HokieJayBee's NFL Week 16

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone has a great holiday season. Be safe and probably won't see you until next year.

In the mean time, here's my weekly NFL newsletter for week 16.
Click here to jump over to BeerControlOffense.

Later!

Um, Yes You Are.

Ok, so I don’t necessarily always go too far to or past the borderline of TMI, and I’m not always treading the line of decency and offensiveness. I try to be a good boy, and not even necessarily post everything that comes to my wicked nutty brain. Thank God. Shut up brain.

But I’ve been thinking lately, why not? I mean, it’s just a personal little blog here. It’s supposed to be funny. So I’ve been thinking lately that I am going to be more willing, when I post, to tread that line a little more. Maybe even push the line farther away and then tread it there. Anyways, in thinking along these lines recently, I couldn’t really find a topic that was a-little-more-offensive-ice-breaking-funny.

Then I went to get my haircut yesterday. Don’t have to tell you where, let’s just say it’s a Super place to get hair Cuts. They give Super hair Cuts. Clever, icwhatudidthar. I’m tricky brain, you should know this.

I’m getting my hair cut by one hair-cutter-lady in one chair. She’s a petite little young girl. Nice enough. Forced dialogue ensues, no big deal. Just trim the back and sides with a 2 guard and do finger length trimming on the top. Thanks, here’s your $14. But I wasn’t listening to her blabber. I was listening to the conversation from the other hair-cutter-lady and her customer in one of the other chairs.

In the most non-rude way possible, yet still trying to get across exactly the magnitude that I’m speaking of, we’ll call the other stylist, BIG. Be nice Jay. No brain, I’m not being rude. I’m just saying, she’s got some size on her. A lot of it. Look, there’s nothing wrong with it. We’re all out of shape here in America. We all should eat less fast food and take more jogs. I’m not lying peacefully here in my glass house here with a sack of rocks. Doesn’t mean this girl isn’t a nice girl, doesn’t mean she can’t cut hair, doesn’t mean she’s a bad person. I’m just being truthful with you here; she could drop a few pounds and still rival Rosanne Barr circa 1993. Just too big. Time to consult a physician. Time to change one’s lifestyle.

I know some of you think I’m a heartless asshole now. Whatever, I don’t hate fat people. There’s just a difference between pleasantly normally overweight people in our society, and the OH MY GOD DON’T FALL ON ME, WHY ARE YOU BREATHING SO HARD people. Hell, according to the stupid charts at my doctor’s office, unless you look like a praying mantis, we’re all “obese” by the true definition of the word. There’s just a time where you need to just make a life change and work to keep yourself healthier so you can live longer and be around your loved ones longer.

But this isn’t a public service announcement, sorry to digress. Anyways, I’m sitting there getting my hair cut, and the other customer and her hair-cutter-lady seem to know each other more than the casual customer-to-hair-cutter way. They’re discussing the stylist’s upcoming wedding in January.

Customer – is it going to be a big wedding?

Jay – durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Thank you for not saying that outloud. Hey, I couldn’t have thought it without you. True, but what kind of question is that to an NFL offensive lineman, “is it going to be a big wedding?”. Well thank you for not making me say *that* outloud. What do you think, center, guard, or tackle? Left Guard. Good call.

Stylist – Yeah. We’re having it at ………[insert a couple minutes of wedding babble, location, # of attendees, where the reception is, blah blah blah]………

Customer – Oh, that’s a nice place to have your reception………..[insert a couple minutes of blabber about receptions and menus and crap]……….

Then it happened.

Customer – So what kind of cake?

Stylist – Oh, I’m not really a cake person.

Jay – Ummmmmmmm. Don’t do it! Quiet! Not out loud!

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 15

Click here to see this week's HokieJayBee NFL newsletter over at EBJ's BeerControlOffense.

Thanks, and if I don't get to say it next week, have a Great Holiday Season!!!!

Is That The Same Finger?

I have a ~half hour interstate commute to work every day. Suffice to say, I see a lot of people and a lot of cars on a regular basis. Combine my Sirius Satellite Radio with my liking of the pastime known as “people watching”, and work commutes aren’t always half bad. I also have a little game I play with myself sometimes. Jay, careful….. Not that brain! I don’t call that a “game”. I like to take a person’s car in, make and model, new or old, condition, stickers, driving style, etc. – and try and predict that person’s demographics, gender, ethnicity, age, etc. – based on their car.

One time, when explaining the rules of this self game to Mrs. HokieJayBee so she could try and understand a little of what goes on in this pretty little headpiece of mine, I played the predictor game out loud for her. After I went 12 for my first 12, she made me stop because she was laughing too hard and I was getting cocky. True Story.

Also, it’s not like I set out to play this “game”. It just happens. Huge Ford Truck, Harley Davidson stickers, truck in pristine condition, driving way too slow in the right lane – white male, early fifties, T-shirt or sweatshirt. Ding ding ding. Late model Kia sedan, no stickers, license plate QTBABY or something similar, driving way too fast and recklessly for the current traffic conditions like we’re in their way – young black female, big earrings, chewing gum, on cell phone. Ding ding ding. That’s just how my head works. I subconsciously start into this game all time when driving.

So anyways, I’m driving to work the other morning. Probably too fast, but I’m always 7 minutes late to work. Don’t know how I do it, no matter how my morning goes I’m always 7 minutes late to work. And besides, how else would I verify my game predictions of people if I wasn’t going faster than them to pass them and verify? So I’m driving to work, predicting away.

Brand new Range Rover smaller SUV, pristine condition, sky blue, just washed, driving fine for current conditions in right lane, two college stickers. You know, the kind where you put your alma mater or where your kids go on the back windshield? These two, Yale and Brown. Well highty tighty hoopty boopty for you Ivy Leaguer! Yale *and* Brown? I’m gonna go with 38-45 white female (the husband would have gotten the bigger range rover and would have gotten dark green), turtleneck, too much make-up, costume-y jewelry, talking on phone but on hand’s free set.

Reality: nailed it. 38-45 white female, not a turtleneck, one of those blouse’s with the enormously too big of a collar sticking out of a normal necked sweater, make-up normal, correct on the too big for her head earrings, and correct on the phone, but she was holding it. Holding it with her head leaning right on her right shoulder. Driving with her right hand. Why so much detail in her body placement?

Because her left hand was up at her face and her left pinky was two knuckles deep in her left nostril.

Is that an Ivy League thing? The Pinky? I mean, we all pick. But a full lean over double knuckle pinky shot? And is that the same finger you Ivy Leaguers leave hanging out in mid-air off of your cosmopolitans?

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 14

I'm back from the Great White North, after spending a week with our Canadian neighbors at a jobsite.

A couple quick thoughts:
[1] Yes, they do talk like *that*.
[2] And for all the talk about us being pansies down here and not liking cold weather, they sure talk about it a lot when it's cold and snows. That's probably more a symptom of flat-out nothing else to talk about than of the cold really bothering them though.
[3] HokieJayBee's NFL week 14 newsletter can be found posted over at BeerControlOffense. <----click here and enjoy.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 13

So, you didn't even get a warning post about Week 12's picks over at BeerControlOffense. And you haven't had a post in forever.

It's been busy at work [gasp], and there was that whole holiday thing, and blah blah blah blah blah. Excuses, excuses. I'll try to post more, I've been lazy.

Back to normal here with HJB's week 13 NFL newsletter, published over at my boy's BeerControlOffense. <----click here.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 11

As per usual, go check out my week 11 NFL newsletter over at

-----> Beer Control Offense <-----

Things That Bug Me, Dress Pants

So this week I turned from early 30’s to early 30’s + 1 more. I had a great birthday. On the weekend, Momma HokieJayBee made me my favorite meal of all time, her meatloaf. Then on my actual birthday night, Mrs. HokieJayBee went and bought steamed crab legs for dinner. Yes. Yes. And Yes. The women in my life are doing pretty well for their respective reputation meters.

Besides that, the Redskins actually won a game for a change, and beat a Bronco team they had no business beating. I thank them for a gift too.

And my Hokies stomped a mud-hole in the Maryland Terriblepins. Not a surprise so I can’t say it was a birthday gift but I’ll take it.

Awesome story Jay. Shut up brain. I’m just setting up a little background and such. Uh huh, dress pants? Ok.

So I got a new pair of dress pants for my birthday too. They were needed, for work and such. So I’m thankful for them. They’re pretty sweet. Ralph Lauren. Charcoal colored. They’re comfy. They look nice.

And, they BUG THE HELL OUT OF ME.

At least, if you’re headed to the bathroom and you, uhhhhhhhh, don’t have a lot of time.

Counting a belt (which you always wear with dress pants), there are five things to undo to be able to drain your lizard or drop your kids off at the pool.

Yes. 5.

Belt. Internal overlap button. Main metal slide. External overlap button. Zipper. 5. Things.

It is not a quick ordeal, if you’re trying to not rip stuff.

So I warn you, should you be the owner of a sweet new pair of dress pants, ensure you leave yourself plenty of undo-device-time when you need to head to the baffruum.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 10

Week 10's NFL Newsletter is up over at Beer Control Offense.

Go check it out, and have a great weekend!

People I Hate, Volume 1

So. I hate people. I mean, for a lot of reasons. I truly despise a lot of people. In groups. Careful, careful. Shut up brain, I’m not talking any sweeping prejudices or racism. I’m talking about people. Just the general public. I just hate a large vast majority of people. I don’t care if you’re white or black or green or Chinese or German or Mexican or Catholic or Jewish or whatever. Trashy people are trashy people.

Today’s people I hate: Litterers. From cars specifically.

Seriously? You lazy bastards. Is your car so nice you can’t hold on to that wrapper/cup/box until you get to your next destination? Are you that much better of a person that you can’t be bothered to keep track of your own trash? I’m willing to bet you more money than you have that where you’re driving to has a trash can. You pieces of crap.

