The Musical Awakening

I wonder when music stopped being just "cool" and started being real enjoyment?  When did it stop being a narrow category of cool and turn into a broad spectrum of culture and enjoyment?

I've always enjoyed music.  My parents always had a radio playing or an album on the turntable.  Whenever we stopped in at the Valu Mart my dad would end up in the record department shopping for some kind of album that caught his eye.  Although I didn't much care for the stuff I was subjected to back then, some of it stuck.  For example, I love the song, Apache by Jorgen Ingemann.  Some of the stuff by the Ventures come to mind also.

The fact that we kids were subjected (forced) to take band all through school really doesn't fit into the picture.  Sure, I learned music, played music, and was immersed in music.  I'm not talking about that kind of music.  I'm talking about popular music. Real music.  The kind people spend money on.

When I was in school, it was not acceptable to listen to Motown.  At least within my circle of what I perceived as cool it wasn't.  Looking back on it, I believe it was all in my mind.  I had no role models or older brother to look up to.  I had to forge my own path.  Back then only rock music was cool.  I didn't want any potential friends to know that I liked watching Soul Train as much as I liked watching Where the Action Is or American Bandstand.  The truth is, I blew a lot of years living with my head in the sand.  The Temptations singing Papa Was a Rolling Stone is one of my favorites and has been for years.  Ditto anything by Tower of Power.  I could go on and on.  I think part of me was ashamed.  I totally loved rockin' out to Jimi Hendrix, Grand Funk Railroad, and Led Zeppelin and other total rock music of the era (and still do).  The "Motown Sound" just didn't fit with that line of thinking. I must have had myself thinking I had to choose between Yin and Yang.

I was not a leader--I was a follower.  I was not a free thinker--I was a copycat.

When I bought an album I didn't buy it for the album.  I bought it for a song on the album.  I would find myself listening to that song and nothing but that song.  I didn't even care to listen to a live version of a hit song because to me it was not the hit version everybody was supposed to love.  It wasn't just right.

I don't know where I got all that thinking.  Maybe it was my parents--I dunno.

At some time in my life I saw the light.  I pulled my head out of the sand and held it high.  I admitted to the world, "Screw you--I listen to only one kind of music:  GOOD music."  Anyone that knows me knows that my perception of 'good music' is all over the map.  At some point I stopped caring what people might think if they heard me listening to certain things.  It was during this awakening that I learned how much I really like Crazy by Patsy Cline, Sweet Dreams (or anything else for that matter) by the sweet voice of Roy Orbison.  So many years.

I've found that this is why I like listening to Radio Paradise.  It plays and eclectic mix that I like.  It plays the obscure, the unknown, and the unappreciated.  It also plays plenty of hits--don't get me wrong.  I just love it when I "discover" something that was there under my nose all these years and I gleaned over it because it wasn't 'cool enough' for me to appreciate it.

Well, I appreciate it now.

The Covington Taco Saga

So it was nearing dinner time. Sue worked hard all day in the yard and she was in no mood for cooking anything. We had each received our monthly code for a free movie rental from Red Box yesterday too, so I suggested we go out and kill two birds with one stone. (I had already gotten my free movie on the way home from work.)

In retrospect, we should have stayed home.

When we got to the Red Box kiosk, she found that her phone was dead. Her phone contained both the code for the free movie as well as her personal list of potential movies to rent. She plugged it in with her car charger, but it was really dead so we opt to get food first.

My suggestion of Subway didn't work for her so we decided on Taco Bell. Our local Covington Taco Bell is one of those "half-n-half" restaurants with the other half being KFC. As we neared the place, I reminded her of my bad experience at this very Taco Bell a couple years earlier while she was in Kauai. I had gotten the shrimpiest tacos I had ever gotten in my life, but she didn't want to hear it.
"I've eaten here lots of times. We're not going to stop going here because you had one bad experience." she said adamantly. (She says almost everything adamantly.)

We drove through the drive-up window and ordered 6 tacos and 4 bean burritos. Pretty simple. As we left the window, I counted the items to make sure they were all there. Then she wondered aloud why it cost so much. In her mind it should have been under 10 dollars. She continued around to the other side and parked. She walked inside to check prices. She got back in the car with the answer.
"$1.19!" she said, "They used to be 89 cents!."

