The Client sponsored a team-building afternoon event of clay pigeon shooting today. We assembled at noon at a shooting range near the mall, a few minutes from the house; I'd driven by the area countless times and never realized there was a shooting range nearby.
I arrived at the range, driving solo, because I'd opted to work remotely from home in the morning since the house was so close. Pulling into the parking lot was like entering a new country; there was an evident change in culture -- a people and a way of life that I knew existed somewhere in the state of Texas but had never actually witnessed firsthand.
There were Hummers and pick-ups adorned with Confederate emblems, scruffy overweight men in trucker hats and sleeveless denim vests. And camo.
There were guys in camo. At a place where you shoot clay discs.
-
The team was split into four groups of four and one group of five.
I was teamed up with the infrastructures lead, the solutions architect, one of the business analysts, and the new SSIS developer. We named our team "The Fraggers" -- because we probably won't hit anything with our guns, but we're sure to get something with errant frag grenades.
-
The sporting clays course consisted of ten stations of alternationg four- and six-count targets, totalling fifty targets.
The first station was a four-count with two clay pigeons being launched from both sides at a distance going toward the shooting stall. Having never held a shotgun before, I stepped into the stall cluelessly and dropped two 12-gauge shells into the chamber.
I mounted the shotgun, hesitated, and then yelled, "Pull!"
The first pigeon launched, and I pointed the barrel in the general direction. Lined up the near and far beads on top of the barrel onto the pigeon, followed it for a second, held my breath, and pulled the trigger.
The shotgun kicked and left a dull pain on my shoulder. The clay pigeon survived my fire.
I mounted the shotgun again, pressing the stock snug against my shoulder this time. I used to go to the batting cages when I worked farther north and needed to burn time to avoid rush-hour traffic. I learned to snug the butt of the bat against the hand to keep the vibration from bruising and blistering my hands and arms. I figured the same would probably be true for a gun.
"Pull!" I yelled again.
The pigeon launched from the opposite side of the field this time, and I lined the beads up on the disc. Exhaled. And squeezed.
This time, the pigeon shattered, and my shoulder absorbed the recoil. I beamed a little, and ejected the shells. The odor of gun powder was inexplicably refreshing.
I proceeded to hit my next two targets at that station, and with a bit of swagger, I balked, "Just like Rainbow Six, baby!"
-
The first station was the only station in which the pigeons launched toward the shooting stall. Every other station launched the pigeons toward the field.
Out of the remaining forty-six targets in the course, I managed to hit only one. And I kind of cheated a little, because both pigeons were pulled simultaneously, and I squeezed both rounds at only one pigeon instead of trying to chase the second.
The solutions architect and SSIS developer both had around eighteen hits apiece. The business analyst had four hits. And the infrastructures lead, at the end of the day, was awarded a certificate for personal worst performance of zero hits.
My team, despite having a one-man advantage, had the least total number of hits. By double digits.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Age is a Status
My birthday weekend started with dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Midtown that's famous for its blue margaritas. Had a small dinner with Don, Kenneth, Slim, Claudia, and Brad. Bingo was my volunteer designated driver.
The margaritas are well-known because the tequila and the blue liqueur mask a douse of Everclear. First-time patrons are often oblivious to the potency of the drink, and will consume several glasses before the demon creeps out.
I had three margaritas.
-
With my face nice and warm rouge, but before the full extent of the alcohol had taken effect, we met up with Nick, a buddy of mine from back in high school who now contracts for the same client as I do. We walked a few blocks out to a dueling piano bar, also in Midtown, the locale that I'd publicly let all my friends know that I would be at.
Nick came through with a mission, and we champed drinks all night at the bar.
The margaritas were more than enough to put me in the gutter for the night, but its effects hadn't done its job yet, and in the meantime, I'd left inhibition at home -- something I've lately found myself doing too often -- and I wasn't saying no to anyone.
-
As the night wore on, more folks showed up. Trinh and Julian made their appearances. Krys and Gene showed up as they got out of work. Richard, Anton, and Binh came through. Brandon and Fletcher made their arrival. Even some chicks that I'd met only few days prior at a sushi bar came through.
And with each group that showed up, everybody went through the same lines about how I had to take shots with them. I willed through the night and refused to decline a drink from anybody. I was intent on drying out that bar if it took the life from me.
-
Chilling by the bar with Nick, late in the night, drunk out or our minds, we had an incoherent rambling session.
NICK: Dude, I have to tell you man ... I have to tell you. Dude...
ME: Yeah, man, yeah. Thanks for comin' out, man!
NICK: Yeah, man, life is good, man. Work is good, life is good. Shit's good, man.
ME: Naw, man, Lemme tell ya. You're a fuckin' champ, man, you're the fuckin' man.
NICK: Dude, I have to tell you. Dude, you're the only Web geek like me that I know that can throw down with me.
We exchanged rants for maybe a good ten minutes before we realized that neither of us were really making any sense, and we decided to roam the floor. We wandered around from group to group, table to table, casually using my birthday as an excuse to engage in conversation and dance with random chicks.
We danced and made incoherent babblings with random drunk chicks, waitresses, the girls that walk around with glowing test tube shots, anything that moved, we pimped it. I even danced with this on behemoth of a girl; she was the size of a house.
