Western Arab

A voice mail in January 2007

I believe it was January, maybe February. I am pretty sure it was 2007. This voice mail perhaps started a chain of events for that year. A voice mail with an honest apology, genuine regret and good intentions. A message asking for forgiveness and a continued friendship. A desperate voice, almost cracking, not knowing what else to do to correct a mistake.

I believe this voice mail was the start of a closer friendship. It came after about two months of complete disconnection. It was explained by a memory initiated from reading a book, but I believe it was more than that. I believe it was a feeling of some emptiness. I believe it was a glimpse of life that did not include me. I know I may sound conceited or maybe even arrogant, but this is what had happened. It was only a day after returning from a long trip out of the country, not even a day, and the first business matter to attend to was to fix this mistake, to reconnect, to rebuild, to reestablish and to secretly admit.

This is just a memory of a small event, that set the stage for an interesting year. A year of genuine friendship, learning, understanding, experience and perhaps struggle. A year beneficial to both of us. And a year of memories that can’t ever be erased.

And then there was disconnection again. Only this time it was for good. And this time not because of a mistake, but because of things being what they are. And so the friendship lives on in memory. And it will continue to do so.

“Thanks for the good times.”

Get off my shoulder

I finally got the blue parakeet to get on my finger, hand, arm, and shoulder! He still panics and gets scared of stuff, but he was just fine hanging out on me. He even walked around the back of my neck to the other shoulder. He got to spend a long day out of the cage today in the large screened patio.

The green one, well she still doesn’t get on my finger. She only steps on it to move away sometimes, and she only once got on my finger but didn’t stay long. She can fly well so she doesn’t need my help to get back up to the cage, as the blue one currently does. But she will come around. She is a female after all, so typical.

And I am so glad the parakeet didn’t poop on my shoulder for his first time being there.

Parakeet on shoulder

Took my car this morning to have the door pull handle trim replaced. VW has some crappy rubber material on the door handles to give a soft touch to them. But this material is crap and rips after some time. The handle underneath this crap is just fine, they didn’t need to put this on it. So I previously had VW service replace one pull handle and the other needed to be ordered. So I called last week and confirmed they had the order and scheduled an appointment for today.

And so today, I took the car. They always take a long time to do any service. The service adviser tells me it will take about 45 minutes. So I go and wait. It was 9am, I pretty much had not slept at all, and I hadn’t eaten so I was hungry. I got an almonds bar from the vending machine and decided to have coffee which they offer free. I am not really a coffee drinker but the last few times I had it, it wasn’t bad. I see a machine for hot water and grab a hazel nut flavored coffee package. One of those round little bowl type things with an aluminum foil cover on top. So I rotate it looking for the extended piece of aluminum foil to peel it open. I can’t find one, I grab another package to check, nothing … and another.

Green Mountain Coffee Maker

Alright, so I try peeling it. I cut my nails very short so it doesn’t help. I try and try, then decide to just punch a hole with my finger. Inside I see coffee whatever it is, but it is a lot. I think I can’t put this in a cup and add water. This doesn’t make sense, plus it had this zig-zag filter looking thing the coffee is sitting in. I dump it in the trash, figure coffee is too weird, let me go back to my tea. Grab a green tea. This is the same as the coffee thing. Punch a hole in it. Ok so this is weird, it has that filter as well. Poured some of the green tea in the cup. Finally a sales guy, comes by and asks me if I know how to use the machine. I said huh? isn’t this just hot water. Nope. He flips open a top which reveals a round tray the exact fit of the package in my hand. Yah embarrassing. I didn’t know how to use a coffee machine.

Or maybe he was a manager and figured I was going to punch holes in all the tea and coffee packages before I figured out how to use that machine. Well at least the hazel nut coffee was good.

Alright so obviously the car took more than an hour to finish and the service adviser tells me that they replaced the bottom piece only because the top piece had not come in. And I explain to him right in the show room with everyone there, that I called and made the appointment after they told me the parts were in. He said they must of just saw one and assumed and I complained that they are wasting my time. Yeah, so morons!

At this dealer, they always wash the car free when you do your service. FYI it has been raining here for the past few days, plus it was raining today. So why are you washing my car? Why are you wasting more of my time? Yeah, so morons!

Finally they pull my car up. I look at the door handle. The TOP part was replaced and the bottom was not. I call over the service adviser and show him. He said he must of misunderstood the service guy and got which part was replaced mixed up. Yeah so, morons!

Now before you call me a moron for not knowing how to operate the coffee machine, keep in mind, on a previous visit to that dealer. I actually had the green tea, and I didn’t use the machine. That tea didn’t taste good, and now I know why. Yeah so … shaaaadup.

Well it is that time again. Time to look for new work again and in this crappy economy. Who isn’t looking for work? Everyone is looking, and there are less jobs. So who is hired? Those willing to take much less pay. With less jobs and so many looking, you either have to have some unique skills or you are willing to take the lesser pay. And even worse, it seems IT positions are much less in demand at this time. So maybe another field is needed, another kind of job. Who knows? But I need something new, or maybe a good side business or two. Even the one side business I had came to a screeching halt with this economy. MEH!

In other news, I just had some chocolate milk. Mmmmm. I haven’t had chocolate milk in a long time. Very exciting I know!

Katie Holmes?

What the heck is that? Is that Katie Holmes? Or should I be saying Katie Cruise? She looks like a keebler elf. Her relationship with Tom looks more and more like an ownership policy. And everyone says “In America, we don’t own our women”. Well Tom Cruise owns this one. He is transforming her or upgrading her at a fast rate, like he would to his car. Except he is making her look like … HIMSELF.

I think she is going to be the next Michael Jackson. Michael made his skin white, she is making her self Tom. This is like looking at Tom Cruise. Yuck. Ewww. Gross. Nasty. Click the picture and you will probably say one of those words too!

