eBay bidding courtesy of TWX

Aside from the $100/month pricetag, I knew there was a good reason we that we don’t subscribe to Time Warner’s digital cable.

I have a tendency to get a little trigger happy on eBay.

“But we need a Mork and Mindy talking toilet paper dispenser.”

I remember many years back, back in my college days and shortly after Elise and I started dating, I was up really late and lost count of how bany meers I had when all of the sudden an informercial spoke to me:

“…Call within the next ten minutes and we’ll give you, yes, give you, for free, two bonus CDs of nothing but 80’s Power Ballads. That’s a total of 14 CDs for three low monthly payments of only $39.99…”

I did the math as best I could at 4 a.m. and decided that I needed 14 CDs of nothing but radical 80’s rock. I still have those CDs too. I ripped them all and some of the songs are actually on my iPod. When one comes on, I skip to the next song.

Job: one year ago

I had a weird feeling today – that something significant happened a year ago on this date.

Since then my worklife has done a 180 and been kicked into high gear. Aside from the headaches I can say that I’m happy with my job. A little over year ago I wasn’t as happy with my job.

My then-boss had the staff on a “performance-based” pay structure. If our outside sales staff didn’t hit their numbers, the rest of us took dings on our paychecks. When then-boss would hand out paychecks, he’d say something like “Well Josh, looks like we didn’t hit our sales numbers this month. I know it hurts. Trust me, I’m feeling it too.”

I’d think: “Yeah right.”

This “performance-based” pay meant that your humble narrator was often shorted 33% of my monthly salary. Don’t get me wrong, this program swung both ways. If sales exceeded their quota, I would get a bonus on top of my salary. That happened once – to the tune of a few inconsequential dollars. All other checks that year took significant hickies.

I casually searched for other jobs but aside from paycheck theivery, I enjoyed my job. I rode my bicycle to work, my coworkers were my friends, I was learning and my job kept me busy.

Then one day now-boss and his wife came into the office and said “then-boss is no longer with the company.” I was given a promotion a week later and soon learned why then-boss was fired.

In that week when I didn’t have a direct manager, I wrote down questions, company procedures, to do lists, job descriptions and a poem about an deaf-mute butterfly who suffers from a gender identity crisis.

Most of my questions were for now-boss. The most important question was quickly answered: No more “peformance-based” pay. We put our sales staff on a commission-only pay structure, cut costs, moved production in-house, called on accounts receivable and pushed inside sales. Now I work for and manage the operations of a successful small business. Not bad for one year.

I miss working in Austin. What I miss most is riding my bike to and from work. You see a lot when you ride a bicycle.

I also miss being close to the house. I used to go home for lunch and escape for an hour. I used to be able to meet Elise for lunch. It’s harder for me to run errands during the day. I can’t run over to the bank. I don’t really like the commute to Marble Falls. I do it though because I have to. It’s a dangerous drive and that’s two hours of my day dedicated to driving. Driving, not cycling – polluting the air, costing me gas money and cutting into time when I could be writing about transgender butterflies.

First diaper change

Josh changes his first diaper

John and Christine did a little house shopping on Saturday. Elise and I babysat Jack. Shortly after John and Christine left our house, Elise put Jack down for a nap. Shortly after that, Elise had to go to work. Your humble narrator and Jack were home alone. About an hour after Elise left, Jack woke up. I picked him up out of his crib and we went and sat on the living room floor and talked.

Jack sits up on his own now so it makes conversation a lot easier. We talked mostly about girls. I explained to him how society has adopted an image of what female beauty is by means of television and magazines. He absorbed that pretty quickly and mentioned how earlier this week he was at HEB and while waiting in the checkout line, he noticed the recent issue of Cosmo that features Jessica Simpson on the cover. He said he thought Jessica Simpon is quite an attractive young lady, but he prefers a woman who can provide vast intellectual stimulation.

I decided to play a few tunes on the guitar for Jack. I’m really out of practice but he didn’t seem to care. He sat there and closely watched both of my hands. When I finger picked a song, he watched my left hand on the bridge. When I strummed, he watched my right hand.

