So this is what it feels like, part 2

This could only have happened because of my lack of understanding. Or Maybe a chemical imbalance. Or maybe that cruel bitch known as karma.

Ask anyone who knows me (This may be hard for you to do, since you don't know anyone who knows me, but just pretend, OK?). For at least twenty years, I have been a very outgoing and social person, often going out of my way to introduce myself to people who are new to my neighborhood, or to cultivate business relationships with other companies, etc. Most jobs I have worked since my first in 1985 have required a good degree of interpersonal skill. I thrive on meeting new people. But something is happening. This weekend is a good example of it.

Lately, the amount of things I need to accomplish has been overwhelmingly larger than the time needed to do them. I am getting further and further behind. I am developing a phobia with talking to people on the telephone. I just don't like to do it all that much. I'm selling one of our cars, and someone called up tonight asking for information, and I just couldn't wait to get him off the phone. And while selling our car might be a grand pain in the ass, trying to find another to buy is going to be worse. Why? Because I am not a people person right now. I watched the movie "The Aviator" the other night, and I could really relate to the desire to lock yourself in a room for several days and shut the world out. I wouldn't, however, wander around naked and unbathed like he did, watching movies over and over and peeing in bottles. I'm not THAT eccentric.

This all may be a by-product of starting a new job as well. After working for my previous employer, who paid people a poverty wage, I'm not used to a company who is paying me pretty well for what I do. I keep expecting Donald Trump to materialize and say "You're Fired!" Add that to the car selling/buying woes, the ever-growing to-do list, and my blood-sugar problem, and there's probably a very good explanation for me feeling the way I do. I feel empty and depressed. I think I need a motorcycle.

This has been an unusual look into one of Nilo's inner demons, which don't get much air time on the blog. And there is a pretty good chance this post will be deleted when he gets feeling better.

Bye Bye Birdie

I think I broke my middle finger last night...chasing the dog around the backyard with a wheelbarrow.

Now that I have your attention... Yes, I was actually chasing my poor neurotic dog around the backyard with a wheelbarrow (which, by the way, is great fun and I highly recommend it). I took a corner a little too sharply and turfed on the turf. So the middle finger on my left hand is a bit swollen and stiff. Good thing it's my right hand that takes care of universal hand gestures in traffic.

Car shopping sucks. There's a price range I have to stay within, along with a certain type of car I want. And would you think there are any close by? Within 500 miles, maybe? No. Of course not. It's that wonderful luck of mine rearing its ugly head again.

ZZZzzzzzzz.......

"People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. ~Leo J. Burke"

The past several days have been an unexpected study in sleep deprivation. I returned home Friday evening to discover that Danielle, our youngest, had a high fever. Despite giving her some children's Tylenol, her temperature continued to climb. After a quick trip to the InstaCare, we spent the entire weekend doping our little girl up on Tylenol and Ibuprofen. All day long. All night long.

So I haven't really been able to get a single thing done since last Thursday, except poison the anthole next to our patio. Now there's an interesting thing to talk about!

I watched the swarm of ants on the corner of our patio, most of them working furiously at the drippings underneath the barbecue. They would break loose a chunk here and there and race it back down into the anthole. Enter the Dark Lord of Insecticide. I placed a couple of ant-bait traps underneath the barbecue, about a foot away from the stuff the ants had been working on. Almost immediately, the tide of traffic turned, and scores of ants were carrying the bait back to the anthole.

ant659: Whooowee! Can you believe this stuff? Tastes good and smells good!

ant3771: No thanks; I'll stick to congealed barbecue sauce. Don't you know that anything worth having is worth working for?

ant659: Prude!

ant3771: Don't you think it a bit strange that these two black plastic convenience stores appear out of nowhere, stocked to the hilt with this stuff?

ant659: Whatever.

I thought it ironic that even though a certain percentage of the ants still remained hard at work with the barbecue sauce, they would also die from the foolish choices of their friends. You could draw some interesting parallels from that, and while you do, I'll be sweeping hundreds of lifeless black dots from my patio.

Just a morning rant...

"Wookie Hookie"

So Star Wars Episode III opened today, and while I saw the first movie probably 20+ times, I'll probably wait a week or two to see this one. It has everything to do with babysitter availability. Eenyways, the local radio was talking about a phenomenon called "Wookie-Hookie", where people will make up all sorts of excuses to not go to work, whilst secretly attending Revenge of the Sith. So? It's to be expected. This day has been twenty-eight years in the making. "Analysts estimate that there will be upwards of $627 million in lost revenue because of this..." Yeah, and there's a good reason the first four letters of "analysts" are "anal". Some people can cast a pall over anything.

