Ultranormal

  • Huddled In The Rocks

    Monkeybutt, and the joys of being 10. It reminds me of walking home from school in Iceland. The school and our apartment house were about 150 yards apart across a rocky field (they call it “tundra”, which is the perfect word for it). There were a couple of us who went to the school (A.T. Mahan K-12) and lived in our little apartment house or the one next door. In the winter, the wind would whip across that field between the houses and the school at about 30 miles an hour. To combat this, my little group of friends made a leanto out of rocks about halfway across the field. We’d run for the windbreak, collapse into it and catch our breath for the rest of the trip. It felt like an odyssey every day. Mr. Wilson wishes he was 10. I wish I was 7, sitting in the little leanto all bundled up, puffing steam laughing with my little brother.

  • Government says women have no

    Government says women have no right to drug (from Salon). Wow… and I thought we were bad.

  • ems and ens and things.

    ems and ens and things. I had no idea.

  • My A-List O’ Bloggers

    Dave’s post about the “A-List” got me thinking about the blogs I read that really fall into my own private list. I started out with the people Dave listed, but I’ve since moved on to other people. I think it’s mostly because most of the A-Listers that I read don’t update often enough. So, here’s the KP-List:

    • Open Brackets: She’s twitterpated and is probably the best writer among all the blogs I frequent. She can break your heart in a paragraph.
    • OddFellow: He has a son a who’s a little older than Max and lives in Texas. His writing always rings true, and a lot of it makes me laugh. He’s the kind of guy I’d hang out with if he lived down the street.
    • Jodi: She gets bitten by the “woe-is-me” bug sometimes, but when she’s on, it’s fun to watch. Funny observations about single life in Minnesota.
    • Bluishorange: She’s a college student in Texas. She paints a window into a world I don’t know, never knew, and am fascinated by. If she weren’t such a good writer, it would be just another blog, but she’s good, very good.
    • The Norm: I know, I know, it’s a comic strip. But, it feels like a blog. Again, it rings true, which is a must-have. Oh, and funny. I like funny.

    That’s it. That’s my A-List. I wanted to keep it short. There are a lot of people I left out that I read daily. But, these guys are the ones I check frequently. Is there one thing that sets them apart? Looking over my descriptions, my list is filled with people who are good writers who write the truth. Whether it’s fiction or not, it rings true. They offer a window into their lives and don’t shy away from painful topics. I hope they keep it up.

  • Because I was starving this

    Because I was starving this morning, I gave the cafeteria’s homefries yet another chance. Usually, they’re underdone. This morning was noooo different. The omelette was great, as usual. The potatoes were half done. Guys, come on, it’s crunchy on the outside, soft and comforting on the outside, not the other way around.

  • The Big Update

    So, I guess you’ve noticed that I haven’t updated in a while. I had last week off, and just didn’t feel like touching the computer for anything more than checking my mail for emergencies. Here’s an update of what’s been going on:

    • Monday and Tuesday: Sick. I’m still trying to kick my fantastic sinus infection.
    • Wednesday, 11/23: Jen, Mom, Steve and I took Max to see Monsters, Inc.. It was his first movie theater experience and Jen wanted to do it right. We got him a hot dog, popcorn and he shared our sodas. I was nervous about the whole thing, bringing a wild two-year-old into a dark theater just sounded like trouble to me. Boy, was I wrong! Max ate it up! He got so into the movie that he barely touched his food unless we put it in his hands. He was GREAT! He sat in his little booster seat wearing the sunglasses he stole from Steve, and just taking it all in. He got a little squirmy towards the end, but he just moved to Mom’s lap, then Jen’s, then back to the booster seat, and that was the end of the squirming. He was so adorable, I wish I had pictures.After the movie, I went over to Mom’s to do some baking. We made shoo-fly pie that didn’t turn out so hot (you know, there’s a direction component to recipes, and NOT just the ingredients? Good goin’, Kev). Then, we made an Annie/Kevin original. It was basically an Apple Brown Betty, but we made super-Crumblies for the top (the real win of the whole experience) and added cranberries (too many… tart city!! It was much better the second day after the apples had a chance to fight the tartness).
    • Thanksgiving: You know how I was going to help cook and all that jazz? Didn’t happen. I was still a little under-the-weather. I did manage to make the world’s best batch of mashed potatoes though.
    • The Weekend: We got TiVo!! (we actually got it Wednesday, but spent the weekend playing with it). It’s not as cool as I thought it would be, but it’s very very nice. I can now record Letterman and Conan every night, the Daily Show, Cowboy Bebop – you know, the shows you’d stay up and watch if you were still in school and could sleep in?. Lots of fun.

