The year 2010 was ugly. Like waking up in bed with a hangover next to a naked Barney Frank in a Michelle Obama mask ugly! For me, it started out with a swift kick to the bait and tackle when my supervisor, Eeyore (as he was nicknamed), called me to the conference room and proceeded to tell me that The Company was heading in a new direction and my services would no longer be needed. However, the written notice of my termination said the reason was “due to ongoing inadequate performance over a long period of time.” I don’t know what Eeyore’s donkey chow-eating ass considers “inadequate” or “long period of time,” but I was only written up once in October 2009 for leaving several tickets in a queue untouched for a day or two. Three months does not a “long period of time” make, especially since I was employed with The Company for more than five and a half years. It wasn’t normal practice for me to ignore tickets either, but the migration of an archaic web server broke many company-provided cgi scripts, and it was my job to fix them… on top of my normal load of handling four separate ticket queues by myself. Whatever.

I went back to my office, packed up all my office flair, and grabbed LDriver to head home. Just like dealing with a family death, there are stages of grieving when you lose a job. I think I was done with denial by the end of the first day. Anger ended and acceptance began at sunrise the following day when I realized I didn’t have to make that soul-crushing commute to Seattle ever again. Of course, depression started when living on unemployment (a.k.a. “unenjoyment”) and finding a new job closer to home became more and more difficult. It was enough to make me enter a seldom-expressed stage of grieving: revenge!

On the world stage, a giant earthquake leveled parts of Haiti in January. It was the third deadliest earthquake of all time, and it was rumored to be caused by a runaway Prius. This led Toyota to recall over 8 million vehicles for several reasons, including magical pedal-pushing floor mats, sticky accelerators, an anti-lock braking virus, as well as general smugness and/or ugliness.

February brought a Super Bowl win to the Saints who beat the Colts. While Peyton Manning cried, Saints fans celebrated the best thing to happen to New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina. February was also the start of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, BC. Being only 100 miles away from Oak Harbor, I really wanted to at least visit Vancouver, but my jobless situation prevented discretionary spending. One positive in not having a job is I could watch as much Olympic coverage as possible on NBC. In further sports news, Tiger Woods gave a televised apology for his infidelities. This made everyone’s jaw drop to the floor simultaneously, causing another giant earthquake, this time in Chile.

In March, I was fully on the job search hamster wheel, rewriting résumés and cover letters, scouring the State’s WorkSource site as well as other online job listings. In Washington, you have to make three job search contacts each week — and keep a contact log — in order to receive your weekly pittance. With a fair amount of free time on my hands, coupled with the occasional trips to the WorkSource office or job interviews, I had plenty of opportunities to go shooting with my camera. I took many photos during my jobless time, and I dumped nearly all of my shots on Flickr, and created a new blog at photography.wafwot.com. It’s a better way to spend a day than watching Bewitched and All in the Family reruns, or FOX News which was covering the Obamacare politics pretty heavily in March.

Princess Pelosi is infamous for saying crazy fucking shit, but her comments about Obamacare to the National Association of Counties stating “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy,” ranks up there as the stupidest things ever said by a human being, let alone a politician. Clearly the Botox in her Liberal face has poisoned her mosquito-sized brain. Seriously, Pelosi’s “pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it” remark makes Jessica Simpson’s Chicken of the Sea comments sound genius! Of course, by the end of March, King Obama signed the bill into law even though the majority of Americans didn’t want it. Out like a lamb, my fat white ass.

April saw yet another giant earthquake, this time in China. The Earth must have been mad at humanity in 2010, because a volcano under Eyjafjallajökull (which is Icelandic for “how the fuck do I say that?“) erupted, grounding planes throughout most of Europe. Not to be outdone in the shock and awe department, the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, sending thousands of gallons of crude oil per hour into the ocean. BP initially lied about the severity of the spill; they’re British, they had to scale it down a bit. April also saw Apple’s release of the iPad, basically an expensive iPhone for people with giant hands, but without phone service. In Arizona, lawmakers passed SB 1070, which made being of Mexican descent illegal. Cops were instructed to start rounding up wetbacks and throwing them into concentration camps for extermination in August… so said MSNBC. White power, motherfuckers!

