| $271.71 | October 4, 2012, 4:39 pm |
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is the amount of two uncashed checks from a job I held in 2004. Gonna go to the bank and see what they have to say.... Nevermind, false alarm. They were direct deposited and the checks are just for my records. Damn it! |
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| 25 Comments | |
| Best Man Speech | October 4, 2012, 9:59 am |
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Oh boy, the time is rapidly approaching and my best man speech is rather inappropriate thus far. Asking the fine upstanding anti-bellends of DW to help steer me in the right direction! Here's what I have so far: Well, I think I've accumulated a few more gray hairs these last couple weeks preparing my words for this special occasion. Not very far behind my brother I'm afraid. If Travis was the big man on campus in college, he's now the big kahuna, shaker and mover in Great Torrington. He has shown himself to be a natural born leader. In college, always the life of the party, he led the way to greater times in the dorm halls of Green Mountain College. But since those good ol' days, he has learned to take his love of playing and good times and turn them into a positive force in the community. A proponent of building local economy he has advocated for the use of Berkshares as a means to keep commerce within the community. Travis is about to share his life with a very special person and while sharing was never one of the character traits of his that I particularly remember as kids, I can now say he has been a big proponent of getting everyone in the community to share the road. If you're not one of the people he has gotten on a bicycle in the last several years (shame on you), maybe you are one of the people in your car shaking your fist at a pack of cyclists who have taken a rather liberal interpretation of the term 'share the road' and feel their healthy, human powered activity and power in numbers gives them a right to a rather healthy share. Now he gives what little free time he has when he's not at the shop making sure the Berkshire Bike and Board ship is sailing smoothly to do a radio show to further the cause for local community. Travis has treated me like a little brother. [beat] As kids, I always looked up to him and saw him as a role model. He was popular, he was cool, and if I was able to follow him down the same ski slopes on vacations to Killington or Sugarloaf, I was never able to do it with the same panache and style, flying over the edge of what to me back then looked like sheer cliffs guising as ski slopes. That was just the way it was: little brother would never be as good as big brother. Travis is a common sense, nuts and bolts kind of guy, while I have always had my head in the clouds and not the firmest grasp on common sense, which, I see it now, is the reason I received so much brotherly love when we were growing up. While he typically is the one who would get the bad rap for picking on me when we were kids, it wasn't always without warrant. I still feel bad about the time I kicked him in the shins with my ski boots on. I have no idea now why I would think that that was a fun way to get back at him for whatever brotherly bullying I felt he had committed against me at the time. But that's in the past. At some point in our storied relationship Travis decided being an [barely catch myself] a certain-sevel-letter-word, did not need to be synonymous with being cool. When this happy change took place, I cannot rightly say, (we're not talking decades ago, people, you know it was probably last month) but it bode well for me and it showed that Travis was finally maturing into the thoughtful, caring man we have all grown to love today. Thank God adolescence only lasts through one's twenties. As he's matured from a preppy punk into the fine, upstanding man he is today he now continually goes out of his way for me and looks out for me and I couldn't ask for more from a brother or a friend. Melanie is no slouch either. Smart, hardworking and caring, Travis is lucky to have such a special person in his life. Few people have had the sort of life challenges to overcome that Melanie has had to face. She is a fighter. [I'll add more here later] Please raise your glasses to both having a long, healthy life full of playing and sharing. |
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| 16 Comments | |
| what to do? ugh... (post office) | October 1, 2012, 7:39 pm |
Undeliverable as Addressed now what? The message doesn't give any clue as what I should do to make the package deliverable. I know why it's not deliverable (I no longer live there and mistakenly sent it to that address). Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr x-[ EDIT: here's more information: Your Item's Status Returned where??? I bought it on eBay. EDIT: I sent a request to USPS.com to hold my package at the local Northampton Post Office for me to pick it up and gave them the details that I posted here. Hopefully this will work! |
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| 3 Comments | |
| "Where did you learn about the company and/or position vacancy?" | September 26, 2012, 9:25 pm |
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A and B are both true answers (and are the same person). Which is the best answer to give on the application? Here are my proposed answers: A. Through the hiring manager B. Through a friend C. word of mouth... D. other [please specify] Thanks! |
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| 12 Comments | |
| Mah dream (just woke up) | September 8, 2012, 6:52 am |
