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Yesterday, later in the evening, The Stacia came over and hung out for a while before we drove down to LAX to pick up my friend Jeff and his girlfriend Sara. After being there for a while, she asked for a piece of paper, and a pencil, then wrote her name on it 3 times real big like, so that it took up the whole paper:
STACIA
STACIA
STACIA
Then she made some comments about whether or not I wanted to see the view from her room.
I'm not sure what it all means.
You know, blogger world, where you have this strange sensation like you absolutely must post. But in reality, you don't have any creative thing to say, and you're feeling rather humdrum, so anything you say would come out more like dental floss threading a chain of alphabet soup.
And yet...
There's this undying need to post something. Anything.
Must be graphomania.
Interesting post about writing at this blog (go ahead, be one of the unknown readers...)
Someone at work sent me this link to an adding machine built out of LEGOs. This machine is a LEGO difference engine, inspired by the Babbage Difference Engine No. 2, which was originally designed in 1834, though never produced. In other words, Babbage's machine would have been the worlds first "computer," though it never got built because of engineering, political and personal conflict.
What's a Difference Engine do? According to the London Museum's website:
"The Difference Engine was conceived in 1821 in an effort to mechanise the production of mathematical tables. Unlike the earlier calculators of Schickard, Pascal and Leibniz, the engine was not designed to perform basic arithmetic but to calculate a series of numerical values and automatically print the results. Difference engines were designed to calculate using the `method of finite differences’, a well used principle of the time. The advantage of using the method of differences is that it eliminates the need for multiplication and division in the calculation of a particular class of mathematical functions called polynomials. The Difference Engine only used addition which is easier to mechanise than multiplication and division."
Just ran across this experimentation in multiple touch screens. The possible applications are simply amazing; especially the drawing and photo editing type stuff. Make sure you wait for the demo movie to download; this is the real goods of this link.
Today's Gospel reading (John 10:1-18) is simply beautiful. Self-sacrifice, power, forgiveness, loyalty and clarity. It's all there. What a wonderful thing.
I didn't sleep so well last night, and today I was extremely tired, so I decided to run to the coffee shop on campus to get some goodies as a pick me up. But I didn't have any cash, so I stopped by the ATM to get some, and then went off to get the goods. Turns out I left my ATM card in the machine, so it got sucked in, and I needed to call my bank to get a new one. Trouble is, this also meant that I wasn't able to log into my online account, since that's linked to my ATM card. So, now I have a few dollars to my name until I get the new card in the mail. If I ever needed an excuse not to spend money, here it is.
This morning when I got to work, one of the women on my floor told me that there were a whole bunch of goodies in the kitchen area, so I made my way there. When I got there, I asked some of the other women standing around what the occasion was. "Well, Valentine's Day, of course," I was told, "Don't forget an important day like that."
Trouble is, I did. I forgot today was Valentine's day.
Turns out, as some people are wont to do, I happened to also be wearing all black today. Only I didn't do it to mourn anything, it just happened that way. As a matter of fact, it happened that way yesterday too. Two days of wearing black. Not bad for someone anticipating Holy Orders, I suppose. Nevertheless, the commentary near the goodies reminded me that our world places too much emphasis on the expected things of Valentine's Day. What a crock. In fact, some people have seen it as an offense against their culture, and their society, and staged protests against the commercialization of Valentine's Day. I don't blame them, since their major argument is that the day isn't about love, but a means of attracting young people for "commercial purposes." Valentine's Day really should be about the act of spending time with people, remembering those special to us, even if it means doing nothing more than sitting on the sofa watching a movie, or eating slightly burnt popcorn. Or maybe doing nothing at all.
Still, what would a post be without a link to the history of it all? By the way, we should note that Valentine's Day commemorates a death, a martyrdom.
There is a sermon by George MacDonald called "The New Name," (DOC) in which he draws upon the reference in Revelation 2.17 where God gives the man that overcomes a white stone with a name written on it.
