Just Hacking Away...

Today has been kind of weird to me.

I went outside to read this morning, and this is what it looked like to be me:




I never forget to thank my lucky stars that I have the option of working from home, and while I don't take advantage of it TOO much (trust me, I am drawn to my desk to work at all kinds of crazy hours whereas most people leave work guilty-conscience-free and enjoy their lives--at least that's my theory).

Notice a few things here--I'm covering my nasty, cheesy-colored, bear-claw feet with this book. Also, this is the most massive coffee cup available, which I originally bought as kind of a joke at the NFL Football Hall of Fame (a business trip gone terribly wrong which could fill up a whole blog). Also, I think something Freudian is going on, because look at what I'm reading (irony: I can't see it while I'm typing, so I'm frantically trying to remember exactly what it says...seriously, it is something about "How to Overcome your fear of writing...")

So, I look up, and the sun is glazed by the clouds (it looks like the round circle I used to draw with a yellow crayon), and the sky looks like faded blue jeans. It's breathtaking to me.



So, after snapping this picture, what is my first thought? You know, if I took this to Photoshop, I could decrease brightness, increase contrast, and darken the sky to a beautiful indigo --isn't that sick? I felt ashamed...and left it untouched--fortunately, my camera caught EXACTLY what it looked like.

A couple of other notes on composition: I purposely caught the rooftops but not the houses to imply that we are stacked here in Texas suburbia like cordwood. The tops of the houses indicate a structure but, at least in my mind, doesn't let your mind wander to consider the people living there (if I showed the sides of the houses, paint colors, landscaping, idiosyncratic crap littering their yard, hot tubs, etc. it would draw your mind away from the beauty of the sky today.) Also, I waited 20 minutes (okay, maybe 5) for a damn bird to fly by so I could counterbalance the sun in the sky with something that has defined edges, but no birds would comply--consider it bad karma from my excellent bird-hunting skills during dove season this year...

Then, looking on the internet for a perhaps copyable rendition of "Starry Night", I found this quote by Van Gogh about peasant workers clothing:

"The people here instinctively wear the most beautiful blue...when this fades and becomes somewhat discolored by the wind and weather, it is an infinite delicate tone that particularly brings out the flesh colors."

OK, whoa. Psychic connection complete, I guess...

Now, I'm on to more productive things for the rest of today, I promise.

The Meaning of Life from Napoleon Dynamite

When Spencer Johnson wrote his best-selling parable "Who Moved my Cheese?", he uses cheese as a symbol of what's important in life--security, wealth, happines--zeal for life is embodied by cheese. The characters' actions are motivated by their desire for cheese. They run around the maze (life) in search of cheese (sustenance, self-actualization) which is often moved around (the problems and issues of life and work).

I went to sleep last night and, like John receiving the book of Revelation while banished to the isle of Patmos, or Coleridge dreaming the entire, intact text of Kubla Khan, it was all revealed to me: Parallels in Napoleon Dynamite, where cheese is also used as a symbol for life's ultimate meaning. In this dream, various characters floated comically in front of me, as though in a tornado, and told me their philosophies regarding the quest for cheese.

The first indication of this deeply hidden meaning occurs when Napoleon calls home at the beginning of the movie. Kip is making a plate of food--and grating cheese over the top. Although Napoleon briefly distracts him, Kip longingly eyes the plate and tells him "I'm busy". We scoff at Kip because we judge him to be a loser. He sits around the house chatting away online all day, which our society rejects as a valid preoccupation. He's 32 and doesn't have a girlfriend. We make assumptions. We hate him--how could anyone love him? Ahthough this cheese is a foreshadowing that he has infused his life with zeal, we still don't get it. And we never see his potential--he appears doomed to fail right to the end, but Kip surprises us all. Kip's persistance and growth has paid off, and he literally rides off happily into the sunset with the girl.

Where did the cheese come from? Grandma! She's the character who is the source of cheese in the movie, and indeed, the head of the family. She rides dune buggys and has a boyfriend. She's the only smiling, happy, truly satisfied character. When Kip is grating cheese over his plate, it's HER cheese that he uses—he grates it from a huge block that is symbolic of her large reserves of energy and happiness. As a storytelling method, Grandma's overpowering zeal has to be removed from the picture so we can observe the others in the story and what they accomplish in her absence.

"Napoleon-knock it off and go make yourself a dang quesadilla!". This embodies, in essence, both the theme of the movie, as well as symbolically sets the next events in motion. Grandma is the voice of wisdom and experience, telling him--ingest cheese--fill your life with meaning (more strongly: Go get a life!). Be proactive. Decide to be happy, and let that guide your actions.

But, examining this statement on another level, what is a quesadilla, really? Mexican food made with cheese. And what does Napoleon do next? Befriends a Mexican student, Pedro, and his life improves exponentially from that point. When Napoleon approaches Pedro for the first time, it's a positive, proactive step in his life--a step where he makes a new friend. He helps someone else and stops being self-centered. But by, in essence, making life into a quesadilla, Napoleon matures. His personal journey climaxes when his proactivity pays off: He's able to give Pedro a beautiful gift of himself through dancing at the student elections. This infusion of his life with "cheese" has driven him to perform an unselfish act to benefit another person, and it is both a warm, justifying moment of the movie and the moral of the tale.

