September 2003 Archives

The city inspector-man gave the garage framing a thumbs-up a little over a week ago. Special thanks to Jon for helping me get the big honkin header lifted in place!

In my eternal slowness, I spent the weekend putting up the home wrap. As it so happens, the wind chose to blow too, so that I could enjoy the challenge. I don't like being up on a ladder in the first place, but when relentless gusts are shoving great sails of flappity plastic in my face, I gets me some cranky. At first, I didn't secure the roll, and got to re-enact scenes from every sailing thriller where people get knocked overboard by the mainsail boom at the worst possible moment. I finally learned to wedge the roll nice & tight before doing my climbing.

Exhibit A

Doesn't that look like fun?

Ooh! Speaking of fun...

Rob came cackling down the hallway today, asking if I had seen the sign on the restroom stall door yet. So I jumped up to check out the latest intrigue:

Man, that was harsh...funny, but harsh. The particular grammar/spelling errors give me a good idea who wrote it. But sheesh. Tell them to take the paper back out when they leave? Back to the lunch room tables? Back onto the little stack by the microwaves? I'm this close to printing up a few sheets of little biohazard labels so that the poopy-paper crowd can visibly mark the compromised sections before returning them. Yech.

I'm officially in middle of my second week of biking to work. I've been wanting to do this for some time, but a couple things kept holding me back:

1) Busted, rustified bikes.
2) Fear of traffic
3) Combover issues
4) General laziness

A few months ago, I was out playing softball with a bunch of folks, and running bases over and over (since I'm a mastah hittah), but I ended up blowing my lungs out and collapsing on a bench, and had to put a Bogart on Amanda's asthma inhaler. The fact that Gloria bulldozed my butt into the dirt at second base didn't help things either. (My hips are still all jacked up after that, and I will get you someday Glo!) So anyway, that was just one of those things warning me yet again that I'm just a few steps away from complete cardiovascular collapse. I mean, how am I supposed to have enough stamina to run through the office screaming and dive through a dual-pane window when a disgruntled ex-employee busts in and shoots the place up?

So I swindled Amanda out of her old Huffy men's bike, got a new seat, tires, lube for the chain, headlight, taillight, and helmet and shaped it all back up a bit. Most of my peers ride quality bikes with shock absorbers and stuff, and discuss name brand biker shorts, and own hydro packs and Fremen still-suits. But I've always just ridden laughing-stock garbage scows in my levis and a t-shirt and continue to do so. The helmet is a new thing though. I never wore one all the years I rode to school, or when I worked in downtown Phoenix. But it's a good idea. I've seen and heard from enough people since then who've gotten messed up from biking accidents, that I'm sold on the idea.

Except for the hair thing.

Combovers don't play well with helmets. I'm talking about dry, feathered combovers, not those greasy, stringy combovers. You could have somebody sit down on one of those, twist around a couple times, and then have a dog lick it and it wouldn't look any worse. But the kind of combover I try to wear has a very narrow margin for presentability. And I was all kinds of worried that the helmet would have me looking like Bill the Cat by the time I got to work every day. But after getting a nice, scalpy hair cut, and waiting until I get to work to style and spray, it's not as bad as I thought.

So anyway, it's a 7 mile round trip each day. Which is pretty wimpy in the grander scheme of things, I know. But what I thought was a level ride, as I drove in my car, is actually a pretty steady grade upward on the way to work in the morning. Man that tore me up the first day. My mouth was hanging wide and I was coughing like a smoker by the time I got there. But it's gotten better every day since. I've also worked the route out so I confront the minimum of traffic on the no-shoulder/tractor-trailor carnival sections. A half mile of that goes along a rock and gravel path next to the railroad tracks. That's the part I enjoy most, due to the huge prairie dog community that gets put in an uproar every time I roll through. I guess they're used to all the trains barreling through there. But when I move in, they start squeak-barking at each other, and I can just imagine the content: "Fat man on a little bike! Fat man on a little bike!" And then you see these furry bullets scurrying back and forth across the path, with little trails of dust marking their passage. I caught one of them unaware last week and got to see a good 5 or 6 seconds of scuttling white prairie dog butt running directly in front of me before it peeled off into the brush.

The fact that it's uphill on the way to work, obviously means it's mainly downhill going home, which is an extra bonus at the end of a long, hard day of sitting on my can. Hooray!

Oh! Here's a picture of the jumping spider that's been haunting our living room ceiling.

I'm kind of partial to these spiders (phiddippus pulcherrimus?). I've seen them in white, and red like this one. Besides beeing a cool-looking critter, watching it dodge around up there looking for goodies is entertaining. Knocking down the dessicated mosquito husks with a broom is a minor pain, but very satisfying.

Also, I managed to scan some pre-digital pictures and add them to the Fancies section.

Steps for a simple meal:

A) Preheat oven to maximum burn.
B) Grate cheese on large tortilla.
C) Put fixins in broiler.
D) Walk in other room to catch a 'couple' minutes of TNT programming.
E) .....
F) Panic in whatever way seems appropriate.

