What A Fucking Waste Of Time

Another year down, and another 584,058,571 miles around the Sun on this tiny blue rock we call Earth. I don’t know about you, but I’m fucking glad to see 2009 go! Let’s hope 2010 is a better year.

I guess the first problem of the new year is how to say it. Do you say “twenty ten” or “two thousand ten?” I’m partial to the latter. For ten years, we’ve been saying “two thousand.” It was “two thousand one,” “two thousand four,” “two thousand nine.” We didn’t say “twenty five,” did we? Of course not. And I don’t think anyone was saying “twenty oh seven.” So why are people saying “twenty ten” now? Because it’s easier to say? It rolls off the tongue? Give me a break, you lazy fucks. It’s one goddamn syllable. I’m sticking with “two thousand,” which is better than Bill O'Reilly, who says “two ten” or “two eleven.”

So, what happened in twenty aught nine? It started out with a feeling of “hope and change“, but eventually that feeling turned to “let’s hope this year ends soon!” In January, an estimated 8.9 billion people (according to the Obama Administration) crowded the streets of Washington D.C. to witness the historical inauguration of America’s first president to be elected after George W. Bush. One of the new president’s first task was to fix the economic abyss he inherited from the evil Dubbya administration. The magic bullet fix was a piece of shit called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – also called the Stimulus Bill, or Porkulus Bill – which was passed in February.

Our Emperor promised an end to earmark spending, but said the Porkulus Bill was “last year’s business” and blamed the Bush Administration. He scared everyone by saying if it wasn’t passed, Republicans would sleep with Democrats, jobless Americans would rain from the sky, and four horsemen would come trotting down Pennsylvania Avenue on tiny Shetland ponies to ask what’s in our wallet. So, before anyone in Congress read the bill – or the last page came off the laser printer for that matter – it was passed into law. But did any of us struggling Americans get any of those 787 billion dollars to stimulate anything? Fuck no. That would have made sense. Instead, it was to be given to states for civil projects they deemed shovel-ready. Oh, these were worthy, job-creating projects like changing highway signs in Arizona from kilometers to miles, covered garages for people’s bicycles in Oregon, the removal of gang-related tattoos in California, or the researching why pigs smell so bad in Iowa (which gives a whole new meaning to “pork spending”). I couldn’t make this shit up if I was high.

Then there’s the quaint fairy tale of General Motors. They sold a total of seven vehicles during the last fiscal year and had their hand out like some beggar with a tin cup at Union Station. They changed their name to Government Motors and took a whole bunch of “too big to fail” bailout rupees. Now they sell cars made of bean sprouts and tofu that get 37 miles per gallon city (42 highway) on unleaded soy juice. Chrysler played musical pockets with nearly seven billion of our tax dollars by declaring bankruptcy and selling it’s assets to a company called “New Chrysler.” Yeah. Pass the bong, please.

On the personal front, I bought a digital SLR camera in February. I love creating images with a camera, and I had hoped to take many more photos than I already have. However, visits to people whose profession involves nitrile gloves couple with my daily commute to the fourth circle of hell pretty much killed that notion. I haven’t lost interest though… just lack the time (and sometimes energy).

In March, the “in case shit happens” company AIG received 170 billion of OUR bailout tax dollars, THEN posted a $61 billion loss after paying their fat cat executives big bonuses in the amount of $61 billion dollars… or so says Sean Hannity. This news angered the King and his jesters so much, all they could do was blame Bush. They completely failed to see the irony that they were the ones who passed the legislation that authorized the bailouts and the bonuses. The Supreme Leader – who refused to let us forget that he inherited this economic crisis from the Bush Administration – fired the CEO of Government Motors and promoted Howie Long to the position.

Also in March, I had – rather, tried to have – a cholesterol test. A stupid little cholesterol test started a roller coaster ride of doctor appointments. It started a span of several months were I felt like a patient of Gregory House, and didn’t make a complete week of soul-crushing commutes to Seattle. I saw my PCP, a hematologist, a pulmonologist, had a polysomnogram, pulmonary function test, echo cardiogram, and a chest CT. To this day, I’m still seeing these doctors. You can read more in my blog updates from April and May of two kay zero niner.

