Its 12:00AM. Do you know where your brain is?

I don't. I think it fell out somewhere around 10:11. Thats when I thought- I mean, seriously, half-decided-and-sent-commands-to-my-muscle thought about laying down on the long table in the kitchen here at [AwesomeCo] before I came to my senses.

I can just see a co-worker busting in on me. "But I can explain!" I'd blurt out in a guilty, don't-hate-me kind of tone.
"Oh you can?" They'd reply.
"Yes...I...it was a flat surface, and well. I was...a tired man.."

Well, that went well, hypothetical me. Shame on us.

Later, I decided I wanted some toast. Then, the next thing I know, I had made a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich- everything in between is kind of a blur. I think I looked in a cabinet and got all excited because they had chunky peanut butter.

So yeah- I already knew that I talked in my sleep something awful, but apparently, sometimes when I'm reeeaally tired? I make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Actually, I think its kind of cool.
--- - - -

In other, profoundly more important news, its been 1 month now since Kiaya and I were "official". I am still quite desperately in love (even more so, actually) and while I know one month probably doesn't sound that significant or impressive to anyone, I am very happy.
Very happy indeed.
-- - ---

Okay, back to here at [AwesomeCo]. Oh, and speaking of which- I love all my readers. Seriously, its really great to be read. I don't care where you come from or who you are- I like hearing from you. Even if you were, say, in management at the company I work for, doesn't mean you have to just sit around on the sidelines- feel free to comment! (Just, you know...hypothetically. [You know who you are. ] :D )

A fog examined

Driving home tonight was made much more exciting then normal by an unusual amount of fog. As I drove down the road, it seemed to come at me in small surging wisps and in long hanging clouds. The road would be visible one moment, almost completely concealed the next, then visible through a soft layer of fog again. It kept one guessing, and made you alert. My feet were a little closer to the pedals, my posture, more prone. I didn't know what to expect, and moment after moment was a surprise.

It was oddly analogous of the primary. It kept us guessing all week, then it kept us watching all night. For me, it is a unique election. This is only my second time being able to vote in a presidential race, but its not the second campaign I've followed. My family has always been at least moderately aware and active in politics, and I've spent several evenings huddled close to the TV, watching results pour in. But this one is different for me. For the first time, I wasn't rooting for the candidate my parents were rooting for. My candidate (Ron Paul) wasn't even considered a serious contender. And different also this year is my following of the democrats primary as well. I never thought I'd say this, but I think I got more into the democratic ABC debate then the Republican one. Even though I dislike both candidates policies, I have found myself rooting for Obama to get the nomination on the Democratic side. I had a horse in both races. I was happy when he came in first in Iowa. I was overjoyed when people started talking about Hillary falling fast. And so, I was hoping for another victory by him tonight to balance out the bitter taste of McCain taking the state I love and giving the most American, constitutionalist candidate I know less then 10 percent. Afterall, if I was to have to pick between the two democrats running, I would feel safer with Obama. Clinton is, as a friend has recently put it to me, "a very oldschool, power play, family connection kind of candidate". I want to see her loose. I want her to see that no one is owed the presidency in the United States. At least Obama brings a freshness to the table. But no; in my great state, Obama has lost narrowly to Hillary.

Though a somewhat discouraging end to my otherwise pleasant day, I have hope for the rest of the campaign. The race is really wide open, on both sides. And so the tightness of the race, like the fog- though it confounds us and frustrates some- it makes the ride a heck of a lot more exciting.

Here's to a great 2008 everyone.

(And I'm sorry my first post in over a month had to be about Politics. )

The wish list of Little Man

Well, Christmas season is upon us. It becomes apparent right about now, when everyone's wishlist is stuck of on the fridge and flying around email.

My favorite has to be my little brothers- for the last two years now, his lists have just made my minute whenever I read them. Its a little time capsule of who he is at the moment- his quirky sense of humor, his optimistic look on life and his creativity, untouched by the critical mind of adulthood, or even "the big kids" world.

Below is his list, republished with permission:

1. Webkinz (a bunny would be nice, but any other one is okay too)
2. L'ilkinz (a black cat would be nice, but any other one is okay too)
3. Mobile Devastator (Lego set)
4. Aero Booster (Lego set)
5. Blade Titan (Lego set)
6. Cyclone Defender (Lego set)
7. Sky Guardian (Lego set)
8. Golden Guardian (Lego set)
9. Rollercoaster Tycoon (1)
10. Rollercoaster Tycoon 3D
11. Another Golden Guardian (cause in the comics there are like, 21 Golden Guardians…. it's really cool. So please, if you can-if you have enough money…uh…get me 21 Golden Guardians? Heh heh…Please?)
12. Five cinnamon sugar pretzels from Sam's Club and 5 salt ones…please.
13. Blazing Falcon (Lego set)
14. $50
15. Laptop
16. Tough Book
17. Candy Corn
18. Candy
19. Freezer
20. Couch
21. Ice cubes
22. Cups
23. Water
24. Fruit
25. Wood
26. Screws
27. A Designing room right next to Zeke and my room
28. Six birds
29. Five dogs
30. Two cats
31. Five Hamsters
32. Eight horses
33. One acre of land [Editors Note: Getting into real estate already? This kids a genius. I wish I could get him this...]
    
34. Hay
35. A pond
36. Paper
37. Markers
38. Trees
39. Giraffes
40. Zebras
41. Monkeys
42. Bird seed
43. Monkey bars
    
44. Fences
45. Telegraph
46. Batteries
47. Pencils
48. Wires
49. Insulators
50. Conductors
51. Paper clips
52. Computer
53. Rollercoaster simulator
54. Everything simulator, made by drawn pictures seen by mirrors make the picture move in front of you moved by motors
55. Bricks and cement
56. Nails (not like fingernails)
57. Tissue box
58. Table
59. Chairs
60. Tank (like an aquarium-about 500 feet long and tall)
61. 100 Goldfish
62. 50 sea monkeys
63. Bible (Just in case I lose my other one)
64. Map of Londonderry and Manchester in one
65. Underground tunnel to Andrew's house, Andrew's house, Andrew's house, and church [Editors note: Little man has three friends named Andrew. He never grows tired of how funny that is.]
    
66. CRZ (when I am old enough to drive I can drive it!) [Editors note: Takes after his brother when it comes to taste in cars it seems!]
    
67. Helicopter
68. 50 RAMS
69. 1 3D card (for a computer)
70. 2 extra motherboards
71. 10 speakers
72. 1 that controls the sound for each speaker with a paper clip and two slots-one for input and two to left and right speakers
73. Keyboard and mouse

_________________________________________________

Hope you enjoyed his list as much as I did...man I love that kid.

Reading by the fireplace

I was always a fan or the romantic idea of curling up to a good book and reading it by the fireplace light. Its such a warm, safe and cozy sounding thing... but you know what? Its really not all that great. I mean it is, but its not as perfect as we so often make it out to be. I thought about this last night when I attempted to recreate this idealistic notion while a blazing fire was started upstairs. I pulled up a chair and tried to read The Golden Compass.

I began to realize yet again as I shifted in my seat that all I ever get when I actually try this in real life is strained eyes from bad lighting, a cold back and a leg thats about to go up in flames.

And yet, I still love the idea. Its irrational, really- but somehow my personal memories of how difficult it is to get comfortable by a fireplace are always overrun by this grand ideal thought of being around a fireplace. Anyone else ever notice that kind of quirk about yourself?

Most of the time, I have a very bloggable life

...so why don't I blog more? Why am I the prodigal blogger (or Prodigger, if you prefer)?

I am fairly confident it is because I make too big a deal out of the content. I want my posts to be masterpieces, the lot of them. I want to make sure I include every detail that is awesome and work the delivery of every sentence.

But I believe I've decided thats a bad idea. It instead encourages me to wait too long to spend time to blog, which in turn declines readership and when readership is down advertising dollars soon follow. This in turn discourages me from writing anything until its good enough to bring in the masses and the money. But what am I thinking? People won't come if updates are sparse. Oh, and also I don't have ads. So theres that.

In other words, I plan to go for quantity instead of quality.

Now, with out further ado- I present to you "New York- a less then concise recap":

Back a few months ago, I caught wind of the concert pairing I had been hoping- neigh, YEARNING after for years. Eisley, the indy-fresh angel voiced, mild mannered super stars in hiding from Texas band, and Mute Math, the amazingly creative and hard touring, always-the-best-show-you've-ever-scene-every-time band from New Orleans. I rounded up a group of 8 other people brave enough to drive down to New York with me in a 15 passenger van (and who's schedules lined up) and headed down 95 one bright October thursday morning.


The trip down there was a good time- I had friends from different social circles, but they gelled very well together which made me quite happy. Since I was driving I didn't get to be part of much of the conversations in the back, but I could hear them having a good time over the engine noise and stereo- which was quite an interesting set up in itself. I had obtained a 5.1 speaker system from the last geek swap fest I went to for a measly $20, and thanks to Jarin's 300 watt inverter, we were able to power the monster all the way to NY, booming the bass and blasting the treble. Quite fun.

In addition to driving down there, I also got to drive in NYC traffic. When I told this to people before I left, they would always give me a sympathetic "that sucks dude" kind of look (if I told them I was doing this in a 15 passenger van they went pale and thought I was sui or homicidal). But after I got into the traffic, I really enjoyed it. In NYC you have to be aggressive, you see. Its like a competition for the road- winner takes the lane, loser has to wait a few more seconds. If you look at it that way, I think I played a pretty good game. After seeing so many yellow cabs that were basically moving traffic law violations, I realized that the cops in this town had real crime to deal with. As long as you don't kill anybody, just about anything goes. Instead of being flustered with this revelation as people cut me off left and right, I instead took it like a liberating breath of fresh air. I knew my driving abilities and limits and now I could actually drive how I wanted to the best of them. I had a blast earning respect in the concrete jungle. I think my favorite part was when I played chicken with a semi- I was behind a double parked car, and the light turned green. I knew the semi at the light had several gears to get through before he got to me, so I veered around the cab into the opposing lane straight towards him and stepped on it, getting around the cab before he could ever be a threat and turning onto the lane I needed to get to with out loss of life or limb. It was pretty jokes, man.

Even though we left about and hour behind schedule we still got there with time to see a bit of the city. After getting some coffee and using the bathroom, we strategized about our next move. Renee suggested we go to times square, and all concurred it to be an idea of merit and achievability.

Apparently, our group was always moving very fast.

We got there via the subway, meeting a few colorful characters along the way (an awesome guy who explained to us some of the meaning in a big artistic display on a building, a man singing a soulful rendition of "work all day, party all night" while handing out flyers).

New Yorker explains to us features of a building

Before long we got to our stop and walked over to Broadway street.

Wow. I don't think you can ever quite capture the larger then life scale and dyanmics of this place on film. You really just have to see it to believe it. After being there in person, I am pretty much convinced that it is the place where all the display manufactures go to sport their newest technology because every single one was brighter, bigger, and higher resolution than anything else I have ever seen or heard of. And the shapes of the screens- its like everyone was trying to out do eachother in the I-have-more-curves-and-deformations-then-you contest. But the effect overall was spellbounding. I tried not to gawk like a tourist at NY the whole trip, but when your in the middle of times square I swear its almost impossible. Its just that incredible.



Another thing thats incredible about times square (and Broadway st. in general) was the amount of street entrepreneurs that would come right up to you and try to hard sale you on something right away. They had no fear! We ended up having this little joke we'd say to eachother if someone slowed down or stopped for a few seconds. "Don't stop, you'll be solicited!" we'd say. And it was true- it was like they could smell a tourist who didn't quite know what they were doing from blocks away. We had people try to sell us a few things- but I can only remember two. One was a print copy of "The Onion". The other was a rapper bumping his demo.

He at least was a good experience. The man came up to us and started his introductions, started to ask us if we wanted to hear his demo- then stopped himself mid sentence as if he had forgot something very important earlier. "First of all, let me just tell you- I've never killed anybody, never shot anybody..." We laughed, and it broke the ice a little bit. He had a practiced somewhat weary demeanor that comes from trying to sell all day to people who don't care. But we gave him the benefit of the doubt, and I took a listen on his portable CD player- expecting perhaps a somewhat novice sound- rough recording, genuine emotion, maybe desperate lyrics. He was after all, bumping his CD on the streets of NY. You gotta be desperate at that point, right?

But within seconds I was impressed. A symphonic chord filled the headphones as one of the tracks started off, and his voice, strong, clear and determined came on the track. "Yorel," it said, "spit that fire." His intro continued cinematically. "So much pain... come on, tell me what pain is." The beat dropped and I was already strainging my ears to hear where he was taking this. Soon I realized he was quite different then I had first thought:

"9/11 was supposed to brake us- all we did was wake up.
Many tears fell as mucas caked up, say what?
Lest we forget- those 4 planes hit,
My uncle died 9/11 so he ceased to exist.
Me and my tear drops are on the line and became best friends
Mines will be falling down my face till my death
We fall and we rise- so rise up and come to accept it
You'll be an old man looking back on life you neglected"

The song as a whole was a sort of "keeping on" anthem of rising through adversity- waking up and doing something with the days of our lives and bearing the pain necessary for rewards. I was blown away. By this time I saw him talking to some of my friends about the art on the CD. I took my headphones off and listened in "...and this represents us- you see we are born into this life dead, and there is a struggle for our souls between good and evil.

The album art for Yorel's debut disc "Redemption"

So it turns out, the guy is a Christian. And his rap name, Yorel? It is Leroy spelled backwords, in honor of his uncle who died in 9/11 (he was on the plane to Pennsylvania if I recall correctly.). Really interesting guy. I bought both CDs. He was really nice to us, thanking us perfusely for our time and telling us how he was honored with the attention. ("When I blow up one day, and you come to my concert" he said, "You can come up on stage with me.")

But enough of these side attractions- I went down there for a concert after all!

We arrived their two tickets short. Jake and I decided that we would be the odd people out and find some tickets from scalpers- long story short, we got them, but it cost me through the nose. It doesn't matter- the important part is we all got in.

The rest of this I suppose would best be served by footage of the bands. Well, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is, I did take clips of each band and they came out pretty good. The bad news is, I don't have a couldn't find a firewire cable so I can't get it uploaded till I get one. But I do hope to upload it sometime, because the concert was amazing.


First, Eisley- I had never seen them live. I was not disappointed. Despite some small sound issues towards the begginng of their set, they sounded amazing. They sing just as or more beautiful then they do on their album. They didn't hold back at all- the music was so urgent in the sense that they were totally in it right then. You could feel the emotion; it was palpable. Well, at least for me. Perhaps I'm just a crazy fan though. They played just about all the songs I wanted them too- some from each album, which was really great, and some from before their album which I had heard on various live recordings.

The crowd was really great, too. I was kind of nervous for them going in because it was the north east and they were a little band from Tyler, Texas- not to well known in the mainstream and very different then the "main attraction" band. But the crowd seemed to know their work well, giving them a very warm welcome and being just about as roudy as you can be during an Eisley show. One of my favorites songs was " I could be there for you"- not just because Stacy sang a large portion of that song to me (no I'm serious!) but also because the crowd totally seemed to "get" what was going on when Chauntelle sang her bar of the song- celebrating loudly after she sang the last words with cheers and applause. For those who don't know, since Eisley's been signed (and a bit before), Chauntelle has been the only girl who didn't sing. She used to, but decided for awhile that her voice wasn't good enough. She just wasn't confident singing up on stage. Well, in the process of this album being made she had a bit of a breakthrough- singing guest vocals for a friend, and becoming more confident. So when she sang sang that key bridge, executing it confidently and perfectly, it was really, really neat to see New England cheer her on. I was quite proud to be part of this crowd, which on their blog Boyd called "by far - the most roudy, jam packed crowd" and even concluded that "By the end of the set the crowd had peaked the highest level of this tour.". I couldn't be happier. Now maybe they will come back more often. (I talked to Boyd- their dad and manager- afterwords, by the way and made sure he knew I was much closer to the Boston area and that they should come down their more often, or even to NH. I MIGHT have said that if he went to NH I would bring a crowd at least 20 strong... so...if that happens, please back me up guys, k?)

After their set, I actually gave up my place closer to the stage to go and talk to Eisley. They were singing and hanging out back by their merch booth, and I decided that if I came all the way from NH I had to at least say Hi to everyone. I did. Everyone was just as nice and sweet as I thought they'd be. I also learned that one of our group knew some of them from way back when the Eisley family played worship at a church in Texas. It was pretty cool- Chauntelle recognized them and they caught up a little bit before Mute Math.

Mute Math. Daaaang. After Eisley's set, it was like someone said they were passing out 100 dollar bills, but the catch was you had to walk up as close to the stage as possible, bring 5 friends and not let anyone in edgeways. The crows was pretty big I thought for Eisley, but seemingly out of nowhere it just about looked like it doubled. I have never been in a indoor crowd so packed. But its no wonder why. They started off with their amazing intro like they always do, but this time their was a new element- video. Completely synchronized behind them for most every song was a mostly abstract concoction of video goodness that went along with the lighting, crazy antics and mood set by the band. And as usual, their performances were amazing. They know how to build up energy in a room. There is just such an air of excitement when they play, its amazing. It makes you just overflow with emotion.

