Fail at FULL POWER

Cold

2008-12-06T15:23:00.003-05:00

Cleveland is certainly not disappointing on the cold side of things. Lately, temperatures have plummeted. Last night I went down to the Winking Lizard to hang with Novi and his girl Liz, Scur, Stacy, Hunter, and some strange couple that I guess Scur knows. It was frigid. I had walked over to Jason's to chill and play some of the new Prince of Persia on the Xbox360 with him (fantastic friggin game by the way), and then walked from there to my truck for the drive down to Scur's neck of the woods. Man, it was cold. When I got in the truck, the truck's thermometer on the little LCD info screen in the dash read 17-18 deg F. Damn. Today when I bought the webcam it was about 20 deg F. =\

The worst part about these chilling temperatures is that I can't really escape them in my apt. I probably wrote on this before, but one whole wall in my living room is basically shitty single pane glass. I'll explain. I have a wide balcony door (which means the sliding door with its accompanying fixed door) flanked on both sides by windows. The windows take up approx 2/3rds of the vertical height of the wall. So, a lot of crappy (mostly) single pane glass, with numerous drafty places. It was worse last year, until I got so fed up with it that I bought some clear silicone caulking, foam tubing, and window covering kits (clear hair-dryer-activated shrinkwrap with some double sided tape).

It's a real pain to put up the double sided tape and then put up the saran-wrap-looking shrinkwrap, then dry it and hope it holds (it will bulge out with the pressure of the drafty air pushing in on the mostly-airtight seal). The silicone caulking was nice because I could plug up the little holes in the corners where the glass meets the metal frame of the door, and the foam tubing is nice for jamming into any long stretches or cracks. It's still difficult though.

What compounds the problem of the poorly insulated living room is the fact that the baseboard heating (stupid boiler heating for this building while others have central air) is right along the very wall containing all that glass. It's frustrating. What little heat is being given off is instantly mixed with any cold drafty air, or all of its heat is rapidly exchanged with the frigid glass and metal surfaces less than a foot away.

It's bearable, I guess. At times it will be downright chilly in the living room, and at others it's really not so bad, depends on how cold the day is and how windy it is. Lately I've been wearing my underarmor longsleeve top, and it helps. Most annoying however, is that my hands will sometimes get pretty damn cold when I'm at the computer (which is almost all the time). That really can't be avoided and wearing gloves is far too cumbersome to manipulate the keyboard and mouse. Ah well.

Interestingly enough, my bedroom doesn't seem to be plagued with the same problems. This is most likely due to the fact that the overall room is smaller, has only one medium-sized window, and has baseboard heating running along two walls. I keep the bedroom door to the hall shut to keep that room nice and warm, and it works pretty well. It's still a bit of a nuisance to have to walk out from a warm room and instantly notice a chill. It's a definite temperature shift.

Hrm. Not sure what to make of this. I've given some thought lately to my desire to be in a temperate zone. I mean, I've lived in it all my life, really. From Pittsburgh to Bucknell to Cleveland, I've faced temperature extremes each year, from scorching summers to freezing winters. I really don't mind the heat, but cold, as I get older, is just wearing on my patience. It used to be a mark of (strange?) pride for me to be able to shrug off 'burgh winters, but I just don't think I care anymore. I think I'll explain a bit more about how I handle heat and cold in a later post (and if I've done so already but forgotten, I'll still post anyway).

Later dudebros.

Webcam

2008-12-06T15:18:00.002-05:00

I picked up a webcam today, a Microsoft VX-3000. BestBuy had it on their site for approx $38, but the store had it for approx $44. I got them to price-match their own site (....) and walked away with it for approx $41 (don't forget there was tax in there).

Video resolution is 640x480, so it's nothing incredibly stellar, but it gets the job done decently well. Video quality is good. Picture quality is pretty crappy. Still pictures can be taken at 640x480 or.... 1.3 megapixels. Yeah... It doesn't really improve the quality at all; it just takes a larger picture. Oh well. I only wanted it for video anyway via MSN Messenger or whatnot.

If you also have a cam and you'd like to say hi, hit me up.

Busy Sunday

2008-12-01T19:20:00.003-05:00

Sunday was a little busy for me. I lazed around in bed until about 2p, then got up and called Ryan. We had talked the prior night about meeting up on Sunday to watch the Stiller game. I was also interested in seeing Theory of a Deadman, who was playing at Cleveland's House of Blues down on Euclid, right in the heart of the city. After chatting with Ryan to confirm our plans, I drove down to scout out parking and buy a ticket.

I hadn't realized the Browns were playing in Cleveland that day, and so traffic was brutal. The game must have just gotten out, because the parking garages were dumping loads of cars onto the roads, the streets were packed, and I had forgotten to bring directions to the damn place. The original plan was for me to get a ticket, drive to Ryan's apt and pick him up, from where we would then head to Panini's in Coventry to watch the game. I called Ryan, letting him know I'd be a little bit late due to the traffic (and also to find out where the fuck the House of Blues was located). Ryan took the liberty of cancelling the Panini's plans, instead opting to watch the game at his place. Ryan's reasons were threefold: One, reception was pretty good that day to catch the game. Two, Ted was gonna come over and join us. Three, and most importantly, there was a whole bunch of beer at his place that needed drinking. We agreed on the plans and hung up.

I got the ticket and fought my way back through traffic to the Coventry area. Meeting up with Ryan, we each opted for a Great Lakes Christmas Ale and settled in to watch the game. Ryan was finishing up an NHL200x (sorry, I forget the year) game on the PS2. He wasn't doing well. His Pens had lost the last two games, and it was the third period, with Ryan down 3 to 2 vs the NY Islanders. This was doubly embarassing: It was a nasty losing streak and he was losing to the Islanders. I had 5-10 min before he'd finish, so I decided to return my Dad's call that I had missed on the drive to get the ticket. Dad was up at camp getting ready for a day or two of hunting. While I was on the phone, Ryan proceeded to score 6 fucking unanswered goals, obliterating the Islanders. Just minutes prior, Ryan was concerned that his Pens didn't have enough gas in the tank to make a comeback...then he shitstomps them. Most hilarious was that Maxime Talbot scored the GWG. Priceless.

He finished the hockey game, I finished the call, and we turned on the Steeler game. It was a hell of a game. Both teams are good teams, and each is doing decently well in its respective division. The Steelers are #1 in the AFC North while the Pats are #2 in the AFC East. Both teams have lost some good players to injuries. By the half, the game was tied 10-10, but after the half the Steelers just blew things wide open. Our D got to Cassel a few times, twice stripping him of the ball, forcing two costly fumbles that we recovered. With our punishing defense (#1 in the NFL in total yards allowed, passing yards allowed, and rushing yards allowed if I remember correctly), and with capitalizing on Pats turnovers, the Steelers cruised to a 33-10 win.

By this point, Ted had arrived. Ryan and I had been discussing getting pizza, so we pulled Ted in with us, ordered a pizza, picked it up, and ate it while we finished the Stiller game. We lounged around for a little to bullshit about stuff before I took off to see the show. Theory of a Deadman had two openers, Pop Evil and Framing Hanley, but given that I took my time getting there, I only caught Framing Hanley. Not a big deal. Framing Hanley was pretty good, but it was less enjoyable since I didn't know any of their songs and so couldn't sing along. They wrapped up and then Theory took the stage. Man, what a great show. The main hall of the House of Blues is a decent size: Close enough to be intimate but large enough to hold a healthy group of people. If the stage is the center of a clockface, seats/standing room would go from 3 o'clock to 9 o'clock, in two tiers. Standing room/a few barstools are on the first floor with a few rows of stadium seating on the second floor. Again, there's really no place that's far away, so you get a good view really anywhere. I was down in the crush of people standing on the floor. Times like those make you appreciate being tall, heh. It was a blast. Their song selection was really good, playing a mix of their best tunes along with a few less heard as well as a good blend of upbeat/fast and slow jams. Damn near shouted myself hoarse from singing along, not to mention I was half deaf from how loud it was.

All in all it was more than worth it. If you can get your hands on some Theory of a Deadman I highly recommend it, and if you can catch them live, do so! If you're computer illiterate, or don't want to buy a CD you haven't heard at all, let me know and I can send some songs your way.

Oh yeah. I got nearly a whole fucking Thanksgiving cake off Ryan. One of those Giant Eagle store-bought ones. He had two cakes and knew there was no way in hell that he was going to eat them both, so I got to snag one. Free food for the win.

Later dudebros.

Going to Houston

2008-11-08T03:27:00.006-05:00

Earlier this week, I booked a flight to Houston to see Sarah. I'll be down in that Gulf Coast city from Nov 18 until Nov 27, Thanksgiving day. I'm pretty pumped. I really enjoy spending time with her, and it's been a good month and a half/two months since I visited. There was a half a day or so of worry when, the day after I had purchased the tickets, Sarah's boss told her he wanted her to shift her business trip to South America to the week I'd be coming down. The trip was supposed to take place the week of the 10th, but lately she's been crushed with work, so the South America trip spent some time on the back burner until she could grind out the other work she had already.

With some quick thinking, Sarah came up with a valid business reason and was able to get the trip pushed back to early December. I think we both breathed a sigh of relief. It would have been messy on both ends: I would have had to find out if I could recoup the ticket cost (which likely wouldn't have happened) and/or she would have had to pitch a personal reason to her boss as for why she'd like an important business trip to be postponed.

Since I haven't written about it before, I might as well talk about my past trips down and the city. There have been two in total, one of which had us riding out a hurricane. The first trip was great, sans one thing, which I will get to in a bit. We went out to dinner twice, watched The Dark Knight in an IMAX theater (that was badass), and generally had a good time.

As for that "sans one thing"...well, here you go. Not only did I travel to Houston, but I shipped my computer as well, via the USPS. This was a huge fucking mistake. So I ship my PC and monitor via priority mail, get it insured, and fly down. For the next week, I did not have my PC. After calling the USPS hotline numerous times, I finally got some info that helped. They helped me track down the office that my computer might be at. Turns out the fucking thing got down there a day before I did. The USPS had held true to their shipping. It was indeed SHIPPED in 2-3 business days. However, it wasn't DELIVERED.

This is what was so enraging: The fat black bitch that delivers to Sarah's apartment complex couldn't be fucking troubled to put the boxes on her LLV and deliver them to the apartment management office...where big packages go. Ok...fine...they're heavy boxes (well the tower one is at least), so I'll forgive you being a lazy fuck. At the very least, we could have gotten the courtesy of a slip stating that the Post Office was holding large boxes for me. Sarah and I would have had no problem coming out to get them. So, no delivery, and no notice that my packages are there. This is even what's more galling: The bitch had the audacity to note that she left a slip. That's right. She had to mark down somewhere that the package was either delivered or that a notice was left, and she apparently marked down that she did. This was no simple error on our part. We didn't miss the fucking slip, or any notices. We checked nearly twice a damn day, waiting for any information.

So I find out the post office where my packages are located and call them. Great, they're there...and THEY'VE BEEN THERE FOR DAYS. I talk to the supervisor in the place and explain my situation. This bitch, also a large black lady, proceeds to brush off the problem, like it's not for her to deal with. This is not how things are supposed to work. I'm trying to negotiate with this fucking skank on the phone to arrange either pickup or deliver of my damn packages, and she tells me to call back the next fucking morning between 7 and 8a and speak with the carrier i person. This is completely unacceptable. This is not how the post office should work. If my dad was the carrier and his boss was the supervisor, and this same situation happened, that supervisor would be all over that...not feigning ignorance and incompetence.

This many days after arriving in Houston, I'm pissed as hell, but I know I need to keep control because THEY have my $2000 computer and I don't. So I agree to call back. I get up the next morning and call in. I talk to the carrier and negotiate. She's willing to bring out the packages, first thing. I was going to be the first stop before she would start her route. I would meet her personally and take the packages off the truck. She complained about their weight but said she would get one of the guys to put it on her LLV. She asks for my cell phone number. I give it to her. She said she'd call when she got to the apartment. Sarah goes off to work, and I sit around waiting. The morning ticks by. It's now noon. It's now past noon. Fat bitch still isn't here. I call up, mad as hell. The supervisor has no idea where she's at, and says that she has no method of getting in touch with the carrier. Absolute. Fucking. Bullshit. I cannot believe these people are feeding me this crap. I know damn well that supervisors and the office make damn sure they can contact their carriers in a hurry. You need to understand that the USPS likes riding their carriers like slave dogs, going as far as to send out inspectors to literally just watch carriers as they complete their route.

I see no way to get anything useful out of this supervisor...she's stonewalling me like a motherfuck. I hang up. I wait an hour and call back. She knows I'm not going away. The bitch carrier still hasn't delivered the package yet. OH SURPRISE. SHE HAS THE CARRIER'S NUMBER NOW. WOW. LOOK AT THAT. MAGIC DOES HAPPEN. She calls the other carrier on another line (or other phone) while keeping me on the first line. I can hear her. She's telling the other carrier that I'm mad as hell...and to "be careful". NO FUCKING NEED SAYING THAT SHE NEEDS TO BE CAREFUL WHEN THE CUNT ISN'T GOING TO BE STOPPING BY THE APARTMENT ANYTIME TODAY. The supe finds out what happened, hangs up with the carrier, and comes back to my line.

Get this: After having talked with the carrier THAT VERY MORNING...after having left my phone number...after having gotten her assurances that she would drop them off first thing...the carrier has forgotten to put my computer on the truck. She's also forgotten the note with my cell phone on it. You. Have. Got. To. Be. Fucking. Kidding. Me. Not only that, but she's done for the day.

I'm bewildered. I'm infuriated. I'm confused. I'm resigned. This is the thing violent rampage shootings are made of. I don't quite remember EXACTLY what I said, but somehow I made it abundantly clear that I was tired of all this shit and that I would WALK the 4-5 miles to the post office if that's what it took. The supe, perhaps finally, sees that I'm not in any good mood, tells me that I can come in tomorrow, and she will personally stay a little later to make sure I can get the packages. You might be asking: Later? Huh? Well, you have to remember that I'm in Houston. I don't have a vehicle. Sarah does, and she's at work during the day. She gets out of work at 5p. The post office closes at 5p. Yes, I have to inconvenience her by asking her to leave work an hour early, drive to get me, and drive to the post office. I made this abundantly clear to the supe, hence why she told me to come tomorrow, and just get there when I could. I told the supe that I'd be walking there, since I basically didn't trust her. I wasn't going to wait for Sarah to drive back, pick me up, drive there, and get the boxes. No. I struck out an hour and a half before 5p and started walking it. That way Sarah could drive straight to the post office.

Sidenote: That was an interesting little walk. Why? Well, Houston is pretty ridiculously humid during the summer. I really mean humid. Like...I am not a guy that sweats easily by any means. It takes some hefty exertion to make me sweat. Not even halfway there, my shirt is already damp. Just from walking at a healthy pace. Sheesh.

So, long story long, I get to the post office and pace around out front. Sarah shows up, we go inside, and I see the supe. She's all friendly and shit...I want to wring her damn neck. At that point I think both Sarah and I were basically resigned. What do you do in the face of such bullshit? You can't fucking win. We had the packages at that point. What good would bitching her out do? I was curt, signed the form showing receipt of the package, got the shit, and peaced. After that, the rest of my time there went really well.

The second trip was also pretty good, but then we had to deal with the hurricane crap that I wrote about in the prior post.

At this point I think I'm rambling, and I can't think of anything else to write, so I'm going to close this post out.

Later dudebros.

Hurricane

2008-11-07T07:37:00.010-05:00

Panda has been bugging me to write about this for awhile, so here:

I was visiting Sarah in Houston back when Ike hit. I don't remember exactly how long I had been there prior to the hurricane, but a good guess would be a week. The weather was fine basically up until the night that Ike made landfall. We started prepping for the storm 2-3 days in advance. We picked up stuff like paper plates, plastic forks/knives/spoons, bottled water, paper towels, some canned goods, munchies like pringles and chips, and food that might be easily prepared.

The night of the storm, we both took a shower in case the water was going to go out, and then using some tilex that we had just purchased, sprayed the entire tub. I let that sit for 5-10 min, rinsed it out, sprayed it down again with another 5-10 min wait, and rinsed one last time. I did this because Sarah picked up a good tip from a co-worker. He stated that when he has to deal with hurricanes and the inevitable loss of water, he goes and buys a large sheet of plastic. He sets this in the tub and fills it almost completely up. The plastic is nothing more than a liner. This liner serves two purposes: One, it keeps the water from coming in contact with a potentially dirty tub and two, it allows you to fill your tub higher than you normally could.

Well, we didn't manage to get any plastic prior to the storm, so we had to make do. Liberally spraying the tilex (essentially something like bleach) in the tub twice should have been enough to sanitize it decently well. The one thing that we could not get around was that there appeared to be a limit on how much water we could save. This problem stymied both of us for a good 10 minutes before I realized what happening. Here's how it panned out: I'd turn the water on and start to fill the tub. I'd get the water line up to the point where the water touches the metal disk-thing that is usually mounted halfway up the tub wall, underneath the faucet. The water would get there, but even with the water running full tilt, it would barely get past that point. I'd shut the water off and then hear water draining out. Thinking it was a leaky seal down at the drain, I tried pushing it down as hard as I could and then tried putting a plastic bag around the seal.

