Bad little monkey…

Yeah yeah. I know. I’ve been terrible about keeping this thing up to date. I entered into this little experiment with the intention of providing regular (albeit senseless) posts. That, apparently, has not worked out so well. I could claim a lot of excuses… but that is all that they are. Let’s just say I’ve  been too lazy to keep on it, and call it a day.

How about a nutshell of the past couple of… well… about the last year? Sure. Why not. Those are always fun.

I’ve been traveling a lot for work. I made it out to Ireland, and abused myself with whiskey and Vitamin G yet again. Damn you and your sweet delicious beverages, Ireland. All this has done is further reinforce my desire to live out there for a few years.

I went back to Montana for a high school reunion. The town I am from is very small (graduated in a class of 21, counting two exchange students), so they host reunions every five years for everyone. So, technically this was my 13th year reunion. It was very surreal seeing every one. We’ve all aged, but it appears that the old cliques haven’t died. In groups, everyone tended to gravitate to their old friends. Time does not appear to heal all wounds, I suppose. I picked up a nasty little cold while I was out there, which limited my fun times a bit. It was an interesting travel adventure (as usual for me), however. I may write more about it later.

I made a much longer trip for work soon after that. Went out to Fishkill NY for a couple of weeks, then went directly to Minneapolis MN. Both locations were sweltering hot (around 100 with humidity in the high 90’s), but not enough to make me sweat all my excess fats off. I did get a free weekend in MN, which I spend with the site manager at his cabin in Cheteck WI. I now love Wisconsonites and their beer. Giant, corn fed, freaks of nature that can consume an amazing amount. Love it.

We discovered that my wife was pregnant early in the year, and we had a daughter in September. I had forgotten how tiny a new person can be… and how loud. She’s the diametric opposite of her brother, who was about as easy of a baby as you could ever wish for. She’s a beauty though, and I’m totally her slave. I shudder to think how she will be as a teen.

Did I mention that I’m getting fat? I am. I hate it. Spending too much time on my ass, drinking  beer. My plan is to lose 20lbs by my 36th birthday, which should bring me down to a fighting weight of about 145. I’ll settle for 150, though.

After about a year and a half of pain, I discovered that I had a herniated disc in my neck. Pain filled my upper back, neck, right arm, and was causing me to lose feeling in my right hand. Surgery was a snap, but I developed a pretty severe staph infection at the incision point about a week after the surgery (right after they removed the staples). Not fun. The scar isn’t very pretty, but the pain is pretty much all gone. I still get periodic pains in my neck (at the spot where I am assuming they removed the offending piece of disc), which generally results in a little bit of numbness in my index and middle fingers on my right hand. Could be much worse…

After years of harassment, I finally signed up for a facebook account. Bane. This is probably a very good reason why I have not kept up on the blogging. Facebook makes you lazy. It is, however, and interesting social experiment. It has allowed me to get in touch with a great number of people I haven’t seen in a decade or more. Not all are my friends, but that seems to be the standard these days. We are quickly turning into a well networked, yet isolated culture. I hope this phase passes before my children grow into it.

Speaking of experiments, I attempted something moderately disgusting last year. I happened to purchase the wrong kind of deodorant, which ended up giving me a very feminine smell. After taking a lot of heat from friends, peers, and my wife, I decided to see what would happen if I didn’t use deodorant at all. End result: after an entire year, either no one noticed, or no one had the balls to say anything about it. Stupid.

I’m also quitting smoking. You’ll note that I did not say quit. I’ve been on and off that particular wagon many times in the past several months. Current status: under the wheel ruts.

Anyway, I’m killing time in the Singapore airport right now. I have a 10 hour delay going to Penang. It’s about 4:30am, and I’ve been up for more than 30 hours at this point. I guess this will be a sleep optional trip. I’m feeling a little disjointed, so I think I’ll just stop for now.

Thank the gods for 24 hour Starbucks. Coffee coffee java java nom nom…

hello world

I’m baaaack!

New content coming soon, I promise.

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Riemann-Zeta Hypothesis

Brilliant. I’ll be sending this out as my next Valentine’s day card.

Finally…

So, I finally finished The Gathering Storm, the 12th book in the Wheel of Time series. For you uninitiated, that’s about 12,000 pages of text (not counting the two very brief prequel novels ). Yeesh. I’ve been re-reading the entire series since sometime late last summer, and it took me about 8 months to finish the series. Bear in mind that I pretty much only read on the train in the morning, and while traveling. That being said, I think I made pretty good time.

About halfway through the series, I decided to begin reading the books electronically on my smart phone. The poor translation (OCR doesn’t always work so good), botched formatting, and uncomfortable reading platform were a worthwhile trade to the back-breaking weight of the books. I have the first 6 in paperback… the rest are hard bound, and are neither light or convenient to travel with. I am now a bit envious of people with Kindles, though. Not sure I could justify the price tag, but the temptation is rising. One more generation, and I might put some serious thought into it.

