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08/03/99 - Well, I took yesterday off to spend with my mother-in-law and father-in-law and the news failed to reach work... luckily Kelley now remembers so I'm not in deep doo-doo. Ok, Brian sent me a picture I want to share. This is my favorite guitar (among other things). The orange thing is an ear plug... the line across the image is the extra from a guitar string (most extras are wound next to the tuning peg; this one isn't). Coffee is ready! Oh, it was fun having Ann and Walter (and their big black dog Jaz) in town.
08/04/99 - Travel seems to be the most exciting pasttime. Train travel seems exceptionally glamorous until you board your average American train and are greeted by screaming babies and tiny little seats... all the aggrevation of your typical transcontinental airflight without the exotic destination. And train travel just gets worse... well, EuroRail sounds pretty cool. Ok, money is needed for travel... plus time. I lack both. Sponser me! Someone pay for me to go somewhere (and pay for Kara, too... oh, and take care of the dogs) and I'll fail to make it worth your while but I may write about it. I can report all the neat things we do. Ok, back to the real world. There is a way... there is a way... there is a way. # is a magic number, right?
08/05/99 - Curiosities. The "Weems-Botts" museum. I've driven past signs for the Weems-Botts Museum for a decade now and have NO CLUE what the place is. In fact, it scares me. How unnatural a name. What's the opposite of mellifluous? That's what Weems-Botts is... but I'm sure it's a nice place. I bet nice flowers grow in the yard and beautiful, interesting, kind people staff the place... and laugh at the name. Now let's turn our attention to "Y'all"... a silly word. So silly, in fact, that it doesn't deserve our attention. Don't use it. Especially don't write it. I don't care if it's an icon of the Southland... it's silly. Use "You"... it's singular and it's plural and it contains 2 fewer characters. Although a yawl is a boat and a ewe is a female sheep. Here ends today's quick trip through the curious; join me next time for... what ever the heck I feel like doing.
08/06/99 - Here's to my friend Chuck who is enter the Richmond Police Academy. Chuck, or "The Shoe" as we sometimes call him (actual name: Chuck Taylor), has wanted to be a cop since before I can recall... Yippee and Way to Go, Chuckanator! Ok, that makes 2 successful Chuck friends of mine. Chuck E is a Doc and about to be the father of twins. And Chuck T gets a badge and a gun and a license to kick my tail if I misbehave in public... but he wouldn't do that. Ok, but the fan in my office keeps blowing papers hither and yonder or whatever word best completes the sentence or maybe I should just leave my sentences
08/09/99 - Hopefully coffee left over from thursday morning won't sicken me. I like cold coffee but... have I ever told you the gross coffee story from my days as a fraternity pledge? Returning from Christmas break, my big brother asked me to clean his coffee pot. Roughly a cup of coffee remained in the pot, but on this cup had grown a massive collection of mold. From the top down I passed through a cottony filth about 6 inches thick down to a solid sheet of moss-like mold growing right on the coffee's surface... blek. Well, cleaned it I did. Luckiy the brain is not good at recalling smells because I practically vomitted then and have no desire to relive that. I think I used Spick and Span... which was about the only cleaning product in the fraternity house... we used it for showers and mirrors and wood floors and too clean the crap out of moldy coffee pots. Nothing seemed to be growing in the coffee here so I'm drinking it. It tastes ok... really; it does.
08/10/99 - Doggy Baseball. A new game requiring 2 dogs, a ball glove, a tennis ball and an old brick grill. It works something like this: Dog #1, we'll call her Emelie and pretend she's mostly retriever, likes to fetch tennis balls. Owner, we'll call him Lee, wishes he were a star MLB pitcher and likes to pitch tennis balls against the old brick grill, we'll call it old brick grill, in the back yard. Dog #2, we'll call her Marta and pretend she likes to do anything Emelie is doing... which she does... with lots of energy. Mixes these players with an old softball glove and a game is bound to result... which it did. Lee throws the first pitch and tries to catch the rebound. If he does, great, if he doesn't the dogs get the ball and a run. If Lee manages to catch three consecutive pitches he gets a run. So far games run pretty even score-wise. Next we need a ticket buying crowd... the stadium only seats 6 though... the standing room only section is quite big, though. p> 08/11/99 - Cheryl's beau Ray is throwing a bull ride this weekend at the Richmond Coliseum. In this event people attempt to maintain their balance on dinner (rare, hold the salad and potatoes) for 7 seconds or, roughly,twice the time it takes for James Bond's martini to chill. In addition, bulls are fought... but listening to this event described makes me think it should be called Bull Dodging instead of Bull Fighting as the object is not to do away with the bull but to keep the bull from doing away with you. There's also Bull Poker in which people play poker and the bulls poke people; Last one seated or the bull wins. I believe country music, wide brimmed hats and non-biker leather boots will be present in large quantities... and big ass belt buckles. I believe it sounds fun, too... except for the country music part.
