Halloween 2007

Halloween 2007 is officially over for us. I believe the teenagers I just dumped handfuls of candy upon were our last harrah. Conner came over to visit this year and he and Eryn bundled into the wagon to cruise the neighborhood. Conner was a very pink princess (at least he had a pink dress and a tiara) and Eryn was an octopus, outfit courtesy of Grandma Ellen. She wasn't sure what she wanted to be this year, and I thought to myself...what would a blogger wear? I couldn't formulate an appropriate blogger idea, so my train of thought moved to, what would a blogger I've met wear? And the first thing that came to mind was P.Z. Myers obsession with cephalopods. Eryn was excited about being an octopus...although I imagine she was picturing the one on The Wiggles. Pooteewheet showed her a bunch of videos on YouTube to get her in the octopus-ing mood.



Conner in his dress and tiara.


Approaching a scary door. Not the scariest, but at their age they're all just a little scary.


This was probably the scariest door. Scary faces in the upper windows, an arm hanging out the car door in the driveway, tombstones, monsters, stacks of skulls...the kids didn't know what to think.


One of the videos Pooteewheet showed Eryn was the one where the octopus eats the shark. She reenacted it for us.


Mmmm....delicious.


A close up. I don't think you can see the buttons on the arms - they actually snap into various places so you can rearrange the arm configuration.


And finally, a video of Eryn's octopus dance. I hope you're not a shark.

Weekend at Large

My weekend was all over the place. I already posted about working on the rental property on Friday, and we followed up with more of the same today - painting, cleaning, scrubbing, picking up old cigarettes. Eryn was a big help with that last part. It was interesting to note that in a house that didn't allow smoking, all the paint near the entryway, which was painted the same interior color as the rest of the house six months ago, was now a yellowish color (I repainted) that brightened back to the orginal white the further you got from the door. Pretty sure that wasn't the sun. I hadn't posted a picture of the Pod completely full of junk, so here it is, just to provide some closure.


Did you know that while you're away, the Furnace Fairy can show up and leave you information about the PPM CO and % of O2 your furnace is producing? Intriguing. I guess it might have been Furnace Claus, but Furnace Fairy is much more amusing. Regardless, the Furnace Fairy left a nice note under my pillow that indicated no need to fix my furnace - better than a quarter!
Does anyone know why in Stargate SG-1, they always build their towns so close to the stargate if they're worried the parasite aliens are going to show up unannounced and enslave random villagers? Wouldn't they be better off building far away and setting up some sort of relay system? After all, it's not like the parasitic aliens come rolling in riding Humvees or something, they're just casually walking. You'd think with a few miles between you and the stargate you'd almost never get caught. I mean, even the ones who do hide don't run for cover until they see the lights flashing in their backyard. Just saying.

Yesterday was Conner's third birthday, so we traveled out to Maple Lake (I hate Maple Lake - I got a ticket from a crooked cop there) to enjoy a very tasty breakfast courtesy of his grandpa and grandma and deliver a big set of Home Depot tools. We generally try to stay away from things with lots of pieces that make lots of noise and use lots of batteries, but we'd been good for three years, so it was time for a trifecta. Here the kids are exploring the difference between flat head and phillips. Pooteewheet is realizing she sat on one of those plastic screws and likes it.


Dan and Eryn wondering when the cake is going to be served or whether there will eventually be beer because someone drank all the champagne for the mimosa, but none of the orange juice. I'll leave it to you to decide which one likes cake and which one likes beer.


The birthday monster. No, he wasn't really a monster, he was just pretending. That orange frosting is serious stuff. The adults made due with less sugary fare (and ice cream).


Eryn at Cookie Queen's parents' house just hanging at their Halloween display. Do you know why warlocks can't have babies? They have hollow weenies! My mother told me that one. Apparently it's on a big sign in Tucson, AZ. Cookie Queen told me that there was a guy dressed up as Michele Bachmann at the costume party they went to the evening of Conner's birthday. She said it involved him explaining to everyone that he was Michele Bachmann. You'd think God would have told them before she got there.


Eryn took a self portrait during some downtime. Here's her eyeball.


In my down time I did some drinking with Kyle. We swung by Blue Max Liquors and found a variety of tasty looking concoctions. Short review, The Poet was actually pretty good for a porter - no funny aftertaste, really drinkable. My favorite out of the four below. Flying Dog Octoberfest - a good Octoberfest, but I think they all taste very similar (Octoberfests that is, not Flying Dogs). Snow Storm - varies from year to year. Good this year, but certainly not up to the year they did that berry thing. Killer Penguin barleywine - good. A bit light on the alcohol for a barleywine. However, the $5.50 price tag pretty much guarantees I won't buy it again, because for that price it better be quite a bit more than "good", it better be exceptional.

Post Eviction

I now have the wonderful experience of having evicted someone under my belt. To be entirely truthful, my brother experienced it more than me, as he was the one who went to court (just for the eviction so far. The money is a separate visit), but it's also my company, so it was also my evicting. I have to say I am not impressed. Not impressed that someone would take advantage of us even though we tried to make things work for her. Not impressed that someone would leave behind an entire garage full of what seems to be garbage. The rules for post-eviction garbage are that you must keep it for 60 days. So yesterday I spent my day off loading old tires, handcuffs, male review cards, probation notices, mother's day cards, crosses (the Christian kind for your walls), furniture, and Halloween baskets (yep, they left their daughter's Halloween baskets and Easter baskets behind) into a Pod so that it can be stored for a few months before it's dumped. Heck of a good time.

My friend Ming always likes to see visual proof that I'm not just some crazy, grumpy landlord making things up, so Pooteewheet visually detailed some of it for him. These pictures don't really do the whole thing justice as they don't show the Pod completely loaded with junk, and they don't show all the furniture from inside the house that had to be moved to the garage, and then to the Pod. The dressers with food in it, old condom wrappers, kids toys, and what seemed like an endless supply of shoes. Here's against the wall, closest to where you'd go in the house.


Far side of the garage. That near basket has what looks like a bullet proof vest in it, but which I think is an exercise vest, and somewhere in there is a "how to sell cleaning supplies to your neighbors by showing them the effect the have on your house" sellers kit. That closest space eventually was filled up with a sofa, loveseat, dresser and several chairs.


