Son of Baltimore

I am, once again, on a plane back from Baltimore. My opinion of this lovely city has not changed. In fact it has deteriorated just a smidgen if that is possible.

It started like this. We, as the QA department, went to an Orioles game on Monday evening. I went because I wanted to see Camden Yard and it was lovely. I thik we were there with a few dozen other fans since the A’s and the Orioles are two of the worst teams in baseball. It was hot and muggy and the Orioles really suck large oysters. We arrived late because there was “weather” in the Midwest. I don’t really know what that means or why we were unable to fly around it but we were late because of this weather somewhere in the Midwest. So we get there in the third inning. By the sixth inning the wind starts to pick up and then there is garbage and papers flying all over the field. A thunderstorm of biblical proportions whips up and we can see that this game is not going to be completed. We all decide we should make a dash to the car (500 yards away) and we start a brisk walk towards the parking lots. Not 50 feet into our walk the heavens open and we are completely and utterly drenched. I had just rented a very nice Infiniti sports car and was thinking how lucky I was to have such a nice autocoach. When we all got to the car and jumped in, it was like jumping onto leather upholstery from a swimming pool. There was no where to dry off since outside the car was solid rain/water/moisture/Baltimore-ness. So we made out way to the hotel as three drowned rats and retired for the evening.

The next day is when the fun s tarts. Baltimore, being in the tropical part of North America, had a relative humidity of 1500% these last few days. In fact, it was 92%. So, as you might imaging, the seats never really dried out the three days Ii was in Baltimore-is-so-lame. So every day when we got to the conference and every night coming home, it looked like I had recently wet myself and not just slightly. Good times. Eh?

This is the last few weeks of my dual job situation. I am doing my QA job and getting an additional 30 emails a day from my new boss to keep me in the loop. Right now I would enjoy being outside the loop for these last two weeks but I doubt I will get that chance.

Kevin returns home tomorrow, or today depending on when you read this. I am typing as if he returns tomorrow so deal with it. We are excited for his return. It will be a different house with him here. I’m sure Sacrament meeting will be a different place when he is there as well. Many people in the ward comment on how they miss the randomness and excitement of a Kevin testimony. We, as his parents, are filled with emotions as well. Since he is now all grown up and an adult (at least legally) he can testify of whatever he wants or however he wants. Being in the singles ward we have heard the term “butt” from the pulpit so he is no longer the only person to have done it. I still think he is the only one who uttered the term “buttload.” So he still has that going for him. It will be an exciting few weeks until he goes back to school.

As I sit on the plane I am still amused at the number of people who can not seem to grasp the concept of not forming a line near the cockpit. The expression of unbelief on their face when the flight crew tells them to sit down is amazing. ‘What do you mean I can’t just stand here and wait?” It is only reinforced about 30 times during the flight. Oh well.

There you go. Puppy on the blog.
Good day to you all.

I just flew into town and boy are my neighbors naked...

So it is hot here. For Portland, when it gets near 100 degrees we don't handle it well. The tree huggers look for cooler trees. The birds burst into flames in mid-flight. Hummingbirds overheat and Nuns are openly cursing in the streets. Oh, and our neighbors don't wear clothes. This evening (Sunday - the Sabbath of our Lord) our neighbors were in the back yard watering thier plants and playing with their dogs. Now for those of you who have not been to our house (and you know who you are), my house is about 15 feet higher than my back-yard neighbors house. We are on a hill. There is a street between us but we have a rather unobstructed view of our neighbors back yard from the entire south side of our house. This includes our dining room, kitchen, family room and two upstairs bedrooms. The upstairs bedrooms provide a particularly nice birds-eye view. So this eveing we even commented to each other that our neighbors appeared to be relatived well clad , given the heat and the fact that they were in the back yard. I went upstairs to play guitar (upstairs bedroom facing south) and was just getting started when Mr. Happydangler walked out in the back yard sans clothes. His wife was slightly more discreet only because she was not dangling. She was equally unclad and they were having the time of their lives playing with the dogs and barbequing dinner. (For the men reading this I know what you are thinking - Does this not pose an unneccesarily dangerous risk for winky-burns? The hot splatter of barbeque sauce alone causes me to wince.) At any rate we had quite the show for about an hour. Thankfully they finally decided to spend the rest of their quality nude time, QNT, indoors and we have not seen them for the rest of the evening.

