I judge your chili harshly!!!

I realized today that there are very few things in this world that I am more judgmental about than Chili. Let me explain...

Casie and I went to a chili cook off. The even started at 11:00 in the morning and there were about 30-40 participants. Both the top and bottom levels of the local expo center were filled with booths serving out all sorts of Chili, two live bands, and lots of places to get some beer.

While tasting the various chili, I found myself passing very harsh judgment on a lot of the different chili. Some were too thin and soup-like while others lacked essential spices that give that quintessential chili flavor. I walked away from this even with a few pearls of wisdom:

1. The investigative reporting team at KY3 couldn't manage to investigate themselves up a descent chili recipe and instead served chili-esque soup.

2. The chemistry department actually makes some pretty good food...as disturbing as that is.

3. Signing a waver to eat some food is just too troublesome for me.

4. Stripper chili is just inheritly off-putting.

5. "Chili cook off" is code for "an excuse to start drinking at 11:15"

2

"2?" you may be asking yourself. "Did I miss 1, and is there a 3 forthcoming? Would this 1, 2, and 3 be part of a list that may, in fact, extend beyond the boundary of a mere 3?"

This is not a post about a list. Nor is this a post that will be followed by a post on "3." This post is merely an outpouring of my outrage that the weather has the audacity to dip to the temperature of "2." I have been outside when it was 7, which I found quite offensive already, but this temperature of 2 is simply unacceptable. Why 2 degrees? What is accomplished at 2 that is not accomplished at 30, besides my outrage?

...And I have to walk to the dog!!!!

One Wild Night

Last night was weird.

Joe spent a good portion of the evening working in the office on stuff for CSS, so I was mostly left to my own devices. I watched TV, did homework, and read until I started to get tired. At this point, I got ready for bed and decided to read in bed until Joe finished up with "one last drawing."

Of course, I fell asleep fairly quickly.

Next thing I know, I am awakened by Una's "I need to go out" whine. All the lights in the apartment were still on and Joe was nowhere to be seen. Confused and disoriented I checked the time...it was 4:30 am.

So, I got up and went into the office where I found Joe asleep, fully clothed, kneeling on the floor with his upper body curled up on his office chair. I woke him up, explained what time it was, and asked why he had not come to bed. He explained that after finishing up work stuff he was very tired and thought that he would just rest for a minute in the chair. Which as we can all see, turned out to be a bad plan.

By the time Una was walked it was already 5:00 am. We usually get up around 6:00 am. So, rather than go to bed and sleep through our commitments for the day we went to IHOP.

What a weird night.

Like looking into the face of...Walter?

So I got a message from my friend Walter today. I am pretty sure that everyone who reads this blog knows who Walter is but on the off chance that my popularity is even greater than I possibly imagined and we have gained a small but faithful following of readers, I will share some thoughts on Walter.

Walter is a really great guy...he's weird as hell, but a really great guy. He is always good for a laugh, or a good time,...or a concerned and questioning look.

The message that I received on my phone asked me how I was liking my new job. Specifically, how I was liking my white, middle-class, not-part-of-the-solution-so-I-must-be-part-of-the-problem job. How I was feeling now that I am an incarnation of "the man".

I must say, it feels pretty good. I like being part of the system and keeping people down. Support the establishment!!! Damn the under-privileged man! Go with the flow of the power!

Honestly my job is shaping up to be pretty good (although I say this after 3 days of being on the job). The training is going to be painfully long but everyone seems pretty nice and I am starting to get the idea of how the overall system is organized. Navigating my way on a mainframe system is trickier than I thought it would be. I spend a lot of my time clumsily typing in commands that I have only the vaguest of impressions of their functionality. It is really exciting.

And now for something completely different

This was one of the top stories on DIGG today. I just thought that it was worth some attention.

Photos taken at the exact right time

Check it out. It is some pretty cool stuff.

Since I'm kind of plugging some other stuff on our blog, I will take one step further. Everyone should go to Lynnwood link on the left side of our page. That is the band that our friends Chris & Meghan are part of. Take a look, listen to their songs and be their friend. Apparently it helps to have a lot of My Space friends if you want to start getting better shows.

As an aside, they are in the process of recording some of their songs in the studio. This means that at some point there will be a CD and a lot of high quality songs available.

Anyway, check them out and be their friends. Check out the pictures that I linked to at the top too. I'm sure we'll do something interesting soon too. (Maybe we'll post pictures of our Halloween 'party' that we went to yesterday)

Strange changes

So I started my new job today. I must say it was an interesting experience.

For those of you who are not up to speed, allow me to fill you in on my life so far. When I started my old job 2 years ago my official job description included "Figure everything out." Yes, I'm serious. If it was new, I had to figure it out. If it was hard and no one else had time, I had to figure it out. If...well, you get the idea. I have, in my couple of years back, learned PLC code, SQL, VB.NET, ASP.NET, OPC protocols, ICONICS software, VBA, Excel, and 5 million other little things.

Cut to 2 years later, after all of this crazy stuff, I start at my next job. I went in today, turned in my forms and applications for benefits and insurance and then... I waited for like 20 minutes.

Thats right, I waited. 20 minutes later, I find myself finally walking towards my desk. Once I get to my desk, I waited for about 5 minutes and then I got my first assignment!!!

I had to read a chapter consisting of about 20 pages.

And then I waited.

All in all, it was a very good day. I am not really complaining about the waiting. It was just a much slower pace than I am used to.

It should be a lot of fun. Everyone was really nice and the company seems like a really nice company. We'll see how things go.