Old washer and dryer. Her's, not ours. We provide nicer ones in the laundry room. Note the political sign...Lloyd Cybart, local Republican. Yes...rent skipping, junk leaving, poop and blood in a bedroom (puppy, I hope) leaving, no-yard work, probation notice in garage, evicted renter is a hardcore Christian Republican. Hard working, house fixing, works with section 8 landlords...Democrats. So Lloyd Cybart...what is it that makes you the candidate for people who want to break their leases and not pay their rent? Is it that Guardian of Small Businesses award? I realize you can't control the people who vote for you, but your supporters have certainly not helped swing my vote toward the Republican camp.


And the beginning of moving the furniture into the garage. We had to pile stuff on top of the couch and loveseat just to make sure we had a path to get out of the garage.


Finally...just to make it more interesting, you can watch the video. Not exciting, but maybe it'll give you a better feel for how big of a mess we were wandering around in.

Pre-Halloween

Before the pre-Halloween post, I'd like to note that the dodge ball Hanes commercial that's currently on t.v. made me think about blogging. Why? Because Planet Dan frequently blogs about his experiences on the Crazy Cooters kick ball team and kick ball and dodge ball are close enough in my mind that now all I can picture when I read his blog is a bunch of locals playing kick ball in their underwear. And then I realize that if it was warm enough out, and based on Dan's blogging history, he might just do that.

The fact that the person who posted the video doesn't know the difference between basketball and dodge ball is funny. I realize they might be from abroad - but I could tell you the difference between most sports or, if I couldn't, I'd at least blog "playing a game" in a generic manner instead of displaying I didn't know basketball wasn't played with rubber court balls (point: if it's basketball, then why does the NBA hire all those 7' tall players when the goal seems not to get hit with the ball?)

I also wondered this week why the Saxaboom video on YouTube with Eryn playing her Saxaboom was so popular. It's racking up several hundred hits. It occured to me that typing "saxaboom" into YouTube might reveal the reason. It was something of a surprise to see all sorts of saxaboom videos, including Jack Black and Tenacious D getting down on a Saxaboom (Eryn could be in their band...they have a similar playing style). It was strange that I'd just forwarded footage from what seems to be this same concert to Mean Mr. Mustard this week, except it was "gollum" singing with Tenacious D.

So...pre-Halloween. Grandma Ellen's costume wasn't here on Thursday when Eryn had to go to her Halloween party at day care, so Pooteewheet bought her an orange shirt that said "Boo!" instead and some Halloween socks. She's been wearing the outfit for three days now. Pooteewheet had to wash it overnight just to make sure it was available and clean. I was feeling ill, so I didn't get to go (pretty sure I caught something at work. There were a few sick individuals in my space earlier in the week), but Eryn apparently had a blast.


This was one of the fathers that showed up. He actually lives very close to me. Pooteewheet says he takes two days off of work every Halloween. One day to set up his haunted house in the garage. One day to take down the haunted house. Apparently his outfit was a hit with the kids who were fascinated, but wouldn't really get within ten feet of him. On the trip back from Conner's birthday party today, we used him as an explanation of why Eryn did not want to go on a haunted trail. We noted that individuals like Mr. Scary don't loiter ten feet away for inspection at most haunted trails/houses, but instead pop out of nowhere and grab you. Eryn wasn't entirely convinced this was a problem, but she was really giving the idea the consideration it deserved rather than just insisting she needed to go. We're trying to keep her from being freaked out about haunted houses when she's older, like my sister, who at a very young age watched me get abducted by haunted house monsters (turns out they were Boy Scouts from St. Michael who knew me) and hasn't been quite the same since.


The games seemed fun. Eryn played a bit of throw the beanbag at the plastic pumpkin heads (like in pagan days of yore/gore).


And swung at the pinata (like in Mexican days of yore/gore). Pooteewheet says Eryn was so excited about getting her hands on a Tootsie Roll that she immediately began eating it and didn't grab any other candy. I hope that zone carries over to sports and academics some day.


Leftovers: this is a video for my parents of Eryn at the aiport in Tucson right after the sugar-caffinated confection my mother bought for her (which was topped off with some of my caffinated coffee to make the ice melt). I'm surprised she wasn't a bit more squirrley on the airplane.

In Which Blood is in the Air

I found this Wondermark cartoon very funny. I've always wondered why someone hasn't done something similar to me.

Twin Cities Code Camp

Luke Francl has this link to Twin Cities Code Camp (don't believe his link, follow mine. Here are the sessions) up on his site. There's a little bit for everyone at the Twin Cities Code Camp: WPF, Sharepoint, Managed Memory, AJAX, REST (Luke himself), BTS, SSIS (SQL Server), Hibernate, JRuby, WCF, Amazon web services. True, a little .NET centric, but so am I. Personally, I'd be interested just because I have a coworker presenting. He noted that it will be ironic to be at code camp when legal won't let him show any actual code, but he's still ironing out the possibilities with them.

Say "howdy" if you see me there (courtesy of Klund).

Tongue Thrust

It was my six month cleaning and check up at the dentist this morning, and for the first time since I had to complain about my tooth hurting so bad I need a root canal I had a few questions. Question one, do I have to put Eryn on my insurance, or can I just bring her in for cash/credit? The answer was as I expected, it depends on your comfort zone vis-a-vis the safety net...i.e. if you're freaked that she might get a mouth full of cavities and need all sorts of work, put her on insurance. If you're expecting routine cleaning and just some hanging out to get used to the dentist and your insurance is going up 20$+ a month just because of her dental, bring her in twice for a $100 a pop (less taxes...yea flex plan) and call it good. Then she said, "Of course, if she's a sugar fiend..." Sigh. Does it count that she doesn't drink sugared pop?

