Quick update.

Didn't have a chance to go to the flea market after all. Too nice a weekend to blow at a flea market to find a stupid razor. I'll find one next week.

GD

And the addiction gets worse!

It's not a chemical dependance. No need to worry! I'll just be running all over Monterey and Santa Cruz counties to find a soon to be cherished Gillette Adjustable DE razor!

I'm obsessed with finding one. The ones on eBay are going for too much! Damn wetshaving addiction!!!! >: (

I'll also be going to the Santa Cruz flea market tomorrow morning to look. Wish me luck.

Maybe, one day, I'll explain the whole deal with wetshaving. It just feeeeels . . . soooo . . . goooood.

I'll post tomorrow and let you know what happend.

GD

Yes. I am a nerd. part ii - I waited in line . . .

. . . for four and a half hours. Ep. III was almost worth the wait.

The movie starts off with a bang. Very entertaining.

Things get a little slow for a bit then picks up again.

Another slow bit, and then a smash/bang finale. Kick ASS!!!

The very end of the movie. Hmmph. How can I describe it? It kinda tasted of cheese.

GD

p.s.
I did say I wouldn't give details. ; p

Yes. I am a nerd.

Tonight's the night. Of all the boring things that can be done on a Wednesday night, I'll be waiting in line at the local megaplex for Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.

I was planning on watching the midnight showing of the movie, but that was sold out last week. I ended up picking up tickets to the 12:10 showing instead. Damn! I've gotta wait 10 minutes after the first group?! Anyway, I've got my foldable chairs in my car waiting to be used. I'm not going alone though. Unfortunately it's not a female companion to share in the joy that is Star Wars.

I've read a review by Kevin Smith, and the one line that sticks in my head is "This is the movie fanboys have been waiting for since Phantom Menace", or something like that. As soon as I get outta work, I'm gonna meet Ernie (my bud) at Round Table for pizza and beer. After that, the waiting begins.

I'll post my personal review of the movie tomorrow. I won't go into too much detail, I'll just let you know if it's worth the eight to ten bucks you have to pay for the movie.

GD

Thank God I'm back!!!

As you know, Thursday was the beginning of my weekend. It didn't go as good as I'd hoped.

Thursday night I went home and was immediately bombarded and told we were leaving ASAP. I was gonna take my time to pack and I ended up throwing everything I needed into a backpack. I didn't forget anything I must say. So we split Salinas by ~5:30pm and arrived in Los Banos about 6:30pm. We (my mother, brother and I) picked up my aunt and were on the road by 7pm.

Averaging 80mph (about 129kph for you in the Great White North) on I-5, we arrived in Chula Vista, CA at ~12:30am. Pretty kick-ass time in my opinion. I rarely took the car off cruise-control during the trip.

Now when I said we were going to San Diego in the previous post, that was the initial plan. My mother got the bright idea of going ahead and taking a visit south of the border to visit my sister. My sister lives in Tijuana with her husband (psycho mofo) and her baby boy (1yr old). She has another boy on the way and is due in mid August (it's those terribly mild weeks in November that brings us Augustans out). Though we were going to VISIT, it didn't mean we were gonna stay south of the border for ANY reason. So we went to Chula Vista and got a couple of rooms at a very nice Days Inn right off of I-5. Easy highway access! : )

Later that Friday morning, after getting a few hours of sleep, we went across the border on Mexicoach. Mexicoach is a bus company that allows one to leave a car in their parking lot (surrounded by security) and go across the border on their bus for cheap without having to worry about getting shit stolen if one had decided to take one's car across the border or waiting for HOURS at the border to try to get back across in those atrocious lines without having an inspection done.

Whew! Sorry about that . . . anyway, as I was saying:

So we waited in TJ in the Mexicoach depot for my sister to show up. It's been a long time since I last saw my sister and she looked radiant. She glowed. Motherhood did wonders for her. Her baby boy was gorgeous. A rambunctious little bugger, too! Kept on running this way and that! We said our hellos and went to their car.

