Monday, November 29, 2010

Two stories with the word "smuggled" in it

Saturday, I'm sitting up in the living room watching something (Glee? Hannah Montana? Wizards of Waverly Place? Phineas and Ferb? Something) and all of a sudden, Bradley starts barking up a storm.

It was the kind of barking he does when he sees Lawn Boy working back there and he can't get out there to play.

I peeked out the back to see if someone smuggled into my back yard. Alas, I saw nobody.

He continues barking. Almost as if there's Zombies out there.

So I head downstairs and see him staring out the patio door and barking up a storm.

I get there and peek and see nobody out there. Alive or undead.

Then I see it!

On the patio there is a SQUIRREL!

And Bradley was trying to inform said Squirrel that s/he shouldn't be out there 'cuz it's HIS patio.

I quietly open the door and let him storm out, chasing the squirrel up the tree. That'll teach him! (Ok, probably not, but it was fun to watch)



So, some random girl from the other side of the floor comes over here and says very shyly, "hi..."

I go very energetically,"HI!!!!!"

She asks if we're the appropriate people to go to with Essbase installation issues.

I said "not particularly, but I'm feeling in the holiday spirit to not let you deal with desktop support, so I'll help you!"

She looks over on the side of my desk and points and says "is that...."

I said "Yep, it's a water feature!"

She says "They let you bring it.."

I said "Yep, I smuggled it in!"

She looked blankly.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Weird Star Alignment

Ok, so I've had times in my past where stars weirdly aligned and I ran into people I knew. Like the time I went and got my hair cut at the same place someone I went to college with at the same time... and we went to college like 1200 miles from here.

Or the time I went to the UPS Store to mail myself something and dude said "Your name sounds familiar" and came to find out we gamed online together several years prior.

Or even the time that I found out someone I went to school in SC and I happened to cross paths about the time I moved back south and she moved up north, and we had our own mini-class-reunion.

But today, Internets, SO MANY stars had to align for this to happen.

Two companies ago, I worked with this awesome person in HR. Let's call her Sunflower. No, she doesn't have a hippy mom [at least I don't think], but she does like the sun. We worked on a couple projects together to make her life easier at work.

So, I'm in traffic in Buckhead today and there's someone honking at me two lanes over in a convertible. I look and see a female waving at me, so I'm like "Obviously she has me confused for someone else, because I'm GAY."

I keep staring and think "She's almost familiar, but I can't recognize her.. maybe she has one of those familiar faces... I mean, I have a lot of people think they know me when they don't."

Then a minute later my phone rings.
"Hello?"
"Smply?"
"Um.. yes..?"
"It's Sunflower."
"Sunflower...? SUNFLOWER!"
"I'm stuck in traffic here in Buckhead, and saw a green truck with a rainbow sticker on it and the only person I know with that combination is Smply Unprdctble. And I managed to remember your phone number spells HOT-STUF, so that's how I was able to remember it and I tried it." [Note: my number does NOT spell HOT-STUF. Please don't try to call it.]
Now, I haven't seen her in like six or so years. But, let's sit and take an investigation of all the things that actually had to happen for this to occur.
  1. First, Sunflower had to be living in Buckhead, as she was on her way home.
  2. Second, my Hot Massage Therapist had to be in Buckhead, as I was leaving her office.
  3. Third, my Hot Massage Therapist had to move me from my regular day of Wednesday to Friday since she got sick this week.
  4. Next, my Hot Massage Therapist had to invite me to Doc Chey's for dinner.
  5. Then I had to accept and follow her there, which is opposite my direction home.
  6. Add into that all the exact times that had to happen for Sunflower to see me.
  7. Factor in the fact she had to see me two lanes away
Now, if that isn't star-aligned enough, she had told me she was JUST thinking about me. You see, one of the things I helped make her work-life easier with was something called "Common Review". It's some HR process that they help make sure people's ratings get averaged appropriately. She's working on that in her new job, and pulled out old spreadsheets with code and everything I wrote for her. She was trying to make her new computer-geek person she works with help her update them for her new company and she told him how awesome I was in developing them. PLUS, she had to remember my number was HOT-STUF. That completely came out of the blue for her.

So, we have a TON of items that had to fall together for our happenstance meeting in traffic and for her to be able to call me. It's all amazingly incredible!

So, we're going to find a way to grab dinner or something in order to finally catch up!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

My dentist appointment

Quick back story.

As y'all know, I went and had Invisalign done. As part of the treatment, they had to put "buttons" on my teeths. After my treatment, my hot lesbian dentist scraped most of the buttons off, but every now and then I would find a spot that wasn't completely removed. Now begins our story.

I went to my hot lesbian dentist's office yesterday. AWESOME redesign she did! I mean, BEAUTIFUL! I was all confused when I stepped in.

My hygienist takes me into the back and I show her where there was a missed portion that needed to be scraped off. She spends a minute to do the scraping and I do the fingernail test and it's all smooth (in retrospect, I now miss it, but I digress).

She stepped away for a minute to grab something and came back.

She started my cleaning in the back of my mouth. She finished with the first tooth (Tooth #2) and started on the next one and she asks, "What was that stuff I just scraped off your tooth?"

I looked at her mildly confused and said "lunch?"

She starts laughing and telling me I'm crazy. I'm still mildly confused and she said "When I first started... On your front tooth!"

I busted out laughing hysterically.

Goes to show how awesome our English language is!

But, the rest of the cleaning and checkup went awesome. And my hot lesbian dentist came in and we talked and I said "I helped pay for this with my Extreme Makeover Dental Edition. Can I have that area over there dedicated to me? :)" (yes, I said ":)")

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my dentist?

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Blue Balls

So, a few weeks ago, I found this really awesome sounding recipe for blue balls.

I convinced my friend Mikers to make it for his Labor Day cookout thing he was doing. It took a bit of convincing, but he did it.

I had fun discussing the whole ordeal.

Ranging from "Mikers is offering me a taste of his blue balls" to "I just left Mikers place with blue balls" to discussing the "after-effect" of the blue balls, including pictures (which I will refrain from this blog for now).

I'm sure y'all want to know what these blue balls look like.

Today, I brought the leftovers to work. And I got to go around the office asking if people "want some blue balls". It was quite exciting (and I figured as long as I had them in hand, it was not an HR violation).

Everyone thinks the side effect is a blue tongue.... MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Monday, August 9, 2010

Class Reunion

Warning: This post is going to break a lot of rules of my blog. Names will NOT be changed (although mine will not be mentioned at all, and comments mentioning my name past the first letter will not be approved). Even though names will not be changed, last names will not be provided. In the event a last name is referenced, it will be just the first letter. This post will also go a little more in depth into me than normal. If you're afraid, feel free to discontinue reading this post. Finally, there will be language that is not appropriate for minors. But, minors will be the ones being quoted during these words. I will not censor myself for this event. This story brings back some rough memories, but I am not bitter about any of it. If there are any details missing, please leave a comment with anything you recall. I don't hold any grudges (kids will be kids), and bringing up some of that has actually been creating a healing process over it.
Now, onto the story.


I grew up in a very country part of SC. And by country, we grew up across the street from cows. And not the people you see at WalMart wearing moo-moos! It was a quiet little neighborhood. And a few people in the area that were either my age or my sister's age.

I started Manchester Elementary School at Kindergarten. I was growing up with my classmates in a "normal" environment (well, as "normal" as a small town school could be where the 2000 Census had the median income at $19,583).

In fourth grade, something catastrophic happened. What exactly was the event(s), I could not tell you. If you went to school with me and happen to know, PLEASE remind me. But, for some reason, my classmates decided to start calling me "faggot". All of a sudden, I was the classmate with cooties. At times, it ended up being a bit of a game where if I ended up touching someone, they caught the cooties. But, it was worse than standard schoolyard playing. In today's standards, it'd be considered downright harassment / bullying. But, I grew up in simpler times where people weren't sue-happy.

As the school years went on, I was practically ousted away from any potential friendships I really had in school. I went on to being extremely introverted, quiet, and practically a loner. Hell, I might have actually been labeled as "depressed" at the time based on some of the behaviors I exerted, looking back.

Also, I was "the smart kid". I grasped onto concepts and ran with them. There was a while when I was the first one who raised their hand when a teacher asked for an answer to a question. I was proud of my smarts, but I guess it made some of my other classmates jealous.

It was also somewhere around the fourth or fifth grade that I quit doing homework. Whether that was a subconscious cry for help, depression showing it's ugly face, or my ADHD starting to show it's ugly head, I don't know. Sure, I got in trouble a bit in class being made to stand on the blacktop at recess, but that was about as fun as going out into the school yard and not getting to play with my other classmates. But, my grades didn't really fall for lack of homework.

So, this began my story as being a "quiet skinny nerd" in school.

As the years went on, the "cooties" went away, but "faggot" never did. This is where I have my struggle in the "nature vs nurture" concept of my sexuality. Yes, I'm gay. Now I have no reason to hide it, but growing up in "country, SC" when gays were all over the news and stuff being represented in a hugely negative fashion and being the evil people spreading AIDS, I wanted nothing to do with it.

About freshman year of high school, I began to realize my sexical fantasies were more towards guys than gals. I appreciated beauty and all that, but never was attracted to any of my female classmates. There was one football player though -- he was a junior, I think -- I thought he was the hottest thing since the sun! But, I was too fearful to show it, thinking I was an abomination because it obviously wasn't socially acceptable to be gay.

The summer between sophomore and junior years of HS, my sister and I were moved up to western Mass. It seemed a HUGE burden had been left behind as I left the "bad memories" of Manchester & Furman behind. I figured a new start. But, it seemed my lack of social skills came to bite me in the butt entering my new high school. Plus, I was a "smart kid" being one of two in the entire school who was a year ahead in English. Most of my classes were with seniors, so they were more interested in getting out out of school than making a new friend. Then my "real" senior year (or as I call it, my "second senior year"), I decided to be lazy and half my classes wound up being with freshmen, who wanted nothing to do with a senior. *shrug*, I had become accustomed to being a loner.

Anyways, that whole story is leading up to this: My 15-year high school reunion.

Reunions are generally meant for the graduating class. 97% of the time, these are the people you grew up with throughout your years of school. There's the occasional person who moves in or out, but it's fairly static. Since I spent eleven years with these people, there had to be some sort of connection. It kinda clicked back in October when I was in Boston and got to have lunch with Meka and we pseudo-reminisced over growing up. There was a lot of "What happened to Smply?" at the beginning of junior year. People thought I may have moved to Sumter High or something, but it was all rumors (as if nobody knew Dad worked at the Exxon in Wesmark Plaza). But, after seeing Meka and doing a lot of reminiscing and remembering the good things that happened, I was excited to know a 15-year reunion was coming up and I wanted to go.

When I got word on things, I replied with a resounding "YES!"

Then after I paid my reunion fee and time got closer, a lot of the above memories started coming back and I wanted to do "Oh yeah? Look at how well the faggot turned out!". Then, I remembered lunch with Meka and realized that's not the way to go and I should go there just to have fun. Which is what I did.

When I walked in the door and saw Angie, Tonya, and Clarice, a lot of memories started coming back. Angie and Tonya were really happy to see me, and they talked about how they were all wondering what happened to me. I later found out Clarice couldn't remember me past 3rd grade for some reason. I almost blame the fourth grade incident. Names were coming out and I was remembering things.

There was a reminiscing time for the reunion, and people were remembering specific events that happened (like someone being thrown in a construction pit, or seniors taking someone and throwing them in the dumpster, senior trip memories, and things like that). A lot of the events happened junior and senior years, so I had no idea things they were talking about, but they would recall something from the younger days and I'd be like "OMG, I remember that."

Some things were coming back, but nothing enough that I wanted to go up there and say them. Probably because I was terrified something in me would want to say "And I remember all y'all calling me a faggot" because that kept popping in my head.

At the end (before the horrible dancing), a photographer was at the banquet hall to get a class photo (as if everyone was there). We did an everybody picture, then a just the girls pic, then a just the guys pic. There were six guys and apparently we weren't close enough together. Someone made that comment and I came back with "But, some of us have cooties!" -- Angie quirked back immediately with "Not anymore, Smply!"

That was HUGELY healing for me. Two little words made me feel all warm inside. They made the five hour trip seem completely worth it. I wanted to go up to her and thank her for those words, but I probably would have wound up crying like a baby. (Little secret: Tears are trying to come out of my eyes with me typing this). But, it was WAY AWESOME! Thanks, Angie, for making my day! :) (Not to say the rest of y'all didn't, but that just hit way deep inside).

After I departed, I started recalling some of the events I remember from school. It was a bit late to go grab the mic and say them. They're also more of little events, but I figured I'd share:
  • I remember in English class (just before lunch), Dee was getting hungry. All of a sudden she comes out with "I'm hungry, roll over!"
  • I remember Miss G being a little weird (She was my homeroom teacher). She would be looking in one direction and pointing another and people had no idea which of the two she was intending to answer a question.
  • I remember Miss G talking about the giant oak (or maple?) tree that was in front of Manchester. She had all kinds of pictures of it. Then Hurricane Hugo struck and knocked it down. She was sad she didn't have a full picture of it.
  • Still with homeroom, there was one girl who shot a tampon out across the room. Needless to say, Miss G wasn't thrilled.
  • I remember Clara going off on Miss G and making her quit (early retire?). Then we had some substitute for the rest of the year who liked to drink the Listerine. We insisted she was drunk all the time.
  • I remember Holly's dad was a firefighter.
  • I remember there was one class the teacher wanted to show a movie. But, the only format she could find the movie on was Betamax. And I think it was Bessie who had the player she brought in.
  • I remember one bus driver, Jay -- he was... flaming. Everyone called him "Gay Jay". And he and Bubba would get into cat fights. One day he dropped Bubba off at his stop and made some sort of comment as Bubba departed. Jay quickly closed the doors and SPED off down the dirt road (that was full of potholes). Those in the back of the bus had fun (and/or whiplash) at the end of that trip.
  • I remember being in Mr. R's geometry class and Chris was all mad 'cuz the biology teacher Mr. O said he had diarrhea of the mouth.
  • I remember underclassmen with a 95 or higher pre-final didn't have to take a final. At the end of Mr. R's geometry class, Angie was pissed off that I had a 95.1 average and she had a 94.9. Her rebuttal was "But, he never did his homework!" (That makes me wonder how little homework counted in school)
  • I remember in gym class we had a 1:1 basketball tournament. I had no skillz, but I was paired against Greg. I came close to beating him, and he admitted it. I didn't care, I got to sit on the sidelines the rest of the tournament.
  • I remember Mr. T's 8th grade history class he used to stand there and eat peanuts all the time.
  • I remember Mr. G's 7th grade history class, he used to tell us how more advanced the north was with their education systems. I was in a bit of awe until I actually moved up there and my 11th grade history class had the EXACT SAME books as Mr. T's history class in 8th grade. And we watched the exact same movies and everything.
  • I remember Dee (I think it was Dee?) throwing To Kill A Mockingbird across Ms H's classroom when she read the jury verdict.
  • I remember getting stuck with a female frog in biology and digging all the eggs out the day my lab partner just "happened" to be out.
  • I remember being jealous of my classmates who brought in Kool-Aid (the pre-sugared kind) in a baggie and would eat it via wet fingers similar to Lik-M-Aid.
  • I remember the fourth grade play -- the story was something involving aliens who only spoke in a monotone voice. I got to play the goofy kid and my favorite line I said was "And I thought it was... INDIGESTION!"
  • I remember everyone LOVING pizza day! And when we got to Furman and had a choice between regular lunch and the other stuff, most people preferred the other side because it usually had pizza. (And, let me tell you, I swear there was something in that pizza that made everyone love it).
  • I remember at lunch one time I was drinking my chocolate milk and someone said or did something funny, and milk came out my nose. Someone complained to the teacher and I got in trouble because they said I did it on purpose.
  • I remember someone was helping Mr. G fill out the damaged textbook forms and for some reason it was decided my textbook had a $5 damage fine with it. They circled "her" in the section saying "Your child has damaged his/her textbook..." and my mother went OFF on him!
  • I remember we all picked on Susie H -- she was an awesome teacher albeit short. We loved her as much as we joked on her!
  • I remember playing Musical Chairs (or Musical Hula Hoops, or Musical something) in Ms S's gym class growing up. And the ONLY song I can remember from that is Solid as a Rock.
  • I remember the school was getting way overcrowded, so the solution was portables. And by the time we got to 7th/8th grade, the only time we went inside the building was for lunch.
  • I remember everyone being jealous when Pocalla was being built because we got out of Manchester just as Pocalla opened, so never got to reap the rewards. I guess this is similar to the way the class of 95ers kinda felt because Lakewood and Crestwood opened right after that.
  • I remember USC vs Clemson Days at school where we were encouraged to show our team pride. And it was like a WAR!
  • I remember one of our football players got Athlete of the Week on WLTX Channel 19 (I think). The whole school was abuzz.
  • I remember Tonya had huge difficulties saying "Bernoulli" in Mr. R's earth science class.
  • I remember Dee complaining about another school's wooden floors 'cuz "the ball bounces funny" off of it. (And, let me tell you, it does compared to the gym floors we grew up with).
I look back and realize there was a lot about school I didn't like, but there was a lot of positive memories as well. Even with the negative, I do miss those days (although, I kinda wish some of that never happened). And, I hafta say, there really was no class like FHS Class of '95!

