atomicthoughts.com

Today I sarcastically referred to someone as a “real rocket scientist”, as a way to mock their intelligence. I wonder what the perceived water mark of genius will be in the future? Recombinant geneticist? Hydrogen miner? Creative accountant? I also wonder what it was in the past? “Boy, he’s a real catapault engineer.” Or “What an arch wizard!”

There’s a well known spike in gym memberships due to new year’s resolutions. I wonder how far that carries over to other industries? Today I noticed far more 6 inch subs being purchased at Subway than ever before.

When ipods became really popular I had this idea about all these people walking around with them, and how anti-social it seemed.

Then I happened to buy “Brain Droppings”, by George Carlin, and he had the same idea as me, only 15 years ago.

Then I was having a conversation with a friend and it came up again, and I brought in the book to show the passage to him.

Then I bought a “George Carlin” day calendar, and the very first day was the same passage. It must be a sign! So I thought I should share.

I’ve just about had it with these poeple walking around listening to Walkmans. What are they trying to tell us? They’re too good to participate in daily life? What is it they’re listening to that’s so compelling? I think a person has to be fairly uncomfortable with his thoughts to have the need to block them out while simply walking around.

Around this time 10 years ago I was in casts. My sense of time is so bad that I wanted to blog about the 10 year anniversary last year only to find out from a more clueful friend that I was off by a year. The only reason I remember the time of year is having to get out of taking finals that year.

So anyway … I was biking home one night and a huge garbage can jumped off the sidewalk and into my path. It was a magical can that was invisible until hit at high speed by a bicycle. It may have also appeared with a bike light but I was unequipped to test the hypothesis that night.

The next morning my roommate passed my room to find me in one cast half way up my bicep, and another one just below the elbow. A more classic double take could not be found.

What I remember most from the night of the accident was the xray tech with a bedside manner of gold. I waited 4 hours in the waiting room just to be seen. Then another few lying in a bed. They finally wheeled me down to xray, still not knowing quite what was wrong, so they could take some pictures. “Holy shit”, I heard off in the developing room, “this kid broke both of his wrists in exactly the same spot.” At least he didn’t tell me about my elbow too.

So there I was, 2 broken arms, no insurance, student job with no sick time. I don’t remember how many days I missed but it was certainly less than a week. I figured out how to type with 2 broken arms. I figured out how to eat. I even figured out personal hygiene, which was quite a challenge. After the first cast came off I was able to take the greatest shower in the history of personal hygiene.

Medically, things went as well as could be expected although I have a much higher risk of arthritis in those joints. The injury itself wasn’t that painful. The most painful part of the whole thing was when they gave me a local so they could readjust my bones. They used a big thick needle that could inject into the bone itself and stuck it right into my wrist. The actual needle part was a cake walk compared to how the jiuce felt being injected.

It was good and numb when the doctor started manipulating me. He was pretty focused on his work, trying to line things up. My wrist was turning ways it shouldn’t and bones were grinding together. I was wincing and grimacing when he looked up and said “Can you feel that?” “No,” I replied, “but it looks really painful.”

Long term, I’m more likely to get arthritis iin those joints than normal. And I’m sure my friends at the time will have entertaining stories to pass through the years. I was also pretty close to going back home to have my family help me, so in a way it solidified my staying in Tucson.

My love for biking seems to have been somewhat of a victim, as well as my hair. It was probablt to mid back length at the time, which isn’t sustainable withoit arms. Fortunately it was in the from of a mullett, so it was no great loss.

Maybe the single biggest impact was getting a real job out of it. My boss, who has always been great about recognizing and rewarding talent, was able to clearly illustrate how screwed they would be if they lost me. Even if I had taken a full week off, like a sane person, they would have been in trouble. Not to mention not having sick time.

In summary, I don’t recommend breaking your arms. Doing both at once is definately out of the question.

The idea is the following – when you type a letter of the alphabet into your favourite browsers address bar, which web page will be suggested first by the browsers auto completion feature? Here is what came up for me:

a: www.atomicthoughts.com/mt/mt.cgi
b: blogs.apress.com/
c: www.ceruleanstudios.com/forums/
d: www.dhl-usa.com/home/home.asp
e: www.engravedtolast.com/
f: forums.mozillazine.org/
g: www.gmail.com
h: No love from H
i: Nada
j: jdv.webhostingpal.com/html/mp3covers1.htm
k: kb.mozillazine.org/index.phtml?title=Thunderbird_:_FAQs
l: www.livejournal.com/users/bbendick/friends
m: http://mail.yahoo.com
n: notepad.sidekick.dngr.com/edit?sort=alphabetical_a-z&noteid=143
o: Zip
p: www.paultomlin.com/projects/mozilla/thunderbird/quickfile/
q: Zilch
r: www.rogerebert.com/
s: sl2.ccit.arizona.edu/student_link/logoff.asp
t: www.tmobile.com
u: uainfo.arizona.edu/tp/index.php
v: www.vibber.dk/eurythmistan/collectors/categories.php?cat_id=43
w: www.weather.com
x: Zero
y: Nil
z: Ditto

An interesting mix of sites I use a lot and random things visited once.