We went back over to the Red Box and she got her free movie and we went home.

When we got back home we went into the kitchen and I started dividing things up. Imagine my surprise when I opened a taco and found that it was literally less than half filled. I opened another one. Same thing. All six tacos were a joke. I was pissed. That reaffirmed it--I was never going to that restaurant again. What surprised me was Suzie's reaction when I showed her.

She looked at them in disbelief.

"That is totally unacceptable. We're going back." she said. (Yes, adamantly.) I was surprised. I never know how she is going to react and I almost always mis-gauge either the level or direction of her reaction. I expected she would sigh, shrug her shoulders, and say something like, "I guess we'll have to stop going to that Taco Bell." Not this time. I was mad about it (it was my second time ripped off after all) but she was really mad.

"Get your camera and take a picture." she said.

We exchanged plenty of dialogue between us both in the kitchen and during the drive back about how completely ridiculous it was to sell someone a taco with an inch of filling (that included everything) in it for a $1.19. There was tension in the car as we drove back. I couldn't believe that I failed to check them before we came home.

We went in and walked up to the counter. I spoke to the nearest girl behind the counter.
"Excuse me..." I said, to get her attention, "Is your manager in?" I asked.
"Yes, would you like me to get him?" she asked back.
"Yes, please." I didn't quite get why anyone would ask the question she asked, but maybe they are trained to be the first line of defense when it comes to protecting their store manager. Why else would I have asked her? Taking a 'How many managers are on the premises in fast-food restaurants' poll perhaps?

He came out of his office and over to the counter. His last name was Senti I believe. I wished I would have written his name down. [UPDATE: his name was Sethi]
"Is there a problem?" he asked, completely stone-faced.
I opened the bag and opened several of the tacos.
"These are unacceptable. I can't believe you would sell me a taco that looks like this for $1.19."
He looked through the bag like he was counting or something.
"What did you order?" he asked.
"I ordered six tacos and four bean burritos!" I said, my voice rising.
He dropped the bag into the trash in front of him.
"We'll replace them for you. I do apologize, sir." he said. His face never even neared a smile. He walked over to his staff on the other side of the room and gave them some instructions, then disappeared back into his office. Sue went back out to the car to wait.

During the course of my waiting I exchanged a few comments with other customers waiting. I told the one guy, "If you're getting tacos, you'd better look at em."

After waiting a few minutes, Mr. Senti Sethi came back to the counter with a bag. Again, he had the same stone-faced and insincere delivery.
"Here you go sir. I do apologize sir."
I opened the bag and inspected the contents. What?! The tacos were just as puny as before. Did he not get it? Is that their normal taco size? I opened them in front of him and held them out.
"What is this? These are not acceptable. These tacos should be full. I paid for tacos, not 'partially-filled' tacos." The nearby customers took some notice as this was going on. Mr. Senti looked at them like he really didn't see what the problem was. I continued:
"I have eaten at Taco Bell restaurants for many years and have never seen this. This is ridiculous."
He seemed both unconcerned and confused as to his next move, so I helped him out.
"Give me my money back please. I'm finished." I said, firmly.
Again, he dropped the bag into the trash in front of him.
"I do apologize sir." he said as he walked away.

The nearby customers I had already exchanged comments with were taking it all in as well.

He handled it poorly. It cost him two full orders of food tossed in the trash and he alienated at least the two of us as customers. What he should have done was replaced the four tacos with full ones and refunded our meal. It's how you keep customers happy.

We took our refund to Arby's and had roast beef sandwiches instead. Full roast beef sandwiches.

To top it all off, the movie she chose was so riddled with F-bombs (she investigated it on IMDB before she burned it) she opted to leave it alone.

Time Spackle

Where do you start when you haven't blogged in a long time and so many things have happened?  It's been so busy around here that it seems like the days have run into weeks and now they're well on their way of running into months since I have blogged last.

