August 2005 Archives

She sneezes all over your bare back and you don't mind too much.

(It was kinda gross, though.)

So I've gone to work in four different cars in the last week. True story.

After paying $72 to have the car towed back to the place where it was originally repaired, they were unable to duplicate the problem. The problem being that the car wouldn't freakin' start.

Unbelievable.

No, don't tell me I just needed a jump. I'm not good with cars but I do know that the battery was fine. It was turning over, but couldn't get going. Oh, but not once it got to the repair shop. Noooooo.... So my dad was polite enough to loan me his car while he drives mine for a while to see if it starts sucking again. The only problem with that idea is that I really only started having serious problems when the title transfered to me. If he's driving it, all will be well. It'll just think it's back in good hands again. (This parking it outside and having birds poop on it doesn't go over well with the car.)

On the plus side I'm planning a visit to St. Louis this weekend to visit many friends and family. Yay! Thankfully my wife's car has but 40,000 miles on it and is in good working order. Hopefully the traffic won't be too horrific on I-70.

Mmm... Japanese Festival... Taiko drumming...

I blogged once (when I was doing my 100 things project which was summarily destroyed in the Mac Mini Incident of '05) about a little thing that I can do with my thumbs. Try, if you will, to bend your thumb so that it fits comfortably on the back of your hand just below the knuckle of your index finger. Apparently, not many people can do this.

But I can. And tonight, I won a trophy for doing just that.

True story.

You see, Carrie and I have been participating in a sort of introduction to the Chruch we've been attending for the last few months (Lakeland Community Church for those of you near Lee's Summit, MO) that takes place on Sunday evenings. Well, as part of the final week, there was a stupid human tricks contest, which, despite my wife's objections, I am proud to say that I have won. The trophy will only be mine until about November, though, so I must enjoy the glory while I can.

Behold:

Now I just to add a little something to the trophy before passing it on. Any suggestions?

Carrie was wondering what is going to happen in the last book. Do not read on if you don't want your surprise ruined as I have figured it all out.

Harry defeats Lord Voldemort with the help of Ron and Hermione. And some other stuff happens.

Carrie and I went out for a few drinks down on the Country Club Plaza. Very nice. Then we came back, had some snacks, watched SNL reruns before turning our attention to Blog Explosion. Well, here we are, browsing random blogs when we simultaneously each go to the other's blog. Very, very bizarre. Especially given the 25,000+ blogs in the directory. That would mean that the odds are somewhere in the neighborhood of 1:625,000,000 of that happening (given equal odds of browsing to any blog in the directory). So much for winning the lottery in this lifetime, eh?

(Forgive me if the odds are off. I have had a two drinks...)

I was out walking the other day and saw a store with this sign:

"Ambience Furs"

Not only do they sell furs, but also clean and store them for you as well.

I little while later, I saw a shop with this sign:

"Westwood Animal Hospital"

To give you an idea about their proximity, I've decided to show you visually via Google Maps. The fur store is marked with green while the animal hospital is marked with red. (Maybe I should have done it the other way around, eh?)

Check it out

I do enjoy good irony. Now which to you suppose was there first?

Strikes again

Ok, so as I've said before: 1) I am not a morning person and 2) I therefore hate waking up at 5:45 a.m. every weekday. This inevitably leads to sleep deprivation and an overwhelming desire to nap.

So today, being Thursday, was the day of my first piano lesson of the year. An important occasion, no doubt. Well, I got home from work at 1:45 and my lesson wasn't until 3:00, so I thought I'd take a little 45 minute nap. I even set an alarm for 2:30. Everything was good to go.

Except I love taking naps. Or rahter, I really love sleeping. I do. It's true. If I could get about nine hours sleep each night, that would make me very happy indeed. So, when my alarm went off at 2:30, I simply shut it off. No snooze, no nothin'. Just turned the darn thing clean off.

Then I woke up at 2:56. It is probably not until 2:57 that I realized that I had a lesson in three minutes and still had a little bit of traveling to do. Oops. At 2:58 I was out the door. By 3:04 the car was parked and at 3:06 (3:07 by his clock), I finally arrived in the studio. Good job, late to the first lesson.

"Hi Andy, I was wondering if you were going to show up or not..."

Of course, in a few weeks my lessons won't beging until 3:10 or so, nevermind that I'll be there at least five minutes early. Oh well, time to go to bed now.

I love sleeping.

But I do hate waking up at 5:45.... :(

Well, I wouldn't exactly say I've been missing it, Bob...

