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Friday, December 4th, 2009
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5:05 pm - Tabla rascal
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I was having a discussion with someone a couple of weeks ago. Wide range of topics and pretty interesting. I made the off-hand remark about blowing up the world, and how we're going to do it any day now. "Now that they got that thing in the Alps up and running."
"Hahahaha," he said. "Being scared of dangers from the LHC is my measure of stupidity."
This cut a little too close to home. I'm terrified of that machine. It's a residual fear. I've done enough reading to understand what experiments they're actually trying to run (naturally occurring high-energy collisions in a controlled and sensor rich environment), and the likelihood of something bad happening (nil), and what would happen in the very unlikely event they produced a black hole (for a micro-black hole that doesn't instantly vaporize, eating an electron would be akin to trying to suck a bowling ball through a coffee stirrer) This machine is really an achievement. But I wet myself every time they turn on a new particle accelerator. It's been this way for so many years that it's almost a personality defect.
Following this conversation, I've started to become preoccupied with the things I use to tag someone as stupid. Thinking about it, I have freely identified folks as a morons. You may be a moron if you can't write a complete sentence. You're likely a moron if you see a Sandra Bullock movie on opening night. You are absolutely a moron if you hum along with the soul killing music at Starbucks. I was pretty cutthroat.
Verily, it came to pass that my definition of morons has become more nuanced. Maybe it's that I'm getting old and the fire is going out. Or maybe I've just met enough genuinely nice people of varying capacities and opinions.
For example, I don't see it being a problem if you question vaccinations. We require a lot, and it's fair to openly demand what's going into your body. Now, if you jump the fence and become one of those anti-vax lunatics, you're a moron. And that's because you've become a danger to me, my community and - most unforgivably - the baby.
Similarly, I find no issues with disliking Obama. He's a controversial figure, so go ahead and disagree with him. But once you abdicate your senses and start with the Birther crap, you have self-identified as a moron. Good job. Go away.
The interesting thing is that while my threshold for morons has lowered, the raw number of morons has increased. And that worries me. It is not just they're uneducated. It is the purposefully anti-educated, the ones that have deliberately un-learned everything that makes modern society function, from logic and reason to civility and respect.
And once they are that blank slate, they're ready to be recast based on the first Google search result. In many ways, they've become nothing more than jabbering flash drives, constantly spilling out at the mouth with whatever they've been most recently overwritten.
Of course, it's always been the way where the upper class (of which I appear to be a member) laments and fears the lower classes. It is a bit interesting that most of the biggest fools to fear are also upper class. They have the time to spend in front of the television, and the resources to do it. The poor, usual culprits for popular uprisings, are just busy paying their medical bills. But we have to think we live in unique times, just to make ourselves feel better.
You know, nothing would be more unique than the world blowing up.
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| Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
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12:46 pm - The expanding gyre.
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I was trying to figure out a pithy Facebook status update today. I've been working on reviewing an application and it's been sitting kind of heavily on my mind. The project itself isn't important, but the applicant is a moron. He's asking the county to do something it has no inclination to do. So he decides to lace his language with flowery overstatement and complete bloviation.
Then he gets the legal issues wrong. He tosses about takings issues like he's a hassled developer who is being asked to fork two-thirds of his property over to public use. Actually, he's a subsequent purchaser who should have done his due diligence and seen the 25' wide easement that runs across the rear of his yard. Where something comes close to being applicable, his readings of legal opinion are patently incorrect.
And he uses the word "toll" like it's ringing a bell. Trying to say the action gives rise to a takings claim, he says "the county's action on our property tolls the takings clause of the 5th amendment." The earnestness of his language makes its misuse sound silly. Like the prison inmate on In Living Color. Or Al Sharpton.
Not to mention, if he wants to complain about these things, he has to go to court. Arguing in front of an appointed planning board is not for his little poseur self.
