Just a hair too far.

I just returned from a vacation that Blue's been after me to take for a few weeks now. It would seem that my temper's been a bit short at work, and she feels that some time away from the fucktards in California and the U.K. was just the thing I needed.

I think it's postponed justifiable homicide. We'll see if anything more has been accomplished.

So the family and I spent a few days visiting with my father-in-law. Pretty nice visit. He and the kids played a lot, wifezilla visited with a couple of her friends, and I finally read half of Ilium (it's a geek's masturbatory fantasy. Spoiler: one of the characters has sex every which way with Helen of Troy. I'd have gone with Cleopatra given the choice, but then again... beggars can't be choosers, right?).

Then we drove over to visit suyapi. Suyapi, his girlie, wifezilla, and I took the kids to the zoo today. At some point during the trip to the zoo, my sister texted my phone, and I showed the message to suyapi. Somehow -- I forget how exactly, but I'm pretty sure peer pressure was involved. My high school gym teacher told me that shit's insidious and I have no resistance to it -- suyapi wound up with my phone and started texting my sister back. At some point, he threatened to text my sister a picture of his junk. She freaked out, and my dad started sending threatening text messages.

I love my friends.

I've got a feeling I've got a few long conversations to be endured next time I'm at my parents' house though.

She's my little princess.

So this weekend, we're riding around in the car, and my daughter is sitting in her car seat, red-faced, grunting, and straining:

TACO: You okay over there?

DAUGHTER: Nnnnngyeah.

TACO: Do you need to be changed?

DAUGHTER: Nnnnnnng...no.

TACO: You didn't poop your pants?

DAUGHTER: Nnnnnnng...no.

TACO: What are you doing over there?

DAUGHTER: Nnnnng... I'm trying to fart.

I have the best brother ever.

Boring background info, part the first:

I used to work for BEA about six years ago. I really loved it over there. I was on a great team, we had pretty interesting work, and I was learning tons. The last project I worked on there was a new website implementation for a big time credit card company. For a couple of months I worked 14-16 hour days and Saturdays. We delivered the project in spite of the ridiculous deadline, and the credit card guys were thrilled.

A week later, I got canned when the company laid off 10% across the board. My wife was as pregnant as it gets.

Not that I'm bitter.

Background info part the second:

My brother is currently in San Francisco on business.

The story:

Emu: BEA has a booth here. I got cornered by a sales guy. He was telling me of their VM appliances and what not. He asked what I thought....

Emu: I told him that they let my brother go a week before his son was born...

Taco: lmao

Taco: Did you really?

Emu: The look on his face was priceless.

Emu: Awkward moments ftw!

Taco: You are the greatest fucking thing ever.

Emu: Would have been better if it had been you.

Emu: Figured it was the next best thing.

Music, music, I hear music....

There have been two musical high points in my life, both characterized by the question, "Where the fuck did that come from?" They've been much on my mind lately, so I'm subjecting you to them.

The first occurred my senior year of high school. I was a band nerd. Even worse, a marching band nerd. Even so, the homecoming game my senior year was the only solo I ever got to play, so fuck you all, I'm rolling in it like a dog in stinky dead shit.

Homecoming, 1992: we played Can't Help Falling in Love. Cheesy assed songs and homecoming games go together like homosexuals and pleather. Bite me. They crowned Miss Red Fox and I played my shit. Dunno what came over me, but I played the hell out of it. Gave myself goose bumps.

Wasn't sure at the time if it was just me or what. When we came off the field, though, my old section leader was there waiting on me, with that oh-so-inspiring exclamation: "Where the fuck did that come from?"

See, I don't generally play that well. I tend toward the mechanical. I play the same every time, but it's not very moving.

Sight read like a motherfucker, though.

My mom was up in the stands with the video recorder, and she got so excited about my performance, she hit the record button. Sadly, the machine was already recording, so she actually wound up excluding my solo from the tape.

It's probably all for the best. My memory of the night is almost certainly ten times better than the actual performance was.

I've got recordings of subsequent performances. I can tell you: I vastly prefer the memory.

Flash forward about 10 years: I've mentioned the practice a few times. I ditched the trumpet, and started studying guitar. You get laid more playing guitar than trumpet, or so I'm told. Unless you're black. Black guys get laid plenty. That might not have much to do with the trumpet, though.

Where was I? Oh, yes, hot, sweaty, black men.

No, wait. Music. Right.