After three months of job searching, it was time for a change. Family genetics left me with a head of gray hair, and no one wants to hire an old fat-ass. So, while watching the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs, I started applying Grecian Formula to my giant old man head. It took a few weeks to see my hair changing a nice shade of graphite, like I was rubbing pencil sharpener shavings on my scalp. And my head smelled like a book of burnt matches. Clearly this wasn’t working. So, I gave Tina my berries and went to the Wal-Mart for a box of women’s hair dye. Good God, what a scary ordeal that was! After leaving that color on my head for a twenty minutes, I looked like Ronald Reagan in 1981… but with less wrinkles. To me, I looked ridiculous. Good thing I have hats.

Overly concerned about the continuing flow of oil into the Gulf, our Supreme Overlord made a couple trips to Louisiana in May for some photo ops. The media was plastered with video showing Obama standing on the beach — surrounded by black globs of oil — staring benevolently out at the water. It was the least he could do between rounds of golf. Meanwhile, Congress held hearings about the spill, and suggested we melt down defective Toyotas and fashion a giant drain stopper. When the giant the giant bathtub plug was shot down, Congress decided to outlaw deep sea drilling. The way the Administration was acting, you’d have thought the Gulf crude was leaking into their morning bowl of Wheaties.

By June, I was about fed up with with the job search rut. I had interviews at several companies in Skagit County, and all but one said “no,” and that one didn’t say “no” wasn’t saying anything yet. Frustration and depression were setting in quickly, especially when the Flyers lost the Stanley Cup finals to Drunken Queef and the Chicago Blackcocks.

One position I applied for was for a network administrator at a local casino. I won’t say which casino, but it rhymes with “two day shit” if you say it real fast and put the emphasis on “day.” Their application wanted more personal information than a new car loan, which started me (and Tina) on a 10-day scavenger hunt. Things like driver’s license and Social Security number were easy. But they also wanted a copy of my criminal record, driving record, and high school diploma. High school diploma? Sweet baby Jesus, it’s been a quarter century since I’ve seen that! After turning the house upside down in a fruitless search, I called the school for a copy. They told me a replacement diploma would cost $25 and take a couple weeks. Just as I was about to give up, Tina finally found my diploma — the last item I needed — in the very last possible place it could have been. I spent several days polishing the turd that is my curriculum vitae, then emailed my application to a friend that worked at the casino. He printed the app and all the supporting documents and submitted it for me. After several weeks, I got a phone call for a job interview. My Ronald Reagan hair and I drove the 70 miles to Marysville for the interview, which was a bit ambiguous. You know how there’s more than one way to do things in much of life? It’s not any different in the IT world. Several of their questions could have had more than one answer and still be correct. However, you if you didn’t have their answer, it counted against you. I thought I did well, but found out that no one answered their interview questions correctly. This told them their questions were flawed, and they subsequently withdrew the position. Excellent.

I continued the three weekly job contacts into July, living my own personal Groundhog Day. The BP spill was still spewing oil into the Gulf. However, BP was finally able to stem the flow with something they called “LMRP,” which I think is a British acronym for Lick My Royal Posterior. With the well capped, America could now focus it’s full attention on more important things, like LeBron James‘ eeny, meeny, miny, moe game of where to play basketball, Lindsay Lohan‘s 14-day jail sentence, and the excitement of World Cup Soccer (yaaawwwn). I was still using my huge amounts of free time to take photos around Island and Skagit counties, until I got a phone call from that one company that hadn’t said no. It was nearly two months since I interviewed with them, and had written it off as another failure. But when they offered me the job over the phone, I gladly accepted without hesitation! I was happy to be employed again, but sickened by the fact that I had just helped Obama lower his jobless percentage.

August was a good month; I had a reason to wake up in the morning. I was hired as the IT Manager of an aerospace company. It sounded pretty cool until I realized it’s a start up company that hasn’t built a plane yet. They’re setting up the fabrication facility using the assets of a company they bought out of bankruptcy, and they didn’t even have an IT department yet. So, I am the manager of one (me), but it’s my job to build the IT department, and I like that idea a lot. With my second paycheck, I went to the local Sprint store and bought the EVO 4G. I had it rooted within four days of owning it.

Also in August, the East Coast was attacked by giant bedbugs which prompted NASA to extend the Space Shuttle program in order to plan an attack of planet Klendathu. Up in the panhandle of Florida, the Messiah and his family vacationed in Panama City on the Gulf Coast as a publicity stunt showing the waters were safe. To maintain his “first black president” hue, he went swimming with the crude oil globules. Unfortunately, the Gulf was oilier when Barry got out of the water, so the First Family finished their vacation in Martha’s Vineyard by playing golf and shopping. Obama also put a another woman on the Supreme Court, and Planet Blago was downgraded to Douchebag Blago.

