I Love TV

When you need to shut down your brain, there's no better drug. The best thing might be that there's no hangover, unless you've watched way too much Deadwood or Sopranos, which can make you use way more profanity and get angry about minor things like dropping a potato chip on the floor.

Last weekend I watched both Rocky I and Rocky II - just because they were on. Everyone knows Rocky's famous "Yo Adrian," but what I didn't remember is that he says it repeatedly throughout the movie (I think he said it just as much in II as he did I).

He doesn't ever say, "Hey Adrian" or "Adrian." Every time he speaks to her he says "Yo Adrian" or often, "Yo, yo, yo Adrian." It's amazing. After a few minutes "yo" starts to sound like a loud gong, drowning out other sounds.

But, he wrote those movies, yo, and directed most of them, which is more than I've ever written or directed. Cut me, Mick.

Me Likey Edditing

I'm an idiot. I found a typo in my resume today. It's been there for years, as apparently "Dreameaver" is not an actual product.

What I meant was that Dreamweaver is a dream to use, being so EAsy, that it's not at all like weaving, which takes effort, so it's really more like Dream-eaving.

Let this be a lesson to all you kids out there working on your resumes by yourself. Always, ALWAYS get someone else to review it for you. ALWEAYS.

Sadful

Got home from work today and felt totally empty and depressed, like someone had died. With Cameron, Jeff, Julie, Shauna and now Christina gone and Miriam transitioning out of the group, I realized there will be no one left to hand things down to.

A few people have come & gone in the past couple of years, but there has always been an intact group to carry on. All the institutional knowledge and folklore that isn't documented anywhere is passed on so the group can successfully continue in its role.

And toys - "inherited" silly toys, pictures and trinkets decorate the area - little mementos to remind us of former teammates. Like Michael's Grand Marshall name plate and the picture of our mascot, Bob. Pictures of Lewis on a surf trip. Julie's play-doh sea monster sculpture. Jeff's checkered table cloth desk. It will all be left behind and no one will remember our names or what we did.

It won't be long before we're all gone. For the first time since the group was started five years ago, the department will cease to exist. Decimated. At a company with plenty of ongoing revenue and resources.

And it was confirmed this week that the reason for the re-org was to motivate one person to leave. Instead of dealing with the issue directly, an entire group was treated like furniture and moved around without any regard for who we are, what we do, and how the group needs to function to be successful.

One stupid move destroyed a highly-productive, valuable group. Will those responsible ever stand up and admit their mistake? Not likely. They act like it was just a natural cycle of some sort. What a huge disappointment.

Cat Power

I worked from home on Friday to go back through a 90+ page copy deck for a major site enhancement. The deck is based on almost 60 pages of wireframes and after the first pass I like to go back through at least one more time to review and catch whatever I missed.

It's a tedious, time-consuming process. It generally goes faster on the second pass, but it's a methodical thing that shouldn't be rushed.

I brought home a new set of wireframes, knowing they'd changed yet again, but hoped the changes would be minor enough that it wouldn't slow down the review process. I was mistaken.

A third of the way through the wireframes I came unhinged. They *had* been approved as final two weeks ago, as they should be before copy begins, but as always, there is no lock down at any phase of any project - ever. The review became all about finding minor tweaks in the wireframes instead of completing a thorough second pass.

I vocalized my frustration to no one in particular, since I was in my living room by myself except for the bird and a couple of cats. Nikita was napping in her kitty bed when I started mouthing off.

She got up and jumped onto the back of the couch, behind my head, and tried to creep down the front of me to get into my lap. I stopped her because I still had my computer in my lap, but she wouldn't be shoved away.

She was purring loudly and ended up nestled against my neck under my chin. She's never jumped on me and started purring before.

I think she was trying to take the wind right out of my lame sails. Why I let this crap frustrate me like this I don't know, and as she forced herself into my shoulders and under my chin, all I could do was laugh. She'd calmed me right down.

Enough Already

With the cold, clammy fog! I'm freeeeeeezing! I can't wake up when it's all gray and crappy in the mornings. And I don't like wearing my winter coat in June.

Quit it!

Decoration Day

The original name for Memorial Day. Years ago my dad wrote a nice story about celebrating Decoration Day as a Boy Scout in his hometown of Napa - the focus being on soldiers who had made the ultimate sacrifice and the town's way of honoring them.

Unlike today, for the most part, where the focus is on retail sales, barbecues and drunken boating.

Watching 60 Minutes last night, it's impossible to understand why we still have people in this country supporting the bogus "war" in Iraq. Even one of the National Guard soldiers interviewed thinks there's a connection between 9/11 and Iraq, and he didn't try to connect those dots through Al Queda posting up in Iraq, he linked the two unrelated entities with a giant leap of nothing.

