Phone Numbers

04.06.2005

You know how you tend to get people dialing your phone number instead of the one they meant to call, and then it happens over and over and over and you get really annoyed? Well have you ever suddenly been amazed at not getting a wrong number?

Case in point, back when mom lived in town her number was (256) 721-0278, for which I had a stupid logic scheme to remember which puzzles Jerry to this day. It seems that this is only one number different from (256) 721-0178, which is a local lounge of 98% nekkid women coercing lots of people in John Deere hats to buy overpriced beer as they frolic in many a lap. As many drunks as there have to, and people trying to find said drunks, I'm amazed that we never got a call at 2:00 in the morning from some guy trying to find Luscious or Devine or Plantasia or such.

I should probably just stick to my Star Trek stories from here on out....

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Trekkin Some More

04.05.2005

As most people know, I'm (at the very least) a closet Trekkie. I've been watching the run of DS9 on the sweet binary flow of DVD for the past month or so, and have reached the final season. Yesterday I came upon one of the light hearted episodes that makes for a nice break from the "universe shall fall" episodes.

The episode in question was "Take Me Out To The Holosuite", basically a baseball game on the holodeck episode, which I found slightly ironic that I was watching on MLB opening day: 2005. It's funny watching Sisko teach everyone how to play baseball, but my favorite part happens once the actual game starts. As the DS9 team takes the field, Sisko calls for "some chatter" as the opposing side comes to bat. Kira, Nog, Jake, Quark, and all start the familliar catacalls: "Swing batta batta swing" and the like. Then the camera cuts to Worf: "Death to the opposition!"

I laughed for a good 10 minutes. It reminded me of some of the good old Worf phrases like "Captain I must protest, I am not a merry man!" and the like. Oh, those Kilingons crack me up sometimes.

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Yaller Beltz

04.04.2005

This past Friday was belt test night at the dojo, and Jer and I were testing for our yellow belts. I was dreading the tet a little bit, mainly because I didn't know what to expect. Luckily, I ended up having a lot of fun, I think due to one simple thing:

Jerry and I are better than the other people at our level.

Yes, we old farts did a bang up job Friday. We even made Leonard proud. Unfortunately, Jer had to suffer at my hands during the wrestling portion of the test, although to be honest we really haven't practiced wrestling that much during class. I think if he had just grabbed a chair and whacked me on the head he would have done ok. As it was, my superior wrestling skills (from decades of watching Hulk Hogan) and mastering of physics (a 380lb body at rest is going to do pretty much what it wants) kept him in his place: On his back, wriggling around like a bug.

Now I've got to find an excuse to go wrestle some more....

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A Long Day

04.01.2005

Today is the much awaited day of the karate belt test, where Jer and I advance from the lowly status of white belt (i.e. "so you say you want to learn karate") to yellow belt (i.e. "so you've been keeping at it for 3 months"). We learned yesterday that we've really already advanced in belt rank, the test is just a little something for show, more to get us ready for when the test counts, I imagine. Plus, it gives me an excuse to snicker an extra time this week as I watch Jerry try to tie his belt.

Today also marks the umpteenth anniversary of one of my favorite sayings garnered from a vocabulary building calendar: "Jerry is a slyboots". It being April 1st, be sure to read all the news reports with a wary eye.

Totally unrelated, but I've managed to get the JasonTracker working again - it parses one of the pages at the WWE site and has been broken since they converted the site to JSP (adding all kinds of banner ads in the process). If nothing else, it gave me an excuse to excercise the PHP portion of my brain a little.

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Time Keeps On Tickin'

03.28.2005

This past Friday was my grandfather's 84th birthday. I still have a hard time believing he's in his 80's, he pretty much looks like he did in his 60's (and in a good way - the man doesn't even need glasses unless he's reading).

On Sunday, one of my grandfather's brothers (the last remaining one, I think) passed away. It wasn't unexpected, so all of the family has been doing ok. I've been thinking of the timing - so close to my grandfather's birthday, Easter - and how there are times that a persons death seems more noticable if it falls close to a date you normally observe. I think and worry more about my grandfather and how he's taking all of this rather than how other people are doing - he's the one I'm closest to in all of this after all.

Then I started thinking of Gerry, and how I still think about him on a fairly regular basis. When Gerry died a part of me wondered how long I would think about him, remember him. I guess I was worried about forgetting. But the thing I've eventually learned since last June that once people make a true impact on your life, like Gerry did, like my grandfather has, you're never going to forget them.

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