08/12/99 - Well, I just spilled coffee on my dictionary. The mistake was setting the copy atop a book and pouring from a notoriously crappy pot. The top occludes too much of the spout thus the flow is impeded and everyone knows impeded flow means tubulent flow which means spillage. I need the dictionary to spell "laminar" which is the opposite of turbulent and also INS'T IN MY dictionary... who knows how to spell "laminar"? Well, the coffee is a touch weak this morning so the distionary isn't badly damaged... actually, I destroyed the spill too quick to do damage regardless of what substance spilled. You know, I vastly dislike the quasi-word "Irregardless". Don't use it. Also avoid "Where is the coffee at?" Where shall I start with that one? A) preposition at the end looks and sounds ignorant; B) "At" is redunant... "Where is the coffee?" works very well, Thank you very much. Ok, Help Wanted's final show is saturday night. Wish us well as we ride gracelessly into the sunset. p> 08/13/99 - Friday the 13th and I'm late to work. Well, I'm at work but I was late because I had to deliver a cup of doggie poop to a vet lab so Marta could be checked for worms... or maybe she just eats too many sticks for proper digestion. Regardless the spot often occupied by a coffee cup contained a cup of poo... fresh poo... sealed ast best as could be... Cling Wrap, then alumnium foil then a Zip Lock bag. I smelled nothing but, still, it's weird to glance where coffee goes and see poop. Ok, I actually didn't see poop. In fact, I, THANKFULLY, had NO sensory contact with the poop... After scooping into the cup at 5:28am, that is. Well, I know where the lab is but I'd never gone from the new house so I decided to experiement. I drove into the city of Manchester which is actually the city of Richmond but it used to be Manchester and now is a pretty crappy place. But I knew I could avoid traffic if I aimed for the 14th street bridge... I found it without trouble. I was lost but I pretty much went straight to the bridge... then out to the vets. The whole time I was in the car I considered how crappy, in many senses, an accident could be this morning... thankfully (that's twice so far) nothing happened. After talking to the lab tech about cat training I hopped back into the poop free car and quickly found a full coffee cup to take its rightful place. The traffic guy said 95, my planned route was congested by an accident..., ok, I'll head into downtown then catch the expressway and be at work lickity split... after sitting in downtown traffic for a while I was about to finally reach the expressway when traffic dude say 95 is clear but the diverted traffic is clogging the expressway... too bad I couldn't find a rocket launcher or the traffic helicopter (Joke, BTW). Ok, the traffic guy proved as unobservant as he was unhelpful because the expressway was almost empty. Long story shortI almost ran out of gas and I followed someone who turned into the Governor's temporary place but I'm tired of writing... actually, that's untrue but I have things to do and I hate to admit I let work displace art... if anyone is willing to let me label a rant about poop and poopy traffic stories in such a distinguished manner.
08/16/99 - Baseball is a game wherein statistics of every sort are kept... everyone knows that. How about some stupid stats about a batting cage adventure? Dad, Tim, Jim and I hit Windy Hill's cages saturday afternoon. For our last 4 tokens we created a game. Did I mention we were in the 71 mph cage? Anyway, contact was worth a point a forward hit was worth 2 points. For a 20 pitch game Jim won the title with 35 points (of a possible 40). Dad and I tied (at 3rd, I guess) with 30 points each and Tim scored an impressive 29 points. I was the only person to out score their age (only Tim and I even faced the possibility). I took the right hander's title. Left handers beat right handers in outright points and in average score. Consensus has it that Tim, while getting fewer points than anyone actually contacted more than anyone (not even wiffing a single pitch). Well that's it for interpretation there. Yesterday I bought some good books. I got a a glossy WWI overview with pictures and brief historical sketchs plus a book entitled "The Devil: A Biography"... I guess I should quickly point out, before people go jumping to the conclusion that I'm converted to the darkside, that this is a written by a devout catholic, former editor of the Catholic Herald, and author of at least one biography of a former Pope. The book hopes to explore the Devil's existance through the, mainly Christian, past and, to paraphrase the author, into his current intellectual exile. Hey, it sounds good and it was a $5 hardback... plus, in the intro the auther explains why, even as a educated man he still can't shake the feeling that God and the Devil are actually out there vying for souls... I'd be telling an untruth if I didn't admit feeling there are things science will never explain and these things really draw attention even though many people try their best to ignore them. Why not fling the arms wide and see what can be grasped?