I have an older car, and by older I mean 12 yrs and 135,000 miles. It's a Mecury Sable, and it doesn't like me anymore.

A few weeks back, the car left my wife and I stranded some 20 minutes away from home. Refused to start. So we had it towed, payed to have the fuel pump and distributor replaced. (Cha ching.) I toyed with the idea of just dumping the stupid thing and getting a newer car. But I hate having debt of any kind and figured we'd just keep that thing going until we could afford a better car...

Oops.

This morning, the car won't start again. Exact same symptoms as before. Ugh. Normally, since Carrie works so close to home, it would be easy to just drop her off at work early and head to work myself. Unfortunately, today she had to go to central office and fill out some paperwork, attend another meeting elsewhere, etc. So she needed the car. Also, she couldn't take me to work and head back, because while it takes me less than 20 minutes to get to work, driving back into the city (I commute to the suburbs, if you can believe that) would probably take 40 minutes. So that was also not an option.

So here I sit, waiting for a parental unit to pick me up and take me to work. Tomorrow shouldn't be a probably with just the one car, but you never know...

What you are looking at is my right middle finger. No, you did nothing to offend me, I just thought I'd give you a taste of what can happen when a hangnail goes bad. Just a simple hangnail, right? No fingernail clippers to take care of it, might as well just rip it off, right?

WRONG!!

This is what happens when you get an infection on your finger. And then guess what happens. You go to the doctor (or, since I'm currently in a two-weeks-of-no-health-insurance time of my life, the University Health Center) and s/he decides that the best course of action, the one that will save you pain is to jab a needle into the wound three or four times, and then squeeze it hard until stuff comes out. Oh, and a perscription for some antibiotics, of course.

Now, for the brave of heart, you can look closely at that tiny, out-of-focus picture and notice that part of my finger is actually green. Green people. This is not good. Especially for one who intends at present to make a living using that and the other nine fingers.

I shouldn't complain, though, I suppose. Not that long ago they'd probably just cut my finger off, you know, to save the rest of me. Then I'd never be able to give someone the double deuce.

Or play piano. That's important too...

First of all, yay Royals, I guess. Ended a 19-game losing streak with a 2-1 victory over the Oakland A's. Just goes to show you that the Royals can't even break a record at sucking. They can't seem to do anything right, I suppose...

Oh, and I was playing Apples to Apples this evening. For those of you who haven't enjoyed playing this game, I pity you for one, and secondly, it is mostly a word association game. Yes, the game can take many interesting turns.

What really got me this evening, though, was the phrase "chunky bubbles." I started laughing hysterically when I heard it, and yet have absolutely no reason for laughing. As I look at it now, it isn't that funny. If I say it, well, I still chuckle, but no one else seems to find it funny at all. At all. And here I am, with my wife and friends, crying from laughter over this phrase. (And without any drinking either, mind you.) So, basically I was wondering if anyone else on this planet thought that phrase was mildly amusing...

Just wondering.

And, Go Royals!

and have been back for a while...

Boy, you get out of the habit of doing something and you never do quite get back into the swing of things.

First of all, I know that Carrie already posted some Colorado pictures, but I thought I would indulge you all as well.

And there is the Colorado update. So what has been going on since I returned?

Well, I returned to work as an accompanist for an area high school. Yay. I hate getting up early in the morning. This 5:45 crap is simply unacceptable.

And, I won't spoil the news since I'm sure that Carrie would like to post it herself, but we celebrated last night and had some of the best fun I've had in a long time.

First we went bowling up in North Kansas City. As it turns out, it was a dollar day, so for two games each and shoe rentals, we were out $6.00 plus tax. Awesome. Then I decided that I had to play some DDR. Another $1.50 down the drain, plus the game of air hockey brings our nightly total to $8.00. Oh, and I lost air hockey. And bowling, both games. 101 to 102 the first game. 111 to 117 the second. Ugh.

Then we went to go see March of the Penguins. I have to say that it was a pretty good flick. Not necessarily that much better than your run-of-the-mill animal planet documentary, but it was nice to see it on a big screen. Of course, the local independent film theater costs $8.00 per ticket, so that was by far the most expensive part of the evening. Still, for bowling, gaming, and a movie, I can't complain about $24.00, can I?

So that's what's been going on, aside from the Royals sucking it up. 19 now, that's great...

(As a side note, if you get sick of these websites always asking for registration like the Kansas City Star, go to BugMeNot.com. Cool site.)

This is the funniest ad I've seen in a while:

http://www.bigad.com.au/

Definitely in the same league as many of our American beer ads.

