ECKLEBURG

2005-09-30 - 5:26 p.m.

Hello everybody who read my blog. Alas and hurray - this is my last entry here, as I have been set onto a bigger and better blog by my lovely wife, Grumblecake, who has finally completed my nifty, shiney, new blog.

So from now on, instead of coming here, go here ---> www.4forty4.com/eckleburg

Diaryland, you have treated me well, and I will still read all of my other friends who still have thier diaryland blogs!

2005-09-21 - 4:46 p.m.

So this past sunday, our good friends J and S finally had their first baby! S was 3 days past her due date. When Grumblecake and I went to give them moral support in the delivery room, we were able to stay for the entire birth. Wow, what an experience. S was a totaly tchamp through the whole thing -- no drugs, lotsa pushing, only one scream, not at all as horror-movie scary as I had envisioned. I hope someday Grumble shoots out her babies as well and gracefully as S, to say the least.

It also meant that we both got to hold a baby less than one hour old, which I found way easier than holding older babies for some reason.

Tonight, we are going to the Rodeo at the state fair, which Grumble has been dying to do for several years and we always seem to miss it. I will be the one with the giant turkey leg and the huge Indian fry bread, and the Nachos, it you want to come :)

2005-09-07 - 1:07 p.m.

Wow!!! Grumblecake’s company decided that they weren’t paying her enough, and so they decided to start paying her more. Don’t you just love it when you suddenly find yourself just a smidge richer (or at least, less poor). Especially when your first mortgage payment on your new house is coming due, and you also have those bills for new rugs and fire extinguishers and lamps piling up.

We are totally going out for celebratory sushi tonight.

On the Eckleburg front, I am finally having what I consider a truly productive day at work, which means that I won’t have to go home feeling down about not getting all my work done. I had to quit the Internet while at work cold turkey, which isn’t as hard as I anticipated so far (I have been “sober” for7 hours so far).

On the home front, boxes are slowly expelling their contents and stacking themselves up into a rather mammoth pile in the spot where our table will someday go. Grumble and I planted four 12’-15’ trees this weekend and now walk like old men. TV and Internet and the ability to wash clothes all come tomorrow.

We are actually pretty glad to have not had a TV during Hurricane Katrina season – trust us, one gets plenty of exposure without it.

On the puppy front, they still like:
1. Trying to swim in their water bowl.
2. NOT trying to swim in the kiddy pool we bought for them because of #1.
3. Watching Eck pee
4. Attempting to lick all the lotion off of Grumble’s legs after she takes a shower
5. Playing with the kitties (the kitties do NOT look forward to this)
6. Pooping in the house
7. Favorite toy: the plastic lid off a McDonald’s cup.

2005-09-01 - 9:32 a.m.

Woof! Hello everybody. I am Clementine. Eckleburg and Grumblecake just adopted me. They are good parents. They give me pieces of hot dogs just for sitting and for coming when they call!

Geez, this typing thing is hard with my big ‘ol paws!

My sister Sadie asked me to teach everybody how to drink water. I am much more gooder at it than she is. Sadie just uses her tongue to lap up water, how boring!
I do it much better, and because I am so cute, I will teach you how!

Step 1: Stand in your water bowl with at least two feet.
Step 2: Jump around and splash the water with your paws until the floor and your belly are soaked.
Step 3: Jump out of your water bowl so your paws and belly drain lots of water onto the floor.
Step 4: Lick all the water off the floor with your tongue.

This way you get the perfect amount of water, and it is fun. Mommy and Daddy say they are going to buy me a kiddie pool because I am such a watermonkey. I am not sure what a watermonkey is, but it sure sounds fun!

Woof!
Clementine

2005-08-31 - 5:13 p.m.

Our kitties have been through a lot in the past two years. We moved across the country. Then we moved back. Then we shoved them off on Eckleburg’s brother for a month and saw them only 4 times. Then we moved them to a new home, and introduced them to two VERY enthusiastic puppies…. all without their permission.

So I’m feeling guilty and making up for it by giving in to their wishes. Naturally, when one of them asked me to very nicely to be placed on top of the kitchen cabinets while we were moving on Saturday, I immediately acquiesced.

An hour or so after putting her up there, a friend who was helping us move said she heard frantic meowing coming from behind the cabinets. I climbed up there (tight squeeze), and looked around, only to find that the cabinets quite aren’t flush to the wall and she had fallen down about 4 feet! She was right behind the oven.

I couldn’t reach her and she couldn’t climb out because she has no front claws. We couldn’t get the oven out because one of the screws was stripped and couldn’t be gripped with a screwdriver.

So….

