The Ironic Email of the Day award goes to the spam I just received to advertise... anti-spam software.

Morons.

I've been pretty addicted to this Seattle radio station, C89.5, since my trip to Bellevue. Thank goodness they broadcast online.

I hate normal radio for several reasons:

• Too many commercials. For every minute of music, there are like two minutes of commercials. This is worse during most morning shows, where there are three minutes of commercials for every minute of comedic drivel.
• Radio "powers." Songs that are considered "power" on the radio get repeated over... and over... and over... Most of the time I hate those songs. Who says payola doesn't exist anymore?
• I'm WHITE. Let's be frank - most of the new stuff coming out is Ebonic-laden hip-hop. Admittedly, I can dig some of it, but not as much as is getting cranked out. Pronounce your words, people. And make it something I can hum along to. You can't hum to hip-hop.

C89.5 overcomes all of these obstacles. It doesn't play commercials because it's a public radio station, run by a Seattle high school. It does repeat songs, but they're songs I can get into and enjoy. I understand all of the words to all of the songs. And I can hum or whistle along. Added bonus - all the tunes are danceable.

So I'm digging it.

Anyway, they're having a pledge drive because apparently the school has pretty much cut their funding and they have to raise their own. From what I'm gathering, they've had to do this in past years, but this year's a little tighter because they've gone online and the funding has been cut (as is standard with school funding nowadays).

I started thinking about school funding. From what I can tell, they cut the drama departments and the libraries before they cut sports. That's cool if you're into the sports thing, but I'm not. I'm the guy the jocks picked on. I'm the guy who went to the library. I'm the guy who loved the drama department.

I'm pretty sure the kids in the radio broadcasting program want to be there. I wish my high school had run a radio program. I'd have been there. And I know that I'd be pretty pissed off to see that the assholes playing football still got to run around on the field where they're learning no marketable skills while I'm trying to learn something and my program gets shit-canned.

So I went to the pledge site (which I encourage you to do, as well), checked out the different things you get for different pledge levels, and really wanted the custom dance mix CD... but didn't want to pledge the $89.50 for it. I like the station, but I'm not going to single-handedly support the place.

Instead, I threw in $50 to get the t-shirt. You can get a "can-cozy" for $35, but... I don't need a can-cozy. I'll wear the shirt with pride, though. So a shirt it is.

I'm sure I'll hear about this when I get home. We really are pretty strapped for cash lately, what with Jenn working pro-bono at her pharmacy technician externship. I figure it as an investment in something I believe in, though, and it's tax-deductible, which is a Good Thing. (Of course, I don't own a house or anything, so my contributions rarely actually make any difference on my overall deduction at the end of the year.)

Anyway, listen to the music, love the station, then go pledge. It's worth it.

This weekend went, as most weekends do, altogether too quickly and now that it's Monday I can only wonder at the speed with which the weekend sped by.

Honestly, I barely remember what I did. I know that Saturday morning I vacuumed the apartment and dusted stuff. That sucked. The rest of Saturday... I don't remember. We eventually ended up going to Hollywood Video and renting some movies and the PS2 game The Sims.

Saturday night we ended up playing The Sims too long and didn't watch any of the movies. Jenn and I discovered that The Sims is specifically engineered to appeal to the micromanagers of the world. The stupid characters you create require so much attention that it's almost hard to have fun with it. We played it forever, just trying to figure out how to make the characters happy. What we decided is that it's too real: There are just not enough hours in the day to actually keep your characters happy and meet all of their needs adequately. Just like life, huh?

Sunday we made the rounds to visit parental units. After a quick stop at Jenn's parents' house, we went over to my parents' to hear about their recent trip down through Reno, NV, to Las Vegas, then up through Provo, UT (for my sister's graduation), then home again. As far as I'm concerned, yuck. I'm not one for car trips, and this one is no different.

At one point, they went to Scotty's Castle in Death Valley. Dad told stories about how the place came to be and what it was all about. Mom told a story about how bad she had to poop on the way there. I think that pretty much sums up how that trip went.

While we were there, we watched Ghost Ship, one of the movies that Jenn and I had rented. It was actually pretty decent, with a good ending and everything, sort of like a big Twilight Zone episode.

After that we went home to finish up the laundry while we watched another of our rentals, Wasabi. That was a French comedy/action movie from Luc Besson and was pretty good. Great soundtrack, too. I find that I like to watch foreign films in their natural language with English subtitles rather than with English overdubbing. There's something about overdubbing that just doesn't work for me. Unless it's Jackie Chan.

After Wasabi was a new Alias, which was probably the highlight of my weekend. It ruled, and I can't wait for next week's two-hour season finale.

And... now it's Monday. Ugh. I'm sooooo tired. And I have a headache. Someone just shoot me.

I've mentioned this idea before, but I keep thinking about it so I thought I'd expand on it here: The idea that music can be represented by a mathematical equation of some nature and can potentially be analyzed for certain qualities that can be reproduced in other songs.

First we need to find a way to accurately represent music mathematically; that is, to be able to model every aspect of a piece of music numerically. This would have to include the type of instruments being played, the notes themselves, the quality of the singer's voice, the rhythm, the volume... every possible quality of a given piece of music.

Then we need to do this modeling for several pieces of music. Model similar pieces - pieces by the same composer, pieces played by the same band/orchestra. Discover the similarities in the pieces. Now model very dissimilar pieces. What makes them different from each other?

With enough data, you could generate a model for how music looks mathematically. From that model, you could potentially create a formula for the generation of other pieces of music.

This would totally revolutionize the music industry as we know it. Someone needs a song, they plug in a few parameters into the formula and out pops a new hit tune. People could create a song-generating machine - push a few buttons, it prints out the sheet music with all the arrangements and everything for a pop hit or a new symphony.

What would that mean for creativity? Would it mean that good songwriters are the people who naturally understand this equation? Would it put the songwriters out of business? Or would it change the way songs need to be written? Maybe both?

I did this network upgrade of my primary workstation to Windows XP Professional so I could test the deployment that we're going to use to upgrade the whole company. In the process, I found that the upgrade seemed to have broken some of the software on the computer, so I started looking at fixing it. Eventually I ended up opening a support call with Microsoft because it was just not getting fixed.

I got a support rep on the phone this morning and we started reinstalling certain components to see if we could get things back up and running. At one point I rebooted the machine and saw this message:

The hard drive controller detects imminent failure of the disk. Please backup your data and replace the drive.

Uh oh. I don't like that at all. But, fine, most of my stuff's already backed up anyway (at least, the mission-critical stuff is), so I wasn't too worried. I hit the key to continue booting the machine...

... and it wouldn't come up. It just wasn't working. So now I've got a new hard drive in the machine and I'm rebuilding the whole thing from scratch.

This is exactly what I wanted to be doing today.

I had this dream the other night that Greg Brady was a serial killer and I was the next victim.

The thing about it is, I don't know if it was a movie I was watching in my dream, or if that was just the dream. Around the time that I was going to find out, Jenn got up to pee, then came back and started a fit of sneezing. Halfway through the sneezing fit, the cat started crying really loud outside the door and decided it would be a good idea to just stand in the middle of the Sofa Scram mat so the alarm would just stay on. She doesn't like the sound of the mat, but I think she realizes the humans don't like it, either.

Fucking cat.

When I have weird dreams like that, Jenn and I will compare in the morning to see whose dream was weirder. But it's no contest; when Jenn dreams, she dreams "realistic" - only stuff that could actually happen. My dreams... whoa, Bundy.

I feel it deep inside me
I wanna ride it
Can't fight it
I might as well rely on the drum beat
DJ, pump the low end frequency
Can't hide it
I won't deny it
'Cause I'm addicted to drums
And I'm a slave to the Dark Beat

- Oscar G & Ralph Falcon feat. OBA Frank Lord's
Dark Beat

Lots to say, lots to say, but where to begin? It's been over a week since I last posted, and loads has happened. Well, let's begin at the beginning, as usual...

(I put the majority of the entry into the "extended text" section because it's pretty long - if you wanna read it, go check out the "MORE" link...)
Friday, April 11

I visit this site called youbored.com every once in a while that has the ability for Portland folks to win free passes to movie sneak previews. I love checking movies out early, especially for free.

On Thursday I entered a contest to see Malibu's Most Wanted, the new Jamie Kennedy movie. I thought it looked pretty funny and for free, well, you can't beat the price.

Friday morning I got an email invitation telling me to be at a local theater at 7:00p that night for the screening. Hell, yeah, man! I'm on it!

Jenn and I went to the theater about a half-hour early. They normally don't let people in until about five minutes before the movie starts, so, being hungry, we hit the food court so we could eat and stand in line at the same time. Jenn got a chicken and rice meal, I got a 10-piece Chicken McNugget combo.

No sooner had I gotten into line and opened the box of Chicken McNuggets, but the line started moving into the theater. Fast. Like, people were almost running into the theater. I started cramming McNuggets into my piehole at a feverish rate, pushing and shoving until I had four McNuggets in there at the same time, trying to wash them down whole with my large Coke.

Now keeping in mind that Jenn's got her purse and coat, I have a coat, both of us have meals, and Jenn's got a broken wrist, it was quite the effort to push all of our shit around while eating and running up to the theater.

We got to the theater entrance at which point I had to throw my food out to get in. I spent $5.50 on McNuggets and got to eat fucking four. But to my chagrin, there was still more coming...

I got in, and Jenn got stopped at the door. Being stopped at the door, she kept feeding food into her face, while my McNuggets were sitting nicely at the bottom of the trash bin. The theater people knew we were together; it would have been nice to know we weren't getting in before I pitched my food. That's okay, though, right? We'll be in the movie in no time.

Some of the folks in line had actual passes that they were using to get in, while I had an email saying I could lay claim to an actual pass once I was in the door. This is not unusual practice for YouBored. They have people at the theater that check the email, check your ID, then hand you a pass.

I scanned the area for the YouBored people, but didn't see anyone familiar. A guy at the theater was gathering the YouBored winners into an area separate from the rest of the crowd, so I went over there. Jenn pitched her food and came over as well. After a decent number of us were gathered together, he started to speak.

"I'm sorry, folks, but this showing has nothing to do with YouBored. It's for high school students that have passes only. Here, I can give you a pass to a different sneak preview next week for your troubles, though." With that, he started handing out passes to a movie I couldn't go to because I would be out of town. Thanks, buddy. I checked the email - I was at the right theater, at the right time... other winners were also there. We just...

We just got fucked is what happened.

Needless to say, I was irritated with having eaten four out of ten McNuggets and then getting turned away from the movie I fucking won passes to.

[Note: I wrote to YouBored today, since I was out of town last week, to tell them how pissed off I was about the confusion. Rather than an apology, they sent me a "winner's notification" to go to a screening of a different movie tonight. Like I can do that. Bastards.]

Saturday, April 12

As previously mentioned, Jenn's in charge of this Job's Daughters group. Saturday night (starting at 10:00p) several of these groups were having a dance aboard the Portland Spirit. Jenn was tasked to chaperone, so I sort of "got" to go, too.