When asked why I was dancing with such a big girl, I responded, "Why do men climb mountains? 'Cause they're there, motherfuckers, I wanna know what's at the fuckin' top."
-
When the lights flickered on, we were herded out the door. The boys went their separate ways, and Bingo and I made our walk across Midtown back to his car.
A homeless guy stopped me at a street corner, asking for change. When I refused, he asked me for directions. I started to map out some of the streets for him, but he interrupted to correct me. We got into a little debate about where certain streets were, and he was probably right because I was sloshed out of my fucking mind. But then I got impatient with him and told him to fuck off because -- really, what the hell does he need directions for; it's not as if he has a home he's trying to get back to, right?
The margaritas are well-known because the tequila and the blue liqueur mask a douse of Everclear. First-time patrons are often oblivious to the potency of the drink, and will consume several glasses before the demon creeps out.
I had three margaritas.
-
With my face nice and warm rouge, but before the full extent of the alcohol had taken effect, we met up with Nick, a buddy of mine from back in high school who now contracts for the same client as I do. We walked a few blocks out to a dueling piano bar, also in Midtown, the locale that I'd publicly let all my friends know that I would be at.
Nick came through with a mission, and we champed drinks all night at the bar.
The margaritas were more than enough to put me in the gutter for the night, but its effects hadn't done its job yet, and in the meantime, I'd left inhibition at home -- something I've lately found myself doing too often -- and I wasn't saying no to anyone.
-
As the night wore on, more folks showed up. Trinh and Julian made their appearances. Krys and Gene showed up as they got out of work. Richard, Anton, and Binh came through. Brandon and Fletcher made their arrival. Even some chicks that I'd met only few days prior at a sushi bar came through.
And with each group that showed up, everybody went through the same lines about how I had to take shots with them. I willed through the night and refused to decline a drink from anybody. I was intent on drying out that bar if it took the life from me.
-
Chilling by the bar with Nick, late in the night, drunk out or our minds, we had an incoherent rambling session.
NICK: Dude, I have to tell you man ... I have to tell you. Dude...
ME: Yeah, man, yeah. Thanks for comin' out, man!
NICK: Yeah, man, life is good, man. Work is good, life is good. Shit's good, man.
ME: Naw, man, Lemme tell ya. You're a fuckin' champ, man, you're the fuckin' man.
NICK: Dude, I have to tell you. Dude, you're the only Web geek like me that I know that can throw down with me.
We exchanged rants for maybe a good ten minutes before we realized that neither of us were really making any sense, and we decided to roam the floor. We wandered around from group to group, table to table, casually using my birthday as an excuse to engage in conversation and dance with random chicks.
We danced and made incoherent babblings with random drunk chicks, waitresses, the girls that walk around with glowing test tube shots, anything that moved, we pimped it. I even danced with this on behemoth of a girl; she was the size of a house.
When asked why I was dancing with such a big girl, I responded, "Why do men climb mountains? 'Cause they're there, motherfuckers, I wanna know what's at the fuckin' top."
-
When the lights flickered on, we were herded out the door. The boys went their separate ways, and Bingo and I made our walk across Midtown back to his car.
A homeless guy stopped me at a street corner, asking for change. When I refused, he asked me for directions. I started to map out some of the streets for him, but he interrupted to correct me. We got into a little debate about where certain streets were, and he was probably right because I was sloshed out of my fucking mind. But then I got impatient with him and told him to fuck off because -- really, what the hell does he need directions for; it's not as if he has a home he's trying to get back to, right?
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Greater Expectations
The Company laid off my team's SSIS developer today.
She was notified on Tuesday that her last day would be Thursday, today. Though I'd seen it coming -- she was clearly not carrying her weight, and though I was hired on as a general .NET developer, I had been taking on her duties over the past few sprints -- it still seemed pretty fucked up for The Company to give her just two days to turn her life around.
I guess that's the risk of being a contractor; they can throw you back just as quickly as they reeled you in.
-
One of the reasons I left The Ex-Company earlier this year was because I felt a moral uneasiness being associated with an establishment that was seemingly so unethical to its worker bees. Promises were sold and subsequently retracted. Fellow employees were laid off or placed in uncompromising situations due in large part to management's own mishaps.
I wanted no part in that, and so I left.
Coming into the current Company, I had no expectations that they were anymore morally righteous. It is business after all.
Maybe for that reason, when I heard of the SSIS developer's short notice turnover, I was unaffected. Perhaps the world is predictable, and we are disappointed simply by our own expections.
Sort of like a girl who dates an asshole and expects him to be an asshole. When he's an asshole, she's content because that was her expectation, and in the rare cases that he's not an asshole, those moments seem even more alluring. And it may very well have been the case that she left a lesser asshole for this asshole because she expected the last asshole to not be an asshole, and he disappointed her.
Besides, this asshole probably has more money. Signs a bigger paycheck. And I feel no shame in saying: my silence can be bought.
-
We had a farewell team lunch for the SSIS developer at a Mexican restaurant, which was ironic because she practiced one of those religions that prohibited the consumption of most meats.
The lunch was mundane; guys talked to the guys they normally talk to about the subjects they normally talked about. Nobody seemed to pay much mind to the SSIS developer or spoke to her as if it were her last day.