One mother interviewed two years ago just before this battalion shipped out was proud to be sending both her husband and son to Iraq. Proud. Of them, I can understand, but of the mission? After you've been lied to repeatedly? How can that be?

With their deployment extended until this August, now she's not so sure how she feels about it. That's a start. Other wives/mothers interviewed recently had similar feelings. It took losing a life or having their husbands'/sons'/daughters' commitment taken advantage of to get them to think about what's happening.

Some soldiers themselves have changed their opinion of what we're doing over there, admitting that originally they thought we should be there, but believing now that we shouldn't be there and it was a mistake. I'm sure they're but a handful of others.

If we know that Bush lied, using faulty intelligence reports to support his flawed agenda and that there were never any WMDs, the very basis of his reason we should start this war, how can anyone today believe this war is still justified? If we're truly fighting a global war on terrorism, why are we still dumping money into and losing lives in Iraq?

Oh, right, I forgot, "global war on terror" is Texan for "there's so much more money to be made, we can't pull out now."

And then there's this, and this and oh, hey - this. with support from this. Turns out those soldiers weren't lying after all. But there's also this, and let's not forget this. Unforgivable.

There's no way to thank our servicemen/women for the job they do, though I have a few ideas - buy houses for their families at home, support their families while they serve in conflicts, and address their health needs, whatever they might be, for life - for a start.

Their service is an amazing, selfless gift and it's sad that our leaders are so cavalier with that gift. We support the troops and all they do, but not how the CIC abuses them. Where are the leaders who want to do the right thing?

Future Captain of Industry

Happy Graduation Dylan! My nephew is off to college and the big, wide world. Maybe he'll hire me someday.

And Then There Were Three

And my new nickname is "Lights Out Lady," living in Crazytown, Population 3. In the span of a couple of months, our group has lost seven people from a total of nine. I'm the last remaining employee of the group we formed just two years ago. Maybe it's me. Maybe I smell.

The first cut came from the nonsensical re-org that moved four people out of our group, which no one's been able to explain in any way other than, "change is like chocolate or broccoli - some people love it and some people hate it, but like broccoli, change is good for you." That was actually in a presentation about the re-org.

I should add, too much broccoli at once causes painful gas and intestinal cramping, and too much chocolate doesn't do anyone any favors, either. They could have easily compared this sort of change to chewing a mouthful of nails or wearing clothes made of steel wool - really not necessary and in a nutshell, stupid.

And as a result of the chocolate-coated changes, four people bailed and a few more have one foot out the door. One person left before the re-org realizing things were quickly going downhill and there had to be better options.

So why am I still there? There are a few reasons. I'd been looking and had a good offer from another company, but then David's job got a bit wonky, I don't want just another job, and crazy as it sounds, I feel like there's more I can do as a writer/editor before I go. Meaning, there's so much more material to gather. I could never come up with the things I see and hear there every day. It's a treasure trove.

Phones Don't Swim

But they should. We're way overdue for water-friendly phones, and I don't mean some big contraption that looks like the old yellow Sony sports Walkman, or a crazy-expensive phone only Eco Challenge athletes might buy.

I mean, by now all cell phones should be water-resistant. Even with basic rubber gaskets installed in key areas, they'd still be flimsy enough to support the disposable phone market. We should be able to eke just a bit more life out of them by making them withstand a few moments of complete submersion.

One friend of mine has already lost a phone to toilet dunking, an unfortunate result of keeping it in her back pocket, and today mine took a dip in the shallow end of the swimming pool.

It doesn't matter who picked up the corner of my towel or how that person never bothered to look at what they were doing as my phone tumbled helplessly from the warm, dry towel into the cool, blue water. It happened, and my little toy went glub, glub, glub into the deep end. I did get a nice dinner out of it, so there's that.

I'm told that after a few days we can try to power it up & see what happens. Of course I tried right away to see if it would work and probably fried something, but I was being optimistic. Or in denial. It looked kinda dry - shouldn't it boot right up? I *thought* all my data/phone numbers were stored on the SIM and memory cards, but alas, the phone numbers were not. They're all in the soggy phone.

So, now we wait... It sits alone on a towel on a table in its tiny ICU ward. Poor little thing never saw it coming. Enjoying a warm afternoon one minute, drowning the next.

Go Meat!

This killed me - choose View TV Spots from the home page.

Ass End of April

Sure am happy May is here - April sucked.

A couple of weeks ago David was suddenly "reassigned" at his job without any warning or rationale, after five years of stellar performance and constant, consistent high praise.

The reason they first gave was that a few deliverables weren't on target. Deliverables he had no clear requirements for, nor any feedback to guide the direction, despite repeated requests for requirements and reviews.

The second reason had something to do with supervisory style, yet, he was not a supervisor. What's next - he was coming in too early and staying a little too late? What's the actual story kids?

