yup, i'm male.....

i'm not your 'typical' guy. while i don't have scientific evidence to back this up, it's an opinion not wholly unfounded. i've had several "man" type discussions about outlooks on various things (dating, one night stands, alcohol, sports) and my views/attitudes/ideas don't line up too much. plus i have if on authority from 5+ women i know that i'm "not your typical guy". ok, so one went so far as to do the whole "you're like having a gay friend" routine.... painful, humiliating, and scarring. apparantly my pedestal worship of her had gone unnoticed. anyway.... i digress.

from smart, sexy, wonderful, vivacious women, i've been told. not your typical guy.

i try to plan things. i try to prepare for projects. ok, my sense of time is terrible, but that's not just a male thing. i try not to go ballistic like my father when something doesn't go right - things never go right! after 30 years, why the hell could you never NEVER figure that out?!?!? sorry. again. i digress. (fodder for a different blog entry.)

sometimes, my testicles get in the way. or i guess you could say the best laid plans of mice and men?

i cut my hair short. 1/8". any shorter and i'd lose the velcro effect that keeps my hat on. hat. not cap. no baseball cap, thank you. hat. fedora. aussie outback style. austrian. real hats. 60's hats. (again, i digress). i got tired of paying someone $15 bucks for a haircut. i bought a pair of clippers with the kit of spacing attachments. for $30 bucks, i've been doing my own hair just fine for 12 years now.

i like it short. it's comfortable. it's easy to look after. i cant' tear it out when i'm stressed. it looks better than the mullet i sported during the 80's and part of the 90's. oh yes - hair down to the middle of my back in art college. it's a wonder my in-laws let me in their house, never mind date their daughter. oh ya... hides the white that began cropping up.

anyway - testicles. right. so.... picture this. my hair is too long. i've been meaning to cut it for days, but my weekend rocked and i was busy. so i decide to do it before turning into bed. i get started - have the lower back right quadrant under way, when i get frustrated because it's not cutting smoothly. do i finish? struggle on valiantly? fight the good fight? nope.

i decide at 11pm at night, with nothing open to save my sorry ass - to fix the problem. which in this case, is to sharpen the cutting parts. no problem - i sharpen all kinds of edge tools. have lots of gear to do this with. and proceed, like a man, to thoughtlessly, fearlessly, plunge forward.

and now, now...... they won't cut at all. well, crap. that's not right. and i can't stop - somebody's going to notice. i have and inch and a half of hair missing on a quarter of my head. can't wear a baseball cap to work - i don't own one.

ok, i'll end the suspense - i fixed it. so now, my hair is short. i can survive the next round of work. well, i won't be able to pull my hair out anyway. and now, i'm off to bed.

not that i need any beauty sleep (someone as dashingly handsome as i). i'm just tired.

(insert semi-boring technical stuff here: i stayed on too coarse of a stone. when you sharpen a kitchen knife, you want to use a 100 grit stone to hone it - the knife needs the burr formed to effectively cut. stroking it on a steel lines up and restores that burr. when you cut with an edge tool, such as a chisel or plane, you want the intersecting surfaces to be at a mirror polish. in grit, that would be at about the 4000 or 8000 if you're serious. i stopped at 250. couldn't get it to cut anything - just kept bending my hair. once i got to 8000 and a mirror finish - my hair was jumping off in fear.)

i made a stick.....

subtitle: the almost perfect weekend

it's not common. hardly ever happens. that combination of things that makes an almost perfect day. the type of day that mostly makes up for all the rest of the shit you have to wade through to get there. (no, get your mind out of the gutter - none of that wink, wink, nudge, nudge say no more. it was better than that). got me some personal time.

here is how it started. (stick around for the pictures at the bottom)

late friday afternoon, i get a call from my better half, N. is a 4-1/2 a common size she asks? (stop laughing - i said it had nothing to do with that). it's not rare, says i - but it's not very common either..... why? oh, dad was helping at the garage sale they're having at the community (the in-laws recently moved to one of those over 55 communities) and he noticed a couple planes - so he checked them out and bought them for you. he also picked up this little green block plane. total price - $4.00.

