Waiting for Baby

Christmas has passed. It was OK. It was quiet. I didn’t really get as much in years past, but I really didn’t have a strong want for anything like in years past. Except for my spider web tattoo and I got that.

Now we’re just waiting. Waiting for the little baby to release the appropriate hormone from his lungs indicating they are ready to work in the outside world and bring on labor in my wife. I was hoping he would be early, born in 2005. All for selfish reasons of my own, a 2005 child tax credit, and a nearly free birth due to Opposite of Dog’s insurance getting far shittier (It would have been about $50, but it will be more like $1000 if he comes in 2006). He still has about 37.5 hours, but I’m not holding my breath. No matter... as long as he’s healthy and my wife is healthy.

I’ve had a bit of a renaissance revival of my Nintendo and Super Nintendo over this break. All you kids out there who’ve only know you’re Playstation 2 and Xbox have no idea the simple joy of Super Mario Brothers, Tetris, Iron Tank, Donkey Kong Country, and all the other fine 8-bit and 16-bit games out there. I sound like a fucking old man, don’t I? I will be a father soon. I guess I should stop saying “Fuck” so much. I wouldn’t want the boy’s first word to be “Fuck”. I think that’s too complex of a sound for a baby to make as a first word. If you look at almost every major language, the words for mom and dad are the same. It’s not a coincidence. The sounds for mom and dad are the easiest for a baby to say, and every parent wants to think that their child is acknowledging their existence as the first thing they utter.

Happy New Year to all. I’ll keep everyone posted on the baby situation, and put pictures up as soon as he graces the world with his presence.

There's still time to give my unborn child a monetary gift, or pitch in for the crazy $1000 bill I'm going to be spanked with at his birth.

But, sweet Jesus, I am tired! I’m scared. I’m crazy. This culture has beaten me down.

I've been wanting to post this picture for a while, but I just didn't get the chance. It's kind of late, but it's still good.

REMOVED-it was me flipping the bird

Back at it again. Another shot of the spiderweb.


REMOVED- A picture of my back

Who are the Noswal's???

“and it's closed on Sunday." “Of course,” I snapped. “These goddamn Jesus freaks! They're multiplying like rats!”

I’ve got a couple things on my mind as I sit here in our abandoned section filled with only those who didn’t have enough vacation days left to take off. I stand on the brink of becoming a father and I have such clarity in my mind. Maybe that’s just the drugs, but it feels good.

This whole thing about intelligent design is really bothering me. I think it’s because I love science so much, and I don’t want to see it perverted into something it’s not.

Those who are for intelligent design throw up all these smoke screen arguments about how we should be fair and let children decide which is correct, Darwin's Theory of Eveolution or ID. They actually act as if ID is a competing scientific theory with evolution. It’s not. No one followed the Scientific Method to come up with it. There is no real proof. ID is Philosophy. It is Religion and Theology. It is NOT science, and to say it is and to have a desire to have it taught in PUBLIC schools is simply Theocracy.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a Deist. I come to the same conclusion when I look at how vast and amazing the world around me is, and how complex the systems of the world are. I come to that conclusion though not with my analytical brain, but with something deeper in me. Again, don’t get me wrong, I haven’t gone to church in I don’t know how long, and I’m horribly afraid of my own death because I’m not sure what’s going to happen.

In an interesting side note, my Aunt talks a lot to me about my religious beliefs and hers. She’s a devout Baptist, and I think it’s cool. She and her husband have an amazing faith that I don’t think I could ever have, and they really don’t push it onto people like so many other Christians do. I lived with them for a summer while I was interning at Miller Electric, and they would ask me if I wanted to go to church with them on occasion. I would always respectfully decline, but they didn’t force the issue on me. I was talking to my Aunt a month or so ago about life and death. She’s recovering from breast cancer, and I asked her what if she was wrong about there being a God and about Heaven, and when we die we just die. She said she didn’t care because she likes the way she lives and the community, faith, and strength her religion gives her. I thought that was a really good answer. It didn’t make me feel any better about dying, but it did make me respect her beliefs even more.

Anyway, if anyone who supports ID can give me a valid argument as to why it is SCIENCE then I’d like to hear it. Otherwise it should be kept in philosophy and religion classes.

So the birth of my son is supposed to be this amazing life-changing event. I’m really excited for it to happen. I don’t recall all that many other life-changing events in my life. The most emotionally rich moments of my life I think are the following:

The moment I walked into the room where my grandmother’s body was at the funeral home. It was the first person that I was actually close to who died. When I saw her it was like a baseball bat hit me in the head.

The time after I broke up with my very first girlfriend. I remember crying in my mom’s arms like a little kid even though I was like 17. It just sticks out in my mind

The first time I had sex: Self-explanatory

The moment I saw my wife right before we were going to be married. Also self-explanatory

The week after my wife’s miscarriage. Previous blog post’s reflect how I felt after this.

