In-Between Places

I could tell my friends but they think I've lost it anyway
That this is just a passing phase
And the running will wither down
To the places I'm supposed to go
In the lines I'm supposed to know
I haven't yet figured out...

They all look at me they let me go and they watch me moving
This time I'll try to be more beautiful and more amusing

-- Maylynne, "Catch Me"

Between the places that we go every day lay an entire world, waiting to be explored.

Today in my cubicle, I was sitting here thinking of taking a walk around outside during lunch. I thought that it would do me some good to get outside and it would give me some time to think. While I was considering this, I was wondering where I would go and how I could get a good route without looking strange. I mean, let's face it, in our society, you do not see a man in business casual dress just walking around. That is for weird-os and foreigners.

I thought that it would be nice to be able to walk through a park or something, but I did not want to drive to one, just so that I could walk around it. That seemed strange to me, plus I did not want to kill my lunch time driving somewhere.

The area where I work is really just a business area and the only thing resembling a park is the trees between cars in the parking lot. This got me thinking about the other green areas around my office and I realized that there were probably a lot of them, I had no idea. I would just have to check it out.

I started thinking of "in-between places": Places that are in-between the grids and lines that we live our lives in. Think about it, roads, buildings and all of that are generally grid like. Sure roads curve and buildings may not be cubes, but this is usually because the earth gets all in the way. This makes for odd shaped plots of land. Many times, people will just build their square building perpendicular to the road, add a parking lot and BAM: a new office building. At the same time though, a new in-between place is made. That little odd shaped piece of land just sits there and people pretend that it is not there.

This got me thinking more. There are a lot of places that are just undeveloped also. Places that eventually there WILL be something, but right now there is not. Maybe it is for sale, maybe it is just waiting for the day to happen. Here in San Antonio, it may be an aquifer set aside too. (This happens if a guy paves a huge area of land and is legally required to NOT develop another piece of land so that water can collect there and seep into the aquifer so we can then drink it.)

This is the kind of place that I loved when I was a kid. This is where we would build our forts, where we would hang out with friends, play G.I. Joe and maybe even do things we were not supposed to. When we were kids we saw these places, but as we grew up, we saw only the grid.

So, after I ate, I did it.

I simply went outside.

I had no idea where I was going to go, so I just went out and started walking.

I walked past my office building that towered over the trees, past an apartment complex as a guy left in a Jeep Wrangler (maybe he was going to the beach), past a bus stop that smelled like the person that had just gotten on had just finished smoking some weed, and then I saw it: An in-between place.

It was littered with trash. Wrappers from the Subway down the street, Coke bottles, junk mail, news paper, and of course, Wal-Mart bags decorated the in-between place. Maybe it was treasure? As a kid, I would have taken the time to poke through the stuff and see if there was anything interesting. Who knows, there could be … well, anything!

This in-between places was better than I could have hoped for though. It seemed to be a vacant lot that had just not been developed yet and it had a little road! I had no idea where it went, but I went to check it out.

I could feel the excitement of finding something out building in my belly. It was similar to getting a package from the Something Store I guess, but much more. The path was "wooded" with trash trees and overgrowth and curved shortly after it began. As I rounded the bend I passed more trash, trees and even a discarded couch, then I saw HUGE rocks. It seems that this lot was actually being developed right now and they had excavated these huge rocks. (I wish I had a camera.) The rocks were cool, but I passed them by. Maybe I will climb them next time. I went further to pass the graffiti covered shipping container that doubled as an office for the workers, rounded the corner to walk up I-10 for about 10 feet and then cut through parking lots to head back towards my office.

This time I walked up a sidewalk, past anonymous business park style buildings with no names on the doors, and I wondered, who worked there. What do they do? To most people these are in-between places too.

Then I passed a drainage ditch. I am not sure what those things are called, but they are basically concrete creeks that channel the rain water off of the roads and over to… somewhere else. Another in-between place. I used to walk down these as a kid. I would go under the bridges built over them for the roads and all that too. There was always a lot of trash around, and there still is.

I only walked for maybe 20 minutes, but tomorrow I will do more.

I will sit on the rocks.

Maybe I will take a picture of them.

Either way, I will slip between the cracks in the grid.

I need to remember to bring shoes.