Now the question arises - what, if anything, is to be done about all of this? I don't really mind if my neighbors are nudists. Let them run around naked all they want. My kids are old enough and I could really care less. Now our other neighhbors have young kids but they can raise thier concerns if they want. The only thing I might object to is - what if I decide I need to sell my house anytime soon. I would like to talk to them and create some sort of signal that indicates we are showing the house and could you please cover your naughty bits until the signal changes. Possibly a flag that is noticeable from our house to theirs. Or maybe a light in the shape of naked older droopy people. It would be like the Bat Light except much worse. Perhaps just the flag.

So there you have it. Naked neighbors. Life is that exciting in Portland, They should sell tickets.

SO Long QA - Hello Portland Liability Manager

Well, it happened. As it does in life, sometimes you just have to be careful what you interview for. I interviewed for and was offered the position as the Liability Claims Manager (that's LCM for the acronymially challenged) and I am not sure when I officially start. I have a plane ticket to Baltimore on August 10 so I will likely return from that trip and begin my new life. At least I don't have to move to get the job I wanted. That is the good news. The bad news is now I have to get dressed every morning and actually go to an office to work. It has been so nice being able to roll out of bed looking like death on a Ritz and start working. No one need know how awful(comfortable) I look. Now I have to be presentable and enthusiastic when I am working. I will get used to it but I want you all to feel badly for me just for a moment. .... That was long enough.

Life is going to get very warm for us Portlanders in the next few days. I know many of you live in places that regularly see temperatures in the 100's but we Oregonians are not used to it and we like to complain when it gets hot. So I will now complain for the next three pages about how hot it is going to get and how much I hate it and blah blah blah. Actually, we have AC so it is not so awful. Some of our neighbors, in much nicer looking houses than ours, do nothave AC and I will relish looking out at thier swelterling bodies as I wave at them with my sweater-clad arm and mimic that I am really quite chilly inside my igloo-esque residence. The little joys I can squeeze from life are fabulous.

We are going to be driving up to Salt Lake on the Saturday before Labor Day to drop off Kevin so one of his syblings can drive him to Rexturd for school. We will also be dropping off (just a figure of speech - we are not actually going to drop it) a piano for Diane. It is the early paino that Faye had from before we were married. Of course, the post-marital piano is half mine due to community property laws in Oregon so she couldn't give that one away legally. Sure we are married but you always have to keep up to date on the legal stuff. And by the way, that community property thing does not apply to guitars. I checked it out. Trust me, I'm a claims manager. So we will be up in Salt Lake/Orem for the evening of that Saturday and then driving again that Sunday back to lovely Portland which should be much cooler by then. So there. It will be like our third trip tp Utah this year and we will have stayed a combined 4 days. Life is so stupid sometimes. Actually we are going to be in Utahr on Thanksgiving as well. We finally broke down and are travelling to where the family will be since we will have none left around Portland. We are flying in Thanksgiving afternoon and leaving Saturday eveing. Again we seem to have a hard time staying in Utah. Getting there doesn't seem to be an issue. We just can't seem to stick for any length of time. So get your card playing/game playing selfs ready and we should have a great albeit short time together.

So there. Another blog. It's hard to believe, ain't it.

Baltimore Part Dos

You all know how often I write in the consarned blog so this must be a record. I am sitting on a plane returning from Baltimore. My seat buddies are wondering just what it was this guy (me) ate to cause the noxious fumes that are emanating from my seat cushion. You all remember my discussion of crabs from yesterday. Well, I’m told they were Maryland Blue Crabs but I presume there was a few Chesapeake Farters in there as well because I am really feeling it at 39,000 feet. I blame the altitude.