I first read this sermon because of my former roommate Wall, who had read a quote from this sermon in a book. The quote itself moved me, and so I went searching for the rest of the sermon, wanting to take down the whole thing. After reading it, this particular sermon sparked for me a quest to discover what my name - or white stone - was.
One particular Sunday, while at the church I was attending, I was sitting in the pews praying for my name - my own little pebble - when the pastor got up to do a baby dedication. The parents brought the child up, and explained why they had chosen the names that they did. One of the names the parents had chosen was David - "King David of the Bible" - because they desired that their child would possess the heart of David. At that very moment, God said, "You were named after Michael. That is your name." Which is exactly what my parents had always intended. Even though my first name is Carsten, and my middle name Michael, my parents always called me Michael; moreover, my parents explained to me that they had chosen that name because of the archangel, just as my sister was named after the archangel Gabriel.
Well, that of course startled me for a moment, and I immediately turned to the book of Revelation to look up the reference to Archangel Michael, a two verse note about the slaying of the dragon. Quizzical, I turned to God and asked, "Huh?" to which He responded with, "Live up to your name." My response at the time, because I felt overwhelmed with personal weaknesses, was less than enthusiastic. In fact, I believe the exact words were, "Oh shit."
But you see, it gets better. My roommate Wall and I were planning a camping trip for that evening, as the next day was a free day. After we had spent most of the evening shooting the breeze, talking about names, and my conversation with God, we tossed our sleeping bags next to the fire, and called it a day. At some point, I awoke, and found myself staring into the eyes of a dragon. One of the logs had managed to get propped up in the pit so that it stood upright at about a 75o angle. Because it had been in the fire for so long, the underside of the log had those cracks in it, but half of it was glowing red, the back side black, the end effect being a glowing red belly with scales. At the head level, the log was shaped oddly enough like the head of a dragon with an open mouth, with, get this, only the interior bottom of this odd looking mouth glowing red. To top it off, two little beads of eyes were glowing red. God has a great sense of humor, is all I can say. What I did next was laugh, and thank God for the joke, saying, "You want me to slay the dragon? Fine, here goes." I picked up a stick, and whacked at the log, knocking it over into the fire. Then, being a smartass, I said, "See, I slayed the dragon. Do I move to the next level now?" And the only answer I got was, "First, slay your own dragons."
So what's the point of this story? This weekend, while my sister and I sat at Santana's Coffee in Puerto Peñasco, we began talking about names, and their meaning and power. And she used a phrase that sounded so very familiar. It went something vaguely like this: "I believe that names are very powerful, and that we ought to live up to our names." I've been contemplating my name change for quite some time. By that I mean, since that baby dedication, I've been questioning why I changed my name to Carsten. When I went to college, I changed my name to Carsten, because in my graduating class of 17, we had 3 Michael's, and in the whole school, quite a few more. I wanted to be different, unique, so I changed my name to Carsten in college. And the change paid off. I've yet to meet another Carsten...
But I wasn't named Carsten.
I was named Michael.
So what's in a name? Sometimes a whole lot more than we can understand. And sometimes more than we want to accept - or live up to.
Starting today, any new people I meet will know me as Michael.
That would be Remodeling and Retrofitting.
As it turns out, my sister and I were staying at a hotel in Puerto Peñasco that was undergoing some remodeling. This meant that the industrious people from this nation called Mexico began their work at 8am, and continued until 8pm. It also meant that peace and quiet were in short supply, what with the jackhammer in the wall in the room directly above us.
All in all, though, the trip proved to be quite fun, even though it wasn't necessarily restful. We spent several days in Puerto Peñasco, hopping from cafe to bar, to restaurant, and walking through the souvenir shops and such, all the while fending off the Time-Share Sharks who were trying to get us to go to the 90-minute sales pitch at the various luxury resorts. I think in one day we managed to count something like 12 guys hitting us up for these places - some of which haven't even been built yet.
