NotTheRock Musings

Do you think Acura drivers have a certain haughtiness to them? I don't think so. I think Acura drivers are people who like the reliability and user-friendliness of Hondas but don't want something as generic as a Honda, so they step up to the luxury division. But maybe I feel that way because I own one.

I need new wipers desperately. Mine are squeaking and streaking and the right one is doing that shredding thing where it looks like it's one or two swipes away from disappearing and scratching across my windsheild with the metal arm.

So we stop at Wal-Mart on the way home last night to remedy this situaiton and I go in there figuring they'll have a computer at the auto area and will be able to tell me which wipers I need, size-wise. Well, that desk was closed. So my lovely wife manages to find one of those little books near the wipers that supposedly has every make and model car so you can do it yourself. We study the book and learn that the earliest pages are tattered and the soonest car, alphabetically-speaking, that we can find is "AM General." Acura would come before that, for you slow-learners.

Shit.

So I go back out to my car and dig out my manual and head back in, lipping through the index looking for wiper info. I find the pages for windsheild wipers and turn there (in my 300-page manual, by the way). And do you know what's there? Step-by-step retard directions for changing the wipers, including how to pull the arm away from the windsheild, but nothing about the size. I check elsewhere and there are two pages on, I kid you not, the wiper control stalk.

Seriously? Nowhere are we going to tell people the size wipers they need to buy? Is it expected that Acura owners will simply take the car in -- or have the butler do it or something -- and let the blue-collar service people handle it? So frustrating.

I wound up searching Google via by blackberry and found a page for my car that said the size was 600MM. Of course, here in America, they're generally measured in inches. So I bought the inches equivalent, 24, and headed home.

And they were wrong. Both of them. One is 22 inches and the other is 19.

I'm an idiot.

Labels: being an idiot starring ME

You know, I took a better position at my company to move to Houston last year and one of the trade-offs, minor as it may be, was that in our Houston office, I no longer qualify for my own office. Back in Jersey, the rules were different and you got one a lot earler. So I'm in the unique position of having been promoted to a better job, with a more senior title, paid more.... and yet had to give up my office.

It honestly doesn't bother me much, and not at all from the ego perspective. So what if I don't have an office -- I can just work hard to get to the next level and then that issue is resolved. What does bother me is the lack of a door to close when everyone begins pissing me off. Which is frequent.

There's a woman diagonally from me who, for one thing, is a 40-year smoker and sounds like it. It truly sounds like she's got a fishtank for lungs. If she laughs at all, it immediately descends into a garbly, liquified-sounding, choking cough.

But the thing that's also annoying about her and motivated me to write this is the fact that she's frail as hell and that is the only thing I can think of to explain how she uses a stapler.

You know how most of us normal, sentient beings put the ball of our hand over the stapler and press down to staple things? Well, she doesn't do that. For some ungodly reason, she slides the paper into place and then -- WHAM -- pounds down on the stapler to complete the transaction. Completely unnecessary. And far more likely to break her brittle old bones, weakened by years of nicotine intake.

It sounds minor, I know. But if you've worked in a cube farm in your life, you know exactly what I'm talking about with regard to those little habits that make you want to punch someone in the face. Unless you are that person with the idiotic habits and the lack of self-awareness. In which case... punch yourself in the face for me.

Labels: hey you want more posts this is what you get, staplers

And yet I use it.

But I do think "social networking" sites like MySpace and Facebook are, by and large, a terrible idea. People will tell you that they're "addicting." I'm not so sure about that. I think they're kind of silly, honestly. Sure, I play around with my Facebook page, but I don't see how people find them addicting. If Facebook ceased to exist tomorrow, I think that'd be fine and I'd adapt without a problem.

What I do like about it is the fact that I can send little digs at my friends, the way I normally would via email or in person -- but it's very easy to fall out of contact with friends and for months to go by. Facebook, to its credit, does allow you to pop in and see what's going on with people's lives -- assuming they actually provide updates.

What I don't like, among many things, is one of the things I've heard many others say is so great about Facebook -- that you'll be reconnected with people you haven't talked to in 15 years. Like that's some kind of good thing.

"I got befriended by Herman from 7th grade! Remember Herman?"

Well, sure I do. And I hated him then, so why would I possibly want to be connected to Herman in any way now?