So this was pretty good fodder for a fun status update. Until I thought through the list of folks who would be reading it. Sure there are other lawyers and planners who would get a snicker out of it. But there are also co-workers on my friends list. While I wasn't taking a swipe at them, they are working on this project. Suffice to say, it all became too complicated too quickly.
There is something to be said for avatars and pseudo-anonymity. Sure, it can lead to being an dickwad in forums or chatrooms. But keeping small the circle of people you get to complain at or chat with or impress with your wittyness has something going for it.
So, maybe it's time to reexamine myself and the FB friends whore I have become. Do I really want to dump this nonsense on other people? Do I want to cut myself and my wit off from the forum of people who may actually find me amusing in the name of sheer friend numbers?
Or maybe I just have to get back to where I can say interesting things, at length and to people who are interesting enough to listen. Like MySpace.
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| Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
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3:27 pm
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I cancelled my subscription to the New York Times today. I was getting the Sunday paper only. But it feels like a loss that our house will not have a weekly influx of newsprint.
There are a couple things that led to this decision. I don't commute in a way that allows me to read the paper. It took me a week to read the entire Sunday paper before the baby was born. Now I get through three sections over the course of the week, and scan the rest before dumping them into the compost heap. Unfortunately, it takes a little time for the papers to get to the compost heap. I have several accumulations of papers throughout the house. Upstairs are the ones from September and October. Downstairs, near the fireplace, are ones from mid-summer on. Before my stability is questioned, I thought it was time to reduce the inflow to zero.
Now, why would I get the New York Times instead of a more local paper? Mostly because the Baltimore Sun is staffed by half literate inbreeds who couldn't write a good article if the ghost of Mencken possessed their bodies and did the typing for them. Most of their articles are reformulated press releases and their overall journalistic value is only elevated by laying out the entire paper on the floor and shitting in the middle. Also, the Times has the Book section, the Times Magazine and the Week in Review that I really enjoy.
So when the guy asked why I was cancelling my subscription, I told him that I liked the paper but most of it went to waste. And at the expense ($7.50 per week) of home delivery, I couldn't justify it any more. Asked what might keep me as a subscriber, I told him to put those three sections in the mail and have them to me on Monday morning. He said they couldn't do that.
It bothers me to be ignored when I am telling them what adds value to my experience with their product.
Lingering over the whole paper is not a luxury I can always afford. There is so much information constantly coming at me that I want my news and my business and my sports to be focused and give me the parts that best serve me. These sections are commodity news, bulk information that is stale by the time it gets put onto paper and delivered to your house. Give them to me as a feed directly into my computer.
But once these sections are removed, there is still value in the serendipity of newsprint. I like taking my foot off of the gas, releasing the wheel and allowing the editor to steer the direction of my thoughts and ideas. Through the layout of pages, the selection of stories, and the themes of each article, I get to ride along for a little while. I would be willing to pay for hard copies of these other sections, full of well researched articles, lovely photographs and interesting ideas. Just trim the fat and some of the price and we'll have something to work with.
And it would help if the whole paper was in tabloid, so I could read it on the can.
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| Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
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7:35 pm - Rules for a Proper Hate Obituary
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We are now approaching the 24-hour mark following the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, youngest scion of Camelot and bearer of the torch of liberalism for the past thirty years. We have spent the day listening and reading many very glowing obituaries for the Lion of the Senate. Now we prepare for the backlash.
Before that begins, I believe we need to review the three rules for drafting the proper hate obituary:
1) Your writing has to be interesting. If you stutter through twelve paragraphs of "he was a doodie head", you are failing as a person, much less a writer. The true hate obituary weaves words together in order to set a torch to the memory of an otherwise great person. If you are only playing with wet matches, go the hell home.
2) You have to know the person. A proper hate obituary has to be personal. You can't be some low grade newspaper hack or anonymous "political" blogger. If that person couldn't pick you out of a lineup if your hair was on fire and you were wearing a Falcon's #7 jersey, you do not have standing to hold that person's jockstrap. Your obituary will simply rehash all of the tired old tropes about the person, and we will all be worse for it.
