what's a deckfer?

2005.08.23 12.34

I woke up Friday morning realizing that I had to convince my short little dog that he'd need to walk two miles. It didn't turn out to be as daunting as I'd thought. I've been taking a lean number of items to work the last few days including my phone, my iPod. That's it. Light, huh? Along with my dog's 25 foot extension cable (and the dog attached to it), I started heading south on 3rd street at 7:51 AM. By 8:20 AM we'd made it to the Society Hill Vet where he was quickly assessed and checked in. I had to hop into a cab to make the 8:51 AM train. Not a problem. I got into work around 9:30 PM and had the most intense set of interaction possible within a short period of time. I found out that I get to customize Actuate Reporting Server 8. This may sound like a drag, but I'm excited at getting a chance to get familiar with the latest version of something. I asked IT to install a copy on my desktop after I left for the airport. Before I knew it, it was noon and I had to leave for my 12:10 PM departing bus ride back to the train. Once back in Northern Liberties, I went to the Soy Cafe for the Egg White Wrap. Mmmm. It took way too long to prepare, however, so I ended up leaving later than I'd expected. The end result was that Continental had to put me on stand-by for the next flight out. I didn't realize the R1 train to the airport was going to be so much of The Suck. It took nearly an hour to get there. At one point the train stopped, backed up while switching tracks, then painfully began traversing forward again in the direction of the airport. After getting my flight plan worked out, I sat it out and attempted to finish up reading Coupland's Microserfs. Oktobernight gave me the book last year for my birthday. Such a sweetheart! I savor the moments of geekdom that I get to spend with the book, so it's been hard to face the fact that I'm finishing the book. All told, I ended up waiting 20 minutes past when we were supposed to board. I ended up 20 pages away from the end. I'm still that far away, actually. I'm getting ahead of myself, however. I returned to Houston and had dinner with my dad and Fonguro, my coworker / house sitter. We all refrained from imbibing, which was weird, but Fonguro is on a health kick thanks to (hopefully) myself and Shawn's overbearing influence. Upon our return we called it a night because a big day lay in store for us.

On Saturday I was up at 9 AM and quickly did the shower and protein one-two punch. We piled into Fonguro's car and headed to this place that makes prepared foods. Fonguro, as I mentioned earlier, is on a diet plan to increase his Burly Man appearance and this cool little place that prepares the food had his weekend meals already prepared and at the ready. We dropped this off at The Office. I miss The Office. It's so purdy. My car rental last month was a mind-boggling $2000 which made the higher-ups freak out (and a half). Luckily we noticed this was not a good price to be paying which is why I'm currently on the Go Green public transportation kick. Remember when I said I had a sore throat? I think I got that from being amongst The Train People. I still am hacking up a storm here on the plane back to Philly, but yet again, I'm getting ahead of myself. We then headed to Best Buy where we picked up Fonguro's step bro. From there, we were on to the magical land of Marvel McFay, otherwise known as Astroworld. Or as it's now called, Six Flags Astroworld. This would be the only time I'd get to go this year, so we made a day of it. Having procured our tickets online earlier that morning, we blew past the first set of booths (after the traditional post 9/11 pat-down) and gave our printouts to the ticket cutting people. Fonguro's bro got trapped by The Survey People. The guy administering the survey was super-bitchy and didn't like the attitude we exhibited when we learned that the questions he was asking were completely voluntarily. This guy was cutting into Fun Time. He claimed it would take only 30 seconds. Fonguro and I crossed over into the park, looking back wistfully at his stepbrother who continued to respond to survey guy's questions. After a minute I yelled, “This is way longer than 30 seconds.” Survey guy came over to us (behind Fonguro's step-bro) and told us he was a supervisor and didn't appreciate us. I told him, oh poor baby, as he walked away. Geez. Get a life. We immediately proceeded to The Serial Thriller. I think it's important to mention now that I was wearing my Late Show with David Letterman cap that I bought while in NYC with my sissy. Halfway through the ride my cap flew off into oblivion. I gave a cursory search as we exited, but didn't locate my hat, sadly. We then hit up the Dungeon Drop twice before moving on through the park. All told, we rode Greased Lightning, The Texas Cyclone, the Astroway, Batman: The Escape and The Viper. We made a return trip to Serial Thriller where I made a last ditch effort to locate my hat. I found it in this pit where you're about to go upside down. If you went into the pit while the ride went by then you'd surely be stricken dead by either a car or by a person in a car. I found out that we had to come back at 8 PM if we expected to retrieve my hat. Determined to succeed, we immediately went back to Dungeon Drop for some more freefall action and then returned to Greased Lightning for more. We headed back to Serial Thriller and decided to ride the ride until it closed so we would be RIGHT THERE when the time came. We rode in the front seat nearly ever time (it's the best seat). We made mild acquaintance with the operator girl. Turns out she was just now a junior in high school and was being paid $5.30 an hour to operate the ride. That's nothing! They should be paying her at least $10. All of our lives are at stake with this girl and she gets paid chump change. Wow. She assured us that she'd taken a 45 minute test that was impossible to cheat on. I got on the ride and we started up. Halfway to the top the car suddenly jolted to a stop. We hung there for what seemed like an eternity. After 10 minutes, I called up Fonguro, who was still waiting in the line below, and asked what was going on. Apparently some kid a few seats behind me had unbuckled his shoulder restraint after the ride had begun. Policy dictates that the ride has to be stopped if it hasn't gone over the hill. They sent for a supervisor and we would have to wait for his arrival. I'd heard from operator girl that it took 45 minutes for a supervisor to shop up sometimes. This is why they didn't stop the ride for me to get my hat. After 20 minutes had passed, we were finally given the all-clear and the ride resumed. The car stopped yet again short of the end of the ride and we hung there waiting a second time. This time somebody had dropped a cell phone or this was all part of the process where we make sure somebody didn't fall out of the ride and bust their ass on the ground. After another 5 minutes the ride finally returned to the docking station area and we got off. We quickly exited and re-entered while there was still time and made it for last call at 8 PM. I got to ride two more times. Finally, at about 8:25 PM, I was rewarded with my beloved David Letterman hat. Earlier in the afternoon I bought a hat that said Astroworld 1968 in much the same style of hats that I'd seen at DisneyLand that said DisneyLand 1955. It came with a purported medium sized t-shirt. It was more like a kid's size medium, however. If any of my wee friends are looking for a t-shirt, get back to me. We opted for the classic Speedy Exit from the parking lot. This is the exit that goes right out onto the 610 feeder street. It's sort of suicidal in that you have to speed up and change lanes three times in a short period and then hopefully you have enough speed to enter the freeway and not get in a wreck when merging with traffic. Whew. That's way more detail than I wanted to give. Good times.

Sunday was mostly a wash. I goofed off and suffered from my upper respiratory issues. There was a lot of coughing. That evening I went to Lupe Tortilla in Northwest Houston with my parents and sister's family. I almost made it through the whole dinner unscathed from birthday celebrations until I felt a giant sombrero get placed on my head. I got a slice of flan and some singing that I didn't understand. I don't remember if I saw a flash from a camera. I got dropped off back at the house and resumed the hacking cough and hope that sweet death would come. Not.

Monday was catch-up day. I woke up early from another Lindsay Lohan dream. It's not what you're thinking. I recently bought the domain TheUnofficialSite.com with the intention of setting up unofficial sites for whatever subject I felt like. For some reason my brain was trying to convince me that Lindsay-Lohan.TheUnofficialSite.com was a good idea. All I have is some pictures of the back of her head, however, so I don't see that happening anytime soon.

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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are my own only and in no way represent the views, positions or opinions - expressed or implied - of my employers both past and present. « more diversionary tactics \| Main \| even more diversionary tactics » what's a deckfer? 2005.08.23 12.34 I woke up Friday morning realizing that I had to convince my short little dog that he'd need to walk two miles. It didn't turn out to be as daunting as I'd thought. I've been taking a lean number of items to work the last few days including my phone, my iPod. That's it. Light, huh? Along with my dog's 25 foot extension cable (and the dog attached to it), I started heading south on 3rd street at 7:51 AM. By 8:20 AM we'd made it to the Society Hill Vet where he was quickly assessed and checked in. I had to hop into a cab to make the 8:51 AM train. Not a problem. I got into work around 9:30 PM and had the most intense set of interaction possible within a short period of time. I found out that I get to customize Actuate Reporting Server 8. This may sound like a drag, but I'm excited at getting a chance to get familiar with the latest version of something. I asked IT to install a copy on my desktop after I left for the airport. Before I knew it, it was noon and I had to leave for my 12:10 PM departing bus ride back to the train. Once back in Northern Liberties, I went to the Soy Cafe for the Egg White Wrap. Mmmm. It took way too long to prepare, however, so I ended up leaving later than I'd expected. The end result was that Continental had to put me on stand-by for the next flight out. I didn't realize the R1 train to the airport was going to be so much of The Suck. It took nearly an hour to get there. At one point the train stopped, backed up while switching tracks, then painfully began traversing forward again in the direction of the airport. After getting my flight plan worked out, I sat it out and attempted to finish up reading Coupland's Microserfs. Oktobernight gave me the book last year for my birthday. Such a sweetheart! I savor the moments of geekdom that I get to spend with the book, so it's been hard to face the fact that I'm finishing the book. All told, I ended up waiting 20 minutes past when we were supposed to board. I ended up 20 pages away from the end. I'm still that far away, actually. I'm getting ahead of myself, however. I returned to Houston and had dinner with my dad and Fonguro, my coworker / house sitter. We all refrained from imbibing, which was weird, but Fonguro is on a health kick thanks to (hopefully) myself and Shawn's overbearing influence. Upon our return we called it a night because a big day lay in store for us. On Saturday I was up at 9 AM and quickly did the shower and protein one-two punch. We piled into Fonguro's car and headed to this place that makes prepared foods. Fonguro, as I mentioned earlier, is on a diet plan to increase his Burly Man appearance and this cool little place that prepares the food had his weekend meals already prepared and at the ready. We dropped this off at The Office. I miss The Office. It's so purdy. My car rental last month was a mind-boggling $2000 which made the higher-ups freak out (and a half). Luckily we noticed this was not a good price to be paying which is why I'm currently on the Go Green public transportation kick. Remember when I said I had a sore throat? I think I got that from being amongst The Train People. I still am hacking up a storm here on the plane back to Philly, but yet again, I'm getting ahead of myself. We then headed to Best Buy where we picked up Fonguro's step bro. From there, we were on to the magical land of Marvel McFay, otherwise known as Astroworld. Or as it's now called, Six Flags Astroworld. This would be the only time I'd get to go this year, so we made a day of it. Having procured our tickets online earlier that morning, we blew past the first set of booths (after the traditional post 9/11 pat-down) and gave our printouts to the ticket cutting people. Fonguro's bro got trapped by The Survey People. The guy administering the survey was super-bitchy and didn't like the attitude we exhibited when we learned that the questions he was asking were completely voluntarily. This guy was cutting into Fun Time. He claimed it would take only 30 seconds. Fonguro and I crossed over into the park, looking back wistfully at his stepbrother who continued to respond to survey guy's questions. After a minute I yelled, “This is way longer than 30 seconds.” Survey guy came over to us (behind Fonguro's step-bro) and told us he was a supervisor and didn't appreciate us. I told him, oh poor baby, as