Oscar Banlon's Guide to the Apocalypse

Garlic Experimentation
Well, I woke up this morning (afternoon), and I decided to Get Funky.

By prior clandestine arrangement, I had a couple of heads of fresh garlic secreted in the Recesses of the Lazy Susan in a Ziploc bag.

I grabbed a Garlic Grenade, peeled it with no regard whatsoever to local custom or the threats of the Air Control Board, and was mystified by the Various Cloves therein. I am told that this shameless demonstration Stank Up The House, but I was not deterred - I was on a Mission.

The Elder Cat was consulted, with mixed results. I don't think Tereshkova is a big fan of raw garlic.

I, of course, picked a small clove and ate it - raw - crunched it right up, then experienced a right solid kick to the skull followed by a rather stunning aftertaste that cleaned my right sinus cavity down to the bone. Then, of course, I handed another small clove of garlic to Middle - who ate it, then turned herself inside out and chugged a glass of milk as a remedy.

Having nuked my brain with the raw stuff, I then proceeded to sautee a pan full of garlic slices in olive oil. The smell intensified asymptotically, but the garlic bits browned nicely. I ran the pan around the house, and everyone agreed that the sauteed bits tasted like curiously strong potato chips - albeit with a remarkably persistent aftertaste.

At that point, I put the rest of the peeled garlic cloves back in the Ziploc bag and decided to pursue further research at a later date.

Better Half has forbade me from growing garlic plants in the house - apparently, they STINK. Heh - I'm contemplating writing a strongly worded letter to The Hague. At the very least, I may consider plowing up the whole back yard next spring for a Garlic Plantation.

Sweet Baby Moses in a chariot-driven sidecar - this little plant has RANGE and STRIKING POWER. Anti-microbial and anti-fungal properties, no less!

Clearly, more research is indicated.

The Wedding
Yea, verily - today was The Wedding.

Much anticipated, intricately prepared - and brilliantly done, I must say.

M was radiant, A was handsomely suited and debonair, the service was beautiful, and the reception was fun (accompanied by many Good Things To Eat - always a plus). As we wished the happy couple well, a cannonade showered their path with rose petals.

Well done, all and sundry - very, very well done.

I wish M and her sweetie all the best, now and for many more years to come.

Christmas Eve Eve!
I pretty much figured things would turn out the way they did, when I went to work this morning.

Yep, yep, yep - the developers screwed around all day, then triumphantly announced that they were done for the holiday and promptly went home. Bastards.

Just one problem - after they complete one of these cycles (LATE, ALWAYS), there's about five hours of work left for the release engineer (MOI). The Indians don't make much of Christmas, so the Brass naturally wants to work them to death over the American holiday, so they need the latest build of Project O, so... Yours Truly got to sit in the office and do hours of work while the blizzard shut down the city. I was there until about 8:30. Dinner was canned chicken salad and crackers. Hey - I've learned to keep food in my desk, because when it comes to weekends and holidays, these jokers screw me EVERY DAMNED TIME.

In other news, you can get chicken salad in a can. It's nasty, but it spreads nicely on crackers with the included tiny plastic spoon. I need to order another case of MREs, obviously. They at least come with Tabasco sauce.

The Great Horned Owls at work were laughing at me, I think - saying "Holy ****, there's some poor ******* still here with a blizzard going on? What a putz!" The drive home was fun.

The good news is that, this year, I laid down the law and refused to even show up on December 24. I have not had a proper day off since July, and I told my manager "I have spent many Christmas Eves sitting in my office, waiting for someone else to do something so that I can go home. That is a thoroughly miserable experience, and it's one that I don't care to repeat."

So, the global project schedule was yanked up a day. This of course did nothing to actually encourage people not to screw with the release engineer - there is a sort of conservation principle at work (pain and inconvenience can neither be created or destroyed, only shifted around a bit) - but it did dump the whole ridiculous mess in my lap a day earlier and perhaps give me a few extra hours to decompress and try to enjoy Christmas a little.

When I finally got home, Better Half made me an egg-and-cheese, which was very nice. Later, Middle and I watched the thirty minutes of World Cup skeleton racing that Eldest and I managed to record after an epic battle with the video thingy.