Upon my departure from The Ex-Company, everyone inquired about my future, and contact information and networking referrals were exchanged. But none of that happened for the SSIS developer. I wasn't sure whether it was because everybody thought what I thought -- that without taking the time for some serious training, she was underqualified for this industry -- or whether it was her own introvertedness that dissuaded others from offering aid. Or maybe a combination of both.
At the end of the day, we shook hands and she simply went home.
She was notified on Tuesday that her last day would be Thursday, today. Though I'd seen it coming -- she was clearly not carrying her weight, and though I was hired on as a general .NET developer, I had been taking on her duties over the past few sprints -- it still seemed pretty fucked up for The Company to give her just two days to turn her life around.
I guess that's the risk of being a contractor; they can throw you back just as quickly as they reeled you in.
-
One of the reasons I left The Ex-Company earlier this year was because I felt a moral uneasiness being associated with an establishment that was seemingly so unethical to its worker bees. Promises were sold and subsequently retracted. Fellow employees were laid off or placed in uncompromising situations due in large part to management's own mishaps.
I wanted no part in that, and so I left.
Coming into the current Company, I had no expectations that they were anymore morally righteous. It is business after all.
Maybe for that reason, when I heard of the SSIS developer's short notice turnover, I was unaffected. Perhaps the world is predictable, and we are disappointed simply by our own expections.
Sort of like a girl who dates an asshole and expects him to be an asshole. When he's an asshole, she's content because that was her expectation, and in the rare cases that he's not an asshole, those moments seem even more alluring. And it may very well have been the case that she left a lesser asshole for this asshole because she expected the last asshole to not be an asshole, and he disappointed her.
Besides, this asshole probably has more money. Signs a bigger paycheck. And I feel no shame in saying: my silence can be bought.
-
We had a farewell team lunch for the SSIS developer at a Mexican restaurant, which was ironic because she practiced one of those religions that prohibited the consumption of most meats.
The lunch was mundane; guys talked to the guys they normally talk to about the subjects they normally talked about. Nobody seemed to pay much mind to the SSIS developer or spoke to her as if it were her last day.
Upon my departure from The Ex-Company, everyone inquired about my future, and contact information and networking referrals were exchanged. But none of that happened for the SSIS developer. I wasn't sure whether it was because everybody thought what I thought -- that without taking the time for some serious training, she was underqualified for this industry -- or whether it was her own introvertedness that dissuaded others from offering aid. Or maybe a combination of both.
At the end of the day, we shook hands and she simply went home.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Tainted Blue
Thanks to Ike, the 600-mile monster storm hovering over the Gulf of Mexico, the whole city halted operations for the weekend. The Client closed its offices Thursday afternoon and would not open again till Monday.
Don, Trinh, Julian, and I went downtown on Thursday night to throw down before the media-dubbed "$100 billion storm" turned the lights out this weekend. We went to a bar on Main St. with a live 80's cover band.
Late in the night, a group of Asian guys started a quarrel with us. Allegedly, I was talking to some girl earlier in the night, and one of the guys in the group, her boyfriend, didn't appreciate it.
A bald-headed guy in a white T-shirt -- who, from what I understand, was not the girl's boyfriend -- punched Julian -- who is not the guy that talked to the girl. I wrestled the guy off of Julian, and security came in immediately and told us to leave.
I was led out first by a short Hispanic police officer, and I complied, walking through the crowd and out the door on my own without resisting. I didn't want to fight, and the night was just about done anyway.
When I got out of the door, it was just me and the police officer; the other guys had, for whatever reason, been held up a little longer inside. The officer told me to go home.
"I am," I said, "My driver's still inside. He'll be out in a sec, and he'll take me home."
The officer told me not to stand in front of the club, and that I need to step around the corner.
I did.
As soon as I turned the corner, the son of a bitch gave me a cheap kidney shot. He proceeded to grab me by the face and plant my head into the sidewalk.
As I sat up, he walked away. So in a drunken stupor, I started yelling obscenities at him. I called him an overcompensating prick. A short, cockless faggot with a sick Napoleon complex. I generously offered my services to his wife since he obviously wasn't capable of pleasing her. And while I was at it, I suggested that I'd go ahead and fuck his mother, his sister, and even his daughter, too, if he had one.
I don't know why I said the things I said. I was a drunk guy bleeding on the sidewalk yelling at a police officer. The funny part was that, as I was yelling these things to him, I remember that I wasn't mad that I had been hit or angry that I was bleeding; I was fucking pissed because he scuffed my new kicks.
I wholly expected the officer to attack me again and just wail on me, open me up. And in retrospect, I kind of wish he had, because my obscene yelling had attracted a crowd, and some open wounds might've made good grounds to press charges. But he just stood me up and cuffed me, saying to me, "I told you go home. You had to run your mouth, didn't you?"
Though I was cuffed, I never believed that the officer was going to arrest me. Because he never tried to move me anywhere; he just stood there, repeating, "You still wanna run your mouth?" Plus, there was a hurricane just hours away on the horizon, and they'd have to process me super fast and go through the trouble of transporting me to a safer area.
But I didn't call him out on it; I was drunk and stupid, but not quite stupid enough.
Not long after, the guys came around the corner and saw me, accompanied by another police officer, a stout Caucasian guy, who was escorting them out. They all ran over to assess the situation.
