Woody Cavenaugh

These past several days the local diviners of weather have not only disagreed with each other they have disagreed with themselves. They were all very open and honest in admitting that the most accurate weather models they use were all saying very different things about what the past couple of days was going to bring.

At 10pm last night each of the local weather men had to make a call, and they all did, and they didn't agree, I'm not complaining mind you. I like it when they agree (and they are all right). I LOVE it when they disagree and one of them pulls the lucky straw and ends up right. However times like these don't make it easy to plan your day. It has to be doubly bad when you have a school age child and you have absolutely no idea what to expect by way of school closings the next morning. To be delayed or closed isn't so bad you know that your schedule will have to be modified. What makes it bad is when you go to bed and you have absolutely no idea if it is going to be a normal day or a closed school day. This gives you no time to coordinate your back up plan.

I don't blame the weather men for this. What they do is a prediction no different than a bookie setting odds on a sporting event. It is a complete mystery to me why more people don't make money wagers on the weather. You could even do a point spread on the ammount of precipitation.

The real issue at least for me as I don't gamble, and I don't have kids is to find one source of weather that is if not more accurate than everyone else is at least more consistant than everyone else.

This said, I hereby officially choose this source as my official pick of all informations weather related. If its good enough for my father to plant by it ought to be good enough for me to figure out what to wear by. I'll still keep my eye on channel 2 and channel 8. Now THAT's entertainment!

Posted by at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With the glowing review I got from Rob about the Roomba robosuck...oops, I mean robotic vaccuum cleaner or your plastic pal that's fun to clean with...so many good things to call it. I was just looking for an excuse to pick one up and it just so happened that several positive things all happened about the same time. I got good overtime on my monthly pay check, Sara said, "I feel like a Roomba would be so good for us", and our marriage was hitting its five year mark (or 1.25th anniversary). I knew it was meant to be, and we went for it.

Based on Rob's recommendations we went to Best Buy to get a Roomba Discovery. Rob was wrong about the Best Buy part, but Sears had it and we couldn't get home fast enough to try it out.

Sara being adventurious and clumsy accidentally field stripped it while taking it out of the box, so once we got its filters, dust bins, rollers and brushes back in place we set it on its charger and waited. Ok, we actually set in on the floor about three feet from its charger and it went home to charge. I was figuring that first time it would take 3-6 hours at least to charge, so when bedtime came around I went to bed. Sara stalked it like a hungry tiger and as soon as it was ready she pressed the friendly "Clean" button and off it went. I did not wake for the occasion but I was roused slightly by a very excited gleeful giggle. I remember thinking that the Roomba was a winner or she was flying solo with a power toy.

I awoke this morning to find Sara sleeping next to me with perhaps the sweetest smile I had ever seen on her and a trashcan half full of dust and animal hair. The roomba had a light coat of dust on it as it sat in its charger, I could almost hear its exhausted snore. The carpet had never been cleaner.

7:59am Sara woke up.

8:00am Roomba was activated for what I learned was round three.

Debeers might try to convice me that love is a diamond but I now know that Love's name is 'Rosie" and she's our Roomba Discovery.

Posted by at 6:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every since 1984 when I first saw the movie Buckaroo Banzai I have been obsessed with the very simple ideas of following your interest as far as it can go, and being cool while being nice. I love making friends with interest that go beyond my own. This has allowed me to grow by simply spending time with my friends, finding out what they enjoy doing and trying out it myself. Because of this I have experienced many exciting things and surrounded myself with a diverse group of IT professionals, web designers, project managers, artist, armorers, medical professionals, teachers, film makers, writers, actors, scientiest, lawyers, game designers, armed services types, and others too diverse to list easily. Its really nice to know that on almost any given day I can go on an adventure doing what they love to do, and in turn I can share with them the various interest I have. The goal of it all is be the best generalist I can be.

I guess then it will be no surprise that my wife is into special effects make up, directing, production management, project management, playing the didgeridoo, screen writing, and music amoung other interest. I am thrilled to be allowed to explore her interest and I hope she has enjoyed exploring some of mine. I am very proud of her accomplishments.

It all just sort of hit me once again in these past couple of days how amazingly cool she is. Right now she's putting the finishing touches on her Masters thesis, which is a marketable feature length movie script while she is managing two high risk high profile million dollar IT projects, while persuing a career, and still has time to record backup vocals for The Malamondos. If that isn't living the Dr. Banzai way I don't know what is.

"No matter where you go, there you are."

Posted by at 8:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I saw an article on Fark.com recently about Fayetteville NC and all of Cumberland County working together to rebrand their area and try to finally live down "Fayettenam " by taking an almost Disney like approach to a brand identity. If Disney can be the happiest place on earth, why couldn't Cumberland county be the most patriotic place on earth.

