Dream Symbology of Note

After a personal discussion with NASA about the shortcomings of their latest attempts at extra-planetary manned missions and how the chocolate chocolate-chip cookies they are selling as a fund raiser suck, I go for a jog while levitating ten feet off the ground wearing only tight blue briefs and an erection while on my way to purchase new bras for my wife.

Surfday

It's Memorial Day weekend, I have Monday morning off, and I am going to hit the beach. It may be Sunday and it may not be a Sun day, but it is certainly a surf day.

C-Day

While many will never forget and continue to commemorate D-Day, today is C-Day. C stands for Chaos. Four years ago today was the day that all hell broke loose, ushering in the most insanely chaotic year of my life thus far. Life changing decisions would be made with coin tosses. The interval between extreme highs and extreme lows and sometimes right back again could be mere minutes. There was over exuberant optimism and puissant pessimism.

Looking back, it seems certain that I had gone mad. Still, it was a wild ride well worth taking. To behold that much condensed chaos, wow. Like riding a papier-mache skateboard through a hall of broken glass.

Mapping a Giant

The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary's efforts have helped to disect one of the biggest of the big waves along the US coast.

...strong North Pacific storms generate large, long-period waves from more westerly directions that shoal and break over the bedrock reef just to the east of Sail Rock. The abrupt topography of the bedrock reef causes wave energy to converge over the reef, causing the wave to rapidly slow down, shorten in length and substantially increase in height relative to the areas just to the north and south of the east-west trending reef. This interaction of the geology and oceanography is what makes the wave at Mavericks so spectacular compared to many other locations along central California.

Celebrity

It seems I have developed a fan base at work. This week I switched from working swing shift, which I have done for over a year now, to the grave yard shift. My boss said that operators had already started putting in requests for transferring to my shift. I thought he was joking. Turns out that one gal from swing is coming to my shift in early June and two others are putting in requests to switch.

All this reminds me of several years ago when I was sending out resumes to video game companies. That was a real hellish period for me. Looking back on it, I have realized that it drove me insane. It wasn't the nice kind of insanity I have constantly whirling around me. The job hunt hell drove me into a maniacal frenzy to the point that I had lost my ability to think rationally. I knew that any one of these potential employers would be lucky to have me. None of them could have wished for a better employee. Yet after 1,000 applications to companies all over the world, my skills had met with nothing but rejection. It had driven me to insanity.

There was an underlying block to my job hunt at the time. I had very little in the way of industry relevant skills and had no way to get them without being hired on by a firm in that industry. The one thing I had above and beyond everyone else was the full knowledge that I could learn the skills quicker and in short order do them better than anyone else. It sounded like a wild boast when read back from the pages of a cover letter. To make matters worse, people were constantly lying about being that sort of person when they were not.

Eventually I found myself in a situation where my need for a job was beyond urgent. Finally I went to a temp service and lied! What kind of manufacturing experience did I have? Oh, I worked for this company and that company operating these types of machines. So the temp service sent me to a potential employer and I lied again. Now I'm the one maintenance guy they would hate to lose. Stories of my abilities get circulated around the plant with mystery and awe. They say I fix machines as though by magic (which unbeknownst to them, I have actually done). A person who has been in maintenance there for over a decade loves to regale people with the story of how I kept the entire plant working all by myself one night, never once needing to ask for his assistance even though I had been instructed to do so should a situation arise. Someone pipes in that he's run the floor by himself before. "No, you took care of all the minors while Jake was busy with a major malfunction all day. He has actually done it all by himself."

All this because I always do the best I can... and I lied.

Optimism

While it is easy to get yourself down by looking around seeing all of the people in higher positions than you who don't deserve to be there, I've found there are hordes of people in positions lower than my own who definitely deserve to be there.

Don't Forget Mother's Day

Beauty

The Billabong Pro - Tahiti is taking place right now. They hold it at what I consider the most beautiful wave on the planet, Teahupoo. (For a close approximation of pronunciation, think of what you might call Chia Pet droppings but with the accent on the second syllable.). It's a beautiful, thick reef break. While I don't really care who is competing or who wins, I'm following the action for all the footage of this awesome tube.

While I doubt I'll ever be a good enough surfer to challenge Teahupoo, I'd still love to one day go there and just see it. All the photos and video I've seen of this break are fantastic.

Sight Seeing in Portland

When a friend comes to town, it's always good to show them the things that make your city distinct from all the others. There are few things more distinctly Portland than a strip club. We have loads of them. So on Saturday when my friend wanted to go strip clubbing for his birthday visit, I took him on a tour.

It started at the Acropolis. If you only go to one strip club in P-town, this is the place. Dive bar atmosphere open from 7am until 2:30am. Dancers all day long. While you tend to only get the A-list during peak hours, the peak hours are long and the B-list ain't bad. They also have a variety of dancers from the blondes with the boob jobs to the pierced and tatted alt girls to some immigrants from places like Norway and Uruguay. They also serve a damn good steak dinner for only $5.

Then it was off to Union Jack's. The place is on the posher end of things and their were quite a few lesbians hanging out. The girls tend to be on the alt side of things ranging from twiggy to meaty. A nice clean place with comfy chairs and candles on the tables.

Sassy's was a bit of a gamble. I had only been in their once before and was unimpressed. I had heard that the place is actually a great joint during prime time. Saturday night it was rocking. The music selections were punk, metal, and rock-a-billy. The girls were tall and thin with obviously natural smaller breasts. Tattoos and piercings were the general rule with 3 out of 6 of the dancers having their septums pierced.

Next was a trip to a place that had a very interesting concept, but I will never set foot in again, The Safari. It is done up with multiple stages, a couple of pools, and a hot tub that patrons are welcome to take a dip in. Swimming with a bunch of drunks at a strip club? No thanks. While the dancers showed a broader racial diversity than the other clubs, they were all definitely of the 'mass appeal' variety. It was also extremely packed with expensive drinks.

We ended the night at my special little strip club. When I moved to Portland, it was nice to have a decent little strip club within walking distance. The place tended to feature goth and alt girls on the skinny and small breasted end of the spectrum. Imagine my horror when I show up after not having been for a couple of months, to discover it had turned into a bar and grill and it was karaoke night! Nudity is one of the oldest art forms known to man. Karaoke is... is... ugh! There are no words for it. Then a while back I noticed the sign had changed to feature a bikini clad torso on a beach. Could it be true? Why yes it was. So we closed out Club Cabos. New stages, no pool table, no pinball machine, but the dancers are still pretty cool. They seem to be keeping one alt girl, one hip-hop girl, and one 'normal' girl in the mix at all times. Can't blame them for playing the spectrum.

And that is how you go sight-seeing in Portland.

Real Reality, Really

At work I had an idea for a TV show. I pitched it to coworkers thusly;

I call it 'America's Next Reality TV Star'. It's a reality TV show in which ordinary people compete for the chance to be on a reality TV show.

Unfortunately some of them not only thought I was serious, they thought it was a great idea.

Does anybody wonder why we're fucked as a culture?

AWPC: The Secret

Plant Manager: I just read The Secret. Have any of you read it?

Me: I watched the movie.

PM: Really? How was it?

Me: I thought it was an over simplification of the esoteric principles of multiple theological and ritual systems. While it has mass appeal and the information as given has no inherent flaws, it glossed over the fundamental roots required for success in such endeavors.

PM: Wow. That went right over my head.

Me: Yeah, I tend to do that some times.

PM: Well, I'm going to think positive thoughts and win the lottery.

Me: Good luck with that.