Jez Chillin'

Bye Bye Bachelor

2006-05-23T12:33:00.000-05:00

The time has come, to say "goodbye" to my bachelor days, and "Hello" to my bright future as I start a new family! Looking back, I have no regrets. I have been there, done that, made hundreds of friends (or at least associates), and left a positive impact on everything I touched. That was all training for what lies ahead.

So at last, this limbo state of being engaged is over with. What is being engaged? You're not single, you're not married... I didn't think this part out too well. When I proposed, I was expecting to get married soon after. The engagement period & wedding was no where on my mind. So now after this weekend, I will finally get back to where where I saw myself going when I decided to purchase a ring.

The engagement period was very beneficial though since the pre-maritcal counseling set up a excellent foundation to build a relationship on. So for anyone that's thinking about getting married, even it's not the 1st time, I strongly advise you attend couseling first. I'm just like most guys... I didn't want to go. But after I went, I'm glad I did.

Now it's time to say goodbye. Jez Chill has graduated! To the new Mrs. Chill, I Love You! Looking forward to a life full of adventures that we will share together.

Surprise!

I wake up one morning, and think this is going to be a crazy day. It was a day I planned on making another visit to the county's commissioner meeting to protest a developer that has neglected my neighborhood. One of those things where you have to stand up and make your voice be heard. Because if you don't, who will? So I'm missing work, and the time keeps passing by since it appears that those in good favor with the politicians keep getting moved up in front of the case I'm interested in. A case that started off at the TOP of the agenda. Anyways, 3 hours later, the case was judged in my favor.

My cell phone's ringing, it's the soon-to-be Mrs. with a lunch request. So I rush to work to not keep her waiting, and to make my appearance known after being away from the job for so long. I get to my desk, and there she is... looking so beautiful. I then go to make my appearance known, but wait a minute, my entire management line is standing around! Oh crap!!! I'm busted!!! I'm about to get reprimanded, suspended, something. Whatever it was, I didn't think it would be good.

So I announce that I'm back, and my lead reacts like he is more relieved then surprised. Wasn't the response I was expecting. Then he had already met my fiance'. More weird. So I tried to avoid my manager and director, and sneak off to lunch, but the Mrs pushes me into the conference room. WTH? Inside, I see my manager & director, looking dead at me. I'm like, oh crap, I'm about to get it now!

I now see that there are about 20 folks in the conference room... so I'm just filled with confusion. 1> My lead's acting weird. 2> My lady just pushed me. 3> My manager & Dirctor are staring at me after I've been gone unannounced for 3 hours 4> 20 co-workers are just staring at me. I'm like a deer in headlights!!! Then I see the pizza, and cake: "Congratulations Derrick!"

This was definitely a surprise. I know I didn't seem happy or surprised, cause I was scared & confused. But I was definitely unaware of what was planned, and appreciative of everyone's effort & contribution. Sorry for keeping everyone waiting around for 30 mins. It took another 3 hours or so for my heart pace to return to normal.

Bullseye

2006-05-15T10:04:00.000-05:00

I took a gun safety course this weekend, and displayed my skills in the shooting range. Check out the results! I think I did pretty darn good. I was not stressed going in, but I was definitely more relaxed when I left. There was a thug wanna-be in the class. He was obviously one of those ignant folks who try to follow all the ignant lyrics. He was aiming for head, and not following any of the proper techniques. After he saw how off his aim was, he realized the gangsta technique wasn't going to work. The lady next to me aimed so badly, I thought she was going to shoot my target!

GO CAVS

I know this isn't a sports blog, but I just have to express my Cleveland Cavaliers pull off playoff victories!!! There's no doubt that the Pistons are a better team, but their last lost to the CAVS let me known loud & clear that the CAVS are a team that deserves repect! Give Lebron the MVP he earned! It's been 8 years since I last had a chance to cheer in the playoffs. Now that Jordan is gone, maybe we have a slight chance.

Corporate Hustler

As you may recall from previous posts, I've been successful in my Corporate Hustler role. May latest quest is to get another promotion so that I can stop breaking my neck under this glass ceiling. It seems like I was successful again since my management has submitted my name to jump to the next salary grade, but history shows that it's all talk until it's seen on paper or in the check. The powers that be has some little game they're playing, I think it's called stalling, or procrastinating. Or maybe it's more like a tease, or a trick. Kind of like that new Subway commercial where a sandwhich is hanging from a stick attached to the front of the car. The lure of something that's supposed to be waiting for me is supposed to be creating better performance, I guess. In the meanwhile, I'll be looking to execute my game, of finding another offer to force someone to make a move. I think putting this in writing will keep me focused.

Thug Rappers Suck (cont.)

Will the ignorance ever end?
DMX Arrested After Flight Disturbance
LONDON — Police arrested rap star DMX after he refused to put on a seat belt and became abusive on a flight from New York to London, authorities said Monday.

Thug Rappers Suck!

2006-05-10T08:58:00.000-05:00

I was happy the other day, because FINALLY, blacks weren't dominating the news' top stories. They were all prominant whites getting busted for messing with underaged girls. One was a judge! But this brief moment of elation didn't hide what I was really feeling. Disgust at all these thug rappers. They SUCK!

Now, their music is tight. I can bounce my head to their beats all day. But so many listeners are living their thug lyrics, and exercising their violent nature back towards them! I guess it's asking too much for them to learn a better way, so the trend of Hip Hop violence will continue.

I'm watching the Busta Rhymes video, and thinking how tight it was for him to bring all these folks together... like a "We Are The World"... thug style. Like he was following KRS-1's "Stop The Violence" and uniting for what's right. But someone had a better plan, shot up the video shoot, killed his bodyguard.

The latest incident involved the local Atlanta rapper T.I. getting his entourage shot up in my home state of Ohio. Cincinnati has always been slow, maybe they'll get a clue in the next decade.

We also have Proof from D-12 got shot in Detroit. Some rappers I know nothing about: Big Hawk in Houston, Keith Bender over a game of pool... The list goes on & on. And I'm getting tired of it. I need to get back to volunteering to do my part to break the cycle.

French Guys Head Butt

You know the formal way to greet your friends in many countries is to do that fake kiss on both sides of the cheek? It looks weird when 2 guys do it, right? When I was in Paris, I saw two guys do it the cool way! Instead of the kissy kissy, cheek cheek thing, they did the head butt thing! It starts with obligatory hand grab, to keep that body separation. Then its the head butt. I learned something new!

WASP = Kryptonite

How do you take all the manly attributes away from a man? Ask him to knock down a wasp nest. I think my hot tub makes it attractive for these pests to build nests under my deck. I saw 3 of them the other day! So I sprayed when I thought they were sleep. Then went out the next day to knock 'em down. I really hope none of my neighbors saw me. I'm out there with a shovel (cause they have a firm grip on my deck!), trying to knock down the nest and get a running head start at the same time! Of course, it took about 3 attempts before it fell. After all the antics and adrenaline used to knock down one, I was worn out. I'll knock down the other two later. Hopefully, when my neighbors are sleep as well!

Priceless Relationship Advice

2006-05-02T08:27:00.000-05:00

As usual, I can't stay at home. So I spent the weekend in Myrtle Beach. During the road trip, a topic came up, that became a theme for the entire weekend! I gave advice on what it takes to keep your mate happy in your relationship. Since there was someone there who's relationship just took a huge downturn, the message had even more value. Everyone appreciated the knowledge so much, I will share it with my blog family.

Firstly, we all know the 4 things that men want. I never could finish the list that women want. But that's besides the issue. To have a long, healthy, & happy relationship, the fundamental basis must be met. The man needs to be THE MAN in the relationshp. And the woman needs to know that she appreciated & needed.

I don't write real long blogs, so I'm going to get right to the point. The Man is supposed to be the Head of the House, the provider, keep everyone safe & secure. It doesn't matter if the woman makes twice as much, big & strong enough to kick everyone's behind, or the one who manages the family's financial affairs. He needs to know that the woman needs him. Whether the needs is emotional, financial, intimate, security... he just needs to know that he is needed. If feels that he is not needed, then he will not feel valued in the relationshp.

Generally speaking, men don't have have a problem when they meet a strong, independat Black woman. They have a problem when she preaches that she doesn't need a man, and thus not need him. He doesn't have a problem with her being financially sound, and have twice as many degrees. There is a problem when his decision is not respected.

But relationships are a two-way street. The man needs to realize that his woman works real hard to make the relationship work. So he needs to show appreciation, and provide her what is that she's looking for. To find out what that is, you'll have to, uh hum..., talk to her, ask her. Find out her Love Language. If it's Words of Affirmation, flower her with loving words. If it's Receiving Gifts, surprise her often. If it's Quality Time, make sure you schedule your day appropriately. If it's Acts of Service, you can't afford to be lazy. If it's Physical Touch, be willing to snuggle & hug often. If you don't show your appreciation, and you don't give fulfill her need as listed above, then she will have a problem staying in the relationship.

I know this is not everything, but it is a basis for a successful relationship. Let the man be the man, and he will be the man. His needs are easily met. If he always has to buy dinner, can't enjoy his sports or whatever his passion is, not allowed time away from you (without an argument), not allowed to relax in peace, he will have a problem. But that's another blog topic.

If the man is not responsible, not appreciative, not giving, not protetive, then she is not going to feel valued in the relationship. Buy some flowers, buy some gifts, snuggle a bit, cut the grass, wash the car, fix some things, defend her honor, earn her respect.

A surprising topic was based on the scene in Crash when the husband did the logical thing to not intervene when his wife was being sexually mollested by the police officer. If he did react, he would've gotten beat down, at least 10 years in prison, and possibly killed. But he lost her respect because he didn't at least try. It was just a movie. But, generally speaking, men would rather die with honor, than live without respect. In the movie, he decided to live without respect, and that marked the end of their marriage. Surprisingly, most of the women on the trip said that they would want their man to do something, to try to defend them, even in a situatiion where he would put his life & family in danger. What a dilemma for a man! To risk his freedom or life to try to stop his woman from being disrespected, or stay alive and free and risk losing your woman's respect and lose the right to call yourself the Man in the relationship.

Strike!!!

2006-04-25T13:50:00.000-05:00

So our company was raising money for the March of Dimes, and a group over here had a bowling tournament. I have my own ball, own shoes, bag of chalk, so I signed up with some other co-workers. My teammates were all pretty good bowlers as well, so we knew we had a pretty good chance to win. It was eventful.

Like any desired champion, we got together & practiced. We walked into the alley, it was Cosmic Bowling. WTH?! Lights out, flourescent stickers illuminating everywhere, strobe lights flashing. It looked real cool, but not for us championship bowlers, so left for an adult alley.

On my way to the alley, I was cruising a couple cars behind a city bus. I know... mistake #1. The bus stopped suddenly, as did the cars behind it. I follow, as well as the car behind me. You would think the 5th car in line would have a clue, but no. He hit the car behind me, I her the loud tangle of metal and the car move forward, so I hit the gas & drove off onto the shoulder to avoid getting sandwiched. Everyone seemed OK.

The day of the tournament, the had just oiled down every lane before we played. This means all of my teammates that have viscious spins on their ball now had to adjust, cause the lanes were too slick. Over the years, I lost my spin, so I wasn't affected too much. I was expecting to just ride the coat tails of the other bowlers, who regularly bowl around 200 games. Instead, I was the leader the 1st game wtih 165. There were about 8 other teams, and seemed like we were on top. The second game was about the same. Turns out, we were the top team!!! We Won!! We Won!! So I'm now displaying my bowling trophy next to my other work accolades.

One thing is very weird, that is seeing my co-workers out drinking and trying to act cool. They look so CORNY & STUPID! Well, that's probably what they say about me too.

Real Men Play Rugby

2006-04-19T22:30:00.000-05:00

There's not too much TV watching past CNN in an European hotel. A previous trip entertained me with MTV, but not this time. So I had to satisfy my bad habits by watching a Rugby match on 'Mute'.

I've never watched a Rugby game before, but I made several obersavations:

It's like football, but no pads

The ball runner has NO blockers

Rugby players make NFL players look like pansies!

There are no breaks in between plays

It's like soccer, they just keep running & running

There are no time outs

Extra points are hard!

It's non-stop action, never boring

And the kick spot moves around

Players play both offense & defense

Did I mention they don't wear pads?

Real Men Play Rugby

But the NFL has cheerleaders, so I'll stick with them.
GO BROWNS

Real Men are not French

I had a new level of respect after watching the Rugby games, but I lost it as soon I stepped onto the Paris streets. I don't know where their sense of stlye came from, but I'm certainly not feeling it. Thugs wearing tight-ass longsleeved shirts out in the street make them look like sissy-boys. I'm not talking about the Under Armour or other workout, exercise gear. Just, tight-assed shirts. Then there's the professional looking folks, dressed nicely, with a scarf wrapped a couple times around the neck. It's hard to respect any man that wears a silk scarf as a fashionable item like a necktie. To stay warm, I can understand that. Indoors, you look like a sissy-boy.

I won't say any more, in case I encounter a French Rugby player.

St. Moritz, Paris, Bellagio.... OH MY!!!

2006-04-10T15:19:00.000-05:00

I'm back from visiting St. Moritz, Switzerland; Paris, France; and Bellagio, Italy. It was a GREAT trip! There are castles everywhere in Switzerland! Including the Roman buildings that were used as guard houses or for working peasants. They should've had some foresight that there would be a huge tour bus winding through the city 2 milleniums later, cause it sure was tight squeezing through the little villages. The Bellagio in Vegas looks nothing like the real one! Well, they both have a hugh body of water (Lake Cumo) and shops everywhere. Paris was pleasant! The Metro train system is very efficient. Some of them need to learn how to shower, and others need to not dress so... feminine. We avoided any student protesters! I kept my souvenier Swiss Army Knife on me... just in case. But it was all good.

Language Barrier?

I spoke with a German couple on "Holiday" in St. Moritz. She spoke 5 different languages. He spoke 3. Neither of them included English in their list, since it was their weakest one. They were very excited to finally get to practice some English. It was a very interesting conversation. It most consisted of them practicing their English, and me being in awe that my few years of learning Spanish is not even a comparison to their linguistic skills. But I did impress them when my patience had ran real low, and I got up to leave: I said "Danke", which means "Thank you" in German.

Of course, I took some video: VIDEO 1 or VIDEO 2

I wanted to reward the 10,000th visitor to my site... but I missed you. Sorry.

Off to Europe!

2006-03-30T16:26:00.000-05:00

In my continuous quest to ski (& see) the world, I'm off to ski St. Moritz in Switzerland, and see Paris. . Miss Geckogirl is accompanying me, so it should be a real fun AND romantic trip. The threat of a pilot's strike at Delta and the student protests in Paris have me concerned.

Seems like skiing in Europe never comes at the most ideal time. The last time I travelled to ski in Italy, we were paralized in fear right after 9/11. We were kindly greated in Venice with graffiti on walls saying, "The USA & the UN Are Terrorists."

Since I worked on nuclear missiles at the time, I was cautious about revealing my profession. Whenever I travel (or ski), that's the first thing Caucasians ask me, "So what do you do for a living?" or "How can you afford these trips?". Um... "I work and save my money, you idiot!" No, I don't say that, but that's certainly what I'm always thinking.

My plan on being discrete failed when I at this cafe. I sat next to an American couple that was living in Italy. Come to find out, they were very familiar with where I lived, and the companies in the area. So when I refused to give a clear answer on what I did (I didn't want to lie), they quickly figured out where I worked. Thankfully, they weren't spies and didn't try to kidnap me.

Sloppy Neighbors

As you may know from my previous posts, I take much pride in my yard & garden. Although it does seem that my upgrades have rubbed on my neighbors since they stepped up their landscaping to compete with mine, it seems like most neighbors are in competition to see who can have the most hideous looking yard! I just can't understand how folks can own a home, and not care about what it looks like. I really care now, since I'm trying to sell my home this year, but even if I didn't, my neighborhood looks ridiculous. My neighbor is now a realtor (who isn't nowadays?), so you would think at least he would understand the value of a well maintained yard. If he doesn't plant some grass in his back yard by the time I return from Europe, I will go out there with my own seeds and do it my own self! Of course, I'd have to get that cheap brand so his lawn won't look better than mine, but I gotta do something!

Truth Serum

2006-03-23T17:10:00.000-05:00

Ever wonder how your co-workers really feel about you? It's easy to find out, just go out drinking with them! As always, I have to play the Corporate Hustler role to ensure my management has high regards for me, so I agreed to join the "team" as we went to a bar to celebrate a new hire's promotion. True, no one took me out when I gambled and put my job on the line to force my promotion. But I'll keep those comments to myself. So we're at the bar, and the inevitable question is asked: "This is fun, who's next to get promoted?" All heads turn towards me! So I had to reply. "Don't look at me, look at my supervisor!" who was sitting a few chairs down from me. Everyone knew I was trying to get promoted, and my work performance justified, so there were a few supportive comments thrown out there. But then my supervisor yelled, "You have no sympathy from me to get a promotion. Hell, you're living better than I am!"
Yes, I travel out the county one or two times a year. yes, I take about 4 or 5 vacations a year. But I'm single with no kids! About to be dual-incomed! So of course I'm living well. It's no surprise to him make these comments, but it's certainly uncomfortable to hear the person that supposed to be pushing to get me promoted make comments that may lead is actions to the contrary. Makes me wonder if he really is working on my behalf. Meanwhile, my work load and responsibilities are increasing, and I'm about to break my neck on this glass ceiling.
[Apply For Job] - - *CLICK* - - [Attach Resume] - - *CLICK* - - [Send]

I'm The Man

Ever come across an old item that showed how cool were back then but wouldn't be caught dead with it today? That's how I felt when I was cleaning out a box and came across my cool icon: My bright blue Motorola pager! For some reason, the gold chain was missing, but that was definitely my "I'm The Man" symbol back in the day. Ahhh... the memories.

Black White

2006-03-09T17:14:00.000-05:00

I know, I've been missing in action for a while. It has been a very busy week for me at work, so free time to share my twisted thoughts. That's what I get for agreeing to do a month's worth of work in one week. Would you believe, I didn't even get a "Thank You"?!

Depicting Racism

Speaking of which, I watched the new show on FX called Black White. Did you see it? It's crazy. First of all, I wouldn't wish my most hated white enemy to participate in a Poetry Slam as an undercover black girl. If you missed it, imagine this. Bunch of creative Black folks giving very emotional spoken word. Most, of course, rememberized it. Those that didn't, had it written on notebook paper. So then the White girl (undercover Black girl) stands up reading her spoken word from an I-Mac Powerbook!!!! Hilarious. Then, her poem was filled with 5 syllable words! No one knew what she was talking about.

Then the White man went "looking" for racism, and surprised he didn't find any at the use car dealership. Um.... who experiences racism while looking for cars? He should've tried applying for admission into a country club!

Ski Racing Cont

The other weekend, I led some skiers up to North Carolina so that we could participate in their ski racing program. We ahd to qualify first. And of course, all eyes were on us. I wonder if they were trying to see if we were going to come & take over the sport like we did with basketball, tennis, & golf. Don't worry, it's not going to happen any time soon, but its a start. First, I had to qualify, which I did do (Would've been embarassing if I didn't). I found out very quickly, these white folks are serious! It's not like skiing with the black folks, who just want to get down in one piece. It's obvious these folks take the sport very seriously, and train hard. I don't know if my passion for skiing will translate into serious race training, but I feel like the pressure is on. Like I said, all eyes are on me. Hopefully, I can get some other serious Black skiers to qualify next year, so I can just... blend on in. Yeah, I know. I'm just dreaming. No matter what, I will always stand out on the slopes.

I haev one last ski trip left. As you may know, that's to Switzerland. I'll let you know how that trip goes in April. I wonder how it will compare to my Italy ski trip. Italy is the only place I've skied where I had to take me skis off, walk across the street, then keep on skiing down. Crazy. Even more so, folks were sunbathing at the top of the mountain!!! Yeah, it was freezing up there, but they had to get the pure sun rays, I guess. Dinner wasn't served until 8 (Italian culture). So I was starving when I got off the mountain at 4:00. Ate at a German restaurant every day, then ate again at 8. There are no fast food joints along the highway. So when we stopped to eat, the place had to cook the food from scratch. The restaurants were small, and there was no rush to get up or get your check when you finished eating. Very different from the U.S. So I'm just going to prepare myself to be very patient when it comes to eating... just in case.

Don't Sue Me!

So I attended the zoning hearing to continue my protest against my developer, until he improves my subdivision so I can get top money for the houses I'm putting on the market. I thought the case would be "continued" again, but attended just to be sure. I saw that the it was still on the agenda. I got worried when I saw the developer walk in with his charts! Maybe its not continued?

Previously though, I e-mailed all of the commissioners & zoning board to let them know the developer followed through with their direction for him to work with the residents prior to attending the next meeting by threatening to sue me! When the zoning agenda was reviewed, it was announced that this case will be delayed again! Maybe I had something to do with it, I don't know. I'll be out of the country at the hearing. So we'll see what happens.

Olympic Glory, or is it?

