People who read the stories on my web site often times ask if I tell the truth when I write. What seems like a simple and fair question on the surface can easily turn into a nebulous concept where the notions of right and wrong become more intertwined than the drunken bodies at the local Fraternities Saturday night “Beer and Twister” celebration. Questions such as “Is one the atomic weight of Hydrogen?”, “Does a box of Hamburger Helper come with one of those cartoon gloves with the face on the palm?” and “Honey, did you go out drinking last night only to wake up naked in the back seat of a Mexican crossdresser’s car AGAIN?” can quite easily answered with the responses of “Yes,” “No,” or “HELLO! Isn’t it perfectly obvious that I’m still wearing my left sock?”

Unfortunately, the very nature of the Cosmos doesn’t always provide clear cut answers. Take for example the value of Pi. Defined to be the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, this simple mathematical concept has puzzled mankind since the beginning of time. Even with all of the world’s fancy computers and glamorous mathematicians working on the case, we will never know its exact value. No matter how accurately the value of Pi is calculated, there will always more digits at the end that have not been taken into consideration. It’s one of the most simple and elegant concepts of Euclidean Geometry, and yet we are forced to spend the rest of our lives agonizing over the beauty of their round supple perfection that teases us– forever out of reach.

Which brings me to my next topic: Britney Spears. As I write this I’m watching her televised concert on HBO. At the moment she is performing “I Love Rock and Roll” (originally recorded by Joan Jett and the Black Hearts) while seductively dancing around with a half dozen young dancers wearing revealing shiny spandex outfits on a small platform suspended thirty feet in the air off the main stage. There are so many ways to end this paragraph that I’ll let you, the reader, make up your own punch line or pick one of the following.

A) Of course that whole setup was stolen from Cher’s act in the mid 1980’s.
B) I heard they had to edit out the post show interview when Joan Jett drove to the arena and kicked Britney’s ass.
C) If her boobs really are fake, they sure stood up to the intense heat generated by the stage lights quite nicely.

So while a lot of people categorize Miss Spears as a fake, the truth is that she has some musical talent, a moderate amount of skill in moving her body in synch with the music, and an amazing ability to draw attention away from her deficiencies and focus the spotlight on her assets. Writing stories is remarkably similar– except in all honesty I generally forgo the silver sequin covered sports bra in favor of a baggy drab colored T-shirt. I’m not going to deny it brings out the curves of my upper body, but when I’m sitting at my desk for hours at a time it chafes me like there is no tomorrow.

To explain this concept using a different analogy, people realize that working in a cubical in an office isn’t a whole lot of fun most of the time. At my last job I worked in a cubical and gave customers highly specialized technical advice. Which, by any objective measurement is less interesting than watching paint dry. Given this information, I tend to stay away from the mundane aspects of what I did and focus on the relatively sparse but unusual events that I experienced. I’ve included two “real” things that happened at work to illustrate this point.

Example 1:

I was talking to a customer on the phone today at work. He seems like a nice enough fellow, but after conversing with him for a few minutes I realized that he was trying to pass an uninitialized character pointer object to a function. And he wonders why the compilier was producing a memory stack overflow error. I mean, really—he might as well have been trying to create a multithreading process without any shared memory mutex mechanisms.

Example 2:

I’m not sure how, but one of the customers I was helping had this uncanny ability to call me exactly one minute after I left my desk to go to the bathroom or stop by the kitchen to get another beverage. To make matters worse, he didn’t have the ability to receive incoming phone calls. Finally, the situation got to the point where my manager came into my cubical with a solution. She grabbed a roll of duct tape and quickly wrapped it around my chest and the back of the chair three or four times to ensure I would not leave the vicinity of my telephone until the customer called back. While her plan did work, I think she went a little too far with the idea when she came back to my desk an hour later with a catheter tube.

The first example isn’t funny at all because memory management in C++ programming IS NO LAUGHING MATTER! The second example is funny because it actually happened. Of course so did the first one—which is the whole point. It’s pretty easy to take ordinary events and make them look more exciting than they actually are. Just ask Britney.

Even with the help of my overactive imagination, I could not have even remotely predicted what was going to happen to me one Saturday night last December. Sitting on Santa’s lap, even as at the age of twenty-seven, is not a totally uncommon activity when attending the neighbor’s Christmas party. Things got weird for me, however, when “Santa” turned out to be my high school math teacher.

Before I go any further here, I need to rewind my life thirteen years to provide background information about some of the people involved in the story. With varying degrees of success, I had four different teachers attempt to fill my brain with the theorems, concepts, and procedures of a standard high school mathematics curriculum. To the best of my knowledge, I have only seen one of them dressed up as Santa Claus.

After sprinkling references about Mr. Eggert (my ninth grade algebra teacher) throughout recent stories, it was really just a matter of time before I devoted an entire story to the man who derived enormous amounts of joy and happiness to making my life as a high school freshman a living hell. I sometimes feel guilty just mentioning his name. It’s not because he was a mean, smelly, cigar smoking, bitter man who went out of his way to telephone my parents during the middle of dinner to discuss my attitude problem. In reality, he is just too easy of a target. Not everyone who sponsors their school’s chess team has a room full of emotional baggage upstairs, but Mr. Eggert is not someone to disprove this popular notion. I somehow managed to survive my entire freshman year with Mr. Eggert. I learned a lot in his class, and most of it was only tangentially related to mathematics.

My situation started to look better during my sophomore year of high school. My previous mathematics teacher was replaced with a much less evil model. Looking back on the situation, I suspect Mr. Ridgely, my tenth grade geometry teacher, conspired to play “good cop” to Mr. Eggert’s “bad smelling cop”. He was a very enthusiastic and helpful teacher. To top it off, he never called my parents during dinner time. Despite the fact that a large percentage of the entire world was plotting against me during my years as a teenager, I can honestly say that he probably wasn’t conspiring to destroy my life. Or, if he was, he did a very nice job of concealing his intentions.

Fast forward twelve and a half years to last December. My mother and I were invited to a Christmas party hosted by some of our old neighbors. Well, they aren’t really all that old– they just aren’t our neighbors anymore. In addition to visiting with a lot of friends I haven’t seen in a while, someone brought a plate of frozen miniature chocolate eclairs I found to be quite tasty. I started seeing everything in a different perspective. I spent my entire life up to that moment in time thinking that eclairs could only be one size and temperature. Why not make the pastries smaller? Why not serve them below room temperature? Then I applied the same thinking to humanity in general. I unearthed some universal truths about humanity. However, this story is about Santa Claus. The truths about chocolate eclairs will be written at a later date.

Guess who comes knocking on the door after everyone finished eating? If you answered “Jehovah’s Witnesses” you would be absolutely wrong, even though that would make for an interesting plot twist. No, Santa Claus himself joined the party with his big sack of presents for everyone at the party. I guess that means nobody fell into the “naughty” category for the year. Either that or the newly implemented NaughtyOrNice.com web site was malfunctioning and reporting a “nice” status for all individuals.

Santa sat down in the middle of the living room and pulled presents out one at a time. Everyone, including myself, sat on Santa’s lap when their name was called. For some reason, my mom seemed especially entertained when it was my turn. He gave me a calendar, so I suppose I wasn’t quite as nice as I could have been. I was really hoping for something that exploded or in some way was designed to catch on fire.

Guess who Santa Claus turned out to be? “A Jehovah’s Witness” is still not the correct answer. You can also rule out Mr. Eggert since it involved being kind and generous to little kids. Also the smell of stale cigar smoke would have scared away many of the smaller children. Santa was my geometry teacher, Mr. Ridgely. Sitting on his lap without realizing it at the time embarrassed me at first. But after a few minutes I decided that it was, like many aspects of my life, too strange to be anything but funny.

No matter where you see him– at the mall with little kids on his lap, next to a Salvation Army donation bucket, or at the liquor store loading up on cigarettes and whisky- I think it is human nature to assume that you don’t personally know the true Santa Claus. So if “Santa” comes around next year and I’ve been nice enough to receive a present, I’ll at least know why his lap seems so familiar.

I like to consider myself a reasonable and tolerant individual. I know the world is not a perfect place. My newspaper does not always arrive on time and occasionally my French fries are not quite as “hot out of the deep fryer” as I might like them. These small problems in life are things that I can fairly easily overlook. When something is fundamentally messed up I have to stand up (a.k.a. turn on my computer) and let my voice be heard (a.k.a. write about it). Having said that, I call the following piece “How Qwest Annoys Me.”

