WTF?!?!?!

This one just makes my brain hurt.

Crappy Holidays

As happens every year about this time, my car insurance come due at the first of December. Paying it is not a problem, but I hate the timing as it takes that money away from my holiday gift shopping. To make up the difference I usually have to put some things on my credit card, which I hate as much as paying my insurance.

With my pay day falling on the last day of November, I used my lunch hour to take care of two unpleasant tasks at once: dropping off a payment at my insurance agent's office and another monthly installment on my braces at my orthodontist. I won't say how much money was paid out, but it was a chunk of change. Planning my route in advance, I headed to my orthodontist's office first. As I got close to his office I had a strange sense of deju vu all over again. The last time I went to his office on my lunch hour I encountered a family being dispossessed from their home. This time was no different, except for the day, as I again encountered a family being dispossessed from their home. I dropped off my payment and headed to my insurance agent's office. When I got there, I jokingly told him that the money I was paying him was taking away from my buying presents for my daughter. It then occurred to me that my budget could take the pain, at least I could pay my expenses and have some money left over to go Christmas shopping. That was likely not the case with the family being dispossessed just around the corner.

If I stop to think about it, I'm very lucky and very fortunate at where I am in my life right now. I have a wife, a daughter, a home...things I wasn't sure I'd ever have in my life just a decade ago. I have a number of good and reliable friends. I like my job, the people I work with, and enjoy the responsibilities I'm entrusted with each day. I indulged my love of photography and created an account on Flickr. In the past few months I've made a number of contacts through that who are good people whom also share a love of photography. It's also challenged me to learn my camera and what it's capable of so I can take better, more technically demanding pictures.

So this holiday season I'm not going to bitch about having to pay my car insurance. All things considered, it could be worse. Just ask the family who was dispossessed from their home last week. Or the parents of a student at the university where I work who just had to bury their 22 year old son who died from a bacterial infection last week as well.

Height of laziness

I admit to cutting a few corners in jobs I've had in the past. By and large I used that tactic to help get a job done more quickly when possible and without compromising the task being done. The building I currently work in is over one hundred years old. It was renovated in 2003 and aesthetically they did a good job. But as with any renovation job where the absolute low bidder gets the contract, there are a few flaws. The basement is a source of concern, as water has leaked through the courses between the bricks in certain spots on more than one occasion. It's a potentially dangerous situation because the water will weaken the aging mortar between the bricks. This resulted in the entire foundation in the front of the building to be excavated and resealed (again).

At the end of 2003 they tore off the roof to replace it. Nobody thought to check out how the water drainage system works in the building, and wound up creating multiple breaks in the century old downspout system where the pipes enter the attic space. Almost every office space on our floor received some sort of water damage whenever it rained. My office still bears the scars of the water leak above my work space. Needless to say the roofing contractor was called back on a number of occasions to fix the leaks. And for a while it looked as if they succeeded--until this morning.

Late this morning one of our faculty members came running down the hall to tell me he had water leaking from the sprinkler head in his office. Naturally, fearing the sprinkler head might burst (also not a first in this building) I hustled to the ultra-safe and structurally sound basement to grab some plastic sheeting we have in storage from the first round of leaks. The physical plant workers were called, and a plumber showed up a short time later. After a quick check up in the attic he announced that the problem wasn't leaky plumbing. It seems that the roofing contractor set a five gallon bucket under one of the broken downspouts and it finally overflowed. I'm assuming that one of the Hispanic workers thought the contractor said "bucket" when he asked about fixing that one downspout.

As predicted

It rained last night, which is good. Apparently we have governor Sonny Perdue, who looks like the love child of Curly Howard and Boss Hogg (Dukes of Hazzard), to credit for the rain. On Wednesday he led a group of a few hundred people on the steps of the Georgia state capitol in a prayer session in an attempt to ask God for rain. As he only included a Christian God, it's possible he may have prayed to the wrong god. Perhaps Mohammed, Buddha, Vishnu, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster could've helped us by now. We'll never know. But one thing's for certain: I credit Sonny's office staff keeping tabs on the Weather Channel's web site and their ten day forecast for the coincidental timing of prayer session and the rain.

Of course the rain was part of a strong cold front that's currently blowing in from the northwest. The NSW issued a wind advisory for this area yesterday afternoon, which is not good. My first thought was that strong, gusty winds combined with trees weakened by a severe drought is not a good combination. So far my guess has been correct. First thing this morning a number of building on campus lost power when a tree limb fell onto a power line. I've been listening to the local police scanner today and there have been multiple calls about trees down, including one that landed on someone's car (and they've issued another tree down dispatch as I wrote that sentence).

I love windy days, but I hope it settles down soon. In a few hours I'll have to walk to my car under a canopy of nearly century old oak trees, which are pretty damned big, pretty damned heavy, and pretty damned weakened by the severe lack of rain here.

Note to self....

Don't watch Robot Chicken while eating lunch, unless you can do the Heimlich on yourself after aspirating food while laughing.

Conserving

With the drought in the south already pretty bad and apparently to get worse, trying to conserve water has become a priority at my home. We've done little things, like not running the dishwasher, short showers where the water is turned off when shampooing or soaping up, setting only two laundry days per month. Over the weekend we got our water bill. I knew what we have been doing was working as the amount was less than in the past. Calculating our total water usage compared to a few months ago, we've managed to cut our usage by 20%. That's pretty good, especially with an eight year old at home who likes to play in the sink but also understands that water is too hard to come by these days just to waste on washing Barbie's hair.

Endorsement

Rudy Ghouliani scored what some people are saying is a significant endorsement from Pat Robertson. Riding that 9/11 horse apparently plays well with the evangelicals these days. I guess they're willing to overlook his multiple divorces, his stand on abortion, and occasionally taking to crossdressing. It certainly looks like they're okay with these sins for the sake of partisan politics and electing a Republican who's willing to kill and torture as many "terrorists" as possible. And Rudy seems to be their man...or woman, depending on the day and time and how "fresh" Rudy's feeling at the moment.

Getting caught up

Hello, blog. It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted but things have been busy. At home my daughter's been sick, at work I've been occupied trying to get final teaching assignments done for spring. Class planning is challenging and at the same time a combination of being fun and a pain in the ass. But for the moment, I'm working on a newsletter from our department to be sent to our alumni to let them know what we've been up to and to ask for money (the money part is really the reason for doing this). I'm almost done typing in the text of the letter that our department head wrote, and my impression is given the tone of what he's written, this will be as successful in raising funds as Planned Parenthood sending solicitation letters to members of the 700 Club. Cultivating relationships with alums takes time and a fair amount of ass-kissing. This newsletter will not achieve either of those goals. Were I to get this letter, I'd read it, mumble "F-you buddy,"and throw it in the trash with mixed feelings about the department. Then again, whenever I get unsolicited letters from my alma mater, I usually mumble "F-you, buddy," trash the letter, and move on with my life.

