Noticing a coworker was regularly arriving 15 minutes or more before their start time, I commented that 15 minutes before I want to punch in work, I am naked. Upon repeating that I have gotten the strange looks I occasionally get when I try to say something clever or insightful.
Of course having a 2.7 mile commute allows that to happen and over the years have developed a morning routine. Ideally, this is how it goes:
30 minutes (before I want to punch in): Out of bed, head to bathroom, turn on water in shower and use toilet.
28 minutes: Enter shower
20 minutes: Exit shower, flush toilet, brush teeth, shave.
15 minutes: Head downstairs, get dressed (clothes are ready from night before)
11 minutes: Pack food to take, get phone.
9 minutes: Exit house, get in car.
2 minutes: Park car at work.
Of course things don't always work like last Friday when I fell asleep on the couch, woke a couple hours later, went to bed shortly after 1AM, crawled into bed without noticing that I knocked the plug to my alarm clock loose causing it to reset so when I woke, I thought it was just after 4AM when it was 6.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Family Circus driving #10
Due to my financial situation, I am unable to go to Hunstville, AL for Deep South Con 50 this weekend which features musical performances by many talented artists and media guest of honor Dr. Demento whom I was hoping to thank in person for playing 5 songs that I had a cameo including one based on a parody idea I developed while in high school. Hopefully one of my friends will get him to autograph a record I sent with him.
On Thursday morning, while feeling sorry for myself at work instead of being in a car on the way to DSC, I got a phone call and had to leave ASAP to drive someone to the Elmhurst Hospital Emergency Room which was opened less than a year ago. This was the third time since September I had to go to that ER along with 2 trips to other ERs and trips to two other hospitals to see a newborn and visit my father who has had multiple surgical procedures over the past couple years. (Note: This trip to the ER fortunately turned out to be a false alarm and nothing serious)
While almost there, I heard a worried comment since I did not take the route directed by a sign. Having been to the Elmhurst Clinic over the past 15 years which the hospital was built next to, I realized that the way I take is faster especially considering that the ER was on the west side of the hospital. When having to take my kid to the ER in December in separate cars, I got there 3 minutes before my wife who followed the sign instead of the car.
While driving home with my wife, I tried explaining that the route she always takes home from the clinic or hospital is the exact opposite of the route I took to get there. She told me the route she tried to take one time.
On Thursday morning, while feeling sorry for myself at work instead of being in a car on the way to DSC, I got a phone call and had to leave ASAP to drive someone to the Elmhurst Hospital Emergency Room which was opened less than a year ago. This was the third time since September I had to go to that ER along with 2 trips to other ERs and trips to two other hospitals to see a newborn and visit my father who has had multiple surgical procedures over the past couple years. (Note: This trip to the ER fortunately turned out to be a false alarm and nothing serious)
While almost there, I heard a worried comment since I did not take the route directed by a sign. Having been to the Elmhurst Clinic over the past 15 years which the hospital was built next to, I realized that the way I take is faster especially considering that the ER was on the west side of the hospital. When having to take my kid to the ER in December in separate cars, I got there 3 minutes before my wife who followed the sign instead of the car.
While driving home with my wife, I tried explaining that the route she always takes home from the clinic or hospital is the exact opposite of the route I took to get there. She told me the route she tried to take one time.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Mad dog vs. Madman
Last Monday, I was at Lombard Commons Park playing disc golf. After finishing #3 (point A on the map), I heard a noise about 25 feet behind me. The person playing #3 had a large dog snapping at him (point B on the map).I called out to the people watching a softball game involving 7 year old girls (point C on the map) thinking the dog was with one of them. The dog turned away from the person and came after me. Fortunately when I hit it in the face with my disc golf bag (which had about a dozen ones in it) it backed off.
At that time a woman (point D on the map) who was walking from the street that ended near where I was called out to the dog. It saw her then ran away with the woman walking after it. (arrows)
After playing the next three, I heard police sirens at the ball field at the other end of the park. They caught the dog in short center field (point E on the map) interrupting a different softball game played by 8-10 year old girls and had a police vehicle there.