By September, the midterm elections were coming to a head. Balack Osama and his Congress were about as popular as a hooker with cold sores, and they knew it. When they began campaigning in their home districts, they didn’t talk about Obamacare, they talked about being a witch or worshipping Aqua Buddha. In the entertainment industry, Tony Curtis died, the tragic victim of a runaway Toyota.

October was uneventful for me. I was living the dream with a full time job, and enjoying the work. I designed a logo for the company and built them a simple beginner web site for an Internet presence. At the company’s main offices, I was building new cubicles and computer systems for a contingent of Chinese engineers on work visas. I was also supervising new Cat 6 cable runs at the airport facility, built a Linux router/firewall, and deployed a new Asterisk phone system.

Elsewhere in the world, yet another earthquake off the coast of Sumatra killed over 400 people, terrorists in Yemen tried sending printer toner bombs to the U.S. via UPS, and a gaggle of Chilean miners trapped in a mine for 69 days were rescued with a giant mechanical tampon applicator. A bright spot was the news that the International Space Station surpassed the record for the longest continuous human occupation of space, unless you count John Dingell‘s white ass planted in his House seat for more than 55 years. What the hell kind of name is “Dingell” anyway? Sounds like a piece of shit stuck to the hairs of his mudcutter.

In November, I was invited to watch the Manny Pacquiao vs. Antonio Margarito fight on pay-per-view at my boss’ house. He had a $150 in bets against Pacquiao with a couple people at work. Needless to say, Pacquiao beat Margarito like a Mexican piñata, and broke his right orbital bone. Ouch. My boss paid his bet in $1 bills. Awesome.

Also in November, the Democrats were beaten like Margarito by the Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections. The jackasses lost the House majority, several Senate seats, some governorships, some state legislatures, and Dancing With the Stars. It was the biggest game of musical chairs since 1948, and the largest for any midterm election since 1938. If you listen very carefully, you can still hear Princess Pelosi crying in her Zinfandel.

Three days before Thanksgiving, it snowed in Western Washington, and everyone dropped a rectal plate. I was a little worried about the accumulating snow. Not because I can’t drive in bad weather, but because other people are complete retards when the pavement is anything but dry. When I left work, I put my truck in 4×4 low and headed out, adjusting my speed for the road conditions. Fifteen miles from home, got stuck in a long line of traffic. There was apparently an accident in Deception Pass that blocked the entire highway and snarled traffic for hours. A trip that normally takes me 40 minutes took ten minutes shy of 4 hours. Told you they were retards.

Then, while millions of Americans were cooking their junk at the airports in full body scanners, Tina and I went to Thanksgiving dinner at my boss’ house. The night before Thanksgiving it snowed again, but it was no trouble for my truck. We arrived right on time, had a great meal and enjoyed the visit. The very next day, Obama was punched in the mouth by a Latino man angry that the Administration was allowing Arizona to gas beaners. The resulting cut to King Hussein’s upper lip required 12 stitches.

December saw a federal judge in Virginia rule that Obamacare is unconstitutional. In response, the Justice Department said, “Nuh uh!” The 2010 Census numbers were released in December, showing that the U.S. population grew 9.7% to 308,745,538, the smallest increase since the 1930s. Was it a coincidence that the unemployment rate was 9.8% and the population increased 9.7%? The world may never know. In response howerver, Joe Biden said, “These new motherfuckers need to get a job to help America’s recovery.” Elsewhere, Obama dropped to his knees and blew the Republicans in order to hammer out and sign the GOP tax compromise bill, then repealed don’t ask, don’t tell to the delight of butt pirates everywhere. Hmmmm.

At work, the company sprung for a Christmas meal for all employees. The food was catered by Haggen Food in Burlington, but needed to be heated before serving. Not having a stove at the office, my boss planned on having his wife heat the food at his house which was only about a mile away. I asked why we just didn’t heat the food in the oven, and was told we don’t have an oven at the office. “Um, the hell we don’t. We have a 55-foot curing oven,” which I often refer to as the Jew Cooker. Needless to say, our Christmas meal was cooked in the Jew Cooker. Here’s a crappy cellphone picture.

And that about covers it. There was lots more that happened in 2010, but this is all I can muster in my glossed over Reader’s Digest edition. I, for one, am glad to see 2010 in history’s rear view mirror. Let’s hope 2011 is better for me and our troubled country. Peace, bitches.

