Lost: What They Died For

It took six years but Lost finally pissed me off.  I can now see what all of the haters are talking about.  After tonight's episode, I don't think I can watch it anymore.  It wasn't just one thing, there were two incidents that brought about my anger, that caused me to see right though this show and see it as the sham it really is. 

The first thing - who in the hell keeps their milk in a glass pitcher?  Every normal person in the world keeps their damn milk in the damn carton or plastic jug it came in.  Who in the hell are they trying to impress at breakfast that their milk needs to be in a big glass pitcher?  This show is so lame.

The second thing, the one that pushed me over the edge, also involved Jack.  How can he call himself a surgeon, how can he be a real doctor when he stitched up Kate that way?  How could he stitch her up with that small area to work with.  A real doctor would have had her take her shirt off.  A real doctor would have ripped her shirt off Hulk Hogan style to have some room to work.  At least that’s what I would have done. 

Just kidding.  There is no way I could hate this show.  I am sure Sunday night I will have some doubts and unanswered questions, but I doubt that I will ever have any serious complaints, other than it being over and not having anything else to occupy my TV time.

In tonight’s episode Jacob finally comes through and explains why he picked everyone and we finally got to see who will fill his shoes.  Something about the way he said “for as long as you can” made me think that Jack might not be in his new role for very long.  I think there might be another protector waiting in the end.  I think that new protector could be Ben.  I was shocked to see Ben switch back to the old Ben so easily.  But Ben doesn’t do anything without a Ben plan.  I don’t think he bought MIB’s promise of keeping the island all to himself once MIB was free from it.  Especially after Not Locke said he wants Desmond to destroy it.  But my theories have all proved pretty worthless.

What is going to happen at the concert?  Desmond needs all of his Oceanic buddies there for some reason.  Will Daniel Faraday/Whidmore save the day?  Will he cause some cataclysmic electromagnetic event that will bring the Island-verse and LA-verse in alignment?  I guess we only have a few days to find out.

What are you plans for the big day?  My kids are really excited.  On Sunday, I started to hype them up for the event. 

“Next week at this time, we will have eaten an early dinner.”

“Next week at this time, you guys will have had your showers and have your pajamas on.”

“Next week at this time, you will get to try a very special drink, called Sleepy Juice – made with warm milk (out of the DAMN plastic jug – I am not a glass pitcher poseur) and a dose of Benadryl.”

“Next week at this time, you will be fast asleep and Mommy and Daddy will be watching four and half hours of Lost.”

I really don’t know how it is all going to work out.  There are still some many questions.  Will we find out the significance of the numbers?  Will they be able to stop the Man in Black and save the island?  Will we ever find out his real name?  Will the survivors get to go home?  Who will end up protecting the island?  Will Kate really look as hot as I hope she does in that little black dress?

He Shall Be Known as 6

My 5 YO shall henceforth be known as my 6 YO.  His real birthday was ten days ago, but his big party was today, so to him he wasn’t officially 6 until he was surrounded by eleven kids screaming happy birthday.  That works for me and I am sure there are a few people out there that would agree with that logic as well.  Who wouldn’t want to delay or even skip getting a year older if there wasn’t a party to mark the event. 

We had the party at one of those places with all of the inflatable slides and moon bounces and obstacle courses.  The kids had a great time and I had a pretty good time too.  I acted like one of the kids and tried out a little of every thing.  I even held a little how-to session in one of the moon bounces on doing front and back flips.  I called it quits after a few of each when I under rotated a front flip and rattled my teeth and jarred my spine.  Maybe I should start skipping birthdays too, this old age stuff is beginning to hurt too much.

I had one of those proud geek/father moments when I passed by the 12 kids all sitting down to engorge themselves on pizza and chips and soda.  I overheard this snippet of conversation.

Little Girl: “Don’t drink your soda so fast, your belly will explode.”

My 6 YO: “That’s totally BUSTED, your stomach would not explode.”

My 7 YO: “Yeah, you would burp first and release the gas.”

