huntsmith2002's blog: "Young Explorer"

I was going to school in the midwest, and had gone through that wonderful metabolism shift that occurs in your twenties. You know the freshman fifteen (followed by the sophmoore groan). Whatever you want to call it, it amounts to bigger love handles and a bit more padding for your bar stool. I hated it. and believed, perhaps foolishly, that exercise was the answer. For those of you out there who don't know this, muscle weighs more than fat. So, exercising to lose weight is somewhat counterproductive to say the least. Without getting into specifics, it does help, but there is a limit to what exercise (alone) can do. Anyway, everything but my wallet was gaining weight, but I had the answer. The college athletic department was doing a multi-year weight loss study. It seemed simple enough. They were looking for participants who were willing to start a regimented exercise routine. The participants diet would be periodically monitored and they would be given a full metabolism breakout. To top it all off, they would pay us and pay for our food four weeks a semester. Are you waiting for the other shoe to fall? Well, this is me, so you know it is going to. Otherwise this story would never be written. I signed up, got my money, agreed to participate in all of their lab rat tests, and got stuck in the control group. Yep, you heard me. The control group. That meant I still had to go through all the tests, and had my diet monitored (which consisted of them weighing and writing down everything we ate during those four weeks a semester) and I still got my money, but I wasn't allowed to start a new exercise routine for the duration of the study. In otherwords, I was being paid to remain a fat couch potatoe. Fine. It was easy money, and it wasn't forever, and they told me that I could use the gym after it was over for free for the same duration. It seemed reasonable. My first task, as a couch potatoe participant, was to have my resting metabolism measured. I had been out gaming (The Journal of Granar is based on the gaming done with that group) and got home about midnight. My answering machine light was blinking. This is such-n-such from the exercise and physiology study. We need you to come in the morning and have your RMR measured. Please be here at 6:30 AM. This was getting worse. I managed to kick myself, but not too hard I wasnt supposed to be exercising beyond what I got at work, and somehow managed to drag myself to the clinic at 6:30. Yawning. I get there, and they put a plastic bag (connected to a device to measure my breath gasses) over my head and told me to lay still on this cold doctor's table. They told me to: "Lay still. Don't go to sleep. I'll see you in an hour." They then flipped off the light and left. Now, I was tired, and I had to not go to sleep. So, I meditated. I had spent several years in asia, and had gone through martial arts training (a tale for another time). I figured meditation would keep me conscious. Whoops. There was one little problem. I forgot that meditation lowers your heart rate, your breathing, and yes, your metabolism. Whoops My numbers were all screwed up. This became clear when they were preparing us for the chamber. As a follow on to the bag over head test. They planned to lock us up for 24 hours in an air tight box. It was a nice box. It had TV and a toilet and an exercise bike and a desk, but it was still a box. A box in another state. We had to fly to get there. Ok, no harm, no foul. Prior to our incarceration, they had to know exactly what we had the prior 72 hours to eat. This meant that they planned and gave us everything we could eat in that time frame. They planned it according to our RMR numbers. The ones that were obtained, while I was meditating. I knew something was wrong when I walked into the cafeteria and the woman dug out my sheet. She looked at it. She looked at me. She looked at it. She went um... You need to go get your tray. I don't remember exactly what she gave me to eat for that 72 hours. What I do remember is her cutting the hamburger into fourths. I got one fourth and a little bit more. She said "I'm sorry thats all your allowed to eat." Here is the rest of your food for the next 72 hours. I ate it on the way home, as I wondered if I was in the weight loss group after all. Now "The Chamber" where they would learn all the secrets of our fat genes was in another state. Being incredibly smart and gifted and frugal they had booked our flights months in advance. I had the luck to fly out on the day that the airline declared bankruptcy. Yes, to the day. Now the trip out was pretty uneventful, of course I was delerious with hunger, but I remember going to the counter, grunting, and getting my ticket without incident. I flew out. Was thankful to be locked up cuz there was food and spent the next day walking around in a box on a scale. Upon my release, they took me back to the airport and dropped me off without so much as a thanks for coming. I went in and the counter went that airline doesnt exist. Great. I was now stuck in another state. Well, the sent me back and forth between counters for a bit and then one of the counters got sick of me and sent me to the bowels of the Denver airport. The Denver airport is really a small city. There are freaking birds in the place and it has its own subway. I was sent to the farthest most terminal. Terminal C. In terminal C, I was sent to the farthest most gate. It was down past the real airplanes, past the vegas rent me please gates, past Hooter's airline, past where Fred Flinstone's pedal job parks. It was the last post and last hope of the Denver airport. The gate attendant was cute enough. Good thing as I had eight hours to wait. Unfortunately, she started sniffling and then crying and then balling. She had