Picture this, I'm "big boned" and so is my aunt. My sister is pregnant. So . . . my sister, her husband, her baby, my aunt, my mother, my brother and I were all to squeeeeze into a Honda Civic Si. Believe it or don't, we all fit. After and uncomfortable 20 minute drive, we got to my sisters' place. We had a few refreshments and my brother in law suggested we go to Ensenada. He got a hold of another car from somewhere and we took off, a little more comfortable on this ride . . . until we got back on the road.

I swear, the guy took . . . every . . . single . . . pothole he could find. And stop signs?! What stop signs?!! And to fan the flames even further, he started drinking beer on the way! I couldn't take it any more. The guy has always been an asshole and he'll never change! I told him off! He just laughed it off saying that there was no need to worry. He's got connections with the cops all over this part of Mexico. I obviously wasn't worried about the cops, I was worried about our lives! He kept drinking all the way to Ensenada.

When we got there, my brother and I separated from that crazy bastard and toured the shops on our own. We were there a couple of hours when we finally decided we should leave.

This is where it got REALLY hairy. As we're driving back on the fudged up highway, it's getting dark and my brother in law says everything will be "OK". He goes on to say that he has reeeealllly bad night vision . . . and laughs! We thought he was trying to kid around, he wasn't. He was swerving all over the place on the way TO Ensenada and it was even worse on the way back to TJ.

We eventually made it back in one piece, but we made it back 12 minutes too late. The last Mexicoach bus leaves the TJ station at 9pm. We had to walk back across to good'ol U.S. of A. We really didn't have to wait too long though, mostly everyone was getting ready to party in TJ that Friday night so the walk back was fairly quick. I was sad to have left my sister, but I was done with TJ for a while.

The rest of the trip was ok. We visited Universal City and ended up going to the Universal Studios theme park. It was pretty neat! Last time I was there, I was sixteen. With the cost of entrance, you qualified for a 2005 pass. All you gotta do is fill out some info, get your photo taken and the park gives you a 2005 pass. Of course, there are blackout dates. Only on weekends for the most part. But the rest of the year, you're golden!

I think I may take another trip next month. If I go visit my sister, I'm stayin' near the Mexicoach station and checking out the shops near it. There is plenty of places to eat and shop. I ain't goin' nowhere with my brother -in-law!

GD

p.s.
Please excuse the grammer. I didn't check it this time.

T.G.I.Th.

Boy, the last couple of days have been insane. I'm so glad that at the end of today, my weekend begins! I'm goin' to San Diego tonight to visit my sister.

MMI, the company I work for has a problem keeping us up to date technologically. If you're not at the corporate office, you're five years behind. A couple of weeks ago we finally got the approval to purchase a new PC for our analytical lab. We have a specialized database that was created in Access 2.0.

Access 2.0 for those of you not in the 'know' was part of Office 6.0. Office 6.0 was made for Windows 3.11.

Let that sink in a bit . . .

When corporate finally let us be only a couple of years behind and got us a PC that was an AMD K6-2 running at 433MHz in 1999, we were happy. Until we tried using the database. The 'new' PC had Office '97. Office '97 didn't like the taste of the database and kept on spitting out these errors. I informed the MIS department at corporate and asked them if they could figure it out. They couldn't.

So . . . with my knack at hammering at things until they work, I broke out the sledgehammer and got the database to work in Office '97!

Now we're five years behind (kinda, if not more) and we were still running that AMD K6-2 on its last legs. We received a BRAND NEW DELL PC that is running Office 2003. Can you guess where this is going?

Sure enough, even with the assurances from corporate that we were NOT going to have ANY problems converting the database over to 2003, I knew we were.

Guess what?

Since Tuesday afternoon I've been swinging away with that sledgehammer and I've got most of the kinks out of the database . . . except for probably the most important part. The Client Report. That is the Analytical labs lifeblood. If we can't send that out to our client farms, we're screwed.

In the meantime I'm going to have to copy and past data into Word and send out a crappy lookin' report. But if I know our clients, they don't care about looks. Think about it . . . mushroom growers? They just want clear numbers. I can give that to them.