I think what a friend said might be true, that it's becoming more common to work in companies run by people who have no clue how to run a successful business.

And without any time to process all this crap, his grandfather passed - not unexpectedly, though still sad - and he had to jump on a plane back east.

Today I went to move his car into the driveway and it didn't turn over. He left his parking lamps on for, I'm guessing, three days. I jumped it and drove it around for 45 minutes, but I'm not sure it'll be enough. He might light it on fire if it's still dead when he gets home.

And now I think Neo is depressed, missing his dad - I'm hoping that's all it is. He wasn't interested in his dinner, but to be fair, I didn't give them wet food tonight, which to Neo is what makes the sun come up every day. He seemed to perk up when I put his dad on speaker phone later on.

As my dad said, you never know when something might jump up & bite you.

Violent Sellout

Now even the Violent Femmes have sold out! Wendy's is using the intro to Blister in the Sun for their latest TV ads. That's so wrong, but good for them for getting paid. But Wendy's?

Why not a cool car, or booze, or John Deere turbo tractor mowers? Or am I upset because it means that I'm officially "old" when the punky music of my youth shows up in mainstream media?

Suffering from ED?

(cartoon from thismodernworld.org)

Sean Hannity and his male listeners must be, cause they can't advertise ED drugs enough on his little show.

I had a long drive home on Monday after an offsite in St. Helena, so while surfing the radio for entertainment I found Hammity's show.

Shows like his are a laugh-a-minute as he makes one overly-generalized comment after another without any rationale or credible information to back his claims/rants.

And his listeners are even worse, calling him up to tell him he's a "great American" and a "patriot" before they launch into their own half-baked (or unbaked) comments.

At one point, Hammity mentioned the partial birth abortion ban and what a great thing it was, blah, blah, blah, no uterus, unfounded comment, blah, blah, yak, yak, yak, and a woman called in to ask why people who actually wanted babies are punished.

She rambled about how she was being punished for wanting a baby, that she and her husband had undergone fertility treatments and because they admitted as such when applying for health insurance, they were denied coverage.

She thinks an insurance company is trying to punish her for wanting a child. Does she not understand how insurance works? They don't *want* to pay for your $30K IVF treatments, because they're *expensive.* It has nothing to do with what sort of turkey baster you're using or what's in it - if it costs that much and it's non-essential, you're on your own.

It was funny and sad, but mostly sad, and Hammity never tried to help her understand anything, but let her prattle on about how unfair it all is and how badly they want a baby, blah, blah, blah, and I'm thinking, You stupid cow, have you heard about adoption?

How bout you adopt one of the many unwanted kids who need homes? You're against any form of abortion, yet you're not willing to adopt an unwanted child who's already out of the womb, living, breathing, and needing new shoes? No, let's just make more children, try to get insurance to pay for it, and further overpopulate the world.

Check out Think Progress for a different slant.

Worst. Freezer. Ever.

The horror. You would not BELIEVE what my mother had to do in order to store salmon in the freezer in Palm Desert.

Seriously.
You. Would. Not. Believe. It.

Do you know, that freezer is so stupid - you can't get anything in it! It's not because it's already crammed full of food, batteries and lord-knows-what-else. NO! It's because it's such a STUPID FREEZER!

She had to store the salmon - get this - vertically - ON ITS SIDE! Not flat, like you would expect to store salmon in a freezer. UP ON ITS SIDE, ALONG THE SIDE OF THE FREEZER! UNBELIEVABLE.

I am beside myself with shock and disappointment. I am at a loss. The humanity!

Why god!? Why would you do this to an innocent salmon!?

Massage/Bra Fitting

Last week I got a chair massage at work - it's a great way to spend 30 minutes an it's a good way to get me to go into the office.

Halfway through my massage, which is supposed to be focusing on the stress I have in my upper back/traps/shoulders, my masseuse starts working on my middle back, which is fine, but I noticed he was trying to work around my bra strap.

He moved it slightly up to work directly beneath it, then slightly down, and finally he said, "This seems really tight across your back." I said, "Yup, that's what I pay it for."

He continued working for a minute or so then went on to tell me that I might want to think about a different type of bra, maybe one that isn't quite so tight across the back, as it seems to create artificial tension in the fascia beneath the skin.

It seemed well-intentioned, but I found it amusing that a guy - a guy without breasts - was telling me what type of bra I should consider wearing.

Maybe he wears breasts of his own when he's off the clock and loves the idea of wearing bras that fit the way he thinks they should, but he has no idea what sort of bras I need and why I wear ones that could double as a body cast.

He went on for a bit about strap tension when I had to cut him off and gently explain that I was wearing a minimizer and it has a very important job to do, and it needs to be tight to do its job, and the only tension it causes is when the elastic starts to give out and I have to buy new ones.