The first night we drove into Old Port to find a restaurant for dinner, as the hotel restaurant was closed for remodeling. We saw several, though I made the brilliant observation that Maria Bonita's was full, which usually meant that the food was good. So we walked through the buildings to the little seaside building, failing to notice the tour bus parked outside. Yup, it was full because it was loaded with a Senior tour bus group from Yuma. The food was quite good, though, and the free entertainment of grandmas and grandpas dancing the Macarena, and The Train (through the whole restaurant no less), was an added bonus we hadn't planned on.
The next morning, awakened by the quiet chirping of jackhammers and mortar drills, we set out to find a quiet place to study, which we found in Santana's Coffee - a not so subtle rip-off of Starbuck's coffee logo. I'd argue that the coffee was better than at Starbucks, and that the atmosphere was quite a bit more conducive to studying than anything I could have found in Los Angeles. It was here that my sister worked on my mother's book, and I managed to read half of everything I brought with me. It was also here that my sister and I had a nice discussion about names: how each name has a meaning, and how people live up to their names.
Once we tired of Santana's, we decided to do a little shopping in the market, found a nice hand-made hammock for my sister and fended off some more time-share salesmen. It really is amazing how much of these things for sale are handmade crafts; it just shows an incredible skill.
Finally, we ended up at Lupa-Lupa, where we sat ourselves down on the balcony, underneath the low-hanging electrical and phone wires which wound their way right through the balcony. If I'd thought of it at the time, I would have taken a photo, but perhaps that would have been rude, particularly if I took one while the waiter was ducking underneath it to serve the guests food. I think out of the whole trip, I have to say that the food was the most memorable. I had good food every time I ate. Here at the Lupa-Lupa, I had flounder with garlic sauce. We stayed until the sun started setting, then I tried to enter the Iglesia Sagrada Corazon de Jesus, only to discover that it only opened on Sundays. I had hoped to find a quiet place to pray and contemplate the mysteries of life, but sadly, that was not to be. Instead, we headed back to the hotel to play Trivial Pursuit with the quiet background humming of drill bits in cement. The next morning, we took a quick detour to the Mayan Palace - a luxury time-share - before heading back home to Tucson, where my sister lives, since we'd found the hotel to be less than relaxing.
In Tucson, my sister and I decided to watch a movie that night, and went out to eat at a place called J-Nippon, a Teppan dining place. What this means, as I discovered, is that they cook everything right in front of you, on this super hot grill, and, unlike your mother used to tell you, these guys are allowed to play with the food. We saw a volcano made from onions, a burning, beating heart of rice, and flying shrimp. Again, the food was delicious. And when I went to sleep that night, it was quiet, and peaceful. I slept like a log.
Sunday was an interesting day. My sister lives near St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church, and so I walked up to attend the second service of the day at 9am (there are 6 all together on Sundays). The interior of the building is very beautiful, with a large stained glass window above the altar and a beautiful Christus Rex hanging in front of the window (only the Christus Rex without the cross, so more just Jesus as King). Though I pulled out the liturgy for the day, I really didn't need it, as I was able to follow along, knowing how the liturgy unfolds. The only time I needed to consult my liturgy booklet was during the singing of the hymns, as the Kyrie, Gloria, and Sanctus were different from what I have memorized. The most amazing, and perhaps moving thing, was that at the Eucharist, there were 500+ of us who filed down the aisles to receive the Lord.
Following the service, I asked to be pointed to the prayer chapel, and was told I could "spend all day there" if I wanted to. Upon entering it, I knew I was in the right location: the back of the room held a statue of St. Michael the Archangel defeating satan, with a pamphlet describing the Charge to St. Michael, and its intended use in prayer. I did intend to spend quite a bit of time in prayer, though it turns out that during the mornings, this chapel became more of a multi-purpose room than a quiet place of prayer. Before long, the the choir for the 11am service came in to practice, and when they were finished, the 11am service started, and the children having catechism were sitting in an adjoining room. Not such a bad deal, really, except that the doors were made of glass, and having these children plaster their faces up against the doors to watch you pray the rosary doesn't make for a feeling of being alone with God. Call me crazy.
Somehow, I felt thwarted in all my efforts to really connect with God this weekend. While God opened up several new questions for me, I have yet to find the time to seek Him for the answers. Nevertheless, God is good, and His mercy endures for ever.