lost her job and it was her last day. She kept saying things like how am I going to pay the rent and then those bastards all between her perky smile greeting customers. That would have been bad enough for eight hours or whatever it was, but the mechanics were outside playing catch with varioius engine parts and making jokes about what planes really needed to fly. Well, eventually I made it home (without anything falling off), but when I got there, my ride had gone home. He had abandoned me. My airline went out of business after all, so I was stuck in the airport until they could send for me. That is the end of the chamber part of the story, but not the end of the study story. I had one more physical still to do. It was several months later. By then, they were used to me, but not all of the staff knew to watch what they said to me. On the occasion of the physical they stuck me on a tread mill and stuck another bag over my head. My task was simple. I was to walk for as long as possible. Every few minutes, they either increased the elevation or increased the speed. Of course you had two wanna be physical therapist types there egging you on to go to your limits. In my case, that was a mistake. As I got tired and bored, my mind switched over from conscious focused why am I doing this to the dream like state of boredom which is on the edge of the unconscious. We have all been there. You know that state you get in when you drive a long time and suddenly forget you are driving. Time and miles just pass. In my case, minutes passed. The psycho twins were egging me on. I was slipping into that semi aware state. When the sparkles which mean stop or you will be hitting the floor soon happened, I listened and stopped. My trainers asked why I stopped and I said, or grunted, cuz I felt like I was going to pass out. One of them tried to find my pulse in my arm, but since I had unconsciously shifted blood flow to my legs, she had a tough time measuring my pulse. She freaked. She thought I was having a heart attack. She ran and got the doctor who took one look at me and said oh its you what did you do now? I said lost weight.

Somehow I had always missed the real snowstorms. Whereever we lived, it was always the same. No snow. Oh we had had piddling snow falls of a few inches a few places, but it never compared to the monstrous storms that my parents had talked about from time to time. My grandparents talked about the snow that covered the fence that kept the cows in, and all the havok that caused. My parents talked about snows in Chicago that sealed them off from the outside world. My cousin talked about drifts that got all the way to the roof of his house. Now those were snows. When all you have seen in a couple of inches from time to time, you just can't imagine it. Well, that's not true. You do, but you have no idea. The year I moved to New Jersey was no different than any other. They had a warm dry winter. Now, I wasn't really complaining, but I was sort of looking forward to seeing a real snow. I knew the feeling was nieve, and that I would soon be cursing it like the rest of the locals, but for one snow, it would be magical. The stuff of childhood relived. I wanted it to snow. I wanted it to snow like I had never seen before. zip... zero.... nada.... There was one brief snow about Christmas time that got my hopes up. I had driven to one of the local diners here and had gone in book in hand. The waitress was cute and the book was good, so I stayed for a good couple of hours. When I went out, my snow was covered and the flakes that were falling were huge. I had never seen flakes that big before. They fell more like feathers. As the door to the diner closed, I heard the waitress cursing. She didn't have a scraper. So being a good samaritan, I brushed my car off, and gave her mine. I had another one, a better one, at home anyway. In truth, I don't remember how much we got that night, but I do remember not being impressed. The event was impressive. The result was not. It just wasn't a real storm. It was the biggest that year. The following year I wasn't anticipating much. The great northern snows had proven to be not so great. If anything the winters in NJ were more pleasant than the winters I was used to in the midwest. Midwest winters have these killer days of bone chilling cold. They also get ice storms, which although pretty, are a real bear to live through. For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, look out your window. Imagine that overnight everything was coated with a fourth of inch of ice. Think about the weight on the trees. Think about driving on the roads. Think about the little problem of simply getting in your car to start up the heater. It is beautiful, but only if you don't have to go anywhere and don't own property with trees. Anyway, I once got this gallon bucket of hot water on one of these ice storm days. No, I am smart enough not to throw hot water on an iced windshield. The reason for the bucket of hot water is simply this. If you hold it close to your skin, you stay warm why you are chistling out your car. So, where was I, NJ year two. The weatherman had been preaching that this great storm was coming. I heard him say it everyday for almost a week. Its coming. Get out your shovels. It will be here on Thursday. Thursday came. Nothing. It will be here on Friday. Friday came. Nothing. It will be here on Saturday. Saturday came.... I didn't believe them. You gotta remember I had seen floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, but snow storms were for other people. I never was in a real snow storm. It started at 7 am. I was barely awake. I was dressed, but still hadn't looked out the window. It was Saturday after all. I was just thinking about breakfast when there was this knock at my door. I looked over, and the chain wasn't on, and I hardly ever lock my door. Its one of those midwest things, and the building is generally locked downstairs, so I thought that it must be my neighbor across the hall. It was early for her though. Shoot it was early for me. Come in... Never say come in and reveal that your door is generally kept unlocked. You never know who might take you up on it. In this case, it was a mountain of a man. This guy was 17 or 18 and had to be almost 7 feet tall. Everything was peirced. Nose, eyebrow, ear. His words to me. A total stranger at 7 am were: Can I borrow a snow shovel. Now I wasn't really awake. I thought I was, but obviously I had either slipped on a rug and bumped my head or was snoozin on the couch. I say this not because of the sight before me, but because of my response to him. No, but I have a dust pan you could borrow. Really, those are the words that came out of my mouth on that early morn. I swear the look on his face was utterly priceless. He mumbled something and just turned and walked out. Clump... clump... clump.... down the stairs. SLAM! About then, reality set in. What had just happened? I went over to my balcony door and opened the blinds. There was at least 15 inches of snow piled up against my patio door. Wow. About that time, I started to laugh. I had just told Goliath to shovel that with a dust pan. I got on some winter clothes and went outside. The first thing I noticed was how incredibly hard it was to do a simple thing like walking. The next thing I noticed was this 18 foot long trailer in front of me that was facing the wrong way in a one exit parkling lot. Yep, you guessed it, The not so jolly giant and his pals had parked there to catch a few z's and woke up to a nasty surprise. I didn't really want to get too close to these guys, as they were all a little weird looking, but it was obvious that they were determined to get back on the road. I figured that was better than camped in my parking lot. I started to help dig the ninety some feet it was going to take to get that beast turned around and back to the road. It was then that I realized I was being stupid. Our parking lot regularly had a snow sweeper parked in it. It belonged to the apartment complex and when I moved in they had said that they would sweep the snow from the parking lots. I told the mountain this, and said his best bet was to go bribe the driver to do this lot first. It turned out that they had driven down for a skateboarding contest and had to get back to Chicago. I can just imagine how the rest of their drive went. Anyway, I went upstairs to call the land lord and my parents called. It was nothing major, but when I looked out the window. I saw the plow shooting a trail for the trailer. It was launching literally buckets of snow up and to the sides of the main blade. In essence, it was burying my car and that of my neighbors. Great..... This time I borrowed the shovel from a neighbor. Thankfully, they gave me a shovel and not a dust pan. (I really didnt own a snow shovel) I went down to dig out my car. Since my neighbor was nice enough to lend me the shovel, I began to dig out their car too. It was a small thing, but I thought it was just courtesy. The neighbor saw me shoveling their car out, so of course they came out to help. Then, we started to dig out our other neighbor because we knew if we didn't she wouldnt do it. She saw us, and brought down some hot chocolate for us. Pretty soon, we had the entire complex digging everyone else out. Of course, we couldn't get out of the parking lot without spinning tires in the street with unshovelled snow.

All my life, my dad has been into photography. Cameras were his gateway to the world much like the net is mine. He liked taking snap shots of all sorts of things and made a career of it for much of his professional life. Even after he retired, he set up a dark room in our garage. The smell of chemicals was as much a part of that garage as the car was. Yet all things change and my Dad who used to sell pictures hadn't. He still had that old 35mm camera. He still shot black and white film. Eventually, I think he realized that he wasnt going to get rich taking black and white wedding photos and the dark room, which was very much a part of him, fell into disarray. It just wasn't used. It was obsolete, over the hill, old. My Dad lost a part of himself when he tore it down. I decided to do something about it. Now normally, I had gotten my Dad small gifts for his birthday. The usual fare: ties, shirts, computer games. Nothing too extravagent. Nothing too expensive. But when his birthday came again, I went to best buy and got him a digital camera. I knew I had one shot at it. My dad was as much an artist as he was a photographer. If the camera took cruddy pictures, or was too hard to use, or didnt look like a camera, or was one of those pocket wonders, he would put it away and use it as an expensive paper weight. I spent a fair amount to make sure that didnt happen. I didnt realize how good I did until much later. You see I got a newspaper clipping in the mail. In the clipping was an article about the first picture my dad ever took with it. It seems he went to a civil war reenactment and took some pictures. One of them he submitted to an online magazine. They liked it so much they put it on the cover of their real magazine. They liked it so much they made it picture of the year. My Dad thrilled to death took the picture to the local sports store where he sold prints to the locals. The proceeds from those prints went to the wives whose husbands had been called up for the war in Iraq. It was a local relief effort to help them make ends meet. By helping my Dad, I ended up helping a whole lot more. He liked his camera, and that makes this year's gift all the more challenging.