*** stop reading now if you really really really love beautiful, handmade cabinets ***

I broke out our little power saw and cut a 6”x 4” hole in the back of the cabinet right above the oven. It was very scary and I felt very guilty cutting into that beautiful wood. But I had to get her out! You should have heard the horrible sounds she was making!!

*** cabinet massacre complete ***

I stuck my hand back there to yank her out and ran into several nails poking out of the wall. If I tried to pull her through, I would have cut her on those nails and ended up at the emergency vet with a broken kitty. All that cutting for nothing!

We ended up cutting the head off the stripped screw and pulling it out. We then pulled her through the hole left by the oven.

She was immediately happy as a clam – not a scratch on her!

The kitchen, eckleburg, and I, on the other hand, are a little worse for the wear. I got to find out what I do in a “crisis” situation – I keep my cool for a few minutes, then hyperventilate and cry. Eckleburg found out that scared kitties bite groping hands really hard and make thumbs swell to twice their size. The oven found out that when it gets taken out of the wall, it is destined to sit on the floor until Grumblecake and Eckleburg get around to putting it back.

2005-08-24 - 9:44 a.m.

Yesterday was moving day!!! It finally came! And, wow, we’re exhausted today. We took yesterday off, and signed our name about 125 times (literally) each – really, really, really promising to pay the banks back, and now we are deeply in debt and the proud owners of our authentic New Mexican Adobe house. The dogs already love the yard and have found many new and creative places to pee. It also took them about 1 minute to find the weakness in our fence and make it into our neighbor’s yard. So we met our neighbors, who are nice and like bowling.

It is huge and a bit overwhelming with all the stuff we had to move in, and all the stuff we know we are still going to need to buy to furnish it. We only did relatively light stuff yesterday – we’re saving the heavy stuff for Saturday when we can convince all of our friends who are strapping young lads to help us. We also are having to do some strategic planning based on the largeness of some of our stuff and the smallness of some of our doors (the house is old enough that anybody 6 feet tall or more will have to duck to go through a few of them).

We did realize this morning that in order to take a shower, you need to have a shower curtain. And after spending some time finding our shower curtain, we realized that to use a shower curtain, you need to have shower curtain hooks, which we were not able to find. So we ended up spreading the shower curtain on the floor and letting the shower spray all over the place, which then collected in to shower curtain and poured back in the shower when we were done. Oh yeah, and the rather large window in the bathroom looking out into our neighbor’s yard, that will definitely need a curtain.

More later as we continue our adventure.

2005-08-24 - 9:31 a.m.

For those few who haven’t heard by now, Grumblecake and I are the proud new parents of two of the awesomest puppies that you have ever seen. They are 8-week-old half-lab and half-pitbull puppies. Sadie is all brown except for a white spot on her chest, and it looks like someone dipped her paws in white paint. Clemintine (Clem) is the same, but black instead of brown.

Originally, I was very against the idea of having anything with pitbull in it – with all the stories and rumors of horrible things happening. But, since I didn’t know what breed of dog we wanted, I spent some time reading through descriptions of the top 100 breeds in America. Our goal was to get a breed that is: medium sized, low-shedding, low-grooming, not excessively drooly, not overly hyper, not so athletic that we have to excersize it a lot each day, a guard dog, and most importantly, good with young kiddies (pre-planning for the future).

No breed was perfect, but surprisingly, pit bulls were one of the closest matches, along with labs, poodles, some terriers, and Mexican hairless dogs. Reading more about pit bulls, we became more and more convinced that the vast majority of anti-pitbull perceptions are just hype, and that they are actually really great dogs with kids and at least scary, if not great guard dogs. http://www.forpitssake.org/american.html

So when we saw some pit/lab mixes in the paper, we jumped.

You won’t believe how cute and snuggly and smart and eager-to-please they are. And if you ever need a free face/hand/ear/toe washing, just stop on over :)

2005-07-29 - 9:48 a.m.

One fringe benefit of moving: finding all of Grumblecake’s up-till-now successfully hidden girl scout cookies. And then eating them all!

2005-07-27 - 9:12 a.m.

Whew, we have been in a packing frenzy this week. We rented a U-haul trailer on Saturday and spent all weekend loading the contents of our house into it and then back out of it. We are renting two storage sheds for two months to hold all of our stuff while we are temporarily homeless.

I have to say I feel bad for poor Grumblecake, who had to lift things that were much heavier than what I had to lift relative to her body weight. She is certainly a trooper when it comes to lifting heavy stuff. We did get hefty friends and brothers to come over and help with the few items that were just to heavy to think about.

I also get points for getting better and better at backing up with a trailer. By our 6th our 7th trip, I was pulling out of our driveway like an old pro.