The drummer, Darren King, looked very exhausted though, even after only a few songs. Like, really exausted- as in might be dehydrated and fall over any minute. I watched him for a little while, concerned- he wasn't missing any beats, but I could tell he was struggling. I've not ever seen him look so tired. I watched him for awhile through a whole in the crowd and made eye contact. I just nodded my head and smiled, like "You can do it dude; you've got this". It looked like he met my gaze and it was like he just pushed himself through it- picked up his head, pushed it up a notch. It was pretty impressive. Those guys really do give everything they have in those shows. Its one of the reasons I love them so much. Oh, and they do crazy things- like at this one, Darren crowd surfed- standing up! - on his drum. They are just straight up entertaining.

And that my friend, is my story more or less. We went home after that- mom swapping out for me on the road back to NH (thanks mom!) so I could get a bit of rest. We stopped in a sleepy stupor over at McDonald's and had much food and laughter (everything is funny at 3am over French fries). When we got home, it was almost 7am. I crashed and woke up at 1. Ate something, showered and went to work.

Ahh, my life. Tis good.

Most disappointing picture ever? YOU decide!

Best. Gift. EVER.

"Honey, get up if you want to eat. Breakfast is on the table."

That was the first thing I heard Saturday morning. I was trying to sleep in...For a weekday, perhaps I had done a halfway decent job. But for a Saturday? Failure. It was only 8:40. I rolled over in my bed, working up my self to getting up. I was still zonked out from the night before- I had been up till 2 working on Kiaya's gift. Today was her birthday, and true to my form, I hadn't finished it till the very last hour.

After getting dressed I trolled over to the breakfast table. Somewhere behind me Moriah is asking someone where Joy is. Must still be in bed. Lucky.

As I pour my cup of coffee, the smell of fresh off the skillet apple pancakes and cinnamon fill the air. Maybe waking up wasn't such a bad idea after all I think to myself as I finish fixing my coffee and take a sip. I think Kiaya is supposed to call me today, too. I still don't know when her party is. Maybe its a good thing her party isn't till later in the day... should at least give me more time to wrap everything up.

On my chair is a shopping bag filled with duct tape of many bright colors. It was to be part of Kiaya's gift. I pick it up to move it into the living room, noting to myself that one of the girls must have dropped an envelope into it, because I know I didn't put it there. But it doesn't matter. All that matters right now is drinking my wake up juice and biting into a wonderful warm homemade apple pancake with butter and cinnamon sugar.

It isn't long until just about everyone is at the table eating breakfast. Everyone except Abs, who is at work, and Joy who Moriah keeps complaining about. I feel sympathetic for the sleepy, and don't engage Moriahs observation. Instead I steer the conversation to the tickets I had to purchase online from less then orthodox sources the night before. Everyone is moderatly impressed with the story. I'm starting my second hot cake.

"Hey Zeke, what was that bag on your chair? Was that... duct tape?" my mom asks.

"Yeah... its part of Kiaya's gift. She asked for Duct Tape...in technicolor!"

My mom grabs the bag and takes a look. "WOW! Thats so neat. I don't think I've ever seen them in neon like this!"

"Mom has anyone seen Joy this morning?" Moriah chimes in once again.

"I don't think so." mom replies off hand, looking at the duct tape.

"Yeah, its pretty cool. They make it in all sorts of colors... I had to choose between pink and purple. There were a lot, actually. Pretty -"

"What's this?" mom interrupts, taking out the envelope.

"Oh I don't know. Noticed it when I moved the bag, maybe one of the girls. Hey Mo, you know anything about that?"

Mom looks at it curiously. I take another sip of coffee. I'm probably still only about a quarter awake at this point. "Its addressed to the family of Joy. Anyone know who this is from...?"

"Nah..." I casually remark as I dig my fork into the pancake. To much cinnamon... its almost dry. Or no- to little butter? Mom opens up the note and places it on the table between us as she reads...

"Roses are red and violets are blue,
Your joy has been kidnapped- boohoo hoo hoo!"

Whoa, a note in rhyme. What is this? I look up and see a note, in cut and paste font complete with ripped edges. My mom continues reading it.


I looked up at the note and started laughing. This is awesome. So THATS what was going on! I think to myself. Thats why I hadn't been told the time of the party. Kiaya had a trick up her sleeve. All this time I had set aside Saturday for her party, and here she was doing something for me too... probably because of my birthday a few weeks ago. Nice! But at this point, I'm still only 1/3 awake. I laugh again.

Uhh...I start to forumlate a plan. While I eat my pancake.

"Zeke! Joy is kidnapped, how can you eat?!?" my mom cries out in semi convincing dismay. "Well mom, " I laugh between bites "she's not getting any losster..."

But I finish my pancake quickly, then run down stairs to get directions to the street that the note mentioned and get some shoes on. Mom suggests I take dad's car since it has more then 2 seats- and I was already taking Mo as my navigator/moral support/sidekick. I hadn't charged my phone over night, so I brought my wall charger and an inverter so I could use it in the car. Moriah brought my DV cam. We loaded up and while Mo was getting situated I sent a little text-o-gram to my number one suspect:

"Roses are red
Violets are blue
I know your behind this

And I'm coming for you."

I showed it to Moriah and she smirked. "You think its her?" she asked as I pulled out as fast as the little Camry could go. Kiaya texted back "Happy birthday." Short, unapologetic yet not admitting anything directly, it was the perfect response. I laughed and showed it to my sister. By this time I was starting to get into the act, and when I came to intersection up ahead that was held up at a light, I announced that "I don't have time for this, my sister is missing!" and jetted onto a side road I knew as a shortcut. I enjoyed Moriah's nervous reactions.

It just so happens that the place I was going was very close to where I work, so I knew most of the terrain pretty well. I found the spot surprisingly quick. After pulling up, I nervously got out. I was supposed to ask for Mike.

As I got in I recognized the man at the counter. It was Kiaya's step dad, Mike. Still, I tried to enter in character. "I'm looking for a MIKE... " He laughed and from his desk provided another small envelope. I took it and walked out the door as I opened the package. It had a flyer and a ransom note demanding a 3 for 3 soda deal. I was to buy it where my sister worked. Interesting.

Instinctively I reached for my pocket to check for my wallet. It wasn't there. Ohh.... I thought to myself. Luckily, my house was on the way to the store anyway. I drove there cautiously, picked up my wallet and fled. I had a ransom to pick up.

I ran in, trying not to let Abi see me as I entered. I started to look around at some aisles aimlessly then laughed at myself. "Moriah-" I said, handing over the flyer "LOCATE!" she chuckled and we eventually found the soda aisle. We got everything we needed, so I went to Abi's lane to check out.

"What are you doing here? You know I can't serve you in my aisle."
I knew that was true, but I figured she had to give me the next clue. So I gave her a kinda "I know what your doing" look and stood there a second. I started to put the stuff on the conveyor belt.

"No, I'm serious!" she replied, putting her hands out to block me. I looked at her kind of confused. I didn't expect this. I was loosing face. "Do you, uhh...have something for me?"

She looked at me weird. "No. Now get out of my aisle."

I looked at Moriah strangely as I retreated. "Where am I supposed to get the next clue?" She said she didn't know, so I decided to go back to the shelf and check under each bottle of soda and behind the cards that had the price on them. Nothing. I texted Kiaya in ryhme to let her know that I hadn't found the third clue. Moriah suggested that it must not be in the store. I began to head for the door. Right before I got outside, my phone rang. "Talk to me." I answered in the best gruff detective voice I could muster. Kiaya was laughing on the other end. Banter flew back and forth, and somewhere in there she informed me to check my windshield. I ran to my car and saw a note.

SHE WAS JUST HERE! "Moriah, look around! They might still be here!!" I said while I covered up the microphone piece. I opened up the note. Two pieces of paper and... "OOH! a donut!" I exclaimed while I grabbed the little bite sized piece of heaven from the envelope. A piece of paper below the confection said "For missing your apple pancakes. Share it with Mo." But it was too late, I had already consumed the tasty morsel. Meanwhile, Kiaya had put a distraught Joy on the phone. She cried into the mic and told me how horrible it was. It was all quite pathetic, in a fun awesome kind of way. Kiaya came back on the line. She started to say something, but I knew at this point the dame was trying to pull on my heart strings- with all the crying Joy bit and such- and I wanted to send a message that I would not be manipulated. I hung up.

Yeah, probably wasn't the best idea. For some reason it seemed like a good idea at the time, like something a real cool character would do. And I was totally a real cool character.

Anyway, the next clue led us to Mac's apples. I assumed that this would be where I picked up Joy and we all had a grand little party- I mean, its the pefect place. Always the paranoid one, I drove up from the lesser used entrance, and slowly winded my way into the parking lot, looking all around for spys. I didn't see any. And when I did find the clue, it wasn't a "look behind you, happy birthday here we are" sort of clue. Inside was a clipping from a newspaper that had a walmart address and the following note:

I looked again at the clipping. Manchester! Holy crapes! This is truly a super game of massive geographical proportions! Thats when I realized how awesome this thing was. I have NEVER gotten to do anything like this. But I always wished I could. I dreamed up massive games that would spread the state, but I had never done anything close to it. And then suddenly, here I was calling home to verify an address on a piece of evidence where I would have to find the next clue under "satisfaction's sign" from a girl with "stars in her eyes". Unbelievable. This is the stuff dreams are made of.

