Cork Scrooged

Yesterday was Pinky’s birthday… I won’t say which one, but even though I’m still under the influence of bronchitis, I wanted to provide a memorable time for her.

We had decided to stay at a downtown hotel Friday night.  We like staying at hotels in town; it’s like a mini-vacation without the hassle of actually traveling.  This spring, I’d won a night’s stay at the Baltimore Inner Harbor Hampton Inn in a raffle, so we figured we’d cash it in for the occasion.

This is the Baltimore Hampton.  It’s the new thing in town; putting hotels into old banks and office buildings.

Since I work about three blocks from the place, I figured I’d check in before I went home to get Pinky, so that when we arrived later, we could just breeze right in.  I also needed to stop at the store and pick up a birthday card.  So I checked in, no problem, and checked out the room.  It was a little small, but nice.  Huge bed, good TV.

As I headed to Rite Aid, it dawned on me… I should get a bottle of wine or something, and this Rite Aid sold wine and liquor.  In fact, I could get some wine and snacks and stuff, and go back to the room and have it all set up ahead of time.  Eureka!

In truth, I should have thought of that long before it actually occurred to me.  I blame it on the cold medicine.  But anyway, after I got home and retrieved Pinky, this is what greeted her:

Reese’s Cups go with every occasion. 

I smuggled the wine glasses into my bag without Pinky noticing.  What I didn’t realize until we got in was that I forgot to bring a freakin’ corkscrew.  GAH!  I used to keep one in my car for such occasions, but I’d just valet parked it, so I didn’t want to go down and ask them to bring it back, five minutes after I’d dropped it off.  Luckily, they had one at the front desk… I was pretty sure they would.  I know I’m not the first person they’ve seen in this predicament.

Funny thing about the room… I usually like taking home the little bottles of shampoo and whatnot, but this is what the Hampton has attached to the shower wall:

At first glance, I thought it was coin-op, and I was like, “where the hell do they think I keep my change?”

So while I didn’t get to take home any little bottles of shampoo, I was able to pry that dispenser off the wall with a letter opener.  It looks pretty good on my shower wall at home.

Before we went out to dinner, we stopped by the Inner Harbor, where there was an R&B band playing.  It was quite scenic, and the music was good.

Eventually, some people got up to dance.  I think they were homeless.

This guy’s doing the “Wino Boogie,” which is a variation of the “Stoner Skank.”  Pinky suggested the “Hobo Hop.”

Anyway, we had a nice dinner and some beers, and then went back to the room for a little wine and Olympics on TV.  Yes, we’re living large.  The place advertised free Wi-Fi, so I brought my iPad with me.

When she saw it, Pinky was like, “I decided that it was OK if you brought that… I wasn’t going to take it personally.”

This was good.  Pinky thinks of my computer (and now my iPad) as my mistress.  But it wasn’t like I was going to tinker with it all night.  I just wanted to see how it worked outside my house.  Well… that and check my email, answer comments and track blog stats.  And look at Twitter and see what’s going on with Facebook.

OK, maybe I do have a mistress.

No, I kid.  I didn’t mess around with the iPad for more than a few minutes.  We looked at a number of things together.  No, not porn.

While eating breakfast Saturday morning, we were greeted with the news that Mitt Romney chose his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan.  Seems that the Republicans are doubling down on the “bloodless shill for big business” strategy.

I think he selected Ryan to shore up Tea Party support, to blow up the government and tear the whole thing down.  It makes our choice this November even starker.  I’m not alarmed just yet, because it can backfire.  Ryan has a tangible public record, which he now has to defend.  If the Democrats do a good job attacking the Ryan Budget, it could well cost the Republicans a great deal of senior citizen votes, as well as those of others that are not filthy, stinking rich.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Pinky, and thanks for putting up with me.

Director’s DVD Commentary: OK, I didn’t really steal the shampoo dispenser.  Please don’t call the cops.

Medicinal Bluz

Thank you for all your concern about my health, as referenced by the comments on the previous post.  And if you haven’t seen them, you should be sure to check out the comments my parents left, about how my dad had to fight off a cardinal who was eating one of his prized figs.  You can’t make this shit up.

OK, it was probably the other kind of cardinal, but wouldn’t this have been funnier?

When I got up on Wednesday, I became worried.  Unlike the previous mornings, I couldn’t make a “productive” cough, nor could I get a deep breath.  Now, I thought, it might be time to see a doctor.  Plus, I have to do something soon if I want to use up my Health Care Spending Account money without buying several hundred dollars worth of saline.

But you know me… I’ll do anything to avoid a hassle.  I have a Primary Care Physician, but she’s not terribly convenient to get to, nor did I think I’d be able to get in to see her soon or easily.  This was the doctor I selected primarily because she is female, and at the time, I knew I needed a full checkup, blood work, and prostate exam. 

You always want a female doctor to do the prostate exam… small fingers.  Trust me on that.  You don’t want some big sausage-fingered oaf trying to jam his quarter-sized knuckle through your dime-sized bung.  (Not unless you want to sound like Cameron Frye when he notices the mileage Ferris put on Dad’s Lamborghini.)

Pinky had been after me to go see a doctor for weeks, so this time when she brought it up, I agreed that it was time, but was unsure of where to go.  She had been to a place called “Patient First” before that she liked.  It’s one of those “walk-in” places where you go for a quick once-over, so she looked it up on The Google.  It seemed reasonable and it was in a good neighborhood.  Don’t laugh… that was a concern.  I didn’t want to sit in some waiting room surrounded by crack-heads, stabbing victims and ringworm.

I figured I’d get up there early, get in and out, score some meds and get to work.  It was only 10 minutes away, so we made it up just after 8:00 AM when they opened.  There was only one person in the waiting room.

I did my preliminary sign-in stuff on a touch screen and 5 minutes later they brought me back to give some more detail and take scans of my driver’s license, insurance, and prescription cards.  A few minutes later and they called me back for my initial screening.