The activity level has been strange.  The times when I haven't been just busy with regular (I'm beginning to wonder what 'regular' is anymore) stuff it seems there was always something of some kind cropping up unexpectedly.  Something to do, someone coming over, or somewhere to go seemed to always be happening.  Obviously, it started with the previously-mentioned water heater fiasco.  Having just arrived back from Kauai and expecting a week away from obligations of any kind, I was greeted instead with solid work.  That was, of course, on top of the frantic pace of things at work.  During that week, the water heater job used all my spare time.  While I wish I was blessed with lots of gaps in my time, I was instead cursed with spackle.  I'm going to call it Time Spackle.  It filled in any and all gaps I may have had in my day.

When that job was completed I expected that I would be able to catch up at work but that hasn't happened very quickly.  There was always something unexpected filling in my workday time and keeping me from focusing on catching up on my material receiving job.  During much of the previous weeks, my job was spackled together with unusual levels of kitting up assembly jobs, preparing items for UPS shipment, and even doing some delivery/pickup tasks in the work truck.  For three solid weeks the level of paperwork in my inbox rose.  Once a week I would get a fairly substantial delivery from our main supplier, to which I would quip, "Damn--I still haven't touched what you brought me last week!"  I feel that I am just now (finally) catching up from what I came back to after taking two weeks off for vacation.  My definition of vacation: Taking time to stop working so your workload can accumulate and cause you even more anguish.  It has definitely been that.  On top of that, my usual work has been punctuated with checking and repairing things that were done in my absence.

We went to Ocean Shores a couple weekends ago.  That was the first example of a prearranged weekend event being Time Spackle to my preferred gappy weekend.  I had no warm fuzzies going into that weekend.  I'll put it bluntly:  I didn't want to go.  I had been working hard and the last thing I felt like doing was cramming into a dormitory situation with a house full of people for a weekend.  Luckily it ended up being a good time.  The rented house was huge and nobody got in anybody's way.  In a previous incarnation it was apparently a corner store so it had plenty of bedrooms, bathrooms, and floor space.  For example, it had three tables we could sit at to eat or play games--either separated or pushed together banquet-style.  Because JW's don't celebrate birthdays, Christmas, or other mainstream obligatory gift-giving days, Sue likes to use the annual family chaos weekend at Ocean Shores as her gift-giving time.  It was during that weekend that Sue gave me an advance anniversary gift:  A new iPad 3 tablet!  That was totally unexpected and I was blown away.  I brought nothing for her and felt bad.  It was not actually our anniversary yet, so it didn't occur to me to have anything ready.  My head is very thick bone.

For the next several days, investigating and shopping were my Time Spackle.  I should have been working overtime but instead was hitting stores on the way home--looking for an elusive item on my shopping list that Sue wanted.  Again I felt like such a bonehead--because the first item I had ordered for her was coming from Hong Kong, and I failed to order it in time for it to arrive by the proper date.  When it was finally our anniversary (June 6th) I presented her with her main gift:  A box of computer parts.  For for our 3rd anniversary I gave her a brand new computer.  Why didn't I put it together and give it to her?  Because I needed to use two parts out of her current computer in it.  I also thought the box full of smaller flashy boxes looked more exciting.  In retrospect, I should have probably just built what I could and given it to her.  Oh well.  We celebrated that evening with a great dinner at Mizu, personally cooked and served with flourish before our very eyes by a talented food and cutlery juggler.  I caught the piece of flying scrambled egg in my mouth like I had been doing it all my life.

Last weekend could have been relaxing.  Saturday was a big JW event in Puyallup which of course Sue was attending.  I could have had all day to do nothing.  Instead, her new computer was the Time   Spackle of that day.  After spending the whole day with it (formatting a new drive and installing Windoze XP takes a lot of time), I had to face the realization that the new motherboard was no good.  What should have taken half the day, tops, took all day because I didn't give up on it.  I tried everything.  Because the computer store wasn't open on Sunday, it gave us some time to ponder things.  We decided that we would make the jump to Windows 7 during the upgrade.  I didn't know it at the time, but I found that Windoze XP had a RAM limit of 4 gigs, and I had bought 8 gigs for her new machine.  To maximize the performance of her new machine we had to face the fact that it was time to retire the pirated version of Windoze XP that I had been using since 2001.  Monday after work I exchanged the bad motherboard.  When I got home and started to put it all back together I realized I had mistakenly put all the packets of screws and mounts into the box with the bad motherboard I had exchanged.  (Like I said: Thick bone.)  I hurriedly sped back to Federal Way in yet another example of filling the chinks in my day with Time  Spackle--This time self-inflicted.  When I got home I contacted someone on Craigslist that was selling Windows 7 for $50 and arranged to meet her the following day.  After waiting for her to show up at the prearranged location (yep, more Time Spackle) I called her.  She apologized and actually delivered it to our house a couple hours later.  That was good.  The speed in which Windows 7 installed on her new computer was so fast it actually chipped away at some of my Time  Spackle.  I may have actually regained half a day it was so fast.  That was also good.

