Ok

So I got to meet Aunt Tuna and Uncle Heinz this past weekend, along with Mother, Daughter, Grandmother sibling. I have to say, they're a nice seemingly normal family. Apparently though, because I'm a fan of the "other" bay area football team, I'll have to see if I can redeem myself in the eyes of Uncle Heinz by farting in B Flat... :) I like them, they're good people.

Ok I received 2 suggestions on topics. First would be how men think. It's really simple, we're not complex creatures at all. I think that it was Jeff Foxworthy and Ron White who said we want to drink and see something naked. If you think that there are ulterior methods outside of that, you're giving us WAY to much credit. I would have to say though, your husband doesn't forget to take out the trash, he just likes to get your ire up by "forgetting" to take out the trash on trash day. Women tend to do stuff and don't really expect to get praise for doing them (This is my experiences, not any kind of scientific methodology behind it) where as if a guy cleans out the ash tray, he'll go outside to where the woman is building a fence or repaving the driveway and tell her that she doesn't have to worry about cleaning the ashtray, he's taken care of it for her. There are other guys too though, the ones who can't sit still. They'll have their hand in a cast from just having their arm reattached after just having it gnawed off while fighting off a dozen starving crazed weasels, they'll be going completely stir crazy from sitting more than 14.5 minutes in the same spot. So they'll go out and start to pull weeds with their good hand or build an addition to the house, I've noticed that there might be some in between the extremes of having their butts fully rooted to their chairs with the remote surgically attached to their hands, and those who can't sit still for longer than 14.5 minutes in the same spot, but I don't have that much time to cover them all or the space.

The other topic was to tell how Mielikki and I met, I'll give you 3 scenarios and you decide which one is more true:

1)There I was, strapped to the whipping table at the Exotic Erotic Ball in CowTown, 10w-50 all over me, welt marks raising up on my butt and back when in comes this Super hot woman dressed in Ren Fair garb, she broke out the little leather whip, went to work with that whip and won her way into my heart. :)

2) We met in a local concert, Violent Vengeance Festival of Death (Kind of like Day on the Green for death metal bands) I was in the pit, when I took a fist to the face which loosened my teeth in front and broke my nose, I looked over and there was this beautiful woman with the total destruction of mankind in her eyes and a growl of rage and fury on her lips. I couldn't resist, after I had my nose reset and the blood stopped flowing, I had to get her name and number so that I could see her again, when I could see again.

3) We met like more Geeks do everyday, online. We talked on line for a little while, then on the phone and finally met in person at a restaurant with no name, She sat in the restaurant watching as I walked past 3 or 4 times, until I finally asked a store clerk 2 doors down where Podunk Eats was. We spoke for a little while, which ended up being a couple of hours, then walked down to Downtown Podunk to a little creamery with a cold stone in it, where I made a complete mess of myself by spilling ice cream down the front of me because I was trying to act cool, then we went to see a movie, and afterwards she drove me back to my little Jeep, and after all that, she even felt sorry enough for me that she agreed to go out with me again. :)

So you choose which scenario best fits the Mielikki that you know. :)

Oh and Merry Belated Christmas and for my Jewish friends, Happy Belated Hanukkah.

Just stop and Think

I stopped to think the other day, and I forgot to start again.

I don't have any topics that sound interesting. So I'll let you come up with some ideas on what you'd like to hear about, and I'll do what I can with the topic. :

Heaven help me....

Nothing like a forehead with Blue Bawls.

Some Christmas Memories

I've noticed that the past couple of posts I've made have been pretty down. So I've decided to go through some of the things that I like about this season over the past thirty-*cough* years.

1) The anticipation of kids who are looking forward to Christmas day, their enthusiasm can be contagious at times. When they're just old enough to get out of bed by themselves and they sneak out into the front room, then you can hear their little feet come running down the hall to wake you with their little excited "SANTA CAME!! SANTA CAME!! GET UP!" and you get out of bed with all of 15 minutes of sleep after wrapping and putting all of their Santa presents out not more than 20 minutes ago, you get your coffee and watch them circle the tree in sheer excitement, not knowing which present to dive on first.

