14 years of silence, 14 years of pain

Six years ago today I started work at my current place of employment. This picture was taken shortly after training class began, back in June of 2002.

This picture was taken a few minutes ago.

I like my new glasses way better. Also it turns out my mouth is crooked. Looks like I used to have a little bit more hair too.

Here's some historic trivia for you: Gatsby and I met in that training class. Who would have thought that years later we would come to completely dominate the Blogiverse.

I was going to wax nostalgic about the last six years of work, but now I'm just bummed out. I'm going to go get my coffee and quietly contemplate mortality.

don't matter how many times you get burnt, you just keep doin' the same

I have significantly upped my street cred by purchasing a du-rag. It's pretty great.

Now I look just like Bodie from The Wire. See?


What do you mean I look like an idiot? Are you saying Bodie looks like an idiot? I don't see why you're having such a hard time comparing me to a tough streetwise African-American drug dealer. Look again. We have similar headwear!

Mikey says I look like an unemployed pornstar. I don't see it.


Ah hell, who am I kidding. I don't even look like an unemployed pornstar. I look like Elektra.


Even the cat knows it's silly.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Review

(spoiler alert)

fitter, happier, more productive

I am now 28. Ravaged by the cruelness of time.

anhedonia

Troubling news out of the Microsuede camp. I may have to give up coffee. Sometime last week I became very anxietous. Not that I was nervous or worrying about things, but my heart became all poundy. That's not cool. As an experiment I went a couple of days without coffee, and I was fine. I mean, jitter-wise I was fine. I did fall asleep in the middle of giving a presentation to the VPs though.

To further the experiment I had some coffee yesterday, with the same pulse racing result. Today is another no-coffee today. We'll see how it goes. I'm feeling pretty dead inside. I would say "robotic" but robots generally serve some kind of purpose.

I have an appointment with a trained medical professional tomorrow, so maybe he'll know what's going on. Though one time he kept me waiting over an hour and when he came back he got Carl's Jr. all over the place.

If I do have to give up coffee it should be okay, I am pretty good at giving things up. I cut out 90% of my television viewing, I went 77 days without a drop of hops or spirits, and quitting smoking was the easiest thing I've ever done.

I don't get a lot of credit for quitting smoking, since my smoking habit lasted exactly as long as the time it took to snap this picture, but still.

3/7-3/10

How many days was your weekend? How many apes did you befriend? Huh?

I had a three-day weekend because I just wanted an extra day off. No occasion for it. Friday night... nothing worth reporting. Oh, I cleaned out my freezer. There was stuff in there from when I first moved in three years ago.

Saturday night, big party in honor of Lee moving into Damian's house (both those guys are linked over there) and Danny H.'s birthday (he will be linked soon but isn't yet due to laziness).

Lots of good folk there. I almost found myself in a quagmire of a political argument but luckily Scott showed up with his new sword and distracted everybody.


You might remember that last week his old sword was stolen. This sword is way better. So much more honorable.

Some little girl put a dinosaur on my head. Kids have the worst jokes.


Also, black velvet painting of a temple.

I wish I had more pictures of the party but I'm sure someone out there in the blog-o-sphere has some.

On Sunday I got really confused and thought it was still last Sunday so I drove for hours to visit an old mining town and cemetery. My life is reruns, man.

Actually, my mom up and adopted herself a cat. She spent weeks researching pet adoption sites and finally found one she liked in Rifle, Colorado. The foster parents agreed to meet halfway in Price, Utah so my mother and I had ourselves a little road trip.

The early morning got off to a bad start when the fowl conspired to block my egress.



They wouldn't move! I inched closer and closer and honked the horn, and more ducks would come sit in the road. So we didn't end up taking my car.

Morning sure is pretty. I wish I could see it more often.


Before we get to the journey, how about you meet the new cat.


She's a very regal thing, but still quite skittish. Haven't decided on a name yet. The final candidates are Sushi, Maneki-Neko, Wasabi, and Ricky.

The drive to Price is on the perilous Highway 6. Old school Microsuede readers will remember that I wrote about this last year. Sunday morning was great though. No traffic, clear skies. It's actually a nice scenic drive.


We had some time to kill so we stopped by the old mining town of Helper. It's aged much better than Eureka, and people still live there since the coal-mining industry hasn't dried up yet.

Old signs, yep.


The streets were empty because I guess everyone was in church. Or working the mines. Or dead.



Lies! Piggly Wiggly only operates in seventeen U.S. states.

On the way back I wanted to stop at an old cemetery just off the Highway. It's called Mill Fork, and the graves there are very very old but it's still maintained by the descendants.


This section contains fourteen unknown travelers that were killed by Indians in the 1800s.

Leaving the cemetery some IDIOT was overconfident in the four-wheel drive and got us stuck in the snow. That same idiot had to crawl around on his hands and knees digging snow with an empty water bottle between intervals of pushing and lifting the car. Luckily another wayward traveler happened by and helped out. Thanks, whoever you are.


Sunday night: THE SERIES FINALE OF THE WIRE!!! - 30 -


Monday, the third day. Now look, I complain alot about that goose that's alway hassling me. You might think I'm just goofing around but it's a serious problem. This is the view from my bedroom window Monday morning.


Nothing on my plate Monday except for going to the zoo to look at orangutans. Kind of ridiculous that I watch them on TV all the time but haven't bothered to go see them in real life when four of them are only minutes away.

The zoo has a two year old named Acara, and she's awesome.

Here's the father, Eli. He's like a big ball of chewbacca.



Eve, the mother. She seemed to be in some distress today and Eli and Acara tried to comfort her to no avail.


This cool customer is Talukan. He's in a separate area from the other family, all by himself.

He yawns alot.


The best part is when Acara came over to say hi.

I almost always have my laptop with me, and I pulled it out to try to take a picture with the Mac-Cam. That's when she first came over. She was fascinated with my computer. Every time I pulled it back out she came over to take a look.



Finally, here's a gorilla reading the paper.

triple two through two twenty four oh eight

Blogging. Just not feeling it right now. Forgive me if I'm terse. I think we'll start with the most important thing. There is a ghost at the Subway.



Spooky!

It was a movie rich weekend. Friday I watched In the Valley of Elah. Not as good as I wanted it to be. Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder is a helluva thing though.

Saturday morning text sent to Emily in a half-asleep haze:

"Hmmm, but sleeping is not bored for me. In fact is quite needed."

Saturday afternoon I made delicious cookies. The process was documented.

I got kinda stressed.

Here they are.

I never said it would be pretty, I only said it would be cookies.

That night Nati and I watched Shaun of the Dead, a movie I can watch any time, any place. I really like that movie.

I spent most of Sunday sitting around watching watching Project Runway. I mean, ESPN.

Tried to watch the Oscars, but maaaaan they were boring. Plus 60% of the show was devoted to showing clips of past Oscars. Quit trying so hard. "Hey! It's me! The Oscars! Remember when this happened? Do you? Remember John Wayne? Remember Bob Hope? LOVE ME DAMMIT!" The best part of the Oscars is when I left to watch Live Free or Die Hard. He killed a helicopter with a car.

No Country for Old Men won best picture. Can't say I disagree with that. I've been thinking and I'm pretty sure I've never lost anything significant in a coin toss.