Random Ramblings

The Roman Mind of Gar

2012-02-02T16:04:00.000-06:00

The other day I was at the dentist having my sensitivity problem corrected (with a drill) and my dentist started talking about the show, "Spartacus". My new dentist is very entertaining. He talks to his assistant the whole time he's working and his topics of conversation remind me of this blog which I'm so proud of. As in, they are random and a bit crazy.

Anyway, his assistant apparently doesn't watch TV because she had never heard of this Spartacus show of which he spoke.

Why was he suddenly talking about Spartacus you ask? I'm glad you did.

It all started with allergies. The assistant was sniffling during the whole procedure. This lead the good dentist to comment on her drainage problem, which lead to a discussion about nose cancer.

How did we get to nose cancer? Well, the dentist is a curious person and decided to stick one of those devices up his nose to try and discern what was causing his allergy induced stuffiness. I think this involved the usage of a mirror.

And what should appear up his plugged orifice except some kind of strange growth which he convinced himself could be some sort of nasal cancer.

His assistant, of course, commented on how young and healthy the good dentist was and he takes care of himself so there is no way he could be suffering from some strange nostril cancer.

And just like that, we're talking about Spartacus. Well, they are talking about Spartacus because my mouth is full of various instruments and all I can do is make strange grunting giggling noises occasionally.

The lead actor in Spartacus, buff and healthy as he appears, recently died from lymphoma at the age of 39. And, in this particular dentist's chair, he became an example of how healthy people can possibly go wrong and get an allergy induced rare form of nasal cancer. I hope you're still with me.

But, when our assistant asked the dentist about Spartacus (not knowing what type of show it was), he asked her if she'd ever seen the movie Gladiator. She had and he explained to her how Spartacus was like Gladiator except much bloodier and well, more, adult.

Having watched both Gladiator and Spartacus myself I knew exactly what he was beating around the bush about (pun intended). Spartacus is as close to a porn as you can get on cable television.

This lead me down the path of how historically accurate shows like Spartacus are. And if they are historically accurate how much someone like Gar might enjoy living back in the Roman times.

I could have a house full of hot slaves and not get much sleep. Then, eventually, there would be dozens of little Gar Spawn running around and I'd have to step over them to get any work done. Eventually my old age would find me decrepit and gentle and I'd pick each Gar Spawn up one at a time and ask them kindly, "Who was your momma again?"

Smartphone USB Connectivity Issues

2012-02-01T12:57:00.001-06:00

I've got an Android phone which is classified, in the increasingly misleading realm, as a smartphone. I wonder if there is a definition for smartphones. In case you are curious, I've got a Motorola Atrix 2. I like it. It's a sturdy phone and I haven't had too many issues with it. Until Monday.

On Monday, of this week, my computer at work quit recognizing my phone. In case you've been living under a rock, I'm a geek. I set my phone on my desk beside me and keep it plugged in. I tether it (via USB) for Internet access. Our work Internet access is old-fashioned DSL and is often quite slow considering it's shared amongst 50 people. I use it to take pictures and then copy the pictures (via USB) to my computer. It also charges (via USB) so I always have plenty of battery left.

On Monday, this all quit working. I did a quick Internet search and apparently I'm not the only one. There are a whole host of complaints about various "smartphone" devices losing USB connectivity to their computers. I even saw some (shudder) iPhone complainers.

I won't lie. I worked on it for a couple of days off and on. It worked sporadically. I have 10 USB ports on my computer. One of which worked about 20% of the time. I probably looked like a monkey in a cage participating in some kind of odd scientific experiment moving the plug from one port to another anticipating different results.

I plugged it into my server computer across the hall and it worked immediately -- same cable, same phone, same OS. Therefore, I figured, it was the computer. But, was it hardware of software? Was there something wrong with the phone drivers causing the computer to misbehave? Or were the internal USB hubs actually causing this disaster?

I tried several troubleshooting techniques including removing old USB drivers, re-installing the USB hub software for my motherboard, and doing multiple reboots. All were fruitless.

Well, today, I finally fixed it. Once again, I can tether, charge, and share from my Android phone via USB to my Windows 7 PC.

The trick was so simple it's almost silly. I plugged an old USB hub into one of my 10 USB ports (so now I've got 13 ports) and plugged my phone into the hub. Now, once again, it works flawlessly. I'm still kind of mystified as to why it quit working. But, I'm happy that it works again. You can get USB hubs for less than $5 which is far less than the pain it was causing me.

I guess I should mention that I used a powered USB hub. Not sure if the power made a difference or not. Let me unplug it and I'll let you know. It doesn't appear to matter.

Cruising for the Hardwood Lottery!

2012-01-30T12:16:00.000-06:00

I'm going to write this like a proof. Just because I can. As I wrote, it became less like a proof and more like a nerdy boneheaded thing to do, but I was too lazy to fix it. And I couldn't figure out how to make it go by letters instead of numbers. If A is B and B is C then A is C you see?

As my avid fan knows, I enjoy cruises. They are a carefree relaxing journey where you are stuck on a ship (a rather large ship) with the same people for a week.
As anyone with a half-tuned ear to the news knows, there was recently a cruise ship disaster off the coast of Italy.
According to my last post, I really really want hardwood floors in my house (so I can skate).
Carnival recently announced they are giving $15,000 to each "uninjured" passenger on the cruise ship that sunk.
All of my sailings have been with Carnival.

Given all 5 of these points, it has come to my attention that if I take enough cruises I'm bound to eventually be on one where the Captain goes nuts, sails too close to shore and sinks the ship. Then, I'll get a check for $15,000 which will almost pay for my hardwood flooring project (does the government charge income tax on near miss payouts?).

==

Therefore, it is time for me to start booking cruises. It's like a $400 lottery ticket and even if I don't win the lottery, I still get a vacation out of it.

I think I'll book my first one in April. I wonder if the odds of winning go up for Mediterranean cruises? I would do Alaskan ones, but I'm not sure $15k would be worth the risk of hypothermia even if I did pack my 7 mil wetsuit. Plus the cost of purchasing a lottery ticket would increase significantly. I'll probably have to stick with my $400 lottery tickets and sail the Caribbean.

I wonder if I could pay off the Captain of my next cruise ship. "Could you graze that rock over there and give me an hour to change into my wetsuit? Maybe for $100?" Do you think that would negatively impact my payoff?

Hardwood Nightmares

2012-01-25T15:03:00.001-06:00

If you've been following along, you know I've decided to keep my house for a while. I love the location. I refinanced it this month and got my ex's name off the note and title, and saved a couple of percentage points of interest along the way.

My more recent task is an attempt to get hardwood flooring throughout the house. That stuff is expensive!

You never really think about how to do things like the stairs. Do you put wood floors on the stairs or not? Labor is expensive. Apparently it's difficult to put hardwood floors on the staircase. The salesperson convinced me to do a partial wood with carpet on the stairs (easier to install and keeps you from slipping down the stairs).

I'm really looking forward to buying some footed pajamas and skating through the house!

Not to fear, I have begun shopping around to see if everyone is as expensive. Interestingly, some places offer free measuring and estimates and others want a deposit before they'll come out and measure.

I'm looking at Lowe's, Flooring America, and Empire.

I even thought about buying the flooring and doing the installation myself. The thought lasted approximately 5 seconds. Handyman, I am not.

I really wanna skate.

The Irony of SOPA

2012-01-18T12:13:00.001-06:00

I got to this blacked out wiki website while doing some harmless surfing today (it was actually kind of a nice change from the goofy guy or gal begging for money).

I don't know which side of the fence I stand on in regards to the "intent" of congress. Perhaps they have good intentions trying to protect American businesses from overseas piracy (the virtual, technical piracy; not the Captain Jack variety).

But, anyway, I decided I'd do my geek duty and write my representative and my senators a nice little note.

I basically wanted to explain to them that regardless of their intentions, before they start writing bills that are going to impact the Internet they need to become a little bit more technologically savvy. I challenged them to implement a way to do Internet Voting and then come back and think about the intelligence of this law.

It would be like me trying to get my old 1990 car to pass inspection by covering up the exhaust manifold on my engine. My car would be running really clean as far as the inspectors were concerned, but it wouldn't be long before the motor gave out.

But, anyway, letter in virtual hand, and ready to send it to all my civil servants, I was met with web site errors redirecting me to a generic Congress page. Our government officials can't even keep their own websites up and we're letting them vote on Internet laws that will impact all of us. Really?

Dupuytren's Disease

2012-01-17T17:34:00.001-06:00

I know that you enjoy these occasional glimpses into the sordid mind of Gar so I thought I'd share my latest. Well, it's not actually my latest, but more my "ongoing". This week's neurotic episode just lead me to share.

Dupuytren's, from my understanding, is a problem with the tendons (mostly in the hands). There is no cure and they don't know what causes it, except, lucky me, having Diabetes seems to increase your odds.

Anyway, I've been dealing with it for a year or two now (maybe longer). I've got it on the pinky of my left hand and my middle finger on my right hand. It doesn't really bother me that much except I know that it's there and that it's slowly getting worse.

Occasionally, like the last two weeks, it starts bothering my neurotic head and I feel an overwhelming desire to fix it. I think about calling a plastic surgeon or a hand surgeon or something to get it fixed. I search online for hours trying to figure out home remedies. Maybe if I eat differently, or if I take these vitamins, or if I massage my hands, or if I use warm compresses, etc. You get the idea.

Eventually, I look at a surgical procedure online and it'll cure me of my urge to have it fixed. This is the latest one I viewed. You can hear him tearing at the scarring with his scalpel. It almost made me lose my lunch. Enjoy.

Rearranging My Schedule

2012-01-17T12:58:00.000-06:00

As you are all aware, I am a cruising maniac. With this week's headline news about the cruise ship sinking off the coast of Italy, this means one thing to my cruise addicted mind...

I must start rearranging my schedule to take a cruise in the next few months. There are bound to be specials galore. Normal people will be trying to cancel trips for fear of "another incident". Now is the time to cruise. Captains will be following all safety standards and set courses to the letter. The next few months will have cruises going out in a most safe and bargain focused fashion. I plan to take full advantage.

Of course, being an avid cruiser, I must also wonder about the captain of the ship that sank and where they found him. On every cruise I've ever been on, it's normally the passengers who are complaining to the captain because he's "too safe". On my last cruise they cancelled a stop at the Cayman Islands because the waves were too high for a safe debarkation. Several people on the ship were like, "Just get us close enough and we'll swim!"

Perhaps if someone in Grand Cayman had known our Captain, the Captain would have been kind enough to get within 500 feet of the shore so he could wave. And run half a billion dollars worth of floating skyscraper aground for a really exciting experience.

I wonder if Costa fired Captain Francesco Schettino or if Carnival (Costa's parent company) gets to fire him. Because regardless of the circumstances and how all the evidence plays out, he was still the Captain.

I still want to take a Mediterranean Cruise. It's on my short list. But now I have to wait for them to get this cleaned up (from the Costa website):

Costa Concordia is the largest and most luxury vessel from the family of Costa Cruises. The ship is the symbol of the largest cruise company is Europe. Costa Concordia is really amazing ship with length of 290.00 meters and beam of 36.00 meters. The cruise ship is having 114,500 gross tonnage and capacity for 3,700 passengers and 1,100 crew members.

Conniption

2012-01-12T15:17:00.001-06:00

You know when you have one of those days where something happens early on and it just ruins the rest of your day?

I came into work today and was quite productive: solving problems, writing code, evacuating my bladder only occasionally. You get the idea.

At approximately 10 AM Quicken Loans called. Oh crap. This is going to require a preface right in the middle of the climactic ending.

I'm refinancing my house to lower my interest rate by 2% and getting my ex-wife off the title. Killing two birds with one stone and saving some money in the process. Quicken Loans is really great. Everything is done online and since I don't like talking on the phone that much, this is really cool. It's very streamlined, very easy, and very...well...quick.

So at 10 AM, an ignorant representative from Quicken Loans calls me. She's probably the most ignorant person who has contacted me from Quicken Loans. I guess they save the best for last.

We'll call her Ignorama. She says that she's auditing my closing and needs the original warranty deed for my house. The warranty deed is something my ex wife had to sign and get notarized basically giving me permission to refinance or sell my house (without her consent) since her name is on the title and the loan.

Ignorama informs me that they have a copy of the warranty deed, but don't have the original. Now, I'm a forgiving person. My first thought is it's my fault. I must have given the nice lady who came out to the house to do the closing a copy of the warranty deed instead of the original.

I took a two hour lunch break and went home to look for the original warranty deed. It's gone. I call the nice lady who assisted with the closing and she said she mailed the original to Quicken Loans.

I come back from lunch and call Ignorama back. She says all they have is the electronic copy I uploaded last month. If she had told me that form the beginning I wouldn't have wasted my time going home.

She says that if they can't find the original then they'll have to pay for my attorney fees or write up another warranty deed to have signed and notarized. I'm curious if Ignorama has ever gone though a divorce. The last thing I want to do after a divorce is ask favors from the ex. The ex is the ex. Ignorama thinks that if they pay for everything then we're all copacetic. Conniption would be an understatement. I'm still in the middle of my latest conniption.

It's completely ruined my productivity. I can't concentrate on work for more than 2 minutes. They aren't paying off my current loan until they get the original warranty deed. My original loan goes late in 3 days. They'll gladly pay the additional interest but what about the damage to my credit score and the late fees?

Captcha

2012-01-08T21:24:00.000-06:00

The amount of comments I get per day from spam engines is reaching an alarming rate. Therefore, I'm implementing captcha. I get very few comments anyway and the amount of spam I get far outweighs the legitimate comments.

I'm starting a cartoon strip about the election. My first one was just published. To ridicule, you'll have to enter the captcha.

The Republican Contenders and the Monarch

2012-01-08T21:20:00.001-06:00

Failure to Communicate

2011-12-27T09:31:00.000-06:00

I'm not going to make it to 100 posts this year. Maybe I'll do better in 2012.

For Christmas, my girlfriend bought two copies of Star Wars The Old Republic and it has taken up much of my spare time. Thus, the lack of blogging. My youngest daughter saw us playing it and was awe inspired and said she wanted a copy too. So, now, we three have spent our vacation time sitting around the fireplace with laptops tucked snugly on our laps fighting the misguided Separatists or the evil Imperialists. It's been a blast. There's nothing quite like getting your first "real" light saber at level 10. I walk on the dark side while they sleep.

Tomorrow, we're driving to New Orleans and will spend New Year's there. We'll be coming home on the 2nd, I've never been to New Orleans before. I'm kind of looking forward to it.

I had an epiphany regarding Ron Paul and the Libertarian Party. I might have to share it with you after I've worked out the details. It's an epiphany that has lead me to believe that I might need to become a Democrat.

Science

2011-12-20T10:29:00.000-06:00

I believe in Astrology. I've discovered through scientific methodology that by talking to people, I can easily and correctly predict their astrological signs 8.3333% of the time.

That was just a setup for this rather dull, but interesting video.

American Football News

2011-12-19T16:11:00.000-06:00

It's often strange how the government comes up with its "punishments" for crimes.

This weekend's football escapades brought this to the forefront of my thoughts. Chicago Bears wide receiver Sam Hurd was fired (err, cut from the roster) for allegedly purchasing drugs for distribution. Sources say 1,000 pounds of Marijuana along with some cocaine.

Throw your feelings about drugs out the window for a second. I know some people hate drugs for one reason or another and that's okay. But, according to the allegations all he did was attempt to purchase a large quantity of Marijuana and cocaine. He wasn't accused of robbing anyone. He wasn't accused of shooting anyone. He wasn't even accused of being mean to anyone.

If he's found guilty, he'll spend a minimum of 10 years in prison. A minimum. I looked it up here. I don't really feel like doing too much verification, but it seems right. I went here too, but it was like a legal rabbit hole from hell.

Now, let's go back a few years to Michael Vick. He confessed to being a player in dog fighting activities. This is, at a minimum, cruel to animals. He may not have been hurting people, but he was hurting domestic animals. Something capable of feeling pain was being hurt for his entertainment. How much time did he spend? A little less than 2 years.

If my understanding is correct, not hurting someone, but purchasing something the government says you can't purchase (10+ years). Being cruel to animals (up to 24 months). Go figure.

In unrelated news, Romo said something about not trying so hard to correct for his teammate's mistakes. They need to send that boy to leadership training. And send me to reporting school because I didn't write down what he said. It was funny though.

The English Language

2011-12-07T16:55:00.002-06:00

One of my lovely children the other day was complaining about the English language. I think she may have asked how I was feeling and I said, "With my hands." Then she said, "I hate the English language!"

It was probably more in depth than that, but my mind is drawing a blank at the moment. Is that like getting a blank from the well after throwing the water bucket down or trying to etch what you are thinking on a piece of paper and coming up with nothing? Which analogy is it?

If the English language were to change to have definite pronunciations and meanings for all the words, we'd lose an entire industry of comedy.

I was watching an Eddy Murphy movie in Germany once. It was one that I had already watched in the USA so I kind of knew the dialogue and the funny parts. My favorite part in the English version is when he's walking up to the big doors of the house, looks at his wife and says, "Look at those knockers." Watching it in German, in Germany, with a bunch of Germans and no one even snickered (except me).

My favorite Three Stooges skit is when they are about to be executed, but decide they have to eat something first so they can digest (die just) right.

What lead down this path of fun is after 40 some odd years, I've just discovered that I've been pronouncing groin wrong all my life. I just recently thought I pulled my groin, but have now decided it's a nasty bursitis in my hip.

I've been telling everyone I've met that I pulled my groin. Often this happens after they look at me questioningly during one of my shuffling episodes. After I tell them I've pulled my groin, they laugh at me. "What's so funny?" I query, "My groin really hurts!"

Then, they have to tell me, "It's pronounced gro een, not gro in." Then I have to argue, but it gets nowhere because people come out of the woodwork to laugh at me. I still can't pronounce it right. I can't pronounce it left either. Because it's still there.

Today, I finally went to dictionary.com to hear the correct pronunciation. As you all know everything you learn on the Internet is gospel. I'm still recovering from the truth. You should hear me say bursitis.

Cynical News Fun

2011-12-05T16:12:00.001-06:00

I haven't blogged in weeks and no one has complained! I'm mortified. I'm never going to make it to 100 by the end of the year. My topics are becoming consistently more narrow minded and cynical. Not a good way to end the year.

When I firsted start writing this feeble blog, I'd get bent out of shape around the "political" season which seems to be starting sooner and sooner. It gets to the point that it's so irritating I don't even like thinking about it, much less writing about it.

In case you haven't been paying attention, I don't really care much for American politics. It's like watching a TV evangelist pay for infomercials trying to convince you how honest he is. There's no such thing. It's a waste of time and money.

But, the only thing worse than a bunch of politicians blowing their horns and lying about their indiscretions is the news outlets and America's gullibility. Admittedly, sometimes the news is true or maybe there is a hint of truth, but more often than not, it's not the whole truth and it's always spun in a way to make the most cash and/or do the most damage.

So why do we believe them all the time? You know they make things as dramatic as humanly possible for higher ratings. Think about it.

If I own a television network and I don't want someone to be elected into public office all I have to do is go find someone, pay them some money, and have them say something derogatory about the candidate. It doesn't matter how stupid it is. It doesn't matter how true it is. Just make something up. The more derogatory and exciting the better! Americans trust the news and they love drama.

I'm kind of old fashioned. I trust my instincts. I don't believe anything the news says about Herman Cain. I don't care much except it irks me that people believe it. I was out at a bar and this girl was telling me that he raped four women. Really? Where did you hear that? Have you met Herman Cain personally? Why are we so quick to judge? I'd never believe that about anyone until I was able to sit at a bar with them long enough to get them nice and inebriated. Then, the truth would emerge.

I don't trust anything the news says about anyone. The reason I didn't like Herman Cain was because he was too religious. I won't vote for anyone that mentions the need for more faith, religion or God in our lives. If you think God's going to fix our problems then I won't be voting for you. Moron.

You are correct, I'm not voting for Newt Gingrich either. Nobody is trying to remove "the Creator" from your life Mr. Gingrich, but we don't need the government mandating our relationship or lack of relationship with Him either. Let them tell you who to believe in and next thing you know they'll be telling you who to marry. 'Doh! Well, I guess we're a little late for that.

Leaving the Collective

2011-11-20T12:25:00.003-06:00

In my previous posting I complained that Lisa is part of the Apple collective. She has (had) an iPhone 3GS. The day after my previous posting, her phone slid off a stack of papers and the screen shattered (I honestly had nothing to do with it). Quality workmanship. If you don't believe me do a video search on repairing iPhone screens. There are a ton of them. I've never broken a phone screen and my phone even fell out of my pocket while running through a paved parking lot once. My daughter has an iPhone 3G (her mom got it for her). She's broken the screen 3 times. It's currently broken again, but I have gotten tired of paying to get it repaired.

The difficulty in leaving "The Apple Collective" is directly related to the amount of money you've spent on electronics that are part of the collective. It seems to me that there should be a whole host of companies producing electronics to help you leave the collective. There aren't. Apple must have a whole team of lawyers writing up patents to prevent people from leaving the collective.

Like that little funky cable that doesn't follow any open standards. I'd like to reverse engineer it and then create adapters allowing people to keep their investments while leaving the collective.

I recently read Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. It's a quick read and free to download. One of the things he said, in a round about way, is that he did things to make it easier on his fellow man. He didn't patent anything. It's relatively well known that he invented the Franklin Stove, but afterwards he went overseas on a political mission only to come back home and see that businesses had sprung up manufacturing and selling his stove. But that was okay because he wanted people to use the idea to make their lives more comfortable.

We've become such a capitalistic money loving society that we don't try to help anyone for free any more.

Linux is open source. It's helped tons of people. If you don't want to send Microsoft $100+ for a new OS for your new PC, you can download and install multiple flavors of Linux for free and still be able to surf the Internet, play games, write documents, etc. All the things you expect to do on a PC are available with a free OS.

Android is a mobile OS built around Linux. It's also open to some extent. I've heard that starting with Honeycomb there may be some limitations. But, because of its openness, a variety of manufacturers can take it and modify it to create a unique experience on their devices.

Lisa left the collective in favor of the new Samsung Galaxy S II SkyRocket. They really need to work on creating easier names. Why not just call it the Skyrocket? Anyway, it's a nice phone. Blows away the iPhone in almost (if not) all categories.

