New Pictures 11-30

http://picasaweb.google.com/jeffbyte

Lookie here - notice the Harry-Potter-forehead-like lightning ceiling.

Idea Germ:

I have recently become fascinated with the specialized language used in each profession or situation. Handsome Dan is a great example. Another is Crime Central. I was watching CSI with Abby and they used 'crime central' to mean a specific situation. Now, the word crime and the word central don't trip me up individually. But collectively, they mean something different. I am not talking about difficult or unintelligible language such as is used by doctors and lawyers. That's the biggest bunch of habius corpus. I am talking about word groups that have been assigned meaning to help out a profession communicate in our otherwise weak language.

Some examples in my profession. Spaghetti Code. Technical Refresh. Boolean Drill. Kludge. One of these if 'jargon'. Can you guess which one? But the others are easily identifiable as possessing the characteristics of that which fascinates me. I have started paying attention to people who say, "...we call that X." The 'we call it' identifier in any conversation signifies the approaching word group that has been reassigned meaning. These are fascinating to me – at least the ones that are foreign to me. The ones I know and use...not so much.

Bovine Pate

I don't know whose idea it was. We were the Westwood Warriors. They were the Mountain View Toros. It was high school. I worked at a butcher shop every morning boxing meat that had been slaughtered, cut, and frozen from the previous day's carnage.

I think a bunch of us were talking about mascot pranks and our desire to participate. Mountain View was getting a little too big for its britches so we decided we would try to do our part to bring them down a notch or two. Since they were and are the Toros, we needed something to do with cows or bulls. I pointed out to the group that I had access to any cow part they wanted. We originally spoke of a cow hoof – a part I had used earlier in the year in a skit I did for a talentless show. “Anything tastes great when it sits on a Ritz.” That didn't seem like enough.

So I told everyone what a cow head looked like once it had been skinned. With the red meat and connective tissue that made up the muscles in the face, they were always a splendid site.
Our plan was to take the meaty cow head and place it somewhere that would bring out the secret passions of the Toros. We thought it best if sports were involved since A) mascots are most closely associated with sports, and 2) emotions ran quite high during these sporting events. We chose basketball. The most difficult obstacle was how to smuggle a cow head into a basketball court, hold it until the right time, and then somehow deliver the present with the dignity it deserved.

We chose the night and I secured the head. It was beautiful. Our method of bovine execution at the butcher shop was firing squad – er, um I mean a single bullet between the eyes. This victim was no exception and as a bonus he had horns. As an added, added bonus, we found a blue feather which fit perfectly in the cranial hole and completed the picture. After all, we were The Warriors! We were now ready to pull off the caper. My mind is fuzzy on who brought the head in the gym and stored it nonchalantly next to their seat. Then we waited.

During a time out and with both teams still on the court but gathered at their respective benches, a group of us crowded around the head and escorted it out to center court. Nobody could see what it was nor what we were doing. We set it down, took it out of the plastic, inserted the feather, and faced it toward the Mountain View side of the gym. Then we walked away.

I wish we had a picture of this. Meaty, glassy stare with horns and a feather as if massacred by a Warrior. There is one picture and a small write-up in our yearbook which I will post sometime but you can't really get a good feel for the splendor in black and white. The head sat there and a stunned silence fell over their crowd. Then they began screaming and wondering what they should do about this. Finally, a group of boys came out of their stands and gathered up the head. They brought it to our side of the gym and deposited it on our sideline. Laurel (and those of you who know him know just how scary this is) leaped from our stands and grabbed the head in one hand and sprinted across the court – winding up to throw it into their crowd. That is when the adults tackled him. He was respectful enough to cooperate once he was apprehended.

He was removed from the game. We were all banned from any further games and we completed several hours of campus beautification as punishment for our crime. It was worth it. I have seen some of our principals later in life and asked them about this prank. Each remembers it with fondness and only punished us to show that they could not approve – though they admitted that they did.

Plaster and Alginate

When Kansas and Styx were fighting it out for best band using an organ, I was in high school. OK, there are many stories from that time but two come to mind immediately: the cow head story (later) and the plaster parts story (now).