Thursday, July 29, 2010

So, one of my "problem customers" calls today at 10:10am.
I answer "Good afternoon"
It's Good morning.
For you...
*I receive a text message and my phone makes a noise*
You're playing Mario, aren't you and just got a mushroom?
No, I am NOT playing Mario.
Well, I just heard the sound when you get a mushroom.
Oh, so now you're saying I'm on drugs eating mushrooms?
No, I'm just saying it's the sound when Mario gets the mushroom.
You DO realize it's the same sound as when he gets the flower, right?
So, you can now throw fireballs?
Oh, now you're calling me FLAMING?
No.. No.. Ok, this conversation is over.
I love putting coworkers in uncomfortable positions by slightly twisting what they say! :)

Friday, July 2, 2010

Top vs. Bottom

So, one of the heterosexical IT guys and I were going back and forth discussing a strange problem we're having with one of the systems. Then, this email chain occurs:

Me:
It's not consistent.

If the one-liner is up top, it usually saves. If it's more to the bottom, it won't.
Him:
It is all I can do to refrain from commenting on top vs bottom.

But I would have thought both worked equally well for you.

;)

Not that I want to know.

;)
Me:
Ok, I almost just fell out of my seat laughing.

And I'm not going to let you know.
At least he was able to tell... unlike someone else...

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

I was on the radio!

All I can say is WOW!


Yes, that's Dallas, Tug, and I in the Kicks studio! They were awesome to meet and interact with. And I had an AWESOME time seeing how things work!

Here's what I can tell you:
  • Dallas is AWESOME, and by AWESOME, I mean I thought she was cool from what I've heard her on the radio -- But, she's BEYOND cool.. BEYOND great... and cute to boot!
  • Tug looks SKINNY from what his pictures on the website show. So, I guess healthé trim works! (although I don't know for certain what he looked like). And also cute to boot (He's probably blushing now if he reads this)
  • Producer Matt is one of those odd characters and we all got to yell at him for doing something we don't approve of (although if Caddy was there, I'm sure he wouldn't have objected)
  • All the cool technology in the studio had me in awe. Not as much awe as one of the CNN tours I had (different technologies, but awesome)
A name is mentioned also! Whether or not it's my real name I'm not telling. 'Cuz we all know DJs on the radio always use a moniker on the radio. I doubt his mother really put Cadillac Jack the birth certificate. And Dallas has used other names pre-Kicks (See, I pay attention to what they say on the radio!). I'm guessing Tug-a-licious's mom didn't give him that name either.

The awesomeness? As I was departing, they said I should be a regular stand-in if someone is out. I TOTALLY would love to be able to do that! This is me crossing my fingers hoping I can do it again!

The mp3s below essentially starts at 6am! Already an hour into the Morning Show. I must apologize that the length is SO LONG, but I wanted to put it in as un-bastardized as possible. So, if you want to fast forward through commercials and music, here's where I am (when we cut to commercial or song, go ahead and forward to the next one) -- And, if you know of a way to either create a playlist or host a larger mp3 for free, please let me know!

6:12:45 -- I'm mentioned (before I get to the studios even -- in fact, I was in the shower)
6:53:40 -- I'm actually on the air for the first time!
6:57:30 -- First half of first story (Olive Garden)
7:06:55 -- Second half of the first story
7:12:55 -- Tease to future stories
7:21:30 -- Second story (Prostitute and his daddy) -- Sorry, I revealed a bit of information here.
7:28:25 -- Teaser about chihuahua story
7:36:30 -- Third story (Chihuahua)
7:43:15 -- Teaser to fourth story (Not in it, but great teaser)
7:52:10 -- Teaser in and talk about my sistah -- then lead into the fourth story (Naked man)
7:57:00 -- Second half of fourth story (OMG, I have NO WORDS!)



I also need to figure out how to cut out stuff in order to throw it on a CD for Nan and Mother.

Monday, June 28, 2010

BIG NEWS, EVERYBODY!

Sweet Molasses of Anassas, I've got some big news!

Initially, I was going to post on the craziness that happened this weekend. But, the most awesomest thing just happened.

I got a phone call.

I managed to beg and plead my way into being a guest judge on this Wednesday's edition of "Make Us Say WOW Wednesday" on my favoritest radio station in the whole wide world!

Yes, you heard me right!

I'm gonna be on the radio!

For about an hour! (ok, maybe a total of two minutes because there's all the songs they play, and then the people have to tell their stories... and I'll probably only get to say things like "WOW" or "Not a wow.. close, but not quite", but it will go across the hour timespan)

So, I'm demanding that all eight of my readers tell nineteen of their friends and help make EVERYONE in the world listen to me Wednesday morning!

The details I know is it happens Wednesday. Producer Matt asked me to be there for 6:45. And they finish up around 8-815 usually. And you can listen to the station live on their website.

Maybe if I'm lucky, they'll give me a copy of the show!

And, I have Cadillac Jack to thank for this -- You're awesome! Maybe I can stand in for Dallas or Tug when either of them go on vacation so I can finally meet ya!

Friday, June 25, 2010

Email I just got

Apparently I'm liked here at The Company.

I was CC'd on the following email:
Smply's Old Manager,

In case you are not fully aware I want to let you know that I appreciate Smply’s extra effort with the schedules database the last few weeks. In a limited amount of time he was able to create a new schedule (33: Major Customers) which required leveraging both Essbase and Oracle (previously always completed by arcplan/Consultant Dude), rework schedules 30, 22, 19, 18, each requiring new data fields/accounts as well as making numerous other improvements to each and every quarterly schedule. I would also like to highlight his efforts in helping IT find what I hope is the solution to our re-occurring “open file” error which has been causing the majority of our system downtime. Finally, I would like to publicize that Smply and I led an interactive database class last Friday where we educated and exchanged ideas with 40+ participants of the database user community. All of these actions are greatly appreciated by Our Department and we are grateful for your, Smply and the COE’s continued commitment to improve and support the schedule database.

Project Manager Dude
My reply?
Oh please -- Tell New Manager instead! :)
Yeah -- I think they like me here!

Monday, June 7, 2010

I had a dream...

So, Saturday night I had the strangest dream.

Now, mind you, I don't remember all the details of the dream (I normally don't), but this one was especially... odd.

As you may or may not know, I have a ghost in my house. It's not been a big deal generally with the exception of a few stories (which I just realized aren't posted here. I guess I have some projects to do). But, I actually had a dream where I interacted with the ghost in my house.

Here's how it went down (to the best of what little bit I can barely recall):

In my dream, I don't think I was minding my own business, but I saw the ghost roaming around the house. A physical being, people.

And, the ghost wasn't what you would expect to see based on Casper or the "random unimportant" ghosts from Ghostbusters. Not even one of those that you see when someone shows you a picture they've taken and there's an odd transparent person posed next to them.

This ghost was tall, very skinny, and black. And by black, I don't mean African American. I mean Crayola Black.