3) The person has to know you hated them. No pot shots after death to ride the anti-canonization bandwagon, slacker. Say you had been close enough to the person to taste the stench of the devil on his clothes and have his foul breath peel back the edge of your scalp. If you were a coward and smiled at his crooked teeth and shook his sickly little hand, you lost your opportunity. Purest hate, that which creates a proper hate obituary, can only be fostered on a personal, reciprocal level. Don't be a poseur.
Now, for perspective, the highest and best example of a proper hate obituary can be found here. Good luck.
[cross posted from talk_politics]
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| Tuesday, August 4th, 2009
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1:58 pm
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My shoe keeps eating my sock. I like these shoes. They are new and pretty comfortable. So I don't want to blame them.
However, I am very hesitant to believe that the elastic has failed on the top of all of my socks, simultaneously. And only the right socks. And failed enough so that, even without walking, the heel ends up under the ball of my foot and the top cuff slips under the rim of my shoe. Exposed ankles suggest something is amiss.
This leads me to the only reasonable conclusion: my right shoe is an alien symbiote. I have felt unrested recently, and woke up sweating. My shoe does reside under my bed, with easy access to my sleeping person. My eating has been different and I feel a deep, personal hatred of Spiderman.
Also, for the week we were on vacation, such things did not happen. My shoe was three hundred miles away, back at the house. I believe it was sitting in the under-the-bed darkness, plotting my demise. Or the demise of more of my right socks.
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| Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
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4:01 pm
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Mom and Dad are at the house today, watching the baby. The day care lady has the week off, as she is allowed several times throughout the year, so we have recruited family to fill the gap.
There were some problems getting things engaged this morning. Our mornings are a well ordered machine involving me feeding, cleaning, and clothing the baby (and myself) in a set routine, then heading over to day care.
The important part was that last one. We leave the house and take the baby somewhere else. She does not stay at home all day without us. She goes somewhere that is equipped to care for her throughout the day.
We are prepared to care for a baby, as we have been doing it now for eight straight months. And our house is able to support the baby with minimal injury. However, our care for the child is holistic, where the house needs us to be there, and we need the house.
More importantly, our house needs us and all the crap in our cars. Strollers, car seats, booster chairs, baby slings and a bunch of other stuff for the amusement of the baby are strategically hidden in the car. The exact same car that ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) blythefishy drove to work two hours before Mom and Dad showed up this morning.
So, Mom and Dad are not just watching the baby. They are stuck at the house watching the baby. I truly appreciate their effort. But I'm worried Dad will get bored and start searching through my crap. Last time he did that was in high school, and I was yelled at when I got home.
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| Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
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10:19 pm - oompf
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It is night two of a pretty good belly ache. I'm not complaining because I did it to myself. We were taken out to dinner last night, and I know better than to do what I did.
We ate at the Olive Tree which is a fabulous restaurant. Plenty of food. Tasty sauces. All around fine place to take people.
But they put mushrooms in pretty much everything. We've been there quite a few times, and know this. I got the sausage fettuccine in red sauce. With mushrooms.
I love mushrooms. It would be trite to say they don't like me. Mushrooms blame my stomach for losing the first World War and devaluing the Mark. They land on my stomach with the anger of a thousand exploding suns. And I'm left to lay face down on the floor for a couple of hours as the discomfort passes. It is from such a position that I type right now.
Of course, I didn't have to eat the leftovers for dinner tonight.
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| Saturday, June 13th, 2009
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6:15 pm
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There are a lot of television shows and movies that comprise my personality. I understand this and accept it. One day, I will be lounging around the Stonecutter's hall in some white face paint with a White Russian, advising my client to get himself a car without a roof, a Hattori sword, and guns. We will need guns.
But there may be no show that contributed more to my personality than Star Trek.
Why. Why is this stupid space opera, this wagon train to the stars, so fascinating and so insidious? I mean, can any acting be more stiff, or any story be more convoluted? Can any plot be more contrived or protagonist be more obvious? Why, apart from the narrative and for events I won't go into, Star Trek has steered my life.