The first thing to know about Qwest is they give out customer’s personal information to other companies for the sole purpose of calling me when I’m very busy trying to be asleep. When I signed up for phone service with Qwest, I gave them my personal information so they would know things like which phone line to turn on and where to send the monthly bill. As far as I can remember, they never asked me “can we distribute your name and phone number for our own profit?” Because if they did, I’m sure I would have politely turned down the offer.

Well, it turns out that Qwest has an “opt out” policy on this subject. Which means you have to go and specifically ask them to stop selling your information to other companies. I can’t imagine many people really wanting to be on this list in the first place. If Qwest adopted an “opt in” policy the list they sell would be quite a bit shorter and probably less profitable. Quite annoying, if you ask me.

Call me a bit old fashioned, but I believe that the phone company has better things to do than to keep calling me and asking me to upgrade my phone service. I am not really the type of person who pushes the envelope in this area. I’m happy with the basic functions of being able to send and receive phone calls. My attitude on this subject, however, does not seem to make Qwest very happy. Convinced I just can’t live without their latest new feature they keep calling and wanting me to upgrade. My favorite sales call occurred a few days ago when someone from Qwest wanted to sell me a service to block unidentified calls. I have to look into this feature in more detail to find out if it would really block Qwest from getting through. Maybe I’m being an idealist here, but when the phone company is trying to sell a service that keeps THEMSELVES from getting through thing have just gone a bit too far.

Maybe this whole situation is aggravated by the fact I lived in Holland for six months. My apartment, located just outside of Amsterdam, contained a telephone that to the best of my knowledge worked for the entire duration of my visit. Whenever I picked up the phone I could hear a dial tone and I was able to make a call. Whenever someone I knew called my number, the phone would ring and I would pick it up if I happened to be around. Whenever Dutch telemarketers called up trying to sell me wooden shoes or windmill time share investment opportunities…. wait a minute—that never happened. In the entire six months I didn’t receive a single phone call from someone I didn’t know. Sure, the Dutch speak their funny little elf language that nobody else in the world seems to care about, but they really have a wonderful policy on telephone solicitation.

The whole logic of long distance prefixes was pretty much thrown out the window with the introduction of “overlay” numbers. Having to dial a ten digit code to call your next door neighbor (who may very well have a different area code) defeats the whole concept. I suspect in the future we will be required to include the three digit international country code, “1”, the area code, the actual phone number followed by the caller’s height and weight, the social security number of the person trying to be reached, and the first 10 digits of Pi– “just to be safe.”

One solution I’ve come up with involves new area codes. I propose new area codes be set up making it flat out illegal for companies to make unsolicited phone calls. If a telemarketer did call one of these numbers, a special “*86” option would notify the proper authorities. This would result in the telemarketer being charged a special two dollar “user fee” that would be credited to the victim’s telephone account to compensate for the inconvenience.

I am not holding my breath for Qwest to change their annoying ways. I think my best bet its to cancel my service outright, buy a cell phone from another company, and hope the telemarketers will keep away from my new number for at least a month or two. That, or I’ll just pack up and move back to Holland.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University built a machine designed to demonstrate basic social skills. The robot, named Grace, is a 6-foot-tall drum shaped device which communicates through a digitally animated woman’s face. While the robot’s social abilities are minimal at best, the researcher’s modest goal is to have Grace appear at least as human as Martha Stewart.

I decided to spend some time talking about what I think is a very important problem in the world today. I’m sure a lot of people think this means more Laser Tag, evil alien overlords, or the decline of fondue. Don’t get me wrong-these are all ALL important, but the topic of the day (or, as they would say in France, “a la mode”), involves women who hate men because they are slobs. I know this sounds like ninety percent of the topics from the Jerry Springer talk show, but I would like to assure everyone that this letter will be done in a tasteful manner without any chair throwing or extensive segments bleeped out by the network censors.

Since there is a possibility this letter may be read by both genders, I really don’t have any choice to start out by saying that, yes, men are slobs. The degree to which any given man is a slob varies, but I think we can all agree that inside every man is a slob trying to express himself. I’d like to dedicate this to all the women out there. Maybe you can’t mold your man into Tom Cruise, Fabio, or John Ritter, but reading this might make you feel less likely to impale your significant other with a steak knife the next time you have to pick up his dirty underwear from the bathroom floor for the sixth day in a row.

Men often have difficulty operating a vacuum cleaner. At first you might suspect that much like household dogs, men are afraid of the strange noises produced while vacuuming. While it seems like a good theory, it doesn’t explain why men evade this chore by hanging out in their work shops all Saturday afternoon with various electric saws, drills, and sanders. A recent study reported that when asked to vacuum a carpeted area, over sixty percent of the men offered instead to spend the next three weekends installing hardwood floors.

So why are men so resistant to the vacuum cleaner? If they are anything like me, they feel tremendous guilt for never returning my girlfriend’s vacuum after we broke up. Now I can’t stop thinking of her every time I want clean carpets in my apartment. While I very rarely claim to be a licensed psychiatrist, I have come to realize the mental bond I have established between my ex and her vacuum. Symbolically, I keep her locked up in the closet-punishment for not wanting to frequent Taco Bell and the local video arcade on a regular basis.

And now a note to all the men who are reading this. I’m sure that some of you out there are married or have a girlfriend who on occasion does more than her fair share of the house work. Please keep in mind that their love for you is similar to those tablets you drop in the toilet bowl tank to make the water turn blue. You may think they are going to last forever, but every time you flush the toilet a little bit of her love goes down the drain. One day you will wake up, stumble to the bathroom, and realize the blue in the toilet bowl is gone.

My point here is that you can always go and buy more love in the detergent isle of your local grocery store. Wait, that doesn’t quite sound right. How about this: if you take a little time and plan ahead, you can keep everything in your bathroom and relationship running smoothly. Contrary to popular belief, helping clean up the dishes after a meal will not kill you. The odds of throwing out your back while putting dirty clothes into the hamper are quite small. A note to all the men reading this-please do not read this last analogy and assume the sum of your household responsibility is to drop the Tidy Bowl tablets into the toilet bowl tank. It is quite possible that your significant other will require more than that from you. For example, you might also have to be responsible for going to the store and buying the tablets.

With the possible exception of my mother, I’ll be one of the first people to admit I’m currently an unmotivated bachelor who enjoys the irony of watching ESPN while eating potato chips and repressing any fleeting thoughts about cleaning up my surroundings. Does this make me a bad person? Of course not. Is loving Taco Bell a crime? I really hope that isn’t the case. My point here is that while men are far from perfect, we are the only game in town. That is, of course until the day that scientists perfect animatronic male robots that don’t leave their underwear on the floor.

To really understand the process of raising children you need to start out with the birds and the bees.  First off, it isn’t totally necessary to dress up as wild animals to conceive a child– that is more of an issue of personal preferences.  In fact, a recent study concluded that a majority of Americans prefer to emulate their favorite masked Mexican wrestling superstars during sex.  Some people have even been known to enjoy it without any identity-altering clothing whatsoever.

A good first step is to find a partner.  Having them be more or less the opposite sex is a good start, but not a strict requirement.  Anyone who has seen “Junior” starring Danny Devito and Arnold Schwarzenegger knows the difficulties of same sex pregnancies.

The next step, ideally, is to build a relationship with your partner.  If time permits, spend some time with this person.  Get to know their likes and dislikes.  Communication is a key aspect to any healthy relationship.  (Keys to an unhealthy relationship:  beheading partners for producing incorrect gender offspring, initiating land wars in Asia, and, of course, an irrational desire to use the metric system.)

Cultural differences also need to be taken into consideration.  For example, most people understand the concept of monogamy, but in several South American countries a common variation is “I won’t sleep with anyone else, unless they have the same first name or hair style as my partner.”  And in Sweden it is perfectly acceptable to be intimate with anyone you meet when entering the incorrect gender’s bathroom of an Ikea store.  If your partner’s culture is significantly different than your own, make sure to take time to learn as much as possible just in case you need to mock them for several hours at local drinking establishment after a heated fight about her religious beliefs barring certain types of ice cream from being consumed in the house on days of the month divisible by seven.

