kapgar

The gift you gave is gonna last forever...

I know that there are some of you who actually look forward to Snippet Wednesday. And I've kinda left you hangin' the last coupla weeks. Last week it was an unfinished Snippet Wednesday due to Katie's crash. Yesterday, I just plain ran out of time.

So I'm gonna make it up to you with a special edition Snippet Thursday: The Reckoning!

Still love me?

Katie
Tomorrow marks Katie's official final day of student teaching. However, she got her grade for student teaching as well as her portfolio yesterday. As on both! That means she is graduating with a 4.0! I'm ridiculously proud of her! Mah baybee gotz intelluhjints!

Taste
My IT Director at work was in my office for a meeting yesterday when he looked on my cubicle cabinet and saw a promo card for the release of The Flaming Lips new album. This led to a discussion about music. Turns out:

• My IT Director loves The Flaming Lips.
• My IT Director loves Pete Yorn.
• My IT Director loves Bob Mould and Hüsker Dü.
• My IT Director loves The Replacements.
• My IT Director loves Tom Petty.

Clearly, my IT Director rawks.

Digital
I went to Best Buy yesterday to look into how much copies of The Hangover and Inglourious Basterds were on DVD. I also was curious if they came with digital copies. Both do. But, thanks to Ren's recent warning, I began to read the small print. Expirys were not a concern, thankfully. But compatibility was. Basterds is fine, but Hangover is neither Macintosh nor iPod/iTunes/iPhone compatible. Why in the name of Christ would a distribution company not want their product to work on the top-selling digital player of all time? Sure, I can probably rip and convert it without a problem (I do have Handbrake and iSquint and all those other cool little apps), but just loading the digital copy is so much easier. 

Inglourious Basterds digital copy? WIN!

The Hangover digital copy? EPIC FAIL!

Oh, and I alerted some customers and employees to this fact as well. They were dumbfounded by the stupidity of it all.

Blu-Ray
I actually have a Blu-Ray disc. My very first Blu-Ray disc. I don't own a Blu-Ray player, but I have a disc for when that day does come. I don't know how many of you subscribe to e-newsletters from restaurants and whatnot. Well, I do. And I get all kinds of free birthday shit as a result. Usually they amount to free desserts or, if I'm lucky, free entrees.

I got über lucky this year thanks to Disney who offered me a free Blu-Ray disc for my birthday. Say whaaaa? Of course I could only choose from a list of five movies. But it's free. So who cares? I chose Enchanted. Hey, Katie and I enjoyed that movie. And it's got Amy Adams. Can't go wrong with Amy Adams. Both my wife and Sizzle know of my obsession with her very well.

Gift
I think I've finally figured out what I'm going to get for Katie for Christmas. I usually have her gift done by now. This, I believe, is the latest I've waited to buy something. I just want to do a little research first before I actually buy it. There's no way in the name of all that's holy that she'll be expecting this. Not one iota of a chance.

Fox
I had a plan last week to write up a big glowing review of a movie Katie and I went to see, Fantastic Mr. Fox. I had it all pre-written in my head and was sitting down to type when I decided, instead, to read through my subscriptions in Google Reader. This was when I noticed Avitable had done the same thing and pretty much had the exact same opinion of the movie as Katie and I. So, if you'd like to read about a fantastic film, sure to be one of my tops of the year, head over to Av's digs and read up. 

Medley
This is simply too cool.

Well, adios for now.

Somebody else's body, someone else's head...

I swear I must be the only person in the history of the working world who doesn't pay attention to when federal holidays are happening.

This past Monday at work, everyone was discussing their plans for the upcoming long weekend.

How did I respond? "Long weekend? Huh?"

Hey dumbass, Labor Day is this coming Monday, we have a three-day weekend.

I'm really bad like this. It must be a disease. If people didn't tell me, I'd probably show up at work anyway. Labor Day, Memorial Day, Veterans' Day, and a few others, I'm sure. Heck I'd likely even show up on Thanksgiving despite the sweet smell of food cooking in our kitchen. That's how dense I am to these things.

Aren't we all supposed to be programmed to think of nothing but holidays? What's wrong with me?

