Mysterious, very mysterious

Someone got me good! I give her props. Some background info, the Adopt a Family refereed to in the following emails is a yearly fundraising drive. Notice that in 1/2 an hour 14 people voted (about 20% of the department) and I got 50% of the votes! My reputation is getting the better of me.

Email 1:

At one time, a nice colleague borrowed a book of mine entitled "Practitioner's Guide to Empirically-Based Measures of Anxiety." That book has not been returned to my shelf, and I cannot recall who that nice colleague was. If you know of this nice colleague (or you are this nice colleague), would you mind returning my book? You can do it anonymously by placing it in my mailbox or the box outside my door, and your identity can remain a mystery…

Thanks,
Cindy


Email 2 (response from me):

I looked around and found the book in Danny Hughes office. I promptly took it from him and went to your door. It sounded like you were busy, so, instead of knocking I placed it in your mailbox. We need to keep Danny on a tighter leash!

George

Email 3:

The mystery person identified himself!

So, in the spirit of Adopt-a-Family, I will donate 25 bucks in the name of the person who can guess the culprit.

I will provide some clues to aid in your guess (there are 2 people in the department not allowed to guess - one is the culprit himself, the other is the person he tried to blame the indiscretion on).

This person is probably well-known throughout the department. He clearly works hard, but has made it known that he likes to "play." Thankfully, he has a wife who grounds him, but sometimes seems to support his creative side. He can be very calculating, but not in a deceitful way.

Who is he?


Email 4:

Early voting turn-outs were slim.

The votes cast were for:

George Baum - 1111111
Brian Carter - 11
Danny Hughes - 11
Paul Cinciripini - 1
Alex Prokhorov - 1
Lorenzo Cohen - 1



And the culprit was:



George Baum!!!! (even though he was asked several times if he had the book)

So, in the name of Stacie Scruggs (who answered correctly within seconds of me sending the email), I will donate $25 to Adopt-A-Family!

Cindy

GET OUT OF MY HEAD CHARLIE TESSMAN!

You know how you remember random things from your childhood. Well, I can't slpell worth a darn, never have been abull too, can't get my infantessimle netwurk of grey matter to grasp anything by a phonetic representation of words. However, there was one word I could spell since I was a little kid. Mississippi, yes M I S S I S S I P P I!!! It was my word, I could spell it before any of the other kids in school. Then, one day in fifth grade Mrs. Veramontez says, "class, one of the students has something special to show you today, he can spell Mississippi." WHAT, that's my word, everyone knows that is my word, I have been bragging about spelling it for two years, she must be going to ask me to spell it..... "Charlie Tessman, could you please spell it for us?" So he did, Charlie Tessman spelled Mississippi and he didn't miss a letter. Oh, the smug look on that punk's face. I will never forgive you for that Charlie Tessman! You are eternally on my shet list. Oh the pain it causes just thinking about it. MY WORD!!!

Meltdown

I haven't been feeling funny lately, but I have a joke for ya.

What do you call it when you loan a bunch of people a bunch of money that they can't afford to pay back?

- The Greater Depression! HA!

Still not funny. Dangit.

Grass

When my house was built the builder made a couple of minor mistakes. Small things that were easily corrected, but they wanted to do me a favor for the inconvenience. After some tough negotiations we decided they could sod my backyard for free. Hence, one day a group of people came over and started putting grass down. I was very happy. However, it was soon apparent that they used pallets of grass that were not 100% St. Augustine (the type of grass commonly used for Houston area yards). Mixed in was some very thin, sort of fluffy, almost weed type grass. Well, I should have immediately realized that this weed grass did not deserve the prime location of my back yard. There was not much of it, but I should have done something to get rid of it immediately. However, my yard would then look thin, not fully green, I would have had patches with no grass for a time. As long as I mowed and kept the grass short, you could not really tell that some of it is weed grass and some of it good St. Augustine. So, I left it. Well, the St. Augustine didn’t do too well in certain areas. I could have spent the extra money to replace it, but it was so much easier to just give those areas to the weed grass and heck, my lawn was still fully green and didn’t look bad as long as I kept it mowed. Now 5 years later, I have continued to give away space in my back yard to the weed grass and my yard is kind of messy. If I let it go for more than one week the weed grass grows like mad and my yard looks like a jungle. My poor little chihuahua gets lost in weed grass whenever he runs in the yard. My yard is ruined. So I have two choices. First, I can just kill all the grass and start from scratch taking care to make sure it grows back as pure, pretty St. Augustine. Second, I can spend $70 a week to have someone mow it. I chose option 2. After all, the weed grass needs a place to live that’s nice! I don’t want it to live only in undeveloped areas, or apartment complexes. The price is a little steep to get the mowers over every week. Hence, I am asking for you, my readers to bail me out. Can you please send me $70 a week? I will set up a paypal account, make it real easy. Thanks in advance!

Letter to Ike

Dear Ike,

I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that I am not happy with your visit to my home. I believe that you owe ME an apology and or/monetary reimbursement. In fact skip the apology, just give me the money. If you must pass the reimbursement through FEMA, that is fine, just as long as I know it came out of your pocket. Below is a list of the traumas that I experienced due to your invasion of my home.

