My So Called Life

Mauricio

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I got a call from an unknown number the other day. Since I was trying to navigate my way out of a parking garage at the moment, I let it go to voicemail. When I had a chance to listen, I had a voicemail all in Spanish. I couldn’t make heads or tails of most of it; the only words I understood were, “Mauriiiiiicio!” and “byyyye!” at the end.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with getting a wrong number. However, it seems to me that my voicemail message should have made it pretty clear that I was not, in fact, Mauricio. It’s pretty definitely in English. Anyway, I scratched my head a little bit and deleted the message.

A few days later, I received another call. I recognized the area code (I don’t get a lot of calls from California), so I dumped it to voicemail thinking, “Okay, when he hears my voicemail again he’ll have to realize I’m not Mauricio.” No such luck. He didn’t leave a message, but instead immediately called back.

I was just staring down at my phone. “You have to answer it, or he’ll just keep calling,” said Sara. “Hello?” I said. “Mauricioooo,” said a voice that will haunt my dreams. “Mauriiiiiciooooo!” “Uh..I think you have the wrong number,” I brilliantly replied.

The next day he called again. “Mauricio?” This time I was more prepared (and a bit more annoyed). “You have the wrong number. There is no Mauricio at this number.” The man was quiet for a bit. “No Mauricio?” he asked. “Nope!” I crowed. He chuckled. “Then this is the 4th time I’ve tried this number!”

Yeah, no kidding.

Before he got off the phone I made him give me the number he was trying to call. Sure enough, his area code was off by one number. Now let me ask you; after you’ve not gotten through to old Mauricio the first 3 times, why not just double check the number? You know, see if maybe you typed it in wrong.

It certainly seems more plausible than Mauricio having someone else record his voicemail message in English.

Well, I do work in a laboratory…

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I just went to get my lunch out of the fridge and found a second, identical container next to it. It’s not like we’re talking about a peanut butter and jelly sandwich here; it’s some pretty specific leftovers.

So either I brought it in earlier in the week and forgot to eat it, someone else has the exact same pomegranate seed/cauliflower/celery salad, or my lunch is now cloning itself.

Clearly, the 3rd option seems the most likely.

Back in MY day, we bought our Internet around back

/ Shane / Leave a comment

When it comes to the Internet, I was what you might call an early adopter.

Back in the Wild West days of the Internet, when you actually had to dial up to your provider with a modem, there were lots and lots of choices for ISPs. These days you more or less have Comcast or Verizon, but back then you could literally just open the phone book and pick a new company.

When I finally got tired of pretending to cancel AOL unless they offered me “50 more hours for free!”, I did exactly that and found a new ISP. In order to sign up for service, I had to drive to their office and pick up an installation disk (and I mean disk, not CD). I wrote down the address and hopped in the car.

When I got to the place, I thought maybe I had written down the wrong address. I drove around the block a few times, but the address clearly pointed to a chinese restaurant. This was a freestanding building, not a strip mall or anything, and there really wasn’t anything else around that could possibly be an Internet provider. Finally, I parked and walked in.

I approached the hostess. “Hi, I, uh, wanted to sign up for the Internet?” I asked, feeling ridiculous. “You have to go around back,” she said, “Knock.”

“Of course!” I thought, gratified that she wasn’t looking at me funny. “You can’t sign up for Internet at a Chinese restaurant; that would be crazy! There must be an office building around back.” But when I got around back there was just a plain, windowless, steel door next to a dumpster. I knocked.

This was the door to the kitchen, and a chef opened it up. I mean a full on chef, with a white apron covered in food stains. “You want Internet?” he asked me. You better believe I wanted his dirty, back-alley Internet.

It did not, unfortunately, come with a side of fried rice, nor did he give me the access numbers inside of a fortune cookie. I filled out a paper with my desired username (an actual piece of paper, your average back door Internet didn’t have fancy-schmancy online forms back then), he gave me an installation disk, and away we went.