Question two - my front teeth have spread an almost unnoticeable amount. Age? Nope...she explained to me while John Cougar's "Hurts so Good" was playing in the background that it was "tongue thrust". She had my immediate attention. But it wasn't anything exciting. Rather it has to do with how I rest my tongue. Most likely I rest it against the front of my teeth instead of in the natural tongue socket where it belongs, and I should give myself cues so that I put it back where it belongs. I would guess it has to do with programming and sitting around with my tongue against the back of my teeth...and being lazy. So...how do I fix it? She told me I had to do tongue exercises. Train my tongue to stay in the place it belongs. Ah, back on (double) intendred ground. My teeth are clean, but I feel so very, very dirty.

Jesus Camp

I guess I should apologize for being missing in action lately. I think I blogged more often while I was on the road to Arizona. Things have been catching up with me. Yet another rental property to turn over (not a new one, an eviction), lots to do at work (currently running a background process to update records as we speak), and a bunch of biking (I've been trying to find someone who will go on RAGBRAI, the ride across Iowa, with me next year. Kyle...? Hmm? Come on...you know you want to, and you have 8 months to train).

But in the midst of all of that, Pooteewheet and I found some time to go to Jesus Camp at the Lagoon this weekend while Eryn was up at Grandpa's and Grandma's. If you're not familiar with Jesus Camp (I think I blogged the trailer quite a while ago), it's a documentary about Pentacostal Christians and, in particular, their summer camp in Devil's Lake, North Dakota. What do Pentacostals do at summer camp you ask? Oh, I know you're asking...don't deny it. For starters, they pray over their Powerpoint presentations. Yep...they actually voice, out loud, a prayer to God to protect their power and, in particular, their Powerpoint presentation. A righteous God would despise Powerpoint presentations...at least most of them. I'm certain he'd despise those where worshippers use a font that looks like dripping blood to scare children.

After all, if praying over Powerpoints worked, then praying over C# and Java code would work. Rather than unit testing, I could just spend 10% of my time praying that no bugs would surface and that my interfaces and WSDLs would know the blessed peace of optimal interoperability. And you know if prayer over C# and Java enterprise solutions actually worked, there would be a business in hiring offshore contractors to do the praying so the developers could focus on development. You'd be busy coding away and the code would move to QA...and there'd be a bug. Tracker! I'd call offshore, or contact the onshore liaison,

"Hey...I got a tracker. Someone isn't praying hard enough."

"That is a very difficult feature, Scott. Perhaps you should increase the priority so it receives more prayer."

"Do I need to request prayer for both the original feature and the tracker?"

"If you provide a detailed prayer and testing plan, perhaps we can get them both in under the same Hail Mary."

"This seems like a showstopper. Maybe we should just add a few more people."

"We can't escalate to showstopper-level praying without VP approval."

"Yeah...I'll pray for that. You just keep praying for my tracker. I bet you get an answer first."


Hyperbole, by the way. My VP is very friendly and responsive.

I think Pooteewheet's favorite part was when the preacher was telling the kids how sin was like grabbing a tiger by the tail, and then she started swinging around a stuffed lion. And both of us agreed the main kid in the documentary needed to shave off his mullet. He's not Sampson - that crap has to go (it was a little shocking to see his idol, a famous preacher, actually talk down to him...I couldn't tell if it was jealousy of youth, jealousy of preaching, or what - it was just backhanded mean).

Well worth watching, though I wish they had stuck to just letting the camera run rather than cutting back to Air America now and then. They didn't really need to drive home any point - the whole camp praying for a cardboard cutout of George W. was more than any talk radio host could pull off.

Singing Toilet

I was just in the downstairs bathroom and heard singing. Sort of like you'd expect to hear if you were in the desert and a lot of people were ululating far away. It got louder, quieter, increased in pitch, sounded like a few others joined in with differing voices, then they faded out and left a solitary singer. It was down right strange. I looked all around and then finally popped the top off the tank and it got significantly louder. So I gave the float a jiggle and it disappeared. My toilet is full of the spirits of the damned...I'm a little creeped out.

Code and Feminism

Not an intersection, just two separate bits. If you work with .NET code at all, you'll appreciate that I spent part of today being incredibly irritated that a page that worked on my desktop did not work in any other environment. Why? Because the autowireup wasn't working correctly. At some point, when we switched to .NET 2.0, my page lost its links between the controls, including Page_Load, and the codebehind. Seriously annoying. Particularly as that doesn't stop anything from successfully compiling, it just stops it all from having any interactive behavior. Bhavin pointed out he'd run into something similar and had to manually wire up his events. So after 30 minutes of wiring every event I could find, I thought, hey...what if I just go out to the front page, fix the small bit of abnormal HTML VS 2005 is reporting and then just click on all the items that should be wired up. Could have saved myself a lot of time if I had just started that way.

If you enjoy Colbert, Huffington Post has a video from his show where he's cooking with Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem (via Norwegianity) and discussing their media venture, Greenstone Media. Very amusing. I hope they fare better than Air America.

I Talk to the Foleybot

I had to spend a full hour on the phone talking to Reliant Energy appliance repair and billing (separately), so I took some time to have a discussion with the Congressman Foley imbot (via Chris Dykstra at New Patriot). I apologize for any mispellings. It's difficult to type with just one hand.

