Jan 05

song for the broke

Posted on 2006-01-05 by henken

Ever since the second semester of freshman year at Penn, when I was rooming with the Rascob, I’ve laughed my arse off at this song. It really is funny. It was even better seeing it live too — and man we were HAMMERED (ok, side tangent from original post for a second) at that concert. “Handle” of Dr. Jimmy Bean, 30pk of Busch, and some other recreational substances make for a good weekend. Sigh, mispent youth and all. No wonder I got fat that year.

Anyways.. there is a lyric in there that is “give me back my money, you bitch” or something like that. So, I’ve always had a wee bit of a problem managing money. I can spend like you wouldn’t believe. Yes, I do have some very nice furniture, guns, computers, Harley (that wasn’t a impulse buy…), kitchen stuffs, etc from my shopping trips — but most of the issue is the amount of cash I can blow through. You’d think I have a serious drug problem, where in fact I have only a small one. Err, had. I do make a pretty good chunk from my job but I never seem to be able to save much, and always seem to be scraping by that last week of every month. As one of my housemates put it “You can program the Linux kernel, run clusters, and get through school but can’t balance a checkbook???”. I always imagine him saying that with the Genie from Aladdin – ” Phenomenal cosmic powers! Itty bitty living space.” Yeah. Good times. BTW — Thanks mdog for the fun times, too bad you couldn’t make it to Spain for the conference — as much your work as mine!

SO! I’ve taken the initiative (once again..) to use a computer program to manage my moola. I’ve made past attempts with M$ Money and GnuCash to keep track of expenses, loans, retirement accounts, etc. I started with the best intentions each time, but only to fade out of sync after a few months. I think this was due to how badly lacking each of those programs was in ease-of-use. To tackle this problem again, I have installed Quicken Deluxe 2006 and…well to make a very long story a little shorter – it rocks. I am able to download my credit card, retirement and checking information with one click — right over the web (This Internet thing is SO going to be cool once it takes off). There are fantastic tools for visualizing your balances over time, including a completely amazing (for me!) transaction scheduler. The TS allows you to put in all of your deposits and bills, giving you a graph of the daily balance. The retirement account (Investment Center) interface is fantastic. It collates all of the monthly purchase for each security and shows the loss/gain and %return for each one — so you can see where your return is coming from. There are also built in interfaces to hit Yahoo! for charts and research — not to mention comparing performance against the big market indexes.

The big new feature for me is the budget planner. I have NEVER made a budget before, and let me tell you — it is a painful process. One of my fatal flaws is the complete hatred at being restrained — personally, physically or mentally. Want to get me mad? Just prevent me from doing something with out talking to me about it. Very unpleasent, as I can be quite mean. So, restraining myself in the forms of spending when there is still 100s of dollars in the account is just hard, we are talking a completely foreign idea here folks! I started with what I usually spend per month on things and then with some fantastic help I started to prune down the discretionary items. It turns out that a few things are obvious — I have a metric ass-barn load of “mandatory” bills – Harley, student loans, utilities, rent, insurances, gym membership, pet food, etc – that I had no idea took up that much of my salary. I honestly had more bills than I realized. At the end of the day — I’ve pruned out spending totaling 25% (!!) of my net salary. Holy Shit. If I can (and I really realll really want to) stick to this budget, I will be able to pay off all of my credit cards by July and start to save for things that I want — like a surround sound stereo and leather coffee table. I might even pay off some other bills a bit early too!

So — cheers to Quicken, I guess that is my personal N.Y resolution, besides shagging more.

Dec 28

lazy bum…

Posted on 2005-12-28 by henken

So… in the interest of keeping this alive – I’ve shamlessly stolen this idea from someone else

What’s your favorite thing to do when no one else is around? Work late on computers, watch tv, read, scratch,take a long bath with a bottle of wine.

Name a guilty pleasure. Ordering delivery pizza when I don’t feel like cooking; staying up til 3 or 4am reading.

What’s your greatest fear? Being alone forever.

What’s your favorite part of your body? My brain, though after a year of working out my arse is making tracks.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? Better money management.

What’s your idea of perfect happiness? To do what I want to at a whim — eternal vacation.

What’s something you’re good at that’s totally useless?Making a mess — one of the best!

What’s your favorite album for a night of steamy monkey love? It depends on the mood — could be Coltrane, Dave Matthews, Korn, White Zombie, John Mayer, Norah Jones, Pink Floyd, Doors, &c. Country — not so much, the beat is too varied for a whole album.

What was your most memorable celebrity encounter? Edward Herman was at the Union League one night — quite interesting and tall. I think that is the only person I’ve rubbed elbows with — his wife was pretty fascinating as well. I’ve been in the same room with Tom Ridge (former head of homeland security — secret service agents are amusing), several big whigs from the powerbroker part of Philadelphia – polictics and such.

Who would you like to trade places with for a day?Brad Pitt. I would be a shameless slut that day — and make a lot of unsuspecting ladies happy too!

Who’s your favorite fictional character? Jack Ryan ala Tom Clancy, Jason Bourne from Ludlum,

What Hollywood star would play you in a documentary based on your life? Wow — a documentary on my life…that would be a snoozer. If I had to choose — someone in the rugged (as in can do farm work yet does know how to shower) good looks category.

What song(s) best represents the soundtrack of your life? Most songs coming to mind seem to short or only address a certain part of my life — maybe that beer comercial “back in the high life again..”

If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be? Ooooh — one of my favorite naughty jokes! A whale – 14 foot tongue and the ability to breath out the back of my head. grin

When you were a kid growing up, who did you imitate when you stood in front of the mirror? Nobody that I can remember — probably someone tough with lots of muscles.

Name a book you’ve read recently and liked. I’ve been reading a ton lately — right now I am most of the way thought MuCullough’s (sp?) John Adams — before that was the B. Franklin “The First American” — both are FANTASTIC biographies of amazing characters from our American Revolution…and you thought party politics were nasty today! The lily white pussies in D.C have nothing on the founding fathers — espeically when they had to vacate the capital (Philly in those days — D.C was still a swamp) due to Yellow Fever. Modern day pansies… I’ve also got a few new Indian cookbooks that are teaching me well.

Name a film you’ve seen recently and liked. A week of vacation is awesome — Serenity today (great flick), Pirates of the Carribean.

Name an album you’ve heard recently and liked. Portana is right — Nickelback & the John Mayer Trio new ones are great — got a Weekend at the Rocks with Dave Matthews that wasn’t too bad, Brad Paisleys newish one is pretty good too.

Finish this line: “If we can send a man to the moon, then why… ?” isn’t our culture (American) less focused on material possesions and more on character merit?

What will you remember most about the ’90′s?High school and puberty. Fun stuff Wade.

Dec 19

let me count the ways

Posted on 2005-12-19 by henken

So — today is going to be a recollection of things I miss about living in Philadelphia.

