Fuel is What I Desire

Metallica says it best:

Give me fuel
Give me fire
Give me that which I desire

This has been a day that sparked my old interest in getting a BMW M5. Hell Yeah. I have the garage space and I have the discipline to take care of it. Just give me another 10 years to have the income to pay for it.

What a freakin' tease this day has been!

A co-worker has an Audi S4 (V8/344HP).



It looks like a beast, it sounds like a beast and it drives like a beast. Whooooah Nelly! This is his baby and he let me drive it to lunch and back to work. What's the catch? Well, he wants to learn how to drive his clutch better and get the most out of his car. Well, geez, I am just the guy to help out with that. First though, I need to feel how the car handles in order to provide some tips.

I was shocked to see that he agreed.

Let's get the bad out of the way first, because this is a great car and I don't want to end it on a bad note. The clutch pedal feel isn't all that great. It leaves something to be desired. You should be able to release the clutch pedal as quickly as you need to.

Imagine bringing your arm back to pimp-slap yo bitch. This is a new age, ladies. Men aren't the only pimps and women aren't the only ones that can be classified as bitches these days either. I'll put it to you the way I learn from my dad, "now focus goddammit, I am trying to tell you something important here. What was I saying?" Oh yes, so imagine how quickly you desire to bring your pimphand back to slap a ho. You are going to assume that you are in full control of how fast you bring it back, right? We all know you are bringing it back fast, because you have some power to put behind that thing. shoooooot. Now imagine having someone pushing against your arm as you try to bring your arm back quickly. What the hell you say, because it's not moving quick enough for you to get your slap on! How aggravating! A pimp must swing it back quickly in order to deliver the appropriate ho smack.

So a pimp is now stuck with a slow back swing that isn't going to deliver the expected result when racing to get the job done. This is the same problem with the S4 clutch pedal. Once you push that sucker in, you expect to be able to release it to the catch point as quickly as your foot comes up. Not necessarily. On the right foot, you have a happy trigger gas pedal that is cousins with Speedy Gonzalez. On the left foot, you have a valum-laced clutch pedal that is cousins with the freakin' tortoise! No comprendo, senior! I am not even going to get into explaining how high the catch point is. BUT IT'S RIDICULOUS TOO.

On the flip side. This thing hauls ass like a cop to the inaugural opening of Dunkin' Donuts. I am sorry, that was rude.

More like Krispy Kreme.

Ok, I'll leave cops out of it. This thing hauls ass like a stoned degenerate on his way to White Castle for a 30-pack of mixed hamburgers and cheeseburgers.

I giggled. I will not lie. I giggled in front of two other guys. You know what...they giggled too. We had a gay old time and giggled to and from lunch. The only thing that kept us straight was the freakin' V8 under that beast of a hood.

mmmmmm, M5.


Well, to top it off, I ended up seeing Cars, the Pixar movie, tonight to top off my car experiences for the day. I know, it's just an animation. How dare you call Pixar, "just an animation!" Unbelievable graphics, sound, and realistic talking cars. I want a freakin' talking car dammit.

mmmmmm, M5.


Quote from Cars that makes me want to reflect:
"Cars used to want to take their time enjoying this road. Now they just want to use it to get wherever they are going quicker."

Give me an M5 and I'll enjoy any road in front of me.

Working From Home

What does soccer and a pool have in common?

Nothing, it just means I worked from home and watched a couple of World Cup games and then went to the pool.

Although, I truly do get my best work done at home. I don't have as many people stopping by to chat or ask questions as I do when I am in the office.

boring. I am started to fall asleep just reading my own post.

I just finished watching "Fearless." This is supposively Jet-Li's last movie. It will be coming to the States soon. However, my friends have friends that have very good friends who get it sooner. You can tell the translation was rushed. At the very end when they are explaining the truth behind this character's life, the translation went like this:

"This art is good and florish"

"In 50 country and places"

"The End"

That's the best my memory can do, but I am not too far off! It was a good movie. It has a similar feel as Hero does, but not as epic.