The submitter of this story to fark I am not sure really understood the article very well as they labeled it "Asinine" and submitted it with this title. "To show pride in country that prides itself on freedom, town wants to force restaraunts to serve apple pie. Freedom last seen choking itself to death" Amusing title, but not realy related to the article.

The Fayetteville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau have been spit balling some ideas that could help to turn the tide of popular opinion and all of the ideas were good ones. Giving away free flags on the street, having all the restaurants serve apple pie, paint the town red, white and blue, all these ideas and more are on the table. Since it was brain storming, obviously not all of them will ever see the light of day but it is clear that they are thinking well with open minds and creative spirits. Sooner or later every area is trying to brand or rebrand themselves the only difference is that Fayetteville's ideas are bolder, broader, and potentially more likely to work.

I believe it will work and one of the reasons is size and population of the area. Greensboro could never do this. It is too big, too diverse, and too combative. (Combative is not exactly the right word, but I couldn't think of one better off of the top of my head.) Fayetteville will make this very bold plan happen because there isn't enough population to whip up a strong resistance to it. And who can argue against patriotism? (Pure genius!) Greensboro has a heck of a time just doing small things. The baseball statium is a prime example. Some wanted it for good reason, some didn't want it for equally good reason. The side with the most money won the battle. I have no opinion of baseball except it is a ball sport. However I do have an opinion of the downtown revitalization effort and I applaud it. It won't be nearly as easy to be successful with this effort because it isn't a bold choice. It will be harder for the casual observor to measure tangable success. Someone from Fayetville won't be able to drive downtown and even say what is going on good, but if any of us were to drive through Fayetville after their effort is complete we are all going to agree that they had a theme and they went with it. Who knows, we might even come away with a free flag.

Posted by at 9:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

For those who did not know or have not stopped in yet, Greensboro has a tapis place downtown and its name is Solaris.
Sara and I stopped in after work yesterday to give it a try. Everything I knew about tapas I heard from someone else and from their description it sounded like a good idea. You have a big menue filled with cool and interesting appitezers. Everyone picks a couple and you can share or not depending on how you made up your mind.

As a born and bread North Carolinian this was not a foreign concept even if it happened to be a spanish style. Since 1800 Cavenaugh's have been having covered dish dinners, barn raisings, wakes, weddings, family reunions and pig pickings. You could say that the buffet is in our blood. In my case its more like an all you can eat buffet and its in my blood pressure but that is neither here nor there. In a nut shell, a variety of food, eat your fill, share with friends. This is what Solaris is all about. The menue is three pages long, the first two pages are appetizers (tapas) and the back page is entrees (for the fearful or greedy) and deserts.

Christian, who I guess was our server (her name was on the receipt), guided us first timers into the wonderful world of tapas. Her recommendiation is that everyone choose two or three and if you are still hungry then you might choose to order more. This works for me, I love buffets because of the variety, Sara hates going up to the "trough" and serving yourself. The tapas style satisfied us both, we got wonderous variety, and we never had to go get it ourself. I could not have asked for a better server and I don't think I have ever had one better either.

The restaurant is open and airy with local art on the walls all around. The bar was large and fully stocked, the music was jazz, the atmosphere very friendly without being too relaxed. Business suits melded perfectly with sweaters and pullovers. I could easily see the other coaches and I slipping over here after practice for one of our regular "business meetings". The seating was tables of two and four seats but I saw no reason safety or aestheticly why you couldn't pull a couple together for a larger group. I admit though the acustics lended itself more to intimate pairs and couples.

On Christian's advice we ended up with three tapas each (which we shared evenly) and finished with coffee and desert. The plan we went with and stuck to was to order something, enjoy it, and order something else, and the menues were left with us for this very reason. We began with Spanish Orchards, well actually I began with Red Oak, but I ordered Spanish Orchards. This was a very simple plate with a variety of three cheeses, some apple slices and some nice toasty bread to have it with. This dish was made for Red Oak. Sara started with a Good Time Dip, and it was a good time, hot cheesy and flavorful with plenty of toasty bread (they have a cool hip spanish name for the toasty bread but I have forgotten it.) Had it been less open and friendly I might have licked that bowl clean, as it was, and me in my work cloths, we opted to scrape the bowl clean with a spoon. We had gotten off on a good start!

Next we went in a slightly traditional tangent. I had wings in a hoi-sin sauce. Think of it as terriaki from an alternate realtiy. The dippings wasn't blue cheese, it was blue cabrales. (please don't be "cheese" in spanish). Its texture was thinner than blue cheese dressing and really had a richer flavor. Sara went with a Mediterranean Pizza. Both were delightfully different and I couldn't recommend the pizza enough, fresh, flavorful, and four slices so you can share its goodness with three friends if you are feeling generous.

