OK, it turns out I need a costume for Halloween, who’s got an idea?

I had some training today on how to submit requests for people to do stuff. It’s a lot like bug tracking software I’ve used before except when you want to make a change you have to get it approved and you can send people “action items” – even stuff like “find out how much product x costs”. The whole thing was a bit boring and most of the people who take the class already have familiarity with the tool, I was actually napping during part of it – the people around me seemed to agree. When we were doing an in class exercise I sent my partner the perfunctory "find out how much product x costs" action item as the slides instructed, he resolved it with "I donno, but our instructor is cute!" I look over at him and it’s this engineer in his 50s with some gray hair, he gave me a big “this is stoooopid” smile. I almost peed my pants. Grown-ups passing messages in class! I love it. Not all of these people are totally dry. I managed to find a list of all the action items and change requests that were sent in the play environment of the class, here are some choice ones:

Bad Coffee Choice

These training classes are a problem

Development of obscuration software for Capability Model 2

Identify Beer Preferences Quick!

How did you get stuck doing this?

More food options for lunch

Need good vacation spot.

Resend: Wash and wax my car, then pick up my dry cleaning.

3-873 - chocolate sensitivity specification

Found a chocolate doughnut clogging the exhaust fan

Lack of Motivation on my part

We need action!
Good times.

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Big Bad Voodoo Daddy was really good. Their new songs just don’t have the edginess their old ones did, luckily their old songs dominated the play list. They’re everything a swing band should be: great musicians - all of their solos were solid, they had a light and upbeat demeanor and the pinstripe suits. Good times. Unfortunately the place I saw them in was really not equipped to have any dancing in – it was more like a punk rock venue than anything, small packed place with a little bit of balcony seating but mostly standing floor. On the plus side, it's 4 blocks from my place.

I made dinner Sunday night. I’ve been cooking more, here was the menu:

Crab cakes garnished with lime

Swiss chard stir fried with garlic and red pepper

Steamed broccoli with my dad’s Asian garnish

Mixed baby greens salad with Asian dressing (the dressing rules! Seven parts olive oil, one part honey, one part Dijon mustard, one part rice vinegar, mix well)

Desert: smoothie (fresh strawberries, kiwi, pineapple and banana with bit of guava juice)
My guests were the Irish family down the street, they’re very cool people.

I now have pictures of my place up.

OK, this is funny. Be sure to check out "Creation Science Fun Facts!"

Action Item Man: professional superhero

Click for charity... seriously. Helps fund mammograms (the pink button in the middle).

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Well, I’ve got a ticket to Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at 8pm tonight at the Funk Box in Baltimore. If you want to go the ticket is yours as all attempts at getting a date have flopped.

I’ve made a few friends in Baltimore – while there are lots of people my age who are engineers at work, I haven’t been ‘clicking’ with them too much – we’ll see how it goes as it is still early.

My good friends are across the street. If you told me I’d be friends with the couple in their 30s across the street with a 6 month old daughter, I probably would have had a hard time believing it before. But they are so damn cool it’s sick. Tuesday I went over to ask if they knew of a hardware store around, next thing I know I’m helping them make dinner and eating at their place. That’s what I’m talking about!

I’ve never really had friends that were over 10 years older than me. If anything, our relationship would be the adult/parent/relative to child or professor to student sorta dealie. It is neato. Their baby is super cute too.


If the iPod wasn’t super sexy enough, they had to come out with a super fly accessories like the Belkin Media Reader and the Voice Recorder. I’m trying to be good with my money, but it’s hard when these things are only a few clicks away... stupid technology fetish.

For better or for worse, all the pictures I’ve taken with my camera phone are available here.

Friday Michael Moore was pretty damn funny. The antics of the concerned young lefties were pretty good too – as most of you know I stay pretty far away from politics as it is one of few things that make me really upset. Somehow it is ok when it’s funny though...

I today I saw the Smithereens at the Federal Hill (my neighborhood) Street Beat Festival, hehe. The festival was pretty cool, but going alone was a bit tough, everyone was there with people - you know how it goes.

Home improvement, bootstick style (this may be boring)
IKEA’d it up today and got some wire-track lights for my living room to light up my photos. When installing you have to drill holes, throw in the plastic anchors and then screw hooks into the anchors. The hooks’ threaded bit just wasn’t wide enough to expand the anchor completely, when tightening the wire it pulled out the hook, stripping out the small amount of threading the hook had made in the anchor. That is really bad, because the anchors are already in the holes you’ve already made in the wall, and they’re not coming out easy, and you have holes in your wall. What I needed was the anchors to be tighter on the inside so that the threads on the hook would catch. I thought about filling them in with some wood filler I have for a different project, but I don’t think that would have worked out too well. Then it hit me – shims. I needed some plastic to stick in there, thus when I screwed in the hooks they plastic bits would make the hole really crowded and everything would hold together. The perfect candidate is actually the twisty-ties that come in the package the lights were in – cut a few to the right size, stick four pieces into the anchor, screw in and that hook isn’t going nowhere (unless you unscrew it).

Mutak: kid tested, bob villa approved

Yeah. So I'm still acting like a college student, fine.

This week:
Monday: recovery still (oof)
Tuesday: unexpected block party – my block (and adjacent block) rock
Wednesday: photo meetup I almost forgot about (what's a photo meetup without a photo?)
Thursday: Cook and clean up, also the first day at work where I felt like I was productive enough to call a real day of work (I guess this is normal coming out of Rose).
Friday: going to see Michael Moore at the John’s Hopkins
rock

Music recently:

Amon Tobin – especially Supermodified – super cool techno jazz

The Dandy Warhols – 13 Tales From Urban Bohemia – pop rock done right.

Hooverphonic – mostly Blue Wonder Power Milk, but I do want to get a listen to a New Steriophonic Sound and Jackie Cane...

St Germain – more jazzy techno, probably less "accessible" than Amon Tobin...

Kristy MacColl’s "In These Shoes?"

The Talking Heads

I looked up from my book, noticing the baby wasn't crying anymore, I saw that the stewardess had taken the baby from the couple and was walking around the cabin with her. The couple looked happy to have a break, the stewardess was glowing, the baby was peaceful and everyone in the area was relieved that the crying had stopped. I returned to reading.
Shortly before landing I made a stop by the bathroom. The baby had been returned to the couple by this time and was sleeping across the aisle from me. In the front galley out of general view I saw the stewardess sitting in the flight attendant's seats while the others scurried around putting things away and doing last minute cabin checks. She was silently sobbing. I went to the bathroom. The plane landed. I didn't see her with the other flight crew saying good bye on the way out. It probably meant she also missed the couple with the baby, who were in front of me and on their way home.

First things first.

Sunday morning I woke up face down on the tile bathroom floor. Next to me is a post-it note that reads "Alex, you were not dead at 5:00 so I went to sleep. – Isaac"
From what I could tell later, I did four things:
1) bitch about my life (more about that later)
2) preach about taking advantage of your time at rose ("mack on as many girls as possible!")
3) puke
4) fall to the ground giggling

I’m pretty sure if there was a "homecoming party star" award I would have won it, then thrown up on it. It can make for some funny stories, but needless to say, things were slightly overdone that night. This isn’t the first time I’ve let things get a bit crazy – I never intend to drink that much, but recently I’ve not been good about stopping. Without getting too dramatic, I intend on taking a break from drinking until my 23rd birthday – Feb 20th 2004. When I expressed my remorse and plan to Jimmers, he shared his wisdom:

Jimmers: nobody ever quits drinking. you need to get a tattoo.

Well, now I have a plan B.