My friend Jeff M's father was an orthodontist. This profession requires making plaster casts of people's teeth in order to construct Marquis de Sade-level appliances to force said teeth into perfectly pleasing position. To do this, a rubbery, gooey substance called alginate is applied to the teeth. This solidifies so that plaster can be poured in to create a positive of the model. Why the dissertation on straightening supplies? Because given a few dozen boxes of alginate, access to the orthodontic offices and the cover of night -- not to mention the hormone-deranged thinking of two 16-year-old boys, there were a few ideas that spawned to help us kill a little time in our latter-formative years.

I'm talking, of course, about plaster body parts. Our first idea was to create plaster casts of our hands. We used box after box of alginate creating many different finger/hand configurations. We poured the plaster into the alginate. After it hardened we tore away the milk carton-like box the alginate came in, pealed away the alginate, and revealed the perfectly white, perfectly formed plaster replica of our hands. We made several hands the first night we did this.

Not knowing what to do with them once they were created, we threw them down the street toward a dumpster at the end of a cul-de-sac. This alone paints a strange picture as we were not too careful to actually hit the garbage can, but rather let the plaster digits shatter into pieces in the road. Oh to know the thoughts of the adult who found those.

We then got the great idea to bring dates to the alginate parties. We did this under the guise that we wanted to create a fist-shaped gear shift for our cars. We drove stick shift cars in those days (said with a certain swagger and mist for the good ol' days). All day long we would grasp girl's fists and determine if the were worthy of being cast -- literally. I did get one I liked. Small, fitting, and I even painted it blue to match my VW. I drilled out the wrist and epoxied it onto the shifter. It worked for many moons.

In time, boredom set in. Who didn't see this coming? Jeff and I decided we needed to do a face. This, however, presented a problem. The fists and feet (did I mention we did feet?) could fit in the alginate boxes so we would make a whole box of alginate right in the box, shove hands and feet in, and wait. Face: no structure. Our only alternative to using alginate was to use plaster to make the negative and then fill it with plaster to make the positive, and then crack away the negative. This in not uncommon but it was our first try.

Jeff was the victim. To breathe, we found some surgical tubing and stuffed them up each nostril. For lubrication, we used Vasoline on his face. Then, we applied a generous thickness of plaster to his face, and waited. It hardened. When it was time to take it off of his face, we gently turned him over to allow gravity to assist and with minimal effort it separated from his face – except for his eyelashes. We gently tugged on the now hardened negative of his face and it wouldn't budge.

At one point, the entire weight of the plaster mask was hanging from his eyelids. Panic. After several minutes of teasing and coaxing, he finally RIPPED the mask from his face, taking approximately three fourths of his eyelashes with it. I think he experienced pain.
We took the eyelash-plucking mask and poured a boatload of plaster in it. We waited, then chipped off the mask. The resulting positive, much like a death mask, looked remarkable like Jeff with two strange anomalies: the nostrils were enlarged as a result of the surgical tubing and, you guessed it, it had eyelashes. Spooky.

“What body part is next?” we asked with hormonal eagerness. Of course, a butt. Jeff was again the victim. We piled a large mountain of dirty lab towels in the middle of the floor of the lab. Jeff dropped trou and 'peeked' on the towel mountain. I had the dignified job of applying the large amount of plaster. Then we waited – not much of an awkward conversation there, and then Jeff slowly arose and tried to remove the shell from his butt. With minimal effort it separated from his butt – except his butthole hair. Really not a pretty picture here, but the psychosis continues.

At one point it was hanging from this hair. He got brave and RIPPED it out and then we commenced pouring the positive. We chipped away the shell to reveal the butt and guess what. It had hair. Jeff was grossed out enough that he decided to burn the hair out. So, he got a lighter and burned the hair out. This had the desired effect of removing the hair but had the undesirable effect of turning the crack brown/black. Stark white butt, browneye.

We decided this was a bad deal so we took it to my house where I had some sandpaper. We were sanding the butt in the family room when my mom caught us. I think she hasn't really recovered from that one. I kind of wonder what happened to that thing. Jeff still has the face. With eyelashes.

NO, we never tried a wee-nah.

Daddy Daughter

A couple of weeks ago, trauma hit our area hard. I am hoping they don't come in threes as the saying goes. I received a phone call from Doug informing me that he was called to help with a search and rescue behind Dennis' old house. He explained that two little kids had fallen into the canal and needed to be rescued.

The next call was much worse.