By this point we could have stopped and been happy but the spirit of adventure was upon us and we had to go on. This round we went with filet mignon medalians and Classic Ceviche (apparently "Ceviche" translates into something that translates into "Wake up dead people" or so the menu said). The filet mignon medalians were served with melting brie and pesto sauce. It is the first time in my life I ever found a good use for pesto. I can only guess that's what steak in heaven is like. The Ceviche is a light, cool, seafood dish perfect for a summer day on their patio. We joked that its power to raise the dead might be from its onions and garlic but upon trying it it was just such an amazingly refreshing dish that its name was earned honestly. It was this dish that made us immediately want to plan a night out with the couples we know to share this with them.

We were very much sated at this point, however the spirit of adventure being what it is we broke down and had Cheesecake, and Java Sol Flan with our coffees. The cheesecake could cure mental illness, the Java Sol Flan delightfully evil with three liquers and three coffee beans, decadent enough to make you think of bring in a third. ;)

All in all I can't wait to go back. With my temp budget this isn't a place I could eat every week at but surely we can find it in our means to splurge here once a month. And what do you know, our anniversary is next week!

If you live in Greensboro, make it a point to go eat here, there is plenty of parking and it is easy to get to. If you are visiting friends in Greensboro ask them to go there with you, it will be a perfect evening. There is live music on the weekends if that's your taste and the week days are perfect for quiet dates, "business meetings", or just hanging out with friends. Your mouth will love you for it.

Posted by at 8:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I don't know how it happened, I don't know when it happened. The first I was ever aware of a band called the Cure was in high school while involved in the theatre department. Back in those days now known fondly as the '80's Cure fans were easy to spot. They would dye their hair black, wear black cloths and wear black eyeliner. They wouldn't have mullets. I wasn't a part of that set. I was my own strange bird. I wore bright colors, toyed with a mullet and hair styling product and listened to one hit wonders as my bread and butter music. I built my musical taste on Men at Work, They Might Be Giants, and Weird Al Yankovich, but the meat of my musical Big Mac was Bow Wow Wow, Midnight Oil, Men Without Hats, Walls of Voodoo, The Other Ones, Taco, Falco and the rest of those glorious songsters. If I heard a Cure song on the radio I might not even know it. I did eventually buy the cassette single "Friday I'm in Love", but I certainly didn't but a cure album or 45.
Now I keep my hair carefully styled with a product called "Bed Head", I have learned to clash in as few as two colors and I openly mock the hollow shell of a style that has now degenerated into something refered to as "Goth". I also listen to DayGlo Radio on winamp. This station is refered to as "80's With Attitude" and pretty much sums up what I want to listen to. Now that I have this radio station I don't even need CD's at work. I just tune in and enjoy.

So over time listening to this station I found myself occasionally turning it up or looking down at the task bar to find out who it was that did that really cool song I just turned up. A shocking ammount of the time the song was by the Cure. So I requested and got from Sara The Cure's Greatest Hits on CD. Imagine my surprise when I knew most of the songs on the CD. How could this be? I'm not a Cure fan. (Of course I'm not a Cure fan.) My friend in highschool Dot with the black dyed hair, black lipstick and black eye pencil (This was in 1986-1990) she was the Cure fan. She had all of their albums and copies on cassette. I liked her because she was cool, she was smart, she was fun to hang out with, and she wasn't afraid to be herself! We never dated of course, this was high school, you know the rules, you could be friends and be different, you must be part of the same homogenius group to date. I was truly blessed to have a friend who was a Cure fan and another good cute friend who was into hair bands. I was a well rounded theatre geek...who had a spiked mullet, and drove a customized '65 Fairlane. (I also didn't date much.)

So here I am 15 years after the fact suddenly comming to grips with the fact that I was a closet Cure fan. I mean you can't tell from looking at me, I'm wearing blue-grey suede shoes for heaven's sake! My hair isn't dyed! Of course, on the other hand I go through a great deal of effort to make it appear that I spend no time at all on my hair.

If the Goths find out I'll never live it down! Hey, wait a minute, Goths won't know who the Cure is. My secret life is safe afterall.

Odd Dayglo's stream appears to be down. Good thing I have this 80's hair station bookmarked. Nothing says Tuesday morning like Van Halen (David Lee Roth ONLY) and Def Leopard.

Posted by at 8:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Sara read "Am I A Writer" over my shoulder and made some comments that set the wheels spinning again. She reasoned that in order to title yourself something, you had to get something back from it. King is a writer because he gets filthy stinky rich everytime he makes paper dirty. A lawyer is a lawyer not because of the esq at the end of their name, but because they make money practicing law. So obviously I hit her with the fencing coach argument which is since I don't make money teaching fencing, than I am not a fencing coach. Without missing a beat she replies, "what you get back is the satisfaction of your students bringing back medals and trophies". Sneaky that one. So based on that I can choose to call myself a writer simply because someone out there enjoys reading what I write. Nice!

I am not sure I should have it printed on business cards yet though.