You: hello, how are you?
foleyimbot: what you wearing
You: I'm wearing black pants and a purple polo
foleyimbot: what you wearing
You: I told you already
foleyimbot: take it out
You: my cell phone or my wallet?
foleyimbot: well strip down and get relaxed
You: I am relaxed, that's why I'm talking to the foleybot
foleyimbot: well dont ruin my mental picture
You: You have to have something with which to form a mental
picture, bra
foleyimbot: ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
You: I agree, the University of Minnesota ROCKS
foleyimbot: i always use lotion and the hand
You: at a U of MN game? that's risque' and makes it hard to
catch an errant ball...
foleyimbot: well I have aa totally stiff wood now
You: pine?
foleyimbot: what you wearing
You: you're irritating me...just to spite you, I put on a
pnk hat
foleyimbot: well I have aa totally stiff wood now
You: oak?
foleyimbot: ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
You: Now I'm beginning to think you mean U of Montana, and
they absolutely sux
foleyimbot: i always use lotion and the hand
You: you keyboard must be messy
foleyimbot: so you got a stiff one now
You: drink? I'm going to need one if I talk to you much
longer
foleyimbot: well dont ruin my mental picture
You: you thought I didn't drink? I don't think my profile
listed me as a teetotaler...I suppose you thought I was 16
and couldn't drink
foleyimbot: is your little guy limp...or growing
You: LIttle guy? Are you talking about my friend Dan or my
friend Kyle? Sure, they're shorter than me, but I never
call them "little guy", not to their faces
foleyimbot: ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
You: I think you're just dropping the c or something you
perv
foleyimbot: take it out
You: no
foleyimbot: do you really do it face down
You: If I coded any other way I'd have to acknowledge what I
do for a living
foleyimbot: you need a massage
You: who says I'm not getting one right now? Pooteewheet!
Come give me a massage - Congressman Foley says you owe me!
foleyimbot: did you spank it this weekend yourself
You: as opposed to not by myself? I guess that doesn't
really answer the question, which could be seen as
incriminating, so no, I did not spank myself, herself, or
anything else
foleyimbot: still stiff
You: I get that way after biking
foleyimbot: what you wearing
You: Well, I added that hat and now I put on mittens
foleyimbot: good so your getting horny
You: just because I'm wearing mittens? You really are a
creep. You're probably picturing me spanking it while
wearing nothing but my mittens and a hat as Pooteewheet
gives me a long massage...hey...that doesn't sound half
bad...see ya later Congressman
foleyimbot: how my favorite young stud doing
You: shhh...can't talk...busy

All Back and Settled In

After 8 hours in the air yesterday...actually 5 hours, with 1.5 hours on the ground in Vegas, and another 1.5 hours on the ground in the plane that was delayed due to storms outside Vegas, Eryn and I are officially back and settled in. Baggage unpacked. Pooteewheet happy to see us. Relatives from the other side already making up time by visting today (got to meet my niece Sofia for the first time today - I was in Chicago when she was born, I just wasn't available to visit).

Eryn and I had a great time driving my Grandma from Minnesota to Arizona. Eryn is now fully cognizant that "Grandma Madeline" is Dad's mom and refers to her as Grandma Madeline, rather than "old Grandma" as she did last year when we visited her in Yuma (my nephew started that). Four days seems like a long time to travel in a minivan across the U.S. with your grandmother/great-grandmother (depending on whether you're me or Eryn), but it was just enough time to really have some fun and get to hang with Grandma more than I had since I was a just-teenager (and the most ever for Eryn). We have some good pictures to hang on Eryn's wall now so she can remember her vacation with (Great) Grandma and meeting her (Great) Aunt Bonnie and (Great) Uncle John for the first time.

Sort of related, here are some leftover videos from the trip. The Saxaboom...annoying horn that must have been created in hell. If you doubt me, put it on a loop and watch it for a few hours.

And Pokey and Gumby mugging for the camera with a touching kiss from Gumby at the end. I'm sure it'll leave you with a warm feeling for the day.

The Departed

Pooteewheet told me she went to The Departed while I was gone and really enjoyed it. I just watched it at the Tucson mall and I can't shake the concern that maybe what she enjoyed was the therapist indulging in a Matt Damon/Leonardo Dicaprio sandwich.

Brrrrr.....

I had to walk to the end of the driveway in my bare feet this morning with my cup of coffee to get Grandma the newspaper. When I got back, the linoleum in the house felt so cold against my feet. I bet it's just like that in Minnesota.

I Hear It's Like 29 Degrees in Minneapolis

That's really too bad...snow on my deck...flurries all over...and my biggest issue was getting too much sun today even though Eryn wouldn't let me leave the top down on the covertible all afternoon. So...what's going on with Eryn and Daddy go to Arizona 2006? Well...it's a much different beast than last November. This year we elected to drive my grandmother to Arizona so she could get her car from Montana to Arizona. She does fine in the city at 91 years old, but going cross country by herself is a bit more than she can handle. So, Eryn and I bundled into her minivan and drove the 1780 miles to Tucson with my Dad riding convoy pulling his motorcycle and a load of her stuff. It was almost like Smokey and the Bandit - you know, when Bandit is actually in the Snowman's truck? That's right...consider me a young Burt Reynolds and Eryn Sally "Frog" Fields and you've got an appropriate picture of our journey.

Except driving through Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas is sort of like sitting in my cube if it were going 70 mph. Actually, sitting in my cube while it was moving at 70 mph might be preferrable - at least I could surf the web. Instead, I spent my time chuckling about the number of Kum and Go's (hey, Tall Brad thinks they're funny too), and really being amused at the Cumming Kum & Go. After the Cumming K&G, all I found myself doing for the next several hundred miles was composing dirty limmericks in my head. For instance, this is perhaps my favorite:

There once was a mathematician from Cumming
Who thought he'd do some summing
His wife gave him some time
To add 60 and 9
Then praised him for being so cunning.

Although this one was my first try...I abandoned it as not witty enough as plumming doesn't really pun against anything else in the limmerick. She'd have to be a plumber, but saying "female plumber from Cumming" is sort of ponderous.

There once was a woman from Cumming
Who everyone agreed was quite stunning
Yet she liked to do blow
In the lot of the Kum & Go
so everyone had explored her plumming.

Yeah, yeah, I was riding cross country with my daughter and grandmother and composing mental dirty limmericks, but that should stress to you the level of my BOREDOM. I prefer to think of myself as Chinese Gordon in Thomas Perry's novel "Metzger's Dog", happily composing obscene lyrics to "Bringing in the Sheaves".

Grandma was a source of relief now and then. She told me a rather long story about my aunt having a premonition of a bank robbery - she was working at the bank. So she took off from work an hour early and told them they should watch the money. That can't be the sort of story that does your career any good, regardless of whether the robbers show up or not (supposedly, they did).

The highlight of the first part of the trip was hitting a Russell Stovers outlet for Nerds and ice cream. Neither Eryn nor I are Bridges of Madison County kind of folks. However, Eryn and I are very alike in that during our first night in a hotel, she made me stop on Lawrence Welk where five women were singing "It's a Small World". I Used to watch Welk obsessively as a kid, pretty much to the consternation of everyone. Maybe it was the powder blue outfits that kept me mesmerized.