Now I apologize, but I must leave. I've gotta get back to swingin' the hammer . . .

GD

Morning. Time for Spanish lit.

This is from one of the blogs I read. Unfortunately it's in spanish. The title is "Ene, Ce, Ese" or "N, C, S". It can be translated but it wouldn't have the same impact. The blogger is La Princessa Radioactiva.

Check it out. You'll like it.

Ene, Ce, Ese

Nada, nunca, no, nariz, necesitar, nihilismo, natural, negativo, noviazgo, necio, neutro, nulidad, niño, niña, necesitar, nivelar, nicho, nervios, navegar, núcelo, noble, nube.

Nosotros.

Calentura, cuidar, crimen, corsetería, cosquillas, creíble, contender, consejo, conjunto, comprometer, compenetrar, combinar, coerción, claro, carcajada, calmar, corporal, candor, cómico, comprensión, contar.

Contigo.

Salvaje, sable, sacrificio, salivar, sangrar, sana, sabor, sentada, sanatorio, serena, sesos, sentir, soberbia, sonora, sanatorio, solitaria, sombría, sudor, sueño, susurro.

Sintigo.

"Wubba, wubba, wubba! Good night! God Bless!"

Everybody have a good weekend, and good luck on the training Erin!

GD

It's gonna be a good weekend (knock on wood).

It's been a while since I've had a FULL week. This definately counts as one. Even though my busy-ness began Tuesday, I'm counting it as a full week because of the trend analyses for all the farms. I just finished those right before lunch. WOO HOO! I rewarded myself with a kick ass chicken tostada at Sarita's (decent mexican food).

After getting back to the lab, I went to check out some of our testing rooms to find out how some of our treatments are doing. There seems to be a lot of promise in one particular strain. I gave the good news to my boss. Boy, did that ever make his day. He's been stressing over tiny things lately. I hope this bit'o'news helps out.

Also, I'm gonna watch Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy tonight. I read the book years ago, I've been busy but tonight is a good night to watch the movie. Hardly anybody at the theater tonight. It's gonna be excellent!

Tomorrow's looking good, too. I'll be running a TH4 and verticillium PCR in the morning and by the afternoon, the gel should be done and I'll have the results for the requesting farm by the time I'm done for the day!

Aaaaand . . .

My uncle told me last night that his boys (23 and 25) will be racing their bikes at the Salinas Sports Complex, Friday and Saturday night. Tickets are cheap, beer isn't. It all works out in the end. I'll be tailgating!



Now time for another joke. This one requires a visual aid. What I want you to do when I say "NOW", make a fist with either hand and place your fist on your nose with the opening on the thumb side wrapping around your nose. This works better if you're telling it to someone. Trust me.

Now for the joke:

"Why don't roosters wear underwear?"
"Because their pecker's up" (NOW!) "HERE!"

GD

boy, that was bad!

This one's for Baabblu

Why do brides wear white?
So she can match the stove and refrigerator.

Pa da pump!

GD

p.s.
i feel a little guilty about that one.

Losing . . . focus! Must . . . stay . . . awake!

There is something that I have to do at work every few months:

Trend reports! These things are the most boring pieces of crap you can look at if you're not a mushroom grower.

Though I was a grower for a while, being a grower is not my cup'o'tea. I understand all the numbers and the graphs that go with the trend reports. I know what the growers are looking for. I just hate having to copy, paste and edit all the data so it all makes sense to the grower. Under the whole MMI, Inc umbrella, there is maybe . . . mayyybeee . . . two other growers that would be able to sort out all the information direct from our database. And of those two, I think only one of them knows how to copy, paste and edit from Access to Excel.

Each one of these damned things takes an hour to do. And guess what? Thats with me using the last report as a template. I open up the previous report and I copy the data from Access and paste that data to the old Excel report and edit the hell out of it. If I were to start from scratch (IF!) it would easily take me three hours per report.