The men's skeleton finals were AWESOME! Some goofy German kid came out of nowhere and won!

February 2010 Olympics - Middle and I will be all over the skeleton races! There's just something about skeleton racing - your entire team screams at you at the start to get you to run faster, you jump on a tea-tray head-first, you bomb down the hill at eighty miles an hour, head-first - what's not to like? Hell - I'd do it!

Back on the air!
Yea, verily - after a multi-day HURRR and EPIC FAIL followed by multiple file system recovery runs, the home PC is back online.

Better Half and the Muses will catch up on their various cyber-lives over the next few days, as they work off the backlog.

Damn Wintendo box... it should be hauled out and SHOT.

Evening Fire Drill and (gasp!) Possible End Of The Dead Cat Drama?
Well, the wheels fell off at 4:30 this afternoon, as usual.

Missed deadlines (not MINE), high excitement, drama, etc. I wound up working through dinnertime, performing brain surgery on a build while everyone watched. I got everything sorted, finally. I really, REALLY prefer not to hack up a production build under pressure - that's a breeding ground for expensive mistakes. But, hey - I'm just the piano player in the whorehouse. I play my piano, sing my little song, and ignore the gunplay and mortar rounds exploding in the street.

You may recall the other drama from a year ago - the infamous "Dead Cat" conundrum. Well, today I got an email from one of the players, and I thought, "Oh, no - not THAT again!"

As it turned out, though, this time E wanted my help in documenting the whole sorry mess so that it can be handed off to a project team that is actually responsible for it. I was happy to oblige - I photocopied twenty jam-packed hand-written pages from my work notebook and shipped them to him via intra-company mail. My working title for that document is "Diary Of A Nightmare" - soon to become a major motion picture, I'm sure. Of all the stupidly difficult hairballs I've encountered in 25 years of programming, the Dead Cat puzzle is definitely in the top five.

It's a scary, lonely, terrifying, scary (did I mention scary?) thing to realize that one is the only one on the face of the Earth that has any clue about a process that is vitally important to major global financial institutions - and that one's understanding of the problem is based on a ridiculous foundation of wild guesses, intuitive leaps, and trial and error. Don't get me wrong - I have virtually made a career out of wild guesses and intuitive leaps. Still, my tinkering doesn't normally manifest itself as fluctuations in overseas stock market indices.

Yep, yep, yep - I welcome the long-overdue ownership and scrutiny of the Dead Cat Puzzle by Somebody Else. The Company is notoriously lax when it comes to life-cycle management of legacy code, and it's way past time somebody stepped up and sorted this mess for good and all.

Hehe - now that I think about it, my work notebook should probably be classified as a national strategic resource and buried under a trillion tons of rock in Montana. I tend to write copiously in it when I'm forced into Deep Hack Mode, and that corresponds to Times Of Company Crisis...

Hello, Federal Marshals? I'd like to ask a few questions about your Witness Protection program?

Marx Brothers
Yea, verily - I'm living in a Marx Brothers movie.

Today was a delightfully kaleidoscopic journey into Bizarro-Land, and tomorrow promises to be more of the same.

Fun, fun - oh, so much fun. I can hardly wait.

Working on the Impala
Middle got a model kit for her birthday - a classic Impala, the car that Dean and Sam drive on the television show "Supernatural."

Nice car, I must say.

It's been about thirty years, give or take, since I've tried to put together a model car. I was not particularly good at it, as I recall.

So, anyway - this evening, we dove into the project with one page of cryptic instructions and a bottle of model glue.

We made a lot of progress - we got a big chunk of the engine built, front door panels and mirrors and bumper and taillights installed, and front seats put together. Model glue doesn't set nearly as quickly now as it did when I was building models - some change in the formulation, I suppose.

Anyway, when the glue did not set quickly, we had sense enough to call a halt for the evening - we'll see how it looks tomorrow. If the glue still doesn't want to set, we'll switch to cyanoacrylate (and get a WHOLE LOT more careful).

This is actually pretty cool! That car is flat-out awesome - and we're working through the process, staying calm, and thinking things through. Easy, easy does it - no emergencies here, just two people working on a puzzle.