Every now and then I wonder what my life would be life would be like if I got married and had a couple of kids. The only thing I know for sure is my television viewing habits would not change too much. If any of my future children want to spend countless hours in front of the television set I’m going to make sure at least two-thirds of their programming options revolve around World War Two documentaries on the History Channel. Since my days of matrimony and reproduction are not in my near future, I have recently experienced the next best thing: Spending a week with two dogs in the house.

I currently live in a house which, on average, contains one dog. This dog, named Henry, belongs to my roommate, named Scott. One of Henry’s most unique physical characteristics is the fact that he has two different colored eyes. Scott, on the other hand, has two eyes that are, for the most part, the same color. Total strangers often times come up and ask about Henry’s eyes. Rarely do they ask about Scott’s eyes.

But enough about my roommate’s chromatically symmetrical eyes– this is a story about the dogs. Henry has long beige hair that is in a constant state of renewal. While I haven’t submitted the following theory to the rigorous process of the scientific method, I strongly suspect that on an average day, Henry’s body sheds more hair than the local Great Clips. When Henry and I are alone in the house he generally sleeps in the basement all day long. Every now and then, just for a change of pace, he walks up the stairs, looks at me blankly, and then proceeds to lay down next to the kitchen table before falling back asleep. His overall interest in Scott and I only peaks when he needs to go out side, be fed, or be taken on a walk. Henry and I get along quite well this way– we don’t expect a whole lot from each other.

This brings me to the second dog– Murphy. Belonging to my girlfriend Kristin, this dog is half Greyhound and half Black Lab. While her shedding habits occur on a much smaller scale than Henry’s, she does have her own list of peculiar habits. Most notably, she is very skittish. It is quite natural for animals to be scared of things like sudden noises, unfamiliar places, and the actor known as “Carrot Top.” Murphy, however, is pretty much scared of everything that isn’t Murphy. For example, I took Murphy out one night and she ran as far away as she could on the leash from the slight rustling noise produced by a series of plastic flags on the “for sale” sign on the house next door. On another outing she was overcome with fear because a tumbleweed was a few feet away from the sidewalk. I suppose I would have had more sympathy for the dog if the shrubbery in question was actually moving in any way.

Another quirk about Murphy is that she doesn’t want to be more than three feet away from Kristin or myself at all times. This makes walking with Kristin and the dog quite a chore. While Kristin generally refrains from spastically running around me in tight circles, the same cannot be said for the dog. Murphy always wants to be at the exact midpoint between Kristin and I while at the same time running around in circles. The interaction between the three of us is analogous to Luke Skywalker’s two-sunned home planet of Tatooine (but on a much smaller scale.) That would, of course, explain why Luke’s mother and stepfather had such difficult time harvesting crops.

Each of these dogs, by themselves, is generally calm and well behaved. So I figured that bringing Murphy over to my place in Loveland while Kristin was out of town for a week wouldn’t drastically alter my lifestyle. Unfortunately, I didn’t take into effect how the two dogs would interact with each other. The most immediate effect I noticed when I brought Murphy home was what I call “The Canine Cold War Mentality.” It usually starts out with both dogs sleeping peacefully on the floor in the main living area. This is known as Defcon 5 (or mauve, if you are using the new Homeland Security color coding system). If the dogs were the United States and the Soviet Union, this situation would be analogous to the first few months after World War Two or the eight years Bill Clinton was in the White House. This state of peace and quiet is inevitably shattered by a strange noise outside, one of the dogs sneezing, or the random motion of air molecules in the room.

Once this happens, one of the dogs will look up, causing the other dog to look up. (Defcon 3) Not to be outdone, the first dog stands up. (Defcon 2) This escalation procedure continues until both dogs are frantically running around the house barking at the top of their lungs. (Irreversible Intercontinental Thermonuclear War) After a few minutes
they calm down and eventually go back to sleep. (Analogy breaks down here.) While most people would consider this to be a minor inconvenience, I find it quite difficult to lay down on my couch and concentrate on the afternoon episode of “Trading Spaces” with such a racket going on in the background.

Another issue I’ve discovered with Murphy is how she goes to the bathroom. Like human females at nice restaurants, Murphy cannot go do her business alone. Being a smart dog, she knows where the backyard is. Being a smart person, I usually leave the back door open so both dogs can go outside whenever they feel the need. It seems like a simple enough solution, but whenever Murphy’s bladder fills up, she will run through the house until she finds me. Then she sits down and starts whining frantically until I walk with her outside and watch her pee. Which is exactly what I want to do at two in the morning. At least I’m not asleep yet.

Despite these minor issues, we all got through the week without any major problems. Eventually Henry and Murphy
both realized they were going to be living in the same house together. My threats to send them to Tatooine for the summer must have done the trick.

The other day I woke up, looked at myself in the mirror, and said to myself, “Is this going to be yet another bad hair day?” On a more typical day I would have simply gotten my hair wet and wrestled it into something resembling a hair style. I’m not sure why, [EDITOR’S NOTE: Maybe because your girlfriend– who would have done everything in her power to stop you– was out of town at the time.], but I decided on the slightly different approach of completely shaving my head.

Before I go on, I need to explain the nature of my hair. For reasons I don’t completely understand, my hair doesn’t succumb to the traditional forces of gravity. If I don’t get my hair cut once a month it gradually transforms into a big, fluffy, brown afro. While this style looks good on some people, I also have to deal with my genetic disposition for a receding hair line and male pattern baldness. So while things could be a lot worse, I just have to accept the fact that, just like Richard Simmons, the world is not going to love me for my hair.

While my mother has above average eyesight, she has recurring visions of me with wonderful curly hair. One explanation involves her confusing me with some famous “nice hair” actor such as Hugh Grant or Fabio. The only other reasonable cause for this behavior involves my mom receiving information from a parallel universe– exactly like ours, but with extensive advancements in the area of hair genetics. When I visit her, she always says I should “grow out my curls.” This usually leads to me bringing out my senior picture as a visual aid for my rebuttal. In addition to the obligatory suit and tie, the image shows me with fairly long frizzy hair– not a curl in sight. When presented with this evidence, my mom politely looks away and goes back to her fantasy world.

Once I made the decision to shave my head, I gathered together all the tools needed to complete the procedure. Much like a skilled surgeon, I didn’t want to have to drive to the grocery store in the middle of the operation. I placed everything I needed on the bathroom counter: a pair of office scissors, hair clippers, shaving cream, and a new razor. To provide motivation, I taped images of Telly Savalas and Charlie Brown to the mirror.

I picked up the scissors and started cutting large clumps of hair from my head. I watched as they fell into the wastebasket I placed in the sink. Things were going well until I started looking in the mirror to decide where to cut next. That was when the concept of “mirror image” started to sink in. I would move the scissors in exactly the opposite direction since left and right are switched around. Soon questions started to pop into my head along the lines of, “Why is left and right switched, but not up and down?”, “Are mirrors like this in the southern hemisphere?”, and “Should I rent ‘The Dirty Dozen’ after I’m done shaving?” I considered sitting down at my laptop, pointing my web camera at my head, and looking at the image on the screen to improve my aim with the scissors. In the end I decided A) I didn’t want hair getting stuck in my keyboard, and B) I don’t have a web camera.

When most of my hair was gone, I put the scissors down and picked up the hair clippers. In the past I had only used them to trim my beard. I wasn’t sure if they would be powerful enough to shave my head, but I was already well past the point of no return. In retrospect, this was the easiest step in the whole shaving process. Being careful not to shave off my eyebrows, I quickly finished phase two.

The last step was for me to get in the shower and get a nice close shave. I don’t know the “best” way to shave, but I prefer the shower to standing in front of the bathroom mirror. In the twelve or so years I’ve been shaving, I’ve never been able to develop the technique I see on razor commercials where the model takes a single swipe from his ear to his chin in exactly 0.3 seconds– revealing perfectly smooth skin. If I shaved anything like that I would puncture my skin and expose a large portion of my jaw bone. Since this was the first time shaving my head, I stuck with short and deliberate strokes of the razor. This ensured that my scalp remained on my head and not on the floor of the shower.

After I finished in the shower I stepped in front of the bathroom mirror and thought to myself “Wow– I can’t see anything with all this condensation on the mirror.” So I went into my bedroom and looked at a mirror that wasn’t all fogged over. Despite a bit of razor burn, I was pretty happy with the outcome. I spent a lot of time thinking about it and asking everyone’s opinion. In the end I realized its just hair, and I’m pretty sure its going to grow back.

