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Archive for September, 2005

September 29th, 2005 3 comments

My days are getting pretty boring. Spend a bunch of time at work putting out small fires, come home, work on things around the house for a little while, maybe play some video games and drink a few beers, go to bed. Sometimes the fun gets broken up by a rehearsal of some kind, but mostly I’m leading a lazy life of leisure.

Clearly, I need to enliven things a bit.

Here’s my plan: I’m going to take up a new sport entitled Interstate Jogging. It involves running briskly along the side of I-95, dodging the bottles of pee being thrown from cars. Plus it’ll help get me in shape for all the times I have to run from cops, what with pedestrian traffic being illegal on interstates. Better yet, it’ll help keep my reflexes in check if I periodically sprint across the highway during rush hour!

Or maybe not. Hm. I’ve got it! Cricket Checkers! It’s just like regular checkers, except that when you king someone, a large robot whacks you in the kidneys with a cricket bat. No padding, ’cause padding is for girlie men, like Warren Sapp! Actually, now that I think about it, that game sounds a little too similar to Cricket Spades, which I played for a bit last spring. I’m still peeing blood.

Maybe I should take up acupuncture or yoga or something more calming. I dunno, though. My life is calm enough. I don’t want to start falling asleep while driving. Wait a second. That sounds pretty damned exciting. I’VE GOT IT! Narcoracing! You take powerful depressants of some kind, fall asleep, and have someone place you behind the wheel of a car, put a brick on the accelerator, throw that thing in gear, and have them shock you awake with electrical impulses after you’ve built up sufficient speed.

That sounds like it’d go great with Interstate Jogging, actually.

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September 27th, 2005 No comments

I’m getting pretty freaking tired of weather in the Gulf. Admittedly, that’s a rather preposterous thing to say considering that I don’t live there, and my only real inconvenience is some extra hours of work. If I lived there, I’d probably be living in my wife’s car and prostituting myself for cat food and gravy mix.

Still. The company I work for has computers down there in a number of places, mostly attached to refineries and the like, so every time a monstrous storm comes wafting through, I get to work vast hours fixing things. Between that and blood and money donations to various hurricane-related charities, I’m starting to get a mite irritated.

What makes it even worse is the fact that FEMA has turned out to be run by people who are as lazy as I am, which is SERIOUSLY challenging my reality. I always pictured FEMA as being run by Tommy Lee Jones in that silly movie about volcanoes popping up in LA, what with the self-sacrifice and sprinting away from exploding buildings with small childrens in his arms and all that. Now it turns out they’re mostly interested in making sure that nobody gets to assist in rescuing victims unless all their forms are stamped in triplicate.

Plus, they’ve gotten like 40″ of rain down there over the last month or so, and around here we’re nearly in drought conditions. My lawn looks like a giant dog peed all over it. I haven’t had to mow it in weeks, and I’m starting to be concerned about brush fires. Particularly since more and more of my neighbors seem to be somehow making a living out of walking around smoking blunts and taking enthusiastic swigs from bottles wrapped in lunch bags.

That’s right. South Central does it like nobody does. I’m moving to Antarctica. At least the weather there is predictable.

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September 21st, 2005 No comments

I present you with a quote from a song that you probably have not heard, by a band of which you undoubtedly are unaware. The Band: Billy Pilgrim. The song: “Hurricane Season.” The quote:

The quarter moon like chalk on a slate
Board the windows up before it’s too late
The weather man and my horoscope both agree
It’s not in the stars tonight for folks like me

People on the Gulf Coast are right now probably thinking “F the horoscope man, I’m moving to North Dakota.” And you could hardly blame them. My boss wondered aloud the other day if the people that were bussed from New Orleans to Houston were saying “Are these damn things just going to chase me all the way to California?” It even begs the question: “God, what did I do wrong?”

Well, I dunno what that might be. I’m sure people, conservative people, probably think that the awesome and moderately sinful things that occur in New Orleans have brought down might wrath. I think that’s just silly; if God didn’t want people to get horribly blasted and flash their boobs at strangers, S/He wouldn’t have invented beads.

Some really weird folks think that the area’s massive oil production has angered the environmental gods, who are getting their vengeance, but those people are hippie commie liberals and would sell your skin to the Rooskies if they caught you driving anything but a solar powered motorcycle.

Me? I just like to think that Moses and Elijah are up there toking on a massive gravity bong and playing with Wind Dreidels. Sounds as likely as anything else.

http://www.bushclintonkatrinafund.org/

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September 20th, 2005 2 comments

I’ve been digging wells for 4 years now, and nobody does it better or faster. I can punch through your foundation and dig down to the water table in one day, and you’ll have a non-federal water source for however long you can keep the government from finding out. I also set up the filter and pumping apparatus, and maintain it for a nominal fee.

“Look at it as an investment, Mr. Hawkins. Today’s published rate for water is $17 a gallon, and that’s assuming you get in line early enough to get a few jugs before they run out. With a family of 5, you go through almost 3 gallons a day, right?”

“Yeah, if we can get it.”