2006-02-20T15:05:00.000-05:00

Congrats go out to Shani Davis for being the first Black win an individual gold metal at the Winter Olympics. Of course, I'm all interested in the winter sports. But Shani's story interests me because I was trying to get my club to donate money to the US Ski & Snowbard Association. Other club members didn't share my enthusiasm, and Shani's story explains why. Why is it that Black athletes don't get the same level of support other athletes get? I don't know all the details, but its clear that Shani carries a huge chip on his shoulder because he (and his mother) had to rely on international means of support in order for him to compete on the world level. So if the US Speedskating Association appears to give preferences to athletes that obviously didn't have as much potential as Shani, it's likely that the USSA does the same thing. In fact, Andre Horton is the only American to ever win the Italian Downhill, and he never made it to the Olympic team, and he is black.

Sue Me?

Here I am, fighting to protect my property value. Protesting at Town Hall meetings, zoning meetings, Board of Commissoner meetings... and quite successful I might add. But this success means someone else is losing. So this loser is now trying to intimidate me from making further protests, and has sent me a formal threat to sue me!!! What the hell? How's a millionare going to sue little ole me? It doesn't matter that nothing I said was inaccurate, he can sue me for any reason at all, and I have to prove it in court. He's already sued the county and other business entinties, and now he's targetting me! The last thing I need is to become broke fighting some rich bastard when I'm about to start a new chapter in my life. I'm not some punk that can be bullied or intimidated, but I will tread very carefully, picking my words very selectively, just in case. Fortunately, I found this crazy neighbor who is just as determined to fight the Bastard, so I think I'll have her speak for me. After I move, I'll be through with all this.

Am I Dreaming

2006-02-13T16:51:00.000-05:00

I know I was trippin' this morning when I woke up & saw snow on the ground, I was ready to put on my ski gear and hit the slopes! Must've been all the Olympics I've been watching. I arrived into work early, instead of my usual tardiness, and took advantage of the weather by wearing my Triple Fat Goose Cleveland Browns coat. Yeah, everyone looked at me like I was crazy or lost, and the Steeler's fans had plenty of jokes for me, but I was proud in Brown and Orange. Go Browns! And I'll delay my ski adventure until the following weekend, when I head up to N.C.

The Man Under The Man

The company had production crews over here today taking video of my lead, as if he's some superstar. Well, maybe he is. He's up for the Engineer of the Year award for my program. That's great recognition... except for the fact that it's an individual award, and not a team. I'm not trying hate, or rain on his parade. But the fact is, he wouldn't be so great if it wasn't for work of his team! For example, I'm the one who travels so he can attend his son's wrestling matches. I'm the one who finds problems & fixes them. I'm the one he comes to get important tasks done. OK, these are probably reasosn why he is pushing to get me promoted. But it's not just me, there's 5 others that contribute as well. All the lead does is delegate, and perform a few urgent projects that everyone is too busy to work on. So for someone who does little, to get a big award, rubs me the wrong way. Do I have a reason to be irked, or am I trippin'?

It's That Day Again

This is the day I used to run from. As a single guy, nothing good ever came out of Valentine's Day. It was always about material things. And no matter what, it never seemed to be enough. Pressure was too great to be Mr. Romantic when I haven't found Mrs. Right. I'm happy to share the holiday this year with Mrs. Right, and wish everyone out there Happy Valentine's Day. I thought this picture was perfect! No matter how big, ugly, and wrinkled up you are, everyone's lovable!

My First Flash Animation

2006-02-09T00:23:00.000-05:00

CLICK HERE to see the movie if you don't see it.
Flash player is needed.

Ignant Politician

2006-02-07T18:26:00.000-05:00

I guess there's no qualifications to be a politician. I swear, we have the most ignorant commissioner representing my district. OK, I knew she was questionable when I saw her several times over the past year, but one would think that after a year of public speaking and dealing with any & everybody, she would be able to communicate like she has at least a middle school education! But nope. I attended a town hall meeting Monday, and could not believe that she could not read. It was like, the words were there, but they didn't make any sense, so she tried to make nonsense out of them.

You know how you read off of bullets, and you may elaborate on each point? Maybe that's what she doing, except there were no bullets. Someone did a great job writing complete sentences that made sense. But she would read it aloud, so it wouldn't make sense. It didn't help matters that she spoke just as ignorantly when answering questions. NEVER AGAIN will I vote for someone just cause s/he's black!

Anyways, I feel like an activist myself. I was protesting the developer in my area... trying to protect my property value. My question actually got heated when I accused the county planner of accepting the developer's lies, and being allowed to be misled instead of looking at the facts. I came to my senses later on that I need to be careful who I call a liar out in public unless I want to get sued. Even if I have the facts to prove it.

Today, I went to the Zoning hearing to make my protest directly in front of the developer and the panel that makes recomendations. He must've heard I was coming armed with facts, cause he asked for a "continuance" before I even got there. I expect he'll find a way to present without me knowing about it so I won't object, try to convince me that I shouldn't object because he'll do something for me, or most likely... he'll threaten to sue me. He's done it before. Bastard.

Web Skillz

Back in August, I announced that I was focusing on learning how to do some F.lash animation. I'm proud to announce, I have learned, I have practiced, I can now create some ultra-cool graphics and animations. I said I would show something impressive in 6 months. I'll see if I can put to gether a little project to post.

Workin 9-5...

My boss sent out a letter day expressing his frustration that no one was around at 7:30 AM when he needed some information. Well, duh! Who the hell goes around looking for folks at 7:30 AM? Was he looking for one person, and just surprised that no one else was here yet? Did he not realize that getting in at 7:30 serves no useful purpose if there's no meeting? We're supposed to work 9 hour days, plus lunch, so we're expectd to be there about 10 hours a day. Uh... yeah, right. It may happen, but don't expect it everyday. Most people subtract their lunch break, claiming since they ate at their desk, they didn't take a lunch break. Others like me.... take a 2 hour lunch break. :-) And yeah, most folks are gone around 5:00. So we've been advised when we come in early, make it a point to be seen. And be seen when you work late. I can't help but be seen, being the only dread-headed guy around. The only thing I will say is I will make an attempt to put in more hours & be more visible, but I'm not making any promises.

Indecent Exposure

2006-02-01T15:43:00.000-05:00

Here I am at work, walking up the stairs, and I look up to see the grossest site possible at work! A beer belly was sticking out from under this guy's t-shirt! OK, it happens, maybe it was an isolated incident. NOPE! Walking to the cafeteria, I saw a worse example. I was looking downward towards his belly, and still saw the hanging blobs of fat under his t-shirt. There's no excuse for this! It's near freezing outside, and dudes up here showing their belly cleavage.

Road Trip

My trip out to Albuqwerky had its challenges the first day. There was bad weather in Atlanta, which delayed my flight a couple hours. I arrive there at 11:30 (that's 1:30 my time), drive for 2.5 hours through the mountainous Indian reservations, and arrive at the small Sipapu ski resort after 2 AM (that's 4 AM my time). A drive from HELL! Seemed like something from a horror movie.

Once I left Sante Fe (hour from the airport), there was no gas station, no open stores, no nothing for the next 100 miles. The map said I was on a highway, but here I am going 25 miles an hour through little villages w/ my bright lights on. Mapquest said I'll see the intersection in 7 miles, I'm still looking for it 30 miles later. Funny thing is, I was never lost. I was confused, since many intersections had no street signs, but apparently, never lost. One time I stopped, just to be sure I was heading the right direction, then a pack of dogs attacked my SUV!!!! OK, it was only 2 dogs, but it scared the shit out of me! I was in one of those scenes from the Twilight Zone. Away from modern civilization (it seemed to me), wondering if someone behind was going force me off the road and scalp me!

It was an uncomfortable drive, but I made it to my destination, eventually. Got my free room, with no phone, no tv, and no cell phone service. But I had fun snowboarding the next day. The drive back the next day was very pleasant & scenic. I don't get the fascination with Adobe houses, but they were nice to look at.

Corporate Hustler, Part V

I'm still trying to get my hustle on. I now have two opportunities to get promoted, and I'm aggressively pursuing both of them! I can either get this new position, or I can keep my current one. Either way, I'll be extremely blessed with anything I receive, even if it nothing this time around. I'm currently bruising my head against this glass ceiling. But if I get either position, I will have moved up extremely quickly compared to my co-workers at the same level, since I don't have an advanced degree. Not even my current degrees are in this field! (To fend off questions, I have BS degrees). Word is, decisions won't be made until the end of March, so I'll report on my status around then.

Body Clock

In the last 4 weeks, I have been to Hawaii, California, and New Mexico. I have taken red eye flights, & early morning flights. My body clock is all screwd up! I wake up like clockwork around 6 AM EST, but staying up in the morning more difficult than it ever used to be, taking mid-day naps are much more attractive, and I can't fall asleep at night. Aside from a small weekend trip to NC, I hope to get back on track these next 8 weeks. Then it's off to Switzerland, Paris, Cabo, Vegas... *sigh* .... *YAWN*!!!!

Going back to Qwerky

2006-01-22T21:55:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm back in Albuqwerky. Came out 2 days early to get an extra ski day in. It was interesting. I didn't go to the big resort that's nearby, Taos. Instead, I hit up this lil small family resort called Sinapu. Since there's not a lot of snow, I figure I'll go with the cheaeper lift tickets and take advantage of the FREE lodging. Who gives free lodging? The catch: No phone, no tv, no maid service. The mountain was bigger than I expected. It was half open, and that was plenty for my & my snowboard. It seemed like I had the entire resort to myself! I counted about 9 other skiers/boards there, not counting the workers. More about this later.

Spam Breakfast

Going back to my Hawaii post... I forgot to tell you about the crazy breakfast menu at the McDonald's in Hawaii. Click on the pic to see the menu! SPAM for breakfast!!!! MMMMmmmm. No, I didn't try it, but it must be a popular breakfast out there.

Ski Racing

Here's a pic of me racing exhausted! As I mentioned in my previous post, I was a little late, and just finished taking a shortcut... which was on an expert run. So my legs were like jello. So my time on this run was.... slow. Not to mention that wearing a big old jacket acts like a parachute!

Here is my second run. I took off my jacket, my legs were still like jello though. My time was about a second faster. Still slow compared to others. But considering this was my first trip of the season, & others ski in their backyard, I'm not disappointed at all.

Heavenly Skiing

2006-01-18T14:53:00.000-05:00

I know, I've been gone & busy for a while, but now I'm back. As you can probably tell from my pic (& past posts), I love skiing! I just led a group of 20+ to Cali to ski at Heavenly Ski Resort, located at the beautiful Lake Tahoe! I have soooo much to comment on regarding this trip.

First of all, Lake Tahoe is probably one of the most beautiful places to ski. Check out this pic! Crystal blue waters as a backdrop to mountain fun & adventure. On the beach one week, and up in the mountains a few weeks later... life is good.

I did do some racing. But didn't go the awards ceremony, so I don't know the results. I didn't do my best since I was previously traversing trails like this one! Very steep. Double Black Diamond run (experts only). To get a better idea of how steep this slope is, WATCH THIS VIDEO It's called "I'm About To Take It". If you look real close, you'll see a snowboard eat snow in the upper left corner.

One of the most enjoyable parts of the trip was accepting an invitation to get on the mountain before the resort even opens! The reason this is so sweet, is because you get to be the one who puts the first tracks in the snow. Skiing on pure powder. Us ski bums call it, Virgin Snow. Fresh Tracks. You can only make fresh tracks after a good snow fall, then you have to be first on the mountain. That's why skiers get all excited when there's a snow storm. And also why I'm up at 6 AM every morning to get an early start. So here is a pic of the Fresh Tracks I made in some Virgin Snow, and check out this video. FRESH TRACKS. I'M LOVIN' IT!

Since I was on the slopes so early in the morning, I was able to get really good views of the sunrise over the mountain. As you can tell from the Hawaii pics, I like sun rises & sunsets. Come to think of it, I love the stars, which must be a reason I enjoy camping. And I like looking at the clouds as well.

When you go skiing, you have a very unique vantage point of the clouds. Sometimes, I can ski through two different layers of clouds! What's really weird is how the weather changes depending on which part of the mountain you're own, & whether you're above or below the clouds. Here's a video of me SKIING ABOVE THE CLOUDS.

We stayed in a casino. Won a little money on the blackjack table. Lost a whole lot more the following day. Oh well. What I saw on the way up to the room made up for the disappointment. I'm not lying, I swear to you, I saw an anorexic midget!!! It was the smallest, skinniest man I've ever seen.

Another hilarious moment is when I was waiting for a chair lift to take us to the top of the mountain, I kept noticing folks ignoring the "Wait Here" sign. The sign is posted so you won't get hit by the chair lift while waiting for you turn to be carried up to the top. I saw two folk almost get taken out. Weird. But not as weird as what happened next. This guy stood diretly in the path of the incoming chair! Now this is a chair lift at the bottom of an expert ski run, so it should be all experienced folks there. So maybe this guy was just an idiot. The chair came around, and took the full blow of a 300 lb metal chair square in the face!!! Knocked him down, it was hilarious. I couldn't help but yell, "DAAMMNN, you got KNOCKED OUT!!" All 30 folks in line started laughing. The dazed snowboarder stumbled to his feet, and was obviously embarrassed, and gave me a quick finger as he got in position to catch the next chair. That's when I yelled out, "Hey man, you left your tooth on the ground!" It was funny. One of those things where you had to be there.

Mixing B'ness wit Pleasure

Next week, I have a business trip to Albuquerque. Theres's a ski resort a few hours away, so I'm going to fly out there early & check it out. Unfortunately, there's not much snow there.

Corporate Hustler (Cont.)

I often see my co-workers in the 'Good Ole Boy' network. Getting promotions... a-hem... getting promotions without others getting a chance to compete for the position. Well, a lady just got promoted, which is leaving a vacancy. Now the management talk is that my name was floating around as a replacement. This is definitely a great opportunity for me to be promoted! But wait. Does this mean I'm now one of the Good Ole Boys? Don't congratulate me yet, I still have to do my corporate hustler thing to get the job, and I already know the manager is considering opening up the job to other folks.

Close Call

I had a really close call yesterday. I'm driving in the rain when this idiot truck driver pulled out in front of me. I thought he would leave my lane before I approached, but he didnt. I had to slam on the breaks and turn the car sideways to aboid him! It came very close to hitting him. Thankfully, I avoided all the other vehicles and my wonderful car (with its new brakes) performed beautifully!

Mom's Brakes

Speakingn of brakes. I was wondering why Goodyear had me initial a statement that I have to bring my car back in after the brakes were serviced to ensure that the lug nuts were still tight on my wheels. Then I get a phone call from my mom, she had just gotten her brakes serviced as well. But when she was returning from her road trip, going 75 mph at night on the interstaste, the entire front driver's tire came off of her SUV!!!! THANK GOD SHE'S OK. The SUV heavily damaged as it coasted to the shoulder. Since it was nighttime, the wheel is lost. Since there was no human damage, lawyers won't take the case. I'm just thankful she's OK.

Hawaii

2006-01-03T10:37:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone had a great Christmas & New Year! Mine was great. Spent it on the beaches of Hawaii. One of the highlights was definitely surfing! The waves may have only been 2-3 feet high, and the water 4 feet deep, but that was definitely enough! It was a lot of fun, can't wait to do it again. Folks were asking me how it compared to my favorite pasttime, skiing. It's not a comparison. The rush & excitement I get from skiing easily trumps gliding on a wave. I take a chair lift to get to the top of the mountain, which is much easier than trying to paddle against the current! Which reminds me, it was very frustrating to paddle your way towards the deep ocean, just to have a big wave negate all your hard work! While it is true I only surfed on a little wave, I do find it much easier to surf than ski. So I'm looking foward to some challenges this ski season

This should have been my honeymoon

I felt like I was in Japan

Learned to do the head nod to the Japanese

It's the opposite of the "What's Up" nod

Sunsets are beautiful

Saw some negroes that looked clueless

Saw them later on tv, NC A&T lost to Hawaii in basketball

Experienced a high-tech toilet

It spits out more than you put in it!

Streets are too narrow

Luau's are more enjoyable when you don't pay $65/person

Click Here to see a clip of where the Kappa's got their moves from.

Click Here to see a clip of 5 year old hula dance

Waikiki has to be the most crowded beach in the world on Christmas

9/10 tourists stay at Waikiki Beach (according to the Travel Channel)

You know you're living good when you can watch the travel channel, then walk outside & visit what you just saw

I won't complain about the price of gas here again

But I will complain about the price of food out there!

There's an ABC store on every corner. Literally

Hiking Diamond Head Volcano is real cool

All live sports are time delayed

Long flights are not so bad in 1st class

The 1st class movies are UNEDITED!

I realized my body clock was screwed up when I was wide awake last night at 2 AM

For more detail, read GeckoGirl's blog.

Ratings

Nie.lson just sent me $15 to become a data point in their survey of what black folks watch!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

2005-12-21T16:56:00.000-05:00

I've been slacking off on this blog thing... it happens this time of year.

Gas Trickery

Now something has been really irking me, for about 16 years now, at least once a week. Every week. Why is it that at every gas station, the different grades of gas are arranged in some random order? Wouldn't make it logical sense to put the low grade on the left, the high grade on the right, and the middle in the middle? Even if it was slightly illogical, reverse the order. Now I know someone got paid a lot of money to design the machines, so there has to be a good reason.

Reason #1
Let's try to trick these idiots into putting more expensive gas in their car!

Reason #2
Let's try to trick an idiot to blowing up his engine by putting low octane gas into an engine that requires high octane.

The 1st reason is not really a big deal. Spend an extra dollar or 2, nothing to cause a fit over. But I fall in this second category. My super-charged engine requires highly oxegenated gas for it to operate properly. If I put low octane gas in there, I risk having to pay $4,000 for a replacement engine. Why? Because someone tried to trick me!

Is it just me? Or am I trippin' again.

Web Game

Bored at work? Then Click Here

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays & Safe Travels! The cutie & I are off to Waikiki Beach!

Christmas Lights

2005-12-05T11:05:00.000-05:00

I was going to say Holiday lights. But my pastor said, don't take "Christ" out of Christmas. So today's topic is CHRISTmas lights. You may have heard about my ghetto neighbors here or in Geckogirl's post, so I figured I may as well continue the rants. So, I look outside, and I see one neighbor has nice lights up, as you can see here. But then I look the other way, and was wondering what these Negroes are thinking?! Are Africans Negroes? I'll assume they are. Anways, I look over at their house, and they have a six foot snowman that takes up their entire doorway! And that's the only decoration they have. Something like belongs in a storefront or in the front lawn. Only a fool will take their one oversized decoration and block their doorway with it.

What made all of this even funnier, is when I woke up the next morning and saw their snowman had deflated! OK, things happen. Did they fix it, or remove it? No. It's still lying at their front door! Just, plan, ghetto.

And before you start thinking, what right do I have to complain about someone else's Christmas decorations, I'll let you konw that I did put up some tasteful lights at my house. My plan was to have a light in all the windows, but I ran out of extension cords. But at least they aren't ghetto. I know, I know, pictures suck. I need to figure out how to use the nighttime feature on my camera.

I'll think of some more stuff to write later.

Coincidence?

2005-11-28T13:58:00.000-05:00

Last year, I went to hometown of Cleveland during Christmas. The weather was fine before & after, but when I arrived, records were broken on the amount of snow that fell that week. This year, I go home for Thanksgiving, and they break the record for the low temperature for that day. It was 12 Degrees. Now that I left, the high today is 69 degrees. Coincidence?

To make it worse, I expected to enjoy watching Cavs continue their winning ways. They had one 8 straight, among to top records in the leage. I watched them twice, and they lost both of them. I'm used to the Browns losing, but was hoping for some shining sports moment while I was at home, but they got creamed.

My parents were laughing at me because I thought their thermometer was broken. It measures the outside temperature wirelessly. It's Friday, the sun is out, and the temperature thing reads 16 degrees! This is the gift I gave them last year, so I felt bad when I thought it wasn't accurate. But sure enough, it was cold as a witch's britches outside!

Memories

Since I'm now about to share my house, I started going through some of my boxes of stuff to see what I can toss. Oh, the memories I found! Letters from ex's, Stuff from my 1st job, ticket stubbs from the '96 Olympics, my prized Bell Biv Devoe Poison caseette tape. OK, I confess, I kept all of those things, but through the letters away.

I felt like I shouldn't have thrown away my ever popular Casio calculator watch. But they aren't cool anymore, so it goes. I wonder if anyone want my poor man's computer, I think they called it a word processor. It doubles as an electronic type writer. I'll donate it instead of trashing it. But after looking at the many floppy diskettes, I was filled many more memories. It's no fun deciding which memories to throw away, and which to keep.

Drive Thrus

2005-11-22T15:06:00.000-05:00

Is it just me? Or is it obvious that these drive thru windows are out to play tricks on everyone? You know what I'm talking about, just before you order your number 3 combo when you get to the speaker, you hear some silly girl's voice that says, "Welcome to the joint, would you like to try our special today?" No big deal, right? Then Why after you say "No" and make your order, an entirely different voice comes on?!?!

Yeah, yeah, I know it's a pre-recorded voice that greets you. But why? I'm serious, the voice changes freaks me out every time! Is it too much for the kid to greet me politely? It's not like it's a professional sounding voice that's recorded either. All I'm saying, is that I should only hear ONE voice instead of playing with my mind.