Still, the leaking sound continued. I gave up on it for a few minutes, then came back and tried again. This time I tried to really pinpoint the sound. Turns out it was coming from that metal disk-thing. Getting my head into a better position revealed that the disk thing isn't there for show. I always thought it was just hiding some kind of access into the faucet plumbing. Oh no, it wasn't that. It's a secondary drain to prevent the tub from spilling over. Go figure. I don't recall if I tried to plug that up, but it would have been difficult. The disk protrusion is a good 5" in diameter, and the bottom 180 degrees of the disk is a slot that allows water flow. So with that problem solved, we just filled it to that point and let it go, figuring that amount of water would be enough. Turns out that amount did a pretty good job.

You might be wondering why I'm talking so much about a tub-full of water. Well, it's pretty important when you don't have running water for a week. In fact, I would dare say that in the aftermath of some disaster, I'd rather have water than electricity. More on that later.

I can't think of anything else to say about the days leading up to the storm, except that I was kinda pumped. I wasn't really sure what to expect. Well, Ike made landfall at night. Galveston was the first piece of land it would hit. Well, Galveston is a long, narrow island with a seawall. This island and seawall combo sits a little off the mainland (but I think still within sight). What was worrisome about Ike is that Ike wasn't necessarily a Cat 4 or 5, but was packing some serious storm surge. There was talk of "the northeast quadrant" of the storm that would bring the highest storm surge. I am only partially sure about the east part of the phrase...this is important. I still don't know what that means, seeing as the northeast quadrant of a circle is from 0 degrees to 90 degrees, and with how Ike was going to hit, one would think that the northwest quadrant would strike land first.

Now, Galveston has this seawall. There's a hurricane coming that doesn't necessarily have Cat 4 or 5 winds, but is packing a serious storm surge. At the same time, given the time of landfall, Ike was going to strike when tides were the highest. Are you getting the picture now? 15 to 20 foot storm surge on top of 5 to 10 foot tides equals dangerous. It's worth noting that Galveston has the seawall because of a hurricane that struck many years ago (early half of the 1900s) in which the hurricane's storm surge completely obliterated the island, killing thousands. I read that it was one of the worst natural disasters in the US in terms of life lost. After that, Galveston built the seawall to prevent against future disasters.

All right, so according to the weather guys, Galveston is a David standing in the path of a Goliath. Galveston residents were extremely encouraged to get out. It was so strongly suggested that those who were adamant about riding it out were told to write their name and social security number on their arm in permanent marker so that their body could be identified. Serious eh? Yeah, no kidding.

Let's get to the evacuation details now. It is important to know that just a month or two prior, practically the entire city of Houston was told to evacuate for Rita. Well, Rita was 1) Not as bad as everyone thought and 2) Didn't really hit Houston. The result? So many people jammed the highways that they basically turned into long ribbons of parking lot. People were stranded on the highway for 30 to 40 hours. There were more fatalities or injuries resulting from the evacuation than there were from the hurricane, although in total the numbers were less than 50.

Well, Houston learned from their failed evacuation for Rita and this time only required certain zones to evacuate. The primary zones were in Galveston. Well, the entire island was told to evacuate, but you get the point. Galveston and zones right on the coast were evacuated in a staggered pattern, starting 1-2 days before the storm would make landfall. The city mobilized dozens and dozens of buses to remove those who needed assistance. A sad sidenote is that when one elderly lady with very limited mobility called in to have them come get her, she was essentially ignored. She tried dialing 911, the police, fire, etc... Apparently she was outright ignored. She lived on some street with other mobility-impaired old folks, and I guess they were in the same boat. Her story almost ended poorly, except that some younger guys that were also riding out the storm on her street went around and scooped up the old people and rode it out with them on the 2nd story of some house.

The actual city of Houston was not evacuated. We didn't have to leave, nor would we. Her place is northwest of the city, albeit pretty close. The actual city proper is far enough from the coast. Sometime in late evening, the power started flickering on and off randomly. Soon enough, power went out fully, and a little later the storm hit full force. It was interesting. The wind howled like a banshee, tree bent over completely, and randomly debris blew down the street. What made it more surreal (and difficult to see) was the fact that it was at night. Strangely enough, I remember a distinct lack of lightning and thunder. Things were going swimmingly until we realized that water was coming inside the apartment.

How was this happening? Well, her building must have been built by terribads, because water was streaming down the windows like a waterfall. Your average window is set into the wall, right? At the top you might screw in the bracket for blinds. That top is where water was pouring into the room. It would come out that top and stream down the windows, pool on the sill, and pour down the wall onto the carpet. There was simply nothing one could do. So much water was flooding in that the average bathtowel would get soaked in a minute or two. The water was also tinged brown, probably from any paint pigments, dirt, and who knows what else it picked up. We quickly moved everything away from the window and that part of the room. As the night went on it just got worse. Not only was water pouring from the window, it actually started coming in through the wall. I'm not even kidding. You could see wet spots in the wall and in some parts, water bubbled behind the plaster or drywall (whatever the walls were made of) and would form a water blister the size of your fist. At one point, water actually started pouring in a little stream out of the air conditioning vent in the ceiling. That was additionally bothersome because that was in the middle of the room. Our only luck was that the ceiling vent water stopped after awhile.

I was completely astounded. The building was so poorly constructed that it allowed such a quantity of water inside? It was ridiculous. We were told it was "wind driven rain". I'm sorry, but that's just bogus. We get bad weather in the north. I've seen bad weather elsewhere. Nowhere I seen water "driven" into a building. It's not even like we were facing the direction from which the hurricane was striking.

Well, with all the water pouring into the apartment, all of the carpet from the window to ~10 feet out turned into a marsh. Having done everything we could, and having gotten tired of watching the storm outside, we retired to the bedroom, which is set back a few feet in the building (but still has an exterior window).

The next day, we got up and had no power or water. We took a walk, along with just about everybody and their mother, to survey the damage. Masses of people were in the streets just walking around kind of dazed. Branches and leaves were everywhere. Occasionally you'd see some other debris. If you came out of the apt, turned left, and then went 150 yards, you came to a small bridge that spans (in this order): An outer expressway, a creek/bayou, and an inner expressway. As you passed over this bridge, the creek/bayou would normally have been a few stories below. Not after the storm. The water level was so high it was at best 10 feet underneath. The water was partially covering the outer expressway as well. The water was completely filling the low-lying parts of the inner expressway (that expressway undulates up and down as it skirts around the city). The portion of the bridge that covered a "dip" in the inner expressway had markings on the pillars indicating feet. The water was up to the bottom of the bridge: 16 feet according to the markings. Normally it was a road that dipped down underneath the bridge and popped up on the other side. At that time, it was a road that flowed into water, disappeared, and popped up on the other side. There normally would have been a dirt path to run, bike, and picnic on that traveled parallel to the creek/bayou, but since the creek was so flooded, none of this was visible. Reasonably tall trees with roots at the creek edge were completely covered in water and bending due to the current. It was quite impressive. The flooding was pretty serious.

For the next few days we roughed it without power or water, and here is where I will continue what I hinted at earlier. Going without water really stinks. For things that absolutely required clean water, we used the bottled water. This would be drinking water and water to brush our teeth. For things that didn't require absolute clean water, but mostly clean, we would fill empty bottles with tub water and use that. This would be water to wash our hands, face, our body, etc... We also would use this water to flush the comode. To make matters worse, power was spotty. Our half of the apartment complex didn't have power, but the other half did. It was like this all over the place, but this didn't do anything to make us feel any better. That meant that while they got AC and light, we had no AC, food going bad in the fridge, and darkness. Two of those things are bearable. I can deal with no AC. I don't use it during the summer anyway since the wall-mount units in my apt suck too much juice, and not having light is manageable. What is the hardest is to know that your food is going bad and there's not a darn thing you can do.

To pass the time, we'd play board games, go for walks to survey the area, read books, or find other ways to have fun. We turned our cell phones off to save power. To eat, we either used the munchies we bought, or, later in the week, would hit up the subway or chinese people food place up the road. Those businesses had power...grumble. Since Sarah didn't have a car charger, we couldn't charge our phones...or so we thought. The gas station up the road was always so packed. Well, one day we took a short drive and I noticed a couple clever people charging their phones using the exterior sockets on the gas station. Turns out that the owner was allowing people to use the sockets, which was very, very helpful of him. Since we kept the phones off, we only needed to charge at the gas station once, which is good, since it was boring to just sit there waiting.

It was an interesting experience. What bothered me the most wasn't so much the fact that we didn't have power, but the fact that we didn't have running water. We didn't get hit with an earthquake. It was a hurricane. This should mean that the water pipes are fine. The pipes should be sealed, so it shouldn't be an issue of storm surge, floodwater, or sewage getting in the system, right? You might be asking "But Mike, what if the pumping stations were out of power?" I'm sure some did not. What I have to ask is: Why weren't those the first things they restored power to? You get water back online, you make things far easier everywhere. Well, no such luck after Ike. If I remember both of these dates correctly, the storm hit Friday night and both power and water were out until the both of us flew out of Houston on Thursday. We did get some minimal power around Tuesday, provided by very large, truck-towed generators. I suppose the apartment's management decided to bring them in and fire them up to give our half of the complex some juice. The other thing that made life suck was the fact that the carpet was a marsh. Indoor carpet is not meant to get soaked and then sit there. It started to stink after a day and a half. Shortly after that we snagged a maintenance guy from the apartment staff and told him the situation. He busted out a knife, cut up the soaked carpet, ripped it up, and threw it outside. I tell ya, bare, dry concrete is so much better than nasty, marshy carpet anyday.

Overall, like I mentioned before, it was an interesting experience. The lack of electricity, water, and light certainly made things difficult. It was trying, patience-wise, for both of us. I still had an ok time, and hey, I learned how to deal with a hurricane. Pretty neat, eh?

Later dudebros

PS - A quick addition I don't want to forget: Ike was a mid to high Cat 2 hurricane, but apparently the winds were Cat 4 category a few hundred feet up. Those high winds ended up blowing out windows in numerous skyscrapers in downtown Houston. I took a walk down there one day and man, what a sight. Debris everywhere.

Rez plz

2008-08-13T03:21:00.004-04:00

I'm not dead but I haven't had anything worthy to post.

Later dudebros

Ugh

2008-06-07T06:27:00.005-04:00

A lot of dumb stuff happened mid-April. Reflecting on that period of time, I'd have to honestly say that it was the worst chain of events in my life.

Things haven't really improved since then, unfortunately.

On a good note, summer's here along with its typical warm and humid weather and I like it.

Later dudebros

Heh

2008-04-07T10:31:00.002-04:00

I just realized that the last post in here was Jan 30.

o hi

2008-04-07T10:19:00.003-04:00

Why hello there. I haven't posted in this in ages.

A bunch of stuff has happened since I've last wrote in here. Most of it is bad, but I do have a couple good things to write about:

-I've been to two KRAID LANs at Bucknell. The drive kind of sucks, but it's usually worth it.
-I met this girl named Jane.
-My truck had an issue with the serpentine belt on the drive back from one of the LANs, prompting a flatbed towing back to Selinsgrove Ford and an extra overnight stay with Max/missed day of work. That's not really a good thing but it is something to write about.
-Despite the breakdown issue, my truck is still ridiculously sweet.

I suppose I can elaborate more on these later...if I decide to...and I'm not lazy...which I am.

Later dudebros.

Edit: Apparently Jane wasn't so "great". Fixed that.

Neck pain

2008-01-30T20:38:00.000-05:00

Last friday, I had a terrible pain in my neck. I had never tossed the phrase around before, but I thought it was a "pinched nerve." I found out later from the nurse at Nela that a pinched nerve would cause a lack of motor ability in the arm affected and that there would be a tingly feeling in that shoulder and arm. My situation was likely a muscle spasm/muscle tightening/muscle knot.

Basically, I couldn't hold me head at vertical or lean it to the right. I would get a searing pain that would shoot up my neck and literally lock my body down for a second while it passed. I had to freeze in place. I had to keep my head cocked to the left that day, all day. The nurse gave me some ibuprofen and told me to take 3 (usual dose is 2, but 3 puts you closer to prescription-strength). I went to subway to get some food to take with the pills and instead took 4. It seemed to work pretty good. Ibuprofen is also anti-inflammatory, so I bet that helped.

Last time I remember experiencing this was a few months ago on my last rotation when I was at Willoughby. It wasn't as severe and went away within the day. This most recent one took about 2-3 days to fully go away. I'm not too worried, but I was told by that nurse that if it starts happening much more frequently, I might need a prescription muscle relaxer or at the very least a massage.

I could probably go for a massage. Hey, I think there's a massage/spa place just next to the Chipotle behind my apartment...and if I remember correctly...they have attractive girls that work there...

Later.

Dudebros.

Washing the truck

2008-01-30T20:32:00.001-05:00

So much for using the garage at Nela to wash my truck. I was told tonight that 1) I'd be reported as violating something about using the garage (it's only for executives apparently) and 2) I can't use that garage. The former is bogus because the guy claimed I was warned once or twice before. This never happened. The guard that saw me twice before never explicitly stated anything. The closest he came to saying I might not be able to wash the truck there was that I might be a liability if I slipped and fell. The second time he saw me, he said he had to get my name because his boss wanted it. He hinted that I might be contacted. I had already assumed that the moment he asked for my badge. No contact came. No email. No voicemail. The guy who talked with me tonight made it sound like I was already warned. I told him I was not and tonight was the first night I was explicitly told not to use that. He said he'd check and make sure it was sent to me, and I said no problem.

I don't know how this is going to pan out. The lady who sort of oversees us is apparently to be notified of this. I wonder what they do when they check to see if they sent me anything. I'm am 100% sure right now that I received nothing from them. Will they doctor something up? I don't know. We'll see. I can't imagine anything serious will result from this. Likely just a confirmation that I can't go use that wash bay again, and a small warning.

Later.

Lack of posting

2008-01-30T20:25:00.000-05:00

So I know I haven't been posting much lately. In fact, I was told it was over a month since the last time I had posted. Sorry guys. As I hinted in my last post, lately I'm just falling apart at the seams. I'm fucking everything up, I don't care, and I can't remember the last time I was happy. The former has really been true of me for most of my life, the second thing has been an ever growing monster lurking around, and I don't even know what to say about the latter.

Enough with the emo. What I'm getting at is that my posting will be sporadic, brief, and ineffectual, so don't expect much.

I'm also going to try real hard to take a break from WoW. I don't think it'll matter much, because the last time I took a break (Feb 07 - Nov 07) I still didn't get anything done anyway. Regardless of what is happening, I always manage to find a way to piss away the time. It would be sweet if there was a job that capitalized on that ability. I'd be so awesome.

Later.

Dudebros.

Shorter posts

2008-01-30T20:24:00.001-05:00

I'll probably be writing shorter posts from here on out. I don't really have the desire to pound out a wall of text anymore.

New Rotation

2008-01-30T20:21:00.001-05:00

My new rotation has me working on OLEDs. It means Organic Light Emitting Diodes. I'm sure you know what an LED is, right? These are basically LEDs, but are somewhat between a sheet of paper and a credit card in terms of thickness. Some are rigid, but some are flexible. Yep, a semi-flexible light source that's thin and light...at least, that's the goal. I'll be trying to do a number of things pertaining to OLEDs, but my deliverable for the rotation will likely be some prototype of a product using them. That's all I have for now.

New Year's

2008-01-30T20:16:00.000-05:00

For New Year's, I drove down to Dayton, OH, to go to a party hosted by my boy Zinger (Brian) and his wife, Allie. It was pretty enjoyable. It was the 2nd New Year's Party that they had hosted and my 2nd time attending. I got to see all of his college buddies and friends (who I had met and befriended at the first party), so everyone pretty much knew everyone, and it was a real laid back atmosphere. We were playing all kinds of group games, talking, drinking a little, laughing, etc... all the way until about 10 minutes before the ball dropped. Someone had finally noticed that if we didn't stop, we'd miss it. I stayed over for the night and then had to hightail it out the next morning (they were flying to DisneyWorld sometime around noon).

Christmas

2008-01-30T20:14:00.000-05:00

Christmas was pretty good. I got to go home and spend time with my family, so that was nice. I didn't even want presents, but since my mom wanted to get me something (and because relatives were also asking) I just said clothes and money. So, that's what I got.

Work

2007-12-19T11:51:00.000-05:00

With rotation decisions coming out today or tomorrow, and with this upcoming rotation being my last one, I figured I would talk here about the Edison program.

The Gen'ral often hires kids into one of a number of developmental programs when the kids graduate college. Degrees held by the students are usually Bachelors or Masters. I don't really think I've met an Edison yet that has a PhD. The exact number of programs slips my mind, but it's close to 7 or 8. The program that I was hired into is called the Edison Engineering Development Program, or EEDP. Most of the time we're just called Edisons.

The program itself consists of 4 rotations, with each rotation spanning approximately 6 months. You are placed into your first rotation based on your degree and how well the rotation might match up to that degree. This is the only rotation is which you don't have much say. When you're nearing completion of the first rotation, a job board is sent out.

The job board is formed as such: A call (really, email) goes out to managers, bosses, and assignment leaders telling them that if they want an Edison, they'll have to put up a job opportunity. In other words, a boss or manager says "I want an Edison to work for me on X project." Many assignment leaders will submit opportunities (hereafter referred to as rotations). Even higher-ups (also just referred to as "the business") will sit down and review the job board.

This is where things have changed. In the past, the business would just review the job board, perhaps slice off a few rotations that they didn't think were worth an Edison, but for the most part leave it untouched. This was typically great, because it meant there would be far more rotations than there would be Edisons. It was like a smorgasbord of rotations. There was much less fear of two different people picking the same rotation. In more recent times, the business has sat down and seriously culled the job board, knocking out all but the most important rotations. Now, there is basically a 1:1 ratio of rotations to Edisons. This means that if there's a rotation on there that's less desired, *someone* is going to have to take it.

To combat this, us Edisons have been sitting down around rotation time on our own and discussing the job board. Each person pitches what they'd like first, second, third, and so on and lets people know just how much they want their first and second choices. This helps with conflicts when more than one person wants the same rotation and lists it as their first. Additionally, seniority does play a role. If a first rotation Edison wants a role that a third rotation Edison is pushing hard to get, there's probably a good reason why the older Edison is pushing for that position. Some Edisons like to do their fourth rotation with the team they'd like to come off program with. In other words, if you know you really want to work for the HID team, you might want to do your fourth rotation with....the HID team. That way, whatever project you start with that team during your fourth rotation, you can slide off program, stay with the team, and continue the job. It makes sense and works pretty well.

I've gotten a little off track. So, now the job board is out and most of us Edisons have discussed what we want. We have also went around to the assignment managers/assignment leaders and talked with them about their respective rotations. It's now our turn to submit our desired rotation choices. Once that's done, it's mostly out of our hands and then the business sits down to review our choices and resolve rotation conflicts where more than one person chose a rotation as their first, second, or etc...

As I said before, us Edisons have been recently meeting to pound out the conflicts beforehand, so there isn't often much conflict, and the business can easily review the choices and give them a thumbs-up. At least, that's my take on the situation. I'm certain that if there was a problem, someone would speak up and action would be taken.

The whole concept works out pretty well. It's also a great idea, too. I have four 6 month rotations in which to try up to four different things within Lighting. You have no idea how many different things one can work on within Lighting. I don't know of too many other EEs in my Bucknell class that have the kind of power to have a say in what they work on. Nay, not even EEs...I don't know of anyone else that has the kind of say that I do in what one works on. That's not even mentioning the other perks, training, and networking that the program provides. In a way, we're really spoiled, and it's easy to take it for granted. I've had to check myself a few times and really understand that I'm experiencing something really good here.

If I may make a note, since I haven't clarified it before...I will be rotating into my fourth and final rotation come mid-January.

Rotation choices will be coming back from the higher-ups today, so we'll find out what we got. I had some advance notice, acquired today, that told me I wasn't getting my first through fifth choice, which sounds horrible, but it's really not bad. I won't go into details about it, but it was clearly explained to me why I would be getting my sixth choice, and it does indeed make sense. The best part about it is that I think my sixth choice is going to be really interesting. Furthermore, depending on how the politics work out, I may get to have an off-program role in something definitely interesting, which validates the reason I'd be getting my sixth choice for my upcoming rotation.

Later dudebros.

Pool's Closed Due to AIDS

2007-12-18T18:12:00.000-05:00

Well, now that it's been quite official for some time now, I don't feel too worried talking about it. What am I getting at? Well, the plant that I'm currently working at is going to be shut down in Nov 2008. At least, that's the goal. I think it's still up in the air as to what "shut down" exactly entails. Does it mean that all the equipment will be moved out by that time? Will some of the equipment be moved out at that time? Will things only start to get moving at that time? These are questions to which I still don't have an answer. At the very least, the workers in the plant will cease to show up for work.

Why am I talking about this? Well, the social dynamics of your work environment can drastically change when people know that they're going to lose their job. I'm mostly just making this post because despite that line, I haven't quite noticed that much of a change. I know there were significant concerns from other folks as to whether they (the engineers) should be worried about builds or tests that were currently underway or would be underway soon. Understandably enough, some asked if they should be concerned about test/build sabotage. They were reassured that were that to happen, steps would be taken to correct the wrongdoing. Personally, these issues did pop into my mind, but they were never really serious enough to merit me asking them. Actually, I felt kind of bad for some of the folks.

Why is this? Part of the reason is because I come from a blue-collar background. I can appreciate the "little guy," so to speak. These folks don't really have 4-year degrees. A few have dabbled in college before or are dabbling in it now, but none would have your typical Bucknell 4-year degree in psych, or engineering, or comp sci, or bio, etc... These folks are also (mostly) older. The other part of the reason is because even in my 4 to 5 months here, I've gotten to know a couple of the workers pretty well. Despite my often angry nature, I can get along *extremely* well with: 1) People I'm going to know short-term and 2) Older adults. Never really had a problem with parents of girlfriends, parents of friends, parents of classmates, adults in charge of clubs, teams, or committees, bosses, interviewers, etc...

So I've gotten to know and like some of the folks here. They're *generally* good people. I say generally because I have heard some dirt tossed around about so-and-so, he-or-she, or X-or-Y. Since it's oftentimes dirt on them cheating, it's pretty saddening, but at work and at least to me, they're friendly. That's good at least. Moving on... How they've gotten around to working in a factory is unique to each person. Those stories are always interesting. This guy was in college till he dropped out. This person has a business on the side. This person is currently pursuing options in the healthcare field. I'm trying to be as general and generic here as possible without specifying exact stories or names, so bear with me.

When I spend time with people, interact with them on a daily basis, ask them to do tasks for me, ask for their input when stuff goes wrong, shoot the shit with them, etc..., then find out they're going to lose their jobs, it makes some situations slightly awkward. I could get fired from GE at any time for other reasons, but I'm not going to lose my job along with the plant folks, and they know that. Also, like I said, since I've gotten to know some of these people, I can sympathize with them if the topic comes up, but I'm helpless otherwise to change the fact that the plant is going to close. I really can only offer my sympathies and rationally talk with them about why the business is doing what it's doing. Since those that I interact with regularly are pretty mature and have accepted the plant closing, I'm able to offer an objective analysis that's probably a bit easier to swallow than them reading something from X manager way up the ladder. Don't get me wrong, it's not an *easy to stomach* objective analysis, but I'm to sort of answer their question when they ask why this is happening. At least, they know why it's happening, but hearing it again from someone else, rephrased a different way, helps. I don't really think my big, bad company is out to smash the little guy and be a dick. It's really pretty simple. Some person overseas can do the job these people are doing for a fraction of the cost. Oh, and they can do it better with better yields. Yes, a fraction. Not a figurative fraction. Not for exaggeration. Truly, a fraction of the cost. Healthcare is actually a huge chunk of any American worker's cost, but the wages are still higher.

Let's recap: Plant closing. Some good people here that I'm sad to see losing a good job (and let's not sugar-coat this...this job is a hell of a find. You won't find this kind of pay and benefits elsewhere). Financially it makes sense for the business. Still not easy to stomach for the workers. Work environment hasn't really changed since the announcement because most of the adults that I interact with are mature (to me at least, perhaps not in their own personal lives).

I guess I'll wrap this up on a positive note. Some of the good things that are coming about are that a couple of folks fall within the magical age-range and magical years-with-the-company range such that they are getting full retirement benefits....in their 50s. Other people are getting money to go back to school. Everyone has options to get help to find another job. Everyone is getting some form of severance pay. Lastly, and most importantly, *everyone has roughly a year to find another job.* That's probably the most amazing thing. I've heard of plant closings at other companies where, as people filed out of work one day, were greeted by their boss, given their pay slips, and told not to come in anymore because the plant was closing. I'd take a *year's* advance notice any time.

I probably haven't stressed this before in this blog, but then again the very limited readership I have probably already knows this: If you want to play the game, you gotta have *at least* a Bachelor's.

Later dudebros.

Sleep

2007-12-14T09:10:00.000-05:00

This was inspired by a post that Panda made pertaining to his trials and tribulations regarding sleep.

I have an interesting relationship with sleep. I love it. I also dislike it. The side of me that likes sleep is the unconscious, semi-conscious, or groggy side of me. Just slept eleven hours and woke up naturally? Close your eyes, roll over/shift around, fall back asleep! Win! Two to three hours later...woke back up? Doze off again! Win!

The side of me that dislikes sleep is the conscious, subconscious, or waking side of me. This side of me is the side that makes me stay up for absurd hours at absurd times. Friday night? Stay up till five or six in the morning! Win! Played WoW for four to five hours on a weekend night? Stay up for another four to five hours and keep playing! Win! Work night? No need to go to bed by midnight or one. No, you gotta stay up till two or three! Win!

Why is this? I don't know. I recently put some serious thought into this perplexing conundrum, and I don't have a good answer. You might think that because I enjoy sleep so much, I would go to bed early to get as much of it as possible. You might also think that because I enjoy staying up to do things, I would learn to live on only a few hours of sleep. This is not the case.

I have an absurd, fucked up sleep schedule. No. No, that's giving it too much credit. There IS NO schedule here. A schedule would imply some sort of rhyme or reason or some set time that an activity is done. None of that exists in my world. In my world, staying up ridiculously late on a Saturday leads to getting up on Sunday sometime around 4-5p so I can clean up before church. However, getting up so late means that when late-night rolls around, I'm still not tired. Midnight on that Sunday would mean I've only been up for six hours. It would take until 4a for me to put in twelve waking hours. It would take until 8a for me to put in sixteen hours, and 8a is when I start work! Sixteen hours is a reasonable number for a "normal" day by a "normal" person: Let's stay they have an 8a-5p job. Since they're not like me and get up shortly before work, let's say they get up at 6a to include time to get ready and travel to their job. Let's say they go to bed at 10p. 6a to 10p is sixteen hours. As I just mentioned above, sixteen hours from that example 4p on Sunday means go to work, not go to bed.

With that said, I'm not tired and thus cannot fall asleep on Sunday night. I don't even bother to try. Alright, fine, so I just stay up all night. That's all well and good, except that as the day wears on I get closer and closer to being up for twenty-four hours. Assuming I leave work at the time I technically should leave work, it's been twenty-five hours. By now I'm tired. I'm probably still doing better than your average joe (if you took some random person and kept them up for a full day+), but I'm still tired. So, I can keep pushing myself, tack on another few hours, and go to bed at like 9p or 10p, but lately what I've just done is simply come home and crash at like 6p.

From there, I end up sleeping all evening, all night, and get up shortly before work. This means I've easily done 12+ hours. Usually this is alright because all that sleep feels good and helps me atone for staying up all those hours. Sometimes this is problematic because I've gotten so much rest that even by late evening, I'm still not really that tired. Then, as always (even if I am tired), the conscious side of me, the nocturnal side of me, wants to stay up. I say, "Oh, well, I got all that sleep last night so it should be ok to stay up late and get only a few hours tonight." Keep in mind, I don't *actually* say this. I actually don't even think this. It just happens, and I put words to it later. Well, this backfires because the next day I'm semi-tired, which will snowball into a bigger problem because that night I'll stay up late yet again and get even more tired.

I think the thing with me is that work simply doesn't jive with my style of sleeping and waking. It's not even work. High school, college...none of these things jived well with me. I have NEVER liked to get up early. I have ALWAYS liked to sleep. It has been a trait I've ALWAYS carried with me. My mom can attest, as well as Grammy. Hell, Grammy used to watch me when I was really, really little, and I was always a good baby. Why? Well, I was fuckin asleep most of the time! Then, when I was up, I would play by myself and amuse myself until it was time to eat. I'd happily destroy any and all food put in front of me, then I'd go sleep or go back to playing. The point is, I have never, ever enjoyed getting up early. I am a nocturnal person. I have always, always enjoyed sleeping as much as possible. I sleep to excess.

It sounds like boasting, but it's true. I sleep for lengths of time that make people shake their heads in disbelief. I have slept for somewhere close to 18-19 hours before. This was not after a surgery. This was not after some grueling event. This was simply me being sorta tired, going to bed actually at a reasonable time, and just sleeping until like 5p or 6p the next day. What's interesting about these marathon sleep sessions, to me at least, is that it's not one long continuous sleep, but instead one long chunk followed by two to three smaller chunks. It's a long length of normal sleeping, naturally waking up, followed by just closing my eyes again and dozing back off, waking up again, closing my eyes and dozing again, until eventually I realize that I'll really be fucked if I sleep any more because it'll just be night again.

Then there are the sleep sessions where I sleep for a long period of time (perhaps a ten to twelve hour sleep), but where half of that time might be me hitting the snooze button every ten minutes. This also perplexes me. I'll go to bed, set an alarm with the knowledge that it's only a few hours away, but then when it goes off, I just hit it over and over and over and over and over again. Here's the best part: My alarm clock is sitting on a chair maybe two to three feet away from the foot of my bed. I have to get up to hit snooze. So, for a couple HOURS on end, I am getting out of bed, walking a few steps, hitting snooze, flopping back on the bed, and then repeating ad nauseum. If I do this (and I have done this) for three hours, that's 18 snooze hits. 18 get up out of beds. 17 flop back into beds. If it's four hours, that's 24. One time, when I was doing something with Ryan, I had done this snooze this for somewhere along the lines of six hours. When I told it to Ryan, he did some muddled math and calculated that, "Yeah, you hit that button like six million fucking times. Yeah. Pretty sure. Six million."

Now, this snooze button issue is what concerns me the most. Sleeping for a metric shitton of time? I don't particularly care. At least in those situations my body has plenty of time to fall into REM sleep. The snooze thing is hardly conducive to REM sleep. It's also not long enough for polyphasic sleep, although I know very little about polyphasic sleep. It might even be bullshit. Yet, somehow, I don't really feel that bad after a snooze-hitting marathon. You'd think I'd be exhausted. I'm not. It's not as satisfying as a marathon sleep, but it's not terrible either.

I've been struggling with the idea of moving the clock back over near the bed. I figure, I'm going to hit the snooze button either way. The idea of moving the clock such that I would be forced to get out of bed and thus stay out of bed has proven time and time again to have failed. So, I might as well stay comfortable and as close to sleep as possible if I'm going to hit it repeatedly.

Perhaps some of these issues can simply be answered by saying it's just flat-out sloth. Pure laziness. How else could I hit a snooze button eighteen to twenty-four times? Then again, is it really sloth that would prompt me to just keep sleeping for 12+ hours? I'm not sure. People look at me like I'm crazy when I say that sometimes I do that. My buddy Mike (I've referred to him as Sidereal, Side, or Chutzpah before) is even saying that I should see a doctor or something; perhaps I have a chemical imbalance or that my circadian rhythm is off. I don't think he realizes that if my shit's fucked up, it's BEEN fucked up for years now. =) Panda and Zep can attest that I was certainly not the model sleeper in college, either. How I manage to function with doing some of the stuff that I do, I cannot say, but somehow I manage to pull it off. It sort of bothers me that I MIGHT be doing irreparable damage to myself and that it's just lurking beneath the surface... Maybe it's why I get so pissed off at times. Hm.

I think I've just gotten so used to a screwed up way of sleeping and being awake that it doesn't bother me anymore. Even my most "extreme" sleep-eccentric friends would not be able to handle my setup. That should probably tell me something. =\ I need a stabilizer in my life. It has to be an external force. It can't be me. It can't be an alarm clock. The only rational solution that I've been able to come up with is a wife, and when you think about it, that's not rational at all... Get a wife to resume a normal sleep schedule?! Talk about going to great lengths...

I'd be interested in hearing your comments on this topic. It doesn't even need to deal with me. Your own experiences are valuable, too.

Later dudebros.

A Crazy Saturday Night

2007-12-09T18:46:00.001-05:00

[08:39] Me: Fucking work party from like 7 to 10, but I had to leave at 8, drive back up to willoughby, realize I forgot my work laptop back at the apt, drive to my apt, get it, drive back to willoughby, start cutting bodies for some assemblies, didn't get as much done as I would have liked, leave there at like 10:30, drive to coventry to my buddy's wine and cheese party, hang out there and drink until like 2:15, leave there and go to willoughby, cut the rest of the bodies (like 700+ bodies) and get them washed and dried, then assemble those bodies with IMPs, get the assemblies on the cart, leave there at 7:30. Fucking working....on a Saturday night....after a party... Oh yeah and don't forget that I didn't think and told the GM of HID (the guy who hosted the party for everyone in the HID team at his big-ass fucking blinging Solon house) when I walked in when he took my coat that "Oh, I can't stay long" "Why?" "I have to go back to Willoughby" "*laughing in sorta disbelief* Oh I'll have to ask [my boss] why." "No! No! Don't worry! I'm taking care of something. Don't ask him."