And you’re the trash that whine that your government doesn’t do enough for you, aren’t you? You with your amazing 1995 Honda Civic, part red, part rust, one blue quarter panel. You with your tendencies.

Don’t judge me. Judge these pieces of crap.

I guess bases a lot of my angst at a certain level of person in our society based on the actual content of the litter……you can tell a lot about people by their trash?

Most littered material that I see:
7-11 hot dog boxes. Quality meal in a rush. Add fake nacho cheese and processed Chili. Inhale in 3 bites. Toss box on side of road.

Budweiser 12 pack boxes, cans and bottles. Seriously. Because we were driving around drinking anyways. Don’t want to get caught with evidence if I get pulled over for my broken taillight and expired inspection sticker?

McDonald’s cups and wrappers. Again, quality eaters here. Can’t be bothered with that trash from dinner on the way around town. I’ll just toss it out right here. Someone else will pick it up for me.


I happen to jot down license plates of cars I witness littering. I don’t know what I ever planned to do with the list. Mail it in to a paper on a letter-to-the-editor? Anonymously mail it to the cops/DMV? So, rather than collecting dust in my truck’s glove compartment, here is the list, internet. Here is the dregs of our society, those too good to try and keep a clean city. Those who don’t need to be bothered with their own trash. Not when they can throw it out the window and never think about it again.

(if no state listed, it’s Virginia)
JJK-9032
JVM-8138
EQL-LOVE (rainbow stickers, “equal love”, prior to being granted equality for marriage, quit throwing trash out of your car window, trash is trash, even if they like each other)
VKI-651
JZK-1613
SPJ-8378 (our friends from North Carolina come to town to throw trash on our roads)
100-5937 (so do our friends from New Hampshire, yeah northern trash!)
7051Y
KDR-9455
KEG-4754
P3430 (handicapped plate, because parking up front isn’t good enough, you want people to pick up your trash too?)
TDK-858
JLH-6931
FP-2982 (a fraternal order of police plate, classy!)
512-DTZ (drove all the way here from Texas to toss out your trash? yeehaw!)

Vent complete, thanks for listening.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 9

Just like last week, head over to Beer Control Offense to check out my NFL Week 9 pick'em.

Later!

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 8

As per usual, check out my weekly NFL newsletter over at EBJ's BeerControlOffense.

Have a great weekend.

What The Hell, Exactly, Are You Talking About?

I know anyone reading this, who has worked in an office before, has worked with someone similar to what I’m about to describe. And it’s been humorous in my life, up until recently, when I now have to occasionally depend on this person for something work related.

I’m talking about the talk-in-a-circle-in-work-speak-phrases-guy. The guy who doesn’t do anything, or produce anything of actual value for your company – but sure can talk a huge nice game, and it sounds like he’s busy at something.

I’m not even going to get into debatable made-up words, like the famous double negatives: irregardless or indescrepancy. Or the borderline phrases that people just use to start paragraphs like they’re one jumbled word now: needlesstosay, notwithstanding.

I work in a technical field, so I’m talking about the technical-office-speech-guy. For paranoid reasons, like anyone reads my blog anyways, and even if they did, like it would get back to the real person I’m talking about, and like they’d know who I am too? – I’m going to anonymously call my office-speak-guy, Fred.

Recent situation:

Me: “Fred, when we changed that butterfly valve from a manual valve to a flow control valve, we had to change the mag meter’s control to an FQI for local readings instead of an FIC with readings from the tank level control. Do you want the mag meter’s flow values available on the front end pump info screen in DCS or associated with the tank level?”

Fred: “You know, we need to circle the wagons here, get rid of the white noise, work with synergy and think outside the box. What I want to bring to the table here, going forward, is a way for us to keep our head out of the sand so we don’t drop the ball.”

Me: “What?”

Fred: “The bottom line is that we need to get on team red, do a full cost-benefit analysis, pick the low hanging fruit, and stay on our center of gravity. When I look at the strategic planning here, and check the measures of merit, I think we should talk offline on this issue without the client, keep them in a black box if you will until we’re ready to release the information down the pipe. Do a gut check, you know?”

Me: “So do you want me to show the flow numbers on the front end pumping screen in the control room, or do you want me to associate the flow numbers with the tank level control?”

Fred: “Look, I’m not trying to be the turd in the punchbowl here, but nine people can’t make a baby in one month. We need to get on the same page and touch base before going forward. We’ve got to do more, with less. We can’t just rubber stamp it.”

Me: “Fred. Listen closely. I want you to say a number, I want you to say the number 1, or I want you to say the number 2. If you want me to show the cooler’s flow numbers on the pumping screen, say 1. If you want me to show the cooler’s flow numbers on the tank level screen, say 2.”

Fred: “There’s a ten ton gorilla in the room, and this is like a hot potato. Did you check any piggy back issues? Don’t want to screw the pooch.”

Me: “Say 1 or 2. Just say the number 1, or the number 2. And then sign here.”

Fred: “I see how project coordination is going to work here, and our efforts shouldn’t be for a technological breakthrough, we need to use best practice, for a low maintenance solution.”

Me: “I’m displaying it on the tank level screen. Sign here.”

Fred: “Glad I could help. Make sure [insert name of big boss #1] knows we worked together on the I&C issues, not just the mechanical ones.”

Me: “Do you have any idea what I just asked you.”

Fred: “Of course I do. Did you see those Eagles this Monday Night?!?!?!”

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 7

As per usual, check out HJB's NFL Week 7 Newsletter at BeerControlOffense.

Word.

Abbreviations, Acronyms, and other multi-syllable A words.

If any of you have ever watched a football game with me, no matter who is playing, you know I can get pretty heated. Throw in the fact that one of my teams is playing in the game and heated is not even the right word. Yeah, you’re a nut, and I don’t like the added blood pressure thank you very much. Ahhh, don’t be a wimp!

I can get downright vicious in the stands of a game, a sports bar, or even in my own living room. My angst is typically directed at one of three places.

[1] the officials – standard sports fan fare, yell at the refs for bad calls. They're always bad calls? Well, in my book against my team a bad call!
[2] the other team – again, pretty standard, yell at the other team for being: stupid, ugly, bad, mean, cheaters, dirty, from Miami, or a pansy.
[3] my own coaches – probably pretty nonstandard here, to yell as much as I do at my own coaches. You think? Shoosh. Especially in the college ranks, these are adult men paid to coach and prepare 18-22 boys to be ready to play. I can expect nothing less than perfection from them, at all times, no exceptions. Seems fair. Damn right.

Well, insert one 2-1/2 year old boy into the mix, and my football viewing could be seen as non-proper-parenting. To put it lightly. Geez, who’s side are you on here? Hers. I knew it!

Anyways, I have a couple phrases I like to say (yell) during games, at very specific high tension moments or after a big play. Some of these phrases could be viewed under that list of non-proper-parenting-behaviors.

One specific phrase that comes to mind, typically said (yelled) to the refs after a horrible call against my team, or said (yelled) to my opposing team after my team completes a big play against them – is “SUCK MY BALLS!!!!!” It’s typically not said (yelled) only once, and is usually rambled off in increasing volume until I can’t breathe any more, depending on the meaning of the play and how big of a spot in the game we’re in.

Well, in order to more align me with what would be considered, proper-parenting-behavior, Mrs. HokieJayBee has politely requested that I use Abbreviations and Acronyms in front of lil’ HokieJayBee to shield him from the verbal wrath of watching football with daddy.

This past Saturday, lil’ HokieJayBee’s phrase of the day?

“Mommy! S my B’s!!!!”

[dancing in a circle] “S my B’s, S my B’s, S my B’s, S………………my………….Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’s!!!!!”

Nice work daddy.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 5

As per usual, check out my boy EJB's Beer Control Offense,

----> here <---- for HokieJayBee's Week 5 NFL Newsletter.

Wrong Bowl.

Hi reader(s). You ever have like a huge funny story from your past, that you just flat out forgot about, only to be reminded again recently, and you’re just flat stunned that you could ever forget that story? What? You make no sense. Um, you know what I mean. You get reminded somehow of probably one of the funniest stories you’ve ever heard, and you immediately think, “oh my God I’m going to put that on my blog!”, “how could I have not written this story down before??”. Just tell the damn story.

Luckily for me, I can actually tell you what day it was. It was Sunday, February 1, 2004. How do I know this? Super Bowl party. Patriots over Panthers. You know, the Super Bowl with the Janet Jackson boob incident. Ha! I knew you’d end up talking about bewbies! Shut up. I have a different story about that night.

Background: so, in my group of friends, we had one friend that, let’s just say, didn’t have a lot of game. Didn’t have a lot of luck with the ladies. (see former post, he’s the anti-Player to my other friend, the Player). Give him some credit. Ok, he has since turned it around and met and married a girl and he turned out ok. But, but, but, in 2004, he hadn’t turned it around yet, and was, ……….the anti-Player. Both by his own doing, too picky, nervous with the ladies, whatever – and, just some flat out bad luck.

Character Set-Up: so, he who shall be known as the anti-Player, had met a little lady the past fall of 2003 and hung out with her some. I’m not making fun here, either for or against him, but I don’t know what it meant back then for him to “hang out” with a girl. He always said any girls he liked just always hung out and classified him in the “friend zone”. Although in 2004, in our mid-twenties, I’m pretty sure I know what he meant when he said he had a friend, who was a girl, that he was “hanging out” with last fall. Unfortunately, in a continuance of his bad luck, this little lady was in the Air Force and was only in our area for the fall, for a class. When her class was over, she was returned by the Air Force to her base in,………….Arizona. We live in Virginia. Poor anti-Player, yet again.

