The Audible

It would seem that people can sense my intentions and will shift things in the universe just to make things happen. As I was about to execute on the whole "out to dinner plan," a friend calls up and says that his girlfriend's sister is in town, and wants to go out to dinner. He wants me to go with the three of them...

Blind Date Sorta.

Which leads me to two possible preconcieved notions about this whole thing:
1 - That he is serioulsy concerned that the GF's sister is going to cockblock him all night (which doesn't make much sense, they've been dating for a while)...
2 - That he's trying to use me as a distraction because he can't stand her, or just doesn't want to be around her.

Neither of them give me anything even resembling a desire to go out, but I can't say no to a friend. Especially if she's the cockblocking type. Ladies, a bit of a lesson about guys...

Cockblocking friends do serve to ward off the assholes to a degree. But fortunately, years of evolution have lead to the males in our species devising phenominal strategies with which to combat your efforts. In the end, the assholes still get through, and their friends end up spending the evening chatting with someone and wishing they could slit their wrists wide open with a cocktail napkin papercut. The general point is: be the asshole yourself, and just say "you aren't interested" to the choad in the played out unbuttoned dress shirt.

So, not only am I going out, but I get to drive to downtown Seattle from my house in the rain.

We end up having dinner at Buenos Aires in Seattle. It's really a great restaurant, and I haven't ever found a steakhouse like it. Argentinian food is delicious...

And the entire night was really enjoyable. I have to say that I haven't had that much fun with strangers (I'd never met the GF or her sis) ever before, and I'm glad my bud dragged me out. Adrianne (the sis from Florida) was really cool, and I'm glad I got to meet her. Hillarious jokes (I've never laughed so hard in my entire life), actually interesting stories, and she's really cute too. It's a shame she lives in Florida...

So I guess that Friday night was a great night, and it set the weekend up right.

Coherent?

-The following events are true. Only the names, places and events have been changed to protect the innocent.


Last night I ended up getting really good Japanese food. The moment just kinda hit me while driving, "Yakisoba and a side of Gyoza sounds really good right now."


I was going to cook this chicken dish that I have been brainstorming for the longest period of time (and will post the recipe for if I like it), before I ended up going out. I'm not going to cook it tonight either. I still have not decided what I want to eat tonight, but I better get on the ball. It's already 8PM as I type this.


Today at work I was proven right after someone had doubted me multiple times. It was rewarding the first time, gratifying the next, and never got old for the rest of the day.


As a result of the above I won a couple of bets, and dropped all of the money on wine... Hello Chateau Margaux! I did buy a few "drinkable now" bottles as well. I'm excited about the; Latitude 46 Clifton Cuvee, Graham's 85 Port, and BR Cohn Olive Hill Cab.


For some reason, the rain can sense my car being clean. I know that everyone says this, but I think that I have a special bond with the clouds in Seattle. As I pulled out of the car wash, it began to rain. It was barely cloudy when I got there... Maybe four or five in the sky, in the period of 25 minutes, became rain, and it hasn't stopped since.


The rain is also one of the factors that's keeping me from going to get dinner right now. I think that I just have no desire to go drive in the rain to some restaurant. I know what I want now though, I want fish. The place I want to go is less than ten minutes away, and has absolutely delicious food.


Alright, here I go...

Out To Dinner

So I spend the day at work, think up a great combination of ingredients that I want to try out, and stop in to Metropolitan Market and buy them on the way home.

I get into the door, and put everything on the kitchen counter.

I change into some not-work clothes (jeans and a t-shirt), and wash my hands.

And so there I was staring at the ingredients, and I had lost all drive and desire to cook anything at home. So then I sat in the kitchen trying to decided what I wanted to eat. And I am still lost.

I think I'm just going to leave the house, drive around, and end up stopping in SOMEWHERE to get some dinner. I have no clue as to where, what I want, or anything. I just know that I have no desire to cook.

Blogger Does It's Best To Be A PIMA...

That's Pain In My Ass people...

So this thing just deleted this ridiculously long post that I had written about what was going on with work, and how excited I was. I can hear the sighs of relief already about the absence of my ridiculously long post. So I guess I will do my best to retype it as close as possible to the original.

-

So at work today we had another meeting about "new products." I guess with the summer drinking season right around the corner, everyone wants to rush off to market with their latest and greatest idea to carve out a larger piece of the beer market pie (chart). We really do show the market shares as pie charts on our Power Point (cha-ching, Microsoft royalties... J/K), and one of the guys at one point made the comment "so how do we carve ourselves off a larger piece of that pie? We all laughed, and it's been the corny joke of the meetings since. But I digress...

Of course everyone has what they thought are some great ideas for the summer, and while I can't drop names, for fear of being fired for releasing trade secrets, there are some winners and losers in the products we previewed today.

New "Premium Malt Beverages": (For God Sakes, BITCH BEERS)
-So there are so many of these that I can't even remember them all. Between us and competitors there are going to be Teas, Energy Beers, new fruit flavors, and Light versions of everything. We did see a ton of commercials, and my favorite has got to be THIS one. I don't know why, but ridiculously white guys rapping about being ridiculously stuck up is just hilarious to me.

Summer Seasonals:
-Yes, it's that time of year again, and so the lighter easy drinking beers flood the shelf. EVERYONE and their mother is producing a summer seasonal this year, and sadly enough, they all have a really similar flavor profile. I've always been partial to the Sam Adams Summer Ale (which remains unchanged in the bottle, but the packaging is different), but there are some beers that may make it into my fridge this summer, and a couple that I may even be willing to pay for (hey, I'm sure you get something free at work, I don't take pens home, I take beer)...

Hops:
-2007 may be the year of the Hop Bud... Some breweries are reversing trends and releasing heavily hopped beers this summer, in lieu of a seasonal. These are going to be year round brews that just happen to coincide with the summer seasonal release. In the market, this is intended to capture a percentage of the people trying new summer beers, and get them into a beer that will be available year round. There are four or five ales coming to market that are beyond IPAs in the hop category, and the darkest one is a Red Ale, which is also one of the highest in IBUs (the measurement of bitterness).

Insanely Expensive Beer:
-So I am drinking this bottle of beer. ONE BOTTLE mind you... I am halfway through it while listening to the brewer, and I am thinking that this stuff sounds labor intensive to make, and the ingrediants are quite pricey when added up, but it's delicious. Then we get to the numbers. $14.00 a bottle. FOURTEEN U.S. DOLLARS A BOTTLE... FOR A BOTTLE OF BEER... I guess that the logic of "you only have to sell a few if they're fucking expensive" might have a chance to pay off here.

Fruit Accented Beers:
-Not in any way "fruity" beers, these just have various fruits used during the brewing process that manage to infuse just the slightest bit of flavor into the beer. Really a subtle and refreshing hint of flavor, and not a punch in the tongue. Everything and anything has been used, but my personal "neato" beers had; Pomegranate, Blueberry, Orange Zest, Lemon Zest, and Raspberry. These should all end up as year round brews, but some may end up in the seasonal category if demand slumps during the fall and winter.

So that was my afternoon. From eleven AM to seven PM we just drank, ate (lunch was a really mediocre chicken marsala dish, I was not impressed by the caterer), talked, drank some more, ate (dinner was herb crusted prime rib and a saffron infused rice pilaf, caterer is back in my good graces), talked for an hour about numbers, and then had a neat beer with desert (hint, the blueberry beer was here, and it was SO PERFECTLY MATCHED with the desert). I stayed in the office late trying to get ahead at work because tomorrow looks to be a nightmare...

Friday is going to be a good one though, and then this weekend I get to do a lot of housework. As much as this sounds not fun at all, I am looking forward to it. I have no idea as to why.

Stormin Out...



OK, so PS, South Park was ridiculously funny tonight.

So I Get Home

And I do what I do every day. Grab a ROCKSTAR, turn on the TV/Monitor, turn on the computer, and begin perusing my daily blog reads...

During all of this I opened my Email, and I have a "Forward" from some jackass whining about gun control, the dangers of firearm ownership, and the need to keep firearms away from people...

As such I have deleted the person who forwarded the Email from my address book, and blocked their address. I can't stand people who want to whine about the government trying to take away their privacy rights, reproductive rights, gay rights, etc... But when it comes to MY RIGHTS (and I want my privacy and such too) they don't give a damn about my constitutionally listed right to own firearms. They're kept unloaded in a safe (well, everyone except the one I am carrying at the time, because YES, I do have my concealed carry permit), they are registered, and they are no threat to anyone except someone trying to harm me...

So while I own many firearms, here is a photo or four of the scariest looking one. This is the kind of gun owned strictly for competitions or collecting (I do both). No gang banger is going to have one of these, it's custom made for me and cost more than any small time crack dealer could earn in a month.

Comped CAR-15


Unloaded. Note the nickel plated cases on the rounds. These help the action (bolt) cycle smoother as it fires, increasing reliability, and at ONLY DOUBLE THE COST... :-)


Upper Receiver Open


Upper and Lower Receivers separated. This is how it is stored, and as such the thing is useless. It couldn't fire a bullet if someone got a hold of it, and would only do damage if they threw it at someone (and not much at that, it's really quite light).


So, sorry to not be my normal sedate self. I'm sure that some (or many) of you all may disagree with me. I welcome your comments for discussion... :-)

New Parts For The Car...

So after much math and debate, I think that my bonus is going to be a bit more than initially anticipated, and even after the IRS gets their (outrageous) cut of it, I may have some extra bucks to spend. So I think I might pick up a part for the car (or two, depending upon what I buy).

The first option is and always will be a set of wheels. But I did just buy new tires, and so I would have to sell the current ones (or have a second set). That dilemma aside, I really like the wheels pictured below, but I may have the centers powder coated a different color. See photos below for the idea of my craziness. It would be 19's in the front and rear. And with a staggered width (8.5 in the front, 9.5 in the rear, with 245-35R-19 and 265-30R-19 tires) to clear the brakes.


Or redone to look like the one below. It is a silver car.

Or maybe getting a new Carbon Fiber Front Lip ala the Mercedes McLaren SLR 722.

Or perhaps a new suspension to tighten up the ride. The problem with this is that "tightening up the ride" improves the cars already good cornering at the minor expense of making little bumps into bigger deals. A buddy's car with a suspension similar to the one I want probably would knock the fillings out of most peoples teeth, but I don't have fillings so I am less concerned. But I do drive the car every day, so I would stick to something adjustable and just keep it on the softer settings. KW makes a good setup that is surprisingly cheap for what it is, and the bound and rebound are fully adjustable. Soft on work days and rock hard on track days...

Here's a pic of what it would look like on car (wrong color, wrong engine even but I have no desire to photoshop it right now). Just to get an idea of how low the car would be, the wheels just would tuck right up to the fender.


And while there are pros and cons to all of these things, the only one that I eventually will HAVE to do is the new wheels. I'm having the front and rear brakes replaced (in about 9 months), and I need to have 19 inch wheels to clear the new ones, which will be a set of these:

Renntech 405mm rotors with 8 piston calipers on the front, and the AMG rotors and calipers from the front are going to the rear with the help of some custom brackets.


So there's the car update. I'll post something with more substance and less whining tomorrow... :-)

Oh My God...

Family Guy tonight has got to have been the most out there episodes in the history of time...

Red Flannel Feety Pajamas, the On Her Period Raggedy Anne Doll, and " I think I might be Jesus..."

This entire episode has had me laughing so hard I can't breathe...

It's almost April...

I can't believe that there is one week left in the first quarter of the year. In 7 days 2007 is 25% complete. For me April means many things.

