King Erasmus

Going to Court, Part III

2006-05-03T20:28:00.000-04:00

Curly decided that she wanted to take the day off and come with me. She didn't want to actually come into court with me, but she wanted to be around before and after. We went down the night before so that I didn't have to get up at 4am to get to court on time.

"Going to court" really doesn't describe the experience. When you go for something like this, you start out in the courtroom, but just to check in. You then head over to the Family Relations Counselors, who try to negotiate a settlement to whatever the differences happen to be. I knew this from our previous visit, so the first thing I did was put us on the list for Family Relations. That was one of the smartest things I could have done. I was number eleven. Most people sign up after the court finishes checking people in. I went over to the list when that happened and found that 47 people had signed up after me, and more were in line.

Even so, it took a long time to see a counselor. Coincidentally, it was the same one we had the last time. We sat down and he asked the Ex to tell him her side of everything. She proceeded to paint me as an irresponsible father who didn't care about paying his son's medical bills. She said she could barely afford to get by as it was, but that my refusal to pay the medical bills was making her life extremely difficult. She went on and on, and I let her. I didn't say a thing. I didn't sigh, or get angry, I just politely waited. The counselor glanced over at me several times, but let her finish. She brought out her spreadsheets and showed him how much money I'd refused to pay. Finally, with a smile for him, she finished.

Now, before I go any further, I have to say that I was very pleased with all of this. She had explained, in very thorough detail, her side of things. She hadn't made up any new stories, and she couldn't easily change her story now.

The counselor turned to me and I began. The first thing I told him was that we had to divide things up into pre- and post- divorce because of the Dissolution Agreement. I explained that it showed that all the bills pre-divorce were specifically assigned to the Ex. He asked to see the Agreement and I pointed out where the correct paragraphs were. He read through it and came to the part where it mentioned the financial affidavits. He asked if I had those and I gave them to him. I explained the difference between the two that I had for the Ex. He read through all of this and told the Ex that it looked like the agreement stated that the bills pre-divorce were her responsibility. He also told us that he was not an attorney and that the judge might decide differently. The Ex was very upset by this. She told him that it was impossible for the agreement to specify that because she had specifically told her attorney that she didn't want to pay the bills. She said that her attorney had told her that I was responsible for the bills. She finished up with the statement that if she had to pay those bills it would be "not fair, not fair, not fair!".

The counselor said that we needed to go over the post-divorce bills, so on we went. I started at the beginning. I told him that it all started with that little sticky-note. I talked about how I'd tried to talk to her about it and she refused. About how I emailed her time and again, trying to discuss it, and got no response. About how I sent the long, pleading email. I told him that I had not received a single notification of a medical bill until six days after she filed the motion. I showed that the spreadsheets had been made just three days before she filed the paperwork, and that I felt she never had any intention of doing anything but going to court. I then explained that when I was finally informed of the bills it wasn't in any verifiable way, so I went out and got the bills myself. I think that was the turning point. I closed with my calculation of the amount that was owed. I explained that the Ex had missed several bills and that the figure I had come up with was actually more than what she was asking for, and that I was willing to pay that immediately.

I don't think he often gets this kind of attitude. He was clearly a little confused. He had a problem, however. I was willing to pay everything I owed post-divorce, but not what was specified as the Ex's responsibility in the agreement. The Ex was willing to accept nothing less than everything. His job was to try to help us find a middle ground. He told us this and explained that we were going to break for lunch. He wanted us to discuss things and try to come up with a number that was acceptable for both of us. He also told us that if we didn't settle it the judge would either make an immediate judgment or tell us that we needed to come back another day.

When we went out into the hallway the Ex asked me where I wanted to sit and talk about it. It wasn't just the way she said it, it was the look that she had on her face. Her attitude was not very nice. I told her I didn't see the need to discuss it. I was not going to compromise on the pre-divorce bills because I'd already given up a lot of money that more than covered them. I told her I felt I had a very strong case that I tried to discuss everything with her and she ignored it all. She immediately said that she had emailed me about the bills, so I laid it out for her. I told her that if she had emailed me she'd better go and get the copies of the emails. She had ample time before we had to be back - I told her that they'd be in her Sent Items folder. She was a little surprised at my confidence. She was angry and called me a few names as she got on the elevator. I went and had a little lunch.

When we got back we met in the hallway. She told me that she had come up with a new number. She said that she'd going through everything and could show that I was wrong about the bills we were talking about being the ones covered in the Dissolution Agreement. The number she came up with was about $100 less than her original number. That brought her pre-divorce number down to just under $900. It was a move of desperation and I knew it. I had gone over everything very carefully - if I hadn't I might have fallen for it, but I knew I was correct. I told her that we'd have to see the judge.

It was hours before we got to see the judge. In an effort to try and give as much incentive to people to resolve their differences the court has a policy that anybody who can't come to an agreement goes dead last. That meant that we had to sit through several hours of other people coming before the judge. It was very educational. The judge was very fair, which made me very happy. He didn't allow emotion to outweigh facts, and if somebody made an honest effort to do something they were supposed to he took that into account. Watching all the other cases made me much more confident.

When it finally came to our turn he asked her to explain her side of things. She did, but did change a little bit. She explained that her attorney had obviously made a mistake and that it needed to be corrected. She made it sound like her attorney had expressly gone against her wishes and colluded with me to cheat her. The judge let her go on for a little bit, then stopped her. He brought out the Dissolution Agreement and read it and the financial affidavits. He then told her that the Agreement was clear - the pre-divorce bills were her responsibility. She tried another half-hearted explanation, but he stopped her and told her that there was nothing he could do. He then told her she needed to come up with an amount (post-divorce) that she felt she was owed. Up until this point he had said nothing at all to me.

She sat down and started calculating. He turned to me and asked me if I'd received any notification of medical expenses. I told him I hadn't until she had sent me the spreadsheets, which was six days after she filed the motion. She's studiously kept her head buried in her calculations at this point, which is a good thing. The judge was very unhappy to hear this, and was glaring at her. He said that we were going to fix the problem with notifications. He explained that I needed to come up with my estimate of what I owed. I told him I had it already, and explained that I had gone out and gotten the information myself. He was clearly surprised to hear that I had done that.

The Ex finished her calculations. The judge asked her if the number that she came up with was 49% of the total, and she realized she'd made a mistake. She'd calculated it at 50%. Not much of a difference, I know, but he had told her to calculate it at 49%. He was not happy at another delay, and I spoke up and told him that I had no problem going with the 50% calculation, and scored more points. He asked me if I was able to pay her in a reasonable amount of time and I told him I had my checkbook with me and could pay her whatever we calculated immediately. That was a 3-pointer. He was elated.

We went out into the hallway so she could explain her calculations to me. She surprised me then - she burst into tears and apologized. She told me that she really thought the pre-divorce bills were my responsibility. I know this is not true because of some of the things she said before, but I'm not a gloater. I told her I'd rather have her talk to me than have to apologize. I took a quick look at her calculations and found that they were pretty close to what they should be. I didn't want to go through them with a fine-tooth comb so I just wrote her a check. It came out to just over $400 - a far cry from what she was originally trying to get out of me.

We went back in and the judge was once again surprised - he wasn't expecting me to have already written a check and given it to her. He was all set to send us home, but I stopped him. I told him that we still needed to fix the notification issue. He had forgotten, and put in an order that proof of expense had to be given within two weeks. That's even better than the 30 days I was hoping for.

All in all I was very happy with the way it went. The story doesn't quite finish there, however. There's what happened as we were leaving the court, which I'll write about next time. It's good news, and really surprised me.

Going to Court, Part II

2006-05-03T19:10:00.000-04:00

Two weeks to prepare. For some of the things I needed to do it was plenty of time, for others it wasn't.

When I told Curly that I'd been served she was not surprised. She told me that she suspected something was going on when I told her that the Ex was in a strangely happy mood. Curly was very upset by the whole thing - she gets aggravated when the Ex pulls her stunts. She sees me trying to do things the right way and sees nothing of the sort from the Ex. Curly even saw the long email I sent the Ex before I sent it - I wanted to make sure I didn't come across the wrong way.

For myself? I was actually laughing about it. Here I was for weeks thinking about having to take the Ex to court over a stupid bill and she decides to come after me! I looked at it as her doing me a favor because now I didn't have to take a day off to go file the paperwork. I wasn't very worried about it right then, mainly because I'd done so much to try to resolve the situation.

The first thing I did was call all of the doctors and pharmacies and request copies of all the bills. The Ex was supposed to give me receipts or actual bills to get reimbursed, not just provide me with a spreadsheet. So, in legal terms, she still had not met the requirements set forth in the divorce agreement. If I were less meticulous (and stupider), I'd just let it go at that and walk into court and claim that since she hadn't given me "official" paperwork it didn't count. However, that's just not me. Now that I knew the bills existed I made it my business to get everything I needed to determine what I owed.

Over the next two weeks I gathered as much information and evidence as I could. I had to divide everything into two parts - pre- and post- divorce. I'd found and reread the divorce agreement and it said exactly what I thought it did about the division of debt. In fact, it was even clearer than I'd hoped. I also had her financial affidavit and a previous one. The previous one was one of the ones where she was still trying to assign me half the debt (that was one step better than me taking it all, but not good enough), so she showed the debts at 50% her responsibility. The final one, reflecting our agreement, showed them at 100% her responsibility. The agreement specifically stated that it was her responsibility. So, basically, everything pre-divorce was hers. The post-divorce medical expenses were actually, under the agreement, 49% my responsibility.

I started going through and verifying the spreadsheets. I found a surprising number of mistakes. She had not done a very thorough job of keeping track of everything. After I added the expenses she had missed and calculating my share at 49% (instead of the 50% she was calculating it at) I found I owed about $100 or so more than she had claimed. It came out to a little over $400 total. I wasn't upset that it was more than she calculated - I was intent on making sure she got exactly what I owed. I have no problem paying my share of my son's medical bills. I was actually happy my calculations came out the way they did because I'd be walking into court ready and willing to pay more than she was claiming - I felt this would look good.

I also went through all my email. I printed out every email that went between us since the divorce became final. I went through my file and pulled out every handwritten note she'd given me. I even had the little sticky-note that said "owe allergist". As it turned out, the stack of paperwork I'd be bringing into court was over three inches tall.

As the court date closed in, I got more stressed about it. I felt I had a very strong case, but you can't help but worry about the unknown. Would she lie? Would she manufacture some evidence? Would she claim that she'd been telling me verbally about the medical bills?

I wrote up a summary of the whole situation to use as a reference when I was in court. There was so much information and evidence that I didn't trust myself to remember it all or to be able to come up with it at a moment's notice.

Here's what I had:

The Dissolution agreement which specifically dealt with all debt. It assigned all the bills in question to her.
Two copies of her financial affidavit, one at 50% (old), one at 100%.
The sticky-note that started the whole thing with the words "owe allergist"
Three emails I sent her trying to discuss the situation (which at the time was limited to one bill)
The long email I sent her, which nearly begged her to talk to me about the bill.
The email she sent me 6 days after I was served.
The court papers I had been served, which showed that she filed them the same day I sent her the long email.
The three spreadsheets she had sent me, six days after she filed the motion.
Printouts of the internal properties of the spreadsheets. You might have heard that Microsoft Office documents have information embedded in them. Included in that are when the document was created, edited and printed. She obviously didn't know this - I could now show the spreadsheets were created three days before she filed her motion - she never had any intention of telling me about the bills before she filed the motion.
Proof that I'd been providing my son's health insurance, at my own expense, for months.
A corrected version of her spreadsheet, with the things she missed.

Here's what she had:
Her spreadsheets.
An incomplete set of bills.

Here's what she didn't have:
Anything showing that she notified me about the bills.
Any responses to my first three emails trying to discuss the matter.
Anything else.

She was so confident that she'd just be awarded the money that she didn't really prepare anything more than what she'd submitted to the court.

What happened at court was interesting, entertaining, educational and very satisfying. For me. That's Part III.

Going to Court, Part I

2006-05-03T18:22:00.000-04:00

It's hard to know where to start in telling the story of the latest court battle. I think it makes the most sense to just start at the beginning and not worry about what I might have mentioned already.

The Ex was not too happy with me one day, and when I brought my son back for the drop-off she had her little bit of revenge ready. She handed me a slip of paper which said (at the bottom) "owe allergist". I asked her what that meant and, after a bit of prodding, she finally explained that it was my share of our son's medical bill. I told her that this was her responsibility under the agreement, but she denied that, saying that her attorney said otherwise.

This bill has been a hot point for her for quite a while. Her initial proposal in the divorce negotiations was for me to take on all the marital debt and for her to take all the marital assets. She honestly believed that this was a reasonable position. She was very unhappy when she was told that I had the right to half of our marital assets and was responsible for half of our marital debt. She was unhappy about that because it meant that at the end of everything she'd have to come up with about $15000 to give me.

She continued to come up with reasons to support her belief that I was not entitled to any of the marital assets and that she was not responsible for any of the marital debt. It finally came to a head in a meeting that we finally got her to attend. Her attorney and my attorney working together finally got through to her that if she didn't compromise that the judge would simply split things down the middle.

I had no desire to make things hard for her, so I proposed that I would take my personal credit card debt and she would take everything else. That meant that she'd take on the rest of the marital debt and get to keep the equity we had in our condo. It meant that I was giving quite a bit of money, but it made things easier to settle. She was livid, even though this was very much to her advantage. She was crying, but was red-faced with anger when we broke the meeting up.

She later accused me of "screwing her" with the bills. This note was her opening salvo in an attempt to reassign all the debt we had settled back over to me.

Every week from that point forward I tried to talk to her about the bill. She refused to discuss it on most occasions, but I did get an interesting comment out of her when I told her I would take this to court if I had to. She said "If you think that, as a father, you'll go in there and not have to pay, you're crazy!". Obviously, she'd been getting ideas about how things went in court from somewhere.
I emailed her several times about it also. She never responded to any of my emails. Over the weeks I resigned myself to having to take her to court. I decided that I'd try one more time before I sent and filed papers. So one night I sat down and wrote a long and detailed email. I went over why I thought the bill was her responsibility. I went over how many times I'd tried to talk to her about it with no response. I told her that if she thought I was wrong about it she had to discuss it with me. Lastly, I told her that if she refused to communicate with me about it then I'd have no choice but to take her to court. I waited an hour or so before I actually sent it to make sure I didn't think of anything else. The day I sent this email is important for reasons you'll read in a little while. I expected a quick reply this time because of some of the things I said, but I was wrong. I didn't get anything for six days.

Six days later. When I saw the email I hoped that it meant that she'd finally decided to talk about the situation. How wrong I was. The email started out with a question - I won't quote it - asking me how I could sleep at night. She accused me of refusing to pay for our son's medical bills. It went downhill from there. It was vicious and very unfriendly. She told me that her attorney had told her that I was responsible for half of all medical bills, no matter how far back they went. She made accusation after accusation, and basically finished up with a statement that I could pay the allergist first and all the rest after that. Did you catch that? Weren't we talking about one bill before? Yes. Now we were suddenly talking about more than that one bill.

The full extent of it was covered in the attached spreadsheets. The three attached spreadsheets. The first covered 2003 and 2004, the second 2005 and the last one covered 2006. That's right. She was now going back through three years of bills and trying to reassign them to me. Some of them had already been paid (while we were married, before we even separated), but she was now claiming she was entitled to be reimbursed for half of them. She claimed I owed her $938, and that I had to pay a lot of the bills she hadn't paid on top of that.

It's important to note here that I'm responsible for half of all unreimbursed medical expenses for my son. That only applies to medical expenses that occurred since the divorce was final. Everything from before that is covered in the divorce agreement. The divorce agreement stated that I was required to reimburse her within 30 days of official proof of expense. From the date of the divorce until I received this email I had not received a single bill. She had been hoarding them the entire time.

I decided that I needed to analyze the spreadsheets before I responded to the email, which might take a little while. That weekend, however, things got even more interesting. When I picked up my son, the Ex was in a very chipper mood. I was suspicious of that, because it's so unusual. I even called Curly and told her about it. Later on I found out why she was in such a good mood. On returning my son, I was served. The papers simply stated that I had refused to pay medical expenses, as well as a couple of other minor things. The minor things were that she wanted proof that I carried our son's medicine. I found this last part as particularly stupid because all she had to do was ask me and I'd show it to her.

The timing of all these events is very interesting. Looking at the court papers, I could see the date she filed them. It was the same day that I sent the long email - remember I said that the date I sent it was very important? Well, she filed the paperwork during the day, and that evening I sent her the email, telling her that she couldn't keep refusing to communicate with me about the bill. Six days after that I received the first notification ever of any outstanding medical bills. Get that? She filed paperwork saying I'm refusing to pay medical bills, then six days later I get my first idea that I even owe anything.

The court papers gave me just over two weeks to prepare.

They let me out of my Tower…

2006-05-02T21:44:00.000-04:00

I recently got an email from another blogger and it made me realize that I needed to find the time to write more often. There’s so much to write about and so little time these days. I’ve only got a few minutes tonight, so I thought I’d give a preview of some of the things that I’ll be writing about soon:

Being served and going to court again for the medical bills I was planning on taking her to court for. I won, completely and easily. There’s a lot more to the story than that, however.

My car’s deteriorating health. With the bucking it’s currently subjecting me to I am considering a side-career as a Rodeo Rider (though a job as a clown would fit me better…).

Getting used to a good relationship – Curly’s still around, and, as a kicker, my son loves her.

Getting used to more paranoia from the Ex. She’s grilled our son for details, and knows Curly’s name. She recently mumbled a comment about wanting to “inspect” where I’m living. Not a chance.

My son – The Best Little Boy Ever Born. Although he now tells me, at just over three, that he’s a big boy. He’s started emulating me: when he heard my favorite color was green he decided it was his favorite too. He likes to do things at the same time with me too – like drink our drinks when we’re eating.

Going to a pediatrician’s appointment with him and the Ex. She didn’t like me being there, but that’s just too bad. I got to listen to her try to convince the doctor that our son had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder…because he liked to eat the same foods all the time and he once told his preschool teacher he wanted her to clean the bathroom three times. The doctor pretty much put that idea out to pasture.

That’s just a start – what I could come up with in the short time I have to sit here tonight.

And The Clowns Shall Crown Me Their King…

2006-02-10T20:11:00.000-05:00

Have you ever done something really stupid and then spent the next week worrying that somebody noticed? That they’ll spread around the story to everybody? Not me. I do stupid things then spread the story around, making sure that everybody understands the full extent of my stupidity. It’s my way of cutting out the middleman.

So one day last week I sat at work watching the snow fall out the window. When I left for the day the snow was still falling. The wind had picked up and the temperature had fallen. As I approached my car a coworker and I started talking about the weather as he scraped his windshield. I unlocked my car, opened the door and started my car. I stepped back out to scrape off the snow and closed the driver’s side door.

My conversation with my coworker continued as I went to open the back door to get my scraper. It resisted.

“Hey! My stupid back door is frozen shut!”

I put some muscle into it, but the door laughed contemptuously. I gave up and opened the driver’s door.

Or, I should say, I tried. It was frozen shut too.

“This stupid door’s frozen shut too! And it was just open!"

Slowly, it dawned on me. I had just locked my keys in my car. And it was running.

“Hey – I just locked my keys in the car!”

“No!” my coworker said, shocked.

I trudged back inside to figure out what to do. Another coworker was there, and after fruitless calls to the police and fire departments, I decided to call AAA. With them on their way, I decided to keep trying to get it open myself. My coworker decided to stay and chronicle the nonsense for future storytelling.

We got a couple of coathangers and headed back out to my car. I recounted the story again as we walked to my car, but then stopped abruptly. Something was wrong.

“My car’s gone! It was parked right there!”

For just a few seconds I wondered if somebody had stolen my car, but then I thought that the chances of a car thief wandering by and finding my locked, running car, and getting it open were pretty low. Then I wondered if AAA had come already and towed the car accidentally. That made more sense, but still didn’t seem very likely.

We finally got to where my car had been and I saw it. It wasn’t where I had left it. It appeared as though the first coworker had realized that it was in neutral and the parking brake was off and pushed it back. He had pushed it back not just into the parking spot behind it, but into the aisle behind it. I have a couple of coworkers I could see doing this, but this one just wasn’t the type. Then I noticed that there were no footprints.

What had happened? We thought about it and figured it out. The parking brake was off (no good reason) and it was in neutral (it’s a standard). Apparently, there was a tiny incline to the parking lot. Just enough so the car rolled back very slowly.

We stood there laughing and talking about it for about 20 minutes. It was getting pretty cold and we both had commented on it a couple of times. My coworker suddenly looked up. He had thought of something. He told me that we should get into his jeep, which was parked, running, right next to us, with the heat running. We’d stood there for 20 minutes in the cold, snow falling on us, complaining of the cold while a running vehicle (an unlocked one) sat right next to us.

AAA finally arrived, and the guy who unlocked my car amazed me with his skill. It took him less than a minute to get my car open.

As you could well imagine, my little adventure has been told and retold many times this week. A schedule has been drawn up so people know which day they are responsible for escorting me to my car to make sure I don’t lock the keys up again. People I don’t know have come up and asked me if I was the guy who locked his key in his car. I’ve enjoyed it all – it’s a good feeling to have something good to laugh at and people to laugh at it with.

I’m sure I’m in the running for Clown King this year. Make sure you vote for me.

The Ex Has Found A Job

2006-02-07T22:09:00.000-05:00

Yes, that’s right. And it’s made my last few interactions with her much more pleasant. This is good news for a number of reasons. One is that her relief puts her in a good mood and she doesn’t seem so inclined to persecute me. It’s not just that it makes my life easier – I’m happy for her because I remember what it was like to be unemployed. It’s highly stressful and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

I told her that she should look closely at the Health Insurance plan her new employer offered and compare it to the one I’ve put our son on. I told her to choose whichever one was better for her. I’m hoping that she honestly chooses the one that is best for our son.

Speaking of him, he’s doing very well. He had a cold the last time I saw him, but this last weekend he was feeling much better. He still had a little cold, but nothing serious. While it was not serious, it was the cause of a little bit of excitement at the mall. We had finished lunch about a half hour before, and spent some time at the Reactrix (if you haven’t seen one of these at a mall, go check out the website. They are definitely cool). My son’s favorite game on it is the little race cars (of course) that race around a track. He runs with them saying “They’re chasing me!” or simply “Race cars!”. So, once we finished playing at the Reactrix we started walking again. He started coughing, and he said “Daddy, I feel sick”. I had just enough time to get him out of the stroller before he stopped feeling sick and actually got sick. He now has a new outfit and I have a new shirt. I must say that I was simply amazed at how many people (or should I say ‘women’?) stopped to ask me if I needed help.

It took a little while to help clean up (I didn’t feel right leaving the poor women who work as cleaning people to clean it all up) but once that was done we went on our merry way.

Work has been very busy, but I’m really enjoying it. I’m learning fast and I’m starting to feel like I’m contributing at a decent level. I’m actually providing answers to some of my coworkers now, which makes me feel great. It’s a very established team, and they have no problem going to get information from somebody, whether they’re a new guy or not. I think that’s a great attitude to have.

Tomorrow night I’ll have to write up why clowns everywhere are debating whether or not I should be named their king. Stay tuned.

Once Again...

2006-01-30T19:35:00.000-05:00

Once again, the Ex makes a move to make my life more difficult. The pickup of my son on Sunday didn’t go well. I think I’ve mentioned before that the Ex seems to think she can enter my car whenever she wants. She claims that she’s just saying goodbye to our son, but at that point she’s already said goodbye to him. I don’t like her going into my car, so this time I locked the doors on the passenger side after I put my son into his car seat.

So this time, when she tried to open the door, she found it wouldn’t open. She told me to unlock it, and I told her I wouldn’t, and that I didn’t want her going into my car. We’d had this discussion before, and I’d told her the same thing then.

She was angry – she said she was allowed to say goodbye to “her own son”, and demanded that I open the door. I refused, and she got even angrier. She made some bizarre accusation about me going into her car, which I’ve never done. It soon became apparent to her that I was not going to open the door, and she gave me the toy.

She stood right next to the car, staring in at me angrily, as I backed out of the parking space. I knew she was mad, but there’s no way I was going to allow her to enter my car at will.

She didn’t waste any time in thinking up a way to “get back” at me. When I dropped off my son she handed me a note that said “owe allergist”. I asked her what it meant, and she told me that it was the remainder of the balance we owed the Allergist, whom my son had just seen. She claimed that she had already paid her half. She told me that I hadn’t gotten the bill yet because they didn’t have my new address, so I should be getting it soon. She’d given them my new address.

Now, under the agreement we signed, I am responsible for 51% of unreimbursed medical expenses, so this wasn’t something that was totally unreasonable. I asked her how much it was, and she said it was a little over $200. I was very surprised at this, and asked her why it was so much. I couldn’t understand how so much of the bill wouldn’t have been covered by insurance. She again stated that she’d already paid her half, somehow thinking that this answered my question.

I asked her again, and she realized that she was going to have to give me more information. She admitted that it was the previous balance from approximately two years ago. This was not welcome news. Under the divorce agreement, this was one of the bills she was responsible for paying. She was trying to pull a fast one here.

I told her that this was her responsibility under the agreement. She told me that there was no way she was going to pay the whole bill. Apparently, she felt the agreement she signed no longer applied somehow. I didn’t want to argue in front of my son, so I just left, thinking that I’d have to deal with this later.

If she gave them my address for the bill, then I’d say that’s a pretty good indication that she is trying to make me pay it. That means that unless she changes her mind, I’ll have to take her to court to force her to honor the agreement. Yeah, I’m really looking forward to that. I’m confident that I’d end up winning (if you can call it that), I’m just really annoyed that she feels she has to keep doing things like this. I don’t think she’s ever going to stop, unless the judge makes it clear that she’d better.

It’s going to be interesting to see how she reacts to being told we’re going to court over it.