Ugly Kids, Part 2

"Ugly Kids... become morning DJ's!"
WTF? It makes perfect sense.

Utah Drivers

Annoying Utah Driver: Hmmmm... here comes a break in traffic... must ignore other drivers... must not make eye contact...

Me: He wouldn't...

Annoying Utah Driver: There it is! I can make it with 6.3 inches to spare! (swerves into next lane without signal or warning)

Me: (slamming on brakes) Bastard! F***!! Who taught you how to drive, moron?!?! (universal hand gesture)

Annoying Utah Driver: Hey, that guy behind me is right on my bumper! How rude!

So this is what it feels like!

I walk a thin line between too much sugar in my bloodstream, and not enough, apparently. One of my friends was a classic hypochondriac when we were growing up. We would be out riding bikes, or hard at play when suddenly, he would announce the need to go to the gas station and buy a candy bar. "Low blood-sugar", he would say. I mentally classified this with all of his other imaginary ailments.

I've never had a problem with low-blood sugar! You could literally cut one of my veins open and frost a cake with the stuff that came out. I guess I'm paying for that now, as my poor pancreas can't seem to figure out which end is up.

On an unrelated note, Episode III looms closer and closer, and I followed a link to Darth Vader's Blog. The touchy, feely side of the dark lord, with much candor. And you can't miss the Star Wars cartoons, either. Hi-larious!

Birthday Shout-out!

Happy Birthday to one of the most amazing people in my life, who literally saved my life, and has given me more than I could have ever imagined.

Happy Birthday, Nila!

...and yes, her name has everything to do with this little moniker that I use!

All is not as it seems?

During my freshman year at the University of Utah, I would occasionally hang out with a kid named Jordan. He was kind of a loner, but friendly enough. He was very much into his Ford EXP turbo; you’d think no other car existed in the world but that one. His second passion was heavy metal music.

After school let out for the summer, I moved out to Holladay, a suburb of Salt Lake. He dropped by one day and visited, volunteered to liberate me from two bowlfulls of a stale box of Cap’n Crunch, and then we caught a flick.

I didn’t realize how much a loner he was until we were at Raging Waters one day. I worked there as a lifeguard, and I gave him a free pass to go down and play around. He mostly stood around near the areas that I was watching, only occasionally riding the waterslides. He was stark white and had no semblance of a tan, nor any indication that his skin had ever seen the light of day. I felt kind of bad for him.

A few months later, I saw a bunch of his friends who were in the same fraternity he was. They were all wearing black ribbons on their shirts. When asked why, they said that Jordan had died in his car in an accident a few weeks previous. I felt really bad that he had died.

BUT... Since then, I have done a fair amount of research on the internet. I have searched the two major Salt Lake newspapers for articles talking about fatal accidents during the same timeframe, and there were none. I have searched the Social Security Death Index for information on him, and there is none. I have ran ZabaSearches on his name, and there are no matches for his name in California (his home state). I cannot find a shred of evidence that this particular person ever existed!

Which leads me to wonder, was he in the Federal Witness Protection program?

Fresh and clean as a whistle

I wish I knew how to say things like “contaminated” and “sceptic tank” in spanish. Then I could tell the migrant worker who was washing his face in the Public Works pond just exactly what that pond was built on top of.

I sure hope his wife doesn’t kiss him when he gets home.

"Honey, I Went Out With A Stripper..."

"...and she's to die for!" Why are you giving me that look? Would it help to mention that I dated her two years before I even met you? No??

So here's the scoop: I'm doing a Google search on some people I haven't seen or heard from in eons, and I come across a girl that I dated way back in '92. This girl and I worked at JCPenney together, and went out on occasional dates... things like movies, waterparks and slam-dancing. We didn't date romantically... just hung out to have fun. Well, we parted ways, and I bumped into her a year later or so, and she had slimmed down quite a bit, and was very pale looking. She mentioned she was stripping down at some club, and that I really ought to come and see her sometime. I gave her the non-commital "Sure...Okay", and we parted ways again. Well, apparently, she moved down to Las Vegas not too long after that, and became a stri....er, entertainer at a well known establishment, making many thousands of dollars.

Apparently one of her clients became pretty obssessed, and sunk every bit of money that he had into her. And when he ended up broke, she ended the relationship. He goes nuts, and murders two women who own a management company because they won't give him money to fund his strip-bar habit. Hence the term "to die for".