Yesterday was the longest day of the year. Summer Solstice has come and gone. This is a sad moment, because we have six months of decreasing daylight. Already, July is upon us and I am forced to rush and make Summer plans as quickly as possible. Well, at least leading up to my trip to Europe!

Haha, suckahs!

Two weeks in Europe starting July 27. Italy, Germany, Czech, Monaco, and Paris. This is too epic of a story to be wasted in this post. I shall return with a full story.

Yes, I know, poor, poor me.

With that, I bid you adieu. Enjoy your evening. Keep your eye out for the fireflies. Make a wish on a falling star. Break a leg.

And whatever you are attempting to accomplish:

Never, never, never quit.
-- Winston Churchill

Inaugural Viva La FIFA

FIFA 2006

I am not a soccer fan by any means. I played when I was very young and I was that kid that ran up and down the field wandering and wondering when I could stop, because the soccer mom that just brought the sunkists arrived with the cooler.

I've watched a little bit of each World Cup that I have been alive...haha, ok, that is a lie.

This year is a little different though. My best friend is stationed in Germany right now. Jeanne is in Spain, right now. My friends here are very interested in the World Cup, right now. What can I say, I have become interested by association, right now.

However, this is a great time to become interested. There are some very exciting games and commericals. Come on, you have to admit the Addidas commerical of Jose + 10 is very cool. You don't even have to turn to Telemundo to see the commerical in Spanish!

What can I say about the US match against the Czech. Nothing. This isn't what got me excited about soccer (Yes, I just said excited about soccer, er, futbol). I watched the Brazil vs. Croatia game and I have to say this was perfect timing. I watched a few games last week with some interest. Like any other "playoff" watcher, I was intrigued by the best of the best playing. Then, the team from heaven stepped on to the field and demonstrated a skill that doesn't exist in any other team. The Brazilian team functions as one organism.

It's unbelievable.

They will make anyone a believer in soccer. Their precision in passing the ball can be compared to an orchrestrated play or a choregraphed video. You cannot imagine that 11 individuals work together so well and look like they are doing it with such ease! They had to be the model team for the Addidas Jose + 10 commerical.

As I began to watch the game and their shear brilliance when it comes to teamwork on the "futbol" field, it sparked my first true interest in enjoying soccer. I want to see more. I want to see how other teams stack up against the Brazilians.

For you religious "futbol" fans, forgive my ignorance in making Brazil the pinnacle of perfection. This will be my only disclaimer regarding socccer, so live with it.

Kind of an oxymoron when I put it that way, eh? ;)

Oleeee, ole, ole, ole, oleeeee!

Thank God It's Friday, Maybe.

TGIF!

Es Dia del Nacho Libre!

After finding out this morning that my car didn't really want to start told me what kind of Friday it was going to turn out to be. My fuel pump finally kicked the bucket and the local BMW wants $200 bones for just the fuel pump. Obviously, you know what I said to that...you betta check yo self, son.

Needless to say, I found it online for $110. Gotta love the better deal online. However, I am without a car for a few days, but to my luck Jeanne is out all next week and her car needs some attention. :) So, time to bust out the emergency car until my parts come in.

What can I say about Friday. I usually love the whole day. I nap at work, take a long lunch, and leave early to get ready for some fun event. Today was a little different. Toe-daaaay, es Guapo's Twain-ty niinth burrday (come on folks, sound it out and let's play, "Name That 80's Movie"). I digress. Today started off with a very hard workout at the gym (Correction: It was only a shoulder and back workout. Jeanne, stop laughing), a dead fuel pump, and frantic calls from work right off the bat that lasted all day. This depressing day rolled right into a depressing Volleyball match that left my team in complete disarray and defeat to a completely disorganized and slouchy team. ah, oh well. I was looking forward to the main event of the week, Nacho Libre!

I can't say there is much that I want to say about the movie. It was a little slow, had its funny moments, but didn't have a very cool ending. I was more intrigued by Jack Black's sporadic gestures. They kind of catch you off guard. Oh, if any of you see it, pay close attention to the running scene. haha, close attention.

