Nature Abhors a Vacuum and So Do I: 1

Nature abhors a vacuum and so do I.

One of the things I hate about vacuums is the difficulty in truly describing them. The dictionary gives the definition of “a space that is entirely devoid of matter,” but that gets into some tricky definitions of “entirely devoid” and “matter” especially when you start looking at light as both a particle and a wave.

In essence when one is describing a vacuum (the physics kind not the Electrolux kind) one is ostensibly describing an area of nothing. We all know how tricky describing nothing can be.

“A space that is entirely devoid of matter?”

Firslty, “a space”
How do you define the space? Is there a boundary where on one side there is something and on the other there isn’t? What is the interface of that boundary look like. Where do the molecules of something intermingle on the edges of the nothing… and if they are intermingling, doesn’t that mélange of something and nothing create a soup of kinda something?

Secondly, “entirely devoid”
“Entirely” means “wholly” or “completely” and “devoid” means “empty” or “missing.” So let’s parse this out a bit as well. “Wholly empty” is an odd set of terms. There is an idea that emptiness could be broken down into pieces otherwise the terms “entirely,” “wholly,” and “completely” are unnecessary. Why would one need to give that modifier if “nothing” is not divisible? The definitional nuances associated with “devoid,” “empty,” and “missing” could take days to talk about.

Thirdly, “matter”
I don’t want to get into the higher dimensionality of some of the sub-atomic/quantum physics particles to really talk about the make up of matter, but iffens y’all want me to go all quantum on this bitch, I will ask Dr B Dawg to lay down some slick physics lines, since his doctorate is in the Physics, yo. Anyone? Anyone?... Good, I didn’t think anyone wanted that. Let’s just agree to say that “matter” is not a simple matter.

As you can see, merely looking at a vacuum definitionally causes one to abhor it just like nature.

To recap:
I bet some of you are wishing the Yeti would email me antagonizing emails again
I do not control the Yeti and I have chosen the vacuum to be my favored enemy now
I get +1 to all dice rolls against a vacuum
I will whip something up for Digital Thursday tomorrow
I am starting this recap with too many “I” statements
I did it again, Crap!
Listening to Obey the Groove by No More Kings

Only 15 minutes

I have 15 minutes to craft the most perfect post ever and I am fairly sure that I will fall well short of that goal, but if one doesn’t set goals, on doesn’t get anywhere. And, trust me one wants to be somewhere instead of nowhere. Nowhere has nothing and no one. And no one wants to be no where basically because that is the only place that no one can truly be, once someone is nowhere, it is no longer nowhere. Funny how that is. The odd thing is that everything at least has nothing which makes you think that it is actually something to “have.” Yet… you would be wrong. Woefully and erringly wrong.

“Erringly wrong is a bit of a redundancy, don’t you think?” Tom asked interrogatively.

“This cannot be happening to me. This cannot be happening to me. This cannot be happening to me. This cannot be happening to me.” Tom repeated again and again.

Anyhoo… The fifteen minutes is almost up…. DAMN YOU SPELLING MISTAKES!

To recap:
Life here is still going on
Job search is still ongoing
I have sooo much to do
And an almost bonecrushing amount of time on my hands
Almost too much time to wrap one’s mind around
Definitely too much to prioritize tasks and get them accomplished
Stupid over abundance of time
Listening to Head for the Hills by Saves the Day

No overlap

So… all the stuff that needed to get done yesterday is, well, done. That unfortunately leaves me with nothing productive to do at work. Some might think that this would lead to mischief and mayhem, but some don’t realize just how lazy I am. Mischief takes planning and mayhem takes effort. On the days that I have one, the other is missing. On the days that I have both, there is other stuff that must be done. It is the way of life.

Now I am sitting at my desk with very little to do and even less motivation to get it done. In many ways it has become a contest between my lack of motivation and the few tasks that need to be accomplished. This particular competition is scored much like golf.

I think the biggest problem with the tasks that I have waiting for me is that they are supposedly skill building, but they are about building skills that should remain dormant and unexplored. Database management systems? Yeee-uck… CADD software training? That is not my cup-o-tea. If the personal skill set building revolved around color theory or zombie slaying I would do the exercises twice. I guess that is one of the biggest issues I have with the working world. The skills that work would like me to build do not cross-over with the skills I would like to build for myself. Work tends to reward those that help the collective abilities of the company while I am more interested in how to level up my hunter in World of Warcraft (turns out it is bby playing more, btw.) This disconnect between the skills that I want to hone and the ones that my work would like me to build make me question if I am in the correct field.

Then again I wonder what field is there in the Columbus, Ohio area that I could dial into with my not-so-great comic book drawing skills, mediocre video gaming skilz, and amazing map making abilities. Methinks that vocation does nigh existe.