1. I had to take nearly a week off of work.
2. My back hurts, yes, it did hurt before you came, but it hurts in a different place now.
3. I have three power generators, I got them for me and my neighbors and friends, but before I could deliver them my neighbors had power and my friends had a generator of their own.
4. Scratch number 3, I actually have 4 power generators because my brother in Albuquerque got one for me too.
5. I had to learn how to back a trailer up because I had to haul around 3 power generators.
6. I had to watch Geraldo on Fox News.
7. The power generators cost more to operate than the food in my fridge is worth.
8. I had to lift 3 power generators multiple times (see #3).
9. I had to put my fence back up and it's still tipping sideways (see #3).
10. You forced my neighbor into kidnapping his own kids to prove that camping in the backyard of a friends house is not safe.
11. My bathroom smells funny and not the usual kind of funny.
12. I have a curfew.
13. You made my wife curse me.
14. I had to take down plywood from windows that were not my own.
15. My son was not able to play with his toy vacuum while he was in Austin.
16. You made me throw a case of bottled water because I couldn't tie it down in the trailer (see 13).
17. In order to test my power generator I plugged in a lamp without a bulb.
18. I tossed a lamp without a bulb across my living room because it would not light up while attached to the generator (see 13).
19. I got a text message saying that my power was on right before driving home. I was actually upset that my power was on because I had 4 damn generators!
20. My power was not actually on and it is still off.
21. The opossum that lives in my backyard is gone.
22. My son can't sleep with the power generator on because it is too loud, so I have to turn it off.

As you can see this was and continues to be a horrible experience! I think I am going to find a physician to diagnose me with PTSD so I can stick a bigger bill on you. Take that IKE!

Truly,

George

Danglers

Lost item email:

Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 1:19 PM
Subject: A dangle earring (pearl and purple stones) has been lost and found. Please retrieve from front desk if belonging to you. Thank you!

Response:

My ears are danglers. As it is a very rare genetic trait, I doubt there are too many other people in the department with dangle ears. Most likely someone purchased those dangle ear rings without realizing they were for danglers. If no one claims them, I could certainly use one for my left lobe.

Thank you for your kind consideration.

Crime Alert Buliten

I work at a university hospital and in order to assure employee and patient safety undesirable people who have no business on hospital property are escorted off by the university police. To promote awareness the university police department sends out Crime Alert Bulletins (called CABs), notifying employees to be on the watch for people that have been cited and escorted off campus. Today, there was a very interesting CAB. It is posted below, the name of the university, hospital and offender have been removed to protect the innocent.

Working Father's Room

In today's society it is important that all things are equal. We no longer are the savages of the past who must succeed or fail based on our God given ability and drive. In fact, I must castigate myself for using the term "God given," for we all are born with the same level of intelligence and drive to succeed given to us by whatever deity we believe in, or none at all. Only the happenstance of the artificial position we are bound to on the societal totem pole leads to differences in ones outward abilities. It is this artificial societal social cast system that allows one person to become rich, while another stays poor and one to succeed as a scientist while another flips burgers. With all our knowledge, all our advancements, all that we have accomplished as a race, how, I ask you, can we allow this outdated synthetic concept of differences among individuals hold us back. Einstein was not special, he was lucky! Michael Phelps is a fraud. If you were given the opportunity to swim 7 hours a day, you too could win eight gold metals. Do I not speak the truth, do you not see that your failures are not to be laid at your feet, but are to be blamed squarely on circumstance? Brick by brick we must tear down this wall that defines us by false standards. Oh, I grant you, humanity has made some strides in the right direction. I give you public education and the US post office as but two of many examples. But we must do more! Many places of work in society are little more than poorly formed institutions based on the outdated, dangerous concept of individual differences. These institutions have separate restrooms for Men and Women, they have cubicles for some and offices for others and they hand out promotions based on competition and productivity! Some even have working Mother's rooms, for breastfeeding Moms, without so much as a thought for working Fathers. Do working Fathers not also want to feed their children and can they not do it as well as Mothers? My friends, we are all the same, should we not be treated equally?

External Hard Drive

Email sent:

Hi all, I have here in my cabinet an external hard drive. I do not know how it got there. It was not there when I left. It is brand new, never been opened (500GB). It was not in a shipping package so I have no way of knowing where it came from. Reggie said she didn't know anything about it either. Please let me know if it belongs to you or you know of someone or a team that is missing one.

Reply:

Could you please give further details on what an 'external hard drive' is? I am an avid golfer, but I have never heard this term used. Also, 'GB' is a term for distance that I am not familiar with, I usually calculate the distance of my drives in yards. Does this have to do with NASCAR? I must confess I do not watch that sport. Also, I think you need to check your usage of the word drive. Is that word not a verb?? You keep referring to drive as if it was a noun, How do you box and take possession of an action? Finally, I think that it is unfair to point out that Reggie knew nothing of this, because I knew nothing either and I can't believe we are the only ones that don't understand.

Thank you for your consideration in clarifying this email.