Food. There are a few decent restaurants here in Billings, but to get good quality food you have to pay for it, sometimes dearly. What I miss about Philadelphia is that there were tons of local places that had a dish or 3 that were really spectacular — the Lamb Curry at Tangiers (an otherwise completly shabby and tiny bar, entirely fantastic) , which was a total of .5 blocks from my apartment. Pine St. Pizza, and your tasty, tasty cheesesteaks, my hangovers miss you and your greasy goodness. The places are too many to mention — I just miss the sheer numbers and variety.
Cultural events. Call me a snob (oh quiet you..) but donning a tuxedo ala Bond, spending $200+/ticket and heading out for a really good fun time in the upper crust of societal events was a thrill. I think part of it was the “Young Professional” scene — a self-fufilling dream where just being in a crowd with 25-40 something folks who all were at least psuedo interested in seeing the theater/opera/ballet/symphony and not just nailing the open bar for the ticket price equivalent in booze. Just being there made you feel that you were on the top of the ‘game of life’ and had truly made it — mainly because that is what everyone there thought. Perhaps it is the conversation with folks that had drive and passion for work or life or achieving something that at least appeared good and honorable with their lives. I don’t take anything away from people here — life is just different and I truly think the character of people here is far above and beyond that of the East Coast — but I miss the discussions about politics or art. I do get a large amount of this thanks to a few friends here, but perhaps what I really miss are the events dedicated to it. It is true to a certain degree that you had to be at least partially successfull to attend such events — you had to have the extra Benjies to blow, but the real trick was getting invited on someone elses bill — a feat that was accomplished more than once. BTW, yes I look like a younger-but-manlier Bond in a tux.
Shopping. (In a manly sense. Like some folks I am not a woman deep down inside — at least not completely.) I’ve been accused of being part old woman (I have plants, birds, can cook, knit, crochet, cross-stitch, like to garden and generally hold an intelligent conversation while looking a large breasted woman in the face), but that is not really true. I was just raised to be open minded– yeah that’s it! Anyways… how freaking hard is it to have shopping for things that just approximate current styles? Am I now required to purchase casual shoes with a minimum sole thickness of 2″? Why OH F@#$#ING WHY is there not a good place to get a hot shave ? (Ok, that one appears slight dandy, but if you have never experienced one — shut up. You know not of what you ridicule. Besides at somepoint we men get married and need equal ability to spend $50 on “spa treatments” — I prefer mine to be functional as well.)
Housing. Ok — here is the big one bugging me of late. Perhaps I was just spoiled in my apartment, but is it really that hard to build a house today that does not look like either a complete cookie-cutter subdivision nightmare or that the “architect” (and I only use that word because they insist on calling themselves that..) went to the Helen Keller Corel Draw School of House Design by Number? Good god — let us take 10 parts fucked up layout, knee walls, vaulted ceilings and pre-fabbed furnishings, mix with 42 parts assbarn derived roof lines (seriously — 40% of your front eleveation is shingles — Hellllooooo!), toss in a sprinkling of insanity with siding choices — honestly, neutral brick and greyish-beige steel siding. HAVE SOME DAMN imagination. The real horrors come on the inside of these places — carpets, gas fireplaces, odd shaped rooms, sanitized wall coverings, and just BAD decorating. I’m just about to put the pool of architects designing these monstrosities into the same pool as laywers — Flabby Hunks Of Whale Shit, Inc. Also — would it be impossible to design a large house that doesn’t take the GNP of a small country to heat and cool ? For fuck sake.

Dec 02

Furburgers

Posted on 2005-12-02 by henken

Fug….fug….FUG. What a day, hell what a week. Work has been sucking a bit of the life out of me this week — just stressful issues with testing and such. Kinda one of those weeks where you look at what you got done on Friday and say “gee, that almost is visible”. I think there should be a large mark on my forehead by now too from all the of the head-against-wall whacking.

But I digress… TGIF! So — it has snowed every day this week. Snow makes me a happy man. I’ve got a fireplace, a dog, a canoodling gf and ample quanities of food & booze. It is gonna be a good night I’m looking forward to a nice slow-brained evening, possibly getting hammered flat. I could do it, I swear. This weekend is looking up – I’m on the hunt in the house here for my Christmas Tree decorations…I’m really hoping I got those in the move. If I find those, gotta get a tree — something about that smell. You people with your fake trees and fake holidays — BAH!

The “group of us” is heading up to RockDodge town for a night of drinking in a small town. Why? Someone needed to burn a gift certificate to a hotel up there…and the rest of us are going too. Not staying in the same room though, I don’t like anyone that much There has been promise of snowshoeing on Sat, and I’m sure I will freeze, fall over, get snow in very unfortunate places and have a generally fantastic time.

Well — here is to you and your weekend, now get the fug out of my way, I’ve got time to waste!

Aug 18

Cleaning day

Posted on 2005-08-18 by henken

Greetings — it is alive again! I took a break like so many other people have as of late. It must be the late-summer-taking-vacation-blues. The last week and a half have been a cornucopia of things happening – Harley trips, work fun, family happenings, partying, friends visiting from out of town, and the odd things that life brings up. So in true lazy git fashion, I bring you the bullets!

