So, I realized something this morning.  I've been living in a dream world during my dreams.  There is an actual place that I visit repeatedly, and even help build.  This place has many ties to real places, like under the belle vernon bridge, the carnegie science center, and a few houses.

Specific to last night, I took Kallie to see this aquarium I had helped build at the Science Center.  It's physically impossible to do what we did, but it was pretty cool.  Think of it as a tube aquarium with a diagonal cut through it.  We hung this clear net material around the open part.  So if you were at the bottom, you were able to jump on the net and climb up it and be able to touch the dolphins and stuff through the water.  So the water just held it self back from the net somehow.  Anyway, once you climbed to the top, there was a restaurant and just a place to stand around and enjoy the view.  Like I said, this is something that I actually remember building in a previous dream.  I had put in the floors at the top of the aquarium and someone else was installing the net.  During last night's dream, the net was beginning to wear with holes in it, and I remember thinking that someone is going to have to redesign the material to be stronger since all these kids were going to be climbing on it.

It's just weird to think that there is saved dream data somewhere in my head that I revisit from time to time.  I'm not sure that's uncommon, just a new revelation to me.

1. When did you last sleep in a bed outside your home? - hehe, umm...the night before last?  SCANDAL!
2. When did you last drive someone else’s car? - Hey, my truck is in the shop!  >:(  I have been driving Kallie or Deirdre's car a lot.  I need my truck in all this snow though!
3. When did you last cook in someone else’s kitchen? - Define cooking.  I think i helped a little here or there with dinner at Kallie's last week.
4. When did you last care for children who aren’t yours? - That aren't mine?  that scares me.
5. When did you last do someone else’s job? - If we're talking strictly work/career, than I have no idea, because no one knows who does what anymore!  As a project manager, it's just my job to make sure it gets done!

Anything taken too seriously is stupid.  Take Star Wars for example.  While it does have redeeming qualities, it's still taken way to seriously.  If there is a made up language, it's taken way too seriously.  Hear that, James Cameron?

One of my favorite things in industrial and functional art is efficient use of space.  People design their furniture and living spaces to make life work well in small places.  This ins't your feng shui movement/placement, this is getting the best use out of space.  I've seen hgtv shows where couples fit everything they own, neatly and conveniently, in a 400 sq ft condo.  I should pull out some of those links...everything from single foot staggered stairs, to entire walls that move and can be used for storage.  

This little idea of storing books in the staircase is pretty awesome.  Kallie and I have a lot of books, and if we ever live on a boat, this would be one place we could store them all.  Kind of gives a new meaning to treading lightly on the words you speak.

http://www.geekologie.com/2008/02/bookshelf_stairs_are_freaking.php

 http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/at-europe/at-europe-london-closeup-the-amazing-staircase-042543

I don't want it to be sad.  I'd hope that friends and family that know me well would throw up gang signs in jest at my funeral.  Maybe even going as far as pouring out some champagne on the floor.  If I died in an accident, I'd hope that someone would do an impression of me saying, "what the crap" or "that was ballz."  Death hath no sting.  I wouldn't want to be remembered for being a boring "stand up citizen" or a "good person."  I'd want to be known as the guy who just wanted to have a good time, love people, explore, and be creative.  I've said a few times before, I'd love to be buried viking style; body set on a raft and then set on fire and pushed out to sea.  I'd be screwed if we could feel pain after death...but whatever.

we decided to jump from our second story window into our pile of snow.

It's been a while since I've put up a post in the "memories" category.  I was thinking about times I've almost died.  There aren't many, I think, but still something worth sharing.

When I was in high school, I dug up my Uncle Jay's 250 watt 15" Pevey bass amp from my dad's barn.  The funny thing about this amp was that it didn't have a ground wire in it.  It just had a 2 prong plug.  I ended up cutting off the plug since it was damaged and put a new grounded plug on the end, which at least gave me a sense of security that it wasn't going to come out of the wall.

Later on, my Uncle Kenny gave me my first 4 string base.  IT was a black "series 10" bass.  Nothing special about it, but it did the job.  I had gotten it in my head that I'd like a natural wood finish instead of the black matte, so I got some sand paper and started to go to town on the bass.  This was a lot of work.  When it got time to get around the pickups and bridge, I had to undue the strings.  I had the bass plugged into the amp, and the amp on, just so I could hear the awesome tones as I detuned.