Life is Pretty Good

2006-01-28T22:03:00.000-05:00

I don’t know what to write about. I’ve been trying to keep everything together. It’s catching up financially that’s the most difficult. Other than the Ex, most other things are going well.

Being unemployed was extremely difficult financially. I paid my rent, my support payments and kept myself fed, but not much more. I hope that I can catch up before things get too serious.

While my finances and my Ex are difficult, most everything else seems to be coming together. My job is going very well. I was worried for a little while because my manager seemed to get kind of withdrawn, but the other manager I work with was always very positive. I didn’t know if he was unhappy with me (for reasons unknown) or if it was something else. Turns out it was something else. He stopped by my desk last week and told me he wanted to talk to me. He told me that the review that had been done on me several weeks ago shouldn’t have been done, but that it wasn’t a big deal. The reason he was telling me this was that he had decided that he wasn’t going to do the next part of the review because I hadn’t been there long enough to meet the requirements. He went on to say that he couldn’t guarantee I would get much, but that he was going to put me in for a raise AND a bonus. I was very surprised – I really was not expecting to get either.

Things could not be going better with Curly. I think part of the reason we get along so well is that we treat each other very well, but don’t take advantage of it. Another thing I like is that she appreciates how I treat her (and vice versa). I sometimes find myself not knowing how to react, mainly because I went so long living with somebody who reacted with paranoia to nearly anything. I have to say it’s pretty nice to be in a situation where I have to learn how to deal with kindness.

I had an exciting day Friday. I was doing some experimentation at work with one of my products so I could write up a report. My manager, when he heard about it, asked me to document the results so we could give them to all the engineers, because it would put everybody on the same page. I was a good way through what I was doing by the end of the day. Then, literally about 10 minutes before I was to go home, I found something. Something that was previously unknown, and is the kind of thing that gets management’s attention quickly. I couldn’t believe I’d found it, so I spent an hour testing it, then decided to pick back up on Monday morning. Once I explain what I’ve found to my manager I have a feeling I’m going to be told to drop everything and finish testing it.

My son is growing so fast. On our last overnight, I asked him if he wanted to get a “spaceship and robot” movie. He was pretty enthusiastic about it. I went and got The Empire Strikes Back, because he’d seen some it one afternoon. I knew then that I’d have to get it and watch it with him because he was literally mesmerized by it. We watched it several times, but there were a few scenes he kept making me play over and over. By the end of it, several new words had entered his vocabulary, Artoo and lightsaber being two of them. It was great fun.

Now it’s getting towards bedtime – especially since I have to leave at 7 tomorrow morning to go pick him up. I’m thinking of bringing my laptop so I can rent another Star Wars movie. He’ll love being able to sit and watch it with me, then tell me what he thinks is going on. That can be quite funny.

I need to force time to write more – I always feel better after I finish a post. May the force be with you.

This is Disturbing

2006-01-15T11:43:00.000-05:00

This is going to be a short post - It's my weekend with my son and I don't have a lot of time to sit and type. We've had a great time, and he's discovered the wonderful world of Star Wars. We've watched The Empire Strikes Back twice this weekend. There are certain parts he really likes, and he makes me go back and watch them again and again.

Last night is when things got a little disturbing. The Ex called me at Curly's house. There's no telling how she got the number - as far as I knew she only knew Curly's first name (my son mentions her). Why did she call? She felt she had to reiterate that I should give my son medicine if he started coughing. I'm sure she wanted me to ask how she got the number, but I didn't.

What do I think the real reason she called is? Probably just to show that she knew what was going on in my life. It's a little disturbing to me that she did this - I don't like that she is constantly working to get information about me. I already know that she regularly pumps people for information, but nobody knew this number, or Curly's last name.

Scary.

Some Good News...

2006-01-10T18:28:00.000-05:00

I decided to make this little bit of news a separate post. Yesterday I got a call from one of my managers asking me to come to his office when I got a chance. When I got there he gave me some great news – I was being assigned as the focal engineer for a customer. I was very surprised, mainly because it’s very early to be assigned something like this. I talked to a few people and found out that they all thought it was early also. The general opinion is that the managers must be pretty happy with my performance so far and confident that I could handle it.

It’s not a promotion, but it is a step towards one. It requires me to have a pager with me so the customer can call me when there’s a problem, so I just gained yet another gadget. And it’s a two-way pager - I’m really moving up in the world.

The down side of this is that I have to work even harder to keep learning – the customer expects me to be knowledgeable, and I don’t want to disappoint. There’s so much to learn that it boggles the mind. I’m not too worried about that, however. I’ve always been able to learn things very quickly, and I’m not expected to be perfect. I’ve decided that I want to take my first certification test early – I should be able to handle it, and it will be another thing that just looks good.

This was just the kind of thing I needed to dispel some of the bad mood I was in after dealing with the Ex this last weekend.

What a Weekend...

2006-01-10T18:22:00.000-05:00

What a weekend. It’s one of those rare weekends that make you happy you’re going back to work – thankfully, those don’t come very often.

Friday night I went with Curly out for dinner with some of her family to celebrate her mother’s birthday. I was exhausted at the end of the night, so much so that I had trouble climbing the stairs to go to bed. That’s pretty tired.

I got some sleep and got up early to head out to go see my son. I picked him up and drove to my brother’s house. My son slept most of the way there, which was good. He had an ear infection and it was really bothering him.

It was the first family get-together we’d had in a long time. It was a great time, but I think it was a little overwhelming for my son. He sees my brother, his wife and their twin sons regularly, but he hasn’t seen the other two brothers there in a long time. He also hasn’t seen my dad and his wife in a couple of months. He stayed near me most of the time, except when he was running to grab a particularly interesting toy. He’d get down off my lap, run over to the toy, grab it, then run back over to me. It was very funny.

Sunday is when things got ugly. That was the day I was supposed to be able to move the rest of my things out of the condo. The court order specified a three-hour window, in which a third-part would be present and the Ex was required to stay upstairs. The following Sunday would be the rain/snow date.

My brother and I had a very difficult time getting there because it was snowing, and the road conditions and traffic slowed us down significantly. I could have been there by 9:30, but I decided to wait for my brother just so there’d be another witness. The weather made it very difficult, but we got there within the three-hour window, arriving about 11:15.

The first thing I noticed was that her car was running. I thought that was strange, but didn’t think too much of it. We rang the bell, but she didn’t answer the door. We rang it again a couple of minutes later, but still no answer. I went to the neighbor’s house who was supposed to be the third-party, no answer there. After about 15 minutes I used my brother’s phone (since I had lost my cell phone the night before) to call. She didn’t answer.

After about 20 minutes she finally answered the door. She definitely wanted trouble. She claimed that we were too late – she was under the impression that we were supposed to arrive at 9, and that there wasn’t a window. I explained that we were still in the window, and that we wanted to take my things. She then told me that she had told the third-party to leave. When we said she needed to let us get things, she just said that it was too late. She did not want to allow us to get anything.

This pretty much fit with her actions and attitudes that led to this point. She would make all kinds of noise about how badly she wanted everything out, but would make it extremely difficult to actually move it. She was enjoying herself, laughing and smiling the entire time. My brother was getting annoyed – he told her that we could get the police if she wanted, and while she claimed that doing that would be fine, she lost the smile and became a little worried. She said it was too late, and he said that was because she had us out in the cold waiting for 20 minutes. She finally relented – I think she got nervous because she wants to present herself as the victim in everything, and it was clear that he was not seeing her in that light. This is the same brother who saw her slap me across the face several times because she didn’t like the way I was loading the dishwasher.

She decided to make things even more difficult by refusing to go upstairs. She knew neither my brother nor myself were comfortable entering the condo with her present. We argued about it, then I said “I give up” and we started moving things, with me entering the condo as little as possible.

She got more cooperative, but only when it worked in her favor. She decided it was OK for me to leave the king-size mattress and box spring since she could sell it, especially in light of the fact that I planned to cut it up and throw it out if I had to remove it.

Another part of the court order she violated was having all of my property ready. There were several items not present, the most notable being my television set. She claims she’ll have it ready the next time I come.

I have to handle this a certain way. I want to have her email me that it was fine for me to leave the mattress and box spring first. Then I will list the things not ready and tell her I want them ready for the next time I visit. If she doesn’t have them ready, then she will have violated the court order in yet another way. I’ve about had it with her games at this point. If I have to go back to court, I want something from her in writing giving me permission to leave the mattress and box spring. If she thinks I won’t go in to court, she’s very, very wrong.

I had a very bad nightmare last night. In it, the Ex successfully managed to move away with my son. That would be very hard for me (and him). I’d like to think that she wouldn’t try that to “get” me further, but I’ve seen nothing so far that makes me think she’ll ever be reasonable. I was in a horrible mood for most of the morning because of that.

So that’s where things stand so far. If she plays more games and doesn’t do what she’s supposed to do, then I think she’ll be surprised. The court order covers both of us, despite what she thinks. Part of me is actually hoping that she does push it some more – she needs to realize that her actions have consequences – something she doesn’t seem to get right now.

A Great Holiday

2006-01-04T18:07:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time since Santa had such a prominent place in my life. I was 7 or 8 when I was told (by my classmates) that there was no Santa Claus. I still remember their sneers as they told me. I was shocked, and went home and asked my mother. She confirmed my worst fears. I love the holidays - it's a combination of the music, the movies, the lights and the change in behavior of many people, including myself. There are just a few things that inspire that feeling in me - one is Disney World. Santa came back into my life this year, but this time I saw him through the eyes of a parent. It was spectacular.

My son is almost three now, and while I'm sure he doesn't understand the more subtle aspects of Christmas, he did get the basics behind Santa Claus. He knew Santa was coming, but didn't know exactly when he would arrive. He definitely understood that Santa was bringing presents, however. I asked him a little bit before Christmas what he was going to ask Santa to bring him, and he replied "A car, a car, a tow truck, a race car and a car." Oh, for life to be so simple again.

A couple of times we were near Santa at the mall, but he was too scared to go and see him. He's going through a shy phase where he'll hide by burying his face in my shoulder or putting an arm up over his eyes when strangers are near. He got quite upset one day after telling me he didn't want to see Santa. He was upset because he wanted to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas, but didn't actually want to talk to him. Luckily, Mrs. Claus came along and he told her. He also wrote Santa a letter.

He made out pretty good. I got him a race car track (a simple one) and a Tonka Tow Truck. My personal opinion was that the tow truck would be his favorite. It made sounds and had lights and was a tow truck (little boys are genetically programmed to like tow trucks). The real prizewinner, however, was his Hess Truck (which, this year, is a fire engine). That was a present from Curly. When he opened it he literally gasped, and ran over to show it to me. Once I got it out of the box it took him all of 30 seconds to figure out that there was a button that opened a door on the back. Inside that door was another emergency truck! I didn't know about it, so it was a surprise for me. He fell in love with it, and the tow truck was quickly forgotten. I think I was having more fun watching him than he was playing.

We soon headed out to see my brother and his family. On the way he held that fire engine in a bear hug when he wasn't rolling it in his lap or playing with the ladder. When he fell asleep he held it like a security blanket. He made it a point to tell me something. "Daddy, Cousin 1 and Cousin 2 are not going to play with this truck." "They're not?" "No Daddy, they don't like it." He turned out to be wrong - that fire engine became the focus of all four toddlers present. In an attempt to head off any meltdowns we opened a few more presents so all four boys (another cousin was there) would have a toy to play with - it worked for the most part.

We had a wonderful time there. My son and his cousins get along very well (surprising, considering how my brothers and I fought when we were young), but we had to make sure everybody got a chance to play with the fire engine. I think Hess must add some kind of Toddler Siren Call to that truck - they were all mesmerized by it. I wish I had gotten a picture of my son sleeping with his arm around it - I sat and watched him for a little while, and I'd love to be able to see that again.

I also got him a simple little electric racetrack, but we haven't opened that one yet. I can only imagine the pandemonium that would have caused with four little boys. That's one present that will stay at my house so he can play with it when he's visiting. I found two books he'll love on the clearance table at Barnes and Noble. One is a book on muscle cars, the other is a book on "Things That Go". It's filled with cutaway pictures of cars, trucks, tractors and trains. I think we'll have a lot of fun reading that one. I can teach him how things work.

I mentioned before that this Christmas was shaping up to be a whole lot better than last year. Last year I got a Christmas card from my landlady's niece. I didn't visit anybody since I was sick. I was right about this year. I got to spend time with my son and my family and got an immense amount of pleasure watching them open presents. The funniest was the Belly Dancing Kit I gave to my sister-in-law. She loved the little finger-cymbals.

Although I've always enjoyed giving presents more than receiving them, I have to say that I got some really nice presents this year. Curly gave me a beautiful watch and a really nice North Face Fleece Jacket. My brother and sister-in-law gave me the box set of the Firefly series (which the movie Serenity was based on). I hadn't seen any of them, mainly because I wanted to watch them in order and wasn't able to record it the last time it was aired. I've watch it all, and it was surprisingly good. Now I can rent the movie. I gave Curly a Palm TX, which I was a little nervous about, as it's not a "romantic" present, but she loved it. I also got some little things so I could stuff a stocking for her, which went over surprisingly well. She'd never had a stocking before.

All in all, I had a great Christmas. The best part was just that I got to spend it with so many of my friends and family, but especially with my son. There's just something about the joy that he experienced...it's a wonderful experience.

Things are steadily improving in my life. There are still things to work out, there's still stress, but I'm heading in the right direction.

I'm Not In Contempt...

2006-01-03T19:17:00.000-05:00

So today I went to court. It could not have happened on a worse day, weather-wise. I looked at what we had coming in for weather in the Northeast last night so I could figure out when to leave. I was not pleased with what I saw. Basically, I’d be heading into the storm at the worst possible time. To give myself the best chance of getting to the court on time I left at 6am this morning. Court wasn’t scheduled to begin until 9:30.

I had tried to organize myself as much as I could in preparation. I had written out all my reasons for what was causing the problems with me getting the rest of my belongings out of the house and printed out emails I might need. Usually, I can put stressful things out of my mind, but last night I had a very difficult time. I went to bed early, failed to get to sleep, got up and read, then went back to bed. I woke up at 2am, went back to sleep, finally waking up at 5 so I could get ready to go.

The drive was not fun at all. It didn’t start out all that bad, but about 20 minutes after I left it started getting really bad. Visibility was very poor and it was very slippery. There were lots of accidents along the way, but somehow I avoided any major traffic jams. I arrived with just minutes to spare.

I had no idea what to expect. Was the judge going to give me a chance to explain my side of things? I thought he would, but how much time would he give me to explain things. Should I bring up mental illness? It turned out to be very different than what I had thought might happen.

We were seventh on the docket, but the weather had kept lots of people from showing up, so we were actually the first case where all of the parties were present. We had not even gotten to the tables when the judge asked if an agreement had been reached. I had no idea what he was talking about. I said “no sir” (see, that military training came in handy!), and he immediately sent us to the Family Relations office.

The Family Relations Counselor we met there sat us down and asked each of us about why we were there. The Ex’s version was short – basically, she wanted all my property out of the condo. Then came my turn. I told him that I wanted it out too, but that I didn’t feel safe (not physically, but legally) entering the condo. This got a snort out of the Ex. I went on to say that the people who were going to help me move didn’t feel safe entering either. I also said that I had tried to get the police to escort me, but they had refused. I said more, but that was the most significant of it all.

To make a long story short, he told us that we had to work out an agreement on how I was going to get my belongings out of the condo. I am to show up on this coming Sunday (the following Sunday in case of inclement weather) and take my belongings. I have a list of everything that is supposed to be taken so that I can’t be accused of leaving things behind or of taking extra. She is to stay upstairs and not enter the garage where we are working. A neutral third party is to be present in the garage. If I take everything, we don’t have to show up to court again.

Sound good? It did to me. The Ex wasn’t as happy with it. She had come in thinking that she was going to get permission to sell or throw it all out immediately. When she found out that things weren’t working out that way she wanted to be able to stand in the garage and supervise things. When that didn’t get approved she wanted the agreement to say that I had to take everything she wanted me to take or nothing at all. That didn’t go over since there was already a property list. So at the end of it all, the only thing she got that she wanted was that my property would be out of the condo.

I’m not sure she realized the significance of some things. If I get everything out of the condo that I’m supposed to, then I won’t be found in contempt. That means I don’t have to pay for being served or anything else. When she realizes that I’m sure she’s going to be furious. I also think that the importance of the property list slipped by her. She’s not going to be able to dump a ton of junk on me (which she definitely has in her garage) by claiming it’s mine. She also won’t be able to claim that I left it and take me back to court (well, she can take me back to court, but the list will protect me).

I was disappointed that I didn’t get to put forth my favorite reason. The last time I tried to get stuff from the condo, she brought me out a box with some shale rock in it, about 30 small stuffed animals, three blankets and a big toy that belonged to our son. She said she “couldn’t reach” anything else. None of that is on the list.

Some other fun stuff has been happening. I received an email from a mutual friend concerning the Ex. It was a warning. She told me that the Ex had called her and told her that she’d been grilling (the friend’s word, not the Ex’s) our son about women he might have met while with me. So far she had two names. One was the woman I’m involved with (which just gets better and better, by the way), the other was Donna. Who’s Donna, you might ask. Good question, I don’t know either. But then, our son is not even three years old, so his accuracy might not be perfect. I’m just waiting for the Ex to figure out a way to ask me about them, or make an accusation. The way the friend was talking about it, the Ex was of the opinion that these were women that I’d been cheating with during our marriage. Ahh, the joys of paranoia.

Today I had a thought. It was something the Ex said at some point, and I can’t even remember exactly what it was. I suspect that my son is no longer in daycare. That would make sense, since my Ex is currently unemployed, but she should have told me. If he’s been out of daycare, then there aren’t any daycare costs, of which I’m responsible for half. That really bothers me, because I’ve been very generous. I’m going to find out if he’s still in daycare, and if I find out he isn’t, I’m going to force her to pay me back. If she’d told me up front I would have continued paying it to her to help her out, but something needs to be done to show her that cooperation is much better than harassment and lying. I think I’ve been more than generous, more than patient, and more than kind in all of this and I think this is a good time to push back. It’s not a lot of money, so it won’t be a huge blow to her, and it will make the point that she needs to be honest and much more cooperative.

Well, it’s nice to finally have internet access back and a few minutes to type out some words. I’ll have to write something about Christmas this year, since it was such an improvement over last year. I’m very confident that 2006 will be a much better year than 2005 was for me – I can hardly wait.

The Christmas Season, Past and Present

2005-12-23T09:55:00.000-05:00

So. Let’s see. Where to start catching up? It’s funny, there’s been about a thousand things I’ve wanted to post about, but now that I’m trying to type something out, few of them come to mind.

I’ll start with my job. It’s going great. I’m coming up to speed very nicely, and I’ve already had my first performance review. It was very vague since I’ve only been here a couple of months, but there were some nice things in the Comments section. My manager thinks I’m doing well, and says I’ve got a great attitude. That’s a pretty good place to start. I’m learning a lot, but I still feel like a babe in the woods. I’m having to learn in detail things that I had a general idea about before – things like OSPF, Diffie Helman groups, public key infrastructure – the list goes on. Believe it or not, I find this kind of stuff fun.

The Ex continues to have problems with her family. Her brother and his wife have distanced themselves from her because they feel she’s “playing the victim” or something like that. She doesn’t respond well to being ignored, so I can imagine this is driving her up a wall. I worry about the stress on her, because stress can bring on declines in schizophrenics. She has the stress of her job loss and the resulting hunt (which I’m pretty familiar with myself). She’s also got some of her family alienating her and the issues with me not following her orders as to health insurance for our son. She’s also recently found out that her grandmother has cancer, though I’m not sure how serious it is. She just come out and told me that one day – I don’t know what she expected when she told me. So there is a lot of stress on her, whether it’s from real sources or imagined (like whatever she thinks I’m getting by putting our son on my health insurance) doesn’t matter. What’s strange to me is that she tells me some of this herself – I don’t know how to react.

My son is doing very, very well. I love going to pick him up, because when I ring the bell I hear him start yelling “It’s Daddy! Mommy, it’s my daddy!” Then he comes running up to me and starts talking a mile a minute. He points out things around us, tells me about what he did in the recent past and tells me every few minutes “Daddy, I missed you”. This last weekend he started asking me if I liked things, like cars we saw, or planes, or his toys. When I’d say I did, he’d tell me “I like them too!” He’s also started asking me if I’m happy, and when I tell him I am, he gets a huge smile on his face.

He met the woman I’m dating, and that went very well, with just a little jealousy every so often. What was really funny was that the first time they met he kept referring to her as “your mommy”. This last time he called her by her first name, which I’m sure will get repeated sooner or later to the Ex. Judging by the fact that she still discusses the possibility of me dating somebody as if it would be adultery to mutual friends, you can bet I’ll be looking forward to that “conversation”.

I don’t think I ever wrote about my last experience with Match.com. Or, more accurately, my experience with some of the women on Match. One woman seemed to consider me a “backup”, judging by the one or two sentence emails I’d get from her. I got tired of calling her, leaving a message, then having her email me saying she was sorry she missed my call. She wouldn’t call me back, though. Another woman didn’t return my email. For those of you who don’t know Match very well, there is a way to see who’s viewing your profile. She viewed my profile right after I emailed her, then two weeks later viewed it again. I had added another picture or two of me, one’s I think are much better than the pictures I originally had on there. Several days after that I receive an email from her telling me that she just got my original email because she hadn’t been on Match in several weeks. I guess she didn’t know that she showed up as having viewed my profile. She also didn’t seem to realize that she showed up as logged on every so often. I wouldn’t have minded if she’d just been honest – it’s ok if she was talking to somebody else and wanted to see how that went. But lying to me right from the start? That’s just not a good sign.

Christmas this year is going to be much better than last year. I was sick last year, and actually started this blog just before Christmas. It was a hard time because I was sitting in my little apartment, away from my son, my life in major turmoil. I received one Christmas card last year, and it was from my landlady’s 10 year-old niece. This year I’ve been to several holiday parties and it’s already a very good holiday season. It’s amazing to me how quickly life can change. For anybody out there having a rough Christmas, my prescription has always been three movies. It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Watch them, and remember that, although it might not feel like it, life will get better.

I got a few minutes of access to the internet last night and I opened up bloglines briefly– I’ve got a lot of catch-up reading to do. One blog I read on a regular basis said there were 48 new posts. I should have internet access at home by this weekend, which I’m really looking forward to – it’s hard having no connection at home. I’m glad the post-by-email works – without it I still wouldn’t be able to post. It’s not as good as regular access, but it’s something.

Wish Me Luck

2005-12-20T19:10:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a very busy time. If this post-by-email works right, then I can start posting again while I wait to get internet access outside of work.

Just as a quick update, here's what's going on:

My move went well and I'm completely in my new place now. It's been an adventure. I swear my vision must be defective. There's no way I had this many belongings just a few weeks ago.

The Ex held off for a little bit with the Motion for Contempt. I arranged a time to go down with my brother and pick everything up, but was surprised when I was told by the police that they would not provide an escort for me. They said that they didn't do that unless there is a restraining order in place. Since there's not, they won't do it. I got the stellar advice of "just make sure you have witnesses and you'll be fine". Pardon me if I'm not that cavalier. It's not just that I don't feel comfortable entering the condo without an escort, my brother says he won't do it either. The Ex's take on that? "That's bullshit! There's no reason for you not to come in to get it!"

So the Ex filed the Motion for Contempt anyway. She's still angry about the Health Insurance, which still seems ridiculous to me, but paranoia does funny things. She did make me angry with it, though. I was served in front of my son when I brought him back from having him this last weekend. That was unnecessary. She ended up more angry than I did, however. The State Marshall who served me offered to be an escort for me to get everything out. That way, he said, you won't have to go to court. The Ex didn't want to hear that for two reasons. One, she's mad and just wants to go to court. Two, she had to pay for me to be served, and if we don't go to court she can't try to make me pay for it. So the Marshall was surprised when she wasn't very happy with that option. I did try to get some of the stuff when I picked my son up on Saturday, but she said she "couldn't reach any of it". Heh.

Ok, let's see if this work. I have to say it's been hard not to be posting all of this time.

Busy, Busy, Busy.

2005-11-30T11:18:00.000-05:00

I'm going to post more soon, but life has me running faster than I thought possible.

Here's the basic rundown:

Job going great.
Ex making life difficult.
Son doing wonderfully.
Woman I'm dating: fantastic.
Stress: High (understatement)

On top of that, I'm moving today, and it's going to be rough.

Be back soon.

The Health Insurance Debacle

2005-11-30T11:16:00.000-05:00

The Ex told me a little over a week ago that she lost her job. She told me in a matter of fact fashion as I picked up my son, just as I was about to get in my car. I asked her what happened, and she said that the company was doing poorly, and would be going out of business soon. I have no idea if that’s true, and really have no way of finding out. The only way it would matter in any case would be if it were due to a decline in her mental state.

I don’t like to be a person that counts their blessings in light of other’s misfortunes, but this would have been much more of a problem for me if the divorce were not final.

Under the agreement, my Ex is responsible for maintaining health insurance for our son. Obviously, when she lost her job, she lost her health insurance, which means that my son lost his coverage also. The timing was lucky. I had not finished the enrollment process for benefits for 2006, and the deadline was quickly approaching. I told her that I could put him on my insurance, but she said that she had something worked out already. She explained that she was looking into state coverage for him. This didn’t seem like a good solution compared to having him on my insurance, but I decided to go and compare the plans. I won’t go into the specifics, but my opinion is that the state coverage is very good, but not as good as regular coverage.

When I spoke to her on the phone I told her I thought he should be added to my coverage. She explained that she’d think about it, but that she was eligible for Cobra coverage. This was a much different position than she originally put forth. There are several problems with this solution from my standpoint. Cobra coverage is expensive. Very expensive. She’d have to pay for both herself and my son until she found another job, assuming it had health insurance benefits. My concern with this is the possibility (which is low, but I don’t want to risk it) that I’ll be responsible for half of the cost of covering my son under Cobra. I asked her how she was going to pay for the coverage, and she told me that her father was going to pay for it. I don’t feel that’s fair to him. I don’t even know if he even knows she thinks he’s going to pay for it or if she was just saying that to put me off.

