More bullshit from another asshole with a blog

Alzhiemer's?
22Mar07

Posted by wafwot

Auto Lockout Kit The aging of Wafwot continues. I had one of my worst-ever Senior Moments earlier this week.

I drove my truck to Seattle on Monday because our regular carpool driver was working in the Oak Harbor office. So, like any other day, I was up before the rooster across the street. Since I’m still coughing due to pneumonia, I didn’t get much sleep Sunday night/Monday morning, and I was dog-ass tired. I jumped in the shower to wash hair, face, pits, crotch, and ass… in that order… hoping that the shower would wake me up more. By the way, have you ever noticed how mighty a fart sounds through wet ass cheeks in the shower? It brings a smile to my face, no matter how tired I am.

By 4:55am, I was out the door and picked up one other commuter and headed south to Seattle. It was an easy trip, and we pulled into the Westin parking garage before 7am. I parked on the 5th level — like we do every day — put the borrowed keycard (that gets me in the garage for free) in my sun visor and hopped out of the truck. I locked it and headed to the elevators to get into the building.

Monday was a busy day at work, but whenever you’re busy, time seems to fly by quickly. However, by 5pm, I was ready to get the fuck out of Dodge.

As I was riding the elevator back to the 5th level, I was searching, in vain, for my keys. They weren’t in my pocket. Before heading back into the building to check if I left my keys on my desk, I checked the ignition. Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck! There’s my motherfucking keys! It the ignition! Fuck!

I could have sworn I had an extra key at my desk, but I checked all the drawers and cabinets of my desk, and there was no key to be found. The CTO of our company gave me a wire clothes hanger, but after 30 minutes of fucking with it, I realized the hanger was too flexible. I called Tina to have her find a locksmith in Seattle for me. Tina called me back at 5:45pm, and gave me the number of Abel Locksmith & Road Service on 12th Avenue South. I called them and they said they’d be “right over.”

I learned a couple things that day; always have a spare key in my wallet, and in the native tongue of locksmiths, “right over” means about an hour. Shit. By 6:45pm, I met the locksmith outside the parking garage… because his truck height is 6-feet 10-inches, and the parking garage height is 6-feet 8-inches. Simply excellent.

Johnny McBreak-in shoved a wedge between the glass and door skin in order to get various wires and rods shoved into the door. He spent 15 minutes wailing and yanking on his tool before he gave up on the driver’s side door. I mean, he was pulling with so much force, he bent his tool. And yes, I know I just used “yanking,” “pulling,” and “tool” in the past two sentences. What of it?

This “professional” locksmith had much better luck opening the passenger side door in only two minutes. He reached in and grabbed the keys from the ignition. I tried opening the driver’s door with the key, but couldn’t turn the key to the unlock position. What the fuck now? After dicking with it from the passenger side, we realized that all that zealous yanking pulled the plastic door panel over the lock pin… uh, lock knob? What in the sweet and sour hell are those manual locking knob thingies called? Anyway, once the “manual lock plunger knob doohickey” (technical term) was back in the hole it’s supposed to be in, the door unlocked properly.

The whole ordeal cost eighty fucking dollars — eight zero period zero zero — and two hours of time. I wasn’t even kissed as he was fucking me. Wotta rip off! No matter… we were heading out by 7:00pm and all my windows were intact. One good thing about leaving Seattle at 7:00pm is there’s no traffic. I was back in Oak Harbor by 8:35pm (average speed of 60 mph) and there wasn’t a slowdowns to be seen in that shithole called Everett.

Two items of note: I’ll probably get reimbursed by my insurance company since I have emergency road service coverage on my policy… and I now have a spare key in my wallet, at my desk at work, and at home. Monday was the first and last time I will ever be locked out of my vehicle.

Fucking Wal-Mart… I went there on Wednesday for bird seed, cough medicine, milk, cereal, pop, and a few other items we needed at the house, including cigarettes (not for me, I don’t smoke). I did my shopping and got in a line with a cashier.

Normally I use the cool self checkout at the Wal-Marché, because I’m all about self gratification. But since I needed cigarettes, I hit a line with a cashier. She scanned all my items like a good smiley-faced monkey, but couldn’t seem to get the cash register to by-pass the age check on the cough medicine. Fucking safety checks. God forbid a teenager puts down their heroin needle for a bottle of Delsym. On top of that, the chick wouldn’t sell me cigarettes at that register, giving me an excuse of company policy. I had to use lane one where the tobacco products are sold. I complained that I would have gotten in that line if I had 10 items or less, but I had about 16 items. I’ll be damned if I’ll violate the sacred Item Limit at the Wal-Mart and have some hoarse-voiced, yellow-fingered little old lady holler at me because she couldn’t buy a new pack of Benson & Hedges menthols before she slipped into another nicotine fit.