6 YO and 7 YO together: “Busted.”

I had to step out of the room because I was getting all misty.  My two boys, ahem, men, busting urban myths before my very eyes.  I have been catching them using “plausible” and “confirmed” in conversations for the past few weeks and their eyes lit up a little yesterday when I broke out the duct tape to try to seal up the top of the heavy bag.

We are planning our own Mythbuster-esque experiment this summer when the weather gets a little warmer.  We are going to test out the non-Newtonian properties of a corn starch and water solution.  The only problem so far is trying to score a 100 pounds or more of corn starch or enough to fill a turtle shaped plastic sandbox (shh, don’t tell my wife that we are planning this, she has forgotten all about the sandbox I have hidden in the shed).  If anyone out there knows where I can get that much corn starch, let me know and I will teach you how to walk on water.  Of course we are going to start small scale and build up to the main event once we get the proper water to corn starch ratio right.

Bustin’ Myths and Getting Older (my 6 YO is the one drenched in sweat with the little red arrow above his head):

Happy Birthday big guy!

Up in Smoke

Today was a beautiful day.  I got up early, walked out of the house to a beautiful sunny, warm day.  I spent seven hours working in the yard, mowing, weed-eating, hanging up the heavy bag, putting up the canopy on the gazebo, watering the garden, etc.  It went much better than last Saturday. 

Last Saturday was windy and a bit on the cool side.  The wind did a good job of stirring up all of the pollen, so I immediately started sneezing when I walked outside.  Not a problem, I am used to it by now.  I mowed the front lawn with the push mower and then moved on to the tractor for the backyard.  About 20 minutes into the backyard, the tractor seemed to be slowing down.  I thought it was my imagination, sort of an allergy induced mind trick to make me feel like the lawn was going to take longer to mow. 

As I turned the tractor to make another pass on the lawn, the wind suddenly died down and I caught sight of something not right.  A little plume of smoke was coming from the front of the engine.  I hadn’t noticed it before because the wind was blowing hard and my already clogged nose wasn’t reporting anything other than its hatred of nature.  I shut off the mower and let it cool down (i.e. I walked around the yard cursing and kicking at things). 

When I returned, I inspected the engine and couldn’t find anything that could be causing it to smoke.  This isn’t the first time I have caught the tractor on fire, two years ago I ran over a small pile of leaves and they got caught around the exhaust and with a little breeze, burst into flames.

I thought something similar was happening, maybe with it being so windy, something got stuck around the engine and was just burning off.  I inspected the engine and exhaust and couldn’t find anything.  I got back on and started her up.  Everything was right as rain, for another 5 minutes.  This time, my nose, taking a momentary break from expelling high speed snot, got a good whiff of burning oil.  And there was that smoke again, this time a lot thicker.  I jumped off and saw the entire side of the engine covered in motor oil.  I messed around with it some more, added oil, checked for leaks, but I couldn’t find the source of the leaking and burning oil.  I tried to start it up again but the engine had seized and refused to start.  More cursing, more kicking at real and imaginary things.

Get it fixed or sell it for scrap metal?  After a long internal debate and then a very simple conversation with my wife, the scrap metal option would probably be the easiest and least expensive in the long run.  I headed out to what I thought would be a relatively quick trip to Sears to buy a replacement.  I already knew what I wanted, having seen it every time I get one of their ads in the mail.

I waited patiently as the Sears salesperson worked with other customers and when it was my turn, I told her what I was looking for.  She showed me a couple different models, explained some features, and even tried selling me their top of line professional garden tractor with a 54” deck, PTO, 23” rear tires and a reserve fuel tank for twice the price of the one I wanted.  I explained I wanted to mow the lawn, not harvest the back 40.  I gently guided her back to the one I wanted.  Craftsman lawn tractor, built by Husqvarna, 46” deck, 24 HP engine.  She said I was in luck, there was one in stock.  We headed to the outside warehouse to take a look at it.  We then proceeded to look at every single tractor in the building to find the right one.  It wasn’t there.

I asked if she could check with another store to see if they had one.  “No, they don’t,” she explained, “I called the two closest stores last night looking for one for another customer and they were all out.”