2)When I was a kid, we use to take the wrapping paper rolls and have roll "sword" fights, which I would be beaten within an inch of my life. We'd break the first roll each then go running into the house asking mom where she stashed the other rolls. I think she use to hide them from us just to torture us and make us tear the place apart to find them, after we found them, she would make us put everything back before we could go outside and beat each other stupid with the rolls again. "ARGH!! MOM!! Don't you know that the fate of the intergalactic empire is at stake? Can't we clean the room up after? " Darth Mom- "No" Jedi force super imperial special interceptor trooper MM and The Evil Darth Older Brother "Ahhhh man...." as we slunk back to the room to clean, which would always turn into yet another inter galactic duel to the death with the pilfered wrapping paper rolls.

3) Sleeping with my brother and sister in my sister's room on Christmas eve, lying there trying to figure out what Santa was going to bring for us.

4) Going to the store with my dad on Christmas Eve to get my mom a huge bottle of $5 perfume, because if there's more of it, then it surely must be the best stuff, right? Then my mom's look of hidden horror as she opened it, gave me a kiss, then while looking at my dad and saying through gritted teeth "Thanks HON-EY" I know for a fact that you could probably have powered a tug boat with the fuel that was in that perfume bottle, but she never made a "stink" about it, pun intended.

5) Playing with my slot cars that Santa brought, when our dad would relinquish the controller. He showed us how to take the little cars apart, configure them for the best speed and then put them back together, he'd also show us how to put a little bump in the track so that the metal contacts would still touch, but which enough speed they'd jump the track, if you put enough speed on the car and enough of a bump in the track we found out that you could get the cars to jump up onto the coffee table and nearly take out mom's coffee cup. Well until she put the tissue box in front of the cup to protect it.

6) Putting up and decorating the fake tree every year. Mom would pull out the ornaments to each of us kids and we'd put them on the tree in clumps, bare spots be darned. That whole process would take what felt like an eternity, with lights, tinsel, the ribbons, bobbles, and little hanging decorations, and I miss every second of it.

7) Going over to my aunt and uncle's for dinner with the rest of the family, the noise of the older kids playing their music and laughing, my dad and uncle on the couches snoring away and my mom, aunt and the older girls in the kitchen talking about everything under the sun.

8) Thinking that I was going to be a hero when I found a Tickle Me Elmo in a Toy's R Us during the great Elmo drought of 1996, I was so proud of myself for getting one for my little girl, I took it home, wrapped it extra specially, put a huge bow on it with ribbon, I spent nearly 2 hours wrapping Elmo to be just perfect. I made sure that it was going to be the "big present" for MG, when the other presents were done and the paper melee settled down, I pulled out the "big present" so that MG could tear into it. Now here's how it went in my mind 'MG would open the present, after admiring the perfect wrapping, the ribbon and the just right bow, the would look at the Elmo and tickle him, giggle with extreme joy then jump into my lap and give me the biggest hug her little arms could muster, saying Thank you daddy, it's the best present in the whole world, I'm the luckiest little girl EVER!" What actually happened was she ripped into the wrapping, with a total disregard to the perfect wrapping, grabbed Elmo which went off, laughing giggling and jiggling, at which point she dropped Elmo, climbed into my lap as if Elmo was coming at her with a immunization shot, crying. She wanted absolutely nothing to do with Elmo, he scared the crap out of her. If I remember correctly, her favorite toy that year was a cardboard box that held a quilt that her mom received, so we took out some crayons and decorated the box for her and took Elmo back to the store the next day.

9) The look on my parents face when it was all over, tired, exhausted to be exact, but a look of pure joy at watching their kids enjoying the hard work and effort that they poured into getting each and every gift, each one hand picked and selected for just us. Or it could have been the pure joy of not having to clean up the mess that we made, because that's what we as kids had to do for our real present to our parents.