However, it doesn't (can't) support that stupid proprietary interface that Apple created and patented. So even though it's a better phone, Lisa still has misgivings because in her joining of the collective she purchased an $800 car stereo which is iCrap friendly. It supports the iCable. I've been kind of looking for adapters for making the transition less painful, but there aren't a whole lot to choose from. The optimum one would be a Bluetooth adapter so that an Android phone could access the iCable wirelessly via Bluetooth.

What I've about decided is that she's going to have to buy an iPod with WiFi to leave hooked up in her car and then use wireless tethering on her new phone so that the iPod can access the Internet and run apps like Pandora. It's like quitting smoking with a nicotine patch.

I just wanted to express my heartfelt thanks to Apple for creating products that don't work with anything else.

I Can't Talk to Her Anymore

2011-11-11T13:57:00.000-06:00

I think it's no secret that I've never owned anything made by Apple. When I first started programming computers back in the late 70's, I first started programming on an Apple II, but it wasn't mine. I've never owned an Apple.

Apple products, to me, are equivalent to going to a 5 star restaurant where you can get an absolutely flawless four course meal. But, without any substitutions.

When you are spending $100's of dollars on some bit of technology this ends up being the same 4 course meal every day until you upgrade to something else. It's like joining the collective. Suddenly all of your choices are made for you by some guy at Apple Computers. Wait! Maybe that's why Americans vote Republican. That was like a mid-blog epiphany. Sorry about that.

I'm a fan of options. Variety is the spice of life. I build my own computers and I run Microsoft Windows or Unix on all of them. Ironically, the Macintosh Operating System is just a pretty wrapper on top of Unix that prevents options. I wonder what the current break down is of Operating Systems on PC's. What percentage are running some flavor of Unix versus some flavor of MS Windows?

Lisa has an iPhone. It's her only character flaw. When we went on our last cruise, her iPhone gave the dreaded "Connect to iTunes" error which basically meant her phone wasn't going to work until she made it back home to connect it to her laptop. So much for mobility.

Now she's upgraded to iOS 5. Her phone battery lasts maybe 4 hours so if I'm going to do any communicating it must be between 9 & 1. After that, it's dead phone. Unless, of course, she manages to keep it plugged in. So much for mobility.

Apple, if you're going to continue to serve up 5 star steak dinners, you better make sure they really satisfy. I hear Android gives you options. They've about perfected the art of running Android on the iPhone.

I have yet to try a Microsoft Phone. I was going to with my last upgrade but there were no 4g options. If you're curious I'm running the Atrix 2. No PC required and I'd like a little shake with my fries.

Interviewing Techniques

2011-11-10T11:19:00.001-06:00

I don't read a lot of instructional books. I prefer to do things my way. First time I had to "review" a boss's performance at work, my chief complaint was, "Don't tell me how to do my job. Tell me what needs to be done." It's a quirk that I'm particularly fond of. If someone tells me something that needs to be done and I don't know how to do it, I'll read and look things up and experiment until I find the best solution. It's what I do.But seriously, don't tell me how to do something. It'll force me not to ever do it that way just out of spite.

With that prologue in mind, you must consider that I'm a leading interviewer where I work. I've developed this system of testing people before they get hired. It's not perfect and we don't hire enough people for me to work on its perfection, but it is approaching fun (at least for me). I wish, before an election, I could interview prospective candidates. I assume debates attempt to do this to some extent, but debates mostly bore me. It's like a test to see how well someone can beat around the bush.

When I interview people at work, I'm mostly hiring programmers. The first thing I want to find out is if they can listen. My first statement might be, "Do you know about the Fibonacci Sequence?" This can get a whole host of answers. Yes or no will usually suffice. I don't like excuses or beating around the bush. I'm all about efficiency.

I remember when I first graduated from college, the placement counselors teaching me how to go on interviews would always advise, "Keep talking until they ask another question." I don't like that advice.

If they answer no, I'll explain it to them the best I can. If they say yes or after my explanation I'll ask them to write it in a programming language of their choice. This gets me into another topic for another blog, but I'll hint at it here. Good programmers don't need to be experts at any particular language. Good programmers can be experts at a language in less than a month whereas someone programming in the same language for 10 years can still be mediocre at best.

At this point in my interview game, I want to hear questions. If they just start writing code, I'll usually kick them out the door. I want someone who'll take the time to ask questions and get it exactly right the first time. If I'm feeling mean spirited I'll let them write the code for 15 minutes and then tell them that's not what I wanted and start making things up. I wanted it done this way, I wanted you to do it that way, it needs to be more efficient, I don't want recursion, etc. It forces them to start over and it makes me giggle on the inside.

Once they've asked all the questions and have it designed and written to meet my requirements, I'll throw out enhancements. Do they hack the enhancements in or do they take the time to re-design? Do they remove the things that don't work for the enhancement? I have a do it right the first time philosophy. There are a group of people that just, "make it work". I don't want to hire them. I need the perfectionists or at least a smattering of due diligence. It makes future maintenance and enhancements easier.

These types of techniques can be applied to any position. When we elect government officials (like the President), they should have to go through a similar interview process. The election cycle should be every 6 years, but with a 1 year introductory "contract to hire" basis. If, after 1 year, they are inadequate for the job, replace them. Oh, and I guess we're going to have to implement Internet voting to defer the costs of having to reelect so many dead beat civil servants.

The Debilitating Discomfort

2011-11-10T10:35:00.000-06:00

In the true nature of randomness.

I had a minor surgical procedure performed about 10 years ago (give or take). It's what I lovingly call my vasectomy.

Since then, every few years I get some minor swelling and discomfort in my right jewel. It's always the right one. I guess that's better than it being the wrong one.

Last time, it got bad enough that I made an appointment with my urologist. By the time he was able to see me, the discomfort and swelling had subsided, but I went anyway. He got paid to fondle me and announce, "Everything seems okay." He went on to explain what it "might have been", but I was already pulling up my pants and looking for the nearest exit. I did mention to him that if he got tired of being a urologist he might be able to get on with the Department of Homeland Security at the local airport. He didn't think it was funny. Neither did I.

Anyway, it's back and I figured I should share. Don't worry, I won't post pictures. It doesn't hurt. It's just uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to sit, stand, sleep, etc. My crank is starting to make me cranky. Thus, the sad excuse for my ongoing series of mean spirited posts. I'll blame it on duress caused by the obvious discomfort of my increasingly appropriately named "tenders".

The Libertarian Candidates

2011-11-09T17:06:00.000-06:00

This just made my day so I had to share. It's a little bit horrifying.

First, I found a list (on the Libertarian website) of the 2012 LP candidates for President. I'm not entirely sure they should even mention all of them as candidates except, as I stated before, Libertarians believe in small government (less rules). I know the Libertarian primaries are going to be in May of 2012.

Here's a link to the list...Libertarian Candidates.

My personal favorites were Robert Milnes and Joy Waymire.

I kid you not, you should go read through the first page at least. I'll go ahead and give you my favorite quotes.

Robert says, "Also I need help with cats around the area. One evident large kitten has evident eye damage. I have no spare $ for veterinarian fees. Can anyone come here and take this young cat to a vet? And help me by adopting? One or two or all of them! About 7 near my shed. Another about 7 seem to come and go. "

He also says, "I'm getting numerous letters, emails and phone messages about court notices, eviction, unpaid bills, service cutoff etc. I'm way over my head. & that is making me more depressed. I need some help. Urgently.

& this is timed with getting very little campaign support & running out of time for the 2012 election opportunity. That is the 100 years ago election where Teddy Roosevelt almost fundamentally altered history had he won."

Where do these people come from? And why do they join the Libertarian Party?

Joy says, "I’ve known since 2008 that I would be upon this path, for I serve the Lord, thy God and His People. I have no self-desires, for my will is my Lord’s Will. In doing so, I receive great pleasure not always of my choosing; Fulfilling me with love, joy, compassion towards all humanity."

And I was worried about the out of control religious zealots from the Republican party. I may have no choice but to vote Democrat. Or move to Mexico.

I'm going to keep posting this crap until someone besides Durango yells at me. But, he claims to be my last remaining reader. Which, may be true.

Choices or the Lack Thereof

2011-11-09T11:04:00.000-06:00

The problem with living in a Democratic country is that the majority of people are stupid.

I'm thinking that what is required is a voting test you have to pass before being allowed to vote. The problem with that is, who writes the test? The test could theoretically be doctored to only allow people who believed a certain way to vote.

In the good old USA, we are given (by the media) two candidates to choose from. It gets kind of twisted with the Republican primaries and the Democratic primaries seemingly offering you a bushel of choices, but it's just a scam.

At the end of the day, when you go to the voting booth, the media has brainwashed you with two choices. A or B. I guess they've grown accustomed to the fact that the people who watch their dramatic view of the world are incapable of choosing between more than two possibilities (and perhaps they are right).

Looking at the current Republican front runners, I could possibly vote for Herman Cain without too much heart burn. I'd prefer Ron Paul, but he lacks the charisma to get the media's attention. Both of them are way too religious for my blood though.

I don't typically vote for Republicans because they want to tell me how to live. They are all a bunch of holier than though religious politicians who think everyone should live by their morals. They'll tell you when you can drink. They'll tell you what you can drink. They'll tell you what you can eat. They'll tell you what to believe. They even want to tell you who you can marry. No thanks. Of course, I live in a country where we get to vote and apparently the majority of people need this kind of parenting to be happy.

In the other corner, we've got Obama. Obama didn't do anything he said he would do. In my book, that makes him a spineless liar incapable of my trust or my respect. My only hope is that the government is actually run by someone else who holds the President captive with fear of torture and forces them to read from the teleprompter and do as they are told.

I don't vote for Democrats because they tell me how to spend my money.

Unfortunately, as I see it, those are my two choices.

I'm actually Libertarian, but they'll never get elected. They are too radical and they don't own any media outlets to brainwash people. The Libertarian creed is small government. This also implies an easy common sense approach to government. That kind of attitude will never get elected. You must impose all kinds of strange mysterious bylaws and then purchase a news outlet that broadcasts to a nationwide audience on a daily basis. The majority of people need their hand held and their facts spoon fed to them. Small parties and small governments can't do that.

I'm thinking that when the next election cycle rolls around, I may be forced to relocate to Mexico. At least the drug gangs are an evil I can understand.

And we all love the beatches.

Blogging Career

2011-11-08T14:16:00.001-06:00

I started blogging in April of 2008. That year I wrote 128 posts.
In 2009 I wrote 207 little ditties.
In 2010 I wrote 143.
Thus far in 2011, I've written 75.

I'm either running out of things to say or running out of motivation to say them.

Yesterday, I was trying to clean up duplicate images in my Picasa library. I'm here to tell you that those duplicates were there for a reason. Now, there are a large number of my past postings that are missing "inline" images. If you click on the ?, you get to see the image, but the inline image is gone. Silly me. Without manually editing each and every post to fix it, there is no way to get it back. I'm not that motivated.

Then today, I started playing with the new blog templates. I've been looking at them for quite sometime, but just never had the desire to monkey with it. Today, the desire overtook me with an inexplicable force, so I messed with it.

Changing the background to black was not a good idea. I like black backgrounds (easier to read for me), but it messed up the colors on some of my previous posts. If you run across a post that is half blank or partially blank, it's because its font color is not jiving with the new background. Feel free to let me know. I might fix it. You can also highlight it to make the background white and you'll be able to read it. Assuming you are curious when you stumble upon such anomalies.

No, I'm not going to switch back to a white background. I needed a change.

If I try to write 1 thing a day for the rest of the year I may surpass 100 posts in 2011. Maybe I should open up a gambling service via my Paypal account. I'll give myself 5 to 1 odds. Feel free to play along. Send your bets to my Paypal account.

I've been feeling argumentative. Maybe tomorrow, I'll start my media versus Herman Cain rant.

Mean Spirited Soap Boxes

2011-11-08T10:11:00.001-06:00

Sometimes I see something that twists me the wrong way. Actually, I should rewrite that. Every day I see things that twist me the wrong way.

Normally, I'm too polite to say anything. I just let it slide and try to forget about it. Actually, I should rewrite that. Normally, I'm too scared of getting my ass beat to say anything. I just walk away and pretend I didn't notice.

Handicap parking spaces are an indication that people have no empathy, no common sense and generally are a detriment to the species of sentient beings that we call intelligent.

When I go to the store, I pick the first parking space I come to when I enter the parking lot. It can be 200 yards from the entrance. It can be 300 yards from the entrance. I don't care. I'm healthy and I can walk.

People that tootle around for 30 minutes looking for the best parking spot so they can haul their 400 pounds of ass the shortest distance to the Walmart entrance have got my vote for useless. It's because of people like this that the government has to put up handicap parking signs. Actually, the government doesn't put them up directly. They use some strange obfuscated law to force companies to put them up.

The whales who park like this should be parking behind me. After all, I don't have 400 pounds of fat that I need to shed by walking an extra few hundred yards to the local Walmart.

If we want the government to quit inventing stupid laws, the first step may be to quit being stupid. Show a little consideration for your fellow humans. If you can walk, walk. You don't need to park that close to the store. And for the sake of all that's good and healthy, lose some weight.

My Photographer Was Successful

2011-10-30T12:37:00.000-05:00

A story through pictures. You can look anywhere on the web and find lots of pictures of people scuba diving and sharing their pictures of the underwater universe. I've opted to join the collective. The caveat being that these are my pictures. Further, I'd like to point out these pictures were taken with a $15 camera. I was a little shocked that they turned out as well as they did. Lisa was the photographer so there are not pictures of her so stop your begging.

As you can see below, this first picture is of Julio pushing me off the back of the boat. He wasn't very nice, but I survived. I'm kidding of course. The guys at Sand Dollar Sports were awesome. If you're going to go diving in Cozumel, I'd highly recommend them. They exceeded my expectations. They were savvy about everything and even helped me remember to test my blood sugar between dives.

This second picture is one of my favorite fish pictures. Lucky for you, I'm not going to share all my photos. There are too many. I just picked some of my favorites. Some because they were cool and some because they turned out cool. Try not to skip ahead.

This is just a miscellaneous shot showing several little hidden treasures. I didn't realize until I uploaded it, that it got Julio's finger pointing out one of the fish. Julio is two different people. I can't remember their names. There was the Julio pushing people off the back of the boat and now there is Julio pointing out treasures of the sea.

This one is a little hard to see. I cropped it the best I could. It's still cool. It's a picture of a nurse shark resting under the overhang. You can see the tail fin to the right then if you squint and hold your head just right you can see the entire shark. It was about 4 feet long.

And last, but not least, the rarest of all sea creatures. It's the salt water Gar Fish.

He's Back

2011-10-26T11:04:00.000-05:00

I'm back and frantically attempting to come up with entertaining topics. You'd think being on a 7 day cruise in the Caribbean and being chased home by Hurricane Rina would be topic enough! Durango even briefly blogged about me. It warmed the cockles of my heart to see that he missed me.

I only had one person concerned as to my whereabouts or possible demise. Sad but true.

My Scuba was successful. We took an underwater camera, but it wasn't of the digital variety so we're having to wait for the 35mm film to be developed. We're also not very optimistic as to the quality of the pictures. Which is too bad because I do look pretty good in a wetsuit. Everyone thought so.

I'm thinking about writing an informational blog about diving with an insulin pump. I'll keep you posted.

I'm also rather disgusted that the "Occupy Wall Street" crap is still progressing. I'm not a fan. The amount of ignorance coming out of that misguided charade is alarming to say the least.

But, enough of that. The waves were choppy enough on this cruise to actually make me a little sea sick. It also could have been the amount of beer I drank the night before. I'm not passing any verdicts. A little bit of ginger root fixed me right up.

They cancelled our stop in the Cayman's. I think because of the beginnings of Hurricane Rina (back when she was just a lowly depression).

I always meet people on the cruise and tell them that I will write about them in my blog. I never do. Well, maybe once I did. This time will not be any different. I wish now that I had taken pictures of Abbot and Costello.

Cruising

2011-10-13T09:12:00.001-05:00

For all those who are detrimentally worried about my mysterious whereabouts, worry no more!

I'm frantically preparing for my quarterly 7 day cruise which I'll be embarking on this Sunday.

This time, I'm going to drive to Galveston on Saturday and stay at a classy Motel 6. Then, early Sunday I will drive my little car to the Galveston Park 'n' Cruise which is covered and cheaper parking than what the cruise lines offer. It's also directly across the street from the ship so you don't have to take a shuttle. Makes life easier and that's the way I like it.

I read online somewhere that you can start the boarding process at 10:30 AM which means I could be in my happy place by 11:30! It's like I'm a professional cruiser. I have been thinking of trying to get an *IT job on one of the Carnival ships. That'd be a cool way to spend the last 20 years of my life.

On this particular cruise, I'll be scuba diving in Cayman Islands and Cozumel. I'm not sure how many pictures I'll acquire, but I'll try. If you don't hear from me by the 24th of October it probably means I suffered an unfortunate accident or I finally got that dream IT job.

*IT stands for Information Technology. I'm not really an IT guy, but I think I could be if I wanted to.

Fun With Friends and Words

2011-10-05T10:37:00.002-05:00

Since Words With Friends came out on the Android I've been playing with several people I happen to know who can put up with my self-diagnosed Asperger's syndrome. We'll call them friends.

I quickly grew irritated with the game because it requires a good vocabulary, but it's also a math game and I prefer the math portion of it. You look at all the different ways you can play a word and come up with the one which will give you the most points although it's not always obvious. The scoring rules are kind of "learn as you go". My vocabulary is not very good.

I discovered the "Win Every Game" website to help me with the vocabulary part, but I still spend a lot of time doing the math trying to figure out the best place to put the words. There's also a bit of defense thrown in trying to prevent your opponent from getting the 100 point scores by leaving triple letter triple word combo's open for play. You gotta keep those puppies unplayable.

Yesterday I played the word zek. I didn't really know what the heck it was, but it fit where I was trying to play with a triple letter score on the z. My opponent (bless him for putting up with my sickness) said, "Okay smarty pants. What does zek mean?"

I had to look it up. It happens to be an inmate at a forced labor camp. I used zek in a sentence just to prove I knew what it meant. We don't have zeks in the USA, but we should. Go tell that to your friends and see if they look at you funny.

Although not required for diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome, physical clumsiness and atypical use of language are frequently reported

The Melty Man

2011-10-03T13:34:00.001-05:00

Preface with this link here if you haven't already read it.

Yesterday, I watched the Cowboys again. They had accidentally won two games in a row. One with Tony injured and on drugs and another by some strange field goal kicking anomaly.

As I have said on many occasions and written down twice, for Romo to win games, he needs to take some kind of mind altering medication at halftime so he doesn't melt. He proved me right again yesterday. As soon as things get stressful or go the least bit sour he melts like a scoop of ice cream on a black car during a Texas summer.

I like the Cowboys. I like Jason Garrett as coach. I like the young offensive line. I like the defense. I simply can't stand Tony and his consistent inconsistency. From now on he will be known as "The Melty Man".

Yesterday, my dislike of Tony got so bad that I accidentally let out a little cheer for the Lions. It was unintentional. Really.

Therefore, I am boycotting the Cowboys as long as Romo is quarterback. If he gets injured like he did last year or just decides to politely step down for the sake of the team, I'd appreciate someone giving me a heads up so I can end my boycott.

I'm a fan of intelligence. Bradshaw always seems intelligent. Yesterday he said, “On the taxi squad you’re taught to throw it down there and he [Tony] plays like that. He plays like he’s on the taxi squad. When you look at the interception against the Giants in the playoff game; we look at the bonehead play, the interception against the Jets which would have been a huge win for the Dallas Cowboys; the dropped snap on the field goal. He seems to always make bad plays in big games and that’s what he’s being measured by. He’s rapidly becoming kind of a Danny White. A very good quarterback, White followed Staubach. Now we’re seeing Romo follow Troy Aikman.”

That was Terry's politically correct way of saying, Romo is a bonehead. Oh wait, he did kind of say that.

Skipping School

2011-09-28T09:48:00.000-05:00

Today my eldest daughter decided she wanted to skip school because she was soooooo tired. She sent it all via text messages because I was in the shower.

Her exact verbiage was, "Can I skip school today? I am sooooo sleepy. I've got all my work turned in and my grades are good. Mom always let me when my grades were good."

To which I kindly responded, "I'm not your mom. Save your sick days for when you are sick. You better hurry or you are going to be late. I don't lie and I don't think your school would look too kindly upon a note that said, 'My lovely 17 year old didn't feel like going to school today.'"

To which she said, "I can get mom to right the note."

I didn't respond fast enough before she corrected her error, "*write". It was going to be a classic about skipping English. It's interesting that she knows her mom will lie for her. I wonder if she's ever thought about that.

Anyway, it has completely disrupted my whole day and it started at 8 AM.

Thanks for listening.

Weekends and Predictions

2011-09-26T13:41:00.000-05:00

I am now officially certified. No wise cracks. I'm certified for open water diving. In case you missed it.

I went to Lake DeGray, Arkansas over the weekend. I couldn't ever see more than, what seemed like, 10 feet so it was mostly disappointing, but I'll be going to the Caribbean in October and I bet things will be clearer there.

Tonight the Cowboys face the Redskins. Although Romo's status is listed as "questionable" (really, tell us something we didn't already know -- he's questionable when he's healthy), if he does play he'll be on pain killers.

I therefore predict that if Romo plays the game and is on mind altering pain killers the Cowboys will easily defeat the Redskins 35 to 17 (Romo plays better on mind altering medications). If Romo does not play, then the Cowboys will beat the Redskins 21 to 17. If Romo plays with just pain killers (not the mind altering sort) then the Cowboys will lose 17 to 10.

I won't blog about this tomorrow. Well, unless I'm right. Then it will be necessary.

Romo Proves My Point

2011-09-19T11:11:00.001-05:00

Last week I opined that Romo should start drinking at halftime so the Dallas Cowboys could win some games without him crumbling under pressure. Well, he did one better! He did drugs (I think)!

Now, I don't really know this, but let's look at the facts. He whined about a rib injury early on in the first quarter. By the second quarter he was playing like a debilitated school boy. It was funny listening to it on the radio as I was driving back from Louisiana. The guys on the radio were very pro Romo. So, he went three up and three down for like, I don't know, it seemed like, 10 series in a row. The radio announcers are like, "Well, Witten must have run the wrong route because Tony hit the corner back in the head with that ball." Then, immediately afterwards, they were, "Austin Miles must have heard the play call wrong because he was nowhere near where Romo threw the ball."