In April, the “R2D2 Formula 409 8675309 Jenny Jenny” virus – also called “swine flu,” genetically engineered by hand sanitizer companies – was in the news. The CDC issued a new government mandate forcing all Americans to wash their fucking hands more. That was a direct quote, I believe. Someone fact-check me against MSNBC. Also in April, Lil'Kim test fired a missile that Biggie said could reach Hawaii. The Messiah couldn’t have a power from the Axis of Evil throwing bombs at his grandmother’s old house, so while he was doing frightening low-altitude passes over New York City, he sent the Seventh Fleet to Waikiki and texted Jong-Il a message that read “OMG Bad Kimmy! LOL :)“

After four months of back-breaking work screwing up our economy even more, Congress was mighty damn hungry. After roll call, they took a vote in the House. Mexican food was the choice by an overwhelming 257 to 178 vote. This influenced the Senate to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court… because she went to law school, no one else wanted the job, and she had an awesome recipe for green chilli salsa.

At home, I was continuing my weekly wallet purge to the great health care plan in the sky, which you can read about in my July update. I had several paychecktomies throughout June and July while pop star and international pedophile of mystery Michael Jackson died, Sarah Palin tried to get the deposit back on her Alaskan Governor’s mansion, and Obama gave $4,500 to anyone with a fucked up ride. The billion dollar plan was to last 3 months, but to the delight of the DAA (American Dyslexia Association), “Cash for Clunkers” cost us $3 billion, and only lasted one month. While Democrats called the Clunker plan a success, Nancy Pelosi wanted the program ended because it was wasting taxpayer dollars that would be better spent on investigating Bush-era CIA lies. The Beltway Brain Trust then focused their enormous efforts (and our tremendous tax dollars) on fixing the nation’s health care system, completely ignoring the “why fix what’s not broke” adage taught to us by our grandparents. Fed up with politics as usual, Obama called the world leaders of Cambridge for a Beer Summit at the White House. When Professor Gates complained there were no pretzels or beer nuts, Obama blamed the Bush Administration… and Somali pirates.

In August, General McChrystal asked Chancellor Obama for 40,000 more troops to fight terrorist for truth and justice. But our fearless leader had better things to do for the next four months… like go to Copenhagan to hawk the City of Chicago like an aluminum siding salesman, receive a Nobel Peace Prize for not being George W. Bush, play golf on Martha’s Vineyard, and killing Ted Kennedy with kindness. Instead, he deployed Democrats and SEIU members to America’s Town Halls to defend the High Council's plan to shove an unwanted, highly expensive health care suppository up our mud cutters. It was – and remains – highly irritating that Congress keeps pushing their own agenda despite the wishes of the constituents. I wrote an update about it. Wanna read it? Here goes…

One of the funniest moments of the year was Dictator Obama’s address in front of a joint session of Congress, his 3,780th appearance on America’s television airwaves. While forecasting the pending doom and gloom that will befall the United States if health care reform is not passed, he was interrupted by Kanye West, who yelled out “You lie! The Republicans have the best health care plan of all time!” Pissed over the coverage of this outburst by FOX News, Obama ordered a missile strike on Rupert Murdock. He then attempted to earn money to pay for health care reform by making cameo appearances on The Red Green Show, Dancing with the Stars, reruns of Starsky and Hutch, Iron Chef America, ABC Wide World of Sports with Jim McKay, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Sponge Bob Square Pants. Obama was later presented an Academy Award (photo) and a green Masters Jacket (photo).

This fall, I did a little e-commerce web site designage, which later allowed me to get a couple new laptop computers. I wrote a little about that not long ago. Also this fall, some hippie demon spawn from Colorado went up-up and away in a beautiful balloon. No, not because he was a member of The 5th Dimension, but because his name was “Falcon” and he thought he could fly.

Let’s see,… what else? Oh, David Letterman admitted to having sex on the Appalachian Trail with Tiger Woods, who nearly had a complete 18-ho golf course built before being caught with his putter in the bunker; Khalid Sheikh Salahi and his wife crashed the White House State Dinner, and Obama appointed them to Czar of Fine Dining despite protest from Bobby Flay; The New York Yankees won the World Series… again. That makes 400 world championships at last count; and Rush Limbaugh was briefly hospitalized for chest pains when he realized the Obamas were also Christmasing in Hawaii.

With the bar set so low by 2009, it should be easy to have a better 2010. Here’s hoping your’s is a good one.