She's not the only girl I dated to turn towards such a career, either. I went out with a pretty girl from my church group when I was a freshman at the University of Utah. Only once, I think. But this girl ended up becoming addicted to sex, bisexual and then came back to Utah and started her own escort service.

My best friend says I'm to blame. He says that when I didn't try to bust a move on them, that they went kind of nuts, questioned their own sexuality, and set out to prove something to themselves and everyone else.'

Or maybe I was just drawn to psychotic women.

When It Rains, It Pours

And pour it has. All over the place. And snow; what's up with this snow in the middle of May? So yes, all that rain that everyone has been praying for during the past seven years has finally arrived, pouring down on us much like a drench shower for five days out of the week. Saturday and Sunday will come, show some deceptively nice weather, and then the next stormfront in line blows in Sunday night.

The weatherman says to still be frugal in water usage, "cause we're not out of the draught yet." Right, then. So why is there a large wooden boat with lots of zoo animals on it floating down my street?

I also had the lovely experience of buying and installing a sump pump yesterday as our basement attempted to morph into an indoor swimming pool. This is also where I have a high level of buyer satisfaction on that $1400 Rainbow vacuum cleaner we bought 7 years ago... 'cause it sucks up water, which is a good thing when you are re-introducing your carpets to a concept called "dry".

Hell Hath No Fury Like...

...me on the road, surrounded by Utah drivers. It rates right up there with a woman scorned, believe me.

I grew up (teenage years) in a small town named Park City, Utah. When I lived there, it was a small, dusty, boring town where nothing happened outside of ski season. Summers were damn boring. We headed to Salt Lake to find fun, and along the highway from Park City, there were small prairie dogs (we call 'em potguts) that would dart out across the road, just as cars would come along. I suppose it was their low-tech way of playing "chicken". I don't ever recall the potgut winning an encounter with a car.

Anyhoo, the potgut would wait by the side of the road and watch you cruising toward it at a breakneck 60mph, then at the last second, it would run out...right in front of you, and....Splat!

This is very much like a typical Utah driver. They watch you speed along the road, and just as you are almost upon them, they turn out right in front of you, and pretend they don't notice you.

Utah drivers can also be identified most easily by their lack of courtesy, not knowing what the hell a turn signal is, their need to talk on the cell phone while driving 20mph slower than the speed limit, and also their damned self-righteous attitude about the fast lane ("I'm going the speed limit; I have just as much right to drive in this lane as...."splat!).

Really, I'm a pretty decent guy. Except when I drive. In the company of idiots. Then all inhibition is thrown to the wind, and I shout words that would make a telephone repairman blush.

But other than that, I'm okay.

Sweet Surrender

Dry mouth. Really dry mouth. The kind where you can drink a gallon of water, yet still feel like you're parched. I developed that over the past month or so, just after we returned from SoCal. In the hidden recesses of my grey matter, random electrical impulses dredged up info from an old episode of M*A*S*H, about a chopper pilot who was always thirsty... Diabetes is what he had, which is also one of the highlights of our list of family heriditary diseases. Unchecked diabetes landed my Dad in the hospital last year with a major stroke. So, I visited the doctor yesterday, and he tested me and said "Hmmm... Hypoglaucemic." Okay, Doc, help me out here; what does that mean in plain english? Apparently, my love affair with highly sugared and caffeinated drinks is responsible for this little glitch in my life. Sure, a lot of people have a soda now and then, but I had been downing, like, 2 Super Big Gulps of the stuff each day! So he told me "Lay off the sugar". "How about diet drinks?" "Aspartame is worse for you than the sugar... have you ever thought of trying water?"
So, once again, I abandon my fizzy friend. Which is probably good, because I more or less treated it like an alcoholic would regard any sort of liquor. Feeling down about something? Take a sip and....Mmmmmm.... (sip, sip) tastes like... (sip, sip) Dr. Pepper... (sip, sip) vintage February 2005... (sip, sip) Admiral Beverage Bottling company... (sip, sip...burp!) Mmmmmn... nice.....fizzzy.... forget worries...

And you thought the price of gas was high!

