Ice Castles, Part 1.

"If she hits her quintuple axel, not only will it end a flawless routine,"  wept the announcer, "It will probably be an end to figure skating as we know it!"

The announcer, Brad Neill, had never, not once, lost composure during a broadcast.  But this girl was different.  Neither he nor any of the thousands of fans in attendance had seen anything like it.  Brad was left with the unenviable position of trying to describe what he was witnessing to millions of radio listeners.  Any other announcer would have dropped the microphone, curled up into the fetal position and rocked back and forth in a vain attempt to regain some semblance of sobriety.  But Brad soldiered on.  “I felt like that Hindenburg announcer guy,” He’d later remark. 

All 12,345 (according to gate totals) and 17 unborn (also in the fetal position) were left to watch the most beautiful figure skating performance ever and just cry and cry and cry.

Alexis Camelnofilter was the skater.  A total underdog.  I mean, let me list the ways.  First of all, her only qualification was she just really wanted to be a top skater some day.  She had never had any formal training.  She was from a small town in Iowa.  A town with a Pizza Hut, a Casey’s and Beulah’s Bowling Alley.  The owner of the bowling alley “Big Beulah,” Had been a roller derby queen in the 70’s, and she taught Alexis everything she knew. “I may not know nothing about figure skatin’ but I can see when a girl wants sumpin real bad-like, ain’t nuthin getting in her way,” Beulah was kind of an idiot.

“So anyways, Lexi, - ‘swhat I always called her.  She comes up and says she wants to be the next Tonya Harding.  Says can she use my bowling alley for practicing.  Well I’m not sure I heard her right, but I say yeah, why not.  Makes sense.  Practice for figure skating in a bowling alley.  Then she shows me her genius …”

Alexis really needed a rink, but the nearest one was in Des Moines or Omaha or whatever big city is closest to whatever town she was in in Iowa.  But the one thing that ice rinks and bowling alleys have in common is that they’re slippery.

Beulah continued, “Why, that little girl laced up them rental shoes and walked down to lane number 1.  Then, I’ll never forget this as long as I live, she started running across the lanes, hopping over the ball returns, narrowly missing several gutters, and went airborne.  She danced.  She spun.  She leapt.  A natural.  I was watching this kid do the impossible.  Sure she fucked up the lanes real bad and we had to go ahead and put more of that oil stuff all over them again, but damn.  I never cry.  But I almost did that night.  Because of all the beauty.  Of the skating on the bowling lanes.  Yeah.”

FF>

A few years later, here’s little Lexi Camelnofilter at the World Blind Figure Skating Competition.  Oh yeah – she had some accident that left her blind.  Or she got bowling alley oil in her eyes or something.  Lexi always skated with her faithful partner/service animal, Rex.  Lexi and Rexy, as they were called, had spent months working out their routine.  While Alexis dragged Rex along the ice, he would wimper once for her to turn left and twice for right.  It was almost perfect.    

Here, at the end of the most amazing skater/seeing eye dog display ever witnessed, Alexis was preparing to attempt something that had never been done successfully by any skater.  The elusive quintuple axel. 

It was pretty much agreed that she did not need to do it at all.  A triple would cement a win.  But it had never been about winning.  It was about beauty.  The kind of beauty that makes a grown man weep.  Yeah, I said it.

As she gathered the breakneck speed required for this move, something seemed off.  Rex let out a little growl.  But it was too late.  Her left skate was acting up.  She’d have to leave the ice and land very carefully or it could be disaster.  Closer now, Rex prepared to give the “Clear to leap” lick.  That skate is definitely not right.  Here goes …

“And she’s in the air.  Oh the humanity!  She’s going around and around so many times that I have time to announce it.  Wait a minute.  What this?  Is there something amiss with one of her skates?  It’s hard to be sure in the blur of the spinning, but I know a loose blade when I see it.  Oh shit, This could be disaster.  I count three complete revolutions.  Look at Rex.  Clear out at the end of Lexi’s arm holding on to dear life by his service collar.  How Cute.  Here’s the fourth turn.  Oh lord, She’s going to do it!”  The years of frustration end tonight little Lexy!  Seriously, does anyone else see that skate?  Does it not look goofy?  Oh well, here’s the landing.  Boy, Rex looks a little nervous doesn’t he …

To be continued.


source: Ice Castles

Update on a post from a couple of years ago

A couple of years ago, in this post, I suggested that the baristas at Scooter's should change the tip jar that reads, "College Fund" to something like "Kolledge Phunde". Last week, I told them they should do it. This week, they had done it. I still didn't tip.

The Stupidest Thing I’ve Ever Seen

Starting when I was about 12 years old and up until about the age of 15 or so, I used to love to go roller skating at Skateland. They had pinball, girls, and slurpees. Oh yeah, and some roller-skating. Real skating. Not like you kids today in your fancy-pants inline getups. These skates had the traditional, stable 2 dimensional platform and the big rubber stopper/goer on the bottom/front of each skate. It served the purpose of both braking and rapid acceleration. If you stood “on your toes”, you could run on the stopper for a few strides until you got up to speed. It was important to slow down in transition from the rink to the carpet or you'd continue on at the same speed while your skates lagged behind.

The skates were off-white suede with pink wheels. If you were cool, you had your own skates. Black leather with whatever color wheels defined you as a person. Then you could tie the shoestrings together and drape them over your shoulder as you casually walked into the rink, winking and pointing to your make-believe friends. I was not cool. I tried to tie the shoestrings of my rental skates together, but they (the shoestrings) were too short so the skates didn't lay nicely on my shirt, but propped up from my shoulder to the front and rear as I found a locker.

There were a few Skatelands around town and a place called “Cheap Skate” up on 90th and Maple, but Skateland near Irvington was our home rink.

The evening of skating was typically 2-3 hours. In that time, there was the default “Free skate” where all were allowed to skate, provided they skate slowly and carefully all the way around that black traffic circle. This was a black piece of tape that circumnavigated the inner part of the rink. If you were a rebel, you’d skate dangerously close to the tape, flirting with cutting the corner. I won’t lie. Sometimes we cut across the tape at either end. Usually the end opposite the DJ/Skate Patrol station. Sometimes we got flagged for cutting, but usually we got away with it. The Skateland peace officers ran a pretty tight ship. Once after a rather egregious black traffic circle infraction (My friend was completely on the other side, so I cut through the middle), I was sent to cool off with the stern admonition, “That shit might fly at Cheap Skate, but it’s not happening here. Not on my watch, kid. I mean, look at you in your stupid rental skates.”

To keep everybody honest, Skateland would stage various specialty skate sessions throughout the evening. They were two songs long and I was excluded from most of these for one reason or another. That was OK with me. Mostly, I just liked to see how fast I could skate. I used to think I was like some sort of Eric Heiden on wheels. I’d even put my left arm behind my back as I sped through the crowd for a few “laps”, only to bring it (my arm) down for the final burst …




Whistle!! “Slow down, kid”

“Oh yeah, I know, Cheap Skate, yada yada yada. Sorry.”

The first specialty skating session was the “Ladies Only” Skate. The songs were, Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing” and “Brick House” by the Commodores. This was the time when the girls got to show off their disco/skate moves. Well, except for the cool girls. They just skated at a walking pace, complaining to one another about all the losers at Skateland.

During the Ladies Skate, The gentlemen lined up along the rail to watch. Everyone in their new velour shirt. Except me, of course. I couldn’t afford velour, so I had to watch from the confines my cheap terrycloth wanna-be-velour shirt. At least my watch was the cool red L.E.D. kind that required the push of a button to see the time. Not one of those stupid grey and black L.C.D. ones.

Next was the Backward skate. Backward skaters only, please. I don’t remember what songs they played for the backward skate. Nonetheless this was a very important skate. We "forward only" skaters needed to find out which girls could skate backwards. This way, I knew exactly who I was going to be too afraid to ask to accompany me to the “Couples Skate”.

The songs for the couples skate were “Beth” by KISS and the heartwarming domestic abuse number, “Don’t give up on us” by David Soul a.k.a “Hutch”. There were 3 couple skates during the evening. I usually spent those times looking out at all the happy couples skating. I’d reflect on what it would be like to be brave enough to ask a girl to skate with me. Ahh, those would have been the days! Occasionally, a girl would ask me to skate, so I got to go. But then, if she liked me, she might try to kiss me or something. Panic! Ahh. I don’t know how to do this! Fear of looking like a fool has hindered me in some way for most of my life. Unfortunately, my grasp on what looks foolish is all topsy-turvy.





There was also the “Hokey Pokey”. I was never sure how to shake my “left side” about without affecting the rest of my body, so I gave up and just let my right side go too. The neat thing about the Hokey-Pokey (besides its apt name) was that it was held at the center of the rink and you were actually allowed to skate on the black traffic circle when you turned yourself about. I’d emphatically tap the tape with the front wheels of my right skate, glancing innocently at the official. He’d glare back at me powerless, barely concealing his rage. “Kid, if this wasn’t the Hokey-Pokey, I’d open the double doors of this place with your smarmy little skull.”