It’s that time again, to sit down and put into words what I did for the past 52 weeks. These summation missives seem to come around all too quickly any more… but just like last year’s annual holiday post, and the year before that, I give you a pair of great tits. It was a toss up between tits or boobies, but the boobies were too difficult to envision as “zeros” in my “2009″ theme. Either way, enjoy!

Yeah, I know. Lame. Last year I received a friendly complaint. I can’t remember if it was an email, or a jabber, message by Carrier pigeon… maybe it was a smoke signal. The point is, someone complained about titties on my blog because they read it at work. I won’t mention who, but I used to work with him, it’s not the guy who looked like Jesus, and his name rhymes with Lyle Goddard. So, in the interest in keeping the image for this update suitable for work, you get a picture of birds. Thanks Kyle! Oh shit…

Alright, let’s see what I was up to in 2008. Going through old posts on the blog, I am the most boring sonofabitch in Washington state. I’m still working in Seattle and suffering through a soul-crushing 165 mile round trip commute. It’s wake up at 4:30am, do the three S regimen, dress, commute, work, commute, home at 7:30pm, eat dinner, watch a couple hours of TV, go to sleep, rinse and repeat. Finding time to write in this blog has become a chore with so little time.

In January 2008, I asked The Company for pay raise. At the time, I had been with The Company for three and a half years and only got a one dollar per hour raise in May 2006. Then in October 2006, they gave me a 25% raise because they were transferring me to Seattle. I don’t consider that an actual raise, though. The cost of living and working in Seattle is higher than Oak Harbor. While I had failed plans of moving down there, the additional pay covered gas to commute and higher food prices in Seattle. In fact, by the time January 2008 rolled around, and it was just me and LDriver making the daily commute, that additional 25% increase was just about completely spent on travel expenses to and from Seattle… then gas became a precious fluid, garnering four and a half dollars a gallon. Excellent!

They agreed to a pay raise, and gave me more than I expected. I asked for a 6.6% increase, they gave me a 21.6% increase. The only caveat was I had to move from the Hosting department to Systems Administration. I liked Hosting. I knew the job well, I liked my managers, and enjoyed the work. While I got my promotion and raise in January, it didn’t take effect until March. Moving into Systems Administration was a promotion that put me in a group of cerebral people with a different manager… and after nine months I still feel like I don’t fit in.

I started looking for a new truck last January when Capital One approved me for one of their Blank Checks with a limit big enough to afford a much newer model year.

If you’ve read this waste of time before (or know me personally) you’ll recall I bought a used 1994 Ford F-150 in June of 2006. That was a nice truck and I liked it a lot. However, about three months after I bought that truck, The Company closed the Oak Harbor office, and a few months after that I was driving that ‘94 truck to Seattle once a week. I think that weekly 200-mile trip was the begining of the end. I started to have a lot of troubles with the old 4×4. It was running rough at temperature, so I had it tuned and scoped. It got new plugs and wire, a new rotor and cap, even a new serpentine belt. After all that and more than $500, it still ran rough! The next month, I was driving home from Seattle, LDriver was with me, and the transmission started slipping. We were at highway speed when the tranny slipped out of gear and the engine raced. When I let off the accelerator, the gear re-engaged. We limped to Mount Vernon where LDriver’s wife met us. We poured a quart of Mercon into the tranny, and I gingerly drove it the rest of the way home. A couple weeks later, I took the truck into the shop, and spent several hundred dollars more to have the transmission fluids changed, bands tightened, and filters replaced. That helped, but the mechanic told me the fluid was very burnt and contained metal dust, indicating the transmission was in serious need of more attention than just filters and fluid. When the lower radiator hose blew out a couple of weeks later, I knew it was time to get out of that ‘94 truck fast or be buried in repair bills and a busted-ass truck!

That was the back story which led to me buying a new used truck in February. After searching the dealer web sites in Western Washington, I finally settled on three trucks at three different dealers that I wanted to go test drive. My first stop was Ford of Bellevue where they had a white 2005 Lariat. I called the salesman before driving 100 miles, and he asked me which truck I wanted to see. Apparently there was some confusion on their web site with two different trucks getting the same price and inventory ID number. Several other callers were disappointed to hear that another white 2005 F-150 with over-sized tires and a lift kit was not on the Bellevue lot. Lucky for me the “other” truck with the same inventory ID was still available. I really think that’s why the price was a couple thousand lower than other Lariats of the same year and mileage at other dealers. If you want to read the full story of the day I bought my 2005 F-150, the original post can be found here.

