When they say: It is just not in the budget.
They mean: We have already tapped the keg dry by paying outside contractors too much in order to accomplish the work that could have been performed cheaper and faster by existing employees therefore any budget requests you submit for a $150 software upgrade will be dutifully ignored.

When they say: We appreciate all the hard work your doing around here.
They mean: Thanks for busting your ass, but we are not even considering you for a raise or promotion. Instead, we will placate you with promises of a raise or promotion and free soda and donuts in the break room.

When they say: We are making you the project lead.
They mean: Since none of us have the testicular fortitude to admit wrongdoing when mistakes are made, we are appointing you the head of this project so we have someone to blame when the shit hits the fan.

When they say: This is not a high priority.
They mean: I want you to drop everything your doing and focus on this until it is done.

When they say: You will have it tomorrow.
They mean: I have no intention of getting this to you until sometime later next month and when (or if) I finally do, you can expect me to drop this back onto your lap at the worst possible time.

When they say: We will all be putting in long hours on this one.
They mean: I will do as little at humanly possible on this project then take all the credit for it after you worked until midnight for a week straight getting it done.

When they say: Our company is growing.
They mean: We are going to take this bitch public and cash out our stock options before you have any idea what hit you.

Labels: career, data slaughterhouse

I am tired as hell. My sort of lady woke me at five o'clock this morning to go running. My sort of lady is a morning person. I am not. We ran around the lake. It was dark and the stars were still out. It was cold. The only other person on the path was an old Asian woman wearing a Muumuu and walking her cat. My sort of lady talked through the entire run and in a sleepy haze I only comprehended half of the words that came out of her mouth. After the run I felt great, ate a bowl of oatmeal and watched the end of Mobsters on the digital cable before I showered and got ready for work. The point of this rant: exercise is good for you.

Labels: health, wife

Friday. It is my birthday so I take the day off. I wake up, make some scrambled eggs and bacon and watch Clash of the Titans on the digital cable. My sort of lady and I play nine holes of golf. My sort of lady gives me clothes and candles that smell like pumpkin musk. We crack a Michelob Ultra and toast to my 28th year. After killing three Michelob Ultras each, My sort of lady and I realize that Michelob Ultras go down very smooth. My sort of lady departs to get ready for birthday festivities at Old Chicago. Kaye, Aaron and Johnny Ballgame stop by to check out the town home improvements. We leave for the pub where I drink the night away with family and friends, consuming only two shots (thanks to Monica and an old high school friend Rachel). For the first time in three years of birthday celebrations, I do not wind up face down in some skeezy parking lot in downtown Denver dry heaving on a tree.

Saturday. My sort of lady and I drive to Redstone (20 miles outside of Glenwood Springs) to attend the wedding of a childhood friend she has not talked to in six months. I soon find out why my sort of lady does not talk to aforementioned friend (the term bourgeois princess comes to mind.) Together, we know a total of three people at the wedding. We sit at our table and drink ourselves half blind. I begin to spin yarns to the gullible and uppity wedding guests. My best story begins when someone at the table asks me, "How long have you and your wife been together?" I reply "Six long years," and then proceed to tell them how we met on the frozen sea ice of Antarctica where we were both studying botany and the psychoactive effects of blue-green algae on the human brain. I am sure to include my harrowing smack addiction and how my wife supported me through the dark times when I brought home filthy drug addicts to fuck and spike the vein with in our basement. I conclude the story with, "I am going to get a drink, anybody want one?" (I told you I am good at weddings.) My sort of lady and I dance. On the drive back to Denver, my sort of lady falls asleep somewhere near Glenwood Springs. She wakes up when I nudge her pulling into our town home complex. She stretches and proclaims, "That drive was so short." I drove three hours in solitude.

Sunday. My sort of lady and I go for an early morning run as a pre-emptive strike against the assault our digestive tracts will face during the birthday celebration at my parents house. We arrive at my folks shortly after one in the afternoon and are presented with heaping plates of food. On the menu is stuffed shells (shell pasta filled with ricotta cheese and covered in homemade spaghetti sauce) and peach pie. My sisters get me candles that smell like vanilla musk, a candle holder (I begin to think the women in my life called forth a candle conspiracy for my 28th year) and a gift certificate to Old Navy. My parents float me duckets and two books: Ortho's Home Improvement Encyclopedia and Techniques of the Great Masters of Art. We then head back to my sort of lady's house and I fix her screen door and hang some mirrors on her walls. I play in a late hockey game and receive my first ever game misconduct penalty (Mark recounts the event here). Much like Claude Lemieux after boarding Kris Draper in 1996 and destroying his face, I stand by the hit.

Labels: /mark, birthday, chili dog, colorado, drinking, hockey, johnny ballgame, kaye, mons, the fairways, weekend that was, wife

The worst job I ever had was slinging furniture and boxes for a moving company in the dead of summer. The work was hot and shitty and the majority of my coworkers were drug addicts. Two guys actually smoked meth in the morning before their shift and called it coffee. It could have been worse, I suppose. At least I have no experience with elephant vasectomy.

Labels: career, drugs, science

I have completed my home improvements for the summer and I have to say the place looks sexy as hell. My town home now dominates all other town homes. I know I promised awhile back I would post pictures from my recent backpacking trip and this time, I really mean it when I say they will be up later this week. I realize I am more of a cock tease than a panty-clad high school junior in the backseat of a 1984 Honda Accord, but I promise you will see my chiseled, mountain man ass climbing narrow, winding trails behind the backdrop of of Colorado fourteeners very soon.

Labels: colorado, l-i-v-i-n, the fairways

The Man in Black is no more. Godspeed, Johnny. Be sure to say hello to Jack Tripper when you get there.

Labels: death, music, pop culture

Aside from convincing Germans of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy, invading neighboring countries and committing genocide, Hitler was just a peaceful man that liked serene walks in his gardens and eating hot meals overlooking the Bavarian Alps. At least that is what this featured article in the November 1938 issue of Homes and Gardens would have us believe.

Labels: hate, history

The sweet winds of freedom blew into a liberated Baghdad months ago. After years of repression under a brutal regime, the Iraqi people celebrated in the streets, tearing down statues of their fallen dictator. Now, the country's infrastructure is destroyed, a weakened puppet government friendly to western economic interests is firmly in place and Muslim factions are erupting into civil war across the country. In short, a democratic Iraq is in fucking shambles but at least they have porn.

Labels: politics, porn, war

One of the greatest summers of my young life was when Mom bought us a Slip 'N Slide. My sisters and I were happier than a naked priest at a Boy Scout jamboree. For those of you unfamiliar with the amazing goodness that is the Wham-O Slip N' Slide, here is a brief explanation: A giant yellow plastic sheet is placed on the ground. A hose is turned on plastic sheet to lubricate the surface. A slider takes a running start (preferably from three blocks away). Slider dives head first down slide. Sliders ride is over as they reach the end of the slide and get raspberries on their stomach from skidding across the grass at ridiculous speeds. Slider giggles like a middle school girl at a slumber party and repeats the process.

My childhood Slip N' Slide experience ended when my sisters and I attempted to rig it to the top of the fence, climb to the top and slide down (Needless to say, the Slip N' Slide ruptured under our weight but produced one hell of a ride). I am kicking myself for never Slip N' Sliding with Wesson oil.

Labels: childhood, family, tomfoolery

My friend Tyler likes David Blaine. That makes my friend Tyler stupid. This is all you need to know about David Blaine: he is a poor man's Harry Houdini. Tomorrow, Blaine will begin 44-day stint of isolation without food, suspended over the Thames River in a clear plastic box. Thankfully, the Guinness Book of World Records will not recognize the stunt.

I hate magicians and endurance artists. They are attention whores that remind me of a pathetic kid I grew up with who always had the coolest toys and nobody to play with. I would go over to his house, endure his incessant whining, play some Nintendo, eat scrumptious snack food that his mom made and then peddle my Huffy home. That kid is now in jail for dealing drugs. Little FYI.

Labels: a-town, childhood, pop culture, stupidity, tyler

Nothing helps smooth over a history of genocide and brutality like a theme park with mylar balloons and anthropomorphic animal characters. Cambodia in the mid 1970s was a scary place.

Labels: history, mass murder, politics, stupidity

Friday. I work until three in the afternoon until I notice that myself, Neal and Brandon seem to be the only people left in the office. I give myself the rest of the day off. At home, I order Chinese food, drain four Newcastles and paint the fucking walls. My sort of lady calls me on her way home from the final Bronco Pre-Season game. Talk gets serious.* We hang out anyway, agreeing to avoid relationship conversation for the evening.

Saturday. My sort of lady wakes up early because she has stuff to do. I leave her house and walk home and we agree to meet up later as I need her to help me purchase new bedding and towels. She is the shopping queen and I hate shopping (read: I am willing to pay $80 for a set of sheets at one store as opposed to shopping at many stores and finding the same sheets for $40.) I paint the fucking walls. In between painting the fucking walls, my sort of lady takes me to numerous linens and bedding stores. I purchase new linens and bedding. My sort of lady and I head downtown to meet friends for birthday drinks. We consume numerous whiskeys, vodka tonics and eat $9 steaks. The birthday girl informs us she wants to go to the Diamond Cabaret. We comply with her request where my sort of lady and I consume many beers and I smoke a $10 cigar that tastes like filthy assholes. We stuff dollar bills into stripper's panties.

Sunday. My sort of lady wakes up early again. After she leaves and I spend twenty minutes staring out my bedroom window at the rain as I told the boys I play hockey with that I would meet them for practice at an outdoor rink at nine o'clock. I roll over and go back to bed. My brother-in-law picks me up and we proceed to our fantasy football draft. I have been competing in the same fantasy football league for ten years. Every year, we sit in the same basement, tell the same jokes, drink assorted Coors products and draft fourth string NFL players thinking we got a "sleeper." I get home and paint the fucking walls half drunk.

Monday. I sleep in. I work out. I buy groceries. I eat a pork chop for dinner. My sort of lady and I rent a movie. Talk gets serious* again. We laugh at ourselves and go to bed.

* My sort of lady and I are currently "hanging out." The relationship dynamic has progressed into something neither one of us expected. I like my sort of lady. My sort of lady likes me. I am interested in pursuing things further. Taking risks, especially when it comes to matters of the heart, is something I am willing to do. I figure it is best to try it and realize it does not work, then not try it at all. Relationship situations are like combat; you either get out of your foxhole alive and return home the conquering hero grateful for every day thereafter or you wind up getting shredded by machine gun bullets, laying on a field of battle with your intestines in your hands being comforted by a fat soldier named Murph telling him things like "I am so cold" and "I wanna go home now" before you die. Thankfully, my sort of lady does not use war analogies like me to describe her feelings.

Labels: bro-in-law, denver, drinking, feelings, hockey, l-i-v-i-n, sg crew, sports, strippers, weekend that was, wife