Judges? Ok yes, we’ll accept “smarmy” - but we're not happy about it.

Then came the “Gentlemen’s Skate”. The 2 songs for the Gentlemen’s Skate were always Foghat’s “Slow Ride” and “Ballroom Blitz”, but I don’t know who performed it and we didn’t have the internet available back then so I can’t check. But it was these guys.



Who years later became these guys:



Anyway, this post is about the stupidest thing I ever saw (Remember, I couldn’t actually see myself trying to skate like a speed skater). But first, I have to talk about the coolest thing I ever saw, because they’re related. It was during the Dude’s skate, and some dude (with his own skates, of course) was leaning back on one skate, one foot forward, rolling along, pretending to be playing a guitar to the song “Slow Ride”. He had nothing in his hands at all. But by position alone, it was obviously some sort of pantomime of a guitar player. Brilliant. Also, it may not have been called a "mullet" yet, but he was sporting a damn cool one.

If only I had my own skates, a shiny red shirt, unbuttoned to reveal my fashionable Italian horn necklace, the ability to lean back like that, and permission to grow my hair, I’d be as cool as that guy. I don’t know if this type of pantomime was called “Air Guitar” yet (I'm from the time before things had names). It was the first time I ever saw anybody do it. What a great idea. Like lip syncing, only not as realistic looking. All the cool guys wore black pants and a red shirt because it approximated the Skateland Traffic cop uniform and most of these guys yearned to hold that position one day. A friend once rhetorically asked me, “You know how much tail those guys get?”

I think it was rhetorical. Maybe he wanted to know because he did actually get the job a few years later. I don't know if he got any tail though. We went our separate ways after I stopped going to Skateland and he didn't.

The day after witnessing the fabulous air guitar demonstration, I was standing at the jewelry counter at Target, browsing the Italian horn necklace section (they had one of those in the 70’s), When I decided to see if I could knock out a few licks on the “no guitar in my hands at all.” I couldn’t do it. It just didn’t feel right. Mostly because I had taken guitar lessons. On acoustic guitar. Sitting down. When I tried to “Air Guitar” I looked more like Leon Redbone, hunched over, looking down at my fingers, etc. Nobody “Air guitars” to Leon Redbone. So when I tried to air guitar to some rockin’ Van Halen or something, I’d always miss the chord, stop, look at my hand, back up and start again. By that time, the guitar solo would be pretty much over. Turns out I can’t air guitar any song I can’t actually play on real guitar. And it’s not like I could request “Tom Dooley” at Skateland, is it? That air guitar performance remained the coolest thing I had ever seen until 1999. That’s when “The Matrix” came out.

Oh yeah, the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen was in a Documentary called “Air Guitar Nation”. The documentary is excellent. It is about a very serious worldwide Air Guitar competition. Some of these guys actually hate the other competitors. There are accusations of cheating, song stealing, etc. It is unbelievable the amount of time, practice and preparation that goes into pretending to play an instrument. Granted, the end result is well worth it. Whatever. It’s the stupidest effing thing I've ever seen.

Hang on I think I know who’s at the door, but I’m going to go check and make sure it’s not a you-know-what. Holy crap! Snap crunch slurp die.

Note: It wasn't until many years later that I realized the cool air guitar guy at Skateland was Shim.

The scariest day of my life

I never liked Karl. His name may have been Carl. But because I thought he looked like a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party, I’m calling him Karl. He was a few years older than me. He was awkward looking. Too tall. Too thin. IcabodCranian Adam’s apple rivaled in protrudiness only by his raptorlike beak of a nose, Sittin’ way up high. Sittin’ way up firm and high. Also, he had a serious case of the bitch hips. In fairness, all of this was my perspective of him at the time. Looking back on it, he was nerd-cool. But we didn’t have that back then.

He wore his stringy dark hair combed to one side in the classic style of say, Der Führer. He usually complimented his dark trousers with a turtleneck that mostly failed to mask the prominence of his laryngeal, um prominence. Rounding out the textbook nerd look, Karl sported a nice cardigan from the Mr. Rogers line and some spiffy penny loafers. Understandable dress considering he attended private school. But for the love of God man, change into some jeans and stuff when you get home. Especially if you’re going to go play tag.

At the time of the scariest day of my life, I was about 10 or 11 years old. My best friend was Steve, oh sorry – Stephen, man I still do that. Anyway Stephen was the smartest funniest bestest buddy I ever had. He was also a nerd, but I didn’t know that yet. I thought Stephen and I were both pretty much like The Fonz. Stephen a little less than me because he refused to attempt to catch any ball thrown to him. He always took evasive maneuvers. Also, he wanted to be called "Stephen".

Karl was Stephen’s next door neighbor. He went to Brownell Talbot. The only thing I knew about the school at that time was that it was where Karl went, and it sounded like the kind of a school that jerks like Karl would go to. Remember – this was a child’s impression. It wasn’t until I became an adult that I realized that it was precisely the kind of school that jerks like Karl go to. He commuted by Vespa. His Vespa had a basket for his books, but I always imagined he used it to steal little dogs from Kansas farm girls during twister season.

Until I was about 45 years old, I believed I would someday be a great movie actor. Renowned and loved the world over. I still maintain a glimmer of hope. Back in the day, I believed someone would just somehow discover me without me having to go through the trouble of auditioning for anything or learning how to act or sing or dance, etc. I believed I was so great that my greatness could not be hidden for too long. It was only a matter of time before my extreme talent was realized and - “Sorry parents, but I have to go to Hollywood now”. It could even happen during a game of tag.

One thing I could do was run fast. Not like the fastest ever or anything. I knew there were kids faster than me. When I was in 4th grade there were 2 kids (siblings) at the school faster than me. One was in the fifth grade and his sister was in sixth grade. But they weren’t playing any tag with us, so …

That reminds me; I annually won the long jump competition at our school too. So at the time I had my sight set on Beamon’s record. “What are you doing?” Dad asked me one time upon discovering me in the back yard running and jumping into the clothes line.

“I’m practicing because when I grow up, I’m going to beat Bob Beamon’s long jump record.”

“No you won’t,” encouraged my dad, turning and going back into the house.

“We’ll see about that,” I muttered under my breath. Ok yeah, now I’m ready to admit he was right since Mike Powell has since beaten it. I should have said more generally, “I’m going to beat the long jump record.” I’m not sure how dad knew that Beamon’s record would fall to someone other than me. But he did. Eerie.

The thing about running is that footwear and terrain both play a role. For instance, a cheap pair of tennis shoes on slick grass may not be the best, but you know what it's better than? A pair of penny loafers, that's what.

So one day, a bunch of us were playing a friendly little game of tag. I loved tag. I was typically ‘it’ when I decided to be. I was rarely ‘tagged’. But today was different. We had some older kids in the mix today. Well, it was my aunt Debbie, aged 16, and Karl, 14 or maybe 15. Debbie was there because she hung out with us sometimes. Karl was there because he was in love love love with Debbie. Karl had never played anything with us, except I think he sometimes played chess with Stephen. Oh there it is. Just drudged up the whole reason for my dislike of Karl. Jealousy. Stephen was my chess playing buddy, not Karl's! We don’t like Karl, Stephen. How can you play chess with him?

Not that Debbie would have had anything to with Karl. But it didn’t stop him trying. Debbie was cooler than all of us. She drove a cool black Mustang II with the gold racing stripes. Obviously, way out of Vespa boy’s league.

So we’re playing tag and I’m “it”. Karl is near me showboating for Debbie. I’m thinking the strategy must have been something like, “Hey Debbie watch me torment your little kid nephew, thus proving the fates have determined you and I should go steady or something.”

Everyone else was farther away, so I went after a backpedaling Karl. I must have surprised him because he had to jump out of the way to evade getting tagged. He was just a little late. Perhaps it was the penny loafers. By the fingertips, I was able to tag the inside of his right arm. I was very proud of this accomplishment. I had caught and vanquished a “big kid.” As ambassador for all of the children who actually belonged in the game, I was a bit of a hero. There was much shoulder patting and celebration. You know how when David slew goliath, the Jews were all happy and stuff? I imagine it was pretty much like that.

What happened next was really not much of anything. Karl with his head hung low, walked over to the railing by the front porch, grabbed his cardigan and went home. Wow, we collectively thought. What a sore loser. No wonder he never plays with us. Or talks to us. Or looks at us. Oh well who wants to be ‘it’ now that Schicklgruber left?