We got there and there were probably 200 or so people ready to go on this thing. At something like $12 a head, that's a pretty hefty sum of money raised, especially considering they only paid $800 to rent the boat.

Anyway, I'm standing there, scanning the crowd, and as I'm looking at these girls, I'm thinking to myself, "You know, girls never looked like that when I was in high school." Seriously. The age range was around 14 - 20, and in many cases you'd never be able to tell that any of them was under 18. Jailbait central, I'm telling you.

We get on the ship and the music gets underway. Immediately, I noticed two things.

First, the music is nothing like the stuff we had at our dances. This music sucks ass. It's all hip hop, it all sounds the same, and most of it isn't terribly dance-able.

Second, there's this chick in a floral-print dress that's two sizes too small and not much is being left to the imagination (if you know what I mean).

So, sitting and listening to this reasonably caucasian-unfriendly cacophony being emitted from the speakers, trying to unobtrusively scope out this floral-print dress, Jenn leans over to me and says, "Hey, have you checked out the chick in the dress over here?"

If she wasn't just reading my mind or anything. :)

Anyway, the boat leaves the dock, travels up and down the Willamette River for a while (during which time a bit of a wind-and-rain storm ensues, seemingly requiring the morons near the door to repeatedly open and close it... because you know that chilly wind is great when you're sitting at a table trying to relax), and then returns to the dock a couple of hours later. Jenn and I drove some of the girls back to meet their parents and then went home, exhausted.

Sunday, April 13

Honestly, I don't remember what I did Sunday. Must not have been very important. I think I basically just packed for the Developers' Conference.

Monday, April 14

Jenn got up and left for school, at which time I started gathering my things together to load up in the car for the trip up to Bellevue, WA for the SharePoint Products and Technologies Developers' Conference.

Gathering my stuff up, I realized I didn't have a copy of our company's non-disclosure agreement, so I'd have to go out to work to get it.

But then, after talking to my supervisor, he said it was really a bitch to try to get our already-signed NDA and to just sign the one at the event. So I didn't have to go to work.

Left at around 10:00a for Bellevue, which is around 160 miles north of my home. Got there early afternoon (after stopping for some lunch) and checked into the Fairfield Inn. Realized that I just drove four hours to show up in the equivalent of Beaverton. I hate Beaverton.

Took a nap (because car trips take a lot out of me for some reason) and woke up with enough time to try to scope out where the registration event that evening was taking place.

Got in the car and drove toward the Hyatt something-or-other in Bellevue. Bellevue's got a lot of construction. In my attempt to follow simple MapQuest style directions, I was thwarted by detours and missing traffic signs and ended up feeling my own way along back roads paralleling the freeway. Not convenient, definitely scary.

Got to the Hyatt, looked around and found their parking. Decided I'd drive into the parking area, get familiar, then leave... realized once I pulled in that I couldn't get out without paying, so I just stayed there. Good thing I was already dressed.

Walked over to a nearby Borders to buy a map of the area (which I did) and noticed that they had a good selection of music on the top floor. Looked around at the music, burning time until the event, and then walked back to the Hyatt.

Got in line for the Convention Registration and signed all the crap I had to sign. Got a bunch of freebies, too: A nice quality gym bag with an embroidered "SharePoint" logo on the side; a 128MB USB drive; a copy of all of the Office 11/SharePoint v2 beta software; a nice notebook with the SharePoint logo; and a reasonably decent pen to write in the notebook with.

Ate some odd oriental food (sort of Chinese with a Japanese bent to it... stuff like barbecued pork with a mustard that had wasabi flavor...) and had a couple of gin and tonics. Looked around for anyone I knew, but didn't find anyone. Noticed that this event was a total sausagefest - probably ten women total there, only five of whom weren't part of the event staff. Hmmm. Went back to my hotel to crash out for the night.

Watched Married By America while talking to Jenn on the phone. Poor Billie Jeanne! I feel bad for her. I was hoping things would work out.

Tuesday, April 15

If there's one thing I can say good about Microsoft conferences, it's that they sure as hell feed you well. For breakfast I had eggs with sauteed mushrooms, bacon, and a lemon cake. I then went over to the free espresso stand and ordered myself up a mocha. Oh, yeah.

The Microsoft Conference Center was set up well. There were two lecture halls available to us (both of which were set up for wireless network access), various network access kiosks set up around the facility, and plenty of area to sit and chat with people, hang out and eat, etc. Very cool.

The chairs in the lecture halls, though... you couldn't really adjust the seat angle, so the chairs always felt like they were trying to dump me out on my ass. I wasn't so thrilled with that, but found if you recline the chair back all the way, the seat angle would tilt up to level so you could reasonably sit.

The first lecture, more of a logistics discussion than anything, started and I noticed that my friend Kristen (from a consulting firm I'm working with to roll out SharePoint Portal Server v2) was sitting in front of me. In the following lectures, at least the ones we were both attending, we sat together so we could talk and such. Finally, someone familiar!

Between lectures the line for the men's restroom was fucking ridiculous. I haven't seen that many guys trying to use the same limited facilities for a long, long time. By that same token the line for the women's room wasn't even a line. Kristen thought that was decidedly funny. I thought it was just irritating.

I won't go into the boring details of what the lectures entailed. Suffice to say they were interesting and taught me a lot of stuff about SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services. If you wanted to know any of the gory details of the internals of either product, that was the place to find out.

Dinner was at Taco Del Mar, a "super burrito." I hadn't ever eaten at Taco Del Mar, so I was pleasantly surprised.

I returned to the hotel in time to watch Buffy, but found that the local Fox affiliate would rather broadcast the fucking Mariners baseball game than the show I wanted to watch. Assholes. I ended up watching American Idol instead, and I'm coming to find that I am caring less and less about the outcome. If we could just skip to the end and vote between Ruben and Clay, that'd be fine with me.