We'll have a look tomorrow, figure out our next steps, and continue to make progress. Soon, we'll put on the ZZ Top CD at full volume and DANCE with THE CAR!

I'd really get a bang out of finding and overhauling a real, live Impala - but I'm afraid that would require at least twenty years of hands-on experience that I don't have. Sure - the technology is a generation old and the safety factor would be one-eightieth of the latest Wintendo Nodule or whatever - but there's something to be said for the exuberance of the era of classic cars.

No catalytic converters, no engine computers - just dial in that carburetor, dude, and FLOOR IT!

Bison - it's what's for dinner!
The Ladies took off early this morning for a shopping/bonding exercise, and I woke up much later in a state of total unreasoned panic.

I put the PC on to cook with a six-hour anti-virus software update download, brewed a cup of chamomile tea, and watched a football game. Crazy, yes, I know. Totally out of character.

Lunch was a cardboard nasty pizza from the freezer, covered in pepperoni slices and garlic powder.

As the evening wore on, I got Hungry.

I checked in, learned that the Female Spazz was scheduled to go on for several more hours, and assessed my options.

There was plenty of food in the House. Soups, leftovers, Hot Pockets, more cardboard nasty pizzas, eggs, etc. Better Half thought ahead, obviously.

Then, I asked myself, "Self?" (I always call myself Self) "What would you like? That is to say - what would you do for supper that you wouldn't ordinarily do? Your entire crew is off in the weeds somewhere doing Chick Things, you haven't had a proper day off in six months, you're on your own, and the house cats are avoiding you for fear they'll be eaten!"

So, I went to Ted's.

I wanted buffalo meat.

Not a bowl of chili (which I've had, very tasty), not a burger (which I've also had, very, very tasty) - no, no, no - a STEAK, by GOD.

Hehehehee...

I rolled on over to Ted's, did my best to appear polite and non-threatening, got a booth, got some water and a bowl of cucumber slices (WTF?), and ordered a Delmonico (shades of old "Gunsmoke" episodes - Matt Dillon and Miss Kitty would be proud) ribeye, Bison, with green beans and garlic mashed potatoes.

For many, many, OH SO MANY years now, I have wanted a bison steak. Sweet Baby Moses in a chariot-driven sidecar, I have been looking forward to this moment. I may never do it again (it's expensive) - but - Ohhhh, YEAH!

Glorious.

Words fail me.

Initially, I figured I'd be hauling home a box of leftovers. After a couple of pauses for reflection and renewed attacks upon the plate, not so much.

I fell upon that plate of dinner and consumed it utterly.

I scared the socks off the entire staff, and Eldest helped me later to analyze the dynamics of the Hungry Top Predator vis-a-vis the wait staff.

Hey - the kids were never in danger, really. Once I had a tasty plate of meat and veggies close at hand, my hindbrain was fully engaged in eating and more eating and finding a warm rock or tree to sleep on.

I tipped the Stammering Child Waiter over 20%, I told him that the meal was brilliant, with my compliments, and I left peacefully. What more could he want?

Black Friday 2009!
Better Half and Middle Child (and possibly Others, to be named later) got up early and hared off to Various Locations in search of The Big Deal.

No luck - zero, zip, nada.

Color me "surprised."

While I admire and respect Better Half's keen instincts when it comes to advertisers and coupons, gratefully adding up her victories and lecturing the Offspring on the importance of saving money - this was Black Friday, after all.

Listen to me, Brothers and Sisters.

*ahem*

The House Always Wins.

I've been to Vegas. I had a blast, I wrote off a few hundred to "entertainment expense", and I was not disappointed. The House did, indeed, win.

So, I was not unduly surprised to learn that the Mythical Cheap Laptop Computer did not, in fact, in any practically reasonable sense, exist.

MIDDLE - hang on to your money, and hold out for a better deal.

Happy Thanksgiving!
A bunch of us banded together today for a great Thanksgiving celebration, brilliantly hosted by the House of M.

We had a most excellent meal, full of many tasty things. Oh, yeah!

