Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Memory is Blue

This is a story of an alternative universe that I lived in once. A mythical vision called Corporate America. I was once a network expert with a half-dozen certificates. A half-dozen more in my file for various computer programs. The job was over in Seattle, the other side of the state from where I used to live. I had a Toyota Dolphin RV, and a burning urge to make my mark in the corporate world. I went over for the interview. They liked me, but they hired everyone subject to 90 days probation. Well I not to be outmatched, told them I had no plans to tie myself up in a Seattle apartment lease, in case I got sacked during the probationary period. I'd be living on their parking lot, at the far space, in my little RV. I got the job, keeping their intra-and-internet accessible to the right people. I had a cardboard windshield shade that was covered in solar cells, to keep my batteries charged. I understand there's a roll of solar cell material that you can use for that nowadays. Every Friday I'd split for Spokane, cleaning the waste tank at the first available stop. Back to Seattle on Sunday arriving just in time to drink with my co-workers, for a couple of hours, before the bars closed.

One of the perks was that since I was their "man on site" by virtue of my lifestyle, I had a key for the door of the company. My one misuse of this power was to bring in a rubbermaid bathtub style stock trough. My one weakness, aside from possibly being vulnerable to kryptonite, is a tub bath every other day at minimum if I can arrange it. I'd set up the bath up in the men's room just off the entrance, take my bath either just after quitting time, in case I got lucky that night. Or in the wee hours of the morning after partying but before work. This was to be my downfall.

My boss, a man younger than myself by 15 some years, I had just become 40, fancied himself a modern, free-thinking man, and quite the lady-killer. This despite a four-year marriage. He went out every night, despite the fact he had a wife and kids at home. On the night of my final day of my 90 day probation, a Friday oddly, he cleared out of his office. I decided to get in a bath before I went out. About a half hour into my bath, the boss came back to get his credit cards he kept in his desk drawer. Fine that, but he decided he needed to stop at the little boys room on the way out.

It was quite a shock to his pseudo modern sensibilities to see his forty year old network expert, in a tub of sudsy water.

A greater shock was that I had his Executive assistant in there with me. I was going to take her over to Spokane for the weekend. In retrospect I guess we should have skipped the bath.

When our boss regained his composure, He told me to see him first thing Monday morning. And her to see him then likewise.

After he left, she was going to scramble out of the tub and have hysterics. I told her stay there. I went to the janitors closet just inside the bathroom and hung the closed for maintinence sign, -I should have done that earlier- and returned to the tub. "If we're fired, we're fired! Hey, I'm another line on my Resume, and only 90 days out of practice of looking for a job."

We traveled the 300 miles to Spokane, had a giddy orgy of champagne, Chinese food (better in Seattle), and a cheap no-tell motel. When we returned to Seattle late Sunday night, the fur and rumors were flying. We'd robbed the company and fled the jurisdiction. I briefly considered saying "fuckit" and taking my playmate to Mexico. But I told my co-workers, I'd come to drink, not explain myself. Monday morning would be soon enough.

Monday morning was soon enough, I'd prudently secured my RV and everything on/in it off-site. My alleged superior told me I was being fired for performance reasons, and that my RV would be searched by four husky security guards in case any equipment had been found missing. I handed him the diagnostic laptop, told him that's the only property I'd ever taken off-site, and if he wanted to search my RV, he'd better have a proper search warrant, and be ready to pay travel to Spokane. He tried to confiscate my cell phone, but I'd brought that with me. He kept trying to fuck me over. I told him if I didn't see my final salary, and two weeks severance, -technically I wasn't entitled to that on probation, but what the hell- his sweet, long-suffering wife, and her new lawyer were going to get a complete financial breakdown on him plus some digicam photos that would go a long way in securing a full custody, full support divorce from him.

