Santa Comes Early to Life Explained Ohio Office (LEOO)

Great news, when we got to work this morning there was a new freezer in the kitchen. Nobody knows where it cam from, Santa maybe. It had a logo on it, that might be a reindeer, or a horse of some type.

Anyway, it was filled these delicious goodies, hundreds of them. The instructions are all in Mandarin. But, if we know anything, here at Life Explained Ohio Office (LEOO) it is how to microwave a frozen burrito.

Of course we also know the perfect wine to accompany a burrito. With a bean burrito (microwaved on 75% power for 79 seconds*) you serve a Suavignon Blanc, chilled to 43 degrees. With a steak burrito (microwaved on 90% power for 81 seconds*) you serve a Merlot, chilled to 39 degrees.


Then there was an all day pass to the amusement park for Sunday from a company called the "Carolina Panthers." We don't know what they do, but for some reason they don't want us watching the NFL games this weekend. We are not sure why.


* Don't worry about the varying power of microwaves. These are immutable laws of nature.

Doctor Dawg joins the team.

It seems like we have been working together forever. But it wasn't that long ago that it was just Bob, and Bob, and me, with a 1971 VW Van, a used copier, and a dream. We had been kicking around for a couple of years, trying to workout the details to a small time travel device. Nothing big enough for a human, or even a dog, or a cat. Something the size of a can of coke, or a package of breath mints.

We knew that if we could send a modern day item back in time, to the precise moment they took one of those tin plate photographs, the photos with all the grim, scowling people, we were on our way. The government would have to take us seriously. Besides it would have been great to see Bob's scowling, angry looking Grandmother holding a frosty can of Coca Cola, or a unopened package of Mentos. There might even have been some advertising money to be had.

But, we couldn't get past the Power problem, it takes a lot of juice to send something through time, even a soft drink. That is where Doctor Dawg came in handy.

Looking over his resume we were astonished, several advanced degrees in mathematics, engineering, chemistry, physics, and a minor in philosophy. "and you're working as a guard dog?" we were stupefied.

"Most people wouldn't even interview me as a scientist, probably because I'm a dog." There was a touch of bitterness in his tone, or maybe that's just the way dogs talk. He is the first talking dog we had ever met.

Darned Punks, Anyway

Anyway, he managed to convert an old microwave into a small fission reactor, and we sent a can of coke back to one of the first primitive photographs, but it didn't work out the way we planned. It spilled onto the lap of the subject, who happened to be an important member of the government of a small European nation. He stood and stabbed the photographer, who happened to be from a different small, European nation, and soon they were at war.

It didn't take long for a larger European nation to jump in and swallow them both. Those things happened all of the time back then, it wasn't our fault, probably.

Anyway, Doctor Dawg joined the team and we have been moving forward ever since. He wasn't a very good guard dog, he just didn't have the right stuff.

Dilemmas Of Modern Life.

Where does a person draw the line? A question that applies to almost every situation, every day. At work, lunch time, cruise to the kitchen, stop and chat with a few co-workers, stuck in their cubicles, chained to their desks, waiting for that all important call, email, or fax. Man, poor suckers! But, you, my friend, you are free.

Ah, the sweet joy of lunch time, birds sing, eagles soar, and you are floating on air. A brief stop to waltz with the receptionists chair, and you are there, the kitchen, the last bastion of freedom in this wicked world of crushing, suffocating responsibility.

Plus, you have leftover Huli Huli chicken, wild rice and asparagus. So good, so tasty, so mush better the next day. How does that always happen? One day something is so delicious and the next day it is ambrosia. Who cares? Why analyze it? Just enjoy.

What?!??! Someone is using the microwave! and there are meals stacked up behind it, like a train wreck of tasteless food. Isn't there a faster way to warm up lunch?  That microwave is so slow! Curse the fates.

No one is there. Should you just sneak that awful looking, cheese covered pile of awful, processed
food out and warm up your healthy, delicious celebration of nutritional joy?

Looking around, you notice there is nobody near the kitchen. Nobody would see. It would be simple, pop your meal in warm it up and be eating before anybody notices.  What if you got caught, though? How would you explain this?

"My lunchtime is more important than yours."  My meal is better than yours."

Damn these moral dilemmas. These are the great questions of our generation. We should really get a hobby.

On a more historical note, fifty years ago today Bob Dylan played an electric set at the Newport Folk Festival. He was booed, and criticized, and cursed. Being Bob Dylan he didn't care. Since then he has gained some acclaim as a singer songwriter. Here is one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9EKqQWPjyo

A good day, a good microwave, and a great wife.

