Return of the Cantankerous Coot

Recent posts have been a bit content-free. Here's hoping for more silliness, cantankerousness, and general weirdness.

Happy Birthday

Unemployed Brother 2 is wasting away in Margaritaville on Spring Break right now with a friend who just graduated college. Friend's parents allegedly paid for the whole trip.



This is also the day Netscape opened the source on the Mozilla browser.

Earworm for Literature Geeks

For some reason, In the Good Old Summertime and Jabberwocky mashed up in my head.

In the Jabberwocky time,
In the Jabberwocky time,
Whiffling through the tulgey wood
With my baby mine.
Our vorpal blades went snicker-snack;
The slithy toves did dine
On Jubjub bird egg omelets
In the Jabberwocky time!

Busy Weekend

Lots of active kid interaction. Must recharge...

Happy Birthday

Happy 14th birthday, Son.

Foto Phriday - Fun in the Sun

Here is GPop's pop, one of our nieces, and Son in a boat at the marina that Pop and Mom ran for two summers. They've decided not to return this year.

Like an Arrow

<cliche>They grow up so fast.</cliche>

Son asked a girl to "go out with him" last Friday. Monday, he came home and told me that she gave him her phone number.

"Now what do I do?" he asked.

"Pick up the phone, and press those numbers in that order," was what I wanted to say, but my internal censor caught the words on the way out. "Maybe you should call her."

"What do I say?"

"Well, keep it on safe topics, keep it to less than 10 minutes, and make sure you give her plenty of opportunity to talk. Ask her what she did over the weekend. Tell her about your music contest. Ask her if she watches Heroes. And if the conversation starts to go bad, you can bail out by telling her that your dad needs you to do something."

He called, and I was expecting to have to actually get him off the phone after about 10 minutes. After about 90 seconds of stuttering, he bailed on the call with the "Dad needs me" line.

On Tuesday, the girl called back, and they talked for several minutes.

And they call it puppy love...

M

This is the one-thousandth post on Cranial Hyperossification. Cue extended theme music and video montage...





This blog has been updated daily since January 1, 2008.

I'm Mercury

I turned a corner in the office where the cubes have plants on the top edge. A coworker said that she saw the top of my head and thought it was a big bird flying inside the building. Maybe I should comb my hair.

Or stop wearing that winged helmet.

Retrospective

Here's a picture my brother took from my mom's house toward the back of her property over the winter. That construct to the left is a small dock. The thing on the right is an overturned rowboat. The area betwixt them is a pond.

Embarrassing Omission

Cranial Hyperossification turned two years old on Wednesday.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Sister-In-LAw 2.

Failure Passes the Turing Test

It appears that text-to-speech synthesizers can be tripped up. Or is it a person with a distorted voice? The world may never know.

Happy Equinox

Happy Vernal Equinox, world! Got the bonfire and body paint ready?

Foto Phriday

This is our back yard on a foggy day.

More Dreams

I've been having some recurring dreams where I'm walking in the off-campus area near a large university. The area is very urban - not in the sense of Manhattan, but more in the sense of The Hood. It's always dark, and the sodium vapor streetlamp closest to me is always off, although about two thirds of the streetlamps are on, so it's not pitch black. I usually have some errand or destination in mind, and I rarely feel threatened, although there are a lot of menacing characters about.

Last night's installment included walking with someone who resembled a guy from work, but I knew he wasn't the person I knew. We were walking with a young woman who looked a lot like the character Karen Pelly from Corner Gas. The man used some sort of strong potion that he convinced her to smell in order to loosen her inhibitions. I objected and told him to leave. Then Karen and I sat on a large rock.

Back to Work

Feeling mostly better now. I managed to clear my inbox. Woo-hoo!

Dream Taxonomy

Is there a term for a dream where you face a minor inconvenience, which defies easy resolution, so you're irritated by this, then you become aware that it's a dream, and you're irritated that your mind set you up with this inconvenience, and then you become irritated that perhaps you are dreaming about something that may happen when you wake up, so that when you do wake up, you're irked that your dream set you up for grumpiness?

Because I had that this morning.

More of a Tweet than a Post

I'm home with a chesty cough and a headache today. Here's to feeling better.

Four Word Movie Review - Twilight

Overly angsty brooding "vampires."

Quiet Morning

Sitting with coffee, waiting for 60k maintenance on my car, and watching season 2 of The Tick.

Foto Phriday

I needed to clean off a white board in a conference room. This bottle of white board cleaner was sitting on the marker tray. White board cleaner is a nasty cocktail of poisonous alcohols and such. Notice how it is SEALED FOR YOUR PROTECTION. Why? Is someone going to put poisonous chemicals in it? Is it going to escape and attack me? Is a child going to be running around the office in the brief period between the time I take this out of the supply cabinet and the time I spray it on the white board?

