I won't say we made it through yet since it's not quite over and I don't want to tempt fate. I'll just say that the expected power loss from the ice storm hasn't happened yet. The freezing rain from Friday and Saturday is mostly gone now. It left many thousands of Georgians without power (for various lengths of time - some are still down), led to many automobile accidents and caused the closure of major highways.

But it was breathtakingly beautiful too. It encased all of the trees in a sheath of crystalline majesty. Last evening the low lights of our front porch lit these up magnificently. Unfortunately our nighttime picture taking capabilities are almost non-existent and none of the photos came out well. This morning the view was still beautiful as the crystal encrusted trees groaned under their icy burden.

(Click here if you can't see the thumbnail.)

All of the ice is melting now and it sounds like a battleground outside. Chunks of ice fall like the rat-a-tat of a machine gun. The occasional large ice block or failing tree limb is like the crack of a mortar. Our entire yard is covered with broken shards of glass as if the remnants of the world's largest crystal chandelier lay shattered and abandoned there.

(Click here if you can't see the thumbnail.)

At least with this mess we don't have to worry about the cleaning up.

Posted by: Jim at 03:59 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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I've been invited to a 'webinar'. This is the term being used because 'web seminar' is far too understandable. Jargon is of ultimate importance in business so a clear and concise phrase like 'web seminar' cannot be permitted to survive. No, a grotesque substitute must be crafted. Something that executives and PR people can say with pride alongside such trite and overused staples as 'paradigm', 'leverage', and 'out of the box'. Proper use of these craptacular phrases causes an executive to achieve a mental woody so great they can actually mentally ejaculate.

"Today's webinar will explore the paradigm shift resulting from our leveraging of out of the box thinking."

SPLURT!!! <--- mental ejaculate

Can I just say no? Can I refuse to use the word 'webinar'? Why can't I just use 'web seminar'?

If I do refuse to use this bullshit word will my coworkers look at me funny? Will they joke about my archaic word choice during project planning sessions? If I send out invitations to my own 'web seminar' will there be no attendees because they don't understand what such a thing is?

Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. I refuse to use 'webinar'. I am officially adding it to my list of prohibited phrases. I will not add it to my spell checker dictionary so every time I see it it will have the red underlined squiggly of rejection. Call me antiquated, call me conservative, call me Al. Just don't call me a sycophant.

I must go now. I have to engineer visionary metrics in order to deliver seamless convergence with my incentivized best-of-breed partnerships.

Posted by: Jim at 08:39 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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We have two cat doors inside our house. One is on the laundry room door. That's so the cats can get in there to do their 'business' without the smell of cat box taking over the house. The other is between the living area and the sleeping area of the house. That door gets closed so we can keep the dogs (and children) in one half of the house or the other, also to save on heating/cooling during sleepy time. The cat door is a necessary there again so the cats can get to their toilet.

Henk and Apple (the grown-up cats) take the doors in a stately fashion, very dignified, very careful. Stitch (the hell spawn kitten) takes them like a panzer division crossing the French border. She'll start by the laundry room and tear ass across the kitchen floor. She'll slowly build up speed as she gains minute amounts of friction on the tiles, much like a cartoon character or dragster. There's a 50/50 chance that she'll make the turn into the dining room otherwise there'll be a loud "thwunk" as she banks off of the oven cabinet. Once she hits carpet the claws come out and she accelerates as if she just turned on the nitrous. The sound of ripping fibers increases until they conclude with a door jarring "THA-WANG" as she dives through the cat door and sends it smacking into the door on its hinges.

The cat doors are pretty good ones and have little switches so they can be set to open both ways, either way alone, or lock closed.

All I can think of every time I hear her assault the door is this.

So far I have resisted my natural urges but I'm unsure how long I can hold out.

Posted by: Jim at 10:56 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Burger: I'm not a baby any more.

Me: No? What are you now?

Burger: I'm a big guy!

And so he is. Happy 3rd birthday, Burger!

(Paul's link)

Many more pictures (including Trey being attacked by a horde of midgets) at Flaptrap.

Posted by: Jim at 08:28 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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No, I'm not suggesting we serve up reindeer fillets. Rudy's still my number one cervidae. The red-nosed freak I'm speaking of is none other than Ronald McDonald.

What in the name of all that is holy were the McDonald's food developers thinking of with this culinary travesty?

Sausage? Yeah, that's a good start. It's a breakfast staple. A thin patty of greasy sausage with an assortment of impregnated unchewable bits is a fine beginning for a breakfast sandwich. Scrambled egg patty? Right on! If it's got eggs in it, it's breakfast. You can add eggs to any normal food and instantly transform it to a proper morning repast. Steak? That's dinner. Steak and eggs? Breakfast! Eggs are just dandy for the breakfast sandwich.

But then they went for a 'unique' change. Something different. Something never tried before. Something that would complement the sausage and eggs in a way never before attempted.

Pancakes.

Yes, pancakes. Pancakes instead of a bagel (good), biscuit (good) or muffin (good). Pancakes with a layer of maple syrup inside them. Cause, you know, nothing goes with greasy sausage and dry eggs quite like the taste of sugary maple syrup.

Oh, the humanity.

You might have guessed by now that I had a sausage and egg sandwich on pancake for breakfast. You'd be correct if you did. Oh, I didn't get it at the clown house - mine was purchased at the breakfast hot plate at QT (gas station / convenience store). I still blame Ronald though because he started it.

Incidentally, when one section of the breakfast hot plate is completely full it is not because they just finished making those particular sandwiches and they are fresh. No, it is because every other customer has already had their own vomit inducing experience with that particular sandwich type and is now avoiding it like the plague.

The aftertaste is exceptional and has proven to be resistant to coffee, water and soda. My mouth tastes like maple grease.

I envy the fellow who was ahead of me in line at QT. His breakfast selection was:

1. A selection of snack-sized packages of pretzels and chips.


2. A large coffee. (Starbucks translator: "venti")


3. A gallon of green generic Kool-Aid style beverage.


4. A pack of cigarettes.


5. A Corona big boy.

Now THAT is a breakfast of champions.

Posted by: Jim at 09:38 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 Sounds like my husbands breakfast. Sometimes he'll throw in a hot dog. I had one of those mcgriddles awhile back. It was so disappointing. My kids won't even eat it.

Posted by: Tiffani at January 21, 2005 10:37 AM (KE4Gu)

2 When I was in high school, I seem to recall that we called a Bud and a handful of chips ahoy choc. chip cookies the breakfast of champions. Your noting the change in composition of said breakfast to include all these other things just shows how crazy portion control has gotten and maybe just why we have this obesity problem.

Posted by: RP at January 21, 2005 10:37 AM (LlPKh)

3 I must be a freak. I love the McGriddles but I also love mixing my sausage with my pancakes and syrup.

Posted by: DeAnna at January 21, 2005 03:15 PM (IdVP4)

4 Isn't that what the aliens on "V" ate?

Posted by: Jim at January 21, 2005 03:20 PM (tyQ8y)

5 I tried a McGriddle once. Was totally unimpressed. Sausage McMuffin w/egg is far superior. When they don't leave shell pieces in the egg, of course. IMHO sausage /w pancakes: OK. Eggs w/pancakes: not OK. French toast is acceptable, though.

Posted by: diamond dave at January 21, 2005 05:10 PM (ZCnB7)

6 I like your "Breakfast of Champions" Jim, provided you throw away the first four ingredients.

Posted by: Victor at January 22, 2005 10:48 AM (etHvD)

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They're doing electrical work in the building and we were without heat until about 20 minutes ago. It's about 25 degrees outside. It's about 55 degrees inside.

I'm the only person who wasn't bitching about it. You might assume that this is because I'm from Little Antarctica* but you'd be wrong. It's because my Lovely Wife bought me one of those massage/heat chair pads for our anniversary and I've been toasty warm and laughing on the inside* all day long.

* Also known as Buffalo.
** Okay, occasionally I laughed out loud too. There are some pretty efficient bitchers here with some fairly eloquent vocabulary.

Posted by: Jim at 03:56 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 Toasty heat chair! I need one of those.

Posted by: annette at January 19, 2005 07:20 PM (m/BC0)

2 Hey.....that was for christmas!You got a screwdirver for our anniversary!:-P

Posted by: LW at January 20, 2005 09:54 AM (GCA5m)

3 Oh, right. I should have remembered that since screwdrivers are romantic* and seat warmers are festive. * Not a joke - use your imagination.

Posted by: Jim at January 20, 2005 11:43 AM (tyQ8y)

4 Oh SHUT UP!:-P

Posted by: LW at January 20, 2005 12:53 PM (GCA5m)

5 I have a friend from Buffalo and he says that they have two seasons "Winter and the Fourth of July"

Posted by: Frick at January 20, 2005 08:03 PM (IkvNl)

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That's me. Bloody sick and bloody tired. Sick enough that I'm going home shortly. Tired enough that my eyes keep going unfocused. This is despite enough drugs to keep Snoop Dog flying and about 24 hours of sleep in the past 2 days. Bleh.

Damned flu!

Anyway, here's a thought for the day:

Some people are like Slinkies . . . not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.

Posted by: Jim at 10:20 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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Oh, the traffic wasn't any worse than usual so it was a relatively fast 45 minutes to drive in. Getting up to my office was the hard part.

I hit the button for the elevator and after a minute or so the right side elevator car (there are two elevators) arrived. The doors opened and I was greeted by darkness. The lights were out in the car and the little back-up light was on casting a feeble glow about. I figured what the heck and got on. I pushed the button for the second floor. Nothing happened.

I pushed the button numerous times but nothing continued to happen. After a little bit I realized I was acting like a lab rat clicking the lever even when it was obvious no food pellets were arriving. I exited the non-functioning elevator and pushed the call elevator button again. It didn't light up. Since there was an elevator already arrived on the floor it wasn't calling the other elevator.

This presented a problem. You may recall from previous posts that the stairwell doors are locked on the first floor so people are forced to go by the security desk to get to the upper floors. The security desk was currently unoccupied.

No elevator. Can't use the stairs. Nobody to report the problem to.

I was going to have to wait until somebody came down to the first floor on the elevator.

I waited several minutes and suddenly the defunct elevator closed its doors and headed upwards, no doubt to confound and irritate somebody on another floor by sitting idle and dark while they did their own lab rat routine. I pressed the call elevator button again and was rewarded with its cheery familiar glow.

The left elevator arrived momentarily and I was able to proceed to my offices without further mishap.

If anybody asks why I was late I'll just tell them I had trouble getting up this morning.

Posted by: Jim at 11:53 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I had the weirdest thing happen to me yesterday. While preparing the plates for dinner I started getting a nauseous feeling and a pain in my gut. No, it was not a biological commentary on Lovely Wife's cooking - the food was excellent as always.

I ignored it and we sat down and began to eat. The pain got worse. Quickly. Within a minute or two it was so bad I couldn't sit up straight and I was breaking out in a cold sweat. It felt like somebody had smashed me in the belly with a mattock.

I excused myself and laid down on the couch. Within a few minutes it had passed. I went back to the table where Lovely Wife, after making sure I was indeed okay, told me about this weird thing that had happened to her earlier in the day. She had an episode with nausea and intense gut pain that hit her and left within a couple of minutes.

What the hell was this? I've heard of the 24 hour flu. Is there some freaky 5 minute flu going around?

Posted by: Jim at 11:53 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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1 This is absolutely not a commentary on your dietary habits, your onion intake, or anyone's cooking-it just sounds like a case of the really bad gas. Seriously. Sometimes you can get pockets of them that hurt like a big dog, and once they clear an area in your rumbly bits, the pain goes away. Take it from a chick with IBS. It can happen.

Posted by: Helen at January 07, 2005 12:17 PM (QL3eA)

2 Oh, wow. You mean you get this sort of pain regularly? Holy shit. I've got no problem with pain. Me and pain go way back. Case in point - I was a lacrosse goalie. That means I voluntarily accepted a position where my purpose was to impose my body between the goal and a concrete ball traveling at 100 mph. That's what it felt like when it hit you, anyway. And it hit me pretty regularly. I have not matured any since then. Still, I have no idea how I would cope with this particular pain if it happened frequently. It was that bad.