And another thing! Why is everyone so damn cheap with the Ketchup? Did the price of ketchup go up? I'm sorry, 2 lil packets is net enough for my large fries. I want to go back to the old days when they gave you a handful every time. Nowadays, if you forget to ask for the ketchup, you're stuck with some dry-ass potatoes. And instead of asking if you want some ketchup, they give you your bag then go hide behind the closed window. That means you have to knock on the window or blow your horn... just to get some ketchup! What the hell?

OK, I admit it, I have some issues when I go to the Drive-Thrus.

Keyword Search

I was looking for another topic to ramble on, so I picked one of the crazy search topics people use to find my blog. So today, someone did a search on "Cleveland Cavs Cheerleaders". I've never talked about them, but I will talk about about myself. I'm a huge Cleveland Cavs (& Browns) Cheerleader! So this year, I'm warning everyone out there that the Cavs will be a major contender for the Easter Confernce championship this year. Of course, Lebron James will lead the way. In fact, he was just named the NBA Player of the Week, again! 4th time winning it, and he's only been in the league for 2.5 yrs. This concludes my cheerleader report.

Gobble-Gobble

I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! I'm off to see my folks up in Cleveland. BRRrrrr.... it's cold up there!

Paintball Fun

2005-11-16T15:02:00.000-05:00

This past weekend, I continued on my never-ending quest to partake in adventurous activities. Violating all of the "Black folks don't that" rules. I organized a paintball event, and over 30 folks showed up! Everyone had a great time. Men, Women, teens, kids, it was all good.

Of course, crazy stuff like this is what I do. But it felt good talking to the grown adults and teens who are new to it, and seeing how much fun they had. For them, their fun boundaries were just knocked down, as they enjoyed themselves in ways they only heard about. After telling about other activities I do that's just as fun, I could see one of my missions was accomplished. Now others realized that they too can do more than just club & go to the movies!!! LOL

Hoop Dreams

My church basketball league has ended. We made it to the semi-finals! It was great seeing my fiancee' supporting me at the game. Unfortunately, we lost. But I did have another moment of greatness. It was almost the exact same thing that happend a couple weeks ago. Dude set up for a 3, thought it was going to be a swish... but here I come, 20 feet in the air, I smack his shot into the stands! In unison, the whole gym goes "OOOoohhhhh" I didn't shine in too many other areas I guess, cause we lost. Maybe this will mean no more bruises & sore muscles for a while.

Olympic Dreams

Shhhh, don't tell anyone, but I may get to ski with the U.S. Ski Team while they train this summer!! It will be after the Olympics, but still very cool, nontheless. I just have to figure out how to squeeze in all these trips on my work calendar.

Ultimate Rims

2005-11-09T08:33:00.000-05:00

I've thought I've seen it all. But not until I saw this! A set of rims worth a Million Dollars! I'm sure P. Diddy will come out with some rims to top it. 50 Cents will probably be the fool who would buy it. Of all the things I can think of doing with 1,000 Carats of diamonds, putting them on the road won't even make the list. If I do see fiddy rolling in these mil dubs, I will be right behind him... just waiting for one of those jewels to pop out. Then I'll buy me a new car with it!

What does an Engineer Look Like?

So I spent the weekend up in North Carolina. Asheville, to be exact. I didn't find anything noteworthy to report about this town. Although I did engage in a conversation that just rubbed me the wrong way. I'm talking to some retired folks about about my ski excursions, which have taken me all over the country, Canada, Italy, and soon to be added, Switzerland. Oh, & Chile too if I can miraculous find some another week of vacation time. So I'm talking to retired folks, and they ask me what I do. I say, I'm an engineer. They reply, "Well, you don't seem like an engineer."

If was talking to one of my peers, I would understand what was meant, since I'm not an anti-social geek. Well, I'm at least not anti-social. :-) But when I'm talking to some Caucasians that are 60+, I think they mean something else. So I ask, "What do you mean?" I didn't get a good reply. The only thing going through my mind is, what type of job did they think I would have since they know I travel a lot for fun? If I said I sold crack, rapped, or played in the NBA, would that have met their expectations?

Fantasies can come true

You probably heard the story about the Carolina Panthers cheerleaders, right? If not, you can read about it here. I was just thinking of all the craziness in beer commercials skin flicks, these scenarios would never come true. But fantasy sometimes reflects reality. Somewhere, in a bar in Tampa, a guy was daydreaming earlier while watching the NFL cheerleaders.... what if... two of the cheerleaders just started making out... not realizing... it going on right in the back of the bar!

I'm Back!!!

2005-10-31T23:29:00.000-05:00

Who said I was getting old? Yeah, my bones creak every time I move a joint, and I no longer hang with the 20 som'ns and no longer kick it like I did... even 20 years ago. But aside from all of that, I'm just as I young as I used to be. As I mentioned earlier, I was having a bit of trouble getting back in basketball shape, and was actually disappointed that I couldln't move like I used to. But guess what? It took 4 weeks, but I'm Back!! I have my youthful, springy legs back. When I played ball this past week, I became a dunking machine! Yes! I can still play above the rim!

So Sunday came, gametime, and I was juiced. Don't let me have an open layup... I had visions of dunking on somebody. Well, not onsomeone, just near someone. I should have searched for an opportunity at the beginning of the game, cause with each minute, everyone became more & more physical. In fact, I have 2 bruises near my right wrist, one bruise on my left shoulder, scab on my inner left knee (don't know how that happened), and a left over scab from from last week on my right knee. Did I forget to mention that this hostile, overly aggressive game is part of the CHURCH league?

In the first half, I had one of those blocks folks just dream of. Dude was taking a 3 point shot, I was in the air before he released the ball. I almost palmed his shot in mid-air! But just like in every kid's dream, I smacked his shot way into the 4th or 5th row of the stands!!! OK, fast foward to the 2nd half. I grab an open rebound. Everyone else is tired. I go up for the two-handed throw down, and *BOOM*! No, not what you're thinking. Some fool smacked me in the face on the way up, so I didn't get to throw it down. I was up there too! To make matters worse, the ref didn't call a foul. :-| Aside from winning the game, I was very happy for achieving my personal victory. I didn't have a goal of dunking again, or even necessariy dunking in the game (as I dream some more), but it was an indication that my dedication to staying fit & in shape has its rewards.

Trick or "GEDAHELOUDAHERE"

Yeah yeah, Trick or Treat. I celebrated last Halloween, passed out candy, posted a scarecrow in the frontyard... I used to dress up & scare the kids when they came to my crib in California, but I think I inflicted very permanent damage on some. I would turn off all the lights, except for the outdoor light. Open the door, it's pitch black inside. As the kids walk up, I would charge the door in my all black grim reaper outfit. Face covered... very scary. LOL The good ole days.

But those days are gone. You can read about last year's Halloween if you like, but based on these fools taking the fun out of my day last year, I have no desire to give out free candy this year. So why was my doorbell ringing throughout the night even though my outdoor lights are off? My parents are here, and they keep wanting to open the door... knowing they don't have any candy. I convinced them not to open the door anymore, but kids kept on coming up to my door. Why? I looked out the window, and saw parents out there. Is it because they see I'm eating dinner from the window? Is it because I seem friendly the other days of the year? Because they recall all the goodies I gave away last year? I don't know, beats me.

Ski Flashback

Ahh... getting chilly. You know what that means, right? Ski season is almost here. Here's a video clip of one of my adventures in Vermont. Unfortunately, you'll have to tip your head sideways to see it clearly... or lay your monitor on it's right side. lol As I look at it, it made me wonder if I will have anyone skiing with me this season when I take my more adventerous route. And no, I'm not crazy, I have the skills to make it through safely. Can't wait to hit the slopes!!!

Naughty & Nasty!

2005-10-24T15:02:00.000-05:00

So here I am, relaxing, watching the typical nonsense on the news, when a subtle news flash makes this report not-so-typical! The same jailhouse that let a woman handle an ex-football player alone... who ended up killing several folks & escaping... was caught with its employees searching porn sites. Yeah yeah, whatever, happens everywhere, all the time. But then they showed snidbits of the porn, and it was all black men! What the hell?! I feel real sorry for any inmate subjected to a strip search up in there. Watch the news clip here!.

Friends Can Steal

I'm going to try not to write too much, but it's on my mind, so I have to write something. It's sad when when someone you are cool with turns out to be a thief and a liar. Stealing from the same source of much of my time and & money. Just when you think you know someone, you find out you don't. I guess access to other people's money can bring out the greed in some. I don't understand it. If it's not my money, I have no use for it. Guess you really can't trust folks around money, no matter who they are.

Adventures

I don't have anything exciting to report. No adventures this week. I will be going to the exciting Asheville, NC next weekend, maybe something will happen there. My parents are arriving this weekend, that may spawn some stories. If not, I'll have plenty of adventures coming soon. Ski season & Honeymoon is coming up, so I will be travelling the globe, stay tuned!

Risky Business

2005-10-17T13:19:00.000-05:00

I certainly had an adventurous weekend! You know me, I have to have something going on, at least monthly. But this one is different. Wasn't planned. Not in my job description, but duty called.

A little background info first. I had a chance to fly on plane to test some equipment when I was in Seattle. The flight was on a small King Air 2 prop plane (6 seater) that was flying very close to ground, flying very close to mountatins, and flying very close to antennas. I thought about it for about 250 milliseconds, and said "No".

Fast Forward to last Wednesday. "Jez Chill, do you want to fly?" This time, I gave it 500 milliseconds of thought, and said "No". Thursday comes, and my management comes and personally asks me to get my ass on the plane. Of course, I said "YES". The adventures begin. I'll try to keep the summaries brief.

Due to very bad weather, it doesn't look like we're going to fly. So I head off to lunch with my management. I'm tagging along, since I normally don't eat with the "Good Old Boys". I guess it was the one manager's turn to drive to lunch. He can't see well, his reaction speed is 2 seconds too slow, and it's always an over reaction.

We get a cell phone call, the weather cleared up, so head off to the airport. Up until this point, I didn't think I was going to fly, so I was relieved. Now I'm asking a million questions to see if I should call & triple my life insurance policy real quick.

At the airport, the first flight of guys were leaving as we were preparing to jump aboard. One guy is sick. Looks like he ran a marathon, and was running straight for the bathroom. Come to find out later, his management forced him to go despite his desire not to. Now I'm really worried.

So we fly into the North Georgia mountain area. Of course, nothing but mountains of forests and a few antennas. The wind was whipping the plane like it was made of paper. We flew 500 ft above the forest, getting within 500 ft of mountains & antennas ahead of us. OK, that wasn't too bad, equpment works, I'm ready go home.

Uh... no. That was just the first mode. The second mode requires us to fly at 300 ft!!! OH SHIT!!!! I'm sweating like the sprinkler system went off. One manager is telling stories how his squad searched and found the wreckage of a plane that crashed a month earlier at one of the mountains. Everyone is trying to turn up & readjust their air vents. And now here we are flying just above the tree tops and avoiding mountains & antennas by LESS THAN 300 feet.

I forgot to tell you, instead of the test pilot flying, one of our guys somehow worked a deal to let him fly instead! WTH?!?! So the test pilot is giving the havne't-flown-a-plane-in-20-years pilot directions the entire time.

We returned safe & sound. I swear, this was not part of my job description, but it was pretty cool when I look back on it. Scary though. Just when I thought I was safe, I get in the car with the blind manager... I think that ride back was scarier than the plane ride!!!

Garage Work

I spent Saturday hanging up dry wall on an unfinished wall in my garage. I've never done it before, but it was pretty easy. I called my neighbor over, he approved of my handiwork, with several good suggestions. Here are pics of my progress. I feel like such a stud now. :-)

Hoop Dreams

I bought some new kicks, so I ready to play some basketball. I was thinking, the shoes was the only thing I needed to allow me to jump as high I used to... back when I could dunk the ball. No luck. but my feet sure do feel better! Unfortunately, my youthful thinking convinced me that I should dive for a loose ball. What the hell was I thinking? So now I'm really sore, and there's a big chunk of skin from my knee still lying on the floor somewhere. *ouch* My hot tub sure came in handy last night!

Big-Screen Debut

I saw myself in The Gospel on Friday. 3 scenes. Things that didn't make sense at the time now do make sense. It's great how careful editing makes nonsense sensical. We did switch seats in the church scene to make it look like a different day. But we also additional scenes on a different day, but I didn't see myself then.

There were 2 scenes that I got called to be in, the basketball scene when Boris is talking to the kids in the gym, and a scene in a bar / cafe. Boris is like, 6'5", and they wanted folks that looked like basketball players. But anyone standing next to him is going to look like short, and I saw that on screen. Maybe next time, I'll have a little more advance warning, and I'll make arrangements to leave work and make my mark on "Ghettowood".

Movie Star!!!

2005-10-10T12:42:00.000-05:00

OK, I'm made my first move towards obtaining a gold Star engraved on Peachtree Street. Have you seen The Gospel yet? Don't feel bad, neither have I. But I'm getting a bunch of messages from folks who saw me in it. I'm in two church scenes! I'm wearing a Navy Blue Polo Shirt, dude w/ the locs I didn't think anyone would see me. But apparently, the camera stopped & focused on me while I was "acting" out my grand performance of pretending to enjoy the director's antics, clapping to the CD, and pretending I wasn't exhausted from sitting in a church at 1 AM for a 10 min scene that we repeated about 50 times.

As I blogged about earlier, a couple of times, I have dabbled with getting my movie hustle on. And I had a great opportunity to appear in more scenes and get speaking roles, but I decided the opportunit just wasn't worth it. So instead, I'm going to enjoy my 15 seconds of fame! I wonder if my name appeared in the credits. Doubt it. But anyways, go check out the movie. I'm in the church scene in the beginning when little Boris Kodjoe was singing, and near the end when big ##### enters the church. (I don't want to ruin the movie).

I'll be on the Walk of Fame on Peachtree Street signing autographs at noon tomorrow, right after the Star dedication ceremony.

Old School Hoops

We just won our first game in the basketball church league! Whoo-hooo! We nearly doubled the opponents score. That's a good sign. Playoffs, here we come. But *ouch* my body is just not springing like it used to. Can't jump like I used to. *Ugh* I just read an article in my Men's Health magazine, and it said that shoes should be replaced after 200 miles. I think I've put about 300 on mine. My heels are killing me!

I bought my kicks to play ball last year, but it didn't happen. So I figure I'll just wear them this year. But they make me feel like I'm jumping on a pogo stick with no spring! New shoes, a must, gotta get. So here I am walking into work today in my dressy shoes, with sore heels. This means I'm more comfortable walking on my toes. Dilemma: Walk on my toes & look like some fruit cake, or suffer in pain walking like a man. Well, this is no dilemma, not question. I'm walking around all day, gingely as possile, knowing my insticts is to walk on my toes to spare me the pain.

Broken Glass

So I headed off to the public library for a meeting, pull into a nice lil spot, and everything seems all good. When I return, I seen shattered glass everywhere at my driver's door. "AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" (That's a yell, not a scream) Heart starts beating at 300 beats per minute. I walk slowly up to my car... and it's not my window. "Whoa". The car next to mine is gone. There was no car there, & no glass when I pulled into the spot.

So today, I rolling down the street & see a auto store with an eye-catching sign on the store front: "HOT CARS WANTED". I wonder if the car from the library is over there.

Almost forgot...

2005-09-30T14:09:00.000-05:00

Whoa, it's Friday already, and I haven't blogged this week. My bad... got caught up this thing called Life.

Significance

Speaking of "life", let me tell you about my mine. Where ever I go, I want to make so much of an impact on my environment, that I will be missed when I'm gone. Leave the spot better than it was before so that I am appreciated. Fill folks around me with happy memories so when they think about me, they smile. That's me.

If a tree fell in the forest, and no one heard it fall, did it actually ever fall? If I ever fall, I 'm going to create an earthquake big enough for for folks across the way to take notice! And when I rise, I I'll be doing so with my hands down, pulling my folks up with me.

I was just thinking about the old days. Days when the Sophie's promotor, Michael, was calling me up on the phone to bring a couple hundred folks out to his next gig. Thinking about how I helped grow the ski club I joined. Thinking about how I started the Oakland chapter of NSBE. Was disappointed if fell after I left. Thinking of how my house parties got too big for my house, then too big for my boy's house, and my other boy's house. Thinking about how I invited 800 folks to my CA going away party. Evite gave me special permission to invite that many people. Thinking about friends I have kept for over a decade. Thinking about about how great life as been.

But it's like the stock market. Past performance is no guarantee of future performance. But I glanced into my future, and it looks bright. Instead of a club, I may be throwing a party for two, and I'll be just as satisfied. Thinking about how I'm going to be the big man on top at job. Thinking about a little jez will make me the proudest dad one day. Thinking about how my future castle will be gem of the neighborhood. Thinking of how I will be the greatest husband ever.

You know, I've been real busy. Didn't have much to say, but I've been thinking.

Seattle

2005-09-19T22:34:00.000-05:00

Well, nothing interesting is going on out here in Seattle. My rental SUV has a parking assist feature. So I checked it out to see how it works by backing up real close to a vehicle behind me. Cool feature, it definitely works. No, I didn't hit the car. I did accidently roll over two curbs. Maybe that's why my co-worker decided not to ride in my car this morning.

Ghetto B'ness Folks

OK. So here I am getting my hustle on. Folks want to sell all this stuff on the net. Great! I'll help them make it happen. Problem #1: They have no product. Problem #2: They have no idea how to market their product, and will not implement my suggestions. Problem #3: They don't want to pay for anything. So the result is a pathetic looking business that's showing other people's product as their own. I think I'll take a break from the hustle until they fix all of these problems.

Ghetto Neighbors

A while back, C2A asked how we know where our property lines are since we don't have any fences. Take a look at my backyard, and see if you tell where my property ends. The sad part is, he told me that he would try to get one of his two boys go back there & cut the back yard. I don't know how he can be proud of himself, letting his yard look like that. Showing his kids what NOT to do. And I apparently, his wife doesn't care. Then again, this is the same guy that's scared of spiders and has his wife kill them.

Jez Plain Nasty

2005-09-16T11:43:00.000-05:00

So I'm walking down the corridor @ work, and I see the man that NEVER washes his hands after he uses the bathroom. As I enter the facilities, I'm plotting my next move: Yellin: "WASH YOUR NASTY HANDS BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE BATHROOM!!!" He'll just stop & look at me, wondering if I'm about to get violent. I continue yelling so folks down the hall can hear (There are no doors to our restroom): "IF YOU LEAVE THIS BATHROOM WITHOUT WASHING YOUR NASTY HANDS, I'M GOING TO WARN EVERYONE ON THE FLOOR HOW NASTY YOU ARE!" Then whatever happens, happens.

I nod my head, knowing what I'm about to do. Ready to face the consequences of my management saying I was acting inappropriate... but they understand. I'm juiced, I'm ready, I'm..... waiting. Dammit, he didn't enter the bathroom this time. But just wait until the next time I catch this nasty mf leaving the stall with nasty hands.

Handy Man

I've finally begun my project to hand drywall on an unfinished garage wall. I'll be sure to post before & after pictures. But at the rate I'm going, it will be long while before I finish it.

Who's sh!t is this?

Second time in as many weeks I found some dog mess on my lawn. If I was a dog, I'd probably be looking for one of the best yards in the neighborhood myself. But since I'm not, I'm as disgusted as I was with me Nasty Co-Worker. So I see a nice couple walking their dog. Of course, I go ask them if they are helping me fertilize the lawn. She whips out her pooper scooper from her pocket (plastic bags) and says, "No, not I." So then I talked to all of my english-speaking neighbors to be on the lookout. I'm going to set up a Nasty Pooch Dragnet. You'll read about it soon in the newspaper.

Seattle

I'm off to Seattle. Later!!!

Freaky Friday

2005-09-09T08:24:00.000-05:00

It's a typical morning. I wake up, watch the news, shower, iron, drink protein shake, head off to work. Traffic's a little light. I'm happy to get to work a little earlier than normal (shows my dedication). I turn into the parking lot... WTH?! There are no cars!!! DARNITT!!! Today's my "Off" Friday". :-|

Sad Day

2005-09-08T14:52:00.000-05:00

Ever have one of thoese times where there is so much going on, there's nothing to blog about? That's how I feel. I mean, where would I begin? I'm going to beat everyone in all my my fantasy football leagues, wedding planning, busy @ work, keeping up with Jones', Katrina aftermath, gas prices....

Ahh, I got something to share. Today is a sad day. Why? Well, I'm sittin here at work trying to get a piece of lint out of my chin hairs. I couldn't get it out. I kept pulling my hair. After more unsuccessful attemps, and futher inspection, I realize that I have found my very first gray hair.

OK, one Katrina news bit: Video of cops looting in New Orleans.

Official Hustler

2005-08-31T15:04:00.000-05:00

Updated 9/1/05

I'm telling you, it's hard just to blog once a week!

But I got good news to share. I can now blend in with the rest of the ATLiens because I have received my first check due to my hustle! Whoo Hooo! I'm happy, and proud of myself, because I see many more dollars coming my way... if they are successful w/ their business. Personally, I don't see how they are going to profitable, but I'm going to do my best to help make it happen. It's only $100, but that's just my hook to reel them in for bigger future tasks. :-)

Old Skool

I attended the Ebony Family Reunion festival this past weekend. Aside from the scorching sun, it was a very nice event. I was under a tent, so I didn't have to worry about getting more burnt up than I already am from Miami. So who did I see? First up, I saw Lisa Lisa! She can definitely still sing. Has a 6 month old baby. Then came Big Daddy Kane. He looked real sharp. Even broke out some fresh new lyrics. Remember how he used to spit lyrics real fast? He still can, but was exhausted after each stretch. So after a couple of songs, he let his DJ play some old skool R&B for a good while, must be so he could recuperate. Then Whodini came out! Well, half of Whodini. Two of the rappers & the DJ were the original. Then they had 2 young'ns took rapped the missing parts and did the dancing. In fact, none of the artists danced. They barely moved, and every last one of them complained that they were too old to continue doing what they are doing. I didn't stay to watch Atlantic Star.