Quotes for the day:
"Nachoooooooooooo"
"As a man, some times you wear stretchy pants, in your room...it's for fun."
"Would you like to join me in my quarters...for some toast?"

Reminder:
Rio Grande doesn't put alcohol in their Margaritas. So, you are getting charged $8 bucks for ice, salt, and Margarita Mix. Have fun!

What else is there to say.

good night and good luck.

Flying In and Flying Out

This weekend was supposed to be my mundane period, but as usual a few things popped up to interrupt a slow weekend. The only things I had planned was a day off on Friday to pick up Jeanne from the airport and take her back to it, I will explain soon enough. And on Saturday a couple friends were getting together for a wine party. I thought I would leave Sunday open to install my new A/C parts. For the most part all of this occurred, but with a twist.

Jeanne was scheduled to come in at 6:03am. We have picked each other up enough from the airport to know our routine. We wait for the person coming in to call and notify the other one when to come to arrivals. The D.C. airport police are religious at making people move if they are not picking anyone up. So I have a parking lot that I usually wait in while I wait for a call. Well, 6:30am came up quickly and I had not heard anything from her, so I decided to patrol arrivals anyhow. No Jeanne.

It's 6:40am now and I figured I probably should go in to see where she is or if the flight was delayed. I parked in short term parking which requires a lien out on your house, or life, in order to afford it. It's creeping up to 7:00am now and I am annoyed, hungry, and ready to go back to bed. :)

So, I figured I would go down to baggage claim to see if her flight was delayed. The digital display that shows when the flight gets in and what baggage claim belt showed that the arrival of the flight was on time. Furthermore, when I checked the belt her flight was cleared from the baggage claim belt. Now I am worried, frustrated, hungry, and angry at the same time. I spoke with a United rep and they confirmed that the flight was actually delayed and arrived at 6:26am, BUT it was already 7:10am, which means she's been off the plane for a while. URGH. Nothing like $$$ fig newtons from the airport to put me in a better mood. ;)

As I was about to scout out the arrival deck again, I got "the" call. However, my service, or phone, sucks and being in the airport doesn't help. I didn't get to talk to her, but I did hear a very frustrated, angry, irritated voice on the voicemail. Her phone died on her, so she couldn't give me a call when she landed. haha. As worried, frustrated, hungry, and angry I was, knowing that she is feeling the same way kind of made the situation better. I don't know why, but I knew she was going through the same feelings that I was. We just needed to find each other and move on with the busy day.

After a couple of pay phone calls, we linked up and were on our way at 7:30am. So, about an hour and a half at the airport my morning started just fine.

In retrospect, it wasn't all that bad, because the rest of the day squashed any bad memory of that moment. We seem to be able to move past stupid stuff like that very quickly. We have more important things to focus on like McDonald's Egg McMuffins to make things all better. I swear they put happy powder in their food.

Well, the crazy thing of it all is that she only had a few hours to re-pack and get on another set of flights to go to Spain! That's a nutty schedule. So, we rushed to get some errands done and she finished packing. We had to get going quickly because we only had an 1 1/2 hours to her flight and it takes 30 minutes to get to the airport, which means she only has an hour to clear security and get to her gate. This is normally not accepted for international flights.

As we started heading down to the garage, we needed to make a crucial decision. Take my car, with about 40 miles left in the tank or take her car? You would think this is a very easy question to answer. Let me add to it. My A/C parts were waiting for me at the shop and the shop is right next to the airport. hmmmm, dilemmas. Well, I know my gas levels very well, so I decided to risk it and get some gas after I dropped her off. I knew that I could get her to the airport.

We sped the whole way to the airport with my car on E. It was straight out of a movie...sort of. The airport is in view now as we come over the last bend, but my car stops responding to my lead foot. The car starts to slow down as if my pedal was in a bucket of tar and this unstoppable force was pushing against the front of my car. It's amazing the panic that sets in when you are running out of gas. I felt like I was in the last minutes of a 24 season finale.