I'm guessing at halftime they took Romo in and gave him an injection of cortisone. He came back out after the half and looked like he was going to play, but then went back to the locker room for most of the third quarter still whining about his injured ribs.

Common sense dictates that the doctors in the locker room gave him an injection (better than cortisone) for the pain. I'm no narcotics expert, but that boy came out and won the game in the fourth quarter proving my theory from last week. He needs to start drinking at halftime, but hey, drugs work too!

Gar Fish

2011-09-18T21:03:00.000-05:00

This weekend I learned to swim...underwater...for long periods of time. In typical Gar fashion I drove all the way to West Monroe Louisiana to do it. Many of you are probably thinking, "Gar lives in Dallas, Texas, why would that silly boy drive all the way to Louisiana to learn how to Scuba dive?" Well, those people would not know Gar very well because that's the way Gar rolls.

I took my lessons at Bayou Diving and J.P. Pritchard was the mighty fine instructor capable of putting up with my idiosyncrasies in a submersed environment. If you live close to his shop or are driving through I highly recommend stopping in and doing some shopping there.

Next week I'll be meeting him at Lake DeGray to finish my open water scuba certification. I'm all atwitter.

I passed all but one task with flying colors. At some point during the training Mr. Pritchard asked me to remove my mask underwater and then put it back on.

When I was about 9 years old I realized that my nose doesn't get along with water. So for the last 30 years or so I've been holding my nose under water. The idea of removing my mask underwater and exposing my tender proboscis to the choking horror that is H2O was very close to terrifying.

On day 2 I was comfortable enough with the scuba equipment that I was able to complete the task. I'll have to do it again next week at the lake. I'm all atwitter about that too.

Romo Must Go

2011-09-12T11:08:00.000-05:00

When I woke up this morning, I couldn't decide whether to be mean, nice, honest, understanding, or all of the above. I've decided to go with all of the above. I warn you now, this is going to be crazy random. Good luck keeping up. D'ngo says I need new material. I'm not sure it's possible.

I only do this kind of thing once every four years because I avidly believe football is a detriment to our education system. We build new high school football stadiums while simultaneously firing math teachers because of budget shortfalls.

I've been bowling lately. If you've ever bowled, you know if you bowl a strike, the next two balls are added to the strike for a possible 30 points total per frame. This causes me great amounts of anxiety after bowling a strike that I can't seem to fix. The best I've ever bowled was in Germany after drinking a liter of hefeweizen. I bowled a 166 (out of a possible 300). Beer helps the condition. It causes a reduction in anxiety.

I strongly believe Tony Romo has the same problem. He gets so worked up that he can't play. This is evident in his playoff stats (which I assume are more stressful games than normal) and it was evident last night. Everything was going relatively peachy until the Jets had him pinned at his own 5 yard line. Suddenly the anxiety took over and Romo melted. He scrambled, lost yards and the Cowboys were finally forced to punt. That was the tipping point.

Shortly afterwards, he threw a pass to Witten which Witten managed to run down to the 1 yard line. Romo, feeling immense pressure to finish off the drive, (how hard can it be to go 1 yard anyway -- as hard as it is to hit 5 pins after a bowling a strike) fumbled.

This was followed devastatingly quickly by a blocked punt and ensuing touchdown which tied the game. At this point Romo is a sniveling little kid incapable of any kind of performance. I was thinking maybe Garrett should keep a bottle of tequila hidden in the cooler. I wonder if there are any rules about alcohol during the game? Perhaps if Romo had a double shot before the pressure filled fourth quarter things would have worked out differently.

But all is not lost. Final drive for the Cowboys and all they have to do is go about 30 yards and kick a field goal to tie the game! Romo, in his anxiety ridden addled mind throws the ball to the wrong player (the Jets wear green man). Game over Romo. Either start drinking at halftime or retire before they come up with a better ranking system for quarterbacks.

For those of you still not convinced, I'll leave you with an old adage: "If it works, don't mess with it". Then go back and look at the Cowboy's record last year. First look at the record with Romo, then look at the record without Romo. Granted, Garrett was also a difference. I like his coaching style.

With Romo as quarterback last year, they won 1 and lost 5. With Romo not as quarterback they won 5 and lost 5. With Garrett as coach they won 5 and lost 2. Do the math. Stick with Garrett and no Romo (I wrote that because I suspect Jerry Jones may have a problem with simple arithmetic).

Textual Frustration

2011-09-07T12:57:00.000-05:00

Since I was a wee little tike, I have disliked talking on the phone. I think it's my dad's fault. He used to make the phone ring and pretend to be the evil Easter Bunny after I answered.

When I went to Germany the first time back in 2001, I was introduced to, what they call, SMS (short message service). To me it was an instant way to send someone a message without the fear of talking to the Easter Bunny. I loved it. I was an instant addict. I texted (SMS'd) all day long.

As many of you avid readers of my readerless blog know I also have no social skills. To attempt to combat this enormous lacking in my persona, I have taken to trying to meet new people once a month. A bar is the best place to do this. It has the necessary components:

Random people sitting around the bar
Liquid courage

Lately, I have come to realize that more and more people are going up to sit at the bars alone and play with their freaking phone. It makes me...irritated. My first counselor used to tell me that irritation is just a form of anger, but I don't get mad so it can't be true.

I've also recently started toying with the idea of trying my hand at the mobile app market. I'm thinking I'll write the Bar Fly Application. You turn it on when you go to the bar and it will broadcast whether or not you are single or maybe, more generically, whether or not you are at the bar for some random socializing. Then, you turn on your phone with the Bar Fly App, you get hundreds of indicators from all around the bar and you can send them a text message, "Hey Lonely Girl #2567, can I buy you a drink?"

There are obvious flaws. The first one is how do you know which person you are texting? I suppose part of the app could be a ping feature that makes a phone squelch. Then you could ping Lonely Girl #2 through #2000 and listen for the squelch coming from the correct pocket. Once you've keyed upon the appropriate squelch you can offer to buy the correct person a drink. If you haven't been thrown out for staring at asses (with pockets).

There would also always be the token "hot" Lonely Girl whose phone would be in permanent squelch mode.

But then how would Lonely Girl #2567 know who sent her the message? Would she look around the room trying to find Lonely Guy #813 with a sly look in his antisocial eye? I rhymed that on purpose.

The obvious fix seems like it would be having a Bar Fly Application profile which contained a picture along with identifying features. Each time you went to a bar, you could update your profile with where you were sitting and what color shirt you were wearing. Underclothes or lack thereof would be cool as well, but not pertinent to the identification process. Well, not unless you were really lucky. Or unlucky I suppose.

Look for it coming your way soon: "The Bar Fly App" by Gar the Social Misfit. I'll have to sell it for 99 cents or something. We don't want a bunch of cheap socially inept people running around with the Bar Fly App. Nobody wants to be texted by a cheap social misfit.

My Kids Think I'm Getting Married

2011-09-02T15:02:00.001-05:00

I often point out that D'ngo the semi-professional blogger and purveyor of the obvious has reading comprehension problems. I point it out to him in hopes that he'll be able to improve. Apparently those who can spew out verbiage ad infinitum have a bit of trouble taking it in.

My previous posting (the one just below this one), had my children quizzing me about my marriage plans.

Now I can't help but wonder if people, and my lovely children, gloss over things to save time. They read, "Marriage and Surnames" and it immediately translates, in their glossy little heads, to: "Dad's getting married...again."

My last post also forced D'ngo to write me a formal apology for all of his wrong doings so I have no idea what he got out of it. I'm really rather afraid to ask.

I've re-read it twice. I'm kind of starting to think I have a hard time expressing myself adequately. Maybe the transformers reference threw things into a tailspin.

Yesterday my eldest daughter said she was going to get to sing so low in choir this year. I told her I thought she was a soprano. She seemed irritated. *shrug*

Marriage and Surnames

2011-08-31T12:47:00.001-05:00

Every time I get married, the bride to be always brings this up. Something along the lines of, "Do you want me to take your last name?" I always answer the same, "I don't care. The important thing is you said yes."

I know. Cheesy as hell. But, it's what I do. And sometimes the cheesiness pays off in party favors.

But, it's got me to thinking. Why do we expect the woman to change her name? If this is a heterosexual custom then what to homosexuals do? Does anyone, in a homosexual marriage, change their last name?

If my next ex-wife were to ask me to take her surname what would my response be? I personally think I'm too lazy to change my last name so I wouldn't do it.

Well, unless her last name was really cool. Like Scream. Or Taz. Or IdiosyncrasiesRUs. I'd be Gar Scream. I'd probably start writing it out all as one word. I'm GarScream. I'd feel like a transformer. Except I wouldn't be able to transform. And where would the fun be in that?

This, of course, led me down the path of everyone changing their last name and I've decided I'm going to recommend it to my daughters. When they get married they should marry someone who is willing to come up with a new last name.

When you get married you are bringing two people together to create a new family so you should create a new last name and everyone should accept it. No more expecting one person to accept the last name of the other! If Mister Smith marries Miss Jones, they could become the Smoneses. Or the Skreams.

Rifting

2011-08-24T12:58:00.000-05:00

I guess I might as well get this out of the way.

Rift is an MMORPG created by TRION.

MMORPG stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. World of Warcraft is probably the most famous of such games.

My first MMORPG was Everquest. I played Everquest from about April 1999 until around April of 2001. I was thoroughly addicted to it, but like all good addictions, I finally gave it up.

I played Dark Age of Camelot for a spell and then, like all good addicts, I played World of Warcraft. After WoW I played Age of Conan and even blogged about it somewhere. That's just to name of few.

With every MMO I've played, I've always stopped playing because I run out of things to do by myself. They generally have all these fantastic dungeons to go through, but you can't go through them alone. It always requires a team. Sometimes a team of 5 and some of the more intricate ones require a team of 20 or more.

My socially inadequate self is not geared up for the kind of hobnobbing required to gel with a team of 20 so I quit playing.

Rift has somehow managed to fix this. I'll attempt to explain how it works. In Rift, you have callings, souls and roles. A calling is one of four broad categories: warrior, mage, cleric or rogue. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about you should probably have quit reading 3 paragraphs ago.

Each calling has a set of souls to choose from. A rogue, for example, can be an assassin, bard, ranger, bladedancer, marksman, riftstalker, saboteur, or nightblade. But, then it gets tricky. Your character starts with 1 role, but can purchase additional roles and each role is a combination of 3 souls.

One of my rogue's roles, for example, is an assassin, bard, and nightblade. This combination of souls gives you grouping possibilities because a soul combination gives you a role in a group. The general roles are healer, tank, damage, and support.

Groups of five contain two damage, a tank, a healer and support. When I need to throw caution to the wind and get into a dungeon where I need a group of 5, I simply toss my hat into the ring and check which roles I can perform.

My rogue, again, can be support or damage. If I check those two roles and click join dungeon, the Rift system will look at all the groups currently in development and find a group which needs support or damage and throw me into the group as either support or damage (depending on which role is needed). Generally tanks and healers are the most rare. If I want to get into a group quick I'll choose one of those roles.

Anyway, it's a beautiful thing. It makes it easy as pie to get into groups so the entire Rift universe is yours to explore regardless of your social ineptitude. Trust me.

The Rachel Affair

2011-08-21T12:10:00.001-05:00

Rather than spend an hour regurgitating all the sordid details of this brief affair and rehashing the nightmare, I've decided to spend 30 minutes describing photo documentation.

First, here's Rachel. She's 19 and has a 5 month old little boy. Young women these days.

As soon as Rachel saw me she threw herself at me.

As things progressed, I agreed to a dance.

I grudgingly allowed her to give me a kiss. On the cheek.

Then things got ugly. First, I agreed that she could take me for a ride. She started getting a little too friendly so I told her I had a girlfriend. Her adoration quickly became anger and she tried to drown me.

Failing at the drowning fiasco, she came up behind me while I was floating innocently on a boogie board and tried to forcefully ram me headfirst into the nearest pier.

I survived, but was left troubled by the whole ordeal. Please send sympathy donations to my Paypal account.

Small Boring Autobiography

2011-08-16T10:58:00.001-05:00

I've fallen into one of those patterns where everything I'd like to write in this pointless blog will take me too long to inadequately put into words. Therefore, I don't write anything for lack of a big enough chunk of time. It's a curse really.

I need to write about my latest cruise and post some pictures of my dolphin encounter. I got to make out with a 19 year old named Rachel. She had soft skin and could swim really fast. We danced and then she tried to ram me into the piers on a boogie board. I've got photo documentation somewhere. It was horrifying.

I've been wasting lots of time playing my latest addiction called Rift. I blogged at some point about what irritates me the most about MMORPG's. Rift has remedied these problems miraculously enough. I need to tell you how, but, again, I lack the time.

I bought a new mountain bike last week. It's a Cannondale. I can now officially go for 30 minutes without puking! Yay me!

Cherry Pies in the Sky

2011-08-12T09:37:00.003-05:00

Fellow Aquarius musician (born February 1, 1964) Jani Lane passed away yesterday at the ripe old age of 47. For those of you born after 1990, he was lead singer of late blooming hair band Warrant. I never liked their "hit" albums much. Probably partially because my wife at the time had a crush on Mr. Lane which forced me to be vehemently opposed to the sounds of their music. And it wasn't hard with lyrics like, "She's My Cherry Pie, cool drink of water such a sweet surprise".

Jani has apparently always had a problem with alcohol. In 2008 he was replaced as lead singer of Warrant by Robert Mason.

Anyway, he's off to that Great Cherry Pie in the Sky.

Edit... I just read his autobiography. It kind of made me sad. "Thanks for listening and know that everyday above ground is a gift..."

The Parable of Two Wanting Offspring

2011-08-10T11:25:00.000-05:00

Two children, age 10, are trying to raise money to buy a new bicycle. The bicycle will cost $200. It's a very nice bicycle and all the kids want one.

One of the children, we'll call him George Mack, has been told by his father that if he can't raise all the money then his dad will cover any shortfall. George just has to try. What a nice father he has!

The other child, we'll call her Marzi Daniel, has been given no such love. She has to earn her own way.

George may have a good heart and try to make a good product, but he has nothing to lose. He may buy powdered lemonade from the store with a dollar he has saved up from his lunch money. He'll probably sell at a higher price in an attempt to make his money faster. If he can come up with the money in 2 hours then no need for him to stand at the lemonade booth all day long! Depending on his outlook, he may or may not care that people like his lemonade. All he has to do is pretend to try and he'll still get the money for his bicycle at the end of the day.

Now Marzi has great incentive. If she doesn't sell her lemonade she's not going to get a new bike. She'll eventually give up and go home. Heartbroken and out of business because her father won't help her. She'll go out of her way to make people come to her for her lemonade. She might even hand press her lemons to make freshly squeezed lemonade. She'll test every gallon of lemonade made to make sure it exceeds her quality standards. She knows if she makes a bad glass of lemonade it'll severely damage her chances of acquiring the bicycle. It's in her best interest to create quality lemonade with a good variety and great customer service!

Knowing these two stories, when you go to buy a glass of lemonade, which vendor are you going to choose? Unless something is severely wrong with you, you'll likely choose Marzi's lemonade. She's going to be working harder, she's got more to lose, and she's likely to be a better all around person because she's not been born with a silver spoon.

Because the government bailed out our automotive industry, this is what I feel like when I buy a car. That's one of the reasons my last vehicle purchase involved trading in a GM for a Mazda. I can respect Ford for not accepting the money, but they still exist now with the knowledge that Daddy will help them out if things go bad.

Donating Money

2011-08-09T15:46:00.001-05:00

I've said before that I'm lazy. It's possible that I'm more stubborn than I am lazy. There are two kinds of stubborn. I'm the second kind, but that's fodder for another blog which I may or may not expound upon depending on popular demand and mood. Ask me if you're curious.

I can't really think of any supreme blog ideas. The majority of stuff I come up with are little one liners that spawn into an interesting discussion at a bar. But, I don't talk. Like does confidence imply inferred consent?

I also have a thing about why the US Government is encouraging you to buy foreign cars. Actually, now that I've started I could go on all day. But, luckily, I won't.

It occurred to me the other day that I find it offensive to give money to someone. If some pathetic person asks you for a dollar so they can buy some food, it is the utmost act of laziness to give them money. Take the time to think of something which allows them to earn it. Then, give it to them. No more handouts. The government should learn as much. And standing in line at a government handout agency is not earning it.

That's my lesson for today. Never give someone money. I think I've blogged indirectly about this before. You can probably read it here. I kind of paid a homeless guy to be my buddy for an evening in downtown Dallas.

Now, the other day, I was at a parking lot in West End and they had one of those automated parking machines where you put your credit card in, it charges you $5, spits out a parking voucher and you put it on the dash of your car.

I know how these things work in general, but each one seems to have some little idiosyncrasies. This parking lot wasn't crowded. There were maybe 5 cars parked in it total. While I went up to the machine, this man approached and started helping me with the machine. He was nice, knew all the quirks about the machine, and pushed all the buttons for me so I didn't have to contaminate my tender paws.

When he was done, I put my card in and received my parking ticket. He asked if I could spare a dollar. I gave him one because he did something for it. Granted, I didn't ask him to and if I had to give everyone a dollar who did something without me asking, I'd be broke. But, at least he didn't just ask for the money and I didn't feel I donated it to him for nothing. I received a service. He was also entertaining. It was almost like a tip.

Of course, after I gave him a dollar he asked about getting an additional dollar so he could buy a train ticket or something and I had to give him a quick lesson in economics, supply and demand and what a dollar was worth at a gentleman's club. He probably should have given me a dollar for the sheer amount of entertainment I spontaneously spewed forth. But, I didn't ask and he didn't offer.

He did tell Lisa I was crazy. She didn't give him a dollar for the tip. I probably would have.

I'm Back and Have Nothing to Say!

2011-08-03T12:45:00.000-05:00

I promised my kids I'd take them on a cruise before my oldest daughter graduated high school. If all goes well, she will graduate next May so this was my last summer to honor said agreement.

We left last Thursday and got back Monday. This heat is making me tired and irritable. I think there must be some medical excuse for it besides my elderly decrepit state of existence.

Anyway, it is, in fact, making me, too blah to blog.

The most exciting thing about Cozumel was that it never got above 95 degrees and it rained. We even had lunch outside in the rain during a thunderstorm. I had forgotten what rain looked like.

Well, getting pushed on a boogie board by a dolphin might have been fun too. When I work up the energy I may describe it for you. It may have to wait until October when I assume the temperatures will finally fall below 100 again.

Summertime SAD

2011-07-27T12:28:00.000-05:00

At some point in the last few days, hidden among a dozen posts about the current heatwave, Durango tried to insult me. At first, I was hurt and a little sad.

But I read further and saw the blame for his outburst was hidden in his blog. He, being brought up in the cool rainy climate of the Pacific Northwest region, is suffering from, what appears to be, a severe case of Summertime SAD.

He's been posting temperature updates 4 times a day and he only blogs 5 times a day. I'm really rather concerned for his well being.

He needs help. But, as he pointed out in one of his comments; I don't know where he lives so I can't help him except by posting this cry for help on his behalf.

If you know where Durango lives or have an appointment to see him in some capacity, please give him a glass of ice water along with a couple of chill pills. Thanks.

Two Ignorant Complaints

2011-07-26T12:20:00.001-05:00

I probably need to increase the quantity of posts I make. I've heard the more the merrier. However, I debate back and forth as to whether or not to create a new post for each new random thought or put several random thoughts into one post. Being that I am a lazy man, I usually opt for the easiest choice. Of course, sometimes I debate with myself so long that the original inspiration for rambling goes away or I become too lazy to write anything at all. Today, I had a short lunch, so I just decided to to spew forth meandering opinions. I mean offer up my two complaints for today.

Complaint number One. The stupid agreement. I agree that I'm not stupid and if I am stupid I will not sue you for using your software. There needs to be a place where I can globally sign up for this once and not have to agree fifteen thousand times a day. It occurs most often in my car on my navigation system. I can turn off the car and two seconds later, turn it back on and the same stupid message comes up that I have to agree to before the navigation system will work. I've never read the agreement. I assume it says I'm not stupid enough to disobey traffic laws or run off the road while fiddling with the system and driving.

I'm kind of surprised there is not a similar warning you have to agree to before writing a text message or dialing a mobile phone. Every time you install software, you have to agree to a 20 page document that no one takes the time to read. Why do we do all of this? There needs to be a national database where you can go and sign your name in front of witnesses admitting you aren't stupid. Just to get it over with once and for all.

Complaint number Two. Obama apparently wants to raise taxes on the wealthy. I'm not sure who the wealthy are. Wealthy compared to who? I'm fairly confident that, when compared to the world population, a large portion of Americans are going to be considered wealthy. Probably if you make more than $20k per year, you are going to be considered wealthy to someone.

When taken at first glance, you'd be apt to say, "Sure make big companies and their CEO's pay more taxes. No one needs that much money." These guys spend money on private jets, mansions, parties, etc. Look at all the people who are employed because of their "frivolous" spending. Do we really trust the US Government to do a better job of spending their money? I personally would trust Bill Gates to spend his money wisely. I've seen how well the government wastes money.

Why do we think the government will do a better job of spending a wealthy person's money? Perhaps if the government did a better job of money management they wouldn't be in this bind.

The government should take raising taxes for anyone completely out of the equation and reduce the deficit. Quit wasting money. It's not rocket science. And lower my taxes. Thanks.

Thoughts on Amy Winehouse

2011-07-25T16:14:00.005-05:00

She was born September 14, 1983 and died July 23, 2011. I wasn't a huge fan by any means, but I did enjoy her music. She had a very unique voice and songs were funny, sad, ironic, and interesting to listen to.

Although the autopsy so far is inconclusive, anyone who followed her in the least must believe it must somehow be related to alcohol and drugs. Her hit song was titled "Rehab" and I'm quite sure it was taken from real life experience. "They tried to make me go to rehab, I said, 'No no no'".

Interestingly, she died at the age of 27 which puts her in an increasingly non-unique category of musicians. They've even got a name, "The 27 Club". The famous members of the club are, of course, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain.

I'm not much on disparaging dead people. Of the four artists listed above, Kurt was the only one I didn't care for. So today, on the Russ Martin Show, when a caller called in adamantly complaining that people were going to put Amy Winehouse on a level with Kurt, it irritated me to the point that I felt the need to blog.