Current Relevance: so, that night, Super Bowl night, we were all (~15-20 people) at another one of our friend’s house for the game. Everyone brought food or beer, there was a good big screen TV – we chose this guy’s house for big football games sometimes because he literally had stadium seating. i.e. he built a stand for additional couches to be behind the first section of couches. Enginerds are good for some things, see?

So, we’re at the party for the game. When the anti-Player gets a cell phone call in the middle of the third quarter. It’s his lady friend. The one from Arizona. They’re talking briefly. He’s excited to hear that she’s going to be in town soon. His mood is good.

Now It Gets Hairy: After hanging up with her, he’s telling some of us that he’s excited he’ll get to see again soon. Blah blah blah. We think nothing of it, at least, at the time, we’re watching the Super Bowl after all. Then his phone rings again. This is what we hear. “Ohhhhhhh, you’re here now?!?!? This Sunday??!?!??! And you’re leaving tomorrow morning??!??!?! Shit! Be right there!!!!”

You know that puff of smoke you see when the road runner disappears and then you see the hole through the wall where the coyote exited. Yeah. The anti-Player was gone before anyone could even get out, “later” or “bye”.

The remainder of this story is as recanted to us by the anti-Player, the next day. Many of the aspects of the story, are additionally humorous because they’re true, it’s literally how hard up he was.

Apparently he misunderstood her travel plans, and she was literally only in town for a day for the Air Force, and was leaving the next day. She had gone out with her coworkers to watch the game, but was now back at her hotel, a little inebriated. Girls make booty calls too!!!! He received her call and invite while at the party with us.

He proceeded to make the ~7 mile trip from the Super Bowl party to his house in roughly 3 minutes (with lights and traffic should have taken 15). He said he ran 2 red lights and hit over 100 on the main road. Hey, the anti-Player was in need, people.

He shit, showered, and shaved – and threw on some nice clothes at his house. He claims he did this in less than 2 minutes.

He then said he floored it back out of his neighborhood and hit 7-11. The way he describes the 7-11 experience is like a movie when everyone starts rooting for the protagonist of the story. He said he sprinted in, literally, ran to the beer cooler, grabbed a sixer of Heineken. Turned, sprinted to the drug store aisle, grabbed a box of condoms (here’s where I might have to question his story on his recant a little bit, he said he grabbed MAGNUM’s, but alas, it’s his story). Hits the candy aisle and grabs some mints and sprints for the counter. Crap, three people in line. Apparently, including the clerk, the four of them watched in humorous amazement as he entered the parking lot at full speed, screeched to a stop in the handicapped spot, sprinted in at full speed, grabbed beer, condoms, and mints – and headed for the counter. The three other customers at this point backed away from the counter and let him go first. The clerk, laughing hysterically, rang it up and bagged it ASAP for him.

He swears he heard, “go get ‘em tiger”, from an old dude in line. Total was around $14. He threw a $20 on the counter and sprinted out, no change needed.

Now he’s roughly a couple miles from Arizona-girl’s hotel. And two or three stoplights. He continues to floor it and take turns all too aggressively. And says he probably ran the lights leaving the 7-11 area. Now he says, he gets to the last light, to turn into the hotel. He’s sitting in the left hand turn lane, with a red arrow. He doesn’t run this one, because he’s run enough of them, so he’ll wait this one out, and use the time to catch his breath and prepare to see her (check teeth, have one of those mints, etc.) – oh and he doesn’t run this light because it’s going left across his city’s probably biggest road, 4 lanes of traffic.

So he sits, and waits. And waits. And waits. Moves his car up and back a couple times to ensure he would trigger the turn lane sensor. No luck. He says it was for a couple minutes, and a couple cycles of the light to the other direction, and no green turn arrow. He freaks. Next break in traffic, he floors it, screeching in place before taking off and cutting the wheel at max to the left to try and cut through the traffic.

About halfway across the intersection he hears a loud crash and then some grinding. He realizes he’s sitting at an angle and looking down and right. What the hell is with the front right tire? Oh, there it goes. As he watches it roll off down the road and into the ditch…..apparently all this heavy driving and screeching and hard turns sort of ripped the tire off the rim. He said he tried to drive on the rim for a second. Screw it. He’ll fix it tomorrow, if the rim could just get him to the hotel!!! He was right there! he was at the hotel…..Thankfully he talked himself out of that.
Then he said he thought about just leaving the car there. Leave it in the middle of the biggest road in town, in an intersection, on 3 tires, on Super Bowl Sunday – and he’ll get it later, he could just run to the hotel and leave it…… Thankfully he talked himself out of that.

Next best thing? He knows he’s going to have to change the tire out and get the spare on. But dammit. He’s wearing sweet ass dress clothes for his lady. Can’t get those all greasy or sweaty. So…….yep……got naked.

[side note: I have to interrupt here to let you know, in the most non-gay way, that we always teased the anti-Player because he couldn’t get girls because he was a nervous dork around them, it wasn’t his looks or his body. And he also works out 11 days a week and is pretty jacked.]

His night couldn’t get worse. Except, yep, you guessed it. Sirens and lights. Blue lights. State trooper pulls up, blocks traffic, sets up some flares and walks over to the anti-Player. Now, in your best Hollywood imagination, picture this:
*4 lane road, busiest in town.
*SUV, hatch open to get the spare out. Sitting on 3 tires and 1 rim. In the middle of the intersection.
*Young man, muscular in great shape, wearing only dress shoes and socks, boxers, and a tank-top undershirt – trying to get the SUV lifted on the jack.
*Passenger door open where he threw his clothes in, and got the jack and wrench out.
*In view on the front seat: 6 pack of Heineken, box of condoms, box of mints.
*Young man, frantically changing the tire like he works on a NASCAR pit crew.

My friend, the anti-Player, said the state trooper didn’t say a word or help. Just watched in amazement and laughing the whole time at the situation. When he finished, picking up everything, he said the state trooper walked over to the car, grabbed one of the Heinekens, got back in his squad car with a “good luck kid” and drove away. Other than the “good luck kid”, not a word was exchanged.

So he pulls over to the hotel, gets his dress clothes back on, eats another mint, and sprints into the lobby. Up the elevator to her room. Pauses a second in the hall to catch his breath, make sure his clothes look decent. Condoms in the back pocket. A 5-pack of Heineken to share in hand.

Knock, knock, knock.
No answer.
Knock, knock, knock.
No answer.
Knock, knock, knock.
Finally, an answer. It’s his girl. He thinks. It looks like her. Only a death came over, rolled over, and tossed her at the door in her pajamas.

Alas was anti-Player’s life and luck, he got the booty call from a drunken happy version of his girl. Then after the work at home, 7-11, and changing a tire – he got to spend the rest of Super Sunday holding her hair at the Hampton Inn’s super “bowl”.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 4

Well crap on me. No posts this week? My bad.

At least you get this week's NFL Week 4 newsletter.

Still posted ----> here <---- at my boy BCO's page.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 3

Again, check out this week 3 NFL pick-em newsletter over at my boy EBJ's Beer Control Offense page.

Click -----> HERE <-----

Allowed to Make Fun of Something?

So I’ve got a story about the rules on who is allowed to make fun of something or someone, and when. I’m going to toss out a caveat that I’m not here to discuss the merits of making fun of something or someone, or that it is never ok. For the sake of this conversation, let’s assume we live in a world where the occasional making fun of something or someone is ok, but that there are rules. You know, those unwritten rules we all live by.

Like, two men shall never share an umbrella, under any circumstance. Don’t question the rules, just follow them. You just have to understand, there are these rules. You don’t have to like them or agree with them. Just know, they are there.

A little story background: I drive a truck. A big fucking truck (BFT). I could grunt at you and say something like, “uggg me man, me drive hemi”. It’s big, it’s loud, it’s got modified headers and modified intake and modified exhaust. Making up for something? No. Jerk. I just drive a big loud truck. Can you help me move? Ha! I do get that a lot. Anyways, it’s over 400 horses of pure win. It’s roomy, it’s loud, it has Sirius satellite radio – I basically have no complaints. In a wet road fishtailing incident, if anyone is keeping score, it’s Big Truck 1, Light Pole 0. And the truck came out fine, and the driver, moi, came out fine. Not a scratch. This is why one drives a big truck, you win.

My parents used to teach me about the law of gross tonnage. Like, when driving on the interstate. If a big rig wants to change lanes, he puts on his blinker. That blinker is not flashing at you to ask for permission. It’s flashing at you as a warning shot. “I am coming over.” Law of gross tonnage, I am bigger than you. So other than those big rigs, when on the road, I am the big one, and I am the winner. You’re an asshole. No no, I’m not being an ass, I’m just acting hard. I’m just trying to say that now I’ve driven a large truck, I’ll never drive something smaller. It’s an active “I’m an aggressor” feeling and a passive feeling of safety in the big ride. People reading this who drive big trucks know what I’m talking about, people who don’t drive big trucks think we’re assholes.

In my office, I’m the “big truck guy”. This means when office furniture needed moving, I move it. When we have group lunches out, I don’t drive. I typically ride with my friend, here we’ll call him “the Doctor” (don’t ask, long story). The Doctor is notoriously not a big truck guy. He recently upgraded his Honda Civic to a new Toyota Prius Hybrid thingee. Like, he could get infinite gas mileage if he wanted, not just the 50 mpg they advertise. We could pick up his car and put it in my truck bed and I could carry the car around everywhere and he’d get infinite mpg. I make fun of him all the time, but the truth is that he’s economically and environmentally conscious, and………..blah blah blah he has over an hour commute every day and saves gas money.

Anyways, the other day for lunch, he drives to lunch. You know, two dudes, cruising in the Prius, straight pimping. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Shut up. Luckily it’s not raining, so there’s no chance of two dudes, rolling in the Prius, to arrive at said lunch destination and share an umbrella. What do we do to counteract this look, these two guys rolling to lunch together in the hybrid? What any two red blooded American males in our situation would do. We up our rep with a lunch at Hooters. Yeahhhhhh boiiiiiiiiii.