Poopy Pants Time

I almost walked right into this little* guy down at the Salton Sea last weekend. He was sunning himself at the deep end of an empty swimming pool behind the Aces & Spades club.

*We guestimate he was about 3 or 4-feet long and a couple inches in diameter. But that was last Saturday. Today he's 10-feet long and four inches in diameter and next week he'll be triple that size. With fangs the size of steak knives.

On previous trips through that part of the North Shore, most everything has been fenced off, but this time huge sections of the fence that once secured the old pool had been removed. I thought it might be cool to see what things looked like from the deep end of the pool.

I'm so glad I looked down into the pool before I was in it. When I saw Mr. Rattlekins, I almost crapped myself. I've never seen a real, live snaky snake in the outdoors before.

The immediate fear was surprising, even though he was at least eight feet below me. I thought at any moment he could spring up from the pool and sink his 14-inch fangs into my face.

As soon as I got my breath back, I started shouting DAD, DAD, DAD, DAD, DAD!!! but he was already around the front of the building. I snapped a few shots then went to find him.

I then noticed how much dry brush surrounds every path on the premises. And me, without my kevlar pants, having to walk through all that to find my dad.

When I found him, I told him what was in the pool and he couldn't wait to see it for himself. We went back to the pool, but by that time Mr. Handbag had wound himself underneath a dry palm frond, probably trying to hide from the biped that wouldn't stop shouting "DAD!"

I watched my Dad instantly transform from a mature, responsible man to a six-year-old boy as he started throwing twigs and debris into the pool to get the snake to move. If he'd had a stick long enough, he would have used it to poke him.

My protests fell on deaf ears - he was determined to drive Mr. Rattleboots out from under the palm frond. But the rattler wouldn't budge and I was relieved. We left him there and I was happy to head home to change my pants.

Nothing Wrong With Shooting...

...As long as the right people get shot.

Got an invite last Friday afternoon for a mandatory, all-staff meeting first thing Monday morning. Last minute... mandatory... all staff... those are never good.

It wasn't about layoffs, but it was a re-org, though the re-org doesn't make much sense. They've all but dismantled the UE group and no one's telling us why.

It seems like no one really thought through all the details. When our (now unhappy) ID's asked about the new structure, they were told it was done to make their lives better, yet no one asked them for input.

What's really behind the re-org? Why can't we hear the whole story? Are we not adults?

CHiP Roulette

On the way home yesterday I felt like I was driving through a mine field and at any moment a CHP would blow up on my ass.

Starting out in Oregon it was mellow in the morning - no one was out except a few truckers here & there. It was a fast drive from Bend to Dorris. But shortly after reaching the border, it felt like cops were everywhere

I had my radar detector fired up, but if they're not shooting at you it does no good. When you whiz past them at close to the speed of sound, they don't really need a radar gun to tell them shapes and colors are converging into a blurry speeding glob.

All I could do was watch for air patrol and hope for the best. As I was leaning into the turns around Lake Shasta I saw a helicopter go right over my head.

Nooo! What to do... what to do... Was it even a cop? Maybe it was a rescue helicopter? There's no way to know! It's usually a plane, but maybe they got more money from Homeland Security and bought a Blackhawk.

I pulled off the road and waited - driving leisurely around the lake area. After a little while I got back onto 5 and went with the speed of traffic.

There was no way they could prove it was my car slotting around the turns. I was now a good 10 minutes behind where they would have expected me to be, and I'm in a station wagon? Who speeds in a station wagon?

But it didn't end there. All through Redding down to Dunnigan and on the 505 they kept appearing from nowhere, totally messing with my head. It was brutal.

With three stops along the way, I made it home in 7.5 hours. Not my land speed record of 6.5/7 hours, but good enough. I wasn't trying to break any records - I just wanted to get home.

I'm a Dumbass

Not this little guy - me - I'm the dumbass.

I'm in Oregon at the moment and just after arriving, looked through my bag for a pair of sweatpants and other warm layers and found none.

I must have been sleep-packing, because I packed t-shirts but no sweaters, no fleece, nothing warmer than a sweatshirt, and nothing to lounge around the house in.

Clearly, my vitamins aren't working or they can't stop my brain from dissolving and running out my nose with every sneeze.

On a positive note, the opening at the museum was a big success and that night I was commissioned to get more wildlife shots. I spent some time there yesterday watching a lively river otter swim all around his pond - otters have the coolest paws - and getting new shots of the lynx and bobcat. It was hard not to get in there and snuggle with them.

Lethargic

I've been in a physical/mental funk lately - feeling lethargic and run down and this past week I've had trouble finding the right words and three times over the course of the week forgot what day it was.

What I need is my own lab - how much does it cost to set up your own lab to run blood tests? Can't be that expensive. Have you seen some of the "labs" out there? Not so fancy. A centrifuge would be handy for separating the fat from roasting juices.