Then, we went to the movies. I joined a bunch of the kids to watch "2012", while most of the adults went to see some movie whose name I can't recall. Something to do with Sandra Bullock and a Texas accent and football, or some such. I'm sure it was splendid. Me, I just enjoyed watching scenes of mass destruction and chuckling evilly when things went spectacularly sideways for large numbers of unsuspecting citizens. I have to say - normally, nothing beats a tidal wave for sheer havoc, but that sequence with the Yellowstone super-caldera was mightily impressive.

Afterwards, there was Pie.

Many kinds of Pie.

Then - football!

Yea, verily, it was Good.

I made the acquaintance of two barn cats and exchanged pleasantries with three horses, a dog, and two groups of chickens. The big orange barn cat is very vocal and authoritative, but doesn't mind being scratched on the sly as long as it is allowed to get in the last word.

Oddity magnet - yep, that would be ME.
So, I wrapped things up at quitting time and was out the door on schedule to beat the traffic. Halfway down the steps.

"Uh, sir - excuse me - would you happen to have jumper cables?"

Oh, great - just what I needed. It's a good thing I'm inscrutable, because otherwise the poor guy would have read my thoughts and run away screaming.

"Yeah, I think so. Where's your car? I'll bring the truck around."

Fast-forward through fetching the truck, digging out the jumper cables, hooking them up, and going through a ten-minute fire drill with the guy's retarded car alarm that regaled us with flashing lights and horn blasts until he finally got it to SHUT UP.

Finally, we got some charge into his battery and he turned the key.

"VROOM!" went his engine. Hoho!

"FOOM!" went his engine. Flames shot out the top, a foot high and a foot wide.

I became Concerned.

I detached the cables from his battery, detached them from mine, and started waving my arms and yelling. Of all the ways I might ultimately lose my truck, Tethered To A Stranger's Burning Sedan is close to the bottom of the list.

"Get out! GET OUT OF THE CAR! Your engine is ON FIRE!"

He gave me a couple of dumb looks, hermetically sealed within his cockpit. Probably had the radio on.

Finally, he sallied forth. A bystander appeared, asking whether we knew that the car engine was on fire. I assured the bystander that I, at least, was well aware of the conflagration and was speedily preparing to get the hell out of Dodge. The other driver scowled at his burning engine.

"Whoa - that's weird. I don't know why it would do THAT."

Ya THINK?!?!?!

He leaned over, pursed his lips, and blew out the fire.

I threw the jumper cables back in the truck, slammed the hood, and took another look at the other guy's engine.

"You know, I don't know what other things you've got going on right now, but you need to have that looked at. That is not good."

"Yeah, I guess so."

He then proceeded to slam his hood down, climb back inside Elijah's Chariot, and drive away.

I was ahead of him, and I watched in the mirror to verify that he took a different way than me. I really did not relish the thought of being stuck beside him in traffic when his car burst into flames again.

Is it just me?

I've experienced my share of vehicle malfunctions over the years, and I think I've responded more or less appropriately. Bravely and creatively, even, upon occasion.

Still, I don't think I should stand there scratching my ass when the damn thing BURSTS INTO FLAME for NO APPARENT REASON and then GET BACK IN IT and DRIVE AWAY.

Maybe it's just me.

Osmosis and Cooking Chicken
Hoho!

Better Half, Eldest, and I watched a cooking show wherein chicken breasts were immersed in a carefully measured brine (salt-water) solution for a calculated amount of time before grilling. The object of the exercise was to prevent the chicken from drying out on the grill.

Since we are all Science Nerds, this led naturally into a detailed theoretical discussion of the process and mechanisms of osmosis - a topic which I'm sure I spent at least ten minutes on, back in high school.

True to form, I played the part of the Young Ruler who insisted on having the mysteries of the Universe explained while standing on one foot. Better Half met the challenge, assisted ably by Eldest.

All fame and glory to them both - I need to research osmosis, and I need to perform the Egg Experiment to cement my understanding.

Osmosis is weird. It is also fascinating, by definition.

Back in the Test Kitchen, it offers a clue as to how I might keep chicken breasts from drying out with nothing more than tap water and salt. Clearly, more research is indicated.

I do enjoy preforming complex miracles with simple ingredients and procedures.

Speaking of which - we had a fish fry today. Bass and crappie and various pan-fish, filleted by Yours Truly (after I figured out how to fillet a fish - valuable experience, +1 'cooking point'). No bones, no bones - ain't got no bones - YUM!

