I am Jack’s conceptual realization

I figured out why Instant Grocery List hasn’t been selling well. It’s inaccessible. The majority of people out there with computers don’t feel comfortable in the Excel environment.

My wife wanted to keep track of her expenses and profit from her store. She asked my how to do something in Excel because she just didn’t feel comfortable with it. She could use it if she really wanted to, but it wasn’t nice and comfortable.

Now I need to take my concept, and learn how to make it into a program. I think I’m going to learn Java and turn Instant Grocery List into a Java program.

I took one computer programming class in college and I hated it. It was C++, and the TA that taught it was a dick. He was kind of like Comic Book Guy.

I don’t like the idea of trying to learn something new like this, but I think if I do manage to get a working program it will sell much more. It’s also the issue of time. It takes time and effort to really learn something like a programming language, time I don’t know that I have.

Big Savings!

OK, I know I called you all shit faced cockmasters or something to that liking for not buying Instant Grocery List.

I’m sorry, and to make up for the error in my ways, I’m discounting Instant Grocery List to $10 instead of $20.

I know times are tough under our current régime.
Just remember, Lawryde loves you, even when he hits you… metaphorically… with words… just give it a try… you’ll like it… Instant Grocery List.

First you have to give up, first you have to *know*... not fear... *know*... that someday you're gonna die.

My monotonous life hasn’t really lead to any interesting posting opportunities as of late.

I get up, I shower, I get dressed, I make my lunch, I go to work, I mask my contempt and try to find meaning in my job, I come home, I put my son down for a nap, I make dinner, I watch TV, I put my son down for the evening, I watch TV, I go to sleep, I wake intermittently throughout the night when my son stirs and wants to eat. Rinse, Lather, Repeat.

The high points of my week are House on Tuesday, Project Runway on Wednesday, Playing Ice Hockey on Friday morning, Stargate SG-1 on Friday, and The Simpsons and Family Guy on Sunday.

I should find a second part time job. Looking back, I liked working multiple jobs (3 at one point) when I was in High School and College. When you don’t have time for anything you begin to appreciate little things more. You value any time you have with people you love, and love being able to do things you enjoy. Also, the $500-$700 more a month would destroy my debt within a year.

I don’t know. There’d be some amount of shame and embarrassment associated with changing oil on the side with a BS in Mechanical engineering. Some amount of degradation in telling my Opposite of Dog coworkers I can’t come over on the weekend because I have to go cut meat.

If you fucking assholes (and I mean that in a kind and gentle way) would just buy Instant Grocery List I wouldn’t have to.

Remember, Remember the fifth of November.

I was watching Foxnews Sunday morning when the little monkey woke up around 7:00 because I like to get my Republican talking points for the day early so I can spread them to the masses. They were having an “ask a doctor” segment with emails from viewers. The doctor was about 90 years old and probably still drilled holes in people’s skulls to release the demons. But I digress. The question from the viewer was, Do tattoos permanently damage the immune system? The crotchety old doctor said, “Well, I do notice that a lot of young kids have tattoos these days. I don’t understand why.” He continued and did verify that tattoos in fact did NOT permanently damage your immune system like HIV and AIDS do. What kind of idiot asks these questions? He went on to say that there is the potential to contract Hepatitis B if conditions aren’t sterile when the tattoo is applied, which is true.

In grand Foxnews fashion, they put up in text on the bottom of the screen: Tattoos cause Hepatitis B.

What irresponsible dip-shits.

Then one of the stupid asshole commentators said that what you like at 15 you might not like at 30. These people are idiots. They’re trained at reading cards while having Rupert Murdoch’s hand up their ass. When they go off the cuff they show how truly idiotic they are. Any tattoo shop worth their salt won’t tattoo anyone who’s 15.

Jesus Tap-dancing Christ.

And today is 9/11, it’s been five years since that terrible tragedy. It’s a fucking shame it happened. Below from BBC.com pretty much sums up how I feel about the whole situation.

Pessimism about Western tactics

Professor Michael Clarke of King's College, London, is gloomy in the short term at least.

"If I was Osama Bin Laden sitting in my cave, I would think I was winning," he said.

"I would consider that I am still at large, I have a global movement, I strike a chord with young Muslims everywhere, I am an inspiration not a planner and I have lured the US into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq of my choosing and of my way of fighting."
He added: "Nor is the West countering the easy narrative offered by the jihadis. They are, and I agree with the Bush language on this, Islamic fascists, but we are not engaging enough in the war of ideas and are instead dwelling on their actions. They can counter that by dwelling on ours, in a game of moral equivalence."