Lou! Awesome visit. It was fantastic to reconnect with college memories and stories again. It turns out we had a ton of fun in college…I thought so! Playing golf was fun and I don’t mind losing by 40 strokes when I play the best game of my life. Yes I can count those on my toes, but I only lost 5 balls this time! New record — it sure beats having to buy and entire box to go out. BTW – did you yack up the pizza too? I soiled some poor peoples’ gutter while out walking the dog. It turns out that barfing up pizza looks the same now as it did in college — remember that one? Thankfully this time the cheese did not hang on the chainlink fence… Note to the masses: never, ever, ever beer bong a Yuengling after you just bong’d (new verb?) half of a box of wine. Note to self: you really are an idiot.
Portana! Great ride to the Bozo, despite the coldest temps of the summer. It is amazing what leather will do as a functional piece, not to mention that whole wearing-leather-feeling-sexy-thing. It was the first trip I’ve actually felt like a Harley “road-dog” — you know the folks all leatherd up with copious amounts of baggage tied down with bungee cords. I’m soo looking forward to many more of those trips, especially to Sturgis, Jellystone, or some romantic get away. Your friends were a kick, but I think we agree on how life and its paths are funny like that. Too bad the Jellystone trip had to be junked, but 9h to Denver is looking to be a LONG day. As always, you steal my heart without meaning to!
Liza! Nice job in Turkey — you have no idea how proud some of us are of you. It seems like only yesterday we were drinking at the ‘Dog every Thurs or traveling to Ohio to watch you kick heads. Congrats! I’m going to post a few photos, just cause you are that cool!
Pooperbook: finally into the shop. Yay! It turns out the harddrive was standing on the edge and needed to be replaced. Booo! Hopefully (and I say this with finger, toes and testicles crossed) it is the fix that was needed, cause that whole crashy-crash thing is getting to be boolsheet.
On vacation. In the last 2 weeks, I’ve taken a total of 5 days of vacation, and not a moment too soon. I was becoming extremely burnt out on work and the hectic pace of life that is here in MT was not helping me to recoup. I’ve managed to do absolutely dick last week as far as cleaning or anything of merit is concerned, but boy did I have fun being a sofa cushion. Today I’m on a super cleaning streak (well once I stop writing to you bastages): the office, file papers, bird cage (they are getting given away, I forget to feed them), floors and laundry. I also need to get bottles for beer and a few other errands. I’m actually looking forward to having a clean office, even if it means finally unpacking several boxes. Tomorrow will see the lawn mowed, edged, and weed & fed. It is bad when you have more cottonwood trees next to the house than grass — enjoy the rain today my friends, for tomorrow you will DIE.
Harley, etc. Ok, so $119 USD for an oil change is freaking ridiculous. Granted I only have to do that every 5K miles, but at the current rate that is one or more per year. I should mention that there are 3 oils that need to be swapped — engine, tranny and primary, so not all that bad considering they are all synthetic too. I still need to get the rest of the 5K mile service done too. I saw a Screaming Eagle Fatboy at the Belgrade shop on the Bozo trip — it had the new 200mm rear tire and a bunch of other goodies. Yes, I am trading in my bike when the 200mm becomes standard equipment on the regular Fatboys. This will probably happen the same year that my 3 (or is it 4…time to dig through the paperwork) extended warranty expires, so good time to move up. It will probably cost me 3-4K out of pocket to do the trade, given the need to get the Stage 1 and pipes for the new bike and get a few paint booboos repaired on the old bike, but well worth it I think. Yes folks, I have a girl that loves to take the Harley on long road trips and then go out for a romantic night. I win!!!!! Sorry ladies, I’m taken now (you had your chance) and this one can sooo kick your butt. Probably mine too. On the road trip note — I think a windshield is in the near future. I can do the 2h or so to Bozo at 85mph no problem, but if there is any bit of wind it really takes the stuff right out of you. For those of you thinking I’m a pussy — bite me. I was of the same opinion (windshields are a tombstone for your sex life) until we hit wind coming back from Bozo. Reality has a way of smacking you right in the head & neck. Look at all the road warriors out there (not those fake assed ‘trailer-it-to-Sturgis’ dentist types). You will find windshields and some funky getups. Message being: be yourself and get a windscreen, they help. On a related note — the Chatterbox folks have given me some hints on getting the unit to function better with no wind noise. We shall see.
Family. Mom — can’t wait to make pickles tonight. Nothing like homemade pickles! Melanie — good luck in the UK! Remember to use the pub cash! Jeff – take care of her and make sure she is done freaking by the time you leave. Also – get ready for hunting season, it should be a good time. Gack, I have to get tires for the truck before that and to replace the existing ones it is a re-cock-ulous $152 USD a piece. That is 30% of the purchase price of the damn thing — but if I am going to bitch about that I should mention the gas prices. Ouch, in the butt and stuff with sandpaper condom. It hurts. Allison – congrats on the new job, amazing what you get yourself into. Good luck with your new place in Bozo and school this year, I will be up to visit! We should go skiing too…and get a fake (oh quiet Mom…) so we can get out and tear it up a bit too!
Work. It is official — I’m a travelling whore. The whore part was existing, they just put me on planes now. I’m riding the bike down to Denver, well really Boulder is what I’m hearing on the grapevine, Monday. 552 Miles, 8h15m at posted speeds. With stops, I bet it takes me 10h to get there, but boy am I going to enjoy that. Who knows what I will be working on starting Sept 1st, but it really doesn’t matter. I think I was fretting about the ORNL thing, but really it isn’t that bad and I could use the 2 extra months to kinda dig my mgmt reputation out of the gutter. It is mostly my fault, that whole consistent communication thing, but hey! I am learning. From talking to my boss , a very refreshing take on things was made and I feel better already. Thanks dude! I’m kinda hoping that I get to fly to ORNL at least once more — I need the miles for a free ticket to England to visit the sister.
Money. I think bills are actually gaseous objects. It seems no matter how much you make, the bills seem to fill up all existing paycheck space. Thankfully I am getting near paying off one bill and with a little help from work in the salary department, I should be able to start squishing credit cards. Wee! The goal is to get everything but the Harley and student loans paid off in the next few months. Then to start saving for a house purchase. I need the tax break and the equity if not the fun of owning one’s own place. I really want to buy this house, but I’m not going to pay more per month than I am for renting it…so I might be looking at downsizing. I didn’t really want to do that, moving sucks and all, but the more I think about having less monthly expenditures, the more happy I am. Of course the new place will have to have a great fireplace, hardwood floors, central air, dishwasher, garage, etc. I’d really like to have a gas stove again too — cooking on it is so much better.
Blog links: Ok, time to add a few more of my regular haunts. Portana was added a while back, now we are adding nitefire, hempler, the hillarious P (xmasbaby), jeff, and davem. Greetings from your referrer logs!

Well folks, I’d best get at the cleaning here, or I will sit on my arse all day and get nothing done. Laters!

Jul 29

3somes and other sports

Posted on 2005-07-29 by henken

Ahh… so I’ve been MIA for a few days from the whole blogisphere. I’ve really been getting good work done at CFS, so been directing the creative and expansive juices in that direction. Given that…time for a few shorties:

Black Eyed Peas – sexy – sultry -georgeous lead singer. Mmmm, tasty — her, Gwen Steffani and a ..well let’s call it a good time had by all. Oh yeah, their music is pretty darn good too, been jamming all morning. How is it that I am actually listening to main stream pop culture music? Am I losing my discretion ?
Great American Hillclimb. Good times, I will have to explain the fun after this weekend, as I’m just not going to do the stories of yesteryear any justice. So far it has been a bit of cat herding to get all the friends on the same page, but I think we’ve got the plans lined out. Rough plan is to get there at 6.30am to setup the double truck & canopy venue, bust out the steak & eggs on the grill, start drinking (DUH!) and get things situated before they start launching. Loooots of drinking. Lots.
England – only two weeks until the sister and the niece fly out — I’m so happy for you!
Back, back, back at the ORNL. I’ll be in TN again Aug 1-6, good times. Things.move.fast. This is supposedly the second-to-last trip I will make there under the current contract, but I can’t see how the contract would end now — to many things to be done. The good news is that after 4 more trips, I will qualify for Elite status on NWA — free first class upgrades and 150% miles. Oh yeah.
Coding is fun – I’ve gotten to do some again this week at work, turns out I’m still good at it. Thankfully I’m not a completely useless “suit” yet.
New motorcycle helmet. Modular, super comfortable and full face protection. I can’t wait to ride on the highway with this thing, I won’t have a super sore neck or bugs implanted in my face after riding at 100mph! I know, what a wuss, but have you ever hit a dragonfly at 100? How about a cicada? Didn’t think so! Them buggers hurt.

Well I’m getting bored now, so I’m going back to work so I can get to the gym and head out for a lovely dinner date, nothing like starting off the weekend the RightWay(tm).

Jul 25

Hung like a what?

Posted on 2005-07-25 by henken

Just dropping this in because I’m having a good Monday at work, will qualify why later:

Update: Ok, now for why I wanted that shirt yesterday. This last weekend was a complete lazy-fest.