And in my dream, the ghost was walking around and I guess I tripped the ghost or something (I told you I couldn't remember if I was minding my own business or something). That's when it gets scary.

The ghost got all up in my face. I was terrified, and I woke up.

And it was cold in my room. And I had to pee. But I was afraid to get out of bed to go to the bathroom. I eventually fell back asleep and woke up Sunday morning all "WTF" like.

I hope I didn't do anything to piss off the ghost in the house. I probably really need to bring someone in to figure out who the ghost is and make sure the the ghost isn't pissed off at me for some reason....

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Is insurance REALLY a good thing?

I confess. I have a bit of a medical condition. The good news is it's in the "pretty much cured" phase, but I still have a few doctor followup visits to go to to ensure I'm continuing staying healthy. This blog posting is NOT about my condition. I will not reveal that condition because it's irrelevant to anyone outside my close personal friends and family.

Anyways, I've been seeing my specialist ever since I was diagnosed with this condition. I want to say that was like 6-7 years ago. At the time of me being diagnosed, my then employer's biggest source of revenue was insurance companies -- because I was working for a health care company (corporate offices, of course -- we all know I can't deal with sick people).

During my visits with my specialist, I've always had to pay my "Specialist Co-Pay". We'll call it $40.

Then, came the unfortunate incident. But, then came the awesome event where I got new employment. Due to timings and other wait times between the two, I had to get on COBRA for about 2 months (And it's minimum 2 months on COBRA, but that's yet another story).

I had a specialist appointment sometime during the month of November -- COBRA had not kicked in yet (you hafta sign paperwork and get that mailed in and processed and yada yada yada), so when I went to see the specialist, they said I was uninsured and charged me for the office visit -- $75. Not a big deal, and I was pleasantly surprised.

This year marked a change in The Company's health insurance plans. We went from a "Co-Pay" system to a "Co-Insurance" system with the non-HMO plan. This means I'm required to pay out of pocket 100% of a doctor's visit until I meet my deductible, then I have to pay whatever co-insurance percentage is. For example, if I have a $500 deductible then 10% after that and I have a $1000 medical bill, I would have to pay $550 ($500 deductible plus 10% of the remaining $500) and insurance would cover the remaining $450. This is where people spent hours of calculations to find the break-even point in medical costs, but that's not the scope of this blog entry.

Back on topic, I had an appointment with my specialist this year. Due to the co-insurance thing, we pay $0 up front and get billed afterward after insurance pays their portion (which is after contractual discounts and whatever other BS goes into the calculations). I got the bill in the mail the other day.

$185.01.

The same visit type as when I was virtually uninsured before COBRA kicked in. Nothing extra.

How the HELL can you justify charging a patient MORE if they have insurance than if they don't? That's like a company offering a program where if you sign up and pay the premium, you get all kinds of perks -- including 200+% markup on products and services -- all just for being associated with them.

It makes me wonder how Obama's Healthcare Reform Bill will impact the same charges. Will the option of "I'm waiting for COBRA to kick in, so charge me the $75" go away? Will people, by default, have a co-insurance plan like The Company rolled out and if I'm waiting for COBRA to kick in I'll be charged $185?

If I had my choice, I would have said "charge me as if I don't have insurance." -- and send the bill to the insurance company to demonstrate I'm working towards my deductible (because they're not going to reimburse anything until I hit that number). And, if I break my leg, I may have more deductible to work through, but it's that much money I've saved if I don't break my leg.

Why can't we do things like this? Or can we? I really would like to know.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Remember the time....

So, when I was in college, V and I took a day and watched the Star Wars trilogy (back when there was only three of them). I had it on VHS and had a pretty nice VCR hooked into my stereo, so I had halfway decent sound. None of this 7.1 surround sound I have now, but we were able to hear the nice rumblings and everything. Laying on my bed geeking out to Star Wars. And when we got hungry, we ordered Domino's because it was too late to go to the cafeteria.

That was the original set of movies, not the Special Edition, also.

I did math, and it was about 6.5 hours of movie we watched that day. Prolly a little less, but also have to take into account rewind times. You see, children, back when I was young, we didn't have DVDs*, and we had to use the rewind button to get the video tape back to the beginning in order to watch it again. This usually took about 5 minutes or so, depending on how fast your VCR was. And the rich families had the automagic rewinder so you could put in your next movie immediately and put your watched movie in the rewinder.

Anyways, today Spike is airing all six movies (Special Edition for the original Trilogy as I saw Jabba in Episode IV). I did the math. It's 13.42 hours of actual movie times. How the HELL does someone survive sitting through 13.5 hours of movies? And that's not counting the commercials!

And, of course, here comes my analysis.

13.5 hours of movie.

Spike aired it from 9am to 4am. That's 19 hours.

19 hours total minus 13.5 of movie time is 5.5 hours of commercials during the movies.

Divide that by six and that's 55 minutes of commercials per movie -- or 17.5 minutes of commercials per hour.

You're wasting 29% of the time watching commercials. That's where a DVR comes in handy (or actually owning the movies)

But, that brings me back to my earlier point: Who the hell has 13.5 hours to sit and watch movies?

But, that reminds me of a really bad joke I made up:

In 1977 when the first Star Wars movie came out, Chewbacca won an award. You know what award that was?

Wookie of the Year!

*ducks the rotten tomatoes being tossed*

*I remember the first time I watched a DVD -- I was amazed at the fact you didn't have to rewind. It was a foreign concept at the time!

Thursday, May 27, 2010

How many rules have I broken?

So, on The Company's intranet page, there's an email from our HR Head Honcho. It's about The Company's Social Media policy and how we should be.

Now, let me get this statement out of the way: When I started working for The Company, I asked our HR peeps "Can I still have a blog, even though I don't mention The Company's name and occasionally may say something that could be considered offensive to certain people?" (I mean, face it -- what CAN be said that's couldn't be considered offensive to SOMEONE?). They replied I could as long as I have the disclaimer portion at the bottom of the page you see *points down there*.

Anyways, I'm reading through the policy and have decided to determine how apt I am to be fired. Note: Some information is being removed to help protect the identity of The Company. I mean, if I worked for a company and the policy said "including beverage flavors", that could extremely narrow down who I could potentially work for. And, no, I don't work for them as I don't see me being able to work for a company who produces a product that you have to put Rum or Jack in to make it taste good :)

Don't let personal use of the Company's computers and other equipment interfere with work. While occasional personal use is permitted, it should be kept to a minimum and should not interfere with your job. -- Hrmm.. We won't go there.

Don't expect privacy if you participate in social media while at work or while using Company equipment. Communications made or stored on The Company's equipment or systems are subject to monitoring and disclosure with or without advance notice. Even if you participate in social media outside of work, you should recognize that these communications are typically not considered private under applicable law. -- Of course I don't expect privacy. But, I am posting this using The Company's network :)

Do
be a good Web citizen. Be constructive. Remember that the Social Web is about connecting people, ideas and information. You may use it in your own personal ways, but be courteous, be respectful of diversity and exercise good common sense and judgment. -- Courteous? With as offensive as I can be sometimes?

Do respect and adhere to applicable laws, including copyright, trademark, right of publicity/privacy and patent laws. -- That I do. I mean, that'd be a bad thing if I didn't.

Do identify yourself as an employee of The Company (or one of its divisions) and make it clear that any opinions you express are your own and not that of The Company, if your comments (i) refer to The Company's businesses or products, (ii) could be seen as an endorsement, promotion or testimonial for any other product or service by The Company or (iii) could otherwise be construed by the reader as a comment made by you on behalf of The Company.

  • This guideline applies even if you are not writing under your name. Your identity is seldom anonymous. It is better to be authentic and transparent and understand that anonymous postings can be linked to your identity.
  • If you have your own page, site or blog, at a minimum you should include the following standard legal disclaimer language: "The views expressed on this [blog; Web site; etc.] are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer." In some cases, as discussed below, it will be necessary to specifically disclose that The Company is your employer in this disclaimer.
  • If you are a manager or executive, realize that a standard disclaimer may not be enough. Be cognizant that your personal thoughts or opinions may be misinterpreted as expressing views of the Company.
  • If you post - on any social media - comments that are related to The Company businesses or products or that could be seen as an endorsement, promotion or testimonial for The Company, fully disclose that you work for The Company (or one of its divisions). Disclosure methods could include a link to your profile or a bio or a more explicit statement in the post such as, "I am an employee of The Company, Inc. The views expressed on this [blog, Web site, etc.] are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer."
Yeah.... We know I don't completely do that. I know some of y'all know who I work for, but a lot of y'all don't know. And I'm violating this rule because I don't want some of my comments to be associated with The Company.