To recap:
I think I slept wrong last night
My neck hurts today
The crew made a big mistake not offering Sigi what he wanted
I guess I can find some new Photoshop tutorials
I made some denim the other day
Digital denim
Issues gleaned from that tutorial?
Dodge and burn
Dodge and burn, baby
Listening to Pool Party by the Aquabats!
You don’t even know, dude
There’s gonna be food and girls
And more food
And Mike Tarrudo’s coming

Post Holiday part the Second

I find myself with leisure time to be lacking, once again. I feel it necessary to extend the posting holiday until the ‘morrow. It sounds better all poetic and stuff.

To recap:
Posting Holiday part 2
20 Questions Tuesday is tomorrow
Not listening to anything

Two Questions I Cannot Answer

I cannot get the fervor up to fever pitch anymore to write down a good and truly heartfelt rant, a rant that both smacks of snark and lambastes with bile. I have started a couple of rants the past few weeks and then half way through decided that I didn’t really feel that vehemently against the current story arc present in Heroes Season 2 or the lack of mainstreamed new enduring music. I would get just to the point of frothing at the mouth and decide, that I really didn’t care that much anyway. With touches of ambivalence, the impetus for a good rant dies the slow agonizing death of “Meh.”

It is truly a bizarre phenomenon indeed. I can usually get my ire in a lurch to spout vitriol about a topic with the merest external urge. One could say, “Did you see how X interacted with Y?” and I would be impelled to respond with a four paragraph soliloquy deriding them for asking me a dreaded word problem without first defining X and Y. I would rant passionately about things I didn’t care about. I could fill pages with odd analogy, poorly coined phrases, and insipid puns about dark vs. light toast. I could generate scathing witticisms that were like fingernails on the chalkboard of discourse, but that seems to be gone…

Has the fire in my belly, a fire fiercer than 1000 suns, a conflagration hot enough to separate the hydrogen from oxygen in water to create more fuel, an inferno of unparallelled thermal dynamism, has that fire truly cooled off? Have I become too holistic in my observances to laser in on one aspect and deny the bigger picture? Have I nurtured my abilities of understanding other reasons for motivation too much, such that now I cannot stand on a box for soap and extol my opinion’s virtues while denigrating the existence of other opinions?

What does this mean for my future? I cannot help but let you readers know that I am scared. Not scared like, “Am I gonna die?” More scared like, “When I open this jug, will the milk be smelly?” but it is fear nonetheless. Two questions come to mind when my idle mind wanders aimlessly in this direction. Question 1: Is this just a temporary set back in my ranting ways? Question 2: Is the ability to become enraged by minutia and convey said ire in the form of an acerbic diatribe necessary for my continued existence? Question 2a: Can I truly be the me that I know and love without the ability to rant poetic? That is a question I cannot answer.

To recap:
The Christmas card is coming along nicely
A few text edits here and there and it will be complete
Then all that is left is the physical production
Stuffing the envelopes
Labeling
And Mailing
See? Easy peasy lemon squeezie
What motivates a risen from the dead mummy after the revenge is meted out?
I mean the sole reason for a mummy returning from the dead is to exact revenge on those who have desecrated his final resting place
That is another question I cannot answer

7.5 hours

So, today I spent 7 hours in a car… by myself… for 4 hours of contact with the clients. That’s 11 hours I will never get back in my life.

Anyway, the car ride left me alone with my thoughts for a long time (it seems about 7 hours of time). It was not long before I could silence the voices in my head. The dreaded head voices. I dread them so not because they tell me to kill and not because they are incredibly self critical, I hate them because they like to sing in the round. 99 Bottles of Beer on the wall, Row Row Row Your Boat, How Much is that Doggy in the Window (arf, arf), etc… It is enough to drive a man crazy, it is.

To Recap:
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily merrily merrily
Row, row, row your boat
Life is but a dream
Gently down the stream
Row, row, row your boat
Merrily merrily merrily merrily
Gently down the stream

Row, row, row your boat

Life is but a dream
Merrily merrily merrily merrily
Gently down the stream
Row, row, row your boat
Life is but a dream
Merrily merrily merrily merrily
Gently down the stream
Row, row, row your boat
Life is but a dream
Merrily merrily merrily merrily
Gently down the stream

Life is but a dream
Life is but a dream

Life is but a dream

September

Instead of doing the usual run down of how the weekend was, I am going to run-down what happened for the entire month of September.

How will he do this?
Is it even possible?
He can’t, he just simply can’t.
No one wields that amount of incredible power.
Will somebody please think about the children?

Be quiet all of you, and I will summarize.

This September was a typical autumn-ish month in Ohio. There were spells of time where it was a bit too hot, but, in general, it was a mild month. Some days it rained, some days it didn’t. But the weather in September of 2007 is not why you came to read this blog. I am not exactly sure what you come here for, but I am fairly sure it is not for a compilation of monthly weather statistics.