It's not over yet.  Upcoming weekends are still mapped.  Time  Spackle apparently must be used before it expires.

I sometimes long for the days when my life was so full of holes that I didn't even know what Time  Spackle was.

What a Week. I Need a Vacation.

I could talk about the great flight I had coming home from Kauai last week.  The two full-length movies (The Matrix and Chocolat) I watched on my iPhone through great-sounding Skull Candy earbuds.  I could talk about how perfect the timing of the flight attendants was when they came around at just the right time each of the three times they gave me free coke that I could slyly empty my rum miniatures into.  I could talk about how the people sitting next to me had just the right talk/shut up ratio.  I could talk about how amazing the early evening landing was, with the waning sun lighting everything up as we flew north toward SeaTac airport.  I could talk about how I saw four volcanoes at one time out my window as we neared home: Mt. Hood, Mt. St Helens, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Rainier.

No, I didn't come to talk about those things.

Last Tuesday when I got in at the airport, Sarah picked me up and took me home.  She needed to finalize a project she had been working on for school, so she was going to hang out at the house for a couple hours when she was printing stuff.  When I walked through the door I noticed it smelled musty, bit it had been two weeks we had been gone and I figured it just needed to be aired-out.  I was putzing around and checking on stuff (computer, mail, etc).  I wasn't too concerned about my bedtime (even though the next day was a workday) because I was still 3 hours behind on Kauai time.  Finally, at about 11:00 I started to fade.  My energy levels were running low.  I decided I'd better put my clothes and stuff away before I kicked Sarah out and went to bed.  I walked back to the guest bedroom where all my shirts hang in the closet.

Squish, squish, squish.

That was the sound my stocking feet made as they trod on the carpet in that bedroom.  What the...?  I went over to the water heater in the closet and the whole top of it was wet.  Fortunately it wasn't squirting.  I went for a towel to mop things off to try to get a handle on what was leaking.  It was not a line, it was the heater itself.  Water was welling up out the top from below.  The carpet was wet and musty-smelling, and all the particle board under the carpet was also saturated.  Ditto the particle board under the water heater.  I had no choice but to turn the water off and loop the lines, bypassing the water heater completely.  That gave the house water at least--just not hot water.  By the time I had gotten to this point it was somewhere around 12:30 and I was dragging both physically and emotionally.  I wanted to come home, put my feet up, and relax.  Now I was in the midst of a crisis.

After getting only a couple hours sleep that night, the next day when I got home from work (and it was a heavy day of it too), I badly needed to sit and rest.  No.  I ran down to Home Depot and bought another water heater and feed lines.  Little did I know I couldn't install it yet.  With the water heater drained and tossed out in the back yard, I had to do exploratory surgery.  The same thing happened Wednesday and Thursday too.  No rest.  Instead, I dug deeper.  .  The more I dug, the worse it looked.  The particle board that lined the entire closet was so bad I removed it with a large scraper--one scoop at a time.  With that out of the way, the 2x8's below were visible.  Rot.  Lots of rot.  The drywall was rotten all along the bottom too.  By Friday night (3 days without hot water at that point) I had pretty much decided my course of action:  Remove and rebuild.  There's no way I could put another water heater on that floor.

It's weird to stand on dirt while you're inside your house, waist deep in a hole where a closet should be.  To have to put a door mat outside the bedroom to wipe mud off my feet before I walked through the house was also weird.  It took careful thought to repair the damage without going even deeper.  There were plenty of wall studs that had water damage but I forced myself to adopt a stopping point.  I came to the conclusion that what I was looking at was water damage from at least two water heaters.  Wood generally doesn't rot the way this stuff was rotted in only a decade or two.  I spend a lot of time doing this job.  I had to rebuild a lot of things to restore solidity to the area, and that's no small feat for someone non-carpenter savvy like myself.