Addiction

I've become hooked on a few diversions of late. Fortunately they're nothing along the Robert Downey, Jr. lines of addictions. Mine are legal yet still more than likely killing off massive amounts of brain cells. One in particular has become a fairly prevalent time killer. Some months ago I found a web site that allows you to listen to various police and fire scanners. For the longest time I had been listening to the scanner for a neighboring county. For the most part it's pretty boring, a lot of traffic stops, routine calls to respond to home alarms that have gone off for whatever reason, and the occasional EMS dispatch (which can be interesting, including the time they were dispatched to a fire station for a guy who cut off a couple of his fingers and went there only to find the station empty, everyone off on a call).

Within the past six weeks the scanner for the town I live in finally came online, and I'm hooked on listening to it. Like the neighboring county, there are a lot of boring traffic stops and alarm calls, but it's interesting to hear the dispatches because I now know exactly what's going on in town. When I get on my laptop at home later in the evenings I often will go to the scanner page and start listening there using earphones so as to not bother anyone. I may need professional help to kick this addiction. But it's going to be hard, because as I write this I'm listening to transmissions from police and fire/rescue maybe half a mile from where I am at the moment about a dead black male floating face down in the river that runs through town. Now I'll fall prey to the gambler's fallacy that if I continue to listen in the future I'll hear something just as interesting.

Bummed

Today at lunch time I had to run over to my orthodontist's office to pick up a mouthguard for myself. It'll help whenever I play any sports and when I sleep at night to keep me from damaging my new (and expensive) braces. On my way back to my office I happened across one of the saddest scenes I've encountered in a long, long time. At a stop sign I noticed a sheriff's car in front of a house to my right. It was then that I noticed the front yard was covered with personal belongings. An sheriff's eviction crew was busy at work dispossessing an elderly couple from their home. My good mood for the day was immediately quashed when I saw that. It's one thing to read the news stories of the slumping housing market and people being forced from their homes, or to see the foreclosure notices in the newspaper. But it's another thing altogether to actually see the effects of our teetering economy first hand, especially when it involved senior citizens. I missed the Great Depression the first time; it would seem that history is repeating itself for a whole new generation to enjoy.

Done

It's over and official. When I got my reminder calls from my orthodontist last week, they told me it takes roughly ninety minutes to put braces on, and they were absolutely right. Makes sense that they would know what they're talking about considering they do that sort of thing every day. I entered their office around 10:20 this morning and left just before noon looking like the character of Jaws from the 1979 James Bond movie, Moonraker. No pain, just an odd sensation of pressure being applied to my teeth. I knew that keeping my braces clean would be a challenge, but dinner this evening was a harsh reminder. After eating I checked my teeth in the mirror only to find large pieces of food caught in the brackets and wires. And to think I get paranoid if I suspect I have a small piece of food caught in my upper teeth. The next couple of years are going to be quite interesting.

I must say that I'm enjoying watching my N.Y. Giants lay a smack down on the hapless Atlanta Falcons as we reach halftime.

Oh poopie!

I've got so many appointments and dates on my calendar at the moment I don't know whether I'm coming or going. So it's nice whenever I get reminder calls from my doctor's or dentist's office of upcoming appointments. Today I got not one but two reminder calls from the orthodontist for my appointment on Monday. After my last appointment a couple of weeks ago I was not exactly sure what we were going to be doing this next time in the process of getting my mouth ready for braces. They put spacers between my upper molars the last time, so I'm looking forward to getting them taken out so I can floss. But I was sure that my third and last visit (for now) on November 6 would involve actually putting the braces on my teeth.

Wrong.

In both of my reminder calls I was asked if I was ready to get the braces put on, because that's what on the agenda for Monday's appointment. Crap. I wasn't expecting that but I guess I'm ready for it. Kind of getting used to my mouth being sore: it was sore after my oral surgery in August, it was sore for a week after they put the spacers in. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Needless to say this coming weekend will be a gastronomical orgy of tooth enamel gouging foods, snacks, and candy that I won't be able to eat until November 2009 (at least).

In the Booth

Happened across another interesting web site today, this one called In the Booth. It features 15 pages of pictures taken from photo booths that used to be commonplace, now just novelties in malls. Some of the pictures on the site are interesting, some are funny, some are just plain strange--like the one here where the girl is apparently posing with her recently deceased boyfriend. If you'd like to find out for yourself, click here!

Sometimes they write themselves

Kids get excited about the most simplest of things, don't they?

While you weren't looking...

...the national debt ceiling was quietly raised to $9.8 trillion. I'd say invest in gold, but at this point I think weapons and ammunition are better investments.

Priorities

In what to me seems like an awful sense of priorities, our president is set to veto a bill funding the State Children's Health Insurance Program. He as well as other members of the GOP are objecting that the bill increases spending on the program by $30 billion and raises the income eligibility level to $80,000 per year. Clearly the GOP thinking here is that the lower strata of the middle class are doing just fine and don't need this type of assistance. Just ask Joe Bluecollar, who's just had his house foreclosed on, and I'm sure he'll tell you he's in great shape. But the duplicity here is simply amazing. The GOP balks at increasing spending for a valuable health care program by $30 billion, yet has no problems with Robert Gates going hat in hand to Congress asking for another $190 billion for our goodwill tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Support the troops, to hell with our children. So now children who do not have health insurance will be paying visits to emergency rooms across the country, which are obligated to treat them. Who's going to pay? We are, one way or the other. Hospitals, already dealing with major reductions in payments from Medicaid and Medicare, will be eating the costs of these unpaid ER visits in terms of layoffs, creating fewer jobs, and in some instances, outright closures. But on the bright side, things could be worse; they could appoint Blackwater Security to oversee the health programs. Multiple 5.56mm rounds are the cure all for any illness you may have. Sorry, george, but with your veto you've failed the American people again.

42*

It's that time of year again--my birthday's here whether I want it to come around or not. And I'm getting a pretty good present today: rain! Sounds kind of corny but consider I can almost walk from shore to shore in the river that's the main water supply for the town and we have less than a two months supply of water left, rain is greatly appreciated. I also got spacers put in around my upper molars, step one in the process of getting braces! Joy! I can't find the short video clip of Cartman singing "It's my birthday!" so I'm posting this clip below. Remember, it's uncensored South Park, so there's some potty mouth that some people might not like. Doesn't bother me a bit, though.

Gopher moat

Having grown up with the Super Friends/Wonder Twins cartoons like this, I find this one very funny. Hope you do too.

Avast, me hearties!

It's September 19, which means it's International Talk Like a Pirate Day! ARRRGGGH!!



And leave Blackbeard alone!

The Juice Ain't Loose

What do the following things have in common: OJ Simpson, a canker sore, a big ol' zit, Jehovahs Witnesses at your front door, Paris Hilton, and George W. Bush? They're all things/people you wish would go away but for whatever reason they simply don't. The only thing worse than a narcissistic sociopath who thinks he's a one-man police force kicking in doors and terrorizing memorabilia dealers with guns is a narcissistic sociopath who's gotten away with murder, as he's committed the worst crime imaginable and gotten away with it. A concept like culpability has no meaning to people such as OJ. When I was growing up OJ was one of my gridiron heroes. Now he's just a sad, pathetic man. True, OJ owes me nothing for my youthful admiration. But he's the reason why I no longer hold any professional athlete in any esteem.

