Friday Brain Dump

A conversation between DJ and me the other night while watching a Glee rerun:

“Seriously, why would they call it sexting?” – DJ
“Because it’s a combo of sex and texting.” – Me
“But….well….whatever…it’s stupid.” – DJ
“Just keep remembering that.” -Me

This Moe can hope that she won’t fall into that trap, but the experience of other parents of teenage parents would indicate otherwise.

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Ever wonder if that tattoo of Chinese or Japanese characters someone has really means what they say it means?  This site answers the questions of those tattoo holders and/or their friends. 

This guy has been doing this since 2004, I think. People will send pics and emails and ask that hard question “does it really mean what I asked for it to mean?”

Many times: no.  And what it really means is fucking hilarious many times. 

There are a couple of lessons learned. First, never get a tattoo where you have to use Google Translator to get the characters. And, more importantly, in my opinion, never get a language you don’t personally read or speak inked onto your body.  The guy who has a glorious Japanese inspired tattoo with the symbol for “rice” in the center probably agrees with that statement when he wanted the symbol for ‘chi”.

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The phrase I am having posted at the end of all of my emails at work is going to be:

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”

As TL comment upon asking about this quote in my status, “You’re the Fish Nazi. “NO FISH FOR YOU!!!”

Basically, they want change. They want evolution of how people do things – getting them out of the crawl space and teaching them to walk and eventually run. So during a meeting today, they start talking about how if we designed the system a particularly overly-complicated way how it would help people who today get coddled. I mean, it’s hard.  Fuck yes, it’s hard. Doing that job is hard. It’s why they get paid what they get paid. You have six-figured directors saying managing our budgets is hard. Uhm, yeah….it’s also part of your job.  So, while they are ranting and raving about this system that will – NEVER be built unless they fire me first – I finally release my annoyance.  They are like “but you don’t understand.”  I do understand. Instead of teaching them to fish, you want us to build a robot to fish for them because it’ll be easier than teaching them to do their fucking jobs.

These are the days when I would rather be configuring servers, answering questions about Outlook, and deploying desktops again.

Except, I feel I must relinquish my IT card. For six months I have been fighting with an issue – then it hit me like a ton of bricks…..the solution was something I have used way too many times in the past to get around the same issue. Yet, for some unknown reason, it did not occur to me to do it here.  Yeah, just take my card away from me.  Oh, well, at least I finally realized it instead of having to have someone point it out to me.

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Our shower is 99% done!! Woo hoo!!

Wait, I guess I haven’t mentioned this one. Our upstairs shower was installed incorrectly. We suspected this, but the fact the upstairs bathroom is 90% tile – floor, ceiling and walls – we have been trying to fix it without starting to rip it out.  The minor leak that was very occasional turned constant and pretty much made me wonder how much water was actually going down the drain.  After getting 5 quotes from contractors (and repeatedly saying ‘we didn’t install it!!’), we chose one that was reasonably priced and professional…….and who ended up being a fucking pain in the ass.

He really should have counted his blessings that this project occurred while G was at home. If he had pulled that shit with me, I would have fired him day 1. Since the shower pan needed to be removed and rebuilt, we had to choose new tile. The floor of the current tile was a broken mosaic look, so we chose river stones. They are like 1×1 tile on a mesh. We did our research and talked to tile people who assured us it wasn’t any harder to install than 1×1 tiles. Hell, I’ve installed 1×1, so we went with it.

The contractor decided we needed to pick something else out. HUH? So I get this phone call from G informing me he’s going to pick out something else.
HUH?

After getting annoyed at the fact G was willing to give the guy what he wanted. And I knew going with a different tile was not going to work with the existing tile.  I did not want it to look like we did a shitty job and just threw something down as it would draw attention to the fact we had a problem – especially when we ever sell the house. Feeling like it was 2 against 1, I finally told him to do whatever he wanted as long as it made the contractor happy. Yeah. I am not below direct passive aggressive smart-ass remarks when I don’t feel I’m getting through to someone.

And it struck a nerve with G.  This wasn’t a group decision – he was installing what we wanted – not what he wanted. So he bought what we wanted. The guy bitched and moaned until G said he would find another installer. In fact, the tile company who sold him the tile gave him the name of someone who would do it.

He bitched, he moaned, but he installed it. And did a great job.
And won’t be working it again.
And Saturday, we will be able to take a shower again – after 3 weeks of not having a shower. 

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G is being the big mean white guy again picking on the nonwhite neighbor kids. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, click here. Wait, never mind, it was on his blog which is now closed. Damn. The short story was that the neighbor boys stole DJ’s bike a year ago. They did it to get back at her for something that happened earlier in the summer. Basically she made the boys look bad. It ended up with the boys encountering G before me (they were running from me), and he and our neighbor gave them hell for what they did. When the neighbor (who is black and Cuban) left to catch the train, the passersby started yelling at G for “picking on those poor kids”.  It ended with the kid getting into deep shit by his parents. An apology letter was written and delivered to DJ. And G told him that he did the right thing and appreciated the way he handled what he did wrong.