Pity Jordan had to die before his work was completed. Perhaps he could have finished if he had not been so thrice damned wordy. Seriously… he could have cut most of those books down by a third at least. Too many character, and too much wasted description on what the characters were wearing. I don’t care that Sir WhatsHisButt (whom we will only read of in this chapter and will  never see again) is wearing a silver and gem encrusted lace bow tie, green and sliver pleated pants, and glossy pointed boots with a broken left heel. Ok sure… throw that sort of thing in once in a while for pertinent character development, but not for every character. Nor do you need to throw in a brief synopsis of the storyline at the beginning of each book (by book 6, we should probably be pretty accustomed to both the story and the terminology). I could go on, but there is not point in beating a dead horse… or author. Sorry… couldn’t help myself. By the way, I fucking told you so, Goober.

I must say, I’m happy with the new author (Brandon Sandersen) and the direction he is taking with the story. His writing style meshes well, and he seems to be doing a very good job of driving this lumbering monstrosity of a plot towards a defined conclusion. A lot of loose ends have been tied up, some questions have been answered, and a lot of these annoying and useless character groups (Jordon would break to different groups at each chapter… when you’ve got as many as 10 different groups of characters in a single book, you begin to lose both momentum and your audience) have been either consolidated or eliminated. Here is hoping that Brandon can keep this up, and actually finish the series in two more books. This was only supposed to be a trilogy. Then it was only supposed to be a five book series… and then 8. I think someone lost sight of the end game around book 6.

If we get to 14, and suddenly it becomes a 15 book series, I’ll… well… I’ll probably continue to read. And grumble under my breath…

15 seconds of fame

Part of me truly hates facebook. Stupid peer pressure. Stupid peers. I’ve gotten reacquainted with several old friends, so I guess that’s worth the price of admission. One of my old college buddies was actually in a Daily Show skit. It’s an old one, but still funny. See if you can spot my buddy Scott! Hint: he’s the most normal one of the interviewees…

Ah… brings back memories of all the stupid things we did in college… the ones I remember, anyway.

Hey! I have a blog!

Ha ha. Silly me. I totally forgot about this thing.

Actually, that’s not true. Things have been quite chaotic for the past couple of months. I have:

• Completed my first Advanced Microscopy course.
• Got shackled to the factory floor until two more or built. Nothing says quality control like building something in half the time it should take. Can you say “Drastic shortcuts?” I knew that you could. All of this to add a few more clams to our end of quarter bookings. Are you happy now, Mr. Investor? Well, are you?
• Finished moving into the mother-in-laws. That’s right. One big happy family. Mom in law, cranky pregnant wife, 5 year old, 3 cats, 1 dog (that thinks he is a 75lbs cat), and me. I do believe I have discovered the 10th circle of hell.
• Didn’t get all the stuff moved out of the old place before some crack-head broke in. Lost pretty much all of my interconnect cables for the computer, power supplies, war driving kit, digital surround set, and other computer goodies. That stuff annoys me, but it’s just stuff. The crap that I’m really missing now is a sea turtle shell that was given to my wife, and my SS card. Doh! Stupid me. While I wish anyone luck that wishes to use this information (go ahead, steal my fucking identity… please), I still had to put our a fraud alert. Ah well. This is about the best time it could happen to me anyway.

It’s starting to quiet down now, which means the other shoe should drop right about… now. Waiting to get catapulted on a plane to far away places to achieve impossible goals…

And baby makes… 4…

Or 8, if you count the animals. We may as well. They cost damn near as much, and behave like children anyway.

Due date is September 21st-ish. Timing, as always, leaves something to be desired.

Stupid penis.

Just kidding… I’m actually stoked… and a little shell-shocked.

The Embarrassing Episode of Little Miss Muffet

The Embarrassing Episode of Little Miss Muffet
Guy Wetmore Carryl

Little Miss Muffet discovered a tuffet,
(Which never occurred to the rest of us)
And, as ’twas a June day, and just about noonday,
She wanted to eat–like the best of us:
Her diet was whey, and I hasten to say
It is wholesome and people grow fat on it.
The spot being lonely, the lady not only
Discovered the tuffet, but sat on it.

A rivulet gabbled beside her and babbled,
As rivulets always are thought to do,
And dragon flies sported around and cavorted,
As poets say dragon flies ought to do;
When, glancing aside for a moment, she spied
A horrible sight that brought fear to her,
A hideous spider was sitting beside her,
And most unavoidably near to her!

Albeit unsightly, this creature politely Said:
“Madam, I earnestly vow to you,
I’m penitent that I did not bring my hat.
I Should otherwise certainly bow to you.”
Thought anxious to please, he was so ill at ease
That he lost all his sense of propriety,
And grew so inept that he clumsily stept
In her plate–which is barred in Society.

This curious error completed her terror;
She shuddered, and growing much paler, not
Only left tuffet, but dealt him a buffet
Which doubled him up in a sailor knot.
It should be explained that at this he was pained:
He cried: “I have vexed you, no doubt of it!
Your fists’s like a truncheon.” “You’re still in my luncheon,”
Was all that she answered. “Get out of it!”

And the Moral is this: Be it madam or miss
To whom you have something to say,
You are only absurd when you get in the curd
But you’re rude when you get in the whey.

Happy Valentine’s, you filthy animals.

Ain't dat da troof...

Who are you callin’ a cootie queen, you lint licker?

A couple of my favorite commercials from last year. I watch way too much television to actually have favorite commercials, I guess.