What I remember about September 11th...

I have vivid memories of September11th. I think we always have that stamped in our memories when we experience a national disaster. I remember that when the space shuttle blew up for the first time, I was in my eighth-grade photography class. Our teacher was especially shaken up because he had applied to be the teacher that was picked to go up with the other astronauts.

When the Oklahoma City bombing occurred, I had just started student teaching in Grand Island, my home town. I remember watching CNN a lot to get whatever new information I could. It seemed to annoy my partner teacher, who for some reason quickly lost interest. Maybe she was just jaded from the draining school year.

When the attack on September 11th occurred, I was at home because I was unemployed. The Internet start-up company that I worked for laid me off about three weeks prior to that, which was two weeks after my daughter, Julia, was born, which was three months after I had bought my first home.

All in all, it was already a stressful situation. So there I was sitting at home waiting for job offers and taking care of my daughter with my wife, who was on her maternity leave.

We turned on the TV that morning and were struck by the image of one of the towers burning in New York City. Shortly after that, the other tower was in flames when the second plane hit it. One of the Good Morning America news anchors asked befuddled, "What is going on?"

We watched with stunned faces at the happenings in New York City. After a while, we had to stop watching and we started getting going with our day. We had to eat. We fed our daughter. We started some laundry.

At some point, we started talking about the job situation. A couple weeks prior, I had applied at a place I'll call The Company. I got an interview with The Company a week prior. I interviewed with no problem. It was a standard first interview, well... standard if you can picture a whole interview in which the interviewer is almost trying to talk you out of working at the company...

It was a suit and tie company. He laid that out clearly. Then he started going over the rules. Much like the ten commandments, these were a set of rules that shouldn't be broken. He said that at The Company, they don't allow you to have a lot of pictures and such on your desk. You desk should remain clean. For that matter, you can't drink or eat at your desk. Food was definitely not allowed at your desk. No liquids of any kind were allowed on your desk since they could spill and ruin your equipment. You were expected to be at your desk and ready to work at 8 am and could leave no earlier than 5 pm. You must never lean against the walls or on a desk (there was a reason the buildings still looked new he told me). You weren't allowed to read a newspaper or do anything non-company at your desk. You had to wear a suit and tie to work, but you could hang the coat up when you came in. You also weren't allowed to walk on the grass (this I had accidentally done... oops)

I was in dire straits for a job, so I told him that I'd have no problem with those rules, so he said that they would consider me for a second interview after he decided where I best fit.

My wife asked the prior morning on Sept 10th, if I thought I might get a call from The Company. I thought that I might.

The next morning, she asked, "You don't think they're going to call today do you? Probably not, right?"

I thought of the chaos on the TV and couldn't imagine that they'd call me for an interview that day. After all, they had completely shut down air travel and I came to find out later that a lot of businesses sent their employee's home for the day. One exception was The Company.

The phone rang at about 10:30, literally minutes after the second tower fell to the ground. My wife answered. She called for me with a confused look on her face. I walked over and she mouthed that she thought it was the company.

It was indeed someone from The Company. Amidst all that chaos, they had still came through on their plans to call me for an interview. I remember trying to concentrate on what the person was telling me because I kept thinking, "This is weird. Don't they know what's going on today?"

I came to find out later that the employees there were all expected to go back to work. Only one computer on the QA floor had internet access and it was used to feed curious and fearful employees information on what was going on that day.

I know it's not wrong to make your employees work. After all, the second tower workers were told to go back to work with the first tower in flames, but it was just kind of weird that they would call on that day. Not that I'm complaining since it did lead to a job for me, but it was still a little weird and very surreal. Plus, it was a sign of things to come at that job, but that's another story.

I will NOT get you a glass of water...

A short, short story for anyone who cares. I'm in the process of writing another story about video game testing, but it's taking awhile. Also, I'm getting to the point of the story where I think, "Does anyone care about this?" and almost ditching it like I've done with quite a few stories...


I live in a new subdivision in Omaha. It's pretty nice that we got to move into a neighborhood that's new because almost everybody that's moved in is around the same age with kids of varying ages. That's kind of what attracted us to build a new house. THAT and the ability for my wife to pick exactly what she wants in the house, price be damned! But that's another story...

Including my daughter, there are about 9 or 10 kids that play on our end at any given time. The run around. The chase each other. They ride bikes. They play on Julia's swingset. They jump on the trampoline.

Not that I'm complaining, but one of the drawback of having that many kids in your house or your neighborhood that they invariably will want to eat, get a drink of water or use your bathroom.

The eating is not so bad. I just offer them something that I know they'll turn down and they turn it down without asking for something else. What? You don't want to eat a peanut butter and Miracle Whip sandwich? To each their own.

Before I kept a tab on this, Julia was grabbing stuff out of the pantry and feeding her friends everything from cheese puffs to potato chips, which would leave a lot of evidence behind that she was doing thing, unless the cheese puffs all over the floor are lying to me...

Which brings me to a point. Is it impossible for kinds 3 to 6 to not eat chips, crackers or popcorn without spilling them all over the floor? Either Julia dumps the bowl that she was balancing on her knee on the floor or the floor is littered with remnants from her eating. She has popcorn as a snack a lot and the floor is littered with kernels and puffed corn remnants. It's like she eats like the Cookie Monster with popcorn spraying every where.

What is irritating are the requests for drinks. Usually, it centers on someone (me) getting a kid a glass of water. Water isn't usually what they ask for. Usually they ask for some juice or milk, but since Julia tends to not drink either, I don't have it to give to them. This is usually followed by exasperated looks like they cannot believe that any sane person wouldn't have a juice box for a begging kid. So I give them a glass of water, which they drink about two drinks of, set down and leave it for me or the cats to knock over. All that effort for two drinks? I guess you could say that I'm the moron for giving them drinks that they won't finish.

I set this all up to tell this short story...

The other day, I was mowing my lawn. It was after work on a weekday and I was trying to get my lawn mowed before it got dark. Plus, I had a limited amount of gas, so I was trying to squeeze out the mowing on 1/3 of a tank before I ran out. Like any time I mow, I move fast so that I can get sort of a workout in.

I'm about halfway done with the back yard trying to finish up the mow job when Andy, the kid from two houses down saunters up. He's about 9-years-old and one of the oldest kids on our side of the block.

He yells, "Bob! Bob"

I turn my head, see Andy, turn off the mower, pull my walkman CD player out of my pocket and turn it off. I pull the headphones out of my ears.

"What?" I breathe heavily as I've been working up a sweat.

"Can I have a glass of water?"

I stare at him. Here I am sweating my ass off trying to mow the lawn and Andy is asking me for a glass of water.

"I'd get it myself, but Moe won't let me inside." Moe is one of our cats and he hates people, or at least, other people. He loves me and my family, but is incredibly vicious to strangers. He's been known to lunge at the kids and pat them with his paws because he's annoyed with the kids.

Andy must have opened the door, seen Moe there and Moe hissed at him, so he didn't risk walking in.

"I think he might bite me," Andy finished.

I looked over at Andy's house just two houses away.

"No offense, but isn't your house right over there? Can't you go to your own house to get a drink?"

"I guess so," he said smiling.

I immediately felt a little bad. Well, not really bad, but just a little. After all, I was never given the kind of slack these neighborhood kids get. I don't think they realize how good they have it. I may give them glasses of water while they're inside my house, but I will NOT get them a glass of water when I'm mowing. That's where I draw the line...

I give a man five minutes of my time and spend the next 40 minutes regretting it...

Last Saturday, I mowed the lawn, took a shower, and came back outside to finish putting things away before I had to get ready for lunch and then leave with my family.

I see some guys getting stuff out of an SUV in the middle of the street. I probably should have headed inside then, but I didn't know what was coming.

A guy comes running up to me and asks me a question: "If you could pick between these two fragrances, which would it be?"

I shrug, but play along. Both are well-known brands and both are some sort of fruit scent. I spray and sniff both and tell him, "Neither, because I don't like fruity smells."

The guy chuckles a little and says, "Well, we'll get you a different scent. It's our little gift to you for a few minutes of your time."

He tells me he's part of a marketing group that spreads the word about a particular product. "If someone knew of a great product, wouldn't you want someone to tell you about it?"

"I guess," I shrug.

"Well, we want to give you a quick demonstration that should only take five minutes of your time."

He then asks me if I've ever heard of a brand of vacuum, let's just call it The Vacuum Company.

I tell them I had, but added, "Let me stop you right there. I've just bought a brand new Dyson vacuum. I'm not interested in getting a new vacuum."

The guys eyes pop wide and he goes, "That's just perfect!" and proceeds to call another guy over to give me a demonstration. He assures me again that it's not going to take a long time, so I reluctantly let the guy in my house.

