thestain

"Hello, God (Scan), It's Me, Kim's Trouser Socks..."

Scan is dropping so many names that I fear for the phone book.  Does that make sense? No?

Scan: "Randal Peavey, IT Lord and Master of All Government Agencies, at home and abroad says 'Hi', Andrew...I had to remind him who you were...twice."

Scan: "I was just talking to The Head Of Everything. He needed my advice on how to be more like me. AS IF I HAVE TIME!"

Scan: "My face keeps appearing on The Most Important Person You Can Think Of's morning toast.  Now he or she loves white bread."

Seriously. Insufferable wants its generic definition back.

Kim wears something she calls 'Trouser Socks'.. Really. I'm not making this shit up.  She actually worked it into a conversation. That she'd recently purchased, at some trouser accoutrement warehouse named 'Kohls', a SIX PACK ...OF TROUSER SOCKS.

Do trousers require their own stockings? Maybe. I don't OWN trousers.  They sound needy.  I will not ask her what other demands are being placed upon her by this wardbrobe.  

Only beer should come in six packs.

This weekend I am going to a RODEO. 

Scan: "I had a professional bull rider ask me once how I do what I do..."

I'm sure we all wonder.

Ice Pick

Tonight is the faculty/student Ice Breaker.  I paid my ten bucks, because it's expected, as is that I will go and drink twenty dollars worth of alcohol.

I don't know how to chat these people up.  Our worlds have no overlap.

Young Excitable Weather Nerd: "Is it just me or does anyone else get off on wind speed data? GRIDDED monthly averages..."

Me: "I think Lenia is having her gridded monthly average, but it could just be a combination of her mood and those pants...."

No one here laughs with me; my friends laugh AT me.  And vice versa.

I spent yesterday emailing Andy from a fake gmail account, Langdon R. Stalwart IV.  Andy is sitting next to me and while he was getting increasingly frantic and angered by the nonexistant Langdon's belittling email, he never noticed that I was sending them as fast as he could read them and chortling nearly constantly as I typed,

"Randy; what sort of 'research' is it that you 'conduct'? I'm standing in your office and am fearing for my health.  Where are you? You are late for our meeting.  I feel my interest waning and the cash monies that I was quite figuratively preparing to FESTOON upon your project are, I find, curdling in upon themselves. Please responde with haste!"

"Randy, I'm sitting in your chair, in your little 'office' and I find that I am nearly overcome by an overwhelming stench of...could it be GYM SOCKS...? If I decide to fund your project...could we agree that a small stipend go toward a class in hygiene? My assistant is having to hold a kerchief to my nose...will you be long? I don't actually HAVE an assistant..."

Gradually I let Langdon slip into nonsensical insults and bad language.  Threats.  Andy was twitching and getting more and more agitated,

"This LANGDON fellow is telling me to take a rolling frig at a closed caption, whatever that means...jesus. Who IS THIS? He ends all his email with 'Call me' and then either 'Fuckadoodle Do!'  or 'Cheers!'..."

Finally I accidentally forgot to change my real gmail sig and the email came through as from me.  Too bad, I almost had him ready to call his boss and make sure that there wasn't some snooty seeming faux english dude going through the desk drawers at his office in P*rtland.

Today has not been nearly as amusing.  Maybe tonight.

Car Meh

When the guy at the H*rtz rental car counter handed me these 2 'key fobs'...and that is what he called them,

"Don't lose the key fobs! Your car is in M32 it is a ..."

I didn't hear the last part because I like to trim back sentences once they finish with the part where I do something.  I was already walking out the door thinking a 'key fob' was just new terminology for an old thing, like Johnson or Codpiece....

"Right-Oh, chap!"

Anyway, I get to the vehicle (I will not call this thing a car...)...the codpiece...I cannot turn the fucker on.  Really.  There is a button that says something like PUSH ME or START or ON....and a light on the dash flashes a symbol of a foot on a brake. 

I really just want a beer at this point.

I keep pushing the button and stomping the brake...add a little whimpering, a few 'FUCK ME PIECE OF SHIT HYBRID! WHO RENTS A WOMAN FROM IDAHO, WEARING A SQUIRREL ON HER T-SHIRT, A FANCY YUPPIE CAR?!'

It was like playing one of those hillbilly one-man-band machines. Too bad the japanese didn't throw in honking as a side effect.

I'm the only one in the garage, seemingly.  Except a man with his young daughter who scowls and rolls up and down the windows on his Ford Avenger across the isle, turns up some country music to drown out the word IDAHO...

I flip through the owner's manual.  The Starting the Car section is pretty vague,

"Push the button, depress the break, and go!"

By now I really hate the Japanese.  I find myself musing about Hello, Kitty from Vegas and hoping she lost her innocence to a giant floppy cell phone or an unclean Uncle Sam 'I Do Your Taxes!' on crack.  I hope it wasn't gentle.  I hope that the bagpiper was still gnashing out his one bad hit. 

I text Uncle Crispy who is frankly not interested in texting me back. She's on her way to have 7 layer pasta-jello-white-bread-bean-guilt casserole with her parents.  She can almost taste the 7 layers....plus her karma coming back. ('YOU are a KARMA KILLER! OMG! MY INNER PEACE IS IN INNER PIECES!')

Finally I go grab the sleeping guy stationed in the return hut,

"I cannot start a hybrid. I've never seen one before.  I hate your key fob," I tell him.