I got my BP, height, and weight taken.  The weight thing pissed me off.  Remember how I said I’d lost 5 pounds over the weekend?  According to their scale, I’d gained 16 pounds back since then.  Of course, I was fully dressed, with shoes on, but still… It must have been my wallet.  Guess I better clean it out.

Then it was on to the curtained off exam room, where I was joined by the jovial Dr. Stein.  He poked and prodded a bit and asked me about my symptoms, etc.  Yadda yadda yadda… had me put on a gown and go get a chest x-ray.

I hate those gowns.  Even though I got to keep my pants on, they’re still diabolically hard to tie behind you.  I felt like a dog chasing his tail.  Luckily the tech that came to take me to X-ray helped a brotha out.  I have to be careful; as someone with a recently healed rotator cuff, I have to go easy on the ‘reach-around.’

The x-rays turned out to be clear; no pneumonia, no dark spots or cancer, just a little bronchitis.  First, they had me suck on this medicinal mist-producing thing for about 10 minutes.  Then the good Dr. came in with a full array of medicines for me: an inhaler (with the same stuff I’d just inhaled), a steroid to reduce the inflammation in my lungs and an antibiotic to kill all the biotics, I guess.

I think Dr. Stein is a frustrated Catskills comedian.  As he was going over the medicines with me, he was like, “And if you start to feel hostile, like you’re going to come in here and start shooting the place up, please wait until I’m off duty.”

“When you pull on the inhaler, suck it deep into your lungs, like you used to do in college.”

He’s probably delivered that speech a million times by now.

I am worried about the steroids, though.  I’ve always written my blog clean and have never used performance-enhancing drugs.  Now on steroids, will I not have an unfair competitive advantage?  Will I be able to type longer and faster with less recovery time?  And what if I want to get into the Bloggers Hall of Fame?  My next week of posts could be held against me and I’ll become the poster boy for chemically enhanced blogging.  I could become a pariah and have to resort to selling autographed posts from a card table, just down the block from Pittsburgh Podcamp, or BlogHer… So close to the promised land, yet so far.

Anyway, I came away from the experience in love with the place.  They had everything I needed, right under the same roof.  The X-ray and the Pharmacy were all right there.  It was Anti-Hassle Medical Care.  Even the pills came in easy-dosing containers, almost like birth control pills.

These are my steroid pills.  I take one row per day.  It looks like a lot but they are very low-dose pills.  The antibiotic came packaged similarly.

When I last went to see my giant hospital-based Primary Care Physician a couple years ago, to get blood work and my hip checked out, I had to go all over the place.  While she took my insurance, the X-ray lab didn’t, so I had to go somewhere else.  And the blood lab didn’t take it either, so I had to go to a separate lab to get stuck.  And I don’t have some fly-by-night insurance, either.  It’s Aetna, for crissakes, not “Fred’s Insurance!”

Right now, I’m inclined to make them my PCP, but I figure I’d better hold off until I see how the billing goes.  That’s a whole new level of prospective hassle.

So as of tonight, the meds seem to be working.  I’ve hardly coughed all day and am breathing better.  The only down side is that I’m losing the best way to keep a subway seat to myself.  For the last few weeks, anytime I was alone on a seat when new people got on, I’d let go a couple of big soupy coughs and people would go to the other end of the car.  People avoided me like I was a slouched over gang-banger trying to sleep.

There’s nothing like the threat of loogey splatter to get a dude a little elbow room.

Fig'n A

This has been a pretty weird stretch for me lately.  Remember the cold I had 3 weekends ago?  It’s still hanging on.  I mostly feel OK, but I have this chest congestion that won’t quit.  I’ve been coughing and hacking up chunks of butterscotch for two solid weeks now.  It’s getting pretty old, not to mention disgusting.

The act of coughing, itself, has spun off more problems for me.  At first, it was killing my neck, to the point that at the end of the workday, I couldn’t turn my head to either side.  When I coughed, I had to grab both sides of my neck, just so my head wouldn’t fly off.  Luckily, that subsided after a couple of days.

Then my ribs started to hurt.  I felt like I just got out of a dryer filled with rocks.  I went home early from work on Thursday and stayed home Friday, in a last ditch effort to beat it once and for all.  As I continued to cough out all the gunk, I started getting a pain in my lower back, at the top of my sacrum.  (Technical term: the upper ass, just above the ‘old Norge.’)

On Saturday, the inevitable happened and I coughed so hard I ended up throwing up half of my dinner.  I was pissed because it broke my streak of not hurling for more than 10 years.  On the bright side, I noticed I lost 5 pounds over the weekend.  Maybe there’s something to this “bulimia” after all.

So even with a sore lower back, I came into work on Monday, determined to just grind it out.  But then I had to go and refill my ice water mug.  When I bent down so get a scoop of ice, my back went completely ballistic… blinding, crippling pain shot up and down my back and left leg.  If I hadn’t been able to hold myself up with the counter, I’d have been on the kitchen floor.  I didn’t even know if I could get back to my desk.

Yes, the pain subsided enough for me to hobble back to my seat, but it just pulsed and throbbed to the point that I couldn’t really concentrate on anything.  Every cough was like sticking a knife into my back.  My boss, being a kind and merciful sort, put my out of my misery by sending me home.  I picked up some (Walgreen’s brand) Mucinex on the way.

Luckily, I still have the frozen corn I used during the physical therapy I had on my shoulder, so I was able to ice my back.  Then Pinky, a licensed massage therapist, went to work on it for about an hour.  (If you don’t have a significant other that’s a masseuse, I highly recommend getting one.)  After a nap, I put a heating pad, some Advil and several beers on it, before going to bed early.

One of those things must have worked because I feel 90% better this morning.  I still have a twinge but it’ll be OK as long as I watch how I bend.  (I know I shouldn’t have been bending at the waist, but I was trying to save the wear and tear on my knees!)  And the Mucinex is working too because I had a good, non-coughing sleep and a non-coughing day thus far.  I still feel the tightness in there, but I don’t feel the need to cough my head off, or bolt for the restroom.