Anyway, as I sit in my fragrant repose, I am watching this nice older (but not dottering) woman making her way to the front lavatory. She walked past me and went straight to the cockpit door and tried to open it with all her might. The door to the lavatory is marked as such. In fact she has had to watch a steady stream of passengers going into it for the past 45 minutes. Maybe we all had crabs yesterday. Yet she is really trying to get into the cockpit. Perhaps she has insight into a special toilet up there that will fulfill her needs better than the space-age technology in the coach lavatory. This notwithstanding there are many signs on the cockpit door:

Flight Deck
Restricted Area
Prohibido La Entrada
Ifa you enter I gonna shoot you face ( for our Italian passengers)
Hey you Lady – get the f--- out of here
Are you f-gerund stupid – this is not the toilet.
Most of these signs are in bold lettering and are even in red.

These are all actual signs on the cockpit door. If I am lying may we all be struck by lightning at this very minute. OK that was lucky.

Life if full of these sorts of people. Last month I was traveling and the nice people at Southwest Airlines announced that the TSA police would be monitoring this flight so they will be at the end of the jetway and may talk to you before you enter the plane. Now, as a certified non-terrorist, I had no problem with this. I understand the need for these spot checks and such. So I am like the 2nd person to go down the jetway. As I get there a nice man in a police-looking suit asks me for my boarding pass and my ID. Now those of you familiar with Southwest Airlines will understand just how stupid this request was. I looked at him for a few moments and responded that I would not be able to comply with his request in its entirety. For as he should know, SWA takes your boarding pass from you when you enter the jetway and I did not have it anymore. He looked at me for a few seconds and really had nothing more to say. This was our country’s response to heightened terror levels – to ask me for something they knew had just been taken from me not 20 seconds earlier. After reviewing my general demeanor he allowed me to board the plane as I appeared to pose no visible threat to him or any other person in the greater Phoenix airport. That guy has a gun. Unbelievable.

So there you go. I will try to remember to post this to the blog tomorrow morning since I had to change planes in Phoenix. Yes, I was on a flight from Baltimore through San Antonio through Phoenix to Portland. They announced just before Phoenix that they needed to put us all on a new piece of equipment (not sure why they can’t just say the plane has stopped working and we need to get you all on one that does.) So we got in the supposedly new plane and went on our way. Of course this took an hour or so. When I got in my seat there were McDonalds wrappers on the floor and in the seat pocket. They told us that this plane had been in a hangar all day and was in tip top shape. Apparently the workers in the hangar like to hang out in the plane and eat lunch. This did not inspire my confidence in SWA or in the plane. At any rate the plane seems to be working quite nicely (it has not plummeted from the sky) and I hope to make it in to Portland just about an hour late.

So there you have it. A second blog in as many days. Cherish it – it will never happen again.

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Baltimore, Eh?

I am in Baltimore for a few days and what is there really to do in Baltimore?
Well, I could go to an Orioles game. They're not in town.
I could go to a fancy restaurant and each crab like a cave man. I did that this evening with the Farmers guys and gals and I'm here to tell you - the smell does not go lightly into that still night. I have washed my hands numerous times and even rinsed them in lemon juice. It is the curse the crab leaves since I decided to eat him. Yes, I was told all of the crabs were men/males. I'm not sure if this is important to the crabs but I was told they were all male. I apologized to each of them as I cracked them with my crab hammer. My boss kept telling me it was a mallet but crab hammer sounded funnier. Also a good name for the band. Their first hit - I like my hot dogs hot.
The restaurant was in the worst neighborhood I have been in in a long time. It reminds me of Rochester but with more crack and whores. If Florida is America's dong, the Baltimore is the hemmorhoid on America's ass. It has a few blocks downtown that seem pretty cool but then you drive just a few blocks and you see the real Baltimore, hemmerhoidal warts and all. I would not like to live here.

I am excited to watch Harry Potter and the huge mega hit this Friday. I saw in USA Today that Harry is set to make $43 million for the last two movies. I wouldn't mind making $43 million. I would even loive in Baltimore for $43 million. Not for ever but for a little while. Everything has its price.

I applied for another job at Farmers. The guy who h ad m ore experience than me got it. I figured as much. I am now in line to get his old job which would be OK by me. I'll keep you informed. I figured it was time to stop working in my jammies. I need to remember what it is like to have a real job. Go to work and wear clothes and all. Otherwise I might find myself jammied and having a hard time going back to work.

