Quote of the Day: Kenneth Grahame

"After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working."


I am one of the saps working today becaus I volunteered to help my co-worker out on a project.

Quote of the Day: Oscar Wilde

"Only the shallow know themselves."

It must be "National Yell Like A Crazy Person Day" because I ran into three people doing that this morning and, boy, were they angry.

When I walked up to the bus stop, I found a guy yelling, "Get the Hell out of here. I mean it." There was no one around but me and he wasn't yelling at me. In fact, He was quite happy to see me. We even had a little conversation when he he asked me for the time.

"4:55AM."

"Really? It's so light I thought it was 7. Man, the days are getting long."

"I know. Pretty soon. It'll be the longest day of the year."

"Since when did they change it from June 21st? F---ing liar."

After that, Old Man River and I didn't talk a whole lot.

Quote of the Day: Anton Chekhov

"The thirst for powerful sensations takes the upper hand both over fear and over compassion for the grief of others."


When I checked my caller-ID after I got back from lunch today, I noticed that somebody had called my work line without leaving a message. I couldn't quite place the name but since I knew I recognized it from somewhere I called back anyway. The woman who answered paused a little when I asked for NAME REDACTED. She said,"He huh... NAME REDACTED passed away. I was calling about your open sales job. Does it involve cold-calling and prospecting?" She promptly hung up when I told her it did. (Seriously, what sales job doesn't it? That's like saying you want to be a pilot without flying any airplanes.)

So anyway, I was still curious about recognizing the name so I did what anyone would do with unanswered questions: I asked Google. It turns out NAME REDACTED passed away in fairly tragic circumstances a few months ago which was why, I - a dedicated Seattle Times reader, recognized the name.

Quote of the Day: H.L. Mencken

"There are people who read too much: the bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men are drunk on whiskey or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing."


If you're a regular reader, you know all about the daydreaming problem that makes driving such a challenge for me. Now it appears that I can't even ride the bus correctly.

For the past six months, I have been reading books while I walk to and from the bus. This has greatly increased my quality of life by increasing the number of pages (or Kindle positions) read each day. However, lately an embarrassing problem has been developing. In the past three weeks, I have gotten on the wrong bus 2.5 times. Luckily, my wife doesn't laugh too much (out loud anyway) when she has to pick me up in a strange part of town. The problem is my book is so engrossing that I forget to look up. One time I even thought about looking up but didn't.

The good news is I will probably never do something desperate to escape the mundane pressures of being a grown-up because I do it in the pages of a book every day. Right now, I am escaping the craziness of my job by following Gustave Flaubert into 19th-Century Paris so no midlife crisis for me.

Quote of the Day: Samuel Johnson

"So large a part of human life passes in a state contrary to our natural desires, that one of the principal topics of moral instruction is the art of bearing natural calamities. And such is the certainty of evil, that it is the duty of every man to furnish his mind with those principles that may enable him to act under it with decency and propriety."


The good new is that I have now reached VIP status with the woman downstairs if we define VIP status as being able to purchase bananas and Diet Mountain Dew at 5:40AM - a full twenty minutes before the store opens. The bad news is the guy standing right behind who got told the store was closed now hates me and he has ridden the elevator up with me for three out of the last four days. It's been awkward the way he looks at me with those fiery darts of hate he calls eyes.

Quote of the Day: George Carlin

"Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist."


I am pretty sure this is not a George Carlin original because I've been seeing this quote for years. I think I like this anonymous version better though:

"Behind every cynic lies a disappointed romantic."

Quote of the Day: Richard Wilbur

"Ecclesiastes 11:1

We must cast our bread
Upon the waters, as the
Ancient preacher said,

Trusting that it may
Amply be restored to us
After many a day.

That old metaphor,
Drawn from rice farming on the
River’s flooded shore,

Helps us to believe
That it’s no great sin to give,
Hoping to receive.

Therefore I shall throw
Broken bread, this sullen day,
Out across the snow,

Betting crust and crumb
That birds will gather, and that
One more spring will come."


Please enjoy this poem while I use all my breaks to help migrate my exchange mailbox up into the cloud.

Quote of the Day: Jonathan Swift

"No wise man ever wished to be younger."


Have you ever visited a favorite place from childhood only to discover that it was the narcotic of nostalgia that made the place seem so delightful? Well, it happened to me this weekend.

I used to think that Primos's Burgers in the Roosevelt District of Seattle made an excellent burger. Last weekend I learned that I was wrong. It just wasn't very good. I guess some things are better left in the realm of memory.

Quote of the Day: Lou Harrison

"We get more dangerous as we accumulate knowledge, and that's both a sadness and something to control, try to learn to live with, make terms with."


I must be growing wiser in my old age because now when I have a dispute at work I no longer charge into the Vice President's office with a printed email chain validating all my claims and then tell her, "Setting up our division for failure is a pretty poor way to run a company," when she does not decide the question in my favor. (It's a long story from back in the day when I ran a market research call center. It involves my desire to fire one of the supervisors I managed after she slept with one of her underlings while she was also supervising his pregnant girlfriend. I only felt forced to take such a drastic step after the girlfriend punched the wall hard enough to break her hand and the boyfriend slashed all my tires for telling my employee to pay more attention to her job than to flirting.) Yeah, I am glad I left that company before they pushed me out.