Anyway… Wifey and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary this past month. We celebrated that with steak. When one has a significant milestone, one should sacrifice a fatted calf to the stomach gods. So it shall be written, so it shall be done. Wifey and I also got to see how the insanely rich dine for half-price. Ludicrously priced steak at half price is still ludicrously priced steak. Needless to say, Wifey and I consumed some really really expensive meat this past month, and of the 5 pieces of nauseatingly priced steaks, only 2 were wrapped in bacon. WTF?!?!

I finished up the Random Alphabet or SRH only to watch Digital Thursdays to emerge from that burnt out shell of a weekly topic. I know some of you felt that theme-ing up the day was not necessarily what you wanted to see, but it does make things easier on me in regards to coming up with a topic. Honestly, coming up with a topic is not a trivial matter when I don’t want most of you nut-jobs knowing what is really going on in my head or my life.

Little Man started up his next year in pre-school. He seems to enjoy it, but we miss his wonderful teachers from last year. The people that he is with are fine and we are sure that they will not harm him in any way, but we just think they necessarily love him like his last teachers did. He and I also saw over 30 trains at the Weber Road crossing gate. If you are ever in town and want to see me and the boy; there is a good chance that between 6:00 pm and 7:30 pm on days other than Monday or Saturday, you can see us waiting at the crossing gates so we can wave at passing trains.

I mentioned that we ate some steak that is silly expensive.

Wifey and I started the grand undertaking of re-modeling our kitchen. This is not a trick to improve our re-sale value and/or chances. When we refinanced the house we decided that we would stay in the house for at least 5 more years. Adding a downstairs bath and expanding the kitchen is something that makes it worth while to stay.

Oh, some other crap happened, but as I stated before, I am not telling you nut-bars about it.

To Recap:
Best thing I have said in a while:
I knew my laziness would overcome your will-power
I am decaffeinating again
Maybe that will help with the sleeping
Maybe it won’t
Who knows
Nothing permanent-like, that would be silly
Man I am tired right now
I could use a drink…
20 Questions Tuesday tomorrow

A good day

Today was a good day. I can tell already that the overall impression of today will be good.

“Why was it good, even though it isn’t done yet?” you ask.

Stop interrupting me and I will tell you.

Today, even though it involved an hour long conference call was good because of something I got to say. Today, even though I got to work late and had to get 2 things finished in less than 15 minutes was good because when I said that something, the person I said it to understood. Today, even though it is the middle of the work week was good because when I said it and the person understood it the ultimate results were exactly what I was looking for.

Here is a transcription of the transaction as near as I can recall it*.

Me: Can I have the 10 inch baked chicken, light on the onions and with ranch on the side?
Guy behind the counter: Sure. Anything else?
Me: Chips and a drink, oh, and can you bacon that up?
Guy behind the counter: /snicker… Yeah, we can “bacon” that up

And, lo, when the sandwich was brought forth there was bacon, and the ranch was on the side.

Today was a good day because not only did I get to use “Bacon” as a verb, I also got to eat bacon and the ranch dressing was on the side.

To recap:
Digital Thursday is tomorrow
I need some more stuff for that
Maybe I will make something new tonight
Parents are coming back through for dinner tomorrow
It should be nice
I hope the conversation does not revolve around their financial situation again
I should have gotten the sandwich on wheat
Then it would have been healthy
My head is killing me today
Hello, Fluffy
Just for clarification purposes of the above story


*Some details were deliberately omitted, some details were accidentally omitted, and some details were neither deliberately nor accidentally omitted. We call those details “included.”

Over the Cliff

This Sunday rushed into existence with Wifey and Mimma weeding the front bank. What started out as a simple few hours of weeding transformed into a morning chore of making the outside of the house look passable. That process was well overdue… well over do indeed. I joined them about 1.5 hours into their effort because I needed some more sleep. So the morning was all about getting the front bank in order, but the afternoon… the afternoon was important for other reasons.

Sunday afternoon, Wifey and I took a step off the cliff that is known as kitchen remodeling. We are extending our kitchen into the existing sunroom, turning the old kitchen into a office or breakfast nook and adding a half bath to the downstairs. Luckily this can all be done in stages, so we can at least breathe a sigh of relief. There is a strong chance that we can have most of the work accomplished in a relatively short period of time. Please let it be a relatively short period of time. The good news is that we are staging the work such that we can do pieces at a time.

Anyway… yesterday we ordered the new bank of windows for the kitchen. Now we need to see about ordering a new back door and a skylight, cabinets, countertops… Oh, the pain…

Because some of you will ask: The weekend started with a nice dinner with the parents. It was at California Pizza Kitchen and quite tasty. Oddly, the ‘Rents talked about their financial situation the entire night, and by “talked” I really mean bragged. They are quite happy with their financial predicament, and rightly so, but when I ask if they could hand me an extra napkin I don’t mean “So what is the status of all your assets?” I honestly just need the extra napkin because Little Man dropped some pasta. When I say, “Wow, this pizza sure is tasty today.” I am not asking, “So how did the return on your investments go?”