As soon as the second officer arrived, I blurted, "I just got two things to say! First, this is my statement: when I was asked to leave, I complied peacefully and willingly. I have hit no one tonight, and no one hit me. Except him." I angled my chin to point at the officer who was holding my cuffed arms behind me. "I have done no wrong, I have violated nobody's rights, and nobody violated mine. Except him.
"Second, that is all the talking I'm going to do to either of you. So if you're arresting me, I'm lawyering up. And I want your badge number." I turned back to catch a glimpse of the officer behind me, then read his nametag aloud.
The two officers discussed something quietly. Then, the Hispanic officer, asked the guys, which one of them was driving me home. Don acknowledged. The officer uncuffed me and commanded, "Take him home."
After crossing the street, I turned back around and loudly reiterated my offer to fuck his wife and mother for him, before being dragged by the guys back to the car.
Don, Trinh, Julian, and I went downtown on Thursday night to throw down before the media-dubbed "$100 billion storm" turned the lights out this weekend. We went to a bar on Main St. with a live 80's cover band.
Late in the night, a group of Asian guys started a quarrel with us. Allegedly, I was talking to some girl earlier in the night, and one of the guys in the group, her boyfriend, didn't appreciate it.
A bald-headed guy in a white T-shirt -- who, from what I understand, was not the girl's boyfriend -- punched Julian -- who is not the guy that talked to the girl. I wrestled the guy off of Julian, and security came in immediately and told us to leave.
I was led out first by a short Hispanic police officer, and I complied, walking through the crowd and out the door on my own without resisting. I didn't want to fight, and the night was just about done anyway.
When I got out of the door, it was just me and the police officer; the other guys had, for whatever reason, been held up a little longer inside. The officer told me to go home.
"I am," I said, "My driver's still inside. He'll be out in a sec, and he'll take me home."
The officer told me not to stand in front of the club, and that I need to step around the corner.
I did.
As soon as I turned the corner, the son of a bitch gave me a cheap kidney shot. He proceeded to grab me by the face and plant my head into the sidewalk.
As I sat up, he walked away. So in a drunken stupor, I started yelling obscenities at him. I called him an overcompensating prick. A short, cockless faggot with a sick Napoleon complex. I generously offered my services to his wife since he obviously wasn't capable of pleasing her. And while I was at it, I suggested that I'd go ahead and fuck his mother, his sister, and even his daughter, too, if he had one.
I don't know why I said the things I said. I was a drunk guy bleeding on the sidewalk yelling at a police officer. The funny part was that, as I was yelling these things to him, I remember that I wasn't mad that I had been hit or angry that I was bleeding; I was fucking pissed because he scuffed my new kicks.
I wholly expected the officer to attack me again and just wail on me, open me up. And in retrospect, I kind of wish he had, because my obscene yelling had attracted a crowd, and some open wounds might've made good grounds to press charges. But he just stood me up and cuffed me, saying to me, "I told you go home. You had to run your mouth, didn't you?"
Though I was cuffed, I never believed that the officer was going to arrest me. Because he never tried to move me anywhere; he just stood there, repeating, "You still wanna run your mouth?" Plus, there was a hurricane just hours away on the horizon, and they'd have to process me super fast and go through the trouble of transporting me to a safer area.
But I didn't call him out on it; I was drunk and stupid, but not quite stupid enough.
Not long after, the guys came around the corner and saw me, accompanied by another police officer, a stout Caucasian guy, who was escorting them out. They all ran over to assess the situation.
As soon as the second officer arrived, I blurted, "I just got two things to say! First, this is my statement: when I was asked to leave, I complied peacefully and willingly. I have hit no one tonight, and no one hit me. Except him." I angled my chin to point at the officer who was holding my cuffed arms behind me. "I have done no wrong, I have violated nobody's rights, and nobody violated mine. Except him.
"Second, that is all the talking I'm going to do to either of you. So if you're arresting me, I'm lawyering up. And I want your badge number." I turned back to catch a glimpse of the officer behind me, then read his nametag aloud.
The two officers discussed something quietly. Then, the Hispanic officer, asked the guys, which one of them was driving me home. Don acknowledged. The officer uncuffed me and commanded, "Take him home."
After crossing the street, I turned back around and loudly reiterated my offer to fuck his wife and mother for him, before being dragged by the guys back to the car.
September Rain
Friday evening, six or eight hours before Hurricane Ike was expected to make landfall, the outer band's high winds whipped through town. I had made a lot of stupid plans with people on what to do during the hurricane. I wanted to fly a kite in the wind. I wanted to make trashcan hurricane drinks and soak some apples in there to eat after we were done drinking.
But the wind went from very calm to very violent very quickly, and none of my stupid ideas came to fruition. The sound you hear when you hold a conch up to your ear resonated outside, and trees and picket fences knelt in mercy to the wind.
Within the hour, the power went out.
-
There was still no electricity on Saturday morning, but by noon, the rain clouds had cleared out and the strong winds had passed.
There were heaps of debris lying on both our front and back lawns, and half the picket fences around our yard had been knocked over. Our fence is a wall of rotting wood, fifteen or so years old and having edured probably more than twice as many tropical storms. We simply stood them back up and nailed the boards back together.
My mother keeps a tree in the front yard with low-hanging branches with prickly leaves that not only stab me when I mow the lawn, but also leave an itchy sensation hours after the fact. The storm had ripped most of the branches off, and I silently celebrated inside, hoping the damned thing doesn't make it.