Yesterday we went shopping for a new microwave oven. It was a good trip, there was a side excursion to a department store to buy jeans for our son, who doesn't like to pay for his own jeans. And, after seeing the price for Levi's 501s it is easy to see why. But, my wife had some Kohl's cash, and a few coupons, and thanks to her industriousness, and money sense, and the wonderfully generous policies of Kohl's we got both pairs for less than the price of one.

We went to Best Buy, a wonderful store, that I used to hate, but either they changed, and became more friendly, and accommodating, or I have become less critical, and that is not very likely. With our choice clearly made, armed with the customer reviews, and the "Consumer Reports" we headed right for the kitchen appliance section of the store closest to our home. Unfortunately, they didn't have the model we were looking for. Or the second choice, or a suitable replacement.

None of this was too surprising, as my wife had looked on the website, and it didn't seem promising. Hope springs eternal, though, so we had to try. But, when the bottom fell out, we packed up, and moved on. On to the store in Reynoldsburg.

I am not sure if they had the first choice, because there was this microwave, a fantastic microwave, this spectacular microwave, this cutting edge, revolutionary, world changing microwave.  A microwave that could alter the course of history. A microwave that guarantees victory, assures the continued success of mankind.  A really nice microwave.

This microwave comes with a tiny oven built in!  Just when you lose all faith in humanity something like this comes along, and you think there might be hope after all.  

It is days like this that I know I married the right woman, because we looked at that and I said, "wow!" and she asked "should we get that one?"  And, we bought it.  Despite the fact that it was not the one we agreed on, it was not even on the list, and they did not have one in stock, so we will have to wait until Tuesday, then drive back down to Reynoldsburg, and pick it up, and she didn't even balk.

When I said "Let's look at cell phones." 

She said "you already know what kind of phone you are getting, don't you?"  Which is true, but we did pick out a case, a wallet style, which covers the face. Considering what happened to Bil's phone seems even more important.

Plus, we paid $1.11 a gallon for gas, (thank you, Giant Eagle, who gives us such a nice discount just for buying food, we love food) a joyous occasion, as evidenced in the touching performance art below.  Please ignore the dead insect behind the glass on the pump.  After 25 years of marriage my wife has learned to suffer foolishness gladly, more or less, but to say "we have to pick a different gas pump because this one will cast a pall of death over the celebratory video," might be pushing things a little too far.

So, thanks to Kohl's, Giant Eagle Get Go, Best Buy, Apple, LG microwave oven division, Half Click Studios and Cam Animate, but mostly to my wife.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

People where I work sank to new lows, new depravities, despicable, detestable acts of unrepentant sabotage.  Every day, when I went to warm up lunch, breakfast, coffee, or snack in the microwave there were 3 to 7 seconds on the cycle.  So, I had to push clear, then choose the amount time needed for my project, only then could I start warming my stuff.  Sometimes, without noticing there were a few measly seconds left I will begin programming the timer, and it will beep, angrily, defiantly at me.  "Hold on there, hothead, what's the rush, there is still a few seconds left."  Eating into my precious lunch time even further.

You might think, well they don't do it intentionally, it is just one of those things, people forget to reset the copier to single all the time.  Oh, do they?  People remember to change it to 50 sheets without much effort, but somehow they forget to push "1"?  Right, pardon me while I try to suspend my disbelief.  Ok, I'm back now.

It is difficult to imagine the scene playing out in the kitchen.  "Oh, crap, the instructions said 'cook on high for 50 seconds' and I accidentally pressed 57.  Dangit!  Oh well, I will just stop it at 7."  Perhaps they were standing there, watching their food cook, and bam, it hit perfection 3 seconds short of the recommended cycle, and they could sense that through the shielded glass, and radioactive protection, they just knew.  And food cooked that precisely needs to be eaten quickly, there is no time to push clear.  Just grab your puny plastic spoon, or fork, rush back to your miserable little cubicle, and eat your perfectly heated whatever, growling, and snapping at anybody who walks past.  With such luxury you can see why they can't be bothered to push "clear."  

Figuring enough was too much I decided to fight back, not fight like fisticuffs, that is barbaric, but a protracted guerilla campaign.  A lengthy, unwinnable, war of terror aimed directly at my friends and co-workers.  