But if Herman befriends you, you can always reject him -- which is kind of a dick move, but satisfying nonetheless, especially if you're a dick like me. It's those in-betweeners, though, that are the tough ones. Like when Jane from accounting at work befriends you. You don't want Jane seeing your weekend pictures from beer pong or some dude you barely know at work seeing your wife in a bathing suit. And sure, you can censor your photos, but then it becomes more work than it's worth and you probably shouldn't be on Facebook anyway.

So you wind up either accepting the friend request just to avoid any preponderance of conflict (and don't get me started on how 8th-grade-ish it feels to even conceive of "conflict" as a result of Facebook) or you reject it. I have only rejected one actual friend request thus far, and I'm up to around 110 "friends" (of which, maybe 30 or 40 are actually people I'd call friends). The one I rejected was an girl I dated briefly a few years ago. Seriously, why would I want someone like that being able to peep into my personal life or how I interact with my friends? I'm sure some people are so eager to up their friends count that they would say yes to anyone -- but not me. I'm a trailblazer like that (not the Chevy kind, though -- their transmissions are weak).

Another option -- and I like this one, too -- is to simply ignore the friend request. If you don't accept or reject it, they have no idea what you're doing and can only twist in the wind. Fun, again, if you're a dickhead. Like me.

And yet another fun option is to accept someone as your friend -- especially if they have a lot of friends themselves -- and then at some point go in and delete them from your friends list. They'll get a note when you accept them but they won't get a note when you drop them. So they'll either never know, or they're go nuts trying to figure out who dropped them. Fun all around.

What else do I hate about Facebook? Glad I asked.

I hate it when people write updates that aren't clever.

"Bill is working."

"Chris is tired."

"Mary is watching TV."

Seriously, who gives a shit? I do all those things, too. Those are leftover brainless ca-ca from the early days of AOL Instant Messenger. That was a decade ago, people. Don't tell me you're at work -- we're all at fricking work! Tell me you have gas or you are having an affair or you just killed a guy and left him in a dumpster on Louisiana Street.

And don't try so hard to be profound. I saw a status update a few weeks ago that said "...thinks there's something sublime about making a child's lunch."

"Sublime"? Who do you think you are, J.R.R. Tolkien? And sublime means "noble: lofty" or "inspiring awe." If making lunch is that awesome, I'll take two PB&Js every morning, weirdo.

One thing Facebook does allow us to see is those who lack creativity. It can't hide on Facebook. It's a lot like blogging in that you're expected to update frequently, with little to no filter and you're expected to be interesting, or else people aren't going to stop by your page. One of my friends from high school has always been one of those people who latches on to something funny that someone else does and then beats the joke into the ground until it's completely unfunny. At one point recently, he had a status up that said "...is still trying to figure out why we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway."

Wow, solid. What's next? A joke about why we can't make entire airplanes out of the black box material? Because that's pretty hilarious, too.

This same unfunny dude also had up a status that was a direct lift from a line in the movie Ten Things I Hate About You. Now, I know that movie because my sister thought it was hilarious and it kind of was -- but it's about high school kids and is from about 8 or 9 years ago. Sad, really, that a 30-something dude is stealing their lines.

Something else endemic to Facebook is the online bravery that occurs. It's not quite the same as an anonymous post on a message board or blogsite, but it's close. People will post antagonistic things -- these days almost always political -- and then if you choose to question it, you'll often be publicly told you're a retard. Why are we on these sites again? To keep in touch with narrow-minded friends? DELETE.

And what's with these "Groups" on Facebook? You join a group and then.... nothing. You can talk about that topic. Whoop-dee-doo. I don't need to join a New York Rangers fan group to talk about the New York Rangers, but okie dokie, here I go.... baaaaaaaaah! (That was my sheep noise.)

There's also all the little add-ons you can do on Facebook, most of which are apparently non-Facebook-sanctioned. Some are kind of amusing, but most are ridiculously stupid. You'll log on and see that "Jim threw a pie at Margie using Facebook Pie Throwing." Uh, what?

Or "Melanie gave you a fine of $500 in Facebook Parking Ticket Wars." Really? Who cares?

I want one that allows me to send things like, "J gave you a donkey punch in Facebook Rough Sex Games."

So I guess that's my rant of Facebook. Overall, it's a mildly entertaining and a fun outlet for the kind of wise-assery I enjoy. There are a few friends I have on there who share my kind of humor and we definitely enjoy posting silly things, commenting on each others' statuses (stati?), and so forth. But overall, I think Facebook is a bad idea.

I'm just glad we didn't have online counters adding up our number of "friends" when I was growing up. This makes me think about what this must do to the high school loner's psyche -- those people had to always wonder about friendships they didn't have or how they got where they are. But now it's counted there in a little number that adds it all up for them -- and when you're a teen, sometimes a number like that goes a long way to determining your self-worth. Scary thought, at least to me. It also allows for a lot more bullying, but I'll leave that to the Today show to cover when one of their kids gets involved.

Labels: Facebook, online hilarity, stupidity

Well, I'd say this is the longest I've gone without posting and updating everyone on our lives. And there's a pretty decent reason for that -- well, for at least part of the past month I've nearly gone without saying a word here. And that reason is Mr. Ike.

Hurricane Ike bore down on the Gulf Coast and forcefully came ashore the night of September 12. And we stayed here for it. And it was one of those experiences. People now tell us we've been initiated. The kind of talk about how we "don't understand" and all that always made me scoff. People here get scared of rain, and when it falls below 65 degrees, so I figured they were being dramatic. I've lived in the Northeast and the Midwest and so unless your storm is also bringing 15 inches of snow or a tornado that might rip my house from its very foundation and turn it into a bunch o' splinters, spare me.

Well, turns out when a Category 2 hurricane hits your city pretty much directly, it's kind of scary and can lead to unimaginable disaster. Yeah, yeah, I know... you knew that already. But this is my story.

Early the week of Setpember 8, there came warnings of Hurricane Ike. He was way, way, way, WAY offshore but there was a chance he could hit Houston. Sure, just like there was a chance Edouard could. We got a day off from work for that, and it was so meek it was gorgeous out by 5 PM and the wife and I went for a bike ride.

Well, Ike continued approaching and decided to set a course for Galveston and then Houston. By Thursday, it wasn't just news anymore -- it was time for action. The city mandated people in two "zones," Zone 1 and Zone 2. (Houston is zoned for disasters, so that they can say "Zone 1, you must evacuate! Zone 3, you stay where you are!") We live in Zone 3, and were being told to stay put.

Thursday many offices began to close early to let people tend to things or to get the hell out of town. And, you know, because many of their employees lived in places with mandatory noon evacuations. It was starting to feel real.

I mapped out back road routes to San Antonio, Dallas and Austin and put them in my car. That way, if we had to go, I wouldn't be among the other 3 million people all entering the same Interstate highway at once. The stories from Hurricane Rita three years ago were all horrific and all the same -- taking 12 hours to drive across town, etc.

Our office, and nearly all others, decided to close for Friday as it was now expected that Ike would make landfall between Friday evening and Saturday morning. I went home and we had a very normal Thursday night, aside from the panic on the news and the calls from relatives asking what we were going to do.

By Friday, full-on freaking was happening. Our offices were closed, so we prepared the house and got ready for what now appeared to be a sure thing -- Ike was going to crash right into Galveston and proceed the 50 miles up to Houston. We live in Southwest Houston, less than 45 miles from Galveston.

I taped each and every window in the house so that if they did blow out, the glass wouldn't go everywhere. I brought in all objects from outside. Patio furniture, gazebo, hammock, chairs, grill... everything. I'm not sure a hammock could become a flying object, but winds were expected to be 110 MPH+ at landfall. Not taking any chances with that.

By Friday evening, we had done all we could. Some relatives were incredulous that we were staying put, but the press conferences specified that people in our county should "shelter in their homes." If you were told to evacuate and hadn't yet, they were warning people to write their SSN on their arms in sharpie so that when they were found later they could be identified. As one official put it, "This isn't a matter of 'riding it out.' If you live in the evac areas, your home will be gone."

They were now evacuating a town that we enjoy visitng and having dinner in... and a town we almost bought a home in when we moved here. And it's about 15 miles from us. We began paying closer attention to the news.

As the evening wore on, we realized we weren't going anywhere. Nobody in our neighborhood seemed to be, either, although a few had boarded up all of their windows. I felt this was a bit excessive. After all, if it was 110 MPH winds at landfall, there's no way it would sustain that as it crossed 40-50 miles of land. Usually they lose steam fast over land. How wrong an assumption that turned out to be.

