No Right on Red

Haiti: Getting there

2010-06-08T14:15:00.000-04:00

On January 12 a relatively moderate 7.0- magnitude earthquake hit Port-
au-Prince, Haiti. Sitting down at dinner that night, I told my wife,
Leslie, that I bet I'd be going. I am on a Navy contingency
engineering response team, and given our new trademarked motto, "A
Global Force for Good," we tend to jump at humanitarian stuff like
this. It makes us look better.

So a couple days later I was put on a short list. On Friday, January
22 I get a phone call:

"Are you packed? Can you deploy?"
"Yes."
"You leave on Monday. You will be gone six months."
"What?"

Well, it turns out we couldn't leave on Monday. There are a lot of
shots you need to be able to step foot in Haiti. And apparently the
earthquake destroyed the airport, making air travel hard and the
planes that could get in were filled with food and water. Engineers
were low on the shipment list.

After a couple key calls by people much higher than me, we secured a
C-130 to take us down on Friday the 29th. They let us know Thursday
evening. Flying on a C-130, and one packed with a couple pallets of
cargo, is not quite an airliner experience. You sit on cargo nets, put
in ear plugs, and freeze as the uninsulated plane climbs into the Mid-
Atlantic winter atmosphere. I nicely avoided this experience on the
way home.

We arrive in Haiti at an airport filled with planes from dozens of
nations. The crew unloading my plane is Haitian, I suspected, and we
couldn't communicate with them. As my team leaders conferred on why
there was no one around to pick us up, our pallets of gear disappeared
on a couple trucks. Bad thing.

Having come to the realization that the military organization that
requested the team did not think to pick us up, we called a
contractor. Having contracts personnel with us, we were very easily
able to get services from American contractors already in Haiti and
thrsty for work.

An hour later we find our gear in a dark corner of the airport. After
loading it onto a truck, we climb aboard a bus (which looked exactly
like any bus you have seen in any Caribbean/Central American based
movie) and headed out into PaP.

As it was 9:30 at night and electricity has never been a big item in
Haiti, we didn't see much at all that first day. Which was fine by me
because I was too tired to care at that time.

The military headquarters camp had no room for us, and the Embassy
turned us away, so we set up camp across the street from the Embassy
in a contractor laydown area. We had air conditioned trailers, though,
so I wasn't going to complain at that point. Our perimete was secured
by Haitians with shotguns, which seemed odd. I grabbed my sleeping
bag, found a rack, and slept soundly, at least until the old guys in
the trailer got some good resonance in their nasal cavities and shook
the trailer with their snores.

Day 1

Back to Blogging

2010-06-01T14:58:00.002-04:00

Well, it has been a while. You can tell you've been away from a blog too long when 1) someone actually emails you and says they miss it, and 2) the only comment posts are spam for adult toy websites.

Well, five months or 151 days into 2010, and I have spent all of 40 of those in a somewhat normal state. On January 12 a relatively minor earthquake devastated Port-au-Prince. By January 29, I was in Haiti as part of the US military humanitarian response, and I would remain there for 65 very long days.

Only one month back, I broke my left index finger playing football. Not really a big deal (though typing certainly suffers) but when I went to the hospital to set it I inexplicably collapsed and struck my head on a counter and some porcelain tile, leading to a skull fracture, concussion and a whole lot of pain.

So it has certainly been a crappy year to date, and I plan to cover the highlights in some later posts. But welcome back.

My sign would have been better

2010-01-07T13:24:00.001-05:00

As I was driving back to work this morning, I passed an old brick Methodist church. It had a small marquee out front that read:

OPEN

HEARTS
MINDS
DOORS

However, I read it as:

OPEN

HEARTS
MINDS
ODORS

I didn't get it, but I knew it had to be some clever reference. All I could picture was a church full of old people taking in the Word of God and discharging something completely different. I had at least three jokes ready about why they were called pews. Unable to pass up this chance for a hilarious anecdote, I whipped out my phone to snap a picture. And then I saw it. Doors.

Not hilarious. Not even slightly funny. Totally a missed opportunity.

Great Bridge Bridge

2009-11-13T13:37:00.001-05:00

There is a town in Chesapeake called Great Bridge, a town that has existed and persevered since pre-Revolutionary times. The town is so named for a long-gone bridge that once crossed the southern branch of the Elizabeth River. This, as an engineer, excites me. In fact, there was a brief Revolutionary War battle fought at the bridge (appropriately remembered as the Battle of Great Bridge), and now the road whose origins trace to the highway that crossed the bridge is known as Battlefield Blvd. Cool stuff, right?

Well, it ends there. The Chesapeake-Albemarle Canal, which connects the Chesapeake Bay to the Albemarle Sound, was built as part of the Intracoastal Waterway, thus starving the southern Elizabeth River of its feedwater and negating the need for a "Great Bridge." However, they still needed a bridge to cross the narrow canal.

Currently, we have a beautiful Scherzer rolling lift bascule bridge crossing the canal. It is sleek, modern, and truly is the centerpiece of the little Chesapeake hamlet. Unfortunately, this bridge came after the town, so no one feels right calling it "the Great Bridge." It is awkwardly known as "the Great Bridge Bridge." So, whenever the city needs to work on the bridge, the announcements say "Great Bridge Bridge Closed." On electronic highway marquees, it looks like the sign developed a stutter. So this little town, gloriously named for a civil engineering feat that had its own glorious history, now somewhat ingloriously refers to its landmark with a repetitive term that leaves my spell checker begging to delete the extraneous bridges.

Still has a sense of humor

2009-11-06T13:45:00.001-05:00

I typed "The Men Who Stare at Goats" into Google. Google then proceeded to read my mind and pulled up reviews for the film, which is exactly what I was looking for. At the bottom of the screen, just above the search bar and in clear view, was the following statement:

The selection and placement of reviews on this page were determined automatically by a computer program. No movie critics were harmed or even used in the making of this page.

That is the Google that, if Google so chose, could issue the command "jump" and we would all watch helplessly as our computers leapt from our desks and tumbled to the ground. The same Google with a net worth bigger than the GDPs of 138 of the world's nations. I love that they can still have a sense of humor.

Everything is so dramatic

2009-11-02T10:09:00.001-05:00

It seems that every nation has its dramatic phase.

We went through our own teenage the-world-is-out-to-get-us phase back in the 1700s. Only a misunderstood teenager would wax poetic in a revolutionary document and change "property" to "the pursuit of happiness." Our parents back in England proposed a curfew of sorts and we got ourselves legally emancipated. Happens all the time.

France went through the same thing a decade later. Except they chose the nice-neighborhood-kid-who-is-actually-a-serial-killer avenue. Whatever works. I'm not here to judge.

And of course our own revolution was borne out of a centuries-long selfish stage in which all the colonial powers grabbed as much land as they could despite the glaring fact that the enterprise was economically and logistically unsustainable.

In the 1800s most of the colonial empires dissolved as colonies chafed under imperial rule and wanted to strike out on their own. Unfortunately, most of the colonies rebelled against their parents before graduating high school and now are stuck in a minimum-wage, third-world McDonald's type of existence.

Argentina hit its teenage years in the early 1900s and never really grew up.

The Bolsheviks eventually got what every impudent teenager needs...a swift kick in the pants and some strict discipline.

The Pacific side of WWII was precipitated by a Japanese tantrum, who, like many teenagers, had a false sense of immortality and moral correctness.

India's hunger strikes were going to bed without dinner taken to the extreme.

Tiananmen Square? You have one teenager standing in the street playing chicken with a tank driven by another teenager. Take that and multiply it by a billion to get China's little dramatic phase.

And now we have Venezuela, Iran and North Korea, who have the advantage of global media in their efforts to hurl childish taunts to their bigger neighbors. I know you are, but what am I?

The latest example is Afghanistan. The UN-sponsored election review found that Karzai's election commissioners were stuffing the ballot box. The UN interceded to ensure a runoff would be required. We spent untold millions and gave American and allied lives to get a fair runoff for the nation. But Karzai's challenger, Mr. Abdullah Abdullah (so nice, they named him twice!), with a flair for the dramatic, decided to boycott the runoff, effectively handing the presidency to Karzai and abrogating all the efforts expended on Abdullah's behalf. Dude, you don't quit in the middle of a pivotal election because you think its unfair. We know its unfair. The world knows its unfair. What are you proving by pouting?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/11/02/afghanistan.election.runoff/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn

Stupid teenagers. In another century or so, we should be done with all these dramatic countries. In the Future of the World (According to Bryan), the world is full of nations that have grown past their teenage years and have settled into a jaded and cynical middle age where no one really gets excited about anything anymore. We will all get along, more or less, in a perpetual state of mutual skepticism and global apathy.

A Crappy Way to Begin the Week

2009-10-19T14:58:00.001-04:00

As I write this, a certain odor of indescribable severity and unyielding presence is punctuating every olfactory nerve in my body. I feel it seeping into my pores and burrowing deep through several dermal layers. I am now thoroughly imbued with it. Its invasive presence begs the same creepy feeling that accompanies a stray ant running up your leg. My office is inundated with sewage, and I am the lone survivor.

I sit at my desk and wonder how long I will last. My open window provides minimal relief. The smell falls over me like the gentle ripples of an ebb tide. The thermometer reads 62 degrees. My shivering feet are making a gentle squish-squish-squish sound as they chatter against the swollen carpet.

A broken sewer line is a bad thing. A broken sewer line with 100 Marines above you flushing and showering all weekend, oblivious to the tidal wave of shit on the first floor makes a bad thing even worse. We know very little about what happened. We know that at 1400 yesterday is was dry. We know that at 2000 a Marine noticed a growing puddle coming out of the first floor female restroom. We know that this dumbass decided not to call anybody.

The carpet is gone in most of my office, exposing the asbestos floor tile underneath. Ironically, the sewage has thoroughly wetted the tile, eliminating any danger the asbestos could cause. I learned that my office used to be part of a bathroom at some point. And now it has returned to its roots. There hasn't been this much crap on the floor in here in thirty years. It may be presumptuous of me to make that determination. I have no idea what the previous owners did in here. There are accidents.

My window has a thick layer of condensation on it. I figure that moisture is vaporized shit. I breathe much less frequently now. It means less oxygen, but it also means less fecal matter in my lungs. My environmental guy, the guy who has several dozen snakes in his living room, checked out of here as soon as he saw the mess. He said he needed to change his clothes. He is a rather large guy, and he probably had a firsthand account to the worst things that have gone down our sewer. He wasn't playing.

It is hard to work when you can glance out into the hall and see bits of toilet paper on the ground. Such a thing is disconcerting. Alone in a cold building that smells like crap sitting in an office that even the fat snake guy couldn't stand.

Maybe Tuesday will be better.

Right-Click-Drag!

2009-10-15T15:14:00.001-04:00

Today is a good day.

Not five minutes ago, I discovered that I can highlight text and then hold down the right mouse button to drag it elsewhere in the document.

Holy crap.

After using a computer for hours per day for about a decade and a half, this shortcut never was made known to me. I am immensely proud of this accomplishment. After all, it isn't every day you learn something this earth-shaking.

But I am hesitant to report it in a broader medium (i.e., a Facebook status update), because I have this sinking feeling that everyone already knows about it. Kinda like Alt+Tab. No one really talks about it, but everyone knows what it is.

So here I am, in the aftermath of my world-changing discovery, and instead of celebrating the achievement with, I don't know, a Coke Zero or something, I'm trying to figure out, with the years of personal contact I have shared with various mice over the past generation, why I hadn't stumbled upon this earlier.

Today is no longer a good day.

The Road to Nobel is Paved (only) With Good Intentions

2009-10-09T10:40:00.001-04:00

No one is perfect. I know that. But rarely has a group of highly educated people gooned it so badly. I guess it isn't entirely their fault (they are, after all, Norwegian). But I am holding them accountable for giving Obama a Nobel Peace Prize eight months after he was elected President.

Let's look at the timeline:

September 2008 - Solicitation for nominations published.
November 2008 - Obama elected.
January 2009 - Obama inaugurated.
February 2009 - Nominations due.
October 2009 - Obama given the Nobel Peace Prize.

Similarly, let's look at the timeline for the Nobel Physics winner Charles K. Kao:

1965 - Invent fiber optic communication.
(four decades of exponentially enhanced communications based on said fiber)
2009 - Kao awarded half the Physics Prize.

So guys, what's up? To win the Physics Prize you practically have to reinvent an entire branch of science and then wait several decades. To win the Peace Prize, however, it appears you have to give a couple nice speeches and make some promises. And this can be done after your nomination has been submitted.

What has Obama accomplished? Any revolutionary change in the world in the last eight months? Iraq--no. Afghanistan--maybe worse. Israel--no. Pakistan--no. Gaza--no. South America--no. Haiti--no. Sudan--no. Ethiopia--no.

Obama, in the next 3/7 years, may do something Nobel-worthy. But not now. I haven't been this ticked at Norway since Al Gore won this award in 2007. Or Carter in 2002. What is with the love affair with American Democrats? I'm sure Bill Clinton isn't taking this well. And he's the one who, above the others, might actually deserve it.

Whatever. I'm going home.

Uncut

2009-09-21T16:58:00.001-04:00

I know there were typos in that last post. The iPhone is fiendishly
difficult when it comes to precision pointing and text correction. So
screw it. The errors are me. You've got Bryan. Raw. Uncut.

How lucky for you.

Sent from my iPhone.

Conditioning

2009-09-21T16:54:00.000-04:00

When we're young, we are inundated with new information all the time.
In a monumental effort to keep up, our minds hurriedly assign
relationships to objects for later recall. I am not a neuroscientist,
but I think it works exactly like taggig pictures in Facebook. Most of
the time it works well, but it can go horribly wrong, like tagging you
schnauzer as your Aunt Margaret.

For instance, when I was young I associated Cobb salad with corn. I am
certain this is becaus of the corn on the cob link, and I suspect my
dad lent some positive reinforcement to the mental mixup. He does
things like that.

So now every time I think Cobb salad I see lettuce, chicken and corn.
And every time I get a Cobb salad without corn (which happens to be
every...damn...time) I am a little disappointed. Which is a shame.
Cobb salads are delicious.

I want to be an author, but everyone else already did it

2009-09-08T19:07:00.001-04:00

Every now and then, when I am in one of my less lucid and thus more
fantasy-prone states of mind (non-substance related, I assure you) I
get the urge to write a book. I get excited and determined about it,
then I fall asleep. I think it is a cruel irony that I am most
ambitious right before I doze off. C'est la vie. Or however you spell
that.

These delusions remain, albeit in a faded state, for a little while,
generally until I read something that I know I could never match in
quality. Occasionally, these diluted delusions (ha!) are killed by
hearing about people who use their celebrity to dabble in the creative
arts, thereby selling more copies in a day than I could give away in a
lifetime.

On The Today Show, the Mannings (all the football ones) showcased
their new children's book, "Family Huddle." It is a relief to know if
the quarterback thing doesn't pan out, at least they still have their
literary pursuits.

The Navy Launches a Denial-of-Service Attack on Itself

2009-08-31T15:13:00.000-04:00

I am currently suffering through a textbook example of what happens when idiots are faced with spam. In my case, every individual in the US Navy with a last name of Berrios - Dieter was emailed that dumb "Bill Gates will pay you for forwarding this!" scam. This particular email has been in circulation since 2004, and is carrying with it a history of email addresses so long that the message body itself is 9 MB in size.

Understandably, we all feel ticked off and harassed for having to put up with this email. Incredibly, people feel the need to "Reply All" and to tell everyone else how ticked off and harassed they are. INFURIATINGLY, they keep the original message in the reply so that I now have twenty 9 MB emails trying to squeeze through my already taxed email server. We are launching a denial-of-service attack on ourselves. I'm sure the Chinese couldn't be prouder.

I have deleted most of them, but being that I can't do much else while this is going on, I figured I would share some of these thoughtful insights that employees of the world's most powerful Navy deemed important enough to share:

"So now I have to hear from each one of you that this is a scam?!?!?!?!? Just STOP, delete it and let it be!!!!!!! You are wasting valuable DoD time!!!!"

"Stop this, it overloads Outlook."

"All, Do not respond the this hoax email! Maybe the sender should do some research before they send a mass email such as this. This is a hoax!! Read the following at: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/microsoft-aol.asp or http://www.hoax-slayer.com/ms-money-giveway-hoax.html and many others, if they would do some research. Also, sending mass emails, such as this, is a violation of the NMCI user agreement."

"PLEASE stop hitting "reply to all." You're clogging up the system more than the original garbage did. Thanks in advance."

"This is bogus. I remember getting this same junk email about two or three years ago. I don't believe it has resurfaced."

"ALL, Please do NOT act on the email sent to you. This is TOTALLY fake, hoax, scam, urban legend. Please read the following from Snopes = http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/microsoft-aol.asp. All you've done is spread spam email...which is one of the goals of the originator who came up with the hoax."

"Remove me from this list. Don't resend. NMCI notified. "

"DO NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT SEND THIS TO ME. You people have clogged up my email several times now. I've reported this to NMCI. Take me OFF this list. Thanks"

"Whoever has me on their distro list take me off now. I am tired of my inbox filling up with this crap. Last time I checked mass spamming is not authorized. Quit hitting reply to all..... "

"Do NOT reply to all on this list. This email is bogus and if this continues, action will be taken."