Side note: Little Man is somehow fascinated with restaurant restrooms. He “needs” to go pee at least 4 times a meal. I don’t get it. The only thing I can figure out is that he enjoys watching Papa’s food get cold. He is mean like that.

To recap:
If I remember, I’ll get before and after shots of the kitchen
Don’t hold your breath though
I am not rememberating thingies very well these days
Heroes starts up tonight
I need some sleep
Boy do I need some sleep
Different sentence than:
Boy, do I need some sleep?
More card related questions tomorrow
It will be a hoot
A hoot I say, a Hoot!

Thursday Thang: the vote

Still trying to figure out what the heck my Thursdays are going to be about. I have had some people suggest (thanks for the suggestions by the way) different lists of things that I could expound upon much like my Random to Non-Random Alphabet of SRH posts. Numbers really wouldn’t work. There are too many and not enough of them are significant. Continents would have been a great idea if it were not for the fact that I have only been on 2 (Europe and North America). Months was mentioned as well, but honestly, time has little significance in my world view. One of these days I will expound upon the human invention of time. States that I have been to might be interesting, but some of the stories would end up like this: Arkansas: Once the group I was traveling with stopped to fill up their gas tank in Arkansas. That isn’t very gripping. Oceans, only seen 2 of them. Colors, how do I differentiate between periwinkle and light blue-ish purple? Cerulean and Cornflower?

I would love to give some updates from Capt. McArmypants in Afghanistan, but since he is JAG, most of his emails end up being: Did a bunch of stuff today, none of which I can tell you about due to confidentiality and/or secrecy. My soccer stories end 16 years ago. I haven’t found much new music that I like (although I would like to thank the author of liquify.org for recommending Mutemath, and Karen James seems to point me towards music on her LJ as well and sadly I am intruiged by The Aquabats! for some unknown reason) I have trouble remembering what I did yesterday at work for timesheet purposes, much less what I was doing on the 60th anniversary of D-Day. I think I need to get more serious exercise goals than “I want to be healthier” if I were to report on “workout progress.”

But I do not want this post to be just me saying “No” to everyone’s suggestions. I would like you, my viewing public to select from a list of finite choices for my new Thursday Thang. All choices are intended to make me work a bit more creatively (most likely on Wednesday nights). Would the UC readers want to see...

A. Digital Thursday: where I post digital artwork, graphic design, mapping, photo-manipulations that I have recently worked on.

B. Fictional Thursday: where I attempt to write some fiction crap in a genre of the UC’s readers’ choosing.

C: Theory Thursday: where I attempt to make myself seem smarter than I am by attempting to jabber on about theoretical stuff

D: Non-Themed Thursday: where I just randomly post some drivel much like Monday, and Wednesday.

You, the fine readers of the UC, get to decide my Thrusday-riffic theme. You have until Wednesday the 19th of September 2007 to cast your vote.

To recap:
Please cast your vote in comments
I mean it. Cast your vote
Please
My prediction: Only one person votes and that person will vote for more cookies at snack time
Who doesn’t want more cookies at snacktime?
I hope that we have a cleaner house this weekend
At least the house was in the same state of disrepair when Wifey came back as the state or disrepair when she left
Need more caffeine
Need more caffeine bad
Fire bad
I can’t believe it is not Friday yet
Have a great weekend everyone

Monday Nothing

Nothing is happening here. Nothing at all. There is such a lack of stuff that one could easily say that the merest hint of something is not even possible with these vast vats of nothingness. There is enough nothing going on here to fill up 2 football stadiums with the icky sweet tang of nothinghood. If the amount of nothing I am encountering currently were a land-mass, it would be Asia. Now, my friends, that is a whole lot of nothing. More nothing than you could shake a stick at, that’s for damn sure.

So much nothing that I, honestly, am storing it everywhere because it can’t fit anywhere else. If this nothing were an atmospheric gas, it would equate to nitrogen… or carbon dioxide on Venus. That is a literal shit ton of nada. More like a metric shit ton the more I think about it. Can you even concept the amount of nothing that is? It is a whole lotta nothing that’s definitely true, but add to that nothing a bit of aught and a whole bunch of diddly-squat and you may start to approach the amount of lack my day is currently experiencing.

A VAST CONSPIRACY OF NOTHING I TELL YOU
If I had any more nothing going on here, I would have to assume that people were deliberately keeping something from me.


To Recap:
‘Kssk’ These are not the droids we're looking for.
He can go about his business.
‘Kssk’ You can go about your business.
Move along.
‘Kssk’ Move along. Move along.
I have to exercise tonight
It is not going to go well
I imagine I will be hurting pretty badly soon
By soon I mean by Little Man’s evening bath
Little Man has been slowing down on his picture taking
Tomorrow will be the end of the 20 Questions Tuesday in regards to the “Future”
So at least I will have something to post about tomorrow
Go on about your daily business
There is nothing to see here

taboo

About 2 years ago I decided that in order to save myself from the potential of getting “Dooced” I would not write anything significant associated with my workplace or work other than generalities such as “it has been a busy week” or “deadlines are hard” or “I would rather be napping than mapping.” The same can be said for real events that take place in my private life that, for all intents and purposes, should remain private. You guys are not going to hear about intimate details of my life, because, well, those are private.