I could call myself a Blogger. Anyone who has a blog and writes in a blog is a blogger right? Of course then we have to look at the sum of all bloggers and notice that there is a difference between Drudge, Wonket, Instapundit, Cone, Hoggard, Billy, Ovittore The other TP bloggers, Myself, and the blogger who manages (almost) to get something out every blue moon. I simply refuse to aknowledge it right now. First because no one else has in any detail yet, and two because bloggerdom already has enough of a problem with a pecking order forming based on readership. Lets not confuse the new frontier further with questions of quanity of postings, quality of postings, quanity of readership and quality of readership. Besides that doesn't further my neurosis.

This does. Am I a blogger who writes, or a writer who blogs, or a writer of blogs.

Ok, drink.

Posted by at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

What am I? And before it has time to enter your mind, let me go ahead and tell you that this isn't some sort of identity crisis. This is simply a question of identity. Not only how I choose to identify myself but how others identify me. Over two years ago when I got laid off from my tech job I was feeling obviously a little down. When people asked me in social situations what I did, I told them I was unemployed. I was feeling down and maybe just a touch sorry for myself so when I described what I was I used the title that had a mountain of negative meaning behind it. "Unemployed" is a word that packs a whole grocery list of questions and statements behind it that lead the asker to the conclusion that I had somehow failed. Questions like, "What did this guy do to end up unemployed?" And statements like, "If this guy is unemployed and his peers are still employeed then it logically means that he is the worst of his peers." "You wouldn't lose your job for being good, or even mediocre." "What's wrong with this person?" When I got my feet under me a little bit and I had a handle on my situation I answered the question honestly once again. I told them I was a fencing coach. It was true then and it is true now. When I go to class three nights a week I am a "coach", they call me Woody, or if they are formal they will call me "Coach Woody". Fortunately I don't have that many formal relationships left in the club. I like "Woody" better than "Coach Woody". I like all of my fencers and when they call me "Woody" to my face, I can tell myself that they like me right back. But being a fencing coach doesn't put food on the table. As a volunteer the only compensation I get is the occasional meal from a parent, or the monthly bag of coffee from my coach whom I call "Doc" behind her back, and "Dr. Robinson" to others in more formal situations. To her face, I try my best not to say "Dr. Robinson" and will opt when I can to call her nothing at all. We met as I was a student and she was the Doctor teaching the class, our relationship started formal and remained that way for years, I can't exactly just start calling her "Sally". It feels weird in my mouth. But not only do I degress, I tangent.

So back to my identity. I was unemployed two years ago, but have been a temp ever since. I teach fencing three nights a week. I work in a university project management office, but I do not have a PMI, nor have I ever managed a project. I helped to create a project management office complete with custom methodology and database for tracking work and reporting. At work I am a temp-Project Management Analysist. My boss would like for me to stop using the term "Temp", but since I am not permenant I have to be "temporary". The difference is retirement, insurance, and other bennifits. These are very important differences that I am not about to forget about. So I was unemployed and a fencing coach, but now I am a temporarily employeed for two years so far project management analyst who teaches fencing. Its a mouth full. So as the mood hits me I am a "temp", a "fencing coach" or a "project management analyst". But that's not what I am telling myself I am. I tell the people who ask that, and I put that in this blog but when I look at myself in my mind's eye I am writer. I feel guilty for doing it and embarassed at doing it. When I take surveys where they ask you to check the box, "Mr., Ms, Miss, Dr., or Esq" I will often pick "Esq". I am not at lawyer but I love the sound of the word as a title and since it is a blind survey it doesn't really matter that much how I title myself. If "Esq" isn't an option I am just as likely to use "Miss" as "Mr". This makes since in this situation, its blind they can't check for hardware to asertain wether I am a Mr, Ms, or Esq. But I couldn't title myself a writer in public just like I couldn't title myself MS or Esq.

Yet it is ok for myself to refer to myself as a fencing coach. Among my friends a large number of them are writers. My wife and another friend are both graduating this year with a masters degree in screenplay writing. I have upwards of four friends who are all working in some level of secrecy on their Great American Novel one of those has written a couple of feature length scripts. The number of friends I have who blog is large and growing. So among my frinds I have screenwriters, novelist, bloggers. But I can't call myself a writer no more than I can call myself a Ms or Esq. I can't use Ms because I have a penis an can't use Esq because I don't have a law degree. I suppose I could say that I can't call myself a writer because I don't have nor have never had a best selling book or an article in a newspaper or magazine. If you were to ask someone who has a spot on the NY times best seller list reserved for them like Dean Koontz, Michael Crichton, or Steven King they would laugh and tell you "Of course he's not a writer". If you were to ask people like Fred Chapel or Michael Parker who to my knowledge haven't graced the top of the NY times list and teach writing at a university they would also tell you I am not a writer. So one would be lead to believe very logically that to be a writer, one must make money by writing. If that were true I couldn't call myself a fencing coach either because I don't make money doing it. There are project managers out there who have little or no certification at all, only a small percentage of Project Managers are PMIs, yet all of them call themselves project managers and work for a living managing projects. That's like a boy scout getting his Red Cross certification and calling himself a doctor. Project managers call themselves that because of the simple fact that they lead projects. Fencers call themselves that because they fence. No one in America makes money by winning fencing matches. So if you use the "Writer" definition then America has no fencers in it. I have a club full of kids who go out every week and bring back medels for winning competitions who would disagree at sword point with that. (I trained them well in the art of tact and diplomacy at sword point.)