Then I ended up just telling people cause they overheard that bit with the GM. I bet people think I was being some kind of martyr, trying to make myself look good. Ugh. I fucking don't think at times. And [this one girl] is HOT.
[08:40] Me: [My boss] is gonna wanna know why I was going to Wby on a Saturday night.
[08:40] Me: I'll just tell him.
[08:44] Me: Stupid lady at the plant can't do her fucking job leading extrusion. Look xxxx, I don't care that you have to oversee extrusion in addition to your regular duties...that's not my fault. It's not even like YOU do the work. You tell some motherfucker in extrusion that "Hey, do this half-batch." The shit was all set up already! There is NOTHING you have to do. The pin, die, centering pin, and fucking extrusion card (partially filled out and WITH the formulation) is over by the fucking microwave thingy. Just TELL some motherfucker to extrude it. No, I have to go and escalate it up the ladder to get it done, and EVEN THEN, it doesn't get done on third shift. No, it gets done FIRST SHIFT at NOON. HAD IT BEEN DONE ON THIRD SHIFT LIKE I WANTED IT TO BE DONE, it would have been dried and ready to be put into the ovens, and it would have come out Saturday AFTERNOON, a MORE REASONABLE TIME to cut bodies and assemble, NOT FUCKING 2AM TO 7:30AM SATURDAY FUCKING NIGHT, FUCKING UP MY PARTY SCHEDULE, THE ONLY FUCKING NIGHT I HAVE TWO PARTIES TO GO TO. NOT LIKE I FUCKING HAVE A SOCIAL LIFE OR ANYTHING, SURE, I'LL JUST HAVE ANOTHER 10 PARTIES TO GO TO NEXT WEEKEND ALL LINED UP.
[08:44] Me: Then I drive back from the plant
[08:44] Me: and I'm hungry
[08:44] Me: so I fill up on gas since it's 2.79 at the Shell nearby the plant
[08:44] Me: and get 60 bucks from the charterone atm
[08:44] Me: and get some burger king croissantwiches
[08:45] Me: and now, post-2-croissantwiches, 1 excedrin, and 1 orange juice, I'm sitting here typing this shit to you
[08:45] Me: At least the wine and cheese party was pretty cool
[08:45] Me: It's always a good time at the Derb
[08:45] Me: especially when Mike fucking Sokol shows up
[08:46] Me: I still fail though
[08:46] Me: lol
[08:47] Me: I'm sorta tired I think
[08:47] Me: I guess I'll go lay down
[08:48] Me: I think I'm gonna post this whole string of messages as a blog post
[08:48] Me: First I want to see your reply so I can include that, too
[08:48] Me: lol
[10:23] Scur: Well
[10:23] *** Auto-response sent to Scur: ***
Zep in response to my prior away msg:
"well la dee fucking da"

LOL
[10:26] Scur: All I can imagine in my head is this American Psycho-esque scene where you're going on and on, talking while wearing a yellow raincoat in a white apartment saying, "Look xxxx, I don't care that you have to oversee extrusion in addition to your regular duties...that's not my fault. It's not even like YOU do the work. You tell some motherfucker in extrusion that "Hey, do this half-batch." The shit was all set up already!" as you dismember some poor, middle-aged woman's head from her body, placing it in a 5 gallon paint bucket in your hall closet.

There ya have it.
[10:27] Scur: I had some bitch get pissy with me because I did not take her ass to a wedding (because like 4 other people ditched her), and instead of going out with Zazie, I was kinda tired, so I went to bed.
[10:28] Scur: Now, I'm going off to work. I'm sure I'll speak to you sometime after 5pm...when I assume you'll be awake.....(maybe 10pm sounds like a more reasonable estimate).

Deleted

2007-12-05T02:01:00.003-05:00

I deleted this post.

Later dudebros.

Deleted

2007-11-26T19:02:00.001-05:00

WoW

2007-11-26T16:36:00.000-05:00

So I've been playing WoW lately. If you don't know what it is, don't worry. It is a destroyer of worlds and a consumer of souls. It currently claims close to 9 million people worldwide in its icy, heroin-like grasp.

Now, when I say playing it lately, I mean to imply that I had stopped at one point. I did. Actually, I stopped twice. Both times I managed to sell off my account to someone else. That's right. I sold a character in a game for money...twice. The second time I quit, I sat down and figured out how much I had paid out for the game and for subscription fees, and how much I made from the account selling. Turns out I actually profited from the game. Heh, cool.

I got it back the first time because the kid somehow managed to get it frozen, then started accusing me of stealing it back. I might be many things, but I'm not going to steal back a fucking account that you paid money for. I don't do that. Simple as that. I didn't get it back the second time. Somewhere is my Night Elf warrior. He might be seeing regular playtime, or he might be languishing in disuse. I don't know. So how am I playing again? Well, one of the cool things about an MMO is that they tend to be social....creatures? I suppose a better way of putting it is that an MMO can serve as an interesting medium through which people can develop honest-to-goodness friendships. I can say that I've been buddies with two guys near me in Cleveland who used to be in my old-old guild. One's Mike and the other is Chris. I typically call Mike as "Side" and Chris as "Zazie" or "Zaz". These are either their past in-game names or shortened forms of their in-game names. It's just easier to use handles like that. Believe it or not, you rapidly get used to calling someone by their in-game handle. Then again, maybe you don't. I'm not sure. Maybe it's a gamer thing.

Irregardless, I'm playing now because Side's brother once played, but stopped for reasons I don't know. He had been leveling a warrior but stopped playing when the warrior was somewhere around level 41. Thanks to their generosity, I was able to take the helm of that account. Side didn't want to resume playing on his 64 druid, so he jumped on his paladin curiosity and started leveling one. Now, he doesn't have an 8-5 40-hour-a-week job, so he has far more time than I do. Needless to say, a little bit of china-china here, a little bit of china-china there, and he had leveled his pally up to just underneath my warrior. I finally found some time and began leveling in earnest. I was able to maintain a significant level lead on him for awhile, but he's caught up recently. I didn't do that to be a dick, mostly because I didn't want him to catch my and blow by me with all that free time of his. So, I sort of had to keep a bit of a lead because if I ever had a few days in which I couldn't play, he would get closer without surpassing me and getting ahead. Either way, we had a decent time playing together and leveling up. Then Blizzard recently released a patch that made leveling easier between 20-60 (reports indicate a reduction of 15% XP per level) as well as increasing the XP from quest rewards between 30-60. This kicked in recently, and damn, both Side and I could tell the difference.

Well anyway, the goal is to get into Outlands and start experiencing the Burning Crusade content in earnest. Zazie already has a level 70, so he's kind of just waiting for us. He also has some level 60s and stuff, but that's because there was a period in his life where he didn't have a life and thus had plenty of time to level them. He was also bored. *shrug* The goal is for us to get up to 70 and make an arena team or two. We're all capable, veteran players who know how to play, so it's very likely that we'll be able to hit 2000+ ratings. From there, we'll play it by ear. We don't really want to delve back into raiding, since raiding is.......is something that we are very cautiously tiptoeing around. We've all done the raiding thing at some point, and pretty intensively, too. When you start down that slippery slope it's very difficult to get out.

With all that said, you may see WoW updates from time to time here. If you don't care to hear about it, then feel free to skip it. If I, for some odd reason, see increased interest in WoW topics, I can write more about it. Being a player, I can give a view from the inside. It's actually a very interesting petri dish. You'd be amazed at the socialogical, psychological, and economical systems (and complexities of those systems) in an online game! Take two parts anonymity, 4 parts fantasy, and 1500 parts ego, mix them up well, and you get interesting results.

Later dudebros.

Deleted

2007-11-26T16:35:00.006-05:00

I deleted this post.

Later dudebros

Deleted

2007-11-26T16:35:00.005-05:00

I deleted this post, too.

Later dudebros.

The giving of thanks

2007-11-26T16:33:00.000-05:00

So I'm sitting here, thinking back to the Thanksgiving that just passed. Thinking that basically it was another day for me. Yeah I came home and saw my family and that was great, but then we went to my aunt's and had dinner, and came back. I didn't feel a warm, fuzzy connection with my relatives. I watched the first football game (before dinner) and then watched the last half or so of the second football game (after dinner). There wasn't much of anything going on besides prepping for dinner, eating it, and cleaning up after dinner. Thank goodness for the football game(s), otherwise we'd probably have sat and stared at the wall or something.

When I think about that Thanksgiving, I think about some commentary between Ryan and myself on the drive down to get my LASIK done. We had been talking about when Ryan had almost gotten a job with some law-related place down in Independence, OH. He was immensely thankful that he hadn't taken that job. Being a journalist, I have zero idea of what he would have done there, and I don't think he was much more informed than myself. He would have been getting paid less than he gets at his current job in the city with PR Newswire, and he'd have needed a FUNCTIONAL car to drive there every day. That would almost mean dealing with the traffic down by the 480/77 junction, which, given my brief experience when I was driving for a LASIK pre-exam, sucks. So he'd have gotten less money, had to drive, deal with traffic, and do work that's worse than his existing job. As I said, he was thankful he didn't take it.

Now, within this conversation we stumbled upon the notion of just numbly getting up and going to your job and dealing with it. I made a comment that I think I've already hit that point. It was better this rotation, seeing as I'm getting pushed harder and doing much more interesting stuff, but still, for the most part, I don't focus on it too much. I don't count minutes, I don't agonize about the day taking forever while sitting there...I just get up, do work, and come home. This sort of fits with my mentality on work: I work to make money to enjoy myself. I do NOT work to enjoy myself. Some people fall into the latter category. These people are the ones who gladly spend 10-12+ hours a day at work, check email at 10p at night, and come in on weekends. They LIKE having so much work that they run around like a chicken with its head cut off. I don't fit that mentality. I don't do that. No, correction, I don't do that unless I really HAVE to. If I have to, I put in the time. Panda can vouch for me on this one. I've put in significant amounts of time and effort when there were a lot of builds coming through.

Where was I... Yeah, so numbness. Is it necessarily a bad thing? I don't think so. I think that, by far, going to work and doing your job while in a semi-numb state is a better thing than dreading getting up/dreading your job while you do your job/dreading the hours you'd have to spend. If you're oblivious to it, then you're not agonizing over it, right? If you're not agonizing over it, then you're not slowly killing yourself, right? That's how I see it, at least.

With that said, let me make something clear: I am not trying to say I dislike my job. I would honestly have this same approach anywhere that I'd work. See, it's not the JOB that gets to me, it's the concept of WORK. With the exception of the work-crazy mentioned earlier and early risers, who wants to get up early in the morning, travel to some location, spend 8+ hours a day there, then come home? I'm absolutely certain that a great many people would give an "amen" to that. However, wanting is different than needing. It's not wanting to go to work, but needing to. You can't survive without that "get up early, get to work, stay there, come home." Hitting the lottery is not an option.

So, we get up, get on the grind, come home, and find ways to entertain ourselves. Some watch TV. Some drink. Some eat a lot. some work out. Some play games. Heh...psychologists wonder why millions of people would play a game like World of Warcraft. A timesink. A moneysink. A grind. Because it's escapist! Why do people drink, eat a lot, play games...to ESCAPE. From daily life. Why would Joe Blow from XY Financial want to play a cow walking on two legs shooting lightning bolts from his hands? Because his life SUCKS. We don't all have playboy playmate girlfriends. We're not all wildly successful quarterbacks for pro football teams. We can't afford to get $400 Hollywood haircuts and have weekly parties in our Hollywood Hills homes with other A-list celebs. Hell, look at those people. Why do THEY do what they do? To ESCAPE. From their rich-ass life! Why would Owen Wilson try to kill himself? The dude's gotta be LOADED. He can probably attract any number of girls, despite that nose. Apparently even his life wasn't good enough.

Numbness. Again, it's not necessarily a bad thing. I think I've got it down well pertaining to work. Now if only I could expand it to my personal life. Then I could just go around being numb to everything...

Later dudebros

Lazers + Eyez Part Deux

2007-11-21T17:35:00.000-05:00

I know I have updated this in awhile. Stfu. I've been lazy and I haven't had anything really worth writing about. Or, at least, that's what I thought. Panda not too slyly reminded me that I just had an operation done on my eyes. I pondered his statements over the past few days. He's right. I DID just have my eyes done. That's what this post is about. You probably already realized that from the title, though. In the words of Homestar Runner: "You're so smart. That's why I like you!"

Prep:
The Thursday before the surgery, I finally went out to the Walgreens up by the plant I'm currently working at to get the prescription filled that they gave me back when I set up the appointment. I ran into some initial trouble. I just took my healthcare card, hoping that would be good enough. Or, if it wasn't good enough, THEY could do the legwork of looking my shit up. Turns out they need an Rx (prescription) card. I didn't have a prescription card. On a whim, I asked how much these eyedrops would cost without coverage. She said $75. Seventy-five dollars? Holy shit! Wtf? Ok, I *definitely* wasn't going to just crap out the easy way and pay out of pocket. The Walgreens lady was cool, and told me what I'd need, and I told her that I would call and find out the necessary info: A name and an ID number or something. Luckily, GE has this nifty little thing called "GE Health Coach." It's staffed by RNs (Registered Nurses) so they're pretty damn good. What is it, though? This is a phone number to call when you don't know what the fuck is going on, or you sorta know what the fuck is going on, or you know what the fuck is going on but want another opinion or want more information. When it comes to healthcare and shit like that, I fall squarely into the first category. Actually, when it comes to just about everything in my life, I fall squarely into the first category. So I walked out to my truck, pulled up the GE Health Coach number that I had put into my contacts on my celly (how smart of me!), and gave them a ring. I got one of the RNs and explained my situation to them, telling them that I need X and Y info and I'm fucking stupid and I need help. We chatted for a bit while she did what she had to do on her end. Very nice lady. She did a three-way call and called up the prescription provider for our healthcare plan while I was still on the line. She did the initial talking, explaining what I needed, then bid me farewell and hung up. I proceeded to continue talking with the gentleman. He gave me the immediate info I'd need and said he'd send out an Rx card. Armed with this new information, I strolled back into Walgreens and proudly presented the treasure chest of data that would net me my reduced-cost eye drops. She punched this in and informed me that it still wasn't working. The air deflated out of my balloon. What? Crap. I said this is the number that the guy from Medco gave me. I said that I had called GE Health Coach. I asked if she could do some calling herself and check. She said she definitely would. I think she also said she heard of our Health Coach. So, she hopped on the phone and was doing shit while I stood around. She wrapped things up and apparently got the proper numbers, because she was able to put the prescription in. She also mentioned that my birthday was apparently listed in some database somewhere as being in May. I noted that this was the second time that my phantom birthday has come to cause trouble for me. I must find this database and beat the shit out of it for having an incorrect birthday. I stated that I would talk to my HR folks and get this worked out. I also thanked her for her patience and time. She said it would be ready in 10 minutes, to which I said wow. I then said that I'd just pick it up later after work, so no rush. I left, happy that I wouldn't have to shell out 75 bucks for some eye drops.

Friday during late afternoon/early evening, I called Ryan to confirm that he was going to be able to be my driver. I talked with him later and confirmed that yeah, he could be my driver. He would have to drive my truck because he doesn't have a ride of his own. He also wasn't able to (or didn't) procure either Jer's or Ted's rides. That was fine. He then said he'd be up at Alex's that night, in Mentor. orz So, that was ok, I'd go pick him up in Mentor and then drive down to the LASIKPlus place. I had him email me her address so I could Mapquest it, and things were settled.

The Friday night before the surgery, I put in my eye drops as instructed. I was also quick to note that the bottle is fucking TINY. It's a 5mL bottle. FIVE MILLILITERS. If you have any idea of how small 5mL of liquid is, you will understand my surprise. THIS was going to cost 75 bucks? 15 bucks per 1mL? Wow. Whew. So anyway, I put in the eye drops and went to bed. At least, I think I went to bed. I might have stayed up. I had napped earlier in the day or something and wasn't very tired, and plus I was sort of excited for the operation.

The lazor firing:
The day of the operation, I picked up Ryan and drove down. I had to fill out some paperwork. This was expected. What wasn't expected was the issue with the CareCredit financing. It wasn't going through. Not only wasn't it going through, but I wasn't even in the system. What the hell? How could I not be in the system? Here was my account number and everything! I even had gotten a card! I would HAVE to be in the system if I got a card. They don't just go giving cards and account numbers to anyone. The receptionist tried to call and get things sorted out. That didn't work. Then I got on the line and called and realized that my account wasn't activated. Why wasn't it activated? Well, I had failed to call the number on the back of the card and activate it when I got the card. Massive fail. Suck and faggotry abounded. The kind lady on the phone activated it for me and then said I should tell the receptionist to try again. I did this, but it still didn't work! Suck and faggotry continued to abound! The receptionist wasn't going to give up, so she called either again or used a new number, and talked with some lady. The lady on the other end rapidly decided, given the trouble we'd had, to just start a whole new CareCredit account. I had to hop on the phone for a few minutes while she asked some questions with personal information that only I would know. I answered these questions and she immediately processed it. I had a new account, and not only that, but the available credit had gone from the $2400 from before up to $5500! Hm. Whatever. Things were good. I thanked the receptionist for her patience and sat down to wait. The same receptionist then called me in to re-measure my existing prescription and make sure nothing was different. That all checked out. Then one of the doctors called me in to do some other tests. Everything checked out again. I was good to go! Another nurse called me in to walk me through the discharge process. She also was the one who asked if I wanted a sedative or anything. I said that I definitely wanted a sedative and that I wanted the valium. I also added that she could feel free to give me the maximum legal dosage. I didn't really want it for the nervousness, but more for the fact that I wanted to try legally taking a bunch of valium. I got 5mg. Oh well. I sat down and waited with my eyes closed (like they said to do) with Ryan, bullshitting about something. Some nurse called me in and said it was my turn. I stood up...and rapidly felt the valium. Whoa. Sorta tipsy. This is kinda cool. A few steps brought me to the door. Crossing this threshold, I transitioned from a warm, welcoming waiting area to a business-like, hospital-ly machined room. She asked how I felt and I laughingly made some comment about the valium. I was instructed to sit down by an eye-examining machine that had been used on me before in the other side rooms. The doctor that was going to do the operation talked with me for a minute, and upon seeing that I didn't have any questions, used the examining machine on me. This machine was mostly just to look into my eye. It's really nothing more than a light plus magnifying lenses. I don't want to forget to mention that the nurse had dropped numbing drops into my eyes prior to this. The doc marked my eye with a marker, apparently. I couldn't feel a friggin thing. Those numbing drops were AWESOME. You'll read that at least another time or two in this post.

