matthearn.com

Good gravy, what a day. At work we racked six (6) large unix servers, which requires putting special slidey rails into big racks, then taking them out and doing it again, because we either put them in backwards or used the wrong screws, meaning that the server could fall out of the rails and crunch. Since each of them is worth more than my car by an order of magnitude, we thought it best to do the job right. Took about six hours.
It also meant that I didn’t get to work out, which is greatly annoying because I’m still fat. Tonight I may have to get on the exercise bike, but I may just skip it because I hiked and ran in the woods for 100 minutes yesterday to combat the effects of the 8 beers and 3 platters of sushi I ate afterwards.
In short, I’m exhausted, which along with the fact that I’m composing this on my iPhone while pushing Charles’s swing explains both the crappiness and brevity of this post.
Have a pimpslappinous weekend, allsayalls!

Found this pretty field of clover whilst out on a hike yesterday. Not five minutes later I came upon a group of high-schoolers who asked if I had any rolling papers.

(For ease-of-reading, any speech below attributed to little boys has been translated into adult English, so that you don’t have to read text like “Thaniel, can you klay wif me?”)

Charles, like many kids his age, is remarkably literal. If I have to chastise him for not eating, I will often unthinkingly say things like, “No you may not leave the table; you’ve barely touched your food, Charles.” He usually responds by pressing his hands onto his food and saying “I’m touching it! Can I be excused?” It’s amusing, even when it’s annoying.

On Saturday we had a little early Father’s Day party at my parents, since for various reasons we can’t get together next weekend. My sister brought her brood as well, featuring her son Nathaniel, who is just about 9 months older than Charles, but roughly the same size. Charles is very fond of Nathaniel; I’m not sure that the feeling is entirely mutual. Anyway, Charles has the annoying habit of tackling people that he wants to play with. (This partly my fault, since I allow him to climb all over me when we roughhouse, but I’ll be danged if I can’t wrassle my son as I see fit.) After he’d dragged Nathaniel to the ground a few times, we convinced Charles to stop, or at least to ask first. So later that afternoon, he asked:

“Nathaniel, can I wrestle you?”

Nathaniel replied, “No.”

We complimented Charles for asking permission, and someone suggested that perhaps he might have better luck asking his Daddy. So Charles looked up at me and said,

“Daddy, can I wrestle Nathaniel?”

We found this greatly amusing. Charles likes when other people laugh, even if he doesn’t get the joke, so we got a hearty guffaw out of him as well.

Wow, really? I never would have known. (Full disclosure: I hate American Idol and believe it to be the reason that America is going to hell in a handbasket.)

We had a fantastic time at the Greek Festival at Holy Trinity on Tuesday:

Sarah and Josephine met Charles and me there, and my parents showed up later, so that we could all enjoy Greek beer, lamb sandwiches, Spanakopita, all that good stuff. Delicious, satisfying, and fun. Charles even picked out a cheap bracelet to give to his mommy, which was amusing. It even matched her shirt, somehow. That boy has STYLE.

The only complaint is that, just like every other year, the hired some half-idiot DJ to provide musical entertainment. The church has speakers on the outside through which they play light traditional Greek music (or so I assume; I’m not particularly versant in the genre), but apparently they decided to ramp up happy hour so we got to listen to two idiots do soundchecks while we ate. For 20 minutes. “Check…check one…check two…check-check…check one…” Then they put on mindless dance beats and fiddled with the volume, turning it on and off, adjusting God knows what because it all sounded like bass and hi-hat. Then they went back to “Check..check…check one…check one two…” until finally I had enough and yelled over “IT WORKS! STOP IT!” Which, despite my complete and utter lack of authority, they did, at least until about a half-hour later when they started playing Greek pop music at a volume designed to interfere with internal pacemakers.

If you’re not familiar with Greek pop music: it’s not very good. It’s mostly modern American pop instruments (guitar, synthesizers, drum machines), but intensely modal. It’s like if Schönberg and Justin Timberlake had a baby together, and that baby had Tourette’s.

Anyway, aside from that, the festival was great fun, just like every year, and we even managed to arrive just after Tuesday’s microburst storm, which cooled everything down and lightened the crowds nicely. You’ll find the usual lines at the gyro tent, but why would you bother, anyway? You can get a gyro anywhere.

Are marching band geeks athletes? Heck yes. I do have some experience with this; I can report that my first year of college, after I stopped doing marching band, I gained roughly 40 pounds. Of course, most of my meals that year consisted of Corn Pops, but still.

Most of my readers are aware that I was in an a cappella group in college, the frequently-apologized-for University of Delaware Y-Chromes, which was obviously much fun and had some bearing on later musical endeavours (warning: ’tis an mp3). As an alumnus, it’s my responsibility to try and help the boys out whenever I can (it’s like being in a frat, but less stupid, albeit with a roughly similar amount of homoerotic behavior).

Another alum, Colin The Black (to distinguish him from a contemporary member, also named Colin, who is labelled The White), found out in March that he has leukemia, and has spent the bulk of his time since in the hospital getting radiated, chemo’d, and generally poked and prodded. A friend of his is running a lengthy charity race to raise money, in Colin’s name, for a search for cancer cures. If you have a few loose bills laying around, it’d be nice if you could chip them in.

Also: love to Colin, who’s fighting like a gladiator against a grizzly bear. Get well, doggle.

While we’re on the topic of vice and mood-altering substances, here’s a short video on the Sweet Sweet Cheeba that details its interesting history, courtesy Andrew Sullivan:

A fun little survey of what people are drinkin’, and why. Kinda fun, particularly if you like booze. (I like booze.) My favorite so far:

Gin and Tonic
“The first and last time I drank vodka, I woke up in a military graveyard in Denver. So I started drinking gin, and I never looked back.” —Josh, 27