Truly,

George

WOW I am Nitpicky

I am behind, way behind, I apologize, but I have been spending my evenings watching the Olympics. I think I like the Olympics because of this damn video game I used to play as a kid. I believe it was on the Commodore 64 and was called Summer Olympics, or Summer Games, something like that. I loved that game! It had the Olympic theme song, I thought that was the official, official Olympic theme, but it turns out that there is a different theme song for every Olympics.... WHAT!??!? I did not know this! Well this game had what is by far the best theme song ever for the Olympics and I don't think that any of you can argue this point. It is the one that goes, "dun dun dun dun da da dadle aut. dun dun dun dun dun dun. " Yes, it's the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic theme song composed by John Williams, the guy that wrote the Star Wars and Jaws theme songs. That guy is a genius, seriously, would Star Wars have been nearly as good without the theme song??? Or would Jaws have scared you without his ominous music? I think they should just stop the tradition of making a new theme song for each Olympics and go with the John Williams theme. Again, I don't think anyone can argue that point and I am not biased. This post has absolutely nothing to do with what I intended to write about and that is why the post title makes no sense. It's the Olympics I tell you! Those games have a profound effect on my psyche........ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K90GoFrLvVI

The Beast and The Fairy

Lost would the world be without the protection of brave knights. A jaunt through the rolling hills, only but a short distance from the protective confines of the castle, our brave knight, his noble canine, his fair maiden and the king in the carriage come upon the vicious beast known as Boxer, the hundred pounds. The beast begins to lay waist to the noble canine companion, tearing and dragging at his neck. Our knight goes into action and subdues the evil beast verily dragging it back to the lair from which it escaped. Upon return our noble knight is securing the castle for an evening’s worth of rest and relaxation, when, off of the castle gate flies into his hair the evil fairy, smoky brown the flying roach. Only his words of surprise, "Oh crap," give any hint of fear. For quickly does our noble knight act! Using a discarded door stop does he destroy the evil fairy, leaving green blood to run freely on the castle floor. AH, but soundly do the fair maiden, the noble canine and the King sleep, for our knight is constantly on alert!

Edouard Exclusive Report

You can count on One Crazy Thing A Day to keep on top of important news! Please see the EXCLUSIVE report on Tropical Storm Edouard!

Groop

I have a cold, I hate colds. I guess I could enjoy the rest that a cold allows you, but I really don't want to rest, I want this damn green yucky crap gone! Why is it called a cold anyway?? There has to be a more appropriate name. I kind of like "Groop," it doesn't mean anything else, like cold, which actually means cold, chilly, not warm. I don't feel chilly, I feel groopy so I think groop is a much better name. I also wonder how new terms get introduced and then become common in everyday language. Like "cool," when did people start saying things were cool? AND if cool is a good thing, like, those shoes are cool, why do we use the word cold for such a horribly annoying illness. Both of them are levels of the temperature gradient. Let me see, the temperature gradient, you have cold, cool, just fine, warm and hot. We use cold to talk about this annoying sickness, we use cool to describe things we like, we use warm to say that we are getting closer to something and we use hot to describe attractive members of the opposite sex. I think we are obsessed with temperature, probably because we are obsessed with the weather. No, I don't want to talk about global warming. Apparently, teenagers today have come up with a new term for 'cool,' they say. 'scene.' I assume it refers to scenic and means that something looks or is, good. It is used just like cool, as far as I can tell. If someone gets a new haircut you can tell them, "your hair is scene!" I don't know if this will ever make it into the common vernacular, I guess only the emo kids are using it. Yes, if you don't know what 'emo' means, you are getting old. Back to bed, I have to get rid of this groop.

CRAZY HAIR CHALLENGE!!!

My hair is turning gray, very grey. My Mom was gray by 30, I'm COUGH alittleolderthanthat COUGH, and I have very salt and pepper hair, just recently more salt than pepper. Hence, I believe that it is time to grow it out, let it get real long and stringy and crazy. You know, the mad scientist look. Of course, I do not want to do this alone, so, I am challenging any guy or, girl with short hair, to join me in this quest. If your name is Mike, or Danny, or Spencer, or James, but not Scott, you now know, I have thrown down the gauntlet (or gantlet)!!!

P.S. Yes, i like both the British and American spelling. Couldn't decide which to use, so I went with both.

Lost Cell Phone

Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2008 3:43 PMSubject:
Small blue Samsung cell phone found in ladies' restroom. If lost, please see Cristal to retrieve. thank you.

Reply:
It just so happens that I have lost my small blue Samsung phone. It would not surprise me in the least if it was found in the ladies room, as women often suffer from the co-morbid conditions of kleptomania and misplaced cell phone syndrome. Hence, stolen phones are often recovered in lady's rooms. However, this phone has been missing since 1987, so small is a relative term. It was small for 1987, but still weighed 3.2 lbs. The phone allowed me to store 4 numbers, as that was the limit on the memory chip. If you could please check, the names in the phone, if it is in fact mine, are, Ronald Reagan, Scott Baio, Michael Hutchence and Sally Kristen Ride. Now that I think about it, it may have been a Motorola phone. Are you sure you did not find a Motorola?

Apology Granted

I have to update my blog. What should I write about??? Hmmmmm, the 'Walking Lady?' No, too boring. Blisters? Too annoying . The Texas Association Against Sexual Assault mug? Not good enough. Mugs! There is the 'Mug it and Love it' campaign at work. That's kind of a hot topic. I could probably get myself in trouble, very political. Thera - Bands! You know what, that might be fun. Do you know what a Thera -Band is? Well, I will tell you. It is a gigantic piece of rubber that can be used to do weight bearing exercise (http://www.thera-band.com/). I have one at my desk and I use it everyday to do some hard core reps, this is why I am super buff.

You know what would be fun!?

To just walk out into the middle of the workplace and start doing Thera - Band exercises. There is a lot of people around the office and I don't know all of them. People would think I was crazy. You know, put on a serious face, like those strange people you see in parks doing Tai Chi by themselves (if you are a person that does Tai Chi by yourself at a park, yes, I just insulted you). Dang, that was mean, I should delete that. Are you still allowed to insult people that do strange things, or is that politically incorrect? Is there a Protection for People Who Do Strange Things lobby in DC? Are you still allowed to insult people that write silly blogs? If so, I expect a wide array of insults!! Come on people, don't hold back. This is your big chance to do what you always wanted. I give you permission! INSULT ME! Just make sure your are clever. I'm off to stand in the middle of the hall with my giant rubber band........See you soon.