I was tired of him trying to climb over me, to reach a position of moral indignation that would justify his fucking me over in this way, when he really just wanted to punish me for getting something he wanted. I did have a breakdown of his financials. Morbid curiosity mostly, plus some great snaps of him macking on some downtown girls that wore only a bra and shorts in the bars they worked. It was only in that moment I thought of combining them together and raising hell for him. I made him dismiss the security guards he planned to have escort me out. I told him pointedly that any attempted creativity on his part as to why I was fired, and a hungry divorce lawyer would be at his wife's door with a videotape and a fat manila envelope. When his 'Executive Assistant' came back with the paperwork including my final check. I told her to stay, I signed all my papers, had him, -and her as witness- sign my copies. "Now I don't work here anymore right?" He nodded thinking I was going to punch him out or something, I took Ms. Assistant into a dip-kiss that could have been part of a tango.....

I then left, secured my stuff on my bicycle, including a couple of 100 gig drives technical had rushed out to me. I had ordered them after all. I pedaled over to Ballard, that bridge is hell for a cyclist with vertigo issues. Went shopping in the local Safeway just across the bridge. Secured my bike on my RV and went to spend a few hours goofing off at the Denney's Restaurant across the street. Mostly I tried to find the cheapest gas station. I went and cashed my checks and alerted my banks back home that I wanted a moratorium on any direct withdrawals for six months. Sort of a backstop to self discipline. After I spent a couple of days tying up some final business in Seattle, I wandered home the slow way through Canada, since there was nothing that required me in Spokane until the weekend. I highly recommend a leisurely road trip after a job termination. It heals your wounded psyche, and possibly saves the lives of people who thought they had authority over you.

Around six months had elapsed and I thought I'd seen the last of that place, when through the doors of one of my favorite drinking holes wandered my erstwhile boss' former executive assistant. Around two months after I left, he got frisky, and threatened her with termination if she didn't put out. She recorded the incident. she got six months severance. A hot and hungry lawyer visited the boss' missus, several lawyers visited the boss curious about financial irregularities within the company. The company's ass-ettes got grabbed by Microsoft, and hopefully most everyone else lived happily ever after...

One thing I'm thankful for around this time of the year, are the memories....
john

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Dog the Maiden in Distress

Dog! Baby! Say it isn't so! I'm very disappointed in my role model. In 1984 I tried my hand at bounty hunting for, oh about 6-7 months. Just long enough to become visible and recognized locally. And a even chance at getting shot on away missions. Some five years ago, or slightly less, I saw this silly show on A&E. Christ! This guy is what I might have become, had I stayed in. I had a better chance of becoming a bullet-ridden corpse. One of the rough types who stays on my good side in case he needs his bike worked on, didn't think Dog was so tough. "Y'never see him go after murderers, just druggies!!!" I pointed out that at his current schedule, the A&E camera crews got clobbered about 3-4 times a season... Plus aint no murderers gonna get the op to run. I got 1/2 to 1 million on your ass, I'd have you locked in my safe! I'd have a dozen GPS transponders surgically implanted in you.

I mean would YOU write a bond on "Legs Michener, five time Boston Marathon winner and serial killer", who'll get the needle for sure if he doesn't get off in court? I wouldn't, and I have a weakness for trying to fill inside straights.

But anyway, my favorite Paragon of Justice and the American Way, is under public indictment for saying the "N-Word" and then his least son sells him out to the the national inquirer. This brought in Roy Innis and the Rev. Al Sharpton. That vaunted crimefighting duo who have made it their mission to stamp out any use of "The N-Word" by white people, black people who make rap records and comedy shows have free license to beat "That Word" to death. Other than this they seem to lead the same lives as fictional millionaire Bruce Wayne.......

Saturday, November 17, 2007

I'm not as angry as I thought!

And here I thought I'd have to take some serious anger management classes. You know, the one where I whip out Mr. 9mm and "Hit The Pillow"!!!

I guess the Yoga breathing and the internalized self-counseling are working slightly. I feel tempted to go back and change a couple of answers where I answered on the side of anger cuz I thought I was being honest....


You Are 56% Angry

Generally, you are not an angry person.
But you're easily frustrated and enraged. You have one heck of a temper.
And because of your anger, you tend to feel resentful and even spiteful.
You already know how to quell your anger. You just need to do it more often.

Well I may be kidding myself one way or another........