1. What was your favorite movie of 2004? Least favorite?

Favorite Movie was probably “Garden State”, or maybe “Harold and Kumar go to White Castle.”
The question was “favorite”, not “best” :) . Least favorite was easily “The Village”. What a turd.

2. How did you spend Election Night 2004? Did you vote on Election Day?

I voted on election day and it took about half an hour. I spent election night watching CNN. I like
Jeff Greenspan and they had a lot of pretty TV’s. And it was amusing watch Larry King try to piece
things together.

3. Did you get a new (or new to you) car this year? What did you get?

No new car. I did buy a fuel pump and a serpentine belt though.

4. Did you use your landline phone or your cellphone more?

I use my cellphone more. My landline gets used more than my cell phone, but not by me. And I use
far more IM and email than voice.

5. Did you get a new job this year? Will you think about getting one in 2005?

No new job gained, no new job desired.

6. What was your favorite Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus/nonspecific celebratory December event gift?

Although not officially a gift, my father-in-law watching the kids while we wandered about Ikea.

7. Did you take any vacations this year? Where did you go? Did you enjoy your trip(s)?

I took 2 vacations this year, and they were as close to actual vacations as I’ve ever personally
achieved. Most of my “vacations” mean “not working in the office”. But these times I checked out pretty
well.

One was the annual family road trip, this time driving to Minneapolis MN, Crookston MN, Rapid City SD,
Rexburg ID, and Las Vegas NV. It was 3 weeks, and quite a bit of fun.

The other was 4 or 5 days to San Francisco and was also fantastic.

8. What is your favorite song of 2004?

Musicology, Prince

9. Did you see any live concerts this year? Whom did you see? Was it worth the price of admission?

I saw Prince live, for the 3rd time. It was easily worth the price of admission. I also saw Rush, which
was also worth the price of admission, which was free. ;) (it was a gift). Rush puts on a great show
but I don’t get into their music enough to keep going for the price of tickets anymore.

10. Do you miss hockey as much as I do?

No but I might miss Baseball that much. :)

Even though I’ve lived in Tucson for 13 and a half years, I still can’t get over the fact that I’m wearing shorts on December 29th.

What do polar bears have to do with Coca-Cola?

On Friday my wife looked at the ceiling and said, “Is that a drop of water?” And my heart sunk. After a lifetime of not participating in any stress at all, it seems to have accumulated in house worry. For the first year in the house I was in nearly constant fear of major catastrophe. Pipes exploding, termites, roof collapsing, foundation cracking, you name it.

So a dripping ceiling set me off. And it didn’t smell like water either, more like oil. This was it, I thought, the old galvanized pipes have finally met their end. The attic is full of water, the ceiling is going to collapse at any minute. Or I had waited a month too long to get the roof checked out and the rain last week was now in my house. If I was a cartoon my eyes would have been dollar signs.

I was on the verge of a panic attack, and I don’t mean in the illustrative sense of trying to make my point. My breath was short, my stomach bouncing, my heart racing.
Fortunately, making a decision snapped me out of it. I didn’t know who to call because I didn’t know what was wrong. The drip was roughly under the cooler so I went up on the roof to check things out. Everything looked fine, which left one more place to check. The crawl space.

Or house is a fairly standard mid-50′s red brick pitched roof house. There is a 3 or 4 foot high crawl space above our celing where the pipes and ductwork run. I knew it existed but had never had the courage to investigate it. Surely a nursery of racoons lived up there. Maybe a colony of giant flesh eating ants. And inside would be a waterlogged mess of rotting beams, riddled with termite holes and charred from an electrical short waiting to take the house down. Not to mention my big ass wouldn’t fit in the crawl space entrance.

But keeping moving kept my panic attack from returning, so I grabbed the ladder and a screwdrive and headed for the entrance. Off the grill game, yet a pigeon did not fly out and attack me. No scurrying inside, no rotting wood. Just a small dark space full of pipes, ducts, and insulation. “Hey that’s not too bad at all” I thought. And now that I was closer to the entrance, maybe my biig ass would even fit in there.

So I went in the house to gear up. A flashlight and a sweatshirt later I was ready to take the plunge. Unfortunately my knee pads sat lonely in the closet, silently mocking me for not using their unique talents. A twist of my shoulders and hips were necessary to get inside, but I did get in and wormed my way to the center of the crawl space.

A slowly dripping elbow joint was waiting for me. It supplies the cooler and was damaged when temperatures hit freezing last week. A bit more pressure on the turnoff valve in the house stopped the drip entirely. The ceiling is slightly damaged although the problem is waiting to happen once we need the cooler again.

Some plumber will gladly earn my money to fix this problem. My rafter scrambling techique is subpar. And it was miserably warm in there. But for other things I may return. An electrician was going to install a new ceiling fan for us, but now that I see how little it would take to pop a whole in the ceiling and run the electrical I might give it a shot.

Now that I have conquered the crawl space I feel an urge really put my empowerment to use. A skylight maybe? Or get rid of a little crawl space altogether for some nice vaulted ceilings? My ideas always outpace my execution, but you just never know.

Jane had her 5 year checkup yesterday, and is completely average. The doctor’s office is the one place you want to hear that you are totally average, completely like everyone else. 50% percentile for height and weight is exactly what you want.