Being bald isn’t really as different as having hair. This is mostly due to the fact that I never really spent much time thinking about the stuff on top of my head. The biggest difference is that everything seems a lot cooler. [NOTE TO SELF: Solution to global warming?] I also save a total of thirty seconds each day since I don’t have to shampoo or comb my hair. Of course I lose about ten minutes each time I shave my head, so I guess I’m not really saving any time.

What does Kristin think of me now? When I would talk about shaving my head, she would always have five or six reasons why I shouldn’t do it. She even suggested I buy this “Cosmo” CD-ROM that would let me see what I would look like with different hair styles. Needless to say, that idea never got off the drawing board. She was in Florida when I did the deed, and not too happy when I told her over the phone. Despite all her protests, concerns, and delaying tactics, she likes it. A lot. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Grrrr!]

I still haven’t decided if I’m going to keep my head shaved or let it grow back. Once the weather cools down I might feel the need for more hair. But at the moment it’s still quite warm and I live in a house without air conditioning. But until then, think of me as a modern day Cujo. Or maybe I’m thinking of Kojack. Whichever one has less hair.

People covet that which is new and shiny. This universal truth has been demonstrated once again in the south suburbs of Denver, Colorado on Tuesday when hundreds of people waited for hours in the freezing early morning fog as the first Krispy Kreme store opened. I find this entertaining not because people camped out the night before the grand opening or that the wait to buy doughnuts was still an hour-and-a-half at eight o’clock in the evening. The really amusing part of this story was traffic was so heavy around the doughnut shop that it clogged up the highways in the area the entire day.

A lot of people tell me that I have too much time on my hands. While I don’t disagree with that statement, I feel it is my duty to point out that I was not one of the thousands of people who stopped at Krispy Kreme on Tuesday. I would also like to point out there are many, many bakeries in the Denver area that bake doughnuts every day that can be visited without cashing in a sick day.

The story got me thinking about what kind of things I do to waste time. A lot of people seem to think that running the newfunny.com web site is clear proof that I have too much time on my hands. While I can’t totally disagree with that statement, I’m not the kind of guy who wastes time with a single activity. No– I like to think I am very diversified in this part of my life. To prove my point (and waste a little time in the process), I thought I would talk about one of my more memorable recent time killers.

Before I go into the details here, I would like to emphasize the point that not everyone who uses a vacuum to clean their patio has a mental illness. But I’m getting ahead of myself here. First of all, my patio is on the first floor and has a four foot high concrete barrier in lieu of a decorative railing. The concrete compliments the thorny bushes that block out 95 percent of the sunlight that attempts to get through. These architectural cues were borrowed from the beach front structures the Germans used to defend their positions in Normandy.

In addition to being a strategic location to mount heavy artillery, my porch is also a great place for dust and leaves to collect. If left unattended for a few years, the area would completely fill up with dirt and develop it’s own thriving ecosystem. While I’m generally all for allowing man and nature to peacefully coexist, I also would like to get back my damage deposit when I move out of my apartment. So every now and then I go out and clean up the area.

The leaves and random pieces of trash that visit my porch don’t really put up much of a fight when clean up time approaches. The real problem is the fine dirt– it doesn’t really sweep up very well since the area is not very large. The fact that the floor of the porch sits several feet below the ground means there isn’t anywhere to sweep the dirt. That was when I decided to bring out the vacuum cleaner.

Anyone who has known me for any length of time probably wouldn’t describe me as a “clean freak”. The whole point of vacuuming my patio was to get it clean with the least amount of effort. In all honesty, I didn’t think that using a vacuum cleaner was going to work very well. In fact it turned out to be a lot less effort than the half-assed approach I was initially going to use. Getting the porch cleaner than initially planned was just an added bonus to the entire situation.

I would like to encourage everyone who reads this to make sure to spend some time each day doing something that isn’t productive. You don’t have to look far to find such activities. Play a few games of “Minesweeper” on your computer. Think about what the sequel to “The Matrix” is going to be like. Sit around and imagine what Al Gore is doing today instead of running the country. And, if you are one of the many, many people who are wasting time waiting in line at Krispy Kreme, pick me up a half-dozen glazed doughnuts and a pint of milk.

Wow, I was just looking back at my latest posts, and I realized that I haven’t posted any real updates about my personal life in a very long time.  So here goes.

We recently added a +1 to our family:  Samatha Rose Lutfey.  So now we have a total of one husband, one wife, two kiddos, and one crazy dog.  Pretty typical family lineup.

Having never done this before, I am very much learning how to be a father as I go. Of course pretty much everyone has to start out from scratch, so I’m not really special in my situation. The easiest way to categorize activities in this area is “things I was reasonably expecting to happen” and “what?  did that really just happen?  You must be kidding me!”

So in the first category I put things like changing diapers, feeding, and playing with my children. To a large degree I’ve had experience with this by having taken care of my dog Maury for several years now. The key here, as much as I understand things, is to understand the desire of the dog/child and things will go smoothly. If someone is making an unpleasant sound, or error code as I like to say, then resolving the situation is just a matter of finding the cause of the error code and fixing the underlying problem. To start out, babies generally have a small set of error codes– my diaper’s full, my stomach is empty, and someone isn’t giving me their full attention. So debugging small children is a pretty simple process.

The only situations to look out for are false positives and false negatives. For example, my oldest child Isabel doesn’t seem to mind running around with a diaper full of poop. And to make things more fun she likes to run and hide when we try and change her diaper. Don’t forget that kids can just start crying for no known reason. This is the most frustrating of all the error codes since there is no corresponding resolution action. The key to this situation is to identify it as a “Kobayashi Maru.”  For anyone not intimately familiar with Star Trek terminology, this is a no win situation used to train Star Fleet officers.  So just think, “What would Captain Kirk do?” And the correct answer isn’t “make more cheesy Priceline commercials.”

So now we come to the next group of activities. These are things that you will in no way be able to see coming. My personal favorite example of this is having Isabel on my chest fall asleep. Since I can’t really do anything else without waking up, I soon fell asleep myself. Then, for really no reason I could understand, Isabel emptied the entire contents of her stomach onto my face and chest. Very unpleasant I must say. But my point here is that I couldn’t have seen it coming.

So this is all I’ve learned in my two years or so of being a father. That, and if you want to get anything done on the computer your kids better be asleep or at grandmas for the weekend.

After moving all my belongings to Loveland, I started the whole process of getting settled into my new surroundings. It was at this point in time I really became jealous of Scott’s dog. When Henry moves somewhere his entire settling process consists of figuring out where to go to relieve himself, sniffing everything in the area two or three times, and then falling asleep in the middle of the floor for the rest of the day. Henry doesn’t worry about hooking up stereo speakers or rifling through boxes trying to find a clean pair of underwear.

Over the years Scott has put a fair amount of effort into landscaping around the house. While it is not quite ready to be featured in “Better Homes and Gardens,” the yard is completely free of unmarked sinkholes and nonfunctioning automobiles. The one area I thought needed the most work was the garden on the side of the house. The area has been overtaken by trash, weeds, and, on occasion, a small band of street hardened juvenile delinquents. One night I told Scott I was going to attack the garden and clean it up a bit.

Before I go any further here, I have to ask the rhetorical question “How was I supposed to know the difference between weeds and a series of dormant but healthy raspberry bushes?” Needless to say, Scott overestimated my abilities to identify “good” versus “bad” plant life and we are not going to have any fresh raspberry pie in August. But on a positive note, the efforts produced a large pile of dead plants that had to be thrown away and we now had a good reason to go visit the city dump. We attached the wooden side rails on Scott’s pickup truck and started piling trash in the bed.

The next piece of vegetation that got loaded into the truck was a sickly looking tree that was living in the back yard. I’m not really sure what Scott did to it, because the tree looked quite healthy and vibrant propped up in the living room when I stopped by for his Christmas party. I honestly suspect Scott didn’t talk to the tree enough. In an attempt to revive the tree, I dug a small hole in the back yard and stood the tree up. My theory was the tree stump would sense the connection with Mother Earth and grow a complete new set of roots in a few days. Everything was going fine until these small gusts of wind kept tipping the tree over. Of course by then the self esteem of the tree was too depleted and we were forced to give up and throw it in the back of the truck.