You Are 34% Angry

You're occasionally angry, but it's really not an issue.
While you may give in to your temper once and a while, you're pretty mellow.
And as long as your anger doesn't effect your relationships, then it's probably in check.
You know that anger is a bad habit - and you don't engage in it often.


I'd have to disagree 34% is still too much, lets get that under 20% for waking hours.

He's Baaaacccckkkkkkk

most of my favorite foods are being sent back with extreme prejudice. I can't blog when there's a risk of barfing all over the keyboard. I felt a little better yesterday. They sent me my Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. I'll be pestering someone in a tech service to give me a grocery store stylus for this and I'll leave that micro stylus in the slot. It isn't quite the autonomous entity my laptop is. I gotta download apps to my laptop, then unpack them and run them across. Needless to say even this is too much work, when there's flu running rampant through our house. Ideally the apps and updates should d/l and self install. I expected better from the next door neighbors of Linus Torvalds, the fella that invented Linux. Yeah Joe Sixpack, Nokia is Finnish, NOT Japanese! I still run into that after 10 years of owning their phones. Of course these are the folks that believe that they have the right-of-way cuz their on a n/s street. Or that somehow they are justified in running my motorcycle off the road. If I can just reach that axe handle, I'll try to make their stupidity as painful as I can. Sorry Matt G. The Enya CD isn't working.

In other same news, while I won't be using the 770 for blogging or NaNoWriMo, I'll definitely be the technosnob around town with it....

The DEC-Top may get XP, and a gig in my locksmith vehicle. Too much of the necessary locksmith software is Redmond-Dependant. I mean all the catalogs are PDF Files, but my Point Of Sale (POS-Yep), and some inventorying and master-keying, record keeping programs are requiring windows xp. 20 years ago when I was young, dumb, etc. I'd have said "screw-em" and made my own web able toys for making my work easier. But that would definitely kill my remaining girl-chasing time.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

I get so damn smug when I'm right!





And I'm twice right here! A little South African Device called the Rapex. It's causing a flutter in the popular press. And it's proving the supposed anti-rape groups run by feminists to be the two-faced phonies I always knew they were. Maybe that's too harsh. Maybe the feminist groups, sensitive to their public image as castrating bitches feel that gadget is taking their job away from them......

I do realize I have a certain animus toward the Feministas. I had a abusive guy dead to rights, and was about to perform an organ harvest, when a female cop put a gun in my face and ordered me to stand down. When he skated in court and harmed again, I called her a c-word to her face.

And it weren't cop....

My feelings on rape are fairly old-fashioned and are perfectly stated here...







Well nowadays it'd have to be a 9mm wouldn't it?

Friday, November 9, 2007

I wanna Burn Down the World

That is my official song title, and any body who messes with my copywrite will face my inner arsonist. Hey, it's under control, if I could keep my cool during the entire Clinton administration, then the world is safe. I went and got a Doan fire starter cos my usual one makes folks nervous. First I clear a couple acres, then I make a small baby fire and nurture it until it can eat 3 inch logs. Then I and my minions haul in every scrap of dead wood in the woods. Our intimate little weekend campfires can be seen from space. My fire starter is an old bit of tubing from a magnesium bike (or a chunk of mag wheel) with a largeish file for the steel, I have a chunk of flint a little smaller than an apple. I keep a small altoids box with a 1/2 oz bottle of kerosene and assorted bits of tinder if the woods are damp. If they are we'll dry 'em out pretty quick. I run a real bad ass hunting camp. Last time an Elk Buck and seven Does bedded down on the side of our bonfire opposite us. Of course we were hunting bear and had no elk tags. I still wonder how they knew that?

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Writer's Strike Strike Two guys!!!


Thanks Matt G I'm Obviously too smart for my own good.......

Well them Hollywood types are complaining about not being paid enough for the clueless tripe they serve up. I wouldn't have even known if I hadn't read it in Lawdog's blog.

That started me thinking, there was this movie, where everyday working stiffs replaced professional athletes out on strike.

Let's just have the weblog community replace the nightly line-up. It could bring back the days when TV was new and exciting.

Tell me which weblogs to replace which shows.

I'll start...
Replace Everybody Love's Raymond with Everybody Loves Rossi, though we might need her to replace the cooking shows.