Did you know that there’s no graceful way to cough out a loogey in a cubicle environment?

Anyway, I didn’t even want to get into this but I wanted to explain why I didn’t post over the weekend.  I suppose a more condensed version might have gone like this:

“Sorry I didn’t do a post this weekend; I was sick.”

But doesn’t knowing all about the nature of my phlegm discharge draw us closer together?  No?  OK, forget I mentioned it.  I just wanted to flesh this post out a bit because what I really want to write about is too short.  But here it is…

My dad is a nut.  You know… the good kind.

Remember from last winter when I posted about Dad picking his first orange from a tree in his yard?  Well, he’s having a go at figs now.

It’s an Italian thing… our families often have fig trees.  I’ve never been a big fig eater, but I do acknowledge their importance in the making of Fig Newtons.  But my grandpa used to have a fig tree so Dad was brought up to enjoy figgy treats. 

Up north, there’s a whole thing where you have to bury them in the winter to save them from the cold.  Then you dig them up again in the spring.  Fortunately for my dad, that’s not necessary in Florida.  So a while back, he went out and bought a fig tree to add to his burgeoning orange grove.

Over the weekend, he sent the following email, in celebration of his first fig harvest:

“After a long hot harvest season, I hired many pickers, helping the unemployment problem and the economy.  Here it is.”

He sent pictures too, of course.

In case you can’t tell, there is one single fig on the tree.  One.  Fig.    It’s hanging in “ef-figgy.”

I swear it looks like he glued it on.

Time for the Harvest Feast!

The last one kills me… setting up the place setting for one freakin’ fig.  It’s totally something I would do, so now you know why.

Obviously I had to respond to the email, so I wrote back, “Glad your crops came in.  Now go fig yourself.”

That’s just a fig-ure of speech.

Top Olympic Moments

I was really looking forward to watching the Olympics that are playing out right now.  I’ve been an Olympics fan ever since I started watching, back in 1972.  (While the ’72 Munich Olympics brought the stain of terrorism to the games, it also brought women’s gymnastics to the forefront, with Olga Korbut.)  I love to root for my country’s athletes, and failing that, the cutest available foreigner.

I’ve been watching these games every night, but somehow, something seems to be missing.  And I’m not even talking about them being pre-recorded.  I have to cut NBC some slack for the tape delay.  They didn’t shell out mega-bucks to land the broadcasting rights, just to run them on weekday afternoons.  (Granted, they should be broadcast live, over the weekends.)

What I’m saying is that I haven’t seen anything that really gets me excited.  Maybe it’s a Phelps hangover.  Or maybe the best storylines haven’t played out yet.  But it seems like there were so many huge moments in prior Olympics that these pale in comparison.

So I thought I’d dig back into my ancient, cobwebbed memory banks and come up with my favorite Olympic memories, for both summer and winter games.  These will appear in no particular order.

* The 1976 Olympics, both summer and winter, were what cemented the games into my consciousness and made them ‘can’t miss’ viewing.  The main reason was Nadia Comaneci.  Lordy, I had such a crush on Nadia… cute as a button with those smoldering dark eyes and flawless technique.  We were about the same age, so to me, that made her much more attainable.  I didn’t even care that she spoke no English.  I was sure that we could make our feelings known in any language.  All I needed was a lift to Montreal.

* One thing I miss about the more recent Olympic broadcasts is that boxing is banished to the side-channels.  In 1976, the USA had the most badass boxing team ever, winning 5 gold medals and featuring names like Sugar Ray Leonard, Leon and Michael Spinks, Howard Davis and more.

While most of the public attention was on Sugar Ray (for good reason), my favorite was Leon Spinks.  He had that huge gap in his mouth where front teeth used to be, and fought with a straight up style, his chin tucked down on his chest.  He wasn’t as polished as the European fighters, but he just destroyed whatever was put in front of him.

One of my favorite sports memories ever was the night Leon beat Muhammed Ali for the championship.  Was the first time in ages that I had seen Ali lose.  I watched the fight late at night, all by myself and celebrated wildly, but quietly, because Mom and Dad were upstairs asleep.

* The other 1976 event that sticks was in the Winter Games, watching an Austrian skier named Franz Klammer win skiing gold in the “downhill.”  I’ll never forget the sight of him flying down the mountain at 90 mph, barely under control, with arms and legs splaying out every which way.  I don’t know beans about skiing, but I never miss the Olympic downhill.  That’s some serious shit.

* I know it’s passé to talk about the 1992 US basketball ‘Dream Team,’ but at the time, I was 1000% behind them.  I remember the US getting famously robbed by the Russians (and the refs) in Olympic basketball in 1972, and then in 1988, finishing with a bronze.  What bugged me was that we were sending out college kids out to do battle with the full-grown, Olympic-experienced veterans of the rest of the world.  It was like playing with an arm tied behind our back.

At the time, the Russian, European and South American teams were their country’s de facto professionals.  So when the IOC evened the playing field in 1992, I thought it was about freakin’ time.  The Dream Team did not disappoint.  That was probably the best basketball team of all time, even with Larry Bird playing at about 30% due to back trouble.  No matter what LeBron says now, prime against prime, they couldn’t hold the ’92 team’s jocks.

* I always loved watching our star women’s gymnasts, from Mary Lou, to Shawn Johnson and everyone in between.  How can you not get caught up with those little iron-bodied pixies wearing ponytails and glitter?  But I’ve never seen a moment like the one when Kerri Strug had to hit that last vault after injuring her foot.

She knew it was going to be bad, but her coach said (erroneously, it turned out) that her team needed her to vault in order to secure the win.  So she got her leg wrapped, sprinted down that lane and hit a damned-near perfect jump, essentially on one leg, before collapsing onto the mat.  These gymnast chicks are tough!