So I couldn't wait for NaNoWriMo to begin, here is chapter one of "Timothy's Tale."

Marcus always considered himself an excellent outdoorsman. Since his first day of boy scouts, he had always felt most at home in nature, and even now, at 48, this was no exception. With work continuing to get more stressful, and the exceptional late October weather, this much-needed three-day weekend was perfectly timed. After enjoying a beautiful sunset at Watkins Mill State Park, a favorite retreat of his, he settled into his tent for a second night of rest. At 3:14 a.m., however, his rest was sharply interrupted.

The sound was unlike anything he had ever heard before, for it was at the same time both animalistic and shockingly human. The deep, load roar, or cry, he couldn’t tell which, was not too far from his campsite, and despite his gut instinct to remain as still as possible, he felt the desire to investigate.

Marcus was not the only one to hear the sound that evening. Timothy, a nine-year-old boy who was camping with his family, had also heard it. For him, though, the sound was much more muted than for Marcus due to greater distance, and it was only because he was hardly sleeping at all that he even heard it. He sat up in his tent, curious, and listened intently. Again, he heard the distant sound, and despite his fears, stepped out of his own tent, crept past that of his parents, and walked into the darkness.

Marcus crawled out of his tent and stood in front of it for a minute before his eyes really adjusted to the darkness. The fire, which sat in front of the tent, provided little light as it had reduced to barely glowing embers. He stood there for what felt like 20 minutes, although he knew it was probably less than five. He kept craning his neck, this way and that, as he listened to the forest. The sound of cracking branches continued to grow louder until Marcus could hear not only the familiar snaps of twigs, but also the footsteps of whatever it was in the distance. “This is weird,” he thought immediately, as he listened to the footsteps growing closer, weaving from his left to his right and back again.

“Why would I be able to hear that? If it were a mountain lion, or other large animal that could be found here in Missouri, the footsteps would be completely silent. If it were a person, the weight would most likely be insufficient to cause noise beyond where I can see. Yet, this, whatever, sounds more like a bear than anything else. But that’s impossible, isn’t it?”

Timothy was now walking deeper into the woods now. After a few minutes, the bright, crescent moon and cloudless sky gave him enough light to see where he was going. Still, being but nine and inexperienced in the woods, his face and hands were already cut and bruised by branches, and his jeans kept getting stuck on the forest floor. He kept listening for that strange sound, but for whatever reason, didn’t hear it again. He was beginning to wonder what he was doing out here, and also began to wonder where his campsite was, for he could no longer see it.

By now, the footsteps were clearly just beyond Marcus’s sight. They were very loud, now, amplified by the chilly, night air. They had stopped getting closer as they once had, and instead simply moved in a semi-circle around Marcus, as though evaluating the situation. After going around Marcus about three or four times, the sound stopped directly in front of him. The sounds of birds, insects, and other mammals seemed to cease as well, causing dead silence in an otherwise noisy wood. It was at that point that the cry was heard again. It sounded distinctly like that of a full-grown grizzly bear in depth and resonance, yet it was not. The power of a bear was evident, yet it still sounded distinctly human, as though someone was imitating a grizzly’s growl through a megaphone, but even amplified a human voice was still not entirely accurate. The noise that followed, though, was even more dark and horrific than what Marcus could have possibly imagined.

Timothy heard this most recent growl, and set off in that direction as best he could. He was running now, trying desperately to find its source. It was almost as if the sound was drawing him toward it, rather than away as natural instinct would dictate. He tripped more than once as he plunged forward, but continued on without hesitation. It wasn’t until he heard the second sound that he stopped in his tracks.

Marcus stood there, frozen, as his heart began to beat audibly in his ears. The short silence that followed the growl was broken by what was unmistakably laughter. It was certainly not humorous laughter, but it also wasn’t the evil laugh of one mocking the impending destruction of another. No, this was a deep, wheezing laugh that sounded like it would be interrupted by coughing at any moment. It was as though the beast, or person, whatever, found something ironic about the situation, though what the irony was, Marcus certainly couldn’t tell. He felt like screaming, but neither his lungs nor his throat were able to produce the sound. A split second later, Marcus heard another footstep, and ran.

He ran quickly through the woods, and with skill was able to avoid the branches and twigs that would have otherwise impeded his path. The cold fall air stung his lungs, but the adrenaline that coursed through his body pressed him onward. He could hear the large footsteps closing in behind him and he ran as hard as he could. Then, suddenly, without warning, the footsteps stopped. Marcus continued to run for several more minutes until his lungs and legs demanded he stop. He stood in the woods, hunched over, wondering what had just occurred. He strained his ears to locate any sign of the creature, but heard nothing more than the rustling of trees.