Another Gas Blog

Since Georgia's gas comes from Louisiana, there's speculation that gas will soon jump to over $4.00/gallon! That will be enough to stop be from going out eat at lunch. Cafeteria food isn't that bad.

Update
As soon as I wrote this, seems like everyone in Atlanta went crazy. hour long lines at the gas pump. Price gouging. Georgia's govenor just issued a "State of Emergency" forcing stations to freeze their gas prices. As you cans see.... it's too late!!

Racist Media

And borrowing the post by my fiancee', I also noticed the racist news reporting. I'm proud to point out the proof:
Black people loot, while White people "find"!!!

Canadian Press - Tue Aug 30,12:03 PM ET

A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday. (AP/Dave Martin)

AFP/Getty Images - Tue Aug 30, 3:47 AM ET

Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store after Hurricane Katrina came through the area in New Orleans, Louisiana.(AFP/Getty Images/Chris Graythen)

Alburqwerky - Part II

2005-08-25T01:27:00.000-05:00

I know I've been away for a while, sorry about that. Don't forget to visit weekly, I'm still here! Again, I've been out of town. Right now, I'm back in Alburquerque. This place doesn't get any better the more I visit. I don't know why anyone would move out here.

Excuse me, Mr. President

I decided to book a flight that arrived an hour earlier than my co-workers. Aside from the extra frequent flyer miles, that was a waste! As we attempted to depart from Salt Lake City on my connecting flight, we were stuck on the airplane. President Bush's arrival required all air space to be cleared, so we couldn't go anywhere. WTH? Is his flight really worth disrupting commercial air traffic? I was even more frustrated since my ATL flight arrived 15 minutes before my next flight's scheduled departure, which had me running through the airport. I ended up arriving at the exact same time my co-workers did.

Got Diapers?

So instead of getting settled in my hotel first, I headed off to the worksite, anxious to see what Albuqwerky will treat me with next. So I'm signing my name at the security desk, and the guy that's giving me the visitor's badge has a huge wet pee mark on his pants. Ummmm, WTH? Did he put it away too quickly? Got excited talking to the receptionist? Ran out of Depends? What ever the reason, it's sick. *Gotta wash my hands, badge may be contaminated*

Thanks, Dat Fuule

Since Dat Fuule has been pressuring me to go check out the Martini Grille, I ventured over there. Again, anxious to see what the city has for me. Yippee, it's happy hour! Boo!, only well drinks. So here I am, at happy hour, and I'm the only customer there. I ate dinner, and enjoyed my Belvedere Martini (not half off). They had a band playing that night, but I wasn't about to return back. I did learn that the military and UNM is was draws most people here.

This Ain't Vegas

My last night here, I had to go do something. So I hit up the casino at Sandia Indian Reservation. I'm excited the entire 12 mins it took to get there, with visions of Vegas running through my mind. I arrive... dark as HELL!!! They must have something against street lights at intersections. So here I am, making turns at 3 mph so I won't accidently run over a cactus. Inside, the Casino quickly brought me back to my Vegas comfort zone. I head straight for the $5 Blackjack table. The drink lady comes. I'm expecting a voluptuous blond, 3 feet of cleavage, 3 inch heels, you know, the Vegas girls. Ahhh, no. This ain't Vegas. Lady looks like she works in the diner across the street. I asked for a screwdriver. Uhhh, This ain't Vegas. I had to settle for a lemonade. Anyways, I'm trying to save money, so I had intentions on losing anything significant. I started with $40, and I ended up with $75!!!

Albuquerque isn't so bad afterall. :-)

Bootlegged

OK, remember earlier, I mentioned I downloaded a bunch of movies that I can watch on my laptop. As ghetto as it sounded to everyone, WHATEVER! I enjoyed a very nice movie on plane. I felt sorry for everyone else who was stuck watching 2 year old episodes of "Everybody Loves Raymond".

T.M.I.

Why did my boss tell us at lunch last week that he had himself "fixed"?

Another Gas Blog

Folks driving away w/o paying for gas is old news. It's always been going on. I'll tell you what's surpriseing. Folks are now siphoning gas from other vehicles!!! Now that's some craziness! I may have to go buy lock for my gas cap.

Barbershop

2005-08-15T08:51:00.000-05:00

Did you watch Showtime's new series, Barbershop? Same folks that made the movie. The show was pretty funny, but it's no where near Soul Food. The scenarios were not realisitic, questionable acting, and excessive cursing. Calvin (the owner) is the only REAL character. Everyone over exaggerates their role to the point you can't relate the characters the way you could in the movies. Maybe you have to do this to make a half hour show funny.

Gnats

I was welcomed this morning to my half a cup a tea that I didn't empty out before I left for the weekend. So several knats are flying around my desk, welcoming me this morning. And despite cleaning out my cup, the damn knats are slow to leave!

Gas

You know how gas stations post the price of regular, plus, and premium gas... in that order? Well, I only look at the premium, since that's what I use. So I'm searching for the cheapest gas around, looking @ the 3rd number, and I find it! $2.60, at Marathon. When my gas tank filled up at $40, I was about throw a fit! I looked at the gauge... $2.829/gallon. WTF?!?! No wonder this gas station was empty. I looked back up at the sign. In small print, the prices list were: Regular, Plus, Diesel. DAMMIT!

Burnt Up

2005-08-09T07:22:00.000-05:00

I'm back from another trip. The lovely... Miami, Florida. Aside from the summer rains, you just can't go wrong in Miami. I take that back. Things can get bad if you let your sun screen wash off in the ocean like I did! I'm pretty burnt up. I guess the sunscreen is for folks who won't get into the water. For the next trip, I'll definitely be packing the waterproof version

Damn Media

I was saddened to hear about the death of John Johnson, the founder of Ebony & Jet. But I was frustrated when I read about it on CNN.com. I thought the media spouted facts. Since the company has been around for 6 decades, there should be plenty of facts to go around. But instead, the article kept saying "According to the website, it's #1 at this...", "According to the website, it's #1 at that...", "According to the website..." It's nice that the article was postive, but I would have appreciated reading facts about him & the company, not the website's statements. I'm not surprised at all, guess I'll have to read Jet to get the scoop.

Filthy Ride

You know it's time to wash your car when you can't even recognize it in the parking lot! After my vacation, I forgot that my car was still filthy from last weekend's road trip. So here I am, leaving the work parking lot, looking for my car. I don't see it! I'm looking for some glistening chrome rims, don't see none. Looking for sparkling white car, nothing. So I'm standing around, doing circles, then it dawned on me. That grayish looking car right there in front of me with the charcoal looking rims is my ride. "NOooooo" This isn't me. I have to find soem time to wash my car.

Web Skillz

I just downloaded the tutorial for Ad.ob.e Dre.amwe.aver, get ready... I'm about to learn how to create some stunning web pages! Flash animation.... it's on now! :-) So I'm putting it out there so you can call me out if I don't show something impressive in say... 6 months.

Hustle (Cont.)

2005-08-02T15:13:00.000-05:00

In case you're wondering, yes, I've updated this post.

I had my meeting to put my hustle into action. My plans were definitely bigger than theirs. They wanted many long-term goals, which is great. But that doesn't do anything for me now. I wasn't looking to be hired as a business consultant, but that seemed like what I was doing. At the end of an hour and a half meeting, all they have is a logo, a couple pics that need to be taken, and a couple of paragraphs. "That's it?" You want to pay me to put that on the web? Ummmm.... OK. I told them to update it with my suggestions, send it back to me in Word. I'll just do a "save as Web Page", FTP it, and charge them $100. I told them I was giving them a break. When they get their act together, I'll be ready w/ a new contract!

Hot Hot

I love my hot tub. Very relaxing. For those moments, worries go away, and peace fulfills me. But darnnit... it's too hot outside! I can't wait for it to cool off.... then again, I did have the temperature set to 104, I'll turn it down next time.

Checkup: OVERDUE!!!

As you know, I never stay in town. So I tested my rebuilt transmission on yet another road trip. Crazy, since the dude told me to bring it back for a check up after 100 miles. It's been 2600 miles!!!

Be Gentle

What did I learn this trip? Although little kids love to be tossed around like a football, and they are a good substitute for weight lifting when away from the gym, it's a very bad idea to let a baby sit on your foot while you let him fall forward off of your foot, onto the floor, w/ a juice cup in his mouth. I feel really, really bad. I hope helping the Dad wipe all the blood from the baby's busted lip was a good enough deed to not have any grudges held against me.

It's Free?

It was way too hot last week. So much so, my rear view mirrow was now dangling off a wire since the adhesive gave way. So I head off to the car shop a day before my road trip to get the adhesive. Mind you, this is the car shop where I personally have been ensuring the owner's kids have their college tuition paid for. So the guy hands me the rear view mirror fixer, and says "You're good to go!". I'm confused. Does this mean good to go to the check out counter? I'm not going to dare walk out the store w/o paying for it. Of course, I asked how much is it. He takes the glue back, gives it back to me, then gives me a hand shake, to see if I can get this clue, since, I obviously didn't believe the 1st one. I walked out in disbelief.

K.obe's icon

I was sent this blog that showed K.obe's new icon for his N.IKE shoes. I would have to agree with him, why in the world would N.IKE pick a phallic symbol for K.obe, of all people?! I didn't think it was true, but sure enough.... go to http://NikeBasketball.com, click on Kobe's Training Room, click on the Air Zoom shoes, and the logo is on the back.

Hustle

2005-07-25T08:30:00.000-05:00

Earlier, I mentioned that everyone in Atlanta has a hustle but me! Hear I am, turning down blockbuster movie roles. That's because the real hustle has to come to you! A website I maintain for a non-profit voluntarily has potentially sent some business my way. Now I have to front like I'm a professional web designer and get paid for it. I've done my internet reserach so I seem edumacated, downloaded a contract off the net to cover my behind, now it's time for ME to get my hustle on!

Oh, I forgot to mention, I also downloaded about 3 grand worth of software!!! Shhhh

Reminiscing

For whatever reason, my co-workers were talking about how we we had accidents when we first got our licenses, and how their kids are doing the same. Except for the time I fell asleep on in Silicon Valley's rush hour, my only accidents were after the first few months of getting my license when I was 16. They were both really stupid. I always saw my mother squeeze into parking spots. So as I'm taking her 1987 Lincoln Town Car for a grocery run, I try to squeeze into a parking spot. It didn't look wide enough, but that never stopped my Mom! So it surely wasn't going to stop me!!! I S-Q-U-E-E-Z-E into the spot... "I made it!!!" Then I looked into the review mirror, and I'm looking straight into the sky! I turned the radio down that i was blasting, get out, and take a look at the back of the car.

I had scratched the entire side of my mom's sparkling paint job on the other car's bumper. So much so, now both cars are kind of wedged up like a Tee-pee. SHIT!!! I get back in the car to get the cars separated. Now which way do I turn the wheels to get the cars away from each other? I didn't know. So I scratched my mom's sparkling paint job again, from wheel well, to wheel well! When I got home, I said to my mom, "Oh oh, better get Maaco!!!"

My other incident occurred when I was waving 'Hi' at a car that was passing by. I ignored the fact that I was approaching stopped traffic since someone I know saw me behind the wheel of my Dad's '82 Olds Ninty-Eight. *CRUNCH* What the... I look ahead, and I tapped the pick-up truckin front of me. I tried to back up, but the cars were stuck together! Police came. I called my dad, who walked over (I was that close to home). I tow truck had to be called in because crow bars and and every other method could not get the metal separated. The tow truck had to lift my car as high as possible, then it finally worked. My dad's car's grill just wrapped around the truck's bumper like foil. Front end was destroyed. Not a scratch on the truck. The car quickly became mine as Dad bought a new one.

Tree-B-Gone

As you know, I take pretty good care of my lawn & garden. So I have to confess today, that I have a dead tree in my backyard! Maybe it's because of those pesky Japanese Beetles, which keep returning by the way. Instead of going to the gym, I spent the weekend trying to dig it up so I can plant another one in its place. I dug up the dead trees in my front yard already, so I figured this should be an achievable project. *WRONG* My front trees never got rooted, so it was easy to pluck them up. This tree in the back has 2 years of roots. I'm digging, sawing, ripping roots left & right, and still can't get this damn tree out the ground. I probably shoud've taken some pictures. Maybe if it rains now, the clay will soften up and release it's grip.

Thanks

Thanks again for all the congrats on our engagement. I think they were spiking the drinks at happy hour, but 2 other guys also just got engaged. What are the odds? 3 engagements in 2 weeks? Apparently, it only works on the men. All you women who complain you can't find a man, just snag one at Dave & Busters on Friday, you'll get hitched up real quick!

Happy Happy Joy Joy

2005-07-18T10:08:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty happy today. It all stemmed from my "special" day last week. That's when I became officially engaged! I'm surprised my hair didn't fall out, all the stressing & worrying that went into it. But I'm very glad I made that move, and looking forwward to the future. Will this make my fiancee GeckoChill?

Special Day

There are 2 reasons I'm smiling today. TODAY is my birthday. I see from last week's comments, Proactiff did some investigating to figure out what I was talking about. You came close, just a few days off. I celebrated by going home to Cleveland, where my parents had a pseudo family reunion / b-day party waiting for me. I saw cousins I haven't seen in 20 years! I didn't feel so bad when my other cousins didn't know their family either. Shame, since they all lived within 30 miles of each other.

Lucky Ride

You just straight called me out, CTA. But I guess you see why I went against my rule of buying a car versus paying to fix one. My funds were diverted for my special day. So here I am, test driving my new transmission on a 700 mile road trip to Cleveland! 1400 mile with the return trip, so I guess car is working fine now. I was very worried though. I can't imagine a worse place to find out my transmission is gone than going than in the mountains of Kentucky with a Big Rig barrelling behind me out of control.

Sweets

And to keep my mouth smiling, I was popping candy the entire trip. I guess I didn't learn what happens to you when you eat too much candy. I was SOOOoooo sick when I got home.

Horoscope

OK, I'm attempting to try Ms Thing's advice, here's my horoscope:
It may be hard to deal with the opposing energies that are prevalent today, dear Cancer. Conflicting viewpoints and twisted perspectives are clashing within your world. Your emotions may be pinning you down to one side of the issue while a strong and powerful force is pulling you towards believing in a much more revolutionary approach. Try to maintain a balance in all situations - especially those which involve the sensitive emotions of others.

Uhh.... OK.

Cars Can't Swim

2005-07-13T13:46:00.000-05:00

You know how you watch the news and think those cars are crazy for trying to drive through 4 feet of water? I always thought they were the biggest idiot. Until Hurricane Dennis poured some water on Atlanta. Of course, the most pathetic drainage system in the country could not handle an event that occurs yearly, so there were was flooding everywhere. One would think that an area that gets hit with tropical storms/hurricanes like clockwork would build an adequate drainage system. Even my brand new subdivision floods on schedule. Not into the homes, but the streets & yards are a mess.

So here I am, going about 30, and I see the car in front of me slow down. I do the same. I thought the road was just wet, expected since it raining so hard, looked like I was driving under Niagra Falls. Then I looked closer at the car in front of me, and I saw that the water level on was up to the door! It's too late, I'm now hoping my little rental doesn't get washed off the road, or stall the engine, or enter the car. The police closed the road right after I passed through. I'm just glad I wasn't one of those idiots you see on the evening news that standing on top of their car.

Second Thoughts

That's right, I was in a rental car. My transmission is about to go out, and I need reliable transportation. So the dilimma is, do I buy a new car, or drop a couple grand on this one. Being one that hates being in any type of debt, I chose to fix my car. So now that I have depleted my fun money, I'm having serious second thoughts about passing up the acting gig.

Stress

This has been one of those weeks where I was supposed to be just chillin' & relaxin', and enjoying life. But instead, issue after issue kept popping up everywhere! Maybe I should've read my horoscope or something, I should've been warned. I'm need a break, and it may come this weekend. I'm heading home to Cleveland to see my folks. It may not be relaxing since I fear the house will be full of people all weekend.

Bobby

The TV accidenetly fell on Bobby Brown's tv show. I can say, without a doubt, he's perfect for Whitney! Both of them has some serious issues. So when you get two screwed up people together... Actually, one's a screw, and the other is a nut... they fit perfectly together.

Today

The only thing left I have to say, is that today is a special day. :-)

I'm Fakin'

2005-07-08T11:44:00.000-05:00

Guess what? I got called back to be the ball player in Family Reunion!!! Mind you, I have no acting ability whatsoever. Then again, that didn't stop DMX. So I get this call, at 2:15 talking about we need you here to get fitted for your outfit by 3:30. I said I can be there by 5:30. That wasn't acceptable. It was, be there now, or they don't need me. Maybe that's why the wanna-be actors work in restaurants & stuff, so they have the ability to leave at a moment's notice. I have that ability, but just not willing to do it. Maybe it would be different if I worked downtown, but I was just not willing to drop the rest of my tasks for the day to attend a fitting for a role that they haven't even given me a contract for yet. Now if they told me I was going to makd $500 for a hard day's work, I'd be like, "Boss, I'm suddenly sick. Bye!" But I couldn't get any confirmation that the role was really mine, or what the compenstation was. So, in other words, its likely that I could have wasted my time to attend. But then again, it could've been my grand chance to blow up on the big screen! Get more roles! Get paid! Obviously, I'm just fakin, because if that's what I really wanted, I would be down there.

Bootleggin

You know what? I'm just going to have to that super uncool dork that that doesn't mind watching bootlegged movies on my computer. I can watch a half hour here & there, and end the week knowing that I watched a bad movie knowing that I didn't waste my money on it. *cough*cough*h.!.t.c.h*cough*cough

Hustle & Flow

Speaking of movies, I saw an advance screening of Hustle & Flow. No, I actually went to the theater to see it! It was enjoyable. So if you're looking for a flick to have a good laugh to, here you go. It has its slow parts, and nothing close to being the summer's best movie, but it's a good flick to see nonetheless. Why would parents bring their little kids to see this movie? No wonder these kids are messed up.

Bad Ass Kids

Speaking of kids, the 4th of July was a perfect opportunity to for bas assed kids of Atlanta to represent. If you know about Bankhead, then you know what I'm talking about. These idiots threw rocks & firecrackers at passing motorists on the highway. A teenager was successful at launching a bottle rocket inside the cab of a moving tanker truck filled with 7500 gallons of diesel fuel. Truck capsizes, fuel spills, kids are still playing with firecrackers. They proceeded to beat & rob the driver, and over 50 kids were jumping on top of the overturned trailer (with fuel leaking) when the cops arrived. Only in Atlanta. Here's the news article

Foot In Mouth

2005-07-05T12:58:00.000-05:00

OK. So here I am about to fill out my Credit Card Fraud letter, making it official. For whatever reason, the bill arrived even though I had cancelled the card. As was reported to me earlier, there was one $25 charge on there from a place I have never heard of before. I proceed to typing, then I decided to find out what type of establsihment this place was. I looked the place up in the phone book... dialed... "Yea" "Ummm, I'm questioning a charge on my credit card bill, what type of products do you sell?" "Emissions" I think to myself, OH SH!T "Thank you sir" and hang up. Gosh, darnnit!!! One day, way back when, I did get a quick emissions test, that wouldn't take American Express, so they punched in my Visa, which went through despite it being expired. In my defense, it's not my fault. The only sign in front of this place says "EMISSIONS".

5th of July

Want to know what I hate about the 4th of July? The 5th of July. Today's not Monday, it's Tuesday, but it seems like Monday, especially since there was no work on Friday. So that means a ton of work & meetings greeted me today. I didn't expect this! This is just plain wrong. I'm actually skipping a meeting right now to post my weekly blog! I thought long weekends were supposed to relax you, as you enter new week. Not trick you so you get blindsided as you log in to your computer!

I hope everyone had a pleasant 4th of July. I did my man shyt, sweated in the hot-assed sun over an even hotter grill. It was pure tortue, until the sun went over the house, then I was groovin'! OK, the first batch of hamburgers were just practice, and I forgot about the slow cookin' steaks later on, but other than that, it was all good!

Boot-legged

Thanks to DatFuule, I have come across download bootlegged films. If it's OK to listen to my girlfriend's music on her computer, don't you think it's just as OK to watch downloaded movies on my computer? So when the suggestion came up to watch a certain flick on the big screen, I suggested we watch it on my computer's screen. Or better yet, I'll hook the laptop up to my big screen! Is this too bootlegged? Just wondering.

Get Back To Work

I hear my inner-conscience calling me. Later!

C.redit C.ard F.raud

2005-06-30T14:11:00.000-05:00

Surprise! That's right. I blogged twice in a week! LOL

I was inspired to write this blog since it's on my mind. I have been a victim of c.redit c.ard f.raud. I'm the type of guy that wouldn't notice $2,000 missing out my account, or 20 extra charges on my bill. So you're probably wondering how I found out, right?