Posted by: Jim at January 07, 2005 12:27 PM (tyQ8y)

3 Maybe you're pregnant.

Posted by: Victor and his seventeen pet rats at January 07, 2005 12:49 PM (L3qPK)

4 Can't be. I just had my period.

Posted by: Jim at January 07, 2005 12:59 PM (tyQ8y)

5 Dude.. I've had the same thing happen to me recently. I got all hot and broke out into a cold sweat while I was on the toilet. It was rough! It passed a little later. I went to the doctor the next day, and after a few tests and X Rays he devised that I was in fact being eaten from the inside out by a parasitic twin I had been hosting since birth. Seriously, though... Do you take alot of aspirin? Over the counter pain medications?

Posted by: Dortch at January 07, 2005 01:06 PM (DhhRx)

6 No, I haven't taken an over the counter medication in weeks. I use the good stuff from the guy on the corner. I am taking piroxicam but none of the symptoms include evil twin gnawing an escape route or 10 pound hammer in the belly.

Posted by: Jim at January 07, 2005 01:13 PM (tyQ8y)

7 Ahhh, that happens to me all the time. Just eat more Twizzlers and Pepsi... it'll clear right up. 8^)

Posted by: tre at January 07, 2005 02:02 PM (F2On3)

8 Hmmm...if you're getting it all the time maybe it's caused by Twizzlers and Pepsi. I'm not allowed to drink Pepsi in any case. Just being seen with one in Atlanta is considered just cause for a lynching.

Posted by: Jim at January 07, 2005 02:11 PM (tyQ8y)

9 Helen,IBS is what they told me but never gave me meds for it (not that I would take them anyways LOL).Even had a "stool" sample test.Wonder if they ever checked for parasites?They did when I was a kid...had worms (WTF?).Wonder if something is still lingering arround?One of my kids had that...lots of pain and they never found anything untill years later they found the parasites.PAin was cured within days.

Posted by: LW at January 07, 2005 02:52 PM (GCA5m)

10 Yeah....screw Pepsi!Coke rules,Pepsi doesn't even go up my noose!

Posted by: LW at January 07, 2005 02:54 PM (GCA5m)

11 You ever wonder what would have happened in Alien if the burster had decided to hit the snoozebutton...? Seriously though folks, I'm with Helen on this one.

Posted by: Rob at January 07, 2005 04:17 PM (hhqTZ)

12 Jim, I have IBS too. Something you never want. You ever watch Sopranos? Adrianna? That's me to a T. Stress triggers it. I rather go through child birth again than have an IBS episode. But what you had did sound like gas. Did you fart? NO never mind I don't wanna know.

Posted by: Tiffani at January 07, 2005 04:27 PM (KE4Gu)

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It's 70 degrees and sunny. On January 1. Global warming kicks ass!

We've procured a stash of fire wood for some burnin' this evening. Trey's coming over and I'm making my world famous spinach stuffed portabella mushrooms with butter sauce.

I have no hangover. I can't remember the last time I had a January 1 without a hangover. I think I was 9.

The new year is starting out smashingly well.

And, as I look back on the year in review it doesn't seem nearly as bad as it did when we were going through it. True, I lost my job. But then again I got a better job. True also that I got very ill. I'm mostly better now. The only thing that's still bothering me much about that is my feet and they're on the way to getting fixed now.

Add into that our menagerie. Sure I bitch about hosting the Peacock Zoo but the truth is I love animals and as long as I'm not cleaning litter boxes they get a net positive balance.

We've got a new house in a neighborhood that we love. The firework displays around the neighborhood last night might have been a shade less dramatic that professional shows but they more than made up for it with enthusiasm and variety. That's the kind of neighborhood I want my kids growing up in.

Friends - I've made loads of them through this weblog this year. I've greatly strengthened other ones. We rediscovered friends we'd sort of lost over distance since we moved. It was a great year for friendships.

So even though there were some very dark roads to walk down this year we not only made it through the dangerous parts, we ended up in a much better place. 2004 was a very good year.

Here's hoping that 2005 is even better (which it will be, with a bit of work) and wishing the same for all of you.

Happy New Year!

Posted by: Jim at 02:56 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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