I've got ten to do. I'm lucky most of the other farms don't need them. They do their own.

I've completed three this morning.

Lord help me . . .

GD

New image . . .

I figured it was time to change my profile image. I'd like to thank Sarahbelle for the link to Planearium.

Chances are that Sarahbelle has no idea who I am because I've never commented on her blog nor do I know her. I feel like a stalker just reading her blogs. I read them because they really are funny at times. I try to bookmark any good funny blogs I happen to chance upon. Anyway . . . try to make up your own Southpark character. I showed the image to one of my friends and he thought I had somehow got Matt Stone to draw me Southpark style. It's a pretty good resemblance of me.

GD

p.s.
move mouse over About Me on the top left of this blog.

Too heavy . . .

Ok, the last few posts have been a little heavy. Let's change it up a little . . .

Guy 1: OH MY GOD!! Did you hear?!!!!
Guy 2: No. What?
Guy 1: It's been all over the radio! Michael Jackson just died of food poisoning!
Guy 2: What?!! No way!
Guy 1: Yeah! He ate a ten year old weiner!

Ba da pump!

Here's another one, but this works out better telling it to someone in person. My barber told me this one.

Guy: Did you know that Micheal Jackson is tired of all the child molestation charges and the whole court issue that he's now going after twenty-eight year olds?

That's my time for tonight. I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

Ba da pump!

GD

Mother II

Ok, I reread that last post and I want to clear up something.

I know who my mother is. Here's the thing: My mother gave me up to my father and his wife when I was six because I was a pain in the ass and I screwed up her plans. My fathers' wife is the person I now consider my mom. My mother is my biological mother and my mom is the person who raised me since I was six. She put up with all my shit growing up and she still considers me her son.

In all that time, my mother has sought me out only a few times and then dissappeared.

I had a brother who would have been 26 this year. He passed on a couple of years ago.

By his own hand.

I blame my mother.

I didn't know my brother.

He was in juvenile hall somewhere in California since the age of 14. He took the blame for the "accidental death" of a friend of his. Eventually word got out that the person that caused the accident was an uncle of mine. He let my brother take the blame. He told other family members what really occured and nobody said anything. My own mother knew of it and she still let my brother rot in juvenile hall. My uncle was later shot and killed in a failed home robbery a few years after my brother was sent to juvenile hall. I don't really know my mothers' side of the family. My father wouldn't allow me to communicate with them. You can see why. Most of them are all fuck-ups.

Anyway, during all this I wasn't allowed to write to my brother. Nobody would let me know where he was. I was told that it was better this way.

I don't know when he was let out. It was sometime in the last few years. My brother had been wanting to visit me, but my mother said it wouldn't be a good idea to bother me. This is what I've been told by one of my mothers' sisters. She is one of my aunts on my mothers' side that actually followed the straight and narrow. My aunt kept telling my brother to visit me just the same. That it wouldn't be a burden.

I wish he would have listened to her.

My brother really loved the uncle that put him in junenile hall. He looked up to him for some reason.

The morning that he shot himself, my brother asked for my uncles favorite breakfast. That was a huge red flag there and my mother missed it. After having breakfast, he went to his room, pulled out a .22 and tried to finish his days on earth. It didn't quite work out too well.

He survived almost twenty hours on life support before my mother decided to take the advice of doctors. He was brain-dead. It was another five hours or so before his body decided to give up.

I tried to have some sort of relationship with my mother after that . . . but I couldn't keep doing it. She's made too many bad decisions. And as far as I'm concerned, only one good one. I could have been a major fuck-up myself if she hadn't been so selfish and given me up. I look at her and I always think what could have been.

I could have gone to baseball games with my brother.

I could have taught him how to rollerblade and play rollerhockey.

We could have gone to the bars, had a few beers, talk to some girls . . .

We could have been great friends. I could have had the relationship I see with my best friends and their brothers. I don't have that opportunity now.

But I do have another chance. I have another younger brother. He's 15. I have to make the most of it with him. You never know what may happen.