“Engine, Engine number nine …”

“Excuse me? Which one of you is Fred Hinsley?” The voice belonged to an elderly lady. Well dressed, smelling of some fine fragrance like ‘Charlie’ or ‘Shower to Shower’. She had been given my name, but didn’t know which of us was me. My heart leapt. This is it! Finally the bozos in Hollywood got their shit together. This woman is obviously from the Talent Agency of Movies and Everything.

With a sly smile, a little click of the tongue and a wink, I pointed to myself, “Right chere, ma’am. So long suckers. Don’t be too jealous when you get the postcards.”

As this nice lady roughly grabbed my arm and started pulling me across the yard, I realized that if I’m going to be in the movies, I’m going to have to learn that their ideas about courteous behavior differ from ours. When she started saying things like, “They oughta keep people like you in a kennel.” I began to get a little bit terrified. When she dragged me against my will into Karl’s house It became clear that She was Karl’s mother and she was mad at me for something and she was going to take me into her house and kill me. I began to cry.

Three minutes later, I had been pushed down into a kitchen chair by the nice smelling evil fucking witch. Karl’s dad was pacing back and forth seething. “Have you had your rabies vaccination, you little animal?” he inquired. I was all out bawling at this point not knowing what to do. I was sure they were going to murder me to death and I had absolutely no idea why.

Karl’s mom is shouting something at me. I’m too distracted to understand what she is saying. Then I remember English. She is asking me what my phone number is. I’m still terrified, but relieved. For one thing, my parents had never abused me in this way. For another, if my dad answers the phone and finds out what is happening he will be killing Karl’s dad in roughly 9 seconds.

I give my phone number in a voice that would have won an academy award saying “A dingo ate my baby.”

Mom answers. Damn. Karl’s dad completely oblivious to the fact that a flip of the coin gave his mortal coil a stay of execution.

Witch: Um yes, Hello. Is this Fred Hinsley’s mother?

Mom: wahwahwahwah

Witch (in a very dramatic voice): Your son has bitten my boy!

Mom: wahwah

Me (protesting in 'dingo dines on baby' voice): I DIDN’T BITE HIM!

Witch: Doh! What’s this?

Karl’s Dad: Karl. Come down here.

Witch to mom: Hold please.

Karl’s dad: He says he didn’t bite you.

Karl: Actually no he didn’t.

Witch to mom: Sorry, hee hee, wrong number. Click.

Karl’s dad: Then what the hell happened to your arm?

Karl(suddenly adopting a british accent): Funny story that. He scratched me purely on accident during a little game of tag. Nothing too serious, I’m sure.

Witch to me: you’re free to …

She probably said “go” but I don’t know because I bolted out of that house faster than either of the siblings at my school have ever run. Karl’s dad was removing his belt. Hopefully to just whip Karl but I didn’t stay to find out.

Then the scariest thing in my life happened. I imagined what it would be like to grow up where Karl was growing up. My attitude of him changed instantly. I saw that he wasn't just some supreme asshole for no reason. I saw that he was a human being with fears and emotions just like the rest of us. And also, he was a supreme asshole.

Later when I got home and dad had been briefed, he went over to Karl’s house. Karl and his parents disappeared in the night a few days after that.

I guess I should finish part 3 of that Proudest moment thing

But I still haven't been riding quite enough. It's mostly written anyway. Where did I put it ...

Think I'll do a UP Lunch ride today

It is easy Friday after all ...

Who's crazy now?

I've been listening to Sheen's Korner lately. I enjoy it quite a bit. He just sounds like a pissed off guy to me. Not real crazy. I mean unless Brady's crazy. Because I think Charlie Sheen is channeling him.

For example, If you watch the following video (Watch the whole thing if you have time) from about 10 minutes or so in and then read a comment from Brady about a post of mine a while back, there's an eerie similarity. I actually think Sheen has been reading Brady's comments. Winning!

Charlie's Korner

Brady Said:

When your (two) readers finish reading this blog, chances are one of them will have said, "It is what it is."

Good God I hate that one.

Of course it is, you stupid parrot.

Oh, please excuse me, I forgot. Self-affirming statements make you appear more intelligent, right?

In the age of Relativism, nothing can be called what it is. Instead, we should strive to speak, write and to even think in vague generalities.

For this reason, I think (never say aloud) in its double-negation, as in: "it isn't what it isn't".

But even more, the existentialist would argue that everything we experience is already in the past, for by the time our myopic brains record what our eyes have sensed -- as when your neighbor shouts, "I SEEN IT!! IT IS WHAT IT IS!! -- it has already happened.

Thus, even better than above, one should think in doubly-negated past terms, as in: "it wasn't what it wasn't."

But if I'm feeling really obtuse, then I turn directly to my all time personal favorite, the "Future in the Past" tense. The beauty of this tense is that it encapsulates the best of both worlds: the future wrapped in the reality of the past.

Hence, I present the best of all, the double negative, future in the past version: "it wasn't what it wasn't going to be".

That's better

January:


February:


So it will be about $58 plus taxes, fees and surcharges, whatever that means.

I got rid of cable TV.

Anyway, last October 30th, a bunch of us (about 20) flew to Long Beach California to take a 7 day cruise on the Mexican Riviera. The Cruise started on October 31st. I won’t bore you with any of the details of the cruise. I have something much less interesting to bore you with (with which to bore …). Whilst (while) aboard the ship (big boat), my debit card became mysteriously unusable (as opposed to clearly unusable). I figured, “Well, the Visa people don’t know I’m in Mexico, even though I purchased the cruise and everything on the same debit card. Ok, I’ll straighten it out when I get back home, because right now I’m needed on The Promenade Deck for a thrilling game of 70’s TV trivia.”

When I went to the bank a few days later, I found that my card information had been stolen from a vending machine at work. Well, sort of.

Work recently put an aisle of a convenience store along one of the walls of the cafeteria/break room. All the vending machines were replaced with refrigerators and junk food shelves. There is an evil little self checkout device at the end of the aisle that steals your debit card information and runs off to Argentina and Paris trying to make really big purchases.

At least that’s what happened to me. While I was on my cruise, this little machine was stealing my identity.

Ok, no big deal. Nothing actually went through. Presumably because the device is only about 4 feet tall and its signature didn’t match mine.
The problem happened later on when some of the monthly bills I pay that are taken directly from the debit card started not getting paid. Oops. I probably should have thought about that.

Actually, the only one was Cox Communications. Because they insist on using a credit card instead of taking the cash out of a checking account. Probably because no one in their right mind keeps enough cash in their checking account to pay the Cox bill.

So the cable bill for November didn’t get paid. Cox was pretty cool about it. They didn’t even mention it. Not until they called on December 8th to explain that 2 months were due. “Oh yeah, sorry about that. What do I owe you?”

“$484”

“For 2 months?”

“Yes.”

“I mean I get that its $242 per month, but $484 for 2 months sounds a little steep.”

"We (Cox) would like to mention that we noticed that you don’t have the Cinemax package which gives you 23 channels of Cinemax for just $5.99 a month (for 6 months). And if you decide to keep it after that, just do nothing (you won’t be able to afford to do anything anyway) and the you’ll still receive all that great entertainment for a few (37) pennies a day more."

“Hang on, let me get my calculator …”

"No."

“Ok, well I don’t want Cinemax.”

"Yeah, that’s cool, could we get a credit card number from you?"

“Are you guys related to the machine at work?”

"No. Umm, that reminds us, what’s the available line on that card?"

So that’s how it all started. I was in denial about the cost of cable TV. It took a brave little machine trying to steal from me to show me where the real crime was.

I’m not blaming Cox for any of this. They never misrepresented the cost (just the value) of their service.

So after about 4 weeks of muttering “484” to myself on my way to work, My wife and I did an informal feasibility study. Through considerable analysis and repeatedly saying “484”, we decided to dump cable and invest in Reynolds. They make aluminum foil. You see, back in the day … Oh never mind.

We decided to move forward as of Thursday January 13th. Last Saturday, January 22nd, after some pretty good OTA test results, I returned the boxes to Cox, who asked me if I would be interested in their new wireless (phone) service. I told them I didn’t need HBO/Showtime/Starz on my phone. Aww, Cox. You’re nothing if not salesy.

We will see how well it works in the long run. I have informed Cox not to let me get cable again no matter how much I beg. They assured me that I could “Upgrade” my internet speed from “blazing fast” to “fucking blazing fast” for just $6.99 a month for 5 months, after which time …

I had to stop them and ask them to tell my neighbors about this great offer because they (my neighbors) don’t seem to know how to put a password on their routers.

Next blog (in a day or 2, really): Buying an antenna.

A post

For the last several months, I've been working on a big huge project for work. Well actually for pay. It's not volunteer work. I have been unmotivated to do much else. The project is now coming to an end.

Tomorrow and the next day, I'm going to work at the Cox Classic. A Nationwide tour event out in West Omaha. If all goes as I plan I will get to walk 18 holes with some pros. It is volunteer work.