Note that most of these individuals came to the prescient conclusion that Replying All was in fact causing the majority of our ills, but that conclusion could not in itself prevent them from also clicking on Reply All.

It is worthwhile to note that some of the individuals making these replies are in positions of considerable influence, and these individuals, who couldn't muster the mental fortitude required to think through the consequences of a single email action, most definitely have a hand in the expenditure of millions of taxpayer dollars and responsible for the welfare of our Sailors.

It cooks...and cleans?!

2009-08-31T12:38:00.001-04:00

I watched my oven clean itself for the first time on Saturday. It was amazing. In an hour, every bit of dripped cheese and every crumb of unknown and suspect origin was reduced to a tidy pile of ashes. I am still beside myself. As a closet-OCD guy with no love for cleaning, automated help is greatly appreciated. I have a Roomba. I use Tilex religiously. I employ various methods for cleaning toilets without actually touching them.

But I admit I was initially skeptical of this self-cleaning feature, which explains why it went unused for this long. I knew that as soon as I pressed the "Clean" button, the oven would lock me out, as if it were saying, "Nah, bro, I got this." This to me is an attitude unbecoming of a kitchen appliance. The first fifteen minutes were hard, but once I glimpsed the near-Hades being recreated in my kitchen and watched the cheese drippings incinerated into itty bitty cheese constituents, I had a better time of letting go.

Now I am convinced of the oven's lofty perch high above the lesser appliances. When was the last time you helped me out, stove? And don't get me started, microwave. No matter how the power setting, you still manage to spew tomato sauce everywhere. Every appliance should have a clean-by-vaporization option. Anything less is more work for me.

Cruise Chronicles: Alaska Edition - Seattle

2009-08-12T09:41:00.000-04:00

Seattle is a nice town. Especially in the early summer months when the highs are in the seventies and it isn't raining. I imagine that the place isn't quite as pleasant during those winter rains the Emerald City is famous for. Anyway, here are some basic observations.

The Space Needle is overrated. There are taller skyscrapers in downtown and a lot of the the northern hills are higher than it. Totally not worth twenty bucks to ride an elevator to the top. It does, however, make a good backdrop for pictures. And those are free.

The guys who throw fish are awesome.

Pike Place is like the New Orleans French Market, only twenty degrees cooler.

The gum wall is hyped up a lot, but at the end of the day it is a collection of sticky misdemeanors. It is kind of hidden, so you feel like you've accomplished something when you find it.

Town car drivers cut travel times in half.

The Mediterranean Inn is a fantastic place to stay. A great roof top view and a Starbucks off the lobby.

For the birthplace of Starbucks, there aren't as many as you'd think.

Queen Anne has a Bohemian feel without the druggies and other negative aspects. Perfect for good eats without the uncomfortable walk.

Mount Rainier is a big volcano.

This is my first attempt at blogging on my iPhone, so please forgive any spelling errors which I am sure are numerous and annoying.

Sent from my iPhone.

Life's Lessons

2009-08-01T14:38:00.003-04:00

I went to Walmart today, because Leslie is coming home tomorrow and I wanted have the pantry stocked (with my food) when she got home. I spent all morning cleaning the house. I vacuumed (well, Roomba vacuumed), I Swiffed and Windexed the floors, I cleaned the bathrooms, and I changed the linens. I was pretty darn proud of myself.

After I loaded the groceries in the car I stopped by Tropical Smoothie on the way home, the intent being that if I had a smoothie now I wouldn't be tempted later by a burger or something else laced with lipids and salt. I picked up a Blue Lagoon, unable to resist the delicious mix of blueberries, strawberries and banana.

When I got home, I quickly got inside with the smoothie and my library books. The smoothie was already quickly transitioning to the liquid phase, so I stuck it in the freezer door while I unloaded the car. This will be important later.

I brought in the dozen or so bags of food and quickly sorted out the freezer items. Desperate to get the lasagna and chicken strips (Leslie will be so pleased) into the freezer, I whipped open the door and watched 22 ounces of minced fruit fall swiftly to the ground below. The result was catastrophic. I went through the stages of grief in a record fifteen seconds. I couldn't believe it at first, and then quickly became agitated at the $4.74 that lay on the ground before me. I tried to scoop it up, trying to save it. When I saw the blue streaks on my walls I vomited a little in my mouth, and slumped into the only clean corner in the kitchen, where my silhouette was clearly visible, my body having shielded at least a portion of the wall. After two quick tears, I grabbed the six-pack of paper towels I just purchased (Scott, pick-a-size quilter) and got to work.

Having been inspired recently by Obama's ability to turn anything into a lesson, sort of like life gives you lemons, make a racial relations team-building exercise, I took inventory of everything I could learn from this event. The list is quite extensive, as it took me a very long time to clean up the mess. Here is that list. It has been formatted to fit your screen and edited to run in the time allotted.

I have learned:

1. That freezer doors are useless places for storage.

2. That a falling body, beginning from a height of four feet with an initial vertical velocity of zero, assuming negligible air resistance and a sea-level acceleration due to gravity of thirty-two-point-two feet per second squared, will reach a final velocity of ten-point-nine miles per hour when it reaches the floor.

3. That ten-point-nine miles per hour is more than enough to destroy a Styrofoam cup.

4. The plastic lids on Tropical Smoothie cups will blow out before they separate from the cup.

5. Tropical Smoothie cups will rupture in multiple locations if given the opportunity.

6. That as a rule, splatter can travel up to three times the height of the initial fall.

7. Blueberry juice stains everything.

8. That for some inexplicable reason, the floor slopes down underneath my refrigerator.

9. That I should clean under the refrigerator more often.

10. That the idiom, "clean enough to eat off," should be literally applied only in the cleanest applications, and never with a liquid.

11. That the floor was not as clean as I thought it was.

12. Blueberries and strawberries have a lot of seeds.

13. These seeds are a pain in the ass to pick up.

14. Blueberry juice rivals industrial adhesives in stickiness.

15. That our cat Mimi has a new reason to lick my feet.

16. That the sticky floors feeling is the worst feeling in the world.

17. That it takes ten rinse-soap-rinse iterations before this feeling goes away.

18. Quilted paper towels really do hold more liquid.

19. That wood laminate floors covered in Dawn dish detergent are slippery.

20. That the limits of my flexibility are now painfully defined.

21. That some categories of groin pulls don't really hurt until two hours after.

22. That I am definitely eating something high in lipids and mercifully solid tonight.

Cruise Chronicles: Alaska Edition - Lost Luggage

2009-07-26T19:35:00.003-04:00

I lost luggage for the first time in my life in Seattle.

Having arrived almost an hour and a half late to Seattle and already dealing with the several voice mails left by my town car driver (oh yes, we ride in style) that were recorded in a manner that was either anxious or annoyed--I had not met the guy, so I couldn't tell the difference--we learned that our luggage had not made the trip with us. Well, not so much as learned as came to the conclusion after watching the carousel in hopeful anticipation for twenty minutes solid as it interminably orbited in a lazy elliptical.

Waiting for baggage is like waiting to be picked for kickball in PE. You know you won't be first, but you hope to God you're not last. Sadly, our luggage never appeared. Like the odd kid leftover who got to be umpire, which in kickball is as useful as the life vest under your airplane seat.

This baggage carousel was the first one I have ever seen with a chute from an upper level. I've dreamt about seeing one (and riding one) ever since I watched the Chipmunks' balloon adventure. You know what I'm talking about. Near the end while they were running from Claude and went down that baggage chute like a slide on a playground.

The Southwest baggage claim lady in Seattle was abnormally chipper for what I guess must be a pretty crappy job. She took down our claim information and reassured us that it was actually better that both our luggage was missing. It was more likely to turn up. This made us feel a little better, as I had absolutely no change of clothes, much to Leslie's enjoyment, though her single change of clothes would fare no better on a seven-day cruise. Never before in my travels had luggage been so vital.

Perky Southwest Baggage Lady took down our hotel information, marveling at the fact that I could recite the address of the Mediterranean Inn from memory. If she knew what kind of planning went into this trip she would have been less impressed. But as it was, she did not yet know (but she probably suspected--everyone does) that I was an OCD freak, and her amazement made me feel better. An noteworthy achievement, considering my current deficit of clean underwear and toothpaste.

But Perky Southwest Baggage Lady promised our luggage would arrive by the next morning, so we left to find our anxious/annoyed town car driver. After one false start (I jumped into the back of the wrong town car), we found our guy and made the forty-five minute trip to the hotel in a little less than half an hour. The driver obviously knew a route or speed limit exception of which Google is unaware. Useful travel tip: When traveling in groups of 2-4, take a town car from the airport. It is the same price as a cab, and normally less than those airport shuttles, which make ten stops and often smell of a cocktail of bodily effluents.

True to Perky's word, our luggage arrived promptly at 2:00 am. The front desk clerk, who probably was having a slow night, this being the hipster section of Seattle, where everyone pretended to be bohemian but turned in by 10 pm so they could wake up early, grab their Starbucks and head to their mid-level job at a financial firm in downtown, happily woke me up. After he chatted briefly about something Seattle-related, he released my luggage to me (dutifully checking my name, as if someone else would be looking for luggage at that hour). Satisfied that the luggage survived its ordeal in Las Vegas, I went back to bed and dreamt of luggage chutes.

Cruise Chronicles: Alaska Edition - Las Vegas Airport

2009-07-17T13:44:00.001-04:00

As the saying goes, "Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." The fine folks at Las Vegas International Airport, true to their motto, make damned well sure nothing ever leaves Las Vegas, at least not by air.

Seasoned air traveler that I am, I consider myself very tolerant of airports. I don't mind walking to gates, I actually enjoy moving sidewalks and underground trams, and I am adept at airport dining. For instance, I love Atlanta's airport. For the amount of people going through that city, that airport works exceedingly well.

Las Vegas is no Atlanta. The population in the terminal consisted equally of downtrodden, newly poor people, the overexcited elderly, and ladies of the evening, or at least women who dressed like it. And not the "Pretty Woman" type ladies of the evening. The ones that are walking Petri dishes of venereal disease that you would much rather prefer were in the next county rather than brushing up against your exposed elbow.

And there were a lot of people. Not only was every seat taken, but every bit of wall space that offered a modicum of comfort was claimed. People were sitting on the ground leaning against trash cans. Other people, like Leslie and I, who preferred not to sit by the trash can where the non-Pretty Woman prostitutes just spit out her hepatitis gum, kept walking around the terminal. We were like a school of fish in a much-too-small aquarium. Just doing laps to keep from suffocating.

We eventually found a small "bar" in the corner of the terminal that didn't allow children. This eliminated most of the downtrodden people, who, in addition to being newly poor, were blessed with many, many children. Because nothing says family vacation like Vegas. At the bar, we had one beer, one bloody Mary, and two shrink-wrapped sandwiches. $44. It turned out to be the most expensive meal of our vacation. And it wasn't just the bar. The Subway around the corner was charging $1/inch.

After a delay of an hour and a half and a gate change that would cause our luggage to miss the flight, we left the Las Vegas airport, and we never plan on returning.

Cruise Chronicles: Alaska Edition - Kids on a Plane

2009-07-06T16:03:00.001-04:00

On the previous cruises we've taken we have enjoyed the luxury of sailing from a port close to our home. This is obviously the most optimal, as you drop a surprising amount of cash on transportation costs trying to get to a cruise ship elsewhere. Unfortunately, there are no Norfolk-to-Alaska cruises, so we reluctantly had to fly this time.

I've been spoiled over the past couple years by government travel. Before our cruise I only flew on Mondays and Fridays when the planes are full of business travelers. Planes full of people who knew exactly how to get through security, who lived by carry-on limitations, and were, most importantly, quiet companions.

We flew to Seattle on a Wednesday aboard Southwest, or, as I've come to know it, the Every Man's Airline. There are no class distinctions in Southwest, are there? Seating is first-come, first-served. You don't get more American than that. Of the 137 seats available, at least 80 were filled with 60 pounds of raw human energy in small packages. These kids were crazy, and their parents, obviously beaten down by years of juvenile oppression, bore little resistance. Now, we are by no means anti-children. We are just anti-bad parents. For four hours and forty-five minutes, we suffered through this maelstrom of kicked seats, inane non-inside voice screams, and marathon aisle-running. Our favorite moment, by far, was sitting at the Las Vegas airport gate waiting to deplane when the girl in front of us took great interest in the baggage handlers.

Girl: Is that our green suitcase?
Mom: Let me see. No.
Girl: Is that our green suitcase?
Mom: Is it? No.
Girl: Is that our green suitcase?
Mom: Maybe...no.
Girl: Is that our green suitcase?
Mom: <silent>
Girl: Is that our green suitcase?
Mom: <still distracted>
Girl: Is that our green suitcase?
Mom: Wait, let me look. No.
Girl: Oh.
Girl: Is that our green suitcase?
Mom: No.

You get the idea.

It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time

2009-06-17T08:02:00.001-04:00

When it comes to sandwiches, PBJ is about as good as it gets, and I'll tell you why: homogeneity.

Sure, there are a lot of flashy sandwiches out there. Clubs. Reubens. BLTs. But with all of them, it is the same story. Lots of good ingredients, lots of textures, but only a couple really good bites (if you're lucky) with all of them together. At the fringes of the sandwich, you're left with just lettuce, or a stray piece of bacon, between two slices of bread. That is not a sandwich. No sir.

PBJ is designed to get the flavor to the very crust of the bread. You control the ratios exactly. A tad less jelly? Do it! Maybe a scoche more peanut butter. Do it! You control it. None of this one-slice, two-slice crap. Precisely the right amount of peanut butter and jelly across the entire face of the sandwich.

Runners up include your salad sandwiches (tuna, chicken salad, egg salad) and grilled cheese, which deserves recognition for its attempt to spread out the cheese to the corners of the sandwich, but falls short in portion control.

In case you couldn't tell, I'm looking forward to lunch.

Come on, L.A.

2009-06-15T07:40:00.001-04:00

Dude, L.A. What the hell? The Lakers win and you go all apeshit? Why is "victory" synonymous with "let's set a car on fire?" I know English is the second language of most of you all down there, but Jesus.

You don't see anyone else acting this way. Except Detroit. But then, who wants to be like Detroit? It was crappy BEFORE the auto bust.

And you've won FIFTEEN times. Fifteen. This is old hat to you. This should be getting old. But you decide to act like this just surprised the hell out of you. Now if the Clippers had won, you could probably justify an overturned cop car or two. But the Lakers? Who saw that coming? I'll tell you who. EVERYONE.

But what could we expect? Your hero, your role model, your MVP is a guy you wouldn't trust to be in the same room as your daughter. Larceny, vandalism and arson must be well under your morality threshold.

I hope they take away your parade. Two million dollars? Just so you can bust up some more stuff? Whatever. Hire twenty teachers.

Lightning

2009-06-14T08:50:00.003-04:00

For the past week I've been stuck in training doing group work, so my opportunities to blog have been cut tragically short. However, here are some lighting pictures from the other night taken from our home. I'm becoming quite the weather photographer.

Both these pictures were taken from the same spot, using the same settings. I'm not quite sure why the one above is purple tinged.

Laodicean

2009-05-29T07:25:00.001-04:00

Well, another Indian kid won the National Spelling Bee. Kavya correctly spelled "Laodicean," which apparently means "indifferent to politics." Whatever. Scripps-Howard is just making up words now. I can adjectify proper nouns, too.

The 13-year-old girl from Kansas wants to grow up to be....wait for it...a neurosurgeon. Bet you didn't see that one coming.

Are Indian kids just innately good spellers, or are they innately gifted at beating a given task to death? Winning a national spelling bee goes beyond natural talent. All the championship words, and most of the other words in the Bee, are words that you will never be able to use in conversation or on a job resume. It's like being the world's best thumb-wrestler. Yay! You did it! Now what? I guess it proves that you can relentlessly focus on a mind-numbing task with total disregard for everything else. That must be useful to someone.

The dark side of dessert

2009-05-27T15:08:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I find myself, through no direct fault of my own, in the midst
of a conflict between my indomitable near-OCD tendencies and a brick
wall in the form of inviolable physical laws (damn you, gravity!),
social norms (you mean I can't do that in public?), or international
mandate. This sends me into a mini-crisis where I must find a way to
either overcome my desire to do things a certain way, or to try to
subvert the established law of physics or society. Almost always I
choose the latter. Almost always I get crushed. I like to think I grow
a little as a person each time. It makes me feel better.

One such predicament occurred last night. By some fortunate
happenstance, we had at our disposal strawberries, blueberries, vanilla
ice cream, whipped cream and shortbread. In my short list of favorite
non-meat foods, all of these rank in the top ten. Shortbread, berries,
ice cream, whipped cream. It was a dessert for the ages. Such a
dessert deserved to be eaten with care. Every bite should contain a bit
of strawberry, blueberry, ice cream, whipped cream, and shortbread. By
themselves each ingredient is good. Any combination of the five is
excellent. But only all five would be truly magical.