GD

Mother

"Mother! Tell your children not to walk my way. Tell your children not to hear my words, What they mean, What they say . . ."
- Danzig

Yesterday as I was arriving home, I passed my mother. She waved frantically at me with a big smile, I waved weakly back. I guess that run-in had me thinking enough of her to have caused the following dream . . .

I find myself with her and her husband. She's driving to her business just outside of town (as far as I know she doesn't have a business) and drives up to a mail box where she punches in a code and she gets her mail. I know what you're thinking. You've never seen computerized mail box. Neither have I, which was weird but it's a pretty good idea!

Anyway, it appears her business is supplying convenience stores. We walk in to her warehouse and there are teens working inside. One of them drops something and I help him pick it up. The place is buzzing with activity. Everyone knows what to do. My mother still has that big smile on her face while she explains what's going on.

We go to another section of the warehouse that appears to have been converted to a shelter and chapel. My mother leaves me to prepare for her sermon. Her husband appears and begins telling me that they help the community by hiring the teens and help the homeless with shelter and counseling.

I wake up.

Now, as far as I know none of what happens in the dream is real. I don't believe she is involved with stores, warehouses, shelters, or chapels.

I don't talk to my mother. I don't know her.

GD

The Pixies

Well, last night I found a whole crapload of cd's I'd bought when I was in high school and a few years after graduating. I think I was the only one listening to The Pixies at my school. Everyone else was listening to KDON, a popular top 40 station. You know the kind, MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, Boyz II Men . . .

Anyway, I just found some cd's I thought I'd lost or had stolen. I'm especiallly happy to have found all my Pixies cd's! I've just ripped them onto my pc. I'm ashamed to say that I also have some of those shameful top 40 albums (cough)hammer(cough)!

Since last night, I've probably listened to "Hey" about 20 times. That song just kicks ass! At work I just had my Rio Karma going all day with all the albums. Probably my favorite album is Death To The Pixies. It has some truly great live versions of their hits. The live versions of both "Hey" and "Where is my mind" are mind blowing. I get goosebumps every time!

I was also surprised to have found Nine Inch Nails' "Pretty Hate Machine". I gave a listen to it. It'd been a while. I finally listened to the lyrics after all these years. Pretty powerful stuff. That Trent sure had no luv for the guh'ment!

In the same genre, I also found Ministry's "Land of Rape and Honey". Boy, was I into some weird shit! I guess I was the typical angry youth. Of course, I was the quiet angry youth. My parents really had me in check then! I couldn't get away with almost anything.

Almost . . . >: P

GD

I luv my baby! <: (

For the last few months I've been putting off changing out my sparkplugs. I mean, to have it done at the stealership, it would'a run me almost $800!!!

At first, I didn't have the money. So I purchased everything I needed little by little. Then it was not knowing how to do it. So I went online and visited my New Beetle family on NewBeetle.org and searched the forums. Finally it was excuse after excuse: it was raining, it was too hot, it was too cold, I was too tired, I had to go to a party, I had to go to Penny Farthings (a pub) . . . excuse after excuse.

Well Tesla ,my New Beetle, finally said "ENOUGH!!!"

She put me in check. Literally! Her CEL came on. For those of you unfamiliar with automotive technical terminology, a CEL is a Check Engine Light.

When that happend, I nearly crapped my pants. I knew I was pushing it. That same day it was raining and cold, but I still changed out my sparkplugs. My fingers were raw and numb from the cold.

I know that once you've taken care of a problem, the CEL will clear and you can go about your merry way. My hadn't cleared. It took a whole week of driving and and reminding myself that it would eventually clear. It finally did.

But now I have an intermittent CEL. It's either my gas cap not tightend properly or the MAF sensor. The MAF is the Mass Air Flow sensor. It basically tells the computer how much air is available for the engine to use. Apparently the MAF is sometimes a problem in New Beetles.

I'm gonna wait until the CEL lights up again so I can take it to the stealership to read the code and figure out the problem.

Wish me luck!

GD

You're money, Baby!