So there's me, in a damp basement, sitting in a metal chair, next to a 250 watt bass amp, that's plugged into a surge protector on the floor next to me with a bunch of other devices, and 4 nickel wound, 1/8-1/4 inch diameter bass strings flopping around in my lap.  As luck would have it, something like the alarm clock was barely plugged in to the surge protector, and one of the strings found it way in the gap.  You want to know how I was sure something was wrong?  Because one of the base string starting glowing bright orange.  I jumped out of my seat, which was enough to move the bass string, but after some damage to the surge protector, which I still use today.  Here it is:

I think that counts as almost dying. 

Obama's new spending involves light rail or high speed train development in Pittsburgh.  http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09106/963340-100.stm

Hopefully, that will just mean that the maglev project will reach fruition.  http://www.maglevpa.com/

It's been a while since I posted a personal update.  Things in married life go well.  New job goes well.  Thinking about going back to school in the fall.  That might be the level of detail you get in the updates going forward...not really sure.  I don't really want to write about my life with Kallie without her involvement.  What you might see this category turn into would be a opening of the way I think or the way I act, or who I am despite my surroundings.  We'll see how that works.

One thing that bothers me sometimes is that Kallie will get bunches of people reply to facebook status updates for her.  Sometimes, it's people that she's connected through me, but I don't even talk to on facebook.  It's not that I want the attention, it's that I don't understand why people are compelled to post to her messages in such volumes and so quickly too.  It lead me to believe it's her.  Some how, people are connecting with her through her update.  She's reaching them in a way that I'm not.

So we give science a try.  I put the blinking cursor in my status update field and told Kallie to post something as me.  Post something that she would say, if she were me in that moment.  She wasn't allowed to reveal it was her.  We'd test if it was the content of the status updates or Kallie's "aura" that people were drawn to.  Within seconds, we had a reply to "mmm, my house smells like freshly baked bread.  I love my wife."  Then another.  Then another from a person I barely know.  I think we found our answer.

It's me.  I don't know how to connect with people, or I don't give them a clear path to understanding me to be more precise.  I wrap things in metaphor, vague allusions, or esoteric references.  Recently, my mom replied to one of my facebook status updates saying she didn't understand my messages, and she wanted to know if it was her or even her age.  I'm fairly certain it's actually me.  With this post though, perhaps I can shed some light on to how my mind works and even give some examples to help you better understand what I mean when I say or do something.

We'll take it back to the days when I first started to post away messages on AIM.  I constantly got asked what they meant.  Well, I'll tell you now and perhaps it will help you to predict my behavior.

Most of my messages were drawn from lyrics --

"I dream that she aims to be the bloom upon my misery." - This comes from a Soul Coughing song called "I Miss the Girl".  That's basically what I was saying.

"I feel as if i'm looking at the world from the bottom of a well." - This comes from a Mike Doughty song.  It just meant that I was sad, or I felt trapped, away from the world.

"Getting lost in the fall, glimmer, sparkle, and fade." - This came from Everclear's album, Sparkle and Fade.   I thought it was a pretty sentiment to describe moods where I felt like a life of a star; people were lucky to catch a glimpse of a falling star, marveled at it's glimmer and sparkle, and then it fades away.  I used it to express that I had just done something I enjoyed but probably won't do again.

  "True dreams of Wichita." - More Soul Coughing.  Meant I wanted to travel or that I had a weird dream.

"I'll be your best kept secret and your biggest mistake." - lines that follow "can I lay in your bed all day?" by Fallout Boy.  Usually meant I liked a new girl.

"Need more friends with wings, all the angels I know put concrete in my veins." - Billy Talent lyrics.  Means I missed people or felt crappy without friends.

"Looking at the man in the mirror and telling him to change his ways." - Michael Jackson, but taken quite literally when used.

"the world through a windshield is callous and cheap.  i toss and i turn but i can't get to sleep.  counting the hours the days that turn into weeks" - The New Amsterdams lyrics.  Usually meant that I felt like I was just waiting for life to happen.

"Some times, it causes me to tremble."  - My favorite hymn, "Were You There?".  Usually an Easter away message.

"I'm shoulder high in crap and my water wings are flat." - President of the United States of America lyrics.  Usually meant I was stressed about something.

"I remind myself of some body else's song." - Lifehouse lyrics.  Tongue and cheek mostly.