Optimism about Western values

Professor Clarke is more optimistic in the long term.

"It will get worse before it gets better but I expect western policy to win eventually because it offers a superior political, moral and economic model. However we have not made things easy for ourselves by mistakes, first in Afghanistan by allowing Taleban and al-Qaeda leaders to escape and then on a grand scale in making a strategic mistake by invading Iraq.

"This is probably going to take a generation to resolve, until the angry young jihadis turn into tired old men, as the Marxist-Leninists did."

Bush did such a chimpy job in the wake of 9/11 that things aren’t really any better. He just
furthered his, and his own parties’ agenda’s using fear. When we get a real leader on the job our policies will prevail.

Buy Instant Grocery List

What makes the grass grow? Blood! Blood! Blood!

I finally got my ass up this morning at 5:20 AM to go and play some developmental hockey at 6:00. There were about 20 guys there, mostly B league players. It was the most fun I’ve had playing hockey in quite a while. I’m so used to playing with guys who can’t skate, it was refreshing to play with these guys. I didn’t fuck up too much. I can skate with almost anyone (within reason), but I don’t always know where I’m supposed to be all the time. I even got an atta-boy from one of the better dudes afterwards for my hustle.

The grass I planted last Saturday is germinating. It’s been an ongoing project to grow grass in my backyard. It doesn’t get much sun from the two huge trees, which also suck all the moisture and have a huge root system. I used the special fall mix of seed, and wasn’t expecting it to grow so fast.

Guess what? I’m not a dick anymore. I’ve been cleared of that title as of yesterday.

Buy Instant Grocery List

Buy children’s plush toys from my wife

End communiqué

In like Flynn

First off, since you assholes (and I mean that in the most loving way I can) won’t buy Instant Grocery List from me, the least you could do is support my work at home wife and buy some of her home made handicrafts. Kids love them!!!
The last two days I was at all day love and grab-ass, “how do we make the company better” event for work. I’m pretty jaded to the whole idea of loving your company. How can I love a place that pays me as little as they think they can get away with?

Ok, yeah, I’m not ashamed to say I work at Opposite of Dog. It carries weight. It’s cool we help build the worlds infrastructure.

Work is just a place to make money, though. It’s not something to build your life around. There are better and more important things in life than leaving a “legacy” at a Fortune 100 company.

Planes Crash… That’s what they do.

I flew ComAir a few weeks ago from Peoria to Atlanta, in a CRJ nonetheless. I’m always a little nervous when I fly, not nearly as bad as I used to be, but still a bit nervous. Like I’ve said before though, that nervousness is founded in the fact that we all think we’re special little snowflakes. Being in a plane crash is like winning the lottery, but you die. Out of the millions of people who flew since the last plane crash in the US (2001), only 49 have died. There have been more than 49 lottery winners since 2001.

It is kind of messed up those people had to die fiery deaths as a result of the dumb ass pilot picking the wrong runway. Wouldn’t you know from flying enough how much runway your plane needs to get airborne? It’s like parallel parking. I know how big a spot I need to make it work. Ah well.

I got a few more quotes for the termite problem I have. I found a reputable local company that’s going to charge me $650 for doing just the house, then $90 a year after to make sure the bastards are gone. It would be another $400 to do the garage, but this treatment should kill the colony, so I’m going to roll the dice and pay for the garage only if I have to. Also, the dude said that he though the house had already been treated way back in the day when they were using a chemical in the same class as DDT to treat for termites. He showed me a repeating pattern of drilled holes in the basement wood, which he thought indicated that. I was reading up on that old chemical, and they say it lasts almost forever, but I’m not going to risk it and just drop the 650.

I was highly disappointed in the season finally of Deadwood last night. Instead of going out in a cliffhanger or a bunch of action, it just kind of fizzled to an end. I did like Al’s line: “In the aftermath, play the lie as mine, knowin’ I speak of you in heaven.”

Buy Instant Grocery List, and I can stop putting these plugs at the end of every post!

The F*ing South

I have negative radar. I can spot the flaw in something even if it’s not showing. I gravitate to leaking gas pipes. I can sense if a drain is backing up.

Two days ago my negative sense was tingling as I looked at this little rock that was sitting in my back yard right in front of my deck. “I think I should lift up that rock”, I said to myself.