And finally, the moments after I thought I wasn’t going to be promoted to “Engineer” See this post for that one.

So we’ve got 4 bad things and 2 good things that really stick out in my mind as deeply emotional experiences. Hopefully the birth of my son will be so vastly amazing that it will count as like 3 or 4 good things. We’ll see.

“Do I look like a goddamn Nazi?” I said. “I’ll have a natural American car, or nothing at all!”

Gonzo Engineering

What is Gonzo Engineering? Is it coming to work ripped and twisted like Raoul Duke, or is Gonzo Engineering something completely different?

Was Gonzo Engineering designing a tattoo machine in the midst of a Big Ten bastion of education and coming home with 4th place and $1000? Gonzo Engineering was beating out all the stiff shirts who thought they had a lock in with their pill dispenser for the elderly and their expiration date stickers.

I think that’s what we’ve lost as American Engineers, the Gonzo Engineering. Fuck man, we live in the best goddamn country in the world and the best we can do is not even place in the best cars on the market. Did we lose a war? Where is the Gonzo Engineering? Henry Ford knew what Gonzo Engineering was. American engineers now are uncreative bitches who don’t have the balls and the know-how that engineers before us had. It was Gonzo Engineering every day back then.

We’re too concerned about jerking off stockholders to practice true Gonzo Engineering, and we’re too afraid of the consequences of going back to Gonzo Engineering.

I am too, I’m afraid. I can see the hammer above me and I can’t be Gonzo Engineering every day like I should. I have to walk in step like the rest of them. Gonzo Engineering be damned.

my heart was full of joy. I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger...a Man on the Move, and just sick enough to be totally confident.

There are occasion in life that give you perfect clarity and vision of the world around you. The past few days seem to have given me that. It’s hard to explain. After getting slapped in the face hard from work I was upset, but strangely acceptant of my fate. Kind of like an AIDS patient coming to terms with their inevitable death.

Maybe the Wellbutrin has changed the chemical composition of my brain enough to better accept things like this.

I got another shocker this morning. My boss wanted to meet with me. I was scared, gun shy from two days ago, I thought maybe he found my blog and was pissed, maybe he was upset I had been badmouthing the whole situation to everyone I could, maybe he was going to fire me for some unknown reason. I just didn’t know. I got even sweatier when he said we needed to go into a conference room to talk and not in his office.

I was pretty much ready for anything. He told me he had thought about what I had said to him during my review, and felt he had been too harsh in his evaluation, not allowing me to be an “ENGINEER” next year. I told him I didn’t want to have any mistrust between us, which is the truth. I’d rather be in a pleasant working environment than one that’s full of friction.

Turns out that I will get that promotion. Maybe things wouldn’t have been the same had it been July, or if my wife wasn’t about to give birth, or who knows what. Perhaps this was his evil plan all along, scare me into making sure I’m here more with the knowledge he could bring the hammer down on me at any time. In any case, I did learn a little something. I’ll be covering my ass, and playing the game a bit harder from now on.

I told one my comrades at work about the situation and how it went down.

He told me I should have said, “Well good, I can go back to working half days now.”

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

Perception

I had my performance review today. I got fucked because of a perception that I don’t work 40 hours a week, more the fact that I won’t work more than 40 hours a week. The fact that I love my family and would rather be with them than be in corporate America playing with myself. There was no question that I produce results, in fact, I’m above average in my work output. It just “doesn’t seem like” I “put in a hard-40 hours”. I seem to have “more potential”. This means that they aren’t squeezing enough juice out of this orange.

I don’t work for Opposite of Dog. I work for me and I work for my family. I lease my services out to Opposite of Dog.

“What more could I have done”

No response. Pause. Pause.

It just “doesn’t seem like you put in a hard-40 hours”

Any specific examples?

No response Pause. Pause.

So I don’t get to be an “ENGINEER” and get an additional 3.5% because it appears in their eyes that I’m not here enough.

Yes, I leave to go to my wife’s doctor’s appointments because I want to be a part of my son’s life.

Yes, I leave to go to see a shrink because I’m fucked up in the head.

Yes, I leave when there is a logical stopping point in the work I’m doing for the day. If that’s 15 or 30 min before 8 and ½ hours then who gives a fuck. I produce results. I’m never late with those results. You have no more suggestions on what I could have done this year. It just appears that I’m not in the building enough. No real facts or figures to back that up with even though I can list off all kinds of dollars I’ve saved the company, and how many different projects and machines I’ve worked on. They both have a feeling.

I’ve got a feeling too, it’s a mix of rage and bile in the back of my throat.

I forget that sometimes you have to play the game. I won’t forget after today.

I won’t forget the frantic walk out to my car, and the drive to the back of the parking lot. I lost it there. I’d been saving them up for a while and this was as good a time as any to let them go.