Bonus checks... In my business bonuses are paid quarterly. It used to be every four months, and that sucked, but someone came to their senses and decided to pay us once every three months. It makes no difference either way for them (bonuses come from our suppliers, so it's not money out of their pocket), and we don't wait as long for money that we have already earned. My bonus check (which I have already calculated the value of) is going right into savings. But at least I get to earn interest on it.

Car Shows... There is a huge one in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho this month that I have been looking forward to. There is as big Seattle contingent that is leaving as one group to drive over and back, so the six hour trip isn't going to be that bad. I have a ton of things that I have to get before then though. 2 way radios (1 for each car), some more detailing supplies for the car (I have to fully detail the car in Idaho, after the drive over, so I make a "car kit"), booking hotel rooms HERE, and tracking down someone to come with in my car. The radios make the drive a little better, because we can screw around and chat the entire way there, but it's nice to have company in the car for the trip. Either way this is probably the highlight of the month.

Tax Refund... So I always wait until the last minute on things that matter, but I was worried about having to pay, and instead it looks like Uncle Sam owes me $800. I think that the check covers my trip to Idaho, so I go on a vacation for free (or damn close to it). SWEET...

And of course I'm sure that more stuff will come up, it always does.

If Only

If only I could convince myself that sleep would be a good thing right now...

I have no idea why, but I can't sleep right now. I am not tired, I am not "drowsy," and I know that I am going to pay for this one tomorrow when I need to be thinking about Monday and getting back to work. Especially because on Monday I need to be in early. There's a reason for that, and I guess as I am not going anywhere, I might as well post the story.

So on Wednesday I sent my boss' boss an Email after I got some bad news from my boss. The news isn't really that bad, in fact it just has to do with my vacation changing, but I was pissed, and so the email went something like this:

I need meet with you ASAP.

In fact, that is the entire Email. The whole thing. No salutation, no closing, no signature, just that. And I am a person that writes really long emails about the simplest of things, so this probably came across as quite a shock, and might have given him cause for concern.

So he finally got back to me on Friday, and asked if I needed to come in and see him. Now, I know that my boss has already talked to him about why I was mad. I know that there is absolutely nothing that he can do to change the end result. My vacation is changing, because while seniority does not mean shit for promotions and pay raises at my job, it does have it's benefits in choosing your vacation. And I am the youngest and newest guy in my job... I'm fucked. So of course I tell him that it's not a big deal, and that I may have overreacted in the first place.

But for some reason he insisted on meeting with me. First thing Monday morning, he wants me to come in and see him. Then he changes his mind and it becomes; first thing Monday morning, he'll come to see me, and we're going to breakfast. So now the simple and unchangeable statement that my vacation IS changing is going to be hashed out over a breakfast that will probably cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $100.00, and I am going to have to give up a morning. If I had a lot of free time on Monday this wouldn't bother me. Unfortunately, Monday is one of the busiest days of the week for me, and I don't really have the time to spare. At the same time, it's not as if he has a lot of free time in all of the work that he has to do either. So now we will both be in early, or be staying late, to go to breakfast Monday where we will talk about something that I have come to terms with, and neither of us could change if we wanted to anyways.

That said, knowing where we are probably going for breakfast, I am going to have a tall glass of Blood Orange Juice (looks so cool), a Pecan Caramel Machiatto, and a Seafood Omelette. The omelette is one of the greatest creations known to man. Shrimp, Dungeness Crab, Tomato, Cheese, and small bits of Bacon inside. Then topped with incredibly thin slices of Avocado... It's heaven for breakfast.

And how does this all tie in to the fact that I can't sleep?

Because if I'm up late tonight, I will sleep late tomorrow. If I sleep late tomorrow, I will have a hard time going to bed at a normal hour Sunday night. And if I don't get some sleep Sunday night I won't be capable of waking up on time Monday morning to enjoy my breakfast.

That Guy

So I guess that in everyone's life they have "That Guy."

He's the one who does so many things to irritate the shit out of you, and yet still you manage to be civil and polite. Usually you work with him, and you have absolutely no choice but to deal with him, so you try to be nice. But there are so many things that you would love to slap the shit out of him for...