Last night.  You didn’t have one last night.  Did you think that the warehouse would magically grow one over night?  Why did we spend an hour reading the serial numbers off of 150 tractors if you knew you didn’t have one last night?  Did you think that over night, two of the other tractors might get frisky and spawn a new one?

“Can I have the floor model?”  (I really didn’t want the floor model, I saw at least 10 different kids jump up and down on it while I was waiting, who knows what other abuse it has taken in the year that it has sat there.)

“No, we don’t sell the floor models.  I could order you one, it would be here by Wednesday.”

“I can deal with Wednesday.”

“Well, it would be here on Wednesday, but it comes unassembled in a crate.  It would be ready for pick up by Friday or Saturday.”

My mind quickly calculated how many people saw me come into the warehouse with this woman and if I could be identified as a suspect if she was found dead with a Craftsman lawn tractor shoved up her ass.  “Umm, I will think about it.”  And quickly left before the voices in my head could persuade me to do it.

I headed to Home Depot.  Big mistake.  The is the busiest Home Depot on the east coast, one the busiest in the country and a Saturday in spring is perhaps one of their busiest days.  There was not a single parking space open in the entire lot.  In my current mood, a large crowd of people would not be the best place for me to be.  Lowes was another ten minutes away and if I couldn’t find anything there, I could head to the overflow Home Depot (yes, they build a second Home Depot seven miles for this one strictly for overflow).

Lowes proudly displayed a row of several different John Deere mowers.  All of them at least $800 more than the comparable models at Sears.  But they had an amazing offer going on, if you purchased one that day, you would get a John Deere hat for FREE!  Who could pass up that offer?  No thank you.  But what did I see in the second row of mowers?  The same exact mower that I wanted at Sears.  A Husqvarna 46” cut 24 HP, except this one was orange instead of the Craftsman red and black.  And it was on sale for the same price!  I flagged down a sales associate and yes, he had five in stock.

“Are you sure?”

“Um, yeah [jackass], I just sold one to someone else and there were five more like it sitting right next to it.”

I told him I wanted one.  As part of the current sale, I could get a $120 dump cart along with it for free.  What?  No hat?  I told him that I already own a dump cart and he agreed to knock the $120 off the price.

My new toy:

The heavy bag hung temporarily from a tree (Thanks Mr. Dave!):

Damn the Consequences

Has it really been nine days?  Did y’all miss me?  I really should be working tonight, I still have a ton of stuff to do, but I don’t feel like it, so to all of my various “Bosses” and you know who you are, I am taking the night off.  The last few weeks have been rough and the nights that I am not working (which are not many), I have chosen not to be in front of a computer at all.  I have even gotten to the point where I won’t even turn on the Xbox.  Instead, in the time when my wife and children are asleep and I am not working, I have opted to catch up on some reading and movies. 

I am almost done with Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub.  When I am done with this book, I don’t have any ideas on what I want to read next.  I am certainly open to any suggestions, my bookshelves are void of books that I haven’t read.  I have a $200 gift card burning a hole in my wallet and I am really considering purchasing the bound editions of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower Graphic novels. 

I have strayed a little from my reading plan in the last eight months.  My plan for the past seven or eight years has been to alternate between reading recent publications and classics.  The reason I do this is so that I can catch up on the hundreds of classics that I have not yet read that I have always wanted to, but at the same time, try to keep current with new releases.  The last few books I have read have all been recent publications and now I feel like I have to spend the next few months reading some classics achieve that balance again.

As for movies, I have seen some pretty good ones lately, good but disturbing.  I recently watched The Machinist starring Christian Bale.  This is a story about a man that has not slept in a year and his entire life deteriorates into paranoia and hallucinations.  Christian Bale has proven himself several times playing men that have gone over the edge (American Psycho, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight), even his first big role as James Graham in The Empire of the Sun was about a boy pushed to the extreme while trying to survive Japanese occupation in World War II. 

I have always been a sucker for movies and books that document someone’s decent into madness and The Machinist did not disappoint.  I think I like them so much because I mentally note all of the tell-tale signs so that I can recognize them as they happen to me.  Insomnia – check, talking to myself – check, copy of Catcher in the Rye - check, extreme weight loss – damn it, got to get a little crazier for that one. 