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writing down dreams isn't easy due to their abstract nature. This dream takes place somewhere in the countryside. I got caught up in some criminal activity. There were some other bad folk that I had to make dead if I was going to come out of the thing alive. There was a school or a community building of some kind that was, for some reason, densely packed with very old land mines from "the war". There was a nearby building across a field from the 'community building' (where all the people were, mostly young people--children). The nearby building was a warehouse type building with slabs of heavy marble. I guess the marble was valuable. I had somehow got caught up in this thing involving some criminal, murderous-type folk. There were about five or so mob-type men competing for some kind of quasi-elaborate heist somehow involving the marble that would make them fairly wealthy but would involve the deaths of everyone else for it to work--not just each other, but the community building filled with people that was booby trapped with old landmines. No one living in the community knew the building was riddled with mines. I'm trying to remember how I got caught up in the whole mess. Someone was helping me out, tho. The mob-men and I and the person helping me were at one point in the execution of the plan to get the marble were in a war zone at the 'community building'. I had no interest in getting involved in this war-scene that suddenly appeared like a timewarp into the past (but was in the present). I watched as people got shot, including the person that helped me pull the heist off. I sensed the chaos of the war-scene would work to my advantage. It was nighttime during the war-scene, because it would be less risky to pull the heist off at night. So I watched as people got shot in this firefight. Then the war-scene ended. In the chaos of the aftermath I was able to escape, or finish executing the plan, which I had little time to do. I think there were still three other mob-men that survived, tho, who I was competing with for my life and the paydirt (which was, I guess, some slaps of marble in the old, very large, dusty, dark barn-like warehouse). It was now or never.. it was me or them. I did the final act to set the plan in motion. Everyone was asleep. It was late in the night. I don't know where the mob-men were. I think they were at a nearby place; I think at a low building with floursescent lights between the old warehouse and the 'community building' (that was booby-trapped with old mines). I set the mines so they would detonate in a few hours around at the crack of dawn when everyone was asleep. The other mob-men would be asleep as well at the 'community building'. Everyone tied to the heist would be obliterated and none of it would be tied back to me. I stole across the dark field back to the warehouse.. or my house.. and I may or may not have been accompanied by the person who had helped me do the heist.... I remember thinking 'the police will never get me, everyone (ie, the evidence of my being linked to it or their deaths) will be destroyed. I think the next scene was at some kind of house party and an old friend of mine was there and I double crossed him. It was really cold and I didn't invite him to leave the party because of the big scandal/murder thing I was involved in. I was on the phone with someone (I think related to the heist) and I finished talking with them and told my friend I had to go and left him in the cold. After everything was set, all that was to be done was to wait. In the last wee-hours of the night I was back at the warehouse to get the marble, but some other guy was trying to sneak it and I had I guess at that point forgotten what the purpose of the elaborate heist was--by the time I had set the landmines to kill everyone else--it was more about surviving being killed myself from the mob-men than it was to get the paydirt (which was slabs of marble). I started to help the kind of cloaked figure haul away some heavy slabs of marble, but then my dad and the other manager of the marble warehouse saw us and so I had to act like nothing was going on and stopped helping the guy take the marble. He went off with his marble and my marble was inside my dad's minivan on the floor. I was a little concerned my dad would see my marble. If he did, would he know what I was up to? That I was involved in some murderous scheme to get it? Perhaps because it was too far beyond what he'd ever think I could be caught up in or because he simply just wasn't paying attention or had his mind on something else, he didn't make the connection--or simply just didn't see the stolen marble at all. I think I then went back to the very cold house where I had left my friend and some of his friends and other people were still milling about in the dregs of the party that was winding down (it was almost dawn). My friend was really cross with me (and maybe my sister was there for a brief moment). I think I tried to explain to him why I had to leave, but the whole scene was rather muddled. All I remember is my friend's cross face, my sister possibly being disapproving, and maybe even my friend's parents in some periphery faculty being surprised and disappointed as well. I left my friend at the house again and I guess headed towards the 'community building'. The mines never detonated. Dawn came and went and I went back to the 'community building' and school was in session there and 'the town' was busy and bustling--all the people were concentrated around this heavily booby-trapped building/town area. I was a little nervous milling around the town--would the mines blow? Would they blow one by one or would they all blow at the same time? I saw in mind's eye the mines were sort of stagnating in thick, almost black, blood, like skulls stuck on spikes sticking out of the ground, but hidden beneath the town/community building. Were they sinking? It didn't look like they were going to blow, but they were weird. I think they were soaked in the blood from the war-zone earlier. Perhaps that's why they didn't detonate. I didn't say anything or do anything. I just kept milling about since everyone was busy bustling about getting on with their day. It was kind of like a turn of the century type scene at Plymouth Rock or something--it had a slight white-washed, bonnet, pilgrim innocence to it. Even though it sort of occurred to me that I hadn't actually done anything criminal since the mines failed to detonate and that I could save myself from following through with this heinous crime, I felt like the act had been done, I had