* I love the track sprints, especially the 100 and 200 meters.  I never thought anyone would ever beat Michael Johnson’s time.  He was head and shoulders better than everyone he ran against.  He ran like Leon Spinks fought… straight up and down.

Then in the last games, Usain Bolt from Jamaica made Johnson look like a lumbering offensive lineman.  He broke records with ridiculous ease, even when pulling up to celebrate, before the race was even over.

I’ll also never forget Florence Griffin-Joyner, or “FloJo,” for short.  She was the first to bring style to the track.  With her long nails, flowing hair and flashy track suits, she became an instant star.  Plus, there was that “back.”  As my Dad said to me the day after she ran, “She’s got a butt that could pound nails.” 

It’s a tragedy that she passed on in 1998 at the age of 39.  But she set world records in the 100 and 200 meters that still stand today.

* I don’t follow soccer at all, except a little bit during the World Cup or Olympics.  But I really got into the US women’s soccer team when they won the World Cup in 1999 and Olympic gold in 2004 (and also 1996 and 2008).  Smokin’ hot jock chicks with iron thighs, flat tummies and unbelievable resilience and will to win?  What’s not to like?

* Speaking of smokin’ hot jock chicks, how can a red-blooded dude like me not enjoy watching the premier beach volleyball pairing of all time, Misty May and Kerri Walsh?  (I use their maiden names because I still pretend they’re not married, with children.)  And how can I not enjoy that they wear little tiny bikinis that floss their pancreas while playing?

I like volleyball in general because it’s something I used to be pretty good at when I was younger.  With some actual training, who knows?  (I would have looked considerably less good in the bikini though.)  But I know enough to know that what these women do out there is amazing, throwing their bodies all over the place to dig spiked balls out of the sand.

I especially like Kerri Walsh because she’s freakin’ 6’2”!  That’s about what I am, so we would be able to go eye-to-eye.  I dated a girl, once, that was 6’1” and that was the weirdest thing.  When you’ve spent your life looking downward towards the objects of your affection, it’s unnerving to suddenly have one right there at eye level.  But you get over it pretty quick!

* Michael Phelps gets a hell of a lot of play around Baltimore, as it’s his hometown and training center.  So I admit that there’s some overkill at play here.  Still, I was as thrilled as anyone over his eight gold medals in the 2008 Olympics.  But my favorite one of all those was that 4 x 100 freestyle relay, where the US anchor guy, Jason Lezak came from a full body-length behind on the last stretch to juuuust out-touch the French swimmer at the wall.  It was an amazing display of teamwork, without which the Phelps saga would have been derailed at the 2^nd event.

* I wrote about my feelings on the 2010 Olympic hockey tournament back when it was going on.  The US faced Canada for the gold medal and I was torn between rooting for the US or for my favored Pittsburgh Penguins who played for Canada.  Turned out that the US played well and forced overtime, but Penguin captain Sidney Crosby banked the winning goal on a brilliant play (and feed from Jerome Iginla).  I was so happy for my guy; I couldn’t be too broken up about the valiant US effort resulting in a silver medal.

* For me, all Olympic moments pale badly in comparison to the 1980 US hockey team… the one that beat the unbeatable Russians.  This was another example of our sending out our college kids to take on full-grown men… the best the world had to offer.

I remember watching that game in our living room with my brother and dad. (On tape-delay, as it were!  The game was played at 5:00 pm but ABC held it until prime time.  They tried to move playing the game to 8:00 but the Russian team refused.)  I remember when the Americans scored on a breakaway, right before the first period ended, thinking we just might have a shot.

Turns out we had more than “a shot,” as we out-hit and out-skated the best team in the world.  When Mike Eruzione wheeled around the slot area and fired that wrist shot off the wrong foot that beat the goalie and claimed the lead, we went absolutely berserk. 

But there was still 10 minutes left in the 3^rd period, and watching it drain away in slow motion was excruciating.  But when as the clock ticked down the final 10 seconds and Al Michaels asked us if we believed in miracles, it felt like we were right there in the building, celebrating with the rest of a country that desperately needed a win.

Veteran ABC announcer, Jim McKay, said afterward that this upset was akin to the (recently crowned 4-time champion) Pittsburgh Steelers losing a game to a bunch of Canadian college students.  To this day, I still can’t watch film of that goal without choking up.  Brings tears to my eyes every single time and I don’t see that changing… ever.  I have a VHS tape of the entire game that I really ought to knock off onto DVD somehow, so that I can easily revisit the experience, long after VHS players become rarer than a sense of dignity on a dating reality show.

So what about you?  Do you have any particular Olympic moments that still stand out for you? 

Networking - 2012

I had a busy weekend, for a change.  It was so busy, I didn’t even have time to write my customary weekend post.  But no matter… no one was reading blogs anyway.

After staying quarantined last weekend due to a cold, and the previous two, due to it being 7,000 degrees outside, I finally ventured out of my cave on Saturday.  First order of business was to go see “The Dark Knight Returns.”  Obviously I had to stop at WalMart first, to pick up a bulletproof Kevlar suit, but they wouldn’t let me in the theater while wearing it.  I think they were afraid I might be smuggling in some Milk Duds.

After a bumpy start, (because the movie was delayed about 15 minutes due to technical difficulties), I immediately got lost in the story.  Short review: it was very dark and bloodlessly violent.  They did a lot of cutting away just before something horrible happened and then returned to the prone bodies.  Also, Batman gets his ass kicked, but good.  That’s not something we’ve seen very often.

It was also cool seeing Pittsburgh double as Gotham City, even though they matted out the more recognizable dahntahn landmarks.  While I wasn’t able to spot Carpetbagger’s house, I think I know what scene they filmed nearby. 

And during the big football scene, where Hines Ward runs a kick return back for a touchdown despite the giant craters opening up behind him, as if they were Casey Hampton’s footprints, there was a very clear shot of Ben Roethlisberger, Aaron Smith, Brett Keisel and Bill Cowher standing on the sidelines.