Do write and post responsibly.
  • Show proper consideration for your personal privacy, as well as that of others. -- Ok, I don't share names. I mean, who here knows the name of my coworker who almost got hit by a zebra?
  • Consider that what you write could be published in a national newspaper, reported on television or posted to other social media. -- I'm going to be published? If that ever happens, would I be working for The Company? Wait, maybe I would.... Either way, all my postings get placed on other social media (I post it to Twitter / Facebook... and it gets picked up by Google Buzz for all you freaks...), but I don't count that as big stuff.
  • Be judicious in your engagement on topics that may be considered objectionable or inflammatory. Never use ethnic slurs, personal insults, obscenity, etc. -- Slurs and personal insults? Oh hells no! That don't happen with me. Oh wait, yes they do.
  • Be sure that all content associated with you is consistent with your work and with The Company's values and professional standards. -- Oh PUHLEEZE. That will NOT be happening.
  • If writing about Company-related topics, you can link to official videos produced for The Company Web sites, fan pages & content channels. This means using embedded codes from the respective Web sites, via our Facebook pages or YouTube channels. -- I may occasionally post links, but they may or may not be related to The Company. Who cares where I get my content from? John Doe may be posting the same content as me and nobody cares about him!
  • If you find (or are sent) a very compelling piece of user generated content ("UGC") or fan video related to the business of The Company, do not post or comment on it. Instead, notify someone in the appropriate Digital Marketing division so that they can determine the best course of action to take. -- If I find an awesome link like this, I'm going to tweet it myself.
  • Remember that although you have "removed" a comment or post, once something is published online it is a permanent record that easily can be misinterpreted or taken out of context -- Isn't there a Disney PSA about that? Once you put something on the Internets, you can't take it back?

Don't share The Company internal communications or information, including:
  • Confidential or proprietary information about the Company's performance, finances or future plans. -- How stupid does someone have to be to do that?
  • Company intellectual property and proprietary information, including content (whether it is aired or unaired), logos, still shots, cartoon characters, promotional materials, photos taken in offices, and the numerous computer programs employees use while at work, among other things. This includes promotional details, which should not be shared unless you have cleared the release of this information with PR. -- So, you're saying I can't send a screenshot of an error message of a software package used by hundreds if not thousands of companies? And you're going to get mad because I take a picture of the snow outside my window? What are we going to do when I start taking pictures like this? That was taken from my cube, which is inside our offices!
  • Business correspondence, such as executive memos and management communications, among other things. -- Yeah, I won't post those. But, I WILL post things like my Gold Star award, and other things that kinda don't mention any details.
  • Information regarding legal proceedings or legal matters involving The Company, including any communications to or from legal counsel for The Company, regardless of whether the original discussion included you or was later shared with you. -- So, when I'm fired and sue for the fact I posted this on my blog, they don't want me to make mention of it? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA :)
  • See the SBC and the Confidential Information policy for a more full discussion on this topic. If you have any doubts about whether an item is confidential or proprietary, seek guidance before sharing. -- Yeah, I said I wouldn't do anything to bring The Company's name into this. And I did seek guidance when I first started. I even have the email stored off to the side!

Don't disclose, reference, or discuss customers, partners or suppliers without their prior approval. -- I talk about coworkers -- but real names aren't involved, so I don't care about approval! :)

Don't use social media hosted outside of The Company's protected Intranet environment for business-related communications. Always use authorized internal Intranet systems to communicate with your colleagues regarding The Company-related business matters. -- So, I shouldn't use AIM to talk about people?

I guess I've been a bad bad boy. Oh well. If we're keeping tabs of the rules I've broken, I'm probably being fired tomorrow!

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Where No SmplyUnprdctble Has Gone Before

Yo! Internets! I went someplace I've never been before!

No, I haven't gone THAT offensive. (Although, it almost happened)

I went to VERMONT!

Yes, I've lived in New England how many years and have never been to Vermont. I don't get it either. But, for some reason, I decided I wanted to go this trip. Mostly because it's right there *points*.

A friend of mine and I went hopped in my rental car and we took off up 91. Not really knowing where we would go (although we pondered going to Ben & Jerry's). We just took off.

We got to Brattleboro and found a welcome center. We asked where we should go eat, and the (biased) guy sent us to his not quite great place. The food wasn't bad, but there was like not much there on the brunch buffet. Basically, it was empty. But, we ate and then got back on the road.

On the way up, we learned a new word: Scarified. Yes. There's a road sign in Vermont that says "Scarified Road" -- It's the same as "Rough Pavement", but we think people got bored. They also say "Bridges Freeze Before Road", so that continues the theory.

We went further up and followed the map. The goal was to go to some glass blowing place (who's name escapes my memory at this time). It sounded like a cool thing to watch. And it was the first exit once we got on 89.

We got off 89 and tried to figure out where it might be and we saw this mini strip mall like thing. And as I pulled in, I made a B-line for a MOOSE.

Yes, peeps, a MOOSE!

I HAD to get my picture with the moose! I asked the kind people and they asked if I wanted to get ON it! I almost creamed my pants!

So, I got up on the moose and had my picture snapped!

Oh, it's a wooden moose. For sale for $3500. I pondered it as they said "Free Shipping", but I realized I had no place to put it.

We continued on to the glass blowing place. They had a river and dam and waterfall there. And a covered bridge.

This same area had some giant Gorge! They called it the "Grand Canyon of Vermont" -- it was pretty cool to look at and take pictures.

On the way home, we stopped at BASKETVILLE! I don't know, but it was kinda interesting. There was a mini-wine tasting and I bought a bottle of pear wine (which is being shipped to me by my awesome friend as I cannot take it on my carryon)

All in all, it was an awesome trip! For all y'all that want to see the pictures, you can go to my album on Facebook and see them!

Friday, May 21, 2010

SURPRISE!

Dear Internets,

I know it's been a while since I've posted. Mostly because I haven't had a lot to post about. Until now.

You see, I'm famous for my surprises. It's happened more than once.

Anyways, Mother was having minor surgery* today. I decided that I wanted a break from work, so I thought, "Self, why don't you surprise her and show up when she's waking up from the surgery?"

Knowing I'd need an insider, I IM'd Sis and said "I think I'm gonna come up and surprise Mother!" The idea was she and I would wear the same shirt. As she's dropping Mother off, she would say "Like my shirt? Smply got it for me for my birthday. And when Mother was waking up, I'd go in and when she asked what I'm doing here, I'd say "Don't you remember? I brought you here? I even showed you the shirt Sis got me for Christmas!"

She and I worked out details. I flew into Boston yesterday and stayed with friends in NH (per usual, only this time we didn't have lobstah. Still a bit sad about that, but I'll survive).

Anyways, I headed out to Western Mass this morning sporting my shirt. and arrived at the hospital fairly close to noon. I gave Sis a hug and REALLY HAD TO PEE!

We're sitting in the waiting room waiting for the magic screen to change colors as Mother went through the various stages of surgery. Then her doctor comes out and says "She's done" -- we were like "but.. the colors didn't change!"

I go back there and turn the corner and Mother says "What the f--k are you doing here?" Amazing! She recognized me without glasses!

She was all excited and happy to see me. I really made her day. Put a smile on my face.

We're talking and stuff as she's waiting to be let go and she said she had a dream last night that I showed up. (Last night, I even talked to her and I told her she may have hallucinations as she's waking up from the anesthesia, and she was like "I better not see you!"

I giggled.

While at the hospital, we decided on how to surprise Nan. Initially, I wanted to have Mother go upstairs and say "Guess who picked me up from the hospital." But that kinda would give something away. So, instead we decide on "You'll never believe who I saw at the hospital."