I smiled. “That’s $51 a day. Over $18,000 a year. I charge $14,000 for setup, and $2000 a year for filtering service. My wells are guaranteed to provide up to 15 gallons of drinkable water per day.”

“And if the government finds out?”

“Then you lose your well and pay a fine.” And, like every customer who’d been caught so far, try to give me up to the feds in exchange for leniency. Which is why no customer ever learned my real name, saw my real face, or heard my real voice.

Lionel Hawkins seemed about average, as far as customers went. He didn’t like disobeying the government, but his wife was pregnant again. The other three kids had been born dangerously underweight, each worse than the last. Mrs. Hawkins just couldn’t get enough water. I hoped they’d be able to keep the well until she had the baby; most customers averaged around 6 months before the secret got out. They try to sneak some clean water to a sick friend and get picked up, or one of the kids lets it slip at school, and that’s that. The Commission descends, the well is destroyed (often along with the house), and somebody has to come up with a 6-figure sum. If Mr. and Mrs. Whoever can’t pay the fine, they go to jail for 5 years, and the kids go into foster care.

“I’m not sure I can come up with $14,000 right now. What kind of financing can you get me?”

“Sir, I’m not a car dealer. This is not a legal enterprise. You’ll have to arrange that stuff yourself. Also, I ask that you pay the yearly filter fee up front, so I need $16,000 from you before I can start work. In cash.”

“You expect me to have sixteen grand in cash laying around here somewhere?” I knew he did. With the state of the banking system, the best way to secure money was to buy gold with it and lock it up at home. I also knew, from the background check, that Lionel Hawkins had more money than most.

“Sir, there’s no hurry. Gather the funds and email me when you’re ready, and I’ll schedule a time to come back.” He’d had to wait four months for me to fit him into my schedule the first time. I’m not really all that busy, but I find it does help people make decisions more quickly when they think I won’t come back for half a year. I turned and headed for the door.

“Wait. If I can find the money, you can start today?”

“And you’ll have carbon-filtered water in time for dinner.”

“Okay. If you want, you can go get started while I look for the money.”

I’d heard that one before. “No rush. I’ll wait while you look.”

By 6pm I was done. The Hawkins’ foundation had been thicker than usual, and it took me until 2 or so to get through that, but once I reached dirt I was home free. The pump and filter took me about an hour, and then Mrs. Hawkins took a drink of water straight from the spigot and hugged me.

On the drive home, I thought about her baby, and made the call. It would have been nice to wait a few months and give them more time, but I needed the money right away. My bookie doesn’t empathize well.

“It’s me.”

“Whatcha got?”

“Hawkins. 779 Spirit Drive, in Delton.”

“Thanks. Anything we should know?”

“The woman is pregnant, about 4 months along. Can you hold off and give her enough time to have the kid?”

A sigh. “You know the pressure on the Commission to crack down. I’ll put a note in the file, but no promises.”

“Thanks.” I hung up. It was out of my hands.

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September 12th, 2005 1 comment

Sorry I was out of commission for what, 10 days now? Last week was absolutely HELLISH at work. I probably can’t go into a great deal of detail, but here’s a vague recounting.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I was scheduled to work 8am to 8pm shifts at an offsite location, so on Tuesday (we were of course off for Labor Dabor on Monday), I went in at 8, stayed until about noon, and went home to rest up for the long shifts. At 6pm, I woke up and returned my boss’s call, and discovered that Things Were Broken. (Understatement being the hallmark of all great writers.) So I went to work at about 7pm, and went home at 7am. The offsite work was pushed back about 8 hours, so somebody else covered the 8am to 8pm shift, and I got there around 7:30pm Wednesday and stayed until midnight Thursday night, getting two short catnaps of about 15 minutes each.

The best part? I got home around 12:30am, and then was so revved up that I couldn’t sleep. I finally passed out around 2am and slept until noon, blowing right through my 8:15am blood donation appointment.

It was quite a lengthy week, although to be honest it was almost all technical, problem-solving type of work. I rather enjoyed it, since I spend the bulk of my office time doing paperwork and attending meetings and checking Fark for NSFW links to email to myself for later viewing at home.

I have mucho more pics of Nathaniel that I hope to have up soon; HW loves her new car; we had a party last week at which Things Got Out Of Control; and we are doing some rearranging of things at the house which will involve me building some shelving in my basement office, so I might take some pictures of the progress and share with you the agony of trying to do woodworking while being as dextrous as an acoustic ceiling tile. Wish me luck.

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September 2nd, 2005 No comments

Two links you need to investigate:

Things are screwed up. Read back through all the previous entries.

A good way to help.

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September 1st, 2005 1 comment

mstevens: so u jam with mark corrigan.. he’s my ‘mentor’
MattHearn: Is he?
mstevens: indeed
MattHearn: He plays a mean blues harp.
mstevens: heh
mstevens: he was talkin about how they couldn’t get together much this summer cuz the bass player was in a play..
mstevens: i’m like wait a second
mstevens: does he have a big head and blonde hair

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