I have been putting in some hard efforts on the bike for about the last 10 weeks or so. The addiction has returned somewhat. This week is special in that it is the first week in over 2 years that I've put in more hours on the bike than I have at the driving range. Don't get me wrong ... I was put on this earth to golf. However, we all lose our way sometimes. Plus, there's nothing like the feeling of holding that 90% MHR for a couple of minutes. I'm getting there.

Now go ahead Chinese symbol name guy, comment with a bunch of dots that link somewhere.

Beep

The Proudest Moment, Part two

“Ready for another?” boomer asked.

“Waiting on you, Boomer.” Cube said.

It was Friday afternoon. Boomer and Cube had just finished the longest hottest gruelingest work week of their lives. They were beat. They were sunburned from the waist up. In fact, cube was now so dark that were it not for his fine brown hair that the sun had bleached nearly blonde, he might have been mistaken for someone other than “the whitest guy ever”. After sweating it out all week, swinging a sledge hammer 40 hours in the blistering sun, they wanted nothing more than the relief that only an ice cold American lager could provide. But not yet.

Boomer filled cube’s empty cup and then his own.

“Cream? Sugar?”

“What’s the score?” Cube Asked.

“3-2, you.”

“Bullshit. I totally won that last one.”

“You only say that because the speed of sound, proximity of your cup, etc.”

“Fine, 3-2” Cube was worried. He took the first 3. Boomer, the next 2. Boomer was catching cube and cube was losing confidence. The first one to 5 wins. However Cube felt a forfeit coming on. He really did not want to slam any more coffee. His forehead was drenched with dirty sweat. Strangely, the nice cool air-conditioned Village Inn didn’t seem to help.

“Can’t we finish this with beer?”

“So you want to quit? I understand if you do.” Boomer was bluffing his ass off. He felt if he had to drink one more cup of coffee, his already bleeding throat was going to send it all back up, still scalding hot, onto the table.

“Fuck it,” Cube said, digging a dime (the wager) out of his pocket, sliding it to Boomer. It all started with some sort of “Dime fawa cup of coffee” joke neither one of them understood. “You win Daniel,” Boomer’s real name. “Let’s get over to “Louis’”



Louis’ (pronounced Louie’s) was not a person. It was a bar. It was well-known in town as the primer bar. If you were young and didn’t have a lot of cash, you started at Louis’. You could get good and “started” for about 3 or 4 bucks. Then you could milk it at the highfalutin places like the Dundee Dell or Trovato’s or whatever.

The boys worked as “Instrument men” at a local architectural firm. It was summer work. An instrument man was the second best of 3 jobs on a surveying crew. Rodman was a distant third. First place was for the guy who went to school. He carried around and interpreted the blueprints. He got to drive the vehicle. His title was “Prick”.

Normally, the work is not bad. Normally, boomer and cube didn’t work together. They were on separate crews. But this week, everybody (except Prick) was pounding in property pins.

A property pin is a steel rod about an inch and a half in diameter and 2 feet long. It is placed gently in the ground via sledge hammer, to mark the corner of a property line.

The problem with the ground where new construction is happening is that it tends to get packed down by all the big heavy yellow machinery driving around, moving dirt, etc.



On the previous Monday morning, Boomer and Cube reported to work only to be told they needed to put in all the property pins for Oak Street between 165th and 168th by Friday. At this point, Oak Street was just a well-worn dirt trail. It had recently been wilderness. The earth movers were done grading the street. The property lines had been drawn. All that remained was to have a couple of dummies with a sledge hammer and a shitload of steel pins pound them into the ground on the hottest driest week of the summer. Some college boy had already gone by and tapped some 16 penny nails (with bright orange plastic ribbon tied around their necks) into the location for each pin. Thanks dude, we owe you. Don’t get me wrong. The nails could not be pushed into the ground. It was too hard. A hammer (lighter than a sledge) was required for even this job.

Boomer proudly pockets the dime, grabs his pack out of a small pool of coffee spilled on the table, wipes it dry, and shakes a Kool from it. He offers one to Cube, who respectfully declines. Cube has his own smokes, but Boomer is trying to convert him over to the dark side (menthol).

Boomer had a new trick he was working on. If he ever mastered it, he was sure to get a tumor. He would lay the unlit cigarette in his hand, cradling it in the crease between his middle and third finger. By slapping the wrist of the hand holding the cigarette, Boomer could nearly always catapult the cigarette directly to the right of his open mouth, sending it neatly into the Cobb salad of the person in the booth behind him. This time, by some miracle, it actually landed in his mouth. It was almost as amazing as his reaction, “What? I never miss. What?”

“So, you want to head over to Louis’ then? I need a shower first,” Boomer exhaled, minty fresh smoke escaping from his tar filled lungs.

“Yeah, I’m going to head home. Pick me up in an hour,” Cube, working on his own trick, lighting the match from the book with one hand, and burning the tip of his thumb in the process.

Then Boomer had an idea, “You wanna catch Rocky Horror tonight?”

“Naaw, it’s at the 6-west now. I heard it really sucks. They don’t let anybody dress up or throw anything. All you can do is yell,” Cube informed.

“That’s all we ever did anyway.”

“Yeah, but I liked watching the freak-show too.”



“True. I say we clean up, head over to Louis’, then to The Homy for a while (you can’t finish at Louis’), Then I’ll ask you about it again. Deal?”

To be um, yeah, I’m not writing any more tonight, so …

The Proudest Moment of Someone Else’s Life, Part 1

It was the familiar wonderful sound and smell of fried eggs, bacon and coffee that woke Officer Jack Hughes from his blissful dream-state. She’s making my favorite again. As he made the dreamy transition out of his deep slumber, he realized he was lying flat on his back in bed, smiling. He was happy about something, but could not immediately remember what it was. Some vague feeling of great accomplishment. “I must have made a good bust last night. I always feel this way after a good bust.”

Let’s see, what was it? No wait. I’m retired. Crap. Dread filled Officer Hughes’ mind at the painful realization he was no longer on the force. He hadn’t made a bust in over 5 years. He hadn’t had bacon and eggs for breakfast for at least 2 years. Not since that 27 year old “Dr. Snotnose” told him he’d kill himself if he didn’t get his LDLs and triglycerides down. “But I’ll die without my bacon and eggs,” he pleaded. “Dr. Snotnose” would hear none of it. Louise, Jack’s better half conspired with the good Dr. “I still need you to fix things around the house. I’m afraid it’s oatmeal and grapefruit from here on out, snookems.”

Death by fiber, Ex-officer Hughes thought. Why couldn’t I have just died in the line of duty? Heroes eat bacon. That’s what it’ll say on my gravestone.

But now bacon, eggs and coffee is exactly what he smelled. There was no mistaking it. Is this some sort of dream, he wondered. He opened his eyes to see his bedroom ceiling. The old familiar Mississippi river shaped crack running southeast from the ceiling fan. No. I’m really here. I’m really awake. I really smell bacon and eggs, and I’m really happy. But why?

Sitting up on his elbows, looking beyond his feet he saw his current work uniform draped over a bedroom chair near the vanity. It all came back to him. The bacon and eggs were still a mystery, but he now remembered why he’s so happy. The next thing to do is casually go into the kitchen and tell Louise about last night. He relaxed for a moment back into his pillow, fingers interlocked behind his head. Big old grin on his big old face replaying the past evening’s triumph. He carefully framed the events into a lucid story designed for maximum breakfast entertainment value. The goal, as it had always been, was a sweet “My hero,” and a light kiss on the cheek from Louise. Of course she was being sarcastic, but Jack loved it. He knew well the great depth of her love.

Once he was ready with his story, Jack reminded himself to walk into the kitchen casually. No whistling. That will spoil the surprise. It will be difficult to refrain from skipping like a schoolboy into the kitchen. But it was a challenge old man Hughes was willing to accept. He had no choice. Also, he wanted to find out why that evil old woman was cooking his favorite breakfast when he could no longer enjoy it. “Louise, you got some ‘splaining to do,” as their old joke went. Louise never failed to back him up with her best Lucille Ball, “Waaaaaah!”

“Here he comes,” thought Louise upon hearing the floorboards announcing Old Man Hughes’ approach. “Funny, he doesn’t seem to be skipping,” she suppressed a giggle as she pulled the fresh squeezed orange juice from the icebox. “He’s got a story for me. I’m not making him eat that wretched oatmeal as he tells me his first new story in 5 years. Who knows how many more stories there will be?”

Louise understood the old man pretty well. Forty to fifty years of paying attention will do that. Retirement had been extremely difficult for Jack. His job had meant the world to him. He’d put his life in the hands of his comrades on countless occasions as they had in him. Since retiring, he’d slowly come to feel like he was no longer a part of the gang.