Jeanne looked over at me as if to say, "I have to make it and if that means getting out of this car at 30 mph by jumping on to a passing cab, I will do it."

My car continued to buck like a wild horse for a good quarter mile while I had my flashers on to let people know that they shouldn't get close in case this beast blew up. Fortunately, the fuel pump did its job and found the last gulp of fuel in the tank and forced it into the injectors. The car lurched forward with enough force that I knew I had to gun it now before we ran out of gas. We didn't say anything for the last 2 minutes as we eagerly anticipated our sputtered arrival into departures.

Sure, enough, we made it to the Delta gate with my car saying, "That's it, I am almost ready to quit." Coughing and choking due to the trickle of fuel going into the cylinders while we said our goodbyes, I felt somewhat victorious. I did what I set out to do and that was get her to the airport. Needless to say, I am sure she could have done without the extra drama. :)

Now, it was time for me to get out of the airport and find a gas station. As I started to leave the departure ramp, it was clear that I wasn't going to make it very far. In fact, I didn't make it out of the airport. I managed to coast to the side of the road. I used as much gas as my 18 year old fuel pump would find in the tank. An hour under the trees, a couple of conversations with the patrolling airport police and one tow to a gas station later and my day was finally coming to a close.

The rest of the weekend went by at a perfect pace. The wine party was a lot of fun and my A/C parts are finally installed. I finished off my weekend with an hour by the pool and a couple of chapters of "Choke."

Nothing like a good blend of the mundane and sporadic dramatic.

Elixir of Life

The room is still spinning, yet I have had nothing to drink except the elixir of life.

bleh, barf, haha. I know that was really, really bad, but I had to say it anyhow.

I can't keep up with everything that is going on in my life right now. Although, this is what I wanted for my summer. I didn't want to miss a thing, but now I am missing a lot of things due to trying not to miss a thing. Make sense?

What are these things I am talking about? Well, it's been gathering after gathering with the gang. We've been throwing BBQ parties, housewarming parties, and very soon, wine parties. It's been great hanging out with everyone, but where do I find the time to do everything? We need an example. Right now, I am sitting at home and missing a meeting, because I needed to do laundry this morning, since I didn't notice that I have no more underwear. haha. Stupid reason not to go into work, but you mock me.

Little do you know, these are the other things going on that attribute to me NOT doing the "turn your underwear inside out and forgettaboutit." It's hot and humid. I am either working out, running, or playing a volleyball/softball game every day of the week. I have no A/C in my car or home. :) You do the math.

Ok, I know math is hard for most people, so I will do it for you, jeesh.

hot+humid+working out+running+games+no AC = DO NOT do the inside out thing.

OH, I almost forgot, but my toe won't let me. I'll dive into the story which leads up to something gross. It's my blog, deal with it. I am a pretty intense player when it comes to volleyball. I played in High School and learned enough to hold my ground during competitive play. However, I am playing with some co-workers in the fun league. This means I get to run all over the court and hit as hard as I want without blocks. Normally, this doesn't affect my toes.

We play on a pathetic excuse for a volleyball court. The "sand" court is compacted dirt with about 6 inches of "sand" on top of it. Nothing but lies. Don't believe it when you see it at the Fair Lakes courts. It's fairy dust on top of dirt. So, if you make any effort to move quickly or jump hard, your foot is essentially parting the fairy dust and viciously scraping against the compacted dirt. Would you normally do this on compacted dirt? NO?! Well, the fairy dust got to me and I thought my feet would hold out.

By the way, it was 6/6/06 yesterday. Just let that work itself in to your mind.

This is what happens when you mess with fairy dust covering compacted dirt from hell:



So, if you ever play on a sand court that looks and feels more like the Sahara Desert, I recommend you bring protection.

For your FEET!