While I was waiting to play #6 (point F on the map), the woman who was talking to the police pointed towards me and the police waved for me to come over by them. She was upset that I hit the dog with the disc golf bag even though I had seen the dog snap at another person then go towards me. The person who was behind me 15 minutes earlier confirmed my story and to my surprise and objection, the police let the woman go home with her dog
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Everybody dies
Last week I said good bye to what has made up 1/3 of my work personality, Dr. Gregory House. I tell people my job is 1/3 parts each Dr. House, Winston Wolfe (Pulp Fiction) and Radar O' Reilly (M*A*S*H).
Considering what was happening with the show, I was anticipating the show would end with House's death but after hearing the episode title is "Everybody Dies" (a takeoff of a common phrase from the show "Everybody Lies") I realized that he was not going to die. I was satisfied with the show's conclusion including how things ended up in Princeton Plainsborough Hospital..
On December 31, 1999, I had a belief that my life was exactly half over at midnight Jan 1, 2000. Since I was born @ 5:28 AM on November 13, 1965, I figured out that 6:32 PM February 17, 2034 is when I will expire. (I did adjust to Feb 17 allowing for one more leap day after Jan 1, 2000 than before.)
Not to my surprise, I usually get very confused replies and looks upon revealing this information. This is not the first time I had this type of feeling.
For a long time when I was a kid, I had the belief I would not make it to 25. The Saturday before my 25th birthday, I was at work at 619 S. Wabash in downtown Chicago. As with most Saturdays there, it involved restocking our first floor picking area with merchandise stored on the 2nd floor. Believing this was possibly going to be my last Saturday night on earth, I wanted to get done quickly so I could leave early.
Being ahead of pace, I was able to take my lunch about 20 minutes earlier than normal. As I often did, I walked a block north for food and brought it back to eat. While waiting for the last minutes of my lunch, I heard a large rumble outside. On the 15th floor of the parking garage next door, someone backed a car into the wall sending bricks to the pavement on the path I walk to get lunch. Had I taken my lunch at my normal Saturday time, I easily could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and quite possibly killed.
Having cheated fate, I knew I was going to survive but had no idea what to do next since I figured why worry past that date? To be honest, my decision to not consider anything past that date definitely put me behind the learning curve for many social things and one I am still behind up decades later.
It is possible that in less than 22 years, I will cheat fate again. No matter what, I am not going to do anything deliberate to make my belief come true. If I survive that day, I will just as I did in 1990 continue to live.
Considering what was happening with the show, I was anticipating the show would end with House's death but after hearing the episode title is "Everybody Dies" (a takeoff of a common phrase from the show "Everybody Lies") I realized that he was not going to die. I was satisfied with the show's conclusion including how things ended up in Princeton Plainsborough Hospital..
On December 31, 1999, I had a belief that my life was exactly half over at midnight Jan 1, 2000. Since I was born @ 5:28 AM on November 13, 1965, I figured out that 6:32 PM February 17, 2034 is when I will expire. (I did adjust to Feb 17 allowing for one more leap day after Jan 1, 2000 than before.)
Not to my surprise, I usually get very confused replies and looks upon revealing this information. This is not the first time I had this type of feeling.
For a long time when I was a kid, I had the belief I would not make it to 25. The Saturday before my 25th birthday, I was at work at 619 S. Wabash in downtown Chicago. As with most Saturdays there, it involved restocking our first floor picking area with merchandise stored on the 2nd floor. Believing this was possibly going to be my last Saturday night on earth, I wanted to get done quickly so I could leave early.
Being ahead of pace, I was able to take my lunch about 20 minutes earlier than normal. As I often did, I walked a block north for food and brought it back to eat. While waiting for the last minutes of my lunch, I heard a large rumble outside. On the 15th floor of the parking garage next door, someone backed a car into the wall sending bricks to the pavement on the path I walk to get lunch. Had I taken my lunch at my normal Saturday time, I easily could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and quite possibly killed.
Having cheated fate, I knew I was going to survive but had no idea what to do next since I figured why worry past that date? To be honest, my decision to not consider anything past that date definitely put me behind the learning curve for many social things and one I am still behind up decades later.
It is possible that in less than 22 years, I will cheat fate again. No matter what, I am not going to do anything deliberate to make my belief come true. If I survive that day, I will just as I did in 1990 continue to live.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
United Center cosplay
Last month, my sister purchased 2 tickets to the Blackhawks first round playoff game against Phoenix hoping that the game would be played on the Sunday. Since it was played on Tuesday, starting at 8PM her husband could not make it and she asked me to go.