10) Going back and thinking of things for this list.

I may be Grinchy sometimes, but I do love this time of year, it tends to bring out the best in most people. Sometimes I wonder why we can't make it last throughout the year, but if we did that, than this wouldn't be the most wonderful time of the year, would it?

The State of things

Hello again

I was reading the web news this morning and came across yet another truly disturbing story about a young kid with a gun shooting up innocents in a parking lot of a Christian Youth facility out in Arvada (another of my old stomping grounds) and then allegedly doing the same in a church in Colorado Springs. The officials are still trying to determine whether it was the same assailant. Not more than a week ago there was a 19 year old, despondent over losing both his job at McBurger world and his girlfriend, he went into a shopping mall with an assault rifle, shot up the place killing 8 innocents. I refer to them as innocents not because they were pure of heart and free from sin, but because they didn't fire on these assailants first.

Now with all of this and the gun violence I read about in schools across this country, it leads me to think of why there is such a sharp rise of violence. I have some theories and they probably aren't going to be popular, but they are my opinions and theories.

1) It goes back to the Spare the Rod, spoil the child, mentality. Is all of this violence because the parents of these kids, these assailants, these takers of youth, vibrant and innocence, afraid to spank their kids? If when they were babies or adolescences, they did something horrible like accidentally killing a cat, did they get a time out instead of a belt or a switch? I mean, does punishment at the level of a spanking keep these soon to be killers from turning down that road? Or is like the old adage, violence begets violence? I'm in no way condoning beating a child, but in my mind there is a difference between a spanking and a beating. I know that there are a couple of people who will disagree with me until the day they die, and that's alright, I've been lucky enough to have only had to spank MG 3 times in her entire lifetime. 1 swat with my hand on her bottom, 3 times in her entire lifetime. And truly it hurt me more than it hurt her, and on the other side of the coin, I know parents who have kids who run rampant in their own home, the parents count to 3 as if they are going to put the child into time out or in their room without and then they do nothing except count to 3 again. I've heard these children tell their parents that they hate them and that if they ever laid a hand on them, they'd call CPS and have them tossed in jail, these kids were 8 and 6. If I tried that at 8 or 6, my parents would hand me the phone and tell me to call CPS, just to call my bluff, then I'd be sent to my room, butt a little redder and no dinner or dessert, but I digress... Is what we're reaping a result of sparing the rod and spoiling the children?

2) Is it an effect of over medicating the youth? I am fortunate enough to have a daughter who is extremely intelligent and mentally healthy, I take the time to talk with her to let her know that things some days will suck, but tomorrow is a new day. If she ever has an issue, she can definitely talk to me about it, and I won't judge her because I love her. I realize that there are some meds out there which are a definite benefit for their users, but is the doctors prescriptions diluting our kids to the point where their mild depressions that come with teenagedom are turning into psychotic rages which justifies, in their minds, their going out and cutting down people that they don't know? Is it a combination of being over medicated and the violence in video games and the other media?

3) Is it the lack of religion in the household? I grew up in a family of 'Recovering Catholics' as my mom would put it. We didn't go to church, because my parents had it beaten into them as children that they had to, so this was their way of rebelling as adults. I am very spiritual, and believe that you don't need to go to a place, necessarily to pray or worship. But could a lack of faith, in one's self or that things will get better or even that they may have a higher purpose, could that be causing these atrocities?

4) Are they just wanting to be copy cats and they can because it's so easy to get guns?

Or am I just trying to read too much into this and these kids are just a little messed up in the head and they have to take it out on someone? I know logically that there is no real answer, and until there is, these kids are going to continue killing innocent people in a psychotic fueled rage. I feel that it kills each of use a little each time we see something like this in the media, and I want to live longer than that.

Residual Blackness

So there we were, bundled up and looking for a fight. Ok, not really, but Mielikki and I decided to take Mustang Girl to a Podunk Christmas (Local street fair) on Black Friday night. Needless to say, I was always under the impression that Black Friday was an accounting term for a profitable Friday, you know keeping the books in the black.