I saw about 20 “white ant” looking creatures begin to scurry back underground as I lifted up the rock. I’m from Wisconsin and I don’t know what the fuck a termite looks like. I didn’t know what else they could be, so I killed one and put it in a baggy.

The next day my wife called Terminix and had them come out to take a look. They already spray our house for spiders and carpenter ants.

Sure as shit, those are termites. They haven’t made it into the house yet, and they’ve never been in the house ever. It’s only a matter of time though until they do get into the house. I have a block foundation so it inherently has cracks in it. They can work their way into the cracks and then into the wood. So, now I have to drop $1500 to get rid of the bastards. They’ll drill holes all around my house, which has concrete pads all around it, and then pump in hundreds of gallons of poison to kill them.

God I hate living this far south. Stupid termites are going to cost me like $120 bucks a month. That basically drains my expendable income until the first of the year and I get another raise.

Why do I have suck bad fucking luck? Why is God taking time from his busy schedule of killing puppies and babies to mess with me? I guess it’s good that my negativist sense was able to spot them before they made their way into my house. Then it would have cost more, and I would have had to make repairs to any damage and had a hell of a time trying to sell later. This way I get a guarantee that they’ll be gone.

Everyone, buy Instant Grocery List, I need the money to kill the bastard termites. (Or you can just click on the donate button on the this blog’s side bar and just add to the termite killing fund) Instant Grocery List is worth it, I promise. I even put an Ebay auction up so you can trust I’m not just going to take your money.

My child is an ingenious little monkey.

Yesterday my Carter figured out two new tricks. He’s officially 7 Months 3 days old. In the morning he figured out how to go from lying on his belly to sitting up. Then at night we were all downstairs and he figured out how to crawl for the first time. He’s been up on all fours and rocking back and forth for a few weeks. It’s incredible seeing him do something like that for the first time. It’s like watching the moon landing and the first time you got to third-base all rolled into one event.

Anyway… I guess we’ll be baby proofing the house this weekend. Now that he has the basic mechanics of it down he’ll have it mastered pretty soon.

The more he grows and develops, the less scared I am of life in general. It’s an amazing phenomenon.

Instant Grocery List is a time saver. Buy it!

I am Jack’s aching muscles…

My parents came down this weekend. My dad and I had the project of replacing all of the old galvanized steel plumbing in our house with new PEX (high density polyethylene) tubing. It’s a relatively new product for plumbing, and it’s way cheaper than copper. ($0.25 per foot compared to $2.50 per foot for copper).

We started at about 9:30 on Saturday morning. Things started kind of slow, but after we got moving it went pretty well. The PEX is really easy to install because of its flexibility. You never need to be dead nuts on any lengths, plus or minus a few inches will get you where you need to be.

The biggest pain in the ass for the whole project was ripping out the old pipe. We had to cut and disassemble as we went. After the first day we had the manifolds (see below picture) and 50% of the fixtures hooked up. We put all the old pipe on the curb to be picked up by the trash.

The next day we worked for a few hours, and my mom said that all the old pipe was gone from the curb. I couldn’t believe it. Someone had taken all of it. It was really shitty and old. One man’s trash, I guess… We had everything wrapped up by about 2:00 on Sunday. The pressure is so much better now in the house. Plus with the manifold system, there isn’t as much affect when multiple fixtures are on.

So the grand total for installation was about 12 hours of work (24 man hours) and about $500 in material (manifolds, tools, fittings, and hangers). If I would have had a plumber do it, it probably would have been in the $2500-$3000 range.

At 4:00 I had a hockey game. I was already tired as hell from all the plumbing work. We didn’t even have a full line on the bench to sub so it was a long ass game. We lost per usual, and I was dead tired. Good thing I have a cushy desk job.

Have you bought your Instant Grocery List yet? Your mom or wife would love it.


The cold water manifold


Hot and cold connections to the kitchen

Work Travel

This was in Jacksonville, before being delayed 2 hours in Atlanta due to thunderstorms, one day before all this no liquids on planes nonsense

Thoughts from Gate A4

I just saw a man carting a baby by as I sit here waiting to go to ATL. It made me miss my Carter. It made me want to cry. I’m so fucking tired right now. We’ve been working and going out to eat for something like 12 or 14 hours each day. I just want to be home right now. I’m not cut out for this much travel. I just saw another little boy. I still miss my Carter, and I still feel like I have to cry.

I’m glad I’m not (drawn square). It makes life more interesting. I’m also glad I’m not conservative. It makes you so hateful. I’m still pretty hateful, but it seems conservatives are more so.