Totally going to keep doing this

Ok, so I thought about it and I am gojg to try to post my blog here and on myspace. They will be the same from now on, but I will try to get all of my old posts from myspace and post them here too. I think that the hardest thing is going to be getting the pictures in both places. One will have pics on myspace and the other will probalby use photobucket. Whatever. Anyway, I will see if I can get a couple of my posts up... I will adjust the time stamps so that they will reflect when I posted to myspace too, so it may look a bit weird...

Tonight, Tonight, Tonight

That title makes me wonder which song I have in my head. Phil Collins or Smashing Pumpkins. It was actually Smashing Pumpkins until I saw it actually typed out, then I could not get Phil Collins out of my head… It's hard to convey a tune in just three words I suppose…

So, tonight is going to ROCK!

Last week, my boss man gave me 2 BOX SEATS TO SEE WWE RAW!

How sweet is that?

Yes man. Box Seats. The sweet suites at the top of the ATT center. My company has one and I will be in it tonight watching the smacketh come downeth. J

Today is a special day indeed. A friend of mine is a pro wrestler and tonight is his official interview/try out or whatever for the WWE.

Kasey was gracious enough to let me take my other friend, Sicodelico Jr.'s brother, to the event tonight.

Man, I am STOKED. I cannot wait.

If you have a minute, please take a moment to pray for Sicodelico Jr. This is a lifelong dream for him and could be his only chance.

I plan to leave to go to the show right after work, but I just realized that I forgot my camera. L I will have to figure something out before too long!

Skunkadilly Skunksalot

So, last night after family camp, Kasey and I pulled into the garage and could smell SKUNK. It was really strong and we immediately knew that one of our dogs got sprayed while we were gone. We opened the door to the house and it hit us like a wave of skunky funk. Al three dogs were sitting at the door waiting for us, so we had no idea which one had gotten sprayed. A quick sniff of their heads revealed that it was 4 of 7 (yes, that is his name, yes, that is what we call him, no we do not shorten it to "4") that had gotten it, smack dab in the face-a-roni.

This was not cool at all.

About a week ago, Zeauxy got sprayed, but we were home and were able to get it taken care of right away. It was a pain, but not that big of a deal. With 4 of 7, we were not home. They have a doggie door, so they come and go all night. The thing is, we have no idea how long ago he had gotten sprayed, and worse, what he had rubbed on in the hose to try to get it off of his face. Luckily, we only have carpet in the front room though, so worse case, the bed in the guest bedroom may have gotten it on the sheets.

Anyway, an hour later he is cleaned up and I am dead tired. Unfortunately, you can not clean their face really well because the stuff cannot get in their eyes. In case you were wondering, this is how you clean your dog (or yourself) if you get sprayed by a skunk. (this is from a lot of trial and error and a bit of Myth Busters)

1. DO NOT WASH THE DOG. Getting him wet will just spread the skunk oil around and make him smell all over instead of where he was sprayed.

2. In a bowl, mix baking soda and hydrogen peroxide together until you get a runny paste. It should be about the consistency of Elmer's glue. The amount you need depends on the area you need to clean. I have boxers and use like a three fourths of a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and about a half of a BIG box of baking soda (maybe like 3 to 4 of the regular size boxes)

3. Smell the dog and figure out where he was sprayed. Usually check the face, the chest , each side and their back. It is rare that they will get it in the rear. Also, as you do this, your nose will burn, so you will have to blow all your breath out your nose and hold your breath in order to be able to get an accurate smellometer reading. (I really don't know if that works, but that is what I do!)

4. Put the watery paste mixture in the spots that smell the worst first, then rub them down with what is left. I usually just put it all over them because I don't want to miss a spot. (I recommend doing this in the shower, tub or outside!)

5. Rub this in really well for several minutes (maybe 5?). you can probably just let it sit, but I rub it in to make sure that the dog does not do the whole body shake thing and get it everywhere. Get it near their face, but be CAREFUL of their eyes, and they do not like it in the mouth. I usually get it on a wash cloth and just rub their face with it, but honestly that does not seem to help at all. I really need a better way of doing the face.

6. After letting it do the work for a few minutes, rise the dog off (I have one of those removable shower head things, so that part is easy), and wash them with soap and water. (I use Dr. Bronners Lavender, Tea Tree or Peppermint. )

7. Dry them off by squeegee-ing off the excess water with your hands first and then using old towels.

Yep, that's about it. I think that the worst thing is that with this method, their face will smell for about a week. Also, my house smells.

