Adventures in Yard Work

These last two days I have been doing something that I think I've only once in the last 5 years: I have been working over the weekend. I know, I know- you're all like "But wait, you work for the government!" Believe it or not, we have been super busy lately. I'm making overtime for it, but still- it's weird. Friday hit and I was all "Woo-hoo! The weekend...oh, right." It sort of takes the thrill out of it. At least I can work from home on my work laptop.

I was able to make time for chores as well, though. It's lawn growing season, and while it wasn't the knee-high masterpiece that greeted me when I came home after three weeks away last weekend, there was plenty to be done. This morning I was out trimming the hedges and I had a fun encounter:

There I am, clipping away, and two women were loitering around the mailbox that's across the street from my house. I've seen them before- they're older and look semi-homeless, but they must live here. At some point I hear a shout: "You smoke?" I look around, and the block is empty except for the three of us, and one of the women is looking at me. "I'm sorry?" I say (I didn't really hear what she said). She yells again "You smoke?" I say "Oh, no. Sorry!" and go back to my clipping.

My first reaction was one of sadness- what is this poor woman's situation in life where she's yelling across the street to strangers for a cigarette? Plus, not even a porch sitter- someone who's obviously busy doing something. At this point in my cognitive process the pity turned to annoyance. It's like wait, I'm clearly out here wielding power tools and you're going to interrupt me to bum a smoke? And you're going to do it by screaming from across the street? Plus, I was wearing a t-shirt and gym shorts. Clearly I don't have any cigarettes on me. How did this go in the lady's mind? She could hang out be the mailbox, yell to a stranger who's busy in his own lawn, and I would drop what I'm doing, run in the house, get her a cigarette and probably a light, run across the street to deliver it to her, then return to my business of tidying up my yard? I mean really. But wait for it...

A few minutes have passed- now I'm raking up the bush clippings while the ladies are still hanging out right across the street. As I'm raking, I hear another shout: "You got any change?" I figure I must have heard her wrong. I say "Excuse me?" She repeats "Got any change?" I reply semi-politely "Sorry...no."

Oh. My. God. We have just jumped up a notch, people. We have hit the point where people will come up to you at your own home while you are clearly busy with your own business and bellow out a request for loose change. I was astounded! Plus, this raises so many questions! Are these ladies homeless? I mean, they were getting mail out of a mail slot, so it would seem they have a house in the neighborhood. And this is a nice middle class neighborhood, too. How do you live here, yet still feel destitute enough to yell to a stranger to ask for money? I can't type fast enough to list all the rants that are building in my mind.

Not only that, but there was no pretense. There are few things in life that I hate more than panhandlers, but at least they usually give you a sob story first. And it's usually in a public place, like the mall or gas station (why always the gas station? Probably because it helps the believability of the "I filled up my car but oops don't have cash on me" story line). It takes a really ballsy panhandler to approach a busy person at their own home and interrupt them to yell for cigarettes, and then after being denied make a second request for money. I still don't think I have fully comprehended it yet.

So while we're on the topic, a few weekends ago we were in DC a few blocks from Ramya's apartment and we were approached by a dirty man carrying a gas can. He was of course asking for money so he could buy some gas to get home. I said my standard "Sorry, no" and we kept on walking. Ramya felt a little bad, because what if he really did need help? I thought that while the gas can was a nice prop, we needed to look at the context clues. First, where was he supposedly going from/to? We were on an upscale residential cul de sac (surrounded by multi-million dollar condos, no less) with no gas stations for a couple blocks. If he was walking to the gas station, he was going the wrong way. If he did walk toward a commercial area he would find plenty of gas, ATMs, phones, etc. Plus, where did he get the gas can? Are we supposed to think he just happened to have it with him? If he runs out of gas often enough to carry a gas can at all times he needs to make some changes anyway. Alas, you don't usually know for sure if they're scamming you.

Except a few weeks ago in LA. Shelley and I were filling up our rental car before taking it back, and a man came up to Shelley to ask for money. He had quite the elaborate story about the car breaking down, and he called the tow truck, but they only take cash and he's ten dollars short. It was odd because he looked like a regular guy in a suit, and he even went so far as to point out that his wife and kids were in the Denny's across the street waiting for the tow truck (obviously we couldn't see them, but he was like "They're right there! In that window!"). Anyway, Shelley stayed strong and gave him an excellent "Sorry no" and went about her business. He wandered back to the curb, which was the first sign- the gas station was crawling with people, and if you're really that desperate for money, why only ask one person? Why not use the ATM in the gas station, since you've said the problem is that you need cash? But here's the best part: in about 10 seconds the city bus pulls up to the curb. He gets on it and speeds away. He didn't even stick around for the second wind guilt to set in. He made his attempt at free cash, then gives up and leaves. Was he just waiting for the bus, and then decided to attempt a little swindling to pass the time? Plus, pick a different cover story! So now you're taking off and leaving the wife and kids at Denny's to wait for the tow truck they can't pay for? How do these people sleep at night?

Anyway, hopefully it'll stop raining soon and I can finish up the hedges without the panhandlers.

Surviving Texas

It would seem that I hopped an American Airlines MD-80 to Dallas just in time to get caught in the massive grounding that's all over the news. Of course, it might be more all over the news here than elsewhere, because at one point they stated that there were over 100,000 travelers stranded at DFW airport. As of yesterday that was down to a scant 10,000, but hopefully by this afternoon I won't be one of them. After they cancelled our flight for this morning, moved us to Saturday morning, then back to this afternoon, I'm just glad to be going home. Not that this trip hasn't been delightful, what with the golf ball-sized hail and tornadoes- oh wait, I guess that deserves a mention.

