One day I almost called up my boss "Uh sir it is with great DISINTEREST that I must report to you that the result of moving forward with your proposed changes is..........THERE IS NO IMPACT!! DO WHATEVER YOU WANT!!! IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER!!!!"

Shortly later, phone rings: "Mark?  This is security.  Please clean out your desk and report to the downstairs lobby immediately......"

Snap to picture of me on phone, now imagine that scene in the grinch where he gets his "idea" and his green hair "unrolls" straight on his head as a sly look spreads across his face......

That is how I felt. Like a Grinch with an idea.

**********

Wind has been broken (sigh….again).

**********

My thoughts on getting vasectomy to someone who recently had one:

Hope your nuts are doing OK and that they are getting the proper exercise they need.  I still want to do that someday but I want to be put completely under and then given a jug of tequila when I come to.  You know, the stuff with that nasty worm at the bottom.  Hick....hick…...(finally, looks down at sad, hairless balls) "whaaaa....huh? my balls are gone!!  (high pitch voice)  Uhhh....oh I see they're just twice as small now....."  

But at least you and Paul have something new in common now, huh?  Todd and I now are the remaining IMPREGNATORS OF WOMEN and SHOOTERS OF LIVE ROUNDS.  Well well. I do admire your guts for going through with it since I know it can't be an easy thing to go through.....in this way it could be said that in all fairness your balls are bigger than mine, even though they are probably hairless and scared, I mean scarred.

**********

Upon sharing a hotel room with a friend at the Ampac Hotel at DFW Airport in the early 1980s:

Dude all I remember clearly is how my eyes started watering and then went beet red when you came out of the hotel room bathroom with that big Frankish grin on your face.  The smell rolled out like a stink bomb cloud in motion.  I'll never forget feeling so sorry for Paul as it gave him a thoroughly nasty case of the dry-heaves for about 20 min, at the conclusion of which he then proceeded to "praise the porcelain God" only to find that inches from his nose were several remnant chunks that never made it down, which then led to the real heaving (more chunks- lots of panic flushing) and it was only after much back slapping and cursing that we brought him around.  He's been in a daze ever since.  Heck Sharon wouldn't even look at you the rest of the trip (not entirely true- she did glance over at you once while we were in line for the Shock Wave, i.e. she glanced at your face, then looked down at the seat of you baggy jeans, and then shuddered).  And remember Todd nearly put his fist through the wall that night.  And when we came back later that evening you could still smell it on the sheets and walls and we all lied awake all night trying not to notice it but finally Todd couldn't take it anymore and started to cry softly into his pillow (bet you never noticed) and to this day I still can't smell 41% of cataloged odors.  I should have known better than sticking around because I had earlier noticed the paint peeling in the bathroom when I had used it after you, even though no matter how many times I flushed I couldn't get those streaks you left to go away, and in fact I strongly suspect that they replaced the entire unit after many repeated attempts by hotel guest services to sanitize the bowl, all to no avail whatsoever and to the early retirement of 4 strong-armed toilet scrubbers.

*

Mark, I called the hotel and apologized for that bathroom incident back in 1985.  I had been wanted by the hotel since then, however, they pardoned me when they decided to tear down the hotel.  Seems that one other couple rented the room the day after we were there.  The woman's hair all fell out and hasn't grown back since and the man has an extra ear growing on his forehead.  They sealed off the room after that incident similar to the way Chernobyl was sealed off.  Guests still report a strange odor when it rains at the airport.

*

Dude I didn't want to share this with you, but since we're coming clean I might as well level with you now- long before Guest Services ever arrived with their dedicated strong-armed toilet unclogged team, I plungered on that commode for 70-80 minutes trying to push that baby you laid through the plumbing.  At times I plungered furiously, at times more slowly and with great care and thought.  Then I would plunge furiously like a maniac again.  This cycle was repeated many times but I cried like a baby the entire last 20 minutes.  I believe the extraction team eventually called in Big Armed Boris (from Russia) for the final effort and I believe he retired that day, saying afterward with great disgust, "Someone out there should see a doctor about that.  It's just not right."