    There you have it… my fantastic week away from work. Now, it’s back to the grindstone…

  • Less Than Lucid Musings

    I’m fighting a wicked sinus infection. Jen and Max are at church, and I’m sitting here with the laptop, wrapped up in my blanket, watching Meet the Press and reading my favorite blogs.

    I’ve been thinking recently about why personal journals and blogs fascinate me. For me, it’s the chance to get a glimpse into lives of people I’d never meet otherwise. Whether it’s a freelance translator in France, a college librarian in Texas, a single web designer in Minneapolis or any of the other dozen and a half blogs I check out on a mostly daily basis, I enjoy seeing the pieces of their lives they share through their sites. Most of them are much better writers than I am, and have no problem sharing their feelings on the topics they discuss.

    These people are strangers. They’re strangers who in a lot of cases I consider friends, even though we’ve never met or done more than exchange a couple e-mails. It’s another strange witness to the power and mystery of interpersonal interaction on the internet.

    I’m going to go make some hot chocolate and lay down. I can’t stop coughing, and I think my face is going to pop.

  • Freedom!!

    Nine days. I have nine days off in a row. I don’t believe it. It’s too good to be true. I have a terrible feeling that I won’t get to take all nine off because something will break at work, someone will need me to rescue them from either their own incompetance or implement somethin that will make somebody a whole lot of money.

    Every time I’ve tried to take a vacation this year, I’ve had to move something around. I have to go back to work, do something and mess up our plans. Please, not this week.

    I like what I do. I’m good at it. Whenever I look at where I am, I think back to my interview for this job over two years ago. The guy interviewing me asked what I wanted to be doing in six months. I said I wanted to be the go-to guy. I want to be the guy people come to when something needs doing. I’m that guy. Then he asked what I wanted to be doing in 5 years. I said I wanted to be running a big site like Amazon (yeah, shoot for the moon). Well, it’s almost three years later and I’m the only production guy on one of the most-used search engines on the web. There’s a whole team for the backend. A whole team that keeps it up and running. I am the only guy who works on the frontend and middleware pieces. And now, I’ve got a dozen other search projects that I’m the only frontend guy on. I guess I’m running a collection of sites that gets (I think) more hits than Amazon on any given day. How crazy is that? How messed up is the world that I’m the only guy for these projects?

    You know, this stuff is bad for my ego. It’s made me arrogant. I’m trying not to be, I swear I am. I know I’m in the position I’m in because my group has made some really bad decisions over the years, letting the wrong people get away, while replacing them with people with little-to-no talent or imagination. That means that they make up for the lack of talent in most by overworking those that have some. That’s also the way they lose good people. It’s a vicious cycle, and now the economics of everything mean we’re not hiring. So, it will be this way for the foreseeable future. What a downer…

  • I give up. David Byrne

    I give up. David Byrne will always be cooler than me.

  • Vacation, Vacation, Vacation!

    I’m off all next week and then two days the week after. It’s one of the perks (I guess) of being overworked: lots of unused vacation time. I had 160 hours of time I had to use before the end of the year, so I’m doing my best to use it. Updates will be lighter (maybe) next week, as I gear up for TurkeyDay!

    I’m going to try to be involved in most of the cooking this year, just to get comfortable working with a turkey. I helped last year, but I wasn’t real comfortable. This year is the year to get into it and really make it work. Yeah! Turkey!!

    Can you tell Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday? It’s better than Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Arbor Day – all of ’em. I’m not even sure why. I just love it.