I have not found a good way to get it out of the house, but I have read things like leaving vinegar in bowls around and all that, but I have not found anything better than time. L Let me know if you know of anything.

The Something Store

The other day, I was listening to the radio and I heard a snippet about this website called the something store. It is basically a place where you pay $10 to get something. Literally, just something. You have no choice in what you get and the stuff is pretty random. The things range from like a mug to a laptop. Obviously if they are going to make money they give out a lot more mugs than laptops, so I guess it is like a junk lottery. Still, I had to try it.

I got on the website and ordered two "somethings", one for me and one for Kasey (you can specify if it is for a male or female, but that is it). About one week later our somethings arrived. The whole idea behind the site is to try to capture and sell the fleeting moment of excitement that you get right before opening a gift and I have to say, it works. When we got the package I was pretty excited to see what it was and could not wait. Both of our somethings came in the same box and were each in a closed white plastic bag inside the box. We had no way of telling which was for who(m?), so I let kasey open them both. (She was under the mistaken impression that they were both for her!).

I wish that I had pictures to how you what we got, but for now you will just have to settle for a description. The first one she opened was a pair of goggle sunglasses. Not the swimming kind, but rather the sort you would use for a motorcycle maybe? These were obviously mine. Anyway, they have an adjustable black elastic band to strap them to my skull, orange tinted mirror lenses and I think silver frames. When I wear them, I look like a super hero, so I wore them for about an hour after getting them. J

Kasey opened the second something and found a small box hidden inside it. This little box was about three inches cubed and had a picture of an egg on it. Reading it, we found that it was a mini herb garden! (excitement!) So, it has like a full size ceramic(?) egg that you have to gently crack open on the end. It has some stuff in it that you plant the supplied seeds in and a little stand that you stick this ceramic egg on. I really don't know much more about it because it was hard to read with my goggles on. J Kasey thought it was cute and planted the herbs right away.

Anyway, the Something Store is pretty cool and if you have $10 to spare, I highly recommend giving it a try. I think that they did a great job of capturing the anticipation of getting an unknown gift.

Doesn't that totally sound like some crazy idea that I would have come up with?

A Near Life Experience

As most of you know, I went on a fishing trip last Friday. I had been looking forward to it for some time, and it turns out that it was a lot more interesting than I could have imagined.

After fishing for about 5 hours, we had hooked on to an oil rig about 40 miles out and began fishing for red snapper (YUM!). I was fishing off of the front platform of the boat, as it is the more difficult location in the high seas and we had many newcomers to our fishing party. The captain then noticed that we were taking on water in the rear of the boat. After doing a couple of things, he told us that we had to unhook and get moving to get the water out of the boat. As we unhooked, a large wave hit the boat and dunked the running outboard engines completely under water, causing them to die a quick and irreversible death. We now had no engines and no bilge pump. With every 8 foot wave, another 30 to 50 gallons of water joined us in the boat and things looked bad. The captain sent out a mayday call and the Coast Guard sent a large party fishing boat to assist us.

For the next 20 minutes it became clear that the boat was going to take on a lot of water and would sink into the water, but due to its design it was not going to sink to the bottom. At this point I grabbed my camera and started taking pictures.

We all made it over to the larger boat, which had ironically been chartered by the members of a fire rescue team from one of the local Valero refineries. The Coast guard then arrived and sent a rescue swimmer to assess the situation then the captain left and abandoned the boat as well to join us on the other fishing boat.

Over all there was not much lost (besides the boat). One member of our party lost his wallet and his keys, which was very unfortunate since he had drove to Corpus!

Saturday morning a search team was sent out to recover the boat, but could not find it. Yesterday (Sunday) we were informed that the boat had drifted to shore.

I have to say though that this was AWESOME! It was a pretty surreal situation to be in and unlike a car wreck that is over in a couple of seconds, this took a while and all that I could think is "This is REALLY happening!"

Over all it was an interesting time and the fishing was great. I really hope that Captain Ronnie gets his boat fixed soon, because I plan to go with him again.

Below I have attached the captain's official report that he gave to the Coast Guard and sent to all of his customers.