By eliminating these two vast sources of, well, to be honest, incredibly funny story fodder, it sometimes hamstrings my ability to come up with a meaningful and hopefully witty post. Really some funny stuff happens all the time in my life that would be perfect blog fodder, but it is topica non grata for the blogarooney and therefore taboo to talk about.

It is a real shame that some of these vignettes shall not be translated into blog form, because some of it is really good stuff. The problem comes in when private life stuff and/or work life stuff is what dominates SRH’s noggin. It is hard to come up with topics outside of the things filling my subconscious and waking thoughts. These non-topics are the equivalent of the proverbial elephants in the “living room” that I am trying dearly not to talk about.

So, please dear reader, please understand that sometimes when I “don’t have a topic,” I really have a killer topic that I am either un-willing or un-able to share. So, say one day you see yet another post about “nothing.” You can almost bet that someone at my work has done something dunderheadedly, or that some reasonably embarrassing event has taken place in my personal life that you just are not going to hear about. In those work related instances, think of some silly crap that has happened on The Office (or the original BBC version). On the times when it is from my personal life, you could most like feel free to point and laugh in my general direction without being too far off the mark.

To Recap:
“Not much is going on right now”
No really
Why won’t you believe me any more
I don’t understand why zombies are always looking for brains
Wouldn’t any part of the body really do?
I understand wholeheartedly why zombies would be on the search for Brian’s though
I mean what undead being wouldn’t want a bit of a Brian?
Not sure what dinner will be tonight
Prolly leftovers
That’s right, I wrote “prolly.”
Allergies are kicking my butt today
Of the two taboo topics for this blog, the piece that is swirling about in my brain right now is the former, rather than the latter
I couldn’t believe that the muggles set off the Mage Bomb in Diagon Alley on page 723 of the HPVII
I was not expecting that
Voldemort and Harry taken down by muggle technology, how sad
Oh wait, I didn’t spoil it for anyone, did I?

Boooooooooooring

So today was a busy day at work. I had to create 3 graphics from scratch by the end of business today. I got 2 of the 3 done, so at least I have that going for me. But this blog’s purpose is not to bore you good readers with details of my laborious vocation. Nay, the reason for this blog is to bore you good readers with details of my rather mundane non-work life. And bore you I shall.

On Friday of last week nothing happened. That’s right. Nothing. This leads me to tell you about Friday night where all the fun (loosely and ill-defined) occurred. Now before any of you go on thinking dirty thoughts, this story is about Little Man and his coughing. On Thursday of last week Little Man’s breathing started to be sporadically disrupted by coughing. He slept pretty well on Thursday night, but Friday night was something else entirely.

Around 11:30 at night Little Man woke up coughing too much to fall to sleep. I rocked him until about 12:30 before the myriad of medications started working on his non-feeble cough. Bored yet? Well, after gingerly laying him down back into his wonderful slide bedecked bed I went to bed to try and get some blessed sleep as well. But I have been having some difficulty getting to sleep, so around 15 games of spider solitaire later I finally drifted off to a fitful sleep of discomfort.

“Discomfort?” you ask? Why yes, dear blog reader, discomfort indeed. Bored yet? Well, give me a second, the story doesn’t really speed up from here. I know there are about 1 of you out there who will push through this boringness, and you will not be rewarded with anything amazing at the end of this post. Just more boredom. I told you my aim is to bore, and bore I will. So, my right hip is hurting as well as my right shoulder. I am getting old and decrepit. But tha ladies still find meh sexay!! So around 2:30 I finally fell to sleep.

Anyway, around 4:00 Little Man coughed himself awake. So we medicate him something fierce again. FYI, I think next time we are medicating him with some scotch. Any recommendations, Themikestand? We are looking for a full bodied scotch that is afordable and consumable in mass quantities by a near 4 year old. Anyway he finally goes back to bed on his own at 5:30. So Wifey and I immediately fell into our blissful slumber. Bored yet? I am and I am writing this crap.

To make a long story short (I missed that one pretty badly, didn’t I?) I took a long long nap on Saturday, and that made me very happy.

To recap:

Naps = goods
Mmmm naps
Today sucked
Tomorrow will suck too
I will be traveling 3.5 hours away and back
That is 7 hours just in a car, not to mention the craptastic meeting I am traveling to
I will have over 26 hours of work under my belt by the time I am done with work tomorrow
Naps = good
Since I am clearly a workaholic, tomorrow’s 20 Questions Tuesday will be about jobs
I will probably be posting this from home tomorrow night
Deal with it
Sweet Jebus, I just re-read this post and I think I brought the boredom
I brought it in spades

Tabula Rasa

Here I am staring at a blank page in Microsoft Word. I do this 4 days a week. Sometimes the words come flowing out of me to spill onto the page creating my typical incoherent babblings, and sometimes (like today) I just sit and look at a blank page. Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit.