Because, more than anything else, it is hopeful. It doesn't take place in a galaxy far, far away. It is not some rubber-masked alien trying to chase humans through a submarine. It is not some closed system fight between humans.
Beyond all other science fiction, Star Trek shows we made it. Until we get the message from afar, Star Trek is our only connection that shows we can get past this horrifying, harrowing, and awkward technological adolescence. We don't blow ourselves up, suck ourselves into a void, or simply fade off into oblivion.
Until then, Star Trek is our hook, that older brother that got to college, or the friend that lost weight, or the weird uncle that finally wrote that book. It shows there is light at the end of the tunnel. And, more importantly, when we get to that other side, we preserve our inherent humanness. We don't just make it because we luck out or because we overcome some character flaw. We succeed as a species because we are cocky, overwrought, flawed, and difficult, and snide at the same time we are emotional, smart, driven, and really really silly.
And yes, much as others who suffered much indignity on the path to salvation, I have finally seen the new Star Trek. After forty days in the desert, I have been witness to the reboot of history. I had to abandon the wife and baby to do it. I traveled far, and experienced much in the journey. But it is done. And it is good to know the universe is in good hands.
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| Monday, June 8th, 2009
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2:37 pm
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I'm debating about how much work I would like to get done this summer. I know there are
Of course, I should be so happy that I have a job that pays the bills and blah blah blah blah. But there is only so much psychic energy you can devote to your job on a sunny day when you are required to devote a particular number of hours to the office regardless of what work is being completed.
And there are such interesting things out there. Like this webcomic Nedroid, of which I may have just read the entire archive. (this one is my favorite) Or these accursed tower defense games.
So there are a couple of long-term tasks that need to be completed around the office. Many of them require me to just buckle down and grind out some work. It would be so much easier to have a couple of people buckle down and grind out parts of the work, then I can organize it and compile it into a presentable final product.
That's it. I need interns.
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| Thursday, June 4th, 2009
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12:56 pm - Why we can't have nice things.
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I have suffered a binge of clothing destruction lately. Two pairs of kakhis have begun to show tattering at the cuffs. Most of my undershirts are on the unfortunate end of the white-gray continuum.
Most destressingly, my work shirts are taking a beating. I put a large spot of red sharpie on the cuff of a green shirt. Yesterday, I caught the corner of a map cabinet and tore a hole in the sleeve of a pink shirt.
Then today, I thought I dropped a piece of food on my other green shirt. When I looked down, I found I had drawn a line with a pen right above the pocket. I pushed the fabric to one side and get a better look at the line, and deposited a chunk of stew on the shirt that had been quietly resting on the end of my fingernail. When I took out the Tide pen and started scribbling out the stains, the tip broke and dropped into my shirt pocket. Now there is a wet circle of Tide growing about tit high.
This is Heisenberg's Shirt Principle. If you are looking at your shirt for a stain, there will be a stain on your shirt.
Of course, this never happens to my old white or light blue work shirts. This process only annhilates new and colorful shirts.
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| Thursday, April 30th, 2009
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9:41 am - Dunkin Donuts tried to poison me.
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There are three drive thru Dunkin Donuts between home and work. I could likely withstand the onslaught through the first two. But the third is a little too much and I usually find myself pulling in each morning for a coffee with cream and sugar.
Today, all was not going to plan. The person in front of me was taking their merry old time. The clerk had to ask what my order was. It was the kind of dissheveledness that pops up at drive thrus run by teenagers.
But I finally got my coffee. Pulling away from the window, I flipped up the tab on my coffee lid and sipped. Then I screeched into a parking space, whipped open the door and threw up.
The coffee tasted like a urinal mint after a baseball game. It had no sweetness, only astringent burn and the hint of flowers. My throat closed and my eyeballs started to sweat. There was something added, something like paint thinner or antifreeze or polonium 210. The KGB had gotten me, those bastards. After all these years, the Reds had tracked me down.