I had to finish enrollment within several hours, and I had a decision to make. I told her that I was going to add him to my coverage just to be sure he had coverage. I would cover the cost myself, and it would save her and her father a significant amount of money.

She then told me the real reason she didn’t want me to do this. She said she wanted to provide the health insurance coverage because she didn’t trust me. She thinks I’m up to something. I’m not sure what she thinks I’m going to get by doing this, it might be nothing. In my opinion it’s just another example of the paranoia.

I had to make a quick decision, so I told her that I was going to put him on my insurance. First she told me she forbade it. I told her that I understood that she didn’t like it, but that I felt it was more important to make sure he had coverage. She told I didn’t have her permission, and I replied that I didn’t need it – we have joint custody. She was furious, and told me she “didn’t approve it”. She implied that she would be looking into legal action and then she hung up.

I knew she wasn’t happy, but I didn’t feel I had any other choice. I also felt I was being very nice – I was going to cover the cost myself, and I take the top coverage, so she wouldn’t have any real cause for complaint from that standpoint either. It would also save her and her father a lot of money. I figured I was on pretty solid ground from a legal standpoint. I was going above and beyond what was required.

I came home on Sunday night to find that a certified letter had been delivered to me on Saturday. It was from the Ex. Basically, on the day after I told her I was putting our son on my health insurance, she wrote up this letter. It stated that we were well beyond the court-ordered date for me to have my belongings out of the condo, and that if all of it were not out by December 4^th she would be filing a Motion for Contempt. I don’t remember a specific date being assigned, but I could be wrong. She finished the letter by stating that she wanted the name and phone number of the person at my company who handled health insurance so she could call them and get on some kind of mailing list for changes to the health insurance.

This gives me a little less than a week to get the stuff out of the condo. In that time, I’m moving and have a visitation day. She knows this. What it comes down to is that she’s retaliating against me for putting our son on my health insurance. Never mind that I’m paying for it, it’s saving her a lot of money, and I’m willing to move him back to her insurance once she gets it. She thinks I’m up to something, and nothing else matters.

I wrote her back an email, saying that I got the letter. It was quite long, and I brought up the insurance situation and said that I didn’t understand why she was so angry about it. I also said that I felt she was retaliating against me for putting him on it, despite the fact that it was helping her out. I said a lot more than that, but I wasn’t rude, and I didn’t make threats. I finished by saying that I have been more than cooperative, and that I couldn’t stop her from filing the motion. I hoped, however, that she would work towards greater cooperation instead of causing me more problems than she already had.

Stress? Yeah, I got it.

More Dates

2005-11-15T21:51:00.000-05:00

Time is a commodity in short supply for me right now. The last few days have been pretty interesting, however. I got a call last night from a friend who was one of our (the Ex and I) mutual friends. From what I understand, she was one of the few people who would take her calls, until this last weekend. It's been brewing for a while. She'd told me in the past that the Ex was driving her crazy, but she didn't want to cut off contact. No longer. The last straw came this last weekend. The Ex called her and started complaining, and she'd finally had enough. She started pushing back on the Ex's complaints, and the Ex lost it on her. The last straw was actually over a birthday gift. The Ex basically told her that she'd sent out a batch of vitamins to her for her birthday, but that she (the Ex) was only covering part of the cost. Our friend was being told that she had to pay for some of her own (unasked for) birthday present. She should send the check out soon. Well, as you can imagine, she (my friend) was not too happy with this. My friend ended up telling the Ex off in this argument, and compared some of the Ex's behavior with the Ex's mother's. My Ex's mother is a paranoid schizophrenic who was committed for a while, and this is a very sore spot for the Ex. She has no problem criticizing and condemning her mother, but if somebody points out that she's doing the same types of things, she gets extremely defensive. I was told that I am a constant source of suspicion for the Ex, and this last argument was no exception. One comment I thought was particularly interesting was that the Ex claimed that she suspected I was seeing women. My friend told her "So what?" The Ex seemed to feel that if I was dating somebody that it was some kind of "cheating" situation with her. My friend warned me to never, NEVER mention that I was dating to the Ex.

Speaking of dating... The second date went really well. We went to a furniture store. We were there for about four hours. Sound exciting? Well, this particular furniture store has an ice cream shop, a Fuddruckers (which will actually open next month), a trapeze school and an IMAX Theater. We went and saw the third Harry Potter movie there. The third date also went well - she invited me over to her house for dinner, but we ended up ordering out instead of cooking it, and that turned out to be a great idea. There's a Thai restaurant right down the road, and it turned out to be fantastic. She hadn't had Thai before - I have now made a convert. We're going to get together again tomorrow night for dinner again and maybe to watch a movie. It's nice to be dating again. Although I've been on my own for over a year and have dated a couple of women I still find that my behavior has still not returned to normal. It's really strange that during my marriage I never noticed how the Ex's paranoia was affecting me. For example, I find I still worry about talking to women (any women) when I'm out with a woman. The Ex, if I spoke in any way to a woman, suspected that the woman and I were having an affair. Once, while taking a walk through the center of town, a woman pulled up next to the Ex and I and asked for directions. I gave her the directions and she drove off. The Ex, furious, was sure that the woman and I were having an affair, and that I'd arranged to meet her there. Her asking for directions was just our cover so that we could see each other. This wasn't really jealousy, it was paranoia. She honestly didn't see any flaw in this accusation. As a result of things like this, I tense up slightly if I have to talk to a woman, half expecting to be flayed alive by my date. I'll suddenly realize that my date isn't going to get upset at me for saying "Thank you" to the woman who sold me the movie tickets and relax. Someday I hope that behavior will completely disappear.

A First Date

2005-11-08T20:28:00.000-05:00

Not too long ago I wrote that I was putting my match.com profile back up. It didn’t take long. I was emailing back and forth with somebody, I’ll call her Curly (for her hair). We emailed back and forth a few times, and we decided we wanted to talk on the phone. The first phone call was pretty interesting, because we talked a little bit about our respective experiences on match. My experience has been pretty positive, but hers has been just the opposite. Her first three months or so on match she did not get a single wink or email. Very few men would respond to her winks or emails. She told me that she felt like she was getting run over by a truck because it was so hard on her ego. I can’t blame her for feeling that way. I thought about it, reread her entire profile and looked at her pictures again. I just can’t understand why she wouldn’t be flooded with interest. I got the opinion of a couple other people, and all told me that they thought she looked good – both her pictures and what she wrote. Most women get (literally) about five times as many profile views as men, and get a LOT more winks and emails. The only explanation I can come up with is that there was something wrong with match.

Anyway, we decided after a couple of times talking on the phone that we should meet, and we made a date for last night. I left from work and we met at a restaurant about 7 or 8 minutes from there. I got there first, and I waited in the vestibule for her to arrive. When she did, the first thing that came to mind was that her pictures do not do her justice.

We sat down at about 6pm, and for the next four hours we sat there and learned about each other. It was a lot of fun because we have a lot in common. She’s a Physician’s Assistant, a type of practitioner I used to call on when I was a pharmaceutical rep. At one point she was describing an absolutely horrible first date saying something along the lines of “he just sat there across from me, doing nothing. He didn’t talk at all. It was terrible, and it didn’t help that I just didn’t find him attractive”. I jokingly said “This sounds a lot like this date”. She blushed and said “No – that’s not a problem. You’re very handsome.” At this point even a chimp would know that the date was going well.

It came time to start heading home, and I had an hour drive ahead of me. We walked out and before we left she gave me two very nice goodnight kisses. It really was a great date.

A few people I work with knew I was going out on a date. I had told them about the last first date I had, and they had all gotten a good laugh about it. Today I was sure I was going to get asked about it, and I knew it wouldn’t take long for the chanting of “Erasmus and Curly, sitting in a tree…” to start. Engineers are not often accused of having a sophisticated or subtle sense of humor. It was a busy day, however, and only one person asked me about it. No chanting.

I’m expecting a call from her in a few minutes, and we’re probably going to go out on Friday night. Tonight, though, I need to catch up on my sleep.

For Karla

2005-11-08T19:00:00.000-05:00

Karla -

Just following orders here. Here are the plans for the "treehouse" I'll be building for your son. Part of your requirements were that I not steal or destroy anything while I'm there, so all stealing and destroying are being conducted in Missouri. Being Missouri, I doubt that anybody will notice that we've stolen the Control Tower from their "international" airport.

I wanted to point out a couple of things for the treehouse here. First, there is no actual tree involved. The hydraulic lifts can simulate the year by year growth of a tree if you'd like, but they're mainly there so the platform can be raised high enough for somebody to be thrown to their death in an execution situation. The cushion, of course, will have to be removed in order for this to be accomplished. Knowing the juvenile male mind as well as I do, I've included some features that your son (and perhaps husband) will appreciate. The Tower will provide an excellent overview of the entire area. When your son is young and in the "Cootie" stage, girls can be spotted and eliminated (by using the sniper station on top of the tower) at a distance that far exceeds the maximum distance for Cootie transmission. Occasionally a stray girl might make it into the compound - the holding cell can provide a safe area to sequester said girl until the extent of contamination is known. As he gets older the tower can be converted tto use as a lookout for any and all parents, especially of a visiting girl, giving sufficient time to get dressed. Should a girl's father possess ninja skills and make it close in before being noticed, there may not be time to get clothes back on. That's where the trapdoor comes in - escape may be made safely in this situation. The helipad doesn't have many uses until the teenage years, when it can be used to ferry in alcohol from neighboring areas in bulk. I have labeled the sky and ground so that, even in your normal drunken state, the plans may be read with ease.

Construction can start as soon as perimeter fencing has been set up.

100 Paragraphs About Me, Part II, 7-14

2005-11-05T17:08:00.000-05:00

Part I

After an epic legal battle, Karla and I have worked out a payment schedule to cover her fee. I am now sent after other people who owe her money. Not to hurt them, but to hang out with them. A couple of hours with me, and they suddenly decide to pay up.

7. I was an underachiever. This might not surprise any of you who have read the “Teenage Criminal” posts. When I moved to Florida I discovered first-hand how much different the school system is there from the one I had been in here in the Northeast. I did fine in 6^th grade, but starting in second grade my grades started to slip. By slip I mean that I could count on passing gym every grading period, but not much more. Every so often somebody would slip up and I’d pass some other stuff, but it wasn’t often. I was advanced to the next grade every year.

8. I was (and continue to be) an overachiever. When I came back to live with my father I had just finished the first quarter of my junior year in high school. The school I reported to took one look at my transcripts and immediately called a conference. They had no idea what to do with me. I was sent to a couple of evaluations, including an IQ exam of some sort, and they decided to take a chance. Florida had (I don’t know if they still do) a rule that if you had more than three unexcused absences from a class you automatically failed it. Since that rule doesn’t exist here, they took all of those courses and made them D’s instead of F’s. They probably weren’t supposed to do that. I went beyond their expectations and became a high honors student.

9. I have had many nicknames over the years. Let me list some of them: Yankee, Florida, Roman, Safety Boy, The Chosen One, and most recently, Pony Boy. Yankee was my nickname in Florida, Florida was my nickname in the North. Roman was truly and idiotic nickname, given to me because my hair stuck up in a Mohawk one day – and we all know the Romans all wore Mohawks. Safety Boy was bestowed on me by my sister-in-law because I insisted that everybody in my canoe wear their life jackets. She’s also had several non-family-blog type of nicknames for me over the years. The Chosen One – well, that one deserves a post of it’s own. Check back soon. Pony Boy: If you’ve read the last few posts you know that one.

10. While I am not a perfectionist, I am close. When I work on a project that will have my name attached to it, I tend to work hard to make sure it’s top quality. I made a dvd of video and pictures of my son, and one of my relatives didn’t believe I had done it until I showed them the project on my computer. Back when floppy disks were still the only form of software delivery I had so many that I built a couple of carriers for them. They were made from wood and when other computer people saw them they drooled. They held three rows of disks and I had sanded and stained them both. They were stolen (without the disks, which the thief dumped out) several years ago at a computer show.

11. Insult me at your own risk. I have a quick wit and a vast enjoyment of verbal sparring. It’s even better if somebody is trying to be malicious, because then I can really cut loose without regrets.

12. Pianos fear me, and with good reason. Several years ago I came into possession of an upright piano. It weighed about 1500 pounds and really wasn’t in the best of shape. I found out through some research that it was only worth about $250. It came time to move, and I decided that it was time to get rid of it. I offered it free to local schools, music students and anywhere else I could think of. There were a few who seemed interested, but only one guy decided that he wanted it. He said he’d pick it up one morning, and showed up in a hatchback. Needless to say, he didn’t take the piano with him. The Salvation Army and Goodwill do not really want pianos, and have a list of rules concerning them. They will not take them if: there is a single scratch, there is even one step between where it currently is and the truck, if it’s out of tune (which is funny, because you are supposed to tune it if you move it) and if it weighs more than three hundred pounds. How many three hundred pound pianos are there out there, anyway? The end result is that I had to take this piano apart using a sledgehammer, ax, chisel and various other implements of destruction. Quite a crowd gathered, and at one point the cast iron harp tried to attack. I dodged and finally finished it off. Pianos now tremble in my presence.

13. A few selections from the bookshelf next to my desk: Atlas of the World, Atlas of Internal Medicine, The Complete Dog Book, The ARRL Handbook, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Patriots of the Revolutionary War, The I Ching, Animal Tracking and Behavior, The Quotable Dad, and Where is the Mango Princess?

14. This would fit into my “I Was A Teenage Criminal” posts, but it’s too short. My friends and I decided to build a treehouse, despite the lack of suitable trees where we lived in Florida. We realized that we needed wood, so one night we snuck onto a big construction site and completely dismantled a storage shed. We left the contents of the shed sitting on the ground next to where the shed had been. It was a good thing we didn’t brag about it because we heard a few days later that one of the employees of the construction company lived in our neighborhood. We never did build the treehouse.

I Must Have Swallowed A Kazoo

2005-11-01T21:53:00.000-05:00

Today I am a Goose of the Apocalypse. My voice decided it wanted a vacation and it started on it’s way this morning. Right now I sound like a goose that swallowed a kazoo. Several of my coworkers were laughing at me when they weren’t threatening me to keep me at a distance. Were I a smarter man I would have charged them to stay away.

Tonight I didn’t receive threats of bodily harm to post from Selmathena, but from her golem Canagal. Canagal is the proof that Sara can actually reanimate flesh.

And, if you’ve been reading the comments, somebody (who shall remain nameless for her own protection) saddled me with the nickname Pony Boy. Pony Boy is apparently a character from the movie The Outsiders, which I’ve never seen. While I’m told that Pony Boy is a very masculine character, the people telling me this might be toying with me. I’m sure they would like nothing better than for me to start strutting around with a new nickname, only to find out he was some real lowlife stool pigeon. These people are known for their questionable habits.

So, this post has really gone nowhere tonight. Clearly my writing ability is directly linked with my voice. This post is the written equivalent to the honkings of the deranged goose I mentioned earlier. Hope you all didn’t waste too much time on it.

The Ghost of Halloweens Past And Present

2005-10-31T20:42:00.000-05:00

My most memorable Halloween was many years ago when I still lived in Florida. I lived in a town called Taft in Orlando, and it wasn’t the best place to live. I have no idea what it’s like now, but when I lived there it was one gigantic trailer park. It could be a violent place, but it could have been worse. The worst drug I ever saw there when I was growing up was marijuana. I tried it once, but it did nothing for me, which is probably for the better. Years later a recruiter for the Navy put me on the phone with some kind of investigator. He questioned me for almost 10 minutes about that one incident. He wanted to make sure I wasn’t a “Reefer Addict”, as he put it.

Anyway, it was Halloween, and I did my best to come up with a costume. I don’t remember now what I was supposed to be, but I remember that it required me to carry a staff, which was really a handle I unscrewed from a push-broom. Since my friends and I would have no adults with us we felt the need to carry something for protection. I wish it had just been teenage boy bravado that made it necessary to carry that, but sadly, it wasn’t. The year before we were jumped by a couple of older kids who wanted the candy we’d collected. They took our candy, and they beat us up to “teach us a lesson”. I’ve never figured out what lesson I was supposed to take away from that.

After we’d been out for a while we stopped in to the only convenience store in the area to get something to drink. I had left my staff outside and as we left I found a kid standing outside holding it. I knew exactly how to handle the situation – as I walked by him I reached out and snatched the staff right out of his hand, saying “That’s mine, thank you”. Since he wasn’t expecting it he didn’t have a chance to hold on to it. I kept walking. We didn’t know it, but he was part of another group of kids.

Later on, as we were walking down a dark dirt road, we found ourselves in the middle of an ambush. There was suddenly a lot of yelling as they came out of the darkness behind us. We were outnumbered, and we knew it. That didn’t mean we gave up. When they first started coming at us I had thrown the staff into the woods next to me to keep it from being taken and used against me. The darkness is what saved us. It was so dark that we really couldn’t see who we were fighting, and they couldn’t see us.

There was a lot of yelling and because it was Halloween there were a log of kids out. It attracted attention, and thankfully, it was the attention of kids from our part of the neighborhood. These kids were older than us, and a bit bigger. Normally, they wouldn’t care a bit about us, and might even take the candy from us themselves, but this was a chance to fight, and they wanted to take full advantage of it. Still, the dark prevented anything from happening fast. The other group of kids escaped, and we didn’t wait around to thank our “saviors”.

Tonight, here in Worcester, the kids started arriving at about 5:15. Overall, we saw about 400 kids tonight. There were very young kids being walked with their parents and older kids out having fun. The little kids seemed a little confused sometimes, not quite understanding what was happening. Some of the older kids were barely costumed, having at the last minute thrown something together. Parents were with nearly every group, the exceptions being some of the older teenagers. The parents seemed to be having as much fun as the kids, sometimes more.

I had some fun with some of the kids. One family came by and were clearly having a great night. The kids (a boy and his younger sister), once they got the candy, ran back to their parents screaming in sugar-induced glee. The boy was clearly dressed as a pirate, but I asked him if he was dressed as a ballerina. The way I asked it was clearly a joke, and the dad thought it was hilarious. The little boy played along well, shouting in mock indignation that he was not a ballerina. I had fun like that all night.

I think what I liked most about tonight was that everybody was having fun. This is the way Halloween is supposed to be, a fun night where kids can live a little fantasy, and get lots of candy to boot. A dentist’s favorite time of the year. A time where you build the kind of memories that make you nostalgic later on in life. I knew that somewhere, a Halloween like the ones I had in Florida was happening. Kids were having their candy taken, their night turning into a disaster. But it wasn’t happening here, and I suppose, for right now, that’s enough.

One of Those Boring "Update" Posts

2005-10-30T22:17:00.000-05:00

Selmathena is now sending me threats of bodily injury should I not get some posts up, so I am putting together this post in a panic. I am not a man who scares easily, but I find I fear the husky-voiced wrath of that Texan and her gravelly-voiced Canadian Cohort.

Lots has happened this last week, where to start?

Unfortunately, things have not worked out with the woman I was dating. To put it simply she couldn’t find time to see me. There’s a little more to it than that, but it’s not really worth writing about. So the match.com profile goes back up. I’ve been partnering with another blogger on match.com, we screen each other’s possibilities and give advice. It’s a huge help having a member of the opposite sex helping you out with something like this. I’m not the type to send out winks (for those of you who don’t know, a wink is just that – it says nothing beyond “I find you interesting”), I send out an email if I find somebody. I don’t send out all that many, at least I don’t think so. I’ve emailed six women, only one has emailed me back, but then I only sent the first out yesterday. I have talked to men who send out (literally) 50 or so winks in one sitting. I call that the shotgun approach, I just can’t do it that way.

I’ve had a minor cold all week. It’s given me a stuffy nose and (for about 4 hours) a sore throat. If that were the extent of it, it would have been no problem, but the hardest part was that it drained me. I was exhausted for most of the week, and thankfully I came back to close to normal today in time to see my son. Yesterday I woke up late, took a nap after breakfast, had a second cup of coffee at noon, could barely move off the couch most of the day, and wobbled my way to bed. I’ll sleep well tonight, even though I’m feeling better.

I closed out my first case at work last week. True, it was a very easy case, but I had to start someplace. I would have closed another, but the guy I was working with has not called me back. I’m told that that sort of thing happens a lot. These cases cost a minimum of $700 each to the companies calling, so they like to keep them open and try to work another problem into an existing case whenever possible. I left a message for the guy saying that if I didn’t hear from him by the close of business Monday that I’d go ahead and close the case. I probably won’t hear from him – it was also an easy case. I’m lucky to be working with the other new hire. He’s worked in the field (in fact, for this very company) before, and I’ve found that our knowledge and skill levels are complimentary. He’s also got the same sense of humor I do, which has other people in the office a little fearful of starting any joke wars with us.

I am currently watching the Patriots preparing to come back against the Bills. Don’t argue with me, it’s going to happen. I have a feeling I won’t be able to stay up much longer, however. I think it’ll be time for me and the bedbugs to wrassle it out for the bed in just a few minutes.

An Average Life

2005-10-26T20:08:00.000-04:00

My life is average right now. Some things are extremely good, others are extremely bad. That makes life average right now. I’ve been very, very busy the last week. I wish that I lived closer to where I work, because it’s about an hour commute each way. That’s a lot of time I could be using for other things. I’ve been struggling to keep up with everything, and there’s a list of people I need to get back to on email.

Some of the good things are really good. I am now divorced, I won joint custody, I love my job and I’m doing well. My son is doing very, very well – such a happy little boy! I had the best weekend with him, and when it was time to go and meet up with the Ex he didn’t want to go. It made me feel really good that he is becoming so attached to me. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be with the Ex, it’s that he is seeing me as somebody he likes to spend time with. It’s a great feeling.

The biggest negative in my life right now is my finances. Right now it’s a house of cards. I can catch up, but it will take time, and surprises like the car repairs make things a lot harder. If I had the money to move closer to where I work I could save money on gas, which would not be insignificant. A friend of mine suggested ebay, which I will have to think about – I’ve got a lot of stuff I can live without. There are things I’d rather not part with, but it will be temporary and I can replace it all later. The important thing is to just get my feet under me.

I generally dislike short posts, much to the regret of most of you, so this one ought to make you happy. I’ve got a lot to do tonight and I’d better get started.

100 Paragraphs About Me, Part I

2005-10-23T17:54:00.000-04:00

A word about this project. I was going to blatantly copy Karla’s 100 Things Wrong With Me. I even asked her permission to do so, which she graciously gave (for a small fee). However, in trying to write it I found that I am nowhere near as funny as her. So I decided to keep it within my writing abilities (which, if that were true, would make the title “100 Really Stupid Paragraphs About Me”). The courts will have to decide if I'll still have to pay her the fee. So, let us start.

1. I find humor in all kinds of places, even when it might endanger my life. Once, as a teenager, my brothers and I were arguing at the dinner table. My father, who had had enough suddenly said in a stern voice “You kids be quiet and stop your squawking!” All three of us were doing our best to hold little snickers in, but failing. My dad, noticing us, said “What’s so damn funny?” I told him, in a small voice “you said ‘squawk’.” When in the navy, some friends and I were in line at Burger King. Another guy in line had a “Navy Seals” T-shirt on, but was clearly not in the Navy. We started laughing and he said in a gravelly voice (I think he’s related to Canagal) “the last time a guy laughed at me, I pulled him down to the bottom. And I didn’t let him go until the last bubble hit the surface…” There was a moment of utter silence. Then we broke out in uncontrollable laughter. He didn’t drag us down.

2. I seem to be completely unable at times to recognize that a woman is interested in me. I was telling a friend about a woman who I kept running into in a toy store with my son. She was a beautiful woman, and somehow managed to make a short skirt, tight sweater and black leather boots look classy. She was very friendly and asked me a lot of questions about my son. We ran into each other several times while I was in the store, and the man (who I thought was possibly a boyfriend) and her son were nowhere to be found on these occasions. My friend told me I was an idiot and that the woman was trying to get me to ask her out. This theory (both the idiot part and the woman’s intentions) have been confirmed by Sam.

3. My major was pathobiology, and it sometimes leads me to tell people things they don’t want to hear. The other day a coworker was telling somebody that they used to like medium rare hamburgers, but that they make them well-done to protect themselves from e. coli and mad cow disease. Of course I had to correct them. By the time I finished informing him that prions (which cause BSE, or Mad Cow) are extremely resistant to heat and that even an autoclave will not make a contaminated instrument safe his face was quite grey. I don’t think he’ll be eating beef anytime soon.

4. Simple things excite me sometimes. Today I started my single-cup coffeemaker and promptly forgot about it. When I remembered that I had a cup of coffee waiting for me upstairs I did a little happy dance (that should be a separate entry) and emitted a little “hee hee hee” (picture Homer Simpson).

5. I sometimes have little patience for stupid people. I have been known to look at somebody who uttered something particularly idiotic and say to them “That’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard.” During spring break one year a woman I worked with was injured in a riot that occurred on campus. She insisted that the police had “forced” the students to riot by simply being there in riot gear. The police were there because there was a history of riots at this site. When she said that the police should not have reacted to the rocks and bottles the students started throwing at them, I had to say something – can you guess what I said? Did I mention that she was my immediate supervisor?

6. There may be some really questionable genes rolling around in me. The ones I’m most worried about are present in my uncle. He is a star trek fan. Not one of the normal star trek fans who watch the show and enjoy it. He’s one of the ones who dress up in the uniform. Who meets with a group of friends on a couple of weekends a month to pretend their flying a starship. On a full-size starship bridge they built themselves. Some of you might not think this is so bad, and if this were the only thing wrong with him, I might agree. However, he’s nearly 60, lives with his mother (as he has since he got out of the Army at 22) and signs his paycheck over to her every two weeks and gets an allowance back. Be honest, how many of you cringed?

Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

2005-10-22T22:12:00.000-04:00

That line hardly covers my son. You’d have to somehow fit Monster Trucks, tractors, Brum, Noddy and, of course, Macsheese into it, and then the metrics of the whole thing would be thrown way off. My Ex went to New York this weekend, and had asked me if I could take him from Friday evening to Sunday mid-afternoon sometime. It still floors me the change in her attitude towards the whole visitation issue. It wasn’t more than a few months ago that she was claiming to people that she suspected I might try to kidnap him. In any case, he was here last night and he’s even now sleeping in the next room. We have had an incredible weekend.

I always have so much fun with him. We make up games to play, especially in the car as we’re driving. Many, many months ago it was me making duck sounds and him making a high pitched scream in return. I often wondered if he ever screamed in the Ex’s car to try to get her to play the game, but I never heard anything. Yesterday I had to find a way to keep him awake for the hour-long drive from where I picked him up to my house. We were going to arrive about an hour before bedtime so I didn’t want him napping on the way back. So we made up the Rub-a-dub-dub game.

Me: “Rub-a-dub-dub! Daddy’s an elephant!”
Him: “Nooooo! Daddy’s a daddy!”
“Rub-a-dub-dub! Charlie’s (his dog) a hippo!”
“Nooooo!”
“Rub-a-dub-dub! Daddy’s a goose!”
“Nooooo! A goose bites my finger!”

And so on. The funniest thing about the game is now when we’re not playing he’ll suddenly say “Daddy! Say it!”. The first time he did this I had no idea what he was telling me to say. He finally told me to say “Rub-a-dub-dub” and I got it. If I tell him to say it, he’ll say “No. You say it, Daddy!” We’ll get into a game where I have to try to convince him to say it.

Me: “Can you say Rub-a-dub-dub?”
Him: “No! You say it, Daddy!”
Me: “Can you say ‘Daddy’s silly’?”
Him: “No!”
Me: “Can you say ‘no’?”
Him: “No!”
Me: “You just said ‘no!’”
Him: (in a “the hell I did” tone) “No!”

Last night we were talking (or what passes for conversation with a two and a half year old) and I asked him something about snakes. He told me that snakes hide. I asked him where. He said that snakes hide under the couch, as he lifted up the dust flap and pointed underneath it. I laughed, imagining him telling my Ex that a snake was hiding under the couch. She was deathly afraid of snakes. Every time he sees a garbage truck or sees one on the road he tells me that a garbage truck took his binky. This was a ploy by the daycare woman when it was decided that he no longer needed the binky. Obviously this was traumatic for him, because it's been a year and he still associates garbage trucks with his stolen binky.

He has a little cold. My evidence is that he’s coughing, sneezing and has a runny nose. He doesn’t have a fever. Unfortunately, he has the habit of coughing so hard that he will sometimes make himself throw up after a meal. He did this with my Ex at Friendly’s not long before I picked him up yesterday. She insists that he was coughing because of asthma. So she called the doctor and insisted that she (the doctor) do something. So today I find out that the doctor has supposedly told her that it might be acid reflux. She said this as if it were nearly a death sentence. It’s so hard not to laugh sometimes. First, I doubt he’s got acid reflux to begin with. He only throws up when he coughs really hard, and that’s usually when he’s got a cold. So Monday I’m going to call the doctor and have a little talk with her.

When I put him down for bed he insists on having a few toys with him. “A few” is a relative term. Last night I counted eleven matchbox cars, three monster trucks and a Thomas the Train. Tonight it’s ten matchbox cars, three monster trucks and Thomas. It’s like a used car lot in there.

He’s wearing me out. It’s 10:10, and I’m falling asleep at my computer typing this, so I suppose I should just post it and get to bed.

A Phone Call

2005-10-20T23:00:00.000-04:00

So today I received a phone call from a friend. I got to know this woman several years ago, about a month after my Ex was fired from her job. Her boss had fired her by leaving a message on the answering machine. Basically, the man was a jackass, and we were better off. This woman was hired to replace my Ex, and somehow, through some bizarre coincidence, ended up moving in the building right next to ours.

To make a long story short, the same man who fired my Ex fired this woman. He called her on the telephone the day before she was supposed to start work and told her. There’s a LOT more to that story, but what it boils down to is that he tried several times to come on to her, even one time trying to pin her down so he could kiss her. She made it clear that it was not going to happen (she said she threw him across the room when he pinned her down – and she was strong enough to do it) so he fired her. The trouble for him was that he had a contract for a years employment with her. So she sued him. I ended up testifying at the trial for her, and this is one time I’ll brag. I kicked his ass in the courtroom. He settled very shortly after my testimony.

I’m going to call her Sayre for now. Sayre got to know my Ex and I pretty well. She saw a lot of what I was going through when my Ex started acting strangely and often told me that she was worried about her. When my Ex filed charges against me Sayre was aghast. She called my Ex and had many long conversations with her. Sayre told me several months ago that my Ex had thought I would be under her thumb as a result of her stories, and went into a panic when it didn’t go the way she thought it would.

Today when she called she told me some more interesting things. Apparently she won’t answer the phone if it’s my Ex calling now. My Ex has been calling her for the last couple of months complaining about me. Of all the things she could complain about, the Ex won’t stop complaining that she’s sure I’m seeing a woman. This is a year after she had me thrown out and filed for divorce. Sayre told her that she had made her choices and that she had to live with them.

Sayre got another call last night from my Ex. The Ex called her to tell her she was now divorced, but she didn’t seem very happy about it. She told Sayre how she sat in her car and cried right after for a while and asked her “What am I supposed to do?” It appeared that the Ex was very upset about the whole thing.

Sometimes I just don’t know what to think. Somebody (who shall remain anonymous) told me about a relative who had a spouse with schizophrenia. Even after a divorce the spouse would write long letters to members of the family as if it never broke up. I wonder how much of this I’m going to see.

It's Over

2005-10-19T16:05:00.000-04:00

It’s over. I am now divorced, and overall it went very well for me. That doesn’t mean it was easy, or that I’m not drained right now, but at least it’s over. As I sit here, I’m exhausted, physically and emotionally. Part of me thinks I should have fought more, the other part of me knows I just didn’t have the energy to do it.

What I need right now is to sit down here and allow myself to relax. I’m struggling not to be angry at little unimportant things that I gave up, and it’s hard. Even though I know I got what I wanted most.

I got joint custody.

In reality it doesn’t change much immediately, but it was important to me for a couple of reasons. The most important reason is just that I want to be more than a non-custodial parent. At the beginning of all this (and sometimes now) I felt like I was being robbed of what was most precious to me. Now I feel somewhat vindicated. After all the lies and false accusations leveled against me I feel like I can point to this and say “see – they wouldn’t have allowed this if what she said was true”. I’m glad I was so adamant about it throughout the whole process.

The parenting class turned out to be less of a problem than I anticipated. The judge clearly wished I had done it when I was supposed to, but was very kind about it all. I have to give credit where credit is due. My Ex’s (wow, it feels nice not to have to write STBX anymore) attorney actually jumped in and said that I had been living out of state and that it had made it difficult for me to take the class. That’s part of it, but the main reason was just money. The judge issued an order that I have to have it completed by early January. He didn’t have to give me that much time, but he did. I’ve already scheduled it and will have it done by the end of next week.

One of the things I felt wasn’t worth fighting over was that my ex and her attorney decided they wanted my wages garnished for child support. I felt that was unnecessary and just done to be humiliating to me. I’ve paid so much more than I ever needed to, and the only time I did not pay on time was just before I got my first paycheck for my new job when I literally ran out of money. When I got the check I not only paid what the current agreed-upon amount was, I voluntarily (and without being asked) upped the amount to what I anticipated the order would be under my new income. I didn’t have to do that. For me there really isn’t any difference since I was going to do the payments using direct deposit, it’s just humiliating.

The other thing I don’t understand is that the amount of my support payments went up. In Connecticut they do a calculation and assign a percentage of what is considered the correct amount of support to each parent. My income has gone down a little overall, and her income went up significantly, but somehow I ended up paying more. It’s not a lot, so I really shouldn’t worry about it, I just feel like something got put over on me.

I know the reason these things are getting to me – it was a very stressful and emotional event and my mind is still kind of reeling from all of it. Compared to what I won this stuff is insignificant, and I should shortly begin to relax about it all. I’ve decided that I won’t act on anything for several days to allow myself to get much more rational about it. On the way home I was getting very angry thinking about it. I wanted to call the Ex and tell her to look forward to a huge reduction in cooperation from me because of the whole garnishment issue. Stupid little revenge fantasies kept popping into my head unbidden – like telling off her attorney. Yeah, I’m sure that would teach him a valuable lesson.

It would be a big mistake to do any of this. Right now the Ex is being pretty cooperative with visitation and I don’t want to give her a reason to start being difficult again.

The wisest thing is for me to just give myself a few days for it all to sink in. I got what was most important to me, so I’m just going to try to concentrate on being happy with that.

Of course I posted this and then remembered something. I wanted to thank each and every one of you who commented or emailed me with words of support. I can't tell you how good it felt to get home here and read all of that. It meant a lot.

The End of an Era?

2005-10-18T22:12:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow is the big day. I have to be at the courthouse at 9am, and when I leave I may, at long last, finally be divorced. I received a copy of the proposed agreement, and it has addressed most of my concerns, so I’m pretty happy. There are a couple of things I wish were different, but nothing I feel is worth fighting about. What’s amazing to me is that the change came so suddenly. I’m not sure what happened to make the STBX stop fighting me on things, and I really don’t care as long as I get to spend more time with my son.

Out of the blue today I received a very nice email from somebody who, over the last couple of days, has read all my entries from start to finish. She wrote:

I just got finished reading your entire blog, from start to finish. It is
amazing to me that you were able to maintain such a good attitude after
being dealt such a horrible hand. I was going to leave a comment, but it
just didn't seem fair to do that after such a look into your life.

There's virturally nothing I can relate to, but I admire the way that you
are able to handle situations with such a good outlook. You're definitely
admirable, and I'd be willing to bet that little man you are raising will
end up with many of the same good qualities you've got. The world can only
hope so.

Thanks for sharing your life, it's amazing to read. I send some extra good
thoughts your way for all of the upcoming drama you are sure to endure
legally.

What she wrote about my son literally brought tears to my eyes when I read it. As I was still at work at my desk when I read it I had to quickly turn to another computer and perform a task to distract myself. I didn’t feel like explaining to coworkers if tears started rolling down my face.

I’ve sent out several emails like this to other authors, mainly because I like to live by the rule that if you want the privilege of complaining, you have to earn it by pointing out the good things you find in life. Maintain a good:bad ratio of at least ten and you’re good to go. It was really nice to get one myself. Thank you.

Wish me luck tomorrow – I don’t think I’ll need it, but it never hurts.

The Scammers At Best Buy Have Discovered Me!

2005-10-18T21:19:00.000-04:00

Oh, this is too rich. Today, as I looked through my stats, I found that somebody at best buy had discovered my blog. This was the domain the reader was on:

Domain Name BestBuy.com ^? (Commercial)

The search term this reader used to find me was sicustomerservice.com

They read two of the Scammers at Best Buy posts, and I’m hoping that word spreads around the Best Buy HQ.

Brothers in (H)arms

2005-10-16T19:50:00.000-04:00

It has been known to scare some people how much one of my brothers and I are alike. The guilty party is my youngest brother, who I have four years on. He and I have for many years loved playing jokes on each other. After I got out of the navy I came home to live for the few months before I started college, and it was in this period that we kicked things up into high gear. One of our favorite things to do to each other was to hide somewhere and jump out snarling and growling in an attempt to scare the other. Points were awarded on the originality of the attempt, the quality of the scare itself and if any little-girl-like shrieks were made.

I think I had the best scare, but he did get me good on several occasions. The best was when I was walking into my room. All I really remember was that it was dark and as I walked in a large bear burst out of the closet roaring as it rushed at me. I don’t think I shrieked, but my brother will probably say that I did as I fainted. I will readily admit to a massive flinch, one that nearly qualifies as a full-out “Flee”. Afterward we were both nearly rolling on the floor laughing.

I managed to top this, but only because I’m sneakier. I go the extra mile by subverting friends and relatives of a victim to help. In this case I convinced my brother’s girlfriend (now his wife) to not mention that I was hiding in the closet. He walked into the room and asked in a nervous voice “Where’s Erasmus?” I have to point out here that many people who know my brother would refuse to believe that I could make him nervous. He will admit to it, though, because I have earned his respect. She told him that she thought I was in the cellar, so he began to relax. And that’s when I struck.

A creature released from the darkest pit of Hell could not have made a better sound. It was so good that not only did my brother shriek, but so did his girlfriend, who knew what was coming. It was truly a scare for the record books.

I have cicadas to thank for another of my best scares. Cicadas molt, leaving a very large exoskeleton behind. It is almost scary to pick up because it looks like it might come to life and rip off a limb. One day I found one of these, and immediately came up with a plan. My brother is scared of spiders, and this was close enough. I found him working on his car. He was sitting in the driver seat and both doors were open, so I said hello as I sat down in the passenger seat. He was bent over trying to see something under the dash and I slyly placed the “bug” on his right leg just above his knee. He sat back up and looked down. He was simultaneously making an involuntary “Aaaaaa!” sound, trying to brush the lobster-like killer insect off his leg and jumping out of the car. He hit his head on the roof on the way out.

It’s a good thing we had conditioned ourselves not to get angry when we were the victim, because I was laughing far too hard to make any kind of escape attempt. He was standing there holding his head and panting. I like to remind him of it every once in a while. Later on we put the bug on his future father-in-law’s leg – in the middle of a picnic style dinner. The scream he let out when he saw it on his leg stopped all conversation and was followed by several seconds of shocked silence. That was quickly followed by all 15 or 20 of us laughing our heads off.

That poor man got me back a couple of years later. My brother, his girlfriend and I were taking a cross-country trip. My brother’s girlfriend’s parents lived in Colorado, and they were one of our stops. One day we all decided to drive down to San Diego and when we arrived there was a light rain. We parked and started to head down to a beach. To get there we had to climb down a path on a somewhat steep hill, which was slippery because of the rain.

My brother and I are considered goats because of the enjoyment we get from running and jumping over various surfaces. We rarely fall, and we always had a lot of fun making people nervous as we ran and jumped our way across a jetty at the beach, up and down stairs etc. This hill was an interesting challenge and of course we had to take it. We took different paths and started bounding down. As I bounced down (picture Tigger) I came close to our father-in-law, who was carefully and slowly climbing down the hill. As I passed him his feet suddenly went out from under him, and he literally rolled the rest of the way down the hill. My brother and I ran over to see if he was ok, and found that he was uninjured, but covered in mud.

At the top of the hill you would expect to find his wife and daughter standing with, at the very least, a concerned look on their faces. They should be calling down worriedly to see if he were hurt, wringing their hands. No. They were both bent over double laughing, sometimes pointing down at him and starting over.

Part of what they found so funny is that they thought I had pushed him as I ran by him on the hill. I denied it, but then heard him claim that he had felt me hit him as I ran by. Then my brother joined in saying that he had seen me bump him. I argued my innocence to no avail. The accusations started out as me bumping him, went to me pushing him, then to me attempting murder. Somewhere in there I realized I was being toyed with.

There were very few limits in terms of what we’d do to scare each other. On one occasion I jumped off the garage roof bellowing behind my brother as he got out of his car. Another time he ran out of the bushes sounding like a water buffalo as I unlocked the front door in the middle of the night. I waited for over 20 minutes, hidden under his bed, so I could grab his ankle as he came into his room. I’m lucky he didn’t stomp my hand into oblivion for that one.

Over the years we’ve mellowed some, but still truly enjoy putting one over on the other. Whether it be a good scare or a well-thought out practical joke we always get as much laughter out of being the victim as we do being the perpetrator. For the time being I have the advantage, because there is nobody in my life he can attempt to enlist to his cause, and his wife is always willing to help me out. This is a woman who said to him when he got uppity “If you think I won’t beat you because Erasmus is here, you’re wrong!” I can hardly wait until his sons are old enough to help out, because I’m already working on training them to accept bribes…

A Stressful Day

2005-10-14T21:10:00.000-04:00

Today could have been a better day. Have I mentioned that I have a gift for understatement?

My (I thought) ex-attorney left a message for me recently, saying that she had not submitted the papers to be removed from the case. She has suddenly become interested in giving me another chance. I strongly suspect this is because she heard I have found a job and she sees dollar signs. I found the message she left very annoying because she started out with something along the lines of “I think I understand what’s going on. I think you just don’t want to be divorced. It’s ok, a lot of people go through this.”

I say annoyed now, but at the time I was furious. She knows exactly why I don’t want the divorce to be final, because I told her. I told her on the phone. I emailed her about it. There should be no question in her mind. I am not satisfied with the financial agreement, and I’m not satisfied with the visitation schedule.

I heard from my STBX about the coming court appointment, not the attorney. I got a message from the STBX that both her attorney and “my” attorney wanted me to call her. So I did. I called and left a message. It was not a very nice message. I told her I was annoyed because I had told her both on the phone and in email that I was not ready because of the two issues I mentioned in the last paragraph. I told her that I was going to be at the court date and that I was going to bring the emails with me.

I called the STBX’s attorney today too. He was quite hostile. I learned some interesting things, though. My ex-attorney told him that she had informed me many times about the last court date, which is an outright lie. I told him that I didn’t think that my ex-attorney was telling him what I was passing on to her. I asked him if she had told him that I was not satisfied with the agreement or the visitation and he hesitated. Then he said he had been told by the STBX, avoiding answering me about the other attorney. He told me that no matter what they are going to go forward with the case next week. They are going to ask for judgment because he feels (because of what my ex-attorney has told him) that I’ve held things off long enough.

I called my ex-attorney four times today, and did not get an answer or a call back. I think she’s trying to put forth an appearance of being professional while avoiding being responsible for what she hasn’t done.

With everything going on in my life I haven’t gotten to filing the complaint about my attorney, so that is going to be high priority this weekend. I’m going to get everything together, including all my phone records, which will show exactly when she’s called me. I’m hoping to go into court next week and be able to show that I have not been informed about court dates until the day before they occurred. She is going to talk about how I’ve not been timely in calling her back and communicating with her in general, and she does have a point there. I want to show the judge that I’m not trying to waste anybody’s time – that if I’d been given more than one day’s notice I could have come to the other hearings. I’m also worried because I haven’t done everything I should have done. I was supposed to take a parenting class, but I haven’t done it. I had planned to do it earlier this year, but after I lost my job I put it off because I didn’t have the money to pay for it. I had also planned to take it after I got my first paycheck but ran out of money because of the car repairs. So I’m also hoping that I won’t get too slapped around for not having this done.

I’m worried that it won’t go well despite the proof I will bring with me. My ex-attorney is well-known and my proof and arguments may fall on deaf ears. Of course, if she told the judge something that wasn’t true that can be shown by what I bring with me, then maybe it will go well. I have felt for a while that she was not being very honest with me and her advice at some points was beyond incompetent. I think she’s been portraying herself as doing everything right, which is definitely not the case.

So, back to today. This morning I called the attorney many times and spoke to the STBX’s attorney who was quite rude to me. I was not getting called back, and all I could think about was how I have to be in court next week. I was getting very stressed out over the whole situation and the conversation I had with the STBX’s attorney. I wasn’t feeling good at all. I was struggling to keep calm, and finally managed to get to a point where I wasn’t so stressed about it. It’s not easy to maintain that.

A Public Service Announcement From King Erasmus

2005-10-13T21:12:00.000-04:00

Just a word of advice to those of you who find yourself with a flat tire. Should you find yourself with a flat tire, review the following:

Are you on a level surface?

Is the level surface solid enough to support your jack?

If the answer to either of these is no, then don't change the tire. Wait for a tow truck or somebody who can help.

Today as I was getting off the highway, I saw somebody who had gotten a flat rear tire on the passenger side. They were changing it, but there were a couple of problems. The car had pulled over , but had actually pulled off the highway and into the grass. They were not only on the grass, but the passenger side was in a ditch. With the jack fully extended, the car looked level, not raised. This jack was situated on the ground in the ditch. The ground that had been soaked with rain for the last several days. The phrase "asking for death" comes to mind.

An Update on the New Job

2005-10-13T20:46:00.000-04:00

I am having a great time at the new job. One thing I mentioned before is that it’s expected that there is a learning curve – they don’t expect anybody to be ready to go on day one. I’ve been putting a lot of effort into learning and getting ready to start helping out, and it’s paying off. I have learned so much since I started, and I’ve barely scratched the surface.

In the last week I’ve gotten to a point where I needed to start using VM Ware. Let me just say that I’ve falling in love with this software. I won’t bore the non-techies out there with the details, let’s just say I can play and tinker to my heart’s content and with a click be back to where I started so I can do it all over again.

There’s another guy who was hired 2 weeks after I was who I’ve been working with to get familiar with the equipment. He actually worked at this company years ago supporting routers, so he brings a lot to the table. We’ve already gained the reputation of dangerous to attempt a practical joke on. Not because we’d get mad, but because we’d get positively gleeful about having an excuse to go after somebody.

We definitely impressed some people this week. We had been setting up different configurations with our equipment, and one of the experienced people decided it was time to start introducing faults for us to find and fixed. She made us go away and when we came back our equipment no longer worked. We found the problem and fixed it in less that 5 minutes. That shocked the woman. At this point in our training there really isn’t very many things that can be broken so we didn’t find it very difficult.

As a result, today we were asked by one of the other engineers to help them set up a lab to reproduce a problem a customer was having. Not because he needed help technically, he definitely does not, but because it’s easier to do some of this with help. The important thing is that he trusted us enough to help him out. The good thing for us is that we’re starting to help people out.

I found out something very interesting today. Myself and the other new guy were talking with some of the other engineers and we were told that we were the first new hires in almost four years! It was quite a compliment for both of us that we were chosen over all the other candidates that were being interviewed. And it also explains why there was so much confusion when we started. They hadn’t had to set anything up for anybody new for years.

So, all in all, I’m loving the new job. It’s challenging, it’s interesting and the people are great. How much more can you ask for?

I Am No Longer In An AC/DC Song...

2005-10-12T22:30:00.000-04:00

I received a couple of interesting comments on yesterday's post. I am relieved to know that should I die, Selmathena of the Husky Voice will reanimate my flesh. And that ties right in to Canagal's (who I would link to, but she may only be a fake profile made by The Hot Librarian) comment. I shall not repeat it here. I will say, however, that she is mistaken. I USED to, but there was that unfortunate incident where I was mistaken for a chimpanzee and taken to the vet for a "procedure". Perhaps with the reanimation I can be whole again.

I Was A Teenage Criminal Part V

2005-10-11T21:35:00.000-04:00

It may surprise many of you to hear that I have a bit of smartass in me. I was far worse in high school, mainly because I hadn’t yet learned when to shut my mouth.

Let me tell you about the Receiving area at the Caldors I worked at as a teenager. It was basically a small warehouse. With warehouse workers. There was one who really stood out. His name was Big Al.

Big Al, was, not surprisingly, quite big. He was very overweight, but would have been big even had he not been heavy. He was also homeless.

The fact that Big Al was homeless says a lot about the management at this store. It was common knowledge that Big Al and his wife lived out of their car. From what I understand they used to have a place to live, but at some point lost it. I never did know the details. Big Al, despite the fact that he was not the manager, ran the warehouse. He was so big and so surly that nobody wanted to challenge his rule. Everybody had to deal with Al, because you had to go back to Receiving to do battle with the Raccoon from Hell, at the very least. Another thing you had to go back to Receiving for was to make tickets.

As an employee at Caldors we could always count on one thing: the sale that started on Sunday. That meant that on Saturday we would have to get our yellow sale tickets printed up and go out onto the floor and put them on the merchandise. The ticket machines were located in the Receiving area, and if you were back there making your tickets you were sure to get an earful from Big Al.

Now that we’ve gotten most of the background out of the way I’ll get to the actual story. I had a couple of good friends who worked at Caldors with me, and we were always up for causing a little trouble. So one fine day I went back to Receiving with one of my friends to get some merchandise, and we found that nobody was around. We got our goods, and on the way out we had to walk by the ticket machines. Picture a light from the Heavens shining down on me as the clouds opened up. I had an idea.

The crime only took a few seconds, and though I didn’t know it at the time, the aftereffects would last several hours. I would start out as one of the suspects (duh) but end up in a surprising position, which I won’t disclose yet.

The crime: I took the fuses out of the ticket machines.

Twenty minutes later panic erupted. We heard whispers of a disaster in Receiving at first. Then it was confirmed. Both of the ticket machines were broken, and nobody had made their sale tickets yet! Managers from each department were called to a meeting with the Assistant Store Manager, then to a second meeting with the Store Manager. There was talk of sending out a team to another Caldors to make the tickets, but that got shot down for some reason (I don’t know why, it was the best solution they came up with).

My friend and I played it cool. We had hidden the fuses at the very top of a shelving unit in a box so there they wouldn’t be found. We waited a while until we had a good enough reason to head back to Receiving to witness the carnage firsthand. When we arrived we were delighted. Big Al was in an uproar. There were people all over his warehouse, including managers, and they weren’t leaving! We couldn’t stay long because our task was a short one, but we had a great time.

When we arrived back at our department we laughed about the whole thing for a while, but wisely decided to keep our involvement to ourselves for the time being. Every so often somebody would come back and spread rumors about what had happened, which made it even funnier.

In all the time I worked at Caldors I had never before cringed upon hearing my name over the PA system. I was being told to report to Receiving. I was sure I was being called to my doom. My friend’s eyes were wide as he looked at me – he was getting nervous. This is why I do most of my little jokes alone. I don’t need a weak-link partner throwing me under the bus.

I reported to Receiving and was met by both the Store Manager and the Assistant Store Manager. They said they wanted me to look at the machines to see if I could figure out what was wrong because I was a smart young man. If this doesn’t sound suspicious to you, it should. I was already a suspect.