Each stop I got more and more into it. When I went to the walmart, I cautiously started to walk towards the part of the sidewalk where I knew overhead was the word "satisfaction". I could see from a little ways off a young female figure, dressed in red. Is that joy? I thought to myself it can't be this easy... then I noticed two familiar faces out of the corner of my eye. My heart jumped. I grabbed Mo and pulled her back.

"Two guard right there- follow me comeonCOMEON!!" I darted into the store for a second then walked out behind another group. After I cleared my exit we bolted for the car. I took the car and drove it away from the entrance....dead end. I looked back. No one was there, so I crept back out into view of the sidewalk and quietly as I could snaked around the road to the far side of the parking lot. Looks like I'd have to sneak up to get her. After getting out and surveying the target, it became apparent that the girl on the bench was not joy. We wouldn't be able to perform a rush-in extraction after all. It was certainly our girl though- not only did I recognize her as Kelli, she was wearing glasses shaped like stars that were almost as BIG AS HER HEAD. I couldn't suppress my laughter when I got the pun, but I tried to stay in character. I darted around the nursery area, trying to not be seen. I didn't want to deal with Kiaya's security forces, you see. I just wanted to talk to her agent and get my sister back with as little drama as possible.

I tried approaching her with out laughing, but her glasses were ridiculous. I asked her for a clue. She looked up at me and said "I have a clue for you. But first you must get me a 6 pack of IBC root beer and a bag of plastic cups." I went in and quite nervously darted around the aisles, trying to locate the items. The search was made more pulse pounding by the distinct impression that we were being tailed- and for a good reason. The same security forces we had tried to out-maneuver outside kept showing up, just exiting our vision. It was intense stuff. We weaved and double dodged them as best we could, but they had our number.

Eventually we got the goods and delivered it to the starry eyed girl. She handed me a peanut butter sandwich in a bag marked "Eat me" and told me to drive away. This was the cleverest of the notes I had seen yet- the clue was protected by a small plastic bag and placed between two layers of thick crunchy peanut butter. Getting it out was a hilarious mess. I looked at the note:


Now I was hiding my car and meeting someone on a bridge. DUDE. I stowed the car right between two others at the Sunoco, and made sure to lock it up. The mechanic guys we passed looked kinda tough, and a bit confused at my park-and-ditch. But they didn't talk to me, and I didn't make eye contact. If I looked like I belonged there, I shouldn't have any trouble. Feign confidence, I thought to myself. Thats my motto. And it worked- no questions.

As I got to the bridge, I could see a figure off in the distance. Oh my I thought to myself I think its the boss herself! Up to this point I had only made contact with her agents. Since market basket, I had felt like she was onestep behind me though, watching me always, masterminding my doom with an evil laugh. And now, here she was in person. I greeted her, trying to stay in character. I think when she asked me how I was, said "I have had had better days". During the whole conversation I was taking in the scene: A hundred feet or so above the water, standing with the mastermind of my sisters demise and quite possibly the greatest game I had ever played. I was looking around for my sister in the nearby foliage. I was also looking for snipers. I couldn't find anything. It was just Kiaya. Kiaya, and her envelope. The message in this one was a bit different. It had a riddle to solve and a number to call:


This one's pretty hard to read- basically it gave me directions to a church between Union and Pine. The last line was call when you know in which hand the lantern doth glow (I've blocked out the number to protect the guilty). Exciting stuff. I left her company and drove off for Pine street. I parked on Lowell like it suggested. I got out of my car and the second we closed our doors, the church bells started ringing. Moriah and I looked at each other with a "Whoa." kind of expression. The timing of the bell was perfectly eerie. We walked around- it was a big catholic church, with eerie and impressive architecture. But there were lanterns galore. We walked around the place 2 times before Moriah finally pointed out an unusual feature. Out of a certain area in the building, the arm of a statute jetted out and held onto a lantern. I gave a little jump when I saw it- it was somewhat freaky. But clearly, that was it. I looked at it for a second and the way it was holding the light, imitating its pose with my own body. "Left. Thats a left hand!" I called the number.

"Do you have the answer?" Chris's voice asked through the phone.
"Yes. It is the left hand."
"Correct. Your next clue is at the Palace theater. Walk there."
"Okay..umm..."
"*sigh* Its on the corner of Hanover and Elm...."
"Oh okay thanks! Got it...."

We walked over to the Palace to find Kiaya and Kelli waiting for us there. She informed us that we were waiting on someone who was running a bit late. It seemed closer to the end and I couldn't hold back my stupid grin anyway, so I broke character and gave her a big hug. It was a bit of a break in pace- Mo and I took a much needed bathroom break, and then we all hung out for a very short amount of time, chatting up how it had gone so far. Then my truck pulls up- with Abi in it.

Dunn dunn dun duunhh!! Of course she was involved in this too! Oh thats why she wanted to know how much gas was in the truck... all these thoughts went around in my brain at once and I laughed at how cool everyone had been to me. But it wasn't over. Kiaya handed me a business card and a map.

"Your looking for this person- Robin. She's at a quilting shop in hooksett. You need to go up to her and say the following phrase. "Hello, I'm clueless." She made me repeat the phrase exactly to her. Then she sent me off, while her and her posse dispersed to go get me into more trouble.

I got to that store eventually, and I got this final note:


What class. They had driven me right past the park that contained my sister on my way to get this clue! I rushed back to derryfield and parked as quietly as I could. I could see Joy, and she had her back turned to me. So did her guard. I ran up as quick as I could and attempted to free her from the grip of her captor. It took her guard quite by surprise, but so did it take her as well- she tried to hold on for dear life. We all laughed and had a good time. My attention was brought to the gazebo, where stood the plotters and most of the cast of the whole 6 hour game. Sister in arm, I walked down and greeted everybody.

From there we went and got pizza back in L-town, I driving the mastermind and former arch nemesis herself. We talked it up and discussed how it all went down and all the last minute incidents she was had to handle. It was all quite impressive. Then my brother even called, and attempted to vouch for his own humanity to her (she thinks he is a figment of our families imagination or a hologram) but she remains a critic yet.

As they ordered the pizza, I drove back home and pieced together my gift for Kiaya. Once I got back to our tailgate party (complete with ransom soda) I gave her my gift. Even though it was nothing so epic as I had been given, it was nice to have something up my sleep in return. The chilled Dark Peppermint Mocha frappacino was especially well received, and watching her smile at the note that I stayed up late writing certainly made it all worth it.

We parted ways just after 4:09- her exact birth minute, at which point there was much hollering and hugging and well wishing.

Thank you Abi and Kiaya and Kiaya's mom and EVERYONE who helped out with this amazing surprise- it really made me smile. It really was the best surprise anyone has ever given me, and the most fun I have had at a birthday in as long as I can remember.

Thank you!

An up-what?

There is a guy at our work who is an Elvis memorabilia nut. He probably has the most expensive and biggest collection of Elvis concert stuffs in the North East- his most recent piece that he bought (from eBay of course) was a banner from one of Elvis's last shows. Its framed and everything.

To some extent I can understand something like that- its a piece of history. Also, it has some resale value. But today...

Today he brought in "Collector edition" Elvis Reese's peanut butter and banana cream cup candies. A box full of them (apparently he got several). They aren't too bad- basically regular Reeses cups with banana in them too. But I'll admit, I was kinda weirded out over the bizarre branding of it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm an evil capitalist as some of you know, so I think they should be able to do whatever they want to bring in money (within SOME limits). And even though I never got why Elvis was so big, I understand he was. But this is how you celebrate it?

"Hey everyone, 30 years ago today Elvis KILLED himself. Lets make a candy!!! Reeses for everybody, its Elvis's deathday!"

-----

(A more proper post is to follow, I just figured I'd throw this up here so people knew I was alive. I have half a Soulfest post [well, a good page or two start anyway] but now I really want to do a concert post for the Nickel Creek/Fiona Apple concert. One of them will be next.)

A Good Morning to you, too.

Because my boss is off to another country to see his brother get married, I have moved up to the 9 to 5 shift for today and Monday.

I really like my normal hours, but I am enjoying this change of pace. Leaving in the morning is somehow different. The day is young, everything is waking up at once... the drive there is bright. Even though I got a little less sleep last night as I had to adjust to this shift, the daylight seemed to help me feel awake. Everything felt awake... you could tell it was morning just by the smell of the air. It made me feel more alive; more motivated. I haven't smelled morning in a while.