Within the first few minutes, I start to realize that this isn't going to take five minutes.

The other guy that just came in, let me just refer to him as Guy, drags along two boxes with him and when I say "drags", I'm being literal. He has a heavy limp like he's suffered with a hip malfunction for most of his life.

I guess I'm just good-hearted because I start feeling a little sorry for the guy, so I sit there patiently as he pulls out of a box, a vacuum head, some hoses, a big bag and an attachment that I've never seen before. After five grueling minutes, Guy gets the vacuum all snapped and pieced together. Guy then goes into a pitch about how The Vacuum Company doesn't do any advertising. They apparently rely on people like me to buy their vacuums door-to-door.

He plugs in the vacuum and snaps some circular filter pieces into his side attachment and starts to vacuum away. He unsnaps the circle filter and says, "Look at that." It indeed is filled with dirt fibers.

Guy goes into his pitch about how The Vacuum Company is one of the only companies whose vacuums are listed as actual "vacuum cleaners". Whereas my new Dyson, is a "vacuum sweeper."

He asks me to get my vacuum out. Vacuums a little with it (I had to show him how to turn it on) and then vacuums over the same carpet space with his vacuum. He shows me the result: more dirt. He does a demonstration in which he vacuums over the same space 52 times to simulate a years worth of vacuuming. Guy then vacuums over that same space again with his vacuum and shows me the result: more dirt.

It's at this point that I'm starting to get a little impatient. It's taking way longer than 5 minutes. The demonstration seems to have no end and it's starting to cut into lunch time for my daughter. My wife starts to make Julia her lunch while I'm stuck there, starving myself, waiting for this non-ending demonstration to end.

I then also start realizing that there seems to be a never-ending stream of dirt coming from my carpet. I think he could have gone over the same spots all day long and still managed to pull up bits of dirt. Also, he has a side attachment that is not even the bag, it's a place to put his filters, but it's also a way to increase the suction. I can only imagine what it would do with the actual bag intact.

It was during this period of helplessness that I started to realize that Guy sounded and talked just like Uncle Rico, the scheming uncle from Napoleon Dynamite who tries selling everything from breast enhancements to cheap tupperware.



Guy then says in an Uncle Rico way, "What I asked you, 'where would you say your dirtiest part of you house is?' What would you say?"

I started to try and think, but then I just said, "I would say... I don't know. Could you just tell me?"

Guy asks to go to the nearest bedroom. In the guess bedroom, he pulls up the sheets and starts vacuuming on the mattress. He shows me the result: lots of dirt and very fine dust. Apparently, dust mites feed on us and dispose of 5 times their body weight on our mattresses. Thanks Guy, I'm now paranoid that I might actually need this vacuum, but I resist the urge.

He also tries to sell me out of my Dyson by explaining that his vacuum has HEPA filter bags. I counter that not only does my Dyson have HEPA, but they are lifetime filters. He doesn't seem fazed and counters with how the HEPA rating is displayed on his vacuum but not on others. I look and can't find it (but I'm sure it's somewhere in my manual). He tells me how the vacuum will also clear the air. I counter with the fact that a British allergy association recommends my vacuum for allergy sufferers. He counters with someone else. I counter that the Dyson produces air 1.5 times cleaner than the air outside the vacuum. He counters with something else. I realize this is never going to end.

I ask if we can wrap this up, so he gives me the lowdown. $2000 for the vacuum!!!

I tell him rather bluntly, "Look, I told the first guy that I had just bought this Dyson and I'm NOT going to just throw it away to buy yours."

Guy/Uncle Rico says, "Okay, but I need to call my boss and let him know that I tried, but you're not interested."

He pulls out of his pocket the oldest, most beaten-up looking Nokia cell phone that I've seen since 1999, dials and starts to talk, in what can only be described as the biggest sack of horse crap that anyone's tried to feed me.

Guy asks, "What's your name?"

I tell him. He nods.

"I'm hear with Mr. At Large. I showed him the vacuum and he's very impressed with it (gives me a nod), but he says that he can't afford to buy another one because he's just bought a new Dyson. Can we do anything for him on the price?"

He nods and starts jotting down numbers. Now it doesn't sound so horrible while I'm typing this, but it sounded like he had just pretended to dial and was talking to no one. I was very tempted to ask Guy for the phone, but refrained.

He then knocked off $800 on the price and told me I could have it for 50 bucks a month. I again reiterated that I made it perfectly clear up front that I had a new vacuum and wasn't interested in buying a new one.