For Tool and Home Improvement shows, let's give Gus Mueller and Randomly Ever After a shot. He's an elder statesman in the weblog community. A democrat one but you gotta take the bitter with the sweet. (Just kiddin' Gus, Y'Know I love you!)..

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Faster than the speed of stupidity

Poor Dog the Bounty Hunter. His Drug Fiend son Tucker, (rhymes with...), sold a tape to the national inquirer of him using the n-word. Now he has no show, and taco bell and kfc pulled their advertising. Goes to show you what our constitution is really worth. A toilet paper tabloid can buy and publish anything it wants. But a fairly decent guy verbally unloads on his son's girlfriend's lack of character, conscience, or soul. He's off the air. I don't think that's right or fair. I think we should band together and force A&E to give him his show back. Everyone who agrees with me step outside their door at midnight every night and yell NIGGER! ten times at the top of their lungs.

Anyone who agrees but doesn't want to do the shout, is excused from this glorious crusade on grounds of cowardice. I personally am tired of the political left trying to ban words which might hurt their wittle feewings. I am also tired of being told that I have to celebrate the differences of some obnoxious boor that the only thing he has in common with me is a gender, but wants to express hisself sexually at me. Dude! I beat up guys on principal, that are that crude toward WOMEN!!!

don't get me wrong, I've usually fought on the side of the angels in these matters..

Reason I'm bothering you with this is that I swiped a commercial jingle, to fight Nazism in 1984. We had the idiots from Hayden Lake Idaho, on our Cheney (no relation) Washington campus trying to recruit. They were saying the n-word every 3-4 seconds. Finally I burst out into song......

He's a Nigger...
She's a Nigger...
I'm a Nigger...
Wouldn't you like to be a Nigger too....
(sung to 'I'm a Pepper")

The whole crowd picked it up, and the Aryan Nations packed up their little church, and went back to Hayden Lake with their feelings hurt.

I did go on to really hurt their and the Klan's feelings, by hosting a beer bust on a tavern rooftop on the route of their pride parade march, one year I even played Horst Wessel Lied on a boom box.

We didn't go inside to pee. we just cut loose on the parade from above.

Constitutionally Protected freedom of expression.....

Or a really nasty form of assault.....

Sunday, November 4, 2007

na-no-wri-mo

National Novel Writer's Month started this November, and I guess if I'm to score a word count, I'll have to hide out somewhere. I so want to be a published author, preferably a science fiction author. I'd attend a convention every weekend for two years, and not have to pay for any of them. Actually I'd like to have 3-4 books under my belt and I could accomplish that goal. But I have a few things like work, family, friends, and scrounges blocking that goal.....

I found out how that hole got in my front pocket. My T6 screwdriver, used for messing with cell phones, made it in order to facilitate it's escape. I got a donation, and replaced it with a craftsman T6 that for some reason was $2.99 at Sears, and $1.99 at K-Mart. Go Figure... The donation also covered a $7 micro screwdriver set, that includes a T6 and T7 Torx driver as well as 3 each in Straight and Phillips. Of course that donation has a price. I'll be paying it back double tuning his pico transmitters. Nasty little suckers the size of a small postage stamp. It's a price I can bear.....

With any luck my original screwdriver fell out in one of the cars or the house....

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Won my Keys

I'll be re-keying locks like nobody's business. Both Schlage and Kwikset keys are in the lot. I'm mulling whether to ask if the guy wants to sell the 8 back issues of Locksmith Ledger, and 800+ key blanks that no one bid upon.

In other news, My former roomie gifted me with a camera phone, then had to take it back, when someone swiped hers. No real prob, except that someone then swiped that one too, including the charger. Damn beast uses an exclusive Motorola wall wart and it won't accept anything else as a charger. Gives a "UNAUTHORIZED CHARGER" like I was trying to shove a '67' Dodge up it's mini usb port. Never did get the charger back. Now have to hunt for a charger. Guess if I ever see these guys at the thrift store, I'll grab any and all of them. Of course, the staff will grab up the best goodies first. I did when I worked the poverty pimpin' scam......