08/17/99 - Bah Bah Bah Bah. I was thinking about college students. They're slowly appearing on campus now... trickling in for sports, I guess. The neo-hippie look seems to be the trend. There exist a few khaki and sport shirt types but they seem to be the iconoclasts. How ironic it is that conservatives are the rebels in college society? At W&L things were as you'd expect them... well, if you're used to W&L. The conservative majority with a few alternative viewpoints. And do you know how best to tell rebellion is conformity? Look at advertising... huh, dude? Image is nothing; thirst is everything. That's why I drink Sprite. Oops, I drink Mountain Dew because they put Darth Maul on the bottle. Actually, I drink tea and seltzer water because Kara does... I have no idea who makes me drink coffee and beer. Anyway, there is little originality and what little there is is labeled "freakish" or "geekish" so the freaks and geeks fell society's scorn and open fire. Ok, it's not that bad but it does happen. NPR did a story about how advertisers used opposite images to reorient thought about products (ie Dick Butkiss [sic?] promoting light beer when it was viewed as a sissy beer)... perhaps, the story went on to say, Dick Butkiss should promote acceptance. Ok, they didn't mention Dick Butkiss but they did note the necessity to promote acceptance of all ideas as a means to curtail violence. I think we should just kick violence's butt... and anyone who disagrees with me.
08/18/99 - Today is the last day I can dress myself for several days. The lovely IS shirts are required tomorrow. Solidarity... if I keep this tone I'll be censored like last year so I'll cease to discuss things I've no constitutional grounds to say without consequence. It's almost cool weather time... by almost I mean maybe a month... 30 more days... ok, that's not "almost" at all. Two unpleasant topics in twice as many lines... Hey! The Allman Brothers on Spinner.Com (Jam Bands Channel... my favorite). Ok, my sister gets married a month from today... about the time the weather should break. Cool picture of Kara and plane... I wish I was an artist.
08/19/99 - My parents were married 32 years ago today... EGADS! Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad! And I'm in my swell new UR IS shirt. Short sleeved denim luxury. I don't feel the slightest bit like a de-spined conforming worker drone... nope, not a bit. Cheerfully, I smile at the opportunity to dress as everyone else. I even considered requesting that we also wear hats and paint our exposed skin in school colors to look even more conspicuous. Luckily we're supposed to wear name tags... bearing OUR OWN NAMES! It's almost scandalous, isn't it? Well, We're all buzzing around here. The parking lot is full... students are moving into their dorms. Geez, I remember that. It poured when I moved into the freshman dorm. But I barely remember the rain because of all the stuff going on in my head... fear and excitement like I'd never before encountered. I remember going to sleep uncertain about everything. Strangely, I remember being scared to go down the hall to the bathroom the next morning. The really scary part now is that those days are forever in my past. I'll never leave home for the first time again. I'll never have the experience of freedom's first sunrise. And I really want those 4 years back again... actually I want the sensations.
08/20/99 - ** Hey! A New Look ** First, check out the new main page; it's an attempt at simple yet fun web design. I'm sick of fancy schmancy java driven pages. Elegance is not about flash... not that this is elegant. Ok, students are back. Parking on campus is impossible. I took the space of some hapless law student no doubt (of course a hapless law student stealing my space is likely what forced me to seek parking outside the full lot in which I normally park). It's funshine uniform day two here at UR IS... and it's raining! Finally. Funny, how after 2 months of dry weather a rainy day is still uncheerful. Although I do like fall rainy days where you can smell the leaf tannin. Kara absolutely dislikes those days... there's a real difference. I like to run in that weather... but as I haven't run in over a year I'd better get my butt in shape so I can enjoy it this year. Well, it's not hot today, either; I like that. Wow! It's 11:30; where has my morning gone? I like days like this, too; where there's enough to do to keep you from staring at the clock. Oh, doggie baseball update. The dogs are kicking my butt. I'm thinking of changing the rules so that I get a point for each retrieved ball... we'll see how the scores go with this change. Expect an update.