Fortunately, I am a good actor. I looked at the machines, poked them a few times and examined the cords. I asked if they had tried plugging the machines in to another outlet. Before an answer could be given, Big Al jumped in, not wanting to be shown up by this young punk. He proclaimed that the power strip was dead.

Now here’s where I should have shut my mouth. But I was indeed the young punk that Big Al thought I was, so when I noticed the radio that was plugged in to the same power strip was playing, I had to say something.

“The power strip can’t be dead – the radio’s playing.”

“Shut up. It’s dead.”

“But the radio’s playing!” Strike Two.

“The power strips dead!” He was definitely raising his voice now.

“Sure sounds like it!” Strike Three, I was out.

Did I mention before that Big Al was big? Before I (or the managers) knew what was happening, Big Al lost it. As he bellowed “It’s dead you little bastard!” he reached out, grabbed my shirt at my chest and pulled me towards him. I remember quite clearly the popping sounds I heard as the buttons on my shirt flew off. I remember being amazed how strong he was, because he nearly pulled me off my feet one-handed. I also remember seeing his other hand balled up in a fist behind him as he wound up to punch me.

The punch never came. Both managers somehow manhandled me away from him and conspicuously put themselves between us. Gone was the cocky teenager in me, I was in shock. I was told to get back to Seasonal, and I went, quite fast.

Back in Seasonal, the crowd grew each time I told the story of what had just happened to me in Receiving. This was not the bragging of a teenage boy, this was the shell-shocked ramblings of somebody who has just come back from war. I had two buttons left on my shirt. The top one and the bottom one. I then noticed that the pocket was missing. He had somehow ripped that right off too.

In that state I had no idea of how much time had passed when I was told by my department manager to report to the Store Manager’s office. With my friend. When we got there we found that the Usual Suspects had been rounded up. There were five of us in all, all troublemakers. It had been discovered that the fuses were missing.

I don’t recall where in the order of things I was called in for my interrogation. That’s exactly what it was. The first thing I was told to do was empty my pockets. I had had some time to regain some of my composure, and this order was an insult. Did he really think I was such an amateur that I’d have the incriminating fuses on me? I emptied my pockets, and satisfied, he moved right along.

“I know you had something to do with this. If you admit it now, we won’t fire you. If we have to fire you, you’ll have trouble getting a job for the rest of your life.”

Now, as a teenager I had no other job experience, and I didn’t know that what he was saying was a bluff. I really wondered if I’d ever get a job again if I was fired. One thing my criminal past in Florida had taught me, though, was that you never buckled under the pressure. You stuck to your story and hoped that they were bluffing.

I proclaimed my innocence again, but was met with silence. More silence. And more. Silence is an effective sales technique. When met with an uncomfortable silence, many people will blurt something out just to fill it, often something they didn’t want to say. It also works well in interrogations. However, I’d seen this before and was not impressed. I said nothing, the best way to beat this game.

What came next was unbelievable to me. I was told that I was to investigate the crime and find out who had stolen the fuses. I would find myself pleasantly rewarded. As I left I saw one kid named Steve who looked like he was about to go to his death. Bah, Provincials.

After work, as all of the underage Caldors employees gathered together behind the store to drink beer (because we were cool) many stories were told about different aspects of the Great Ticket Machine Debacle. I think the attack by Big Al topped them all. And I had the shirt to prove it. There may have been some talk of how I fought him off myself, pinning him to the ground as the managers cowered. I might have implied that a sword fight occurred also. I’m just going to blame the beer.

Overall, I was thrilled at the results, but there was one problem. I couldn’t tell anybody. I suspected I was not the only one who the Store Manager attempted to recruit as a Stool Pigeon, and it was too risky to talk. To do so might put my entire job future in jeopardy. So I had to content myself with the war stories I could tell, and leave the others until now, when I’m certain that the Statute of Limitations for Ticket Machine Vandalism has expired. I’m still a smartass, though.

Today I Met With The Enemy

2005-10-08T18:50:00.000-04:00

In the recent past I guest posted at Samantha Burns in an attempt to forestall the coming Canadian invasion. Today I took another step forward in that grand vision. I met with LaLa, her son and her friend Julie (who is also Canadian). LaLa claimed that she had come down to visit her friend Julie and shop for maternity clothes. My suspicions remain. We had lunch and talked about blogging with Julie, who is not one of us. At least in this Canadian Invasion Force assigned identity. In her real life I’m sure she’s got a secret blog somewhere detailing her invasion plan exploits.

I am a terrible “local”. When I asked LaLa if she had anything in mind for lunch she said no – you’re the local. So we talked a little bit and decided to meet at Outback Steak House. Because of rain and some unexpected construction I was a little late. When I pulled into the parking lot I knew something was wrong. The parking lot was empty. This local didn’t know that Outback isn’t open for lunch.

At that point there should be a relatively easy solution. You call the person. However, I realized that I had foolishly not brought her cell phone number with me and had only given her my home phone number. I did remember, however, that they were driving a Canyonero. I drove to Pizzeria Uno, which was nearby. There were two Canyoneros in the parking lot, so I figured I’d head inside and see if they were there. If I’d been thinking I would have just looked at the license plate of the first Canyonero, which was from Ontario. It was pointed out to me after I got inside.

So we had a fun and tasty lunch and talked about all kinds of things, including the real reason that Canada want out land: they all live in apartments. LaLa’s son was very nice. He was funny and was looking forward to visiting Target after lunch. He looked entirely too comfortable on the barstool across from our table for a 12 year old.

I thought afterward that we should have called our meeting the US/Canada Civilian Peace Summit. After the invasion, no matter how it ended, my place in history would be assured by my peace-making efforts. Someday I’m sure my guest posting over at Samantha Burns will be viewed as the first attempt in avoiding Canada’s War of Aggression.

I’d say the Summit was a huge success. There was much laughing and the food (at least mine) was wonderful. And if Canada does not invade, then it is clearly because I prevented it.

Forgiven

2005-10-08T17:20:00.000-04:00

I had a great date last night. Early this year I was dating a real estate agent. We’d dated for a little over six months and it was going very well. I’m going to leave a lot out, but I’ll give you the basics. As the stress in my life increased, I foolishly started thinking that she was the source of all of it. The only thing I can say in my own defense is that I’ve been through a time in the last year that was almost too much to bear. I broke things off with her. Over time I got some things from her, like postcards telling me that she hoped I was well.

As things have improved I began to take a look at all the events of the last year. When I thought about what had happened between us I felt guilty, and I decided I wanted to apologize to her. I emailed her an apology, expecting nothing more, because I wasn’t sure if she wanted to even hear from me. I was very honest in my apology and didn’t try to make excuses. I just told her what happened and told her I had been wrong. I was surprised when several days later she wrote back.

To make a long story short we ended up emailing back and forth and eventually began talking on the phone. I was very happy being able to get to know her again. Earlier this week we were talking on the phone and she told me that she had asked me out to the movies the day before in another phone conversation. Through some bizarre joke perpetrated by the God of Cordless Phones I completely missed her asking me. So we went out to the movies last night. It was the first time I’d seen her in over six months. It wasn’t exactly the same as when we’d dated before, but it was very close, and that was good.

Sometimes I can’t believe how lucky I am. Believe me when I say that if you look at whose loss would have been bigger I would have come out the bigger loser (in a number of ways). I think one of the only reasons she’s willing to give me a second chance is that I treated her well.

So last night we spent some time together and it felt really good. I even got a nice good-night kiss. Even better than that, I told her that I’d missed her, and she said that she’d missed me too.

Sometimes you make mistakes, and sometimes they can be pretty big. And sometimes you get forgiven for them. The trick is not to make the same mistakes twice.

I Drive a 1995 Mazda Deathtrap

2005-10-08T09:49:00.000-04:00

When I looked back at what I’ve posted this week I was surprised to find that I wrote nothing about my car. I’m sure it will come as a surprise (as it did to me) that I was driving a deathtrap. And I say that with no exaggeration.

Not too long ago I did my brakes because one of the front right side brake pads disintegrated. I replaced the rotors and the pads and replaced the pins in the caliper because they were corroded. It was my first time doing brakes, so it took a while, but it went well. I know what you’re all thinking – it’s a deathtrap because he did the brakes wrong, but that’s not it. Just had to put that in because of a comment made later. When I first bought the car I had to have the alternator replaced, and when that was being done the shop told me that I had to have my front axle assemblies replaced soon. I had one done then and decided to wait on the other. Well, in the last week and a half the other side CV joint (which is part of the axle assembly) started making clicking noises as I made turns, which (according to a coworker) was a sign that it needed to be replaced. That’s only about a $250 repair, so I wasn’t too upset about it. Not that I have an extra $250 lying around, but it could have been worse. Of course, I couldn’t have any work done until I was paid, so I was hoping that the car would make it until then.

It did, but in that time the symptoms got worse. The car started vibrating as I drove (not the vibrating you get at certain speeds if your wheels aren’t balanced correctly, but a constant vibration. It was annoying because it vibrated just enough as I was driving to tickle my nose – that’s torture. On Monday I made an appointment to get the work done the next day. I went out to my car to drive home and something caught my eye. I was looking at the front left tire (the side that needed the new CV joint) and something just didn’t look right. The tire looked, well, bent. A whole section of the tire was bulging out and the tread had been nearly worn away at that point. The bulge was about 8 inches of the tire. So now I was going to need two new tires (since the tires were old enough that you can’t just replace one). The next morning I drove to the shop to drop my car off. I showed the person who was picking me up the tire and they looked at me like I was crazy. The bulge was on the bottom against the ground this time, but it was still apparent.

He said that a couple of bands inside the tire must have broken and that was what was causing the tire to bulge. He also told me that this is a very dangerous condition because the tire can just catastrophically fail – he described it as “disintegrate”. A front tire disintegrating at 75 mph on the highway in the kind of traffic I see could have been fatal.

Later on I got a call from the shop about what needed to be done. The first thing he told me was that I’d need two new tires. He told me that there was no choice here because I was showing steel on the front left tire. This had not been the case the night before, and I’ve since found out that a tire in that condition will wear extremely fast. I guess this one did. He also asked about the power steering. He was surprised that I’d been driving the car without it. I’ve driven cars without power steering before, but it’s a lot different than driving a car that has power steering that’s failed. Steering this car is a LOT harder than steering a car designed to be driven without power steering. He told me he could run a belt to give me back power steering by not including the AC compressor (somebody had left a comment about this months ago), so I told him to do that too.

The repairs came to a total of $578. Good thing I got paid. The only one I could have skipped was the power steering, and that was only $59. The car is unbelievably easier to steer now. I could literally make all my turns just using my pinky finger. It seems like it’s much easier than before it broke, but that may be my imagination. It’s amazing how much nicer it is to drive now. No vibration, the car is quieter and it’s just easier to drive. And it’s not a deathtrap anymore.

Diane Must Pay

2005-10-07T23:11:00.000-04:00

Today I was tagged by Diane, whom I shall get back by naming an Honorary Canadian. She sent me an email telling me that she tagged me as a "courtesy", but it was really a thinly veiled way to rub it in.

So, here's my Five Things MeMe:

Five things I plan to do before I die:

Celebrate New Years Day 2595
Teach my future grandchildren the joys of life
Visit Hawaii again, several times
Buy a sailboat, sail it to the Keys
Have at least 2 more children

Five things I can do:

Tie a bowline
Teach
Sing
Be a great Dad
Ride a Century

Five things that attract me about the opposite sex:

Intelligence
Warm Eyes
A nice smile
A sense of humor
A love of children

Five things I say a lot:

Chump (directed to my brother)
You want a piece of me? (directed to inanimate objects)
For the love of Elvis
D’oh!
Bah!

I Was A Teenage Criminal Part IV

2005-10-05T22:46:00.000-04:00

My first job was at Caldors, which was a slightly upscale competitor to K-Mart. I took the job because one of my friends worked there and told me it was a good place to work. I was hoping to work in Sporting Goods with him, but I was placed in Seasonal instead. My department handled lawnmowers, weedwackers, grass seed, pesticides and patio furniture. It was right next to Sporting Goods, so I got to see my friend working around all the cool stuff, like the BB guns, the snorkeling gear, the tents, sleeping bags and bikes. I’m pretty sure he was jealous of me because unloading a pallet or two of bags of grass seeds is every boys dream.

It is entirely possible that my friends and I were the start of Caldor’s downward spiral into destruction. My crimes were limited to grabbing a tape (which were still the dominant form of music delivery at the time) to take home with me. And, of course, grabbing a can of honey-roasted cashews for us to eat during our shift. One of my friends, however, was a master criminal. Sometimes he would keep a receipt from a customer (who wouldn’t notice), but only if they paid cash. Then he’d take the exact items on the receipt, place them in a bag, staple the receipt to it (which is what he was supposed to have done with the original customer) and place it in a place where his accomplice could pick it up. His accomplice was somebody who didn’t work at the store who would walk by, pick up the bag and walk right out of the store. I was too chicken to participate in this type of organized crime. Plus my department didn’t have a cash register.

Often we would get bored, which was not a good thing. A word of advice to managers of retail stores everywhere. Bored teenage employees are trouble waiting to happen. When we’d get bored our favorite activity would be to go and trash somebody else’s stockroom. My target of choice was Sporting Goods since it was right next to me. Another advantage was that our stockrooms were connected, so we could innocently enter our own stockroom and sneak into theirs and begin the destruction.

The most memorable of these stockroom attacks wasn’t memorable for it’s success, but rather for it’s failure. Myself and another Seasonal employee quietly snuck around the corner. At the other end of the stockroom we saw my Sporting Goods friend facing away from us at the desk. We couldn’t see what he was doing. We decided that we were going to slide in close and pull down a big pile of boxes so that they fell blocking the aisle between him and the door. We’d make our escape out the door as he bellowed in rage.

We were about halfway to him when he suddenly became more alert. His head came up from what he was doing, but he was still facing the wall. He froze otherwise. I’m not sure what alerted him. It could have been a noise we made. Maybe he caught wind of our scent. Perhaps a supernatural sixth sense. We froze, waiting to see what he would do. Would he go back to what he was doing or were we caught red-handed.

Picture this happening in slow motion. He started to turn, but he was not moving quite right. His hands were hidden from view. As he turned, his right hand started to come up. He had something in it. I can’t quite see what it is. The bastard is going to throw something at us. Wait, it’s starting to come into view. What the? It’s a gun! A big gun! A .357!

Imagine how you’d react if in a split second somebody turned around and drew a .357 magnum and pointed it at you. For what seemed like a minute, but was more likely 2.75 seconds I thought I was going to die. Yes, some of you may have guessed it was a BB gun that was designed to look like a .357 magnum. They were allowed to sell them back then, and they didn’t have the orange plastic piece on the end. That didn’t stop us from fleeing, though. And it didn’t stop him from shooting at us as we fled, though he didn’t hit us. Either he was a very bad shot or he missed us on purpose. We didn’t go back to try again.

Many of the fun things we did involved the Receiving area. There was just so many things that were fun to mess with back there. At this Caldors there was a big, square metal door on the wall. It opened into a tunnel that led to the dumpster. You’d put the boxes or whatever you were throwing out into the tunnel and use a long board to push it down the tunnel into the dumpster. The board wasn’t really long enough so boxes would often not get pushed all the way back. It became a tradition to initiate the new employees using this tunnel. One of us would go and hide behind some of the boxes in the tunnel. The other would tell the new employee how to get rid of the trash. We’d tell them that there was a raccoon that lived in the dumpster, and that you had to open the steel door and throw your trash in and get the door closed quickly because the raccoon would attack, defending it’s home. Most people wouldn’t really believe us when we told them, but when presented with a steel door in the wall they began to have their doubts. They’d pull open the door, and bend down to pick up the box. And that’s when Rocky the Raccoon would strike. Whoever was hidden would jump out from behind the boxes and run up the tunnel roaring. Because raccoons roar. Anyway, more than one new hire ran from the trash room in panic. Including me, on my first night there.

The best joke I think I’ve ever played, however, will have to wait for next time.

I am now a Guest Poster.

2005-10-05T22:44:00.000-04:00

Fear me.

I Was A Teenage Criminal Part III

2005-10-04T21:21:00.000-04:00

I was thinking the other day of some stuff and this popped into my mind. I knew I had to write it down and put forth another installment of King Erasmus: Criminal. If you haven’t done so already, read Part I and Part II.

Early in my junior year of high school I moved back to my father’s to live. The high school I started in at this point was great, and everything in my life improved. I even ended up with some very good friends that my parents approved of – which only means they didn’t know half of what we were up to at any given moment.

Through some work my dad did with a chainsaw (which did not involve blood or body parts) I ended up with a car to drive. It was an old Toyota Corona (Corona, like the beer, not Corolla). It wasn’t the best looking car around, but it was mine, and I could drive it wherever I wanted.

So one night a couple of my friends and I were driving around and we happened to drive by another friend’s house. We saw his car in the driveway, and we knew he’d probably be leaving soon. I suddenly had an idea. At least, I think it was me. We all thought it would be a great joke to play. Somehow I ended up being the one to execute the plan, which involved me sneaking up and getting into the back of his car without being seen. When he got in and was getting ready to leave I’d jump up and scream like an Ax Murderer, scaring him into shrieking like a little girl. It was a good plan.

I parked my car across the street, because nobody would notice a strange car with three teenage guys in it watching out the window… I got out and with skills borne of years of teenage deviance, sneaked across the street and up the short driveway. It was imperative that I not be seen. Everything depended on it, and I can still picture myself with a steely look of determination as I sneaked. I quietly opened up the driver’s side back door and slipped inside. I shut the door with a cat-burglar’s stealth.

As I lie on the floor of the car I fantasized of how this joke would add to my already legendary status as a practical joker at school. This would rival getting my picture taken for the school yearbook with my feet up on the Principal’s desk as I sat in his chair. It would certainly eclipse my involvement in tricking the same yearbook staff into printing a picture of a chemistry club that did not exist. Of course, my Pièce de Résistance would always be the egg-launching trap I set up in a friend’s locker, which consisted of two rails and several raw eggs which were launched at him as he opened the door. But I digress. Back to the fantasy: Women would fall at my feet.

It seemed like hours passed before I heard the screen door open on the house. I heard footsteps as they approached the car. This was the risky part – would he just get in or did he have something to throw in the backseat? Ahhhh, safe. Nothing thrown in the backseat. As the car started I decided to peek up.

I’m sure that as the blood drained from my face I must have aged several years. My fantasies of teenage women swooning in my presence collapsed. You see, it was not my friend Brian who had gotten in the car, and was even now backing it out of the driveway. I didn’t know who was driving, and I also didn’t know where he was going.

Thoughts raced through my head. Could I have gotten into the wrong car? No, I was pretty sure it was Brian’s car. Where were we going? Why did he have to be so big? Could I jump out and escape? I resigned myself to the thought that we were probably heading to Maine or somewhere equally distant. As we finished backing out of the driveway and he put the car in gear I consoled myself that my friends who waited in my car would follow to pick me up. Then I remembered. The keys to my car were in my pocket. My friends weren’t going anywhere.

I had made up my mind that at the first stop I would fling open the door and run for my life. There were woods nearby that I could run into and hide, but I’d have to be quick. Then something happened. He slowed down and pulled off the road. I had a moment of fear – had he realized I was hiding in the backseat? Was I about to be on the receiving end of a severe beating? We stopped. He shut off the car. Then he got out. I braced myself for the inevitable opening of the door next to me. I waited. Finally, I began to relax. He had gone.

After a couple of minutes I got out of the car, shaking. I was just a little ways down the street, and I quickly jogged back to my car. My friends were near unconsciousness, having used up all the oxygen in the car laughing. It was several minutes later before they could actually talk, and I was long gone from the scene of the crime. They told me that they had waited and watched in anticipation, and had been surprised when the man came out of the house. Then he got in the car, and their excitement level went up. They didn’t know that I had peeked up at him and were expecting me to jump up and scare him. They thought he’d kill me. They’d gotten even more worried when he started to drive off. They had no idea where we were going or where we’d end up. They also realized at that point that I had the car keys. They sat in the car wondering how everything could go so wrong as I was driven away to my certain death.

When they saw him pull over they thought it was because I had executed the plan. They didn’t know what to think when he calmly got out of the car and started walking back to the house. It seemed that he was simply moving the car. They described how I looked when I meekly got out of the car and fled back to my car. Apparently, I looked like the scared little girl I was hoping to make my friend Brian scream like. They were hassling me something fierce, but I didn’t care. I was alive and unharmed.

We went back to school on Monday. To my knowledge, Brian never heard about our little joke. It is worth noting, however, that my fantasy came true – sort of. We didn’t tell many people about the incident, but I remember two women who swooned. While laughing. At me.

When the Stars Fill the Sky

2005-10-02T21:40:00.000-04:00

Have you ever taken the time to really look up at the stars at night? It’s one of my favorite things to do, but hitting the right combination of thinking about it, having a clear, dark night and a dark place to do it can make it a rare thing. Tonight I took a few minutes and stood on the porch just looking. At first I could only see the brightest stars, but as my eyes adjusted more and more became visible. It’s a beautiful sight, one I don’t admire nearly enough.

I’ve done it several times, with varying degrees of success. I was in high school when Haley’s comet was visible and I went out with a few friends to see it. We didn’t see much of the comet even through the telescope, but I remember looking up at the stars. It was a very cold night, so we didn’t actually stay that long.

Another time that stands out is when I was in Washington State. I had gone to a play – it was Fiddler on the Roof, done by a Community Theatre group. I had auditioned for it and had been offered a part in it, but turned it down for a coveted spot in another show. Rock and Roll Santa. I won’t go into the dynamics of that decision right now. Anyway, after the show I ate with most of the cast at a local restaurant (I knew most of them from other shows) and afterward I happened to look up when I got to my car. I was amazed. It was one of the clearest nights I had ever experienced. I couldn’t begin to count the stars I could see. I must have sat there for twenty minutes just looking. A woman who had also been at the dinner saw me looking as she drove out and we ended up talking about it a few days later. It got me a date.

Looking back I wish I had spent more time looking up at the stars when Hale-Bopp was here. I should have been taking pictures, video, everything you do in a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, but I was too caught up in my studying (I was getting my degree at the time) to really understand the significance.

The best star-gazing I’ve ever done was at the top of a volcano in Hawaii. I went on a tour that left and got us there in the middle of the night to see the stars. It was the first time I’d ever seen satellites fly by overhead. I was amazed by that.

I decided tonight that I had to add star-gazing to my list of things to do with my son. I think he’ll love it as much as I do. The time I spent out there tonight cleared my head (which was easy tonight – there’s not that much weighing on me right now) and I wished he were there with me. He’ll appreciate it more when he’s a little older, like when I take him on a hiking/camping trip somewhere.

This has been such a good weekend for me. I feel so renewed and relaxed – it’s been a long time since I felt this good. Everything seems to be coming back together, which is amazing when I look back at the last year. What a life I have.

My God, I’ve Seen It All

2005-10-01T22:46:00.000-04:00

I’ve seen spam, blog spam and comment spam. But I never in my wildest spam dreams thought I’d see spam in my statcounter. This was in the Browser section of my statcounter page for one of my visitors.

Browser Default 0.00
Get an interest free line of credit of upto 100,000,000.00 CBD for just signing up and pay back whenever you want! (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Get an interest free line of credit of upto 100,000,000.00 CBD for just signi

2005-10-01T22:21:00.000-04:00

And this is the clearing with the abandoned car. The logs are placed around a fire pit, which had been used recently. The car has obviously been there for quite a while.

2005-10-01T22:20:00.000-04:00

This was another bridge. You can only see one side of it, and it's only a bridge if you stretch the definition a little bit. The water flows through a big pipe underneath. There's a similar stone wall on the other side.

2005-10-01T22:18:00.000-04:00

This is looking back from the same point. The bridge was pretty cool. It had a metal plate with the company that made it's name on it, as well as a serial number!

2005-10-01T22:16:00.000-04:00

I stopped at a point along the trail just beyond the bridge. This is what we saw looking foward.

The Best Day of My Life

2005-10-01T21:47:00.000-04:00

This was quite possibly the best day of my life. It had the potential to be horrible at the beginning, which makes it all the more surprising that it turned out so well. I mentioned before that I’m very short on money (read: broke) until I get my first paycheck. Yesterday (Friday) was payday, but the check did not come in the mail (which didn’t totally surprise me, but one can always hope). That was terrible news for me because I had spent the last of my spare change getting enough gas to get home from work. Yes, I’m so broke that I had to empty my change bucket and cash it in to get home from work. What’s so bad about that is that I didn’t have enough gas to get down to see my son, much less get back. So I had to call the STBX this morning and tell her I couldn’t come down. I was very unhappy about it because I’d been looking so forward to seeing my son.

I was completely honest about it, telling her that I had no money and did not have enough gas in the car to make it down there. What came next totally shocked me. She offered to drive him up here to see me. Then she shocked me again. She asked me if I wanted him to stay here with me tonight. Shocked is a pretty accurate word to use here. I was very surprised and very happy that she was making these offers. It’s a far cry from when she was actively standing in the way of me seeing my son. She went on to say that since she wanted to see where I lived this would be a good opportunity. I’m not sure, but I might have agreed even if she’d said that this would be a good opportunity to come up and burn all of my property in a bonfire out front.

So I gave her directions and she came up to drop off my son. She looked at my little apartment, and didn’t give me any trouble over that, either. I had visions of her coming in with a camera and taking all kinds of pictures, but she just came in and kind of just got an impression. She didn’t do an inspection or anything like that, it was just a look around while she was here. You’d think that after all of this she wouldn’t be able to surprise me again, but she managed it. Out of the blue she gave me $15 to make sure I had enough gas to get him back tomorrow.

I have to give credit where it is due – she really went out of her way today to be unbelievably nice. She could have been rude about it, or even just neutral, but she did an awful lot to give me some time with my son, and asked for nothing in return. Way to turn a potential bad day around, STBX!