So........did you?

**********

Just think, the highlight of our streaking abbreviated career grows near:

(AP News 2002)
Two grown men were arrested yesterday on the Nevada side of the Hoover Dam during the daylight hours to the astonishment of hundreds of tourists. Due to heightened dam security, the streakers were caught within minutes, to the disappointment of many female watchers.

"I've never seen anything like it" remarked one young lady whose eyes were still wide with wonder. "I was taking a picture of my girlfriends when they ran past and now we just want to know where they are staying".

But others were not so forgiving. "We've seen drunk fools out here before, but this takes the cake" replied a local law enforcement official who declined to be named.

After a being processed at a local facility, the two were released on $100 bail so that they could seek treatment for what appeared to be 2nd degree sunburns to the buttocks and groin region. "These tourists just don't respect the Nevada desert sun" remarked one official.

**********

Well Frank my work here as a consultant to the AMA is almost complete.  I didn't get to make any policy or alter the course of medicine as we know it, but a little of me lives deep inside the belly of the big machine that lives behind many locked doors on the 6th floor.  I did make you a large animal proctologist though, started off as a joke but then it really seemed to make sense to me.  And best of all, your dues are paid in full through the year 2027.  But I couldn't get you a DEA number so you can't prescribe.....which is quite unfortunate because you can't really be a successful Large Animal Proctologist without administering a sedative first....know what I mean?  I bore witness to this once when I was a mere lad, in East Texas no less, and it wasn't a pretty sight.  You ain't never saw 'nuthin untill you’ve seen a cow with no teeth chew his way through a mans arm.  Worst of it was, it took over an hour to do.

**********

My review is today.  A salary review.  Oh boy I wish it was over.  Maybe if I just started bawling for more money that would work.  Or perhaps the forceful approach, slam my hand down on the table and yell, "Cough it up!!  NOW!" then point my finger in their face, "Don't make me slap you around!".

**********

Paul in Las Vegas:

"Paul! Come out of the bathroom!  You've been on the can for almost an hour!  Do I smell cigarette smoke?  This is a non-smoking room!  Come out!"

Various disgusting biological sounds are heard.  Outside in the room various nervous glances are exchanged. Finally the long awaited flush. BAWHOOSH!  Then another. BAWHOOSH!


Door finally opens.
"Hey! Anyone bring a toilet plunger?"

The smell of foul odors and cigarette smoke moves across the room like a black cloud of death.
Mark (horrified, stepping backwards) : "Arrrgggg!! It's chasing me!"
Frank (pointing valiantly): "Quick, open the $#%% window!"
Todd (panic): "The @#$%# windows don't open!"
Mark (with tears in eyes)
"Can't.....breathe.......must.......escape........."
Todd to Frank: "He doesn't look to well."
Frank to Todd: "We've got to carry him to saftey!"
Todd: "I'm getting dizzy!"
Frank: "We're not going to make it!"

Paul gets a funny look on his face, smiles an evil grin, grabs a newspaper and heads back into the restroom.

"NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

Sounds of grown men crying,  "It's a MAD HOUSE! A MAD HOUSE!!!"

In final act of desparation, Todd throws a chair through the window.  "Sweet mother of all that is good just smell that wonderful fresh air!!"

Las Vegas Sun Times:
"Three of Siegfried and Roy's White Tigers were killed in Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden by an errant hotel chair yesterday in what Mirage officials are calling the worst catastrophe since Siegfried lost 2/3 of his left arm in a Tiger mauling accident in September of 1998.  The fourth Tiger, badly wounded and highly distressed, leaped over the compound wall and proceeded to gnaw the ears off several drunk gamblers who only moments earlier had been caught on tape teasing the large animals with cocktail marshmellows.  Replied one deaf victim, "Why me? Why? Why? ..... What? What was that?"