Unfortunately, we saved the heaviest item – our bed headboard for last. When we tried to move it into our trailer, we discovered it wouldn’t fit. So we had to go back to u-haul the next day, and rent a full sized moving van to move that one thing. If we had realized earlier, we could moved much more stuff at a time with the full sized van.

So now all we have left are our clothing and toiletries, and lots of kitchen stuff, like about 8,000 mugs that we now need to individually pack – we saved all the stuff we could pack and fit into our SUV for last. We have our mattress to sleep on, and a couple of folding chairs, and that’s about it. But it is going to be worth it in the end, we’re already planning our housewarming party!

2005-07-21 - 1:36 p.m.

The New Mexico State Government launched a new website today that I think is pretty neat. Check it out at www.newmexicohistory.org

You can tell that it was just launched today, because they don’t have a lot of their content uploaded yet. But you can tell it is going to be very nice when they finish it.

I am trying to find really old pictures of our house, or at least the area where my house is. I am optimistic since we are so close to the river, to central avenue (aka Route 66), and also so close to colonial downtown Albuquerque. I need to go to the central library and the museum and see if there is a way to shuffle through their archives.

In other webbrowsing, if you haven’t already checked out the Burrowing owl cam yet, check it out www.pnm.com/cam/reeves1.htm_1.htm” The burrowing owls nest in old prarie dog holes, and they just had baby owls a few weeks ago. The don’t seem to be out in the middle of the day much, but if you gon in the morning or the late afternoon, you can often see 4 or 5 at a time. Grumblecake has seen as many as 11.

I moved to a window office in my building two days ago, and it is awesome. It wasn’t a promotion or anything, just a fortunately re-shuffling of locations. I have a really cool view. Part of it is of the “Big-I” ABQ’s somewhat big intersection of I-25 and I-40. It is interesting to see all cars flowing in all different directions on ramps and overpasses and underpasses. Then there is our mini-slice-o-nature. My buildings parking lot is only half paved, so there is a swath of “desert wilderness” between our parking lot and the road that passes our building. (I also have a birds-eye view of ABQ’s newest strip club right across the street from our building – but that’s a different type of wildlife). Anyway, on my first day at my window desk, I saw a roadrunner, a lizard, a bunny, and a prairie dog. We also saw the roadrunner catch and eat the lizard, which scared the heck out of the bunny in the process. Awesome.

2005-07-19 - 3:02 p.m.

So we went out on Sunday with some friends (after they helped us lift the worlds heaviest stove). Actually, we just rented a movie and watched it at their house. For desert we had brownies and ice cream, and after that were the Bernie Bott’s Every Flavored Beans.

Friends, I lost the game of Every-Flavored roulette. First, I got earthworm. Then I cheated and got a lime one that I knew was lime before putting it in my mouth. Finally, I got rotten egg flavored. Oh my god, I couldn’t spit it out fast enough. If they gave out these beans to people on fear factor, all the contestants would say "screw you guys, I'm going home" rather than eat them. I think they use them in Guantanamo as an interrogation technique. As you can imagine, I couldn’t eat any more jelly beans after that.

So if you are ever tempted to eat every-flavored jelly beans, I recommend staying away from white ones with an every-so-slight yellowish hue.

Other than that, Grumblecake found this crazy site, so this is what we are going to do tonight: www.stuffonmycat.com

2005-07-18 - 9:49 a.m.

Wow, it has been over a month since I posted last. What a slacker. And a lot has happened this past month.

We put an offer on a cool old house, and it was accepted. We have an extra long closing period, so we don’t move in until the end of August. I’ll post some pictures for everybody as soon as I figure out how to post them.

In the meantime, the lease on our rental house is coming up at the end of July, so we are starting to pack again. We’ll be living with some new friends for August – and we’re still working out the exact details of that.

We also decided that since we are buying an old house, we needed a vintage stove to match the vintage-ness of the house. So I bought one off e-bay this week from someone in Denver, It is a O’keefe and Merritt Model 600 or 605 made sometime between 1946-1950. This weekend, we rented a U-Haul trailer and drove to Denver to pick it up. The drive there and back were un-eventful, and as long as we were in Denver, we ate at Casa Bonita, the coolest restaurant in the world, especially if you’re 8 – which both Grumblecake and I are on the inside.

The only hard part was getting the stove off the seller’s porch and into our trailer, and then getting it from the trailer into our storage shed. Did I mention that old stoves aren’t made like they are today? There must have been some rule back in the old days that the best stoves could be distinguished by their weight. I think people just went into stove stores, tried to lift each model, and whichever one gave them the biggest hernia, that is the one you bought.

Thus, our antique stove was made from the thickest pieces of the heaviest metals the stove makers could find, and it weighs about 500 pounds. I think if the O’keefe and Merritt could have just cut an oven shape out of a solid piece of lead, they would have.
And they don’t have handles. but with the concerted effort of 4 grown men, we were able to heave it where it needed to be while only dropping it once. We’ll know if the effort was worth it later this week, as my new hernia develops.

2005-05-23 - 9:15 a.m.

Happy Birthday to Me. Today I turn the big 2-8.

I am in a weird mood today. I have actually been in a funk for a few
weeks now, without really knowing why. It has been a real struggle to
buckle down and do any work – at home or at my job.

My happiness seems to be too wrapped up in external events recently –
how the OR is doing on their delays (since that is my big project), if
we find the perfect house, if we lose the perfect house in weird
real-estate deals (darn you evil buyer #1!!!), if we can find a video
store with a copy of Star Wars Episode 5. . .

I stress about how my projects aren't progressing at work, yet then I
don't do what I know I should be doing to get them done. I worry that
I will be exposed as the slacker I have been the last two weeks at
work, but I just can't seem to get started on my projects each
morning.

For a while I thought I was addicted to the internet, but I
think the internet has just been what's in front of me as I search for
ways to procrastinate. Like when you watch TV because you can't think
of anything better to do (And I have been watching a lot of TV for
this reason as well).

I came into my job with a bang, but worry that I won't be able to
sustain it for lack of drive on my part.

I wonder if something is wrong
with me – it doesn't seem like other people have trouble getting
started to the extent that I do.

Or perhaps I have just promoted myself into a position above my
skills. My position is the ultimate of self-driven, self-starting
work. I am supposed to be the engine that drives changes. But perhaps
I need more structure. Perhaps I can handle the intellectual part of
the job but am missing some other skill required to focus and to stay on
task. Maybe I should try to find something different to dp -- something difficult but where each task is fed to me.

No -- that's not what I want either. I like what I do, I just wish I
could get my "work mojo" back so that I could actually start actually doing it again.

So I sit here at my desk. Not working. Trying to "snap out of it" or
trying to find a way to "work through it."

Perhaps this is my obstacle to overcome in my 28th year.

2005-05-17 - 7:14 p.m.

Wahoo!!!

The seller accepted our offer for the quaint little 8 bedroom 6 bath house! It is not a done deal quite yet, but things are looking good!

The reason the deal isn't totally done is that there was another buyer for the house, but his bid was contingent on getting the house re-zoned for commercial use (he wanted to run a sleep clinic in it because of the whole 8 bedroom thing). Unfortunately for him, the very strong neighborhood association was opposing the change. So his offer was going nowhere fast.

But, he has 72 hours to either decide to buy the house without knowing if he can re-zone it or not, or to withdraw his offer. We are optomistic that he's going to give up, since the re-zoning is so painful and you'd have to be crazy to buy an 8 bedroom house just for yourself.

So we now have a few nervous days to see what "evil buyer #1" decides to do.

2005-05-17 - 4:00 p.m.

So Grumblecake and I are sicky sickertons today. I was sick first, and it was a weird sick where I started out sick only on the left side of my body – my left ear hurt, my left nostral was glued shut but my right was fine, and only the left half of my throat hurt. My right side, of course, went into full sympathy pain mode, so now all of my hurts. Grumble was fine until this morning, and then I had to pick her up from work at about 1:30, it hit her that fast.

So we’re pretty pathetic and un-fun today.

In other breaking news. Grumble and I are officially in the market to buy a house. We got pre-approved at the bank, we interviewed 3 real estate agents and picked one, and looked at all the houses in the area we want to live in.

And we found the one we want. And it is probably just out of our price range. It is a quaint little 8 bedroom, 6 bath house close to the university. I know, I know – we don’t need 8 bedrooms or 6 baths. The house is a historical house built in 1931 and later converted into an assisted living home for elderly people. This means that they added extra walls wherever they could to create mucho bedrooms so they could have more people.

So it would be a lot of knocking down walls. But Grumble and I watch lots of this old house and like the idea of making it truly ours.

It was listed at an obscenly large amount of money, but has been on the market for quite a while at that price (and like all markets, ours is hot with lots of houses selling in a week). So we bid $47,00 less than asking price.
We got a counter offer for $10,000, which we then countered again with a final offer $25,000 less than asking price. (anything higher and we’ll suddenly remember our ramen days a little too much).

So we sniffle and wheeze and wait.

Keep your fingers crossed for us!

2005-04-22 - 12:05 p.m.

We have been watching a fair amount of TV recently, and to pass the time we have decided to come up with drinking games for all the shows we watch. Why we decided to come up with drinking games we don’t know – neither Grumblecake or I really drink. It Just happened, and now we have the beginnings of Drinking Games:

Good Eats:
Anytime Alton says “Nutritional Anthropologist”
Anytime Alton dresses as a Roman or a Caveman
Anytime you see the Mad French Chef.
Anytime a sock hand-puppet burps or farts.