I took lots of pictures.  Here are a few of them:

Notice the black mold and
the water heater imprint?

Particle board removed
along with rotted drywall

The top of this floor joist was
rotted so I removed some of it

A spacer board to take the
place of the rot I removed

Digging for treasure?

New support in place

Other new supports
and boards coming in

Sub floor complete

Or is this the sub floor level?

New plywood over tar paper

Floor done, careful drywall removal

New drywall!

Freshly mudded, and new vinyl

Just like new!

It's been five days without hot water.  I skipped a shower or two, took one cold shower one night, and took nice, hot showers across the street at Rachyl and Tony's house (bless their heart and proximity) a couple times.  I'm glad that's all over.

Now we just have to move the bed out and roll the carpet back so all of that can totally dry.

The Space/Time Continuum of Air Travel

It's amazing how much of an impact something can have on air travel.  During this trip over here to Sue's parents' house on the island of Kauai, I studied things that had a major impact on the space/time continuum of air travel.

I know there's a rule for bladder function as it relates to air travel.  Like the fact that buttered bread always seems to fall buttered side down, similarly, you always have to pee as soon as the wheels leave the runway.  The feeling that you have to pee increases exponentially as you climb in altitude.  Maybe it's an air pressure thing.  Most times Sue and I choose window seats, and this year was no exception.  That means there is a stranger occupying the aisle seat next to us.  I call him the gatekeeper.  Just the very presence of a human sitting there that you don't know keeps you from getting up to pee.  Just so I don't appear to be a pain in the ass, I always try to talk my bladder out of it.

"You can't be serious... We can't pee now--we're climbing."

"Are you sure?  You can't really under that much pressure--you just peed a few minutes ago in the terminal, remember?"

"Come on--it's going to be at least fifteen more minutes before they even turn the seat belt sign off, and when they do half the airplane is going to want to pee at the same time."

"It's embarrassing standing up and having the whole plane looking at you when you get up."

The flight attendants don't help things either.  They block the aisle with a beverage cart.  Yes, the beverage cart that gives you more things to make you have to pee.

Yes, I have observed that the very fact that you have to pee can double or even triple the duration of your flight.  If you don't want your 6-hour flight to feel like ten or twelve, you need to pee as soon as the urge hits you.

An uncomfortable seat can also be a contributor to doubling the length of your flight.  Just having a seat that feels like it's leaning the wrong way is all it takes.  I need to consider a memory foam cushion that conforms to my aging buttocks.  Yeah... That's what I need.

Conversely to the above items, I have found that watching a movie is a sure-fire way to shorten a plane flight.  Sue and I both went out of our way to put multiple full-length movies on our iPhones.  That way we would have choices.  Everybody loves choices.  I ended up watching a whole movie... Listening to a few songs, then watching another movie.  I actually almost got annoyed when we got to a point in our descent when they made us turn off all our personal electronic devices.

What?  We're here already?

Espionage

You know what you just never hear these day? The word espionage. It used to be something that was almost always in the news or in novels.  It never failed to add an element of mystique and danger to a seemingly ordinary detective story.  Nowadays, you never hear about espionage, nor do you ever hear the word used in conversation.

Espionage.

It has a dangerous sound to it, doesn't it?

Espionage.

Yesterday morning at work espionage came up. Marc, our assembly lead, was lurking around a corner, pretending to sneak up on my inbox and plant more work in it for me. He's a funny guy--always putting a little lighthearted weirdness into an otherwise mundane workplace. I looked at him with my head turned slightly away from him--eyes mere slits.

"What are you doing, you sneaky man?" I asked, with a Rick version of a French accent.
"I am a master of espionage." he answered, peeking from around the corner.
"Espionage. Now that is a word of danger... Of spies... A word to impress women with." I continued as he came forth from his pretend hiding place.  "Women melt at the mere mention of the word espionage."

Just then, Elaine walked up.  I turned my head slightly, narrowed my eyes, cocked an eyebrow, and spoke one word.

"Espionage." I said, throwing a little extra French accent into it.
"Espionage." Marc repeated, watching her reaction.