Wark

My Uncle is a genius. I'm not just saying this because he is my uncle - he really is a genius. He is one of the world's foremost experts in electromagnetics. You see it all the time in movies now - electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons, and such. Being a genius, my uncle does not have to conform to social norms in order to be successful. Hence, he is very unique. One of my favorite stories is that of my uncle and the symphony snobs. I got this story second hand, so, to my brother, if I have made any mistakes please feel free to correct me.

My uncle wrote a symphony, he has written a couple, or maybe just one symphony and the others are piano sonatas. I really don't know as I could not tell the difference between a symphony and a sonata, except that the piece of music to which I refer was played by the New Mexico symphony orchestra, hence, a symphony. Anyway, there was a big event, where the New Mexico Symphony was playing my uncle's music and a grand formal dinner followed. Everyone who was anyone was at the dinner and they wanted to act special and important so they all wanted to meet the man who wrote the music. You know the type that attends a special dinner after a symphony. Think Teresa Heinz Kerry, "Darling, you are so cute with your Toyota and your three bedroom house." So, all of these people were coming up to my uncle and attempting to hob snob with him (does hob snob make any sense?). Unfortunately for them, if my uncle does not find the topic of conversation interesting, and by interesting that means it must pass an IQ test at well over 160, then he says, "Wark." That's his word, "Wark." It means, I am bored with you, please go away. These poor symphony-goers were getting earfuls of Warks, which I'm sure was very perplexing to them, given that they are used to having their bottoms kissed. But, the best part was at the dinner. You can picture it, a formal dinner, immaculate place settings, tuxedo's, beautiful expensive dresses and my uncle in a bollo tie and dirty, old shirt. Well, upon completing his meal, my uncle paid the highest possible honor to the chefs. He picked up his plate and proceeded to lick the remaining juices off of it. Yes, lick the plate. I LOVE IT! "Oh, darling, that man is licking the plate, please do something!" "Pardon me sir, but you are licking the plate!" "Wark, slurp....." Well, as you can see below, his Grand Nephew is following in his footsteps.

Grunge style

Lost item department wide email:
If you have lost or misplaced your Silver Stylus Pen for cell phone use, please see the front desk. Thank you and have a great day!

Reply:

Thank Goodness!

I lost my style awhile back and have not been able to find it!

At first I was at Catholic School and my style was light blue shirt with navy blue pants. Then I went to public high school and that style did not work, so my friend loaned me his style, of rolled up parachute pants and wavy hair. After many years of that style, people began to stare at me so I picked up a new style of jeans, an unbuttoned flannel over an undershirt and a Philadelphia Eagles baseball cap. When Pearl Jam lost their popularity my style was outdated and since then I have been without. I am very happy that you have finally found my style, but I am not sure that my eyes will match with silver. You wouldn't happen to have a green style would you? And what is this about a pen, I ordered some pens awhile back, did they come in?

The Meaning of Night

I guess since I read so many books I should post a little about the ones I really enjoyed. I just finished The Meaning of Night by Micheal Cox. It's a great book, but it is thick and starts very slow, I had to fight through the first 250 pages. However, it was worth the fight. Although every main character does at least one thing so horrific that I would never want to associate with any of them, I found myself engrossed in the story and rooting for a cold blooded killer. In this Victorian England world love is eternal, revenge is essential and death is the meaning of night. I recommend giving it a try.

Georgie Porgie Puddin' 'n Pie

Georgie porgie puddin' and pie.
Kissed the girls and made them cry.
When the boys came out to play.
Georgie porgie ran away.

I heard this more than I care to recount growing up and even up to this day. So, I decided I would find out where the heck it came from.

Turns out that the infamous Georgie Porgie was actually George Villiers, the 1st Duke of Buckingham from 1592 to 1598. Apparently His Lordship, Duke Villiers, was of questionable moral character and had made himself a great deal of enemies among married men in his vicinity. The Duke, however, was a very good friend of King James the First, who protected him from any vengeance. Apparently, George was the kings favorite, with the king calling him his, "Sweet Child and Wife." Weird!

Duke George made a few mistakes in his life and had to be bailed out by King Charles I.

He was also blamed for the disastrous failure (Feb.–Mar., 1625) of an English expedition, under Graf von Mansfeld, to recover the Palatinate for Frederick, the Winter King, Buckingham failed to supply it adequately. By this time Charles had become king, and Buckingham was more powerful than ever, a fact that enraged Parliament. After the embarrassing failure (Oct., 1625) of an expedition against Cádiz, Buckingham was impeached (1626), and Charles dissolved Parliament to prevent his trial. The following year Buckingham led an expedition (another disaster) to relieve the Huguenots of La Rochelle, and Parliament delivered another remonstrance against him. The duke was at Portsmouth preparing yet another expedition for La Rochelle when he was killed by John Felton, a disgruntled naval officer. The romantic aspects of the duke's career figure largely in Alexander Dumas's historical novel, The Three Musketeers. ~ The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia

Anyway, knowing the history makes me like the rhyme even less.

Waisted time........

Dear George Corrected

My life as Dear George may be short lived as I have been corrected by "Anonymous." This is, I believe the proper response to 'what's up?'.