Midway through my third song Jack leaned back, held his breath, clenched his body and a sound came from his backside that could easily compete with his dad’s. I looked at him for a while. I looked away and thought about what that noise might have been. I looked at him again. He looked at me. I looked away. He was still looking at me. Then I smelled something.

I looked at Jack again. “Jack, did you just fart?” He didn’t say anything. “Jack, you farted, right?… That was just a fart, wasn’t it?”

“Uncle Josh, I just pooed my pants and now you’re going to have to do something about it.”

I have never changed a diaper. This was a new challenge for yours truly.

I called John for a consult. Specific things you need when changing a 6 month-old’s diaper: a diaper and approximately seventeen wet wipe things. John warned me that Jack might pee on me while changing him so I’d need to put a wet wipe thing over his “thing”. I hung up the phone.

With Jack in tow, I walked to the dining room to find a diaper out of the diaper bag. I couldn’t find one as I didn’t know how a diaper bag worked. We have a full bag of diapers in our house for occasions like this. We also have a box of wet wipe things. Left arm has Jack, right arm has bag of diapers, I have a box of wet wipe things between my legs and I have to walk across the house because I was instructed that I am to change Jack on our bed. So I’m duck waddling through the house with a box of wet wipes twixt my thighs, John calls so now I have a phone attached to my shoulder and Jack thinks that this is the perfect time to pick my nose.

I somehow made it to the bed. I removed Jack’s diaper and was greeted by it. Well, it was more like them. Three little gifts resembling tootsie rolls for Uncle Josh to deal with. What’s worse is there was a bit of backside paint smears.

I stuck my chest out, accepted the task, grabbed a wet wipe thing and gagged. I have an iron stomach but I swear to you that I almost threw up on my Godson. I seriously almost lost my lunch. That was absolutely one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.

The whole process only took me about 20 minutes and I think I did a mighty fine job. It’s not a job that I like, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

Dodge Charger

I saw the end of a commercial for the new Dodge Charger this evening. Why can’t they just sell the damn concept car?!?!


The one I'd buy
“Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”
[Concept car]

Grocery getter
“I’m on the way to Hobby Lobby to pick up party favors for my scrapbooking party”
[Consumer model]

I\’m thinking of a cutting board

1. It is classified as Other.
2. Is it used for entertainment? Doubtful.
3. Does it have a hard outer shell? Yes.
4. Does it break if dropped? No.
5. Is it a synthetic material? No.
6. Do you clean it regularly? Yes.
7. Can you put something into it? No.
8. Is it smaller than a golf ball? Depends.
9. Do you hold it when you use it? Maybe.
10. Can it be chewed? Rarely.
11. Is it smaller than a loaf of bread? Sometimes.
12. Does it have a handle? Depends.
13. Is it made of metal? Maybe.
14. Can it fit in an envelope? Depends.
15. Can you use it at school? Maybe.
16. Is it a common household object? Yes.
17. Do you use it at night? Sometimes.
18. Does it usually have four corners? Usually.
19. Is it found in a bathroom? Doubtful.
20. I guess that it is a table? Close.
21. Can it be stolen? Yes.
22. Do you use it at work? Depends.
23. Would you use it in the dark? Doubtful.
24. Is it brown? Depends.
25. Can you open it? No.
26. Is it small? Depends.
27. Does it have legs? Rarely.
28. Does it get wet? Sometimes.

Q29. I am guessing that it is a cutting board?

Play here.

Perpetual doghouse

I’m in one of those funks where every time I open my mouth, I’m in trouble. I can be 100% right and I’m the one who gets in trouble. It’s gotten so bad that this funk has slipped into my subconcious.

I was driving home this evening and thinking about work. I was focusing my thoughts on how we’ve moved 99% of marketing production in house and how our backlog turnaround has been exponentially truncated in the past 12 months. I thought “Man, if I could only find a good deal on a paper guillotine, I could get new signups out the door in a couple days.”