It was cheap, and easy.  I found a pad of post it notes, and a pen on a desk, not too far from the kitchen, and pocketed both.  Finding a secluded, lonely place in the work room, of course, I scribbled "Out of Order" on a few of them.  With the casual flair of James Bond I walked coolly, nonchalantly, and comfortably past the elevator, and stuck one right over the call buttons.  I could barely control my laughter.  

The 7th floor restroom became "non functional."  Coupled with the "non-operational" people were forced to take the stairs to answer nature's call.  

One night, I stayed a little late and put a few "please remove" post it notes on desks around the "bull pen," and the custodial staff, sensing the authority of a handwritten post it note, threw them away.  People were forced to sit on the floor, use the chair as a desk, and hope they did not need to take notes.

Soon, I started leaving notes saying things like "See me, as soon as you arrive!" with an illegible scribble as the signature.  People were rushing from one end of the building to the other, asking everybody with any authority, "did you want to see me."  After 7th or 8th person asking the mid level managers started to become impatient, angry.  

Then one day I came whistling into work, a brand new pack of lined, florescent Post-It NotesÔ (the real thing, only $9.49 a pack at Office Max) struggling to escape the confines of my pocket, and get to the new pen (a nice one, a Pilot G2 Gel Retractable, with an .07 nib, only $17.49 a dozen at Office Depot) in the front pocket of my shoulder bag.  There was a post it note on my monitor that said, "knock it off, or else!" and it was signed "You don't want to know who we are, or what we will do."

I went to work, answered my emails, and never stopped looking over my shoulders.

Voting, a noble exercise in blind faith.

Personally, I love politics, hate voting, but love politics.  There is something primal, powerful, and primitive in a campaign for public office.  Watching the news in the morning is a stroll through the dirty laundry of any number of strangers.  You will be exposed to the most indecent things about a person, a person who thinks they should be in charge of a state, or it's treasury, or departments of justice.  And it will strike you, that, maybe even if these ads contain a small amount of truth, and they probably do, none of these candidates can be that awful.  Nobody would put themselves in a position to be publicly criticized so venomously unless they thought they could do something to help.

"So, why do you hate to vote so much, Tim?'  I'm glad you asked.

Voting a candidate into office is a long term commitment, 2, 4, 6 years, depending on the office.  And that seems like a lot of trust to put into a person based solely on his self proclaimed abilities.  Maybe, after all of the claims by both sides, all of the accusations, and all of the aggrandizement, the candidate is not evil, but not particularly special.    Maybe he is just an average guy, who as State Auditor is in over his head.

Now, though, he is in that job for... however long State Auditors serve, and in a way it is partly your fault, you voted for him.  How could you know?

That is more responsibility than I can handle.  When I vote for somebody, and they end up being mediocre, or even worse, slightly below average, I know people start to stare at me, and I can feel their disappointment. When I stop to fill my car with gas, I can feel their disapproving glance, at the grocery store, people look, and whisper, restaurants are filled with people who were counting on me, and I let them down.  It is too much to bear.

There is a very simple solution, though.  We should allow voting every day.  If your elected official does something less than savory, something that makes you cringe, you have a chance to let him know, a little microwave political justice.  It will be time to give someone else a shot.  Don't worry, if you like a politico, and he is voted out, just tune in tomorrow,

Better still, do we need all of those elected officials?  Maybe a couple of guys to open the mail, formulate bills, and submit them to us, we the people, to vote on.  Just think how cool that would be, having lobbyists call you, "hey Bob, we think you should vote yes on the Alaskan Salmon Cod Liver Oil Subsidies Bill, why don't we get together over a some 'Dunkin' Donuts' coffee, and a few of the  glazed to discuss the virtues of this particular piece of legislative artwork."

Think of the possibilities, corporations trying to win your favor.  You could have your own PAC!  Sure, it would not be super at first.  It would start out as a little pupal PAC, kind of a side kick PAC, but after a while, a few contributions later, it would grow, an apprentice PAC.  Before long you would be the proud custodian of a full fledged, bona fide Super PAC!  Powerful, rich and beyond the reach of campaign laws, and good intentions.

Maybe some day, but until then, I will vote, if I can handle the shame, or not vote, comfortable in the conviction that "choosing not to decide" maybe the best choice.  In either case the country will muddle along in the grip of partisan strife and misplaced party loyalties, feeding the loud, and extreme, while the rest us pay the ticket.  Not much will change, one way or the other, and that is probably good enough