So motivated was I that after arriving at work, I fixed some code I had written to assist me. It basically goes through the program I use for my work most and makes the selections I have to make everyday and clicks the buttons for me and such, all by itself. Since someone had changed something in the program a month or two ago, it stopped working (it would click and open the wrong stuff). I even optimized the way it was written so it works much better now. Good stuff. Haven't written code in awhile.

Then after that, I totally cleaned my desk. Hadn't done that in awhile, either. Or write an email to a department in another state with out worrying it will get there after they have already left for home. Did that today, too.

Come to think of it, its probably not the time of day (except for that last one). I bet its just the change.

You see, I have been building a theory about myself over the last several years. The theory states that I thrive in change and stagnate in sameness. I don't know if its bad or good- more likely then not it just "is". When something is new to me, when my surroundings change- even (especially!) when they change drastically, it excites me. Its fresh, its something new. Its a challenge and an adventure. Among the exhibits of evidence for this theory are my thriving at AGAPE, my love of traveling and the fact that to this day I almost always fall asleep quicker on a foreign surface then on my own bed.

Is that weird? Anyone else out there relate at all?

Automotive woes, part the second

Okay, so now I have guilt. I felt a little stupid putting in that plea for comments, much for the same reasons that everyone so rightly threw it back in my face: Write it and they will come. Returning to a site that doesn't update is boring. So, my apologies- BUT! It worked. I didn't have to analyze the logs to figure out who was hanging around. So my plan worked, even if it was pretty stupid.

Alright now- on to the second story. And since you all have been so good to me, I shall deliver it in rhyming verse.

Once upon an interstate
Once upon a time there was a boy named Zed
Who was given a truck not at all very red
This truck came to him as if heaven-sent manna
But was oddly colored as if a banana

One morn our hero rushed off like a riot
His engine roar breaking the still morning quiet
He had to get to a parking lot and get there fast
To pick up his friend, so he wailed on the gas

His friend would be waiting for Zed to come
To help work for Zed's client and not be a bum
And help Zed he would, but not quit on time
And not even as planned on Zed's Gasoline dime!

This fateful morning on interstate 93
The one thing all drivers hate happened, you see
"What could that be?" you beg as you ask
Well tell you I will, for that is my task-
To tell you the tale of what happened so fast
When poor boy Zed pressed down on the gas.

The truck shuddered and sputtered,
It whined and it cried
And some swear it muttered
"I wish Zed had already died"

Long story short, Zed pulled over his truck
Tried to start it again, but no luck- it was stuck
He called and got help from Anders mother so Kind
He called the client, and they did not even mind!
Zed had the truck towed to a lot then went on with his day
To later drop in on the shop, to talk and to pay

"So there he is" the mechanic said in a jest
"Do you think its the tranny?" Zed asked, not suspecting the best
"I think its something simple, not something big for the most...
I don't think its serious. I don't think that its toast."
When this beam of light landed on zed, he had a new hope
That he would not have to drop 2 grand for a used truck like a dope.
At any event they were just starting to close for the day,
So Zed's was told to call him tomorrow and they'd figure the pay

The next morning Zed dialed the number and waited with out-held hope
Only to hear the mechanic laugh out what happend-

"You ran out of fuel, you dope!

-_----_-_-

True story.* In my defense, I was calculating my fuel consumption off the tripometer (the fuel gauge broke some months ago). By my calculations, I had 30 to 40 miles left. Thats why the thought of running out of gas hadn't even crossed my mind. I did run it in 4 wheel drive a bit during one of the snow storms, but I didn't think that would throw off my calcs that far.

I think its because my fuel tanks leaks fuel when you fill it up all the way. Yup- I started paying more attention and found out it drips gas if you fill it all the way. So I've started refueling it in smaller doses and more often...so far, it seems to be working.

But just in case, I now always carry about 3 gallons of gas with me in the truck. Never again I say!

------------
*Sort of. The events are mostly true, but not quite verbatim. For example, Zed's mechanic does not actually call customers "dopes", and cool as he is, he does not talk in rhyme.

Automotive woes, part the first

Greetings to my continually declining readership!

Let me just get this out of the way: Normally I'm not a very a paranoid guy. That being said, I do believe there is a conspiracy against me. No, its not the usual suspects- CIA, FBI, or as that guy from Heroes says "Any organization made up of letters". Its not aliens, don't be silly. Its automobiles. Specifically, the vehicles I drive are trying to kill me. Yes- it seems that as of late my car and truck are plotting my demise.

It started a week ago, during the beginning of the great April snow storm. I had just got out of work. It was my first time driving the little Camry in the inclement weather- so even though the snow didn't look like it was going to accumulate to much, I decided to pop into a parking lot or two to see how it felt to loose traction in it since it was still pretty slushy out.

I've driven a front wheel drive mini-van and Volvo in weather like this before, but even though this is front wheel drive it felt pretty different. Instead of sliding into the direction I turned, it slid forward. Ergo, if I turned left and was slipping in a rear wheel drive I would swing the whole car left, where as in this one if I turned left and was slipping I'd just keep going straight.

I experimented with locking the back wheels with the hand brake, which would kick my back end out and move the slide in the direction I wanted to go. This worked out pretty well in the tight little corner scenarios I created in the parking lots. Then I moved back out into the open road. It was all down hill from there...well, I mean, it wasn't down hill all the way, but... --ehh, just- *sigh* figuratively okay! Cut me some break. Or give me a slack. You know what I mean.

It started out alright. I even got on and off the interstate without incident. Believe it or not, from what I could see I didn't even expect to see any snow the next morning. It was just slush-nothing really accumulating at all. This is the frame of mind you must have as you follow me through this story- "Or nothing you hear after this point will seem wondrous."

I was driving down 111, listening to Imogen Heap when the real trouble began. I was going a bit shy of the speed limit, which was 40. One moment, I noticed the vehicle riding up and sliding ever so slightly off to the left. I added a very small control adjustment ever so softly to steer the vehicle back on course, and...nothing.

The next moment, I realized that I wasn't turning left, I was spinning left. I was spinning down 111 at about 35 mph. At this point, I realized that it was as if someone had just found a big "traction for the car" switched and flipped it off. There was no point in trying to enter a correction, especially since at this point I was in a pretty delicate situation, and any false move could have very, very bad effects.

The front end was now pointed directly at the barrier rails on the other side of the street. I watched them pass me sideways with fascination. I held on to the steering wheel tensely, but did not move it. Then I felt the force of the car going across the road sideways meet up with resistance of the road and start to lean the body down.

"Is this car going to roll?" I thought indignantly.
"No way...this car is too low center to the ground...why is it going to roll?" my mind asked as I instinctively huddled a bit lower, in an attempt to either lower my center of gravity, or brace for impact- I don't really know which.

But the vehicle kept rotating until it was almost completely 180 degrees the other way. I'd say, 174 degrees, at which point, like magic, the tires suddenly found traction and pulled the vehicle to a stop. I heard something change in the engine noise and as I looked down the first thing I thought was "Stupid, you left the clutch in 4th gear! Now you've stalled it!" Then I looked up from the dash and realized I was facing the wrong way on a divided highway. Luckily, the only car coming at me was a good ways off, just cresting a hill. As calmly as I could muster, I put the clutch in, started it up, backed it up to turn it around, then was off- albeit a bit slower then before.

The whole thing probably took less then 10 seconds.

As I drove away, My first thought was "Wow, thank you Lord."
My second thought was "Dude, I'm so blogging this."

Our hero has survived the first round of automotive assault, but can he best the next, or will he be headed for the scrapyard? Tune in next week* to find out, in...AUTOMOTIVE WOES, PART THE SECOND!

By next week, I mean after I have a suitable number of comments to restore my ego which hath so freshly been brusied by the declining readership of this blog.

One liners of wit or wisdom, but probably neither

This is a jumbled up, to-much-weirdness-swirling-around-after-to-many-days-of-running-ragged sort of post.

---_---
Maybe you've heard the song "Everyone's Beautiful." Well, I get what he's driving at, but I think I have to make qualifications on this.
A) MOST people are beautiful. I truly believe this as basically everyone I know is beautiful, to some degree if not an extreme one. I don't care what you look like, you have to be pretty messed up to not have at least a trace of beauty in you. It probably comes from the Divine family resemblance.
B) That being said, even to such undiscerning tastes, some people I think can truly be evil at their core, whether it be reflected in their facial features or not.

So, to restate it I suppose it would go "Most people are beautiful. And some are quite pretty, too." Hmm... I see why the great band water deep didn't go this route though... not nearly as good a line to build a song around.
^-*Frustrated exhaling of wind from the esophagus* I don't think I conveyed quite what I was trying to say here.

---_---

I want to be near a hail storm once, if not just so I could go out, pick a hail stone up and announce to everyone that this is a piece of war. "War?" they ask, "Why yes," I'd reply, "Haven't you heard? War is hail."

Actually I bet their are alot of jokes just waiting to happen after a hail storm. It would seem to me that frozen water is a comic gold mine.
_-_----

Google is sometimes just as geographically challenged as me. We make a horrible team.

