June 2005 Archives

Someone decided to torch a church on my route home today. Huge billowing pillar of black smoke came up from the far side of the street. Okay, it was a controlled burn, the fire trucks were standing by, but it was still kind of strange to see a steeple go up in flames. Everyone gathered around to watch too, stayed for quite a while. I'm hoping it's because the flames were entrancing and not because everyone really really hated that church for some reason.

It touched on the primitive portion of the brain, that's for sure. Some guy at the bonfire last night had an interesting thought about that. He wondered what the first cave man that got fire, but didn't know how it worked, thought about. He'd keep that flame stoked but eventually it was going to run out and then he'd be all sad and pissed at the same time. Come on fire god, give me another chance, I don't want to die cold. You want a sacrifice? maybe some nice bear.

Word from Iowa is that mexican food in the mid west is a crime against nature. Picture a nice plate sized borrito, right. Only it only has ground beef in it. Unseasoned ground beef. And the cheese is on the outside. And it's velvita.

I finally got off my lazy ass and put together the Doctor Octopus Costume project page. It's over there on the left. Go on, click it. You know you want to.

Most people shorten the "Octopus" part of the name to just the first sylable but seem to add a letter to make it "Ock" as in "Doc Ock". I wanted to name the files that way but realized that "Doc Ock".php can also be read as "Do Cock".php. I named them something else.

My new house is next to a grave yard. Well, three houses away, it's not like part of my yard is fenced of with twisted wraught iron or anything. It's cool though, a whole verterans memorial with cannons and different rows for different wars. A seperate section for jewish graves as well as japanese graves; I'm really hoping this is more of a preference on the behalf of the segregatees and not that white coffins don't like being near tribal coffins. Anyway, I found out recently it's kosher to take your dog through there so Addie and I went off to consort with ghosts last night. Addie being addie I turned to look at a building for a second and turned back to find her crapping on a gravestone. I spent five minutes appolgizing to a marble slab covering a woman born in the mid 1800's. So I either believe in some form of afterlife or choose to anthropomorphize the strangest things.

These last two days have been nearly entirely devoted to seeing Scott and Jeni off on their long journey to Iowa City - home for the next three years. Friday was a long late night getting all of their stuff packed into the 15 foot moving van and the car that would be trailing behind it. They scraped down the driveway at around 11:30pm to head to their temporary beds. We thought the truck was riding a little low at the time, so very horribly true. This 15 foot truck had a maximum cargo weight of 2600 pounds, 3000 pounds at "real" maximum. We figured maybe they were a little over.

7000 pounds. Three and a half tons of crap had been packed into this little truck - efficiently mind you, it was like real life tetris - but obviously not a usable weight. I found out these specifics earlier this morning when I got the call to please come help. Thankfully finding a bigger truck wasn't that difficult (this one could carry six tons). Transferring items was like watching two giant metalic insects mate. The larger female truck backed up to the engorged male truck. Their rear thoraxes joined the male truck dispersed its load into the the female trucks vacant "holding area" and... well that's as far as I've thought that sick little metaphor through. Probably too far actually.

But now they're off, or will be tomorrow. A total of about 36 hours of driving, maybe longer since the truck can't go above 60 miles per hour, and they'll be in Iowa. Since Jeni is now a full resident, legions of med students eager to suck up will (hopefully) be there to help them unpack. It's good to be the queen.

In slightly more mundane observations I've determined I'm much more comfortable with contractors and general "underlings" than I am with "overlings" at microsoft. I had a lunch on thursday with the contractors and we talked about good music and where in peru is the best place to learn whatever the hell. On friday it was lunch with my managers and their boss (arguably somewhat stressful) where they talked about seeing Disney land for the fourth time and the strengths of the suburban vs. the hummer. We also ate okay thai at the thursday deal compared to overpriced steaks on friday so that could be it. Who know. I guess I'll just have to quit and travel to peru, it seems the only logical conclusion to draw.

I have not been peed on so far this weekend. It is only satuday though.

I spent a good long while at the dog park on sunday, addie had been missing it what with all of the packing and moving and new cat. I'd forgotten the host of characters you meet there. A Boston & Pug mix that wiggled near uncontrollably and climbed into my lap despite being soaking wet. A huge sponge of a golden retriever that liked to shake off next to me. The huge wet chocolate lab with the grey muzzle that saunters over to lean against the back of my legs. Wait.. that's kind of warm. Nope, not leaning, pissing.

Yup, this giant fat brown lab with his happy smile and silver beard has just mistaken me for a tree, which is odd since I had been walking around quite a bit. The owner appologizes profusely and is embarrased and runs away with his dog. I'm just laughing the whole time. Of course I also wade into the water and shake pant leg around a little. Care or not I didn't want to attract others to compete in covering the other dog's scent.

Proud day.

My time as a groomsman has come and gone - at least for now, another run in august - and it turned out to be quite fun. The bride wanted a wonderfully short ceremony so there wasn't the "standing for 2 hours trying not to sway" problem; My duties consisted mostly of being a gnome, making sure things miraculously went smoothly so the couple didn't have to worry about too much. Herding guests around, managing cars and cake, it was definately the most enjoyable time I've had at a wedding. Plus I got to wear a cool suit, which always makes me feel a bit like james bond. Unfortunately now it's time to help Scott and Jeni pack up to move to Iowa for three years. So sad. Except that there are plans to meet in colorado for skiing every year, so that's good. I think I need to quit my job so I can travel more and pop in more than once a year.