Eet Mor Chikin

Another Turkey Day is fast upon us. Spawn is going to be at his mother’s this year, my wife’s sister is out of town with her family, and my wife remains (what she would say) terminally pregnant. So, we’re going to the in-laws for the holiday. This will be relaxing, which is good, but I’ll likely eat too much (not so good). There’s bound to be football viewing involved, and a movie or two.

As I sat last night thinking about all of this, I was wondering why we celebrate Thanksgiving. I don’t mean just me and mine, but everyone. I mean, yes, we celebrate because of tradition. I get that. But, is it really necessary anymore? It seems to me the goal of Thanksgiving has morphed from being a day where we are thankful for our country, families, and whatever else to one of pure, honest-to-goodness, great horny-toads gluttony. And football. With pumpkin pie. And ice cream.

As I write this, it’s relatively quiet at the office. I’m doing my good deed for the day and prepping two ancient (read: Windows 95 era) computers to send to a charity. Everyone who’s left around the office has been asking me the same questions about what’s going on with me and the fam for the holidays. I think they ask in hopes that I’ll say something exciting like, “Well, Buffy, Momsie, and I are jetting to the Alps for much needed R&R, then we’re stopping in Milan for dinner. We’re hoping to be back stateside by Monday morn.” Somehow, what comes out is something more like, “Oh, not much.”

Actually, I’m glad this holiday is going to be low-key. I have some things I’ve wanted to get to for some time. And, even if I don’t end up doing them, at least I have the option.

It’s probably a good thing this will be a low-key holiday. Likely the last quiet holiday the terminally pregnant wife and I will have for some time to come.

Oh, very cool. My manager just called me and told me to “work from home” Friday afternoon. Wow, that’s almost a real 4-day weekend. Bonus.

Ruh-Roh, Raggy!

The wife and I pulled into one of fav dinner spots last night and came across this:

It was pretty detailed, right down to the fuzzy, lime green dice hanging over the mirror.

The best part was the license plate:

-la

Flippin' Out

I came across this on the net the other day. It's a pretty damn cool rig (from a science-geek POV) courtesy of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Make sure you watch the video of the thing flipping over. Yes, there are people inside it when it goes. Sweet!

-scit (science geek in training)

Mind-Numbing Boredom, a Pair of Contortionists, and Honeybees

The past few days have been driving me bat shit. I've been so damn busy that it's become frustrating. To give you an idea of how busy, let me just say that it’s Saturday and I’m at work writing this.

The frustration actually began this past Monday when my manager told me that I was to attend the upcoming manager offsite. I tried begging out with a tale of woe that included upcoming deadlines and promises made, but did my manager want to hear about that? No.

So, I was forced to make arrangements to attend. The organizers of this assembly had already changed the venue three times. I suspected a cluster*** in progress, and became more frustrated yet. As I attempted to prepare my presentation the day before the cluster*** began, I was inundated with a rash of requests for everything from meetings to a need for servers to be built and shipped, not to mention requests from another contract on which I work. When shit rolls down hill, folks, it builds up speed fast toward the end. This, of course, is where I’m usually standing.

The big day of the offsite came and we settled in for two days of presentations and information exposure. It was like drinking info from a fire hose, minus the nice minty flavor. Forward a bit to Friday afternoon. The meeting was supposed to end around 3:30. I have dinner plans at 5:30. The meeting doesn’t end, of course, until 4:30. By this time I’m scrambling to get the hell out of there and get home, shower, and change clothes to go meet our friends. I manage to make it home in record time (because there wasn’t as much traffic, honest, Officer!), perform the aforementioned duties, load the wife in the car, and take off back down to the city.

We went to our friends’ place for appetizers and cocktails and then we all loaded into the auto for the ½ mile trip down to one of OKC’s swankiest hip places called Nova. It's an eclectic restaurant. Or, as we say back East, “This was a classy joint.” Very chic, very big city. Good food and great martini’s too.

However, there was an issue at the end that threw us off schedule. The show we were going to see started at 8pm. At 7:30, I looked over and saw our waiter at the computer furiously tapping the touch screen and repeatedly swiping our card with an air of increasing frustration. Apparently they were having computer issues. After watching this for about 5 minutes, I got up and headed his way. I asked him if there was a problem and started to pull cash out of my wallet. He had written the card number down on a piece of paper and told me to sign it and they would enter it in later. Normally, I would object to something like this, simply from a security point of view, but we were in a hurry and so I asked the wife to sign. I was calculating the amount of time in my head it would take us to get to the Civic Center and I was coming up short.

Somehow, with fate on our side (honest, Officer!), we made the show with less than a minute to spare. It was close. And, we could have made it faster, but you just do not hurry a pregnant woman. Anywhere. For anything (except maybe food...oh, and having the baby). The best she can do is waddle fast, and I think even that makes her uncomfortable.

