half a cat

I was sitting at the kitchen counter the other day poking away on the InterTubes when I got an ear scratch. So I dug in there with Mr Finger and gave it what-fer. As I was withdrawing said digit, I felt something like a hair or string — not an unusual sensation when you live with 2 dogs and a wife. It didn’t come off. No, it wasn’t glued there by some evildoer as a joke. No, it wasn’t just me needing a haircut. It was attached - alive if you will. Yes folks, I had long ear hair.

SONOFABITCH!

A quick trot to the bathroom to examine the situation left me screeching and humbled. I not only had one long ear hair — and not the feathery crap you get on the outside. No sir, this was a full out infestation of 2 inch hairs growing out of my ear canal. Correction, both ears. Thankfully I’ve got my 42-in-1 electric hair shortening kit nearby and fully charged, so removal wasn’t a problem.

Now, I’m convinced I’m not old enough to be experiencing this sick twist of nature just yet, so I’m on the hunt for some sort of environmental trigger that is causing this mutant growth. It can’t be beer, no - God isn’t that mean; maybe it is the lack of coffee - I’ve recently tried to move away from it & to the weaker-on-the-speed scale soda; Damnit, I’m stumped. Life is a cruel cruel mistress.

If you can handle a tapeworm story, venture within. No, not mine.

I shall henceforth not be eating steak tartar ever. EVAR.

That was the best t-shirt seen in the recent trip to Philadelphia.

So - wedding updates for the abnormally nosy or just plain voyeuristic:

• Location: Leaning towards the old Depot at Oscar’s in Billings — sight unseen yet, but it sounds neat.
• 2nd Best Man (As I’m the one doing the marrying, I should be the Best man) : Kris
• Groomsman ..mmm, gonna have to come up with a different title there, that sounds like they should be making a horse pretty. Not that I mind that comparison. Marcus,
• Master of Ceremonies: Lou Becht. Seriously — is there anyone better for the job ?
• Date : Oct 6 2007. Wow. I have a wedding date.

So — what else has been going on ? Work. Then some work, and a bit more work, I took a poop, showered, slept a bit, then a ton more work. I might have done some more work in there somewhere. Oh yeah — then there was that one day that I worked a lot. Then I mowed the lawn — cause lawn’s don’t talk

I’ve been working on a “Lustre issue” at Sandia - nights, days, and weekends for ~3 weeks now. This is right after the 2 weeks of Army fun and 3 weeks of ORNL fun. Results: ORNL upgraded to the largest open science in the U.S., narrow-cased the Army with one of the other engineers on the File System team here at Cray, and Sandia’s issue #1 fixed and issue #2 being worked way below Lustre. There are a lot of folks who I should thank for either showing me more about Lustre or helping me work out other interactions and issues with the XT3. I’ve already done so personally, so I will protect the innocent here.

BTW - I saw an IOR perform writes at 34 GB/s on Lustre. Holy @#$@#! For the supercomputer illiterate - that is like throwing 8 DVDs across the room every second. Yeah, we got some mother@#$ing performance on a mother@#$ing supercomputer.

Oh yeah, and one very exhausted and burnt out Nic. I’ve gotten some very nice emails from mid to senior level managers about my work, and the freedom to take the time I need to “work from home” and regroup. Have I mentioned how much I love working for Cray ? I have been really working hard to make sure I am making the most of this opportunity. I really am starting to feel like I can move more and more into being a real “developer” on Lustre and I think I can move into a technically senior position in a few short years.

Well — I’m going to have another beer and pass out. I think tomorrow is clean the office, sleep and make beer day. Maybe I’ll mow the backyard too. Anything could happen!

This was just going to be an Ode to my French Press as it truly does make coffee better than anything — besides cute little Catalan people in Barcelona, but I got to thinking on the various ways to wake up and figured I’d take it for a few laps around the dance floor. So hang on here we go..

Good ways to wake up:

• No alarm clock, just wake up to half open curtains feeling like that extra hour of sleep really did help. Even better if this is at 7am or so where you have the whole day ahead of you to do fun things like shag or ride the Harley. Heck, even cleaning the house or mowing the yard isn’t too bad, but moving hay would be a sucky reason.
• The 3am or 4am wake up call to go elk or deer hunting. I love the smell of morning during the fall/winter (ok, in Montana winter usually starts in November), coupled with getting all geared up with knives, guns, ammo, lunch fixins, coffee and donuts for the road. You are up early with a buddy or two, radio on in the truck and on a mission to kill something. Food must be hunted & gathered! No, no — not the blood lust of just killing things (that is what prarie dogs and gophers are for…) — the simple pleasure of being able to put a year’s supply of exotic meat in the freezer. Venison may not be exotic to those of us who grew up hunting, but outside of the gun-belt, it is a delicacy you pay upwards of $10 a pound for.
• With someone in bed with you. The is even better when you get to roll over and syphon body heat for that extra hour of sleep, otherwise known as falling asleep with someone again. There are the newly or just plain familiar smells of someone else’s shampoo and body, bits of soft skin (or hairy man skin for the lady readers), and those morning noises of yes I acknowledge being aware of you, but sooo not awake or willing to be awake yet. Want to wake me up?.This will definately start the morning with a smile on your face…
• Sex, a way to keep that smile going all day. Who needs coffee at that point? Ok, maybe if it turns into a morning non-quicky, that can wear you out a bit and then coffee is an appropriate postcoital drink. That half-hour of sleep can SO be sacrificed for a bit of sheet music. Guys - take note, most women love morning sex and you can score some serious points waking them up with some gental touching, remember foreplay! Women - take note, guys love sex, don’t need to ask - just jump us! It might be a good idea to wait until we respond a bit — just to make sure we are out of the grumpy wakeup and into the hey, sex! wakeup — probably goes for both genders.
• Music - anything soulful. To some Snoop or Eminem might be ok, but I need me some oldies country (thanks Flakes!), Dave, classical, opera, etc, etc. This just breaks the brain in for a morning of activity.
• Coffee, paper, fireplace. Hello winter! A Saturday morning in front of the windows watching it snow, fireplace roaring (none of those pussy crackling fires in the morning!) drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, maybe eating some berry & cheese danish. Mmm. This was life in Philadelphia and this winter in Billings - mmm, just beautiful. This can only be better if you are in a mountain cabin or lodge way up in the hills somewhere.
• After a massage. Generally I don’t fall asleep during a massage, but can near the end of them when the quiet period is starting. You wake up after 5 or 10min of just completely relaxed and refreshed, ready to go home and chill.
• There are a ton others, but I think I’ve gotten my favorites in here…. I might have to update it with a few more if I come up with them.

Bad ways to wake up:

• Fire alarm. Fraternity house, hotel, or worse yet your own home! The first two are usually less panicky, as some drunken idiot or wiring fault is to blame, but the last one usually indicates you will be talking to an insurance agent (hopefully!) in the very near future. Worse yet are winter mornings where you’ve yet to locate significant clothing, much less socks or shoes. Suck!
• Alarm clock for work. Evil, just f*ing evil. You went to bed too late, stayed up reading or watching horribly cheesy movies on hotel cable, or just plain couldn’t sleep. Add in a hangover for more fun. It would be so nice if there was an alarm clock that didn’t cost $2500 that could wake you up based on your sleep cycle so you would at least have a fighting chance at staying awake for the day.
• Wet spot in the bed. Let’s pray to all that are holy that it is some unfortuneate plumbing or roofing malfunction, a pet with a full bladder or some evil friend with keys and a bucket. No matter what the cause, there is always that moment of panic that oh crap, no! for god’s sake I’m 25 years…oh, stupid cat, you are gonna shittin’ die! Hopefully it is just a minor incident and you don’t have to replace the mattress…nothing like $1000 dollars down the toilet…or well, not in the toilet
  • Rick: “Yeah, yeah, I know! Shut-up!” Funny. waaaay too funny. Poor wifey!
• While driving. Ugg, I have had this one happen far too often and it is just about enough to give you palpatations. Pull over or change drivers, period. You are as alert as a drunk at this point. It is always 3 or 4am after 20+ hours into a road trip, coffee, cold air, midget beating you with a cane be damned, you are going to fall asleep. For added amusement throw in a heavy blanket of fog or snow. woot!
• Phone call. Unless this is a wake up call for some pre-planned activity, it had better be short and damned good to get me out of bed in the morning. Worst yet, your brain starts working just enough to keep you from falling back asleep. Ass-masters!
• People talking in the house waaay to early. Usually some form of relative or housemate with a death wish. Do you realize that I only needed an hour more sleep you inconsiderate fuck? I will kill you, at least until you die from it! I really hate this — not only are you now awake, you are so pissed at the lack of respect that you have no chance of going back to sleep. I’d call it justifiable homicide. Go ahead, put me on that jury!
• Not being able to sleep. Ugg. I got drunk, washed down some Tylenol PM with a few more drinks, everything! Usually the brain is churning overtime for some pseudo-important reason, leaving you tired and a bit peeved the next day. You’d think that they would have better drugs for helping us sleep, no ?

Ok folks, time for the reader participation game — what ones did I miss ?

Ow. What a weekend, good and bad. The highlights — moving hay, working on the truck and brewing beer. Sounds like a fun packed weekend, no? Well you can move the hay next time, thank you very much….now for the details.

As Kris & Christy have been watching Bogart for me while I go cavorting off to TN every month, I was asked to help move hay this year for their horses. They have a bunch (15?) of horses on their place and need to feed them. Apparently this means hay. Mary and Landon were also there for the fun, even though Christy so crawfished on a bet for the ride to Cody…bummer. How much hay did we get to move? Well, 40 tons or 1100 60lb square bales. Suck. For those of you who never have had the fun of moving square bales, it consists of throwing them down from the stack to the pickups & trailers, stacking them there, driving 15mph back to the place, throwing them off (most of the time up!) to the stack, and stacking them in the new stack. Uh-huh, each bale gets moved a minimum of 4 times. Oh, did I mention this was also the hottest day of the summer so far at 100F+? We were chugging water (”wood-er” for those Jersey folks), Propel and Gatorade. You know it is a hot arsed day when you chug gallons and gallons of fluids and never have to pee. We started moved bales around 9am and quit at 6.30pm or so — ok, so wussy-boy here quit around 5pm, but in my defense I had blisters on just about every finger. Yes Landon, our new friends will not have horses.

At this point we are tired, sunburnt and quite thirsty and hungry. K&C provided the booze and burgers, and off I went. I was lucky enough to have a person (you know who you are, and you soooooo rock!) who was willing to come pick me up and give me a ride home, so I decided to have a few drinks. End of the night, Landon and I killed most of a 1/2 gallon of Jack Daniels. Mmmm, tasty. Apparently (I use that word because I am working off of 3rd party reports and not my own memory) I left there at 9.30pm and was showered and passed out by 10pm or so. I’ve not gotten that rat-arsed in way too long, and boy did it feel good! Thankfully the buckets of fluids we consumed during the day prevented any serious hangover. Weee!

Sunday, sunday sunday I managed to sleep in a bit, but then was off to the races again. The sister gave me a ride up to K&C’s to grab my truck and Bogart, had some coffee and toast there and off to The Shop I was. Mr. Truck needed some serious part store lovins, so I hooked him up. New front brakes, tie-rod ends, front steering control arm and a quart of oil topped him up. I’ve still got to do the transfer case seals and the rear brakes, not to mention return the new air cleaner for one that actually fits, but I’m gonna tackle that some night this week. Hrm, I think I need new rubbers for the sway bars and a grease gun too. So yeah…my shop skillz are seriously amusing. I managed to gouge, pinch, slam or otherwise mangle a few more fingers — thankfully different ones from the hay-moving incidents. It seemed that Kris was quite enjoying my pain There was also a slight incident with lug nuts and proper torque that I seemed to experience on the drive home. Whoops, only gonna do that once!

That evening was the afore-mentioned BBQ & Beer brewing festival at my place. Portana — it was just a pilsner, an ale is a different beast. I shall show you the way, oh young apprentice. It was a pretty good show all the way around, just nice to sit back have some charred meat, cold beer and tell hillarious stories and jokes for a few hours with good friends at the end of a looooong weekend. There was also one hell of a thunderstorm that came through — we were all out under the carport sitting around for it, and some of the lightning and thunder made us all jump and squeal. A few were so close there was no time between the lightning and thunder, wow. Bogart slept through the whole thing, must be rough being a dog!

So at this point (and typing all this for you), 9 out of 10 fingers are bruised, cut, swollen, sore and otherwise f’in painful. Thank goodness the remote thumb is still in commission and Tivo has a few NAPCAR races for me to watch. I’m tired, happy, and can’t wait for next weekend!

So… you might have noticed that I’ve failed to update this in a while. Here are the recent events:

• Travis and Charla’s wedding. Wow.
  • Usually a single bloke like me has fun flirting at weddings like these, as there are lots of cute single girls. Not so much with this one — most of the girls there were either “with man” or were bitchy girls I went to High School with. Bummer!
• A nasty cold. Two weeks, one near death and not working. Sucky.
• Trip to Seattle for work, working at Cray.
  • I had forgotten what it was like to work normal office hours. Talk about a treat!

Here are a few pictures that I’ve managed to snap too.

• Bekkah and Bogart. I had Rebekkah here for a morning while Melanie was taking tests for school. That kid is just amazing! Melanie, you are a lucky mom!
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• Mountains somewhere close to Seattle.
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So, I have finally broken down and let The Man put it to me for a gym membership. The good news is that I will be working towards a very svelte Nic. Photos to scare the women and children soon! Kris has remained good enough to drag my butt towards said gym. Sometimes you just need a bit of motivation. I have taken it upon myself to start eating better to help this effort, so I will actually be cooking more and hitting Wendy’s less.

Melanie called me while I was at the grocery store, and it turns out it was Travis Gs barfday. The plan was to hit the Wild West (oh how I hate that place, let me count the metric assloads of cigarette smoke in the air…) for a couple of drinks and make an early night of it. Riiiiight. They were having a $1 USD special on Crown Royal drinks. Let the party begin! I had a few (ok, a few doubles, but who is counting) and had quite a good time.

It has been sooo long since I’ve gotten toasty on a Thursday night. I can’t help but remember the years of ol’ White Dog. Wow did we kill a lot of pitchers there, enough that someone named her cat after the beer we always drank. And no it was not “Bud”, we drank real beer. Following that link might shed some light on the naming of my group of friends too.