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Hello my fellow fisherman Due true a sad accident we have to cancel all future trips with our boat the Lady Godiva I include here a report so you know what happened and I also include the information of a fellow Captain that if he is free that day of you booking hr is more than welcome to take you on your fishing trip. His info is. Captain Mike Nugent....his boat is 36 ft ...The Wrecklamation...his 361-779-8389 and the name of is charter is South Bay Charters.. Like I promised here is what happend...... Ingleside TX Friday June 14, 2008 Lady Godiva info TX 6551KF This is a report on the accident what happened with the craft The Lady Godiva a 36 ft Twin Vee Catamaran on Friday June 13 2008. The boat was hired for that day for a party of 6 from a church group of San Antonio. We headed out for a fishing trip that morning and left the dock at 5.30am and past the jetty at 6.00am. The heading was East and the predictions by NOA where 3 to 5 and 4 to 6 ft waves what is a little choppy but not any problem for the 36 ft catamaran. At 10 miles offshore we did find an anchored ship and drifted some bait behind that boat looking for King mackerel. After a few hours the spot came too crowded to fish and we headed farther to fish one of the rigs East. After an hour we arrived on the rig and hooked up and I started working to get the 6 fishermen started with rod and reel to the bottom. I was very busy to keep up with the fish they where bringing in, and when I came to the aft of the boat, I noticed that one customer on the starboard side was standing in water that was coming in the boat thru the self bailing holes and that means that the bilges pumps where failing. I directly started looking to fix the problem and that took me a while to figure out that the panel switch was going bad. I did stay on it and got a direct hot connection to the manual override for the starboard bilge pumps. I don't know how long this all took I assume 20 to 30 minutes and when I checked back if the pump was working the situation was that we stood below the knee's in water in the back. What I didn't know was, when I was working on the switch, all the incoming water created a short on the port site bilge pumps and we were out of bilge pumps completely. Then I decide to try the get the boat off the rig and drive the boat to get the water out with the movement of the boat. We got the boat off the rig and I try to get the boat moving when both engines died on me due to, too much submerged in the water. Now we are drifting and the boat turned in the water with the aft to incoming waves and one after the other wave was rolling in and the whole boat was for 3/4 submerged in a very short time. In the meantime I called in a mayday on the marine VHF and someone responded and contacted the Coastguard. The 6 customers where wearing life jackets type 1 that I provided and where standing on the bowl platform what was still out of the water. In the meantime when we where waiting for the coastguard a other boat responded on the mayday and this was the PESCA from the dolphin docks with Captain Ryan and they did show up first on the scene. They provided a large bilge pump and we got that to work, but the water was rushing in faster than we could pump it out, and the situation was getting dangerous, so I decided to get my customers in safety and get them on the Pesca. They did a wonderful job and did everything to board my people and did it all with the safety rules in mind. In the mean time the helicopter from the coast guard arrived and wanted to provide us with an other pump what I allowed them to do, so a rescue swimmer got in the water and swam to the boat, when he saw the situation he also felt that the situation was very unsafe. The boat was sitting 3 ft underwater in the aft and a pump was not doing any good any more, he ask me the question if I wanted to get on the helicopter or ask the captain of the Pesca to get me together with my customers. So I went on the Pesca and abandoned The Lady Godiva due to the helpless situation and condition of the boat. When we took off the cutter from the coastguard arrived on the scene and had a conversation with me thru the VHF from the Pesca and I told them in short terms what happened. Later when I came to the dock with the Pesca I went into the Coast Guard station and got the info that they also could not do anything to salvage the boat so the let it drift. They gave me the last coordinates from the boat. Soon I was home I contacted my insurance agency but could not get any one on the phone in the main office and left several messages on the answering machine. I got to speak with my local agent Mr. Jim Concidine from Gilchrist TX and explained what had happened. We also contacted US-Tow Boat and gave them permission to look for the boat. To get it out of International waters, if it was still afloat, but it was too late to spot it in the dark. I got a phone call from them that they left at 7:30am on 06-14-08 to begin recovery process. By this I want to thank every one that helped me to rescue my customers so nobody got hurt and everyone got safe to the dock. Special thanks to the Coast Guard and captain Ryan of the Pesca from Dolphin Docks If you need more help to book your next trip let me know and I do every thing to help you out if I can. Not from one trip a credit card deposit has been cashed so we are good on that end. Good luck Captain Ronny Claes 06-14-08

So, this really happened.

Today we went on the fishing trip that I have been looking forward to. After a very successful several hours, THE BOAT SANK!

On Friday the 13th. Go figure.

Not good, but it was AWESOME.

I am super tired though and I am going to go to bed. Check out the pictures for now, and I will write about it soon.

My battery died, so I am waiting on more pics from another camera.