The show we saw, Cirque Dreams, was really cool. If you’ve ever been to Vegas to see Cirque de Soliel or seen Cirque de Soliel on television, then you know how good the acrobats and performers really are at what they do. One of the highlights of the show was this pair of contortionists. They were sisters from Mongolia who went to the Mongolian Circus School for contortionists from the time they were children. What they could do with their bodies seemed inhuman. I guess the best way to describe it is to compare it to Mr. Fantastic from the Fantastic Four comic books.

After 10 hours of unadulterated sleep, I ate breakfast/lunch/whatever and headed to work.

Things were going fine. Until I actually got to work. I unlocked the main door and entered a foyer where you have to either swipe a card key or enter a PIN to get the damn door to open. I pulled my card out and gave it a swipe.

Nothing.

Again.

Nothing.

Shit.

After repeated attempts, I realized that it just wasn’t going to work no matter how many times I tried it. I whipped out my cell phone like a pistol and started dialing people. Some people have PINs. I'm just not one of them. The first two people I called didn’t answer. Shit.

Finally, I said screw it and called the big boss. I was here on a Saturday because of the offsite that the boss required I attend, so I figured I would place a call and see if I could get the boss’ code.

Ring.

No answer.

Ring.

No answer.

“Um, hello,” said a teenage girl-sounding voice. Lots of background noise can be heard.

“Is the boss there?”

“Um, hold on,” said the voice in that teenage angst-driven manner.

“Hello?”

“Hey boss, it’s me, Lex. I’m at work (because of you, I think) and I can’t get in. My key card isn’t working and I need to get some work done. Can you tell me your PIN so I can get in.”

“Who is this?”

(No, I’m not making this up.)

“It’s me, Lex. I need your PIN to get into work. I called several other people and no one is answering their phones.” It’s a good damn thing there’s not an emergency here, I’m thinking.

“Um, ok, it’s .” So, I tap it in and, damn, if it doesn’t work! I was skeptical even a PIN would work at this point. The system is so old I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t crap the bed pretty soon.

“Thanks, boss. See ya Monday!” and I hang up.

Which brings me to where I was when I started writing this. I slaved away all afternoon installing operating systems and other programs on these two big-ass servers. Finally, it was time to play a bit.

This next bit may seem a little surreal. My ex-wife’s husband invited me to go with him, my son, and one of my son’s friends to see the Hornets vs. the Dallas Mavericks here in OKC. Since the Hornets NBA franchise has come to town, going to the games is a big to-do. TK has season tickets (to select games only…he went in with some of his friends and they each get to go to an equal number of games) and he had an open slot and wanted to know if I wanted to go. Hell yeah!

Plus, it was good father/son time with the kiddo. We met for dinner and then went into the game. It was great. The kids had all manner of junk food and we had beer. Also, we were right in front of the Honeybees, the Hornet’s cheerleaders. It was fun watching them perform at halftime. ;)

Anyway, the Hornets lost, but gave the Mavs a hell of a run. At the end the score was 109 to 103.

In any event, a good time was had by all. I went home and collapsed and slept another 10 hours. Sunday involved watching Magnolia which I had never seen before and ticking off the list of honey-dos.

It’s too bad I didn’t have one more day. Some weekends I feel like I need an extra day to recover from the weekend itself. Damn, I hope that’s not a sign of getting old.

-la

Congratulations

I wanted to say a congratulations to my brother-in-law who won an election tonight in his hometown. I had confidence that he would win, because he was actually already doing the job for which he was running, and doing it well, but with an election, you just never know until it's all said and done. You know, fat ladies and all that.

Anyway, this is a very cool thing and he deserves more than a few pats on the back.

I'm sure my sister is glad it's all over as well. She has been stressed about this for a long time and now she can take a breather before the real work begins.

Congrats to all!

-la

The Name Game

Ok, why is it that EVERYONE asks me if we've picked out a name yet for the soon-to-be kiddo? It's almost as if they need to know in order to judge whether we'll be good parents or not.

I've gotten a bit tired of this. Even though it seems to be growing in frequency as the "big day" approaches.

I also just recently wrote to my friend L. She and I went to college together back in the day. She and her hubbie are expecting at the end of December. She's undoubtedly dealing with this phenomenon as well, so I wrote to her for advice. She hasn't responded yet, though I'm hopeful her wisdom will help me out here.

In the meantime, I've started playing the Name Game with people. Everytime people ask me what name we have picked out, I tell them with a completely stratight face, "Well, we have a short list, but my favorite is Moses. But, I also like Solomon, Izaiah (that's with a Z, mind you) and Adolf." I usually put that last one in just to throw them. Just when you think I'm going down that biblical road, WHAM! I get you with the Nazi reference.

