General Jackassery

Okay so check this out! I’m straightening up the house and I decide that I want to move the table that I built for the train set to the other side of the dining room. Problem is, it’s legs are made of 2×4’s and they don’t slight well across the carpet, so if I forced the issue I’m risking causing damage to the carpet and the table itself. So what is one to do, there’s dragging it across the floor, trying to get underneath it and leverage it up with my back, or wait until someone else is here to help me move it. Those are my only options right? Heh, nope! Where did I go for a solution to my problem? The garage you say? Wrong! I went in the kitchen!

I thought to myself, “you know todder if you put some plates under those legs I bet they’d slide across the carpet no problem!” Then I said to myself, “yeah that’d probably work but the table is pretty heavy, could break the plates, we’d better use cookie sheets instead, they’re cheap, won’t break and if I bend them I’ll just chunk ‘em in the trash and go on about my bitness.” So I actually got a couple of cake pans and another baking pan and put them under the four legs of the table and it slide like it was on wheels. I spun the whole table around so I wouldn’t have to re-arrange the track to accomodate the controller and slid the table in the corner out of the way of the path way between the kitchen and the living room.

On a side note there is some SERIOUS bass in that song “Answer” that I was talking about in my previous post. My chair is currently vibrating! MORE POWER!!!! RRRRR!!!!:) Yes, Yes, I know The Todder is a serious Jackass! The General Jackass even! What a beautiful voice she has.

Sarah says that “Fallen” by Sarah McLachlan is one of her favorite songs. I think that’s because she hasn’t heard the whole album yet. I think “Answer” is better. Sometimes I wish I could be as creative as the people who are able to come up with songs like these, but other times like tonight, I’m just glad that I have the opportunity to hear what they have to say and to be able to relate. To think to myself, “Yeah, what she said!” I can’t always find the words to express the sentiments but sometimes I come across someone who is able to say what I want to say.

P.S. I’m not much for Chic music, but Sarah’s newest CD “Afterglow” is in my opinion her best. It’s one that even a guy like me can listen to all the way through and sometimes repeat several of the songs. The actually music is so much better all the way through.

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Jackie took off for Cullman this evening so on a whim I decided to see what my truck would look like in the garage. Amazingly enough it fits with plenty of room to spare. My garage is actually quite deep so I pulled the truck in just far enough so that the garage door would close and I still had a good bit of room to walk around the truck. I actually think that there might be enough room in there to park both trucks in the garage. That would be nice. I’ve never been a fan of leaving vehicles parked in the driveway, especially $42,000 vehicles. And after the other morning when I walked out at 5:00 A.M. to find that my doors were frozen shut and I couldn’t get the key in to unlock my truck box to get the ice scraper out I think it would be nice not to have to deal with all that.

So that’s the reason my garage is FULL right now, it’s just temporary, I have to find a place for the riding Lawn Mower before I can really consider parking both vehicles in the garage.

My living room is empty because I took down my Christmas Tree. Now the room seems far less cozy. That’s alright though. All I need is to dim the lights and start a fire and it’ll be back to the nice cozy living room that it was before the Christmas season started.

Doesn’t really feel like Christmas has already come and gone.

Well Whoopty friggin doo! It’s about to be 2004 tomorrow and I’m sitting here at work with nothing to do. Nobody is here, nobody is online (because all my friends are in college and they’re on break right now) and I won’t be doing anything tonight either. Jackie offered for me to come hang out with him in Cullman tonight and Anthony called and asked if I wanted to go hang with him and Heather in Birmingham and I really have no desire to do anything. (Well I do have a desire to do something, but I wasn’t invited so I won’t be doing that something.) I guess I’ll stay home tonight and work on the cross-section mold for the ASCE, and I’ll probably work in it some more tomorrow since I’ll be home ALONE all day tomorrow too. It being a holiday and all. Oh well, such is my life.

