Pet Cobra

Think I'll Eat Some Worms

It occurs to me, after looking at the Friends section on my MySpace profile and seeing only the smiling faces of "Beth" (my wife, who is morally obliged to be my Friend) and "Tom" (who is some sort of Big Wig at MySpace and is contractually obliged to be my Friend), that I am a MySpace Loser who has no Friends. It's been pointed out to me by "Beth" that MySpace imitates life; I don't really ever hang out with anyone other than her and Lucas and the dog, unless it's at a social function. Occasionally I'll paddle out with my buddy Chris, but that's about it - apparently, there are married dads who go out for beers and such with "the guys", but I'm not one of them. (Is that sad? Discuss.) Thus I invited just about everyone who's ever sent me an email at my Gmail address to be my Friend; you should accept, because you never know - I might be famous one day, and then you can say that you're my Friend, and be able to back that claim. (Just remember that should the fame thing occur, please direct all inquiries to my publicist.)

Soulless Vanity Plates of The Damned*

EYETGUY

CDMAMAN

QWALCOM

PRGOORU

AMWAY (Yep.)

THEBOSS

FOOTDOC

NOSEDOC

WINGER (Kip?)

CHRGRFN (Charger fan? Chair griffin?)

BOOLEAN

JEDIGUY

03FREBRD (cryptic, unless you're a NASCAR fan)

*all spotted on local freeways and roads over the course of several weeks.

The Shirt Seemed Appropriate

 

Del Mar Rock City

Kara pinged a bunch of us the other day, wanting us to do a fatherhood-related post. Sure, says I, not thinking that I'd already agreed to do one for the Mommybloggers (complete with a picture sized, apparently, to match my ego), and not thinking that I might be a bit preoccupied with work-related stuff. Yeah, that's right - I had work on the brain. Remember a few months ago, how I was all excited about my new job? I've been doing a bang-up job, recruiting engineers from a number of Big Playas In The Telecom Industry. Several days ago, Beth was having lunch with a staffing director from one of those particular companies. She mentioned what I did and who I worked for, and I got a call from that staffing director that evening. Seems they were mighty impressed with the work I've done (I felt sorta bad - I had gotten at least four people from that particular company to leave and come to work for mine, but that's why this Big Playa was keen on acquiring me). So three interviews later, I find myself with new job, big raise, and a managing role.

Of course I'm excited, but at the same time, I find myself wondering how much this is going to change my time with the family. I pride myself on my ability to get an insane amount of work done in an 8 hour day - I've hired a shitload of people over the course of my last three jobs, and can count on one hand the number of times I've had to stay past 5. This new job is farther away, and will require some travel, something I've never had to deal with. But it offers long-term stability, fantastic management (when I met my new boss over lunch last week, she hugged me), travel (flip side - the division I work for has it's European base in Nice, France. Nice.) and a big raise (yeah, I've a bit of the mercenary in me, but it's kind of nice to not be in a perpetual state of panic over the state of the bank account).

So I had all of this on my mind, and was trying to come up with a decent post about it yesterday, but the day was busy - we took Lucas to the San Diego County (formerly the Del Mar) Fair. It was his first time. And as you can imagine, it was a special day indeed.

                                                                             

                                                                             

That's right. Mini-Kiss. A Kiss tribute band. Consisting of midgets. Kind of puts everything in perspective, I think.

All Over But The Shouting

A milestone was reached last night - I did the final edits on my piece for the book, and Charlene finished the proposal. Done and done, and it's now in the eminently capable hands of Agent Kate, who will work her magic and get us a killer deal - we'll have enough money to hire Dan Brown to write the notes in our Christmas cards.

Kidding about that last bit, of course.

The process has been an interesting one, specifically the part where someone else comes in and looks over your stuff and makes lots and lots of changes (minor changes, like removing many parentheses, which I do love so) . Blogging gives one a bit of an ego (people read my stuff and occasionally compliment me, ergo, I am BRILLIANT) and it's humbling for an amateur hack to have a paid pro point out errors, awkward phrasing, and incomplete thoughts. But the finished product is something that I might not have produced on my own - it was like making a pizza, and we all know the Pizza/Sex Axiom (even when it's bad, hey, it's still pizza/sex), and having someone say "this pizza is good, but you know what would make it better? Anchovies. Oh, and get rid of the pineapple." (Yeah, I like anchovies.) (Another thing about blogging - I can leave in the parentheses, you know, free-form writing and all that.)(Although now I'm very self-conscious about them.)(!)

It's a weird feeling , knowing that my work is going to be read by honest-to-God publishers. Good weird, and at the same time "oh-Lordy-I'm-going-to-foul-myself" weird.

The Surf Report For Saturday, June 3: Este Undecision Me Molesta

Truth is, I was rationalizing. The surf was there - overhead at Home Break, a suicide mission, but certainly ridable at Moonlight. Trouble was, I pulled into the Moonlight lot at 7:30. The auto and human traffic was considerable - apparently Switchfoot is playing a gig there today - but most of the people were on land, not in the water. It was getting late in the morning - the kid would be awake if he wasn't already (turns out he was). And I'd had a blast bombing my hilly street the past few nights - the Sector 9 really is a whole lot of fun,  and I had tossed it in the back of the Xterra with the rest of the gear just in case. Excuses, excuses. I'll have another go at it later this afternoon; take advantage of the rising tide. Maybe.

A Milton Bradley Game

Two laptops. One smallish kitchen table. Beth and I sitting across from each other, occasionally glancing up over the back-to-back screens.

"E4!", I suddenly say.

"Hit!", she replies.