Soooooooo, we’re walking across the Hooters parking lot on our way in, and from behind me to my right, I hear:

“WHAT……………THE………………….FUCK?!?!?!!?!”

“huh, sup?”

“Who the hell would drive that little thing? Jesus.”

“Dude….you...........


can’t make fun………of him............."

This Week's Sign of the Apocalypse.

So I’m sitting at the bar last Saturday morning. It’s 10:30am. We’ve had our snacks. Now we’re having our pre-tailgating-pre-game beers and shots. Yes, that’s how we roll in Blacksburg. 33oz schooners and jager bombs before the sun passes the tree line is just what we do. Then we go to games and curse our offensive coordinator for 58 minutes and then rejoice like madmen when we score late to win. Either way, like a sprinter’s world records can be tainted by “wind aided” – our cheers are specifically “drink aided”. And if you have to start early, you have to start early.

So anyways, we’re sitting at the bar – me, Mrs. HokieJayBee, and four of our best friends. For the sake of the brevity of this post, we’ll just call one of the friends, “the Player”. No further explanation, just call him the Player. Our friend, the Player, has cycled through some girlfriends in recent years. Recent years? Ok, you’re right, since I’ve known him. And he’s pretty much always got something going with someone, in any city, no matter where I’ve been with him. See, too much explanation. You’re right. Ok.

This week’s sign of the apocalypse: So we’re sitting there drinking away, watching College Football Gameday. And Mrs. HokieJayBee turns to the Player:

“Hey, do you still talk to [INSERT GIRL’s NAME HERE]?”

[snickers] “nah, things didn’t end well there.”

“Man, I need to unfriend her”.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 2

Again, check out this week's NFL pick-em newsletter over at my boy EBJ's Beer Control Offense page.

Click -----> here <------

New Pet Peeve.

I’ve got a new pet peeve: People’s damn e-mail signatures. I don’t know if it’s people being pompous, or just flat out retarded. But I don’t care to read all that crap you have with your name at the end of your e-mails.

Things I need in your e-mail signature:
*Maybe your company. Maybe. I don’t need to know it now if I haven’t already learned who I’m working with; I’m sure as heck not going to learn it from your e-mail signature.

*Your position. Within reason. Don’t draw this out. Limit, 2 words. If you can’t tell me your position in 2 words or less, you’re in a made up position or you’re typing us crap to make yourself feel important.
So no:
Executive Auditor of Software Production and Management Coordinator
What the fuck is that? You’re a secretary and play solitaire all day?

*Maybe your department. If it matters. Maybe. Again, 2 word limit here. And don’t double dip here with the position description either. So no:
Vice President of Process Engineering
Process Engineering Department
Well no shit.

*Your phone number(s). Just list any important applicable ones with area codes.

Things I don’t need in your e-mail signature:

*NOT YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS. For God’s sake don’t type me your e-mail address…………..in………………..an………………e-mail. I happen to be the proud owner of one of those new fangled computer thingees and my e-mail program has a REPLY button.

*Some super overblown logo from your company. And in some people’s case, an actual animated (.gif I assume) piece of crap picture. I have some people that I converse with regularly via e-mail that have roughly 500k (half a Mb!) in e-mail crap in their e-mail. Like, if they were to send me an e-mail, that the body of the e-mail said, “hi”. The e-mail is half a friggin Mb. Really? Stop with that. Just stop.


To finalize, here’s an example of what the world needs from your signature:

HokieJayBee
BorderlineTMI Blogger
Blogspot
(757) 867 5309

Things That Amuse Me, I mean Bug Me – The VA State Budget

‘tis funny. This piece, when it was originally dreamt up in my pretty little head, was just another “Things That Amuse Me” piece. Jay, you have an enormous head. Shut up, it’s a saying. I know my head isn’t pretty either. Anyways, this piece became a “bug me” piece when I learned a little bit of information this weekend from a friend of my wife and mine.

I must warn you, Jay is about to take you on a long strange trip to get to a point. No I’m not! Ignore the man behind the curtain please - my goal for the piece just changed is all.

Ok, we all have gripes about our government. Whether you’re Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Liberal, active in government or not – it doesn’t matter – we all always have gripes about our government(s). For the sake of this piece, I’m talking about my state’s (commonwealth’s) government – Virginia.

Fact 1 – Virginia is one of very few states that has a “personal property tax”. Yeah, pay extra every 6 months to own stuff. So, you go to the dealership and get that new Maxima. All the fixins, out the door, $45,000. Plus the standard tax, title, tags – and other various crap the dealerships put on you. The tax there is the sales tax. The normal ~5% sales tax you pay to buy anything, from bubble gum to clothes to cars. Regardless of whether or not you paid in full at the dealership, or financed the vehicle, you’ve got this internal feeling that you just paid for a car – and now you “own” it.

This is where Virginia steps in and says, congratulations on owning that new personal property. Now, every June 5th and December 5th you owe money for owning personal property. Yeah, you pay them, again, every June and December, for the fact that you own stuff. Boats, jet-skis, motorcycles, cars, trucks. I’d estimate (based on prior vehicle and subsequent taxes paid) that that $45,000 Maxima is gonna ring you for ~$600 every 6 months. Yep. Sucks. It’s utter BS.

[clears throat] Shoosh. My point to starting with that, is that Virginia should never have any budget problems. In fact, a few years ago we had a budget surplus and it was on the table to remove the personal property tax. /rejoice But alas, that fell through and they did God knows what with the budget surplus. So, with this phantom you-bought-something-and-paid-tax-to-buy-it-but-now-have-to-pay-more-tax-every-6-months………Virginia should never have budget problems. Ever.

Fact 2 – and the reason this was almost a “Things That Amuse Me” piece. Virginia is also one of only two states (Connecticut I think) in the nation that does NOT allow radar detectors in your car. Yeah, can’t use them. They even have radar-detector-detectors. Which I don’t get how that would work because the radar detector could be a passive device so how can you detect the detector if it’s purely set up as a passive collection device. Apparently they do emit an active search frequency, but I don’t get how that could be distinguished from which car it is emitting, let alone against all the cell phones, blackberries, satellite radios, satellite direction Garmin-Tom-Toms, etc. ----- but I digress. My point, and things that amuse me, is that I (conspiracy theory) always used to joke that there’s only one reason Virginia outlaws the use of radar detectors. They’re cheap and don’t want to upgrade technology on the police/state trooper’s radar units. If we simply outlaw the new technology to circumvent our ancient technology, we can just keep using the old technology without worry. Then they pay for radar detector detectors….so this seems stupid. The reason this amuses me, is, yes, you can be driving down the interstate here in Virginia……and you won’t see a state trooper on the side of the road with a fancy radar unit mounted on his vehicle, or a hidden unit that you don’t know which direction of travel he’s currently scanning, etc. You’ll see a Virginia State Trooper parked on the side of the road, standing outside his car, pointing a huge ass radar gun at you, 1985 style like he’s clocking Nolan Ryan at the ballgame.

So, they outlaw “radar detectors”, meaning you can’t purchase a unit that is mounted on your dashboard that tells you when police are scanning with radar for your speed…….but they didn’t outlaw “radar detectors”, meaning your eyes.

So I’ve established two reasons there shouldn’t be budget problems in Virginia. First the ridiculous Personal Property Tax and secondly, they don’t invest in higher end technology for the police force. We could throw in that, holy crap, Virginia also participates in a state run lottery system. Actually, two of them. One is internal to Virginia only, and also a member of one of the PowerBall/MegaMillions multi-state lotteries.

This post was originally going to end with the “amuse me” part about the cops standing on the side of the road with their 25 year old radar guns. But after learning something this weekend, regarding the state budget, it turned into “Things That Bug Me”. You see, my wife is a teacher. And we just learned this weekend that the governor and state government here are going to “ask” (read: force) all state school employees to take a day of furlough. Working one day this spring for free, giving the money back to the state government. Really? My wife’s school is already overcrowded and understaffed. And they didn’t even get a cost-of-living increase this year.

So………we’ve got a ridiculous personal property tax, we’ve got the friggin lottery which is supposed to be putting millions into the state education system, and we’ve got the fact that they aren’t updating other state programs (the radar gun side story is tongue in cheek at a real issue). This is serious stuff. Where is this money going? Where did the surplus go? Where is the spending?

Well this past weekend, traveling to VT for a home football game, we found out where. Every friggin state rest area on the interstates have $120 trash cans, multiple ones, in each bathroom. There’s Simple Human $120 (yes, $120 if you can't see it in the below pic) trash cans in every bathroom.

Seriously? Great appropriation work jackasses.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 1

I typically write a wall of text NFL newsletter every week of the NFL season. Predicting games, trying to be funny, who sucks?, who is good?, quoting stats and generally putting my opinion out there on a bunch of NFL stuff every week.

I was going to post them here, but after a quick e-mail discussion with my boy EBJ over at BeerControlOffense - we decided to post my weekly NFL newsletter with his weekly college version. His site is more sports related anyways :)

Check it out here :)

This Week's Sign of the Apocalypse.

*warning* only my fellow World of Warcraft-ers will get this, but I definitely just had a sign of the apocalypse.

I'm not going to get into my inner nerd-dom and get into the details of what happened. Let's just say that in the engineering world, getting it perfectly laid out from your customer EXACTLY what he wants, EXACTLY what he thinks he's paying for - is paramount!

In a discussion today with an instrument vendor, my instrument technicians, my main customer, his subcontractors overseeing fabrication of the vessel where the instrument in question is installed, and our purchasing agents - I said, and I quote:

"No, no, it is working as intended."