Doug called back and told me that two kids had indeed fallen into the canal, that one was alive, and the other was dead. The little two-year-old girl was Isabella, a girl we all knew from a family we all knew. She and Jesus, her best friend, had slipped out the back gate which was left open by the pool construction crew who left for the dump but forgot to close the gate. Minutes later, the 19-year-old boy, Michael, went looking for the kids. When he couldn't locate them immediately, he called for his dad, John, who had been ill and was very weak. Despite this, John and Michael went into the backyard to look for the kids. When he saw the gate open, he ‘knew we were in trouble.’ They went out the gate and immediately noticed the dirt slide marks down the bank of the canal leading to the water. Michael jumped in there but was unable to find the kids.

On instinct, and judging from the current flow, Michael climbed out and he and John began running ‘downstream’. About a quarter of a mile from their home, the canal runs under McDowell Road. On the other side is a water-flow regulation gate. Michael ran across McDowell and jumped in the water just in front of the gate. He quickly found Jesus who was clinging to a pole with his head beneath the water. How he knew at two years old to hold on to a pole is beyond me. Michael grabbed the boy and hastily handed him up to John. John took the boy over to the sidewalk – Jesus was coughing and gasping.

Michael returned to the search – frantically looking for his little sister. If Jesus was here, she would be too. Soon John heard a scream from the water – and Michael held Isabella’s lifeless body up for him to pull from the canal. John told me later that he knew she was gone. By this time, 911 had been called and helicopters were on the scene to take the children to the hospital. John said he was relieved to let the professionals continue to administer CPR – taking over where he left off.

When I arrived at their home, the other children were all home and news reports described two kids in critical condition. Two television stations had parked their vans in the cul-de-sac and periodically would come to the door and ask if there was an update on the children’s conditions. The home has a large front door that is mostly glass. We covered the door with a sheet so the media could not shoot through the door and capture the hugging and crying going on in the entry.

I have never in my 45 years upon this earth seen grief and sadness on a person’s face like I saw when John walked in the door from the hospital. His wife, Jacqueline had similar sorrow on her face. They wanted nothing more than to hug their children. Then, officially, they took their children into the master bedroom and informed them that their little sister had passed away. We all waited for ‘the meeting none of ever wanted to be invited to’ to finish.

By the time I arrived to their home there had already been a lot of food prepared and delivered. The family, of course, was not terribly interested in eating it. Probably the most interesting/touching gesture from a neighbor was luminaries. Their walkway was lined with small, white lunch bags filled with sand and a candle in the bottom – a fitting tribute or gesture that really said nothing more than ‘we care’.

I was asked to help assemble a DVD with music depicting pictures of this little girl. I also was asked to help with the funeral program. I was honored to be able to help. As the week progressed, I prepared to leave town to take my daughters on the ‘Daddy-Daughter Campout’. As I had not received all the information on time, I ended up constructing the program and delivering it to Kinko’s for printing over the weekend. I was unable to deliver it so while I was gone, Debi chased around to different establishments to get this thing printed. She saved my life. Without her, I would not have been able to go to the campout – which was fun.

The Sunday after the campout was the viewing for this little girl. They held the viewing in their home and opened the front door to HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of well-wishing friends, family, and neighbors. The DVD was playing just inside the front door while the body lies in state in the family room. The courageous parents stood by and greeted the throng. One particularly poignant comment offered was, ‘…it’s not right that they make caskets that small. It should be illegal.’

The most surreal part of the Sunday night event was that Jesus was running around, in and out of the crowd, obilvious of his friend in the box.

The Clothing Chair

This morning, I went to the corner of Gilbert and Broadway and asked of three young men would get into my car and come to my home and help me clean up some of the debris left by the several trades who recently concluded their construction activities on my house. They agreed and climbed into my car. I listened to the radio on the way home.

When I arrived at home, I went to the back yard and began describing, in my best international sign language invented by the same guys who invented talking louder to foreigners so they can understand better. I described – digitally -- my desires for the garbage, wires, concrete, insulation, dust, dirt, rocks, wood, cultured marble, paper, pipe, nails, plastic, drywall, and other materials to be removed from the house and place gently and lovingly in my 40-yard, $330 per dump dumpster. They agreed and the sweeping and shoveling began. As they started picking up the smaller things, I began removing the larger things such as shower doors, lights, planks and marble splash. There was a wall that had a sheet of cultured marble that had not been removed yet, so after I took the large stuff, I busted that thing off the wall.

