sunday, in the afternoon.

most runners i know run faster than i do and i know a few who run really fast. like, they are not world-class fast, but they are really fast for amateur part-time hobbyjogger type runners. they're talented and they work hard and it all pays off and they're just fast. one of these talented hardworking fast guys - hereafter: phastguy - is recently injured and he's recovering and yes his recovery pace is faster than my perfectlywell pace, but that is not the point here. the point is that there's a 5k race coming up and he's probably not going to be racing.

when i race a 5k, i have a tendency to leap from the gates like some sort of wild animal who's been caged and i dart & zoom through the starting mile like my captors are in hot pursuit. then i get all tired & sort of bored & like ho hum are we done yet & wow this is really hard - and that's mile two. then for mile three at first i get all excited again at the possibility of Getting A Good Finishing Time but then i realize it's pretty much hopeless b/c of my LOSER mile two but i am thinking maybe i can make up the difference so i try to turn it on but firstly i actually am a wee bit knackered at that point and secondly i know it's completely hopeless so i am also mentally beat.

in conclusion, it would behoove me to steady the flow a tidge. to that end, i decided that what i need is a pacer so i gathered my courage [by which of course i mean, had a wee jar of the creature] and messaged phastguy to ask if he is not racing it, would he pace me in the upcoming 5k.

he didn't ask for my PRs. he didn't ask for my running résumé. he did not ask for my training plan. he did not ask how i would approach the race. he did not ask for any evidence that this thing that i want to do is within my grasp. i said i wanted to try and that i could use his help. he said «I think that would be awesome.»

no questions asked.

«I think that would be awesome.»

there's something inspiring about the implicit vote of confidence, but still i am partly thinking this will rock and partly thinking i just don't know if i can do it. he said «There's only one way to find out.»

yes, there is only one way to find out, and tonight, right here, right now... i think that it will be awesome.

it's a long & winding post

^^ protein drink of the day ^^ i think it's a bit of a toy protein drink, but hey, i like toys.

i can yogge to the new swalth of asphalt from my own front door - it's about 2point37 miles. the problem with this route is that it ends with a giant uphill back home b/c my old man didn't want to live in a flood plain so we live on a bit of a mountain. but i decided to give it a go today.

the first mile is pretty much down the mountain, so that usually goes well, then it's about a mile to the new swath and during that mile i spotted mr & mrs fatfat fatty. they were yogging so yay for them, but wow they were big folk and i bet their knees hurt. they were yogging and chatting and smiling, holding firm to the notion that the big folk are jolly. after i crossed to the new swath i spotted another target - a black clad female about point37 mile ahead. i set my sights on her, but then she dropped off the pace and she was walking by the time i got to her. not really much of a challenge to pass someone who's walking.

so there i was yogging along, gazing at my surroundings, thinking i kinda had to pee a wee little bit when what did i spy but a porty-potty about point37 mile off to my right at a building under construction. woowoo! i yogged over to make use of the facilities and of course by the time i extracted myself from my layers of clothing it turned out that i was right about how much i had to pee... a wee little bit. couldn't'a held that, ace? how old are you, 5? jeez.

i yogged around the parking lot and found a cute little pond with a path around it so i yogged around that. then i yogged to the parking lot perimeter and came to be above the sidewalk and spotted mr & mrs fatfat fatty yogging below. how far are they yogging?? so i circled around and came down where they were and passed them again. they were still jolly. they would not be unjollified. just ahead was another victim about whom i will simply say she was not jolly. i passed her. this did not appear to improve her disposition.

then i spotted off to the right a paved path. what is this? i wondered. so i turned down it and discovered a hidden fairy land! there was a 6ft retaining wall on the right and the greenery up there was hanging over in a canopy. on the left was a bit of woodland with a flat stream running through it. an amazing point37 mile stretch of wonder and delight. i ran up it and back down it. amazing.

at this point i was nearly 7 miles in and still nearly 4 miles out so it was time to turn for home which i did rather regretfully. the sun was bright, but the wind was chilly. the hills spread out invitingly. i relaxed into the home journey. as i approached the end of the new swath i as accosted by a cacaphony of frogsong and instinctively sought the source - a pond down the hill to the left. there must be a million frogs in that pond! as i neared it, the angle on the sound changed and narrowed. i decided it was only one frog. impressive volumization.

i left the frog pond behind and went on to circle the final pond. [ace, why are there so many ponds on your route? hey, how the hell do i know?] around the final pond by the crazypital which is across from the regular hospital, 2 - count 'em - 2 bluebirds flew in front of me. one nearly took my nose off, but i think that bluebirds are good luck so i am okay with him getting up in my grill.

i managed to up the final hill with only a slightly less amount of fastness than that with which i downed it so good on me, mate! at the top by the intersection i saw something shiney. ooo! shiney! so i picked it up and brought it home. here's a pic. i am glad it was only 1/4lb.



the end.

i like the dave ramsey system, but i hate the dave ramsey show because it's the same every time. the. same. ev. er. y. time.

we live in a sort of cocoon.

what? no.

no, i do not mean the universal "we" as in We All Live In Our Own Little Worlds.

no.

i mean "we" as in "me and my old man". we live in a sort of cocoon. just me & him. us. not you. us.

i am struck anew by this each time we leave our little cushiony cushions: there are a lot of really different people out there. and by different i don't mean "not like each other" - i mean "not like us".

i'm fairly certain it goes without saying that people are not like each other, but it's a little less expected that they are not like us. i'm talking about a subtle thing here, so try to keep up. each person is different - that's a given and we all accept it. but glossed over our differences is a sameness. it's this gloss that is more or less present.

we move around in a sort of cocoon in our home area where the gloss is heavy and everyone is like us and eventually we don't notice it. it becomes a given. it's when we leave this home area and there's less gloss all over everyone that we're reminded of how different everyone is out there.

i'm not making an assessment of better or worse and especially not approaching the consideration of right or wrong. i am just telling you how it is, from my perspective here in the cocoon.

BOOTQUESTE2010!!

BOOTQUESTE2010!! was a singular and distinctive failure so thanks for bringing it up. ::SIGH::

okay, so here's what happened. at work, they gave us target gift cards this past solticefesttide which is cool & all compared to the last few years's gifts which include nothing and also nothing and one time a cheap brass ornament. so, a gift card, that's nice. okay, so i didn't want to just buy like deoderant and batteries with my gift card - i wanted to buy myself a gift. i know, right? so i started looking at target.com to see if i could find a nice gift pour moi from the comfort of my lazybutt chair. i found a pair of boots. woowoo! i liked 'em, and they were on sale and all since it's not boot season anymore. so i was all set to purchase them + the killers cd.

but then i thought - hey, maybe i'll go look at them in the store. now on a scale of wack to genius that thought rates right up there with the looseleaf notebook for practical usability. so i took myself over to target and that's right - they were sold out locally. why? because it's not boot season anymore. now, this got me to thinking - hey, maybe i'll go look other places b/c boots are probably at slashed prices all over town and i am sure to find a bargain. now, while this seems like a looseleaf-notebook idea, turns out it's more of a raw-cookie-dough idea. really, REALLY good at first but sure to make you sick before long.

i went to - macy's, sears, penney's, dillard's, journey's, shoe carnival, rack room, payless, k-mart, kohl's, and walmart. i found nothing in my size in a style i sought. i found one pair in my size at walmart but when i put them on i realized they looked more like the dairy-barn boots from back in the days of the bootbin than they looked like real-boy pinocchio boots. i found a possible pair at kohl's. they fit and they were an approximation of one of a small range of possible allowable styles. so i carried them around the store for 30 minutes before deciding they were not right. i gave them to the cashier who was really very nice about my handing over stuff instead of money and said she'd put them back for me no problem.

i got in the car and came home, went in the closet and found 4 pairs of shoes to give away. so instead of more shoes i now own fewer. i am quite certain that giving up BOOTQUESTE2010!! substantiates my sanity but i am left with a lingering taste for adventure and the odd desire to play putt-putt.

whenever they say akio toyoda i think they are saying that harry potter spell accio. accio toyoda!

right now, today, i know of one little kid who is in hospital. he's 18 months old and he doesn't feel good. i am sure he spends most of his time sleeping and i also know for a fact he's doing some puking, but a couple people have said to me «he must be so confused» and i posit that no, he is not. well, not any more than most 18 months olds. i mean, hell, at 18 months you cannot even talk much. you barely have a rudimentary vocabulary. you cannot name your world. ergo - you have no context. talk about learning something new every day - when you are 18 mos old, your entire day every day is learning learning learning.

so, you are 18 mos old and now you are in hospital. hmm... «well, gee, we used to live in another place and now we live here and the people here are mostly nice but the food is wack and sometimes they poke you with sharp things which hurts but mommy is here and daddy goes to work so that's the same and grandma is here every single day so that's a bonus and they let me watch whatever i want on teevee but now i am going to take a nap.»

seriously, what difference does the kid know? this makes it very, very important for the parents to be as happy as possible and as positive as possible b/c the kid is going to take his cue from them. if he has any context at all, they are it, so if he is going to be confused at all, it would be on account of their weirdness.

it's not like he's going to be all «why me, lord?!» because for all he knows, everyone is puking and getting poked with needles. he doesn't know he's being singled out and he doesn't really know there's anything different about him. i mean, he doesn't have that ability to view himself from another perspective.

one thing they do at hospital is have some volunteer come around and take the kids' pictures. my old man was like - "who the hell wants their picture taken in hospital?" and i was like - "kids. duh." kids love to have their pix taken. they have no idea they are looking a bit wack. they are like - wooowooo, pictures! and the person taking the pic says SMILE and the kid SMILES and the parents SMILE and everyone SMILES and everyone does something simple and normal and happy.

sometimes, a wee bit of happy goes a long, long way.

i realize i just did that other blog listing accoutrements de yogge and now here's another list with pictures but hey, if you don't like it you can ta

ke a hike!

well i thought i had it figured out. i thought the pictures i am trying to send to myself were going to the spam folder. i thought i was spamming myself in the world's worst marketing campaign attempt. but no, they were not in there. so i have sent them to myself again in hopes they'll arrive and i can post them for you. and... they are starting to come in so i will get started now.

1. coffee cup. this is my new xmash coffee cup. isn't it lovely? yes, yes it is. the one small flaw is that the freakin top will not go on freakin straight! gah! but it doesn't distract me. not really. i usually don't spend more than 15, maybe 20, minutes screwing the top off & on & off & on & off & on.


2. box of mints. the non-food-vendor vendor brought the mints with the biscuits. i love these mints not b/c i love mint - b/c i don't love mint - but b/c they are filled with melty meltoid meltation. mmm...melty! as you can see, they're healthy pure sugar - no high fructose corn syrup for ace, no sir! so i confiscated an entire box for myself and i was really throwing them back and i thought to myself, «ace, slow down, you are popping those things like they're candy.»


3. phone rest. this is intended to be used with the phone handset to allow it to be rested more comfortably on the shoulder, but i haven't installed it b/c i have normal sized shoulders, so i'm fairly certain this model won't work for me.


4. sharpies. $3 at big lots and for a bunch of lovely new toys to play with at the office. now i am that person who writes with sharpies. ha!


the end.

it was gonna be something else, but now it is this.

remember one-slot-to-a-customer, a.k.a. ostac? well, the other day, ostac was parked across 2 spots as per usual but luckily there was jeeest enough space for me to squoze my wee tiny little soldier car right in next to ostac. heh. there was incredibly wee little room between the two vehicles, but i was well within my allotted space. heh.

today, when carpooling coworker dropped me off, ostac was waiting beside her vehicle. while i was unlocking my car, this convo ensued:

ostac - «you need to watch where you park. the other day you left me no space to get into my car.»

ace - «oh. did i park outside my slot?»

ostac - «you didn't leave me any room to get into my car.»

ace - «i try to be so careful to park inside the lines. was i parked outside the lines?»

ostac - «you didn't leave me any room to get into my car.»

in conclusion, i had an extensively planned blog for today that included several pix from the ol' iphone. i have emailed all the pix to myself twice and they have not come through. probably somebody parked their email too close to my email and didn't leave my email room to get in. frookers.

... .--. .-. .. -. --. - .. -- .

i realize it's an uncommon sentiment, but springtime can suck it. freakin screaching birds and bright sunshine. i mean, really. c'mon. you don't like it that much, either, and you know it. you're just caught up in the hooplah. you don't like it that much. you know you don't. admit it. ADMIT IT!

there's just so much pressure with pretty weather - pressure to go outside. and, that's all well and good if you're going outside to play. to run. to read a book. to piquenique. to canoe. hike. sketch. cycle. play a sport. take a photo. warsh the car. trim the hedges. mow the lawn. weed the garden. wait - what? some of these things are not PLAY, they are WORK. see, this is the sneaky thing about pretty weather. it gets you out there and then it turns on you and puts you to work. gah! step off, pretty weather! in the first place, if i am going to work, there's plenty of inside work to do. i don't need to be out in the sun and wind to work. in the second place, it's just the hypocrisy of it all. that pretty weather with it's wiles, luring me outside, lurrring, lurrrrrring, until i give in and go out and BAM - pretty weather puts me to work.

i do like to go outside. to PLAY. one of my favorite outside pasttimes is going for a run. i don't generally volunteer info about my running but if someone asks i might tell them a bit. it is fun to say "i ran 10 miles today" like it's nothing and there is a whole group of folks i mingle with to whom this IS nothing, but to most people it's something. they're impressed with the physical feat, but they're also impressed that i can schedule the time required. see, they think i am doing this thing and also doing all the things they do. it's a common fallacy. we think people are more similar to ourselves than they are. we believe that folks accomplish all the things that we do PLUS the things that they do and we are like, wow! but in reality, we are each simply doing our own things and nobody is doing everything.

i like saltines.

so the speedy replacement plan, phase 1 is coming along about how you'd expect which means nowhere, so of course as a professional project manager i consider the best plan here is to skip to the following phases. in the interest of being social, today i went to a baby shower. well, baby showers are crap and people who let their kids run around undisciplined are crap and making small talk with humourless idiots is crap, so needless to say all phases of the SRP are going about how you'd expect.

::SIGH::

in other news, we did a bit of work outdoors today - warshing cars & deck & air filters, warshing a couple windows, picking up sticks. one is struck by the relentlessness of the yardwork. warsh the deck, it gets dirty again. pick up sticks, more fall. mow the grass, it grows back. yes, there is a relentlessness to the outdoor tasks, but the unrelenting opposing force is gaia. you can't change gaia and it's not like she's doing things on purpose to us. i mean, the fight of us against gaia is one-sided. she doesn't fight back. she is what she is. we are trying to change her, she's not changing, the end. so the work is relentless but there's an odd sort of spirituality in it - a communion with the ever-present, ever-same.

contrast doing the dishes over & over. it's relentless, too, but it's man-made. i mean, someone's consciously using a dish and consciously choosing to leave it in the sink. the fight to keep ahead of the dishes is a fight to keep someone from sabatoging your fight to keep ahead of the dishes. unless you want to say that leaving the dishes in the sink is nature, it's not going to change, the end. but really, i am not buying that.

of biscuits and blood

today i was sitting in a business meeting and we were reviewing... um... stuff. like, product stuff. you know. business product stuff reviewingness. anyway, i looked down at my hands, and there was a some blood on my finger here and oh, look blood on my finger there and oh, look blood on my hand there -- wait! what? my hands are bleeding??

OMG! WTF?! IDK!

i calmly excused myself and went to the restroom and warshed my hands. i located the source - a slice style cut on my left ring finger pad. hrm? oh... wait a second here....

i stopped by my cubby for a bandaid and went back to the meeting. i assured my coworkers i was okay. i told them i must have sliced my finger on the foil pan in which the vendor had brought biscuits from cracker barrel. she is all the time bringing food but today she went all out with ham biscuits and sausage biscuits and plain biscuits and jelly and hashbrown casserole and chocolate almonds and buckeyes and two kinds of melty mints. she really pretty much rocks the vendor food for a vendor who doesn't vend food.

so i had a ham biscuit and got some ham stuck in my bottom front horsie teeth. in the meeting i didn't have access to dental floss nor did i wish to make a Big Deal about having food stuck in my teeth. so, i discreetly picked my teeth using the fingernail of my left ring finger. unbeknownst to me, in addition to hoarding food, my teeth have been honing themselves to a keenness a japanese chef would envy.

working for a living

it can be difficult to find employment when you don't have an address. especially if in addition to not having an address you also do not have the ability to read or more than a few teeth. the modus operandi is usually to stand on a street corner and harrass passersby for money, which would seem of limited profitability. on my lunchtime yogge, i see a few regulars of les hobeaux et hobettes - the same fine toothless folk day after day. lately, someone has organized these hobo sapiens into a crew of workers: les hobeaux et hobettes are selling a paper called the homeless times.

i wonder about the business model. do the hobovians purchase the papers on consignment? one would think not. does someone kind soul simply donate the papers? more likely. my guess is that the papers are created by a mission of some type and given to the hobotites who in turn sell them to the passersby. really a good idea when you think about it - they're more likely to get a dollar for a paper than to collect money for nothing, although standing on a street corner clutching a small stack of tabloids does not qualify as significantly more than "nothing".

at any rate, les hobeaux et hobettes on my route are in the news bidness. they are as a group friendly, apparently sober, and not blatantly odiferous. they always call "hello" at me as i flit & float on by. if i had a dollar, i would give it to them. i have thought about carrying some nabs or newtons to hand out, but i have not as yet remembered.

today while paused waiting on a traffic signal i had this convo with the hobeau selling there. too bad you cannot make a living from having a sense of humor, b/c no doubt my hobeau friend would have been all set.

:: hobeau :: - turning to see who was standing beside him - «well, you worked up quite a sweat there!»

:: ace :: - smiling - «ha, yeah... have you made much money today?»

:: hobeau :: - shaking head - «no, no... just trying to make enough to get some food... trying to stay busy.»

:: ace :: - yogging away, waving - «ha, yeah... well, at least it gets you out of the house for a while!»

:: hobeau :: - «house? oh! hahahah!! hahah!!»

you should have heard his happy laugh. it was beautiful.

3 -- 3 -- 3 -- 3 -- let's sing a song about 3! how many is 3?

this one is pretty good.

and this one's good, too, although completely different.

and here's one more.

a decided to include a fourth. it's my blog, i can do as i please.

W to the A to the F to the F to the L to the E - waffle me!

sometimes my old man likes to have waffles for supper and so i cook the waffles and before you get all het up over the division of labor in this house i will just tell you that you don't know jack about the division of labor and you can rest assured it's just as unfair as the division of labor in your house which is to say that both of us imagine that we are the only one doing squat while the other one is sitting on his or her respective squat.

anyway, sometimes we have waffles for supper and waffles are kind of like cake and so it's like having dessert for supper which sounds as fun as sex and turns out it is just about that fun which means it's really not all that fun anymore once you do it a few dozen times with the same person.

[hey, thanks for your concern about my sex life, but that was just a joke. i mean, hell, everyone knows cake is way more fun than sex.]

anyway, the point here is that traditionally prepared waffles - even with whole wheat - even with almonds & cimmanon - even with strawberries & blueberries - no matter what you do to them, traditionally prepared waffles are sweet. i really do put almonds in, and it really is quite yummy. you should try it. i also put in protein, which gives the li'l wafflies some redeeming value. i tried once cooking the blueberries into the waffles and i'll caution you against that unless you are really into scouring the waffle iron.

but, no matter how you dress it up, the waffle itself is sweet and then you've got to put jam or jelly or syrup or honey on it because it a dry sweet. like arizona. bottom line, i've had about enough of this cake for supper scenario.

the next time the dinner order is waffles, i'm fixing mine with ham & cheese. because when it comes down to it, the only thing better than cake for supper is shaking things up a bit, if you know what i mean.

p90x is described as a muscle confusion system, but why would i pay money to get something that comes so naturally to my muscles?

the tea party movement made a mistake inviting sarah palin to speak at their big convo in nashvegas. palin's a strict conservative with a hardline viewpoint. the tea partiers had previously billed themselves as a movement for moderate fiscal conservatism unaffiliated with either party - not putting forth candidates of their own but rather backing candidates from both parties. having palin deliver the keynote speech portrays the movement as more strictly conservative than it was originally billed. maybe it was always this conservative or maybe it's being comandeered and steered by the desperate GOP - that's not yet clear - but either way the result is disingenuity. the tea party is not what it started as, not what it said it was.

the dems are just as desperate as the GOP. both traditional parties are concerned about the tea party but each has a different reaction - the dems are denigrating the movement and the GOP are trying to absorb it. neither wants it to stick around because both are extremely entrenched and both need each other more than they like to let on to us joe plumbers. politicians prefer to dance exclusively & privately. they don't want us looking and they don't want interlopers horning in. all those cats in DC have been calling way too much attention to themselves lately, and you can see how well that's working out for them. they are retiring right & left.

all political offices should have term limits with rotating election years so as to keep fresh blood in the system at all times. all bills should be limited to five pages (8.5x11, single spaced, 3/4" margins), should have one clear thesis, and any amendments should be clearly, directly related to the thesis. all bills should be posted online at a simple website for a period of no less than 30 days before they will come for a vote. after the vote is complete, each bill should remain posted on the same website with a complete list of who voted which way on the bill. the budget should be balanced and should be devoid of exclusive deals.

the government is the sum of us, the parts, and as such has the potential to be greater than we wee parts. the govt is us, banding together, to provide and establish and ensure things we are incapable of providing and establishing and ensuring alone. it's firemen and roads and milk with a hot lunch. it's library books and parks and a cure for what ails you. it's defense against the dark arts and letters in the mail and trips to the moon.

it's supposed to be a good thing and there's no good reason it cannot be.

THAT's what i thought the tea party was all about. imagine my disappointment.

valentine's day is an invention of the man.

i've been working on the taxes, and it's more complicated than it needs to be - as usual. it's not like i can't read instructions and fill in boxes, but the instructions include verbiage such as, "qualifying taxpayers" without providing the definition of qualifying. it's ridiculous, really, and i am convinced the forms are designed to keep h&r block in business. we don't have any investments or a second home or anything, so really, it should be simple: the difference between taxes paid and taxes owed. both paid & owed are based on wages, salary, tips. simple - until you get to the plethora of deductions and credits.

some expenses, such as education, you can choose whether to take a credit or a deduction, so you have to figure it both ways in case one way is better than the other. then there's things like that ginormous lawnmower we purchased. my old man paid for part of it with earnings from mowing lawns. if we state the earnings from mowing, we should also claim the lawnmower as a business expense. the mower cost more than the earnings, so it should be a wash or we should come out ahead. but to do this business stuff, do we need separate forms and schedules? and if so, is it worth the trouble? there's no way to know without filling out the forms.


the one time i did someone else's taxes, i nearly left off an important piece of schedule A deductions - the interest they'd paid on their house. they didn't ask me to do their taxes again. haha. yeah, but i think it was also b/c they didn't want me to know how much $$ they make. most folks i know pay some stranger to do their taxes, but those tax preparers just use software that walks them through the process. i am at least as smart as those folks and probably a lot smarter than most of them and it just chaps my jordache to pay someone to do something i know i can handle!

oddly, this sentiment does not extend to scrubbing toilets.

accoutrements de la yogge

feeling ready to put the 10-miler back in my yogging repertoire, i headed out this morning to test that new asphalt path beside the new piece of road. i am like - «yay my town!» for putting down this running path instead of a concrete sidewalk. i mean, a cinder track would have been suh-weet, but not realistic. turns out the asphalt only extends like 1.37 mile, but it's better than nothing and bodes well for the future of yogging pathways. speaking of the DEVIL - point-37 was my nemesis today. i mean every time i looked at the garmie thinking i'd gone another point-5 it was not point-5 it was point-37. hey - point-37! step OFF!

because i drove to my starting point, i had to lug all my accoutrements de la yogge with me. it would be nice to have something like, say, a piece cloth folded over and sewn up the sides where i could put my stuff in it to make carrying easier. at any rate, here's my pile des accoutrements.



i am now going to tell you what each thing is and how it pertains to my yogge. {i believe i've been fairly clear that if you're bored here in my little world, you can take a hike.}

1. fleece hoodie emblazoned with the name of mini-me's college. something dry to put on after the yogge. although it won't be warm after sitting in the car, it will be dry and soft.
2. nanner flavor protein drink. my new thang is to ingest at least 20g of protein immediately after a run {"new" i of course mean "as of today"}. i recommend this varietal - it's smooth and delishus.
3. mandarin orange green tea flavored water. nothing says "yogging is fun!" like toy water.
4. shades. today it was only somewhat sunny so i almost didn't use the shades, but i was glad i had them because it was windy and my poor li'l eyeballs get so tired in the wind.
5. mittens. much better for warmth than gloves. also handy for carrying the car key without actually holding onto it.
6. ear thing. not exactly a hat, excellent for protecting the ears from the wind while leaving the top of the head uncovered for temperature control.
7. road id. i am a big fan of the road id. you can't see the actual id part in this pic - all you can see is the strap. the id part is a small engraved metal tag. my diddy always said «don't leave the house without identification.» so, i don't.
8. garmin. a yogger's best friend.

so i went out and yogged around for 10 miles, then stretched, then drank my nanner protein drink and my water, then drove home. when i got home and came upstairs, i saw this note on the kitchen counter. yesss!!



{hint: that's not my handwriting.}

italian restaurant optional

we are not what you'd call connoisseurs, but we know what we like. he likes a bottle of red, i like a bottle of white. preferably under $12.

my old man used to drink cycles gladiator or red guitar. the former has a bicycle on the label and the latter a guitar, and he's a guitar-playing cyclist or a cycle-riding guitarist and either way, there you go. then, he attended an event at a local winery and discovered he liked a more expensive wine. go figure. but he took this knowledge to the local wine store and got some advice about things he might like in our price range. they advised he try toasted head and ménage à trois. in contrast to the alignment of label-to-activity of his former choices, he participates in neither of these activities. however, he says the wines are to his liking.

red wine gives me a headache. i like rosé, but somehow it seems like cheating - like it isn't real wine. stupid? maybe, but i am drinking it so i get to make the rules. i explored the whites by my usual method of picking out attractive labels. chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, pinot gris, chenin blanc... yawn. i kept trying sweeter and sweeter wines but i was getting nowhere. the frustration was crushing! [not really.] here's what i didn't know - i don't like sweet wine, i like dry wine. d'oh!

someone who knows suggested riesling and i was willing to try anything at that point. i used my usual shopping method of perusing for a pretty label and in the riesling department found one with a picture of stark, gray rocks that looked like something you'd see in a stream on a rainy day - perfect! the label says, «a region of steep slate hills and winding rivers» - double perfect! clean slate riesling is crisp and not too sweet, smooth with a bit of a tingle but no bite, and has a wee splash of minerals. «haha,» you say, «minerals? what do minerals even taste like?» well, i am here to tell you. minerals taste like rocks. yum! rocks! what, you don't like rocks? guess what - you do like rocks and you don't even know it. if you have ever tasted water from a wild stream or a woodland spring? it's fresh, cool, crisp... mineral.

enough talk - let's drink!

michael waltrip wrecked during gatorade duel & might not get in daytona 500 but he said he would put his "big boy britches on and keep going".

i heard this story on npr yesterday about how asperger's syndrome is now officially classified as a type of autism. that is to say, autism itself is now defined as a spectrum of disorders with highly functional folks at one end and minimally functional at another. now, i already thought this was how it was officially laid out - i didn't realize asperger's was a separate category. basically it is now how i thought it was all along. AS WELL IT SHOULD BE. anyways. this guy on npr was speaking about his asperger's, what it's like to live with it and what he thinks about asperger's's now being classified as part of the autism spectrum. he said - «it's hard to stomach being on a continuum that includes folks wearing adult diapers.» now i realize that asperger's is a social disorder and that perhaps this guy is minimally socialized, but someone needs to break it to him that we're all on a continuum that includes folks wearing adult diapers. it's called LIFE.

i heard this story on the local news this morning about how the weather has really been wintry - and by wintry of course i mean sucky - but that today it should be sunny so the road crews would be out taking this opportunity to fill in the potholes. what they do is throw some asphalt down in the holes and the asphalt doesn't stick because the road's too cold so it just sort of sits there in the hole waiting for you to drive by so it can hop a ride on your tire. while the road crews are out they of course put up warnings signs, barrels, cones, and barriers. the traffic report lady advised us thusly - «look out for the orange barrels and stuff.» i admire her specificity.

i heard this story on the national news about how bill clinton had to have a stent inserted in a coronary artery today. this is a minimally invasive procedure accomplished by snaking a catheter inserted in the groin up an artery to the place which is blocked where a balloon is inflated to open the artery and the stent is put in place. this procedure scientifically proves that the way to a man's heart is through his groin.

what the hell do bird have to do with anything?

SHOUT OUT!
we start tonight with a shout OUT to dmb for the contrib on the scuzz discussion, or scuzzussion if you will. good stuff, dmb! thanks for calling in.

THROW OUT!
what about that disposable tupperware, eh? great stuff! great!! okay, okay, it's not tupperware, per se. don't get after me with your copyright police. haha! you know what i am talking about - that plastic stuff you get at the grocery, use it a few times, throw it OUT. i usually use the heck OUT of those things, if you know what i mean, haha, but sometimes i will throw them OUT even if they are not worn OUT. oooo! what a rebel! haha! here's the thing - it can be so empowering to be like, «i really don't want to clean OUT this old cottage cheese.... i think i will throw this whole container OUT!» woowoo! so empowering. so. empowering. i realize this flies in the face of my paper towel dilemma, but hey, what can i say, i am an enigma so don't try to figure me OUT.

CLEAN OUT!
so, you're wanting to know how it's going with the closet clean OUT? it's going awwwwwsome!! awesome! i realized that i called the jason's deli thing a gold standard but of course by that i meant litmus test. i know you figured that OUT already! yes you did! here's the thing though - in addition to the litmus test, i have a method. oh, yes i do! this is how i am going about it: at least once per day i do not leave the closet empty handed - i find something in there to throw OUT. [and by throw OUT i of course mean give to goodwill.] at least once a day something has to go. this is turning OUT to be much easier than going through the whole place at once. i don't have to decide about everything - i just have to decide about one thing. easy peasy lemon squeezy!

PIG OUT!
what about that superbowl pig OUT, eh? yeah - what is up with that? well, i will tell you. all the resolutionistas who made a dietary vow while the ball dropped have been starving - starv. ing. - for a month now so they're looking for any excuse to pig OUT. it's been since solsticefest that they've had a decent snackeshbord. mmmm - gwack-a-molay! wait. what? you had already figured that OUT for yourself? well if you're so smart, maybe you should get a blog!

AIR OUT!
lastly i need to air something OUT which i left OUT of a previous air post. mini-me thinks i am a bit off base with this one but you mark my words - when people start putting up giant wind undertakers and hugenormous windmills by the dozens of thousands as they want to, these gloriously environmentally friendly devices with their wee tiny little carbon footprints will change the wind patterns of the earth in such a vast and unforeseen way that the future detrimental effect on climate change will be greater than the planned abatement effect on climate change, by many orders of magnitude.

jump ball - get it! get it! - jump ball - get it! get it! --- i miss the jump ball.

the practice of daily blogging has its ups & downs. as the john denver song goes... «some days are diamonds, some days are stones». just like with anything, you have to put up with the bad to get the good. if this post sucks for you, live with it. maybe you'll enjoy the next one. as oscar the grouch says... «one man's trash is another man's treasure.» maybe you're not interested in book reviews. maybe you're not interested in trips down memory lane. maybe you're not interested in poetry. maybe you're not interested in sarcastic observations about the little foibles of your fellowman. maybe you're not interested in self-absorbed navel gazing. maybe you're interested in one of those and you tune in every day hoping this will be the day you get what you want. maybe you like them all and you just can't wait to come by every day and see what you'll get from the grab bag. maybe you're not interested in any of that, and if that's the case, you might want to leave now.

today's selection will be self-absorbed navel gazing. what the hell IS that stuff in the belly button? soap scum? dust? epithelials? oh, don't act like you don't know what i am talking about. don't act like you don't have scuzz in there. maybe you clean it out - fine - but you still have it, don't you now? so where does it come from? eh? eh? where does the scuzz come from, does anybody know? where does the scuzz come from, before it starts to grow? on saturday night, before you take a bath, does anybody know where the scuzz is at?

it's in yo navel. unless, of course, you are beavis - the owner of the outiest outie ever.

do they still make flash cubes?

finished the youngest templar: keeper of the grail. in this book, our young hero tristan is raised by a monk called brother tuck and soon meets an oversized blacksmith called john whom everyone playfully refers to as little john. then our tristan meets another youth, an archer from sherwood forest near nottingham england, a young man called robard hode. robard and tristan meet a third youth, a ninja-style assassin from jerusalem, a young lady called maryam. in case these character names don't make it clear to you, this is the story of robin hood - narrated by tristan who is apparently one of his merry men. all that remains to be seen, however, because this first book ended with [SPOILER ALERT] tristan drowning in the mediterranean sea. at first i was like - hey, party foul! this is robin hood. i want something original! but now i am like - hmm... a solid story well told. who cares if it's robin hood? plus last night during the super bowl i saw a commersh for a new movie - robin hood - starring the ever-delicious russell crowe. yummy. yum yummy yum yum. wait. where was i? oh, right. the movie. from the trailer it looked like there might be some grailness involved in the robin hood backstory. sounds intriguiging - perhaps i need to look into this backstory a bit.

currently reading the last child by john hart. i read his king of lies on a whim, like i got it out of the discount bin or something, back in '08 and it turned out to be a solid story with well-developed characters. this one is shaping up to be at least as good, maybe better. it's a sort of ellen foster meets huckleberry finn. sort of. i mean, i haven't actually read huck finn, so what the hell do i know, but this book is about a young boy who has to grow up in a hurry so there you have it. OKAY WHATEVER BUT IF YOU ARE INTERESTED YOU CAN READ IT YOURSELF, CAN'T YOU??

next up will be water for elephants because mini-me sent it to me in a paquage! woohoooo!

books 2010

currently:
the last child
[john hart]

complete:
the youngest templar: the keeper of the grail
[michael p. spradlin]
the last song
[nicholas sparks]
the magykal papers
[angie sage]
the memory of running
[ron mclarty]

why do the geico cavemen wear 70s fashions? it's not like there were cavemen in the 70s.

first off, labelling it "global warming" was a mistake. the general public is naturally going to interpret "warm" as "not cold" - and can you blame us, really? the folks dedicating their lives to studying climate change had to have known that all the change was not going to be warm - that it was bound to involve some decidedly not warm things such as increased off-season snowfalls. second, acting like it's entirely a man-made phenomenon dilutes the sources' credibility. there's no way any responsible, thinking adult-type person can deny that the industry of man has a detrimental effect on the earth's environment, but at the same time, no one can deny that the earth has a life-cycle of its own, outside of man's effect. it's the confluence of this life-cycle and of our effect -- these dual factors -- that are leading to the earth's demise. it's a natural death, but we've put a bit of a kink in the intravenous drip.

we were watching this movie on the sundance channel - a documentary about climate change narrated by keanu reaves and alanis morrisette. they should have just got alanis or perhaps her and another male voice because keanu always comes off as a pompous ass and it's just hard to get around that.

the film was good in the sense of being informative, alerting us to the issues, but i believe we're past the point of alert. we are now at the point of action. like i said before, there's really no denying it - we effect [affect?] the environment plus the earth is dying. what we need now is not to be told what we already know, but to be told what we can do about it. enough algebra - let's get to the mechanical engineering.

there are things we can do to be more kind to the earth, but each individual thing seems just so small as to be worthless. drive a fuel efficient car. eat less meat. plant a tree. buy local. i don't know... it just seems to be so much pissing into the wind. even al gore, mr global warming, won't quit eating meat. where are the real solutions? in southern california, 55% of the water supply goes to non-essential outdoor uses. i will translate that for you: watering lawns. these people live in the desert. why the hell do they even have lawns? maybe keanu could step off his soap box and turn off his neighbors' sprinklers. in inner mongolia, there is a nomadic tribe of goat herders who live mostly off the grid, except when they [i kid you not] plug in their entertainment center. but anyway they are mostly living off the grid and it's all "yay for them" until you learn they and their fellow tribesfolk are some of the worst air-quality offenders what with their wood & dung burning stoves smoking up the air. it's my contention the movie overblew their offenses just a bit. you cannot really compare a dung-burning stove designed to cook for 20 to a coal-burning factory making whatever it is coal-burning factories make.

the movie did offer one solution - a structure that removes CO2 from the air. this huge -- 300-ft tall by 180-ft wide -- metal structure is meant to capture CO2 out of the air and convert it to sodium carbonate which through a series of further chemical reactions is turned into a concentrated form of carbon dioxide that could be buried. from concept to design, it's less orwellian that suessian. is this really what it has come to -- the construction of ginormous synthetic trees designed to bury the wind?

egging humpty on

you can make them scrambled, fried, sunny-side up!, over easy, over medium, over well, deviled, in an omelette, as a sandwich spread, hard boiled, soft boiled, or poached. my old man's favourite is scrambled and by favourite i mean the only kind he'll eat. my least favourite is scrambled but i will eat them all. i didn't eat eggs for years because they got caught up in the Great Digestive Sweep whereby i removed from my diet various foods that appeared to be causing me digestive issues, by which of course i mean constipation. what? too much information? oh, don't be such a sissy.

we have already covered the problem of too-thick shells on the white eggland's best eggs - a particular problem for the hard-cooked egg. this morning, i was cracking raw eggs of the brown-shelled non-eggland's-best variety by gently tapping them on a paper towel folded halfsies on the countertop - an arrangement which i have found to provide a cracking surface with just the right amount of give. tap-tap... sploosh! jeez! the egg shell simply collapsed under the weight of the burden of releasing its innards. where is the middle ground between too-thich and too-thin shells? and, here in the splooshing we have the second purpose of the paper towel cracking surface cover.

i am a fan of the the over easy [a.k.a. ocean] egg - although they've gotten a bad rap on the salmonella front. and, really, these are chicken eggs i am eating, not fish eggs, so what's the deal with a salmon disease?? i do like omelettes although they have a sort of connexion with my dysfunctional teen years [whose teen years are NOT dysfunctional, eh?] which results in my only liking a certain form of omelette and to in turn be completely dissatisfied with all other omelettes which of course results in constant disappointment and means i don't really like omelettes at all. i have never had a poached egg. grandma-bec used to eat these so i know they won't kill you... except she IS dead, so maybe they WILL kill you, but at any rate, their slimey appearance is simply unattractive.

i am currently a rather large consumer [large referring to the size of my consumption, not the size of my me] of the hard-cooked egg varietal. these are also called hard-boiled, but i prefer to say hard-cooked as i believe that sounds more britishish. i have one hard-cooked egg most mornings for the breaking of my fast. this morning as i was having one hard-cooked egg, one rasher of pig flesh, one cimmanon-raising bagel, one fruit salad, and as my old man was having three scrambled eggs, three rashers of pig flesh, one whole grain bagel, one fruit salad - as we were consuming these comestibles i was struck by the thought that while we'd easily order, serve, eat three scrambled eggs, we would look askance upon ordering, serving, eating three hard-cooked eggs.

in conclusion, the bestest egg of all is the golden goose egg, but because these fall short in the reality category, the best award is awarded to the cadbury creme egg.

stix und stonz

in honor of black history month, a chef at nbc's commissary whipped up a menu of fried chicken, collard greens, and cornbread. wanda sykes was on jay leno saying how racist this menu was. she was all het up about it. what she apparently didn't know is that the chef is a black woman who had whipped up a traditional soul-food menu in honor of black history month. i mean, what the hell was she supposed to fix? spaghetti? enchiladas? trout almondine? it is black. history. month. not world-o'-tastes month. jeez.

these days people are overly sensitive to any sort of real or perceived insult. we are all something. black. white. smarty pants. retard. fatty. toothpick. four eyes. eagle eyes. city girl. redneck. surfer boi. skater boi. uptight. slacker. stuffed shirt. lackey. western. eastern. asian. african. american. bolivian. cowgirl. goth chick. spaz. jock. short bus. honor roll. hippy. caffeine freak. war monger. peacenik. elitist. commoner. alien. hoodie. socialite. poet.

we are all something. we are none of us everything. sometimes someone will say something that offends someone else. most of the time it's unintentional. we just say shit without thinking. the problem is that when we say it, we know it's on accident, but when someone else says it, we presume it's on purpose. we're just wired to be defensive. try this, though, the next time that happens to you - the next time you take offense and believe someone said something about you with the intent to be hurtful - try this: stop. that's all. just don't react. firstly, this will diffuse any potential escalation. secondly, you will look unbelievably cool.

what? well, yes - of course i practice what i preach. what the hell are you implying?!

so that witch that lived in the woods in that house made of candy, do you think she had like a rodent issue there in the attic, maybe?

we currently have 7 vehicles of which 4 are motorized and 3 are bicycles. wait. we also have 2 sets of crutchers, so i guess those are 2 more vehicles of a sort so there you go. of the 4 motorized choices, we drive 2 most days - me in one and my old man in the other. these 2 comprise... are comprised of... ? which is it - "these 2 comprise a honda and a nissan" or "these 2 are comprised of a honda and a nissan"? hrm? hrm? at any rate, what we have here are a civic and a sentra. civic sounds a bit like civilian so it's out little populist and sentra is a bit like sentry so it's our little militarist. so cute, the little buggers. the civvy and the soldier. and as we learned previously, honda is spanish for slingshot and as i am telling you now, nissan is spanish for japanese automaker so there you go.

our slingshot is the younger of the two by maybe 15 years. it's the nicer in terms of amenities - cd player, power windows, boopboop door unlocker, seats that don't feel like you're sitting on the undercarriage, and a trunk that doesn't fill with water when it rains. our wee tiny soldier, though, has 2 distinct advantages: 4 doors and 5 speeds. 4 doors are just a convenience factor - makes it easier to stash our stuff. the 5 speeds, though... now THERE's a feature.

i am a fan of the manual transmission. back in the day, the corolla had a manual trans and that's the car i learned to downshift on. i believe that diesel chevette had a manny tranny and the diesel volkswagen truck did for sure. [what's with all the diesels? jeez.] my cj-5 was some kinda wack 3-speed. man, i loved that jeep. i'll scan you pic sometime. the hyundai was a 5-speed. when i have a choice, i choose a 5 speed.

some people - my old man being one of them - don't like to bother with it, but to me it's no bother. to me, the 5-speed is like a game you can play while you're driving. not that driving is a game, mind you. hurtling down the road in control of hundreds of pounds of glass, metal, plastic, and rubber is not game. DRIVING IS NOT A GAME. okay, but that being said, driving can be boring, yes? yes. why else do you think people eat, drink, text, read, talk on the phone, discipline their children, play the guitar, use a netbook to surf the web, conduct minor sexual activity, and sing loudly & poorly & with all the wrong lyrics to the complete collected hits of abba - all simultaneously while driving?

because it's freaking boring. the cure for boredom is the manny tranny! downshifting is the bomb - like, i am going along going along lalala and then WHAM downshift zoom and awayyyyy!!! waiting at a traffic signal takes on a whole new dimension with the drift-back-and-catch-it tactic. ooooo - i'm rolling back - watch out car behind me - ooooo - NOT! hahaha! curving roads can be interesting in any type of car, but the handling you get from a manny tranny is incomparable if you don't agree then you clearly have never downshifted going into a sweeping banked turn.


[hey, i just re-read this and noticed there's not a conclusion. it just sort of drops off. so, here's your assignment: write a conclusion. there ya go.]

the lying of the which in the wardrobe

unlike hippy philosophers who wander thru life in jeans and huarache sandals - most of us have several wardrobes in the closet. the summer clothes and the winter clothes of course, and looking at things from another direction, the work clothes and the play clothes. in the set of work clothes, we have everything from supernice work clothes for those superimportant meetings on down to casual work clothes for fridays. between the high work and the casual work is the array of daily work wear. the play clothes category ranges from athletic gear to stuff to wear to the movies to stuff for a cocktail party. there's an overlap between the work and play wardrobes at the casual-work/dressy-play section which includes the blue jeans, skorts, capris, polo shirts, and non-athletic tee shirts. you know what i am talking about so stop making me explain this and no, i am not going to draw a venn diagram.

okay.

so here's the thing - i am getting rid of some of these clothes. this time, it's for real because i have thought of a gold standard: the jason's deli test. it's simple - all i do is ask, «is this something i'd wear to jason's deli?»

most all the casual stuff i'd wear it just about anywhere. i'm generally cazhe-cazhe - sweatpants, shorts, sweatshirts, tees. some folks wear khakis and a sweater to the high school soccer game, but i'll be the one in shorts and a sweatshirt emblazoned with the school logo. speaking of khakis - i do like these ACG khakis and i am wearing them a lot, but i don't like them b/c they are khakis - i like them b/c they are comfy and especially b/c there is this one zipper pocket right in my reach that i can mess with the zipper all the time. zip! zupp! zip! zupp! i noticed the last time beavis was here that he's got a similar pair of britches with a similarly placed zipper pocket and he was busy zip-zupping just like i do with mine, and so there's another thing i have in common with 2 yr olds.

the work stuff is a bit more tricky. i have a lot of clothes that i do like to wear to work, but would not wear to jason's. yeah, okay - not like i would put ANY of my work clothes on, on purpose, to wear to jason's. that's not the situation. the sitch is that immediately after work i am meeting friends or family at jason's. there are times that i am like - «nooooo! nooooo! i have to change clothes first!!» i have always thrown this off on my work clothes not being comfortable, but here's the thing - why am i wearing uncomfortable things to work? and, here's the further thing - i am lying. the clothes are perfectly comfortable, but they are... [admit it!] [say it!] ...embarrasing.

wait. what?

you heard me. i am embarrassed to wear some of my work clothes to jason's deli where my family & friends will see me. this is what has got to stop. as far as clothes make the man, i have created a work self and a play self. i have dichotomized my soul. no más!

the new gold standard is: would i wear it to jason's? everything else - goes!

i am the bird-dog. i do not futz around.

today in the weekly staff meeting, i used the word "futzing" as in "the vendor spent several weeks futzing around with the system". heh heh. futzing. made 'em squirm cause they couldn't tell at first what i had said. futz.ing. in this same mtg, bossman called me the "department's bird-dog" and it may not be immediately obvious that this was a compliment. he was actually saying i am a strong advocate who takes the lead in following up on issues that are important to our department. i am the bird-dog. i do not futz around.

yesterday i read one brief article about the grammy awards and in it was mentioned auto-tune. i think we all realize that vocal performances are perfected in the studio, but i didn't realize there is this one machine that does the process. i mean, durr of course, but no i didn't realize. it is referred to as a "box" and probably in the past it was a unique machine, but now it's simply a computer with the auto-tune software. all sorts of mechanical devices in the music studio have been replaced by computer software which means that all sorts of analog devices have been replaced by digital devices and when it comes to music, analog is better than digital, but when it comes to expenses, digital is cheaper and so there you have it - digital killed the analog star.

ANYWAY - i was speaking of auto-tune which is a device/software that was invented by a seismologist. i know, right? a seismologist! he was doing serious earthquake discovery work and realized that his work with earth waves could be transfered to voice waves and now he is probably a gazillionaire. auto-tune can be used to correct vocal anamolies and it can be used to distort vocals in that weird way you hear in the rap songs, and if you remember, in a cher song from way back in the day. maybe you guys already knew all this? apparently, auto-tune has hit its heyday and is on the decline.

i was just telling my old man during the opening of the grammys while we were watching lady gaggag and elton john that all the singers these days sound the same and i thought it was b/c i was getting old. and then i learned they really DO all sound the same and it's b/c of the box. it's not me after all. they're using the box to futz with the vox!

karmalize THEM apples!

today while out careening around the snow-covered sidewalks, i spotted a note tucked into a car window. a light green 4x6 sized lined notecard scribbled with some feminine script. being the curious type, i got a little bit closer and read this: Because you parked here, I could not get to my 2 jobs today. You need to move your car tomorrow. (I got your license #.)

firstly, i'd have to say to miss work*2 that moving the car tomorrow will result in yet another day's lost work. to facilitate work*2 getting to work, the car must be moved BEFORE tomorrow.

okay.

now, let's examine why the offender's car's being parked right-there would prevent young work*2 from attending to her work*2 duties.

- scenario 1 - the most obvious conclusion is that by parking right-there, the offender blocked in the car of work*2 who could then not attend work b/c she could not transport herself to work. which of course begs the question - why didn't she find another way to get to work? well, prolly b/c she is lazy and saw this as a great opportunity to skip out, but let's give her the benefit of the doubt and say that she tried to find a way but buses don't route from her home to her work. the public transport in this town is wack, so that's possible. and, a taxi is prolly too expensive. and, there's prolly no one she could carpool with. and, she prolly could not walk to work or ride a bicycle or telecommute or strap on a jet-pack. so, yes, scenario 1 is easily logical.

but, i am here to caution you against easy logic.

- scenario 2 - work*2 is severly decapacitated by OCD, which while better than being decapitated by OCD, is nonetheless quite a hassle. perhaps she must walk on the street at this one precise location, making public transportation - or any transportation - a moot point. the offender's car is parked at the one & only geographical location that work*2 must place her feet before proceeding with her day. as long as the car is parked there, work*2 is parked, too.

- scenario 3 - work*2 lives in the sewers below the street and the offending vehicle is parked across her front door. this scenario obviously breaks down along the how-did-she-post-the-note lines unless... work*2 was away from home and upon returning found a vehicle parked across her front door. she cannot return home, thus she cannot eat, bathe, change clothes, or otherwise prepare for work. she wrote the note and skulked off into the bushes.

- scenario 4 - the offending vehicle is parked on the actual person of work*2. i didn't see any evidence of this, so it's pretty much unsupported, but possible.

- scenario 5 - work*2 knows personally and is messing with the owner of the offending vehicle. there's a lot of potential for inside jokes just in those few words that were scribbled on a green lined notecard and tucked in the driver's side window.

NOW.

here's one thing i didn't tell you yet, a tidbit i was holding back. work*2 signed her name: »karma«. for realz, yo! KARMA! knowing this little factoid makes scenario 5 more plausible, yes? yes. and, this:

- scenario 6 - work*2 is karma. yeah, what i mean is not that »karma« is a person's name, but rather that this note was written by Karma - THE Karma. let's look at the evidence: The Karma has 2 jobs - giving good stuff and giving bad stuff - and both jobs are quite important as a balance must be kept, so if The Karma could not get to work she'd probably leave a terse notification. The Karma would require that you move your car, yet The Karma would not report you nor have you towed. The Karma would let you know that The Karma knows who you are [(I got your license #.)] but The Karma would leave the ball in your court. The Karma would tell you what was expected, what you needed to do, but The Karma would leave it up to you to do it, and the consequences of non-compliance would be left shrouded in mystery.

but here's the thing. if The Karma wasn't at work today, does that mean that we got a free pass today or that she'll be back double-timing the work*2 tomorrow?! zoinks!