There were big twists throughout the film and I loved the ending.  Suffice to say, it’s something I’ve wished forever since I used to watch the TV show as a kid.  I’ll just leave it at that.

After a little more shopping and some Wendy’s, I continued on to Best Buy, to accomplish my primary objective for the day: obtaining an iPad.  I am anything but an “early adopter.”  In fact, I think I’m more like a “final adopter.”  I sniff around the new hot item for months, if not years, gathering intel and waiting for any bugs to be fixed.

Remember that during my Ohio vacation, I’d played around with my buddy’s iPad?  It was the first time I’d seen one in action, so I realized that it would be perfect for me.  Finally I would be able to tweet about a game or TV show, without having to get up and walk 20 feet to my PC.  I’d be living large!

Unfortunately, the moment I do jump onto some kind of technology or web service seems to be the tipping point for when that tech becomes un-cool and/or obsolete.  (See: my 2006 flip phone, which was State-of-the-Art for about 15 minutes before the iPhone came along.) 

To try to delay that tipping point for as long as possible, I spent another $100 and got the “new” iPad, the one with the retinal display that looks so cool in all those commercials.  I figured it was a small price to pay to delay obsolescence for at least another couple months.  I was going to get a case for it but they wanted $39.99 for the cheapest freakin’ one!  Most were from $49.99 to $79.99.  Screw that.  I ended up ordering one from Buy.com for $8.97, that didn’t look any different.

I suppose I should say that getting the iPad was a partial objective.  The second part was setting it up with a wireless home network and getting everything to work.

Back when I got my current PC in 2004, there was an offer with my DSL service for a free wireless router.  I got the router, but never actually bothered to hook it up.  It didn’t really make sense… I only had one desktop; I had no need to go wireless.  So I sat on the equipment, thinking maybe one day, I’d have a need.  Next thing you know, eight years have gone by.  (As a reference to how long that is in Computer Years, the instructions on the box said you had to have IE 5 or above.)

Anyway, everyone I talked to told me that setting up a wireless network was a breeze.  Now I’m no electronics genius by any means, but I am sufficiently competent to follow some directions and get shit done.  I figured I’d come home, plug in the router, set up the network, charge up the iPad and I’d be watching the Olympics and tweeting from my couch.  I made sure that my 2004 router was wirelessly compatible with the iPad, so I was confident that everything would be a breeze.

Paint this thing red, and it looks like something out of Batman.

Basically, everyone that told me setting up a wireless network would be a breeze can kiss my ass.  I wasn’t setting up a network as much as opening a new level of Cryptic Computer Jargon Hell.

First, I followed the instructions that came with the router.  It didn’t work.  Then I noticed a sheet that came with the router, which said “DO NOT USE THE QUICK START INSTRUCTIONS, USE THE SETUP WIZARD ON THE ENCLOSED CD.”

OK, I popped in the Wizard, followed those instructions and what do you know?  It still didn’t work.  At that point, reversed everything I did, got back online the old way and looked up some instructions from my ISP.  I found more detailed instructions there, so I went at it a third time.  It still didn’t work.

What's worse is that I was using the instructions online from the ISP site.  You know, I really should have printed the goddamned things, but I figured, “Oh this will work… what could go wrong now?”

So when I started changing all the settings, I lost my existing access, which included my instructions.  I feverishly tried to reset all the settings from memory, but as I’d been in and out of the system so many times, I had no idea how things were when I started.  It was well into the evening before I was able to reestablish my Internet connection through my original modem.  I spent from 6:30 to 9:30 working on this stuff, just to get back to where I started.

At that point, I had no will to continue with the new router, so I turned my attention to finding better directions.  Eventually, I did, and this time I printed the damned things and made some notes.  I checked some other sites that also gave advice on handling my old modem.  I didn’t get to bed until near midnight.

So much for my plans for leisure Olympic tweeting…

God may have rested on Sunday but I chose to wade back into my network of hell.  But this time, armed with some better directions, I sailed right through the setup and got the router working right off the bat.  (My new directions included a step that neither the Quick Start instructions nor the Wizard had mentioned.  Fuckers.)

Once the router was live, all I had left to do was play with my new iPad!  With all the hype about how Apple is so technologically progressive, I was sure they’d have a sleek little instruction booklet for me to go through.

You know what they had?  Three sentences on a playing card.  But it was OK, the iPad setup process was pretty much baked in.  I was able to follow the steps and get it going.  Still, would it have killed them to have a little something about what all the standard apps do?  Oh well, live and learn, and boy do I have some learnin’ to do.  Anyone know some cool apps I should check out?

I’ve always avoided the Apple products; their cult-like following has always struck me as odd.  So I’ve had no iMac, iPod, iTunes or i-anything.  I was just an i-Talian.  But no more.

Now I just wonder if this will all be worthwhile.  I need to figure out how to monetize the benefit I’m getting.  So if I would pay a quarter for each time I save a trip from my couch to the computer and back, (and I would) it would take me 2400 trips to make up for the $600 I spent. 

That means you’ll be seeing me get a lot more active on Twitter.  (Follow me @DarwinfishBluz)  Now that I’m using an official Apple iPad, my tweets are sure to be more creative, stylish and graphically pleasing… at least until they roll out the new SuperMega iPad 4000, coming in September to a store near you.

By the way, guess what happens when someone with Delayed Pressure Urticaria spends all day tapping on a piece of glass?  Swollen finger.

Great.  Now I’m going to have to make an effort to use more than my index finger on the iPad.  I’ll have to become ambifingerous.  I’ll let you know how that goes.  But now, I have to go answer some emails from the couch…

Why I Vote Democratic - Part 2

At the beginning of the year, I did a guest post at the now-defunct AskCherlock site, in which I explained the reasons why I vote Democratic.  It was kind of a long piece, consisting of a list of chasm-sized differences between the two parties.  But even though the post was over four pages long (in Word), I felt like I wasn’t getting into the issues deeply enough. 