he walked away. Geez. Get a life. We immediately proceeded to The Serial Thriller. I think it's important to mention now that I was wearing my Late Show with David Letterman cap that I bought while in NYC with my sissy. Halfway through the ride my cap flew off into oblivion. I gave a cursory search as we exited, but didn't locate my hat, sadly. We then hit up the Dungeon Drop twice before moving on through the park. All told, we rode Greased Lightning, The Texas Cyclone, the Astroway, Batman: The Escape and The Viper. We made a return trip to Serial Thriller where I made a last ditch effort to locate my hat. I found it in this pit where you're about to go upside down. If you went into the pit while the ride went by then you'd surely be stricken dead by either a car or by a person in a car. I found out that we had to come back at 8 PM if we expected to retrieve my hat. Determined to succeed, we immediately went back to Dungeon Drop for some more freefall action and then returned to Greased Lightning for more. We headed back to Serial Thriller and decided to ride the ride until it closed so we would be RIGHT THERE when the time came. We rode in the front seat nearly ever time (it's the best seat). We made mild acquaintance with the operator girl. Turns out she was just now a junior in high school and was being paid $5.30 an hour to operate the ride. That's nothing! They should be paying her at least $10. All of our lives are at stake with this girl and she gets paid chump change. Wow. She assured us that she'd taken a 45 minute test that was impossible to cheat on. I got on the ride and we started up. Halfway to the top the car suddenly jolted to a stop. We hung there for what seemed like an eternity. After 10 minutes, I called up Fonguro, who was still waiting in the line below, and asked what was going on. Apparently some kid a few seats behind me had unbuckled his shoulder restraint after the ride had begun. Policy dictates that the ride has to be stopped if it hasn't gone over the hill. They sent for a supervisor and we would have to wait for his arrival. I'd heard from operator girl that it took 45 minutes for a supervisor to shop up sometimes. This is why they didn't stop the ride for me to get my hat. After 20 minutes had passed, we were finally given the all-clear and the ride resumed. The car stopped yet again short of the end of the ride and we hung there waiting a second time. This time somebody had dropped a cell phone or this was all part of the process where we make sure somebody didn't fall out of the ride and bust their ass on the ground. After another 5 minutes the ride finally returned to the docking station area and we got off. We quickly exited and re-entered while there was still time and made it for last call at 8 PM. I got to ride two more times. Finally, at about 8:25 PM, I was rewarded with my beloved David Letterman hat. Earlier in the afternoon I bought a hat that said Astroworld 1968 in much the same style of hats that I'd seen at DisneyLand that said DisneyLand 1955. It came with a purported medium sized t-shirt. It was more like a kid's size medium, however. If any of my wee friends are looking for a t-shirt, get back to me. We opted for the classic Speedy Exit from the parking lot. This is the exit that goes right out onto the 610 feeder street. It's sort of suicidal in that you have to speed up and change lanes three times in a short period and then hopefully you have enough speed to enter the freeway and not get in a wreck when merging with traffic. Whew. That's way more detail than I wanted to give. Good times. Sunday was mostly a wash. I goofed off and suffered from my upper respiratory issues. There was a lot of coughing. That evening I went to Lupe Tortilla in Northwest Houston with my parents and sister's family. I almost made it through the whole dinner unscathed from birthday celebrations until I felt a giant sombrero get placed on my head. I got a slice of flan and some singing that I didn't understand. I don't remember if I saw a flash from a camera. I got dropped off back at the house and resumed the hacking cough and hope that sweet death would come. Not. Monday was catch-up day. I woke up early from another Lindsay Lohan dream. It's not what you're thinking. I recently bought the domain TheUnofficialSite.com with the intention of setting up unofficial sites for whatever subject I felt like. For some reason my brain was trying to convince me that Lindsay-Lohan.TheUnofficialSite.com was a good idea. All I have is some pictures of the back of her head, however, so I don't see that happening anytime soon. « more diversionary tactics \| Main \| even more diversionary tactics »