Recently "That Guy" in my life has acquired a new trait. One that has managed to put him over the top in the realm of "irritating as shit."

One day sitting at my desk, I managed to notice a particular odor that invaded the entire room. It filled every nook and cranny in the place, and while it wasn't a "bad" smell, it didn't smell "good" by any judgment. But the smell faded soon enough, and that was it.

The next day the same odor managed to fill the room yet again. It was even more pungent and managed to be quite irritating in the fact that it was ALL that I could smell. But again it faded from the room, and was gone from all but memory. That is, until I went to use the restroom, and I smelled it again. That same scent just filling the room and invading every receptor in my nostrils. It was even more pungent than before and the memory seared itself into my brain. But I didn't smell it again that day, and I was sure glad as hell that I didn't.

The next day, about the same time as before, a head pokes itself into my office and the smell follows it. It's THAT GUY, the guy that infuriates me beyond belief, and the smell is somehow coming from him. It is annoying, it is pungent, and it is invading the sanctity of my office. The room is filled with this scent instantly and it's as if I've been given a death sentence by "gas chamber." So as politely as possible, I posed the question; "Hey, are you wearing a new cologne?"

His response is so positive it's overwhelming. Apparently he has tracked down a scent that he has fallen in love with! He's found a whole line of products with this scent! Hooray for him!

So this pervasive odor invading my office is the result of the assholes at this company manufacturing every product known to man. Cologne, Aftershave, Body Wash, Bar Soap, and Lotion... All of them containing this miraculous scent that somehow smells like a cross between a mild vinegar, a skunk fart, and a beer belch. (Maybe it's not that bad, but it sure does fucking reek.)

So not only does this guy CONSTANTLY irritate the shit out of me with the things that he does, and not only do I have to put up with him because of work, but now every time he walks past my door the memory of how much this asshole bothers me comes flooding into the room...


So how on earth do I deal with this shit now? I can't stand that smell. I seriously want to vomit every time the odor hit's my nostrils. And unfortunately I have no clue how to convey to someone that their bathing in, spraying on, and then moisturizing with, this one scent has managed to make him smell as if he is in fact made entirely of it. Even if it were a good smell, it would be to much. The fact that it is a bad smell is just going to drive me insane.

For My Good Buddy Tom

Go Gators...

Unmotivated

"Once for an entire year I thought I had mono... Turns out I was just bored."


So it's not as if I don't have things to do today, I just for some reason or another, lack anything resembling motivation to do them.

Maybe it's the fact that it's Friday.

Friday is usually so busy, and the entire day is spent trying to finish stuff as fast as possible just to go home at a reasonable hour. Today is an odd day in that I have about four hours of real work to do. If I were to start on that work right now, I would be done and on my way home at 1PM. But I don't really want to be leaving work just as people are coming back from lunch. To me that just seems kinda mean. As they are trudging back into the office to put in another four hours of work, I'm sprinting out the door, removing my necktie, and laughing maniacally...

So instead, here I am on my blog typing away about nothing. I have the TV on, but I'm not really watching it, just have it making noise as a general distraction. I did see the video of that baby polar bear in the Berlin zoo. That damn thing is so cute that I am now determined to go to Germany and kidnap it.

My keyboard actually drowns out most of the sound from the TV. In fact, the sound of the keys just clicking away probably makes it sound like I am working so much that everyone else is a slacker by any comparison.

I can see a couple of the bosses now, out of the corner of my eye. They're probably 15 feet from the door to my office just chatting away. I'm sure that they have nothing to do either. Nobody has anything to do today. I bet we're all just slacking as much as possible. I can almost make out their conversation....

"Listen to Stormin over there..."

"Yeah, I know, he was in the office at six, and has been just on the computer ever since."

"Man that guy's a workaholic... Wasn't he out at those meetings with the beer guys almost every night this week?"

"Yeah, but I guess he's young, he can take it."

