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20100308 2102

.  This morning, I awoke in a pain-filled haze to an odd dripping noise. The pain stemmed from my recent ankle surgery, along with my apparent ability to kick myself directly in said ankle whilst sleeping. The dripping noise, as it was discovered, was from the toilet tank trying to refill itself. It wouldn’t normally have trouble, but the water was shut off, as Cat kindly informed me. Apparently someone managed to break a water meter somewhere on our block. My response was to pull the pillow back over my head and ignore everything, hoping that (just this once) the world could just sort everything out by itself. This didn’t happen, of course, and I was forced to get up for an appointment I had with my orthopedic surgeon.

.  The lack of running water precluded coffee being made, and if I ever discover who was responsible, I’ll beat them incessantly; with a cactus, if possible. Things were pretty grim; “grouchy” doesn’t really convey the way I am in the morning before coffee, nicotine, and (post-surgery) vicodin. To use the colloquial biblical analogy, Cat must have the patience of Job.  It’s either that or she’s still searching for a place to hide my body; I guess we’ll see in the next few weeks.

. A quick stop by a local Starbucks remedied what was most wrong with the world; by some twist of fate my mumbled order resulted in the acquisition of a drink with six shots of espresso in it. Six shots. Six. Shots. This level of caffeine is enough to make any day instantly amazing. Obviously, this is what happened, because it was now inevitable.

. Doctor Smith examined my ankle and showed me the pictures taken during the surgery. (If I can remember where I put the copies, I’ll get the pictures scanned and uploaded.) There’s a spot about the size of a dime where the cartilage was dead and meandering about loosely. He removed those pieces and drilled into the bones of my ankle in an effort to get it to re-grow new cartilage. If (when) this doesn’t work, I’ll have to have cartilage and bone dowels harvested from my knee and implanted. That seems a little grim, because of the potential to screw up my perfectly fine knee. Also, I already can’t put weight on my ankle for eight weeks; I don’t really want to consider the recovery time for a more major surgery.

. The rest of the day was spent playing Diablo 2 at an impromptu LAN party in my living room. It’s hard to convey the amount of nostalgia felt for these older games. It almost makes me miss college. Of course, when we played Diablo in high-school and college, it wasn’t usually with Dora the Explorer for background noise. (Lucas had his daughter with him) Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun.

. After the laptops and midgets were packed up and gone, Cat and I also watched “Gonzo: The Life and Works of Hunter S. Thompson”, which was wonderful. HST has always been one of my favorite authors, for (I guess) the usual reasons kids in college fall in love with his writing. Netflix has it via instant queue, so you should go watch it. Go, right now.. I’ll wait here. Anyway, I’ve added all his books to my wishlist, in case anyone needs gift ideas or something.

out.

20100307 0104

.  So when I rebuilt my wordpress installation a few days ago, I had to reinstall Twitter Tools, the Twitter plug-in I use here. For some reason, it decided that every tweet I’ve sent since December 2008 is “new” and threw them all into a digest post. I’m leaving this, as it means I can purge the ridiculous one-line posts from the last couple years.

.  Here’s every non-reply tweet that I’ve sent since December 2008:

• “Well, it sounds like her.. But then it really could be any chick with an asymetrical haircut and a decent voice” – Cat #
• Merry Christmas! #
• Cat points out that I actually work tomorrow. I meant that I’m off at six and don’t work Sunday. #
• “I really enjoy flinging the cow, even if I do suck at it” – Cat #
• “I’m too pretty to die; leave me alone!” – some guy #
• UT3 is different then I remember, but in a lot of good ways. #
• That’s getting old. Stupid xbox. #
• Newest tip from Kyle about chicks: Watching a guy play Prince of Persia gets them really wet. Apparently. #
• So “Frost / Nixon” was way more interesting than I thought it was going to be. #
• Just spent three and a half hours replacing the bike’s electrical harness. She lives! Mwaha. Ha. #
• So it won’t hit for another twenty minutes or so for most of you following me; Happy New Year! #
• The bike’s all the way back together and purring beautifully. :] #
• Just saw a guy in a Prius delivering newspapers. #
• So.. Shredded a tire on an on-ramp. Then broke a socket taking a bolt off. Only one I have with me that size. #
• And, the socket adapter for my breaker bar just twisted off, at like 30lbs. Ridiculous. Now I have to wait for Sears to open. #
• How my day was. audi pics #
• Nope. #
• Just saw my name on the gains roster for Cali. Report date of 10 July. #
• Winds up to 65. Just got missed by a trashcan doing atleast 40. I was at a stop sign. #
• Watching my soldiers fail a PT test on purpose. Sometimes I hate my job. #
• Okay. #
• Really, snow? #
• Discovered bad stick of ram.. Only cost me 5 hours troubleshooting lockups last week in a different box. #
• And.. lost wan0 interface? Why does a card die only when I need it? #
• And then the entire motherboard goes. W..T..F.. Not having a good day, here. #
• Got the Mishief box set yesterday. Watching the new Joyride DVD #
• Just saw the only other nogaro s4 in this part of Maryland #
• Playing golf for the first time after 24-hour staff duty. #
• Just passed a ferrari 360 modena on the interstate. #
• Also, twitter is taking forever to update from sms lately.. Atleast from t-mobile. #
• Wtf. I just managed to pour half a mug of coffee on my xbox whilst changing discs. Seriously? #
• It’s really nice out; kinda wish my bike wasn’t dead. #
• Maybe a bit later (not at home) #
• I really hope whoever’s behind the SciFi channel’s new name gets fired. It’s offensive to more than just Polish people, in principle atleast #
• Just installed the Adobe Air runtime on Darwin, and testing out Tweet Deck. So far, I really like it. #
• And once again twitter updates lag via tmobile sms. Lame. #
• #nin New tracks up at http://www.ninja2009.com/ #
• Colbert is rapping. Seriously. #
• This just in: Second shooter in JFK assassination rumored to be the Man in the Yellow Hat. #colbert #
• “When life gives you lemons.. just say.. ‘Fuck the lemons,’ and bail.” #
• Hmm. It seems Dog has herded several balloons into the guest bathroom. Everytime I go in there, there’s atleast one more balloon. #
• Now have blackberry working as a tethered modem in ubuntu. Awesome. #
• Anyone watch Kings yet? #
• Robots, monkeys, and unicorns! http://tinyurl.com/cj5qea #
• Also check this out: Watchmen / Wall-E mash-up http://tinyurl.com/cs7ysq #
• RT @stevowitz: computer animated rabbit snipers in iraq. not kidding: http://tinyurl.com/cbmo89 #
• I can’t shake the feeling that I put deodorant on my left armpit twice.. neglecting the right. Does anyone else ever do this? #
• Finally getting around to editing photos. #
• Is it really neccesary for the mozilla plugins’ updates to spec at ~3Kbps? #
• Reading Augusten Burroughs always makes me really.. thirsty. #
• ‘My computer’s an idiot savant. It just hasn’t figured out a specialty yet. It usually manages to tell correct time, though.’ -@cannonsky #
• RT @trent_reznor: I’m doing Digg Dialog: http://bit.ly/XAIf #NIN #
• Re-learning the hard way about reusing shell snippets without double checking pesky rm -rf lines. ~Five hours left for data recovery. #
• Watching md5 hash compares run on 12 gigs of jpegs. #
• Watching @kevinrose interview @trent_reznor Awesome so far. #nin #
• I love Iron and Wine – Upward Over the Mountain.. but this is the fourth time it’s played this hour. #
• Car alarm at 1am. Awesome. #
• As much as she cared about sleeping yesterday, as some inverse storyline, Cat’s dragging me (sleepless) to PA for relative-induced torture. #
• KoRn / Coldplay mashup. http://bit.ly/oaI5 #
• Still experiencing massive slow-downs after godaddy migrated my hosted domains to a different server; ridiculous. Recommend hosting, anyone? #
• RT @jephjacques: so if Navy SEALS are fighting pirates now, does that mean they are the new ninjas? #
• Shiny dev g1! Of course, forgot to dump my contacts to my sim card first. Oops. #
• It could be a little warmer still. #
• Still can’t sleep for some reason. #
• Check this out: http://short.to/544h #
• The most recent Family Guy episode is in the runnings for best show ever. Or at least my personal favorites. #
• Typical conversation for Cat and I: http://tinyurl.com/casp5j #
• Watching a new android dev build flash to my phone. #
• It was cold yesterday.. now its 91. What? #
• Just tried Djarum Supers. Pretty smooth. #
• RT @kevinrose i’m all for renaming swine flu to ‘bacon flu’. bacon flu sounds far less scary and slightly tasty #
• Matt and Kara had their baby! Elisha Joel Arthaud 19.5 inches, 8 lbs 9 oz. #
• Words you don’t want to hear on the transportation office’s voicemail: “This is Michelle … I will be out of the office until August”. WTF. #
• Watching papagolash’s webcam interview with Reznor. Picked a good night to be in irc.nin.com #
