BLAB!!!!!!!!!!: February 2006

i hate the cabin fever

however, i heart the first day of spring to a rediculous extent. the first day of the year that is 65-70 degrees at 7 in the morning. all the birds have been up for hours singing their little tails off. with the first step outside, the smell hits you like a ton of bricks. the smell of spring cannot be described, it can only be experienced..... sort of like the matrix. it instantly makes you notice the huge case of cabin fever you never knew you had. one breath and you think "there's so many things i can accomplish outside today!" it kills me to have to sit in the office today with so much anticipation about what i could be doing right now. it's like the last day of gradeschool before summer vacation. sitting there, gnawing on your pencil, shaking with excitment and flipping out over the blueprints you just scribbled out for the tree fort you plan on building. spring is here and it rocks!!

home on the range

happy to report that my sister is finally back, safe and sound from 4 weeks of hell in Nigeria. if you've seen the the news lately, you've seen that there is a civil war going on and 9 oil workers have been kidnapped for ransom. welcome home keri.

things that vex me #85 & #49

#85 - ill-used space in public restrooms. i mentioned in a previous blog that, if given the choice, i prefer to use the handicapped bathroom stall because there is more room, and places to hang a jacket etc. some even have their own sink. what is it with public restrooms that they need to put the toilet 6 inches away from the wall, and then put the huge plastic thing that holds 7 rolls of toilet paper right where your knee would go whilst going about your business. the handicapped stall has 20+ square feet of space and they shove the toilet in the back corner with all this crap hanging over and around it. this completely defeats the purpose of the handicapped stall.....

#49 - bumper stickers and vanity plates that only the driver can decipher. examples:

WRTHAWR
KAYZZZT
GRNMCHN
WHTHRCN

the point of a vanity plate is to be a bold, quick, and possibly humorous statement. i shouldn't have to follow you for 30 miles down the highway doing algorithms in my head trying to figure out your cryptography. point in case:

the ice storm of 2006!!!

a cloud went by last night dumping about an inch of ice and sleet on oklahoma. as a born and raised upstate new yorker, this "incredible ice storm" is child's play. however, for the natives of the area the ice stopped everything. schools, stores, and even churches closed....pure bedlam. i was one of three who showed up for work today. yes it was a saturday, but in my 24/7/365 business there should have been 11 guys there today. some of whom live in the town where i work, whereas i had to drive 30 miles down the interstate to get there. this picture taken from NewsOK.com brings my point into focus. pauls valley is where i work, by the way, and i passed by this wreck only about an hour after it happened.

i don't mean to make light of a situation where people have died, but come on!!! look in the background.... notice a severe lack of snow, sleet, and ice?!?! how the crap did this commercial driver get his license?? there were about 30 other cars i saw off the road during my drive. i came over one hill into a valley and i had to stop to watch some jackass do doughnuts in the middle of the highway because he was going too slow to make it up the next hill that really isn't all that steep. DOUGHNUTS!! in the middle of an interstate. those who know me know how easily i get frustrated with incompetence. now there was another car in front of me, and because we had stopped, that idiot started doing crazy fishtails trying to start up again now there's two cars doing a dance in the middle of the interstate. i shook my fist at them, told them a politely as i could to join the olympic figure skating team, got my left tires on the rumble strip and breezed by them. interstates are generally straight roads, and I-35 goes straight south.... STRAIGHT!!! that means that unless a deer jumps out in front of you, there is no need to turn the wheel.... at all.... how do these people end up 50 off the side of the highway, car backwards, bumpers falling off and tires flat??? granted oklahoma does not have the infrastructure to deal with ice or snow. they do not have plows or trucks with sand, but still, the physics of driving are not complicated. if you start to slide don't spaz out and slam on your brake, simply take your foot off the gas. period. NOOOOOOO BRAKE! brake = flipping a bus and 2 unnecessary deaths.

chuckles...

the survey results are in and these are the best valentines day related pictures i came across this holiday:

damnit, i just unpacked!!

i came home from a job in texas at about 8 last night and while i am dropping the trailer off my truck my work cell phone rings. my stomach drops because i just worked 15 hours, but i am still on 24/7 on call everyday due to my being the sole employee in this area of the US for my department. when my work cell rings at night it always means bad things and i have to go back out to a well. this case was different. it was the global business development manager (read "the guy you don't want to piss off because if you do you'll be working on a rig in the north sea for the next 10 years") informing me of my new promotion. i'm going to work sales in the rockies area.

so it looks like i'm moving to Denver. this means that i will have lived in and had an official US Postal Service address in 7.5 states in 2.5 years. New York, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, California, Colorado, and i spent enough time in Wyoming to say that i lived there. that's a lot of moving. i have no idea yet when i will be moving to denver... could be a month, could be 3 months, but it's going to be soon.

while i could never truely compare the Emancipation Proclaimation to my current situation, i have to say that i feel like i have been freed. there's a giant smile on my face knowing that i soon will have a normal 8-5 job with weekends off and no more on call 24/7 BS. i think i will have an adult beverage tonight in celebration.

for sooth, i have returned!!

skiing at 14,000 feet + out of shape kyle = kyle very out of breath!! but as usual every bit of my vacation was phenominal. good people, good food, good beer, and finally some well needed sleep. pics as promised: