Put Some Stank On It

We’re headed towards cliff, my friends.  Always a terrifying experience to be aimed headlong over the edge, but when the cliff in question is of one’s own making it can make you question how you got here.  May the First ends some things and begins many; it will mark the triumphant end of No Booze April (lost 12 pounds), I’ll be jetting to San Franseezy For Sheezy to talk nonsense to a large gathering, it will officially be The Summer of Love, most weekends my activities will be preordained, Prince Fielder might hit a home run at some point, Joe’s Casino may open several times if any shambling hobos amass outside her doors, I’ll finish that Cah-razy 1949 Frank Norris book I stoled from wwhazz, my first attempt at programming a video game may get finished, and much, much more.

Wwhazz’s thoughts on my impending San Fran trip: wait outside the library and mug Cal when he emerges.  Like, not fake “hahaha!” mugging, but really push him on the ground and take his money.  Maybe cuff him on the side of the head if he doesn’t give up the goods.  “He’ll know it’s me!” I yelled.  “Not if you wear ladies pantyhose over your face,” he calmly replied.  I don’t think I’ll do it though: (1) he likely knows tai-chi or some other oddball marshal art that would render my attack ineffective (2) what if Greg is with him at the time (3) what would I rob him of? Forty cents, a MUNI pass, and his gilt-framed picture of Greg?  Not worth the trouble.  However Cal, if on the nights of May One, Two, or Three you wish to meet me at McTeague’s for a steam beer then I will assent.

I really, really wish I could have a little video camera that caught maddd’s reaction when he opened the MINI-CHIP set.  Did you think something was suspicious due to the small package size?  Did you think you were getting full size chips right up until you opened the case itself? At what exact point did you know you’d been played for a fool by Jokerstars?

I really, really wish I could attend both the Top Hat Guitar Hero Affaire and Wwhazz’s Ho-Chunk Adventure this weekend but alas I’ll be visiting my poor family a-way up in Door County.  I fondly imagine that the Top Hat Affaire will end with someone smashing the GH controller into the Fancy Booze Tray.

Here’s a Bachelor Party Update: date not confirmed but likely August 7th, cookout at wwhazz’s house including various lawn olympics (bags, ladder ball, washers), poker tournament to follow, Joe’s Casino to follow that, Thunder Road tourney to follow that, Air Hockey tourney maybe to follow that, bars to follow that stuff.  Put some Stank on it, friends– comin’ out! Watch your dicks!

Business is Picking Up, BY GAWD!

In my natural habitat

Business has surely picked up in the last three weeks and it’ll continue to gain steam right up until August 28th.  We’ve hit the home stretch in our current release development at work, while at the same time I’m prepping for a presentation to 400 engineers in San Francisco in early May.  I’m pretty nervous about the latter, but with my code complete deadlines I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to prepare and rehearse.

Wwhazz keeps wanting to show me spawning muskies but I’m trying to fit it in with the gym, work, wedding planning, and playing Morning Golf with Lawman.  Morning Golf is a time-honored tradition where you golf at the crack of dawn and then scamper into work relatively on time.

I want to remind you folks that Joe’s Casino is always open, and that they honor Mystique and Diamond Jo’s player cards.  Fuck it: let’s just go to Mystiquewho’swithmeamIrtieamIrite?

As I mentioned before I’ll be out in the Bay Area May 1st through the 8th– HOLLLAR at a player when you seem ‘im in the streets, trick.  In the meantime I’ll be watching the Brewers rotation either (a) work the kinks out or (b) flush the whole fuckin season down the toilet.

I’m hoping for (a).

Tromboneulous

I have nothing to say, more or less. Got switched to a new group at work, and the year (and decade) is coming to a close. Poo poo pachu. This weekend I’ll be at the Wisconsin/Northwestern game down in Illinois, and next week is Whazzgiving.

The soup club is on: I delivered a white chicken chili and chemical burned my hands for, like, the millionth goddamn time.  Here’s what to get me for xmas: plastic gloves and a sign that says “USE THESE WHEN CUTTING CHILI PEPPERS YOU FUCK.”

In video game news, I finished up Borderlands this week (though the first DLC drops on 24th and I’ll be getting that) just in time to grab Assassin’s Creed II.  I’m a couple of hours into AC2 and so far it’s fucking great.  Also, my new gaming compy is coming on Monday and then I’ll be able to start Dragon Age. Woo!

That whole Golden Tee thing is a bummer, but I have faith that we’ll get a replacement eventually; and hopefully when we do we’ll have somewhere to put it.

Welcome to the Bungle

February 2007 is halfway through, and I couldn’t be happier for myriad reasons.  The end of the month is spacebee’s birthday, and it’s Vegas Time.  Also, it’s fuckin Wisconsin in February so, yeah, there you go.  But mostly it’s because I’m criss-crossing (miggety mack’ll make ya) this country of ours like a futuristic hobo on the the modern boxcar: coach seats on United aircraft.  It’s full of the same disheveled stinkpots you’d probably find on the long-haul from Hackensack to Hoboton, but with laptop computers and an even worse disposition.

So this week was Mountain View for Hacktavism RC1 (you tech-tards won’t understand or care, but it had to do with making whiz-bang software) and next week is Whale’s Vagina for the Intuit Tech Forum.  Fuddruckus and Manders are shouldering the awesome responsibility of watching grace-o crawl/creep/boot-scoot-boogey all the way from San Heezy to San Deezy to kick it, Intuit-style, at a Coronado Resort.  I’m still trying to organize a Sushi ExtravaDanza sometime next week.  Fudd told me Sceizzer was down as well.  That true, maddddddddddddddd?

So, it’s Sahn Dee-ah-goe next week, then back home for the Ultra-Rare (biggest screen in the Midwest!) GMC Wisconsin visit.  Oh man, oh man, I’m so excited! I’m! So! Scared!  Then it’s off to Las Vegas for food, folks, and fun.  And by that I mean food (Sbarro food court), folks (mexican dudes throwing hooker trading cards at me), and fun (losing my shirt in craps).  Oh mommmmmmmmmmmmmmm, can’t we stay the Hooters Hotel & Casino?

After that I’ll finally be back in Wisconsin for a week or so, and then it’s off to Florida for a week. Theoretically I should be taking pictures.  In fact, I may or may not. We shall see.  Here’s some pictures from the Hacktavism Thing-A-Ma-Jig.

Finally, oh my god, is that Vanilla Ice? Yes, my company hired him as a pitchman.  Yes, he’s wearing a giant Uncle Sam hat.  Yes, he raps about filing your taxes.  Huzzah.

Today Was A Bad Day

Some of the reasons I can disclose to you, and some I can’t, but today was an extraordinarily bad day.  It started with a doctor’s appointment in New Glarus.  I print out directions which are fairly straightforward: Uh Oh! A fire truck is blocking southbound access to Hwy 151! I’m supposed to take that road!  So I spend an hour wandering the backroads of southwestern Dane County before I find my way back onto the correct route.  Holy shit I know nothing of Wisconsin south of County PD.

The doctor’s appointment includes some unexpected surprises including a tetnus shot and a procedure that men get once they reach a certain age. Hurray.

Next up we hit the gym: parking lot full! Park out on Mifflin you jerk!  Thanks, Cap Fitness.  So I park on Mifflin and as soon as I pull to the curb I realize I’m well and truly fucked.  I’m downhill, and I’m too close to the car ahead of me to just pull out again.  I can’t reverse because I’m sitting on 6 inches of ice because no plows have been on this street because none of these assholes ever move their cars.  I floor it in reverse and burn up my back tires without moving an inch.  After I take my foot off the gas my cars rolls forward until I’m 1 inch (no lie) from the back of the car in front of me.  After we get out of the gym the situation has improved tremendously!  Some jerk in a green VW Bug has parked right up behind me, so even if I could floor it out of there in reverse, that way is now blocked.  I storm around and have a temper tantrum for awhile, and spacebee is wonderful in letting me rage at an inanimate object for 20 minutes. We finally abandon the car with a note for the police (it’s a 2 hour parking zone) that says we can’t get the fucking thing out and walk to rumthumb’s place.  She graciously gives us a ride to spacebee’s so we can acquire a car, and then it’s back to my house.

Afternoon now: my tetnus shot has made me sick! Hurray!  Also, there’s a Super Important Meeting at work that I’m supposed to give status at but wasn’t invited to!  Hurray!  And now I’m sitting in this Very Important Meeting and it seems like my attendance in the least important thing here.
I’m unsure how I’ll ever get my car back.  A rational discussion of options (in the shower) did not turn up anything besides “hope the jerk in front of us drives away.”   *sigh*

even saw the lights of the goodyear blimp/and it read “moneypenny is fucked”

Wiffle Ball

Yo ho hello there, go to Chicagoland and do a show there.  PHHEEEEEEW, PHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW! WELCOME TO RAW IS WAR, LIVE FROM MADISON WISCONSIN BY GAWD!  AND WE’RE GONNA GET RIGHT UNDER WAY TONIGHT WITH SOME TAG TEAM ACTION!

whazzmaster:

Wow, lots to review in that last thread.  My favorite part: cal and wwhazz arguing about squid fishing when ewaz jumped out from behind a bush.  Also: cal’s ignorance of Wrigly, I’ve heard that Chain-Gun-of-Shit story a hundred times.  Also also: a guest appearence by Ronni (hey Ronni, a healthy percentage of New York is powered by your personal energy.  Jesus.)  Also: we got to know everyones’ first Tapes and CDs.  And finally, Eroz blew wwhazz’s Over/Under for the year out of Teh Water.

spacebee:

BEAR DOWN CHICAGO BEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Bears made it to the Super Bowl, I can’t believe it! Whazzmaster and I spent a long weekend in good ‘ol Illinois. I drug him all around to various places, visiting friends and family. We had an exciting game of CLR on friday night. Usually we only play with quarters, but we did play with dollars this game ( for one round!) Saturday we watched Wisconsin kick some Illini ass!! Then we went to a couple of the most exciting bars; the Blackberry Inn (where one of my good friends works) and Stoney’s. Both hole in the wall bars, my favorite! Overall it was a great weekend the Bears and Badgers won, I was able to see lots of friends and family and catch up with them, and I dominated whazzmaster in darts!!! Although he did win the ping pong tournament 3 games to 2, oh well there is always next time.