September 11 2001 Like most of the rest of America, I have my fair share of stories from the days following September 11, 2001. I had moved to the NYC area in August 2001, and had really only just settled into my cushy Army desk job when the attack occurred. I remember the engineers in the next cube over from me watching it on their computer. I remember watching the second plane hit with them. As the building burned, and they talked about the number of people in those buildings, I desperately tried to think of some way to get those people out. I thought of the helicopters on base and went to my boss to ask if they could be used. He told me the grim facts about helicopters and buildings. He also told me that they would probably be useless by the time they got there. He was right, the buildings collapsed long before they would have been of use. I got sent home, where I tried to make sense of it all. I remember calling my family and telling them I was ok. Looking back, I guess I was lucky I got through. I remember driving like a mad man straight home. I remember thinking I should turn around and do something. I remember being afraid. I got home and ate half a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, as I watched the news of only a few dozen miles away. Somehow, the sweet cream knocked me out and I fell asleep on my floor in front of the TV. Yes, I fell asleep on September 11. I woke up a few hours later and was still trying to take it all in. (Me and everyone else). However, I couldn’t stay home any more, so I got in my car and drove straight for NYC. Along the way, I stopped at two fire stations, a rescue squad, a hospital, and a police station. No one wanted my help. They told me to go home. I had already given blood, a few days before, so I couldn’t even do that. I drove and watched what was left of the building burn and smolder. I don’t think I will ever forget the looks on people’s faces as I drove in that day. I was helpless and very much alone. As darkness fell, I drove towards my little apartment. I was emotional and I cried as I saw hundreds of people carrying lit candles along the side of the road. Somewhere in a little Hispanic district I found a place to park, and I joined a small gathering in a prayer for the living, for the dead, and for those caught somewhere in-between. It was a hard night. The next day we were told to stay home, so I went to the laundry mat to try and bring back some normalcy. My other choice was to try and find somewhere to volunteer, but the radio said that they were still turning people away, so I held my breath and went and did my laundry. A young woman was there (upset of course)… A crying child... We watched the plane crash into that building again and again and again. Someone in the place had seen people jump from those buildings. Someone else had lost family yesterday. I turned off the television and said we didn’t need this. I don’t remember what else we talked about, but we were all just shells. I returned to work the next day. Security was a nightmare. They weren’t prepared to shut the base tight. They weren’t prepared to check every car for a bomb. It was eerie sitting in a car thinking that the car in front of you might blow up. To highlight that fact, one of the cars had overheated and was steaming at the side of the road. When I got back into work, they were asking for volunteers. They needed more people checking cars at the gates. I was an intern with few responsibilities, so I stepped right up. My cubicle mate did the same, but he fell in the ditch the first day and twisted his ankle. My boss who had filled out my accident report when I accidentally drank bleach, now had to fill out one for the volunteer who broke his ankle checking cars for bombs. All of the volunteers had to get up at like 4 am to make sure that they were there by six. I was no exception, but I was not made to get up so early. It was rough… rough in many ways. Did they issue us M16’s? How about pistols? No. We were the volunteers who fell in ditches periodically and got hurt. We were lucky they let us volunteer. Our job was to look under their hoods, in their gas tanks, under their seats, in their trunk, in the engine, and other places. Did we know what to look for? No. Basically, they told us to look for something suspicious, check ID’s, and to keep the cars moving. I suspect many of us wouldn’t know a bomb if it bit us. Myself included. There were some touchy moments, but no one obviously got shot. In one instance, a van full of Russians showed up at the gate. They spoke zero English and had a box marked radioactive in the back. It was just a Geiger counter, but was one of those surreal moments. I also remember looking in this one engineer’s car. Under his passenger seat was a metal box with a wire running straight to the engine block. I looked at him. I looked at the box. I looked at the wire. Recognition dawned on the driver and he went no… no… no…. MP3 player… MP3…. What would I have done if it wasn’t. There was another surreal moment that I want to share. The second or third week I was checking badges they asked me to check badges in the command building. It was supposed to be easy overtime. I was supposed to go there and just make sure that the big wigs who were having a meeting upstairs could get in. I said ok and went over for what was supposed to be a peaceful few hours. They gave me a walkie talkie for this one. I felt like I had moved up from cannon fodder to mall cop trainee. About an hour into my duty, someone on the other end of the box said there was a fire in building one. I sat there like a bump on a log until I realized. I was in building one. I did a double take and then talked into the walkie talkie. Say again? There’s a fire in building one. I’m in building 1. Pull the fire alarm? What? PULL THE FIRE ALARM! So, I did, but I didn’t have the key to the front door, so when the big wigs left, their meeting not done, I had to hold the door, so they could go back if they needed to. After everyone left, I held the door as the firemen went into the building. It was very odd watching the firemen enter the building. I kept thinking about the world trade center and that fire. I stayed put. I held the door. Pretty soon they came out, and when the chief’s went back in. I checked every badge, just like I was supposed to. They had all come out, but I checked everyone just like I was supposed to. I did the gate thing off and on for around three months. Rain… Shine…. Snow… Cold… Some weeks I did it twice a week, others more, others less. I met lots of neat people. The base got to know me. They got to know all of us. Often times people would bring us soup or glove packets or coffee. At some point, they issued us coats. I still have mine and unless they ask me for it, I am keeping it. I think I earned it. For our efforts, each volunteer got a medal presented from the commander. It was my first real medal. With it came a letter addressed to Ms…. I didn’t care. I had my coat and had done it because I needed to. I felt guilty I hadn’t done more.