We had our first real stop in Kansas when we visited my relatives, rather than Mesa Verde, as we'd originally intended. I know Mesa Verde isn't in Kansas, that's not the point. Eryn got to meet my Uncle John, Aunt Bonnie (Mom's sister), and cousin Cindy (one of my older cousins) for the very first time. John and Bonnie's kids were instrumental in my childhood. It was their horrible ability to hide their copies of Star Trek porn that led to my fascination with both naked women and Star Trek (though not as a gestalt). My mother explained that they caught holy hell for that whole episode. Here's my grandmother, and my Uncle John talking to Eryn. I told Eryn the story about how he once sort of beat me up. I deserved it - I whacked him good as a kid, just ran into him (something I used to do to my Dad - knocked him out once), and he wrestled me to the ground and put the fear of God (well, Uncle John) in me...that crap didn't fly in his book. It's important to know you can't push old folks around.


Here we all are, Aunt Bonnie and myself added to the mix. I have an M growing out of my head. Makes me look like a Playboy bunny, eh?


In Kingman, Kansas, there was an amusing, in a disturbing way, display as you drove through town. On one end of town a Confederate flag flew proudly, almost hanging into the street. On the other end of town has a big sign stating "An American Holocaust: 55 Million Babies", an obvious display of absolutely no idea what the holocaust was about. All in all, it was a touching display of skinhead sentiment. Shortly afterwards, we were almost run off the road. I can't help but think it was all related.

It was shortly after this that I was changing Eryn at a gas station and came across this sign advertising local services:

Need Help?
Rent a Beaver Wrestler!
There's no job we can't handle.
Call ###-###-####.
Ask for Colby.

Who couldn't use a beaver wrestler? Maybe Pooteewheet can call up Colby while I'm gone if Mean Mr. Mustard hasn't already set her up with Tall Brad. The attendent at the gas station was extremely worried that I was up to something back by the bathrooms as I was trying to steal the sign for Pooteewheet. There was a long discussion with the other patrons and finger pointing at me outside the store. I don't think they had a clue what I'd done.

Speaking of changing diapers, we went through Liberal, Kansas. Here's the exchange in the van...

Me: Something smells.
Eryn: It's me, I pooped.
Me: Nope, trash dump.
Me: Something smells.
Eryn: It's me, I pooped.
Me: Nope, National Beef.
Me: something smells.
Eryn: It's me, I pooped.
Me: Yep, it's you, you pooped.

Liberal is the first place I've ever seen a Halliburton office. I assume they ship National Beef to the Gulf? I didn't stop in and thank them for the oil money I received, although the thought did occur to me. While I was pondering it, grandma broke into a story about how much my grandpa liked apple pie. I remember him eating McDonald's apple pie all the time. Now I'll associate apple pie, my grandpa, dirty diapers, beef rendering and solid waste all in a single sensory perception.

There were more hitchhiker stories. Grandma told a story about my aunt picking up a hitchhiker who was out of gas. He bought his own gas and bought her some gas. Grandma said she told my aunt she needed a guy like that. Generous and polite guys are hard to come by. Grandma thinks my aunt should marry kind hitchhikers...this is just bad relationship advice. Grandmothers should give advice like "never marry a hitchhiker". That's sound. I have to remember to remind Eryn of that fact when we're done in case the hitchhiker stories sank in a little too deep.

It rained, by the way. All the way through chunks of New Mexico and Arizona. It freaking poured. You can see some of it in that last YouTube post. How much did it rain? It rained so much that we were rained out of White Sands, New Mexico. The driving tour ended about 4 miles in because there was too much water on the roads. This is the SECOND time I've been screwed at White Sands in 11 years. Last time Pooteewheet, my friend Jay and I were driving down from Minnesota to my parents' house for the first time, and the budget issues of the day shut down all the national parks. We pined for a while outside the petroglyphs, and stared longingly at White Sands while a stealth jet flew over our cartop window. Interesting - but not entrace into White Sands. However, this time we actually did get to play in the sand. Eryn, John and I played tag for a while. I hadn't realized you could slide down the dunes, and Eryn was a bit miffed at me for not being willing to buy her a sled. I pointed out I didn't want a sled she was going to use once, because I wasn't willing to fly it back to Minnesota. She was very angry and compared it to how Nemo felt when his dad (Marlin) told him he couldn't touch the butt. It's good to have analogies. A nice young lady loaned us her slide for a few runs, so Eryn did get to partake of sliding in sand. She was thrilled and still talks about what a good job she did, only putting down her feet (to stop herself from going too fast) a few times.

Here she is sitting in the sand. I couldn't get this stuff out of my shoes for days...it just kept ending up in my socks everytime I put on a new pair. The stuff is so fine you just can't brush it off where it needs brushing off.


Educational moment. Gypsum plant stands - I didn't know what they were. Now I do.


Here's a live one (well, it was live for me). You can't see the guy and his girlfriend doing sexy poses where it runs into the dune...that's for the best. She was cute...her poses were good. He was not so sexy.


Here's Eryn and I posing against the dunes. We left very similar footprints on the floor of everything else we came into contact with.


And what the hell is this? I take back my offer to put Pooteewheet in touch with Colby the Beaver Wrestler. Obviously she's already been to White Sands and hooked up with Trev. Eryn wants to know who Trev is...I don't blame her.


Here's grandpa coming up the hill just before Eryn declared "Sand Fight!" Grandpa's not so smart. He said, "What's that?" right before he was hit with a handful of fine, white sand.


Did I mention it was raining? This is New Mexico somewhere near Santa Rosa. Did you know there are giant lakes all over the place?


This is the 4 Winds in Carrizozo, New Mexico. It was a backwater little town, literally given all the rain, but it had the best homemade cake I've had in a long time. I suspected the cake on the counter couldn't have been an import, given we were 60+ miles from anywhere, and I was correct. Eryn managed to eat all the frosting off the back while I was eating the spice-carrot part. She must have consumed half a cup or more of white frosting. Rest of the food was pretty good too - it was a nice change from some of the crapholes we'd eaten at to date (like Dean's in Tucumcari, which was folksy, but not particularly good).