Netflix finally fixed the streaming version of Dolan’s Cadillac so that the sound actually played with the video and I was able to watch that one night.  This was a pretty good portrayal of the Stephen King short story of the same name.  It starred Christian Slater as a crime boss that dealt in human trafficking and Wes Bentley, who I haven’t seen since his role as the crazy videographer kid in American Beauty.  The movie fell way short of accurately depicting the illegal sex trafficking underworld.  I don’t have experience or first hand knowledge of this, but after having seen Trade with Kevin Kline, Dolan’s Cadillac almost makes this subject seem like a laughable experience.  (Note: Trade is an excellent movie, but it is gruesome and disturbing and I would not recommend it unless you are prepared for the subject matter.  This isn’t a movie you walk away feeling good about.)

My wife and I got a chance to watch The Lovely Bones together a few weekends ago.  We both enjoyed it, but I think the spirit world/heaven scenes detracted from the story.  I felt like they went to a lot of expense to draw this afterlife world, but they really didn’t accomplish anything with it.  This a story about the murder of a teenage girl, butterflies and rainbows and flowers are not what I was expecting.

On the flip side, the kids and I watched Where the Wild Things Are.  I loved this book since I was in first grade, I vividly remember sitting Indian style (yes, it is Indian style, not criss-cross applesauce or cross legged or tailor fashion) in the library (they were libraries back then, not '”media centers”) of Lincoln Elementary School and watching the librarian read us the story in almost a whisper as she flipped through the pages.  That story and those images made a big impression on me and looking back on it 28 years later, I realize now how much I could relate to Max and his overactive imagination. 

When the movie started, I was expecting the warm and slightly scary story of my childhood, and didn’t expect it to be as dark and depressing as it was.  I almost turned it off, thinking that it was a little too intense for the boys.  But they seemed to enjoy it and I asked them several times throughout the movie if they were scared by it.  They, of course, said no.  But now that they have watched it, and have those towering, carnivorous monsters in the backs of their minds, I have a little more leverage when they are behaving poorly.  I can always tell them I know where the wild things are and I can send them there.  They might declare themselves king, but they might get eaten too.

Tlatho-Shaba, Tlatho-Shaba Lama Sabachthani

Tuesday, Tuesday why have you forsaken me.  I really jinxed myself by reporting that Tuesdays are good days.  The past two weeks have proven me wrong.

My Tuesday morning consisted of browsing through a pile of emails telling what is currently broken or appears to be broken.  I don't consider myself a bad developer, but I consider myself incapable of pleasing everyone all the time or some of the time, most times I just want at least one person to be happy.  Deploying applications on thousands of desktops across the country used by various users with various levels of knowledge intelligence skill to be used in thousands of different scenarios is not easy.  It is much easier in a corporate environment where conditions are somewhat controlled, I cannot imagine what it would be like to have to build something used in the outside world.

Last week was all production support and now that I am done my monthly “on-call week”, it is a little quieter, but there is still a lot to do.  Last week left me severely behind on at least six different projects and playing catch up is hell.  Everyone is looking for a piece of me, every time I start on something, someone else is knocking on my door looking for an update.  I understand that I dig my own holes, but sometimes I wish there was a reset button or a way to file workload bankruptcy, hell a pause button would be nice.  I think I am incapable of working the hours that I used to.  I burn out around 11:30 now and even the hours before that don’t seem to be as productive as they used to. 

I got to leave work behind me early today (which is not a good thing being that I am already behind), because I had a doctor's appointment.  It was my yearly visit to the dermatologist.  Right after the appointment I had robotics, so I needed to take all of my robotics gear with me.  That means I couldn't take the truck.  I pulled the Subaru out the garage right after my wife left this morning and it sat in the sun all morning long.  When I got in to head to the doctor’s, the windshield was covered with pollen, sawdust, and a mass of other crap.  So I hit the windshield washer button and POP!  The cool windshield washer fluid on the hot windshield caused a 10 inch long crack right down the middle of the windshield.  I know this is in retaliation for not driving her for a month, but at least she could have given me a warning before self-mutilating herself.