Fast forward to tonight, his little brother was over here playing outside. The kid got in trouble the other night when he started taking things off our porch and throwing it into the street. G explained to him it was unacceptable, and sent him home.  Tonight, he rummaged through G’s bus stuff, found a jar with what he thought was apple juice in it, opened it, and tossed it at our kids and another neighbor kid.  We heard a scream. He missed them thank goodness.  Why? There were chemicals in that jar from when he removed the engine. He had stored them this way until he could dispose of it safely. The kid would have noticed that immediately upon opening it because the smell is quite distinct.

So strike 2 & 3 for this kid. He has been informed that he is not allowed in our yard anymore. He put our kids and others at risk. And this kid, as G is explaining to him why, literally has this sort of “yeah, so” expression on his face. Not defiant; just very much like it was a joke to him.

G came back into the house afterward, and I asked him if I can now lecture him. What the fuck was he thinking leaving that shit out? While our kids are past the lock up the chemicals stage, others are not. And there are a lot of ‘others’ that come to the house to play. To paraphrase, “Put your shit away or I’ll ground you from your VW!”

G looks at me sheepishly.  “Yeah, I know.”

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I read an excerpt from Mark Twain’s soon to be released autobiography. I just recently learned that he had requested it not be published until he had been dead for 100 years just to make sure anyone who could be offended by what he wrote would also dead.  I tried to find the excerpt I read in a recent Newsweek, but sadly could not. He tells a story about confronting a librarian who banned Huck Finn since Huck Finn was a liar and would defile the morality of youth. The story involved Mr Twain picking up a Bible and writing out a few passages where there was lying and such in it.  It was a well told story – true Twain. Can’t wait to read it.

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I will be spending my weekend hopefully snapping out of my funk. Just feel like there is this little black cloud following me around – and it can block the sun at times making me feel down. I hope to shake it off or create enough sun that it burns away.  May everyone have a sunny weekend!

12 Comments Add yours

  1. Geez wtf is up with this sense of entitlement people have?? Contractor – he’s paid to do what YOU want, not what he wants. Kid – smarmy lil shithead, I’d have done more than just ban him from the yard. I just can’t understand why parents like you and G are now the minority….and parents who ignore, throw out empty threats and basically let their children run the house are seemingly the norm.

    I hope you post pics of the new shower tile, it sounds neat!

  2. Topaz says:

    Wow, that is quite the rundown! The kids and the chemicals bothers me. That nonchalance makes me want to sit a kid down and show him (online, of course) what damage they could have done. It’s the only way they learn sometimes.

    And yaye for your shower! I agree with Lilly, please do post pics!

  3. Hubman says:

    So, anything exciting going on in your life? ;-p

    And no shower for 3 weeks? You must stink by now! lol…

  4. Beryl says:

    If I was there I’d find out from G what all the rest of your favorite things were and spoil you some.

    You know you are doing better than you think you are, right?

    hugs…

    Beryl

  5. Wow.
    The story about the kid is crazy. Did his parents get involved at all?

    I’m happy to hear you have your shower back! That should be a bit of sunshine in your weekend right there. 🙂

    And I was laughing about the tattoo thing because my husband has a kanji character on his back that he swears means what he wanted it to mean. I’m curious now. I’ll have to check that link.

    Have a great weekend.

  6. Sa says:

    Can’t wait to read that autobiography either.

  7. Dana says:

    When I got my last tat, my niece went in too looking for a piece to put on the back of her neck. She wanted a specific word, in a foreign (symbolic) language and did what I think most people do – looked it up on the internet.

    The artist REFUSED to do the work – said he didn’t know that the word meant what she wanted to and didn’t want her coming back to him when she learned what it really did mean.

    I was quite impressed with his professionalism!

  8. Ms Scarlett says:

    Glad to hear the shower will be back up and running soon! That first shower will feel awesome!!

    And I love the tattoo story… I know so many people with Chinese/Japanese characters tattooed on them… I bet most of them are wrong… LOL!!

    Have a great weekend!

  9. I always wondered if Chinese people had English words tattooed on their bodies!??!?!?!?

  10. Just me... says:

    What amazes me is ease with which kids these days assume everything is theirs to rummage through, touch, hold, pour out, etc.. Don’t parents teach if-its-not-yours-dont-touch-it or manners anymore? Sheesh..
    Won’t that first shower feel glorious!?!?
    Enjoy!! :):)

  11. Vixen says:

    The tattoo thing. EXACTLY why I will never have anything non-english on my body. I don’t want ‘jackass’ across my back when I thought it was supposed to say “peace”. *snort*

    The neighbor kid issue… *shaking head* I remember the incident with the bike. Gah… It sucks that the chemicals were involved but glad it was handled/taken care of.

    Hope you have a fabulous weekend.

  12. “Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.”

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