Yes, I had a day dream about a paper guillotine.

My next vision was of my marketing coordinator mangling her hand with the guillotine. I rushed to the rescue. As I made my ER doctor-like dash I grabbed a sweater that was draped over one of the chairs in the office. I used the sweater as a tourniquet and a blood soaking rag.

I thought I was doing the instinctive and right thing. I got my ass reamed by the other girls in the office for getting the sweater soaked with blood.

I just can’t seem to win.

Mother\’s Day wrap-up

We drove to Cat Spring to spend Mother’s Day weekend with my parents. We got to their house around 8, Elise and I ate dinner, talked to my parents for a while and then watched “Supersize Me”.

On Saturday Dad and I ripped the frame off of the compost pile and spread compost throughout the garden. Mom and Elise stuck their asses in the air practiced Hatha Yoga.

Mom & Elise doing Hatha Yoga

Later that afternoon we drove into Katy so we could shop mountain bikes. Elise and I revisited our differences in bicycle criteria. That’s French for “we had an argument”. Elise thinks I should own a bicycle that will allow me to gently traverse the marshmallowy terrain of Nerfland. I need a bike that’s fireproof, bulletproof, can take a 10 foot straight drop with a rider, a missle launcher, dual intake jet boosters, a sno cone machine and a whammy bar. Really I just want the current version of my old bike, a Specialized Hardrock. It was a great bike and I liked how it rode.

Our disagreement was relatively short lived and the four of us soon found ourselves browsing the aisles at Specs. I picked up a couple bottles of scotch with my new Specs membership for $3 less than I normally pay. Mom got a bottle of her spiced rum. While there I also picked up a couple filets of ostrich. Specs is a really cool gourmet spot that will be in Austin soon (so I was told by the cashier).

We stopped in Sealy on the way home and picked up 16 peice box of fried chicken at Hartz. I hate the Hartz Mountain Corp. but love Hartz Chicken. It’s comfort food from my days as a kid growing up in Houston.

We went home, ate greasy fried chicken and then watched the “Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Again” on DVD. Mom and dad went to bed after the movie and Elise and I stayed up and watched SNL.

We slept in on Sunday. I got up and cooked Ostrich Diablos – Hickory smoked ostrich filets wrapped in maple smoked bacon with red D’Anjou pear, jalapeno and mom & dad’s home grown figs, dehydrated and soaked in a reduced balsamic vinegar.

For an early dinner mom and I made an orzo and pea salad with mint pesto. I baked a ham and we all sat down for dinner. Just after dinner it was about time for us to head back to Austin. It had rained all day and subsided long enough for us to have a clear trip home.

A relaxing weekend is always broken up by the sound of the alarm early on Monday morning. The rat race started again today.

Smoke free Austin

A smoking ban was passed in Austin on Saturday with 52 percent. The Live Music Capital of the World won’t be the same. Bars and nightclubs will suffer. The nightlife will become cookie cutter and boring. The prohibition has been revisited.

Austin is now sterile.

Smoking is bad. Now that no one can smoke in bars and nightclubs, no one should be able to drive either. “Keep Austin Weird” bumper stickers should be replaced with “Make Austin Like Every Other City”.

Elise and I drove to my parents’ house on Friday evening to stay for the weekend. Voting was held in Austin on Saturday. The Saturday before Mother’s Day. I thought that was convenient. Austin is the home of one of the largest universities in the country. All of those students (who frequent bars and nightclubs) probably traveled out of town to visit mom and weren’t able to vote. Coincidence?

HartzVictims.org submission that wasn\’t quite thought through

It’s this time of year until September that I get a swarm of activity over at HartzVictims.org. Along with all of the sad victim stories, I get many entertaining stupid questions.