Occasionally, I'll use the names of pets or cartoon characters.

-la

Update: L finally wrote me back and provided me a few suggestions and some good advice. She also directed me to a web site called Baby Names of Ireland which I found pretty useful to get some more ideas. The site provides phonetic pronunciations, which, considering the way some of those Irish names are spelled, really helps.

Of course, I think it helps even more to be knee deep in Irish whiskey when naming your kid.

-la (again.)

Star Wars Gansta Rap Special Edition

Vader's in da hizzie!

Star Wars Gangsta Rap Special Edition*

Make sure to watch all the way to the end for some of that Leia hotness. ;)

-la

*Thanks for my buddy J for sending me the link.

In memoriam: Durango

I'd like to pay tribute to Durango, also known around casa del Armenia as, "The Best Kitty Ever".

He passed from this world late Monday after a solid 16 years of loyal friendship to my wife.

When I moved into my wife's life and her house several years ago, Durango and I went round and round on who would hold the title of Alpha Male in my wife's eyes. I think I won out due only to possession of opposable thumbs and the ability to buy jewelry. However, that may have been unfair on my part. He was there for her through thick and thin WAY before I was part of the picture of her life. He was special, dear friend and a loyal companion to her. For this, I am grateful that he brought her so much joy.

I know now that he is in a better place, and I hope that if he has the power now to understand what I'm writing that he knows I loved him too and that he was one cool cat.

So, here's to Durango, (Mango Man, BOFT, the Best Kitty Ever)...may your bowl of kibble always be full.

So long, buddy.

-la

Flap A goes into Slot B...

We got all of the damn baby furniture. I had to make THREE trips to a store called...get ready for this...Storkland (yes, it's a real store) to pick this stuff up. Only so much would fit in my auto at one time. Unbelievable. Now, it's all sitting in what will become the wee one's nursery. Well, not the last box that I picked up today. That one was so damn big that I had to wrangle my next door neighbor to help me get it downstairs. I just know that if had been a weekend, that little move would have cost me a six pack at least. My neighbor is a beer lover, to be sure. As he was leaving, he asked when I was going to put all of "the stuff" together.

And, the reason I have to put it together, is because the geniuses at Storkland (yes, I assure you, it's a real store) told the wife when she purchased all of "the stuff" that they would deliver it and put it together for a nominal fee. Totally fine by me. Picture my utter jaw-dropping display of incredulity (um, not) when they called to say "the stuff" was in but that the delivery person had left the company and they couldn't deliver it or put it together.

The real reason, I learned on, oh, I think it was trip number two, was that none of the remaining employees had a truck big enough to deliver "the stuff". Of course, my first thought was, "Go buy a damn truck...you're in the big and heavy box business!" But, of course, I held my tongue. It would be my luck that these guys would "just happen" to drop "the stuff" as they were putting it in my auto.

Where was I? Oh yes, my neighbor had asked me when I was going to put "the stuff" together. I sensed an opening, so I pounced with the ferocity of a polecat in heat. "Um, well, I was thinking this weekend. Whatchya got going? If you're in, I'll supply the pizza and cold BEER," I said, drawing out the word beer just ever-so-slightly. But, it was enough. He took the bait and now it appears that I might have not only him, but a buddy of his with power tools and knack for putting this kind of "stuff" together.

Stay tuned, sports fans. Things could get interesting around here.

-la

State of the Nation

I was thinking about all of the stuff going on right now and thought I'd tell my vast audience about it. You know who you are...both of you. ;)

What I'm listening to (in iTunes) at the moment:
Baba O'Riley by The Who
Twisted Transistor by Korn
Stars by Switchfoot
DOA by Foo Fighters
Dirty Little Secret by The All-American Rejects
Sugar, We're Goin' Down by Fall Out Boy
Hate by Fiction Plane
Never Ever by The Shout Out Louds

That last one by the Shout Out Louds is very cool, by the way. Kind of sounds like a cross between the Cure (from the Standing on a Beach/Staring at the Sea days) and some other obscure emo-rock band that I can't remember right now. What's in your player right now? Let me know...I'm always listening for a new band obsession.

Did I mention that I got a new guitar? I don't think I told about it. Yep, it's a Les Paul Classic. A co-worker sold it to me because he bought an Eric Clapton acoustic. It's a beauty, but I don't know if it's $1600 worth of beautiful. Anyway, I've been playing that A LOT. Very smooth.

-la

Opening Night

The Spawn's class went and had their basketball practice at the Ford Center on just before opening night for the Oklahoma City Hornets, the Katrina-displaced NBA team from New Orleans. Here are some of the sights: