Brandon

12:28 am: without bed
I still don't have furniture. So right now, as before, I am existing with a coffee table, an end table, and a tv stand (luckily with tv and associated cable) in my living room. My bedroom consists of an inflatable "full" sized bed with queen sheets. I used to have an inflatable queen sized bed with (same) queen sheets on it, but Darin took it back. I sleep diagonally. My furniture should arrive sometime within the next eight-to-ten days, or so says the Air Force. Thankfully I'm not flying, so I'll be around to meet the movers whenever they randomly arrive.

I wish I was flying.

I was just at a party. For a little while, it was pretty fun. Then it became awesome. Here's why...

What's your favorite food? Mine's fajitas.

That's cool. That means I get it most of the time at restaurants. Sometimes I am disappointed. Sometimes I am happy. Never consistent, however. I will try it everywhere I am, and am prepared to be disappointed. For example, in Panama City, a certain (shitty) Mexican Restaurant has beef fajitas that tastes like Bar-be-que. Disgusting.. yes.

I just came from this party for a friend. And beer is provided, which is always fun. But here's the great discovery: halfway through the party, I see there are tortillas on the stove. They're hard and crispy, but I investigate. I open the stove.

Jackpot. Inside are four pans. One pan has several aluminum wrappers full of warm tortillas. That's step one. The second aluminum pan is full of rice, warm rice. I probe further. The last two pans contain refried beans and steak and onions.

I have never been happier. I have been handed, essentially, a lifetime supply of beef fajitas. Obviously, I can't eat them all. Obviously, it is not a true lifetime supply. But there are more than I can eat in one night. And that's better than any restaurant I've ever been in has offered. It's the happiest night in my life. I don't even want to play beer pong, because it will ruin the taste of the delicious, but simple, beef fajitas.

But I do play. And I win (I think).

Delicious. Wonderful. Mmmmm.

01:57 am: my feet smell
I'm in the process of moving. Right now I live with two roommates, which has its advantages and disadvantages. With our lease ending quite soon and different ideas of an "ideal" house, we decided to split up. I opted for a place close to work, with a long drive to the nightlife hotspots; they decided to live in said hotspots, but have to drive 30 minutes to work every day. My current commute is 15 minutes with no traffic lights, and my new commute will be five minutes. I won't go any further on the issue of traffic, but those who are familiar with me know that I hate traffic and lights. Especially traffic in Florida.

My new place is a 2BR/1.5BA townhouse. It technically doesn't exist... at least, as far as the credit card company and my bank are concerned. And that concerns me. When I called to change my address, their computer system didn't recognize my address as existing. I'm pretty sure it does, but I see that it's going to be a bitch to convince financial agencies the same.

I'm looking forward to setting up the place. A brief history: most of my household goods have been in storage for the last two years (strangely coincident with my last post on this website). And I'm not too proud of a lot of it - couches, tv stand, kitchenware (cooking being my latest hobby). I got my couches for free from a neighbor who smoked. I steam cleaned them, and two weeks later put them in store for two years.

As much as I want to upgrade them, I have to prioritize purchases (upgrading is a relative term. In terms of these couches, it means throwing them away to make place for a new one. Which is an upgrade).

It's probably grammatically incorrect to end a journal with a parenthetical comment.

07:31 pm: at UPT
Chris - looks like I lied. thanks for sparking interest in this though.

I'm at UPT now, everyone, so this will rarely get updated. Currently I'm in week 3 of Phase 1 (of 3), Academics, which lasts 6 weeks. So far we've learned the fundamentals of flying that we were taught in IFT, like how to read maps and all that. The last week and a half has been in aerospace physiology, where we learn stuff like how our body functions at altitude (due to less oxygen and pressure), how to use the emergency equipment in the aircraft (ejection, parachuting techniques), and how to survive if we're down for a few days. That last course was what we had today, and I am pretty confident that if I was put in a survival situation, I would take my chances and wait for help to arrive. Perhaps the most meaningful quote came from the NCO teaching us clever methods in the identification of snakes:

"Red next to yellow, poisonous fellow. Red next to black, you're too fucking close!" (He had Tourette's)

We've had two tests so far, one tomorrow which I should be studying for. However, it's pretty easy and we have a good idea of what to focus on so there isn't much to prepare. Friday we begin learning about Systems, which I find to be pretty interesting.

I'm aware that this has been a pretty piss-poor post in terms of my usual rants, observations, or alliteration. Hopefully the above quote carried the humor for this entry, because I haven't really made note of anything funny that's happened lately. At any rate, I may update this later on; however the best way to reach me for the next year is probably through my email or call me on the cell one weekend. I won't be using IM that much anymore, either (not necessarily a bad thing)


You stay classy, San Diego.

06:36 am: why did Jojo leave Tuscon, Arizona?
The fact of the matter is, I began the journey to Tuscon without a piece of paper or a pencil as part of my personal belongings. I don't normally those around with me, but I like to have them on trips to record such things that may be deemed "journalworthy". I walked in and out of shops at the different airports (Houston being the only one, really), but found none for sale. Among all the books, newspapers and magazines, not one item was for sale that promts human creativity. It was as though the message in each of those bookstores was "these books are here, all the writing has been done, give up, Brandon".

As it is, the notes on which the following thoughts are written are none more than the back of a receipt at some bar, and a small piece of notepaper that I ripped out of one of my brother's various notepads. He's a writer, so I'm afraid he'll have a sixth sense about missing a piece of paper, as insignificant as the one I borrowed.

I dated the few notes that I took, by days mostly. No times. The first day I wrote anything about was Saturday. To be fair, the reverse of that paper, where Friday's entry would have been I suppose, is a receipt. So here is what happened "Friday":

EL CHARRO
6310 E BROARDWAY
TUSCON, AZ 85710.

No, I copied that directly; they misspelled it. But here's my problem with this place: the bathrooms weren't clearly labeled. That is to say, they were if you speak Spanish and are knowledgeable of its associated slang. The only Spanish I have heard related to me is "senor/chico/gringo". Thankfully there was a picture of some guy with a sombrerro on the men's door. Sadly, I was buzzed to the point where I stood outside the restroom for about 10 seconds, convincing myself that only the men in Mexico wore sombrerros. For those of you interested, the word on the door was "Charro".

For any of you readers who have been to Mcguires Irish Pub in Destin, FL (or Pensacola), you might be saying to yourself, 'perhaps HHakley has had more than one occaision of not knowing the correct bathroom to enter'. And you would be correct. As I entered the lady's room @ McGuires in December, I concurrently expressed delight that a men's bathroom finally had only stalls, .. shortly thereafter wondering, "but seriously, where are the urinals??" At which point John says "uhhhh dude, you should probably come out now".

The next stop that night was at a restaurant that mirror's Charlottesville's "Michael's Bistro". It was here that I was exposed to the Univ of Ariz mafia of graduate writers, poets mostly. And they talked about.... poetry. I guess it was to be expected from grad students, though I thought it was kind of nerdy (Marty, I apologize if you're reading this). However, if I was sitting among graduate engineers, I probably wouldn't be bothered by their conversation as much as my non-technical minded friend, Tim, whose head would probably have exploded. ("Boy, will your face be red when the find the black box from this one" - Stewie).

One of the grad students in our company was a buzzed-head of a man named Mark. A very interesting guy, with extremely dialated pupils. To make me further suspicous, he was rolling his own "cigarettes" into paper, then smoking them at the table. My uneasiness about the situation dimished, however, either as I became more drunk, or the presence of the fumes became more common (seriously, it was just rolled tabacco in paper). His reasoning for the unusual method was that "it's a helluva lot cheaper, honestly". Good enough in my book.

Let's take a not-uncommon digress in this journal to talk about birthdays, of which I had one last week. However, several people out there have still not wished me a happy birthday, and I am still waiting. I know who you are.

But 23... that's one of the lines you cross, not unlike the ages of 40 or 100. With 22, you're only one year away from 21. You're probably even still in college. But 23... well let me just say, it's not as special as it once was. Perhaps it's because I wasn't at college, surrounded by multitudes of friends wishing my day good wishes. Perhaps it's because I was scrambling about doing laundry, looking for my houses's circuit breaker, or breaking my lawn mower in an attempt to repair it. But here's what I learned the hard way, you could say: no one cares.

Back to Arizona. Back to Monday. I awoke at 6:30 am to the sound of my phone vibrating (I'm a light sleeper). It's a text photo. I groggily hit "ok", "ok", "ok" to facilitate the download of this mysterious picture. It turns out to be some 40 year old balding man with glasses. He has taken a self portrait through a cell phone camera on a bus, and I am chosen as the lucky receiver. I erased the picture as soon as I got it, but it was not until later in the day that I considered, perhaps there was a meaning in the picture. Perhaps one of my friends was sitting next to him, being held hostage. Perhaps it was my dad. Perhaps this guy just made an honest mistake. You'd expect middle aged people not to understand how to operate cell phone cameras. It is entirely conveivable that them doing so would take up so much brain power that they would be unable to competently input a telephone number to send the image to.

As I close this journal, I would like to bide a tiding of caution if you find yourself sitting at a table with beer in hand and a hot waitress in the proximity. Upon seeing an insect crawl across the table, do not raise your beer by mere inches with one hand over the approximate location of the insect while using the other with the intentions of expunging the insect from your table.

The bee later came back to the table, I suppose to check up on us and apologize for any inconvenience it caused. I crushed it with the numerous soaked napkins used from wiping the beer of my shorts/shirt. That night, justice, as well as several house beers, was served to table 14A.

Does anyone know the answer to the subject?

11:40 pm: thoughts while cleaning the kitchen
The dish soap I use scented like oranges. But that led me to think: if you were using that soap to wash something like an orange juice maker, how would you know if it was clean?

"Remember, whether you think you can, or you can't... you're right"

"It's Brian" "Ah yes, the new fellow... come on in"

"You guys have guns?" (does anyone else think that the Simpsons is taking a turn towards Family Guy randomness?

Major life purchases are being completed in this recent time period: I just bought a new TV and am getting a new guitar very soon. The nut on my old one broke; the replacement led to horrible action from the strings, and the old guitar just isn't the same. Honestly, it's very sad, because I've been playing that guitar for 6 years and felt a *bond* with it... a bond that was broken by a crappy repair job unable to bring the guitar to its original quality. Thinking of a Taylor, had a hard time choosing Taylors vs Martins, but the Expression system and a great sound have me teetering on the fence towards Taylors now.

In feline news, the two kittens my roommate graciously adopted (with my gracious support) from Hurricane Katrina victims are now on the market for new owners. Less than 1 yr old, two color options available. Names negotiable. All paws/tails included; ears are extra. Great time wasters for you procrastinators out there (or should I say pro-cat-inators). Seriously, check out these guys here http://community.webshots.com/album/548048667LtLtiP. They're awesome but they put Jess over the pet limit for Columbus AFB. Let your cat-loving friends know!

09:51 pm: short and sweet
"I saw a human pyramid once. It was very unneccessary"

I heard a radio ad for a diet bar. Advertised as being a low-calorie, high energy bar. Incredible.

For those that haven't caught on, energy is the definition of a calorie. This is obviously a technicality, but the commercial is ridiculous.



I heard "Sweet Home Alabama" played during a commercial for Kentucky Fried Chicken. I think there's a conflict of interest in that.

07:38 pm: back by Gianina's demand
Nashville is an all-American city, deep in the middle of Tennessee. The capital of Tennessee, or so say Kyle and I, it features everything from restaurants, stadiums, hotels, parking garages, a cute foot bridge, beer, music, and bums on 2nd Ave, One might wonder what makes it distinct from other all-American cities, American cities, or cities in Europe. It's because I was there this weekend.

Perhaps the only disappointment this weekend was that I couldn't use my "Tennessee / Ten-I-See" pick-up line. (me - "Are you from Tennessee?" her - "yes" me -"cool...")

Nashville is an eight hour drive for me, so I arranged to meet my fellow Wahoo fan Tim in Birmingham, where I was to attempt the following feat: leave a car in a strange city for two days. Luckily my neighbor from back home lives in Birmingham now, and after getting ahold of him, I arranged to park my car at his apartment complex. Don't be fooled by that: he was actually home in Virginia so my car would be all alone. To top that, as I put my bags in Tim's car and said "see you in a few days (I hope)" to my car, several of the complex's residents walked by. Advantage: no one.

A long drive, then Tim and I arrive at our hotel. Let's talk about hotels for a second. The complimentary hotel bar soap. You know you did a good job washing your body when you're stickier than you were before you got in the shower. Is the rough, sticky feeling characteristic of effective anti-bacterial soap? I also decided, while sitting on the john, to start checking the inside of the toilet paper roll axles. Who knows when I'll intercept a spy's transmitted information? No one, that's who.

The night after the football game, Tim and I met up with my neighbor and her boyfriend. Jacob is an entrepeneur earning way through this world with homemade car stickers, drum gigs, and some sort of geographical information systems career. A well-rounded individual, although he's facing competition from street bums in one area: it seems the homemade-items scene is pretty big for people living on the street.

One area I didn't mention as his strong point is his knowledge of the city. Tim and I followed the couple into the city for a night on the town. As we parked a short distance from a tough neighborhood (Deadpan Jacob: "If you walk three blocks that way, you get shot" me:"Are you serious?" Jacob:"nah not really ... it's more like 4 or 5".

I grew skeptical. Determined to check their authenticity as tour guides, I quizzed them on everything from the name of a river to why the Bell South "Bat Tower" building was oriented in a particular direction (they didn't know). Jacob avoided my continued curiosity of whether or not people had jumped from the bridge into the river, finally answering no, he was pretty sure no one had. As we entered the city with promises of a bar with a mechanical bull, a street closed for pedestrians, and a certain band playing at B.B. King's Cafe, I realized that these were, in reality, fantasies. No such bar existed, and the street closed, but later. The so-called band didn't even exist anymore!

(All throughout the night, I, wearing my Virginia hat, would nod to other fans. I thought our victory earlier in the day would promote a bonding of all UVa fans throughout Nashville. I was sorely mistaken. I did talk to a couple at B.B. King's who reminded me of a scene from Wayne's World, when Chris Farley as the limo driver gives a lot of information to Wayne. The couple indicated they were from Charlottesville. I asked what they did there. The wife answered, speaking slowly as if English was my second language: "We're in town to see the game.. we're staying at the Renaissance hotel... we're just out enjoying the night". TMI, I thought to myself as I shook the man's hand, told them "good game", and walked away.)

But seriously, G and J were great tour guides. The four of us ran in and out of bars, collecting stamps on our hands and getting a taste of the different types of country we could find. We settled for the night at B.B. King's, where a band featuring James Brown's (?) sax player was on stage. The band did a wonderful rendition of "Let's Get It On", and the Baptist choir in the audience provided a lively entertainment as well, dancing the electric slide to a song other than - you guessed it - the Electric Slide.

I didn't mention the football game. It was close and we scored in the last minute to win. Tim and I had a competition going to see who knew more Wahoos at the game. I started off winning, 1 - 0, but I forget what the score ended up being. I stopped keeping track when Tim's count surpassed mine.

Family Guy shoutout: Tom Tucker: "Coming up... a pig that refuses to eat Jews"

have a great new year. And if someone knows more than the first two lines of Auld Lang Sine, drop me a line.

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09:47 am: the livejournal link was so far down on the list of recent sites
I became a Florida resident yesterday, despite all my complaining. Potentially this means I can't complain about Florida anymore, and on top of that they're offering me an "incentive", a "bribe", if you will (no income tax). But I'll probably forget all about that later just as soon as I get to the next paragraph. Now all I need to do is get new plates for my car.

For starters, the license is a little flimsier than my old one (which I didn't get to keep). Just a small thing, I know. The traffic is still messed up, but I actually almost came to the point yesterday of accepting (i know!) the horrid situation. I finally realized that if I'm stopped at a light, it doesn't matter if I go the speed limit of 45 mph to the next light, or take my time and go 30 mph (which is actually what people do), I am going to sit at a red light. And faster I get there, the longer I sit. I realized this after I passed some cars, one of which was a dump truck, and thought "suckers", and then had the dump truck get a better position at the next traffic light than I. (When the light turned green, i pulled in front of the slow-to-accelerate truck).

Quickly, some adds. I saw something on TV that guarantees something to stay fresh or working (or whatever) until you're 100 years old. Of course they can get away with that; no one will remember the product by the time they're 80.

Fox news alerts: The death of a football coach's son is not what I would call a news alert. Let me know when we get nuked or invaded, or do the same to someone else.

Ads on the radio for new food products. People call up "hi, I'm a working mom and my husband is a diabetic, and my kid is twelve, and I don't know a good food for the whole family". And the narrator/announcer guy will say "well in that case, sliced ham is perfect for your family!!". And the woman says "wow, thanks so much!".

I don't need a commercial for flashlights telling me when I can use it. "You can use it when you're camping, or going through a crawl space, your kids can use it in forts, YOU CAN EVEN USE IT TO WALK THE DOG AT NIGHT!". Wow, I never knew I was allowed to use a flashlight for THAT purpose.

I can't get out of my head that the lyrics for the song "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" include the lines "And the prettiest sight you see.. is the beggars that will be ... by your owwwnn froonnnnt doooooor". Anyoneknow the real words?

Another thing about Florida drivers. Left lane is used like right lane elsewhere. Loads of cars not going fast at all. You'd think the solution would be to jump in the right lane and pass all those fools. But there's some yokel in the right lane up ahead, now you can't get in the left lane cause it's packed, and they're going just as slow.

I HATE THE TRAFFIC HERE.

06:48 pm: exercise gives you endorphins. endorphins make you happy. happy people don't kill their husbands
Nor do people who don't have husbands... ie, me.

I went to the grocery store this afternoon, as I had the day of work off. I was thinking that maybe I'd meet some nice, cute local girls around since I was by myself (I wonder how many people think Jess and I are together when we go out). I ended up seeing plenty of women, however they all were able to get the senior citizen discount. Publix around 3 pm = bad place to meet others.

Publix has a service where they bag groceries for you. I don't mind this, except I tend to feel really bad when the bagger is a women old enough to be my GRANDMOTHER. Don't grocery stores usually give these jobs to kids who need some extra cash? I hope the woman was just sitting at home bored and picked this up to make time go by. In the parking lot I witnessed both a middle age bagger female carrying grocery bags for an elderly lady to her car, and also an elderly lady carring bags for a middle age female to her car.

I also saw some "parking lot" rage exhibited by one elderly lady towards another. One cut the other off as she pulled into a HANDICAP SPOT. I would think that it's universal, if you need to park in a handicap spot, then you don't get mad at other people because you should be a kinder person. Maybe not.

Let's talk about bathroom urinals and their height. I used one once that had the bottom of the urinal basically at my crotch. And I'm 6'2", so I don't know how the average person would have used that except to stand back and aim up. Conversely, at BW3's in Fort Walton Beach Florida (City Motto: If your car isn't parked on your lawn the rest of the hicks are going to vandalize it), they had an extremely low urinal. Both of them were low, which is unusual. After I used it I thought, "now what is the point of making a urinal so ridiculously low in a bar full of grownups?" As I exit the bathroom, a kid about half my height walks in and heads for the urinals. A perfect fit. "Oh," I thought.

But really, what's a kid that size doing in a sports bar like BW3s?

I was in Outback Steakhouse eating and I glanced up at another patron. She returned a quick glance right as I took a bite and spilled half the food from my fork onto the corner of my mouth and plate. She looked back to her dinner companion. My one opportunity to make a first impression wasted.

11:50 pm: attn radio stations + greenday: It is almost the end of OCTOBER. stop playing the song.
I'll start tonight by saying one of our kittens killed a moth tonight, and I have never been so proud. He kept looking up at the ceiling as it flew around, so I humored him and picked him up, holding him above my head so he could try to catch it. For some reason, I guess being that moths either don't have brains, or they're very small, the moth decided to fly several inches from the ground. I let the kitten down (may or may not have dropped him) and lo and behold, he swatted the moth. He swatted it dead. So here's some news for you all: Kittens = fly swatters.

But you have to feed them and take care of them.

Incidentally, the kitten that did this, I'm pretty sure, is a bit .... slow. Up in the head. He doesn't know how to bury his poop, which, as it turns out, is a skill taken for granted by anyone that has a pet requiring kitty litter.

As I was cooking dinner the other day, I gave raw meat to one of the cats. After thinking about what I had just done and how it's pretty bad for humans, I asked Jess what she thought. Yeah - animals have been eating raw meat for a while, and they will probably continue to do so.

Must be the lack of opposable thumbs.

Jess I apologize for my singing, but I'm trying to get back into it.

Does anyone else think 100% of cell phone goodbyes are awkward? It's that delay that you don't have with a landline. You say goodbye but are accustumed to getting a reply in about a second. It takes longer with the cell phone to get that, so you say goodbye again (in most cases, accompanied worrying that the other person thinks you're trying to get rid of them by repeatedly saying goodbye). In reality, the second goodbye is never heard because they are saying goodbye themselves, which you don't hear. So then it's the awkward pauses and goodbyes several times too many. This has happened to me all too often, usually with Jeff.

But now that I think about it, I only notice it with people I don't want to have feeling I'm trying to get rid of them. Everyone else, if you hear one goodbye from me and that's it, then I'm trying to get rid of you.

Has anyone ever gotten in someone's direct path while walking and kept moving to the same side as the other person for more than 30 seconds? I think I have. Most awkward situation... ever. Next time, here's how it goes down. Either stay where you are and let them choose a side, or just punch them and knock them off their feet.

Family Guy quote: Brian (on phone with Lois): "No, no, we traded our plane tickets in for train tickets. Yeah... apparently you can do that"

And let's get this issue out on the table. Paper towel rolls or toilett paper rolls. What is something common between them? Well for starters, more than a few times have I gone to the store to buy one and come back with the other. It's hard to say which is more surprising: wiping your butt with a Bounty, or cleaning up spilled juice with a Charmins. Although From what I see, diapers work really well for both those problems!

But there are two types of people in this world (diaper wearers notwithstanding): Those who replace the roll so the lose paper is on the outside, and those who do it on the inside. I'm an outtie myself. Perhaps cause I'm tall, I don't like reaching under the roll to try and locate the loose sheet. Will someone please explain the logic of having the lose side on the inside, under the roll? Do people just not make a conscious effort when they replace the roll?

"Son, we raise a lot of dogs... which were you?"
"... the one that could talk..."
"Brian!!!...."

11:55 am: feelin' great
Okay, instead of writing when any silly thought enters my mind, I'm actually going back and wordsmithing this entry, because I feel it could have been better. On a side note, I get jealous of seeing people's Livejournals and blogger pages that are all personalized: everytime I try to change mine, it doesn't go through.

I was driving home from the triathlon today and had all my windows down, blasting Metallica as is tradition for me and Jeff following any intense, fun workout. A guy in an antique car pulls alongside of me at a stoplight and I look over at him, and we mutually nod to each other. You don't see friendliness like that often around here, but I'm full of energy and endorphins right now so I guess I passed that on.

Florida Drivers: you wouldn't know what to do with an open stretch of road and a speed limit of 45. (I'd use 55 if it was another state, but getting to 45 down here is the first step to solving their driving problems)

Here is how to tell if any of you have ever owned a cat: if you think the following is cruel, then no. If you think it's funny, then you've either raised a cat or you are sadistics.

But the point of the matter is this: kittens are amusing. You can basically shove a kitten off a bed or a couch without any concern for how he goes over, and he'll land perfectly upright, softly. At first I had a little hesitation in letting them go, but now I just shove them and see how they deal with it. I don't push them too fast or anything, but I've got to say, it's REALLY Fun, and you'll never know unless you try it.

I found these two blurbs written down on an index card that I think I never got around to writing in a journal entry.

*Ruby Tuesdays is (or was, it was a long time ago) advertising a Fish Burger on tv. No, Ruby Tuesday's, it's still a fish sandwich. But then again, they've been sneaking "tuesday" in their name for years, yet I've found myself going on all days of the week.

*To the little country engulfed by South Africa: what is your point of existence? Just help them out and merge.

07:25 pm: i have no life
I made dinner tonight, but I think I added so many variations of spices into the mix that they all canceled out. I thought it tasted bland, but jess thought it was good. Next time I won't add the inverse spices (those with a technical mind have to go out on a limb to get that joke).

For the past few days I've been singing in my head a song that was from elementary school. Does anyone else remember singing crazy songs in elementary school? We Sing America, perhaps? Unless you were overseas, I'd think you would remember it. But the one I'm thinking of went "Cape Cod girls they have no (bones?), Heavy away! Heavy away! They .... ... ... ... ... .. (I forget the rest). And the chorus had more "Heavy away! Heave Away!". A very complex song. But really, why were we in elementary school singing sailor's chantys about Cape Cod girls?

Maybe if I didn't buy Cape Cod kettle chips I wouldn't have thought of this in the first place.

So this is me falling flat on my face again. I had remembered what I was going to write last time but promptly forgot it. And it was the primary reason for doing this whole entry. DAMN. I think it's eric's fault; he's a black hole. Twice I was with him telling him about some funny observation and I had the (forgotten subject) in my mind, and then I forget it later on. He's stealing it from me... GET OUT OF MY HEAD! (another family guy shoutout)

And for those of you who haven't noticed my recent plethora (nay, only three) of Seinfeld away messages, here's one to close out with:

Moving cars from one side of the street to the other don't take more sense than... putting on a pair of pants. My question to you is: who's puttin' your pants on?

11:08 am: (insert 60 seconds of clever subject searching here)
Some root beer cans exploded in our garage refrigerator this morning. It wasn't quite a surprise though; the first one exploded about two weeks ago after Jess's visiting friends left. They had actually brought the root beer into the house, so now I'm wondering if it was their intention all along that the cans would start exploding after they left and we would be caught in the cross fire. Their little scheme failed! (Although I don't know why Jess's fiance would want to kill her through a tragic exploding beer can accident).

Anyway, one can exploded way back but we did nothing. Then today I heard a loud bang, and following Madison's curious gaze towards the garage, went to investigate. I pulled out the cardboard box full of cans which is visble here... http://community.webshots.com/album/469827293bgSUuR

When I was traveling to Mobile the other day, I noticed that they had a Canal Street. I think about half the cities in America have streets named Canal, Water, Main, Fairfax Cnty Pkwy.... that last one may be specific to my hometown (which ironically has none of the other streets I just mentioned). Anyway, the repetition of those names is good news for visitors who don't want to be embarrassed by knowing nothing about the town. So they could walk along the street and without even having a map or an inkling of where they want to go, ask a local, "hey, do you know where Canal Street is?". And the local would be like, oh he knows that we have Canal Street here, he's definitely not a tourist. But then it would be "hey, wait a second... why is he asking where it is if he's from around here?? TOURIST! TOURIST!" and you run off, shamed for life.

(Family Guy shoutout: Phony! Phony! hey everybody, this guy is a big fat Phony!)

In my salsa quest, I bought some "very hot" sauce additive from the Mexican aisle of the grocery store. However, it was picante sauce, not jalipano, which is what I should have purchased in retrospect. It even seems like the picante has made the normally "hot salsa" "not hot at all", or else Publix brand Hot Salsa just sucks in the first place.

ARGH... all this writing has been for my mind to recall something really funny but I can't quite get it right now. Stay tuned in case I do.

11:16 am: lazy Sunday morning
Wolf Blitzer - You think you're so fancy with your white hair and beard and a name like Wolf Blitzer. But I've got news for you, Walter Cronkite. You lack personality and emotion. I know tv anchors read teleprompters but, come on, Wolf. A person with a monotone disorder could do a better job of reporting the news than you. You'll never be as good as Anderson Cooper.

Speaking of salsa, I think I am ready to transition to the next level of hotness. I discovered in the first year of college that you just have to get your mouth used to one level of salse before transitioning to the next. I applied that when I got to Florida, starting off with medium, then moving to hot. At first hot would burn a bit but the jar I ate last night (actually, I just finished 1/2 of it) didn't even hurt me. Maybe I'll buy one more just to be sure.

But I wonder, where do I get hotter salsa than hot from a grocery store? This is where Jess came in. It looks like what I have to now is "go to the Mexican grocery stores to get the real salsa, not the kiddy stuff". I'll have trouble doing that at first - "hey look, the gringo wants to buy some mild salsa!". Except it would be in Spanish which I don't understand at all, so it would be more of "hey la mirada, el gringo desea comprar algún salsa suave". Maybe I could find a Latino kid outside and pay them to buy the salsa for me. But is there a Mexican version of our cigarette laws? "It is illegal to sell authentic salsa to gringos." I bet the kid would go in and still say to the storekeeper, hey look, the gringo wants to buy some mild salsa! (He would use English because I would be outside and away from earshot). I'll let you know how it goes.

I was going to do a semi-serious bit here about how it's important to have a role model, someone who challenges you. I'm not going to go into details, but I was challenged recently by someone and I really appreciated it. It really brings you out of your "I'm perfect" shell and can cause you to do some amazing things.

If you thought the kitchen situation couldn't get worse, you were wrong. I was wrong. Jess volleyed a new salvo at me last night when she used the George Foreman grill. At my first survey of the sink, it appeared to be an easy night. Then I saw a Foreman grill, easy twice the size of any normal Foreman grill. Well played, Jess, well played.

11:43 pm: Move over, Seinfeld, I have more airplane jokes
The defining moment for choosing to write this entry came as I was hunched over my computer desk, trying to eat a roast beef sandwich. For those of you roast beef regulars out there, you know that sometimes when you bite into roast beef, you can tend to grab a big section that pulls out of the sandwich rather than being neatly chomped. Perhaps it's because I pack my sandwiches poorly. Anyway, as I'm struggling to hold on to the bread, other pieces of cheese and roast beef start falling out, similar to an asteroid breaking up in pieces as it enters the earth's atmosphere. I couldn't pick up the pieces with my fingers becayse they were covered with mayonnaise. So I took part of the bread and used it between my fingers like a cloth to grab the food, similar to a young adult hunched over his computer desk and too lazy to grab a napkin from the kitchen.

I use mayonnaise more often than I used to. It doesn't bode well with my recent nutritional standards, which consist of no extra calories (mainly beer) before I run my triathlon in two weeks. That revelation itself was born when I woke up after a night of hard drinking and even with the hangover, thought my body looked pretty shitty in the mirror. (Although I conveniently forgot the alcohol ban when I went back to school for homecoming, where it became a weekend-long drink-fest). So no more alcohol and other stuff, because every calorie counts. That's the peak of my healthy eating habits. But it tends to conflict with another view I have about eating, which is this: Eating is Fun. And mayonnaise makes things taste better. My mom used to say "everything in moderation". So while I'll cut back on the 7kcal/gram fun that is alcohol, I'll consume the 9kcal/gram that is fat. It just tastes good. And you can't make tuna salad without it. (Actually you can, but it won't taste the same).

Here's the airplane bit. I had to take a total of 6 flights to get to Charlottesville and back. Quickly, here's how it went: almost missed flight from Florida, saw Tim in Memphis, flt got canned in Detroit, was late arriving into Charlottesville. Was late leaving Charlottesville, almost missed flight in Detroit, had BBQ in Memphis, and got in on-time to Florida (but got lost driving home with Jess).

But here are the funny things. The flight attendent in Florida. He looked like Phil Hartman, and sort of acted like him too. Imagine an SNL skit with Phil Hartman playing a disgruntled flight attendant who seems to be bothered by any move you make, to include breathing. Except this wasn't a Saturday Night Live skit featuring Phil Hartman. He just hated his job.

I noticed up along the buttons where you can call your flight attendant that they have braille on them. But there was also braille on the button for a light. Okay, but... Do I have to ask? I just can't imagine any situation in which blind people need to turn on a light in an airplane (reference mitch hedburg: I just can't imagine any situation in which I would prove I bought a donut. Some skeptical friend... don't even act like I didn't buy that donut. I have the receipt right here. Oh wait, it's at home... in the file... under "D")

The other unnecessary thing, or at least, less than necessary, is a shop in the airport that sells luggage. By the time you get to the airport, you shouldn't be concerned with that. Imagine someone walking along and they're just having a little trouble with their carry-ons... "fuck it! I'm buying a new one". And they transfer all their items from one bag into another and just leave the old one there. And now that I've written about this, I thought of something else. The luggage shop was in the secure zone, which means you have to have a ticket to get in there, and you will have already checked your luggage. This means if you're actually going to buy something, it would have to be a carry-on if you're going on a flight. Or else someone arrives at and airport, decides they need luggage in addition to the stuff they checked at the old place, and buy some new bags.

In conclusion, and I truly mean to emphasize this: Braille lettering on light buttons and luggage stores in airports are the MOST UNNECESSARY THINGS EVER.

Some might bring up that they have braille on drive-thru ATMS. However, from what I can understand, ATMs are mass produced, so the drive-thru ATMs might be used as a walk-to ATM somewhere else.