• All packed. It’s going to be a really long night. #
• Through security in Baltimore. Took a lot less time than last time I flew out of here. #
• Just saw a guy in his late thirties with shoes that velcro closed. Really, middle-aged guy? Velcro shoes? That’s what my three y/o wears. #
• On the ground in Chicago. I have a feeling that this is the last place I’ll have 3g service for the next week or so. #
• Just boarded a slightly roomier plane for a much shorter flight.. figures. #
• Just landed in Kansas City. #
• Tooling around with Brett in KC #
• Sitting outside waiting for Brett to get his ears lowered. #
• Finally done with rehearsal stuff. #
• Hanging out and playing with the midgets. #
• Parent’s house just lost power. #
• Somehow convinced Caleb that it was bedtime. #
• Caleb, for the minute or so he was getting changed, runs through the room naked: “oops, I peed on the floor!” #
• Kids are off on their way home. #
• Heading to the airport. #
• Through security and waiting to board in Kansas City #
• On the plane for the first hop: KC to Charlotte. #
• Just landed in Charlotte #
• Just boarded the last flight of the trip. Charlotte to BWI. #
• Landed in Baltimore. I slept the entire flight, which was awesome. #
• Loaded up for the range. Kevlar: check. M16A2 (Jessica): check. LBE and tactical gear: check. Rain and 20mph winds: check. Awesome. #
• Finally home and showered; all plastic cutouts successfully killed or maimed. #
• Watching the MPs go through the barracks with drug dogs. #
• Waiting to watch Fitz’s last dyno pull before the tune’s done. #
• Lined up for the pentagon motorcycle rally. #
• In D.C. with about 70,000 bikers.. 1,000 with our group. #
• Last day working the ops floor at Detrick. #
• Edge Racing filed for chapter 11? That’s unfortunate, not to mention inconvenient.. for me, at least. #
• Ridiculous thunderstorm going on outside. Jack seems nonplussed. #
• On the way to see NIN in Pittsburgh. Also, just passed a semi with radioactive/fissionable hazmat placards. #nin #
• Trent’s done. Didn’t expect them to open. #
• Watching Jack play with and try to eat an icecube. #
• RT @J_Bravo “Woman Who Missed Air France Flight Dies In Car Crash” http://tinyurl.com/lyeq5v (via NPRnews). Grim Reaper doesn’t forget #
• Watching the movers put everything in boxes #
• The semi driver’s a pretty big NIN fan. Spent about 30 minutes talking about Trent. #
• Great day so far: Signed out at Detrick, spent a good hour on the bike. Now eating curry and watching moto gp. #
• Pennsylvania! #
• Wv nubbin #
• Ohio! #
• Just crossed into Illinois. Rain stopped finally. #
• Fuel stop in Jacksonville, Illinois #
• Hannibal, Missouri. #
• Chillicothe, MO #
• 9am. Caleb is already missing a sock. #
• Leaving Chillicothe. #
• And.. lost the car cover off the audi. That didn’t take long. #
• Sherrif’s car goes by, we’re on the side of the highway in lawn-chairs eating pie. #
• Just watched Sunshine Cleaners. On the whole, enjoyable. #
• Oklahoma! #
• Texas! #
• Stopped for the night in Amarillo, TX #
• On the road again, leaving Amarillo. #
• Entering New Mexico #
• Short stop at a Flying J off mile 333 in New Mexico. #
• RT @J_Bravo “people are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it’s easier to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs” #
• Arizona! #
• Stopped for the night in Flagstaff, AZ. It’s unseasonably cold right now. #
• Back on the road. #
• Travelled down historic route 66 for a bit, now back on I40. Stopped at a rest stop off exit 28. #
• California! #
• Made it to Paso Robles. (Finally). Road trip ends. #
• Billy Mays is dead!? #
• I go to toss Cat the car keys, she sneezes while they’re in midair, they hit her in the shoulder. Awesome. #
• Dropping Jack off to be groomed and swinging over to the new place. #
• Cat is officially better at Wii sports than I am. #
• Watching deer run around on the golf course. Jack thinks he can attack them. #
• RT @trent_reznor My thoughts on what to do if you’re a new / unknown artist in this climate: http://tinyurl.com/mf9a8y [url to Trent's link] #
• Chillin’ at the beach. #
• Watching Cat go through security at SJC. #
• 87 octane’s $3.70/gal in King City. Bah. #
• Three days later, the school I pass on the way to post still says “new student oreantition”. Yes, ‘oreantition’ #
• Braking hard on the 101, chick in the new beetle 4 cars back slid up the shoulder a little sideways. Maybe she’ll pay attention more now. #
• On my way to pick up Cat from the airport. #
• Can’t sleep at all for some reason.. and it’s just about the time when I usually have to wake up. #
• Cruising down the 5, headed for L.A. #
• Why must there be atleast two people who can’t shoot anything? And I mean 10 out of 40. Pathetic. #
• New quote from my squad leader: “SGT Arthaud! Your mother… is an antelope.” “What?” “You heard me.” #
• So this is the first time it’s rained since I’ve been in Cali. And it’s only drizzling, but still seems incredibly odd. #
• On my way to site; get to teach some new soldiers about properly maintaining the m203 and m9. #
• Walking into Target, woman with hand over her face on the phone: “They found her body? *small sobs*” #
• Bodyboarding was awesome this morning, though it was a bit choppier than we would’ve liked. #
• Attempting to watch Star Wars 1-6. #
• How about a nice game of strip global thermonuclear war? #xkcd #
• RT @4chan Verizon Wireless is filtering HTTP traffic to/from boards.4chan.org (all image boards). More at: http://status.4chan.org. Please #
• I somehow find myself wearing a tie at my own dinner table. #
• Totally spoiled. http://twitgoo.com/ftlye #