March… Promotion. I stayed in the Hosting department for about six weeks removing all ties to a domain registrar (which The Company owned then sold). I also spent that time resolving my outstanding tickets, after which I relocated my desk to a cubicle near the sysadmin offices in true Milton Waddams fashion. To The Company management (which I’m sure read this occasionally), don’t worry… I don’t have any plans to burn the place down… yet.

The only part of being a sysadmin I don’t like is pager duty. Being on-call sucks. With over 4,100 services being monitored network-wide, there always seems to be something that will wake you up a couple (read: ten) times a night. The very first night I was on pager duty, I was awakened by a loud beeping. Still half asleep, my brain said “FIRE?” …and my heart started to race. But I quickly rubbed away the eye boogers and realized it was the pager. From that point, whenever I have the pager, I change the alert tone to something that doesn’t sound like a smoke detector, or a FedEx truck backing up into my bedroom. Jesus!

The rest of spring was pretty much status quo: sleep, work, sleep, work, pager, work, sleep, work, ad nauseam. I was sick and tired of the Primary elections, and gas prices were higher than Heath Ledger. Holy hell, man! At it’s peak, the cheapest gasoline price I could find was $4.30 a gallon. It was costing $28 (or 6.5 gallons) a day to drive to work and back in LDriver’s 1997 Mercury Sable. Do the math, people, that was about $600 a month in fuel costs! Who am I, Donald Trump? I don’t make that kind of money! Somehow I paid for it, though I maxed out credit cards. Seems stupid to ruin a good credit rating for the sake of driving to work… especially when I can work from home just as easily… but ya do what ya gotta do to pay the bills.

I was having some serious knee troubles in late June and early July. I went to the doctor, and he told me it was Patello-femoral Pain Syndrome. Whatever it was, getting plenty of rest and staying off my knee, coupled with a liver- and kidney-killing cocktail of 400mg of ibuprofen and 1000mg of acetaminophen seemed to help a lot. It took about two weeks before I could bear full weight on my knee without a great deal of pants-pissing pain. My knee still stiffens up in the car during my commute to hell, but it’s much better than it was in July.

In September, I started getting interested in the Presidential Primary elections. I marveled at my apparent maturing into a Republican. I guess age has a way changing people. Whether it is for the better is yet to be seen. For now, I’m comfortable with being a Republican and not at all pleased with the election of King Obama. All of His rhetoric about needing change, not more of the same, is a load of shit. In the two months since the general election, we’ve seen nothing but the typical Chicago political corruption we’ve seen for decades. Change indeed!

That’s about it for 2008. Sorry for the delay, too. I started this post on December 31, but four days of pager duty — which started on New Year’s eve – lasted nine days due to a birth in The Company’s family. Happy New Year! Let’s hope 2009 is better than 2008.

…in with the new as we move from 2007 to 2008. As I’ve done in previous years, I like to recap the past year in late December of early January. I used to do this each year in a Christmas letter to my family when I left Pennsylvania. However, some family members are no longer with us and other family members have joined the Information Age, so I do this annual recap online now.

I lead one helluva boring life. It’s the same old shit every day, but I’ll try to whip something together here.

In January 2007, nothing happened. Oh, terrible shit happened in January; Microsoft released Vista and Nancy Pelosi became the first female Speaker of the House, but nothing interesting happened to me. But in February, The Company bought a domain name registrar. We were officially in the seedy underworld of domain registration, with the likes of GoDaddy and Network Solutions — but on a much smaller scale. Out of 856 domain registrars, we ranked 130-something. It took a lot of my time, and it was a constant battle with domain registrants before we sold the registrar to some other sucker! I learned a lot about SRS and how domain registrars operate. Would I want to do it again? Fuck no! The domain name administration isn’t bad, but the people who register domain names suck ass. I was never so happy and relieved when the web server, mail servers, name servers, and phone numbers were finally transferred to the new owners.

