Dissonance

I found something very unwelcome in my mail box when I got home yesterday afternoon. It was from
Houston Police Department
Camera Enforcement Division

Without even opening the envelope I knew it was a ticket for running a red light which was caught on camera. When I got inside, I sat down and ripped it open. Only then did I see that it was issued to someone else but sent to my address.

I was now in a minor ethical dilemma. Even if I did find them using directory assistance, the only way I saw possible, I’d be giving them their mail, opened and thoroughly read by me. However, if this information never got to them a warrant would be issued for their arrest and I would be partially responsible for that. I never saw the names above my address. I assumed it was for me because about two months ago some idiot a few cars ahead of me decided to stop and I was caught in the middle of an intersection where the light turned red. As I was looking behind me I saw the unmistakable flash of one of those damned red light cameras.

Not knowing who these people were I called information and actually got a hit on one of the names. When I called the number a female answered. I said:

“We don’t know each other but I think I have some of your mail.”

After much confusion and the phone being handed back and forth between two females and me explaining the situation several times and much disscussion between the two of them, one of them finally got back on the phone and said:

“Oh, chit . . . can we mit you over there?”

Sure enough at least one of them used to live in my unit a long time ago so she knew the place. She asked if I would meet them at the fitness center in five minutes. They were punctual. I didn’t know who I was looking for but when I saw two girls pull in with their heads turning frantically from side to side I knew it was them. I then stepped out of the shadows in my trench coat with my hat pulled down over my eyes. I reached into my inside breast pocket and . . .

Okay, kidding. It was daylight and I simply held the envelope up and they both nodded wildly. I handed it to them, they thanked me and that was that. These were two girls that in no way at all belong in jail even for a few hours. I slept last night.

It was on this day in 1978 that the very first spam message was sent. It was sent out on ARPANET which was in use as far back as 1969. ARPA was the Advanced Research Projects Agency. The ARPAnet was a government-run network which evolved into what we now know as the internet.

It was Gary Thuerk who first emailed hundreds of people at the same time for personal gain. Happy anniversary Mr. popularity.

Earlier this evening I tore away the big April sheet from my desk calendar. I use those huge desk calendars from office supply stores. I like to to scribble notes instead of use a computer. All I have to do is reach over, grab a pen and make a note. After that, anything I need to be reminded of is right there in it’s square on my right without having to access anything on this computer.

I always make a note of future events by shuffling forward through the calendar and leaving a reminder for myself. Tonight when I looked at the events for May I was reminded of the Houston public library book sale. It doesn’t happen until the 16th though.

For those that don’t know what this is, this is when the Houston public library gets rid of all it’s unwanted books by selling them to the public at ridiculously low prices. It takes place at the convention center downtown. It lasts for three days. It always seems to start on Friday. That pisses me off because those of us who have to work during the week are not able to get first shot at some of the best books.

However, it’s not as crowded the next day. What I do is bring my travel bag. It’s huge and it has wheels. I just wander the aisles and toss books into it. I then take it to a girl who adds up the cost of all the books. After that I take it to the mean old woman collecting the money and pay the outrageous price of $40.00 for about 25 books. Then I wheel my books back to my truck, toss the whole bag of books in the bed of my truck, get out of dowtown and then stop for some appetizers and a few beers.

When I get home I go through all my loot.

Kristiane took an online quiz to identify her American accent. She asked her readers to do the same. The faithful reader of her blog that I am, I did as she asked and this is the result I got about myself:

I was in a bit of a sour mood this evening until I visited one of my favorite blogs. The author made comparisons to everyone she knows from her blog, including me, to teen characters in movies from the eighties. Even without knowing anything about the commenters on her blog that she’s talking about, it’s still very funny. According to her, my counterpart is Jeff Spicoli. Am I upset? Hell, no! I laughed myself into tears. Take a look at her post.

Pilver: The Movie

No! No. No, no, no no . . . Why this? As far as I know I’m not considered a whiner. At least no one has told me so. The people who really, really know me have described my negative side as grumpy, pessimistic and sort of angry with society but I don’t ever remember being described as whiny. If I am, please tell me now and I’ll stop that immediately. But only after this deliberate exhibition of foot-stomping whinery.