Gilmore Girls:
Anytime Loralei says “Dirty”
Anytime they have a “town meeting” scene.
Anytime Loralei drinks coffee (only If you want to get drunk fast)
Antyime you see Louise, Paris’s hot blond friend.

That 70’s Show:
Anytime Fez says “I say good day”

Veronica Mars:
Anytime they show Lilly Kane (murdered best friend)
Anytime they show Lilly Kane’s bloody head
Anytime they show pictures being taken through a long-range telescopic lense.

Supernanny:
Anytime the Jo the Nanny says “Naughty”

Daily Show:
No drinking game yet.

This Old House:
Anytime they have obviously given the contractor/homeowner lines to say just before going on camera.

That’s it for now.

2005-04-17 - 9:39 p.m.

Happy 300 year anniversary Albuquerque!!!!

That’s right, our grand little city turns 300 next year, and this Saturday was the official start of the celebration. Yes, we’re a little impatient about our parties here.

The highlight of the celebration was a mandatory speech by the mayor, followed by a big parade. And for dramatic effect, at the end of the mayor’s speech everybody was to sing happy birthday and 300 schoolchildren were to release 53 balloons in the air, all at the same time.

Yes, 53 balloons.

Originally the plan was to have 300 balloons, but as we all found out, some schoolchildren have stronger grips than others. Precisely 53 of them, to be exact.

Then, right before the other 247 kids with the “all-the-way-through-the-mayor’s-speech” stamina were finally to be relieved of their balloon holding duties, the mayor relieved an urgent note:

“Apparently we have received a word from some concerned citizens that animals may try to eat the balloons when they come back to ground, so all the kids up here get to keep the balloons! But kids, whatever you do, DO NOT RELEASE the balloons”

So the only balloons that actually got to celebrate our 300 years were the 53 pre-mature releasers.

Oh well.

2005-04-14 - 12:35 p.m.

When we finally move out of our rented house and into our future “real” house, we are going to replace all of the lightbulbs with lightbulbs that are on their very last legs and just about to burn out.

We are going to do this because we are convinced that this has been done to us by the previous renters of our house. We have quite literally had almost every lightbulb in our house burn out in the last 6 weeks.

Now normally, changing lightbulbs wouldn’t be as much of an issue, but remember that we have recently moved across country in a giant van with not-so-giant shock absorbers – an activity not especially friendly to one’s existing back up supply of lightbulbs.

So if you have some lightbulbs that are on their last legs, send ‘em our way!

2005-04-12 - 3:05 p.m.

Strangest side-effect warning found on a medicine bottle yet:
“WARNING: DO NOT MAKE PRANK PHONE CALLS WHILE TAKING THIS MEDICATION.”

At least that’s what Grumblecake THOUGHT the warning was as I was reading her medicine’s “don’t-sue-us” information pamphlet. Fortunately for her, the only warning was “Do not drink alcohol . . .”

2005-04-05 - 11:34 a.m.

Hi all,

Made up word of the month – Borauded. Borauded is kind of a combination of marauded/berated/bothered. Here is an actual example of its usage, as actually used by Grumblecake in an actual job interview; talking to the COO of the company about how qualified she is to be a technical writer:

COO: So that about does it for the questions I have for you, do you have have any questions for me?
Grumblecake: No, not really. I have borauded your staff with questions quite a bit earlier today.

2005-03-31 - 8:34 a.m.

Sigh of Relief

This media frenzy can finally draw to an end, and the Schiavo family can finally rest.

Whew.

-grumble

p.s. Do me a favor and let me go when the time comes. Thank you.

2005-03-24 - 8:19 a.m.

Last night, Gremblcake and I went on the great fake butter hunt. Grumblecake is very adamant about her butter. The correct butter is Country Crock Regular. Not churn style, not light or “with yogurt added.” Regular. Since we have been here we have also determined that Parkay, and Fleishmans and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter and Snooty-Organic-Fake-Butter are all not real enough.

So Country Crock Regular it is. Now the problem is that Country Crock is not sold in the two grocery stores close to our house, nor is it sold at Costco. So we have to go hunting for it.

Now, to make matters worse, I have some weird hang-up about grocery stores that force you to use their Nazi Card – oooops - I mean “Club Card.” I don't want to be in their club. I don’t like the idea of having to allow people to track me in order to get the normal price for stuff. Nor do I want to have to carry around a little identification tag with their name on it all the time. Especially since it is personally identifiable information about my purchases and their privacy and security policies are vague and weak.