So Tuesday night I was sound asleep, only to awake to an incredibly disconcerting noise outside. It was hailing, and I mean it was hailing. It sounded like somebody was chucking baseballs at my bedroom window, and I was sure it was going to break in at any minute! This is also one of those hotels with outdoor hallways and a little balcony, so I could hear the hail strikes from all over. It went on for about 15 minutes, then I just went back to sleep. Wednesday morning there were leaves all over everything, and our poor rental car was dented to all hell. Thank you, government damage waiver!

So the worst is over, right? No, Wednesday evening there were a couple tornado watch notices on the radio and TV, but I wasn't too concerned. Then I woke up at 3:00 am to an ungodly rainstorm. I looked out the window, and I could barely see through the rain. But the trees were really shaking, and I swear I could feel the building moving (and I'm on the second of three stories). I'm telling you people- it was biblical. I flipped on the TV, and every channel was running emergency tornado warnings and coverage. And we're not talking "be on the lookout for tornadoes," it was like "THIS IS NOT A DRILL! TAKE COVER! GO TO YOUR BASEMENT NOW!" And the friendly meteorologist wasn't saying it calmly like he was reading a teleprompter- there was a disturbing urgency to his voice. I was about to strip the comforter off the bed and go lay in the bathtub when I found a channel with a live doppler radar broadcast. The bad news was that we were in the dark red, but the good news was that it had almost passed. Within 5 minutes or so we were in the yellow, and the conditions outside had downgraded from "Oh my dear God" to "Wow." Apparently the closest tornado missed our hotel by about a mile, and the whole area had sustained winds in excess of 80 miles per hour- I don't have trouble believing it after seeing all the bent over road signs. Ironically, yesterday was beautiful. I sat out on my little patio for a while.

So today seems like the perfect time to get out of dodge. We're set to fly directly through the same storm system as it continues east, and set down in Baltimore right before it hits there. Ta-daaa.

Believe it or not, that was all a tangent. I started blogging today because I was checking TV guide to make sure something good was on TV when I head to the workout room (Yes! Cash Cab!), and it showed me an ad for the National Geographic special Human Footprint. It hooks you with the fun fact that the average person over the course of a lifetime will:

Eat 12,129 Hamburgers.
Take 28,433 Showers.

Think about it- the average person eats one hamburger for every two showers. Doesn't that seem like a lot? I realize there are several factors here, like cultures that eat a lot of McDonald's versus cultures that don't shower daily, but jeeze. Plus, was this a bulk meat-to-person ratio, or did they actually tally the number of burgers? If it's the latter, then White Castle and the Ruby Minis could really sway the figures. Also, it tells us that the average person will drink 43,046 cans of soda. I don't have a problem believing that, because for every non-soda drinker like me there's probably 2 or 3 Ramya "Diet Coke" Prakasams.

Wish me luck on my travels!

Kory Gunnerson? I love that guy!

I'm entering week three of my three weeks away from home, pulling out the final stretch in Ft. Worth, Texas. This week of meetings starts after lunch on Monday, which is something companies do to allow people to fly in Monday morning. This does nothing for those of us who live two hours from the airport- not to mention that Monday morning is the worst time to fly- but we appreciate the effort. In any case, I'm here with a couple hours to kill, so I thought I'd list a few things I've noticed recently.

Last week I was in LA, and I saw updated versions of the same commercials they played constantly last time I was there. First was an update of the "The world is open. This is the key." commercial I mentioned here. The commercial now says "The world is open. You have the key." I still don't think it makes sense. The other one was for a job search site called The Ladders. It's commercial used to say "$100K+ jobs for $100K+ people" which I thought was a very hoity-toity way to assign a convenient dollar amount to a person's life. It has now been changed to "$100K+ jobs for $100K+ job seekers," which makes me think I wasn't alone in my take.

This weekend I was back in DC, and Ramya and I stopped at a bar with some friends called "Trademark" right down the block from the Patent office (and yes, I was there for about 30 minutes before I got the reference). They walk past it all the time, and no one had ever been there, so we thought we'd check it out. The first hook is that if you have a special shot or drink you like, you can spell it out on a little card and they "trademark" it for you. We were never really sure what that means (like, do you get a cut of the price if someone else orders it?) but it's an interesting way to simulate work in your pleasure- like maybe if someone made a bar at Navair where you had to order by telecon. But you have to listen to an hours of people talking about stuff you don't care about first. Anyway, no one ordered Dave "Golden Goose" because shots were like $12. Everyone got one overpriced drink (I stuck with water and free peanuts), and then we decided to get an appetizer. We settled on some $13 crab cakes- sure they seemed a little spendy, but you get three, right? Here's what we got:I wish I had put a dollar next to them for a size reference, but the lemon kind of helps. They had a footprint less than that of a quarter, and were basically the size of a marshmallow cut in half. Thirteen dollars? What kind of rare opilio kobe crab is this? They weren't even that good. We spent the rest of the time speculating about what you could get for thirteen dollars at various other restaurants- I believe Ramya and I have had a full meal at Monterey (with tip) for less. And that included unlimited tortilla chips.

The last thing I have right now is just this morning, Facebook (if you don't know what it is, ask someone younger) sent me a notification that says "Kory Gunnerson just joined Facebook. You both went to Purdue. If you know them, perhaps you should add them as a friend." Really? A kid from Ohio went to my major university 10 years after I did? Sure I know him! Come on. Sometimes Facebook will let you know if 10 of your friends are friends with someone because you might know them, but this seems like a stretch.

Okay, that's all for now. I'll post about Ramya's first foray into competitive running when I can get the pictures off of my camera!