out.

20100305 2359

.  I realized that I never put up a photo of my laptop. Sorry for the quality; I snapped it really quick with my phone, and it’s a bit dark. :]

out.

20100305 1703

.  So, I just recently had surgery on my right ankle. To make a long story short, I was riding cross-country on a motorcycle in ‘08. I thought I should be the only one in my lane at the time, the driver of a car disagreed. The car won the argument, and I rolled down the interstate at about 60mph. The end result is that two years later, I’m on my couch with a wrapped up ankle, vicodin, and a month off work.

.  I was hoping that I’d be able to use all this time to get a lot of cleaning/sorting stuff done, but as it turns out, it’s more difficult to do those things when you can’t put weight on one leg. Instead, I’m stuck working on cleaning up some computer stuff. So I rebuilt my long-neglected blog and set about sorting through photos and media. If you’re reading this directly off of toasterlizard.net (and I’m assuming that you are), then you’ve obviously seen the new design.

.  I’ve been trying to work on trimming a lot of things down, both on the computer and in life in general. If you know me well, I’m sure you’re scoffing a little bit, because I’m quite a bit of a packrat. It’s a really hard habit to break. I’ve started with the blog and social sites, like myspace and facebook. MySpace was the easiest; I just deleted my account. Facebook was a little harder, since I actually use it and communicate with a few people pretty actively. But then I’d read this not too long ago, and realized that I had done a lot of the same stuff unintentionally. So, I purged my friends list, following the criteria of “would it matter to me at all if this person died?” Not too surprisingly, there were a lot of people deleted.

.  I guess I never really got around to writing about my switch to mac, which surprised and confused a lot of people. My line of thought basically goes like this: You get what you pay for. I know, I know, there are very nice high-end PCs out there. There’s nothing quite like the unibody macbook pros, though. Up until not too long ago, most of my computing hardware was trash, in the literal sense; I salvaged most of it from trashcans and dumpsters after other people had discarded it. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this, because most of what I run (linux, bsd) doesn’t need the bleeding edge of technology. Plus, a lot of the stuff that gets thrown out has been quite modern compared to what I had been running at the time. Other than discards, the last machine I actually purchased was the Athlon XP 2200-based system I pieced together when I was still in college and needed more recent hardware for a required programming class. It’s still quite functional as the media centre PC, and servers up HD video quite nicely.

.  Anyway, the mac hardware is quite elegant. Also, I’d been meaning to try out OSX for a while now. Something about a commercial OS built on a BSD base is just exciting. I can use my beloved terminal and ports as well as have the perks of the beautiful gui. I still spend a large portion of my time working from the console, whether it’s local on this machine or running stuff (via ssh) on one of the linux or bsd boxen.

.  Back to the minimalism kick, if you’re using a mac, you should definitely check out OmmWriter.  It’s actually replaced WriteRoom as my favorite distractions-free text editor. I’ve always been a fan of simple apps that pick one thing and do it extremely well, and OmmWriter is a perfect example of this.