Now, I'm normally very nice to clerks and managers of all kinds. But this was simply beyond the pale. I collected myself and stormed into the store.
"I need a manager" The stunned woman, the only one wearing a button down shirt rather than a slogan covered t-shirt, gulped and said "yes?"
"Taste this." I put the vat of evil on the counter. "Someone has poisoned this coffee."
She meekly took the lid off and sniffed the cup. "Oh." The boy next to her instantly recognized the fumes. "It's a raspberry."
"I'm so sorry. That is a raspberry cappuccino. We gave you the wrong cup."
"No. I have seen the wrong cup, and usually there are two girls involved. The contents of THAT cup are proof that God hates us and has let Satan and Jimmy Carter ruin the world. I mean really? You sell that? Sweet Jesus, that is awful. I thought you poured cough syrup into the cup."
"I don't like it myself," she said. She gave me a large coffee, that I watched her pour unmolested from the pot.
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| Friday, April 17th, 2009
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4:42 pm - That place with the steeple.
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Since we had Nougat dipped a few months back, we've been consistently going to services at the United Methodist church near the house. After so many years of anti-God and general religious malaise, it's interesting to return to church.
Growing up, church was stress. It wasn't just stressful, it was simply the source and the place and the event and the beliefs that represented stress as a whole. It was the cause of fights. It was a way of emphasizing how contrary I was. Church became a method of grinding down.
We're enjoying the new place because it has become a calming influence. There is no push by a priest to be perfect or prepare for Hell. There is no competition, particularly not against the super-godly members of the woman's auxillary or the religious ed board members. There is nothing about being a failure if you don't have a hotline to the Lord.
It helps to have a likeable pastor who keeps the even keel for the whole place. And she is sincerely interested in answering questions. Even difficult ones like "Did Jesus always know he was Christ? Even when he was an infant?" That wouldn't have flied with a priest.
It's also very odd to talk about God in public. We've spent so much time having that beaten out of us by friends and society. Self-identifying as a Christian comes with all the baggage and images of being a person that self-identifies as a Christian. It's still so difficult that the sentence comes out in the passive third person.
And maybe that's the biggest thing. We've found a place that doesn't mind having us stick around, and might like us at the beginning as much as they'll like us at the end.
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| Thursday, April 9th, 2009
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10:09 am
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I got a bit irritated last night. We had a window and door guy come over and give us estimates. Ten new windows. Three new doors. The possibility of expanding some of the basement windows from their little portholes to honest sunlight-in-the-room portals to the outside.
The total: $23,000. Breaking it apart, it would be ten grand for the doors, six grand for the upstairs windows, and seven grand for the basement.
Give or take.
What irritated me was not the cost. Sure, it was almost as much as we paid for the old house. It's more than we paid for the new car. However, it's good quality stuff and the company has a pretty good rep (except for one rater on Angie's List who completely nuked them for what appears to be no good reason).
It occurred to me that I was upset because my life is too stable. I don't have any opportunities for windfall money. It used to be that I could see some necessary expense coming and simply manufacture a way to get some money. (or, more likely, manufacture money to catch up after falling behind) Between research jobs, yard work for people, or simply copying twenty dollar bills at the 7-11, there were opportunities for more money. The cash would come just in time to pay for the expense.
Of course, my income now is approximately six times what it was when I could generate a windfall. But there is no feeling of infinite upside. I'm capped at the schedule of increases and raises that the office has adopted.
It's all made a little harder having left a job where I had the potential for commissions. Sure, I hated the job with the fiery passion of a thousand exploding suns. And I never actually made a commission since I was not allowed to take my own clients. But, again, there was the feeling of infinite upside.
Growing up is hard. Deferred satisfaction is hard. Living with the crappy front door and the busted ass windows for another year is extremely hard. (but forgetting about those out of work in this economy is quite easy)
And sucking it all up because I don't really have anything to complain about could be the hardest of all. Maybe that's the feeling I miss the most. Angst.