I was sitting here consuming a rather floppy, but quite delicious piece of pizza just now, when a flutter of motion caught my eye. I looked quickly to my right and saw a flinchingly large spider frantically scuttling up a dropline that was suspended from a smattering of papers on top of my computer. That dropline meant that it had just jumped or rappelled after something--perhaps a carelessly flicked crumb of pizza crust--before scrambling back up to its hidey hole between some papers.

I like most spiders. I'll even pick up some of the bigger, more colorful jumping spiders to show the kids. But large, long-legged spiders, especially the ones that can run faster than I can, invoke a very intense fight-or-flight instinct for me. I watched where it went, and then tried to figure out what to do. It's leg span was about half-dollar size, and its sprinting speed made me think it was a wolf spider. So I didn't want to kill it. But I couldn't have it sitting there. Staring at me. Jumping down to attack every errant crumb I sent its way.

So I grabbed a couple empty CD-spindle lids to try and catch it and send it outside. No good. That skittery little booger dropped like a dart...ooh I'm getting shivers...right through a gap in the desk. And now she's down there somewhere--in the hinges and crevices of the desk--hanging from my mouse cable--lurking under the power strip--or on the leg of my chair--anywhere she wants to be. Sprinting like one of H. R. Geiger's aliens through the miniature ductworks of the garbage around my desk, just waiting to scurry up my leg or arm. I probably should've just laid waste to it when I had the chance, because as bad as my concentration normally is, I can't concentrate at all now.

::shudder::

This afternoon, I was in the process of resizing an 8" x 10" ad down to a 7" x 5" post card. So I hastily mashed all the chunks and bits onto the smaller page and got ready to settle into the process of making it fit when I took a step back and thought about the certain style it already exuded. I mean, chaos is cutting edge in its own way isn't it? And isn't cutting edge what advertising is all about? You should make people react and think when they look at your ad. And if reading three overlapping blocks of text doesn't get the old noodle working, I don't know what does.

But there's so many ways to be cutting edge besides chaos. Like the Communication Arts journal we got in the mail yesterday. I opened to page two, and there in all its glory is a full page ad by Corel (You know, Corel Draw). The ad features a dark, sultry scene with a deep maroon love-seat. Splayed out upon the love-seat is a moistened lass in black lingerie who is the proud recipient of a well-toned male suitor whose face is quite neatly buried in her, um...lap. The tag reads "Creative director by day..." I especially enjoy the dot dot dot part. Sheesh. The whole point being that, ooh! I'm supposed to burn tire right over to the Corel website on the off chance I'll stumble across more steamy Harlequin vignettes. So there you have it. Riding the Trashy edge.

Then there's the Somethingorother Restaurant in town that uses Cutting Edge Annoyance factor to bury the airwaves and ingrain themselves in the besieged subconscious of their targets. Their spots feature 'Beuford the Bull Elk' talking in what I guess is supposed to be the gruff, gravelly voice of an actual elk speaking English. Beuford punctuates the high points about the restaurant by getting yeeha-excited and bugling various lengthy elk calls. It wins my Most Irritating Flagstaff Radio Commercials of the 21st Century Award hands-down. I can just picture the deliberations about each new ad: "I don't know Bob, the spot is only 30 seconds. Do you think we can afford to spend a total of 15 seconds on elk bugles?" "Dadgummit Mike, how many times I gotta tellya the local hunters just eat that stuff up, and it bugs the livin crud out of everybody else, so it's win-win no matter what!"

But then there's the good stuff. Cutting Edge Funny. Like the Kohler commercial that shows a husband and wife coming home from work. He's walking, she's driving. They catch sight of each other and the race is on. She's careening down the streets; he's jumping fences and short cutting through yards. The entire time, they're ripping off various articles of clothing. They both reach the house at the same time, but the husband gains the edge as his wife, finally down to her last few undergarments, takes a bad turn, slips, and does a full-body wipeout on the lawn. (The lady who pulled that stunt deserves an award, btw.) The final scene shows the wife, key in hand, peering through the chained door and crying out as her husband basks in the glory of the Kohler shower experience. I laugh silly every time I see that commercial. If I thought our shower and pocketbook could stand the strain, I'd shop Kohler first, just because of the enjoyment that ad has given me.

Yikes. I gotta go.

Hello and welcome. It's a wee bit past midnight, and I'm working on a freelance jobbie for a local housing development. Well, I'm not actually working on it now. I'm obviously taking a procrasto-break to gripe.

It's a pocket folder with the usual promo gab inside. My print broker contact, let's call him 'Bob', wants it CHOCK full of images. White space? Vat ees dees vite space you speak of? Bleh. I hate crow-barring stuff into a layout. Oh man, and talk about white space, all the people pictures in this thing just scream Honkey Trek--The White Flight!*

The job was given to me along with a "Lifestyles" image CD that apparently had all the dark tones filtered out. Heh. I mean this is a pretty crackery town to begin with, so I guess we're basically just following existing demographics. I don't have a royalty-free image library of my own, and the budget doesn't allow me to custom order anything above & beyond what 'Bob' could provide me. So we're going to keep it on the porcelain side for now.