Since I am at work, I can stare at this blank page for a minute or 2 and then do some work. I come back to the blank page for a moment or 2 hoping for some kind of inspiration, and then do a bit more work. Sometimes whilst converting a file or saving a rather large image or dataset I will come back to this blank slate and be mesmerized by its stark white lack of content.

Often times I start out a post and then wipe the slate clean because what I wrote sucks. I will get a few paragraphs/sentences/words in and decide that is not the direction I wanted to go in. My muse is a fickle one. She taunts me with almost good ideas, and “could be nice if” posts that in the end won’t work. She laughingly sends me topics that don’t have an interesting angle.

Then… every once and a while she gives me something that I can work with. The times that my muse actually delivers the goods are few and far between, but when they happen my fingers fly across the keyboard as fast as they can (which is not too fast since I only learned the HPC method of typing*). Those are the posts that I am usually most happy with. These are also the posts that rarely get comments.

Today is not one of those days, today is a day where I have started this post about 7 times and gotten no where. Currently, the post I am working on as I type this… this post is the one I will go with today because really this is meta-posting at its best. I am writing about how I write, or how I don’t write. Can I get a ruling from a judge here?

Go with “how I don’t write.” That sounds right to us…. Right? Write? Get it?

Oh, goodness, even my impartial ethereal judges are corny.

... I am writing about how I don't write.

So there you have it. Most of my posts are an uphill struggle through 4 feet of snow. They are written, not with wild abandon or inspired fancy. They are written with the plodding determination of a dromedary silk caravan just after a sandstorm. The words must escape the inaccessible prison of my convoluted mind before being painstakingly affixed to the digital files I use to create my posts. Much like the relentless pursuit of the Komodo dragon, the posts are my once bitten and slowly dying prey. Basically, like the large bacteria infected lizards, I wait out my posts until they flop over from sickness and exhaustion. My writing is the tortoise telling the crowd after the hare has lost, “Slow and steady wins the race, bitches. Who’s betting against me now!”

And then again, sometimes I am inspired.

To recap:
Had a wonderful lunch today with Wifey and Lord Pithy
It was wonderful due to its pizza buffetishness
Oh, and the company
Tomorrow is my birthday
I will be taking the day off
But I will still be posting
Bitches


*HPC = Hunt Peck and Curse

N: 14 of 26

I usually have Wifey choose the random letter of the week (to ensure non-author bias of letters), but she is all meetinged up at the moment and cannot assist in my letter choosing. So I did the next best thing. I threw something at my keyboard from the walkway by my cube and went with the first letter that I had not yet done. Sure it took 5 tries to blindly hit the keyboard and not get / or ` (oddly I got % as well... I haven’t figured that one out yet). Today’s randomly selected letter of my 8 th installment to my Increasingly More Randomer Alphabet of SRH is the 14 th letter of our English alphabet, the letter N. So without further ado…

N: Big N, Little n, What begins with those? Nine new neckties and a nightshirt and a nose

It was pretty easy to choose my own personal N-word… Whoa! Wait a second. That did not come out right at all. Let me try this one again, the first thing that came to mind when I thought of words near and dear to me that start with the letter N was absolutely Nothing.

That’s right, dear readers, I shall again wax eloquent about nothing (I am down to “dear reader” now, aren’t I? Oh well, the show goes on).

The concept of nothing is a difficult one to talk about because, well, how does one describe the idea of absence? Because of that intrinsic difficulty nothing truly isn’t anything without, well, anything. One cannot directly describe nothing, one has to skirt the edges of nothing. You can only make inferences about nothing. Its description is implicitly defined. It is everything, something, and anything’s antonym. That is just how it is when you are dealing with nothing.

Why is nothing important to me? Well, the irony of it all… The irony of the lack of it all? Oh, Hell, even I am confused now, and I am writing this drivel. Truly nothing is interesting to me because of the simplicity of the idea and just how earth-shattering a concept it truly is. The idea is simple because even a 3.75 year old can grasp the concept.

Little Man, How many rocks are in the box?
Papa, you silly! None!

But it is also difficult, because, as I mentioned above, it is basically not explicitly definable. Truly its definition is a conundrum because when you give it definition, you give it substance, and when you give it substance, it loses its nothingness

The earth-shatteringness of the concept comes from its application. If one removed the concept of nothing from our world system, it would collapse under the extra weight of itself, because there would always have to be something… anything.