"Awake and dreaming." - Finger Eleven lyrics.  I was being reflective.

"This is the part where we start to feel better." - Gratitude lyrics.  something was making me sad.

A lot of my messages were my own creation --

"I'm allergic to the sun.  It makes my skin change color."  - This message was usually used when I didn't want to go outside.

"I'm a pretty shallow guy deep down."  - It's true.

"Warning:  This aoler may be potentially unstable.  Proceed to message with caution." - I was probably livid about something.  "Livid" was also used as an away message.

"projectiling a bee of fris across a botanical plane in attempts to approach and ultimately arrive at the X axis' limits, while not offending the Y axis' limits, at which point those efforts are reciprocated by an opposing force." -   I was playing ultimate frisbee.

"Let's go get stoned.  Just like how they did in the Bible." - Just thought it was funny.

Some were direct quotes from movies or literature--

"The moments we shared are lost in time, like tears in a rain storm."  -This comes from the movie "Blade Runner".  I found it profound and quite beautiful.  It's deep, thinking that there's no use to cry when it's raining.

"Closing my eyes and opening my mind in the clarity of passion."  - I'm not certain which source this came from, but it may have been from the movie "Atonement".  I usually used this one when I was falling asleep content to ponder life's questions.

"Cheyne Stoking." - This comes from an excellent movie called "Dead Man Shoes".  At one point in the movie, the main character paints those words on an apartment wall of some "bad guys" while they're not there.  It's a medical term to describe periods of irregular breathing; most commonly the last grasps for breath.  I liked the phrase, so i put it up.  Possibly meant that I thought I was going to die sometime/eventually/inevitably.

"In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo." - This is from T.S. Elliot's poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.  I just used it to say I was talking to my smart wiminz.  Another away message I used, partly inspired from Keren's song and the poem, was "Measuring out my life with a coffee spoon."

When I'm with you, %n, we stay up all night, and when you're gone, I can't get to sleep.  Thank God for these insomnias, and the differences between them."  - Remember, %n was replaced with the viewer's screen name.  That was fun.  Anyway, I saw a performance at Heinz Hall of the Pittsburgh Symphony, and in between pieces, they would have readings and this was one of them.  I have no idea of the origin, and can't seem to find anything through google.  It means I was in love or at least infatuated.

"James 4:8 " - The verse is "Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded."  This was my personal motto.  Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.  Life is that simple.  When I was searching for why I felt so disconnected from Christ, I simply have to [go to church, volunteer, call a friend to talk, pray] etc.  I needed this scripture during that time of my life.

"Super perfundo on the early eve of your day." - This comes from my favorite movie, Waking Life.  It's a phrase that one of the characters has said to him in one of his dreams, but even he doesn't know what it means.  It's basically used as just a greeting/farewell.

"Perhaps I am a man of exceptional moods.  I do not know how far my experience is common.  At times I suffer from the strangest sense of detachment from myself and the world about me; I seem to watch it all from the outside, from somewhere inconceivably remote, out of time, out of space, out of the stress and tragedy of it all.  - H. G. Wells" - Pretty much the only good line from War of the Worlds.  I resonated with this deeply.

The rest were either weird, boring, or a mix of the above categories -

"He's a maniac, maniac, on the floor, and he's cleaning like he's never cleaned before." - This meant I was cleaning.  Taken from the Flash Dance theme song.

"This away message is fleeting human contact.  both of us lost, but for a moment we're lost together.  I wonder who you are." - I believe this to be an internet meme, but I can't nail the true source.  It may have been that simply substituted "away message" in for grafitti.  see XKCD.

"Falto Algo." - Spanish for "Something is missing".  My boss used to say this. 

"Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother's house I go." - I was visiting my grandmother.

"Home again, home again, jiggity jig." - I went home.

Ofcourse, there are the ones that meant I was sleeping...

"Dead.  At least to the untrained eye."

"Sleep with all the lights on." - Dashboard Confessional lyrics.  Most appropriately used when sleeping during the day  ie: night shift.

"some where between the sacred silence and sleep." - System of a Down lyrics.  Usually meant it was really late and I was still up for some reason.

"Under the Tahitian moon." - Porno for Pyros lyrics. 

"Stress Level Elimination Exercise Plan" (SLEEP)" - own of my originals.  Paired with:

"Stress Induced Narcoleptic Seizures (S.I.N.S.)" - another original that I still use.