Pedro comes to the scene with his own cheese. He's content. It is subtly implied that Pedro gets cheese at home all the time, and is secure, serene and happy. Although he faces challenges, his security guides him and doesn't let him get thrown off course. He is a stable, unshakable constant in the movie, coming in with security and leaving with the benefits of that security.

The primary antagonist is Uncle Ricco. Uncle Ricco represents a rejection of infusing your life with cheese--Instead, he munches steak the whole time. Since cows are clearly representative of the source of cheese (note the theatrical device of assisting the mental completion of this relationship in two steps via the FFA contest), Uncle Ricco's constant eating of steak represents an attempt to cheat life by taking shortcuts (in effect, killing the goose which lays the golden eggs), tantalizingly promoting an alternative philosophy to Grandma's wisdom. Indeed, Uncle Ricco tries to circumvent natural law any chance he gets. He lives in the past, and fantasizes about time travel to 1982 so he can theoretically change the course of his life—a futile attempt to cheat the cosmos. When he assaults Napoleon, what is his weapon of choice? It appears random that he violently flings a steak into his face, but in fact, it is a symbolic attempt to disrupt Napoleon’s newly-found zeal for life by assailing him with Ricco's twisted philosophy. He asserts to Kip “How much you wanna bet I can throw a football over them mountains?” as he eats steak:he constantly feeds himself the perverted outlook on life and mistaken belief that he can circumvent the laws of nature. He lures Kip into considering this philosophy (which is why Kip tries to conform by affirming the assault "That's what I'm talking about..."), but ultimately Kip rejects the notion that nature can be cheated, his delusion shattering like a nylon polymer bowl under the crushing wheel of life's difficult lessons, and he speeds away, fleeing temptation to pursue his heart's true desires.

Ricco's world is rooted in artificial sideroads and overt perversion of the truth, rather than an acceptance of the refining process, patience, and aging that cheese represents.

Note that soulless Tina is never fed cheese as it would be wasted on her.

Taking this analysis and going back to Grandma's directions to Napoleon, a phenomenal insight can be obtained:

Go! (Take action, be proactive)
Make yourself (be independent. No one can make you happy, it has to be your decision, your action, taken on your own behalf. This message has to come from Grandma, the only one who is happy and content with her life)
A Dang (Here we come to a subtle undercurrent. Grandma is frustrated with Napoleon's lack of vision and commitment. Indeed, Grandma may be saddened that she is cursed with being able to enjoy life but has been unable to impart this wisdom to her children and grandchildren. When she says "dang", she actually directs it toward herself, a self-berating comment artfully embedded in her words of wisdom.)
Quesadilla! Symbol of a life embodied with meaning and spice

I hope this is as helpful to you in clarifying the meaning of life as it is to me. I am certain that this interpretation has already been embraced by others, and I wanted to independently record this revelation in its purest state without bias.

Go make yourself a dang quesadilla today. (You guys are retarded!)

Will this movie be good?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Fran predicts: "This movie will either be fantastic, or it will completely suck." Can't tell from the trailer, but it seems to have the right level of wit so far...

I thought the book was laugh-out-loud funny, and worth another reading (if I can find it somewhere)...

So long and thanks for all the fish!

I spy (part 2)--The day the music died

So, I had already gotten caught goofing around within the security system of this insanely security-intense, self-important company that maintains a huge database. Trust me when I say that I laid pretty low...for a while. But I always kept my eyes and ears open to see what was going on around me.

One function of my job as a computer operator was to maintain job logs--every time we performed any special subroutines, a document was created that showed every piece of data moved around, every subroutine accessed, and the final disposition of the action. The job logs showed up on a screen at the control panel, and either needed to be saved or deleted, depending on the status: (COMP meant "complete, and ERR meant there was an error with the job, along with the detail of the error). Typically we would just delete completed job logs and file the ones with errors for review by programmers. If we had an error, we would call Minneapolis and those guys would dial in over the multiplexors and log into our system and take control, usually checking the job logs for guidance in fixing the problem.

It turns out that if there was a malfunction of the job log, most of the time the on-call programmer would just give up--this told me that there wasn't a sophisticated diagnostic technique built within the software.

Also, there was that early morning incident....

As mentioned before, for some reason, after I was promoted there were a lot of computer operator candidates that just couldn't cut it, and they would just get frustrated and leave (usually suddenly). This revolving door gave me some opportunities for overtime, usually at unsavory hours when system maintenance was necessary.

One morning at 2:30 AM, system maintenance created a job log with an error. Our procedure was to page to on-call programmer, since our system was going to go on line in four and a half hours and it was critical that the Texas office handle its one-third of the nationwide calls--otherwise, the whole system bogs down and some of our very high dollar contracts demanded that we be equipped for a certain volume of calls.

The programmer, Tracy, didn't answer her page, so I called her home. A deep, burly man's voice answered.

"Hello?"

"Hi, this is Mike from Dallas. Sorry to wake you but I need to speak to Tracy."

"This IS Tracy!"

Apparently I woke her out of a crazy deep sleep; I would have bet my last buck on earth that it was a 6" dude and not a 5" petite woman.