So why do I have to call myself a writer in a whisper in my own head at night behind locked doors with the blinds drawn under the covers with the flashlight turned off? My fifth grade teacher told my mother and father at a parent teacher conference that it didn't matter what I went out to do, what I wanted to do, or what I actually did, I was a writer and no one could take that away from me. Well someone is taking it away from me, or I could at least have the flashlight switched on when under the covers in the house at night with the doors locked and the curtains drawn and I whisper in my own head that I am writer. I mean I write right? I'd better be writing or for these past several long meandering paragraphs you have all shared a hallucination with me. Creepy huh? We could all be crazy right now and no one knows it but Koontz, Crichton, King, Parker, Chapel, and the editor of the NY times book list.

I am not a novelist. I admit it, I am working in secret on a Great American Novel like everyone else, but that's not my muse exactly. I, as has been already made clear by a group of book snobs, am not literate. They defined literate as reading more than six books a month or something equally horid that I am trying to block from my mind. I am guessing this group must be bankrolled by the publishing industry. Its like Wal-Mart publishing that you aren't a consumer if you don't spend "X" dollars a month at Wal-Mart. Or worse yet, like I see on the occasional bumper sticker, you are not American if you didn't vote for Bush. I am ok with not being a novelist and I have read very few novels compared to my friends. They read Tolken, Gaiman, King, Koontz, Chrichton and Stephenson. Ok, I have read two Neal Stephenson books. I read Snow Crash (loved it), and I just this morning finished "In The Beginning...Was The Command Line". This 151 page essay took me about two months to read and was worth the time. He writes in Emacs, I write in Notepad, appart from the OS choise I almost feel like a kindred spirit. Although I was never a programmer, I didn't ever learn emacs, and he wouldn't call me a writer either. Some kindred spirit he turned out to be. My literary heros are Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Lewis Grizzard, Dave Barry, Douglas Adams, and Brad Rich. Ok, some of you could argue that Douglas Adams doesn't fit in the list. He wrote sci-fi novels sure, but in them he wrote things like "...ape like descendants who are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are pretty neat idea." No truer social comentary has ever been written. If it wasn't true than why are there so many people out there who carry cell phones, pagers, PDA's, laptops, and when asked the time look at the digital watch on their wrist. Adams hid great social comentary cleverly within the folds of a sci-fi novel. I have never read any Tolken, Gaiman, King, Koontz or Chrichton. I suspect most of my friends just marked my name off of their christmas card list for admitting that. Its not that I don't think I would like Tolken, Gaiman, King, Koontz, or Chrichton, I probably would, but the environment necessary for me to read text on paper is pretty specific, way too specific to allow me to be married, work, teach, write, and well do anything else really. Being dyslexic means that for me to read, I must be comfortable and have good light but otherwise be in a sensory depreviation chamber so I can focus on the translation and comprehension. I think that is what draws me to the essay. Short works of social comentary that start with a bang and end the same way. Poetry is actually harder because the pattern has to be learned of the poem at the same time that the translation is occuring. Essay speaks simply in a language I already understand and doesn't waste valuable mental CPU time describing the ceiling of a hardware store. Thus in the set of all people who call themselves writers I would like to place myself in the subset of those who describe themselves as essayest. Not that I can call myself an essayest or a writer or anything.

I think the only reason I am even having this long winded one sided conversation with myself and you is because recently people, who are friends of mine in spite of me saying things simply for a laugh that should have earned me a punch in the face, have complimented me on my writing. (You know you have friends when you insult them for a laugh and they don't punch you in the face and they still invite you to stuff.) I am struggling with why or should I even call myself a writer because people like my writing. Woah. It took all those paragraphs for me to figure that out. You've heard of the theorpy where the shrink just sits in a chair with a notebook and says nothing. The style uses the discomfort of silence to force you to deal with your own problems. Well, my monitor is my theorpist. And I just had a breakthrough. Next session perhaps I will try to figure out what this new understanding actually means.

Posted by at 8:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I spent most of last week sick. Sick and tired. Friday I slept 16 hours, Saturday I slept 12 hours, Sunday I got up at 8am to make my weekly 8am phone call home. I'm sick, I'm tired, my biggest critic pounced on my weakness.

