God is in the details

I was working on a spreadsheet to budget my monies,
And I found PROOF MATH IS A BIG LIE! All this time
I've trusted the holy perfection of math, and now, I'm
so confused and lost!

If my bi-weekly check is $666, and my monthly bills
are $1000, why doesn't

"bi-weekly check minus half of monthly bills"
equal
"two times bi-weekly check minus all monthly bills"?

666 - (1000/2) = $166

and (666*2 = 1332) - 1000 = $332*


dammit! SATAN! I cast you out of my equations!

Why has God abandoned me in my time of mathematical
need?

*Notice 166 is FOUR TIMES as small as 332 DOUBLED....
Hmmmmmm.....


Any Help?

Poor Michael

I was just thinking, the only way you can refer to

Sir Michael ... Jackson*

is that way, with the loooong pauses.

Although, He could just give up and go by "Mikie"

*You Know, the British General guy, not
*THE* *MICHAEL* *JACKSON*

PETA vs NRA

Hands up
Originally uploaded by Claf.

OhMyGodI'vePeedMyPants!

The Frog Whisperer

It's Tuesday!
I've had a job for 2 days in the last 3 months!

Monday and Tuesday.

before that, it's just a wide black chasm,

NINTY DAYS of
not-much-to-do,
no-money-to-do-it.

I've been in high slacker mode for 3 months,
part of it depressed,
part asleep... parts were great!

One thing i've noticed is that for me at least,
having no demands on your time
leads to freetime inflation,
the almost total devaluing
of each passing day.

But -*! NOW !*-,

now it's different, now that I have to be
at one particular place all day long,
I find

NOW

i have urges to frolik
and run errands and do
stuff
almost all the time!

If I had only saved-up that freetime when I had it,
instead of burning through it like the stuff grows in trees,

ah, sweet regret! allons!

------

Tonight after work, I took a little walk around my temporary home in the middle of San Diego.

Across the busy, noisy traffic artery,
the road bends and meanders next to a shallow ravine,
filled with dark trees and little paths
leading away under the greenery.

Except it's just dusk,
so the adventure looks more dangerous than fun,
so I just stick to the sidewalk as the road bends back around
to meet the traffic again.

But before it does,
the gathering darkness is matched
by a lull in the rushing cars,

an island of quiet.

Except the ravine must have a stream or a marsh or something,
because the air is filled with a mighty chorus of froggies,
hundreds of little noisemakers in three or four loops,
in different notes and tempos.

for just a minute, then as I walked further down the road,
the ravine narrows as it meets the suburban subdivision.
And the froggie chorus dies out to just 4 or five nomads,
out at the edge of their crowd,
ribbiting merrily until I get too close,
then silence.

Then more traffic.

Work

dayone

It's the last day of February, it's Monday, it's been raining,
cold, stressful, lonely, miserable.

But work was good. Or it's good to work. Or it's a nice change of pace.

Monday morning

I learn a little about the office, and remember a name or two.

I'm really 'sposed to start tomorrow, on the 1st,
but I volunteered to put in a full week. Right off the bat, I'm a giver!

Since I'm a day early, the paperwork is still en route from CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS,
so I can't fill anything out, and no one seems to know what to do with me.
I'm mainly just chatting with people, grinning and hoping my sweat
doesn't stink like my greasy freeto-'n-bean skittles-pie diet.
(you try and eat healthy in-between addresses in a new 'burg, bub!)

It's good. the office is nice, the people are happy and busy,
the neighborhood is fantastic (beachtown living is good living),
and the workload looks like a good balance of mindless tedium
and interesting, exciting stuff. And the dress code is relaxed!

This particular Monday is also Brandi's (Brenda? Bree-Ann?) birthday, so we get CAKE!

And everyone slacks off for the afternoon, some people take a half-day and split,
I just ate cake and practiced my 31eet SKILLZ on a helpless month-out of date [secret product*],
it didn't stand a chance against my onslaught of text corrections and formatting beserker flurries! They seldom do.