My love of the concept of nothing harkens back to when I was in college studying some of the history of math. Yes, yes, I know… History is already dry, Math History was something beyond arid. It was desiccated. It was beyond dehydrated. I don not wish the fate of a history of math class on anyone, but I digress. The interest in the class did not occur during monotone lecture during the class, or the mandatory slumber inducing reading outside of class, but when the ideas from the class re-hydrated later by beer.

Ah, beer induced mathematics and philosophy… In some ways I miss it and in others I am glad they are over. I love the semantics associated with nothing. I love the mathematical semantics as well as the grammatical semantics. Nothing defies most typical conventions. The conundrums associated with nothing is where I reside.

To recap:
Franklin the plastic owl is Little Man's good friend now
Little Man's favorite thing to do with Franklin is launch him down the slide
Or kick him off the slide
I am not sure I would want to be Little Man's good friend
Wifey can sleep through anything except Little Man's feet on her throat
Or sleep next to him, now that I think of it
I have been playing phone tag with a doctor's office
All I want is some allergy medicine!
Have a great weekend everyone

More information

I have found out that since starting this blog I have stopped emailing friends with actual information about my life. My emails now tend toward the annoying and obtuse. Why some of my emails are no more than me sending out the equivalent of a swimming pool “Marco” awaiting the inevitable “Polo” response from the deep end. The last email conversation I had with one arbitrarily hypothetical friend boiled down to:

Me: Meetings suck
Arbitrarily Hypothetical Friend: I know
Me: And how?
AHF: You know it.
Me: Uh-huh!
AHF: You Bet
Me: There weren’t even snacks
AHF: Poor thing
Me: You know it.
AHF: Uh-huh!
Me: You bet …

In effect I have allowed this blog to be the de facto information superhighway of the significant events in my life. I figure, why should I email them the events of my life, they are reading the blog, they know what’s going on with me, Wifey, and Little Man? I detail my entire life in meticulous detail with this online record of my existence. How could one feel they were left wanting when they have this glorious repast of “Under Construction” awaiting them for their greedy consumption? “How?” I ask you, “How?”

Then I read through a bunch of my posts yesterday and realized something. Other than being narcissistic and taking great satisfaction in reading my own “work” I realized that those poor friends of mine whom I thought were getting all this information about my life were really just getting glimpses into my disturbed mind. Then I realized that I was thirsty, but that is beside the point. The point is, I owe some long expository emails to these friends of mine letting them know some more of the nitty gritty details that I purposefully omit in my posts. I don’t want to give my Internet stalkers any more information than necessary. Don’t get me wrong, the info is out there, I just want the stalkers to work for it. They will be more satisfied that way. So much more satisfied.

Of the almost 525 posts I have made most have such inconsequential merit, that really they are not worth mentioning. This post included. I guess I owe some folk some emails beyond the typical “Oooh! Free work pizza” emails they typically receive.

To recap:
I write a shit ton that has not one lick of consequence
Not sure what Little Man and I will partake of for dinner tonight
I am sure it won’t be good for me
“Oooh! Free work pizza” should be translated in the second person imperative sense
Makes me seem more badass
Saving poor pizzas from fascist gulags
I could do with some free pizza at the moment
I guess some crackers will have to do

More than Juggling?

So this past week or so I have been juggling 6 different tasks simultaneously (aside from the typical duties associated within the normal parameters of my job and family life as both husband and father). It has been a struggle for my less than attentive and quite burned out self. I was able to cross 3 of the 6 off my list yesterday. It was a big day. The other I put to rest on Monday, but since I still had 5 things careening around my head, I figured it wasn’t worth crowing about. I am now happy to say that I have narrowed the field to juggling the merest of 2 things. This leads me to ask a very serious question…

Question: Doesn’t it take more than 2 things to really be considered juggling? When one has 2 things, one is simply carrying at that point, right? Technically, if I want to throw these 2 things from hand to hand I could, but that is not juggling, is it? I surmise that is takes at least 3 things being up in the air simultaneously for ones actions to truly be considered “juggling.”

At what point does it transcend from mere juggling into something much more grandiose? 6, 7, the first double digit – 10? One would assume a multiplicative principal would rule. At task number 6 in the air, one can add a modifier to “juggling,” like “hyper” or “mega.” Such that when one is doing 6 or more things out of the norm they are “hyper-juggling” or “mega-juggling.” (I think “hyper” works best in this case.) At 9 tasks, could it become “pre” something and at 10 could it be that new “something” other than juggling?

But what should that something be? I think I am going to need audience participation on this one. I looked at thesauri and there are no good words to substitute for more than juggling. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that there is a fine line between juggling and dropping. I just don’t know what it is called when it is beyond juggling.