HartzVictims.org

Sender’s Name: Kym
Sender’s Email: someone@somewhere.com
Message: can someone please tell me other than pets dying, what is so bad about hartz products? i adopted a cat a few months after my miscarriage, so he is my baby now. i just took him to the vet yesterday and found he had fleas. we also have a kitten at home so we got hartz flea treatment. this is the first time i have seen or heard anything about the hartz products. so i would appreciate any information. thanks

Getting fat

I left work early today because Elise and I wanted to make it to mom & dad’s house early. I left work hungry. I wanted something quick. I drove by the Subway in Marble Falls. As I drove by and looked through the windows, I could see that the store was packed. I don’t like eating in the car so I opted out of getting a to go order. I don’t like eating alone near other people so I wasn’t going to eat in the store. And from previous dine-ins I know there is an employee whose job it is to wipe the front door handle. That’s all he does. He wears his open top Subway tennis hat and stands at the front door. When the door handle is clean, he stands there, back against the door and eyes dining patrons. That drives me nuts.

So I drove past Subway and found myself in line at Whataburger. It’s going on 1:30 p.m. and I’m really hungry. The signs and banners tell me that I need to order a #5 Value Meal. A Whataburger with bacon, cheese and jalapenos. I order my lunch.

“Do you want to ‘Value Size’ your meal, sir?”

“Sure”

I was handed my receipt, order number stanchion and my Value Size 32 oz. plastic cup. I filled my cup with ice and Dr. Pepper. I strategically found my booth that would allow me to eat without making eye contact with strangers and my food was brought to me shortly thereafter.

I ate at Schlotzsky’s earlier this week. When your food is ready, you hear a voice that says “Number 125, your order is ready.”

You have to physically get out of your booth and fetch your lunch from the counter. Not at Whataburger. You flop your ass onto a plastic bench and someone brings your 1200 calories to you and says thank you.

I devoured my hamburger. I like Whataburger because it makes me think of Texas fast food. Hot hamburgers with mustard (not mayo) and a jalapeno slice in every bite. Yummmm.

I ate all of my fries too. I remember being a kid and fries used to come in a tiny paper sack. Not now. My Value Size Whataburger fries came in a mini popcorn tub.

I didn’t need to eat all of my fries, but I did. It was my obligation as an American consumer. I watched myself eat those fries. The angel spoke. The devil spoke. The devil won. Fancy catsup and all.

I made my way back to Austin with a belly ache. I immediately remembered John’s post on the movie “Supersize Me”. I decided to rent the movie on the way home.

We made it to mom & dad’s this evening, chatted for a while and I put “Supersize Me” in. Mom & dad went to bed early. Elise and I watched the whole movie plus the extra footage. What really stood out in my mind from the movie was the part about addictions. Fast food addictions and bad eating are prevalent and most of us are victims. I’m a victim now and I can acknowledge the addiction. Just this week I’ve eaten fast food three times. Schlotzsky’s on Tuesday, Margarita’s (a local spot in Marble Falls) on Thursday and Whataburger today. I haven’t stepped on a scale in a while but I’d be willing to bet anything that I’ve gained a few pounds.

After the movie I mentioned to Elise that I understand that addiction. I’ve thought about this for a few years now. Two years ago I decided to exercise more. I started Tae Kwon Do again and started riding my bicycle to work. Tae Kwon Do has been great but the best part was riding my bike eight miles a day. Since our bicycles were stolen and consolidating offices in Marble Falls, I don’t get enough exercise. I really miss the daily exercise and I can see how that has significantly affected my diet. When you’re physically stagnant and eating crap, you tend to crave stagnancy and consume crap for nourishment. Saturated fats and sugars provide a rush – just like riding a bicycle.

I’m going to hone the angel and hop on the bike… err, buy a bike.

First Flambe

I put a frozen salmon filet in the fridge on Sunday night to thaw. I decided to cook it last night because I didn’t want it to go bad (we’re going to mom & dad’s for Mother’s Day this weekend). I didn’t want a plain sauteed piece of fish so I decided to make a sauce.

I threw some mango, purple onion, chicken stock, blah blah blah into a pan. It didn’t smell all that great. I decided to throw in a couple shots of triple sec and tilt my pan over the gas flame. Boom. Flambe.

Sauce tasted like shit but fire is fun as all hell.

Hmmm... sauce