I also wanted to run the material here too, so I figured I would take each item on the list and flesh it out into its own post.  I posted Part 1 on May 15^th and I’ve been meaning to pick it up again ever since.  With the presidential campaign in full swing, I figure I’d better get off the dime… 

Disclaimer:  When I refer to “Republicans” here, I’m referring only to the national party leaders and political apparatus.  The same goes for my use of “Democrats.”  Local jurisdictions may vary and I have no knowledge or comment about them. 

Also, as I roll out these posts, keep in mind that I am not presenting my reasons in any particular order.

Whichever side wins the White House (and controls Congress) this year will have an inordinate effect on your life and that of your children’s.  Big issues are being booted around and with partisanship at an all-time high; the stakes are equally high.  The differences between the party’s ideals are stark, as indicated by the 2^nd reason I vote Democratic.

The Republicans are trying to strip away any and all environmental regulations and contaminate the EPA the same way they’re trying to contaminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (by undercutting funding and legal authority).  Adhering to environmental regulations costs money putting it in direct violation of the Prime Directive.  (As written in Part 1, the Republicans’ Prime Directive is to maintain the freedom of Big Business to do whatever they see fit, in support of their bottom line.)

The Democrats are trying to maintain the viability of our planet to support our very existence, by seeking limits and regulation on toxic emissions, into both air and water.  This is more than just hugging trees or saving snails, as the Republicans like to categorize anyone that dares interfere with their grand business plans.  This is a fight to maintain the viability of our own planet and keep it from turning into a more quarrelsome version of Mars.

This is not a new fight; Republicans and Democrats have been squabbling over ecological issues for as long as I can remember, going at least as far back to when I was a kid in the early 70s.  But the fight has taken on new meaning in the last ten years, as the effects of climate change has been unmistakably documented and observed all over the world.

Any rational person would be concerned about continuing to spew contaminants like mercury and carbon monoxide into the atmosphere or water supply.  A rational person might be concerned about destroying the living conditions on which we depend for our very survival.  But somehow there’s a disconnect.  Republicans don’t believe in safeguards for the environment, outside of providing places for the privileged to hunt, fish and play with guns.  Many go so far as to deny that humans have even contributed to our planet’s change in climate. 

A couple of hacked emails was all it took for Republicans to plunge their heads into the sand and overlook overwhelming scientific evidence that the earth is warming and the polar caps are dissolving.  This mantra is driven by the businesses that would be most affected by any tangible change in environmental policy.  In other words, ‘it would hurt profits, so we’re against it.’  And Chapter One of being ‘against something’ is to deny it even exists and more importantly, state that ‘even if it does exist, it’s not our fault.’

Perhaps they have plans for a giant bubble to encase a small homeland for coal, oil and other fossil fuel industry execs, probably somewhere around Branson MO.  It has to be inland because the Smokey Mountains will be the new eastern seaboard once the polar caps melt.

It’s alarming to me whenever someone “disbelieves” proven science because it goes against one’s political platform or costs money.  For example it’s a sad state of affairs when our (prior) highest elected official can ignore decades of physical, provable science and say something as inane as “the jury is still out” regarding evolution. 

No, the jury is not out.  It went out, came back 5 minutes later with the verdict and then went home for dinner, saying something about a “mountain of proof.”  The proof is what makes it science and not opinion. 

Thank you, Republicans, for ushering in the Age of Ignorance.  Some day, the history books, (if there are any left) will wonder why anyone ever listened to these clowns.  Their insistence that climate change is a hoax and that it’s perfectly fine to belch chemical waste into the atmosphere in exchange for providing factory jobs, is the another reason I vote Democratic.  You should too.

And speaking of ignorance, don’t even get me started on the Texas State Republican platform, which includes a prohibition on teaching critical thinking.  Perhaps they don’t believe in “book learnin’” any more either… unless, of course, the book was approved by the Texas Board of Education.  (Motto: “It MUST be true, it says so right there in the book we rewrote.”)

Zombie Noun Apocalypse

I saw a brilliant column in the New York Times online this morning about the continued trend to dilute the power of simple, direct, written English.  Helen Sword charges head on to carve up “nominalizations” or as she calls them, “zombie nouns.”

A nominalization is when you tack a suffix onto an active verb to create a new noun.  She calls these “zombie nouns” because they “cannibalize active verbs, suck the lifeblood out of adjectives and substitute abstract entities for human beings.”

Academics, lawyers, bureaucrats and business writers love them, presumably because they take ordinary words and make them sound more important.  She provides a crystal clear example of the difference.  Start with this sentence here:

“The proliferation of nominalizations in a discursive formation may be an indication of a tendency toward pomposity and abstraction.”

Now, this is the same sentence, without all the added baggage:

“Writers who overload their sentences with nominalizations tend to sound pompous and abstract.”

How much better would our professional lives be if more businesses wrote that clearly?  That’s always been a pet peeve of mine.  So often, I see people who sound completely normal when speaking; change completely as soon as they have to write something in a business setting.  Out come all the fancy-schmancy twenty-dollar words, whose only purpose is to make an ordinary statement sound more intellectual.

Sometimes it’s better to “use your head” than “utilize your thought processes.”

When I first took the training course to learn how to write procedures, my completion certificate came with a great saying, “Good writing is clear thinking, made visible.” (Bill Wheeler – Technology Consultant/Writer)

My previous boss almost always wrote “utilize” when “use” would do just as well.  I would always change it when proofreading, saying, “Why put the longer word when the shorter one means the exact same thing?”

He’d always agree, but then there it would be the next time.  The habit is hard to kick, I guess.