Last, but certainly not least, here are the photos from the trip.
Back on Sunday night.
Blessings+
So the latest and greates trick at work has been to figure out how to send newsletters to our donors and alumni based on a Text-only or HTML preference. Should be simple enough, except that the powers that be also want me to figure out a way to track everything: how many people opened the email (but never responded), how many opened it and responded, how many emails bounced, and what content is attracting which demographic.
In any case, all this excitement has helped me discover my new project: a simple email newsletter program that allows people to sign up for the latest and greatest (insert your name here) has to say.
It seems that for the first time ever, the Vatican has opened a Sports Office, and will be sending a representative to the Olympic Games in Turin, Switzerland this year. Apparently, Pope Benedict even blessed the Olympic flame. Read the full story.
So yesterday I sent out all the information I could find to try and get ComCast to understand that it wasn't me who ordered cable in South Central in the fall of 2002. Pray they accept all my info, and count it as fraud.
You can find it here:
http://www.seilerfamily.net/gabriele
I've included this just because I thought it was really cool. And because I thought it cool that Monsignor is abbreviated the exact same way as Messenger. The original can be found here, but I reprint it here, in its entirety:
Msgr. Frank Gaeta
“The peace of Christ be with you. God bless you, my dear caller.” Over the past eight years, 80,000 people who have dialed (631) 667-5569 have heard those welcoming words and the voice of Msgr. Frank Gaeta, pastor of Sts. Cyril and Methodius Parish in Deer Park, New York.
But it’s not the parish they’ve reached. It’s “Dial a Moment With Jesus,” the daily recorded phone message accessible through the parish 24/7.
Instead of Jesus on the other end of the line, callers hear the veteran priest offer a three-minute spiritual message designed to proclaim the timeless message of the Good News through an answering machine that rings about 100 times a day. Surely Sts. Cyril and Methodius, who proclaimed the Gospel in Slavonic centuries ago, would approve of Msgr. Gaeta’s more modern methods.
“I’m not gifted in cyberspace things, but this works,” he told Every Day Catholic. He feels it is especially helpful for the homebound and “for people who are going through struggles and need a prayerful moment alone with the Lord.”
By 11 each evening he prepares the message for the following day, typically turning to the Old or New Testament. Using a special microphone attached to the machine, Msgr. Gaeta tries to find “a word, a line that helps people have an experience of the gospel message, of what Jesus is saying to us each day.”
“There are so many things I could be doing to proclaim the Good News,” he said, but “Dial a Moment” has become his trademark. (He gives full credit for the idea to the late Redemptorist Father Denis Kelleher.) But Msgr. Gaeta is open to new ideas—whatever helps people feel the presence of the Lord in their hearts and their lives.
(source: Everyday Catholic - February 2006)
(reprinted completely without permission. sorry)
The first New Year's Eve after I came home from college I ended up at my boss' house for a party. At the time, my parents were there and my sister was also living at home, so the house was full, and I wanted to take this opportunity to go somewhere to get out of the house for a while. Voila! Party at the boss's house.
Now, my boss was married to the Park Ranger, and lived in a house with her brother, Romulus, and her son-in-law, Remus*. Apparently, half of the bigwigs in town were there, many of whom I had never met; and by bigwigs, I mean those who had the important job in town of bitching about the cold weather, and lamenting the fact that they agreed to come to this backward part of the world for a sizable increase in salary. Call it hazard pay, if you will. I call it alcoholic generosity. When you're willing to listen to people gripe about their lives, nod every few seconds and say, "Man, that sucks," you will find a never-ending well of mind-numbing kickbacks, and occasionally, a decent cigar. Ahh, the joys of counseling the wealthy.
It so happened that when I first got there, after making my "So nice to meet you's," I end up at the bar, where the town magistrate and his girlfriend are sitting. Lo and behold, the first words out of her mouth are, "Wow! You look just like Ross Perot!" (I've included a photo of Ross Perot to show this woman's visual acuity.) The rest of the conversation went a little something like this:
Magistrate: Honey...