Actually, in the oneness of all things, there is no "my life" or "your life". There is only "all this stuff" tangled and stuck together like a gummy-worm smush-in. So an appropriate answer to "what's up?" might be something like "this n' that". ~ Anonymous


At first I did not buy the logic that Anonymous used to come to "this and that," but as I thought about it more closely I realized that he or she is correct. Think about what kind of things in peoples lives would qualify as the "what's up" thing that is happening to a person at any give time. i. e. the thing that the individual believes is the most important thing in their life at that time. There is a very finite list of topics.



"What's up?"

~ I'm getting married

"What's up?"

~ I hate my job

"What's up?"

~ I have the gout



You see my point, there is only a finite number of things that are big enough to qualify as the 'one thing' that a person would talk about as being 'the thing' that is up in their life at any particular time. Given that you will most likely tell the same stories as other people over the course of your life and it is only the fact that you happen to be in a different phase that determines the story you tell. It is reasonable to say, as Anonymous does, that we are all in this stuff tangled like gummy worms, but some of us are in the red gummy worm, others of us are in the green gummy worm and still others of us are in the blue gummy worm. Hence, the response of 'this and that,' which could cover any topic in the finite list of topics that qualify as your 'What's Up,' is, I believe, perfect.

Thank you Anonymous.

Dear Anonymous,
Was this blog much too Emo?

Can you read me

I disvocerd a rellay naet tirck. It tnurs out taht wehn you raed words yuor mnid fucoses on the frist and lsat ltteres and olny jsut scnas the ones in the mddile, but deosn't care aobut the order of the ltteers. Hnece, you can undrertsand what I am syaing eevn tohuguh tehse words raelly dno't mkae any sence.

She who must be obeyed

I have a few regular commentors to my blog. One such person has tagged himself or herself the Uxorious One. The Uxorious One has been very positive and even defended me against my nihilist critic. The following comments were posted on July 1st, the "Challenge" blog.

Nihilist: "The response to the commentors critique is more obtuse than crazy. It would certainly make more sense if the quote was presented "a posteriori" to the image. One may object that reversing cause and effect is automatically crazy, but this must be qualified with the intention of blogger. Nothing is crazy if it is designed to be crazy."

"What is seemingly appropriate for this blog and visually verifiable is that anyone leaving their house wearing those shorts is indeed "CRAZY". Also, anytime someone uses the word "obtuse", they are generally being obtuse." ~ Uxorious One

Given that I have at least one friend out in cyberspace, I figured that I should at least know what the heck Uxorious means! So I looked it up;

Uxorious: Excessively fond of ones wife.


I began thinking, who could the Uxorious One be? Is he (I assume) someone I know. I certainly don't know anyone who is excessively fond of their wife, so I scrapped that idea. Then I thought, "you know, I would defend myself by commenting on my own blog, could it be me?" Excessively fond of my wife, no, it's not me........

Honey, wait, honey, I was kidding, you know I'm trying to be funny, it's for the blog.



Excuse me a second.



Honey, come on, you know I love you..... But that couch is so uncomfortable.



But, Yes dear.



Sorry, I have to go.

Squirrels

Growing up in Albuquerque I did not see too many squirrels, it is a different story in Texas. They are everywhere. You hardly go a day without seeing one, often as road kill, but usually running around. If they live in a park that is frequented by people they are usually tame and come up to beg for food. Otherwise they are skittish and usually stay out of your way. However, little known to most people, squirrels are vicious creatures that will do anything to obtain and store their source of food. Woe to those who get in their way!

The first time I crossed a squirrel was when I was hunting for quail in New Mexico. It was giant, long toothed gray squirrel commonly found in the NM mountain forests. I unknowingly invaded it's territory and it attacked. As I was walking under a large evergreen, it dropped an acorn on my head. Actually, dropped is not a strong enough word. It launched a handheld acorn grenade at my head causing severe injury. Fortunately, I had my 12 gauge and was able to defend myself. After successfully defeating the squirrel I limped back to the camp site and cooked it over an open flame to assure that it would not come back as one of the undead vampsquirrels.

Squirrels can take on many different forms, they can even look human. We had an ice squirrel named Tao in our office:

Squirrels spend the warm months collecting and storing nuts and other assorted food stuff to have a supply of food for winter. If you have ever had them sneak into your attic you would see the vast quantities of stuff that they collect. An ice squirrel is a person who gathers and stores ice. No one knows why ice squirrels engage in this strange behavior, but they have been known to have large collections of freezers in order to store their bounty. If you have ever worked with an ice squirrel you would notice that it is difficult to find ice in the community ice bin. Tao is an ice squirrel; if you pay careful attention you can see her loading cups full of ice from the staff kitchen and carting them to her office. Given the vast quantities of ice that she collects on a daily basis it is a mystery as to what happens to the ice once it reaches her office. Some people say that Tao cannot drink liquids, hence she chews on ice for her supply of water. Others say that she has a series of freezers stored in the ceiling. The truth may never be known.

Fortunately for all of us, there are heroes in this world that protect us from these creatures. One such hero is Remy, the Squirrel Slayer. I would personally like to thank Remy and all the other brave knights without whom the world would be a very different place.

Wrangler

Neal beal and horse named Fly wrangled a longhorn and made it cry.

Independence day and a psychedelic video

Just something because

A fly and a flea in a flue.
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, "Let us flee!""Let us fly!", said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

Beans, Beans the musical Fruit.
The more you eat the more you toot.
The more you toot the better you feel.
And that's what give you sex appeal.

