At Your Own Risk

Hey Jeff, post more. You were always better at meaty content than me...I was just the delicious orange rind.

Anyway...do you realize I had to look up if it was "rind" or "rinde"? Because I did! There's your director's commentary for the day.

My wife's away on semi-vacation this weekend, so knowing no one down here in the 'States (co-workers don't count, because they're co-workers who are paid to put up with your presence, or ignore you unless they need something from you), I've had a lot of time to think.

1) I miss Zesty Cheese Doritos and Swiss Chalet like a sumbitch.

2) I have to combat my tendancy to fill empty time with eating by forcing myself to exercise and drink water instead. This is much, much less fun. But it makes me feel better...in an empty inside *points to the inside* sort of way.

3) Ignoring the last point, I'm addicted to fruit snacks. They're like candy, except they're NOT. If we tell kids to eat them for recess, then they have to be good for you. And I love eating Snoopy shaped objects. It's a bit of a passion of mine.

4) I've had 2.5 completely free days to do some writing (not here, stupid...real stuff. Well not "real", but side projects that also people won't ever read), and I didn't do anything. And not because my cats won't stop meowing at me when I'm at the computer. But because the only time I feel like writing is when I'm at work. While I pulled that off at my last job by having a lot of free time and not giving any shits, this current place is hard ass, because they make drill bits, god dammit.

5) I have no personal drive to do anything, really. If left to my own devices, I'll shrug and watch Discovery Channel, and let my mind wander to times when I wish I could go back in time and beat the shit out of someone. But we all do that, I suppose. I just do it more lazily, while laying against a pillow. Going to work on Friday without a wife to think about helping to support around...God Damn you Windows, I don't care if you have a update, I'm too busy right now...was mighty difficult. I had to build up my "Beat myself up inside" thoughts to get me there. I wish I was the Eight Dwarf, and thus work would be it's own reward. Because I didn't have other things like not work, to distract me from the dismal boring existance that is living in a cabin in the woods with nothing but deer and bunnies around, dishes to wash, stocking caps to clean, and beards to trim.

6) I easily get into the habit of scratching at my beard. However, I'm self concious about my whole head area, so I like the fact that beard changes my face...that and I'd have a beard tan now if I shaved it. So either way, even if I wanted to change, I have to keep the beard until at least early October. But I usually only go clean shaven 3 weeks a year for the past 3 years, but still...I even annoy myself with the beard scratching/pulling thing. I feel like a girl who chews her nails, and I have any sound nails make. So seriously, don't do that around me. I have a thing about it.

7) We have stupid motivational mats at work for wiping oil off our boots when we come up to our office area from "down below" where the union people have to work. Things like a picture of a bunch of frowny faces with a big yellow smiley face that says "Quality Stands out" or a big picture of a key that says "Safety is Key!". They piss me off. But there's one that has a picture of a big black stain, with a jack'o'lantern red smile and angry eyes, on a red background. I forget what the fuck it's trying to tell us to do, but I love the Angry Stain. It's somehow...charismatic. I'm trying to fit it into something I'm writing that no one will ever see...but it's difficult. But I will find a way.

That's enough unconnected thoughts for one night. Time to go lay down to bed, and think of kids I wish I could go back in time and beat the shit out off. Ahh....

Ribs and baked beans

I hate battery life indicators on contraptions.

The bars are never equally weighted! I mean, it's full, it's full, it's full...there's one bar gone...it's dead. If there are five bars, the first bar is 95% of the lifespan, once you lose one bar, your contraption ceases working in less than a half hour.

It's another reason why they're all out to annoy me. Not get me. Annoy me. I don't think I'm THAT important.

Jody asked me "So, do you know how to sell yourself to this woman?" tonight. Wives don't ask that question enough.

Spiders!

So, the manager of the townhome complex left us a message the other day. She said nothing other than "call back so we can touch base", so Jody and I wondered what it could be. We've been falsely accused of slamming doors (we're far too seditary to be coming and going often enough to be a door problem people) before, and a bunch new people moved in, and new people like complaining.

So Jody called back yesterday, then left me a message on my cellphone.

The problem?

Spiders!

Seems two different people came to pick up mail packages at the office and complained about spiders on the packages. She couldn't remember if I was one of them. (no...I was not). Thus, they're calling in Ecolab to not only spray spider death gas in the office, but they need to find those two people and spray them personally down as well.

I though...do I need a free anti-spider spraying, even if it wasn't me?