Friday after work, I had dinner with mom. Later I was having a beer with a friend (Ernie) at Applebee's. A couple of hours after that I was on the road to Vegas . . . on a whim.

I got to Applebees a little after Ernie had arrived. I hadn't even finished my first beer when he gets a call from a friend of his asking if he wanted to go to Las Vegas. Ernie half-jokingly asked me if I wanted to go. We paid our tab, finished our beers and split!

We picked up some clothes and things, and left to pick up Ernies' friend, Raf.

When we got to Rafs' place, Raf and Mike were waiting. I've never met Mike, but he was coming along as well. We had room in Ernies' Vitara, so we all boogied.

We arrived in Vegas roughly at 3:30 in the morning. The Strip was kickin'! I mean the place was packed! People were cruisin' the Strip, music was blasting, people were drinkin' . . . and we had just arrived from an eight hour drive with no idea of where to start.

After cruisin' the Strip ourselves, we decided to head off to the Luxor (the black pyramid w/the Sphinx). We wandered a bit, hit a card table, lost some money, won some money and we separated into two groups. Ernie and I were done for the morning and we went to the car to nap. Raf and Mike were just getting started and kept on.

We woke up a couple of hours later and hit up a breakfast buffet next door to the Luxor, some castle looking casino that I can't remember the name of right now (great scrambled eggs). We hadn't seen Raf or Mike in a while and got back to the car for another nap. Raf and Mike arrive and woke us up and figured we should find a place to stay. We drove around some and found a ratty place for cheap.

Mike stayed to crash, Raf wanted to be dropped off somewhere and Ernie and I had slept enough to keep us going for the day.

After dropping off Raf at some chicks place he knew of (long story), Ernie and I took off to check out Fremont street. Now Fremont street is that one place you see in some movies/shows/commercials that has the ceiling that's a giant big screen. During the day, it's used as an awning. Nighttime is when the shows begin. As fortune would have it, we had arrived there at ten in the morning. No big screen shows for us.

We did the tourist thing and checked out the various shops and the clones of those shops and the clones of those shops. It was fun! We played cards at the Horseshoe just to say we did and lost some more money there. About three o'clock we called it quits and took off to the hotel to sleep some.

After a few hours of sleep, we took care of the three S's and had breakfast at Denny's. It was dark now and we figured we should be able to check out the Fremont street show now.

When we got there, the place was packed! All the kiosks were open now and selling their wares. There was this kick-ass artist there that would make awesome, detailed paintings with spray-paint. There were a couple of bands playing that were quite impressive. And the best part of all, some casino was selling monster cans of Fosters for a BUCK!!! Boy, did we take advantage of that! Whooo!

Well to make this long story short, we got back to the hotel about 1am, got some sleep, woke up about five, were on the road by 5:30 and arrived home at 1pm.

There's some more to this story but, I wanna have more material for later.

So much for the Histories!

GD

The Histories

I purchased a book about a year ago. It's probably something someone would read in Lit class. It's a book by Herodotus called The Histories. I like the era, I've read other books from about that time. I've picked it up several times since I bought it and I never get passed page 5.

Now, I've read the Oddysey say, ohhhh about fifty times since I discovered it in elementary school. I've read about ten different versions of it. I've read it with the protagonist called Oddyseus and Ullyses.

I've read the Illiad when I was in Junior high (not as good as the Oddysey). I've read Dantes' Inferno (GREAT read).

Julian (Gore Vidal) is one of my more recent re-reads. I've read that one about 5 time in the last two years. You pick up little details you missed the first (2nd, 3rd) time through.

What I'm trying to get at here is that I like that broad time period. So, why can't I get further than page FIVE in The Histories!

I am going to make the attempt this weekend to finish it. No, not an attempt. I AM going to FINISH IT!!!

GD

Hmm!

This is almost a perfect description of me . . .

You Are 55% Normal (Somewhat Normal)

While some of your behavior is quite normal... Other things you do are downright strange You've got a little of your freak going on But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself

How Normal Are You?

Who would'a thunk?!

GD