Friday, September 30, 2005

Called to work, missed a show, watched CSI.

The news is tedious, so I've been channel surfing. Whoever scheduled back-to-back CSI episodes every weeknight on SpikeTV has done a wonderful thing. If everything on the network channels is weak and boring, there's a backup. I was supposed to go to a concert tonight, but on-call prevailed and the phone proceeded to ring until I was worried if I was going to be able to eat something besides cereal or a sandwich. So far, I haven't decided which. The chicken & spinach salad I had at lunch has worn off.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

McSlowness

On the way home from the hockey game, I stopped at the McDonald's at I-70 & Prospect.  I knew better.  It is quite possibly the slowest drive-thru in this hemisphere.  They have a 24-hour drive-thru.  It takes about 24 hours to drive through it.  In the past, I have sat there for several minutes at the end of the line which only moves when someone in the line gets impatient and pulls away.  In roughly the amount of time it would have taken for me to drive to the Van Brunt McDonald's or all the way to the Raytown McDonald's on Highway 350, get my food, and drive home, I got my 5 piece chicken selects combo meal.  When I got home, it only had 4 pieces and it was cold.  They did, however, give me enough sweet & sour sauce to go into the business.  But, they've had two chances, really, and I'll be driving to the Raytown store or eating some other kind of late night drive-thru food in the future.

Crowds. Good when you choose them.

Home again. It feels good to be home. KC feels less crowded, despite the crowds I traversed at the 74th Annual Plaza Art Fair. 74th? That means they started the thing during the Great Depression. Out of dozens and dozens of art booths, I liked about 4 of them. I had to dodge the triple decker strollers and the folks who decided that a crowded art fair is the perfect place to walk their Great Pyrenees. The art I like is kitschy, quirky, and cool. http://www.mutieonline.com Brian Cunningham's work is fun. His friend was in attendance in overalls. He's a big ol' friendly guy, manning the Chris Roberts-Antieau booth.  I loved it. She must really like to sew.  The pieces were large and very high quality. http://www.chrisroberts-antieau.com  I'm excited about going to the NHL exhibition game tonight.  Blues v. Preds?  Go Blues!

Thursday, September 22, 2005

View from the HOV lane.

I've seen a few hundred thousand cars, 5 lanes of solid brake lights, miles of stop and go traffic, and the view of all those poor commuters from the HOV lane, which was fine with me, because we saved an hour of bumper to bumper fun on the way to Shawn's friend's birthday party at a Mexican restaurant. If you want to motivate across the SF Bay Area near commute time, you need a purpose and a plan. I still have to wake up in a couple of hours to help with some network changes, so I'm going to leave it at that. Class tomorrow is about MPLS. It's a topic I'm interested in, so I'm actually excited. I hope I'm alert after working half the night away.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

We're not in Kansas any more.

Well, I'm in Silicon Valley, and I don't have anything positive or negative to say about it. It's more ethnically diverse than my 'hood. It has the many of the same chain restaurants and stores in and around the (strip) malls, but with palm trees in the fore and mountains behind. The pedestrians here are all jumpy, like getting run down in a parking lot is typical. Shiny office buildings dot the freeway access roads with blue chip internet stock names on them. So, that's different. . . from Kansas City. We went to Dave and Busters, for food and fun, but ended up eating some pretty decent food and watching the Chiefs versus Raiders game and listening to the Raiders fans in the bar area cheer (read: whine). Asian ladies driving SUVs aggressively at every turn. That doesn't even need to be a sentence. If you can picture it, it'll save me a thousand words.

Friday, September 16, 2005

Polka dotted me.

I worked all night last night and slept between phone calls today. I went to the doc in the afternoon and later I had an allergic reaction to an antibiotic, during which red dots appeared all over my chest and belly and arms. If I hadn't felt a little itchy, I might never have pulled my shirt up to notice it. I called the doc, who said take Benadryl now and every 3 hours. Go to the ER if it gets worse, he said. It did gradually worsen until I got to Osco for Benadryl. The lady in front of me was buying a lifetime supply of pop and party favors and the checker was not going to win any scan and bag skills competition. The lady behind me saw my spots and told me to pop one of those Benadryl right there. So I opened a bottled water, took one of the pills out of the package, and swallowed it right there in line. 8 hours and 2 doses later, I still have the spots.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Not necessarily a 10

I clicked on a headline under a Fashion heading that says "A 10 Is Not a 10 Is Not a 10" in hopes it would be about supermodels. Instead, it's about a marketing scheme to do with dress sizes. "American companies now start their sizing with zero and they're cutting far more generously, presumably so that the customer will think, "Oh my God, I'm an eight! I'm an eight!" and buy whatever she's trying on, even though she's the same old size she always was." This would never work on guys, because 34 inches is 34 inches and always will be. Besides, guys aren't going to get that excited if the 33 fits better than the 34.  Maybe a guy would be thrilled if the 36 fit better than the 44, but I think the gig would be up as soon as one unfurled a 36 with 8 extra inches of waistband.  A guy usually knows his approximate waist size.  If there's nothing cool filed under that size or maybe the size above/below it, he's not going to start shopping even smaller sizes.  Who invented a subjective sizing system for dresses?  Can't they just put the chest, torso, waist, and hip dimensions on the tag and save the ladies some time and disappointment?

Hockey on call

Well, I'm back in the game. I played hockey tonight and had a lot of fun. I needed the exercise. Playing hockey and being on call for work is interesting. I have to check my phone between shifts. I've played hockey with horse veterinarians and heart surgeons who were on call and at times I've seen them stop playing to take a call. I've heard of doctors leaving the game when the cell phone rings. I suppose I've been really lucky that I didn't have to run out to the car and hop on the laptop. The rink is only a few blocks from one of the network distrubution hubs, but, in the past, I have had good luck finding an open wireless AP or a nearby Kinko's, where they have free laptop connections.

Sunday, September 4, 2005

NOLA needs some voodoo now.

When they drain the NOLA bowl, I'm curious about what we'll see. Dead fish? Dead bodies? When I went to NOLA last year, I remember seeing miles of crypts and creeps. I wonder how those things hold up to being under water? If any of the stones came loose, would those pancaked bodies in there come floating out? I noticed that the French Quarter is mostly dry, by comparison, except for a corner near downtown. It's been there 400 years. I wonder if it has survived similar storms and floods before? These before and after clickable satellite maps are interesting. http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_national/neworleanssatellite/index.html

Friday, September 2, 2005

Life, Liberty, and a Car

This Katrina depress-a-thon is driving me crazy. Anyone with means and ability left New Orleans. The ones who didn't obey the evacuation order for whatever reason are entitled to some sort of help, but it's really apparent the state of Louisiana doesn't think they are entitled to help. If they didn't get shipped to another state, there they sit. I kinda wonder how long I could stand to live in a shelter if my home and office were destroyed and I had nowhere else to go.