_--_-

I'm a bit concered for Brad when I heard he was going to Norwhich univerity. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the name an abrieviation for "Nordic Witch Univeristy"? Brad, what are you doing getting mixed up with those Viking wiccans?!

--_-_


Me, upon trying the new Cheesy Angus Bacon Burger: "My name is Zeke Gable, and I approve this burger."
-_---

Its Palm Sunday- *high five*

(...get it?)

_-_-

I feel my fortune is double edged. On the one hand I am surrounded by beauty. But on the other, I feel I am forced to only look at it from a far. I am so afraid of spoiling it, or perhaps of what others think of me if I tread upon it, that I dare not enjoy but a fleeting shallow interaction.

I suppose it doesn't help that I've once carelessly destroyed a prized garden. And I had been so careful up until then. But one destruction as such, one defeat via the enemy through me, and I'm out. I find it safer. I find it more prudent. I find it unbearably difficult as well.
_-__--

Is it possible to call in well? Like, my sister has to work all day Saturday. Thats a drag, but you see she's not sick. Can't she just call in and say "Hey sorry I have to call in well. Saturday is a going to be really nice and I'm going to be too well to come in. "

^This one was alot funnier before I wrote it down.

--_-_--

If you have elder-berry echinacia tea, I think its Biblical to respect it. I don't really know how far the whole "elder" thing goes, but I figure I'll be on the safe side.
_-_--

Okay, so that was a meaningless just sort of ramble on the keyboard post. Don't mind the overdue teenage angst, I'll be better after some sleep. I just wanted an outlet.

I may have shot the clutch, but I did not shoot the depuzeke

So, some have accused me of being the anti-blogger.

Yeah, I don't really have any defence. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Whats been up recently? Welll... Work has been great but has kept me busy (I suppose thats what its there for). I went to an AMAZING fort Pastor concert, and they solidified in my mind how awesome they were. They are just such real, honest, nice people. They remembered us. And a guy from SoulFest was there, and he remembered us too. How cool is that?

Concernting the title, yes I know its basically the lamest title EVER. But I paid for it, dang it.

You see, I was getting onto the highway with my good friend Mike, taking him home. I was going in my dads car, which is a manual, which I recently learned to drive. Or maybe not.

As I was pulling out of the stop light on to the on ramp, I thought "Wow, this thing really is going today- look at that RPM shoot up!" and I had to shift faster to account for the faster rev up. Which I thought was pretty cool. It sounded more like a sports car. Shifting can make you feel pretty cool when your not bouncing around in a parking lot trying to get into first. Thats a fact.

But of course, by the time I got into 5th I realized that I wasn't going as fast as the RPM would have me beleive. In fact, in 5th, I wasn't passing 50, and my RPM was almost redlining. About that time, Mike asked "Dude, do you smell that?" to which I replied like any good friend "SHUT UP! DON'T even joke about that.... you must just be smelling the heater. I don't smell anything."

But as I could tell something was up, I pulled over. THEN I smelt it. "Great." Juustt great. I tried putting it into gear again... I had to have that thing up to 4000 before it would budge. "I'mmmm in trouble. Can I borrow your cell?"

Long story short, my dad came and towed us out. In the van. With a tow cable. Yeah, it was pretty cool. I drove the van, with a line of communication constantly open between the vehicles, courtesy of Mike's cell. I would warn him when I was going to break, he would tell me if I was going to slow or if I needed to move a little more off the shoulder, etc. I towed him to the next exit, which thankfully happens to be the exit our mechanic is at.

So what happend? Welll.....

APPARENTLY, the clutch is designed to slip. This is what my dad told me when I asked him how on earth I was supposed to get a start going on a hill with out falling into the car behind me.

"No Zeke, you can take the clutch out a little bit to defeat the backwards motion... you don't have to go all in right away."

"OH! Like how an automatic is always going forward a bit when stopped!" says I.

"Yeah, sort of..." my dad replied, not realizing the chain effect this had on my brain.

APPARENTLY, your not supposed to slip the clutch for long periods of time. Say, on a hill, while waiting for a red light to change for thirty seconds. HUH, oops. Thats basically what I did for a day or two in Manchester. Heh, my bad!

I paid to have another clutch put in. The mechnic showed me what I did. I literally caught the thing on fire. Pretty funny actually.

So thats why I say I paid for my lame title. Though I didn't document that use. I did however, document the biggest portion I got out of this whole ordeal. On the memo to the mechanic, I wrote "An expensive lesson".

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.

Saga of this week (As oppposed to the Sega of this week, which would be promptly replaced with the SNES of this week)

Greetings, one and all. Some people claim that all my sister and I do is collect comments that beg for updating. To you I say... well, I mean hey, everyone needs a hobby, right?

The last week or two (its hard to tell where one ends and the other begins now-a-days) have been intense. Not all great, not all bad, just bigger. More stress, but more fun. And less sleep.

Monday
Ahh, Mondays. Technically, I don't work Monday. Its a little weird. I work Early (1 AM) Tuesday morning. So Monday is supposed to be the day I adjust back to my weird work hours. I've tried a few different ways to do this- take a nap at a certain time is a popular choice, and I've tried it. But most of the time, if I have not been deprived of sleep, I won't be able to take a nap. I end up just lying their, in my bed, waiting to go to sleep. Bo-ring.

The approach I've recently taken to this is based upon a proprietary theory that I have dubbed "The Sleep Deficit theory". I believe I have enlightened most of you about this in person; if any of you want further explanation on the details let me know. But the point is, it has served me well recently. This week though, I had more sleep deficit then I bargained for.

Monday I purchased a truck. I bought it from my friend, Mr. L. As part of the deal, he paid for or deducted from the price all the repairs needed to make the vehicle return to tip-top shape. But when I drove it out of the mechanics to close the deal, the blinkers weren't working. I brought it back to the mechanic that night who said that he had noticed that issue but had forgotten about it. Apologetically, he said he'd do the deal with out labor costs. He thought he found the problem- the switch. This is the rocker arm that you use to control the blinkers and the windshield wipers. Yay. He would have it the next day, if I could bring the vehicle by. I said I'd be there, considering I had been resorting to using hand signals. At night. On the highway.

Tuesday
I got home from work at about 9:30 as usual. I ate. I called up the mechanic and he told me he hadn't the part yet, but he would call me "as soon as it walks through the door". Meanwhile, I called town hall about a mistake I had made on the title and how to fix it. Four seconds after I hung up with them, the mechanic called me to let me know the part had indeed waltzed in at that very moment. I drove to the shop.

By this time I was a bit tired. I had gotten there I think around 11:00, and it was supposed to be a quick (20 minute) fix. 30 minutes later the mechanic comes in and says "Its not the switch. Only thing I guess it could be now is the flasher..." and got on the phone to find one. Meanwhile, I was sitting down taking small several-second naps. I'd just sort of zone out and then wake up. Judging by my surroundings, I had barely slept- A few seconds at most. But hey, I'll take what I can get.

Long story short, it wasn't the flasher module either. He sent me to go get it down at Auto Fair on south willow, but it wasn't the problem. He took awhile looking at some schematics and then started doing some more probing with a meter. Finally he said the problem was some of the wiring between the fuse box and steering column. He ran some new wire as a work-around for the short term so I could get back on the road and he'll fix it up proper when I bring it back to get state inspected.

Waking hours with out sleep at this point: About 28.

Unfortunately, the truck work left me at home by 1:50ish. I had to be at Agape by 3:00- Tonight was movie night at the Gs and I wanted to get their earlier so I could exchange gifts with Kiaya, who sadly wouldn't be able to come. I talked to mum a bit, then I went to sleep for about 20 minutes. I got up at 2:34, and sped away in my shiny (sorta) yellow truck.

I arrived at Agape at 3:00 on the dot. Sadly, it became apparent that I had missed Kiaya by mere minutes. I saw Anders playing soccer outside like old times and I talked to him for a bit. I then went in and roamed the halls of Agape, which were almost vacant because of the time. I felt like a ghost, haunting my old romping grounds. How so short a year made so large an impression on me I'll never know. But it was good to be there, even if there hardly was anyone left. I was welcomed warmly by Mrs. Woodman and Pastor Gary, which was great. Actually everyone I ran into was kind, as usual.

I ended up sitting in on Mrs. G's class. They had an amazing guy there named Ramses who was sharing his testimony. He was really cool. Then, class dismissed and I hung out with everyone. I opened H's gift for me their, which was an awesome great big Z with all my names and aliases. It was full of inside jokes, like references to my mispelling of the blogger name and such. So yeah, it was "basically awesome".

I then opened up Kiaya's gift. She made me the most AWESOME wearable piece of art ever- a full size Cat in the Hat style hat made out of red and white duct tape. INCREDIBLE. I'll have to post pictures later. The thing fits me great and is such a blast to wear. I've done the rest of my Christmas shopping in it and the reactions you get are so great.