"Oh, sorry Tracy. We got an error on a job log."

"Can you read it to me?"

So I did. It referenced a program called MEH75210.

She Paused. I thought she had gone back to sleep.

She told me "I'm going to get you to test this one for me so I don't have to drive 20 minutes to the office. Press Control-Shift-5."

I did. I saw a progamming screen pop up, which I had never seen before on our system, but I knew that it existed from my initial training. I had no idea this was the back door access hotkey sequence. Would it work from other computers, or just the operator's console?

"Go to the command line and type 'call MEH75210'." I did so, and a common authorization screen that almost everyone had access to came up--this must be a way to call up programs without going through authorized menus. Hmmmm. Quite interesting.

"Find a record and enter a query." I did, and everything worked normal.

"Delete the job log and forget everything we just did. Good-night." And I could hear the dial tone before I was able to put the receiver down. Looking back, that may have been the last time I ever talked to Tracy.

So I did forget. Kinda. For a time. And then I noticed that the alphanumeric sequence MEH75210 appeared on the normal menu access screen right next to the description of the authorization screen. And all functions seemed to also have corresponding alphanumeric sequences. By using these program keywords I could call them up anonymousely and perform their functions without it leaving a trace...

Now, I'm not mischevious or dishonest, but I do have a curious streak. And, over the next 3 years, I did a couple of tests to see what this functionality would help me do. There was a process where I would see a printout at the endpoint. So, when no one was looking I went to an unoccupied terminal (couldn't use the one at my desk because each Local Workstation had an address (mine was LWS235)) and pulled up the programmer menu and called up the program. Then I made some corrections to a record that had some data entry mistakes. Pressed Enter. Held my breath...nothing (bad) happened. The record was changed. And a week later when I was looking through the printouts of changed records, it came up, with the "changed by" field completely blank. You see, those smart-ass, self-important Fargonauts didn't have any warning bells in place for this type of thing....

Another test that I did was a little fancier--I analyzed the sequence of alphanumeric codes and projected which code the "master" list would come under (wasn't too hard). When I called up that program, it gave me a list of every function possible within our database. Now there wasn't anything bizarre or creepy like employee records or anything where I could really get in trouble--our company kept those records on local PC's. I was really more interested in the data analysis functions that we may have available.

Before anyone gets too scared, yes, I know I was way out of bounds here. However, during this time I had reworked several of our staffing and projections formulas to save the company a ton of money. I had also completely automated our staffing productivity recordkeeping, saving us over a quarter of a million dollars in soft costs and increasing the overall productivity of our office a whopping 15% in just 6 months! (That dinner where I made the joke to Dan Fargo was actually in honor of our success, which is probably why he somewhat forgave me for it). A lot of my success came from pushing limits, and, even though I was out of line here, it had ended up okay in several other circumstances.

The night it came crashing down was not out of the ordinary. We were a couple of hours from closing and I was sitting away at my desk. In years past, I would be frantically pounding away at an adding machine trying to calculate statistics for all of the employee in the company, but thanks to my integrated spreadsheet I had not only finished, but typed up 20 batches of data entry, which was equivalent to 2 days worth of work for the average 8-hour-a-day operator. I was resting my brain for a moment and thought I would keep going with my little espionage project.

In addition to getting a categorical listing of everything the company's mainframe could process, I had also collected a small assortment of dummy codes that could be used to access names without leaving a record. This was a practice that went undetected by our company and was often used by private investigators, FBI agents, and others who were searching for criminals. I didn't really use these things, but it kind of fed my ego to know that I could put my hands on them if I needed to. I had systematically gone through several of the screens and had found some interesting information such as a screen that adds billing information to customer records, the ability to compile statistics for an individual over a long period of time (I leaked info about its existance to a manager doing an evaluation one time). Sometimes, I would call up a program on the list, and for some inexplicable reason, they just didn't work. I had even figured out a way to call up the computer operator's screen from another terminal and delete the job log so it wouldn't show up.

This had come in handy one time when there was no computer operator around and we needed to handle a critical item. I called up the authorization screen and authorized an employee for a new function which they needed. No one was the wiser, and it had never come up again.

But that night the whole party ended.

I saw a function that looked like it listed sales tax by county--it was an option that I had never heard of before--I decided to call it up from my workstation (I had gotten lazy and stopped going over to an unusued terminal when I experimented, because nothing had ever gone wrong). I thought it would be interesting to see different sales tax rates in this area because they are all quite different, some signficantly higher than others. After a minute my computer froze and I couldn't exit out of the screen indicating that it was processing. I quickly reached up and flipped off the terminal, but even I knew that in our type of system that didn't end the job that I had started. Then I started to see the whole crew start to look around with puzzled expressions. In another minute, there were 50 or so people standing up. Then the lights went out and all the phones died. Even the radio that plays over the loudspeaker was off. We were sitting quietly in emergency lighting with dead phones like the plug had been pulled. And my fingerprints were all over that plug. I had momentarily brought the company to its knees.