My Macy's card expired. This is a problem, because I get 90% of my clothing from there. Since they are changing to the Rich's name, maybe that's why I never received my new card. I don't know. So I called and asked for a new card, the guy told me I had a balance on the new card. That's not possible, if I never activated the new card. He said, the card was activated at my number on such-&-such date, and one purchase at some auto store for $25.

I'm thinking, maybe I did buy something at an auto store. I don't know what I did 2 weeks ago. Before I could ask more questions about the charge, I was speaking to the fraud department. They didn't have access to the fraudulent charge, just wanted my statement. I'm going to file the fraud report, but I'm going to really be kicking myself in the ass if I find out later that I bought an air filter for my car with the card that fell under by bed.

Fireworks

(another borrowed post idea)
I have a 4 day weekend! Don't have those too often. One would think I would've made great plans, but nope. I had a b'ness trip cancelled that was planned for this week, so now I will be listening to fireworks from my deck.

I had a flashback to when I purchased some firecracker things when I was in Cali. My roommate watched me act a fool in the driveway. Forgetting how extremely dry everything is in the summer time, I set my front yard on fire!!! Stomping the flames was not effective, it was spreading to quickly. In 20 seconds, it was approaching my neighbor's bushes & fence. As I continued my useless stomping action, my roommate approached and made good use of the water hose. Not much to the story, but it was my most memorable 4th of July

Memories

Speaking of memories, my boy sent me a DVD from 2 summer trips, back in 1999 and 2000. Wow, I was a fool, always drunk, always having fun, and I looked extremely young. But I keep thinking to myself, I wasn't young. It's the exact same me now, just with a lot more hair. And I don't drink as much. And I don't party as much. And I don't try to be a playboy anymore. And I haven't kicked it with my boys like that since.... um.... OK. I am getting older. I guess, as much as I deny it, I'm not the same as I was 5+ years ago. :-|

BET Awards Show

Did you guys watch the awards show? I enjoyed it. Favorite part: Stevie Wonder doing a choreographed dance at the end. First of all, Stevie is FAT!!!! Hit a stationary bike or something. Anyways, he broke it down. Started with the 2 step, and ended with brushing the dirt off his shoulders into his Cool G pose. Loved it.

Of course, my other favorite part was the lap dances Destiny's Child gave. Suggestion, next time pick men that are NOT married.

The most ghetto part of the show: Not a sinlge award winner was present if they weren't also performing (exception is Glady's Knight).

Wonder Briefs? WTF?

2005-06-26T22:25:00.000-05:00

I know men (& women) appreciate the cleavage enhancing (creating) effect of a wonderbra. But would women appreciate seeing a man wear wear this? I'd hate to see a co-worker wearing these at a meeting. I would publicly embarass him!

Ghetto Car Show

So as some of you may have already read, I attended a ghetto car show this weekend. I saw some eye catching vehicles, as well as rides that make you wonder why it's even there. Maybe they were short on cars fill in empty spaces. I captured a few pics that really caught my eye. I was impressed with the motorcycle that was painted the ones in Biker Boyz. Then there was Mr. Romantic Baller that had wine & glasses encased in glass in his trunk. I dont' know the purpose of all that, but it looked nice. I preferred the classy tricked out cars, like the Chrysler 300C with the suicide doors, two toned, nothing that was consider too excessive. "WOW" was the ride with the huge NOS tank installed in the trunk, and "RIDICULOUS" was the ride that was altered with one center seat in the front. You see that the gas peddal is on one side, and brake/clutch on the other. But gear shift stick is in the same original position, which means the driver is shifting between his legs under the steering wheel. Uh, yeah. What I wasn't expecting was seeing all the semi-naked women walking around. I guess they helped to bring attention to certain rides or were looking for some Suga-Daddies.

New Driver

Oh, I wish I had my camera with on Friday. I saw this big ole SUV driving just under the speed limit, with a huge cardboard sign taped to the back window that read, "New Driver". OK. We all appreciate the concerned parent warning everyone behind so that we know why someone slowing everyone else down during rush hour traffic. What I don't understand, is why this parent felt that it was appropriate to obscure the driver's visibility in the back window? Knowing SUVs already have a huge blind spot, why cover up the entire back window? He could have just as easily taped the sign to the lower part of the SUV back door and be just as effective. Sure enough, as I passed the vehicle, the Dad is clinching to the "Oh Shit Handle" as if he was scared for his life.

Move: Rize

This documentary was enjoyable. Not great, but cool for a matinee. The movie's message was clear, and effectively shown... especially with all the upbeat music and good lighting and camera angles to catch all the crazy dancing they were doing. But what really bothered me is seeing a 4 year old doing moves that a woman 5 times her age would have be drooling uncontrollably. I understand, they learn from watching others and B.E.T. But if the parent doesn't see anything appropriate, one of the other adult dancers should have put a stop to it. Yeah yeah, she was just dancing & having fun. This 4 y/o started doing some Cali version of the Harlem shake, follwed by her lifting up her shirt, holding it in her mouth, rubbing her bare stomach, then broke down into a full split. This was followed by a grinding motion that had NOTHING to do with dancing. A sad reminder of how this event could happen in Atlanta.

W.A.S.P.

2005-06-19T23:31:00.000-05:00

OK. It's been a week since I posted. I don't see how you guys do it! I hove no wife, no kids, and still can't find the time to blog as often as everyone else does. Being busy at work and watching the NBA playoffs is probably why. Just saying, I'm jealous. I have a lot of twistsed thoughts to express, just can't document them fast enough!

For example, have you ever had the crap scared out of you while handling your b'ness in the bathroom? My manlihood left me quickly as I let out a yell (I can't scream) when I saw this about 4 inches from me! ===>>>

Last Week

I survived my crazy presentation last week! Customer & management is pleased with how the presentation went. But I see now why folks have secretaries. I really need a promotion so I can have someone obligated to take care of the little things that I overlook, like sending a properly collated package to the print shop. My packages had 300 pages!!! Aside from a few packages missing a section or two, it all worked out. :-) 300 pages!!!

I walked on my lead, and he was asking me questions about skiinng. WTH? Found out, he is submitting my name for the company to consider nominating me for "Black Engineer of the Year" awards. Maybe I'll be considered for "Most Promising" or "Biggest Hustler". Anyways, I'm optimistic.

This put my corporate hustler plan back into action. I counted up all of the certificates I have collected, and bought frames for them at lunchtime. An hour later, my cubicle looked like a Walk of Fame! Image is everything, so a positive message shoud be sublimily transferred to every visitor. My bubble quickly busted when I found out a decision I made last week was elevated to my supervisor. After he spoke with me, he told the 'punks', my decision is the same as JezChill. I'm going to be sure to call them out tomorrow and tell them the next time they have a problem with what I say, come to me first. Don't they know who they are messing with? Don't sleep, they'll be working for me one day! LOL (That was an evil laugh)

Movies

EVERYONE in Atlanta has a hustle. Except me. Is it because I'm content with my Salary? Lazy? Unmotivated? Wait, maybe I do have hustle! I went to a casting for a paid movie extra role last week (Tyler Perry's Family Reunion)! OK. Getting $50-$75 doesn't count. This past Saturday, I auditioned for a speaking role!!! I didn't put much thought into it. Geckogirl was gone, and I was anxious to get out & do something.

So here I am, in a hotel lobby filled with wannaa-be actors. Wait a minute. I saw that guy in a movie before! OK, maybe I'm out of my league here. I received a sheet of paper after I registered, I had 4 lines. This can't be too hard. I just got through speaking before a room full of folks that my job depended on, so it should be easy to speak 4 lines in front of a camera, right? After waiting 2 HOURS!!! for my turn, I read my part opposite this guy who speaks 2 lines in this scene. I'm ready! i don't even need the paper. Director tells me I'm playing the role of a professional basketball player, camera lady tells us to stop stepping out the camera angle, and "ACTION!"

   [Quincy] Yo, can I get your jersey from up
         there? 
      (pointing to my jersery that's immortalized 
      at the top of the gym)
   [Sean] (That's me) Not that one, but I'll get
         you one.
     .
     .
     .
     .

Eery silence! Did I fuck up already? I looked at my cheat sheet, then asked the director if someone was going to read the other 2 characters that are in the scene! I swear... black people. He apologized, and we went through it again.

   [Quincy] Yo, can I get your jersey from up
        there? 
      (pointing to my jersery that's immortalized 
      at the top of the gym)
   [Sean](That's me) Not that one, but I'll get
        you one.
   [Dean] I'll take you the hole & dunk on you! 
      (grabbing the ball out my hands)
   [Sean] (Me again) Maybe so, but can you take
       meto the library or bookstore and show me a
       good book on investments?
      ((To everyone) 
      Can I talk to you guys for a second?
     {ad lib}
   [Sean] (My last line) Look, if you don't want
          to hear what I can say, I can leave!

"CUT!"

So that was my grand attempt at getting my hustle on! I saw a couple other folks audtioning for Sean. They were SHORT! I'm 6'2". Maybe I'll get it by default.

War of the Roses

Remeber, I told you these damn Japanese Beetles were having orgies in my neighborhood? Well, the following day, I looked more closely at my garden and trees. Would you believe these bastards have ate up parts of one of my rose plants and the top of my Oak Tree? This is WAR!!! i bought some insecticide and sprayed everywhere! Here are pics of one of the leaves the beetles ate, and top of my baby Oak tree. I couldn't get my digi cam to focus on the leaf, but the blurry brown empty mass used to be a full green leaf. The white stuff is the insecticide.

My House Is On FIRE!!!

2005-06-14T19:35:00.000-05:00

Today started like any other, tried to get work early, staying busy preparing for my customer presentation tomorrow & Thursday. Then I get a call on my cell phone from some weird area code. Dude says, "This is your alarm company letting you know that your burglar alarm AND my fire alarm just went off." OH SHIT!!! Of course, I drop what I'm doing, and run to my car. I pass my entire management line as they returned from their lunch. I wonder what they are thinking, what they were talking about, I'll get to that later. I call both of my neighbors. One is a Mr. Mom, the other works days. No luck.

I jump in my car, and hit the gas as my mind started flooding the rest of my body with the fear of the worst. Forgetting that I have a tight sports suspension, I speed over the big company speed bumps. *Oooph* *Ahhhh* That hurt. Get on the main street, and I test out my SuperCharger. Mind you, you can't roll 3 blocks on this side of town w/o seeing a cop. One block....two blocks... three... there he is, right in front of me! Too make matters worse, not only do I now have to drive the speed limit, but my "Check Engine" light is on!

Now my car is about to blow up while I can only think about how one of the trailer park kids (neighboring subdivision) broke into my basement, stole who knows what, then tried to burn my house down! My castle!!! Up in flames with dreams. I get to my house, my neighbor is working in his yard (I'll get back to that too). No fire truck. I enter my house, turn my alarm off. It's hot as hell up in here!!! My car said it was 94 degrees outside, and I have my a/c on timer, so it's off during the day. No fire. No smoke. no busted windows or doors. What the hell? False alarm. My heart didn't get the message, cause it's still beating at 160 beats per min. Running upstairs, then downstairs, then down to the basement, & back up, sure didn't help. Thermostat says it's 87 in here. Fire alarm upstairs is flashing "red". Alarm says it's a basement window or door that was opened. OK. I don't know what's going on. The Alarm company didn't help any.

My neighbor said the fire truck left just as I arrived, I just missed them. Apparently, they came, knocked on the door & looked in my windows. Ummm, you can't see shit through my windows! Look at my house! ===> You can't tell if there's a fire upstairs. Nor from the windows in the front of my house. So if I left my iron on upstairs, or my clothes dryer caught fire, the firemen came & left w/o putting the fire out! Well, they must know that when they get a house fire alarm when no one is home, it's probably a false call. I'm glad they didn't knock down any doors.

Day stays bad

I return back to work 30 mins after I left. (10 min commute, 10 mins at my house). Now I the reason for my position is largely to ensure that tomorrow's presentation goes well. I go to the print shop to pick my my slide presentation, which is about 250 pages long! Instead of getting 25 stacks of 1 presentation package, I pick up 30 separate sections of the presentation, 25 copies each. AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!! Plus, they are stapled together. As I frantically try to rearrange the packages prorperly, I realize that I'm about to present a bootleg package to our customer on a $80 million project. Each package is held together by rubber bands! Shit! I rummage through the office supplies to find the LARGE binder clips. But the staples make the corner of the slides too large for the clip. Conveniently, the young kid that helps had to leave, so I was stuck trying to find a way not to embarass myself tomorrow by myself. So here I am, removing thick staples from 30 sections just to apply one binder clip. Not the way I wanted to end my day. I'm no good at manual labor, so I stopped after creating 10 packages. Those are for the customer. Anyone else gets a bootlegged pkg!

Diversity

OK, back to my mangement. why did I get a message from my manager only addressed to the few blacks in my group, inviting us to attend a breakfast with the Director of our program. This doesn't make any sense to me. Is he trying to fool folks to think that only the Black engineers have noteworthy info to tell? Nah. Is he trying to portray that he supports diversity, so here's all my proof? Does have some game he's playing and we're just pawns? There's probably 70 folks under him, 10 blacks, and he picks 4 to attend this meeting. Hmmm. Maybe I'm over reacting.

Keeping Up With the Jones' Part III

So after my heartrate came down to it's normal pace, I talked some more to my neighbor. Remember, I already told you that 2 doors down, dude built a retaining wall for his garden exactly like mine, so three adjacent houses have the same landscaping. Now my other neighbor is starting to build the exact same wall as mine! Where's the lack of creativity? Originality? I bit off of someone, so I guess it's just part of the neighbor game. His yard slopes much more than anyone else's yard, so his wall will be at least 5 feet tall! Mine is only 2.5 feet. I warned him, you just can't stack bricks 5 feet tall, the dirt will knock the wall down when it rains and dirt settles. He'll have to use cement or something to secure the bricks. I left for work, and noticed that he didn't make any progress since I was there. I guess he decided to quit for the time being after I warned him

Teaming up w/ the Jones' Part I

Before I left though, he acknowledged that he's been cutting part of my front yard. I was wondering why he was creeping onto my property (again). He says that when I cut my grass, it makes his yard look horrible, and vice versa. So he wants me to cut part of his yard so both of our yards will look nice. Hmmm, whatever.
Then he pointed out these strange bugs that were flying around the trees. He says they are Japanese Beetles. I've never heard of them. I saw them up close, and damn, these were some big ugly things, and they were mating like crazy! I've never seen such horny little insects! They were all over the trees. I never noticed. Here's my green thumb confession. I have a dead Oak tree in my backyard. Don't know what happened. It was alive last year. My neighbor suspects these beetles ate it to death! WTF? He put some type of powder on my trees, as well as his. He did that so the beetles on my trees won't infect his. I did some research, and he's right. I need to find me some insecticide ASAP. I also noticed one day part of my gutter fell off in the back of my house. I was about to go fix it one day, and it was already fixed! I think I will gladly cut his small section of lawn adjacent to mine.

Stevie on the Harmonica

Did you see Stevie Wonder play the Harmonica before tonights NBA game? AWESOME!!! Man's a musical genious.

Bad Service

2005-06-07T19:04:00.000-05:00

OK, I finally found some time to post. What's been going on with me lately?

Well, I met up with Call2Arms along with another friend who also left Atlanta for Cali, only to return. The band at the Jazz Loft, 201 Courtland, was tight. They definitely jammin. We were wondering why no one served us any drinks. It was only... 10:30, on a Thursday night. Hmmm, maybe cause we were black! Nah... everyone else was black too. Maybe... because we were late? An hour later, it was obvious that they didn't want to serve drinks since the band would finish at any time. Guess the place closes down when the band finishes, I don't know. Seems to me, they would stay open & serve drinks. Then again.... you know how your people are! There's probably so much movement when the show is over, the waiters sometimes get stiffed with the checks. I don't know, but it annoyed me.

So we went to Cafe Intermezzo. Very cool chill spot. But why everytime I go there, I get the gay waiter? Why couldn't he talk like an ordinary man? (I know, I'm homophobic, deal with it!) "Heeeeeyyyyyeeee, whaaaaat would you liiiiiiike to draaaaannk" It was all downhill from there. I figure, if I don't make eye-contact, the dining experience will be pleasant. Umm, no. The service was.... dramatic. Then I get my favorite Belevedre Martini. It's missing 2 olives. Blow the whistle, flow the flag, this is a drink infraction! I request 2 olives. You would expect the olives to be served on a saucer, right? How would you like it if someone was holding the lemon you requested for your water? So the guy that I was avoiding eye contact with returns with the olives on the toothpick, in his hand! He's holding the only exposed part of the toothpick, saying "Here you go." Umm, what am I supposed to do with that? Grab the bare olives with my hand? There's no plate to set it on. And his hands are holding the only exposed part of the olive! He lost his generous tip right there.

Initiative

I can't blog because I'm in meetings and running around like crazy all day at work. I must be one of those fools who think that I will get paid more if I work harder. Anyways, I return from a meeting to see my team in a meeting with my supervisor. At first, I'm thinking, "Here we go again, they having a meeting without me. How convenient!" So I crash the meeting, and request a TIVO replay. I'm told my supervisor is looking for someone to lead a project. Mind you, there are 6 people on my team, and I'm responsible for 80% of the team's accomplishments. A co-worker didn't believe me, so I sent him our weekly activity report which typically showed that all, or almost all of any note-worthy accomplishments occurred on my projects. So you would think that one of these guys would step up, and take advantage of their chance to shine. I've been doing a whole lot of shining. So I ask, "Has anyone volunteered to take the project?" My lead: "No, they are just asking questions". I say, "OK, I'll take it" Just like that, more visibility for me, more travels & frequent flyer miles.... WAIT A MINUTE!!! On second thought, maybe I should have asked some questions!!! I may have grabbed the project from hell that's doomed for disaster!

Our lovely gov'ment

Our wonderful government announced that the NEWSWEEK has done irreparable harm by erroneously reporting that the U.S. descrated the Quran. The following week, out wonder government announced that there has been substantiated reports of U.S. personell "splasing" the Quran with urine.

Busy Weekend (Updated)

2005-05-29T18:23:00.000-05:00

My trip back from Albuquerque was much more pleasant. I got upgraded to first class! The hours pass by very quickly when you're comfortable. The free liquor also helped. Upon my arrival, I had to prepare for my camping trip, which I was leaving for the next day, right after work.

I get to work, and have to run a teleconference with a supplier. My mind was everywhere, I began the meeting with, "Why are we here?" It went well, I just couldn't make sense of why one of the attendees was wearing club gear. She does this all the time, but I never had to work with her. Maybe she doesn't realize that the perceptions she gives others will precede her work reputation.

Latino Musica

I came across a radio station tha was jamming! It was a Latino Hip hop station. I don't know what they were saying many of the songs, but they had me bouncin' my head to the beat while I was cruising in my Chevy Malibu. Spacious car, but it had absolutely no power, compared my supercharged ride. Anyways, most of the songs were same as the ones on the other hip hop stations, except that the lyrics were replaced with spanish-speaking rappers/singers. Hooks were the same as the original. And they were TIGHT! Even the all spanish songs had me wanting to pull over and dance on the hood (thinking back to Freaknik days). My favorite song: "Papi, Rip My Bumper... Papi, Rip My Bumper..." That was the only english phrase. It was like, some spanish crunk shit. It was tight.

Camping

Last year, at this time, it was dark & raining when I arrived at the campsite. It's no fun setting up a tent in those conditions. This time was more pleasant. The following day had some drizzle. So I passed on the planned horseback ride, and enjoyed the white water rafting when the sun came back out. Campfire discussions were quite animated. The typical topics.

White Water Rafting

So the sun finally came out, and headed off for some on-water adventure. Why were the biggest 2 guys in our group acting like the biggest punks? The biggest one, was so scared, he couldn't shut up! Just talking mess, not listening to instructions... we didn't have a full boat, but we made sure that scardy-cat didn't make it onto our boat. Nor the other guy. Good thing we didn't, he fell in twice.
Now our boat had 5 folks in it, so they put two guides in our boat. One guide had 14 years of experience. The other girl was new. She said she a guide last year, uh huh, yeah, whatever. This chick got us STUCK on EVERY single rock that we were supposed to miss. Of course, I was sitting in the front seat, and I started calling out ahead of time, watch us get stuck on that rock right there. Sure 'nough... I called it every time. Our boat never lost anyone, so at least she was able to do keep us all in the boat.
Before we got in, I told the guide that I wanted to hit a kayaker. Not to be mean, it's just that when you're in a 7 person raft, you cannot maneuver the thing to avoid a very agile kayaker. Kayaks know, the rafts have the right of way if they are up stream. An idle kayaker in the travel lane is roadkill. They should rest on the bank of the river. The second rapid we hit, we came real close to hitting one. I had to take my oar out the water to avoid smacking him in the head (tempting). I was thinking my goal was not going to be achieved. Then we reached the last rapid. A kayaker was apparently having a little difficulty getting enougy power to get himself unstuck. The way some of the rapids work, the water may run backwards, forming a swell, trapping victims who navigate poorly. So our raft came, and hit him dead on right on his back! He should thank us, it was just the push he needed to unwedge himself. Don't worry, no one got hurt.
I forgot what it's called, but kayakers can get turned upside down, and their head can be rattled & pulled down into a swell that is several feet under the surface. So there are two huge rocks with a gap in between with water rushing between them. If the kayker doesn't have enough force to upright himself, his gets rattled like a bell inbetween the rocks, stuck in the swell. Yes, a horrible way to die. One time, I saw someone stuck in that position. I noticed the kayak upside down for several seconds. Suddenly, he uprighted him self, gasping for air, scareed... it was a kid. I'll still to rafting, leave the kayaking to the more adventurous folks.