Are Pilots scared of heights? Do they ever get scared before a flight? I’m less than I used to be, scared that is. I still take Dramamine before. It calms and quites me. This is such rambling bullshit. Oh well, I’m not reading it. My plane is here.


Buy Instant Grocery List, I promise you’ll use it and love it.

Bad Luck, Good Karma

Yesterday started like any other workday. Before I left, my wife asked me to start the washing machine. I went downstairs and started it. I looked over at the floor drain because our sewer backs up every so often because of tree roots. It looked OK, but I bent down to take a closer look.

I guess I bent a little too far because my 1 Gig flash drive slid out of my pocket an plopped right into the center of the drain. I watched in horror, unable to react as it was falling. It began to sink and I tried to snag it. My fingers couldn’t fit down far enough. I ran upstairs and grabbed some silverware and tried to pull it out. I couldn’t see it because the pipes are so old and rusty the water got mudded up right away. I was so fucking pissed off. The latest version of Instant Grocery List was on it, a bunch of music, and all the pictures of Carter were on it. I gave up and went to work.

I was pissed all day, but I thought I might be able to get it with some magnets or something.

When I got back home I went downstairs and took a look. The rust in the water had settled down and I could see the flash drive sitting at the bottom, maybe six inches down. (Luckily it has a 90° elbow at the bottom.)

I was able to fish it out with some pliers. It was all wet and nasty so I ran it under some clean water. It couldn’t get any more wet so why not? I lodged it into the front of a small plastic fan and left it.

It finally cooled off so I went and did some yard work. I pulled the car out so I could get to the mower, and had at it. When I went out to pull the car in from the street, a dude in a white truck stopped and gave me a honk. I figured he wanted directions.

He told me he had to get to Bloomington (40 mi away) and he was almost out of gas. He said he was a painter and just got paid by check but didn’t have any cash. He had a construction radio in the passenger seat that was covered in dust and paint flecks. He told me he had another job in Peoria tomorrow and he’d stop by and give me double what I gave him. I didn’t really believe him, or have any faith that he’d come back if I gave him money, but shit… fate had saved my flash drives so why not. I gave him 10 bucks and told him where to get the cheapest gas in town. He thanked me. Sometimes you have to do good deeds like that. I lie, cheat and steel enough that I need something to even out the Karma.

I went back upstairs and plugged in the now dry flash drive. It fired up right away and I didn’t loose any information.

Thank you Karma thank you very much.

P.S. Have you bought your copy of Instant Grocery List yet? If not you should. It will save you time, and you can’t put any price on that. Buy it. It’s good. It’s Instant Grocery List!

Buy my shit, and a Google Bomb.

I’ve created the Instant Grocery List.

What is Instant Grocery List?

It’s a Microsoft Excel based program that you enter in all the meals you and your family typically eat: Spaghetti, Hamburgers, Chicken Kiev, etc. With those meals you put in the ingredients for each meal. Then Instant Grocery List will automatically generate a random menu for the number of days you want. Done. I made it because my wife and I were getting stuck in a rut of eating the same things week after week. Now, we get a great variety, and we don’t waste time thinking of things to put in our weekly menu.

Buy it. I know you want to. At the very least buy it for your wife or computer savvy mom.

It’s wonderful.

It’s Instant Grocery List.

What’s the weather like up your own ass?

I understand why I can manage working where I do. I love designing things, creating things to solve problems. Other than Carter and my wife it’s one of the few things that gives me joy in life. (I guess playing hockey and getting tattooed would be the other things.)

I’ve been redesigning the plumbing system in my house. I’m going to replace all the shitty galvanized pipe with PEX. It’s polyethylene tubing that is much easier to work with than copper, and lasts just as long. My dad is coming down in August and we’re going to rip into the old system and replace it. It should be fun. I like destroying work someone else did and replacing it with my own.

I’m also working on this other little side project. (I’m so much more creative and product when I’m not taking antidepressants) It’s called the Instant Grocery List. It’s for women or men who do the cooking and shopping in the household. You enter in all the different meals you cook and their ingredients. Then you tell it how many days you want to make a menu for and it randomly generates a list and ingredients. Bam. Shopping list done. If you continue to use it week after week you’ll have a far greater variety in the food you eat. I know we always get stuck eating the same stuff week after week because we forget all the things we make. I’ve got some beta versions floating around, and then I’m going to start selling it. Maybe make some extra bank and pay off some of my debt.

Here’s some funny shit for you if you dig Steven Colbert and Steve Corell.