Ever since I came to my current department, it’s been a goal of mine to simplify the language we use in our department memos and procedures.  I’m lucky that my bosses see it the same way.  When I interviewed, I told her that I’m not one for long-winded writing and puffery; my documents would be clear and direct.  She said that was exactly what they wanted, so it was a match made in heaven.

At the end of the Times article, there was a link to the Writer’s Diet Test.  Here, you can submit a sample of your writing and obtain instant feedback and evaluation on how “fat” your writing is.

I’m a sucker for things like that, so I submitted one of my blog posts.  To be sure not to sway the evaluation by using one of my more simplistic posts, like the one with all the dick jokes, I went the other way.  I used the one where I was explaining why I vote Democratic, because I was pitching an argument and trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about.

This was the scale that I got back:

I was pleasantly surprised.  I was between “lean” and “fit and trim” in all but one category.  I have to shape up my “waste words.”  In re-reading what I’d submitted, I think the criticism was valid.  I found a number of places where I could have eliminated some of the filler and written more directly.

Overall I was given a rating of:

If only it applied to other areas as well.

I bookmarked the test site and plan on using it at work, as a check on myself when I’ve got an important communication in the works.

So what about you?  Want to test one of your posts and see how you stack up?  Let us know how you did, in Comments.

Note: the test is not really meant for highly descriptive, sensory-type stuff.  It was designed to promote clear business writing.  The romance novel you’re secretly working on probably wouldn’t be the best test subject. 

Another Note: I used the Writer’s Diet Test site on this post and while I got another “Fit and Trim,” the proportions were different.  Waste Words were down to “Fit and Trim” but Verbs were up to “Needs Toning.”  But that’s good because you have to realize that I was providing examples of the bad writing within the text and using the word "was" a lot.

What this shows is the testing tool can help a writer tone up his writing immediately!

Bluz on Nuz

(And that’s NOT read "Bluhz on Nuhz.")

In spite of popular demand, it’s time once again for, Hey Bluz, What Do You Think Of…

… Michele Bachmann’s accusations that the State Department is harboring a Muslim spy?  It seems the Michele Bachmann has managed to claw her way back into the news this week, by starting up the new version of the House Un-American Activities Committee. 

The Crazy Eyes will give you away every time.

She’s demanding an investigation into one of Hillary Clinton’s top aides, Huma Abedin, who you may remember as the supportive wife of former US Representative, Anthony (Is There Anyone that Hasn’t Seen a Twitpic of my Ween?) Weiner.  Bachmann is claiming that Abedin has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and is feeding them intel.

Glad to see the John McCain still has the balls to speak up for what’s right.  He knows a thing or two about getting smeared.  He hasn’t been the same since the Bushies ratfucked him in the 2000 South Carolina primaries.

Part of McCain’s valiant defense:

“When anyone, not least a member of Congress, launches specious and degrading attacks against fellow Americans on the basis of nothing more than fear of who they are and ignorance of what they stand for, it defames the spirit of our nation, and we all grow poorer because of it.”

On Thursday, a Muslim human rights group fired back, comparing the linking of prominent Muslim Americans to terrorist organization to a game of 6-Degrees of Separation.  And they’re right.  This accusation is like Bachmann is saying she knows Kevin Bacon because she once had a BLT.

…the death of Deep Purple keyboardist, Jon Lord?  Rest in peace, dude.  Without those grungy keys, Deep Purple is just another 70s rock band… Black Sabbath with a better singer.

…That father that refused the Make-a-Wish Foundation’s offer to send his daughter to Disney World?  I usually love it when Bowling Green gets some press, but not like this.

A 4-year-old girl in Bowling Green, Ohio, had just undergone 2 years worth of leukemia treatments entailing chemotherapy, spinal taps and hospitalizations.  After beating back the cancer, the Make-a-Wish Foundation offered to send her to Disney World.

To make the trip, the girl needed permission from both her mother and father.  The father refused, saying that now that she was free and clear of the disease, it would be a misuse of the company’s donated funds.

Later, it came out that the guy had been having a battle with the mother over visitation privileges, and while no one knows for sure, it looks like he was using this opportunity to stick it to the mother.

Meanwhile, the local community is raising funds on its own, to send the girl to Disney World.  See, it does take a village to raise a child, especially when one of the parents is a chowderhead.  Whatever the beef with the mom, you shouldn’t jam up the little girl like that.  Like she hasn’t been through enough crap…

…the president of Chick-fil-A publicly announcing his opposition to gay marriage? 

Looks like I have another place to boycott now.  Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy says, "I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about." 

He wants everyone in the country to snap to his views on God and marriage, and everyone else is prideful and arrogant…

It sounds like this will be the next guy claiming that some kind of natural disaster is actually God’s retribution for our secular ways.

Next time I see one of those “Eat mor chiken” cows, I’m going to try the steak, right then and there.

…that Sheriff in Arizona claiming that he has proof that Obama’s birth certificate is a fake?  Again with this stuff?  I guess when you’re investigated by the “posse” of the Maricopa County Sheriff of Arizona, that’s the gold standard.  What qualifications, exactly, does it take to become part of some Sheriff’s investigative “posse?”  I mean, other than determining the conclusion first and then backfilling the “evidence.”

This guy is in so much hot water in his own county, over inadequate investigation of sex crimes and racial profiling and other civil rights violations, he has no choice but to start pointing fingers in someone else’s direction.

Another day, another embarrassment for Arizona.  Note to the redneck sheriff: The State of Hawaii says the birth certificate is legal.  Therefore… Case. Fucking. Closed.

…your sore throat and oncoming summer cold?  It sucks.  I left work early yesterday and am going to lay low for the weekend.  I usually fight sore throats by gargling frequently with Listerine.  But you know what works even better?  Jack Daniels.  And if you don’t spit it out, it will help you sleep too. 

I know better than to ever spit out Jack Daniels.  If I ever did that, it would cause a disturbance in the space-time continuum, centering somewhere around Lynchburg.  And somehow, I’d be able to hear my Dad yelling, all the way from Pensacola.