.  I guess that’s it for now, except that Cat’s been a bit ridiculous about making sure I don’t need anything while I’m stuck here on the couch. She still refuses to admit that she’s too good for me, which is a bit endearing. No offense meant to any of you that are married, but I’ve got the best wife in the world. Fact.

.  I love you, Cat.

out.

20090701 2057

I’m in California now. It was a bit of an adventure getting out here, but we got to spend a bit of time with family about halfway through. I’m not really sure if that broke up the trip, or just made it seem a lot longer. Anyway, here are some highlights:

Out of the states we drove through (Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia again, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California), Texas and New Mexico had the best roads. And it wasn’t by some small margin, either. Some of the roads (interstates, even!) seemed to have been paved by drunken elk. I consider Oklahoma to be the worst, as our entire foray into the state was spent on toll roads, AND YOU COULDN’T TELL THEY WERE TOLL ROADS. Except for, you know, the paying of my hard-earned monies just to traverse the bumpy atrocities.

Also, there were a lot of signs warning drivers against “driving into smoke”. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t usually make a habit of seeing some black dense cloud of smoky fire and thinking “Hmm. I bet there’s something awesome in that cloud, like leprechauns tending purple unicorns and handing out Hindenburg-sized globs of rainbow cotton candy!”. Seriously. (If there /is/, someone let me know. I’ll pay the toll money and drive back, like, right now. Doubly so if the candy is on fire and crashing to earth.)

It was fun in Missouri, as I got to have the kids for a few days, to include fathers day. Caleb and Alexis are both potty-training, though Caleb’s way better at it, since he’s three. Alexis, being a year younger, tends to miss the cues a bit more often and almost-but-not-quite makes it to the potty.

Sunday morning, I was doing something on my laptop and heard some kind of commotion. Upon investigation, it was discovered that both of those two /adorable/ hobgoblins were in the bathroom, where Caleb had used the “big potty” and ‘Lexi the “little potty”. Except.. Well, Caleb had convinced ‘Lexi that she could pee standing up. I’m pretty sure that it had been explained to her that she couldn’t. But I’m equally sure that Caleb will grow up to be a state senator, governor, or some other equally devious criminal. In any case, Caleb looked immensely pleased with himself: “Daddy, ‘Lexis pees just like me!” Me: “Yes.. yes.. I can see that. *pats his head*” And he runs off to convince his constituents that raising taxes will actually lower costs of salable goods. Or, he ran off to play with his toy cars and trucks. You never really know with kids his age.

Apparently, Alexis had made a noble attempt at sort-of straddling the little potty chair, and.. well, it worked exactly as you would think it would; pee was /everywhere/. By everywhere, I mean that a cataclysmic, earth-changing /deluge/ of urine was standing on the floor of the bathroom. I don’t know how she even /held/ that amount of pee. She’s small, and the amount on the floor could have been more justly attributed to a small bull elephant. Or a rhinoceros. I think you get the idea; lots of pee, all on the floor. I was just relieved that the floor was linoleum and not carpet. Also, who installs carpet in bathrooms? That makes about as much sense to me as installing a trailer hitch on a Prius: The two things just don’t work well together. Several large towels and her third dry outfit of the day, and she’s back to coloring.

It didn’t occur to me until a while later that all this was on Father’s day. Then I realized that neither of them had actually called me “daddy” before. Last time I’d seen them they had not really gotten into the whole “talking” thing. Sure, their mother had tried to get them to say “Hi, Daddy” and “Bye, Daddy” on the phone; they’d make a valiant effort to parrot it back. This was just the first visit where both of them seemed to actually attach it as a name. After that, the usual parenting hassles seemed like more of a reason to smile:

Caleb: “Daddy! ‘Lexis needs new underwear!”
Me: “Did she have an accident?”
Caleb: “Yeah!” *proudly hands me said undergarments as visual proof*
Me: “Oh.. Uhmm.. thanks. Can you grab her clean pair from her bag?”
Alexis: *toddles into the living room dressed only from the waist up* “Daddy! I went potty!”
Me: “Yes, I see that. Good job.”

That’s it for the first installment. No promises, but I’ll try to post pictures and write more later.

out.

20090326 1758

This was sometime last week. I swapped 802.11g cards in my little laptop, turned it on and watched smoke /pour/ out the front audio jacks.

The laptop still works, though, so I guess it’s not too bad. no internal wifi card, though. =\

Anyway, I really just wanted to test the new flikr plugin.

out.