Shingles had been shredded from our roof in several areas, causing water leakage into a few of the second-storey rooms.
A few years ago, when Rita was supposed to demolish the city, we bought a huge roll of tarp in preparation for roof damage. When Rita veered east and missed us completely, we stashed the tarp away in some dark corner. Consequently, after Ike damaged our roof, we were unable to find it. So in its stead, we took down our shower curtains and nailed them over the holes in our roof.
We cleaned up and made ad hoc patches for whatever damage we could before evening, before it got too dark. I settled myself on the roof with a copy of the latest Maxim, an issue with a nude Megan Fox donning the cover, body parts strategically covered by a bedsheet.
A cold-front was passing into town as Ike was making its way out, carrying a comfortable breeze that made having no electricity slightly bearable. Someone in the distance with an incredible sound system -- and, apparently, a generator -- blasted some Spanish opera-sounding music. The night was like a scene ripped straight out of a movie, based in some European country like Italy or France, with a shot of the rooftops of a town, the streets uninhabited, and the sound of singing or prayers echoing in the distance from a source unseen.
After the sun dipped in the West and my eyes could no longer make out the words or pictures in the magazine, I rolled over and dozed off on the rooftop.
-
Sunday morning, 6am, a second band of rain swept over us, dousing me awake from the rooftop in cold, fat, chubby raindrops.
I climbed off the roof into a window, and quickly ran around the house, closing all the rest of the windows before our carpet took water damage. After washing off and towel drying, I went to find a clean set of clothes only to find that the shower curtains we nailed to our roof did not hold.
The ceiling above my closet had collapsed under the weight of rainwater that had leaked through the roof. My entire wardrobe was covered in dirty rainwater and damp sheetrock debris. I would go the rest of the weekend without a clean pair of underwear.
-
We spent the next seven hours trapped indoors, unable to open windows or doors due to the heavy rain, and without electricity to power an air conditioning unit.
In the late afternoon, when things dried up a bit more, the family and I ventured out and about in the city to find an air conditioned restaurant. I commandoed a pair of basketball shorts and a polo shirt I found in my brother's old closet.
We found electricity in the western parts of the city, where the hurricane had done the least damage, and settled into a deli. Even there, they had just regained electricity, and they served stale bread on their sandwiches and cold soup.
We stalled for a few hours after eating just to bask in the wonders of air conditioning.
-
Came home in the early evening, power had been restored, and I could begin running loads of water-damaged clothes through the washer.
But the wind went from very calm to very violent very quickly, and none of my stupid ideas came to fruition. The sound you hear when you hold a conch up to your ear resonated outside, and trees and picket fences knelt in mercy to the wind.
Within the hour, the power went out.
-
There was still no electricity on Saturday morning, but by noon, the rain clouds had cleared out and the strong winds had passed.
There were heaps of debris lying on both our front and back lawns, and half the picket fences around our yard had been knocked over. Our fence is a wall of rotting wood, fifteen or so years old and having edured probably more than twice as many tropical storms. We simply stood them back up and nailed the boards back together.
My mother keeps a tree in the front yard with low-hanging branches with prickly leaves that not only stab me when I mow the lawn, but also leave an itchy sensation hours after the fact. The storm had ripped most of the branches off, and I silently celebrated inside, hoping the damned thing doesn't make it.
Shingles had been shredded from our roof in several areas, causing water leakage into a few of the second-storey rooms.
A few years ago, when Rita was supposed to demolish the city, we bought a huge roll of tarp in preparation for roof damage. When Rita veered east and missed us completely, we stashed the tarp away in some dark corner. Consequently, after Ike damaged our roof, we were unable to find it. So in its stead, we took down our shower curtains and nailed them over the holes in our roof.
We cleaned up and made ad hoc patches for whatever damage we could before evening, before it got too dark. I settled myself on the roof with a copy of the latest Maxim, an issue with a nude Megan Fox donning the cover, body parts strategically covered by a bedsheet.
A cold-front was passing into town as Ike was making its way out, carrying a comfortable breeze that made having no electricity slightly bearable. Someone in the distance with an incredible sound system -- and, apparently, a generator -- blasted some Spanish opera-sounding music. The night was like a scene ripped straight out of a movie, based in some European country like Italy or France, with a shot of the rooftops of a town, the streets uninhabited, and the sound of singing or prayers echoing in the distance from a source unseen.
After the sun dipped in the West and my eyes could no longer make out the words or pictures in the magazine, I rolled over and dozed off on the rooftop.
-
Sunday morning, 6am, a second band of rain swept over us, dousing me awake from the rooftop in cold, fat, chubby raindrops.
I climbed off the roof into a window, and quickly ran around the house, closing all the rest of the windows before our carpet took water damage. After washing off and towel drying, I went to find a clean set of clothes only to find that the shower curtains we nailed to our roof did not hold.
The ceiling above my closet had collapsed under the weight of rainwater that had leaked through the roof. My entire wardrobe was covered in dirty rainwater and damp sheetrock debris. I would go the rest of the weekend without a clean pair of underwear.
-
We spent the next seven hours trapped indoors, unable to open windows or doors due to the heavy rain, and without electricity to power an air conditioning unit.
In the late afternoon, when things dried up a bit more, the family and I ventured out and about in the city to find an air conditioned restaurant. I commandoed a pair of basketball shorts and a polo shirt I found in my brother's old closet.
