Author: Josh

Morris the Mechanic
Posted on Wednesday, July 10 by josh
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Human Nature I thought this little story/joke that my Mom sent was pretty funny – seeing how I work for a hospital.

Also, when I was 18, I went to the National Youth Leadership Forum on Medicine in Washington D.C. This is when I was thinking about going into medicine.

While there, we went to all of the major hospitals in the area: Fairfax, Johns Hopkins, The Virginia Heart Center (and more, I just don’t remember the names of all of them). I think it was at the latter where we got to watch a live triple bipass from the observation booth. I’m glad I didn’t have any Junior Mints.

Anyway – here it is:

Morris the loudmouth mechanic was removing the cylinder heads from the motor of a car when he spotted the famous heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey, who was standing off to the side, waiting for the service manager to come take a look at his Mercedes.

Morris shouted across the garage, “Hey DeBakey! Is dat you? Come on ova’ here a minute.”

The famous surgeon, a bit surprised, walked over to where Morris the mechanic was working on the car. Morris straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked argumentatively, “So Mr. Fancy Doctor, look at dis here work. I also open hearts, take valves out, grind ’em, put in new parts, and when I finish dis baby will purr like a kitten. So how come you get da big bucks, when you an’ me is doing basically da same work?”

Dr. DeBakey leaned over and whispered to Morris the loudmouth mechanic:

“Try doing it with the engine running.”

Today blew by – even though I’ve been a little under the weather. David and I finished up our Interwoven Teamsite training today. Teamsite is our content management system that we’re using in the redevelopment of Scott & White’s new database driven website (look for it in September).

I ran a stop sign right in front of a cop today… Don’t know how I pulled that one off – guess it was luck. I didn’t actually run the stop sign, I just did a Hollywood stop. I guess I’ll have to be a little more careful now. I’m getting so used to the streets around here now that I’m starting to not pay as much attention.

Just found out that I lost a nice chunk of change in a certain stock investment. I decided to bite the bullet and check the rest of my portfolio – I almost cried. Luckily we’re still young so we can endure a recession or two – but it’s still scary. We haven’t received a statement from El’s broker regarding her mutual funds. I figure it’s probably not even worth the cost of printing.

The leprosy is starting to set in and take hold of my immune system…

I’ve been fighting some sort of ailment for 5 days now. I don’t know what it is, but my throat won’t decide if it wants to be sore or not. I’m lightheaded, I have a headache, I’m weak, I can barely keep my eyes open, my breathing is short, my muscles hurt, I’m queasy and I get this sporadic pattern of red bumps on my back and chest. Sounds like I should go to the doctor, eh? I’ll see how I feel tomorrow.

Elise got home from her extended weekend yesterday. We didn’t do anything fancy for her homecoming – we just sat on the couch and watched Austin Powers 2 then we both started falling asleep while watching National Lampoon’s Vacation, so we went to bed.

I was cleaning out some old emails recently. I came across this one again that still cracks me up. If you know Marshall, then you’ll understand.

Hope you guys are doing well, and that moving Elise has gone smoothly. As for me, there’s nothing new going on. Just sitting by the pool or Barton Springs every day, spouting off to anyone who’ll listen about how I used to work for a dot com that could’ve gotten somewhere had the stars been properly aligned. At which point they invariably walk away, leaving me to mutter into my cheap domestic canned beer all by my lonesome.

In short, it’s a great life. Hope you’re enjoying yours.

Just seems so true – that whole mental image.

I went to Austin late yesterday afternoon to spend the 4th with Tommy and Jeremy. I went to Tommy’s new apartment on Parmer near MoPac – he’s got a pretty nice little pad. There is quite a difference between north and south Austin. El and I decided long ago (prior to deciding to move to Temple) that if we were going to stay in Austin, we would move north.