Ok, everything checked out. The doc had done what he needed to do, and I was doped up and numbed up and ready to go. They had me lay down on a beddish-thingy, which had been swung out slightly. This swung back in so my head was under the business end of the machine. My head was positioned around and I was told to look at the red dot. More wetting and numbing drops, and my left eye was patched over. Darkness from that side. My brain focuses on the light entering through my right eye. The doc takes the reverse-clamp thingy and gently places it down around/into my eye area. This holds my eye completely open, preventing me from blinking. This was the moment of truth, as I thought that I would blink for sure, or that I would try to blink but be prevented from blinking. In reality, things were fine. My eye didn't dry out because they kept it wet and numb, and so my eyeball continued to stare upwards at the red dot. I relaxed myself and tried not to focus on what was being done. Just look at that dot. Things are going well. The doc lets me know that he's putting on the ring-like thing that will slightly suction to my eye. This happens and my vision is slightly impaired. It's sort of like a blinder in a way. Ok, still fine. Ok, the doc then says that my vision is going to fade to black. There's a whirring and my vision indeed begins to fade. I lose sight of the red dot. You might be asking why it was fading? Well, it's because at that time, the microkeratome (read: blade) was cutting into my cornea, producing the flap. As it cut, the fact that it's a solid metal object means it's obscuring any and all light entering my eye. Do I feel paid during this time? Nope. You just feel some pressure, which is exactly what everyone and everything I read said I would feel. Those numbing drops were AWESOME. It's a little surreal, knowing that there's an ultra-thin blade slicing into your cornea while a reverse clamp holds your lids from closing. The blade stops and begins its retreat. Light again begins to stream into your eye. The doc lifts the flap up and out of the way. Vision turns to mush. The red dot hovering a foot or so over your eye is not longer there. In its place is red dot's cousin, red starburst. Red starburst looks like a wide, spread splotch of color. Why did red starburst show up? Well, it's because you no longer have an entire cornea there to focus the light. The red stands out easily amongst the sea of blur, but it's still easy to focus on. Still no pain. Numbers are called out by the aides. The doc responds to them with more numbers. Eye-speak, I suppose. Location of my eye? Power of the laser? Program to run? I don't care. As long as they get my operation done right, whatever. The doc says that he's going to begin the laser so just keep focusing on the red dot. I did not tell him that the red dot is really a red starburst. I just "focusing" if you could call it that, on the red. There's a rapid-fire click-click-click-click-click-etc... Apparently the laser is working its magic, guided by the wonderous computer powering it. That computer powered by the electricity flowing from the wall. That computer controlled by conducting metal and integrated circuits. Those integrated circuits with transistor guts, turning on and off billions of times per second (assuming it's at least a 1GHz processor). Coal changed to electricity, metal made to handle that electricity, human ingenuity to control and manipulate it all so that some kid named Mike can get his eyes adjusted so that he can see without glass lenses in front of those eyes. Amazing really. Humans tweaking and modifying something as crucial as eyesight...playing with something as delicate and wonderous as the human eye...amazing. I love it. Technology. Ah, technology.

So the laser is clickity-clicking. It's "ablating" corneal tissue. Reshaping it. Removing it. Not adding it, no, it can't do that, it can only remove. But removing it using a laser with "flying spot" technology. Yes, assuming the circular disk of my cornea to be divided into quadrants, this laser is zipping around from quadrant to quadrant, removing tissue in each as needed. Amazing. Yet, I feel no pain. One of my other senses picks something up, though. Smell kicks in. Something is burning. Yes, that's my cornea. Wow? I can smell my cornea burning. I was alerted to this before. I knew to expect this. Hm. Does it smell bad? No...it doesn't really smell bad. It's not like human flesh burning in a fire. I wouldn't know what that smells like anyway. This is an interesting smell. I struggle to place it. Sort of like metal being grinded? Hm...maybe. Maybe not. I can't place it. I don't care, too lazy to place it. The clicking stops and with it, the smell. The laser has done its work.

The doc tells me the critical parts are over. He flips the flap back into place. Gently presses it down around. Using some flat-looking white tool, he gently presses from the center of my cornea outwards. I see this. I watch as this white tool touches the center of my eye and slides outwards. Those numbing drops were AWESOME. I don't feel a damn thing! Haha! Take that body! Take that nerves! He's literally pressing on my eye with this thing to press my cornea into place and flatten everything out, and I can't feel anything! Whoo-hoo! Ok, that's done. Time to remove the ring now. Suction off, ring removed. More drops, reverse clamp removed, eye can close. Patch over that. Now the other eye.

Rinse and repeat. Less than a minute to a minute for each eye. Wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am. Shit, that wasn't so bad.

Doc tells me that when I get up, my vision is going to look like I'm underwater. I agree with him. They make sure I can stand alright, and I walk out the door. Back over the threshold into the waiting room. Ryan was standing up by the glass, watching the end of my left eye. I don't think he saw everything. Aw. I should have told him to take some pictures or something. I put on the black cheapo sunglasses they give you, and gather my stuff. Ryan has me pose by the giant LASIKPlus logo in the waiting room with my shades on and snaps a pic. We head out to the truck. I give him the keys. Uh-oh. Lots of light outside, even with the sunglasses. Wow. Bright. Don't like this. Ugh. I remember our deal with lunch. I fumble around, yank out a $20. Tell Ryan to go across the street and get some Wendy's. I sit in the truck and wait. The burning and pain begins. Eyes water. I fumble around and manage to call Ryan, realizing I didn't tell him what I want. I get the order in and sit. Eyes still water. This is just the beginning of a flood of liquid that poured forth from my eyes the entire way home. Ryan gets back and hands me the bag. I yank off my jacket and drape it over my head. I don't want ANY light. I have to trust Ryan to handle the truck. I don't know if Ryan has ever driven anything larger than a medium-sized car in years. I don't think so. Ryan hasn't even driven a vehicle in probably a year. I didn't even ask if he had a license. I have to trust him. I do. He's not stupid. We joke about how he feels driving a truck. Ryan states: "I feel like...I feel like...I FEEL LIKE A MAN. Now I can tell my dad I'm not gay." We both get a hearty laugh from that. I remind him that I will fucking kill him if he crashes my truck. I will shoot him in the face with my glock (see: "I am not a crook!").

My eyes have gotten worse. This stings like a motherfucker! My eyes are clamped shut and trying to clamp even more shut. They're just watering with an endless supply of liquid. Of course, when your eyes water, tear, or when you cry, your nose stuffs up. Mine is no different. My nose clogs and begins to drip. I'm glad I at least have a napkin or something to use. I pray for the drive to go faster. My blind mis-instruction (yes, I gave some instructions whilst blind and from under a jacket) turns a relatively short ride home into a medium-length ride home, as we ended up taking 77 North all the way up till 90, taking 90 East, then hitting 271 South. Then, I told Ryan not to exit, thinking that he was going to take the Mayfield West exit, when in reality I had just told him to not take the Mayfield East exit, which is what we wanted. We have to go down to the Cedar road exit, cross the bridge, and take 271 North for a mile or two then re-take the Mayfield exit. Ryan gets the truck into the covered parking area and, while he takes a couple of forwards and reverses, manages to park the truck in a spot. I'm still blind, with tears streaming down my face, and with a totally stuffed nose. He has to guide me by my arm to my apartment's backdoor. I feel my way up the stairs using the rail and give him the keys to open my door. We get inside and I immediately head back to the bed. I dry my eyes better, make sure the room is dark, and lay down with the sunglasses on (I had been instructed to wear them even while sleeping for a week). Before I had gone into the bed, I told Ryan to make himself at home, have a beer, watch TV, use the computer, whatever. I finally fell asleep and woke up a little after 8p, about 8 hours after I had fallen asleep. That's why they told you to go home and sleep. I would not have wanted to be up for that time period. I get up, find Ryan gone, lock my door, and eat my share of the Wendy's that I told Ryan to leave. My eyes still sting, but it's not nearly the way it was on the drive home. I'm thankful for this. I try to use the computer, but even with contrast and brightness turned down, and sunglasses on in a fully darkened room, I can't do it. My eyes just start watering like crazy. Oh well. My Dad calls and I talk with him for a bit. Right after hanging up with him, I get a call from the doctor. Wow, cool. He asks how things are, how my eyes feel, how's my vision, and I tell him that while things sucked earlier, they're much better now. He gives some more instruction, and we hang up. I end up spending the rest of the evening laying down, getting spurts of sleep, just trying to rest my eyes. Eventually I'm up and about. I'm able to put in my eye drops, and I can see. I can see! I can see the numbers on the clock on the far wall from my bed. I can see shit! It's clear! I putz around for the rest of the night, and since I slept so much before, I'm not tired. I just stay up the rest of the night until time for my next-day checkup. I drive myself back down, wearing the shades, feeling a bit funny. I can see! I can see, definitely, but it still feels weird. It has to be because my brain is 1) seeing without using glasses and 2) seeing at a higher power than I had with glasses. The feeling is reminiscent of when I would get a new presciption of glasses. It takes a bit for your brain and eyes to adjust to the higher power. I chalk up the feeling to that and happily drive down. The checkup goes well. I was able to read about 2-3 letters of the 5 on the 20/10 line. I'm 20/10 to 20/15. That's friggin awesome! They stress to me the importance of religiously using my eye drop combo (one steroidal drop to reduce swelling and one antibiotic drop to prevent infection...this is the prescription drop that was regularly 75 bucks). They let me know that my vision will stabilize over the next few weeks. It could drift up to 20/20, or just stay where it's at. That's fine with me. 20/20 without glasses is still awesome. The whole healing period is technically months, but you're good to go after 3-4 weeks. I leave the checkup with my new eyes, feeling particularly elated. This is sweeeeeeeet.

So, here I am a few days later. Things are fine. I'm following the drop schedule, and I'm enjoying my new eyes. Is it worth it? So far, hell yes. I hope I don't have to modify this statement in the near future, but I'm going to go ahead and say that this was the best money I have ever spent. No joke. I highly recommend this. I'm recommending it now and I haven't even fully begun to appreciate a glasses-free lifestyle, which I will discover as I go swimming, go to the beach, go lift, go bike, go sweat, go do dishes, go out in the rain, go play a sport, go sleep, etc... If you're in my area, I'd recommend that you give my place a shot. Professional, nice, thorough, and based off my eyes right now, skilled.

Well, I'm going to be heading back to the burgh for Thanksgiving with my family, so they'll get to see my new eyes. I guess when you think about it, it's no different than my old eyes with contacts. Meh, whatever. I'm loving it, and that's all that counts.

Later dudebros.

I am not a crook!

2007-11-15T09:13:00.000-05:00

It was just another day playing darts in the Cleveland Heights Jillian's. Just another couple of beers. Little did we know that the night would rapidly go downhill upon consummating our darts game. The only other thing that was different was that we played this game for money. That was the fatal flaw. Oh yes, don't let Mr. DeBiase fool you. The game was for money. Big money. Money that, depending on the hands it ended up in, would end up paying for LASIK to rent to PS2 hockey games to mere food to live on.

The setting is in the back corner of the Jillian's, near the switchbacking ramp that gets the customers (in varying states of inebriation) down to the bathrooms to release the alcoholic fluids they so recently consumed. Ryan and I had started a darts game for money. It was for fun, yes, but there was a rivalry there, buried underneath the smiles, handshake, and friendly trash-talking. That rivalry was beginning to burn intensely, like a small sun, fueled by back-and-forth darts games in the past. The money was like an unspoken acknowledgment of that rivalry, a notice to each other that this was the game that counted. THIS was the game that mattered. This would give the other significant bragging rights. This would increase the other's manhood by X number of units, where the units were inches or centimeters, depending on your country (remember there's 2.54cm per 1 inch!).

So it was a cricket game (we always played cricket). For fun. But with money. And a rivalry lurking there. The money...it was a little chunk. It was a big enough chunk that in its halves, would make both carriers wary on their walk to the Jillian's, given the neighborhood. It would make both carriers wary even WHILE they were in the Jillian's, given the customership. When summed, it would make the victor paranoid as they walked out those doors and back to their apartment or truck. They would scan every dark corner, every dark door, and every sound on their short walk back. Oh yes, it was serious bank. We each put our half of the total into an Altoids tin and closed them up. We set them underneath the dart board. Why? I don't think either of us knew. Probably because we each wanted it as a reminder of the gravity of this game. If we started slipping on our release, relaxing in our focus, a quick look at the money-laden tins would bring our world sharply back into focus.

The match went well. Both men were on their game. They weren't playing stellar; after all, they weren't Phil Taylor, but they were nailing at least one or two of the cricket numbers on each throw. It was a little back-and-forth. It was going to be a close game, for sure. It was coming down to the wire. I needed a third bullseye to close it out and finish the game. Bullseyes were always my weak point. Ryan's 16 was completely open. He tried to knock out the bullseyes early and had succeeded, then hit another two greens to nab some points. I had answered by nailing a string of 16s, punishing him for leaving it so open.

Then it happened. The most controversial throw in darts history. Ryan was on his third and last throw of his set when he apparently hit a triple 16. I stress apparently because from the throwing line, it could have gone either way. Both men paused. No hooting and hollering. Both already knew the etiquette for the winner: solemn smile, firm handshake, and a "good game". The same applied for the loser, sans smile. However, given the placement of the dart, neither were so sure. A few steps forward showed something that would prove tricky. The dart was indeed within the colored area of the triple 16, but only because it had shoved aside the thin metal rod designating the boundary between the triple and single 16. That is, it REALLY was on the single 16 side. The dart head might have been stabbing into the board in the colored area of the triple 16, but based on area divided by the metal rods, it was in the single 16! I breathed an internal sigh of relief while Ryan was probably internally cursing minor air currents for shifting his dart a few millimeters up and to the right. Both of us knew that we were going to have to argue our positions.

Being a very forward person, I called out: "That's a single 16. It's clearly and inarguably within the boundaries of the single 16." Ryan shot back: "It's a triple. It's in the color of the triple 16." "Bullshit Ryan, we've seen this before, and like before, we're going to call it a single." "I don't remember if we called it a single before, Mike, so don't put it off so soon." "Bud, you're not finishing the game on this friggin dart and walking away with my money." "Mike, it's a triple." "No! It's in the damn boundaries of a single 16! How can you call that a triple! We called this a single before and it's going to be a single again! End of argument!"

Neither wanted to budge. Ryan knew that I could very well nail a single bullseye during my next set, and he didn't want to let this slip away. "Mike, how about I go ask the girl at the desk about this?" "Dude, do you honestly think that she's going to know or care about darts rules should something like this happen?" "Well, maybe she has a rulebook."

Right then, I realized that I had to seriously hit up the bathroom. The intensity of the match had occupied my mind and I hadn't noticed that my body was yelling to be excused. "Man, I gotta take a leak. Listen, go ahead and talk to the girl or try to find some stupid rulebook, but I'm telling you now, it doesn't matter. I'm not giving you a triple on that one and you know you're in the wrong." I excused myself, figuring/assuming/trusting that nothing funny would happen. Boy, was I ever wrong.

Coming back from the bathroom, Ryan wasn't there. Oh well, he was probably up at the desk asking for some stupid rulebook to try and "prove" that his throw should be counted. Instantly my mind flashed to the bet. I glanced over at the dart board. The dart in question was still there, ominously stabbed into the cork-like substance. The other two throws standing sentry next to the (single) 16. The chalkboard, with Ryan's side all closed out...with Ryan's side all closed out? Wait. What?! My eyes slid downward. There was no glint of light off of two tins. No Altoid-branded metal greeting my eyes. No money... I should have known! Trust the bastard to run off without settling this situation! Back door or front? Back. It'd have to be back. It was the fastest way for him to get back to his apartment. I immediately took off away from the dart board, out of the game-room, into the bar area, hooked a 90-degree left, blew past the counter where they distributed darts/billiards and the like, and crashed out the door.

Ryan was 20 or 30 yards away, walking rapidly. He heard the crash of me bursting out the back door. Turning, our eyes locked for a second, even in the darkness of the small back parking lot. I could sense fear in those eyes. He knew he was done. "You son of a bitch!" I yelled out. Lifting up the back of my shirt, I unholstered Diesel with my right hand. Who is Diesel? Diesel is the name of one of my twin glock handguns, named after action hero Vin Diesel. Diesel's partner companion is Willis, named after Bruce Willis, also an action hero. If either one comes out, you're in trouble. If both come out, your body goes back in time half a minute and then vaporizes, because you're already dead and gone. That's how badass things get when both come out.

I took a shooter's stance, and firmly gripping the gun with both hands, began to fire round after round at Ryan. Blam-blam-blam-blam-blam! Ryan saw the motion of me drawing my gun, and like a rabbit might react to a raving child coming at it with a rock, bolted. I'll give him this, he runs fast. In fact, fast enough such that my shooting wasn't able to catch up to him. Must have been the booze. I bet it was his recent addition to biking. Yeah, that's what must have given him those legs. It was an interesting few seconds. Someone yelled in a gurgled, strangled death-cry, but it wasn't Ryan. No, Ryan shot off down the sidewalk. Damn, I must have missed him! Then who did I shoot? I quickly jogged over. I didn't recognize the person. Oh well. He had conveniently fallen into a dumpster as he died. Even better! Still though, guns are loud things. I figured I'd better hightail it out of there. I ran to the darkest part of the small lot, hopped a fence, and wormed my way through some dark sections of the back of Derbyshire's apartments until I got to my truck. I hopped in, glanced in the rearview mirror in Ryan's apartment's direction, and vowed to get my revenge. I started my ride, turned up some jams, and drove off towards Mayfield Heights.