We found electricity in the western parts of the city, where the hurricane had done the least damage, and settled into a deli. Even there, they had just regained electricity, and they served stale bread on their sandwiches and cold soup.
We stalled for a few hours after eating just to bask in the wonders of air conditioning.
-
Came home in the early evening, power had been restored, and I could begin running loads of water-damaged clothes through the washer.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
They're Called House Geckos
Friday night, I was leaving work and my car wouldn't start. And nobody at The Client works on Fridays, so nobody was around in the parking lot to give me a jump.
I had to call my father to swing by on his way home from work to bail me out. Jumper cables didn't help; turns out, my battery was just coming to the end of its life.
I left the car at work overnight and brought a new battery out the next morning to take it home.
-
Yesterday, driving home from work, I was going through Meadows Place, which is a tiny little city. Little, as in, like, three blocks little. The Meadows isn't so much a city as it is a residential neighborhood with a bunch of senior citizen homes. The cops in the area are assholes; the kind that'll ticket you for going 37 MPH in a 35 MPH zone.
I was doing about 50.
And as I was driving through, I crossed a sheriff on the on-coming side of the street. Soon as I passed him up, I watched him, from my rear-view, take a U-turn and flash his lights.
Right around the same time, the car to my right made a right turn. He might've braked too abruptly or didn't use his signal or something -- I wasn't paying attention to him -- and the car behind him rear-ended him.
The sheriff stopped those guys instead, and I got off scot-free.
-
After leaving the gym tonight, I was cooling off on the trunk of my car in the parking lot. The weather at night around here has been nice and breezy lately, maybe because Ike's on the horizon -- I dunno, I never paid much attention to physics or biology or whatever the hell science class teaches hurricane mechanics.
A fella leaving the gym got into an old navy pick-up that was parked next to mine and tried to start up. His engine churned, coughed, and died. I watched him make two or three more attempts until he looked up and made eye contact with me.
"Won't start, huh?" I asked. I hate it when people ask obvious questions like that. No shit, it won't start, smartass, who the hell churns their engine for fun?
"Can you give me a jump?" he pleaded.
"'Fraid I got no cables," I shrugged. "Do you have power? Your radio still work? Your headlights come on?"
He turned up his radio and flicked his lights on and off, "Yeah, I got power. What does that mean?"
"Honestly, I got no idea, man. People ask me that all the time when my car don't work. I dunno what it does."
Damn it, I'm a dumbass.
I let the guy borrow my phone to call around for help. I got a fancy shmancy phone, though, and he's pretty old, so I had to dial for him. He only knew one number, some chick, and it went straight to voicemail everytime. He left her a few messages, pleading for her to come get him.
"You from Arlington or something?" I asked him because I recognized the area code of the recipient. For whatever reason, I know area codes to dumb places.
Turns out, the guy's from Dallas and he's just in town for a visit. It was probably a dumb idea for him to take a road trip without carrying a cell phone of his own and in a car prone to failure, but I refrained from telling him so.
I sat around in the parking lot with the guy, asking bypassers if they had jumper cables without luck, until I decided it was time for me to go. I bid him good luck and started getting in my car. As I was loading my gym bag in the backseat, I found jumper cables under the driver seat. My father had forgotten them there from Friday.
"Hey hey hey," I cheered, "Your lucky day, chief!" I said "Hey hey hey" like Doug Butabi did to the skank in A Night at the Roxbury.
-
When I got home, I saw one of those little lizard things crawling on my front door. I pulled its tail off. Don't know why.
I had to call my father to swing by on his way home from work to bail me out. Jumper cables didn't help; turns out, my battery was just coming to the end of its life.
I left the car at work overnight and brought a new battery out the next morning to take it home.
-
Yesterday, driving home from work, I was going through Meadows Place, which is a tiny little city. Little, as in, like, three blocks little. The Meadows isn't so much a city as it is a residential neighborhood with a bunch of senior citizen homes. The cops in the area are assholes; the kind that'll ticket you for going 37 MPH in a 35 MPH zone.
I was doing about 50.
And as I was driving through, I crossed a sheriff on the on-coming side of the street. Soon as I passed him up, I watched him, from my rear-view, take a U-turn and flash his lights.
Right around the same time, the car to my right made a right turn. He might've braked too abruptly or didn't use his signal or something -- I wasn't paying attention to him -- and the car behind him rear-ended him.
The sheriff stopped those guys instead, and I got off scot-free.
-
After leaving the gym tonight, I was cooling off on the trunk of my car in the parking lot. The weather at night around here has been nice and breezy lately, maybe because Ike's on the horizon -- I dunno, I never paid much attention to physics or biology or whatever the hell science class teaches hurricane mechanics.
A fella leaving the gym got into an old navy pick-up that was parked next to mine and tried to start up. His engine churned, coughed, and died. I watched him make two or three more attempts until he looked up and made eye contact with me.
"Won't start, huh?" I asked. I hate it when people ask obvious questions like that. No shit, it won't start, smartass, who the hell churns their engine for fun?
"Can you give me a jump?" he pleaded.
"'Fraid I got no cables," I shrugged. "Do you have power? Your radio still work? Your headlights come on?"
He turned up his radio and flicked his lights on and off, "Yeah, I got power. What does that mean?"