So, I hope this provides you with a little bit of a road map on being able to predict what I may be trying to convey in my own mysterious way.  Default to it being lyrics for something.  Then think that I just saw/read something that imbued me.  I'm not all that hard to figure out or predict.  I think.  Did this help?

The Pittsburgh Penguins' slogan this season is "defy ordinary".  Might not be all that great of a sports team promotion, but this little video they put together is a pretty good ad for Pittsburgh life in general.  CMU, Andy Warhol, South Side Works, Consol Energy Center, and a bunch of other key landmarks are highlighted.

"Approach tough problems like a dog  - If you can't hump it or eat it, pee on it and walk away."

 - Unknown

Avis customer support has exhausted my patience, so I'm considering this the final chapter.  If Avis is your cheapest rate when you go to rent a car, take a second to think about the risk you might run of having to deal with customer service.  I am not going to be a loyal Avis customer anytime soon.

I used Travelocity.com to book the cheapest car I could find for Kallie and I to use on our flight to California over Thanksgiving.  Avis was the cheapest, but not by much.  We picked up the Pontiac G5 at Sacramento airport on Nov 25th on our arrival.  It was the smallest rental car I've ever been in, which put me more in a contemplative mindset as I wondered why I've never had such a small car even though I've always rented the cheapest before.

The car worked fine until Friday evening in San Francisco.  While sightseeing, I parallel parked but was not able to turn the key to power off the car.  It was if it was locked in the on position.  We couldn't leave the car running and unlocked to sightsee.  We tried all the obvious things, then called the 800 number listed with the rental docs, and they had us try the obvious stuff again, then we told them we'd just go to the nearest Avis center and return it.  We were near empty on gas, but there was an Avis location in town, not far away.  We got to the location shortly after 5, and it closed at 5pm.  That meant that we would have to drive ~30 minutes to the San Francisco airport.  We got there, with less than a gallon of gas left, I'm sure.

Upon our arrival, I had the 2 employees and a manager sanity check me and they could not turn the car off either.  They said to go inside and talk to customer service to get a replacement car.  They initially said they would have to charge me for returning the car with an empty tank, but since I couldn't turn off the car, it wasn't safe for me to fill it up before returning it and they let that charge go.  The desk representative also volunteered a $25 voucher for our inconvenience, and asked her manager to bring the voucher to the desk for us over the walkie talkie.  ~20 minutes go by, the very nice desk rep pages her manager again.  We use the rest room, talk about the car, wait around, until the desk rep then physically goes to the manager's office to find the manager had left for the day and locked the office with the voucher inside.  When the desk rep came back to us, she said that she would leave notes in their system for our reservation so that when we returned the car in Sacramento, they would give us a voucher for "more than $25" since we had so much trouble and had to wait.  We got a replacement Ford Focus, and went about our lives.

...until Sunday, when we realize we may have left Kallie's Macbook under the passenger seat with our only copies of wedding photos on DVD.  We called the San Francisco airport location, and they said they don't see any notes on a laptop, but the car is at their repair facility off site, and no one would be able to look for it until Monday, but they would have someone call me back once they were able to look.  By 4pm Monday, I hadn't heard anything back, so I called them again, and they asked me where to look for it, so I said, "in the car", and they wanted me to be specific, so I said to try under the passenger seat or in the trunk.  They called back after a few minutes and said they were not able to find it there.

Fast forward to Tuesday, Dec 1st at 4:00am.  We drop off the car at the rental location to catch our 6:00am flight.  The receiving employee only has a hand scanner that prints our return receipts and she has no access to a computer or vouchers.  She said that we would have to wait until the desk representatives come in at 7:00am.  So I decide I'll have to pick this back up once we get home.

I give a phone call to the customer support number.  I explain the voucher situation to them, and they say they'll send it in the mail to me right away.  Seemed easy enough.  I also called the SF location again to have the search the whole car, thinking it might have moved or we put it somewhere else.  They said they will leave an open case in the lost and found if it ever turns up, but it's not in the car.

A week or so later, I receive a letter from Avis with a voucher attached to the bottom for $25.  The letter is your basic canned apology letter, but the voucher, at least, had something identifying on it...an expiration date of 12/31/09.  They had given me less than a month to use the voucher.  That's pretty much insulting, and I said that in my letter to them.  I used the contact form on their site to send it to them.  I could repost it here, but it's basically the same as this post and carries the same tone.