Update: Well, I called Anthony to tell him that I didn’t want to go to Birmingham tonight and he said “that’s cool it was cancelled anyway, so we’re staying here.” So anyway I asked him if he wanted to go the Predators game tomorrow afternoon and that’s what we’re going to do. Hopefully Anthony and I won’t be the only ones to go.

If you’re going to the Men’s room, do one of two things: Leave your cell phone at your desk or turn it off. If it happens to ring while you’re in the restroom turn the ringer off and call the person back. I walked into the Men’s Room here at work and there was a guy standing by the urinal’s talking on his phone. Leave the restroom; don’t stand there behind me while I’m trying to take care of bitness!

In other news I’m about to head home. Medicine is starting to wear down. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m seriously damaged.

In other news I post this to provide you with a small amount of humor. I think I posted this on ClubTodder but it’s always nice to revisit the manual.

HOW TO POOP AT WORK

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And it’s so nice. I remember the days when I had no desire to come back to Huntsville. Seems that when you don’t own the place in which you reside you can’t ever really call it home. I didn’t mind being away when I lived at Monte Sano Terrace and I didn’t mind being away from when I lived at Becky’s house (in fact I liked being away from there, except I always thought about the grass that was growing like crazy when I was gone). Now, I look forward to coming home when I’m away. That’s not totally true, I had no desire what so ever to be home on Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning. That time frame was one of the most enjoyable in many years and I hope to make it a recurring theme. I really liked having Insanity Claus track me down. But when I did leave to go be with my own family I missed being home, here in Huntsville.

So I delayed my return as a long as I could because I really do enjoy spending time with my sister and brother-in-law and the two babies, but I really wanted to be home. I got on the road at about 5:00 and got home at 8:30. 5 minutes before Jackie pulled up in the driveway. We exchanged hellos, I continued off loading (it takes a lot of stuff to support two dogs for a weekend away from home) and when I got done off loading I decided to play with the one toy that I got for Christmas. See, Sarah has been hearing me whine about wanting to make a really neat train layout on the table that I built for it. The problem is, the Chattanooga Choo-Choo locomotive that I have leaves a lot to be desired as far as power goes, so it struggles to pull the 6 little cars that I have. Granted those six cars are pretty heavy when you consider the scale but still that engine should be able to pull them a lot better than it does. So, Sarah decided that it would be good to buy me a new locomotive and with the help of her Dad who also enjoys model rail roading they found me a new engine that is AWESOME! I thought that I would have to get a new controller, but I decided to see what that engine would do if I put it on the track and let it run. I turned the controller to about half power and the engine took off, slowly gathering speed like a real train would. It got up to speed about half way down the track and I thought I should slow it down before it hit the cars on the other side. Now, the old engine that I have starts at full speed and stops immediately because it’s a direct gear drive engine meaning there’s no gentle application of power other than you slowly increasing the current through the track. So I’m used to starting and stoping on a dime. The new engine is different! It’s a fly wheel drive that allows the engine to ramp up speed, so it takes off slowly and then little did I know, it slows down slowly too. I got the engine up to full speed and started to back off expecting it a sudden stop of the engine. Instead it coasted to a stop after it rammed into the caboose from the other side. Jackie and I looked at each other and we both had the expression that Donkey had on his face when he and Shrek entered Lord Farquad castle and say the information both and had their picture taken. “Wooooooow, let’s do that again.” So I flipped the switch threw it in reverse and sent the engine flying around the track backwards, this time leaving enough room for a safe stop. I had now desire to break any of the cars or the engine itself.

The engine doesn’t have all of it’s parts put together yet, so the couple isn’t on it and I wanted to see how well it would pull my cars, so I decided to gently push the engine into the cars and push the cars around the track from behind. The cars don’t like being pushed and that engine has a TON of power. I gave it a little bit of juice, gathered some speed and promptly pushed 3 of the 6 cars off the tracks. Then I put the engine in Forward and pulled all six cars (3 still derailed) half way around the track before I stopped it. It didn’t even appear to be struggling. Todder LIKEY! So this is my version of saying many thanks to Sarah and her Dad for getting the little engine that could for me. Woooo Wooooooooooo!