"A preliminary investigation into the incident has revealed that Louisiana man Todd Roberts threw the chair from the 27th floor of his room in an effort to "clear the air".  He is being held pending a bail hearing which is expected to be approximately $90,000 per tiger, and $30,000 per missing ear.  When asked for comment, he merely looked straight ahead and with a set jaw and grimaced, "I did what any sane man would have done given the circumstances.  I would do it again in a heartbeat.  The Lord knows that what I did was right." 

**********

Here is a typical exchange with a network support person:

(through gritted teeth) "Hello, Frank here. How can I help you today?"

"Yes, I came into work today and now I'm unable to log..."

(Cut the person Short, impatiently) "Do you have your CAPS key down?"

"Why no, I..."

"Fine! What's your machine name."

"My what? I don't..."

"FINE!! What's your login?"

"...uh...windows?..."

"HOW IN THE SAM HILL DID YOU GET HIRED?  Are you plain ignorant or just stupid?!  "Tell you what! Just turn your machine off, wait 10 min and then try again!  OK?!  Can you do that?"

Then the network guy sneaks off to reboot the server, which is sitting on the blue screen of death.  Reboot, and ....whola! All is OK.

Domain people kill me.  But thats how they are.  They can't help it, really.  They've seen to many stupidisms to ever be polite again.  And they are best recognized by their total lack of ever explaining to any user what the real problem was.  Just let things start working again.  I mean hey, to send out a mass email that explains the server was down, or email was fried for 1/2 day, or that all of the backups for the past two weeks were no good, is an admission of guilt!

Now, as a PROGRAMMER....you can say things like, "It's not a BUG, it's a FEATURE!"

OR........here is common telephone conversation.....

Programmer:  Hello?  This is Mark on the 42nd floor.  Hey I accidentally blew away a file on the chiweb application server, under /usr/home/mtrainer.  Can you restore last night's version?"

Network Guy (Russian accent so strong you can barely understand him): "Uh, yeah well uh...we've been seeing some strange errors in the backup logs."

Programmer: "You DO have last night's backup, right?"

Network Guy "The issue is that last night's backup is still running."

Programmer "You mean it takes more than 20 hours to back up the system?  Wow.  OK, tell you what, get me last Tuesday's  copy of that file."

(Much Later.....)

Network Guy: "Hi, this Dimitry.  I can't find your file on the backup.  Are you sure it was there?  I think we're going to have to call IBM to see what these error messages mean."

Programmer: "That's horrible, can you at least get me last month's copy?"

Network Guy: "Well we've been getting these errors since last Christmas...."

(Me Thinking): They've been running an entire organization for 6 months and have no usable backups.  Good grief.

And so on.

**********

The guys try to play a joke on me in Las Vegas while I'm sleeping:

"Shhh!  You'll wake him.  Get his clothes off."

Sounds of clothes being removed.

"DANG! IT'S HUGE!" (hushed wispers, sounds of awe)

Then the sad realization sets in.  Profound depression saps the energy to complete the stunt.  And yet, no one can avert their eyes.  Or move.

Twenty minutes of hushed silence pass.  A soft cough.  A throat is cleared.  Someone finally speaks up.

"Todd, poke it with something and see if it moves....."

Poke.  Poke.

"Yeah it's real all right.  It's getting bigger."

"WOAH!  Glad my wife doesn't know what she is missing."
"Mine too."
"Yeah."

Ten more minutes of envious staring.  Finally a suggestion.

"Come on guys, lets pool all our money and bet it on all on the roulette green double 00.  We have nothing left to live for."

"Alright, I'll just hang my hat on it and we'll go."

Downstairs....

"Sir, we would like to put one thousand two hundred forty five dollars and thirteen cents on the green double zero."

"Uh, you boys DO understand that this particular wheel only has one green SINGLE zero, right?"

"Yes.  Bet it all on the double zero please."

............