Did you know that their is fledgling technology that a few grocery stores are testing where every price tag on a product is displayed electronically. In the short term, it means they can more easily have prices change for sales and specials. In the long term, the technology companies have touted the ability to changes the prices for each person based on their past buying history on their “club cards.” The prices would literally change as you walked down an new isle. Always buy only Country Crock? Then the price of Country Crock might be a few cents higher when you look at it. They would use the new RFID tags (Radio Frequency) tags embedded in the cards themselves or in the shopping carts to know where you were.

No I am not crazy! I actually encountered this possibility in one of my master’s level marketing classes when talking about micro-segmentation techniques. But, on to the rest of my fake butter story before I do start sounding crazy.

So my distaste for club cards meant we also couldn’t go to the Smith’s, which eliminated the next three closest stores.

Next up came two Wal-Marts, which despite having the “real’ fake butter and not having a card and being cheap is still EVIL. And I have to admit, dear readers, we caved. The lure of cheap and not too far was a siren’s song that was temporarily too powerful for us to resist. We could go to Ralley’s, which we actually like, but it is just really far away. And we needed light bulbs. Buyblue.com would not be pleased.

2005-03-15 - 12:44 p.m.

Hello All,

Since Grumblecake had her flurry of entries recently, I have been somewhat off the hook as far as posting. But now that the threat of tax-doing no longer looms over her head, my hiatus shall come to an end . . .

As fair turnabout, I have agreed to write 11 blog entries (11 because I am bigger) by April 10th, or submit myself to running in the Run For the Zoo 5K on May 1st.

So here is the mini-update: I am three weeks into my job, and so far so good. The environment is very different from my previous corporate job, where decisions were made almost exclusively on ROI and cost/benefit decisions. At new job there are a lot of other non-financial factors that apply. My basic strategy is to really wrap all of my projects in hard data, with quantifiable impacts, and make every decision clearly rational.

I am currently working on 3 projects, one having to do with the OR, one having to do with the turnaround time for labwork, one looking at the check-in process for one of the units. What I like is that all are interesting and all allow my quite a bit of flexibility to do what I think needs to be done. So far so good!

For lighter reading, here is a funny article I found:

http://www.tuftsdaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/03/10/422fd52aa31b2

2005-03-11 - 2:32 p.m.

These are a Few of my Favorite Things
Imagine Julie Andrews singing in “The Sound of Music”)…

Resources, Music, etc.

• Ani’s new cd, Knuckle Down


• The newest generation of encyclopedia, Wikipedia and a new slang dictionary, UrbanDictionary


• Alton Brown – I heart AB, and would stalk him if I didn’t love Eck so much (and if Eck didn’t try so darn hard to be and cook just like AB)


• Craigslist Albuquerque! Hooray for ABQ getting big enough to have it’s very own craigslist, the bestest online classifieds ever!!


• Yogi Steve Ross and his show "Inhale", the coolest high-energy yoga class in the world. None of the meditative string music - this yoga is accompanied by music with a beat!

• tracita lynne, despite having our noses thumped like bad dogs for moving far, far away, we still heart tracita and hep!


• ren, my longest-lasting friend who I have never met in person


• randy, who I miss like the dickens.


• dooce, who makes me laugh right out loud with her unabashed irresponsibility


• mighty girl, who keeps it short and sweet


• serene-bot, another longtime friend and mad list-keeper


• kottke, who lets the blogging/stalking community pay his salary.

• Salon


• Slate


• Washington Post


• Daily Show

-grumble, signing off with her last bet-ending blog entry, thus assuring herself a place on the list of non-tax-doers. YEAY!!!!

2005-03-11 - 1:35 p.m.

IKEA told "This isn't good enough."

I miss you, IKEA... and I, for one, like your funny little sexless instruction manual characters.

Please come to New Mexico!

- grumble

2005-03-10 - 9:27 a.m.

As I've mentioned in the past, our friends and family have been busy populating the world with brand-spanking new, smart babies!

Another two have just joined us:

Twins Rita & Natalie

Born approximately 5:40 pm, Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Weight: 4 lbs 12 oz & 4 lbs 8 oz

YEAY smart kids with kick-ass parents!! Congratulations, Leisure Studies!!

- grumble

p.s. Good luck to our other awesomely smart friends, who were advised recently by a miliary ob-gyn to smell babies' heads in order to boost fertility. I wish I was kidding.

2005-03-04 - 3:06 p.m.

Eck has taken pity on my poor soul and given me a one-week stay of execution on the 6 blog requirement. Whew!

Why, you ask? Because I got some paying work, that's why! Go me!

It doesn't mean I'm off the hook, it just means that I have some other writing to do. And although you, dear readers, do shower me with affection and attention, you don't pay actual money the way these particular readers do.

:)

-Grumble

2005-03-04 - 10:00 a.m.

