The all star of gate D3

Its amazing how quickly you get used to things.

Yesterday at 9 I was confused and frustrated about staying the night. By midnight I felt like I knew the airport almost completly.

I knew where the outlets were. I knew where all the internet stations were- the one that the well intentioned but mislead Continental staff told me didn't exist. I knew where the tunnels and moving sidewalks were. I knew the bathroom system. I even had a favorite urinal that I considered mine... (Thats really where I got a bit concerned that perhaps I had grown TOO comfortable...)

At first, I sat by an outlett to charge my PDA and batteries. I listened to Illinois by Sufjan Stevens and watched the airport staff scury outside through the window. I kept thinking how cool it was the way all those people and specialzed vehices were working together. I wish Abe was there to see it too- he would have loved it.

Sleeping was not so easy. I tried several things, finally slouching over in a phone booth. A guy on a cleaning machine passed me a couple times. Then one time I saw him pass me- then back up. He called once. I ignored him- I was afraid he was going to tell me I couldn't sleep here. He called a second time. I looked up groggily, doing the "who, me?" gesture. He asked if I was staying the night. I told him I was. He said "Let me see if I can get you a cot." and sped off. I was ever so thankful.

Long story short, he wasn't able to find one in this half of the airport. But he assured me there was some through the tunnel. I thanked him and ran off- by this point I allready had a pretty good grasp of the geography of the Airport- which, if you know me is pretty suprising.

The only one I found was behind a continental service desk. After passing it a few times looking for others, I finally bit the bullet and jumped the gate to retreive it. Okay, so the gate was open. I took it back set it up by gate D3.

That actually helped only mildly, since, well..... Its a cot. My arms didn't know where to go and proved a perpetual problem. But I did get some sleep- dont ask how much, I have no idea.

I went over today to a place that said it served- PROUDLY served- Phoneix Cofee. I had taken Brad's wisdom of getting cofee while here to heart. I decided it had to be local. I got a mocha phoneix something something. It was flipp'n GOOD. I could taste the chololate, yes- but the coffee was certainly there, strong and not acidic. Just how I liked it. I got a breakfast sandwhich there as well. The people behind the counter were the nicest people I've met in any store in awhile. But everyone sees nice here.

Okay, over my time again.

Everyone, thanks for the comments. It made logging on worth while. Anon, MHT is Manchester Airport. Oh, I see someone said this already. Quick, you are. Hannah- you crackedme up with the Kevin Max thing. You do realize he's getting on nowadays, right? In years and in girth? ;)

Later e'ry body.

dot dot dot

So... for those of you who didn't know, I'm going to see my friend get married in KS this week.

Well. I won't pontificate around the bush, because I am on a airport computer and being charged by the minute. I am stranded in Cleavland. I'll update more later perhaps, but here is a brief recap of today:

Got up at 8:00ish.

Ate, hung out with Mo and then Jen.

Packed.

Washed nice wedding clothes.

Packed.

Packed.

(So far so good)

Learned something about a friend of mine that made me very sad and a bit angry.

Got to MHT with my sister. Aparently- the time on the e-ticket is the time the plane LEAVES. Not the time you BOARD... I think I knew that but...still. Missed 2:10 flight. Got resheduled to the 6:00 o'clock flight.

Called mom. Told her that we needed to call my friend's mom so we could tell her not to pick me up. She kept looking for the number then said someting like "oh! Grandma Streeter fell and broke her-" *pause* "I gotta go, I'll call you back."

Then-

My sister got a call. One of my cousin's friend has been missing for over 24 hours.

Then we finally got ahold of Mum. She says she is having trouble finding the number. Grandma fell and broke her arm.

Oh, and Chris- our OTHER cousin- was hit by a drunk driver. Head on.

Miracuously, he's alive. I am not sure, but I think the girl is too...

So. That was a sort of sucky few hours.

Then our plane got held in the air for like, 25+ minutes because of the weather and volume of traffic.

But hey! This is some adventure. I've stopped reeling enough now to laugh at the bizarre amount of stress that just landed on me. Funny stuff.

Despite all this, I still can't wait to go and see my friend and his bride get maried.

Later er'y body.

Better and picture post

Edit:Oh yeah, by the way I'm feeling better. Thank you all for your nice comments, concerns and prayers. Even the lurkers- it means alot to me. Now back to your regularly scheduled blog...

Here it is... only about three months overdue, too! By golly, I think I'm improving...

With out further ado ladies and gents:

This is part of the main room for my group at [AwesomeCo]. Our company is a fan of the stock market; can you tell?


They are also a fan of long piles of paper that have seemingly no purpose.

Pictured here is a list of words generated from the middle initial of employees with birthdays on odd years appended to the breakfast selection of employees with even years, divided by pie. Cherry, if I'm not mistaken. This stack must be kept on hand for 2 months because of strange rules that no one understands anymore.

At least two sentences in the above parpagraph were true.


Here is the wall my mini-cube faces that look up at in my "mission control-ish" room. They are actually two computers with dual screens each. I can take control over either of them simply by moving my mouse up off of my screen and onto those ones, thanks to the cool synergy setup I installed. Everyone else can as well. We manage reading text because I turned on windows magnifier so there is a window on the left monitor that follows the cursor and magnifies whatever is around it. Yes, I am proud. Its bona fide PDG (Pretty darn good). Originally I thought I'd have to blur out the data on the screens, or at least on the board in the background, but lets hear it for bad camera skills! With him and mister poor-lighting-without-using-flash working together, its amazing what I can render unreadable.


Looking back from the doorway, here is my mini-cube as I like to call it. Note small tidbit of epic white board with important data censored behind me. Also note multiple beverage containers of undetermined brand.

Here is my dualy-setup, complete with censored post-it notes and pirate ducky watchguard. Why two screens you ask? Because 4 on the wall is clearly not enough. (Note: I'm JK, it is pretty useful and important for what I do actually since I need the screen real estate. Even though making "this room is actually a tax-haven" jokes would be fun...)

Another view. Note my fastidious use of post it notes. I adore those little yellow buggers. They are so cool.



Hey! What is that beautiful yellow thing with such rugged good lucks? Is that... a post it note with wheels?


Aha! Its a truck! Sorry, you can not marry Truck. It is mine- plus- wHAT THE HECK ARE YOU THINKING? Its an automobile for crying out loud. What would the children look like? Think of them...
This is the amazing Cat in the hat Hat. Its from Kiaya. (Thank you once again!) It rocks my socks (but more directly, my phro).

Well ladies and gents, this has been fun, no? Maybe we should do it more oft.


(Yes, it is possible that I got carried away with the censoring of my images. Its alot of fun. You all should try it sometime. )

I'm down with the sickness

Yesterday I got very very sick. Fever, sweating bullets and alternating chills, etc.

So far I feel a bit better this morning, but I am very very sore. I feel like all my muscles are 10 times more sensitive. As much as I need rest, it hurts to be on one bed for too long...

This isn't a "pity me" post (well....), but just to let you know that if if you can't get ahold of me, this is why.

Oue, my neck...

Zeke burns gas like its 1927

I love my truck.

Today, I was afraid I might be a bit late for work. I couldn't afford any slow downs, and I decided that saving my gas by driving conservatively wasn't worth being late. I took off a few mental limitations to my acceleration and handling routines. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.

For example: Coming up to the light on 111, I saw it go to red. "Shoot..." I thought to myself. I suddenly remembered that mapuest once took me up the little road to my left by accident and spit me back out on the road 111 just a few hundred feet further. I quickly checked checked out the traffic surrounding me, then decided to go for it. I powered into the turn at a comfortable 20mph. I could have pushed it further with , but no reason too... plus it was over a 90 degree turn. I raced down the little strip of road to the part where I could turn right again and eventually hook back up to 111. The road was still wet from the rain, and there was sand on the turn as well. I slowed down a little and made the turn. The truck slid around the corner like it was covered in snow. I was a bit surprised but simply steered to correct and kept the gas where it needed to be. I straightened out and didn't even slow down that much at all. I connected to 111 and got there ahead of the light. Then I laughed like an evil genius.

"Dude!" I thought to myself, "I just totally power slid around that corner and didn't even flinch!! I'm awesome!" Then I thought to myself that I wished someone else was in the driver seat besides my lunch of pizza and cheezy homeade ravilo. They're nice, but I can't give them a high five and say "DUuuuDE!" with them in unison.

So I figured I'd post it instead. Cause it was awesome and, it wasn't illegal, I'm pretty sure. Honest.

Google is trying to make me hate them

...and you know how hard that is. I believe I've stated in previous entries that I would do something to the effect of jumping off a cliff if they asked me to. Well- NO longer.

So they bought blogger- fine. Thats cool; their GOOGLE, thats kind of what they do. They buy important stuff and make it better or make it free, or both. I had no problem with that. Then for the longest time, they had this "new blogger in beta!" but I didn't join up. Well, its out of Beta they say now. Thats great! That means its stable, right? And better? Or at least, it works over 80% of the time?

Apparently, google is using an ancient meaning of the word Beta- its a little archaic, but I did some research and I found the word. The root for this is in the latin "Beaht" which literally means to suck at life, and the English colloquialism "duh" which means to express one's less then adequate mental prowess. In their defense, now that I think about it, this actually makes a lot of sense. I just was using the wrong definition.

If you are reading this, it means you got to the site. Congratulations! You're doing pretty good for yourself already. For me, I usually have to type the URL, hit enter, wait for it to NOT load all the way, then hit refresh (which I fancy is sort of like a slap in the face, because it makes me feel better) at which point it comes back like someone awaken from stupidity. At least, this has been my experience in Firefox. Two or three different versions of Firefox.

But even if you are reading this, the problem still remains that you are reading this, not the other post which I made. What other post? Oh, you know- the one with all the pictures and witty titles- you remember, it had pictures of [AwesomeCo] finally, and my truck and... what, you don't remember that post? Huh- neither did GOOGLE.

Yeah- google kept timing out while I tried to save that post. Now, if this was a little startup company that got really popular, I would totally understand bandwidth issues- but guys, were talking frick'n GOOGLE here. There is no excuse. They are basically half of the Internet's bandwidth anyway.

*exhales* Okay. Sorry. I had to rant.... *quickly saves before Google grows wise to his plans*
NOTE: Before saving this, I copied it to wordpad. Which is good, because the first two tries died. NOT EVEN KIDDING.

Alright, now on to topics which I have neglected. I feel I owe Gwyn a shoutout, because she is basically awesome and the funniest person she knows, and because she gave LON and I our own post.

The other day, LON and myself got to go hang out at her swing'n dynamite pad. Its pretty cool- shes got a kitchen, a bathroom, a bed, and when we were there, a Christmas tree. Being in that close proximity to self-reliance makes you feel cooler- like you too are basically there. Or you can pretend to be and call yourself cool. So, thanks Gwyn. Thanks for making me able to pretend to be cool.

Oh, and another thing- which she tends to not enjoy herself but I find absolutely awesome is her ability to get lost in her own backyard. Recently, she asked use if we had ever been in her car and not gotten lost at some point. We started to open our mouths to assure her that we had, and that she didn't always get lost.

Then we shut them again and kind of just laughed akwardly.

But thats all fine, because LON Gwyn and myself get lost, we just laugh more and end up doing something totally arbitrary like talking in accents until we get unlost (or TRYING to anyway).

and- HOLY CRAPOLY, another long post. I'm sorry guys. I'll cut it short right now, honest.
I think I have write-iteous or something. Weird.