Timothy continued to stand still for a minute, as he began to hear footsteps running right at him. He immediately recognized what must have the creature thundering through the forest, running after someone, though he didn’t know who. He remained where he was, paralyzed with fear where he stood, as he should have been with the first howl of the creature. Then, just barely in sight, he saw a man, hunched over. Timothy watched him for a few seconds, before his eyes were drawn to the trees. He squinted through the moonlight, for he could not make out what he was seeing. It appeared that a very large figure was leaping between the trees, in near silence.

Marcus was just beginning to catch his breath when an enormous crack erupted from behind him. He turned around in time to see a large, hairy hand slash him across the face. He was thrown to his side a few feet, crashing into a nearby oak tree. He sat at its base struggling to wipe the blood from his face, so that he might better see what was now approaching him, but was only able to see a vague outline that was moving steadily closer.

Timothy watched as the tall, hunched figure moved closer to the man. He watched as it broke off a nearby limb that must have been as wide as his own small body, and struck the man across the face. The dull sound of Marcus’s skull shattering caused Timothy to vomit, and as he looked back toward the creature, he saw its blazing, red eyes turn in his direction. He screamed and fainted.

These last two days have been very fun out here in Grand Junction. Yesterday we took a bit of a drive into Colorado National Monument. Many pictures were taken, so hopefully I'll have those up on the website before too long. Heck, I should have many, many photos up soon, if I'd just get my butt in gear concerning another page similar to the music page.

Again, I digress. My father-in-law is a big outdoorsman, and loves to go hiking and kayaking whenever he gets the chance. I, on the other hand, merely pretend to be an outdoorsman. I really do enjoy hiking, and have done some canoeing and kayaking, but nothing very serious. I mean, the guy has his own little GPS thing and everything. So, the point of this is that I am pretty sure I agreed to do a 7-mile hike through the canyon and up to one of the summits. So, 7-miles, with about a 2,000 foot ascent. No problem. In reality it shouldn't be that bad, but the altitude, 6,500 ft. (1,981 m) above sea level might hinder me somewhat.

So I have that to look forward to come thanksgiving. Hopefully we attempt this before the turkey-induced coma.

Today, we traveled to Ouray, CO, which was about two hours drive one way. The town itself was somewhat quaint, with only an interesting rock/fossil store to keep me interested. On the other hand, the drive into the mountains was quite nice. Until it rained on us, which thankfully, didn't really occur until we returned to the car. Again, many more lovely pictures. :)

Finally, I am officially psychotic. I was doing a little internet browsing and came across National Novel Writing Month. I think I'm going to participate. Now, what should I write about? The weird thing is, that I'm considering doing something along the lines of a suspense/thriller, despite the fact that I've read so few books in the genre. I silly idea, no doubt, but such things seem to be encouraged over at Nanowrimo. So, any suggestions?

In Grand Junction, Colorado

Well, we arrived in Grand Junction, not 30 miles from the Utah border, and about 866 miles from our home in Kansas City. The drive out was moderately eventful, as the radiator fluid had apparently been a bit low causing us to overheat just as we pulled into a gas station. One hour and a trip to Wal-mart for coolant and we were good. Thank goodness it happened so close to everything that we needed. Yes, I thought I had checked the fluids before leaving, but seeing how we left at 5:00 in the morning, it was rather dark, and I must have seen a shadow on the tank rather than the fluid itself. Oh well. No harm, no foul?

We today we got a bit of a tour of Grand Junction from Carrie's folks, which included a stop at some of the local wineries. The first winery, Grande River Wines, was decent at best. I did end up walking out with a very nice Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, however, and I'm not much of a white wine fan, so that's saying something, I suppose.

Our second stop was Colorado Cellars. This was, to say the least, very offensive to my moderate trained pallete (much more educated on wine than beer). There was not a single wine that was decent. Oh, it was so terrible. I had to keep eating pretzels just to keep the taste out of my mouth. Ugh. They did have a decent spiced mead, though...

Our last stop was the Carlson Vineyard. These were, thankfully, the best wines of the trip, although I still didn't feel the need to purchase a single bottle. At least the trip didn't end on a particularly sour note (pun intended).

Well, I think for the time being I'm going to be sticking to good Californian and Australian wines, although I did recently have a fantastic bottle of Pinotage from South Africa and a Pinot from Oregon, so what do I know?

At least the mountains are nice...