So anyway, at work the other day we had a group project that I was tangentially involved with that I felt like I got blamed for when it fell apart. I haven't been that mad in long time but I sat down and rationally wrote a polite fact-based email. To make a long story short, I got face time with my Executive Vice President and an apology for all the blame-shifting from the guilty parties. I think my status in the company has actually grown because of it. (My manager helped out quite a bit too in rescuing my reputation.)

Just like the Grinch, I feel like my heart has grown a few sizes. One of my more darker personal traits has always been the tendency to lash out with a disproportional use of force when someone hurts my feelings and I am quite good at being a jerk when I want to be. I am still not fully cured of that tendency - just ask my fellow drivers - but I think this event shows that I am making progress.

Quote of the Day: Oscar Wilde

"Those who see any difference between soul and body have neither."


You know who has soul? This guy.





Yeah, I gave him money for being clever. He said, "Trust me, with a mug like this I know how to make money." He reminded me off the guy who followed my co-worker for three blocks one morning so he could call him a racist the whole time until finally my co-worker turned and told him he was not racist. He said, "Yeah, I know but wasn't the entertainment worth a dollar?" I was also reminded of the lady who told me unsolicited dirty jokes for money. I won't repeat them but let's just say I learned a lot about blondes that day.

We met this particular fellow at the cheese festival at Pike's Place on Saturday. Yes, we bought some cheese which was just the start of a pretty busy weekend. After the cheese festival we went the University District Street Fair where I almost bought a Panama hat in a moment of weakness. Luckily, the $95 price tag scared me straight. I also learned that there is a paint color called "Warm Caramel" that looks exactly like light brown. (Paint colors make me laugh because they are all based around food.) We also walked five miles that day.

Overall, it was a good weekend even if I got a little tired of people and their ability to make me feel inadequate for lacking the killer instinct that enables one to elbow his way up to the sample table with no remorse or conscience.

My favorite part would have been when Stacey told me she was going to go estate shopping with her friend so she needed my car, my cash, and my iPhone. I gladly handed them over because she left my Kindle alone.

Quote of the Day: Anton Chekhov

"The thirst for powerful sensations takes the upper hand both over fear and over compassion for the grief of others."


I think I've found a foolproof way to avoid being robber by my fellow pedestrians in the morning. Determine whether or not they are wearing a backpack and if they aren't, cross to the other side of the street.

Quote of the Day: Henry Fielding

"Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue."

Quote of the Day: Anton Chekhov

"Life is a vexatious trap; when a thinking man reaches maturity and attains to full consciousness he cannot help feeling that he is in a trap from which there is no escape."


This is all you are getting today because I am trapped in meetings all day.

Quote of the Day: Edmond Rostad

"The dream, alone, is of interest. What is life, without a dream?"


I may be too busy this week to do much serious blogging.

Quote of the Day: George Jean Nathan

"It is also said of me that I now and then contradict myself. Yes, I improve wonderfully as time goes on."


I used to say I never wanted to buy a house because I loved my disposal income too much; but now, I am happy to report that we will be closing on our first house on June 8th.


If you have a truck, you're invited to the moving party.

Quote of the Day: Randall Jarrell

"The blind date that has stood you up: your life."


If you know me personally, you probably know that I hate germs and love schedules way past the point of OCD. So imagine my distress when the toilet overflowed all over the floor as I was getting ready for work this morning. Luckily, I have a very nice wife.

Quote of the Day: George Bernard Shaw

"All professions are conspiracies against the laity."


Every day my goal is to avoid all human interaction in the bathroom. Some days I fail. I have never quite figured out if it's rude to leave in the middle of a conversation if I'm done with my business and my hands are washed. What am I supposed to do, just stand there until my interlocutor is done too?

Quote of the Day: Mary McCarthy

"Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the."


The writer Mary McCarthy once wrote of her contemporary Lilian Helman.

Yesterday as I walked to work, I thought it described a co-worker of mine that I was all ready to confront for taking credit for my work because I hate it when people tell me easily falsifiable lies. It's just insulting to everybody. I mean show a little respect and spend a little time on your lie. Don't pretend like I'm an idiot, please.

Anyway, to make a long story short I worked myself into quite a lather during my morning walk and then she had to the gall to apologize and admit she was wrong before I even had the chance to call her on it. Man, it really took the wind out of my sails because I spent a good hour working on an awesome paper trail. Curse you, humility.

Quote of the Day: Philip Roth

"It was as though being in tune with life was an accident that might sometimes befall the fortunate young but was otherwise something for which human beings lacked any real affinity. How odd. And how odd it made him seem to himself to think that he who had always felt blessed to be numbered among the countless unembattled normal ones might, in fact, be the abnormality, a stranger from real life because of his being so sturdily rooted."

It's hard being normal.

Quote of the Day: Kingsley Amis

"Sex is a momentary itch, love never lets you go."

That's it today.