This weekend I took some time off from the usual grind to do a little spring cleaning. Ok a lot of spring cleaning. Work had been draining my battery dry daily for the last several months and my room had degenerated from habital status to land fill somewhere along the way. I hadnt really noticed how bad it was until I had placed my ATM card somewhere in it. somewhere safe... and then forgot where that was. Of course it happened just as my other visa card had expired and just as I had rejected the capitol one offer for yet another card. That is something of a side note, but it is humorous enough anedote to include here. When I moved out to the Garden State, I had come out here with but one rather wimpy credit card to my name. My parents hadnt and don't believe in them and they had instilled in me a sense of dread everytime I used one of the damn things, so it took quite awhile before I got one. As such, my first card was something of a low flier. $200 limit $30 annual fee or some such rot. Not exactly Bill Gates Status to be sure.. Anyway, I kept that card for a few years and finally got a real one. Then I decided to cancel the old one. So, I did. I called them up. Had them send me the fifty dollar CREDIT that was in the account, told them to close the account, and wished them the best of luck. I got the check cashed it and then thought everything was hokey dory. Wrong.... A little over a year later, after starting the cleaning binge, I found the old card in an envelope. It had expired, and I looked at it blissfully, so for old time sake, I dialed the customer service number and found out that my account was still active. In fact, it was more than active. It was in default. It seems that they didnt cancel my account after all and since I didnt pay the annual fee, I had been issued a late charge which had accrued interest and more late charges every month there after. The end result was that I owed something like $300 which was more than the balance allowable on the card. Now they had tried to contact me, but since I had moved, their address was wrong, and well my name spelling was too. I was a little annoyed. I called them up and the conversation went something like this. You owe us $300. How is that possible. You didnt pay your balance. I closed the account obviously you didnt because you owe us $300. What was the last transaction in your record. The last transaction was us sending you a check. So you owed me money, sent me a check, and now are saying that I owe you $300. Yes. That is what happened. I cancelled the card. Why would you want to do that? Because it sucked. I can see that, but today we are ready to offer you a better interest rate than the twenty some odd percent we are charging you now because you are a dead beat. When was the last time I used the card? Two years prior to us sending you a check. So you are telling me I owe you $300, that the limit on the card is only $200, that I am paying twenty some odd percent in interest, that I havent used the card in years, and that you want me to stay with your company. Yes that is what we are saying? Do I have a choice and should I bend over now? What was that sir? Just cancel the damn card. Why would you want to do that? Cancel the card. You owe us money. Fine. Cancel the card and I'll pay you. Anyway, you get the idea. I did eventually get the card cancelled, but not without threatening legal action. Their response was to send me a new offer every other day for a week. So that brings me full circle. My ATM card was lost. My other credit card had expired, and I had no interest in the all so tempting offer that was stuffed into my mailbox. So, I decided to clean. I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned some more. Sat came and I cleaned most of April Fools day. My roomie did beg me to pay the rent that morn, so I had gotten up early and gone to the bank, which I found out didnt open until nine. So I cleaned my car in the parking lot and thought about how my roomie had just changed his oil in that same spot. I got the money and rushed home because my roomie needed desparately to put the money into his credit card account or they were going to charge him five cents interest on the $5000 he had racked up in debt at Vegas the previous month. My roomie wants to be a millionaire, but he has this annoying habit of pissing off the world when he is pretending to be Bill Gates. Anyway, after I gave him the money, he decided that we needed to round up all the change in the house and cart it down to the coin star machine which gives you nine cents on the dollar. We then drove back to the bank where he proceeded to deposit everything except the coins which required coin star or rolling. Being too lazy to roll the coins, he took them to coin star. About that time he decided that he was going to sell the house or maybe not or maybe build a basement under it or maybe you get the idea. He was all over the map. So much in fact that he decided to drive to Philadelphia out of the blue to see his friends. He dropped me off and just before he went away he gave me the envelope with my new card in it. I decided to take my frustration out on my bed. I took the mattress outside and beat the snot out of it with a broom. Of course I broke the broom and the mattress, so I drove to get a new one. Not a new broom. A new mattress. Gotta have priorities. I got it home and got my bed all set up and then focused on the broken broom. Finally decided it would be a good walking stick. Decided then to go hiking the next day weather permitting Sunday morn came and went and I was still snoozing in my new bed. Finally got up and decided at four to go hiking along the appalacian trail. Roomie and a friend came with. The spot we picked was one of the roughest in Jersey. A stretch about 1.5 miles long known as the stairway to heaven. It was more or less straight up and I was in no condition to hike that beast. I drug myself along it and up it using my broom handle walking stick. After what seemed like forever, I made it to the top and saw why they called it heaven. We could see halfway across the state. A small dog came running over to me. Thought for a moment he smelled death as I was death warmed over by then, but no he she in fact just wanted to be petted. The dog's owner wasnt too far. She was a backpacker, one of the trail maintainers in fact, and she gossiped with us for a half hour before we all went home. My fall from heaven was easier than the climb and ironically more graceful.

I'm not sure why I am writing this today. No mountains moved. No worlds flooded. Nothing profound just am enjoying a lazy lasidaical weekend of blahdom. Is that even a word? I promised myself that I would do my taxes this weekend. Didnt happen. I thought about moving my former hampster powered road beast to its final resting heap. That didnt happen either. About the only thing that did happen was that my room mate's gal drug herself over to infect us with the plague she has been nursing all week. Nothing exotic I'm sure, but my room mate is sure it is fatal and is sure that it is his girlfriend's way of killing him slowly. I told him not to worry. I am sure that the air flight he is taking this week will catch it and lose a wing midflight killing him instantly. Well, almost instantly. He was not amused. On a more pleasant note, one of my programs won a award and I will be honored in DC sometime later this year. Its a nonsense award, but I get to stand up and shake someone's hand and get a shiny trophy to hang in my cubicle. I am hoping it can be hung on the wall, as I don't need another paper weight on my desk. Guess I will find out soon enough. Last night, Saturday, I watched Kill Bill Volume 2 for the umpteenth time. I'm not a huge fan, but it is a cult classic and I have a healthy appreciation for Japaneze and psuedo Japaneze style action flicks. More than anything else, I appreciate the director's and writer's style. It was very well done with some hilarious scenes. I mean come on, you have to appreciate a movie that has a hit scene where an assassin has a heart to heart with her hit over a pregnancy stick and a shot gun. The digging yourself out of your own grave and going straight to the diner was an awesome scene too. I tip my hat to them. I like that kind of low brow humor. The squirrel from Ice Age, Monty Python's black knight, the hero from princess bride. Its just my style, or lack thereof, so sue me. Well, speaking of lack of style, my room mate is back guess its time to see if he enjoyed ice age two or if his gal drove him more nuts than the squirrel.

My easter weekend started with me working late. This was mostly by choice, my boss even gave me an hour off, but I had become possessed by my research. Why I am not sure, but the end of the day brought about a race between me and the techies who thought that our server was in dire need of an update right then and there and that no one in their right mind would be working on a Friday night. They would take down the server. I would cuss. They would tease me by bringing it up while I was getting coffee. You know the drill. Finally, one of my coworkers told me I was nuts and kicked me out. In retrospect, I am thankful to him, but I left behind the battery and three or four things that I needed to get some work done. This forced me to not work, and to think aqbout other things, so I drove to the mall where the teeny boppers had taken over. They reminded me of cockroaches in heat. They were everywhere, and kept you gritting your teeth when you entered a new room. For some odd reason, I remember seeing one rather gay looking goth type teen get his jollies off by sitting on a Ronald McDonald Statue's lap. I don't get it either, but the staff of Mickey D's was as disturbed as I was. Perhaps cold french fries had put him in the mood to put some moves on a plastic clown. I don't know, but what I do know is it reminded me that my roomie was out of town. My research, work, and lifestyle had kept me from putting moves on anything of late, and it had been some time since I had been with anyone or anything in horizontal, vertical, or even virtual fashion. So long in fact, that I decided to give into my urge to watch a brown bag film. Like any self respecting perve, I went to the video store and barn stormed the adult section. My plan was simple get in and out as quickly as possible. (I sometimes wonder if this kind of mentality leads to marital trouble later on) In anycase, I didnt want to run into anyone I know, and although the chance of running into a flock of nuns or my mother or my fifth grade teacher was nil and none, I still was a bit troubled and embarassed by this natural impulse. I somehow managed to get from the porn shop to my home without encountering my friends, family, or room mate. Ironically, my room mate's mom is an ex-nun. He owes his existence to the ex-part which has to cross his mind from time to time. In anycase, his family is still somewhat religious, so for easter he had driven south to hook up with the rest of the Gandy clan. This left me alone with the house and my paper sack and about a zillon may flies. Yes, may flies. After escaping breeding season at the local mall, I had gone home to find that the local bug population was violating the occupancy limit. A word of note. May flies vary in size, but are often about the length of a penny. They look like little dragon flies. They don't bite, but have a nasty habit of swarming anything and everything that gets their attention. They are short lived, and last all season, but for about one week each year they basically take over. This was obviously that week. Our steps were literally crawling with the suckers when I got home. The air was full with them. There were about two hundred of them inside my screen door. I swear I saw a few of them smoking ciggarettes and eyeing my brown paper sack, as I debated on how best to get inside the house. I finally (two seconds max) decided that thinking with a constant bug whine in my ear was counter productive and just swarmed the house. Of course, the swarm came with me. When I entered the house, I invited in over a hundred guests Now my room mate has this thing with bug spray. He doesn't believe in it. Of course he is scared stiff of spiders, but you don't expect rationale thought from my room mate do you? Well, I am not a big fan of having flying pests in the house, and somehow I was no longer in the mood. Especially not with the current audience, so I looked around for a shoe or newspaper or an uzi. Anything that would uninvite my current guests. I finally settled on a can of Pledge furniture polish. Yes, I used Pledge as bug spray. The funny part is that they litterally dropped like flies as a result. I don't know what is in that stuff, but one spray and the beasties were falling out of the skies. I sprayed so much of the stuff that I fell on my butt on the now oily floor. I'm sure my butt had a nice shine too. Of course, I had a bug grave yard on the floor as well, but that was a small price to pay for peace in our time. I wanted to sweep up the hundred plus bugs littering my floor, but my broom had become a walking stick, so I had to clean up the mess with part of my last roll of toilet paper. Finally, I was done. There were no teeny boppers or other pests about. It was just me and my porn. One problem. My roomie broke the dvd player and forgot to tell me. I swear the bugs were laughing at me.

I tend to think of myself as a gypsy. Perhaps I feel this way because we moved a lot. Perhaps I feel this way because it is who I am. I spent six years in asia all together. We called it the land of the not quite right. I liked the people there. I respect them, but they view the world through different eyes. They react differently. It isn't better. It isn't worse. It is just different than what we call normal behavior. How do I explain this? When we first moved overseas, we had to find housing. A housing complex was recommended to us. It was where all the foreigners from the various embassies lived. We went to the office and I remember this horrid smell. Dad brought a bottle of American Scotch. I sat there and listened to how long the waiting list was and how they couldn't let just anyone in, and how.. The conversation changed when the bottle changed hands. The tone changed as well. Suddenly, he remembered that one apartment had just become available. We went to look at it, and it was odd to say the least. The building was painted grey concrete, and was seventeen stories tall. The inner doors were all metal. There was a shopping hallway on the first floor, four elevators with elevator girls to push the buttons for us, and courtesy doormen who didnt open the doors, and some guy with a feather duster who dusted off the cars in the parking lot. The apartment was fair. Quite a few cockroaches, but clean and we figured it would suit our needs. It faced the mountain park, and you couldnt really tell you were in a city with millions and millions of people. Everything was fine, until the man said "No pets allowed." Well I thought this was strange because clearly I had seen someone walking a dog down stairs. Dad told him that we were sorry to waste his time, but we had a pet, so... Oh Oh Oh No Problem. No pet. Family member. Those ok. That set the stage for our time in that country. Our apartment was on the 12th floor. We had three bedrooms and a balcony. On the balcony was a large cubicle, red, metal, crate that was rusted shut. On it were the words. Fire Escape Chute. I believe that the idea was that in the event of a fire in our concrete, asbetos filled building, we were to open this box and throw the chute over the side and slide down twelve stories to safety. Right. This thing was rusted shut, and Lord only knows what condition the chute was in. Mom made the mistake of calling maintenance about it. They told her. No Problem, in event of fire guard come upstairs and open for you. You slide to safety. Obviously if the guard could come upstairs we were going the same way. In short, don't bother us. I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you that our house was bugged. No I don't mean the cockroaches, although we did give them names after a bit. What I meant was our house had listening devices in the walls. They were badly hid too. The patched concrete walls sometimes hummed with a hint of feedback distortion. There was a trapdoor in the bathroom ceiling that if you looked through you could see an extension cord that connected something to something else. Both were out of view by the placement of concrete bricks. Then, there was the phone. It was grandmother's birthday and we had called back to the states to talk with her. Dad was still at work. After the call, Mom called Dad at the office, and in the background she heard the entire stateside phone call being played back. They had taped it. Well up until that instant, we thought Dad was a bit paranoid. We now knew that indeed our house was bugged. We decided to have a bit of fun with it. Mom called her friends to our apartment and we started talking about how great this country was and how beautiful everything was and yada yada yada. It was just a shame that we didnt know a travel agency to take advantage of this beautiful opportunity. Everyone who spoke and who lived there got a advertising brochure for a travel agency under their door the very next day. Everyone who didnt didnt.. It was somewhat sobering. I could go on about this for hours, but to prove my point I'll tell you about Cathy and her shoes. Cathy had lived there for sometime. Her father had died in a plane crash. One of the last things he gave her was this pair of dress white shoes. They were her most prized possession. Now, she and I were going to a formal dance and she wanted to wear these shoes. They needed new heels though, so off we went down the mountain to the local shopping district that was very reminiscient of the main strip of a carnival. Each of the barker's were trying to get you to buy something from them. This was typical. We found this man sitting in a rather large crate off the main strip. He repaired shoes. Cathy left her priceless heirloom and off we went to find a beret. I was supposed to get one too, but always thought that they made me look stupid. We came back and the gentlemen smiled from ear to ear. He had fixed her shoes alright, but had spray painted them baby blue. metallic god awful, metallic blue. He kept saying something about no extra charge, and she kept hyperventilating. At some point, she started screaming at the man. I don't realy blame her, but in the land of the not quite right. She should have known better.

Young Pioneer A long time ago in a state far far away, I pissed off my Mom. The particulars are foggy, as I was five at the time, but I had done something that had earned the dreaded phrase that all kids fear. WAIT TILL YOUR FATHER GETS HOME. I wasn't sure what would happen, but I knew it wasn't good, so I did what all five year olds do when faced with impending torture, death, or worse. I was sent to the playground. Now this particular playground had a very high fence and was in perfect sight of our living room. It also had one of those "child-proof" gates that no parent ever expects their child to ever figure out, even if it only involves lifting the hasp and pushing. It was the perfect Alcatraz for five year olds, and I was Houdini. I don't completely recall why I chose escape over the teeter totter, or how long it took me to figure out that tremendously effective latch, but as soon as my mother turned away from the window, I decided to hit the open road. Now, where does a five year old fugitive go? Believe it or not, I had two ideas. They weren't great ideas, I was five, but they were the products of my tremendous brainpower none the less. I was either going to go to see the Statue of Liberty (we were in Kansas), or I was going to go see my grandparents who never ever got mad at me. Since we lived in the Midwest, it is probably a good thing that grandma made better cookies. So off I went into unknown territory in search of fame, fortune, and grandmother's cooking. As a young pioneer, and as a five year old on the lamb, I had to keep a low profile. I figured the construction site was as good a place as any to do this, besides I wondered how much dirt a bull dozer could scoop up, and if those big digger thingys ever fell through to China. So, I tromped across the construction site, and looked down a few holes. No one stopped me, and since I couldn't see any fish down there, I moved on. From there, I saw the mall, the highway, and an interstate, that I knew went to my grandma's place. First came a four lane road near the crest of a hill, I couldn't see over the crest, but I figured I had looked both ways, so across I ran ran.. ran. Of course I fell down, but luckily no cars were speeding along Blvd that day. I made it to the mall. There was this steak restaurant with a big cow there. It was pretty neat, but I was afraid that the big cow would get me, and it looked mad, so I ran across the parking hiding as I went. I had just made it to the interstate and was trying to decide whether to go under the bridge (by the river with the big fish) or along the highway. Unfortunately, I never got to see if trolls really lived under bridges. My preschool teacher was getting her hair done that day and saw me through the window. I was just about to make my way across the highway at full five year old gallop , when she came out and snatched me up. Obviously she was concerned, so I tried my best to calm her down. She led me down to the mall security office. This may have been the Midwest, but these guys had nothing over Andy Griffon. Barny Maybe but not Andy. Anyway, they gave me the third degree, and of course I told them nothing cuz they were strangers, and Mom had told me not to talk to strangers. My preschool teacher ratted me out, and they announced my father's name over the mall intercom. Now, my father had just stopped by this particular mall to do some shopping, so of course, upon hearing that I was in the hooscow, came and bailed me out. I've often wondered what was going through his mind when he heard that message. All I remember him saying after that was: WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE YOUR MOTHER. Its funny the things we remember. Anyway, I never ran away after that, but I did try and go to the cemetery to see if there were really dead people there. I was the one who was dead when Mom caught me trying to sneak out again.