already committed the crime by setting the mines and stealing off in secret, even if it failed. And so I didn't back out of the evil-deed I had committed. I waited. For some reason leaving the town/building was not a good option, because then I'd lose sight of the other surviving mob-men that I had to make sure became dead. If I stayed milling around the town they would remain in the community building a non-threat to me. But if I left a safe distance to wait the eventual detonation of the bombs, they would somehow escape and be at large again and I'd be at their (lack of) mercy again. When it became evident the bombs were never going to blow, I remember going back to the warehouse and milling about there. Everything sort of diffused (ie. the tension, the danger, and I guess the bombs). I then woke up. There's probably other things I haven't recalled, but I will have to edit them in later if I remember anything else. |
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| booby salad | September 2, 2012, 9:57 pm |
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au natural (.)(.) :) :) :) Montreal was nice; full contact as it were. My foot didn't fare too well, tho, as expected. Quite swollen presently. Ahhh, but it was worth it. |
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| 15 Comments | |
| Yay, I'm a forum legend! | August 22, 2012, 6:09 pm |
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Man, what an upgrade from forum spammer! :D woot! |
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| 16 Comments | |
| Just hit a deer on my bike @ 35mph | August 8, 2012, 8:25 pm |
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Lucky to walk away. Hope the deer was too. Inb4 everyone: Don't ride at dusk you reckless fucking bastard. |
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| 26 Comments | |
| Pictionary | August 4, 2012, 11:02 pm |
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Wow, this game has been around for a long time. I dusted off an old Pictionary game I hadn't played in .. decades .. and the game is apparently made in 1984. Indeed, we decided the word 'blowpipe' was a dated term since none of us knew what it was. Was a fun game. It see-sawed a lot. At first we were winning, then the other team somehow got a very comfortable lead, and then somehow we rallied and wittled it down until we were both on the final AP square, duking it out for the glory of victory. Shoot, I don't remember what the last all play was. Oh yes, 'picnic'. Some notable drawings for our team were 'tuning fork' (probably about 7 or 8 seconds) 'up' (about one or two seconds); and then the word was either 'launch' 'take off' or 'lift off' which I guessed in about 5 seconds (that was a real fluke). A fail on our team was when I failed to guess 'Jupiter' (my teammate did not make a textbook diagram of the solar system) still, when cosmos, sun, astronomy, astrology, stars, heavens, celestial and slew of other words did not get me anywhere, I should have thought to start naming planets. Oh, and then there was an all play on 'fortune cookie'. I used about half the booklet of paper on that one (I was drawing). That was pretty ridiculous, but fun. I was actually kind of surprised the opposing team didn't get it before we did, because my partner was really dropping the ball on that one. It took about 4 minutes to establish "chinese food". After that, I drew a fortune cookie on a plate... and she somehow got it. I'm half tempted to upload a sequence of drawings for it. The other one we got that was really hard was 'illusion' (I used the other half of the book on that one). I heard the opposing team guess "mirage" about 20 seconds in and I was like "wtf, how they get that far already?" (I don't know how to draw a desert). Finally my partner guessed optical illusion after an endless series of a stick figure looking at an "oasis" (a lake and then later a palm tree added) and then looking at even ground... I redrew this over and over and over and over... but the guessing was very slow to get anywhere. Driving home just now there was a car accident near where I live (a somewhat dangerous intersection that I never stop at). There were a bunch of police cars and about 3 or 4 different cars involved (but I could only see one that was badly damaged). tsk tsk... |
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| Alzheimers / Care of elderly | August 1, 2012, 9:06 pm |
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Hi, My grandpa has Alzheimers. I figured I'd start a thread to discuss the mysteries and challenges of dealing with someone you know who has it or to just discuss it generally. My grandfather knows that he hasn't done much exercise today so therefore he doesn't need to eat much at the meal time, but he doesn't know what I just said 10 seconds ago, nor what my name is, or who is living in his house. The odd thing is, no one wants to emphasize to my grandfather his disease. He doesn't know he has Alzheimers. He doesn't know anything is wrong with him. Today at dinner he said something to the effect of : "I have a confession to make; I am having too much fun." I suppose it's nice that despite the degeneration of his mind, he is happy. But he can be combative and sometimes I think giving him a necklace with a little placard on it that reminds him that he has the disease might help him be less combative and not be so confused as to why he doesn't know things or why there are people living upstairs in his house (my dad and I) or why my dad has converted the Eurythmy room into a common good finance office. EDIT: I have heard stories about Alzheimers on the radio and often they are portrayed as a fight. But no one in my family is fighting the disease. We are giving him medicines to help it a bit, but it's not like every day we are doing anything for my grandfather to help him combat it. I guess you need to know you have a disease before you can fight it. Like I said, he doesn't even know he has a problem. But maybe since he's pretty old, it's best to just let him enjoy his twilight years in peace. |
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