Anyway, around 7 p.m. Tommy, Jeremy and I hopped into Tommy’s car and headed to Zilker Park. Much to our surprise, parking was simple. We came to find out later that we weren’t where all the ‘action’ was. That was fine with us. We found a nice, uncrowded spot and hung out to watch the fireworks. It was nothing fancy. I was really thinking there was going to be a big to-do this year in Austin. I was pretty disappointed. The show was still cool and all, I think I just had high expectations.

Then we drove to the outskirts of Austin and loaded up with some bottle rockets (shhhh). We drove out to the 360 bridge and, eh, well…. played checkers – yeah, that’s the ticket. There were a lot of other people out there playing checkers as well. So many people in fact that the cops came and made us all go home. Nobody got into any trouble, they just asked us to leave, so we did.

That was the extent of my 4th of July celebration. I took today off, so I’m sitting around being lazy. I just watched French Kiss, Ewwww – I was vegging out on the couch and getting all sappy – had to come check my email etc. so I wouldn’t start listening to El’s CDs and watching Trading Spaces. Guess I should go see what’s on Speedvision now!

Don’t know what the rest of the weekend will hold, better go dig out my spontaneity hat.

I just suprised myself…

Last night I was fishing through the freezer – I saw an unmarked slab of meat wrapped in butcher paper. I left it out overnight to thaw, thinking it was going to be another one of those awesome chuck roasts that my parents gave me – it was pork. This isn’t your ordinary swine either – this is wild hog caught on my parent’s property.

Anyway, I was little disappointed. I’m not the biggest fan of wild hog meat – it’s pretty gamey – and I prefer wild game. But this stuff, well – it has that different kind of gamey taste.

So, I had to think fast. I cut a bunch of slits in the meat and stuffed it with probably 7 whole cloves of garlic. Then I sauted some tomatos and paper thin garlic slices in some evoo, seasoned the meat w/ some kosher salt (almost curing it) and some fancy 3-corn fresh pepper. The I dropped it in the pan with some purple onions and covered it.

I cooked it on med-low for… I don’t know, a couple hours. After I couldn’t resist the smell any longer, I opened the pot, tried to lift it up by the exposed bone and the meat literally fell off.

So I started pulling it apart. At this point, Riley is at my feet begging. So I let him have the first bite. He seemed to like it. Then I tried it. Hmmmm – tasted too gamey. So I added some dried oregano. That helped, but not much. Basil – a little better. Then I remembered my lesson in East Coast barbecue. I added a few splashes of red wine vinegar. Awesome.

I’m thinking some long grain pecan rice and an apricot coulis… too bad all I have is tortilla chips and Hershey’s syrup. Oh well, the pork is great by itself.

After I watched motorcycle racing on Tuesday night, I got into motorcycle mode and watched Easy Rider. While doing that, I honed two of my favorite knives. I think I spent about 20 minutes on each one. Whew… talk about hair splitting.

I just went ape nuts with the message rules for Outlook Express 6. If El or I get any spam, I’ll be pretty damn suprised.

I’m thinking that the most effective will be the “If body message contains text: ‘to unsubscribe'” move to: “SPAM”.

We don’t subscribe to anything, so we won’t be missing much. At first I set the filter to immediately delete the message from the server, but then I thought I might get an email from a friend or family member who might need to say ‘to unsubscribe’. So I created a seperate Spam folder that can still be checked.

The crap you have to deal with.

I got up relatively early this morning. I hopped up, fumbled around for some quarters, grabbed my laundry basket along with some detergent and walked to the laundry room.

I was impressed that our apartment complex had installed new washers and dryers. I was not impressed when I couldn’t find a coin slot to save my life. All of the washers and dryers are equipped with some sort of card slot.

So, I look around for some sort of laundry card distribution contraption. Nothing.

And, of course, the leasing office is closed. I was pretty pissed. So, I guess it goes without saying that I’m going to have to go ‘commando’ for the rest of the day. I really hope the leasing office is open tomorrow.