His complaint was the that her music sucked, she only had two albums out and she had no influence. Not like Kurt who seemed to have some sort of godlike status in this deranged moronic stupid ass listener's brainless opinion.

First, he needs to somehow develop an IQ. Then, he needs to learn to read. Then, he needs to learn the difference between fact and opinion.

Of course, the most disheartening part was that Russ let him on the air and didn't degrade him. He is normally very good at degrading morons. I was mostly disappointed that Russ agreed with the stupidity. It was very disappointing.

Here's a quote from Soundunwound: "Platinum selling and five time Grammy winning singer Amy Winehouse has died at the age of 27. Well known for her soulful voice, Winehouse's numerous hits include "Stronger Than Me," "Love is a Losing Game," and "Rehab." Her platinum selling album, Back to Black, helped usher in a new era for female vocalists from Adele to Lady Gaga."

I always thought she was pretty. She was prettier before she started doing the drugs and alcohol. It's just a shame that someone that talented has to die.

The Life and Strife of Gar

2011-07-22T17:12:00.001-05:00

Normally, I don't like posting stuff that involves other people. Generally, this causes flames to fly and I'm caught in the middle of a swirling giant burning torrent of "ow, please stop, I can't take it any more".

This week was one of those weeks. It all started on Monday. I got home to be greeted by my two charming daughters. It was nice they were both home so I decided to go to the store and buy us something to eat. While at the store, I get a disturbing text message from the youngest daughter. We'll call her Wee Z.

The text was something along the lines of "Rile E (my oldest daughter) is going to kill me. Mom is coming to pick me up. I love you. Bye." These are my favorite kinds of text messages. I sent back some clever response to start the defusing process (that's what I do; I defuse), but it's not important.

Before I could make it out of the store, I'm getting text messages from the mother. We'll call her Aim E. What am I going to do about Rile E? Perhaps family counseling? Does she need to see a psychologist? Is the sky falling?

I believe that in matters of tension, Rile E behaves like Aim E. They apparently share the I'm too emotional to think clearly when I'm stressed out gene. I should also mention that Wee Z takes after me in her ability to piss people off who are too emotional to think clearly.

For the most part, I'm ignoring and thinking. To keep the parties from believing that I am not empathetic to their plight I make a few choice phone calls to get both sides of the story and to tell Rile E to clean up her mess. Apparently during the confrontation she had thrown a Dr. Pepper can at Wee Z and dumped a bag of potato chips on her head. I'm still not entirely clear where the threat of imminent death at the hands of Rile E entered the picture. It's not important.

When I got home, the house was eerily empty, but the chips had been cleaned up.

Back when Rile E was about 8, a pediatrician diagnosed her with ADD. I'm not a fan of the diagnosis and you, as my most adoring reader, should know that by now. If you don't know it, you can read about it here.

The messages continued to come at me on Monday. Apparently Wee Z had convinced her mom that imminent death at the hands of Rile E was on the horizon and she was living in mortal fear, not knowing when the death blow would actually occur. I told Wee Z to buy one of those junior sized aluminum baseball bats to help alleviate her fear. I'm not sure if she did. But, they do help with fear. No, I'm not condoning her hitting anyone with it. Just defusing. It's what I do.

I had a talk with Rile E on Monday night and she seemed all better and had regrets for losing her precious little temper.

On Tuesday, I made Rile E an appointment with a counselor to talk about her anger management issue and perhaps give me some insight as to whether she actually has ADD. He said on the phone that losing ones temper for no apparent reason is a classic symptom of untreated ADD. I knew that Rile E hadn't been taking any ADD meds for quite some time so I had a moment of panic.

I should mention in passing that on Tuesday Rile E and Wee Z were safely huddled under the same roof again and seemed to be content in their proximity. There were no baseball bats in the room. Or potato chips.

Wednesday, Rile E and I went to her first counseling session. After talking to Rile E for an hour, he decided that if she does have ADD it's very borderline. He said he believes it's more a tone of voice thing. Based on what Rile E had told him, she doesn't deal well with the way her mom or Wee Z address her. Is this her fault or their fault?

In Rile E's pretty little head, it's their fault. They are condescending and it causes her to flip out. Anyway, he goes on to say, among other things, that Rile E has perhaps learned this behavior from her mom. I kind of shutdown after this because I'm picturing in my little head what kind of sh*t storm this is going to create when Rile E announces to her mom that her anger management issues stem from something her mom has allegedly done.

And, in the irony of all ironies, Rile E told Aim E and Aim E lost her temper. Neither one of them can see that they are just alike. It's almost amusing. One of these days, I'm going to put a voice recorder on my phone so they can both hear what they say to me. Rile E will call me at 9 AM and say something like, "Dad, Mom's driving me crazy! She completely flips out for no reason and now she's turned my phone off!". Then at about 2 PM, I'll get a call from Aim E, "Gar, you need to do something about Rile E, I can't handle her any more. She completely flipped out for no reason so I've turned off her phone."

If they both weren't so angry, it would be funny. But, I laugh a little on the inside anyway.

Going 110 To 40 (Vapors)

2011-07-18T10:07:00.001-05:00

I have a t-shirt that reads, "Extreme Indoor Enthusiast". For some reason, I've never been much for the great outdoors.

My good buddy Durango tried to cure me about 10 years ago. He convinced me to cut my hair, but he never managed to break me of my outdoor problem. He was fond of calling it the vapors and when he gave up trying to cure me, I never heard from him again. Here's a list of his complaints:
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen

I can kind of see why he finally gave up. I tried to scan and see how many times I saw the phrase, "case of the vapors".

So anyway, over the weekend I was invited to Platter Flats Recreation Area. It's part of Lake Texoma on the Oklahoma side of the lake.

On Saturday, I was full steam fun loving Gar the Texan. Running at 110 percent. I stayed out on the lake. I went tubing. I played Frisbee. I cracked jokes. I went swimming. Yeehaa! After about, maybe 4 hours of this, I crashed. I had me a good case of the vapors. I went from 110 to 40 in 30 seconds.

It is the most irritating thing imaginable. I can see why Durango finally gave up on me. I'm ready to give up on me too. The nice woman who allowed me to come on the camping adventure told me that had she known beforehand of my outdoor vapors problem, she would not have allowed me to date her friend. Sad, but true. She kind of reminded me of Durango a little bit. Both of them older than me and in better shape and more active.

It all started when I realized my insulin pump had quit working. I went out of my way to buy a waterproof insulin pump from Animas (supposedly water proof up to 12 feet). This is the second one in less than 6 months which has sustained water damage. I'm not sure I'm too happy with Animas. I'm tempted to buy a different pump and getting a waterproof case. Of course, then the pump company wouldn't be as apt to replace my pump when the case malfunctions. I guess it's better to buy one that professes to be waterproof even though it doesn't seem very consistent. Perhaps I'll continue using the Animas pump and buy a waterproof case as well...

But, the broken pump just caused me stress. I'm fairly certain the nausea was caused by some sort of heat exposure. Perhaps I didn't drink enough water? I've switched to a strict water diet. I've drank more water since Saturday than I have all year. I'm hoping I get invited to the next camping adventure. I just hope the next camping adventure doesn't take place until my nightmares have subsided.

I Was A Netflix Fan (options)

2011-07-13T11:32:00.002-05:00

I've been a happy Netflix subscriber since December 2004. Yesterday was the first day I shopped around.

They raised my rate from $11.99 per month to $17.98 per month starting September 1. This irked me because of the significant increase. And, according to several news sources, I'm not the only one irked.

So, yesterday and today I went shopping. Basically, for $11.99 I was getting the 1 DVD at a time + Blu Ray and unlimited streaming. With their new plan, the 1 DVD at a time + Blu Ray would cost me $9.99 and the unlimited streaming would cost me $7.99.

Could I split the things, cancel Netflix and save money? First, I checked my Amazon Prime trial account. For $79/year I get unlimited streaming from "some" Amazon titles. None of the shows I've been watching via Netflix are available on Amazon Prime. So, I'll cancel my Amazon Prime account.

Hulu had a very similar selection as Netflix for streaming. How much does Hulu cost? $7.99 per month. No savings there so stick with Netflix? Of course, I could cancel Netflix just on principle. I've always thought very highly of their service for the price and now they jack my rates by 60%.

Okay, how about physical DVD's? Red Box allows you to go to a vending machine and rent movies for a $1. With the one at a time plan, I have the convenience of having a movie mailed to me so I don't have to go to the store. I usually see 2 physical DVD's per week. That's about 8 per month which would be $8 on Red Box so I could possibly save $2 per month. That's not bad. However, you miss the fine print. They charge $1.50 for Blu Ray titles. You get charged for every night you keep the movie. If you pick it up and then can't watch it because of some unforeseen circumstance, you end up paying an extra night's rental. It could quickly run out of control. The convenience of not having these worries is probably worth the extra $2 per month if you are intent on watching physical DVD's.

Blockbuster has a mail order plan. How much is it? $11.99 per month for 1 DVD at a time + Blu Ray. Blockbuster allows you to bring DVD's into a physical location to trade them out, but where's the convenience in that? I've also heard Blockbuster is close to being no more. It's kind of a shame if that's the case. They are the only ones capable of competing with Netflix at this time.

I could just quit watching all together. It's probably a big waste of time. But, I'm on episode 13 of 111 in the Ally McBeal series. I'm almost done with Spartacus. I just started watching all the Star Trek movies. I just started season 3 of True Blood. I don't know that I can just give it up like that.

If I wanted to "stick it" to Netflix I could switch to Hulu Plus and Red Box. It'd probably be cheaper if I was pedantic with my Red Box rentals. Red Box would also give me the ability to go pick up a movie on a whim.

So there it is. If you are irritated with the new Netflix pricing structure, switch to Red Box for physical rentals which gives you the convenience of spontaneously picking something up when necessary and Hulu for streaming.

Maybe I should start my own service and compete with Netflix. I could start small and only do online and physical DVD's to the Dallas area. Eventually, I could expand. Maybe even offer games. I could call it DigiGar. Then I'd have something to do with my old domain name.

MANually Evolving Intelligence

2011-07-12T09:27:00.000-05:00

Not too long ago I was watching a show on Discovery or National Geographic or one of those other nerdy stations I used to watch when I had cable TV.

The show was talking about how the evolution of human intelligence can be explained via climate change. To simplify and summarize, every time the climate changes, the smart ones survive. You can read a pretty good description of it on wikipedia's "Evolution of Human Intelligence".

For example: About 2.6 million years ago, the earth entered an ice age. This caused the forests in North Africa to die out and be replaced by grasslands. The smart primates vacated the dying trees in order to survive. Some even learned to walk on two legs. There are several more examples. You can read the link above.

Most recently, it has come to my attention that we, intelligently evolved primates, are actually causing, to some extent, the climate to change.

Thus, if you look at the silver lining, we are killing off the stupid ones so the smart ones can evolve. God bless Al Gore.

My Quest for the Perfect Hefeweizen (made in America)

2011-07-08T09:50:00.003-05:00

I spent large amounts of time in Germany back in 2002 to 2005 time frame. One thing I learned while there was that I loved Munich style Hefeweizens. My favorite was the Franziskaner Hefeweizen. Their Dunkel is in my top 5 list. Their Hell may also be in my top 5 list. At a minimum in my top 10. Hell means light, Dunkel means dark. When you order a bier in Deutschland most of the time they will ask, "Hell oder dunkel?" Light or dark?

I'm pulling this from memory, but I believe hefe means yeast and weizen means wheat. So a hefeweizen is brewed with yeast and wheat. Yeast is probably the unique ingredient. They tend to be heavy and although you can drink them out of a bottle, it is highly discouraged. The yeast settles quickly to the bottom of the bottle. The first time I got home after being in an extended stay in Munich, I immediately started looking for hefeweizens locally. The first one I found was from a well known Texas brewery called Shiner. They had a beer called, imaginatively enough, "Shiner Hefeweizen". To me, it didn't hold up to any of the ones I had in Munich so I was mostly disappointed. But, it was still my favorite Texas beer. The funny thing was they had instructions on the bottle for how to properly pour it and to not drink it out of the bottle. Trying to save a bad beer experience for one illiterate Texan at a time.

Just last year I tried a sample pack from an American brewery called Flying Dog. They had a couple of hefeweizens in their variety pack and they became my favorite American hefeweizen. It was called "In Heat Wheat". Of course you could never get it on tap. My favorite American hefeweizen you can get on tap would probably have to be Widmer Hefeweizen (also imaginatively named).

Okay, that was all useless information. This next section is the real reason for this post. I hope you manage to weed (I mean read) through the drivel until now.

Last Friday I accidentally went to a Texas Brewery tasting at Las Colinas Beverage. They had four different breweries in attendance: Rahr & Sons, Franconia, Saint Arnold and Real Ale. I, of course, immediately started looking for the wheat beers and hoping to get lucky and find a good hefe.

Saint Arnold was supposed to have their Weed Whacker, but they were out. I was disappointed. The Franconia guys seems to have a good selection, but their Hefe is nothing to write home about. I didn't care for Real Ale's selection.

Rahr. Oh my. The fantastic awesome wonder and the terrible disappointment all wrapped into one. They poured me a sample of their "Summertime Wheat". From the moment the smell hit my nostrils, my mind was taken back to a warm summer day in downtown Munich. The beer reminded me of my first hefeweizen in Munich. The taste took me back to sitting out in the Marien Platz during the summer of 2002. I had finally found an American beer that held up to the Munich style hefeweizen and they were brewing it in Fort Worth, Texas!

After I offered up my heartfelt excitement to the Rahr employee pouring the samples, she looked at me and said, "Well, this is a seasonal brew and this is all there is for this year." I almost cried. Why do you torment me so Rahr brewery in Fort Worth? There's nothing wrong with brewing the Summertime Wheat year round. Just change the name of the beer. Call it, "America's Best Hefeweizen". Call it, "We Mix Wheat and Yeast and Make Bavarian Immigrants Less Homesick". But, for all that is great and holy in the world, don't call it Summertime Wheat and only make it available May and June. That's just wrong and sad and unacceptable.

Look Them in the Eyes

2011-07-07T11:21:00.000-05:00

I've always had a bit of trouble looking people in the eyes. I could never win one of those staring contests when I was a kid.

Well recently, I have accidentally stumbled upon a solution. It's nothing silly like looking at their nose or anything. If I was to be able to do that it would give me continuous problems in regards to wondering if they could tell I was actually staring at their nose. And what if they have dangly hairs? Disgusting.

Also my technique is not always conducive to having a conversation. It doesn't allow a lot of time for concentrating on what the other party is saying.

What I have come to discover is that I can look someone in the eyes indefinitely if I make up mean and vulgar descriptions of their eyes. It also helps me remember what color they were if the question should ever come up in the future. Example:

Your eyes are the color of a cesspool with flecks of feces gently oozing away from that black speck you call a pupil.

As the eye contact is forced to continue, the focus starts going to the flaws: What are those two dots on the right side? Are they little bits of fermented fecal splash damage?

It creates huge amounts of entertainment. When you start giggling at your internalized descriptive verbiage and the person with the gruesome eyes asks what you are laughing about just tell them you told yourself a joke and it was funny. I recommend having a random joke handy.

Jamming in Fort Worth

2011-06-30T10:24:00.002-05:00

Tonight, I will be heading to 8.0's in Fort Worth to see Carolyn Wonderland (musician extraordinaire).

Depending on where you look it either starts at 7:00 or 8:00. I plan to arrive in the downtown area around 6. Might go to The Flying Saucer for dinner. I might just have dinner at 8.0's. They've got an interesting menu.

Best I can surmise, tickets are $5 which is almost a steal. If you've never heard of Carolyn Wonderland (which I hadn't until last week). Feel free to watch a video or two.

I hope to see you all there. Come support your Texas artists!

Running With Dru

2011-06-24T14:20:00.003-05:00

A trip down memory lane...almost 30 years ago...
Back when I was a wee little tyke around the age of 14, a guy came over to the house. He had trouble walking. He was loud. He was cheerful and energetic. He had tickets to a rock concert in Odessa. He invited me and my brother to go with him. If I remember right, it was Golden Earring and Night Ranger.

Dru didn't walk anywhere. He had cerebral palsy and his knees didn't exactly work. It was more of a fearless act of forward momentum without quite falling. He called it "running". My memories back then are a little skewed by being young and barely weighing a buck fifteen.

Dru was big and when he got to running I'd often wonder how in the hell he was going to stop. I quickly found out that's what I was there for. He'd take off with a cry of "running" in his deep voice and I knew that was my cue to be one step ahead. I had to stop him before he ran over the big biker dude 20 yards ahead. Dru was at least twice my size. I loved those days. I learned a new appreciation of the 80's rock scene going to concert after concert.

He'd stand near the sound booth on the floor at all the concerts in Ector County Coliseum. Standing for Dru wasn't exactly easy, but he'd do it. Every time. And I didn't mind standing beside him so he could lean on me when he needed to steady himself.

He introduced me to "38 Special" although I had no idea who they were at the time. I was just a kid sitting inside the KUFO studio waiting for Dru to drive me to the next concert when suddenly he's introducing me to all these long haired guys wearing sunglasses.

His car was rigged so that he could do all driving with his hands. The acceleration and breaking were both done by some mechanism on the left that looked like a steel pipe coming out the side of the steering wheel. That was fun too.

When he had access to extra albums, he'd always offer me a copy (after my brother turned it down). I don't know if I'd have near the appreciation for music that I do now had it not been for Dru. He took me to see Dio's Sacred Heart Tour. He took me to Blue Oyster Cult's comeback tour. Sometimes my brother was there, sometimes not, but most (if not all) the time, I was invited to tag along.

I lost contact with him when I went to college. I don't really know what happened. My brother and I still talk about him occasionally and wonder what he's up to. If he's still "running".

On Thursday, June 23rd, 2011, Dru passed away. It makes me sad. I'd like to hear the ominous rumbling yell of "running" coming up behind me one more time.

The Creepiness of No Child Left Behind

2011-06-22T10:35:00.004-05:00

This is a topic near and dear to my heart. I blogged about it once before and it was hijacked by ignorance. I'm going to try again because it's in the news again.

When I was younger I'd get mad when people (mostly my family) called me lazy. It would irritate me so much that it would almost bring tears to my eyes. It didn't encourage me to go mow the yard, but it sure infuriated me.

When I was about 18, I woke up one morning, realized that I was lazy and I've been happier ever since. To combat a problem, you have to own it. The problem with the No Child Left Behind policy is that all people are not created equal. Even the religious zealots need to own it. Of course, the original quote is taken out of context, but it doesn't preclude people who are historically ignorant from using it out of context all the time anyway. I'll be coming back to the history problem. I didn't start learning history until I was in my 30's. Football coaches worried about winning Friday night's game just don't make good history teachers.

You can probably break down school kids into four broad categories: You've got the people who want to learn, but lack the ability to learn quickly. You've got the people who don't want to learn, but can if given proper motivation. You've got the people who don't want to learn and lack the ability to learn quickly. Then you've got the people who excel at learning and have an undying thirst for knowledge.

I'd wager that a policy like No Child Left Behind is going to be an anchor to about 25% of the students. We can't lump all kids into one training pool and say swim. Some will drown. Some will learn to swim quickly, but we'll have to force them to wear flotation devices so that they don't surpass the ones who are drowning. It's not fair to any of the kids to do this. Especially the ones who drown.

Recently, this article was published: US History Test Stumps Students. You can go here and take a sample history test to see how you do. The report says only 13% of graduates in 2010 could pass the test. I think the sample gives you 5 questions (you have to pick a grade level). I got bored with it after I missed the 3rd one. I mean, I answered the first two correctly and then the third answer I missed, but at that point I was bored with reading the questions.

The article hypothesizes that the No Child Left Behind policy forces schools to be so dedicated on the core disciplines (so that schools can continue to receive government funding) that they gloss over things like history. It sounds like a good theory.

I still maintain that you can't throw all kids into one class and expect some ubiquitous policy like "No Child Left Behind" to actually help anyone. Maybe the intentions were good, but there's no way it's going to work because we're all very different.

I think the best way to fix the education system is to implant a device into all Americans under the age of 18 which prevents them from spawning offspring. When they pass the parenting test, the implant is removed. Part of the parenting test will be determining their dedication for teaching their young and not relying on the government to do it for them.

Jen's Blog

2011-06-21T09:49:00.000-05:00

I've added Jen's Lyric Waltz back to my blogs there in the right column. You might enjoy it. She tends to write about art and literature which is not normally my cup of tea, but it is always interesting reading what people who don't live in America are doing. If you need to turn off the music, it's a player at the bottom of the screen with a pause button, but you might give it a listen instead.

I put her on my blog roll once before and then she disappeared for a year without a trace. She claims she was working or studying or something. I suspect some kind of imprisonment for illegal activity, but that's just because I've got a wicked imagination and I don't really know Jen. I don't even think it's her real name.

Don't get this Jen confused with guest blogger Jen. They are two very different people. At least I think they are.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I'm about to remove "there's sand in my latte" so bookmark it now if you want to go back to it. According to Natalie's last post, it's her last post so no sense in checking here for updates. She may go on to blog about something else and if she does, I'll be sure and let you know.

Thanks for listening. I mean reading.

Amazon is Purposefully Pushing My Buttons

2011-06-17T10:41:00.002-05:00

A while ago I blogged about the fact that someone complained to me that I spend too much time complaining about me. I hope this doesn't violate any rules.

I've mentioned before that I bought a new laptop. I actually went to the store and purchased the laptop.

It's a big laptop, but, in general, the purpose of a laptop is that they are easily transportable. I like transporting laptops in backpacks so I began looking for a backpack which would hold a 17.3 inch G73SW ASUS laptop.

The first one I tried, I bought because one of the reviewers said, "Even though this backpack says 17, I put my 17.3 laptop in there with room to spare!" I thought, "Excellent! This will do fine!"

So, I ordered it and it didn't. I had to call the folks that sent it to me and see about getting a refund or exchange. They wouldn't exchange it so I was forced to get a refund. A $75 backpack costs $12 to ship back. It was turning into an expensive task. For the curious, I ordered the backpack from DataVision, but via Amazon. I still haven't actually received my refund. They said it may take 10 days so that they can maximize the profits via interest rates on my money.

Anyway, I decided to be more specific and look for a backpack where someone actually claims that the G73SW (specifically) would fit in the darn thing. And I found it. At Amazon. So, I ordered it. This one was a bit cheaper and one of the reviewers actually wrote, "It's like this backpack was made for my G73SW!" I figured I couldn't go wrong.