Anyway, the whole lot of us (sans, sadly, Kiaya) went to H's house and we watched "A white Christmas" and "A Christmas story", the latter of which I had never seen before. We also just hung out and chatted for awhile after that. Me and Mrs. G got conversation about where all the plastic packaging we generate ends up (a land fill or the ocean for the most part, sadly) and recycling and what we can do about it. We left at 11 something o'clock.

Waking hours with out sleep at this point: 38.

Mrs. G had given me directions, which I followed well up to the 495 part. Mrs. G hadn't specified which direction to go on 495, but I surmised that since we were in Mass. and we wanted to get to Derry, we wanted to go North, naturally. Well.... We never got the chance to get on 93. We only had the option to get onto 95. I took it.

I was a little bit concerned because of the hour and my uncertainty with the route, but I did know that I wanted to go North. Eventually, I figured, we would get to a place that either I would recognize or could transfer to 93. We drove a long time and didn't see it. What we did see were exits for Portsmouth passing us. When I realized the last exit for Portsmouth was coming up and after that I'd be in bloody MAINE, I got off the highway.

Now, I've been around Portsmouth before, but as a passenger, not so much as a driver. I recognized where I got off- it was the Portsmouth traffic circle. I went around it maybe three times. Finally Abi spoke up and put her vote in for the Rochester/concord turn off. That made sense to me- concord was at least in the right direction. I think.

Well, shortly after taking that turn off (which was onto 16/4 and some other highway) I saw blue lights in the rear view mirror. I pulled over. The cop came up and started the whole "Where did you come from, where are you going tonight?" questions. When I told him I was trying to get to Exit 4 on 93 he looked at me like "Are you serious?" and said "Your not even close."

"Yes, yeah, I know- I was going north, I knew that was important but I wanted to get over to 93. I couldn't find where to get over..." He asked me what I had in the bag in the back.

"Some presents, and OH- can I get out to show you?" he said I could, so I got out, pulled the seat forward and continued "Tthis really cool Cat in the hat hat...my friend made it- out of Duct Tape!"

He was quiet and a little confused for a second, but quickly regained his composure. "So thats not 5 pounds of dope in the hat?"

"Nope, just a hat."

In truth I had been tempted to make a joke back, saying something like "Five pounds? Ha, thats ten at least!" But in the end I decided against it. Probably one of my better choices.

He took my license and registration (the latter of which I had to explain was not in my name yet because I had just bought the vehicle) and went back to the cruiser. Abi noticed that another one had pulled in behind me with its lights off for backup. She looked in the mirror.

"I think their laughing."

The first cop probably told the newcomer where I was trying to go. See, I'm good for a laugh even for cops on the beat. While we were waiting I said "Abi, I don't think I was speeding." She said that she was pretty sure I wasn't and that maybe they pulled me over for swerving around while I was trying to find out where to go.

Finally the officer walked back up to the truck and handed me my stuff back.

"Do you need directions?"

I consented that I did and he gave me them. Before I left, I asked

"Officer- why was I pulled over? I wasn't speeding was I?"

"Yeah you were. Its 35mph right here. You were doing 65."

Surprised, I asked "But- isn't this part of the highway?"

"Technically no. Its an in-between, and its residential. There are some houses over there, but its right between highways so its sort of confusing. " With that, he let me go. Thank God. If you had seen it, you would be utterly confused too. It looks (at least at night) like part of the bloody flaming highway. Double the speed limit is not good for your record. Yeesh. My guess is that he only used that as an excuse to get me over so he could see what I was up to. He didn't even give me a warning- I don't think he cared. But crazy, nonetheless.

Wedensday
The officer told us it would be over an hour to where we wanted to go. At this point, it was already about 12:30. Great. I needed to call work to let them know, so I went for my PDA but I didn't have it. I had left it at the G's. Double great. I had to call... so, I called my dad and woke him up we told him what was going on. He looked up the number for me and I called it to tell them I had just gotten un-hopelessly lost and wouldn't be there till later.

From their, I drove on for a very long time. I was quite tired. Though I tried to avoid it, I blinked out once or twice. I got a latte at one of the junctions, and that helped a bit. Abi got dropped off at 1:44. I then turned right around and hightailed it to work to arrive at just a little later then 2. Dan said "I can't believe the governor got lost in his own state." Ha.

Work that day was very tired. After running in and making sure nothing major was dying, the first thing I did was make a cup of dark coffee. I would be back to the cafeteria often during my shift, but they didn't do much. One thing I had to do took a little longer then normal because I kept waking up in the middle of it and had to double check what I had just done. I couldn't dare sleep longer then a few seconds though- I'd usually wake up to Dan or Tony chuckling. I didn't want to know what they would do if I fell asleep for longer then a minute. Glue me to my chair, most likely. Maybe staple my pants to the floor. I couldn't risk it.

After what seemed a very long time, I arrived home at 9:20ish.

Waking hours at this point: Over 48.

I was a little tired. BUT. I had an appointment. I had rescheduled a little get together with my friend Brandon to Wednesday after I couldn't make it at the last second before. He needed a monitor and a crossover cable and some help installing stuff. I went over and worked on it with him till about 12. Or maybe I got home at 12. I dunno; it all gets foggy there. Either way, when I finally gone to sleep I had gone about 50 hours with out serious shut-eye. Ahhhyeah!

Suffice to say, I slept pretty good. I woke up at about 9:24pm- which was great. I got up and went to work.

The more observant of you will be realizing that I don't normally go to work so "early". That is true. My boss's boss was bringing in a little Italian food as a thank you to the night team, and he said anyone that wanted to have it could come in at 10:00. It would be overtime. How sweet is that? Paid overtime + food. Y to the UM! I ate food, and worked into Thursday morning.

Thursday
After I got home, Abi called. Operation "Escort" was a go. I asked her when I had to be in the parking lot.

"1:45."

"I'll be there." I said as I hung up the phone. Since it was already 10:30ish, I decided to stay up. I shaved, freshened up and figured I could get some last minute holiday shopping in then come back, get some stuff and go to Agape. "Hmm, better bring Kiaya's gift just in case you don't have time to come back" I thought to myself. By the time I parked at Wal-mart, I realized I had grossly estimated my time. It was 12:20- I should be leaving now. I got back in the truck without entering the store, and quickly made my way towards 93. After I had gotten on 93 for a few miles, a sudden panic shot through me. "The gift!" I realized as I searched frantically in the seats, "I left it by the door!"

Sadly, I hadn't a cell phone. All that was to be done was for me to rush towards home. I turned the truck around and doubled back. I got home about 1:20, rushed in, found the gift and called Brad's cell. I talked to him for a sec and asked if I should meet them at the airport directly. It was funny; I talked to him and Abi for a few minutes and they talked entirely in code. First brad was like "The eagle hasn't left yet." And later Abi said something about "The mustard seed is departing." Anyway, it ended up that I was able to make it to MHT on time. Brad, Hannah and Abi were waiting outside the airport door for me very nicely. I had my hat on.

"Take that off! We have to sneak by them up to the food court." I did as I was requested and obscured the hat to the other side of my person. Kiaya and her brother were still checking in, and we exploited the distraction to get ahead of them and into position. Now, we waited.

Kiaya and fam came up pretty soon and she was apparently totally surprised. It was great. We hung out and chatted (Though I stayed in a McDonalds line for far to long only to find out they had totally forgotten about me) until she had to leave. We did our families tradition of stalking the person to the last possible moment. Then the rest of the Core went to Agape, and I headed home. But I stopped at some stores first (Christmas shopping). I roamed the halls of wal-mart and the mall with my huge cat in the hat hat (CITAH from now on) and I enjoyed the responses. Some people would do a sublte double take, not wanting to look stare. Others would turn a corner and start laughing mid sentence. Alot of mothers out with their little children would point up to me like I was a show in the circus. "Look honey, do you see that? Is it the cat in the hat? Yeah!" To which I would smile, and tip my hat. One big guy I almost ran into turning a corner just had this look of awesome admiration and said totally seriously "Cat in the hat- how ya doing?" to which I replied fine. I felt that the gift itself not only was "Kiaya" in the design, but continued to express herself through it. Maybe its the lack of sleep talking, but I could see her getting a kick out the reactions.

That was the good part, but when I'm tired, I get cranky pretty easy. I didn't get hardly anything, at the stores and one of the only things I did get I was growing anxious about, wondering if it was any good. I thought maybe I had been pressured into making a last minute choice that no one would admit to not liking even if they truly didn't care for it at all. Then I got home, and waited a bit for dad to come home so I could talk to him about truck stuff... only to find out he was going to be running errands late. I went to bed finally at 6:00pm- way to late.