I just got final word that I've been accepted into a local citizen's fire academy. No, I'm not becoming a firefighter despite my lifelong obsession with being one. I'm just going through an eight-week academy where residents get to learn about the stuff that firefighters do.

Oh, but we do go through variations of the actual training and situations that firefighters face and we get to wear the gear and go running into a live-fire drill. How sweet is that?

I'm hoping I can get some pictures if the circumstances allow (not while in the fire, obviously... Kapgar Flambé... bad form).

Sometimes I was drifting on a coffee buzz...

Three weeks.

Three very long weeks.

Three excruciatingly painful, truly untasty weeks.

That's how long it's been since I've had coffee.

I was never a huge coffee drinker. I only had coffee one, maybe two, times a week. But on that "one, maybe two, days," I would have about three cups. The first cup would never be enough to sate me.

However, over the course of the last few months, that "one, maybe two days" turned into five days a week. I was as bad as everyone in my office. I would sit there and wait for the coffeemaker to finish brewing a pot just to make sure I got some of it. I was becoming an addict. And it wasn't even particularly good coffee.

I decided it was time to kick the rapidly forming habit. Cold turkey. And I went to water. Straight water.

There are few things as boring to drink in life as water. God it's boring to drink repeatedly. I've even tried hot tea or those drink stir ins. It helps, but that can get a little pricey after a while. The big ol' Nalgene bottle I use requires two packets of stir-in mix.

I guess the one good thing about it all is that I'm sleeping much better at night. Truly.

But I miss my caffeine.

Speaking of coffee, have you seen Boy Obsolete's hand-drawn coffee cups? Total coolness.

I missed my blogiversary. Again. It was back on June 16. How could I miss such an important holiday???

Never again.

After seeing it over on Renagerie, I decided to add my own blogiversary counter. Thanks, Ren.

Now what app can I find to remind me to look at my counter?

Oh, and I gave myself a new banner in belated celebration.

I need you to need me...

Yesterday, in my guestpost at The Dutch Files, I made a promise that if people forgive me for my hackneyed attempt at both guestposting and poetry, that I would make kapgar.com a smarter place. A better place. One that you don't need to feel shame about when visiting and reading.

How do I follow up on that promise? With another guestpost, of course! This one is over at It's Me... Penelope who happens to be on what is quickly becoming an annual trip to Greece. I'm stowing away next time, dammit.

So, um, forgive me for one more day, 'tay? You'll get the normal Snippet Wednesday tomorrow barring some personal or natural catastrophe. Really!

Sometimes I feel like I don't belong in the world of working professionals.

I see people who are clearly colleagues going out for lunches sometimes and walking to and from their lunch destinations talking and laughing, sharing inside jokes, discussing business deals, whatever. They hang out after work on occasion too. You see them all the time. It's a camaraderie they've all developed. (Please note: I'm not completely antisocial. I have developed a similar camaraderie to a lesser degree with some people, but not to the level that some of these folks clearly have.)

And then there's me. How do I spend my lunch breaks? Well, besides people-watching obviously. I sit somewhere and read a book or, like I did yesterday, listen to Lady Gaga (iTunes link) on my iPod and play Ninja Town on my DS.

I swear I'm such a kid. I'm a 34-year-old kid.

Is that wrong?

Ladies and gentlemen, these snakes are slitherin'...

I looked over at my wife in the car last night on the way home from the gym and thought to myself, "who the hell are you and what have you done with my wife?"

A little background might be nice, eh?

[rewind the scene a minute or so]

Katie: So your Star Trek movie comes out this weekend, doesn't it?

Me: I think so. Why?

Katie: Okay, I'll go see it with you.

Me: Huh? Where'd that come from?

Katie: I dunno, but I'll see it with you.

Me: You don't have to do that, y'know. I'm more than willing to see it by myself.

Katie: No, I'll go with you.

Me: Really? You sure?

Katie: Yeah.

Me: Why?

Katie: I dunno. I just will.

Me: Okay. Cool.

My wife, who has, I believe, never seen any Star Trek film or TV show, is suddenly willing to go see this new film with me. She had no desire before and I couldn't blame her. It's geek porn, plain and simple. And yet, much like Adam, I'm not even really a Trekkie, but I still think it looks cool and want to see it. But I never even was going to ask Katie because I knew, well in advance, what her answer would be, so why bother?

Then this. I'm still curious why. Is she afraid I'm going to run away with some she-Trekkie I run into at the theater? Is she writing her own blog that I don't know about called "My Geeky Husband" in which she is going to chronicle the childlike awe she's expecting me to put display in the theater complete with hidden video (I'd read it)? I'm lost as to where this came from. Complete left field here. And after being so adamantly against seeing it.

Speaking of "adamant(ium)ly," if you want further evidence to support my theory that aliens have abducted Katie and replaced her with a lookalike with a scifi penchant, try this one on for size... she saw Wolverine with me on Sunday. Now you believe me, don't you?

I guess this one is a bit more understandable, though, since it has Ryan Reynolds (albeit in a far-too-small role, as noted by Crys) and Taylor Kitsch. But it's still Wolverine. She's never read an X-Men comic (not that I have, either) and has never seen any of the films and, much like Trek, she always said she had no desire. And, yet, here she was with me in line buying tickets and watching in rapt awe at the screen. Guess what... she enjoyed it! Not one of her faves, by far. But she liked it. She even expressed an interest in watching the original X-Men with me again to see how well the two films flow together.

Has my wife gone geek? Beyond just marrying me, that is.

Should I push my luck and see if she'll finally watch Star Wars with me?

Should I just accept it for what it is? A wife becoming tangentially interested in that which interests her husband?

Or should I worry that some nefarious plot has been set in motion?

I made a new friend while on a walk yesterday during my lunch break. However, he's not the kind of friend you just take home and introduce to everyone. He's kinda timid and likes his privacy. If you get too close, he might get a little pissy... or hissy, as the case may be.

I had my camera with me on my walk and was taking some pictures of flowers near where I work. I ran into another friend who suggested I snap some pics of a plant in a little garden area so I descended the stairs and, just as she was about to follow me, she stopped and said, "SNAKE!"

Yep, there he was, coiled around himself right beside one of the stairs I was just walking on. I think at his fattest point, he was about an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half in diameter. Uncoiled, I'd guess he hits about three to four feet long.

I'm used to seeing garter snakes in the area and even some small snakes swimming in the river just 10 feet away, but never ones this big just sitting there. I think he was asleep, but his eyes were open. I wasn't going to ask.

Anybody out there with snake experience want to help identify him? I've got him loosely pegged as a Cottonmouth.

Update: Local Animal Control ID'd it as a Brown Watersnake.

The rest of the photos are available on Flickr.

I'll cry if I want to...

As a blogger and general Web nut, one of the things I struggle with is trying to figure out what my audience will enjoy and what they won't. No, this does not translate to me fabricating things I think you'll like or skipping information that I fear might go over like a lead balloon. But I do sit here and try to figure out, as I'm posting something, if it will be liked or not. It's mostly to satisfy my own morbid curiosity. I'll still post it regardless of the answer, but I still wonder all the same.

And typically I'm so off the mark it's ridiculous.

For example, I might've taken a lot of time to compose a photo for posting on Flickr. I try to get it just right in hopes of making it look good. I get some views and comments and whatnot and then it just fades into oblivion after a couple days.

Then, I follow it up with a photo for which I have no time to plan. Often, I just grab a camera and snap a quick photo like when I see something while driving such as this jalopy I dubbed "Crap Car."

This, of all the 1,867 photos I've taken and posted on Flickr, is the most viewed image on my account. And it's only been posted for a year. As you can tell, it was snapped while driving, it's not well framed, not particularly interesting in terms of visual appeal, and is basically just a last-second photo taken to prove to myself later that I actually did see this car (I've seen it a couple times since then too).

Now this photo is at the top of the results when performing a Google Image Search for "Crap Car." Even when I post entirely new photos on a given day, this one is still the top daily view. Well, I take that back. Occasionally it alternates with a photo I (innocently, at the time) titled "Wet Clothes." Gee, can't figure out why that one gets hits.

I just don't get it. You people are so weird.

But I still love ya.