Earmark and Other Wacky Word Wonders

I promised to research the origin of the word “earmark.” After a fairly cursory Googling (that’s right, folks! I just used Google as a verb!), I have settled on a satisfactory explanation from The Word Detective, one Evan Morris, a newspaper columnist and pet-hoarding etymologist:

"Earmark," which we now use to mean "to designate" or "to set aside for a particular purpose" ("Congress has earmarked the new tax revenue to fund programs to convince voters of the need for higher taxes") actually has a very simple origin. For centuries, farmers have marked their livestock as their property by cutting distinctive notches in the animals' ears. "Earmark" in this literal sense first appeared in English around 1591, but the use of "earmark" in the figurative sense "to designate" arose only in the late 19th century.
Source: The Word Detective, 12/20/99

Other definitions cite a passage in the Bible’s Exodus regarding slaves having their ears pierced with augers to denote ownership. The word is now used most often in financial situations, as the example above would indicate.

And now for some other Wacky Word Wonders, as promised in the title of this entry:

Willy-Nilly

Fair to Middling

Knock Your Socks Off

Yeay geeky words! I feel a regular feature coming on!!

-Grumble

2005-03-04 - 9:42 a.m.

Hey everyone!
Okay, so today will be a busy blogging day. You see, Eck has challenged me to post no less than 6 entries by the end of the day. If I can’t meet his challenge, I will be forced to file our taxes… a chore that I REALLY don’t want.

We have strange motivational tactics here in the Eckleburg/Grumblecake household. They include challenges, dares, schedules, rewards, and punishments. Our recent tactics have included:

Marbles – A la Nanny 911’s Nanny Deb – discussed in Eck’s entry dated 1/16/2005 (Quick side note: we are # 4 on the list of Google results when one searches for “Nanny 911 marbles”! Ha!)

Money – At one point we had something like 10 active sub-accounts to our checking account, each earmarked (where did that word come from anyway??? I’ll find out and let you know in a different entry! Ha!) for different expensive purchases, including extravagant household items, fun clothes, and vacations. We deposited money into each as a reward for “good behavior” – exercising, cleaning, etc.

Clothes – We purchase expensive clothing as rewards for healthy activities including eating well, exercising, and losing weight. Maybe not the most original of all motivational tactics, but it has worked!

We often trade activities. For example, Eck got to name our car Megator on the condition that we did not have to put a stripe or crazy design on it.

Is this good practice for having well-trained children or are we simply prolonging our own childhood? Hmm…

2005-03-03 - 9:01 a.m.

ANNOUNCEMENT:

Eckleburg and Grumblecake have officially settled in ABQ. Prior to today, we were merely resting, merely poised, merely waiting (im)patiently. But today, dear friends, thanks to the wonders of DSL, wireless routers, and laptops, we are settled!!!

Hellllllo, comfy red couch! Goodbye phone cord!

Your faithful correspondent,
Grumble

2005-03-02 - 4:12 p.m.

...A FLOOD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR ECKLEBURG BLOG...

YOU CAN CHECK THE LATEST STATUS BY VISITING WWW.ECKLEBURG.DIARYLAND.COM. THIS PAGE PROVIDES CURRENT AND FORECAST BLOG INFORMATION, IMPACTS, AND OTHER INFORMATION FOR ALL FORECAST POINTS. STAY TUNED TO ECKLEBURG WEATHER FOR THE LATEST WEATHER INFORMATION.

2005-02-26 - 6:14 p.m.

Eckleburg: As in Dr. T.J., from The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald:

"But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their irises are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days, under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground."

While many a high school essayist will pontificate (badly) on how Dr. Eckleburg’s eyes represent God, OUR Eckleburg favors a different interpretation – the Existential god, one who stares down from upon high at the world but never blinks to change it; who ends up looking out over a wasteland created by humanity.

Think about it: Dr. Eckleburg’s eyes look out from a dilapidated billboard over the wasteland. The people who live and pass nearby have long forgotten the "man" or meaning behind it. The symbols are still there, and in some way are still large and ever-present and a cause for reflection in those who consider them. But ultimatley, it is humanity itself that really is in control. OUR Eck sees these eyes as a symbol of the idea and images of gods in relation to humanity -- and the beleif systems that intermix and are compatible with it. On a more optimistic level, the eyes at the same time are symbolic of the pursuit of wisdom, with their unflinching attention to all that is before them.

Grumblecake: Eckleburg, spelled backward (roughly), with the addition of an “M” just for fun. Grumble, grumble, grumble… get it?

2005-02-24 - 3:55 p.m.

We have returned to a land where people smile when they pass one another on the street, where the sky is expansive and (usually) blue, and the green chile is HOT!!