Elaine laughed as she continued walking. I looked at Marc.

"You zee?" I said, while Elaine was still within earshot, "Women love zis word espionage. It is both dangerous and romantic. Zey cannot resist ze lure and power of espionage."

"Espionage." Marc added.

She stopped and looked back at us, laughing.

It's a fun word to say. That's why I'm repeating it over and over. It has a mysterious, romantic flair to it--no doubt because it's a French word.

Espionage. I think most French words are that way. They add a passion to an otherwise ordinary spoken word.

And they make your ordinary work day a little less ordinary.

Meh.

I find myself less than enthused about much of anything these days.  I sit here and try to think of a single thing that I feel excited about and just can't come up with anything.  This blog? Nope.  My Harley? Nope.  Our upcoming trip to Kauai? Nope, not that either.  Even the fact that the weather is changing for the warmer and things are growing.  Nope, it's not working either.

The funny thing is: I don't feel the 'blahs'.  On the contrary--I feel fine.  At least I think I do.

Instead of answering people with a 'wow' or a raise of the eyebrows, I find myself doing more of a 'hm' sort of thing.  At least it's not an apathetic "whatever" or sneer, right?

It's been ages since I've blogged anything.  I know a lot has transpired since my last blog, but I feel no excitement to write about it.

My car has been dead with a mysterious ailment that I can't find, and has been for months now.  You'd think the $4+ gas prices would goad me into action to get that underway wouldn't you?  Well, it doesn't. I look at the car and go, "Hm" and then look at something else.  My truck runs great but it's a gasaholic compared to my aged Neon.

The Harley has failed to enthuse me for a long time now.  I don't attribute it to anything in particular.  I think it's just a victim of my constant fickle attitude towards things.  I jump on board with something new and I run with it like crazy, than it fizzles out and there's nothing.  It's kind of like a skyrocket without the burst at the end.  I will be putting it up for sale, and spring is the time to get 'er done.  Lots of folks will be bitten by the motorcycle bug.

My computer got an unscheduled makeover last weekend when I picked up a virus I couldn't shake.  It wasn't serious enough that I didn't still have control of everything so I was able to do a nice, careful backup of every single thing on it.  With a complete reformat and reload, it's running nice and peppy again and I didn't lose a thing.

This was a winter when we actually used all of our firewood.  Thanks to extra usage (cold, power outage, house guests, etc) we went through 2 cords of wood this year.  I had to bring home a truckload of "square firewood" (aka pallets) from work to keep us nice and cozy.  A couple of weeks ago we brought home 3 pickup loads of tree rounds from the city park behind my parents' house.  We're pretty sure they are Locust tree, and if that's the case it will be good wood when it's seasoned.  I split some of it a couple nights ago and it seems to split well for as heavy and dense as it is.

I've been having fun with the iPhone apps.  I have over 70 of them so far.  I think I have actually bought a couple of them, but most not.  I don't feel like I'm doing anything illegal, rather--I feel like I'm more of a software tester.  Both Sue and I are enjoying some fun things on our phones.  Oh, and they actually work very well as phones too.

Sarah and Teresa lost their beloved dog last month.  It's an odd thing because it's exactly the same way their previous one went a few years ago:  Seizures.  I have to wonder if there isn't something they're getting into around their house that's causing it.  Standing water in a plant pot or bucket, or a plant itself that they're chewing on?  Whatever the reason, it's tragic either way.  Now when I go over there, there is no "dog alarm" to announce my presence, and the cats are both very visible and have their house back.

Along the same vein, a canine tragedy also struck Melinda and Danny last summer.  We only found out a couple weeks ago when we visited them.  It seems one of their beloved (and amazingly smart!) Border Collies jumped into the truck when she saw the door open (you know how dogs are).  The trouble is, when someone walks by an open car door their natural reaction is to shut it, right?  Well, when you put pet together with closed vehicle and have it take place in August the result is not good.  Very tragic.  We'll miss her.

On a good note, Dane is doing superb at work.  I've never seen anyone move so fast when he goes from point A to point B in my life.  The people there all like him and he's already had lots of opportunities to pick up skills and knowledge.  Oh, and can you say overtime?  He loves overtime!  Overall translation: Great employee.

Let spring and summer begin!