A few days later, I get this response via email:

From: "Avis Customer Service" <custserv@avis.com>
Sent: Monday, December 28, 2009 10:31 AM
Subject: RE: Avis Rental U142826294 / Case 7737785 (KMM2651002I5371L0KM)

RE:  Avis Rental U142826294 / Case 7737785

12/28/09

Dear Mr. Hall,
Thank you for contacting us through the Avis Website.

In viewing the above Avis rental and your case I find that you have
phoned into our Avis Customer Service Department and the agent that you
spoke with has sent you an Avis Customer Service Certificate.  I do
apologize for the problems that you experienced with your Avis rental
car and if we can assist you in the future, please let us know.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact us, and we look forward
to assisting you with your future rentals.

Sincerely,

S**J***
Avis Customer Service Representative
custserv@avis.com

Wow.  First, they're not going to do anything.  Second, they obviously didn't read my letter very well if they failed to notice the part where I said I was insulted that they would send me a voucher that expired within a month.  I put about as much effort in my reply as they put in to theirs:

Perhaps you missed the part where I was given less than a month to use the certificate?

I received this reply today:

Case #:7737785
RA#:142826294

Dear Mr. Hall,

Thank you for contacting Avis via www.avis.com.

We apologize for sending a coupon that expires that soon. 
We value your business and as a courtesy we will honor your request to
replace your coupon.

Please mail the coupon to my attention to the addressed noted below.

Avis Customer Service
P.O. Box 690360
Tulsa, OK  74169-0360
ATTN : CASE 7737785

I appreciate your cooperation and await your response.

We appreciate your taking the time to report your experience to us.  You
have helped in a continuing effort to provide you, and all Avis
customers, with the service you expect and deserve.

Warm Regards,
 
K*** L***
Avis Customer Service Representative
custserv@avis.com

They want me to pay for postage and mail them back a $25 voucher that expires by the time it reaches them.  WTF.  I'm not even sure I have the voucher any more, since it was worthless to me.  That's ridiculous, and that is why Avis can not expect to see my name on their customer sheet any longer.  If their customer service strategy is to make users feel frustrated and eventually just get tired from getting the run around and jumping through hoops and give up, then they've succeeded.

I put up my crappy webcam on the fish tank.  Sorry about the quality, but it's fun for a while anyway.  It does require Internet explorer for the activeX controls.  So far there are 4 gold barbs, 3 harlequin rasboras, 1 bristlenose cat, and 4 glofish zebras.  Also some live plants.  The best time to view is around 5pm EST for feeding time and you don't get the reflection off the glass.

Http://fish.footcomputers.com

Reed wrote and recorded this song for me and my fiance, Kallie.  As many of you know, Kallie and I met online, and I lived with my sister and a 3 legged cat named Hal when I met her, and she is severely allergic to cats.  I hosted an open mic for my bachelor party, and he showed up with this song to surprise us. 

Reed Verdesoto - On the Internet

I had an idea for a website with community driven content.  Someone would post a rumor or something unconfirmed and people would either simply "confirm it" or add evidence and such to support or invalidate the rumor.  I'd compare it to a cross with snopes.com and mythbusters.  You could have different user rankings for how much they've contributed and maybe for a rumor to move to a status of "confirmed" it would need to be confirmed by an established member or authority.  Eventually, as the community grew, I think we'd form quite a thinktank full of valued people. 

The list comes from CNN, but I went ahead and got the youtube links for each track.

1. "She Blinded Me With Science," Thomas Dolby
   
2.  "Dare to Be Stupid," Weird Al Yankovic - Of course Weird all has to be there.  I'd actually put something like "All about the Pentiums" or "White & Nerdy" on the list instead of this one.
   
   Weird Al Yankovic - Dare to be Stupid
   Uploaded by bolton. - See more comedy videos.
3. "Nerdcore Rising," M.C. Frontalot - There's actually a pretty cool documentary called "Nerdcore Rising" with a lot of cool information on the genre of nerd core.  Certainly worth checking out.
   

When the most beautiful words I never spoke

This was a poem I wrote back in February of 2007 I was reminded of it when I watched this short film:

Nuit Blanche from Spy Films on Vimeo.