I was having a lot of frustration with my work computer over the last week. Yes, it's a Windows machine and, being a Mac lover, it gets tough dealing with it. But I have plenty of years of experience with PCs and Windows dating back to the ol' OS2 days (thank you very much Suzi... you and your PEBKAC claims... plllllbbtttttttt!!!). I know how to handle myself with Windows; I just prefer not to.

Anyway, a couple days ago, I'm trying to get involved in a Webinar using Microsoft Office Live Meeting. I've done plenty of Webinars with Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro and Citrix GoToMeeting and they've worked flawlessly. I didn't even need to download anything to make them work. They just... did.

Microsoft Office Live Meeting, on the other hand...

At one point, I got a pop-up from Internet Explorer (no, it won't work in Firefox; surprise, surprise) as I was about to download a plug-in to make MOLM run. It read, in typical Microsoft fashion, that the plug-in was from an unknown source and asked me if I wanted to "trust" it.

The kicker... the maker of the plug-in was Microsoft. They don't even trust their own products. Oy!

Oh, and I never got it working. Not in time anyway.

Oh-oh-oh-oh-operator...

"Mom, do you ever get that, er, not-so-fresh feeling?"

"Yes dear. Every Snippet Wednesday."

Swing
I'm up at bat. The guy in front of me in the lineup just belted an in-the-park homerun. I have to keep up the momentum. If I strike out, the side is retired. I hate being the one to end an inning. It sucks. I've done it before, but I don't want to do it again. The first pitch drops way short of the plate. Ball 1. The second pitch is sailing right where I like it. I can feel this one. I know it's going to fly the second I make contact. I pick up my shoulders a little bit and start to lift my lead foot. The bat begins its movement through the air. I can visualize exactly where in the air the bat and ball will make contact. A split second from now and... my alarm goes off. Dammit.

Miles
Well, that's one athletic fantasy that went bust, but my running has improved. After getting severely worse. A few weeks ago, I reported to a few people that my lazy ass had hit the mile and a quarter mark running on a treadmill. I did that a few times in a row and I had set a goal of keeping a certain distance for three runs before increasing it. I went in to begin the fourth run after that distance milestone, but all I could do was a mile. Three times I did only a mile, and then I had one really bad day where I could only get a mile done by running it in two half-mile spurts. I was starting to get bummed out. As I'm wont to do when exercising, I started feeling the desire to give up and began to use the elliptical machine instead. Then it hit me, I was trying to go too fast. Slow it down. Live the old "slow and steady wins the race" maxim, after all, I'm not actually in a race. So I dropped my speed a bit last Thursday. Not too much, but apparently enough for my body to feel the difference. I was back up to a mile and a quarter last Thursday, mile and a half on Friday, mile and three quarters on Monday, and I hit two miles yesterday! This is the first time I've run two nonstop miles in five-odd years. Dude, this is nice! Eventually I'll pick the speed back up, but I need to condition my body to get used to the physicality of running first. Then I think it will all fall into place.

Chuck
[Only very minor spoilers for people who haven't seen the finale of Chuck yet]
"Guys... I know Kung-Fu." Okay, I loved the finale of Chuck on Monday night. Whether this is just the season finale or the series finale remains to be seen. It is a bubble show right now. But Katie and I enjoy the hell out of it and would love to see it return. C'mon NBC, make it happen.

Vienna
Sorry if the title of this post gave you an earworm of Falconian proportions, but that song came up on shuffle on my iPod while at work yesterday and made me very happy. It has been stuck in my head ever since. Even this morning, after waking up, it was the first thing signaling that my brain was indeed awake. Hey, there are far worse songs to have stuck in your head than Falco's "Vienna Calling."

Filthy
I've been tracking some of the responses to this outbreak of Swine Flu (which has now supposedly made its way to the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago) on the Web and I came across a site from a health department in Wisconsin that had a picture of a big ol' sow right on the page. I began to feel sorry for the poor guy and, for some reason, Vincent and Jule's debate about swine from Pulp Fiction popped in my head. I don't know if anybody else out there has already done it or not, but I became inspired and created the following. Miramax, please don't sue me. It's all in fun. Really.

Hey, I'm not the only one having a little fun with Swine Flu.

Okay, time for work.

If we took a holiday...

Happy Good Friday.

Yes, it's Good Friday and I'm at work.

I know many people take days like Good Friday off. Or, in many cases, they have the day off whether they asked for it or not.

At my job, it's not a mandated holiday. Instead we get a few "flexible holidays" throughout the year to account for some of those days that not everybody necessarily wants off. So, if someone does want Good Friday off, they can do so easily.

Me? I love working the holidays. To steal a line from Tony the Tiger, "they're gr-r-r-r-r-reat!"

Why? Two reasons:

1. So many people do take these days off, so the office is practically empty by comparison to many other, normal days. I get so much work done due to a lack of interruptions, it's ridiculous.

2. As pointed out by Dawg this morning (I thought it was Dawg anyway, but now I can't find the post anywhere... am I going nuts here? I swore he blogged about his commute into Manhattan being easy peasey this morning. WTF?), commute times are fantastic. I trimmed 15 minutes off my commute time this morning because no one, I repeat no one, was on the road.

So, yeah, sign me up for holidays and that week between Christmas and New Year's when someone needs to cover the office. I love 'em!

Today was the final day of voting for my new baseball team to root for this season. When it comes to new teams, the #1 vote getter was the St. Louis Cardinals with #2 being the Tampa Bay Rays. A bunch of others came in with a single vote each with my favorite single-team vote rationale coming from Le Sombre.

However, it you were to look at pure votes for any team, the top choice was to stick it out with the Cubs. I got all sorts of crap from some people for it. Some of the comments were kind reminders that I should be true to my team. Others... not so kind. I do feel kinda bad, though, as it does come off sounding like I now hate the Cubs. But this is not the case at all. I'm just bored by them. It's not exciting to watch them play. I do want them to do well. I do want them to win the World Series. Honestly. I hope they prove my lack of faith wrong and show me up. But, in my heart of hearts, I don't see this being the case. That's why I was looking for a different team to root for. Not a new favorite team, per se, just some other team that is exciting and fun and can reinvigorate my love of the game.

And now that I re-read my post, I realize that I never actually said I would pick the top vote earner, did I? Does that mean I can pick any of the nominated teams? It would certainly seem that way.

So, you know what? I'm defecting leagues here and jumping back to the American League that for so long held my love. I'm going with Le Sombre's suggestion and rooting for the Twins this season. And it works nicely with my Harmon Killebrew bat and the fact that I've always been a Kirby Puckett fan (the player; his personal life in the final few years, not so much). So, fuck yeah. Go Minnesota!

Oh yeah, and I already have the hat.

You can comb my hair, undress me anywhere...

I feel so dirty.

I had to Photoshop a head-and-shoulders photo of a woman I know personally for use on a Web page I was putting together. She's a nice girl and cute, but the photo needed some help. Not her so much as the quality of the photograph. Bad shadows cast by the flash, some visual blur, and the person who took the photo forgot to turn off the dreaded date/time stamp.

Shadows? Not a problem.

Blur? Sharpened up a bit and the rest of it was resolved by cropping it down to a Web-usable size.

The date/time stamp? Well that took some use of the rubber stamp tool in Photoshop. I would have to sample some surrounding areas and fill over where the text stood out in bright orange against her dark sweater.

Oh, and did I mention that the stamp was right across her, um, boobs? Yes, I said "boobs." And I was zoomed in tight, as I always am when rubber stamping in Photoshop, in order to maintain as much detail as possible.

It was disconcerting.

I'm not sure I can ever look at her the same way again.

Help! Help! I'm being followed by the Illinois House Republicans (@ILHGOP).

They're on Twitter and they're following me!! Help!

I'm incomplete...

I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to cobble enough together for Snippet Wednesday, but I pulled it off!

Yoga
I was late to yoga today and I lay the blame squarely on Van Halen. I was in the locker room changing into my yoga gear (warm-up pants and T-shirt... very yogic, I know) when I heard the stereo in the adjacent workout room cranking a live version of Sammy Hagar's "Give to Live." Being the Van Halen freak, I needed to know if this was a live performance by VH or by Sammy solo since the song is actually his from the solo days. So I rocked out through the finish and then heard the stereo kick in my all-time favorite "Finish What Ya Started." Yep, totally Van Halen. NICE!