Three hours, three carnitas burritos from Filibertos, three large cokes, and some cash later I had a remarkably clean workspace ready for inspection.

Meanwhile, Debi was cleaning up for Jeannie. This is always a delightful event culminating with every piece of dirty laundry piled knee-deep in the laundry room. I did not know, however, that you could use a stack of dirty laundry as a chair. I went to visit her in the laundry and she was sitting on a stack of laundry while folding, sorting, and searching other laundry. I wondered, silently, where she sat when she completed all the laundry in front of her and had no material to work with except that upon which she sat. I didn’t ask.

Yale Trip

I refer you to http://picasaweb.google.com/jeffbyte again only this time to look at the Yale pictures. We had a blast. The game, however, didn't turn out so well. As Wil would say, they played too long. Yale was up the whole time but Princeton came back in the 4th with a few minutes left to beat Yale 34-31. Bret had a concussion and did not play. He should play next week in the Harvard-Yale contest.

I won't bore you with all the details of the trip but there were a couple of great things.
The mascot for Yale is the bulldog. They are the Yale Bulldogs. A real live bulldog roams the field during the game. His name? Handsome Dan. Could that be better? I almost feel dumb that I didn't know this before.

The halftime show was nothing short of a travesty - terrible music, bad announcing, filthy innuendo punctuated by two violins -- in the marching BAND???? It's gone awry in New Haven on that front.

OK, so boring. I just got a look at the last couple of posts. Sorry for that. I think I need to reboot my brain and then I will be able to come back online with a little more interesting content.

Busy Ness

I was talking to Mike W the other day, whom I love-no not that way-fag. Our conversation turned to business and I listened as he talked as if right through me, strumming my pain with his fingers, saying my life with his words. Killing me softly with his tale, killing me softly... I realized that the hell that is big business is not unique to rogue companies who buy small companies and exploit them. After thinking about my experience with the Red Menace that I used to work for I formulated the following rant: In business management school they teach students how to manage business. There are two very important parts of that discipline that are sadly overlooked in many cases and it shows. The two aspects are customers and employees. Oh, I could go on all day about how employees are treated in a large business but it seems almost trite. Everyone knows that nobody treats employees well, no business cares about individuals, and employees are 'hot-swappable'. This is for another rant another day.

My beef has to do with the inability of management levels to address real customer needs. I can tell you from personal experience that the higher you climb in a company, the less you talk about customers, the less you care about customers, and the less you do for customers. This seems absurd but it is all too true. I will give you an example ripped from the pages of a business management textbook.

There is a concept known as ‘JND’ which stands for Just Noticeable Difference. This concept allows a company, for example, to maintain the price of a product but reduce its size slightly. So, the 12 oz. can you used to get is now a 10.5 oz. can costing the same. This allows profits to rise because less is produced but sold for the same price. The JND threshold is such that if customers don’t notice the difference, they will continue to consume at the same rate. Revenue forecasts and production rates do not need to fluctuate which holds revenue stead while reducing costs.

I ask you, is this evidence of a customer-centric organization? I answer before you--no. A customer-centric company would not do this to their customers. Their goal would be to reduce costs, maintain product levels, and ultimately deliver more to customers, determine what customers want, and make it easier for them to get it.

As I became more involved with the management of the business I became less involved in running the business the way I would run it. I catered to the stockholders and spent most of my time justifying each move I made to them and to upper management. The problem with this is two-fold. First, you NEVER talk about customers, and second, you tend to be cautious in your approach to your job because you don’t want to have to try to help the c-level managers understand what really needs to be done. Heaven help the guy at Kodak who thought digital cameras were a passing fad…

What you end up with is a bunch of butt-covering, mediocre lemmings that have had the creativity squashed out of them. I can’t tell you how many times I heard comments like, “…if you choose Microsoft, you keep your job.” Tragic.

Wow...Sorry

It's been too long. How have you been? I've missed you. First things first. Here is the latest on the house:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jeffbyte

Electrical should be done today or tomorrow. Then inspection. Then low-voltage. Then insulation. Then drywall. Then stucco. Then doors. Then paint. Then cabinets. Then shelves and closets. Then countertops. Then tile and carpet and finished. Then Christmas.