I waited at my desk for about five minutes and started to feel sick. This function was going to get traced right back to my workstation via the job log and I was about to get fired. My heart was pounding out of my chest. I felt like I was going to be sick. I had to calm down somehow--I popped an Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold Medicine in a cup and drank it down--normally those things put me to sleep, but tonight I needed it to help me keep my cool and not act like a spaz.

I'll just deny everything. No, they'll know for sure that I did it. No one could be using my computer. No way. Plus, they know that I'm the geek-type that could figure that out--I was sure they would know it was me.

So, I calmly walked back into the computer room to see if I could "help". I walked in and saw the relatively new computer operator, Abby, and thought to myself that there might be hope...

She was on the phone with the programmer, who was on their cell phone while tearing toward the office in Minneapolis. Abby had seen the whole system lock up and had accidentally switched the power supply to reserve--the battery-powered backup that was our shutdown safeguard enabling us to save all the records without losing anything--this is why the lights went out and the phone system died, because they weren't powered by the battery backup. She was convinced that she had done something wrong, and I guess she had by flipping that switch prematurely. She was on the phone and had her back to the computer terminal, which was pulled up to the job logs. She was busy by the reserve switch powering things back up. As I looked at the screen behind her, there were 10 job logs in a line and I saw where the cursor was. I could see from the descriptions and status' that I needed to delete the last 3 job logs, which would cover my tracks completely.

If I could just reach around her inocuosly, what would the sequence be that I needed to hit as fast as possible?

(tab, tab, tab, down seven times, 4 down, 4 down, 4 down (option 4 was to delete)Enter)
I waited until Abby looked distracted, then reached around her to pick up something. She didn't flinch. So I hammered out that sequence in about 3 seconds. The job logs disappeared.

Then I turned around and calmly and slowly walked out of the room. I knew I was going to get away with it, now. Incredibly, Abby seemed to not notice that I was ever there...

When the programmer got to the office in Minneapolis and logged onto our system, he announced that there had been an error with a program that calculates sales tax county by county throughout the United States--a job which takes up a ton of processor time and has to be done when the rest of the system is off-line. Also, since we were still taking lots of calls at the time, it locked up because the number of records kept changing. His analysis was that the job logs spontaneously deleted themselves. But they never did figure out how the tax program started...

And this time I really forgot everything and never ventured in over my head again. My career as a corporate spy was officially over forever--I found out that I didn't have the guts for it.

I went on to a prestigous career with that company, eventually becoming a self-directed production analyst with my own office, which was an unheard-of arrangement for a 24-year-old. I received the highest review rating of any employee in company history. When I left the company, they had a big party for me and gave me an engraved clock, which still sits next to my desk.

And no one ever knew.

I spy

My brief but successful foray into the world of corporate espionage was a thrilling experience. I felt the rush that adrenaline junkies get hooked on and, although I think I'm allergic to those particular molecules, I get why they do it. In fact, I also get why they are usually caught several years later--there is just an overwhelming compulsion to talk (brag) about it--The experience of matching wits with a system focused on keeping you out, and walking away innocently. It could be a matter of great importance, great money, a lot of danger, and stiff consequences if you get caught.

Just so you know, the above characterization is a little dramatically overstated. Maybe. Judge for yourself here...

It was 1991 and I had risen in the ranks at a relatively large Fortune 500 company based out of Minneapolis--they had a branch here in Texas and another one in Florida, but the main brains of the organization were in Minnesota.

After working for a while at an entry-level position, I was quickly promoted through the ranks to a supervisory position. But first I had a 4-month stopover as a Computer Operator, which means that I sat in a huge, windowless room that was air conditioned down to 55 degrees year round to protect the circuits on the system. That was great for when I had to ride my motorcycle in the 100-plus degree Texas heat--I would walk into the computer room and almost pass out from the 50 degree temperature change.

The computer unit was a huge storage system for the 15 million records that were on file there--it was the shape of 8 refrigerators placed side by side, and the hum from the hard drives was almost deafening in the room--the desk was placed about 30 feet away from the storage bank, across the room and flat up against the wall, for just this reason. On the wall were multiplexors, which resembled the "flux capacitor" from the movie "Back to the Future"--a soft orange glow emanated from deep inside these boxes, which were the size of large microwave ovens. These boxes enabled the Computer Programmers and Operators from other sites to log in directly to our system when we needed help, had a problem, or even for routine maintenance (before the days of Virtual Networks or high speed internet access, we had these dedicated lines so the programmers could work on the system, but they had to do it from the office's main terminal in Minnesota or Florida, which meant that if there was a problem after hours, they had to drive in to the office). There was also a huge, 200 incoming line phone system mounted on the wall on the other side of the room which handled calls from all over the country including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. We were given a secret code to use to enter the room, and there were only about 4 people at any given time that had this code.

In fact, the Office Manager, who was the main administrator at our branch office, was the only management member to have this code--if she was on vacation or gone for the day, we were home free! No one could come in and bother you, so you could conceivably sleep, read, whatever--relatively undistuburbed if you didn't mind being in the middle of a giant humming snow cone machine with funky lights.