"Honestly, I got no idea, man. People ask me that all the time when my car don't work. I dunno what it does."
Damn it, I'm a dumbass.
I let the guy borrow my phone to call around for help. I got a fancy shmancy phone, though, and he's pretty old, so I had to dial for him. He only knew one number, some chick, and it went straight to voicemail everytime. He left her a few messages, pleading for her to come get him.
"You from Arlington or something?" I asked him because I recognized the area code of the recipient. For whatever reason, I know area codes to dumb places.
Turns out, the guy's from Dallas and he's just in town for a visit. It was probably a dumb idea for him to take a road trip without carrying a cell phone of his own and in a car prone to failure, but I refrained from telling him so.
I sat around in the parking lot with the guy, asking bypassers if they had jumper cables without luck, until I decided it was time for me to go. I bid him good luck and started getting in my car. As I was loading my gym bag in the backseat, I found jumper cables under the driver seat. My father had forgotten them there from Friday.
"Hey hey hey," I cheered, "Your lucky day, chief!" I said "Hey hey hey" like Doug Butabi did to the skank in A Night at the Roxbury.
-
When I got home, I saw one of those little lizard things crawling on my front door. I pulled its tail off. Don't know why.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Witness to Projekt Revolution
Paul and I scored a pair of floor tickets to the Projekt Revolution tour, a concert in the Woodlands headlined by Linkin Park and Chris Cornell. Also appearing were The Bravery, 10 Years, Atreyu, and a few other no-named bands that I didn't care too much for.
The main attraction for me was Cornell. I was a fan of Soundgarden back in the mid-90's when I had longer hair, ripped clothes, and developing tinnitus from grunge and post-grunge rock bands like Nirvana and Bush. I picked up on Cornell again when he later re-emerged with Audioslave.
I'm not a huge fan of his recent solo efforts, but he was going to cover his Soundgarden and Audioslave and even Temple of the Dog works, and that was more than enough for me to be there.
-
Knowing from previous experiences about the venue's nine-dollar beers highway robbery prices, Paul and I consumed most of our poisons before arriving. But we arrived early in the afternoon to catch Atreyu on the side stage, in one hundred-degree sunny weather with nary a cloud in sight, so it limited how much we were willing to dehydrate ourselves.
I knew only a few of Atreyu's tracks, mostly from radio play, but Paul was a rabid fan. So after the few songs that I knew were played, I wandered off to some of the promotional booths and kiosks, bumping into other folks I knew.
After Atreyu closed, a handful of nameless teeny-bopper bands went on stage, so Paul and I hid in the shades behind the lawn to refuel on Blue Moons.
-
The main stage opened later in the evening. Our seats were seven rows back from stage.
The Bravery played their set, and was the last band before Cornell began the headlined show. Again, I was only familiar with a few of The Bravery's songs, mostly from radio play, and even those were sometimes more self-deprecating and angst-filled than I care to be at this age.
I dozed off during The Bravery's set. No offense to them; I'd spent four hours under the scorching sun, fighting through shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, fueled on nothing but Blue Moons.
-
During the intermission after The Bravery, the faint acoustics to Black Hole Sun playing on the loudspeakers brought me out of my slumber and onto my feet. In preparation, we quaffed as much Blue Moon as whatever little cash we had left could muster up.
Cornell finally came on looking scruffy like a younger Bob Dylan, seemingly in synch with the sun finally setting and the air cooling down. He opened up with some of the newer Audioslave tracks from the "Out of Exile" album.
Then the lights dimmed, and Cornell took center stage with a guitar and performed a solo cover of Like A Stone. Immediately afteward, the band broke out and they followed with Be Yourself and an insane performance of Show Me How to Live. It was that trio of songs that truly started my night and got the adrenaline running through my system.
Cornell's set went on for some ninety minutes. He sporadically introduced tracks from his newer solo albums, but mostly stayed true to the roots of Soundgarden and Audioslave that made him a phenom, and had one memorable -- and to say the very least, SICK -- duet performance of Hunger Strike with Chester, the screamer from Linkin Park.
When he performed Black Hole Sun, I looked around at the crowd and noticed some of the audience sitting -- mostly the younger kids, the ones probably too young to remember Soundgarden. And seeing them personally offended me. Who the hell goes to see Chris Cornell and sits down during Black Hole Sun? I mean, this is the song that turned Chris Cornell into Chris fucking Cornell!
I started yelling at them, "Everybody here needs to stand the fuck up! This is Cornell's Mona-fucking-Lisa, you can't sit during this!"
-
The show closed with an intense performance by Linkin Park.
I've always listened to Linkin Park because they have a catchy, unique techno-rock fused with hip-hop sound. But they were never a band that I listened to regularly or topped any of my lists.
But after seeing them live, if Linkin Park ever comes through town on another tour, I'm jumping in line to see them. They are hands-down the best performers I've ever witnessed.
Unfortunately, I never followed Linkin Park so I can't list a lot of their tracks the way I can with Cornell, except for some of their very first efforts from the "Hybrid Theory" album from back at the start of the decade -- which included Crawling, the track that saw Cornell returning a favor with his own memorable guest appearance during the show.
About an hour into the set, the members of the band left the stage with the exception of the drummer. Nobody ever knows the drummer's name. The lights dimmed, the drummer took the spotlight with a solo act, and the last beat on the drums turned the lights off.