But unless I rally big-time, it’s doubtful that I’ll be able to get out to see “The Dark Knight Rises” this weekend.  Next week, for sure.

Besides, I don’t have enough extra funds in the budget to buy new body armor.

Yes, I know I haven’t addressed the week’s “BIG” news from Colorado.  But it’s being worked to death already, from so many angles; I don’t feel that I have much to add.  I feel horrible for the families of all those poor souls, killed for nothing but shits and giggles.

If the country wasn’t so polarized right now, we might have seen some kind of common sense movement on guns.  I’m sure there is come kind of common ground in here somewhere, between All Guns and All Ammo Legal for Everyone All the Time, and No Guns Ever Ever Ever.

If I was king, I’d start with banning the large, assault-style clips.  No private citizen needs an assault rifle for hunting or self-defense.  I know it would take a while, but without the ammo, the assault weapons will become obsolete, so it won’t matter who’s carrying them.

Naturally, the NRA and its allies propose that the answer is MORE guns on the street, so there we stand, at the eternal impasse.  Another example of “American Exceptionalism” gone awry.

OK, maybe I had something to add after all.

Appearing Thoughtful

Apparently, going to lunch with one local blogger was all it took to shake some kudos loose from another.  Yesterday, I received the coveted Versatile Blogger Award from blog-friend Thoughts Appear, or “Thoughtsy,” to her loyal readers.

This is my 3^rd go-round on this award. So happy it’s a new picture… that much better to bolster the illusion of popularity and quality.  But I know the Versatility is real… where else does one go to read about politics, weird news, other bloggers, bacon, Pittsburgh sports and drunk-stories?  So thank you, Thoughtsy, for being all, “I rec-a-nize…”

In keeping with the part of the rules where I have to provide 7 things about myself, (and ignoring the part where I have to pass the award on, because I’m a selfish prick), I present the following…

1. I spent 9 hours worth of my time this month, editing a book for someone I’ve never met. 

OK, two things… First, “editing” may be a reach.  I am reviewing and providing feedback, while also fixing phrasing, punctuation, grammatical and structural errors.  Secondly, it’s a friend of Sitcom Kelly’s, who she told that I might be a good sounding board for her manuscript.

The book itself was a challenge, because a dude like me is NOT the target audience.  Sure, the trials and tribulations of modern dating provides fertile ground, but there is only so much “Men are Inconsiderate Pigs” material that a guy can handle.  And the chapter about jewelry and wedding dress shopping was like an entire day of clothes shopping at the mall with your girlfriend, packed into 15 pages. 

Anyway, I got through it.  I’ll have to see if she takes any of my “advice.”  But I always wanted to take a shot at doing something like this.  I’ve done a lot of editing for other people, but never so much at one time, on a subject so far out of my wheelhouse.

I have a feeling that she’s going to think that I hate her, because there were a few occasions where I had to be brutally honest.  But I just channeled back to what my first editor did to me, and let it fly.  Thanks, Mom.

2. I barely ducked a hellacious fight last night.  While I was editing the book, Pinky started reading over my shoulder, during a chapter about how great it was to be single and living alone.  She thought it was something I was writing, rather than editing.

Luckily, I began typing a correction (in red, with Word “Change Tracker” on) and she realized that it wasn’t my doing. 

Phew!  Bullet dodged, and I got to watch “So You Think I Can Dance,” in peace.  (Come to daddy, Cat Deeley!)

3. This editing experience has wiped out any latent desires I’ve ever had to write my own book.  It’s one thing to throw a few old stories down on a blog… those are just bite-sized morsels.  It’s quite another to expect that strangers are going to plunk down money to read about the life of someone that’s never been on Inside Edition or Entertainment Tonight.  (Or Inside Entertainment or Tonight’s Edition, for that matter.)

I get told all the time that I should write a book.  And I always say, “I AM writing a book.  And I’m posting it chapter by chapter, in a blog, online.”

It looks like that’s going to have to do.

4. There are two points of view, when some old man is moving slowly and purposefully down the sidewalk.

Old Guy’s Perspective: Geez, this hurts, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let anyone see me struggle.  I’m just going to fight my way through this and go where I have to go.  Heck, I’m probably being an inspiration to people right now.  They’re going, “Look how that guy’s fighting through his pain and persevering.”  That’s it, one foot in front of the other.  You can do it.

Guy Walking Behind the Old Guy’s Perspective:  I wish this old fuck would get the hell out of my way.

Is it bad that I’ve been both of these guys within the last year?

5. I’m becoming obsessed with getting an iPad, ever since I played with one when I was on vacation.  But in order to do that, I have to set up a wireless network at home, which gives me great pause.  I even have a wireless router, which came with the DSL hookup I got in 2005.  I just never set it up.  I have to get with some geeks down at Best Buy, to make sure a router from that era will work with a brand spanking new iPad.

Also, given the age of my PC, it’s kind of like putting a $1500 stereo in a $150 piece-of-shit car.  My PC is so slow anymore, I can’t stand it.  But I can’t stand even more, the thought of trying to transfer all my apps, programs, emails and other crap from one PC to a new one.

6. I may go see the new Batman movie this weekend.  And not only is the theater near a Wendy’s (Whoo Hoo!) but also a Best Buy.  I just might get sucked into showing up there.  And once that happens, my will power pretty much dissolves.  I can satisfy both my bacon AND electronics fix in one trip.

7. My letter to the editor (from the previous post) hasn’t made it onto the Baltimore Sun website, and it probably won’t.  But someone else’s has and he has my same point of view.  If only I could learn to make such solid points in so few paragraphs.

 So there… Those are my Seven Things About Me, even though they are really only kinda about me.  If Thoughtsy can fulfill her requirement by listing all her favorite cheeses, I can provide a fuzzy list, like this.  Because, I’ve already told you so many things about me over the last 3 years; I’m starting to run out of material.

I really gotta do more stuff.