And believe it or not, that was probably the best ISP I ever had. They were fast (a blazing 56k!), they were cheap, and when I canceled my service when I went to college, my account was still active for at least 2 years afterwards. When I’d come home for the weekend I used to connect up, and sure enough I was in, despite not paying a dime in years. That back door Internet was the good stuff.

I feel bad for you kids today and your high speed wi fi two step authentication itunes app store. You’ll never get to experience a dial up bulletin board, or get kicked off a chat room because you forgot to disable call waiting, or yell at your little sister for answering the phone to modem squeals even though you clearly told her you were waiting for a friend’s computer to direct dial you so you could play Warcraft II. You’ll buy your Internet from a faceless corporation instead of following your Internet dealer into a dark alley for an installation disk. You probably run virus protection too, and keep all the ports closed on your firewall.

Pansies.

Easter Recap

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Relatively low key Easter this year, though we got some beautiful weather. The Easter Bunny brought a few gifts, but the main thing for Evie was a kit where she can mine for her own gemstones…

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…and Ollie got a hand drill and has spent most of the time since then drilling, screwing, and hammering nails into a piece of wood.

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Evie is in the choir and performed two beautiful songs. It is so fun to see her up there singing her lungs out (there’s no trouble picking out her voice from the crowd) and really enjoying it.

(Side note, I saw someone pause in the communion line and take a selfie on her phone in front of the altar. I wish I were kidding.)

After the service there was an Easter egg hunt but, as usual, all the other kids ran out first and found most of the eggs before we got there. In my experience, Easter egg hunts always seem like a good idea in principle but never quite seem to live up to the hype, and usually end up in a lot of upset kids.
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Unfortunately, Ollie thought Easter would be a great day to be a holy terror (pun intended). All day he was stubborn and short tempered as only a kid can be. He took every opportunity he could to spite us at every turn, up to and including dumping a full cup of milk on the floor in protest over…who knows what. I think because I asked him to wash his hands? Or something else equally awful, I don’t know. It was just that sort of day.

Needless to say, I was pretty grumpy and exhausted at the end of the day, and ready to declare no more Easters ever. On the other hand, now that some time has passed, I’m starting to forget about all of that stuff and only remember Ollie happily pounding nails in the wood and Evie bouncing up and down in time to the music as she sang.

That’s the good thing about memory I guess. As long as someone doesn’t record the bad stuff on his blog.

Knitter’s Children

/ Shane / 1 Comment

When it’s muddy outside, Ollie likes to get right in. I don’t really mind it; I think it’s good for him, and even if I’m cringing a little bit on the inside, I try to hold my tongue. In any case, he comes home from school with a lot of very dirty outerwear.

The other day I was tossing his snow pants and coat in the washer, and I noticed his nice, knitted mittens were a little worse for the wear. I shrugged and tossed them in with everything else.

“Are you putting my mittens in the washer?” Ollie said doubtfully. “Yeah, I thought I’d wash them. They’re a little dirty.”

Evie was upstairs and heard our conversation through the dryer vent. “Daddy!” she screamed. “Daddy, don’t put them in the washer!” “It’s okay,” I replied, “I’m not going to put them in the dryer, just the washer.” “Noooo! No daddy!” she shouted, starting to sob. “You can’t put them in the washer!” Ollie was tugging on my arm, and he started screaming too. “Evie, they’re already in there! They’re already in the washer!!”

The two of them were screaming like I was putting a kitten in the washer; this was definitely a code red. The only thing we were missing was a revolving red light and blaring klaxons.

Of course I quickly took the mittens out, if only to restore order to the house. Afterwards, Ollie showed me how to wash them in the sink and then put them in a towel and stomp on them to dry them.

I have to admit that I was a little ashamed that, as a knitter, the kids knew more about this than I did. I mean, I knew better than to put them in the dryer, and I guess I knew somewhere in the back of my head that the agitation could felt them as well, but I just didn’t think it was a big deal. Hoo boy did the kids think it was a big deal. So I guess I didn’t know what I was talking about and I had to be schooled by children.

Sara, on the other hand, has never been prouder.