Hehehehe - even the little-bitty fishies were tasty. Must be something in the water.

I could really get into this, you know - are you aware that the bulk of any given fish is edible and tasty? Give me a sharp knife, a cutting board, and some cornmeal and hot oil, and we'll eat like kings!

Paradox: Big fish yield more material for cooking but with less variety, while small fish yield less material but with more tasty variety.

Proposal 1: Buy me a trillion dollars' worth of fish and wait 70 years for results.

Proposal 2: Thaw out more fish, and help me taste-test the results as I bounce off the walls. We'll take notes as we go - I promise - we're cool.

Psst - go with Proposal 2. It'll be fun!

Civil War Ball 2009
A great time was had by all at the Civil War Ball today, by all accounts.

Eldest was resplendent in her dress, wowing everyone by its sheer size and complexity and the fact that she made it herself. She has few peers at this level of endeavor - fewer than ten in the state, by my guess. On top of that, she was the very picture of Southern nobility and genteel sensibility - and she enjoyed herself thoroughly, to boot!

Middle put a decidedly New Orleans twist into her attire - she wore a black and purple dress, black forearm sleeves, and a black leather choker with a cross pendant. She took the floor as a vision straight out of the French Quarter, and she took no prisoners.

Youngest was simply beautiful. She effortlessly carried off an air of elegance and sophistication and happiness, and I was thrilled to see her having fun.

I fear that E had no idea what he was letting himself in for - he rode with us this morning and spent the whole day as an honorary member of this House. He got a full dose of our unique weirdness, administered via sledgehammer and Tilt-A-Whirl and subtle shenanigans involving Folger's Crystals and hidden cameras.

To his credit, he did all right, as far as I can tell. He didn't burst into flames, call for a lawyer, change his name, or flee to Venezuela, anyway. I think he had fun, actually. He certainly grinned a lot.

He's cool - he's a trouper - he can think on his feet, and if he can deal with all five members of this House in a closed vehicle for an hour, he should be on the short list for some kind of medal.

Yep, yep - this was a good day, indeed.

RIFs and Mysterious Onions and an Omelet
I survived a monstrous RIF (Reduction In Force - manager-speak for "wholesale slaughter of employees") today. That was nice, apart from the whole "watch your friends get thrown overboard to drown" aspect.

This evening, I rolled on over to the kitchen to help with the Wednesday night meal. The potatoes were done to a turn and the chili was good by the time I got there - but when I broached the idea of dicing up some orphaned onions for a garnish, everybody looked at me as if I were insane.

I bravely plowed ahead - I neatly diced three onions, put them in a bowl, and served them up with a ladle.

HA! Again, I say - HA!

I'm not the only one who likes fresh onion bits in chili.

Brothers and Sisters - TESTIFY! At the end of dinner service, my bowl of fresh onion bits was picked clean. I even managed to talk one of my Cubbie buddies into munching a bit of raw onion - I told him it was cool and weird. He agreed.

Later, T and T (haha- insert obscure AWANA joke here) showed up. Better Half schooled T on mathematics, and I cooked T (the other T) an omelet.

She liked it.

Hey - it's all good.

PASSED THE EMISSIONS TEST!
Yea, verily, Brothers and Sisters - my nasty old purple pick-up passed the emissions test on the second try! After spending $1,000 on repairs, it damned well better...

It didn't just squeak by, either - it turned in test results that looked like a new truck.

Apparently, 114,000 miles of use just wore out the catalytic converter. Who knew?

So, I'm good for another two years. Hopefully, many more years after that.

The other parts of my Saturday were strange, diverse, and kaleidoscopic. I could explain further, but you'd need to buy me dinner first and promise to cuddle afterwards.

Many things were done by various teams in the field. Dragons were slain, Fair Maidens delivered, and I witnessed the most bizarre multi-vehicle chain-reaction car collision I've ever seen in my life.

Upon reflection, I can only say this - the Universe owes me a Saturday.

A proper Saturday, mind you - not like this one, in which my boss woke me up with a phone call about a silly problem that we've seen six times before, but which On This Day required my personal attention and analysis (AGAIN!) followed by one bizarrely exaggerated train wreck after another.