Taming of the Silverback

My old man (He hates that title, hehe) had a break-through moment this week at work. First, let me give you the low down on my pops (He hates that title too). He is a straight-shootin' proud self-employed contractor. Well, most of that is true except for the self-employed contractor part. He recently hung up his tool belt after DECADES of being a jack of all trades. Haha, if he ever reads this, I am getting a beating. I probably deserve it.

His change in work presented some advantages along with the disadvantages. Let's get the advantages out of the way, because let's face it, they are not the juicy part of my story. He has steady hours, pay, benefits, and an array of tools at his disposal that would even make the Knights Templar jealous. After all the years of hard work, he has decided to transition his knowledge from contracting work to operations and maintenance of an ISO 9001 certified medical firm that produces biomedical/pharmaceutical grade silicon tubing (aka tubes that can be used to fix your heart). They do some pretty cool stuff. His job is to make sure that all equipment and the facility are in top-notch condition.

Needless to say his all-around knowledge of his trade has allowed him to adapt very quickly. This is an advantage that leads us into the disadvantages. Our disadvantage for the day is....working under people that are stupid. That's right, we are all familiar with this scenario. Who has had a boss that is clueless and has no staff management ability. This is my father's boss. I will spare you the day-in-day out details, but essentially this guy is a moron.

What most of you don't know is that my dad never took orders or tasks from someone for DECADES! hehe, old man. So imagine a straight-shootin' proud independent man adjusting to the jaded corporate world. It's a completely different game and it's a hard one to learn very quickly, especially for my dad. I don't say this to be mean, but you must understand there is a reason why we call him the Silverback.

Let's see if an image helps.



Imagine saying something stupid to King Kong that would make him thump you into the ground. Now imagine King Kong with a tie and a pocket protector in the corporate world knowing that he has to behave himself (DISCLAIMER: My dad wears a cool pocket protector for cool tools). Now you get the full picture. Along with a moron of a boss, my dad recently dealt with an incident that could have been career-altering. Let's move on to the "incident."

My dad works with job tickets frequently, so it's in black and white what his task is. This shouldn't be confusing for anyone that is involved with the task. The most recent job ticket was to reconstruct a shelving unit for a custom-fit of a printer in an Account Manager's office. This manager gave approval before the Memorial Day weekend. So, my dad and his moron of a boss came in Tuesday morning to begin the install. The manager started cursing at my dad, because he didn't remember providing approval (Another moron in the making, since the job ticket has his approval). The manager thought it was ok to say "F You!" because he was upset for the job being handled at that time. In all honesty, he probably had problems with the wife over Memorial day weekend, because she got some notion from Desperate Housewives that rocking the cradle with the model-esque gardener would do her some good. Apparently it did. However, the hubbie isn't doing so well with the new knowledge that the gardener has a big...rake.

Ok, so back to what happens when you say "F You!" to my dad.

Think King Kong again.

My dad's blood was boiling. He was ready to give this guy an appropriate introduction to etiquette...old school style. However, the clouds parted and he managed to walk away from the situation knowing that there is a corporate game to be played and he's going to start playing it too. This is some serious stuff folks! Do you realize what is going on here?! The fat lady is singing, pigs can fly, and old dogs can learn new tricks. Being verbally accosted by some piss-off is a hard thing for my dad to calmly deal with. He gets mad props for controlling himself.

He gets the Cool Hand Luke Award



He spoke with HR about his concerns regarding the vulgar behavior of this employee and how it negatively impacted him, his boss, and the people in the surrounding area. The HR person already had dirt on this dick head, so apparently my dad wasn't the first one that dealt with this guy's hot temper.

In the end, the manager was "requested" to apologize to my dad for his inappropriate behavior. He did so with sincerity, but he's on my dad's shit list now. The manager tried to brush the incident off the following hour at lunch by saying, "Hi" to my dad. Nothing was returned, but a stare that could freeze you in your tracks.

My dad has eyes like this:



I was very impressed with how he was able to play it cool and in the end earned additional respect from senior management for his manner in handling the situation.

On a side note, this company was recently acquired and will be merging this month. If karma has its way, the merger will not have room for one particular account manager.

Here's to keeping it cool!