To recap:
I am breathing much easier with 4 of the 6 done
Now I can focus on the 2 remaining items
That I am no longer “juggling”
1 I might be dropping
But we will see if I can catch it before it hits the ground
Getting Little Man to go for a walk last night was like herding a bunch of cats
Except he didn’t bite and/or scratch me
And he LOVED the walk because he got to see 2 trains
Going in opposite directions
He talked about it for hours
Hours after his bedtime, mind you
But hours none the less
One of the engineers waved at him
The other didn’t
I almost threw a rock at him
He would have deserved it
Oh, he would have deserved it
I await your answers in comments

Pants

Start Meta-posting -->
I came up with a great idea for a post this weekend. It was super great really, but it involved me getting pictures of Little Man in some very specific legwear (not chaps you sickos, and not “not chaps” for you even more sickos). Alas and alack, the camera was uncharged and the laundry was undone, so the post- with real pictures- is not to be. So without further ado… the post that would have been better with a real pic, but I doctored some up to prove the point. <-- End Meta Posting

While looking through the laundry this weekend, or sorting it, if you will, I noticed that there are many similarities in our respective wardrobes. We have similar shorts. We have some similar shirts. He has waaay more dinosaur shirts than I do though. The thing that really was noticeable though was the preponderance of red pants that Little Man owns. He has at least 4 pairs of red pants. I have none. I am quite okay with not owning any red leg wear though because I realized something upon noticing this dearth of red pants in my wardrobe. Red pants are not acceptable leg attire for men. I am not sure where the age break is for the red pant rule, but there is clearly a red pant age rule.

On kids, red pants are cool. Some women can get away with wearing red pants. Men can’t. I can live with that. I prove my point below.

Cool: Look at how happy free and fun Little Man is in his stunning red pants. He is carefree and fancy free as he jogs on a friend's couch.

Uncool: I look like I am wearing parachute pants circa 1983. I would clearly be uncomfortable in this gawdy attire. My belly is all bloated circa 2006-2007 though. Get to the gym, Tubby!

To recap:
Tomorrow’s 20 Questions Tuesday will be about color
I have a presentation tomorrow
It is only half done
I really need to get moving on it
I have 2 active projects right now
I have a presentation tomorrow
I have an artistic cartography portfolio to get together
I have some other art I need to finalize
I have waaaaay too much on my plate right now
My days need to be 36 hours this week
They are still only 24 hours long
No matter how much I push and pull them
Most colored pants are taboo for men unless they are participating in a sporting event
Back to the grind
No red pants were harmed in the making of this post

Attention

Ever have one of those days where you just are not able to focus on anything for even the remotest amount of time? The days when your attention scampers away like a wild rabbit hopped up on goofballs. You know, the days where you find yourself staring for long minutes at the industrial “fabric” that makes up cube walls. The days where merely focusing on the job at hand takes monumental effort.

I tend to call them weekdays.

I am currently in the middle of a week chalk full of weekdays. Yes, yes, I know that weeks are by definition full of weekdays, but I don’t want to hear your semantic arguments. I wouldn’t be able to listen to them for long anyway. I mentioned how distractible I am at the moment, right? Yep, the attention does not have so much of a span today. I am not sure as to why my meager at best abilities to keep on task have decided to call in sick for the week, but that they clearly have vacated the premises is not in dispute. They have left and not given a forwarding address.

I don’t even have the focusing energy to push through a losing game of spider solitaire. That is saying something and that something is not positive. In fact, one would have to categorize that “something” as decidedly negative. Well, at least it would be negative for me, and, really, for this blog’s purpose, that is what really matters.

While getting things ready for various projects I have found my mind wandering un-tethered willy-nilly. This un-tethered willy-nilly random wandering has led me to my oft-too-often used literary crutch of over-hyphenating. Luckily it has not caused me to rely on my other crutch of adding un-necessary and superfluously-redundant suffixes to already suffixed words. My favorite of the spurious suffixes is “-ish.” How could one not like to add “-ish?” It implies a certain level of ambiguity to anything, and in my line of work (covering my ass) ambiguity saves.

But I digress, the point of this post is to illustrate how illusory my attention is currently. Why just a second ago you were reading about my “literary” crutches, but we all know that I am not literal. Again, here we are in a semantic conundrum. The circle is now complete. When I met you, I was but the learner. Now, I am the master… Wait, that is a completely different completed circle.

Authors Note: What I have discovered whilst writing this post is that it becomes increasingly more difficult to describe a lack of ability without becoming repetitive with phrasing. Sure the subject matter is merely a rehashing of the same idea, but it is more and more difficult to walk the fine line of being whimsically redundant without being blatantly repetitive.

To recap:
Tomorrow I will add to the ever more Random Alphabet of SRH
I am sure it will be very educational for all involved
Dinner was really nice last night
Late, but nice
We have gone from a high of 80° F (26.67° C) to a high of almost 40° F (4.44° C) this afternoon
Ah, spring in Ohio
Yes, I realize I did not convert the temperature to Kelvin for the vast number of physicists who read this blog
I figured they could convert it themselves with their amazingly focusable minds
Little Man was not pleased to wear long pants this morning
“Where my shorts!” he was wont to ask repeatedly