After she left my son and I went in and played with Thomas the train for a while and ate some lunch. We watched some TV and played some more. Then we went for a walk at a local pond that has some trails around it. It was my first time there and we had a very good time. He walked almost all of the way which was really impressive. There were all kinds of cool things there. The foundation of some kind of pumping station was there and it had three metal arches going out to it. I carried him over one of them to the cement foundation and we looked around from there. Going back was a little more tricky and required a little more balance, but I managed. Right around the corner from that is a small bridge. The best thing (for him, anyway) was when we came into a clearing where there was an abandoned car. He thought that it was incredible. We did some more exploring and then headed home.

I cooked up some of his favorite macsheese and hot dogs with dip (ketchup) and he was thrilled. I still can’t get over how much a little boy can eat. He ate more than I did for both lunch and dinner. Not long after dinner he started to crash. Getting him to bed at 8 was only a problem in the sense that I was afraid he might not last that long.

I had so much fun today just being with him. On the walk back from the pond trails I was seeing the world in a whole different light. I was thinking about how much I was enjoying myself with him and thinking of things we could do in the future. And thinking that they will actually happen. It’s such a relief to know I’ll be spending more time with him.

One of the plans is the Big E. That’s the biggest fair in Massachusetts, and it starts very soon. It’s gigantic! There are animals all over the place there, rides, displays, tractors and trucks. This could literally be Heaven on Earth for my son. It’s going to be great!

What a day – I don’t think it could have gotten any better. The irony that the STBX is responsible for allowing it to happen…life can be so surreal sometimes.

D'oh!

2005-09-27T21:34:00.000-04:00

Samantha Burns: Fool. I responded to her guest post offer, and she actually took me up on it.

Satanists everywhere are suddenly presented with signs that the dark side has taken a giant stride forward.

And this despite the fact that I threatened to photoshop her head onto Bea Arthur.

Another good day today! And to top it off I had dinner with my brother, his wife, and his three kids. I discovered, however, that I have fallen behind on my parenting. His sons are four months younger than my son, and they can say Woohoo! In a family of Simpsons fans it is an absolute requirement that all children be taught many Simpsonisms, including Woohoo and D’oh! I hang my head in shame.

A Great Day

2005-09-26T21:52:00.000-04:00

Today was one of those days that just went well. There wasn’t a major event that made it good, it was just a series of little things. I even got my work laptop today, about a week early. I got a good laugh when I picked it up, too. When the man who called me opened the door to his office I thought I was looking at Meg Kelso’s ex-husband Rick. The resemblance was astounding. Then I looked at his badge. His name was Richard. Pretty damn close. Then he said “Hi – I’m Rick”. Life is bizarre sometimes. As he was finishing up with the laptop he restarted it and the Windows Tour screen came up – he cursed under his breath. As he was canceling it I told him “Hold on! I don’t know Windows very well – let me watch that.” I said it in a completely serious tone of voice and the look he gave me was one of mixed disgust and shock. Then I started laughing and he realized he’d been taken. I think I made his day. Let no one say that you never get anything from making somebody laugh. He went out of his way after that to find me some more equipment. When I showed up at my cubicle laden with boxes people were in shock – they couldn’t believe all the loot I’d managed to score.

I think some of the stress of starting a new job is wearing off because I slept well last night. I was also in a much better mood for the entire day. Maybe it was all the video watching I did last night too.

I’ve been making my usual smartass comments on other people’s blogs and having a great time doing it. I had to do it in disguise on Heather’s blog, who will apparently wait to call a doctor until a small alien has dug it’s way out of her abdomen, turned to her and said “Would you pass the salt? You’re a little bland”. I have been looking for an excuse to hassle Samantha Burns, but haven’t found a suitable entry to be smartass about. So I’ll just start a fight with a back-handed compliment. Sam, to me, you are the Bea Arthur of Bloggers. That ought to get a reaction.

The Wily Norwegian finally got around to posting again. I can’t believe she got busy and took a few days off. Kettle, I say to thee, art thou not black? I have a question for you, though, Ms. Cruise Line (you know…Norwegian…ok, bad joke). How did you manage to post without your internet connection?

An addendum to last night’s discussion on videos. Upon reviewing the tape, I discovered that the Goose of the Apocalypse was not, in fact, trying to get my son’s attention when it bit his leg. Further analysis clearly shows that this was one of the rare carnivorous geese, and it was trying to drag him into the water. That’s exactly what I’m going to tell my son when he’s 13 and I show him the video.

I saw another video that just made my night tonight. This is Arnold being reunited with his dad after they were separated during Hurricane Katrina. Great stuff.

Ok, it’s almost ten and my chariot is going to turn back into a pumpkin. Time to post this and head to bed.

The Geese of the Apocalypse

2005-09-25T21:52:00.000-04:00

I’ve spent the last hour watching video of my son and his cousins – I can hardly wait until he’s older. He is going to enjoy seeing this – the chases, the shrieks, the lizard attacks. The savage geese that are clearly out for blood. The ducks swarming like army ants. The joy that my son and his cousins have at this age is amazing – they find wonder and fun in so many things.

If I keep this up I’ll have enough footage to make my own “When Animals Attack” video, starring my son. So far I’ve got various bugs, a lizard and the Geese of the Apocalypse. The lizard was by far the funniest, and it was an extended attack. He did battle with it all afternoon.

Just watching the video I have I can’t imagine not having it. I love being able to watch it whenever I want – it definitely makes me happy when I start to miss him. I just got done watching him roll down a hill in the grass, something I used to do when I was a child. Video of me as a child is pretty scarce – there’s only one that I know of, and my Aunt and Uncle in California took it when I was in my very early teens. I would love to see video of me when I was a child – there’s so much I don’t remember.

Speaking of remembering, video is a great memory tester. I watched the video I took yesterday of my son feeding the ducks and geese and many, many things happened slightly differently than I remember. The most notable was the attempted maiming of my son’s leg by the goose. The goose did bite his pant leg, but the “shriek” he let out was pretty minor, and I asked him if the goose got him, he didn’t say it. I also forgot the look he gave me after the goose bit his fingers – he was trying to figure out if he should cry about it when he told me it bit him. His injury was immediately forgotten when I reminded him there was more food he could feed them. The discussion he kept trying to have with the ducks and geese was pretty funny too. I so wish somebody had been present to film the goose attack on me.

I have to stop watching it and get ready for bed or I’ll be dragging again tomorrow. It’s just so much fun watching.

A Perfect Day To Be A Daddy

2005-09-24T21:49:00.000-04:00

So, back to the day. We went to get something to eat, which he devoured. We rode the merry-go-round again, which he really seems to like. He still won’t ride on the horses, he just likes to sit on a bench seat on it, but that’s fine. I’m sure that all too soon I’ll be looking back with nostalgia on the days he liked to sit with me. It was a beautiful day here in the northeast so I decided to go to a park I’d heard about with him. It was great! There were boardwalks all over the place, which made for a great place to start.

We explored that for a while and then went into another section that had lots of ducks and two geese. We got food from the dispenser and fed them, which was hysterical. He wasn’t afraid of them at all, and he kept trying to pet the ducks, which would run back and jump into the water. When we started throwing food again they’d get out and pretty soon we were surrounded. The two geese arrived and they were very good-tempered for geese. They ate out of his hand, which he didn’t mind, but what happened next was the best. When he had thrown the last of the pellets, the geese wanted to get his attention so they’d get more food. One of them reached out and grabbed his pant leg and shook it. He shrieked and laughed and ran back to me telling me that the goose had gotten him.

Not long after that I was squatting down next to him giving him some more food when the same goose grabbed the back of my shirt near my shoulder and started pulling. He was laughing so hard he started getting short of breath. He was saying “Daddy! The goose is getting you!” I thought the concerned look of a nearby woman was even funnier. I think she thought things were getting out of hand and the goose would soon take me down. She’d probably watched too many “When Good Pets Go Bad” shows.

We went up to the Aviary at the park next. They had a lot of different birds there, including many not native to the U.S. We walked around there and the last area we came to had some Emu. Here’s a picture of an Emu with some people to give you an idea of the size. When I said “Look at those birds!” my son turned to me and laughingly said “Those aren’t birds, Daddy! They’re too big”. He said it in a tone that said “I’m too smart to fall for that one!”

While we were there, there were two weddings actually going on, another wedding party getting pictures taken, and a “Sweet 15” party. This was really interesting. The girl who just turned 15 was in what looked like a wedding dress, and her “date” (I don’t know, he could have been her brother for all I know) was in a tuxedo. There was a full bridal (for lack of a better word) party of young men in tuxedos and young women in surprisingly good looking purple dresses. When I saw it I thought it was a wedding party until I met the limousine driver. He told me it was a Sweet 15 party, which I had never heard of. To my dismay, he began to tell me that it was something that the “blacks and Hispanics, but not us” did. When he said that I honestly didn’t know what to say. That doesn’t happen very often. I wasn’t sure how to respond. There are events that some cultures celebrate and others don’t, but to put it this way seemed wrong.

He suddenly had to go because the party appeared, and he jumped into the limousine and drove off to pick them up. As we walked, a bus (yes, a bus) pulled up to let off a wedding party to get pictures taken. It’s apparently a very popular place for pictures. We started back to my car, and along the way I divested myself of the pocketful of acorns he’d made me hold for him and the stick to which he’d taken a liking. I have to admit it was a pretty cool stick. Looking back, I should have kept it.

I got some pictures, but, even better, I got video of the duck and goose feeding. I think I even got the goose biting his pant leg. Watching that is next on the agenda. Ahhh, for more days like this.

Just When I Thought It Was Safe To Go Back In The Water...

2005-09-24T21:37:00.000-04:00

I thought I was having another run-in with mental illness today. You might remember this post – where I was happy that the STBX had suddenly decided to stop interfering with me having time with my son. Basically, she agreed that we should follow the plan we came up with in mediation and ease my son into staying with me overnight. In reality I don’t think it’s necessary, because he’s stayed with me overnight several times and never had a problem. I’m willing to do it, though, just to get the time with him.

So this morning I show up at 9am to pick up my son. I ring the bell and I hear my son yelling “Mommy! It’s my Daddy!” I can tell he’s all kinds of excited, which just makes me smile. I hear the window on the second floor open up and see the STBX looking out at me with a “WTF?” look on her face. She asks me why I’m there, and I tell her that I’m here to pick him up, just like we agreed. She then looks at me and says “When we agreed to that I didn’t know it was going to be permanent!”

I’m really concerned now, because this makes no sense. The plan that we came up with in mediation was clear and we were clear that we were going to follow it. It’s been two weeks since we agreed to it, and last week I picked him up at 9. Why is she suddenly claiming ignorance?

She told me it was going to be a few minutes because he wasn’t ready to go. When she brought him down she told me that he hadn’t had breakfast yet, but didn’t say much more. We left and had a great day. In the back of my mind, however, was the thought that she was going to try to back out of our agreement, which really bothered me.

When I brought him back I was expecting problems, but I didn’t get them. She seemed back on track with the agreement and I didn’t mention anything about the morning since it seemed to have been resolved. I’m thinking now that maybe she just forgot that I was picking him up at 9 now and was too embarrassed to admit it when I got there. It just doesn’t make sense otherwise. Thankfully, whatever the reason, we’re now back on the same page.

When Real Life Attacks

2005-09-23T21:56:00.000-04:00

It’s strange to be writing the first paragraph of a post last. I wrote everything else, then somebody (who shall remain nameless) emailed me to let me know they hadn’t seen me post in a while and hoped the road-rager didn’t get me. Thankfully I haven’t seen any more road-ragers. And thanks, nameless one, it was nice to hear from you.

I am exhausted. You’d think that sitting in my little cubicle studying would not take much energy, but you’d think wrong. At night I nearly fall into bed. What’s most annoying is that the stress of starting a new job (even though I like it and I’m happy to be working) has kept me from getting a decent night’s sleep. I keep waking up in the middle of the night and usually an hour before I have to get up. Then I’m dragging during the day and stalking the coffee pot. Especially in that post-lunch food coma.

The new job is going well, but the biggest thing I’ve learned in all my studying in the last two weeks was how much I didn’t know and how much I’m going to have to learn. I can do it, I just have a hard time feeling like I’m not useful. I’ve gotten a lot of encouragement from my new coworkers. Many of them have told me that it’s important to learn the basics in detail now because it will help me later. They also told me that I should resist any feelings of not contributing because it would be unrealistic. All of them have offered to help me if I need it and insist that even if I think a question is stupid I should ask. I’m pretty encouraged by all of this.

In addition, I’m stressed about money right now. Due only to timing, I started in the middle of a pay period, which didn’t give payroll enough time to get me in the system for the first payday for which I was there. So I have to wait until next Friday to be paid (though it will be for three weeks rather than two). Money is getting very, very tight. I’m going to have to borrow some money just to pay for gas to get to work. I spent as little as I could because I knew it might be a while before I was paid, but the high gas prices have seriously depleted what I was able to save. Once I get paid it will be all better, but right now it’s just another bit of stress I don’t need.

I’ve been working out almost every night to help control the stress, which has helped. I skipped last night because my shoulder let me know quite clearly that I’d overworked it. I need to start running again, and I need to figure out a time to do it. There’s a gym in the building I work in, but it’s small and it costs about the same as a regular gym would be. I think for right now I’ll hold off and concentrate on more important things. I can always run outside, bizarre as that might seem.

I’ve heard from a couple of people lately checking to see if I’m still alive, which is very nice. I’m forcing myself to write out this post despite the siren call of my bed. There’s a couple more things I’d like to write about, but I think I’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Call me weak-willed.

Tales of the Commute

2005-09-17T06:48:00.000-04:00

It’s been a long week, but not in a bad way. I get up between 5 and 5:30 (if I manage to sleep until the alarm goes off), leave at 6:30, and get to work around 7:30-7:45. We take an hour lunch in there somewhere, and I leave around 6. I get home around 7 (traffic coming home is usually better than traffic going in). I have to start looking for a place that’s closer to work – the commute is way too long.

Yesterday’s commute was interesting, but only at the end. On the exit I take off the highway the off-ramp is very long and merges down to one lane. At the end it forks and the fork I take is the less busy one. As I approached it traffic stopped, which isn’t unusual. The road is wide enough for two cars here if you count the breakdown lane and I’m on the right side of it waiting to get close enough to the fork to get off. Suddenly I hear honking. I look around and there’s a car in the breakdown lane right behind me. He’s obviously going to the fork also, but he’s in the extreme edge of the breakdown lane trying to go around me and doesn’t have enough room.

I hadn’t pulled into the breakdown lane and it wasn’t wide enough for him to get by. I don’t feel all that sorry for him because I’m getting off the same way. I can see he’s making a lot of hand gestures and yelling in my rear view mirror and he’s still honking. Then he decides that there might be enough room for him to get by. He starts inching forward very slowly, because it’s going to be a tight fit. As he pulls up alongside he opens his window and starts calling me names and flipping me off.

It’s funny for two reasons. First, he thinks I’m trying to be a jerk and keep him from getting off, when in reality I’m getting off the same place. Second, this man must drive fast, because if he behaves like this regularly somebody would have hurt him by now. He’s downright scrawny. And he’s telling me that he ought to kick my ass.

It gets even better. There’s a loud scraping noise and I realize that he’s hit the bottom of the cement wall that he’s against on the other side. Now I laugh. Which sends him into the stratosphere. He’s turning red he’s so mad. He finally got enough room and spun his wheels as he took off towards the fork. With me not too far behind him. Great, he must think I’m following him now.

I can tell he’s getting nervous now because he’s checking his rear-view mirror constantly and he’s trying to drive faster to put some distance between us. I hang back, but I end up right behind him at a light waiting to make a left hand turn. He must really think I’m after him now. I can see him hunched down in his seat, and gone are the hand gestures. He’s looking into his rear view mirror constantly at me. When the light changes he zips off, but the cars in front of him won’t let him make the speedy getaway he’d like. Because it’s raining people are driving slow, so I’m stuck behind him without a way to put some distance between us. Eventually I turned and was no longer following him.

I’m trying to imagine how he’s probably telling the story to his friends. I’ve probably morphed into a gang of six foot six thugs, prison tattoos on my arms and looking for a fight. The high-speed chase ended when his superior driving skills allowed him to get away, but not before he damaged his car dodging the surface-to-surface missile we’d fired at him. Maybe he even has a blog and is writing up this story as I write up mine. If anybody reads it let me know, I’d love to leave a comment.

2005-09-13T05:42:00.000-04:00

I meant to post this the other day - it's Brum!

Short Post On The First Day

2005-09-12T21:59:00.000-04:00

It was great. Started out with a completely empty cubicle and by midmorning had populated it with a laptop, two monitors, 3 VPN routers, a trash can and a $700 chair. All made possible through what I call “Corporate Foraging”. That’s where you go around with a mentor who knows where all the extra stuff is kept and is adept at asking people for their extra stuff.

It’s good to be working again, even if my trash can knows more about my job than I do.

Maybe I Should Just Drive Brum

2005-09-11T14:50:00.000-04:00

Yesterday as I was driving on the highway the car in front of me saw a state trooper up ahead. I was quite a ways behind them, so when they hit their brakes I wasn’t worried. I started to slow down a little bit. The trouble came when the car in the lane to the right also hit their brakes. The car behind them was definitely following too closely and to avoid an accident swerved into my lane. Right in front of me. Now I had to brake in earnest. Accident avoided.

So as I made my way home hours later I was coming to a stop at a stop light and I heard a horrendously loud scraping/grinding sound from the passenger side front wheel. It happened when I braked and continued for a few seconds after I started to accelerate again then went away.

It turns out that the brake pad on that side disintegrated – there is now no brake pad there whatsoever. I checked the driver side and saw that it is fine. To check the pad at all was a royal pain in the neck. I jacked the car up, took off the lug nuts and then went to take the tire off. It wouldn’t budge. I gave it a few swift kicks, but it still wouldn’t budge. I went and got Thor’s Rubber Mallet and whacked it several times. It laughed at my feeble attempts.

I gave up and put the lug nuts back on, but decided a few hours later to try again. This time, it gave after a few more whacks with the Mallet O’ Fury. I’m trying to imagine what the neighbors must have thought, seeing me out there hitting my car with a mallet.

I didn’t like what I saw. The rotor is pitted and scarred from the caliper scraping it with no pad. The caliper itself has seen better days, too. Now, if it were just the pads that I needed to replace I’d go ahead and do it myself. But I probably need to replace the rotor, or at the very least have it machined, and I probably need to replace the calipers. Replacing the calipers is a bit beyond my level of ability, involving bleeding the braking system. As much as it pains me, I’ll have to let a professional do it.

This is a little annoying because the brakes were done about 2000 miles before I bought the car and I’ve only put about 6000 miles on it so far. Since the brake warranties don’t transfer from one owner to another I’m out of luck there.

I’ve decided that I’ll have it done one day this week while I’m at work since there’s a Midas about 3 miles from where I’ll be. I’m going to ask them to keep all the parts since I want to punish them a little before they get thrown out. Just another thing for the neighbors to see me pounding on with a hammer.

Sometimes It’s The Little Things, Like Brum and Lizards

2005-09-10T21:37:00.000-04:00

Today was a banner day for my son as far as toys are concerned. I had decided after the Evil Lizard Incident to get him a toy lizard, but they turned out to be harder to find than I thought. We wandered through the mall, looking at the cars that the local Subaru dealership had brought in (I miss my Outback!) which he thoroughly enjoyed. Then he suddenly pulled my hand and said “Daddy! Look!” He was pointing over at the Radio Shack, which had put a gigantic radio-controlled motorcycle with rider out front. It stood about a foot and a half tall. My son was mesmerized. I looked over to the side and saw that they had also put some radio-controlled cars kind of behind some other stuff. I looked and saw Brum. For those of you who don’t know, Brum is a car on a kid’s television show. Here’s his website.

When my son saw the Brum car he got excited and told me that he had watched Brum in the morning. I looked at the price tag and thought I was seeing things at first. It said that the original price was $34.98, and the sale price was $4.98. I checked the others and they were all marked the same. So we bought a Brum car.

We did find a lizard, but it wasn’t like the one he played with. He loved it anyway. It was in the Discovery Store, and when you pushed a button on the back it’s mouth opened up. There was a bright multicolored LED in the mouth that lit up when the mouth was opened, and he made it a point to show it off to everybody he could.

We eventually made our way to the park and played with Brum. He kept standing in front of Brum and when he pushed the lever on the remote control Brum would start forward, heading right towards his feet. He’d shriek and run, laughing and saying that Brum was coming to get him. I ended up with the remote and made Brum start following him. He was running in circles and then lit out across a baseball field. I kept calling for him to come back, but he kept going. He’d look back every few steps to catch sight of Brum, but he wasn’t turning. I realized he was going to run to the next town if I let him and had to run and catch him. As we started back he looked at Brum and realized that it was sitting all by itself a long way away. I think he’s realized that other kids will take the toys he plays with if he leaves them alone. He said “Oh no! My car!” and took off running back to Brum. It was all very comical.

The STBX was pleasant again this trip, which was nice. She was amazed at Brum, both that it existed at all and at the price. I think she’s planning on heading over to Radio Shack to pick up another for her nephew.

So, all in all, it was a very good day. It’s strange, good days seem so much more boring than drama-filled days when you’re writing about them.

10,000 Visitors

2005-09-09T16:55:00.000-04:00

Wow. Somebody in Palo Alto, CA or Ann Arbor, MI was my 10,000th visitor. It depends on which site meter I look at. One says the ip address was for somebody in CA, one says it's in MI. Anyway, thanks!

A Pleasant Surprise For A Change

2005-09-09T09:27:00.000-04:00

I got quite a surprise yesterday, and it was a good one. I went to pick up my son and he was very happy to see me. The STBX and I were talking about some things and I was trying to tell her to talk to her attorney about health insurance. They needed to figure out if they wanted to keep our son on her health insurance or put him on mine. I am willing to do either, I just want them to figure out which would be better for her. If he stays on hers then she gets a little more child support under the state’s calculations, if he goes on mine she gets a little less.

So as we’re trying to talk about this my son keeps stopping me to ask me questions and point things out. She then asked me about my attorney, since her attorney has told her he’s been unable to get in touch with my attorney for over two weeks. I gave her the basics, saying that I’m going to get another attorney, but I only told her about the one-day-notice calls to me about court appointments.

She then said her attorney told her I wanted to change the visitation and she wanted to know what I wanted to do. I decided that because the current tone of our conversation wasn’t bad to handle it gently and not make any threats of legal action. I just told her that I wanted to put the visitation plan we had worked out in mediation into place. To my utter surprise, she agreed, as long as we eased into it. She also wants to see where I live, which I’m not thrilled with, but I’ll let her if it means getting her to stop interfering with my visitation. She claims that she wants to make sure it’s safe, but in reality she wants to see for herself if I’m living with a woman.

Some of you might remember that she went ballistic after I found a place to live. She was furious, and didn’t seem to understand that I couldn’t live on my friend’s couch forever. She sent me a bizarre email which made an accusation that I had gotten a second phone (my home phone) and that I had moved in with a woman. The proof that I had moved in with a woman was that I didn’t have room for a bunch of furniture and boxes she wanted me to take from the condo. In reality, I moved into a small, furnished basement apartment – I don’t have a lot of room here.

I’ve been trying to get more time with my son ever since this all started. I’ve succeeded in expanding my visitation in small steps, but she’s made it very difficult, presenting roadblocks every step of the way, so this sudden change is very surprising. It’s also surprising in light of the fact that two weeks ago she was making accusations of me “sneaking” my son up to where I live and trying to follow me to see if I was going where I said I was going.

The reason she’s letting it happen is not really that important to me – just that it happens. Two of the most likely things that I can think of would be her friends or her parents. One of her friends is an attorney who has (from what I’ve heard) given her a very hard time about everything she’s done from the start. Every so often this friend will let her have it for something she’s doing – it happened several times over the course of our marriage. She may have told the STBX that she was dragging this out for no reason and hurting our son with her truculence. The other possibility is her parents, who have been paying her attorney fees and lending her money constantly. They may have told her that the gravy train needs to come to an end. The STBX gets very stressed about money and that would have a serious effect on her attitude.

Well, no matter what the reason, it looks like she’ll stop fighting the visitation issues. I’m very excited about this – I so look forward to spending more time with my son, especially with the holidays coming.

Looking Forward To A Life Renewed

2005-09-07T21:33:00.000-04:00

I start my new job on Monday, and I can’t wait. I’m finding that I’m extremely bored sitting here at home. I should go somewhere, but I can’t think of many places to go that won’t cost me money I don’t need to be spending right now. So I try to get things done here, some of which will put me a little further ahead when I start. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do over the next few months. I’m really looking forward to it.

I want to find a place to live that’s closer to where I’m going to be working. Right now it’s a bit of a commute – it’s not too bad, but at $3.35 a gallon (at last check 2 days ago) I want to minimize said commute. Finding a place to live will be a fun adventure. I’m not in a huge rush, so I can be a little selective about it and find a place that suits my needs more closely.

I need to find a new attorney, and this time I’m going to be asking some very specific questions before I hire somebody. I want them to be more aggressive in helping me get more time with my son and preventing the STBX from making my life more difficult. I’m going to make it clear that I want to lay down some demands about visitation – if she won’t stop interfering then we make her life much more difficult. The visitation issue is my biggest concern, followed by making sure that I don’t get completely cheated in a financial settlement. If I can get these issues settled then I can let the divorce proceed and be done with it.

The Holidays are coming! I know, it’s too early for most people to be thinking about them, but I love the holidays and last year was very difficult. Halloween and Thanksgiving were very close after the whole ambush, which, when combined with being separated from my son in such a cruel manner made it very hard to enjoy them. Christmas would have been better but I got sick – probably the flu – and was in bed for most of the holiday. The thought of starting to plan tomorrow appeals to me so maybe I’ll make a few phone calls to family to get the ball rolling.

Fall has always been my favorite season. I love the weather and the changing of the leaves. I used to (years ago) watch football – that’s one thing I think I’m going to take up again. Tivo is going to make it easier.

There’s a lot to look forward to, and even though I start Monday it’s hard to wait.

Katrina's Damage to New Orleans Foretold. Twice.