She had seen a news story that told about people getting fired front left and center for what they wrote in their blogs. I suspect what the story was about was disgruntled employees complaining about their idiot bosses and stupid company moves. They are standing on their right to free speech, but lets be honest. If you hated your boss and you called him an idiot to his face could you really expect to keep your job? Its your bosses right to free speech to fire you for being disrespectful, disruptive, and rude.

Thus I have never said a bad word about my boss, my job, or the university. And truthfully there isn't much I can really say. I love my boss, I love the job I have worked as a temp in for these past two years one month and seventeen days. I was actually hired as a temp for this job two years one month and seventeen days ago based in part on my blog. I also actually interviewed for my own job yesterday. If I hated the job or the people I certainly would not have done that. The university does amazing things for the community and society in general. It cranks out education at a reasonable price to America's youth and it helps with the mentally ill homeless problem in the state by hiring the mentally ill as professors. Were it not for the university there would be a whole bunch of professors naked on the street arguing with a wall and losing. How can this be a bad thing?

But I was sick, I was tired, and the last thing I wanted or needed to hear was "You should delete everything you have written so you don't lose your job. Oh and I really don't like what you had to say about..." At this point I was barely listening. I couldn't hear anything for the ringing in my ears that came from being kicked in the head.

So I started getting well, and then I lost sleep over having to interview for my own job against people who are for the most part already making more than twice what this job pays. Is the job market so bad still? Days of comfort food and poor sleep passed, I interviewed and I feel ok about my performance. Though it sucks knowing that I was the one who had to interview first. I am trying to put the stress of being out of work again in its place- in its place next to "delete your blog or lose your job", and "getting over being sick".

I swear if I get this job the first thing I am going to to is take a vacation.

So here I am today recovered, interviewed, but still dealing with my biggest critic's voice in my head. I think I have it worked out now at least enough to start writing again. I'm attacking the problem with logic.

I don't talk about work on my blog. Therefore if any co-worker, boss, etc dislikes what I say or how I say it, it's ok, it is their opinion and either one of us could be wrong. If they fire me because they don't agree with what I have written then they are an asshole. Now I have spent days trying to find a word that meant "asshole" that wasn't a curse word. There isn't one, sorry mom, I'll try not to use it much after this.

If they fire me because they don't agree with what I have written then they are an asshole. This is actually a win-win for me! I'm no longer working for an asshole (plus the asshole is paying my unemployment), and long after I am gone they are STILL going to be an asshole. How great is that!

My only real obligation is to continue to not talk about work on my blog. I can do that.

Posted by at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Have you ever noticed that though grits and oat meal are both grain products served hot they are treated like entirely different dishes?

They both can be made in the microwave by just adding water. They are both a light industrial neutral color and both are bland in flavor.

Somewhere sometime someone did something that sent these two hot ceriels spiralling in different directions. But I have picked up the gauntlet. I have dared to see these two grain foodstuffs for what they really are. It is I who ripped down the jagged wall of food racism-"Foodism" if you will. I have brought peace to the shelves and microwaves of the world.

Currently grits are always served in a savery style, with some combination of salt, pepper, butter, cheese, ham, bacon, gravey, etc. Oatmeal is always served in a sweet style, with some combination of, sugar, brown sugar, mapel syrup, fruit, cinnamon and spices.

I have dared the undarable! I have thought the unthinkable! I have gone where no man and his microwave have ever gone before!

It all started with a box of warehouse store sized oat meal packets 55 to be exact. Of these 55 six were just regular oat meal. This is was to be the fertile ground that my unbounding genius would create.

Day One: Plain oat meal seasoned with powdered ham seasoning. To put it in terms of sound ham seasoned oat meal is like listening to a high end car stereo with the highs and mids missing. This needed something. Perhaps I should try adding ham seasoning to the mapel and brown sugar oatmeal. I could have Lexington Style Oatmeal! Another day perhaps...

Day Two: Plain oat meal seasoned with powdered beef seasoning. Much better. Infact this was pretty good eating. If I saw it in the store I would buy it. I would then use it as evidence in a court case against the mega-corporation bent on stealing my ideas! Then I would eat it.

Day Three: Plain oat meal seasoned with soy sause. I admit I didn't have high hopes for this one, but I was really surprised by how good it was. Then I remembered that rice is a grain too. Duh!

Day Four: I got back to simple. I had plain oat meal seasoned only with salt and pepper. Yum, and it didn't take but a dash of salt to do it.

Day Five: Plain oat meal with butter and black pepper. Mmmm Mmmm good! I would probably recommend this one to the sceptics out there who will no doubt try to mock me for my discoveries. They mock what they do not understand.

Day Six: Tomorrow. I am thinking cheese.

So out of five so far only one recipee needed work and it has the potential to finally give Lexington the place on the map it so despritely wants.

Success. I am a genius. You may bask in my greatness now.

Posted by at 1:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I occasionally do coffee reviews, especially when the coffee is exotic in some way or has a good story behind it. Today's coffee is both exotic and has a good story.