So, Mother gets discharged about 2ish. We head home, and get Mother in Sis's place. My cousin is heading downstairs for a smoke, and I'm motioning for him to not say a word. Mother pees and then we head upstairs to see Nan, with me sneaking in tow.

Mother goes in and Nan's like "How are you feeling?" (all while she's on the phone with my aunt) and Mother says, "You'll never believe who I saw at the hospital."

Nan is like, "Ray?" (whoever that is)

I poke my head in the door and quietly say "Surprise" as to not give her a heart attack.

She doesn't hear me.

"Surprise!", I proclaim a little louder.

The third time I say Surprise, Mother points at me. Nan's like "OOOHH!!! What are you doing here?"

The nieces were pretty funny. I came back downstairs and the eldest was in the living room as I poked my head in. Her eyes went HUGE and said "What are you doing here?"

The younger was HILARIOUS. She was at gymnastics, so Sis went to go pick her up. she came running in and turned the corner in the living room and was asking (who she presumed was her dad) where the eldest was. Then her eyes went gigantic and said, "WOAH!"

So, that's my latest story, Internets. It's been pretty fun so far (except it's warm up here and people don't believe in air conditioners. I don't quite understand that). I have other news related to work I'll post later. I don't want to bog down my fun surprise with boring work stuffs.

Love y'all!

P.S. You should call me using the link to the right and say how much fun you thought the surprise was!

*The minor surgery was she had to have growths removed from her areas.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Things your mother doesn't want to hear

So, I just got a call from Mother. She was telling me about all her tests she had done and that she should know this week possibly when she can come visit.

Anyways, somehow she got on the conversation and she said that she was going to get in her jammies. I told her I sleep in less than jammies, so when the ghost bothers her when she's here, knock first before she comes bug me in my room.

She replied "It's not something I've never seen before."

I come back with "Oh, there's things you've never seen."

She thought about it for a minute. Then was like "Ok, I DON'T want to know!"

:)

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Who the Internets thinks I am

So, on my facebook page, I started the discussion about the 2010 Census and something came out on Internet searches in "public databases."

The site brought up is Spokeo.

The example link provided against someone looked a little uncanny, so I decided to search for myself.

This is what it thinks I am:
Ok, early 30's, check.
Caucasian, check.
Single, check
Reading? Seriously?
Gemini? Um... NO!
Children? Ok, they get that one as a TECHNICALITY
And I like to think my neighborhood is Above Average!

But, that's not all that's on the page:
Again, loves reading? Seriously? Do they think I'm my sister?
Healthy Living? They obvi don't go through my trash!
Subscribes to magazines? No I don't. The one magazine I get, I don't know how I'm getting it and how to stop it!
Donates to causes? Ok, only aminals!
And, really, I'm not interested in politics.

But wait, there's more!
There's that technicality of children again.
It thinks I don't have central air or heat? In this state? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
And seriously? Home value? I WISH! Can a home be valued that much without central? In this state, that is -- obvi Massachusetts would be different.

I went further. I searched my sister under her maiden and married names. Her married name has next to nothing, but her maiden name has a bit more. And her husband looked pretty uncanny with all his interests.

Alas, it didn't have my grandmother, and she's been in that house for like 85 years.

Guess we can't truly trust everything on the Internets!

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Who will I piss off first?

Today has been a fun day for me. I have no idea why, but I'm in an especially silly mood.

It started early this morning. One of our IT peeps called me and I wasn't particularly thrilled to talk to anyone. So I answered in my "blah, I'm not awake yet and haven't had my Jesus Chicken Sweet Tea" voice. She said "I wasn't expecting that.." so I did my "OMG, I'm way too hyper and excited to see you so much I might just pee on the carpet" voice.

Then, I went to the food court mid morning to get my Jesus Chicken Sweet Tea refill (One's not enough, but I don't drink a full two usually) and the person behind the counter (we'll call her "Kenya") said "With a splash of regular or diet lemonade?"

I looked at her funny and said "absolutely NO lemon!"

She said "I thought you..." and another Jesus Chicken worker said "You have him confused with someone else."

That's when I piped in with "Are you trying to say all white people look alike?"

Needless to say I made another black person blush! :)

Finally, where I work, they give tours. Tour guides take groups around and show them a few of the cool sites to see here. One of the stops they make is on the way to the food court for me, and they congregate in the predetermined area and the guide starts talking about division that's on the other side of a wall (with said division's name implanted in giant letters on said wall). Anyways, as I walked by, I heard him say those magical words, so I stopped and did my best Barker's Beauty impression to show off the sign. A couple tourists (I wanted to say tourees until I axed someone else what the term should be) started laughing as the guide happened to turn around and see me doing my impression. He laughed.

So, I'm having like WAY too much fun today. I feel almost cabin feverish, but I've been getting out the past few days that it's been beautiful out. Maybe my window view is starting to get to me knowing how beautiful it is outside and I can't be out there.

On another note, it's taking WAY too long for these sacrificial fishies to poop and die!

Friday, March 26, 2010

I love my friends!

Conversation I had with a friend of mine this morning:
[09:59] <me>
http://rodents.dyndns.org/Gallery/index.php?gallery=Poor%20Unfortunate%20Souls
[10:27] <friend> weird! is that your tank?
[10:27] <friend> what do you have in there?
[10:27] <friend> cool blue color!
[10:27] <friend> here fishy fishy fishy HERE FISHY FISHY FISHY
[10:27] <me> sacrificial goldfish
[10:27] <me> ok, Ernie
[10:27] <friend> hahahha
[10:28] <friend> good boy Smply! nice getting the reference!
[10:28] <friend> lol
[10:28] <friend> yet another thing I love about you!
[10:28] <me> *wags tail*
I love how I get my friends -- unlike the fact all but TWO of my coworkers get the following image, which I have on a shirt:

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

I almost died on the table today

WARNING! DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH, EMBARRASS EASILY, OR WANT TO KEEP YOUR ALLUSION THAT I'M INNOCENT! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

So, I was visiting with my Hot Massage Therapist today.

When we're together, we have some odd conversations. But today I think we took the cake.

We were talking about random things from boys to work to whatever. Then she starts talking about how she's a flirt. But not an "ordinary" flirt, but she gets a bit "suggestive" in her text message flirting.

I asked, "You mean you say things like 'I want to suck your cock'?"

She said, "No, a little more suggestive than that."

So, I go "Like 'I want you to eat my pussy until I squirt all over your face'?"

That's when we both lost it. I started giggling, she started laughing, then we both started laughing hard. Laughing so hard, I turned quite red, couldn't breathe, then literally was crying. All while still on the massage table. So, it made it harder to breathe and catch my breath.

She then goes, "I don't think I could type that on my phone."

I lose it again. I can't breathe I'm laughing so hard. In fact, I almost fell off the table.

I finally made us change the subject so we can catch our breath. In all, it was an awesome laugh. Best I've had in a while.

When my session was over, I tried to compose myself and got dressed.

As I left, I said, "You know what my sister's nickname was while we were growing up?"

"What?"

"Squirt!"

That started us again.

On the way home, I txt'd her:
Now, just copy and paste:
I want you to eat my pussy until I squirt all over your face!
Apparently I'm a mess!

(This doesn't include the other off conversation about her hot client after me)

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Now they're just making things up!

I was listening to the radio this morning on my way to get Jesus Chicken for breakfast.

A Kaiser-Permanente commercial came on the air. And, I swear they're making things up!

Now, let's rewind a large number of years. When I lived in MA, there was a HMO company called Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare (It's still there, but the "was" references back when I lived there). They had some pretty cool ad campaigns where they listed various medical professions. My favoritest was when a little tiny girl says "otolaryngologist."

Back to the present, Kaiser is doing similar commercials. Except they're making up things! They're trying to basically say that their doctors have "explicit specialties" that are supposed to give more specialized care to some of your ailments.

Now, I'm not an expert on medical professions in ANY way shape or form (with the exception that I've heard of a few of the specialties, and know approximately what they deal with), but I really think they're making things up!

Case in point, the commercial mentions a "dermatopulmunohematologist." Breaking it down, "dermato" is skin-related ("dermatologist"), pulmuno is lung related ("pulmunologist), and hemato is associated with blood. Exactly what disorder combines those three? (Where's Dr. House when you need him?)