Girlfriend: [looking at him, perplexed/annoyed] No. Really, he looks like Ross Perot. Look at the size of his ears.
Magistrate: Honey. That's not nice.
Girlfriend: I don't mean it as a bad thing.
Magistrate: You just told him he has big ears. How is that nice?
Girlfriend: Ross Perot is a cute old man. And he's cute [pointing to me]. How is that mean?
Magistrate: [looking at me] I'm really sorry. She's had a bit much.
Me: Hey, you know, I just had my haircut. Must make my ears stand out. Besides, she thinks I'm cute. No real harm done. ... But I'm going to go ahead and go upstairs now.
Magistrate: Honey...
Girlfriend: What?! He said it was OK.
Magistrate: That's because he's being nice...
I quit listening at tha point because I'd rounded the stairs to the upper floor where I realized they had a nice big ping pong table - Table Tennis, really - and I immediately knew I was in the right spot. So I jumped in on the next game, against Romulus. Me, tyring to be the gregarious party guest, began asking questions and just getting to him. Turns out Romulus was quite an amicable fellow, and we ended up talking about various and sundry things, including Ross Perot, my apparent twin. I was enjoying myself, partly because Romulus had already had quite a few and I was winning. At one point, Remus got up with something like "Harumph," though in reality it was quite a bit more colorful. At this point my Spidey-sense kicked in, and I asked, "Is he alright? He seems mad, or something." To which I got the reply, "Eh. Don't worry about him."
Somehow I got the feeling I should worry.
In any case, several of the Arctic Wealthy came up occasionally to play a game, realized quickly that their hand-eye coordination was failing, and promptly headed downstairs to drown their sorrows at the bar. Occasionally, Remus poked his head up the stairs, though never came up, until, finally, he came through, shot Romulus a dirty look, and headed into his room and got on the computer. He left the door open, and shot an occasional glance out the door. Romulus occasionally shot a glance back. At some point in all of this I got an extreme heebie-jeebie vibe, and decided it was time to take my leave.
I headed downstairs, went about making my quick goodbyes. The magistrate asked if I wanted a ride home, to which I readily agreed, not wanting to walk the three and a half miles home in a snowstorm of 30 below. [At this point, let me interject, that when the Surgeon General says that alcohol impairs your judgment, he isn't kidding.]
Me: Are you sure you're safe to drive? You look worse off than me.
Magistrate: I'm fine. No worries.
Me: Are you sure? We're only going 5mph.
Magistrate: It's dark out. And it's hard to see through the snow.
Me: Right. Yeah. Ok.
Magistrate: You making a move on Romulus?
Me: I'm sorry... What?
Magistrate: Romulus. You hitting on him? [pause] You know he's gay, right?
Me: I'm sorry... What?
Magistrate: I guess you didn't. Not a good time to make new friends. They're fighting right now, Remus and Romulus. Romulus seemed to take a liking to you.
Me: [awkward silence] What happens if we get pulled over?
Magistrate: [rolls his eyes] I'm the magistrate.
Me: [pause] Hey, what happened to your girlfriend?
Magistrate: I think she got a ride home from someone else.
[awkward silence]
Me: Right. Um, I live right here. Thanks.
The next morning I awoke to hear my parents and sister eating breakfast, so I went out to join them. My sister asks, "A little too much last night?" To which I respond with, "Why do you say that?" And my sister says, "The vomiting sounds at 1AM kind of gave it away," at which point my father busts out laughing until tears come to his eyes. Apparently he thought it was the funniest thing.
Because of my overzealous gregariousness and apparent interest in Romulus, it seems I managed to confuse several of the partygoers as to my personal leanings (which reminds me, by the way, of Victor and the HotMale<dot>com incident, though that's another story...), something it took quite some time to get rid of.
And yes, I never went to my bosses house for another party again. But because they were both great guys, I did end up hanging out with both Remus and Romulus at a later time, even using Remus's services as a graphic designer after he moved to Seattle.
*Not their real names. Surprised?