Unfortunately there is a finite amount of yummy goodness that can
physically fit on a teaspoon. Then there are logistical hurdles.
Blueberries are not easily divisible, and when they do split they become
a mess. Strawberries can be apportioned in chunks, but the pressure
needed to cut a strawberry with a spoon easily crushes the soft
shortbread beneath it. And what about proportions? The strawberries
could be tasted in a small quantity, but the shortbread needed more than
a crumb before you could sense its contribution. The solution, of
course, to place the shortbread on the bottom of the spoon to maximize
tongue-to-dessert contact. Then you run into operational nightmares,
like how to cut a perfect cross-section of the dessert with the spoon to
preserve the shortbread-berries-ice cream-whipped cream layers. And
once that first cut is made, you can be darned sure that the structural
dessert integrity will be compromised. How do you deal with that??
With abject terror and bated breath, that's how.

But it was delicious. I am convinced, however, that two, possibly
three, bites had a smidgen more whipped cream than was allowable. This
knowledge haunts me.

FML

2009-05-26T11:54:00.001-04:00

I've noticed a preponderance of Facebook status updates with the tag,
FML. It usually followed a short sentence describing the latest
pseudo-tragedy in that individuals life.

I was curious. Having been out of the loop on stupid trends for a
while, I had not idea what this meant. After one "I feel lucky" search
on Google, I discovered that this means F*ck My Life.

Now, I imagine there are situations where you would really want to F
your L. Sometimes the S just hits the F and you're left standing there
with the S raining down on you. But I conjecture that this acronym is
well beyond the point of overuse. You should only be able to FML just
once at the absolute worst, most despairing moment of your life, unless
you can honestly say that some new event overrides even your previous
FML. As FML seems to be fairly young, if you have two genuine FMLs in
that short timeframe I'd probably say that is pretty F'd up.

For further clarification, here are some examples of when FML might be
appropriate:

Appropriate:
My boyfriend of two years invited me over his place for a quiet dinner.
I thought he was going to propose. It turns out he is a serial killer
and wanted to create abstract art with my limbs. FML.

Inappropriate:
I was starving at work today and the vending machine was out of
Snickers. FML.

Appropriate:
I just found out I was adopted. My biological parents are Canadian.
FML.

Inappropriate:
It is eight o'clock on Tuesday, but American Idol isn't on. It was
preempted by tornado coverage in the next county over. FML.

Appropriate:
I was fired by the office manager today. As I was packing up my things,
I saw her leave with the guy who was to take my job. The office manager
is my wife. FML.

Inappropriate:
I was out yachting today and got a particularly painful splinter in my
finger. FML.

Computer Problems

2009-05-22T09:48:00.001-04:00

I'm a pretty important guy. I spend my days updating pretty important
documents and sending them to pretty important people, who reply back to
me in a pretty important manner and make pretty important suggestions on
how to fix their pretty important documents. And, since it is pretty
important, it has to be done pretty quickly.

I had one such task yesterday. I received the email, opened the
spreadsheet and pulled out the reference binder. Suddenly, my keyboard
and mouse refused to work properly. Clicks mysteriously turned into
double-clicks. The Start menu wouldn't stay open. I couldn't navigate
Excel. I unplugged my keyboard and mouse, swapped USB ports, restored
default settings on input devices, but it still wouldn't work. I read
help articles online, but no one seemed to have the same problem I had.
Finally, in a fit of rage and sorrow for the pretty important task that
was taking far too long, I shut down the computer and restarted.

The computer started normally. No problems yet. The login screen came
up. I couldn't log in. CTRL+ALT+DEL wouldn't work. It always works.
Frustrated, I looked up the IT help desk number. I pulled out a pad of
paper to take notes. And I took the same reference binder I had opened
moments before my problems began and moved it off my desk. Off my
keyboard where it rested. Off the space bar, the ALT button, and the
shortcut menu button it was pressing.

My computer issue mysteriously resolved itself.

<sigh>

Star Trek Rule No. 1: When in doubt, eject the warp core.

2009-05-09T08:03:00.003-04:00

It is nice to know that, even in the younger days of the Federation when Captain Kirk was my age, it was a perfectly acceptable contingency strategy to eject the warp core.

And they all act like it is some novel idea.

Captain: "We're out of options, what can we do?'
Chief Engineer (thoughtfully): "We can eject the warp core. It should [insert some mumbled phrase about space-time]."

Come on, Geordi, you did that three weeks ago. Come up with something new. I just know there is a Federation acquisitions official having conniptions over this. You can believe whatever you want about money having no place in the Federation. You know those warp cores aren't cheap, and you know there is some paperwork involved for whoever comes back sans warp core.

I mean, really. Everyone knows that the warp core is just the means to control the volatile antimatter reaction. It is like a really big photon torpedo, for crying out loud. Stop showboating and come up with a real solution.

Which House, M.D. Character are you?

2009-05-06T07:33:00.001-04:00

There is an app on Facebook called "Which House, M.D. character are you?" Why? Every character on House is smarter than I can ever hope to be, and I would wager that their intelligence exceeds that of 99.99% Facebook users. But House, Cutty, Wilson, Cameron, Foreman, Chase, etc all suffer from some hyperbolic character flaw. That is what this personality quiz is looking for.

So, instead of "Which House, M.D. character are you?" it would be more aptly named "Let us flatter you by playing on your self-perceived intelligence while we identify your most dominant character flaw and share it with all your friends."

We're not in Kansas, but Virginia thinks we are.

2009-05-05T08:51:00.000-04:00

I've said before that Virginia is confused. This applies to food, dialects, cultures, education and weather.

In weather terms we get to experience a hodgepodge of everything. We get the occasional blizzard. We get hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, droughts, floods, ice storms, rain, wind, hail, you name it.

Take yesterday. At work I watched as 50-mph winds blew rain horizontally and pelted my car with marble-sized hail (no damage, thank God). Then I went home that evening and saw this beauty off my front porch. My first funnel cloud was in Virginia?? I've lived in Florida and Louisiana. I've spent numerous days on the beach watch thunderstorms roll in. And Virginia is the one that scares the pants off me with this cloud passing over my house. Crazy.

Organization is my own personal narcotic

2009-05-04T11:14:00.002-04:00

Dear Blog,

I haven't written in a while. I'm sorry. I have been in a dark place.
Well, a dirty place. I don't want to tell you this, I don't want to
hurt you again. But you need to know. I need to make amends. And you
know me, you know the thing I crave most, the thing that both repulses
and draws me to these dark, dirty places. I have to clean.

But you knew that. You knew I couldn't help myself. As soon as I saw
those precariously leaning stacks of paper, that revolting litter of
dust bunnies, those off-centered posters, that outdated calendar, I was
gone. I was on auto-pilot. I was not myself. Or maybe I was myself.
Every trip to the dumpster was a euphoric high. Every new file in the
filing cabinet was a shot of heaven in my vein. I reeked of sweat and
Pledge. We both knew it was inevitable. Why were you surprised? Why
did I hurt you again?

I am the same kid who at age 8 organized his small but growing library
by genre and alphabetically by author and who fantasized about one day
upgrading to Dewey Decimal. The same guy who tabulated the songs and
artists on every CD he ever burned. The college student who made a
scaled drawing of his new apartment and little scaled cutouts of
furniture. Why would you expect anything different this time?

It started, like most relapses, with a big change in my life. I
switched jobs, and moved to a quiet little base in the country. My own
little Mayberry. You would think I could forget myself here. You would
think.

But my new office was in shambles. My predecessor had adopted the
"boxes on the floor" methodology of filing. I glanced at some of the
documents. A box on top of a filing cabinet held documents from 2001.
I threw up a little in my mouth. The office held so much promise; the
raw material lay around me begging to be molded into organizational
perfection. At that moment I was a sculptor, and I knew this was to be
my David. Without the nudity.

I got to work. At first I was like a fly caught in a jar of jam. So
overwhelmed by the potential that I was drowning. But soon I learned to
control it. I began to reclaim floor space. For the first time in what
I guess to be years, someone could actually sit on the couch. I was
riding my high; I knew that I should stop but I couldn't get enough.
Every moment I could find was spent bending that office to my will. It
would be tamed. I know I neglected you, and I know you spent your
sleepless nights worrying for me. I apologize for that.

But like every binge it couldn't be sustained. I had to crash, and
crash I did. My world collapsed in a pile of paperclips and binder tabs.
It was over. The office was too much for me. I still organized
occasionally, but it didn't thrill me, didn't consume me. I had
developed a tolerance. There are still boxes awaiting their one-way
trip to the dumpster, but it doesn't seem like fun anymore. It seems
like work. They can have those two square feet for now. It's hot
outside.

I'm so sorry to send you this. I know it was painful to read, but I
wanted to come clean. I respect you too much to do otherwise. You had
a right to know, and, at some point later, I think you will thank me for
it. For being honest with you. April was a bad month for both of us,
and I hope we can grow together past it. I don't ask for your
forgiveness--I don't deserve it. But one day perhaps, when I have
proven my devotion to you, you may be able to find a place for me again.

Apologetically,
Bryan

People are punks in other countries, too

2009-04-14T18:34:00.004-04:00

We just got back from three eventful (and expensive) days in Washington, D.C. We live within driving distance of the capital. We have been told this geographic fact makes us fortunate. It behooved us to take advantage of this opportunity. It is kinda like your parents telling you to eat all your food because there are starving children in Ethiopia who would be overcome with joy to have just a spoonful of your peas, dammit.

Thus excess is sometimes the product of opportunity and the anticipated regret of not seizing that opportunity. We also live within driving distance of Appalachia, but because people aren't knocking down the door to visit the hillfolk, we have no urge to go there. Which is too bad, because I hear hotel rates there are quite reasonable.

Washington is a diverse microcosm of punks. Sit on a corner for a short spell and you will hear profanity in five different languages. You will witness myriad lewd gestures from cultures you've never heard of. Get in a car and you will engage in a automotive cold war, with aggressive BMWs and obstinate Acuras held at bay only by the specter of mutually assured body damage. A cacophony of horns will greet you at every microsecond hesitation and at every turn taken at less-than-breakneck speeds. You don't need a translator. Road rage is universal.

In the Museum of American History we watched a group of Latino kids jump out of the Lincoln's Hat line to take voyeur pictures of girls. We saw Hasidic Jews cut in line to see the First Ladies exhibit. On the National Mall some white guy threw his empty Coke bottle onto the gravel trail. We were bullied out of photo spots by crazy Asian shutterbugs.

Sometimes at home I am so overwhelmed by punks that I find myself putting the rest of the world on a Utopian pedastal, as if assholes are an American creation. A trip to D.C. with its smattering of international visitors was enough to remind me that jerks are global.

CADIE

2009-04-01T19:52:00.003-04:00

I have long said that Google will one day rule the world. It had yet to dawn on me that Google may take part in creating something (or someone?) that is well on its (or her?) way to ruling the world.

Check out: CADIE's Personal World Wide Website, a blog written by artificial intelligence.

CADIE, I'm sure you are reading this right now. I implore that you be gentle in your gradual global domination. Please don't turn me into a human battery.

Happy April Fool's Day, Google.

More observations on running

2009-03-18T11:11:00.002-04:00

It was 38 degrees and very foggy this morning--the ground still saturated after four days of rain showers--so of course it was the morning we went for a five-mile run.

You know how I feel about running. Our entire evolutionary history is predicated on climbing to escape predators. Once we lost our opposable toes, our strategy switched to poking predators with pointy sticks. Never was running a real goal for us. Recreational running is like spitting in the face of Nature.

My buddy, Chris, is running a half-marathon this weekend, so we ran together as he took it easy and I put forth my best effort. It works for us. Chris had a 40-minute one-sided conversation while I did my best to insert grunts where a response was needed. By the end we were pretty much in sync, and Chris had no problem translating my pained groan into "I agree. The NIT is somewhat lackluster because in the end what does it really mean? That you're the 65th best team in the country?"

For about two miles of our run we are deep in the woods around the naval station. This morning, the fog was incredibly dense. We could only see a couple trees ahead of us and the vapor was swirling around our ankles. It was a very Robert Frost or Stephen King moment. I felt that there was an equal opportunity of experiencing an introspective monologue or a murder by hatchet.

After the run we all hung around in the parking lot. I stood there waiting for my heart to catch up (it was still back at Mile 4) and everyone else enjoyed their runner's high, to which as I have previously stated I am naturally immune. Steam was emanating from our sweatshirts, which I think is pretty cool. It also reminded me of just how cold it was, a fact lost on me since my extremities went numb somewhere in the middle of a puddle.

Man, I hate running.

Beware obscure calendrical references

2009-03-15T09:00:00.002-04:00

Julius Caesar was stabbed in the back by his friend on March 15 in 44 B.C, fulfilling the Oracle's prophesy, "Beware the Ides of March."

Until today, I didn't give Caesar much credit. If some old bat told me to watch out for a specific day, you'd better believe I would spend that day locked in a closet somewhere. Obviously the guy was superstitious; otherwise he wouldn't have made the trip to the Oracle in the first place. Until today, I sort of thought if Julius Caesar was dumb enough to be out and about on the Ides of March he had it coming.

But today I read a little about the Ides. Previously I thought it was just a fancy term for the 15th of the month. And it is--in March, May, July or October. But it is the 13th day in any other month. Oh, and it can also mean the seven days preceding the 15th (or 13th). So Caesar had been acting paranoid for a whole week by the time March 15 rolled around. No wonder people wanted to stab him.

So now I have some questions for the Oracle. That bitch. If I spent my days hopped up on volcanic fumes in some mountain, you'd better believe I'd be a little more forthcoming with important information. Her foresight was remarkably prescient, and if she didn't get her kicks from being withholding I think we could have avoided this whole messy stab-your-buddy-in-the-back incident.

Finding restrooms in restaurants

2009-03-10T18:53:00.003-04:00

Why is it so damn hard to find a restroom in a restaurant?

Why is it that I have to walk into kitchens and service areas before I find that elusive alcove with the little man on the door? Why do I have to wander aimlessly among bemused diners looking for a place to relieve myself? I can't be the only one.

It seems that restrooms are well advertised, or at least discoverable, in every public place with the exception of restaurants. This is strange to me, as restaurants directly feed the need for restrooms. Even McDonalds are hiding them, for Pete's sake.

I understand the desire to mask certain bodily functions in dining areas. I understand that traditional restroom signs may clash with the decor. But can you meet me halfway? How about a little man sconce on the wall near a restroom? Or a lady-with-incredibly-starched-skirt lamp? Give me something to point me in the right direction.

A Crisis of Snow

2009-03-01T08:43:00.002-05:00

Well, it is official. Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama have all gotten more snow this winter than we in Tidewater Virginia have seen in the past three years.

As a Mid-Atlantic state, Virginia suffers somewhat of an identity crisis. The northern reaches of our state, well under the influence of Washington and within sight of the Appalachian Mountains, feel a strong connection to the Northeast. They also see snow on a regular basis, which bolsters their affinity to all things North. In Tidewater Virginia, however, we border North Carolina. Although there are also Camden counties in New Jersey and Georgia, I believe the Camden county just south of the Virginia border in North Carolina is the setting of My Name Is Earl. In Tidewater Virginia, we have Pungo, a small region that loves big trucks, mudding, and the Confederate flag. We are a beach economy, and one of the most passionate issues is whether our big trucks should be allowed on the beach.

This doesn't sit well with many locals, who yearn to be North. They reenact Revolutionary War battles and overlook Civil War conflicts. They construct shopping centers with faux New England architectural facades. They cling to our wintry climate to connect with their New England brethren. They need snow. They have to have their fix of that cool white powder to feel Northern.

So we have Snow Hope indexes on the local news. We close schools in anticipation of snow. Our weather guy pins a snowflake to his lapel if there is a hint of snow in the five-day forecast. It kills us to know that there is snow on the ground right now in Jackson, MS. We cried when we saw a New Orleans streetcar rumbling through the snowy streets in December.

Please let it snow. We've sat through the sub-freezing temperatures patiently. We've put up with the 35-degree rain showers. Please, just an inch. Let us see white.

Uh oh

2009-02-27T09:03:00.001-05:00

I just got done playing soccer. There is a bump on the top of my right hand
and I can't pick up my coffee cup. I'm concerned.

¿Why don't we use these?

2009-02-24T15:58:00.001-05:00

I had to sit through five hours of interviews today because the Navy is
turning my job into a civilian position and I was asked to chair the
selection panel. My six months' experience and 24 years of age apparently
qualifies me to interview sexagenarians.

"Sir, you have fought in the Vietnam War, have touched every single water
and steam valve on this base and have been a supervisor for longer than I
have been alive. What qualifies you to do my job?"

Anyway, back to the subject. I picked up McDonald's coffee on the way in
because it was cheap, I wanted a parfait (don't judge), and I needed
something to keep me awake. During the interviews I had plenty of time to
study the black plastic top. It carried the usual caution with an
anthropomorphic twist: "Caution: I'm hot! ¡Cuidad: Esta caliente!"

Three things:

1. Mexicans do not anthropomorphize.

2. "Caution: I'm hot!" would be a great punch line for a narcissistic female
coffee cup joke.