That’s right, faithful Eckleburg Readers, we have moved back to Albuquerque, New Mexico (check out the cool photos here, and wikipedia entry here).

SURPRISE!!!

We didn't tell any of our family or ABQ friends ahead of time, so it was a big surprise when we pulled up in front of our parents' houses unannounced! Everyone was happy to see us and we even made the moms cry!

When Eckleburg was set free, we started looking for new locales, and realized that we really like it here. Eck landed a great job, so we quickly packed up our apartment, rented a Penske truck, hired a couple of nice construction workers to help us move the (really really) heavy stuff, and drove the short 1,900 miles from VA to NM!

Eck drove expertly, and even maneuvered the giganto truck and car carrier out of several tight dead ends. And he looked totally sexy, sitting way up in the sky looking down on all the puny cars whizzing past us… as we drove a whopping 65 mph!

Call or email for your new (temporary) mailing address.

*Muchos besos* (Translation: lots of hugs), Eckleburg and Grumblecake

2005-01-31 - 10:04 p.m.

A Brief Summary of Our Week at Sea.

Whew! Grumblecake and I just got back from our cruise on the Carnival Valor. Here is my unnecessarily brief summary of the highlights.

Sunday – Night at Sea - We meet our table mates, Merle and Angie from Kentucky. You know those TV shows where there is comic hilarity because very different people are thrust into each other’s lives? Yeah.

Monday – “Fun” Day at Sea. Wow, there is a lot of food.

Tuesday – Belize City, Belize - We go cave tubing but only after putting on lots and lots and lots of sunscreen. We compensate for our exertion by eating 16 dinners. Then we put on some sunscreen. Grumblecake gets sunburned.

Wednesday – Isla Roatan, Honduras – We free ourselves from the tourist traps -- oh yeah, that’s what actual poverty looks like. We spend 10 minutes comparing conditioners in Spanish at the Mercado. Que es “anti-sponging”? Somehow Grumblecake accidentally buys shampoo instead. We go back to the boat early to eat.

Thursday – Grand Cayman – GC sucks. Why pay $24 for two burgers and a coke when you could get unlimited free burgers on the ship? We go back to the boat and eat nearly unlimited burgers to feel vindicated. We sing karaoke. We will not be on American Idol. Ever.

Friday – Cozumel, Mexico – We see fishies underwater in a submarine and then eat where the locals eat. Avocado Pie – YUM!! Seriously. We are too full to ever eat again.

Saturday – “Fun” Day at Sea. We change our mind about ever eating again and promptly eat a LOT. Blackjack is meant to be played drunk. We play sober. We Lose. Bingo is also dumb.

Sunday – Our fun is done – We sit in the airport for 8 hours. We hate our travel agent. Both of our books make us cry.

2005-01-17 - 10:45 p.m.

I love Jack Johnson! If you haven’t seen the PBS documentary about Jack Johnson, you should watch it as soon as you can, and you will love Jack Johnson too. He is fearless and audacious and confident and dogged and wicked talented. Not only that, but he was really smart and stylish.

And he did it all in the face of such amazing racism. The documentary does a great job of making you just want to say, “Jack Johnson – he was what America is all about.”

If and when we have kids, I want them to grow up to be just like him. In fact, I think we’ll name all of our kids Jack.

Or maybe Megator.

2005-01-17 - 9:03 p.m.

I am currently earning two marbles in our new, incredibly corny motivation system... I can tell you only that I am earning a marble for updating this blog. The way in which I am earning my other marble is just plain none of your business.

*grin*

- Grumblecake

2005-01-16 - 11:14 p.m.

Testing, testing... Hey, I have made some changes to the blog format, so this should theoretically now be in the format of the blog, with all of the entries on one big happy page, instead of having multiple, each with their own entry. The is also a entire re-design in the not-too-distant future. Don't forget to scroll back through the previous pages in case you missed something before the switch.

2005-01-16 - 10:57 p.m.

On the most recent Nanny 911, the super-nanny sets up a system where each of the naughty children got an empty glass jar and a bowl of marbles. The parents then put marbles into the jars whenever each kid is good and remove them when they are bad – and which the kids can then cash in for privileges and treats according to a loosely defined barter system. Get a marble for cleaning your room, lose a marble for hitting your sister, spend a marble to watch 30 minutes of TV, etc.

Is it wrong that Grumblecake and I promptly set up the same system in our home?

Is it also wrong that we got our marbles for our system by stealing them from the table decorations at Grumblecake’s company gala last night?

Is it also wrong that I awarded myself a marble for stealing the marbles?

Or that Grumblecake can earn marbles for not wearing underwear (although not likely to ever be awarded)

We have a whole system worked out, but I best not go into the exact details...

P.S. I just earned a marble for updating the blog.

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