This coffee was smuggled to me from Hawaii. I will change the names to something improbable to protect the guilty. Here's how I think it went. Some of the details of the Underground Kaffegeschäft are secret even to me. But I thank everyone who had a part in it or even those I think might have had a part in it. You are all very good to me.
Jon brought the bag to Jay who gave it to Chuck, who gave it to Chip, who gave it to Mark, who gave it to Rob, who gave it to me. A coffee that traveled so far through such mysterious means must be delt with special, so I drank all of the other bits pieces and parcels of coffee in the house. Then and only then could I focus my attention on this very special bag of coffee.

The story sadly was better than the coffee.
Lion Caramel Christmas Creme
Coffee comes in typically two instruction types. One tablespoon per cup, or two tablespoons per cup. This bag of coffee came in a third "Mystery" instruction type. There was no indication at all anywhere on the bag what the ratio of water to beans was. So like any one who ever had a science class I started with a 1:1 ratio with the plan of going up or down from there in a regular measured way. My first pot was extremely weak and had an artificial flavor aftertaste. My second pot 1:1.5 tasted more like a strong artifical flavor aftertaste with a hint of coffee. 1:2 made the house smell bad. I drank it, but I felt like I took years off of my life doing it. On the plus side the coffee color and flavor was right. On the minus the artifical flavor chemical funk made the coffee nearly undrinkable. Real half and half did nothing to change this. Lion Coffee I like. Lion brand flavored coffees should be generally avoided. Its a shame too, the bags are cool. This bag features a Lion dressed as Santa driving a classic "Woody" (complete with surfboards) filled with presents on the beach. Next to the car are two cubs in traditional native clothing.

Posted by at 2:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Seth MacFarlane does it again. American Dad rocks. Think Family Guy but with a political slant.

Its always easy to to be put off by pilot episodes, and if you are one of those people who always takes the easy way out, you would've felt the same about this pilot. A pilot episode is nothing more than a proof of concept, a pitch, an audition if you will. You have to demonstrait in one episode the entire relm of possibility for a show. In a nutshell, it can be a little disjointed.

Those of us who understand (think tin foil hat geeks like myself) can see a pilot for what it us and understand the potential. American Dad has it in spades baby!

Where else can you blend political satire, conspiracy theory, and current events other than Fark.com. Simpsons would be considered mild by comparison. And I love me some Simpsons.

The season of American Dad and Family Guy being on May 1st. Hopefully we can watch Family Guy reruns until then. And of course, be driven out of our minds by the media blitz that will go on for the next three months. I always hated that part.

Posted by at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My boss has a son who wrestles at Northwest Middle school. Last night she and the other parents of their school traveled to Jackson Middle to watch the wrestling. What they saw was so objectionable and repugnant I would have thought she was exagerating. Only she has video tape of the events I am about to describe.

As a regular mother of a child who plays sports she goes to as many of his events in whatever sport he is playing. (To my knowledge the only sport he hasn't competed in is Volleyball and Fencing.) In watching wrestling she has come to be very accustomed to the manors and decorum of the sport. Competitors at the beginning line up and see who they are going to be competing against. They sit in their seats, cheer their teamates on and when its their turn they go to the mat, take their position, wrestle following the rules and conventions of the sport. When the match is over they shake hands with the coach of the other team and return to their seat.

Jackson does things a little differently. First off very few parents showed up. The visitor bleachers were full, the home bleachers were fairly empty. The Jackson wrestlers didn't line up. They didn't stay in their seats, young gang members wandered in and out flashing gang signs and yelling obsenities at the visiting team members. The wrestlers themselves seemed to have TV wrasslin' and greco-roman wrestling confused. If it was illegal or inappropriate Jackson was all over it. They even went the extra mile and had to have one of their parents who did show up arrested.

At this point I would like to give a big shout out to the coach of the Northwest team. As a coach nothing makes me hotter under the collar than athletes who parade around being disrespectful, rude, dangerous, and idiotic. If it is a coach that does it ejection from the game is the only acceptable solution. As a referee I will eject fencers if they are any of the above. My own fencers never act out. They are taught from day one how to behave, what is expected, and enough discipline to make good judgements even when faced with poor behavior. The Northwest Coach did what I don't think I could've done. He stayed calm in the face of criminal misconduct and kept his wrestlers all calm and business like, one outburst after another. I would have had a "diplomatic" discussion with the Jackson Coach. I might have even used a little "folding chair diplomacy" if words were not enough. I certainly would have gathered my team up and left the meet.

The Northwest wrestlers faced foul language, abuse, gang signs, disrespect, slaping, punching, body slams and pile drivers with calm professionalism. Even the one who was sent to the hospital in a body brace because the young Jackson criminal thug used a ridiculous and highly illegal TV wrasslin' move on him. As I write this the boy is still in the hospital and still in a brace. They don't think his paralysis will be permenant. I tend to think of the word "Lawyer" as a bad word, but it is the only word I can think of to assess the incident.