Saturday I woke up lateish, did the lawn mowing and a bit of yard cleanup. I then had to think about what to do for the rest of the day — thankfully Kris helped me out and I then spent the rest of the day on or near the Harley. I picked up sister Melanie for a house-sitting run to the west end, then off to McKenzie River Pizza for a few brews and lunch. Yummy says I. We stopped by Mom’s shop to chit-chat a bit, then dropped Mel off and headed to Kris’. A few more brews outside wandering around the place attempting to avoid She-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, but Kris wanted to ride the bike so I headed for the sofa and the 64″ DLP. I zonked out for an hour or so while he had his fun, we both win! That night was an adoption celebration shindig at the Morse’s, followed by a good drinking binge on the patio at Tiny’s Tavern. Jager, DuckFarts, and a liberal application of beer did a Nic good. DD: Thanks!

Sunday – of course, I was well hung. I spent most of the morning and early afternoon snoozing on the sofa and chugging fluids. NAPCAR provided the 20min bursts of between nap entertainment. Nothing like taking 6+ hours to watch a 3 hour race. Sunday night — made some bread again, been ages since doing that. It was a bit on the oogly side and a bit dense side, but boy! was it tasty. Makes good toast too. Early to bed, quite late to rise Monday morning.

Now — with all that said, Monday morning I felt like a champ. I was able to really get cracking on a few work things and it looks like the trend is increasing for the rest of the week. I think I’m pretty well over this mini-burnout. I should be doing REALLY well after a few nice long Harley trips I have planned for mid August and the long weekends of vacation I have scheduled for then. Sooo looking forward to the 6 hours or so ride from here to West Yellowstone through Yellowstone National Park.

Jul 21

Rise and shine!

Posted on 2005-07-21 by henken

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 ?

Jul 18

Round ‘em up and head ‘em out!

Posted on 2005-07-18 by henken

What a weekend — this one was a bit rough. We started off Friday night with the Urban Pioneers first game in the Big Sky State Games. I was riding the pine for the first few innings, not such a bad thing given how damn hot it was. My team seemed pretty determined to hit the self destruct button — error after error after error. It was the proverbial coupling of monkey and football. Thank goodness no one kept an official count. I got to play the last few innings, until we the game was called on the 12 run mercy rule. Home for a nice carbo-load dinner, and a quiet night. Quiet night gets interrupted when Landon called, Josh’s b-day to be celebrated. Grabbed the Harley and headed to Bullwhackers for a 2 drink cheerio and out of there before people got too damned retarded. Side note: Bullwhackers now to be called Nutsacks due to the abundance of idiots wearing pink (!!) shirts to the bar and trying to start fights. You dumb, for goodness sake there were 2 of you and 4 of us; not to mention we were much younger and bigger. You dumb.

Sat Morning I was the official pit & road crew for my 1/2 marathon friend. It turns out there is a 6am and it is pretty early, but sadly the sun has risen at that point. Dropped off for the start (in Laurel), headed home, ate breakfast, filled gas, got a cup of coffee, drove back, and they are still running. A whole new respect for those that abuse their bodies in such a fashion. For crying out loud, my truck takes more than 1 gallon of gas (yes, such a gas-guzzler) to go that far! Sometimes people just need a friend, and it is nice to be that friend

The rest of Sat was spent dozing and avoiding the heat until the next softball game at 3.30pm. It was freaking hot, but not as bad as the previous evening. I played the whole game, and had one of the best games of the year — all over the outfield helping back up tough plays, lots of good compliments. I still need to work on the hitting a bit, but I’m making good progress there. Not too shabby for not having played in years. We still lost 10-15, bumping us out of the tournament, but it was a great game nonetheless. Off to home to scarf down a pizza and nurse my wounds. I slid into homeplate to score a run, forgetting that sand works much like a cheese grater. It suuuure is ugly, that is for sure. Out to the pond during a big rain storm for the night. Played cards in the gazebo with the crew until midnight or so, I was pooped. Bogart is hillarious — running around in the rain and pond, then comes in right under the table where we are all sitting and shakes off. Hosed everyone — good doggy!