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| Friday, April 3rd, 2009
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9:08 am
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Recently, I've been trying to use my day planner a lot more. It's a very good planner, one received as a gift from the wife. She expected me to be a much more efficient user of the item, considering my career, my diploma and my actual job title include the word "planner".
But it's taken some getting used to. My old planner was a month-on-a-page job. This is two facing pages per day. A lot of space to fill.
So I've been getting better about filling the to-do list part. Now I have almost two months with pretty regular entries of things I got around to or didn't. And the facing page has been getting filled up with phone conversations. I can't take regular notes in the book because I like having my legal pad and I really like tearing out the pages to just stuff them into the file. However, the phone messages is a nice compromise. I'm feeling very efficient.
The next hurdle will be to try unifying my electronic calendar with my paper calendar. Our office does so much work through Outlook that there is just a massive volume of information that needs to be translated from bits to paper.
And yes, I did write "post to LJ" in my to-do list for today. See how well that works?
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| Friday, March 13th, 2009
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2:21 pm - Green parenting.
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We resist having Nougat watch television. While she enjoys The Office, she really shouldn't watch it.
But I do turn on the music stations while taking a shower so she can be entertained. The screen is pretty static, so she'll stare for a second and go back to what she was doing (usually eating her toys).
Today we enjoyed channel 1800 - "Songs of the Season" - which is playing traditional Irish music for St. Patrick's Day. I was thinking "Danny Boy" and the like. No.
After listening to some of the lyrics closely, we might hold off on any more of that for a while.
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| Sunday, March 1st, 2009
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9:21 pm - Fresh World - El Grande Supermarcado
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A few months back, a new grocery store opened up down the road from us. This is not usually cause for note, as the Greater Burnie Area has about a thousand grocery stores. We have our choice of twelve different ones within two miles. When you start to think about the how many grocery stores there are, it quickly dawns on you how many people live in the area.
But this new place is an international grocery. And it's awesome. First, it's cheap. Second, they have plenty of insane fruits and veggies. There are fish tanks where you can select your victim. A Korean lunch counter is between the seafood and meat departments. And there are women in the back stuffing kim-chi into things.
It makes one realize what is missing from normal supermarkets. Like smell. It would be easy to be disgusted that the place has a scent. But it actually smells like food. If there is a smell at a normal grocery store, something is wrong. Or, it's part of the manufactured supermarket experience. You walk into a Safeway and the only aromas are the coffee stand and the preserved flower cart. Kind of like a funeral home.
There's some weird things. They have the double aisle of woks and rice steamers. They have a big section of regular grocery stuff with plenty of items, but a limited selection of brands. And they have the insane selection of chips and snacks. blythefishy purchased some soybean pod crisps that are an unnatural color green and came in a bag that looked like a Tokyo arcade. Nothing too outlandish, and nothing that different from other international groceries in the area.
Bonus: there was a boy out front who helped put our bags in the car. We will be doing more of our shopping at this store.
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| Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
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8:45 pm
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Today was a day off. Work did not expect people to move in Prince Georges County, so they didn't have their workforce show up either. I anticipated getting some of the house cleaned up for next weekend's guests.
Of course, like clockwork, blythefishy got sick with the stomach bug. And Nougat refuses to sleep unless she's wrapped up like a burrito and walked around. Not just held, but walked around. I've covered three miles today, all in the living room.
And now, I've burnt my grilled cheese. Back to work tomorrow.
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| Monday, January 12th, 2009
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3:01 pm - PSA - planning for the upcoming inauguration
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So, like a good American, you are heading towards the inauguration to see the dawn of a new era in American, nay, world history. Due to a heady mix of bad planning and poor judgment on your part, you decided to wing it and are left out in the cold. Now you find yourself well outside of the Inaugural Exclusion Zone, in the unfashionable backwaters of suburban Maryland. What do you do? What do you do?