Vent

There is no shortage of strange people in the world, I’m sure you would not have to look too far to see them in your daily life. Sometimes, the people are not really strange, but they just do things that can drive you nuts. I have decided today to document some strange people and the things they do around the office.

First, the Tea Lady. She is, let us say, unique. Very short, East Indian woman who wears gigantic, HUGE, glasses and keeps her hair as close to cropped as you can, while still being able to put on brylcreem to slick it down. She is the type who you can smile at in the hall and not get a smile in return. There is one story in particular that I think sums her up. One day an officemate of mine was heating her lunch in the communal microwave. She was sitting next to the microwave and waiting for it to finish. Tea lady walked in, put some water in a cup and placed a tea bag in it. She then opened the microwave while it was still running, pulled out my officemates lunch and placed her cup in for 2 min. When her water was heated she removed her cup and just walked out. Very nice.

Next, the maintenance people and the men’s room. I don’t know for sure why, but all the maintenance people for the building in which I work use the men’s room on my floor. It’s quite annoying; the stalls are always full of maintenance men taking dumps. Not normal dumps, mind you. These are the dumps of; I got a little drunk last night, FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS!!! Makes for a very unpleasant peeing experience. Very nice.

Finally, the coffee guy. I recently gave up one of the loves of my life, Diet Coke. I took up coffee instead. Actually, I have begun to enjoy my morning cup and because of my new habit, I have been going into the office kitchen to get a cup in the morning. There is this guy. I have no idea who he is. He definitely does not work in the department, but he is in our kitchen every morning. He brings with him a giant coffee thermos, the type you see at meetings to fill multiple cups. He takes the part of the coffee maker that you place the paper filters in, sets it on top of his thermos, puts coffee grinds in and proceeds to fill his entire thermos with coffee. It takes him about ½ an hour (I think he must put about three paper filters in because it the water drains in slowly. Hence, when I go to make a pot of coffee I have to wait on this man with his thermos. I believe that there will be future blogs about how I subtly convince coffee guy to move to a different kitchen. MUHAHAHAHAHAA.

Challenge

A few days ago I wrote a post about the things that come to my mind when I heard quote, "I got my friend’s breast milk on my shirt."

I received the following comment from Anonymous:

This post was fairly crazy but not as crazy as it could have been. What detracted from further craziness was, ironically, the quote under disection. Anybody can take an unusual quote and fancy-pants around with a lot of crazy scenario construction. Try doing that with a quote like "would you like fries with that?" and then we'll really separate the lunatics from the clowns.

Thus, having been given this valid Critique, I decided I best comment about what comes to my mind when I hear, "would you like some fries with that?"

Enough said.

Friends and Neighbors

You've heard of the things that go bump in the night, demons, werewolves, vampires? Yes, all very scary. But take a look at this collection of creatures living within just a few feet of you all the time! I stuck some sticky traps at two small holes in my garage door and here is what I collected over 6 months. How thick are the walls on your house? Wait a second, these things are probably already inside.

Time to rise and shine for the United Fruit Line

My Dad used to yell this at me in the morning to wake me up. I HATED it! Now, I have started doing it to my son. It's involuntary, I just say it and don't realize I've said it until it's too late. Hmmm, I don't think I'm going to try to stop, someone else needs to suffer like I did. MUHAHAHHAHAAA.

Anyway, I got to thinking, where the heck did that come from, "time to rise and shine for the United Fruit Line?" So, I looked it up, turns out there is a historical society that keeps the history of the United Fruit Company http://www.unitedfruit.org/index.htm. The United Fruit Company was born on March 30th 1899 with the merger of the Boston Fruit Company and a banana fruit grower in Costa Rica. When they first began operation they supplied 75% of the bananas to the U.S. They created Miss Chiquita Banana in 1944 as a post war marketing campaign and they changed the company name to Chiquita Brands International in 1989.

OH MY GOSH, the history of this company is ridiculously interesting, I wish I could write about all of it, but I'm sure no one would read it. I had no idea that the U.S. invaded South America, Honduras and Cuba multiple times in the late 1800s and early 1900s and that there was a "banana war" between the European Union and the U.S. between 1993 and 2001! I thought I had a good education!

Still, I could not find the exact origin of the saying "time to rise and shine for the United Fruit Line." I'm totally guessing, but I bet it has to do with people on the rail distribution lines in the U.S. I will investigate further and one day, when you least expect it, I will have the answer! I know, I know, you are super anxious.

Here is some Chiquita Bananna for you (Thanks CBro): http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4922661044281754625&q=Chiquita+Banana&ei=4ANlSLnZA4Hk4AKh-bDFAg&hl=en

Mother's Milk

Today I have decided to dissect a quote I heard yesterday.

"I got my friend’s breast milk on my shirt."

Quick, what is the image that just popped into your head? That image alone was worth reading the post today, huh???

Here are some of the things I thought of:

Two cows in a cartoon waiting for a bus and one of them spontaneously lactates on the other.
A group of women in the office "Working Moms" room.

and best of all.

A warehouse full of lactating women pumping milk for sale to the general public. (Probably shouldn't post this, now someone is going to steal my idea and get rich).

Stinky, P.U!

Apparently, one of my latent super powers is being Super Stinky.