Off-Roading

I have a precious ride (to me). Designed to rule the highways! Supercharged Grand Prix GTP. On my way up to the campsite, the paved roads disappear. So of course, I tread slowly & carefully. Then there's this one spot... trail intersects a stream... my ride apparently was not going slow enough to avoid scraping the underside of the front of the car. **OUCH* *ARRGGHHH* I felt every cm of pain that my car felt. It lasted for several hours. On the way back, I tread even more slowly to avoid the same fate. Didn't work. This time I scraped the underside of the back of the car, probably my exhausts. *ARRGGHH* I'm feeling the pain again, just thinking about it.

Just Chill

OK, so my name seems like it's very inappropriate me, because I'm never sitting around, doing nothing for long. To me, it's more of a chill mindset. I hardly ever get high-sprung, or overly animated. No matter what I do, I have a laid-back style of doing it. So I plan on chillin' somewhere, doing something with a chill style, every few weeks or so.

Alburquerky

2005-05-23T22:07:00.000-05:00

I made it to Albuquerque. Flight, sucked. Middle seat. No leg room. Exit row behind me, so my seat wouldn't recline. No movie. Got chips though! You know how when the plan lands, folks in the aisle stand up to get their luggage? When the guy stood up across the aisle from me, the family in the other seats used the spare seat to change their daughter's diaper. Ummmm, they couldn't wait 2 mins to do that in the airport restroom? They waited the entire flight, they couldn't have used the airport restroom? No, they had to share their joy with the rest of the passengers as we were waiting to deboard the plane.

Where y'all at?

I know they got some black folks out here somewhere. I haven't seen ANY! The only black I've seen is on the news. They finally caught the guy that killed his ex-girlfriend on America's Most Wanted. I've been to Walgreens (had to buy some Gatorade), restaurant, hotel, watched the news... WHERE Y'ALL AT? It's hot as hell here, by the way. If I lived here, no would ever see me either. I'd be in basement until the sun sets.

Paintball

I organized a group of folks to play some paintball on Saturday. It was a lot of fun. 16 folks came out. Pretty good, since about the same number didn't show. We had a great time. I do have a few war wounds. They seem to be disappearing slowly. One girl came out, she was braver than many of the guys! Many of us met at IHOP first. I was thinking everyone flaked on me, since no one was there 15 mintues after our meet time. Then I remembered how 'you people' are. The gang was there between 20-30 minutes late. It was all good from then on. I need to start playing basketball again or something. I was so extremely sore. Soaking in my hot tub was just what I needed. Now I have to prepare for my camping/white water rafting/horseback riding trip immediately after I return back home.

Keyword Search

You guys are right, it is hilarious looking at the web searches folks use to find your sight. Some horny devil found my site by searching for "Ciara's Ass Crack". HA-HA-HA What are the crazy searches you've seen? Burger King and Rent-a-rim are my most popular searches. Speaking of BK, there was a long article on their new CEO in today's USA TODAY. He believes that provacative advertisements appeals more to their core customers (18-35 males), and they desire to see ads that they grew up with. I don't remember seeing a perverted, stalking, big ole plastic head in commercials when I grew up.

Favorites

I see Curvy called me out to list my favorites. I'll see what I can come up with.

Reunion Recap

2005-05-17T15:02:00.000-05:00

It's official, I'm in that "older" crowd now. My 10 year class reunion has come & gone. First of all, black folks are the worst organizers! But putting out a schedule of events via e-mail the same day as when the events start does not constitute proper planning. So as a result, I ran into very folks that are not local. My out of town classmates that I have kept in touch with didn't make it. I only attended one event, the night party. I was very happy to see many classmatees I haven't seen in a really long time. Some, 11 years, since I finished my fourth year at another college.
It was good to see that a lot of folks have taken care of their bodies, and came out looking great! Others, hmmmm.... I wanted to slip them a pass to the gym. Same came up to me yelling, "Remember me?" Others, I'm saying, "I can't believe you don't recognize/remember me!" I look different though. Going from a tight fade to shoulder length locs gives me an entirely different look. Some folks I missed, and was hoping to catch the following night, but I didn't make it the Old School Party.

Albuquerque

What the hell is in Albuquerque? I can barely pronounce & spell it. I'll be there next week. My mom wants some turquoise jewelry. I guess I'll spend my time catching the season finales of my favorite shows.

Reunion Weekend

2005-05-13T14:29:00.000-05:00

How do you know you're getting older? By realizing it's time for your 10 year college reunion. Oh boy! Seems like my parents are going to reunions all the time, but they're supposed to... they're old! Me, I'm not old. So aside from the standard H.S. reunion, that word shouldn't be in my vocabulary yet. I guess it's really no big deal, since the only folks I know that are attending any reunion functions live locally. What fun is that? I want to see the folks I haven't seen in 10 years, not the ones I can see every time I hit any social scene.

The Job

I would love to talk about my company, but I won't. I don't want to get fired. There have been some workers fired this week. Some, just for receiving an e-mail. How do you get fired for what someone else sends you? Some got verbal reprimands. I'll just keep my mouth shut.

Reminiscing

For whatever reason, I was thinking back to a cruise I went on back in 1997. They had a DJ that's familiar with music from all over the world... except the latest US hits. Whatever since that makes, since the ship left out of L.A. We did circles in the ocean so it took 2 days to travel 150 miles to Ensenada, Mexico. Being the adventurous one that I was, I decided to enter the dance contest.
I entered because the international DJ started playing music I heard of before, Like Salt & Pepa's Push It, and other old school favorites. I was the fouth person, and the first black to compete. Why did this MF start playing some techno music when I got on the dance floor? Mind you, at this time, the only time I ever heard techno music is when the Chicago folks got their chance to dominate the dance floor while everyone took a break to enjoy some drinks. And the rare occasion I went to a club in Buckhead (This was back when black folks were not allowed to have any clubs up there). So my point is, I have NEVER danced to techno.
So here I am. 50 folks in ship's dance club staring at me. Camera's turn on that's being broadcast into every room on the ship. Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom Is that my heartbeat? No, it's this damn music that I don't know how to dance too. Well, I can't disappoint my race by letting the other contestants out dance me, so I thought back to how those crazy Chicago folks danced at the club, and did my best to imitate them. Needless to say, I didn't win the contest. I didn't know that they were going to rebroadcast my moment of embarassment every 3 hours for the rest of the trip. My friends got quite a laugh seeing me make an ass of myself. My boy told me, "Jez, you looked like you were doing aroebics!" I still don't like Techno.
Another memory of that trip, someone put a date-rape drug in a girl's drink. She was travelling with my group, but did her own thing when she met a guy she was attracted to. It was no secret what happened, or who did it. But since we were in international waters, the U.S. laws didn't apply. The ship's police could not enter the suspect's room without their permission. He was selling drugs while on the ship, so he kept the police (and us folks that wanted to break his neck) out of his room for 2 hours, while he flushed all of his drugs away. So there was no evidence of any crime. The ship had to do a U-turn to drop the girl off at a Mexican hospital, then left her there while the ship returned to L.A. One of her friends stayed with her. Crazy.

Like I said, I was just reminiscing. Back to reality...

CRASH

2005-05-06T19:41:00.000-05:00

Public Service Annoucement

I saw the movie Crash today. Being someone who is already sensitive about how other races perceive me, and I have my own prejudices as well, this movie did not entertain me. In fact, I don't even understand what the point of the movie was. I was thinking... Maybe Karma. What goes around, comes around. But no, half of the nonsense blew that theory away. I don't know what the point was.

Ironic enough, I looked up about 30 mins after I left the theatre, and saw a crash that occured just seconds earllier.

OK, I said "Crash" too many times... that means more google hits. *sigh*

The Interpreter

2005-05-04T11:02:00.000-05:00

Time for some more of my twisted, random thoughts.

The Interpreter was a great movie. But I was greatly annoyed throughout the movie. Everyone knows there is alot of edititing before we get to see the final version. There's nothing wrong with that. But in a great movie, I would expect there to be some focus on the little details. It's these little details that I focus on, and enjoy. I may not know who shot who, but I'll notice that the glass shattered in a different direction from the bullet trajectory. Yeah, you probably don't want to sit next to me watching an action flick.

So Nicole Kidman was doing her thing in The Interpreter. There were several scenes in the movie where there was obviously no one on the set to check her hair. In each one of the scenes, she will be having a single conversation, with no wind, and her hair keeps jumping to a different position every time the camera focuses back on her. So in every sentence, her hair starts off behind her ear, scan to the other guy real quick, back to her in the same sentence, now her eyes are covered. Did I blink? Did a strong breeze come through the ventilation system and moved her hair in the one second the camera changed shots? OK, next sentence. What the hell? The hair is in the exact same position as where it started! Wait, now it's back to covering her right eye like Aaliyah. This continues whenever she talks, so now I've forgotten what she was talking about, and can only focus on Kidman's hair.

Who's Googling me?

I've been wondering why folks access my site after clicking on a Google link. I think I have some internet spies trying to track my every mouse click. I have noticed some new comments to my Burger King entry. Maybe they clicked on page 97 of their BK search and found me. Check out this link some guy (BK) posted: http://www.flashboss.com/flash/wake_up.php

Nap Time

Why did I go into my work bathroom yesterday, and hear snoring?! I know he was snoring, because he woke up when he heard a flush! Speaking of work bathroom, the next time I see someone leave w/o washing his hands, I'm going to loudly call him out. I can see if you're at home, but I SEE YOU!!! Wouldn't the awareness of a co-worker observing your nasty behaviour be encouragement for you to at leat turn the faucet on and pretend you're washing?

Keeping Up With The Jones'

OK, I really have to take some more pics later on this summer. The neighbor I spoke about earlier who commented on my yard is building the exact same retaining wall in front of his house, in the exact same fashion as mine. I'm not mad at him, cause my immediate neighbor had his wall up before mine, so now three adjacent houses will have matching gardens.

Blogs are mainstream

My favorite magazine, NEWSWEEK has a weekly section called BlogWatch. Check out this week's entry about a solder's humorous view on what to (and not to) send in your care packages to soldiers in Iraq.

It's getting HOT in here

My job is sort like an engineering policeman. I make sure the engineers do what my management says they are supposed to be doing. And when they don't follow my direction (which is often), then all hell breaks lose. Last week was one of those weeks. I saw the tension building up. My team huddled, and agreed to stick to our plan. The opposing team also geared up, and planned to counter our attack. We met in a conference room, the program manager blew his whistle, and the management went at each other. The end result was that the grown men were about to quit the company! I'm like, damn, I didn't know it was that serious. It really wasn't about who's right or wrong, more about pride/ego. Oh yea, and that typical Southern behaviour: "I'm not listening to that Negro!" You know what, they may not have to follow my direction, but they will definitely listen to every word I say. If they don't respect me, I can bring hell upon anyone I find in contempt!

Peep Show

2005-04-29T18:29:00.000-05:00

As requested by blog readers (to supplement the Sorry Neighbor post below)...

Click on pic.

and
Step out the shower... & *BAM* window's right there!

Be About It - Part II

2005-04-28T22:30:00.000-05:00

I have to gripe a little bit... same topic is I blogged about last month. In fact, I'll just copy & paste it.

Don't talk about it. Be about it.
Everywhere we go, we hear complaints. Hear about about what YOU need to do. Meanwhile.... when it's time to act, time to participate, time to enact that change... there's no one around. If you have a problem that needs fixing, ask yourself what you are doing to fix it, instead of waiting to let others do it. Cause you know you will be the first to speak out when you see a problem. This message isn't going out to anyone in particular, really... it isn't. Just a gripe.

As for me, I'll continue to be a leader & make a positive impact on everything I touch.

Bobby has a what?

Bravo will premiere the long-anticipated reality series “Being Bobby Brown” on June 30. The show, co-produced by Bobby’s Brownhouze Entertainment, will feature his wife Whitney Houston, as well as the couple's child, Bobbi Kristina; Brown's other children, La Princia and Bobby Jr.; and his brother and manager, Tommy.

I'm speechless. And I'm sure no one will watch it, cause NO ONE CARES about you!

You did Paula Abdul? Yea.. RIght

As I'm sure you heard, dude claims he slept with Paula Abdul when he was a contestant on American Idol. Ummm, yeah, right. I can't believe Primetime is going to waste valuable couch potato time with this nonsense.

It's time Mr. Chill..

It's time to get off your ass and do what you have to do to get promoted! You talked all that mess back in November, and now you're watching everyone get promoted around you... step up, or shut up!

BET's Spring Bling

Someone tell Ciara that you cannot wear low rise jeans and do that booty dance. Your ass crack shows! Nice try, moving the radio receiver to try to cover it up.

Making the Band 3

Is this really the best way to make a band? Having a contest to see who can dance the best will only leave you with a bunch of teenie boppers. What group out there right now is popular because of how they dance? There are solo artists out there that dance & sing. I think this makeshift band is doomed. At least the rappers from last season had used their rapping talents to get in the group, and they produced a few tracks you could listen to (not buy... let alone download). This new group looks like it's heading straight for video-fame.

Sorry Neighbor!!!

I don't know who designed my house, but the genious put a big-ass window in my walk-in closet that faces the street. It wasn't a problem, until the other night. I was tired. Anxious to jump in the shower and hop in the bed. My shower is next to the closet.... right in front of the window. You know where I'm going with this, right? Generally, if my blinds are open, I keep the lights off, so no one sees me. But this night... *sigh*.... Llights are blazing, and I jump out the shower into my closet and "AAAARRRRGGGHGHHHH!!!!!!!"

Since it was dark out, I couldn't tell if anyone saw me... but it certainly did freak me out, just thinking they were in their living room watching tv and just waiting for me to step out the shower.

Myrtle Beach

2005-04-26T10:26:00.000-05:00

I had an interesting time in Myrtle Beach. I went there for a ski convention, which included a bunch of meetings. I'm the racing guy for my club. I introduced myself at the meeting, and the agenda suddenly stopped. Everyone was elated to see a Black ski club become part of their organization, and everyone's offering their support & advice on how we can get more involved and better organized. There was also an intense questioning to find out how good we are. They take racing very seriously, much more than I have. But since my club does subsidize my ski expenses, and I enjoy skiing and racing, I may let their racing passion rub off on me.

My second observation was that many of the racing leaders were injured. I don't need to ask why, or how. It's just not encouraging to follow folks in leg braces or walking with a cane.

I stayed at the Kingston Plantation. The name alone made me think twice about going, w/o even looking up its history. The ethnicities of the worker-bees versus the top dogs were as expected. It was not warm out, but that did not stop the outdoor pool from being packed. Weird.

The funniest part of my drive, was seeing this Porsche Carerra anxious to pass me on a busy stretch of a 4-laned (total) highway. Apparently, my 85 mph wasn't fast enough, so I politely scooted over. The Porsche promptly accelerated for for about... 1 second, before he had to slam on teh brakes to wait for the other car to move over. This repeated itslef every 15 seconds. A couple minutes later, I saw the same Porsche on the side of the road with its hood up. LOL

King's Ransom

2005-04-21T21:36:00.000-05:00

You should really thank me for this post. I'm about to save you a whole lot of agony. First of all, support black movies. If we don't, who will. Secondly, don't waste a second of your time or a penny, or your date's nickle on the most pathetic excuse for a movie since Soul Plane. I'm talking about the movie King's Ransom. I just saw a premiere of it. Oh, was that a mistake, now I get to warn all of my blog readers from ruining their weekend! I did laugh during the movie. But those rare moments were not enough. It was basically a movie full of punchlines that were thrown together to make a film. Punchlines are funny when they are given in the right context. The plot, the writing, the producing, the out of focus camera shots, all pathetic!!! Aside from the few chuckles the movie will give you, the next most noteworthy part of the movie is all of the cleavage. I swear, I saw more cleavage in the movie than I saw at Strokers or Magic City! But the difference is, it wasn't the good cleavage. it was like watching your aunt show too much of her goods at the family reunion or something. Bernie Mac's tv mom, Kellita Smith, was showing way too much. Nicole Ari Parker, from Showtime's Soul Food, is a beautiful and talented actress that probably killed any chances of being in a future blockbuster film. I didn't mind seeing her goodies though. Loretta Devine played her usual role. Thankfully, she was the only one that didn't show any goodies. Charlie Murphy (Eddie's bro) played his typical gay felon role. Donald Faison played his typical goofy role. And cut that goofy-ass mole off your lip. It only looked cute on Cindy Crawford!Anthony Anderson should have found a better film to get his first staring role in.

On second thought, don't support all black films.

Well, I'm off to pack for Myrtle Beach. This should be an interesting trip.

Keeping up with the Jones' - Part II

2005-04-19T10:14:00.000-05:00

How do you know that the we are well into Spring? It's when all the neighbors come outside like they are preparing for a battle. The victor gets to claim the Nicest Looking Yard bragging rights. I met a new neighbor. He came by and told me his fiance' requested he find out what I did to get green grass in my backyard. I don't know where he's from, but he's got to be the countriest guy I've ever met. He told me his battle plans, and acknowledged that I was currently winning the war. I saw Geckogirl's neighbor had her kids digging out their weed infested garden.
My Latino neighbor was actively going to war. He's the one I talked about earlier who just aerated & seeded his yard since that is what worked for me. He was out with his kids, and guess what? I caught him & his daughter on my grass, checking it out, letting her play, and watering his own lawn. Click on the pic here. Remeber, my yard used to be a whole lot of red clay, now it's filling up with some greenery. #1> What are you doing in my yard? #2> Get your kid out of my yard! #3> Who's going to clean up all that damn straw?
Some new tulips have blossomed! I now have Dark violet tulips to go with my purple & pink ones. I could have sworn I planted some bright colored bulbs. But knowing me, I just bought anything and planted them w/o much thought.

Yard Work

2005-04-13T10:27:00.000-05:00

I spent my off day building a retaining wall for GeckoGirl's garden. Let's do some math. We got 116 bricks from Home Depot, at 24 lbs/brick. We also picked up three cubic yards of dirt that's approximately 3,000 lbs or 1.5 tons per cubic yard. Pulling out a calculator That's (116x24) + (3x3000) = 11,784 lbs. Or just under 6 tons. Needless to say, my back was absolutely KILLING me!!! I did have assistance from someone who had no clue of what was awaiting him. All weekend, I was walking around like a NEANDERTHAL. I definitely had to clean out the hot tub for some muscle relaxation. But it was worth it. Wall looks nice. Will build one for the trees when it stops raining. I can't complain though, it was less bricks & dirt than I used for my yard.

Speaking of which, my tulips are blossiming, and I'm very excited. I took a picture of it yesterday. Unfortunately, the sun was setting. As you can see below, I don't pick my colors too wisely. Purple tulips with orange Marigolds. Mom would be proud to see her alma mater's colors. After the first set of tulips blossom, I'm expecting some pink tulips to do their thing. Then I should have a third set to sprout too. We'll see what happens. What do you think? I'll take a better, sunnier picture later.

Smokers = Litterbugs

2005-04-06T22:34:00.000-05:00

I had folks over to my house this past weekend, and everyone was respectful. Just a few spilled drinks and one smoker. Alcohol on my stain resistant carpeting, I can deal with if it gets wiped up promtply. But what I just can't understand is why I have to go outside under my deck to clean up all the damn cigarette butts. I'm glad the smoker respected my domicile by not lighting up inside, but what I don't understand is why the respect ends there. Pretty much, every smoker that has lit up exhibited the same disrespecting behavior. Flicking of nasty, ashy butts out into the yard that I cherish. I know cig littering occurs everywhere, literally. But this is my blog, so I'm only talking about me.

Now I know there are some smokers out there, do you have cig butts all over your yard?

I was curious, so I did a little late night research. Why do smokers litter? Here's the results of a British study:

They don’t regard butts as litter – “they’re only small, what can it matter?”

Lack of receptacles – especially wherever wide scale indoor smoking bans have been implemented

Behavioiural studies report that if a smoker is not within 3 metres of a bin when they finish a cigarette, the butt is littered

Fear of starting fires in a rubbish receptacle

Belief that councils, local municipalities, stormwater drains, street sweepers etc will clean up the mess

Films and other media have portrayed casually flicking or dropping a butt as a cool image

I agree with the messsage provided at BUTTsOUT.net. To stop this disrespect of my property, this is what I'll do:

1. Apply classical punishment and reward paradigms

For every butt you flick, I will take an unlit cigeratte, light it, and burn your ass on every exposed piece of skin I see until the flame goes out. Then i will show you how to properly dispose of trash. When you put to practice your new knowledge, you will be rewarded by enjoying yourself with the rest of guests inside, instead of freezing your ass outside!

2. Use principles of adult learning

How about I kick your ass if you still can't learn?!

3. Ensure wide spread availability of a positive alternative

I have a real good, positive alternative. Take your ass home and litter all over your own place!

