Greetings from 30k feet
Well, 30,000 give or take a few. I got my seat switched to an exit row – joy!

I like flying commercial on a day like this, you get a nice view of the clouds. Sometimes you’ll pass a little wisp of a cloud and be like “hey, all your buddies are about 27,000 feet below you, what are you doing up here??”

TN has some really tall clouds right now. If I thought about it, I could remember names… but I’m typing with my thumbs, that takes what little brainpower I have.

Hope this picture turns out…

Exit rows rock – you get more leg room, the seat in front of you can’t recline, there’s no armrest by the window (so you get more room), and you can rest easy knowing you won’t be stuck by a kid or a huge person.

That’s all for now.

In ATL now…

What the heck, one more picture – coming into Ft Myers

It’s all very confusing. Yes, I know, none of this will be interesting. But the three of you that read this don’t come here for humor, literary masterpieces, or entertainment… I gotta give ya something.

Dremel rotary tool has to be in the top 25 inventions of all time. You can do just about anything with them. I’ve used mine to install a camera in my helmet, cut a notch out of a door, sand stuff, cut stuff, grind stuff, drill stuff. Love it.

So anyway, I bought this Dremel Router Table thing. It seemed like a great idea. Well the thing has some serious design flaws. First of all the arm that hold the tool isn’t as sturdy as it probably should be. Second, all the sawdust from the piece you’re working on fall right down into the tool. I don’t think it’d be that hard to have the router bit have a flat disc at the bottom that would help cover the gap. I burnt up 2 Dremels trying to use this stupid thing. Hate it. Don’t buy it.

Dremel gives you a 5 year warranty, but I had no receipt for it (was a gift about 4 years ago) But I decided to send it to them anyway. I sent a little note expressing my extreme dissatisfaction, explaining the flaws I saw in the stupid router table, and telling them what I’d do to fix it (I always have people who know nothing about my job telling me how to do my job, I thought I’d try it once.) It was delivered to their service center Monday morning. Wednesday when I got home from work, there was a brand new one sitting on my front porch. Rock.

Oh, in case you’re wondering about the second one I destroyed – I had bought that one after the first one bit the dust. I just returned it to the store a day later.

In other news… I have a new phone. Well, it’s the same phone, but hopefully this one actually works better.

I’ve gotten 2 phone calls at work today.  These people are really annoying, they start with “Good afternoon” or “Happy Tuesday” or “How are you today?” … no one starts a conversation like that here!  So the first guy is so-and-so from something-or-other imaging.  He says “I understand you’re the person in charge of your printers and fax machines there?”  I really don’t have time to listen to another toner salesman, so I say “We don’t have any printers or fax machines here” … I thought about telling him the truth – that about 10 minutes before he called I had spent $2,000 on toner, but that would just encourage him to call back later.  After a nice pause he says “Uh, ok thank you goodbye”

That worked well.  In fact, it worked so well I decided to try it on the second telemarketer I heard from today:
“Hi, good afternoon.  I understand you’re the decision maker for your company when it comes to telecommunications?”
“We don’t have telephones here”

I had a dream this morning. It was more of a vision, actually. Or a ‘waking dream’ – but I think they call those hallucinations, and that sounds creepy. Anyway, there was this moron in a van on her cell phone. I saw myself slam into the back of her van, snatch the cell phone out of her bloody hands, and stab her in the eye (repeatedly) with the antenna.
I don’t suffer from road rage – I enjoy ever minute of it. I think Tony Stewart and I would get along pretty well.

Greatest. Alarm clock. Ever.

99 Red Ballons
99 Problems
99 Bottles of Beer
99 Dead Baboons
99 Ways to Die
99 Luftballons
99 Miles from L.A.

… what’s it all mean?!?

Woke up Saturday morning, left the house about 7am heading east. Originally, I planned on going to Deal’s Gap, then I changed my mind and decided on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Somewhere east of Charleston, I changed my mind again and ended up at New River Gorge. Beautiful area.

Couple of pictures (I know, they suck, I took it with my camera phone, get over it)
Bridge at the ‘bottom’ of the gorge

Uhh… a butterfly. 😀 There were tons of them around.

Somewhere on 41 – a state park. I wrote down the name and forgot it. Nice view though.