"I once heard of a SUPER STINKY POWER that lies within. They say it can hypnotize (or make one pass out). . . ." ~Anonymous

This comment was posted yesterday by someone that may actually know my secret identity! I have always wondered why people say P.U. when I go by and then I began to wonder why do we say P.U. at all????


Well, it turns out that the Latin word for stink is "puteo" and that in English there are a number of words that signal disgust, or discomfort, like "phew" and "pew." So it looks like "PU!!" came from emphatically saying "pew."

Not that you wanted to know, but now you do.

So, I was thinking, I have a rapper name, but I probably need a super hero name. Something with crazy and stinky.

Daffy Puteo! How's that sound?

Super Hero

I heard a great quote this weekend that I wanted to share with everyone.

"Otto, get your rectum off of my leg."

Also, I got a great comment on the Tornado post yesterday:

"This blog does not appear to be a tornado of craziness. Rather, it takes craziness and makes it very safe for us, which is nice. Then again, a tornado can stack two dimes. So perhaps we are so far deluded and we have not yet experienced the flurry." ~Anonymous

I had not realized this until Anonymous pointed it out , but I am a super hero. The world is blind to the craziness around them and if the veil was lifted from the eyes of the general public most would not be able to survive the shock. However, I am able to take the craziness and reveal it in a way that allows people to internalize it and actually laugh at it, rather than spontaneously combust. I mean, I knew I was special, but WOW a hero! I need a costume and I think it will have to have a cape.

Anonymous, you are very deluded and the craziness around you could still overwhelm you, but do not worry, I take my job very seriously and I assure you that I will not let that happen.

I wonder what other super powers lie latent within me that I have yet to discover!?

Storm Chasers

If your blog is named One Crazy Thing a Day and you see a tornado heading toward you what should you do? Chase it, of course! Fortunately, my wife is as adventurous as I and she was able to snap some pretty nice pics of the funnel cloud. Although we are not too smart, we are lucky. The thing went directly over our house, but by the time it got there it had broken up so all we got was a lot of wind. Here are Denise's of pictures of the tornado and some pics of me being blown away.

Chamillionaire

I figured that since I had Chamillionaire listed on my profile as one of my favorite music groups it would be a good idea to listen to some of their songs. Easy enough, just YouTube it. In case you are like me and they are one of your favorite groups that you have never actually listened to here you go http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKnJg1PlIEI. Go ahead, click on the link, expand your mind.


Looks to me like the only thing I am missing is the Cadillac and then people would mistake me for Hakeem (he's the guy driving)! I guess I need some lyrics too.

First the rules of rap:

1. The person rapping is a bad ass. In this case the rapper is me so, no problem, I am a bad ass.

2. Denigrate women. No problem, women are good for .

3. Street Cred. I have plenty of street cred. One night when I was drunk I told my friends that I beat up 20 guys at the same time. Another night, when I was drunk, I cleaned an entire bathroom of regurgitated alcohol with only a knife and a spoon. All of this was nearly 20 years ago and I'm not sure it's true, but who's going to argue with a bad ass?

4. Sagging pants. Ok, I just can't, really, I can't.



So, here we go. Hard core rap!


I'm a rootin tootin bad boy



suckin on my sucker



I'll give you a kiss lady



all you have to do is pucker.



You look gosh darn pretty in



your pin strip suit.



Come watch movies at my place,



it'll be a hoot.





By the way, my rapper name, Hot Diggity.

The most random thing I could think of

I decided that today I should post the most random thing I could think of. Hence, I started thinking of random things. I thought of the magnetic field of the earth reversing and then I realized that my uncle had told me of that possibility as a kid and I must have been reminded by my friend telling me that space ships can be shielded from cosmic rays using a magnetic field. Not random. Next I was wondering why Monopoly has such strange game tokens. I mean a thimble and a hat?! But the thought process that brought me to these game pieces was seeing a story about some Bear Stearns financial managers getting busted by the FBI and the fact that my son, Neal, taps his head every time he sees a hat. Again, not random. However, it is an interesting question; I mean where did these tokens come from? So, I looked it up. The going theory is that the tokens were designs stolen from Cracker Jack toys and that they are representations of both wealth and poverty. There is a Car for wealth, a thimble for poverty and so on. Apparently, tokens have been added and subtracted over the years. I bet an original, mint condition, Monopoly lamp token would be worth a lot of money. Anyone have one for me? Maybe I'll start collecting these things..... I digress; I am supposed to be writing about random things. You know, as I sit here typing this I am beginning to realize that trying to thing about the most random thing I can and writing about it is pretty darn random. In fact, I think that the most random thing I am going to be able to think of today is coming up with the idea to write about the most random thing I could think of. Actually, that's kind of lame. Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow.

Taking quotes out of context

The press takes quotes out of context all the time. They do it to make someone look evil, or silly, or stupid. I find that if you take quotes out of context they can be rather funny. I have a big list of out of context quotes from people around the office. Here are a few.

“I’m not an outlier”

“Civil engineers are neither”

“Shower doesn't work for me”

“I want to go back to the way of programming where I am unbound”

Smoky Brown

One of my little cousins got into his hometown newspaper today holding a cock roach. I am a big fan of roaches. They are a good source of protein for many cool animals, like lizards and birds. Also, since there are no dragons or ogres left they are one of the few things left that a man can slay and look like a hero to his beautiful maiden. I have done some research with the Texas Smoky Browns that got me in a little trouble at work. See emails below.