Last night I awoke and lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Since I've been questioning God on several things, I decided that I would take this "awake" time to pray.
The Axe
I awoke to find myself staring at an axe, which I had apparently just been using, stuck into a thick tree stump of a chopping block of nice, fresh wood. I knew that I had been using the axe, and I knew that I was exhausted, and that at the moment, I was taking a break from chopping. Where I was standing, and where the tree stump/chopping block was sitting, was a solid rectangle of concrete, apparently on the edge of a small depression in the ground. Ahead of me were hills, covered in a thick winter snow, and barren winter trees lined the crest of this hill.
I heard a voice say, "The house is finished, Carsten." For the briefest of moments I realized that all the chopping I had done had somehow been used to either furnish, heat, or build something. I turned around.
Behind me loomed a house. A big house, with gray wooden shingles, and a blue-gray trim. Though still standing there, I felt as though I began floating up to get a bird's eye view of this house. The house was enormous, extending up the side of these hills, around some, down into other valleys, but simply extending as far as the eye could see. All around this massive house was the snowy landscape filled with these barren winter trees.
I muttered, "It's a mansion," and I heard the words, "I have prepared a place for you," and I immediately knew what that meant.
At that point, things faded off into gray, and I heard words being spoken while simultaneously I saw them as though they were being typed in CAPITAL LETTERS. The words were these:
"FOR I KNOW THE PLANS I HAVE FOR YOU," SAYS THE LORD, "PLANS TO PROSER YOU, AND NOT TO HARM YOU." (source)
At that point I opened my eyes to see myself staring at my ceiling again. The time was 1:38am.
The Rabbit
I heard noises coming from near the window in my bedroom, so I stood up and investigated the noises. Nothing was there, but then I again heard the sounds, this time from near my closets. As I walked around the bed to see what was up, I noticed the closet doors open, and what looked like a rat chewing on something in the darkness, and involuntarily I shuddered. I made a noise to startle the rat, and it bounded off toward my night stand, jumped up onto the bed, over my pillow, and down the other side. It was at that point I realized that it was a little grey bunny, and not the rat that I had thought. I noticed that he had taken up residence on the other side of the room, underneath my light switches, and so I went over there, trying to lean over him to turn on the lights, and hopefully startle him into leaving.
The lights would not come on.
Not a single one.
While I had attempted to turn on the lights, the bunny bounded over into the little doorway between my bedroom and living room, but he would not leave the room. I picked up a sock, wadded it up, and tossed it over the bunny's head in an effort to tempt him to play somewhere else. Both the rabbit and I watched as it bounced a few times in the living room before finally coming to a rest.
At this point the rabbit stood up on its hind legs, turned to me, and it's eyes flashed yellow. He put his little paws on his hips and in an indignant, even mocking tone, he said, "What?" I responded by yelling "Get out of my room!" and this time I jolted awake, shaking my bed in the process.
The time was 3:34am.
I made the sign of the cross, said a quick prayer, then went back to sleep.
[As you can see, I'm not accepting comments. I'd like to blame the bunny rabbit on eating pizza too close to bedtime, but unfortunately, I can't. There is a blessing in both of these, and I anticipate more understanding soon. Prayer is appreciated. Especially about the axe.]
Ok, so I had spent a good deal of time writing the new episode of Back in the Day, when I tried to save, got shunted out of my own blog, and told my session had run out. When I logged back in, half the blog was gone. I don't feel like re-writing it at the moment. You'll have to wait till tomorrow for the new installment. In the meantime, here's the first installment of View Them And Weep, compliments of Jenny.
I'm heading off to Mexico for a few days! My sister graciously offered to find a ticket for me so that I can join her down there. We'll be gone from Thursday morning to Sunday evening. I am so looking forward to it.