Thursday, March 4, 2010

I present to you, Before and After!

So, as y'all have probably heard, I went straight!

And, my hot lesbian dentist promised before and after shots of everything. I'm a little saddened there's not as many after shots, but she was a little busy at the time when I went in.

So, without you begging and pleading for more, here's my before and after shots!

(note, they're put in this template by my hot lesbian dentist's staff, not me. I also removed all traces of names in it. You should be able to click on them for larger pics.)
See how crooked my life used to be? I mean, it was horrible! But, as you can see, things are a LOT better (I wish there were a few other good After pics taken so you can see the total transformation -- but you can see all that in the video in the link at the top):
I told the crew at the office "I'm smiling a LOT more now!"

So, if any of y'all are in the Hotlanta area and want my hot lesbian dentist's information, let me know and I'll provide it!

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Huzzah for Google Voice!

So, we've all heard that Hawaii has been under a Tsunami Watch because of an earthquake in Chile. As devastating as the whole idea of everything is, I'm not going to continue to feed into that. My blog isn't a news feed. And being in Georgia, I don't have any of the details.

But, I DO know someone who lives in Hawaii. My wife*. Except, we learned we can't live together, and it's a good thing we're not attracted to the same men.

Anyways, she lives in Honolulu, and works for an oceanfront hotel. When the Tsunami Warning officially started, I hadn't heard from her after sending a text message in the morning. So, I tried to call.

I used my cell phone (provider not mentioned because I don't think it matters), and was either getting the fast busy signal, or an automated message saying "Your call did not go through."

CNN was showing interviews via cell phones, so I figured coverage was still going on. Especially since nothing officially hit at this time, so I imagined it was just a lot of network congestion going on.

I also have a Google Voice account. So, I attempted to call her with my Google Voice account. Amazingly enough, it went through!

I don't know if it was pure luck in timing, or whether it's the fact Google Voice is VOIP and ends somehow directly in Hawaii, but the couple times I called using Google Voice, I got through, but using my cell provider**, I didn't.

So, not only am I singing the praises of Google Voice for the fact people can call me with one number and connect to a bunch of numbers I'm on, and I can text people using a website, but now Google Voice was the only network I have access to in order to call a network-congested area! :)

Also, nobody is leaving me calling me from my link to the right. Seriously people, you should! I understand I have like 6 readers, but that's not the point! I should have at least six calls!

* No, I'm not really married. She's my bestest friend and we share everything a married couple should.

** Technically, I'm still using my cell provider as I still have to connect to Google Voice. I'm just not using my cell provider to get to the call to the endpoint.

Monday, February 22, 2010

I am so deliciously evil!

As you may or may not have heard (I'm told it made national news, so it HAD to be a slow news day), a zebra escaped from the circus last week.

That's not the awesome part about it. Before I start to read the massive tweets of a runaway zebra, I get a call from a coworker. She said "You're the only one I can tell this to who'll believe me... but a zebra escaped from the circus, and I was stopped over by the Mac-Donalds over by Five Points and it comes running at me and almost hits me!"

Yes, that's right -- a runaway zebra almost hit my coworker as she was leaving the office. Apparently there was like 20 police cars chasing after it and one officer on foot.

She became a pseudo-celebrity on Friday at work. Everyone wanted to hear the story of how she came face to snout almost literally with a zebra. The only thing I could imagine is the conversation had it hit her car: "Hello, State Farm? Yes, I need to file a claim. A zebra hit my car...... Yes, I live in Atlanta..... Yes, the incident happened downtown Atlanta..... No, I'm not on drugs...."

Of course, I enjoy finding the humor around me everyday. Not that what already happened wasn't funny, but I like making things better.

So, I went out Saturday and found a zebra.

The thing is zebras are apparently very difficult to find.

I couldn't find one at WalsMart. I couldn't find one at Target. I finally went to Toys R Us. I asked the poor guy and inquired, "do you have any zebras?" (pronounced "zeh-bras") -- dude looked at me and said "any what?" -- "Any zebras? Z-E-B-R-A" (pronouncing Z as Zed like every other english-speaking country does) -- he was all confused, but it was worth it.

Finally, we went to the stuffie area and found the following:

Granted, it's not the bestest zebra in the world, but it was gonna hafta do. (And for $5, it wasn't a bad deal)

This morning, I came into work and went up to her and said "Does this look familiar?" and tossed it at her. She jumped until she realized what it was and began laughing.

It's now on display in her cube (she's the one who took the pic), and she's having way too much fun with it!

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Going Green

Ok, don't get me wrong. I'm all for saving energy to help the planet. But, I have a few problems.

1) Recycling. It's not easy. It requires a separate trash receptacle in your house. I have a TIGHT kitchen. Which means I barely have room for the one trash can I have, much less having a second. I DO have recycling, but the only time it usually happens is when the recycling bucket gets full from the freebie newspapers that show up on my driveway I don't read.

2) CFLs. Yes, they are AWESOME when it comes to energy savings... 11 watts versus 75 watts. I'm all for that... Except for the warm-up time. I went through a phase where I shifted all the bulbs that weren't on dimmers to CFLs (as most CFLs you can't dim, but they're getting those in the market now). It happened as bulbs died and I replaced all in the set. But, it gets annoying when I turn on my kitchen light during the day and start something and a minute later try to turn it on again, only to realize "oh yeah, I already turned it on... it just hasn't warmed up yet."

3) Priuses (and other hybrid vehicles). I once thought about wanting a Ford Escape Hybrid. I admit it. But, seriously... Prius owners... You DO have a bit of get-up-and-go in your vehicles, USE IT! Sure, you'll kick on your gas engine, but YOU'RE ON THE FRIGGIN' INTERSTATE!

4) Saving money. Have you noticed how much more it costs to go green? Have you actually done the ROI on some of those? Most of them are generally 2-3 years (if not longer). I bought six 60-watt bulbs at The Home Depot the other day for 35 cents for the pack. One Philips CFL is $10 at WalMart (Sorry, I'm going for the bulb that looks like a bulb and not a squiggly.. those are ugly.. I have SOME taste). How long does it take to save $9.95 difference? My electric bill says I pay about $.09 per KWh. Now, this math is fuzzy (especially if I did it right), but for $9.95 in electricity you can get either (rounded) 1850 hours of a 60-watt bulb (aren't they generally rated for 1000 hours?), or 10000 hours of the 11-watt CFL. How many people run a light bulb for 10,000 hours? That's 416 days straight. Seriously, I'm now back on a move back to incandescent bulbs and putting everything on dimmers (which provides energy savings in themselves).

5) Jesus Chicken cups. I know they're probably not green. Whether it's an "environmentally healthy" styrofoam-esque product or not, they best not change their cups. They're probably the bestest fast food cups out there as they keep your beverage insulated awesomely and don't sweat.

6) You Can't Do That On Televsion. The original "Green" show... Green slime that is. I REALLY want it on DVD because that was a huge part of my childhood. It was an awesome show!! I don't quite understand why I wanted to be on that show and say "I don't know..." (although, it explains a lot about me now... and SHUT UP!) And, it basically made Nickelodeon... Not that Nick is really worth much now...

Yes, I moved from being environmentally friendly to not to a random childhood television show. Sue me!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Short people got no reason to live...

Maybe it's the same "sir-cuss" that was at Princess Sparklepant's employment place, maybe not.

But, anyways, there's a circus here in the general vicinity of where I work. So close that I can see the tents where the aminals are (will be?) in this freezing weather on my way to the Pigeon Pit where I park.

But, that concept is only a small factor in this blog posting.

A coworker and I took a field trip earlier today. On the way back from the Pigeon Pit, we shared an elevator with a couple of circus folk.

The guy was a little shorter than average with GIANT Elvis hair. I mean, it had to be at least six inches tall. But he didn't use grease to make it stay in place, it was probably a lot of White Rain. I REALLY wish I had asked if I could take his picture because I've never seen hair that high on a man. Not even in 70's movies!

The girl looked like she had just came out of Little Five Points (Or, if you're in Boston, Newbury Comics).