Blizzard, are you hiring in your customer service or GM departments? I've already got the response down. You save on training!

You're a nerd. Yep.

This Post Is Brought To You By:

Hey guys and gals.

Sorry for the 6 day posting hiatus. I had that travel down to ATL watch 'bama beat up my beloved Hokies, then an extended holiday weekend, then back to work - and 6 other excuses that you don't care about. Anyways, I'm back and I'll be putting out my week 1 NFL newsletter here later today or tomorrow.

In the mean time, I have to wax on something that you must try. I'm not going to turn this site into an advertising blog - unless it's just something that is flat out amazing and I like it and think you should try it. I have no affiliation nor make any kickback from any of this. Unless of course a representative from management from a company I highlight happens to see it and wants to mail me some....

But anyways.......I guess I'm going to occasionally write on a certain product, and I will not get crazy about it. It will be a solid description of the product and I'll try and keep the emotion out of it too much. I'll try and be calm about this, when I do feel the need to comment on a product.

YOU HAVE TO FRIGGIN TRY SIMPLY ORANGE - ORANGE JUICE WITH THE MANGO. OMGWTFBBQ IT IS SO FRIGGIN GOOD. IT IS SO FULL OF WIN. GET SOME, NOW!

That is all.

I got peed on this morning.

Short quickie post this morning, I gotta run! Driving to Hot-lanta today for the VT/’bama game tomorrow! Woot woot, it’s college football season!

If you’d believe that when I got up this morning, my running to-do and priority list in my head was churning. What did I have to get done before work, at work, and prepare right after work – to get out of town and on the road? When I first got up and started to have these to-do and priority list thoughts, writing to you all on here came up. First, yes, I’m that much of a nerd bomb, I do make little to-do lists all the time. He does. Second, yes, shed a tear, whatever, I did think about how I’d be posting over the weekend and if I wanted to pre-write and post things for you reader(s). Don’t be sappy. I’m not, I’m just saying that when I got up this morning, I was trying to think how I’d get a post on before I left town, and what a good short one would be about.

And wouldn’t you know it. Sometimes the world works in mysterious ways. I didn’t have any good topics on my running list of writing topics that would make a good short post. I feared I wouldn’t have any time before leaving for Atlanta to hit you all up with a good post. And bam, sometimes life just works out, and I was handed a great short post for you (all). And, and, and it’s going to fulfill to a tee, the blog’s title and let’s tread that TMI line.

Everyone has a morning routine. Work mornings are typically hectic for everyone. My house is not any different. We’ve got the two idiot huskies to take care of, the pool to care for (it’s labor day, put the cover on! No more chlorine hands at work!), and of course we’ve got the boy. He’s not a “terrible”-two by any means. But he’s……let’s just say……a handful. Well said, politically correct and all. And when I’m half asleep and trying to pry the gunk out of my own eyes, I’m not always ready to handle full-two-year-old-boy parenting at the butt crack of dawn.

Sometimes, based on a simple ratio of time available to get ready : snooze bar hits : morning meetings at work for me or the misses : did my son have a bath the night before – sometimes we throw the boy in the shower with one of us to save time.

If you remember my noun-ified verbs from the other day, you know I’m a Long Shower-er. DO NOT UPDATE THIS STORY’s DETAILS! No no, still innocently. Meaning, I just simply like to take long showers, and sit on the built in seat in my home’s shower.

So this morning, I’m sitting on my seat, relaxing, just thinking about nothing and generally enjoying the hot shower. It’s decided that based on the timing of the morning and our busy-ness, we’re going to throw the boy in the shower with me.

I wash his hair, “close your eyes, don’t want to get soap in it”.

“Ok, now wash your body. Wash your armpits, like daddy.”

“Now wash your knees. No, that’s your elbows silly. Wash your knees. Here. Good job.”

Everything is going well, we’re going to rinse and get out.


Jay…... Jay! JAY!!!!!!!! Extra stream……….. Extra stream!!!!!!! Right foot. 98.6 degree stream. Yellow, hitting your right foot!!!!!!! JAY, move your foot!!!!!!!!!

Things That Bug Me - That Little Red Squiggly

You guys are going to really start thinking there’s a lot of good planning going on in this here head. They’d be wrong. I know. Can you be quiet for a second and let me talk to the reader(s)?

You can at least maybe believe it, that there’s some forethought and good general writing practice going on, right? You see, in yesterday’s post, I joked about Bill Gates’ little red squiggly on my line about my own retardedness. He and his cronies at Microsoft Word – Department of Red Squigglies and Suggested Replacement Words – or the DRSSR as I like to call them – thought I should have been talking about my own beardedness. Things I find funny: Squiggly is a word according to the DRSSR, Squigglies is not. You just typed Squigglies, again. Yeah, well, what the hell is the correct word for more than one Squiggly? Squiggli? Nope, red squiggly. Squigglys? Nope, red squiggly. Squiggles? Whoa, that passed. So, more than one squiggly is correctly typed (spoken?) as squiggles……in fact, if you right click on Squigglies, Squiggli, or Squigglys – it lists other proper tenses/conjugations of Squiggly for you. The gerund, the nounified verb of doing a squiggly – squiggling. Hey, look, Bobby is good at squiggling. The action of currently making a squiggly? Squiggles. Hey, look at Bobby, he squiggles with his left hand.

Wait a minute! Yeah, I saw it too. Dammit. Squiggles isn’t the plural of Squiggly. It’s the present tense verb for the act of making a squiggly. He squiggles. Bah humbug! So there isn’t a proper plural version of the word Squiggly…..I shake my fist with vigor at you, Bill Gates.

Wow, stellar opening Jay, and look, only took 10 little red squigglies. Ha! You wrote it too. Dammit! I curse you Bill Gates! You just made my day. You know I can make you stab your own eyes out with your pen, right? Yeah. You know I can make you involuntarily shit your pants at work right? Yeah. Then shut it. Fine.

Before I get into the main point of today’s verbal diarrhea, I think the word “Squiggly” is actually an adjective. The line is squiggly. I think the noun would be squiggle. It is a wavy line, it is a squiggle. Or the verb would be squiggle. I will squiggle on this paper. So that plural would be correct at squiggles, or the present tense would be that same squiggles. But don’t rain on this parade Microsoft! Don’t do it. You’re an absolute idiot. Yep. Your point today? Oh yeah….

My accidental tie to yesterday’s post, where I was maybe trying to get an inkling of credit for having some forethought, was to be about things that bug me again. Things That Bug Me – That Little Red Squiggly.

The DRSSR is a funny group. And they’re not very consistent. It’s bothersome. It’s bothersome for someone who types a lot – both for pleasure and employment.

You can’t quote me here, because I forget the misspelling I did actually type, but the other day I was trying to type the word “glue”. It went something like this. Apparently my right hand was placed one key off on the keyboard….so when I went to the “L” key, I hit the “K” key. And subsequently next hit the “Y” key instead of the “U” key. So I started typing “glue” by typing “gky”. Noticing my mistake, I reached up with my pinky to the “backspace” key, but again, with the hand misplaced by a key, I reached up and hit the “=” key instead, twice, one for the “K” and one for the “Y”. At this point, if I remember correctly, I had typed, “gky==”. Thinking of course that I’d backspaced properly, it was time to restart typing “glue”. I start in with the “GL”, only to then see on the screen, “gky==gl”. At this point, flustered, my fingers bounce on or near the remainder of the word and I’ll fix it. So I ended up with something along the lines of “gky==glaue”. And?

Well I’ve got two things to say about this. 1. one of the suggestions for “gky==glaue”, for the correct word, is “glue”. What the fuck? You know I was trying to type “glue” out of that. You can’t tell me that the computers at Microsoft have preprogrammed misspelled words based on the incorrect placement of hands, just off to the left, to include the backspacing, rather “=”, and then the reattempt at the word. You can’t tell me that. No way. Yet, somehow, it knew I was trying to type “glue”. Of course, 2. Copy and paste that “gky==glaue” into your Word. Right click it. It also thought I could have been meaning to type “gay glaze”. Gross, what the hell Jay? I don’t even want to know what that is. I know, I know, only added for gratuitous humor. The point was, I was amazed that it knew, from that, that I was trying to type the word “glue”.

Bringing me to what pisses me off about That Little Red Squiggly. The DRSSR is so friggin smart, it knows that “gky==glaue” is glue – but it can’t decipher other mistakenly typed words. For example, from recent typing of my own, that caused me to start a list for this post.

“unfortunatley” ---- WHAT?? Big brain on Bill Gates. You can’t tell that’s supposed to be “unfortunately”????

“Satruday” ---- Seriously? What the hell other word could I have been meaning to type there?

“comppleted” ---- Yeah, I could see how you maybe didn’t see what I meant there. That’s clearly NOT the word “completed”. In fact, you’re right Bill, I meant to type “bearded”.

[that's not me]

Things That Amuse Me

And maybe only me. Ha, it should say, “Things That Amuse Me, because I’m immature”. So what? There’s simple stuff that I find funny. And that’s all. No hidden agendas, just another mini-confessional about stupid stuff I find amusing. They are:

*My Own Retardedness. Ok, wow. While typing this here little blog for you reader(s), I just found a funny. According to Bill Gates’ little red line, “retardedness” is not a word. Irony is ironic sometimes. Wow, how funny is that, on so many levels? In an effort to make fun of something about myself, I tried to insinuate my own stupidity, and in this case, my inability to learn from making a previous mistake. So I totally tried to use something that’s not a word? Idiot. Yep, that’s funny. And on top of that, right click retardedness, and Bill Gates’ thinks I should have said, “my own beardedness”. Well thanks Bill. I did mean to go into a monologue about my Fu Manchu.

