I’m spending most of my Saturday “cleaning house”. I’m finding stuff that I don’t need and putting it on eBay. One item of which is my desktop Windows PC. I was cleaning the drives and found a video from almost ten years ago. It was a time shortly after I met a girl named Elise.
My friend Philip works offshore on an oil rig. This year they let the crew do some fishing during their off time.
Philip wrote and said he’s bringing back 40 lbs. of yellow fin tuna. I offered to cook so we’re going to have a full on tuna feast party extravaganza!
I’m thinking about wild berry and wasabi; mango habanero; cilantro, poblano & corn salsa. Maybe some roasted coconut rice… Can’t wait till next weekend!
Ever since buying my first iPod over two years ago I’ve been a big fan of Apple Computers (I have some old photos circa ’86 that my Mom scanned and e-mailed and I’m still looking for the one of me sitting in front of our first computer, an Apple IIGS Woz).
Shortly after buying that iPod I purchased stock in Apple. Since then I’ve made a nice chunk of change ($21/share back then). I like to keep up-to-date on new products from Apple because 1) I’m a consumer and 2) because I’m an investor.
I was excited when Apple invited the press for the recent “One more thing…” Special Event. All speculations were on a video iPod, which they announced. Cool, but I don’t really want or need a video iPod. Also announced was the new iMac. I read about it and wasn’t really impressed until I watched Steve Jobs’ keynote speech. I don’t care who you are, that’s a fun computer right there.
A few weeks ago I told my office manager that I was thinking about getting a new computer. I currently use a three-year-old Dell that is crapping out on me. Outlook does not work anymore no matter what I try (I’ve since switched to Thunderbird for work e-mail). Word opens when it wants to. I can no longer print PDFs for whatever reasons. Those crucial work-related applications that don’t work aside, my computer is now painfully slow. Keep in mind that I am anal about keeping my work PC in tip-top shape. I defrag and clean my drive regularly. I meticulously run antispyware scans and keep everything organized and “clean” overall. But to no avail. I don’t have time to troubleshoot anymore. I run a business. I’m busy and need a reliable computer for work.
So my office manager told me to buy a new computer. She understands listens to my nerdiness. I told her I was going to wait until October 12 to see what Apple was coming out with. I read about the new iMac and even though not thoroughly impressed, I showed my OM the iMac webpage. Prior to that I shopped the Mac mini as I’m seriously considering getting a Mac for my work computer (I’m really iffy about the hefty investment in an iMac [and what my boss would say]). After showing my OM the price for the iMac she responded, “Oh, wow! That’s not that bad!”
Wow! I’m on the fence. Maybe I should fall off the fence and land on the side that I know will still work in three years (and get a photo on the way to that other side!)…
Friday morning update: I got to work this morning and tried to print a shipping label.
Hmmm… So I tried printing a test sheet from Notepad.
Ahhh… yes, the RPC server. What the hell is the RPC server?
If my fist manages to make it through the day without going through my monitor it will be a good one.
I saw this trailer hitch adornment on the way in to work this morning.
Elise called me at the office this afternoon.
Elise: … so I think we should spend some more quality time with each other.
Josh: …
Elise: Did you hear what I just said? You weren’t even listening to me.
Josh: I’m waiting for this damn DNS record change to propagate…
Elise: ?
Josh: *sigh*
Elise: Is that like waiting on a B.M.?
I’ve always heard stories about Jehovah’s Witnesses and how they knock on your door and talk to you for extended periods of time trying to recruit new members.
There was a knock at the door last weekend. I was at home alone while Elise was working. I snuck up to the front door while trying not to step on a part of the hardwood that would make a noise and give away the fact that someone was at home. I eased my face to the peep hole and saw two girls standing outside the front door.
“All right, chicks!”, I thought.
I opened the door and was greeted by my two visitors. After polite introductions, one of the girls immediately started talking about the damage caused by hurricane Katrina and then something about Korea. She asked if she could leave some literature with me. I agreed to the leaving of the literature. I was gaining insight that this was a religious calling. I tried to muster some witty comment about needing to be excused because the goat’s blood on the stove was probably boiling over. I decided against being witty and instead gave them both a pair of these.
She said they would be back at a later time. We said our goodbyes, she handed me some pamphlets and I closed to the door. I looked down at my newly acquired literature to find imformation from The Watchtower Society. I’m not religious by conventional standards so I just threw the papers away.
The girls came back on Wednesday while Elise was home. She didn’t answer the door because she was actually boiling goats blood. Pregnant women have weird cravings. The girls came by two other times that day as well. Elise never answered the door.
So now I can say I’ve had Jehovah’s Witnesses come to my door. Stay tuned for the inevitable Elvis sighting.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about having headshots done. It would come in handy for my AIM account and one day I will change the world and it will be required that I have a headshot on the corporate website.
I was going through my digital photos tonight and all I could come up with was this:
Common sense. If it’s common, I guess there’s enough to go around. What’s a little extra?
That’s a really tough question. It’s like that Cinderella song, “Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone)”. If I were to lose a sense, I’d probably have to quit my job. Not that my job requires all of my senses but I would want to quit so I could evaluate what I would do for the rest of my life with my remaining 4 senses.
I would become a chef.
Now, what sense would I give up if I had to? I guess I’d have to give up hearing. It’s amazing what you hear while cooking if you really pay attention, but I think that’s the one to go.
Elise and I both didn’t sleep well last night. I was laying in bed, watching the Packers vs. Panthers game and could barely keep my eyes open. Elise was next to me, painfully inching her way around the bed trying to find a comfortable position so her back would stop hurting from an apparent urinary tract infection.
