From Richard Clarke’s Against all Enemies, referring to his and other counterterrorism officials’ plans to kidnap (or “snatch”) Al Qaeda officials during the tail end of the Clinton presidency:
President Clinton said “Yes” to every snatch he was asked to review.
I, for one, couldn’t stop laughing. I’ll make a full review of the book as soon as I’m done reading it.
The unfortunate thing about blogging on a website read by one’s friends and known about by at least a few members of one’s family (and even a few coworkers & colleagues) is that one is not quick to talk about length about personal issues. I’ll ramble on about emerging technological trends and my favorite albums, but my own day to day issues have generally seemed a bit sacrosanct.
One area where I probably have not been as vocal (February 12th was the last such time) as I should be is Allison, my girlfriend of close to two years.
Allison sometimes wonders why I never get mad at her. Lovers have their tiffs and bad moods and insecurities, but I never seem to vent any anger or overtly criticize or become indignant with her. The answer is simple: every day, good or bad, busy or relaxed, I am reminded, either by myself or through her actions, what a truly extraordinary and beautiful woman I have ended up with. I can’t ever get mad at an extraordinary and beautiful person, even if she thinks she deserves it.
In many ways, 2 years seems like a ridiculously short time to have been together. Long gone are the days when, having just met her, I would pass her in the hallway, open my mouth to speak a pleasantry like “Hi…” and find myself unable to utter a syllable, so bashful and smitten was I, head over enormous heels. I don’t need to tell you the story again (read the above link), but it would be unfair of me to devote so much space here to technology and politics without nodding to the person in my life so much more important than any computer or election. That looks at me and sees not a lanky, disgruntled dork, but someone worth spending time with. Someone worth giving her heart to.
She’s heard it a thousand times from me, but here it is again, readers be damned: I love you, Allison. Completely. You are worth a million computers and imported Swedish rock albums and I cherish every moment we’re together.
To everyone else: I’ll post more politics and technology tomorrow.
In no particular order:
It is Monday morning. I am a somnambulist.
I didn’t have much of a weekend. I got up at 5am yesterday to go work with Allison at the Delphi 300, fundraising for Poms. She regretted having signed up in the first place. It still amazes me how many people buy into the NASCAR bit. We took tickets yesterday, so we got to see firsthand who actually shows up to these things. Sometimes, it’s what you’d expect: portly older men with ruddy cheeks, shirtless middle-aged dads with goatees and sunburnt nipples, 5-year-0lds decked out in official NASCAR merchandise, clearly more interested in picking up interesting debris than anything happening on the track. But there were a surprisingly number of young twenty-somethings there, too: clean-cut preps in pre-faded jeans and collared shirts with the wrists unbuttoned, their bored girlfriends in tube tops; unassuming housewives, with sunhats and white blouses with drawings of fruit on them.
People were nicer than I remember them. The last time I worked a racing event, I was in a concession stand, and I recall that we dealt with an unusually high amount of drunk, severely pink people (they looked like cooked lobsters with body hair), who would stand in line, staring at the price list, order their food, and upon hearing the (obviously inflated) total, would say “That much for a piece of pizza? I don’t want it!” Thanks, Sparky. Next!
Working the race track is all-in-all an extremely unpleasant experience. When Allison originally asked me in early August, I had told her no. Unfortunately, Saturday night came and she still had no one to go with her, so by default the duty fell to me. For starters, I have never worked there on a day that wasn’t scorchingly hot. Secondly, the stadium is tucked away on Rt. 53, so the surrounding infrastucture can’t handle the traffic well. Any race day requires an obscene amount of traffic cones, waving policemen, and inexorable jams. Thirdly, the roar of racing cars tends to immediately mute any conversation. Fourthly, the sheer number of people in attendance makes my rectum quiver. I don’t deal well with crowds.
Long story short, a lot of yesterday was awful. Good for me, however, Allison has promised not only to never drag me along, but never sign up to work the race track again. She was particular miffed that the Pom coach, who was also working, left quite early, leaving her (mostly 14 and 15-year old) charges to get home. There was only one other non-Pom working, a quiet dad who got pulled into working (again) and had to ferry a vanload of teenage girls to and from the event. Poor bastard; I know how he feels.
Luckily, the day was not a complete wash, as we got home around 2:30, showered, and then relaxed. I was thoroughly underwhelmed by Big Fish, learned that my replacement video card is in the mail, ate dinner with Allison’s family (and laughed at her dogs’ antics) downed some cough medicine and hit the hay like a runaway tractor.
And here I am. Monday morning. And I am a somnambulist.
When you’re sick, everything takes on a surreal tone. Maybe its the fact that the congestion in your head makes sound feel muffled and far away. Perhaps the watery eyes give everything a wavy overlay. Perhaps I’m just out of my mind from the decongestant. Regardless, the only good thing I can say for having sinusitis is that it’s hard for anything to affect me much.
I’m currently fixing a laptop for my urologist. Something’s definitely wrong with it: either it’s a configuration issue, or his hard drive is dying. I’d like it not to be the latter, but I’m afraid that seems like the most likely cause. It always pains me to work with other people’s computers. For being an older man (he’s now retired) whose expertise is in penises and bladders rather like microchips and software, he’s actually pretty knowledgeable about his laptop, but that doesn’t stop his task bar (after a reboot) from filling up half the screen. And he uses AOL. !!!!
I’m going to be engaging in manual labor this afternoon. I’ve no idea what, but I imagine it’ll involve lawn care or something. When my employers see that I am a sniffling, wheezy wreck, they’ll probably fuss and insist that I take it easy. Normally, I wouldn’t bother working in this condition, but they’re giving me my paycheck today, so I will work regardless of my condition.
Cool thing #2 about being sick: my voice, which is fairly deep anyway, takes on a Boris Karloff tone. Granted, it’s somewhat nasal and I mumble, but a neat trick nonetheless.
I stayed home yesterday. I didn’t feel like bothering with my two classes, Foundations of Western Thoughts and Information Systems Analysis and Design. Luckily, I get paid vacation for work, so that covers my hours. I felt like a kid again, having the house to myself, watching movies and drinking hot tea and filling my wastebasket with snotty tissues.
I got my girlfriend sick. Or perhaps we both got sick at the same time. I feel awful for her though, since fall is insane for her, and she can’t really afford to be sick. My mother is coming down with something too. It won’t be long before my father has it too, and perhaps even the cats will join in, getting an eye infection or something, so we’ll all be infectious and coughing up puce-green mucous and going through tissues like a 15-year-old boy with a fast internet connection.
Innit fun?