Wild Wild West

It is very difficult to find "chaps" pictures that wouldn't work as the punchline of a Brokeback Mountain joke.

Cowboy mentioned that he's having a party at his place. He does this annually, and calls it his "Fall-Fest". In years past he's had an "80's" theme, a "Bad Sweater" theme, and a "Funny T-Shirt" theme. The theme this year is "Wild Wild West."

I told him, "I can't do that. See, I have a pair of chaps, but nothing I can wear under them."

Web Ninja was nearby, and his reaction was pure gold. A full-body shudder, an "urp" noise, and loss of color in his face. It was everything an amateur comedian can hope for.

By the way, I do not actually own any chaps. Just in case you were worried.

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What I'm Not Good At

M16 came by my desk to talk to me. I'm pretty sure everything he said was English, but what I heard was:

"I need to talk to you about the Ya-Ya Project. I'll have to change the thing to do this instead of that. Do you see any problem with that?"

I grinned happily and replied, "I have no idea what you're talking about. What is the Ya-Ya Project?"

There was a long awkward pause. Then, more pseudo-English as M16 tried to explain:

I'm still trying to figure out the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow

"Well, OK, it takes the nouns and verbs them, and puts them someplace in space-time. Just like the Foo-Foo Project."

"The what?"

There was an even longer pause.

"I've never heard of the Foo-Foo Project either."

"Do you actually work here?"

"Not on everything."

You probably don't want to do a 'Google Images' search on this topic

M16 recovered admirably and launched into his technical speech again.

"OK, well, what I need to know is, ... "

I interrupted him. "No, I have a better idea. Let's talk about some more things that I've never worked with and don't understand. Hay balers! Differential Equations! Animal Husbandry!"

M16 gave up. "I'll come back later."

I love how the phrase "Animal Husbandry" can derail a perfectly sane conversation. I'm gonna have to use that one more often.

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The Can Of Doing

Remember the ferocious greenery that was destroying the fence in Scruffy's back yard? Well, we yanked that sucker out a couple of weeks ago in preparation for the big ordeal this past weekend. It was time to tear down and rebuild about half of Scruffy's back fence.

Scruffy bought a nailgun for the occasion. In honor of the Home Depot ads, he called it his "Can of Doing."

Before

During

After

Demolition was AWESOME. Do you know how often I get to grab a hammer two-fisted and swing it as hard as I can? Not often enough. Pure joy!

Eventually we got to the first big mistake. We eye-balled the cross beams. "Those look like 6 foot sections, and that one looks like 8 feet." We bought the lumber. Then we measured. Then we went back to the store.

"You again?", said the checkout lady. "Yeah," I replied. "Turns out the guy who said 'Measure twice and cut once' was probably on to something."

She rang up the total. "I'll see you guys again in an hour or so," she happily said. "Oh no, we're good this time."

We drove back to Scruffy's house with lots of 10-foot long 2x4 beams sticking out of the back window of my Vibe. While putting up the cross beams, we ran out of wood screws.

"You again?," said the Home Depot lady. She didn't sound very surprised. "Yes, us again."

There was still a little demolition left at this point, so I grabbed a hammer. I swung hard and a shattered piece of 2x4 bounced off my ankle.

I laid on my back in Scruffy's yard to see if my ankle would swell, and reflected on what a beautiful day it was. I might even have fallen asleep, except that the ringing in my ears was too loud.

Eventually, I recovered enough for us to almost finish. Then we ran out of fence pickets.

"Hi!", the Home Depot lady said as we came back. "Shut up," I wearily responded.

4 trips to the hardware store mid-project, 4 hours longer than we expected the project to take, and 1 moderately traumatic injury later, Scruffy and I decided that we had run into "The Can of Doing us in."

That nailgun is pretty sweet, though.

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Free Fries

You cannot have them

A real short one today, just to show how *fun* it can be to work in Cowboy's department...

Cowboy got a new hire, a nickname-less (so far) lady. He was introducing her around the office and said, "Show your badge down at Arby's and you get free french fries."

There was a brief hopeful slightly-disbelieving moment. "Really?..."

Don't taze me, bro!

Cowboy grinned. "No. Not really."

I prefer Golfer's bit of Badge Wisdom that he shared when I was hired. "Show your badge at the front desk and you won't get tazed." Much more practical.

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Licence To Kill

OoRah got his hunting licence (watch out, Coyotes!).

He happily showed it to me and grinned. "I have a license to kill."

Big Dawg chimed in. "I have a license to resist."

Gah! They can't resist me!

It was my turn. "I have a license to be irresistible." I followed this up with a "check me out" hand wave and a suggestive eyebrow waggle.

There was a long pause. Then, Big Dawg gave up. "I need to purge that from my memory forever."

As he hurried away, OoRah and I could hear retching noises.

But I *am* irresistible, aren't I?

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Full Metal Jeff

I was having a conversation with OoRah, discussing a co-worker who was being a little difficult.

What is my major malfunction?... I have to pick just one?...

Me: "... yeah, he's kinda full of it today."
OoRah: "That's OK. I just need to know what everybody is full of so I know how to treat them. You treat a jelly donut different than a plain one."
[long pause]
Me: "I love you."
OoRah: "I'm sure that was meant in a brotherly way."
Me: "Yeah, sure, close enough."

I shared that conversation with P-Ziddy, which resulted in...

P-Ziddy: ROFL
P-Ziddy: Some day you should watch Full Metal Jacket just so you will realize how fine the knife edge you walk daily really is
Me: I laughed so hard at that, I literally choked. I'm blue-faced... wow.
P-Ziddy: Excellent
P-Ziddy: I had to work my way into that blog post SOME how

P-Ziddy's motivations are a bit transparent, sometimes. :)

In any case, this led to a discussion about the movie "Full Metal Jacket". OoRah told me about the bit where Private Pyle shoots his drill instructor, which led to...

I don't wear a hat this big... but I should

OoRah: ... and that's what P-Ziddy was trying to warn you about.
Me: But I don't wear a hat that big.
OoRah: And I don't have suicidal thoughts.
Me: We're obviously all wrong for each other.
Big Dawg: I think you're lying to yourselves.

Big Dawg *might* be inside my head a little. Darn him.

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Horticulture Horror

Feed me, Seymore!

My pal Scruffy had a large ... well, we'll call it a generic "growth" by his back fence. Like the picture, but uglier. Kind of a cross between ivy and a weed. It was littered with spider webs and bird droppings, so even though it should have been more or less green, it was mostly a white-splashed "ew".

It had consumed part of his fence and was threatening the gas meter. Kinda like "Audrey II" on a wood and plastic diet.

Armed with some loppers, Scruffy and I set out to do battle with the mostly-green beast.

This... is my BOOM STICK!

Have you ever heard the phrase, "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail?" Well, let's just say it was a good thing I was wearing shoes. I could have sworn those loppers were gas-powered, they did so much damage. Scruffy would start choppin', leaves would start flyin'. It was chaos.

At one point, the green haze in the air turned brown and I started to shout. When I finally got Scruffy's blades of fury under control, he'd managed to gouge out a 2-foot hole in the ground. A terrified mole squeaked at us and dove for cover.

When we were done, we poured the mulched mess into a over-sized trash bag. It was "Shrub Puree". The end result almost looked like a bean-bag chair.

I managed to keep my fingers mostly by virtue of staying out of the way.

Good times.

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