At any rate, my empty sandwich plate needs to be placed in the dishwasher soon or it won't be run. You stay classy, San Diego.

10:26 pm: <-beach bum
Note: beach bum does not mean I lay at the beach being a bum. It means I live close to the beach, and am a bum. Sadly, I can count how many times I've been to the beach on one hand, but I'll probably start going quite often soon. Don't worry.

Perhaps some of you remember when I mentioned Jess seemed to use every pot and pan for cooking dinner one night. Well, she struck again! Not pots and pans this time; they were hanging right at eye level as I boldly stepped up to the sink. We had a crockpot dinner so you cut up some chicken and throw it in a crock pot with, in our example, canned pinapple and cherry tomatoes. And notice that both of those can be served straight from the containers with no preparation. So I look down in the sink, pull out the cutting board to put to the side, and what do I see? 3 knives, 2 forks and 2 spoons lying at the bottom of the sink. "Damn it!" I thought. Unless she used 2 knives, 2 forks and 2 spoons and had someone over for a full course lunch, then something is amiss. But I'm pretty sure we didn't have company.

Okay, for the rest of this stuff I made a list, but we'll have to see whether it's still funny or not (of course it's funny. The unfunny stuff I erased before posting this journal).

DVR - damn, can't remember what I was going to write about that.

Mailman - our mailman is the laziest guy ever. The only difference between me thinking that on Monday and today is that I said hello to him in the meantime and now I feel slightly bad. But I'm used to a mailman walking his route, dropping off the mail. This guy drives his mailtruck up on to the grass/curb area (our curbs are slanted) and puts the mail in the box, without ever getting out of the car. But now as I write this, I realize he is oldish and maybe can't walk. I think I can be expecting my ticket to hell in the mail sometime later this week. Delivery by US Postal service.

Here's a happy one we all can relate to: awkward pauses in cell phone conversations. Particularly at the goodbye phase. Jeff, my conversation with you last Sunday sparked this thought process. One person will be talking, say goodbye and expect to get a goodbye in a reasonably quick time. But with the cell phone delay, you're left hanging. So you say goodbye again quickly, at the exact instant your buddy says goodbye (or whatever they say). You both pause a second. "What?" you both inquire at the same time. Then it's "goodbye" again, but this time you realize your friend wasn't saying goodbye (again, jeff, what I think happened with us). so then you've got to tactfully steer a faltering conversation to a solid goodbye after two failed goodbye attempts. It's pretty awkward. If there was a third person on the line, he'd have a field day with the "jinx" game.

I have about 1500 mp3s on my playlist. I thought that I would take off one song that I didn't like each day. Then I realized I wanted to have a kickass playlist before I'm 5 years older and not a day smarter.

I was in my kitchen looking out to the backyard when two squirrels came into view, one chasing the other. The one in the lead kept going, but the one chasing (the guy squirrel?) stopped when he was in the middle of my view. He stood up on his hind legs, turned towards me, and.... put his two paws in front of his crotch. I was a little confused at first. I don't think I've seen any squirrels around my yard wearing clothes, and I certainly haven't seen any squirrel-fitting clothes laying around my patio. We stared at each other for a while and then he lost his modesty (or perhaps regained his animal instincts) and started digging for a nut. I guess they have poor short term memory as well. Or maybe he was digging for his clothes.

That's all for now.

11:55 am: yawn
i just woke up so this entry may be a bit cloudy. for example, i actually wrote "yawm" in the subject line before i corrected it.

Real quick - today at work I went in figuring I'd learn how to do my job. no one in my shop was in but they grabbed me and said we need bodies to help support the hurricane relief efforts. Long story short, after sitting around for an hour or two, late in the day some captain pulls me and a couple other guys. He needs us to help read frequencys off of charts for our helos to use as they fly missions supporting katrina. I have to say, it was the most rewarding job I'd ever had.

i bet computer people hate how the everyday man knows nothing about computers and gets frustrated when they don't work. I opened an attachment from an email and it opened up another window and then finally opened up in word. if it didn't do that automatically, I'd have had no idea what to do with it; i have no understanding at all of how the system works.

weirdly, before i clicked to open IE i also clicked the windows media player button very quickly. then i hit IE. I guess the computer knew what my real intentions were because the WMP window never came up. I'm happy that I don't have to close it now, but I don't think I want this machine making that call for me.

jess and i witnessed a civil act yesterday. we were turning left across three lanes of traffic at an intersection and this car just out from the perpendicular street and stops in front of us, aiming in our direction. She looked very angry at first, and we couldn't tell if she was going to cut us off and keep going. I mentally prepared to write a livejournal rant. but then she looked at us and pointed to ask our direction of travel - we intended to turn left into a shopping center and she intended to turn left going the opposite way on the street. if you can't follow that, it's fine. the important thing is she asked, and so we very excitedly pointed to our direction of travel and couldn't believe ourselves.

ah, yes. the whole reason we were out shopping was to look for gas containers for lawn mowers (and some things for jess). Everywhere was sold out of the gas containers. (now, we didn't try walmart, but that was basically because we wanted to keep believing in the good will of society, if only for the rest of the day. walmart would have completely destroyed any such notions. the places is like a fucking zoo with human animals running around... it's just ridiculous)

anyway, I'm thinking... okay say a gas container is $10. say you can only hold 5 gallons of gas in it. you'd pay 2.74 x 5 for the gas, and then add 10 bucks. that means unless gas goes up to 4.74 you're not saving any money. (but maybe the container holds more and costs less...). Anyway, i just need some gas to mow my mower and people are freaking out here.

Also, it is not uncommon here to see stations with no gas. I'd say about 2/3 don't have gas here. Jeff was bragging that his in THassee had gas, until yesterday when they all closed up. I warned you, dude.

So anyway, I go over to my neighbor to ask if she has gas and she leads me around back. She has like 7 of these gas containers filled with gas. And a gas powered generator. Ahh...... Floridians really DO have something going on upstairs. So point for society for her letting me take one of the containers, but minus for people hoarding gas.

And I broke my mower 5 minutes later trying to start it. Go figure.

08:45 pm: i feel like chicken tonight
Jess made dinner tonight. If you came to our house you would've seen chicken and spaghetti and homemade sauce, but what you wouldn't have seen is this: she came up with a way to use every single pot / pan in the kitchen. In fact, before she started cooking she even asked if we had pot covers. Luckily we do not, because since she cooked, I cleaned. As I started washing I stared up with amazement at the hooks over the sink where all the clean pots usually hang; they were empty. All but two of the hooks hanging up spoons/spatulas were empty. I think there were 7 dirty utensils but we only had three pots going! The most ridiculous thing is that there was a pot in the sink that didn't have sauce or anything in it. I'm trying to think of how she managed to make that dirty in cooking dinner. I'll get her back. Except when I do frozen pizza night. Then cleanup is: throw away cardboard backing and napkins.

Along with the chagrin of doing the dishes came this overwhelming excitement and I truly felt like I was about 8 years old when I discovered this: the sink has a little sprayer thing on a hose. I've never had one. As I tried in vain to rinse the spaghetti pot without using an obscene amount of water (although don't say "save some for the whales, because Katrina damn sure brought a lot of water to the area, and those whales are going to have to fight me for it!), I discovered the hose. I yelped for joy (ask jess) and then excitedly used it on the pot. Too bad it was the last thing i was washing.

The commissary doesn't have whole wheat ritz crackers. I was upset about that for about 4 seconds, at which point I realized that the whole wheat crackers didn't have whole wheat as the first ingredient, thereby not really having any of the health benefits of true whole-wheat products. If anyone knows of any whole wheat crackers that taste good, please tell me.

Lastly, Katrina's over. We took the shutters down today. Yeah, it left fort walton as abruptly as I've written this statement. Check the news for more details; apparently New Orleans is in a state of shock.

12:06 pm: katrina 2
Quick note before we begin: for all 24 fans out there, A&E is having a 24-hour "24" marathon. Sometime in september, I think. stay tuned.

***

Short blurb I should've written yesterday afternoon: Jess and I went to the pier to take pictures, that's what you'll see a lot of at my webshots site. We got charged $1 each to walk to the end of the pier. A lot of people were there, including some guys wearing John Deere hats drinking Corona extra out of a can. I don't know how much more redneck it gets.

***


Well, jess and I, in trying to fit in with the locals around here, decided to embark on what must be a great floridian pasttime - going out in the hurricane and driving around. Our first stop was the pier that we were at yesterday, where we got significantly fewer pictures. Then we drove inland across some bridges in Fort Walton that ran over the bay which comes pretty far up. lastly, we drove back home by 98 (our major road about 100 yards inland from the bay) and took some more pics. The pictures can be found at http://community.webshots.com/user/hhakley under Katrina.

It was pretty calm on our street when we left, just a lot of wind. As we got over the bridge to okaloosa island yesterday we took a picture (one of the first pics from Sunday was taken from this bridge). There are definitely a lot more lively waves. We got to the pier where I put on a rainjacket... and was the only one. First note for next time: Floridians don't wear rainjackets to chase hurricanes. In fact, some of the people had no shirts at all. The jacket actually caught a lot more wind than I expected and I had a harder time going up the pier than jess. some of the dudes had no shirts on at all, which was probably easier to walk but hurt more due to all the sand flying around.

The road to Destin was closed. It's about a 7 mile road that leads to Destin. It was also blown away by hurricane Dennis. When we got to Florida 4 weeks ago, they were still repairing this road (Dennis had occured about 4 weeks prior..) So we couldn't drive over to see Eric (who is, incidentally, without power right now). Destin has the bay on the northern side and the gulf on the other. Pretty much the whole town could get flooded.

Over the bridges we got some good pictures, all the while trying to look inconspicuous to the cops who were driving around. These guys were pretty much just out there to keep civil order, but we did see one dude get pulled over - i have no idea what the heck he did to be so stupid. Mainly cops would be on roads where there was one lane flooded and make sure we pulled over to the other lane. I guess they're used to the locals being gawkers.

But we couldn't match the whole local scene. I mentioned how yesterday we saw locals drinking beer. Today we saw two guys holding on to a fence pretty close to where the water level was coming up, and apparently they were drinking beer. Beer and hurricane surviving. "It must be a source of pride" - jess. At least we know there's still some hope for Darwinism.

12:44 pm: Katrina
Thought this would be a good way to start out:

9. (U) Preparation of homes, vehicles and personal possessions should be accomplished at this
time. All loose items must be secured to ensure they do not become airborne projectiles, to
include pets.

Check.

Right now it's a cat 5 somewhere, headed towards new orleans. We can see clouds above us already, with 12 ft waves hitting navarre beach (a bit west of Fort Walton Beach, where I live). One wave even went up to the parking lot, and I'm told people were running from it. Guess it's not a good time to body surf, as some guys from my squadron and i were planning to do today.

We've just put up all the boards on the house (note: drills are a good thing to have). It was very dark inside. Then I turned the lights on.

Looks like we'll have to evacuate, but I'll try to get some pictures with Jess's camera before we split. I'll probably be headed towards Tallahassee. Will keep you updated further.