“But Josh, why don’t you just go to a laundromat?” Yeah, try lugging your laundry on a motorcycle.

So I come home, already having started my day off on a bad note – I check my email… SPAM. Damnit – for as long as I’ve owned Janicek.com, I haven’t received any spam.

I try to nip this in the bud from the get-go. I set up an account with SpamCop… what a joke. So now I’ve been setting up spam filters on El’s and my email clients.

Now I have to figure out what I’m going to do tonight. I might just take my underwearless self and hop on the bike and head to Austin.

Elise left for Dallas today around 6. Tomorrow, her and Jenni are leaving for Iowa.

Everybody keeps asking if I’ll be okay…. YES!!! I will be fine. Geez – I guess I’m made out to be co-dependant. I love my wife and all, but I know how to work the toaster and change the toilet paper. Plus, I’m grinning right now thinking of all the leg room I’ll have in bed.

Anyway – El went to the grocery store and picked up some goods for yours truly (heh). She picked up some beer for me as well. So, after she left, I went to the fridge to make myself dinner and saw the beer. I smiled and thought: bachelor pad!

So, a grabbed a beer, nuked a pizza and cranked up Speedvision on the surround sound. I watched an AMA 600 Super Bike race. Kawasaki almost won – Honda pulled up in the last lap to win the race. I’m always torn between Honda and Kawasaki. I’ve actually never owned a Kawasaki, but the ZX7R has always been my dream bike.

When I was a wee lad, I had 2 little Honda 50cc dirt bikes (actually, I think they were originally Terri and Lisa’s). Then, when I was 17, my Dad bought my brother’s old 1976 Honda CB750 for $100. Dad and I piddled around with it in the garage for a while. It ran, but it backfired like crazy. I rode it around the pasture, but I knew my parents weren’t going to let me ride it to school. I don’t know what we did with that bike.

Motorcycles are just in my blood (from my Mom’s side I guess). I don’t think Dad likes bikes much. I don’t think Mom does either – she was the only girl. Get me around my Uncle Bill… {grunt}

We actually once had a cat named Panhead (another motorcyle reference). That cat was great. He was a solid white, long haired, gorgeous cat. He was extremely loyal as well. After I moved to Austin, I remember Mom telling me stories about how Panhead would stand between my Mom and a mother cow if they got ‘too close’ and the cow became angered and wanted to charge.

Panhead was always getting into something – but he always managed to stay as white as could be – even being a cow herder in the middle of the country. He died a while back either by being attacked by something he thought he could handle, or he got hit by a car. He couldn’t see that well either as we had to have his right eye removed after another fight he had.

Anyway – we inherited Panhead before we moved to Cat Spring. I think Bill’s ex named him before we got him. The Panhead is actually an early Harley Davidson model motorcyle.

I’m going to go to bed now… and hogging the WHOLE bed (sorry Riley – looks like you get the couch tonight!)

Josh wrote an entry yesterday about the plethora of H2O we now have stacked in our dining room. He also mentioned that I ran around town trying to use up the coupons. Alas, it is true. It’s not as though we were in desperate need of bottled water, but the idea of passing up “free” stuff is hard for me to contemplate. You see, I come from a long line of thrifty shoppers. It originates from my maternal grandmother’s side of the family. I’m told that it started during the Great Depression. There are even tales about my great-aunt driving across town just to save a few pennies on an item. (I guess somebody forgot to tell her about gas usage.) My parents and I even joke that if we need some off-the-wall item we can call Grandma T. and she’ll know the store that has that item on sale, or at least the best price. So you see, using coupons and bargain shopping are in my blood. I refer to it as being thrifty, not cheap.

I’m leaving tomorrow for Dallas. I’m going to spend the night with Jenni and then Wednesday morning she, her dad and I will leave for Des Moines, Iowa. I’m excited! I haven’t been home since Josh and I were there in September. I’m looking forward to spending some quality time with my parents and friends. I also get to see Heather’s baby, Juliet for the first time. Yea! I’m going to miss Josh though. I wish he could come along, but it isn’t to be. I’ll miss watching fireworks with you baby.