*Take 2. My Own Idiocy. Yeah, get on with it. Ok, inability to learn from a previous mistake. And this one, yes, I admit, happens EVERY time. At work, in my office, we have one of those fancy workstation printer/scanner/copier/fax/tie your shoes/general do anything machines. Like the big ones from the commercials. It pretty much rocks. And with my MBA, it only took admin like 4 weeks to teach me to use it. So anyways, when you want to use it as a scanner, you can set it up to scan your document and you can program it to e-mail it directly to you. And since it’s on the office intranet/LAN/[insert correct compu-nerd term here], it’s pretty much an instant e-mail. Like, the scanned document is on my computer before I can walk the ~30 feet back to my desk. And it never fails, every time, EVERY time I get back to my desk, I’m like, “ooooh, I have new mail!”…..Oh wait, it’s from me, from the scanner. Sad panda. Ok, maybe retardedness was the right word. Ha! See! Somehow, between choosing my scan settings, hitting scan, and walking back to my desk, WITH the subject document IN HAND – I forgot that I just sent myself mail. EVERY TIME.

*Dick and Fart Jokes. See, because you’re immature. Again, so what. I’m an American male below the age of 80. Dick jokes and farts are funny. I’m at the point in my life where I might have to actually start watching my mouth and the volume of the visits from my friend Gaseous Clay – as I don’t want to force this humor onto my toddler son. He must learn dick and fart humor on his own. But I have to admit, in my early 30’s, there’s no slowing of the humor in cock-n-ball jokes, innuendos misinterpreted, or just a good ol’ fashioned fart. Wow Jay, just wow. Shut up. Case in point. There’s a new commercial out for Gas-X. Dude is being interviewed for a job. He’s got tummy rumbles and for the commercial’s sake, let’s just say, to borrow a line from my 5-year-old niece, he’s a little gassy. He’s tossing and turning uncomfortably in the chair, and his interviewer leads in with, (what he hears) “oh I see you graduated at the top of your gas, and you’re flatulent in three languages.” His interviewer’s assistant comes in, distracting her for a second, so he turns and leans and takes a Gas-X. The assistant, “sorry to disturb ma’am, your son Rip is on line toot.” HAHAHAHAHAHA, sorry people, that’s funny shit. Jon Stewart’s got nothing on Gas-X writers!

*Stupid TV. Huh? Other than Gas-X commercials? Yes, like specific shows that amuse me – that probably shouldn’t. Like, I just used the demographic that I’m a male below the age of 80. That whole logic is thrown out the window, when I sit down every Sunday night and watch, with great amusement, Randy Jackson’s America’s Best Dance Crew. You’re apparently a 13 year old girl. Hey, you sit and watch it too. Because I have to! I can’t exactly just leave this dome piece of a head and go do something else. I mean, you don’t have to remember or admit to watching it, yet here you help me type. Touché. Another show that I like, and I admit to near hernia-style laughing, is the ABC show “Wipeout!”, based on the Japanese show “Most Extreme Challenge” or something like that. If you haven’t seen it, contestants are put to a basically impossible obstacle course, always situated over water or mud, and they attempt to get through it. Roughly 0.008% of contestants can successfully do the course. The hilarity that ensues seeing out of shape people throwing themselves into horribly painful looking wipeouts, is well, funny to me.

*Bad Jokes. Perhaps you’re too easily amused. Nah, but I admit to loving some bad, corny jokes in my time. I can’t explain it. Maybe it has to do with the state I was in when I heard the joke. Like, Nebraska? No, you moron, your retardedness is amazing. Like, was I drunk at a party when I heard it, and laughed until I puked, so it just has this overly funny association? Who knows. Example? Don’t do it Jay, not the toaster oven. Sorry, have to now.

So there’s these two muffins in a toaster oven. One of them looks over at the other one, “man, it is HOT in here.” The other one looks up, “HOLY SHIT! A talking muffin!”

Sorry everyone, sorry. Aw, quit being a scrooge, that’s funny.

Noun-ifying Verbs

So this is Borderline TMI, right? Well I guess it’s time for a mini-confessional. Be careful Jay. No no, nothing too crazy – just some self deprecating humor. I won’t let this get too far in today with you having to wonder what the hell “nounifying verbs” means. Well, I totally made it up. In my pretty little head, it’s a way to explain my urge to add “-er” to any word to name someone based on an action.

I’m not the only one. I do have one very very funny avid memory of a drunken spill and bed bouncing, while imitating an Olympic gymnast, that I apparently flung my wife off said bed and into the nightstand, and she exclaimed that I was a “fat lip-er maker”. She didn’t exactly use the “-er” in the right place, but you get my point. She’s going to kill you. Hope not. She’s probably my only reader anyways so she doesn’t have to fear that a bunch of other people will learn that story.

Without any more delays from the peanut gallery……
I’m a long shower-er. Wow, right off the bat with a big embarrassing-alone-time-story? No no, don’t get too excited. Not like that. I mean, I innocently just take long showers. Well, innocently if you’re not so much of an earth lover that you’re mad at me for wasting water. But then you’d be an overreact-er. I can’t explain it. Although I would consider myself not deeply spiritual, maybe it’s my little way of meditating. Because, I don’t really think about anything. There’s no plan, no routine. My shower stall at home has a seat in it, built in. I sit on it. The water runs over me. I do nothing. Nothing. And it’s so nice.

I’m a flatulate-er. Really, straight to this? Well, it is mini-confessional time. Actually, you’re male right? Um, yeah. Then this isn’t a big story. You just aligned yourself with every XY chromosome in the world. Congrats. Feisty today huh? Well, your “confessions” started with naked time and farts. Good point.

I’m a push-er. And now to drugs? No, no. I drive a large truck. It’s big, it’s loud. Long showers and gas guzzling Hemi’s, Al Gore just called, it’s for you. I drive with a simple rule. I think it was Newton’s or Darwin’s forgotten law. The Law of Gross Tonnage. I am bigger, heavier, and traveling at a high rate of speed. You will move / let me in / yield. And you will like it. You’re an asshole-er. I prefer push-er. My first car was a doo-doo brown Volkswagen Rabbit. I’ve been the push-ee. And I didn’t like it.

I’m a last-name-call-er. I guess I hope it doesn’t annoy people. I have the tendency to call people by their last names only. It’s more of a sign of friendship, as I only do it to friends. But either way, I call people, especially those with one- or two-syllable last names, by only their last name. And if their last name is three or more syllables, I come up with a snazzy abbreviated last name for them. Or even at a minimum, I call them their first AND last names, or maybe some fancy mixture of the two. Like, all the time. Not randomly, all the time. That becomes their calling name to me. I should make sure it doesn’t bug people.

I’m a reply-er. Like, always the last word. Not like every e-mail exchange is an argument or debate. But for some reason, I seem to always have just one more reply to an e-mail chain. Even if it’s just one more e-mail to say, “ok, see you there”, after we’ve both had two e-mails each solidifying the time and place and saying something along the lines of “ok, see you there”. I always just have this urge to send just one more, just to make sure they know I got the last one and we’re good. OCD much? Shut up.

I’m a wrong-lyrics-er. Huh? You know, when we don’t know, i.e. you don’t help me remember the real lyrics to a song. We just say what we think they are, or close. Sometimes it’s funny.

I’m a holler-er. Speaking of song lyrics, I’ve been known to latch on to a certain phrase from a song or two, and run with it. Like, really run with it, dead horse style. Fellow attendees of mine to a recent friend’s bachelor party up in NYC got treated to a double whammy. [a] wrong-lyrics-er and [b] holler-er, at the same time! Yeah, it was funny the first 200 times. The last 200 were too much? Lil John’s “Now stop! Oh! Then wiggle wit, yeah!” was over-volumized many many many times to the tune of “Stop now! Get it, get it, yeah!” Loser. Hey, that’s close. And when drunkenly yelled in the streets or clubs, it’s cool man. Eminem’s “shake, that ass, for me – I said, shake, that ass for me” was correctly lyricized, but again, probably over used and definitely by a holler-er. The point is, a combination wrong-lyrics-er, and holler-er, when under the influence of alcohol – not pretty.

I’m a menace, a dentist, an oral hygienist. Wha? Some people just got that. Man I’m funny. Right, you’re funny. Or you’re not. It’s one or the other.

I’m not an innocent nightstand-er. Speaking of alcohol. I’ve been known……..over-imbibing : nightstand : me : 4:00am. You do the math. I’ll get some Clorox wipes. Nightstands are not toilets.

PIPE!!!!!

So I’ve got this friend I’ve fallen out of touch with. We all have them. I was just thinking about this friend the other day. Well first, let me say that this friend wasn’t a simple “falling out of touch” with. It was a very abrupt end to the friendship after some bullshit. Anyways, I guess the wife and I were out with some other friends the other night and talking about our fall plans (football travels :) ), and other friends we were going to see this fall came up.

So it probably went something like the old board-game Clue: we’re going to DC for XXX with person YYY and we’re using the ZZZ, we’re going to Atlanta for AAA with BBB and we’re staying with CCC, we’re going to Blacksburg on these weekends, we’re staying with fam on these weekends and going to try and see MMM for this game and NNN for that game. Etc. Etc. Etc.

At some point, my old friend came up. The standard, “have you seen him?”, “where is he?”, “have you talked to him since”, was where the conversation drifted to. The answers to those questions, and other similar to it, are: no I haven’t seen him, no, I don’t know where he is, although I know he was joining the Army, I haven’t talked to him in at least two years because the last time we even e-mailed was a simple, “hey I know we hate each other, but I wanted you to know my son was born and he’s healthy and we’re doing great, here’s a pic”. “congrats, that’s awesome, leaving for boot camp in 3 days, later”.