After American Idol I played some Metroid Fusion on my GBA SP (which, of course, I brought with me). That game is hella fun, but it gets frustrating at times. I end up having to turn it off and take a break, then come back later and the thing that was frustrating me ends up being a bit easier.

Wednesday, April 16

Following a great breakfast, Kristen and I entered lectures again. I discovered (more like renewed my discovery) that I have about a 20 minute attention span in a lecture setting. After 20 minutes, I need to do something else (draw, read, play GBA, etc.) or I'll go ballistic. I'm still pretty much paying attention, but I can't just sit and listen. It doesn't work. Maybe that's one of my biggest problems with school - it's mostly just lecture. Training classes have labs and whatnot interspersed with the lecture, so it keeps my attention.

During one of my GBA sessions during lecture, I noticed that the Mad Catz travel case I bought for my GBA SP is actually held together with fucking double-stick tape! Can you believe it? It looks totally sturdy from the outside - a nice, padded plastic inside with a hard metal outside... but the metal is held on by double-stick tape. Ridiculous. (I ended up hot-gluing the metal down when I got home.)

After lectures, I went back to my hotel, dropped off my crap, and picked up my friend Aarron (who has lived on-and-off in Seattle for 15 years) and we decided we would eat at Red Robin and then go see Bulletproof Monk.

Aarron called the theater, got the movie times (we'd go to the 9:15 show so I could get back to the hotel and get some sleep before the next day), and we went to Red Robin.

A decent dinner later, we went to the theater... and found that the movie was showing at 10:05, not 9:15. Shit! Now what? We went to a different theater in the vicinity... and saw that only Anger Management was showing, starting at 9:05. Fine. Done.

Anger Management is too funny. Jack Nicholson as the straight-man and Adam Sandler as the fall-guy in a comedy is just too perfect. I laughed my ass off the whole time, and will probably be picking this one up on DVD when it comes out. I'm glad to see Adam Sandler's doing funny movies again. (As opposed to, say, Little Nicky.)

Taking Aarron home was another issue entirely. I'm not terribly familiar with the Seattle area, so I trusted Aarron to navigate.

One would assume that living in a place for 15 years would reasonably acquaint you with certain routes. For example, how to get home. Not so.

Aarron and I drove around for probably 30 minutes, many times in circles, trying to find his apartment. At one point we were sitting at a stop light right beneath the base of the Space Needle, and I'm thinking, "Jeez, man... if you need a landmark, it doesn't get any bigger than this. Where the hell do you live?"

We eventually found the way by following the bus route that he takes home. Interesting that the guy looking to get his driver's license has to navigate by following the bus route. Heh. That's okay. Aarron's the man, and it's always good to see him and hang out. Always an adventure, you know?

I got back to the hotel around midnight after some confusion in getting me back on the freeway. *sigh* What an ordeal.

Thursday, April 17

Thursday was pretty much uneventful. Kristen and I attended lectures, then when the whole thing was said and done we went over to the Microsoft Company Store and bought some trinkets. I got a wireless optical mouse for $30, which is a pretty good deal if I do say so myself, and a couple of shirts. Kristen bought some pens and a copy of Visio (or was it Project?). I dropped her off at her car and started the long drive home.

I got home by around 10:00p and it was definitely nice to sleep in my own bed again. Also, seeing Jenn and my kitties was a good thing. Home again, home again, jiggity-jig.

Friday, April 18

Work. Hectic. Too. Much. To. Do.

Between catching up on email and servicing nickel-and-dime requests, I made it over to the Beaverton Microsoft office to videoconference in for the SharePoint Users Group. It was kind of funny to be teleconferenced in with a bunch of people I just saw at the lectures the day before. Kristen had stayed in Bellevue an extra day, so I saw her over the video link. (She still hadn't made it to Ikea, which I find pretty funny since she had been trying to get there most of her trip.)

After that, more work, then home.

Saturday, April 19

Went to see Anger Management again, this time with Jenn, because she wanted to see it. It was just as funny the second time around, but this time I knew what was coming up so the shock wasn't as intense. Still, good times.

Also watched (on DVD) Real Women Have Curves. Now, I'm probably pulling out my white-man-bigotry here, but the plight of the struggling Mexican American family - and, in particular, the overweight Mexican American daughter - is really not for me. I appreciate the telling of the story and the character development and all that; I realize that saying, "Just get out of that situation!" is me showing my ignorance in how the culture works and yadda yadda yadda. Truth be told, I just didn't care. I'm glad the girl gets out of the ghetto and gets to go to Columbia University for free. Did I feel a little animosity that I could never have pulled as sweet a deal as that? Hell, yes. But, fine, she gets out and gets to better herself (and, hopefully, contribute to society in an attempt to repay the opportunity provided her). AND? Yeah, that's my point. And... nothing. She gets out. The end. I just didn't care.

Sunday, April 20

Pretty lazy day. Caught up on all of the TV I missed that Jenn had taped for me. Worked some on this beaded hat project I've got going. That's about it. Nothing spectacular, and that was fine with me.

... which brings us to current.

Okay, so I skipped Monday. Nothing happened Monday. Don't worry about it.

What did I get out of the experience?

First, Portland has generally shitty radio stations. Seattle's got this station C89.5 that is all techno, all the time, minimal commercials. I can't say my radio strayed from that station or really ever turned off while I was there. You can listen to it online, which I'm thankful for, because I otherwise fucking hate radio.