Dance of the Notre Damned

Another Saturday of watching college football. A hint of fall weather moved in today, which is nice when one is watching college football. A few surprises and upsets: Kentucky beat Louisville, a weak Auburn got beat by Mississippi State. A few not-so-surprises: Florida beat up on Tennessee, USC stomped Nebraska. One treat today was watching the battle of the winless Michigan and Notre Dame. Can Notre Dame suck any more than they have? I mean, their offense has only generated six points in three games (the team's only touchdown coming from their defense) while their quarterbacks have been sacked fifteen times already. If I'm not mistaken, the ND offense has generated negative yardage in their first three games so far. I think a top notch quad-A high school team could take down ND right now. My dad was a Notre Dame fan, so he's probably spinning in his grave right now. And so is Knute Rockne.

OMFG

Another reason why I fucking HATE EMO!!! Yeah, it's a guy, or he was born a male. Somewhere along the way he lost whatever "testicular fortitude" he ever had. Time to go run a crimson bathtub, kid. Oh, and fuck you, you whiny little shit.

From our Department of WTF?

Meet Carlton Davis. Carlton, say HI to everyone, would you? Carlton has an appetite for sole food. No, that's not a typo, I said sole food. He was arrested in St. Paul, Minnesota for mugging a 24 year old female. After taking her purse and cell phone, Carlton announces to his victim, "Now I'm going to suck your feet," which he proceeds to do. And if his story wasn't strange enough, dig his mugshot. He looks like the love child of Wesley Willis, Coolio, and Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion. Poor Carlton now faces a few felony charges for his deeds. Something tells me that once he's in prison, his eyes will become uncrossed after his first trip to the showers.

Crash and burn, baby, burn

Boy, for whatever reason the big news today wasn't General Petraeus' report on Iraq, but Britney Spear's "comeback" performance on the MTV video music awards last night. I saw a brief clip of it this morning on the news. She's gone from sexy Catholic schoolgirl outfits to slovenly staggering around stage like a sorority girl at last call on Ladies Night at the Viper Room. The video, if you're interested, is below. The noise you hear in the background is Britney's career being flushed down the toilet.



Now, if you want to see the real performance, click here. If you'd like to bid on a casket for her career, click here.

Story du jour

A number of our faculty members went out of town last week to a professional meeting in the midwest. Everyone who went spent plenty of time in airports waiting on their flights and luggage. One of them reported to me today that he had to make use of the restroom at one of the airports during his trip. As he went about the business of doing his business, someone in the bathroom yelled, "There aren't any U.S. senators in here, are there?"

Here we go again

It's that time of year again...it's time for college football!! Granted, I love fall and college football. It's a genetic thing that runs in my family; I may or may not explain in a future post about sports in my family and our genetic predisposition to be competitive. But while I love the college football season, I hate what it does to this campus and our town. Starting on Thursdays every podunk with 8 functional braincells and a drivers license (or 5 functioning braincells and no license) begins to filter into town to get a head start on bar hopping, getting hammered, and starting fist fights. Which is a shame because the landscaping crews around here do a very good job of preparing the campus for visitors. Oh, they'll clean up the trash quite well around the stadium, but come Monday the rest of the campus will look like multiple garbage trucks overturned and scattered their contents to the four winds. But on the plus side, with the serious drought we've had around here this summer, the grass will be welcoming of the extra urine, the shrubbery agreeable to the vomit.

But he's not gay

C'mon, Senator Craig. It's okay to be gay. Being a hypocrite is another story altogether.

Back to work

After a week off spent recovering from oral surgery, I'm back at my desk today. Crap! More often than not after sitting around the house for a few days I get stir crazy and work seems like a nice alternative. Not this time. I'd love to be at home sitting back and watching movies. Jimmy Cagney films and plenty of Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes were on my "to watch" list this week, and it was mission accomplished for me. Still, looking back at last Thursday, I'm wondering when in the hell I actually posted a blog entry. The oral surgeon hit me up with so much Verced and Phenergan for my surgery that I've little recollection of everything that happened in between being put under (around 11:20 Thursday morning) and Friday morning. Obviously the evidence is there that I posted a blog entry, plus I apparently sent a couple of email messages as well. What surprises me even more than I did these things is that they were more or less coherent. Doesn't change the fact that I'd rather be home today.

Mmmmm...solid food!

To most people eating solid food is no big deal. But when you're dealing with a few missing teeth and sutures in your mouth, eating solid food is a big deal. Made myself my first meal this evening consisting almost entirely of solid food. It's been seventy-two hours since I've eaten a real meal; this evening was a nice change from the standard fare I've been downing the past couple of days. Wonder how much weight I've lost so far.

Two days out

It's been almost forty-eight hours since my happy fun time at the oral surgeon's office, and boy is my jaw sore today. The problem isn't with the areas where my upper third molars or upper first pre-molars were; the soreness seems to be mostly muscular around the jaw joints. So far no bruising around my face, but I do have some swelling on the left side of my face. Despite frequent ice packs, the swelling isn't going down that much. The plan for today is more ice packs, staying up on my pain meds, and limiting how much I talk and make my jaw work. For the record, you can survive on a steady diet of water, tea, pudding, apple sauce, and ice cream. My biggest concern about eating is getting food debris caught where my pre-molars used to be, as I'm uncertain how long it takes before the sockets become "safe" and I don't have to worry about dislodging the clotting. Still, glad I did all this. No more third molars to worry about, and my mouth, once it has healed, is ready for braces.

Got a get well card today from the people I work with. That was pretty cool.

The Pucker Factor

There comes a time in everyone's life when the Pucker Factor comes into play. What's the Pucker Factor, you ask? It's a term used by fighter pilots when they're in an intense, close in dogfight. The fear factor of such an encounter makes your rear sphincter tighten up, or pucker. So when the Pucker Factor hits, it's not a good thing.

The Pucker Factor hit me today, for today was the day I saw the oral surgeon to have some teeth removed to get my mouth ready for braces. I've been a little anxious the past couple of days knowing this was coming, but nothing along the lines of panic attacks I've had in the past. Afterall, I told myself, I had my impacted third molars removed ten years ago, and while not a painless experience, an experience that wasn't all too bad.

When my alarm clock went off at 5:30 this morning I have to admit was I far more calm about the prospect of oral surgery than I was when I woke up the morning when my wife and I were married three years ago. This calmness was enhanced around 10 a.m. when I took the Xanax the oral surgeon gave me to help me relax. And boy oh boy did it do its duty, and quite admirably I might add. By the time I got to the dentist's office I was feeling pretty damned good. They could have removed my head and I don't think I would have cared.

I didn't have to wait long before they called me in, and my wife and I walked back to one of their OR rooms, which was a little bigger than the usual dentists exam room but with equipment you don't usually see in a typical exam room. I got comfortable in the chair as the chair side tech hooked me up to the EKG machine, stuck me with an IV, and did some lab panels. Having woken up this morning with my sinuses draining I took along a Breathe Right strip to put on my nose to help me breathe through my nose. I love those things.

Without warning, the tech injected the medication to put me to sleep. Or at least I think she did. The Xanax had relaxed me so much it's possible I fell asleep on my own before she hit me with her own nighty-night time drug cocktail.