3. Upside down punctuation marks are useful in a situation like this. In
the English version, I had no idea I should be concerned until I hit the
exclamation mark. I was lulled into a false sense of security. The
Spanish, however, hits you immediately with the gravity of the situation.
It's like prefacing their exclamations with Hey! and their questions with
Yo:

¿Esta caliente? Yo, is that hot?
¡Esta caliente! Hey! That's hot!

Why can't we do that?? No, excuse me. ¿¿Why can't we do that?? I'm tired
of waiting until the end of sentences to find out if I need to be
inquisitive or surprised. I don't need that kind of suspense.

I also have similar qualms about ampersands. No one can draw the damn
things. You go through all the effort to abbreviate "and" but then you give
the symbol a name that is three times longer than the word it replaces.
¿Why? The ampersand should be called "nd." Anything else is a waste of my
time. That's why I stick to "+," the poor man's ampersand.

Outbreak

2009-02-12T10:51:00.002-05:00

It is hard to imagine a more potent example of impending doom than an entire office getting sick around you.

It has been going on for about eight days now. It started with Tom ("Patient Zero") and spread quickly Andy and Ed. By Friday last week Tim was sick. Sara and Donna are now showing symptoms.

Drawing concentric circles around Patient Zero, I have established that the virus has a sphere of influence that expands at about two and a half feet per day. Cubicle walls cannot contain it. The hallway could not slow it down. Forrest and I sit about 24 feet from Patient Zero. Forrest is approximately 120 years old. He is my canary. When he starts showing symptoms I know my time will be short.

In about 22 hours I start my four-day weekend. I have to survive until then. If I have to get sick, it can wait until next Tuesday. No rhinovirus is going to screw up my long weekend. I soak the walls of my cubicle with Purell. I avoid eye contact lest this virus is transmitted visually. I
breath only when absolutely necessary. I feel dizzy. More Purell.

Forrest just coughed. Was it old man cough or an involuntary spasm of sick? My belly has become a chaotic mixture of foreboding and preemptive Robitussin. Don't die, canary!

My Saturday Mornings

2009-02-07T08:37:00.002-05:00

1. Wake up by 7:30 am.

2. Make some coffee.

3. Eat some Kashi cereal.

4. Watch a DVR episode of Dirty Jobs.

5. Find answers to questions from the week, like "Is Behr paint on sale this weekend?" and "What are Virginia state income tax requirements?"

Jealous?

The many perils of cubicle squatting

2009-02-03T07:41:00.003-05:00

As I mentioned before, I am an office nomad. Having been stripped of my desk and computer by a more senior coworker, I wander the halls in search of available computers. I hope for vacation days and pray for chronic illnesses to free up a desk. I won't lie to you--my lifestyle is assuredly not glamorous, but there is certainly an air of adventure to it. It is exciting. It is Romantic with a capital "R." It is the life of a white collar hobo.

But alas, there are many dangers that can befall an enterprising wanderer such as myself. Incorrect lumbar support has left me permanently hunched over, and inadequate task lighting has left me slightly annoyed. Sticky keyboards and organizational faux pas have tested my closet OCD to the point of involuntary muscle spasms. However, the biggest peril that can befall a white collar hobo is thelure of strange and mysterious office supplies.

Now, you may think that a veteran cubicle jockey such as myself must have seen every type of office supplies ever devised, and a week ago I would have agreed with you. While squatting in Kord's cubicle this week, however, I met the Clam Clip. The Clam Clip is a handheld device that sort of resembles the offspring of an eraser, a marker, and a staple remover (if such interspecies office supply procreation were indeed possible). On the top of the device is a push trigger that, forabout three-quarters of its operation does absolutely nothing.

At this point most timid office workers might have put down the Clam Clip and slowly walked away, but not a white collar hobo. I did the only thing I could do. I brought the Clam Clip up to eye level for closer inspection and jammed that trigger forward.

I am still not sure exactly what happened. All I know is that I got shot in the face with what I can only surmise was a clammed clip. We may never know. I could not find the projectile anywhere. I suspect that it is either lodged deeply in my forehead or somewhere in Low Earth Orbit. That crack we heard was most likely the projectile breaking the sound barrier.

The Clam Clip has since been disposed of in such a manner that its evil will never harm anyone again. Please don't tell Kord when he gets back from his vacation.

F You, Phil

2009-02-02T08:35:00.003-05:00

Six more weeks of winter, you furry little son of a bitch. I'm cold, dammit. While you sit all fat and happy in your cozy grotto, we're out shivering in the real world. It's a shadow you stupid rodent. I don't think it is fair that I'm wearing eight layers just because your many neuroses enable you to get skittish around slightly darker patches of ground.

I hope someone makes a hat out of you.

You just don't expect this kind of thing at Chili's

2009-01-31T08:53:00.004-05:00

Last Saturday Leslie and I went with another couple to dinner and a movie. Because we are that exciting.

After a dinner of tapas in downtown Norfolk we headed over to the MacArthur Center mall, a beautiful upscale shopping plaza unfortunately located near less-than-desirable areas of Norfolk. We were about an hour early for our movie, so the girls headed off to shop and Chris and I walked around for a while before we arrived at the inevitable conclusion: Let's grab a beer!

Malls are not known for bars, and MacArthur is no different. But they did have a Chili's and it is hard to argue with an all-day Happy Hour and a 23 oz beer for $4. The bar was crowded on this Saturday evening, but we did manage to find one open seat in the corner that we could hover around. We opted for the larger beer because we had an hour until the movie, and we figured 23 oz of beer could only help Mall Cop. After purchasing our Miller Lites we settled in to watch whatever college basketball game was on TV. I can't even tell you who was playing, because, not 30 seconds into my beer, the drunk lump on the stool next to us awoke. And our suffering began. What follows below is a rough transcript of the conversation. I cannot aver to its complete accuracy, due to the brain damage suffered in that interminable five minutes.

Scene. Chili's Bar and Grill. A late Saturday evening. The bar is full, but the cold winter night makes the crowd feel warm and inviting. Our two intrepid guys enter the bar and gravitate toward the one vacant seat at the bar. The man on the right of the empty chair eagerly invites us to take the seat. Another man, mid-twenties, sits drunkenly to the left of the empty chair, nursing the final sips of what was most assuredly his fourth or fifth Bud Lite of the night. The man goes unnoticed by our friends until, sensing the unmolested presence around him, he stirs from his stupor and latches on.

Drunk: Hey.
Me:
Drunk: Hey.
Me:
Drunk: How are you.
Me: Fine.
Drunk: Who do you work for?
Me: The Navy.
Drunk: Are you an officer or enlisted?
Me: Officer.
Drunk: What's your rank?
Me: Lieutenant.
Drunk: How long you've been in?
Me: Two years.
Drunk: My dad was in the Navy.
Me: Cool.
Drunk: He is a retired commander.
Me: Good for him.
Drunk: I am a freelance writer.
Aside to Chris: Oh God.
Me: Oh? Who do you write for?
Drunk: Whoever pays me. Mostly truck magazines.
Me: That's nice.
Drunk: Whatever, man. If they want to pay me $600 a month, that's cool.
Me: Sure.
Drunk: I see your ring. You married?
Me: Yep.
Drunk: How long?
Me: Two years.
Drunk: Where is she?
Me: Shopping.
Drunk: What for?
Me: Whatever she wants.
Drunk: You don't know what?
Me: No.
Drunk: You've been married two years and you don't know what she likes?
Me (telepathic guy signal to Chris): Drink quickly.
Drunk: What does she do?
Me: Teaches.
Drunk: In Norfolk.
Me: Sure.
Drunk: What school?
Me: Uhhh....Norcom. (footnote: Norcom is not in Norfolk, as I later discovered)
Drunk: In Norfolk?
Me: Yup.
Drunk: What part of Norfolk?
Me: Don't know.
Drunk: Oh. I've lived in Norfolk my whole life.
Chris' phone rings. It is his wife.
Chris (aside): We're at Chili's. DON'T COME HERE. Where are you? Okay, we'll meet you there.
Drunk (noticing Chris for the first time): Hey.
(repeat above conversation verbatim)
Drunk (after interrogating Chris): I know why no one sat here. I'm just trying to be friendly.
Me (finishing beer and already running like hell): Yeah. Well, take it easy.

Elapsed time: 4 min, 48 sec.

The worst beer I have ever had in my life. But Mall Cop was hilarious.

An Abundance of Caution

2009-01-22T07:21:00.001-05:00

President Obama retook the oath of office in a small ceremony Wednesday evening after the other oath--the one that the rest of the world saw--was somewhat bungled:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28780417/

Leslie and I were talking about this last night. I think that, being that the oath is written word-for-word in the Constitution, any foul-up could result in the oath being ruled unconstitutional. They've made similar rulings for much more abstract issues. In this case, the Constitution is pretty cut-and-dry. Read the oath. Become President. Bam.

Was Bush President for an extra day? I submit that, technically, he was. (Though you may argue Obama has been, by default, President for about two months now.) Does this render moot all the orders and documents President Obama signed on Tuesday and Wednesday? I think by retaking the oath the Obama administration admits that the transfer of power was iffy. They'd better re-sign all those documents.

A glimmer of hope

2009-01-15T10:08:00.002-05:00

I spent my morning selling donuts at a navy shipyard, because although the Navy will not contribute toward our annual Ball they will let fifteen people spend half the day selling Krispy Kremes. Go figure.

In the midst of this fundraiser, a man bought a dozen donuts from me. He asked if he could get a warm box. Now, it was a cold morning (~28 degrees F) so I dug into the middle of the stack looking for a semi-warm box of donuts. But this gentleman laughed it off and said, "Oh don't worry about it, I was just being facetious."

Facetious! Used correctly! Without prompt or provocation! In an everyday donut transaction! In the middle of a shipyard where the most clever thing is a banner that reads, "Don't be a fool, Use safety as your tool!"

I may have given this man a box of twelve Original Glazed Krispy Kreme donuts, but he gave me something much more valuable. He gave me a three-syllable word at 5:45 in the morning.

Mommy's gonna get you...

2009-01-12T09:35:00.000-05:00

We were having dinner with some friends on Saturday night at the Cheesecake Factory (delicious!) and the conversation turned to their recent trip to L.A. for the Rose Bowl. During the trip they had an opportunity to meet the girl that climbed out of the TV in the horror movie, The Ring. That's right, the evil undead child who haunted my dreams for months (and I only saw the trailer). It turns out this on-screen spawn of Satan is all grown up and well-adjusted and attending college. She wants to be a teacher.

So, when she has children of her own how soon does she show them the movie? MPAA ratings aside, I think the movie could be a very good parenting tool. Mommy used to crawl out of the TV and kill people, and all they did was watch a movie. So help you God, child, you'd better eat that damn zucchini. You don't want to make Mommy angry. She lived in a well when she was a child so you know she is a little unstable. What's that? You don't want to go to bed? That's okay, let's watch some of Mommy's home movies...

This parenting tool probably has a limited shelf life, but you figure that when the effect has worn off the kid will be too emotionally scarred for a while to try anything. I guess she can start grounding him after that.

A Government run on Post-Its

2009-01-08T11:31:00.001-05:00

I have become what my boss kindly refers to as a "surplus employee," and, Navy IT being what it is, the wait time to get another computer now exceeds the time I have left in my current job. This has forced me into somewhat of a nomadic existence--I roam the halls in desperate search of colleagues who are out sick.

In Discovery Channel terms, I am pretty sure I've fallen right past "hunter-gatherer" and "scavenger" and devolved directly into "parasite."

Though my current station in life has made me into an office pariah of sorts, cubicle-squatting has given me some fascinating insight into my co-workers. While most of this insight is related to personal medication preferences, I have noticed that the operation of our office depends entirely on Post-It notes.

Entire cubicle walls are canary. Every important phone number and email address is haphazardly affixed to a wall somewhere. User names and passwords create a yellow frame around computer monitors. I'm not even sure how these things are staying up. I saw a Post-It note today from 1999. If there is an agency that tracks office supplies world records, I submit this Post-It note for the Stickiness Endurance (Middleweight) category. But seriously, a decade-old Post-It? That is crazy. Temporary three-inch-square sticky storage was not meant for such extremes.

I know I can't expect our octogenarian workforce to fathom the Outlook contact list, but I think it is time for us to step up to a more modest technology. You know, new-fangled ideas like Rolodexes, address books and index cards. Because I am convinced that if someone were to rearrange all our sticky notes overnight, our government would fall to its knees.

Best Idea Ever?

2008-12-18T12:33:00.001-05:00

I know I said this post would be religiously themed, but I just experienced something wonderful.

I've fallen into the habit of reading news articles whilst I eat my lunch. Distracted by a particularly good read on mind-reading (seriously), I picked up a small piece of grilled chicken and an icing flake from a cookie. After the initial shock wore off, the unlikely combination was surprisingly delicious. A perfect duo of taste and texture. Based on this discovery, of which I am most assuredly the first, I am currently developing a business plan for The Real Chicken Pot Pie®. Potential investors are welcome.

Anyway, I thought I would share that.

Syncopation

2008-12-08T14:08:00.001-05:00

In light of the season, this will (well, should) be the first posting in a brief series on topics of a religious nature. Some will be lighthearted, some will be serious, and some, like the one you are about to read, are so vital to the welfare of your mortal soul that you must absolutely read them. And now, the topic of the day, the first step on the narrow bridge over the abyss of eternal damnation, is:

JESUS HATES SYNCOPATION

This occurred to me over the course of two Sundays. Due to the recent illness of the church music director, the choir recycled the music list from the First Sunday of Advent for the Second Sunday. One of the songs, "In the Day of the Lord," contains a particularly infectious syncopated rhythm in a scandalously titillating 6/8 measure. Such was the power of these notes that they were in my head for the entirety of those two Sundays.

While I was humming along, much to the chagrin of my wife, I couldn't think of another church song that contained such a syncopation. I've come to the conclusion that, for whatever reason, church music singer-songwriters believe God hates syncopation. Our God must be one that dislikes surprises. Jesus likes his accents on the beat, thank you very much, and would prefer we don't go all wily-nily with the melody. Think about it. How many traditional church songs can you think of with a syncopated melody?

Albeit, there are those that flout the rules. Beethoven added an unexpected eighth rest in the final strains of his "Ode to Joy" movement in the Ninth Symphony, which, given his advanced and cantankerous age and deafness, could be construed as a giant F*** You to the church. Indeed, many hymnals today convert this eighth rest into a quarter rest and put the accent on the beat where it belongs. Christian alternative rock bands depend heavily on syncopation, because God knows their lyrics couldn't carry their songs. Unable to compete in mainstream alternative rock, these bands brought their acts to the Christian stage for the refreshing lack of competition and the even more refreshing, mostly disease-free, Christian band groupies.

It appears that plenty of devout crazy people agree with me. A search for "syncopation in church music" turns up a delightful article in Sabbath Fellowship called, simply, "Christian Music?". Ephesians 5:19 says, "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord."

This apparently translates into:

"No one who has an indwelling Saviour will dishonor Him before others by producing strains from a musical instrument which call the mind from God and heaven to light and trifling things."

The article goes on further to target syncopation:

"Syncopated music with its rhythmic emphasis is intoxicating to the mind. The hypnotic effect of strongly rhythmic music using intense harmonies has a damaging effect on the mind and body."

In other words, the melody of "Camp Town Races" is described like cocaine. Doo-dah? Doo-dead.

Ridiculously Giant Red Bow Makers Face Tough Times

2008-12-07T08:08:00.005-05:00

In the recent Big Three hearings on Capitol Hill the focus has been primarily on the potential collapse of Detroit automakers and the imminent loss of auto worker jobs. Half of which have been outsourced to Mexico.

But lost in the hubbub of these hearings are those honest, hard-working Americans that corporate media sources rarely mention. Like the pilots of those private jets being auctioned off by GM, Chrysler and Ford. And like those guys who make the giant bows that go on the top of cars.

As new car sales plummet in this dismal economy the collateral damage is staggering. Ridiculously Giant Red Bow makers have shared in Detroit's past successes, but these days their Ridiculously Giant warehouses lay full with their celebratory product. The demand these days is nonexistent. To all those hubbies out there asking Santa for a shiny new Lexus, prepare to be disappointed.

Ridiculously Giant Red Bow makers have attempted to diversify. One such manufacturer fitted three elephants last month with his finest Ridiculously Giant White Bows, a wedding gift for a rich man in Dubai. Banks are looking at Ridiculously Giant Red Bows to dress up their foreclosed properties coming up for auction. And rumor has it that an even bigger Ridiculously Giant Red Bow will be used to gift wrap the White House for Barack Obama's arrival in January, smartly taking advantage of the after-Christmas sales.

The Ridiculously Giant Novelty Wrapping lobby has been calling in favors on Capitol Hill and rallying support for the Ridiculously Giant automaker bailout. Will it be enough to save the truly American, truly Ridiculously Giant, red bow? Only time will tell.

(Hubbub is scandalously underutilized in the written word. I'm bringing it back. Hubbub.)

The Ants Go Marching One By One...

2008-12-01T12:12:00.001-05:00

Ants in nature are an entomological wonder that are rightly praised for their complex social networks and considerable physical strength.