I ended up buying a couple of techno albums, particularly for a group called "4 Strings" who had some good stuff they played on C89.5. It made me happy, to have found some new, good techno, and be back in that whole loop at least a little bit. It makes me feel... alive.

Second, Microsoft feeds you well and gives you really cool shit when you go to their conferences. I'll definitely be attempting to crash some more of those.

Finally, I've got a new cool friend (Kristen) to talk tech with. Can't complain about that.

All in all, not bad.

I'll leave off with a thought I had while driving in the car flipping through the radio stations (verifying that we do not, in fact, have anything decent to listen to around here):

Creativity and inspiration are outlets more for angst than for joy.

Talk amongst yourselves.

I'm back, and I'm busier than ever. I've got lots to talk about - this weekend... LAST weekend... last WEEK... I've even got all of these little email reminders I sent to myself with prompts for stuff to write about and a bunch of notes that I wrote during the week so I'd remember...

But I don't have time right now. I've got a bunch of troubleshooting crap that I'm working on involving a Windows XP upgrade that broke some stuff on my primary workstation as well as a SharePoint Portal Server v2 beta installation that I need to work on. When I get a spare minute, I'll see what I can jimmy up for ya.

Oh, and today's my dad's birthday. I best go shopping, huh?

I will be out next week for the SharePoint Products and Technologies Developers' Conference in Redmond, WA. I won't be able to post from there, nor will I be getting email. Keep that in mind if you email me something "urgent" - I know last time I was out some folks either didn't check the blog for the notice or disregarded it entirely and sent me some time-sensitive stuff. Sorry if I didn't get back to you in time; I won't get back to you next week, either.

Jenn went in for her cast yesterday but it turns out she has some weird burning/itching rash going on under the ACE bandage holding the splint on. She now has a different splint on and will be going back next week for the cast.

The doctor said he's "never seen a break that straight." I dunno. I've never really seen a break. I scanned her x-rays and will try to get them in here at some point. Kind of interesting.

Until she gets the cast - and probably even during the whole "cast time" - she gimps around the apartment, the one-armed bandit, only able to do a few things. She's starting to get used to it, but shaving both armpits is apparently difficult if you can only use one hand. I had to laugh at that.

Since I've bitched enough about not getting any training, I think I may have worked myself into actually getting some more of the training classes I've been looking to get. If it all works out, I'll end up legitimately trained to do the stuff I'm already doing. Why take classes on stuff I know a few things about? One, to fill in the gaps - I know a little about a lot of stuff, but I'm sure that a lot of the stuff I'm doing there has to be a better way for. Two, to solidify my current knowledge - I do things "my way" but if there's a better (or even a "recommended") way, I'd like to know.

Anyway, hoping that will make things easier.

Jenn and I are going tonight to see a sneak preview of Malibu's Most Wanted, the new Jamie Kennedy movie that I think looks pretty funny. I figure, even if it's not all that great, we're getting in for free, so I really can't complain too much.

I went to the bead store on Saturday. At least, I think it was Saturday. Honestly, I don't remember. The time really wasn't important, though - the thing I'm going for here is that at some point over the course of this past weekend, I was at the bead store.

(I'm working on this project at home involving a hat, some beads, and some tassels, and I wanted to look around and see what sort of shit I could throw into this thing.)

Now, before I went to the bead store, which, might I add, is in that "liberal" part of town where the hippies still grow and thrive, I called ahead to verify they were open. The voice that answered the phone sounded more like that electronic voice phenomena thing than a human - sort of waify and weak.

EVP Girl: ...yeah, hi, Beads Forever...
Me: Hi, can you tell me your hours today?
EVP Girl: ...I'm... uh... open... ten to six today... eleven to six tomorrow...
Me: Riiiiiight.

So I get to the bead store ("Beads Forever") around 11:00.

How come chicks with dreadlocks always work at the bead store? Is wearing hemp a requirement?

I also noticed that there was a French remake of the theme from Shaft playing in the background. How surreal is that?

Anyway, I looked around, picked a couple of things up, and then proceeded to wait for 20 minutes while another bead shopper checked out and shopped at the same time. Have you ever seen those movies or TV shows where the person who already owns too many clothes just leaves their credit card with the salesperson and as they're trying on clothes calls out "Ring it up!" from the dressing room? That's what was happening here. As fast as the clerk could count these beads and/or weigh them and ring them up, this lady shopper would go and come back with more beads to buy. I had like two things. One would think I could slip in and leave. But, no. Gotta wait for the Beadinator to check out.

And then, just as abruptly as I had entered their world, I left. It was sort of like...

...entering another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind.

It was The Bead Store Zone.

I ate dinner last night at 11:00 - Pepsi Blue and cherry Pop Tarts - while walking out of Walgreens. It was a long night.

Sunday morning I woke up reasonably refreshed. It was daylight savings time, so I had to set the clock by my bed an hour later, which made it closer to 9:30a that I woke up. That's not to say I was terribly refreshed; there's something about Sunday morning that just doesn't jive with me. It's like my body realizes the weekend is already halfway over and rebels against the thought of going back to work by not allowing me to feel like I slept well.

Of course, it also could be that my tiny Xev cat was bawling her heart out right outside the bedroom door. She's a bad, spoiled cat. She wouldn't get away with that stuff if she wasn't so damn cute.

Sunday progressed along at a leisurely rate. Jenn and I watched some TV, ran to the store for groceries, got me some new pants and shirts at the mall, and played some Dynasty Warriors 4 on the PS2. All in all, a pretty relaxing day, being what it was.

At 6:30p we packed up our stuff and left to go to the Skate World in Gresham. Jenn's in charge of a Job's Daughters group and the activity that evening was a two hour skate-a-thon for $2.