Anyway, it’s nice to be back home! I think I’ll try to stay here for a little while.

Star Wars sucks compared to this. I guess it’s the combination of something more than a plot to blow shit up and the fact that technology allows for much better scenery that makes the Lord of the Rings Trilogy much better than Star Wars. Brian and I went to see Return of the King tonight and I have to say that it’s the best movie I’ve seen in a very long time. Says a lot if you can get me to sit in a theater for 3.5 hours. I’d like to see it again in the theater. Anyway, since I haven’t read the books I wasn’t so critical of the movie’s short comings in keeping with the actual story line. Anyway, very good.

Hope everyone’s vacation is going well and you’re all enjoying yourselves.

Todder, Out!

I actually started writing this the other day when I was feeling a little be introspective I couldn’t really find the words to say what I wanted to say. Perhaps today I’ll find those words and perhaps I won’t but I’m going to write anyway. I was thinking about what Christmas meant to me when I was a kid. I’ve always loved the holiday but the reason for it’s importance seems to change from year to year. When I was a kid the most important thing about Christmas was, “Is Santa Claus going to bring me that remote control car or that transformer toy that I want?” As I got a little bit older and my perspective on Santa Claus changed I began to realize that the holiday was more about spend time with my family and really enjoying their presensce and not their presents. I guess I haven’t really settled on my position in life and where my life is going to go from here. There are things that I want and they aren’t physical objects. I really love the fact that my Mom and my sister and brother-in-law are so close that I can go visit them every weekend if that was my desire, but their proximity has reinforced the fact that I’ve really grown up and I would like to have a family of my own someday. I love my niece and nephew so much I can’t even explain it and I’m finally to the point where I look at them and I don’t tell myself that I’m glad I’m not a father. I guess you could say that my biological clock is ticking. The truth of the matter is that I may never had children of my own, you just never know where life is going to take you but thoughts of having my own family and my own kids have been prevelant this Christmas. Christmas just isn’t as fun without little kids around. The glow in their eyes when they get something they like or have always wanted is just priceless. There’s nothing to replace that excitement. So while this has been one of the most meaningful Christmases I’ve ever had it’s more like the Christmas that wasn’t. In my heart I just haven’t been able to get into it. Something did happen on Christmas day though. Something that hasn’t happened in years! I was tracked down by Insanity Claus! It was really a scary experience, but I don’t think INsaNitY Claus will ever know how much their visit meant to me!

Anyway, I know this post will make it sound like I’m depressed. I’m not depressed, I’m very happy actually, I just don’t really feel like it is or was Christmas. It’s a wierd feeling actually. But I guess this has been an interesting Christmas for everyone.

This has got to be the single most painfully boring day I’ve ever experienced during my tenure at work. I would compare it to coming in on a Saturday, only on Saturday’s I can wear pajamas to work if I want to and I can pretty much play music as loud as I want. That and I normally have something that needs to be done immediately, hence me being at work on a weekend. In today’s case, I don’t really have anything to do. I was up early playing hockey so I’m already sleepy, and the only other person in my group that is here happens to be my boss. Needless to say, boring. Oh, and I almost forgot! Our commander was here at the office this morning and while the entirety of Redstone Arsenal will probably get atleast an hour if not two hours off the end of their normal duty schedule, our commander decided not to grant that leave and simply left the building. ASSHOLE!! I’m not bitter though! I guess I’ll just leave whenever the hell I feel like leaving, have a nice fricken day!

Most people would say that they hope you all get whatever you asked for for Christmas. I’m not that generous! I do truly hope that everyone who reads this will get what they NEED.

That is; all two of you who actually read this.