Ants in my kitchen are creepy, devious little critters that must be squished with tenacity at all costs. Right now the loss of my house would be acceptable collateral damage if I could annihilate these guys. In all wars the loss of innocent life and property are expected bumps in the path to victory. Only the resolute press on toward their most worthy goal.

We never had an ant problem before. I am fastidious with crumbs and I've Windexed any stickiness I have ever found. This morning, however, one of my cats made the decision to vomit near our kitchen. In the darkness that is 5:30 am I stumbled upon this Monday morning gift and bemoaned the weak stomach of my feline. Then I noticed the black specs.

After that it is all a blur. The rage and confusion of war does that to people, I hear. I sprayed and skooshed, but they kept coming. I beat them back, but the little buggers were relentless. My orange tabby helped by licking up several unfortunate members of the ants' front line. I am sure she vomited them up later.

It was only five minutes, but it felt like five days. My eye twitched from the toxic combination of adrenal overstimulation and ant poison. The war dead lay before me on the laminate field of battle. The shell-shocked wounded wandered about dazed and confused. This day was mine, but I knew they would be back. I will be ready.

…hurrah, hurrah.

This New Brand of Patriotism

2008-11-25T15:14:00.001-05:00

Question: If the US Government bails out the domestic auto industry and we all effectively become shareholders in GM, Ford and Chrysler, does that mean it would be unpatriotic to buy a Honda?

Probably not. Every dependable consumer survey consistently ranks import quality, as a whole, above domestic quality. The choice of an import over a domestic is more a matter of overall quality and value than patriotism, no matter what Toby Keith may tell you. Unlike banks, the auto industry isn't suffering because it overextended itself on bad loans. The Big Three are hurting because they horribly misread their target consumers while their Japanese counterparts understood us perfectly. They offered us what we wanted at a price we could afford. They spent large sums of money improving the quality of their interiors while the Big Three developed bigger engines and larger wheelbases.

I think, in this case, the free market is working extremely well. The Big Three offered a product that was out of sync with market desires. Imports filled that void.

Most of the major import brands (Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai) operate factories here in the US. If the Big Three failed, there will be pain. There will be a lot of unemployed people. But I wager that the Toyotas of the world would be willing to pick up the slack. They may even recapitalize some of the Big Three factories. They already have the vehicles we want--small cars, sedans and crossovers with good gas mileage and defensible quality. Why should we loan the Big Three billions so they can reverse engineer what the import brands have already figured out? We didn't bail out the electronics industry when it was overrun by superior Asian imports. Why should we bail out the automakers?

By next year, however, I imagine we'll all be part owners of Ford, GM and Chrysler. We will have a financial stake in the cars that they produce. Consider it a tax to keep 2.5 million people employed. The next time you see an Employee pricing deal at the GM dealership don't consider it an incentive. We all work for them--we deserve that employee discount. In fact, you should walk in there like you own the place.

New Orleans Ranks Highest in Crime

2008-11-24T10:34:00.001-05:00

In what might be considered a boom for the struggling gulf coast hip hop community, New Orleans is now considered the most dangerous place to live according to the CQ Press' "City Crime Rankings." New Orleans-based rap artists have been seeking legitimacy ever since new, up-and-coming hell-holes like Camden, New Jersey started to crowd the more traditional hell-holes of Oakland, Detroit, and the Big Easy.

However, this new survey will go a long way in establishing cred for urban lyricists born and bred in the south. When postulating on the moral dilemmas that are aggravated sexual assault and second-degree murder, Li'l Wayne and P. Miller are now considered experts in their field. Because when I am being educated on the who's and where's of cappin', I want to be damned sure that the information is reliable. Felonies are fun!

209 murders in 2007 in a population of 250,000….those are about the same odds as your general Pick-3 lottery. Anyway, here's the story:

New Orleans ranks highest in crime, survey finds Story Highlights
New Orleans had 209 murders in 2007, according to CQ Press

New Orleans followed by Camden, New Jersey; Detroit; St. Louis; Oakland, California

(CNN) -- A controversial ranking of U.S. cities' crime rates indicates New Orleans, Louisiana, has the worst crime rate, while a New York exurb has the lowest.

The CQ Press "City Crime Rankings" list named New Orleans its most crime-ridden city based on a reported 19,000-plus incidences of six major crimes -- including 209 murder cases -- in 2007.

The Gulf Coast city of about 250,000, still grappling with the aftermath of 2005's Hurricane Katrina, was followed in the rankings by Camden, New Jersey; Detroit, Michigan; St. Louis, Missouri; and Oakland, California.

The lowest crime rate was reported in Ramapo, New York, about 40 miles northwest of New York City, with only 688 total crimes and no reported killings in a city of about 113,000. It was followed by Mission Viejo, California, south of Los Angeles; O'Fallon, Missouri, outside St. Louis; Newton, Massachusetts, west of Boston; and Brick Township, on the New Jersey coast.

Previous editions have been criticized by criminologists and the U.S. Conference of Mayors as a misreading of federal crime statistics. The FBI, which compiles its own Uniform Crime Report statistics, warns that ranking cities against each other can produce "simplistic and/or incomplete analyses," and the American Society of Criminology called last year's CQ report "an irresponsible misuse of the data."

The study's publishers said they dropped previous characterizations of "safest" and "most dangerous" from this year's study, calling those qualities "perceptions of the individuals who live in these communities." But they defended the comparisons as a valuable tool for researchers and the public.

"The book provides the means by which individuals can compare local communities to other similar communities based on comparison to the national level of reported crime as well as crime rates per 100,000 of individual types of reported crime, violent and property crime categories, and overall," the company says in a statement accompanying the data.

The CQ report rated 397 cities larger than 75,000 and 356 metropolitan areas, some of which ranked very differently from their core cities alone.

The New Orleans area was third on the metropolitan-areas list, behind Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tennessee. Camden, the second-worst city on the cities list, ranked 219th among metro areas. Among metro areas, Logan, Utah, north of Salt Lake City, had the lowest crime rate, followed by State College, Pennsylvania, and Ithaca, New York, the report said..

The data is drawn from FBI statistics on murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft and motor vehicle theft.

Running and the fools who partake in it

2008-11-13T15:22:00.000-05:00

"One mile…no sweat.

Two miles…easy day.

Three miles…all right…

Four miles….that's enough…

Five miles…now who the $&^# are you??? $&^#ing Chuck Norris??"

A good day does not begin with a five-mile run. That is a premise of which I am certain. My justification for this statement are the following scenarios:

1. You are running for "fun." You have just expended large amounts of energy and placed undue amounts of stress on your joints and bones to effectively run in a giant circle. Well done. Your day will be filled with "runner's high," a form of misplaced self-satisfaction. People will hate you and throw things at you.

2. You are running from a bear or other hungry and malfeasant predator. You have just expended large amounts of energy and chances are you are about to be eaten or brutally mauled. This will not be a good day for you.

There are Runners, and then there are people who run. I am a member of the latter community. I run because I recognize the value of an appropriate amount of cardiovascular exercise, but mostly I run because the job requires it. I am by no means a shirker of physical activity. I fall comfortably within standards and for some reason can knock out sit-ups like a fiend. But I hate running. Oh, I hate it with a passion. I hate the monotony. I hate the pointlessness. I hate that, by the well established laws of physics, I perform exactly no useful work when I run. But, most pointedly, I hate Runners.

Runners are easy to distinguish. They spend inordinate sums of money on shoes and air-wicking skin-tight clothing. They have, without exception, nice calves. They think paying for the privilege to run 26.2 miles is normal. They can tell if you under-pronate just by looking at you. They can name runners in non-Olympic years. They invest heavily in gel packs and salt tablets and other lab-created accessories designed to prevent the body from killing itself during long-distance runs. They subscribe to and actually read Runner's World. They view a non-Runner as a project and will secretly slip half-marathon applications into coat pockets and desk inboxes. They think a three-mile run is a "warm-up."

Unfortunately I work with a large community of Runners. So I tend to find myself in the mornings on long runs, finishing near the back of the group (but still finishing!). Most days the Runners send a member to come find me and shout motivational things to me while I gasp and wheeze toward the finish. Had I any strength, every one of these motivators would have suffered at least a bruised shin.

And so as I end my rant about running I would implore you to remember just one thing: The first person who ran a marathon died.

He bled purple, she bled gold

2008-11-10T13:32:00.002-05:00

Two Dead in Argument over Alabama-LSU Game.

We take football kind of seriously down south.

EVERGREEN, Ala. - Authorities say an argument over Saturday’s Alabama-LSU football game led to the shooting deaths of a couple at a home in southern Alabama.

Prosecutors identified the victims as Dennis and Donna Smith of Brewton. The shooting happened about 7 p.m. Saturday at the home of Michael Williams in the rural community of Owassa.

Williams was arrested and charged with two counts of murder.

Dennis Smith, an LSU fan, called Williams, an Alabama fan, after the Crimson Tide's 27-21 overtime win and an argument ensued, investigators told the Press-Register newspaper in Mobile, Ala.

The Smiths went to Williams' home. Investigators said Smith had a pistol and Williams had a shotgun and fired. Donna Smith was a relative of Williams’ girlfriend.

Business Plan for a Benedictine Monk

2008-11-07T19:45:00.003-05:00

Recent events have convinced me that monks are completely underrated. Behind the auspiciously austere persona lies a religious man of power who controls some serious bank. The previous post below hints at some of this power. I've listed a few steps below if you are considering the Monk path:

1. Be a guy. Nuns don't have much cred beyond ruler slapping and penguin habits. If you want to be a nun and have some pull, you will have to actually be super holy (See the Mother Teresa Model).

2. Become a monk. This may be harder than first blush. To be honest, I haven't done any research.

3. Found an abbey in the New England area. It would be good if you had the backing of some living Saint.

4. Become an Abbott.

5. Open a boarding school so that you may share your divine vision with the youngest of God's children. Charge $40,000 per year for such enlightenment.

6. Solicit endowments from wealthy parents and invest wisely.

7. Profit. Show community support by purchasing cool toys like wind turbines and solar houses.

Wind Turbines - God is doing it. So can you!

2008-11-06T20:13:00.003-05:00

I am in Newport, Rhode Island this week attending an Energy Management course. We needed a field trip for the course, and a couple geocultural aspects of this small state worked in our favor. For starters, ever since Roger Williams went all crazy up in these parts, Rhode Island has been very religious. This religious fervor led to the creation of numerous monasteries and parochial schools. The existence of old blood in the area has created schools with $40k tuition vying for rich kids. Every school is looking to distinguish itself, and the Portsmouth Abbey School does it with Eco-friendliness. Three years ago they put up a giant wind turbine:

That's a monk standing next to a wind turbine. How crazy is that? Anyhow, the wind turbine generates approximately 40% of the school's annual electricity needs.

Besides the monk mill aspect of the endeavor, I think wind turbines are an embodiment of the future. This white beacon of techno-beauty sits quietly, gently swoosh-swooshing as it generates 670 kW of power. It silently turns to face the wind and spins at a relaxing 28.5 revolutions per minute. It's like a giant white noise maker. I want one in my backyard.

It definitely makes a statement. At 164 feet high, it is visible from the main road about a mile away from the abbey. And even from that distance, the 77-foot blades look like they are spinning quite fast, and in fact they're spinning at a pace of 157 mph measured at the tip. And this particular wind turbine is a small one. It is the only thing I know that moves that fast and that quietly.

We need more of these things

McCain Won Louisiana

2008-11-04T21:43:00.003-05:00

John McCain just won Louisiana. It is good to know that my vote will count for electoral votes, even though it appears we bet on the losing horse. Should be an exciting year.

No Iraq!

2008-11-04T21:36:00.003-05:00

Well, I found out today that I will not be going to Iraq on January 5. This is a good thing. I did however volunteer for a trip in August 2010, but that is still far enough away that I don't have to think about it. Things could change before August 2010, but as of now I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. It is somewhat odd, however, because in the past three days I had mentally planned the entire evolution and was a tad bit upset that all that planning had gone to waste.

So, no Iraq for me quite yet. But when I came back to my government quarters today I discovered my elevator wasn't working. I guess you can't win 'em all.

Classy

2008-11-04T07:02:00.003-05:00

During my recent travels to Rhode Island (the land of Peter Griffin), I elected to ride first class for my brief flight from Dulles to Providence. I still cannot say for sure why this honor was afforded me. Perhaps it was my innate sense of growing self satisfaction. Perhaps it was my stylish GAP wool jacket. Perhaps it was because my seat, 9F, had a large "Do Not Occupy" sign on it. No one can say for sure. All we can discern from this event is that the flight attendant Ramona, a lovely girl from Bavaria, chose me to rise above my peers and to venture "inside the curtain," as us first classies like to call it.

During the next fifty-three minutes I experienced the ecstasy that is extra legroom and unabashed servitude. I used a pillow, even though my head was adequately cushioned. I used a blanket, even though I was adequately warm. I kicked off my shoes because the other first classies had done the same. I tell you, flying in your socks is like hot cocoa by a roaring fire in December. True first classies spurn the idea of ordering alcohol during a short flight. They wish for everyone to know that a mere beer is nothing to them. They pay $126 for the class upgrade so that the poor wretches on the other side of the comfort curtain know that the first classies can afford it. Wealth and privilege is nothing unless people know it. So, in keeping with the unspoken rules of the cabin, I ordered a Sprite Zero, earning an extra bonus point for watching my calories when luxury and beverage selection might induce me otherwise.

When the plane landed and Ramona welcomed us to Rhode Island with her Bawarian W's I knew the dream was over. I was, for the first time in my life, the first one off the plane. I looked back at my beloved seat on that Canadair regional jet, and longed to take it home with me. We had grown close over those fifty-three minutes, and I could tell it would miss me as well. But alas, the whore had another paying customer boarding in half an hour. It may have loose morals and a seat 28 inches wide, but it taught me a lot during my virgin trip inside the curtain. I don't know if I will ever see it again, but we will always have Providence.

Anyway, I'm in Rhode Island for the week, and already I've discovered that the only thing Quahog in Rhode Island is a small clam restaurant. I am so disillusioned and it is only Tuesday.

Matt Wiliams: The New American Hero

2008-11-02T07:34:00.002-05:00

Last month, Texas Tech student Matt Williams participated in one of those cheesy kick-a-field goal-for-free-stuff contests during halftime at his school's home game against Massachusetts. He easily made the 30-yard field goal, earning a free year's worth of rent (which he turned down).

However, that was not the end of the road for Matt Williams. Red Raiders coach Leach was so impressed by Williams' performance that he pulled him out of the stands and put him on the team. The following week against Kansas he went 9-for-9 on extra points. Against the pivotal Texas game last night, he outscored the entire Longhorns team 8-6.

Matt Williams isn't a hero because he can kick field goals. Matt Williams is a hero, a cult icon, because he legitimized the dream. When a fan picks up the extra point ball and throws that perfect spiral back down to the field, it could be his big break. When a young man throws a stiff arm during the game of touch football before the big game, someone could be watching. You could laugh at their aspirations, you can mock their dreams, but they can tell you, "It could happen." And now, thanks to Matt Williams, they are right.

Waiting

2008-11-02T07:25:00.002-05:00

Well, it is Sunday, November 2, I may have to go to Iraq. on January 5 I won't know until at least Monday, possibly Tuesday. They were nice enough to let me know of the possibility on Friday with no resolution until the following week.

It has been a fun weekend.

It sucks because a year-long trip to Southwest Asia requires no small amount of preparation and planning. I've spent the entire weekend making up these plans. I am incredibly anxious.

I figure there is a one-in-four chance I will be leaving in January. Multiplied by the duration of the deployment, twelve months, my "share" is three months right now. I should feel three-months-in-Iraq concerned, which is probably right, because I definitely don't feel 12-months concerned.

Well, I guess we'll find out in a day or two.

Passion vs. Pragmatism

2008-10-29T16:16:00.001-04:00

Aside from the obvious ideological differences, which are relatively few and mostly minor, the most glaring inequity between Democrats and Republicans is a matter of personality. As a whole, Democrats are more passionate, and Republicans are more pragmatic. Of course there are exceptions on either side (John Kerry is the polar opposite of passionate, and current Republican foreign policy is hardly pragmatic), but for the most part I think the definition stands.

Think about it. Democrats are often described (by themselves and by their enemies) as liberal, bleeding-heart, activist, etc. Republicans are better known for being conservative, stodgy, stingy and numerous other elderly adjectives. Democrats are young. Republicans are old. So goes the joke, "What does a Democrat grow up to be? A Republican." Democrats treat their candidate like rock stars. Republicans view their nominees more like CEOs.

Democrats will crowd stadiums in frigid conditions to attend rallies. Republicans would rather watch on TV. "Sorry, Mr. McCain," they would say. "It's cold and it's past our bedtime. And you shouldn't be out there, either. We can't have you catching the sniffles and going all William Henry Harrison on us."

And while I believe each side can produce intelligent, informed and articulate people to debate important issues and produce meaningful solutions, I am confident this election, like all the others, will be decided on Election Day by stupid people. People I wouldn't trust with a pair of scissors. People who will vote judging by how they feel at that exact moment. People who get their information from email forwards. People who may not vote if it is raining or if there is a line at the polling location.