So how fucked up is that? Wal-Mart puts the cigarettes behind one register with a 10 items or less limit, then forces customers to buy cigarettes at that register only. Fuckers. I had to pay for my 15 items at Register Three (with a credit card), then take my “must be older than 18 to purchase” cough syrup to Register One and make another credit card transaction. Dicks.

There ya have it, another quality update. I don’t want to hear any more bitching… ’til next time.

Fucking Snow, Again!
01Mar07

Posted by wafwot

Snow on I-5 Excuse the lateness of this update. I started writing it on March 1 but finished and published it on March 2.

When we left work yesterday evening, the start of the soul-crushing love-fest that is our nightly drive home was like any other. The roads were dry, the surface streets were clogged (like they ate too much cheese… draw your own conclusions), and all appeared normal. But then we tuned in KOMO AM 1000 and heard about severe winter conditions in Everett and Marysville. Our cell phones began to ring. Worried loved ones were concerned that we might be stuck behind a recent 50 vehicle pile up (storycrash pictures) on I-90 near Snoqualmie Pass. Our commute doesn’t take us anywhere near I-90, thankfully, but the weather on north I-5 had us worried. By the time we made it to the northbound express lanes, the traffic slowdowns had already begun. Every day, we drive past a digital road sign that reports travel times to Lynnwood and South Everett. Normally that sign reads 30 to 45 minutes to South Everett. Tonight, it read 65 minutes. Fuck. As we got closer to the sign, we realized we misread an “8″ as a “6.” Eighty five minutes to make a 20 mile trip. Do the math, people… that’s 4¼ miles per hour. Four and a quarter! Jesus fucking cajun-style Christ! To be fair, that electronic sign is for the main line, not the express lanes. But considering the express lanes weren’t going any faster than the main line, it’s close enough for government tolerances. We tired quickly of the traffic radio, and switched to a CD of The Crystal Method.

It was slow going. After the express lanes ended, it was snowing quite heavily. We were driving in and out of snowsqualls up to Lynnwood, where it was snowing continuously. It wasn’t sticking, just making the roadway wet. Traffic flow sucked. The HOV lane was moving at about 20 miles per hour, where the regular lanes were stop and go. We finally made it to South Everett a full two hours late. The snow was coming down solid, and made for some pretty cool pictures with our shitty camera phones. Here’s a photo, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and even a short movie in MP4 format. Pretty cool new image viewer, eh? If you’re JavaScript-phobic, you probably just saw those images open in your browser. Yawn. People with JavaScript enabled saw the web page dim, and the images appear on a new layer, resized to fit your screen resolution. It’s fucking amazing. You know how I know? Because it’s fucking amazing!

Enough cock waving. By the time we got through Everett and Marysville, we were in a full-on blizzard. I’m not sure, but think we may have been experiencing whiteout conditions… but what the fuck do I know? The snow was coming down so fast and heavy, the headlights were reflecting off it, making it near impossible to see the roadway. The snow was also starting to collect on the slush between the lanes, which meant it was getting colder outside. Our speed wasn’t very fast. This picture of the car radio shows the average miles per hour we were traveling from downtown Seattle to Marysville, and the outside temperature. Pretty fucking swift, eh? I think we broke 25 miles an hour once or twice before things got worse, and they did get worse.

There’s a point where there so much snow that the highway eventually gets completely covered. We reached that point around Smokey Point, and it was not fun. The road was eerily free of traffic. It was us, a Subaru about 200 feet in front of us and a pack of other slow moving vehicles a mile behind us. Previous knowledge told us there was a highway under the car, but we couldn’t see it. “Where’s the lane? Shit!” We were literally driving by braille! As soon as we’d drive over those little bumps or reflectors on the center lines, we’d steer back into the lane until we hit the rumble strip. It’s funny now.

Several dickholes in 4×4 SUVs thought they were impervious to bad weather. Many were wrong. There were vehicles galore that had slid off the Interstate and were now stuck. One Dodge Durango driven by some old fuck sped by us faster than a priest leaving Chuck E. Cheese's with an 8 year old in a duffel bag. A couple minutes later, a cop pulled onto the highway, and his lights came on. Tardboy had spun out, and was now on the side of the road pointing the wrong direction. It appeared that there was a tow truck pulling a station wagon out of a ditch, and the Durango had to avoid the obstacle, and over corrected, spinning himself around.

A couple miles after that spinout, the highway was just wet, and we were back up to 70 miles an hour through the Skagit Valley. All that fucking snow was caused by the Puget Sound Convergence Zone, which we drive through twice a day. By the time we got back to Oak Harbor, it was 9:30pm. Ninety seven miles in 4½ hours. That’s an average of 21½ miles an hour. Fucking snow! We were home just in time to grab a bite to eat and go to sleep to do the whole goddamned thing over again in 6½ hours. Pass the melatonin… and the antacid.