Four days after I ordered it, Amazon finally shipped it from Mesquite. For those of you who don't know where Mesquite is, it's in East Dallas. I live in Northwest Dallas. I was already irritated because I had basically waited 5 days for a bag that could have shipped on day one from a site that was within 40 miles.

I ordered on June 8th. On June 14th, I get a "post-it" from UPS saying that the sender shipped an empty box so they had refused it on my behalf. UPS has never done me wrong so I tend to trust them. Of course, I supposed someone could have crushed the box and the backpack could have slipped out. Or someone at UPS was in need of just such a pack and took it.

Next day I get an email from Amazon saying they would like to "apologize on behalf of UPS for damaging my package during transit". No indication of what would happen next. Just an apology. It's like, "We know you just spent $60 on a bag, but we're claiming UPS lost it and we are offering our condolences on their behalf, but you are shit out of luck."

Of course, this completely overloaded my low dose of blood pressure medication so I fired off an email calling people stupid and moronic and various other expletives without actually cussing. I wanted to make sure it got past all the email filters.

I checked my order status periodically during the day, thinking to myself that Amazon would do the right thing and ship me a replacement overnight. They didn't. Eventually, the status of the order was updated to indicate that "the customer refused the order and the purchase amount was refunded." So, I got pissed off again and called their 800 number.

I friendly man answered the phone and was immediately sympathetic to my plight (he probably had access to the email I wrote earlier predicting he'd be a moron). He said he couldn't just ship me the order since the money had already been "refunded", but I could order it again and he'd insure that I could get upgraded shipping for free. "Very good," I say, "Thanks for your help." I ordered the backpack again with upgraded shipping.

This all happened two days ago and Amazon still has not shipped the backpack. I got upgraded shipping but it apparently still takes them a week to not put the backpack into a box. Oh, and I got an email today indicating that my "order that I refused had been refunded, but it'd take up to 10 days to credit my account while they maximize interest rate profits off of their mistake".

I've always been 90% satisfied with Amazon. But this is causing me to rethink my ways. Now I want to return my kindle and buy a nook instead. Damn Amazonians.

The NBA Finals Required Post

2011-06-13T10:17:00.000-05:00

I watched most of the NBA finals. My favorite part was that the Mavs beat the Heat and won the title for the first time in franchise history! I'll also admit to saying last night that I would watch no basketball on Tuesday. The Mavs had one chance to do it (for me) and they did.

My second favorite part was the little girl, Julia Dale, singing the national anthem. In case you missed it:

Not necessarily a favorite, but a part of the finals that reminded me of something else, were the Indestructible Volkswagen commercials. This is the one that aired:

This is the one I was reminded of:

It just cracks me up every time I watch it. But, I've got a wickedly odd sense of humor. I'm not particularly proud of it, but I do spend a lot of time giggling.

I Am A (non) Sky Diving Cheap Pig

2011-06-10T14:30:00.002-05:00

This little ditty went to market. I'm kidding. This little ditty will be somewhat rated R. I encourage you to not read this particular post if you are easily offended or are related to me.

I was recently invited to go skydiving by my buxom girlfriend. Back when I was a youngster, the idea of jumping out of an airplane sounded kind of reckless and adventuresome.

Now that I've become decrepit, all I can really think about is how painful it would be to blow chunks through my nose at 9.8 meters per second squared.

But, it is not my nature to say no. So, I put on my best man pig attitude and I said, "Okay, I'll do it if you'll perform a lewd act involving nudity and breasts with your equally buxom friend."

She checked with her friend and, much to my surprise and alarm, all was agreed upon. It was official. I was to be the next skydiving pig.

Then there came the price. Apparently this act of projectile vomiting while plummeting towards earth at 9.8 meters per second squared was going to cost me $320. "Wow!" says the cheap pig, "this is way more than I intended to spend."

I'd probably still be picking chunks out of my nose while the lewd act started and I'd miss it. It was just not worth the risk. Okay, I'm justifying. I know. But still.

Then, the price came down to $220, but for an extra $100 they would video tape the event. I didn't bother to ask whether the $100 was for video taping the chunk hurling or the lewdness. I probably should have. I might have been able to sell the latter.

Anyway, while researching my cheap piggedness, I found this video. It made me smile. Google may restrict my site for this. Oh well. It's a risk I'm willing to take. Avert your gaze if you are offended. I won't tell anyone.

Repairing American With The Internet

2011-06-06T11:34:00.001-05:00

I've been in Canyon, TX since Saturday so I've had a grandiose helping of Fox News. It's encouraged me to write about my most recent epiphany.

Not too long ago I wrote about how lazy people propel the human race.

I've been watching all the Republican candidates who are already lining up for President. They all have one thing in common. They all complain about the current President. The odd thing is they are mostly senators and they all blame the President for our current woes. I didn't make A's in Political Science, but isn't the President's power controlled by the House and the Senate? Did I miss something?

Anyway, all these candidates do a lot of fiery speaking and complaining. They sound like a Southern Baptist Preacher with a bad case of hemorrhoids. They don't seem to offer a lot of solutions. They're just trying to convince their voters that Obama is the devil and they are the everlasting salvation. You don't need any proof. Just have faith. And I look good on TV.

The reason people like this get elected as senators, representatives, governors, and god forbid, presidents, is because people are lazy. No one votes because it is too difficult. It's not going to get any better because we are getting lazier. We aren't even bothered to go to the store because we can shop online and have stuff delivered directly to our front door.

I spend an extra $2.50 "convenience fee" to register my vehicle every year because I don't want to go stand in line at the tax office. With everything I need to do I have options. I usually choose the easiest option. I tell people I'm like an electron because I take the path of least resistance. The way to solve America's current woes is to create Internet voting. When you register to vote, you write in a username and are assigned a password. You use the password to login to your voting account and are given all the elections that are currently up for vote.

With each ballot option, you are given multiple choice answers (area for "write ins" where required) and an "end date" or when the vote will be counted. You can login whenever you want, as often as you want, to change your vote or check your votes (to make sure they weren't changed without your knowledge). You'd be able to login and check your entire voting history. You'd be able to vote for anyone, anything you wanted from the comfort of your favorite chair in front of you computer. It'd be easy as pie.

I'd be willing to bet that voter participation would go up exponentially and maybe, just maybe, America would finally wake up and vote for someone who may not be propped up by the media.

I Am a Sloth (and proud of it)

2011-06-02T09:22:00.001-05:00

I've been kind of thinking about getting one of those new Android readers (like Motorola's Xoom). I've got a Kindle, and it reads well, but it doesn't have the touch screen or the ability to play many games. With an Android based reader, I'd have games galore and the ability to load the reader of my choice (including Kindle for Android so I don't lose my current library).

In part of my ongoing research I decided to go to Best Buy last Sunday and get a hands on review of the little devices. I decided to get an Acer Iconia because they were a lot cheaper and I was rather unsure. The reason I did it was because Best Buy agreed to give me 3 years no interest on all my purchases.

While I was there checking out tablets I spied behind my left shoulder a laptop. Now, I've been playing Rift. It's a rather entertaining game, but I'm not ready to blog about it yet. My kids were over and my youngest daughter was on my speedy desktop computer (so no Rift for me). And, I've been wanting a laptop for a while now. It just seems like a natural progression. I had already been doing research, but I just wasn't ready to spend the money yet. Since Best Buy was offering me 36 months, no interest, I said to myself, "No time like the present". So I bought a laptop.

I didn't buy the one pictured to the left. I bought a stripped down version from Best Buy. Reviewers are fond of calling it, "The 'watered down for Best Buy' version." But at 36 months no interest, that gives me 3 years to pay it off at $34 per month!

While at Best Buy I bought a little laptop desk so I could sit on my couch or in my recliner and play on my computer. It's similar to the one pictured here (without the light and with a mouse pad that slides out on the side).

Finally, I went home. Once home I started putting everything together. First thing I had was a big happy helping of buyer's remorse. So I packed up the Acer Iconia and took it back to Best Buy for a refund. This made me feel enormously better.

I got everything installed on my new laptop. Incidentally, if you do buy an Asus G73SW laptop and the keyboard lights aren't working, you must go to the Asus website and download the ATK drivers (I think ATK stands for Asus Technical Keypad or something like that). The lights are controlled by the keypad and if the drivers aren't installed, the keypad doesn't work. I accidentally disabled mine whilst trying to uninstall unnecessary software. You might have to uninstall the existing ATK drivers and install the new ones.

On Tuesday evening, I sat in my recliner, in front of my TV, with a beer in my cup holder, playing Rift and watching the Mavs lose valiantly to the Heat. I had brief moments of guilt because of all the things I "should" be doing, but it was masked by the shear satisfaction of being a sloth.

Cabo Conclusion

2011-05-26T19:28:00.000-05:00

My laziness really knows no bounds.

Monday, day 5 was to be mostly about packing and heading to the airport and flying home. We got up early and at about 9 AM, both of our phones rang, one right after the other. They were both unknown numbers and since it costs $1/minute roaming charges to talk internationally neither of us answered. But, I did question the oddity of one phone ringing immediately after the other.

We had breakfast, lunch and then went to the lobby to wait for our ride to the airport. We were to meet our ride at 1 PM. The ride to the airport was long and somber. It wasn't nearly as much fun as the ride from the airport.

When we finally arrived at the airport there was foreboding commotion. People were whining about cancelled flights and, "You might as well go back to the hotel." kinds of things. Sure enough, American Airlines had cancelled all flights to Dallas because of severe weather. Apparently a line of thunderstorms were heading east and were scheduled to imminently cross the DFW zone.

I got in line and flirted with the nice ticket counter lady and she recommended a hotel that was offering "deals" to the American Airlines passengers who were stranded in Cabo. For $90/person, you could stay at the all inclusive resort called Barceló. She also informed me that I had already been re-booked on tomorrow's flight. Upon checking my voice mail messages, my 9 AM call was American Airlines letting me know that they had cancelled my flight and booked me on the same flight tomorrow. No need to go to the airport. I would have rescued an entire day had I just answered my phone. It will go down in history as the worst $5 I ever saved.

The Barceló was quite a bit different from the Riu Santa Fe. People were more mature and sedate. I sat with a group of guys who were talking about their fishing expeditions rather than their drunken escapades on Squid Roe. I didn't much like it. The people were snootier and the wait staff was not nearly as good. It was kind of odd.

On the 6th day, we decided to have lunch Barceló's steak grill which sat on the beach. This little restaurant had me changing my mind about the Barceló experience. They had good beer on tap. The food was good and it was tranquil; eating steak, sipping on a beer and listening to the surf crash onto the beach. I could have stayed there all day. As it was, I had to leave at 1 to go catch a flight.

I'm sure I'm leaving out some sordid details of my trip. Feel free to ask questions.

Economic Capitalistic Rapture

2011-05-20T15:56:00.001-05:00

So the gal on Wordpress who drew up the little flowchart here has gone viral. Last I looked, almost 7000 hits in one day all for a silly little flowchart. How do people find these things?

It got me to thinking how I can profit from this? It seems kind of odd thinking about profiteering on the day before the end, but nevertheless, it's what I do.

My first thought was to setup a care service. When those without sin are sucked up into heaven, I'll remain behind, complete with my sin, and take care of any loved ones (including pets) that might also get left behind. I figure you won't be needing your money anyway, so I'll charge $1000 per. I've got a paypal account setup and everything.

Then I discovered this. They are a group of animal loving atheists who will care for your pets. $135 for the first pet then it gets discounted. Once again, I am late on coming up with the multi-billion dollar idea.

I've got no other ideas. I've read where some naysayers are going to find the addresses of all the sinless and put clothes in their yards. This is making the assumption that when the sinless are sucked up into heaven, their clothes will be left behind. So, the optimistic sinless will come out after the supposed "rapture" and see their lawn littered with the clothing of those that made it (and hopefully be devastated). Actually, now that I think about that, I should have lived a better life. I bet some of them might look pretty good naked. But, then, if they are holy enough to get sucked into heaven, I'm betting they wouldn't be much fun anyway.

Of course, all this means that the earth will fall apart on October 21. The apocalypse takes 5 months? Is that written somewhere? I'm too lazy to go and look it up. $135 per pet is not nearly going to cover 5 months worth of pet care. Just the other day a college kid put a note on my door offering to care for my pets while I vacation. His cost was about $10 per day. Let's just say 5 months is 150 days. That's $1500. I should easily be able to charge $1500 per pet. Damn atheists are working on the cheap to put me out of business!

Cabo Four or So

2011-05-19T17:43:00.002-05:00

Sunday or day four in Cabo started out with me giving myself my 2nd injection in four years. We decided that we wanted to walk back to San Lucas, but this time we intended to swim in the ocean for a bit. The walking and the beach was not much different than Friday's walk. There was a Disney cruise ship anchored outside the bay so I kind of thought I might be able to run small children off the pier, but no such luck.

The highlight of San Lucas on Sunday was me haggling with a guy about his shirt prices. I don't know if I can describe it in a way to give it justice. It started out with a $20 shirt and me ending up with a shirt and a jacket for $35. I feel like I won because I received at least $10 worth of entertainment from the exchange. When I was younger I didn't like haggling. I hated it with a passion. We'd have our yearly garage sale and people would always want to haggle with me about the cost of my Matchbox Cars.

It occurs to me suddenly that the haggling may have happened on Friday. I knew I took too long to write this!

As I've gotten elderly, I have learned to appreciate the friendly art of haggling. It's downright entertaining to argue about prices. Next time you go to a flee market and you see something you really want at a good price. Argue anyway. Argue for the hell of it. See that $10 solid gold Rolex? I'll give you $5. How about $7. Soon you may spend the $10 anyway, but you'll have gotten some free haggling practice and entertainment.

On the way back to the hotel. My goal was to swim in the Pacific. Small oversight here. It has come to my attention that I haven't told anyone where it is I stayed. It was the Hotel Riu Santa Fe. A party place.

Compared to the Caribbean, the water off the Baja Peninsula is cold. The tide was fairly rough even in the "swim zones". Of course, this could have been part of my neurosis. I had to find the swim zone with the least amount of people which, coincidentally enough, is also the one with the largest swells. Anyway, I just threw caution to the wind and dove over the next big wave and into the water. That first taste of salt water down your nose and the strength of the water pulling you off the beach causes a moment of panic that is hard to describe. It's both exhilarating and terrifying. Once I got beyond the swells, I just treaded water for a bit, decided it was too cold and went back up on the beach. Mission accomplished.

Sunday was to be our last full day at the hotel so, naturally, I was in rare form. First stop was the swim up bar near our room. I asked the bartender for his "specialty". I did it jokingly, but later found out that all the bartenders make a "special". I guess the game being to go around to all the bars and ask each bartender to make you one of their specials. This particular bartender made something he called a "Mike Tyson" because it will knock you out. Watching him make it almost sent me running, but it was surprisingly tasty. And it made me talkative.

I have a problem when I go to bars. I'm normally quiet and reserved. After one or two drinks I become talkative and entertaining. This causes people around me to pressure me into drinking more. The logic being that if he's that funny with two beers imagine how funny he'll be with a shot of tequila.

We went back to the hotel, changed and decided to head out to the "evening bar". Again, since this was our last night at the hotel, we wanted to say, "Bye, eh" to all our Canadian buddies. I left out part of my story. The guy who made the Mike Tyson told us which bar he'd be working at that evening. Another reason to plan for a late night.

We saw Kevin and Steve (I mean Chuck and Larry) again. We saw Neil (I mean Syndrome) again. We saw Syndrome's wife again. Syndrome's wife had somehow found a group of friends to hang out with. I encouraged Syndrome to go get them all drunk in an effort to have group sex. Really, I was just trying to get him distracted by something else. He could be quite annoying sometimes. I think he may have been a quasi-functioning alcoholic.

Larry decided I wasn't an egotistical asshole as he originally thought and told me as much. He was very friendly and a bit too fond of hugs. He talked lovingly of Chuck and Chuck tried to feign disinterest. We told them we'd be leaving tomorrow. They told us they had their last dive tomorrow so we probably wouldn't see them again. I ordered a round of Mike Tysons. They saw how funny I was and they ordered two more rounds. If memory serves, I got sick Sunday night. Yuk.

Brakes

2011-05-17T10:25:00.000-05:00

Last week Google's blogger went belly up for almost a full 24 hours. During that 24 hours, I couldn't access anything to post new blogs and they deleted my last blog.

Eventually, everything was returned to its former glory but it made me consider how much I trust Google to keep up with all of my artistic spewing. I started thinking about the idea of cross posting to another blog. I started a blog on Wordpress which I intended to just synchronize with this one. Thus, if one or the other went down, I'd still have a copy to go back to.

This idea has cost me all kinds of time. At first, I said to myself, "I'm not going to blog again until I have my Wordpress ready to go." It has delayed everything. Now, I've decided to ease back on my blessed stubbornness.

I think I want to finish the story of my Cabo vacation. I ended up staying 6 days and I'm only on Day 4. Should I combine Day 4 and Day 5? These are the kinds of decisions which cause me to to go into hyper procrastination mode.

Occasionally, I don't have anything to blog about so I just kind of hit upon the top 3 or 4 things that have been on my mind. These are:

Laziness and voting.
Winning the staring contest.
Marriage and last names.

I should probably setup a voting booth so you, the reader, can decide my next foray into topic madness.

Social Stupidity Take Two

2011-05-12T13:13:00.000-05:00

Not too very long ago I spurted forth a work of art entitled "Social Stupidity" relating to my inability to socialize. I received several emails and some comments about this and I thought I'd share some of it because, well because, that's what I do.

Actually, to be honest and slightly lazy, there was only one sentence from one person that particularly caused me pause. I think I can just share that sentence...

"However, it also became quite noticeable to me that Gar spends a lot of time talking about Gar and his woes."

On the surface, this comment seems innocent enough. When I'm in a group environment I don't talk at all. In a one on one situation I tend to talk about me. It all goes back to the fallacy of the Golden Rule. I don't like asking people about their lives so I assume people don't like asking me. During lulls in conversation I spew forth the most dramatic things I can think of about my woes. Like the one day I cut my pinkie finger while washing my hands. It was a vigorous scrubbing.

This one little innocent sentence in a 20 paragraph email telling me that I'm too hard on myself has caused me untold amounts of duress. Now, even in one on one conversations I question everything I'm about to say for fear of talking about me and/or my woes. Suddenly I'm even more socially inept than before.

Now when they ask, "Hey Gar, how are you doing?" I literally can't answer. All attempts to speak are roadblocked by "Gar spending a lot of time talking about Gar and his woes". You'd think I wouldn't care.

In fact, this whole blog posting seems to be a glaring proof of Gar blogging about Gar and his woes. It's quite irritating.

Cabo Three (Really)

2011-05-09T22:23:00.000-05:00

Chapter Two is here in case you missed it.

Saturday (or day three as the title implies) started at about 6:30. I had nightmares all night about running out of insulin. It reminded me of when I was first diagnosed with diabetes 30+ years prior. Except those nightmares usually involved accidentally eating an entire box of Sweet Tarts.

I woke up and the first thing I did was check to see if perhaps an overnight drying of my insulin pump may have corrected the dampened electronics. It had not. The thing was worse than the night before. It wouldn't even come on. It just made some strange squawking noises.

I checked my blood sugar. It was 210 which was not bad for an entire night without insulin, but I don't want to get into the mathematics of that. Although it was at the forefront of my thoughts.

I got dressed and headed to the lobby. I talked to the receptionist and she called the doctor. To make some sort of shiny silver lining on the whole ordeal, my partner in crime went to the reservation desk and made us dinner reservations at the steak restaurant (being that it was 7 AM and all).

I'm not sure about the Mexican phone systems. The doctor seemed to speak pretty good English. He asked me again what I needed and I told him a bottle of N insulin and about 10 syringes. He said he had to call the pharmacy and I thought he was putting me on hold. Next thing I know the phone is making some strange clicking and chirping noise and I'm suddenly on conference call with a Spanish speaking pharmacist and the doctor.

It started reminding me of one of those strange near-horror Twilight Zone episodes where a poor hapless soul runs out of life supporting medication and suddenly no one can understand him.

The doctor finally comes back to English and says, "They don't have any long lasting insulin". "Hmmm," says I, "Do they have any Regular insulin?" During the next Spanish session all I understood was the word Regular in a Spanish accent.

Finally the doc comes back and says, "Okay, someone will be there from the pharmacy in about 20 minutes with Regular insulin and 10 syringes. It'll cost about $56 dollars." N insulin is a one shot per day kind of insulin for me. It lasts 24 hours. Regular insulin lasts 6 hours. It's slightly better than the stuff I have in my backpack because it only lasts 3 hours.

15 minutes later the front desk calls to let me know I have a delivery. The guy can't speak any English, but he's excited to show me he has found a bottle of N Insulin! I gave him $60 dollars and a kiss on the cheek. Okay, not really. I was very happy though. As happy as I could get with the prospect of having to take a shot of insulin for the first time in 4 years.

I shopped for hard candy (a necessary evil to counteract low blood sugar when long lasting insulin is involved). I went back to the room, gave myself a shot and went to a breakfast buffet. The next few details are rather murky.

At some point I know we went back out to the pool to have drinks. I had discovered that Gin & Tonics were wonderful for a restless stressed out belly. They also lubricated the tense mind. Before long I was back to my usual happy self when I heard a familiar twisted Irish accent coming from my right. It was Kevin of Chuck and Larry fame.

He had somehow befriended all of these strapping young lads after we'd left him the night before. They'd went into downtown to some "now famous" bar called Squid Roe. Anyway, he had given them all nicknames and they were calling him Todd. I don't know why. He was quite proficient with the nicknames, one of them was called "Gummy Bear" or something of this nature. There was another who was supposedly taking large doses of Viagra. He had a nickname too, but I can't remember it or it has been erased like some kind of brain trauma.

Anyway, for some reason, they had a bottle of chilled Grey Goose Vodka in the pool that they were passing around. Some of the things they were doing and saying would have likely got them arrested in the great "Jail Me" state I call home. In Cabo it was just fun and funny.

I convinced Kevin/Chuck/Todd that we should go to Amnesia. The appropriately named adult entertainment bar in San Lucas. He agreed and we were to meet him at 9 PM to arrange for a ride.

To make a long story shorter, after our dinner at the steak restaurant at 6:30, the stress of the day kicked me in the ass and I went to bed. I read a few chapters from my Benjamin Franklin autobiography and gracefully passed out.