When I had my third molars taken out ten years ago, I came to during the procedure for a few seconds. I was aware enough to see that I had surgical draping over my face, and the dentist was using a tool to break my left molar so he could remove it. I thought, "How long is this going to take?", and then I fell asleep again. The fear that the same thing would happen this time weighed heavily on my mind. And it did, but it was more enjoyable this time. At some point during the procedure this morning I did come to, but not to the point where was I awake. I was aware that there was work going on in my mouth, but instead of opening my eyes and see a surgical cloth, my eyes remained closed and I had one of the most freaky hallucinations I've ever had. LSD is nothing I've ever dabbled in but I've known people who have. But I imagine what my brain was experiencing was the closest to an acid-induced hallucination that I'll ever experience. Colors and shapes of all kinds set to the backdrop of oral surgery was kind of freaky yet oh so very cool at the same time. I think Jerry Garcia's life flashed before my eyes.

Post-procedure I woke up a few times, the last time around 2 p.m. I recall my wife standing over me asking me questions. Sorry, honey, but I've just had four teeth removed from my skull? Will there be a better time today to ask me questions? But she was just trying to gauge how far I was out of the anesthesia. Before I knew it I was being helped to the car, both of them, as I was seriously seeing two of everything at this point. And, voila! The whole experience with the surgery was over.

So now I sit here in my living room, typing this, having slept for three or four hours this afternoon, a little sore but nothing too bad, chewing on discolored gauze pads, and an ice pack draped across my face to reduce swelling while making me look like a poor man's Santa Claus. To keep me from getting too anxious this week I kept telling myself by this time on Friday it'll all be over. Well, it's all over now, and I'm glad the work is done as I'm all out of third molars. Geez I'm sleepy.

This just in...

Michael Vick has agreed to take a plea deal on his dogfighting case. When your three co-defendants roll on you, I guess you have few options beyond copping a plea. Have fun, Mike. You're going from dogfighting to taking it doggie style in the prison shower. And when you're done taking the snap from center there, enjoy the competition in either the CFL or NFL Europe.

Crack that whip!

For the problem child

It's the Camp Tumbleweed dryer by Whirlpool!

Adios, Turd Blossom

Nothing brings about a resignation like a congressional investigation, eh Karl? Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.

Too hot for a snowjob

In the local paper today there was an announcement of revised watering restrictions. There has been an issue with dirty water throughout the city and county over the past six weeks. The county's public works office has been stating and restating the mantra that the dirty water has been caused by many people watering at the same time (when they're allowed to) which is loosening minerals and such in the water lines.

If this were a football game, a penalty flag would be thrown, the call: bullshit. They say if you say something long enough, you actually begin to believe it. Just ask O.J. Simpson if he killed his wife and Ron Goldman. I have it from an exceptionally reliable source that the dirty water isn't due to excessive watering. It appears that due to the severe drought in these here parts, the water levels and flow rates in the local rivers have dropped so low that the county has been switching some of their intake feeds to a local reservoir created to provide drinking water for at least three counties in this area, ours included. The switch over to take water from that reservoir is the reason for the dirty water. Think about it: would people in newer subdivisions be experiencing dirty water from mineral deposits in brand new water lines? I think not.

Damn it's HOT!

So far, a good evening for me. My wife is up in Michigan for a high school reunion. My daughter is fast asleep. For the first time in a long time I'll be able to do something I haven't done since I was single and childless: fall asleep while watching an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I'm also enjoying using our laptop in the living room courtesy of the wireless network I finally got working this week at home. The only item that's needed attention in the past half hour is my dog, who needed to go out to answer the call of nature. When I opened the back door to let him out, I was greeted by a blast of hot, not warm, but hot air from outside. As I type this it's 10:25 in the evening and 92 degrees outside. That's friggin insane! It shouldn't be this hot at this time of night. On my way home from work this afternoon the digital readout above my rearview mirror said it was 107 degrees outside. The high for tomorrow is predicted to hit 106, not including the heat index.

This weather pattern reminds me of the first trip we took to Myrtle Beach with friends of ours at the end of July, 2005. I've always considered South Carolina to be the Third Level of Hell, and the temperature reflected its status. Hot, hot, hot. Highs over 100 during the day, maybe cooling off into the upper 80s at night. The first time I ever played golf was during that trip. The temperature hovered between 115 to 120 degrees with the heat index. What an awful introduction to golfing--both in terms of weather and how I played.

We're supposed to have a cooling trend sometime in the next few days. I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I can't wait until the weather cools down into the upper 90s during the day. Now all we need is rain, lots and lots of rain.

Fire in the Hole

I don't get this. On You Tube today I discovered this "phenomenon" called Fire in the Hole (FitH). Basically, what it consists of is someone pulling up to a drive-thru, ordering a meal, and driving around to the window. Most places will hand you your drink(s) first as they're the easiest and fastest to get ready. The objective of FitH is when the minimum wage fast food employee comes to the window and hands you your food, you yell, "FIRE IN THE HOLE!!" and hit Mr./Ms. Minimum Wage with your drink or milkshake. Just watch the video below. Having worked fast food before, I'm appalled but at the same time I can't help but chuckle at times.

NASA: Need Another Samuel Adams

Today comes news that apparently on at least two occasions NASA sent a shuttle into orbit with a drunken astronaut onboard. I just find that to be unbelievable. There were a few occasions during my younger days when, after an evening of bar hopping, I drove home when I shouldn't have. I was lucky in that I never caused an accident or was nabbed by the police. But seeing how challenging it was just to drive a car, I can't imagine being in the same condition while taking the most complex space vehicle ever made into orbit. It certainly doesn't help NASA's image coming at a time when someone appears to have sabotaged a computer destined for the ISS, and this just a few months after another astronaut was arrested in Florida for just wanting to talk to a female competitor for another guy's affection (in this case the conversation would've included a knife, rubber tubing, a BB gun, pepper spray, and trash bags).

So I guess now the space shuttles will again have to be modified, this time with a breathalyzer that the astronauts will have to blow in before the shuttle will start up. Can you imagine the post-flight talk in the van that takes the astronauts away from the shuttle once it lands? "Oh man, we got so hammered this past weekend and we borrowed my dad's space shuttle. When I woke up the next morning everything was floating around and I was all like 'dude, what the f*$k?' and Chip blew chunks all over the remote arm control panel."

The O-Type

One of those things you find online and just have to share. For what it's worth, a bathroom (public or private) is definitely not a place where I want to touch nature, nor look back and reconsider my life. Ewwwww!

Ghost of a chance

For me there are few things better than a good ghost story. I love ‘em, which is one of the reasons I like Halloween and the abundance of television shows with tales of hauntings. I can remember being in the Boy Scouts thirty years ago and hearing tales from a few of my fellow members about their experiences in a nineteenth century house that was being used as a rectory for a church. It was summertime and they were moving some folding tables in the house. Suddenly they all experienced a cold breeze in the room they were working in, despite the windows being open allowing the warm air in.