I found out that is not what it means. It means that the flatlanders come up and turn everyone's moods black by creating major havoc while they're teens run rampant thr0ugh the crowds pushing and shoving so that they can catch up with their F-bomb dropping little vampire wannabe friends. I'm not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but to hear a 12 year old dropping F-bomb after F-bomb while standing next to their parents in a "Family Friendly Atmosphere" was just a little much.

I understand the reasoning behind coming up to Little Podunk City, the atmosphere, the friendly people, the artisans, and small town Christmas memories, but please for Pete's sake, either rien in your foul mouthed little brats, or don't give me any flak for throwing an elbow (or wanting to) when they act like they're driving on the California freeways, cutting people off while talking on their cell phones. I'm really starting to think that the locals to Little Podunk City should be legally required to carry tazers so that when one of these flatlanders gets out of line, we can give them a little jolt and forcibly return them to the quiet family friendly atmosphere that they came up to enjoy in the first place. :)

7 Things...

YEA!! Something interesting to do..

A). Link to the person who tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
B). Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
C). Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
D). Let each person know that they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

For the sake of friendships new and old, I'll forgo the tagging others to do this also.

Ok, here we go...

1) When I was a kid, instead of nightmares of ghosts, ghouls, goblins, vampires, werewolves, venomous ducks, or spiders, I had nightmares of falling off of the face of the earth. I would have to hold on tight to my mattress to keep from falling up. :) Shel Silverstein there for you.

2)I like snakes and some spiders, but I don't like the spiders that can have a full phonebook land on top of them and laugh it off looking at me as if to say "That's all you got? You pansy" Those are like little mafia spiders who will come back with some of their no neck hairy knuckled friends and take care of me when I'm sleeping.

3)I write, I've been published more than a few times, but I don't let anyone read my papers outside of magazines, books or literary magazines.

4)I love swimming, I use to swim all year long, rain, snow, heavy winds or burning sun... Ok that really doesn't count I guess.

4 redux) I think that my mom helped Mie with some chicken noodle soup the other night, it tasted just like her chicken dumpling stew. :) Hi Mom!!

5)I think that I'm just a little more than slightly OCD, but I love messing with people who are truly OCD. One person in particular use to work with my sister and I would go over to their desk and move all of their meticulously placed pens, paper, and toys on their desk about a 1/2 inch to the left. Apparently this would make said person useless for the first 3 hours of the day due to putting everything right back in place.

6)I have never taken my parents car for a joy ride when I was a kid, never needed to, we had 2 go-karts and a bunch of mini bikes that we could terrorize the neighborhood with. And there was more than one occasion when my dad would come home to find the neighbors out front waiting for him because we lost control of a kart and took out a row of rose bushes at about 25 mph, cut across their lawns and generally created major havoc with a swath of destruction stretching from one end of the block to, conspicuously, our house. Go figure...

7)I'm a parent, and a damned good one at that. I make sure that my daughter stays in touch with her mom's family, even if they are a bunch of chowder heads who have threatened on more than one occasion to kidnap her and run off to Arkansas to raise her as their own. I sure would hate to call up some of my spider mafia friends to take care of that little problem. I hear one is a pretty good shot from a 1/2 mile off. :)

The more that I look at that list, the more I can think of, like when I was living up Medford, we'd go to a little zoo on the coast of Oregon, there I was able to hold interesting animals, including petting a mountain lioness, play with a Bangle Tiger cub, pet an Australian Raccoon (I think), not to mention Reindeer and other assorted animals....

That's all for now. :)

der Housen

Hello good people of blogspot.

As you may have read on Mielikki's blog, we went to go look at a house last night. It has the potential of being a beautiful home, warm and fulfilling. I sent a link to my sister to see it and her comment basically boiled down to this method of restoration.
1) Go into the house and measure the square footage.
2) double check the square footage, just in case (we do come from a family of measure twice, cut once people)
3) Go to the gas station
4) Pour the gasoline into the house, light a match, run and then watch it burn. (Strange advice from an insurance industry employee)

I don't know, I like the house, Mie likes the house too, I think it has plenty of potential, minus the ugly ass master bathroom which looks like it needs some sort of exorcism to rid it of the demons of stupidity of who ever thought that it was a great idea to put jungle wallpaper, animal print shower curtains and a leopard print lamp shade into one room.