(pictures are not of the actual planes, but are the same type. not to scale)

saturday, and sunday - i took a course. a couple of years ago, i bought a lathe. remembered it being fun in juniour high school shop. not sure why i bought it - the idea just kind of jumped into my head, and out i went to find one. picked up a half decent one used, with most of what i needed. proceeded to make nothing much more than a mess. and get frustrated. knew it was a practice thing - struggled on one project i needed a couple of matched handles (took 8 tries to get 2 half decent ones). and it's set up too low - so my back always got sore fast. stopped using it for much.

my wood supplier, offers some good courses. one of them is a woodturning course: the fundamentals of wood turning (based on mike darlow's book. actually, the guy who taught the course was taught by mike darlow himself. for those of you wondering, mike darlow is one of a few woodturners who have helped to revive the 'art' in recent years.) i've been wanting to take it for a couple years (especially every time i turn on the lathe and walk away frustrated). when their last course list arrived in the mail, N insisted i sign up for it.

i went from frustrated to awestruck in about 2-1/2 hours. with someone there to explain the theory, and then show you how it applies, and watch/correct your technique - major progress. theory on it's own just isn't the same.

so.... 7 guys (all of us with no woodturning experience). 7 lathes. unlimited coffee, doughnuts, and a steady stream of demos and projects was how i spend my weekend. and we ran late saturday. started early sunday and ran late again. think of it as an additional 2 1/2 hours for free. and what did i make?

a square stick of wood round. and then a little more work....... and voila!

project 1: bead, cove and fillet practice (eastern yellow poplar, 11" long) project 2: vase (eastern yellow poplar, 3" diameter, 7" long) project 3: knob (eastern yellow poplar, 3" diameter, 3" high) project 4: goblet (ash, 2 5/8" diameter, 7" high) project 5: bowl (ash, 7" diameter, 4" high). measurements are aprox.

credit....

there's something very very wrong with north america, and it's credit card companies.


for years, as an employed individual, i couldn't even get a sears card. for a lark, when i was an unemployed student i signed up for yet another try (i actually wanted the free gift to be honest.)

lo and behold, i received my card shortly. with one card, other cards were easy to get. enter a bmo (bank of montreal - before they changed their branding to something that sounds suspiciously like bowel movement).

i cranked that puppy up in no time. by the time the 'must phone the bank' flag came up on a purchase, i was over the limit by double! they cut the card. so i went and paid it off in full the next day. didn't affect my credit rating - as i was never overdue on a payment.

a couple years later, they decided they had to have me back. i signed up. my mom decided a credit rating was a necessity - so she signed up too. they screwed up. they had me married to my mother. mom was listed as employed at my father's job. my dad had all his credit cards cancelled - as they were duplicates according to their system. got it all straightened out.

all of my student loans were at royal bank - so i got me one of them visa cards they offer. been a decent card. signed up for another master card, and an american express too.

post student time, when the loans came due - i paid off and cancelled them. it was too scary having 4+ active cards. kept the visa, and the amex (as the others are not accepted at costco). i still remember having bmo send me a statement for $0.32 of 'interest charge' for 6 months before i realized they would continue to spend $0.50 for postage, and aprox $2.00 for the statement every month until i caved.

ever wonder where your service charges go to?

so, like most people - when you have one card - every credit card company on the planet sends you pre-approved applications. hell - i even get them from companies where i have one of their cards.

one day, i took a page from my father's book. he used to stuff all the junk mail he could back into the pre-paid postage envelopes they included to send it back on their dime. sort of a "message" i guess.

mbna mastercard sent me one too many applications. i took a large black felt. wrote something inspired like "stop sending me this crap. i don't want your f**king card!" in the details section. folded it as bulky as i could, and stuffed it into their pre-paid envelope.