So I took up guitar. I'm a mediocre guitarist at best. And a shitty vocalist, again, at best.

A few years ago, I hit pretty much rock bottom as far as my young 30-something years are concerned. I went all emo and shit, and wrote a song about how bad I hurt.

It was thoroughly horrible.

I played it a few dozen times, in self-serving fashion, and hollered it at the top of my lungs, and it helped me deal with one of the most thoroughly awful times I ever bullheaded myself through.

I was playing music with a couple of my friends at the time. Nothing serious: we played a few coffee houses, but nothing more. Had a few thorougly embarassing moments I'd rather forget, and a few rather awesome moments I'll never let go.

At practice one night, while we were waiting to start in on the routine proper, I was noodling around to warm up, and started playing the self-indulgent piece of shit I'd written. The guitar part was ass. The lyrics were worse. But when you really feel it, sometimes, something gestalt happens.

When I got done, the guys all looked at me for a while. I can't remember which one finally asked me, but the question was, once again: "Where the fuck did that come from?"

If I knew, I probably wouldn't be writing software for a living.

Art is a mystery to me, a depth I've barely plumbed.

Ups and Downs (Updates and Stuff)

Faithy: the brain tumor is benign, but, as one might expect, it's got to go. We had lunch with the guys this weekend. Faith played high fives with my son through the whole meal. She is cute as a button, as ever. My heart is broken. Fuck life.

Father in Law: though it cost me quite a bit emotionally, I kept my mouth shut as per his wishes. He's of an older school, and doesn't share his tribulations. We've had some good news, though, and so he's okay with us talking now. The bad: he was diagnosed with lymphoma. The good: it's relatively early-stage, and his doctors are universally confident that it is treatable and non life threatening.

Work: my temper has grown shorter than usual with incompetence from other teams (and my own team in one notable case). Serious doubts about how much more I can take. Blue says I just need a vacation. Time to move on? I love Raleigh, but I seem to be employed by the best gig in town. Somebody come sweep me off my feet.

Brother: the wedding date draws ever nearer. We had a wedding shower for him and his fiancee this weekend. I had a blast. My soon-to-be sister in law rocks. Hell yeah.

Writing: I had a new idea for a short story, and I think it's awesome, but my self-esteem is at a nearly all-time low, so I'm too chicken shit to start in on it.

Children: we went by my folks' place last night, and my parents spent the evening making ice cream sundaes with my children. Watching grandparents and children laughing so openly and honestly together was one of the most wonderful things I've ever witnessed, so I went total dad-geek and took pictures. If you give a shit, yell, and I'll give you the URL.

I can't take much more of the ups and downs. Somebody stop the ride. I want to get off.

I'm just not one of the cool kids.

A lot of my friends love Dave Matthews. People whose intelligence I respect. So he must be good, right? Right?

I still don't get it. I've listened to it tons. Hours and hours. I tried really really hard to like it.

It's official. I hate Dave Matthews. Deleted every bit of it tonight. Probably 50 songs.

I feel so much better.

Personalized License Plates

I have a completely irrational hatred of personalized license plates.

I had a couple of paragraphs here earlier detailing my hatred in acid tones, but deleted it. I've got a once-in-a-great-while reader that I made fun of, and with my luck, he'd load up my blog and see it. Allow me to sum up without examples: a) unless your plate is intended to be witty and amusing, I probably only grind my teeth a little, and b) I probably don't mean you.

If your plate is supposed to be clever, I die a little inside whenever I see it. Fuck me, I hate those damn things.

The ones I do like are the ones that are unintentionally funny. A few years ago, I was riding behind someone with a plate that read:

BCNSLT

Now, sure, their initials were probably BCN, and the car was probably an LT model of whatever-the-fuck conspicuously consumed vehicle they'd bought, and they wanted the world to know that it was BCN's god damned LT.

But for the rest of my life, that chick will be known to me as The Bacon Slut.

On my way home tonight, I saw the second funny personalized plate I've ever seen:

MM 88

God help me, I laughed until I cried. If you don't get it, then Noq and I just get to lord it over you. Especially you, Coyote, since you're going to lord the beginning of my own conversation over me.

Neener neener neen.

This story is funnier with the part that immediately precedes it.

Taco: Hmm.

Blue: Shut up.
Blue: Jackass.

That's all I've got. I forgot the stuff that came earlier, and now Blue won't tell me what it was. It was pretty awesome, though.

So your mission, dear reader, is to make up something funny that came just before it.

So there, Blue.