To the department:


It was brought to my attention on last Friday afternoon that the break room on the research/South side of the building was left extremely messy after lunch (coffee grounds all over floor, etc). If you spill something please clean it up.
Let's all help each other out and take ownership to these common areas and ensure they are kept clean daily.
Thank you!

From Me:

Dear Office Manager,
I am attempting to do a very valuable scientific experiment that requires the collection of hundreds of roaches. In particular I am collecting the Smokybrown Cockroach (Periplaneta fuliginosa). I am attempting to prove that digesting the Smokybrown will cure many diseases of the foot. The Smokybrown loves coffee grounds hence I will be spilling coffee grounds all over the research kitchen floor. Since I am using the research kitchen for research (as the title implies I should), please refrain from encouraging people to clean up my mess.
Thank you for contributing to this valuable research!

911

I have had to call 911 three times in the last 4 or 5 months. That is not a good sign, but fortunately none of the calls were for me or my family. The first time a drunk driver rear ended someone at a stop sign, pulled around them and drove his car into a ditch, smashing it against a pole causing it to catch fire. The second time three women, YES WOMEN, where in a car and one of them in the front turned around and started punching the crap out of the woman in the back seat. Finally, today, a guy was making a left turn and he was going too fast, jumped on the median, broke his axle and smashed the side of the car. Air bags deployed and he banged his head against the driver side window, he was bleeding pretty bad. When I talked to him he was out of it, not sure if it was from his head bump or from the beer bottles in the passenger seat. This was at 7:45 in the morning! I'm hoping not to have to dial 911 again for a LONG time.

Cloverfield, well, sort of.

Star Spangled Pup

Otto, the dog, loves to sing. Here are a couple of videos of this perfect pitch puppy.

Fun with Accessibility Options

Sorry for the late post. I have not tried this yet, but it looks like it could be loads of fun. There is a whole slew of potential pranks in the accessibility options for Windows XP and even more with Windows Vista. To find these options you go to the control panel, in XP they are called "Accessibility Options" and in Vista they are under the "Ease of Access Center." I see a bunch of nifty pranks here, but one particularly interesting one is the "Filter Keys" option. The options are a little different in XP and Vista, but you can set the computer to ignore repeated key strokes for a certain period of time. To find these you go to the "Keyboard" tab in XP and the "Make the Keyboard Easier to Use" in Vista. If you set it so that it will take 2 seconds between repeated key strokes you will cause a TON of headaches. I set at 2 seconds to test it when I started typing this post. You can't hit multiple spaces, can't hit the backspace key multiple times and even when you type words like "accessibility," it freezes on the second 'c.' HA! Love it......

Exception Log

Got an email at work today. The office has an exception log for clocking in and out. If you forget to use the time clock you have to fill out the exception log. Someone stole it today and we got an email asking for its return. Here is the email and my response.


Department,
Currently the exception log has been missing from the break room the entire day. If you have removed the exception log, please return the log to its rightful place. Please do not remove and leave the exception log to await your supervisor's signature as there are other employees that need to document their exceptions.

Thank you


I have created an entry on the exception log stating that the exception log must stay in the kitchen with the exception that George can take it wherever he likes. Since I am exceptional, I believe that I should probably get other exceptions. For instance, all employees must dress professionally with an exception for George who can wear pajamas. Or, employees must show up to work during scheduled hours, with the exception of George who can show up whenever he pleases. Don't you think that is a good idea?

Motivating Co Workers To Bring Canned Food

As is common among many workplaces, there is an annual canned food drive. My office is big enough that we split into teams and compete for who can bring in the most cans. I was in charge of one of the teams and needed a motivational tool. So, I offered my face, well a pie in my face. The winner brought in over 150 cans. Here's a video of my pie in the face day. Note: whipped cream is very greasy, GROSS!

Computer Pranks

There are a ton of pranks you can play on your officemates just by messing with your computer. I'm just going to post one of them now because I don't want to give all my best ones away. This one is especially good if people are able to log out of their desktop because you don't need to be logged in to do it.

Adjust the monitor contrast to 0% and the brightness to 100%. It makes the screen go blank! Impossible to figure out what happens. You'll have a real laugh when your co worker is crawling around on the floor trying to figure out what the heck is wrong. MUHAHAHAHAHAAH!

Unofficial Disiplinary Pop Up Messages

At work we have access to a utility that allows you to send a pop up message to anyone on the network. However, no one knows about it. This can make for some good fun because as people are working an official looking message can just mysteriously pop up on their screen telling them that they have been breaking office protocol.
Here are some examples:
"Your recent internet activity has been flagged. Due to excessive and innapropriate web browsing you are scheduled to be disciplined. An email will follow with details and your disciplinary appointment."
"You have been reported to be in dress code violation. We ask that you use Personal Time Off and go home to change into more appropriate work attire."

Responding to Office Wide Email

Everyone gets office wide email, you know the stuff I'm talking about, announcements, events ect. Normally, you just delete them. But, If you are bored, you may as well respond to them. Here is an email that was sent out yesterday and my response.

Office email for lost and found:
The Minutes/Notes to the Psychosocial Council Meeting dated 06/05/08 and 05/15/08 were left in the Ladies Restroom. If belonging to you, please retrieve from front desk. Thank you. Have a great day and enjoy your evening!
Thanks,

My Response:
I have been receiving Psychosocial Counseling because I have a hard time remembering to use the Men's instead of the Lady's room. Obviously, my counseling is a failure, so I will have to search out a new therapist. However, I would like to get my notes back so that I can use them in my malpractice lawsuit.
Thank you.