* I've signed an agreement I mustn't speak of.

------

DAYTWO

Ok, now it's time to get down to business! *W*O*R*K* work work work. Tote that bale and carve out the holes in the swiss cheese, it's worktime!
hit it! work!
go!

...did I mention Monday, I met a cute little puppy, who peed on the floor?
in the office? no?

OK, well that happened. Today, It was more puppy (no peeing today! GOOD PUPPY!),
and some youngsters. And left over cake!

And paperwork, and some actual demands on me! today I did what I was spozd to,
Plus some emergency extra work, since a lot of the staff were distracted
by all the puppies and children.

And I handled it! yay! this working thing might be OK after all.

Stinking hippies

So I've moved all my valuable stuff down the West coast to a fresh new San Diego. fresh and new because it's been raining like gangbusters for a week, and now it's been sunny for a couple days straight.

I thought I had a studio apartment taken care of when I came down here 2 weeks ago... I remember it like it was just a....

[wiggly waterfall visual effect here, with harp swells]

So I'm driving around the area of my new office, looking for an apartment close-by, 'cause there ain't no way I'm going to commute on the gaddam I-5. what a one-two punch of congestion and horrible traffic engineering. wow.

When suddenly, I spot a "for rent" sign on a freestanding building on this lot, like a converted garage guest house. it's neet. I call. The guy says he'll be right out to show me the place. His name is Star, he's a skinny greenbean of a hippy with long unkempt hair (too spastic for dreds, too dredy for a 'fro)

Star shows me the place, which is *it*
as close to *it* as I'm going to see in this nieghborhood
(the Northern Beaches region of San Diego is...
full of $golf courses$ and $hummers$

Star strikes me as a hippy, and kind of out-of-place, but not so much, since everything that isn't upscale is devoted to surfing, eating, and relaxing, there are many parks and... well, beaches.
It's pretty fantastic actually.

Anyway, I assure Star I want the place, and he assures me it's 1st come, 1st served, will I please fill out this application? Oh, and a credit report?

I don't have the report, and I go to some trouble to produce one in under 60 minutes. This can be done these days on the internet. That is crazy...

So, I'm done looking for a place, It's Thursday nite, and I fly home Saturday to turn around and drive back Tuesday, unpack, and start work the next Monday. Nothing I like better than a plan coming together!


I hate stinky hippies. fukken hippies.

Friday morning I get up. Star says he'll call me in the morning, He's just got the give the stuff to the landlady, who will be there in the morning.

I wait 'til noon and call. I can hear it in his voice. there is some bad news that needs to be broken.
Will he be a man and come out with it?
Will he hem and haw and beat around the bush with obtuse dodge-the-pointery?

stinking hippies. I'm still not sure what the problem was. but some point he forgot to mention. no pets. no smoking. no noise (the neighbors have walls that have ears!). the place is filled with mildew spores.

I think some bastard, possibly another STINKING HIPPIE, bribed Star to make sure my next two weeks would be... less of a calm, orderly affair than someone might have been planning on.

bastard.

Luckily, My friend has a friend who has an empty room, so for the moment I can look for an apartment without hiding all my stuff under bushes everyday.

Lessons in stingyness

I've learned a valuable lesson about myself.

I am a stingy bastard who will go to great lengths
to save a dime if it will make me feel smarter than you.

It's Friday night. I've got to get to John Wayne airport in Orange county by Saturday afternoon to catch my flight back to the Bay. I flew on beautiful Alaska Airlines, a big thank you to them for making my last-ever flying experience better than I had hoped for.

Did you know you can't smoke on airplanes? You did?

OK, didya know there making it illegal to carry lighters onto airplanes?
So you can't light your explosive shoes, or something.
Soon, Long fingernails will be verboten, and then it's on to shady looks.

Some ALCU Electronic Frontier Foundation nutter is refusing to show his ID to travel.
He doesn't like the idea of having to have to "show your papers" for the privilege of getting around.

He's got a good point.

