space/gravity/orbiting java app. Play with the presets for a bit before trying to monkey with the custom settings.

Bill had a slow week a while back. He must have sent 1/2 dozen games. The first to share: Starmaggedon!

Graphics suck. Music awful. Gameplay meh. But tossing a fat kid with a catapult overrides all the fails of this game.

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VA State Attorney Ken Cuccinelli is a moron and a prude.

Drunk-ass Jerry Jones talking smack about Bill Parcells and Tim Tebow.

Dan Snyder, defending his Redskins and yammering about the other sports teams he wants to buy.

I'm the other one. Plus, I can ride my bike with no handlebars.


Congrats from the Simpsons -> SouthPark.


Some old Sublime (like there's any legitimate new?) I love the double-hedgehog-cameo by Ron Jeremy.


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slackin' at slackin'

It's been a while since I totally missed a week of posting. I've phoned it in a few times, and turned in less than stellar efforts, but an entire whiff? I suck. Dom says I've been slackin' at slackin', and he's got it pegged.

We've been spun up hard these past few weeks in the office. We're within a couple days of completing the gubmint acceptance of the delivery, and most of the stress & tension are winding down now. They've been twisting and turning our tests in dozens of different directions, many of which are completely senseless. A lot of it is to be expected, as most of the testers don't have a very good understanding of what needs to be done. They're good people, well intentioned, but the gub put 'em into a position they shouldn't really be in.

But we do what we do, and shoulder the stress and tension the only way we know how: butt heads with each other a lot, make up creative insults, and sneak out for 3-beer lunches (mmmmmm..... Jimmy's).

The fall semester at school started at the same time as these 3 weeks of gubmint testing. It's a pain in the tail to have to do office-work all day, then do school-work all night. I'm in a pair of IT classes this semester, so the work is actually relevant to my job. An even bigger annoyance is that one of the professors just doesn't have his shiznit together. I think he knows the subject matter, but he's doing a craptastic job of doling out assignments and grading completed work.

So all this productivity is getting on my nerves. It's interfering with my sanity, and interfering with your good time on a Friday afternoon. I need to get back to the slack.

So I bailed from work early today. Me & the first lady are flying out to NYC for the weekend. We've got a full line-up of activities with family and friends. We have 10pm reservations tonight at the Best American Cocktail Bar 2009. It's in the speakeasy flavor, and I'll have much better info to share next week. (Lemme just say our host has me totally stoked for the maple & bacon-infused whiskey!)

Saturday morning, we're hitting up a Soccer bar football pub for a big inter-London rivalry game. I don't know much beyond "sanctioned beer for breakfast", but as long as I avoid the topic of how often they flop & dive, I won't get my tail whipped.

And to put the cap on the weekend? We're walking in the Grenwich Village Halloween Parade!

By the way, if you're staying in for the night, please don't hand out any of these 11 crappy "treats". It's a sure way to make little kids cry, and motivate teens to soap your windows.

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My eyes feel like they're gonna bleed.

The Smoking Gun contest - match the t-shirt in the mugshot with the band. Entries must be submitted by 4pm.

You shouldn't have to think while working, but as long as you're not thinking about working I guess it's OK. Bloxorz.

You could put a lot of thought into this game, too, or you could just blow stuff up.

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I don't know why the anti-vaxxers get under my skin so bad. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, it's the fact that their space-cadet viewpoint hurts little kids!

The Droid. Oh, please please please Verizon let me geek out soon. Please. Want.




The FaceBook express lane.... lets you keep up with your friends on FB but removes all the other crap. FaceBook Lite.

Owen Schmitt busts his own head open before the game starts:


The best remix of the SuperDrunkGuy vid I've seen:


But wait, there's more! If you click now, you can get your very own ChiaObama, plus one for Laura!

Awareness Fail (from FailBlog)


Musicians who hate the songs that made them famous. Robert Plant calls Stairway "that bloody wedding song".

One more flash of geekiness before I go....


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good news from the tri !

My sister's new house in Richmond is really, really nice. It's an old 1920's home in a cute little neighborhood, with a storybook fence along the front walk. The house has a had a big remodel, and is just gorgeous. She's done well.