I called her up and choked out.

“I’m sorry”
“I fucked up”

It’s not my fault she tells me. I can’t help but feel it is. We’ll have $170 less a month until I can instill confidence in the big man that I do put in “a hard-40 hours”

In two months, maybe four, maybe six, I may get that 3.5% back.

So I’ll write it down for him. I’ll keep tabs, but I’ll be damned if it’s a second over 40 hours.
Not now, not ever.

Reason #6,784 why minorities hate white people:

Today at lunch I heard a white woman sitting at the table next to me commenting on the Tookie Williams execution. And I quote:

“I’m surprised they aren’t rioting out in L.A. Those people riot when they’re happy not to mention when they are upset.”

Yeah, all the black people were so happy when the police that beat the shit out of Rodney King got off with a slap on the wrist that they just had to go riot.

You’d think I was living in Mississippi not Central Illinois.

Seriously, what is the point of prisons? Is it just to get people out of “normal” “good” society, or is it an attempt to reform someone who has lost their way? Is it an attempt to bring them back to being a functional member of society?

“"The degree of civilization can be judged by its prisoners." Dostoyevsky said that after doing a little time.”

So what civilizations do we rank with next to?


From Wikipedia.com

Wow! What stellar company. All second and third world theocracies, or the communist block that is China. All of these places are bastions of hope and democracy of course. Killing someone accomplished one thing. One more person is dead… Period.

Something to think about

"I do not hate Christian, I hate Hypocrites and as of late it has been very hard to tell them apart."

That's from George Bush's America which can be accessed from my links on the right.

I couldn't agree more.

Morning Erections and Dick Hole Firefighters

As I roll in this morning to work, I see in the center of my four man cube a cheese and sausage and cracker tray. I immediately cringe with the thought of hundreds of people walking by all day saying “What’s the occasion” and “Wow look at this spread”

You’d think these fucking people have never seen food before. It’s as if a group of Ethiopian Refugees wandered into the office and found food after surviving for months on bread and water. You can actually see the chubby forming in their pants as they walk up and fill up a plate. I don’t mind getting free treats either, but it’s not like the world is a better place because of it. I guess I’m just strange that way.

I’m still very salty this morning after last nights hockey game. We played the Peoria Firefighter Team again. You may remember them from this post. They’re very chippy and dirty players.

This game was no different, and apparently since all firefighters are heroes of some kind post 9/11 they are exempt from penalties being called on them. Of course the converse of that corollary applies if you do anything to them.

Big Stu on our team got checked into the boards on a play and didn’t get a call for him after we had been called for the exact same shit two times before. Stu was pretty hot after this and in the ensuing face off he smacked the line judge in the ankles hard. It was kind of intentional, but if you’re standing that close and dropping the puck you’re going to get hit in the ankles a few times. That’s why God invented shin gaurds. The ref then called a penalty on him! I'm not an expert by any means, but what exactly is that call. Roughing the ref? Hitting the ref with a stick? I don't know?

So we were beating their asses 9-3 with 4 min left in the third period and had 6 penalties against us. Some dumb fuck on our team runs into the one girl on their team and draws a seventh penalty. Game over, we lose 0-1 even though we were punishing them on the scoreboard. I was pissed. I skated off the ice without shaking hands and saying good game. Some of the guys who did stay to shake hands said that the firefighters were all pompous and acting like they had accomplished something. No, not really. We were kicking your asses and we had annoyed refs enough that they had finally had enough. I played well. I had a goal and felt good while I was skating.

But non the less, I urge anyone with online privilege to put the following google bomb in their web page.

When it comes to incompetent firefighters no one quite takes the cake like Peoria’s local 50. Incompetent firefighters who are unwilling to play a fair game of hockey. Incompetent firefighters who use tax money to buy jerseys. Incompetent firefighters who don’t follow the rules of not submitting rosters. Incompetent firefighters who can give crap out, but can’t take it. Incompetent firefighters much like Peoria’s local 50.

If you don’t know how a google bomb works, google ranks things by counting the links to a page from other pages. Thus the more links tied to a certain group of words, the higher the page ranks. Thus if you type in Incompetent firefighters and hundreds of people have it linked to the Peoria local 50’s web page, google will list it first on it’s results. Much like if you type in the word failure GW Bushes web page comes up. So please copy my source code for the above paragraph and enjoy.

Is it wrong that I get tattooed?

I asked myself that last night as I was getting a spider web tattooed on my left elbow. Partially because at that moment it was fast becoming one of the most painful of my 50+ hours of tattooing. Am I wasting my money?

What do other people spend their money on?

Big houses: I’ve got a very modest home. It only cost me $104,500. (It must shock people that I throw around these numbers. Most people are such freaks about how much money they make or how much their shit cost them... that's a whole diffrent post though). It has it’s problems, as those of you who’ve read my blog before know, but it has charm. I probably could have afforded a better, more expensive house, but this one was OK.

