1. If you needed to get ahold of The “A” Team to handle a personal crisis for you, would you know where to turn?
I think I could assemble my own “A” team of crack experts for various fields of interest: Ed, of course, for general boozing and related emergencies. Tory if I need to blow something up. Adam if I need to bring in a cleaner to make it go away. Mark would be our scientific potions expert. Julie, of course for the enevitable killins. Lono for long term plotting and Reid for a general all-purpose Bezerker.
2. Hunter Thompson is dead. In his spirit, what is the Gonzo-ist road trip you have ever taken?
My long winding drunken trip across Europe in a Jeep CJ-7. We crafted an ice container using the entire hatch back area, filled it with ice and German lager and drove from Stuttgart to London. We stopped at Verdun to see the battlefield, got lost in Luxemborg, ate an amazing asparagus omellette at an autobahn diner (the French equivalent of a Stuckies) and took a ferry trip across the channel, drinking beer dispensed from the vending machine as the locals smoked weed on deck looking at the White Cliffs of Dover. That, my friends, was good time.
3. We were taken out to dinner on the company dime last night to a nice, swank steakhouse. What is the best meal you have ever eaten that you didn’t have to pay for?
In my newspaper days, as a starving writer, I would get a few meals sent my way. I remember an amazing steak dinner with Pat Grant of the National Western Stock show. It was some old, old cowboy restaurant down in the stock show area but I can’t remember exactly where. But that was one excellent piece of steak.
4. Botox? Collagen? Plastic surgery nip and tuck? Hair club for men? How far will you go to preserve your youth?
I think any folks who have seen me know that I am just letting the old AARP flag fly proudly. Wrinkles, grey hair, warts and all. I am trying to eat better and exercise more so I am not all crippled up when I get old, but otherwise, what you see is what you get.
5. Ever tracked your biorhythms? Are you having a good day or a bad day? Any other crap like this you might hold onto from time to time?
According to this scale, I am having a low emotional day, however, I feel great – so I guess I am not putting a lot of faith in this bunk. I want to believe in something as simple as Biorhytms and Astrology as a way to explain this great world of ours – but let’s face it. Life is pretty deliberate when humans intervene and pretty random when Nature responds.
W.Bloggar Update
The newest version on w.bloggar is out.
V.4.0 is a bit more user friendly then the earlier version. It isn’t Firefox friendly, yet, although the paid version is. But it works great without worrying about Firefox. It is a stand alone application that only works on the Windows platform, so sorry, all you Mac users.
However it makes knocking out a blogger entry as easy as sending an email. Formatting, adding photos, adding text color and a whole host of html tricks become second nature. And with the ability to save “macro” short cuts activated through F keys, it can usually get any blog task done simply.
If you are blogging and hate the Blogger web based interface, try this nice stand alone tool.
Flame Yourself
Stumbled on this over at 43Folders (A great obsessive blog about productivity)
Any way, here is the deal. Go get yourself a free, disposable spare email account. Then, when the temper flares, when the world annoys you, write yourself a flaming email and send it off to your new, undisclosed-to-other’s email box. Then, every 90 days or six months, drop in on your flame box and read what your wrote.
Sounds pretty cathartic.
Wacky Friday Foto
In an attempt to lighten up the longest day of the what seems to have been the longest week:
Life ain’t easy in Commerce City. 
(Insert your caption in the comments below:)
Friday Fives
1. What is your favorite kitchen appliance? If if broke, could you replace it?
For me, it is either the coffee roaster, an absolute extravagance that has changed my life. Coming a close second is the microwave. What a technological thing of beauty that thing is.
2. Did your grandmother have a nickname for you? What was it? How did you earn it.
Nope. No nicknames. We weren’t a real nicknamey family.
3. What was the last big thing you broke? How did you end up fixing it.
A heart? Just kidding. hmmm. Let’s see, probably my sister” Rubbermaid cake holder. It was the unfortunate victim of a tiny, tiny, pittance of a kitchen fire – a fire whose smoke damaged scars still remain – I replaced the cake holder, I haven’t repainted the smoke stained wall.