Since I know you can’t stop wanting to ask what happened, I’ll just say that my friend was a meat head. Lol, that’s mean and not true. I mean, he was a smart guy, read a lot about history, had good jobs – but he was a weight lifter. Actually got into big time. He was huge, you could see the fruits of his labors – like his bicep veins were about the size of my biceps. You’re scrawny. Shut up. But he was unstable. I met this guy in college in like 1996-97. And he was unstable then, big emotional swings, before he even got serious into the weight lifting. Then he got serious into it. And he got more unstable. I am by no means saying this guy raided Barry Bonds’ medicine cabinet, or saying that I am officially laying down the gauntlet of accusation. I’m just saying that if you were to have intimate knowledge of his bodily intake at that point in his life and you told me it included Jason Giambi’s mixtures – I would believe you.

Then, should you decide to throw alcohol into the mix, and this friend became even more Hyde than Jekyll. And, far be it from me to explain it, when groups of old college buddies get together for football, bachelor parties, cookouts, poker, whatever – there’s a running theme at these events, and it can be described in units of pints and liters. So, our last encounter was actually at a party at my house, and he had been imbibing, and there was a fight, and some threatening stuff was said to me and my wife and other friends, and he’s no longer welcome in my life.

Where is this going? Sorry, yeah, way off track. You think? I figured why we fell out of touch was a big part of this story, and now that I’m about to get into why I’m typing today in the first place, I realize why, or that we even, fell out of touch is totally irrelevant. Brilliant! But I’m not backspacing, deal with it. Fine, just get to the good part.

Wait, it does relate! You see, the funny part is centered around his weightlifting. That’s why I wanted to get the back story in. “Had a friend, we fell out of touch, because he was unstable while in a weightlifting binge, Oh hey! have a funny story about that!” It’s a stretch. Objection overruled, but make it quick. Thanks. So this friend, when times were better between us, invited me and some of our other boys into town one weekend to attend one of his bodybuilding competitions. You know, the Mr. Olympia Universe, cover-yourself-in-fake-bake-spray-and-pose-down-in-your-underwear, stuff. He made it out of his division and into the finals, but ended up like 5th, so no medals. But I think he was 5th out of like 18 in his weight class. Which was cool.

They’d put six of them up there for the music, routine, and pose-down – choose two of them for the finals. Then they’d put six more of them up there – choose two for the finals. And finally the last six – and last two chosen for the six man final. I want to remember and say that he was in the first six to go in his division, because I want to say that he was sitting with us in the crowd watching the other two groups of his division with us. He’d call them out, knew some of them, cheered for some, tell us who was big, who shouldn’t be in this division, etc.

They’d all come out on stage initially in a jump suit, sweat suit type outfit. And when their name would be called they’d disrobe and do their official routine of poses to their own music and then they’d line up for the six man pose off. Then the judges would choose the two to move on.

So anyways, when the third group got on stage, there was a guy up there who my friend said he saw backstage and the dude had no business entering this competition. Said the guy wasn’t cut, wasn’t built well, and didn’t know why he’d enter something like this and pose down with a bunch of huge cut up bodybuilders. Said the dude didn’t even look like he worked out, just looked like a regular dude. I was able to pick out the guy in question pretty easily, even when they were all up there and had on their sweat suits.

Jacket came off. My boy was right. This guy wasn’t cut up at all, he might not even be a weight lifter. I silently agreed with my boy, like, why would this guy even enter this competition? You were judging nearly naked dudes? Shut up! It was a bodybuilding competition and I was being an objective observer. Then the pants came off. And it quickly became readily apparent why this guy willingly signed up to be in a competition where he would be standing next to five other guys on a stage in front of a couple thousand people wearing only a Speedo.

Let’s just say, the judges and people in the first row might have had to duck if they didn’t want to get a mushroom tattoo on their forehead. I couldn’t help it, I’m that guy at sporting events, I heckle, I yell, I’m outlandish. I couldn’t help it. Don't do it. I yelled it.

PIPE!!!!

Psssst. Are you one of the X-Men?

It’s not every day you get asked if you’re a super hero. But when and if you do, I guess you sure hope it’s for doing something super heroic-ly awesome, right? Jay, “it’s not every day” = never. Whatever, leave me alone, she still technically asked. So it’s not never.

So my company used to have a bunch more employees than we do now. There’ve been layoffs and we’ve downsized, I mean, streamlined, to a smaller work force to more represent the level of our back log and current amount of work we have to complete. We used to be spread out at three different company offices. Now, they’re trying to sell office #3 and have stopped leasing office #2. So the remaining employees, including myself, have all been moved to #1 of the three original offices. You traded in your office for a cube. Booooo. But there’s plenty of parking. Yay.

So, in the new office set up, I share a quad cube set up with:

*My Secretary (ummmm, I mean Document Control Representative), this place wouldn’t run without her. Amen. Right, amen. Right, that’s why I said amen. Right, that’s why I said….moving on.

*the older lady (ummmm, I mean woman from the Caulk Party in my “Home Improvement” piece), she writes our training manuals. SIDE NOTE: since I had put the idea for this piece down on my list, Caulk Party Woman has been let go too :(. Doesn’t affect the outcome of this story, but :( just the same. You’re an ass. Hey, full disclosure.

*Accounts Receivable Girl. I don’t have any dirt on her. We’ll just call her the pirate. A R G. Get it? Wow Jay,......wow. Shut up. That’s quality stuff.

So you see the red break-in-the-cube-wall I highlight? My Document Control Girl and I use this to pass notes. Ooooooooh dirty. No no, 99.9% of the time they’re about work. So they’re not really notes. It’s more like, we use the division in the cube wall to save ourselves the trouble of getting up and walking around the cubes to hand the other person something that needs to be reviewed, signed, routed, transmitted, etc. Actually, I can only think of two instances when they weren’t about work.

[1] I was having a particularly bad day, to include an hour+ argument on the phone with Credit Card Company X regarding some bullshit finance charges. PREVIEW!!!! - future post, Things That Bug Me – Citibank. Boy you really kept that anonymous “Company X stuff” up for a while. Be forewarned now to use kiddy language earmuffs when reading the Citibank post. Anyways, she hit me with an “Are you OK?” sticky note. Well, come to think of it, I think she just put the sticky note on a normal work transmittal she would’ve passed to me through the cube crack anyways – so this doesn’t even actually count as passing me a note. It was more of a cover letter, feigning worry for my well being, oh by the way here’s some work to do. I kid I kid.

[2] And here is where the namesake for today’s post comes from. Personal note passing through the cube crack #2: “Are you Wolverine?” See! Someone did ask me if I’m a superhero. Am I Wolverine!!!!! What heroic deed did I do today? What villain did I thwart to earn such a complimentary question? And she thinks I’m a badass superhero, not some crap Silver Surfer or Green Lantern. Dear Reader, read more, don’t let him take credit for this.

“huh?”

“Well, you see, I can hear you clipping your nails. Every day, like two times a day. So I figured there must be some explanation for the rate at which your nails grow. Like, you’re Wolverine or something.”

[Deflated] Ha Ha Ha Ha

“No. I’m not Wolverine. I bite my nails. So I trim them anytime they get past a bite-able state, in an effort to not bite them……and I can’t stand, CANNOT STAND, that hard skin that grows around the side of your nail if you bite your nails short. So I cut that off too. Right here ----->” (yes, I really drew her a diagram)

“Oh.”

Wow Jay, from Wolverine to “oh” in milliseconds……


NOTES:
[a] Please, no comments from Wolverine fans. Yes, I know those aren’t his “fingernails” that come out of his hands. Yes, I know that because of his mutated inhuman healing abilities, the Canadian government’s Weapon X Program bonded indestructible adamantium to his skeleton and claws to make him into a weapon. And therefore you couldn’t clip these indestructible devices with common fingernail clippers. So I couldn’t be Wolverine anyways, according to Document Control Girl’s logic. But run with it, ok?

[b] Also, please no comments from fingernail aficionados. Yes, I know that skin is called my cuticle. I just consider the cuticle the half moon thin skin that forms the base of each nail….not the hardened scar tissue part that grows around my nails when I bite my nails too short. And I didn’t feel like writing a big word like cuticle on a sticky note to pass back and forth through the cube crack. I was already deflated enough about the whole Wolverine thing anyways. You’re a loser. Yep.

Now I’m REALLY a Daddy.

No I don’t mean like my wife and I had a paternity test done and Maury Povich called me and told me that with 100% certainty, my son is my son. Plus, we know he’s mine because if you knew me and my dome piece, you’d recognize the genealogical hereditary lines in the basketball-head-on-a-toothpick-body that is my son.

I mean I’m really a daddy because there are things that happen, each passing day with your first child, that are just amazing. And sometimes it’s the littlest, weirdest things that cause you to pause and reflect.

Jay, you’re a poet. That cause-you-to-pause stuff is ingenious. Shut up. Help me focus.

Before I fall too far off the list of things that make you a daddy, let me clarify for all of you second or later children, that your parents probably still love you too. And yes, you’re just as special as your older brother/sister who was your parent’s first kid. And I’ll love my second, third,…..that’s enough Jay….. child just the same. But there won’t be as many touching, amazing, flat-out-smack-you-in-the-face-you’re-a-daddy moments. Minus I guess my first daughter, since I had a son first. I guess I’ll have a whole different set of daddy realization moments when we have our first daughter.

But anyways…so you all know (or can at least pretend for the sake of this conversation) the normal list of things that happen, that solidify your daddy-hood. You can’t talk about that kind of stuff here, it’s not that kind of page. Not THAT stuff that happens that makes you a dad. Jerk. I mean the normal stuff of a son. First when you carried him to the scale at the hospital. First night of sleep lost when you have no idea what’s wrong with him. First roll over. First crawl. First words. First steps.