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.

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.

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.

I used to type this annual letter on paper and mail a copy to my family members with their Christmas card. But, more and more of my family has (sadly) passed away and I was sending less and less cards and letters. And, let’s face it… we are in the 21st century. Who am I, Ben Franklin? (Remember, he was the first Postmaster General, and a publisher… and I knew that without looking it up on Wikipedia. I grew up in Philadelphia, where Franklin was shoved up our ass sideways… bifocals and all.) My career is based on the Internet. It only made sense to go digital and put my Christmas letter on the Internet for anyone to read.

The picture for this update has nothing to do with my year in review. It’s Christmas time. I thought I’d give the guys that read my nonsense a nice little present. If South Park has taught us anything, it’s that the true meaning of Christmas is presents.

I don’t want to see any bitching about sexist images in the comments. How can anyone complain about titties? Titties are not only “sex objects,” they are, quite literally, a food source for newborn babies. In fact, I’ll bet two Jacksons (daddy needs a new bag of weed) that Baby Jesus was suckin’ on a tittie or two after he was born!

Well, there ya go. I’ve successfully tied Jesus to tittes, and firmly secured my rightful place in Hell. Pass the eggnog.

Two thousand six started out like any other year, and there wasn’t anything going on in my life. Same shit, different day. Seahawk fans, though, were glued to their televisions. The Seahawks were playing great football — winning the division, the conference, first-round bye, and home field advantage — on their way to Super Bowl XL. Of course, as we all know, the ‘Hawks lost in Detroit because the NFL referees fucked us. Some of us believe the lunar landings were faked, I believe the NFL wanted Pittsburgh to win at any cost… Jesus, next I’ll be seeing black helicopters and government men in black suits with sunglasses.

By spring, the entire country, including me, was complaining about $3 gas. I was driving my 1968 Mustang, cursing the gas pumps. It typically took about $45 to fill the tank. Even with a recent pay raise at work, $3 gas was making it tough to drive a classic car. I got a 1994 Chevy Lumina from a friend, but that turned into a complete cluster.

So in June, I finally decided to just go buy a used vehicle. I always wanted a truck. I could use a truck to get my ass to work reliably, as well as hauling shit from point A to point B. I did some Internet homework by locating trucks on local lots. I also learned that dealers do not update their web listings nearly as often as they should… lazy bastards. We hit three or four lots without any luck before finding a nice 1994 Ford F-150 on a lot in Sedro Woolley. I signed 173 pages of shit, and drove the truck home.

It wasn’t long before the stereo in my new truck was bugging me, so I put in a new stereo, and a little later I spent the money for a new subwoofer.

July 22nd wasn’t a fun day. Nothing happened. The earth didn’t stand still. Planets didn’t line up. I did turn forty, however, and it sucked a fat one. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been alive for 4 decades, and can remember shit that happened in 1981 without the aid of Wikipedia. And the old joke about your memory being the first thing to go? Never. More. True. Sometimes, I’m as forgetful as Ronald Reagan appearing before the Tower Commission. Godammit, why do I remember that shit, but can’t remember to take out the garbage. I’m so freakin’ old.

Sometime during the summer, the company I work for decided to consolidate offices in Redmond and Oak Harbor into one big cock-waving office in a skyscraper in downtown Seattle. This started me and Tina looking for a place to live. It only took us a couple of weeks before we realized it would be better to buy a house than rent… which quickly turned into putting a new modular home on some land. I must have missed the biology class that covered the colon being lined with currency.

At the end of October, most of the employees of the Oak Harbor office celebrated their final day in the Log Cabin with a pizza lunch. After the weekend, our new place of employment would be the new office in the Westin Building in Seattle. Not much was different between Oak Harbor and Seattle, but the commute surely sucks.

Last month we had cataclysmic weather. We set a new rainfall record in November that makes the rain forest look like southern Arizona. Wind storms knocked power out for a few hours at least once, and we had our first snowfall. Mother Nature lulled us into a false sense of security in December, then unleashed a really big storm that blew over many trees and knocked out the electricity to more than a million power customers. Our power was restored after 26 hours, but others didn’t get power back for days.

So, there’s my boring-ass life in a nutshell. Three hundred and sixty five days distilled down to less than 1000 words. But 2007 is just around the corner and promises to be a little more exciting. I hope everyone’s Christmas (or whatever December holiday you celebrate) is a happy and safe one. Happy New Year!