For the first few months of retirement, Hughes life had changed little. He still spent most mornings at the same old coffee shop, arguing sports with his old pals before they reported for duty. He still went down to Ugly Tom’s every Friday night to toss back a couple brews with the same group, swapping war stories. Lamenting how bad the kids these days are getting. Unfortunately, Jack’s stories were all beginning to start with the phrase, “Did I ever tell you about the time …”

His pals didn’t mind. They loved the way Old Jack crafted a story. The way he brought it to life. But Hughes minded. He felt now that he’s done contributing, he’s done talking about it. So he stopped going. His friends would call every Saturday, “Missed you last night, old pal.”

Jack had his excuse ready, “You know, Louise has been pestering me to take her to the fish fry,” or “Junior was passing through town, a break from school.”

Eventually the calls stopped. Jack became depressed. He rarely left the house. He rarely got out of his pajamas. His health started to fail. When Louise realized he was killing himself, she suggested he find a hobby. “I’m only good at one thing. I only ever enjoyed doing one thing. That ship has sailed, baby cakes.”

“Then go get a job,” Louise said.

“I’m not going to get a job. I’m retired. This is what I waited my whole life for”

“How’s that working out for you?”

“Dammit Louise, why do you always have to be right? What am I going to do? Flip Burgers? Some high school kid for a boss?”

“There’s always …”

“Don’t say security. I’m not going to be a rent-a-pig. What would the guys say?”

“Whatever they say, it’ll be better if they’re not saying it at your funeral. Talk to Bob. He’s always looking for a hand. I’ve never seen you this way. I’m worried.”

Bob was Jack’s best friend and first partner. He was about 10 years older than Jack, but you’d never know it. He had always stayed busy. About 5 years before Bob retired; he started moonlighting as a security guard. Eventually, he bought the security company and built it into a lucrative little empire. Bob asked Jack about a half dozen times if he wanted to make some easy money. Making reference to an old “dirty cop” joke from back in the day. Jack always declined, citing the joy of retirement. Bob knew it was more likely pride. But He also knew better than to push Jack too hard.

Louise also had a slightly selfish motive for wanting Jack to get some sort of diversion. Jack was wrong about one thing. He was not only good at police work. He was the best story teller she had ever known. When Jack was telling a story, he was reliving what he loved. He was happy. Louise was happy when Jack was happy.

Since retirement, the stories were fewer and farther between. Jack barely spoke at all. He was restless. He tossed and turned all night. When he was on the force, he slept like a baby.

This was how Louise knew a story was coming as she heard the floorboards creek. Last night he had slept like he hadn’t in years. When she woke and saw him peacefully on his back, goofy old grin on his face, she decided it was time to bring out the bacon and eggs. “I’ll bring the bacon, you bring the adventure, my hero,” had been her agreement with Jack from the time they were kids.

Jack had been at his new job as Mall Security for about 2 months. Because he was the “newbie”, he got the worst shifts. Even so, he had already gained a hint of spring to his step. The job did give him some purpose, but was mostly unfulfilling. He never said anything other than, “It was fine.” His shift started at 10PM and ended around 2AM. Only the movie theater was open after 9PM. It was closed at 11 on week nights. There was very little interesting happening. For most of his shift, he was alone. Certainly nothing to inspire a famous “Jack Hughes story”. To Jack it ended up being about the same as sitting at home, but with a little bit of cash.

Just as Jack was about to abandon hope that the new job would ever bring excitement, he heard a rumor. There was an old, beat up Movie Theater in midtown that was closing. For years it had survived off ticket sales of its weekend showing of the cult classic “The Rocky Horror Picture show”. The movie was shown at midnight and had a huge following. The rumor was that the Six West, which was the 6-plex at the mall where Jack worked, had agreed to pick up where the old theater left off. The old theater had allowed its patrons to yell and scream, throw things, dance around in the aisles and dress in costume. Jack had no idea what “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” was. All he knew is that the crowds tended to get a little rowdy. Not on my watch, Jack thought.

To be continued ...

To Absent Friends

When you ask most people what they consider their proudest moment, they might say something like, “The day I got married,” or “The day my first child was born,” or “When I graduated from college.” Etc. For me it was the day I got to teach Northern California how we do things back in little old Nebraska.

When I was in high school, my bestest goodest buddy, Greg was a fan of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. He had been to it maybe twice. I had not seen it. I had seen it advertised as the Friday and Saturday midnight movie at the Admiral Theatre for years. I really had no Idea what it was.

If you don’t know, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a Science Fiction Musical Satire of cheesy Sci-Fi movies from the early to mid 1900s. The story is told from the point of view of an innocent young couple Brad Majors (ASSHOLE!, Major Asshole, to you) and Janet Weiss (SSSSSSSS). They are recently engaged and are on their way to visit their old Science Teacher (Great Scott!) to tell him the news, when a flat tire on a dead end road on a rainy night changes their plan. They run into a transvestite, Dr Frankenstein character from another planet (Transsexual) in another galaxy (Transylvania) who takes them in and um, liberates them.

As excellent as the plot sounds, the real reason people went to see this movie was to yell and throw stuff. When Greg and I started going to see the movie, we were pretty primitive. The only thing we yelled was “Fuck her, I did!” when Janet discovers Rocky weeping in his aquarium in his gold lamé undershorts.



But as the months went on, we became true craftsmen. Thinking about ways to creatively add to the RHPS experience. Once, Greg and I constructed a cardboard plaque with a drawing of a mouth full of teeth on one side and a nice long neck drawn on the other. This turned out to be one of the awesome-est things ever. When we were being frisked at the front door to make sure everything was kosher, the kid asked about the plaque. We showed him the neck and told him what it was for. He nodded approvingly and said (I’m not kidding) “What about the teeth?” He just about fell over laughing when we showed him the other side.


So yeah, normally, you needed toilet paper, newspaper, toast and a spray bottle of water if you wanted to go the equipment route. We just had the plaque. But I’m not here to talk about the plaque.

After a couple of years of fairly regular attendance, we were officially RHPS experts. At least that’s what we thought. We knew every line (in Omaha). I knew the whole script. I knew all the songs (including the ones not on the Soundtrack album). I knew the Roxy Theatre version of all the songs. I had the picture disc. Etc. etc. But still, there were plenty of blank spots in the movie where you could actually hear some of the dialogue. No one had an answer for a good 20 percent of the film. At least not in Omaha.

So one Halloween night in Palo Alto California – I went to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was either that or go see "The Cure" live in concert. I know. I should’ve seen "The Cure", but then the proudest moment of my life might be something I'm less proud of than what I'm about to describe.

My plan was to show these California people that I knew as much about this movie as any of them. I was so wrong. This was 30 miles from San Francisco. I’m going to teach them about Sci-Fi transvestite movies? Whatever. Hey, I was a dumb kid.

In Palo Alto, on Halloween, there was no dead air through the whole movie. I could not yell a word in edgewise. People were yelling hilarious stuff all the way through. It was amazing. Most of it was completely new to me. My tired old lines sucked compared to theirs. But I just yelled mine anyway. It was still fun. And with so many people yelling, no one could know for sure who the guy was, yelling the lame lines from the 70’s.

Then it happened. Totally unexpected. Much like when you’re telling a friend about your embarrassing rash in a noisy bar just as the really loud cover band abruptly ends their song. I could not hear what was being said in the movie, but I knew my cue without having to hear it. Dr. Frankenfurter says: “ …and you shall receive it. In abundance!”

So before I realize what is happening - as I’m yelling *my line at the top of my lungs, it gets real quiet. I’m the only person yelling – and it’s the only time there was only one person yelling. Yes! There is a dead spot in Rocky Horror Picture Show in Palo Alto on Halloween! And I just fixed it. There you go Northern California. You’re welcome.

Me: Hey Franky, what’s your favorite high protein drink?

Dr. Frank N Furter: Come. We are ready for the floor show!

Uproarious laughter. Joy from freaks in California all around. People moving back into the seats near me. Admiration from the real pros. At last. The 2 seconds of the movie not filled with screaming fans will soon be but a memory. I couldn’t believe it. How do you not do something with “come”? Seriously Northern California, I thought you were better than that.

Anyway. That was the proudest moment of my life. And my dad’s. Oh yeah, he wasn’t so thrilled about my obsession with the transvestite movie. Don’t dream it, Dad. Be it.

*The line was not my invention. I believe it was Charles Cox who penned it. At least that’s who I heard it from. Of course that name might be wrong, too. Anyway – this Charles guy forgot more about RHPS than I ever knew. He also told me that Princess Leah was Luke's Sister about 2 minutes after Yoda said "No, there is another." Of course I didn't believe him. Everyone knew Yoda was talking about Lando Calrissian. But they kissed! we protested. Anyway. He was right about that too.

In case you haven't heard.

Note: This post was written on 9/12/2008. I never published it. I don't know why. I actually have a new post about the proudest moment of my life that I will publish in a couple of hours or so. But I've decided to post "The lost Blog posts" from time to time. There are a lot of them.