20090319 1227

.  I know I said something about this already on twitter, and the Tubes are still all lit up about it. The SciFi changing their name to “SyFy” is completely ridiculous. Also “SyFy” is slightly profane in Polish.

.  Quoting one of their execs about the change:

“The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular,” Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel, told TVWeek. “It’s somewhat cooler and better than the name ‘Science Fiction.’ But even the name Sci Fi is limiting.”

Really? Way to completely alienate your original audience.

.  On the other hand, though, “Sars Boy” on the PA forums says:

“bullshit they’re going to alienate their audience[;] you really think some neckbeard is going to stop watching stargate or BSG because of this?”

You decide.

out.

20090116 2219

.  Photos taken of the kids the last time I was home.

Alexis chomping down on a delicious blueberry waffle.

Alexis looking adorable

Alexis getting her hair done by Aunt Betsy

Alexis, as seen through the mirror of the tractor she is

Caleb tearing up from the cold

Caleb and I riding in a trailer

20081224 0252

.  This is the story of a guy who started a tradition by accident, and how it’s grown to defining the lives of future generations.  Okay, not really.  But the guy did accidentally start a tradition by being a cheapskate.

.  This was actually written early 2008-12-07 on my blackberry while I was on leave back in Missouri.  I haven’t really read it, but I did scroll through it briefly.  And yeah, I really did write all this shit on a tiny-ass thumb-keyboard. It was late, I was slightly drunk, and I couldn’t sleep. Just another semi-lucid depressive rambling. Enjoy.

.  When my dad was in the Navy and out at sea, phone calls overseas were still quite expensive, so he sent quite a few postcards home. At one point, he realized that he was spending quite a bit of money on them, and came up with a pretty unique way to save money on postage; he started making his own postcards out of cardboard. He would take a box from saltine crackers, cut each side down to the correct size, draw a line down the middle, and affix a fifteen cent stamp. Instant postcard that essentially costs fifteen cents.

.  This practice grew into a habit that long outlived his eventual retirement. Now driving a semi truck, he still writes on random scraps of cardboard in order to keep in touch with his more distant family members. Recent boxes turned into postcards have ranged from septic tank treatments to irish spring soap boxes. Everyone not familiar with this practice displays a marked level of confusion when first seeing one of the cards, but those of us who get them regularly treasure them greatly. All the ones that I’ve been sent share space in the box with baby pictures of ‘Lexi and Caleb.

.  In deciding that 2009 will be the year that I finally put a priority with writing and communicating with family, I’ll be taking up the “weird post card” tradition as well.

.  Or that was the idea I had, anyway. Looking around, I realized that the immediately available candidates for card making consisted of a carton of Djarum Blacks, boxes from camera lenses, and various liquors. My first thought was to just scratch the idea or find other postcard candidates. But then I realized that all I’m doing is hiding who I really am from my parents and friends. Sorry, Mum, but I really am just a guy in his mid-twenties who somehow managed to be divorced with two kids before most people ever consider getting married at all. I smoke. I drink constantly; every day, unless I run out in the middle of a work set and forget to run by the store on the way home. I get depressed and drive ridiculously fast and recklessly, hoping something will make me flip the car or bike; I think I’m supposed to stick around for a while longer simply because I haven’t actually died yet.

.  Waking up in the morning for me is an exercise in figuring out which part of the nicotine/caffeine/alcohol/painkiller cocktail is missing the most out of my system.

.  The only real happiness I have going on is caused by Cat or the bittersweet videos of the kids’ first steps and fire

.  Okay, see that bit right there? Those were the last words that I typed before I finally passed out sometime after 0400.  I don’t know where “and fire” came from.. I think I was going for “first words”.  I’m not really sure, though.

.  Seriously, other things make me happy; I’m really quite well-adjusted.  Not always when I have to go back home, though. Oh well.

out.

• @altenderfer new guitar? in reply to altenderfer #
• @altenderfer What the hell, man.. this is the kind of stuff you tell people who were there for 4-shirts per gig, coiled lightbar cords Kyle. in reply to altenderfer #
• @altenderfer Nice. in reply to altenderfer #
• @altenderfer Rocking out still? in reply to altenderfer #
• @altenderfer Okay. I’ll be here. Also, post pictures of the guitar. in reply to altenderfer #
• @altenderfer Okay. Hopping on live, then? in reply to altenderfer #
• @altenderfer Since the mic’s gay. The G1 from T-Mobile is $399.. The completely unlocked development model from google’s $399. in reply to altenderfer #