The next summer our scout troop went hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Near our campsite was the foundation of a cabin that had long since been demolished. We were told that it had been a forest ranger cabin, and that one night while the ranger on duty lay asleep in his bed, someone shot and killed the ranger through the bedroom window. As a result there had been sightings of the dead ranger in the area of the ruins of the cabin. Our first night as we sat around the campfire telling stories, I noticed two blue orbs not too far away in the tree line. We initially thought they were glowworms, but when we shined our flashlights in the direction of the orbs, nothing was there: no orbs, no branches or trees for glowworms to set upon, absolutely nothing. We were all a bit unnerved by this turn of events. Was it the ghost of the ranger? I’ve no idea.

I can’t absolutely confirm it, but it’s been said that the building I work in is haunted. The building I work spent nearly the first sixty years of its existence as a dormitory, and I’ve read a story that a student once hung himself in the building. There are a lot of “urban” legends on campus so I don’t know if that really happened or not. But there have been times where I’ve found things in my office not exactly in the same place where I let them. In particular, there are four world maps in their cardboard tubing behind my office door. Normally they lean against the wall quite securely, but sometimes I arrive in the morning only to find the maps have fallen against the door—and not just against the door but in such a manner that they jam the door handle, making it much harder to get in to my office. And every time they fall over, they jam the handle in the same way. I’m thinking about leaving my camcorder in my office one night and see what it picks up (if anything).

It’s summertime, so times are lean for ghost story programming on television. But programs can be found to satisfy my ghost story habit. The Travel Channel is a virtual repository of shows featuring haunted destinations. The Sci Fi channel features one of my favorite ghost story shows, “Ghost Hunters.” Two guys in New England started up their own paranormal investigative service, working by day for Roto Rooter and by night and weekends as “ghostbusters.” They have a team that works for them, which makes their investigations easier, especially in larger buildings. Using video and audio equipment, as well as the individual teams, they go about their business checking out claims of ghosts and poltergeist activity. Most of the time the show consists of video of the teams wandering about shooting video, with not much to show for it. But from time to time they capture some really interesting video during their investigations. If you like ghost stories, check out the program some time.

A couple of nights ago I watched one of the funnier ghost hunter programs I’ve ever encountered. It was a two hour tour de farce called “Ghost Adventures” on the Sci Fi channel. Whereas the guys on Ghost Hunters use all sorts of electronic equipment during their investigations, the guys in Ghost Adventures had a couple of video cameras and a digital voice recorder at their disposal. The first part of the program found them in Virginia City, Nevada. In an old hotel there they managed to pick up an amazing video of a transparent figure walking through a room.

But during the second part of the program things got a bit silly. During the last hour they were investigating another old hotel. The story goes that a patron got a prostitute pregnant. After she carried the baby full term, the guy handcuffed the girl to a radiator, took the baby and threw it down a mine shaft found in the basement. The girl later died still handcuffed to the radiator. One hundred years later, enter the two guys of this crack investigative ghost hunting team. After wandering around the upper floors and not finding much, they head to the basement where the excitement begins. Almost immediately after they head down the steps they begin to hear various noises. Over the self-important narration provided by the head of this “team,” both of the guys admit to being freaked out by the noises. I guess in an attempt to make whatever, or whoever, was making the noises reveal themselves, the team leader starts making comments like, “You’re not a very nice spirit,” and “We’re not afraid of you!”

What happened next is an excellent example of being careful what you ask for as you just may get it. As they work their way around the basement trying to find where the noises are coming from, they enter the room where allegedly the baby was thrown down the mine shaft. In the glare of their flashlights and camcorder lights, these guys get their wish. Suddenly, a brick is picked up and thrown across the room by an unseen hand. As the team leader screams his first, “Holy shit!!!,” his partner takes off, leaving his friend behind. The video image becomes shaky and fuzzy as the leader runs like hell towards anywhere but there. A few minutes later he finds his friend who ditched him, and starts his camcorder again. As he pans around the section of the basement that they’ve run to, they hear the distinct sound of a woman’s pitiful cry (which is captured on the camcorder’s audio). Nobody else was in the building, as the front doors were padlocked. Again, both of the ghost hunters flee, this time to the first floor where they try to leave the building, only to find the padlock still on the front door. When one of the owners of the building comes the next morning to let the team out, she finds the building empty. Seems the guys went up to the second floor and jumped off a fire escape in order to get away from the building and presumably go find a change of underwear.

Not that I would’ve fared any better had I been in that basement and seen a brick fly across the room. But if you’re going to taunt a spirit, be prepared to face the consequences. Maybe I’ll set up my camcorder in my office and make some taunting comments before I leave for the day. If anything happens, I’ll let you know. And, fortunately, new underwear is fairly cheap.

Tune for a Tuesday

Most of my friends know that I play a bass guitar and I've played in bands in the past. Only a few of my friends have actually seen me play live. Almost none have heard any of the music recorded by the last band I played with ten years ago. Not only did I like playing the music we wrote, to this day I still enjoy listening to most of those songs (there are a few that make me cringe, more for my overplaying than anything else).

So I'm thinking I may post some of the songs from that band. Here's the first one. It's a song my friend Jon brought into our practice space less than a week after my father passed away. It's my favorite of the handful of songs we recorded in early December 1995. While Jon re-recorded this song for his CD back in 2001, this is the original version which I prefer. It's called Feet of Clay. Hope you like it.

WTF?

Announcing the Michael Vick Edition Dodge Nitro. Not for the easily offended, trust me on this one.

iBummed

Hello there, blog. Sorry I’ve been neglecting you of late. Didn’t really mean to, but things have just been busy of late. So let me catch you up on things.

My boss is back. He’s been off on a six month sabbatical and returned last week. Oddly enough, for most of the time he’s been away, I could see a healthy portion of the top of my desk. In the past few days he’s dropped so much of his work on my desk that I’m just now able to see small areas of wood grain. And now that he’s back it seems that whatever joy and happiness existed around here over the past half year has disappeared overnight. My boss is a nice guy, but it’s a bit of a pisser watching someone else get paid an exorbitant amount of money while others do his job.

On the plus side, though, I’m glad I got most of the planning for our spring course schedule out of the way before he came back. I’m sure most students think that departments arbitrarily create class schedules, but there is a rhyme and reason when creating them. We try to offer a certain number of classes, usually about four, in each area of concentration in our major. More often than not what our faculty want to teach is in line with what we need to offer in any given semester, but sometimes it’s a bitch trying to get folks to plug gaps in the schedule. In addition, we try to limit the number of basic introductory courses to just a handful each year. These courses are the gateway to everything else, and limiting them helps manage the demand on the upper level courses, which are already straining under the ever increasing number of majors (which has grown roughly 250% in the past few years) in our department. But I think between increasing support from further up the administrative food chain on campus, as well as me working directly with our advising office to create a schedule that meets demand as best as possible, we’re in good shape for the upcoming academic year…so long as nobody quits or my boss doesn’t start meddling with the schedules.