Quote of the Week

Yesterday morning, I received a pop-up from our corporate e-mail program that said a coworker, Todd, wanted to invite me to an instant electronic meeting. Todd is the lead of a tech support team, so I accepted with a grimace and prepared for a report of some disaster. A bunch of people started popping into the meeting list, then they started to leave. I instant messaged Todd to see what was up.

GDad: Was that an accident?

Todd: yes and i don't know how to stop it

GDad: That is the quote of the week.

Unexpected Kindness

The other day, I was on my daily quest for a bagel and morning drink down in the cafeteria at the building where I work. I turned away from the bagel station to get my morning soft drink when I noticed that the variety that I like was not on the shelf. The cart man who refills the drinks rattled by with an empty cart, so there was no joy to be had from him, either.

I stood dejected and defeated for a moment, but then I left my private pity party and started to meander over to the bagel decoration area to top my bagel with yummy peanut butter and jelly. As soon as I got there, the cart man popped up out of nowhere. He had seen my quiet disappointment and had gotten two of my favorite morning drink from the back room. He quietly handed them to me, nodded, and walked off. I was so astounded that all I could do was thank him and start laughing.

The manager looked really harried that day, but I will catch her this morning. She needs to know that she has a gem on her staff. Not only did he remember what I habitually bought, but he took the extra time and effort to help me get it without me asking. What great service!

That's Different

In direct contradiction to yesterday's post, I feel compelled to say that I just found out that a person here at work used to go out with her late husband and hunt for Bigfoot. I think I want to find out more about this.

Work vs. Not

You know how there are people who tell you that you shouldn't vent about work topics on your blog? Yeah, I think I'll follow that advice.

Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon

The day was cloudy, but warm. It got up to the upper 60s, but it's still supposed get back to near freezing later this week. Bleh.

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

I just saw a Burger King marquee that read 'TRY OUR ANGRY WHOPPER'. I eat at BK about once every three years, so I have been out of the loop on the new menu items.

Co-inky-dink

I got in my car to go home, and I was humming show tunes.

Come out, come out wherever you are
To see the young lady who fell from a star.

just as the radio turned on, the announcer said the words, 'a star.'

Identifying my Corpus

I went to the dentist's office today for my semiannual cleaning, etc. The dental hygienist was seriously aggressive. My mouth hurts from all of the poking and prodding. She was checking my gum tissue, so she had to jam that ice pick thing into my jawbone thrice for each tooth. Owie!

Foto Phriday Phollow-up

Last week, I showed images of dirty snow and the detritus of the winter-to-spring transition. Here are some follow-up pictures.

Bill remarked on my large shoe. Here's a picture of a salt pattern that looks like a huge high heeled shoe.



Here's a picture of a pickup truck parked over the pile of dirty snow.

All Politics Is Local

A few days ago, I was feeling especially ornery, so I wrote a couple of letters to some of my elected officials. The internet saves me the cost of a stamp, so I pretty routinely drop them notes.

My local representative to the state House (Now you know I don't live in Nebraska.), who was elected in November, seems to align a bit more to my requirements for a representative than the previous guy, who would probably have been in office yet, except my state has term limits. In any case, I wrote her a note welcoming her to the position in the district and letting her know that I was looking forward to hearing what plans she had to bring our state's prosperity and integrity back. The intern or staffer who answered seems almost confused that someone would write just to send their regards. This might be a good chance to have an ear in the state gubmint.

My newly-elected (not by me) US Congressional Representative was quoted last week as saying something exceptionally partisan and historically inaccurate. A good eighth grade education would have given him the tools not to say something that dense. The A sad thing is that of all of the Republican candidates in the primary, this guy seemed to be the smartest and most ethical. Anyway, I wrote to him to see if he had a statement about his faux pas, so I even let him off the hook by asking if he was, perhaps, misquoted. He has not responded. I foresee less of a productive relationship with this person.

Just Bears Repeating...

Too many people don't understand how tax brackets work.

And 'Rithmetic

Son's algebra class is getting more interesting now.

Plumbing Dumbing

One of our buildings has swapped out the urinals in the gentlemen's rooms with waterless urinals. Yay green!

Yesterday, I was at that building, and one of the new urinals was out of order. How is that even possible?

Home and Garden

We went to the Capital City Home and Garden Extravaganza With Adjacent (But Not Attached) Gun Show this weekend. Well, more specifically, we went to the Home and Garden part. We drove the hybrid, not the pickup truck, so I don't think we'd've been allowed in the gun part.

There was a presentation on By the Square Foot Gardening. It sounds intriguing, but until I see the results, I remain a bit skeptical. I think I'll make a box for that style of gardening and see what comes up. More results as the year progresses.

The Honorable Senator

I heard Senator Chuck Grassley on NPR the morning after President Obama's address to the Joint Session of Congress. Man, that guy doesn't know the meaning of "short answer."