In pitch blackness, the crowd lost their motherfucking minds. They screamed and stomped and beat on the backs of the seats. Tens of thousands of fans shrieked and cheered, and their exhiliration echoed and roared across the lawn, surging down toward the stage like a blast of wind. In that darkness, I literally felt the noise.
And in response, the band jumped back on stage and rocked for another hour.
Linkin Park brought with their performance a level of energy that's hard to describe. I wish I could say that they kept me on my feet the whole time, but the fact is I had to sit down out of sheer exhaustion during Shinoda's solo flows and some of the slower tracks like Leave Out All The Rest.
-
The ride home was eerily silent in comparison, our throats parched and sore, our clothes drenched in sweat, the adrenaline rush subsiding.
The main attraction for me was Cornell. I was a fan of Soundgarden back in the mid-90's when I had longer hair, ripped clothes, and developing tinnitus from grunge and post-grunge rock bands like Nirvana and Bush. I picked up on Cornell again when he later re-emerged with Audioslave.
I'm not a huge fan of his recent solo efforts, but he was going to cover his Soundgarden and Audioslave and even Temple of the Dog works, and that was more than enough for me to be there.
-
Knowing from previous experiences about the venue's nine-dollar beers highway robbery prices, Paul and I consumed most of our poisons before arriving. But we arrived early in the afternoon to catch Atreyu on the side stage, in one hundred-degree sunny weather with nary a cloud in sight, so it limited how much we were willing to dehydrate ourselves.
I knew only a few of Atreyu's tracks, mostly from radio play, but Paul was a rabid fan. So after the few songs that I knew were played, I wandered off to some of the promotional booths and kiosks, bumping into other folks I knew.
After Atreyu closed, a handful of nameless teeny-bopper bands went on stage, so Paul and I hid in the shades behind the lawn to refuel on Blue Moons.
-
The main stage opened later in the evening. Our seats were seven rows back from stage.
The Bravery played their set, and was the last band before Cornell began the headlined show. Again, I was only familiar with a few of The Bravery's songs, mostly from radio play, and even those were sometimes more self-deprecating and angst-filled than I care to be at this age.
I dozed off during The Bravery's set. No offense to them; I'd spent four hours under the scorching sun, fighting through shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, fueled on nothing but Blue Moons.
-
During the intermission after The Bravery, the faint acoustics to Black Hole Sun playing on the loudspeakers brought me out of my slumber and onto my feet. In preparation, we quaffed as much Blue Moon as whatever little cash we had left could muster up.
Cornell finally came on looking scruffy like a younger Bob Dylan, seemingly in synch with the sun finally setting and the air cooling down. He opened up with some of the newer Audioslave tracks from the "Out of Exile" album.
Then the lights dimmed, and Cornell took center stage with a guitar and performed a solo cover of Like A Stone. Immediately afteward, the band broke out and they followed with Be Yourself and an insane performance of Show Me How to Live. It was that trio of songs that truly started my night and got the adrenaline running through my system.
Cornell's set went on for some ninety minutes. He sporadically introduced tracks from his newer solo albums, but mostly stayed true to the roots of Soundgarden and Audioslave that made him a phenom, and had one memorable -- and to say the very least, SICK -- duet performance of Hunger Strike with Chester, the screamer from Linkin Park.
When he performed Black Hole Sun, I looked around at the crowd and noticed some of the audience sitting -- mostly the younger kids, the ones probably too young to remember Soundgarden. And seeing them personally offended me. Who the hell goes to see Chris Cornell and sits down during Black Hole Sun? I mean, this is the song that turned Chris Cornell into Chris fucking Cornell!
I started yelling at them, "Everybody here needs to stand the fuck up! This is Cornell's Mona-fucking-Lisa, you can't sit during this!"
-
The show closed with an intense performance by Linkin Park.
I've always listened to Linkin Park because they have a catchy, unique techno-rock fused with hip-hop sound. But they were never a band that I listened to regularly or topped any of my lists.
But after seeing them live, if Linkin Park ever comes through town on another tour, I'm jumping in line to see them. They are hands-down the best performers I've ever witnessed.
Unfortunately, I never followed Linkin Park so I can't list a lot of their tracks the way I can with Cornell, except for some of their very first efforts from the "Hybrid Theory" album from back at the start of the decade -- which included Crawling, the track that saw Cornell returning a favor with his own memorable guest appearance during the show.
About an hour into the set, the members of the band left the stage with the exception of the drummer. Nobody ever knows the drummer's name. The lights dimmed, the drummer took the spotlight with a solo act, and the last beat on the drums turned the lights off.
In pitch blackness, the crowd lost their motherfucking minds. They screamed and stomped and beat on the backs of the seats. Tens of thousands of fans shrieked and cheered, and their exhiliration echoed and roared across the lawn, surging down toward the stage like a blast of wind. In that darkness, I literally felt the noise.
And in response, the band jumped back on stage and rocked for another hour.
Linkin Park brought with their performance a level of energy that's hard to describe. I wish I could say that they kept me on my feet the whole time, but the fact is I had to sit down out of sheer exhaustion during Shinoda's solo flows and some of the slower tracks like Leave Out All The Rest.
-
The ride home was eerily silent in comparison, our throats parched and sore, our clothes drenched in sweat, the adrenaline rush subsiding.
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