And now, the very first "Lost Blog Post", In case you haven't heard:

There's this one guy who's white (John McCain) and running for the office of the president of the United States. He's a racist, though. I know this because he publicly says bad things about a black man (Barry Obama) every day (except on 9/11 day). It sounds worse than it is though, because the black man that he says things about is a sexist again. He stopped being a sexist for a few days. He decided to be the bigger man and bury the hatchet, so to speak. He actually worked very hard to make amends to all of those he'd hurt with his disparaging comments toward a certain woman (Mrs. Bill Clinton, who was also a racist, by the way). And let's face it, his target was a human being worthy of great respect and honor. A great American. A woman who weathered an unbelievable battle against incredible odds, and who demonstrated the sort of grace and humility in defeat rarely witnessed in the political arena.

Well It seems like no sooner does Obama patch it up with Slick Willy's old ball and chain, than he starts picking on another woman (also white - and also a racist). But it's worse this time, because many people seem to think this new woman he's picking on is "hot". The great american from earlier (Hillary) gets no such accolades. In fact, when her husband (The Right Honorable William Jefferson Clinton, Esq.) was running around on her publicly, most people weren't saying "Oh that poor woman ". It was more like, "He's cheating with that heavy girl? He can do better."


Now maybe your method of foot massage differs from mine, but hot and Sarah Palin is not the same thing. [skip ahead] Ain't no ball park neither. Sorry for the brief S. Jackson moment.

Anyway, because you can't read, I'll list the reason that I will no longer look at the news until after November:
I know what the Republican Vice Presidential candidate's daughter's name and age (17) is.
I Know that the daughter is pregnant.
I know what the guy who got the daughter pregnant's name is.
I know that he is a hockey player.
I know that Lindsay Lohan had advise for Sarah Palin's daughter of some kind.
I know that the 17 year old is now engaged to the Hockey player.
I know that Sarah Palin has a child with Down Syndrome and that it was rumored for a while that that kid was actually the daughter's.
I know that if you put lipstick on a pig it is still a pig.

Funny thing about me knowing all of this is that I have not read even one article about any of these things. Just the headlines. So yeah, there's no reason to read the news. I might be tempted to read if the headlines started out with the word "Umm".
Not the word "Umm" like I'm trying to remember something. But the one that always preceded the words "I'm going to tell" when I was a little kid. It's like the news writer people are a bunch of tattle-tales. As readers, we should spank them for it and send them back outside to figure out a way to play nice with everyone. But we don't. We read the story and then we say "Umm, Hillary's aid called Obama a terrorist. Umm."

Here's an idea

I was thinking about this after Shim posted a brilliant comment. So mini people have a problem with the difference between your and you're, we should all just start using the universal 'yer'. Unlike the first too (2), 'yer' is appropriate fer either usage. If you wanted to say two someone "yer pudgy", the meaning is clear. They're's no ambiguity their. Of course occasionally, yer meaning may not be clear. If you walked up to someone and said "Charlie Brown, I used to wonder if you were crazy, but now I can clearly see yer nuts ..."

Never mind. I just wanted to say that punch line. I don't really care about anything else.

9.3

So what that means is that I’VE BROKEN THE 200 POUND BARRIER!!!1!!ONE!WONEXCLAMATIONMARK!

I weighed in at 199.3. I still weigh too much to make 190 by Shim’s April 1 2010 deadline. I might be able to get down to that target weight by the end of April, though. Then I can get to the serious work of putting all the weight back on. Mmm, that’s going to be delicious.

---

P.S. Brady, My official handicap index for the start of the year is 23.3 - maybe I should post how that number increases/decreases throughout the year as well ...

A friend of a friend of Bryan's interviewed me while driving today

I was driving. He was interviewing. Well, I wasn't really driving. I was hitting some irons. I was at Miracle hill on the driving range. He was there too. But he was not driving. His name is Matthew Hansen. He is a writer for The Omaha World Herald. He told me he wants to write a story about hard-core outdoor Omaha people. "Ok", I said. Then he wrote a story. Then he put it in the paper. It's kind of like when Brady got his bike back. Except nobody wants to take my photo (Golfer's Physique). So I says, "Hey - Do you know Bryan Redemske?" Then we talked about what a great guy he is for a while. We both sounded like we believed it, too. Wierd.

I talked to Spence while spinning today.

Well, Spence was spinning, I wasn't. I thought I was going to be spinning an hour later, but it turns out today was "National Spin for 2 hours for a donation of 75 dollars" day. Ok, maybe that's wrong. It's just that when I asked the front desk person if there was a sign up sheet for the 8:15 spin class, I was informed that there was no spin class today because spin class was filled up with people who had paid 75 bucks to spin for 2 hours for some fund raiser. Don't get me wrong. I don't think Spence paid the 75 dollars. He was just on one of the bikes alone in the spin bike/aerobic room, spinning. He looked like he'd been there a while too. All sweaty and stuff. So I stopped in and chatted with him for a while. Turns out, you don't necessarily need an actual class to spin. As long as there's no step-aerobics or anything going on, nobody's going to say anything to you for mounting one of those bad-boys and going for a quick ride. Sweet.

Anyways I had a back up plan. I always do. You never know if spin class will be filled up or there will be a national "spin for 2 hours to save the whales" day. So I suited up and hit the basketball court. Good thing too. After I warmed up a bit, I was hitting 3-pointers (I mean like honest-to-goodness, nothin' but net, swishes) like a mad man. It was as if I had some sort of Baset-ball Jones ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh wee. Tyrone Shoelaces would have been very impressed. My top.

13.0

Less than a stone away from my goal (goal: 13 Stone 8 lb). I put the big pants away for next winter. Now losing weight on pace with Jan Ullrich during a TDF.

My secret? Well, I'll tell you.

First, make a big plate of your favorite food. It doesn't matter what it is. Get as much as you want. Pile it on. For me, it's a double meat, philly with extra cheese and extra mayo and a family size curly chili cheese jalapeno fries (extra spicy) from Tony's All-You-Can-Gorge Cow-Flesh and Cheesecake eatery. Mmm. I wish such a place existed.

Anyway, before you sit down to eat your delicious meal, take one flintstone chewable vitamin to slightly curb your hunger.

Next - and you cannot skip this part - take a clean plate and divide the meal in half. This does not have to be exact, but it should be close. Try to divide each part of the meal in half. Now you have 2 decent sized meals in front of you. Take the one that looks slightly larger (be honest, otherwise you're only cheating yourself) and throw it in the trash. I know it sounds horrible, but you were going to eat it. And that's even worse for weight loss.

Now you can sit down and enjoy a good meal, except, no you can't. Are you kidding me? That's still too much food. Scrape the other plate into the trash too and go smoke a cigarette. That should take care the hunger for a while. Later on, you can have another Flintstone chewable if you're good.

I’m using my degree … finally: A book review.

Note: This review may contain spoilers. Where possible I will point them out in advance.

A few weeks ago, this guy I work with, we’ll call him “Sam” came to me and said, “Here’s a book I want you to look at. It’s got some stuff in it about flexible pattern matching in strings.”

I looked down at a bright yellow book, called “Flexible Pattern Matching in Strings”.

“Ok, Sam.” I argued.

Sam continued, “Once upon a time I implemented the “Set Horspool” algor …”

You know what? Let’s call him “Ted”. “Sam” is just not working for me.

“… Algorithm, but lost the source code. I want you to read this book and find the best way known to man or beast to search for any of a list of strings within a target string,“ Ted went on to explain.

At first, the idea of reading what looked like a textbook didn’t appeal to me. But Ted sweetened the deal by telling me there were algorithms described inside the book. I love algorithms. Ted knows that. “What the heck, give me that book Sam. I mean Ted!”

Several white board drawings and unrelated personal anectodes later, Ted left me alone with the little yellow book.

A voice inside my head said, “This is your chance Freddie. The opportunity you’ve worked for. Don’t blow it.”

I swiveled abruptly in my office (cubicle) chair. I hadn’t immediately realized the voice was internal. “What do you mean, “opportunity”?

Voice: You know as well as I do what I mean.

Me: Then why don’t you fill us both in?

Voice: Seriously?

Me: Please?

Voice: No.

I may never know what the voice meant. But I knew that this was a chance to use my formal training in computer science. Taking a closer look at the book, I notice it’s not bright yellow, but more pale. Hmm. Must be the lighting. I carefully open the book. Ted is pretty anal about his stuff so I don’t want to get spaghetti sauce on it or anything. As I begin to read, I realize what a profoundly wonderful book this is. Well, after about 1 and a half chapters. I had to kind of skim over chapter one, the elementary crap about bit-parallelism and bit operations and the labeled rooted tree and trie crap (yawn) and get right to the good stuff in the middle of chapter 2. This is where the author struts his stuff. Showcasing his talent, he masterfully paints the tale of flexible pattern matching history. From its humble beginnings in a sleepy midwestern village where the controversial Knuth-Morris-Pratt idea came to prominence all the way up to jaw dropping discoveries like Boyer-Moore, Horspool etc. From start (1 and a half chapters in) to finish (about chapter 5 or so) You learn the truth about algorithms you've heard about your whole life but never believed actually existed.