"See, and I was going to give him some stuff to do today, but he just sounds so busy over there, and it is Friday, I don't want him being at work all night on a Friday."

"Crazy son of a bitch would do it too."

(While that is all made up, I am now certain that they have used the phrase "Crazy Son Of A Bitch," when referring to me...)

I have no clue as to what they actually think I am doing, but I know that our work computers have filters and such beyond belief. So while my work computer sits idle, my laptop has a wireless broadband card, and I have a DVI cable for the monitor. So as it appears to the outside observer, I am typing away at my desktop machine, maybe writing an important Email to someone, or perhaps finishing up their performance evaluations for Human Resources. I am in fact just screwing around...

Ah the joys of work.

So what do I have to do today? Well here are some of the highlights...

-Stop by and see one of the district managers and pick up some lift tickets from him for a concert/boarding at Snoqualmie Pass this weekend. I'm not going to the concert, and I could go, but I think that the weather is just going to be shitty this weekend. So I'm going to give the tickets away to a friend, and I think he is totally amped. Time to complete: 20 Minutes

-Grab a keg and drop it off at a friends house. He's got some party going on this weekend that I've already said that I can't attend (I was going to go up to that concert, before the weather got bad), but i am going to hook him up with some beer. Time to complete: 1 Hour

-Dropping the tickets off at my friends work. This isn't really "work" but at the same time, he works for a company that we deal with on a regular basis, and as such it's sorta like work. I think that them seeing me there is going to be one of those times when it looks like management from a company you worked with has stopped by to see you. In fact we're just going to be joking around and drinking Caramel Macchiatos. Time to complete: 1 Hour

The rest of it is just the collection of general things that need to be done every day and don't even warrant mentioning.

So now I'm going to go grab some Thai leftovers that I have in the breakroom fridge, maybe watch an hour of news, and come up with a plan to steal that baby polar bear...

Thomas Doerflein can kiss my ass.

Editing...

So editing a new blog is a royal PITA.

I have to add about three dozen links, I want to redo the text labels for my blog history, and I'm already debating changing the template...

Right now I'm just trying to figure out how the HTML is so different from my last blog, when the damn thing looked identical. You think that I would either want something different or have saved the code from the old one... NOPE...

So I may have to tweak this thing a dozen times tonight, but I will get it to be the way that I want it to be before bed tonight.


On a positive note, it appears that I am home at a reasonable hour. Hooray for slacking!

So I guess I was wrong.

Three bars in two different cities later... We've finally launched the new beer.


I got home at 11:23PM...


Oh well, it was worth it. I played a ton of pool, even more shuffleboard, I won a surfboard (I don't surf...), and I was still sober and could drive home. It was a good time.

Work

Left for work at 8...

Home from work at 11...

Up tomorrow at 5...

Home tomorrow night at 9 or 10...


Aside from that, everyone seems to be sick as hell, and I'm feeling fine. My boss is just dying, many of the people on my team have bronchitis, and it's not getting a whole lot better. Sadly enough, this is not the reason that I am staying late. I just can't shake the whole; "I'm worried that if I'm not there, the beer will stop existing," feeling.

I know it sounds self absorbed, but with everyone needing some time, I guess I just don't mind stepping up and doing what I can.

Fun post tomorrow night, we're having a release party for a brand new beer...

Up All Kinds Of Late

So, in trying to get some work done, I have managed to stay up all kinds of late. It's now just about 2AM.

And everyone managed to call in sick today (just like last Friday)...

So it's been a long day, and tomorrow is going to be more of the same. Only much more tired, and with even more work to be done. But at least I know that nobody was faking it on Friday. They were all still sick today, and even more people are getting sick.

Silly me, I thought that things would slow down after St. Patrick's Day!!!

So I Needed A New Profile Pic

And that means that I had to post this somewhere.

New Blog...

So, my old blog got crowded.

Welcome to the new one.

I will be updating, and I saved a lot of my old posts for reference purposes, but the old girl is gone!!!