With all that rain, grandma was convinced we were going to die. She pointed out what she thought looked like a tornado. I said it wasn't. She said it was what was left of a tornado. There was no convincing her otherwise. Near Las Cruces, gonads of New Mexico (seriously, it's right next to "Organ"...and if you look at New Mexico, that dangly thing must be the wang, so the only other candidates are Deming or Lordsburg), there was rain so thick you couldn't see the headlights of the car in front of you. Moments later there was the loud thunk of a rock hitting the top of the van, which turned into hundreds of thunks as the hail rained down. Serious hail. We lost the windshield on Grandma's van later when the nicks expanded into a full crack. We called my dad to warn him and could hear the patter on his phone as the stones bounced off his truck. Neither car took any body damage, but his trailer looks like someone took a hammer to the front of it (lighter metal).

It was near this time that Grandma told Eryn, in response to some endevour, perhaps maintaining her compsure after waking up from a nap during the hail storm, covering her ears, and screaming like a mad woman, "Grandma's guntin' for ya'." This reminds me of She Says' post about made up words. Personally I thought it was a bit creepy sounding. I don't want anyone guntin' for me.

Later, on the way to dinner, Grandma tried to run away from the storm clouds. She was literally out of breath trying to get across the parking lot and into the restaurant before

In Arizona we stopped at Bowie to find some local New Mexico wine. I bought Pooteewheet a Syrah and a Merlot, sight untasted. However, I got to try the Merlot at my parents' house, so I'm pretty sure she'll enjoy it.

By the way, more stories about hitchhikers. Hitchhikers grabbing women who rolled out of the car at 50 mph. Hitchhikers who were stuck in rain and hail and everyone crawled in the back seat to give them shelter. Hitchhikers with hearts of gold. Hitchhikers up to no good. The woman is obsessed.

Well...we got to Tucson after four days (about 500 miles a day), and this is Eryn looking all chipper outside Grandpa and Grandma's house. They have new paving stones, so it looks pretty nice. Before if you'd have walked out here you'd have been walking in rocks, weeds and various bugs.


Here she is in front of the new stones in the front - address included if you come looking for us.


This was taken at the local tourist trap in Tucson. There are cutouts, a train, etc. This is what Eryn would look like if she wore dresses more often...and used a parousel.


There's a miniature golfing place right next door. Here's Eryn pretending to be a bridge troll. Mostly it's just cute. Far cuter than her smiling or grinning pictures. There are two courses. She did one set with me the first day and the second with Grandpa and I the next. She beat him on two out of 18 holes and actually stroked a hole in one. Sweet.


Another picture of her lining up for a putt.


And back to the tourist trap...Eryn in jail.


This is Eryn modeling the new shirt grandma sewed for her. She had a pink jacket outfit grandma made that she loved and outgrew (LissyJo's daughter now wears it), so she got an upsized version. Little warm for the jacket down here, however.


Eryn hugging a tiger.


And me inappropriately touching the same tiger. Oh...it's not obvious I am...but I am.


To top it off, we've been hottubbing, avoiding West Nile (10 cases a few blocks from here), driving the convertible almost to Mexico (Tubac - Eryn made me put the top back up...it was too windy. Good think, I got too much sun today as it was) and back, riding the little train at the tourist spot, checking out the airplane graveyard (why do they get rid of planes? are they chopping them up?) and washing everyone's car. Busy busy busy. Don't even get me started on the no-needles Mexican vasectomy. It's not as painless as you're led to believe.

Cross Country YouTube-ing

Before I get to the picture details, here are some videos from the vacation so far. I'll add sordid details in the non-YouTubish version. I can't imagine most of these are of interest to the general public. But Joe the Povert might be interested in the video of rain in New Mexico.

Eryn does the Monkey Dance at our first hotel:


Contrary to what everyone believes about the Southwest, it rains...and rains...and rains. This is New Mexico raining - part of two days of rain:


John and Eryn dance and discuss the snow and rain:


Eryn at White Sands. We didn't get to do the whole tour of White Sands as IT WAS RAINED OUT. Flooding, you know:


We finally got to Tucson, and Eryn took the opportunity to run, run, run. She wanted nothing more than to go Zero Pounds Wasted all over the place...whatever was the opposite of sitting in a carseat for four days:


I took Eryn miniature golfing for the first time. She loved it...fortunately there are two courses, so she can go back with grandpa later. Note that she's pretty good about getting the ball to the cup. Grandpa Larry might be very interested to see that she's a candidate for taking to the green:


Another golfing video. This was the first hole where it popped out somewhere else. It greatly confused Eryn - she thought we were supposed to go back to the start and get another ball. Seems a naturally obvious thing to do given her experience with video games, I suppose:

Dildo Diaries

It might be a few days before I can post again. So in the spirit of Mean Mr. Mustard threatening to set up Pooteewheet with Tall Brad while Tall Brad's wife-to-be is in Japan, here's 11 minutes of The Dildo Diaries (link courtesy of A Work in Progress - you can buy your own copy here).

At the end, Molly Ivins sets up this transition to The Daily Show's exploration of what GW's job is rather nicely.

Competitive Burrito Eating

Topics for this post include the following subjects (itemized). I'm sorry if they seem to have nothing to do with each other other than me. But I am saving you the discussion with Tall Brad today about sexual fish metaphors involving his fiance in Japan that ended with Klund talking about playing with his large mouth bass. I don't blog everything.

• Mermaid Muff


• Book Fairs


• Evicting Renters


• Burrito Competitions


• Representational State Transfer (REST)

This is just for my sister. I heard they were releasing The Little Mermaid: The Platinum Edition. Do you suppose the curtains will still match the drapes?

If you like to hear about mermaids, I notice there will be a whole talk on them at the Twin Cities Book Fair (hey...she's kind of cute. Ah...she was a fashion model. Why is it a fashion model can transition to author and I can't. I find it disturbing I'm significantly lazier than a fashion model). I'm disappointed I won't be around. Larry Sutin is reading. He is the recipient of several thousand drug company pens my mother has procured for me over the years. I currently have a grocery bag full of them I keep meaning to hoof over to Hamline University so he can sort through the odds and ends. I don't think when he mentioned his collection during class so many years ago that he thought anyone would stalk him with bags full of the things.