Baltimore is hoit and humid as well. It also has mosquitos. And did I mention how ugly it is? Well let me mention it herre - Baltimore is ugly. It is old city grimy ugly at its core. I guess there might be nice suburbs but I haven't seen them.

And another thing - why do computers screw up for no reason. I returned from the cabin and my air card willnot function. I didn't use it in Idaho. It just decided to not work. Now I have to be on the phone with the help desk for the next thirteen days nonstop until someone can tell me that I need a new computer. That is my nickel bet. After they try to do a quintillion things to fix it they will say it is dead and I need a new one. Computers are great and all. They make my life easier when they work. When they hate me, as this one obviously does, they are a source of misery and woe. And woe is me. I will keep you informed on how the computer turns out. It might be four months but I will be back on line and let you all know.

Enough for now. I am in the hotel room and they are showing Batman for the 9th time on HBO and I feel I should watch it again and again and again.

The pup is out.

Utah - Salt Lake City Mission

Wooo Wee!! The call finally came. Faye and I can now sleep again knowing that our Matt is going to serve the Lord in Salt Lake City. I just hope the locals treata him nice and don't try to cook him in a stew. I know the local customs are odd and he will have to get used to not staring at the strange customs. I know the plane trip from Provo willbe long and arduous but I feel, with the Lord's help, he will be up to the challenge.

I am mostly happy that he is excited. Out local folks here, ever the ones to be retards, have reacted as if we would be upset he is "only" going to Salt Lake. We know many people who have served there and each and every one has told us how happy they were to serve there. Jesse Fox (yes I will single him out because he is a tool) asked us if," seriously, was Matt OK with the call?" What a cosmic dillhole! No Jesse, MAtt was upset the Lord chose him to be in that mission. I hope he has chronic crotch itch for the entire two years Matt is out. At any rate, we are excited and will be in Utah to drop him off which means we get to hang out with all of you folks (non-Utah folks excluded) for a few days. We will need to be picked up at the airport and stuff so watch your phones.

I posited the possibility of messing with Kevin in out weekly e-mail. I suggested we label our individual e-mails to say "Read this one first" etc. until he reads Matt's last. In each of the e-mails we mention how excited we all are about Matt's call to - enter a faux mission assignment - and see if Kevin reacts in any special way. It will only be five e-mails before he gets the real news and he can then relax. Or perhaps he will stil think it is a joke and wonder for another week. Oh well. I didn't have a brother who got a mission call when I was on my mission so I don't know how I would have reacted. We'll see how Kevin does.

Enough for now. The Blazers keep winning. Wahoo!

I am afraid of my new gadget

Ok - so I admit I can record in multiple tracks now and that is pretty cool. I just feel like I have purchased a device that can do 1257 things and I have figured out how to do three of them. I know there are only so many things my tiny brain can do and I am so happy to know how to do those three things I am caught up in my temporary euphoria. I know I need to keep learning so I can yell "I need more cowbell" someday and really mean it. I have my old Loop Station, which is still very cool, and I use it for the rhythm track now. I have a new machine that can customize drum solos and match tempos and I am using another devise to keep time on my recordings. I am comfortable with my ancient technology. It's like my rotary dial phone, 8-track and bell-bottom jeans. I love to get in my comfort zone and never get out. I promise I will learn. It may be in a few years but I will learn how to do this. What I need is a friend who knows how to record to come to my house and just show me. I do not like to read manuals and follow directions. That is why I still have a bag of spare pieces and doodads from when I assembled my barbeque. Every time I turn it on I still run away fearing my assemblage may be defective. At least I have insurance, eh?

So there. I just feel like a botard every time I turn on the device and try to learn a new task. I have bifocal glasses too so when I look at the instructions I have to lean my head back and look down my nose at the book. It makes me look like a botard. I don't mind being a botard, I just hate looking like one as well. I can't wait until I try to record vocals. That part of the book is really long and detailed. I fear it.

In response to Amelia's suggestion, I agree that having you, Lisa and Diane as my backup vocals is a positively bitchin' idea. Like I said, let me figure out how to record you all first, then we can act ike rock n' roll divas. I'll try to get better glasses in the meantime.

Puppies all around.