It looks like I’ve completely lost my audio device on this computer, meaning I will never, ever hear another song for the rest of my life. Also, I will never, ever be able to fully understand what’s going on in any videos that are sent to me for the rest of my life.

I hope that was dramatic and whiny enough. This does piss me off though. I don’t usually listen to music but when I need to hear a song, I really need to hear that damned song. This happens frequently and a simple system restore has always solved the problem. Not this time though. I system-restored the shit out of this computer over the weekend and still never got it back. I finally gave up on that approach and emailed one of the Houston Chronicle’s tech columnists. I was very surprised that he answered me in my inbox within an hour. I didn’t know how he responded to questions. My assumption was that if you were lucky he would address your question in his column. He must be one hell of a busy guy. From his response I learned that I am screwed. His advice was to visit the computer makers web site and re-download the audio driver. I don’t know who the hell made this computer. My brother-in-law put it together with scavanged parts a long, long time ago.

I didn’t make it to the beach yesterday. I blew it off because Gabby caused a . . . Ok, it was because I stayed up too late and overslept. It was Saturday morning. When I woke up I decided to stay one with my california king bed for a few more hours and man, oh, man, did I ever.

As soon as I crawled out of bed and stepped out of my bedroom Gabby roared up in my face and asked if she could meet her friend at Barnes & Noble.
Me: I thought you had a butt-load of Geometry to complete before Monday.
Her: I do. We both do.
Me: Well, why the hell are you two wanting to go to the bookstore?
Her: To do our homework.
Me: (head in lap, scratching head with both hands)
Her: (anticipating my next question) Lots of kids at my school do this. It’s peaceful and quiet and there’s a Starbucks in there.
Me: ?
Me: I see.

So off to Barnes & Noble we went. I didn’t just fall off the turnip wagon; I know they are probably there to see and be seen. That’s okay though. They could be doing a lot worse. If they were bad kids they wouldn’t be hanging out at a bookstore doing homework. When I picked her up I asked if she finished her homework there. She said they finished about half of it. When I asked why they only finished half of it she said “because all those books in there are so distracting”.

I am so not worried about my daughter or her group of friends. In fact, I don’t feel that I’m worthy of this peace of mind. I was a parent’s nightmare as a teen.

I’m not sure what to do about tomorrow. I’ve been trying to get to the beach for the last three weekends but because of my daughter’s role in two quinceneras, I’ve been stuck here. It seems that finally all the rehearsals and dress fittings are out of the way and I can finally go for the first time this year.

Here’s the problem: She said she wants to go but has too much Geometry homework due on Monday and wants me to go anyway. Without her. Well, shit. What now? It’s true that she procrastinated enough to get herself in this situation but I just don’t feel right going out there while she’s here doing homework. She loves the beach as much as I do. Then again, It’s not my fault that she waited until the last moment to complete her work.

This is a shot of the water today at 6:29 PM. How can I resist if I see that the conditions are the same in the morning? We both need a fix of fresh fish. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.

Today an AM talk radio show I was listening to asked listeners to call in with examples of “Things They Knew They Shouldn’t Have Done, Did It Anyway But Felt It Was Worth It”. They were giving away stuff; the better the story the better the prize. It made me think about myself and something did come to mind.

I doubt this is the best example but after remembering it I have an irresistable urge to share it with you. After the wife-turned-violent-shrew and I officially parted ways one Saturday night in 2000 I spent the night at our friend’s house and then stayed with my sister for about two weeks until I got a place of my own. Because I left so abruptly I had to go back to the house (which was in my name) several times to get extra clothes and other essentials during those two weeks. I always did this in the middle of the day when she was at work and the kids were at school. She had turned into Regan from “The Excorsist” and there was no way we could be face to face at this time.

