A real shitstorm

Some people talk about how much their job stinks, but last week I had them all beat. (Beaten? Whatever.) Ever since we moved into our new office building in June things have mostly been great, except that the bathrooms have been out of commission for a day or so every few weeks because they haven't been able to fully unclog the drains. So last week they replaced the pumps that clear these things out. Problem solved, they said.

Shortly after this I was working away on my computer and heard a load splashing sound. When I looked up, I saw that water was cascading out of one of the light fixtures and onto the floor. A lot of water. Maybe 12 feet from me. The entire 2' by 4' light panel was gushing. Then the smell hit. Both my neighbor Sparky and I yelled at the same time, "Crap, that's crap!" If only I had the words to describe that smell. Well, it's better if I don't. Not good.

After about 30 seconds the water was pouring out of the next ceiling panel over from the light. The one closer to us. Still onto the open floor though. So far anyway. We shut down our computer equipment and rushed over to the computers directly in the path and grabbed them as quickly as possible. Fortunately this tragic rain stopped before it actually landed on anyone or any computers. It turns out the new pumps were too powerful for the old pipes, or maybe there was a clog that got loosened, so a 4 inch drain pipe in the ceiling had burst. It took us about 15 minutes to get all of the computer equipment out of the way of the workers (who were now trying to figure out how much more shit would rain down on them/us when they cut the pipe section for the repair), then I was out of there for the day. Thank God for an internet VPN connection, I can work from home and crap hardly ever falls on my head!

Tried, denied.

I just tried and failed to get Bright Eyes tickets. Damn! They are doing a show at a 200-seat bar here in Omaha. They went on sale at 10 AM today, and not surprisingly, they were sold out by 10:01. Oh well, maybe next time.

Music Performance Anxiety

My mp3 player folds under pressure. I try not to follow the crowds, so I avoided getting an IPod way back when. Mine's a Rio Carbon that I've had for several years now, and it never gives me any trouble. Mostly. I use it probably 4 times a week, and the whole time I've had it, it's locked up on me about 5 times. And 4 of those times have been when I was either in a huge hurry or was demoing it to a group of people. We took 3 trips this summer, and the night before 2 of them and the morning of the 3rd trip it seized up as I was trying to load it up with traveling music, This American Life podcasts, etc. So each time I'm farting around pressing buttons, sticking pins in the reset button hole, powering it up and down, and Momster is walking by with armloads of stuff to be packed thinking "Hello!?! Packing! Remember we are supposed to be packing???" And I am no help at all, just sitting around cursing at this little device. Eventually I got it to work, because if you cuss at and threaten computers and electronic devices enough, and cycle the power the right number of times, you can almost always fix them. So the trips were saved, and eventually we got packed. But seriously, it never ever breaks when I am not in a hurry.

Today was the 5th inexplicable mp3 collapse. I got some cool noise-canceling headphones to bring to work because I don't like to wear the ear buds for hours at a time, and I gathered up a few work-buddies to show them my new toy. Sure enough, just when I was showing them off the damn thing locked up. Yeesh. "Ahhh, never mind, you can all go back to work now. Nothing to see here, folks. The headphones work great, it's the Rio that sucks. But it usually works too. Really!"

Of course, after everyone went back to work I got it working just fine. I guess the new IPods are looking better all the time.

I'm awake!

Hey, I'm back. For what that's worth anyway. I kind of took the summer off blog-wise and now I will try to get back to it. Sorry about the wait! Please note the new quotes feature. There are so many great musical quotes I'll try to keep that as an ongoing feature. We'll see, I guess.

I have misjudged George W Bush

I used to believe that Mr. Bush was heartless and possibly soulless, but recent events have changed my mind. Just imagine the boundless compassion a person would have to have to allow Alberto Gonzales to keep his job. I mean, to have and keep someone on your staff with such an amazing lack of credibility, accountability and knowledge about what the Attorney General role should be totally proves what a humanitarian our President truly is. And the forgiveness that W. displayed when Mr. Gonzales was crapping all over his subordinates right and left to save his own skin is truly astounding. Bravo, Mr. Bush, keep up the good work! And keep that chin up. There are undoubtedly a (scant) few countries left in the world that still respect us!

Where am I? (part 2)

It's spring and I am tired of looking at pictures of snow. This mystery location may be harder to pinpoint, so I'll accept more general answers. Keep in mind, answers like "somewhere on earth" are probably too general and will be rejected.

Know your internet, storm tracker edition

Spring is here in the midwest, and that can only mean one thing...tornadoes! (OK, it actually means a lot more than that, but whatever.) Anyway, there are lots of weather sites out there; I like this one because it shows the radar loop in motion. So it not only shows any approaching storms but you can actually tell where the storm is headed. The link hones in on Omaha, but you can just put your city and state in at the top and see weather for your area.

And its from the government, so you KNOW you can trust it!

Hint...if it's hailing and dark and you hear an unusually loud roar, you probably don't need to consult this site. Otherwise, check it out.

Here I am, and here's where I've been

I am trying to figure out how to have Blogger add an automatic first line to every one of my posts. Something like "Man, I can't believe I've gone this long without posting!". That I won't have to keep typing it myself.

I went to Summit County Colorado last week for a Ski Trip with The Guys, where I met with some of my grade-school buddies and a few others for our (mostly) annual trip. A few of the guys are way better at skiing than I am (no names, you know who you are!) so it's fun to push myself once in a while trying to keep up. And I didn't die, even on the double blacks, so maybe that means I'm stronger for it. Anyway, we skiied at Vail, Beaver Creek and some of the group also went to Keystone. I took my snowshoes so I spent a couple days trudging through the forest as well.

On Saturday we found out that the 4 of us from Omaha all had our Sunday morning flights cancelled because of snow, and the earliest flights we could get on were on Monday afternoon. The good news is that the house we were staying at is owned by the parents of one of the guys, so it was no big deal to stay another day. If you have to be stranded, that's a good way to do it!

Where am I? (part 1)

OK, it's time to play Where am I? The banner photo at the top of the blog is today's mystery location. Where is the location of the photo? Be specific, if possible.

Yay for you if you can also say where I was when I took the photo.

Man, time does fly anymore, whether or not you're having fun it seems. I can't believe I haven't blogged for a month! Oh well, I'm trying to get back in the swing of things. Things are finally starting to quiet down after the holidays, and we finally had a weekend where we were in town, there were no Christmas decorations to put away, I didn't have to log into work even one time, and life was relatively quiet. So in the middle of my quiet Saturday I decided to fix the bathroom sink drains, both of which had been slow to drain since last fall. And plenty of times since last fall I thought "Hmm, I should fix that. It can't possibly take more than 10 minutes, I just need to plunge it out, right? It's only plumbing, how hard could it be?". But I was busy, or lazy, and put it off. But Saturday, I was ready. And I figured even if it takes a half hour, it's time well spent.

Well, crap. Plumbing bites!!!!!!!!

I won't bore you with all the details, but the final count was something like 1 visible bump on my head, 3 bloody knuckles, 1 broken water input flexible pipe (I still don't know how I did that, I wasn't even messing with the water input!), 1 trip to Home Depot, 1 bucketful of hideous black goo with hair sticking out, 1 near vomit from the smell of said goo, 2 bathrooms with black goo splattered all over, 1 face with black goo on it, countless new cuss words for the girls to try out, 2 cleared drains and 4 hours of my life I'll never get back.

I really hate plumbing.