He smirks,

"You are in for a treat," he tells me. 

He walks me across the lot to my rental again and shows me how I had actually started and stopped the codpiece about 20 times but the engine NOISE doesn't kick in for a few seconds and I'm not a patient person,

"Now put it in gear...and GO!" he says, using his arms to gesture, GET THE FUCK OUT!

I notice that the guy across the way, renting the Ford, is STILL circulating his car and marking down bug marks and wind scratches. 

The panels could be off on the passenger side of this hybrid and the wheels could be made of cheese for all I know.  He shakes his head when I lurch by.  What a douche. 

I still don't know how to have both inside (dash) lights and outside (head) lights. So last night, at dusk in a rainstorm, I took turns. I drove to Trader Joe's with inside lights, and to the hotel with the outside ones. 

Andy gets in this morning and my plan is to make him drive this bitch while I ruin our karma.

Uncle Crackers Loves Kitty Litter

I'm sitting at the Las Vegas Intermural Airport, next to 'Uncle Crispy Crackers', as the woman formerly known as 'Kim' now wants both the airport and herself to be known,

"That doesn't even make sense," I'm muttering, not for the first time.  I've had 24 hours with her and all she can talk about is the sadness of Hello, Kitty and how wheatgrass juice has cured her inability to wear 'bright colors',

"Which is fine, but not helpful. I don't LIKE bright colors...I wish it could fix ..."

"Your tastebuds?"

"No..."

"Cats?"

Anyway, I think Hello, Kitty brought it on her own giant stuffed furminal self by stationing next to a bagpiper in front of the Paris, a known anti-scottish/anti-kitten institution.  I don't know why anyone stands ANYWHERE OUTSIDE in Las Vegas. It's just a bad idea. Add Giant Japanese Cat Icon who can't at least PRETEND to be happy and, well....pouting about the third bad run-through of Danny Boy....you are just asking for some ruddy faced anglo with a toddler sized drink to pee on you.  Don't pretend it's the first time.

That's what I think. 

It's out of focus, like my inner life.

 

Tucson '11

I have two years to prepare, really, for this biennial class in Tucson.  We (the 'Steering Committee', of which I am a technical lead) have meetings, conference calls...data is sent to me, old lessons plans needing updated, new tech tips to be written as software versions change and tools are added... 

I make assurances that everything is on track.  Usually I'm thinking about lunch or happy hour, so it's not really a lie...just a lack of attention. 

Really, I prefer to wait until it's down to 6 or so hours and then panic, stinking of alcohol from 24 hours in Vegas the weekend before (THIS SATURDAY!), maybe dropping those little naked hooker cards out of my pants pockets as I pace in front of my wide-eyed team, attempting to place the blame of nothing working and old data on faulty technology...

"It's the server! It's always the SERVER! I think we need a bigger one!" I will rant. Again, thinking of food or beverage. 

"AND WHY CAN'T WE DO EVERYTHING COMMAND LINE!? AND ON PAPER!! IT WAS GOOD ENOUGH FOR RUSS!"

Russ is long since past retirement eligibility.  He remembers when all we used were paper maps and colored pencils; when dry erase boards were voodoo....fire shirts were orange.  He seems confused when he shows up to our meetings, to class. The oldest member of the Steering Committee, he seems surprised to be reminded, several times, that he is in Tucson, and that thing he keeps trying to put money in is our SERVER, not a vending machine.  He has more data, as an individual, than any normal region of his agency.  He wants it all in a single database.  I just keep handing him candy and thumb drives.

This year I have nearly an all new team. 

One man, Scan, whom no one can STAND, so egomaniacle that his farts demand time on the agenda.  He smirks as if it were patented and we should all pay a royalty to see it.  He was hoisted on me.  Like a cankor.

Kim, my good friend, joining me for a 24 hour debauche in Vegas beforehand, she will stay with her parents during the 2 week class. Denied fun in favor of casseroles and a bedtime.  She's skilled and eloquent, I rely on her to teach our lab while I sit in the back of the classroom and frantically try to fix the broken links on our database.  Search and replace '09 with '11 on all the training materials that were supposed to be printed in October...

Androiux - He's an alien and I plan to prove it.  NOT the kind who mows a mean lawn, either. His eyes are set at the side of his head and they don't blink.  His head moves slowly from side to side continually and I swear, though it happens quickly, his long tongue snakes out and licks things when no one is watching.  He is from N. Carol*na.  Sure he is.

Anne - She's from MT and is very detail oriented. I am finding her to also be very funny in a subdued slow to know way.  She is taking the class so that she can be on my team next time.   

Andy  - long time friend and biggest nerd ever.  Cycle-cr*ss champ, the guy is so physically fit and burns so many calories that when he isn't wolfing down brownies or rocking like a chronic from a sugar/caffeine high, he talks in a way that cannot be comprehended. Bursts of very fast techno-jargon.  Frequently, what you can pick out and translate has actually nothing to do with current discussions.  He's like days ahead.  He writes beautifully and can drink more beer than any man I've ever known but never gets drunk.  He works in research and has no idea what this class entails.  Nor does he need to.  I didn't for the first 4 years either.  I thought it was about airplanes.  I had to beg him into it at the last minute because he is a) smart and b) has a budget.  I am really happy to have him. 

Do any of you still read this? I've killed my old spleen, so to speak, and will be updating my slow (or fast!) professional ruin fairly daily.