By the late evening, we'd started just hanging out with our neighbors and drinking beer. I was in the neighbor's driveway across the street as the night wore on and Watersyne was inside one of the houses with the ladies. Eventually, the girls came over there, too, and we had on music and talked and had all of our dogs there, too (ours plus the neighbors' made three of them).

It began getting really windy around 10 PM and continued gusting as the night got later. Around 11 or so the rain began and we moved our chairs into the garage and continued our pow-wow.

The music was good, the beer was flowing, and the company was good. We were making the best of it.

At 11:55 PM the electricity went out, abruptly as it always does.

It's even weirder when you're looking outside at a neighborhood of tightly packed houses and everyone's lights, including garage sconces, all click off at once. It's very silent and very eerie. With only the moonlight to show us the way, we were happy to have made sure we had flashlights at our sides for this very moment. I will admit, I didn't think the power would go before midnight. In preparation, we had set our central air unit down to 70 degrees (normally it's at 75), which made our house feel like a meat locker. But depending on how long the power was going to be out, the house might actually stay cool for a little while.

We went to bed around 1, with the wind at even higher levels and the rain steady but not torrential.

At about 3 or 4 the storm came with a fury, screaming winds, driving rain, enough to uproot huge trees and tear down large fences in back yards. I was exhausted and beginning to get a head cold so I actually slept through most of it. I only remember waking up when my wife said, "I think I hear the dog crying." I just prayed a window hadn't broken out in the living room or something.

In the morning, I got up and took some video, noticing that our neighbors both had trees down, while we had some leaning considerable. Even some of our lower-height bushes were leaning and almost uprooted. As it turned out, the hurricane maintained its nearly Category 3 status and plowed through all of Houston with 110 MPH winds.

Downtown was severely damaged and much of it was impassable for days. Around us, not only was all power out, but traffic lights were also completely missing in many areas.

We drove through the neighborhood and immediately felt lucky. Despite minor foliage damage and no power, we hadn't suffered anything severe. We weren't hurt, we had no property damage... so we were lucky.

Others were not so lucky. As you've no doubt seen, Galveston was essentially leveled. Hundreds of houses are literally gone, and who knows how many people missing. In our development, one house in particular had one tree fall on their house and had another fall on their car. Yikes.

Friends of ours had trees on their house, enough to cause a leak in their master bedroom, chasing them, their little girl and one of their moms out into the living room. That had to suck.

We weaved through the area taking pictures and simply feeling, as I said....lucky.

Our offices were officially closed for most of the following week. Each night we spent outside with our neighbors and all of our dogs and kids. We cooked out every night with whatever we all could cobble together. My very kind neighbor let us plug a fridge in our garage into his generator so we could at least keep some things cold and also run a power strip to my workbench where we could charge cellphones, blackberry, ipods... you know, the essentials. Heh.

The storm had knocked out power at 11:55 PM on Friday, September 12. On Wednesday, September 17, we still had no power and a friend called me. He'd obtained a small generator and asked if I wanted to buy it from him because he managed to actually get two. The smaller one is only 1000 watts, which means it can maybe power one medium-sized fridge and not much else. I felt it seemed like one of those smart investments in case this situation happened again. When you have electricity, buying a generator seems like a silly idea. But when you don't have power for days on end.... well, they become lifesavers.

So I bought it and got it running. It's small, very compact and runs pretty well. When you plug in the fridge it sort of bogs down for a few seconds but it comes right back. I ran it for the evening on Wednesday and then left it off all night with the fridge closed tight until morning. First thing Thursday morning, I re-started it and it ran all day long on a tank of gas. When it ran out around dinnertime, I decided to give it a rest and then planned to re-start it after dinner and run it into the evening.

Thankfully, while we were outside and eating an italian pasta feast cooked up by my lovely wife, the power suddenly came back on. You could hear people throughout the neighborhood cheering, and at one point two power company guys came through the street in a pickup truck and everyone cheered for them. (Although taking a week to get the power back on doesn't seem applause-worthy, we were just happy to have it.)

So that's our story from the week following Ike.

Hopefully, regular posting will resume here shortly.

Labels: everything's bigger in Texas, Houston, Hurricane Ike, hurricanes, Mother Nature has a weird sense of humor