Anyways, she turns to him and asked, "If you discriminate based on race, it's racism and you're called a racist. What's it if you discriminate against a midget?"

Elvis-dude looked a little perplexed and said "Midgetism?"

I had to put my two cents in and say "Heightism?"

We departed and I came back to my desk and had to Google it. There was no definitive answer when I searched for "What's it called when you discriminate against a midget?"

Then I decided "If anyone should know, it'd be HR!" So, I emailed a friend of mine's wife who works in HR here at The Company (I haven't officially met her yet because she was busy giving birth at my last Partay).

Then I decided "Yahoo Answers has a bunch of silly things asked, let's see what they say!"

I posted this question and eventually came up with some answers. (I love the response "Snow White")

It seems I was right!

So, there you have it. Apparently Randy Newman is a heightist!

And I just got a response from HR -- she says:
The word for someone who discriminates against “little persons” that comes to my mind would be bigot. Thoughts? Maybe not strong enough?
I'm gonna wet myself laughing so hard!

Monday, February 1, 2010

More with the Morning Show

For some reason I decided to parooze the Kicks Morning Show web site. After the Twitter conversation I had with @ATLCadillac, I apparently had a hugely blond moment.

You see, I've been listening to the Morning Show since I moved to Atlanta. Way back when, it was Moby in the Morning. (Trivia: I won tickets from him 'cuz I Stumped Moby with a joke. Maybe one day I'll tell the joke). I even was enjoying Bandy and Bailey while they were in Atlanta. Then Cadillac and Kristen I thought were the pair to do me in until some random shake-up happened and I got Cadillac and Dallas. Oh, and Tug. Without Tug, all the judges on Make Us Say WOW Wednesday would be nice! :) (Which reminds me, I need to get time to call in my WOW story)

Let me tell you, there can't be a better Morning Show in the world! You think your morning show is better? It's not possible! I mean I have had TEARS rolling down my face from laughter. It's not easy to shave in the mornings with the radio on sometimes because I'm fearful of slicing my throat.

Anyways, I'm paroozing the Morning Show site and there's a picture of the morning show personalities, and one who's name I don't seem to recognize.

So, I tweet Mr. Cadillac Jack and ask him:
SmplyUnprdctble @ATLCadillac Who is this "Greg" person who's pictured on the Morning Show page that I've never heard of?

ATLCadillac @SmplyUnprdctble Greg Talmadge - does traffic for us every morning... been with KICKS for 20 years

SmplyUnprdctble @ATLCadillac Oh! Him! I thought he was imaginary and you've been using random traffic reports from the past since it's always the same! :)

SmplyUnprdctble @ATLCadillac Also, tell your web peeps Greg needs a page! I demand it!
Seriously -- I don't know how I forgot Greg. Most likely it's because I don't pay attention to the traffic because it seems to be out of date by the time it gets on the air (*references my reply about traffic always being the same*). Plus, he doesn't quite get the same amount of air time as Caddy and Dallas and Tug. I demand he get integrated into the show more! :)



Ok, so you want to hear the joke I won with? Well, today's your lucky day.
Back in 1977 (just barely before I was born), when the first Star Wars movie initially came out, Chewbacca won an award.
You know what that award was?
Wookie of the Year!
Now, no beating me for the joke. I made it up myself.

Friday, January 29, 2010

Pickle Puffer

This morning, I was listening to the Kicks 101.5 Morning Show with Cadillac Jack and Dallas, like I do every morning while I'm primping myself for work.

Ok, I gotta confess -- I don't listen to all the show -- just the couple minutes I catch when the snooze ends on my alarm and whist I'm in the bathroom showering and such and getting dressed. I have XM for my trip to work.

Anyways, I guess Dallas brought in Adam Lambert's CD for Flush the Format this morning (I don't know the whole back story, I was snoozing and the like). And then calls started rolling in.

One of the callers said something like "I don't care what the pickle puffer does."

And I think Dallas said "Wow, that's a new one!"

I stared at the radio.

Being a homosexical myself, my inclination should have been "I'm offended" -- but I continued to stare and was like "I LOVE that term!" (I guess it's 'cuz I'm an equal opportunity offender). I have to not only thank the caller for using that term, but thank the Morning Show for airing it! (although, I'm sure they probably got a number of complaints that it got aired on the radio. I say "get a life" to them!)

I love it when media gets a little edgy on a topic. I'm not saying to go over the top and call someone a Lint Licker or Cootie Queen, but push the envelope just enough. And if you push the envelope enough times, things will become socially acceptable and all these prejudices will go away!

Friday, January 22, 2010

Just friggin' fix it!

First, you never argue with a customer when missing data is the problem! No matter what the reason is!

Stupid idiot in IT (aka, "THOSE PEOPLE") is pissing me off!

Background: We ran our process to copy our Budget data into our reporting cube. One entire source database did not make it into our reporting cube, along with three business units from another source database.

I log a ticket with IT and they come back with "Oh, we found the problem, we'll fix it."

They do their business and I rerun the process and it fixes the big problem, but we're still missing the three business units from the other database.

A little back and forth and I get a response saying "The data has to be sourced somewhere else because we're excluding it in our export from the other database"

I respond with "That's the only location of the data. When can we get this resolved?"

He calls me and says "I don't understand your problem."
I have to explain AGAIN that there is missing data from our process and he pulls out the whole "Well, the code is doing what it's programmed to do" BS. I continue to argue.

He pulls out this whole "Well, somebody UAT'd it, so it had to be right. That means this is going to be an enhancement."
Then I ask "What's the Forecast process doing?"
"The same thing this one is doing"
"That's not possible!" I rebut.

I ask him to verify... then he comes back with "oh. it's different."

DON'T QUESTION ME, EVEN IF I DIDN'T WRITE IT! I was able to tell you something was different from the get-go! JUST FRIGGIN' FIX IT!

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Duck Season! Wabbit Season! Tax Season!

Oh joy of joys, it's tax season. I'm sure Ken Jennings will forever remember H&R Block now...

Anyways, The Company put out our W2s online this week, so I started to do my taxes (and was close to getting a final number until I realized The Suffix owes me a W2 for a few weeks of severance last year). And I started looking at numbers that made absolutely no sense.

I know what my yearly salary should be (approximately).

I looked at my W2 and it was about 7.5% less than my yearly salary. Then I looked at my final paycheck of the year and it was 11.5% less than my yearly salary. That's quite a lot. I mean, we're talking about 42 days worth of salary appears to be missing in my YTD total.

So, I started doing math. I multiplied my bi-weekly rate by 26. I got approximately my salary. That made no sense to me how the numbers could be off that much.

I contacted Payroll and their response was "Your W2 amount is your yearly salary less your pre-tax items." -- That was fine, but what about the missing 11.5%?

They started looking at things for me, but I got antsy. So I started pulling up my paychecks.

I found my starting base bi-weekly amount and discovered I had four paychecks at that rate. Then I found my increase rate and had 22 at that rate. Mathed them up and bam, I got my yearly salary. But, it didn't match my final paycheck of the year.

Then I looked at my paychecks closer. Apparently on my fourth paycheck of the year my payroll company changed from The Company, Inc to The Company Finance & Accounting. I did some quick math and discovered that three paychecks at The Company, Inc totals the amount missing from my final paycheck of the year. Pulled up my Feb 20 paycheck and lo and behold, my YTD totals got reset.

I did further math and found my W2 does indeed match the totals from the two payroll companies less my pre-tax items, so that makes me feel better on my return. Now I just gotta wait for The Suffix to send me off my W2 so I can get my taxes filed.

In other news, I'm trying to find ways to get more deductions without stretching them too much. I know I can deduct a portion of my cell phone bill and DSL because I use them for work as unreimbursed expenses. Part of me thinks if I put work email on my phone I can deduct a portion of the Internet portion of the plan, but I'm thinking that may be stretching it a tad... plus, I don't want people to know I have the ability to be constantly available.

I've tried to count Bradley as a dependent, but, alas, he has no social security number. I find that unfair!

My mortgage interest is getting me quite a nice deduction, methinks. Obviously, it's nowhere near the amount that's getting paid into it, but every little bit helps.

Anyone got any other ideas of deductions I should try to go for? If not this year, next year?