I laid low for a bit and later found out they arrested some random dude who walked out next. I was off the hook! Now, back to plotting my vengeful vengeance on Mr. Debiase. Watch your back, dudebro...

Me vs Ryan vs Kate

2007-11-09T17:57:00.001-05:00

Ryan and Kate don't realize that this dark-horse is actually winning the little blogging contest that they've generated. Not only do I rape their word count with my walls of text, but my topic material is proh.

I pwn hard, it's true.

Oh snap

2007-11-09T03:44:00.000-05:00

I just spent 19 hours at work.

lawl?

=O

Road rage (not me), Steelers, and beer

2007-11-08T09:36:00.000-05:00

So after my whirlwind Friday night (see post below), the next thing up was a trip back to da burgh on Monday night. Now, why would I go back to Pittsburgh on a work night? For a Steelers game!

I believe the idea originated some random day at work after I was chatting with someone about the Browns. I thought to myself: "Mike, because you don't really watch TV, you keep forgetting to watch the Steelers play. You chat about football with the guys at work, and you've never been to Heinz field to see a game. Why not go see the Steelers/Browns game in Pittsburgh coming up in a few weeks?"

I figured that if I went to see the Steelers play the Browns (and likely win), I would have some nice ammo to use to razz on the Brownie fans up here. I would also benefit because I would get to experience the atmosphere of a Steeler game as well as see the stadium. After a quick check for tickets, I remembered that, in essence, you can't buy Steeler tickets at face value. That is, Steeler tickets sell out. You can't walk up or go online and just buy some tickets like you can for, say, the Pirates. In order to get your grubby mitts on Steeler tickets, you HAVE to 1) Buy them off scalpers 2) Get them off friends and family 3) Buy them online from people who have tickets and for some reason can't or don't want to go to that game. Option 1 is very sketchy. You don't even know if you're getting real tickets, and nothing would deflate a night faster than getting to the gate and finding out that you blew hundreds of bucks on fake shit. Option 2 wasn't an option at the time because no one in my family had connections to get tickets as far as I knew. That left option 3, which made even more sense because nabbing tix online is a viable (and secure) method now.

Doing some searching, I found a clean-looking, reputable-looking place called StubHub. A quick search for the Steelers/Browns game told me that this would be an expensive game. At the very least, we were talking about tickets starting at $250. I'm not even counting the one ticket that was up for auction starting at $120. Prices fluctuated wildly. The range was something along the lines of $120-$1200. There were some upper level seats for over $500. Whew. Well, it wasn't a problem because I hadn't even wanted to aim for upper level seats anyway. You might ask why prices fluctuated so much. The reason is based on greed and supply and demand. These tickets are available because 1) Season ticket holders can't make the game 2) One-time (regular) ticket holders can't make the game 3) People have bought the tickets hoping to sell them back for more and make money off it. Finding a good deal is challenging, and you might have to go through a couple of ticket sites to get that elusive steal...not to mention make sure that the site is a valid, legit site that won't scam you.

Searching through lower-level seats between the 30 yard lines for a good side-view, I came across a nice one on one of the 30 yard lines for about $280. I thought that maybe that was the one. Then it hit me. Why not call and ask my Dad if he wants to go to the game? We hadn't been able to do anything Father-Son related in quite a long time. This would be a perfect chance to spend some time with my Dad and catch a good game. I got in touch with him, and while he thought the idea was great, he didn't think it was wise to drop $300-400+ for two consecutive seats, especially if I was going to pay for both of us. Note: While my one find was ~$280, it was for a single seat. Jumping to consecutive (read: side-by-side) seats quickly ramped up the cost. I thought for a moment and quickly realized that it didn't HAVE to be the Steelers/Browns game. Backing up on StubHub showed me that there was a Steelers/Ravens game on Nov 5. Monday night football! Nice! More seats were open, and the low end of prices was down as low as $120 (auction though for that one). The price was still a bit higher, plus both of us would have to get about a half-day off work to pull this off, so he said to hang tight for awhile. A few days later he called back with some good news: A co-worker had two consecutive tickets to that very game, in good seats, for only $100 apiece! Long story short, he got the tickets off the guy for pretty damn close to face value. Definitely a good find.

Fast forward a bit, he's able to get a few hours off, and I talked with my boss to basically get the last half of Monday and the first half of Tuesday off. I packed up a bit, went to work, then around noon took off directly from there. The drive home went well except for one moment when another really new-looking F-150 tried to fucking run me off the road/sideswipe me. If you know me well, you know I really enjoy driving. You know I really enjoy speeding. You know I really enjoy vehicles in general. You also (hopefully) know that I know how the fuck to handle a vehicle, and that while reckless, I'm not reckless to the point of life-threatening. I like to think that despite failing at just about everything in life, that I know how the fuck to drive my rides. Lastly, you know that I like to talk about driving. So, here's how it went down:

Close to Pittsburgh, on 579. A few miles of three lanes that's going to narrow down to two lanes within two to three miles. There's been a big commercial truck hogging the left for awhile now. He's been going pretty fast, but not fast enough for the still-faster-moving cars and trucks. He doesn't seem to be budging from that lane. There's an on-ramp dumping a small squadron of vehicles on the road, and shortly after the on-ramp fully blends, you've got a short three-lane uphill that curves somewhat-sharply but smoothly to the right. I see a new-looking two-tone F-150 Lariat that just merged on the highway from the on-ramp shoot up on the far right lane. He's still accelerating away, plus being on the inside of the curve makes him zip around this uphill curve faster. I'm in the left lane, just behind the commercial truck. There are more than a couple car-lengths of room behind the F-150. In the middle lane, there are two cars separated by three to four car lengths of space. I'm right in the middle of that space. I see my opportunity and shoot through the gap, across the middle lane, accelerating because when going around a bend or circle or corner, laws of physics simply state that you must accelerate to maintain a constant speed. I'm accelerating harder, though, to catch up to the Lariat. I know there's a merge coming up in which the right blends into the middle, and there is that car in the middle. However, it's ok, because at the rate that Lariat's moving, we'll easily make it. I'm now in the right lane, and really fucking close to the Lariat's ass. A couple feet, it looks like. Dangerous at 70+? Yeah, but it's not like I haven't done this before. I've been in little convoys on the highway where everyone is doing over 75 and they're within a car length to half a car length. As long as the people who you're tailgating aren't fucking douchebags, you can safely assume that their speed will not drastically change in the negative direction. As long as you're paying attention to the road, paying attention to the vehicles in front of the one you're tailgating, paying attention to whether they're braking, whether they MIGHT be braking soon, whether they've been driving erratically up to this point, what their next move might be, whether the guy behind you is going to react fast enough should you need to brake fast, and the like, you can pretty safely react to a situation. Are you a douchebag for tailgating? Maybe. That differs in who you ask. I can stand a tailgater if I'm a situation like the aforementioned convoy. I can stand a tailgater if it looks like they're capable of handling a vehicle, and yes, I can tell by just watching for a bit.

I'm going to assume that you're a pussy when it comes to driving and that you clearly think that I was a douchebag for tailgating. Fine. Whatever helps you sleep at night. So me (the d-bag) slides in behind this guy, who turns out VERY quickly to be a massive d-bag himself...and not just your regular d-bag. I'm talking SuperUltraMegazord d-bag. This guy's been charging his d-bag lazer for awhile now, just waiting to fire it on someone. I'm not on this guy's ass for more than a couple seconds when he gets pissed and brakechecks me. He's mad. Hardcore brakecheck. Obviously, traveling at the speeds we're traveling at and with the distance between us so small, I have to react really fast. I like to think I'm quick on the reaction time, and especially when I start driving a little recklessly, I focus all of my attention on the task at hand. I rapidly, but smoothly, press very hard on the brake. Calipers engage, gripping the metal discs. Oh shit, I hear some squealing. That's bad. When you're squealing, your tires aren't rolling anymore, but sliding. Your traction is going to shit faster than Potassium reacts with water. It's ok, though, because I've slowed down enough to avoid hitting him, and he's stopped brakechecking. This all takes place in a second or two. Ok, now he's made me mad. I was on his ass for a couple of seconds. Relax dude. He and I hit the gas again to regain speed, because after all, there ARE vehicles behind us. We're cresting the uphill-right curve, and there's an exit lane/exit ramp starting very shortly. I throw up my right arm, point it forward, and extend my middle digit. I'm giving this fucker the bird, HARD. I'm holding it there loud and proud somewhere around 10 seconds, just to make sure that when he looks back, he'll see my friendly greeting displayed proudly in the middle of my large windshield.

Alright, he's exiting on the aforementioned upcoming exit ramp. He's dealt his blow by brakechecking in an attempt to scare me, and I've fired a volley back by telling him that he can take a large object and insert it up his asshole sideways, sans lube. I continue accelerating because I'm STILL in the far right lane, there's STILL a merge point coming up, and because the brakechecking let that middle-lane car get a bit ahead. The exit lane is rapidly becoming the exit ramp, where the exit lane physically splits off the highway. A curvy-V-shape on the ground with parallel white lines filling in the curvy-V denotes an imaginary wedge-wall, that if it were really there, would slice a car down the middle, should the car hit the wedge head on. His Lariat is a quad-cab as well, and the front of my truck is now parallel with his back door. I'm still displaying the F-bomb in charade form as hard as I can, and now this d-bag decides to go nerdrage level 11 on a 10-point scale. The brakechecking was dangerous, but I can take that. I can RESPECT that. I've done that to others before. When used properly, it's an effective tactic. What he does now is just flat-out stupid. Don't roll your fucking eyes, yes I'm aware that you're probably sitting on your high horse, righteously saying that everything I've typed up to this point, and all the methods of driving mentioned, are stupid to begin with. You probably drive like you couldn't operate a motor vehicle if your life depended on it, so you pretty much auto-fail.

He's not going to take the middle finger one bit. No, he wants metal-to-metal contact. This guy swerves from the exit lane over into my lane. This is not a gentle swerve, or a slight swerve, this is a crank-the-fucking-steering-wheel-left swerve. This is a movie-style run-the-guy-off-the-road move. What makes it even better is that this is done as he's rapidly approaching the aforementioned imaginary wedge. Yes, the exit lane is about to physically split off to become an exit ramp. I see this dick coming over, and have to immediately do a quick check to the left to ask myself if swerving left is going to swing me into that ever-present middle-lane car that I've been trying to get past. At the same time I'm swerving left. I swerve and swear that we came within a foot or two of biting it. Since he's about to run out of road, he has to crank the wheel back right, cutting through the parallel white-line V-filler and barely making it back on the exit ramp. Then, he has to overcompensate back left because he had cranked so hard right...he has to stabilize the truck out. I swear we came within a foot or two of biting it. I would have hit his truck probably in the rear door, and Lord knows what physics would have taken over.

I don't even have time to fucking honk, or flick him off again, or wind down the window and yell...I don't have time for shit. It all happened so fast that my mind has to catch up from reaction-mode to analysis-mode. I still have to pass the middle-lane car, so I accelerate and make the merge before I'm forced onto the shoulder. This guy seriously said to himself: "I'm going to take my brand-new Lariat and pull a movie-stunt move, slam into this other brand-new FX4, take him out, and fuck if I cause a multi-car pileup at a high speed." I caught a glimpse of the fucker as he swerved back onto the exit ramp. Some rat-fuck older guy with a balding central area on his head surrounded by that ugly-ass U-shape of gray hair that a lot of guys have, a gray beard, and some dumbshit fucking expression on his face.

I finish the drive home, getting more and more mad that someone attempted to run me off the road, until I eventually shrug it off, enjoy the rush, and be glad that I'm here for a PIKKSBURGH STILLER game. The night goes well. My Dad and I get dressed to stay warm, head down to Station Square, get some dinner at Hard Rock, go back out to the truck to tailgate for a couple hours, drink a couple of beers, bullshit with the tailgaters next to us, and take the ferry over to Heinz field. Get through the packed-as-sardines crowd at the gate, get to our seats, and watch the game. The seats are pretty cool. We're at the endzone that's enclosed, on the second level, underneath the awning produced by the upper level jutting out from above. Awning = awesome that night, because it was drizzling for awhile. It's not windy in that spot, and the view is pretty good. We watch the Steelers fucking STOMP the Ravens into the ground, as within the first HALF of the first QUARTER, the black and gold capitalize on something like 3 Raven turnovers, scoring a touchdown every time. Hell, the first couple of touchdowns went like this: Ravens turnover at their 20 or 30...2 or 3 plays on our part...TOUCHDOWN! Shit, time of possession for those first three TDs was like less than 2 minutes each. One was 1 minute. We get some food at the one food vendor that has Brentwood Band Parents manning it (to generate money for the kids for their biannual DisneyWorld trip), get some beers, and enjoy the routing. I stayed over for the night on my parents' suggestion that it be better to just get up early and drive back, and went straight from our house up to the plant I work at. This time, though, there were no whackjobs trying to shove me off the highway. =)

Later dudebros.

Party at the Derb

2007-11-07T14:37:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the wait guys.

Here's to hoping that you don't mind me recapping my weekend... The breakdown: Friday night I didn't do much. I think I stayed in and either played WoW or finished watching The Office (UK). On Saturday, however, I was invited to a party by Ryan, Jer, and Ted. Ryan asked me to pick up a bag of ice and some chips for the party on the way over. Beer was already there. A lot of it. Good stuff too (read: Christmas Ale). I shower up, clean up, dress up, and head out. A stop at the Shell station just up SOM Center affords me one big-ass bag of ice, a bag of doritos cooler ranch, a bag of honey wheat pretzel twists, a third-tank of gas, and a little less money in the ol' bank account. Chips up front, ice in the bed of the truck, and after recording the mileage on my gas receipt, I'm off. Pleasant little drive over to Coventry, get onto the Derb via Euclid Blvd + some back streets, and I'm walking down to the apt. Hit the buzzer and wait. Bzzzt, bzzzt, bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt, bzt, bzt, bzt, gotta time it just right to make sure that door will open. Best thing is to just be twisting and pulling on the handle through that whole process. Waiting for a buzz and trying to react to it doesn't always work.

Entering their abode, three stories up, I'm greeted with a medium-sized group of people in the sizeable dining room sitting around the well-worn wooden dining table. Hellos and handshakes abound. Drop off the ice, set down the chips. Ted pours the bag of frozen chunks of water into the old-skool-looking metal cooler, completely covering everything, especially the Christmas ales at the bottom. The move is a double-edged sword. You see, it's a great deterrent to prevent everyone else from easily nabbing the prized Christmas Ales. They might not even know it's there, with what being covered by ice and other beers. However, it means that for those in the know to get to it, we have to plunge our hands into the cold semi-sharp shards and dig around. Shove other beers out of the way, scoop out ice, try to get your now-slick fingers to grasp the glass bottom and pull. I ponder this work. I will have to do this a few more times this evening...hm.

Head out into the dining room area, take a seat, introductions to some new people I HAVEN'T seen before, and re-introductions to people that I HAVE seen before but have forgotten since then. I'm alerted to the fact that I should help myself to some foodstuffs laid out on the table and back in the kitchen. Getting some meat (I cannot think of the type aka tenderloin/chops/eye of round/etc at this time) I labor to shave off the fat on the side and then sit down to chomp on it. Have some broccoli. Try some Halushki. Chat. Discuss. Laugh. Drink. It's an enjoyable atmosphere, relaxed and chill. The night wears on, I keep drinking, more people show up, it gets a little rowdier. Some kid makes fried bananas and ice cream. I play darts with Kate's brother. Sam wants to play, so we make teams. She and Kate's brother on one team, myself and Ryan "THE FUCKING LEGEND(tm)" DeBiase on the other team. We take an early lead. Sam and Jack surge back. We finish them off with some well-placed bullseyes. I call Charles Fucking Parsons and slur out a greeting...something along the lines of "I miss you man. I'm here playing darts with Sam and RdB and Jack. I'm drinking. Hope things are well with you. I miss you man." Charles, displaying infinite patience, graciously accepts my friendly friending. He smoothly takes his leave and we hang up. Jack and I briefly talk about whether what I said about missing a guy was gay. He has a point. Something happens, and I end up saying (yelling) that if I were forced to fuck a guy in the ass it would be Will Smith. People laugh, Jack looks a little horrified, I probably look really gay. I keep drinking. Everyone plays Apples to Apples. Everyone is packed around the dining room table. People are having fun. Everyone is yelling. I am yelling even louder. Everyone is laughing. Comments are made that there should be a Mike Sokol card. I agree. Would my card be able to top the AIDS card, though? It's a tough call, truly. I have something called Sangria, which is wine + gin + fruit pieces, sort of like a Hairy Buffalo. In hindsight, this was probably a bad idea, but it was one cup, come on, right?