I don’t think the patients in the dermatologist’s waiting room were too pleased with me when I arrived.  I sat there for 15 minutes and must have sneezed at least 40 times.  They all looked at me like I must be in the wrong office.  I just smiled at them between sneezes and wiped away the snot.  I got to meet my new doctor, he appears to be at least 14 years old.  I then came to the realization that I am at the point in life where my doctors can actually be younger than me and that I am truly old.  He gave me the all clear sign, which is good.  He asked me if there was anything else and I began to inquire if they offer any euthanasia services, but figured our health insurance probably wouldn’t cover it, so I said “No” and went on my way.

On to robotics.  I arrived a little late and had to park about 1/4 mile away.  Everything was going smoothly until my cell phone started blowing up. 

“you didn’t load the new such and such data last night”

“i did”

“no, you didn’t”

“I know I did because it took forever, it was like 9 million rows of data”

“well it’s not working”

At this point I realized that while I might have started the job to migrate the data last night, I don’t recall checking on it before I went to bed, so it probably threw an error at some point and never finished.  I called into the “Henry F’ed up Party Line”.  It was right at clean up time for Robotics, which is the loudest point with all of my kids asking how to save their Scratch projects and complaining because they didn’t want to clean anything up and running around screaming so I don’t even recall what was said on the call or what I might have said.  I know I promised to look at the issue as soon as I got home.

As soon as I got home, I realized that I had to make dinner quick or we wouldn’t be eating until late.  I went the pasta and meatballs route to save time.  Everyone was fed and I headed down to the basement to fix what I had broken the previous night.  I was right, the job failed to complete and I caused an outage, wonderful.  The good news was that I found an easier way to run the job that went much quicker and the problem was resolved in about 30 minutes.

What a way to spend Star Wars Day.  Lost was good, but sad. Fitting.

A Day at the Spa

Not for me, but for my other half.  Not just any spa, but a mobile spa.  We have taken our dogs to various groomers in the area over the past 11 years and so far we haven’t really liked any of them.  There is always something that they just don’t do right.  When we first adopted our current dog, he arrived at our house straight from the groomers, within a few hours, we had discovered about eight ticks on him, some as large as raisin.  I think that is something a groomer should have noticed.  The other groomers in the area have been steadily jacking up their prices over the past few years and now the price doesn’t match the service that you get.

We decided to try out a mobile groomer for the first time today.  We have seen them in the neighborhood a few times and figured if the neighbors trust them, it’s not such a big gamble.  The groomer called just before she arrived.  When she got here, the dog and I answered the door together.  The groomer approached slowly, hands out with palms down.  She let him sniff and investigate, and she petted behind his ears, i.e. they became friends instantly. 

The groomer noticed his advanced age and said that since he was older she would help him into the van.  I just smiled, knowing that an open car door is all he will need.  I was going to mention that she didn’t even need the leash but figured she would find out soon enough.  She attempted to lead him over to the van, but he quickly took control and lead her around to the open door, jumped right in and sat down, like this was something he had done 1,000 times before.  I think he gave me a parting glance as the doors closed behind him, but he might have just been looking around for something to eat.

According to the groomer, this is the treatment:

1. Massage to relax him and prepare him for grooming – yes, a massage, I just assumed it was a fancy word for petting
2. Brush out
3. Cut
4. Shampoo
5. Conditioner
6. Towel dried
7. Blow dried
8. Brushed out again
9. Teeth brushed
10. Nails clipped (painting is optional)
11. Eyes cleaned
12. Ears cleaned
13. Cologne
14. Non-Bret Michaels Bandana
15. Treats

It took almost two hours.  Two hours of me looking behind my chair every time I had to back up, pausing at the stairs for him to race around me, glancing around every time I spoke (he thinks I am talking to him), etc.  When the groomer came back to front door, she looked to have all of her limbs attached and in the right places and she was smiling.  Our dog isn’t dangerous and he isn’t wild, but he is strong enough to pull me off my feet and I saw him snap a 2 inch tree branch in half with his teeth in one bite just yesterday.  He is also a bit over 90 pounds and I can’t imagine what it was like with him cooped up in a van for 2 hours.  I get drenched giving him a bath in the driveway and I get to stand 5 feet away. 