A guy that I worked with named Garrett Thomas used to fantasize openly about sneaking hot babes into the computer room. "It's a perfect locale!" he would say. Well, I guess it is if she's an Eskimo or something. I still harbor a little ill-will toward Garrett because he was a pervert and hit on my wife (before we started dating, but it still bugs me). He used to read everyone's Email because there was a funny little box that was supposed to be checked on all employees connected to the Email system--somehow, by an error in authorizing him, that box wasn't checked, so he used to sit in the back and read everyone's Email (yes, your worst nightmare come to pass--Garrett is the kind of guy that would just do that). And he wore an idiotic Fedora hat along with his large, round glasses, Addidas t-shirt, dirty jeans, and blue tennis shoes with white stripes--some sort of uniform that he always seemed to have on.

When training as a Computer Operator, I seemed to glean more from the week-long course than most. After I left, I saw people come and go, and they just never seemed to get below the surface understanding of how the thing operated. It used a type of programming that used key words and subroutines to query our large database with different formats and authorizations to view and/or change data. Most people had a very streamlined set of authorizations--a menu would pop up and they would have two or three choices of functions they could do. As a computer operator, I had about 40 authorized functions on seven different menus.

Our Boss in Minneapolis was Dan Fargo (one year the whole computer department dressed up for Halloween as Jason and the Fargonauts). Dan was a no-nonsense guy extremely strict rules about operating procedures. In fact, the whole company was run with an iron fist, particularly regarding absence and tardiness. One minute late equals a tardy. Three tardies in a 90-day period equals automatic termination. No questions asked. No exceptions. Working for the company for seven years ingrained that unreasonable expectation into me so deeply that it would still come out when I had employees--much to their chagrin. But there was no humor to be found, anywhere. I once royally pissed off Dan Fargo with the following joke: What do KMart and Michael Jackson have in common? A: Boys Underwear half off...He shot me a glaring look and called out "Michael!!!" My theory was that I struck too close to a nerve...

One time I really got in a LOT of trouble, perhaps almost fired, for modifying Fran's email. She called me after hours and was looking for a specific message that had a phone # in it--she read me her authorization number and password, and I accessed her messages and read them to her(I promise, I did not have the funky "Garrett" authorization). I thought it would be a funny joke to add a sentence at the end of an Email from one of her friends, Donna. I think it was "you know, your boyfriend is a real fruitcake--what are you doing with that guy, anyway?". Once I added it, I forgot about it completely.

The next day, the shit hit the fan when Fran asked Donna about the Email, and Donna, who I didn't realize was prone to freaking out, completely went ape-shit crazy and called everyone but the damn FBI to find out about it. By the time I got to work (I worked 1-9 in the evening), the whole office was buzzing, and Fran had already figured out that it was just my stupid sense of humor. We both got written up and she was in tears over getting me in trouble--I was warned not to get creative again.

Three years later, I was a little wiser in covering my tracks when that same creativity struck again....

To be continued (really).

Bear all Things

I was jarred into looking for this ID because Baylor Women just won the national championship for basketball. I began to wonder: What claims do I have to Baylor? I only went there for one year--a great year. Can I call myself a Baylor Bear?

I remember the day this picture was taken.

I woke up and drove down to Baylor at some ungodly hour. My mom laid out my clothes-I tried to wear jeans, but there was no way in hell-she was running the show that day and was so stressed out it wasn't worth fighting over-so I wore stark white pants, the ones that I was previously warned by friends not to wear because they made me look "like an Iranian tourist" (?). All I remember is knowing that someone could see my underwear through them, which was obviously not good. Also, the blue Henley, which I wore all the time, and was warned by a teacher not to wear in a high school annual photo because "in the future, people will laugh at what was in fashion right now..." (aren't Henleys still in?) And it was so early in the AM that I couldn't take a shower--so I'm getting this picture taken while feeling greasy and gross with my ass hanging out. And that's what I thought of every time I used this ID card, which was 3 times a day for meals and every time I went to the library...

Fran calls this photo my "Concentration Camp Picture". I was definitely malnourished at this point in my life for various crazy reasons. But don't worry--I got a chance to make up for lost time later in life...

For this orientation day, I was paired with a guy with very curly hair whose dad was an FBI agent--immediately and inexplicably (was it the pants?), he hated me and wanted nothing to do with me--I never heard him speak a word, even when we were freshmen together in class. Oh well.

We toured the campus, which is beautiful like most old, expensive college campuses in that tree-filled, green grass, red brick, clock tower, archway thingy sort of way.

When you enter Baylor, there is a week-long orientation before classes start. You are broken up into small groups filled with guys named Brett and Blake and Todd and somehow genetically altered girls with blond hair and blue eyes and bows poofing out on top of their heads (nicknamed: bowheads, synonomous with: airhead). So, after a couple of days I got "sick" because I couldn't take anymore of the nonstop, saccharine-sweet BS...Well, I felt like crap because I got Get Well cards from the bowheads which were even signed by Blake, Brett, and Todd. Maybe they weren't so bad, after all--they seemed sincere.

My freshman English class had only 12 people in it--and I thought it was neat that one time, my professor called me in my dorm to ask me a question about something I wrote on a test. She really seemed to like me, even though my writing was crap. That was pretty good.