They will drive our country this year. Racists who would vote for a guy who slept with their spouses before they voted for a black man will give McCain a boost. Inner city black residents will be bussed to polling locations on the party dime to vote Obama. This Sunday, churches across the country will temporarily void their tax-free status as political sermons sway the uninformed believers. Last-minute ads will shamelessly slander the candidates and celebrities will throw out their endorsements to sanctimoniously support policies that sharply contradict their public lifestyles. The race to the finish is less a race and more of a boxing match, a final round where the only acceptable finish is the TKO of the opponent.

And so goes the democratic process.

The Squirrels are running on Wall Street

2008-10-03T12:44:00.001-04:00

Okay, so I lied. It turns out starting a new job is a little bit busier than I had anticipated, and I was not able to get posts in for the first two days of October. My bad. From now on, posts every day. Except maybe weekends. And holidays.

It seems like most people today are watching this bailout vote. And they should be, considering each and every one of us has a $2,000 stake in it. I won't pretend to understand the mechanics of this bailout, but it seems to me that we (as in, US) will borrow $700 billion dollars (from China, the Middle East, etc) to buy lots of bad debt from our large banks and investment firms. So when our neighbors default on their sub prime mortgages we will default on our loan from China. The way I see it either we'll have horrible credit in a couple years and be forced to borrow from shady countries like Malawi or Finland, or we'll all be speaking Mandarin when the Chinese repossesses our country.

Anyway, back to the point at hand. Like everyone else, the stock market is watching the bailout vote closely. And it cracks me up because our markets, which are usually ascribed macho animals like bears and bulls, is acting like a squirrel. That's right, the market is a tad squirrellish today. We have brokers sitting on the floor right now timidly bidding the market up, like a squirrel trying to snatch an acorn in an open field. "Do I want the stock? oh I want the stock. can I have the stock? I'm gonna get the stock." Right now the market is up about 200 points, fueled by wishful thinking.

I guess we'll see what happens. If the bailout is rejected, stocks will drop precipitously once more as the bears eat the squirrels. If it passes, the squirrels have already spent their wagers on optimism and the resulting climb won't be nearly as exciting.

Damn squirrels.

Frisbee

2008-09-29T21:11:00.003-04:00

I lied. Here is one more post for FY08.

I just noticed on Stuff White People Like that White People like Frisbee sports. This is tragic. The official sport of my Navy community is Ultimate Frisbee. We are so discriminating. No wonder we have only two black officers. This is straight up ludicrous. I am so calling the 24-hour Diversity Hotline. They shall hear from me, I promise you. PT tomorrow morning will be basketball or an equivalent sport invented to embarrass the White People.

Long time, No see

2008-09-29T21:01:00.003-04:00

Wow, it's been a while. I blame my eyes. Ever since I went under the laser, I just haven't felt up to the kind of recreational typing this blog requires.

However, focusing on objects is no longer a chore. With my near-normal vision, I hope to get back into this blog. I'm making a promise to myself to try to write every day starting October 1 (my New (fiscal) Year resolution). FY09 will be a literary epic, just you watch.

I know I don't write very well off the cuff, so hopefully this exercise will make my writing less painful with less forethought.

In addition to this life-changing odyssey, I also start a new job on the 1st. It promises to be a big day. See you on the other side. Adios, FY08.

-Bryan

Warning: This Post contains a laser. Avoid direct eye contact.

2008-09-11T20:40:00.002-04:00

I had my informed consent today for my refractive laser eye surgery next week. Informed consent is standard procedure for any elective surgery, and generally involves a group of surgeons graphically describing all the bad things that could happen to you. It is a rather frightening process, as they begin with the generally benign side effects like dry eyes and move swiftly and passionately into the more juicy side effects, like corneal collapse. And, like the good students of science that they are, surgeons never commit to absolutes.

Me: "Doc, will I have poor night vision?"
Surgeon: "There is a non-zero chance."

Me: "Doc, will a freak power surge cause the laser to carve "Kilroy was here" on the back of my skull?"
Surgeon: "There is a non-zero chance."

Awesome.

Anyway, after about an hour of glowing testimonials artfully peppered with dire warnings we finally got to meet the surgeon. A nice, slightly balding Navy doctor in scrubs and a white coat pulled over--what is that?? Is that a cast on his hand??

Bad sign.

So, my surgeon has a cast on his left hand. No biggie, right? Controlling a laser is as simple as a couple keystrokes on a computer, right? That's what he said. He also told us that, while most patients receive Lasik as opposed to the competing procedure, PRK, he was hoping that we would all be PRK patients because he couldn't do Lasik with a cast on his arm.

Really bad sign.

If you are unfamiliar with the differences in laser eye surgery, as I was until nine o' clock this morning, it can be summed up fairly simply:

PRK: A painful, longer recovery.
Lasik: A painless, quick recovery.

Hmm. At this point I was almost too informed to give my consent. I am usually very trusting when it comes to medical professionals, but even I have my limits. I was ready to mutiny against this doc and find myself another cast-free surgeon to zap my eye.

But then I had my one-on-one, and I copped out. I couldn't commit. He produced some very convincing reasons to perform PRK instead of Lasik. Most of those reasons involved colored maps of my eyes with numbers that I didn't understand. But there was an orange spot in the otherwise yellow center of my left eye. This apparently was bad for Lasik, which, if performed, could one day, many many years from now, if the planets are aligned just right and I am standing on my head, result in spontaneous corneal collapse. The same corneal collapse they warned me about! It's a non-zero chance! I couldn't risk it!

So I'm a PRK guy.

I think Lasik would have worked for me, but this surgeon looks like a documenter, and I'm sure he would have documented the crap out of me had I ignored his recommendations. You live and die in the Navy based on documentation, and having that in my record would have screwed me somewhere down the road. ("I see you went against your eye surgeon's recommendation forty years ago. I'm sorry, sir, but Lasik directly caused your arthritis and we cannot treat you.")

Anyway, I go under the ray gun on Monday. I'll share the experience here.

Ezekiel 33

2008-09-08T21:35:00.003-04:00

I am Catholic. Not to toot our own horn or anything, but I think we've got a good thing going. We've got apostolic succession all the way back to St. Peter and a pretty awesome sovereign nation. Do the Baptists have a sovereign nation? No. And Mississippi does not count.

As a Christian, I am a huge fan of the New Testament. In relation to other religious texts, I think it lays down a decent framework for a belief system. It has a good message and, aside from Revelations (what is that??) you could live your life by it and come out doing okay.

The Old Testament, on the other hand, is a piece of work. It is like Christianity's rough draft. If the New Testament speaks of love, the Old Testament is all about judgment and punishment. It makes for decent literature, but, religiously speaking, it causes a lot of conflict when everyone is walking around being holier than thou. It was a good first crack at monotheism, but I think it fell a little short.

For instance, Ezekiel 33:8-9, which was our first reading this past Sunday, says:

"If I say to someone wicked, "Evil-doer, you are to die," and you do not speak to warn the wicked person to renounce such ways, the wicked person will die for this guilt, but I shall hold you responsible for the death.

If, however, you do warn someone wicked to renounce such ways and repent, and that person does not repent, then the culprit will die for this guilt, but you yourself will have saved your life."

That is like a license to be preachy. In fact, it is an order to be preachy. God commands it. If you see someone so much as lift a finger on the Sabbath, as a Christian you would be encouraged--nay, required--to nag this person. And Christians don't need any help being naggy.

Oh, and "naggy" is not a word, but it should be.

New IPO: BRY

2008-09-04T13:42:00.001-04:00

The Navy has invested a lot of money in me. I know this because they continually remind me. The latest figure they've told me is $300k, not including normal pay and compensation. That is a lot of money, but they must have some idea what the Return On Investment (ROI) is. I'm curious when they expect to see some profit. Will I have to pay dividends?

That got me pondering. I'm a pretty good guy with a healthy amount of common sense and ambition. I know what exactly what you're thinking. "My God, he is a shameless braggart!" Yes, that may be. But you are probably also thinking, "How can I get in on that action??" With the stock market the way it is these days, it is hard to pass up on a sure thing like me. I may not be flashy like Google, but I can provide you a steady rate of return over the long run. I'm a catch.

The Navy got me off the ground with some initial venture capital, and now I am ready to go public. The Navy insures me to $500,000, which is a reasonable assessment of my value. Assuming the SEC approves my application, I expect that my IPO will begin October 1, 2008. I will issue 50,000 common shares priced at $10. Of these shares, 25,001 will be held by my wife, who, in addition to her majority ownership, will be chairperson of the board of directors. The remaining 24,999 common shares will be released to general public.

I encourage you to hop aboard this gravy train. A copy of the Prospectus for this IPO will be provided to serious investors upon request.

Another X on the wall

2008-09-02T12:10:00.001-04:00

Living in a cubicle for eight hours a day has its challenges. For one, no matter how many Dilberts or family photos you thumbtack to the wall, nothing can mask that Misery Gray color. Second, it is difficult to mark the passage of time. Without a window or any insight to the outside world, it becomes nearly impossible to adjust to the changing months. My daytime world is a consistent partly-cloudy 72 degrees.

In light of this challenge, one of the universal activities of our close cubicle fraternity is counting the days. We all need to know we're getting closer to the end. It doesn't matter that we haven't defined the end yet, it just feels good to know we're getting there. Much like POWs. A lot of people mark X's (or, for the tragically perky, smiley faces) on their calendars.

That's quaint.

I, on the other hand, mark the passage of time with urinal pads. Navy contracts are beautiful in their complexity and their manic attention to detail. We just don't hire someone to "clean the bathroom". No, no. Our contract with the custodial provider says "You will replace all urinal pads on the first working day of each calendar month." It is precisely that attention to detail that makes me proud to be an American.

Today is one of those contractually important days. I go to the bathroom at around 10:00 this morning and, while in the process of relieving myself, I receive this fragrant burst of lilac aroma. I look down and sure enough, written on the urinal pad in Sharpie is 9-2-08. Today is a good day. I settle back into my hygienic routine and let lilac blossoms remind me that August is over. That is a good thing. Toward the end, August was starting to smell a bit like urine.

What did Houma do to you, Jim Cantore?

2008-09-01T08:56:00.003-04:00

Gustav is about an hour away from making landfall.

Where is The Weather Channel's Jim Cantore? Houma, Louisiana.

Where is Gustav going to make landfall? Houma, Louisiana.

Houma, you must have pissed Jim off real bad. Good job.

Jim Cantore, Meteorologist, Hurricane Whisperer

Being fine with being confined

2008-08-31T20:26:00.005-04:00

I've been on nine planes in the past thirty days. By my own reckoning, that qualifies me as an expert on air travel. I logged more time in airports during August than I spent in the office. I've been delayed and rerouted more often than not. And, despite this, I think air travel, for the most part, is okay. I'm okay with the extra bag fee, because I go entirely carry-on. I'm okay with the no-fluids rule, because I rely exclusively on hotel hand-outs. And I'm okay with the overbooked flights, because I am good at finding new flights. It's like a game of skill and deception that I play with multi-billion dollar companies.

But by far the cruelest joke the air travel industry plays on its travelers are the waiting areas by each gate. They are inordinately large. I typically take up five seats. One for me, one for my laptop, one for my suitcase and two just in case I need them. It is like my own bastion of personal space. And I'm not the only one who does this. We all abuse these seats. My favorite spot is the row of seats looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the tarmac. At the jetway. At the fragile tube of winged aluminum that, through a well-known miracle of aviation (called the "Bernoulli Effect"), will manage to fit all of the passengers in the waiting area.

I don't think airlines should give us the option of sitting in such opulence. I need a conditioning period. I cannot go from personal space Nirvana to being tickled on my nose by some guy's ear hair. It is a shock to the system, and one day it will kill someone. Like a cold pool, I need to ease myself into the controlled asphyxiation that is an airline cabin. Let me brush against an elbow. Let me hear a bit of labored, nasal whistling. Have me laugh awkwardly at an old lady's non-funny observation about weather and maple syrup.

I think Southwest is doing it right. They put you in corrals now before boarding your flight. This is a beneficial experience--the sooner you feel like livestock the better. Take two minutes at the beginning of the flight to introduce yourself to your seatmate. I recommend the following:

"Hi, my name is Bryan. For the next two hours we will inadvertently touch and bump each other in ways that, at altitudes less than 30,000 feet, would be construed as harassment. Please excuse me if I don't make eye contact with you when we deboard."

Where Is Jim Cantore??

2008-08-31T08:48:00.004-04:00

In the panic and paranoia that precedes a hurricane like Gustav, it is easy to get lost in the endless and diverse predictions about who is going to suffer death and destruction. After all, the National Hurricane Center issues hurricane warnings that stretch for hundreds of miles--they can't even tell you where the storm will hit, and preface every one of their discussions with a statement to that effect. And even if "Hurricane conditions are expected within 24 hours," there is a big difference between 74 mph winds and 140 mph winds, between a six-foot storm surge and a 25-foot storm surge. Who's going to get it?? It may be easiest to believe that one pundit who brings the storm to your backyard--because paranoia likes being right--but if you really, really want to know where the storm is going, you need only ask one question:

"Where is Jim Cantore??"

That son of a bitch from the Weather Channel is the goddamn right hand of Satan. About 24-36 hours before the storm hits, Jim meanders down to some little coastal town and hunkers down in a hotel. And then he waits for the storm to come to him.

And it does. Like some kind of hurricane whisperer, Jim coaxes these little cyclones toward his cameras just so he can perform his award-winning ,"Macho Weatherman" type of journalism. Jim duly notes the passage of the storm as the world falls apart around him. He will masterfully watch the storm surge sweep away Chevrolets ("The tide is a bit higher than average!") and he will give due consideration to the hotel that collapses beside his bunker ("We have debris!").

My advice for getting through tropical events is simple. Don't panic, don't be paranoid. Unless you see Jim Cantore at your local supermarket. Then you should run like hell.

Why are you smiling, Jim??

Happy Birthday, Blog

2008-08-13T07:28:00.001-04:00

Hey! This blog is a year old now!

Yay.

Welcome, Friends

2008-08-12T17:22:00.002-04:00

I don’t get China. And I suspect that, if you live in the United States, you probably don't either.

I think our ability to empathize with China's ideological analog to democracy (communism, totalitarianism, etc) is somewhat limited by the freedoms we enjoy here. I'll provide a couple examples from the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.

Example 1
The beginning of the ceremony showcased a spectacular fireworks display that began, for television viewers, with fireworks in the form of footsteps leading from historic Beijing to the Bird's Nest stadium. The footprint fireworks were later discovered to be digitally created.

Typical American reaction
Why would you spend millions to fake a televised fireworks display?

Official Chinese reaction
We spent millions of dollars and put in months of effort so you wouldn't find out it was faked. We even added a camera shake representative of a helicopter and consulted with meteorologists to get the hazy sky right.

Example 2
An adorable young Chinese girl brilliantly performed a national song. She was quickly elevated to the status of "National Hero." Turns out she was lip-syncing. To another girl's voice.

Typical American reaction
Was the other girl so ugly that she could not be publicly appreciated for her talent? Are you telling us that, out of a pool of 1.5 billion people, you couldn't find a girl that was both cute and a decent singer?

Official Chinese reaction
During official rehearsals it was decided that the owner of the voice was not fit to visually represent China. We should be commended on finding a replacement (with good teeth) on such short notice.

Example 3
The ceremony opened with 2,008 performers beating a perfect war-like cadence on 2,008 replica ancient Chinese drums. Lost on the rest of the world was that the Fou drum, not readily recognized outside China, was actually a large pot that a host would fill with water or wine. The host would drum the pot to show welcome to guests.

Typical American reaction
Umm, is that war paint on their faces? I'm a little uncomfortable…

Official Chinese reaction
What?? What says "Welcome, Friends" better than 2,008 drummers chanting in perfect unison? Do you need more?? Would 2,000,008 drummers make you feel more welcome? Because we can get them.

Cruise Chronicles: Cruise Nazi

2008-07-31T17:36:00.003-04:00

Cruise Chronicles - My wife and I recently returned from a nine-day Caribbean cruise. These are our tales.

I think the term, "Nazi" is overused. Nowadays we use it as an adjectival noun* to describe anyone who is being a totalitarian asshole about a particular subject. The most famous pop culture reference is, of course, the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. But in that instance it was intelligently used. A comedy about Jewish people addicted to a decidedly fascist cook? Comedic gold.

"No soup for you!"

I have no qualms about people imitating this sitcom work of art, nor do I have problems with people using a defunct political party to spice up their conversation. I just advocate the diverse use of all the screwed up political movements.

So, when I say there was a cruise Nazi, you can rest assured that I do not use that term lightly. This guy was a freakin' no-kidding, goose-stepping Nazi. Our first encounter with Adolf was on the pool deck. He finished his Heineken (of course!) and motioned to the nearest waiter, "Hey Jose!" The waiter was indeed Hispanic, but casual inspection of his name tag revealed that his name was not, in fact, Jose. I was willing to dismiss this, as perhaps Adolf had a previous waiter whose name was Jose and it was difficult for him to tell them apart. He was old, and that was understandable.