I found out the other day that I start a job through the temp agency on July 15th. I’ll be working for Sallie Mae (financial lender) in Killeen. I’ll be doing data entry work…yuck. The worse part about it is I had to buy some work clothes because the attire is business-casual. I didn’t mind getting new clothes, just spending the money. Josh and I think it’s ridiculous that I have to dress up to sit in a pod behind a computer all day. Oh well…

Hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th of July!

– Elise

Sometimes I just crack myself up. My Mom sent me a couple scans from the Hendee newsletter…

We lived in Houston until 1987 (I think). So I spent my childhood there. As do many kids, I played little league soccer. I think I played for 5 years. Our coach was Edd Hendee. His son, Edd K. was the same age as your humble narrator. Edd K. and I were friends. I think we even did the sleep over/slumber party thing.

Anyway, around this time, Edd and Nina (Edd K.’s parents) were working hard at their restaurant, The Taste of Texas. If memory serves me correctly, they started out making hamburgers, mexican food, chicken fried steaks, etc., etc. You know, Texas fare.

So anyway, the Hendees send my parents a newsletter every so often, letting folks know what’s going on in Hendee World. My Mom just emailed me a copy of said newsletter that was written by Lisa (the middle child). Last time I saw Lisa, I don’t think she was even speaking yet.

Well, now Lisa is about to go to grad school at UT. Edd K. is in San Diego with his wife while being a Lt. in the Navy. The youngest daughter, Kristen is about to go to college in Virginia. All the while they are taking trips in private planes to Cabo. Edd (dad) has dropped down to part-time on his radio talk show so he can work on his water skiing. His restaurant employs 200+ people. Nina is on all kinds of boards and committees. I was really waiting to hear the update on getting tires rotated on the Hummer H2 and the matching Viper.

I’m not complaining… I’m just envious. I know the Hendee’s are hard working people and deserve what they have received. Hell, if I were to be executed tomorrow, I would probably want my last meal to come from The Taste of Texas.

So anyway… Mom was having a hard time resizing this newsletter in Photoshop so I could read it. We finally finally got it figured out for her. I wrote her to tell her that I received the newsletter. Then I wrote:

“Okay – I could read them that time. Hmmm… must be nice to be able to fly
into Cabo whenever you please. I wonder what my boss would say if I said I
needed a little more water skiing time… Ha!

Oh well – on that note, I’m going to take my poor ass out into the rain and
go change the oil in my unemployed wife’s beat up late 80’s model truck.”

Circa 5 years ago, my parents gave me a handful of coupons (pronounced: kyew-pons) for free Sparklets water. I’m not talking about a small stack of coupons – a mondo bushel of coupons are what I’ve held onto for the past half decade. Anyway – they would have expired tomorrow. El realized this and went to almost every grocery store today to cash them in. You should see the foot of my kitchen. We have a gross of bottled water. If I wanted to, I could bath in bottled water for the rest of this week.

Know what the funny thing is? We’re so used to being poor that we refill our water bottles to make it seem like we’re drinking ‘fresh’ bottled water. So it’ll take us years to go through our newly aquired palette of water.

Monster Garage was on again tonight. I could watch that show all day, every day. Tonight I watched three consecutive episodes. On the first episode they made a garbage truck out of an Eddie Bauer Ford Explorer. Again they used a plethora of hydrolic pumps to power the motors that opened the hatch and released the claw which grabbed the garbage cans.

On the next episode, the made a fire engine out of an old limo. More hydrolic pumps. A lot of welding. It was pretty damn cool – and it actually put out a fire.

And I finally got to see them construct the 100 mph lawn mower out of a 5.0 Mustang. It’s unbelievable how they do this stuff. They have to do it with no more than $3000 and they have to make the vehicle look stock. I think that’s the coolest part. It reminds me of the days when I used to play w/ GoBots and Transformers.