Today was the day we picked up a former co-worker for a trip to the Westin. He had a convention to go to in the hotel. Yesterday’s wintry boot to the coin purse almost put a damper on things, but the powers that know nothing north of Everett forced us to make the 97-mile trip anyway, in the face of sure death on icy highways… and they were icy until Lynnwood, where they were just wet. It was good to see Jake/Di-Tech again, even though we suffered partial hearing loss from his maniacal, Ed McMahon-esque laugh. Good times, though. Made the commute seem shorter, and that’s always a good thing.

Trip to Oak Harbor
26Jan07

Posted by wafwot

TripThe people that run the Oak Harbor office needed a day off. It’s been — I don’t know — four months since their last time off, and there’s a new expansion pack out for World of Warcraft after all. I guess they need the extra time to reach level 70, or some such gayness. I keed, I keed! Who am I to turn down a couple of days of working in the town that I live in?

Yesterday and today, the carpoolers and I worked in the Oak Harbor office. The last time we worked at the Oak Harbor office, the Island was sans electricity. It was a nice change of pace. No need to wake up at 4am. That’s fucking earlier than dairy farmers, dammit, and it’s simply not human. I was able to “sleep in” until 7am, shower, dress, drive to my manager’s house and pick him up, and be at a keyboard before 8am. It’s a beautiful thing. If we had to drive to Seattle, that same process takes three and a half hours.

I really miss working close to home. The commute home (including “stop and go” traffic near Wal-Mart) took me a whopping six minutes. Can you believe that shit? It was still light outside! There’s also the benefit of being so close to a 7-Eleven, and all the fast food joints. Hopping in my truck, driving to 7-Eleven for a Snapple and cigarettes took all of five minutes. In Seattle, it also takes five minutes for a Snapple and cigarettes. Oh yeah, there’s an Asian taking my money as there is in Oak Harbor, but there’s no motor vehicle involved. Hell, I’m not even leaving the building! The store is only a two-story elevator ride away.

But with all the pros, there’s always some cons. The “better half” (and I use that term loosely) of the two previous owners of Galaxynet operates from that building — from that office — and I got to enjoy avoiding his bald ass today. He was there to meet with the president of the company. It’s probably some long, drawn out saga that’s really not worth the time to type about, but I got the impression he was whining about not having actual office space in the Oak Harbor office. Boo hoo. I so wish someone would have asked me my opinion before we jumped into bed with these two questionable individuals. Oh well, you know what they say about opinions. I knew my ass was fat, but had no idea my asshole was so big.

There’s also the people that probably figured I dropped off the face of earth. When I used to work in the Oak Harbor office, I worked upstairs which was not an area that the public was permitted. That sheltered me from all the Galaxynet customers that thought I was their friend. I still talk to a select few former Galaxynet customers, but when I run into the others at Albertsons, I simply offer a cordial “hello” and go about the grocery shopping task at hand. Why is it people feel the need to chat you up in the store? Can’t they see I have coffee, milk, and shit wipe to buy? Leave me alone! Anyway, as I said, I used to work on the second floor. During the past two days, I was working on the first floor and in clear view of every swinging dick that came in the door. Twice I had to glad hand someone who was happy to see me. I shook their hands, but gave them my “go away, I have work to do” vibe in order to reduce the typical questions regarding Tina, Christmas, and the new year.

I’ll bet you were wondering what the hell the picture of the dog had to do with working in a different office. Well, let me tell you. One of the carpoolers brought his dog to the office on today. His name is Trip, and he’s a great dog! If you know me, you know I think small yapping dogs are no better than rodents. Unless the dog has enough strength to pull you when you go for a walk, it can’t be called a dog. Trip has enough power to do that! He’s really friendly and loves everyone. I remember when Trip didn’t even have a name. This picture and this picture show Trip as a puppy in August 2006. As you can see by the picture above, he’s much bigger now… but he’s still a puppy! All these were taken with my cell phone, so the quality isn’t that great. Here’s another picture of Trip that really shows how big he’s gotten.

One final thing. I removed the captcha code for posting to the comments section. I upgraded the WordPress software to a brand new version (2.1), and the captcha code no longer worked. I had to modify the WordPress code after each upgrade, and I was getting tired of that bullshit. I also received complaints from folks with color blindness who couldn’t read the captcha image very well. At first, I had no sympathy. But, with the addition of several spam filtering plugins, I no longer need the captcha. So, without the extra hoop to jump through, I expect more comments, motherfuckers!

Okay. That’s enough for now. See ya next time.