I entered the roommate lottery and lost, big-time. Most unfortunately. One super rich kid who was nice, but a phony. Another guy who was a preacher's kid who was actually very poor, desperately wanted to hang out with rich kids, and who was also a phony. I owe him $175 still, which could have been $1.75 million at that time to me, because I was the last one to use his motorcycle and somehow he never found the keys that I laid on his desk and apparently that was the only key for the damn thing--I would send him the $$ right now to clear my conscience except his name is friggin' John Smith and there a million of 'em. Also, there was this whole thing where I ended up having to kick his ass royally and relentlessly in front of everyone, and he wouldn't back down, so I had to keep knocking his ass down and then picked up his bicycle like Hulk Hogan and threw it on top of him and told him to stay down, but he kept getting up...but I digress...I would still write him a check if I could find him.

Next roommate--homosexual. Got "outed" when he propositioned another guy on our floor, who everyone (I guess including my roommate) thought was gay but just turned out to be weird. Well, about 20 of us were eating pizza in the dining hall, and weird guy tells me "Hey, you'd better watch your ass! Your roommate is gay!" By the time I got back to the room that night, he had moved out (but...left his TV, fridge, carpet, stereo, and lamp until the end of the year, so---thanks, dude! Good luck with the gay thing...)

Then I met my best buddy Gar. We used to play tennis at 1:30 AM--also good. One time I locked him in our dorm room and laughed while he called every room down our hall trying to get someone to let him out. When I came back, he had taped all of my textbooks on the outside of the window to our dorm. We were the poorest students at the school. Seriously, on Friday nights we would walk across the street to the gas station and buy a chocolate milk...if we had the $1 available, which was about 2 Fridays per month. Good times.

I went to the football games--here's how phony they were: People wore suits and ties to the freakin' football games! In TEXAS!!!! Hello? What the hell is wrong with you? And our team sucked so bad...it was difficult to watch. But I still went, and even joined the Freshman sprit group like a dork.

Our telephone number was a single digit off from the campus information line--we would get calls all day and night asking for people's phone numbers--so we just kept a directory by the phone and we would look up the names, pretending to be the information line people. Sometimes we would even sing, whistle, or play the radio into the phone and laugh our asses off. I thought we had it pretty bad til I met some guys down the hall whose phone rang everytime someone forgot to hit "9" before they dialed a 1-800 number...

I identified with Baylor. I used to go and watch the bears in the bear den across the street from me all the time. They would feed them oreo cookies and make them do tricks--seemed okay at the time, but is oddly disturbing now...

I knew the Baylor fight song, which freshman were obligated to sing if the upperclassmen initiated it somehow. I would do the Baylor cheer. I would hope like hell our team would win something. I wore green and gold. I still have Baylor mugs floating around my house...somewhere.

Through no fault of my own, the rest of my college career had more transfers than the Long Island Railroad. I ended up graduating from a branch of UT that was less prestigious and took me seven years of hard-fought study and work. I still haven't gotten beyond a slight tinge of defensiveness when I tell people that I just went to Baylor for my first year. Almost as a reflex, I tell people: I did great at Baylor (which I did to the surprise of everyone), but we just couldn't afford it. Then I feel stupid and self-conscious, like a 17-year old should have had it all worked out and planned and seen everything coming. I wanted to be on the "4-year plan" like a normal person.

I actually consider my education to be all the experiences and knowledge I gained during the time I went to college--classes and study were just the venue, the knowledge was what I learned in life.

But Baylor was the pure college experience. Leaving home for the first time. Living in the dorm. Being on my own. Pulling all-nighters because it was fashionable. Walking to class. A simple life of undistracted study--a luxury I would wish for so many times in the future, where a full courseload and long hours at work meant that I had to decide what I was going to study and what I was going to just miss because I couldn't get to it.

I get an alumni magazine! Requests for donations! They call me an alum when they have their hand out--although I'm sure they aren't so discerning about such things when they are asking for a check...

When I finally graduated, I was so relieved and satisfied at my accomplishment--I did it myself, and I didn't owe anybody anything. But it was anticlimatic, in a way. My work career continued on as before, and I just stopped going to classes. It didn't even occur to me to get a class ring, because I didn't sense that it was a big change--maybe someday I'll get one when I come to the realization that my education is over, a fact I'm not sure if I've faced yet...

But when I left Baylor, I left a piece of my heart there. It makes me nostalgic for that innocence and happiness. Sometimes, I wonder if I should claim it.

Source of Frustration

I had to document this image.

Sometimes when I feel like my files are out of control, I just dump everything out and make myself go through it all. Kind of like people who buy gym memberships thinking that it will inspire them to go work out since they have paid the $$...

Just like those poor doomed fatsos that just feel dumb for spending money for nothing, I am looking at these piles of crap all over my floor and chairs and desk and wondering why that ever seemed like a good idea.

I really just wanted to log an entry to move on from my unfortunate and apparently non-comment-worthy entry of Sandwich plus dog poop, which actually seemed like a good idea at the time...

Don't worry--I'll rebound. But I need to get this desk cleaned up first.

So today I'm hopped up on a homeostatic combo of allergy medicine, dayquil to treat my symptoms, Zinc and Vitamin C to prevent a Cold, and caffeine to counteract all the junk in my system bringin' me down...And I've got heavy machinery to operate later today--ought to be fun. I've been up with a wakeful 1-year-old who can't understand why no one wants to play with her at 2:30 AM and making insomnia-induced Email equivalents of drunk calls to my friends.