Not Cabo Three But Social Stupidity

2011-05-09T10:24:00.004-05:00

I've had some clamoring for Cabo Three. I'm currently at work and decided to take a 15 minute break to write something. Cabo Three should be short, but I'm going to write it tonight when I get home.

I spent the weekend with relatives. There are a large majority of my relatives who are very good story tellers. Some of them are quite descriptive and offer up a good amount of humor. Some have more humor. Some have more descriptions. There are others who try valiantly, but just don't seem to have the story telling talent.

When I get into these gatherings, I typically go directly into "fly on the wall" mode. I observe, but rarely speak. I'm fairly confident I was born without the story telling talent. Which begs the question, "What the hell are you doing now?"

When I am sitting on the metaphorical wall, I do a lot of listening. And random thoughts go through my head of possible anecdotes I could lend to the fireside experience, but I don't do it. The neuron path from my brain to my mouth is not nearly fast enough. By the time I've worked out the details enough to begin my story, there is always one spewing forth from someone else. If I do manage to start talking, I talk at 100 miles per hour lest I unnecessarily delays someone else's neuron process. I hate interruptions.

I'm sitting and thinking of all of this when one of my cousin's kids (she's in her 20's I think) appears and asks where I'm from. "Dallas," I reply. "And what do you do in Dallas?" she asks. All kinds of humorous remarks fly through my mind, but all I say is, "I write software".

An hour later, I'm completely lost to the entire social structure of the situation because I'm feeling guilty and bad about being so socially inept. I am more socially graceful with total strangers who speak Spanish in Mexico than I am with my relatives. I can't quite figure out why.

Why didn't I ask her where she's living? I don't know (well, I didn't know). I do now because her dad conveniently mentioned it to someone else in passing. Why didn't I ask what she did there? I don't know. It might have been an interesting conversation. I know what she does now because I heard her dad mention it to someone in passing. I'm a good listener. Why can't I ask? It's infuriating.

When I was in school I used to never ask questions because I figured I could always learn it later by listening or reading. It was too embarrassing to ask. Or perhaps I was scared of appearing ignorant?

I kid you not, about ten years ago I went to see a psychologist for a few weeks to help with this problem. She'd give me weekly tasks to ask questions about everything. I was required to appear ignorant. I think she wanted to prove to me that it was alright. That no one would really care.

It worked for the most part. I was able to do better with it in a work environment, but I am still mostly socially inept. I'll give another example with them and me.

Them: Hey Gar how are you doing?
Me: Fine thanks.
Them: It was nice seeing you again. We'll see you later and have a nice day!
Me: Thanks!

There are way too many thoughts running around my feeble neurons for me to compose a socially acceptable dialog. Same example with some of my random thoughts.

Them: Hey Gar how are you doing?
Me: Oh my god, why are they talking to me? If I talk back with too much interest are people going to take this the wrong way? What the hell am I supposed to say? I really feel like I need to pee but that doesn't seem like a good thing to say. "I was doing fine until up about 10 minutes ago when that beer I drank hit my bladder with a running start!" Did that guy at the other table just look at me? Did someone over there just mention my name? Is everyone waiting to hear what I say? I'm feeling kind of tired all of the sudden, maybe I should just say I'm tired. Nah, cuz then they'll believe I think they are boring or that their sudden and unprovoked presence has made me tired. That wouldn't be nice. Fine thanks.
Them: It was nice seeing you again. We'll see you later and have a nice day!
Me: I am taking way too long to respond in this whole dialog. Perhaps I should speed things up. I wonder if they think I am stupid. What do they mean with 'seeing me again'? Is that entire table over there laughing at me now? I don't know that I've ever seen them before. Maybe someone put them up to this and I'm the receiver of a practical joke. Did I meet them yesterday and forget about it already? Do they think I'm someone else? What if they have me confused with someone else? No, they did correctly call me Gar. So what was their name? Perhaps I should ask them who they are? Nah, that would be rude. Why can't I remember who they are? Oh, I'm taking too long again. Thanks!

A Cabo Pause With Android Solves

2011-05-06T11:14:00.000-05:00

It's going to take me so long to tell the Cabo story that I'm going to forget what happened. However, my next installment may be a few days coming as I am traveling to Fort Stockton today and won't be back until Sunday.

This week, I solved one of my ongoing Android problems. It seems that the Android OS has a "built in" music player which is very difficult (if not impossible) to uninstall. Once it starts, you can't exit out of it. I'm not sure the reason for this, but I suspect it contains the code necessary to translate various inputs into audio outputs so all music players use it indirectly. This is my logical guess anyway.

The frustration happens when you get a new music player (like Pandora) and the "built in" music player always starts up automatically when you plug in headphones or attach to a Bluetooth audio device (like in my car). Basically, every time I got in my car, the "built in" music player would take off and start playing the one or two songs I had stored locally and when you're halfway down the road realizing you are listening to one of the few songs stored locally, it's too late to fix. I'm not a fan of the "play with your phone while you drive down the road" mentality.

Earlier this week, I downloaded an app called "Tasker". It basically is a logic program. Almost a scripting engine for the Android. If you can setup tactics in Bioware games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, then you should be able to use Tasker.

I setup Tasker with one profile. When it detects that I have connected with my car's Bluetooh signal, it starts Pandora, turns up the media volume, and kills the built in music app. This easy little script fixed all my woes. Now, every time I get in my car and the Bluetooth connects, Pandora starts up and begins playing over my car stereo. Sweet. You can do a lot more with Tasker. I found a nice little write up about it here.

Incidentally, you save about a dollar if you download the app directly from Tasker rather than through the Android market. I'm not sure that the savings justifies the trouble of downloading it directly from Tasker.

Cabo Two

2011-05-03T15:06:00.000-05:00

Here's Chapter One if you missed it.

Part I
Day two we decided to have breakfast and walk the beach to San Lucas. It was a nice day. Every day in Cabo was low of about 65 F and a high around 87 F (clear blue skies).

Friday was no different. The backs of my legs got burnt on the way to San Lucas. Our hotel was on a "no swimming recommended" beach. This is both good and bad. You don't have a lot of kids out screaming in the water so the beach is relatively nice and quiet. But, on the downside, you also don't want to go jumping in the ocean. I suspect the tide would have been most unpleasant in its attempt to suck you into the cold depths of the Pacific.

The walk from our hotel to San Lucas went past several stretches of beach which were "swim friendly". It also goes past lots of hawking salesmen who are attempting to sell you anything from hats to jewelry to Cuban cigars to weed. It turned into kind of a game as do all things in my twisted sense of adventure.

I started trying to remember names so I could yell at them on the way back. They'd come greet me as if I was a long lost friend and I'd return in kind, shaking their hand warmly and asking how they'd been doing. Soon I had a list of names who wanted me to sit at their table at their restaurant on the way back to the hotel. We didn't walk back. More on that later.

Once we made it to the pier leading into town, we met Carlos. Carlos and his wife/girlfriend/business partner had an umbrella where he hawked various "tours". I gave him the same routine as I'd given the last 100 or so guys just like him, but his English was better than most and he had a very friendly nature and a good sense of humor (i.e., he kept me entertained). He told us about Pancho, the 800 pound sea lion who likes to ride on the back of boats. He told us for $10 each he would get us a tour of the island where the sea lions live, the arch, lover's beach and a ride back to our hotel. "Excellent!" says I as I scratch my now beginning to burn calves, "We'll come back after we've explored the town!"

Off we went to explore San Lucas. Remember when I said I lack common sense? I'm about to hit my first one. I went souvenir shopping and bought two shirts. We ate at a place called "No Worries". I chose "No Worries" because the girl standing out front was cute. I have no method behind my madness. I see something I like and I just spontaneously head that direction. "No Worries" was a good choice. I liked their appetizer menu enough that I took a picture of it. I particularly liked the Nacho's. Not the food, but the way it was presented on the menu. I can't even remember what I ate.

After this, I determined it was time to get more cash. I immediately saw an ATM which read, "ATM Dispenses American Dollars". In my non-common sense mind this was handy. I could get out too much and not have to worry about exchanging it later. All the vendors seemed to enjoy American money just as much as they did pesos.

Getting American money from an ATM in a foreign country is a VERY bad idea. And here's why. In hindsight, I should have thought of this, but for some reason I did not. ATM's charge a fee. This one charged 44 pesos or about $4 USD. They also make up their own conversion rate. When you get USD in a foreign country they make up their own conversion rate going both directions and they don't tell you what it is. All the signs I saw said the current rate was 11. Or 11 pesos per USD. Put on your math hats. I didn't discover this until I got home, but this little ATM charged me about 14 pesos per USD coming and going. I requested $100 USD. It converted that to 1444 peso. My bank quietly converts the 1444 peso to about $130 and withdraws it from my account. The ATM does another magical conversion to convert the 1400 peso to USD and spits out $100. I've now been legally robbed. The funny thing is I did it again on Sunday.

It wasn't quite as embarrassing as diving into a trashcan and the hurt was more emotional than physical, but it hurt anyway.

We went to the Gigglin' Marlin. We went to the Cabo Wabo Cantina (owned by Sammy Hagar). I found an adult entertainment bar called Amnesia. I thought this was a wonderful name for such a bar, but we didn't go in.

Finally we walked back to the pier. I changed into my swim shorts en route. I was anticipating a wet ride on Carlos's $10 glass bottomed taxi.

The thing I remember about Carlos were the tattoo's. He had angry looking tattoo's. The kind you'd expect to see on some drug cartel hit-man from any one of a slew of Hollywood action dramas. My favorite was the one on the side of his neck which read, "F*ck haters." He made me proud and a little nervous all at the same time.

He accosted us on the way down the pier and asked if we were ready for our tour. I whipped out one of my newly acquired $20's and handed it over. He had to arrange for a boat and a driver so we conversed with him while he did. His English was very good and I said as much. He finally admitted to being born in Phoenix, AZ. I suspect he was a reformed drug runner hiding in Mexico from the Arizona law enforcement officials.

That was the best $20 I ever spent. It turned into about a 30 minute boat ride for just us. It was a little fishing boat run by a Mexican who spoke almost no English, but he was very friendly about it. He even made a joke about not seeing Pancho, but Pancho's "panchos". He motioned for us to put on the life vests. One of us didn't like life vests and refused. He smiled and took off. We made it to the sea lions and he had us stand at the front of the boat while he took pictures. I put my life vest on the ground so I wasn't wearing it for the pictures.

As he wheeled the boat around the Federali boat was coming up quick. He half-frantically, half-casually motioned for us to put on our vests. Mine was on in a heartbeat. The Federalis pulled up beside us and started yelling at the poor boat captain in Spanish. I couldn't keep up, but I think he made some excuse about pictures. They didn't look happy and trailed us for a bit, but we finally got away.

Our captain deposited us about 5 minutes down the beach from our hotel. The waves were too high on our hotel beach for a safe debarkation. Being that it was about a 45 minute walk from our hotel to downtown San Lucas I was happy with this result and we were able to debark without getting wet, but also without getting to visit with all my new friends along the beach.

I maybe should have done Cabo Two as Part One and Part Deus because it's only 4 PM by this time and I haven't gotten to the exciting part. I just added "Parts", but didn't feel like removing this random blurb. Instead I added to it like a moron.

Part II

When we got back (about 4), we went back to one of the pools with the "swim up" bars, had dinner (at a buffet), and decided to go and see what the evening at the hotel had in store. They had karaoke for prizes!

We decided to hang at the hotel and see what kind of insanity awaited. I was immediately accosted by Niel who shall from this moment forward be called Syndrome. It only makes sense if you are familiar with "The Incredibles". He was loud, but not too loud. He was subtly and not so subtly obnoxious. And he was from Canada. And he may have suffered from a small case of only child syndrome.

When he first came at me with his accent, I accused him of faking some twisted Irish accent. He laughed and asked where I was from. I told him Texas and he accused me of being a gun toting cowboy. I told him I had three, but they were all concealed and would remain that way as long as he behaved.

Soon a woman who sadly admitted to being his wife appeared and introduced herself. I don't remember her name. I suspect Syndrome purposefully interfered with this endeavor with one of his ongoing attempts to retain 100% of the attention. She said something about having to put her laptop back in the room and she'd be back in a few. I should have charged a $10 babysitting fee. Little did I know that she was wife, caretaker and mom to little Syndrome. As soon as she left I regretted it.

Not long after she left, my ears were accosted with two more twisted Irish sounding accents which I immediately recognized as Canadians. I believe one was Kevin and for some reason I can't remember the other guy's name. Maybe Steve. For the purpose of this story we'll call them "Chuck and Larry". If you've ever seen the movie, you'll understand why. They were Canadian scuba divers staying at a resort hotel and trying to hide their sexuality.

Chuck was apparently married, but his wife didn't like going on vacation with him. Larry thought I was an egotistical jerk. I think it was his way of saying he'd hope I would ditch the bitch and make the switch. Larry was very flamboyant when he drank. When Chuck witnessed this flamboyancy he'd come over and offer up some anecdote about having to get room service to quit pushing their beds together. It was funny and charming all at the same time.

Which is why I decided to escape the fun and go put my hat in the ring for some karaoke fun. It was crazy chaos. There was no line (I've decided that Mexico is much like Italy in that regard). The rudest person with the most elbows gets to go first. It was while standing in this mob that my pump buzzed me. I picked it up and there was a nasty error code on the screen. It read something like, "Pump Error E-0045. Please call for technical support". This completely ruined my evening. I managed to get it to work for about 15 minutes longer while I tried to call support from my mobile.

Support told me that this was a fatal error and I should quit using the pump (even if it pretended to briefly function). I started using the insulin pump four years ago and this is the first trip I had ever taken without a backup supply of long lasting insulin, syringes and a backup pump. I travel a lot and I get tired of packing all the extra crap for the "just in case". This time I had decided (purposefully) to throw caution to the wind. I've been on 4 cruises, been to Italy a few times, Germany a few times and France. I've always gone through the trouble of getting a loaner backup pump and taking syringes and insulin. Always. This is the first time I decided it wasn't worth it. I hate Murphy.

It was about 10 PM by this time, but I went up to the front desk hoping that maybe there was a 24 hour pharmacy with supplies. They made me talk to a hotel doctor and he informed me that the pharmacy wouldn't open again until 7 AM the following morning. Friday night sucked. I went to bed and had dreams of random people rescuing me with syringes of insulin.

Cabo One

2011-05-02T18:25:00.004-05:00

Thursday started at 7 AM. I had to be on-board my MD-80 flight to San Jose Cabo at 9:05. As I recall, it was a cool morning. I wore my cargo jeans, "gone to my happy place" t-shirt and a hoodie. I only call it a hoodie because everyone makes fun of me when I do. They say it's cute (me, not the hoodie).

I was at The Parking Spot at 7:45 and at the airport by 8. In hindsight, I think I'm going to have to start hiring the airport "Super Shuttle" to take me to the airport. It's a bit easier to wait for someone to pick you up than it is driving your own self to a place to park. It's also a bit less expensive if you're planning to be gone more than 5 days (depending on how far from the airport you live).

Trip through security was fun as usual. My insulin pump set off the metal detectors. The nice airport security (TSA) lady asked me to try again so I did and it went off again. She smiled and took me aside and said something like, "Sometimes those pumps pass right through and sometimes not. Now, we need a male assist and I don't see any males."

I laughed and said, "That's not nice, I see a big burly man right there." I pointed to a tall, rugged looking officer from the DFW Police Department. She laughed and explained he didn't work for TSA.

She found a gay guy who had just moved in from New York City. He was young and a bit goofy looking. He wore braces and had the jet black hair parted on the side and lightly feather, but hanging over his ears. He reminded me of someone who might have been outcast from a Ricky Martin video. He proceeded to fondle me while asking how I liked living in Dallas since he had just moved here from New York.

The three hour flight left late, but made good time. We were in San Jose Cabo by 11:30.

Exiting the airport in Cabo is "interesting". Once you get through security you are accosted by approximately two thousand English speaking Mexicans telling you that your ride is on the way, but it'll take about 10 minutes. "While you wait, why not step over here and let me tell you about some offers from the hotel where you'll be staying."

If you are able to get away from them (which we eventually were), you are guided through a set of double doors leading to another room. In the next room there are one thousand English speaking Mexicans apologizing for all the "time share" crooks in the other room. Then they tell you that they are "really" the ones affiliated with your hotel and they'll get you to your ride which should arrive in about 10 minutes. "While you wait, maybe you'd like to look over this brochure of events we have going on over the next few days?"

Once you escape this, you finally arrive outside and a Mexican who speaks very bad English helps you find your van to the hotel.

While we were finally waiting for our "real" ride (assuming I understood the directions), an out of breath couple came escaping past the marketing juggernaut and stopped to talk (or complain) to us. They were on their first anniversary and were a very nice couple. I don't know that I remember their names. They were staying at a hotel in the same parking lot and owned by the same people, but for some reason they had a different ride. I thought to myself, "Cool, we've already met some people to hang with." We never saw them again.

The ride to the hotel was an hour long. Apparently there are no seat belt laws in Mexico and I immediately got to do something I've honestly never done before. The driver had a cooler between the front seats. On seeing this I uttered all the Spanish I know, "Cerveza?" I inquired.

Diego, the driver, said, "Si! Hablas Español?"

"No," I responded, "Cerveza is the only Spanish I know."

He laughed, opened the cooler and asked me what flavor. I proceeded to have 3 beers in an hour in a car headed to the hotel without a seat belt and without violating any laws regarding open containers! It was awesome! I had left the inappropriately named "land of the free" behind.

That just made me laugh. "Land of the free behind". I don't think any such place exists.

We made it to the hotel, got cuffed with our "all inclusive" orange bracelets and headed to the room. We put our stuff away and went to find a place to grab a quick lunch. Here I discovered the first negative about all-inclusiveness. They are called buffets and I hate buffets. Okay, I strongly dislike buffets. Cruise ships are all you can eat, but they almost always have a restaurant where you can go and order food from a menu. No such luck here.

We even asked about the dinner arrangements and were told it was "reservation only" for the restaurants with menus. Reservation only meant first come first serve and the reservations were normally gone by 10 AM. Of course, the last day we were there we discovered that you can also make reservations two days in advance. I don't know why. I was too frustrated to ask.

After lunch I found one of my first positives about "all inclusive". Sit at the bar, order a drink and they bring you the drink. There are no tabs, no credit cards, and no money changing hands. It's the pinnacle of drunk achievement.

I don't remember much more about day one except commenting that my insulin pump oddly looked like there was water in the screen. It's supposedly a "water proof pump" made by Animas and we had gone swimming. Ordering a drink at a swim up bar was on my bucket list and was eliminated on day one. I commented that this "water in the screen" was probably not a good sign, but everything seemed to be working so I didn't worry too much about it.

The Cabo Prologue

2011-04-28T14:17:00.001-05:00

I got back from Cabo a day late because they cancelled my flight. Something about severe weather in the DFW area on Monday (the 25th).

I have tons of pictures, but none of them uploaded. It was a much crazier trip than I anticipated. I intend to try my hand at telling the whole story in a practice event for my eventual autobiography.

I’ve been reading Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography and have thoroughly enjoyed it thus far. I figure if he can do it so can I. You can actually click on the picture (of Ben) and support my blogging. Okay, not really. It links to where you can buy it on Amazon and supposedly I get “kick backs”, but it’s a free book anyway so I’m just messing. It is fun to read though. I just finished a chapter where he’s talking about printing extra paper currency to help the economy.

If you happen to have Type 1 Diabetes and you are wearing an insulin pump, let me tell you to make sure you know what your settings are and when you travel, take a backup pump, syringes and long lasting insulin. This is also known, by those in the profession, as a “back up plan”. Cabo was my first trip since I started wearing my pump 4 years ago without a backup plan. Murphy loves me.

If you leave the country, make sure the airline you are flying with knows how to get in touch with you and make sure it’s readily available. American Airlines tried to call me Monday morning, but they called on my mobile phone. It costs $1/minute to answer so I didn’t. 3 hours later standing at the airport discovering all flights had been cancelled was making that $1 the worst $1 I ever saved. It did say unknown caller though.

Mostly I hung out with Canadians while I was there. I tried to tell them about my blog, but I doubt they’ll remember. Therefore, I can be brutally honest in my telling. Syndrome will be most pleased I’m sure. Those Canadians are funny people.

Tomorrow I Fly

2011-04-20T09:39:00.000-05:00

I normally try to avoid posting day to day activities. They bore me. However, in my attempt to put something on this blasted thing at least once a week, I'm going to break a rule. I choose to break rule number one instead of rule number two. I will leave it to the logical gluttons to determine which rule is which.

Tomorrow (Thursday), I'll be flying to Los Cabos or Cabo or Cabo San Lucas. I'm not sure which is the most recognized or correct name. I've always just called it Cabo, but that doesn't work when planning a vacation or trying to find it on Google maps. I suspect it's something about a region and parts of a region, but alas, I am too lazy to figure it all out.

You can go watch some live webcams here. Starting tomorrow afternoon you can keep a lookout for me. I'll be the one who creates the most glare.

If you're curious and I know you are. I'll be spending most of my time at this location:

From a satellite view it kind of looks like West Texas. Well, if the sink holes were larger and looked suspiciously like a beach.

I'll try and remember to take lots of pictures and post something when I get back (Monday evening). Don't get too anxious. Sometimes I have to let things digest properly before dispensing them onto the world.

The Gardening Neurosis Nightmare

2011-04-18T10:43:00.001-05:00

I infrequently share stories like these because of the utter embarrassment. However, this story further explains my outdoor neurosis so I feel that its telling is necessary.

Last Saturday, I worked up the courage to go take care of some things in the front yard. Normally, I don’t do things like this because I have this phobia of neighbors watching and laughing. I have no manner of common sense and I can just hear all the voices in my head laughing at the way I’m trimming the shrubs or planting the bushes. My little sister tells me this neurosis is my dad’s fault, but I don’t know. I do have a certain lack of necessary dexterity.

But, I worked up my courage, fought every urge I had to run kicking and screaming back into the house, and I wandered into the front yard with my gardening gloves on.

First things first: get rid of the dead shrubs. They are ugly. I start hacking and cutting and finally have a nice mound of dead branches in the driveway. What to do with all this mess? I’ll put it in the trash! I have trash bags!

But wait! Why use trash bags? At the side of the house is a nice pretty blue dumpster with wheels. I’ll just wheel it around to the driveway and throw everything directly into it. The neighbors will think I’m a genius!

