This is earthquake
Weather:
Honor and Hunger
Walk lean together
- Langston Hughes
I meant to write earlier, but a few weeks ago, I started carefully examining my diversified stock portfolio. Ever since all the 'unpleasantness' started, I've been hiding out under my desk with a loaded handgun and a box of canned peaches. I had to dip into my 'emergency zombie attack' rations, but I feel that it's worth it. Will someone send me a message when my holdings are back in the green? I heart debt.
But in all honesty, things have been going quite well. Work has been crazy. Phase I of the project I was working on finally went live last week, much to my chagrin. It's been six months of break-neck work. It's the first sizable project that I've been on -- I'd say about 30 people had their hands in the pot at any given time, which made for some hectic conference calls. Only adding to the chaos, about 10 of those folks work over in Europe. Timezones are lame shit. Anyway, the first part of the project, the biggest part, rolled out just over a fortnight ago. I got to press the 'button' to turn it on. It was fun. I smiled like a teenager who just got his first wristie (or chinie, for that matter).
The weeks leading up to the go-live were pretty rough. Twice, I clocked in well over 70 hours, something that I'm not used to. I put in 16 hours over a weekend. Rough times. I can't be too mad -- I've rarely cracked 45 hours a week in the two years that I've been working, I just hope it doesn't happen too often -- I was so fucking fried after work during those times.
Speaking of which, during those hectic weeks, much of my limited free time was spent cheesing back, playing Megaman 9 on the Wii. I beat the shit out of that game. I dare you to do the same. That shit is tough biz. To go that extra nerd-mile, after beating it, I dusted off my copy of Megaman 2 and was amazed at how easy it was after experiencing 9. Megaman 2 was like the hardest game in the world when I was 8. I kick so much ass.
Megaman 2 : Megaman 9 :: Contra III : Contra I (but without the spread gun).
Awhile ago, Kim and I threw down some bills on a new couch. It was time to say goodbye to my fairweather friend, the wooden futon. I've had the peice of shit since I was 14 or so. It was only very uncomfortable. My mother purchased it for $80 from the elderly folks that lived down the street from my childhood best friend (MURPHY REPRESENT!) when they were having a garage sale. It followed me all through college, four houses and two apartments. Such memories.
So, I did my best to scrub out the stains and I threw it on craigslist for $40. I instantly had copious amounts of e-mails. The first one being from Freddie. After trading e-mails, we finally agreed on a time. I kicked off work a few minutes early to meet him at my house. I pull up to find two men in my driveway. One small, frail looking man and one monstrous, morbidly obese giant. I would soon find out that the small guy was Freddie. The big guy was his roommate and business partner. They both wore tore up jeans and flannel shirts. I immediately took inventory of their footwear (fucked up habit, I know). The big guy was wearing nondescript boots, but Freddie, poor little Freddie had velcro shoes on. I approached him first (I have an aversion to giants, by the way) and introduced myself.
As we loaded up the pieces of the futon, Freddie mentioned that he and his roommate were both renting futons for $20 a week from Rent-a-center. I've never rented any furniture, but goddamn that seems like robbery. I mean, why didn't they just man up and sleep on the floor for a few weeks. Rough it out and bank some cash so that you can buy a real bed, right? Priorities, I guess. For $20/week, I'd expect the futon to throw a handjob my way here and there. Oh well.
Anyway, between the velcro shoes and the torn pants and the Rent-a-center comment, I told him that I'd only take $20 for it. The big guy piped up and said that they were good for the full $40. Honestly, I just wanted it out, so I stressed that it wasn't that big of an issue to me and to please, let me take $20 from them. After going back and forth for a bit, the big guy pulled out a peice of paper and said "Since you are so nice, Freddie will give you $20 and I'll give you a $20-off coupon for our business."
"What is your business?" I asked
"We scrape moss off of roofs" he said. "Since 2006" he added.
He writes his name, along with '20$ off' on the back of the flyer and hands it to me. I graciously thanked him, pocketed the coupon and say farewell.
Sometimes, I overthink things. After those men left, I was pondering just how strange the situation was. I type a few words on a keyboard, which get sent across the interwhat to be stored in a database. Freddie, who was renting a $20/week futon (RIPOFF CITY USA), happened to type a few words on his keyboard which showed him my futon. A few digital exchanges later, our lifes had fully intersected, if only for a few minutes, if only for the exchange of cash and futons. The computer nerd and the moss cleaners. I just think that shit is amazing. I love the interwho.
Two weeks ago, Ms. Kim went out of town for a friend's wedding. I was left to my own devices. I had to work quite a bit, but my off-hours were completely idle. Rather than plot conspiracies, plant disinformation or masturbate into oblivion, I opted to get my motherfucking paint on. A few hundred dollars later, I'm up to my nipples in plastic sheeting, respirators, masking tape and gallons of paint.
As many of you know, I don't fuck around. I got my hands on an industrial-strength paint sprayer (with a compressor) from my father and decided to go nuts. I schemed up a plan to do a huge stencil on the main wall of the living room. I fucked around in photoshop to see how it would look. The results pleased me, so I drafted up a todo list.
It started like this:
01 -- steal a digital projector from work.
02 -- measure wall to exact dimensions
03 -- drawl scaled down version of the stencil
04 -- project the image onto the wall
05 -- mask outline and paint inside color.
06 -- wait for it to dry.
07 -- project image again, this time mask the image
08 -- spend hours with an exacto knife
09 -- paint wall final color.
10 -- wait for it to dry.
11 -- fuck the police.
12 -- remove masking tape.
It looked simple good on paper, but in practice, it took so fucking long. I spent 7 hours with an exacto-knife, cutting out the image. Awful shit. All in all, I watched two seasons of The Simpsons (8 and 9, bitches) whilst doing so. The painting itself was pretty painless. With the industrial strength sprayer, it only took about 5 minutes to lay a coat on the entire room. The downside? I had to mask EVERYTHING and lay what felt like miles of plastic sheeting.
Anyway, hours and hours and hours later, I finally got everything moved back in. I think it looks real nice-like. Here are some pictures of the finished product.
step 6
step 8
step 11
fin
I also took the liberty of painting the wall opposite the grass the same color as said grass. I love it. I realized that it is the same color as the fridge in The Simpson's fridge.
That's all I got for now. Love y'all.
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