The move itself went off without a hitch. We had the truck fully loaded Friday night. Saturday morning, the moving crew was in top gear. Lots of fam was there, along with a team of good friends. (Much love out to Jacob, Cheryl & her mom, Tyree, Becky, La & his cuz) We had the truck emptied in just a couple hours, with plenty of time afterwards to do a bunch of organizing and maintenance tasks. I kinna like busting out a job like that sometimes, but I sure am happy that's not how I earn my paycheck every week.

The Taylor Love Sprint Triathlon kicked off bright and early Sunday morning. Actually, "bright" is a poor choice of words. We had to be on site by 530am to get inked and checked in, and it was definitely still the middle of the night.

This was my second time running this race, so I was pretty excited to compare this year's performance to last year. I remarked last week that I was nervous about my preparation. The nerves got tighter & tighter right up until I got in the water. Once I kicked off the wall to start, my brain cleared and things fell right into place.

I couldn't have been happier with the results! The only number that got worse was my age! Swim & bike both kicked tail, but as you can see below, my run still sucks (pic of my bad form).

Start position (based on estimated swim time)
2008 - 157th
2009 - 116th (out of 330 people)

Finish position
2008 - 79th, 24th in the 35-39 age group
2009 - 54th, 16th in the 35-39 age group (next year I'm with the really old guys)

Swim - 300 yards
2008 - 12:24
2009 - 6:47

Bike - 17+ miles
2008 - 1:04:00 - 16.7mph avg speed
2009 - 0:57:09 - 18.5mph avg speed

Run - 2 miles
2008 - 18:58 - 9:29 avg mile
2009 - 18:04 - 9:02 avg mile

Total Time (includes transition times, like putting helmet & shoes on after swim)
2008 - 1:36:32
2009 - 1:25:17

Next year's goals (publicly shared, which makes it a lot harder to back out)
- Race in minimum three triathlon events
- At least one of those three is Olympic distance
- Get my run down to 7:30 / mile

Other news...

School finished up last week. Banged out both classes with an A. I'm on a break between semesters until the second week of October. It feels really good to have a bit of free time in the evening, especially since football season has started eating my Monday nights.

Kid2 abused her cell phone privs and got on her mom's bad side, and earned a restriction from text messaging for the past year or so. I think it punished me more than it punished her. The ban was lifted this week, so now I can chat with her while she's in class again.

Weekend plans - heading back down to the Richmond area again tomorrow. This time, we're checking out the VA State Fair. Rain or shine, no worries, there's a lot of indoor stuff to do, too. Last time we went was about 8 years ago, and we found a bunch of firetrucks at my house when we got home. The three cripples had a chimney fire at home while we were at the fair. (I'll tell that story sometime soon. It's worth the wait.)

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I really have no idea what to do with this one. The title makes me giggle like I'm 13 years old, though. The Glean of Glob.

Get high, without losing your clearance or going to jail.

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It Made My Day - Like Texts From Last Night, but with less embarrassing entries.

Top 10 weirdest moments from The Muppet Show.

Basic science info - This should be a pre-req for spawning or voting.

Facebook brings all your worlds together.

How throwback jerseys are hurting the NFL.

No comment.


Oh, my. Looks like someone shared a bit too much info about Josh's aim. (Headphones REQUIRED!)

Al Franken is a breath of fresh air in politics. So many of those jackoffs are so far removed from the real world, they've totally forgotten what their job is supposed to be all about.

Boom with the muay thai!


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crying about everything

I posted a Calvin & Hobbes comic a couple weeks back that generated more complaints than any of my whining ever has. It was the one where Calvin was being all growed up, and Hobbes turned back into a stuffed animal. Very sad. I hate when I have to be growed up, and people hated that I posted a sad comic. Maybe this will make up for it. Calvin older, but much happier...


Work has been kicking my tail these past couple weeks. We had a huge project in the works, moving our entire server room to another location up the street. The physical move took place this past weekend, but that was the easy part. Getting everything to play nice in the new network was simply a struggle. Practically every dependency we had on corporate infrastructure failed. There are a few network people who might be selling BigBites or driving pizzas in the near future...

School has been whipping up on me too. Quantity, mostly, not the challenge. We're all adults in class, so it's retarded to have us copying pages of sample code from the textbook. We have jobs & kids & housework to take care of. Teach the lesson & move on. If the students can't handle it, then we're mature enough to shoulder that responsibility. Personally, my reimbursement is pro-rated based on my grades, so you can be damn sure I'm going to smoke every single class.