Friday
I woke up to my dad's voice saying something. It was saying alot of stuff before I was coherent. I was trying to figure out why he woke me up. I looked at the clock- 1:39. It took a few seconds to register. Finally, my dad's voice came in clear:

"Tony called and wanted to know whats up with you. Your supposed to be there."

CRAP. I looked up at my dad and held my little brothers alarm clock.

"Dad, I brought two alarm clocks so this wouldn't happen. TWO!" I said in frustration as I jumped up and got dressed. It turns out later that someone must have fussed with the switches on my main alarm- it was set to radio, which doesn't work. I don't know why the other one didn't work.

I was at work by 2. Stupid eewah... sleeping in. Between this and the Portsmouth incident, there goes most of my overtime. This time after I got home and ate, I slept.

And that, my friends, was my week.

Oh, and by request: "Merry Christmas" gosh!

Yeesh!

Pictures next post guys.- Honest. :) Hold me to it.

Pirate ducky and the amazing update

Hello everybody. Popular mob opinion (according to the Zogby Mob opinion survey) states that I should update. And so, since I love you guys (and my life) I shall.

Things have been fun and crazy at [AwesomeCo]. The program that I got hired to support is starting to come online, so I'm finally getting a taste for what I'll be doing. Since I'm getting in on this at the very beginning, it should be alot easier then the stuff I've had to learn so far. With this new program, I'm seeing the checklist being made and fixing stuff thats wrong with it. And I'm starting with just one client- its going to be sweet. I'm sort hitting my groove on the rest of the stuff I think, too.

Oh and I found out the other day that we had a crusher. I thought it was a dishwasher because I think its a Kenmore, or something that looks like a Kenmore. But while waiting for a bagel to toast one day, I took a closer look and found when I opened it up it was full of mostly soda cans and a few peices of carboard. And it was all crushed. Amazing.

I talked to one of the guys on nights here and asked him what we do with them.

"Nothing!" he said, chuckling. "Its like a big joke- we just through it out. People think that we're recycling but we aren't right now."

"Dude-!" I said, seizing the opertunity. "Can I take the crushed cans?"

He told me I could. "Sure! Were not doing anything with them!"

So yeah. Thats pretty cool- I guess I should be getting a small but steady stream of compressed UBC from now on. I'm stoked. Thats awesome!

This is a short update, I know. But I've been(am) busy.

Oh, one final thing. Alot of you have been asking for pictures of the cool mission control set up here at work. I shall do what I can- talked to my boss today and he says its fine.

Happy Ivory Coast National day (the most generic sounding of holidays ever!)

Mondays are a very bad word

"But is this not a Tuesday post?" you ask.
"Yes. Sorta." answers I.

You see, I work in the twilight blurry spaces between the definitions of actual "days" as normal people call them. I make up my own hours of sleep and waking- nature be darned. With such a chaotic schedule, you think Monday’s bad fortune would not be able to find me. You'd be wrong.

I did give it the shake for 2 weeks, I will tell you that. But I couldn't run forever. Shortly after buzzing around and causing general Mondayness for the Green Dragon Rider, Mday flew its horrid destructive path to me. Heres how it went down.

Actual Monday day: A very good experience. It buttered me up like a fool. I went to the Marzolfs and played the cash flow game, Jessica H. came over and joined us, I had a crazy multi layer ice-cream cake desert that Lyndsi had constructed- twas beautiful. Twas bliss- nay, twas ignorance my good friends.

I should have caught on that something was up. Its obvious now- Monday was laying it on so thick it was ridiculous. How thick? How bout this: After leaving the Marzolfs, I actually heard none other then Mute Math ON THE RADIO. It was on the indiest of indie stations, 91.5 FM, and it was crystal clear. I got to hear most of the track "Noticed", a song among my favorites of all time, on the radio. It was good. It was too good.

But the even Monday grew tired of the sickening sweetness. I got home at 10:00 ish. So- think about this- is it possible for me to go to bed at 10:00 and wake up at 12:20? What is even the point? Monday decided to show me the futility. Basically, I layed in my bed waiting for it to be midnight:twenty. I got up. I read some online comics. I went back to bed, and waited again. The second the alarm beeped I snapped up and turned it off. Enough of this, I thought to myself, lets stop pretending to sleep and get to work already.

I got up and turned the coffee on for my folks and myself. I thought it a nice thing to do. I waited. It wasn't coming out. I looked at the time. It was 12:27. That coffee better start coming out of that darn whole soon, or I'm not going to get any. 12:29. I look behind the machine. Oh RIIIGHT... its unplugged.

Right before the coffee was done brewing, I remembered that I wanted to email myself a file at work. I ran down stairs and did the deed. When I came back up, it was about 12:37ish. Dad had risen. That was good. I didn't want to have to wake him- it was nice enough of him already to wake up and drive me to my work at 1am. I poured my coffee and we were out the door by 12:40. Perfect! I thought to myself, Today is going PERFECT.

Somewhere in a dark corner, Monday laughed at me. But it didn't protest my bliss. It knew that my fall was soon. It knew I wouldn't be laughing then.

We arrive at the door of [AwesomeCo].

"Love you dad!" I say as I give him a hug goodbye, "Thanks for driving me."
"No problem. Goodnight!" he answers, and climbs into the big red Ark. Just before he closes the door, I fall to the ground, struck to the core by a horrible epiphany.

"Nooooooooooo......" I whimper.
"What?" My dad asks, but then answers his own question before I break the news. "Let me guess- I.D. Badge?"
"Yeh-heh-hesss..."I fane cry. "MaaAAN!!"
"You'll have to have someone else let you in now; its too late to get back."

I knew he was right. I pulled out my PDA, and he through me his cell phone. I started digging through the numbers. I found my desk phone. I called it. I then got the number for the lobby and called it. As I was making this call, I caught the eye of one of my co-workers. He saw me and made a strange face, then nodded and started walking my way. I hung up the phone, and told my dad I was good. He bid his farewells once more, and drove off into the distance.

Big D., the co-worker who opened the door for me, answered graciously my apologies. "Everyone does it once or twice." He buzzed me through the few doors I need to get through to get to my desk. I felt so lame.

Our business has a laid back, friendly atmosphere. But that doesn't mean we take security lightly. Its an important company, and in every zone of the building you have to buzz to get in. You can leave, but you can't get back in without using your I.D. Badge. I can't go to the bathrooms and comeback with out using my card. I had to sheepishly use my co-workers once or twice. I combined trips.

Then I get on my computer and start checking through my email. A subject caught my eye and hung on the screen ominously. That CAN'T be for today... I thought to myself. It was.

Apparently, my co-worker T., the one that shares my shift, wasn't coming in today. Car trouble. What’s the big deal you may ask? Oh, nothing much. Only that he was GIVING ME A RIDE HOME.

So here I was. No ride home, and no I.D. Badge to let me roam around freely in the building.

Not that I had many roaming minutes anyway. Today everything happened at once. One of our most reliable servers didn't get its files on time. We waited till they were supposed to be in, then we got on the phones to call the company. The contact field in the call up sheet was blank. We had never had to call this company for this file- it usually completed first, so no one really knew off the top of their head the number or contact name. D. looked for a long time and couldn't find it. He decided he'd have to wake up one of our guys on call. But first he went outside to take a smoke. When he left, I opened several search windows and a few internal web sites. In 6 minutes, I found numbers and contacts for the company in another document. When he came back, I casually showed him the list. "Where'd you get this?" he asked. I told him. He kept looking at it and shrugged his shoulders. "Well, operations... lets call them. Why not." So he called them. I overheard his conversations while I sat and logged down some other server jobs. He got someone, but no one was sure they were the contact he wanted. He had to keep spelling out the file name. "Yes, you send us this file." he kept saying. "Yes, normally- every day, 2am. This is the first time its not been here." They'd say they’d call him back.

Every time they'd call him back, it would be another person, but they would ask about the file name and not know if they handled it. It was frustrating D., I could tell. Finally a big higher-up called him back and asked him what was going on. He explained it, and the guy knew what it was. "Okay, thanks. We'll try to get it out to you... otherwise...well, I guess we'll just do with out [service name] today...".

He called us back later saying he "Thought he might have found it." D and I joked that perhaps it was under the bed all this time. The file was supposed to be in at 2. It came in at 6:50something.

That was just one of the issues today. D was working the phones much harder then I was with a few other companies that were having issues. Something confused us because our servers processed a file earlier then we thought possible. The lightened holiday schedule apparently caused the mainframe to come back up faster then normal to process the files, and it took them. Our monitoring software wasn't even watching till 8, and it had already finished at 7:08. This little issue caused much confusion.

By 8, things were back on course. The late late file was finally processed and that basically finished what I had to do. My friend and fellow brother in the Lord, R., gave me a ride home- even though he was going the other way. So it all worked out. And now- I'm going to make some calls and lay my head to sleep.

For I have faced Monday, and I have overcome. Now I must rest.