SPOILER ALERT!!!: Turns out, Horspool is an improvement over the original Boyer-Moore idea. I know, right?

Let me tell you, if you’ve ever had a need to match patterns flexibly, or even if you just consider yourself a weekend flexible pattern in strings matcher, here’s your book. I’ll warn you, though. If you do get this book, keep your eye on it. People will be “borrowing” it from your cube on a regular basis. Yeah, It’s that good.

Whatever you do, don’t skip the section on the Backward Nondeterministic Dawg Matching Algorithm. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will ask that you thank me later for the heads up.

BIG HUGE SPOILER ALERT, AND THE REASON FOR TED’s VISIT IN THE FIRST PLACE: Though the Horspool Algorithm is great for finding one particular substring, its multiple string version, “Set Horspool” sucks ass. Thankfully, there’s an answer. In the late 80’s, early 90’s a couple of guys by the unfortunate names of Udi Manber and Sun Wu describe what turns out to be one of the most efficient ways to find any of a set of substrings within a certain string. It is named after its inventors. By now, it should be obvious I’m talking about the “Wu-Manber Algorithm!” Ok, be honest. Who thought it was “Manber-Wu?” Silly reader!

So I read the book. Got the info I needed and wrote a program that reads in a list of words and looks for their occurrence in some text. And it does it really really fast. Thanks Little Yellow book!

By the way. The reason Ted wanted this thing? Well, here at the company, we have lots of information. We also have a list of potentially offensive words. We like to run the information through looking for these 400 or so words. I ran this blog post through it. Results below:

---
ix = 0, match found: CRAP
ixTemp = crap
---
---
ix = 0, match found: CRAP
ixTemp = crap
---
---
ix = 1, match found: HATE
ixTemp = hatever
---
---
ix = 0, match found: SUCK
ixTemp = sucks
---
---
ix = 0, match found: SUCKS
ixTemp = sucks
---
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ix = 0, match found: ASS
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Call me a skeptic

I have this brother-in-law, let’s call him “Lane” who has helped Jill and me with all sorts of menial labor type tasks over the years. He’s helped us move at least 3 times without complaint. So when he moved into a new house a while back, it was unfortunate that it was at a time that I was unable to help, due to not wanting to. He also built a rock wall one time and was looking for help, but alas, I had to go for a bike ride or something.

I’ve always felt kind of guilty about the uneven favor balance, so when I heard he was going to move his backyard fence to the north about 23 feet (7 meters), I vigorously volunteered to help. Mainly, to alleviate the guilt. But it also seemed like it could be some good exercise.

The first thing we had to do is wait for the guy with the auger, we’ll call him “Mike” to show up. In case you don’t know, an auger is used to dig cylindrical holes for posts for fences, not to be confused with a bung hole borer or reamer.

Once Mike got there, we had the labor-intensive duty of standing around watching him use his 2-man auger by himself. Any of us would have helped, but he didn’t want it. There was one guy, who shall henceforth be known as “Steve” in this story, who sheepishly tried to help Mike by lightly pressing down on one of the handles with a couple of his fingers while Mike drilled into the ground.

I should back up a minute. It should be noted at this time that there were about 5 guys at the fence moving party. We think of ourselves as reasonably smart people. We think we’ve got what it takes intellectually to put some holes in the ground. As it turns out, intellect can be your enemy when it comes to trades such as digging. See, Lane has an underground sprinkler system which complicates the matter slightly. We don’t want to dig just anywhere potentially rupturing a water line so we had to be careful about where we put these holes. Luckily for us, the problem has a simple solution if you believe in magic.

Turns out Mike is a “dowser”. He can divine the location of water under his feet by using bent pieces of wire and walking around until they move. I did not realize what he was doing until it was explained to me. The thinking here is that the sprinkler lines under the ground will have water in them. This highly abnormal concentration (about 1 inch diameter) of water about 8 inches below ground will trigger these handheld bent wires to move together.
“We’ve got a skeptic!” Lane shouted after it was explained to me.
“I’m no skeptic,” I insisted. “That would mean that I doubt it. I don’t doubt it. I know it’s bullshit.”
“Skeptic,” the other four nodded in knowing agreement. It was like they were saying, “How cute. The computer guy doesn’t believe in the science of divining rods.”

“Well ok guys, How’s it work, then?”

Mike was happy to explain:

Here’s the interesting stuff I learned about dowsing.
Only Certain people, let’s call them “seers” can do it. Others cannot. Some are better (more sensitive, Mike explained) than others. Mike thinks it has something to do with the chemistry of the individual somehow mixing with the elements of the earth.

Power lines above can disrupt the reading. He showed us this by walking under power lines and – sure enough, the wires moved together like the closing of a gate, only to open as he cleared the source of interference. I thought of it much like the way you might tune a radio station in (except that there really are radios that can receive broadcasts).
It was really quite amazing. Not the dowsing. The fact that Mike, Steve and to a certain degree Lane all believed that the dowsing practice was smaller than some of the huge piles of shit they’d seen in the past. Fascinating.

A very long story

Well it all started when I, oh crap - I forgot. I have a one o' clock meeting. I'll finish this story later. Bye.

18.0

Even though, Shim's suggestion of April 2010 seemed too far away. It now looks like April 2011 is more like it. Thanks for the lovely email, Brady.

I think that even though I'm far too busy to post anything, I'm going to anyway. I'll just type faster and do no editing or proofreading. That should speed things up. Ok, so what is making me so busy I can't sit down for a few minutes and tell a story or something? I'll tell you what. PS3. That's what. Yeah, it took a while, but I'm finally a lazy teenager who sits around playing video games all day long. I'm currently playing "Get A Life 2.0: The routine continues". I can't get past chapter 4 "Higher education". Whew.

I've also been kind of occupied doing nerd stuff. I bought a cheapo computer to connect to my 19 inch flat screen Home theater (theatre) system. That's right! 19 inches (measured diagonally). Hmm? Your parents console was bigger than that? Well, I hate to break it to you, but your parents were compensating for something. It looks really big if you move the couch up a ways. The definition is so good, I can clearly see each RGB pixel.

Also keeping me pretty busy. Snow shoveling. But enough about that.

Oh and there's cub scouts and Basketball. I'm a den leader and coach.

Nocitably absent from the laundry list of chores. Laundry. My clothes are really smelly now. Ahh the life of a teenage gamer. Which reminds me. Why is there no outcry about how horrible "The Who" sounded during the Super bowl. Are they trying to make us wish we never complained about seeing a nipple? You win, Super bowl Half-time entertainment people. There are worse things than briefly exposing body parts. Now bring back singers younger than my grandparents. Thanks.

I really don't have time right now.

Otherwise, I'd love to post something.

Them Avatarians is Tall!

Well, the verdict is in. “Avatar” is a good movie. It appeals to everyone. I’ve listened to people talk about it for the last few days. Some people will say they did not like it. They will be lying. The smartest person I know loved it. The dumbest person I know loved it. Below are their reviews. I’m not saying who’s who, though.

Review #1:
Damn, I went to see that Avatar movie. That was a good movie. It was about these aliens on their home planet of Avatar. The Avatar alien race is killing the humans who’ve come from Earth to mine some valuable rocks. Then this crippled Marine “Semper Fi!” gets hired to infiltrate the Avatars via a virtual reality machine. And it’s cool because he can’t walk in the real world, but in the make-believe world of Avatar, he can! So needless to say, he likes being a big, blue Avatarian. Then he ends up falling in love with this girl Avatar so he switches sides, fighting for the aliens on their home planet. They’re called “Avatars” because they have to tame and fly around on pterodactyls. Like how some people call pilots, Avatars. Man that was a good movie.

Review #2
The movie 'Avatar' takes place almost entirely on Pandora, a moon of Polyphemus, in the Alpha Centauri A system. I think the naturally occurring floral neural network of the moon must have somehow influenced the evolution of the moon's fauna so that the physical, biological communication links of each of its species were compatible with one another and the network itself. Interesting ...

So there it is. The dumbest person I know and the smartest person I know both missed the point of the movie. Oddly, the dumb guy was closer than the smart guy. The movie's point is that we no longer need Kevin Costner to make a good 3 hour movie.

I'm just going to ease back into this blogging thing.