I turned off the game and it was then that I became restless. I layed still and thought about nothing. I started getting sleepy again. Then the cat meowed. And meowed. And meowed. We both layed there and thought he would eventually quit meowing. He didn’t. Elise is usually the one who gets up to take care of feline-related activities. She was bed ridden so I had to herd cats. Riley knows when I’m pissed so he ran and hid the moment he heard me getting out of bed. I left the back door open and walked away. Both cats ran outside.
I went back to bed and fell asleep soon after.
Dream #1: I’m carrying a large red barrel of full of finely ground human carcass and partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil to be dumped into the sewer at the northwest intersection of I-35 and Ben White. I don’t know why it was my job to dispose of ground up humans, but I was doing it. I remember looking into the barrel and realizing that there is nothing visably large enough that would distinquish the contents as human.
Dream #2: Same northwest intersection but now I’m in what used to be the Hawthorne Suites. Only now the suites are a dilapidated ghetto. There is looting and rioting. Gun shots are being fired from every direction. There’s a skinny androgynous black kid who is laying waste to almost every target in his path with a Tommy gun-style fully automatic shotgun.
I realize that I’m going to get shot soon if I don’t try to find a way out. I turn around in my steps and start heading back in the direction from which I came. A guy came through the door and pointed a gun at me. I dropped to my stomach and put my arms on the ground above my head as to surrender. I woke up.
Dream #3: I’m sitting on the bank of a huge, still lake at dusk. There is a cargo raft floating slowly toward the bank to my right. The cargo raft is carrying huge cubes of dreams stacked eight high and eight across. A dinosaur serpent with a long neck lifts its head from below the water and gently tosses the raft into the air and to the other side of the lake. I roll over in bed and the sequence starts again. This happened 3-4 times. I don’t know what cubes of dreams actually look like but my subconcious put them there.
Dream #4: I’m walking around the outside of our house and find the control area for an intricate sprinkler system under the office window. It looked like what I would imagine a plane cockpit to look like. I crouched down and got halfway into the control area and looked around. There was a GPS display and all sorts of buttons, knobs and levers. I thought, “Hmmm, all this time and I never knew we had a sprinkler system.”
Dream #5: I’m exploring our house again. I find a lower level that’s painted bright white. I walk into what is kind of like a garage. I turn a right corner and see a long, straight hallway. To the right is a white stairway that leads to what I would guess the main part of the house. In front of me are two moms and two non-descript children. They’re discussing spiders. The two moms can’t seem to remember the names of two of our indigenous poisonous spiders. I tell them that one is the brown recluse and the other is the black widow. They both ask what a brown recluse looks like. I tell them that it’s the one that has a voilin-shaped marking on its body. They asked about the black widow. At that point I look down at my white shirt. There is a tiny black widow, no larger than my pinky nail, on my abdomen. I point out the spider to the moms and chuckle. They both giggle as well. Then the spider takes off and crawls up the back of my shirt with breakneck speed. It felt like a spider a hundred times its size was clawing up my back and pulling my shirt down on the way. Then it stopped. My intuition told me that it was sitting on my shirt collar at the back of my neck.
I woke up. I kept shivering because I thought I had a tiny black widow on my neck.
What’s weird is it is very seldom that I remember my dreams. Each time I woke myself up last night I wanted to immediately go back to sleep to find out what I was going to get into next.
Elise has a really bad kidney infection (it might just be a urinary tract infection). She’s had them in the past but this one is the big daddy. This one has her out for the count. She had to leave work early today to come home to lay down. In the eight years that I’ve known Elise I think she’s missed two days of work due to being sick.
I stopped at Central Market on my home from work today so I could buy her a bottle of pure cranberry juice. She’s laying relatively flat and comfortable on the couch right now. She’s still in a lot of pain and is hoping it will go away on its own before her doctors appointment tomorrow afternoon.
To add insult to injury I got a letter from Humana today. I’m not insurable because I’m an expectant parent. Me. The father.
So when we have our child, will I be uninsurable because I’m a parent? Will the auto insurance company call and tell me I can’t have insurance because I have a car? Then what? A dropped homeowner’s policy because I have a house?
I never really paid attention during political debates when the topic was healthcare and insurance. I will now.
I love the smell of green peppercorns. I love the smell so much that I did some poking around to see if I could find a cologne that contained green peppercorns.
Here’s what I found:
FCUK Him contains head notes of sangria, basil, rosemary and lavender, a heart of hemp, New Mexican black sage, green peppercorns and tea leaves and a drydown of black suede, CO2 vanilla, ebony wood and patchouli. [link]
“Josh, you smell fantastic. What are you wearing?”
“FCUK Him!”
For those who don’t frequent Apple.com:
The website
The iPod nano is one of the hottest consumer electronics on the market right now. I thought it would be cool to do a spoof on Apple.com’s current incarnation to make public the news that Elise and I are expecting.
Janicek nano — Millions of cells. Impossibly small.
No, we’re not going to name our first-born “Nano” and “Maly” hasn’t been discussed.
Tonight I grilled New York strips topped with smoked mustard seeds and green peppercorns as well as sauteed cipollini and garlic. On the side: garlic mashed potatoes with bacon drippings.
This meal was inspired by our recent anniversary dinner at the Driskill Grill here in Austin.
Staples in steak grilling now are smoked mustard seeds and peppercorns. If someone hasn’t already created a cologne based on green peppercorns, I’m doing it… they have an amazing aroma!