Big TV’s and Stereo’s: I really don’t understand why guys want to have 60” TV’s. If you have one, that’s cool for you, but I’ll stick with my 27” screen and non-surround sound system. Yeah, it is fun to have the movie theatre experience, but I’d rather be tattooed than have a big TV.

Lot’s of expensive cars: Guys love fast flashy cars. I think cars and trucks can be cool too, but I don’t see the point in owning more than one per working person, or dropping thousands of dollars on aftermarket shit to make it have a few more horses. If that’s what makes you happy though, I say go ahead and do it.

They have other expensive hobbies: Drinking beer for example. I have a friend who must drop at least $250 a month on beer. You know if that makes him happy, I’m cool with it. I can’t understand spending that much money on booze.

They go out to restaurants on a regular basis: I like a good steakhouse steak as much as the next guy, but I also like to cook. I always tell people that if I weren’t an engineer I would want to be a chef. Nonetheless, it’s expensive to eat out by at least 25%. Again, if you like to eat out a lot, that’s cool. You should enjoy the varied cuisine you imbibe.

They have expensive past times: Like golf or hunting. These can also be very expensive. Green fee’s, clubs, hunting licenses, guns, shells, land to hunt on can all add up. I don’t do either of these things. I get tattooed.

I’ve kept track of how much I’ve spent on my tattoos over the years. Before you judge me and say I’m wasting my money maybe you should add up what you’re spending on your hobbies, pastimes, and other “frivolous” things.

Maybe the one advantage I have over all the other people is that I get to have my tattoos with me until the day I die, 24/7, 365 and ¼. You don’t get to use or do the above things all the time.

I love my tattoos.

They are me.

This shit breaks my heart

People die in war, people with hopes and dreams. Pictures 3,4,5 and 6 almost made me break down. Pictures are certainly worth a thousand words. We can't get over our petty differences without killing each other. We have to argue over who's dick is bigger, or who's God is right, or over some shitty piece of dirt. It's a fucking Greek tragedy.

God is trying to kill me...

Not in that existential we're all slowely dying, but the blow you up in a huge ball of flames kind of way. I found another natural gas leak in the old pipe that goes to my water heater. I was again able to slow or completely stop the small leak with epoxy putty. I just hope a big leak doesn't form some time in someplace I can't smell and build up over time and then, BOOM! I think it's time to cash in on my home warranty plan again and get this and the other old leaky joint I put putty on fixed up by the professionals and drop the $60 deductible. Old houses can be so tedious.

Facts and Figures from Uncle Sam

So I got this thing from social security yesterday in the mail. It said all this useless stuff, but it also had this interesting chart that showed how much money I've made over my lifetime of working

1997: $2431
1998: $3977
1999: $4966

2000: $6158
2001: $9921
2002: $18,956
2003: $14,117
2004: $59,301

Very interesting stuff. Not counting this year I've made $119,827. Last year I almost made as much as the last seven years prior, $60,526. Although back in 1997 I was only 16.

Life’s short and hard like a body building elf

As I sit here, I’m not really sure what to write about. It snowed last night, and I woke up to a fresh coat of snow on everything. It made me feel good. Everything looks more picturesque with an inch of snow on it. I don’t play hockey this weekend so I don’t have that to look forward to, but we are going to decorate the tree. I also decided what I really want to get from my wife for Christmas. It’s so cool. I can’t wait.

I’m really nervous about the baby being born. It’s only an estimated 33 days away. That’s not very much time. Now that a good portion of my family hates me because I’m an ingrate I’m not really sure what to do. I moved up my physc appointment so maybe that will shed some light on the whole thing. I get my performance review at work next week. I’m hoping to get an extra 1.5% raise above what I think I’m going to get. I’ve got my case put together now it’s just a matter of laying it all out.

I was fantasizing about what I would do if I won the lottery the other day. I guess that’s what happens when you get older. You no longer fantasize about fucking beautiful women. If I won $335 million dollars first I would see how long it took me to get fired by being as incompetent as possible. Not by doing anything that it’s easy to get fired for like sexual harassment or something like that, real incompetence. In this place, that could take a while, but eventually I would move back to Madison and I would buy up some property on the isthmus near campus and have the coolest tattoo parlor ever built. My only goal in owning the parlor would be to break even on the books, and just be able to get tattooed whenever I wanted. I’d just hang out and shoot the shit with artists and watch TV on the big screen I would have in their, and maybe buy a seat of Pro Engineer so I could finish the design of my tattoo machine. Then start assembling it and selling it via the Internet. Then just go around the world to tattoo conventions with my wife and son and sell my machine. That would be awesome.

Instead I am here.
In my cell, thirty-six square
Of cubicle hell.

That’s a Haiku bitches!