4. If you had your own spaceship, what would you name it and why? What would it be like?
“To Infinity – And Beyond!” In David Foster Wallace’s essay “Getting Away from Already Pretty Much Away From It All,” DFW nicknames the 7 day, 7 night cruise ship he is staying on the “SS Nadir.” That has always rung whitty with me. My starship may have the same name, because if we find ourselves in space, with me at the helm of a starship, we are all doomed.
5. March is nearly here! (Thank you, Jesus.) We survived February. (Thank you, Cutty Sark.) Do you have any Spring seasonal change traditions that you observe?
A big, drunken Easter blow out has been a solid 15 year tradition. In my home town of Craig, the segue into Spring is celebrated by the Kiwanis club in their annual show featuring tons and tons of booze, pillars of the community in drag doing modern day burlesque and some bad, bad lip synching. It would kill me to find such an adventure here in Denver.
HST R.I.P
Hunter S. Thompson died last night. It has touched me. In his life, in his passing and in the way so many people who have been effected by his writing and his life force.
Kevin kind of has the market on that wing of the HST passing. His words and subsequent comments left by readers of his blog are worth dropping by.
As for me, I may have reevaluate some of the reading list I put aside for this Spring. Nabokov, Pynchon, Roth and DeLillo were on the bedside table, but they may have to make room for a revisting of Thompson. For those who haven’t ventured into his works, I suggest you don’t start with “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”. An amazing book and a book you should read but like the good English Lit wanna be professor that I am, I would direct you to “The Great Shark Hunt” as your first toes in the water. Then move on to “Proud Highway,” his first volume of collected letters. Then F&L, followed by “Fear and Loathing in America,” his second volume of letters. “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail”follows that then “Better Than Sex,” about the Clinton campaign. Insert “Hell’s Angels” somewhere after this. At this point you have sufficient background, and hopefully appreciation, you may then dive into the remainder of his collected works, short stories and his novel.
His vision and voice are truly American and he was indeed fearless in his obsession with getting down on paper the American Dream.
The Complete Firefox Extensions
Here is my screenshot of what I consider “must have” Firefox extensions. It will make Mozilla a a whole new baby for you. Download them. Install them. Surf with them. Step five, enjoy.
(For a better view of the screenshot, click on the image)
DFW On Lobsters
I have been forcing David Foster Wallace down everyone’s throat for years. Here is a great article reproduced as a PDF on how to cook a lobster. it should give a decent flavor of the post-modern/metafiction master.
Now, I got to go out and get something to eat.
Friday Fives
1. If you could freeze time at the very second in your past that you wanted to LAST forever, holding that moment for eternity, what would that moment be?
The feeling in college when the first issue of the newspaper I edited came off the press. That was a pretty good feeling.
2. Have you ever finished in LAST place, whether during a race, a contest, a competition, an exam, or something else?
Not last especially, but very close. In the Army, a group of us decided to run a 10K race. And one of the guys with us was huge, huge guy, terribly out of shape. We ran the race with him and came in very close to the end. Some folks walking the race beat us.
3. Who’s the LAST person you talked with on the phone? E-mailed? Received an e-mail from? Hugged? Went out to lunch with? Thought about? Made something for? Made plans with? IM-ed?
Phone: Michelle; Emailed: Kevin; Received and email from: RABnurse (Sage): Hugged: Michelle; Lunch: (Does a late breakfast count?) Michelle; Thought about?: Mom; Made something for: my team at work; Made plans with: Michelle (Sedaris); IM-ed: Haven’t IM-ed in months.
4. When’s the LAST time that you did something nice just for yourself? What was it?
I am not married or with children so really, just about everything I do I do for myself (how selfish). Any time I go out for steak or sushi that is “something nice for myself.”
5. What do you think you’ll be doing on the LAST day of this month (February 28)? If you could choose a month and have it LAST forever (in other words, it would be July all the time from now on), which month would you choose and why?
Last day of the month? Working and getting two or three new employees settled in. Favorite month? October. I love a late crisp autumn.
Dead Letter Office
Send yourself a “dead letter.” Or take some time to dig around and read what other have sent. There is some funny, some sad, some real depressing and some real thoughtful things that folks have anonymously left for your reading pleasure.