Those are all the normal things. I didn’t mention the first thing that makes you a true, heart-stopping, oh-shit, moment of your life. I’ve been in a car wreck. I’ve been in a Jeep that did 1-1/4 rolls off the road. I’ve broken bones. All of that is nothing, NOTHING, compared to the instant your son is born. You’re at your wife’s side, coaching her and freaking out more yourself than she is. And after watching the most special, nasty, amazing, gut-wrenching, beautiful, destructive, event of your life…..there’s a split second, where they’re lifeless. They’re purple. They’re yellow. They’re not breathing. They’re not moving. AND YOU ARE FREAKED THE FUCK OUT. Yeah, it was scary. It is probably only approximately 0.0005 seconds long. But it truly feels like an ETERNITY. Then the doctor turns him over, clears his mouth, rubs his back – and all is well. And you’re on to daddy memory #2, cutting the umbilical cord.

Is this going somewhere? Yes, shut up. So you have memory #1, your first instance as a dad, is flat freaking the fuck out. Then the good ones start. Umbilical cord. First nights. All the normal things I already listed. Now my son is 2. 27 months. Whatever, who keeps age like that? He’s starting to have his own personality. He’s starting to react to situations. He’s starting to be a little man of his own. Now you have the first time he uses the potty. The first time he spells his name. The first time you catch him lying about finishing his dinner.

“All gone!”
“Really? Let’s see what’s in your napkin!”
“All gone!”
“What’s this then?”
“Cheese!!! Daddy found my cheese!”
Yes, daddy found your cheese.

Earlier this summer, I thought I had moment-of-all-moments of daddy-hood. The first time my son hit a baseball I pitched to him. Sports aficionado myself, former baseball player, we’re starting early dammit. The first time he could hit the balls I pitch to him – I glowed in daddy-dom. That’s all I need. More memories like that. Swimming in our pool recently, he has lost his fear and probably his good sense. Now he’s a little daredevil. And I’ll have to watch him like a hawk, but I couldn’t be more proud.

And just when I thought it couldn’t get any better. My wife made us breakfast-for-dinner last night. It’s simple for her, and I like the occasional breakfast plate for dinner, since on work mornings I’m lucky to get a Pop-Tart and juice on my way out the door. You know, if you got up a little earlier and devoted more time and effort to eating in the morning, you could…. Just shut up.

So my son is eating in his big-boy-chair (feeding seat strapped to a kitchen chair), making a mess of his food, probably yogurt at this point. And my wife lets him try some of her plate.

“Ooooooh mommy dat’s good!”
“Yes it is. Here’s some more. It’s called bacon. Can you say bey-kuhn?”
“Daddy!!!!!! I Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaacon”.

[insert glowing light of fatherhood affirmation]

Wait, There’s Rules For That?

Well, not in the sense like there’s a national rules committee, or even standardized rules for everyone to follow – but everyone has their own personal set of rules that they follow, in regards to the amount of slang and levels at which they cuss depending on who the fuck they’re talking to.

I thought of this subject the other day. You see, I have a ~30 minute commute to and from work every day. The morning ride, that’s for “Mike&Mike In The Morning”, or maybe to try for that last little bit of sleep on the way to work. I kid, I kid – but for the purposes of this conversation, I don’t talk to anyone in the morning, it’s too early. The afternoon ride, that’s a different story. I definitely have phases where I am abusing the free long distance of cell phones and use that time to catch up with friends and family. So, the other day, in succession, I spoke to: my wife, my best friend of all time, my brother, and finally a friend from my old office who recently moved back to the east coast.

It amazes me the automatic, subconscious level that my brain knows the rules. It knows to what level of slang or even cussing is appropriate to all these people. It’s not a calculation, I guess it’s just a learned associative property.

Jay, you’re speaking with your wife, be nice.

“Ok honey, I’ll meet you there, drive safe.”
“Ly”
“Lee?”
“Drive safe…..ly”
“yeah, sorry, drive safely” She’s a teacher Jay, deep breath.

Next was my best friend of all time. This conversation was about an upcoming fantasy football draft. We’re both professionals, but we have a vast array of unprofessional memories together from high school through college and beyond. We talk in a lot of slang, but not a lot of cussing. Actually, come to think of it, we actually talk in a lot of movie quotes. But the point here is, it’s not that cussing isn’t allowed, we just don’t do it. Like, neither of us would blink if the other one said, “that’s bullshit!”. I guess we just don’t, from years speaking in front of each other’s wives, or speaking at work on the phone. So it’ll be more like, “CIRCUMSTANCE!!!!! That’s crap!” Don’t ask, just accept it.

Next was my brother. He’s ~8 years younger than me. Did the college thing for a while and now enlisted in the Coast Guard. He’s doing great with it, and will be commissioned soon as he entered with college credits. We talk in a lot of slang too, and it’s always SO exuberant. No rules about cussing or not, but most energy here is spent on the exuberance, not the actual words or conversation.

“yo you see that hit on Boldin last night? Crazy shit!”
“BUHLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE DAT!”

And finally, I spoke with a friend of mine from my old job. We both have multiple degrees and technical professional jobs. We both have a family and a young son. We’re both good people. And we’re both just crazy fucking dirty shit talking potty mouths when we get together. Where the fuck did this come from? When did it start? I don’t know. I had to chuckle. We talked about his new job. His move. His cars. My house. My son. His son. Travel plans for the fall. It was a perfectly normal situation. Minus the constant barrage of shit fuck cocksucker dickball titty cooter.

You ever wonder where your brain came up with these rules? I understand they’re learned over time. I can’t help but think my brain has this subconscious flowchart set up for the advancement of slang and language in conversations with people. And the other person is running a similar strategy.

Jay, would you like to see it? Wait, you really have one?

Home Improvement.

Not like the Tim Allen show. Like, literal home improvement at my house.

Ok, so recently I was chatting with an older lady at my office. [read: not an “older” lady, a woman is who is simply older than I am] How do you politely say that? Do you just say “lady” or “woman” and not “girl” – and there’s an inherent assumption about age? Ok, if there’s not rules yet, I’ll make them. “girl” means younger, “lady” means equivalent age, and “woman” means older than you. There, now you can non-offensively discuss the females you work with. No matter how young or old they are, I must warn it is never ok to call them “ol’ cooter tits”. I’m just saying.

Back on track Jay….sorry. So, I was actually chatting with her because she is about the most frugal person I know. And, as described in “I Know Poops”, I went over how I was frugal for a week of eating right when my wife was out of town, and shopped as such with a very detailed list at the grocery store. She’s like that all the time, almost too frugal and will drive to separate stores to fill her grocery needs for the week based on sales and such. I think it’s a total waste and she doesn’t end up saving because of gas money for her car, and then travel time wasted and my time is worth more than the $0.83 saved on a package of hot dog buns. Her intricate stories of successful frugal-ing have become common office conversation pieces.

Back on track Jay….sorry. Anyways, we were discussing my eating habits that week, and my part-time life in the ways of high frugalness. And the conversation changed to, essentially, “what are you doing for your wife with her out of town?”. Ummm, I’m eating right, I’m not being a total wannabe-college kid douchebag, I’m not going to strip clubs. What else is there? I’m supposed to DO something FOR her when she’s out of town? It eventually morphed into whether or not I was completing any non-maintenance activities at the house with the wife gone. [maintenance activities: yard work, dishes, laundry, vacuuming, etc. – normal stuff] Was I completing any home projects with her gone? I have since come to learn that what my co-worker meant was, “…since the wife and kid are out of town, are you taking advantage of the peace and quiet to be able to get something extra done…”, like that you normally might not be able to work on. What I heard was, “…since your wife is out of town, it’s your duty to surprise her with a home project while she’s gone…”, While-You-Were-Out-style.

Back on track Jay….sorry. The same way that her frugal-ing stories are common office conversation pieces, I guess my personal stories for the water-cooler would have to center around my hatred for my home projects’ status and completion percentage. I hate the status of many of my home improvement projects, many of them are like 90% finished. I get all spread out and distracted and start something new and never finish the last job. So I have like 10 things 90% complete, but nothing all the way done. Sooooooo, knowing this tendency on my part, what she meant in asking about my work on home improvement projects with the wife and boy out of town, was…..was I taking advantage of the empty house?

I got into the conversation with excuses why I hadn’t started anything yet, for example:
*Initiative* – Working all day, coming home, not in the mood to change clothes and get to work on a work night, let me see what Saturday brings.
*Supplies* – I didn’t have the necessary equipment (power washer I borrowed was back at the owner’s, I’m re-borrowing it soon).
*Expertise* – I don’t have the expertise to safely, in code, install the breaker in my attic for the second master bathroom fan, so I am at the mercy of my electrically oriented friend’s schedule. I’ll need his help to do the electricking to code, ya hear.
*Other Plans* – One work night was already lost to other plans. I drive a truck. I help friends move furniture. It’s a character flaw.
*Dragons* – Unfortunately, as you remember from my spacebarfail post, I only know about spacebarfail in computer form because of World of Warcrack. Look, there’s dragons to kill and gold to collect. (see inset picture of heroin addict)

Back on track Jay….sorry. So one final job that came up, that my coworker agreed would be a good one to complete with the wife out of town, was the kitchen remodeling. See, that one is like 99% complete. The wallpaper is down. The walls are painted. The countertops are redone. The trim is painted. The windows are done. The cabinet hardware is changed out. The only left to do, outside of tiling the floor, which financially is put off until a later date, is to finish caulking the trim, windows, and cabinetry. For this one, the excuse used was basically the *Initiative* excuse. I didn’t feel like working all day at work, getting home, changing clothes, and then working in the kitchen – taping up walls/trim and caulking for a night.

In hopes to up my initiative, and talk me into working on the kitchen, my coworker yelled from her office to mine, “well why don’t you just have some of your boys over, get some pizza and beers, and have a caulk party”.




Say it out loud to yourself.

Yeah. Why don’t I?