The next item on the list was an old beat up desk that Scott’s previous roommate conveniently left in the room that was going to become my office. At first glance it appeared to be a simple wooden desk that could be easily carried down the stairs and given to Goodwill. Upon closer inspection, however, the desk was a monster. The entire structure was built from solid inch thick particle board and held together with generous quantities of screws, wood glue, and some sort of futuristic “Star Trek” force field. After a solid hour of attacking the beast, we carried its dismembered corpse outside and prepared it for final burial.

Once all the trash was loaded up, we tied a tarp over everything as best we could and headed out to the dump. While everything seemed to be securely tied down before we left, I suspect the air flow dynamics of traveling fifty miles an hour altered the stress forces in the back of the truck. About half way through our journey, the wooden side railings decided to spontaneously shatter into several pieces. The down side to this event was that half the junk we were hauling flew out on the road. The up side was… well, I don’t think there really was one.

The really funny thing (and by “funny” I really mean “pain in the ass”) was that with the side rails broken there was no way we could fit everything back into the truck. After some deliberation, we left some of the junk on the side of the road and took what we could to the dump. Once the first trip was completed, we went back and got the rest of the stuff off the side of the road. It really helped prolong the “going to the dump” experience into an entire afternoon ordeal.

Despite the setback, our goal was eventually achieved. We made it home in one piece and without any of the garbage we left with. Just to make us feel a little bit better about the whole situation, we checked the mail when we got back and found a coupon that would have saved us the twenty dollar fee at the dump.

And, of course, the dog was still sleeping on the floor when we got home.

A few weeks ago I finished a story about my goal in life of becoming a lounge singer. I sat down, progressed through the normal process of putting my thoughts into words, and finally published the story on the web site. I was proud of myself for creating a witty and insightful glimpse into the inner workings of my mind. The misspelled words were few, the grammatical errors were minor, and I even managed to make the idea of gratuitously beating up a helpless old Dutch man seem funny.

Fortunately, something happened to me at a local drinking establishment on Thursday night that made me understand the story wasn’t finished. Of course it was finished in the sense that I emailed the story out to everyone with no way of getting it back. But in another sense it has just begun. My eyes opened up to the bigger picture.

I feel my situation is quite similar to the artist who painted “A Friend in Need” (often times referred to as “Dogs Playing Poker”). While I could dedicate an entire story to the social ramifications of this piece of art (NOTE TO SELF: write an entire story about Dogs Playing Poker sometime in the future) , I would like to focus on the fact the painting contains not just six dogs sitting at a table playing poker, but also a painting in the background. I can just imagine C. M. Cooledge when he realized the need for this additional image in order to complete his masterpiece. His vision was complete.

This phenomenon is not uncommon even in our high tech society. Often times I find myself sitting on my couch perfectly content watching, say, live stadium motocross when I suddenly become aware of a world existing beyond the boundaries of large piles of dirt, motorcycles, and even ESPN. What I like to call the “bigger picture” is ever changing, but often times gives me a glimpse into the sights and sounds of an entirely different aspect of the world around me– often times in the form of a game brought to me courtesy of the National Football League. An extensive analysis of the television manual led me to the more common term of “picture in a picture”.

So what does this have to do with being a lounge singer? Well, the other night I made the transition from singing in the shower all by myself to singing in front of a bar full of people with the aid of a microphone and Karaoke equipment. For the first time in my life, I actually got up the nerve to get up on stage and let everyone hear my wonderful singing voice. My point here is that singing Karaoke is the motocross on the television screen of my life.

I don’t think I can give a very objective measure of my performance. I spent half the time on stage trying to come to grips with the fact that I was hearing my own voice a half a second later and I lot louder then I normally would when singing in the shower. Once I got used to those differences, I was able to do a half way decent job. I also like to give myself credit for not locking up my knees and remembering to breathe in and out on a regular basis. I have to say that despite the initial worries I had before going up on stage, I really enjoyed the experience. For the record, I sang “Take it to the Limit” by the Eagles.

I know that I am still a long way from my ultimate goal of becoming a lounge singer. My inexperience with musical instruments and the fact that I don’t know of any drinking establishments that use lounge singers are both issues that I will have to address somewhere down the road. I have to play it by ear so to speak because I drove over to the local book store and was unable to find “Lounge Singing for Dummies”. But the fact that I am actively working toward one of my goals is a positive step.

I don’t know how long its going to take for me to become a lounge singer. There is not a formula I can employ that calculates exactly how many steps are involved in this process. As far as I can tell, it is one of those metaphysical questions similar to “how many roads must a boy walk down before he becomes a man?”, “if a tree falls on a lumberjack in the forest, does anyone enjoy the irony?”, or “is Richard Simmons a robot?”

More to come on this topic in the future, if all goes well.

Music superstar Billy Joel married his 23-year-old fiancée Saturday in a small ceremony in Long Island, New York. When asked about the nature of their relationship, the young bride explained, “I have always respected and admired Billy’s musical abilities for as long as I can remember. In fact, when I told my mother we were engaged she informed me that I was conceived to ‘Piano Man.’ Now just how perfect is that?”

Have you ever had one of those days when you come home from the movies on a Sunday evening only to have your longtime friend/roommate/landlord tell you that he is moving in with his girlfriend to a brand new place ten miles away? Welcome to my world.

As if I didn’t have enough to keep me busy between not getting fired at work and arranging my Netflix movie queue on the Internet (OK, maybe that last one doesn’t sound that difficult, but if I don’t keep a constant eye on it, Kristin will fill up the list with her silly choices like the complete cartoon collection of “Jem and the Holograms” while showing absolutely no respect for my culturally enlightening selections such as “Shakes the Clown.” I mean, come on, how can Bob Goldthwait playing (“playing”) a depressed alcoholic clown not be an important social commentary?

Back to the “me getting kicked out of the house” thread, Scott assured me that I could live in the house until it was sold to someone else. This meant that I had somewhere between two weeks and six months to find a new place to call home. Before I started looking for a place I needed to answer several important questions: Do I want to rent or own? What part of town do I want to live in? Could I just sleep at the UPS center and avoid the extensive cost of shelter altogether?

After considering all my options, I decided to buy a place of my own. That way, I reasoned, if I got kicked out it would most likely be due to: A: a freak meteorite hitting my place or B: a complete and long-term finical irresponsibility on my part. In either case, I would only tangentially blame Scott for having to move again.

My search for personal residential real estate began, like any good search, on the Internet. I entered what I wanted in a house and how much I could afford to spend. In roughly 1/10th of a second I got a response back from Google. It offered me, in this exact order, books on houses from Amazon.com, doll houses for sale on Ebay.com, and finally every single piece of real estate, commercial and residential, for sale and not for sale, on the entire planet. Since this didn’t provide me with much useful information, I decided to take a more realistic approach to my dilemma– I drove around parts of town where I wanted to live and looked for “For Sale” signs on houses.

After a surprisingly short search, I found a place I liked and made an offer. For everyone who hasn’t purchased real estate, the negotiation process goes something like this:

Buyer: I will pay you X dollars for this house.

Seller: Well, I don’t know, I think it is worth 2X to the right buyer.

Buyer: How about 1.5X?

Seller: I might be able to swing that. Of course I would have to keep the washer, dryer, and all the windows and doors.

Buyer: If I have to buy all that stuff I would need to take my dying mother off dialysis. Would that make you happy?

And so on.

Once the terms of the sale are agreed upon, the next stage in the process is to arrange financing. Most people don’t have enough money to write a check for the total cost of the house. This is why mortgage companies were invented. In exchange for giving people lots of money to buy a house, the mortgage company has the right to put people through a complex and deeply humiliating loan approval process. This includes, but is not limited to, financial information from the past three generations of relatives, a complete pantry inventory, and, at the sole discretion of the mortgage company managerial staff, a complete urine analysis. “I’m sorry, but the sample you provided us was a bit too dark for our taste. You will never own a house. Have a nice day.”

Once financing has been arranged, the final step in the process is the closing. In addition to having to sign 8000 pieces of confusing yet legally binding documents, the soon-to-be homeowner needs to check for any forms clerical and typographical errors in the loan documents. This included making sure names are spelled correctly, dates more or less correspond to when events actually happened, and that the title company isn’t under the impression that you are buying a used muffler bracket assembly from a 1978 Pinto.