Fun!

Sandwich Plus Dog Poop

I. Sandwich.

There is this restaurant that is Hella-good here in Dallas. It is called Deli News and it's at Preston and I-635 in the Southwest Corner of the shopping center. It's crowded and it seems like the whole idea is for them to recreate the feel of the Carnegie Deli in Manhattan, which is also fantastic--I recommend the Woody Allen. They have homemade pickles, fresh-brewed coffee, and enormous sandwiches. And the authentic New York attitude--how do you import that?

Well, roll your eyes at me, call me stupid, and serve me up another one of those Open-Faced Rueben sandwiches, please, with hot pastrami. Incredible! Worth every bit of the $9.00. Trust me.

II. Dog Poop (sorry, no photos)

In learning about all things biological toward earning my degree, I unfortunately took this nasty class called Parasitology. All we did during the whole lab section for 4 hours per week is look at disgusting organisms and cysts, memorizing them for a lab practical.

During one particularly poignant exercise, we were ordered to bring in dog poop so we could prepare a sample and check for eggs of parasites. We were told that we would liquify the sample and it would take about 1/4 the size of a pencil eraser to make a good sample.

So, since I didn't have a dog but did live in apartment, I figured some cretan would oblige my needs by not scoopin' up after their best friend--and I was right. Almost gagging, I scooped up a little chunk from someone's poodle, and I was set.

While preparing my sample, I was assaulted by a quite strong odor (note that in this lab it took a lot for a smell to stand out). I looked up and my partner at the lab bench, a not-too-cute and unfortunately not-too-bright girl was cracking open a meatloaf-sized sample from a freezer bag right next to me on the bench.

I've heard the saying "Big Dog, Big Poop..." before, but I'd like the see the Mastiff-Rhino mix that created that monstrosity. I mean, it had themes going on inside it! Come on, woman! 1/4 of a "pencil eraser", not a "soap box racer"!

I was so completely overwhelmed with being grossed out that I seriously contemplated dropping out of the course right there.

III. = (I. + II.)

This is a legend from my high school, where there is a chemistry teacher named Dr. Walker, who was well-known for many years. Dr. Walker spoke with a pronounced stutter and was kind of goofy-looking with owl-shaped glasses and a pocket protector. His buddy, Dr. Lyon, was a midget-sized guy with beard, which was the only thing that differentiated him from the visiting younger sibling of one of the high school students.

The whole science department was pretty tight with each other and thought they were pretty clever. They hung signs around the science department that were kind of smart-ass digs at students, like "your mother doesn't work here--clean up after yourself", etc.

It turns out that someone targeted Dr. Walker for an ongoing joke. Every once in a while, they would steal his lunch out of the refigerator in the SWAMP (Science Workroom And Meeting Place). It was unpredictable and took place over several weeks, at a frequency of about once per week.

So Dr. Walker made a thin-layer dog poop sandwich, complete with tomato and lettuce, and stashed it in the fridge. And he staked out all 3 lunch periods at the school. Bingo! In B-Lunch a guy from his chemistry class jumps up suddenly and screams out, getting sick all over the place. Busted! True Story.

Sorry for the decrescendo of this entry...seriously the Rueben is to die for...

I guess I'm the April Fool

There are some people whom I avoid on April 1st. It's not that I can't take a joke--and I really can dish it out sometimes. My problem is that I just get tired of being on my guard all day.

This year, one of our key guys quit on April 1st. Of course, I didn't believe it for 3 days.

It made complete logical sense for him to leave that day--it was the end of our fiscal year and everything that could possibly ship out had been sent, therefore, his sales queue is empty and he'll get commission on everything he has coming...Additionally, he was known to be in a relatively disgruntled state almost constantly. But because of the day, I just couldn't bring myself to believe it.

I cry "wolf" perhaps a bit too often--just to be funny, of course. It probably doesn't help that I like to play "silly story" with Ryan, where I start off telling a story, like: We went to the park and rode bikes (true). Ryan was going very fast (true). (then we go for silly hyperbole:) All of a sudden, Ryan saw a truck parked with a board in the back coming down like a ramp. Ryan rode the bike as fast as he could and jumped out of the back of the truck. (then sillier:) While he was in the air, he hit a duck that was flying south for the winter. (then sillier:) And he reached up and grabbed the Goodyear blimp, which was coming by--I had to follow him around until he decided to let go and let me catch him. Ryan at this point is giggling and laughing out loud. And the sillier the better.

But Fran is sneaky--she picks her moments and subtly draws me in...

On April 1st, she was packing up Ryan's lunch for a field trip, and came around the corner with his lunch in a shiny pink Victoria's Secret bag (for some reason, my mind is wandering around at this point...). She very straight-faced put the bag on the corner for him to grab while running out the door for school.

So I'm stuck with the dilemma: Of course a kindergartener's masculinity shouldn't be questioned, and it's very likely that none of the kids will know where that bag came from; but why take a chance? The bag was, however, the perfect size and we were searching around for one that he could use that is disposable, as stipulated in the field trip instructions. Am I just being too sensitive about this? Hell no I'm not!