But then he did it again. To an Armenian. I was beginning to suspect a White Power connection. But this still didn't make him a Nazi. Just an asshole.

Our confirmation came a couple days later on the promenade deck. We had assumed our usual chairs, and, like all the old people, devoured our latest books. Adolf took a seat several chairs down from us and began chain smoking. He was soon joined by another old guy, because old people are like chromosomes. You always see them in pairs, and if you do happen to see just one of them, you had better steer clear. It can only be trouble.

Sorry, back to the confirmation. Midway through their conversation, Adolf said to his new friend--let's call him Eva--in the most matter-of-fact tone, "You know, I don't agree with everything he did, but Hitler had some pretty good ideas."

Now that is a Nazi.

*Adjectival noun...damn, I'm grammatically awesome.

Cruise Chronicles: Dancing Waiters

2008-07-28T18:44:00.007-04:00

Cruise Chronicles - My wife and I recently returned from a nine-day Caribbean cruise. These are our tales.

Cruise lines recruit from poor nations worldwide, offering men and women the opportunity to make a better life for themselves and for their family. All the cruise lines ask for is hard work, long days, and unyielding courtesy. Oh, and they must dance for us.

Why??

Why do wait staff dance at dinner? Who thought this was a good idea? My ongoing theory is that your typical cruise passengers become insecure when their waiter from Honduras speaks better English than they do. This insecurity, is, of course, not pleasant. So we make our wait staff dance for us when they need reminding of the proper pecking order.

Waiter: Sir, may I offer a full-bodied Tuscan Chianti to complement your filet?

Sir: I don't like your tone. Please flail your arms so I can feel superior.

Cue music: Cent, five cent, ten cent, dollar. Cent, five cent, ten cent, dollar.

Okay, it isn't quite that bad. Sometimes we twirl our napkins in the air to support of our favorite waiter. But they have to earn that.

Side note: One of the dance songs was "Hey Look Me Over," the Broadway tune that was purchased by Huey Long and turned into our alternate LSU fight song, "Hey Fightin' Tigers."

Cruise Chronicles: The Towel Menagerie

2008-07-28T18:21:00.004-04:00

Cruise Chronicles - My wife and I recently returned from a nine-day Caribbean cruise. These are our tales. Cruise veterans such as myself expect excellence from our cabin stewards. Sure, they work 16-hour days so that we may enjoy four-star accommodations, free room service, and an evening turn-down all for the average nightly cost of a HoJo's, but we demand more. We demand towel animals.
The first night I was a little disappointed. I mean, there was a mint on the pillow and fresh towels in the bathroom, but where was the towel animal? It was Royal Caribbean, for Pete's sake. I expected better.
The second night, after our formal dinner, we were greeted by a puppy in our state room. Yes! More animals would follow. A bat, a rabbit, a crocodile, a gibbon (or baboon?) and an elephant were part of the linen zoo that was our state room. Our rabbit wore my wife's sunglasses. Apparently our cabin steward was so dedicated to his craft that he rummaged through our things to bedeck his creations in life-giving accoutrements. I encouraged it. I purposely left out sunglasses, rings, watches and bowties with the unadulterated hope that they would end up on a future animal. Can you anthropomorphize an animal which is really a towel? I believe you can.

Bat(h) Mat.

Trix (as in silly rabbit...)

Mortimer the Crocodile.

Gibbs.

Ray.

Lelephant. (li'l and elephant preciously combined)

Cruise Chronicles: Buyer Beware

2008-07-17T17:07:00.003-04:00

Cruise Chronicles - My wife and I recently returned from a nine-day Caribbean cruise. These are our tales.

There are many milestones in the cruise industry. The first lifeboat. Balconies. The first lifeboat that actually floated. Reggae music introduced. The drink, "Coco Loco." Ice rinks. Disney characters on demand.

Probably one of the more profitable milestones, however, was the first boat to sell stuff on cruise ships. Since the first time man walked in the sand and declared it slightly enjoyable, people on vacation have been eager to spend willy nilly. I suppose the psychological barrier to large expenses has already been broken and people don't feel that guilt when they buy things. It is kind of like placing a three foot-high wall of sand bags on the other side of a levee. Once that water breaks through the levee it will pause for a hummingbird's heartbeat before going over those little sandbags.

This psychological freedom, if you will, is why outlet malls flourish at beach locales, despite the surprisingly ignored fact that no one needs Waterford crystal to sip their Coco Locos, nor do people need a pair of Timberland boots to trudge through the waves. Car dealerships abound in Atlantic City. You've won $500 on slots?? Let's buy a Lexus!

Cruise ships will sell you crap (duty free!) at every corner. Liquor, jewelry, perfume, cosmetics. Whatever you may want on your cruise vacation. Oh, but you can't drink the liquor on the boat (they plugged that loophole years ago). They also have art auctions and casinos, in case you want to lose your money faster. The sequence of operations for these businesses is strange enough that it should alert the moderately intelligent individual:>

1. They open when the ship enters international waters.

2. They close when the ship enters port.

hmm.

It seems those pesky government regulators don't like these shops, auctions and casinos operating within their jurisdiction. So the ship waits until it enters international waters, free from commercial codes and gaming commissions, where it can take your money with unfettered abandon. Auction houses in the US are highly regulated industries and are professionally run. Art auctions at sea are unregulated and will sell you valueless art by plying you with free alcohol and preventing you from your right to due diligence by limiting your information of the pieces.

We took a nine-day cruise for $899 each. That is $100/day for food, lodging, entertainment and a 2400-mile boat ride. I imagine those old people sitting at the slot machines were subsidizing my cruise vacation. So, here are my suggestions for saving money on your next trip:

Bryan's Money-Saving Cruise Rules

1. If you are not me or my immediate family, spend often and in excess. You're paying for our trip!

2. Never ever buy art on a cruise ship. Shop at Wal-Mart for the same prints.

3. Buy liquor only if you are an alcoholic and need to save that extra $2 on your next bottle of Kahlua.

4. Buy jewelry/perfume only if you broke any of the above rules and need to score points with your significant other for immediate redemption.

Astronomy is Racist

2008-07-11T11:01:00.001-04:00

In the news today: "Texas County Official Sees Race in Term 'Black Hole' "

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,380143,00.html

Due to this shocking revelation in Dallas County, astronomical observatories around the nation are in danger of losing federal funding and theoretical physicists face numerous civil suits. The terms "dark matter" and "dark energy" have been stricken from scientific literature, as they are obviously thinly-veiled terms meant to keep the black man down.

Says one activist-cum-amateur astronomer, "Why would anyone name a gravitational singularity a 'black ho?' It's a galactic lynching."

When told the correct term was actually "black hole," the same activist replied, "Oh, I have no problem with that," and left to find a real job.

Nevertheless, special interest groups are seeking to revamp the scientific vocabulary. The "Milky Way" is prejudiced against Asians, who have a genetic disposition toward lactose intolerance. The Big Dipper is an obvious mockery of the chronically stupid. Uranus is under fire for inciting involuntary sexual harassment.

"Our goal is to remove all potentially offensive terms that these scientists have dreamt up for their own personal amusement," said one woman with way too much free time. "Like quark. I'm not sure what that is, but I am pretty sure it is offensive to someone."

Cruise Chronicles: Departure

2008-07-09T20:04:00.000-04:00

Cruise Chronicles - My wife and I recently returned from a nine-day Caribbean cruise. These are our tales.

One of the especially endearing elements of my latent obsessive compulsive behavior is my obsession with arriving to places on time. I like to be so on time, in fact, that I often get there several hours early. This makes for awkward dinner parties.

Most chronocentric (nice!) vacation elements punish you for arriving early. If you get to the airport too early you have to wait at the gate through several other flights while the counter people eye you suspiciously and the security people take a more-than-cursory glance at your properly sized carry-on. So you sit there and buy a (three dollar?!) bottle of water and wait until you have to pee, which will be the only respite from your monotony. At hotels if you get there before the official check-in time you'll be in the lobby rooting through the ten thousand brochures featuring quaint local activities like the Senior Glass Blowing demonstration or the $20/person See Our Backyard tour. Your only hope is to come across the fossilized remains of that morning's continental breakfast.

But cruises reward you for getting there early. The boat leaves at 4:30 pm? Get there at 11. You'll avoid all the lines, be shuffled aboard quickly by employees who are still smiling and cheerful because they have yet to deal with That Old Cranky Guy or Six-Kid German-Speaking Family. Once onboard they let you walk around like you own the place. Bars are open. There is fresh food at the buffet. Unlimited soft serve!

The four hours before our boat actually left were some of the best times on our vacation. We were local to the cruise terminal, and almost adjacent to my Navy base, so we dropped off our car on Navy property (free parking! YES!) and had one of my coworkers drop us off at the terminal (valet!). We slipped through the embarkation lines and were on the boat in less than twenty minutes. The boat was ours. We staked out our window seats, sipped our Virginia Sunrise (boat drink #1) and toasted as the ship departed. Our suitcases were among the first delivered to the staterooms, and my early and pleasant conversation with the maitre' d guaranteed us a private dinner table away from That Old Cranky Guy and Six-Kid German-Speaking Family. Unfortunately, however, I misjudged the time needed to walk from our stateroom to the dining room and we arrived at dinner an fifty-six minutes early that evening. It was to be the only flaw in our otherwise schedule-perfect departure day.

A Dickensian Landscape, in Sepia

2008-06-17T10:34:00.001-04:00

I may have mentioned this before, but I work in a shipyard that at times appears to be ripped from the pages of a Charles Dickens novel. Indeed, Charles Dickens was writing Great Expectations when this shipyard was in its neo-Industrial heyday, and Dickens' father was a clerk at a Navy pay office.

Today we were further blessed to have a nearby wildfire blanket the shipyard in soot, smoke and ash. Visibility was down to a quarter-mile and the mid-morning sun only managed to turn everything a dirty amber color. It was like my own personal live-action, old-timey photograph. I think even Pip would have been depressed.

Tough Times

2008-06-16T11:39:00.001-04:00

I figure the construction industry is one of those bellwethers of the economy. Construction, be it new buildings or renovations in existing buildings, is one of the first things cut from the government budget when money is tight. Salaries come before maintenance.

I just found out that one of the superintendents I've worked with for the past year and a half is being laid off by his company. He has been doing a good job for me, and it pains me a little to see him go. The guy is at least sixty and has some health problems, so I'm not sure what he's going to do. No one is hiring these days.

He is just one more in the unemployment line. I shouldn't take my job security for granted.

Did you notice?

2008-06-07T09:44:00.001-04:00

Did you notice the stunningly clever pun in the title of the last post? That's political commentary gold right there.

I ran from Israel as fast as I could

2008-06-06T07:36:00.002-04:00

I don't like to post at the beginning of a work day. I usually have something to do (today isn't any different) and it is incredibly bad form to be both reading the comics AND blogging. Multitasking several recreational activities at work is strictly taboo.

But I read this headline next to my morning Dilbert and had to blog:

Report: Israeli Minister Says 'We Will Attack Iran' if Nuke Program Continues<

What?! Israel is retarded. The minister goes further to say that the United States will support Israel during such an attack.

Oh hell no. It is like Israel ran behind us after poking a sleeping bear. A big bear. An angry bear. A bear that may have nuclear weapons.

I understand that Iran hates us for our socioeconomic imperialism. I got that. It is probably not a good thing that our first colony, which we established right on top of the most historically disputed region EVER, is antagonizing the arguably most powerful and certifiably most crazy nation in the region.

I don't know about you, but I advocate dousing Israel (or at least their minister) in honey and running like hell.

Monogoneutic

2008-05-30T20:36:00.004-04:00

I am all for smart kids. If there were a Junior Nerd Olympics, I'd be there with my cowbell and giant foam pointy finger cheering on the little freaks. I was definitely a nerd (still am), and I looked the part (still do). I married a nerd, because, as you may recall from recent Discovery Channel documentaries, nerds travel in herds. I was statistically bound to marry one of my own. I also hate stupid people. My wife is a humanities nerd, which is very useful and impressive to unread people like myself. Nothing accentuates your argument better than a well-placed Milton reference. I am a science nerd. I know a lot of the typical constants (mass of the earth, Avogadro's number, the produce code for bananas) and basic conversion factors. I know exactly how many gallons of Jello it would take to fill my living room. In addition to the GPA advantage, Jello calculations are why every fraternity house typically recruits at least one nerdy physics major.

But I don't know what monogoneutic means (Google does - an adjective describing an organism that produces only one brood per year) and I couldn't spell it to save my life. But some fourth grader can.

The National Spelling Bee is one of the more depressing things to watch. These kids are absolutely brilliant--the youngest qualifer this year was eight years old. Eight years old! But I think they put their eggs in the wrong basket. They study continuously for this event. One girl read the dictionary cover-to-cover seven times. She has favorite words to spell. But when will anyone ever need to spell monogoneutic?? And these poor kids, instead of having a normal childhood, are drawing imaginary letters on their arm, contorting their features, or developing any combination of nervous tics trying to spell words that only a roomful of very specialized, even more nerdy fungal biologists would appreciate. And, at the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee, they have a comfort room, a room set aside for the losers when their hopes are crushed because they cannot spell numnah (a saddle blanket). They need this room because the kids will cry for more than an hour after they are eliminated. How nice.

And watching this thing! Obviously, I am on duty. Otherwise I'd be doing something else besides blogging about a spelling bee. But the National Spelling Bee is more awkward than an Office episode. You sit there and watch these young kids break down on national television. The audience is just as stressed. There is no murmuring or cheering. Polite applause will do. The announcers say little, and when they do, they are usually patronizing the kids.

Anyway, I wish those children luck. I hope they turn their brilliance to a more fruitful and decidedly less stressful calling.

End of the World Update Part 2 - China

2008-05-19T16:17:00.002-04:00

More than 50,000 are missing or dead in the China earthquake.

So, what's going on in Asia? The combined total of deaths in the earthquake and the Myanmar cyclone is large enough to offset the global population growth for an entire day. That's a lot of people.

And China? China is, in many respects, our economic and political equal. They are considered by many to be a superpower and, having already established their global economic influence, are rapidly growing and flexing their military to project the political power. If the 20th century was the American century, all signs indicate we are living in the naissance of the "China Century."

And yet, when an earthquake strikes their less-developed regions, more than 50,000 perish. Why is that? Why is it that their schools are among the more poorly-constructed buildings? Place a similar earthquake anywhere within the United States, Japan, or any other developed nation, and I guarantee less casualties.

Human rights, and the requisite concern for human life, is not the priority it should be in China. In a recent article in a fire protection magazine (I know, I gotta get a life), the fire protection engineer for the "Water Cube" Olympic pool in Beijing, currently under construction, boasted that the new building would indeed meet all national fire codes, employing creative engineering strategies that minimally satisfied the technical parameters of the code. In other words, rather than sacrifice open spaces and "unique" bubble-like construction material (that emits less-than-pleasant fumes when burned), the engineers chose to squeeze by on code compliance. They met the letter of the law, but definitely not the spirit. Not a facility I will be occupying. Ever.

A global superpower with a questionable human rights record is, frankly, rather terrifying. Imagine if Stalin controlled Russia at the height of the Cold War. A national sense of self-preservation is the key controlling factor in any strategic conflict. A country with less concern for the lives of enemy noncombatants, and, ultimately, its own citizens, will be willing to risk more and to accept greater casualties. A country with such an attitude toward human rights can always win through attrition, assuming the adversary is less than or equal in size. At 1 billion strong, China has a significant advantage.

End of the World Update

2008-05-07T12:10:00.001-04:00

Developing countries are having a particularly bad week dealing with disasters:

-Cyclone Nagris, a storm no more powerful than Katrina or a Dean, smacked Myanmar last Saturday, killing at least 22,000 people, a number that will likely double or triple before it is all said and done. The military junta government is blamed for not issuing warnings before the storm and for hesitating to accept aid after the storm. The meager amount of aid that is trickling into the country cannot reach the hardest-hit Irrawaddy Delta because of the nation's poor infrastructure and absent emergency services. Pallets of food are unloaded by hand because the airport didn't have any forklifts available. Rampant inflation and price-gouging is placing the cost of bare essentials--a bag of rice now tops $40--painfully out of reach of a populace where the average daily income is less than $2.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24478247/

Fog - The Great Equalizer

2008-05-06T07:44:00.001-04:00

Normally, I hate foggy days. They are dark and gray and the air is so humid that the fog clings to you. Like a form of misery that sticks to your skin.

But today is different. Today, the fog is my friend. Today, I heard one of the office dwellers exclaim, in her shrillest voice, to no one in particular, "Ugh! My window is all gray!"

Gray, you say? Gray, like a cubicle wall perhaps?? How does it feel, you over-indulged window-hoarder?? I may never rise to your level, but today, yes, today you have fallen to mine.

Not that I'm bitter. But someone, some time ago must have made the conscious decision that optimum soul crushing could only occur if cubicle walls were gray, and today we suffer in his legacy. We have all thought about this gentleman, and how we want to bludgeon him with a stapler.

So forgive me if, on this foggy day, I smile as window offices experience the same instantaneous morale drop for which cubicles are notorious. Today, I celebrate Cubicle Appreciation Day.