So, the official books read that I graduated from Seattle Pacific University in 1996, rather than 1995, which is the date all should have happened in, had I been more diligent in my educational pursuits, rather than my other "pursuits." This was due, in part, to the overriding sense of doom that surrounded me as I attempted to complete my Honors Project, which happened to be a 160-page Science Fiction story based loosely upon the social structure of Post Republic Rome (I called it "The Key to Arrogance," or some other overly arrogant name like that). It eventually got finished in March of 1996, which is when the school finally granted me my piece of paper with a major in Classical History. Though it never made it on to the books, I graduated with a quasi-minor in Linguistics.
Another fact that contributed to the delay in my graduation was my participation in European Quarter, after which I ended up hanging out in Europe for a good 3 months, for a total of almost half a year there. I managed to walk my way through most of Germany, Prague, Moscow, St. Petersburg, crisscrossed through Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, England (London, mainly), France, Switzerland, and Italy. Switzerland was the most fun, as I hitchhiked up to the Materhorn with some girl from Norway who was working there for the winter, and managed to get a ride with some Hippie couple at one point, and then two pot-smoking delivery guys transporting "flowers" across the country.
In any case, I came back to Alaska to live with my parents, finished writing my honors project, got a certificate in Construction Trades from the local Tech School, and promptly began working at a coffee shop making espresso, and selling Native Artifacts to tourists, until one day I was canned. The official word was, "Native Preference" when it came to hiring, so I was let go, and two pretty Native girls who needed summer jobs took my place. Thankfully, just before that, Tara started coming in to get coffee. Tara was a head-turner, and ticked off the other pretty girls in our little no-traffic light town who had just been trumped. Tara also worked at Alaska Airlines, and she and my friend Kiana (one of the ticked off trumped girls) put in a good word for me there, and following a quick stint at a Bush plane company called Bering Air, I ended up being a Ramp Rat for Alaska Airlines, loading 5000lb containers of frozen fish into the Boeing 737-Combi's, and throwing Tourist gear around the pit of the plane. When it came time for them to hire a new ticket agent inside, Tara and I competed for the job, but I managed to squeak her out of it. Lucky me. I got to work inside, while she had to stay outside in the cold. Of course, we were pretty good friends by this time, so I don't think she minded so much....
Next installment: Post College: Parte, the Second - The "Glory Days" of Kotzebue, in which our hero, Carsten, gets told he looks like Ross Perot, somehow seems to get himself in the middle of a gay lover's quarrel, and is confused with an adulterous Lech.
Hot dog buns scare me. I mean, have you noticed how these buns are all stuck together on the long side, but somehow - somehow - they are perfectly cut in the middle of the bun. How does that work? I didn't know bread could be molded in this way. It just never dawned on me to question the time-honored hot dog bun until for whatever reason, I realized that somehow they seemed to get cut without ever being opened. That's just weird. Is it really bread?
Today I did.
Yesterday was a day of things not working right. For one, my body, as I stayed home with the blahs. For the rest, technology. One of the servers my web hosting client is hosted on has been down for several days, and every time they got the server back up and running, I would try to load some things, only to discover that they lost the server again. Then the phone calls. Every time I attempted to make phone calls to people, I would either lose the signal before I could really ask the questions I needed, or people would get another phone call and say they needed to go, then never call me back. Finally, when I went to start the Padre's car to drive to church - which he let me borrow because mine was in the shop- it turns out the battery was drained and the car wouldn't start. So I get to thinking what great luck I've got with cars, and now I've destroyed the Padre's as well as my own...
and there was weeping and yakking of beef...
So today I go in to work, expecting to make the changes to the upcoming website discussed in a meeting on Tuesday. Now, mind you, I've had this redesigned web site ready to go since the beginning of September of last year, and we're only now getting around to having a discussion of what needs to change before we can go live. I have no doubts that this process will take another four months, and in the meantime, I've got to update two websites every time there is a change, because they both need to be current. In any case, I began with the necessary changes when my body decided to go glitch again, and I ended up spending the remainder of the day sleeping off another round of killer headache brought on by eating those foods that make me go "BOOM," without really realizing it. Allergies suck. The fact that the food industry puts corn or corn syrup into everything stinks too.
wah, wah, wah, and boo, hoo, hoo.
finally, I'm done with the rant.
Read the article here.