Heroic
Oh, c'mon! Did you really think I wouldn't sheep it up and make myself a superhero like so many other bloggers?

Make your own!

Goody
Can somebody tell me who the hell Jade Goody is? I subscribe to Famecrawler's RSS feed and, lemme tell ya, I must be WAY out of it on the celebrity front. They report on many people I've never heard of before. And they do this regularly. I know everything that is going on in Jade Goody's life from her pseudo suicide to her pending nuptials but I can't tell you why any of us should give a damn. Who the hell is she and what about her makes her worth watching? Please explain this enigma of a woman to me.

Blackout
I've been watching the last several days as some of my fellow Twitterers, as a show of solidarity, blacked out their profile pictures. Solidarity for what? Supposedly against New Zealand's new ISP and Web liability rules. I'm not going to try to explain it save for providing a link. But I do have one question... what good is blacking out your profile going to do for the cause? I guess it's a show of support from afar against something you don't agree with. But wouldn't it be far more effective to start a petition or create an informative Web site urging people to contact NZ politicians? To me, this blacking out seems like a joke. Like you expect a politician to look at the page and say, "OHMIGOD! He's blacked out his picture! And it's all because of how I voted! I'm never going to know what this person looks like unless I reverse my political stance!" Yeah, okay.

Buddha
Because we all could use a little faith in these trying times. Mine's on my desk.

 

Take a walk on the wild side...

Sorry, but I have no clever intro right now. I'm kinda pissed right now. So let's just say it's Snippet Wednesday and be on with it.

Hampshire'd
Yes, New Hampshire is a really beautiful state from what I've seen so far. However, I think Nashua could benefit from both better public transportation and SIDEWALKS!! I was going to attend a men's and women's basketball game at Daniel Webster College tonight. DWC is only 1.8 miles away from the hotel according to Google Maps. However, as the crow flies, it's probably only a mile. Of course, I cannot take advantage of the crow's route because it would require me wading through a creek and illegally traversing the runway of a small local airport. I tried to book the hotel shuttle to go out there, all of five minutes. The front desk said no problem. However, when I found the driver, he told me he had to make a run to the airport and couldn't take me for at least an hour. So I decided, against all logic, to walk figuring I'd find one of the busses that supposedly run through town.

An hour and a quarter and only about halfway there, I gave up. No busses. No sidewalks. Little streetlighting. And snow piles on the side of the road up to my waist in some parts. God only knows how many times I nearly died either due to reckless drivers or ice patches on the road. I couldn't even really walk through parking lots as they were all divided by three-foot-high snow piles. By the time I got back to the hotel, the driver was gone on another hotel run.

Fuck it. And I was really looking forward to these games and taking some pictures. Guess you'll have to settle for just some scenery. As per usual, if you can't see the Pictobrowser in your feed reader, click through to the Flickr album.

Password
I maintain a Web site for a friend of mine. It's for an academic journal of which he serves as Editor-in-Chief. It really takes little to no time, so I do it in exchange for a free subscription to the journal (it's all about popular music, so I'm cool with that). However, the previous host of the Web site has declined to continue hosting and he went out in search of a new host. Things were going swimmingly until, for some unknown reason, the password stopped working. I kept trying over the course of a few days thinking it may have been a server glitch and that it would miraculously begin working again. It didn't. So my friend contacted the host and had the password reset and sent me the information so I could log back in.

Like any temporary password, I had to change it upon login and the system in place to determine if the password was good was ridiculous! When I would type in a password, there would be this meter on the side determining if my password was secure enough. Usually, this is just a guideline to nudge you towards trying something different, but it would never hold you to it. Woah no, not this one. If it wasn't at least "weak," the system wouldn't approve it. At one point, I used "TSOH-675-668-1," which has a sufficient amount of alpha and numeric plus punctuation and case sensitivity and the system rejected it. Do you want me to be able to remember it or not? Fucking thing.

Bowl
First I missed Nipplegate (only on the initial viewing; I saw it many times in replay afterward, of course), and now I miss Porngate. I swear I'm never in the right place at the right time.

King
I get a kick out of the fact that Stephen King is trashing Twilight writer Stephenie Meyer as, effectively, a hack. This considering I don't think King has been able to keep a full-on book going through to the end in about 20 years. His short stories and novellas are second to none, but his novels never hold the course in my opinion. They're pretty terrible. But that's just me.

Well, I'm off to drown my sorrow over no basketball in VitaminWater XXX and baklava from Cedar's Cafe. Interesting mix, I know. But it's making me happy and the dude had some great music pumping including the title of this post. Good stuff.

Update: Just saw a video of Porngate... it was only male nudity. Meh. Whatever.

Into the great wide open...

Today is my travel day. I get to fly into Manchester, N.H., and then grab a shuttle into Nashua.

But I feel the need to clarify one thing. After re-reading some of my earlier posts about this trip, I realize it may come off that I'm feeling a bit negative about traveling to New Hampshire. That I think it's not going to be fun or beautiful or whatnot.

This is simply not the case. I'm actually very much looking forward to seeing New Hampshire. It is one of only two states east of the Mississippi River I've never visited (the other being Maine). And, having lived in New England (a few years in Connecticut), I know how beautiful it is out there.

My only regret regarding this trip is that I'm not going out there in the fall when all the leaves are changing and the true beauty of New England shines. Instead, the weather report for that area is predicting 4-8" of snow. I hope this doesn't delay my arrival or my subsequent return home this Friday.

Okay, two regrets... that Katie's not going with me. She's too busy with work and school, so she has to stay behind and this bums me out. I hate traveling without her. Especially since she's never been to New England at all.

But I'm going and I know I'm going to enjoy it and I'm going to eat some fresh seafood and take lots of pictures and that I'm likely going to make it a point to return, but this time with Katie.

So, bring it on, New Hampshire! Let's rock.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): I'm a bit rusty here, but does this e-mail mean that Tibor accepted my friend request or did he tell me to bugger off?

Any creative translations from all of you?

Working class hero...

I think one of my favorite things about smart phones as opposed to standard cell phones is actually one of the most basic features of them... the ability to store all kinds of information about your contacts and have it right there at your fingertips.

I love having people's names, phone numbers, addresses, birthdays, anniversaries, Web site addresses, etc., all right there.

But even better than this is when you don't actually know some of these details for people. For example, I have contact information for some of you, my fair readers, from having contacted you in the past for meet ups or just random chats. Or maybe I've mailed you something at one point in time or another. Whatever the case may be, I have some random tidbits about some of you on my phone.

And, since I don't necessarily have all the information I need to fill out your profiles on my BlackBerry, I get creative. Shall we check out a few examples?

Everybody's blog buddy ("blogdy"? "bluddy"?) Dave at Blogography is in there. I have a bunch of his personal information because, y'know, I'm in the first circle of Dave friend-dom. We have, after all, shared a Depeche Mode concert together. However, even though he's told me who he works for, I'll be damned if I can remember. So I have his employer listed as "Davetopia" and his job is officially "Monkey Trainer," although we all know there is no training Bad Monkey.

Adam (happy belated birthday, BTW) over at Avitable is another one I've met up with. Therefore, I have his phone number and the like. I also know what he does for a living and that he owns his company, but, again, I'll be damned if I can remember the name of it. So he's listed as "Owner & Miss Britt's Sugar Daddy" at "Avitable, Inc." Seems to work for me.

Our fair Hilly... now why the hell do I have her home address? Was it from my stalker days? Perhaps. Well anyway. She's in my phone as the "Queen" of the "People's Republic of Blogistan." It's true and we all hail her on a daily basis.

Karl at Secondhand Tryptophan is simply listed as "Paid Blogger... Bastard" whose paychecks are signed by "Famecrawler." Livin' the dream, man. Livin' the dream. 'nuff said.

I also just added details to Marty at Banal Leakage. He's now "Genius Amongst Mere Mortals" at "Renaissance Men, LLC." You'll see why below in the TUA.