I go back to beers, and eventually the party starts splitting up into factions. I challenge Ryan to Wii Tennis, claiming that I will stomp his ass like I did last time. I pay dearly for my bragging. Ryan wipes the floor with me, 3 wins to my 1. I am confused. How did this happen?! Jer gets up and does the same. Unbelievable! This is the biggest upset in Wii Tennis history! What happened to my amazing cross-court return shot? Those little Wii Mii fuckers can't keep up with that blistering corner-to-corner rocket. They simply can't run there in time. I attribute my poor playing to my non-sober state and vow that I will redeem myself at a later date in the future. I stop playing Wii and just sit and watch, eating my cooler ranch doritos. Someone plays Tennis again but keeps my character. They lose. The Mike Sokol Mii is having a bad night. Wii Golf is up next. Some girl plays Ryan. She is still playing as my character. She is getting her ass stomped. I make comments throughout the entire round that she is doing a terrible job of being me. I think she quit and left. I take over with Ryan being 5 under me. I am at +8 and he at +3. How do I overcome this deficit? My fears are quickly eased, as on one hole with a river running through it, Ryan water hazards it something along the lines of four times. I am not only in the lead now, but comfortably so. I forget what happens next, but I think we just quit at that point. I make a call to the Cleveland Heights Po-Po Department to inform them that I will be staying overnight and to report my license plate so they don't ticket me for parking on the street. The garbled mash of sounds that comes out of my mouth manages to get through and the guy forwards me to someone. They don't pick up. The call eventually disconnects. I repeat the process. Same thing. Third time's a charm right? This time, I spew a different set of sounds informing the officer that they keep hanging up on me. He asks for my phone and license. I give him both. Call is done. I lay down on the couch and go to sleep.

Next morning greets me with a headache. What the fuck? I just had beer and one glass of Sangria. I am confused, but I guess it's water under the bridge. I take some ibuprofen to help. Ryan informs me that staying in their place past noon when you sleep over automatically signs a contract in blood that you must help clean up. I tried to use DST to claim that it was really before 12 and not before 1, but the cold metal of a silencer pressed to the back of my head convinces me that I am clearly wrong. I proceed to tear down the entire apartment and rebuild it all within 3 hours, complete with marble floors and roman pillars gracefully placed to provide the perfect balance of Architecture and functional Civil Engineering. In actuality, I mopped the dining room and kitchen floors and swept the living room while Jer, Ted, and Ryan cleaned other aspects of the place. Hung around for a little more, bullshitted with the guys, and took my leave.

It's always a good time when you hang out at the Derb.

Next post will be about my trip to Pittsburgh for the Steelers/Ravens game. Will you ever be able to contain your excitement?!?

Later dudebros.

My towels

2007-11-02T15:33:00.000-04:00

Some fuckin thief took my bath towels out of the dryers in the basement of my apartment building, but first, there are two important things I must note pertaining to this theft.

One, I had put three loads of laundry in the dryer on Saturday night. A load of jeans and jean shorts, a load of dressy-ish longsleeves, and a load of bath towels. This was the night that I went with Ryan down to Kent for some minor Halloween partying. Well, I realized later (like on Tuesday night) that I had forgotten the towels.

Two, my apartment building is HUEG. There are three buildings in my complex, and I'm in the middle one. My building is 15 stories tall, and has two long wings that stretch out from the center elevator shaft. It varies depending on room size (1 bed, 2 bed, 3 bed, studio, etc...) but I would estimate that each wing has anywhere between 8-12 rooms. It's a lot of people. Accompanying that many people is the large laundry room in the basement. There's a whole friggin wall of dryers (probably more than two dozen, in two rows, top row mounted above the bottom row) and in the center of the room is probably an equal amount of washers.

Ok, so you're probably saying that I'm stupid for forgetting about my towels until like Tuesday night. You would probably also be right. I don't know. On Saturday, I was focused on getting a shower, getting cleaned up, and getting my clothes out of the wash so I could have something nice to wear. *shrug* I just missed the towels.

However, should that even matter? Should my possible stupidity have merited getting my shit stolen? Think of this for a second. The laundry room is never packed. There are always open dryers and washers. My stuff only sat in there for two to three days (I still don't remember if I realized this all on Monday or Tuesday night...). Now, my stuff SHOULD HAVE just sat there. Again, think about this. You come down, you open a dryer. "Whoops, someone's stuff. Ok, I'll close this and pick the one next to it." Let's even take a hypothetical situation and say that EVERY dryer was occupied. In that case, a sensible person might say "Oh, well every dryer is full so I will just leave my stuff in the washer and come back down in 10-15 to see if a dryer opens up." A sensible person might also say "Ok, well this one dryer with bath towels is done, and I really need to get going, so I will pull out the towels and put them on the laundry tables down there." That's reasonable, no? That's how shit worked in college. If you REALLY needed to use a dryer, you pulled out the clothes that were in there and piled them on the laundry table. It's called decency.

So is my rationale above flawed? I honestly don't think it is. Instead of the above happening, some thieving motherfucker came down, selected the dryer with MY towels in it, and say "Hey, I think I want to steal some towels because I'm COMPLETELY FUCKING STUPID AND ENJOY DOING SOMETHING SO ASININE THAT IT MAKES YOUR HEAD ASPLODE WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT." Ok, so let's say someone was kind enough to remove my towels and place them on the laundry table. Same line above applies. Really, who the FUCK steals BATH TOWELS? Jeans? T-Shirts? Dress shirts? All these things I can understand stealing...but bath towels? The only thing worse you can steal is UNDERWEAR.

Look at this, people. What comes in contact with your junk? Underwear and BATH TOWELS. What comes in contact with your asscrack? Underwear and BATH TOWELS. These towels are at least a couple years old. MINUS the fact that they've been washed quite often, the point still stands that at some time or another, the majority of the central area of that towel was exposed to my ass, my nuts, or my wang, to dry them off.

Which brings me to some options that I'm considering. One, I mention this to the lady at the desk down in the lobby and kindly request that I see video logs or ask what I can do with the video feed from the laundry room. Two, I was thinking of typing up a sheet of paper in large font that basically states what I stated at the end of the last paragraph. It would go something like this:

To the thieving shithead that took my dark blue/dark red/orange/white bath towels from a dryer between 10/27-10/30,
I just want you to remember this: At some point or another in the last few years, most of the surface area of those towels has been used to dry off my asscrack and/or my nuts. Remember that when you step out of the shower and use my towels to dry off your face and hair. Want to return them? Just leave them in the laundry room on a table. No questions asked. Don't want to return them? Enjoy the scent.

What do you think? *grin* Probably won't do it, though.

All in all, after reading this post, you're likely wondering why I am still frustrated over this. Why am I plotting revenge and considering looking at video logs and the like when it's over and done with, and furthermore, when it's just some bath towels? It's because the thought that someone stole my shit really pisses me off. If you can afford to live in Gates Mills Towers, you can likely afford some fucking bath towels. It's nothing of any significant value, but that's what bothers me: It was such a dumb item to take that I can't really process the sheer stupidity of it. What also annoys me is that I now have to walk to Blood Bath & Beyond near my apartment and get more towels. I have to do extra work because of that person. orz

I'd like to think that "what comes around goes around" and "karma's a bitch", but I don't care anymore. I think this post helped me realize that I shouldn't give a shit.

Later dudebros

Sweet new word

2007-11-01T14:38:00.002-04:00

A new word that I will strive to say with great frequency from here on out is:

Dudebro

Cops and Transportation

2007-11-01T10:51:00.000-04:00

The one thing about this city, nay, this state, that annoys me to no end is the cop presence and the traffic situation. There's ALL. THESE. FUCKING. COPS. I saw more cops that had pulled people over within the first approximately 6 months of living in Cleveland than I had seen in my fucking life in Pennsylvania. Exaggeration? I honestly don't know. Normally I would have no problem admitting that I over-exaggerated, but when I think back, I don't ever recall seeing that kind of frequency of cop stops.

This is something that has truly bothered me about this fucking city. Here's a list dealing with vehicular travel:

1) Your roads are shit. You don't even try to fix them. Pittsburgh has bad roads as well, I'll give you that, but at least we try and REPAIR THEM. Why do you think Pittsburgh roads are always under fucking construction? Why do you think the detours are in place? It's because, year-round, we realize that our roads are crap and that action needs to be taken so drivers don't have to play fucking 'slalom course' with all the bumps, potholes, and irregularities that plague Cleveland roads.

2) You put 4-way stoplights FUCKING EVERYWHERE. There are countless intersections that have 4-way stoplights that DO NOT NEED THEM. You stop the flow of traffic on a 2-lane main drag to let TWO cars out from some piddling side-road?!? It's like this city is filled with pussies, except that it's not the good kind of pussy that you'd want. Back in Pittsburgh, you didn't get stupid lights for minor fucking side roads that are barely traversed. You had stop signs that you DEALT WITH. You waited for an opening in the flow of traffic, and you WENT.
The road leading from Monticello (a main drag) down to Nela Park (my 'home base') is called Noble Road. This road has SEVEN fucking 4-way stoplights within 2-3 miles. The first three stop you for, again, pointless side roads. When I catch those red lights, I see at most 2-3 cars let out. FOR WHAT? You stopped over a dozen cars to let out two?? Noble Road CAN get partially full, but it's never packed enough such that a person faced with a stop sign on a side road (instead of the stoplight) couldn't get out.
The latter four lights are located in this little shithole of a 'business' area. It's a small supermarket, some shitty convenience store, a shitty mechanic/garage, a couple other shitty stores, some shitty abandoned stores, and a shitty laundromat. Oh, don't forget the shitty-shady 'Fish and Grits' restaurant-thingy. Are you serious? Fish and GRITS? Oh yeah, keep in mind that this is East Cleveland. It's basically just a sliver away from being the ghetto. Four lights. For that. Oh yeah, once you get past the four lights, don't forget that sometimes they have the speed camera set up!

3) Speed cameras and red light cameras. Let's ignore the fact that East Cleveland slams us (GE employees working at Nela Park) with high taxes (2%). Let's ignore the fact that there were problems with 'misappropriation' of tax money before. Let's ignore the fact that the area is still a shithole. Let's ignore the fact that we have no good fucking idea what all the tax money is going to. Let's instead focus on how they put yet another knife into our backs by putting up speeeeeeeed cameraaaas. Let's focus on the one on Noble Road that is sometimes out. The joy of these little fuckers has multiple facets. For one, they often put them in 25mph areas. For two, those 25mph areas are often snuck in between 35mph areas...for no good fucking reason (more to come on this later). For a third, the cameras aren't really calibrated well. For a fourth, you can't fight the ticket. It's been tried before by a few GE employees and they've lost. For a fifth, the entire operation is outsourced. That's right. A tiny fraction of the $100 ticket that my co-workers have gotten hit with actually goes to the city. The rest goes to some fucking company in the Western half of the US. I don't even remember the state. For a sixth reason, the entire thing is so fucking sneaky. With the speed camera on Noble, they used to have the power cables for the camera running back to a white van that sat about 15 yards away (the camera is merely powered by a car battery). They probably noticed that people would just see the van and slow down. That wasn't good enough. They eventually moved the battery right next to the camera and backed the van up much further down the side-street. So now, with a semi-keen eye, you can manage to notice the tripod from a little away. I've been so tempted to just stroll up to the battery and disconnect the positive lead. My co-workers have been tempted to stroll up to the camera and smash the shit out of it with a bat. I actually like that more...
This doesn't even touch upon the fixed cameras located at some big intersections down by Case Western. Those are fixed up on the stoplight poles, and will nail you for sneaking through a late yellow. I haven't had much experience with those since I'm never down there, but then again, they're in more places than just the Case intersections but aren't yet known...

4) Speed transitions. Cleveland looooooooves to arbitrarily put 25mph zones in chunks along 35mph roads. What the fuck is with this? There's sort of some rhyme and reason why it's done, as it's sometimes in business-y areas, but it's not consistent. Taking Mayfield Road to Coventry, for the first few miles as I leave my apartment, the ENTIRE FUCKING ROAD IS BUSINESSES. Guess what the speed limit is there? 35MPH. Get close to East Cleveland? Are there a couple little shops? DING, 25MPH. What the fuck? The recipe works fine out in my area on the busy-as-hell Mayfield Road that's also packed with businesses. Why change? Because this city is FUCKED.

5) Again with the traffic cops. Let me make something clear: I do not dislike all cops. Detectives are fine. They do their job hunting down the bad guys. Who else...uh...that's all I have at the moment. Your basic beat cop/traffic cop/highway cop? These people spend their days slinking around like snakes trying to nab the big-bad speeder going 5-10 over the speed limit. Oooohhh nooooo, get that bad person for going a little fast on a FUCKING HIGHWAY. Let's not address the drug problem in this city, let's not clean out the gangs, let's not clean up the shitty ghetto neighborhoods closer to the city. No, we're going to use your tax money to help pay for police to sit on the roads, hide behind objects, use their radar guns without any lights on, sitting in the dark, to nail you. We're going to use your money to make you pay MORE money in traffic tickets and insurance costs. It's like the fucking 'PROFIT' meme:
Step 1) Make people pay high taxes
Step 2) Use those taxes to pay for an assload of traffic cops
Step 3) ????
Step 4) PROFIT
The thing about the tickets that really irritates me is that traffic tickets are so directly linked to insurance costs. ALL traffic tickets are linked. I don't mind paying a fine for breaking the law. That's cool. However, I'm double-whammied later by insurance. For the next few years. For going 10 over? Wtf? But why are you crying about that Mike? Insurance has to go on something, right? Yeah, but why can't insurance ride on repeat, severe offenses and accidents. You get into 2 at-fault accidents each year every year, your ass should get charged higher rates. You get caught going 30 over the speed limit? You get charged higher rates. You get 2 tickets in a year for going 5-10 over a speed limit, screw that, especially with item #4 above. There are far worse things taking place that need a cop. Am I speaking from personal experience and whining about what happened to me? Yes and no. I got one speeding ticket resulting from a 35-to-25 transition, and one ticket for "blowing" a stop sign. Other people I know? Speeding tickets, speeding tickets, speed camera, speeding tickets, blah blah blah. Fucking speeding tickets. Fucking useless cops. Give a high school graduate a gun and some power, a mediocre pay, then put quotas on them, and this is what results. I have little respect for your average traffic/highway cop.

I've never encountered such snake-in-the-grass tactics and shady, underhanded bullshit before in my life. This city is already in the dumps, and leadership keeps making it worse and worse and worse. Cleveland, YOU put YOURSELF into this situation, and you wonder why your city would be listed as one of the worst places to live... Panda, if you still have it, could you give me that link again to put here? Or, I'll just check Trillian logs.

Cheers

PS - Don't forget that your drivers are IDIOTS. Give me Pittsburgh drivers any day of the week. The knuckle-dragging mongoloids that populate this city are atrocious at driving. This includes the elderly (who are really probably the worst culprits). I don't want to go on about this, so I'll just wrap up by saying that I encounter these lobotomized morons every day and it almost hurts how painfully BAD these people are at operating a motor vehicle.

Lazers + Eyez

2007-10-31T18:40:00.000-04:00

My friend Panda lives in Japan at the moment. He's 13 hours ahead of us. This means that, minus the weekend, for us to have any dialogue via AIM, we have to send our messages and then see the other's reply when we get home from work/get up in the morning.

Lately we've been talking about this LASIK procedure that I'm going to go through. Panda's been of the mindset that LASIK causes small complications in most of the people that get it done, and causes large complications in a fair number of people that get it done. I at first thought he was referring to LASIK done in Japan, where their medicine (if I'm correct) is still years behind the US. Government-paid healthcare is great on your wallet, but it's at the expense of quality care and up-to-date medicine. However, he wasn't referring to Japanese LASIK, but the procedure done here in the US. His concerns are valid ones, and some of the complications he's mention sound like some of the complications that I've encountered in the research I've done into this procedure. Nonetheless, I oppose his sentiments.

Why? Because either I'm being lied to by the information I've found, or I've glossed over the complications when I read them, but it appeared to me that this procedure did not generate anywhere near the amount of problems that Panda hinted at. Firstly, here's the definition of LASIK:

LASIK is an acronym that allows us to quickly say, "laser assisted in situ keratomileusis." This is more simply said as "reshaping the cornea using a laser."

Secondly, it's helpful to look at the two methods of forming the corneal flap:
~Microkeratome: Uses an incredibly small blade to cut your cornea and produce the flap
~Intralase: Uses an infrared beam to produce a layer of little overlapping spaces at a specified depth within your cornea. I've also read that it creates little bubbles at a specified depth within your cornea. Little spaces, little bubbles...same to me. It's just little voids within your cornea.

Thirdly, here are two other terms that answer how the corneal tissue underneath the flap is removed:
~Broad beam: "A broad beam laser will project a single beam into your treatment area, on your cornea, all at once. The singular, cool beam of UV light will evaporate corneal cells and reshape your cornea, as needed. Broad Beam lasers are considered a solid "base-standard" in laser vision correction."
~Flying spot: "A "flying spot" laser treats one tiny spot of the corneal treatment zone at a time, and then "flies" to the next treatment area. The cool beams are pulsed in tiny, non-overlapping spots all over the treatment zone, following a pattern controlled by the laser's computer. An eye tracking device is used to keep track of your eye movements, and to ensure the laser always falls on the correct location in the cornea. The multiple beams cover a slightly wider surface area, and will not penetrate as deep. This technology produces a smooth corneal shape and assures you a high level of accuracy during the surgery."