The real Katie Holmes

Attention everyone, attention everyone. Will the real Katie Holmes please stand up? Will the real Katie Holmes please stand up? We’re going to have a problem here.

Look at the real Katie vs the Tom Katie. Come on, what the heck happened? She became an ugly guy. She became Tom Cruise! Or maybe Tom looks like an ugly woman? Or both.

Now I only noticed her short hair and Tom Cruise looks because I stopped by the supermarket yesterday and as you expect I saw a picture on the covers of those tabloid magazines as I waited to check out. Maybe there is a reason I don’t go to the supermarket. Maybe there is a resason that women do the household shopping. MAYBE this is a sign that I shouldn’t go to the supermarket ever again!

So I was having some problem with printing. And I fixed it and was able to print a test sheet and I tried to print again. Only thing, I got something else. A thin maybe two inch something was flapping on the printer top.

Well I found the lizard. Or at least a piece of it. I printed a flapping tail.

The poor lizard. I tried to capture it to avoid something like this. Noose on a stick didn’t work. Jar with food didn’t work. Sticky paper didn’t work. Printer CHECK. I was h0ping he would have left the printer the other day when I saw him there. I would print a sheet and he would run out as the paper he was standing on got rolled in, like running a treadmill. I figured he would have left by now.

I removed the flapping lizard tail. Opened up the printer, removed the ink cartridge and there he was not moving, part of his body was squashed. Poor fellow. I then needed to remove the jammed sheet of paper which was printed on with ink and blood. Poor fellow, I was hoping to get him out without him getting hurt. Yah I kinda felt too bad to take a picture. Use your imagination.

Was at the mall today. I wasn’t in there for five minutes and I see a Muslim couple with their children. We pass each other. Normal as anything else, until some random woman walks to me and says something. I didn’t really understand what she said at first. So she tells me again, looks at the Muslim couple that passed me, points to them and says the ones that wear that on their head, he makes her walk behind him. What the heck? How do I respond to this woman?

So I tell her, they look like they are walking side by side to me. She said no they aren’t, they always do that. wtf?! They? always? Who is she talking about? This woman has no clue that I am a muslim and is telling me what we always do? I didn’t know how to respond to her but I said something like you don’t know that. And she maybe realized that I may be muslim, gave a “I don’t know” look, shut her mouth, and walked away.

I was surprised that a strange woman would walk up to me and say things like this. She doesn’t know me. How can she just openly admit her discrimination? A dumb ignorant woman. I should of said something like I can’t wait to make my wife walk behind me. I am a Muslim! Walk behind me woman!

She was probably mad because she can’t get a husband to walk behind.

What ever happened to “behind every great man is a great woman”? I suppose if you are Muslim, you should walk as a family all side by side and block the entire isle. Ever thought that maybe the woman was stopping to look at crap to buy? Or maybe she walks a little slower and can’t keep up?

For the record, we don’t do make our women walk behind us.

Got fed up with the hosting provider I was using. There were too many days with very slow loading, in addition to downtime. Webmaster tools showed that google kept having problems loading some pages some times and other times it loaded them fine. So I have been thinking about moving it for the past two weeks. And that happened today. Even downloading database to move to new host took so long on the old host. They were decent before, and I was using them for atleast two years. Now they just were horrible.

So hopefully this host performs great. I’d hate to have to move the site again but the move was pretty smooth. So yay for new host I hope.

One of these little guys gets in the house every now and then when I open the front door. They like to hang out at the door step and when I open the door, they panic and run inside sometimes. The smart ones run away from the door. This guy has been hanging out in my office for a few days, I thought I had forced him out the front door after he got in, but I lost him for a second while chasing him out. Click the image to see it larger.

Lizard on my Cable Modem

So I remember seeing an exotic food show on discovery channel I believe where they would capture lizards for food. I think it was in Thailand. They had a stick with a string noose attached to it, and would lower the noose over the lizard’s head and snatch it up to capture it. I decided to make one. I took a clear plastic ruler and made the best noose I can with a piece of string. I really don’t know how to make a noose so it isn’t the best.

This lizard seems to like my cable modem. He comes out and sits on it watching me. When I try to get to him, he runs out to the back of the desk. He eventually returns, he came out on it atleast five times and got away each time. My first attempt with the noose scared him before I got near him. I had too much slack on the string. So second attempt I got the noose right next to him, and was trying to slip it on his neck, but the flimsy string doesn’t stay straight. So it rotated and brushed or tapped his face, and he got scared. I didn’t really try the noose more than that.

I also tried placing a sticky sheet of paper on the modem so he would walk on it and maybe stick, but he didn’t seem to come near it, at least I think he hasn’t. My dad brought over a small jar with some bird seed in it and a cracker, so if the lizard climbs in it, I would close the top on it. So far he hasn’t entered and I haven’t seen him much anymore. I gave up on the sticky paper, the noose is still ready and an option. Let’s see if I can capture him.

I was getting shaky video on my desktop thru the kvm switch the past few days when playing Left 4 Dead. After investigating, it seems the shaky video is being caused by wire interference. I have had like a million wires and cables all wrapped and twisted together. I spent more than two hours cleaning this up. I disconnected everything. I did re-arrange things as well. My desktop went back down in the desk cabinet instead of sitting on my desk. I have more desk space now.

Finally after doing that, I went thru the same comcast crap as the last time. What appears to be comcast dns issues. Resetting router, modem and all that to fix it. Wasted I don’t know how much time on it. All I know it caused a lot of stress, cursing and anger. I hate you comcast. But atleast my desk looks cleaner and there are much less wires. It is 3:46 am right now. I will go get what sleep I can now.

And hopefully my video output on the desktop is corrected, but too tired to test anything right now.