In March, I was back in the ER with pneumonia. Surprise! It’s an annual event anymore, like the return of the Swallows to Capistrano. I had a temperature of 103.1°F (39.5°C) and missed seven days of work while I laid in bed dying. After all the visits I’ve made to the hospital, you’d think they’d have a clue what was wrong with me…

April and May brought the Virginia Tech massacre and the death of Jerry Falwell, but it was boring for me. Not until June did I get pulled over by the Washington State Patrol for not wearing a seatbelt and I blogged about how stupid the seatbelt laws are. Not wearing a seatbelt doesn’t risk anyone on the highway but me. Of course, a seatbelt violation is a primary offense in Washington, where we had to wait until January 1, 2008 before text messaging while driving became a secondary offense. Awesome. Governor Mudcutter must be proud.

In July I turned 41, and August was uneventful. Sometime during the summer, we lost one of our carpoolers. He started working from home because The Company needed techs to answer phones at 5:00am… and there were also benefits to LDriver’s vehicle and my sanity that perpetrated the decision.

Ever lose your wallet? I did in September. It was teh sux! I had to replace debit cards, credit cards, my drivers license, my insurance card, the proximity card to gain access to the building in which I work, and other such things that reside in one’s wallet. It was a major pain in the ass, and I don’t recommend it to anyone.

Also in September, we lost a second carpooler. There was a she-bitched, he-lied, she-said event at The Company that would rival any plot line of Desperate Housewives. When the Astroglide dried, one employee was fired and the other was allowed to work from Oak Harbor (and no longer in the carpool). I was — and am still — highly pissed at the situation. The one thing that all of us carpoolers from Oak Harbor want is to work in our hometown so we don’t have to do the soul-crushing commute twice a day.

Then in October, The Company moved from the Westin Building to the Active Voice Building. This move was directly next door. The telephone companies needed the space in the Westin, so the Westin management offered another space in the building next door for a lot less rent, and they would pay to move us. Packing up my office shit twice in one year is not my idea fun, and the new space is much smaller than the space in the Westin. People that had offices in the Westin were forced into cubicles in the new space. Can you guess who those people were? I’ll bet you can!

I started feeling the onset of pneumonia again in October. This time, I went to a doctor instead of laying down on my death bed then heading to the ER. The doctor listened to my lungs, gave me a hit of his albuterol through a nebulizer, then told me I have asthma. Can you believe that shit? He gave me a prescription for a ProAir inhaler, which worked not so well. I may as well have been huffing fumes from the tailpipe of my truck. When I finished that canister, he put me on Ventolin, which is better. It works, but could be better. I’m also on Qvar. Ventolin is a rescue inhaler, Qvar is a preventative inhaler. Puff puff pass!

I got another new mobile phone in the fall, too. This one is the shizznit! It’s like the continuum transfunctioner, but without the oral pleasure (dammit), and its mystery is only exceeded by its power, baby! It’s got a faster CPU, faster internet connection, more RAM, more ROM, does GPS… and it’s definitely become the most useful phone I’ve ever owned. I’ve even registered wafwot.mobi to create a mobile-friendly site for the phone.

In November, I bought new tires for my truck. The old kicks were getting a bit thin in the tread department, so I figured I’d better bite the bullet before the winter weather rolled in. I went to good ol’ Les Schwab for the tires, and $800 later, my truck was sporting new rubber. A couple days later, it was time for a tune up — the first tune up since I bought the truck. It got new plugs, new wires, a new serpentine belt, new distributor cap, new rotor, and it was tuned and scoped. That took a $450 bite out of my wallet.

Oh, but my truck wasn’t done yet. Less than a month after it was in for it’s $450 manicure, the lower radiator hose blew open like John Ritter’s aorta. I limped the truck home, not letting it get over “H” on the temperature gauge. Several strenuous and painful hours later, LDriver and I had the new hose installed. The older I get, the more I hate working on cars. I promised I wouldn’t work on the truck, leaving the maintenance up to the professionals. But, it’s too fucking expensive!

The holidays were quiet and uneventful. Tina and I spent Thansgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day together, not going anywhere. We just stayed home and watched football.

And that was my year. Told you it was boring.

A note from wafwot: I wrote this while watching the Seahawks beat the Redskins on January 5, but completely forgot to wikify it and publish it! Holy hell! It wasn’t until I went to spout off about the New England Patsies losing Super Bowl XLII that I discovered the old draft. So, that’s why you may notice it appearing on my blog in February but having a January date. I’d apologize, but you already know I’m a lazy bastard that needs to type/write more often.