This is a pic of our boat sinking and the Coast Guard helicopter hovering above it.

My New Toy (and other random blah)

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been slowly putting together a computer that I am connecting to my TV. This PC will act as my main media center once it is done and completely replace my DirecTV Tivo with free over the air HDTV (in 1080i none the less!) along with other technical stuff. It is cool. I have spent a lot of time working on it and learning what in the world I am doing, but it is all coming along.

I could go on and on about all of the technical details, but suffice it to say, I ended up spending about 10 hours sitting on the floor in front of it, adjusting things that you are not supposed to touch and hoping that I didn't break anything. In the end though, it all worked. :) Yay!!

I still have about $200 worth of parts to order and install, but that is not that big of a deal. Of course that is what makes it show tv programs… Ok, right now it plays movies, music and video games. Oh yeah, you can read comic books and browse the web too. It is sweet.

The next time you are over at mi casa, I will have to let you check it out.
Unless I don't really like you or you don't like dogs, then you will likely never come over.

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This past weekend, I got to hang out with my college roommate Tom (the bald guy from an earlier post). It was really good to see him. We didn't really do anything but hang out and it was great.
He was telling me that his yard is being taken over by the crazy ants!! If you have not heard of these, you should check it out. They could be a problem here soon.

Basically there are these weird, cracked out ants that have spread all over south Houston. They are not hard to kill, but they are smart and will do things like stack the dead bodies of their fallen friends so that they can climb over the poison. They eat the vegetation in your yard and worse than that, they are attracted to electricity. They have been known to knock the power out in neighborhoods and to get into your house and destroy every appliance, computer and electronic device that is powered on!
So, who knows what is in the south side of Houston? (besides Tom)

NASA

It is a pretty big deal because these crazy ants could destroy mission control and bazillions of dollars worth of awesome stuff.
Anyway, I was telling Tom that he needs to sell his house and move (to San Antonio!) before no one will buy it because of this infestation.
It's CRAZY!

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On another note, I had a lot of people (a surprising amount really) talk to me about my blog. I just wanted to take a minute to say thanks and remind you guys that there is a link at the top of this page that says "Subscribe" this will subscribe you to my blog and inform you of updates. Since I like to blog, there is always something interesting to read! (ok, I think that it is interesting)

The Double Blackberry Delima

Yesterday I got my new work blackberry. It is a Sprint 8830 Global and is pretty cool. It does not have a camera unfortunately, but it does have gps, which is pretty cool. Anyway, while it has more features than my personal blackberry 8700, I am coming to learn that it is strictly a work phone.

It is, of course, tied to my work email and contacts. I am not sure how personal calls or text messages are looked upon. But the biggest bummer for me is that the browser is websensed, so it can only go to "approved" sites. Can't proxy it either. No myspace, no youtube, not much interesting. Of course, my 8700 does not do youtube. I do not like to do myspace from the phone… I guess it is not that big of a deal.

The deal breaker though is that I cannot add personal email boxes (and I am not sure I would want to for many reasons) and I HAVE to have mobile personal email for various reasons. So… I have to keep my other phone.

Now the big problem: I look like a big dork carrying 2 phones.

What to do?

If only hip packs (fanny packs, whatever) were cool.

Maybe I need a man bag. A murse.

That is SO GAY. What am I thinking?

I NEED HELP!

Ok, so do ya'll have any ideas? I looked around online and it looks like guys carry two on the belt and chicks use a purse.

Britney Spears:

Paris Hilton (there are 2 in the bag)

Washington DC Mayor

That dude is awesome looking. He has 3!!!

Ok. Any ideas?

Blog-a-log

Yep, so I like to blog about stuff; nothing in particular, but just stuff. It makes me happy on a deep level.

In the movie Shall We Dance, Susan Sarandon's character is asked about marriage and this is her response:

We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'."

Dude, that is so true about marriage, and you know, I think that it is true about blogging too. I think that blogging has given people a chance to put stuff and things out there for whomever to witness them. Most of it is not interesting, but there are some that are (andy the hobo traveler!)

Maybe someone will notice. Maybe someone will say "hey, me too!" or "that is cool". I don't know… Maybe it is just one of those things. What kind of thing you ask? Beats me. Just "those kind".

Anyway, whatever.

Maybe take a minute to slap on that "Add Comment" button below.

Or not.

Whatever.

BTW, Kurt Cobain was murdered.