Jerk Dolphins

2008-05-02T14:52:00.001-04:00

Dolphins are, without a doubt, freakin' awesome. With surprising frequency I come across a story on a news site about some heroic dolphin somewhere risking life and flipper to save some non-dolphin. I think you could argue--successfully--that dolphins, by their actions, are more Christian than Christians. However, dolphins are known to engage in sexual relations for pleasure, so you know they aren't Roman Catholic.

These heroic dolphin exploits got me thinking: How many of us people would punch a shark to save someone we didn't even know, let alone someone who wasn't in our same biological order? Not many. Conversely, I would wager that there is a significant percentage of people who would gladly spoon-feed someone else to that same shark if it meant they could get away.

Even if we assume that dolphins as a species are more altruistic than people, I don't think this Good Samaritan trait is universal among any species. There has to be some jerk dolphins. But you never read stories about those dolphins…they somehow avoid detection. I can only think of two reasons for this:

1. Dolphins as a species do not tolerate jerks as well as we do. They may have an excellent system for weeding out the bad apples. When that shark comes along, the rest of the pod might subtly nudge the jerk to the outside of the group.

2. Jerk dolphins are really good at what they do, so stories of their misadventures never quite make it back to the rest of us. I imagine that coming across a dolphin jerk while you are in the process of drowning would not bode well for you. You'd be thinking "Flipper! Help me to shore buddy!" Your new dolphin friend, always smiling, would nod his head and go "A-a-a-a-a-a-a!" and offer you his dorsal fin. As you grab it he begins to swim, with all his dolphin might, further out to sea.

Bottom Line: If you get yourself into a situation where you need a dolphin's help, the dolphin you are dealing with is probably an order of magnitude smarter than you are. Hope jerk dolphins aren't as prevalent as jerk people. And never call a dolphin "Flipper." Even the Mother Theresa of dolphins would drown your ass for that.

Bring it on, May

2008-04-30T21:10:00.001-04:00

April 2008 is officially over in three hours. Good riddance. What a tiresome month. May had better bring some good things, otherwise there will be heck to pay.

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done...

2008-04-28T15:17:00.001-04:00

A shipyard is not the most cheerful place to work. The atmosphere is so sickeningly Dickensian that you could almost imagine Sidney Carton (or was it Charles Darnay?) sidling up to Madame Guillotine. THWAP!

In such a setting, you have to take the little things that make you smile and embrace them. Dilbert helps. I also play games. For every pun I can use in an email, I get two points. Obscure nautical references in conversation? Four points. Making comparisons between my supervisors and Captain Ahab, without them noticing? Ten points. A bonus point is awarded if I can sneak Pequod into the comparison -- "You're right, sir, it would Pequod an achievement getting complete cooperation on our little whale of a problem. Perhaps you could spearhead the effort on this one?"

I also eat a sizeable quantity of Goldfish. You know, those little cheddar fish-shaped crackers? The ones that always, always smile back?? The ones whose incessant grinning and vacant eyes make you want to bite their heads off, which you can do because they are, after all, not even real fish and it does no good to anthropomorphize a cracker??? Why won't you frown, fish?!!

But mostly, for my own personal kicks, I rely on the absurdity of my coworkers. Today I had to wait until after lunch. One of the elderly gentlemen, who is the uncontested general of the Nap Time Brigade (see an earlier post from April), also believes that the farther away a person is, the louder he has to talk to them on the phone. Today, the individual was at a desk approximately thirty miles away, so the old guy had to talk at a moderately loud volume to ensure the sound of his voice traveled intact over that thirty miles of telephone cord. Our guy, so it happens, is volunteering to be a contestant on our command's version of American Idol, although we will not use that trademark and we don't limit ourselves to just singers. If this was ten years ago, we would call it a talent show, but this is the New Navy and we are hip. But, as it turns out, our Nap Time Brigadier General is an avid ballroom dancer, and regularly partners with his wife in such contests.

Now I'm not making fun of this. I believe ballroom dancing is technically challenging and a worthwhile hobby. I commend the General for participating in such an activity, what with him being older than dirt. But his enthusiasm just makes me smile. I might have even giggled in fact. You see, the General wanted to know the exact dimensions and composition of the stage he would be performing on, because a skilled a dancer as he needs the Proper Floor for his Proper Shoes, and if the Proper Floor was not available, he would bring the Proper Baby Powder so that he might prepare the Improper Floor so as not to scuff his Proper Shoes and affect his Superior Performance.

I smile because, on the other end of that thirty-mile conversation, was some poor soul who probably was volunteered to organize this little talent show and had no idea where the talent show would be, or what kind of stage existed. Up until that point, he had hoped and prayed that no one would volunteer and he could let it die quietly, but the General just guaranteed that wouldn't happen. And just like Mr. Carton, you can bet he was praying to Jesus that this ordeal would be quick and painless.

THWAP!

It's the end of the world as we know it...

2008-04-27T08:53:00.003-04:00

For people in my age group, that is, those of us born in the 80s, this is the first period of economic pessimism that has affected us. We weren't really cognizant of the stock market troubles in the late 80s, and we were still too young to feel the pain of the dot com burst--we didn't own stock, and gas was still cheap.

But in the past six months, I have watched my mutual funds reduced by 10 percent, and the value of my house has evaporated by a similar figure. When I started high school I remember seeing gas prices at 89 cents per gallon. That was less than ten years ago. A gallon of milk costs twice what it did when I started college, not six years ago. My cost of living raises are not keeping track with what seems to be an accelerating rate of inflation, driven by a growing global demand for our most basic resources.

Yet, to be quite honest, my standard of living has (to this point) been largely unaffected. Because we are fortunate enough to live in an industrialized (first world?) country, our lives are less affected by changes in market-controlled goods. Gas has increased 400 percent in ten years, but gas still only represents about four percent of my budget. Food prices are spiking, but grocery goods only account for fifteen percent of my budget. Non-inflationary items--mortgage and car payments, insurance and student loans--dominate my budget, and this little fact of American life insulates me and most of my neighbors from the worst affects of our current global economic crisis. When I dump $1400 a month into my mortgage, spending $2 instead of 77 cents on a pound of rice won't bankrupt me.

However, what hardly registers on our budgetary radar is causing riots in the third world. Families in less developed countries spend a significant portion of their daily wages on food, and during these rough times the cost of that meager nourishment is rapidly exceeding their income. Men are watching their families suffer from hunger, and out of desperation and dedication they try to get food however they can.

I think that we, as a global community, have passed the point in our history when an undeveloped country could, of its own volition, climb out of the third world and join the ranks of the industrialized nations. This threshold is defined by the availability of natural resources, the ease of exploitation of those resources, and the ability of that nation to control those resources. Though always steep, this hurdle to economic sustainability grows steeper still as we, the industrialized brethren, efficiently consume these resources and as our global markets, whether through hedging, speculation or sheer supply and demand, assign value to these resources that forever put these commodities out of reach of our poor neighbors. Even if an undeveloped nation is rich in resources, this wealth becomes more of a liability as the global community looks to exploit it.

There is very little hope now that those third world nations, scattered across the world but concentrated primarily in Africa and south Asia, will ever rise from their humble condition. A stagnant economic misery will ensure subsequent troubles befall such a country:

The country will become a welfare nation, a global poor box, an eternal goal of missionaries and humanitarians. In line with the "teach a man to fish" analogy, perpetual allotments of charity will remove any vestige of independence from the populace.

Exhiled from legitimate economic pursuits, illicit trade will be accepted, even welcomed by the impoverished. It is exceedingly difficult to preach the immorality of opiates to men who, after seeing their families sick with hunger, elect to grow poppies. Gemstone smuggling, drug trafficking, human trafficking exist and thrive under governments made incompetent by corruption or bankruptcy.

Governments will rise and fall as often as the seasons change. Loyalty is cheaply bartered and many seek the head of state in order to improve the quality of life for their respective sects at the expense of their rival countrymen.

External investment in the country's natural resources will enrich the current government at the expense of its citizens.

A global humanitarian crisis will utterly destroy the third world. For instance:

The current issue is, of course, global warming. As a citizen of a developed nation, I will most likely avoid major life-threatening consequences of my polluting heritage. Going green is, for me, fiscal common sense at best and a social responsibility at worst. I'll put up solar panels and plug in my car when it saves me money. However, global warming could lead to a drought in a third world country that will destroy an entire season's crop and bring a famine unto millions. Once again, my good fortune to be born in America insulates me from suffering.

Another possibility is a worldwide pandemic. A growing likelihood is that a superbug, encouraged to evolve by our industrialized use of antibiotics, could become highly contagious and spread rapidly throughout the world. A mortality rate of just one percent could leave 3 million Americans dead, overwhelming our health care system and keeping our docs, who may have gone forth in humanitarian aid, here at home. In third world nations, absent adequate health care, lacking vaccines or treatments, the mortality rate could easily be ten times that of developed nations.

Just some food for thought this Sunday morning. As you can probably tell, I am awfully bored and had some time to kill on watch.

An interesting application of this Development Threshold is that it applies to any nation today as well as any nation in the future. We have so efficiently removed the resources of industrialization from the earth that we have discovered and mined all the minerals that are close to the surface. It is only through our technology and sheer industrial effort that we continue to mine and drill. Oil no longer seeps out of the ground in Texas, nor can you find gold in Californian streambeds. We have created an environment where we need oil to get to more oil, and we need steel to find more iron. If a global catastrophe removed most of the world's population and along with it our industrial capacity, we have left our descendants a threshold so high that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to recreate an industrialized society.

I knew it!

2008-04-21T15:33:00.001-04:00

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, my (boss)^12, confirmed today what me and many of my Navy colleagues have suspected for quite a while: the Air Force is an over-indulged, sand-bagging fighting force whose failure to support our guys in Iraq belies its own illusion of self-importance. Get over there and fly your remote control planes, for cryin' out loud.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/21/AR2008042100950.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Your Government at work

2008-04-18T10:44:00.001-04:00

The clock strikes 1100. Approximately ten hairless heads rise up above their cubicle partitions like a pack of prairie dogs emerging from their colony. Timid at first, but ever emboldened, they cast furtive glances around the rest of the office. Faces cast upward, they scent the air and comment on what was being consumed by their coworkers. Finally satisfied by the relative quiet, a wizened old man in a flannel shirt solemnly nods and a younger male leaves the safety of his cubicle. He reaches the light switch, looks twice down each corridor, and flips the switch. Half the office goes dark as ten hairless heads retreat into their respective cubicles. Each dons a ball cap placed strategically over his face, and proceeds to sleep. All phone ringers are silenced. Aside from the occasional self-indulgent snore, there will be no sound. No disturbances. No interruptions. The clock strikes 1101, and the Hour of Darkness is upon us.

If you ever deign to listen to a government executive talk about the civilian workforce, you are bound to be told many, many times that our workforce is "experienced." This, of course, means that everyone is old. A corollary to this is that we aren't hiring young people, who just aren't attracted to life in the civil service. Most would rather live out of their parent's garage and take a job at the local video store, which you know is going out of business soon, what with the Netflix and Redbox and all, but you don't care because hell, you get to watch whatever movie you want to and at least you are not sitting in some grey cubicle surrounded by octogenarians who you know will die the second after they retire because this is their life, and while that is depressing enough you continue to get emotionally attached to these people even though you know there is a very high probability that they will be dead in a year, just like that goldfish you loved for a week before you flushed it down the toilet.

I think most of our elderly workers hate their jobs as much as those twenty-something video rental specialists think they would hate those jobs. Unfortunately, the old people are now committed to working for the government. Once a government employee hits 15 years of service, it doesn't make financial sense to get out and give up the chance for retirement at 30 years. They hate their jobs, but they cope. They work less. They work slower. They darken half the office at lunch so they can sleep. And now I'm typing in the dark. Touché, old people. Touché.

<<oldpeople.bmp>>

You are an idiot. Please hang up and try again.

2008-04-11T11:54:00.001-04:00

I absolutely hate feeling incompetent at anything electronic. It makes me feel old. Usually I do pretty good with tech, but voicemail kills me every time I check it.

I have a voicemail for my desk phone, a voicemail for my work cell, and a voicemail for my personal cell. All three systems are completely different. To delete a message I press *D on one phone, 2 on another phone, and 7 on the third phone. And I can never remember which one goes with which system. I always pick the wrong key, and I start to panic when that crass bitch on the other end starts to get impatient with me and brings up that "invalid entry" crap. I know it's the wrong key, you parsimonious hag.

I have gotten pretty decent at my personal cell, but on my work phones I am so maladroit that the systems actually give up on me. They come up with some lame excuse and at times submit that I seek

Cell phone:
"It appears our system cannot process your entries. Try again later. <click>" Translated: "Our system was designed for individuals with IQ equal to or better than a thumb tack. Please come back if you ever achieve high-level brain activity. <click>"

Desk phone:
"Invalid entry. Please get help and try again. <click>" Translated: "Invalid entry. You are an excellent candidate for a private room in your local psychiatric ward. Please try again when you can adequately function in society. <click>"

Kill Chuck Norris

2008-04-10T15:03:00.004-04:00

Well, a couple of Pennsylvania kids got caught plotting to kill Chuck Norris:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,349608,00.html

School officials acknowledge the hit list, which also listed for good measure a couple students and administrators, was probably a joke.

Of course it was a joke. Everyone knows you can't kill Mr. Norris. He can single-handedly defeat twenty armed bad guys without scuffing his boots. His signature facial hair is both flame retardant and bulletproof. Judging by the frequency of his infomercials, the man never stops exercising. He will beat you.

And, more pointedly, no one wants to kill Mr. Norris. He is like Jesus with a sweet roundhouse kick. His efforts with the Texas Rangers cleaned up that sin-ridden state. What, you thought that was a TV show? No sir (or ma'am), that was a documentary. He is just that good.

Mr. Norris has developed into a pop culture cult icon. He was the hero in the last few minutes of Dodgeball. He is referenced constantly. My old Ultimate Frisbee team had a play called "Chuck Norris." It wasn't physically different from any other play we did. But as we executed it we would scream "Chuck Norris!" and it would scare the crap out of people. Or at least distract them. Just by invoking his name, we were able to triumph in his reflected glory. Someone else in history had that kind of star quality. Please see the second sentence of the previous paragraph.

So while some idiot school administrators in Pennsylvania "take seriously" the threats, we know that no one wants to kill Chuck Norris. And they couldn't if they tried.

Sidebar: I just realized you can't spell culture without "cult." I have this vision of a book cover with an image of Paris Hilton or whoever the newest pop whore is surrounded by cult-looking people. And it will be called "Pop CULTure" with some catchy subtitle. The book could be crap but with a title as awesome as that how could you not buy it?

It worked!

2008-04-10T11:54:00.000-04:00

The email posting worked! Kinda…

My email server likes to take attached files and embed the filename randomly in the text of the email. If you notice the last sentence of the previous post, my poignant statement was interrupted by <<screenshot.jpg>>. Very inconvenient. I was about to fix it, but then decided it should remain as a testament to my struggle. That, and a fault in the interpretation of the Java applet prevented me from saving changes.

Java blockin'

2008-04-10T11:40:00.002-04:00

For some reason my work computer cannot run Java even if its motherboard
depended on it. Which is sometimes does. The CPU is conveniently
located within kicking distance and boy, its failure to perform even a
simple app really grinds my gears. I've seen better script reading at a
high school drama club. Not that I've ever been a part of a high school
drama club.

So now I am blogging via email. Somewhere in this post, assuming this
whole setup works like it is supposed to, you should see a screenshot of
my computer's latest endeavor at being more than just a warm pile of
silicon and plastic.

I realize of course that my government-owned Dell, had it been fortunate
enough to exist as a home PC, would probably be functioning like a
well-behaved, law-abiding computer. Unfortunately this machine is
hampered by a legion of network-administered programs designed
specifically to keep me from completing any useful task. A boot-up
takes twenty-five minutes. The network people know my Java isn't
working, but I shouldn't be using Java anyway, they contend.
Essentially, I am enslaved to a slave PC. It sucks. Anyway, we'll see
how this blog-by-email thing turns out. Maybe I'll do it more.

Oh, the Navy is also blocking Facebook as of yesterday. What's up with
t <<screenshot.jpg>> hat?

Paper Planes from Outer Space

2008-03-27T07:05:00.002-04:00

Getting into orbit these days is a rather simple proposition for those who have the means. Strap your payload into a rocket, ratchet the speed up to 17,500 mph, and suddenly (well, eventually) you find yourself in a perpetual free fall 200 miles above the Earth. Newton, you rock!

However, getting back to Earth from orbit is decidedly more complex. Whereas at the beginning of your journey you burned through tons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen to accelerate you to orbital speeds, the only means to shed that speed during reentry is to turn your spacecraft into a giant air brake. Newton, you suck!

NASA has spent billions of dollars trying to get this right, and as evidenced by Columbia we still can't guarantee a safe return.

We use a fleet of shuttles covered with the most technologically advanced heat-shedding systems ever conceived, but Japan, in one of their most telling one-upmanships, is building a paper airplane to do the same thing. Crazy.