whazzmaster:

On Wednesday late-night spacebee and I hit the road towards all points Illinois.  Thursday was hectic as I sped from one small suburb of Chicago to another to do customer Follow-Me-Homes for work.  I hit I-94 just in time for afternoon rush hour and headed back in the direction of Aurora (Ay-Town).  I had taken Friday off so the rest of the weekend was MINE ALONE.  Spacebee and I spent it cavorting around Chicagoland and eating, darting, ponging, and watching sports.  Also: I did some real world class napping.  In-between moments were spent reading a book I got last week: World War Z.  I think I have a post somewhere in my head about it, but I have to formulate more at this point.

Happy Birthday Manders! Happy Birthday Madddddddddddd! Happy Birthday Wwhazz!  So many to celebrate.  All y’all’s parents got it on in the same relative time frame.  Yee haw.

Some Pictures

I cajoled Tim into making the pictures he took at my birthday dinner public on Flickr. So now it’s PICTURE TIME!

Thanks for showing up, everyone.

Leslie and Neetha figure out numbers and checks. Zach drinks.

Tim and Jordan get their Think On.

Adam Saraceno: Ridin’ Dirty

And finally, a nice little picture from our director’s goings-away party yesterday: me taping the VP of Engineering for an interview.

Home-Boy

I dropped lots of lots of revelations with few details in the last post so I want to clear things up.  I told my manager on Monday that I intend to move back to Wisconsin and while I would like to continue to work for Intuit, I was moving regardless.  He was generally accepting of the idea of me working remote from Wisconsin, but there aren’t any timelines or anything.  We have a few more weeks until we ship QuickBooks 2007 and I didn’t expect anything to happen before then. After that, however, I wanted to get my stuff moved back so I don’t end up driving cross-country in the snow.  I intend to move to Madison, and most likely I’ll be living downtown.

So why am I doing it?  Everyone at work certainly wants to know, and while I don’t think I necessarily owe Intuit an in-depth response I ‘ve worked it out for myself so I’ll share it here.

It’s been a rough year for me, whazzmaster.com.  After I resigned myself to the divorce I threw myself into 3 things: getting healthy, my job, and later on my relationship with Stacy.  The more time went by, however, the lonelier I grew.  I see GMC infrequently.  I never see Cal.  Judd and Amanda are justifiably busy these days.  None of these are indictments of those people, it’s just that as we get older peoples’ priorities change.  So now I’m burnt out on work, and I talk to my girlfriend on the phone several times a week but only see her once a month or less.  I miss seeing my family more than once or twice a year; I miss being able to go to family reunions or just be home for someone’s birthday.  And to be truthful I’m a little burnt out on California, which is a bit of a surprise to me.  I think I may end up here again before I croak, but for now I’d like an extended stay in the midwest.

So that’s about it; I don’t know any specifics but I’m almost certain I’ll be back in Madison by the holidays.  If I continue with Intuit I’ll still be making regular trips out to the Bay Area for meetings and such, and of course while I’m out here visiting I wanna kick it with the California Krew.  But that’s where I stand today: burned out on California and anxious to be back in the motherland.  Can I get a what-what?

Busy, Busy, Busy

Things continue to be busy at work as the QuickBooks 2007 release schedule winds down.  I’ll be working all this weekend in order to be able to slip out of the bay area next weekend undetected so’s I can watch Slumberslam 06 down in San Dog.  I’m looking forward to getting my hands on about a thousand lucha libre masks; can I mortgage my non-existant house to get a little bit of extra funding?  Seriously, one mask for every day of the year.

I’m finishing up the first season of Battlestar Galactica and it’s pretty good.  Like Firefly, it’s nice to see a Sci-Fi show that doesn’t treat its viewers like mongrel idiots.  Reccommended to anyone who watches the miniseries and likes it.

I’ve got my plane tickets for the September trip to Wisconsin.  I’ll be flying into Milwaukee September 9th and flying out of Madison on September 22nd.  The last three days of the trip I’ll be doing Intuit recruiting at Wisconsin.  For the thousands of  Wisconsin college grads interested in getting a job at Intuit who are reading this, please come correct on the mic.  Don’t come whack on some old school crap, or whatever. I want to hear about good software engineering skills and discipline. I want to hear about unit tests, about design patterns, and about iterative design and development.  I don’t care if you’ve never used .Net, or Java, or whatever (though if you’ve used Ruby on Rails I might want to take you out and pick your brain).  Basically, prove to me that I wouldn’t want to shove an icepick through my own skull if I reccommended you for hire and you ended up working on my very own team.

I’m bringing my HOLLLARDOLLLARS to San Dog, how many lucha libre masks will they buy?

ANTS!

Here’s a screen capture of the help desk ticket I just submitted to corporate. It is in no way fake. I am really covered in ants right now.

– real recognize real/on the microphone with wheels of mechanized steel