Guy nodded, thanked me for my time and then proceeded to take five minutes picking up all of his equipment and putting it back in the bags and then into the boxes.

I muttered, "Boy. You think they would give you a nice carrying case to haul those vacuums around."

Guy finally leaves and Laura goes, "How do you get yourself sucked into these things?"

I guess I got sucked in by the assurance that it would be only a short demonstration. I'll know better next time someone like that comes along. I then realized not only did I lose 40 minutes of my life that I'll never get back, I also didn't even get my spray fragrance.

Other music I'm listening to lately...

Futureheads - News and Tributes

The Futureheads are a band in the vein of punk rock in that they're not really punk. I guess you'd call them post-punk. My brother, Bill, said they remind him of the Clash, which they sound nothing like. I liked their first self-titled album a lot. The problem with a punkish-like band is that their first record is usually wall-to-wall uptempo number, which leads to disappointments on subsequent releases. The new album has uptempo numbers but a lot of them start out slow and end fast. Some are just slow the whole way through. I like it, but it's not wowing me. C+


Slayer - Christ Illusion

Slayer is a band that I grew up with when I was a metal head. They're a dark metal band that sings about such sunshiny topics like Satan, God, religion, war, demons, blood, etc. Did I mention they love to sing about dark stuff? Fast, pounding and full of fury, this album does not disappoint. I haven't listened to them in years, but it's a nice change of pace. I'd give it a B

These are just two I've been listening to this week. More to come...

We see the trailer for the Grudge 2 and Laura almost loses it...

My wife has several fears in life.

She's afraid of birds, kids that are possessed or ghosts and Billy Gilman.

For some reason, she's creeped out by Billy Gilman. Not the surely-20-years-old-by-now Billy Gilman, but the 12-year-old Billy Gilman. Gilman was one of those kid country proteges that got some airplay back in the late 90s. He put the albums out that old people would buy because he was young, cute and had a decent voice.

Laura was creeped out by him and still mentions it to this day.

Oh my God! It's Billy Gilman!!!

But this story isn't about Billy Gilman.

We went to see the new Will Ferrell movie, Talladega Nights - The Ballad of Ricky Bobby last Friday night. Right before the movie, they had the new trailer for the movie, Grudge 2. See the trailer here... link

Now I'm sure no one remembers my review of the original Grudge, but you can read it here.

I thought the original movie a little scary, but it had some major plot points that I felt were too big to make up for. The movie centers around a cursed house in which a man killed his wife and kid. Because they died in a violent way, the house curses anyone that goes into it and they die by the hands of the freaky-ass ghost of the wife and the creepy kid ghost.

The movie picks up right after the first movie ends. Sarah Michelle Gellar has survived the first movie and is back to watch everyone around her die.

The trailer shows flashes of everyone under the sun dying at the hands of the ghost wife, but they show a few flashes of the ghost kid lunging at people and screaming in his cat-like voice. It's at this point that Laura screams and winces.

I look over at her during the trailer and she has her head turned toward the side a little. She tries to look away, but is compelled to look just in time to see something like this:


She yelps, "Oh God!" and turns away. I laugh because I know her fears.

There's a quick shot of the freaky kid yowling a scream and people jump. My wife covers her face.

In another part of the trailer, a lady sees the freaky ghost kid and runs and hides under a table (Good thinking!). Her cell phone on the table above her starts ringing. Frantically, she reaches up to grab the phone when... she grabs the kids foot!

People jump and my wife yells, "Jesus Christ!"

Several more scares abound in the trailer (they don't seem to care that they're showing you everything I guess). My wife turns to me and mutters, "I'll not be seeing THAT movie thank you very much!"

I chuckle because I think back to the original fears. I think the perfect horror movie for my wife would be a possessed ghost kid that sings like Billy Gilman and has a flock of attack birds following him, not that I get her to see it.

A slight new look with more spell checks!

I noticed this template on a site. Someone modified the original design and added an extra column. I also was prompted to run the spell check on a few of the current stories. Apparently, it looks sloppi to hav a few mispelled words hear and their...

New music I'm liking...

There's a mash-up type band called Girl Talk that has a new cd out called "Night Ripper." It's what I like to call a mix tape for someone with a very short attention span. It mixes beats and sound segments from hundreds of popular songs into short segments to result in a long mix. Songs change direction several times before they're done. Recommended if you don't mind the anarchy going on in your head while listening.


Girl Talk - Night Ripper