But I need your help on some. I have a few other names you might recognize on my phone that need creative companies and job titles. Snark is welcome. Care to help? Here's the list:

• Nilsa at SoMi
• MochaMomma (yes, she's listed under her real name; Katie might start to wonder if she scrolled through my address book and saw "MochaMomma," don't you think?)
• Tori at Radioactive Tori
• Sizzle of Sizzle Says

Anybody else want to see themselves listed? Let me know.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): I've been doing some research on what there is to do in Nashua, NH, when I'm there next week. Yeah, it's not so hypothetical as I let on. But I was waiting to make sure everything was booked. And now it is.

Well, there are places to shop and the downtown is said to be a really nice, quaint sort of downtown shopping district. Some places look kinda interesting and I might have to check them out. For example, there is a homebrew beer supply store. Maybe they offer lessons. Plus there is a camera supply shop and I also saw something about a comic shop.

But the shocker of it all is that I will be a mere hour or so from the Atlantic Ocean and just a little further than that from Maine, home of Maine Lobster (or so one might assume), and Nashua has only one seafood place that I could find listed on their tourism Web site. 

There are more seafood restaurants in pathetically landlocked Geneva, IL! In equally landlocked Naperville, IL, I can throw a stone in any direction and I'm pretty sure I'd hit a place that serves seafood.

What gives?

I guess it's a good thing I now have Gmail video chatting set up on both Katie's and my laptops. Because I'm sure I will be spending a lot of time talking to her. So long as I have a reliable WiFi connection. And I have Marty of Banal Leakage to thank for helping me set it all up. It works flawlessly and I get the feeling we'll be using it more often than we should.

But I just don't want to go all the way out to Nashua, N.H., and spend my free time in a shopping mall. If Nashua is anything like a lot of the small towns in Illinois, a lot of the little mom-n-pop shops may close by the time I get out of training.

Oh baby, it's cold outside...

So, say that hypothetically, I was going to be in Nashua, New Hampshire, on business starting late on February 3 and leaving very early in the morning on February 6. What would one do in that area for fun during the times I'm not working?

Anybody out there know anything about Nashua? I don't.

There are catches: I won't have a rental car. I'm not sure what kind of public transportation I'll have available either. And I'm limited to post 5 p.m. time slots on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th.

Any ideas?

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): We tried to open the backdoor for Lilly to just go to the bathroom in the backyard. Thought it would be easier. On both of us.

Turns out the backdoor is frozen shut. Won't budge a bit.

Katie's now pretending to bang on the doors and shout for help as though we're trapped in our own house.

Good thing we have no neighbors behind us. I'd hate to have to explain this one to the cops.

Let me see what life is like on Jupiter and Mars...

I'm looking for a dog expert here.

I guess I'd even settle for a dog novice.

Just somebody who can explain to me the purpose behind the "marking your territory" phenomenon.

Why? Why do dogs do this and how exactly does it help them lay claim to a specific patch of land?

I've walked Lilly dozens upon dozens of times and have watched as she's stopped in mid stride, lifted a leg, and allowed a few small droplets of urine to fall out onto a specific spot. It could be grass, a garden, a sidewalk, a bush, rocks, a stray leaf, or some other dog's pile of poop.

Is it like Neil Armstrong landing on the moon and sticking the U.S. flag in it? So the moon is now ours and anybody else that ever lands there needs to pay us rent like a game of Monopoly? Can we build a little green apartment for the little green men and charge more rent?

I've tried to make sense of her rationale. Why here? Why that rock?

I've got nothing.

But the most confounding thing to me is the occasional remarking of a spot on which she's already dribbled her yellow goodness.

If marking your territory is actually a dog's way to try and say to other animals, "hey squatter, that's mine!" then remarking makes no sense. I would think dogs, like humans, would want more and more territory and, to achieve this, they should mark new, unexplored areas, not the same old, same old. They should be striving for canine colonization, if you catch my meaning.

The only rationalization I can make for remarking is that dogs prefer Risk to Monopoly. By letting it flow multiple times on the same spot, when another dog challenges them for dominion, the one with the most pee wins. "Ha! I've got six droplets to your two! Move on or pay with your life, bitch!"

Am I just overthinking this?

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): I know I should be leaving for work right now. I need to get off my butt and go.

I just don't want to.

Make me.

Go!

Want sleep.

Need money.

Dammit. The almighty dollar won.

Adios.