The title company’s main responsibility is to say everything is going smoothly, and then, two days before the closing, inform the buyer that six crucial documents have been mysteriously removed from the closing file. This is exactly what happened during my closing. Imagine this: I’m driving on the east side of Fort Collins delivering packages trying not to fall behind schedule when my cell phone rings. “Hello, this is so-and-so from your friendly neighborhood title company. Look, we just now realized that your place is a ‘pud’. Now that doesn’t mean anything to you, but since it is a pud, we need additional information from your employer regarding your pay from two years ago. If you could just fax that to me in the next half an hour or so, that would be great.” First of all, I’m in a big brown UPS truck, which does not have any type of onboard fax machine. Second, I’m 20 miles away from my computer and still have 4 hours of work to get done before I can get home. And finally, getting any kind of useful information from a company as large as UPS cannot be completed in less than four to six weeks.

Despite all these difficulties, I did manage to complete the process of buying a townhouse (or ‘pud,’ if you will). With that accomplished, I now get to move on to a whole new set of challenges such as moving all my stuff, landscaping the front yard, and putting up window coverings. I was planning on getting some of that done this afternoon, but I just noticed that my “Shakes the Clown” DVD just came in the mail from Netflix.

After watching Kristin’s dog for a week, I have come to the conclusion that two dogs are better than one. Many great comedy legends have come in pairs such as Cheech and Chong, Penn and Teller, and Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman (as seen in the 1987 full-length motion picture “Ishtar”). These groups’ total value is greater than the sum of their parts. For example, when Penn leaves the room all that is left is a curly haired mute fellow wearing a suit quietly preparing for the moment when he will extract his revenge on his cruel comedy partner. I put Henry and Murphy in the same category– despite the fact they haven’t quite achieved the same level of commercial success.

Being a dog isn’t such a bad gig. The more I watch Henry and Murphy, the more I realize how pretty much everything that happens to them is a source of joy and entertainment. When someone comes into the house they can hardly contain themselves. When the phone rings their tails start wagging despite the fact that neither dog is capable of adequately operating a telephone. I highly suspect that if both dogs weren’t fixed as puppies these experiences would be literally orgasmic.

Even when sleeping (which, by my estimates, takes up an average of twenty-two hours of any given day) they take time to enjoy themselves. Both dogs seem to have an active dream cycle. I’m not a licensed pet psychologist, but they seem quite happy in their dreams. They generally dream about playing with their dog toys or making the humans beg to be let outside to go to the bathroom. Either way their tags wag and their feet twitch– something which I will always find amusing.

Maybe I’m developing self-esteem issues here– sometimes I really wonder why these two dogs are so excited by my presence. Its not like I make a habit of keeping large chunks of cooked meat in my pockets. Then I realize why they love me so much– all I have to do is say the words “DOG PARK.” They stop whatever they were doing (the odds favor sleeping) and run around frantically between myself and the front door.

The first step in going to the dog park is to get both dogs inside the car. While I am generally happy with the performance of my two-door Saturn Coupe, I have to admit this is not the most efficient vehicle for transporting large mammals. Getting Henry and Murphy into the back seat is always a challenge. Neither of them like to spend time in such a confined space, but they do understand they will be running around with a bunch of other dogs once the car reaches its destination.

On the way Henry always finds time to shake his body violently enough to ensure that every hair on his body that was even considering shedding itself is now floating about in the interior of my car. The experience is similar to being stuck inside a novelty snow bubble that has just been moved around. Well, maybe without so much water.

For anyone who has never been to a dog park, I would like to point out that the actual experience bears little resemblance to the movie “Dog Park.” No matter how many times I go, I never see Luke Wilson or Janeane Garofalo with their favorite pets. For the most part people walk around and make small talk about their pets. Gossip about scandalous dating triangles among people at the park is a rare occurrence. The last time I went the most interesting person was an older man who sat on a rock and spent twenty minutes intensely drawing a sketch of a minivan in his notebook.

Once we enter the fenced in area of the dog park, the dogs immediately start running around sniffing everything they can get their noses into. I have read that some dogs noses are many times more sensitive than humans. This explains why most people don’t spend more time sniffing their work and living environments. For the next hour or so Henry and Murphy get to run around, socialize with other animals (canine and human), and anything else they can manage to do from within the confines of the area. Eventually, they come over to me, sit down, and look at me as if to say “OK, this ‘dog park’ thing is a blast, but we really have to go home and get back to sleep.”

While being completely organized has never been one of my strong points, I have yet to forget my girlfriend Kristin’s birthday. One reason for my impressive track record in this area is the fact that we have only been dating for a year and a half. The other, and by far more relevant factor is the consistent effort on Kristin’s part to make sure I remember. After twenty-three casual verbal reminders, three email messages, and one formal printed birthday “wish list,” Kristin did everything humanly possible to ensure that May 27, 1976 was a day not to be forgotten. And don’t even get me started on the “Countdown to My Birthday” lighted, animated marquee sign she constructed (at, I’m sure, considerable expense) in the living room.

Last year I made Kristin a website that anyone in the Internet-free world can go visit at Krisser.com. The site contains a collection of her writing along with various photographs of places she has visited over the years. While the website probably isn’t going to cure cancer or get any new Democrats elected to congress in 2004, it’s a fun place to poke around from time to time. Kristin really enjoys having her own website, despite the constant disagreement with the web design team (that would be me) about the image on the main page showing her in a moderately low-cut t-shirt. But, she does admit that it is better than a picture of me showing too much cleavage.

This year I decided to take a less traditional approach to Kristin’s birthday. While I could have simply gotten her something off her birthday list, I wanted to surprise her with something else. As I drove to the local Wal-Mart I used a highly specialized process of meditation specifically designed to make me think like Kristin. When I arrived at the store I was a five-foot-two, red-headed, nine-fingered woman. Fortunately, nobody else in the store was aware of my transformation.

After about twenty minutes of shopping, I decided on a set of steak knives, and a headset for her cell phone. As I was heading towards the checkout area, a motorized bubble making machine caught my eye. Not literally, thankfully. It basically consists of a series of plastic loops that get immersed in bubble solution and then move in front of a small fan. It looked like fun and was consistent with my birthday shopping mission. I picked it up, paid for everything, and went home to wrap Kristin’s presents.

I swear I didn’t know it at the time, but one of these seemingly innocent gifts might very well be [NOTE TO READER: prepare for sudden topic change.] TURNING MY GIRLFRIEND INTO AN ECSTACY ADDICT!

A few days after Kristin’s birthday, I saw an anti-drug advertisement on the television. It turns out that blowing soap bubbles is a common activity for people high on ecstasy, also known on the street as “E.” Or is it “X”? Well, the word ecstasy doesn’t even contain the letter X, so now I’m not quite sure. And why do the letters “CS” make an “X” sound?

Putting my annoyances of the English language aside for the moment, the commercial displayed half a dozen other types of ecstasy paraphernalia. After letting the facts digest for a few moments, I called Kristin at her office to address the issue. Here is the gist of the conversation:

Her: Thank you for calling, how may I help you?

Me: The game is over, Madame Lovejoy. I know you are hopped up on E!

Her: Huh? Is that you, Omar? This is Tiffany. Do you want me to get Kristin for you?

Me: Oops, um, yeah. Thanks.

Kristin: What’s up? I was in the back room catching up on some filing.

Me: So are you an ecstasy addict?

Kristin: Uh, no. Why would you think something like that?

Me: I found out people who get high on it like soap bubbles—and you have a soap bubble machine.

Kristin: Well, honey, you bought it for me as a birthday present. It wasn’t even on my wish list.

Me: STOP TRYING TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT! And what about those angel wings? That is another sign.

Kristin: I don’t own any angel wings. Maybe you are the one on drugs here, Omar.

Me: What, are you going to pretend I don’t spend time carefully examining every image of that Victoria’s Secret catalog you get every few weeks? Every issue has women in various states of undress wearing angel wings.

Kristin: You are driving me nuts.

Me: And the television commercial told me that small stuffed animals are another sign. You can’t deny that you have a large basket of them on the living room floor.

Kristin: HELLO! Those are for the dog. You love watching her play with all the squeaky toys.

Me: Things are worse than I thought. Now you are giving your dog drugs? Have you no sense of right and wrong?

Click.

Me: Hello? I can’t hear you. Must be some problem with the phone line…

Well, that phone call didn’t seem to resolve anything. Kristin is still denying being an ecstasy junkie, and this whole episode has put a bit of a strain on our relationship. While I’m not really sure if I learned anything here, I have decided that next year I’m going to just pick something from Kristin’s birthday wish list. And I might even consider buying her one of those silly, girly DVDs she is always talking about starring some silly, girly actor like Hugh Grant and/or Colin Firth. If that isn’t a sign of true love, I’m not sure what is.