When we set out on the trip, we had estimated about $60 daily for food, so even our little hotel delivery experience didn't throw us off track. What we were not prepared for was the price of food at Disneyland. I almost expected Robin Hood & Little John to swoop out of the trees and save us from highway robbery, but alas, it was not meant to be. We willingly handed over twelve and a half bucks for two ice cream bars and two churros. On Thursday, we had reservations for the Blue Bayou restaurant, which, if you've never been to Disneyland, is a real treat. The experience is as much about the atmosphere as it is the food. When you are boarding the boats for the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride, it's in a night-time, bayou-like location. Not far away, you can see people dining on a patio of a southern mansion. I was one of those people, briefly, and it cost me.
Our favorite dish at the Blue Bayou is the Monte Cristo Sandwich, which is a large ham, turkey and swiss sandwich, dipped in batter and deep-fried. It comes with a scoop of delicious pasta salad and a roll. And blackberry jelly and powdered sugar to eat the sandwich with. Delicious, rich and filling. By experience, we already knew that our two older girls would need to share the entree, 'cause it was just too much for one person to eat. The bill came to $42.00 For three identical plates and ice water (which was free). I just handed them a fifty to cover the bill & tip ("That tearing sound? I was ripping out one of my kidneys to sell online to pay for this meal"). Though Disney manages to leave a hole in everyone's wallet, it's nothing compared to a ham & cheese sandwich I paid $20 for in a seedy strip joint in London. Long story there.

They see you coming a mile away...

They probably assume you’re coming from many miles away, actually. I’m talking about the vultures who target hotels with food advertising. We fell victim to one of these places while in San Diego a few weeks back. Allow me to relate:

We get this slip of paper slid under our door while we are napping in the afternoon. I look at it, and it’s advertising food.... food at quite reasonable prices, actually! We settle for a “pizza feast” deal that includes a large pizza, 3 sodas, 8 wings, a salad and two brownies for a whopping $10.35! Now, the first rule of anything ought to be “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is”. However, the prices for that amount of food were so reasonable, especially for California, that we decided to have a go at it. The food arrived 45 minutes later, and after tipping the delivery man, I opened the packages to check out the booty. The pizza, while not really bad, wasn’t really good either. The “salad” consisted of a handful of lettuce and a few slices of olive thrown into a styrofoam burger container, the brownies looked like they came straight out of a “Little Debbie” package, i.e., they were about 3/8" tall, 2" wide and 3" long, and yes, still had the plastic outer wrap on it. The wings were.... wings. About the only thing that made them notable was the fact that somebody must have soaked them in jalapeno juice overnight, because they were unbearably hot. The whole meal gave me the impression that somebody had gone out to Costco or Sam’s Club, bought a bunch of stuff, cooked it in their own kitchen and peddled it off to unsuspecting tourists. I managed to get down three of the wings before finally giving up. They instantly cleared out my sinuses and started my nose running and eyes watering, which of course caused me to wipe the tears out of my eyes. Important Note Here: Never, ever, ever, ever, ever wipe your eyes with the same fingers you use to eat spicy chicken wings.
Me: “Whoaooahha Sheeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyut!!!” and many other unintelligible half-profanities. Several lessons learned at the cost of 20 clams. Oh yeah, and the words “Free delivery to most areas” was very loosely applied to this ad, as it cost $3.50 to have it delivered to our hotel, where they come at least three times a day to stuff fliers under the doors. Most areas of what? The house they are being cooked up in? But seriously, the cost of the meal was really nothing compared to what we paid for some stuff in Disneyland. More on that next time.

Another Case of Advertising Gone Awry...

I have about a 45 to 75 minute commute to work every morning, depending on traffic, and lately I’ve noticed a few billboards off to the side of the freeway with the words “Ugly Kids” on them, with some rather normal looking children with a few dental problems and bad taste in clothing. Now there is also a series of billboards from a real estate company offering to buy ugly houses, to which I say few people want to think of their house as being ugly, but virtually no-one would want to think of their kids as being ugly!

So, what’s the story behind “Ugly Kids”? Apparently it was a teaser billboard for an orthodontics company that is presumably going to post a sequel to the ugly kid ad, but this is where the story gets just a little stranger. There is also the web address “www.uglykids.info” on the billboard, but most people who look up the website forget the “.info” part and type in “.com” instead. Which leads them ultimately to a search site with links to (among other things) thongs, christian singles, cellphones and sex-sites. There will be a time, surely, when the great minds that engineered this advertising campaign will be able to look back on all of this and chuckle, but what about the kids on the billboard?

(20 years in the future)

Talent Agent: “So, you say you’ve done modeling work before?”
Kid: “Yeah, um, you could say that. Here’s my portfolio...”
Talent Agent: “Ugly Kids? Wow, I got a killer thong from that site once...”