3 weeks later, my card from them arrived. seriously. it became obvious to me they must have some id number on the envelope linked to the person in their database. they don't open them - they assume any envelope back must be an application.

i never used it. never called to have it activated. $5,500 in unwanted credit limit sat there. i shredded the card. meant to cancel it, never got around to it. for 5 years, i have received replacement cards on an inactive, unused account like clockwork.

today, i finally got around to cancelling it. "what can i do for you today?" i was asked, once i got through 10 minutes of press 1, press 2, stand on your head whilst humming the national anthem (do you know which country this card is issued from?). i got tired and hit 0. it usually punches through the menu to an operator instantly. "what can i do to help you with your platinum plus account today?" "kill it. cancel it. i want it gone." "what? i don't think i understand your request."

oh boy.... how do you say it clearer than that? "never wanted it. didn't apply for it. it's never been activated or used. i want this account closed."

i got put on hold while they found a senior account representative. same song and dance. and then they tried to tell me i "had to have applied at one time". she didn't seem amused. actually, i got lectured as to how they can't cancel the account if i'm just shredding everything i receive from them. i bluntly told her i wasn't stupid. and reiterated my 'application' information.

ah, yes.... sweet release. i'm free! free!
well, except for the visa, and the amex, and the morgage, and......

bastards....

am i paranoid? wrong question. am i paranoid enough?

there is a conspiracy. damned medical community. i feel tired, burnt out, and have had issues breathing. go to see the doctor. part of it is lack of sleep. part of it is stress. high blood pressure (desk job full o'stress). he thinks part of it may be allergies or sinus issues.

get the sinus x-rays. nothing.

go see the allergist. lab tech must be a sadist. for that matter - the doctor must be too for the damage inflicted on the wallet. what was i thinking? (for those of you who have never been - they dot your arm in a 1" grid on the inside forearm, apply a liquid concentrate of the various items, and then use a lancet to pierce your skin. you then wait to see how you react).

i have allergies - mostly food, couple others i was tested for as a kid years ago. guess which ones flared up immediately? so before she even finishes the one arm, half of it is covered in welts, with a flaming red rash. by the time she moved onto the other arm, the entire first arm flared. the second arm, oddly enough, hardly reacted.

go sit. wait. half an hour. don't scratch. don't even look at them.

that. is. a. long half-hour.

additional testing required. round two. then the bill.

i used to think that the medical community was serious about helping people. saving lives. making things better. i'm not so convinced these days. recently watched mission impossible 2 - where someone invents a terrible virus, and then the cure. can't peddle the cure without the disease.

i've often wondered, how much research is bought out and crushed. or delayed so they can make their money. and i know it's not just the drug companies - the same goes for the energy companies i'm sure.

it just left me a little discouraged to spend the day suffering, with a large bill, to find out - pretty much what i already knew.

thanks doc. i'm sure glad your years of medical training came up with the same thing my common sense did.

oh yes - the final advice? your cats are the problem. do something about them. i think i will. i'll go home and sit with them both on my lap and pet them so my blood pressure drops to normal after your bill. and the shock of the cost of an epinephrine pen. i can only guess your parents deprived you of a pet as a child, and your medical training has tightened your sphincter so tight you can't get your head out.

amusingly enough, i overheard another fellow sufferer say "i already know i'm allergic to dogs, but damned if i'm getting rid of mine." they're family. actually, they're better than some of my family.


in other news

on the good side.....

it's been warm out. nice lovely balmy temperatures. (to be honest, it's been a hotter spring than many of our summers). so i've been out with the boy when i can since it's so nice out.

on the bad side....
i have lots of exterior home projects that need to get done in the next short bit. but i will be around.

today brings you a real treat....

ok.... maybe this will just scare you. i've been debating doing this for a while, and after a couple weeks thinking about it - and some other stuff, i've decided i do take things to seriously. take myself too seriously. so here's a first step.

lately, i've been tied up with a huge project at work - we were replacing the identification and door access card in the college i work at. enterprise wide, 2000+ staff, 14,000+ students affected. huge nightmare. it's now wrapping up, and i'm about to leap into replacing our help-desk software solution.

yes folks. crisis by management. hair on fire. anyway.... sometimes you do crazy things to survive these stressful, nightmarish projects..... during the installation and testing phase, i must have produced a ton of id cards. here are some of the best photos (think dark room, night before it all goes live, testing at 7 or 9 pm.)