The dog was also happy and handsome, he looked 5 years younger and 20 pounds lighter.  She said he behaved very well and that he was very healthy.  She said she would definitely come back again when he needed his next haircut.  I began to wonder if she had a few tanks of nitrous oxide venting into the van.  I almost asked if she worked on humans too, because I could use a haircut, but I was afraid of the response. 

Once all the excitement wound down, the dog inhaled his lunch and took a leisurely bathroom break, he resumed his position behind my chair for the rest of the afternoon.

His breath still smells faintly of rotting fish, but you can’t have everything.

Before (the camera failed to capture the pungent odor of decaying anus emanating from between the black lips an inch below his nose):

After (happy, clean, pleasant scented guy sporting a badass black bandana):

There’s a First for Everything

Saturday was my oldest son’s First Holy Eucharist mass at church.  For my non-Catholic readers, the First Holy Eucharist is when Catholics get communion for the first time (not sure how you guys do it in your particular sect), kids receive it when they are in second grade or older.  For my non-Christian readers, in Christian religions, our god asks us to eat his flesh and drink his blood in a weekly ritual ala Bram Stoker. 

Our god’s son, who is also our god, not another god, the father god and the son god are the same god, he just talks about himself sometimes as the father and sometimes as the son, and sometimes he talks to himself as the father or as the son (not really sure how that all works, but we take it on faith that this is the way it works.  There is also third part to the god and he goes by the name Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit, and he shows up when the god wants to appear to people and tell them to kill someone or get them pregnant).  Anyway, the father part sent his son part down to Earth and was letting his son part get tortured and killed to make a point about sin and forgiveness, and the night before the son part was about to die, he had a meal with his followers.  At the dinner, he pretended that a piece a bread was his body and the wine was his blood and had his followers eat and drink it.  The next day he was nailed to a cross and died.  Three days later, the son pulled a Romero-esque comeback and rose from the dead.  So every Sunday, we go and celebrate this, and today was the first time my 7 YO got to do it.

We got up early and prepared.  My 7 YO got a new suit for the occasion and my 5 YO wanted to be part of the action so he put on a sports coat.  After getting dressed, my 5 YO said to his brother, “Wow, that suit makes you look 8.”

We had to slick his hair back with a lot of gel and then layered on some hairspray just to keep it in place.  It lasted for almost four hours before it busted out into an unruly mop.

(I am the tall dorky one on the right)

We went for lunch at the Mountain Branch Grill and Pub.  They served some of the best fried calamari I had ever eaten (the best I have ever had and possibly the best meal ever was at Roy’s) and an amazing blackened ahi tuna sandwich.  We got to sit outside and enjoy the wonderful weather and watch the golfers on the practice green.

We discussed the interesting fact that even though we celebrated mass that morning, we were still obligated to attend later that day or on Sunday.  I had never heard this before and I was not about to head back to church this weekend, according to my Cathlometer (that’s the little needle in my head that measures my current afterlife outcome and wavers between “Playing a Harp” and “Roasting with a Pitchfork”, I am sure after writing this post, roasting will probably be my only option), I was holy enough for the week, but according to church law, we did not fulfill our weekly obligation.  My argument to this is that it must be 5 o’clock somewhere in the world (in fact, it was around 5 PM in Rome (GMT + 2) when we were at mass (GMT – 4)), I figured if it works for having a beer, it should work for communion.  The consensus we reached was since they didn’t pass a collection plate, it doesn’t count as mass.

We also discussed what happens if you should throw up the host (the bread aka the body of god) at some point after communion.  One idea was that you have to have a priest dispose of the emesis properly (bury it in sacred ground, burn it, etc.).  Again, I have never heard this before, so I did a little research.  The only clear reference I could find was here and here.  So if you have to blow chunks, make sure you catch it in something you can hold on to until the priest gets there.  Luckily, everyone held on to their communion and their lunches.