“The Bridge” – not that impressed. I’d probably jump it though.

Somewhere on 16 – Gauley Bridge? Maybe? I dunno.

Same place, other direction.

Should have taken a real camera, oh well. Pictures don’t really do it justice anyway. So 16 hours and 630 miles later, I was back home. Tired. Slept for 12 hours, then made 4 nice jumps on Sunday. Good times. Did a 7-8 mile cross-country, ate a snickers and drank a gatorade under canopy. Good times (see ya up there next time Pete)

Erk is still trying to get me to hit the nylon crack. My dad always told me to ‘Just Say No’

Ok, it’s been 2 weeks and I don’t think the John Mayer CD has left the player in my car. Well, except to be switched with the other one. It’s a drug… c’mon, do some with me. And just when I thought I had worn these two out – oh yes, he has a live album. I heard “Covered in Rain” and that pretty much sold me on it. It’s only $12, and it’s two CDs! All my friends are doing it (ok, so like none of them are. I’ve only managed to hook one person so far… I’m dealing and dipping into my own stash) I’m ashamed to admit it, but the Counting Crows CD I bought at the same time has yet to make a full play around here.
Now I’m looking for tickets – he’s on tour, and will be around here at the end of July. Help me, please.

There’s a theme running through my life right now. No, actually is has nothing to do with music. Ever have one of those times? Numerous, completely separate events all move along the same path. I know, I’m being vague. Let’s say you go to the store and buy a dozen eggs, then get home and find you only got 11. The next day your comb is missing a tooth. Then you go to Burger King and only get 57 fries in your large order. Ya start to wonder if the Universe is trying to tell you something. So it’s like that, except with more impact than a missing fry. I know, missing fries can be devastating – but this is more ‘big picture’

Bad news is on the horizon. If any one of the four of you that actually read this are the praying type, please do some of that.

I probably should get some sleep – that’s going to be difficult though with everything on my mind, the storms outside, and the entire pot of coffee I just drank.

Have I mentioned how much having a wireless keyboard and mouse kicks ass? Good stuff. Allows me to surf and ramble incoherently in total comfort. It also rocks that I can park my car in the garage now, with my bike. It does not rock that I have to pay the rent by myself though. Ok, I’ll stop with the stream-blogging. I can at least blame the coffee tonight…

I’m good, thanks. Weather sucks though.

I actually bought some CDs the other day – first time in forever. Now I seriously can’t get this song out of my head: John Mayer – “Come Back to Bed”. It’s so bad, I actually brought the CD into work and it’s playing on my computer here. I wish I had some type of talent to sing or play guitar or something. “Come Back to Bed” is on his latest CD Heavier Things I picked that up as well as his earlier CD Room for Square I’ve never been a huge fan or anything. I liked the I heard on the radio, just not enough to go buy a CD or listen to more/other stuff. Then I saw him on CMT’s Crossroads and was impressed with what I heard.

I picked up Counting Crows Films About Ghosts too. Partly because I wanted it, partly because I got free shipping for buying another. It’s nice because there’s some previously unreleased stuff on there, as well as a ton of other good songs. And it’s not a “Greatest Hits” at all, it’s subtitled “The best of” which is pretty accurate. Their best stuff didn’t necessarily make the radio. It won’t replace my copies of August and Everything After (which I’ve bought twice – I hardly buy CDs, to buy the same one twice means I really like it. I think I’ve done that maybe 2 or 3 times in my life) or This Desert Life any time soon, but I don’t regret buying it. I hate buying a CD because there’s a good song or two from the person, then you find out the rest of the CD sucks. That’s where MP3s come in handy. If half the CD is ok, I’m happy. I’m thrilled when I find one that is just completely good. That’s rare. The ones I can think of that I can put the CD in, listen start to finish and be happy: August and Everything After, This Desert Life, American Standard, Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy, Sixteen Stone, Flood… there’s probably one or two more, but that’s off the top of my head.

Ok, that’s enough for today – go buy stuff if you want.

“Sometimes the world seems like a big hole. You spend all your life shouting down it and all you hear are echos of some idiot yelling nonsense down a hole” – A.D.

I liked that… wanted to share.