2005-09-06T19:44:00.000-04:00

Courtesy of Snopes.com, I have these links for you. Apparentely, the disaster that was Katrina has been predicted at least twice.

Scientific American

National Geographic

The link to Snopes

How Do I Get A Divorce From My Divorce Attorney?

2005-09-06T19:40:00.000-04:00

As you might remember, I and my attorney parted ways a couple of weeks ago. Between the horrendous advice and the notifications of court dates the day before I was supposed to be there, I had no problems with ending my dealings with her and finding somebody new. Afterward, she claimed that she had proof of her office informing me on more than two occasions of the court date. I decided to ask for the proof. She avoided answering me directly about it for several emails, if she answered the email at all. I’m in the process of filing a complaint about her advice (that could have led to a felony for me, had I followed it), her surprise notifications and the lies. Each time she has called me the day before a court date she’s claimed that she’d emailed me and that it bounced back. Funny, nobody else has had a problem.

Over the course of time I gave her a couple of email addresses and even emailed her so that all she had to do was hit the reply button. No dice. Until we parted ways. Then the email worked fine for her to tell me that I needed to pay her thousands of dollars. That was a mistake. Once she emailed me for real and it worked, I immediately asked her to forward the “bounced email”, which she claimed had bounced back to her the day before. She tried to avoid the request, but I emailed her twice more specifically asking her to forward the email to me and to provide the proof she claimed to have. She eventually stopped answering at all.

So today my phone rings, it’s her office. I let it go to voicemail so she could leave a message. In the message she claims now that she hasn’t withdrawn from the case (???) and that she thinks she sees the problem now. Said problem being that I don’t want to be divorced. While one part of my mind screamed “What?!?”, another part continued listening. She went on to tell me that it’s normal and that I needed to decide what I wanted to do. “Remember,” she said “it’s you against her, not you against me”. I nearly picked up the phone to call her back and give her a piece of my mind. I wanted to ask her about the horrendous advice, the last minute court dates, the claims that she was informing me and the questions I’ve presented her about the financial settlement that she has not satisfactorily answered. Do you think any of this might have something to do with me not wanting to make things final?

Of all the ludicrous things she could have come up with she tells me that I must not want to be divorced from the STBX. I would love for that to be over, but I won’t rush that if there’s serious problems with the settlement. Now that I’ve had a few hours to think about it I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I’d like to call her let her have it, but I don’t want to tip my hand about the complaint.

What did occur to me in the last few hours is that she was likely told by the STBX’s attorney (whom she said she spoke to recently) that I’ve found a job. It would not surprise me if when she heard of this new source of income (and, for her, fees) she decided to try and patch things up. It would explain the sudden change of our status back to client-attorney. I guess until I decide how to handle it I’ll just continue to prepare the complaint.

Is it just me or does everybody have these problems with their divorce attorney?

The Evil Lizard

2005-09-06T19:09:00.000-04:00

My son and I had a great time on Sunday and Monday. We went up to visit my brother and his family, one of our favorite things to do. When I told my son we were going to see his cousins he did this little jumping “yayyyy!” and was immediately telling me about how he was going to chase them. They have a little lawnmower shaped toy that my son has fallen in love with. It has Winnie the Pooh sitting with a honey jar on it and Winnie and the jar spin and make noise as it’s pushed. My son will push it and chase his cousins with it, all of them laughing and shrieking. Sometimes they turn the tables and chase him, but he runs away while still pushing the toy.

He got to play in a little pool while we were there. We set up a little slide so the kids could slide into it. Right before they started that I had found a little plastic toy lizard on the ground and showed it to my son. He told me he was scared of it and wouldn’t come closer than two feet from it. Somehow, I’m not sure how, he ended up playing with it while he was in the pool. He’d see it, shriek, pick it up and throw it out of the pool, laughing at the same time. We kept throwing it back in so he could find it again. He started yelling “It’s the lizard!” as he threw it. As he was standing at the bottom of the slide I let the lizard slide down and told him it was going to get his toes. He let out a delighted shriek and jumped back. After that he would take the lizard himself, put it at the top of the slide and let it slide down onto his feet. Then he’d shriek and jump back, pick up the lizard and do it over again. I’m going to have to find him a lizard toy now.

Yesterday I helped my brother move some rocks while my son was inside watching some television. My brother has a tractor which we were using (with a trailer) to move all the rocks, so it wasn’t long before my son wanted to come out to see the tractor in action. While we were loading or unloading the rocks he’d go and find little stones to put in the trailer to help, and when my brother went to move the tractor I’d pick him up. He’d make me follow in the exact path of the trailer, no shortcuts were allowed.

He slept for most of the ride home, but woke up about a half-hour before the ride was over. He had dropped his car and told me he couldn’t find it. I told him we’d find it when we stopped (we were coming to a rest stop), but he got upset and started crying. We stopped and I found the car, but he was still upset, so we went in to eat. That did the trick. He ate like he hadn’t eaten in two weeks and was very happy.

I’ve been in a good mood since then, and watching the video of the lizard-play has made it easy to maintain the mood. One of the best things I ever bought was the camcorder. I suspect the STBX hasn’t been doing a lot of filming of him, mainly because she couldn’t even find our camcorder at one point. Now it’s been at her father’s for months while he pulls video off of it. She’s not shared any pictures or video she’s taken anyway, so I am left to fend for myself. I love that I’ll be able to show this to him (or his future girlfriends, heh heh) someday. Luckily, I had pulled all the video off the old camcorder and have it stored on one of my many hard drives. I swear I’m going to have to buy hard drives in bulk to keep it all, but it’s worth it. I don’t just get to have the fun with him, I get to watch it again whenever I want. And the possibilities for future torture and blackmail make it even better.

So, all in all, a great time. Next post: More lawyer fun.

How Applicable

2005-09-02T17:25:00.000-04:00

You know, every so often in the stats you get strange searches leading to your blog. Today I got a really good one.

how to make a crack pipe

Still several daily searches for sicustomerservice.com, and occasionally there’s a search for “best looking man in America” which of course I end up being the top result.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

2005-08-31T22:34:00.000-04:00

For some reason I decided to take some time tonight and go back through my own archives. I’m not sure why I did it – maybe part of it was that my mind is starting to let go of the stress and preoccupation of being unemployed and return to some sense of normal. No matter what precipitated it, I found myself reading.

I found myself reading about the day I was met by a man at my front door who told me I had to leave my house and not come back. How he gave me five minutes because I didn’t blow up at him to gather whatever I could before I had to get into my car and drive out. Finding that the checking and savings accounts had been emptied, leaving me no money to even buy my next meal. The phone call I received the next morning from the police department in which I got a small hint at how much my life was going to change.

I read about trying to get some of my things and how my STBX attempted to get me even then. How my clothes were placed in garbage bags to be given to me at the bottom of the stairs. How for a week I did not get to see my son at all until I got to hug him goodbye when I was about to leave. I read through how the police refused to charge me because they realized she was lying, how she changed tactics and claimed I was a danger to my son. I hadn’t thought in a long time of the Family Services Liaison who realized that something wasn’t quite right and fought to help me.

In this post I read about my STBX’s paranoid reaction to me finding a place to live. In this one I read about information I’d found on the web about how some groups actually encouraged women to use false domestic violence claims as a weapon in divorce. And how it hurts the men so bad sometimes that they end up committing suicide.

I read much more than that, but you get the idea. In the last couple of months I’d put most of what had happened to me out of my mind. Finding work became such a high priority that I didn’t have time to really think about things. Reading through those past entries was surprisingly hard. I found myself crying sometimes as things I hadn’t thought about in months were relived in my writing.

I really don’t know how I made it through all of this. There were certainly times I felt like giving up. But what would I have done? Probably gone to spend a couple of nights with my father or one of my brothers, gotten myself together and gone right back. It would have been more like taking a break. Still, I don’t know how I’ve kept my head on straight. In a year’s time I’ve gone through so many changes. I started out a husband living with his wife and son, and went to nearly being homeless, to fighting a battle to just see my son, to losing my job. And now I’m close to getting a new job in a completely different field. As long as nothing bizarre happens I’ll be taking the first real steps in reclaiming a normal life.

I’m quite sure a lot of it is my son. He’s such a powerful influence on me and I use the responsibility and love I feel for him as a source of motivation. I want to not only meet my responsibilities to him, but exceed them.

I’m glad I started this and kept it up. Reading through all those posts reminded me of how much I’ve gone through and how well I’ve held up. Someday I’ll need to explain all of this – whether it be to a woman I’m close to or my son when he’s old enough to understand it all without it hurting him. It’ll be a lot easier if they can read what I wrote as I went through so much of it. I like to think they’ll be able to see the emotions I experienced from reading what I wrote. Especially my son, he should know just how much he’s always meant to me.

Have you taken a trip down your memory lane lately?

I’m That Someone Who Has…And He’s Right, It Wasn’t Good

2005-08-30T21:03:00.000-04:00

I finally got the call from HR today! I am very, very relieved and very, very excited. Great salary, great vacation time, great benefits. And it’s a job. I have missed working so much. It sounds funny, but I didn’t like the “vacation” (as some of my relatives jokingly called it) in the least. I have worked very hard to get where I am and losing my job was very hard for me.

Searching for a job has been very disheartening – it is amazing how many companies will not even consider you if you do not currently have a job, no matter how you lost it. It can make life very difficult. It can also make you feel pretty worthless, even when you should know better.

When I look at where I’m going to be in a couple of weeks I am simply amazed. I did a lot of reading about job loss and the subsequent search, career change etc. Most of what I read, especially about changing careers, led me to expect a substantial pay cut. Even had I stayed in the industry I was in I was expecting a cut. When I took stock of where I was back in May I decided to take the pay cut and change careers if at all possible. It’s been a long road.

Somehow, I’ve beaten the odds. The salary I was offered today is more than I was making before. So somehow I managed to get a pay increase despite the fact that I was changing careers and unemployed. If I look at overall compensation I did take a pay cut, but salary-wise, I’m good to go. When I worked in pharmaceuticals I did very well and made quite a bit of money in bonuses. I also had a company car with insurance, gas and repairs all taken care of. I gave up the big bonuses and the company car, but I feel like I’m way ahead now, if for no other reason than I’m out of an industry that I was coming to despise. On the plus side, my last company took a serious turn for the worse with benefits when they switched us all to a high-deductible type of health insurance.

Pharmaceutical sales can be a hard place to be if you have integrity. I can’t count the number of times I went head to head with my manager or some other company person over doing something that was questionable or outright wrong. Sometimes it was easy – like when it was blatantly illegal. Other times it was more of a moral judgment call. I was often much more knowledgeable about studies and pharmaceuticals in general than my managers or colleagues and I wouldn’t say things that the studies or evidence didn’t support. That can cause you problems in pharmaceutical sales. I’m very happy that I don’t have to deal with some of these problems now.

The basics of what I’ll be doing? I’ll be providing level two support of some networking equipment (you’ll pardon me if I don’t get too specific). When an IT department calls for help with some of their equipment they get level one support. If the problem is more than they can handle then it gets passed up to the level where I’ll be working. I’m considered very knowledgable, but I’m nowhere near the level I’ll need to be to be handling these type of calls yet, but the company knows and expects this. So over the next year I’ll be spending a lot of time learning, something I happen to be pretty good at.

I’m still having trouble accepting the reality of it. Part of me fears that something will happen or that I’ll suddenly wake up and find that I dreamed the whole thing. If I were already working then I wouldn’t be nearly as worried, but living on the edge like this…

Remember this post? Well, it’s ironic, but as I was writing the last paragraph the song just came up in the random playlist. The song still applies – so I’ll knock on my desk. Let’s just hope the testing is over.

2005-08-30T11:50:00.000-04:00

Last one. I didn't notice it then, but I caught a dragonfly in flight (look in the branches just above the lilly pads). They were flying all over - it was like a big aerial dogfight.

2005-08-30T11:49:00.000-04:00

Don't ask me what settings I used to come up with this - it was completely unintentional. The beach was actually a deep brown, but as you can see it didn't come out that way.

2005-08-30T11:47:00.000-04:00

This is looking back at the trail I followed to get here. I stuck to the major trail for a couple of reasons. I hadn't been biking in a long time, I'd never been here before so I didn't know my way around, and I was alone, so if I fell and injured myself I didn't want to be on the most obscure trail around.

2005-08-30T11:46:00.000-04:00

I went mountain biking this last weekend for the first time in over a year (literally). The ankle I broke when I was in the Navy (which led to my discharge) is protesting, but it'll get over it. This is a lake I came across. There were dragonflies everywhere here and they amazed me with their acrobatics.

2005-08-30T11:44:00.000-04:00

I came across this truck not too long ago. Look closely. The yellow cab at the front is on the end of the cherry picker arm. I'm quite sure this is the truck they use to peek through people's windows when looking for furniture made from their free boxes.

Lakewood, Where Everybody's a Criminal. Unless You're Not.

2005-08-29T22:07:00.000-04:00

I tried pawning this on to Samantha Burns, but she refused to take up my slack. I was looking around on CNN and found this. I thought this was utterly ridiculous. Let’s put aside the subjective parts of this and just focus in on the facts.

Mistake #1: Husband’s license is valid but due to a police error is in the computer as invalid.

Mistake #2: Detective at the Lakewood Police Department substitutes wife’s information for somebody with a “lengthy criminal record”.

Mistake #3: Same detective issues warrant for wife’s name (which is an alias for the criminal) instead of investigating whether the (criminal) woman was involved in the incident he was investigating.

Mistake #4: Detective did not compare the addresses or photos of either woman.

Mistake #5: Even though it was clear to the officers at the jail that this woman did not match the description of the criminal the officers made no attempt to rectify the situation.

Wow. This is one of those times where you look at an entire police department and say “you all dropped out of clown school, didn’t you?” If it were one mistake, or even two, I might be able to understand. Maybe. But this was incompetence above and beyond the call of duty. The utter disregard for citizens this entire department showed has clearly made an outright invasion into the realm of the ridiculous.

I can’t comment on the behavior of the state trooper – most of the issues the family had with him were subjective. He wasn’t responsible for the mistakes of the Lakewood Police Department. He was informed that the woman he had in front of him had a warrant out for her arrest and a lengthy criminal record. He has to handcuff her, though I can’t say anything about the family’s feelings on his behavior.

I hope the family sues the Lakewood Police Department. I hope they win a nice settlement. I have those hopes because when a lobotomized chimpanzee in the midst of a seizure caused by a crack overdose could outperform you in your job, a message needs be sent.

Another Round of Paranoia

2005-08-29T15:05:00.000-04:00

I had a fantastic day with my son yesterday. It started out interesting, however. I was strapping him into his car seat and the STBX decided to start an interrogation. She does that every so often, and I typically just give noncommittal answers and get out of there as soon as I can, mainly because there can be no right answers. Usually when she does this she’s not trying to get information, she’s got something she wants to accuse me of and she’s trying to give herself an excuse.

It started with questions about where I was going to take him. I told her that I hadn’t decided yet, but that we would probably start at the mall. She then asked me where in the mall I was going to take him. While she asked this she had her arms crossed and she was clearly in “suspicious” mode. I told her I didn’t know again, and she then said “Are you taking him to your house?” I told her no, I wasn’t taking him to my house since I don’t want to spend the majority of my time with him in the car driving. She doesn’t believe me and says “He’s been telling me that you’ve been taking him to your house”.

For those of you who might not have read all the archives, the STBX has long suspected that I was going to try to kidnap our son, especially if I get more visitation time or take him to my house. Several months ago she asked me why I had never told her I had taken him to a local pizza place. I told her it was because I’d never taken him there. Personally, I can’t stand the place and never go there. She claimed that he told her that I took him there to eat. Since I don’t normally inform her of the places he and I eat I don’t know why this one was so important to her.

So now I’m getting accusations based on things my two and a half year old son is saying. Since there is no problem even if I did take him to my house I’m not too worried about it, it’s more annoying than anything else. It’s my opinion that my son thinks that my brother’s house is my house, and is probably what he is referring to, assuming that he’s talking about any real place at all.

As funny as this is, it’s not the end of the story.

As I drove away, the STBX was watching (as she usually does) from inside the screen door so she and our son could wave goodbye to each other. Nearly at the same instant that I pulled out onto the road my son starts telling me that he wants a car. I look back and he’s dropped the car he had and has nothing to keep him occupied. So I decide that I’ll pull over and give him a car before I get onto the highway. I pulled into a parking lot and took care of it, then got onto the highway.

A few minutes later I notice something up ahead. It’s the STBX in her car. At first I wonder how in the world she managed to get in front of me, then I remember stopping to give my son the car. For her to have gotten in front of me after that short delay, however, would mean that she would have had to hop into her car almost the second I left the parking lot of the condo. I momentarily wonder if it’s possibly somebody else with a similar car, but on closer inspection, it’s definitely her. Her car is missing the front hubcap and has a really bad temporary tint job on the back driver-side window. I don’t remember her plate number, so I take a look at it and decide to do a final check later on (it turned out that it was indeed her).

The next thing I see is that she’s getting off the exit for the mall, but not the one I’m going to. I realize that she’s going to the mall to see if I’m really going there. She certainly wouldn’t go to the mall dressed as she was when I left and there was no way she had time to change.

As I drove by the exit I laugh as I imagine her driving around the parking lots searching for my car and not finding it. I was actually expecting a call making all kinds of accusations later on, but it never came. The crueler side of me imagined her reaction if I asked her (with exaggerated nonchalance, of course) if our son had a passport.

As much as I joke about it, this whole thing does worry me a little bit. Many schizophrenics experience cycles of improvement and decline. I’m hoping this doesn’t mean that she’s entering a declining part of that cycle.

Addendum: I never mentioned what happened when I dropped him off. She immediately started asking our son where we had gone and what he'd done. He told her we had ice cream for lunch to which I got an angry glance. I asked him if he'd had chicken nuggets for lunch and then he remembered. Since it was raining she didn't really get the chance to ask me too much, so I was saved from an interrogation, but I'm sure I haven't heard the last of this.

By The Way...

2005-08-26T23:18:00.000-04:00

Did anybody notice the google ads that occasionally show up in the NeoCounter? I think it's hilarious that one of them is Wasp Killer by Terminex.

It Was Almost Justice, Poetic Style

2005-08-26T22:56:00.000-04:00

Today I spent a ridiculous amount of time getting my drivers license converted to this state. The best thing about the whole experience is that I got to do some quality people watching. Man, did I have fun.

As I walked in I got in the initial line where you declare your purpose in coming to the DMV. It took me a little while to get in because the man in front of me had had some trouble with the front door. They have one of those rubber mats in front of the door and it bunched up when he tried to go in, preventing the door from opening. Most people would have pushed the door shut and fixed the mat, knowing that the door will never open. This guy, however, decided that he was going to teach the rubber mat a lesson. He tried to force the door open despite the mat being bunched up under it. He succeeded in moving it another 4 or 5 inches, but then it wouldn’t move at all. Now that he had it properly jammed he felt it was time to try to push it closed again. No dice. The door would not move. So he considered the problem for a few seconds, then bent down and tried to yank the mat out from under the door. No – that’s not working either. Then he starts trying to power-yank it, putting all his strength into it and giving several pulls in quick succession. I’m waiting for the mat to suddenly give way, tumbling him onto his backside, so he can look up at me and say “kiss it Daddy, kiss it.” No, wait. That’s another story.

I’m sure this is going to end up with an injury, but he’s saved. A guy on the other side of the door decided he’s going to pull on the door while the first guy pulls the mat. It works, and no injury! We’re in.

The man at the check-in desk is just a little bit surly. Every so often somebody, not paying attention, steps forward to stand behind the person at the desk talking to him. Mr. Surly then stops everything and loudly asks the person if they are with the person he is currently helping. As they answer “no”, he rolls his eyes and tells them to stand behind the blue sign. Then he gets back to helping.

He’s very concerned about his pens. Every time he gives somebody a form to fill out, whether they need it or not (I brought my own form pre-filled out), he hands them a pen. In a tone of voice stressing that this is the most important thing he is going to tell you he says “Bring me back my pen when you’re done”.

Now, he’s supposed to give you a number right then and there, but he is holding the numbers until he gets his pens back. I’m not kidding. As I stood there he paused and printed out a whole bunch of the numbers he hands out and lines them up on the counter. People would come up to the side counter after they filled out their form and he would hold their number slip in his hand until the pen was actually placed in his hand. Then he would hand over the number.

So, having returned my pen (after pretending to go to the table and fill out my already filled out paperwork), and gotten my number I sat down to wait. And wait. And wait. I was one of the smart ones. I brought a book. Unfortunately, I sat down next to a mental patient, or somebody doing a fine job of imitation. It is the best form of flattery, after all.

This man was covered in tattoos. Many men who are covered in tattoos look tough and people tend to avoid them. Not him. He didn’t look tough, and he never stopped talking. He talked about how insane this place was. He described how he’d improve the entire process, start to finish. He told the story of how he got his license suspended and made sure that people knew he was there to get it back. Funny, eh?

No. It was not funny. In the least. Why? Well, let me not answer your question directly, let me just say that if you see an empty seat on a bench in a busy crowded room where there are many, many people standing, do not sit there. It is empty for a reason. If he had not been sitting on the end of the bench there would have been two seats open. He showed great interest in the book I was reading. Then he asked me about my job (ironic, isn’t it?), and I decided to get up when he started asking about the documentation I had with me, such as my passport and social security card. Yes, you actually need 43 pieces of identification to convert your license.

As I stood against the wall I would glance up from my book every so often and see that somebody new was sitting next to him. It would be a new person each time. In truth, I never wondered why he was not called up. But I will admit to laughing along with several other people when I heard him say “What number?” He had never gone to the front desk and gotten a ticket. He’d been sitting there for quite a while, never questioning why the female mechanical voice kept saying things like “Now serving B337 at station 1. Now serving F543 at station 10.” In all that time he did not notice how everybody seemed to be clutching their tickets and checking each time a new number was called just in case their ticket had spontaneously changed since the last time they checked.

Some might say that he was merely a fool, and I did for several hours after that. But it occurred to me that the DMV had a reputation to uphold. That man could single-handedly drive 32% of the customers crazy on his own. What better way for the DMV to make your life hell than to force you to wait for hours in the same room as this guy?

There was also the entertaining officer who gave the driving tests. I watched as he would leave with somebody then come back. He’d sign their paper and go and sit or stand somewhere. One time, however, he went out with a young girl obviously there to get her first license. When he came back he looked like he was ready to kill – red in the face and walking fast. Behind him trailed the girl, looking forlorn and being comforted by a friend. I’d love to know what went on during that driving test.

Eventually my number was called. As I walked to the counter I heard Mr. Tattoo complaining that he’d been there for hours and they needed to speed things up. Pretty brazen for somebody who now held a ticket in his hand. Anyway, the woman at the counter was spectacularly nice. She went through the paperwork, typing everything in and eventually taking my picture. She asked me if I’d already registered a car, which I had, and she was happy, because that saved her time. Then she asked me if my license was suspended. I said no. She looked confused and typed a little more. Then she got on the phone. I heard her tell somebody that the computer wouldn’t let her update my record. She listened, then asked me several questions in succession. Had I ever had a DWI? Was I sure my license wasn’t suspended? Was it revoked? No, no no no no. I just kept answering no. She and the person on the phone finally got it fixed. She claimed it was because she had to change my address from the one I had when I registered the car to the one I currently lived at. I was about to tell her that it was the same address, but decided to let it go now that it was working.

I finally got to leave, my temporary paper license in hand. But does our story end there? No.

You see, when I got out into the parking lot I saw a couple of tow trucks. One was pulling out with a car, another was hooking one up. The one right next to mine. When I pulled into the parking lot several hours earlier I had pulled into a parking space as the previous occupant pulled out (they are single rows instead of double rows). The car to my left had obviously parked where there was no parking spot on the end of the row. The fool. I shook my head at them, thinking that some people just don’t get it. In any large city, parking illegally in a municipal lot is a quick way to get towed. That was strictly Amateur-hour stuff.

Yes. Some people just don’t get it. People like me. When I got to my car I found that when I pulled in behind the person pulling out I failed to notice that I was not pulling into a legal parking spot. I was the fool I’d just been laughing at. The only difference between this fool and the one I’d been laughing at is that I got back into the lot just before I got towed and managed to make a clean getaway. This had very nearly been Justice, Poetic Style.

You’d think that after sitting in the DMV for several hours you could come home and watch paint dry and find it exciting, but no. I have been bored stiff for several hours. I watched some Law and Order, ate some dinner and read some blogs. But I just couldn’t get into any of it. So I decided to write a quick post and get to bed early. That quick post turned into this monstrosity, and it’s now almost 11pm. So much for an exciting Friday night.

For anybody who noticed, somebody claiming to be The Hot Librarian posted a comment on this post. When I first read it I figured it was the Evil Norwegian playing a joke on me. It would be right up her evil alley. That there was no email address only added to my suspicions. However, I received confirmation that it really was THL who made the comment. However, this means that somebody probably squealed on me, as I doubt I’m on her regular reading list. So, who was it?

Boo-boos and Silence

2005-08-25T22:24:00.000-04:00

My son has recently caught on to the fact that mommy or daddy kissing boo-boos makes them better. He’ll show me any boo-boos he got in the last few days and say to me “kiss it, Daddy. Kiss it”. Today he showed me one under his chin, which I kissed. Then he showed me one on his finger, which I kissed. He hit his head in my car when he tried to stand up in his car seat after I’d undone the straps. He looked vaguely unhappy as he rubbed his head and told me to kiss it. I did, and he looked at me and said “no Daddy, it’s on this side”, pointing to the other side of his head.

We had a good time at dinner. He had his cars out and we drove them all over, including the top of my head. I pretended that the car I was holding took a sudden turn and crashed into his belly, which he thought was absolutely hysterical.

When his Macsheese, with hot dogs and dip (ketchup) got there he dug into it with relish. He chowed. He just kept eating and eating and eating. I am always amazed by how far a toddlers belly will stick out when they’re done stuffing themselves.