Heh - I did a bit of lateral thinking, got the barbecue grill back on-line, and we had bratwurst for supper just before the next big storm hits. It's coming - I can smell it.

I award myself a FLAWLESS VICTORY, with INSANE STUNT BONUS.

We're good.

Brown Sugar, Flour, and Sandwiches
I rolled on over to the church this evening with a Suburban full of Monkeys, put on an apron, washed my hands, and asked C, "What do you need?"

I spent the next while shoveling brown sugar from a bag into a couple of plastic buckets. Then, at N's request, I shoveled flour into a bigger bucket.

After that, I sliced sandwiches for a while.

Dinner service went well, and it was quite good. Two kinds of soup, and sandwiches. The vegetable beef soup was outstanding, and the tomato bisque was also quite nice. I did warn several folks that took tomato bisque leftovers home to add some water before re-heating - I mean, that soup has PRESENCE and AUTHORITY. If they took the leftover soup straight to the pot and cooked it down a bit while re-heating it, it would probably crawl right out of the pot and demand the right to vote.

Now that I think about it some more, I think I recognize the sirloin bits and green beans that I helped save a few nights back in the vegetable-beef soup. The seasoning was masterful - not that I can take any credit, having arrived late to the game tonight.

One of these days, I need to track down and question whomever is responsible for that tomato bisque. This soup has range and striking power, my people - not to be taken lightly, yet oddly compelling. This is not your garden-variety Campbell's tomato soup - no, this stuff bays at the moon and will put hair all over your body. I'm still kicking myself for not managing to steal a gallon for further experimentation.

"How was YOUR day?", you might ask.

My answer: "I washed my hands, wore an apron, asked for direction, and did what needed to be done." I still don't know why the brown sugar and the flour needed to be shoveled from bags to buckets, and I don't care. I came, I saw, I scooped.

Sad as that might appear, it made a hell of a lot more sense than my day job.

Work? Yeah, well - work was weird and silent and ominous today. About one in ten will be sacked over the next year - AGAIN. I do have an anxious email from somebody who doesn't want to starve or be deported - I suppose I should answer that.

Yee-ha! What a day...
The shop fixed my truck yesterday, and Better Half took it out for a spin today.

Halfway to Longmont, she experienced an Unexpected Occurrence. Later analysis revealed that the new catalytic converter separated from the exhaust pipeline, and (for bonus points) the newly-replaced vacuum check valve failed at the same time.

So - let's review.

Yesterday, the shop replaced the thermostat, the vacuum check valve, and the catalytic converter.

So, then - they were 1 for 3.

These are good guys - I've been thoroughly impressed with their work for many years. After Better Half drove the truck home, I shooed them all into Momma's Tank and drove my truck back over to the shop. I kept the windows down and the heater cranked to avoid getting killed by the carbon monoxide pouring from the engine. By the way - the weather has turned nasty.

To their credit, the shop guys fixed the detached catalytic converter and the broken vacuum check valve this afternoon.

Better Half is the Heroine of the Day, by the way - after the Occurrence and the Quick Repair, she has volunteered to run the Chariot up and down the highway tomorrow to try and rack up the fifty miles to break in the catalytic converter.

The truck still has to pass the emissions test.

In other news, my office complex lost all electrical power for several hours this afternoon. We'll work to resurrect servers and processes tomorrow, I'm told.

Oh - and, The Company just announced a 10% force reduction over the next twelve months.

Deep breaths - Zen breathing - sleep, wake, pick up the sword, and start swinging again.

Truck repair and Youngest's birthday
We put the truck in the shop today and got a new thermostat, vacuum check valve, and catalytic converter for a cool $1000. The new cat has a 50-mile highway-speed break-in period, so we'll take care of that over the next day or two and then try to pass the emissions test again.

I do hope to get another 60,000 miles out of my truck. One of these days, though, the poor thing is going to go Tango-Uniform in such a way that it will cost more to fix it than it's worth. Better Half's tank is much more plush and complex, but mine generally tends to be cheaper to fix.