Off I strut to the side of the house with hands full of branches and a determined eye on retrieving the trash can. I swing open the lid and throw the current branches I have into the trash.

I get behind the trash can and proceed to roll it towards the driveway. I didn’t close the lid, because I’d end up just having to re-open it again at the ultimate destination. This is a bad idea. I suspect you folks who were lucky enough to be born with common sense already knew this or could logically workout that it’s not a good idea.

If you have a look at the trash can pictured here, you can see that the end of the lid hovers just above the ground when it’s in the open position.

Working valiantly to keep my outdoor neurosis at bay and (in my own head) being ultimately efficient in my trash removal methodologies, I stood behind the trash can, grabbed with both hands and started to push.

After my first or second step, I managed to step on the lid. This magical feat resulted in the lid, which is attached to the handles, tugging things to the ground at an alarming and uncontrolled speed. Next thing I know, my knuckles are being driven into the walking path and I’m diving headfirst into the trashcan.

And, in my neurosis driven mind, all my neighbors are being highly entertained. I haven’t worked in my yard since.

Abspewtulation for the WIN!

2011-04-13T10:33:00.001-05:00

A long time ago, in a blog far far away I discussed with you the ability to make up new words.

Over this past weekend, with the help of my youngest offspring, I abspewtulated again.

She was watching me break into my Unix Bash Shell and compress an mp3 song so that it would fit on her phone as a ringtone. She's got a little Pantech phone and you can create custom ringtones, but the mp3 files used must be less than 300k. I used Lame from the command line to lessen the bps.

Anyway, she was watching me type this stuff in to shrink the mp3 and she said, "It's like geeky magic". I, of course, thought this was funny and it started my over active mind to thinking about geeky magic. It's like when I get in my car and my phone connects to the car via Bluetooth and starts playing music. Anytime you see something technologically uplifting that makes your eyes sparkle as the word cool gently escapes from your mouth and rises to the heavens.

This, my friends, is Mageek. Pronounced, maj-eek. Use it in a sentence today and add it to your vocabulary for it is now a neologism.

Crossing My Fingers

2011-04-08T14:36:00.000-05:00

I don't know about the rest of you, but ever since about 2000, I've been hoping that the government would shutdown. If they'd just go to work every day and lay their collective heads on the desk for 8 hours per day we'd be better off.

Unfortunately, these types of "shutdowns" don't prevent congress from working and they are the ones who really need to quit.

I'm hoping the imminent shutdown lasts for years and years. There have been 17 "shutdowns" in the past. The longest being a mere 21 days. They need to shutdown for at least 360 per year to help balance the budget.

Perhaps tonight (after they officially "shutdown"), we should shoot off fireworks in a national celebration of our independence.

Androids and Warranties and Voids, Oh my!

2011-04-03T12:13:00.000-05:00

I haven't done a technical blog in a while, so I figure, why start now?

I broke down and bought one of those silly, "smart phones" last June. I bought a T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Slide.

I was immediately addicted. I can now look up stuff on the Internet wherever I may be. I can listen to Pandora in my car. It basically did everything the geek inside me wanted to do at a moment's notice. But, I had trouble making phone calls. And picture messages (mms) were spotty at best. I had a 50/50 chance of getting disconnected when someone called because some Android Phone app was doing a force close.

Being that I had a year's warranty, I decided to make the best of it. I called T-Mobile tech support. They had me reset my phone to factory defaults. A painful process. All my little geeky settings I had spent hours setting up were gone and had to be redone. Luckily, the second time around is faster. The hard reset didn't fix anything. They had me go to a T-Mobile store and replace my SIM card. I did, it didn't help either. Finally, they sent me a new phone (I guess they decided it was a hardware problem). New phone had the exact same "features". I could do all the geeky stuff I wanted, but phone calls were 50/50.

There were a few other quirks. Like Bluetooth audio didn't work. It was very sporadic. Kind of like listening to someone speak to an audience through a microphone with dying batteries. You get to hear bits and pieces of every other word. This was more of an annoyance because I could use the auxiliary out to wire my phone in to listen to Pandora in the car.

Anyway, after a couple of months with my replacement phone, I went directly to a T-Mobile store and told them my story. I was secretly hoping they'd just let me pay an upgrade price to one of the new 4G Slides. I had no such luck. They replaced my SIM card and told me to come back if the problem remained and they would replace my phone again. Did I mention how painful it is to get everything setup appropriately with a new phone? I think I did. They also told me that if they had to replace the phone more than 3 times they'd force me to switch to a different model at the same tier. I think my options were a Motorola Cliq.

It was sometime after this and when I head AT&T was thinking about purchasing T-Mobile, that I decided to screw the warranty. It was obviously doing me no good anyway. You know when you make one of those decisions and your only regret is that you didn't do it 8 months ago? This was one of those times.

When you are "rooting" your android phone, you get all kinds of warnings about "this will void your warranty". This is important so that the software helping you do this can cover their asses. But, from what I read, people are doing it all the time. Even people not as geeky as me. Plus, in my eyes, my warranty was worthless. All it was getting me was useless tech support.

So instead of figuring it all out myself and writing it all down for step by step instructions I just decided to follow this guys instructions after I verified the quality of the steps with a Google android site. The steps were about the same except (I assume his name is) Richard had a few more details and described the "expected" results. He also made recommendations on which upgrades to use and had handy links for downloading.

I, also, decided to go with CyanogenMod for my Android OS of choice. However, last I checked his site recommended RC 2 (or CM 7 Release Candidate 2). I opted for RC 4 or the latest greatest Release Candidate. I had a few hiccups along the way, but for the most part, following Richard's step by step guide, I was able to get CyanogenMod installed on my phone.

The unfortunates.. I keep my contact list backed up to T-Mobile. Cyanogen doesn't seem to know about T-Mobile. It seems to assume that you keep everything backed up at Google (or your required gmail account). So, I lost some contacts. If I got your phone number in the last 3 months, could you send it to me again :)? Thanks. Or, if you'd just like me to have your phone number and you are a pleasure to be around and have Friday's open for going out to the party. The more the merrier you know.

I always put crap like that in when my blogs get wordy. It tests the ability of my readers to see if they actually read all of this drivel.

My picture also disappeared from my phone. This seems a little odd, but when you get a smartphone and you start texting, you get to put little icons next to people by modifying the contact card with a small picture. Most of my contacts are also on Facebook so their picture comes directly from Facebook which can magically synchronize. I normally have to setup my picture by modifying the "me contact". When I installed Cyanogen, this ability was lost. I had to download a little app from the market called "My Phone Number" which simply allowed me to enter my phone number. Once, I entered my phone number, Cyanogen goes to my gmail account and grabs my picture. The important thing to remember: if you are missing your picture after you violate your warranty, get the "My Phone Number" app and keep it handy. Unfortunately, every time you reboot your phone, you'll have to run the app again. That is until someone comes up with a more permanent solution. I did hear of people putting their SIM card in an older phone which would allow them to set their number on the SIM card. I also suspect the useless folks at T-Mobile tech support might be able to do it.

The exciting and unadvertised! I have now had Cyanogen installed for 4 days and have had no dropped calls! My text messages and picture messages are sent instantly (it's almost scary). Everything runs faster! I play Angry Birds. The game was horribly slow before. Now, with Cyanogen, it's alarmingly speedy and responsive. Pandora quit cutting out. Bluetooth audio works (with a small caveat of having to turn off Wi-Fi before pairing with a Bluetooth device)! I can easily move stuff out of phone memory and onto my SD card to help with troublesome installs.

But, the most pleasant thing of all. At my house, I have spotty coverage. I usually have between 1 & 2 bars for signal strength. It's irritating. The new Android has a feature called Wi-Fi calling which basically says, if you are connected via Wi-Fi, use it to make calls instead of the cell towers. T-Mobile is somehow associated with this so any calls you make still go against your minutes, but when I'm at home my Wi-Fi signal strength is much better than my radio strength. Every time I get home, I just enable Wi-Fi, my phone magically converts over to Wi-Fi calling and I have perfect coverage. I can't believe they don't advertise this! I'm always talking to people who have crappy coverage at home.

And just to finish things on a positive note. I'm sure I'm leaving out stuff. I've only had it for four days. I hate Apple and their proprietary BS. Here's to the magical Androids leaving the iCrap in the toilet where it belongs!

Texas Bestiality Laws

2011-03-29T10:14:00.001-05:00

I know that some of you avid readers of my random BS will appreciate this posting as a small horrifying step into the mind of Gar. I would add pictures, but, as you'll read shortly, I couldn't find an appropriate depiction.

Today on the radio they announced that the Texas Congress is trying, for the third time, to make bestiality illegal. The DJ's were, of course, alarmed that this was their third try. It seems it should be an automatic pass. I listen to Russ Martin for my entertaining news source. It's probably not the safest source of news.

Anyway, I'm thinking, "really!?" We need a law for that? I mean doesn't animal cruelty laws already kind of have that covered? And what would the punishment be? You're sitting in a jury, of your equally nauseous peers, while you decide whether the defendant should spend 30 days in jail after they have the hoof print removed from their forehead? Really?

What do they use for proof? Eyewitness accounts? If you're an eyewitness to that, then I'd think you might have some issues as well. The poor defenseless animal is not going to be able to make a court appearance. Of course, maybe out of work veterinarians are pushing for it to pass so they can get into the DNA field and be expert witnesses (shudder).

All joking aside. Okay, not really, I can't seriously say all joking aside. It never happens that way. But, seriously, shouldn't they spend more time passing laws preventing the brainwashing of children by organized religion? It seems that this would be more beneficial to "the people".

Saint Patrick's Day Money Parade

2011-03-17T10:13:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to take a little bit of time and wish everyone a happy Saint Patrick's Day and my mom a happy birthday. Sometimes I feel a little disappointed that she was born on Saint Patrick's Day and I was born on Valentine's Day. Saint Patrick's Day would be much cooler. But, then I wouldn't be an Aquarius. I'd be Pisces and no one wants that.

Anyway, when you are out drinking your beers today remember this: last year the federal government collected a little over 3.6 billion dollars from taxes on beer! This year let's help balance the budget via alcohol!

Disasters and Donations and the Media

2011-03-16T10:09:00.000-05:00

When disasters happen like the recent one in Japan, it reminds me how much I hate the news media. The major news sources in the USA are so hungry for money that they will sensationalize everything to the point of lunacy. While we all agree it's a disaster of epic proportions do we really need Fox News trying to out do CBS News? I think not. I swear they make stuff up to make people watch. Because the more people watch, the more money they can charge for advertisements. It makes my head hurt. What makes my head hurt even more is that people watch it and believe everything they hear. But, if someone came out and said, "In the grand scheme of things, it's really not that bad. Just over 6 years ago when the 9.2 quake hit Indonesia, 230,000+ people lost their lives." Of course, that wouldn't get you any viewers. People would turn the channel trying to find out what Charlie Sheen is up to (who is a genius by the way).

So the donation pushes have also started rolling in trying to get us to give money to Japan to help with the recovery. I'm all about helping. I have a small problem with it which will make me seem a little callous, but I'm going to share it anyway. The government is taxing me at a very high rate. I quit looking at how many trillions of dollars the USA is in debt to the rest of the world. They'll give money to Japan. They've already sent military ships over there and are aiding in the nuclear power plant problems. We're directly paying for that. If anything it should kind of irritate you that we Americans spent more money bailing out GM than we'll spend helping Japan.

However, if you still want to add a personal touch, I've heard that you can text REDCROSS to 90999 and that'll put a $10 charge on your phone bill and send $10 to the Red Cross. Hopefully you'll get to add it to your tax deductions. I'm thinking AT&T will probably be the ones who get to write it off. More tax dollars at work.

Perhaps I should have saved this rant for a less cynical day.

Various DFW Concert Announcements

2011-03-11T10:17:00.000-06:00

I try to keep my eyes and ears open when it comes to concert announcements in the greater DFW area.

Recently, there have been a slew of them. I briefly considered giving each act their own post, but I quickly outgrew that idea.

I'll try to put them in order of appearance grouped by venue.

House of Blues on March 19th is G. Love & Special Sauce.

I don't know if I can make this next one. The weekend in question is kind of booked. But, it's highly recommended. They are a string based rock band called Apocalyptica at House of Blues on March 27th.

I'm oddly looking forward to the next one. Classified by some as gypsy music. I think they have an album called Gypsy Punks... Gogol Bordello will be at House of Blues on April 11th.

Then, we move over to the Granada Theater. On April 23rd there is KT Tunstall. I'll be in Cabo that weekend so won't be able to make it, but I bet it'd be good.

Then the one I'm 99% sure I'm going to be there is the didgeridoo playing magic of Xavier Rudd on May 23rd (again at the Granada). I'll probably see you there.

What Would Simon Say? You believe you can cry?

2011-03-10T09:28:00.004-06:00

So yesterday, I accidentally watched part of American Idol. I used to almost enjoy it because I enjoyed Simon's ability to humiliate people. He's obviously gone now. Currently the "celebrity" judges include: Steven Tyler (who I love his music but was horribly depressed with his ability to blow smoke up people's asses). Jennifer Lopez (who I didn't recognize because she was sitting down -- in hindsight probably because Steven was sitting next to her). And Randy Jackson (who I've never liked).

I watched James Durbin do "Maybe I'm Amazed" (he was my favorite). I watched Haley Reinhart do "Blue" and I only had to hold my ears for about 30 seconds. Then, there was Jacob Lusk doing "I Believe I Can Fly". If I could find a video, I'd post it. He actually inspired this post. Here's what the judges said:

Steven Tyler: "Pure passion. I can't even judge it."
Jennifer Lopez: "This season is so good." -- I puked a little bit
Randy Jackson: "You have such a signature sound. I'm excited every time you hit the stage."

Here's what I say. "The song is not 'I Believe I Can Cry'. It's 'I Believe I Can Fly'. Hitting the notes is only half the battle. Attitude has a large role in presenting a song and this song should be about pride. You made me want to huddle up in a corner and weep. It'd be like Aerosmith doing 'Limp This Way' which is how Steven is making me feel. Come back after you've grown a pair. And get these wussy smoke blowing losers off my podium."

And that, my friends, is why I don't watch these types of shows.

The Terrifying Sheeple

2011-03-08T10:32:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I had to take my youngest spawn to have her braces removed.

While sitting in a chair that I refer to as the auditorium of shame the nurses working with the kids, who were neatly spaced out in a semi-circle I call the theater of shame, started talking about gas prices.

The first sheeple said, “Gas is too expensive and there is no reason for it. They should limit the profits of these big gas companies.” I couldn’t believe she said big a$$ in front of the children.

The second sheeple replied eagerly, “Yeah, government should just regulate gas and oil prices.”

It struck fear into my cold, cold heart. When did people start thinking that the government can take tare of them? If things are too expensive the government can take care of it. If my kid tries to buy alcohol the government can take care of it. If I don’t want to hear cussing on the radio, the government can take care of it. If my butt itches, the government can take care of it.

I’d go so far as to say if you consider yourself a Republican or a Democrat, you are sheeple. I’m going to make a new political party called the Sheepless Party. It’s going to be a group of people who believe that they can take care of themselves with minimum government assistance. It’ll be a less radical Libertarian party.

Government regulate gas prices? Give me a break. Government regulate radio? Why?

Well, that was a tangent. What I originally wanted to say was that my daughter said that if you are sheeple and you have a heart attack then they’ll have to give you SheePR, and if you get tired then you’ll be Sheepy. My new political party will never be Sheepy because they’ll be Sheepless.

My Mentha Martha Stewart Moment

2011-03-07T09:37:00.000-06:00

Maybe a year and a half ago I bought this mint plant at Home Depot. Actually my ex-wife bought it I believe, but I thought it sounded like a good idea.

She almost killed it. It had one little vine barely grasping onto the the edges of photosynthetic life. Then, she left. Now, the plant, in my solo loving care, has flourished. I have it in my kitchen above the sink.

Some people coming to visit tell me that it smells like sh*t. It has a rather strong odor and not always consistent. I think most of the time it masks the unpleasant smells coming from the dirty sink which I am too lazy to clean.

Anyway besides the obvious uses of the fresh leaves in cooking, and in making mojitos, I discovered today that if you throw one of those into the garbage disposal, it brings minty odoriferous emanations into the kitchen. I knew you'd be pleased.

My Lazy Theory

2011-02-28T13:35:00.001-06:00

I’ve been toying with this one for a while. I’m too lazy to keep notes when thoughts occur to me so now I’ve just decided to write it without notes. Or, with apologies ahead of time, off the top of my head.

I work in the software business. I find there are two categories of people (well three, but I’m going to skip the completely inept ones for today). The two categories we will discuss are the diligent hard workers and the lazy people.

If I were to start a software company today, part of my interview process would be to find the lazy (but not inept) ones. As long as you are intelligent and have a knack with computers you have potential. Just keep the hard working attitude to a minimum. Be lazy. Hard working software people write lots of bad code. They excel at it.

Hard working people work. Lazy people try to think of ways to get out of work. When you are writing software, it’s best to keep it simple. Part of keeping it simple is keeping it easy. Lazy people excel at keeping things easy.

Another way of looking at it is that lazy people think before they work. They don’t want to start work immediately because odds are they can think of an easier way. If you tell a hard working person to get the water out of a plugged tub, he will immediately start being productive with whatever is at hand (perhaps even using his hands to scoop out the water). A lazy person will look around, think about it, then probably run to the store to buy some equipment or perhaps find a hose and figure out how to siphon the water.

Let’s take a look through history. Back in the prehistoric times, man hunted and killed with his hands. Eventually a lazy hunter was born and he said, “This if for the birds. Wouldn’t it be easier if we used sticks and rocks to make weapons?”

Probably my favorite lazy person was Alexander Graham Bell. He was so lazy he didn’t want to walk across the road to his neighbor’s house to chat so he invented the telephone so that he wouldn’t have to.

How many inventions that we use today were invented by hard working folks? I personally have difficulty naming one. There was the guy who was too lazy to saddle a horse, so he invented the car. There was the guy who was too lazy to write with a pen so he invented the typewriter. Thomas Edison got tired of filling the lamp with oil and lighting the wick so he created the light bulb. You just switch it on and off. Nearly no work required.

If it weren’t for lazy smart people we’d be nowhere. Smart lazy people make life easier. Hard working people aren’t bad in most situations. Once the smart lazy people makes things as easy as they are intelligently capable, the hard working people can be that much more productive.

Self Evaluation – A Personal Touch

2011-02-25T16:45:00.001-06:00

I went on a cruise in December. Then, I went on another cruise in February. This has lead many of my followers to question my love of the “cruise experience”.

I did some soul searching to see if I could perhaps come up with a reasonable explanation for my madness. I believe I have. And it’s all about the relaxation.

If you could take a step into the mind of Gar, you’d discover that I’m not nearly as calm and go lucky as my outward appearances might lead you to believe. I’m a pretty tightly wound individual.

My day to day activities are like playing an intense game of chess. Every move I make, I’m trying to plan 20 moves in advance. If I do ‘A’, then he’ll do this, then they might do this, then I might break my arm and end up in the hospital. If I do ‘B’, then he’ll be out of the equation, but then they may tell me this and I’ll be forced to do this which may take up too much time and interfere with this. Add a strong sense of empathy and a conscience easily made to feel guilty and you can see the beginnings of the dilemma.

When I talk to people I do the same thing. I have a hard time listening in conversations because I’m always planning on what I’m going to say next. I kid you not. I’ve been to counseling to try and alleviate my fear of being wrong. I have to plan well ahead for my next statement to prevent any possible errors. This plays hell with my ability to listen.

When people, including my children, harass me about my apparent, “love for cruises”, this is the best answer I can come up with. My mind is so pressured with all the “what ifs” and “maybes” of day to day life that it needs to relax. And, to date, a cruise is the closest I’ve ever come to complete relaxation.

They put a card under my cabin door every morning telling me all the activities that are planned for the day. My biggest decision is choosing whether to have lobster or steak for dinner. And, to a lesser extent, whether I want the raspberry or strawberry daiquiri.

Sheep Go To Heaven

2011-02-22T10:40:00.001-06:00

I was once asked, in verbiage almost completely not like this, "Do you think the Libertarian Party will ever make it as one of the major parties in the USA? Explain your reasoning."

My mind doesn't work like normal people. I said, "No, because of religion." We have too many zealots in the good old USA. Okay, here's the original answer (yes, I was a guest blogger once).

In my continuing random thought patterns, I heard this song today (not for the first time). But, for some reason today I listened a bit more. It is a catchy tune. It occurred to me that this song kind of explains what I was trying to say back on my political rant. I've since calmed down my political meanderings.

Although I still plan to run for President one day. I'm hoping to run on the Sarah ticket. Then, once her 8 years are up, I'll take over.

Oh wait, back to my post. Here's a song by Cake explaining why the Libertarian party will never make it in the good old USA. You can fast forward to the last 30 seconds once you get bored. I'll admit it's a stretch, but if you are creatively random enough, you might just make it.

And I was joking about the President thing. There's no way Sarah will last 8 years.

Sis Boom Bah

2011-02-17T11:21:00.001-06:00

I haven’t written in this thing in over a week. I was testing out the volume of complaints. There weren’t any. Someone did tell me I needed to tell the whole story. I don’t like talking about other people in my stories because of accidental trouble which it may cause. I’m going to try to tell mostly the whole story without incriminating anyone.

As many of you know, I went on a cruise to the Bahamas over the weekend. I actually left last Thursday morning and arrived home Monday evening (for the detail minded folks).

They should allow a different font for useless details. It would make reading blogs a lot easier. Of course, there may be several blogs that wouldn’t even get read that way.

My cruise to the Bahamas left out of Jacksonville, Florida. I had enough “SkyMiles” with Delta that my flight was free. Delta is affiliated with Alitalia (the Italian airline) so I had lots of miles. However, Delta goes through Atlanta and Carnival recommends you book your flights to arrive before noon. My flight was scheduled to leave Dallas at 5:45.

I was up at 3:15 and had a cab reserved to pick me up at 4. Yellowcab in Dallas is officially on my sh*t list. I reserved the cab Wednesday evening. I called at 3:45 Thursday morning and was told that one hadn’t been allotted yet. Whatever that means. At 4, this cab driver called and said, “I just got a request to pick you up and I’m about 25 minutes away.” He proceeded to quiz me on my promise that I’d wait on him if he continued his drive to my house. I declined the offer to make promises and secured other arrangements.