08/23/99 - Yes, this is the correct page... it just looks different than it used to look. The last of the coffee beens were used this morning; Not since the last time we ran out of coffee has anything that bad happened in this office. Speaking of bad things Kara and I probably traumatized Marta yesterday. We took her down to the river. Apparently seeing Emelie bouce around in the water isn't enough to convince Marta that water is a good thing. She hated it. We tried to get her to walk across the dam thingy out to the island but she couldn't manage to stay on the dam... I guess something with a surface that won't support weight is a tricky concept for a puppy. My clothes suffered as I carried the wet pup... actually, Kara did, too but her white overalls don't show water quite like my blue T-Shirt. Well, once we got to the island the tall grass proved to Marta's liking. She disappeared into the mess and could only be seen by the ripples she sent through the fescue. Then came the trip back over the dam... she shook she hated it so much. Oh, well. Maybe when she's bigger. Emelie, however, had the time of her life chasing sticks out into the river. I was afraid she'd be swept downstream but she swims stronger than the current. The real work of the river trip came when we got back home: Doggie baths. Thanks to Kara they smell nice and clean.
08/24/99 - When people travel they sometimes collect things from their journey, like bumperstickers. I have this theory that dogs do the same things. Well, dogs don't collect bumperstickers, they collect scents. During our river trip Emelie did what Emelie occassionally does which is roll in sticky stuff. I'm not really certain what Emelie found but I was walking barefoot trying to dodge goose poop and rocks so I'm certain it wasn't pleasant. Thankfully she swam more before I had to be too close to her. But back to my hypothosis. Kara and I went travelling last summer and stopped for a break on the Jersey Turnpike... or was it the NY State Thruway? Regardless, they sold post cards bearing pictures of the rest stop. We bought them because they were silly... which I hope is the only reason anyone would buy them ("Mom and Dad, please can we go to the Jersey Turnpike for vacation this summer?"... doubtful). I guess sweet smelling flowers are to dogs what the Jersey Turnpike postcard is to humans: no one wants that souvenir. Except dogs lack the sense of nonsense we humans possess... you never see dogs reading Dr. Seuss or watch Monty Python, do you? So, the only possibility of dog bringing something home from a trip is that the dog will come back smelling foul. That is one of the very few downsides of dog ownership... and dogs can always be bathed.
08/25/99 - I was at the mall on saturday. Kara had to get some shampoo from a salon... I can't stand the way those places smell so I hung outside. Out from the mall comes this big, burly biker guy. Dressed in black from his grey balding, pony tailed and Jerry Garcia bearded head down to his black leather silver studded boots... actually, he looked a bit like Jerry, now that I think about it, but I can't picture Jerry in the studded and buckled leather jacket. Anyway, this guys comes out of the mall looking about as friendly as a Hell's Angel at a chili cook off (I'm scratching my head, too... don't know where that came from or what it means) and walks up to where the motocycles are parked. He grabs a big ole black motor cycle helmet and covers his head then, from behind the Harley's and Yamamha cruisers he pulls a tiny little black, belt driven moped. It starts with a barely audible purr. He side steps on board and drools down the parking lot at the speed of a cat pulled wagon. Never before I have I seen something so utterly unbelievable. I knew I should have been rolling on the sidewalk with laughter but I just stood there. I bet his drink of choice is the Berry flavored wine cooler... and whose going to stop him from enjoying that in public?
