Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

Go figure

I got Snickers for the trick-or-treaters, because I like Snickers (the almond ones, anyway, even though they aren't as good as Mars bars.) I got Reeses Peanut Butter Cups because Victor likes them. I got a bunch more random candy so I wouldn't run out, and I got some Goldfish crackers in case any kids had health-nut moms looking over their shoulders.

Guess what almost all the kids went for, with great enthusiasm?

A little girl, probably about first or second grade, informed me: Goldfish are cool.

Where does the time go

I have a high school reunion on Saturday. That gives me two days to lose ten pounds, dye the gray in my hair, get a shot of Botox, travel to Europe, get promoted to vice president, earn my Master's, run a marathon, and have two kids.

It is what it is

Monday I went to the dentist for the first half of the reconstruction of my neglected teeth. It took a little more than an hour, and she kept my mouth open with something that looked like a miniature truck jack. My jaw is still sore from that, but otherwise, she was masterful with the whatevercaine (I know they don't use Novacaine anymore, and it didn't occur to me the ask what she did use...proof that I was nervous, because I'm alway up for a drug discussion.)

Part two is in two weeks. The third half* might come later, when the filing from hell doesn't work and I need a crown. But still, considering it was ten years since my last trip to the dentist, I'm getting off easy.

The technology gremlins have moved in. After we got the Comcast issue solved, the router blew up (figuratively.) And tonight I went to set the DVR for the hockey game, and it's busted. The nice lady at DirecTV said the only hope for fixing it is to reformat its hard drive, which means erasing all my Meerkat Manors.

The rats are fighting like cats and dogs.

My ex is a gun nut and this season he's found himself a hunting mentor. It occurred to me that some of where I've been hiking is also hunting territory, so I asked him how much blaze orange I need to wear when I'm in the woods. He suggested I tie a white handkerchief to my belt instead. (Actually he suggested an orange hat, and a collar for the dog. And he might give me a venison burger, if he actually gets a deer.)

Victor's at the game tonight, so I was going to take advantage of not having to make dinner and give the kitchen a good cleaning. Then I was going to pay bills, do a load of laundry, and go to bed early. Instead I sat on hold with DirecTV and broke up rat fights, so I might as well blog and officially get nothing done.

But I'm in one of those moods now...none of the above are complaints, just what's going on.

* Capital Centre story: I was in line at a concession stand, and two women who were used to working the basketball games were arguing about the format of hockey. "How many halves are in a hockey game?" one asked me. "Two," I said, and she looked triumphant, until I said "But there are three periods, so you have two intermissions." Then her coworker gloated: "Told you! Three halves!"

Well, now.

Wow, my format is hosed.

I'm not sure I can handle any more computer-based trouble shooting today. I think I will turn this off and hope it magically fixes itself by tomorrow.

I'm just sayin'

I would never advocate hammering up a Comcast office in protest of their customer service.

But I sure do understand it.

Our internet service was down all day. I was home sick all day, which gave me plenty of time to monitor our lack of progess in getting it fixed. Although it was frustrating as hell, it was slightly funny when the support tech asked me to ping 127.0.0.1.

Um, you want me to ping myself? I asked.

Apparently he was making sure that I was really pinging all the other IPs (not typing something literal like "68dot"). But I guess most callers to tech support don't recognize home when they see it.

But in the end, we still had no connection, and the nice tech support guy told me it was probably a network issue, and to call back later if I still couldn't get on. I hung up thinking I had an open ticket, but when I called back four hours later to see what was up (after I reset the modem and all that jazz), the new tech support guy looked up my reference number and said "Oh, it looks like you were having issues because of your firewall."

Well, I went off just a touch, because very early in the last game, I turned off the freaking firewall. It did not amuse me at all that my ticket was closed.

The tech guy got me back, saying "Well, it sounds like you aren't interested in trouble shooting anyway."

What I was interested in was taking a hammer to something, but I resigned myself to another 45 minutes of pinging myself to prove again that teh interweb is broke, dammit.

I don't know if it was just luck, or if Support Guy 1 was nice but not competent while Support Guy 2 was a dick but good...

...but I have the internet again.

And a headache, sort of a hammer-pounding sensation.

Another hobby

I needed another time-consuming hobby like I need a hole in the head.

But I found one anyway: hiking.

Since Labor Day, we've been spending many hours on trails, after realizing that the path from our little neighborhood pond isn't just a cut-through to another neighborhood, but actually a side trail from the Seneca Greenway.

Hiking is healthier than the blogging hobby, or the drinking hobby, and it's far more appealing than the empty-the-storage-unit hobby.

(Ironically, the original hike was research for a Dangerous & Daring blog post that I still haven't written...been too busy pouring over trail maps and researching shoes. And, of course, hiking.)

Here's a cool thing from today's trip (click to see it bigger):

As I stepped over the log, I noticed the swirl and at first thought it was the work of a bored Cub Scout with a pen knife. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the swirls went the whole length of the tree, and probably were not from a knife. My best guess is bugs that were tunneling under the bark back when the tree was standing up and had bark.

And here is the view of the day.

The camera did not come close to capturing the sparkle of the sun on the water, but you can still see why a hike beats anything else we could have done with today.

TGIF

The high point of the week turned out to be the hour I was in the dentist chair having ten years of tarter chiseled off my teeth.

Not really, I just like oldies

...and who could pick David Hasselhoff over Cary Grant?

Who could pick anybody over Cary Grant?

You Belong in 1957

You're fun loving, romantic, and more than a little innocent. See you at the drive in!

Day off

I took off today for some overdue maintenance...an eye doctor appointment, a haircut, and the dentist. (The dentist has me nervous; I haven't been in something like ten years. I hope I still have teeth tomorrow.)

Turns out today is a federal holiday. We don't recognize federal holidays, so I forgot all about it.

That means the hair cut place will not be empty, and worse, I squandered a good commute day.

Aren't we supposed to be wearing jumpsuits by now?

I have an event coming up with a dress code of "dressy casual."

That sounds entirely oxymoronic to me, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to wear.

Come to think of it, anytime I need to dress for something other than work or hiking, I'm stuck not knowing what is appropriate.

In old science fiction movies set in the 21st century, people are always running around in jumpsuits. Clearly jumpsuits were the standard clothing of the future.

As bad as I would look in one, I wouldn't mind the simplicity.

Adrift

There's no baseball on tonight.

There's no hockey on tonight.

No football, no soccer.

Contrary to what ESPN thinks, poker is not a sport.

Where did I put that book I said I was going to read?

Double plus ungood

I've mentioned before how I feel about bureaucrats, right? That I'm generally in appreciation of them, what with them having an undeserved bad reputation, and the ones I usually deal with are very hard-working, dedicated people.

But of course, once in a while, you run into an inflexible pinhead, the type of bureaucrat that was the model for the Vogons and Patty and Selma Bouvier.

You might think that there's a funny story attached to this, but it's work related.

And it involves a bureaucracy.

And if I get in trouble for bitching about it, Room 101 wouldn't be as much fun as a room full of rats.