Alrighty. Gripe done. Must finish and get to bed.

*Special thanks to Berk Breathed circa 1980-something for that one.

Oh boy, I've got to share this. Steve, our media team leader/bossman, sent this email out to the whole building just now:

Dear male associates of Elden View.

Not meaning to exclude the female population but I have not heard of this problem with the female rest-rooms.

I personally prefer to read the newspaper in the lunch room, at a table. Please leave the newspaper in the lunch room. If you would like to eat your lunch in the rest-room please do, but leave the newspaper in the lunch room so we can all read it without having to get it off the rest-room floor. If you must read during your time in the rest-room please take your own personal newspaper/reading material in there with you. You then can leave it and anything else in there and the rest of us won't care.

Please be considerate of your fellow associates and leave the newspaper in the lunch room for all the associate at Elden View to enjoy. Thanks for your consideration.

Man that was awesome. I had just come out of the facilities and was shaking my head because we get two copies of the AZ Republic here, and both front sections were splayed across the floor of the handicap stall. And as usual they didn't have the decency to at least drape them over the rail. I did my civic duty and put one of them up there. Trying to make a difference, one newspaper at a time, you see. Then I got back to my desk and saw that email. Woo. I'm glad somebody else worries about these things.

At this moment, billions of neutrinos are shooting right through me, racing in from the heart of the sun, on through my pancreas and spleen, through the Earth's core, on through a sleeping rice farmer in Sri Lanka and then off into the vast emptiness beyond. All but a scant few of them blissfully unaware of the furniture, critters, planets, nebulae and galaxies they've blown through.

Some days, that's just what I feel like. A big, slumpy neutrino conduit. I'm so tired, I can't think straight. I was up until 4:30 in the morning working on an illustration for work. One of the marketing groups is working on pumping up the sales force to sell one of our recently released products, and they wanted a...uh...um...hang on a sec...darn neutrinos...they wanted an illustration of the product in the guise of a super-hero, chasing a competitor product, and then a follow up image of this mascot in a Rocky triumph pose. Sales folk love this sort of thing, you see. Very rush-rush basis.

Corporate and competitor identifying marks have been blurred to reduce risk of offending said corporations should such visit this page.

I'm kind of partial to the bad guy. Reminds me of one of the art directors I worked with.

Note how expertly I jacked up the abdominal anatomy :-/

Well, after a bit of proofing and discussion, it turns out they were actually after more of an anthropomorphic cartoon character for their mascot, complete with oversized Mickey Mouse gloves and shoes. Oh well. There wasn't time for preliminary sketches, and there's no time for a redo. They were fine with it being used the way it is, but for their actual mascot down the road, they're going to want a Gumby-style character. Hey, it's their gig.

We took the kids to the County Fair on Monday. It rained and rained the first couple hours we were there. By the time it cleared up, the midway was cleared out of all but the hardiest souls and we took the kids on the rides. The last time they went on carnival rides was the tame stuff at Disneyland last year. We started out slow, and worked our way up. Giselle was all for hitting every ride she possible could. We eventually made it to that one ride, the one that, um, you know, with the big spinny chairs...darn stinking neutrinos...::snapping fingers:: um yeah, the Tilt-a-Whirl. Giselle wore a freaked out face for the first few seconds, but then she started enjoying it. Harrison, on the other hand, was exuding abject fear and had sunk his claws into Amanda, holding on for all he was worth. After we got off the ride, Giselle was absolutely stoked, going on and on about how she wanted to ride it again. But then she caught sight of the more gnarly rides and started pleading to go on the Twister and other barf trains like that. Bzzzzt. Sorry. Not tall enough. Man, when I was her age, I was grade-A coward material. You couldn't even get me on a wimpy little kiddie roller coaster. AHHHHHHHHH!!! MAKE IT STOP!! DAAAAAAAAD!! MMMAAAAAKE IIIIIIIIT SSSSTO-O-O-OP!!! AHHHHHHH!!!

There was one bittersweet moment of kiddie tragedy as the two of them tried to find their way through the funhouse mirror maze and Harrison pancaked his face into a plexiglass wall. But aside from that, they were loving it. Oh yeah, a Harrison quote from the day: "Stop huggling me, Dad." Ow, it burns!

Alrighty. Gotta run. More stuff to do. Neutrinos to filter. Even get some sleep, maybe.
P.S.

I think there's one or two of you that enjoy these things too:

The latest wacky search links to this site:

"lyrics of the song of winnie the pooh that starts this way... winnie the pooh doesnt know what" (I'm number 3 on that search, baby!)

"jedi are weak" (stupid jedi)

"firecrackers blowing up barbies" (Move along. Nothing to see here.)

"neighbors pool nekkid"

"pushing suckas consciousness" (lol)