08/26/99 - I had this great piece written about treating conscientious, responsible people with the respect they both have earned and deserve but, frankliy, it probably would have gotten me in trouble. People don't like being called power crazed bullies and the word "Facist" (Fascism defined by Websters is "as system of government characterized by dictatorship...") doesn't sit well with many people, either. But I didn't really mean all the bad things I said; It was a knee-jerk responses to a accusation that hurt me. Anyway, I shouldn't be so emotional. Let's change the subject. Would you like my thoughts on effectively motivating people? Intelligence is required. A good motivator tailors their style to get the best results from each individual. Sure, discipline has it's place but why demean when better means of conveying a point exist? Now we turn to Martha Stewart for a few helpful tips... Crap tastes bad. Who would willingly continue to eat crap? Well, someone who likes the taste but then we pretty much said no one does. Someone who has to eat it for extreme reasons might stomach it until the extreme circumstances are eliminated. Point is: Don't serve it at a dinner party, ok? Don't pack it for your kids to take to school. Don't give it (even wrapped nicely) at Halloween. And don't think your puppy will continue to act nicely it that's the reward for responsible, conscientious behavior. Hey!? Whence came this thin veil? It's pretty ugly, too, don't you think?
08/27/99 - Valuable art conveys a meaning or an emotion or does something to make the viewer go "Oooo" or "Huh?" or go to the next piece or linger at this one. I've been viewing WW1 art. Stirring stuff. It does a good job of conveying a time. I'm scared. But who is conveying the fear of today? Who will show people in 80 years what it was like to live today? Who will capture the essence of Joe/Vera Anyone... the people who have to be at the office by 8:30 because the boss says so? I hope I will. Here are bad pictures of my most recent works.
 | This is a portrait of the Administrative Trainer. Kevin wears a tie because he wants to wear a tie. He's good at his job but he's also a bit annoying. We like him anyway... and I, of all people, shouldn't be calling others annoying. Kevin never sits still and no one can really say exactly what he does. This was drawn with his red pen on a package of paper meant for his printer while he talked about... crap, I have no idea what he was saying... probably how annoying I am. |
| Every week Kelley holds a staff meeting where we discuss "issues". More than three people attend. We sit at a long table and listen as others talk. Sometimes there are handouts. I always draw pictures and drink coffee... but the meetings go longer than I'd like so I finish my coffee before the end... that's probably not relevant... Scott doesn't really look like Hitler. |  |
08/30/99 - Coffee just finished. This was a busy weekend. We re-did our kitchen cabinets. By "re-did" I mean detached the dogs, scraped paint, removed old pulls and hinges and attached new ones then put the pieces back together... crooked. The thought of measuring never crossed our minds until too late. Kara thinks it's ruined... but it's probably a day's work to remove the doors, plug the holes, measure, drill and reattach. Poor Marta had to stay in her crate the whole time... but she was pooped last night, anyway. We help rescue a stray dog on saturday. A beautiful husky wandered to our fence to talk to the girls (Emelie and Marta). A neighborhood guy had been following it but the dog would leave everytime the guy approached. We gave Bud (that's what I call the dog) food and water and he calmed. The guy asked if Bud could stay in our yard long enough for him to go get a leash. The next thing we know we have Bud all night and into the next day. We called the guy (who'd left his phone number) and spoke to his Mom. He'd gone out of town and was leaving the dog at our place until monday... "uh uh" we said (but in a much more passive way). Well, Bud is gone from our yard. Does anyone know of a lost Husky? I know the whereabouts of one.
08/31/99 - The river was beautiful this morning. The wind whips the surface rough and the clouds are just thick enough to soften the sun... the combination is breath taking. I wish I could stop on the bridge but the folks behind me would shoot me, I'm sure. Can you imagine stalling a car at rush hour on one of the few bridges from the suburbs to downtown? Sucky, sucky, sucky. I just had a humorous thought. Ok, you have a 4X4 you like to drive on the beach at low tide. You're right down by the water's edge when the vehicle stalls and won't start. What do you do? The tide will cover it if you can't move it. I think I'd get a video camera and film the next several hours in hopes of convincing a movie producer to buy the footage for use in an up coming movie and thus have some means of purchasing a new car... which I'd never drive on the beach again. I guess the point is don't put anything you can't carry yourself close enough to the beach that you might lose it if you can't move it... that goes for houses, too. My family went to Sandbridge, VA for vacation at the same time a tropical storm came through. Much of the dunes were washed away. To this day I'm unsure of what the storm uncoverd... I remember what looked like a tile floor. Was that the remains of an old house that actually sat there or were scraps put under the dunes for filler? Got me... how many licks does it take to reach the Tootsie Roll Center of a Tootsie Pop? Are Tootsie Rolls really supposed to taste like chocolate? Ok, back to the car on the bridge... do you think you could convince the person behind you to push you the rest of the way over the bridge?