I put off talking about this topic because there seemed to be so much wedding stuff to blog about, but here is the official news:  Katherine is pregnant and due to deliver in mid December.  Here is our first ultrasound, taken May 6, 2009.   I was going to scan this into my computer, but it was already quite blurry so I just used my cell phone camera.

I have no idea what is in the picture, but Katherine explained to me that the big dark blob is her womanly parts, the small gray blob inside that is the baby, and the pink object on the right is my thumb.  At the time the ultrasound was taken it was roughly the size of a gummy bear, which is what led us to the nickname “Walter.”

No word yet on the gender.  Everyone seems to have an opinion this topic, but I’ll just be happy if it comes out one or the other and not both.  We should have more information on the boy/girl issue after our August appointment.  We may even get a three dimensional ultrasound even though it is more expensive than the regular two dimensional version.  Most of the extra cost involves hiring an artist to be present in the exam room during the procedure to create a clay model based on a compilation of various two dimensional views.  Once the model is air dried it gets fired in a kiln after which time we can apply color glazes as we see fit.  It will look great on the mantle above the fireplace.

So until next time– happy gestating Katherine!

Since my pursuit of a traditional computer geek job has been about as successful as Paula Jones’ television boxing career, I’ve decided to expand my horizons and offer my creative talents to one of my favorite things in the world. I’m sure there are a lot of people out there thinking, “Reality check here Omar, nobody is going to pay you money for your stupid Taco Bell song!” I’m not abandoning my dream of writing meaningful burrito music, but rather putting it under the warming lamps until the right customer comes along to order it. In the mean time, I’ve decided to offer my creative talents to television networks in the form my new high priced consulting service.

How high priced? Well, lets just say I’m booked solid through the next 5 television seasons. Yes, I know that has absolutely nothing to do with my fee. My goal here is to alter the traditional logic of supply and demand by creating the perception I am incredibly busy. If anyone wants to actually pay me money, I’ll have a last minute and suspiciously convenient cancellation in my schedule. Hey, it worked wonders for Cabbage Patch Kids and Tickle Me Elmo, so I don’t see why the same principles can’t be applied to my life.

As much as I would like to, I can’t just say I’m a high priced television consultant and have the networks start shoving hundred dollar bills down my pants. So, to demonstrate some of my talents I’ve decided to put a few of my creative visions on the Internet so the network executives can feel comfortable when handing over briefcases full of money.

My first recommendation is for the Fox network and show “King of the Hill”. While this has proven to be a moderately successful animated cartoon, turning the show turned into a live action situation comedy for a season or two would improve ratings in the key demographics. Which, of course, is the “eighteen to thirty year old short attention span but attracted to anything that gets labeled as gimmicky” group.

Getting back to the “King of the Hill” proposal: Finding actual people who look and sound like the cartoon characters might be a challenge, but the end result would be worth the effort. After a full season of using live actors, other mediums could be considered. This includes—but is not limited to—claymation, Japanese Anime, interpretive Irish folk dance, and, of course, marionette puppets.

When MTV decided to stop playing music videos and instead started filming a house full of unemployed whiny people a lot of viewers were quite upset and annoyed—especially those interested in watching actual music videos. While this approach is exactly the opposite of what many “idealists” thought a cable channel called “Music Television” should be doing, the producers unknowingly lit a fire under the bandwagon of “reality” television and proceeded to give it a healthy shove down the road of good intentions.

Shows such as “The Real World” created a lucrative market for doing little more than going around and filming people in their daily lives. As the competition increased, the gimmickry factor was pushed to it’s limit. To succeed in this genre of television programming these days require, at an absolute minimum, a tropical island, a half dozen Playboy Bunnies, a medium sized team of professional pyrotechnics, and the threat that some or all contestants might lose one of their kidneys. And that is just for the promotions.

The next logical step in this progression is to have a reality show ABOUT reality shows. The title of the show would need to clearly identify itself with its predecessor—current working titles include “The Really Real World”, “The Meta Real World”, and “MTV’s Sex-o-rama Voyeur Cam.” Imagine all the creative potential in having a television crew following around the original television crew following around five young adults in their jobs as entry level accountants. Just kidding—they would really be in an elite group of disco rollerblading fire fighters patrolling the streets of a major metropolitan area.

Finally the general public could get a glimpse into the high paced world of reality television programming. Sure, it may look easy, but getting these kids to open up to the cameras can be a real challenge when they spend most of their free time discussing delicate issues such as the best way to download pornography from the Internet and planning spontaneous week long free trips to the Bahamas.

Making television not suck cannot be accomplished by any single person. We all have to do our part and work constructively together to accomplish this goal in peace and goodwill. If someone wants to go track down and savagely pummel the guy running around in the question mark suit explaining how to get free money from the government, well, I just can’t see how that would do the world any harm either.

I realized something while eating lunch as Wok ‘n Roll this afternoon.  After drinking 3 large Diet Pepsi’s I had to answer the call of nature.  I was forced to put the call on hold, however, when the door to the mens’ bathroom was occupied.  Now when a place of business only has only one bathroom it isn’t for a specific gender– it is just “the bathroom.”  When a place is large enough, there is a “Mens’ Room” and a “Womens’ Room” each with multiple stalls.  But what happens, as in the case of the moderately small Wok ‘n Roll, when there is just enough room for two single rooms with a single toilet in each room?  Does it really make any sense to assign a specific gender to each of them?  I didn’t really want to go into the empty womens’ room for some psychological reason I don’t completely understand.

This all leads up to, obviously, how things work on the SciFi series Battlestar Galactica.  There are large common rooms where men and women, at the very same time, go about all their personal hygiene needs.  Unspeakable Act or Sign Of Things To Come?

I’m pretty sure that I’m not giving away any sensitive UPS intelligence when I say that my employer saves money by purchasing the cheapest coffee that doesn’t violate any Federal laws.  So the other day I took a small sample of coffee to a lab for analysis. It turns out that each packet of coffee contains 53% fine sawdust, 40% recycled toner cartridge ink, and three coffee beans.  I’m not sure I even want to know what is in the powdered creamer.

I have to admit up front that I have never written a story while being held against my will at the Boulder County Police Headquarters. Usually I sit home at my desk and mold the random thoughts running around in my head into a somewhat coherent and for the most part correctly-spelled piece of literature. On this occasion I was not afforded the meager luxuries of my small one bedroom apartment, but rather I scribbled my thoughts on the back of some legal documents with a small pencil the guards overlooked during the customary pat-down process. I suppose the guards didn’t view me as a traditional “psycho killer” type during the check in process. Either that or their apathy won over. What ever the reason, it gives me a chance to explain how I got here in the first place.

It all started rather innocently enough. After a few hours of one of our favorite Saturday night activities, my friends and I were talking about how we could improve the already wildly entertaining game of Laser Tag. The place where we usually play sports an impressive 8500 square foot multistory arena where up to forty people run around shooting each other for thirty minutes at a time. The next logical step would be to play it outdoors. Being regular customers, the manager let us take a few of the guns out in the parking lot to see how well it would work.

Playing laser tag in the parking lot was a blast. We would run around the buildings and take refuge behind the few cars that remained in the parking lot at two in the morning. If you aimed the gun carefully, you could hit someone that was standing still from about 200 yards away. The biggest problem was that after about thirty minutes of running around the parking lot we were all too out of breath to play anymore.

I suppose at this point in the story we could have all gone home, and the story would have ended there-and more importantly, without the need for police intervention. But that’s not what happened. After catching our breath on the curb of the parking lot, we created a slight variation of the game. We reasoned because we all like to play Laser Tag and we all like to drive our cars that, “Laser Car Tag” would be more entertaining than either activity by itself. We decided on boundaries for the game, picked teams, and each got into our own car.

The general idea was to chase down one of the cars from the other team and shoot the blinking lights on their gun in order to get points. With four cars and a rather large field of play it wasn’t very easy to find the other team, much less shoot the lights on their gun. We all drove around for twenty minutes without anyone getting hit. At that moment I realized my teammate Brian and I both had cell phones in our cars. I called him up and we set up a trap for the other team.

In case you were wondering, it’s not all that easy to drive a car with a standard transmission, talk on a cell phone, and aim a laser gun out the window trying to hit the other team all at the same time. Despite these difficulties, Brian and I were able to set up a trap where I got one of the other cars to chase me and Brian sneaked up from behind and hit one of their sensors. Victory was ours.

Sometimes in life you can win and lose at the same time. This was such an occasion.

While Brian was sneaking up on our prey, it turns out that there was a police car that was sneaking up behind all of us and witnessed the entire maneuver. He pulled all three of the cars over. In all honesty, I don’t think he appreciated our creative vision that night. While he didn’t specifically arrest us for playing laser car tag, he did mention some “laws” against going thirty-five miles an hour over the speed limit through the main street in Boulder, not stopping at red lights, and erratically changing lanes every three seconds. We presented what I thought was a convincing verbal argument that it’s the difference in speed that kills and since we were both going seventy miles an hour down 28th street, there was really no chance that we would hit each other. The officer seemed largely unconvinced and decided to give us the pleasure of spending the night in jail.

My first (and so far only) night in jail was not as bad as I imagined. Neither the guards or other prisoners deemed it necessary for me to receive any kind of “anal probe”, which I greatly appreciated. I spent four years in college living on dorm food, so what they gave us in jail really brought back memories. If all goes as planned tomorrow morning we will all get out on bail pending our court hearings.

Post Trial Comments:

The trial received much more publicity due to the accounts of that night and the corresponding video tape from the officer’s patrol car being the feature story on the television show “COPS” last week. As part of my plea bargain, I have agreed to provide a public service message on what has now become known as Xtreme Laser Tag.

Youth of America– playing Laser Tag while operating a car, motorcycle, mountain bike, or gyrocopter may seem like a whole lot of fun, but it’s actually a very dangerous sport. While there have been no documented deaths attributed to this activity in the United States, it is believed every year between 100 and 200 children in Mexico and other parts of South America die in Laser Tag related incidents. Remember– friends don’t let friends get really drunk at Christmas parties and… OOPS, that was a previous story. Just remember kids, officers have been authorized to use stun guns and other forms of violent-yet-non-lethal force to stop these now illegal Laser Tag games.

Well, that part is over. Now I can get this whole ugly mess behind me once I finish my 200 hours of community service in accordance with the terms of my parole.

OK, so I’m not exactly posting all this stuff in chronological order.  In fact, as I write this, Isabel is celebrating her 30th birthday and I’m a crazy old man in a retirement home yelling at my cats and repeatedly showing the staff members the litter box.  But I digress.

So here is Isabel’s second ultrasound taken in August 2009.  We decided against the three dimensional ultrasound.  Apparently the procedure uses high energy nutrino beams which scientists believe led to the creation of Magnito, high fructose corn syrup, and Sarah Palin. Maybe not, but in the end we decided that we would be able to wait for the three dimensional version that was planning on squirming out in a few months. This high tech image of Katherine’s insides confirmed what we suspected all along: her belly is getting bigger.

One thing that has been surprising is my wife’s mood.  It really hasn’t changed at all– she is as happy as a clam.  I don’t know why we think clams are all that happy to begin with, but, hey, that’s the expression.  Too late to change it now.

So stay tuned for more retroactive baby updates aged in a bath of sarcasm, powdered with a touch of nostalgia, and dressed up in a cute onesie of experience.

It seems like hardly a week goes by without the announcement of another dot com company going out of business. Cleaning up the mess from the latest round of failures seems to be a full time job. It will be tough living in a world where we can’t buy dog food online or pay our parking tickets while sitting at the computer. The world, which includes the Internet, will keep spinning around like it has for the past four billion years (or 2000 and some odd years, depending on which books you read).

As the main guy in charge of newfunny.com, I get a lot of inside information about up-and-coming web sites. And I’m not just talking about unsolicited e-mail I get on my AOL account to help me reduce my credit card debt and see “unofficial” pictures of teen-age pop singers. This week I got the inside scoop on a web site that will change the very fabric of our lives (sorry, cotton– you just didn’t keep up with the changing technology. It’s not like we didn’t warn you). That, or it will be out of business a year from now. Either way, it will be fun to watch.

I was allowed to learn more about this site provided I didn’t reveal certain specific details of the operation. The final decision about the name of the web site has yet to be determined, but since the site is still under construction, the point is moot. I can, however, provide a general overview of the new web site. The purpose of this site is to establish a complete record of everyone’s past personal relationships. This information is stored in a computer database and used to evaluate compatibility with potential future partners.

Suppose you are a young lady who meets a guy at, say, a professional arm wrestling competition. He seems nice enough, but you would like to know more about how things went in his previous relationships. You could just ask him, but he probably won’t give you a truly objective account of his past. With this web site, you can find out more about this young man– from the women (and/or men) that he dated before you were in the picture.

How does this work? To start out, each user fills out an extensive questionnaire to confirm his or her identity. This information is examined for accuracy and the individual is contacted through alternate means (telephone, mail, or singing telegram) to ensure authenticity. Once the background check is completed, the user is allowed to log into the system and enter personal information. Once this initial stage is complete, the user enters information regarding previous relationships in the form of a survey. This information is correlated with the record of the other person in order to create a personal history. The set of questions has not been finalized yet, but they are designed to paint a picture of that relationship. Finally, users are allowed to search the database to reveal information on future prospects.

The survey consists of a list of characteristics that could be used to describe how an individual acts while in a relationship. While some of the characteristics are more often applied to one specific gender, the same questions are asked for either sex. All of the questions in this section are of the true/false variety.

While preparing for an evening out
–>Asks if clothing makes them look fat
–>Asks if clothing is clean enough to wear in public

After having a few drinks, is likely to
–>Flirt with the bartender
–>Be unable to perform certain intimate activities later on in the evening
–>Talk excessively about previous failed relationship

Likes to go out to eat
–>at fancy restaurants
–>at reasonably priced, yet still nice restaurants
–>at Taco Bell
–>free samples at the grocery store

Likes to cuddle
–>in bed
–>on the beach
–>at Taco Bell
–>with your sister

During intimate activities, partner has been known to
–>Refuse to remove dirty socks
–>Talk about random events of the day
–>Talk about attractive coworker’s revealing outfits
–>Talk about, “Where this relationship is going?”
–>Talk about political and economic ramifications of NATO’s involvement in the former Yugoslavia
–>Pass gas

After intimate activities, partner prefers to
–>Cuddle
–>Wander aimlessly to the refrigerator
–>Go home
–>Fall asleep
–>Look at porn on the Internet

When the relationship ended, partner
–>Cried
–>Became overjoyed
–>Didn’t notice anything different
–>Needed a restraining order
–>Revealed his or her true gender
–>Started dating your sister

Will this site stand the test of Internet time? I can’t say for sure, but it does seem like a good way of finding out the truth about someone. I don’t think it will be too long before someone complains that their privacy is being invaded, but that is bound to happen one way or another. I’ll provide more information about the site when it’s made available to me. Until then, you will have to learn about your significant others the old fashioned way-through high tech night vision goggles and carefully concealed telephone wire tapping devices.

And our fence cried “Uncle.”

In March of 2026 a rather abrasive windstorm blew through town and did a number on our fence. And by that I mean a big old smelly number two that we didn’t have the luxury of ignoring for a few weeks like all the little number twos the dogs make in the back yard.

Up until then my general plan regarding fence repair involved identifying a part that wobbled too much and fastening it to something that wobbled less. While this worked surprisingly well for the past 15 years, I couldn’t find any zip ties or wood screws that could repair the posts that broke off two inches above the concrete. So, the next weekend we purchased a few hundred dollars of supplies, invited our neighbor Steve to a fence party, and worked hard to convince ourselves we knew what we were doing. In retrospect I should have filmed a “Brooklyn 99” style introduction where we dramatically walked to the damaged area carrying hand tools in slow motion while exciting music played in the background.

Why, yes, I am pulling out the buried concrete with the car jack from our Kia Sorento. And yes, it did work. I also screwed in a bolt to what was left of the wood to get a more secure hold on the concrete. As a side note, if you are currently in the online dating world this is the kind of image you should post to your profile. A recent study revealed that nine out of ten women prefer a partner with fence repair skills to one with visible abdominal muscles. And that other one will most likely cheat on you with her fitness instructor.

So, what is my advice for all the fence repair enthusiasts out there reading my website? There is literally nothing fun about this activity. It is physically demanding, you have to get your body in unpleasant positions, and in the end the absolute best outcome is to have everything work just as well as it did the day before the windstorm came into town. Enjoy!