So I protested--and Fran broke out in a huge smile and pointed at me: "Gotcha!"

Opening Day and #9

I remember the exact moment when I knew I didn't want to be one of "those" dads.

I was six years old, and playing in my first soccer game as left fullback for the Devils. The ball bounced its way along toward me, heading out of bounds. From across the field, the coach called out to let it go. Then a well-intentioned parent, standing on the sideline beside me trumped the coach with a triple-digit decibel battle-cry: "KICK IT!!!!". Maybe I was half-startled. Maybe the ball was going too fast. Nah--who am I kidding? I just plain, old-fashioned sucked. I made an attempt at the ball, which bounced off me and went through the back of the field for a corner kick for the other team. Not good. Not even for a six year-old.

Considering how slow and clumsy I was, there is only one explanation for me being in sports: Gatorade! Back when I started playing, they only had green. And then there was Gatorgum...I loved it when I was a kid, but now I know that it has exactly the same taste and gummy consistency as eighty seven-octane engine deposits.

So, when my Son decided to play baseball this year, I was filled with the memories of blood-oaths sworn upon myself not to be crazy at my child's sporting events. My wife not-so-subtly seconded the motion. I geared myself up to maintain self-control and be conscious of not transforming into a raving idiot at ballgames. Guess I should have prepared myself for the possibility that sports mayhem could arise even sooner…

It was the practice before the first game of the year, and the coach’s wife was handing out uniforms. I’m not too superstitious, but you can get stuck with a real crappy number if you aren’t careful—like three. Or, God-forbid, double-zero. That most unstable of numbers reserved for show-off punks and nerds.

So, I gently urged Ryan to go get a jersey. He wasn't interested—he’d rather run around and throw the baseball straight up in the air and see if it beans anyone in the head on the way down.

I could see that the coach’s son already had number seven—Of course, damn, it!

“Ryan, go grab number 9—that’s a good one.”

More running around. He grabbed a hat and, seeing another kid modeling his, turned it around backwards (at least it’s not sideways, which makes you look like you should be making lightbulbs in a home somewhere). Almost ran in front of a car…

Then he decided he does want #9, so he scooped it up and we pulled it on. Ahhhh, crisis avoided—let someone else have double-zero.

Five minutes later, another kid comes up to Ryan—HE wants to be #9. Geez, that’s too bad—go pick another one, kid. WE didn’t leg-tackle the coach’s kid for getting number seven—we all have to make sacrifices. The kid runs off after Ryan tells him “I want to be number 9.”

I can hear the kid talking to his dad. I can hear the dad talking back to the kid, with this special parent tone of voice that means you are acting like you are talking to your kid but you are actually directing the words at the nearby adult: Damn it, kid, just grab double-zero and shut up, already….

“Well, maybe I can talk to his dad and see if he’ll change his mind.”

To add to the awkwardness, here, it is important to note that this is the only African American kid on the team, and also important to add that I have this irrational compulsion to promote racial harmony and prove that I’m not a bigot by being extremely nice and (sometimes overly) friendly, give benefit of the doubt, and be very cooperative and non-confrontational.

He walks up very confidently and smiling, asking: “So, can we talk about a buy-out here?”

“Let me talk to him for a second and see what he says.”

Me (to Ryan): “One of your teammates really wants to be number 9—would you like to pick a different number?” (Thinking: of all the retarded things to have to discuss…)

“No, dad—I want to be number 9.” (I half-cheered in my own head, wondering how much of a wimp I would be if he actually had decided to give up the number, just because I didn’t want to overtly roll my eyes at this other dad—I wonder if Ryan could sense in my voice that I really didn’t want him to change?)

Me (to the dad): “I talked to Ryan, and I think he really has his heart set on number 9—probably because that was the number I wore when I played ball.” (Note: It is the truth that I wore #9, but Ryan very likely has no knowledge of it at this point--but I had to give a reason, right?)

“Really? Who’d you play with?”

“Uh, the Angels.”

“Oh yeah? I played triple-A minor league ball with the Braves ‘til my knee went out. When did you play?”

“Uh, I played with the Angels when I was ten.” (red-faced with my head down)

“Oh.” (A little embarrassed but somewhat comforted that the standards in professional sports were still sufficiently discerning).

So when I relayed the news, he responded “We lost a nephew last year, and Curtis wanted to wear his number in his honor”.

You gotta be kidding me? What can I do at this point? I guess he figured out that I wasn’t going to do anything, because I just meandered around the field and avoided eye contact.

Then came the day of the game. The dad wore a T-shirt complete with the image of the nephew in his sports uniform wearing #9. The dates of birth and death and his name nostagically stenciled on it. Ryan wore #9 on our team, and his kid wore number two.

Ryan slugged his first hit into the outfield for a 2-run triple on his first at-bat ever. He hit the ball the farthest of any player all day. I wore a big smile and felt the pride that is probably the root of all crazy, unruly behavior in kid’s sports—but I kept it in check and savored every minute (and took 135 pictures, which was my techno-geek form of a battle-cry).

And seated beside me was that same well-intentioned parent from the Devils’ sidelines, happily watching his grandson round the bases in the pristine green field.