So with those two things already said, what happens during LASIK? Initially, if you're very nervous/fearful, they'll give you a little bit of drugs to dope you up and calm you down. "Doctor....I'm nerrrrrrrvvvoooouusssss" After that, they'll numb up your eyes with numbing and wetting drops. They'll then use some device to hold open your eye so you don't blink. After that, they create the flap that I mention above using one of the two methods. Then, they fold that flap back to expose the corneal tissue underneath. They then use an excimer laser to remove and reshape the cornea using either the broad beam method or the flying spot method. After that's done, they fold the flap back, and the surgery is complete. The actual cutting and reshaping process itself is less than a minute per eye. Now, you might be wondering how useful your sight is now that you have a friggin flap of cornea tissue now hanging off your eye. Well, it's not hanging off your eye for one, and two, corneal tissue apparently repairs very fast and very well. You get driven home by the person you brought with you, you're told to lay down and take a nap, and that's it. You can apparently see clearer even immediately after the operation, and as your eye continues to heal for the next few days, your vision will gradually get better until things settle out.

I haven't really addressed those complications yet, though. The following quote taken from the LASIKPlus site explains it the best. Since I've already had my pre-exam and had the wavefront analysis done, I've been made aware that I do not have the higher-order aberrations addressed in the quote. I also didn't have prior problems with seeing at night, either.

With the advent of Wavefront driven procedures, physicians are now able to analyze all the components of the optics of our eyes that cause blur in our vision. The major factors in our blurred vision are usually Nearsightedness, Farsightedness, and Astigmatism. These three factors can be corrected with glasses or contacts. However, everyone has some degree of other imperfections in the optics of their eyes. These other factors are called “higher order aberrations” and may contribute anywhere from 2% to 20% of the overall blur. The aberrations have names like “coma”, “secondary astigmatism”, “trefoil”, and “spherical aberration”.

The aberration that is most directly related to pupil size is “spherical aberration”, which causes a “halo” around lights at night when your pupils are at their largest. Spherical aberration is always increased when we treat a nearsighted person, because we flatten the central part of the cornea with the laser. Two very important factors besides pupil size in the quality of vision post-operatively are: The amount of correction and the size of the treatment zone.

For instance, if a patient with a -10 prescription, who has 7 mm pupils is treated with a 6.5 mm treatment zone, they will likely experience some increased haloes around porch lights at night. However, a patient with -4 prescription with the same pupils and treatment size will likely experience minimal haloes around lights, and be pleased with the result. If we could enlarge the treatment size much bigger than the pupil, it would minimize the spherical aberration, but it would require removing prohibitively large amounts of corneal tissue to do this. A better way is to perform a wavefront analysis and treatment of all the optical aberrations at once.

When our pupils are small, as they are during the day, most of the irregularities in our eyes are covered up. As the light decreases, the irregularities are exposed, which can cause haloes around lights to appear.

Now what about complications resulting from creating the flap? This is probably the biggest concern, moreso than haloes or starbursts. Here's a link to a little debate about bladed versus bladeless flap creation:
Bladed vs Bladeless
Also, go to this page, scroll down about a 1/3 of the way, and click the link called "slide show of how LASIK works":
Intralasik
Do the unhinged flaps, partial flaps, and buttonhole flaps worry me? Sort of. The former two moreso than the latter. The results from my pre-exam told me that I had nice, thick corneas, so worrying about a meniscus effect creating a hole in my cornea does not bother me. The former are obviously somewhat concerning, but I just have to be confident in the skill of the surgeon that'll be doing the operation. It has been done hundreds of thousands of times before with great success, and the surgeon that will be working on me has done it a couple thousand times himself. At some point I have to put my faith into the doctor doing this. I honestly cannot say if I will have complications, or how bad they will be, but it's a risk that I'm willing to take. That's the leap of faith that people who are considering it have to take. You're either willing to put your fears aside and risk it, or you're not.

What about long-term issues? I forget the exact month, but the article I dug up was dated 2006:

One key question -- the long-term stability of results -- appears to have been answered, at least for now. A study presented last month at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology found that 10 years after 200 patients underwent either Lasik or PRK, their vision averaged 20/25; they had no long-term complications.

For fairness, here's a quote properly warning that nothing is failsafe and that such an operation should be thought of carefully before it's done:

But not everyone is enamored of the new technology. David Hartzok, an optometrist in Chambersburg, Pa., specializes in treating people with complications from laser surgery. He also directs the Vision Surgery Rehab Network, an advocacy group for patients with post-operative problems. "The people I see coming in today are the products of the new technology, and they're having the same problems," such as dry eye, glare, starbursts and blurred vision, Hartzok said. "I do think in general surgeons are more circumspect about the kinds of patients they do and lasers are better." But that, he said, is no guarantee of a good result.

I'd like to note here that Panda is originally from Chambersburg.

Lastly, here's a link to something encouraging:
Contacts vs LASIK in terms of safety

I've talked with two middle-aged women here at the plant that had their LASIK done at the LASIKPlus center that I will be going to. Both women have raved about the process and how enjoyable it is now for them, strongly recommending that I get it. That kind of word-of-mouth coupled with my very successful pre-exam is very encouraging and helps allay my fears. Additionally, the research I've done on the topic and my cost/benefit/risk analysis that I've mentally done has helped greatly in my decision to give the green light on this. I will be getting the microkeratome flap done (because LASIKPlus does not yet offer intralase) and the excimer laser will use the flying spot method of ablating my corneal tissue. I'm ready for it. "Doctor, please start chargin' ur lazer..."

Resources:
All About Vision
LASIKPlus
LASIKPlus Resources

Carts and Whiffle Balls

2007-10-30T16:36:00.000-04:00

After work, myself and my co-workers are off to play some Whirlyball:
http://www.whirlyballcleveland.com/
I've been there twice before. I think both times it was with the Electronics team. Very fun stuff. Imagine a bumper car + whiffle ball + scoops + basketball net. The steering really isn't a big deal. Maybe it's because I like driving, or just like motorized things in general, but you get a feel for it very quick. Not-smart people tend to get hung up on it, though. *shrug*

You have to throw the ball using the scoop carefully. Really whipping it will just make the ball come out vertically, where it will smack off the ceiling. You have to sort of flick your wrist instead of putting your whole arm behind it. I don't think I quite got that part down 100% yet. Perhaps I'll become more comfortable today.

Like I said, good fun with a group of people. You get there, drink some brewdogs, watch a safety video beforehand, play, drink more brewdogs, play, drink more...get the message? How can you go wrong?

Treading in unfamiliar territory

2007-10-29T23:35:00.000-04:00

Say with a lisp: Dear Diary. Mood: Apathetic. My life's spiraling downwards into a black abyss. I couldn't get tickets to go see my favorite band. They play some of my favorite songs, like: "Stab my heart because I love you" and "Rip apart my soul" and my all-time favorite "Stabby Rip Stab Stab"...

Oh boy. Monday, October 29th, 2007. Mike starts writing some entries for a blog in Notepad on his work computer. This is a sad day. Sort of.

You see, I don't do this stuff. I don't really write. Hell, I don't even read anymore. I used to read Sci-Fi/Fantasy back in "the day", with "the day" being high school. So, this is odd. I'm not a friggin English major. I'm not a Literature Studies major. I'm not any of those other stupid liberal arts majors that you spend 4 years and fucktons of money to get merely so you can work in Starbucks after all is said and done.(1) I'm an Engineer. An Electrical Engineer. This blogging is unusual to me and carries a bad taste, kind of like how you half-burp/half-throw-up in the back of your mouth and have that acidy sting aftertaste.

Why does it carry a bad taste? I ponder this question for a second as I'm typing, formulating an answer. It's because of all the shit that I associate with "blogging". In a way, I see MySpace, LiveJournal, Xanga, and the like as similar to blogging. It's close enough if not exactly the same. Immediately after thinking about those sites, I think about how they appear (to me) as nothing more than places where whacked-out smacktards, emo, goths, losers, and whores post stupid shit, post slutty pictures, whine, write horrible poetry, lament about their comfortable suburban lifestyles that they take wholly for granted, and complain how no one fucking "understands them". The girls are fucking camwhores and the guys are fucking douchebags. I'd better note now that the part about girls being camwhores isn't necessarily a bad thing. Everyone is ultra-cool in their own little world. Everyone is in someone's "extended network", which basically means "This person is also on the planet Earth!" The backgrounds are atrocious and combined with the insane text colors that some of these people choose, the blend produces a seizure-like effect that prevents you from being able to read any of the shit on their page. That is, if you can find the actual content amongst all the embedded song links, surveys, likes, dislikes, links to who-knows-where, and whatever the hell else is present. DOES NO GOOD FOR ME.(2)

I wonder: Am I a hypocrite? After all, I do have a Facebook account. YOU FUCKING HYPOCRITE. I defend myself against myself: But wait, I keep my Facebook page very clean, very minimalistic. No billion fucking apps clogging up the page. That's what I liked about Facebook. It was very clean and unaffected by the bullshit that I saw present in the MySpace profiles. Just original, pure vanilla Facebook. You see my personal information, you see some interests, music, and movies, and you see my wall. Boom. That's it. There are no blog posts. I don't whine about anything, leave notes, or put ANYTHING into my status. I don't even log on to it much. You won't be able to log into Facebook, look at me, and determine if I'm sad or angry or happy or calm or apathetic or fuck all...because I left nothing there to indicate that. That's a good argument, right? Yes. I don't fit into the shit I described above. Discussion over.

Alright. So I'm giving this thing a shot. My buddy Ryan invited me to contribute to his Burning River Bike Blog since we occasionally get out and about on our dos-wheeled human-powered machines. I made a post and thought: "What the hell, why don't I try this blogging thing myself and make my own". My other friend Panda has been suggesting it for awhile. He mentioned I could write about work. I probably could, but I'd likely limit the actual amount of work information given that I might let something slip that's not supposed to slip. Did you know that you can get into some serious shit with your employer because of something you wrote in your blog? I wasn't really aware of that until I recently heard of two incidents in which someone's personal blog was used against them. Gotta be careful what you say and write and who you say and write it to... It's worse in a situation like blogging, because once you write something and post it, fuck-all amounts of people can read it. Take a screenshot of it. Copy/paste it. Forward the link to someone. Someone important. Get your ass in trouble. If you're just saying something in person, unless there are people around to hear it, even if so-and-so goes and talks, you could still defend your ass and say it's just something he or she twisted and distorted. You didn't mean it. You never even said it! Etc... Not so with text. Even if you take it down, Google probably has it cached from before the post deletion. I've gone off on a tangent again...
Mike? Check. New blog? Check. Writes walls of fucking text?(3) Check. Likes to rant about shit? Check. We have a winning combination, folks!

With that long-winded quasi-introduction out of the way, here's some more crap...
Ugh. 6:30a already? I only managed to fall asleep at like 4a. Seriously, gotta get up. No sleeping in. You have an appointment and the place has your credit card info so if your ass don't show, they gon' charge you. Get up, take a much-needed shower, get out, clothes on, take my daily Alavert and Centrum, grab the iPod, and go. Driving on the highway, kinda jammin to some music via the coax cable snaking from my sheathed blue Nano up to the coax input. Electrons flowing from that lithe little fucker into my truck, where the sound is amplified, modified, equalized, volumized, and angrified before it thunders out into the cavernous confines of my SuperCrew. If the windows were down, that shit would pour out of the semi-square air holes and flow out onto the highway, where PERHAPS someone with THEIR windows down would hear it and think "Damn that guy's really got the music turned up." But my windows are NOT open, and the music just resonates throughout the cabin. I don't like early. The music helps. Traffic's starting to crowd up on 480W. It's not bad though for about 7:15a. Uh-oh, four lanes are backing up and I haven't seen the 77S sign yet. Good thing I left early. I never leave early. I HAD to today, though. My truck's height allows me to see pretty damn far ahead, which is great because then I'm not surprised by sudden stops. Whoop, brake lights are glowing angry red. Eh, give it another second, don't need to apply brakes yet. I don't see a big stop. Yeah, that dude a few cars up is still slowing down. Better apply the brakes.

Shit, he's stopping much faster than I thought. More brake. Fuck, more brake? Man, not this 70-to-5mph kind of crap. Was there an accident or is this just plain traffic? I press hard on the brake pedal and hydraulic fluid flows through the brake lines, snaking towards four sets of disc brakes and 20" wheels. Calipers clamp down hard on the metal discs, generating friction and heat, bringing the big truck to a rapid halt. Unnnnnnnn, that was a little close, but I still had some breathing room. I got this. Immediately, my mind switches to the people BEHIND me. "Aw fuck, what about the Silverado behind me that was ALSO doing 70? Is HE paying attention?" I look back and the black full-size is RAPIDLY approaching. He doesn't have enough time to stop. I don't really feel anything except for a twinge of sadness as I think that this asshole is going to plow the fuck into my 4 month old hotness. Something in his mind finally clicks and he says "Oh hey, I'm going to hit this guy". Cue his brakes. Something else in his mind clicks and he says "Oh hey, this braking isn't enough". I watch as he continues to brake hard and..........swerve onto the left shoulder, essentially pulling beside me with the front of his truck coming up to the front of my truck bed. The collision is avoided. Whew. What the hell would have happened if that roughly-car-width shoulder WASN'T there on the left side? Would his black Silverado be face-first fully up the ass of my truck? I bet there's a good chance the frame would have been fucked. Then again, the fully-boxed frame is hydroformed and through-welded. It's a strong frame. I don't know. This is an interesting start to the day.

I'm in the far left and need to jump over 2 lanes. I wiggle my way over as the rapidly clogging highway approaches the 480/77 junction. Sweet, the 77S lane is totally open. No one's really heading south. Why would they? Everyone's heading north on 77 to get to the city to work. I am glad that I don't have any work (yet) that would require me to take this way. I probably wouldn't go this way anyway to get into the city. Merge over a lane. Rockside Road exit. Left onto Rockside Road. Get to the LASIKPlus place. Yes! Got here early. Isn't there a friggin BK or something around that I can get a small bite of breakfast food? I'm hungry and the ramen noodles I had last night didn't cut it. McD's...ehhh...whatever. I'll take a sausage-egg-biscuit meal. Is the drink that comes with it OJ? No? 99 cents more? Fine. Whatever. The lady doesn't just SEEM tired/bored/or give a shit, she IS those things. Wow. That sentence just violated every orifice of English. Get my sausage-egg-biscuit sandwich, my hash-brown-patty, my OJ, and sit down to eat. What a fucking rip. $4.20-something for this little bit of stuff? For crying out loud. Whatever, water under the bridge. Hey, the physical surroundings in this McD's are kinda nice. Well, the Independence area probably forced them to spruce it up to match the Industrial-park-esque feel of the surrounding area. Done up real nice w/ the facade and all. Meh, a McD's is still a McD's. Wendy's is WAY better.

Eat the food, walk back over to the LASIK place, get inside, fill some paperwork, get the evaluation done. You're a perfect candidate! Thick corneas, no apparent higher-order aberrations, no real need to get the Custom Wavefront Mapping done. Sure, no problem. Good. Custom Wavefront Mapping makes it $2100 per eye instead of $1700 per eye, anyway. You'll be on the Bausch and Lomb laser when you get it done. Ready to make an appointment? Yes. Ask some questions about financing. That promo deal still going on? Sweet. That promo deal combine with my Vision Care plan's discount? Yes? Great. Total bill for getting lazors fired into my eyes: Just a shade under $2900. Value of not having to deal with glasses and contacts? I'd say it's much more than that. Gotta get Ryan or Ted or someone to hook me up the day of the surgery. Gotta have a driver that day. Maybe Ryan won't mind driving my truck...I know he's wary of it...and for good reason. Maybe he can get Ted's PT Cruiser. Man I fuckin hate PT Cruisers. What the hell were you thinking Chrysler? Gotta get this prescription filled out for eye drops. Put the drops in my eyes the night before the surgery. Gotta call the CareCredit place to get the 0% APR for 18 months. My credit's excellent. Pretty sure I'll get it. Haha, GE Money finances them. We're everywhere, I guess. Eyes are dilated, get that black plastic stuff to help prevent getting destroyed by the sun when you step outside. Drive up to work. Start my day. Get shit accomplished.

Feel pretty good given that it's a Monday. It's 6:09p. Ahh, I'm gettin the hell outta here. Bike or swim tonight? I don't know. Probably will just sit around. Putting off exercise...tsk tsk. Food? WoW? Why did I start that WoW shit again? I need to do my damn laundry! I need to get a subscrip to a damn gym! I need to start learning Japanese! I need to friend and then message Ryan's friend Sarah on facebook. I want that one girl's number and maybe Sarah knows it. That girl was was cute. Hm. She was real cute. I'll get to all these things...just not now... That's how it's been for awhile now and that's how it will likely stay for a bit longer. Procrastination for the lose. Well...actually, I think I'll get on phone number thing right away. Sleep, work, repeat with minor derivations on the usual routine.

Cheers

(1) - The first of many occasional disses on non-Engineers that you'll see here.
(2) - A Chung line. Chung was the Chinese guy whose apt door was immediately caddy-corner to my friend Ryan's apartment door. I actually met the guy once. Funny dude. Heard some good stories about him.
(3) - You might note the following: I like switching up tenses; I write as if I'm thinking these things aloud at the time that I am typing them; Sometimes I don't write complete sentences; I write massive walls of text; I tried way too hard in this post to sound as smart as Ryan does in his posts with far fewer and more clever words and phrases.