OUT DEMONS!! BE GONE!!

Let me know what you think. I've got a pretty good eye for detail, I should, it's the only one that I have left since the leopard attack in the jungle(bathroom)...

http://www.photomax.com/web/mem_album_photo_slide_show.php?TrackId=1628413&RandomId=2101888593

Things stolen

Ok, so yesterday started as a typical Monday always does, a long drive to work, followed by a quick bite from the cafe. I came back to my desk and realized that I really had to make water, so I got back up from my desk to go into the men's restroom. I turn the corner to the urinal stall and someone had stole the urinal. Standing there in disbelief, the pressures of the mornings bottle of water and the O.J. temporarily skipping my mind as I looked for the urinal. It was just there Friday, I know, I used it. So I went back to the door, opened it to see if I had for some unexplicable reason, walked into the women's restroom by accident, unlike in high school when I was pushed into a girls restroom (another blog all together). Seeing the Triangle and the little white marker wearing slacks, I knew I had chosen the correct door. SO I head back in to see if indeed I missed the urinal or if someone was playing a cruel joke on me. Sure enough I go back and low and behold, it's still missing. "Harumph" I think to myself, then try to think of WHY someone would be so brazen and cruel as to steal this very functional, if not very disqusting piece of bathroom equipment. No answers, still... I chuckled as I thought of all the uses a urinal could be used for. First was an interesting conversation starter of a sconce hanging on the wall of a house. Or a planter for a Cactus outside, every guy that I asked at work agreed that it would be so very cool to have a urinal installed in their bathrooms at home so that they didn't have to worry about the lid being left up and their wives/girlfriends/kids going for a swim at the midnight hour in a groggy state.

As of today, we are still pondering the missing urinal (yes it is a slow news day here at work) but there is now a bigger story to work on, some one has taken my red swingline stapler and my coat hook. Obviously these fiends will stop at nothing to continue my personal torment, I may have to make a shank out of a staple puller to defend myself.

Harumph.

Geek Poem

This being my first posting, I don't really have much to say. I am a "Techno-weenie" as my sister would love to tell you. Often times friends and family ask me what it is that I do, when I tell them, their eyes tend to glaze over and they get the slack jaw followed closely by the jell-O neck, while a little bit of drool forms at the corner of their mouths. So I've come to the conclusion that I need to just tell them that I'm a janitor. The nice thing about telling people that I'm a janitor is that they can grasp that reality with one hand and no need for further explanation. To top it off, I'm not lying.. really. I do go in and set things up, or tear them down per requests from people outside of my pay grade, not to mention I also get to clean up other people's messes, which is always a joy, almost as fun as shaving my head with a cheese grater or dosing my shorts with gasoline while standing in the middle of the Burning Man festival.

To help people out with what I do at work, I wrote a poem:


Here I sit, watching the new server installed and ready to go.
I type in a command, nothing
I go to the command line, type the command, still nothing.
In my head I hear it, pulsating, pounding just below the surface
I try something new, still the system thumbs its nose at me giving me a raspberry...
The roar grows louder, slowly reaching it's crescendo, building
roaring, ripping at my mind, my fists clench in undeniable rage
Fatal error flashes on the screen, the roar becomes a primal scream
AAARGHH!! the volcanic scream is now a maelstrom of lights and sounds
building, roiling, screaming, pounding... until it pushes the envelop of sanity and maniacal genius into being one
The gurgle rises to the top, bursting forth in one single completely meaningful word

"FUCK!!!"

Unfortunately, the meaning is lost in translation from my mind to my mouth and body and comes out as a whimper followed by a thud as my head hits the desk...