Having never been to a professional playoff game, I jumped at the opportunity. We got there about 6:45 and had time to kill. So with the help of my sister we tried to track the wide variety of jerseys the majority of the fans there wore. I did this from 6:45 to 7:30 and also counted those easily seen from the section where I was sitting. I decided to not bother counting those of the 5 all stars (Toews, Kane, Hossa, Sharp, and Keith) since there are too many and also decided to not count jerseys custom made for an unknown person. (If I made a jersey with the number 13 and the name Madman)
I broke it down two ways and here are the charts describing the 140 jerseys:
To my surprise I only saw one jersey that was not Blackhawks related and that was of the Charleston Chiefs from the movie Slap Shot. The N/A are 6 with the number 00 and name Griswald.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
What's new with HGI?
Hardcore Gaming Industries (HGI) is still conducting an investigation into the incident that happened at midnight January 1st when a small nuclear explosion centered in Steve Bartman Stadium leveled the town of Simpsonville, KY and vaporized Misfit Demons coach Richard Hertz and most of the town's residents.
Since HGI decided to cease operations for fantasy football at the end of the 2011 season where the Demons lost in the title game, they do not have to worry about building a new stadium or finding a new coach.
Last August, Gozer Games LLC presented a new board game they were interested in developing and HGI was involved with the play testing of the product. Called Titans of Industry, the game is now considered ready for production.
The idea of Titans of Industry is to develop the best corporation by purchasing facilities that produce and sell goods and then directing your personnel to most effectively do that to gain victory points which will determine the winner. Within the game, there are also opportunities to direct your personnel to train additional workers, make your facilities more effective, develop corporate strategies to acquire additional victory points, and gain advantages for the next turn. Here is the layout of the board and a sample of the factory and business cards in the game:
Getting a manufacturer to make the game for sale is not cheap. To get the necessary funds, Gozer Games launched a kickstarter for the product.
href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gozergames/titans-of-industry-board-game">
The advantages of kickstarter is that the developer of the project will get guaranteed sales before production along with the necessary funds needed to manufacture the product and the people who pledge money get bonuses for their up front support and also the knowledge the money will not be accepted until the goal date and only if the minimum amount for the goal is met.
In this case, people who pledge will get the PDF files needed to print and play the game before the game is produced. Higher amounts will get a copy of their previous game Vampire Werewolf Fairies, a copy of Titans of Industry, a version of the game with better pieces, and for $250 the naming rights to one the the facilities in the game which HGI is hooping to do.
Since HGI decided to cease operations for fantasy football at the end of the 2011 season where the Demons lost in the title game, they do not have to worry about building a new stadium or finding a new coach.
Last August, Gozer Games LLC presented a new board game they were interested in developing and HGI was involved with the play testing of the product. Called Titans of Industry, the game is now considered ready for production.
The idea of Titans of Industry is to develop the best corporation by purchasing facilities that produce and sell goods and then directing your personnel to most effectively do that to gain victory points which will determine the winner. Within the game, there are also opportunities to direct your personnel to train additional workers, make your facilities more effective, develop corporate strategies to acquire additional victory points, and gain advantages for the next turn. Here is the layout of the board and a sample of the factory and business cards in the game:
Getting a manufacturer to make the game for sale is not cheap. To get the necessary funds, Gozer Games launched a kickstarter for the product.
href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gozergames/titans-of-industry-board-game">
The advantages of kickstarter is that the developer of the project will get guaranteed sales before production along with the necessary funds needed to manufacture the product and the people who pledge money get bonuses for their up front support and also the knowledge the money will not be accepted until the goal date and only if the minimum amount for the goal is met.
In this case, people who pledge will get the PDF files needed to print and play the game before the game is produced. Higher amounts will get a copy of their previous game Vampire Werewolf Fairies, a copy of Titans of Industry, a version of the game with better pieces, and for $250 the naming rights to one the the facilities in the game which HGI is hooping to do.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
The last Marscon 2012 post
As I have done the last couple of years, I put together a chart of who appeared with who and where:
The closest I came to getting on stage was when I cleared the table and chairs off the stage after opening ceremonies and before the music started on Friday.
The closest I came to getting on stage was when I cleared the table and chairs off the stage after opening ceremonies and before the music started on Friday.
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