I just found Super Mario Brothers for my Nintendo… I’ll be doing that for the rest of the evening.

Rain, rain, and more rain. It rained all weekend. I guess we really needed it, but it put a damper on my plans.

I just read something pretty interesting…. It’s kind of dated data, but interesting nonetheless. In 1994, the best value college education could be attained at the University of Texas at Austin. Second best was Texas A&M. First runner up was Baylor.

Also, did you know that it’s not proper to address or refer to a married woman by using Mrs. and her first name? For example: Mrs. Elise Janicek is improper. She should [formally] be addressed as Mrs. Josh Janicek, or Ms. Elise Janicek.

Anyway – it just started pouring again.

Friday night El and I hopped on the bike and went to Bruckbauer’s for pizza and beer. Our pizza was burnt. The entertainment for the evening was provided by DJ Dr. Time. The whole scene was pretty bad. It was like a junior high dance where everyone avoided the dance floor as well as any sort of interaction with the DJ, despite his pleas.

Once the DJ started playing, 80% of the crowd left. We stayed because El and I were deep into an existential discussion. Around 11, the crowd grew a little. The DJ made another attempt at audience participation…. “If you can tell me how hot it is in Texas, I’ll give you a prize.” Well, Elise won the prize. I can’t tell you what she said, but we made out with a nice Pokemon water bottle and a box of half eaten, charred pizza.

I got up on Saturday and started stitching the seat on the Shadow. I got about half way done and it started pouring. I came inside and worked on El’s computer and made some more soft pretzels. El’s machine is pretty much back to normal – minus all of her files. I reinstalled Kazaa and now she’s been working diligently on downloading mp3’s.

I deleted all of the replicated wedding photos on Janicek.com. I freed up almost 15 megs. While doing that, I listened to Eminem’s new CD – twice. Pretty good stuff.

Later in the evening we rented The Others and A Beautiful Mind. I didn’t like the latter. I fell asleep in the middle of The Others. Guess I’ll finish watching that today while it continues to rain.

I just finished stitching my seat. It looks pretty ghetto. Oh well, I guess I can officially call my bike a custom cruiser!

I’m making some more soft pretzels today. I’m getting pretty good at it. This batch is going to be wheat berry. The ones that I made last night were awesome. I could seriously run those mall kiosks out of business.

Today took forever. The hard part about working where I do is that it seems like everyone takes off on Friday, or at least leaves early. So you’re sitting there the whole day daydreaming about leaving early. I thought about jetting, but then I said: “Nah, I probably wouldn’t do anything worthwhile at home anyway.” So, I actually got some substantial work done this afternoon. Of course there is the nice occasional cube visit by a coworker that breaks the monotony.

I’ve already assigned myself a mission (a couple of them actually) for the weekend. First, stitch the trusty Shadow. Then, change El’s oil. Then, when it’s nice and toasty outside, I’m going to drink as much malt liquor as I can, eat some cottage cheeze, wrap myself up in afgan blankets to look like a ninja and sprint south on the I-35 shoulder. Then I’ll come home and shave my head with a cheeze grater to cool myself off and chew on some tin foil.

But really, I’m going to get the ol’ Pinnacle DC30 (video capture card) up and running properly. I can capture video, but not audio. I’m thinking about installing AfterFX as well. Assuming that all goes smoothly [yeah right], I think I’m going to start writing a script. I still really want a DV camcorder though – that would make things so much easier, what with a Firewire and all.

Oh yeah, I need to wash my bike too – and lube the chain. I think El and I will take the bike out tonight – once it cools down a bit.

When I got back to work from lunch today, a lady stopped me and asked where I got my bike… blah blah… she said her boyfriend was looking to buy a motorcycle. I told her I would sell him mine and I gave her my card – we’ll see.