Stupid people earn a lesser reimbursement; just count it as part of their stupidity tax for the month. Lump it in with their 23% credit card bill, pay-day loan, furniture rental, and shopping at BestBuy.

We had all the kids at home for dinner last night; first time in a couple weeks that we were all there at the same time. It took a while to realize what was bothering me about dinner, but eventually it clicked: We have too many damn kids. Seriously. WTF was the idea? Once they all get mated and start spawning, holidays will be a freaking clusterfck. The FirstLady will be cooking a freaking emu at Thanksgiving.

I'm intentionally not discussing anything football. I told the Skins last night that I was ready for some football, but they didn't seem to hear me.

Anyways, it's been a long couple weeks, and I'm really really really close to having a couple days off. The weekend should be pretty low-key - just hanging with the fam & grilling some burgers & brats.

These are the circles that have been running around in my head this week:


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Multi-tasking isn't just for work anymore.

I hated these maze games in real life, I don't know why I'm posting this one.

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I lied. One little football tidbit. Chris Cooley explains the league's dress code, and the fines they have to pay for violations.

Surprise church car-chase. Wait for it....


How to date out of your league. Trust me, I know alllll about this.

Dom still has a lot to learn...


Ha! SpongeDog SquareHead!


Go for it, Granny. I don't plan on getting old, either.
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i'm building an ark

If you use Facebook, please please PLEASE read this link. I'm tired of receiving your spam after your account gets hacked.

Usually I jot my thoughts down during the week, so by Friday you have a full week's worth of brain dump to entertain yourselves with. This week, I've really had nothing specific going on to bitch write about, so I'm stuck kinna rambling here during lunch today.

Kid1 is still working extremely part-time down at the Hole. With every week that he's not working full-time+, he's digging himself deeper and deeper. He's still got all the past-due bills from last year at school to pay before he can registration for next semester. His intention is to move into a campus apartment in July... that plan is on really shaky ground now.

I did offer to reimburse him for all of his school expenses on a pro-rated basis. Better grades = better reimbursement. I'll pick up the tab 100% if he lays down all A's & B's.

The other kids are all winding up for the end of the school year. They all had solid grades at the last report card, and we haven't heard anything recently to lower our expectations. They've got just about 3 weeks left before they're free for the summer. I miss those days a lot. I've got 3 weeks til the end of my current semester, and 4 weeks til the new semester begins.

Kid2 is taking her SATs on Saturday morning. She's playing it off like she's really not worried, but I can see the twinges of anxiousness in her eyes whenever the topic comes up. I think she's got pretty high hopes for getting in to any college she wants to, and knows that a good bit of weight rides on this test. We all know that you can take it more than once, but she's pretty aggressive and totally wants to nail it in a single shot.

The rest of the weekend is full of other famstuff. We're getting together Sunday to do family pics. We do pics with the kids annually, but it's been a while since we've had pics of the 'rents & sibs & kids & errybody. A good family friend happens to have a fantastic eye for making us goofballs appear to be a halfway normal family unit.

(If you think you're kinna funny looking too, but want really good pics, get in touch with Kerry at K & R Photography.)

After the pics, we're heading to my little bro's for a BBQ and house-warming party. He's all growed-up now, with a mortgage and a lady to keep him in line. So we're cooking burgers on his new grill on his new back deck, and probably moving furniture around for him, too.

My buddy Eddi is coming into the states for a couple weeks. If he's got the desire, he'll be an honorary goofball at the BBQ. We're not putting him in the pics though. That would lead to too many questions....

Besides that, nothing much going on around here. Except rain. Lots n lots n lots of rain. Please quit raining before the weekend. Please?


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Puppy Curling would be a heckuva lot more entertaining if you could use the broom on the pups. (Credit to Manda for sending this game forever ago.)

Blow stuff up, including your opponent, and get hidden power ups. The title says it all: Playing with Fire.

If the invisible man starred in movies, Name This Movie.

You suck at online games. Bullet Time proves it. Game over, before you even start.



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20 years later, this guy still has the biggest nads:


CrouchTards

Not all old people suck, these two can still light the fire:


Eric told me he trips old ladies at the mall, too. Just for fun.


The ladies' answer to the Jizz in My Pants guys...



(giggle)


This is not a happy ending.


Yes, it was staged. Quitcherbitchin; you know better. Think it was just coincidence that the camera zooomed in on him before the 'accident'?


I need basketball, hockey, and baseball to hurry up and be done so it can be football season again.




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