arTau

Watch List

I had the realization the other night as we were sitting at the dinner table, doing our daily de-brief of the kids. I wasn’t just asking questions (especially of Allison, the 4th grader) to find out about their day. I had crossed a threshold.

I was gathering intelligence.

You only have to hear the names of the kids at school so many times before, having not met them, you begin to categorize them. Smart kid. Drama princess. Troublemaker. Athlete. I realized that I’m starting to build, in my mind, a database of who all the kids are in their grade, and most importantly, which ones I need to be keeping an eye on and/or out for.

Which makes me wonder whose watchlist I ended up on.

I’m making a list, checking it twice. Gonna find out who gets to play with my kids. Or take my daughter on a date in about 20 years. Or something.

Redux – Blueline

I realized that I had a great source of material I hadn’t quite drawn on. Stuff I already wrote! Is it too late to post a story that I originally wrote three or four or more years ago? In any case, this is one of my all time favorites. By recyling this post, I also reduce your carbon footprint. Be glad, and enjoy.

You know, when you’re fourteen, there are only so many jobs you can get. Being the oldest of four boys, I think my mom was really ready to kick my butt off to a job, so I was strongly encouraged to seek employment the summer before my freshman year of high school.

Well, we have this law where, essentially, you are required to work at a grocery store, namely, a Hy-Vee store. Since you aren’t sixteen, you can’t run the cash register, so you’re basically slave labor for the Shift Managers. Most of the managers were pretty decent, but there was this one guy named Eric who was, well, he wasn’t. To get a picture in your mind of what this guy looked like, picture the cowboy in the wanted posters from Bugs Bunny – big, mean, hunched over, and “mean guy” mustache. Something like this:

He’d assign those he really disliked (read: me) to do the most menial of jobs, like facing all the shelves so that they looked full, even though we only had 3 cans of pickled pig’s feet remaining. Or, even better, stand in the semi-protected shelter on the side of the building in the freezing cold loading groceries into people’s cars.

This grocery store had these little intercom phones with a green button and red button. These were used for in-store communications – so that instead of price-checking your #10 can of K-Y Jelly, we could do it quietly. You’d just get on the over-the-air intercom, and say “Ed Grimley, Red Line”. It all sounded very official, and you’d hear it all the time. There was a little-known fact, though, that if there was, say, a very drunk person, a violent shoplifter, or a terrorist in the store, they’d get on the intercom and say “Ed Grimley, Blue Line”

Any “Blue Line” call was secret code for “Bad mojo is happening, everyone get up to the front of the store and get ready to kick some ass!”. Didn’t happen much, but when it did, it was an adreneline moment.

Fast forward a couple years. I have LONG realized that even a part-time career in the grocery business is definitely NOT for me, and moved on to better (well, different) things. It’s about eleven o’clock on a Friday night, and as sixteen year-olds are want to do, we were out cruising around West Des Moines, being our usual bad selves in the burbs. For some reason, we find ourselves down at the grocery store where I used to work. Maybe we were picking up some toilet paper to hang in someone’s trees or something (a story for another post). As we’re leaving, I get this Idea.

We drive around the corner of the building to the grocery-loading area (in this part of the country, we get our groceries loaded into our vehicles, thank you very much). This is where the afore-metioned semi-protected shelter stood. Thing is, it had a internal intercom-phone with access to the over the air intercom. I get out, pick up the intercom phone, and say in my most calm intercom-voice;

“Eric, blue line. Eric, blue line. Thank you.”

Get in the car, slowly drive by the front of the building. There’s Nasty Canasta and six of his grocery-bagging henchmen, all standing around looking mean and ready to kick ass, but also with a sense of bewilderment as to who exactly made that call.

Blame the Dog

We has a dog. Her name is Sophie, in case you haven’t rung (rang?) my doorbell in the last year to hear her ferocious labrador-weimeraner bark. We’ve had her for just shy of a year. Great dog. Very laid back. Catches a frisbee (clutch), retrieves a ball, has sad puppy-dog eyes, play-eats my arm. All good things. The kids can try and ride her, and she grunts and rolls over.

There is one significant problem. The dog has gas. Really bad, super stinky, make you nauseous gas. She is the only dog I’ve spent significant amounts of time around who has this issue, so maybe I’m just not used to it. We have tried changing food, changing when she eats, getting her more exercise, but to no avail. The dog stinks.

So, next time you eat a bunch of refried beans and broccoli, come on over. Do you what you have to do. Blame the dog. We’ll believe you.

Negative Space

This is negative space.

It works better with graphics than with words.

It can also be tough to find negative space in our lives. Space and time that has nothing in it, but causes the “positive space”, or the “stuff” in our lives to balance out. People who think about this stuff a lot like to call this idea “margin”, but I like the design metaphor. I’ve been searching out the negative space in my life lately. What’s interesting is that it can be harder to leave nothing in a design (or a life) than it can be to put in just one more brush stroke, just to have something there.

this space intentionally left blank.