I'm down with the skating thing. I'm not terribly coordinated or anything, but there's something I dig about throwing some old-school skates on my feet and getting out in the rink. Perhaps it appeals to my not-so-inner child.

We got to the place around 7:00p and met the rest of the group. There were (I think) four girls, aged around 14 - 16 years, and four other adult leaders. Actually, it was more like some adult leaders and their husbands/wives/friends, etc. Anyway, we totaled about 10 people. Everyone paid their two bucks, and we were in.

(Aside: There's one of the girls there who looks just like Laura San Giacomo from Just Shoot Me! and Suicide Kings. I think her name is Brittany, but I never remember. I always just refer to her as "Maya." One of these days I'm going to be all, "Hey, Maya!" Heh.)

I got my skates - size 13's - and exchanged my shoes for them, putting my shoes into a locker with my coat and Jenn's stuff. Somehow I always get the skates that have no insoles in them. I think I'd have a better skating experience if I owned my own skates, but I don't skate enough to justify it.

Jenn and I gathered back around the table that everyone was posted at in the snack bar area, made sure all was set, and then jetted out to the rink. It took me a couple of circles, but I started to get the feel for it again. Jenn went around a couple of times, too, but had her legs tensed up so bad that her shins started to hurt, so she went and sat down again for a while.

I continued to skate, watching the folks that you know have skated more than you can imagine, and just sort of having fun. After several more trips around the rink, I skated out to find Jenn and see if I could convince her to come back out.

Jenn skated her way back onto the rink, did a couple more laps, and that was about all I could get out of her. Too much strain on the shins, I guess. She went back to sit down while I continued to circle.

A couple of minutes later, John, one of the adults from the group, came over and told me that Jenn had hurt herself. I skated off the rink to find her lying on the bench in the snack bar holding her arm - never a good sign.

Apparently, she was like two feet from the bench, ready to sit down, when a kid skated right up in front of her and fell down. Being unable to stop, Jenn went down too, but on her wrist.

I got her some ice in a bag and some water from the snack bar. A firefighter who happened to be in the rink at the time came over and made her an impromptu sling out of folded cardboard and a baby blanket. I gathered up our stuff from the locker, came back, and the firefighter told us how to get to the nearest hospital ER. I listened to the directions, which made sense, and we left.

Jenn insisted she was okay to drive, so she drove. I'm a better navigator anyway.

We followed the directions to the hospital and ended up completely lost. Jenn said she was reasonably familiar with the area, but I didn't recognize a damn thing. We ended up stopping at Fred Meyer to buy a map of the area (Jenn doesn't ever seem to have a map in the car) and finally got on the right track to the local hospital.

At the hospital, we got in, filled out the registration form (once we were able to find the English version... sometimes I think the multilingual thing has gone too far), and sat down in the waiting room. I don't mind saying I felt conspicuously caucasian in the room full of hispanics. I guess that's what the multilingual forms were for, eh?

A sign on the wall said something about "if you haven't heard an update in 30 minutes, let us know and we'll tell you your status." Thirty minutes after registration, no update, so we went and asked about the status. What came back was basically, "Blah blah blah really busy tonight blah blah stacked up back here blah blah blah probably several more hours blah blah..."

Several HOURS?! This is an ER for Pete's sake! We picked up and left, going to a larger hospital closer to downtown.

At the larger hospital we got in to see the triage nurse within 10 minutes. Within 30, we had a room where a nurse practitioner was looking at Jenn's arm. By that time, it had swelled quite a bit and was really hurting her. The nurse left to get an x-ray tech.

Time passes. The x-ray tech shows up, takes Jenn to the x-ray room, zaps her arm, and brings her back. Moving that arm around to x-ray it didn't make Jenn feel any better, so we quickly got the ice back on it.

More time passes and the nurse returns to show Jenn that, sure enough, she's broken her left wrist. Well, that explains it, doesn't it? A sling/split will be put on the arm to hold it until a full cast can be put on it.

Eventually John (not the John from the skating rink), a med tech with a British accent, comes in to put the splint on Jenn. But he can't do it around the shirt she's got on because the sleeves won't go around the splint; instead, she has to put on a paper shirt. This thing was probably the most entertaining part of the evening. It's like wearing a big Brawny paper towel in the form of a scrub shirt. It's even got a pocket sewn in the front! Too much.

So John's got some fiberglass-based casting material between two gauze strips that he basically folds around Jenn's arm. The fiberglass was then wrapped with an ACE bandage, which not only held it in place well, but also helped to form it to her arm. Around all that went a sling to hold it all in place.

We left with a prescription for Vicodin and Motrin and went to the closest 24-hour pharmacy, a Walgreens reasonably close to our apartment. By this time, it was nearing 11:00p, and not only was I tired, I was damn hungry. So what's good to eat at Walgreen's? I wasn't really in the "snack food mood," soooooo..... Pop Tarts. To wash it down? Pepsi Blue. Good enough.

Jenn eventually got her pain killers and we went home, to bed. It was good to finally lay down, though I can't say Jenn or I slept all too well last night.

And that tiny Xev cat needs to shut up.

Just when I had begun to convince myself that the world of Dilbert was really only a joke, that Office Space was funny because it was a caricature of real life, I was smacked upside the head with the most insulting, meaningless thing I have come across yet in my career: the Professionalism Seminar.

It's hard for me to even begin explaining what I find wrong here. Not because there's so little I have a problem with about it, but because beginning to explain how pissed off I am about this whole thing is sort of like beginning to write a thesis paper: There's so much to say that it's hard to pick a starting point.

I guess I'll start at the top and work my way down.