The Live Earth concerts for raising awareness of global warming were this past weekend. Like most folks, I didn’t watch them. Well, I should say I saw about 8 seconds of one of the concerts. Saw enough to catch the message that we should all change our lightbulbs to newer florescent ones. That’s what I’ve been doing at home the past month: spending a small fortune changing out all of our conventional bulbs for florescent ones. I’m wondering about the wisdom of these bulbs. Oh, sure, they’re supposed to save electricity over the long haul, but these bulbs contain mercury, which is not environmentally friendly. They work differently, taking half a second to actually come on and then about ten seconds to brighten up. The biggest difference is in the amount of heat the bulbs throw off. In our master bathroom the light fixture over the sink takes eight bulbs. There are darkened spots over the fixture where heat from the old bulbs had discolored the ceiling, and the bulbs would make the bathroom uncomfortable warm, especially during the summer. That’s not the case with the new florescent bulbs, and it makes getting ready for work in the morning easier as I’m not breaking into a sweat right after taking a shower. Down side to these bulbs is that they really highlight the increasing number of grey hairs on my head. Crap.

When taglines attack!

I know I haven't been posting much in the way of substance of late, but I'll try to fix that soon. In the meantime, enjoy these! Click to embiggen.

Ha!

Leave to the New York Post!

Shorpy

Most of my friends know that I really love digital photography. I've always enjoyed taking pictures; in fact I received my first camera back in 1971 when I graduated from kindergarten. The first picture I took with that camera was of my great-grandmother standing in front of the school building. But my interest has really taken off over the past several years with the digital photography revolution, and especially moreso after my wife gave me my Canon Digital Rebel for Christmas a couple of years ago.

So it's a real treat for someone like me to stumble across a website like this one:

http://www.shorpy.com/

It calls itself the 100 year old photograph blog, but many of the images are between 50-70 years old, some newer, some older. Nonetheless, I find it to be a fascinating site with plenty of old pictures to look at and composition ideas to be found.

And so it begins

My favorite time of the year has begun. From now until the end of summer there will be orientation sessions for new and transfer students three times a week. It can be amusing watching parents and kids roam around aimlessly as they try to walk and peruse a campus map at the same time. Once last summer I took a campus bus down to the middle of campus to grab some lunch. Some of my fellow passengers were parents there for orientation. I was wearing my office keys around my neck on a lanyard which bears the logo and web addy for the particular school that I work for. As I enjoyed the bus ride, I watched as a couple attempted to decipher a campus map and find where a building was. Despite bearing something very visible upon my person that denoted that I worked on campus, they never asked me for assistance. Granted, I never offered either. I could've told them where the building was, which bus stop to get off at, even which bus route to take to get back to where they had been. C'est la vie.

For me, orientation means one thing: the Red Bags. Each new incoming student gets a bag full of stuff, and not just the usual crappy fliers for campus housing and dining plans or magazine order forms. That's the kind of stuff I got at my orientation (which was a complete waste of my time) to college last decade. No, these new kids get decent stuff like cups, t-shirts, penlights, etc. My guess is that the university is trying to start buttering up students and their parents now for the inevitable "sales pitch" later on for their ongoing fundraising campaigns. I haven't seen the contents for this year's red bags, but considering that budgets on campus have been a little better this year than in the past few, I'm sure that there's some worthwhile cushy stuff in them. And as there was an orientation today, please forgive me as I run downstairs to see if anyone has left one of their bags behind. If there's a cup in them this year, you can have it as I've enough already.

But first the good news?

After the storms moved out last night, my wife and I watched the 10 o'clock news on the Atlanta Fox affiliate channel. As they always do, late during the program there's a bumper from the Fox "News" channel with business news. They seemed it newsworthy and point of pride to announce that Countrywide Home Loans had processed 15% more mortgage applications in May 2007 compared to a year ago, and that they were adding roughly 1,500 jobs. Congrats, Countrywide, on a job well done. But wait, doesn't Countrywide specialize in refinancing? Today comes the news that foreclosures are up dramatically over this period last year. With more people applying for and receiving mortgages right now, I have a bad feeling that what Fox was hyping as good news is just the opposite: people are getting mortgages in order to wring whatever equity is left on their property in order to make ends meet. We'll see for certain in a matter of months. And the fact that consumer spending was up in May (along with the foreclosure numbers) only makes it looks like people just said, "Fuck it, I'm losing my house, let's buy that plasma screen t.v. for our new apartment."

Da Bears

Found this one online today and I just had to share it. Kudos to whomever created this one--it's pretty funny, I think.

Redemption

This just in: Paris Hilton has been sent kicking and screaming back to jail! What a great start to the weekend! Some of the comments supporting her on Paris' MySpace site are pretty damned amusing, and I'm proud to be in the group of "haterz." On the down side, another 40 fucking days of "Paris Watch" in the media. You know folks, people like Paris Hilton are just like teeth: ignore them and they'll go away.

So much for the rule of law

For unspecified "medical reasons," Paris Hilton was released from jail today. I guess trying to quit deep throating penises cold turkey had some unfortunate side effects for that poor, poor woman. I mean, why should anyone have to suffer such indignities for such minor offenses like driving under the influence and with a suspended license. She's rich and white--I don't see a problem with letting her serve her sentence at her palatial home. Thank goodness she wasn't poor and/or Mexican, or else she'd still be in jail. Best of luck, Paris, serving out your sentence in the hell hole that is Hollywood Hills, and thank you for showing us the double standard in the American justice system: With Liberty and Justice for all who can afford it. Stupid spoiled whore.

I wanna be sedated.

Yeah, I'm still here

Greetings! I know I haven't posted a whole lot of late. Admittedly I haven't been in much of a writing mood the past couple of weeks. Dealing with upcoming dental work and all, it's all a bit unsettling for me and it's clouded my thinking. Now throw in my appointment with my new primary care physician, and the prospect of visiting "Dr. Jelly Finger" isn't helping. On the bright side, soon all of this will be over with, so I've that to look forward to. My last post dealt with the drought here in the south. It's been pretty bad, and some localities have banned all outdoor watering altogether. A strange thing happened this past weekend. The sky got all cloudy, there was a strong breeze, and these droplets of water fell from the sky. Clearly the Sun God was angered. I'm not sure what we did, but certainly we will need to find a virgin and sacrifice them to appease the Sun God. Um, yeah, good luck finding a virgin in a college town.

It's beginning to look a lot like...FALL?!?!

Rain, rain, come this way. Unless you live in the south, you probably don't have an accurate picture as to just how severe the drought is in these here parts. The lakes are doing okay, but the rivers are hurting. The Suwannee River in south Georgia, which normally flows at a rate of 1,600 gallons per minute is currently flowing at 1.5 gallons per minute. Other rivers in Georgia aren't fairing too well either. The Chattahootchie River is moving slower than democracy in Iraq, and that's the main source of drinking water for Atlanta. So things have been very dry here of late. How dry? It's starting to look like fall around here. During times of severe drought trees will shed leaves as they begin to be stressed by the lack of water. My back yard bears hints of October, as the leaves on the trees are starting to turn yellow, courtesy of the drought. The whole state is one big tinderbox, ready to go up in flames at any time, just look at the 500,000 acres that have already burned in southeast Georgia in the past month. Too bad there's no water to put the flames out. I hate to say it, but a hurricane would be good right about now.