(the other guy is one of my partners in crime - handling most of the database and backend stuff. vigo happened to make a special guest appearance.)


and now.... to make up for that.....

from youtube.com - judson laipply is dancing.
(warning - this is a 6 minute comedy piece. but well worth it)
(requires flash)

T

i had a couple people at work recently ask me tea related questions. i was somewhat confused, and asked why they were asking me. i am, i guess, considered some sort of tea connoisseur by some of my co-workers. i guess this is because i have a teaball on my desk, and drink something other than orange pekoe. maybe it's because they can see my tea in my office. i didn't really think anything of it until i listed what i have around (list at bottom).

i'm no expert, so i went hunting for some more information on tea. combined with some things i have learned - here is some info and trivia:

my personal favourites? i like earl grey (the cream and royal are my favourite variations), russian caravan, and lapsang souchsong (traditional black tea, smoked over pine.) i'm becoming a fan of oolong quickly, as well as mate (now that i've resolved some issues)

• i do find loose teas are usually superior quality to tea bags. (most of the loose tea i buy is as cheap or cheaper than the bag version.)
  
• it's easy to oversteep white/green tea. stick to the recommended 1-2 minutes, or it's bitter. if you're water is too hot - you will also scald the tea, making it bitter.
• yerba mate is a coffee alternative, that offers a caffeine like chemical called mateine. it promotes weight loss, is rejevenating, helps with stress... what's not to like? tried it. hated it. finally found out why.... the water should be at 70–80 degrees celsius [160–180 degrees fahrenheit] and never boiling. trust me on this one - the temperature is extremely important to the taste. (i use a teaball & mug - haven't found a guampa and bombilla locally yet).
  
• forgot to clean your teeth? tea contains flouride. it has been suggested that 1.5 cups of black tea or 1 cup of green tea, consumed daily, contains enough flouride to reduce tooth decay.
• teas are blended after normal manufacturing processes. the best tea is unblended and will come from single tea estates.
• there are more than 3,000 different types of teas produced worldwide. tea can be divided into 6 main categories - white teas, black teas, oolong teas, green teas, compressed teas and flavoured teas. herbal teas are made from different plants altogether.

and the important stuff: caffeine

• there is minimal difference, chemically, between the caffeine found in tea and the caffeine you consume in a cup of coffee. in stark contrast though, the caffeine found in tea doesn't have the same negative effect on your heart and circulatory system as the caffeine in coffee does.
• steep your tea for approx. 3 minutes - a stimulating effect. steep your tea for approx. 5 minutes - a more calming effect. (black teas)

	In a 5oz/150ml cup of Tea Black Tea - leaf or teabag, brewed 1 minute Black Tea - leaf, brewed 3 minutes Black Tea - teabag, brewed 5 minutes Oolong Tea - leaf, brewed 5 minutes Green Tea - leaf, brewed 3 minutes Instant Tea 8oz. Iced Tea 120z can Decaffeinated Tea Herbal Tea In a a 5oz/150ml cup of Coffee Drip Coffee Percolated Coffee Instant Coffee Decaffeinated Coffee Caffeine present * 9-33mg 20-46mg 46-108mg 12-55mg 8-16mg 12-28mg 22-36mg 4mg None Caffeine present * 110-150mg 64-124mg 40-108mg Less than 5mg
	*The amount of caffeine found in a cup of tea can vary according to what type of tea it is, where the tea was grown, its' manufactured processes and the brewing times and methods used. Due to fermentation processes, Black and Oolong Teas contain more caffeine than Green Teas. Similiar sorts of variations occur when discussing the amount of caffeine that is found in a cup of coffee or in an amount of coffee beans. In general, you would have to drink 2 or 3 cups of cups of tea per day to equal the amount of caffeine found in a single cup of coffee because you need less tea leaves than coffee beans per cup. The smaller the tea leaf, the quicker the caffeine infuses from the tea leaves into your water.

the list (in my defense, this is from both home and work. duplicates removed):
loose:
canadian breakfast
china black tea
china green tea
china jasmine
china lung ching
china oolong
china orchid
china pu-erh
china tikuanyin
chocolate truffle
earl grey cream
earl grey royal
kashmir chai
kashmir tchai
kepta limited safari pure (kenya)
lapsan souchsong crocodile
lee valley - orange pekoe (premium)
monk's tea
rooibos vanilla cream
russian caravan
tata tea - select finest asam
yerba mate