A while ago, I read on a web page of new gadgets that Cingular was going to be offering the Motorola v635. I liked the features the phone has over my Motorola v551; a 1.23 megapixel camera with a flash (LED light), a transflash slot for memory, and a 4k color external display. I had a few months before my contract ended, and figured I could wait. Well, I’ve been out of my contract with Cingular since October 2005, and they never offered the v635. In fact, no provider in the US picked up the v635. Only Rogers in Canada did in all of North America. I’m out of my contract now, and Cingular has been dangling carrots in front of me. They keep offering free phones at savings of over $200, but I’d have to agree to another 2-year contract, and I didn’t like the phones they were offering.

So, I went looking on eBay for the v635 I wanted and found about 50 listings. All brand new and unlocked. I reviewed the offers on eBay and bought one from a seller with a good rating and decent “freebies.” Three days later, I had a new Motorola v635 in my hands.

I took the SIM card and charged battery from my v551 and popped it in the v635 (they take the same battery) and powered it up. What the fuck? Everything is in Italian. My new phone was meant to be sold by TIM in Italy. Italian isn’t that hard to figure out, and with the help of the phone’s icons, I quickly changed the language to English. Success! The phone registered with Cingular’s network just as my v551 does.

Of course, just like providers do in the States, the Italian wireless company “branded” the phone with their own menu items, graphics, configurations, and even stickers and keypad on the exterior of the phone… things I couldn’t remove easily. But, with the help of HowardForums and MotoModders, I was able to download the factory OEM firmware and flash the phone’s built-in software exactly like it would come from Motorola. I then “reflashed” with a newer firmware, and tweaked a few settings. I also bought an OEM keypad and torx screwdriver set off eBay to get rid of the “i.TIM” browser key, and pealed off the TIM sticker below the keypad. Today, you’d never know the phone was from Italy.

While I was browsing phone accessories on eBay, I found a company in Erie, Pennsylvania named metalfaceplates.com. They powder coat the metal faceplaces that come with certain Motorola phones, the v635 included. There are many colors and textures to choose from. These plates are gorgeous, and quite unique, so I ordered a set. They arrived in two days, and slid on the phone like they came from the factory. Check out these pics of my phone with the “silver vein” power coated plates:

pic1 | pic2 | pic3 | pic4 | pic5 | pic6 | pic7 | pic8 | pic9

An NFL commercial on TV the day after Super Bowl XL had me smiling at the irony. The ad showed fans wearing team jerseys, watching games on TV, playing football in back yards, tailgate parties, and basically friends and families enjoying the NFL. Somewhere in the middle, there’s a shot of a Super Bowl, and the narrator says, “The Super Bowl; as American as America gets.” The irony comes in when you think of the colossal scams of Enron, Tyco, Worldcom, Global Crossing, and Adelphia.

Now, before I become the target of hate mail, I have to congratulate the Pittsburgh Steelers. They won the game, and there’s no taking that away from them. In the end, Pittsburgh played better and took advantage of opportunities.

However, officiating played a large part of Super Bowl XL. I know Seattle Seahawks fans have taken a lot of shit lately, being called crybabies and sore losers, but there’s no way anyone can call the officiating of Super Bowl XL “fair,” not even the League. And there are many writers, NFL players, commentators, and analysts that feel the same way.

During the Super Bowl, Pittsburgh was called for three penalties for 20 yards during the game, two of which were false starts, and none called in the second half. This from a team averaging 6 penalties for an average 54 yards per game during the regular season.

Seattle averaged 5 penalties for 49 yards per game in 2005, but was called for 70 yards in seven penalties in Super Bowl XL (which ties for the third-most penalty yards in any Super Bowl since 1980 and second-most in the past 10 Super Bowls).

There were four questionable penalties called against the Seahawks:

1. Darrell Jackson’s 16-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter. It was negated when Jackson was called for offensive pass interference. It was interference by the letter of the rule. Jackson did extend his arm. However, both players were fighting for position, and Jackson didn’t create any separation that gave him an advantage by doing so. If you’re going to call Jackson, you have to call Chris Hope of Pittsburgh for defensive pass interference, offset the penalties, and replay the down. On top of that, the back judge didn’t appear ready to call the penalty until Hope pleaded his case by gesturing the interference call. Watch the NFL Films footage (not ABC) if you don’t believe me.
2. Ben Roethlisberger‘s 1-yard touchdown dive in the second quarter. Referee Bill Leavy reviewed the play under orders from the booth, since it occurred inside the two-minute mark, and while video of Roethlisberger showed that the ball might have broken the plane of the goal line, he landed short of it and reached the ball over. Head linesman Mark Hittner didn’t seem so sure of it, hesitating before signaling touchdown after taking four steps from the pylon. Seemed to me he was influenced by Roethlisberger sliding the ball across the line after the hit by Lewis. Hell, Roethlisberger himself said on “The Late Show with David Letterman” that he didn’t think he got in.
3. A holding call against Seattle’s Sean Locklear early in the fourth quarter with Pittsburgh leading 14-10. That negated an 18-yard catch by Jerramy Stevens that would have put the ball on the 1 yard line. Locklear supposedly hooked Clark Haggans, but Haggans appeared to be falling to the turf at the time. Again, by the letter of the rule, it was holding, but the officials should call every play the same. That way, all players know what the officials will call, and it won’t be a guessing game. So, instead of first-and-goal at the 1 with the chance to cap a 98-yard drive with a touchdown and take a three-point lead, Seattle faced first-and-20 at the 29.
4. Three plays later, Pittsburgh’s Ike Taylor intercepted a Matt Hasselbeck pass. Hasselbeck went low to make the tackle on Taylor’s return and was called for a 15-yard personal foul for a low block. Someone needs to explain to me how a clean tackle can be called a low block. This was clearly a bad call. How can the NFL say there were no mistakes made? Check the replay. It shows Hasselbeck never made contact with the player he was supposed to have hit illegally, instead going straight to Taylor to make the tackle. The blown call put Pittsburgh at midfield, which allowed them to execute their game-winning gadget touchdown pass from Antwaan Randle El to Hines Ward.

With the exception of Mike Holmgren‘s comments at a “Welcome Home” reception at Qwest Field, no Seahawks have publically blamed the officiating. In fact, the Seahawks have blamed themselves for not playing as well as they did all season long. Sure, Jerramy Stevens dropped four passes; Josh Brown missed two field goals; Hasselbeck appeared to be playing desperation football, hurrying passes and threw an interception; and Etric Pruitt blew his coverage and allowed Willie Parker to score on a 75-yard touchdown run. Pruitt also blew his coverage of Hines Ward on the reverse option gadget play, leaving Ward wide open to catch the pass from Randle El. But in Pruitt’s defense, he was only a practice squad player signed on November 5. When starting safety Ken Hamlin was injured at a nightclub on October 17, Marquand Manuel took his place. When Manuel left the game in the second quarter with a hip injury, that only left free safety Pruitt to fill his spot.

Now, while the Seahawks may have played poorly, they did quite well for the first 20 minutes of the game. Darrell Jackson caught a Super Bowl record five passes in the first quarter. The defense held Pittsburgh to three straight 3-and-outs, and scored the first points of the game. Then came the onslaught of bad officiating that would be enough to break anyone’s momentum. On top of that, only a few “NFL experts” thought Seattle had the mettle to win. The ABC and NFL Network pre-game shows (thanks to TiVo, I watched both) were heavily focused on Pittsburgh and the made-for-football stories of Bettis and Cowher. Maybe Joey Porter was right when he thought the NFL wanted a particular team to win…

And before any of you “Stealer” fans start in, go back and listen to the sound bites of Joey Porter after the Indianapolis Colts game. “The world wanted Indy to win so bad, they were going to do whatever they had to do, man. The whole world loves Peyton Manning, but come on man, don’t take the game away from us.” Porter adds, “I felt they were cheating us. When the interception happened, everybody in the world knew that was an interception. Don’t cheat us that bad. When they did that, they really want Peyton Manning and these guys to win the Super Bowl. They are just going to straight take it for them. I felt that they were like ‘We don’t even care if you know we’re cheating. We’re cheating for them.’ “ Sounds familiar, eh?

Granted, Pittsburgh won that game against Indianapolis. But if they hadn’t, oh brother would there have been a shit storm of controversy brewing out of western Pennsylvania. Every towel-waving fan behind the steel curtain would have been crying foul, including Bill Cowher and Jerome Bettis.

So, yeah, looking at the poor officiating of Super Bowl XL, how can the Seahawks and their fans not feel cheated. The bad calls took the wind out of the Seahawks sails, and they were not able to recover. The bad calls had a direct affect on the gameplay of the Seahawks and cost them the game that they could have easily won.