Toys in the...crapper

My wife and I wound up watching the American Idol finale the other night. I wasn't really interested in who won, but sometimes it's in my interest to know who the next flash in the pan celebrity will be. To my surprise Green Day performed, doing an excellent version of John Lennon's "Working Class Hero," even if Billie Joe looked liked he'd rather be anywhere but there.

The lowlight of the evening came when Sanjaya Malakar performed the Kinks' "Really Got Me" with none other than Joe Perry of Aerosmith. If you listen carefully while playing the video below, the crashing noise at the beginning of the performance is Perry's remaining street cred falling to the ground. Good Lord, Joe. Thirty years ago you were belting out such great albums as "Toys in the Attic," "Rocks," and "Draw the Line." Now you're playing with a no talent hack singer. If you thought Joe Perry had bottomed out using all those drugs during the 1970s and 80s, that ain't nothin'.

WTF?

This is perhaps the gayest thing I've ever seen, on You Tube or anywhere else for that matter. That poor, poor, ottoman...being subjected to sexual acts like that without a clear plastic cover. Stuff like this is enough to make one think that perhaps Fred Phelps has a point after all.

Bracing myself

Boy, what a crappy start to this week. Had a dentist appointment yesterday afternoon to try and figure out why some of my teeth randomly bother me every now and again. We've done the whole x-ray bit before on individual teeth, and have ruled out almost all of the usual suspects. And I admit to suffering from some anxiety whenever the world of dentistry and me have dealings with each other. After doing a panoramic x-ray so he could see a broad view of my teeth and jaw, my dentist concluded that what the problem is is my bite is off, due to a combination of an occlusion and TMJ. To fix this, and in what he called my best long term solution, he recommended braces.

Braces. At 41 years of age. Just fucking great. What's next, a raging case of acne? I know that braces for adults are not that uncommon these days. My problem is my insurance doesn't cover braces at all, so I'm looking at around $4,000 out of my pocket for this. Just fucking great. Maybe I could sell a kidney on eBay to finance this.

Vista sucks

We've had our new home computer for just about two weeks now, and I can say from first hand experience that Windows Vista sucks. It may look like a Mac OS, but it's sure as hell not as stable as one. I'm almost afraid to reinstall any more of my software. Already Windows Media Player 11 has gone non-responsive three times, requiring three system restores to get it going again. And at the moment I have to run Media Player 11 as an administrator as double-clicking the icon doesn't start the program (and will probably require yet another system restore). And you can't uninstall the player and install a replacement version 11 or an earlier version as MP 11 is part of the Vista OS. To hell with this and to hell with Vista; we should've bought a Mac.

See ya, Jerry

Everyone's talking about what a wonderful legacy Jerry Falwell leaves behind. Sure, a legacy of myopic dislike of everything that wasn't Jerry Falwell. We can only hope that a couple of decades from now Jerry will be as historically relevant as Father Charles Coughlin.

Hall of fame

Normally I don’t care a flip about the annual inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This year was a little different. For the first time this year the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies were broadcast live, and I decided to tune in to watch on VH1. I had an understandable interest this year. One of our local bands, a little group known as R.E.M., was inducted this year. Maybe you’ve heard of them? They’ve had a few hits over the course of their career.

I haven’t really followed them for the better part of the past decade. Since drummer Bill Berry left the band, it seems that the drum machine the remaining members use when writing songs is stuck on mid-tempo and they just haven’t done anything that I want to spend my money on. That wasn’t always the case, though. When I first moved to town twenty-five years ago, there was an afternoon video show on channel 36 in Atlanta hosted by Cousin Bruce Morrow. One day he played a video from some band from Athens. The video sucked but I loved the music. It was the video for “Wolves, Lower” from R.E.M.’s Chronic Town EP. From that time on I was a fan. The following year I bought their excellent “Murmur” album even though some friends thought I wouldn’t like it. I loved it! It was so different from anything I had heard to that point.

I bought each subsequent album they released either on or shortly after the release dates. Of course, living in Athens finding unofficial live recordings is easy to do. The quality of some of these recordings is startling good, soundboard quality even. It really makes me wonder about the source of these recordings.

Though I haven’t followed the band for a while, my interest in them was renewed recently thanks to two coincidental events. My wife entered a raffle at work one day not long ago, and as chance would have it, she won. Her prize pack contained a audio CD and DVD containing R.E.M.’s music from their days with the IRS record label, the band’s 2003 live DVD “Perfect Circle,” a t-shirt (which fits my daughter much better than me or my wife), and a hat.

Knowing I was a fan she gave me the pack, and I was thrilled to receive it. One evening my daughter and I sat and watched the DVD of old IRS-era videos. She knows the band only through one of their songs being featured in the movie Chicken Little. It was a wonderful experience rediscovering the band and their music which played part of my life’s soundtrack during the 1980s and early 1990s. Of all the videos the band made during the 1980s, the one for Can’t Get There From Here stands out amongst the rest. Partially filmed at an abandoned drive-in theater on North Avenue in town, the video shows the silly and irrelevant side of a band known for its social activism. The drive-in has long since been redeveloped into an apartment complex. A few years after the video was shot a girl was raped at the site, leading to a public outcry (probably led by developers) that the site encouraged crime and something should be done about it. It didn’t work. The site’s been redeveloped but police presence in that area is still pretty high, as is the crime rate. But I’m sure the developers got their moneys worth out of the property, being such caring people and all.

About the same time my wife won the raffle it was announced that the band would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was with this recent awakening that I watched as R.E.M. was inducted into the RRHF. Watching Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, as well as the train wreck formerly known as Van Halen, being inducted, I thought perhaps I had tuned in too late to see the quartet from Athens be inducted. But they came at the end of the program. As the band came out after Eddie Vedder’s introduction, I noticed that Peter Buck was carrying a glass of wine. Uh, oh, I thought. I hope this ends well. For the most part things did end well, and it’s always good to see Bill Berry playing with the band, though it’s a rare event these days. At the end of the band’s obligatory post-speech set of songs, Pete Buck’s wine finally kicked into overdrive. During the end of “Man in the Moon,” Buck picks up his Vox amplifiers and tosses them off the stage. I was horrified, not because it looked like Peter was apparently hammered, but because he THREW VOX AMPLIFIERS off the stage. If you know musical equipment, Vox amps are the shit. The only other amp I’d like to have is a tube-driven Portaflex bass amp. I’ve played through a Portaflex on a couple of occasions, having turned it on and left it on for over an hour, letting the tubes get hot before playing. And now I really want one.

Now that R.E.M. is in the hall of fame, I’m reminded of stories about the band members that I’ve heard over the years. One of my favorites comes from a friend of mine who has known the band. A long time ago a friend of his lived in the same apartments that Michael Stipe was living/squatting at the time. He came home late one night to have his attention drawn to a nearby dumpster by a noise that was coming from inside. Turns out it was Stipe, laying inside on the trash, repeating over and over, “I have become the dumpster…I have become the dumpster.”

One of my friends from college used to work in a restaurant downtown. On one particular evening his girlfriend was late picking him up after his shift was over. A customer and his wife offered a ride home, which he accepted. The first thing he noticed was that they drove a nicely restored Plymouth, which could go really fast and hang tight curves—as he experienced that night. In the dark of the backseat he noticed that with every turn the car made, something came flying across the floorboard, striking him in the ankles and shins. After a few times of being struck by this object, he reached down to pick up the unknown object. It was an MTV video music award. The driver was Bill Berry with his (now ex-) wife Mari, the moonman award tossed into the backseat like a discarded McDonald's wrapper.

My encounters with the individual members of the band haven’t been as exciting. In my teenybopper days working at a Burger King, Bill Berry came through the drive thru one night and managed to miss the left hand turn after ordering. He was also present at one of the last Pylon shows at the end of 1991. I was standing stage right near the front with a friend of mine when I looked over my right shoulder to see who/what was behind me. Standing a few feet away was Berry, a can of beer in his hand, wearing loose fitting grey sweatpants tied off with a rope/thick string, a sweatshirt with a tear around the collar, eyes no bigger than slits. He looked like an extra from the Pirates of the Caribbean films, but he was clearly having fun.

I’ve always admired and respected Mike Mills as a bass player and musician. When I first picked up a bass guitar, it was the basslines from R.E.M. songs that I used as my starting point on how to play. In fact, it was the Chronic Town EP that served as my “tutor” on how to play a bass. One evening I was downtown at the Georgia Bar downing pitchers of beer with friends of mine when I saw Mills hanging out at the popcorn machine with Pylon bassist Michael Lachowski. We had finished our last pitcher for the evening, when I, emboldened by the beer, decided I needed to go over and introduce myself and tell him what an influence he had been on my playing—which I did. After cornering him for a few minutes, it was time to go. As I left, I heard someone else come up and introduce themselves to him. I knew at that point that I had done something very uncool, as nobody was bothering him until I did. My friends gave me some well-intentioned grief about the encounter, to which I asked them to kindly shut the fuck up. Since then I’ve made it a point to not bother any of the band members should I encounter them in public. The last time I saw Mike Mills in public was at the end of 2002. My daughter and I were at an eastside restaurant waiting for our order when she ran in front of a grey-haired gentleman getting a refill on his drink. I told my daughter to be careful about running in front of people, but I never recognized that it was Mills she cut off until he was leaving. His grey hair made him look so old.

I don’t have many stories about Pete Buck, or at least he’s managed to fly under the radar. During the band’s Monster tour in 1994-95, three-fourths of the band members went down with some sort of physical ailment: Berry with a brain aneurysm, Stipe with a hernia, Mills with appendicitis. The only person to fail their pre-tour insurance physical? Pete Buck. There was also a local musician who went by the name “Mad Dog” Melton. Mad Dog had a reputation for getting really, really drunk before he went onstage. One day someone thought it’d be a good idea to have Buck keep an eye on Mad Dog, keep him sober before showtime. Talking about putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. When the time came that night for Mad Dog to take the stage he was blitzed. If I’m not mistaken, his entire set consisted of an obscene limerick and a few chords on his guitar before he fell off the stage. Mad Dog fell off this world in August 2006.

So that’s it...stories I’ve heard about the members of R.E.M. that are moderately amusing but will never, ever, turn up in any written accounts or books about the band.

While my ukulele gently weeps

This is just incredible, especially when one considers that a ukulele has only four strings and is tuned a bit differently than a regular guitar. The players name is Jake Shimabukuro, and apparently will be going out on tour with Bela Fleck.

Fool me twice? I don't think so.

Nobody reads my blog anyway, but if you've been keeping up, perhaps you'll recall my tirade last year upon finding out that my order for season football tickets at the university I work for (and graduated from) would not happen, even though they charged my credit card for the tickets.

At the end of last week what should appear in my mail but the order form for this year's season football tickets! Wow! I looked the form over, and thought that perhaps this year we'll put in an order and see what happens, especially now that I know that they keep part of the money they charge you. Even asked my daughter if she'd be interested in going to a few football games this fall; of course, she said she wanted to go. And for one brief, shining moment all was right with the world.

And then I looked at my ticket priority number, which looked suspiciously like my priority number from last year. Suddenly the idea of submitting the order form required a serious rethinking. If I didn't make the cut last year, given the number of big money donors in Atlanta who have never set foot on this campus as a student but who somehow end up with season tickets (go figure), the odds of getting tickets this year seemed to be pretty much non-existent.

With that in mind, I quietly folded up my ticket order form, walked down the hall to my computer room, and sent it on a Voyage to the Bottom of the Shredder. Once again, a big Fuck You to the campus ticket office. You sold whatever soul you had when you decided to follow a path that takes the ability to get tickets away from true fans and into the hands of people who simply have a lot of money and really don't give a shit about the university.

Mazal tov!

For today I am a man, as I now have business cards!

Oy!

Ah, the end of another semester. Once again students who have taken their last final exam today have been ringing the damned campus bell all friggin morning. There have been more "dongs" than a South Korean phonebook.

This morning looked like it was going to be "one of those days." You know the kind: something frustrating happens first thing and it sets the tone for the rest of the day. Today one of our faculty members met his class for their final exam, only to find another class in their classroom taking a final. Normally classes meet in the same place for finals as they've met for classes during the term. Not today. This class was never added to the final exam room schedule on campus. Oops!

The office that arranges rooms for classes managed to find another room a few doors down for this class' final exams. When the faculty member went to the room, he found it empty save for two females...in a back corner of the room...making out. This guy is pretty opened minded, so he wasn't bothered by the sight. He was, however, a little take aback by the response when he told them the room was needed for an exam. One of the girls replied, "Can we have ten minutes to finish up?" WTF? Ten minutes to finish what, pray tell? Holy shit...sometimes I love working on campus. Sorry, no pictures were taken.

It's a fast machine

The last time I bought a new computer it was the beginning of February, 2002. I was in the final stages of college, and used student loan money to buy it. For the past five years that machine has faithfully chugged along, providing me a place to write research papers, crunch numbers in statistical software, and playing Medal of Honor: Allied Assault on many occasions. But as time wore on, as most computers are wont to do, it began running more slowly as I loaded more software onto it and more crap found its way into the registry.

My plan was to go shopping for a new machine come June. And as the saying goes about the best laid plans, my plans went awry this past weekend as my wife and I went out and got a new computer for home. I must say this friggin' thing rocks! It's really nice to have a computer that takes less than 5 minutes to boot, and will respond immediately when I click on something. Sure, it's a bitch reinstalling all the software I need to use, not to mention trying to move email inboxes from the old machine to the new. Running a close second in the bitch competition was backing up and copying all the data from the old machine that I wanted on the new one--20+ CD-Rs were involved with that endeavour, 10 alone on just my music files.

I think what I like best about the new computer is the 22 inch widescreen display that came with it. This mofo is HUGE and the image quality is perhaps the best of any monitor I've ever owned or worked with. The computer is set up to run as a media center, complete with an array of video inputs and outputs, so I'm eager to throw a DVD in the drive and see how it looks on the monitor.

Only minor gripe I have is the Vista OS. Just because you make it look like an Mac OS doesn't mean it's as easy to use or as stable as an Mac OS. C'est la vie. Back to installing software.