One day while in the bathroom area where our closets were my eyes landed on the toothbrush holder. There it was - Her toothbrush. Suddenly, the devil took hold of my hand. I took it out of the holder and began cleaning the toilet with it. I was thorough too. I got the underside of the bottom lid, the upper part of the bowl, the inside of the bowl and most importantly the disgusting underside of the main bowl where God only knows what festers. I looked at the brush and saw that it was now a filthy, nauseating health hazard. In a very brief moment of remorse I did the right thing and washed it off by swishing the brush around in the toilet bowl until all the gunk was washed off. I stuck it back in the holder, got my stuff and left. Yes, it was worth it.

I woke up in a relatively good mood and had a productive day without any problems. That is until I got back to my side of town at the end of the day. I was all over this city today but it wasn’t until I got back to my own neighborhood that my day just went to shit within an hour. It was the very last hour before I got home at the end of the day. I should have just picked up Gabby and gone straight home instead of stopping off at the reptile place first and then going to the grocery store after I picked her up.

My mood took it’s first downward turn when I stopped at the fish and reptile place which wasn’t really urgent because turtles will eat anything. Plus we keep minnows in the aquarium for them to eat and minnows breed like rats. I just did this because Gabby asked me to. Get ready to hear the word “again” over and over. When I got out of my truck and made my way toward the store I noticed that a car was backing out right in front of the store. I waited as they began to slowly pull out so that they could get out and on their way without having to wait for me to get out of the way. The car stopped rolling backward after about three feet and just sat there for awhile. I then started to move across and this time the car lunged backward. I stopped again and stepped back onto the curb and waited for them to continue pulling out. It just sat there and sat there. I started across again and the car lunged backward again. I decided to make my way around the front of the car. This time it started moving foreward preventing me from making my way around the front. I stepped back and waited. Again, it just sat there. I decided to just walk around the back of the car and it started backing up. I stopped. It stopped. I moved. It moved. Finally, I stepped it up and began to dash around the rear again. The car kept up with me foot for foot this time completely blocking me which of course was the intention. Finally, both right-side windows rolled down. What I saw was a car-full of thugs (5 or 6) all looking me right in the eye and laughing their useless, worthless, intoxicated, lazy asses off at my expense.

I bought the damned turtle food and went to pick up Gabby around the corner. From there we went to the store. When it was time to check our items out I decided to have it checked for me because I had a lot of produce and the self check lines were backing up into the aisles. Well, guess what? For the second time in a row it turned out to be the same little 19 or 20 something shit-head that checked out my groceries over the weekend. He has little-guy syndrome. Same as little man syndrome. He stands about 5′ 4″ has a permanently clenched jaw and lips pursed so tightly that you couldn’t drive a nail between them. My 14 year-old daughter is taller than he is and I think he noticed that. Of course he never even looked up at me when he started angrily scanning my stuff. When he had completed that, without looking up he said “Kroger card.” I handed it to him. He handed it back to me with my change. I said “Thank you.” He never even looked up. I thanked him again a little more audibly. He just looked up for less than a second, snorted through his nose, looked back down and began ringing up the next customer. I decided at that moment that the next time this ever happens, no matter where it is, I am going to tell them what to do with themselves and where to go and walk away leaving the store’s property to rot at the register.

After that we took some back streets home in total silence. Gabby knew I was extremely pissed off. I nearly bit my tongue in half to keep from expressing how I was feeling at this point. As we rounded the last corner and were no more than a block from home, some thug with two pit bulls started crossing the street way down the street in front of us. I slowed down to allow the guy enough time for him and his dogs to get across the street before I reached that point. What does he do? The closer I get, the slower he moves. When I finally get in direct proximity, he and his attack dogs stop dead in the middle of the street and face my truck just daring me to run over them. Believe me, I was temped. The message from this particular thug was clear: You get out of our way when we’re in the streets, or else. At this point I’d had about all I could take. So just to make a point I did not go around him. I slowed down to a stop right in front of him and layed on the horn. This class-act called me a mother fucker and slapped the hood of my truck. I had Gabby in the truck and he had two pit bulls. What can I do? When he got out of my way I drove home.