tea bags:
bigelow - mint medley
celestial seasonings - bengal spice
celestial seasonings - chai (decaf)
celestial seasonings - chai: chocolate caramel enchantment
celestial seasonings - earl grey: victorian
celestial seasonings - english toffee
celestial seasonings - roastaroma
celestial seasonings - rooibos: moroccan red pomegranate
celestial seasonings - vanilla hazelnut
celestial seasonings - vanilla maple
celestial seasonings - white: earl grey
celestial seasonings - white: perfectly pear
english breakfast
freshpak - roobois
gloria jean's - darjeeling
grace (special select) - ginger
grace (special select) - ginger lemon
grace (special select) - ginger mint
lipton - ginger twist
london fruit & herb company - strawberry & vanilla
messmer - fennel seed
messmer - fruit & herb
messmer - green tea grapefruit
messmer - rosehip and hibiscus flowers
nabob deluxe - orange pekoe (with finest assam)
pc chai
red rose - orange pekoe
taylors of harrogate - afternoon darjeeling
taylors of harrogate - scottish breakfast
tazo - basic black iced tea
tetley - classic green tea
triple leaf brand - ginger
twinnings - earl grey


--
information taken from (and there's lots of additional)
tea rose lane
wikipedia (yerba mate)

caffeine comparison
tea rose lane

people.....

(still in a strange mood. sort of a manic, euphoric, abyss, limbo type thing. but i actually had somthing to say today.)

people are funny... unfortuneately, i find they're not usually funny ha ha. here's today's musings:

---

on my way in to work today, i had to keep myself from screaming in my car. i'm running late. finally get onto the campus. and the guy who swerved in front of me and cut me off, is now slowing down to zero at each speed bump. which i find actually makes them worse. and he's in an suv. i do see the humour in it, really i do.... which is what saves me from being locked up.

but i got to thinking.... i can't help but wonder if this guy is one of the speedbumps i face at work. metaphorically. you know - those people who get in the way of you being able to do your job. whether it's stupid questions. or they don't listen when you explain something (any of the 9 times). one of those "a little information is a dangerous thing" situations.

some days, i wish i could just driver over my metaphoric speedbumps. i wouldn't even slow down.

it might not be good for my shocks, but i'm sure my mood would improve.

---

i have a problem with fashion. working at a post-secondary educational institution, i see too much of it. a lot of it bad. first it was the sweat pants with words across the ass. someone else has already covered that one. then this last year it was the female butt crack, mostly with floss (or thong. whatever the current fashion title is). i have yet to see anyone that is appealing on. sure, i know you probably look in a mirror before you leave the house. but i'm sure you don't do it slouching in a chair like you do in class, or bent over/kneeling like your at your locker for 20 minutes chatting with your other floss friends.

please... help get the word out. my corneas can't take much more.

---

i have a neighbour (2 doors down). nice guy. retired. nosey. (nosey interested, rather than nose in your business.) he stopped by the other day, noticed i was in my yard loading up the truck with stuff to take to the dump. he saved me the hassle of hauling some of it, as he had use for it. anyway.... we got to talking flowerbeds. i have a flowerbed in the front, that has two major problems:

1) there is a 4 foot overhand protecting it - so it gets very little water, and only a couple hours sunlight during the summer. and we're zone 3(ish).

2) it has been used as a litter box by ever cat in the neighbourhood that roams free for at least the last 7 years (longer than i've lived there). the soil is dead. dead. dead. i can't get weeds to grow.

so i told him what plans i had for it. redo the boxing with new landscape ties. drop a layer of sidewalk blocks on, followed by a layer of red shale. add a couple planters, and try some hostas. due to time, and money - i'm still in the planning stage. however, it didn't stop him from doing (gasp) the exact same thing 2 weeks later. followed by my neighbour (right next door) who did the same thing. actually using stone neighbour one had left over. i should be flattered, but i find i'm a touch irritated to be honest. at least they used ugly stone.

i know. it's petty. but i'm still rolling my eyes and shaking my head.

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images:
limbo dancer: http://www.marinersnegril.com/sunset_show.htm

today...

edumakate yerself.....

Aristophanes once wrote, roughly translated; "Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, and drunkenness sobered, but STUPID lasts forever."

--

Great ambition and conquest without contribution is without significance. What will your contribution be? How will history remember you?

--

The worth of a life is not determined by a single failure or a solitary success.

- kevin kline, as william hundert, in the emporer's club

amuze yerself...

http://www.careerbuilder.com/monk-e-mail/