Then again, so do a lot of people. I mean,
if the airlines want to do whatever they want to,
on thier own planes,
that they bought with our money*
then they should be able to, no?

viva freedom!

*(remember the airline bailout?
how about the chrysler bailout?
or the S&L bailout?
remember?)



So, anyway, I'm taking a little train ride north to the OC on Amtrak. yay!

I like trains.

They are much more fun
and less demeaning

than any smelly plane
will ever chance to be!

I get the second-to-last train and right away
it starts raining like nuts. It's really something
to see that much water fall
right out of the air
a lot and for a long time.

We get to the next station,
where we wait while they fix some signals
on the tracks and shorts in the electric train parts and wotnot.

And we are off, and I get to Irvine a hour late, but it's cool , I've got time.

I learned another thing. You can't get out of Irvine at night.
There are two lonely wet cabs (it's stopped raining, thank god) ,
The cabbie tells me it's 25 bux to get to the airport.
25. hmmm...
I have a smoke and think about that.
I've got about $100 to get me through
a week of moving
and a week,
or two
until
payday.
hmm....

turns out there's one last train north for the night,
and if I get to Santa Ana, I can get a bus
to the airport no problem. hmmm....

So I get to the Santa Ana station around 11:30, and I ask direction to the busstop.
The stop I need is actually 4-5 blox away.
hmmm... no problem, my backpack isn't really heavy,
and I can see stars above and clouds skittering away all around.

It starts to go wrong when I stop at a Starbucks along the way,
to ask directions and get coffee, I DO NOT want to get lost,
and I haven't eaten anything since noon.

The barrista tells me I am not lost, and gives me free coffee! yay!

As I walk towards the corner, I see the bus stop.
I also see the ass end of a bus pulling away.

I know right then, absolutely, that is the last bus of the night.
know it. it's midnight. It would be very inconvenient.
It's getting cold. dark clouds are rolling in behind
all those little skittering clouds. It's gusty.

It's the last bus.

bye bye bus.

Well, fuck it, the bus goes straight down this road for 8 miles,
then a little jog to the right, and there's the airport.
I'm going to walk.
I've got plenty of time.

Midnight to 1 or 1:30 I'm doing good.
I'm covering good ground, the busstop maps
says the airport is getting closer and closer.
My backpack is getting a little heavy, but that's ok.
My feet hurt.

1-2 am I realize something is not right.
I finally figure out, after walking through
urban,
residential,
light industrial,
dirty railroad industrial areas,

I've missed my turn.

I'm 10 miles offcourse, its 3am, it's drizzling,
I hate my backpack, my feet hurt badder.
I'm also weak from hunger and coffee going bad in my gut.

by 4am, I've found the only cabbie working,
and I give up.
The ride to the airport is fast and smooth and comfortable warm,
and costs me $15.

So, At the cost of my feet, my back, my health (my nose is runny),
I saved

$10

yay for me.

Also, TOTAL EXHAUSTION is the only way to sleep in airports.
They are mostly quiet until 5 am (1 hour of dozing),
but after that, conveyers start moving, and announcements
get broadcast, and people start working and traveling.
However, if you are committed, you can doze for another hour or so.

As soon as the Alaska Airlines counter opens,
I shamble up there and ask if there's anything
leaving sooner than afternoon.
Me sleepy. want bed.
turns out there's a flight at 8,
and it's no problem to re-ticket me.
yay for me!

Then the rain is back in sheets and gales.
The boarding is delayed, then hurried by the rain
and a quick break in the rain.
As the last people are getting on,
God throws buckets and buckets
of rain in the door.
We need a mop.

Eventually, I did get back into my bed,
and slept gooooooood.

--

It's sad to me that the only way to make flying bearable
is to be a incoherent zombie for the process.
Did I mention I got the full security magic wand-dance and
magic-fingers pat down? I must have looked terroristic.

Note to self*: Flying sux.
relax, take a train.
and for christ's sake just spend a little money and do things the easy way.

*really, it's a note to *you*