First of all, I just wanted to post some photos of my old bike. A 2001 LeMond Zurich. For a long time, I had some dura-ace open pros on it, but now I've got them on the Cannondale, and so the original wheels are on the old bike. I like to call my bike "Ol' Yeller and Blue". It has been consigned to the trainer for the last 3 years and has become corroded by sweat. It's been nearly impossible to shift to the big ring because of the old rusty cables responsible for that duty. Tuesday morning, the cable finally snapped. I decided to run the bike over to Olympia for a Makeover (and new cables).

It ended up being quite a job because some parts had rusted to the frame. But in less than 24 hours, They returned it to me like this!!!




Wow, I might just start riding again. Olympia is my favorite shop. It helps that it's in the 'hood.

Well anyway, here's a preview of what you'll be looking at most of next Spring/Summer:



If you like the way it looks, thank the guys at Olympia.

I'm just kidding. I'll be golfing.

The day my little puppy died.

For my 8th birthday, my parents bought me a little puppy. He was the runt. Though he was small in stature, he had the heart of a lion. So we named him Leo. This was the first time I had responsibility for another living thing. What I didn't understand was that even though little doggies love the taste of anti-freeze ...

Ok, I'm just kidding. I never had a dog. Well, I did but I don't remember it. It was when I was one years old or something. So long little Leo. We miss you.

A Departure

My oldest daughter turned 19 today. On my way to work I was thinking about that. The first thing that came to my mind was how she was when she was little. One particularly bittersweet event popped into my memory. Actually, there is a photograph of it. I first thought of the photo, then the event. I don’t know who took the photo. It might have been Jolene’s mother.

In the photograph, Jolene is somewhere around 3 years old and our backs are to the camera. We are flying a kite out at either Lake 11 or Lake 16. I don’t know which. Why did this memory come to me? Well That’s what I was wondering.

From the time she could sit up and play, each night we’d go into her room and play some game. Usually, it had to do with me trying to stack blocks as quickly as she knocked them down. Or we’d wrestle, or I’d tell her stories.

Every night I would drag my feet to play with Jolene the requisite 20 minutes or so. I didn’t want to play with her. I just wanted to sit and relax.

Every night I would enjoy myself so much playing with her that the session typically went for an hour or more.

She was smart and funny. She had a wonderful sense of humor. I was very proud.

Every night I would put her to bed. We would play a game, saying goodnight to all sorts of animals, warning them to quiet down because it was bed time and if they weren’t quiet, we promised the animals we’d make a sandwich out of them and say they taste like chicken.

At that time in my life, I was working 2 or 3 part time jobs. I was a sophomore at UNO taking 12 hours. My ex-wife did not work. I was exhausted. Jolene was the only part of my day I enjoyed. It was a rather dark time.

Eventually, my ex-wife had had enough of my screwing around at work and school all of the time and threw me out of the house (this is very close to the truth). I had wanted Jolene to have a normal life from the time she was born. The burdens she had were not fair in my mind. I left the house because the family was broken. She was a baby in a house where the parents were always yelling. I thought (perhaps incorrectly) that it was better to spend a couple of great weekends with her a month, than 7 days a week of fighting with her mother.

In my most painful memory, I tried to explain to my daughter that I was leaving while she (I’m crying right now) was standing in her crib bawling. Why was I leaving her? She thought I loved her. She was a baby girl losing her daddy. Her best friend. Her superhero. My ex wanted me to lie to her and tell her I’d be back soon. Maybe she was right. Maybe I should have lied. I did not believe it at the time.

Leaving my wife was easy. People did not understand that. They thought I was miserable because I was no longer with my wife. At that time I was only allowed to be with my daughter for very short periods of time. The courts had not decided anything yet and My ex claimed she did not trust me alone with my daughter. She’d let me visit for an hour or 2 here and there. The only visitation I had was with Jolene’s mother present, making it difficult to be myself around my daughter.



One time however, when she was 3 years old, I was allowed to take Jolene unsupervised to the lake where we flew a kite. The ex met us out there and took Jolene back home. I think that’s where the picture came from.

Before Ex got there, I got to watch my daughter as herself with me as myself. Her daddy showing her how to fly a kite (today she’d say she taught me, but she’s a liar).

As I stood behind her, watching her looking up to the sky, carefully holding the string the way I’d instructed, I had the strong revelation of the pain awaiting me in the coming years. I loved being with her so much. I wanted to have her knock the blocks down every day. But it would only be a couple of times a month for the rest of her childhood.



I believed that one day she’d want to come and live with me. She was smart and funny. Her personality was similar enough to mine. I reasoned that her mother would eventually have the same effect on her as she did on me.

Finally about the time she was 16 or so, she moved in with us. I was so happy for her. I had always wanted something for Jolene that I could never give her until this point. A home life she deserved. It was not fair that she should be in a crazy house where the parent heaped too much responsibility on her. She should be allowed to live her high school years unencumbered by her parents’ problems. We tried to do that as much as possible.

She’s in college now. She earned a full ride. I’m so proud of her I can’t express it. I only write about this because I’m hoping it will be suitable in lieu of me spending money on some gift.

That last line is for Jolene. Did I mention she has a great sense of humor?

Happy birthday Jolene.

The Real Wesley J

The truth is stranger than fiction. At least that’s the old cliché. I’ve always believed that to be only partially true. I guess it depends on what truth and what fiction you’re talking about.

The other day when someone calling himself “Wesley J” commented on my blog, my first reaction was to take it at face value. I was confused by the vile, crude, illiterate nature of the comments. Knowing the real Wesley, I had not expected that type of response. On the other hand, I had never seen any of Wesley’s writing so even though he has always seemed intelligent, maybe it just didn’t translate to the written page. There are many extremely intelligent people who are simply cursed when it comes to reading and writing. Unable to convey the witty thoughts “forming in their brain”, they are limited to the basest form of human communication. Threatened by their clearly inadequate literary skills, they must resort to homophobic derision and name calling.

Of course, when the real Wesley stepped forward and explained that I had been duped, the fake comments made sense. Wesley’s explanation was articulate, like I would have expected.

However, the fact that the prank was engineered in the way it was shows the perpetrator is an intelligent person, which I can verify now that I have finally figured out who it is. Although there will never be the remotest hint of it in his writing, this is one of the smartest people I've ever encountered. I’d venture this is one of the few true geniuses I know. To hide behind my psyche undetected like that. Whew. Wait until I tell you who it is!

Before I continue I must warn you. “Wesley J” is tricky. This story has a few parts that I’ll unveil over the next few days. In between, there may be comments from “Wesley J”. They may persuade you that my conclusion is false. But I make this promise. After I’ve shown you who he is, there will be no doubt.

I’ve known the person now calling himself “Wesley J” since I was 14 years old. I met him the year I despised myself more than any other. When I turned 15, I said to myself,
“That was the worst year of my life. I doubt there will be any that bad again ever.”



So far, it’s true. After a bitter painful divorce when I was in my early 30's, and the ensuing extreme poverty, I can honestly say the joyless 14th year of my life was the worst ever. I was unhappy all year. Some call it growing pains or puberty. All I know is I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to be me. It was during that summer that I met “Wesley J” and we immediately became best friends.

But to talk about that, I have to talk about the comment of “Wesley J’s” that gave it away. Like I said, I know the guy. Even though we are now sworn enemies, he was most likely bored with my sorely inadequate guesses as to his true identity, so he threw me a bone when he lied and said he was in New Mexico. Only "Wesley J" and I will ever know what that truly means. But I'll let you in on as much as I dare.


Eleven months out of the year, my dad worked hard. He’d scrimp and save to put away enough cash for a big annual family vacation. These were great. Usually something big like Disney World!

On this particular year we were going to go to Florida for some fun and sun. At least that was the plan. However, my grandma had a dying brother who lived far, far away. My grandma never drove a car. At this time, she was about 65 years old. She was resigned to never seeing her brother alive again. My dad decided it would be nice if we modified our vacation plans so Grandma could see her brother. As it turned out, this change resulted in one of the most memorable vacations we ever had. At the time, there were 5 in our family. We had a 1972 Chevy Nova with no Air conditioning. We were going to be taking Grandma with us. We were also going to take my aunt (mom’s sister-german [ sic ]) with us because she would like to see some of her uncles/cousins-german [ sic ] as well (look it up. I just learned it today and wanted to use it). So with seven people, the Nova wasn’t going to cut it.

So my dad bought a big huge Ford Custom 500. It was the first car I ever saw that ran on “unleaded fuel”. It was roomy enough for all seven of us to ride in comfort to our ultimate vacation destination. The place relevant to the tale of "Wesley J". Because you see, my grandma’s brother, Marion, was dying of emphysema. On the suggestion of his doctor, he had moved himself and his family to the dry climate of Farmington, New Mexico. The hint “Wesley J” left for me in his last comment. Oh, he doesn’t live there anymore. He tends bar at an island resort. But he used to live there. Oh did I mention my great uncle’s last name? It was … Keeler!

(To be continued. Or not)