4. Deploy the proximity principle

I'm not putting an ash tray, nor a trash can on my deck. FUGGETUBOUDIT! You know how gum chewers keep the wrappers for later usage? Drinkers keep the lids to the bottle for later usage? Smokers need to keep their own damnn butts until they get near a trash can.

Or better yet, just stop smoking. It's not cool anymore.

AAAARRRRGGHHHH!!!!!! HE'S BACK!!!!!

2005-04-04T23:31:00.000-05:00

I can't believe this scary creature is back on BK commercials. I'd rather see Hootie singing!!!! This really, really bothers me. Is it just me? Before you answer, Do you remember the original comercial? Here it is here. (Or for folks on dial up)

Something about this ridiculous plastic truly disturbs me. I'm fine with the slogan, "Wake Up With The King." In the first commercial, dude wakes up in the morning with the King staring at him!!! You have to read what I wrote about it a while back. Maybe its my homophobia, but I fail to understand how a man waking up with a stranger staring at him in bed makes me want to buy a crosanwich in the morning. "Wake Up With the King" HELL NO! The second commercial isn't any better. The Husband looks outside to see someone inside of his pickett fence. There's problem #1, he's tresspassing! After looking back at his wife (who appears to be putting on aftershave!) the "King" is now immediately in front of his window! Isn't that how people get shot?!

Neighborly Wars

My neighbor's latest attempt to have his backyard worthy of being adjacent to mine is to duplicate my successful effort of last fall. Both of my neighbor's had yards full of red clay until I aerated & seeded my yard. Throughout the winter, our yards looked the same, but now we see green grass filling up all my bare spots. My neighbor aerateed & seeded yesterday, & watered the dirt through the night. I think it's too late to seed effectively, but we'll see.

Keepin' Up wit da Jones'

2005-04-02T11:29:00.001-05:00

OK, i was just talking about how I'm excited about my backyard looking better than my neighbors'. Why did I wake up this morning and find this pulling up in front of my house? (yes, you have to click the link) I'm like, "What the hell?" I look a little closer, and I see this. (Yeah, you gotta click again)

Dammit! My neighbor is cheating! He spent mucho dinero to try to outdo everyone. It's ok. Come to find out, the guy refused to use the forklift for whatever reason. Something about he can't roll a 6,000 lb forklift over the yard w/o the proper paperwork. So it looks like I'm still in the lead for now.

I had to go over there to tell him his friggin' security light that he installed on the side of his house, which is connected to a motion sensor, stayed on all night... lighting up my bedroom like I was at a broadway show!

Sleet

Why did I open the door and see sleet coming down? It's like, 50 degrees, and I see ice crystals falling all on my deck. Crazy.

Damn Calipers

I found this site that says
"The results can also be skewed ...if you are nonwhite, since formulas are based on white subjects." WTH!

Then my numbers are all screwed up depending on which part of my skin I check. If I measure a location a 1/4 inch differently, I will get a drastically different result. *sigh*

Maybe I should have invested in a Monitor that measures your body density with a small amount of electriciity. But I've read that those are numbers are also inaccurate depending on if you're athletic or not (or in between) and how hydrated you are.

Millions

2005-04-01T00:04:00.000-05:00

Just saw the movie Millions. This was a good ole Christian movie. I recomend it for any Sunday school class or for your good ole Christian Mom. Or to get in real good with your saved girlfriend.

Foreign Trips

Everyone's trippin on me traveling all the time. Well, if you visit me you'll see a big ole house with no furniture. My '99 Pontiac has been paid off forever. No debt. So basically, my priority in life is being adventurous and having fun. No luck, just blessed to have a good job for 8+ yrs.

Yesterday, I was completing a security clearance form. Got to the section that requires me to note all of my travels out of the country in the last seven years. This was the hardest question I had to answer! I'm up to 10 foreign trips so far, but I know I'm missing a few. I figure... Tijuana & Ensenada don't count. I hope I accounted for all the others.

Spring time means...

Yard work. Lots of yard work. I'm glancing in my backyard, and it already looks like my yard is going to be greener and fuller than my neighbor's yard. :-) You know I'm all about being Mr. Jones (versus keeping up with him). My yard used to nothing but red clay, so getting green grass is a great accomplishment back there. In the front, I have to wait a while. For whatever reason, my sod stays dormant much longer than other homes. So we'll wait & see there. But again, I still have to set the bar high. I already buile a retaining wall for my garden, tullips are 2-4 inches high. I just bought some matching bricks to build the same around my two baby trees. After I plant my annuals, my yard will be looking SHARP! As for inside the house... I'll have to wait until the cleaning lady returns.

Damn Calipers

OK, I started using the new site's method for calculating body fat. Looking at their diagram, I guess I've been measuring all wrong. :-( But at least they give me a concrete # for the results instead of a percentage error. Ignorance is bliss. I'd hate to find out this thing has 2% error. Anyways... the site calculates 9.4% body fat. So I'm advertising this that my goal is to decrease this number down to 8%. I ate McD's chicken nuggets & fries today, so I'll start next week. lol

Trip-a-holic

2005-03-29T16:39:00.000-05:00

I'm back from Vegas. This had me thinking... I have traveled for a vacation the last 4 months! If you count my last business trip, I've travled the last 5 months.

Vegas was nice. Saw some shows, won some money. Someone lost some of my money, but I came out ahead overall. There were kids EVERYwhere. That's what I get for travelling on spring break. My throat is scratchy though. Which leads me to the following proprosal: A SMOKE FREE CASINO. All it takes is one, and when they start getting an increase in business, the others will quickly follow. There's too much money to be made in Vegas for any of the casinos to even consider allowing another venue to take its patrons.

I spent my time at the blakjack tables. I need to work on my addition skills. Eight of Hearts, 5 of clubs... "Hit Me!" Eight of Spades... I'm over here counting on my fingers... and the dealer has already moved on the the next gambler. I collect my winnigs and try to count faster the next hand.

It's a shame they let the lady who's drunk as hell continue to play. I can't really blame the casino, but her friends (family) let her continue to play and drink beers. I missed it, but I heard she hit on 18. Busted, of course. Dealer tried to warn her. Her gambling buddy's just giggling.

Worked out in the gym using nothing but dumbells. Had me thinking about purchasing a pair of adjustable dumbelss from Bowflex. I hear it's pretty effective.

Speaking of fitness... I found a site that gives me a more accurate body mass index / body fat % measurement using caliper measurements from three sites! This excites me. I will now create a new excel spreadsheet charting my progress. Rainmayun's suggestion that I measure your volume via water displacement in your tub (or hot tub), then using your weight go look up on a chart to compare to known densities for adipose and non-adipose tissue to calculate your bodyfat % is great, but I still think the level of my hydration will alter the results.

Near Death Experience

An idiot changed lanes almost hitting me, forcing me into oncoming traffic. Fortunately, there was no traffic coming the other way due to a red light. Very scary... since this is a stretch of road where traffic normally travels 55-60 mph with only 12 inches separating you from the oncoming lane. Dude looked like a high school latino. I wanted to turn him into a fajita.

Who you think you is?

2005-03-23T22:50:00.000-05:00

Why is it that work potlucks are popular? I was never given the chance to vote against it. There are two types of engineers in my group: Those that are good cooks, and those that have very nice wives that will give them food. Well, make that three types, cause I'm not in either one of those.

So I come home today from the gym. Happy, feeling good! Probably because me and geckogirl had a good work out. The singing in the car continued into my house, then I walked onto my back deck, just a singing! That's when I realized that some of my neighbors have their windows cracked. *Yikes* I live in one of those treeless neighborhoods where you can here Mexicans talking from two doors down if the kids next door are asleep. Anyways, after a brief moment of embarassment, thinking someone was going to try to vote me off of American Idol, I cranked up the hot tub for later use, and relaxed.

That's when I remembered I have a @#&%$# potluck tomorrow! Off to the neighborhood Kroger I go. I grab my beverages & rolls, and head to the check out line. There's only one line open, not surprising, since it's late. I'm second in line, my goods are on the belt, and the cashier walks away with her money till. I'm thinking... shift change, right?! minutes go by, line gets longer, no cashier. Then a second cashier opens up another line. I still have no cashier. I ask the lady, "Is our cashier coming back?" "Yes, she'll be righ back". Minutes go by. I leave the line to walk to the stairs leading up the business area, I don't see anyone. I go back to the 1st cashier, and asked again. She left her station to find my cashier, and told her to get back to her register. More minutes go by. Felt like I've been waiting for 10 minutes now.

She doesn't say anything when she returns, but I'm annoyed! I told her, that she can't just leave her customers waiting in line. "Well, if you think I'm going to not count my till first, you're crazy!". Um, who is she talking to. I know she isn't talking to me. I don't give a shit about how much money is in her tray. So again, "Regardless, you cannot leave a line of customers unattended when we're trying to checkout." Her smart ass: "I just did, didn't I?" Oh hell no. I'm thinking to myself, "Who the hell do you think you is?" Mind you, this is an old white lady with the mouth of a young black girl. I just played it cool, said "We'll see." Got my Kroger card discount, paid for my goods, and headed home. I promptly called up to the store, spoke with the manager, and gave her the play-by-play. Since Publix is right across the street, I doubt the new cashier will be there when I return. The last place one expects to get some attitude is at the neighborhood supermarket. Or maybe I'm expectations are too high for this neighborhood.

Sometimes in April

2005-03-22T16:01:00.000-05:00

Hotel Rwanda was a great movie. It leaves you numb, but gives you great insight to a troubesome situation. Now HBO is out with 'Sometimes In April'. Same subject, but this movie shows several perspectives aside from the hotel manager's view point. The amount of information this gives you is more thought provoking and informative than the blockbuster version. I have some serious questions now. Like, why did the Italian government help the crooked Rwandan military commander escape? I encourage everyone that does not have HBO to find someone who does, and watch this flick. If you liked Hotel Rwanda, you'll appreciate this one even more. Mad props to Stringer Bell!!! I mean, Idris Elba.

Vegas

Time for another trip. I didn't realize it was Easter weekend, when I booked it. But I find it very ironic that near everything is sold out in Sin City on Easter. Probably has something to do with Spring Break. I'm definitely looking forward to going.

Fat Check

Am I obsessed with staying fit? Maybe. Just purchased some callipers so that I can measure my body fat. Of course, getting on a scale doesn't tell me anything about how much muscle I'm gaining or fat I'm losing. So now with these inaccurate calipers, I can see if I'm losing my love handles to a 1% accuracy. Since I only have 8% body fat (maybe it's 7%, maybe it's 9%) according to this chart, I'm starting to think that this is just a gimmick to throw away my $20.

Love Stain Resistant Pants

2005-03-18T15:41:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I blogged. :-(

Today was a big day. Had to give a presentation to our customer at work. Everything was going great! I sat down after one of my charts and took a swig of some ice cold apple juice. "Ahhh.... I needed that". Problem wtih the juice is... it absorbed all the water from the ice bin, so now the seat of my pants was covered wtih water spots. *AARRGGHH* I have to get up in few seconds to contine my presentation. I swear, it was just like the commercials, I took a napkin, and wiped all water away before any of it absorbed in my pants. Now its my turn to face the audience. No embarassing wet marks here! I love these Dockers Stain Resistant pants! Where are my royalties

Extra in "The Gospel"

I was an extra in a church scene of the Gospel. It was a fun experience. A star studded cast, I won't even bother listing all the names. I just did it for some fun, change of pace. Not taking it seriously, since it's unpaid. Figured most folks would have the same opinion, since this is Atlanta. Not L.A. or NYC.

Dude next to me was talking about how he intends on becoming an actor, but he has no experience, no agent, no plan... just to meet someone at extra castings. Another lady was using her 'cute' daughter as her money-ticket. First of all, she & her daughter looked tore up! She put purple thingies in her hair to make her look cute. In fact, there was a number of tore up looking folks up in there. Atlantans got it all twisted if they think that's the way to make it big. I just look, listen, and laugh.

Anyways, look for me when the movie comes out. I'll be the dude in the middle pews when Boris Kodje's character gets saved in church. (did I just ruin the climax of the movie?) I'm also in the audience when Little Boris (a young version of himself) is singing in front of the choir. Maybe this is my chance to become famous and get rich!!!!!

Vermont - Videos & Pics

2005-03-07T00:29:00.000-05:00

I'm back from my Vermont ski trip! It was a site to behold... hundreds of negroes on skis & boards invading the mountain resort. Read about it here. The locals & visitors from New Hampshire & NY State were all friendly and very curious about this rare sighting.
I raced while I was up there. Yep. Not only do I ski, but I race. Check me out! I did pretty good... considering I now live in the South.
Check out a video of me racing. I don't show up until halfway through the movie. The guy I was racing fell down, so I'm the only one who crossed the finishline. Like I said, racing is supposed to be fun. But these idiots who make up the racing committee certainly know how to take the enjoyment out of it. I should have received a gold place medal since I had the fastest time in my category, 30-39 y/o. In fact, I was the only person in my category. So it didn't matter what time I received. When we get the computerized results, we learn that the computer made several errors that day. For me, the resort timekeepers failed to record my second race time. Although everyone acknowledges that I ran two clean runs, they decided to strip me of my medal due to the computer error. Taking something away that I earned, enjoyed, and was looking forward to receiving is very discouraging. I no longer desire to race with the organization. But I'm the race director for my ski club for next year (and this year), so I don't know how that will work out.

Ice, Ice Baby

Everyone has told me that skiing in the east is icy compared to the West. To me, icy means hitting an icy patch when the soft powder is absent. Wrong, that's West Coast Icy. East Coast Icy means you are literally skiing down a mountainside of ice. WTH? That's not fun. We all know, there was a major storm last week, dumped 16 inches of snow up on the mountain. But when the wind is blowing at 50 mph, there's not too much snow left, so we were still skiing on ice. CRAZY!!
Click Here to see an ice monument I came across.

Watch out for that TREE!!!!

You're only crazy when you do something that you do not have the ability to safely accomplish. So with that caveat, I enjoyed skiing through the glades. The glades are basicaly areas filled trees and other earthly obstacles.
Check out a video of my adventure. I know, video is rotated 90 degrees... *oops*

I'm sad to report... this trip marks the end of my ski season. *sniff-sniff*

Be About It

2005-03-01T21:56:00.000-05:00

Don't talk about it. Be about it.
Everywhere we go, we hear complaints. Hear about about what YOU need to do. Meanwhile.... when it's time to act, time to participate, time to enact that change... there's no one around. If you have a problem that needs fixing, ask yourself what you are doing to fix it, instead of waiting to let others do it. Cause you know you will be the first to speak out when you see a problem. This message isn't going out to anyone in particular, really... it isn't. Just a gripe.

As for me, I'll continue to be a leader & make a positive impact on everything I touch.

Vermont bound...

Yes... I'm off on another trip. I believe this is 3 vacations in 3 months. I lost track. I like this pace. This time, I will be skiing up at Smuggler's Notch. First time skiing up in Northeast. The current storm should dump excellent snow. But the frigid cold may make for short days and long snuggling nights.

Cataloochee

2005-02-22T17:26:00.000-05:00

Continuing my lifestyle as a Southern Ski Bum, I visited the grand ski 'hill' at Cataloochee Ski Resort. After a nice 3.5 hr drive through the country, breakfast at the bluegrass cafe, it was time to have some fun. I decided to spare my skis and try snowboarding instead. I did excellent, considering it was only the 2nd time in 4 years that I even attempted to board. I took the lessons, learned all the beginner skills real quick, then left the class early after giving the instructor a tip. I thought I knew everything... until I took everyone out getting off of the chair lift. Other than that, I was boarding like I knew what I was doing.

Cataloochee though... very scary place. It's full of kamikaze folks who don't know what they are doing, and skiing above their ability no knowing how to stop. Standing at the bottom of the mountain is the most dangerous place to be. But the funniest area to watch.

Fork Thief

OK. I'm a little absent minded sometimes. My ears could be missing, and I wouldn't know until I tried to put on my sunglasses... & they won't stay up. I noticed that I was turning on the dish washer every week, when I normally only run the machine once a month. Someone took my forks!!!! **UGH**

She STANK!

2005-02-17T12:16:00.000-05:00

OK, I understand how folks get a little musty, especially in the gym. A little stink is permissable. But there's this one woman at the gym who really reeks of corroding flesh that hasn't been cleaned in a while. And last night was real bad.

Firstly, the gym was warmer than usual. That should have warned me that stinky woman was about to share her funk. I know it was her because I walked by her, and the stink meter went up exponentially with each step. As the minutes went by, her stink circle started to expand. If only... I could....

Then we started doing the shoulder raises. Yes, that's right. With arms stretched towards the ceiling, the funk bullets were squirting from her arm pits so that the entire gym gets to enjoy it!!! Remember that deodorant commercial where the woman is dancing & does the underarm check? That's what folks were doing. Saying to themselves, "DAMN... is it me?" *sniff-sniff* I wanted to telepathically say Hell naw it ain't you, it's that stanky woman over there! But wait, let me do my own underarm check first...

TV One

I forgot to mention that I was interviewed by the cable channel TV One when I was in Vail. They are doing a documentary on Black Skiers. Look for it in March. It's hard to answer a question at a loud dance club, pretending you're sober.

Omarosa needs to SHUT UP

The more she speaks, the stupider she sounds. Making all of us look bad. Click Here to see her latest comments. *sigh*

Political disappointment

2005-02-16T17:18:00.000-05:00

I'm really not a fan of public speaking, but yesterday was just one of those days where if I didn't do it, who will. The silly businessman is building town homes adjacent to my subdivision. I missed important meetings and pushed off work to attend the zoning hearings before our elected board of commissioners. I noticed that all of the commissioners were familiar with the resident's (voter's) concerns, except for that little Black lady up there. I thought she was short, until I saw her sit up in the chair. Is her new job that boring? She didn't utter a word all day... until I get up there. I had forgotten that I voted her in to represent my district. After I stated numerous reasons why they townhomes should not be built, she didn't even initiate the conversation on the issue.

One of the other commissioners wondered how the shady developer received signed petitions when he acknowledged that the home owners were not at home, renters, and one home pad-locked. Anyways, my elected official finally woke up, didn't acknowledge any of my concerns, and approved the townhomes to be built. She struggled with the stipulations that were imposed, so the head commissioner had to help her read the rest of the list. I need to read the minutes (not posted yet), cause I don't understand the codes & language they use. I overheard the developer say that she approved the plan for a reduced number of townhomes to be built. The developer said he was going to appeal the decision, and come back with another plan proposal. Hopefully, there will be more than just myself next time that will appear before the board to emphasize how the residents do not support this plan, and we're the VOTERS dammit!

If I wasn't nervous, I would have described how inept this developer is: Missing entrance sign, unfinished landscaping, put a damn fence in the middle of my gf's backyard instead of at the property line (guess I only have to cut half the yard now).... I had these notes written down, but everything changes when you feel like you're standing before a grand jury.

Vail - The End

2005-02-13T11:25:00.000-05:00

I Finally returned from my Vail excursion. This was definitely a well needed, well deserved, break from reality. I truly enjoyed it, although I'm tired as dehydrated as I don't know what! I swallowed a jug of gatorade as soon as I returned. I know, it should've been water, I'm working on that.

The snow started off hard, then we got dumped on. Perfect conditions after that. Snow got a little choppy after each day passed. I didn't win a medal in my race this year. There's a lot of competition in my age group now, and its just impossible from an Atlantan to have as much snow experience as the other ski bums in any given season. So I was rusty. I have another race in March, in Vermont. Less competition. :-)

As I watched one of the races, the lady wiped out. She was almost done, maneurvering through the gates, and I guess her legs decided that it wasn't going to make the next turn. So she sped out of control, off the course, twisted her knee. No one did anything. Other racers continued after her. I thought at least, the Vail employees would run out there, but no one did. So I ran up the mountain a good 100 yards in my ski boots to the screaming in pain racer. I after I unlocked her skis from her boots, she said her knee was in great pain. Still, no one was around to help. I tried to signal to the onlookers, but they just watched. :-| So I grabbed the ladies skis, and she used me as a crutch to hobble down the steep slope. FINALLY, the Vail crew that kept the race course in good condition saw us struggling, and they came by and took over from there. Found out later, she was taken to the hospital with a sprained knee. She's from Detroit, probably 40+, I wish her the best.

As for me, my only painful moment came when navigating the thick, soft powder. I had to adjust, since what I that was a mogul, was instead a soft mound of snow. So I was just slicing through everything. It was sweet. Then one time I tried to slice through a small snow mound, and I misjudged it. My left ski went straight into something hard, immovable. The impact jerked my entire leg backwards, ski popped off, and I felt a sharp pain in my inner knee, probably my LCL. I shook it off, and was fine after a few minutes. I praise my workout regimine for avoiding an injury.

My new camera came in the mail a few days before the trip! From here on out, no excuses for a not having any pictures. These are mostly scenery shots, some happy hour shots, and some ice skating shots. Click on Vail 2005.

Vail cont

2005-02-10T11:03:00.000-05:00

I'm still enjoying out here! The 10 inches of snow that fell on Tuesday improved the conditions & fun tremendously. The happy hours of off the chain, as well as the nightly parties.
On the other hand, I have no break and staying very busy since I'm 'working' as the race director of our club. Now I'm paying the price of finding a bunch of racers to represent the club. Meetings, babysitting... *sigh*
A few more days, then it will be back to reality.