Operator

I have a secret.  Some of you know this secret, some of you do not.  The secret is this.  I do not actually possess all knowledge.  However, I know who does, and his name is Google.  My pal Brandon has it figured out – I’ve trained him such that when he calls me, he says “Tank, I need an operator” (a reference to The Matrix which might be, nine years on, too obscure).

Here’s how it works.  Someone calls me, says “Hey, do you know X?”  I might respond with “um . . . .” but the truth is, I’m already typing something into a Google search window.  I’d like to think you think that I know, but really, we both know the truth.

I was reminded of all of this tonight when I found this website called Let Me Google That For You, which is pretty helpful.  I’m not sure I’m snarky enough to use it, but its nice to know its there just in case.  Keep calling.  I’m probably the person I know most likely to have access to Google (except for everyone who now seems to have an iPhone), so call away.

Charting it

You may not have noticed if you own a Prius and haven’t filled up in awhile, but gas is suddenly a bit cheaper than it was, say, yesterday. Fuel prices are approximately at the point where, in 2001, I started to say “Man, gas is getting expensive.”

There’s a fun little website that has probably gotten more traffic in the last six months than, well, ever. Its called Gasbuddy.com, and the idea is that it helps you find cheap gas. What it also does that is kind of fun is let you generate charts like this one;

Fun stuff. One of my favorite features of this website is that it includes the ability to chart the price of a gallon of gas against the price of crude oil. I would like to suggest, for our friends at Gasbuddy, some additional economic benchmarks you could also track the gallon of gas against.

• One Gallon of Milk
• Nachos BellGrande
• The Ford F-150 Pickup
• Admission to a movie
• Your favorite illicit drug
• Sugar Gliders

How Long . .

until we can put all three kids to bed without hearing one cry?

until I’m out of home improvement projects?

until I tire of chips and salsa?

until we can lose the red state/blue state idea and start being Americans?

how long must we sing this song?

until Facebook goes the way of MySpace (remember MySpace?) and we’re all using the next big thing?

until I’m too old to be an early adopter?

until my kids are smarter than I am?

until I decide to pack it all in and become a shepherd?

until lunch?  Coffee?  Dinner?  Friday?  Christmas?

Hu’s Your Uncle?

Know who that guy is?  Guesses?  He did not play a Japanese C.E.O. in one of the Die Hard movies.  He is not the head of KIA, manufacturer of the Tow family truckster.  This is, in fact, Hu Jintao.  He’s the Paramount Leader of the People’s Republic of China, General Secretary of the Communist Party, President of the People’s Republic of China, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission.  

Translation?  He’s a big commie.  In fact, he is, at the moment, THE big commie.  A big commie with a lot of titles.

Anyway, he’s coming to Washington, D.C. this weekend.  To chat with Dubya.  I noticed again tonight that the news media refers to him in a way that is of interest to me.  I’m not an expert on Chinese names and surnames (though I was once offered a Chinese Heritage Mastercard to celebrate my Chinese heritage), but my understanding that his surname is actually “Hu”.    

The news media refers to him as “President Tao,” which catches my ear because, as you may know, I recently considered a 2012 bid for the Presidency myself.  I also thought that in light of my recent political discussions, I should clear up the facts that follow.

President Hu Jintao of China is not, in fact, related to me in any way.  It might have actually helped me out on the foreign policy front if this wasn’t the case, but you can’t change who your mom or your dad or your imaginary distant Chinese Communist Party leader uncle is, so I guess I’m stuck.  

Withdrawal

I had previously announced via a Facebook status update that I was planning a run for President of the United States in 2012, regardless of who won the election. This was largely do the fact that I will be turning thirty-five in the spring, and will be, in 2012, eligible for the first time to be president.

It brings me great sadness to announce that I am removing my name from consideration for the ballot in 2012. I realize that many of you will be disappointed at this news, but I feel that it is in the best interest of myself and our great nation for me to make this decision. Some may question why I would choose to make this decision before President-Elect Obama’s administration has even begun. In truth, I feel that the campaign season for our presidential election is not currently long enough.

By announcing my withdrawal from the 2012 Presidential election, my great hope is that others will take note, and begin their campaigns in earnest before the holiday season is upon us. Only when our nation commits itself to a constant state of campaigning, fund-raising, and slandering of ones opponents will our nation be able to truly commit to fully ignoring the issues we have worked so long to ignore.

To those of you who pledged your vote and support, I thank you greatly, but encourage you instead to pledge your support to the candidate who starts their campaign the soonest. That is clearly the best measure of their dedication to the needs of our country. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

Some Projects

I go in spurts with things I’m working on. I find myself at the end of a spurt of home repair projects. Fence, shower, kitchen ceiling (see shower), siding, windows (see siding), drywall. I’ve had enough home projects for now, and I’m starting to make a mental list of things to figure out over the next few months. Some things in the queue;

Learn Maxscript – the programming language in 3dsmax – I first learned programming with Apple ][ basic in 1984, and I’ve goofed around off and on.

Brew Beer – my friend George and his new bride Tahra gave us a beer-brewing kit.

(This is the part where I panic and realize I am out of time and need to save the post)

I’m workin on the new skills. I’ll keep you posted.