And as an FYI, if you are a teacher/administrator from Jackson, it is ultimately uncool to pose your wrestlers in front of the paramedics for a photo opportunity while they are prepairing the unmoving wrestler to be taken to the hospital. What are you stupid?

Northwest by the way won the match. They were the better team, the better athletes, the better wrestlers. Jackson didn't seem to grasp the concept of wrestling, let alone the rules and conventions of the sport.

This is completely unacceptable to me. As a coach I am in a rage over this and I demand heads on pikes. As my boss's employee I am angry enough to write two blog entries in one day over it.

The coach of Jackson Middle should be standing in the unimployment line right next to the principal (who was even at the event apparently). If you can't manage to get the feces off of your cafeteria windows and you can't manage to host a safe event for middle schoolers and you can't keep your students from throwing rocks at the other teams bus as it pulls out of the parking lot, then who needs you?

Posted by at 9:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (29) | TrackBacks (1)

NC Legislators having solved all of the other state's problems are working towards legislation making the Lexington Barbecue Festival the official barbecue festival of North Carolina.
That is the plan of House Bill DRH50012-LG-3A

For those who have not yet had the misfortune of having lexington BBQ, it goes like this. Take a good and proper NC BBQ sauce, now add enough sugar to turn the it into an ice cream topping. Serve over chopped barbecued pork shoulders. Garnish with Type 2 diabetes.

Apparently a powerful Lexington bubba lobbiest group is at work enticing our state's lawmakers with promises of a pig guaranteed to put the "hawg" in Groundhog day. Based on the intelligence I have gathered in reguards to the investigation into the three bullet holes in my home I have learned that a crack team of Lexington Stormtroopers are at this very moment prepairing to make sure that Punxsutawney Phil's last appearance is today.

We must stop this bill, not only to protect our fine state from being a laughing stock over trying to make a pig a February 2nd weatherman, but to preserve the balance of Eastern NC VS Western NC barbecue (or Porkcicle as it is refered to in Greensboro). As for Punxsutawney Phill, stay low brother, we haven't had a good snow yet.

Posted by at 8:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Fencing in Greensboro, victim of terrorism?

All I know is, I had a foil class at 7pm. I was meeting, for the first time, an Ashboro student who is using fencing as his senior project. The plan was to turn on Church street from Market street. We were twarted at church and Friendly by a full on road block, the other end of which was Summit avenue. Sara wheeled us over to the front of the Cultural arts center and I went on recon patrol to try to sneak behind enemy lines and take care of my fencers. I was nearly intercepted by Greensboro's finest, but was saved by my cell phone. It rang, I answered, and I could then pretend to not hear the officer yell at me as I slid into home plate, the locked door of the YWCA. It was the Doc. She was at the post office and had more information then I did. A "Strange abandoned package" perhaps. In hindsight perhaps I should not have been slinking through the shadows with my tablet strapped to my back and a grocery bag in my hand. Oh well, the officer guarding that side of the area apparently was worried about being called "offsides". I got in and out unmolested. Not even shot at.

I then had nothing left to do but tag along with Sara as she went to "ladies night" meeting Becky Quigley at Caraboo Coffee in friendly center. I had a wonderful evening drinking far too much caffine talking blogging, and other important stuff and wondering what was going on downtown. The night ended three hours later when the store closed, so I wrapped up the evening laying on the pavement changing Becky's tire.

A strange abandoned package (if that is what happened at all) makes since to me. I know for a fact that lots of students hang out at the downtown library, some of my fencers included. They all have backpacks. It would be easy for one of them to be mislayed and subsequently blown up in the name of national security. If it was a suspicious package at the library I am sure they detonated nothing more than dirty gym shorts, a peanut butter sandwhich, and a Government/Civics book. Ironic that.

This morning I turned the TV looking to find out what happened last night. Not a word, but I now know a half a dozen different ways to use peanuts in superbowl recipies. I know! The blogsphere ought to have something on the subject. I scanned my favorites, I checked out some of the local list, I turned on Awasu. Nothing.

I checked out the online version of the Greensboro News and Fishwrap. Nothing at all. Behind me on my bookshelf the propeller on my tin foil beenie started spinning all by itself. Perhaps closing down a street and evacuating the YWCA, the Cultural Arts Center, the Public Library, and the Childrens Musieum just isn't news...

If I learn something, I will update this post. If you know something I don't (about this), please leave a comment.

In other news a Ford F150 4X4 bottle jack will not be at all useful to change a tire on a Honda CRV. Apparently elephant and pig DNA really don't splice.... Fortunately after 45 minutes or so of trying to use the wrong jack unsuccessfully, the right jack was located, and minutes later Becky was on her way.

Posted by at 8:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)