Youngest's birthday went well - we went to Gunther Toody's for a ceremonial meal, and it was quite good. I played pinball and somehow managed to divide by zero, I think - I had four balls on the table at once, went nuts, and racked up a score about the size of the national debt.

When our food came, I had two quarters left - and I gave them to a kid that had been watching me play, precisely because I cannot recall any time in my childhood when anyone ever did that for me. His eyes got big and he grinned, and that's worth fifty cents any day of the week.

Cheesecake, presents, various telephone calls and Internet communications - it was certainly a multimedia birthday, by all accounts. She also went to see "Wicked" downtown a few days ago - musical theater is largely wasted on me, but she had a smashing good time and enjoyed it immensely. This was not a group of locals, either - this was a big-time touring troupe and a top-drawer presentation. Pretty cool! Now, she and Middle periodically belt out Broadway show tunes at full volume - and they're actually pretty good!

Emissions test FAIL and Mission Banquet WIN!
I took my truck in today for its required emissions test, and it FAILED!

It's putting out about twice the legal limit of carbon monoxide. Hippies in Boulder are burning me in effigy as we speak. I am personally convinced that the entire emissions test racket is a ridiculous scam that is making huge amounts of money for an entrenched special interest group, but what can I do?

I've arranged for a shop to have a look first thing Monday morning, and hopefully we'll find that the problem lies in the catalytic converter. The shop guy has a guy that can somehow chemically reset the converter or something - and, failing that, hopefully a new converter won't cost more than the truck is worth. I'm just now starting to get really comfortable with this truck, and it's only fifteen years old. I've only put about 140,000 miles on it, and it should be good to go for quite a while longer if we can come up with a way for it to pass the test.

After that shocking bit of news, I did have a good time at the Missions Banquet at the church.

We cooked roast beef, baked potatoes, green beans, some kind of Jell-O salad thing, and cake.

The roast beef was excellent (I sliced it up for the servers), the potatoes were Yukon Gold and would melt in your mouth, and the green beans were simply outstanding. Others worked their magic on the Jell-O thing and the cake.

Not that I can take credit for any of it, of course - my role is "Kitchen Menial, Various Duties, Unspecified." I carry things, slice things, wash things, carry more things, taste things, admire things, sweep things, and learn things. A typical task for me is "Take this, do that, and continue until you run out."

It's great - I don't make any decisions whatsoever, I work with my hands, and I see tangible results. Beats the hell out of the software business, any day.

O, My People - O, testify!

Tonight's dinner service was GOOD. Roast beef, gravy, baked potatoes, green beans, salad, and dessert. No major timing problems, smooth service, and smiles all round. Oh! and - AND - dinner rolls by N, the undisputed superstar of baking. I hand-formed (*ahem*MANGLED*ahem*) a few of those rolls myself, including the hideously oversized and comical dinner roll that was hailed as a week's worth of bread for a village in Africa. In my defense - it was indisputably huge, but it tasted good! The kitchen crew bravely divided and conquered the Mutant Uber-Roll - we watch each other's backs, yes, we do.

Various important personages visited the kitchen during the final run-up before dinner service, and I distracted most of them with tasty bits of roast beef. It never hurts to have the Brass wandering back out into the crowd with a big grin and a "Whoa! That's nice!" comment for anyone listening.

I enjoy working in the kitchen. I really, really, REALLY, do.

As I get older, I ask more and more frequently whether my exploits in software development matter at all in the grand scheme of things.

I suspect they don't (the software exploits, I mean).

I saw a lot of people eat well tonight. They looked happy.

I like seeing happy people.

Landing the 747
Today was a red-letter day at work.

After years of effort, we're finally primed to announce the (new and improved) release of Project O.

Of course, that means that all eyes were focused on the Release Engineering team - moi.

Yep, yep, yep.

I did my little dance, sang my little song, and drove back to work after dinner to sort everything out.

It's all good - I think.

Dinner was nice - I diced a couple of bell peppers and a surprisingly energetic onion, then added more olive oil and chicken bits to make fajitas. Better Half supervised, naturally.

Tomorrow night, I'll get to help cook again for a horde. "Missions Banquet," I think.

That will be fun. I like helping out in the kitchen.

Now, if you'll excuse me - I'm going to collapse into a coma. God, I'm tired.

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