I have a new favorite at Friendly’s. It’s the grilled chicken melt. My mouth is watering now just thinking about it. Each half of the sandwich has a toothpick in it to hold it together, which my son found fascinating. He wanted one, but I turned into the mother from A Christmas Story, and wouldn’t let him have one because he’d poke his eye out.

When we were done I got him down from the high chair and we walked over to the fake fireplace while we waited for the waitress to bring our check. He asked me if it was hot and I told him it was. I decided I’d rather lie to him now and have him fear all fireplaces than have him want to check to see if the one he happened to be looking at was one of the cold ones.

I looked back at our table and found that our check had arrived. We walked back and as we did I noticed that several women at different tables were looking our way. But they weren’t looking at me, they were looking at my son. And they had this dreamy look on their faces. The kid is just too cute. I wanted to say “Hey – I’m his dad – you can at least spare me a glance!”

Just as I was going to pick up the check, he tripped. He didn’t fall right to the ground, though. He sort of did this spinning move as he fell into a sitting position, but he was kind of lopsided. It turned out that somehow he had maneuvered the car in his hand so that he ended up sitting on it. The trouble was that it wasn’t flat on the ground, it was standing on end. It obviously hurt, but I could tell it wasn’t enough for him to cry. I picked him up and asked him if he was ok. He said it hurt. I asked him where it hurt and he patted his butt where he had sat on the car.

Have you ever noticed that there are times when a crowded area goes nearly silent? This was one of those times. For some reason nearly every person in the area had stopped talking, and a lot of those women were still looking at him after his little fall. So not only did they know what had happened, they saw him patting his butt when I asked him what hurt, and they clearly heard him say “kiss it Daddy. Kiss it”.

Now all the women were looking at me.

The Hot Evil Norwegian Who Kills Goats in Georgia Is Actually A Trekkie

2005-08-25T09:05:00.000-04:00

One of the things I’ve tried to do to survive my period of being unemployed is find some funny things to read. One of my favorite reads is The Hot Librarian. Yes, yes, I’ve heard the rumors too. But I really don’t care if she is a 42 year-old man sitting in the basement of his parent’s house…her (his?) talent is such that it makes me blind to it’s (ok, that’s better) Trekkie origins. God help me if she ever reads this and decides to skewer me on her site. I think I’m safe because I’m small enough to go unnoticed.

Another of my favorite reads is Kill the Goat. I always thought she was funny, but she did me the great service of kick-starting the Relative Sacrifice Program. It was a comment left by her which offered to send relatives that led to the Program in its current glory. Because she kills goats I have decided to be very, very nice to her.

I was lucky enough to get in on the ground floor with The Evil Norwegian. Many people avoid Norwegian blogs, and with good reason. However, despite being Norwegian, AND a cat owner, her writing is quite funny. Hopefully it’s intentional. One thing about the internet is that it removes natural barriers, like the Atlantic Ocean, which make it easy for Virtual Vikings to come marauding onto North American Blogs. It’s unfortunate, but true.

The Evil Norwegian told me about another blog, Miss Doxie. She’s a lawyer, so, to avoid lawsuits, let me just say that this is a fantastic blog. Great layout, very good writing, very funny (in a good non-lawsuity kind of way), and clearly very intelligent. I have to be very careful here, because when talking about a lawyer, even a misplaced apostrophe could result in a disastrous avalanche of lawsuits. So, let me make myself clear: Miss Doxie – You Rule!

Watch carefully, because I’m about to launch a new internet rumor. It is my theory that all of these blogs are written by the same person. Yes, the 42 year-old trekkie living in the basement of his parent’s home. In between posts to Star Trek message boards on the ongoing debate of Kirk vs. Picard he writes under several pseudonyms. Fueled by Twinkies, Mountain Dew and the rage he feels when somebody posts a Snort of Derision about his developing theory of Spock as a Messiah Figure, he adopts several personalities, probably far more than the ones I have uncovered here.

I may, in fact, disappear in the next few days because of this post. Trek Goons may show up at my door, throw me in the back of their 1972 AMC Gremlin and take me to a Trekkie Convention. There I’ll be dressed in a red uniform and set loose among the masses. A horrible death… It was nice knowing all of you.

By the way, before my bloody death, you should also check out Statler and Waldorf. And if anybody knows where I can watch old Schoolhouse Rock videos I’d be grateful for the short time before I die at the hands of the Trekkies.

A Day of Good News

2005-08-24T20:11:00.000-04:00

Today was a really interesting day. I spoke with my contact and was told that both he and the interviewer had discovered that the procedure for hiring at the company had been changed. It appears that now the managers are not the ones to call new hires to make an offer – it’s now done by HR. The manager put the paperwork in for me today, and did it at a much higher salary than we were expecting. Can’t complain about that.

I also got to speak to one of my cousins who I haven’t talked to in far, far too long. It was good to talk to her. We emailed some pictures back and forth, me of my son and I, her of her sister and her. They’re the first pictures I’ve seen of her in about 10 years. They were pretty young girls, but both of them have grown up, and they’ve turned into beautiful young women. How in the world did that happen in 10 years?

I’ve also begun construction of some new enclosures for when all of you ship me your relatives/enemies/teachers etc. I bought most of the cage material from local Daycares. Used cages are pretty cheap.

This is My Kind of Children's Book

2005-08-24T07:14:00.000-04:00

Don't ask me how I found this. I will invoke my Fifth Ammendment Right against self-incrimination. Again.

I've decided I MUST have this book to read to my son when he gets old enough.

Rogue Animals

This is the kind of book I wish I'd had around when I was a kid.

The First Sacrifice Has Been Accepted!

2005-08-23T19:30:00.000-04:00

I went out to examine the hornet nest today and found that it was gone! There were small pieces of it on the ground, but nothing more. I could find nobody who would admit to have taken it and I believed them because nobody had any stings. Bald-face hornets don’t play games – they are mean little bastards. They can throw down. I am going to assume that Thor is responsible and that he took the hornet nest with him when he accepted it as a sacrifice.

I’ve gotten a lot of interest in the sacrificing of various relatives, so I thought I’d go through some of the rules of my Relative Sacrifice Program.

You are only responsible for paying the shipping of your relative(s). There is no cost for the sacrifice itself.
Due to the disappearance of the hornet nest, they can no longer be involved in the sacrifice.
All are welcome. No need to ask me if I accept relatives who are once-removed or distant relatives.
Please specify in the shipping paperwork whether the sacrifice should be quick or slow and painful.
Please specify in the shipping paperwork whether your relative(s) should get an indoor or outdoor cage.
I suggest accepting the shipping insurance that Fedex/UPS/Airborne Express etc offer. That way if your relative(s) is damaged during shipping you will likely end up with enough money to send another.

Many thanks to everybody for their interest in my new Program!

Send Me That Annoying Uncle...

2005-08-23T08:19:00.000-04:00

I wrote in this post that I was thinking of sacrificing some of my relatives to Thor to appease his anger towards me. In the comments I received an offer from Jay (who pounds her fist for gentle emphasis, heh heh) to send me some of her relatives to help me out. We worked out a deal – she pays for shipping, I do the sacrificing. Everybody wins.

Thor, however, has not finished with me. I went out to check out the hornet nest yesterday and found it was laying on the ground. What I found more disturbing were all the hornets that were crawling on it. As you might recall it was sprayed down with insecticide the other day and seemed to be dead. My guess is that some hatching has been going on. I’m pretty sure that one of them was holding a little mallet – not exactly a subtle message.

So, I’m going to open up the offer to everybody. Should you have some relatives you’d like to get rid of and are willing to pay for shipping, I’ll gladly add them to the sacrifice to get Thor off my back.

The Waiting is Over

2005-08-22T19:11:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I think I lead a charmed life. I got a call from my contact at the job, and he told me that the decision has been made to hire me. He said to expect a call from the interviewer tomorrow. He was fully prepared to go in and push hard with the interviewer and the interviewer’s manager, but it seems the decision was made before he had to. From what he told me the interviewer pushed harder for me to be hired than he would have! Since the interviewer is most likely going to be my immediate manager I take that as a very good sign.

This may sound strange, but the reality still hasn’t hit me. It does feel like a gigantic weight has been lifted off my shoulders, but I think it will take a while for it to all seem real.

It’s going to be quite a learning curve, but that’s OK. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s learning. One of the things the interviewer was most impressed with was that I graduated summa cum laude from my university. Before I even interviewed him he had gone online with the university and found out what that really meant.

My contact told me that the other people who work there are extremely happy that they are hiring somebody with no experience, strange as that sounds. This company likes to find people who can learn, have good attitudes and train them themselves. In the last year a couple of people with experience have been hired and it didn’t work out as well as it should have.

So tonight I’m going to call several family members who have been worried about me and let them know the good news.

It’s funny. I’ve been losing sleep despite my best efforts from the stress and worry of not having a job. Tonight, however, I have a feeling that I’m going to have a hard time sleeping for exactly the opposite reason.

Thor, God of Thunder and Rubber Mallets

2005-08-19T20:42:00.000-04:00

I’m blaming the Norse God Thor for the last few days. I’m quite sure he’s smiting me for my insolence. I’m quite surprised, actually. I had no idea that he would get so mad at my photo manipulation. I’m trying to decide which of my relatives would make a suitable sacrifice to appease him.

He may also be behind a discovery that was made not ten feet from the back porch. A bald-face hornet nest just a bit bigger than a basketball. The guy who mows the lawn here has been stung several times in the last couple of weeks and I guess now we know why. This particular kind of hornet will usually leave you alone unless you approach their nest, of which they are particularly protective. Somebody came over and sprayed the nest down with insecticide and it seems to have done the job. If I’d known he was coming I would have set up my camcorder and recorded the whole thing. I understand there was some comical jumping around and flailing as he did this. Why didn’t I spray it down? Because I’m smart enough not to go messing with hornet’s nests that have not explicitly threatened me. Now, if they’d said “Erasmus, we’re going to get your ass” I’d have had to respond. I certainly would have come up with a better plan than standing 10 feet away and spraying it with a can of wasp killer. My plan would have involved one or more of the following:

A beekeepers suit
Hired goons
A grenade
Napalm
A Weedwacker
My circular saw (because, damn it, I just don’t get to use it enough)
My landlady’s Bichon Frise (the white dog that must die)

In other news, it’s an exciting Friday night here at Casa de Erasmus. Right now I’m watching Pale Rider on AMC, and I have an exciting night of Law and Order planned. My weekend plans besides seeing my son are pretty lame. There aren’t any. Tomorrow I think I’m either going to go see a movie or rent one. I’m leaning towards renting one because I want to watch Sin City which came into Blockbuster this week. I’ve got to get out of the house, however. Not having a job I seem to spend much too much time here.

I heard from the potential job again today – another delay. They tell me I should hear sometime early next week. They want to filter through some more resumes, which I’m not thrilled with, but I’m still in the running. I have an interview with another company next week, but I’m a little skeptical of them. The answers I got from the interviewer on the phone were not comforting. I won’t go into the specifics, but I’ve found that there are a lot of companies out there who are questionable at best.

Damn. I’ve seen this Law and Order.

I wonder if Thor will accept the wasp nest as a retroactive sacrifice.

The Waiting Game

2005-08-17T11:42:00.000-04:00

I got a call from the manager I interviewed with concerning the job yesterday. He told me that his manager, who he had to talk to before making any decisions was on vacation and that he would be back Thursday. He said he would call me on Thursday to let me know. My contact told me that the said manager was indeed on vacation, and that it looked pretty good for me. He said that he had been scared at one point because another candidate was interviewed. The candidate apparentely looked pretty good on his resume, but bombed the interview. So hopefully I’ll hear good news tomorrow.

I’m embarrassed to admit that when I was preparing my email to my former manager about the expense check discrepancy I discovered that the check was not off by several hundred dollars. It was only short a little over one hundred dollars, which is better, but I still want to know what the discrepancy was, so I sent my former manager a polite email.

I mentioned before that I had emailed my former attorney asking her to forward the email she claimed had bounced back to her and to provide me with the proof she claims to have that her office contacted me on “more than two occasions” about the court date. I haven’t heard a thing back from her, though I did receive a bill in the mail that was postmarked the day after I emailed her. So I sent her another email today again asking her for the material. I’d like to have her write me a response.

So right now I’m just waiting. I’m really hoping that I’ll get a good news call from the interviewer tomorrow – it would remove the biggest source of stress in my life right now. If I get this job I’ll be happy for (at least) two reasons. First, I’ll be employed. Second, it’s not a sales job – after being laid off twice in two years time I am looking for something a lot more stable.

I’ll let you know.

This Is Getting Utterly Ridiculous

2005-08-15T21:07:00.000-04:00

Still no word on the job, and I’m going on the assumption that no news is good news. The manager told me that he would be in touch early this week so I’ll probably hear tomorrow.

I finally received the check from my old manager for my last expense report and yes, they shorted it. By several hundred dollars. No explanation, just a check folded into a blank sheet of paper. So now I have to contact my last manager and find out what’s going on. I’m getting very sick of dealing with this. I should have received this check at the end of May, and here it is the middle of August. Over that time I called Payroll a couple of times and did not once receive a call back. When I emailed my old manager about it he asked me for the number of the report, knowing that there wouldn’t be one associated with it. He then took about two weeks to “look into it” and finally get the check sent out. Now I find it’s a lot less than it should be.

I don’t understand why companies do this to people. This is supposed to be a company that takes very good care of it’s employees, but in my experience they’ve done nothing but screw around and try to take advantage in every possible way. Maybe they’re partners with Best Buy.

An Update on the Best Buy/Sports Illustrated Debacle

2005-08-15T09:42:00.000-04:00

Over the last two weeks or so I’ve noticed a surprising increase in the number of hits to my blog resulting from searches for “www.sicustomerservice.com” and “sicustomerservice”. Even more surprising, when I followed the link in my stats I found that I was the number two result on AOLsearch and the number four result on MSN. I don’t know how I feel about being so high on anything on AOL, but I suppose I’ll take traffic from anywhere. I started searching around to see what else came up concerning the subscription fiasco concerning Best Buy, Sports Illustrated and Entertainment Weekly and found that there are more and more people complaining about the “free subscription” practice.

I found a couple of other sites complaining about the practice:

The Conglomerate Blog

Householdwatch

My3cents

I’ve been in Best Buy a couple of times since then and each time I’ve been told that I’d won a free subscription. I’ve also had to listen to the spiel given to the people in front of me in line – several times I’ve listened to the cashier tell somebody that they won a free subscription. They’re never told that their credit card information is going to be passed along. They’re never given a pamphlet or told that they’re signing up for automatic renewal.

So after writing about this yet again I’ll probably get more hits from people trying to get information about this Best Buy scam, which, if the trend continues, will become my number one source of traffic.

The Worst Movie of All Time

2005-08-13T22:52:00.000-04:00

Many of you may think they know what the worst movie in the world is. Some might guess “A Simple Plan”, others “Waterworld”. I’m sure somebody would say that any movie with Bill Paxton is a dead ringer, but I’d have to remind you that he did, in fact, do one good movie: Twister. While these are all close, they do not rise (or fall) to the level of the movie “Anguish”.

I’m not even sure how to describe such a bad movie. I’ll try. It is a movie about a strange man. At first. Anyway, he is some kind of optometrist’s assistant, and keeps a cigar box full of glass eyes. We find out he lives with his mother, who is using some kind of hypnotic spell to control him and send him out to kill young girls. As he’s killing her image appears in the background with the spinning hypnotic wheel, telling him what to do. He kills the girl, then cuts out her eyes, putting them in his cigar box. It’s then we realize that these are not glass eyes.

Are you with me so far? Ok. Next, we’re suddenly confronted with the scene of the interior of a movie theater. The people in this theater are watching a movie. The movie is the one I was describing in the paragraph above. So we are actually now watching a movie of people in a movie theater watching a movie about this weird guy killing and cutting out eyeballs while under the hypnotic spell of his evil mother. Got it? Good, because it gets better. We start seeing scenes from the lobby of the theater, where a man with a rifle has come in and chained the doors to the theater so nobody can get out. We also cut back to the inside of the theater, where we find that a teenage girl is becoming much too engrossed with the movie. We cut back to the rifle-carrying madman, who has somehow gotten into a room behind the movie screen, where he pokes a hole in the screen and pushes the barrel of the rifle out of. He then starts shooting. Everybody in the theater panics. They’re screaming and running for the exits, but the doors are chained. The only person who’s not panicking is the teenage girl. She’s almost in a trance watching the movie. Suddenly the weird optometrist’s-assistant-who-is-controlled-hypnotically-by-his-evil-mother (remember him?) looks at the girl who is sitting in the movie audience watching him in a movie (are you following this?). She suddenly becomes terror-stricken as she realizes that he can somehow see her, even though he’s a character on a movie screen. He throws the scalpel he’s been using to cut out young women’s eyes and it leaves the movie screen and it flies through the air to hit the young woman in the eye.

I wish I could tell you how the movie ends. The reason is simple. I couldn’t take anymore. I left the theater. It is, to this day, the only movie I’ve walked out of. I’ve contemplated buying a copy to play for when various annoying relatives or friends overstay their welcome, but I have to wonder on what Homeland Security lists I’ll end up on for buying it.

Ok, I just went and looked on Amazon.com for this movie. I wrote all of the above before I read this, and I’ve got to say that I’m surprised at how much I remembered. I did not realize just how badly this movie had been burned into my psyche back in 1986.

Fedex and the DMCA - What Will They Think of Next?

2005-08-12T20:56:00.000-04:00

File this under "You've got to be kidding". Fedex has decided that the DMCA applies to furniture made from it's boxes.
Read about it here.

Where is Pedro’s Blog?

2005-08-12T18:06:00.000-04:00

I finally broke down and rented Napoleon Dynamite. Vote for Pedro. This movie is utterly hilarious. Some of the scenes were actually painful to watch they were so funny. I don’t even know what to write about. The cow getting shot? The necklace Lafawnduh gives Napoleon’s brother? Pedro’s protection service? The defect in the milk being bleach? I have added some incredible dance moves to my repertoire – thanks Napoleon! I almost cried I was laughing so hard after that dance. And I'm just curious. How many of you watched the credits long enough to see the wedding?

Just so you know, Jon Heder (who plays Napoleon) is alive and well.

Not All Spam Is Bad...

2005-08-12T14:41:00.000-04:00

...some of it's even tempting.

Arrived today to my gmail account (links and pictures removed):

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The Job Interview

2005-08-10T19:47:00.000-04:00

As far as I can tell the job interviews went very well. I met with the man who would be my supervisor and we got along pretty well. He then brought over one of the other people who worked in the department to interview me. It was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. I thought I was going to be grilled about my technical experience a lot more than I was. It was basically a pretty good conversation, not stressful at all. This talk lasted under a half hour. Then another guy from the department interviewed me, and it seemed to go just as well. I met with the potential supervisor again and he told me that he was going to talk to the two other interviewers, then talk to another supervisor tomorrow, and he would call me early next week to let me know what the decision was. I don’t want to get my hopes up – it’s too stressful. I’d really like for this to happen, and my contact said that there was a very good chance and that he’d let me know as soon as he heard something. He is good friends with both supervisors and is confident they’ll let him know tomorrow or Friday.

This interview was so much different than the interviews I’ve done in the pharmaceutical world. No interview I ever did in that field was LESS than three hours. Usually, I’d meet with the manager, then the manager and somebody else, then the manager and the regional manager. The first interview was always fairly easy, but the second and the third were usually “stress” interviews. They pull out every stop to make you uncomfortable to see how you react under pressure. Nothing you can say is taken at face value and they dig and dig and question and question. Over three hours of that, sometimes with the managers double-teaming you. The second and third interviews were always very difficult, but I always did very well. The last thing you’d have to make sure happened was “closing” the interviewer(s). That’s closing as in “closing the sale”. If you didn’t do that, you pretty much blew the interview.

Interviews in pharmaceutical sales are much, much different than what I experienced today. I’m glad I went over everything with my contact – he told me what to expect and that I shouldn’t close the interviewers.

After the interview I got a tour of the facility and the labs they have there for troubleshooting problems with the networking equipment they support. It was incredible. They know I would be coming in needing to learn quite a bit, and this is the norm for people starting there.

Like I said, I think it went very well, but I’m scared to get my hopes up – I’ve got enough stress on me right now. Wish me luck.

An Interesting Day...

2005-08-09T22:06:00.000-04:00

It’s been an interesting day, and I’m taking some time to relax. I’ve been studying hard for my interview tomorrow, which might or might not help me. It’s a client support role for a major networking company, and I’m being referred by somebody who is very popular there. He brought my resume to his supervisor who brought it to his boss, and they said that they felt I’d fit into the client support position.

I’ve decided that it’s time to file a complaint against my attorney, who is now my former attorney. She called me earlier today and left me a message. It started with “As you know, we are due in court tomorrow…” I was livid. This is the third time she’s called me the day before a court date to let me know about it. Her office had called me last week and left a message for me saying that they had information for me. They called me again, leaving no message. I called the office back, got no answer, and left a message asking what the information was and giving my phone number and my email address for them to get back to me. I never heard from them again until today. She also said in her message that she had tried to email me and that it had bounced back. That has been her excuse for not letting me know things every time she called me at the last minute.

I emailed her after I got her message. I was mad for a couple of reasons. I had told her a month ago that I didn’t want to sign the agreement and that we needed to work on it. She ignored that – today’s message said that the agreement was ready to sign. I told her I didn’t understand why she was having so many problems with her email. I went on to explain that I didn’t want to sign the agreement because I was concerned with the bankruptcy, and that I wanted to go back to mediation concerning my visitation because I’m not satisfied with it.

She wrote me back and claimed that she had proof that her office contacted me more than twice about today’s date. I’m going to ask her to send me over any proof she has about her contacting me. I’m also going to tell her to forward me the email that she claimed bounced back to her today in her message since she can now miraculously get email to me. I’m not going to tip my hand as to what I plan to do, but I’m willing to bet she will claim to have deleted the email that bounced back. It will be interesting to find out about the “proof” she has as to contacting me. I saved the message her office left me last week and I listened to it before I wrote out the email to her to make sure I didn’t just miss the date. I didn’t.

I’ve got the other issues with her, such as her advice that, had I followed it, would have had me committing a felony. Or her advice regarding the STBX’s bankruptcy. I’m going to get an answer for that one quick, because I now have her advice in writing. If she’s right, that would be great. If not, it’s another thing to put into a complaint.

I emailed her just a few minutes ago asking her to forward me the email that she claims bounced back and the proof that she has about me being contacted more than twice about tomorrow’s court date. We’ll see what comes out of that.

A Short Update

2005-08-09T13:04:00.000-04:00

Am I still alive? Yes. I’ve spent the last several days getting ready for a job interview that could have come at any time. It’s now been scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, so I’m still preparing. Lots of studying.

My son and I ended up having a great weekend. He loves his cousins, and they’re only four months younger than he is, and they all get along great. I had more fun watching his interractions with them than with anything else. He would take a tonka truck and push it as fast as he could, chasing one of his cousins in circles around the house. The shrieks and laughter as they ran were great. He also liked chasing them with a lawnmower type toy. Occasionally, they’d turn the tables and chase him around, which was just as funny.

They had just as much fun outside. They stomped around in some mud puddles, played together in the backyard and explored for bugs. It was just the kind of time I needed. He had absolutely no problems sleeping or being homesick, which was great.

So, with this short update being done, I’m going back to studying in preparation for the interview tomorrow.

The Post With No Theme

2005-08-03T23:59:00.000-04:00

I emailed some family tonight. Literally days after my last day working in May I received an “update” from my uncle, whom I haven’t seen in over 10 years. I didn’t really realize it had been that long until I sat and thought about the last time I’d seen him and my aunt. His two youngest daughters I remember as young girls – they are now 19 and 21. One graduated from college already, and the other is currently attending. It was strange (almost surreal) to be reading about their current lives – there have been so many changes.

When I got the update I told myself that I’d have to email all of them to reestablish contact. I kept telling myself that until tonight. I finally managed to actually sit down and write. I wrote my aunt and uncle first and by the time I was finished I was very surprised of the length. I didn’t know quite how to describe the events of my life for the last three years, it’s not something that’s easy to do. I told them about my son, and how he is the best little boy ever born. I even directed them to the website where I have pictures of him posted. It took me over two hours to write out that email. There was a lot of editing – like I said, it’s hard to try to explain extraordinary events like the one’s I’ve experienced.

Next came my two cousins. I didn’t describe nearly as much in those emails, I mainly tried to stay positive and talked a lot about my son. They also got the link to my pictures website. After I’d spent a while writing and editing I realized that I was putting too much work into these emails. I found I was concerned about how they’d see my writing and grammar, which was utterly ridiculous. I know I’m smart and educated, I hardly need to prove it in an email, especially to family. I don’t know what I was thinking – they’re family, and would hardly think any less of me if I made a grammatical error. So I stopped trying to write perfectly and just sent out the emails.

Speaking of emails, I emailed my last manager about my last expense report last week. I had left several messages with Payroll and not gotten a single call back, which I was starting to get angry about. In the email I sent him I politely asked him what the status of my last expense report was, since I hadn’t heard anything. He emailed me back telling me that if I gave him the number of the expense report he’d get right on it. This didn’t sound good, since there wasn’t a number associated with it. I was referring to the expense report I had sent him directly, as he asked me to at the time. I wrote him back, telling him there wasn’t a number associated with it, and also included the date I’d sent it and the date it was reported as having been delivered. It took a couple of days, but he wrote a very short message which basically said that he’d be sending me out a check shortly. I was expecting that check at the end of May, at the latest. I also noticed he didn’t tell me how much the check would be for, which also concerns me. I’ve been very surprised at the lengths this company will go to to save a few dollars since I’ve left. We’ll see.

I suppose that since I really don’t have a “theme” for this post I can write just about anything I want. I’ve decided that if I ever get three wishes, one of them will be for me to speak Norwegian so I can move to Norway. I wonder if King Harald would receive me as a visiting King…