Sunday was another day of playing mechanic. The truck no longer leaks ATF out of the transfer case and has a bright shiny new A/C compressor installed. I just need to get a few new parts and adjust the power steering belt tension — then we have A/C in the truck! wOOt!!! All that is left is to do the rear brakes and get new tires. Sooo gonna be glad to have that done! It was pretty fun hanging out at the shop all day. Matt, Mandy, Landon and Mary were there for food runs & comic relief. Bogart got to run around with 3 other dogs for the day and wear himself out. Speaking of which — funniest Landon quote of the day: “Ha! On Wednesday Bogart will live up to his full name — he will be Humpfrey (hump-free)”. Yes, goes to the doc Wed for the snippy-snip. I am still chuckling about that joke…poor dog! Stopped by Mom’s for a beer on the porch and a chit-chat before I came home to NAPCAR and bed. Such a tiring day.

A fun weekend, sadly not enough Harley rides, but I am looking forward to a couple of planned weekend road trips to make sure I get enough miles on the girl. Hrm, need to go down this week and get those new plates too. Wee, now off for another rat race week!

Jul 14

You better hang on….

Posted on 2005-07-14 by henken

Dear self,

You have shit that needs to get done, I’ve been so nice to compile a list for you so that there are no more lame excuses and so everyone else out there can see that you are a big fatty-fatty-bo-batty slacker and just sit around drinking booze and watching porn. Now put down the coffee (yeah, like you need to be awake for cleaning the toilet) and get moving. Oh yeah, sorry forgot about that job thing. I figured since you never get anything done, you were still phoning it in. Silly me. God, if it were not for me, you’d never get anything done! Ok, you did get the truck fixed last night, but I’m gonna chalk that one up to extreme luck.

Finish cleaning the house – floors, laundry, mow the yard, bathroom, beer stuff, bird cage.
- For god’s sake take a day and clean the office. I wouldn’t poo on the floor in there, much less work 8 hours a day.
A/C Equipment on the truck. Can we say 106F yesterday? I think I sweated off the second testicle, lucky for you I can regrow one. Not that you ever let people know you have a set. Wuss.
- Make appt to get this serviced at 17th St Conoco. The A/C idiot, unless you like the bees fondled by auto mechanics.
Buy a softball glove. How many are you going to drop before you just spend the $40 USD, lamer?
Pay bills. Actually file away the stubs into the filing system. I’ve heard if you do this you can actually find them again if you need to!
Water the plants
- Swap the tomato plants and astilbes. Transplant your lame excuses for herbs & green pepper plants to the “garden”. Heh, yeah garden, riiiight.
LOTS of weeding and plant killing to be done in landscaped areas, not to mention some serious gutter cleaning (yeah, the landlord sucks assmahr) and trimming up the Ivy vines.
Fix holes in fencing that let Bogart get out and about. Speaking of the dog, I’m gonna call PETA if you kick him one more time – stick to punching around women, cause we all know you are good at that.
Figure out vacation days, it looks like your lazy ass does not need a solid 2 weeks off next month.
Buy plane tickets to England. Make sure to go on NWA so you get freq flyer miles this time.
Get new motorcycle helmet, this time a full face one. No one wants to scrape your brains off the road, but then again that shouldn’t take too long! Make sure to look at the non-HD stores, you Label Whore.
- Look into helmet-to-helment comms for long rides. I’m not sure who would want to talk to you, but I have to figure that it would be much better if you could annoy them with your drivel rather than listening to Barry Manilow and talking to me.
Get chaps repaired, figure out if you can get jacket waterproofed and the sleeve zipper fixed.
Dry cleaning & arrangements for next ORNL trip.
- Need to see if can push off a week until first week of August.
Move the ‘server’ computer to a spare room that has cooling.
- Might be good to install an OS from this decade, so you don’t have to keep adding security fixes by hand.
Laptop to get serviced !!!!!!!!!
Ride the Harley, all over. Doh — need to get the 5K service done too.
Find a way to make $5K USD more per month, apparently you cost me a lot of money and need to start carrying your own weight.
Do more running per week at the gym. I’ll give credit to you here — you are down 7lbs and starting to see definition in the abs. Now just keep it up. I think you are onto something running faster miles rather than further. Bring a book, so we have something to do, I’m getting bored.
Dog to the vet. Too bad we can’t have you neutered too, for humanities sake!

I think that should do the list for now. If you can manged to get this done, I’ll crap my pants. No really

Editors note: God, that guy is such a dick, see if he ever gets to get laid again.

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half a cat

Rantings from this unholymess

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