A couple of weeks back, the entire body of the company got an email from the President/CEO proclaiming a new, mandatory seminar for company "associates" to learn about professionalism.

Reading this, I already got pretty pissed off for more reasons than I can imagine. First off, since when am I an "associate?" Don't "associates" work for fucking Walmart or something? I'm an employee, but I'm not an associate. And I need to learn about professionalism? What the hell is that?

Professionalism, in the context they put it, implies something regarding the behavior of a company employee towards customers. But what is a professional? Someone who gets paid to do something, right? So I could be a professional plumber, right, and come to work with my pants halfway down the crack of my ass, and I'd be exhibiting professionalism in a plumber context? "Professional" is one of those words that has lost any real meaning and taken on a power-tie, work-through-lunch, rhetorical feel. It means jack-fucking-squat. What the seminar should be is a "customer service seminar," not a "professionalism seminar."

I decided the instant I read that email that not only was I going to actively rebel against it, but would also definitely need to bring my GBA with me to entertain me while the drivel rolled out of the presenter's mouth.

Just to be sure, I asked my supervisor whether I was required to go to this seminar. I mean, I don't actually interface with anyone outside the company except for contractors. If there's any actual customer interaction, it's done through some customer-facing person. Besides which, I get commendations on how easy I am to work with all the time (not that you'd be able to tell by reading this, right?). What am I going to do with a seminar?

Yes, I was required to go.

A week or so after the first email we got a second email where "associates" could sign up for a seminar session using the little Outlook voting buttons. I scheduled my session for this morning at nine. Clicking that Outlook button was the least painful/insulting part of this entire process. Admittedly, by clicking it, I felt like I was registering for my own doom. My expectations did not fall short.

This morning at ten to nine I packed up my jacket, my GBA, and my bad attitude and went down to the meeting area. They had some Costco muffins out there so I grabbed a poppy seed one in hopes that not only would I be able to go through a professionalism seminar, but would also be attacked with a random drug test. Hey, let's make the day complete, right? I took my muffin and sat in the back row with the guys from my department.

Nine o'clock rolls around and the meeting starts. I thought there would be more people here, at least people enough to sit in front of me and block the direct view between the presenter and my GameBoy. Sadly, this was not the case. There were three empty rows in front of me, leaving me in plain sight. No GameBoy today, even with the volume turned off.

The presentation was exactly what I expected it to be, which is to say, insulting, patronizing, and less than inspiring.

Insulting because my presence at this thing implies that the company doesn't feel I'm doing a good enough job with customer service, and rather than tell me to my fucking face they would rather hide behind a what's-good-for-the-goose-is-good-for-the-gander style mass education. Mass education has always felt insulting to me. This was just worse.

Patronizing because the content of the presentation seemed to me to be geared for teaching fourth graders how to work together in groups. Helpful tips like "be courteous" and "do your best" came to light. Man, I was unaware that being courteous and giving my best effort would be a good thing! Thanks for bringing that to light!

Less than inspiring because... aw, shit, man - anything insulting and patronizing is implicitly less than inspiring.

During this thing we got to do a "customer service exercise" where you have this worksheet with a circle in the center and four circles surrounding that. In the center circle, you write your name. In each of the four outer circles, you write the name of someone you interact with and how/what you communicate with them.

That's it.

I'm honestly not sure what that was supposed to accomplish. Was I supposed to gain some sort of perspective from that? Maybe try to remember the names of the people I work with every day? I don't know. That was the exercise. They called it "The Big Picture." I call it "The Big Waste of Time."

The presenter also brought about several interesting analogies. For example, do you know the difference between incompetence and laziness? I didn't, until now. Here's how you know: Pretend someone has a gun to your head and asks you to do something. If you don't do it because you don't want to, that's laziness. If you don't do it because you don't know how, that's incompetence. I'll have to remember that next time I'm shitting my pants while someone has a gun at my head.

The presentation was closed off with us getting to see the new customer service mantra. Or, I guess they're calling it something like the "Commitment to Excellence." Here, you'll love this:

I will provide premier service to both my internal and external customers. I will treat my customers as partners and will provide value in every interaction. I will hold myself and my team accountable for customer satisfaction and will do so by setting an example of professionalism, creative problem solving, innovative thinking, follow-up and follow-through. I will positively impact my customers and my company every day.

What kind of fucking rhetoric is that? It sounds like something that Cold War-era East Germans would all state out loud in a group prior to doing morning calisthenics and going to work in a government factory. Like some sort of Hitlerian pledge of allegiance.

To top it all off, we got to sign cards with this statement on them, then the President/CEO of the company will sign the cards, too, and we'll get them back in shiny wooden frames, reminders of our commitment to customer service and the two hours we wasted hearing about it. And how many thousands of dollars went into that effort?

*sigh*

In the end, it was five minutes of common sense packed into a two hour meeting. They're going to have more of these seminars to provide us with "additional skills," but thank God they're not required. I might be forced to quit.

There was a comments sheet to fill out as we left the seminar. What you see here is pretty much what I put on the comments sheet, except that I used both sides and pretty much ran out of room. Oh, and I gave them some recommendations, like using proper terminology ("customer service" not "professionalism") and potentially targeting the content of each seminar to groups within the company since listening to how you should talk to external people really didn't "add any value" to my already busy schedule. I'm pretty sure they'll know which one's mine because I'm the only one who seems to ever really bitch about stuff around here. Oh, well.

I'm sure this isn't the only company that's pulled shit like this. It's my first experience with it, though, so I felt compelled to share (along the lines of "The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!" sort of). I'm hoping the company doesn't continue to become a mockery of itself, but I'm remembering now back to another email we got a while ago that told us about the new "reward system" where you can get a plaque that says "You Make A Difference" on it... and I'm realizing that we have no hope - all is lost already.

Went to the Winter Hawks playoff game last night. It was good to see our hockey friends again (when you sit next to the same people all season long but don't see them outside the arena, those are hockey friends). We had a good time sitting in the luxury box and drinking free beverages while watching the game. It always puts a different perspective on the game sitting in a seat where you see the ice as a whole rather than being right up front. I definitely like being up front better - you feel more involved. Watching from up top was sort of like watching the game on TV or playing the Playstation version. Not so great, but very relaxing.

Oh, and we lost in overtime, so I was right about jinxing the game by attending.

I forgot to mention the dinner Jenn and I went to on Sunday night!

Jenn's dad's birthday was Sunday (I think... at least, that's why we were at dinner), so we all went out to eat.

Rather than choosing some place in town, Jenn's dad chooses this place out in Mulino (that's pronounced "muh-LIE-noe"). Mulino is... Mulino is somewhere on the outskirts of BFE. You get on the road, you drive until you get tired, then you're in The Sticks. You drive through The Sticks for about 15 minutes, and eventually you're in BFE. Once you see the cows, keep driving and eventually you're in Mulino.

To keep myself busy on the trip, I brought my GBA SP. On that trip I decided that, as fun as the game is, if you're just over a cold, then motion sickness will get the better of you. It got really hot in that car, really damn fast.

So the place we went was the restaurant at some golf course. Honestly, I was busy playing GBA so I don't remember what the golf course was called or really how we got there. That, combined with the light motion sickness, rendered this and the entire rest of the evening pretty surreal.

I'm going to call the restaurant "Gramma's," because everything in the restaurant talked about how "Gramma likes this" or "Gramma does that." I find that most any restaurant Jenn's parents want to go to usually has some sort of "down-home" theme that goes along with the whole "Gramma's" motif. We've been to another restaurant, "Grandma's" (same thing, right?), which was okay but not nearly as interesting as this golf course joint.

As we walked inside, Jenn's car alarm decided to spontaneously start up and refuse to be shut off. Seriously, for like two minutes Jenn fought that bitch to shut off and it just wouldn't die.

Got in there and sat down. Looked around and decided that this was probably one of the more Twilight Zone places I've ever eaten.

Lurch was the greeter. You walk in, you pass Lurch. I'm not sure what the guy's real name was, and it really doesn't matter. He was probably seven feet tall, skinny, medium tan skin, brown hair. Bald on top, and what hair he did have was shaved a quarter inch long. Lurch was wearing a maroon polo shirt with a white sweater vest on top. Lurch's arms looked like he had a sweater under that polo shirt. Sorta ape-like. Scary.

The inside of the joint was done up to make you feel "at home," I guess, with everything being made out of wood and given sort of an antique look. Things like old saws and disembodied windows hung from every possible location. It was verging on incoherent; too many unrelated things floating around. The lights were not up high enough to really see well, but not low enough to really emit any mood.

Checking out the menu yielded some interesting meal choices. All of the items were something like "The Farm Hand's Favorite" or "Gramma's Special Meat Loaf." On the back, there was a list of "Gramma's Rules" like "Gramma doesn't allow elbows on her tables" and "Gramma's chairs were not meant to be rocking chairs." This was topped off by "Gramma includes a mandatory 18% gratuity for parties of 8 or more" (which we were) and "Gramma requires all parties of 8 or more be placed on a single check."

Gramma didn't occur to me to be the most flexible of people. I started to wonder where the line between "Gramma" and "Hitler" was, and realized it was probably a pretty gray area.

Not being a big vegetable or meat loaf fan, I ended up ordering the chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes, minus the side of broccoli, and a Mountain Dew to drink.

The Mountain Dew showed up almost immediately, which is good because I was getting thirsty. Being in small cups and with plenty of ice, I finished my first cup full pretty quickly.

For a mandatory 18% gratuity, the service at Gramma's sure didn't pick me up for a refill very fucking quickly. Seriously, like 20 minutes. No wait staff to be found in the meantime.

Went to the bathroom before the food showed up and no sooner did I open the door than some guy's bowels blew out in the toilet bowl. I felt personally affronted. I couldn't pee and get out fast enough.

Eventually the food showed up. Jenn's dad's steak was cold, so he sent it back and they nuked it for him. Good enough. When my food arrived, I discovered that Gramma's favorite spice is paprika. Everything was covered in paprika. The mashed potatoes. The country fried steak. The plate. Everything.

Started eating, and that's when the high school fiddle player started up.

I'm not sure if he was tuning up for like 10 minutes or if I just didn't recognize the song. Then he took a break. Jenn said that if he played "Turkey In The Straw," she was leaving. I told her I was holding her to that.

The fiddle player came back from his break and busted out with "Turkey In The Straw." I glared at Jenn, and she laughed but wouldn't let us leave. He also played "Danny Boy" and some other folk tunes, then went around serenading tables individually. I was prepped to throw a fiver at him to get him to stop playing entirely, but he never came to our table. Lucky him.

We finished up dinner and I passed on the apple-strawberry-rhubarb cobbler. Rhubarb. Ick. Jenn boxed both mine and hers up and we took it home so Jenn could have it.

Getting ready to leave, Jenn's car alarm started going off again. She ignored it while we got our coats on and left, and the whole time it was going off. Eventually we got it to stop, but she said it was because someone had done something to her car. I figured someone had broken in to steal my GBA since nothing else about the car was worth anything, but we couldn't find any damage or theft evident, so maybe the car is just stupid.

And that was that. We got out of there and drove the million miles home. I think next time I'm going to insist that we go somewhere, uh, normal.