Well, you eat. But you will not just shove food in your gaping maw. You will eat with purpose! Like kissing someone at midnight to positively establish the new year, you will spend the inauguration eating symbolically. If you are in town, here are some places to try and what they say about you and your outlook on the world.
( Kind of like Zagat's for wonks )
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| Thursday, January 8th, 2009
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9:21 am
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After a week of fighting with the computer, I am asking the IT department to re-image my hard drive. There is adware lingering on my system, and it's just not budging.
We have a really good computer department. They provide an incredible product to the community and a lot of support to a wide array of users. The folks in this department range from people who were trained using planimeters and light tables to employees who are immersed in computers. I'm at the computer literate end of the spectrum.
But the IT folks are so good that they don't listen to the employees, regardless of our abilities. I've been emailing the IT folks repeatedly about the problems (missing files, continually popping windows, ads showing up on my internal email window, etc.) I'm astute enough to know that there shouldn't be three copies of rundll32.exe running on my computer. I would wipe it out, but the Adminstrator is the only one allowed to add programs or alter the registry.
Regardless, the IT guys show up at my cube and start using little words to lead me through starting the virus scan. "Now if you click at the thing at the top - that's the tool bar - and it will open a new menu - that's called a pull down menu..."
I've had to start saying "Tell me what you want me to do. Don't tell me how to get there."
Now, whatever wad of digital phlegm inhabits my drive is not showing up on virus scans. This has me very concerned. So, we'll see if they believe me enough to wipe the drive and start over.
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| Wednesday, December 31st, 2008
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9:28 am - Week 52
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I had anticipated being alone at work this week, able to get some reading done and some drawers cleaned out. However, that is not the case. Everybody is here. Phones are ringing.
I'm off the rest of the week. Then it's two weeks of work and then another three day week. (I'm not risking life and limb to come in on Inaguration Day. The world will be heavy with crazy.)
But we will take a few minutes to think about the last year. Speaking about being heavy with crazy, this was it.
It has been:
51 weeks since my last birthday and our first anniversary.
50 weeks since my diet was painfully and irritatingly reset.
48 weeks since I took my brother out drinking for his 21st birthday and I started talking about government bailouts
46 weeks since I avoided going to the UBSPI Auction, as the immediate past president, so I didn't overshadow the new officers. They raised a ton of money without me.
45 weeks since Barack Obama won the Maryland Primary.
39 weeks since we gave my mom a picture frame that said "Great mothers are promoted to grandmothers". It took her a moment to figure out what that meant.
36 weeks since the first hints of my displeasure at work (friends only) rose their ugly heads.
34 weeks since we went to Disneyworld.
33 weeks since we started the Month of Weddings.
31 weeks since Fishy the Cat died and we decided it was best if her sister Pudge continued to live with Aunt Toni.
29 weeks since we became suburbanites.
28 weeks since I became one with the joys of lawn care and home maintenance.
25 weeks since the search for a new job began to gain momentum.
20 weeks since we started looking for a day care provider.
18 weeks since I quit my job and we threw blythefishya surprise baby shower. Totally unrelated events.
17 weeks since I discovered load bearing caulk and significant water damage in the new bathroom. A month later, we got TubFitter, as I was not trusted with another bathroom project. It only takes one 18 month bathroom project and you're labeled for the rest of your life.
15 weeks since I started the new job and the world didn't end. Totally unrelated events.
12 weeks since I got a new cell phone with - get this - a camera. Who ever heard of such a thing?
9 weeks since Project Nougat came to a conclusion, and my time as a perpetual slacker and professional narcissist came to an abrupt halt.
7 weeks since we were told that the world changed. It already had, but took two weeks for the rest of the world to catch up.
5 weeks since we first ventured to having dinner outside the house with the baby. Five Guys hamburgers never tasted as good.
4 weeks since she met her great-grandparents.
2 weeks since my first appearance before the Prince Georges County Planning Board.
1 week since baby's first Christmas. I was almost completely forgotten. I am okay with this.
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