So...on to competitive burrito eating. Pooteewheet and I (and Eryn) drove down to the rental in Apple Valley this evening to show the house to a prospective renter...the one who would be replacing the renter that's currently being evicted for not paying her rent. Damn uncomfortable. But at least the evictee vacated long enough for me to show the place (I believe the vacating was just one in a series of truck hauls as she removed her stuff. She better not take my ladder and mower. Maybe she's leaving the country so she can't give us back the big pile of back rent she owes us...hard to say).

After the showing, we (Pooteewheet, Eryn and me, not the potential renter or evictee) went over to Chipotle for dinner. When we pulled up, there was a line out the door. So we wandered around Half Price books for a while and came back, only to find the line longer than when we left. Assuming it had to do with the football games at the local high school getting over (right near where I was doing the rental showing), we packed it up and headed for the Chipotle in Eagan, assuming it would have a shorter line. It didn't. Pooteewheet found out while in line that the issue was that Eagan and Apple Valley are having a high school competition. The Chipotle that sells the most burritos (to high schoolers) during the week will be giving away free burritos to the winning high school. You'd think teenagers would inhabit Chipotle without incentive, it being a relatively cheap source of bulk food for growing, athletic, young pages...oop, I meant boys. Giving them the opportunity to earn free foodstuffs is just asking for so many of them you might as well be back at high school yourself (ugh). Have no fear - we did get our burritos, although we didn't finish until after Eryn's bedtime. Priorities you know.

Switching gears, Luke Francl has to be one of my favorite bloggers lately because he blogs about geek subjects almost post for post in relation to what I'm interested in on a day to day basis. Today he discusses REST (Representational State Transfer...think of the internet as a series of just a few verbs that should be applied to everything that smells like a noun, although it really has more to do with states and transitions) and offers some links to the Ajax/REST connection.

I do wish articles would quit stating things like "Although the World Wide Web was built upon decades of related research, its effective birth date was December 1990" just to get their word count up. No one who is reading your article about REST needs that piece of information, they already know it. If they didn't know it, they haven't read the other 80-some million articles about web technologies that say the same damn thing.

I'd like to add that the Wikipedia page on REST is a great source of basic information about REST and How I Explained REST to My Wife by Ryan Tomayko is a classic piece of geek web text. The developerWorks site at IBM Luke references has great articles, particularly on SOA-related topics, regardless of your language of choice.

Esquire

I am disturbed that Esquire thinks it's cute to show their sexiest woman of 2006 in some sort of teaser where her face isn't visible, just her body. Sort of, well, yuck.

I'm more disturbed that Norm Coleman is doing his damnest to keep Scarlett Johansson out of Minnesota...

Place you will never be found?
The Republican National Convention.

Parliament, Foley and Scouts

I was just watching the Olbermann commentary on Foley (Crooks and Liars) where it sounds like they're actually shouting down Pelosi on the floor...are we going to start having the whole British Parliament thing where it's a shouting and hissing match rather than actual governance? As a history major who specialized in Tudor/Stuart history, maybe I should find that appealing in an Anglophile sort of way...but I'd really prefer not to go the way of the catcalls and personal attacks. "Will the gentleman from Florida who emailed the pages about his horniess..."

Not to mention it all smacks of a bit of Black Adder. Ah...the hot crumpet of shame burning on the backsides of those future lords republican toastracks...horrible.

I think Foley has a better leg to stand on than Clinton, however. When they ask him questions and he says, "Can you define 'im'" there will be some wiggle room between "i am" and "instant message".

For the record...Foley is not a Democrat. Regardless of what Fox (Wonkette, Wonkette again, alt Boing Boing), the AP (Huffington Post), or Bill O'Reilly (Crooks and Liars) have to say. He's been a Republican and e-stalking pages since 1995, and no amount of disinformation is going to change that.

~Tild has a nice graphic up to commemorate the scandal. I really enjoy her retro stylings.

And all this talk about young, nubile, male bodies reminds me that it's been almost exactly 21 years since I got my Eagle in the Scouts. October 8th is the anniversary. I was showing Eryn the bronze, silver and gold palms and the card signed by Ronnie (the Gipper...little known fact, I was born in California while he was governor - Mean Mr. Mustard could have been my baby sitter if we'd have lived in the same neighborhood) just a day or two ago. Fortunately for me, I was Methodist, had little interest in serving in politics, and had a great Scout leader who was also my English teacher, and not a perv into sixteen year olds. I completely managed to miss the trifecta of Catholic-Scouts-Politics that seems to ensure eventual therapy and probable lawsuits.

Deep Fryer

A few weeks ago, when I was at Steve's house a few doors down, Ty came in with a dollar and tried to convince Christy that he needed to make a corndog in Steve's new, tall, looks vaguely like a popcorn cart, deep fryer for a neighborhood kid. Christy seemed dubious, at best.

Eventually, I found out that Steve had purchased this contraption in an effort to create the next, great State Fair fried thing on a stick and, in the meantime, it was being used by Ty to both create copious corndogs and to burn himself. In that spirit, I offer Christy this picture of what can happen with inappropriate deep fryer usage...

I'm not sure if this is an incentive or disincentive to a young boy. It could probably go either way.



Or, go watch the video...the sizzling against the gloves is very convincing.

(from the Underwriters Laboratories - you know, the people who put those ULs on your appliances).

The Musty Aroma of Forbidden Youth...and Bacon

I guess this could have rightly been titled "The fluffers of liberty" instead. If you haven't seen the Colbert clip or Stewart clip about Foley, you can watch them at Crooks and Liars (Colbert) and AMERICABlog (Stewart).

And...not so funny at all given she's Jacob's mom, Patty Wetterling posts a spot.

Star Trek 2.0

Star Trek 2.0 on G4 is really annoying. Seriously, I'd rather read a book. But the commercials G4 made to promote ST2.0...those are damn funny. I like it that Mr. Spock is cast as a hiphop minority character.