Vail

2005-02-07T17:17:00.000-05:00

Greetings, from Vail.
What a tight hotel I'm in! Free internet access. :-) Hot cider, cookies, gym... everything to make it enjoyable.
Vail is so... long. Who designed this place? Instead of a nice village that you can draw a circle around, the village is like, 20 miles long, and 300 ft wide.
My highlight: I'm at the top of a black diamond, scoping out the perilous terrain that's calling my name. Another skiier does the same. The caucasian guy looks at me says, "Hell no, I'm not going down there. But I'll watch you go." OK, I see this as a challenge. He doesn't think I can successfully conquer this trail, littered with grass, rocks, and other stuff sticking out through the snow & ice.
Off I go! I make it to the bottom with relative ease. Sure enough, I look up, and the guy is still looking at me. I wonder what he was thinking.
My lowlight: My boss called me at 7:30 AM.

Off to Happy Hour...

Disappointment Continues

2005-02-04T13:50:00.000-05:00

*sigh* Verna quits again.

Season two of College Hill is on. :-\

First Omarosa, now Verna

2005-02-03T10:26:00.000-05:00

Does anyone still watch 'The Apprentice'? We all remember how Omarosa was a huge disappointment last year. She'll forever be known as the Black Bitch who back-stabbed Kwame, and probably cost him the victory. OK. That season was a fluke, right? No more black women embarrasing the entire race on national TV. Especially one that brings down Black man heading towards being the H.N.I.C.

But here comes season 3. The season has just started, and I'm already profoundly disappointed. It's college grads vs high school grads. Book smarts vs Street smarts. Verna is the quietest one on the book smart team. 31, Jackson State grad, MBA, wife, mother, blah, blah, blah. She's on a quest to be Donald Trump's next success story. So of course, every week there's going to be a challenging assignment.
The last assignment had everyone working through the night. I know the show does a lot of editing, but I swear Verna had the least stressful role of anyone on both teams. When she painted, she was given a roller. She asked, "Which side of the paint roller should I use?" Um.... it's a roller!!! Both sides are the same, "DUH!" Anyways, she pitched in, and had little stress, which made her ideal to be the to interact with customer's of her assignment.
So why did this girl just up & quit? She complained that she was tired & hungry, like everyone else was. So she grabs her suitcase, and starts walking aimlessly along the beach in New Jersey. Where are you going? Why are you acting like a punk? Trump's right hand woman on the show, Caroylyn, had to drive around the city to find her. She was able to talk Verna into returning back to the show. When she returned, she told the the team that if they lost, she'll volunteer herself to be fired. PUNK!!! WIMP!!! Unfortunately, her team won. So I'll have future weeks to allow her to disappoint herself, her team, her family, her fans, and receive congratulations from the millions who will use her antics as justification for belittling other black women who strive to achieve.

Vail

I'm off to my second ski trip of the season. I nice long week in Vail, Colorado. It should be a lot of fun. Skiing. Racing. I will be missing Geckogirl. Don't worry, I'll be back by Valentine's Day. :-)

Deep Freeze

2005-01-30T23:38:00.000-05:00

What a weekend! Hotlanta experienced the Deep Freeze, followed promptly by the Big Thaw. Usually, my car is nice & safe in the garage. But this weekend, it was exposed to the icy elements. I was going to stay off the road, but I had to check up on my frozen plants, frozen pipes, and hopefully, NOT my frozen hot tub. So off to the car I went.

I was expecting to find ice everywhere, but DAMN! Can a brother have a slight chance of getting into my car? The ice was a quarter inch thick. Unable to open the door. *sigh* I had to drop kick my door to crack the ice. Crazy. For the Atlanta folks, y'all are like yeah... yeah... we all went through it. But for the non ATLiens, here are some pictures of my ride after I started scraping the ice off the windshield. Luckily, I had a ice scraper in my trunk.

One, Two, Three, Four, Five.

BTW, I did NOT rent my rims.

Rent-A-Rim

2005-01-26T16:43:00.000-05:00

I thoght it was joke. I was hoping it was. But sadly, its true. I came across an e-mail describing how if you can't afford to bling-bling your ride, now you can rent the rims & tires to front like you're a baller.

Can't afford some spinners? Do something stupid like rent a set!

Check out them out: Rent-A-Wheel (CA), Rent-A-Wheel (FL), Rent-N-Roll

An actual quote:

Actor Ray Smith, 29, of Inglewood pays $60 a week for his rims, which will amount to more than $3,000 over a year for a set that could be
bought for $1,560 cash. "It's not that bad," he says. "It's affordable."

Earlier, I blogged about how I hate seeing the fake spinners on cars, maybe this is the solution.

I agree, nice rims are a near necessity to make your ride look unique, and special to you. But if you can't afford them... stick to aluminum, or plastic hubs.

Somalia

2005-01-24T07:19:00.000-05:00

Why isn't there any news of Somalia receiving any world assistance after they were hit hard by the Tsunami? Is it because they are not getting any?

Rare Negro

2005-01-22T18:42:00.000-05:00

I forgot to mentioned one of my more memorable moments of the Whistler trip.

First of all, I couldn't believe how cold it was in Atlanta. I could've stayed in the Mountains if I wanted to enjoy freezing weather a little longer.

On the bus ride from the airport to the rental car place, I struck up a conversation with the other passengers, intrigued by 2 black folks w/ skis. It was fun, good conversation. But then it all took a turn. The guy that was with his wife & 2 kids, wanted to know how I could afford all these trips. I looked at him, and told him I "budget". That obviously wasn't good enough. He continued staring at me as if he was saying, "No, really. Do you play for the Falcons, Hawks... drug dealer...." So I satisfied his curiosity, but didn't understand why he all up in my b'ness so abruptly. I saw him when he left. He's rolling in a BMW M3. I'm like, what the hell do YOU do for a living. Too bad he couldn't hear me.

Whistler

2005-01-20T13:25:00.000-05:00

I'm back from skiing up in Whistler, Canada. It was a great getaway. My hilights:

You know how when you bite into ice cream, your teeth hurt from the cold? That's how it felt when you smiled while outside.... it was that cold.

Day One: Looking for a challenge, I ski to the Whistler Peak. You know the slope is steep when you can stand straight up, stick your hand out to the side touch the mountain. There wasn't that much snow, so I had to seek for the soft spots. I'm sure you can imagine what will happen if you ski accross a patch of ice or rock on a vertical slope. The fall would've been at least 500 ft.

Day Two: Looking for a challenge, I followed the sign that pointed towards a Black Diamond run. I saw some tracks heading over a ridge, that must be the way, right? WRONG! I get over there, and it's custered with trees, on a sharp downhill slope, and no where to go but down. The funny thing is, I looked around, and two folks had followed me. I asked them "Where are you going?" Dude said he was following me. Mistake #1. His girlfriend was following him. So we all had to scoot our way down slope between the trees. The steepness wasn't a problem, but it was hard to maneuver my 120 cm skis through 2 ft wide openings.

Day Three: Looking for a challenge, I skied the Blackcomb Glacier. Ever experience veritgo? You know how you can't see anything when you're in a bright room then turn all the lights off? Since I was in the clouds, no trees, can't see any people, EVERYTHING's white! You get to a point where you just can't tell what it is you're seeing, everything's white. Which way is down? That's when spitting comes in handy. :-) Fortunately, there are markers which guide you in the direction of the trail.

I saw an ice cave! Naturally made, it was an awesome sight. I wish I had a camera (weekend objective). I went inside, all blue. Didn't stay too long, there's a risk of it collapsing

I love Whistler! I bought a 500 piece puzzle of the mountain. I completed it in two days.

Question: How is there a glacier when the mountain isn't adjacent to the ocean?
Answer: The snow makes a stream as it melts, but most of the water never makes it off the mountain, it freezes. More melting. More freezing. Result is a year round glacier. The ice caves were formed at the base of the glacier as water runs through the mountain or under the snow/ice, then freezes when it exits the mountain.

Off to da snow....

2005-01-12T23:38:00.000-05:00

I'm all packed and ready to head off to my first ski trip of the season! I'm very excited. Whistler, Canada.... the best place to ski in North America. :-) This will be the start of a very active ski season (by Atlanta standards). Vail next month, Vermont in March, & maybe some small trips to the NC & TN hills. But its way too warm out here.

I'm the race director of the local Black Ski Club, so that has me even more motivated. This will be my warm up before I flex my skillz at Vail.

That's it for now... I'll holla back when I get back... in one piece!

Lingerie Sells

2005-01-10T16:22:00.000-05:00

I wake up this morning to the CBS Early Show. I never watch CBS in the morning. Guess it was left on CBS after the football game ended. Anyways, I'm expecting to see a high quality news show. Maybe it was quality, but I was too distracted by what the host, Rene Syler, was wearing.

She was wearing a business suit. It wasn't covering much, and all I saw was some lace lingerie. Since when was this the attire of a news anchor? A black womam at that!? Must be CBS's plan in increase vieweship. She kinda looks like Aunt Vivian from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire. Doesn't she?
Well, now you know what I've been thinking.

"I Won't Let You Fail" - Part III, The Finale

2005-01-05T15:34:00.000-05:00

Well, I tried. My goal was to help out this kid that I was writing about earlier, but it just wasn't meant to be. The kid, he's clueless. But no wonder, he learns it from his parents. I waived the white flag, and turned him back over to the courts. Whatever happens, happens. I guess you can't save them all. Thus far, I've helped two, and this is the first one that couldn't even make a simple weekly phone call. I know I'm no fun to talk to, that's probably why my phone rarely rings. If I had a choice, I wouldn't even call myself. But if the choice is that or get a criminal record... I'll be straight calling myself on three way every night! OK, I'm trippin. Tired, I guess.

Anyways, this other kid seems to be on top of everything. Should be another success story. The mission continues... helpin' these teens... one at a time...

Phuket

2005-01-04T22:40:00.000-05:00

Observations

The news lady was in Phuket this morning. But she never said where she was, only said SE Asia. I wonder if earlier she accidently sllipped up & said, "This is Diane Sawyer in Fuck It. Back to you guys in New York!"

It's no secret what everyone's New Year's Resolutions include. The parking lot at my gym looked more like Saturday night at the movie theater. It was more packed inside! Can't wait until February, when these folks realize they were only kidding themselves to stay in shape.

Boondocks

2005-01-01T13:37:00.000-05:00

OK, I love the Boondocks too.

I hope everyone had a great holiday! I went from digging out of half a foot of snow in Cleveland to doing yard work in Atlanta, all in the same week! Today's ATL high is 65. It was single digit lows in CLE!!!!

HAPPY KWANZAA everyone!!!

Dilbert

2004-12-21T20:06:00.000-05:00

I Love Dilbert!!!

This comic here is exactly how we act... except usually its via a teleconference. Our most outspoken engineer sits way in the back when the customer is present. When we are on a conference call, we pass around a jar of candy labled "Patience". A hand full is grabbed every time someone gets the urge..... Except for me. I don't know where their nasty hands have been.

"I Won't Let You Fail" Part II

2004-12-20T23:19:00.000-05:00

Remember when I was talking about my efforts to help this kid graduate without him having criminal record? I was determined not to just let him fail. I can't save everyone, but I surely can't offer a helping hand without willing to stretch a little further, ya know?

Well, I talked to the kid's mom, and she's giving me all this grief about how she's no longer with her husband, and the kid stays with him sometimes, without a phone. Frankly, my dear, I really don't give a damn. But what did frustrate me that here I am dealling with parents that have their priorities all screwed up. They said screw the court system, and screw me. And now they want everything to be made OK since my scolding made them realize that their blind eye is going to cause their kid a heap of inconvenience upon graduation day.

It's the holidays. My efforts to help seem to be abused. But that's not going to discourage me at all. But that doesn't mean what's been wrong will be ignored. My plan, is to continue to help this kid, but I'm not going to reward his parents stupidity. I have a new kid assigned to me, he has a totally different attitude than the 1st kid. He's extremely apologetic, and strives continuously to excel. Why can't all kids be like him?

The biggest difference I see between these two kids is that their parents are like day & night (in more ways than their complexion!!!). The hard working, devoted parents have hard working, devoted kids. The 'I'm going to handlle my b'ness' parents have kids that think they can do whatever the hell they want.

Damn shame, but I'm going to keep on trying. I don't want these kids to car-jack me 5 years from now if I can prevent it today!

Our Trusty Administration

2004-12-19T18:52:00.000-05:00

What do you do when you're at home, bored? Order some Pay Per View! I watched Farenheit 9/11 the other night. I advise everyone to see it! I know I shouldn't believe everything I see/read, but this movie laid out so many links to proove that the Bush administration is shady, that even if half of the info is false, it should be enough for us Americans to.......

Ummm, I'm not going to finish that thought, just in case FBI reads these blogs.

OK, ok, ok... the movie has me paranoid now. But for real, you guys have to watch it! One of my good friends is looking forward to finishing his officer training courses and entering active duty. Mainly, for the extra pay. I'm trying to persuade him to see this movie before he makes that foolish decision. I think war is acceptable when it is for a good cause. But seeing shit like Haliburton (Dick Cheney) making a deal with the Taliban install an oil pipeline through Afghanistan as we supposedly are hunting the Taliban to snatch Osama disgusts me. And this mess about the Saudi's owning 6% of U.S. economy? Ugh!!!!

Ultimate soaking

2004-12-16T16:12:00.000-05:00

We're going through the coldest days of the year. The other night, it was about 27 outside. Do you think that stopped me from going out there & jumping in the hot tub? No chance. Actually, it was one my most relaxing soaks I've had. Soft warm water in the crisp, clean air. For those 20 mins, I can honestly say that life is good.

20 mins up, time to get out... I bet you think I froze, right? Nope. I came out steaming hot, so I didn't get cold.

Ahhh.... Life is good.

Short People

2004-12-15T14:15:00.000-05:00

I had an interesting day yesterday. I know, I'm posting a day late, but my internet is acting up at home. Anyways... I'm rolling home from work, glance in my rear view mirror, and I don't see anyone driving the pickup truck behind me. Wait... let me look a little closer once traffic stops. There she is! All I see is part of a pair of eyebrowns and a forehead sticking above the steering wheel!

OK, now I'm scared. I think she's looking at the forward traffic from between that space from the top of the steering wheel down to the top of the dashboard. What do short people think when they get in the drivers' seat and can't see clearly? That's what phone books are for!!!

I decided to experiment what it's like to be too short to drive safely. So I sunk down real low in my seat so just my eyebrows was over the steering wheel. I know the folks next to me probably thought I was smoking something, but this was a serious experiment! OK, i can see the car in front of me, but my periferal vision sucked, and clearly couldn't see enough of my surroundings to drive safe. Point proven: Short people should be required to sit on two phone books when driving trucks/SUVs/Other big rides.

Damn Married Folks...

2004-12-11T18:30:00.000-05:00

Why did I walk into one of my work meetings to be greeted with, "Hey, I hear you're getting married!" What the hell? They knew I wasn't getting married, but it was their way of saying that I should be, and since I'm not, I should be pretty soon.
One person in my group just got engaged, so of course, she's excited. Another was apparently forced to admit he was going to pop the question. He must have been pressured into revealing his secret after they found out he was moving in with his baby's mama. So what does any of this have to do with me? NOTHING!!!
Last week, two of my co-workers took bets on when I was going to get married. One said a year. As much as I would love to see myself living happily ever after with my girlfriend, these outside influences are not speeding up the process. One day, maybe.

Speaking of which, have you heard about the first same-sex DIVORCE was filed? And the biggest issue in the guy-guy marriage is who's going to get custody of their 3 cats. Utterly ridiculous!

Fashion Police

2004-12-07T13:22:00.000-05:00

I love going to the gym! It should be mandatory that everyone go regularly. But yesterday was one of those days.... made me wonder... would I be better off staying at home?
I entered my weight lifting class a little later than normal, so my front row spot was occupied. So I set up right behind a nice heavy girl. No problems..... until we started doing squats. As much as I was looking everywhere except for at her, all that was in my line of vision was a horrible view of a huge ass crack!!! ARGGHH

Maybe asses pop out of the pants of heavy people when the squat, so why did she wear such a short shirt?

Why wear pants that won't stay up on your ass. Don't the drawstrings work?

I know its near impossible to pull your pants up & do squats at the same time, but wouldn't one rather stop the exercise early to pull your pants up rather than allow your crack to become more exposed with each squat?

And about Miss Spandex...

Corporate Hustler Update

2004-12-02T01:28:00.000-05:00

To update my Corporate Hustler plan, there have been some recent developments. There are some positions that will be availabe soon since there is a management shake-up going on. All signs point to the shaking making my own cubicle tremble. The other day, my manager told me to train the new-hire, get him up to speed on my tasks. My manager knows I wouldn't go anywhere without a promotion, so he's obviously thinks that he'll be able to move me somewhere. Keep your fingers crossed!

Men vs. Women

Just some food for thought.... Men & women are so drastically different, it's no wonder that we have conflicts. But as soon as we're able to understand, respect, and appease these differences, then we'll see that we can live in harmony.

Told ya so

How do you respectfully tell your boss, "Listen to what the hell I say & act on it!" Time & time again, I just have to sit back, and watch my unheeded warnings bite the company in the butt.
My job wants me to go to Denver immediately, but I need a security clearance. Which I have, in Cali. Cheap folks here wouldn't pay to transfer my clearance over. Now my management says they want me to get my clearance immediately so I can go to Denver.

Thanks for reading!!! I just had to b!tch to someone who would listen (read).

"I Won't Let You Fail"

2004-11-30T01:05:00.000-05:00

I received some inspiration from the best drama on television, "The Wire" on HBO. There was a scene where a guy was seeking advice on how to help the neighborhood knuckleheads when they act like they have no sense. The advice received was, "When I see a kid about to go down the wrong path, I tell him, 'I won't let you fail', and I keep on trying."

So now here I am, dealing with this knucklehead who's wasting my damn time. I could be passing missions on PS2, but I'm sitting here waiting for his court-ordered direction to call me so I can help him. I even found another person that was going to help me out by being the role-model he needs to write a report on if he can't find one himself (I have specific guidelines on who will qualify). Anyways, I haven't spoken to this kid in 3 weeks. One week, I was in Seattle, but I already told him, he needs to leave a message if I don't answer. He didn't. He probably didn't even call.

There are two options. I can notify the court that he didn't meet his obligations, which may send him through juvenile hall. Or I can talk to him and/or his parents to ensure they meet their obligations. Come on now, this kid has to be a fool to think that he rather go to "Juve" and get a criminal record than to to make a simple call, and perform a few simple projects. Hmmm, go to the college of my choice, or be a bum.

I'm volunteering to make a positive impact... so I know I need to step up my game and make sure he acts right. I need to get on his parents too. His parents are real good people. On the flip side, I can't make anyone do anything they don't want to. This is a volunteer effort, not a job. The board sent me the worst kid for a reason. I better suck it up!

Damn Potlucks

2004-11-22T16:39:00.000-05:00

I've been away for a week. Travelling. Glad to be settled back at home now. Unfortunately, it's Thanksgiving week. That means, to eat, you have to contribute to required potluck. I refrained from signing up at work on my group's sign up sheet before I left on my business trip. As soon as I arrived, the sign-up sheet was still waiting for me. Everyone put down their fancy casserole dishes. I would love to have everyone sample my masterpiece, but it wouldn't seem right if I just signed up for boiled eggs. I signed up for apple cider. Is that a Thanksgiving drink?

I was wondering, for those who exert their elbow sweat to feed others who worked as hard, so you have less regards for the guy who didn't fix anything or just bought drinks?

Celebrating Grass!!

2004-11-11T20:33:00.000-05:00

Anyone who knew me before I moved to Atlanta will tell you that I would be the last person you'll ever find doing yard work and keeping up a flower garden. In fact, I refused to cut my grass at my California house more often than once a season. Everything certainly changes when you own your own home though. That's why I can't figure out why some homeowners don't have enough pride to keep up their own yards.

I just winterized my flower garden. I have no doubt I'll have a very impressive presentation in the spring. My front yard is looking like its supposed to. But I have one real troublesome area that I haven't been able to solve for the 2 years I've been here.... how to get grass to grow in my back yard!

I've tried seeding & seeding, watering & more water, tha didn't work. I tried using a "hook-up" to aerate & seed the lawn, that didn't work. Even despite working daily to keep the ground moist so the seeds will germinate. My latest effort was to pay ChemLawn to hook it up. This was four weeks ago. I looked out into my backyard today, and I see grass growing everywhere!!! I'm really excited!!! Finally, I won't look out and see a bed of red clay & weeds. Aren't you happy for me?

But wait a minute.... It's Novemember. My grass is growing... please tell me I'm not going to be that fool cutting his grass in 35 degree weather in December!!!

Adult Video Games

2004-11-09T13:02:00.000-05:00

Should adults play video games? Is this something that a woman would be tuned off by to find out that a guy enjoys being glued to his PS2 or X-Box? I never really thought about it too much, but its something I've been wondering.

I confess. I took this survey online about how men think. And I paused when I got to the following question:
What do you consider to be the most important factor in why you, or men in general, play video games?

As a distraction or means of relaxation

The opportunity to vent frustrations and aggression

It's a way to bond with friends

None of the above

For me, its a definite distraction from reality and provides hours of relaxation.