But for the good of the two people who do need it, I said no. And then got on with my life. Then wrote about it here.

Part V: Just like the movie "V".

umm...Phoenix is a lot rockier and dustier than Minneapolis. It's also seems to go on forever.

Oh, and we went to see the Red Rocks in Sedona. Those are red colored rocks, and they attract crazy people to their vortexes who know that purple is a very spiritual color. Also, did you know scientists now believe strongly in silver ropes that attach us to the pastel colored life beyond death, that you go through the left door in the bright coridor to get through, and then your rope becomes gold?
That's very color specific.

Yeah, I can't get into that much more specifically. Other than beyond the person who told us that, we also ran into someone from Andromeda there. Why do they always pick that galaxy to come from? Not from a nearby star, not from a faraway star. No, the next fucking galaxy away. Stupid vacationing crazy Californians ...

Anyway. We went to a New York bagel shop there for lunch. Very authentic, because they were rude to us and didn't want to serve us anything because they were closing in an hour. In an hour.

...more to come.

L'ami du pain

Ah, another Canada Day in America come and gone. With another year of "So, do Canadians celebrate Independance Day?", "What's Canada Day?", "Why would you celebrate Canada?", "I celebrate Cinqo de Mayo, and I'm not Mexican", "I suppose you guys don't have an Independance Day (sly look of "we fought for our freedom, what did you losers do?"), and of course "Do you guys celebrate Christmas/Easter?". Okay, that one was from December.

Anyway, let me shake off the bitters, and get on with...Part III: The Third Part of Part III

Where the hell was I? Umm...with my Bag of Chicken Strips, I suppose. I also got some "Salsa Verde" Doritos, because they have many more corn chip based snacks in Arizona than in Minnesota. I was only able to eat 4 chips from the big bag before they burned a hole in my stomach lining.

We went to the mall, and it was...mally. Still teenage boys walking around the mall together, but not talking because they're both listening, seperately, to loud music from their walkmans in huge earphones. Not sure I get the social aspect of that. But maybe chicks dig the music losers who hang out in twos.

Back to the hotel! Now, the great thing about our room is that the windows faced inwards, towards the pool area. Now, obviously I'm never going to leave the windows open so any buddy whatshisface can look in at my Bag of Chicken Strips, so they extra thick curtains stay closed. This is wonderful for jet lag. Because you can never tell what time of day it is. Close the window, shut off the lights, and bam, it's 1 am as far as you care. Now my wife went off to do bridal shower stuff with the bride, and I decided that at 5 pm, damn, I'm done for the day.

I then slept until 10 am the next morning. At which time it still looked like total darkness in our room.

Then I had some chicken strips. Then I had some rolaids.

Total Destruction, from Mountain to Shore!

Long time coming for the latest installment of a long ago vacation recap, but it's end of the Financial Year at work, and while I'm not important enough to actually be busy, I have to expend energy looking busy, so the actual busy people don't freak on me because they're freaking out. That and all kinds of tornadic weather kept me hiding in my bathroom.

Part III: Don't Look At Me That Way

So, we're hungry. Kind of. We've been up for basically over 24 hours now, but it's lunch time, and we feel like we should eat. So we of course want gut destroying fast food. So we head out to find a Jack In The Box (because there aren't any where we live, and we're livin' it up in 'Zona). The hotel lobby Master of Questions tells us where the nearest is, so we head out into the searing 108 degree heat to find it. It ends up being much, much further away than the closest (one block away on the SAME STREET), but we do find it, eventually. We take pictures of people's houses on the way, because they look different then the houses around us, thus are funny.

The JITB is very small, and after passing a begger who is right by the front door, we try to decide what we want. In the corner of the seating area, is a older man on his break, who is the most baleful, haggard looking man in the world. We decide to get takeout instead of eating in. Haggard guy looks at us balefully, without stop, for the entire time we're in there. Stop being so God Damn Baleful, is what I want to yell. Instead I say "MMm...thems some good fries".

Then we decide to find a mall. To buy gifts for the wedding we've known we've had to buy gifts for for the past few months.

We can't find it, though it's on the Same Street as our hotel. So we go to a grocery store instead. And I buy my "Bag of Chicken Strips" which is the meal I eat from for the next two days, while nursing a sore stomach from not sleeping for 30 hours and eating only fast food and from the Bag of Chicken Strips.

Shite, gotta go to work...it shall continue.