Spock's Crib, the Director's Cut:


Star Trek Karaoke:


Star Trek Poolside:


Star Trek Coffee House:


On the other hand, Pooteewheet thinks this is the best Star Trek episode she's watched in quite a while...

Such a Long Weekend

So, I've sort of been off work since Thursday afternoon. I had a half day of group office party followed by a day off. I took the day off to help a co-worker move into his new house, but he finished before I even got as far as the loading of the truck, so I had a day where I was officially doing nothing. Rough, eh? So what do I accomplish on a 3.5 day weekend? Very little of use - but I've been having a lot of fun.

Thursday afternoon was Chipotle, followed by the group office party at Julie's house. There was unicycle riding, pictionary, pogo stick hopping, rope swinging, juggling, and other games. I have photos, movies even, but none of it so exciting that it's worth showing a detailed montage. I have to say, now that Erik and Sandy are gone, the beer drinking is way down. I think six beers were consumed, and three of those were mine.

Here's Bhavin playing Cathedral. I've owned the game for a long time and have discovered that anyone who really likes to think during their gaming loves it. How to play? Someone, anyone, drops the cathedral piece somewhere on the board. After that you alternately place your pieces, and if you seal someone's piece(s) off against an edge of the board, they're yours. End goal is to have as few pieces left as possible (and if you both have pieces, the smallest sized buildings as possible). If you trap someone's piece, you claim it, and they automatically lose that many squares towards the win. The cathedral is a place of calm and peace and cannot be used to trap anyone - if it is surrounded, you still can't be trapped if you're next to it, and you can still build next to it, even within the surrounded area. Bhavin really enjoyed it, and I was about to pack it in the trunk when I realized he might not ask to borrow it even if he really wanted to. So I brought it back to the house and said, "Do you want to borrow the game?" I don't think I've seen someone look so relieved since...well, insert an inappropriate metaphor here.


This is Julie on the unicycle, with Corpy (not a reference to corpses for a nickname, just relax) juggling. That's right, my group party involved unicycles, juggling and pogo sticks. We're a freaking circus act.


Friday, I spent time with Eryn and Jen and finished up the evening by taking my old team lead and her husband to see my old in-reserve tech lead play with his band. I've posted a few of their tunes before, and there are two more below (sorry if they target Erik, Aqua City Motel folks, but he's the co-worker). This time they added quite a bit of extra guitar work, which seemed to go over well. During the first song, when Will was singing, one girl's face lit up when they finally broke into a heavy guitar riff.

They added a few new songs as well, and I have to say I'm a bit disturbed that one of them has to do with London Bridge, as on Thursday I sent Erik a link to the most annoying song I've heard in what seems like forever, Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas "London Bridges". Damn is that a piece of crap (Fergie's song, not Erik's). I apologize for any feedback in the videos - not my fault, the sound system's fault, and I'm not gung-ho enough to edit things out.

I told Erik that if I make it to too many more of his sets, I'm going to start having favorite songs, and that probably makes me a groupie - that's disturbing.



As a funny aside, during the set, a girl walked by our table and she reeked of pot. My ex-team lead's husband looked up and smirked and Sandy just could not figure out why he was amused. Apparently Iowa is not the place to go for your degree if you want to get a worldly view.



And then yesterday, I drove up to the northern burbs to play board games with my friends. Most of us hit Flameburger for breakfast first. I hadn't been there before, I'd just seen the place while driving around the neighborhood during another game day when I'd arrived too early and it looked to be stocked with locals. Selection, very limited. Price, damn decent. Food, really pretty good. The hashbrowns are made on a limited size grill with the weight on top of them - that's always good. And if you like pancakes, the full stack is six, not four, for about four-fitty. I told everyone I'd buy the pancakes next time if they could eat all of them.

We spent the day playing cards, Settlers of Cataan, Zombies, Illuminati and whatever was floating around the back of my car and Sean's frontroom. We actually had two tables going, and Ming, Dan'l, Kyle and Matthew all played the copy of Fortress America Pooteewheet picked me up on eBay. Ming played the U.S. and the other three played the rest of the world, determined to take down the U.S. (if you haven't seen the game before, it's a celebration of Reagan's SDI coupled with a bit of isolationism. On the front of the box is a very angry Saddam. The game actually dates back to 1986, before the first Gulf War, which makes it very humorous. Gameplay is great, as pitting three players against one makes for some very different gaming). I think they played for almost 5 hours before they were done, as the control of a few cities (Denver or Boulder seemed to be the crux of the matter) swung back and forth until Ming finally couldn't regain one. Looked like a blast.

Today...just recovering from the drinking that accompanied gaming, building blanket/pillow forts on the deck, watching Pooteewheet run all over the cities trying to find me a new coffee pot (my old one leaks...always has, it's a piece of junk. I blogged about it some time ago - it's very shiny, it's just got a bladder control issue), and doing a bit of work. Not much of a long weekend if I'm doing work at home on a Sunday, but at least I'm doing it from home now with the fast connection, I don't have to wander over there.

Good Drinking

My inlaws were nice enough to bring me back a present from their trip to Scotland. As you can see below, I've already been enjoying it quite a bit, even though I've only had it for a few days. These bottles from the distillery certainly look more interesting than the flashy commercial bottles you get for many scotches in the U.S. As an added bonus, it's delicious. Speysides aren't my favorite scotches (I like the peatier lowland varieties - you can tell them by their darker colors), but this one was fantastic. Must be the added flavor it gets from making it through customs disguised as a big, four ounce bottle of lube.

Hamline Graduate

Apparently, if you're a graduate of Hamline University, particularly the MALS program, like I am, you've got some sort of sexy author ethos going for you, at least per this advertisement in The Rake. I'm trying to figure out if the positioning/use of the word voracious is meant to imply mental and physical voraciousness in some sort of not-so-subliminal way. I think they should have profiled me - maybe taken a picture of me sitting in my six-by-six foot cube with a link to an online profile where I explain how you can get a masters in creative writing and use it to write detailed specifications, in-depth requirements documents, accessible explanations of architecture diagrams, and the odd blog post. Sexy. Damn sexy.

On a positive note, you probably never have to go to school with anyone who can't remember how to spell "voracious curiosity".