Everything went well up until the flight from Atlanta to Jacksonville. The attendant kept saying that the flight was going to be “very full”. I had to harass him mercilessly. How can something be “very full”; it’s either full or not. It can be almost full. It can even be nearly full. But how can it be very full? He was persistent though that the flight was very full. They still let me on to sit down and occupy space on the very full plane.

The only cruises I’ve taken up until now have been out of Galveston. For some reason the embarkation process in Jacksonville is much simpler than the embarkation process out of Galveston. About the same sized ship. About the same number of people. I have no idea why the difference. I’ve spent over an hour trying to get through the embarkation process in Galveston. I think it may have taken 10 minutes in Jacksonville.

In fact, I got onboard so fast that my room wasn’t ready yet. This encouraged me to go sit out on the Lido deck where my Serbian bartender, Sanja, proceeded to fill my cup with the drink of the day. Then Eka came by and got me a 4 pack of beer for $2 off. Ignore my sunglasses. I don’t know why they weren’t covering my eyes. Maybe someone hot was taking the picture and I needed a better view? I also don’t know why I wasn’t offered a picture with Sanja. She was much better looking than Eka. By the time the beer was gone, the room was ready.

When the room was ready (at 2 PM), I had already been up for almost 12 hours. Jacksonville is an hour ahead. My partying, happy, motivational energy reserves were already starting to dwindle. I had to be at dinner at 6.

For dinner I had a table with Lisa, Terry and Cathy. Interestingly enough, Lisa’s birthday was the 11th, mine was the 14th, and Cathy’s was on the 15th. Three Aquarians and one Cancer all at the same table. All I remember was a heated discussion about football and trying to utilize enough of my meager football knowledge to fan the flames. Because that’s what I do. I fan. The flames.

On Friday we were in Freeport. Since it was Lisa’s birthday I agreed to show her around Freeport. I had obviously never been there before, so I just found the first little rundown BahamaBar I could find and made friends with the Bartenders. It was the best day of the cruise. I dubbed my bartender the Queen of the Bahamas and she was quite proud of her title (she’s the one with the camera – she wouldn’t let me take a picture so I had to sneak it). They turned up the stereo and did happy birthday wishes. It was called Seaman’s Rest which I thought was an odd name for a bar, but funny in more ways than not.

When we left the bar, I saw this sign in the middle of the grass. I also found the sign rather amusing. I don’t know that it is quite as amusing now, but it might be. It said, “Stay on pavement. Avoid uneven surface.” Was it a warning for the bar patrons? Was it a warning for old people with their walkers? Now I kind of wished I would have walked across it. I probably would have broken an ankle. Why do I obey signs? I think it’s a curse.

Interestingly, once back onboard the ship, the entire “Lido Deck” had turned into a party zone. At one point I was innocently sitting at the bar when I decided to go procure a towel. I left to go get a towel and when I got back there were shots sitting at the bar purchased by someone calling himself one of the five. There were women in bikinis playing motorboat games. I decided right then and there that I should have left to procure the towel hours ago. I was allowed to take pictures, but I’m not comfortable posting them. I’ll post a couple of the more innocent ones. Here you can see one of the five brothers ordering two players to drink their shots…

And in this next photo you can see one of the players in action along with one of the five with a sh*t eating encouraging grin. I might have to put a paypal link for people wanting to see the other photos. There might be serious money in this. This is just a small taste of the insanity on the Lido deck on day 2 of the cruise.

And all because I took the time to go get a towel. It’s like they missed me and were trying to get me to come back.

Day 3 was in Nassau. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as Day 2. When we first left, Nassau was supposed to be sunny and 80 degrees. I think some front came in faster or slower than expected and it turned cloudy and windy. It still may have hit 72, but I’m not sure. I just roamed around mindlessly for a bit, had lunch, and went back to the ship.

I did manage to grab a picture of the local McDonald’s. It’s become something I do. I don’t know why. It started in Milan because I thought that McDonald’s had such a unique location.

Day 4 was a “fun day at sea”. When you sail out of Galveston you always get two days at sea. From Jacksonville there was only one. I enjoy the days at sea which is why I’m thinking of taking a 16 day Transatlantic cruise in October. That’ll be a lot of days at sea.

I met Noel on Day 4. He and I shared the same birthday. Both of us being unfortunate enough to be born on Valentine’s day. I harassed him a bit about being born on Valentine’s day and being named after Christmas. He said at least he wasn’t Valentino which is what my dad wanted to name me as well so I could see his point. But then Val might be cooler than Gar.

The debarkation process in Jacksonville is another mystery that must be solved. When I debark in Galveston, there are about 2000 passengers, 10 department of homeland security officers to check documents and welcome you back in the USA and it takes about 2 hours minimum.

When I debarked in Jacksonville, there were about 2000 passengers, 2 department of homeland security officers to gather the claims documents and it took about 5 minutes. I kid you not. I’m still curious how this level of efficiency missed Galveston.

It may have been because it was my birthday. Maybe that was a gift to me because I was dreading standing in the torturous line of getting my passport and claim form checked.

I ended up having to stay at the Jacksonville airport for 8 hours because of their efficiency (I booked my flight at 5 because of the SkyMiles bit and to allow enough time to get off the boat). But, I found a little bar and had some breakfast, some lunch and some birthday beer. A guy down the bar from me shared the same birthday so we discussed how we celebrate our birthdays on the 14th and Valentine’s day on the 15th. This has the added bonus of allowing us to buy clearance items on the evening of the 14th for those special gluttons for punishment in our lives.

On Thursday I Cruise

2011-02-08T22:05:00.001-06:00

I’ll be going out to cruise the Bahamas on Thursday. I need to get away from this wacky weather we are having in North Texas. The Bahamas should be a most pleasant respite.

Tomorrow (that’d be Wednesday), we are supposed to be getting hit by another arctic blast (new codename for “the suck”). My driveway finally thawed from last week’s 4 days of the suck. I received a nice little email today with a graph of my cold weather happy dance.

Actually, it’s not all that accurate. I’m never as happy as the first picture. Well, except when I finally get on the cruise ship.

I don’t know where the original came from, but it’s quite clever. It made me giggle. Just because I remember sitting at my house last Thursday thinking, “What’s all that noise? Is the snow caving in my roof?” I also called a colleague of mine on Wednesday asking if he’d pick me up for work because I couldn’t get out of my driveway. I don’t remember Friday.

I keep getting these offers (okay, only two), where some strange person will send me an email wanting to ask me a question about a particular post. I respond back saying, “Ask away!”. Then they come back with something like, “Yeah, if you’ll modify the paragraph that reads…, and add this line…, with a link to this site…, we’ll give you $10. Are you interested? Looking forward to hearing from you!” I doubt it’s because my blog has suddenly become so popular because it hasn’t. It must be some sort of new scam. If one of my previous posts suddenly becomes modified with some random unGarlike verbiage with a strange link, you’ll know I be experimenting with the scammers.

Stir Crazy

2011-02-04T09:36:00.001-06:00

My last blogging was on Monday and involved the purchase of a used vehicle for my daughter.

I haven’t blogged since then for 2 reasons:

I’m lazy and uninspired.
It’s freaking cold and everyone and their Durango is talking about it.

I haven’t been to work since Monday. I have everything conveniently setup to work from home. Ironically, or perhaps coincidentally, or maybe both, the President of the division I work for said a couple of weeks ago that he could not allow anyone to work from home. “We’re such a small group that we need everyone here.” It makes sense what he said, but it’s also rather funny. If I wasn’t setup for working from home, I’d be getting lots of TV watching done instead. I’m sure he’s more happy that I’m making progress. I don’t drive in this crap.

However, I don’t particularly like working from home in these circumstances. This will be the fourth day of being stuck at the house. Had I know we were going to get half a foot of snow today, I would have skated to the store yesterday. I’m down to my last box of noodles. I’m going to suggest everyone in the D/FW Metromess go out and start up their vehicles and let them idle. Hopefully we can produce some of that global warming that Al Gore promised us. The meathead.

I’ve lived in Texas for over 40 years and I can’t remember it ever being this bad for this long. Tomorrow it’s supposed to get above freezing. Then, on Monday they are predicting another “wintry mix”. If we all start our engines now, perhaps we can stave off next week’s nasty forecast.

I’ve also decided that God must have no love for Jerry Jones, the tyrannical madman in charge of building that great big ugly eyesore in the middle of Arlington when there is plenty of wide open beautiful farmland within 20 miles. The mean spirited part of me was kind of hoping the ultra cold prolonged temperatures would play hell with some part of the construction of the stadium that the engineers didn’t plan for. That would have been cool.

All the poor businesses in the Metromess who were looking forward to all the tourists coming down here and spending money are instead closed down. That’s got to hurt. All of Jerry’s boastful record breaking talk may not go to total waste. It’ll probably be the least amount of money a city has earned from the Super Bowl in like 50 years.

Maybe I should open up a driving service. Charge people like $1000 bucks to drive them from their hotel in Arlington to Sundance Square in Fort Worth. If I could find an open store I could probably get some chains for my tires. Do cabs operate in this mess or do you have people stuck in their hotel rooms? Room service probably sucks as well.

I’m done now. I should probably get started on some work (that I’m not supposed to do from home).

Buying a Car

2011-01-31T23:06:00.001-06:00

Last week my eldest spawn passed her driver’s test. This lead me to on the ever frustrating hunt for an affordable used car that would be halfway dependable and as safe as possible.

I started out shopping at cars.com. Cars.com is a nice website for car browsing. However, unscrupulous dealerships (like Texas Nissan in Grapevine) put false advertising on cars.com to attract buyers. Basically what they do is put pictures of cars that people want. The selection and prices are almost too good to believe.

You get away from cars.com and go directly to the website owned and operated by Texas Nissan (the dealer from Hell). Their website has the same cars pictured. A 2008 Sentra with 80,000 miles for $3900. It’s almost believable. I mean, it could be your lucky day so you give them a call.

“Do you still have the 2008 Sentra for $3900?” I inquire. “Of course, we do!” says they. “When are you planning to come and look at it?”

I asked a friend at work if he’d take me out there, just in case I had to drive the car back to the office. We arrive and the Sentra as well as the other 6 cars I had looked at are nowhere to be found. I swear to you, a salesman came out who looked like Guido and talked like someone who learned English watching the Sopranos. He wore the fake leather coat, walked with a swagger, didn’t look anyone in the eye, had the balding head with the comb over and the attempt at feathered sideburns that kind of made the side of his head look like a vertical ocean wave. He shall henceforth be known as Guido.

Guido says, in his exaggerated gangster accent, “Oh ya know, we can’t keep that website updated. We sell cars faster than anyone else in the nation. Look it up. If you just sit down for a few minutes and let me get some information from yas we can get you in exactly the car you need. Now what are you looking for anyway?”

“Well, I’m looking for the 2008 Sentra on your website that I just called about.”

“Well, who did ya call? If you talked to those Web guys, they don’t know. You have to call us directly. As soon as we get a trade, we take pictures and put them on our website, but then those cars are gone in hours or we have to send them off to auction.”

“Oh Guido, Guido, Guido. You are pissing me off. Amazon moves more product in 30 seconds than you do all year and they keep their inventory up to date. Are you sure you’re not just a stupid ass?” I just adlibbed a bit for dramatic purposes.

“Well, sirs, I’m not a stupid ass, but if you can tell me how much you are willing to invest in the safety of your daughter, I’ll find the perfect car for you. We have this one over here. Just came in today. It only has 30,000 miles and you can drive it away for $10,000!”

“Okay, I’m outta here Guido, thanks for playing.”

“Hold on, hold on!” proclaims Guido, “Let me go get my manager and see if he can find out what happened to the car you saw on our website.”

I kid you not. His manager was a big burly black man who said the exact same thing Guido said only without the accent. I swear they have this stuff written down somewhere to piss people off.

The moral of this story that wasn’t. Don’t buy anything from Texas Nissan until they do something about this policy. Or just don’t. I went and asked around and heard the story about an older couple who were also trying to buy a used car for one of their grandchildren. They, like I , called Texas Nissan to make sure the car was available. This couple drove over an hour to come get the car only be told it wasn’t available. Now, I can’t verify the truth of this, but after the run around I got, I can see where it could be true even if I can’t prove it.

I went to 4 other dealerships after I left Texas Nissan. They all had accurate inventories on their websites and were all very helpful. I went to Classic Chevrolet in Grapevine, Huffines Chevrolet in Lewisville, Carmax in Irving and Grapevine Motors. I ended up getting her a car from Grapevine Motors which was at a good price because of some unrepaired hail damage. Grapevine Motors is a small shop that specializes in affordable used cars. I was quite pleased. They may not have been the most “professional” bunch of folks, but they were friendly and their inventory was accurate.

Ghost Blogging (last Friday from a different perspective)

2011-01-26T10:16:00.001-06:00

I’ve only allowed guest blogging once before and that was when a German friend of mine sent me a unique perspective on Obama.

Today I got an email describing last Friday’s shenanigans. I’ve received permission to share it. I’ve edited it only for spacing and removing the parts I don’t want my kids to see :).

Friday...

I’d ‘bout talked myself out of going down Friday. I got home and was seriously considering just resting from the day, babying Gus (my dog), and heading down Saturday morning. I’m so glad I was peer pressured into hitting the road!

So I get down there, and we head out to a fantastic bar/pub in Plano called “The Holy Grail”. Great food, awesome beer selection. After a couple rounds I’d really buttered up this bartender, or he’d buttered me up; either way, we end up ordering a $30 bottle of beer, one of their “high end” selections (it’s about the size of a small champagne bottle, calm down). $hit was AMAZING! And also high on the alcohol content. Score. We sit and make jokes about some of the other patrons and have a large ole time. I’m in such a good mood about everything, I even pick up the check.

His current “lady friend” arrives after finishing up her Friday night bowling league meeting. Yes, that’s right, I said she’s in a bowling league. That being said, she was NOT what I’d pictured when he told me where she was. She was actually adorable! Petite little thing with beautifully “Farah Fawcett feathered” auburn hair. “Lisa” grew up on a potato farm in Idaho so I had an appreciative audience for some “country” humor and insight. She and I instantly hit it off and were fast friends. Creepy side notes: She and I share the exact same birthday, order our margaritas the same, and found ourselves with several of the same mannerisms (ie: after getting a beer at the concert I noticed we were both wrapping the bottles with napkins the exact same way at the same time...it was a little weird...)

The Holy Grail was a bit crowded, we’d racked up enough of a bill, and there was another bar closer to his house where he felt more like “NORM!” (“Cheers” reference, thankyouverymuch). Just so happened that Friday is karaoke night. Oooooohhhh....Mmmmyyyyyyyy....Ggggaaaaawwwwwdddd!!! What a unique little watering hole it was!! I knew I was getting drunk and wouldn’t remember enough details later to properly record them so I started texting observations. Off the top of my head, I remember...

--A tiny little Asian fella starting meekly but ending strong on Tina Turner’s “Rollin’ on a River”...

--Two lesbians belting out various 80’s classic rock, always duets...

--Our hero actually doing one of the best versions of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” I’ve ever heard outside my pickup... ;)

--Chubby old insurance-salesman-looking type holding a cigar and encouraging the entire bar to sing the “bom, bom, bom” parts of “Sweet Caroline”...

--6 foot tall neo-nazi biker dude performing a lovely performance of Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer”...

--The 300lb chick at our table drunkenly informing our hero that he should marry Lisa...

--“Pimp Daddy”....The ONLY black folk in the bar come to sit at our table. Ring leader of the group was a tall, handsome piece of dark meat in a sharp looking sleeveless sweater over a crisp white long sleeve button down shirt, tie, and white pants (oh, and he kept sunglasses on the whole time too). He swooned all the ladies in the bar with a beautiful rendition of an old Motown hit (couldn’t tell ya now what it was, just remember that I was impressed at the time). Pimp Daddy’s baby-momma-cousin’s-wife (or however the h#ll she was introduced to me) was sitting on my left and spent an impressive amount of time convincing me that she doesn’t “normally drink this much”, but she’d had a bad day at work. Apparently she spends her days collecting rent at some apartment complex and she “don’t care who yo baby-daddy is and how he not pay no child support”....Awesome.

We close down “Daddy Rabbits” and head home. ‘twas a great night I thought, but little Lisa is not quite done yet. She spots an expensive brand o tequila at the house and decides we should commemorate our new friendship. Aye, says I. By this point the world has become a very dangerous place to be standing, what with all the spinning and rocking it’s doing and all. I decide to go outside for a smoke and some fresh air (which is ironic if you think about it). Anyway, I come back in ready to call it a night and Lisa is trying to explain to me the specifics of some lemon liquor that she tried once. As if by magic, a bottle of the stuff is brought forth from a secret cabinet. We must take two more shots. Fortunately everyone finally agrees we’re all sufficiently “cool” and call it a night. I made it to bed and prayed I could just pass out before the alcohol demanded it be released. Fortunately, it did not take long for me to slip into a nice comfortable coma.

Inconsequential Mutterings

2011-01-24T22:51:00.001-06:00

If you look at my previous posting. The one from last week immediately following this one in the blog roll I call Random Ramblings, you’ll see that I listed several topics in my chaotic little mind which I would like to write about. I’m thinking this won’t cover any of those enticing possibilities. I’ll let them lie there and fester for now.

A couple of weeks ago I went out with some friends who have moved to the other side of the Metromess. I used to see them once or twice a week. There were times when we’d spontaneously decide to attend harmless jazz concerts Tuesday after work and end up at some white trash bar in North Fort Worth doing karaoke until 3 AM. Planning leads to expectations which leads to disappointment. Indecisive spontaneity brings forth nothing but surprises. I’d rather be surprised. Therefore it’s my plan not to plan.

My friends who moved to Rowlett are predictably unpredictable and they are great because of it. They came to visit a couple of weeks ago and we went and did Karaoke at Daddy Rabbit’s Market of Trepidatious Surprises. Fun was had by all. I coined the phrase, “confidence implies inferred consent”. I coined it when I was watching this drunk bozo making his moves on women up and down the bar. Think about it. I’ll wait here.

Last Thursday I went to the Rockin’ Rodeo to see a concert. Now, for me to set foot into a place called “Rockin Rodeo” is slightly less disconcerting than me walking into a Catholic Church for Sunday Mass. Being that it’s in Denton there were lots of college women. The eye candy was nice. I went with Lisa and she helps out with that. I think I’ve mentioned Lisa before. You’ll have to look it up. There’s a search box in the top left corner that searches through all my wonderfully chaotic cacophonic creativities. You’ll never know who you might meet.

Last weekend I had a new friend drive in and visit from Vernon. I say she’s a new friend, but I’ve known her now for a few months. I guess when you get to be old and decrepit someone you’ve known for 2 years is a new friend. If you don’t know where Vernon is, look it up. You’ll have to use maps.google.com.

Anyway, we went to The Holy Grail Pub in Plano to have dinner, have some drinks and wait for Lisa. We had some good dialoging including my new debate topic that I learned from The Russ Martin Show. Last week he said that the only thing Americans excel at is complaining. Quit complaining and start solving. Complaining is not a solution. I think he was talking about the people complaining about the fence that they’re building between us and Mexico. I solved that one already.

The Holy Grail is a cool place. I recommend getting there early and getting a seat at the bar. There’s always at least one beer nerd behind the bar and if you pretend to know how to spell Hefeweizen, they’ll be sure and chat with you for, up until now, unknown lengths. I had a Franconia Hefeweizen and then we split a bottle of Infinium which is what you’d get if you, for some reason, decided to mix a bottle of champagne with a hoppy pilsner (or something like that). I’m not sure I liked it, but the bottle was really cool. The bar maids are also a special brand of eye candy if that’s your kind of thing.

I think at one point I may have even mentioned how much I thought Durango might appreciate the ambiance. There were more erudite Texans in my company than he could shake a stick at. There may have been some Idaho blood in there somewhere. I’m thinking for Durango’s next Blogworthy Epiphany of Madness he and I should tour all the breweries in a 100 mile radius and do live blogging onsite. All those in favor? Drunken Belligerent Brewery Blogging for the win!

Saturday night, we all went to The Granada Theater in Dallas in Lower Greenville. Cool place and a nice area. Parking was $8 directly behind the theater. We saw Jason Eady. His band wasn’t available so he did a solo acoustic set. I was quite appreciative of his lyrics and his songwriting. He said his birthday was coming up at midnight which would make him born on January 23. My best friend was born on January 23. It also makes him an Aquarius. Yay Aquarians! My friend from Vernon (we’ll call her Jen), Lisa and I are all Aquarians. It was an Aquarian night, but I’m not allowed to talk about that without fear of reprimand from D’ango the Leo.

The headliner at the Granada was James McMurtry. Jen had convinced me that I needed to see James. He’s not an Aquarian, but he puts on a pretty good show I must admit. He’s kind of Bob Dylan meets John Mellencamp? His song called “Choctaw Bingo” reminds me of a Beatles song. It’s not this one. You’ll have to look it up. I’ll give kudos to the victor.

Large Number of Complaints

2011-01-18T09:19:00.001-06:00

Well, actually, there’s been only one. With my trying to get rid of my house, work being abnormally busy and the weather being cold I simply haven’t had the time to allow the creative juices to warm to required levels.

In order that there are no more complaints about my lack of blogging I have chosen to write a summary blog without the aid of warm creative juices. It’ll be frightening.

The House

I owe too much on my house and the housing market is too crappy to get rid of it. The investor who expressed interest didn’t pass my background check. I’ve decided to try and pay down as much of the principal as possible in the next 6 months and see about a possible summer sale.

The Dating

I joined Match.com a while back (for the second time) and I’ve been meaning to write a review about it. If you combine that with the fact that I’ve recently discovered my youngest spawn is reading my blog regularly and you see my dilemma.

The Birthday

I won a cruise for my birthday. I’ll be leaving on February 10th and returning on February 14th. It’s out of Jacksonville and hits the Bahamas. I’ve never been to Jacksonville and I’ve never been to the Bahamas. It should be fun! I had enough frequent flyer miles saved up from my trips last year to Italy that the airfare was free. Yay me!

The Android

About 8 months ago I purchased my first smart phone. It’s an Android. Mostly because I can’t stand Apple (and I don’t have AT&T). I’ve been meaning to write a technical review of my Android, but I’m worried about scaring away my current cornucopia of readership. My next money making venture will be along the lines of writing Android apps. This requires a whole bucketful of warmed creative juices.